Colored News. — London, England, 1855-09-15 00:00:00

I ( 1 1 , i i:JPAJ ~ \I ‘ll r A. CHAPTER ON ENGRAVING Some writers are fond of carrying the orig:n of engraving to a very high antiquity, by quoting as examples of the practice of the art such carvings in wood or metal, or stone, as have been found in various degrees of excellence among almost all nations,—among our own Saxon and even British ancestors, as well as among the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. But this is to confound two things which are entirely distinct. Such works as those alluded to are spe cimens of sculpture, not of what we now call engraving. The modern art known by that name applies to the produc tion of a print, or rather of a number of prints, from a design cut in wood and metal. The mere cutting out both of letters and of figures in a hard substance has been practised from the earliest ages ; the art of obtaining letters and fi gures so cut out from Copies or impressions by means of a colouring matter spread over them, and thence transferred to some other substance, is, in Europe at least, altogether a modern invention. The ancients were, indeed, accustomed to pro duce impressions by means of stamps in a variety of cases ; they struck coins, they made seals in wax, they even marked the weight and quality of their loaves of bread with a stamp. On the other hand, they applied a colored liquid to make marks, both in their painting, with a brush or pencil, and in writing, with a reed or other species of pen. What they did not do was just to use the two methods at once,—to take the impression from the stamp, not by making it enter into the substance of the material on which it was pressed, but only by making it communicate to that material a fluid colour. The principal cause undoubtedly which prevented the ancients, after advancing "so far as they did, from dis covering the art of printing, was the want of any general „. demand' for books. A high price, it is true, w as paid foi books, and must have been paid, by the few who did buy them; the labour necessary for the copying of a manuscript was great, and a book therefore could not be obtained for a small sum. If there be an article which f rom ;rte 11 ra blrn v mon _hat pi facturc It was t h boot 111112 a= 1 a itJ "i I' i 7 N E W =I "; 4 1 ' 'O-.AI i _ A~~u~; 1111M10 N ifY - 1101111 I pl,ll v w ~' .-~ - r.-v.- _ ~_~J { ~f~ ~ ~~ EMIR RPM 1 Nlllium :..:i~~ THE MARKET AS SEEN FROM THE RIVER THAMI ing from moveable types, or from blocks of wood, or from metal plates. The step from which had been already done to the completion of this great invention was so immediate and easy, that we seem to be quite warranted in accounting for it not having been made sooner, simply from the absence of any strong inducement to make it. There was no one book of which more than a few dozen copies were actually 1, sold, or could 'reasonably be expected to be sold, at any h such moderate reduction of price as the application of more or copper en ingenuity to the manuf ac t ure was. lik e l y to allow ; such out in lines application therefore was not thought of. But when, in dots, it is co the early part of the fifteenth century, after ,the several shades are 1 nations of Europe had settled down, and as it were ripened kept more c into something like social organization, and the revival of are not m classical learning, had spread abroad over the community a etching, v much more general scholarship than before existed, the some Oh( demand grew up not merely among the clergy, but to a etching great extent among the laity also for the Latin Scriptures, plate as and other devotional works. A state of things then for not tiff the first time presented itself, in which it might be con- intend sidered certain, that a reduction of price would bring with draw, it a large extension of the market. In the case of one clasis its of of books, at least, this was sure to follow ; and religious imp' books accordingly were the first to which the new art was re applied. ink which ne pla .v-plate printing an ) one which cannot b .... wear out the pla years been comp] ed by ) bite into the pro The art of printing would probably of itself have speedily led to that of engraving; but in point of fact, it would rather appear that the latter had a distinct origin of its own. As the general demand for the Bible prompted the one in vention, so a general demand of a very different kind, that, namely, for playing-cards, seems to have previously sugges ted the first idea and application of the other. , Playing cards were certainly known in Germany before the year 1376. It is probable that they were at first painted individually by the hand, as books were written ; and the more exnen- thus t is mac • L '''. .......... :, r,)l I , ---'— _ • ! 1 -. ____. 111 t _ , _ llitiyio c i_-.____ ~....,_:_ ;,, _____ ~., „:_..,„,t__,_--__ --- ., x ---- -------- i ..--__---7 :. .-_ . ~.....,\._._"_.„ sh-e i liC:. ..1111 -7 1 I 1 _•_-", ---1 .,,,.. ; ;1011110. i -...... J 11,..., ~.,1,.pi,,, ' ... ri l lifiß4t '!1 , ?11} , r 4 ,:: .. ,) , V • Aiwa , ''' ---• ii •1 , 1 .11,1 11 011/VI ..-----I. ' ''' '.. „. ...1i i . , ` i'''l ll . 1 r': ;!, ~; , 11 . , t , i, 4 ~ ,4 r . ii , i4 i.:, , ,, ! 1:,/,i.i r , , ,, ,. //,; , , , / , L , ,i 1 ' ...I, „ ~_, ..... ii.......: . , ~, . , , ~ 1 7 s ji 121Pn1711 111111 '' I' 4's t '. //dr . .1 1 i, '.,,1 t , - u.- - _-__--- - -41,, .i• - • - ,. ~, ,,q H.:,; . 1..;, . , :::f: : . _• , . ~, ~ . . r .:,..,,,, / ( , -- . -- . 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', i . 4 9. , :- .. 7 --' It _?: H ------- -- -•.- , 1 1--- - - , _::_4-- .._._... , - ...,- - .1,-.„'.-x---$ ::.. 2; ; ; -- • --- , ___,......„..v.:. • ________... • .0,, , ?!:. __. ...._ . _ .......... _ ~__.....,,,,,,..___ .-- , ---_: - . -- -q------ mEL.------,.._ , -7. - 7. -- f -,-----. _ - - 1 • - , ~- •-•-•-•-• -----„.. ; -....'-,-_-=,•-• -- -- -...."- ..• -- -, ---",—.... -,•--5..,,__-_-__-_7. .- ~ p r wax ex allowed to remain_ exceedingly tedious combined with that repeated rubbings, too, very • 1.4 t disadvantage has of hitt. -3^Qtitution of steel crury uepartment of metallic en gra ving wbert e number of impressions are required. When steel •• aniic Darts of the pj.cture are cut irocess is called line-engraving ; wtien m ot-engraving, or stippling. In both, the ghter or deeper by the lines or dots. being Frequently, however, these marks ' by the method Called al or varnish which i s id; to this the design Ted, either by being with the hand, or by towever Albert Durer I )ugh i labotu• I luctio THE COLORED NEWS. BILLINGSGATE _ -~_ r. . - . = • :• ! • • , I, _ • .. I 111! 11l MAR 'vim! no ) can b, 3raingi )ined i re to recei It, eitn re, from .n zing a k and an th . , take tl len 1 4 111 K E T. _ )read o d upon t SEPTEMBER 15, 1855.