So/rl a 7 ! 
 BARRATTS I.TI5KARtJ 
 
 4 
 
 Ulrich Middeldorf 
 
V CI 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/lecturesonartofeOOIand 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON THE ART OF 
 
 ENGRAVING, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 ROYAL INSTITUTION 
 
 OF 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN, 
 
 By JOHN LANDSEER, 
 
 ENGRAVER TO THE KING, AND F. S. A» 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME^ 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1807^ 
 
J, si'CREERYy Printer, 
 Black-Horse Court, Fleet-Street 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Having long since been led to perceive that 
 Engraving did not hold its due rank and conr 
 sideration among the fine Arts, and that the public 
 did not derive from it the degree either of plea- 
 sure or advantage which it was capable of im- 
 parting, I had formed a wish that it might be- 
 come more highly and more extensively useful ; 
 and had felt the desire, which is almost inse- 
 parable from such a wish, of being myself instru- 
 mental in the accomplishment of what appeared 
 to me so laudable a purpose- 
 That the most , commercial country in the 
 world might, by promoting the improvement^ 
 become the chief seat and seminary of the 
 most commercial of the arts of embellishment^ 
 was a wish in which I might naturally expect 
 every subject of these kingdoms to join ; and to 
 the principle of which, I conceived not a philo- 
 sopher in Europe could object. 
 
ii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I trust that, if I should be accused, I shall 
 eventually be acquitted of any over-weening 
 fondness for an art which it is my good or ill 
 fortune to profess, when I state that I beheld 
 Engraving, which ought to flourish here as in its 
 peculiar soil, as a neglected and declining Art. 
 It was, to my observation, a wild, forlorn, and 
 unreo-arded Tree ; the fruit of which few had 
 tasted, or aspired to reach ; but those few agreed 
 in acknowledging the richness of its flavour : if 
 others could be induced to partake of its pro- 
 ductions, a reasonable hope might be entertained 
 that its cultivation w^ould become an object of 
 public attention. 
 
 Of beautiful or interesting objects of sight, it 
 is the blessed prerogative that their value is not 
 diminished, but enhanced, by being imparted to 
 others. The solitary, or even the restricted, 
 enjoyment of this kind of pleasure, is a species 
 of destitution : nor will it be esteemed any un- 
 warrantable presumption on my part, to desire 
 to be admitted among that class of the good, 
 or the happy, or the luxurious, who are most 
 charmed with reverberated enjoyment.. On the 
 present occasion, both reason and sentiment 
 united to persuade me that this species of plea- 
 ^'^^^ -^ is as referable to ascertainable principles, a^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 li at arising from the productions of any olher 
 Art which is at once an object of the eye and 
 of the mind: or, in other words, that it might, 
 with the same probability of successful explica- 
 tion, be subjected to analytical research ; and 
 the results be rendered obvious to others. 
 
 I had for some time past, meditated a Book 
 on the subject: and had only been deterred 
 from writing one by the difficulties of writing 
 such a book as might, by not offending the more 
 critical literary Taste of the public, effect the 
 purpose I had in view ; and by the conscious- 
 ness that my previous education and habits of 
 study had not been of a nature to qualify me for 
 such an undertaking. I had not however aban- 
 doned the idea — I even flattered myself that, in 
 the few hours I could possibly steal from sleep ; 
 from the cares inseparable from the education 
 of a numerous family ; and from a profession, 
 to excel in which demands unremitting applica- 
 tion ; I had made some progress toward qualify- 
 ing myself for the task. 
 
 My wishes, intentions, and means of accom 
 plishment, being in this state, I need scarcely 
 inform the reader that it afforded me the most 
 lively pleasure when I perceived that the Royal 
 
iv 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Institution was extendino; its views toward the 
 fine Arts. It immediately occurred that the op- 
 portunity of lecturing there would be a more 
 eligible mode than that of printing, of address- 
 ing the public : not only because the opinions 
 and principles which I might have the honour to 
 state would be supported by the engraved ex- 
 amples which I should at the same time ex- 
 hibit, and my sentiments by these means be more 
 clearly and powerfully conveyed; but also be- 
 cause, thus supported, and where the attention 
 of my audience would be so much more at- 
 tracted towards thoughts and things than toward 
 words, I believed I might venture to read what 
 it would have required, without such auxiliary 
 aid, more confidence to print. With this latter 
 feeling I am at length compelled, by the machi- 
 nations of certain individuals, to compromise. 
 
 To deprecate candid, or to anticipate malignant^ 
 criticism (except from those few who have already 
 shewn themselves inimical to my principles) 
 would be both unwise and unjust. In the close 
 of the short exordium prefixed to the first of the 
 following discourses, I have given some reasons 
 why I do not expect even severe criticism. Yet 
 I would not affect to conceal, what I cannot re- 
 press, that I feel the full influence of the anxiety 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 that attends a first appearance (in a new cha- 
 racter) before a tribunal which I have always re- 
 spected. That mixed feeling which I have al- 
 ready experienced in the Lecture-Room I must 
 again encounter, but under more trying clrGum- 
 stances, and again be content to hope humbly for 
 the result* 
 
 To those who may expect further apology 
 from an Engraver — a mere earthly guest — for 
 having presumed into the Heaven of literature 
 without the passport of a classical education, I 
 may be permitted to state, that the following Dis- 
 courses have been listened to, with a degree of 
 approbation highly gratifying to their author, by 
 an intelligent and discriminating part of the pub- 
 lic: and finally, I may be allowed to appeal to 
 that general sentiment of indulgent candour 
 which, — provided he be right with regard to those 
 truths of his art, which he undertakes to commu- 
 nicate, and his language sufficiently explicit for 
 the purpose, — is satisfied to dispense with those 
 elegancies of literature from an Artist, which it 
 is the pleasure, the business, and the pride, of 
 the Scholar to acquire and display. 
 
 Sir Francis Bacon recommends histories of 
 Art, upon the principle of their blending the 
 
vi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 attractions of entertainment with the more solid 
 advantages of real utility: Dr. Burney has ob- 
 served that, " collecting into one view the pro- 
 gress of an art, seems likely to enlarge the know- 
 ledge, and stimulate the emulation, of its profes- 
 sors ; who may, by this means, be taken out of the 
 beaten track of habit and common practice to 
 which their ideas are usually confined:" and Sir 
 James Macintosh (whose shicerity here, Avill not 
 be distrusted,) says he has long been con- 
 vinced that public Lectures, which have been 
 used in most ages and countries to teach the 
 elements of almost every part of leai riing, are the 
 most convenient mode in w hich these elements 
 can be taught ; that they are the best adapted for 
 the important purposes of awakening the attention 
 of the student, of abridging his labours, of guid- 
 ing his enquiries, of relieving the tediousness of 
 private study, and of impressing principle on 
 his recollection." May I venture to add to this 
 Excellent reasoning on the subject, that by such 
 means the public taste is rnost likely to be pre- 
 served free, or be emancipated, from the thral- 
 dom of Fashion ; and to be led to perceive that 
 rules of criticism, as well as the practice of pro- 
 fessionai artists, are expansive in their nature^ 
 and alike liable to become corrupt from stag- 
 nation. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Of the Art of Engraving, I believe there is no 
 regular history extant in any language ; and, 
 what may seem still more extraordinary, no pre- 
 cepts of criticism that are founded on any thing 
 like principle. Painting, Poetry, Music — almost 
 every other art, may boast its historians and cri- 
 tics : but with respect to Engraving, facts have 
 passed unrecorded ; principle has been allowed 
 to flit from our observation ; and taste has 
 been driven to wander, and is still wandering, 
 through the palpable obscure, with scarcely a 
 gleam of elementary light to assist its progress^ 
 Perhaps the fate of no art whatever, exhibits a 
 more complete verification of the celebrated 
 aphorism"^ of Hippocrates, than that of En- 
 graving: certainly in no art has opportunity been 
 les^ successfully seized ; nor experience less faci- 
 litated judgment or promoted improvement. 
 
 It is to be regretted, that of the numerous 
 histories of Arts penned by the ancients, very 
 few have descended to us ;+ and the more so as 
 
 * " Art is long, life is short, opportunity is fleeting, expe- 
 rience is fallacious, and judgment difficult." 
 
 i The Treatise of Vitruvius on Architecture, Pliny's Na- 
 tural History, and Plutarch's Dialogue on Music, are, I believe, 
 nearly all that survive : though, as Dr. Burney, on the autho- 
 rity of Fabricius, informs us, the list of Greek writers on the 
 Art of Music alone, amounts to nearly thirty. 
 
these ai^e the most estimable, because the most 
 useful, kind of history ; and that kind in 
 which truth is the least likely to be disguised. 
 In losing these classical records, we have proba- 
 \)\y lost some valuable information respecting 
 the, ancient modes of Engraving. The verbal 
 communications of Sir Henry Englefield, and Mr. 
 Douce ; the printed researches of Raspe, Hayley, 
 Pinkerton, Strutt, and various other authors ; and 
 my own reflections on those communications and 
 researches, have enabled me to attempt in some 
 small degree to supply the deficiency Avhich this 
 loss has occasioned. I should hope that these 
 reasons would at once plead my inducement for 
 having written so much on ancient Engravings 
 and my apology for having written no more. 
 
 The part of iiiy design which succeeded thig 
 in the execution, and which I intended to havd 
 protracted to a much greater length, may, per- 
 haps, seem more arduous : but to travel through 
 the provinces of modern Engraving in search of 
 principle ; and to reap, to glean, or to root out, 
 as my judgment might direct, and my strength 
 accomplish ; has been to me, as far as I have yet 
 proceeded, the pleasantest part of my journey. 
 
 In defining and explaining the several species 
 of Engraving to which the ingenuity of the last 
 
 1 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 three hundred and fifty years has given birth, I 
 felt it to be indispensable to a conscientious per- 
 formance of the duties of a public lecturer, not 
 to pass without notice, the frauds upon the public 
 taste, as well as upon the purses of individuals, 
 of which some of these had become the vehicles ; 
 to endeavour to repel by honest exposure those 
 erroneous principles of criticism (or rather 
 those vague and unfounded notions which oc- 
 cupy the place of principles) which empirical 
 pretenders to Art have but too successfully pro- 
 moted ; and to treat of the causes which have 
 conspired to retard the progress of British en- 
 graving. 
 
 I endeavoured to do this with as much deli- 
 tacy, with as little reference and as little offence 
 to particular individuals, as might be consistent 
 with manliness of motive and the just claims 
 of Art. 1 request the impartial reader to re^ 
 fleet, whether to dissemble truth; or to tempo- 
 rise with error or fraud and call it prudence^ 
 was the course for me to steer ? whether there 
 be any honest and practicable middle course 
 between this and the more direct course which I 
 have pursued ? and whether, to him v/ho has 
 objects in view so important as the improvement 
 of public taste and the advancement of Art, 
 
k , I^REFACE. 
 
 particular persons and past transactions can or 
 ought to be otherwise regarded than as those 
 alphabetic characters, by means of which the 
 writer aims at imparting truth to those who 
 honour him with their attention. 
 
 The Royal Institution has been to the 
 hopes I had formed for the Art of Engraving, 
 what Ferdinand and Isabella were to those of 
 Columbus. It has enabled me to perform a 
 first Voyage : and (if I might presume to say so) 
 like that great man I have already lived to hear 
 the compliments (Avhich could not be very flat- 
 tering) of those who not long since expressed, 
 
 but with no friendly voice," their surprise 
 at the supposed temerity of my undertaking. 
 Whether that Institution, managed and influ- 
 enced as it has lately been, resembled those illus- 
 trious Spaniards in any other less gracious re- 
 spect, the reader who continues to favour me 
 with his attentive perusal, shall be enabled to 
 judge. 
 
 By the gentleman who acquainted me that it 
 was his department to treat with the Lecturers, 
 I was desired to make my Discourses eloquent 
 and entertaining ; and was, beside, informed that 
 it was an object with the Managers to convert the 
 
frivolous part of the metropolis into something 
 better. 
 
 To both these objects, though they are not in 
 perfect accordance, I endeavoured to pay due at- 
 tention. —Considering the former more as the 
 letter, and the latter rather as the spirit, of my in- 
 structions, my constant endeavour in composing 
 the Lectures, has been to make them really useful; 
 and to re2:ard entertainment, and the blandish- 
 ments of style, as inferior considerations. It 
 was in aiming at this primary object of public 
 UTILITY, and because we have no critical review 
 of works of Art and their conductors, (as we 
 have of Literature, Music, and the Drama) that 
 I had conceived it to be an indispensable part of 
 my duty to set the public on its guard against 
 those passing impositions that are practised by 
 means of engraving. Driven as I am, by the time 
 and manner of my dismissal from the Lecture- 
 room, to vindicate my past conduct, I may be al- 
 lowed to say that, in attending to this irksome part 
 of my task, I did not forget, but was content to 
 sacrifice, the pecuniary advantages which, as an 
 Engraver, I might have obtained in promoting 
 schemes which I could not reo;ard as consistent 
 with the trueaimsandendsof the Art: accordingly, 
 in performing this part of my voyage, I delibe- 
 rately took the rudder from the hand of Interest^ 
 
where, in these mercantile times, it might per- 
 haps have remained without reproach, and gave 
 the helm to Principle ; 
 
 With mean compliance ne'er betray'd my trust | 
 
 Nor was so civil as to prove unjust : 
 
 Nor fear'cl the anger of the Wise to raise/' 
 
 Upon all comprehensive public questions there 
 have ever appeared some individuals whose pri- 
 vate interests, or whose narrow and mistaken 
 views of their interests, have ranged them in 
 opposition to the genuine interests of Society. 
 Whether, elated with the hope of contributing 
 to general usefulness, and the redemption of a 
 
 fallen — at least I may say the recovery of a 
 
 decaying — Art, I overlooked the impediments 
 that might naturally be expected from that quar- 
 ter ? whether I made false estimates of the com- 
 parative strength and influence of those interest- 
 ed individuals ? or whether I flattered myself 
 that the power which stood between them and 
 me was too friendly to the interests of Art to 
 expel me from my public situation without a 
 candid and impartial inquiry, of which I feared 
 not the result? it is here bootless to inquire. 
 For the present it is enough, that I am publicly 
 known to have been dismissed the Lecture-room 
 of the Royal Institution, in the midst of a course 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 of Lectures ; which I am now compelled, as the 
 least exceptionable mode of vindicating my past 
 conduct and maintaining the justness of my 
 principles, to publish in their present state, im- 
 perfect as it is. , 
 
 Dismissal from a situation so public, attended 
 by circumstances so notorious, is more than an ac- 
 cusation (from which it would behove the party 
 accused to exculpate himself) ; it is an implied 
 censure. The public must naturally suppose I 
 had been dismissed for misconduct which de- 
 served dismissal ; and that the Managers had 
 chosen to veil that misconduct in a delicate 
 silence. Undei^ such silence the guilty would be 
 glad to jind refuge: conseq,uently, under suck 
 silence I must publicly scorn to take shelter^ 
 
 With this impression on my mind I wrote, 
 soon after my dismissal, the following address 
 io the Proprietors of and Subscribers to^ the Royal 
 institution : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 It is known to many that it was my wish 
 and intention to have continued my course of 
 Lectures of the present season, in w^eekly suc- 
 cession, uatil I had brought down the critical 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 history of the art of Engraving, to the period 
 of the union of the Northern with the Italian 
 school : but my progress has been arrested by a 
 communication from the Managers, wherein they 
 inform me that " they have resolved to discon^ 
 tinuc my lectures." , 
 
 As this resolution was passed at a very 
 slender meeting ; and as it is customary, in most 
 public Societies, for the resolutions entered into 
 at one meeting to remain for confirmation till the 
 next ; I have waited, not without considerable 
 anxiety, until another meeting has passed. 
 
 The act of four managers, I thought, might 
 possibly be rescinded at a fuller meeting ; or even 
 be revoked by the same four, on reflection. In 
 the present case, I hoped they would, on reflec- 
 tion, perceive how contrary to the custom of 
 England, and to every rule and principle of 
 equity, it is, to proceed to judgment without 
 hearing evidence, and on a vague accusation 
 evidently proceeding from an interested quarter. 
 
 It is true, I admitted the charge of having 
 alluded to a certain individual — not a living 
 character: but it is also true, that I offered to 
 read before the Committee of Managers the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XV 
 
 exact words in v/hich the allusion was convey- 
 ed ; and that this offer was declined, though 
 none of these gentlemen were present at the de- 
 livery of the Lecture. 
 
 I hazard nothing in affirming, that no lecture 
 upon Art has ever been delivered without per- 
 sonal allusions. Not the having alluded, then, 
 but the justifiable or unjustifiable nature and oc- 
 casion of the allusion, was the fit object of in- 
 quiry. 
 
 Of the pleasure I took in imparting to you 
 what little I knew on the subject of Engraving, 
 I regret the loss : and shall probably be induced 
 to print the discourses which I have delivered, 
 in my own vindication : in which case, I shall 
 add such Notes as, I trust, will fully justify and 
 support my opinions, that the talents of Sir Ro- 
 bert Strange, Woollett, Vivares, Bartolozzi, and 
 the rest of those artists whom I named in my 
 last Discourse, were the real causes of the com- 
 merce for Prints turning in favour of this coun- 
 try; and that its subsequent decline has pro- 
 ceeded, in great part, from the ignorant dicta- 
 tions and mismanagement of persons who were 
 not qualified to lead the public taste in engraved 
 works of Art. These ai;e points towards which 
 
xvi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I thought it my duty to direct the attention of 
 the audience with which I was honoured at the 
 Royal Institution: and these are the points upon 
 which I am really at issue with a few interested 
 and ignorant venders of Art ; who, while they 
 are virtually circumventing their own purposes, 
 are endeavouring to throw the blame of the 
 failure of commercial profit upon the body of 
 Engravers — amongst whom they will find one, at 
 least, who is neither to be tamed to wrongs, nov 
 intimidated to silence. 
 
 I have thought it necessary publicly to say 
 thus much in explanation of recent events. I 
 beg leave to add, since the opportunity of doing 
 so elsewhere is denied me, my most cordial 
 Thanks for the attention with which I have beeii 
 honoured in the Lecture-Room. 
 
 QMeen-^Ann^ Street, East, t r \ TVT-rkCT^T>T> 
 
 2Bth March, 1806. 
 
 The above address was sent for insertion te 
 three Morning papers. I was promised it should 
 appear in two of them as soon as the reports 
 of Parliamentary debates should leave room: 
 but these promises were never performed. The 
 editor of the third, had the honesty to say, that 
 
pkEFAGE 
 
 he thought I had been unfairly treated by the 
 imanagers of the Royal Institution ; but that he 
 was intimate with Mr. Josiah Boydell, and as 
 my letter might affect his (Mr. B.'s) interests, he 
 desired to be excused inserting it in his paper. 
 If I would print it, and send it round only to the 
 Proprietors ©f the Royal Institution, of whom 
 he was one, I might obtain some redress at the 
 next annual election of officers. Before I fol~ 
 lowed this advice, however, I thought it neces- 
 sary to look into the printed constitution and 
 laws of the Institution ; and I there found that, 
 even though a disposition to redress me might 
 prevail among them, the Proprietors had too 
 little power over what was called their property, 
 to effect such a purpose. So at least it appeared 
 to me. In justice to the independent character 
 of the Editor of the Evening Star, I ought to 
 add, that in his paper my address was printed- 
 
 Of the means which have been employed to 
 dismiss me from lecturing, and deter me from 
 printing, the most insidious and successful have 
 been the hue and cry words Personality^ and 
 Attack ; which have pursued me from the com- 
 mittee-room to the newspapers, and by which 
 my adversaries seem to hope I shall be hunted 
 down» But I confidently trust it will finally be 
 
 b 
 
xviii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 obvious that my motives^ throughout^ have been 
 PUBLIC motives ; ji^hilst those of iny enemies have 
 ^^^72 PERSONAL ; aud that so far from at tac^- 
 ING, / have been acting on the defensive ; 
 endeavouring to protect the art of Engraving 
 and its professors, and repelling the unprovoked 
 attacks, and countermining the sap, of Mr. Jos. 
 Boydell, and those who act with him. 
 
 I might, perhaps, have let Mr. Boydell's vain 
 and unfounded boast, that his uncle's exertions 
 turned the Print trade from an import to an ex- 
 port, pass without animadversion : and his equally 
 unfounded, feeble, and ambiguous attempt"^' to 
 reproach the most respectable engravers with 
 unnecessary delay, I might have allowed to 
 
 ^ For the former see Mr. B.'s Pamphlet, more particularly 
 alluded to in the Notes I have added to the Lectures ; for the 
 latter see his Proposal for a Print of the Battle of Trafalgar 
 and Death of Lord Nelson. To have let these pass without 
 notice, would have been a species of misprision of treason to 
 art and its professors ; but the truth is, that I thought a Pam- 
 phlet so ill imagined, and so weakly written, as Mr. B/s, 
 would be little read or enquired after ; and the advertised pro- 
 posal for an anonymous Print, I thought but poorly calculated 
 to entrap even the most unwary. I have since seen the Pam- 
 phlet at the houses of several members of the public societies 
 for promoting Art ; and it has fallen on the table of almost 
 every Artistj like Harpy excrements. 
 
PREFACE. xlx. 
 
 sink in its own insignificance: but, in that dis- 
 course for which it was judged proper to dis- 
 continue my Lectures, I had two positions to 
 maintain in favour of Engraving ; one of them 
 of the utmost importance, as I conceive, to its 
 well-being, if not to its existence as an Art ; 
 and the other of equal importance in a Commer- 
 cial view of the subject* 
 
 The positions, when placed in the abstract, 
 are these. First, That in a Commercial Countrj/^ 
 like ancient Greece^ or modern Europe^ where any 
 degree of rivalry in the Fine Arts exists between the 
 several states^ and where the productions of any one 
 of those arts have become an article of Commerce^ 
 the profits of that commerce will be^ or will turn^ 
 in favour of that pariicidar state where the greatest 
 quantum and highest degrees of talent exist among 
 the professors of that particular Art, Secondly, 
 That if in a given Art^ Ignorance shall assume^ 
 and attempt to exercise,, the superintendence of 
 Knowledge^ talent in that art will^ from that 
 period,, begin to decline. 
 
 These positions could no otherwise, with so 
 much propriety, be supported as by the evidence 
 #f facts; indeed, as the reader will see, in the 
 
 b 2 
 
XX 
 
 PR'EFACE. 
 
 Lecture itself, I reasoned immediately from 
 the facts ; considering them, as I should any 
 other historical occurrences which might fall 
 within the scope of my plan to notice, and with- 
 out formally stating, as I have done here, the 
 dry abstract propositions. It is true, the late 
 Alderman Boydell, when compared with Mecae* 
 nas or Mummius, is but recently dead ; yet is he 
 as compleatly beyond the reach of being affected 
 by any sublunary censure, as far as is known to 
 us mortals, as if centuries had passed over his 
 grave : and if in establishing or enforcing a prin- 
 ciple, or pointing out a path of improvement, 
 there can be any reason for preferring one his- 
 toric fact to another, it appears to me that it is 
 better to select a recent than a remote occur- 
 rence ; because it can more easily be probed by 
 inquiry, and its consequences, if evil, can be 
 more readily obviated. 
 
 If it should be said that, though the Alderman 
 is gone, his heirs and his property remain, and 
 may possibly be affected by my strictures ; I shall 
 reply, that our respect for property is not yet 
 so exclusive as to silence inquiry or sanction 
 imposition ; and that, even among those wh© 
 respect property more than they honour talents, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xxi 
 
 it has ever been held good political, and, which 
 is still better, good moral, doctrine, that the in- 
 terests of individuals should give way to the 
 general good. Every path of improvement would 
 else be barred ; and every gate of depravity, both 
 of taste and morals, be set wide open. 
 
 I hope and trust that an Englishman may say 
 these things, and more, without being liable to 
 the imputation of having been actuated by a 
 motive so unworthy as that of attacking an indi- 
 vidual : nor do I fear that the thinking part of 
 mankind will consider the empty boast of the pre- 
 sent Mr. Boydell, which may have contributed to 
 lead my attention more particularly to the points 
 in question, as any fault of mine. My state- 
 ment goes to shew, in direct opposition to his, 
 that the abilities of the engravers who flourished 
 in this country about thirty years ago, efi^ected 
 an important and patriotic change in favour of 
 the British print trade ; that the European com- 
 merce for prints must, and would, have turned 
 in favour of England, at the time it did, if no 
 such persons as the Messrs. Boydells had ever 
 existed ; and that, but for the ignorant super- 
 intendence of such persons, it would probably 
 have remained so — for we shall always find 
 
xxii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 a sufficient number of merchants who will be ready 
 enough to discover and follow, where profit leads 
 the way. 
 
 The second position is, I fear, also supported, 
 or I should rather say corroborated, by the evi- 
 dence of facts : but as my adversaries have pub- 
 licly stated the decay of Engraving, I have ra- 
 ther chosen to admit than to adduce the instances ; 
 for the obvious reason that to admit them super- 
 seded all necessity for naming living characters, 
 or for alludmg to them except in the aggregate. 
 In truth, the reasoning on this point is so far 
 from being confined to Engraving, and rests upon 
 an experience of such unfortunate amplitude, 
 that it may almost be regarded as a self evident 
 truth. It may be more than suspected, that, 
 wherever ignorance presides over knowledge, 
 similar consequences will ensue: for such super- 
 intendence cannot be productive of any other 
 but contingent or fortuitous good ; its general 
 tendency must always be in an opposite direc- 
 tion; and whether it be placed at the head of the 
 Arts, or of a public Institution, — whether the de- 
 sire of gain, or the gratification of vanity, be its 
 impelling motive, the public is equally liable to 
 suffer. That it has suffered in Art^ the reason- 
 ing of my obnoxiou^s Lecture goes to prove ; 
 (though how much it has suffered might be diffi- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xxiii 
 
 cult to say :) and if a man knowing nothing, or 
 knowing little, of Science or Art, were to under- 
 take to enQ:a2:e or manao;e Lecturers on the Arts 
 and Sciences — unable to exercise any judgment 
 of his own, he must depend on the opinions of 
 others (the value of whose opinions he could not 
 estimate) ; and the same personal recommenda- 
 tion which might introduce a man of science to 
 his notice, would be much more likely to intro- 
 duce a pliant parasite, or a blockhead of bold 
 pretensions. 
 
 Such a superintendent, not being able to take 
 genuine pleasure in performing the genuine 
 duties of the office he has undertaken to fill, will 
 gradually come to consider those duties as 
 troublesome ; and, as far as may consist with the 
 gratification of his vanity, will delegate their 
 performance to those who are put in authority 
 under him — which may chance to be a fortunate 
 thing for the public. 
 
 Not being able to measure the value of a dis- 
 course by any better, or by any other, test, than 
 the number of auditors it may obtain, he will 
 assuredly, and for very obvious reasons, fail, 
 as far as depends on him^ to convert the frivolous 
 part of the metropolis" into any thing better ; 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 and but there is no end to the mischiefs of 
 
 ignorant superintendence 
 
 Alas ! with the mistakes or malignity of such 
 a man, whether he be the conductor of a publi- 
 cation of Engravings, or the dii ector of a public 
 institution, may no artist or man of science, ir^ 
 the conscientious pursuit of his duty, come in 
 hostile collislO^: lest he be tempted to forget for 
 a moment, the mild influence and dignity of his 
 studies ; or, forsaking his office and rank in so* 
 ciety, to dip his pencil or his pen in bitterness ; 
 or lest his resentment hurry him where, perhaps, 
 none will commend his temerity, and many will 
 blame his imprudence. 
 
 It may easily be supposed that, whilst engaged 
 in countermining secret machinations, and repel- 
 ling unprovoked attacks upon the art of En- 
 graving and its professors, I was very far from 
 expecting that the mock patrons and real ene- 
 mies of Engraving, would have met with such, 
 powerful auxiliaries as the four gentlemen who 
 took on themselves my dismissal ; and that I 
 should have had to carry on, at once, a foreign 
 and a civil war : nor is it surprising, that, under 
 such circumstances, I have been dislodged from 
 my post. Defeated, but neither disgraced nox 
 
3PREFACE, 
 
 XXV 
 
 dismayed, it now behoved me to look toward my 
 resources with what steady reliance, what perse- 
 vering courage, and what prudent regard for the 
 good of the service, I might possess. By these 
 sentiments I am still actuated. But should ther^ 
 be any, among the friends of Engraving, who 
 fear more from n^y zeal than they hope from 
 my discretion, let them reflect, that what I 
 shall have done and said will at least promote 
 discussion; and that discussion — English dis- 
 cussion — is what the present state of English 
 engraving most pressingly requires. 
 
 I am, therefore, again in the field ; with un- 
 broken forces, though with less advantageous 
 ground ; and shall certainly not, in this place, 
 desert the cause or the principles I espoused 
 in the beginning. In my mind, if there be any 
 cause where a moderate man may assume an 
 heroic tone of sentiment, and vow " to rise victo- 
 rious or to rise no more," it is a cause where a 
 moral province of British art, including a pro- 
 fitable source of British commerce, is assailed 
 by ignorant cupidity of wealth, that would lose 
 by victory and gain by defeat. What should be 
 here, to sickly o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
 the native hue of resolution ?" 
 
xxvi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 It has been truly said, that— 
 
 Some, to the fascination of a word 
 Surrender judgment hoodwink'd/' — 
 
 I have felt it necessary to say thus much in 
 reply to two words, personality and attack ; which 
 two words have been made use of toward me, 
 upon the same principle that we daily hear 
 knaves decry insincerity, whilst every virtuous 
 character is ardently longing for society where 
 he may indulge in the native sincerity of hia 
 heart. At the same time, I have cherished a 
 hope of thereby undeceiving those persons whom 
 I have cause to know have been egregiously im- 
 posed upon, in the affair of my dismissal ; among 
 whom, I may perhaps have reason to reckon the 
 greater part of the four gentlemen to whom I 
 have alluded above. 
 
 The reader will have observed that, in my 
 Letter to the Proprietors and Subscribers, I 
 have affirmed that no lecture upon Art was ever 
 delivered w^ithout persona,l allusions (either to 
 the living or dead ) Yet, lest any person, from 
 the abrupt discontinuance of my Lectures, and 
 from what has been subsequently reported, 
 should have inferred that, by alluding to the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xxvii 
 
 late Mr. Boydell, I had transgressed a standing 
 rule of the Royal Institution, it may be neces- 
 sary for me, not only to lay down in general 
 terms, and by reasoning to prove, that no such 
 rule is or can be observed in the Lecture-room, 
 but, in justice to the managers, or because the 
 conduct of public institutions is not always free 
 from inconsistencies, to aver that no such rule 
 has ever been imparted to me. After the first 
 season of my reading, the manager of the lec- 
 tures informed me that it wa^ a rule of the 
 place not to name living characters : the letter of 
 this rule I had already transgressed in naming 
 Mr. Bartolozzi, (who, happilyj is still a living 
 character), and two other gentlemen, whose 
 names have not since appeared in the lecture. 
 At the time I was informed of this rule, I men- 
 tioned that, the best illustrations of some of my 
 principles being to be found in the works of 
 Mr. Bartolozzi, I could but ill do without them, 
 and a discretionary power in this, and in other 
 similar cases, was tacitly allowed me. In fact, 
 the delicacy and discretion of a public lecturer 
 will, upon such occasions, always attemper, but 
 never subdue, his zeal for truth : and (if I may 
 be permitted to say so) this rule of widest lati- 
 tude, with a PROPER responsibilitj/ attached to 
 
xxviii 
 
 FREFACE. 
 
 it, yyill probably be found the best, if not tho 
 only, rule that will be practicable. 
 
 I have, indeed, lately been told, by a gentle- 
 man connected with the Institution, that the 
 managers consider themselves responsible for 
 what is delivered in the Lecture-room: — an as- 
 sertion at which I could not but be much sur- 
 prised ; because it is not only not in unison with 
 the tenor of their conduct, but impracticable in 
 itself. If they took on themselves this respon- 
 sibility, they would not fail to depute the ma- 
 nager of the lectures, or some other confiden- 
 tial person, to hear the lectures rehearsed before 
 they were publicly delivered. They would not, 
 surely, consider themselves accountable for the 
 truth or falsehood of doctrines, of which they 
 are totally ignorant, until those doctrines are 
 publicly delivered in the Lecture-roopi — for 
 evils against which they take no precaution — 
 for what, when once uttered it is too late to 
 recal. 
 
 This species of responsibility, not only could 
 not be undertaken by the managers without such 
 previous rehearsal, but, if proposed, would not 
 be consented to by the lecturers ; who always 
 consider, and ought to consider, themselves as, 
 
xxix 
 
 entitled to the whole credit or discredit that 
 may attach to sentiments, which are delivered 
 by themselves, and understood by the audience 
 as being the sentiments of the lecturers. Men 
 of science could not submit to consider them- 
 selves as mere puppets ; to be moved by wires 
 from above ; to fret and strut their hour upon 
 the stage, and then be seen, and heard, and recol- 
 lected, no more. Such men would either find 
 other lecture-rooms, or would have the wit to 
 stipulate for a license "to stretch on 
 the rack of criticism, or would decline lectur- 
 ing altogether: and the Lecture-room of the 
 Royal Institution, consigned over to dulness, and 
 becoming a theatre of tameness and inanity^ 
 would gradually be deserted. 
 
 Responsibility for the truths of science or art, 
 or for what public lecturers may say in illustra- 
 tion of the truths of science or art, not only 
 cannot be undertaken by the managers of public 
 institutions, and, if proposed, would not be con- 
 sented to by scientific lecturers ; but is neither 
 
 * I am informed that, since the discontinuance of my Lec- 
 tures has become the subject of conversation, this joke has 
 actually been played off— and with success. 
 
XXX 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 expected to be so proposed, or undertaken, of 
 consented to, by the public at large: and to 
 shew this the more plainly, I will put extreme 
 cases. Let the reader suppose I had uttered 
 treason instead of truth ; or, on the other hand, 
 let him suppose — if he can — for a moment, that 
 I had uttered such truth as the latest posterity 
 might listen to with advantage: I may venture 
 to say, that in neither of these cases would the 
 manager of the lecturers have been apprehended 
 as being my accomplice* 
 
 To be more serious, responsibility, if I mis- 
 take not, must always be a thing of actual or 
 implied compact between the parties concerned. 
 The word responsible is always used with to or 
 for : at least, these words, if not mentioned, are 
 presumed and understood : the latter referring 
 to the cause of responsibility ; the former, to 
 some party who has a superior right to the 
 power delegated and exercised. I believe it is 
 understood by the proprietors and subscribers, 
 that the managers of the Royal Institution should 
 and do undertake to provide fit and proper lec- 
 turers ; men of character and talents in the 
 several arts and sciences, and in other respects 
 qualified for the task. For this^ they are or 
 
PREFACE* 
 
 XXXI 
 
 ought to be responsible. Here ends the respon- 
 sibility of the managers ; and here, as it appears 
 to me, begins that of the lecturers- 
 
 I hope, however, none will infer from this, 
 that I mean to deny to the managers the right 
 or power of dismissing any lecturer they please; 
 whatever truth or falsehood, sense or nonsense, 
 he may have uttered — being themselves respon- 
 sible for such dismissal : but let them recollect, 
 that human power without responsibility is ut- 
 terly unknown in this country, and is an anomaly 
 in nature ; and that, for breaking a contract with 
 me without a candid examination, they are an- 
 swerable to some power superior to themselves 
 — though, at present, I am uncertain whether 
 that power be the Proprietors of the Royal In- 
 stitution, the Public at large, the King on his 
 throne, or the God within the breast I 
 
 It may not be improper to recal to the reader'** 
 memory, that, when before the board of manage- 
 ment, I admitted, as stated in my letter printed 
 in the Evening Star, the charge of having alluded 
 to the late Mr. Alderman Boydell: on my offer- 
 ing to read the words in which the allusion was 
 conveyed, I was answered, " No ! as you seem 
 to admit the fact (of having alluded to the late 
 
xxxii 
 
 Mr. B.), that does not seem to be necessary''— 
 or that will not be necessary." 
 
 Now, while I have been dismissed for this 
 allusion or fact, other lecturers have been freely 
 allowed, not merely to allude to, but to name 
 livijig persons^ notwithstanding the asserted rule 
 of the Royal Institution to the contrary; and 
 even to advertise such names in the printed syl- 
 labus of the lectures of the passing week* For 
 this lam not blaming Dr. Crotch. If the public 
 taste can be improved by such comments ; if his 
 own heart — his own perception of truth, justify 
 him, it is enough: he is himself responsible for 
 the rectitude of his taste and the justness of his 
 observations. But by what logical or what legal 
 distinctions will the manager of the lectures 
 satisfy his constituents, of his own impartiality 
 or consistency, or that the errors of a dead Boy- 
 dell are to be held more sacred than those of a 
 living Clementi and Hulmandel? Would the 
 success of a dealer, though alive, be an object 
 more dear than the reputation of an existing 
 artist? Or are either of these objects so dear as 
 the improvement of the public taste ? 
 
 Some years ago, the men of science residing 
 in Paris planned a critical review, wherein every 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xxxiii 
 
 ^dticle rcA^iewed was to have had the name of 
 the reviewer affixed. I remember Condorcet 
 was to have undertaken the mathematical, and, 
 I believe, Fourcroy or Lavoisier the chemical, 
 department. That such a review would be fol- 
 lowed by all the good consequences which phi- 
 losophers might hope from it, I am not pre- 
 pared to maintain : but if such men as Condorcet 
 and Dr. Crotch will candidly and ostensibly 
 favour the public with their opijiims of works of 
 art and science as they appear^ whether their 
 authors be living or not, I cannot but think that 
 public should be as much obliged to them as to 
 a masked battery of reviewers played off from 
 behind a bookseller's counter^ 
 
 ^ Conversation ^sdtk a Friend, 
 
 Friend. Hold ! From one who has literary reputation either 
 to gain or lose, this may be thought too bold : The reviews, 
 though masked, are not batteries ; for they deal great and ex- 
 tensive benehts. As an offering of atonement, or as an act of 
 justice, you should add, that though the public might be as 
 much J it could not be more obliged than it is by the candid, 
 though anonymous, reviews of literary productions. 
 
 Author. But my book will itself be a kind of critical re- 
 view, and reviewers do not publicly review each other. 
 
 Friend. That does not signify. Yours will not be an ano- 
 nymous review, and you will be hauled over the coals. 
 
 Author. I must then prepare for the ordeal. But because 
 mine will not h& an anonymous review, it behoves me to let 
 the passage stand — I will, however, let your addition stand also. 
 
 C 
 
XXXiV 
 
 PREFACE* 
 
 I would here ask, are not the errors^ both 
 wilful and unintentional, of all those persons 
 who are engag;ed in the service, or who under- 
 take to administer to the pleasures, of the public, 
 the subjects of daily animadversion ? Are not 
 poets, painters, statuaries, architects, musicians, 
 managers of theatres, players — in short, authors 
 and artists of every description, subject to perpe- 
 tual comment — in conversation, in newspapers, in 
 reviews, and in various other ways ? Are ma- 
 nagers of institutions, or even the highest ser- 
 vants of the crown, exempt from critical ani- 
 madversion ? Let it also be recollected, that 
 of works of art (such as Boydell's Shake- 
 spear) and their conductors, and of Engrav- 
 ings in general, there is no such thing as a 
 printed English review existing. When these 
 things are taken into consideration, I shall not 
 fear to commit to the candid reader's determi- 
 nation, the question of whether such strictures as 
 mine deserved to be requited with the loss and 
 discoura2:ement which I have been condemned 
 to suffer ? 
 
 It will appear a curious fact that, by gentle- 
 men who attended the delivery of the two last 
 discourses which I had the honour (for so I must 
 still esteem it) of reading (namely, the third, 
 and early part of the sixth, in this volume) I 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 was complimented on the address with which 
 I had imparted so much useful caution, and 
 other necessary information, to my audience." 
 On the receipt of my oificial dismissal, I stood, 
 therefore, in the extraordinary predicament of 
 having been commended and condemned for the 
 same thing — with this difference, that those who 
 commended were present at the Lectures ; and 
 those who condemned were not, ^nd only knew 
 of the sentiments I had delivered, from the re- 
 ports of persons w^ho were evidently interested 
 in misrepresentation. 
 
 To cherish approbation thus spontaneously 
 bestowed, and to allow but little comparative 
 weight or value to censure thus darkly implied, 
 it will be allowed was natural : in what de^rree it 
 was just, is now submitted to the impartial 
 public. 
 
 After this full and frank (perhaps tedious) 
 declaration of my aims and intentions, I cannot 
 foresee that any of my readers will deem it ne- 
 cessary for me to add further arguments in proof 
 of the moral value of my subject, and the conse- 
 quent propriety of my exertions, or the purity 
 of my motives. Probably all arguments on these 
 points which I may have any right to expect 
 
xxxvi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 will be followed by any degree of conviction, 
 should be drawn from the Lectures themselves. 
 
 With respect to the Notes. To argue past 
 forbearance from present severity, or to adduce 
 present severity in proof of past forbearance, 
 would, perhaps, be esteemed no very powerful 
 logic. Yet, I could wish the reader to remark 
 whether there be not a difference, with respect 
 to the manner of enforcing my sentiments and 
 introducing my characters on the stage, between 
 the discourses themselves, as they were originally 
 written and delivered, and what I have added 
 since I have felt and assumed the rights of a 
 man who has intended and endeavoured well, 
 and been ill requited for his endeavours, and 
 thwarted in the rectitude of his intentions. If 
 such a difference exists, I entreat him — guided 
 bv his own feelings — to place it to its true ac- 
 count. Further, as in the works of Rembrandt, 
 and some other masters, faulty parts sometimes 
 unite to produce a good general effect, I must 
 entreat him not to forget the tenour and general 
 tendency of my views : and rather to regard the 
 present fragment by the intention, as far as it 
 evinces itself, which w^ould have governed the 
 whole, if I had compleated my design, than to 
 scrutinise it in detail. When the heart is in- 
 
PREFACE* 
 
 xxxvii 
 
 dlting of a good matter/* the hand goes fear- 
 lessly to work, unrestrained by any littleness of 
 solicitude : if mine has been warm with honest 
 indignation or patriotic wishes, my writing could 
 not be less than bold ; and I must hope that but 
 few will think it has been more. The true ob- 
 ject of my solicitude has been to write so as to 
 evince that the purpose I wish to see effected is 
 desirable, and of some public importance ; by 
 shewing that the Art of Engraving, in the scope 
 of its possible energies, is more intimately con- 
 nected with the prosperity and renown of a great 
 commercial empire, and with the general hap- 
 piness of man, than has heretofore been generally 
 perceived — and to do this without rendering my- 
 self liable to that species of arrogance which 
 dares to anticipate the sentiments of the learned 
 or the great, or the decision of the public. I am 
 ready to own that the cold courtly caution of one 
 who fears to offend a feeble, more than he hopes 
 to gratify a generous mind, has not been mane. 
 I too much honour and respect the nobility of 
 sentiment which prompted Tacitus to teach that 
 as adulation prevails, the energies of national dig- 
 nity and individual genius must decline. I too 
 much fear the truth of Lord Strangford's apho- 
 rism, that the decline of public spirit, in 
 matters of taste, is a certain indication of politi- 
 
 2 
 
xxxviii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 cal decay." Yet, amid the hopes and fears on 
 this subject by which every reflecting mind is 
 alternately elated and depressed, I would solace 
 the Arts, as I solace myself, by the recollection 
 that the age and country in which we live, are 
 not the age and country of the Poet whom the 
 latter nobleman has delighted to honour : who 
 " lived poor and miserable, and died so ; though 
 he excelled all the poets of his time'^'' 
 
 J. L. 
 
 Inscription on the tomb- of Camocns,^ 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 Iixoi dhim, containing a brief statement of the Lec- 
 turer s object and plan — Early origin and uses 
 of Engraving — Of Chaldean^ Indian^ Egyptian, 
 cind Hebrew engraving — Engraved sacerdotal 
 ornaments of Aaron — Signets — Hieroglyphics 
 — Scarabees — The sarcophagus taken from 
 the French — Conjectures on the ancient mode of 
 engraving on precious stones and other very hard 
 substances — Of Etruscan^ Sidonian^ and Greek 
 engraving — Shield of Achilles and other classic 
 cal engravings — Greek gems — Error of can- 
 founding Grecian excellence in this or in any art 
 with absolute perfection — Of Roman gem-en-^ 
 graving — Vain endeavours of the Augustan age 
 to revive the art — Causes and consequences of its 
 decline-^^Summary. 
 
 B 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 Under the benign auspices of an insti- 
 tution, whose laudable object is the dis- 
 semination of such knowledge as may pro- 
 mote the general happiness of society, it 
 has become my duty to discourse from this 
 place on the art of Engraving. I must beg 
 leave to premise, that, this is not the place 
 from whence to teach the attainment of prac- 
 tical excellence to students in the art ; nei- 
 ther can I be supposed to have undertaken 
 to inform masters of its theory. A short, 
 but emphatic sentence of Dryden, (which 
 he applies to the state and condition of 
 painting in his time) contains, as I appre- 
 hend, a true specification of the object of 
 my present undertaking. I must endea- 
 vour 50 " to discoLirse of this noble art, that 
 those who before were rather fond of it, than 
 
2 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 knowingly admired it, may defend their 
 inclination^ by their reason^ that they may 
 understand those excellencies which they 
 blindly valued, so as not to be farther im- 
 posed on by bad pieces/V 
 
 The means whereby I propose to accom- 
 plish this object, are, to commence with 
 an historical sketch of the progress of en- 
 graving, from its origin to the discovery of 
 printing, (in the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury,) to follow this with explanations of 
 the various modes of engraving that are 
 practised, with a view to their being print- 
 ed ; and afterwards to dwell more particu- 
 larly on such passages in the works of the 
 several engravers, as may assist our critical 
 knowledge of the art. I shall occasionally 
 reflect on its moral influence and commer- 
 cial importance, and inquire into their 
 practical extension ; and finally, shall at- 
 tempt to ascertain and explain to you its 
 theory. 
 
 If it shall be objected that the theory 
 
 Preface to Drydeo's Du Fresnoy. 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 5 
 
 which should form the critic, and that which 
 should guide the practice of the student, are 
 essentially the same, my reply will be, that 
 if the student in engraving can derive bene- 
 fit from any principles or rules that I may 
 be able to suggest, I shall have but so 
 much the more reason to be pleased with 
 my efforts, and there is in the schools of 
 this country no public Professor of the art, 
 to complain that 1 have invaded his pro- 
 vince. 
 
 Of the difficulties or ease of the task 
 which I have undertaken, it would ill be- 
 come me either to boast or complain : I 
 shall endeavour to accomplish it to the best 
 of my ability, and as it will be the Jirst en- 
 deavour of the kind, I have reason to think 
 that you will receive it rather with indul- 
 gence than with severity. 
 
6 THE FIRST LECTURE, 
 
 Among the various arts which, by the 
 gradual development of human ingenuity^ 
 have decorated the fair fabric of civilized 
 society, that of Engraving is one of the 
 most ancient. It was the earliest mode 
 which the mind suggested, and the hand 
 of man attained, of imparting useful infor- 
 mation and of displaying ornamental art : 
 for the principal part of our knowledge of 
 the only nations that have emerged to mo- 
 dern notice, from the dark regions of re- 
 mote antiquity, we are indebted to engraven 
 records : the precepts and laws of the an- 
 cients were engraven on stone or on metal ; 
 the poems of Orpheus and Hesiod are said 
 to have been cut in lead, and the shields of 
 Hercules, and the heroes who distinguished 
 themselves in the early Theban wars,^ as 
 well as the more celebrated shield of Achil- 
 
 * In Eschylus's tragedy of the Seven Chiefs against 
 Thebes, the heroes are severally known at a distance by the 
 devices on their shields. Whether this poetical, be also ari 
 historical fact, the reader will determine. 
 
THE FIJIST LECTURE. 
 
 7 
 
 les, are described as having been ornamented 
 with heraldic and historical engravings.-:^ 
 
 Some have even supposed the art to be 
 of antediluvian extraction : the learning or 
 credulity of Josephus, discovered one of the 
 engraved pillars of Seth in a stone monu- 
 ment of Syria : whilst others, with as little 
 probability or reflection, have imagined 
 that the divine precepts which we are still 
 taught to obey, and which are reported to 
 have been engraven by the finger of 
 God," were the very first engravings pro- 
 duced, in point of time as well as impor- 
 tance : but however little an engraver 
 might be inclined to doubt that his art 
 has as fair a claim to divine origin as any 
 other, he is compelled on the same un- 
 questionable authority of the Pentateuch,+ 
 
 ^ In the Essay prefixed to his Biographical Dictionary 
 t)f Engravers, Mr. Strutt says, it has been constantly un- 
 derstood by the generality of authors, both ancient and mo- 
 dern, that these shields were ornamented with engraving 
 but the most classically learned of modern painters informs 
 me, that the shield of Hercules was sculptured in low re- 
 lief, with moveable parts that made a noise as it was shook 
 by the hero. 
 
