sionally introduced white line. In the same way Clennell, who also engraved after John Thurston’s drawing, modified it, particularly in the disposal of the lights and shadows, and thus improved it by his own artistic powers. Merely in engraving simple lines Clennell’s artistic feeling placedFig. 71.—Vignette from "Rogers's Poems" London, 1827. him in a higher rank than even an engraver of the power of John Thompson, as may be seen in the cuts which these two men made after Stothard’s drawings in an edition of Rogers’s Poems (Fig. 71, 72); in this volume Clennell has given an effect which Thompson could not give. Branston’s engraving, in the same way, shows the craftsman’s skill and knowledge, but it lacks the artistic quality of the rival school of Nesbit and Clennell. The imitation of the manner of copperplate, which Branston introduced, became common, and was developed in the work of Orrin Smith and William Harvey, in which wood-engraving
Fig. 72.—Vignette from "Rogers's Poems" London, 1827.lost its distinctive virtues. This school, nevertheless, was popular, and its engravings were used to illustrate important works to which for a long time copperplate-engraving alone had been considered equal; thus wood-engraving once more encroached upon its rival’s ground.
Meanwhile the great illustrated magazines and papers, to which wood-engraving owes so much of its encouragement, sprang up, and with them the necessity for rapid work, and the