ENGRAVING. This term is at pre sent confined to the art of excavating copper and wood, in lines, in so judicious a manner, as to produce imitations of paintings and drawings when painted on paper. It is certain that engraving for the production of prints was unknown long after the practice of painting in oil had arrived to great perfection, but good prints are common from plates engraved in the fifteenth century, many of which are landscapes, most laboriously, and even excellently, performed by the gra ver, although it is well known that the instrument just mentioned cannot freely express those serrated and serpentine lines, necessary for foliage and short grass intermixed with plants, since so admirably delineated in etchings. A gold smith of Florence, named Maso Finiguer ra, is said to have discovered the art ; but this assertion must undoubtedly merely apply to his obtaining impressions from lines engraved originally without the least idea of such a result ; were we to examine the subject closely, it might be proved, that outlines have been cut in metals, representing figures, &c. from the most remote periods of antiquity, but being subject to decay, they have not reached our time, as the more durable granites have done, embellished with hi eroglyphics cut in them in a manner which might be printed on paper. Ar guing from these premises, it may be in ferred, that the ancients understood the art of engraving in metal, though without conceiving that the copies of their pro ductions might be multiplied by means of ink on soft white cloth, or similar ma terials. Albert Durer, born in 1470, and who died at Nuremberg, 1528, is said to have been the first person on record claim ing the name of an engraver in the long list of celebrated artists ; but certainly very engraved brass figures, the lines tilled with substances to show them more clearly, are now extant on tombs in some hundreds of churches in England, the dates of many of which are prior to the time of his birth. This fact will serve
to prove that the printing of engraved plates was discovered between 1470 and 1528; indeed the perfection that engrav ing had reached in the latter century plainly demonstrates, that the use of the graver was by no means a modern dis covery. The encouragement of the fine arts has ever been a distinguishing trait of the inhabitants of the continent of Eu rope ; it is not wonderful, therefore, that engraving closely followed the footsteps of the parent arts, and flourished there in greater perfection than in England, where they have been in a state of mise rable depression till within the last cen tury, when literature was supposed to re ceive some aid from the graver ; the book sellers, taking the hint, have encouraged the predilection of the public, which has operated as a stimulus to the artist, and the consequence is, that the graphic em bellishments of British topographical and poetical works are equal, if not superior, to any in Europe.
Historical engravings for the port fo lio and furniture seemed at one period to advance rapidly towards perfectibn, to which the late Alderman Boyden greatly contributed ; but the death of Strange. Hall, and Woollet, have been almost fatal to the hopes of the amateur, which rests, in a great measure, upon Heath, Sharp, Bromley, and a few others, as in this par ticular instance we do not include those eminent foreigners, who have or do at present reside in England. Whatever de ficiencies we may discover in the prose cution of the arts in this country is, fortunately, not to he attributed to want of genius, or relaxation from study, in the artist; the chill of apathy in the rich, who view a wretched coloured aquatint with the same or more pleasure than the most laboured production of the gra ver, is the baleful cause of the languish ing state of historical engraving. When persons capable ofaffording patronage are taught discrimination, future Wool lets will fascinate the best judges of en graving.