 ^\ Genesis, ch. xxxviii. v. 18. 
 
S THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 to admit that signets, which presuppose an 
 art of engraving, were in use long before 
 this awful and mysterious aera ; yet were he 
 disposed to contend with the painter for the 
 palm of priority, he might do so with plau- 
 sibility at least, since the Decalogue, whidi 
 forbade the Israelites to w orship graven ❖ 
 images, says nothing of the far more fasci- 
 nating art of painting, so much more likely, 
 had it existed, to have seduced them to 
 idolatry. But, whether to delineate a form 
 by incision, or by difference of colour, on 
 a hard pr a soft substance, was first in- 
 vented, pan now be of little consequence ; 
 and if we agree not to bewilder or protract 
 our inquiry, by attending to miraculous 
 communication, or legendary tales of ante- 
 diluvian monuments, or the rival and 
 doubtful claims of Persia and China to the 
 most remote existence as nations, it 
 appear that the art of engraving, or of mak- 
 ing intelligible incisions on hard and du- 
 rable substances, originated either in India, 
 or in Assyria, or in Egypt. It may possi- 
 
 ^ A very appropriate term for the hieroglyphic epgrav- 
 
 iirjgs of Eg}^pt, 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 9 
 
 bly have travelled with the costly stones 
 which were not uncommon in the patri- 
 archal ages, from the mines of Hinclostan : 
 and the Hebrew patriarchs^ or their fol- 
 lowers may have learned to practise this 
 art, or at least to avail themselves of its 
 useful and ornamental advantages, from 
 their Assyrian ancestors, or from the Egyp- 
 tians. According to Moses, Abraham, who 
 sojourned in Egypt during a famine, was 
 the son of a Chaldean ; Cedrenus ^< say.^ 
 further, that his father, Terah, was a 
 maker of idols or household gods ; (which 
 were either carved or engraven) and 
 Dr. Hager, in asserting the high antiqui- 
 ty of the Assyrian empire, has produced 
 a valuable compendium of Chaldean art 
 and science. The remoteness of their astro- 
 nomical observations, the early grandeur 
 of their edifices, and the simplicity of a 
 mode of inscription w4iich does not appear 
 to be borrowed from that of any other peo- 
 ple, are strnng arguments in support of his 
 
 Cedrenus asserts, that Serag and Terali, the proge*- 
 nitors of Abraham^ were both makers of images; and adds, 
 that Abraham burnt the idols of Terah his father."- Hay- 
 ley's Essay on Sculpture^ p. 191. 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 opinion, that Assyria, (or Chaldea) of which 
 Babylon was the original metropolis, was the 
 most ancient of the Asiatic nations. Their 
 inscriptions (if not their astronomical ob- 
 servations) evidently shew the previous 
 existence of an art of engraving, being im- 
 pressed from intaglio stamps on bricks 
 found among the ruins of a very ancient 
 and magnificent city, on the banks of the 
 Euphrates, supposed to be Babylon. Of 
 these bricks many have been brought to 
 Europe, and some of them may be seen in 
 the museum of the Hon. East-India Com- 
 pany, but their characters no person hai 
 yet been able to read. 
 
 The same collection contains also a much 
 longer and more elaborate inscription^ said 
 to be Babylonian, and in extraordinary pre- 
 sei^ation. It is engraven on stone, and ap- 
 parently with such a tool as engravers em- 
 ploy at present : its characters, like those 
 on the Babylonian bricks, are formed as if of 
 nails, or rather, I think, of arrow or spear 
 heads ; and the very learned superintend- 
 ant of the museum, in his zeal for the re- 
 cords of antiquity, has had both this and 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 11 
 
 the inscriptions on the bricks accurately 
 copied and printed on paper, in the hope 
 that some person may be found who will 
 be able to decypher their contents. 
 
 Having seen this curious engraving, I am 
 free to confess that my own judgment would 
 have led me to distrust its antiquity, had I 
 not been taught rather to distrust my own 
 judgment. The engraving seems very 
 fresh, the accidental irregularities,-^ as well 
 as the smoothened parts of its surface, are 
 engraved over, and the stone, upon trial, 
 was found to be soft. I should even have 
 inclined to doubt whether a calcareous sub- 
 stance could have been preserved for so 
 many ages under a mound of earth, without 
 some transmutation of its substance — at least 
 to the depth of the twentieth part of an inch 
 from its surface, beyond which the engrav- 
 ing does not penetrate. 
 
 Comparing the inscriptions on the en- 
 
 ^ Those who had arrived at the art of cutting an iascrip- 
 tion^ could easily have squared a stone. 
 
15 
 
 THE FIRST LECTUItE: 
 
 graved cylinders of loadstone, jasper, and 
 chaicedony, in the British Museum, which 
 SQ^e generally esteemed Persepolitan, with 
 those on the Babylonian bricks, Dr. Hager 
 has, I think, satisfactorily shewn, that their 
 characters are Chaldean, or at least of Chal- 
 dean origin ; and the surmise of Raspe, that 
 they resemble the Chinese, and his infer- 
 ence that the Chinese character had for- 
 merly been known and cultivated to the 
 west of the Ganges, can no longer be en- 
 titled to credit. It is far more probable 
 that all the engravings with the arrow-head 
 inscriptions are of Chaldean derivation, 
 and as most of the cylindrical gems which 
 exhibit these characters, are perforated lon- 
 gitudinally, and appear to have turned on 
 a metal axis ; they are as likely to have 
 been used as seals, as they are to have been 
 worn as amulets. 
 
 Of the early productions of Babylonian 
 art^ which have been ascribed to the mag- 
 nificence of Semiramis, Diodorus has trans- 
 mitted a very particular description. It is 
 true, the mortal existence of the queen has 
 
THE fIRST LE€TURE. 
 
 13 
 
 recently been denied the palaces of Assy- 
 ria may perhaps be allowed to have stood 
 on a firmer foundation^ 
 
 " She buiitr says Diodorm, " two pa^ 
 laces, one at each end of the bridge, upon 
 the; banks of the Euphrates : that on the 
 west had a high and stately wall, upon 
 which were pourtrayed in the bricks, be- 
 fore they were burned,f all sorts of living 
 creatures, with great art, and in curious 
 colours. This wall was in circuit forty 
 furlongs, throe hundred bricks thick, and 
 in height one hundred yards, upon which 
 were turrets one hundred and forty yards 
 high. The third and innermost wall, which 
 immediately surrounded the palace, w^as thir- 
 ty furlongs in compass, and far exceeded the 
 middle wall both in height and thickness. 
 
 By Mr. Bryant, the boldest of modern mythologists, 
 f None of the Babylonian bricks brought to this coun^ 
 try appear to have been burned by fire, but hardened by 
 the intense heat of a vertical sun. If the Chaldeans laid 
 them for this purpose on the plains of Shlnaar, as they pro- 
 bably did, they might easily trace or engrave on them mea^ 
 horses, &c. while in their moist state, of the very large di.- 
 niensions that is here intimated. 
 
14 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE- 
 
 On this wall, and on the towers, were re- 
 presented the shapes of various animals, 
 artfully expressed, and in most lively co- 
 lours ; especially was represented a general 
 hunting of wild beasts, each four cubits 
 high and upwards, where Semiramis was to 
 be seen on horseback, striking a leopard 
 with a dart, and next to her, her husband, 
 Ninus, in close fight with a lion/* 
 
 In support of these remote and marvel- 
 lous accounts, Diodorus cites an authority 
 which has sometimes been doubted : but if 
 we compare the disputed fragments of Cte- 
 sias^^^ with an undisputed passage of the 
 prophet Ezekiel, the account of the former 
 will seem to be entitled to more credit than 
 some commentators have been willing to al- 
 low him. It is worthy of observation, that the 
 prophet is speaking expressly of the prone- 
 
 * Ctesias, a native of Chidos, was the favourite physi- 
 cian of Artaxerxes, and had consequently far better oppor- 
 tunities of accurate information respecting the antiquities of 
 this part of Asia, than the generahty of classic authors could 
 possess. 
 
 1 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE, 
 
 15 
 
 iiess of the Jews to idolatry at a very early 
 period: in the poetical elevation of thelan- 
 guage of prophecy, he personifies Jerusalem, 
 and says, that when in her youth she saw 
 men pour t rayed upon a wall — the images 
 of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermil- 
 iion,-:^ all of them princes to look to, after 
 the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, 
 the land oi theirs nativity, as soon as she saw 
 them with her eyes, she doated on them."l 
 
 The Ancient Universal History, in de- 
 scribing the costume of Assyria, (which does 
 not appear to have materially differed from 
 that of Persia) says, it was customary for the 
 people to wear seal rings* If this be meant 
 of the Assyrians of this early period, and 
 be supported on good authority, we need 
 
 It appears, from t!ie united testimony of the prophet 
 and the historian, that the incisions or impressions made in 
 the bricks while in their moist state, were afterward filled 
 with durable colour, like some of the Egyptian hieroglyphics^ 
 or as modern engravings on the precious metals are some- 
 times filled with enamel. 
 
 f i, e. of the nativity of the Jews. 
 
 X Ezek. ch. xxiii. V. 14, &c. 
 
16 
 
 THE FIRST LECTUREi 
 
 be at no further loss in accounting for the 
 origin, either of this custom among the He- 
 brews, or for that of the art of seal engrav- 
 ing. In three generations from Abraham 
 we read of a signet, which appears to have 
 been a personal ornament, as well as an in- 
 strument of ratification ; and when Moses 
 had liberated the Jews from Egyptian bon- 
 dage, and while they were yet wandering 
 in the desart, he was directed, as we learn 
 from the book of Exodus, to make a plate 
 of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the 
 engravings of a signet, ^' Holiness to the 
 Lord." He was also ordered to take two 
 onyx stones, and grave on them the 
 names of the children of Israel, according 
 to their birth, with the work of an engraver 
 (or plougher) on stone, like the engravings 
 of a signet.'' 
 
 Of the artists who executed these and 
 some other of the engraved ornaments of 
 the high priest, Moses has repeatedly made 
 very honourable mention. Bezaleel, who 
 appears to have been acquainted with the 
 arts of the jeweller and lapidary, as w^ell as 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 17 
 
 that of the engraver, is described to have 
 been " filled with the spirit of God in wis- 
 dom, and in understanding, and in know- 
 ledge, to devise cunning works ; to work in 
 gold, in silver, and in brass, and in cut- 
 ting of stones to set them ; and it was put 
 into his heart that both he and Aholiab 
 might teach them that were filled %vith wis- 
 dom to work all manner of work of the 
 Engraver a restriction which there is 
 abundant room to wish had continued to be 
 observed, since it is certain that many of 
 those who have shewn themselves filled 
 with folly, have since been initiated into 
 the mysteries of Bezaleel and Aholiab. 
 
 However this may have been, the scrip- 
 tural accounts of the engraving of pre- 
 cious stones in and before the time of Mo- 
 ses, are accurately detailed, and as they 
 shed no inconsiderable light upon the 
 migrations of art, and the history of 
 man, are curious and important: yet, cu- 
 rious and important as they must be al- 
 lowed to be, they are presumptively of 
 
 * Exodus, ch. XXXV, 
 C 
 
18 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 far less antiquity than the hieroglyphic en- 
 gravings, that still cover with a veil of mys- 
 tery the colossal wonders of the successive 
 capitols of Egypt. 
 
 The very ingenious Mr. Raspe has drawn 
 a plausible inference in favour of his opi- 
 nion, that India was the parent of Gem-en- 
 graving, from a local circumstance. The 
 art of engraving on substances which only 
 the diamond can penetrate, and only the 
 peninsula of India could supply, he seems 
 to think could have originated in no other 
 country. Commerce, attendant upon the 
 extending pomp and luxury of the East, 
 gradually transported these precious mate- 
 rials to the west and to the north ; but the 
 speculations of the Egyptians, according to 
 Mr. Raspe, would never have induced them 
 to break diamonds, or stamp them in mor- 
 tars, for the purpose of trying experiments ; 
 such speculations are more rationally to be 
 expected in the neighbourhood of the mines 
 of Golconda, the native country of the dia~ 
 moud and other hard stones, where their 
 properties and beauties must be ascertained 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 19 
 
 before they could become objects of expor- 
 tation. In a subsequent part of his Essay 
 he speaks of Hindoo engravings, and parti- 
 cularly of a lion in emerald in Mr. Wilkins's 
 collection, different in style, but equal in 
 merit, to the early gems of the Egyptians. 
 
 Ancient Hindoo gems, hoAvever, are very 
 scarce in comparison with the gems of 
 Egypt, or even with those esteemed Perse- 
 politan ; and when the imperishable na- 
 ture of their substances is considered, their 
 scarcity is certainly no corroboration of Mr. 
 Raspe's hypothesis. Indeed, much as the 
 tenor of this gentleman's treatise is to be 
 admired, I cannot think his reasoning in 
 this place will safely carry us farther than to 
 shew the Hindoo extraction of the lapida- 
 ry's prpcess, which in all probability was 
 invented before the engraver had learned 
 to exercise his art on the precious materials 
 produced from the mines of Hindostan. 
 
 But perhaps even the lapidary's process 
 was not at that time performed by means of 
 diamond powder. It appears to me more 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 probable that the Corundum stone (common- 
 ly termed adamantine spar) was used both 
 by the Hindoo lapidaries and the engravers 
 of Egypt : this spar has not been known in 
 England above thirty five years, and was 
 very imperfectly known until about six years 
 ago, its history and properties were com- 
 municated to the Royal Society by the 
 Hon. Mr. Greville, on unquestionable au- 
 thorities transmitted from India. It is at 
 present employed in the cutting and po- 
 lishing of precious stones, by the Indian 
 lapidaries, and also by those of China, and 
 has been so employed from time immemo- 
 rial : it is, of all substances, in point of 
 hardness, next to the diamond, and conse- 
 quently will operate on all stones that are 
 less hard, and as it is found in great quan- 
 tities in the peninsula of India, where the 
 natives use it as we do emery, it is very 
 likely to have been carried along with the 
 precious stones to Egypt ; or it is even pro- 
 bable that Egypt itself produces the Corun- 
 dum stone : from Mr. Greville s memoir, 
 combined with what is mentioned in the 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica under the article 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 21 
 
 Emerald," I am inclined to think, that if 
 the famous emerald mine in the Thebaic 
 desart should be re-discovered, its product 
 would be found to be no other than the 
 green Corundum stone. Pliny-:^ informs us 
 that the Romans used to import sand for 
 the purposes of cutting and polishing hard 
 stones, from Ethiopia and from India, which 
 sand was probably no other than the grit 
 or powder of Corundum. Had the Egyptians 
 possessed any better means of effecting this 
 purpose, it would probably have been 
 transmitted through the Greeks, and Pliny 
 would have known and mentioned it. 
 
 The birth-place of engraving is obscured 
 by clouds, which its own productions can 
 alone dispel. At present there is an appa- 
 rent, and perhaps a real, preponderance of 
 evidence, in favour of the opinion, that the 
 antiquities of Upper Egypt are covered 
 with the earliest productions of this art, 
 and the enthusiasm or observation of De- 
 non has taught him to think they will re- 
 
 * Nat Hist. b. xxxvL ch. 6. 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 main to the latest periods of time. On each 
 of their enormous blocks Denon fancied he 
 could set Eternal duration y deeply engraven ! 
 Even less fervid imaginations than that of 
 this celebrated French traveller, must be 
 struck with the magnitude, the remoteness, 
 and the obscurity of these sublime monu- 
 ments ! Having survived the meaning they 
 were evidently intended to transmit, their 
 very silence may seem to some minds to 
 check the vain hope of terrestrial immor- 
 tality ; while to the better hopes of the an- 
 tiquarian philosopher, they appear to con- 
 tain a latent light-invisible, and if the zo- 
 diac of Dendera has lately been relumined 
 by a distinguished antiquary of our own 
 country, we may surely indulge the hope 
 that the vast volumes of information pre- 
 sumed to be contained in these engravings 
 will finally be developed.^:^ 
 
 * See the Rer. Mr. Henley's very learned dissertation 
 on this subject, in the Philosophical Magazine, and also, 
 if I mistake not, in the Archeologia of the Antiquarian So- 
 ciety. 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 23 
 
 In the necessary moral and physical un- 
 folding of the human powers, the attempt 
 to describe and perpetuate a favourite idea 
 by delineating its form, is so simple, when 
 compared with the stupendous and intri- 
 cate construction of an alphabet, that we 
 cannot hesitate to suppose, that hierogly- 
 phic, or picture, writing, or engraving, 
 must have long, very long preceded the 
 invention of letters : both the old and new 
 worlds unite in attesting this as a fact. The 
 hard and beautiful stones, then, cut and 
 polished in India, when transported to 
 Egypt as articles of regal splendour, would 
 naturally have stimulated the Egyptian en- 
 gravers (even if we suppose them to have 
 been already acquainted with a substance 
 sufficiently hard to operate on the basalt, 
 granite, and porphyry, which their own 
 country produced) to inquire into, and dis- 
 cover, the means of rendering these seem- 
 ingly impenetrable substances subservient 
 to the powers and purposes of their art, and 
 having discovered them, the engravers 
 would bestow on such costly materials, the 
 highest efforts of their skill. 
 
t4 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE!. 
 
 The rudest hieroglyphic signets, of which 
 some are still preserved in the British and 
 other celebrated museums, are coarsely en- 
 graven on jaspers and cornelians, (burnt, 
 perhaps, in order to render them softer) 
 and apparently with a smaller tool of the 
 same kind as that with which the Egyp- 
 tians began the manual part of their 
 work, when they converted their obelisks, 
 sarcophagi, and the interiors of their 
 temples, into books of history, biiography, 
 and astronomy. It is obvious that in en- 
 graving works so large as the latter, the 
 lathe and wheel could not have been em- 
 ployed, and those who are sufficiently in- 
 terested in these distinctions, to inspect and 
 compare the scarabees and other hierogly- 
 phic gem-engravings in our national collec- 
 tion, may remark some, where the opera- 
 tion of a tool impelled by sudden blows, 
 and the very early state of art, are equally 
 evident : yet it is but fair to state in excep- 
 tion, that I observed the hieroglyphic in- 
 scriptions on the Canopuses in the very se- 
 lect and classic collection of Mr. Thomas 
 Hope, to have the same rough and chipped 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE, 
 
 25 
 
 edges, though these latter are certainly of 
 later date. On the whole, there appears 
 good reason to presume that hieroglyphic 
 engraving, both minute and colossal, was 
 practised in Egypt before the introduction 
 or invention of letters, or diamond-powder, 
 or the seal-engraver's lathe and wheel. 
 
 Of what metal or other substance their 
 gravers or scorping-tools were formed, or, 
 if of metal, how they were tempered, I 
 have not been able to discover. It is gene- 
 rally supposed that, even, in the present 
 improved state of chemistry, steel cannot 
 be rendered at once so hard and so tough 
 as would be necessary to penetrate porphyry 
 or jasper ; yet we know of nothing capable 
 of being converted into a scorping-tool 
 that is better suited to the purpose, and the 
 following remarkable passage in the book 
 of Job, may incline us to acquiesce in the 
 idea that steel was used, while at the same 
 time it informs us that the whole process 
 was not performed by it. The poem of Job 
 is supposed, on the best authorities, to be of 
 
 date anterior to the promulgation of the 
 
25 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 Jewish laws, and it will be obvious that the 
 passage in question alludes to the early 
 mode of inscription which we are now con- 
 sidering, and also, if I am not mistaken, to 
 the hieroglyphic engravings of the Egyp- 
 tians. " Who shall ordain now, that my 
 words shall be drawn ? who shall give that 
 in a memorial that they shall be delineated? 
 that with an instrument of iron^ and lead^^ 
 they shall be cut out in the rock for ever l"-:^ 
 
 The most simple and obvious construc- 
 tion we can put upon this passage is — not 
 that the same instrument was constructed 
 partly of iron and partly of lead ; nor that it 
 was an iron pen, (as it is rendered in the vul- 
 gar translation) but, that the hieroglyphics 
 were first cut in the rough with an iron or 
 steel instrument, probably urged by a mal- 
 let , such as is used by the statuaries of the 
 present day, and afterward finished more 
 carefully by the friction of some hard sub- 
 stance reduced to powder and applied with 
 
 * Job, chr xix. 23, 24r 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE, 2,1 
 
 lead ; for the softer ❖ or more porous the 
 metal with which it is applied, the more 
 rapidly will the friction operate ; and per- 
 haps the powder of the Corundum stone 
 may have been used by the Egyptian en- 
 gravers, on their large as well as small 
 works, from the very commencement of 
 the art. 
 
 In the course of revising and adding to 
 this lecture, since I had the honour of de- 
 livering it last season, and in consulting 
 and comparing the various authorities to 
 which it became necessary to refer, I have 
 seen that the learned author of the " Muni- 
 MENTA Antiqua,'* whosc opiuious must 
 ever be entitled to the most respectful no- 
 tice, has conceived, that a certain prepara- 
 tion of lead was used in engraving these 
 works. His words are : ^' I have been in- 
 formed by Dr. Moyes, one of the most 
 learned and ingenious chemists of this age, 
 that a certain preparation of lead, rubbed 
 
 * Lead and copper are still used for similar purposes by 
 the lapidaries and seal-engravers. 
 
58 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE- 
 
 With a blunt iron tool, will quickly wear 
 away the hardest basalt or granite ; which 
 circumstance may account for the manner 
 in which the ancient hieroglyphic Egyp- 
 tian figures were wrought on stones which 
 no modern tool hardly will touch. "-i^ I 
 must reluctantly observe here, that it would 
 have been more becoming the high charac- 
 ter of one of the most learned and ingenious 
 chemists of the age. if Dr. Moyes had in- 
 formed us what\ preparation of lead would 
 have this effect : I could then have com- 
 pared his hypothesis w ith my own, by sub- 
 mitting both to the unequivocal test of ex- 
 periment. 
 
 An examination of that ponderous and 
 magnificent trophy of British enterprise and 
 valour, which has been called the sarcopha- 
 gus of Alexander, and is now, with bolder 
 erudition, affirmed to have been also that 
 of the patriarch Joseph, will tend to corro- 
 borate the opinion which I offer as my 
 
 * Munimenta Antiqiia, vol. i. p. 4. note, 
 •f- A chemical friend of mine suspects that the calx of 
 lead had been tried; and found to have some effect. 
 
THE FraST LECTURE. 
 
 !29 
 
 own, of the mode of working employed by 
 the Egyptian engravers. On the outside of 
 the lower end, and in several other parts of 
 this surprising piece of antiquity, there oc- 
 cur certain unfinished passages, where the 
 more violent operation of a tool, impelled 
 by sudden blows, is evinced by the chip- 
 pings and roughness of the edges of the im- 
 perfect hieroglyphics. The difference be- 
 tween these passages, and the hieroglyphics 
 which cover the rest, and particularly the in - 
 side of the sarcophagus, and are finished with 
 considerable care and precision, Vt ould be 
 sufficient, I should presume, to establish the 
 opinion of its being an unfinished perform- 
 ance, if not of that which I have ventured 
 to advance of their mode of engraving; 
 though with all that can be s?dd or conjec- 
 tured on the latter subject, it should be re- 
 
 * As rnoch of this appearance as could be copied on u 
 reduced scale, may be traced in the aquatinta print [exhi- 
 bited at the time of reading the lecture] which Mr. Med- 
 land has engraven of this sarcophagus from the very accu- 
 rate drawing of Mr. Alexander: but those who are 
 deeply interested in the subject will do w ell to examine the 
 originaL 
 
30 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 collected, that patience and perseverance 
 have been in all countries virtues of early 
 growth, and perhaps the patience and per- 
 severance of Egypt might justly claim 
 much of the superiority which modern las- 
 situde is willing to ascribe to their instru- 
 ments. 
 
 At this early period, the gem-engravers 
 of Egypt appear to have conceived no 
 higher ideas of excellence, than consisted in 
 inscribing on the oriental precious stones 
 in intaglio, such memorials of science and 
 superstition as their priests and astrono- 
 mers wished to transmit, and as could be 
 designated by their real or imaginary re- 
 semblance or analogy to visible objects, or 
 by some connexion arbitrarily imposed. 
 This must have been at the first so very 
 rudely performed, that Avhat was intended 
 to represent one object gave the idea of 
 another, and perhaps was by a second ob- 
 server mistaken for something else. It may 
 be seen that their early representations of 
 visible nature, were as remote from accu- 
 racy as those of children and jsavages : 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 31 
 
 hence the necessity of having their works 
 understood would, in process of time, give 
 birth to the establishment of diagrammatic 
 conventional signs, (a grasshopper, an ibis^ 
 or any other object, must be engraven with 
 undeviating precision, according to a pre- 
 scribed form) which, it has been very judi- 
 ciously conjectured, the authority of the 
 Egyptian priesthood, co-operating with the 
 real or mistaken interests of society, would 
 easily accomplish, and which is strongly 
 attested by the exact similarity of the re- 
 curring hieroglyphics. 
 
 From these powerful causes, ancient en- 
 graving appears to have remained for cen- 
 turies in a state of Egyptian bondage, from 
 which she was at last liberated, partly by 
 the invention of letters, and partly by the 
 genius of Greece. 
 
 Such appears to me to be the least ex- 
 ceptionable mode of accounting for the ori- 
 gin and early progress of engraving. If I 
 have not taken a wider retrospect, I must 
 beg to have it recollected, that the question 
 
 1 
 
Si? 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 of the Egyptian, Chaldean, and Hindoo 
 claims to the most remote existence as na- 
 tions, has long baffled the learned, and may 
 still be considered as the darkest and most 
 intricate of the labyrinths of antiquity. 
 
 Of the gems which are spoken of about 
 five or six centuries after the period to 
 which we have been attending — if such 
 gems existed, among the personal ornaments 
 of Helen and Ulysses ; Helen's might have 
 been an intaglio of Egyptian workman- 
 ship, but that of Ulysses was more like- 
 ly the work of some Greek, or of some 
 Sidonian engraver : the dolphin which is 
 said to have brought Telemachus ashore 
 from a situation of great danger, formed the 
 device, and it was worn by the father in 
 grateful testimony of the miraculous pre- 
 servation of his son. 
 
 I have said, if such gems existed, because 
 the authorities of Plutarch, and Ptolemy- 
 HephiEstion, w^ho alone have mentioned 
 these facts, have sometimes been question- 
 ed : but the same enlightened antiquary 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE, 
 
 53 
 
 and scholar, who has strongly expressed to 
 me his doubts of their truth, has pointed 
 out some other classical engravings which 
 are mentioned by Homer, and are not less 
 worthy of your notice : he has also assisted 
 my inquiries by the liberal communi- 
 cation of his sentiments, and confirmed 
 my opinions, by their concurrence with his 
 own, respecting the celebrated shield of 
 Achilles. 
 
 When the disguised Ulysses is describing 
 to Penelope the dress worn by her husband 
 at the Cr-etan court, he says, according to 
 Pope's translation : 
 
 Illustrious on his breast, 
 
 The double-clasping gold the king confest, 
 
 In the rich zcoof a hound, mosaic drawn, 
 
 Bore on full stretch, and seiz'd a dappl'd fawn.'^ 
 
 1 am informed, that in the original, this 
 hound and fawn are not mentioned as being 
 embroidered on the robe, but as engraven on 
 the double-tongued broach, or breast orna- 
 ment, with which Penelope say^ she her- 
 self fastened his robe, when Ulysses de- 
 
34 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 parted from Ithaca on the Trojan expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 Sidon appears to have been about this 
 time a principal seat of decorative art. The 
 engraved cup which Telemachus received 
 from Nestor, was the work of a Sidonian 
 artist ; and the silver bowl wdth which he 
 was presented by Menelaus, from Sidon's 
 hospitable monarch came." Indeed the re- 
 peated mention which Homer makes of 
 this place, its artists, its workmen, and its 
 productions in ivory and the various me- 
 tals, may incline us to think that the mate- 
 rials imported at Tyre at this remote pe- 
 riod, were, in part at least, manufactured 
 at Sidon, and that these cities were respec- 
 tively the emporia of the arts and commerce 
 of the ancient world ; while a British poet 
 might indulge or deplore the idea that 
 Phoenician commerce, had supplied the he- 
 roes of Homer, and the arts both of ornar 
 ment and destruction, with materials from 
 the mines of his own country. 
 
 In the far-famed shield of x\chilles, the 
 
 1 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 35 
 
 arts of inlaying the incisions of the graver 
 with tin, gold, silver, steel (lowered to a 
 purple,) and occasionally with some black 
 substance, were added to that of engraving ; 
 all were united in a degree of perfection 
 that appeared godlike ! and when its elabo- 
 rate finishing is considered, and the vast 
 quantity of subject matter which its area 
 was made to contain, the combination of art 
 displayed on this shield must surely appear 
 so still. But both Le Clerc and Vleughel 
 in their etchings, and Pope in his annota- 
 tions on the Iliad, (though he consulted, 
 and is supported in his opinion by Sir 
 Godfrey Kneller) seem to be mistaken in 
 supposing the shield to have been divided 
 into equal compartments, each subject 
 forming a separate picture, and occupying 
 a sectorial space round the sun, moon, 
 and constellations, which they supposed to 
 have been embossed in the centre. 
 
 It is far more probable that Homer nl- 
 tended we should read the whole contents 
 of the sljield at a single view, and in its 
 upright position^ or, as it would appear, 
 
 B 2 
 
36 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 when suspended on the arm of Achilles. 
 The simplicity of Grecian art at this early 
 period ; its Egyptian derivation ; the si- 
 lence of Homer as to lines of demarcation ; 
 the absurdity and difficulty of contracting 
 some of the subjects and enlarging others, 
 so as to fill equal compartments, (which 
 would have obliged the artist to diminish 
 most the subjects of most importance,) and 
 the necessity there would have been to turn 
 round the shield in order to read it, all 
 conspire to persuade us that the several 
 subjects were represented on the same field, 
 in the manner of what is now termed a bird s- 
 eye view of an extensive country — the ho- 
 rizontal line of the sea being very high in 
 the picture, and bounding the terrestrial 
 part of the prospect. We have frequently 
 seen Cliinese porcelain, screens, &:c. painted 
 on this principle, with towns, capes, and 
 various other objects jutting out from either 
 side ; and we have recently seen our own 
 river Thames winding through this very 
 metropolis and its environs, with other 
 works of great merit, very scientifically re- 
 presented on this principle by Mr, William 
 Daniell. 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 31 
 
 The indefatigable sun, the fuU-orb'd 
 moon, the northern constellations, and the 
 heavens," (or clouds) would, according to 
 this supposition, occupy the segment, or 
 arch, above the horizontal line, constitut- 
 ing the upper part of the shield ; the town 
 in peace, with its senate and assembly of 
 the people, kc, and the town in war, with 
 its ambuscade and battle, would fill the 
 broader and more central part ; the agri- 
 cultural employments would follow succes- 
 sively in the order of the poem, while the 
 river, which Homer mentions as m-^^ander- 
 ing through the scene, would help to keep 
 its parts distinct, and the dance, Avhich he 
 has finished with great attention to the mi- 
 nutiae, constituting the fore-ground, would 
 fill the remainder of the shield — the whole 
 being encircled (if it were a circle) with a 
 simple waving line, such as is now very 
 fashionable, and as frequently occurs on the 
 Greek and Etruscan antiquities by way of 
 border. 
 
 But the arts both of Phoenicia and Greece 
 originated in Egypt. The same people 
 
58 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 who imparted the rudiments of their reli- 
 gion and philosophy to the Greeks, placed 
 in their hands those instruments of art, 
 which, on account of their extreme simpli- 
 city even at present, can have undergone 
 but little Variation from the beginning. We 
 have seen that with these they had made 
 considerable advances towards excellence, 
 even before the age of Homer : but with 
 Homer and Nature for their archetype and 
 guide, and with a system of heroic sentiment 
 and poetical mythology to stimulate their 
 exertions, they discovered and adopted 
 such modes of study, as gradually enabled 
 them to accomplish those works which 
 have commanded and received the warm 
 and genuine admiration of each succeeding 
 age, in proportion to the correctness and 
 refinement of its knowledge and taste. 
 From the top of Parnassus, Homer pointed 
 out those sublime paths which finally con- 
 ducted Phidias to the highest summit of 
 Olympus, and empowered the Grecian art- 
 ists to legislate for ages the most distant 
 and countries the most remote ! 
 
THE 
 
 FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 The complaints against the ruthless and 
 unsparing hand of Time, should be hushed 
 by the recollection, that twenty centuries 
 have elapsed, and the supreme beauty of 
 the Medicean Venus is still unimpaired ; 
 the divine majesty of the Apollo has firmly 
 withstood the efforts of the destroying 
 power, and even the more complicated pa- 
 thos of the Laocoon exists nearly in its ori- 
 ginal perfection ; while of those minute 
 and exquisite cameo and intaglio engrav- 
 ings, where the richness and beauty of the 
 materials, is only inferior to the skill of the 
 artists, thousands may yet be seen with un- 
 diminished delight, in the classic cabinets 
 of the Marlboroughs, the Carlisles, and the 
 Townleys of every civilised country of Eu« 
 rope. 
 
 The earliest Greek engravings extant, are 
 performed on scarabees, (which attest their 
 Egyptian extraction,) and are in point of 
 drawing, little better than the hierogly- 
 phics : they shew, however, that Greek ge- 
 nius laboured already to extend the graphic 
 art to portraits and historical subjects ; which 
 
40 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE, 
 
 is proved beyond all controversy, by the 
 additions of the names of Tydeus, Achilles, 
 Sec. which are inscribed in the early Greek 
 character on their respective gems. 
 
 In somewhat less than five centuries from 
 the sera of Homer, though perhaps at a 
 still earlier period, the art shone with a 
 transient splendour, (which is pathetically 
 lamented by Mr. Hay ley) in Etruria. He 
 thinks Etruria 
 
 Might have vied v^ith Attica in art, 
 
 Had she not fallen in her early bloom, 
 
 The stript and mangled slave of barbarous Rome.'^ 
 
 And the collection of the antiquities of that 
 country, deposited in our national museum 
 by the late Sir William Hamilton,^- are the 
 strongest confirmation of the truth of Mr, 
 Hayley's conjecture. 
 
 The father of Pythagoras the Wise, Avas a 
 
 ^ Though many of these are since knov\^n to be Greek, 
 some are undoubtedly Etruscan. 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 41 
 
 scal-engraver of this period, and is claimed 
 by the Etruscans as their countryman ; and 
 soon after (between the fiftieth and sixtieth 
 Olympiad) lived Theodore the Samian, who 
 engraved a famous emerald ring for the ty- 
 rant Polycrates, and who has been con- 
 founded with a real or fictitious Theodore 
 of much earlier date, the reputed inventor 
 of the turning-lathe, and lock and key. 
 
 " That art is long and life is short," has 
 been often repeated. It was still an hun- 
 dred and fifty years before Greece attained 
 that exalted perfection, which it has been 
 the custom of those professional writers^ 
 who haye chosen art for their subject, (and 
 whom wx may regard as travellers in a fo- 
 reign country, intent only upon its won- 
 ders,) to speak of, as if it were the lofty 
 summit of an Alpine mountain, scarcely 
 accessible, and perfectly untenable; for, 
 having attained this elevated station, art, 
 they say, must necessarily decline. But it 
 should rather be represented as resembling 
 those vast and elevated plains of South 
 America, replete with other than superfi- 
 
42 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 cial riches, inexhaustible in the variety of 
 their productions, and whose extent no eye 
 can discern. To beUeve that the utmost 
 hope of our studies is to appreciate merits 
 that modern art must despair to rival, can 
 have no beneficial consequence. It is not 
 only more consolatory to artists, and more 
 gratifying to man, but it has also been de- 
 monstrated to be more in accordance with 
 truth and nature, to believe that Greece 
 might have attained, (and that England 
 may attain,) a more varied, if not a more 
 exalted perfection in art, than we trace 
 even in the inestimable remains of Grecian 
 antiquity. To produce a continued or in- 
 creasing effect, there must exist a continu- 
 ally-operating cause, tantamount to its pro- 
 duction : if that cause be removed, the ef- 
 fect must cease, and it has been eloquently 
 observed by a powerful and consummate 
 artist and scholar, that, when the spirit of 
 liberty forsook the public, grandeur had 
 left the private mind of Greece. Subdued 
 by Philip, the gods of Athens and Olym- 
 pia migrated to Pella ; and when Alexan- 
 der became the representative of Jupiter, 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 43 
 
 we arc not to wonder that rhetoric mi- 
 micked the thunders of oratory ; that so- 
 phistry and metaphysic debate Avere substi- 
 tuted for that philosophy which had guided 
 life, and that the grand taste which had 
 dictated principle to art, began to give 
 way to turgid hyperboles and the little- 
 nesses of false refinement. 
 
 Lysippus, however, the first of gem- 
 engravers, and the firm adherent of truth, 
 who lived at this aera of adulation, nobly 
 reproved Apelles for this instance of his 
 flattery to Alexander, and Mr. Hayley has 
 recorded the circumstance, and the general 
 praise of Lysippus, in a style analogous to 
 his subject. He says : 
 
 " Ever, Lysippus ! be thy name rever'd, 
 By moral dignity of mind endear'd ! 
 Glory, well pleas'd, thy double worth beheld, 
 The matchless artist by the man excelFd ; 
 
 Thy upright spirit, 
 
 Scorning to favour impious pride's pretence, 
 Reproved thy friend Apelles, that he strove 
 To lavish lightning on a fancied Jove ; 
 And to thy statue, rationally grand. 
 Gave the just weapon of a hero's hand. 
 
 Thy taste ador'd 
 
 Truth, as the fountain both of art and fame." 
 
44 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 The decline of those virtues which ope- 
 rated to produce the perfection of the fine 
 arts in Greece, may be dated from the time of 
 Pericles ; the decline of the arts themselves 
 from that of Alexander. The retreat, how- 
 ever, of Athenian excellence, was firm, 
 slow, intrepid, and tempered with con- 
 scious worth, like that of their brave ten 
 thousand under Xenophon : like the ebbing 
 ocean, it retired with majesty, continuing 
 to the time of the Caesars to roll back forms 
 of surprising grandeur and inimitable 
 beauty ! 
 
 The retreat of liberty and the arts, made 
 way for the successive conquests of Sicily 
 and Macedonia, and the destruction of Co- 
 rinth ; and the sculptured heroes and dei- 
 ties, as well as the living artists of Greece, 
 served to swell the military triumphs of 
 the new mistress of the world : but the 
 triumphs of mere brutal strength, when 
 intellect is his victim, are the real disgrace 
 of man ; and since so many gems and other 
 illustrious examples of excellence have de- 
 scended to us, it may be said that Grecian 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 45 
 
 art, even in its minutest operations, has 
 more permanently, as well as more honour- 
 ably, triumphed in its turn, over the giant 
 power and barbarian arms of its Roman 
 conquerors. 
 
 It is well known that the fine arts never 
 flourished in ancient Rome. Augustus was 
 indebted for that portrait of himself which 
 he used as a signet, to the exotic skill of 
 Dioscorides, the power to execute which 
 was denied to the palsied growth of the in- 
 digenous art of the country. Augustus, 
 though blessed with the society, and aided 
 by the powers, of Virgil and Horace, Mecae- 
 nas and Ovid, and though ambitious of be- 
 ing esteemed the protector of talent, could 
 not, as has been well observed, raise a 
 Lysippus out of Roman clay." 
 
 The delicate plants which Mec^enas, and 
 the rest of the tasteful critics of the Augustan 
 age, had laudably transplanted to Rome, and 
 endeavoured to cultivate; withered under 
 the baleful influence of the adulation exacted 
 by the successors of Augustus, or were 
 
46 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURt. 
 
 blasted by their tyranny. The sublime 
 principles which taste and philosophy dur- 
 ing the succession' of so many centuries, 
 had gradually elaborated from the system 
 of nature and the elements of art, were su- 
 perseded by the frigid and ignorant imita- 
 tions, of men who wondered much, because 
 they knew little, and were compelled by 
 contemporary critics and collectors of Gre- 
 cian art, to perceive, or at least to acknow- 
 ledge the immense disparity between their 
 own efforts, and the bright examples of 
 Grecian excellence, which adorned the ca- 
 binets of the great : and while attention 
 and criticism were dissipated in petty efforts 
 to appreciate the degrees of Roman ap- 
 proximation to the great standards of the 
 Greeks, emulation sunk in despair, or was 
 overwhelmed by affectation and false refine- 
 ment. 
 
 Mankind have so long been accustomed 
 to bestow liberal applause upon their de- 
 stroyers, rather than their benefactors, that 
 we may be allowed to dwell yet somewhat 
 longer upon the philosophy of this part of 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 47 
 
 our subject. The fine arts, which, if cul- 
 tivated and encouraged upon legitimate 
 principles, might have perpetuated the 
 power of Rome, obedient to the dictates of 
 truth, have commemorated her disgrace with 
 her triumphs. Those arts, whose energies 
 alone could have checked or absorbed the 
 ambition of her crazy and intoxicated ty- 
 rants, and the superfluous Avealth of her 
 aggrandized citizens, and thus have pre- 
 vented, or at least have retarded, her ruin; 
 from being too late and injudiciously at» 
 tended to, became the flatterers of vanity, 
 instead of the monitors of virtue. The de- 
 corations, the riches, and the defence of 
 Syracuse, should have made Rome sensible ; 
 as the balance of power^ which Providence 
 has ordained shall preponderate with the 
 arts, should make modern Europe sensible, 
 that the increase of physical, as. well as of 
 moral strength, is always consequent to 
 real improvement in art and science : that 
 increase of strength Avas lost to the Roman 
 people, and the degradation of the empire, 
 followed or kept pace with the perversion 
 of art. 
 
48 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 Of the Roman gems engraven in the 
 reign of Tiberius, which have since been 
 found in the dark recesses of Caprea, I shall 
 say nothing — but that they are, in more than 
 one respect, too bad to be objects of our 
 present attention. 
 
 That talent for art, which the taste and 
 authority of Mecaenas and Augustus had 
 failed to produce, was not likely to be 
 afterwards excited by the mere influence 
 of fashion. The luxury of wearing both 
 cameo and intaglio engravings set in rings, 
 which began during the republic, went on 
 increasing under the emperors, notwith- 
 standing its excess was satirized by Juvenal. 
 Profusion is not elegance ; and Pliny says 
 that the Romans loaded their fingers with 
 princely fortunes. The same taste and the 
 same profusion, gradually extended itself to 
 the bracelets, ear-rings, clasps, kc. of the 
 women's dresses, and to the helmets, breast- 
 plates, sword-handles, scabbards, and even 
 the saddles of the military ; and the robes, 
 gowns, and shoes of the wealthy and the 
 great, were richly set and variegated with 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 49 
 
 engraved stones, while the larger cameos 
 had their places in the cabinet-work and fur- 
 niture of their houses ; and thousands of 
 gems set in gold and silver goblets and 
 vases, glittered on the side boards of the 
 opulent, or shone in the temples of the 
 gods. 
 
 Even the poorer ranks caught a taste for 
 engraved rings, and as they could not pur- 
 chase fine stones, the mode of imitating or 
 casting such in coloured glass was in- 
 vented ; which has been remarked as an im- 
 portant event in the history of engraved 
 gems. Their colour and brilliancy were 
 thus imitated, and the beauty of workman- 
 ship of the originals preserved with tolera- 
 ble fidelity. These are now called ancient 
 pastes ; they are not unfrequently found in 
 the vases of antiquity, and the art of casting 
 them has been re-discovered, and is at this 
 time exercised in great perfection by the inge- 
 nious Mr.Tassie, whose recent good fortunes 
 
 * When this discourse was first delivered, Mr. Tassie 
 had just been declared the fortunate possessor of the 
 Shakespear Gallery prize. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 THE FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 has diffused a general sentiment of pleasure 
 among his friends and acquaintance. 
 
 We have now traced this art through the 
 first cycle of its revolutions, guided chiefly 
 by its own inherent light. Like the great 
 source of light, the art of engraving arose 
 in the East : its first faint dawnings were 
 reflected in the Ganges, the Euphrates, and 
 the Nile : the obelisks of Upper Egypt are 
 its primaeval beams, and the cavern temples 
 of Isis and Osiris absorbed the radiance of 
 its morning : it afterward shone successively 
 in Persia, Etruria, and Phoenicia ; and gild- 
 ing Ionia and the Greek islands with unfad- 
 ing glory, passed through the constellation 
 of Athens with a splendour so unspeakable, 
 that the brightest emanations of Roman 
 art grew dim and finally disappeared in 
 its intensity ! 
 
 If the plunder of vanquished Italy is even 
 at this time operating a similar subjugation 
 of taste and style on the art of our transma- 
 rine rivals ; let us not triumph in what is not 
 the honourable result of our own exertious: 
 
THE FIRST LECTURE, 
 
 51 
 
 let us rather reflect whether every age of 
 art has not its appropriate pabulum, which 
 may best continue its existence, and pro- 
 mote its growth, Let us pause ere we 
 place nectar and ambrosia in the mental 
 nursery — Let us study what is fit for our- 
 selves. 
 
 e2 
 
LECTURE 11 
 
 Regret that history has neglected to record the in- 
 vention of die-engraving — Value of coins as an-- 
 cient records and as instruments of commerce — 
 JVumismdtic arts not known to the Egyptians^ 
 Assyrians^ Hebrews^ nor early Greeks — T^he re- 
 spective claims of Hindoostan^ Lydia^ and Egina^ 
 to this invention^ stated — Symbols on Greek coins 
 — That the art of die-engraving soon spread 
 through Greece^ hut travelled from Lydia to 
 Etruria^ and thence to Rome — Conjectures on 
 the coijis of Etruria, and on the origin of alpha- 
 betic characters — Establishment of the Roman 
 mint — Its excellence during the reign of Hadrian 
 — Personification of our own island on the Ro- 
 man money — Wishes that patriotic events might 
 now be recorded on our coins — Genealogy of 
 .engraving — Of British engraving prior to^ 
 and in the time of Alfred the Great — Antiquity 
 of the practice of sealing in Hindoostan^ and par- 
 ticular description of an ancient seal and copper- 
 plate engraving found in digging near the bed of 
 the Ganges — Of the ancient seals of Christendom 
 — Testimony of Ingulphus — Of the seals of St. 
 
64 
 
 Atigustittj Edward the Confessor^ and William 
 the Conqueror — -That English seals were an- 
 ciently impressed on lead — and then on wax — 
 Transition to engraved sepulchral monuments^ 
 which gave rise to engraving as it rvas practised 
 in Europe on the discovery of printing. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 It was the chief object of my former dis- 
 course, to lay before you a succinct account 
 of the rise, progress, and decline of the art 
 of engraving, as it was practised among the 
 most celebrated nations of antiquity, on 
 gems, and other costly and durable mate- 
 rials. I have now to advert to another oc- 
 casion, where Engraving employed her two- 
 fold power to multiply and perpetuate, per- 
 haps with still greater advantage to society; 
 and thence to trace her ameliorating pro- 
 gress through the dark ages that succeeded 
 the downfal of the Roman empire. 
 
 Though battles and massacres have been 
 detailed with the distressing accuracy of 
 barbarians who delighted to anticipate that 
 other barbarians woLild enjoy the bloody 
 repast they had provided, it is unpleasing 
 
56 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 to reflect that the progress of the arts of re- 
 finement has often been carelessly noticed 
 as only of collateral and inferior importance, 
 or has been altogether omitted by the an- 
 cient poets and historians. Modern lite- 
 rature has been more just to their merits : 
 Addison has written expressly on the use- 
 fulness of ancient medals," which is the 
 subject immediately before us, and the lyre 
 of Pope has sounded in its praise. 
 
 The invention of coining was not only a 
 very curious and useful adaptation of the 
 art of engraving to the purposes of society, 
 but is an important event in the history of 
 the world. Stamping impressions on me- 
 dals and money, was a mode of printing the 
 most eminently calculated to resist the at- 
 tacks of time, and also a mode of circulat- 
 ing and transmitting information, the most 
 certain, because itself constituted the woof 
 that gave texture to commerce, and strength 
 and extension to the bands of civil society. 
 If Truth, therefore, be the basis of History, 
 as surely it is. History must appear to have 
 been peculiarly ungrateful to an art of 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 5 7 
 
 which it may be no hyperbole to say that 
 it has contributed more than all other arts 
 to the detection of remote error, and the ve- 
 rification of fact: for, notwithstanding these 
 its extensive energies, and this its inestima- 
 ble importance, it is not known Avhen or in 
 what country money first became the substi- 
 tute for cattle, and unstamped bullion, as the 
 general representative of property and the 
 measure of value. The Egyptians do not 
 appear to have had any, while they remained 
 an independent people : none is mentioned 
 in history, and none has been found in 
 Egypt, excepting certain small thin pieces 
 of unstamped gold, the supposed fares of 
 the Stygian ferryman, in the mouths of the 
 mummies ; and even of this fact, though it 
 be mentioned by Pinkerton, there is rea- 
 son to doubt. The Assyrians, the ancient 
 Hebrews, and even the Greeks of the age of 
 Agamemnon, appear to have been equally 
 ignorant of the art of coining money, and 
 to have used cattle and bullion upon com- 
 mercial occasions : from the time of Abra- 
 ham's purchasing the cave of Machpelah, 
 down to a very late period, the Scriptures 
 
38 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 refer to the scales as a current test of the 
 value of metals and Homer says the ar- 
 mour of Diomedf cost only nine oxen, 
 while that which Glaucus generously gave 
 in exchange for it cost an hundred. 
 
