very good, but the most eminent of the family was the sister, Maria Sybilla. Being a great naturalist she made a voyage to Surinam, much to the detriment of her health, for the purpose of making drawings of the numerous insects and plants peculiar to that country. On her return she published a very interesting work of the history of the insects of Europe, accompanied with plates from her own designs and partly executed by herself. Her death was sadly premature, and her two daughters, who were as skilful in flower painting as herself, completed the series.

The Kusell family at Augsburg were held in much repute in their native city. Melchior, the father, executed about one hundred and forty-eight plates, chiefly of Italian sea-ports and other views. Jonas Umbach, John Elias and John William Maur of Strasburg, are contemporary names, whose works deserve much attention. Samuel Botschild, who was born at Sangerhausen in 1640, gained great reputation at Dresden. His talents procured him the appointment of painter to the court of Dresden, and also keeper of the Electoral Gallery. His etchings on historical subjects were well executed and displayed great original talent.

The French school produced many eminent artists during the seventeenth and following centuries, and the graphic art met with great encouragement from the court. A curious prejudice existed amongst the masters of that period against etching and it was very tardily adopted. We have a far more numerous list of names under the first class of the Parisian artists, and the art was especially fostered in that city, for the most eminent engravers in France were generally born at Paris, where they settled during their lifetime, and mostly died there. François Chaveau, born in 1618, was first of all very eminent as a burinist, but he afterwards adopted the etching needle. His works show great force and character, but are hastily executed. More than three thousand prints were the result of his exertions. Gabrielle Perelle was eminent as a landscape engraver, and, with the assistance of his two sons, Adam and Nicholas, produced some very excellent plates, mostly from his own designs. Amongst other productions by this master was a satirical print after a design by Richer, representing in a burlesque manner the taking of Arras by the French in 1642. The good citizens had put up the following inscription on their gates.

Upon the place however being taken the enemy merely took away the single letter P from the inscription. Claudine B. Stella, born at Lyons in 1634, an eminent female artist, produced some very beautiful engravings after Nicholas Poussin. Her sisters,

Antoinette and Françoise, were also very talented. After her we have the names of Guillaume Vallet, Sebastien le Clerc, Louis de Châtillon, contemporary and talented artists. Gerard Audran, born at Lyons in 1640, perpetuated the fame of Le Brun by his celebrated plates of the "Battles of Alexander." The series was completed with a single plate by Gerard Edelink. Gerard Andran had numerous pupils, who form a great portion of the present list. There is one more whom we must mention, Laurent Cars, who is considered one of the best engravers of the eighteenth century. He produced numerous subjects from Rigaud, Le Moine, Boucher and Watteau. The most beautiful of his works is his "Hercules and Omphale."

In the second class we have an immense number of eminent names, belonging chiefly to the eighteenth and subsequent centuries. Anterior to this period, about 1570, we have Jacques Perisin or Persinus and J. Tortorel. The former executed some plates, but in a very inferior manner, and the latter produced some rather better ones, representing the wars of the Huguenots. We mention these merely to show the earliest period at which the etching needle was first made use of by the French, which was half a century later than their more enterprising neighbours. Very soon after however we have Claude Vignon, born at Tours in 1590, who although more remarkable as a painter, yet has left behind him some very excellent etchings. Nicholas Chaperon, a provincial artist born in 1596, while he was at Rome engraved all the pictures in the Vatican, entitled "Raffaelle's Bible." Few artists have rivalled him in the execution of this work. Michael Corneille the elder, born at Orleans in 1603, was one of the original twelve members of the Royal Academy at Paris. Corneille, together with his son, were much employed by Louis Quatorze, and they both executed some very fine etchings after Raffaelle and the Caracci, with many more from their own designs.

We have already mentioned the name of Abraham Bosse in our former part. He was the author of a work entitled "La Manière de graver à l'Eau forte." His style is very spirited, and his peculiar excellence consists in the manner in which he finished his plates with the graver. Callot is supposed to be the person that he imitated, but his actual instructor is not known. After Bosse we have a long list of names, who, although eminent, we are compelled to pass over, but we must not omit Sebastian Bourdon, born at Montpelier in 1616. He was eminent as a painter, and his engravings conveyed the same impression as the works on his canHe possessed great power in harmonizing his subjects and his attention to chiaroscuro was very great. His plates are much valued by collectors. Jacques Rousseau, born at Paris in 1626,

vass.

being a Protestant, was obliged to fly from the persecution of Louis Quatorze, and took refuge in England. The Duke of Montague patronized him and employed him to decorate Montague House. He bestowed a great deal of time upon engraving, and his etchings are considered very beautiful. We cannot omit the well deserved encomium Mr. Gilpin passes upon this artist. "Having," said he, "escaped the rage of persecution himself, he made it his study to lessen the sufferings of his distressed brethren by distributing among them the greatest part of his gains.'

Joseph Parrocel was a great master of chiaroscuro, and his style was masterly and bold. He executed numerous battle-pieces, but inferior to those of the celebrated Jacques Courtois, better known by the name of Bourguignon. So enthusiastic was he in his studies that his custom was to attend an army and sketch the various skirmishes and sieges. In Italy his pencil procured him great fame, and some of our readers will recognize his Italianized appellation of Cortese or Il Borgognone. Raimond de la Fage of the same period was most happy in his designs and his execution of them. His friend Carlo Maratti had so high an opinion of him that he declared he would give up the art "if La Fage's painting equalled La Fage's drawing."

