ne _itself_,
in important places, of successive minute touches, so that it became a
chain of delicate links which could be opened or closed at
pleasure.[AC] If you will examine through a lens the outline of the face
of this Astrology, you will find it is traced with an exquisite series
of minute touches, susceptible of accentuation or change absolutely at
the engraver's pleasure; and, in result, corresponding to the finest
conditions of a pencil line drawing by a consummate master. In the fine
plates of this period, you have thus the united powers of the pen and
pencil, and both absolutely secure and multipliable.

131. I am a little proud of having independently discovered, and had the
patience to carry out, this Florentine method of execution for myself,
when I was a boy of thirteen. My good drawing-master had given me some
copies calculated to teach me freedom of hand; the touches were rapid
and vigorous,--many of them in mechanically regular zigzags, far beyond
any capacity of mine to imitate in the bold way in which they were done.
But I was resolved to have them, somehow; and actually facsimiled a
considerable portion of the drawing in the Florentine manner, with the
finest point I could cut to my pencil, taking a quarter of an hour to
forge out the likeness of one return in the zigzag which my master
carried down through twenty returns in two seconds; and so successfully,
that he did not detect my artifice till I showed it him,--on which he
forbade me ever to do the like again. And it was only thirty years
afterwards that I found I had been quite right after all, and working
like Baccio Bandini! But the patience which carried me through that
early effort, served me well through all the thirty years, and enabled
me to analyze, and in a measure imitate, the method of work employed by
every master; so that, whether you believe me or not at first, you will
find what I tell you of their superiority, or inferiority, to be true.

132. When lines are studied with this degree of care, you may be sure
the master will leave room enough for you to see them and enjoy them,
and not use any at random. All the finest engravers, therefore, leave
much white paper, and use their entire power on the outlines.

133. Next to them come the men of the Renaissance schools, headed by
Duerer, who, less careful of the beauty and refinement of the line,
delight in its vigor, accuracy, and complexity. And the essential
difference between th