It is not necessary here to enter into the mysteries of “stopping out,” and several other variations of procedure, but it is sufficient to say that variations of tone and texture _can_ be obtained; but, in fact, so far as book illustrations go, the etchings I know of are always simple, and the best of them are those by George Cruickshank. The printing of etchings is analogous to that of line engravings, and a similar ink is used. A strong press is required, the paper is damped, and the impression is in slight relief. Line engravings are always printed in the same way as a visiting card, the untouched parts are clean, and print white, but in the case of etchings more ink is usually left, so that the untouched surfaces often show grey, none of the ink having been allowed to remain upon the plate. The French call this “retroussage,” and printers can produce strange effects by its use. A bad etching can be made to look like a good one; a good etching can be made to look weak and wretched. In fact, a clever artist printer can produce a capital picture from a plate which has nothing at all on it but the ink. Etchings first appeared in English books about the end of the seventeenth century, but they are seldom signed, neither are they good. There is an etched frontispiece to Latroo’s “English Roque,” 1665, and another to “Æsop’s Fables,” published in the same year. Wenceslaus Hollar, a Bohemian who worked in London, illustrated a few English books with etchings in the seventeenth century. Soft ground etchings printed in red and black appear in Pennant’s “Account of London,” printed in 1795. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries William Blake made a few etchings for book illustrations. In the nineteenth century came Alken’s etchings of animals, usually coloured, Samuel Hewitt, Doyle, and especially the excellent work of George Cruickshank, which was very much admired by John Ruskin. [Illustration: Title-page of Grimm’s “German Popular Stories.” (_London_, 1824.) Illustrated with etchings by George Cruickshank. [_To face p._ 124.] Combined with line engraving a number of small illustrations were published in the nineteenth century. They were etched on steel, and carefully finished with small line work, with ruled skies. They are generally classed as engravings, but should, I think, rather be called etchings. Etching has not played a very important part in French books any more than it has in English. There are the amusing sketches of Callot, good work by Abraham Bosse and Sebastian Leclerc, and in quite recent times the beautiful etchings by Jules Jacquemart of works of art, in their way unsurpassed, and marvels of technical skill. I have already mentioned a few French etchers who combined that work with small line engraving, probably on steel; of these probably Choffard is best known and most highly appreciated.