show white in the proof, taking care to
harmonize your patches with the surrounding parts.

In this way you replace the lines which have disappeared, and then
proceed to bite in, doing your best to come as near as possible to the
strength of the first biting. The result may not be very marvellous, but
it will be an improvement, at all events. If I were in your place, I
should not hesitate to begin again. The process which I have just
described is best suited to isolated passages.

In closely worked and lightly bitten passages, blotches (or _creves_)
are more easily remedied, as they are less deep. Rub them down with
charcoal, very cautiously and delicately, and let the dry point do the
rest.

There, now! There's our friend, again, using acid instead of spirits of
turpentine to clean his plate! That'll be the end of the animal. It is
against the law, sir, to murder a poor, inoffensive beast this wise!
Fortunately we can help him out with several sheets of blotting-paper,
in default of water, which we do not happen to have at hand. We were in
time! The copper has only lost its polish; a little more charcoal,--and
Rosinante still lives.

[Illustration: Plate III.]

CHAPTER VI.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FLAT BITING, AND BITING WITH STOPPING-OUT.

66. =Two Kinds of Biting.=--Now that you have become familiar with the
secrets of biting, I say to my pupil, and are therefore prepared to be
on your guard against the accidents to be avoided when you go to work
again, I can make clear to you, better than if I had endeavored to do so
at the outset, the difference between the two kinds of biting on which
rests the whole system of the art of etching, and the distinctive
characteristics of which are often confounded. The work thus far done
will help you to a more intelligent understanding of this distinction.
As it was impossible to explain to you, at one and the same time, all
the resources of the needle as well as those of biting, between which,
as I told you before, there exist very intimate relations, I had to
choose a general example by which to demonstrate the processes employed,
and which would allow me to explain the reasons for these processes.

There are two kinds of biting,--_flat biting_ and _biting with
stopping-out_. (See Pl. III.)

These two kinds of biting resemble one another in this, that they
involve only one grounding or varnishing, and consequently only one
bath; they differ most markedly in this, th