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Britain,* seems to have rested satisfied with the meagre statement of Evelyn; who has drawn no distinction between engraving on wood and on copper. Of the latter he says that "working from plates of copper, which we call prints, was not yet appearing or born with us till about the year 1490." Chambers, in his Encyclopædia, had absurdly supposed that "engraving was first introduced here by John Speed, being brought by him from Antwerp, in the reign of James the First." The learned Dr. Henry, in his History of the Fine Arts, &c. in Britain from A.D. 1485 to 1547, contented himself with referring to the superficial account of the late Lord Orford; and rather confusedly describes" a rude engraving, employed as a substitute for illuminating to decorate the titles and initials of books. Some copper plates (he continues) were produced at the end of this period." These accounts, it must be confessed, fall very short of being satisfactory.

Strutt seems to have congratulated himself that he had obtained an original plate of the first engraving upon copper ever executed in this country; and, as such, he published it as plate iv. in the first vo lume of his Dictionary of Engravers : " but this claim, as Mr. Land

tionable evidence." Notices des Graveurs. 1787, 8vo. p. 2. 3. 4. Thus much for the origin of copper-plate engraving in Italy.

In the subsequent year the art was exercised in Germany; and a copper-plate impres sion of the Virgin and Child, of the date of 1461, has been copied by Strutt, as the first plate in the preliminary Essay to his Dictionary of Engravers. Consult also Mr. Landseer's Lectures on Engraving, p. 189, &c. The reader will do well to peruse the first 19 pages of Fournier's elegant' Dissertation sur l'Origine, &c. de Graver en Bois. 1758. 8vo. Fournier's hints have been expanded by Papillon in the 6th chapter of his Traité Historique, &c. de la Gravure en Bois,' 1766. 8vo.

* See Strutt's Essay On the Origin and Progress of Engraving' prefixed to the first volume of his Dictionary of Engravers.'

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+ Walpole's Catalogue of Engravers, p. 5.

History of Great Britain, vol. xii. p. 291. edit. 1799, 8vo. Some information upon this subject may be gleaned from the late Mr. Gough's Topographical Antiquities, where there is a long and curious account of the engraving of the letters in the Salisbury Missals printed abroad: see in particular p. 325, of the second volume.

seer justly observes,* he rather withdraws than enforces; and, in conclusion, has shewn his regard for veracity, by quitting the subject without venturing a step further than his data would safely carry him." From a minute examination of this plate I think it evidently appears, first, that it was not executed in this country; and, secondly, that wherever it was executed, it was most probably done towards the close of the 15th, or beginning of the 16th, century. The figures are too well drawn and engraved, and the folding of the drapery is too angular and, at the same time, graceful, for the first effort of the art in a strange country. The second ground from which I would infer that the plate was not executed towards the close of the 15th, or beginning of the 16th, century, is this: Although Marchand says Ratdolt was the first printer or artist who introduced ornamental capital initials, flowers, and vignettes, yet there are few, if any, books published before the year 1482 with such decorated initials as are delineated in Strutt's plate. It is true that the Calendarium Joannis Regiomontani', in which Ratdolt seems to have had a considerable share, was printed in the year 1476 [although no date is affixed]; but the initiales literæ florentes,' which Maittaire + describes as being in this volume, are probably nothing more than the seventh form, or character, of capital initials in the plate prefixed to this Disquisition.

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In pursuing the subjects of early ENGRAVING and ORNAMENTAL PRINTING in this country, I purpose to consider the first under the two following heads or divisions: I. Impressions from Wooden Blocks: II. Impressions from Copper Plates: the second subject, or

*Lectures on Engraving, p. 193.

+ See Marchand's Dictionnaire Historique, &c. vol. ii. 156.

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Annales Typographici, vol. i. 352-3: consult the note 2-where there is a pleasing account of the talents of Ratdolt from Bunneman, which seems to accord with the encomiums of Marchand. In my Bibliographical and Typographical Dictionary,' (to be published at some future period) I hope to do justice to this ingenious printer. Meanwhile, may be worth remarking that his books are rare; and that the Calendarium' will be found in very few libraries, or even mentioned in bibliographical works.

