extravagant, the rational revolt against miracle should keep itself free as far as possible from the note of moral indignation. It will emerge, this note, as it has emerged, say with regard to witchcraft—which was once believed, for relatively good reason, by persons quite as considerable as those who now cling to miracle-but it will only be truly potent when it marks, as many of us believe it will in time mark, a common and prevailing voice of the Christian conscience. To borrow the Berkeleyan phrase, another age will discover how to substitute, even popularly, the Visual Language of law, ethics, and history for the Visual Language of miracle. Meanwhile, the intellectual attack on miracle sorely wants systematising and extending. To repeat: the historical and critical material, as apart from the philosophical, has enormously accumulated of late years, and cries to be used. The present book is in its measure a remarkably vigorous addition to a debate still far from its maturity.

MARY A. WARD.

THE

ROYAL SOCIETY OF PAINTER ETCHERS.

In the May number of this Review for 1890, looking backwards for forty years, I traced the progress of the etcher's art from our earliest attempts to revive it in 1850 (which was the year I believe in which the first English etching, under the pseudonym of 'H. Dean,' was sent in to the Royal Academy) to the formation of the present Society eleven years ago; disguising, as I did so, neither the discouragements we had met with, the difficulties we had had to overcome, nor the mistakes which we ourselves had made in pursuit of the object we had in view. That object I may say at once was not merely, as our title would seem to imply, the restoration of original etching, but the reinfusion into all forms of engraver's work of those personal qualities which, in the hands of the great masters of painting, made engraving a fine art. To-day, casting our cares behind us, as in presence of an exhibition in every way so exceptional we may well do (and here I should premise that nearly everything I may have to say in this article will be found to depend more or less on the lesson conveyed to us by the late exhibition), I know of but one subject for adverse reflection which need disturb us, and that is to be found in the little impression we have been able to make on any but the rising generation of painters. On the contemporary painter, the descendant of the old painter etcher, we have been able to make no impression at all. The ‘made man '—though etching is an art coeval with his painting, and until the decline of art was its very handmaid --has remained altogether insensible to our blandishments. The truth is, and we are only just awaking to it, that etching is a form of art expression, I will not say fitted only for the young, but which must be begun young, on the elastic side I should say of thirty or at most forty, when the faculties are on the alert, when the imagination is active, and while the goal which a wholesome ambition has set before us is still only in sight. Birds sing only in the morning and in the spring; in the fall, mated, and replete with the fruit of our gardens—and that not always too legitimately come by-they are indisposed for new flights. So it is with our 'made man :' unwillingly, therefore,

and regretfully, we give him up, and henceforth place all our reliance on the man we are making. Indeed, if I may say so, it is one of the pleasures of being in command here, to find oneself in actual contact -so grateful to those themselves conscious of failing powers-with a vitality which is still in the ascendant, and with habits and aptitudes which are as yet undulled by too much prosperity. It is owing, in fact, to this unexhausted quantity and possibly also in some measure to the very presence among us last year of Rembrandt himself—that our work of this year is in closer harmony with the best traditions of the etcher's art, and more in touch with the simple practice of the old painter engraver. From this change of practice I augur the best results. We have seen the quasi-art of the old Academician engraver collapse and die, and have tried to replace it by a real one in which the personality of the artist shall be the chief factor. Nor are we without signs that we are, at last, in a fair way to realise that aim. Every now and then we see some of our best men-men, that is to say, incapable, as original thinkers and executants, of mere servility-compelled by circumstances to do unoriginal work. I have heard this lamented. I, on the contrary, rejoice at it, and recognise in it the fact that we are nearer the attainment of our ultimate purpose than we thought. It is the property of all movements that are really healthy to grow, till sooner or later they not only attain the dimensions originally designed for them, but transcend them. So it has been with us. We have not only been reproducing the original etcher, but, almost without knowing it, and certainly sooner than we expected, a new class of reproductive

engraver.

But while we ourselves have had every reason to be satisfied with these proofs of a healthy expansion, signs have appeared elsewhere which show that this feeling has not been universal: signs, in fact, which seem to indicate some uncertainty on the part of the outside engraver as to what his position is likely to be when the principles we have adopted have fairly taken root and become general.

