even in the best books, is there an example of what might be done by it.
The frontispieces to the two volumes of Mr. Birch's "Ancient Pottery and
Porcelain," and such simpler cuts as that at p. 273 of the first volume,
show what might be cheaply done for illustration of archaic classical
work; two or three volumes of such cuts chosen from the best vases of
European collections and illustrated by a short and trustworthy
commentary, would be to any earnest schoolboy worth a whole library of
common books. But his father can give him nothing of the kind--and if
the father himself wish to study Greek Art, he must spend something like
a hundred pounds to put himself in possession of any sufficiently
illustrative books of reference. As to any use of such means for
representing objects in the round, the plate of the head of Pallas
facing p. 168 in the same volume sufficiently shows the hopelessness of
setting the modern engraver to such service. Again, in a book like
Smith's dictionary of geography, the wood-cuts of coins are at present
useful only for comparison and reference. They are absolutely valueless
as representations of the art of the coin.

111. Now, supposing that an educated scholar and draughtsman had drawn
each of these blocks, and that they had been cut with as much average
skill as that employed in the wood-cuts of _Punch_, each of these
vignettes of coins might have been an exquisite lesson, both of high Art
treatment in the coin, and of beautiful black and white drawing in the
representation; and this just as cheaply--nay, more cheaply--than the
present common and useless drawing. The things necessary are indeed not
small,--nothing less than well educated intellect and feeling in the
draughtsmen; but intellect and feeling, as I have often said before now,
are always to be had cheap if you go the right way about it--and they
cannot otherwise be had for any price. There are quite brains enough,
and there is quite sentiment enough, among the gentlemen of England to
answer all the purposes of England: but if you so train your youths of
the richer classes that they shall think it more gentlemanly to scrawl a
figure on a bit of note paper, to be presently rolled up to light a
cigar with, than to draw one nobly and rightly for the seeing of all
men;--and if you practically show your youths, of all classes, that they
will be held gentlemen, for babbling with a simper in Sunday pulpits; or
grinning through, not a hors