When Mr. Virtue commenced these illustrated volumes, the Fine Art tastes of the public were in a very uneducated condition; but, selecting the best artists and employing the best engravers, he set a good example, which was speedily followed by others. In 1839, Messrs. Hodgson and Graves had started a cheap periodical devoted to Art, under the title of the _Art Union_, intended chiefly as an organ of the print trade; but it was not till the year 1849 that this publication passed into the hands of Mr. Virtue, who changed the title to the _Art Journal_, and devoted it to the development of Fine Art and Industrial Art, with illustrations on steel and wood by the first artists of the day. The _Art Journal_, it is admitted, has done more than any private venture or corporate body to disseminate true ideas of Art in England. The _Art Journal_, though among the very earliest of those periodicals in which Art was brought to the aid of Literature, still towers proudly above all. Since its foundation, the _Art Journal_ has presented the public with between eight and nine hundred steel engravings and above 30,000 engravings on wood. No less than one hundred illustrated volumes were issued from Mr. Virtue’s establishment, and for their production it was found necessary to erect a large establishment in the City Road. Almost every engraver of any reputation in this country has been employed on one or other of Mr. Virtue’s illustrated works. Indeed, had it not been for the field of labour opened by the _Art Union_, in their yearly distribution of engravings, and for the encouragement held out by Mr. Virtue in the production of his illustrated works and the _Art Journal_, it is said that the art of line engraving would have quite died out in England; and for his services to the public, and, through them, to the profession, he is certainly entitled to be regarded as the first Art publisher of his time. To go to a very different branch of his business, Mr. Virtue was not idle in the production of any book likely to win the favour of the public. In 1847, Dr. Cumming, then widely known as a preacher only, delivered a series of lectures at Exeter Hall upon the Apocalypse, which riveted public attention. He was urged by his friends to publish the lectures upon their completion, and said that he would be willing to do so, if he was sure that the proceeds would suffice to pay for putting up stained glass windows in his church. Mr. Virtue heard this, ascertained the value of the windows, and offered their outside cost down in hard cash in exchange for the copyright. Dr. Cumming eagerly accepted the offer, and by the “Apocalyptic Sketches” the publisher realized the handsome sum of four thousand pounds. He afterwards made the author a present of a hundred pounds, and engaged him to write a continuation, at an honorarium of five pounds per sheet of thirty-two pages, which eventually proved to be equally successful.