270 ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 



" A far more important part is played in the art-life of Ger- 

 many by the technical arts for the multiplying of works ; for 

 Germany, while it was the land of book-printing, is also the 

 land of picture-printing. Indeed, wood-engraving, which pre- 

 ceded the invention of book-printing, prepared the way for it, 

 and only left one step more necessary for it. Book-printing and 

 picture-printing have both the same inner cause for their ori- 

 gin, namely, the impulse to make each mental gain a common 

 blessing. Not merely princes and rich nobles were to have 

 the privilege of adorning their private chapels and apartments 

 with beautiful religious pictures ; the poorest man was also to 

 have his delight in that which the artist had devised and pro- 

 duced. It was not sufficient for him when it stood in the 

 church as an altar-shrine, visible to him and to the congregation 

 from afar ; he desired to have it as his own, to carry it about 

 with him, to bring it into his own home. The grand impor- 

 tance of wood-engraving and copperplate is not sufficiently 

 estimated in historical investigations. They were not alone 

 of use in the advance of art ; they form an epoch in the entire 

 life of mind and culture. The idea embodied and multiplied 

 in pictures became like that embodied in the printed word, 

 the herald of every intellectual movement, and conquered the 

 world." 



42. "Conquered the world"? The rest of the sentence is 

 time, but this, hyperbolic, and greatly false. It should have 

 been said that both painting and engraving have conquered 

 much of the good in the world, and, hitherto, little or none of 

 the evil. 



Nor do I hold it usually an advantage to art, in teaching, 

 that it should be common, or constantly seen. In becoming 

 intelligibly and kindly beautiful, while it remains solitary and 

 unrivalled, it has a greater power. Westminster Abbey is 

 more didactic to the English nation, than a million of popular 

 illustrated treatises on architecture. 



Nay, even that it cannot be understood but with some diffi- 

 culty, and must be sought before it can be seen, is no harm. 

 The noblest didactic art is, as it were, set on a hill, and its 

 disciples come to it. The vilest destructive and corrosive art 

 stands at the street corners, crying, " Turn in hither ; come, 

 eat of my bread, and drink of my wine, which I have 

 mingled.*' 



