310 ARIADNE FLOEENT1NA. 



labour throughout, I must endeavour to give you to-day a 

 more distinct conception than you are in the habit of form- 

 ing. But as I shall have to blame some of these methods in 

 their general result, and I do not wish any word of general 

 blame to be associated with this most excellent and careful 

 plate by Mr. Jeens, I will pass, for special examination, to one 

 already in your reference series, which for the rest exhibits 

 more various treatment in its combined landscape, back- 

 ground, and figures ; the Belle Jardiniere of Raphael, drawn 

 and engraved by the Baron Desmoyers. 



You see, in the first place, that the ground, stones, and 

 other coarse surfaces are distinguished from the flesh and 

 draperies by broken and wriggled lines. Those broken lines 

 cannot be executed with the burin, they are etched in the 

 early states of the plate, and are a modern artifice, never used 

 by old engravers ; partly because the older men were not 

 masters of the art of etching, but chiefly because even those 

 who were acquainted with it would not employ lines of this 

 nature. They have been developed by the importance of 

 landscape in modern engraving, and have produced some val- 

 uable results in small plates, especially of architecture. But 

 they are entirely erroneous in principle, for the surface of 

 stones and leaves is not broken or jagged in this manner, but 

 consists of mossy, or blooming, or otherwise organic texture, 

 which cannot be represented by these coarse lines ; their gen- 

 eral consequence has therefore been to withdraw the mind of 

 the observer from all beautiful and tender characters in fore- 

 ground, and eventually to destroy the very school of land- 

 scape engraving which gave birth to them. 



Considered, however, as a means of relieving more deli- 

 cate textures, they are in some degree legitimate, being, in 

 fact, a kind of chasing or jagging one part of the plate surface 

 in order to throw out the delicate tints from the rough field. 

 Bat the same effect was produced with less pains, and far 

 more entertainment to the eye, by the older engravers, who 

 employed purely ornamental variations of line ; thus in Plate 

 IV., opposite page 87, the drapery is sufficiently distin- 

 guished from the grass by the treatment of the latter as an 