 Montesquieu says that the Lydians first 
 found out the art of coining money. 1 he 
 wealth of their kings, and particularly of 
 Croesus, is still proverbial, and perhaps 
 from this very circumstance : but Pinker- 
 ton,:i: who appears to have considered the 
 subject attentively, is at last doubtful whe- 
 ther Lydia, or whether Egina, or any other 
 of the free commercial cities of Greece, 
 may claim the honour of the invention. 
 His reasoning on the subject, as it throws 
 light on the general progress of art, may 
 not be unworthy of your notice. He says, 
 there is great room to believe that coinage 
 was invented in Lydia, though other na- 
 
 ^ Genesis, ch. 23. 
 f Iliad, Book vi. 
 
 J See his essay on medals, from which I have borrowed 
 largely, and where the reader may still collect much valua- 
 ble information on the subject. 
 
THE StCOND LECTURE. 59 
 
 tions had before this, used unstamped pieces 
 of metal, and the small civic coins of gold, 
 electrum, and silver, struck in Asia Minor, 
 are perhaps some of the earliest^ though, if 
 we may judge from workmanship, these 
 coins are so exquisite^ that the coins of 
 Greece, from their rudeness, appear to 
 claim priority of era. In short, all other 
 countries are out of the question, but whe- 
 ther Greece or Lydia first invented coinage 
 seems dubious. 
 
 Now the Lydians were of the same ori- 
 gin with the Greeks, both being of Thrace ; 
 and it is not improbable, that with equal 
 ingenuity, and a soil far more propitious^ 
 the Lydians were the real parents of many 
 Grecian arts* The recollection that the 
 Etruscans were a Lydian colony, appears 
 strongly to confirm this supposition ; yet I 
 must add, that the rudeness of the engrav- 
 ing affords no solid^ invariable criterion, 
 either of the antiquity of the coin, or the 
 general state of art in the country where it 
 was struck ; for while the coins of Sicily, 
 and even those of the remote colony which 
 
60 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 settled at Cyrene in Africa during the he- 
 roic ages, are engraven with exquisite skill, 
 the Athenian coins of the same date are in- 
 variably ill executed, though Athens was at 
 that time the centre of art and politeness. 
 
 On the whole, it is probable that the Ly- 
 dians invented^ and the Greeks very soon 
 adopted, the art of engraving dies and 
 stamping money. Its great and obvious 
 commercial advantages, and the similarity 
 of the reverses on the coins of both coun- 
 tries, which, (if I might indulge a conjecture 
 on such a subject) appears to be intended 
 to spare the trouble of weighing, by denot- 
 ing the value of the coin, seem to counte- 
 nance this opinion. 
 
 Of these early coins there are eleven on 
 silver in the late Dr. Hunter's cabinet, and 
 they are not uncommon elsewhere, bearing 
 the tortoise, the badge of the Peloponnesus, 
 in cameo, on one side, and on the other, 
 those remarkable indented squares which 
 correspond with the reverses of the Lydian 
 money, and which, if they did not mark 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE, 
 
 6i 
 
 the weight or standard goodness of the silver, 
 were perhaps only the impression of a sort of 
 small square anvil, grooved at right angles, 
 so as to keep the bullet of silver steady be- 
 neath, and prevent it from slipping, while 
 it was struck or stamped from above. The 
 earliest of these coins have no legends or in- 
 scriptions on the squares, but it seems to 
 have been soon perceived that the reverse, 
 as well as the obverse, might be made to 
 convey information, and on those which 
 were struck soon after, where the tortoise 
 is executed in abetter style, a small dolphin 
 is engraven on one of the indented squares, 
 and on two of the others is an inscription of 
 four Greek characters, which Mr. Pinker- 
 ton supposes an abbreviation of Egina ; 
 where, according to some authors, the first 
 Greek money was struck, by Phidon king 
 of the Argives. Phidon's reign is fixed by 
 the Arundelian Marbles, which are them- 
 selves among the most celebrated and va- 
 luable of engraven records, at about eight 
 centuries before the Christian era, or soon 
 after the age of Homer. 
 
621 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 Some have supposed that the art of en- 
 graving dies was known at a much earlier 
 period in Hindoostan, and in the Numisma- 
 tic collection now forming by the Honour- 
 able East-India Company, is a gold coin 
 which was found among the treasures of 
 Tippoo Sultan, to which the Hindoos paid 
 a superstitious homage, and assigned an an- 
 tiquity of upwards of four thousand years. 
 It was understood to have been formerly 
 dug up near the royal palace of Mysore; 
 like some of the coins of our own Cunobe- 
 lin, it is disked, but to a much greater 
 depth ; and within the concavity is the 
 figure of Rama,-:^ a sovereign and deity in- 
 carnate of the Hindoos, who is said to have 
 reigned forty centuries ago. He is repre- 
 sented as seated on a throne, with his wife 
 Seeta, and attended by Hunnoomaun, a sort 
 of familiar spirit who accompanied Rama in 
 the fonii of a monkey in his wars against 
 
 * The Hindoo's had at least three Ramas, the Bow- 
 man, the Plough-man, and the Hatchet-raan, "Who were 
 probably the authors, or introducers, of these several invcn-r 
 tions. 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 63 
 
 Ceylon ; and on each side of the throne are 
 engraven three figures, holding the um- 
 brella and the cowtail-fan, the emblems of 
 Hindoo royalty. 
 
 On the reverse, or convex side of this 
 curious coin or medal, is a horoscope, and 
 in a very ancient Sanscreet character, the 
 name JVdrayana Pdla: in all probability 
 the horoscope and name of the sovereign in 
 whose reign it was really struck. The 
 whole is engraven in very low relief, and 
 the two triangles which form the horoscope, 
 are evidently done with a small flat scor- 
 per. Though it is in low relief, its conca- 
 vity, its being of gold, and the veneration 
 which has been paid this coin, has pre- 
 served its workmanship tolerably entire, 
 and from a MS of Major Allen, which ac- 
 companied it from India, I learn that other 
 coins, of the same kind, though not all im- 
 pressed from the same die. have sometimes 
 been seen in Hindoostan; but they are very 
 rare, and like the penates or household- 
 gods of most ancient nations, are revered 
 
64 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 and decorated with flowers by their fortu- 
 nate possessors. 
 
 The very learned superintendant of the 
 Honourable Company's museum, however, 
 by no means concurs in this opinion of the 
 very remote antiquity of the Mysore coin, 
 and thinks that others in the same collection 
 are probably much older : these are also of 
 gold, but in a style of art very superior to 
 this, and somewhat resembling the early 
 Greek. 
 
 It was the common policy, and is still 
 the general custom, of the Orientals, to 
 connect religion with royalty in the devices 
 which they adopted for their money • Hence 
 deities and sovereigns, either named or re- 
 presented, commonly appear on the same 
 coin. On one of these of which we are 
 treating, is a figure which Mn Wilkins 
 supposes to be that of Rama the bowman, 
 who was one of the Bacchuses of India, and 
 who is represented standing with his bow, 
 and attended by a mythological eagle, which 
 bears a considerable resemblance to that on 
 the standards of ancient Rome. An en- 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 65 
 
 throned deity sits on the reverse, holding 
 the reins of government in one hand, and 
 in the other a cornucopia, with his head 
 surrounded by a halo or circle of glory. 
 
 On the whole, though there may be 
 great room to conjecture, there is at pre- 
 sent none to conclude, that the numisma- 
 tic art is of Hindoo origin : but every in- 
 formation on this interesting subject may 
 reasonably be hoped from the learning, 
 zeal, and assiduity of those who now pre- 
 side over the departments of oriental art 
 and literature. 
 
 A coin once seen, particularly if attended 
 with the rude and clumsy appearances of 
 early contrivance, would suggest to an in- 
 genious mind the means of its production- 
 if, therefore, but a single Hindoo coin can 
 now be produced, the date of which is un- 
 questionably earlier than the first Greek or 
 Lydian money, the honour of the invention 
 should be awarded to India, and it would 
 presumptively follow, that it travelled with 
 
66 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 the precious stones from the Asiatic conti- 
 nent. 
 
 However this may have been, the fre- 
 quent intercoui^e which then subsisted, 
 soon spread the art of die-engraving 
 through Greece, and each of her commer- 
 cial cities learned to impress on its coins its 
 respective symbol. Athens had an owl, 
 Thessaly a horse, and Argos a wolf's head.-i^ 
 The same crescent which then shone on the 
 coins of Byzantium still waves on the 
 Turkish banner, and its adoption originated 
 in the signal repulse of Philip of Macedon : 
 Philip w^as about to storm Byzantium + on a 
 cloudy night, when the moon suddenly 
 shining out, disclosed his intention, and 
 enabled the citizens to defeat his project. 
 The moon, Hecate, or Diana^ was hence ve- 
 nerated as the bearer of light, and preserver 
 of Byzantium, and when the Turks possess- 
 ed themselves of the city^ ignorantly suspi- 
 
 See Pinkertoii on Medals, vol. i. p. 192, where many 
 other ancient Greek symbols are mentioned. 
 
 f Historia Byzantina. Constantinopolis Christiana, lib. i, 
 p. 7. 
 
- THE SECOND LECTURE. 67 
 
 cioLis of lurking magic, they thought to pro- 
 pitiate its unknown powers, by assuming 
 the symbol. 
 
 Montescjuieu however argues, from He- 
 rodotus, and his own observation of the 
 Pembroke cabinet, that the earliest Athe- 
 nian coins bore the impression of the ox, 
 which it originally represented in value, and 
 Dr. Henry ^< says the earliest coins of all 
 countries are embossed with the figures of 
 the cattle for which they became the sub- 
 stitute as a current measure of value ; he 
 seems even to regard this circumstance 
 as a test of the antiquity of coins : but as 
 the use of unstamped bullion, the value of* 
 which must have been estimated by its 
 w eight and degree of purity, preceded the 
 invention of coining, it is at least as ra- 
 tional to suppose that the inventors, or 
 those who first availed themselves of this 
 art, would be solicitous that the weight, 
 and consequent value of money, should be 
 known by inspection. 
 
 ^ Hist, of Great Britain, vol. i, p. 402; 403. 
 F 2 
 
68 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 Many of these early Greek coins, which 
 may still be seen in the cabinets of the cu- 
 rious, are beautifully executed, and in higli 
 relief; but, as I have already observed, not- 
 withstanding the general superiority of Athe- 
 nian art, the coins of Athens are a remark- 
 able exception, exhibiting no better speci- 
 mens of this supreme degree of excellence, 
 than do the notes of the existing banks of Eu- 
 ropeof the perfection of the modern art of en- 
 graving on copper. In this particular respect, 
 therefore, as well as in many others, those 
 who are entrusted with the direction of these 
 important national concerns, are perfectly 
 Attic — not that I should have mentioned 
 this circumstance for the mere sake of in- 
 troducing a compliment, though it be well 
 deserved; but while these gentlemen, ne- 
 glecting to avail themselves and their re- 
 spective countries, of the talent and inge- 
 nuity which they might command, seem to 
 w^ait for a miracle to preserve them from 
 forgery, others may be allowed to think it 
 no miracle if they are not preserved. 
 
 In order to account for this inferiority of 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 69 
 
 the Athenian coinage, it has been conjec- 
 tured that the die-engravers of Athens were 
 So much admired, and so anxiously sought 
 for, abroad, that there were no good ones 
 left at home ; but, an artist who is con- 
 scious of possessing great powers, will ra- 
 ther employ those powers on imperishable 
 materials, such as the costly oriental stones, 
 than on works where the obliteration of his 
 merit is in proportion to its usefulness, and 
 where every day's friction, by impairing 
 the beauty and delicacy of his execution, 
 brings the most exalted talents nearer to the 
 level of the meanest. 
 
 On the great artists of Athens, ever alive 
 to posthumous glory, such sentiments as 
 these must have had considerable influence, 
 and if they found encouragement in gem- 
 engraving, we need not be much surprised 
 that they left the dies to those of inferior ta- 
 lent. Again, from the great number, and 
 almost equally great variety, of Athenian 
 coins now in existence, it would appear 
 that their dies were of some soft metal, 
 easily cut, and soon worn out, and that the 
 
70 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 cheapest, and consequently worst, workmen^ 
 would on this account have been employed^ 
 even though the best had not been more 
 agreeably and more reputably engaged. In 
 short, die-engraving appears not to have 
 been honoured at Athens as an art, but re- 
 garded merely as a common trade.^ 
 
 The operation of coining was at that time 
 performedf simply by the stroke of a ham- 
 
 * I am here so powerfully reminded of the state of mo- 
 dern engraving in this country, that if my hopes, notwith- 
 standing recent occurrences, were not stronger than my rea- 
 soning, I should say that the same fate is even now in ope- 
 ration, and will inevitably befal the art of engraving on 
 copper, for principle is immutable. The present race of 
 engravers, if they may claim that honour, are probably the 
 last that will be honoured with the appellation of artists : 
 mere manual dexterity and visual accuracy, will be substi- 
 tuted to the high mental requisites of the art, and the less 
 enlightened part of posterity will view with surprise the 
 wretched engravings that England will produce, long be- 
 fore the close of the nineteenth century. 
 
 ^ It is to this day performed in the same manner, and 
 die-engraving, with the same clumsy facility, in such parts 
 of the world as are not in a state of improvement. A friend 
 of mine, who was collecting materials illustrative of the 
 costume of India, visited the mint at Patna, and while he 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 71 
 
 mer, the die being cut on a sort of punch. 
 Apparently there was more than one re- 
 verse engraven on the same piece of metal, 
 and in the carelessness of hasty striking, 
 the Avorkmen sometimes let the bullion slip 
 aside, in which cases we see, as is not un- 
 common on old coins, that the reverse and 
 obverse have not coincided, and that with 
 an incomplete reverse appears part of the 
 curve of another : perhaps, too, the same 
 row of reverses were not all of the same 
 subject, and thence one source of the va- 
 riety of the coins of Athens. It may also 
 be worth remembering, that the bullion 
 was not cut into cylindrical pieces, as is 
 now the practice, but, as I have before in- 
 timated, each piece was of a sjpherical form, 
 which accounts for the very high relief 
 by which some of the coins and medals of 
 antiquity are distinguished, and also for the 
 cracked edges we so frequently observe in 
 
 w as making a drawing of the place, a die or punch w^s en- 
 graven, with the initials of his name, and twelve impres- 
 sions were presented to him at his departure. 
 
12 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 old coins, proceeding from the force of the 
 blow which became requisite. 
 
 I conceive that in the ordinary course of 
 ancient money-coining, a row of balls of 
 bullion was hastily placed, and presump- 
 tively in a heated state,-:- in a row of ma- 
 trices by one workman, another held the 
 punch over them in quick succession, 
 which a third struck with a large sledge- 
 hammer. 
 
 The Lydian colony which settled in 
 Etruria is supposed to have carried thither 
 the art of coining, and to have communi- 
 cated it to the Romans in the reign of Ser- 
 vius TuUus, or about four hundred and 
 sixty years before the commencement of 
 our aera. The early coins of both Etruria 
 and Rome, are not struck with a hammer, 
 but cast ; nor are they of gold and silver, 
 as the Greek, but of copper and brass, and 
 
 ^ I am Informed that Mr. R. P. Knight has a Sicilian 
 coin, which exhibits the appearance of the metal having 
 run, from being over-heated. 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 73 
 
 both are impressed with tlie rude figures of 
 cattle, from whence the Latin term pecunia 
 is derived. 
 
 On the reverses of those Etruscan coins 
 whose obverse is an ox or a bull, is a de- 
 vice which has been thought to resemble 
 the bones of a fish, and which has given 
 rise to various opinions. Reflecting on 
 this singular mark, and on Dr. Henry's ge- 
 neral assertion,':^ I have been induced to 
 add^ though not much^ to the numerous 
 conjectures respecting it. I think it majj 
 have been intended to denote the frac- 
 tional part of tlie value of an ox, for which 
 it was current ; because, though these 
 coins are large and heavy, their material 
 is only copper, which could not, as Mon- 
 tesquieu and Dri Henry, if literally in- 
 terpreted, would suggest, render them of 
 equal value with an ox. 
 
 Again, Etruria at that thiie had tio nu- 
 
 ^' That the earliest coins of all countries are marked with 
 the figures of cattle. 
 
74 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 merals : this mark may therefore have been 
 used to denote the number of nails, or ar- 
 rows, or some other simple and portable 
 species of property, which had also been in 
 use as money among the native inhabitants 
 before the arrival of the Lydian colony, 
 and for the value oi' which these pieces be- 
 came current. Cattle could not have been 
 used for the more trifling purchases in any 
 country, without manifest inconvenience. 
 No man would give an ox, or even a kid, 
 for a hide or a basket. Property less valu- 
 able, or more portable and divisible in its 
 nature, must therefore have been also in 
 use as a circulating medium ; and as salt is 
 said to be thus used in Abyssinia, and cow- 
 ries on the coast of Africa, so it is more 
 than possible that nails and arrow-heads 
 were occasionally used by the orientals as 
 money, in their smaller purchases. The 
 learned author of the Inquiry into the Na- 
 ture and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," 
 Avho has amplified the inconvenience of 
 vising cattle as an instrument of commerce 
 with his usual perspicacity, speaks of a vil- 
 lage in Scotland, where, in his time, it w^s 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 75 
 
 not uncommon for workmen to carry nails, 
 as money, to the baker s shop or the ale- 
 house. 
 
 It is digressing from our proper subject^ 
 yet it may not be unworthy of collateral no- 
 tice, that nails, or the heads of arrows, thus 
 used as money by the aborigines of Assyria, 
 (who had no coinage, though they had en- 
 gravers) may possibly have been the remote 
 origin of numerical, logographic, and finally 
 of alphabetic characters. The present art 
 of writing, or of transmitting thought by 
 soilnd, and depicting sound by intricate 
 combinations of abstract forms, though as- 
 sociated in infancy with little difficulty, is 
 too vast and complicated for the human 
 mind to have accomplished but by degrees. 
 Perhaps three nails, or arrows, accidentally 
 or designedly disposed in a triangle, or any 
 other supposed form, might have suggested 
 to some Babylonian genius, that the en- 
 graved representation of three nails thus 
 combined, might be made to signify the 
 basket or piece of pottery, to which they 
 bore some reseml)lance in shape, and were 
 
76 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE, 
 
 equivalent in value : the same genius would 
 readily infer, that the same number of nails^ 
 when combined in some other form, a zig- 
 zag, for example, might, upon the same prin- 
 ciple, be made to denote some other com- 
 modity or article of traffic of equal value^ 
 and thus, the known value of a thing might 
 become current, or represent in engraving 
 or writing, as well as in commerce, the 
 thing itself. It is true that these conse- 
 quences could only result from mutual com- 
 pact, and if any disagreement should hap- 
 pen between the parties concerned, it 
 would give rise to such a confusion of writ- 
 ten, though not of oral, language, as we 
 read did actually take place about this time 
 in the plain of Shinaar. But it is time to 
 return from the obscurity of conjecture, to 
 better authenticated facts. 
 
 On the coins of some of the cities and co- 
 lonies of Greece, the art has transmitted 
 many interesting and exquisite examples of 
 beauty, and of the charms of their poetical 
 mythology ; but she learned the most use- 
 ful application of her powers under Ro- 
 
THE 1SEC0ND LECTURE. 
 
 77 
 
 man auspices. Under Roman auspices 
 she became the auxihary of history, and 
 learned to commemorate events; and to 
 communicate the wisdom and the vir- 
 tues, with the portraits, of the statesman, 
 the hero, and the sage : but, under Roman 
 auspices, she was also compelled to stoop 
 and prostitute her pov/ers in flattering the 
 most unworthy of mankind. The Virtues 
 appear without impropriety on the medals 
 of Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the Anto- 
 nines, but what shall Vve say to Clemencij 
 and Moderation being represented on the 
 coins of Tiberius ? or to the legend which 
 states, that ^' while Commodus reigns, the 
 world is blest?" Has adulation been so 
 extremely abject ? or have the conductors 
 of the Roman coinage dared to be ironical 
 under the most sanguinary and disgusting 
 of tyrants ? 
 
 The establishment of the Roman mint 
 was on a scale corresponding with the im- 
 portance of the empire. The engravers 
 we.re respected, as conducing in the exer- 
 cise of their art, both to the strength and 
 ornament of the state, and were styled Ca- 
 
78 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 latores : those who assayed the bullion were 
 called Spedatores^ and the refiners Cenarii. 
 Beside whom there were the Fusarii, or 
 melters ; the Equatores Monetarum^ who 
 adjusted the weight ; the Supposlores^ who 
 put the pieces into the dies, and the Mai- 
 leatores, who struck them.-:^ At some time 
 it should seem that other implements than 
 hammers, were used by the Romans to 
 strike their money. Bouteroue says, that 
 in a grotto near Baiae was a picture of the 
 Roman mintage, where a machine was re- 
 presented which upheld a large weight, 
 seemingly with the intent that the coin 
 should be impressed by its falh 
 
 The best of the Roman medals, as well 
 as gems, are the work of Greek artists : and 
 the best dies were cut during the reign of 
 Adrian, when genius, discouraged from her 
 nobler flights, seemed for a while to have 
 taken up her residence in the Roman mint. 
 
 * Some other officers, who were appointed at different 
 periods of the empire, are enumerated by Pinkerton, with 
 his usual accuiacy. See Essay on Medals, vol, i. p. 51. 
 to 54. 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE, 
 
 79 
 
 The personification of our own island 
 first appeared on the Roman imperial coins. 
 On those of Claudius, Adrian, Antoninus 
 Pius, Commodus, and Severus, the Britan- 
 nias are numerous, and it is worthy of re- 
 mark, that she appears in a style, and ac- 
 companied by attributes, which may appear 
 to a native of this island, prophetic of her 
 present grandeur and importance — seated 
 on a globe, on a rock, or on the Gram- 
 pian hills ; or standing erect, her right 
 hand resting on a rudder, with a ship s 
 prow in the back-ground. 
 
 It has been the earnest wish of many dis- 
 tinguished characters, among whom we 
 may recollect with advantage the names of 
 Pope and Addison, and, if I heard aright, 
 that of your lecturer on history, that this 
 country would adopt the ancient practice 
 of commemorating important events on the 
 reverses of its coins. I do not see that 
 any other than beneficial consequences, 
 both to present and future times, could 
 result from its adoption, and we have dqw^ 
 
80 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 an engraver at the head of the mint, whose 
 talents are fully adequate to the task* 
 
 Surely it would be not less gratifying to 
 the statesman or the admiral, to see his 
 great deeds interwoven with the vital 
 threads of that commerce which they had 
 promoted, than to anticipate what may be 
 sculptured on his monument. The real 
 Kings Arms is the British thunder ! and it 
 might thus continue to reverberate through 
 time and space, when it is either successfully 
 wielded at the the mouth of the Nile, or 
 launched on the Atlantic ocean. Warmed 
 by such wishes, the muse of Mr. Pope 
 breaks forth with more than her accustomed 
 fervour. 
 
 Oh when shall Britain, conscious of her claim. 
 Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame ? 
 In living medals see her wars enrolled." 
 
 Pope was, however, very far from wish^ 
 ing that only victories should be thus re- 
 corded : he knew that a thousand battles 
 might be rendered useless, or worse than 
 useless, by a single thought of a man or 
 woman of genius, and would have blushed 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 81 
 
 to have found it necessary to compare 
 {their real advantage to society being the 
 test) the discoveries of Locke, Bacon, 
 or Sir Isaac Newton, with the most bril- 
 liant victories that were ever obtained. 
 Had he lived in our time, he w^ould pro- 
 bably have desired that a coin should be 
 struck when Cooke returned from circum- 
 navigating the globe ; or w^hen a tedious 
 and destructive war was terminated by an 
 honourable peace ; or when Great Britain 
 was politically vmited to Ireland ; or when 
 the Royal, British, or London Institutions 
 were established. Genius in art, science, 
 or literature, is more rare, as well as more 
 intrinsically valuable, than in war: Gar- 
 rick has well observed, that, 
 
 " xve have thousands that fight ; 
 
 But one, only one, like our Shakespear can write 
 
 and if Pope has dwelt with less heroic ef- 
 fort, he has not dwelt with less obvious 
 pleasure, upon the arts of adornment, than 
 upon those of destruction. With the zeal 
 of a poet and a philosopher, in which we 
 may honestly join, he is desirous that the 
 
82, 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 verse and sculpture should bear an equal 
 part, 
 
 And art reflects its images on artT 
 
 and the sincerity of his attachment to the 
 union of patriotic with private virtue, is 
 evinced by the conclusion of his epistle; 
 where he is also desirous that a distinguish- 
 ed states man, who had shewn himself the 
 common friend of art and man, should 
 shine on the prest ore. 
 
 Not to occupy too much of your time 
 and attention with numismatic concerns, 
 I must here omit even a brief notice 
 of the various exertions and vicissitudes 
 which the civilized world has seen, of this 
 very useful and interesting department of 
 engraving, in order to approximate toward 
 that which is more particularly the object 
 of our discourses. 
 
 Of the art of engraving so as to yield nu- 
 merous impressions^ the intaglio gem-en- 
 graving of the an(:ients is the root, and die- 
 sinking is the earliest scion. To follow the 
 latter through all its various ramifications 
 is not necessary on the present occasion, 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 83 
 
 neither do I profess to be qualified to speak 
 critically of the productions of either of 
 these arts ; but to say thus much appeared 
 indispensable in the view I had taken of 
 this part of my subject, Avhich is designed 
 to exhibit a sort of genealogical succession 
 of those causes and effects which have pre- 
 ceded and produced, that mode of sculpture 
 performed by incision, which we now tech- 
 nically and specifically term Engraving. 
 
 How early the art revived, or whether it 
 was indigenous or transplanted, among the 
 Celtic and Gothic natiotis, might be diffi- 
 cult to determine. The uncouth poetry 
 and shapeless sculpture of those progenitors 
 of modern Europe, are to be seen in almost 
 every region of the globe, from Caucasus to 
 the northern extremities of Siberia. Indeed, 
 so interwoven are the elements of art with 
 the nature of man, that it may be said there 
 is scarcely a spot either in the old or new 
 world, and scarcely an island in the vast 
 expanse of the Pacific Ocean, but exhibits 
 efforts in engraving and the other arts of 
 perpetuity, more or less rude or refined, 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 That it was rudely practised by our war- 
 like ancestors from the earUest periods, is 
 attested by that very inteUigent antiquary 
 and artist, the hite Mr. Strutt ; he says, that 
 their instruments of war, and other remains 
 found in the British and Saxon tumuH, fre- 
 quently bear marks of the graver ; and the 
 numerous coins of Cunobelin, must satisfy 
 every one of the existence of this species 
 of engraving, as early as the reign of that 
 monarch — the father of Caractacus. 
 
 After passing the distressing period of 
 Roman and Danish ravages, the soul of an 
 Englishman flutters with fond delight over 
 the name and the memory of Alfred, and 
 seems to hold dalliance with all that is dear 
 to his loyal and patriotic feelings, Under 
 the protection of that excellent monarch,'* 
 says Strutt, " the arts began to manifest 
 themselves in a superior degree. He not 
 not only encouraged such artists as were in 
 England at the time, but invited others 
 from abroad ; and the works of the Anglo- 
 Saxon goldsmiths, (the principal engravers 
 of that day) were held in the highest esteem 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 85 
 
 upon the continent, as well as in their na- 
 tive country. The shrines and caskets 
 which they made for the preservation of 
 the rehques of saints and other pious pur- 
 poses, are said to have been curiously 
 wrought in gold, silver, and other me- 
 tals ; ornamented with precious stones, 
 and engravings in so excellent a style as 
 to excite the admiration of all who 
 saw them.'' Mr. Strutt proceeds with an 
 earnest wish that a sufficient number of 
 specimens of the works of the artists of this 
 early period could be procured, by which a 
 complete judgment might Be formed of the 
 degree of perfection to which they had arriv- 
 ed. There is however, yet preserved in the 
 museum at Oxford, a very valuable jewel, 
 richly adorned with a kind of work resem- 
 bling fillagree, in the midst of which is 
 seen the half figure of a man, supposed to be 
 St. Cuthbert ; and the back of this curious 
 remnant of antiquity is ornamented with fo- 
 liage, very skilfully engraved. Thisjewxl 
 is known to have been made at the command 
 of Alfred the Great, and was one of the very 
 few articles he could have carried with him 
 
86 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 when he retreated to the isle of Athelney, 
 where it has since been found.^- 
 
 Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, who 
 died in the year 988, is mentioned by the 
 early historians as an artist. He painted 
 and worked in the precious metals, fre- 
 quently adorning his works with images and 
 letters which he engraved thereon. Osbern, 
 his biographer, calls him the first of en- 
 gravers ; but it has been emphatically ob- 
 served, that he who could add the title of 
 saint to the name of Dunstan, would not 
 hesitate to call him a Raphael in painting, 
 or an Audran in engraving ; and the speci- 
 men of his drawing preserved in the Bod- 
 leian library, leaves us little to regret in the 
 entire loss of his engravings, 
 
 Since I had the honour of addressing you 
 last year, it has been pointed out to me that 
 I had then omitted all particular notice of 
 the engraved metal seals or signets of the 
 
 ^ Mr. Strutt has given a faithful representation of it, iit 
 the second volume of his Chronicle of England. 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 87 
 
 middle ages, and the revival or introduc- 
 tion of the practice of sealing in England. 
 This is certainly no unimportant branch of 
 the genealogical tree, and I shall hope to 
 apologize for its not appearing then, by en- 
 grafting it now. 
 
 It is perhaps not totally unconnected 
 with this revival, that the custom of ratify- 
 ing grants of land by a seal, prevailed at a 
 still earlier period in the peninsula of In- 
 dia, where not only the matrix of the seal, 
 but the whole deed of transfer was also en- 
 graven, on a plate or tablet of metal. One 
 of these, which is a grant of land, in the 
 Sanscreet language, and now in the possession 
 of the Right Hon. the Earl of Mansfield, has 
 been inserted with an English translation 
 by Mr. Wilkins, in the first volume of the 
 Asiatic researches.-^ It is dated twenty- 
 three years before the birth of Christ, and 
 it is further remarkable, that the date is ex- 
 pressed in Hindoo numerals^ which for the 
 most part very much resemble the numerals 
 at present in use. 
 
 * P. 123; &c. 
 
88 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 Another of these grants, of nearly the 
 same age, which is likewise engraven in (the 
 Sanscreet language) on copper, and which 
 the same oriental scholar has undertaken to 
 translate, has a seal appendant, which seal 
 is impressed on a ponderous lump of cop- 
 per, and is attached to the deed itself by a 
 massy ring of the same metal. 
 
 It appears to me, on a careful inspection, 
 that this seal is not cast, (as had been sup- 
 posed) but is struck, as coins are struck : but 
 whether it be cast or struck, the matrix 
 must have been an intaglio engraving, and 
 of no mean workmanship. It exhibits a style 
 of art similar, and not inferior, to the best of 
 the present productions of the art of Hindoo- 
 stan. It is in high relief, and, being bedded 
 in the metal, in good preservation. Its sub- 
 ject is mythological its form a circle, of 
 about ten inches in circumference, and the 
 weight of the copper on which it is 
 stamped, not less than four or five pounds. 
 
 Beside human figures and animals, it contains a San- 
 screet legend, or inscription, of \\ hich the meaning is simply 
 the Illustrious Karna Deva," 
 
THE SECOND 
 
 LECTURE. 
 
 89 
 
 In apology for this particularity of descrip- 
 tion I must add, that at the time I wrote it, 
 I did not expect to have been able to exhibit 
 the seal and plates themselves, which, by fa- 
 vour of Mr. Neave of Wimpole-street, I am 
 now enabled to do. They were presented to 
 that gentleman by Merza Hazy, grandson 
 of Shah Alum, the present emperor of Hin- 
 doostan, and were found in digging a foun- 
 dation within the scite of the ancient fort of 
 Benares, on the banks of the Ganges. 
 
 On the whole, this seal may be regarded 
 as a highly interesting example of ancient 
 Hindoo engraving, and is itself evidence, 
 that at the time when it was executed, the 
 art was very far from being in its infancy. 
 
 That the custom of sealing in Europe is 
 derived from Hindoostan, I neither presume 
 to assert nor deny. Those who may incline 
 to the negative opinion, will yet perceive 
 that these Hindoo grants connect them- 
 selves with our subject, as being the oldest 
 engravings of that country, of which the 
 exact date is ascertained, and as carrying 
 back the existence of the art in India, to a 
 
90 
 
 tHE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 a more remote, but indefinite period. The 
 existence of numerals in India a thousand 
 years before they were known in Europe^ 
 is also remarkable ; yet, notwithstanding 
 these, and that the practice of sealing on 
 lead was introduced into Europe about the 
 same time as the numerals,-:^ there is reason 
 to suppose that sealing may have been de- 
 rived immediately from the Romans, who,, 
 as well as the Greeks, are known to have 
 been scrupulously observant of the custom 
 of sealing their letters. 
 
 Pursuing this supposition, it would appear 
 that some sparks of light were elicited from 
 hostile collision ; and that though Christiani- 
 ty and the northern nations had overthrown 
 and buried the religion and the political 
 institutions of ancient Rome in promiscu- 
 ous ruin, engraved seals continued, where 
 the least information remained, to be ne- 
 cessary to the ratification of legal transac- 
 
 * Both sealing, and the nine numerals, which we are 
 supposed to have obtained from the Arabs, may possibly 
 have been brought from India by means of the Saracens, 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 91 
 
 tions, and the secrecy of written correspon- 
 dence: they served alike to shelter igno- 
 rance, and to display or expose the incon- 
 siderable remains of European taste and in- 
 telligence : he who could not subscribe his 
 name, might affix his seal ; and he who 
 could, might shew his knowledge and his 
 judgment, or the extent of his power, in 
 the device he adopted, or was able to pro- 
 cure. 
 
 Of these seals, some were raked up from 
 the ruins of departed greatness, others re- 
 vealed the poverty of the talent of Christ- 
 endom, and both descriptions attested the 
 miserable state to which the knowledge of 
 classic art and literature were reduced. 
 Pepin of France sealed with an Indian 
 Bacchus, and Charlemagne f sometimes with 
 
 * The reader will find this, with many other curious 
 and valuable facts relative to ancient engraving, in Raspe 5 
 preface to Tassie's Catalogue. 
 
 ^ The seal f this brave and powerful prince, formed 
 the pommel of his sword, and he was accustomed to aaj^ 
 
 With the point I will support what I have sealed witli 
 the hilt," 
 
92 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 a head of Jupiter Serapis, which it has been 
 conjectured they mistook for St. Peter and 
 St. Paul ; and in Lewis's curious tract on 
 the subject of ancient seals, is an account 
 of an antique gem, which happening to 
 contain three figures, was christened the 
 Holy Trinity, and used as a seal. 
 
 It may be presumed, however, that many 
 Christian gems remained in use, Clemens^^ 
 of Alexandria having long before this pe- 
 riod, and while the art of engraving on 
 gems was still poorly practised, exhorted 
 his fellow-labourers in the gospel to reject 
 pagan and use religious symbols, such as 
 the monogram of Jesus, a dove, a fish, an 
 anchor, the ark of Noah, or the boat of St. 
 Peter : of the latter subject Lewis has co- 
 pied an impression, where St. Peter is re- 
 presented in the act of drawing his net — a 
 seal with which some of the early popes 
 were accustomed to sanction their bulls. 
 
 The beautiful art of engraving on gems 
 
 Clemens lived about the close of the second century. 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 93 
 
 might be contemned by the ignorance,' 
 while money, and the means of issuing it, 
 would be eagerly retained by the avarice 
 and the ambition of those who had seized 
 on the shattered fragments of the Western 
 empire. A gem would have broken under 
 the force necessary to impress it on metal, 
 whilst iron or brass would receive and 
 transmit the shock without injury : hence, 
 while gem-engraving shrunk from the in- 
 clemency of the times, the hardier art of 
 die-engraving remained — barbarised and 
 debased indeed, but not extinct. 
 
 The Roman sealing-substance, and the 
 art of engraving on gems, disappeared about 
 the same time. What this substance was, 
 I am not able precisely to say. It is de- 
 scribed, not very intelligibly, as being " a 
 kind of chalk or soft earth," which the Ro- 
 mans imported from Asia, and moistened 
 with saliva, (as wafers are moistened at pre- 
 sent) to receive the impression. It is not 
 improbable that the means of obtaining this 
 substance, or perhaps the knowledge of the 
 substance itself, was lost in the darkness of 
 
94 THE SECOND iECTURE, 
 
 the middle ages, and no adequate substitute 
 presenting itself, they had recourse to lead. 
 
 Lead is known to have been used in our 
 own country, for the purpose of sealing, by 
 St. Austin, the monk, who lived at the 
 close of the sixth and beginning of the se- 
 venth centuries : it is supposed to have 
 been used one hundred and fifty years after- 
 ward by king Offa^ and presumptively con- 
 tinued in use wherever sealing was practised 
 in Europe, till about the beginning of the 
 eleventh century. 
 
 I have purposely expressed myself with 
 some doubt respecting the seal of Offa, be- 
 cause, though my Lord Coke has said that 
 the chirograph or charter of King Offa, 
 
 * W. de Thome affirms that Ai^stm the monk used ta 
 seal on lead;, and that they had in the nionastery named 
 after him^ a seal antiently belongiiig to some foreign bishop, 
 inscribed SigiUum protomartyris Stephaniy which may, 
 without much hazard of mi>stake, be classed with the re* 
 liques of the day, as an instrument of pious fraud. Both 
 these seals were presumptively brought from Rome. : 
 
THE SECOND ^LECTURE. 
 
 95 
 
 whereby he granted Peter-pence-:^ to sup- 
 port an English school at Rome, " doth yet 
 remain under seal^'' yet Madox has denied 
 this, and thinks if it could be seen, it would 
 appear to be a forgery. That it was a forgery 
 may be presumed^ but has never yet been 
 proved; and that it could be seen in Som- 
 ner's time, is evident from a MS note of his 
 in that copy of the first volume of Sir Henry 
 Spelman's Councils, which belongs to the 
 library of Christ -Church, Canterbury; 
 wherein he has written that Ofia's char« 
 ter is with the primate of Ireland,'' but 
 Lewis, who gives this anecdote, adds^ that 
 Somner does not say it is under a seal of 
 w^ax, more probable it is that the seal is of 
 lead- if there be any/' 
 
 Ingulphus, the learned abbot of Croyiand, 
 
 * These Peter-pence were to be paid annually by every 
 family in his kingdom whose yearly income was not less 
 than thirty pence. I have read that OfFa was bom deaf, 
 and lame, and blind : tlie number of kingly works that are 
 ascribed to him, teach us rather to think that he had better 
 ears, stronger limbs^ and keener eyes^ than liis cpntempo- 
 varies. 
 
96 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 (who had been a great traveller, and was se- 
 cretary to William the Conqueror) says 
 that the Normans, disliking the English 
 manner of ratifying their chirographs, or- 
 dered them to be confirmed by impressions 
 on wax ^ from the special seals of every one 
 of the parties, and attested by witnesses/ 
 From his testimony it appears, that seals 
 were by no means common in England. 
 Probably, as invaders are generally unen- 
 lightened, this country was more deeply in 
 the shades of ignorance than the rest of Eu- 
 rope, and the art of engraving them had 
 scarcely dawned here before the time of 
 Alfred. Ingulphus expressly says, that 
 lands were formerly granted or disposed of 
 without writing ; sometimes by word of 
 mouth ; sometimes a turf of the land granted 
 was laid with religious ceremony on the 
 holy altar ; and sometimes the lord gave to 
 the tenant, a sword, bow, helmet, arrow, or 
 drinking-horn,-:- to certify the transfer. 
 
 * Lewis says, that a Mr. Pyssey of Berkshire, had in 
 his possession a drinking-liorn inscribed, I King Knoute 
 (Canute) have given thee this horn to hold thy land by/' 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 97 
 
 Recollecting Alfred s jewel, which, with 
 its curiously engraved setting, I have al- 
 ready mentioned, it would appear that the 
 means of engraving metal seals could 
 scarcely have been unknown here in the 
 time of Ingulphus. Perhaps seals were 
 sometimes used, though not impressed on 
 wax. Dugdale has observed, that Edward 
 the Confessor's charter to the Abbey of 
 Westminster is sealed, and is the first of 
 the kind we have in this kingdom but as 
 this prince is known to have received his 
 education in Normandy, it is more than 
 possible that he may have introduced, 
 among other Norman usages, this of ratify- 
 ing charters by a sealofwa*:^. 
 
 The seal of William the Conqueror is 
 still appendant to the charter by which he 
 endowed Battle Abbey, and may be seen in 
 the Cottonian Library. Its style of design 
 and workmanship, as might be expected, 
 is heraldic, graceless, and dry : its subject, 
 a knight,-:^ or more probably a duke, in 
 
 * Da Fresne says, that anciently in France noblemen 
 acquired the privilege of sealing at the age of twenty-one^ 
 
 H 
 
9^ TME SECOND LECTURE, 
 
 compleat armour ; with the king crowned, 
 a sword in his right hand, and a globe sur- 
 mounted by a cross in his left, on the re- 
 verse. 
 
 From this period, the use and sacredness 
 of seals, went on increasing in the public 
 estimation, so that by the time of Henry I. 
 their devices, forms, and sizes, appropri- 
 ated to the different ranks in society, were 
 gradually settled — even the etiquette of 
 sealing on different coloured waxes, was 
 ascertained with sufficient scrupulosity. 
 
 I have examined the brass matrix of a seal 
 which was used during the reign of that 
 monarch, which is in good preservation, 
 and now in the possession of the reverend 
 and learned Secretary to the Society of Anti- 
 quaries. It is an intaglio of considerable 
 depth, appears to be the work of some die- 
 sinker of that period, and to have been^ 
 
 at which time they were knighted^ and that esquires did not 
 obtain it till the year 1376, and when they were created 
 knights altered their seals. 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 99 
 
 executed partly with gravers and scorpers, 
 and partly with punching implements. It 
 belonged to Walter de Banham sacrist of 
 St. Edmundsbury, and represents the head 
 of St. Edmund the king and martyr ; a 
 wolf ; and a tree resembling an artichoke : 
 but^^ the head is larger than the wolf, and 
 scarcely less than the tree, and the whole is 
 surrounded by the rhyming motto Osten- 
 dunt Signum^ Rex Lupa Lignum, with the 
 name of Walter, or Galteri^ placed between 
 the rhyme. Its subject is taken from an 
 incredible legendary tale respecting St. Ed- 
 mund, which those who delight in such re- 
 lations may read in Matthew of Westmin- 
 ster.^^ 
 
 I have not thought it necessary to pur- 
 sue the inquiry into this mode of seal-en- 
 graving, through the stages of its progres- 
 sive improvement. It continued, and still 
 continues, to be performed with the same 
 implements used in the same manner ; or 
 
 ^ P. 165, edit. Francof. I6OI. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 at least with no other variations than have 
 been produced by the gradual improve- 
 ment of society operating on the peculiari- 
 ties of individual talent ; and the detail 
 of its productions would probably afford 
 little interest, but as they are connected 
 with feudal and religious contests, and no 
 further elucidation of our subject. 
 
 You will do engraving the justice to 
 bear in remembrance, that I am here but 
 urging my way through the chaos of the 
 art, in order to arrive at the purer elements 
 that lie beyond, and must be content to 
 
 tread the crude consistence, half flying, 
 half on foot;" marking the spots of lucid 
 capability, and labouring to render the 
 least untractable of its materials, subser- 
 vient to the means of passing it. 
 
 Soon after the conquest, says Mr. Strutt, 
 (though, from other information, I think 
 it must have been at the least two hundred 
 and fifty years from that memorable 3era) 
 a new species of engraving, entirely diffe- 
 rent from the mingled w^ork of the engraver. 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 101 
 
 goldsmith, and chaser, which had preceded 
 it, was introduced into, or invented in, 
 England, of which there is scarcely an old 
 country church of any consequence but af- 
 fords some curious specimens, and England 
 more than any other nation in Europe, 
 
 The brass plates on our old sepulchral 
 monuments are executed entirely with the 
 graver, the shadows, where shadowing is 
 attempted, being expressed by lines or 
 strokes, strengthened in proportion to the 
 required depth of shade, and occasionally 
 crossed with other lines, a second, and 
 in some instances a third time, precisely 
 in the same manner as a copper-plate is en- 
 graven that is intended for printing. These 
 engraved effigies are commonly found on 
 those horizontal tombstones which form 
 part of the pavement within the churches ; 
 and the feet of the congregation, which 
 kept the lights bright by friction, filled 
 the incisions with dust, and thus darkened 
 the shades : very neat or exquisite work- 
 manship is not therefore expected ; yet 
 some of them bear no small evidence of the 
 
102 
 
 THE SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 abilities of the monks, or other workmen 
 by whom they were performed. 
 
 The art of engraving has served alike to 
 enlighten the darkest and embellish the 
 most enlightened periods of history. In 
 the early Gothic, Gallic, and Saxon sig- 
 nets, it flung a faint ray of intelligence 
 athwart the gloom of unlettered centuries. 
 From the art of necessity has proceeded 
 the Jine art. The rough arm of labour has 
 gradually submitted to the guidance of 
 the delicate finger of taste. The beauti- 
 ful engraving ; the exquisite graces ; the 
 mental and manual ability, which we ad- 
 mire in the Battle of La Hogue, and the Di- 
 ploma of the Royal Academy, are displayed 
 principally with the same simple instru- 
 ment, which cut the seals and sepulchral 
 inscriptions of which we have been dis- 
 coursing. 
 
 In this view of our subject it may 
 therefore be said, that the kind of engrav- 
 ing that is more especially the object of 
 these Lectures, has arisen from the tombs 
 
THE SECOND LECTURE. 103 
 
 of our ancestors. — But as we now approach 
 the aera which must be regarded as the 
 most memorable and interesting in the his- 
 tory of the art, I shall beg leave to pause, 
 that we may enter upon the consideration 
 of engraving as combined with the art of 
 printing on paper, with refreshed atten« 
 tion, on a future evening. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 Reasons for altering the Lecturer s former plan — Of 
 technical terms — Definition and subdivision of 
 Engraving' — Of engraving on Wood — Of Vig-^ 
 7iettes — Of engraving on Copper — Of Etching — 
 Of Mezzo tint 0 scraping or engraving — Eirors of 
 a popular writer respecting it — Of Stippling or 
 engraving to imitate chalk drawings^ as it was 
 practised by the early Italian masters^ by De 
 Marteau^ and by Ryland — That the mistakes 
 of Print-dealers respecting this mode of art^ has 
 retarded the progress of English engraving — 
 Of Aquatinta as it was practised by St. JS^on and 
 Le Prince — Of Mr, P. Sandhys improvements in 
 aquatinta — Want of public discrimination between 
 worthless and sterling engravings^ regretted — 
 That proposals for anonymous engravings should 
 le discouraged on principle — Best rule of prefer- 
 ence betweeen projected engravings to be derived 
 from the known talents and reputations of the 
 artists who are to perform them — Excellence of the 
 machines invented to facilitate etching by Mr. Wil^ 
 son Lowry — Of etching through Soft Ground and 
 on Stone — Of the respective local energies of the 
 
io6 
 
 various modes of engraving — Of the terms Ge- 
 neral and Particular ; Beautiful^ Sublime and 
 Picturesque- — Of Count Goudt's print of the 
 Aurora — Mis-use of the word Colour — Of 
 Middle-tint — That Engraving is not an art of 
 copying Paintings but affords the means of trans- 
 lating it — Error of colouring engravings — Rea- 
 sons ryhy stippled engravings when printed in 
 colours^ can rarely possess any value as works 
 of art. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 Before we proceed further with the 
 historical progress of the art tinder our 
 consideration, I have, on reflection, thought 
 it would be an improvement of the course 
 I pursued last year, to interpose, between 
 my accounts of the ancient and modern 
 modes of engraving, some explanation of 
 the respective local powers and susceptibi- 
 lities of those modern modes, and of such 
 technical terms as appertain to the art, as 
 it is exercised at present, and has been ex- 
 ercised for the last three hundred and fifty 
 years : by which means I conceive, we shall 
 keep what I have called the genealogy of 
 the art more distinct than formerly, from 
 the art itself — or from that branch of it 
 which is intended to be more especially 
 the subject of these Lectures. 
 
