s not, and that there can be no certainty given by even the
finest pieces of wood execution of anything more than perfect harmony
between the designer and workman. And consider how much this harmony
demands in the latter. Not that the modern engraver is unintelligent in
applying his mechanical skill: very often he greatly improves the
drawing; but we never could mistake his hand for Holbein's.

99. The true merit, then, of wood execution, as regards this matter of
cross-hatching, is first that there be no more crossing than necessary;
secondly, that all the interstices be various, and rough. You may look
through the entire series of the Dance of Death without finding any
cross-hatching whatever, except in a few unimportant bits of background,
so rude as to need scarcely more than one touch to each interstice.
Albert Duerer crosses more definitely; but yet, in any fold of his
drapery, every white spot differs in size from every other, and the
arrangement of the whole is delightful, by the kind of variety which the
spots on a leopard have.

On the other hand, where either expression or form can be rendered by
the shape of the lights and darks, the old engraver becomes as careful
as in an ordinary ground he is careless.

The endeavor, with your own hand, and common pen and ink, to copy a
small piece of either of the two Holbein woodcuts (Figures 2 and 3) will
prove this to you better than any words.

100. I said that, had Tenniel been rightly trained, there might have
been the making of a Holbein, or nearly a Holbein, in him. I do not
know; but I can turn from his work to that of a man who was not trained
at all, and who was, without training, Holbein's equal.

Equal, in the sense that this brown stone, in my left hand, is the
equal, though not the likeness, of that in my right. They are both of
the same true and pure crystal; but the one is brown with iron, and
never touched by forming hand; the other has never been in rough
companionship, and has been exquisitely polished. So with these two men.
The one was the companion of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. His father was
so good an artist that you cannot always tell their drawings asunder.
But the other was a farmer's son; and learned his trade in the back
shops of Newcastle.

Yet the first book I asked you to get was his biography; and in this
frame are set together a drawing by Hans Holbein, and one by Thomas
Bewick. I know which is most scholarly; but I do _not_ kno