THE TECHNICS OF METAL ENGRAVING. 309 



cies of shade, confusions of light, then, more could not be 

 done with less. There are engravings of this modern school, 

 of which, with respect to their particular aim, it may be said, 

 most truly, they "cannot be better done." 



Here is one just finished, or, at least, finished to the eyes 

 of ordinary mortals, though its fastidious master means to re- 

 touch it ; a quite pure line engraving, by Mr. Charles Henry 

 Jeens ; (in calling it pure line, I mean that there are no mixt- 

 ures of mezzotint or any mechanical tooling, but all is steady 

 hand-work,) from a picture by Mr. Armytage, which, without 

 possessing any of the highest claims to admiration, is yet free 

 from the vulgar vices which disgrace most of our popular re- 

 ligious art ; and is so sweet in the fancy of it as to deserve, 

 better than many works of higher power, the pains of the en- 

 graver to make it a common possession. It is meant to help 

 us to imagine the evening of the day when the father and 

 mother of Christ had been seeking him through Jerusalem : 

 they have come to a well where women are drawing water ; 

 St. Joseph passes on, but the tired Madonna, leaning on the 

 well's margin, asks wistfully of the women if they have seen 

 such and such a child astray. Now will you just look for a 

 while into the lines by which the expression of the weary and 

 anxious face is rendered ; see how unerring they are, how 

 calm and clear ; and think how many questions have to be 

 determined in drawing the most minute portion of any one, 

 its curve, its thickness, its distance from the next, its 

 own preparation for ending, invisibly, where it ends. Think 

 what the precision must be in these that trace the edge of 

 the lip, and make it look quivering with disappointment, or 

 in these which have made the eyelash heavy with restrained 

 tears. 



117. Or if, as must be the case with many of my audience, 

 it is impossible for you to conceive the difficulties here over- 

 come, look merely at the draperies, and other varied sub- 

 stances represented in the plate ; see how silk, and linen, and 

 stone, and pottery, and flesh, are all separated in texture, and 

 gradated in light, by the most subtle artifices and appliances 

 of line, of which artifices, and the nature of the mechanical 



