In the matter of woodcut, little need be said in this brief outline, aside from Jackson’s _chiaroscuros_, until we come to Thomas Bewick and with him to an important revival of the relief process in modified form. Bewick recognized the possibilities of the wood block, if cut across the grain, instead of plank wise as used for the old woodcut. The plank block necessitates the use of the knife; a cross-grain block of boxwood on the other hand, permits the use of that king of instruments, the graver. Wood-engraving once established by Bewick, and elaborated by his followers, rapidly spread over Europe, ultimately to reach its highest form of technical perfection in the United States. IX THE UNITED STATES In early days, the American colonies were indifferent if not inhospitable to the fine arts. Only portraiture and expressions of patriotism found a welcome, both in painting and engraving. These, with some maps, diagrams, and views, gave partial employment to a few engravers, with such additions to their number as landed from time to time from Europe for a sojourn more or less prolonged. Prominent among early arrivals was Peter Pelham, an artist of good abilities, who portrayed in mezzotint a number of New England ministers. [Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON David Edwin] Passing on to the Washington period, we find in Charles Willson Peale an American painter-engraver of merit. Such mezzotint portraits as General and Lady Washington, Lafayette, Franklin, and others easily rank among the best native productions of that period. David Edwin, an immigrant from England, brought proficiency in stipple engraving. His merits can be judged from the best of his plates, the portrait of Thomas Jefferson, appropriately simple and dignified in execution. With the advancing nineteenth century, engraving becomes plentiful in this country. Publishers require many portraits, views, subjects of all kinds, nor must we forget the important and flourishing branch of bank-note engraving. This teeming activity brings with it a commercial sameness of execution, a workmanlike, metallic sleekness, not quite absent even in the charming vignettes of John Cheney, which adorn the gift-books of the forties and fifties. A portrait of Chief Justice Marshall, engraved by Asher Brown Durand, after Inman’s painting, is shown as an illustration of good nineteenth-century work. Generally speaking, portrait engraving had fallen into a rut, suggested by the tonality of photographs, a development shared by wood-engraving. [Illustration: CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL Asher Brown Durand]