serving to be named
with his; but the best vignettes of Bewick approach Duerer in execution
of plumage, as nearly as a clown's work can approach a gentleman's.

109. Some very brilliant execution on an inferior system--less false,
however, than the modern English one--has been exhibited by the French;
and if we accept its false conditions, nothing can surpass the
cleverness of our own school of Dalziel, or even of the average
wood-cutting in our daily journals, which however, as aforesaid, is only
to be reckoned an inferior method of engraving. These meet the demand of
the imperfectly-educated public in every kind; and it would be absurd to
urge any change in the method, as long as the public remain in the same
state of knowledge or temper. But, allowing for the time during which
these illustrated papers have now been bringing whatever information and
example of Art they could to the million, it seems likely that the said
million will remain in the same stage of knowledge yet for some time.
Perhaps the horse is an animal as antagonistic to Art in England, as he
was in harmony with it in Greece; still, allowing for the general
intelligence of the London bred lower classes, I was surprised by a
paragraph in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, quoting the _Star_ of November 6th
of last year, in its report upon the use made of illustrated papers by
the omnibus stablemen,--to the following effect:--

"They are frequently employed in the omnibus yards from five o'clock in
the morning till twelve at night, so that a fair day's work for a
'horse-keeper' is about eighteen hours. For this enormous labor they
receive a guinea per week, which for them means seven, not six, days;
though they do contrive to make Sunday an 'off-day' now and then. The
ignorance of aught in the world save ''orses and 'buses' which prevails
amongst these stablemen is almost incredible. A veteran horse-keeper,
who had passed his days in an omnibus-yard, was once overheard praising
the 'Lus-trated London News with much enthusiasm, as the best periodical
in London, 'leastways at the coffee-shop.' When pressed for the reason
of his partiality, he confessed it was the 'pickshers' which delighted
him. He amused himself during his meal-times by 'counting the images!'"

110. But for the classes among whom there is a real demand for
educational art, it is highly singular that no systematic use has yet
been made of wood-cutting on its own terms; and only here and there,