Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/681



— engraving has reached, within the last twenty years, a pitch of excellence which may justly be regarded as its perfection. There is hardly any pictorial effect expressible in black and white that cannot be expressed forcibly by the block, which in some respects is even superior to the metal plate, and in most to the stone. And if we are to believe some of the British art critics, there is one fact which is an unpleasant and unmistakable sign that wood-engraving has attained the utmost limit of its capacity of improvement—it has (so these critics say)—begun to decline. We are actually told by the critic of so able a journal as the London "Pall Mall Gazette" that there is left only one first-rate English engraver on wood—Mr. Linton. The "Gazette" says of him that he is the only man outside of France and Germany "who works upon that most capable and wofully-abused material with the eye, the hand, the conscience, and the insight of a born artist." It is admitted by the critic that there are yet extant several wood engravers of remarkable talent who deserve to be called artists, too; "but," the critic concludes, "none of these succeed in giving to the wood-block more than was placed upon it by the draughtsman." In a word, Mr. Linton engraves not only with delicacy and force and finish, but with feeling, and gives color (in effect) as well as form by his graver. Remarkable examples of the effects of this kind that are within the capacity of the wood-engraver, are to be found throughout that finest exhibition of the powers of Gustave Doré, the "Contes Drolatiques." But, although we are not inclined to the British critic's opinion in regard to the decadence of the art of wood engraving—which, indeed, we hope to show the readers of is in its fulness of vigor—we do agree with him most heartily in regard to Mr. Linton's eminence in his profession; and it is, therefore, as it may please our readers to know, that we have placed this department of  entirely under his direction.

— success of the "Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein" is one of the wonderful facts of the day. And in saying this we refer not only to the degree, but the kind of success which it attained; not only to the number, but to the sort of people who have caused it to be performed, always before crowded houses. It is not as a rival of the "Black Crook" that it causes us surprise. In fact, there was no such rivalry. The latter, oddly enough named, owed its success to a multitudinous exhibition of things which were neither black nor crooked, and to its splendor as a scenic spectacle. Now the "Grande Duchesse" was in the former respect as proper as a Quaker meeting, and in the latter most mean and miserable. Of the actresses not one was even pretty; and she who played the principal part was gross in person and in expression as she was in conduct, even to repulsiveness. As to the substance of the play, the text, let any one read it, and, granting that it is but a burlesque, let him say whether there is in it one spark of wit or one touch of humor. The music is trivial and without melody; and yet in this there is one joke which, perhaps because it was purely musical, failed entirely of appreciation. In two of the finales there is a very clever burlesque of Verdi's hammer-and-tongs-tumbling-down-stairs style in concerted pieces. It was listened to when we were present without the slightest sign of recognition. What, then, is the attraction in this piece? We