ENGRAVING.

THIS term is at present confined to the art of excavating copper and wood in lines, in so judicious a manner as to produce imitations of paintings and drawings when printed on paper. It is certain that engraving, for the production of prints, was unknown long after the practice of painting in oil had arrived to great perfection; but good prints are common from plates engraved in the fifteenth century, many of which are landscapes most laboriously, and even excellently performed by the graver: although it is well known that the instrument just mentioned cannot freely express those serrated and serpentine lines necessary for foliage and short grass intermixed with plants, since so admirably delineated in etchings.

The art of engraving and working off from plates of copper, (says Mr. Evelyn,) did not appear till about about the year 1490; that is, it was not brought to perfection from the hints gathered from typography. Yet it is certain that, in 1460, Maso Finiguerra, a-goldsmith of Florence, by an accident that might have given birth to the rolling-press, without the antecedent discovery of printing, did actually light upon the method of taking off stamps from an engraved plate. Casting a piece of such plate into melted brimstone, he observed that the exact impression of the engraving was left upon the surface of the cold brimstone, marked by lines of black. He repeated the experiment on moistened paper, rolling it gently with a roller; it succeeded. He communicated the discovery to Baccio Baldino, of his own profession and city. The latter pursued the invention with success, and engraved several plates from the drawings of Sandro Boticello, which being seen by Andrea Mantegna, he not only assisted Baldini with designs, but cultivated the new art himself. It had not long been in vogue before Hugo da Carpi tried the same experiment with wood, and even added a variety of tints by using different stamps for the gradations of lights and shades; a

method revived here some years ago with much success by Kirkall, and since at Venice by Jackson, though very imperfectly.

From Italy engraving soon travelled to Flanders, where it was first practised by one Martin of Antwerp. He was followed by Albert Durer, who carried the art to considerable perfection considering the badness of the taste of the age and country in which he lived. His fidelity to what he saw was at once his fame and misfortune; he was happy in copying nature, but it was nature disguised and hid under disgraceful forms, with neither choice of subjects nor beauty, his industry gave merit even to ugliness and absurdity. Confining his labours almost wholly to religious and legendary histories, he turned the Testament into the history of a Flemish village; the habits of Herod, Pilate, Joseph, &c., their dwellings, their utensils, and their customs, were all Gothic and European; his Virgin Mary was the heroine of a kermis. Lucas of Leyden imitated him in all his faults, and was still more burlesque in his representations. It was not till Raffaelle had formed Marc Antonio, that engraving placed itself with dignity by the side of painting.

When the art reached England does not appear. But it is a notorious blunder in Chambers to say that it was first brought from Antwerp by Speed, in the reign of James I. In some degree we had it almost as soon as printing; the printers themselves using small plates for their devices and rebuses. Caxton's Golden Legend (says Ames, p. 35) has in the beginning a group of saints, and many other cuts dispersed through the body of the work. It was printed in 1483. The second edition of his Game at Chess had cuts likewise; so has his Le Morte Arthur. Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's successor, prefixed to his edition of the Statutes, in the sixth year of Henry VII., a plate with the king's arms, crests, &c., a copy of which is given in the life of Wynkyn, by Mr. Ames, in his Typographical Antiquities, p. 79.

The subsequent printers continued to ornament their books with wooden cuts. One considerable work, published by John

Rastell, was distinguished by prints of uncommon merit for that age. It was called The Pastyme of the People, and by Bishop Nicholson, in his Historical Library, Rastelle's Chronicle. The "The first book that appeared with cuts from copper-plates, was, Birth of Mankind, otherwyse called, The Woman's Book," dedicated to Queen Catherine, and published by Thomas Raynalde in 1540, with many small copper cuts, but to those no name was affixed. The earliest engraver that occurs was Thomas Geminus, or Geminie; from which period Mr. Vertue commenced his selection of Engravers.

ARCHITECTURE.

