seller of prints, and, as a consequence, art is the sufferer.
Training the Eye.—Handle as many prints—good, bad, and indifferent—as you can. The two latter classes will greatly predominate. You may in a few weeks or a few months turn over thousands in portfolios in booksellers' shops or at auction-rooms. Search old magazines, laboriously examine the frontispieces and illustrations of every old volume you come across. Linger before the printsellers' windows. Ransack the libraries of your friends. Read all that comes in your way concerning your hobby. It is within everybody's reach to ponder over the masterly essay on "Engraving," by P. G. Hamerton, in the "Encyclopædia Britannica." Visit every gallery—if you live in London your opportunities are legion—where masterpieces of engraving are on view. The leading printsellers have exhibitions from time to time. For a shilling you may contemplate a row of Dürer's or of Rembrandt's masterpieces, or a fine array of English mezzotints, the price of some of which would purchase a racehorse. Or there is the permanent gallery of engravings at the British Museum or at the Victoria and Albert Museum. If you are a City man drop in to the Guildhall Museum and see some of the fine prints hanging in the corridors. The bibliography of the subject is extensive. In the few pages given in this volume concerning books of reference there is enough to set a man in the right path. In provincial towns in most of the libraries some of these volumes will be procurable. Read what Ruskin and Hamerton and what Mr.
