Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/143

 say to his favourite engraver, W. Hooper, after he had engraved one of the artist's drawings, "It does not look cut at all."

The traditions of Bewick were cast aside. There was infinite cutting and very little engraving to be done to produce in facsimile the drawings of these great designers who drew on the wood block, but never used the graver themselves.

The two firms of the Brothers Dalziel and Swain were responsible for all the wood engraving of this facsimile period. Dalziel's Illustrated Editions are remarkable for the fine work they contain. It was here that a successful attempt was made to outbid the demand for the steel engraver's work. Birket Foster's "Pictures of English Landscape," 1863 (Routledge), was a direct challenge to the metal engraver. In the reproduction of an illustration from this volume, The Dipping Place, it will be seen how wonderfully Dalziels cut these blocks.

A careful examination of these illustrations will show that black lines of the most delicate character cross each other in every direction. Cross-hatching is as frequent as if it were a steel engraving. At no other time in the history of wood engraving has so much patient labour been bestowed on rendering line for line and reproducing the touch of the artist. Under a magnifying glass it is only too evident what the labours of the wood engraver must have been to cut away the white and leave the black slender lines with such delicacy. Such intricate work would have been fitter in the hands of the line engraver on metal. (Facing p. 94.)