29 
month will be charged. If a single or a few prove impressions 
are desired they will be charged one shilling a piece. 
The patronage resulting was again so small, and the sales 
continued so few, that Mr. Volweiller to avoid further loss than 
he had already incurred closed his establishment and left England 
in 1807. Besides the other difficulties, there was at this time but 
little appreciation of art in any form. The best engravings were 
looked upon as simply a lot of black lines on white paper. 
Mr. Landseer too, in his Lectures on Engraving, whilst willing 
to allow there were some possibilities for the new art, warned his 
auditors “not to be led away by the false lights of a specious 
prospectus.” 
In 1806 one attempt was made to use the process in a book 
illustration, viz., by J. T. Smith in his Antiquities of Westminster, 
published in 1807. This ‘“‘new mode of producing prints ” 18 
minutely described, and besides the author, there were present 
two eminent medicos and a scientist to watch the process. The 
plate was drawn with a common quill pen dipped in the prepared 
ink, which was the trade secret long closely kept. The great 
advantages expected were frustrated by a misfortune or accident, 
as after printing off three hundred copies the stone was laid aside 
for the morrow and when then worked, the drawing being dry 
stuck to the paper and was drawn away from the stone. 
Confidence being thus lost the attempt was not repeated, a 
copper-plate being substituted. Thus some volumes of this work 
have two plates, others only one. This accident was, perhaps, the 
greatest blow the new invention could have met with. 
After Volweiller’s departure the art ceased, was entirely 
neglected, and seemed likely to be lost, had not Mr. Redman, one 
of his assistants, been discovered and employed at the Horse 
Guards in 1811, for printing plans of battles, circulars, &c., but 
not getting here sufficient pay he left the work, and so 
lithography again ceased to be practiced in London. 