Now, I will say at once that I have been neither surprised nor disturbed by this movement; on the contrary, that I have thought it both a natural and proper one-so natural and so proper that, with some others of our Fellows and Associates who seem to have been of my mind, I have not hesitated to make common cause with it, and even to join in it. Further-as in fairness it seemed only right to do I have set myself seriously and honestly to work to see how far our brother engravers, not yet in connection with us, are really likely to be affected by what we are doing. Well, the conclusion I have arrived at is that they will not be affected by it at all; that is to say that it will affect them neither more nor less than it affects those of our own members who have taken to do reproductive work. Given, a general acceptance of the principle on which our

association has been founded-a principle the soundness of which no true artist will, I think, be found to question, and which by the diploma we hold from Her Majesty we are bound to maintain-it is obvious that our Society is open to all, and on terms equal to all, and that those terms, again, are susceptible of a latitude of application which excludes no one. Hence the first of our rules: All forms of engraving on metal, whether by the burin, the etching-needle, by mezzotint or aquatint, or by whatever other form' (of engraving) ‘the artist may choose as a means of original expression, are understood to be included in the term painter etching.' With this rule to guide them, therefore, all may come to us. We ask no questions of those who come. The work they tender, and nothing else, determines their admission into the Society. Further, we not only do not know the kind of work they did before coming to us, but can have no knowledge of the kind of work they are likely to do when once they belong to us.

It follows that the outside engraver, provided only that he is an original artist as well as an engraver, is suffering no real exclusion at our hands. If he cannot accept the principle of our raison d'être, he retains his opinion and his present position. If he can and will accept that principle, he becomes, or may become, one of us. The alternative rests not with us, but with himself. One thing only he must not lose sight of, which is that some of the best men of his class are already with us, and that we are turning out more of them-I beg their pardon-every day. Our object being to make engraving an art, we have no choice but to pursue that object to its legitimate end, and, I am sure I may add, no more sincere desire than to welcome all who, by their agreement with us, are willing to help us in the attainment of that end.

The generous friends who lent us the fine Turners which graced and dignified our eastern wall will not misunderstand me if, in the face of the greatly improved quality of our late exhibition, I venture to express a doubt as to whether we did quite wisely to hang them there. The special circumstances which at the close of last year made us think an exhibition of mezzotint desirable, have so entirely altered as to suggest the doubt I now express. It can, indeed, do us nothing but good to have, and to study, such work, just as it did us good to have and to study the Rembrandts of last year. It is, however, precisely because those typical examples of pure etching produced so salutary a change in our practice, that I am now doubting the prudence of doing anything of a nature to disturb that change. I throw out this reflection for as much as it is worth; neither our friends nor our members will, I am sure, either misunderstand or be misled by it. Meantime, when looking at these fine prints, and comparing them with our own etchings which filled the rest of the room, we shall have done well to notice two things: firstly, that there

are still some few of those etchings which would have been better if done in mezzotint; and secondly, that though the two things— etching and mezzotint-differ nothing in principle, they differ greatly as to the results obtainable by them. They are, in fact, the alpha and omega of the engraver's art, and represent between them the whole range of his resources. The difference between them consists in fact in difference of aim. The aim of mezzotint, for instance, is an advanced chiaroscuro-tonality carried to its utmost limit; to seek to obtain anything like such a result by etching would be, not only hopeless, but its very hopelessness should forbid the attempt. The etching needle is not the instrument with which to make such an attempt, nor would the spirit of etching be found in the work even if the attempt succeeded. An etching expresses, or should express, the ideal, not the ultimate aim of the painter-is a measure not of his force but of his temperament-and herein lies its charm. Its value is that of a sonnet, or a bon mot, as compared with an epic. In it the artist appeals to the emotional side of us: in his finished picture to a movement which is the outcome of reason and experience. For all that, an etching is not, as I have sometimes heard it called, 'a sketch.' A sketch is a memorandum of a fact, or a series of facts, jotted down for after use. An etching is undertaken with no such aim and in no such spirit. If a spontaneous, it is also a serious appeal from one mind to another; a note of sympathy felt by the artist to be worthy of interchange between his own and some other intelligence which he hopes to find in harmony with his own. To make this appeal effective he puts into it the best part of him, and with that part addresses the best part of him to whom he dedicates it. A mental operation of this kind, and the manual outcome of such an operation, suppose a result very different from that which we look for in a sketch-so different that the first thing we see in an etching is not the looseness but the closeness of its mental structure. The more work done over such an etching the worse for it, and for the intellectual quality which belongs to it and which distinguishes it as an utterance à vive voix. On the other hand, if the passionate side of the artist is to be looked for in an etching, the developed side of him will best be found in a mezzotint. In Rembrandt last year, and in Turner this, we have these two sides in absolute perfection. Our business should be to use each of them in its place without losing sight of their difference of aim.

I must not, I find, occupy more than a passing moment in referring to these 'monumental' works of Turner. They have been so well described by Mr. W. G. Rawlinson in their artistic, and by Mr. J. L. Roget in their psychological aspects (for they present themselves under both points of view), that I can add nothing to what these authors have said of them. I cannot forbear, however, such an occasional observation respecting them as seems to me to present the genius