CHAPTER XXIII. 



IT is foreign to my present purpose to criticise 

 the works of brother artists of the present day. I 

 behold their excellent productions with pleasure ; 

 in them there is no falling off: they surpass those 

 of the artists of the olden times. I cannot, however, 

 help lamenting that, in all the vicissitudes which 

 the art of wood engraving has undergone, some 

 species of it is lost and done away : I mean the 

 large blocks with the prints from them, so common 

 to be seen when I was a boy in every cottage and 

 farm house throughout the country. These blocks, 

 I suppose, from their size, must have been cut on 

 the plank way on beech, or some other kind of 

 close-grained wood ; and from the immense number 

 of impressions from them, so cheaply and exten- 

 sively spread over the whole country, must have 

 given employment to a great number of artists, in 

 this inferior department of wood cutting ; and must 

 also have formed to them an important article of 

 traffic. These prints, which were sold at a very 

 low price, were commonly illustrative of some 

 memorable exploits, or were, perhaps, the portraits 

 of eminent men, who had distinguished themselves 

 in the service of their country, or in their patriotic 

 exertions to serve mankind. Besides these, there 

 were a great variety of other designs, often with 

 songs added to them of a moral, a patriotic, or a 

 rural tendency, which served to enliven the circle 

 in which they were admired. To enumerate the 



