cxxvi Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Nov. 1844. 



have all their respective merits when restricted to their respective proper objects; and 

 then only, when committed to competent artists. A bad engraving reflects, now-a- 

 days not so much discredit on the artist, as the party who employs him ; because the 

 highest degree of excellence, and finish, and taste, can now be attained with suffi- 

 cient,— nay, we speak truly,— a very moderate remuneration for time. If such folks 

 will have cheap work, they may overreach themselves, and for a while impose upon 

 the public, while they, in fact, keep back the true interests of their country, and of 

 knowledge ; but let them be well advised, that we are all on the advance, and other 

 modes will supersede these expedients, and place the meritorious talent of the en- 

 graver beyond their sordid reach. 



It would seem, in adverting to the period when Printing and other kindred inven- 

 tions were brought to light, that the Allwise Disposer had then his great design of the 

 more extensive communication of the Gospel principally in view. At least we love to 

 consider every event as so happily falling out, and concurring to His praise in the ex- 

 ercise of His sovereign love. It was at the commencement of a late and glorious 

 revolution in the arts and sciences, when the mighty power of steam was summoned to 

 co-oporate with human industry and intelligence, that Lithography came also in aid 

 of those oriental languages which do not admit of their being so readily, or correctly, 

 expressed in moveable metal type. Look, for instance, at the Chinese, the Persian, 

 Arabic, Mandchu, and various characters of India and the Eastern Archipelago : these, 

 without one exception, could never be so elegantly or exactly printed by moveable 

 metal types ; and have, in every such attempt, a certain formality and rudeness, com- 

 pai-able only by the relative elegance of a very fine woodcut from the hands of a 

 modern artist, and one of the coarse woodcuts of the earliest school : but besides these, 

 there are a great variety of subjects where softness, beauty, and, more than all, where 

 economy is specially desirable, to which Lithography is particularly adapted. It yet 

 remains to be seen how much more extensively this elegant and purely chemical pro- 

 cess, as it may be called, can yet be brought ; and in the performance of this, we do 

 not hesitate to affirm also, that there is no reasonable limit to the true representation of 

 the most exquisite and complicated works of nature and art. For maps of a superior 

 kind, there can be no question that lithography is peculiarly fitted. Good impressions 

 may be taken, with proper care, to the extent of some two thousand; and an unlimited 

 number of impressions at secondhand, by transfers from the original, or from copper- 

 plate engravings. 



For a very great variety of illustrations, botanical drawings, and landscapes, Litho* 

 graphy possesses greater facilities and recommendations, in all cases where the 

 number required is not great, than copper-plate engraving, woodcuts, or another 

 remarkable art, of which we are about to speak — Glyphography ; that is, coeteris 

 paribus, the cost, number of impressions, and excellence of execution, all taken into 

 account, Lithography is best suited, when the number of impressions does not exceed 

 five hundred, or one thousand ; and the chalk lithographic drawings are evidently in 

 all cases more true to nature than aquatint, or stippled engraving on copper or steel. 



But the crowning process is GLYPHOGRAPHY, an art for which we are indebted 

 to the ingenuity of Mr. Edward Palmer, whose attention had been early directed to 

 other methods of multiplying engravings by the Electrotype process. Here is a sim- 

 ple, efficacious, and universal method of perpetuating recollections, facts, and ideas; 

 possessing at the same time some peculiar recommendations to public notice ; in its 