108 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 Truth advances as error is made to re- 
 cede. As error is never more stubborn than 
 when backed by prejudice, I shall discourse 
 also (and somewhat at large) on certain po- 
 pular mistakes respecting this art, which 
 prevail to a lamentable extent ; which must 
 be the source of much regret to professional 
 engravers of merit, and the operation of 
 which must considerably diminish both the 
 pleasure and the profit it is capable of im- 
 parting to the public. 
 
 Lavoisier remarks, in the preface to his 
 new system of Chemistry, that he found by 
 reforming the nomenclature, he improved 
 the science itself. If therefore we could 
 render more clear and determinate the 
 Language^ we should necessarily elucidate 
 the Philosophy-'^ of the art under considera- 
 tion ; and though I may have reason to think 
 
 ^ Aware that this word originally meant the love of 
 wisdom, it may not be unnecessary to apprize the reader 
 that I here use it to denote the science of connecting prin- 
 ciples, which, as nearly as I can ascertain, is its modern 
 acceptation. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 109 
 
 that want of learning, and want of the au- 
 thority which is due to learning, do not 
 entitle me to hope that permanent or ex- 
 tensive benefit will result from any efforts 
 of mine, (which considerations will cer- 
 tainly induce me — at least for the present, 
 to restrict those efforts from their full scope) 
 it is still my duty to enable you, if I can, 
 to refer the examples, I shall eventually 
 have the honour of submitting to your 
 notice, up to some general heads. The ad- 
 vantages that chemistry would have de- 
 rived from isolated experiments, would 
 have been comparatively trifling, but for 
 the nomenclature which enables us to class 
 their various phsenomena ; and it is the same 
 with regard to engraving, for, as we have 
 yet seen no Academy instituted for the ac- 
 quirement and liberal communication of 
 general truths in this art, what has hitherto 
 been engraven, cannot be strictly and scien- 
 tifically considered, as any other than the 
 results of the isolated experiments of isolated 
 individuals. Indeed, however much we 
 may admire some of its productions, it is 
 proper on such an occasion as the present. 
 
110 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 that they should pass thus under our ob- 
 servation. No work of engraving is to be 
 considered as absolutely perfect. As we raise 
 our taste, its horizon will consequently 
 widen ; and the pigmy presumption of cri- 
 ticism is never more manifest, than when 
 it dares to set limits to Art. Who shall say 
 to an Art, thus far shalt thou go, and here 
 shall thy proud waves be stayed 
 
 I have been the rather induced to this 
 alteration of my original plan, from per- 
 ceiving that I should not be able to reach 
 certain material points, in the chronological 
 order which I have adopted, for a consi- 
 derable time, and from its having been 
 asserted by a gentleman who did me the 
 honour of attending last season, that I then 
 spoke of Engraving as if it were Sculpture, 
 and had tlms confounded two arts which 
 are in themselves distinct and separate. 
 
 I feel a natural desire to be rightly and 
 thoroughly understood, being aware that 
 what I may have to say, will else be dis- 
 creditable to myself and useless to others ; 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 and though it will not be my practice, to 
 occupy your time in combating the parti- 
 cular opinions of those individuals with 
 whom I may not have the good fortune to 
 agree ; yet, combining this gentleman's re- 
 mark, with another circumstance not irre- 
 levant to the progress of Engraving, I have 
 been led to think that some explanation 
 may not be altogether unnecessary on the 
 present occasion ; and in this view I am 
 thankful for a communication which I have 
 no doubt has been made with the laudable 
 intention of setting me right. 
 
 I have lately read over the printed ab- 
 stract of a code of laws drawn up about 
 forty years ago, for the regulation and go- 
 vernment of our National Academy of Arts, 
 and finding that in those laws the difference 
 between the statuary's and the engraver's 
 arts was marked with a hard and un-arti^tf 
 like line, whilst their generic connexion 
 was passed unnoticed, I hope I may be par- 
 doned if I should svippose that there may 
 possibly be some amongst this audience, 
 who, like the gentleman to whom I have 
 
112 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 already alluded, may have been led by 
 academic authority into the habit of not 
 adverting from the specific to the generic 
 term, and consequently of supposing that 
 engraving is not sculpture. 
 
 I would not be fastidious about words, or 
 more precise than is necessary to the accom- 
 plishment of the purposes for which words 
 are used : far less would I for a moment 
 imagine that an art intrinsically valuable, 
 could either derive additional value, or 
 sufier depreciation in your esteem, from the 
 term, or the occasional misuse of the term, 
 by which it may be denoted : but correct 
 definitions are certainly desirable ; (where 
 they can be had) and Sculpture^ unless I am 
 much mistaken, is a generic term, proper 
 to the engraver's as well as the statuary's 
 art, as comprehending both ; just as the 
 term Art comprehends in addition to these, 
 Painting, Poetry, Music, and every mode of 
 practically exhibiting refined mental ope- 
 ration, and is therefore applicable to either 
 or all of them, 
 
 5 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 113 
 
 I trust you will agree with me, that it is 
 right not to sacrifice to the appearance of de- 
 licacy, the real benefits of truth, nor to rely 
 with too implicit faith upon the authority 
 of distinguished names, in inquiries con- 
 nected with the progress of Taste, Science, 
 or Art : yet, in considering the definition 
 of engraving, it appeared proper to remark 
 how others (who from the nature of their 
 studies might be expected to be more con- 
 versant with the kind of truth before us) 
 regarded the respective meanings of the 
 words in question, before I again submitted 
 my opinion to your attention, and in re- 
 ferring to such, I found that most foreign 
 languages expressly mark the generic verb- 
 al connexion as well as the actual prac- 
 tical relation, between Sculpture and En- 
 graving: and that it is countenanced by 
 the highest literary authorities in our own 
 — I mean by Dr. Johnson and Dr. Swift. 
 
 Hence I am induced to re-assert, that 
 Engraving may be defined a mode or spe- 
 €ies of Sculpture — performed by incision. 
 
114 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 Having hitherto discoursed in a general 
 way on the various species of engraving, 
 which were known to and practised by, 
 the ancients ; I now approach the modern 
 modes, and purpose to discourse in my 
 succeeding Lectures, more critically, upon 
 that branch and those ramifications of the 
 art, of which printing is the proper termi- 
 nation. 
 
 Engravings is sometimes executed on 
 Wood, in which case the ink is not deli- 
 vered from the incisions, but impressed 
 from the surface of the block by means of 
 the same kind of press with which letter 
 types are printed ; and the work is per- 
 formed with gravers varying in their shapes 
 and sizes according to the required depth 
 and breadth of the lines. 
 
 On the whole, the local powers and 
 advantages of wood-engraving, appear to 
 be somewhat mistaken. Vignettes are the 
 fashion, and it is also the fashion to con- 
 sider this art as calculated to rival that of 
 engraving on copper. Both these fashions 
 
THE THIRD LECTUftE* 
 
 115 
 
 appear to me to be unfortunate for the art 
 of engraving on wood: for reasons which 
 I shall endeavour to explain. 
 
 From the ornamental character of the 
 Vine, the French word Vignette, which 
 {as is well known) literally signifies a young 
 or little vine, has gradually obtained among 
 us a figurative meaning. 
 
 Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, uses this 
 word to denote the decorative shrubs that 
 grow about ruined edifices : and, by parity 
 of reasoning, the little engraved embellish- 
 ments, with which books are sometimes 
 ornamented, have been called vignettes. 
 
 As they are not supposed, like pictures 
 terminated by a regular boundary or frame, 
 to convey or suggest the idea of a certain 
 historical transaction or portion of nature 
 as it might appear through an aperture, so 
 in composing them, artists have not thought 
 themselves amenable to the same laws, but 
 have often taken a wider scope of probabi-^ 
 lity : Hence a vignette to a poem, is oft times 
 
 *2 
 
116 THE THIRD lECTURE. 
 
 a sort of midsummer-night's dream, where 
 Fancy, unrestrained by time and place, in- 
 dulges in the revehy of fairy fiction : — 
 But, whether it be the appendage to a poem, 
 or a history, or a book of any other kind — 
 whether its subject be a stern and stubborn 
 fact ; or a mere painter's reverie ; the objects 
 introduced should always be of a subor- 
 dinate and accessory kind, and the main 
 subject of the work should never be thus 
 represented. 
 
 On an island among the Lakes of Killar- 
 ney, is the remain of a small Saxon chapel, 
 which hence become very properly the 
 subject of a vignette to a book of which the 
 topography of Killarney is the subject, and 
 where the lakes themselves are introduced, 
 not as vignettes, but as pictures, terminated 
 by a regular boundary. — Hence too, not the 
 story of Ruth and Boaz, but the furniture 
 of an Oriental Harvest field, became a very 
 proper subject for a vignette to the book of 
 Ruth. A principal beauty in most vig- 
 nettes, consists in the delicacy with w^hich 
 they appear to relieve from the white paper 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 117 
 
 on which they are printed. The objects of 
 which vignettes consist, themselves form- 
 ing the boundary of the composition, their 
 extremities should for the most part be ten- 
 derly blended — ^be almost melted as it were 
 into the paper, or ground. Noav, in print- 
 ing with the letter-press, the pressure is ra- 
 ther the strongest at the extremities of the 
 engraving, where we wish it to be weakest, 
 and it is so from the unavoidable swelling of 
 the damp paper on w^iich the impressions 
 are worked, and the softness of the blankets 
 in the tympans of the press. Hence, hard, 
 instead of soft edges, are incident to vig- 
 nettes engraven on wood, which all the care 
 of the printer, with all the modern accu- 
 racy of his machine, can rarely avoid. A 
 Nobleman, however, distinguished by his 
 chemical and mechanical knowledge, and 
 by his zeal for the improvement of society, 
 is, as I understand, assiduously engaged in 
 obviating these difficulties,^- and removing 
 
 * Mr. M^Greery (the printer of these papers) has also 
 conceived a plan for printing wood cuts with greater nicety 
 than they are printed at present, which I hope will bd 
 found a real improvement. 
 
118 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE, 
 
 these impediments, but until this be aeconi- 
 plished, the art should, in my opinion, be 
 confined to such small works as do not re- 
 quire the delicacy of portrait, or of female 
 character and expression, and be termi- 
 nated by an oval, square, or some regular 
 boundary. 
 
 The real advantages of wood engravings 
 ?ire, that it is performed with more ease and 
 celerity than engraving on copper, and that 
 when so performed, the blocks may be fitted 
 into the same frames, and printed with 
 letter-types. If the wood engraver ape with 
 difficulty those second and third courses of 
 lines, (as the dark crossings are techni-i 
 cally termed) or those delicate termina^ 
 tions, which are executed with comparative 
 ease by the engraver on copper, though 
 he may shew his skill, he must also 
 expose his folly. — While he exhausts his 
 strength in imperfect imitations of the graces^ 
 of the superior art, he must subject himself 
 to unfavourable comparisons, and will pro- 
 bably neglect the energies of which his 
 , own might be found susceptible. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE, 119 
 
 For the higher efforts of the art, copper 
 was soon discovered to be the more ehgible 
 material. Here the work was at first per- 
 formed entirely by lines, or angular inci- 
 sions, cut, or (as the Hebrew word more 
 emphatically expresses) ploughed y with the 
 graver — a steel instrument, whose general 
 form and uses I should presume were too 
 wxll known to need a description. These 
 lines, it has since been found expedient to 
 intermingle with others corroded by aqua- 
 fortis, and occasionally with more delicate 
 lines produced with a sharp steel instru- 
 ment, held as a pencil is held, and which 
 has been denominated a dry needle or dry 
 pointy in contradistinction to the (etching) 
 point, whose use is followed by the opera- 
 tion of aquafortis. In printing copper-plate 
 engravings, the ink is delivered from the 
 -incisions, and by means of the rolling- 
 press. 
 
 Etching is the art of corrodino; witl^ 
 aquafortis, lines drawn with a stylus or 
 steel point (commonly termed an etching- 
 needle) on copper ; or to speak more gene- 
 
12,0 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 rally, is the superaddition of the chemical 
 process of corrosion, to the art of drawing, 
 through varnish, on plates of metal. The 
 characteristic or local advantage of etch- 
 ing, is the unlimited freedom of which it 
 is susceptible: the point meeting little 
 resistance from the varnish, glides along 
 the surface of the plate, and easily takes 
 any turn that the taste of the artist may 
 direct, or his hand accomplish, and hence 
 its peculiar adaptation to the expression of 
 that class of objects which it has lately been 
 the fashion to call picturesque, 
 
 Various other modes of preparing copper- 
 plates for printing, have, by assumption on 
 the one side, and courtesy on the other, 
 been denominated and allowed to be, modes 
 of engraving, and though Mezzotinto is 
 performed partly by 6*:rcision or cutting off, 
 I feel rather disposed to acquiesce in its 
 claims, than to imitate my critic, by galling 
 them in question. 
 
 In the process of Mezzotinto, the whole 
 surface of the copper-plate is first worked 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 121 
 
 over with a toothed or serrated instrument 
 of steel, which is rocked to and fro in various 
 directions, so that if the plate were then to 
 be printed, a mere blank or black space 
 would be produced on the paper. After 
 this mechanical operation (which is called 
 laying the ground) the work of art com- 
 mences, and is performed chiefly by means 
 of scrapers of various shapes and dimen- 
 sions, which are used to scrape away the 
 surface or barb of the ground, in the neces- 
 sary forms, until the requisite degrees of 
 light and middle-tint are produced. 
 
 Mezzotinto is most properly employed 
 on dark subjects where the constituent parts 
 are large, its shadows being susceptible of 
 great obscurity, profundity, and richness, 
 particularly where the mezzo tint is cleared 
 and enriched by the admixture of etched 
 or engraved lines, as was the practice of 
 White, and is the revived practice of Earlom 
 and others ; it is however attended with this 
 disadvantage, that in the lights, where the 
 artist frequently wishes most to engage at- 
 tention by irritating the sense of vision, it 
 
155 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 is least capable of effecting it, the lights of 
 mezzotinto where they occur in broad 
 masses, being comparatively cold^ poor, 
 and spiritless. 
 
 }n the only professed Essay on Prints, I 
 believe, that this country has produced^ 
 mezzotinto is erroneously preferred to all 
 other modes of engraving. The author 
 says, that it gives the strongest represen- 
 tation of the real surface.^^" He does not 
 inform us of the real surface of what, though 
 he cannot mean that all surfaces are alike : 
 — He says further that nothing except 
 paint can express flesh more naturally, or 
 the flowing of hair," which is so gross a 
 mis-perception (if I may be allowed such 
 a word) of the respective local powers of 
 the various modes of engraving, as one 
 should imagine could hardly befal the 
 dullest organs ; and so palpable a derelic- 
 tion of the real capabilities of mezzotinto, 
 as might half incline us to suspect it was 
 rather ironically than ignorantly said — if 
 
 * See Gilpin on PrintS; p. 38. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 123 
 
 the doctrines inculcated throughout the 
 essay, were not for the most part, equally 
 vague and unsound. 
 
 Some of this author's more recent pub- 
 lications, are interspersed with excellent 
 remarks — but, are also blotted with 
 bad landscapes, and tarnished with false 
 principles of Art. His aquatinted smear- 
 ings, (fashionable though they have been) 
 are as much, beneath criticism, as his moral 
 and christian virtues were above praise. 
 Polished gold surrounds itself with splen- 
 dour ; and if base metal be placed near, it 
 will deceitfully seem to possess a golden 
 lustre and richness : I shall presume there- 
 fore, that no apology will be necessary for 
 pointing out such of the mistakes of this 
 writer,-:^ as fall within the scope of my 
 
 ^ It is true, he publislied his Essay on Prints at a time 
 when the engravers of this country were few, and wanted 
 either talents, or encouragement, or opportunity, to impart 
 their professional critical knowledge to the public. Mr. 
 Burke has delicately apologised for this deficiency ; and a 
 Jaiidable endeavour to supply it, mi^ht form au apology for 
 
154 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 subject. The errors — the want of radical 
 principlCvS, in Gilpin's Essay on Prints, 
 combined with the total want of such aca- 
 demical cultivation of engraving as might 
 either impart critical information to the 
 public, or practical improvement to its pro- 
 fessors, were my chief inducements for un- 
 dertaking these lectures, and would have 
 been my excuse if I had failed, or had not 
 met with such unequivocal testimonies of 
 the approbation of the judicious, as are 
 highly gratifying to my feelings. — But to 
 return from this digression. 
 
 Stippling is a mode of producing prints 
 by means of combinations of dots, which 
 are either round or multangular, as the 
 conical point, or point of the graver, is em- 
 ployed to form them. Stippling with the 
 graver, was occasionally practised both by 
 Martin Schoen and Albert Durer, in the 
 very infancy of the art : the latter em- 
 ployed it in imitating the texture of beaver 
 
 the Rev. Mr. Gilpin, if his books upon Art in general had 
 not too much the air of the old fable of a man shewing a 
 lion the picture of a man killing a lion. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 155 
 
 hats, and other similar objects. Perceiving 
 that it was peculiarly expressive of softness, 
 Agostino Veneziano,'^^' and Boulanger, some- 
 times stippled their flesh, and Julio Cam- 
 pagnola his back-grounds also. Almost a 
 century afterward, it was observed by De 
 Marteau that by etching some of the dots 
 and engraving others, very successful imita- 
 tions of drawings hatched with chalk, might 
 be produced ; and hence it has been called 
 the Chalk manner of engraving. 
 
 In England, the chalk manner is new, 
 having been imported from Paris not many 
 years ago,+ by Ryland, who employed it 
 so as rather to imitate such drawings as are 
 done with crayons, or stumped^ than such 
 as are hatched with chalk. It was run 
 after, however, with avidity by the pub- 
 
 The works of Agostino de Musis, better known by 
 the surname Veneziano, are very scarce, but among them 
 will be found a small plate of an old man seated on a bank, 
 with a cottage in the back ground, where the face of the 
 figure is entirely stippled with the graver. He did not 
 however, employ this mode of working in more than 
 one or two other instances, and these I have never seen. 
 In the flesh of Boulanger stippling is very common, 
 t About fifty. 
 
126 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE, 
 
 lie, chiefly because it was new, for it was but 
 a sort of retrograde and degenerate novelty 
 as it was practised by the immediate imita- 
 tors of Ryland* Yet, with so much heedless 
 anxiety was it pursued, that people never 
 stopt to consider whether even red-chalk 
 or stumped drawings themselves (of which 
 these prints were professed imitations) were 
 so good representations of nature, or af- 
 forded a more happy and efficient means of 
 transfusing the soul of painting, than the 
 art of engraving in lines, as it was then 
 exercised by Bartolozzi, Vivares, Woollett, 
 and Strange, who were all living at the 
 time, but — Ryland and novelty led the way, 
 and fashion and Bartolozzi followed. 
 
 Perhaps Bartolozzi perceived that this 
 stippling mode of engraving, was capable of 
 more easily bestowing that soft blending and 
 infantile indefinity, which are conspicuous 
 in his style; — perhaps he recollected the fate 
 of Milton,Corregio, and Collins, and saw that 
 the existing state of the public taste, would 
 neither appreciate nor reward the solitary 
 efforts of a line-engraver who should regu- 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 127 
 
 late his aims by exalted views of the per- 
 fectibility of his art ; and perhaps he knew 
 that in executing his plates in the chalk 
 manner, he could much sooner avail him- 
 self of the assistance of his pupils than in 
 the more arduous practice of engraving in 
 lines, and thus perform more rapidly the 
 numerous commissions of the print dealers. 
 However this may have been, certain it is 
 that he bowed down his great abilities, and 
 made a willing or a reluctant sacrifice of 
 principle on the altar of fashion : an aber- 
 ration which persons of real taste have not 
 ceased to regret. 
 
 The print dealers upon mistaken notions 
 of private advantage, are ever exhausting 
 the permanent hopes of the art : they are 
 always ready, like Mr. Windham's savage, 
 to cut down the tree in order to obtain its 
 fruit. The novelty of chalk-engraving, by 
 calling forth their ignorant exertions, co- 
 
 * The reader's mind will readily suggest to him tliat there 
 are exceptions to this, as to all other general assertions. 
 The author will hope to see the day when the e^xceptioi^ 
 ^shall be more numerous. 
 
us 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 incided with, and increased this mania of 
 the pubKc, and except for the landscapes 
 of Vivares, Rooker, and Woollett, which 
 required and exhibited, more vigour and 
 more detail of drawing than stippling could 
 bestow; and that now and then an histo- 
 rical engraving by Strange and Bartolozzi, 
 and the series from Mr. West's History 
 of England, (of which the death of General 
 Wolfe was the first) attested the existence 
 and maintained the dignity of the legiti- 
 mate art — with these illustrious exceptions, 
 I say, the engravers of Great Britain were 
 compelled to feel and silently to acknow- 
 ledge, that since ignorance was bliss, 'twas 
 folly to be wise." 
 
 For myself, — though very young at the 
 time, I could not help seeing with concern, 
 that this re-discovery of, and rage for dotting, 
 had happened at a most unfortunate period 
 for the progress of engraving : It seemed 
 to me as if a premature dotage had over- 
 taken its manly prime. It has since turned 
 out to be only one of those diseases which 
 arise from the redundancy of particular 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 12,9 
 
 humours — a sort of influenza, for which (if 
 my opinion of Academies ❖ be right) the 
 Royal Academy of Arts should have pro- 
 vided a remedy, but which the natural 
 vigour of the constitution of Engraving 
 has since overcome. 
 
 The dealers in fashionable articles, may 
 be compared to dogs, that after a longer or 
 a shorter chase, generally hunt their game 
 to death. The Royal Academy had cleared 
 no roads, and set up no directing posts, and 
 even those among the well-intending public 
 who were fondest of the sport— following 
 these hounds, lost their way in the intricate 
 and desultory chase. As at the Easter hunt, 
 some stop short, others are thrown from 
 their hobbies, and others again follow the 
 dogs to the last — so it has been with regard 
 to the fashion of engraving so as to imitate 
 chalk or crayon drawings. At length, how- 
 ever, this interesting art (of which, if I seem^ I 
 onlj/ seem to make sport) fetching a few noble 
 
 * The reader will find that opinion more amply declared 
 in the concluding Lecture. 
 
 t 
 
ISO THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 bounds, has escaped from the toils of its pur^ 
 suers, and now roves at leisure, Avhen, as a 
 means of translating pictures, it is more 
 worthy than ever of being pursued. 
 
 Upon what principles I am led to per- 
 ceive that this province of engraving has 
 
 ^ In a pamphlet lately printed, under the signature of 
 Mr. Josiah Boydell, \\ hich professes to contain a Plan for 
 the encouragement of Arts/' &c. (which is in my opi- 
 nion, one of the most radically defective plans ever at- 
 tempted to be obtruded on the public, and founded in such 
 gross mistake, that it might with more propriety be termed 
 a Plan for the discouragement of the Arts) we find Mr. 
 Boydell very free in reprobating the dotting manner,*' and 
 in censuring the public for their bad taste in engraving. In 
 speaking of the different modes of engraving, his pamphlet 
 might have sparkled with a little useful light, if he had been 
 able and willing to have enlightened his readers on the sub- 
 ject : Yet, he gives no reasons why one manner of en- 
 graving is to be preferred to another : nor endeavours to 
 inform, nor to reform the Public Taste, but by reproaching 
 that public with having been the promoters of such publi- 
 cations," as he now affects to contemn, i. e. such as ara 
 engraven in the manner of his own Shakespear. He 
 seems to expect that we should now believe line-exi' 
 graving to be the superior art, for no other reason than he 
 formerly expected or wished us to believe that c/m/A- 
 engraving was so. Upon venturing some years ago, to 
 speak in favour of engraving in lines, at the Shakespear 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 131 
 
 recently disclosed more various and exten- 
 sive, and richer tracts than it was formerly 
 known to contain, I shall have the pleasure 
 to explain at another time.-:^ At present 
 
 Gallery, I was told, by a person related to the present 
 Alderman, that, compared with the mode of engraving of 
 which he now finds it expedient to speak as above, " line- 
 engraving was but an inferior art — a kind of tattooing y 
 
 which was going fast out of fashion," and this was 
 
 spoken as if fashion were known and acknowledged to 
 be the arbiter of Art. 
 
 The truth now appears to be, that the conductors of the 
 Shakespear kept the dotting manner iji fashion as long as 
 they could, (let the larger engravings for Boydell's Shakespear 
 contradict me, if I am wrong) for reasons which he himself 
 divulges in the pamphlet before me, namely — ^because the 
 difference both as to time and expense is as three to one," 
 and because they therefore found it " answer to the pub- 
 lisher," and that now the public taste is emancipating itself 
 from the slavery of fashion, and that Messrs. Boydeil and 
 Co. find themselves in danger of being left in the minority, 
 they are endeavouring to accommodate their principles (if 
 such motives may be called principles) to the change. — • 
 Thus verifying the position I have laid down in another 
 discourse, that to follow, flatter, and degrade, not to lead, 
 exalt, and refine, the Public Taste, is the constant object 
 of these mock Macenates of modern engraving — at least 
 the constant tendency of their prof table endeavours. 
 
 I had not at this time the smallest suspicion that the 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 we proceed with our detail of the various 
 species into which the art has been divided. 
 
 About the same time with clialk-engrav- 
 ing, the mode of etching inAouATiNTA was 
 introduced into England by Mr, P. Sandby. 
 An etching in aquatinta, if the granulation 
 employed be very minute, will, of conse- 
 quence, very much resemble a drawing 
 washed with bistre or Indian ink, being 
 performed, in as far as it is a work of art, 
 with the same implement (namely, a hair 
 pencil) used in the same manner; and as 
 Faust sold his fii^t printed Bibles for MS ; 
 so it is said that the early aquatinta works 
 of Le Prince (who for some time kept his 
 process secret) were believed to be draw- 
 ings. 
 
 In printing Aquatinta, the ink is deli- 
 vered from a corroded granulated ground, 
 
 explanation Iiere proposed would — I should scarcely have 
 thought it could have been prevented. The mandate of 
 the managers (of the Royal Institution) has poicerfuUy re- 
 minded me of the uncertainty of human events. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 13S 
 
 the art of producing which, was inveoted 
 by the French Abbe St. Non, and commu- 
 nicated by him to his countryman Le Prince. 
 St. Non produced his grain by sifting pow- 
 dered resin over a plate of copper, and fixing 
 it by a shght degree of heat ; Le Prince, at 
 first, by the same process, but afterward by 
 forming his plates partly of copper and 
 partly of some metal less rapidly soluble 
 in aquafortis ; but our own countryman 
 Mr. Sandby made a very considerable im- 
 provement upon both, by floating his cop- 
 per-plate with a solution of Gum resin in 
 highly rectified spirit : as the spirit evapo- 
 rates, the resin cracks, but adheres to the 
 copper in small nodules, between the minute 
 interstices of which, the aquafortis is ad- 
 mitted, and corrodes the plate : and the 
 professional powers which this gentleman 
 previously possessed, enabled him to per- 
 form much larger and better works in 
 aquatinta, than had hitherto been pro- 
 duced, the superior merit of which, the 
 print before you w^ill sufficiently testify. 
 
 Dr. Rees's Cyclopedia adds to its good 
 
134 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 practical directions for etching in aquatinta^ 
 that it is a species of engraving, simple 
 and expeditious, if every thing goes on well ; 
 but it is very precarious, and the errors 
 which are made, are rectified with great 
 difficulty," yet it appears to me that the 
 obstacles which have opposed themselves to 
 the perfection of this species of art, are en- 
 tirely within the reach of ingenuity and 
 exact attention to phenomena, to remove. 
 When the artist shall be able to command 
 his various grains and degrees of light and 
 shade, both in flat breadths and regular de- 
 graduation, without harshness or other im- 
 perfection; aquatinta will be a superior 
 mode of art to that of drawing in bistre or 
 Indian ink, because it will add to all the 
 excellences of which they are susceptible, 
 a variety of granulation of which they are 
 not susceptible; and when this variety 
 shall be capable of being graduated and 
 blended at pleasure, and when its compass 
 shall be ascertained, it may receive the per- 
 fection of harmony. 
 
 One very frequent defect is observable 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE, 
 
 133 
 
 where the aquatint is thrown over an etched 
 outHne which is corroded to any consider- 
 able depth : here the resin does not gra* 
 uulate along the edges of the line which 
 has been previously hit in, as it does in the 
 blank spaces, and hence a wdiite edge re- 
 mains on either side the outline w^hen 
 printed, which mars the advantages we 
 should else derive from their mixture. 
 
 I have been led to assert that these ob- 
 stacles are not insurmountable, from observ- 
 ing that these desirable graduations are 
 sometimes produced, and these Avhite':^ edg- 
 ings avoided ; and though this is said to be 
 fortunately^ or happily, or accidentally done, 
 we should not be induced to foraet that 
 causes and effects do not vary, and that in 
 all cases of this kind, where we are so ready 
 
 ^ It was formerly the custom, after floating the plate 
 with the solution, to leave it awhile in a slanting position to 
 drain and to harden : it has recently been observed, that if 
 the plate be left to dry in an horizontal instead of a sloping 
 direction, the white edges do not occur. — Of this I have 
 |3een informed since I read the discourse. 
 
136 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 speak of accident^ it is not Nature nods, but 
 we that dream. 
 
 It has been a real misfortune to this spe- 
 cies of etching, that it has been taught and 
 spoken of, as if it were a kind of legerdemain 
 trick. Every booby who could hold a pen- 
 cil and pour gum and spirit over a plate of 
 copper, has congratulated himself on pos- 
 sessing the Secret^ and (which is much worse) 
 many have succeeded to a considerable ex- 
 tent in teaching the credulous part of the 
 public, to believe them Aquatinta Engrav- 
 ers. Hence, and from its comparative cele- 
 rity of execution, while the art is brought 
 into discredit, and Europe is deluged with 
 worthless productions, every legitimate 
 artist who endeavours to blend a portion 
 of his own fame with the deeds of heroism 
 that are daily acting around him, is sure to 
 be anticipated in the subject of his work by 
 twenty contemptible aquatintas. 
 
 It were sincerely to be wished^ that upon 
 such occasions people would repress their 
 eagerness to obtain these interesting memo- 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 137 
 
 rials, by recollecting an old adage which I 
 need not repeat, and would regulate their 
 choice by reflecting how few can be capable 
 of doing justice to the great achievements 
 of a Wolfe, or a Nelson. It is a condition 
 of human nature, that high intellectual at- 
 tainment is arduous and slow in its pro- 
 gress, while ephemeral productions are gene- 
 rally trivial and vapid — as if it were or- 
 dained, that the duration and importance of 
 works of art, should bear a certain propor- 
 tion to the mental and manual skill which 
 must be exerted in their production. 
 
 He who wishes to possess the best repre- 
 sentation of the mournful victory of Tra- 
 falgar, must not expect it will be the first. 
 And why should he? Is it a baby toy, 
 that he should be impatient to possess it ? 
 — Can he fear that the laurels of Nelsox* 
 will wither round his tomb? — Or does 
 he imagine that patriotism will not long 
 continue to — dwell a weeping Hermit 
 there?" 
 
 Of freedom, our misgiving sense must 
 
 This Lecture was delivered in 1805, 
 
138 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 take the apparent evil with the real good. 
 Few possess the power, and no man may 
 monopohze the right, of consecrating the 
 memory of the brave. The artist of high 
 endowment who hopes to float down the 
 stream of time with Nelson, must allow, 
 and will be willing to allow, the same 
 liberty to others, with regard to choice of 
 subject, as he claims for himself. It re- 
 mains, and ought to remain, with the pub- 
 lic, to compare and discriminate between 
 their respective pretensions : to encourage 
 the legitimate artist, and discountenance 
 the empirical pretender. 
 
 I should but ill promote the purpose for 
 which I am placed before you, were I from 
 any mistaken motive of delicacy, to forbear 
 to use my best endeavours (feeble as those 
 endeavours may be) to lay before you such 
 principles of sound criticism as may assist 
 your choice,^ so that when you see and 
 compare engravings, your preference may 
 be just. — If you subscribe to (with the 
 liberal view of encouraging in their pro- 
 gress) works which you do not see^ you 
 can make your election on no surer ground 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 13* 
 
 than the known talents and reputations of 
 the artists who are to execute such works : 
 But a species of imposture with which the 
 world was heretofore unacquainted, has of 
 late boldly stepped forward in the public 
 prints, which is so infatuated with the past 
 favours of the public, that it unblushingly 
 presumes you will encourage projected 
 Engravings, for the sake of the shopkeeper 
 who is to sell them, and who bespeaks your 
 patronage while he aims at hood-winking 
 your judgment, by advertising his inten- 
 tion to publish such or such works. It is miy 
 duty to say, that if you do subscribe your 
 money upon this principle, I trust it will be 
 only to such shopkeepers as have not com- 
 promised their real interests by the publi- 
 
 * This is generally done with studied ambiguity, so as to 
 leave it undetermined, and to inculcate that it is of no im- 
 portance, zoho is to be the writer, painter, or engraver of 
 the w^ork proposed : Or at other times (if the reader is able 
 to conceive any distinct impression from the advertisement) 
 he is led to believe that tlie publisher is himself to be tlie 
 author. I conceive tlie above to be one of the passages 
 which has induced those who might apply it to themselves, 
 to sohcit, and — obtain! my dismissal from the Lecture- 
 room of the Royal Institution. 
 
140 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 cation of bad prints : but I trust also to the 
 broader principle that the good sense of the 
 public will repel this and every attempt to 
 wrests the reputation of works of art, out 
 of the hands of their real authors, I hope 
 that no artist will sell his birth-right for a 
 mess of pottage, and I wish that print-sellers 
 may in future be content to move in their 
 proper orbit, and be satisfied with the 
 profits, which are very considerable, that 
 arise from the sale of engravings. 
 
 " Sejanus, Wolsey, hurt not honest Fleiiry, 
 But well may put some statesmen in a a fury 
 The impudent (I must call it so) practice of advertising 
 anonymous works of Art, is an evil which ought not to be 
 tolerated. I speak against it on principle, and from 
 the firmest conviction of its destructive tendency. Nor 
 do I fear that persons of any reflection will impute it to me, 
 if an anonymous life and an anonymous death of Lord 
 Nelson, were at this time advertising in the daily prints, to 
 be published by subscription ; or that more than six persons 
 will be found, who will think that I ought on that account 
 to have forborne to state the principle. — Even the first 
 Nobility in the kingdom, when they condescend to allow 
 their names to appear as the patrons of Oratorios and Con- 
 certs, never dispense with those of the professional artists 
 who are to perform them : they have too much respect for 
 Art and for the public, and too much regard for propriety. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 141 
 
 The next mode of Engraving that solicits 
 our attention, is that invented about fifteen 
 years since, by Mr. Wilson Lowry. It 
 consists of two instruments, one for etch- 
 ing successive lines, either equidistant, or 
 in just graduation from being wide apart 
 to the nearest approximation, ad injinitum, 
 and another, more recently constructed, for 
 striking eliptical, parabolical and hyperbo- 
 lical curves^, and in general all those lines 
 which geometricians call mechanical curves^ 
 from the dimensions of the point of a needle, 
 to an extent of five feet. — Both these inven- 
 tions combine elegance with utility, and 
 both are of high value as auxiliaries of the 
 imitative part of engraving: but as the 
 auxiliaries of chemical, agricultural, and 
 mechanical science, they are of incalculable 
 advantage. The accuracy of their operation, 
 as far as human sense, aided by the mag- 
 nifying powers of glasses, enables us to say 
 50^ is perfect ; and I need not attempt to 
 describe to you the advantages that must 
 result to the whole cycle of Science, from 
 mathematical accuracy. — As long as this 
 Institution, and the Society for the encou- 
 ragement of arts, manufactures, and coni- 
 
142 
 
 THE THIRI) LECTURE. 
 
 merce, shall deserve and receive the grati- 
 tude of the country, so long must the in- 
 ventor of these instruments be considered 
 as a benefactor to the public. 
 
 Another species of Etching, which per- 
 haps in the order of time, should have pre- 
 ceded Mr. Lowry's, and which has been 
 occasionally practised with considerable 
 success, is executed with a black-lead pen- 
 cil. Common etching ground is softened 
 and attempered to the existing state of the 
 weather, by the admixture of animal oil, 
 and over a plate thinly covered with this 
 sort of varnish, and smoked until it has be- 
 come black, the artist cautiously spreads a 
 sheet of very thin paper, and performs his 
 etching, simply by making a hatched draw- 
 ing with his lead pencil, on this paper; 
 which being afterward taken from the plate, 
 and aquafortis applied, the process is com- 
 pleted : as much of the varnish as it was 
 necessary to remove, in order to admit tha 
 aquafortis to the copper, will be found to 
 have adhered to the back of the paper, 
 which (presuming the plate to be judici- 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 145 
 
 oiisly corroded) will exhibit the exact ar- 
 chetype of the print. 
 
 An art of producing prints from draw- 
 ings hatched with lines on calcareous sub- 
 stances, has been recently discovered, of 
 which it is my duty to state what I con- 
 ceive to be the local energies and proper 
 employment : in doing which, I find myself 
 obliged to warn the patrons of merit in the 
 P fine arts, not to suffer their judgments to 
 be led astray by the false lights of a spe- 
 cious prospectus, and a novel invention. 
 The Stone-etching is calculated, perhaps 
 beyond any art at present known, to render 
 a faithful fac-simile of a painter s sketch. It 
 is an accession to that sketch itself, if the 
 artist choose to sketch on stone, of the 
 power of multiplying itself to any number 
 that may be recjuired. I must at the same 
 time remark to you, that it is not the pain- 
 ter's sketches^ that it is most desirable to 
 multiply, but his Jinished performances. 
 
 ^ This is what we are taught to believe, and what I am 
 Neither prepared nor disposed to deny. 
 
144 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 We wish most to see the mercury of his- 
 active imagination, amalgamated with the 
 sterHng gold of his cultivated understand- 
 ing ; and we justly value an art of engrav- 
 ing in proportion as it is capable of ren- 
 dering or reproducing the pure forms into 
 which this rich mass mav be moulded. 
 
 There are certain local energies peculiar 
 to every branch of engraving. He who 
 should endeavour in mezzotinto or the 
 chalk-manner, to rival the playful freedom 
 and Virgilian taste displayed in the trees 
 of Vivares, would find himself as much 
 mistaken in his aims, as he who on stone, 
 should attempt to render the delicate blan- 
 dishments, or produce a complete abstract of 
 the full harmony, of Corregio or Claude. On 
 tlie other hand, stone-etching is far more 
 capable of producing a faithful transcript 
 of a slight drawing hatched with chalk or 
 lead pencil, than the powers of the graver 
 and aquafortis united, on copper. Both 
 this and the mode of etchini>; throucfh soft 
 ground, afford the most efficient means of 
 muitiplying such drawings: This is the 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 145 
 
 boundary of their aim, and in this (when 
 the artist is master of his process) they arc 
 compleatly successful. 
 
 But, though we may view the Pegasean 
 flights of the unbridled fancy of Gainsbo- 
 rough, Wilson, or Mortimer, with the same 
 kind of pleasure that Dr, Johnson affords 
 us in commenting on the first thoughts 
 (which I may call the rude sketches) of 
 Pope, yet it is from contemplating the 
 finished works of this poet, and of these 
 painters, that we derive the solid and per- 
 manent gratification of Sense, Imagination 
 and Judgment united, which it is the true 
 aim of superior Art to produce. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds says that we are to 
 consider rules as fences, to be placed where 
 trespass is expected, and enforced in pro- 
 portion as peculiar faults are prevalent at 
 the time in which they are delivered ; for 
 what it may be proper strongly to recom- 
 mend or enforce in one age, may not^ with 
 equal propriety be so much laboured in 
 another.'' The fashion of the present day 
 
 h 
 
!46 
 
 THE rnVkn LECTURE. 
 
 runs in favour of slight, sketchy perform- 
 ances. The Rev. Mr. Gilpin's principles 
 of art obtained a too ready admission within 
 the higher circles, because they were easy, 
 and flattered the vanities of those who with 
 little effort could acquire a certain ignorant 
 rambling of the hand and the pencil, with 
 an opinion that they could draw. With 
 this they were content : a sketch was with 
 Mr. Gilpin the mental part of the art, and 
 hence it became an object to exhibit it dis- 
 encumbered of its corporeal clay : but with 
 due submission to metaphysical authorities^ 
 while we are in this mortal state, body 
 without soul, or soul without body, are 
 equally anomalous to our natures. The 
 stiff, dry, laborious, tasteless attention to 
 minutise, which characterises the infancy 
 of art, (particularly of German engraving) 
 and the modern, fashionable mode, of blot- 
 ting and smearing a mere general effect, are 
 equally unadapted to cur sublunary state. 
 The perfection of Engraving — as of all other 
 imitative arts, will, if I mistake not, be found 
 to consist of the highest and most complete 
 Mnion of general with f articular nature ; 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE, 141 
 
 and this, I may venture to prophesy, will 
 be the fashion at some future day, which 
 may not be far distant — or rather, when 
 we are tired of the erratic proceedings of 
 fashion, we shall return to the paths of 
 nature and principle. 
 
 [The third Discourse concluded in this place ; having been 
 divided into two readings for the sake of not fatiguing the 
 attention of my auditors, by detaining them longer than the 
 hour they are accustomed to attend in the Lecture-room : 
 but, as the same motive does not now exist, I hope the 
 reader will not be displeased to find a fragment of what was 
 originally the fourth, added to the third Lecture. — I have 
 thought it would be an improved arrangement of my mate- 
 rials, not to separate those observations which relate to the 
 two principal causes that have retarded the progress of 
 British Engraving, and which will accordingly be found in-* 
 corporated in the last Discourse of the present volume.] 
 
 I HAVE not found it expedient, nor 
 deed practicable, to limit my explanations 
 of technical terms, to such as are peculiar 
 and confined to Engraving : — for, having 
 to trace the relation it bears to other arts. 
 
148 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 we shall have occasion for some terms that 
 are common to all, and such of these as I 
 can anticipate, it will not be improper to 
 define. 
 
 In attending to this part of my task, I 
 shall endeavour to trench as little as pos- 
 sible upon the departments of other Lec- 
 turers — not only for the reason which the 
 Professor Fuseli has given in the com- 
 mencement of his Academical Discourses — 
 namely, " that my vocabulary of technic 
 expression may not clash with the dic- 
 tionary of my audience," but also because, 
 among the Metaphysics of art, where so 
 many hdve stumbled, it behoves me to step 
 with caution. 
 
 Toward the close of my last discourse 
 (on the several species of modern Engrav- 
 ing) I found myself obliged to anticipate 
 that the meanings I annex respectively to 
 the words General and Particular^ as ap- 
 'plied to works of Art, would not be misun- 
 derstood : an anticipation of some terms is 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 149 
 
 not easily avoidable, and can be no reason 
 why they should not be subsequently ex- 
 plained. 
 
 To Particularise, is to be attentive to 
 the minutiae, severally considered, of the 
 object or objects before us. In imitative 
 art, it is to represent those objects in detail. 
 — In explaining the term Generalising^ as 
 it is less well understood, I shall be obliged 
 to be more diffuse. 
 
 To Generalise, is not to render vague 
 and indeterminate, but to express with suf- 
 ficient firmness, what is common to a num- 
 ber of objects of the same class. A general 
 idea—// the word idea may be used to sig- 
 nify any other than recalled and particular 
 sensation, is a generic idea, and a general 
 representation or description,, in Painting or 
 in Poetry, is also generic — or such a repre- 
 sentation as is common to a nurnber. In 
 Moral Philosophy, general ideas being com- 
 paratively vague and indeterminable, have 
 sometimes been denied to exist ; but in Art, 
 they may be rendered obvious — may be 
 
150 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 returned back to the sense from whose parlir 
 cular impressions they are constituted or ab- 
 stracted: and this, I believe, is practicable 
 in all arts, though perhaps not in the same 
 degree. The Statuary, the Poet, the Painter, 
 the Engraver, the Musician— all who aspire 
 to touch with pure delight the imaginations 
 of others — all Generalise, and without gene^ 
 ralising, it may be questioned whether any 
 have attained to high and lasting reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 Great mistakes have arisen in the philo- 
 sophy of Art, (if not in the philosophy of 
 morals) from confounding a generate ab- 
 Hract^ or common idea or representation, 
 with a vague idea or representation. Now, 
 with respect to art, the difference is very 
 important — amounting in our critical rea- 
 sonings, to as much as the difference between 
 a bust chiselled in the rough, and a finished 
 head of an angel or deity : — a Jesus Christ, 
 for example, can only be exalted above 
 all individual men, by possessing what is 
 common to all good men in character and 
 expression. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 151 
 
 Permit me then to repeat, that a general 
 representation^ is not a vague, but a generic 
 representation : not a representation of what 
 is hastily seen or carelessly noticed and im- 
 perfectly recognised, but a firm represen- 
 tation of what is most frequently seen. — 
 What is most frequently seen, is best re- 
 membered; what is common to a species 
 or a genus is more frequently seen thar^ 
 that which is peculiar to an individual, 
 and hence we recollect the general character 
 of Man or Woman ; or of the Oak or the 
 Ash, when they are well painted or en- 
 graven, more strongly than we recollect 
 in all their details, any particular man or 
 woman, oak or ash, we have seen. 
 
 To Generalise, is therefore to define broad- 
 ly or comprehensively ; and every compre- 
 hensive definition, such as is proper in a 
 Dictionary,must beof this kind: Languages, 
 like the imitative arts, being modes of im- 
 parting information by exhibiting princi- 
 pled combinations of thought. 
 
 In commenting on this mental opera- 
 
152 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 tion and its effects, Dr. Johnson, and Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, have proceeded so far as 
 to say that nothing can please many and 
 please long, but just representations of ge- 
 neral nature : which (though, like all other 
 extensive truths, it may be liable to ex- 
 ceptions) is a good sound general position, 
 or Avell founded aphorism, and may be 
 evinced by citing before you the works of 
 those masters who have pleased many^ and 
 will long continue to please. 
 
 The characters of Shakespear (says 
 his learned commentator) are not modified 
 by the accidents of transient fashion or 
 temporary opinion : They are the genuine 
 progeny of common humanity, such as the 
 world will always supply and observation 
 will always find. His persons act and speak 
 by the influence of those passions and prin- 
 ciples by which all minds are agitated, and 
 the whole system of life is continued in mo- 
 tion. In the writings of other poets, a cha- 
 racter is too often an individual, in those 
 of Shakespear it is commonly a species/' 
 
 His adherence to general nature (con- 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. ^55 
 
 tinues Johnson) has exposed him to the cen- 
 sure of critics who form their judgments 
 upon narrower principles. His Romans 
 have been thought not sufficiently Roman, 
 and his Kings not completely royal/* 
 
 I have not pursued this quotation further^ 
 (beautiful though its language continues to 
 be) because it appears to me that Johnson, 
 — hurried away by the rapid stream of his 
 ow^n eloquence, ascribes Shakespear's merit 
 too entirely to this principle. He continues 
 to praise our poet for this talent of gene- 
 ralising, almost as if he exclusively deserved 
 praise on that account ; whereas, if I am 
 not mistaken, Shakespear should also be 
 praised for intuitively knowing when and 
 where to employ, so as to promote the ge- 
 neral scope of his design, those particular 
 traits which distinguish the individual. — 
 The very nature of the Drama — especially of 
 the Historic Drama and of Comedy, requir- 
 ed him to do this, and it may fairly be asked 
 why, but for this particularity, are some of 
 his characters become obsolete ? 
 
 Art seems most frequently, if not always^ 
 
154 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 to consist in knowing when, where, and 
 how to be general, and when, where, and 
 how to be particular, and in using this 
 knowledge to advantage : Yet that the artist 
 should in every performance, without ex- 
 ception, generalise as much as he conceives 
 the particular occasion or subject of his 
 work will admit, I am not now prepared to 
 maintain, though I think we may perceive 
 that this principle, modified and varied 
 by difference of talent and opinion, has go- 
 verned those Engravers, and those Painters, 
 Statuaries, and Poets also, whose works have 
 been most extensively and permanently 
 approved. Of the possible subjects of art, 
 none would seem to require more particu- 
 larity than a Portrait, yet if we examine 
 the portraits of Titian or Reynolds, or those 
 of the most able Portrait painters of our 
 own time and country, I believe we shall 
 find that they have generalised, not only in 
 their back-grounds and draperies, but even 
 in the Faces themselves, as much as they 
 conceived the occasions would respectively 
 admit : and I trust, I shall be able to shew 
 from the works of WooUett and other mo- 
 
THE -THIRD LECTURE, 
 
 155 
 
 dera Engravers who have distinguished 
 themselves, that their practice has been 
 regulated by the same principles, especi- 
 ally in characterising the substances or 
 textures of the various objects they had to 
 represent. 
 
