block, but left them to the interpretation of the popular engraver, Pierre Raëfe, of Paris, whose name is written, at full length, on the engraving of the 'Antiquities of Athens.'

The engravings which illustrate the celebrated Bible of Jean le Clerc, brought out in 1596, have far more title to be considered as Cousin's work. Yet after careful examination I think it will be seen that all the best, like 'The Feast of Ahasuerus,' bear the unmistakable stamp, not of the manner of Cousin, but of the school of Fontainebleau, which has, indeed, a superficial resemblance to the style of some of his later work.

The publication of this Bible Historiée' worthily closes the series of illustrated works produced in France during the sixteenth century. The triptych cuts which decorated 'L'Ovide figuré' of Robioni pretended to little more than rough outline, with slight indication of the shade. The illustrations of 'L'Entrée à Paris,' and of 'L'Entrée à Rouen,' were more complicated in design and richer in detail, but the dangerous risks of full chiaroscuro are still avoided.

A further step was taken in the 'Songe de Poliphile.' The new tendencies were still more marked; restrained gesture passed into dramatic action, and the old simplicity of outline was confused by the forcible, but as yet unsuccessful, effort to give full relief. Next we must take into account the work of Le Petit

Bernard. Endowed with fertile fancy, with genuine taste in design, and with exquisite sensitiveness of touch, he gave to the method he employed a precision and delicacy unknown to the earlier engravers of the century. It remained, however, for the engraver of the 'Livre de Perspective' to make final proof of the same means as applied to larger work. Mechanical improvements and mechanical excellences might hereafter be attained, but from an artistic point of view the interpretation of parts of the design on the title page, and of several subordinate passages in this work, leaves little to be desired.

Wood engraving was, however, destined before the close of the century to be displaced from the position which it had acquired. The more costly and tedious but more certain process of engraving on copper gradually gained popular favour and esteem. In 1584, when André Thevet brought out his two folio volumes of 'Vrais portraits des hommes illustres,' he abandoned the method of which he had availed himself for the illustrations of his two previous works, 'La Cosmographie du Levant,' and 'La Cosmographie Universelle.' In the preface to his last work he announced that he had been at the pains of bringing the best engravers from Flanders, and congratulated himself that by the grace of God he was the first to bring into vogue at Paris 'l'imprimerie en taille douce,' as already practised at Lyons and Antwerp.

Great facility in execution, and the rapidity with which it was possible to multiply impressions from the block, long continued to maintain in credit the process of wood engraving, in spite of its serious disadvantages. The carelessness and the unskilfulness of those who practised it was always a subject of annoyance. De Lorme himself remarks in his Nouvelles Inventions à bien bâtir' that he is forced to complain à tous propos des tailleurs de mes planches;' and the execution of the illustrations of Thevet's two earlier works is so slovenly that it is impossible to get from them any accurate impression of the original designs.

The portraits which illustrate his third publication are engraved in line on copper. All ages and countries were laid under contribution to make up the number of the personages who figure on the pages of the work. The rulers of Greece and Rome, the fathers of the Church, the chiefs of savage tribes, are gathered together into a common crowd, together with the princely warriors of the Middle Ages and the poets and humanists of the day. In many cases this book has preserved for us reproductions of authentic portraits which have since disappeared. The execution shows the possession of excellent technical training, and one engraver at least gives evidence of very considerable power. The portrait of Mellin de St. Gelais is distinguished by an intelligent delicacy of execution which contains the promise of the future silvery triumphs of French

line-engraving. The very accent and colour of a portrait by François Clouet are rendered with admirable felicity the tender care with which the sharply-cut features have been modelled is successfully reproduced, and the high-toned sobriety of a very definite intellectual type is well brought out.

But the engravers of this book were not Frenchmen. Paris, it is true, had long possessed a distinguished representative of the art of engraving on copper in the person of Étienne Delaulne, But Delaulne, popularly known as Maître Stephanus, had been twice forced, by the religious persecutions which raged in his native country, to seek safety and quiet in a foreign land. Once he had returned to Paris, but only to be driven forth afresh; and when Thevet was in need of skilful artists to engrave his portraits, he had to seek them not in France, but in Flanders.

JEAN DUVET, whose name is only preserved from oblivion by the capricious industry and curiosity of a few collectors of prints, was an artist whose powers of invention were of the highest order. The brief prefatory notice which is attached to the list of his works in the Catalogue Robert-Dumesnil sums up nearly all we know concerning him: it tells us that he was a goldsmith, and that he dwelt in the ancient town of Langres, the Roman Langonum, past which flow the waters of the Marne. He was born in 1485, and belongs therefore to the advanced guard which, on the threshold of the century, heralded the coming of that greater company to whom fell the honours of final triumph. The daily work of his profession prepared him to handle the burin with confidence, for the practice of the goldsmith's art naturally trained men