The art of engraving seals on precious stones or gems, which was practised by the ancients, and carried by them to the greatest perfection, was probably the invention of the Egyptians ; but of the means that were used to carve such hard substances, from the stupendous hicroplyphics which are seen at the temple Tentera, and other places, down to the numerous minute gems which formed personal ornaments, rings, signets, &c. we dare hardly hazard a conjecture. It is supposed that the co rundum stone, or adamantine spar, was the substance employed for the purpose by the Egyptian lapidaries ; and Pliny informs us, that the Romans used to import sand from Ethiopia and India for this purpose, which it is probable was no other than the grit or powder of the corundum stone. The earliest gem engravings of the Egyptians are in intaglio, consisting most commonly of a grasshopper, a scarabee, or an ibis, and in all probabi lity executed before the invention of letters.
The earliest Greek engravings are likewise scara bees, and, in point of drawing, little superior to the Egyp tian hieroglyphics, and strongly attest their origin : they are only distinguished from them by the addition of the names on the several gems, inscribed n the early Greek character. The art of gem engraving kept pace in Greece with the progress of sculpture ; and by the time of Alexander the Great, it had arrived at the greatest perfection. While it declined under the successors of Alexander, it. migrated to Sicily and Etruria, and there shone in undiminished splendour ; but at Rome it never attained to any excellence, except in the hands of Greek artists. During the middle ages it was lost with the other arts, and was afterwards revived in the fifteenth century by John of Florence, and after him kept up by Dominic of Milan ; but it has never in modern times regained its ancient perfection.
We have thus given a slight sketch of the art of en graving in the various ways in which it was practised by the ancients : It now remains to consider its origin and progress among the moderns, in its more important ap plication of delivering impressions upon paper, from plates of metal and blocks of wood, by means of the printing or rolling press.
The honour of this invention is equally claimed by the Germans, Italians, and Dutch ; but as the pretensions of the latter are by no means supported by any satisfac tory evidence, they are not entitled to our consideration.
The art seems to have originated in Germany, in the brief malers, or makers of playing cards, who cut their figures on blocks of wood, stamped them on paper, and at first coloured or illuminated them with the hand; but afterwards performed the operation in a much more ex peditious manner, by blocks cut for the purpose, each colour requiring a separate stamp. The carvers of the
blocks were called formschneiders, i. e. cutters of forms.
As the mania for the adoration of images of the saints was, at this time, (the beginning of the t5th century,) carried to a most extravagant height, it occurred to the brief malers, that the public superstition might be made a source of considerable emolument to themselves. This led them to the cutting of images, and the representations of pious subjects, which were cut and illuminated like the cards, and illustrated with a title of the subject, or ap propriate passages from legends, executed on the same block, in the Gothic characters then in use; these were vended for the edification and amusement of the unletter ed, and those to whom written books were not accessible, Baron Heineken discovered, " in the Carthusian mo nastery, at Buxheim, near Memingen, a print of St Christopher carrying the infant Jesus over the sea ; op posite him is a hermit lighting him with his lanthorn ; and behind him is a peasant, with a sack on his back, climbing to the top of a hill." This piece is of folio size, engraved on wood, and illuminated in the same way as playing cards, accompanied with an inscription at the bottom : Chrzstopheri faciem, die quacungue tueris. Ilia nempe die morte mala non morieris. t1IIllesimo cccc° xx° tertio. This curious print was found pasted on the in side of the cover of an old book ; and there being no reason to doubt its authenticity, it proves that this method of engraving and printing was practised as early as the year 1423. This print was purchased by Earl Spencer some years ago, and is now in his possession. M. Heine ken likewise informs us. that, in the convents in Franco nia, Suabia, Bavaria, and the Austrian countries, he found many early specimens of works of the same sort, which had been intended for the laity, and had been preserved by the monks, by attaching them to the inside of books.
These detached plates were soon followed by whole series, consisting of many plates. mostly in folio, print ed under the name of legends, in which the figures of the saints differ little from each other, or from their pro totypes, the figures on the cards. They are illuminated in like manner, and leave no doubt by whom they were executed, and are sometimes accompanied with passages of considerable length.