 It has been observed to you with great 
 truth by the professor Opie, that the Venus 
 de Medicis and other Greek statues of high 
 character, were formed by this mental pro- 
 cess ; and when Zeuxis painted his cele- 
 brated Helen from six selected beauties, he 
 did not (as has been vulgarly supposed) 
 copy the head of one, the arm of another, 
 the leg of a third, and so forth. — This would 
 have been an heterogeneous jumble of parts ^ 
 — but having placed all his models in the 
 attitude he intended for his Helen, he ab- 
 stracted and drew from all, what was common 
 to all, omitting the peculiarities of each, 
 and thus formed his general idea and re- 
 presentation of that superlative Beauty, 
 which had set the world in arms ! 
 
 Whether I shall prove tedious or iustrue-i 
 
156 
 
 tHE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 tive by endeavouring to throw in these 
 gleams of analogical light, which to me 
 appear to disclose the delicate ties of rela- 
 tionship between the Sister Arts, I cannot 
 tell ; I can only hope that, where I intend to 
 illustrate my subject, I shall not stray, nor 
 lead my audience astray, after false lights : 
 But I have dwelt the longer on the term 
 generalising, from having observed, that 
 the neglect of attending to its true import, 
 has led both in theory and practice to two 
 vicious and opposite extremes, which have 
 been promulgated and maintained with 
 equal zeal by their respective partizans : 
 On the one side it has been held, that wc 
 ought — and indeed that we can only re- 
 present particular and individual Nature, 
 and on the other, that Art, strictly speak- 
 ing, is no imitation at all of external nature. 
 The first of these principles, leads of ne- 
 cessity to taking pains in a wrong direc- 
 tion, or what the Lecturer on Painting, by 
 a bold metaphor, has called climbing 
 downward the latter to such aerostatic 
 flights as baffle our perceptive faculties. 
 He who, possessed by the former notion^ 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 157 
 
 should sit down to Paint or Engrave por- 
 traits ; if he began at Reynolds or Sharp, 
 must descend to Denner or Piquet ; and in 
 Landscape, if he began to paint or engrave 
 trees with Poussin or Vivares, must finish 
 with the laboured precision of botanical 
 detail. 
 
 On the other hand — the contrary prac- 
 tice must produce such vague smearings — 
 such airy nothings," as we might suppose 
 could neither receive name, nor local habi- 
 tation receive them^ did we not frequently 
 see the habitations of our friends thus dis- 
 figured. In short, the prevalence of this 
 principle, if admitted as such, must require 
 the practitioner to leave more and more, till 
 at length all must be left for the imagina- 
 tion of the spectator, and fortuitous blotting^ 
 or manual dexterity, be substituted for es- 
 sential imitation, or characteristic represen- 
 tation of Nature. 
 
 I shall at present add but little, to the 
 much that has been said and written on 
 those indispensable terms of Art, beauty, 
 and Sublimity. 
 
158 THE THIRD LECTTURET. 
 
 Of Beauty it may be said, as a cele- 
 brated critic has said of Sliakespear, that 
 the subject has been illustrated into obscu- 
 rity. We have been aUernately and succes- 
 sively taught to identify it with utility, with 
 proportion, with goodness, with fashion, 
 with propriety, with serpentine lines, and 
 with central forms ; or to consider it as a 
 compound quality, consisting of various 
 modifications and mixtures of these ; — and 
 these doctrines are severally supported by 
 elaborate reasonings, and highly respected 
 names. 
 
 Amid the splendour of such various 
 lights, who is not dazzled and confounded ? 
 — Who shall direct his attention steadily to 
 the object — and that object, Beauty ! 
 
 From a persuasion that these differences 
 of opinion, are rather seeming, than real 
 differences, I should have thought it a 
 pleasing task, if time had permitted me, to 
 endeavour to reconcile them. Some re- 
 conciliation may, however, arise out of the 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE, IS9 
 
 brief notice I may now be able to bestow 
 on the subject. 
 
 Presuming the Beautiful to be synoni- 
 mous with the Lovely — as in my opinion it 
 is, — the following questions immediately 
 arise. Is it what is felt or perceived to be 
 lovely or pleasurable, by each individual, 
 that is properly termed beautiful ? or what 
 by sympathetic consent is acknowledged to 
 be so felt by the societies of which such 
 individuals are respectively members? — - 
 Or has this feeling resulted from the gra- 
 dual refinement of all societies, in so far as 
 such refinement may operate at any speci- 
 fied time or place ? 
 
 ^ If we derive our English word Beauty from the French 
 language, its radix must be in the first syllable, which 
 means finery, or what is agreeably irritating to the sense of 
 vision : If we have taken its meaning from the Greek t» 
 yictT^oy^ I am informed that it is synonymous with Good- 
 ness: I am also informed, that if we go still further 
 back, to Homer, and the writers anterior to the Attic phi- 
 losophy, we recede in a circle, and are carried round to 
 French meaning ; x»?s9? and HaA;\o? relating only to physical 
 beauty. 
 
160 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 It does appear to me that the word Beauty, 
 though it be always used to denote lovely 
 or pleasurable objects or feelings, is subject 
 in its application to the variations of mean- 
 ing that may arise from the reciprocal re- 
 flection, and re-reflection of the pleasur- 
 able perceptions or feelings of individuals, 
 on the general pleasurable perception or 
 feeling of society — and vice versa. 
 
 In the gross sense of the term therefore, 
 the feeling of the beautiful exists, (as has 
 been declared from this place) among sa- 
 vages ; and the strong expression of pleasure 
 with which they view shining baubles, 
 {which pleasure is very far from being con- 
 fined to savages) demonstrates the identity 
 of the beautiful with the pleasurable or 
 lovely, as far as respects them. 
 
 A modern traveller of urbaility and ob- 
 servation, pourtrays the rural delights of a 
 Dutchman in the following termst He 
 builds himself a dv/elling : It is a hut^n 
 size — It is a palace in neatness. It is ne- 
 cessarily situated among damp^, upon a flat, 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 161 
 
 and perhaps behind the banks of a slug- 
 gish canal'' (objects the most irreconcile- 
 able to to our notions of beauty) — Yet, he 
 writes upon it, my Delight Country 
 pleasures ! ''Country prospects ! — or some 
 other inscription that might characterise 
 the vale of Tempe, or the garden of Eden. 
 He cuts his trees into fantastic forms, hangs 
 his awning round with small bells, and 
 decorates his Sunday jacket with dozens of 
 little buttons/' 
 
 It may very fairly be asked, is this 
 Beauty? and it may be answered, yes — to 
 a Dutchman, living among Dutchmen, it is 
 beauty. That is, it may with as much 
 propriety be so termed, as sparkling beads 
 or shining counters to a South-sea islander, 
 or as the preposterous fashions which some- 
 times obtain a temporary admission amongst 
 ourselves. 
 
 Of these examples, that of the South-sea 
 islander is meant as an instance of the sim- 
 ple pleasure (or beauty) of unimproved 
 
 M 
 
16^ THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 vision : the two latter as instances of that 
 feeling of the beautiful, which results in 
 part from the operation of education and 
 habit, or is produced by the action and re- 
 action of the sympathies of society on the 
 individuals of which the societies are re- 
 spectively constituted, and of the mental 
 energies or influence of the individuals on 
 the societies. Both are intended as exam- 
 ples to illustrate the perception or acknow- 
 ledgment of mere local beauty, the one 
 such as custom^ (or extended fashion) the 
 other such as fashion^ (or limited custom) 
 teaches us to enjoy. 
 
 It may not be unworthy of remark, that a 
 change somewhat analogous to this in prin- 
 ciple, takes place in the mind of every 
 educated individual as he advances from 
 childhood toward maturity. The adult is 
 no longer delighted with what appeared 
 beautiful in infancy, nor the young man 
 with what charmed him at the age of ado- 
 lescence. His taste gradually changes, or 
 rather forms, as his pleasures and the circle 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 163 
 
 of his social intercourse increase — and 
 
 To youth as it ripens giVes sentiment new ; 
 The object still changing^ the sympathy true." 
 
 But beside this local perception or ac- 
 knowledgment of beauty, which is elabo- 
 rated from the pleasures of each particular 
 community ; there is a feeling or perception 
 of the beautiful which is unvarying in its 
 principle, and refined in proportion to the 
 real refinement of intellectual pleasure. It 
 appears to have originally sprung from the 
 same root with the grosser meaning of the 
 term ; the difference to have resulted from 
 cultivation ; and the one to bear the same 
 reference to the calm enjoyments of men- 
 tal taste, that the other does to the more 
 tumultuous pleasures of unimproved sen- 
 sation. 
 
 Beauty, as has long since been observed 
 by Mr. Burke, is a social quality, and all 
 rules and aphorisms of which it is the basis, 
 are corollaries elaborated from the social 
 state, approximating to correctness as that 
 social state is really refined, or cultivated 
 upon genuine principles. If mortal hand 
 
 M 2 
 
164 TH£ THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 could graduate the scale, the perception of 
 Beauty, might be made the test and mea- 
 sure of civilization ; for the enjoyment of 
 the beautiful — the feeling of what is truly 
 beautiful, appears to have been in all coun- 
 tries and in every age, attendant upon what 
 was esteemed to be lovely or attractive, and 
 to have been refined, as pleasure is refined^ 
 in a direct ratio to the progress of human 
 intellect ; from the lowest degree — from the 
 simple raptures of the South-sea islander, 
 up to its highest point of Attic perfec- 
 tion.% 
 
 Having stated my belief that some recon- 
 ciliation of the various hypotheses which 
 have been entertained and inculcated with 
 
 ^ Those who heard me read tiiis discourse in the Lec- 
 ture-room, will perhaps remember, that I then introduced 
 examples from Greek mythology, in support, as I conceived, 
 of this opinion. I believed at that time, that the Greek artists 
 and philosophers, had regarded Venus as the goddess of 
 Beauty, and Cupid, or Love, as the offspring of Venus ; and 
 I made use of this belief as the key-stone of my hypothesis^ 
 which must now stand — if it stand, without it — a mere 
 Gothic arch. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 165 
 
 respect to the source of Beauty, might arise 
 out of the view which I had taken of the 
 subject, it is incumbent upon me to state 
 also why I have been led to form that opi- 
 nion. Those who contend that there are 
 certain forms as well as colours, that, ab- 
 stractedly from all mental associations, are 
 most grateful to the sense of Vision, will 
 agree with me^ that though such objects 
 merely address themselves to the sense, 
 we are very much accustomed to term 
 them pleasing or beautiful, or (from analogy 
 consisting probably in a similar affection 
 of the nerves) by the more mental term, 
 lovely; and as all lovely objects are most 
 lovely when they are in their highest per- 
 fection, when they are likewise most useful, 
 best proportioned, and most excellent, I con- 
 ceive that the advocates of UtiHty, Perfec- 
 tion, Proportion, Goodness, and Propriety, 
 will agree with me also ; for they w^ill not 
 contend that all useful, or perfect, or well 
 proportioned objects are beautiful, since a 
 bat or a toad may be as perfect and as well 
 proportioned, and for aught we know as 
 useful as a rose or a swan. Wherefore, I 
 
166 tHE THIRD LECTURK. 
 
 argue, on the whole, that unless objects dali 
 forth the tender affections, or are lovely, 
 they are not beautiful, however perfect, 
 central, or well proportioned their forms ; 
 and vice versa, that if they do call forth 
 this tender sentiment, they are beautiful, 
 though we should not have discovered their 
 usefulness, or the justness of their propor- 
 tions. 
 
 It has sometimes been thought that a 
 verbal distinction ought to be made between 
 that refined and permanent sense of Beauty, 
 which results sympathetically from the gra- 
 dual refinement of Societies, and the vague 
 and temporary use of the term: but critics 
 of the first authority, either from modest 
 doubts of their own literary influence, or 
 from perceiving that the gross, was in fact 
 blended with the refined meaning, have 
 found it wisest to acquiesce in the present 
 usages ; and as words in a discourse, like 
 colours in a picture, or lines in an engrav- 
 ing, always derive part of their meaning, 
 from those other words, colours or lines, 
 near which they happen to be placed, it 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 167 
 
 will be my duty to attend to this relation, 
 and avail myself of these means, in order 
 to be correctly understood. 
 
 The meaning of Sublimity appears now 
 to be more settled. It literally signifies 
 loftiness : and whether we say a sublime 
 object, is an object of power to dilate or 
 exalt the mind of the beholder, we mean the 
 same thing : being obliged in this, as in 
 most other cases, to make use of a physical 
 term to express a metaphysical meaning. 
 
 The author of the Inquiry into the origin 
 of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,'* 
 has taught, that Terror and Sublimity are 
 synonimous terms : a mistake for which 
 (especially with Longinus before him) it is 
 so difficult to account, that, after readins: 
 him with attention, we can scarcely believe 
 we have not misconceived his meaning, — 
 yet, he plainly and expressly says, that 
 
 Terror is in all cases whatsoever, either 
 openly or latently the ruling principle of 
 the Sublime." 
 
 The introduction of the Ghost in Shake- 
 
168 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 Spear's Hamlet is fraught with all those cir- 
 cumstances which would seem to render it 
 a fit illustration of the subject before us : but 
 it goes directly to invalidate Mr. Burke s 
 hypothesis. 
 
 Of the four persons who witness its ap- 
 pearance, it is worthy of notice, that the 
 sublimity of their characters is in an inverse 
 ratio to their Fears— or rises in proportion 
 as they are exempt from Terror. Bernardo 
 and Marcellus, 
 
 . <i Distiird 
 
 Almost to jelly with the act of Fear 
 Stand dumb.' — 
 
 Horatio, possessing somewhat more cour- 
 age, speaks to it, and Hamlet not only 
 speaks to it as he had vowed — though 
 Hell itself should bid him hold his peace/' 
 but follows it toward the brink of extreme 
 danger, (in opposition to the earnest dis- 
 suasions of his friends) with a mind dilat- 
 ing more and more, as the danger seems to 
 increase. 
 
 I had pursued this chain of reasoning to 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 169 
 
 more considerable length, but the recent 
 appearance of a book, where the subject is 
 amply discussed, and which is in almost 
 every hand, renders it unnecessary to read 
 all that I had written. It may be sufficient 
 to add^ that Mr. Knight has recalled the 
 word (Sublimity) to its original meaning: 
 He has satisfactorily shewn that rapturous 
 or elevated feeling, whatever may be the 
 exciting cause, is Sublimity, and that the 
 tenderest Odes of Love, as well as the most 
 terrific Images of War,* may raise the mind 
 to this exalted tone: He has proved that 
 Time does not alter Truth : He has re-re- 
 gistered the decision of that ardent Judge 
 who, zealous to his trust, with warmth gave 
 sentence — ^but was always just." 
 
 I do not foresee that I shall have much 
 occasion for the word Picturesque : Yet it 
 is at present so fashionably technical in 
 almost all conversations respecting Art, 
 that something would seem wanting, were 
 I entirely to omit noticing it in this place, 
 
 The instances cited by Longinus, and referred to by Mr. 
 Knight, are the well known prayer of Ajax, and Sappho j 
 cjmpassioned Ode, " Blest as the immortal Gods, &c/' 
 
170 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 The term Picturesque signifies, as a Pain- 
 ter would wish. Though we know that all 
 painters wish not alike; that Gerard Lai- 
 resse, as well as some other painters, have 
 ridiculed the idea of any other than the 
 beautiful class of objects being esteemed 
 picturesque, and that each painter of ge- 
 nius, may claim and exercise an equal right 
 of denominating those objects and effects 
 Picturesque, which are congenial with his 
 own powers, or his own views of the prac- 
 tical energies of his art, yet, we are sup- 
 posed to be able to form by induction a 
 common or generic idea of what painters 
 in the aggregate would prefer — or (which 
 is the same thing) to form an abstract idea 
 of a painter, with whose pleasures we would 
 sympathise, and of whose enthusiasm wx 
 must partake, if we would really feel and 
 enjoy the Picturesque. 
 
 The enjoyment of the Picturesque, con- 
 sists in a perception, as far as respects Paint- 
 ing, of what Akenside could call ' the kin- 
 dred powers of discordant things,' — that is, 
 of the kindred analogies and connecting 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 171 
 
 principles between Nature and the Pain- 
 ter s Art. 
 
 In general we argue Cause from Effect : 
 Here by a sort of re-active or inverted per- 
 ception, means and end are in the painter s 
 mind supposed to change places, and, pos- 
 sessing a painter's taste, we apply the term 
 picturesque to those objects and effects,- 
 which are calculated to call forth the spon- 
 taneous and peculiar energies, and facilities 
 of the Painter's Art. But example may 
 perhaps throw a milder light upon the 
 subject, and some may the more readily 
 discern what is^ from being led to observe 
 what is not picturesque. With this in view 
 allow me to recal Gray's inimitable Ode of 
 the Bard to your recollection: From this 
 poem, pictures have often been attempted, 
 and very good pictures have sometimes 
 been produced : — Yet perhaps the Bard has 
 never been, and perhaps never can be, 
 painted so as to affect the spectator s mind 
 like a perusal of the Ode itself, because it 
 contains incidents and circumstances, which 
 though highly poetical, are so far from be- 
 
175 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 ing picturesque, that they cannot even be 
 represented by painting. 
 
 An aged Bard denouncing prophetic ven- 
 geance, and an Host struck with dismay, 
 may be painted ; the Bard may be exalted 
 on a rock, he may be robed in the sable 
 garb of Woe, and his loose beard and 
 hoary hair, stream like a meteor through 
 the troubled air — But who shall delineate, 
 
 the deep sorrows of his Lyre — What pen- 
 cil shall describe desart caves, sighing 
 to the torrent's awful voice beneath? — Or 
 Giant Oaks breathing revenge in hoarser 
 murmurs With an hundred other cir- 
 cumstances from which the Poem derives 
 so much pathos and majesty ? — The reason 
 is, that these incidents, though they may be 
 deemed analogous to the local energies and 
 graces of the Musician's Art, are not so to 
 those of the Painter's, 
 
 Let it not be thought here that I pre- 
 sume to affirm or to think it impossible for 
 the Art of Painting, to reach these ideas of 
 the Poet. I am so far from entertaining 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 175 
 
 such an opinion, that I think ideas equally 
 beyond the apparent scope of a given Art, 
 in the vulgar estimation, have sometimes 
 been happily attained — not only by this 
 Art, but by that of Engraving also, as I 
 shall presently endeavour to evince. 
 
 In using the term Picturesque, we speak 
 according to the best dictates of our owrt 
 taste, of the known and practicable, not of 
 the possible unknown, powers of the Art of 
 Painting, and mean simply and briefly, 
 analogous to the general idea or opinion 
 we entertain of the known energies of the 
 Painter's Art : and having once chosen to 
 admit this foreign termination into your 
 language, you may (by the same license) 
 frame the term Sculpturesque^ or JVovllet- 
 esque, or almost any other esque you 
 please. 
 
 " The breezy call of Incense-breathing mom/' 
 
 is a verse, that, as it first strikes our at- 
 tention, seems to be entirely and very 
 much beyond the reach of the Engraver's 
 Art. or — (to adopt this fashionable termina- 
 
174 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 tion) not at all Engraver-^^^y^^e : Yet, I have 
 never met with a person of observation and 
 feeling, who had enjoyed the freshness of 
 the morning at that early hour^ and had 
 seen the Aurora of Count Goudt, who did 
 not acknowledge with delight, that the 
 Count had been as completely successful in 
 affecting his imagination, with this senti- 
 ment, as Gray* 
 
 We cannot, however, expect that every 
 imagination will be thus awakened or im- 
 pressed : Those who have not enjoyed 
 this early freshness, in a romantic country, 
 cannot possibly enjoy this Print, because it 
 operates— like all the higher efforts in Art, 
 by stimulating imagination to the concep- 
 tion of more than is actually exhibited. 
 
 'Tis charmed Fancy bids the lovely 
 Landscape live," and I lately had a pleas- 
 ing opportunity of observing this effect 
 produced upon a friend of mine, possessing 
 a mind, certainly of no common powers. 
 In the ardour of youthful enthusiasm, he 
 occasionally rose at day-break to roam over 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 175 
 
 the Swiss mountains in pursuit of a favour- 
 ite study, and now — at the distance of forty 
 years, Count Goudt's engraving of the 
 Aurora seemed to operate on his imagina- 
 tion in precisely the same manner that the 
 distant prospect of Eton College, did on that 
 of our poet Gray, and with equal potency 
 to call up remote but kindred recollections. 
 It may be thought that our recollections of 
 odours, are not very vivid, yet, those of 
 sight, seemed in his mind (as we were 
 looking together at the Print) to recal these 
 also, with all the concomitant feelings of 
 early life. He appeared to feel ^' a momen- 
 tary bliss," to be exhilarated by ideal gales, 
 — again to bound in imagination over the 
 mountains of Helvetia, and redolent of 
 joy and youth, to breathe life's second 
 spring." 
 
 It is not uncommon among print-pub- 
 lishers — nor even amongst Engravers them- 
 selves, to hear the word Colour mistakenly 
 employed to signify shade ; so that if thev 
 think an engraving too dark, they say it 
 has too much colour, too little colour If too 
 
1?6 
 
 trtE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 light — and so forth. The same ignorance 
 which has hitherto reigned over the pur- 
 suits of this Art, has here imposed its au- 
 thority, and with the same unfortunate 
 success : I cannot however yield to it the 
 same submission, since it is not only a pal- 
 pable misuse of a word, but would lead to 
 endless confusion^ when I come to explain 
 to you my ideas of the means the Art of 
 Engraving possesses of rendering local co- 
 lour in the abstract. Wherefore, whenever 
 I may use the term colour^ I mean it in no 
 other than its ordinary acceptation. 
 
 By Middle-tint, I understand and mean, 
 the medium between strong light and 
 strong shade." — These are Mr. Gilpin's 
 words, and he adds, with a propriety that 
 confers value on the definition — the phrase 
 is not at all expressive of colour J' 
 
 As we frequently hear the uninformed 
 talk as if they conceived the highest effort 
 of Painting, was merely to copi/ nature, asi 
 nature appears to them, so it is very com- 
 mon to hear unreflecting people speak of 
 
 4 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 177 
 
 Engraving, as if it were no other than an 
 art of copying that of Painting: which 
 though a great mistake^ is yet a very par- 
 donable mistake on the part of those who 
 have been led into it, when we consider 
 the state in which the Art of Engraving 
 has hitherto existed, and the difficulties 
 and the degradation under which in this 
 country, it has hitherto laboured. 
 
 Now, Engraving is no more an art of 
 copying Painting, than the English language 
 is an art of copying Greek or Latin. En- 
 graving is a distinct language of Art : and 
 though it may bear such resemblance to 
 Painting in the construction of its gram- 
 mar, as grammars of languages bear to 
 each other, yet its alphabet and idiom, or 
 mode of expression, are totally different. 
 TjT English be made the vehicle of the same 
 thoughts which have previously been con- 
 veyed to us in Greek ; or if Engraving be 
 made the vehicle of the same thoughts 
 which have previously been imparted to us 
 by painting, it affords the means of affecting 
 our minds in the same manner : this simi- 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 lar affection of the mind, has led to the 
 mistake, and I have little doubt but that 
 English would have been inconsiderately 
 called an art of copying Greek, if we had 
 never read any other English than transla- 
 tions from the Greek. 
 
 The pretensions of engraving, as of all the 
 arts denominated Fine, are simple, chaste, 
 unsophisticated- Art ever disdains artifice, 
 attempts no imposition, but honestly claims 
 attention as being what it is. A Statue is 
 to be looked at as being a statue — not a real 
 Figure ; a Picture, not as a portion of ac- 
 tual Nature; a Print, not as a copy of 
 Painting. 
 
 An Engraving therefore — that of the 
 death of General Wolfe, for example, is 
 no more a copy of Mr. West's picture, 
 than the same composition, if sculptured 
 or modelled in low relief, would be a copy. 
 In both cases they would be, not copies, 
 but translations from one language of Art^ 
 into another language of Art. How far 
 Woollett's may be esteemed a correct trans- 
 4 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE* 1?^^ 
 
 lation, we shall inquire upon some future 
 occasion — at present, let those to whom the 
 distinction is not rendered sufficiently ob- 
 vious, recollect, that neither in the case of 
 the basso-relievo nor the engravings is local 
 colour employed, which forms so indispen- 
 sable a part of a picture, and is consequent- 
 ly so essential to the production of the re- 
 semblance of a picture^ that it would have 
 been among the first considerations that 
 would have engaged the attention of him 
 who should conceive he was exercising an 
 art of copying that of Painting. 
 
 But absurdity blossoms luxuriantly when 
 engrafted on an original stock of error ; and 
 this vulgar and erroneous notion, that an 
 Engraving is a copy of a Painting, has been 
 assiduously cultivated by the avarice or 
 ignorance of the dealers in prints, who 
 always follow and pamper the taste of the 
 mob, be it ever so depraved, provided it be 
 profitable. That grass was green, and that 
 soldiers' coats were red, was known to the 
 most ignorant of the gaping multitude, and 
 gave wings to credulity, and currency to 
 
 N % 
 
ISO THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 empiricism. Whether ignorance, or the 
 unprincipled love of gain, were the pre- 
 dominating cause> I do not presume to de- 
 termine — neither is it of the smallest im-r 
 portance, since the effect has been equally 
 fatal to the improvement of the public 
 taste : It is error sufficient to call for ani- 
 madversion here, if the printsellers, pos- 
 sessing or possessed by this mistaken no- 
 tion, and with the view of making the 
 copy, in their own vulgar estimation, ap- 
 proach nearer to its original, have caused 
 colours to be literally and barbarously added 
 to engraving : Now to colour a legitimate 
 engraving,^' (one of Sir Robert Strange's, or 
 Wooilett's for instance) is not less palpably 
 absurd to an eye of tasteful discernment, 
 than it would be to colour a Diamond, which, 
 as is well known^, would but obscure the: 
 native brilliancy and beauty of the stone. 
 
 Since I had the honour of reading this Lecture, I have 
 been told to look at the coloured engravings of Volpato, after 
 Raphaefs pictures in the Vatican. The inspection has 
 served to confirm my principles : the colourist has employed 
 opaque pigments, and consequently has obscured the En- 
 grraving, and used only the outlines, of Volpato. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 Had the Statuary's Art been unfortunately 
 placed under the same auspices with that of 
 the Engraver, who can doubt that the mo- 
 numents lately erected to the memory of 
 our brave defenders, would have been mere 
 gew-gaws for children — would have been 
 Ordered to stop in Fleet-street, on their way 
 to St. Paul's, for the additions of colour and 
 glass eyes — in short, for the fair author of 
 Royal Wax- work' — to finish ? 
 
 If a good engraving must thus suffer by 
 being coloured ; so neither can bad ones, 
 be thus converted to good pictures : at the 
 utmost^ nothing better than a sort of mule 
 production can thus be generated — though 
 with much more of the ass than of the horise 
 in its constitution, 
 
 I may possibly be told here, that the 
 mode of engraving, or endotting, v>^hich 
 I have already described, held forth the 
 means of obviating these objections, by its 
 susceptibility of being printed in colours ; 
 (and hence one cause of the avidity with 
 which the majority of print-dealers pur- 
 
182 THE THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 sued it.) But even were the printer an 
 artist, and even were the colours employed, 
 true to nature or the original picture from 
 which any coloured plate has been en- 
 graven, the very nature of the process of 
 printing in colours, would throw back these 
 elements into chaotic confusion : the colours 
 are unavoidably so blurred and confound- 
 ed, in what, in the language of printing is 
 called Jilling in the plate, and afterward 
 wiping and clearing off the superfluous co- 
 lour or ink, that such prints as they come 
 from the press, have a very crude, confused, 
 and discordant appearance. 
 
 To substitute order and harmony, to 
 discord and confusion, seems to call for no 
 common powers : Yet, who are the persons 
 employed to execute this delicate and dif- 
 ficult task ? They are in general the most 
 ignorant, of all the ignorant pretenders to 
 Art : Those who can scarcely hold a pencil, 
 are the cheap drudges appointed by the 
 dealers, to perform a task which requires 
 the practised hand, the cultivated eye, and 
 the consummate judgment of a master. 
 
THE THIRD LECTURE. 183 
 
 The eye, the hand, and the judgment of 
 a Painter, can alone confer value on a co- 
 loured work of art — call it picture, print, 
 or whatever you please : nothing else can 
 entitle it to the denomination of a work of 
 Art. Unless therefore, the incidental smear- 
 ings and errors of the printer in colours, 
 be rectified by the author of the original 
 picture from which any stippled plate has 
 been engraven, or some person of equal, 
 and of similar powers, and capable of en- 
 tering into his views ; such performances 
 must ever remain unworthy the attention 
 of those who possess the smallest preten- 
 sions to Taste. 
 
 From what has been said, I believe it 
 will have appeared that the production of 
 good coloured prints, would be incompa- 
 tible with the views, or at least with the prac- 
 tical exertion of the talents, of a genuine 
 Painter, who (even were he to be well paid 
 for it) could never submit to stifle his in- 
 ventive powers in the drudgery of copying 
 his ow^n works, while by multiplying them, 
 he lessened the nominal value of each ; and 
 
184 THE THIRD LECTURE, 
 
 would also be incompatible with the views 
 of those who deal in these coloured com^ 
 modities from motives of mere pecuniary 
 profit, — disregarding the profit of the mind* 
 
 It may perhaps be necessary to return 
 to points which have been so much misre- 
 presented as those to which we have just 
 been attending, at some future time. Of 
 the phenomena both of Nature and Art, 
 the most frequent, are sometimes the least 
 understood ; nor is it uncommon for what 
 we daily and hourly see, to escape mental 
 cognizance, or at least to elude critical 
 attention- 
 
LECTURE IF. 
 
 Discovery and profnulgation of the means of 
 printing Engravings on paper — Of the earliest 
 Engravings on Wood — The Buxheim Prints and 
 engraved block in Earl Spencer s collection — 
 Of the earliest Engravings on metal performed 
 jvith a view to their being printed at the Rolling 
 Press — Of curious Prints in the Collection of 
 Mr. Cracherode^ and Dr. Monro — Importance of 
 Printing — Approaches of the Ancients toward this 
 Art — Of Roman and Etruscan engravings on 
 metal — Doubts respecting German Wood-engrav- 
 ing — Of the first German Engravings on copper 
 ' — Gothic taste of design — Of Martin Schoen— 
 Critical observations on his St. Anthony^ and 
 his procession to the Crucifixion — Of Albert 
 Durer — Critical observations on his Melancholy^ 
 his St. Jerome^ and his St. Hubert — Comparison 
 between him and Spenser — Reflections on early 
 Works of Art^ prejudices of Education^ and 
 principles of Criticism — Of the Adam and Eve^ 
 Death's-head^ Life of Christy Portraits and 
 other Engravings of Albert Durer — Of the in- 
 vention of Etchings the Cannon.^ and other Etch- 
 
186 
 
 mgs^ by Albert Durer — Slight notice of Lucas 
 van Leyden^ Aldegrever^ Alidorfer^ Penz^ and 
 the Behams — Summary of the farther progress 
 of Engraving — Of the Engravings of Mair 
 and Da Carpi in imitation of Painters' sketches 
 and cartoons. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 Notwithstanding that engraving on 
 
 various metals had long been practised, the 
 earliest mode of printing on paper, was from 
 the surfaces of engraven blocks or tablets 
 of wood. Guttemberg of Mentz, or Faust 
 of Strasbourg, first promulgated this art 
 about the year 1440, or between that time 
 and 1450; and their respective partizans^ 
 have contended for annexing a degree of 
 celebrity to their names, to which, as in- 
 ventors, neither of them is fairly entitled. 
 Extremely rude outlines of saints and le- 
 gendary tales had previously been en- 
 graven, apparently with the view of exci- 
 ting the attention of the vulgar, and had 
 been a mode, (which no person at the time 
 thought of turning to better account) of dis- 
 seminating monkish superstition. Of these, 
 some few collected in Germany, are pre- 
 served in the curious and valuable libraries 
 
188 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 of Lord Spencer and Mr. Douce, to some 
 of which, the names and legends of the 
 Saints, kc. are added for the better informa- 
 tion of the unlearned spectator : and it seems 
 more than probable that these alphabetic 
 additions, which are in the old German 
 black letter, gave the first idea to Guttem- 
 berg, Faust, or Koster, of printing books, 
 for precisely in this way, and not from 
 moveable types, were books originally en- 
 graven and printed ; and I believe they are 
 so printed in China, to this day. 
 
 One of the earliest of Koster's books that 
 I have seen, is of this kind, and contains 
 a much larger portion of picture (if so it 
 might be called) than of reading. It is in 
 the Gracherocle collection, which is now 
 open to the public, and consists of sixteen 
 ^ leaves, each containing two subjects illus- 
 trative of Solomon's song : It is printed only 
 on one side of the paper ; shadowing with 
 a single course of lines is feebly attempted, 
 and under each print is a Latin scroll or 
 label, cut in German text, on the same 
 block. But there is a somewhat older book 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 189 
 
 in the Bodleian library, and another in the 
 the bibliographical collection of my Lord 
 Spencer, of which the subject is the Apo- 
 calypse, and where colour is clumsily added 
 with the hair pencil, though without any 
 attempt at gradation of light, much in the 
 manner of old playing cards. 
 
 The Baron Heinnekin with great proba- 
 bility, thinks that the painters of the play- 
 ing-cards, were really the first European 
 printers ; that they devised the method of 
 cutting the kings, queens, &;c. upon wood, 
 to save the trouble of making a separate 
 drawing for each card ; and that they also 
 cut the single prints of religious subjects, I 
 have just mentioned, of which he found 
 one of a folio size, and dated so early as the 
 year 14^3, pasted into a book, in the li- 
 brary of a convent at Buxheim near Mem- 
 mingen. 
 
 This curious print, supposed to be the 
 oldest extant, having been lately purchased 
 by Lord Spencer, is now on its way to 
 England, and will very soon find its proper 
 
190 THE FOURTH LECTURE/ 
 
 place in his valuable^- collection: meanwhile 
 the noble Earl has kindly enabled me to shew 
 you a fac-simile of this ancient Print, which 
 was cut a few years ago, and has also al- 
 lowed me to remove from his library a still 
 greater curiosity for your inspection. It is 
 one of the original blocks which was used 
 in the very infancy of Printing, before 
 moveable types were invented, and before 
 shadowing was even feebly indicated. Of 
 the history and visions of St. John the 
 Divine, no fewer than six editions were 
 thus engraven and printed, at this early 
 period, and the impressions from the block 
 I have now the honour to exhibit, con- 
 stituted according to Baron Heinnekin, the 
 second leaf of the second edition, of which 
 there is a copy in the Royal Library at 
 Buckingham-house : It is probably there- 
 fore, one of the earliest engravings on wood 
 that were ever performed, and perhaps the 
 oldest that is now extant. 
 
 Hence it appears that the art of engrav- 
 
 * It has since beeu received^ aisd is now in the library at 
 Spenccr-hous©. 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE, 191 
 
 ing on wood, was the parent of that of print- 
 ing from the surface, and with the letter- 
 press. To the art of printing with the 
 rolling-pressy or of delivering ink from the 
 incisions of the graver, it has in like man- 
 ner, been disputed among the learned — or 
 rather among the curious, whether Italy or 
 Germany, and whether accident or design, 
 had the honour of giving birth. 
 
 Italy rests her pretensions on the follow- 
 ing circumstances recorded by Vasari. It 
 is known to be common with those who 
 engrave ornaments on plate, occasionally to 
 rub a little charcoal, or oil, or both, into 
 their work, for the purpose of seeing the 
 better what they are about. In the year 
 1460, Maso or Thomaso Finiguerra, a gold- 
 smith of Florence, chanced to cast or let 
 fall a piece of engraving thus filled with 
 this sort of ink, into melted sulphur ; and 
 observing that the exact impression of his 
 work was left on the sulphur, repeated the 
 experiment on moistened paper, rolling it 
 gently with a roller. It was attended with 
 success, and Finiguerra, imparting his dis- 
 
195 THE FOURTH LECTURE^ 
 
 covery to Baccio Baldini of the same place 
 and profession, it was by him communi- 
 cated to Sandro Boticelli, and perhaps also 
 to Antonio Pollajuoli, and Andrea Man- 
 tegna. 
 
 At this time the intercourse between Italy 
 and Germany, was much less frequent and 
 considerable, than it soon afterward became ; 
 and Mr. Strutt has oh the other hand pro- 
 duced a German print from the collection 
 of the late Dr. Monro, of which the date is 
 1461, and says we have several other en- 
 gravings by the same master, and that the 
 impressions are so neatly taken from the 
 plates, that they could not be done much 
 better even at present, whence he concludes 
 that they were not the first specimens of 
 copper-plate printing. 
 
 The print which is reputed to be the 
 oldest in the Cracherode collection, is evi- 
 dently by the same engraver as this of Dr. 
 Monro, and appears too highly finished and 
 and too well printed, to be really one of 
 the first : The same collection contains 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 193 
 
 however/ another print from a copper or 
 silver plate, which I should suppose to be 
 of a still earlier date : It is in a very infe- 
 rior style, full of contradictions in the per- 
 spective, and error in the drawing of the 
 figures; and the angularity, meagreness, and 
 painful attention to minutiae, that characte- 
 rise the productions of the early German 
 artists, are excessive. 
 
 Its subject is Augustus and the Sybil, and 
 the Emperor's diadem, (which is elaborately 
 wrought) as well as the profusion of finery 
 about his dress, seem to point toward the 
 goldsmith's shop, as its origin. 
 
 Mr. Strutt, after pursuing his inquiry into 
 the priority of the German or Italian pre- 
 tensions, to some length, brings forward an 
 impression from an English plate in his own 
 possession, which he thinks ^' may claim 
 the palm of early date:" this claim, how- 
 ever, he afterward rather withdraws than 
 enforces, and in conclusion, has shewn his 
 regard for veracity, by quitting the subject 
 without venturing a step further than his 
 
194 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 data would safely carry him, and without 
 deciding on the superior antiquity of Italian 
 or German printing. 
 
 A knowledge of the era and of the author 
 of a great work or an useful invention, is 
 certainly desirable : Beside that it is neces- 
 sary to the truth of History^ it seems to 
 assist us in indulging the amiable senti- 
 ment of Gratitude. It would call forth 
 our sincere regret, if the name of the au- 
 thor of Paradise Lost, or the Cartoons, or 
 Principia, had sunk in oblivion. — But, at 
 the time which we are considering, paper 
 and ink were in constant and daily use ; and 
 impressions from dies and from seals had 
 I for ages been taken, and were under hourly 
 observation : wherefore it required no pro- 
 tracted train of thought ; no long connected 
 chain of causes and effects ; no mighty ge- 
 nius, like that of Homer, Michael Angelo, or 
 Newton, to perceive that impressions might 
 also be taken either from the surfaces or in- 
 cisions of engraved blocks or plates. 
 
 The Art of Printing, as I conceive, origi- 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 195 
 
 nated in a eoncurrcnce of circumstances en- 
 tirely independent of the minds or studies 
 x)f its reputed inventors : We have seen 
 that at firsts when it was coarsely perform- 
 ed, and, like the tops of ballads and the 
 dying speeches of criminals at present, 
 grossly addressed itself to the lower classes 
 of the community, it was regarded as of 
 very little consequence ; and though Kostef, 
 Guttemberg, and Faust and his coadjutor, 
 cannot be ranked in the class of inventors, 
 I am ready to allow them the inferior merit 
 of perceiving that the Arts of Engraving 
 and Printing might be applied to purposes 
 of greater magnitude and importance than 
 had hitherto been observed. It is the im- 
 ^portant consequences gradually resulting 
 from the discovery, that have made us attach 
 a degree of credit to the name, and enter- 
 tain an unmerited respect for the supposed 
 researches, of the discoverer, to which in 
 point of real ingenuity, the maker of the 
 first pair of spectacles or stockings, would 
 be far more justly entitled. 
 
 Of this great contributor to the enjoyments of old age 
 and benefactor to imperfect vision, Lord Kaimes has fa- 
 
196 THE TOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 The process of Printing is indeed so 
 simple in itself, and was so nearly obvious 
 in the state of things we have just attend-^ 
 ed to, that a child at play, who wanted to 
 multiply a given form, might almost be 
 ashamed not to have perceived it : and we 
 ought rather to wonder it was not disco- 
 vered sooner, than that it was discovered so 
 soon: Hence some have suspected that it 
 was known and concealed by those who 
 might think themselves interested in pre- 
 venting the diffusion of knowledge ; and if 
 the former arbiters of Europe, could be 
 believed to have been Bonapartes\ we might 
 have given ample credit to the surmise. 
 
 Printing was not however promulgated 
 till toward the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, and the day of its promulgation was 
 certainly a day of unparalleled importance 
 to Europe. Of that auspicious and me- 
 
 voured us \\ ith the name and country. He says Spectacles 
 for assisting the sight were invented by Alexander Spina, a 
 Monk of Pisa, about the end of the thirteenth centurj/ 
 Sketches of Man. 5. Sect. 1. 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE* 197 
 
 morable day, and of this immortal Art, 
 considered in their consequences, it would 
 be difficult to think or to speak too highly. 
 They have frequently been the favourite 
 theme of panegryric with the Poet^ and the 
 Patriot, and should be for ever consecrate 
 in the annals of mankind. The sublime 
 station that Archimedes wished for in vain, 
 seemed then spontaneously to emerge to 
 notice ; and then was constructed the im- 
 mense lever, by means of which the whole 
 civilised world may be moved by a single 
 hand !— Empowered by this invention, the 
 professor of the imitative Arts, may disse- 
 minate every truth and every pleasure, 
 that sight and imagination operating upon 
 Nature, can extract or convey ; the Phi- 
 losopher may dispel the clouds of igno- 
 rance and error, and diffuse the light of 
 science ; the Poet may paint the charms of 
 religion and morality to an admiring world, 
 
 ^ Since this Lecture was first delivered, they have been 
 the subject of a Poem of very considerable merit, by Mr. 
 J. M^Creery, to Mhose care I have consigned the printing 
 ©f this volume. 
 
198 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 and the most obscure individual, if he 
 possess the talents and the virtue, may 
 expose the errors and the vices, while he 
 braves the indignation, even of the most 
 powerful and opulent. Hence an un- 
 shackled press — a sacred right which in 
 this country is peculiarlij enjoyed, has in 
 all free states been esteemed the great test, 
 bulwark, and palladium, of Liberty and 
 Truth, 
 
 In tracing effects to their true causes, it 
 ought not to be forgotten that the great 
 benefits we have derived, and continue to 
 derive, from Engraving and Printing, ought 
 in fairness, to be partly ascribed to the dis- 
 covery of the means of converting rags into 
 paper: this probably helped to suggest the 
 idea of Printing, and perhaps two centuries 
 and a half had scarcely more than brought 
 this invention to the degree of perfection 
 necessary for the reception of impressions 
 ; from types and engravings. Had the mo- 
 j dern art of making paper been known to 
 I the ancients, we had probably never heard 
 the names of Faust and Finiguerra, for with 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 199 
 
 the same kind of stamps which the Roman 
 tradesmen used for their pottery and pack- 
 ages, books might also have been printed ; 
 and the same engraving which adorned the 
 shields and pat eras of the more remote ages, 
 with the addition of paper, might have 
 spread the rays of Greek and Etrurian in- 
 telligence, over the world of antiquity. 
 
 Of the truth of this assertion, I have the 
 satisfaction to lay before you the most de- 
 cided proofs, by exhibiting engraved Latin 
 inscriptions both in cameo and in intaglio^ 
 from the collection of Mr. Douce, ❖ with 
 impressions taken from them at Mr. Savage's 
 letter-press, but yesterday ; and also a print, 
 taken with permission, from a Greek, Phry- 
 gian, or Etruscan patera, in the Hamilto- 
 nian collection : the latter is a mere outline 
 in a bad style of two figures in the Phry- 
 gian dress, and though it possesses no merit 
 
 ^ One of these is an intaglio stamp engraved on stone, 
 with which a Roman oculist was used to mark his medi- 
 cines, the other^ which is of metal, and in cameo, is simply 
 the proper name of the (Roman) tradesman by whom it has 
 probably been used, " Titus Valagini Mauri." 
 
2,00 THE FOURTH LECTURE* 
 
 whatever, it serves to shew how little was 
 wanting to the ancients, of the modern art 
 of printing from the incisions of the graver, 
 and may be thought a curiosity, as being in 
 all probability the oldest engraving in the 
 world, from which an impression has beeu 
 taken on paper. 
 
 The British Museum contains moreover, 
 two other ancient engravings, performed 
 exactly in the same manner as we now en- 
 grave on copper for printing, of which one 
 — the remains of a Greek parazonium, has 
 been copied and accurately described by 
 Mr- Strutt: the other is also classical 
 both in composition and subject, and is cut 
 on a patera of bronze : Venus attended by 
 Cupid, is represented as preferring a com- 
 plaint or imploring a favour of Jupiter, and 
 Mercury ordered on an errand, is in the act 
 of departure — stepping through the Zodiac. 
 As I know not that this (perhaps astrono- 
 mical record) has been either copied, ❖ or 
 
 * I have since seen that it has been copied by Raphael, 
 in a drawing (which Marc Antonio has engraven) of four 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 201 
 
 particularly noticed, I had intended to en^ 
 deavour to print it for your perusal, but on 
 a close examination, the patera was thought 
 to be too time-worn, and the Emgo too valu- 
 able^ for me to venture on the attempt, t 
 
 I am under the necessity of postponing 
 in part^ what I may have to state on the 
 subject of Wood-engraving, in consequence 
 of certain suspicions which I could not help 
 entertaining, and which I have not yet been 
 able to remove, that at least some of the 
 productions of the old masters which are 
 generally thought to be impressions from 
 wood, are really printed from some other 
 material, and perhaps from the substance 
 (whatever it may have been) that was ori- 
 
 subjects which appear to be taken from the jEneid. What 
 had been thus noticed by Raphael, it was natural that Sir 
 William Hamilton should desire to possess ; and hence we 
 probably owe to Raphael that this curious patera, is now in 
 our national collection. 
 
 + In the collection of the late Mr. Townley, are a con- 
 siderable number of similar pateras of bronze, some of them 
 embossed with chasing, and all ornamented with engiavinga 
 allusive to the sacritices and other religious customs anci 
 ceremonies of the ancients. 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 ginally used for letter-types. It appears to 
 me, from the freedom and frequency of 
 the dark crossings which distinguish these 
 works from modern wood engravings, and 
 from this mode of working being obviously 
 the easiest mode of producing the effects 
 which their authors had in view,, that they 
 are either etchings — the lights being cor- 
 roded away ; or, which is yet more likely, 
 that a prototype or matrix was cut in in- 
 taglio, probably with the graver, in which 
 the tablets from whence the prints are taken, 
 were cast in the manner Qf letter-types. 
 
 It is well known that combinations of 
 works of Literature and Art, rude indeed, 
 but printed at once and with the letter-press^ 
 were common from about the time of the 
 appearance of the Nuremberg chronicle. 
 Numerous are the books printed in the two 
 succeeding centuries, that are embellished 
 with letter-press vignettes, and large orna- 
 mented capitals at the beginnings of the 
 chapters : and the question naturally oc- 
 curring to a very intelligent antiquary, (to 
 whom I have the honour of being known.) 
 
^ THE FOURTH LECTURE. 5^03 
 
 What is become of the tablets from whence 
 these ornaments are printed ? he employed 
 persons to search for them in those cities 
 of Germany and the Low-countries, which 
 had been celebrated for printing — ^but they 
 sought in vain. Now had these works been 
 of wood, some of them would probably have 
 been found ; whereas, the question of their 
 disappearance, if they were of type-metal, 
 is resolved by supposing that (like old letter- 
 types) they were melted down when worn, 
 or useless from the change of fashion, in 
 order to cast letters wdth their substance. 
 To believe them to have been of wood, we 
 are therefore compelled to add the improba- 
 bility of their entire disappearance, to the 
 great labour and difficulty of cutting away 
 the minute interstices between the crossed 
 lines, so as to deliver dark crossings from 
 their surfaces. 
 
 About the time now under our considera- 
 tion, and perhaps at a still earlier period, 
 the artists who stained and painted glass 
 for church windows, &:c. w^ere in posses- 
 sion of a method which is totally lost to 
 
504 
 
 THE FOURTH LECTURE, 
 
 the modern practitioners in that Art, of 
 heightening their lights by means of mas- 
 terly courses of bright strokes or hatchings, 
 j which they frequently crossed in various 
 I directions. Of such ancient windows I 
 have seen many fragments, some of which 
 display considerable judgment and dexte- 
 rity of hand, and am somewhat inclined to 
 think that the larger works of Wolgemuth, 
 Albert Barer, and those early German mas- 
 ters who are generally supposed to have 
 engraven on wood, have been accomplished 
 by a similar process — whatever that process 
 might have been. 
 
