strikes the beholder, when it is elevated only nine inches above his eye, with the idea of its being a figure full thirty feet in height.". . . "What!" he would exclaim, "is not that beautiful gem of Hercules Strangling the Lion a work of grand art—and that figure is contained in less than the space of an inch!"
In regard to size and delicacy of finish there are the names of Hollar and Callot among the old masters of engraving, but there is little doubt that when the hardness of steel was found to admit of finer work the steel engravers pushed this quality to its extremest limits, and it became a merit to produce work in which the lines were laid together so closely that only a powerful glass can discover the technique.
The actual difference between a line engraving executed on copper and one engraved on steel—we are speaking now of larger subjects where microscopic finish is absent in both—is so slight in a print that the one is not distinguishable from the other. But in etching and in mezzotint its difference is most marked. In the former the artistic quality of the printing loses its richness, the steel takes the ink in a different manner than does copper, and in mezzotint on steel the result is of a peculiarly thin and smoky character. Owing to the hardness of the metal the tool cannot go so deeply as in copper, the scale of gradations in the lightness and darkness of the print is accordingly restricted, and this betrays itself in the printed impression. For a learned exposition of these differences the reader cannot do better than refer
