wood it is precisely the reverse; for it is easier to leave a thick line than to cut out the interstices of lines crossing each other. Nothing is more common than for persons who know little of the history of wood engraving, and still less of the practice, to refer to the frequent cross-hatching in the cuts supposed to have been engraved by Albert Durer as a proof of their excellence: as if the talent of the artist were chiefly displayed in such parts of the cuts as are in reality least worthy of him, and which a mere workman might execute as well. In opposition to this vulgar error I venture to assert, that there is not a wood engraver in London of the least repute who cannot produce _apprentices_ to cut fac-similes of any cross-hatching that is to be found, not only in the wood engravings supposed to have been executed by Albert Durer, but in those of any other master. The execution of cross-hatching requires time, but very little talent; and a moderately clever lad, with a steady hand and a lozenge-pointed tool, will cut in a year a _square yard_ of such cross-hatching as is generally found in the largest of the cuts supposed to have been engraved by Albert Durer. In the works of Bewick, scarcely more than one trifling instance of cross-hatching is to be found; and in the productions of all other modern wood engravers who have made their own drawings, we find cross-hatching sparingly introduced; while in almost every one of the cuts designed by Durer, Cranach, Burgmair, and others who are known to have been painters of eminence in their day, it is of frequent occurrence. Had these masters engraved their own designs on wood, as has been very generally supposed, they probably would have introduced much less cross-hatching into their subjects; but as there is every reason to believe that they only made the drawing on the wood, the engravings which are ascribed to them abound in lines which are readily made with a pen or a pencil, but which require considerable time to cut with a graver. At the period that Durer published his illustrations of the Apocalypse, few wood-cuts of much merit either in design or execution had appeared in printed books; and the wood engravers of that age seem generally to have been mere workmen, who only understood the mechanical branch of their art, but who were utterly devoid of all knowledge of composition or correct drawing; and there is also reason to believe that wood-cuts at that period, and even for some time after, were not unfrequently engraved by women.[V-5] As the names of those persons were probably not known beyond the town in which they resided, it cannot be a matter of surprise that neither their marks nor initials should be found on the cuts which they engraved from the drawings of such artists as Albert Durer.