THE TECHNICS OF METAL ENGHA VING. 313 



more popular praise in this labyrinth of disciplined language, 

 and more or less dulled or degraded thought. And, in sum, I 

 know no cause more direct or fatal, in the destruction of the 

 great schools of European art, than the perfectness of modern 

 line engraving. 



122. This great and profoundly to be regretted influence I 

 will prove and illustrate to you on another occasion. My ob- 

 ject to-day is to explain the perfectness of the art itself ; and 

 above all to request you, if you will not look at pictures in- 

 stead of photographs, at least not to allow the cheap merits 

 of the chemical operation to withdraw your interest from the 

 splendid human labour of the engraver. Here is a little vi- 

 gnette from Stothard, for instance, in Eogers' poems, to the 



lines, 



" Soared in the swing, half pleased and half afraid, 

 'Neath sister elms, that waved their summer shade." 



You would think, would you not ? (and rightly,) that of all 

 difficult things to express Avith crossed black lines and dots, 

 the face of a young girl must be the most difficult. Yet 

 here you have the face of a bright girl, radiant in light, 

 transparent, mysterious, almost breathing, her dark hair in- 

 volved in delicate wreath and shade, her eyes full of joy and 

 sweet playfulness, and all this done by the exquisite order 

 and gradation of a very few lines, which, if you will examine 

 them through a lens, you find dividing and chequering the 

 lip, and cheek, and chin, so strongly that you would have fan- 

 cied they could only produce the effect of a grim iron mask. 

 But the intelligences of order and form guide them into beauty, 

 and inflame them with delicatest life. 



123. And do you see the size of this head ? About as large 

 as the bud of a forget-me-not ! Can you imagine the fineness 

 of the little pressures of the hand on the steel, in that space, 

 which ai the edge of the almost invisible lip, fashioned its less 

 or more of smile. 



My chemical friends, if you wish ever to know anything 

 rightly concerning the arts, I very urgently advise you to 

 throw all your vials and washes down the gutter-trap ; and 

 if you will ascribe, as you think it so clever to do, in your 



