OUll WOOD ENGRAVERS. 505 



art a mystery in which a small number of persons only are initiated. 

 The Whittinghams of this world are few indeed. In fact the metro- 

 polis does not contain above half a dozen master printers capable of 

 properly working a fine wood-cut. The critics judge only of the 

 impression before them they cannot see what might have been done 

 with the block in better hands. They are completely led by the 

 nose by imprints if a book come from " the Chiswick press," ^ they 

 conclude that it must, ipso facto, be exquisite, and pronounce judg- 

 ment accordingly. The fulsome praise bestowed upon the working 

 of this volume has sickened us : some of the cuts, we rejoice to say, 

 come out capitally, but the majority are muddled a few are most 

 woefully " translated" and, on the whole, the book is far from what 

 it is supposed to be a chef d'eeuvre of the typographical art. Half 

 a dozen years ago it would have been a startling wonder, and even 

 now, comparatively bad as it is, there are not above four or five men 

 in the world who could have done it better. But of these Mr. Whit- 

 tingham is supposed to be the autocrat his pretensions are para- 

 mount he is therefore pre-eminently amenable to criticism. 



Although we are willing to accord him all the praise he deserves 

 for his typographical improvements, yet on one vital point we do 

 differ, and always have differed from him in toto. He is inva- 

 riably too grey too rotten too broken ; he does not go sufficiently 

 into the midnight depth of colour; he begins with twilight, 

 and is thus driven into hainess for his middle tints, and the broad 

 dazzling glare of sunshine for his softest lights. He has done much 

 for wood- cut printing we admit, but all his works are ruined 

 by one capital error that of not forming the base of his super- 

 structure on pure perfect black. In wood engravings, every colour in 

 nature must be represented by the intermediate tints between pure 

 black and pure white. Mr. Whittingham commences at some de- 

 grees above black, and is thus precipitated into blank paper, long 

 before he ought to soar out of grey. The consequence is, that the finest 

 lines of the wood- cuts which he prints are broken, or entirely and 

 ruthlessly by means of his overlays, left untouched. This is inflicting 

 a most gross injustice on engravers. Our maxim is, that every line 

 which an artist has cut ought to be printed perfectly and clearly; if it is 

 to be broken let him break it, and not the printer. We were inclined 

 to quarrel with Harvey, for having left so many white splotches in his 

 designs for this work ; but on looking at the engravers' proofs we 

 find that these offences are wholly attributable to the press that the 

 revolting patches of blank paper, are in the blocks covered with colour 

 and that, Mr. Whittingham, apparently emulating Alexander the 

 Great in his discussion of the Gordian Knot, has cut that which he 

 could not otherwise achieve. Hence the bald abominations at pages 

 161, 214, 230, 228, 224, &c. As regards the cut last alluded to, the 

 whole of that glaring lump of white on the lamb's body, is beautifully 

 tinted in the block with fine, woolly lines, most elaborately and skil- 

 fully executed, every one of which Mr. Whittingham ought in justice 

 to the designer, engraver, and himself, to have brought up : to sup- 

 press them was decidedly unwarrantable. Many of the sheets appear 

 to have been worked in moist, muggy weather, when the balls were 

 M. M. No. 98. 3 L 



