Etchers, like poets, are “born, not made.” But, as also in the case of poets, natural gifts will avail little if they are not reinforced by that capacity for taking infinite pains, through which alone a man may so master his medium as to shape it readily to his artistic needs. The etched work of SEYMOUR HADEN is no chance happening. It is the fruit of close and analytical study, by a man of forceful character and scientific attainments, of the best model of style, the etchings of Rembrandt; supplemented by a familiarity with the work of his contemporaries in France, the land of clear and logical thinking; and in no art is clarity and brevity of speech more essential than in etching. From the beginning, Seymour Haden was in possession of all his powers, both in etching and in dry-point. There is no uncertainty in that which he wishes to say, no fumbling in his manner of saying it. The reticences and half-hesitations of Daubigny are not for him; there is no place for Corot’s scribbled poetry. He will give us a strong man’s interpretation of the lovely English landscape, in which he takes a pride, as in any other personal possession--God’s visible and abounding bounty to a superior people. It is “the bones of things” (his own phrase) that he wishes, above all else, to give. At his best he succeeds magnificently, but in much of his work, structurally fine though it be, it is the frame rather than the spirit that he portrays. [Illustration: SEYMOUR HADEN. CARDIGAN BRIDGE Size of the original etching, 4½ × 5⅞ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] [Illustration: SEYMOUR HADEN. BY-ROAD IN TIPPERARY Size of the original etching, 7½ × 11¼ inches] [Illustration: SEYMOUR HADEN. SUNSET IN IRELAND Size of the original dry-point, 5⅜ × 8½ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] [Illustration: SEYMOUR HADEN. SAWLEY ABBEY Size of the original etching, 10 × 14⅞ inches In the Collection of the Author] _A Water Meadow_ (incidentally, a plate which the artist himself liked) is a fine transcript of a sudden shower in the Hampshire lowlands. It is bold and painter-like, admirable from every point of view, though some may prefer _On the Test_, with its truly noble sky, etched later in the day from a somewhat different point of view. _Cardigan Bridge_ is a model of what a sketch should be, free, suggestive, spontaneous, yet full of knowledge. It is one of five similar plates, etched in a single day, August 17, 1864, a “good day” indeed, such as rarely comes to etchers or to painters! The more one sees of modern etching, the more one is inclined to value work of this order. It is so easy, so fatally easy, to make wriggles in the water and scribbles in the sky; but to suggest, by these seeming careless loops and latchets, the flow of the river, the movement of clouds, the splendor of the setting sun--_that_ indeed is another matter! Yet all this, and more, Seymour Haden has done in a magisterial manner.