ARIADNE FLORENTINE 



SIX LECTURES 



ON 



WOOD AND METAL ENGKAVING. 



LECTUKE I. 



DEFINITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING. 



1. THE entrance on my duty for to-day begins the fourth 

 year of my official work in Oxford ; and I doubt not that 

 some of my audience are asking themselves, very doubtfully 

 at all events, I ask myself, very anxiously what has been 

 done. 



For practical result, I have not much to show. I an- 

 nounced, a fortnight since, that I would meet, the day before 

 yesterday, any gentleman who wished to attend this course 

 for purposes of study. My class, so minded, numbers four, 

 of whom three wish to be artists, and ought not therefore, by 

 rights, to be at Oxford at all ; and the fourth is the last re- 

 maining unit of the class I had last year. 



2. Yet I neither in this reproach myself, nor, if I could, 

 would I reproach the students who are not here. I do not 

 i*eproach myself ; for it was impossible for me to attend prop- 

 erly to the schools and to write the grammar for them at the 

 same time ; and I do not blame the absent students for not 

 attending a school from which I have generally been absent 