 It appears not improbable that both these 
 arts, and perhaps that of Etching on copper, 
 may have been suggested by the still more 
 ancient ornaments corroded on the sword- 
 blades of Persia and Syria: but, however 
 these events may have been, I have scarcely 
 a doubt that works of art capable of being 
 printed, and perhaps susceptible of much 
 more refinement than I can be at present 
 aware of, may be thus performed on the 
 composition that is now used for letter- 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 205 
 
 types — and if antimony had been known to 
 the artists and letter- founders of the fifteenth 
 century, I should have had but little hesi- 
 tation in supposing modern type-metal to 
 
 ^ I have to regret that this part of the Lecture is so 
 little better than a statement of doubts. Since this volume 
 has been in the press, I have seen a copy of Johnson's 
 translation of Ambrose Parey's Anatomy, (printed in I69I) 
 which is illustrated with Letter-press engravings, where 
 dark crossings frequently occur, and in the preface to which 
 the author says the figures in this work are not the same 
 used by my author; but according to those of Bauhine, 
 which were used in the work of Dr. Crook." Upon re- 
 ferring to the latter work (printed 1631) it was evident that 
 the prints were not copies, but from the very same engrav* 
 ings — but there was this remarkable difference, which ordi- 
 jiary incredulity could scarcely stand against, that in John- 
 son's work the prints were obviously impressed from some 
 substance which had been zcorm^eaten in the course of the 
 sixty years it had lain by, and which could not therefore 
 have been metal. This single, simple fact, will perhaps be 
 thought decisive against my hypothesis: It disproves that 
 type-metal, but it does not demonstrate that w^ood, was 
 used for these engravings, though it affords a strong pre- 
 sumption on that side the question ; and my stubborn opi- 
 nion, abandoning type-metal, may still fortify itself behind 
 vegetable putties, or pastes that are capable of being har- 
 dened—or any substance that is capable of being worm* 
 taten. 
 
2,06 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 have been the substance they employed 
 for the purpose now under our considera- 
 tion. 
 
 When I shall have satisfactorily investi- 
 ' gated these matters, I shall be better quali- 
 fied to submit my sentiments on this early 
 and interesting branch of the Art, to your 
 notice. At present, I shall request your 
 more particular attention to the mode of 
 Engraving so as to print from the incisions. 
 
 The first of the German engravers on 
 Copper whose works I have seen, and who 
 is fairly entitled to be called an artist, is 
 Martin Schon or Schoen, of Culmbach, 
 whom Vasari, and others on his authority, 
 have mistakenly called Martin of Antwerp.f^ 
 His prints are without dates, but as he died 
 in 1486, and is said to have commenced his 
 career about or soon after 1460, he pro- 
 bably practised this art almost from its very 
 beginning. Francis Van Stoss has been 
 
 ^ The French writers call him hiibse Martin, i. e. 
 Martin the handsome, hiibsch or Schiin, signifying in the 
 German language, liandsome. 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE- 
 
 SO? 
 
 mentioned as his tutor, but the chrono- 
 logy is not clear, and Stoss has left nothing 
 behind to shew that he was capable of im- 
 parting any valuable information. 
 
 Martin Schbn engraved from his own 
 compositions : His plates are numerous, 
 and shew that his mind was fertile and 
 vigorous. If it was not sufficiently vigo- 
 rous to burst the Gothic fetters which at 
 that time manacled the taste of Germany, 
 his admirers may solace themselves by 
 doubting whether the unassisted powers of 
 any individual whatever, would have been 
 found adequate to so difficult an occasion. 
 The tyranny of established custom is pro- 
 bably not less stern and unrelenting in the 
 arts of design, than in those of education. 
 
 How the stiff and meagre manner — the 
 angular draperies and emaciated forms which 
 characterise the early productions of the 
 Germans, came to prevail among the Gothic 
 and Celtic nations from whom they derived 
 them? is a curious and perhaps not an un 
 important question. By comparing the 
 
508 
 
 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 early efforts in art of all nations of which 
 we have any memorials , we may be led to 
 infer that man has gradually learned to see 
 objects as they really exist in nature : The 
 images pictured on the retina of the eye, 
 appear to be refracted in their transmis- 
 sion to the intellectual retina, and in every 
 country to continue to be so refracted, until, 
 as the sun of Science slowly ascends, the 
 morning density of the mental medium is 
 gradually rarefied. It is not less observ- 
 able, nor a less curious fact, that a similar 
 haggard lankness in the attempts of man in 
 an uncivilised state, to imitate the human 
 form, has almost universally prevailed. The 
 early art of Egypt, Persia, and Hindoostan, 
 agrees in meagreness with the rude efforts 
 of the Mexicans and South-sea islanders, 
 and with the German art, derived from the 
 Gothic and Celtic nations, which is now 
 under our observation. 
 
 In the time of Martin Schon, and Albert 
 Durer, German art was much in the same 
 state with European ethics : Theory Avas 
 separated from practice ; and both Art and 
 
A^^^ ^y^TllE FOURTH LECTURE. V^^O^ 
 
 Philosophy remained perplexed with false"^ ^ 1^ ? i 
 analogies, metaphysical jafgon, and oceultJ^^N^V 
 nonsense, till Bacon and the resurrection f> H ^ ^ 
 of the Antique, referred them to the results ^ ^ 
 of experience, as a criterion of principle, v f t I 
 
 Under such circumstances, I presume to \^ ^ | 
 think that neither my Lord Orfbrd nor any f ^ | 
 other man, should have dispraised either f; ^ 1 j 
 Schon or Albert Duren for not having ? t .^^'^^^M 
 done, what no artist of any other school has ^ v | 
 
 of himself been able to perform : For, not i;^ I" ^ ^ 1 
 only neither of these founders of the German ^ I 
 
 school, but none of the early Italian masters, |\ 1^ l^-il 
 has shewn that he possessed the penetration ^ * I>, 
 to see beyond this gloomy exhalation from J * | 
 the barbaric ages, till the great examples of 
 classic art began to re-appear, and reflect j 
 back on Nature the light they had received^ *^ ^ | 
 from her. If, but for this light, and the ^Ij 
 advantages he derived from contemplating jf> ^ | 
 the works of Michael Angelo,^ Raphael b L j 
 
 himself might have remained for ever mor 
 
 dry and more elaborately minute than^ . , ^ . 
 Albert Durer : If the works of Durer con- "^^x^^^^ I 
 vinced Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dufresnoy, aud^ C | 
 
210 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 Vasari, that with an Italian education 
 he would have ranked in the first class of 
 Artists, and if Michael Angelo saw the St. 
 Anthony of Schbn, with the delight that 
 Vasari has reported, and even copied it 
 with the addition of colour — we have the 
 fiat of the first Judges in their favour, and 
 should be too liberally disposed toward 
 them, and too just to ourselves, to allow their 
 misfortunes to be confounded with their 
 faults. 
 
 To me it appears that the works of Schon 
 
 ^ Tlie reader will not however, allow more to this fact, 
 than the measure of importance to which it is fairly enti- 
 tled. In his account of Martin Schiin, Strutt has the 
 following passage : " Michael Angelo was so pleased witlt 
 the print of St. Anthony carried into the air by evil spirits, 
 that he studied from it himself ; which was paying a very 
 high compliment to the abilities of Schoen/^ and in another 
 place he has added, on the authority of Vasari, that Michael 
 Angelo copied the Print in colours, but has omitted to state 
 (what Vasari has also mentioned, and what has but very 
 lately come to my knowledge) that Michael Angelo w^as but 
 a school-boy at the time. I mention these things for the 
 sake of accuracy, and not as any acknowledgment of alte- 
 ration in my opinion of this very remarkable Print, 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 211 
 
 evince a strong mind operating on the co- 
 existing state of things — brooding over the 
 abyss, from whence the future elements of 
 his art were to be created ; and using with 
 considerable success, the materials by which 
 it w^as surrounded. 
 
 It may be regarded as fortunate for his 
 claims, that in the instance of his St. An- 
 thony, he has adopted a subject that in its 
 nature set him free, or nearly so, from the 
 Gothic bondage with which qn other occa* 
 sions his genius was shackled : He has 
 been the first boldly to venture into the 
 regions of Chimera, and by the potency of 
 his art, has compelled thence the Demons 
 that Callot and Teniers were afterward soli- 
 citous to invoke and proud to employ ; 
 while the expression of undisturbed faith 
 and pious resignation in the countenance 
 of the Holy man whom they are hurrying 
 into the air, shews that he saw and copied 
 that portion of Nature which she did vouch- 
 safe to unveil to him, with a clear vision 
 and delicate though determined hand. If 
 his Demons are more fantastic and less ter- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE totJRTH LECTURE. 
 
 rible, than modern art would deem it proper 
 to introduce, we should recollect that the 
 age of Schon was that of Ariosto,^- and 
 that two centuries elapsed between the 
 grotesque monsters of Ariosto, and the 
 sublime demonology of Milton. 
 
 It is consonant to the progressive im- 
 provement of critical observation, that more 
 should be known of the human counte- 
 nance at an early period, (or indeed at any 
 period) than of the rest of the figure, because 
 it is the kind of study and observation in 
 which men are most interested. Accord- 
 ingly, Schon's heads are in general by far 
 the best parts of his performances. Those 
 of his single figures of St. Martin and St, 
 John, have considerable merit ; the divine 
 character and expression of that of his 
 Christ bearing his cross, as it appears in 
 
 * Ariosto was twelve years of age when Schon died. 
 If there be any trifling error in saying that the age of Schcin 
 was that of Ariosto^, the correction of that error, is in favour 
 of the principle I am here supporting : namely, the general 
 dow progress of the improvement of human intellect. 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 213 
 
 the good impressions, has rarely been sur- 
 passed, and several other heads in this ex- 
 tensive composition, possess a proportion- 
 able share of excellence. (Of this plate 
 there are two copies, one of which is by 
 Bartholomew Schon, the brother of Martin, 
 and both are very inferior to the original. 
 I mention this in passing, that persons de- 
 sirous of possessing Martin Schbn's, which 
 is marked with his initials, may be careful 
 not to mistake.) 
 
 In some of the engravings of this artist, 
 I trace a latent feeling that his art might 
 be rendered subservient to the expression 
 of the various textures of substances : — 
 Nay, more than this — Expression of texture 
 strongly discovers itself in the grain of the 
 wooden Cross ; in the various modes he 
 has invented of describing different sorts of 
 drapery, and in the sterility of the ground : 
 perhaps the latter is as much the result of the 
 jiecessary operation of the uneducated gra- 
 ver, as of study — Yet, is it in such full con- 
 cord with the barrenness of the scene and 
 barbarism of the subject, as to be not un- 
 
 4 
 
214 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 worthy of your favourable notice ; while th6 
 whole together seems to shew that a senti- 
 ment has subsisted from the very com- 
 mencement of Engraving, that it was sus- 
 ceptible of this particular merit, and which 
 may therefore be fairly presumed to be not 
 founded in the fallacious refinements of 
 modern fashion, (though perhaps sometimes 
 run after with too much fashionable avi- 
 dity) but one of the primary elements of 
 the Art. 
 
 Of the ways in which an artist of Genius 
 may enlarge the sphere of human know- 
 ledge, the discovery and practical exhibi- 
 tion of ncAV resemblances, either actual or 
 analogical, between Nature and the local 
 energies or blandishments of his art, is one : 
 and it is one in Avhich Albert Durer, who 
 studied the works of Schon, greatly dis- 
 tinguished himself. 
 
 I ought at the same time to observe to 
 you, that his resemblances, for the most 
 part, proceed too much upon fac-simile 
 principles for the generalised dignity of 
 
 1 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 2,15 
 
 his subjects, and that his powers of imita- 
 tion are too prodigally lavished upon sub- 
 ordinate and unessential parts. 
 
 The expression of his figure of Melan- 
 choly, which would else have approached 
 Sublimity, is considerably injured by the 
 introduction of a multitude of objects, most 
 of which the mind does not readily assimi- 
 late with the sentiment of Melancholy : It 
 must first be perceived or discovered, that 
 these objects are allusions to Astrology, 
 Alchemy, and the occult Sciences, as they 
 were called : — The performance addresses 
 itself therefore to the curious and inquisi- 
 tive part of mankind, and not to Man : and 
 as neither the eye nor the mind, can at 
 once dilate with greatness and descend to 
 littleness, it is evident that the research 
 it requires, must be the destruction of 
 Sublimity. 
 
 Though here is nothing of the holy 
 calm," with which Collins has surrounded 
 his figure of Melancholy, this composition 
 may still be thought interesting on another 
 
216 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 account — I mean as a true picture of the 
 times in which it was engraven; for pre- 
 cisely thus was attention perplexed and 
 distracted on most philosophical subjects, 
 in the age of Albert Durer ; and as he is the 
 author of seven Treatises, most of which 
 are on the metaphysics of Art, he had pro- 
 bably experienced much of that species of 
 Melancholy which proceeds from the mental 
 exhaustion and dissatisfaction, in which 
 such studies often terminate : Regarded in 
 this view, it is no inapt verification of the 
 old adage, The Painter paints himself^ 
 
 It might have assisted to reconcile us to 
 the defects of this performance, if Albert 
 Durer had named it Study : — Or, if we could 
 fancy the figure out of the picture, we 
 might be content to let our attention dwell 
 awhile, on the skill with which he has re- 
 presented most of the other objects when 
 abstractedly and severally considered. This 
 talent however, of representing the cha- 
 racters and textures of individual objects, 
 is still more conspicuous and somewhat less 
 objectionable, in the print of St. Jerome 
 
THE FOURTH LXCTURE. 
 
 517 
 
 in the J?oom^^ wherein all the objects are 
 rendered with a fideHty little short of the 
 the Camera obscura. Regarding the art as 
 in its infancy, we may look at this engrav- 
 ing with the same kind of pleasure — and 
 we should look at all the works of Art of 
 this period, with the same candid indul- 
 gence, with which Reynolds contemplated 
 the Virgin and Child by Van Eyck in the 
 Cathedral church of Bruges — the artist 
 (says Sir Joshua) having accomplished the 
 purpose he had in view." 
 
 Albert Durer is so conspicuous a figure 
 in the Pantheon of Engraving, that I shall 
 think it right to conduct you round him, 
 ^s if we were examining an ancient Statue ; 
 and even occasionally to change the light 
 and shade, and throw in reflections from 
 other objects, for the sake of obtaining a 
 more competent knowledge of our subject. 
 
 We are not dissatisfied with our Poet 
 Spenser, because he is not Pope : On the 
 
 * So called by way of distinguishing it from another 
 Engraving of this Saiat, by the same artist. 
 
218 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 contrary, we are rather pleased, and flattered 
 (if I mistake not,) to find that our candour 
 is called upon : We patiently attend to the 
 minute detail of his lengthened processions, 
 and we liberally grant him the free use of 
 his whilom's, his ekes, his ayes, his eftsoons, 
 and the whole vocabulary of his once poe- 
 tical but now obsolete phraseology. 
 
 What Spenser is to Pope, the works of 
 Albert Durer are to the best works of Barto- 
 lozzi, (whom till lately we could almost 
 call our countryman,) the language of the 
 art having since become in the same pro- 
 portion, more copious and polished. — It 
 may not therefore, be too much, to say that 
 early works of art should be estimated with 
 reference to the general state of art which 
 preceded them, and the coexisting state of 
 Art and Society — not be compared with 
 what has appeared since, unless to answer 
 some purpose of improvement ; nor with 
 the refined ideas of possible excellence, of 
 the first modern artists : Newton himself, 
 might else be thought obnoxious to censure, 
 because he was uninformed of many facts 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 219 
 
 that are well known to the scientific gen- 
 tlemen of this Institution. 
 
 I conceive it to be essential to my pur- 
 pose, not to disregard either of these views, 
 but, (as I have already intimated,) rather to 
 aim at imparting critical information, than 
 practical improvement : When therefore I 
 may commend the works of a distinguished 
 artist who lived at a distant period, I am 
 not to be supposed to hold them up in the 
 same degree, as objects of imitation to the 
 students in art of the present day. But, if 
 not his works, the energy of his mind- 
 that power which enabled him to extend 
 the radius of the golden compasses which 
 heretofore circumscribed his art^ is always 
 a laudable object of emulation. 
 
 Every artist that is worthy of the ap- 
 pellation, desires, and endeavours by hh 
 workS;, that the average or general feeling 
 of the Society to which those works address 
 themselves, shall sympathise or accord with 
 his own. With this view, while one is 
 content to adopt the prevailing notions of 
 
22,0 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 Beauty and Propriety^ which exist in the 
 minds of his contemporaries, and endea- 
 vour gradually to refine and raise them to 
 the level of his own ; another — warmed by 
 a nobler enthusiasm, and perhaps of more 
 fortunate education, dares exercise his pro- 
 fession for posterity, and leaving Time to 
 toil after him, consoles himself but too 
 often for present suffering and obscurity, 
 with the distant hope, — the bright but ideal 
 reconipense, of posthumous Glory. 
 
 These two sets of motives however, have 
 not always a separate existence, but mixed 
 in various proportions and modified by cir- 
 cumstances, they operate as the grand sti- 
 muli to excellence in Art, and both Spenser 
 and Durer combined them in no mean 
 degree : they pleased and instructed their 
 contemporaries, and events have shewn that 
 they were not without reasonable hopes of 
 pleasing posterity also. 
 
 Of those poets and professors of imitative 
 art, who have seemed far to outstrip the tast€ 
 and knowledge of their respective ages and 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE, 221 
 
 countries, I do not recollect any of whom 
 we can say with certainty, that they were 
 not greatly indebted for the superiority of 
 their attainments, to the re-appearance of 
 monuments of the Literature and Arts of 
 former and more refined periods : Upon 
 some principle of mental affinity, they have 
 possessed a superior elective attraction for 
 the beauty and essence of Antiquity, and 
 by vigorously embracing the favourite 
 daughters of Time past, have sent forth a 
 progeny of power to anticipate and transmit 
 the progress and the pleasures of Time to 
 come. 
 
 When we consider that these opportuni- 
 ties and advantages, were nearly denied to 
 Albert Durer as a Painter, and utterly 
 denied to him as an Engraver, it will ap- 
 pear surprising how much he has accom- 
 plished: How much original talent he 
 has shewn : How much intuitive insight 
 into Nature; the practical energies of his* 
 
 * The difference between the professor Fuseli and myself, 
 respecting the merits of Albert Durer and some other of the 
 
2,2,2i THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 Art, and the possible analogies between 
 them. 
 
 There is something grateful to our feel- 
 ings, in the exercise of that power which 
 enables us to transport our minds back to 
 the period at which Durer engraved, and 
 Spenser wrote : The perception that the 
 language (as well as thoughts) of the latter, 
 was then highly poetical, seems to reflect 
 a flattering warmth on the mild triumphs of 
 those who are conscious partakers of the 
 subsequent progress of intellectual refine- 
 ment. To read and to enjoy Albert Durer 
 requires no more than this, and will gratify 
 our taste and discernment no less : If any 
 one of his performances were to be pointed 
 
 the early Engravers, is rather apparent than real. It should 
 be recollected that he had to speak of Durer's merits as a 
 Painter, and to say how far his example when compared 
 with the examples of the other old masters, was worthy of 
 imitation by the Students in painting of the present day ; I 
 had to regard him as Engraver, and to declare my opi- 
 nion of the rank he ought to hold in the estimation of Col- 
 lectors and Connoisseurs. It is one thing to point out what 
 to do in an Art, and another how to appreciate what has 
 formerly been done. 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 223 
 
 out as more particularly resembling Spenser, 
 I think it should be the legendary tale of 
 St. Hubert. They are characterised by the 
 same romantic heights of extravagance ; the 
 same abundance of ideas ; the same unre- 
 mitted and successful attention to minute 
 excellence ; the same general air of incre- 
 dibility rendered credible, and, as we should 
 say now — if they were now produced for 
 the first time, — the same want of concen- 
 tration, brevity, and general effect ; but a 
 temporary adoption of the sympathies of 
 the sixteenth century, as far as Art is con- 
 cerned, reconciles us to these, and affords 
 us an interest analogous to that with which 
 we look back to the occupations of chil- 
 dren, — reflecting the while, at once on our 
 former and on our present selves. 
 
 Another of the most celebrated, though 
 in my opinion, not the best, of Durer's en- 
 gravings, is his Adam and Eve. He has in 
 this instance (though I do not remark it as 
 being a solitary instance) had recourse to 
 Nature for his models, but his Eve is not 
 
 the fairest of her daughters/' nor his 
 
2^4 THE FOURTH LECTURE* 
 
 " Adam the goodliest of men since born 
 Yet I think we may perceive that he select- 
 ed from the Nature with which he was ac- 
 quainted ; and though we do not behold the 
 symmetry and superlative grace of Greek 
 beauty, we probably see the felt and ac- 
 knowledged beauty of Nuremberg. — It will 
 also be allowed, that the Paradise they must 
 shortly quit, does not seem very desirable 
 to inhabit : Here is no genial light ; no 
 luxuriance of vegetation, and no abund- 
 ance of animal life. — To use more of the 
 words of Milton, Nature is so far from 
 wantoning as in her prime, — so very far 
 from playing at will her virgin fancies, that 
 she appears (in those of Shakespear) " bald 
 with dry antiquity:" — Yet if Raphael has 
 violated this cardinal principle of propriety, 
 by erecting a church and houses two stories 
 high, in ^2^5 Paradise, who shall throw the first 
 stone at Albert Durer? — The boles of his 
 Trees, though among the first — if not the 
 very f^rst that were ever engraven, have 
 much of the truth of individual nature, and 
 their foliage and the fur of the Cat, are ex- 
 pressed with a degree of freedom that must 
 
rilE FOURTH I.ECTURE. ^2,5 
 
 surprize those who reflect that no Etching 
 has been employed, and how comparatively 
 ill calculated are the sleek and stilF lines of 
 the unassisted graver, to the expression of 
 such objects. The introduction of the Cat 
 and Mouse in Paradise, could not fail to be 
 understood, from its familiarity, but though 
 ingenious, this very familiarity rendered it 
 unfit for the occasion. Tlie prophet Isaiah 
 has far more nobly expressed the primaeval 
 harmony and happiness of the brute crea- 
 tion* 
 
 The Eve of Albert Durer, k apparently 
 of the same familij that Otho Venius and 
 Rubens afterward adopted for their models, 
 and in the engraving which collectors call 
 
 the Death's-head," is a female figure which 
 still more evidently shews the esteem in 
 which Rubens must have held the works— 
 or at least the women, of Albert Durer. 
 
 It is not easy to conceive the occasion 
 that could have given birth to this myste- 
 rious print of the Death s-head. It presents 
 us either the ordinary routine of human 
 
 o 
 
226 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 life, in allegory, or perhaps a sort of poetic 
 armorial bearing: The Crest is a winged 
 Helmet, richly ornamented, and beautifully 
 executed; and though a scull, which one 
 should think could not fail to be an awful 
 monitor, is highly embossed on the shield 
 — the female Supporter — heedless of her 
 charge — heedless of the moral lesson, and 
 (I am afraid) of the moral character, she has 
 to sustain^ is obviously listening to the very 
 suspicious suggestions of a sort of savage 
 man. It appears to be one of the Night- 
 thoughts of Albert Durer, and perhaps, like 
 those of Dr. Young, may be intended to 
 mark the lamentable influence of the grosser 
 passions. 
 
 Whatever its author may have intended 
 to inculcate by this Print, its execution 
 an engraving is admirable. The Helmet, 
 wdth all its pomp of Heraldic appendage, 
 and the actual and reflex lights on its polish- 
 ed surface, are characteristically, though mi- 
 nutely, expressed ; the Scull is accurately 
 drawn, and its bony substance is described 
 with a masterly hand — the author has even 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 2,2,1 
 
 sedulously attended to the finer enamel of 
 its two remaining teeth. The head of the 
 Savage, with its beard and wild redundance 
 of snaky tangled hair, has considerable 
 and well managed breadth of light and 
 shade, though its character is far less savage 
 than should seem to belong to the rest of 
 the figure: — Its expression is doubtless 
 meant to be assumed and insinuating. The 
 countenance of the Female, I presume to 
 think has seldom been surpassed for that ^ 
 successful mixture of character and expres- I 
 sion, that lends a willing ear to a delusive \ 
 promise ; and the hands of both figures are 
 far better drawn than we have liitherto seen 
 among the productions of the German 
 school : the drapery also, which we have \ 
 been accustomed to see stiff, starched, and 
 complicated, is here relaxed into freedom 
 and simplicity, and is so remarkable for j 
 silky texture ; approaches so near to what | 
 is now termed picturesque composition of! 
 forms and light and shade^ and is on the \ 
 whole so superior to that of his Melancholy, ^ 
 and some other of his subsequent works, as 
 leaves us, either to wonder that Albert 
 
2,28 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 Durer having once attained^ should ever 
 lose sight of the excellence of its princi- 
 ples ; or to infer that he did not perceive 
 their excellence, or that the science he de- 
 duced from his own observation of Nature, 
 prevailed but occasionally over the preju- 
 dices of his education. 
 
 In his small prints of the life of Christ, 
 of which Marc Antonio is said to have 
 pirated the copy-right, other instances occur 
 of this style of superior simplicity in the 
 draperies, and some of broad and captivat- 
 ing effects of Hght and shade: His Jesus 
 Christ suffers greatly, or beams with God- 
 like benevolence ; his Magdalens and Ma- 
 donas are sometimes divinely pathetic ; and 
 many other of the heads in these interest- 
 ing and often grand compositions, are ex- 
 quisitely finished miniatures, remarkable 
 for that sort of accordance and con- 
 sistency of parts, which we deem the in- 
 ternal evidence of Truth and Nature. 
 
 I must refer those who may be desirous 
 of inspecting Albert Durer's portraitSj to the 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 Cracherode collection : It contains those of 
 himself ; Frederick Duke of Saxony ; Eras- 
 mus, and several others : all of them trans- 
 cending the art of that time, and conse- 
 quently the impartial expectations of this. 
 In point of drawing, they possess the same 
 internal evidence of correctness which dis- 
 tinguishes the best of his historical heads ; 
 in style they are laboured, but the labour is 
 not ill bestowed ; and the chiaroscuro is 
 frequently comprehensive and clear. 
 
 The refined Art which is exercised in 
 such high perfection by the best portrait 
 painters of our own country and of the 
 present day ; — The Science which enables 
 them, by ^:ombining in their utmost pro- 
 portions the General with the Particular, 
 to assert the dignity and maintain the do- 
 minion, of mind over matter, and of imi- 
 tative Art over individual Nature, was then 
 unfelt and unknown. — The German por- 
 traits of the latter end of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, can be expected to be no better than 
 literal, fac-simile, unexalted likenesses, of 
 the persons they w^ould represent : They 
 are not rendered, and not attempted to be 
 
i>30 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 rendered, with the judicious abstraction of a 
 wise magistrate selecting the essential points 
 of the case before him, and anticipating 
 your verdict, while he seems to submit evi- 
 dence; — ^but rather with the anxiety and 
 painful particularity of a witness at the Bar, 
 who is sworn to tell the whole Truths and 
 nothing but die Truth : and it may be said in 
 favour of Albert Durer, that he does not, 
 like his competitors, appear to suffer from 
 the recollection of his oath, but delivers 
 what he has seen, with manly firmness and 
 fidelity — without tormenting his memory 
 for more, or seeming to have distressed his 
 recollection for so much, 
 
 Otho Venius, the instructor of Rubens, 
 appears to have studied the best both of 
 jDurer's historical heads, and his draperies, 
 with advantage, and to have occasionally 
 assisted the composition of his pictures 
 with selections from the life of Christ, and 
 such of the set of Apostles as I conceive 
 Durer eno;raved after his return from Ve- 
 nice : and all succeeding engravers who 
 have studied the works of Albert Durer, 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 231 
 
 have reaped equal advantage from observ- 
 ing the happy adaptation and various mix- 
 tures, of lines and stippling, which he has 
 employed in representing the rugged or 
 polished, hard or soft, flat, curved, or broken 
 surfaces, of the various objects he intended 
 to express. 
 
 We are now arrived at the period at 
 which Etching began to be rudely prac- 
 tised. I incline to think — ^but am not cer- 
 tain, that Albert Durer was the first man \ 
 who corroded a plate with aquafortis, so as \ 
 to be printed with the rolling-press : If he 
 was, no man on the whole, has been a greater 
 benefactor to the art now under our consi- 
 deration. 
 
 Evelyn is mistaken in dating this im- 
 portant invention from the middle of the 
 sixteenth century : The earliest of Durer s » 
 prints, that is evidently the offspring of j 
 aquafortis, and impressed from the corroded \ 
 lines, is dated 1516 ; and in two years after, \ 
 appeared his more celebrated Etching of the \ 
 march of an army, which has been called \ 
 
 3 
 
232 
 
 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 ^' The Cannon," from a piece of ordnance 
 forming the principal object on the fore- 
 ground. Both these etchings are reported 
 to have been performed on plates of iron or 
 ! steeL 
 
 His Etchings are far more free and fear- 
 less than might have been expected from 
 first attempts in a new Art, and from the 
 anxious precision and incessant attention to 
 the minutiae, with which he laboured his 
 engravings. He seems to have considered 
 Etching, when compared with Engraving, 
 as of minor importance — as a sort of play- 
 thing, and in aiming at less, has in some 
 respects, really accomplished more than he 
 could possibly have done with his graver : 
 i but he appears to have bit in or corrod- 
 ed his plate all at once, and not to have 
 thought of producing gradation of shade, 
 either by partial stoppings out, or the in- 
 creased pressure of his Etching-needle. Nei- 
 ther does he seem to have conceived the 
 idea of afterward improving either the po- 
 lish of such objects as might require it, or 
 the chiaroscuro of his etchings, by means of 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 S33 
 
 the graver. Hence, there is nothing to assist 
 us in supposing the distance recedes from 
 the foreground, but the diminution of the 
 sizes of his objects — hence also what is 
 meant for skv, is without air : but the can- 
 non itself with its carriage, the stony ground, 
 and the winding of the road through the 
 middle ground, are not ill expressed, and 
 the village and distant country, are drawn 
 with a masterly hand, 
 
 Lucas van Leyden blended more than 
 the faults with less than the merits of his 
 friend Albert Durer. He "has the same re- 
 dundance of stiff angular drapery ; the same 
 want of advertence to the figures it should 
 cover; the same vulgar choice of forms, 
 and more than the same general Gothic 
 gusto, which distinguish the worst of Durer's 
 performances, without his copiousness of 
 invention, his occasional vigour, or his ac- 
 curate observation of individual nature.— 
 Yet, is he in some instances so superior to 
 himself, that if I had seen no other of the 
 works of Lucas than early impressions of 
 bis David with the head of Goliaii, or David 
 
534 
 
 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 playing before Saul, I should have thought 
 myself warranted in endeavouring to vin- 
 dicate Lucas van Leyden, from the asper- 
 sions of him who should thus traduce his 
 reputation, 
 
 I have passed over Francis van Stoss, 
 Michael Wolgemuth, Jacob Walsh, and 
 Israel van Mecheln^ because their works 
 afforded nothing elementary — nothing that 
 could lead us to a gradual acquaintance with 
 the essentials of the art : Scarcely a single 
 ray of Taste or Intelligence beams athwart 
 the Gothic gloom, in which their German 
 patience is enveloped. I shall (not for the 
 same reason, but for reasons allied to it) 
 pass lightly for the present, over the per- 
 formances of the immediate successors, and 
 for the most part, imitators, of Albert Durer, 
 — generally reckoned among those whom 
 the French, from the smallness of their pro- 
 ductions, have termed the little masters. — - 
 Aldegrever, Altdorfer, Penz, and the Behams 
 made no new discoveries, but they occa- 
 sionally improved upon Durer, by contem- 
 plating, and incorporating with their styles^ 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 535 
 
 the superior drawing of the schools of Flo- | 
 rence and Rome ; in which respect Aide- | 
 grever and Penz, who studied for a time f 
 vmder Marc Antonio, excelled their com- I 
 petitors. 
 
 I do not propose any thing quite so tedi- 
 ous, as to conduct you step by step through 
 the unprofitable wanderings of an Art, that 
 has long travelled without roads, without 
 indices, and without light, but rather to 
 select such prints for your observation, and 
 submit such observations to your notice, as 
 may enable us to ascertain its track, and 
 perhaps mark its actual progress by a few 
 simple lines. — I shall therefore conclude 
 for the present, with a brief summary of 
 the journey we have made to-day. 
 
 The progress of the art of producing en- 
 graved prints on paper, has been from wood- 
 engraving, which commenced w ith a mere 
 rude outline, of which my Lord Spencer's 
 tablet is a curious specimen, and was fol- 
 lowed by attempts at shadowing — at first 
 
536 
 
 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 by a single course of lines, or hatchings. 
 Wolgemuth, the preceptor of Albert Durer, 
 soon discovered the means of crossing this 
 first course of lines in the deeper shadows, 
 with a second, and sometimes v/ith a third 
 course, so as in the hands of Albert Durer 
 himelf, to imitate spirited pen and ink draw- 
 ings, with great success. This art of deliver- 
 ing dark crossings from the surface, is lost to 
 the modern Engravers, or at least cannot be 
 performed on wood without occupying so 
 much time and requiring so much care, as 
 would far exceed the advantage. 
 
 Engraving on copper, and printing from 
 the incisions, did not grow out of this branch 
 of the Art, but from such ornamental en- 
 graving as had long been practised by the 
 monks of the middle ages, and more re- 
 cently by the goldsmiths, combined with 
 the discovery of the rolling-press. But its 
 superior powers and obvious susceptibility 
 of refinement, had in some degree sup- 
 planted the former Art, even before the in- 
 vention or discovery of Etching so as to 
 print with the rolling-press. 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 23 J 
 
 Etching afforded a means analogous to 
 the objects themselves, of drawing and de- 
 scribing all those objects of which wdldness 
 and freedom communicated by spontaneous 
 perception and feeling, is the Soul ; yet 
 from the prevalence of those habits and 
 prejudices of education which have been - 
 already noticed ; which hang like dark 
 veils about the faculties of man ; which 
 have been called second nature, but which 
 are perhaps more properly first nature ; the 
 extent and variety of its energies, were not 
 perceived for a considerable time, if they 
 be even yet perceived : The means of en- 
 graving, or the manual operation of the 
 graver, was mistaken for the end ; and 
 hence a false criterion of merit obtained 
 considerable influence, and to the great 
 hindrance of the improvement of the Art, 
 long continued to maintain it. Connossieurs 
 gravely put on their critical spectacles, in 
 order to see in what degree, and how dex- 
 terously, the etcher had imitated the clear 
 and clean-cut lines of the graver; just as 
 the first printers merely endeavoured to 
 imitate MS missals, without perceiving tm 
 
238 THE FOURTH LECTURE, 
 
 superior degree of perfection of which print- 
 ing was susceptible ; or as (by a simiHar mis- 
 apprehension) some persons have lately 
 attended the theatre, not for the moral of 
 the Drama, nor the merits of the Poet — not 
 to compare the efforts of the performers with 
 their own ideas of nature and propriety ; 
 but for the mere purpose of seeing how far 
 the irregular freedom and spontaneous sal- 
 lies — the wild varieties of one representa- 
 tive of King Richard or Hamlet, imitated, 
 or deviated from, the undeviating and ini- 
 mitable precision of another. 
 
 About the close of the fifteenth or begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth century, a new mode 
 of engraving, of which I have reserved the 
 notice — or rather a combination of the two 
 modes I have already mentioned, made its 
 appearance, and Mair, the disciple of Martin 
 Schon, may contest with Hugo da Carpi, the 
 Italian painter, the merits of having been 
 the first to combine in the same performance, 
 both modes of engraving and printing, and 
 of having invented that process which suc- 
 cessfully imitates drawings washed with 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. ^39 
 
 bistre or Indian ink, and to which the title 
 of engraving in chiaroscuro^ was at that 
 time exclusively and therefore improperly 
 applied. Having slightly engraved his pro- 
 posed subject on copper, marking only the 
 outlines and deeper shadows, Mair printed 
 it from the incisions : he then prepared a 
 block or tablet of wood, upon which he 
 carved out the extreme or high lights, and 
 then impressed ink or colour from its sur- 
 face, upon the former print, taking care to 
 secure the coincidence of the plate and 
 block, in the printing, by a mechanical con- 
 trivance. By these means, a middle-tint, 
 which was frequently of brown, was appa- 
 rently washed over a pen and ink draw- 
 ing, and the extreme lights appeared as if 
 heightened with white paint or crayon. 
 Very good imitations of Painters sketches 
 and cartoons were thus produced, and Hugo 
 da Carpi, by means of an additional block 
 and more competent powers of drawing, 
 was enabled to add another tint^ and to pro- 
 duce those bold imitations of the sketches 
 of the Italian painters (particularly those of 
 Raphael) which have gained him a more 
 
540 THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 extensive and lasting reputation, than the 
 best of his original pictures. 
 
 Respecting one of his pictures, there is a 
 short story upon record^ which it may be 
 worth digressing to repeat. In his zeal to 
 display extraordinary powers, or to obtain 
 extraordinary praise, Da Carpi took it into 
 his head to reject his pencils, and to paint 
 an Altar-piece, in which he laid on the co- 
 lours immediately with his fingers. The 
 picture being brought to Michael Angelo, 
 and his opinion importunately requested, 
 he simply observed that it would have 
 been better had he used his pencils." From 
 this mild but forcible reproof of Michael 
 Angelo, the admirers of prints imitated in 
 needle-work, and other similar exhibitions, 
 where Folly has created difficulty in the af- 
 fectation of displaying Art, may extract a 
 salutary lesson. 
 
 I believe that certain linen-drapery and 
 paper-hangings, are now printed nearly in 
 the same way with the engravings of Mair 
 and Da Carpi. By the same process and 
 
THE FOURTH LECTURE. 241 
 
 by Other processes, more recent but not 
 more ingenious, very plausible imitations 
 of painters' sketches, and sometimes of the 
 sketches of those who are far from being 
 painters, have been produced. Imita- 
 tions, or mock representations of their first 
 thoughts, confusedly mingled with their 
 after-thoughts and corrections, have been 
 made to pass current for taste and versati- 
 lity of invention ; " shameless bravura of 
 hand/' has been mistaken for boldness and 
 freedom; and vague and gross smearings, 
 and palpable neglect of form, have been 
 palmed upon the public for grace beyond 
 the reach of Art," and glorious depar- 
 ture from vulgar bounds," 
 
 It may be remembered that this fashion- 
 able but unfounded attachment to vague 
 and slovenly prints which have usurped 
 the name of Engravings, (and from which 
 we cannot but apprehend danger to the 
 unformed taste of a certain amiable and 
 highly interesting class of society) has al- 
 ready engaged some portion of our atten- 
 tion. But, lest any part of my audience 
 
 R 
 
.THE FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 should confound the use with the abuse of 
 this species of art, it may not be improper 
 to add, that the student may indulge his 
 imagination, and perhaps refine his taste, 
 upon sympathetic principles, by occasi- 
 onally following the rapid flights of the 
 artist's unbridled fancy ; and the legitimate 
 collector, disregarding the surreptitious 
 value that mere rarity is sometimes sup- 
 posed to bestow, may wish to possess these, 
 while he sees or believes that the sketch or 
 the scrap, is faithfully rendered or really 
 by the hand of the master : but neither of 
 these votaries of taste, will mistake the 
 beginnings for the ends of art, and both 
 will desire, by comparing the first thoughts 
 with the mature reflections of the painter, 
 to trace his intellectual progress. 
 
LECTURE V, 
 
 Of the rise and early progress of Engraving in 
 modern Italy — Patronage of the Medici— Of the 
 first Florentine engravings^ the performances of 
 JBaldini, Boticelli^ and Pollajuoli — Of the re- 
 surrection of ancient Sculpture^ and its effects 
 on Italian Art — Of Andrea Mantegna — Cri- 
 tical observations on his labours of Hercules; 
 Bacchanalian procession; Battle of Tritons; 
 Triumph of Jidiits Ccesar; ajid Dance of Fe- 
 males — Of a curious allegorical Print designed^ 
 but not engraven by Mantegna— Practical sepa- 
 ration of the art of Engraving frora that of 
 Painting — Of Marc Antonio — Peculiarity of his 
 talents^ and progress of his studies — Critical 
 observations on his slaughter of the Innocents ; 
 Dead Christy and Virgin of the Palm^ after 
 Raphael; and Martyrdom of St. Laurence^ after 
 Bandinelli — Error of Picart respecting the 
 merits of Marc Antonio — Uses of modern En- 
 gravings and Mistakes respecting those uses — 
 Influence of Pleasurable stimuli — Observations 
 on the state of the public Taste for the art of 
 Engravings and for Art in general. 
 
 R2 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 When I last had the honour of addressing 
 you, I endeavoured to mark the progress 
 in Germany^ of that Art which enables us 
 to transfer to paper and spread through the 
 known world, all that is esseiatial in the 
 Arts of Imitation and Design. I gave to 
 Germany that priority to which oti the 
 whole she appears to possess a sort of du- 
 bious title — considering this point as of 
 very inferior importance^ when compared 
 with the real advancement of Engraving, 
 and the proportionate advantages it is cal- 
 culated to confer on Society ^ I return to 
 the names^ the time, and the highly fa- 
 voured country, of Finiguerra^ Baldini, and 
 Boticelli. 
 
S46 
 
 THE tlFTH LECTURE. 
 
 The elegant and philosophical historian 
 ^ of the illustrious family of Medici has 
 remarked, with a pleasure which he must 
 enjoy in the highest perfection, the fortu- 
 nate coincidence between the discovery of 
 printing with the letter-press, and the re- 
 appearance of the classic Poets and Histo- 
 rians. That pleasure is pre-eminently his : 
 It may be yours to notice the no less fortu- 
 nate concurrence between the inventions of 
 Copper-plate engraving and printing ; the 
 resurrection of ancient Sculpture ; and the 
 general resuscitation of Art^ which about 
 the same time improved the condition of 
 Italy ; and has since gratified the Taste, en- 
 lightened the Understanding, and contri- 
 buted more than any other cause to main- 
 tain the intellectual superiority, of Europe 
 over the rest of the world^^^oj — c^iUj 
 
 The present state of things is the conse- 
 quence of the former : and if it be natural 
 to inquire the source of the evil that we 
 suffer, it should be delightful to trace the 
 origin of the goocUhat we enjoy. ''The suc- 
 cessive advances of Science, (says Dr. John- 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 547 
 
 son) the vicissitudes of Learning and Igno- 
 rance, which are the light and darkness of 
 thinking beings ; the extinction and revival 
 of Arts, and the revolutions of the intel- 
 lectual world, are the most generally useful 
 parts of history : Those who have states 
 
 TO GOVERN, have UNDERSTANDINGS TO 
 CULTIVATE." 
 
 , Of those who had to cultivate under- 
 standings, the fifteenth century beheld in 
 the family of Medici, the gratifying, but rare, 
 spectacle of magistrates who were duly sen- 
 sible of the importance of this part of thei^r 
 trust : and it may be esteemed no trifling 
 advantage to the Art of Engraving and its 
 early Italian professors, that it arose at Flo- 
 rence, under the auspicious patronage of a 
 man whose zeal and whose taste for Art, were 
 equally exemplary—^'' a merchant who go- 
 verned the Republic without arms ; whose 
 credit was ennobled into Fame, and whose 
 riches were dedicated to the service of 
 mankind. "^.^ 
 
 ^ Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the R^mao 
 Empire, Chap, 6(). 
 
24$ TliE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 You are probably aware that th6 dis- 
 interestedness of the views of Lorenzo deV 
 Medici has sometimes been disputed, as 
 well as the grandeur of his Taste. While 
 Cosmo has enpyed— perhaps deservedly^ 
 the praise of superior liberality and dis* 
 cernment, Lorenzo is accused of having mis- 
 employed Michael Angelo, and neglected 
 Leonardo da Vinci : but who could have 
 patronised Michael Angelo ? — During the 
 lapse of three centuries, even the most 
 aspiring have voluntarily yielded to him 
 the loftiest station in the most exalted sphere 
 of Art, and the warm admiration of the 
 first Judges, by proclaiming his superiority, 
 has sanctioned his Fame. Adequately to 
 have patronised so great an artist, would 
 have required a mind as vast as his own, 
 possessed of commensurate means of encou- 
 ragement : and where shall they be found ? 
 — ^The candid will pause at least, ere they 
 blame for not having done more, a Nobleman 
 who has done so much for Art as Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent. 
 
 The disappointment of Lorenzo in his 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 549 
 
 attempts to restore the practice of Mosaic 
 painting, was amply compensated by the 
 spontaneous appearance of an Art, which 
 (in the words of his accomplished biogra- 
 pher) has given to the works of the Painter^ 
 that permanency, which even the durabi- 
 lity of Mosaic might not perhaps have sup- 
 plied, — We may add to this praise of its 
 permanency, that portability^ and that pub- 
 licity^ which it was impossible that Mosaic 
 should ever supply. 
 
 That a Florentine goldsmith, should in 
 the year 1460, have discovered a mode of 
 producing on paper, impressions from en- 
 gravings on metal, is by no means irre- 
 concileable with the previous existence of 
 printing in Germany. Nothing, however^ 
 of Finiguerra's engraving or printing re- 
 mains to testify this fact, unles a print in 
 the Cracherodean collection marked T. F. F. 
 which has by some persons been supposed 
 to stand for Thomaso Finiguerra fecit^ might 
 
 * Roscoe's life of Lorenzo de' Medici. Vol. ^. p. 9,9,%. 
 Edit. 1795. 
 
2:50 THE FIFTH LECTURE- 
 
 be believed to be his performance : but Mr. 
 Cracherode has, by a note in the margin^ 
 with more probability in my opinion, attri- 
 buted this print, notwithstanding these ini- 
 tials, to Andrea Mantegna. 
 
 An edition of the Inferno of Dante, 
 printed at Florence in the year 1481, has 
 long been supposed to contain the earliest 
 Italian engravings, excepting the maps to 
 an edition of Ptolemy of which the date 
 is ascertained, and to have been the first 
 book ever embellished with copper-plate 
 prints in which human figures, or other 
 natural objects, were attempted to be re- 
 presented. This is, however, a mistake. 
 The extensive and well chosen bibliogra- 
 phical collection of Earl Spencer, contains 
 a more perfect book, printed also at Flo- 
 rence, (by Niccolo Lorenzo della Magna) 
 but in the year 147 7 — which is four 
 years anterior to the Dante. Its title is 
 Monte Santo di Bio; its author Antonio 
 
 ^ Printed at Rome ia 1478. 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 251 
 
 Bettini bishop of Fuligno; and of the three 
 Engravings it. contains, one is much larger 
 than the embellishments of Dante. 
 
 The prints which accompany both these 
 books, are the joint performance of Baldini 
 and Boticelli, and none of them discover 
 much skill either in the design or execu- 
 tion. The same artists have also engraven 
 a set of the prophets, single figures, and a 
 much larger plate than had yet appeared in 
 Italy, of which the subject is the last Judg< 
 ment, and where the damned are repre- 
 sented in separate places of torment which 
 resemble ovens, each inscribed with a par- 
 ticular Vice. But it must be added, that 
 these Engravings — indeed, all the works of 
 Baldini and Boticelli, are Gothic, vulgar, 
 and inferior to those of their northern con- 
 temporaries : tending strongly to confirm 
 an observation I had occasion to lay before 
 you in my last Discourse, namely, that be- 
 fore they had the opportunity of studying 
 from ancient Sculpture, the Italian artists 
 were far from being superior to those of 
 Germany, 
 
2,5^ THE FIFTH LECTURE, 
 
 A few wretched Greeks, impelled by the 
 disasters of the Eastern empire, are said to 
 have sought and found refuge in Italy, and 
 to have brought with them the poor re- 
 mains of the Arts of Design, at a time when 
 (as Mr. Richardson has observed) it was as 
 much beyond the ability of any European 
 to delineate a human figure, a tree; or any 
 other natural object, as it is now to make 
 a voyage to the moon."^- Some of these 
 miserable performances remain to this day^ 
 and attest the suffering, though not the 
 Country, of their authors : and from this 
 low and depraved condition, Baldini and 
 Boticelli, succeeding to Cimabue, Giotto^ 
 Philippo Lippi, and Masaccio^ assisted to 
 Work out the redemption of Art. 
 