There is a numerous list of Spanish engravers, who were chiefly of Madrid, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza, but as we have not space to dwell upon their merits, we will give a quotation, which has already been published, from the Diccionario dellas Bellas Artes, by D. Cean Bermudez:

The fathers of the

It is true that the

"The art of copper-plate engraving in Spain may be truly said to date its rise from the Academy of San Fernando. art in that country were directors of the Academy. appointment of Engraver to the King's Cabinet had been previously held by meritorious artists, but their manner of executing copper-plate was more the result of their own genius than of any received principles of the art. The first teacher of the elements of engraving was D. Manuel Salvador Carmona, one of the students under the association preparatory to the foundation of the Academy, who was sent to Paris with a pension from the king to learn engraving. At the same time, and with the same encouragement, D. Juan de la Cruz and D. Tomas Lopez were at Paris learning to engrave architecture, geographical maps, and ornamental plates. Besides efforts abroad, the academy received every possible benefit from one of its directors, D. Juan Barnabe Palomino, who without quitting Spain had acquired for himself the art of engraving in a style which combines correctness with great clearness and lightness. He distributed to each of three pupils out of the number under his tuition an annual prize of one hundred and fifty ducats, to be conferred after a fair competition among the candidates; and he added, in 1760, a general premium, according to the advancement of the art, in its application to

works of painting, architecture, and sculpture. Lastly, that no advantage should be wanting to give full effect to these arrangements, and to the progress of the students, two of the academy were in 1763 sent to Paris with a pension from the king to learn the mode of printing from copper-plate, and of preparing and manufacturing every requisite for this important and long neglected object."

From this extract our readers will observe that the Spanish school made no inconsiderable progress in the art, and that much attention and patronage was bestowed upon it.

The English school of engraving is certainly indebted to our foreign neighbours for the early foundation of the bright and lasting fame which it possesses at present. We remarked in our last number, that the efforts of the early English masters who solely employed the burin,were so inferior that we passed them over without any comment. There are many however, like true Englishmen, who have contended, even in the earlier stages of the art, that we were by no means inferior to other nations. Evelyn, in his Sculptura, contends that William Lightfoot who was employed as an architect in the building of the Royal Exchange, but whose name as an engraver is not recognized, was nearly equal to Wierinx. The engravers of the time of Pope and Addison were looked upon as men of great talent, although really but mediocre. Our readers will remember the well-known lines that Pope addressed to that inferior artist Charles Jervas, who gave that poet some instruction in drawing and painting.

"Oh! lasting as thy colours may they shine ;
Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line:
New graces yearly, like thy works display,

Soft without weakness: without glaring, gay."

The lines on Kneller, who could neither draw nor colour, are still stronger. Pope was not fortunate in the "Art of criticism" on painting. We cannot be surprised at a little vanity being implanted in the breast of the artist who was complimented in this style. An anecdote is related of him that he had copied a picture by Titian, and when he had completed it, was so extremely delighted with the fancied superiority of his work over the original, that he exclaimed in a commiserating tone of voice for the passé Titian (which we are quite sure must have consoled that master, could he have heard it)" Ah! poor little Tit! how he would stare!" We however have not time to criticize these little vanities of the early masters, but must turn our attention to the more solid talents of those of a later period. We have more than eighty names of the first class, of whom we will notice the most remarkable. The earliest artist that claims our attention is Wenceslaus Hollar, born at Prague in 1607. He was of an ancient Bohemian family,

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and originally brought up for the profession of the law. Disturbances in his own country compelled him to take refuge in Frankfort. The Earl of Arundel, during an embassy to Ferdinand the Second, happened to meet Hollar at Cologne, and became his patron, and on his return to England introduced him to Charles the First. He had a great attachment for his royal master, and interested himself so much in his cause that he was taken prisoner at Basing-house in Hampshire. On his release, he took up his residence at Antwerp, where he employed his time in engraving chiefly from the collection of his former patron the Earl of Arundel, who had also removed to that city. In 1652, he returned to London, and met with greater encouragement, but the plague and the great fire of London again threw him back, and caused still further disappointments. He was employed by government in 1658 to make some drawings of the town of Tangiers, together with the forts, which he afterwards engraved.

During his voyage to England, the vessel was engaged by seven Algerine corsairs off Cadiz, and after a gallant struggle, in which the pirates were beaten off, she continued her voyage. Hollar escaped unwounded, and on his return commemorated the action by a very clever engraving. For his labour of two years he received only a hundred pounds, and that with much delay, and after many humble petitions from the poor engraver. The life of this industrious man ended in penury, and, on his death-bed, the bailiffs who came to seize upon the little remnant of furniture he possessed, were requested by him to leave his bed an hour or two longer, "and then to remove him to the prison of the grave." He executed about two thousand four hundred prints with boldness and freedom, embracing every department of the art. We have another instance of an artist adhering to the fortunes of Charles the First, in William Faithorne, the elder, of London. He was the pupil of Robert Peake, a painter and printseller, afterwards knighted by Charles, and who eventually obtained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the royal army. He persuaded his pupil to join the service, and they partook to a certain degree of the sorrows of their master. Faithorne's engravings in portraits are admirably executed. George Vertue, born in 1684, was the pupil of Michael Vauder Gucht. He studied seven years under this master, and then commenced working on his own account. He continued his studies for some years in the Academy of Painting instituted in 1711, and thence became indefatigable in every branch of the art. All his works are executed with great accuracy, but they want spirit and force. Amongst his varied works are his engravings of the Kings of England, for Rapin's History, and for many years he engraved the Oxford Almanack.