to me by any
dealer for a hundred. The rise is somewhat greater in the instance of
Turner than of any other unpopular[81] artist; but it is at least three
hundred per cent. on all work by artists of established reputation,
whether the public can themselves see anything in it, or not. A certain
quantity of intelligent interest mixes, of course, with the mere fever
of desire for novelty; and the excellent book illustrations, which are
the special subjects of our inquiry, are peculiarly adapted to meet
this; for there are at least twenty people who know a good engraving or
wood-cut, for one who knows a good picture. The best book illustrations
fall into three main classes: fine line engravings (always grave in
purpose), typically represented by Goodall's illustrations to Rogers's
poems;--fine wood-cuts, or etchings, grave in purpose, such as those by
Dalziel, from Thomson and Gilbert;--and fine wood-cuts, or etchings, for
purpose of caricature, such as Leech's and Tenniel's in _Punch_. Each of
these have a possibly instructive power special to them, which we will
endeavor severally to examine in the next chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] _Art Journal_, vol. v., pp. 33-4. February 1866,--ED.

[80] It may be, they would not ask larger incomes in a time of highest
national life; and that then the noble art would be far cheaper to the
nation than the ignoble. But I speak of existing circumstances.

[81] I have never found more than two people (students excepted) in the
room occupied by Turner's drawings at Kensington, and one of the two, if
there _are_ two, always looks as if he had got in by mistake.

CHAPTER IX.[82]

103. I purpose in this chapter, as intimated in the last, to sketch
briefly what I believe to be the real uses and powers of the three kinds
of engraving, by black line; either for book illustration, or general
public instruction by distribution of multiplied copies. After thus
stating what seems to me the proper purpose of each kind of work, I may,
perhaps, be able to trace some advisable limitations of its technical
methods.

I. And first, of pure line engraving.

This is the only means by which entire refinement of intellectual
representation can be given to the public. Photographs have an
inimitable mechanical refinement, and their legal evidence is of great
use if you know how to cross-examine them. They are popularly supposed
to be "true," and, at the worst, they are so, in the sense in which an