of the Dutch and
Flemish painters, in three volumes, are a family of rare beauty.[2]

The relation of engraving to painting is often discussed; but nobody
has treated it with more knowledge or sentiment than the consummate
engraver Longhi in his interesting work, _La Calcografia_.[3] Dwelling
on the general aid it renders to the lovers of art, he claims for it
greater merit in "publishing and immortalizing the portraits of
eminent men for the example of the present and future generations;"
and, "better than any other art, serving as the vehicle for the most
extended and remote propagation of deserved celebrity." Even great
monuments in porphyry and bronze are less durable than these light and
fragile impressions subject to all the chances of wind, water, and
fire, but prevailing by their numbers where the mass succumbs. In
other words, it is with engravings as with books; nor is this the only
resemblance between them. According to Longhi, an engraving is not a
copy or imitation, as is sometimes insisted, but a translation. The
engraver translates into another language, where light and shade
supply the place of colors. The duplication of a book in the same
language is a copy, and so is the duplication of a picture in the same
material. Evidently an engraving is not a copy; it does not reproduce
the original picture, except in drawing and expression; nor is it a
mere imitation, but, as Bryant's Homer and Longfellow's Dante are
presentations of the great originals in another language, so is the
engraving a presentation of painting in another material which is like
another language.

Thus does the engraver vindicate his art. But nobody can examine a
choice print without feeling that it has a merit of its own different
from any picture, and inferior only to a good picture. A work of
Raffaelle, or any of the great masters, is better in an engraving of
Longhi or Morghen than in any ordinary copy, and would probably cost
more in the market. A good engraving is an undoubted work of art, but
this cannot be said of many pictures, which, like Peter Pindar's
razors, seem made to sell.

Much that belongs to the painter belongs also to the engraver, who
must have the same knowledge of contours, the same power of
expression, the same sense of beauty, and the same ability in drawing
with sureness of sight as if, according to Michael Angelo, he had "a
pair of compasses in his eyes." These qualities in a high degree make
the artist,