THE CARRYING-OFF OF DEJANEIRA BY THE CENTAUR NESSUS Size of the original print, 224 by 16 inches. From the line-engraving by Charles Clément Bervic, after the painting by Guido Reni, now in the Louvre, Paris. This fine engraving won the decennial prize awarded by the French Institute for the best engraving executed between 1800 and 1810. NAPOLEON THE GREAT Size of the original print, 27 by 20 inches. From the line-engraving by Auguste Boucher Desnoyers (1779-1857), after the painting by Gérard. "His next important work was the full-length portrait of the Emperor Napoleon in his coronation robes. This engraving was exhibited at the Salon of 1810, and for it Desnoyers received no less than fifty thousand francs. Napoleon also created Desnoyers a baron." - Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers. SOME MASTERPIECES OF THE OLD ENGRAVERS A Lecture delivered at Yale University HEN last I had the honor of addressing WHEN the Graduates' Club my subject was "Personal Sketches of some famous Etchers." On that occasion I endeavored to interest my audience as much in the personality of etchers whom I have known, as in their works. Legitimate personal gossip of eminent persons is always interesting; and gossip, when it does not degenerate into scandal, is nothing more and nothing worse than the interest which we take in each other. But on the present occasion my subject is entirely shut off from this direct avenue to your attention and sympathy. To many of us, the great engravers of the past are only blank names. I may say of them, as the poet Montgomery writes of the forgotten generations: And so, of necessity, if I can succeed in interesting you at all, it must be through the eye rather than through the ear. For this reason I shall put in evidence some magnified reproductions of acknowledged masterpieces of the art of line engraving. The engravings we shall examine cover a period of more than four hundred years, but, by a sort of paradox, our first illustration will not be a line engraving at all-but an etching, and an essentially modern etching at that; as unlike a line engraving as it well can be. We all know that the burin is the graving tool with which all line engraving is done. And this etching, done by Félix Buhot of Paris, represents The Burial of the Burin. To the left we will see the dead burin borne away in a hearse to its grave, and followed by the mourners; above will be seen its soul carried by Angels to Paradise; while to the right Modern Illustration comes thundering on in the form of an express train, overwhelming and crushing out all opposition. With regard to this lively Frenchman's allegory, I am compelled to say in the pithy words of old Polonius: ""Tis true 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true!" The Burin is buried. Line engraving is dead. A very few of the famous engravers have survived till quite recently. Two years ago, in Paris, I saw Henriquel-Dupont, and he was still erect and handsome at the great age of ninetyfour years, but he has since died. Jacquet of |