 * Perhaps Mr. Richardson has here gone rather too far. 
 I have shewn in my second Discourse, that Art was not at 
 this time utterly extinct in Europe, but that the engraving 
 of metal seals and dies for money, preserved its latent 
 embers through the darkest periods. The Greeks seem 
 only to have re-introduced the use of colours^ which they 
 mingled in their pictures with gilding. 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 2,53 
 
 All the works of these early Engravers 
 that have fallen under my observation, are 
 dirtily printed, as if the method of clearing 
 olF the superfluous ink from the plates was 
 but imperfectly known. Their outlines are 
 hard, their shadows produced by crossings 
 done with the graver in various directions 
 but without Art ; and in some instances the 
 same composition, by representing more 
 than one point of time, distracts the atten- 
 tion of the spectator, 
 
 Antonio Pollajuoli, who was also of Flo- 
 rence, may with more propriety be called an 
 Artist. From the antique Sculpture, which 
 was now beginning to re-appear, he seems 
 to have learned attention to the Anatomy of 
 his figures : to which most important re- 
 quisite of historical art, Pollajuoli has the 
 distinguished honour of having been the 
 first to attract critical attention. He has 
 shewn his predilection for this study, by 
 representing the conspirators naked in 
 the medal which he cut to commemmorate 
 tlie assassination of Juliano, and the attack 
 
^54 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 on Lorenzo de' Medici ; and aiso in a much 
 larger Engraving than had hitherto been exe- 
 cuted, of which the subject is a battle, and 
 wherein he has represented all the com- 
 batants naked. There is an impression of 
 this very scarce Print, in the Cracherodean 
 collection, printed on reddish paper : each 
 figure is nearly eleven inches in height ; the 
 heads have some faint dawning of expres- 
 sion, and the shadows are produced without 
 crossings, by diagonal lines apparently done 
 to imitate the hatchings of a pen, and in 
 the same direction in which it is customary 
 to write: but the outlines and shadows are 
 dry and hard, and the forms vulgar and 
 heavy. .It is only by comparing Pollajuoli 
 with his contemporaries and predecessors, 
 that we learn to respect his performances; 
 and it has even been said of his most cele- 
 brated work, (the martyrdom of St. Sebas- 
 tian) that it exhibits only a group of 
 half naked and vulgar wretches, discharg- 
 ing their arrows at a miserable fellow-crea- 
 ture, who by changing places with one of 
 his murderers, might with equal propriety 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. ^55 
 
 become a murderer himself — so little at- 
 tention was paid, even in Italy, at this early 
 period, to character and expression. 
 
 Andrea Mantegna, by his more intimate 
 knowledge of the antique, and his superior 
 use of that knowledge, improved the draw- 
 ing, Avithout materially altering the style 
 of engraving, of Pollajuoli. Indeed, as the 
 local energies and practical perfections of 
 Painting, were at this time so imperfectly 
 developed, it was much more natural, and 
 in the same degree more wise, for engrav- 
 ing to imitate pen and ink drawings, than 
 to imitate pictures: and the best of Man- 
 tegna s prints derive a peculiarity of cha- 
 racter and of value, from this circumstance. 
 By intermingling the appearance of the 
 finer strokes of the pen as it is worked 
 upward, in his shadows, he softened and 
 mellowed the stronger lines, so that the 
 whole became a more appropriate vehicle 
 of the obscurity he had in view ; and the 
 exact similarity of his style of engraving, 
 
 Roscoe's life of Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. 2. p. 190. 
 
256 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 to his own mode of drawing, with which 
 I have the satisfaction of enabhng you to 
 compare it,-:^ sufficiently shews that to imi- 
 tate pen and ink Drawings was the boundary 
 of his aim. 
 
 Art now began to shed its genial influ- 
 < ence and its kindling lustre on the plains of 
 Italy, and from the ruins of ages arose those^ 
 master-pieces of Sculpture, which had been 
 the gradual result of ages of study. The 
 Tiber, the Arno, and the Po, smiled to re- 
 flect those forms of celestial purity, which 
 had once graced the shores of the Archipe- 
 lago, and the banks of the Ilyssus : and the 
 palace and gardens of Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
 cent, aspired to emulate those Athenian 
 groves of immortal memory, where Art and 
 Philosophy went hand in hand with the 
 Muses and the Graces, 
 
 The example of Lorenzo extended itself 
 
 * A pen and ink diawing by Mantegna, which is men- 
 tioned in the subsequent pages of this Discourse, was exhi-^ 
 hited in the Lecture^room. 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 2,51 
 
 in concentric circles." Favoured by such 
 advantages, and fostered by the illustrious 
 patronage of the Marquis of Mantua, Andrea 
 Mantegna raised himself from the humble 
 occupation of a shepherd, to the honour of 
 Knighthood ; to that of being the instructor 
 of Correggio ; and to the first rank among 
 the Italian artists of his time, 
 
 His Engravings are not few : but, consi- 
 dering the early period at which they were 
 performed, are much more extraordinary 
 than numerous. The two labours of Her- 
 cules in the Cracherodean collection, of 
 which one has the initials of Finiguerra, 
 and the other no mark at all, ought, 
 I should conceive, to be reckoned among 
 the earliest works of Mantegna. Like those 
 of Pollajuoli, they are printed on red- 
 dish paper : and are in Engraving, what 
 Layer Marney towers, and some other of 
 our earliest brick buildings, are in English 
 Architecture ; whose authors had seen and 
 endeavoured to avail themselves of the 
 beauties of Greek and Roman edifices, with- 
 out departing from their earlier Gothic edu- 
 
 s 
 
258 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 cation. His Bacchanalian procession has 
 still some considerable remains of Gothic 
 grossness ; but he has here shewn his talent 
 in composition; and the fore-shortenings 
 that occur are far better expressed than we 
 have hitherto seen. The composition of 
 his battle of Sea-gods and Tritons, is 
 wildly grand ; with such a mixture of th€ 
 grotesque,>^ as may seem not improperly to 
 belong to a subject which we should esteem 
 out of Nature, or beyond the limits of the 
 material world. The combatants in this 
 battle are the offspring of his own fertile and 
 vigorous fancy, generated by the sculpture 
 of antiquity : Beside the Tritons and Sea- 
 monsters, here are the general forms of horses 
 and men, but, like the fauns and sylvan dei- 
 ties of the Greeks, their natures partake of 
 the element in which they exist — at least, the 
 spectator is led to perceive that this intention 
 existed in the mind of the Artist, and that 
 (in the words of Ariel's song) they have 
 
 ^ By the Grof-esque, I do not mean the ludicrdus, but 
 the mixed style of those ancient works discovered in the 
 ItaUan Grottoes, from whence the term is derived. 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE* 
 
 559 
 
 undergone a sea change, into something 
 rich and strange." Instead of hair, sea- weed 
 decorates the human heads ; and the fins 
 and scales of marine animals help to con- 
 stitute the horses and Tritons, Their wea- 
 pons too are congenial with themselves : 
 they fight with fish and fish-bones, and 
 the scull of some unknown inhabitant of 
 the deep serves as a shield. 
 
 The heads of the horses, as well as those of 
 the Sea-gods, are animated by no inconsider- 
 able portion of the ideal grandeur of the An- 
 tique : the anatomical markings— the con- 
 stant object of Mantegna s attention, are also 
 successfully studied from the same inestima- 
 ble source of information : and in the early 
 impressions, such as may be seen in that 
 valuable collection of the late Mr. Crache- 
 rode,* to which I have had frequent occa- 
 
 * The Rev. Clayton Cracherode, the donor to the Public 
 of this extensive collection, was the son of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Cracherode, who commanded the land forces under 
 Lord Anson, in his celebrated expedition. He was edu- 
 cated at Westminster school, and afterward became a stu- 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 sion to refer, the chiaroscuro has more 
 breadth, as well as depth, than seems to 
 belong to the Italian art of this early period, 
 and is conducted through the whole with 
 masterly address.^- 
 
 dent of Christ Church, Oxford. He took the degree of 
 M. A. and acquired some Church preferment, which he 
 conscientiously relinquished on becoming possessed of a 
 large fortune by inheritance; but continued a student of 
 Christ Church, and a trustee of the British Museum 
 to the time of his death. Tliat he was handsome in his 
 person, may be seen, in the only portrait (by Edridge) for 
 which he ever sat, which is in the possession of Lord 
 Spencer; and the epithet of " mild Cracherode,'^ by which 
 the author of the Pursuits of Literature has distinguished 
 him, will inform Posterity that he was amiable in his 
 manners. It was his pleasure to seek, and his ambition to 
 possess, the most curious Books, Prints, Drawings, Coins, 
 &c, that were any where to be found : and if the traders in 
 Art and Literature, succeeded in attracting any portion of 
 that attention which is due to merit toward margin-mea- 
 suring and rarity, it is enough that their success with Mr, 
 Cracherode is noticed in the Pursuits of Literature. To 
 the pointed Satire or the mild reproof of that Author, it is 
 not necessary to add. 
 
 * Mr. Strutt, and I believe the foreign writers also, who 
 have mentioned this work of Andrea Mantegna, have spoken 
 of it as being too prints ; but it is clear by putting the two 
 together that Mantegna intended them as one^ which from 
 some motive of convenience (probably the largeness of its 
 dimensions) he has engraven on two plates. 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE, 561 
 
 A more slow and sedate magnificence 
 moves his triumphal procession of Julius 
 Caesar. The wild imagination which revels 
 in his recesses of the ocean, and his Baccha- 
 nalian processions, is nearly excluded from 
 hence : it but serves, in the flaming of the 
 Candelabra, to gleam through the spoils 
 of Nations, and the pomp of Wars or 
 faintly discovers itself in other subordinate 
 accessories as the fringed ornament of stately 
 grandeur.^^ 
 
 In his Dance of females, he has shewn 
 so much of the graceful simplicity and ge- 
 neral air of Greek sculpture, as to give rise 
 to a belief that it has been copied from 
 an antique basso-relievo: but till such a 
 basso-relievo is shewn, it would be unfair 
 in us to resign so much of the merit of 
 Andrea Mantegna, as this composition may 
 claim. These three Engravings, abundantly 
 demonstrate the wide range of his technical 
 
 * This Procession is engraven on nine plates. The ori- 
 ginal of the whole may be seen in tlie Royal collection at 
 Kensington Palace, 
 
565 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 and inventive powers ; and shew with what 
 success he could combine, or separately 
 exhibit, Elegance, Wildness, and Grandeur, 
 as occasion admitted or required. 
 
 Some critics have thought that Man- 
 tegna's admiration of the Antique was too 
 predominant in his works ; that it too fre- 
 quently engrossed his powers ; and hur- 
 ried him too entirely away from that con- 
 templation of Nature, which I believe, must 
 always be one of the parents of originality 
 in Art. Yet, if this enthusiasm be a fault, 
 it is a fault proceeding so necessarily, and 
 so immediately, from the localities of time 
 and place, and the redundance of his merits, 
 that it is as secure of pardon from the can- 
 did, as those merits are of praise. 
 
 There is a very singular allegorical print 
 attributed to Andrea Mantegna, and gene- 
 rally to be found in the collections of his 
 works ; but of which the Engraving should, 
 in my opinion, be ascribed to some inferior 
 hand ; and perhaps to that of the goldsmith, 
 Finiguerra. That the Design is his, I have 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE, 
 
 563 
 
 no doubt. The general superior style of 
 handling and drawing ; the antique airs of 
 the heads ; (particularly those of Truth, Ca- 
 lumny, Insidiousness, and Mistrust) and the 
 respectable testimonies I shall presently 
 adduce ; are the proofs upon which this 
 assertion may be confidently grounded : and 
 the difference in the style of hatching the 
 shadows, between this engraving and those 
 which are certainly by the hand of Man- 
 tegna, combined with its palpable inferio- 
 rity to the original Drawing, amounts in my 
 mind to the most perfect conviction that 
 Andrea Mantegna is not the engraver of this 
 print. 
 
 The Drawing is an attempt to revive a 
 lost picture of Apelles, which, but that 
 its memory has been perpetuated by Lucian, * 
 had long since been lost in oblivion. I 
 have thought an account both of its subject 
 and its history worth your attention ; and 
 the more so as both have relation to emi- 
 nent Artists : I take the former from a MS 
 record on the back of the Drawing, which 
 I believe is the hand writing of the late 
 
264 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 celebrated collector, Mr, Barnard. " Lucian 
 describes an allegorical Picture painted by 
 Apelles, of which his own misfortunes 
 were the subject. He was falsely accused 
 by Antiphilus, a contemporary artist who 
 envied his abilities, of having entered into a 
 conspiracy against King Ptolemy. [Happy 
 had it been for mankind, had Ptolemy 
 been the only king, and Apelles the only 
 painter, who had been thus abused.] The 
 monarch enraged, was very near putting 
 Apelles to death ; but that one of the real 
 conspirators compassionating him, unde- 
 ceived the King : who, repenting of his cre- 
 dulity, gave Apelles an hundred talents, 
 and his accuser to be his slave. — Andrea 
 Mantegna made this Drawing from the 
 description of Lucian. The King, distin- 
 guished by his crowned head and extraor- 
 dinary ears, is sitting on the left ; the two 
 figures near him are Mistrust and Ignorance : 
 the first figure facing him, is Envy, con- 
 ducting Calumny, who has a burning torch 
 in her right hand, and under whom Man- 
 tegna has written Calumnia di Apelles : She 
 drags accused Innocence by the hair : Deceit 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 265 
 
 follows, dressing her up; and insidious Vil- 
 lainy urging her on : lastly, Truth and Pe- 
 nitence close the procession." 
 
 It seems often to have been the fortune of 
 this very curious Drawing, to have belonged 
 to some distinguished Artist. It was once 
 in the possession of Rembrandt, who has left 
 a copy of it by his own hand : It has since 
 belonged to Richardson, the painter ; and 
 to Arthur Pond ; and is now, as well as 
 Rembrandt's copy, the property of the Pre- 
 sident of the Royal Academy.^ 
 
 The next Engraver of decided talent 
 that Italy produced was Marc Antonio 
 Raimondi, of Bologna ; whose name marks 
 a memorable aera in the History of Engrav- 
 ing. 
 
 The progress and separation of the arts 
 of embellishment have been similar to those 
 of necessity and accommodation. In the 
 
 * Mr. West was President, at the time this Discourse 
 ¥;as delivered. 
 
266 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 early and rude ages of Society, every man 
 was obliged occasionally to exercise, with 
 the imperfect skill he might possess, every 
 kind of manual labour or employ to which 
 his wants had given birth: He was by 
 turns Carpenter, Potter, Basketmaker, and 
 Husbandman. — So in the early state of the 
 Fine Arts, the Professor, as occasion re- 
 quired, was Painter, Engraver, Chaser, and 
 in some instances Statuary, Architect, and 
 Poet also : for these arts are all, either ana- 
 logically or really ; either mediately or im- 
 mediately ; dependent on the same first 
 principles. 
 
 But a more wise, because more useful 
 ceconomy of distribution, is gradually ela- 
 borated, by the ardour of Genius and En-^ 
 terprise, from social experience. It has by 
 degrees been perceived that Arts, though 
 analogically or really inseparable in theory, 
 may, with advantage to Society, be divided 
 in practice : and that, even when thus sepa- 
 rated, every art claims the full vigour and 
 expansion of every mind devoted to its 
 pursuit. 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 2,61 
 
 In less than fifty years from the disco- 
 very of Copper-plate printing, — the resur- 
 rection of the Antique; the liberal pa- 
 tronage of the Medici ; and the tran- 
 scendent merits of the Roman and Flo- 
 rentine artists ; disclosed more extensive 
 views of practical attainment, and new 
 provinces of Art. Hence, when the gene- 
 ral good of Society called for subdivision, 
 the sister Arts, whose object is that general 
 good, found pleasure in obedience : and 
 when the admiration of Europe was ex- 
 cited by the divine wwks of Raphael, so 
 often and so deservedly the subjects of the 
 highest praise, the good sense of Marc 
 Antonio perceived at once the expedience 
 and propriety of devoting himself and his 
 art to their Translation. 
 
 Of Drawing (or the delineation of Form) 
 which is the prime element of early Italian 
 Engraving, words alone can impart but slen- 
 der knowledge. To all that words could 
 teach, I have listened with you upon a late 
 occasion ; and obtained both pleasure and 
 
568 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 improvement r-^ but it is worthy of your 
 notice, that excepting this cardinal requi- 
 site, which, as I have already explained, 
 was a sort of geographical or local advan- 
 tage, the ItaHan engravers of this period 
 were less qualified for the task of translat- 
 ing (at least for that of translating what 
 may be termed the eloquence of Painting) 
 than their Northern contemporaries. That 
 distribution of shade and of actual and reflex 
 light, which, uniting and concentrating at- 
 tention, constitutes effect; and that art of 
 expressing the various textures of sub- 
 stances, which may be called the descrip- 
 tive part of the translation of picture ; 
 were both exercised with far more consider- 
 able skill, (as you have seen) by the German, 
 Dutch, and Flemish, than by the Italian, 
 engravers. — Yet was the talent of Marc 
 Antonio so well adapted to translate, or en- 
 grave after, those masters who did not unite 
 their pictures by any pervading system of 
 Light and Shade, nor add the fascinations 
 
 ^ Mr. Opie's Lecture on Drawing, had preceded the 
 dehvery of this, a few evenhigs. 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. ^69 
 
 of harmonious colouring, that many critics 
 have doubted, and some have even denied, 
 that Raphael has since been so faithfully 
 rendered as by him: for though modern 
 engravers have far excelled him in other 
 respects, none perhaps have equalled, and 
 certainly none have exceeded, the truth, 
 purity, and spontaneous grace of his Out- 
 line ; which is so perfectly that of Raphael, 
 that it has been affirmed (though without 
 sufficient evidence) that Raphael himself 
 corrected them on the copper. But his 
 singular print of St. George and the Dragon, 
 (which is one of his youthful performances, 
 and either after his first master, Raibolini, 
 or from his own design) will serve to shew 
 how much Marc Antonio improved in this 
 respect, by contemplating the works, and at- 
 tendiug to the instructions, of Raphael. 
 
 Travelling to Venice for improvement, 
 Marc Antonio saw there with admiration, 
 and copied with tolerable fidelity, Albert 
 Durer's prints from the life of the Virgin. 
 The copies (as is generally, if not necessa- 
 rily the case with copies) are inferior to the 
 
570 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 originals ; yet, the sale of these obtained 
 him considerable profit ; though in the opi- 
 nion of some, this profit was enjoyed at the 
 expense of a proportionate deduction from 
 his moral reputation. It is upon record, 
 that Durer felt this conduct on the part of 
 Marc Antonio, as an injury ; and travelled 
 from Nuremberg to Venice to seek redress : 
 and it is also on record that the redress he 
 obtained, had reference only to his future 
 fame. Either Albert Durer was too noble 
 minded to require pecuniary recompense 
 from so poor and so ingenious a man as 
 Marc Antonio ; or it may be the Senate of 
 Venice wanted the power, or perhaps the 
 discernment, to award it ; or (in charity to 
 Marc Antonio we may add) perhaps the 
 case did not appear to the senate to require 
 it: for they simply forbad Marc Antonio 
 any more to imitate the monogram of Al- 
 bert Durer. 
 
 When Marc Antonio quitted Venice he 
 went to Rome, where the mutual merits 
 and mutual interests of Raphael and him- 
 self, soon introduced them to each other s 
 3 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 2,11 
 
 friendship, and here he remained engrav- 
 ing after the works of that great Painter, I 
 beHeve with the exception of a few plates, 
 of which the subjects are objectionable, 
 from the designs of Julio Romano, and one 
 after Bandinelli, till the year 1521 ; when 
 the city of Rome was taken and plundered 
 by the Spaniards, and Marc Antonio lost in 
 the pillage, all the wealth he had accumu- 
 lated by his profession. After this event, 
 he is supposed to have retired to his native 
 city of Bologna : but this is not certain : nor 
 of his death is there any more recorded, than 
 a vague report that he was assassinated by a 
 Roman nobleman, in revenge for engrav- 
 ing, contrary to his engagement, a second 
 plate from Raphaels slaughter of the In- 
 nocents* 
 
 This subject he certainly did engrave 
 twice : the account of his death, is so far 
 corroborated : and both the Engravings are 
 here for your inspection. They are distin- 
 guished from each other by a few trifling 
 variations, but which are objects of much 
 note among the connoisseurs, and chiefly 
 
272 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 by a small pointed tice^ called by the 
 Italians la Felchetta, which appears in the 
 second, and does not appear in the first 
 plate: the second is generally thought to 
 be the best ; but I think is only partially so ; 
 and that certain passages are better rendered 
 in the first : among which we may reckon 
 the principal naked figure, who has just 
 drawn his sword; the terrified mother in 
 the middle of the picture ; and her, who at 
 its right hand extremity, is resisting the 
 murderer. Yet, in exhibiting these Prints, 
 and requesting you to remark the merits of 
 Marc Antonio, I cannot but anticipate that 
 the pathos of Raphael will seize and detain 
 your sympathies : Whilst contemplating 
 ^' the palpitating Graces, the helpless In- 
 nocence, and the defenceless Beauty" of the 
 mothers and children, I have little hope 
 that the translator will obtain your atten- 
 tion, though he merits your approbation. 
 Where the interest of the subject and the 
 powers of the Painter, are so peculiar and 
 extraordinary as in this instance, the En- 
 graver, like the fair sex, must practise many 
 excellent qualities in silence, and unseen 
 
TH£ FIFTH LECTURE. ^13 
 
 but by the discerning few; like them he 
 must listen to the advice of the dying Pe- 
 ricles and like them he must cheerfully 
 prefer the consciousness of deserving well^ 
 to the vanity of obtaining praise. 
 
 The style of Marc Antonio possesses not 
 the exteriors of oratory, but he pronounces 
 every sentence so distinctly ; with a confi- 
 dence so modest ; and an emphasis so true 
 to Raphael and to Nature ; that those who 
 attend, are convinced without being per- 
 suaded. To speak without a metaphor^ 
 there is something in his manner of em- 
 ploying his graver,— something dry, unam- 
 bitious, unattractive to the sense ; which, by 
 all sound critics, has been thought to de- 
 serve praise without desiring it, and pecu- 
 liarly appropriate to the works of a painter, 
 who not merely does not require, but will 
 not admit, " the aid of foreign ornament." 
 
 * I cannot recollect where I have read, that Pericles, on 
 his death-bed, recommended to the women who were stand-- 
 ing near him, to conduct themselves so as not to attract 
 observation, nor become the subject of conversation om 
 Way or other, 
 
 T 
 
574 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 The Dead Christ of Raphael, where the 
 excess of his mother's sorrow is softened, 
 but not subdued, by her divine resigna- 
 tion, he also repeated with variations; of 
 which the principal are, that in the second, 
 the Virgin Mary appears much younger 
 than in the first, and her right arm divest- 
 ed of drapery, from which circumstance, it 
 is known among collectors by the appella- 
 tion of " the Virgin with the naked arm." 
 The second plate is more delicately en- 
 graven, but is feeble, when compared with 
 the masterly vigour he has shewn in the 
 first. The nudities are here drawn with 
 Marc Antonio's, inspired by Raphael's, usual 
 superiority; but the drapery and ground, 
 are softened and enriched beyond the ordi- 
 nary powers of Marc Antonio's graver, and 
 are so much in the improved style of his 
 pupil George Penz, as may incline us to sus- 
 pect that these parts have been engraven by 
 his hand. A distinguished artist and critic — 
 one of the few who are able to appreciate 
 and declare the merits of Raphael, has said 
 that his expression is decided by character ; 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 2iT ^ 
 
 and that he adapted form to character, in a 
 mode, and with a truth, that leaves all at- 
 tempts at emendation hopeless. Whether 
 Raphael authorised or allowed Marc An- 
 tonio to substitute the younger Virgin, who 
 seems more like the sister, for the elder, 
 who is the mother of Christ, does not ap- 
 pear; there are no dates on the Crache- 
 rode impressions from which I remark, but 
 from the above citation we may infer, that 
 the elder Madonna is the real figure of Ra- 
 phael ; and that the second plate is what it 
 is fashionable to call a free translation ; done 
 after the author s death. 
 
 In the Virgin of the palm,'^ Marc Antonio 
 discovers, if possible^ a still more exquisite 
 feeling, and of course produces a more per- 
 fect translation, of Raphael. Christ is be- 
 stowing his benediction with the sublimity 
 of inspiration ; and St. John receiving ti 
 with dignified and divine, though infantile^ 
 submission. The subordination of parts 
 is just : the whole is perfectly graceful ; and 
 
 T 2^ 
 
276 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 the head of the Virgin Mary, the most 
 graceful part of that whole.-:^ 
 
 Marc Antonio's powers as an Engraver 
 appear not to have decHned from their 
 acme, in his martyrdom of St. Laurence after 
 BandineUi. He not merely copied, but his 
 long acquaintance with the works of Ra- 
 phael enabled him, and his gratitude to 
 Bandinelli who had obtained his release 
 from prison disposed him, to improve the 
 drawing of his original. The print is de- 
 fective, yet not more so than many other 
 of his works, in chiaroscuro: but expres- 
 sion of the textures of substances, and the 
 existence of reflex light, are here feebly ac- 
 knowledged ; the folds of the draperies 
 are ample ; the drawing of the naked ex- 
 cellent ; and the characters of the heads far 
 better than would seem to belong to the re* 
 putation of Bandinelli. 
 
 I see reason to conjecture^ that in this plate also he 
 
 has been assisted by Penz, . 
 
 \ 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. i>77 
 
 I have thought it unnecessary to com- 
 ment on many of this master's productions, 
 because, in respect to Marc Antonio*s, or 
 the Engraver's, part, they are so nearly 
 alike, that four score of his prints could 
 scarcely afford a more satisfactory exhibition 
 of his talent than the four now submitted to 
 your notice, I have only briefly to re-state, 
 that though he may seem deficient in reflex 
 light and harmony of chiaroscuro ; totally 
 Ignorant of the principles of rendering local 
 colour in the abstract ; and nearly so of 
 those of expressing the various textures of 
 substances ; these are in hira no more than 
 light errors 5 that 
 
 " like straws upon the surface flow : 
 
 " Those who would search for pearls miist dive below/' 
 
 He certainly possessed considerable ma- 
 nual skill in the management of his gra- 
 ver^ which was the sole instrument of 
 his art ; and in his knowledge of drawing 
 went far beyond all his competitors.— 
 Raphael was Marc Antonio s object; and 
 the blandishments, the splendour, and the 
 variety, which w^ould have been, indis^ 
 
^78 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 pensably necessary to the translation of 
 Correggio or Titian, were not called for here. 
 In estimating his merits, Picart-:^ should 
 therefore have remembered — or rather, 
 should have known, that the talent he so 
 eminently possessed was precisely the talent 
 that was necessary to the accomplishment 
 of his purpose ; — at least he should have 
 recollected, that among the poets and sages 
 of antiquity, the possession of even but a 
 single worthy quality or endowment in a 
 
 * Picart says of Marc Antonio and his scholars, that 
 the outlines of their figures when they worked from the 
 designs of Raphael, are hard, equal lines ; the engraving 
 part is neat, but meagre," &c,— and Strutt observes with 
 great truth of Picart, that it would have been better if he 
 had never entered the field against the early Engravers, or 
 at least if he had ceased hostilities when he laid down his 
 pen. But not contented with abusing their works, hiis 
 vanity prompted him, in an evil hour, to take up the point 
 and the graver, to convince the world how^ much it had been 
 imposed upon. For this purpose he imitated the Etchings 
 and Engravings of various masters, and called the work. 
 The Innocent Impostors,^' But they sufficiently prove 
 his want of abilities to execute the work in such a manner 
 as to deceive an experienced judge." — Himself was proba« 
 bly the only person imposed upon by the innocent Impostors, 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 579 
 
 transcendent degree, was sufficient to con- 
 stitute, in their opinions — a demi-god ! 
 
 We have still to travel over a fertile, in- 
 teresting, and extensive, portion of the art 
 of Engraving : But, as I have to regret that 
 my professional engagements scarcely allow 
 me to hope that I shall be able to appear 
 before you again in the course of the present 
 season, I shall beg leave to close this dis~ 
 course with a few remarks on the uses of 
 modern Engraving ; and on certain mistakes 
 which, I am sorry to observe, prevail re- 
 specting those uses. 
 
 In the brief sketch of its history pre. 
 vious to the discovery of printing, I trust 
 that some faint idea has been conveyed of 
 the extensive benefits which the ancient 
 modes of engraving have conferred on 
 mankind: and it may easily be inferred 
 that, had paper and its uses been known, 
 the wisdom of Greece and Rome would 
 have enlisted the modern art of Engrav- 
 ing in the service of Virtue. — We have 
 only at present to inquire (and perhaps I 
 ought to apologise for not attending to this 
 
280 
 
 THE FIFTH LECTURE, 
 
 question before) what is the use of that art of 
 Engraving, of which Printing is the proper 
 termination ? The answer will be short : — 
 
 It disseminates every valuable discovery 
 in mechanical, chemical, agricultural, ar- 
 chitectural, and astronomical, Science : It 
 renders the scenery of remote countries, 
 the distinguished features of our own, or the 
 more delightful ideal scenery of highly gift- 
 ed imaginations, familiar to every class of 
 the community : By multiplying the vivid 
 beams of embodied Intellect, which ema- 
 natc from the mind of the poetic Painter, 
 it becomes the radiance of his glory, and 
 the organ of public instruction : It diffuses 
 the fame, with the portraits, of the patriotic 
 and illustrious : It consecrates and em- 
 balms the memory of the brave. 
 
 As a source of commercial benefit to the 
 country, and of encouragement to the 
 higher efforts of painting ; and of the mu- 
 tual increase of advantages these arts and 
 that commerce might be made to confer on 
 each other ; I must forbear to speak at pre- 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 2,81 
 
 sent, though I have much to say : because 
 the relaxed tone of the public taste, with 
 respect to this art, and indeed with respect 
 to art in general, seems more pressingly to 
 require of me the unpleasant duty of exhi- 
 biting some small quantity of mental bark 
 and steeL 
 
 There is a line often quoted by the venal 
 advocates of those venal artists who are 
 ever ready to degrade the dignity of their 
 professions, by adapting what little talent 
 they may possess to the momentary whims 
 of wealthy ignorance, that those who live 
 to please, must please to live:' — which is so 
 employed as to inculcate the ideas, that to 
 amuse and to flatter those who are willing 
 to pay for it ; — to offer incense to those ex- 
 alted beings who are content to be blinded 
 by its smoke ; are the proper aims and pur- 
 poses of Art.- — As these parasitical artists^ 
 (if Artists they may be called) are but so 
 many reptiles crawling upon the flowery 
 brink of deserved and certain oblivion, we 
 might be content to leave them to their 
 Lethean fate : but it must not be dissembled 
 
2,8^ THE FIFTH LECTURE, 
 
 that the public taste is but too strongly 
 tinctured with this mistaken opinion : and 
 though I cannot suppose that my humble 
 efforts will add conviction to the excellent 
 precepts on this subject, which have been 
 so eloquently, yet, so fruitlessly delivered 
 in the Lecture-rooms of the Royal Academy, 
 I may still indulge the hope that what has 
 there been urged in vain, or to little piir- 
 pose, will here be listened to — if not with 
 approbation, at least with complacency. 
 
 Art is Philosophy in her most fascinat- 
 ing-:^ guise; teaching by examples — " Her 
 ways are ways of pleasantness;" — but, she 
 is the nurse of Independence, and the sister 
 of Wisdom. — The true end and purpose of 
 every art that is worthy of the appellation, 
 is to Instruct ; and Pleasure is the means 
 she employs not that petty pleasure 
 which proceeds from frivolity and pretti- 
 ness ; but that much grander emotion which 
 is felt at the heart, and has the nearest affi- 
 
 ^ So fascinating that we have been induced to forget it 
 was Philosophy. 
 
 1 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 283 
 
 mty with social happiness. — Pleasure^ from 
 the cradle to the grave, is the most effec- 
 tual means of instruction, and should never 
 have been separated from Virtue : to sepa- 
 rate Pleasure from Virtue, was to sever the 
 imagination from the judgment, and set at 
 variance what ought to be united :— it was 
 a barbarous separation of the head from 
 the heart, dictated by those barbarous 
 superstitions that in dark ages pervert 
 Nature to enslave mankind ; and mistakenly 
 obeyed or repeated by those miscalled Phi- 
 losophers, who have conspired to murder 
 the mental part of man, in order to make a 
 shew of its anatomy. It has been the con- 
 stant bane of true taste, and intellectual 
 jGulture. 
 
 To substitute the vain and tinsel glitter 
 of individual personal ostentation, for the 
 sterling gold of public utility ; — what is 
 it, but to melt all worthy sentiment and 
 manly resolution, on the lap of Luxury, 
 while we neglect the noble purposes of 
 patriotic virtue and real refinement?— 
 While many of the villas that surround 
 
284 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 this great metropolis, and even many of 
 the mansions of the metropolis itself, arc 
 covered with tasteless profusion and taw- 
 dry wonders, is it not true that the na- 
 val pillar still sleeps in its native quarry ; 
 and that the call of patriots, and princes, and 
 the heroic strains of the harmonic and po- 
 etic't muses, have echoed in vain? — Is it 
 not equally true that the walls of the Royal 
 Academy annually blush at the absence of 
 poetry and history, though the empire 
 may boast the first painters in the world ? — 
 Nor is it less true, nor marks it less our 
 general want of that Attic discernment, by 
 which certain individuals are distinguished, 
 that the print-shops are filled with vague 
 trumpery smearings, contemptible carica- 
 tures, and nonsensical transparencies. 
 
 If such must be called pleasure, and such 
 the pursuits of Art^ — it is pleasure so 
 diluted that true taste must nauseate the 
 
 ^ Does the same regretted absence of grandeur of taste 
 extend to the art of Music — indispensable as it seems to be 
 to modern ears, and modern education i — Or why is not J}r. 
 Busby's Naval Oratorio repeated? 
 
THE FIFTH LECTURE. ^85 
 
 draught. It is Art so prostituted — that we 
 cannot repress our wishes, at least, for its 
 speedy reformation^ nor our endeavours to 
 shew — 
 
 " How little they bested 
 Or fill the fixed mmd with all their toys/'^ 
 
 Though truth, and the interests of the good^ 
 which are inseparable from truth, oblige 
 us to state these facts, we may still be proud 
 to recollect, that of tasteful and benevolent 
 minds, formed under the benignant influ 
 
 * I regret much that I have never seen till now (October 
 30, 1806) Mr. Valentine Green's Letter to Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, printed for Cadell, in 1782. Had I seen 
 that Letter sooner I might have quoted it with advan- 
 tage. I beg to refer the reader on the points before us to 
 pp. 17, 18, &c. and in general to the whole pamphlet. 
 In p. 22, Mr. Green, combating the supposed necessary 
 connexion of Art with effeminacy and luxury, says " the 
 only danger the Arts can present is, that we have already 
 encountered, in their having been called in to idle and vain 
 purposes, and made subservient to trivial pleasures and osten- 
 tatious parade, in which neither sentiment, or dignity, or 
 national virtue, were appealed to." Since the delivery of 
 this Lecture, it has been insinuated by the dealers in this 
 meretricious trumpery, that I then said more on the subject 
 than the occasion called for ; but the reader will recollect 
 that, notwithstanding the admonitions of Mr, Green, deli- 
 
586 THE FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 ence, and by the pleasurable excitement of 
 those arts which embrace elegant and import- 
 ant instruction and extensive benefit, Great 
 Britain possesses some eminent examples : 
 These she should cherish, for to these, more 
 than to any other cause, she will owe the 
 continuance, the extension, and the tempe- 
 rance, of her greatness. It is for the sister 
 Arts, in concert with such characters, to 
 twist gold with the silken cords that con- 
 nect natural with moral beauty ; to mingle 
 goodness with greatness ; by supplying the 
 means of cultivating the Imagination with 
 the Judgment, to improve existence into 
 felicity ; to render the mind conscious of 
 her highest energies, while they dilate the 
 heart with benevolence. 
 
 vered in I78£, the evil has gone on increasing: In En- 
 graving/ particularly, the comparatively few noxious weeds 
 of 1782, have grown and disseminated beyond all prece- 
 dent, till the field of the art is completely overspread with 
 trivial, vulgar, unprincipled, productions. The day cannot 
 surely be far distant that shall enlighten our darkness, and 
 shew (in the words of Mr. Green) time abused, money 
 dissipated, folly entertained, genius perverted, and the in^- 
 pious profanation of tlje divinity of Art 
 
LECTURE VL 
 
 / 
 
 That the principal causes which have co-operated to 
 retard the progress of British Engraving have 
 been ; Firsts the ignorant auspices under which 
 the Art has hitherto existed in England : and^ 
 Secondly^ the want of an ascertained Constitu- 
 Hon of JYational Art^ at the time of framing the 
 laws of the London Royal Academy — 77?^ 
 assertion admitted that Engravijig has declined 
 in this country^ apparently under circumstances 
 which ought to have effected its improvement — 
 Fallacy of those appearances — Error of sup- 
 posing that the change in favour of the British 
 print trade was, or could have been, effected by 
 men unskilled either to conduct or perform con- 
 nected and extensive works of Art — That the real 
 cause of that change was the preponderance of 
 native and resident ability in the art of Engrav- 
 ing — That, from the time when mercantile specu- 
 lators, intent only on profit, undertook to dictate 
 the studies of the Artists, the profits of the com- 
 merce for Prints have declined — Developement 
 and proofs of the destructive effects of ignorant 
 superintendance — Error of those who suppose 
 the attainment of wealth, to be the proper end of 
 Art ; and still greater error of submitting art to 
 their guidance— Dangerous folly of confound- 
 
tng 7iational wealth with national happiness^ 
 Rarity of genuine critics in Art — Absurdity of 
 supposing that persons educated to ignoble pur^ 
 suits^ and who have previously shewn neither 
 taste nor talents in Art^ can possibly be qualified 
 to govern the pursuits of its professors—Apo- 
 logy for the credulity on these points^ and back- 
 wardness of the Taste^ of the Public — That the 
 liberality of the public disposition to encourage 
 ingenuity and promote Art^ has failed of its 
 intended purpose — This effect accounted for—* 
 That the second principal cause which has re- 
 tarded the progress both of critical knowledge 
 and practical skill in Engravings is want of that 
 academical culture by which the growth of other 
 arts hss been promoted — That the Academy in 
 Europe which should most have cultivated En^ 
 graving^ is the Academy in Europe where it is 
 most neglected — Folly and impolicy of the Le^ 
 gislators of the London Academy — Grounds of 
 hope that more enlightened and enlarged senti^ 
 ments^ and higher and juster principles wilt 
 finally prevail — That public Academies of Arts 
 are useful in proportion as they are calculated to 
 ascertain^ sanction, and promulgate^ sound prin- 
 ciples of Art ; which must always be discovered 
 by individuals — Historical testimony qf the high 
 value of Principle. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 *IT will probably not be forgotten that 
 toward the conclusion of my Discourse of 
 last Thursday, I took occasion to offer a 
 few sentences on the Uses of modern En- 
 
 This Lecture consists in substance, of what was origi- 
 nally the latter part of the fourth, and the beginning of a 
 Lecture not publicly delivered, incorporated from a motive 
 of bettering the arrangement of my materials. A few sen- 
 tences have been added, in the hope of increasing the 
 strength of the whole, and improving the connexion of its 
 parts ; but I can assure the reader that I have omitted no 
 one word of what I publicly delivered in the Lecture-room, 
 I have set down nought in malice, and shall nothing exte- 
 nuate. I shall neither be deterred from printing the Lec- 
 tures nor from adding the purposed Notes, notwithstanding 
 that I have this day (November 5, 1806j been informed 
 that a literary blunderbuss is loading against me. 
 
 U 
 
590 THE SIXTH LECTURE- 
 
 graving, and on the prevalence of certain 
 popular mistakes respecting those uses* My 
 strictures on these points would be very 
 imperfect, were I to omit noticing the 
 causes of those mistakes : and if this be in- 
 cumbent on me, I must hold myself at least 
 equally engaged to develope and declare 
 whatever other causes have conspired with 
 these to retard the progress of British En- 
 graving. 
 
 It is my first wish that these Lectures 
 should be useful : and I cannot in my own 
 opinion render them more so, than by en« 
 tering upon an inquiry on which the ad- 
 vancement or decay of the valuable Art, 
 which is the proper subject of our present 
 attention, must materially depend. With 
 whatever interest I have dwelt on its an- 
 cient history; with whatever pleasure I 
 have contemplated its modern revival ; I 
 consider them both as of small importance 
 when compared with its present condition 
 in this country, and its future possible com- 
 mercial advantages to Great Britain: and 
 highly as I may estimate those advantages j 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. ^91 
 
 and much as I may calculate on (or rather 
 hope for) their practical increase; I con- 
 sider even them as trifling when compared 
 with the moral benefits which the Art 
 of Engraving is calculated to confer on 
 Society. Antiquity may fade into ob- 
 livion : Commerce may perish : but I may 
 safely and proudly call upon all good men 
 to unite in wishing that every moral art 
 should be immortal in its duration, and 
 boundless in the scope of its energies. 
 
 On a comprehensive and philosophical 
 view, therefore, of the whole of our sub- 
 ject, my Lecture of this evening should be 
 of far more importance than any of those 
 which have preceded it. What is long 
 past is beyond our power: what has re- 
 cently happened is immediately connected 
 with the present state of things ; and the 
 present with the future. 
 
 I divide this Discourse under two heads : 
 First, The auspices under which the Art 
 of Engraving has hitherto existed in Eng- 
 land : Secondly, The means which hd,ye 
 
 u 2 
 
292, THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 been resorted to for its cultivation ; includ- 
 ing a consideration of those advantages 
 which have been withheld from it. 
 
 With respect to those recent occurrences 
 connected with this Art to which I must 
 necessarily advert, allow me to premise 
 that it is a consideration, not of persons, 
 but of facts and principles, to which I 
 would solicit your attention. Though I 
 shall as much as possible avoid the men- 
 tion of individuals, some must unavoid- 
 ably appear on the stage, because the sub- 
 ject of the Play is historical : but I could 
 wish it to be considered that not the cha- 
 racters or the performance, but the moral 
 of the Drama, should engage your notice. 
 
 Within the last twenty or thirty years, 
 various proposals have appeared among us, 
 for supplying the public with useful and 
 ornamental works of Art and Literature 
 combined ; and on the whole it is no ex- 
 aggeration to say, that these plans have 
 been met with liberal encouragement. I 
 do not say that this encouragement has been 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 2,93 
 
 SO superabundant as to enable the proprie- 
 tors of those works to amass very large for- 
 tunes, while it covered whatever mis-ma- 
 nagement has occurred, and handsomely re- 
 munerated the studies of the Artists who 
 performed them: that might be matter of 
 too nice calculation to be entered upon here ; 
 as might also, how far these objects should 
 admit of compromise : — but, on the authori- 
 ties of the lists of Subscribers, combined with 
 other authorities which I believe to be good, 
 I say that the encouragement these works 
 have met with from the public, has been 
 such as to warrant me in using the epithet 
 liberal. Yet, it has been asserted and main- 
 tained in the first public assemblies in the 
 kingdom, and perhaps in the world, that 
 within the same period, the Art of Engrav- 
 ing has declined in this country. It is an 
 extraordinary, and surely it is an important 
 fact, that in the most commercial country of 
 the world ; and which it would be desirable 
 to see the chief seat and seminary of the 
 most commercial of the fine Arts ; that Art 
 has been declining, within a period of 
 time^ and apparently under circumstances^ 
 
294 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 in which it ought greatly to h^ve im- 
 proved. 
 
 If I am rightly informed, when these 
 effects were stated in the House of Lords, 
 there existed some difference of opinion as 
 to their causes.— truth is, that though 
 the state of Engraving was regarded with a 
 degree of interest, which bore some pro- 
 portion to its national importance, the lofty 
 station of their lordships allowed them no 
 other than a bird's-eye view of the subject, 
 ^nd their attention was directed to spots 
 that from a distance bore the semblance of 
 freshness and verdure : while those who 
 were stationed in the vale could not but per- 
 ceive with regret that the fountains of pub- 
 lic encouragement^ whose streams (flow- 
 ing with wejl intended liberality) would 
 have been abundantly sufficient to irrigate 
 and fertilize the fa^r provinces of Art, di- 
 verted from their natural channels, had 
 formed swamps and morasses; and could 
 not but mourn in silence that sterility 
 ghould be imputed to the soil, where un- 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. ^95 
 
 skilfulncss was due to those who had under- 
 taken its cultivation. 
 
 In speaking of the publishers of engrav- 
 ed works of Art ; whose want of previous 
 education, and whose merely mercantile 
 views, have had a most baleful influence 
 on the art of Engraving ; let me be forward 
 to express my hope that certain respectable 
 exceptions— men of information, liberality, 
 conscience, and honour, will not be con- 
 founded with those who have interposed 
 their opaque intellects between the Artists 
 and the Public. About the time when 
 the ill digested plans of the latter de- 
 \ scription began to be circulated, and for 
 ten or fifteen years preceding that time, 
 there resided in this rnetropolis Hogarth, 
 Sir Robert Strange, Vivares, Woollett, 
 Browne, Bartolozzi, Hall, Rooker, Green, 
 Ryland, Watts, and my late, respected 
 master (Mr. Byrne;) all exercising the pro- 
 fession of Engraving ; and each employing 
 himself, for the most part, according to the 
 natural bent of his own genius, uncurbed, 
 w but little curbed, by mercantile restraints 
 
596 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE, 
 
 and Ignorant dictations ; and not compelled 
 to labour against Time, who is always sure 
 to prove victorious. With the occasional 
 exception of Bartolozzi, and Browne, they 
 published the best of their own works ; as 
 Raphael Morghen, and Bervic, the two 
 most distinguished engravers of the conti- 
 nent, do at present ; and by the strength of 
 their united talents, they turned the tide 
 and the profits of the European com- 
 merce for Prints, from France and Italy to 
 England.* 
 
 * Mr, Prince Hoare, in his " inquiry into the requisite 
 cultivation of the Arts/' after stating this fact, says the 
 causes of its present decline are well imrthy the investiga^ 
 tion of the Public. (see p. £60.) I shall continue to 
 think with Mr. Hoare, notwithstanding the mandate of the 
 four managers of the Royal Institution: and so, 1 hope, 
 will the Public. I own, I never was more exceedingly 
 surprised than when I found ranged on the side of those 
 who differ, on this point, from Mr. Hoare and myself, 
 some of the very persons zvho were invested zvith the power y 
 and who had undertaken the arduous but delightful duty^ 
 of bettering the condition of Society by promoting inves- 
 tigation, — ^When at the gate of Lyons, an officer, armed 
 with Royal authority, demanded six livres four sous of Tris- 
 tram Shandy, he tells us he had no resource left, but to sajy 
 
 1 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE* 597 
 
 During this distinguished period of Bri- 
 tish engraving — a period in which some of 
 the best Engravings (both historical and 
 landscape) that were ever performed, were 
 produced in England — a period, therefore, 
 at which if we should arrive in the pro- 
 gress of these Lectures, we may dwell with 
 pleasure and with pride ; — I say that during 
 this period — memorable in itself, but which 
 subsequent events of an opposite character, 
 have contributed to raise into superior im- 
 portance — there appeared in London, a man, 
 who, with talents too slender to support 
 a reputation as an Engraver, possessed mer- 
 cantile wisdom enough, gradually to arise 
 to opulence and the highest civic honours, 
 chiefly by dealing in the publications of the 
 Artists I have named. Had he continued 
 thus to deal, it would probably have been 
 well for Art and for the Public, and also for 
 himself. His own fortunes would have 
 
 something honestly worth the money. An example worth 
 following upon such occasions ; provided a man take;^ e 
 not to throw the injury on the wrong side by sjyii.^ coa 
 much. 
 
598 . TFIE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 arisen on the firmest foundation. The 
 Tuscan basement, which the labours of 
 these Artists had formed, would, in all pro- 
 bability, ere now have been surmounted 
 by the noblest superstructure. But, unfor- 
 tunately, not content with these honours, 
 and emoluments, he aspired to direct and 
 dictate the pursuits, and govern the studies^ 
 of others : and still more unfortunately for 
 the Art under our consideration, other 
 shopkeepers^ even more ignorant than him 
 both of the means and end of Art, were 
 allured by his apparent success to follow 
 his pernicious example. 
 
 I state these facts with no other refer- 
 ence to the past than may serve for our 
 guidance in future : I state them in contra- 
 diction to misrepresentations, sophistically 
 reiterated, and sedulously circulated of late : 
 I state them from motives than which none 
 ought to be more powerful or more sacred ; 
 — in illustration of principle, and from the 
 firmest conviction of their truth. 
 
 The delicate plants which only the sun- 
 shine of the public countenance can foster^ 
 
 4 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 599 
 
 began now to droop and pine in obscurity ; 
 and, the balance of Taste being already 
 against us, the current of trade began frorq 
 that hour to turn against us also. 
 
 So far is it from being true that the 
 exertions of a few commercial individuals, 
 but particularly ''of one," have changed the 
 British trade for prints, from an import to 
 an export,t that good impressions of the best 
 works of Strange, Woollett, and the rest of 
 the Engravers I have named, are still sought 
 with avidity by the connoisseurs of the 
 continent ; whilst the boasted speculations 
 pf those xnistaken individuals and their in- 
 
 The degree and kind of intercourse between the Public 
 and the Artists which would be most conducive to their 
 mutual advantage, it is neither easy, nor perhaps necessary, 
 here to define with exactness. The public Lectures which 
 have lately been delivered on various Arts, afford a satisfac- 
 tory earnest of one feasible means toward supplying the desi- 
 deratum ; and my Letter to a Member of the British Insti- 
 tution, which I hope will ere long be laid before the Public^ 
 will be found to contain tlie results of those further medi- 
 tations on the subject, which I could not with propriety 
 introduce in these Lectures, or compress inta a note. 
 
