valuable publication, I am happy to have 
it in my power to add a trifle thereto. 
Broad-street, Lynn-regis, Your's, &c. 
November 16, 1808. J. Srvuetr. 
——a—— 
- To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N reply to the Queries signed R.R.D. 
(page 315, November, 1808,) I re- 
quest the favour of a page or so in your 
interesting miscellany. 
Query 1.—“ Whether the process em- 
ployed by Mr. Booth is now known ?” 
Answer 1.—The process is thoroughly 
known to the writer of this reply, who ‘has 
occasionally practised it upwards of thirty 
~ -vears. 
Query 2.—“ What is the supposed 
means he used to obtain copies from orl- 
ginals?” 
Answer 2.—The means used by the 
late ingenious Mr. Booth, were in my 
Opinion much the same as others—far 
more mechanical than chemical.* If I 
say more on this part of the subject, I 
may disclose more than I ought, because 
it may lessen its esteem, and be of little 
or no Value to the public. 
Query 3.— But if the secret is known 
* Expressed and volatile oils, alcohol, 
acids, alkalies, acetites, earths, fossils, mine- 
rals, metals, oxyds ; mineral, vegetable, and 
other salts; carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
nitrogen, sulphates, &c. with the processes 
of trituration, levigation, cribration, distilla- 
tion, sublimation, fixation, filtration, con- 
centration, condensation, calcination, crys- 
tallizatioa, evaporation, combination, fumi- 
_ gation, agitation, &c. with composition, ig- 
nition, decomposition, and more ations and 
itions than I can now call to mind, may all be 
necessary to the well performing the poly- 
graphic art; yet, paradoxical as it may appear, 
~ Teannot allow it to be a “* chemical process,” 
such substances and processes being used by 
the colour-makers. Therefore, the poly- 
_ graphic artist has little more te perform than 
combination, and application, except he grinds 
his own colours ; in that case he may tritu- 
rate, and must levigate.—The processes of 
sheep-washing and shearing, wool-winding, 
Sorting, scouring, cropping, tasselling, fold- 
ig, pressing, packing, and more ings, which 
_ dA know nothing of, are generally necessary to 
+ having a coat made; but the tailor has little 
_ or no care or knowledge of them; his pro- 
cesses ending in ing, are chiefly measuring, 
chalking, cutting, threading, basting, trying, 
altering, covering, working, seaming, pres- 
sing, brushing, charging, carrying, and such 
} otherdngs as 1 am unacquainted with, except 
cabbageing be allowed, 
1809.] On the Polygraphie Art. 617 
at this time to any one, why is it not now 
practised?” Lobia 
Answer 3.—Because the speculation is 
not a good one, that is, the preparation 
being tedious, (although the execution is 
rapid) requires a number of copies to be 
taken in order to render it profitable, and 
it is no easy matter to dispose of many 
fac-simile oil paintings advantageously. 
If R.R.D. or any other person should 
wish to have forty, fifty, or one hundred, 
&c. copies of a picture, the writer would 
not object to execute such an order ; yet 
it must be considered that atenth partor 
under, of the price of the originals, 5 by 
no means « criterion for the value of po 
lygraphical copies; there are numbers of 
pictures which would be well worth copy- 
ing at a. twentieth part of the original 
price, and numbers more which would 
not leave a tolerable profit at one fourth 
of the first price. The painter should 
contemplate the picture to be copied, 
and be certain.of the number of copies 
required ere he can ascertain the price, 
When this Polygraphic Art was an- 
nounced as a -chemical protess, | my 
“« Mind’s Eye” beheld a Reynolds smile, 
a Barry, or an [bbetson, condemn or rie 
dicule it, a Gainsborough treat it with 
contempt,-&c. Men of great genius or 
talent, could not. easily brook such a 
mode, although the effect is full, and the 
pictures as durable as others. A toler- 
able painter may copy almost any picture 
by dint of patience and industry in the 
preparation, There is a mistake in ase 
signing the invention to Mr. Booth, yet 
he might be the first who applied the 
principle to picture-manufacturing. I 
was taught the polygraphic art with se- 
veral other pupils, when young, by my 
father, who had it from his much older 
brother, and my uncle was taught it by 
his master in the routine of painting in 
general; I cannot accurately trace it far- 
ther, but think that. was far from the 
source. Seyeral years ago a middling 
portrait-painter, in London,who had been 
recently’ an apprentice to my father, 
wrote to him, stating a scarcity of em- 
ployment in that profession, requesting 
also that he would become bound with 
him in one thousand pounds, to secure 
secrecy, which would obtain him employ- 
ment at five guineas per week, as a 
“toucher-up, in the polygraphie art of 
picture-making. If 1 remember rightly, 
the answer satisfied the parties without 
a bond, by clearly proving thatthe young 
man was far frem beipga stranger to the 
principlea, * 
