I propose in this chapter to group together certain sporadic suppressions in lithography, etching, wood-engraving, and process work. They are not sufficiently important each to demand a chapter to itself, nor do they fall into any particular categories as do the “Dickens,” “Hogarth,” and “Cruikshank” plates. At the same time each has an interest of its own, and is a footprint upon the byway of art with which we are concerned. Fortunately for us the first of these cancelled illustrations is, at a time when we have but lately been celebrating the centenary of Senefelder’s great invention, lithography, of extraordinary interest, for it was one of the earliest book illustrations produced in England by this method. The {150} volume in which it appears (if we are lucky enough to possess one of the first three hundred copies issued) is the _Antiquities of Westminster_, with two hundred and forty-six engravings by J. T. Smith. The date of the volume is 1807—a fact which would at first sight seem to tell against our claim to be dealing with a pioneer English lithograph. We must, however, remember that a book of this kind took many years to produce, and that the publication of the illustrations was, in many cases, of necessity years later than their execution. Lowndes oddly refers to the lithograph as the first “_stone-plate_” ever attempted, but in this he claims for it too great a distinction. To name no others, there was, we know, as early as 1803 a portfolio containing drawings by West, Fuseli, Barry, and Stothard issued as _Specimens of Polyautography_, by which term lithography was for a few years described, which contains lithographs dated 1801 and 1802. [Illustration: “The Painted Chamber.” (From _Antiquities of Westminster_, 1807.)] The subject of the design here reproduced in facsimile is the inside of the Painted Chamber which was part of the Old Palace of Westminster. {151} The mural paintings which were discovered at the beginning of this century, after the removal of the tapestry hangings which are to be seen in the lithograph, were, it will scarcely be credited, promptly ordered by the authorities of the day to be “improved” away by a coat of whitewash because of their untidiness! And this although they were known to have been in existence since 1322, and although there were strong reasons for the belief even at that time that they were executed as early as the reign of Henry III.! Such an act of vandalism would be inconceivable were it not that we have learnt to look upon its like as so lamentably common.