The medium most particularly fostered in England is mezzotint engraving; originary from Germany, it found in the island kingdom a happy soil for its speedy growth. When Lely, Kneller, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and all that famous group of painters gave to the world their magnificent array of portraits, there existed no school of line engravers in England, no group of masterly engravers or etchers such as those of the Netherlands or of France. The field, therefore, was clear for mezzotint, and it seems as though no other process could have more adequately interpreted the achievements of the great portraitists. Their prevalent breadth of treatment, devoid of small, niggling detail, their numerous women’s portraits, with soft, rounded forms, subtle transitions of tone, sparkling accents of light and blending depths of shadow, were admirably suited to the “black art.” Hence the rise, during the eighteenth century, of a large school of mezzotint engravers, who attained great perfection in their chosen medium, progressing from prints of a sooty, black appearance to plates of clear, fine texture, like the portrait of Mrs. Carnac here reproduced, an engraving by John Raphael Smith. One is apt, quite naturally, to accord to engravings like this the credit due to the painter for his graceful composition. Quite aside, however, from matters of composition and beauty of subject, the mere charm of intense shadow and brilliant high light, with transitions of breath-like delicacy, rendered with the velvety richness peculiar to mezzotint, will readily explain the vogue and costliness of such prints. No half-tone reproduction, however good, can convey an idea of the texture of mezzotinting. An examination of good, early impressions of mezzotint portraits by such men as McArdell, Watson, Ward, Green, Reynolds, or other notables of the scraper, will prove their merits much more convincingly than words. [Illustration: MRS. CARNAC John Raphael Smith] While portraiture is the field _par excellence_ of mezzotint achievement, other possibilities of the process are evidenced by plates like the flower and fruit piece here shown, in which Richard Earlom proves himself a gifted interpreter of Huysum. The varied surfaces, the delicate bloom on the fruit, and all those little touches dear to the Dutch painter--sparkling dewdrops, insects, the velvety underside of an overturned leaf--are faithfully reproduced. We almost seem to see the actual colors of the painting, so carefully have the values been gauged. In no other process could the painting have been transcribed more pleasingly. The mention of Earlom as the engraver of a large series of landscape plates, the “Liber Veritatis,” after sketches by Claude Lorrain, leads us to J. M. W. Turner, to whom these plates suggested the well-known “Liber Studiorum,” but of this more in our review of the nineteenth century. [Illustration: FLOWER AND FRUIT PIECE Richard Earlom]