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XLVI. Isfotlces respecting New Books. 



X^ectures on the Arf. of Engraping, delivered at the Royal 

 Institution of Great Britain. By John Landseeu, En-r- 

 graver to the King, mid F. S. A. Sro. 



Xt gives us some pleasure to be able to announce the pub- 

 lication of these Lectures, which, by the amateurs ot en- 

 graving, have been anxiously expected to make their ap- 

 pearance. Tt is well known that before Mr. Landseer had 

 finished his proposed course, he received a notification from 

 the manaiiers that they had resolved to discontinue his lec- 

 tures; and it is equally well known that the real or sup- 

 posed crime which procured Mr. Landseer's dismissal from 

 the lecture-room, was his " having alluded to a certain in- 

 dividual— rnot a living charactcr"^the late alderman Bovdell, 

 Mr. Landseer states, and we have never heard the fact con- 

 tradicted, that his dismissal was the act of four managers 

 who had not been present at the offensive lecture, and who 

 even refused afterwards to hear the exact words he had made 

 use of read to them ! In the preface the autVior has offered 

 some just, and wc think, all the circumstances considered, 

 temperate remarks on this transaction. How could lectures 

 of the smallest use, on an art so important, p.nd on which 

 notliing had before been given in the English language, be 

 delivered without alluding to those who had been enef.aed 

 in the commercial part of the business ? We might as well 

 expect a history of any country to be ])roduced, without 

 those ministers bemg alluded to that have at linies involved 

 their country in danger by their individual folly and miscon- 

 duct. The author a0irms what cannot be denied when he 

 says, 'f No lecture upon art has ever been delivered without 

 personal allusions. Not the having alluded, then, but the 

 justifiable or unjustifiable nature and occusion of the allu- 

 sion, W'as the fit object of in(|uirv." The lectures are now 

 before the public, and the public will judge impartially, we 

 doubt not, between the parties. 



It is impossible to spare room in a work like ours to give 

 even an analysis of lectures which trace the art from it* early 



orijiin. 



