Size of the original print, 133 by 20 inches.

From the etching by Seymour Haden. Etched in 1879. A superb example of the artist's powerful draughtsmanship. It is difficult to say which is the finest in treatment the buildings, the boats, or the noble sky.

THE TEST AT LONGPARISH

Size of the original print, 7 by 10 inches.

From the mezzotint and the etching by Seymour Haden. In "Harlech" the artist has first mezzotinted his composition and has then strengthened and defined the outlines with etched lines. This is the reverse of the method employed by Turner in the Liber Studiorum. Turner first etched the main lines of his composition and then finished the plate in mezzotint.

Seymour Haden was born in London in the year 1818. He is the senior, by seven years, of Meryon, and by sixteen years of Whistler, while he is the junior of Millet by four years; but he has outlived the other three and Millet died thirty-five years ago.

Of the four great modern masters of painteretching whose names I have cited, only two were professional painters; namely, Millet and Whistler. Meryon began his career by attempting to paint, but when he exhibited these paintings it was discovered that he was hopelessly color-blind, and thereafter all of his work was done in black and white.

Seymour Haden was never an artist by profession and never studied in any art school. He was a very eminent surgeon, and he only practised etching as a recreation; but as an artist he had "the root of the matter" in him, and although he was never the pupil of any master, yet his etchings of British landscape have been accepted as the very best of their kind, not only in artistic conception, but also by reason of their technical and manual superiority. He still remains President of the London Royal Society of PainterEtchers and he is recognized throughout Europe as being perhaps the very best living judge of the quality of etchings done by other hands.

Sir Seymour has always been most scrupulous as to the fine quality of any proof which he parted with; defective proofs he tore up relentlessly even such as were very saleable when they did

not come up quite to his own fastidious standard, and when any etched plate of his began to deteriorate through the wear-and-tear of the printingpress, such a plate was at once destroyed so as to make it impossible that it could print any more.

Thus has Sir Seymour Haden safeguarded, for posterity, his own artistic reputation, for an impression from a worn-out plate is no better than a libel on the artist. But this fastidiousness had cost him dear, and I have often known him to repurchase, for his own collection of his etchings, rarities which the collection lacked, and at enormous advances on the prices for which he had originally sold them.

Although these prices have greatly increased within the past thirty years, yet it is pretty certain that they will never diminish, but that they will still go on increasing in value in the time to

come.

On September 16th, 1909, Sir Seymour Haden celebrated his ninety-second birthday - or rather, the British press and the art-loving people of Europe and America celebrated it for him.

So many artists of great promise have died in their early prime that we can the more heartily congratulate Sir Seymour upon his long and fruitful career which has been still fuller of honors than years.

The French artists and critics, who in general have but a poor opinion of British art, have nevertheless on two memorable occasions awarded

their highest official recompense to Sir Seymour Haden. At the Paris Exposition of 1889 his etchings won the Grand Prix, or Medal of Honor, of the highest grade, and at their latest exposition (1900) Sir Seymour's original drawings and mezzotints won the same supreme distinction. This is the more significant when we remember that no other British artist whether painter, sculptor, architect, or etcher - has ever before twice won the Grand Prix of the Paris Exposition.

It is a hopeful sign when contemporary art in its humbler phases is influenced and improved by the work of a genuine master; and it is not too much to say that throughout Europe and America the average product, not only of the original landscape etchers, but also of the producers of similar subjects in books, periodicals, and even newspapers, is distinctly better and more artistic by reason of the sound and wholesome influence of Seymour Haden.