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Rh As an instance, there was recently published a mezzotint after a painting by Alfred East. It was reviewed in a well-known review, which generally knows very well what it is talking about, and among other things it was said that the plate in question was ' called ' a mezzotint, but was of a method more resembling some other engraing, which was not mezzotint. Now that plate was pure mezzotint, worked entirely by hand in the ^•ery manner of the old mezzotinters ; but because it was worked for printing with a different kind of ink from that usually employed to print mezzotints, in order to approach more nearly to the quality of the picture, it was, forsooth, no longer a mezzotint.

Also when a well-known plate by Macbeth was published, what a howl there was about the printing of it ! It was known that the printing was an elaborate piece of work by Goulding, and so it is, but the pet point was a light-stemmed tree standing out against a dark background printed with a full tone. ' Ah ! ' they said, ' see that now ; all picked out by the printer on the plate with a stamp — dreadful ! — really too apparent.' Now whatever opinion they may have had as to the artistic value of the light bush, the «'ork on the plate that caused it was straightforward enough. For Macbeth has developed a manner of modelling the surface of his plate by means of acid, so that parts of it stand higher than others, and as a consequence tend to wipe lighter in printing than the siuTounding parts. In his hands this is often a very valuable e.xpedient, and as far as I know he is the first etcher who ever made use of it in this manner.

It is work like this that points to the tendency of engraving at the present time, a tendency which will lead no man can say wjiere ; but it is probable that things are yet to be done in engraving, and tliat before long, such as have never been seen. Etching has grown in favour with the public steadily since its recent revival in England, while the line of engravers in every manner has almost died out. Aquatint engraving has long ceased to be practised; so has chalk and stipple ; there are only one or two of the direct descendants of the old line-engravers alive to-day, and mezzotint as handed down from master to pupil is much in the same way. This latter art has been taken up in the last few- years by several young men, some of whom are now-doing as good work as has ever been done by it; and the circumstance of having no one to teach them the method has caused theni to approach it with as much freshness and interest as the old men did in the best time of the art. It is the same with aquatint, and will, I doubt not, be so with line-engraving. What makes it seem so hopeful, is the fact of the workers of to-day having as a heritage all the best work of the old workers to guide them; and, being trammelled by no traditions, they are able to approach it with an elastic mind, fidl of the ideas of their own time.

The old aquatinters would be much astonished could they see some of the work now being done by their method (photogravure is mainly a meclianical adaption of it), and I expect the old line-engravers would consider it sacrilege to liandle a graver in the way Herkomer did in his engraving from his picture of Wagner. The third illustration given with this article is from a dry-point by Mcnpes. Not much of the manner of work can be gathered, perhaps, from the reproduction ; but, looking at the proofs of his plates, one can hardly believe them to be entirely dry-points. He has succeeded in getting a greater range of depth in his dry-point lines, without bur, than one would have thought possible. Fit.^xK Shout.