268 ARIADNE FLORENT1NA. 



is going to fall into a snare. What has been fancied a noose 

 is only the former outline of the horse's foot and limb, unef- 

 faced. 



The engraved line is therefore to be conclusive ; not experi- 

 mental. " I have determined this," says the engraver. Much 

 excellent pen drawing is excellent in being tentative, in be- 

 ing experimental. Indeterminate, not through want of mean- 

 ing, but through fulness of it halting wisely between two 

 opinions feeling cautiously after clearer opinions. But your 

 engraver has made up his opinion. This is so, and must for 

 ever be so, he tells you. A very proper thing for a thoughtful 

 man to say ; a very improper and impertinent thing for a fool- 

 ish one to say. Foolish engraving is consummately foolish 

 work. Look. all the world, look for evermore, says the 

 foolish engraver ; see what a fool I have been. How many 

 lines I have laid for nothing. How many lines upon lines, 

 with no precept, much less superprecept. 



38. Here, then, are two definite ethical characters in all en- 

 graved work. It is Athletic ; and it is Resolute. Add one 

 more ; that it is Obedient ; in their infancy the nurse, but 

 in their youth the slave, of the higher arts ; servile, both in 

 the mechanism and labour of it, and in its function of inter- 

 preting the schools of painting as superior to itself. 



And this relation to the higher arts we will study at the 

 source of chief power in all the normal skill of Christendom, 

 Florence ; and chiefly, as I said, in the work of one Florentine 

 master, Sandro Botticelli. 



LECTURE n. 



THE RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS IN FLORENCE. 



39. FROM what was laid before you in my last lecture, you 

 must now be aware that I do not mean, by the word ' engrav- 

 ing,' merely the separate art of producing plates from which 

 black pictures may be printed. 



I mean, by engraving, the art of producing decoration on a 

 surface by the touches of a chisel or a burin ; and I mean by 



