- lations of the old masters from the renowned pictures
of the great European collections.
The Portraits were the echo in steel of the greater series in copper such as those of Houbraken and Vertue, and the Galleries of old masters' work in steel brought down to a more popular level what Boydell had done for a wealthier public. Lodge's "Portraits of the Illustrious Personages of Great Britain," in four volumes, published in 1821-1834, touches the high water-mark of the one class, and Finden's "Gallery of British Art" in sixteen parts, published in 1838-1853, is representative of steel engraving after genre subjects and landscape.
There is no doubt whatever that during the publication of the annuals, engraving of a high order was flung with a prodigal hand before the public. During the period that they were fashionable a crowd of steel engravers produced work which is left for the industrious twentieth-century collector to disinter and marvel at. One may fling stones at the almost painfully minute delicacy of their labours, as they worked on plates, with untiring diligence, that measure only some three inches by four or are even of less dimensions. Let him cast the first stone who can dispute the power of the classical sculptors who, in a work only a few inches high, can convey grandeur and titanic strength, or in a bas-relief the size of a postage stamp achieve artistic perfection.
The excellence of a work of art has nothing to do with its size. "I have a cast from an antique," said old Nollekens, "only three inches in height, which, from its justness of proportion and dignity of attitude,
