Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/221

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  • liarly appropriate that at the present day the neighbourhood

of Blackfriars should be given up to the production of illustrated magazines and journals printed by the latest twentieth-century presses, turned out by tens of thousands. The spirit of Vandyck and the spirit of Faithorne are evergreen, and it is a pity that Tallis Street and Temple Avenue should not straightway become Faithorne Street and Vandyck Avenue.

David Loggan (1635-1698), born at Dantzic, with his marvellous portrait of Sir Thomas Isham, in line, not to be confounded with his mezzotint portrait of the same subject, must be mentioned in passing.

William Sherwin, born in Shropshire about 1650, who worked from 1670 to 1710, executed some fine portraits in line as well as in mezzotint. His fine portrait of Charles II. in line, which is infinitely superior in character to his mezzotint portrait of the "Merry Monarch," which is picturesque and possessed of less character, is a masterpiece of sound engraving. It resembles in verisimilitude the waxen effigy of Charles II. in Bishop Islip's Chantry in Westminster Abbey, which, with its peculiarly wizened and singularly shrewd expression, is a sight never to be forgotten, recording in wax more faithful than sculptured marble the features of the profligate king taken after death.

Robert White (1645-1704), a pupil of David Loggan, brings the engravers' work down to Sir Godfrey Kneller's day, and that artist's portrait of Sir Roger L'Estrange is engraved by White in masterly style. His Pepys is worth a guinea, and he