In the second paragraph Mr. Landseer displays great inconsistency in praising Mr. Gilpin for his definition of the word “tint,” which, when applied to engravings, is as objectionable as the term “colour.” It appears that Mr. Gilpin may employ a conventional term with “singular propriety,” while printsellers and engravers who should use the same liberty would be charged with ignorance. Is there such a thing as a _tint_ in nature which is of no colour? Mr. Gilpin’s lauded definition involves a contradiction even when the word is applied to engravings, in which every “tint” is indicative of positive colour. That “medium between strong light and strong shade,” and which is yet of no colour, remains to be discovered. Mr. Gilpin has supplied us with the “word,” but it appears that no definite idea is necessary to be attached to it. Having thus endeavoured to give a little brightness to the “colour” of “ignorant printsellers and engravers,” I shall resume my observations on the cuts in the Nuremberg Chronicle, to the “colour” of which the preceding digression is to be ascribed. The preceding cut, representing the Creation of Eve, is copied from one of the best in the Nuremberg Chronicle, both with respect to design and engraving. In this, compared with most other cuts previously executed, much more colour will be perceived, which results from the closeness of the single lines, as in the dark parts of the rock immediately behind the figure of Eve; from the introduction of dark lines crossing each other,--called “cross-hatching,”--as may be seen in the drapery of the Divinity; and from the contrast of the shade thus produced with the lighter parts of the cut. [Illustration] The subjoined cut, of the same subject, copied from the Poor Preachers’ Bible,[IV-55] will, by comparison with the preceding, illustrate more clearly than any verbal explanation the difference with respect to colour between the wood-cuts in the old block-books and in most others printed between 1462 and 1493, and those contained in the Nuremberg Chronicle. In this cut there is no indication of colour; the shades in the drapery which are expressed by hard parallel lines are all of equal strength, or rather weakness; and the hair of Adam’s head and the foliage of the tree are expressed nearly in the same manner. [Footnote IV-55: In the original, this cut, with one of Christ’s side pierced by a soldier, and another of Moses striking the rock, are intended to illustrate the mystery of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.]