 ^ See Boydell's " Suggestions, &c." preface and p. Q. 
 To those who have not read Mr. Boydell's pamphlet it wiii 
 
300 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 fatuated followers, (for the most part) lie 
 unheeded upon the stalls of Leipsig and 
 Frankfort. 
 
 The low artifices and merely mercantile 
 views of picture-dealers, which have been 
 so loudly and justly reprobated, are not 
 more inimical to the real progress of the 
 Art of Painting, than those of the print- 
 dealers and publishers have been and are 
 to that of engraving. To those who have 
 directed their attention this way, the in- 
 terests and the hazards of commerce have 
 often appeared to outweigh all other re- 
 gards ; and the success of the publisher 
 has been thought to include that of the 
 artist. But, at least, let us inquire whether 
 this be not mistaking the cause for the effect, 
 by looking at Art and Commerce in a 
 wrong direction. — Even confining ourselves 
 to a commercial view of the subject, I may 
 safely venture to assert, that the converse 
 of this proposition would be much nearer 
 
 appear surprising that he, or that any man, should either 
 arrogate for the agent y the merit that is due to the causey of 
 a given effect ; or attempt to betray the public intq so gross 
 an error. 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 301 
 
 the truth: for the success of the artist, 
 could scarcely fail, in this commercial coun- 
 try, to command, as it has formerly com- 
 manded, that of the merchant. 
 
 I know it is common to hear it objected 
 to all interference with commercial specu- 
 lation, that things eventually find their 
 own level so did Monsieur Garnerin, in 
 his celebrated descent, come at last to the 
 ground. But in all cases, to prevent dan- 
 gerous oscillation would surely be no im- 
 proper employment of Science : and be- 
 tween the aims of sterling Taste and Talent, 
 and the preponderance of ignorant Capital, 
 the oscillations are much more frequent, 
 and fraught with more mischief to Art, 
 than can easily be known at a glance, or 
 conceived by a distant observer. 
 
 Of the vast sums which have been so 
 vauntingly held forth to Parliament and 
 to the Public, as having been expended 
 on the Arts,^ fairness would seem to re- 
 
 * I have forgotten how many thousand pounds Mackha 
 was accustomed to mention as having been expended by him 
 on the Fine Arts : but Boydell's Lottery Scheme is now 
 
50i THE SikfH LEdlUR]^, 
 
 quire that we should also have been told 
 how much had previously been obtained, 
 through means of those arts, from the well- 
 meant liberality of the public ; and how 
 little came originally from the purses of 
 the pubhshers ^Yet, this has never been 
 done- 
 Permit me to remind you how rarely an 
 accomplished and impartial judge appears 
 in any of th6 departments of Taste. Of 
 the various and blended attainments of the 
 Scholar, the Artist, and the Critic ; in Lite- 
 rature, Painting, and Engraving; let us 
 recollect — let us calculate — what portions 
 should fall to the lot of him, who under- 
 takes to conduct a connected series of histo- 
 rical or poetical pictures and engravings. 
 When we have so done, and when we 
 have reflected how very seldom a sound 
 
 before me, which states that it has been proved, before both 
 Houses of Parhament, that the plates from which the 
 J?rize prints were taken, cost upwards of 300,0001. his 
 Pictures and Drawings 46,2661. and the Shakespear Gallery 
 upwards of 30,0001. — It is within the knowledge of persons 
 now living, that both Macklin and Boydell began the trade 
 of print-selling with very inconsiderable capitals. 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 303 
 
 critic appears in any of those arts, we may 
 be able to estimate how very few can 
 have been competent to guide the pubHc 
 taste in works of this description. But 
 knaves will hover round in ambush 
 where profit is to be obtained; and fools 
 rush in, where angels would tread with 
 caution: nor can it be dissembled that 
 the public, with the best intentions in the 
 world, has been credulous enough to entrust 
 such undertakings to any, and to all, who 
 had craft and effrontery^ or folly, enough 
 to hold forth a specious advertisement or a 
 pompous prospectus* 
 
 If a wretched bungling engraver, whose 
 own prints should appear the strongest con- 
 demnation of his pretensions to rule and 
 govern the studies of others ; if a frame- 
 maker, or a farrier, or any other per- 
 son whose previous education had been as 
 remote from the real objects of Art; were 
 now to appear before us, and solicit, and 
 seem to expect, our subscriptions to any 
 engraving, or series of engravings, com 
 billed with poetry or history, to be gra 
 
504 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 dually produced under his supreme super- 
 intendence ; and which he might choose to 
 call Sumptuous, or Superb, or National, or 
 Magnificent, — who but must laugh ? — Who 
 but would consider the pretensions of so 
 gross a pretender, as ridiculous in them- 
 selves as those of the lamp-lighter, who, in 
 Mr. Dibdin's song, declares himself a son of 
 Apollo, and commissioned to enlighten the 
 world ! 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — What I have 
 faintly endeavoured to picture on your 
 fancy, may seem a farce, in speculation: 
 If it has been a tragedy, in reality, I could 
 wish to engrave it on your memories. I have 
 put a supposititious case : It is yours to 
 perceive whether any such characters as I 
 have portrayed, have really risen to afflu- 
 ence upon the studies and attainments of 
 men, some of whom have fallen into the 
 grave, while others have migrated to fo- 
 reign ❖ countries ; and whether others again, 
 
 * The departure of Schiavontetti (one of the very best 
 historical engravers the country contains) though not a 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 305 
 
 are not still languidly vegetating in our 
 own, under the ample shade of catch-guinea 
 lottery schemes and mercantile importance. 
 Nor can I wish to direct your attention to 
 such considerations, with any other view 
 than to render the past experience, which 
 has been dearly purchased, subservient to 
 future benefit. 
 
 greater discredit, will be a much greater loss, to us than the 
 migration of Bartolozzi; on account of their respective 
 ages. Beside which, if I am rightly informed, the former 
 is going to France ; against which country we shall soon 
 have to contend, I hope, in the honourable rivalry of Arts 
 and Commerce. Yet who can discommend the prudence 
 of Schiavonetti ? Europe resounds with the praises of Ra- 
 phael Morghen, and the Academies of the Continent pout 
 forth their honours at his feet : while Schiavonetti, by much 
 his superior in taste and academical knowledge, in Eng- 
 land is unhonoured, and scarcely better known or encouraged 
 than the veriest painted-toy-monger, whose works decorate, 
 or disgrace, Bond-street, or the Strand. England, with 
 all thy faults, I love thea still," may still be said by the 
 merchant, and by the professors of the arts of war and 
 politics ; for their affections may still be gratified : but for 
 an Engraver (I speak not of the mere rapid multipliers of 
 rubbish) to say so, it now requires — notwithstanding the 
 acknowledged liberality of our disposition to encourage 
 foreigners — that he be born an Englishman, 
 
 X 
 
306 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE, 
 
 To the well-intended liberality of the pub- 
 lic much credit is due, and I believe much 
 gratitude is felt;^^ and for the credulity 
 which I have seemed to blame, I could wish 
 to apologise. The opinion that it is laud- 
 able to promote commercial speculation, and 
 to shelter and insure commercial hazard, is 
 now so associated with English habits of 
 thinking, that the slightest external sti- 
 mulus is not only sufficient to excite it, but 
 so to cloud every other view, and benumb 
 every other feeling, that, while it prevails, 
 we are almost ready to sink our regard for 
 the Happiness^ in our zeal for the Wealth 
 of the Nation ; or to suppose that the latter 
 must necessarily comprise so much of the 
 former, that he, who but proposes to en- 
 
 ^' I mean by those Artists of discernment to whom the 
 intention is obvious. He that would know how grateful 
 those persons are who have really enjoyed the advantages of 
 this liberality, should be referred to Mr. Alderman Boy- 
 dell's late pamphlet ; where he will find the affluent re- 
 proached (though not very intelligibly) with not having 
 seconded the exertions, I suppose, of his late uncle and 
 the print-dealers of his day. (see p. U, and see also his 
 preface.) 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 30? 
 
 rich himself, must of course deserve our 
 encouragement. ❖ 
 
 * By many it may be thought to be at the best but re- 
 motely connected with our subject, but I cannot repress 
 here a wish that has often crossed my mind. It is, that Dr, 
 Adam Smith, or any other philosopher of equal powers, 
 had devoted some portion of his time and study to an inves- 
 tigation of the nature and causes of the Happiness of 
 nations. Under the influence of the discoveries he would 
 have made, and the doctrines he would have inculcated, my 
 imagination would contemplate Europe as far wiser and 
 better than it is. In the United Kingdoms especially, — 
 beyond which perhaps an Englishman's wishes in the present 
 state of political events, may not wander far, — I cannot 
 but fancy a very superior order of things. Instead of the 
 Genius of the country being chained to the desk of office, 
 or the counting-house, the mild but salutary influence of the 
 fine Arts, would probably have been encouraged to co-ope- 
 rate more intimately, and more extensively, with the pre- 
 cepts of Christianity and the principles of Morals; the 
 dawnings of British ingenuity might have been found even 
 more politicaUy desirable than the possession of a distant 
 and uncultivated tract ; and the light of its noon, and the 
 beauty and the good, — aye, aiul the Wealth it would have 
 disclosed, might have been allowed, even in the past and 
 present distracted state of Europe, a much larger portion 
 of relative national importance than has fallen to its lot. I 
 should have been glad to have seen the effects to be fairly 
 expected from the stimulus of mental pleasure, compared 
 
 \ 
 
308 
 
 THE SIXTH LEOTUHfi. 
 
 If the prevalence of such sentiments has 
 been sufficient to induce tlie Legislature 
 liberally to grant Lottery-acts, without ex- 
 amining whether those who solicited such 
 acts had so benefited the Arts, and so kept 
 their terms with their subscribers, as to 
 deserve them; ought we to be surprised 
 that the public should implicitly credit 
 the professions of the London publishers ? 
 — should cancel all consideration of how 
 
 by such an author with those to be apprehended from the 
 spur of pamful necessity : and the lessons of benevolence 
 and the practical wisdom to be deduced from the opera- 
 tions of Art on the realities of Nature ; and the feelings and 
 the reasonings to which these give birth ; balanced against 
 and finally blended with the effects of the artful arrangement 
 of general terms, and the prevailing system of political 
 maxims drawn from the mingled errors and experience of 
 departed times : the penetration, perspicuity, comprehension 
 of mind, and simplicity of developement which such an one 
 must possess, could scarcely have failed to render as clear 
 to the calculating head as to the philanthropic heart, whether 
 the body of Art should be animated by a soul of Avarice, 
 or by that pure spirit of Social Happiness which Poets 
 invoke and Patriots adore. The superficial, and perhaps 
 the profound, reader, must pardon the appearance of this 
 Utopian reverie. 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 S09 
 
 far it was likely, or even possible, that such 
 characters could be qualified to conduct 
 such works as they had undertaken? — 
 should suffer itself to believe that publica- 
 tions, whose imperfections are numerous 
 and palpable, were the best the Arts of the 
 country could produce ? — and should even 
 seem to be influenced by a notion, that by 
 some magical touch of Pall-mall, Bond- 
 street, or other popular situation in the 
 metropolis, Ignorance must start into Know- 
 ledge, and vulgar appetite be suddenly 
 converted to exquisite Taste. 
 
 [This IS the Lecture, and the pages the reader has just 
 passed, the particular part of the Lecture, for which the 
 managers thought it right (if the word thought may here 
 be used without impropriety) to dismiss me from my Lec- 
 tureship at the Royal Institution : — A dismissal, which, how- 
 ever seriously it may in some respects have been felt, is a 
 much less evil to my sense of Honour and Right, than would 
 have been the suppression of the truths which I believe the 
 Lecture to contahi ; and which I have reason to hope those 
 who took on themselves my dismissal w ould have perceived 
 it to contain ; had they heard it delivered in the Lecture- 
 room, or in their own Committee-room ; where I offered to 
 repeat either the whole or the questionable passages : — Like 
 the Dutch sailor who broke his leg by a fall from the main- 
 mast, and whose philosophy is commended in the Spectator, 
 
310 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 I have now to thank God, that neither my head nor my heart 
 
 is broken by my fall. When questioned before the Board 
 
 of Management, I did not — it was impossible that I should, 
 affect to conceal that certain allusions contained in this Lec- 
 ture were meant to be applied to the late Mr. Boydell. — • 
 I frankly avowed that 1 wished and intended they should be so 
 understood. If that Alderman and Engravery bad been the 
 Subject of my discourse, as he might have been without the 
 smallest impropriety (for there is no reason why he might not 
 turn out as useful a subject to me, as Gray or Dr. Johnson 
 to the Rev. Mr. Crowe, or any deceased Musician to Dr. 
 Crotch) I might perhaps have sought, and perhaps have 
 found, some acts of his that would bear to be nearly in- 
 spected, and might still be deemed acts of Generosity, and 
 examples worthy to be followed: but the Alderman and 
 Merchant fell under my notice ; and only as far as respected 
 the profession of Engraving. The consequences of limiting 
 the exertions of others in that Art by his own narrow ideas 
 of its perfectibility ; the policy or impolicy of sacrificing the 
 future hopes of an Art, to (Opulence) the present deity of 
 Commerce; the wisdom or folly of preferring pecuniary 
 GoodnesSy to moral riches , were the important principles 
 before me : and from them it was incumbent on me not to 
 divert the attention of my audience. 
 
 The latter part of the succeeding Lecture, would 
 have consisted of a portion of my analytical inquiry 
 into the elementary principles of Engraving; and the 
 former part would have been devoted to a consideration 
 of the means which have been resorted to for its culti- 
 vation. It is a mortifying circumstance, that sordid in- 
 trigues, or unworthy and ill-founded fears, by prevent* 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 Sll 
 
 iiig this Discourse^ from being delivered, should have 
 obliged me to suppress the progress which I had made in 
 the analytical inquiry : but in no part of the course, had I 
 depended so much on the examples and illustrations which I 
 meant to have exhibited at the time of reading. They are 
 indispensable to a clear understanding of the subject. I 
 am therefore compelled by these machinations, to omit 
 that which of all I had to deliver, I conceive would have 
 been most useful to my audience. I now proceed with 
 what has not yet been publicly read ; which, for the sake 
 of producing a more connected arrangement, has been 
 formed into the second division of this Discourse. I have 
 availed myself of the interval of time which has elapsed, to 
 revise the whole : in doing which, I have in this, as in other 
 places, added some fe>v touches which would not have ap- 
 peared in the Lecture-room, and by which, I hope, the 
 general effect will be improved.] 
 
 Having admitted the charges of dete- 
 rioration which, have been brought against 
 modern EngHsh engraving, when its actual 
 present state is compared with the state in 
 which an impartial and dispassionate ob- 
 
 * The syllabus of my succeeding Lecture, which began with the 
 words " Further explanation of the causes that have retarded the ad- 
 vancement of Engraving," had been sent for, and delivered to the 
 acting Secretary, to ])e inserted in the weekly advertisement, before my 
 examination (if it were proper to call it so) took place. If it struck 
 unfounded terrors— f am sorry for it. The Boydells (I use this word as 
 the denomination of a species) will now see that they had noticing to 
 fectr from that Lecture, 
 
312 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 server would have had a right to expect to 
 have found it after a transplantation to this 
 country of half a century ; and having 
 ascribed this deficiency in part to the bale- 
 ful influence which unqualified persons 
 have assumed and exercised, in ignorantly 
 dictating to the studies, and curbing the 
 energies, of its professors ; I ha,ve now to 
 submit that another cause, not less potent 
 in its operation, has contributed to the 
 present regretted state of Engraving. But 
 I hope also to make it appear that such 
 have been the exertions of its professors^, 
 under disadvantages which I trust I shall be 
 able to manifest, that you will in conclusion 
 think with me, that (like Sterne's reduced 
 Marquis) the Art has " fought up against 
 its condition with great firmness;" and is 
 noAv in a better state than the country had 
 a right, under its past and present priva- 
 tions and discouragements, to expect. 
 
 The fate of English engraving has been 
 that of the English language ; of which Dr. 
 Johnson so eloquently complains. " Em- 
 ployed in the cultivation of every other art, 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 313 
 
 it has itself been hitherto neglected ; suffered 
 to spread under the direction of chance, into 
 wild exuberance ; resigned to the tyranny 
 of Time and Fashion ; and exposed to the 
 corruptions of Ignorance, and the caprices 
 of Innovation. It has been treated not as 
 the pupil, but the slave, of Science ; — the 
 Pioneer of Art, doomed only to remove rub- 
 bish and clear obstructions from (he paths 
 through which Painting and Architecture 
 press forward to conquest and glory, with- 
 out bestowing a smile on the humble drudge 
 that facilitates their progress," 
 
 That no efficient endeavours have yet 
 been made to ascertain, develope, and pro- 
 mulgate, the elementary principles of En- 
 graving ; that criticism and practical skill 
 in this Art have hence been left to wander, 
 without light and without roads, in wild 
 uncertainty ; and that the Honours of an 
 Academy expressly instituted for the pro- 
 motion of the Arts, have been denied ta 
 those who might most distinguish them- 
 selves in this arduous study ; has justly ex- 
 qited the surprise of foreigners, and the re- 
 
514 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 gret of those persons amongst ourselves 
 who knew the intrinsic vahie of the Art, 
 and who perceived that the Painters of 
 Great Britain were destined to derive en- 
 couragement at home, and could only enjoy 
 reputation abroad, in proportion as Engrav- 
 ing was critically understood, and success- 
 fully cultivated. 
 
 Mr. Burke has delicately apologised for 
 the seeming remissness on this point of the 
 engravers themselves, by stating of artists 
 in general, that they are too constantly and 
 busily engaged in the practice, to attempt 
 to explain to the public the theories, of 
 their respective professions : — and from the 
 dealers in Engravings, for reasons already 
 stated, such an attempt was hardly to be 
 expected. But when a Royal Academy 
 was established in London, expressly for 
 the cultivation of the fine Arts, — surely 
 then, both the public and the professors of 
 this Art, had every rational ground to hope 
 —nay, to expect, that some steps would 
 have been taken toward the accomplish- 
 ment of purposes so desirable, 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 Whatever hopes, — whatever rational ex- 
 pectations might then have been formed^ 
 were disappointed by the appearance of the 
 Academical Code. Professors of Painting, 
 Architectmx, Anatomy, Perspective, anci- 
 ent Literatme, and foreign correspond- 
 ence, were thereby appointed to lead the 
 students into the readiest and most effica- 
 cious paths of study with a Hmited ad- 
 mission of the public to the Lectures, which 
 wxre ordered to be delivered on Art : but 
 provision was made for no Professor of the 
 Statuary's art ; no Professor of Landscape ; 
 and none of Engraving. Further to discou- 
 rage — I am compelled to use this word- 
 further to (i^'^courage this latter Art, it was 
 ordained that Engravers, however great 
 their professional merits, should not be 
 eligible to the higher honours of the Royal 
 Academy. By a strange infatuation, which 
 only witchcraft or fool-craft could effect^ 
 and of which the spell is not yet broken^ 
 the impulse which acts most forcibly on in- 
 genuous and well constituted minds^ — that 
 honourable estimation which is at once the 
 noblest reward of existing merit, and the 
 
SI6 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 most powerful spring of future exertion, -r^ 
 — was withheld even from those who might 
 
 ^ In an oration made in the Parliament which has re- 
 cently been dissolved, on a great public question, the follow- 
 ing passage occurs ; the reasoning of which I consider, upon 
 strict analogy, to be applicable to the present state of those 
 who profess the Art of Engraving. I do not vouch for its 
 being a correct extract from the speech of the noble Lord 
 who is said to have delivered it — I take it from a news-paper 
 report. 
 
 Speaking of the Catholics of Ireland, Lord Grenville is 
 reported to have said, Have your Lordships well weigh- 
 ed the consequences that must flow from the operation of 
 such attempts to degrade and dispirit the minds of ariT/ class 
 of men ? Have you studied the difference of conduct under 
 which men act, who have high rewards and distinctions set 
 before them to influence their ambition and animate their 
 labours ? How different would the views and the spirit of 
 a student of the Law be, if he could entertain no hope of 
 ever reaching the high distinction now enjoyed by the Noble 
 Lord on the woolsack ? Does not much of his estimation 
 of himself, and of the honour he attaches to his profes- 
 sion, arise from that single consideration ? Suppose for a 
 moment, that the Students of Lincoln's-Inn, and of the 
 Middle Temple exclusively, possessed this great and ani- 
 mating pro(;pect, and that those of the Inner Temple, were 
 debarred from ever entertaining such proud pretensions. 
 Will your liOrdships bring yourselves to believe that all 
 three cap devote themselves with e(|ual spirit and ardour 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 517 
 
 most excel -i^ in the Art of Engraving : and 
 the Academy in Europe which should 
 
 tlieir professional pursuits ? Must not the Members of 
 the Inner Temple feel themselves comparatively low and 
 insignificant, whenever they reflect on the comparative in- 
 significance of the objects to which they are allowed to 
 aspire? 
 
 If in the Army a similar dispiriting distinction was to be 
 made between two regiments ; if the Officers of the one 
 were never to be raised above the rank of Colonels, while 
 the Officers of the other might aspire to be Generals and 
 great Commanders ; how different must be the feelings and 
 the spirit by which they must be actuated : They cannot 
 feel themselves, or be looked upon, as the same race of be« 
 ings. Apply my Lords, all the effects of such disparage- 
 ment ; compare the sentiments of such men Vv ith the senti- 
 ments of those whose views and ambition are checked by 
 no such restraints, whose prospects are clouded by no such 
 marks of inferiority : Your own breasts must tell you what 
 works within theirs. The sentiments that must be engen- 
 dered by such invidious distinctions and preferences may 
 easily be conceived : They must irritate the pride, and fret 
 the feelings of every honourable, high, and aspiring, mind : 
 — and what evil consequences must proceed from such 
 degrading distinctions, may more easily be imagined than 
 expressed. 
 
 * The admission of the four most distinguished En- 
 gravers to the rank of Royal Academician, I should con- 
 ceive would have been sufficient for every purpose of laud- 
 
 5. 
 
518 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 most have honoured that Art, has been 
 from that hour the Academy in Europe 
 where it is most neglected. 
 
 In other words, at that eventful crisis of 
 commercial advantage and public happi- 
 ness, the establishment of a National Aca- 
 demy, it was in this country virtually 
 enacted that none but mercenary and 
 ignoble minds should be devoted to an Art, 
 the successful study of which was fated 
 to form the basis of British encourage- 
 ment to the higher efforts of Painting : — 
 an Art which, when its immediate and re- 
 mote consequences are taken into consi- 
 deration, must be regarded as capable of 
 influencing, to no inconsiderable degree, 
 the general commercial prosperity of Eng- 
 land ; and which is almost the sole, but 
 
 able emulation. It would have conferred on Engraving a 
 degree of relative honour and importance to Art in the 
 aggregate, as 4 to 40, (which I presume to think not un- 
 reasonable :) and, with the addition of a Professor of 
 Engraving, would have placed that Art, with respect to 
 Academical cultivation, on a level with Architecture ; of 
 x^'hich profession there are four Royal Academicians. 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 319 
 
 certainly the most efficient, means of dif- 
 fusing through the world a just and general 
 taste for the arts of Design. 
 
 Now, no art is ever likely to attain such 
 a degree of perfection as to operate the im- 
 provement of the public Taste, or any consi- 
 derable amendment of its morals, where it 
 is exercised for a recompense merely mer- 
 cenary. In a commercial country, more 
 especially, where wealth has usurped the 
 title of Goodness, we should rather increase 
 the weight in the scale of Honour,, to coun- 
 terpoise and check that sordid propensity, 
 whose preponderance must else bring down 
 the arts of refinement to the condition of 
 mere handicraft trades, — and their profes- 
 sors to the condition of those who toil at 
 the lower employments of life, and are 
 driven by the fear of evil, rather than 
 attracted^ by the prospect of good. For 
 we should not forget, that man is prone 
 to temptation. The artist who cannot 
 obtain honour, will of course, or must of 
 necessity, aim at profit : and under such 
 circumstances, to follow, to flatter, and to 
 
5^0 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE* 
 
 corrupt, the public Taste, is easily seen to 
 be a more certain, and much more ready, 
 way to wealth, than to acquire and exer- 
 cise the power to lead, exalt, and refine 
 it. The sure way, therefore, to degrade 
 any Art ; to break down its pretensions to 
 that honourable denomination ; and to an- 
 nihilate the benefits that, as an art, it is 
 capable of imparting to Society ; would 
 be to ordain or contrive that it should 
 be exercised for money, and for no higher 
 reward. 
 
 A well known witticism of the late Hon. 
 Charles Towoshend, may help to illustrate 
 these principles — if indeed, their truth be 
 not of itself, sufficiently evident. Some 
 thirty or forty years ago, there existed in 
 London a debating Society, which, from 
 
 ^ It is painful, but is sometimes necessary, to trace the 
 operations of unworthiness. The process by which what 
 was once regarded as a tine Art, is gradually converted to a 
 common trade, is this. The public taste will rest satisfied 
 with inferior degrees of excellence in a living Art, where 
 higher degrees are not produced. If the Garricks have 
 quitted, or ciin be kept froni; the stage, inferior actors will 
 
THiE SIXTH LECTURfe. 3^1 
 
 the house where its meetings were held, 
 was called the Robin Hood Society, Hear- 
 
 lind reputation. To satisfy the existing Taste, or to debase 
 it that it may be the more cheaply and easily satisfied, is the 
 aim of the manager or dealer ; who, at the best, cannot aim 
 to raise it above the level of his own. Meanwhile it has 
 become the ultimate object of the Artist, (a stranger to his 
 own reputation but through this corrupt medium — feeliiig no 
 more of the cheering influence of the sun-shine of the public 
 countenance than the dealer may find it his interest to 
 transmit,) to accommodate his talents to his employer's 
 wishes, and the prices that he is content to pay. These 
 causes being once put in action, the Art is necessarily re- 
 trograde. How much of Novelty, combined with how 
 little of intrinsic merit, will (hi Mr. Boydells phrase) " an- 
 swer to the publisher/' iis sooner or latter ascertained ; and 
 the results of the studies of the Artists of the first genera- 
 tion, becoming rudimental to the next, manual, soon takes 
 place of mental, industry. The excellence which has re- 
 sulted from mental feeling being banished, what can be 
 learned of Art in the trammels of imitation is all that re- 
 mains. To increase the quantity, not to raise the quality, 
 of its productions, is now the way to wealth; and the 
 Artist, if he might still be called so — the practitioner, is 
 induced to take numerous pupils or apprentices to multiply 
 the number of his productions ; and when the public is 
 content to receive with approbation such art as any one 
 can teach, and as every one might leain, the process is 
 complete. 
 
 Y 
 
522 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 ing it asserted that, when Jeacock the baker 
 was President, there was better speaking 
 at the Robin Hood than in St. Stephen's 
 Chapel, Mr. Townshend replied, You 
 are not to wonder that people should go 
 to the Baker for oratory^ when they come 
 to the House of Commons for Bread.'' — In 
 like manner I do not hesitate to say, that 
 you must look elsewhere for excellence 
 than in a country where the professors of a 
 given Art, are doomed to exercise that Art 
 for nothing but bread : Neither oratory nor 
 imitative Art, under such circumstances 
 can be more than the paralised, inefficient, 
 representative — the shadowy semblance, of 
 what it would have been under a more aus- 
 picious dispensation of things. 
 
 Where nothing better than money is the 
 prize, none better than mercenary can- 
 didates will start in the race: and, what 
 steady perseverance in arduous study ; what 
 noble flights of virtuous enthusiasm ; what 
 disinterested or patriotic employment of 
 exalted talent ; ought to have been expect- 
 ed under such an order of things, might 
 have been seen in the purlieus of Duke's< 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 523 
 
 Place, or read in the History of Man, with- 
 out making this great metropolis the theatre 
 of deleterious experirtient ; and should there- 
 fore have been well known to those who 
 undertook to legislate for an Academy of 
 Arts. 
 
 On this point, and with the examples of 
 the Academies of Rome, Paris, Vienna, Pe- 
 tersburg, and I believe all the public Aca- 
 demies of Europe, (our own excepted) on 
 my side the question, I may surely be al- 
 lowed to differ from the Architect of those 
 laws ; I may even venture to deny that his 
 basement is of adequate breadth, or his 
 foundation sufficiently firm. 
 
 Helvetius has remarked the propensity by 
 which most men are impelled to undervalue 
 those attainments of others, of whose nature^ 
 and the extent of whose uses, they are igno- 
 rant : He has also noted how frequently in- 
 dividuals are disposed to identify excellence 
 itself, with the kind of excellence which 
 each flatters himself that he possesses.:^ 
 
 * These are positions so uneasy, that we can scarcely 
 Y ^ 
 
324 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 Hence, the present knowledge of some (1 
 am afraid I might say of most) persons, and 
 their own estimates of their own powers, 
 are made too much the measure of the pos- 
 sible exertions of others* We are apt to 
 listen to accounts of such exertions with a 
 degree of uncertainty which inclines us to 
 limit them by what we already know ; and 
 generally to expect that they will turn out 
 less than we imagine ourselves to be capa- 
 ble of. It is upon this principle that the 
 poets have ventured Ajax, who was not 
 celebrated for the brightness of his intel* 
 lects, as braving Jove himself ! though he 
 stood in awe of Achilles He had wit- 
 nessed the impetuous valour of Achilles, 
 but was unable to comprehend the omni- 
 
 think them natural, while we are almost ready to confirm 
 their truth by hating Helvetius for the discovery. 
 
 * I have taken this remark on the character of Ajax, 
 from Rousseau, though I confess, I do not know, and 
 cannot find, the particular passages on which it is foundede 
 Probably the sublime remonstrance of this Hero in th© 
 XVII. Book of the Iliad, may be one. 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 325 
 
 potence of Jove : and it is on this principle, 
 and perhaps from no engraver having been 
 present, to assert the intellectuality and 
 public utility of his profession, when the 
 laws of the London Academy were framed, 
 that while Architecture is there placed on 
 a level with the painter s Art, and above 
 that of the Statuary, engraving has been 
 stamped with invidious and degrading in- 
 feriority. 
 
 Now, if there be any class of men, whom 
 we should hope to find superior to — whom 
 we should naturally expect would have 
 raised themselves above, this ordinary con- 
 dition of human nature, surely it would be 
 those whose study, whose duty, and whose 
 pleasure it is, to better and improve that 
 condition — the first professors of the arts 
 of civilization and refinement. From every 
 professor of the Fine Arts, we have a reason- 
 able right to expect the sentiments and 
 feelings of a large and liberal mind; and 
 a contrary principle of conduct, was as 
 foreign and unfit in those who undertook 
 
32^6 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 to legislate for an Academy of Arts, as it 
 would be in this place. How would it 
 sound here, if a Painter, a Statuary, or aij 
 Architect, (or an Artist of any other de- 
 scription) were to present himself before 
 you, and say, either directly or by impli- 
 cation, — " Ladies and Gentlemen — -attend 
 alone to the Art which / have the honour 
 to profess, for all other arts are unworthy 
 of your notice." — We rather expect that 
 such a person will address you in some 
 such language as the following : "I am 
 happy to have it in my power to antici- 
 pate that you are well informed of other 
 Arts and Sciences, because your minds are 
 thereby duly prepared to receive the infor- 
 mation it is my duty to impart : My task 
 is on this account less difficult and more 
 delightful : The more you know of other 
 arts, the more easily you will acquire a 
 knowledge of mine also ; nor have I any 
 reason to fear that when you have acquired 
 this knowledge, you will love it the less. 
 Like St. Paul at Ephesus, I find an altar 
 already raised to the unknown Art; and 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 321 
 
 have only to wish that, hke him, I might 
 be empowered to declare unto you a new 
 object of devotion." 
 
 Such is the tone of sentiment, that, upon 
 all occasions, we should naturally expect 
 from an artist ; and from artists selected 
 for the purpose, and invested with the 
 power, of legislating for the general advan- 
 tage of the Arts, we had an equal right to 
 expect a corresponding clearness and com- 
 prehension of judgment ; profound know- 
 ledge of causes and effects ; familiar ac- 
 quaintance with at least such past events 
 as were connected with the progressive im- 
 provement of Art, and the benign influ- 
 ence of Art upon the progress of Society ; 
 combined with penetration to see into re- 
 mote consequences, and energy to trace 
 the necessary, and seoure the probable, con- 
 nexion between the past, the present, and 
 the future. In a country — a commercial 
 country, where the opulent were numerous 
 and the tasteful but few, the legislator for 
 the Arts should have foreseen whether 
 early encouragement to the higher efforts 
 
328 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 in painting was to be expected, mediately 
 or immediately, from the wealthy and the 
 great ; or from the public at large : he 
 should have known whether the engraver's 
 art, was in itself useful and praiseworthy, 
 or worthless or contemptible ; and in either 
 case, whether it was not likely in the sur- 
 rounding state of things to become the 
 principal means of early encouragement to 
 Painting. How these means could be ren- 
 dered most efficient ? would have become a 
 necessary subsequent consideration : and in 
 the presence of legislators warmed by a 
 zeal so honest, and capable of entertaining 
 sentiments and views thus liberal and ex- 
 tensive, — Engraving might have boldly 
 stood up and said with Banquo, 
 
 my noble partner, 
 
 You greet with present grace, and great prediction 
 
 Of noble having and of Royal hope ; 
 
 That he seems rapt withal — to me you speak not : 
 
 If you can look into the seeds of Time, 
 
 And say which grain will grow, and which will not, 
 
 Speak then to me. 
 
 * The Macbeth of British art, was bewitched, I believe,, 
 by Reynolds — and Barry ; Sir WilHam Chambers acting as 
 Jlecate. Less th^n the influence of Hecate could not 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 329 
 
 It has been said that, with the view of ex- 
 cluding Sir Robert Strange from our Aca- 
 demy, the Art of Engraving was altogether 
 excluded from participating in its benefits : 
 but the obvious injustice of so palpable a 
 departure from principle, and the shame 
 which would have attended it, unites with 
 the other omissions, and with the general 
 complexion of the Academic laws,^- to 
 persuade us that this omission rather ori- 
 ginated in the narrowness of the views of 
 
 have effected a preference so manifestly unfair and impolitic 
 as our academical establishment exhibits, of Architecture 
 over the arts of the Statuary and Engraver. I would, how- 
 ever, cheerfully have forgiven Sir William for presuming that 
 Great-Britain would have numerous palaces to erect, if he 
 had done her the jvistice to expect also, that she would have 
 Jiings, and Statesmen, and Heroes, to honour. 
 
 * See the printed abstract of the Institution and Laws of 
 the Royal Academy of A rts ; and see also a pamphlet printed 
 for Stockdale, 1804, entitled a Concise Vindication 
 of the conduct of the five suspended Members of the 
 Council of the Royal Academy and another published by 
 Longman, Cadell, and Miller, entitled a Concise Review 
 of the Concise Vindication of the conduct, &c. &c. 
 wherein some of these mischievous errors are sufficiently 
 manifest. 
 
530 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 its legislators; amongst whom all the crook- 
 ed littlenesses — ^all the selfish, short-sighted, 
 temporary, expediency of politics, appear 
 to have taken place of the simplicity of 
 motive, and amplitude of principle, of le- 
 gislation : — ^of legislation, not for the punish- 
 ment of crime, but which should have com- 
 prehended the generation and reward of 
 unborn and immeasurable merit I 
 
 In delivering these sentiments of the er- 
 rors and omissions of the laws and legisla- 
 tors of the Royal Academy, I am very far 
 from imputing those errors to its present 
 members. It is possible that ignorance, or 
 mistaken superciliousness, may place an art, 
 ^s it placed Sampson of old, in a situation 
 where the exertion of blinded strength can 
 only be destructive. If the present situa- 
 tion of British engraving should at all re- 
 senable this, it would be unjust that either 
 the mischief or the blame should fall on 
 those who neither blinded the art nor placed 
 it in the portal. 
 
 One of the present members of the Aca- 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 331 
 
 demy — -the highly favoured votary of every 
 Muse, has recently united the purest charms 
 of poetic persuasion with the most resist- 
 less powers of reasoning, to impress us 
 with the important truth, that no Art has 
 ever flourished, or ever can flourish as an 
 Art, in any country^ unless in that countri/ 
 it be HONOURED as an Art — unless it be che- 
 rished and respected as a mode of refined 
 mental operation. The same sentiments have 
 been promulgated from this place in lan- 
 guage not less forcible by another of its 
 members : and that the cultivation of public 
 Taste can alone give vigour to living Art, 
 has lately been enforced with appropriate 
 energy in the Lecture-room of the Royal 
 Academy itself, both from the chair of the 
 Professor^ and from that of the President. 
 Indeed, no tasteful or cultivated mind has 
 been found to deny, that upon these deli- 
 cate and dulcet chords all the music of all 
 the Arts must be sounded ; and from such 
 men, placed at the head of the Arts, I am 
 willing to anticipate every just and early 
 extension of their good offices toward the 
 Art under our consideration. My inten- 
 
332 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 tion has been, not to cast on them the 
 faintest shade of unmerited blame, but, to 
 apologise for the present regretted state of 
 Engraving, by accounting for a deficiency 
 which has not been disputed ; to shield it 
 from the shafts which have ungenerously 
 been levelled at its very existence as an 
 Art; and to vindicate, and as far as the 
 efforts of an humble individual may con- 
 duce, to re-establish and perpetuate, its 
 claims to that honourable denomination. 
 
 But a doctrine which at a cursory view 
 seems to rise directly counter to these opi- 
 nions, and which I believe originated with 
 Voltaire, has lately r^-presented itself to our 
 notice. It amounts to an affirmation that 
 great or useful discoveries in Art or Science, 
 are never made by Academies, Colleges, or 
 similar aggregated bodies of Artists, or men 
 of Science ; and that the inculcation of 
 System at such public Institutions, has a 
 constant tendency to produce more harm 
 than good. 
 
 To deem Academies useless, or worse 
 4 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 than useless, because great discoveries al- 
 ways originate with individuals, is to draw 
 a false inference from a self-evident truth. 
 Discoveries in Art and Science must orii^i- 
 nate with individuals. It cannot in the 
 nature of things be otherwise. In the Uni- 
 verse of Art, individual genius is the pro- 
 jectile force. Academies, therefore, should 
 not be blamed for not performing what it 
 is not the proper office or duty of Acade- 
 mies to perform. 
 
 But the question of what is, — or what 
 ought to be, termed an Academy ? should 
 previously have been stated. Now as an 
 Academy, collectively speaking, is not a 
 discoverer, so neither is it a school : (though 
 it may very properly include a school.) — • 
 It is rather a Parliament >^ of Art. It differs 
 from, and is superior to, an ordinary school, 
 in respect that it is less a place to instruct 
 novices in what is known and practised, 
 and more a place for men of distinguished 
 
 * I conceive this word to be French, and its genuine 
 English definition to be free and unrestrained oral discus- 
 sion. 
 
334 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 abilities to confer in, and communicate their 
 lights and discoveries to each other, for 
 their mutual benefit and the general im- 
 provement of Art. Such were those groves 
 of immortal memory from whence we de- 
 rive the term, and which once adorned the 
 banks of the Ilyssus ; and such might now 
 illuminate the borders of the Thames, — or 
 perhaps the boundaries of the earth ! — for 
 we are not deficient in Artists of high attain- 
 ment ; but in wise, effective, and compre- 
 hensive, Academical Laws. 
 
 If liberal communication and interchange 
 of sentiment and opinion, be the beneficial 
 things they are allowed to be upon the 
 large scale of Society, they should surely 
 be still more beneficial on the smaller scale 
 of an Academy ; where the parties are more 
 select, their sympathies more accordant, and 
 their intercourse more complete. 
 
 That I have the misfortune, on the ques^ 
 tion of the value or uselessness of Acade- 
 mies and System, to differ from an author 
 of senatorial rank^ and of still higher rank 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE* 
 
 335 
 
 in the estimation of the tastehil and judi- 
 cious, I cannot be certain. We may seem 
 to differ in words, while in fact we may 
 really agree. If he writes against Acade- 
 mies as they generally have existed, or do 
 exist, he admits the possibility — he even 
 contends for the practice — (though without 
 specifying the most eligible means) of cul- 
 tivating imagination and judgment toge- 
 ther : and if he writes against System, 
 and by system means consistency of co-ope- 
 rative principles, his own " analytical in- 
 quiry," might be pleaded (if such an argu- 
 ment might be esteemed fair in such a dis- 
 cussion) in refutation of such doctrine. — 
 At least he will allow that analytical re- 
 search should extend to the whole of the 
 subject treated ; and that the object of the 
 separate ascertainment of elementary prin- 
 ciples, is synthetic and systematic combi- 
 nation. 
 
 You will permit me now to recur to 
 what I before stated, namely, that to dis- 
 cover new principles in Art must ever be 
 the fortune or merit of individuals ; and 
 
356 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 that the energies of Genius (always tilt 
 offspring of single minds) are, collectively 
 speaking, the centrifugal force by which 
 the great system of the Universe of Art is 
 continued in motion. As Providence has ap- 
 pointed a centripetal powei* (not to destroi/, 
 but) to restrain the centrifugal ; so in Art 
 (and I suspect also in morals) the redun- 
 dancy of impetus^ — -the eccentricities and 
 excesses of individual energy — are sympa- 
 thetically restrained, and rendered sub- 
 servient to its progress through time and 
 space : and perhaps by no power that 
 human wisdom has yet devised, could this 
 purpose be in any country more effectually 
 accompHshed, than by instituting an Aca- 
 demy of Arts upon expansive principles — 
 or which should ^' grow with its growth, 
 and strengthen with its strength." 
 
 A very principal object, then, of such 
 public Institutions (if my opinion be right) 
 is to detect and chetk the mischievous ten- 
 dency of unprincipled Novelty ; to dis- 
 courage the meretricious fallacies of mis- 
 taken or empirical pretenders to art and 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 337 
 
 criticism ; and, either by their productions 
 in Art ; or by public Lectures ; or public 
 discussions of principles as they might 
 apply to, or be drawn from, the works of 
 distinguished masters ; ❖ — or by all of these 
 and by every other honourable and effi- 
 cient means, to ascertain, recognise, sanc- 
 tion, and promulgate, such discoveries of 
 sound principle, as may be made by indi- 
 vidual artists and critics. Of so much 
 importance does this object appear; and 
 so vitally essential to the ends and purposes 
 of such Institutions ; that, unless it be ac- 
 complished, I fear an Academy can be little 
 more in any country than a mercantile 
 body ; a drawing school ; or a benefit 
 society ; or a mere feather in the cap of 
 royal vanity or national folly. — It may be a 
 nursery of Saplings ; but can never be the 
 
 ^ I am informed that public discussions of the merits 
 and demerits of celebrated Pictures was once common, and 
 that the Discourses published by Felibien, are really such as 
 took place, in the French Academy : and we know from 
 History that the ancients entertained an high opinion of this 
 mode of instruction. 
 
538 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 forest of Oaks, with which a country that 
 aspires to greatness, should be strengthened 
 and adorned. 
 
 Had such an Academy of Arts, includ- 
 ing that of Engraving, existed in Germany 
 or the Netherlands in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, the bright but erratic course of Henry 
 Goltzius, (which we shall hereafter have 
 occasion to notice) might have been re- 
 strained by salutary attraction : He might 
 have shed a steadier light and rolled a fair 
 planet in the Universe of Art. The prin- 
 ciples which governed his various practice, 
 and the discoveries to which that practice 
 in its turn gave birth — communicated to 
 liis contemporaries, and regulated by the 
 general feeling and judgment of the great 
 body of Artists, — would have really and 
 highly enriched his art, and the most valu- 
 able rudimental knowledge would have 
 been transmitted to his successors. 
 
 I have chosen the example of Henry 
 Goltzius, because among engravers he is 
 a conspicuous figure; one wh:)se genius is 
 
 1 
 
tHE SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 539 
 
 admired, and Avhose eccentricities are new 
 notorious : but so unsettled have always 
 been the principles of Engraving, that 
 observations similar to these in principle 
 might be applied to almost every engraver 
 of distinguished talent ; from the time of 
 Martin Schon and Andrea Mantegna, down 
 to our own- 
 It is curious — but it deserves our atten- 
 tion upon a much nobler principle than the 
 gratification of curiosity — to look through 
 history, and observe the general slow^ pro- 
 gress, and the occasional vigorous and rapid 
 advancement, of Art and Science. As long 
 as in such pursuits men are governed by 
 temporary expedients arising out of, and 
 falling into, particular occasions as long 
 as their attention is confined to detached 
 phenomena; their progress is necessarily 
 slow, if they can be said to proceed at all : 
 but I believe that whenever rapid advances 
 in Science, or in the general practice of any 
 Art, have taken place, such advances have 
 resulted from the ascertainment and pro- 
 mulgation of its radical or first principles ; 
 
340 
 
 THE SIXTH LECTUREJ 
 
 and the vigorous exertions which vivid 
 feeling, supported by, and relying upon, 
 these, is enabled to make.-i^ Need I expar. 
 tiate on the relative value of expediency 
 and principle ? Need I say that they differ 
 as widely as cunning from wisdom ; as in- 
 tricacy and littleness from simplicity and 
 breadth : as the narrow and intricate ways 
 of a politician, from the noble and expand- 
 ed views of a legislator ? Or shall I re- 
 quest you, in confirmation of these truths^ 
 to compare the ad vancement of the Sciences^ 
 those of Chemistry and natural Philosophy 
 in particular, within the last two centuries, 
 with their progress during the whole former 
 history of the World. 
 
 The ascertainment, then, of what ought 
 
 ^ Works of the Arts and Literature of former and more 
 refined periods, have frequently fallen under our notice in 
 the course of these Lectures. In the estimation of the 
 philosophical Artist, the intrinsic value even of these, sub- 
 lime monuments of human intellect, can be rated no higher 
 than as the Principles on which they were produced may 
 be traced in the examples. In no other view are they con- 
 ducive to our further progress. 
 
THE SIXTH LECTURE* 
 
 341 
 
 to be esteemed Principle, is, in every Art, 
 of the very highest importance. If we 
 embark in that of Engraving, either as pro- 
 fessors or collectors, without it, — we may 
 carry sail indeed ; but we traverse an ocean 
 of uncertainty, without light, without rud- 
 der, without compass, or polar star; and 
 are only right by occasional good fortune. 
 With principle for our guide, we proceed 
 regularly in our conquests over error and 
 barbarism, with the superior discipline 
 and steady bravery of a Roman legion; 
 possessing, and securing, and cultivating, 
 the ground we have gained. 
 
 FINIS, 
 
 J. M^Creery, Printer, 
 Black-Horse Court, Fleet-Street, 
 
Mr. LANDSEER 
 
 Respectfully announces to his friends and the public 
 that he is proceeding with the following Works — 
 
 An Emblematical Monument in Honour of Admiral 
 Lord Nelson, in which will be introduced the Bust of 
 his Lordship, and Alhisions to his most celebrated Vic- 
 tories. This Engraving will be from a Drawing by P. J, 
 De Loutherbourg, R. A. 
 
 Illustrations of some of the most remarkable Scenes in 
 Scotland, from Pictures by William Scrope, Esq. 
 F. L. S. to be published in Numbers at the price of One 
 Guinea each. The first Number will very shortly be ready. 
 
 Some Account of a Voyage round the World, perform- 
 ed by Order of the East India Company, in the Antelope 
 Packet, (Captain H. Wilson) which was wrecked at the 
 Pelew Islands ; with Engravings of the Landscape Scenery 
 and Natives of Pelew, Patagonia, and Terra del Fuego, 
 from Drawings made on the several Spots by A. W. Devis. 
 
 The Scenery of the Isle of Wight, accompanied by a 
 brief History and Topographical Descriptions. 
 
 A Letter on the Redemption of British Engraving, ad- 
 dressed to a Member of the British Institution for pro- 
 moting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, 
 
 Mr. Landseer will thankfully receive the names and 
 addresses of those Ladies and Gentlemen who may be 
 
 pleased 
 
pleased to countenance any of the above Undertakings, at 
 No, 71, Queen Ann Street, East. — He is fearful that, ex- 
 cepting the Scenery of Scotland, and the Letter to a Member 
 of the British Institution, none of them can be published 
 rery soon, and thinks it better to say this, than to subject 
 himself to difficulties, or expose the public to disappoint- 
 ment, by going with that common stream where premature 
 promises are too often succeeded by performances of which 
 the haste is more evident than the excellence* 
 
the Eoyal 
 $37.50 
 
/ 
 
1829. LANDSEER, JOHN. Lectures on the Art of Engraving, delivered at the Royal 
 Institution. 39 & 341pp. 8vo, cloth, (ex-library). London, 1807. $37.50 
 
 i 7 ! 
 
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