5(J9 Notices respect ivg Kew Books. 



iiider the state in which the art of engraving has hitherta 

 existed, and the difficulties and the degradation under which, 

 iu this country, it has hilhertd laboured, 



" Now, engraving is no more an art of copying paintings 

 than the English language is an art of copying Greek or 

 Latin. Engraving is a distinct language of art j and though 

 it may hear such resemblance to painting in the construction 

 of its grammar, as grammars of languages bear to each' 

 other, yet its alphabet and idiom, or mode of expression, 

 are totally different. If English be made the vehicle of the 

 same thouohts which have previously been conveyed to us in 

 Greek ; or if engraving be made the vehicle of the same 

 thoughts which have previously been imparted to us by 

 painting, it affords the means of affecting our minds in the 

 same ujanner : this similar affection>3f the mind has leil to 

 the mistake, and I have little doubt but that English would 

 have been inconsiderately called an art of copying Greek, if 

 we had never read any other English than translations from 

 the Greek. 



"The pretensions of engraving, as of all the arts denomi- 

 nated fine, are simple, chaste, unsophisticated. Art ever 

 disdains artifice, attempts no imposition, but honestly claims 

 attention as being what it is. A statue is to be looked at as 

 being a statue — not a real figure ; a picture, not as a portion 

 of actual nature; a print, nut as a copy of painting. ** 



" An cncrraving therefore, that of the death of General 

 Wolfe, for example, is no n)orc a copy of Mr, West's 

 picture, than the same composition, if "sculptured or 

 modelled in low relief, would be a copy. In both cases they 

 would be, not copies, but translations from one language of 

 art into another language of art. How tar Woollett's may 

 be esteemed a correct translation, we shall inquire upon 

 some future occasion : at present, let those to whom the di- 

 stinction is not rentlered sufficiently obvious, recollect, that 

 neither in the case gf the basso-relievo nor th(; engraving is 

 local colour employed, which forms so indispensable a part 

 of a picture, and is consequently so essential to the pro- 

 duction of the resemblance of a picture, that it would have 

 1 been 



