The Hero's Invocation.

"And come of Scotia's race, another

"B-kb―nd-g Bill, the former's brother;
"Their glowing feats, O! let me sing,
"That make the Auction chambers ring.
"Since more or less they both extend,

"To me their aid, and prove the friend:"

Thus Catalogus sagely spoke,

Burning to burst the pond'rous yoke
Of Ignorance, that bound his brain,

In dull Boeotia's leaden chain :

With inspiration fraught, he hies,

And volumes four of Granger buys;

Granger-whose biographic page,

Hath prov'd for years so much the rage;

of numerous dealers, who, to the present hour, have just cause to

regret their connection with this universal empiric, who saved his Bacon by sojourning at HAM.

Engraving and Wood Cuts.

That scarce one book its portrait graces,

Torn out alas! each author's face is (q).

My Hero reads, and thinks, and reads,

As future Chalcographian deeds

His brain with mad'ning frenzy fire;

"For prints;" he cries, "I burn, expire!

"Ah give me portraits good or bad,

"To physic fancy running mad;

Impressions bright, or if rariss.

Impressions dull wont come amiss (r);

(q) The shameful practice of mutilating old books, which continued unabated for a series of years, has at length subsided, the generality of collectors being now just as eager to restore the heads to their mutilated works, as they were formerly eager to tear them from the volumes in question.

(r) I cannot better evince the comparative value of prints, according to the state of the impressions than by instancing a small portrait of the Marchioness of Buckingham, of the period of

Engraving and Wood Cuts.

"Nor be forgot choice wooden cut,

"Of Skelton or the Cut-purse slut (s);

"Cost what they may, I must possess 'em,

66

They are my idols, good heav'n bless 'em (t)."

James the First, engraved by Magdalena Passe, a common specimen of which is not worth five shillings; whereas a fine head from the same plate will bring ten guineas, and if a proof could be produced it would in all probability realize twenty.

(s) I now deem it necessary to remark that my wonder has uniformly been excited upon inspecting illustrated Grangers, to observe heads inserted which in all probability did not bear a tracę of the personages whom they are stated to represent; that a writer so competent should therefore have enrolled these abortions upon his biographic page is wonderful. In addition however to such. pretended likenesses as Selman the pickpocket, Nell Rummin the ale-wife, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, Bull and Farnham the weavers, and countless others, I shall quote two cases where the portrait of one man is assigned as the resemblance of another; instance Caxton and Pinson, the printers, the former being the likeness of an Italian poet, and the latter a copy of a folio wood-cut, representing a foreign man of literature.

(t)

Si fovet in terris rideret Heraclitus.

Granger, Bromley, Pilkington, Strutt, &c.

Great Granger read huge Bromley's text (u):

True Cataloguing lore came next;

Whose page renown'd was read sans ceasing,

Fell cacoethes thus increasing:

In due succession Strutt was bought (v),

With sacred Chalcography fraught;

From Finiguerra's graven brass *

(Which W-db-rn vowed naught could surpass †,

(x) This volume, although incomplete, is a proof of infinite perseverance and industry, and well deserves the commendation of every Chalcographimanian.

(v) Strutt's Dictionary of Engravers, which now produces a very exorbitant price, is, a specimen of infinite ingenuity; indeed, all the productions of this writer are of invaluable utility for the curious matter they contain, and are very justly appreciated by the antiquarian and every lover of Vertu.

* The discovery of Chalcography, like many other useful arts, proved to be the mere result of chance. Thomas Finiguerra, a native

Granger, Bromley, Pilkington, Strutt, &c.

And D-bd-n great Typographist,

Who on this subject did insist;

of Florence, who was a goldsmith, and flourished in the fifteenth century, is the personage handed down to posterity, as the original discoverer of engraving, which is said to owe its origin to one of the following circumstances, though the latter appears to me as being by far the most natural, and consequently bears the greater resemblance to truth. Finiguerra it is stated, chanced to let a piece of copper fall into some melted sulphur, where the ink with which he had filled the incisions made upon the plate left the impression of his work upon the mineral in question. The other narrative states that a washerwoman happened to leave some damp linen upon a plate whereon the artist had been working, when a faint impression upon the cloth happening to meet Finiguerra's observation, he tried the experiment on moistened paper, the satisfactory result of which led him to prosecute the Chalcographian Art.

The W---db--rn family, consisting of four personages, which now blazes in every branch of the pictorial art, owes its origin to a sweeper of the streets, from which main stock has sprung this enlightened Quartetto, whose respective avocations are as follow: Printselling, Book-vending, Picture-dealing, and Frame