THE origin of this art, like that of most others, is totally unknown. We are informed by Moses that Cain built a city, and called it after the name of his son Enoch: but concerning the mode of constructing the houses, or the quality of the materials, he is quite silent. The same author also informs us that Jabal was the father of such as dwell in tents. In the days of Noah architecture must have arrived at great perfection: to construct the ark of sufficient strength to withstand the tempests raging over the surface of the watery element, would require considerable skill in the art of carpentry. Ashur built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth Calah, and Resen. The city and tower of Babel were built of well-burnt brick, and slime for mortar. Brick-making must have been well understood then, and perhaps at a period much anterior. Moses does not say what either the dimensions or figure of the tower was, but that it was the intention of the people to make its top reach unto heaven: this vain design being frustrated by the intervention of the Almighty, the building was left unfinished. Whether this city and tower be the same Babylon and tower as described by Herodotus and Strabo, is uncertain: the former says it is a square building cach side of which at the base was a furlong, consequently half a mile in circumference; from a winding stair, or rather an inclined

plane, which went around the exterior, making eight revolutions, the building appeared as if eight stories had been placed the one upon the other; each such story was 75 feet high, and consequently the whole height 600 feet: the inclined plane was so broad as to allow carriages to pass each other.

From very remote antiquity the Egyptians have been celebrated for their cultivation of architecture among other arts; the ruins of their ancient structures astonish the traveller of the present day, as may be seen in their huge pyramids and proud tombs, which have long outlived the memory of the mighty kings whose ashes they contain; granite temples as extensive as towns, which inclose in their courts, or support upon their roofs, villages of the modern inhabitants, long avenues of sphynxes, colossal statues, and obelisks. Yet the art of building among them consisted of but few principles, for they did not seem to understand the use of the arch ; all the apertures and intercolumns of their walls were linteled with solid stone; the roofs of the chambers of their temples were generally covered with massy slabs, for lintels; the ceiling or roof of the passage within the great pyramids is formed of stones in horizontal course, projecting equally over each other from the two opposite walls to the summit, like inverted flights of steps; the roofs of some of their tombs are indeed arch formed, but these are only excava tions cut out of the solid rock. Their walls were built of stones of an enormous size, without cement. The removal and placing of these huge materials would, even at this day, almost bid defiance to the boldest and best constructed of our mechanical inventions, though constructed with all the science of modern times. The stones of their edifices are squared and jointed with the utmost accuracy; the hieroglyphic carvings, with which their walls and ceilings are charged, are all recessed, but projecting in relief from the bottoms or backs of the recesses. The forms of Egyptian temples and gates are generally truncated rectangular pyramids, crowned with a cove and fillet, or cavetto, as a cornice around the four angles of the sides, and under the cornice project tori from each face. The entrance front of the temples has generally a large rectangular opening, in which are placed columns for supporting the architrave and cornice; over the middle of the

door, and upon the linteling architrave, is carved a winged globe ; the height of the columns, according to Denon's representation is from five to six diameters. The columns have in general little or no diminution, and are frequently placed upon a plinth, from which they sometimes rise in a convexity, forming what is called The shafts of the columns by workmen a quirk above the plinth.

are generally divided into two or more compartments, and sometimes charged with hieroglyphics, as well as the walls and ceilings; the compartments are sometimes also ornamented with vertical reeds, representing a bundle of rods, and separated from each other by annular incisions and beads, which seem as bandages for tying the rods together. The whole of the compartments are not always reeded; sometimes there are only one or two, and the rest carved with hieroglyphics. The capitals sometimes swell out at the bottom from the upper part of the shaft, and diminish to the top, which is covered with a square projecting abacus; sometimes capitals have vases like the Corinthian order, which rise with a small convexity from the shaft, and change into a large concavity upwards, which as it approaches the top has more and more curvature, until it terminates; above the termination it recedes with a convexity to the abacus, which is also recessed within the face of the linteling architrave. Sometimes the capitals are formed by the head of Isis, with a temple in miniature placed over it, and then crowned with the square abacus recessed; the lower parts of the intervals between the columns are shut by a kind of parapet, reaching from two to three and a half diameters from the ground. This parapet is sometimes flush with the columns; but is not extended so as to hide their convexity on the front, which shows nearly a quarter of the circumference.

Architecture has also been carried to a wonderful extent among the ancient inhabitants of India, who have not only rivalled the Egyptians, but have been supposed to be even anterior to them in the knowledge of the art; their exertions were, however, directed almost exclusively to excavation.

The Assyrians have been much reputed for their knowledge in

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