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Ornamental Printing, [which is, in fact, a branch of the former] I shall consider under the following: I. Capital Initials, or the first letter to the first page of a work: II. Title Pages, or the designa, tion of the subject of the work on a separate, preceding, page.

Vertue, in his Catalogue of Engravers in England, without drawing the distinction between Copper Plate and Wooden Block engraving, seems to have had a shrewd suspicion that the second edition of Caxton's Game of Chess [vide p. 38, post] contained some of the earliest engravings executed in this country. Heinecken was aware of this when he stated that the Golden Legend of 1483 exhibited the first efforts of the art here: but the most correct conclusion seems to be, that the earliest known specimens of engraving upon wood, in this country, with a date affixed, are the figures in Caxton's edition of the Mirror of the World,' printed in 1481. [see p. 108. post.] Notwithstanding, it is very probable that the second edition of the 'Game of Chess.' printed without date, but most likely about the year* 147] affords specimens of wood engraving at least four years earlier.

But these, and similar figures, are, in all probability, not the genuine productions of this country; and may be traced to books of an earlier date printed abroad,† from which they were often borrowed without acknowledgment or the least regard to the nature of the work in which they again appeared. Caxton, however, has judiciously taken one of the prints from the Biblia Pauperum' to introduce in his Life of Christ:' [a fac-simile of which is given at page 322 post.] The cuts for his second edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,' [vide p. 300 post.] may perhaps safely be considered as the genuine

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* See my account of the The Life of Caxton,' post: sub anno 1473.

+ The cuts in Caxton's edition of Æsop [vide p. 208, &c. post] are decidedly copied from those in foreign editions.

Bibliographers are not agreed about the date of this book; and as Heinecken has left it unsettled, the point is not likely to be now agitated with success. Daunou seems

to think it was after the Horarium of Coster, and before the Psalter of 1457. the year 1445 may be reasonably stated as the period of its publication.

Probably

invention and execution of a British artist; and considering the rude state of the elegant and useful arts in this country, at the period of their publication, some of them are certainly not divested of spirit and the merit of characteristic propriety. Like the text which accompanied them, they were borrowed or imitated only for the worse by subsequent publishers.

The Crucifixion' at the end of the Golden Legend' of 1493 [vide p. 193, post.] which Wynkyn de Worde has so frequently subjoined to his religious pieces, is, unquestionably, the effort of some ingenious foreign artist. It is not very improbable that Rubens had a recollection of one of the thieves, twisted, from convulsive agony, round the top of the cross, when he executed his celebrated picture of the same subject. *

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To Caxton succeeded WYNKYN DE WORDE; a printer of very considerable taste, and of infinitely more skill than his predecessor. The present is not the place to describe the peculiarities and the beauties of his press-work: but, as connected with the subject of Engraving, we may remark that he seems to have been rather partial to the mode of embellishing his books with cuts; and that one of the earliest and most magnificent of his productions, his edition of Bartholomæus, De Proprietatibus Rerum,' exhibits a combination of printing and engraving, of which, in this country, we have nothing before that deserves to be put in comparison. His edition of the Polychronicon (1495) which is hardly less splendid for its typographical execution, and which, according to Herbert, was printed with a newly-cast type, is also curious on the score of engraving; and particularly for giving us the following very early specimen of a Landscape;

*"To give animation to this subject, Rubens has chosen the point of time when an executioner is piercing the side of Christ, while another with a bar of iron is breaking the limbs of one of the malefactors, who, in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The expression in the action of this figure is wonderful." This is the appropriate language of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Vide his Works, vol. ii. 317. edit. 1798. 8vo. A peculiarity in both the ancient and Rubens's figure, is, that the head is thrown back on the top of the

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which I take to be a bird's eye view of some fortified town abroad, intended for our sea-girt' isle; it being prefixed to a DESCRIPTION OF ENGLAND."

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