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THE great extent to which the Printing Press Machine have been brought into requisition works of Art, the vast amount of taste and sk in embodying the conceptions of the artis extremely low prices at which, considering their excellence, these beautiful productions are sold, characteristics of the times in which we live. Vo few, whose chief though not their only attracti in their embellishments, are continually mult sources of rational enjoyment; while several c popular weekly or monthly serials are thus adorne ase tours are thus adorne a trifling, if any, increase to their cost. They d from each other as to the artistic taste or typogra displayed in their production; but the humblest o greatly in advance of those which were produced a or even fifty years ago, and which can only be sa afforded the cheering hope that the Press wou distant day, commence a new page of its wondrous developing a new power, and adding another to claims which it may justly prefer to the lasting gr the country and of the world: while the growing these beautiful productions of the press is the best that they will continue to improve. It is marvellou what a little smart competition will do in the di excellence.1

Considering the rapid strides towards perfection w newly-discovered art of printing made within the f century after its invention-or revival and extens

ING.

ess and Printing on to multipl skill exhibited rtist, and the

ir comparative d, are striking Volumes not a tion is found

ltiplying our of the more ned, with bat differ widely aphical skill

of them are a hundred,

id to have

ld, at no
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would have been matter of surprise if attempts had not been made, very early in its history, to decorate to some extent the works which issued from the press, in order to increase their attractiveness. To imitate the illuminations of the beautiful MSS. they were so soon to replace, may have been beyond the aspirations of the most gifted or ambitious of the early printers, either in this country or on the continent of Europe; but what at that time was within their power they accomplished. Initial letters, of great brilliancy of colour, were printed at the commencement of chapters, while in many instances the old illuminator had to fill in these initial letters, with pen or pencil, in blank spaces left for them by the printer. In these cases, not unfrequently, some of the capital letters in the body of the work received a slight ornamentation. It is true that the woodcut embellishments of early printed books, whether plain or coloured, have few attractions for modern eyes, evincing, as they too frequently do, great want of taste on the part of both engraver and colourer, and in many particulars violating all the canons of art.

Briefly to trace the progress of printing in Colours, from the introduction of the initial letters into printed books in the fifteenth century, down to the production of the elaborate works of the present day; and to point out the difference. betwixt pictures executed from wood blocks alone, and those from a combination of wood blocks and aquatint * or mezzotint + plates, or lithographic stones, is the object of this Paper. Actively engaged, until very recently, in a

* Aquatinta, from aqua, water, and tinta (Ital.) dye-a method of etching on copper, by which a beautiful effect is produced, resembling a fine drawing in water colour or Indian ink.

+ Mezzotint, from mezzo (Ital.) and tinto (Lat. tinctus) painted-a particular manner of engraving, or representation of figures, on copper, in imitation of painting in Indian ink. To accomplish this, the plate is scratched and furrowed, in different directions, after which the parts where the lights of the piece are to be are scraped away, the parts to represent the shades and darker parts being left, to receive the ink in the ordinary way.

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business which necessarily absorbs so much ti but little leisure has been left to me, even means been at my disposal, to make a large c is this of much importance, so far as the illu Paper is concerned, since it is confidently h the few specimens submitted, some of them th class, will be found of sufficient interest to rep of time occupied in the description or examinat

The art of Printing, as connected with the books, had its origin in Europe about the com the fifteenth century, and was rapidly diffuse Christendom. That it may with some degree of ascribed to, or rather that it arose out of, the art on wood, the origin of which was undoubtedl although the precise period has never yet been demonstrated,-will appear in the sequel.

It is the opinion of some that the art is of A and that China has the strongest claim to the ho invention. According to Chinese chronology, art of printing was discovered and practised in t Empire about fifty years before the birth of printed works exist, supposed to be of very remot executed, as Chinese books until very recently wooden blocks. In corroboration of the supposed of the art among that singular people, Marco Venetian traveller, who visited Tartary, China,

*For a list of the specimens submitted, see Note, p. 94.

+ Since this Paper was read, the following extract has come under the writer:-"There is some probability that this art originated in C was practised long before it was known in Europe. . . That did not practise the art of printing cannot but excite our astonishme actually used it, unconscious of their rich possession. I have seen Roman or immoveable printing types, with which they stamped their pottery. practising the art, though confined to this object, it did not occur to s people to print their literary works, is not easily to be accounted for. a hint of the art itself appears in their writings.-D'Israeli's Curiosities of

uch time and th , even had pecuniar arge collection. N he illustration of tly hoped that eve em the best of the o repay the sacri

mination of them.

the production

commencement c

ffused through ee of certainty be

art of engraving tedly prior to it en satisfactor

Asiatic origi honour of the y, indeed, the the Celestial

Christ, and ote antiquity,

y were, from ed early use o Polo, the and other

r the notice of China, where it the Romans

ent, since they stereotypes, How in daily ingenious a Not Literature.

countries in the East in the thirteenth century, is represented as having seen their paper money, on which, to quote his own remarks, "the principal officer deputed by the Cham smears with cinnabar the seal consigned to him, and imprints it upon the money, so that the figure of the seal, coloured in cinnabar, remains impressed upon it." With this exception, the most diligent and intelligent investigators have failed to discover, during the long interval of fifteen centuries which elapsed from this assumed exercise of the art in China, to the time when it was again discovered, or revived and extended, in Europe, any indication that it was practised, or even thought of. I may here state that, in a conversation I once had with the late Rev. Dr. David Thom, that gentleman informed me that, in a letter recently received from his brother, then an employé under Government, and whose early and unexpected death was regarded at the time as a national loss, the writer stated his decided conviction that Chinese books which had come under his own personal observation had been produced from wood blocks antecedent to the Christian era.

But let us inquire what authority there is for the remark that the art of printing arose out of that of wood engraving, or rather was an extension of it to another and greatly more important purpose than that to which it was originally applied. The earliest information concerning wood engraving in Europe is given by Papillon, a French writer, whose historical treatise on the art was published in Paris in 1766. He states that the first work produced was a representation of the actions of Alexander the Great, executed in eight pieces, about the year 1285. Ottley, an English writer on the same interesting subject, after a careful consideration of the evidence furnished by Papillon, compared with the results of his own researches, coincides in his opinion, that engraving on wood was practised as early as the thirteenth century, in those parts of Italy which border on the Gulf of Venice.

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It is not a little remarkable that the next app art of which there is any record was to purpo ment rather than of utility. In a document bea of 1392, a Register of Accounts of the French period, there is an entry for three packs of ca different kinds, of a sum so utterly inadequate a tion for the labour which must have been be them, even in those days, if executed entirely w as to lead to the supposition that the outlin printed from wood blocks, the cards being afterwa and gilt by hand; more especially because, b king's use, it is natural to suppose they would with more than ordinary care. This supposition ened also by official documents of the governmen intended to secure to the Venetian artists the ex duction of playing cards. A decree, dated the 11 1441, refers to "the great quantity of playing coloured figures printed, made out of Venice, to w is necessary to apply some remedy, in order that who are a great many in family, may find enco rather than foreigners." Now, if wood engraving, a from those engravings, as practised in Venice, had established and lucrative branch of commerce, aff means of subsistence to a large family or body of a at the date of the decree just referred to the trade brought by foreign competition to such a state of d call for legislative enactment to insure to its profess support, it is a legitimate conclusion that the art n been practised for a considerable period, little if short of half a century.

As the art of wood engraving proceeded, its p composed historical subjects, with a text or explanat joined, sometimes placed below, sometimes on the s not unfrequently proceeding, as a label, from the n

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