h, after thirty years of innumerable similar
productions, are still the _chef-d'oeuvre_ and the model of engraving
on wood. And would Mouilleron have been inferior, if from the stone he
had passed to the copper plate? It would be an easy matter to multiply
examples chosen from among the artists who have boldly handled the
needle, or from among those who might have taken it up with equal
advantage, to prove that etching is not, as it has been called, a
secondary method. There are no secondary methods for the manifestation
of genius.

11. =Versatility of Etching.=--The needle is the crayon; the acid adds
color. The needle is sometimes all the more eloquent because its means
of expression are confined within more restricted limits. It is familiar
and lively in the sketch, which by a very little must say a great deal;
the sketch is the spontaneous letter. It all but reaches the highest
expression when it is called in to translate a grand spectacle, or one
of those fugitive effects of light which nature seems to produce but
sparingly, so as to leave to art the merit of fixing them.

12. =Etching compared to other Styles of Engraving.=--By its very
character of freedom, by the intimate and rapid connection which it
establishes between the hand and the thoughts of the artist, etching
becomes the frankest and most natural of interpreters. These are the
qualities which make it an honor to art, of which it is a glorious
branch. All other styles of engraving can never be any thing but a means
of reproduction. We must admire the knowledge, the intelligence, and the
self-denial which the line-engraver devotes to the service of his art.
But, after all, it is merely the art of assimilating an idea which is
foreign to him, and of which he is the slave. By him the
_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the masters are multiplied and disseminated, and
sometimes, in giving eternity to an original work, he immortalizes his
own name; but the part he has assumed inevitably excludes him from all
creative activity.

13. =Etching as a Reproductive Art.=--These reserves having been made in
regard to the engraver, whose instrument is the burin, justice requires
that the reproductive etcher should come in for his proportional share,
and that his functions should be defined. Some years ago, a school of
etchers arose among us, whose mission it is to interpret those works of
the brush which, by the delicacy and elegance of their character, cannot
be harmonized with