Lanzi says in 1801, a pax from the collection of the Grand Duke of Florence, supposed to have been executed by Matteo Dei, an eminent worker in niello in the early part of the 15th century, was taken to pieces to examine the workmanship. The embellishments upon its surface represented the Conversion of St. Paul, and on the niello being extracted, the engraved work was found not at all deep; and ink and paper being provided, twenty-five fine proof prints were struck from it, which were distributed among a few eminent artists and connoisseurs. One of them is now in the collection of the senator Martelli at Florence. The arts are generally to be traced to a humble origin, and in these works in niello, often discovering little taste, we recognize the cradle of that of engraving on _copper_, to which engraving on _steel_ has within the last few years succeeded. In the earliest efforts of this kind, the lines produced were comparatively rude and unmeaning, and had nothing more to recommend them than their merely representing a particular sort of markings, or slight hatchings with a pen, without any apparent degree of execution or expression. It was not long, however, before this incipient art became indebted to the elegant etchings of the great masters in painting, as well as to their drawings in pen and ink. It acquired accuracy and taste from the drawings of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, and Lionardo da Vinci, which connoisseurs of our own time have seen and admired. Some of those by Da Vinci were hatched in a square and delicate manner, with a white fluid on dark colored paper; while those of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle inclined more to the lozenge, in black or brown ink. They even carried this style of hatching with the pencil into their pictures, some of which adorn the Vatican, and into the famous cartoons, which are the glory of the picture gallery at Hampton Court; and by the persevering application of the graver, the art has been advancing to the present period. When compared with painting, it appears but of recent invention, being coeval only with the art of printing. It is for us to rejoice in the immense power that it now possesses, and to avoid the error pointed out by Lord Bacon when he said: “We are too prone to pass those ladders by which the arts are reared, and generally to reflect all the merit to the last new performer.” SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.