“By my positive process the artist, whilst etching, sees his work in black upon a white ground, as distinctly as if he were drawing with a lead-pencil on white paper, instead of seeing it in copper on a black ground. The old negative process is objectionable not only because it is negative, but because the lines are brilliant, which causes them to appear more numerous than they really are.” Hamerton prepares his plate by brightening it, first with cyanide of silver, and then laying on a ground of white wax. The plate is fastened into a tray, or shallow bath, and the mordant, as the acid preparation is called, is poured over it. The etcher draws his picture while the plate lies in the mordant. The lines blacken as soon as drawn. If a second or third biting is necessary, the plate is cleaned and re-waxed. This is the mechanical part of etching. So simple it is that it seems that any one could be a successful etcher. But there is a knowledge and skill apart from the mechanical work. What is it? Haden well answers the question: “It is an innate artistic spirit, without which all the study in the world is useless. It is the cultivation of this spirit, not arduously but lovingly. It is a knowledge that is acquired by a life of devotion to what is true and beautiful; by the hourly and daily comparing of what we see in nature and the thinking of how it should be represented in art. It is the habit of constant observation of great things and small, and the experience that springs from it. It is the skill to combine and the skill to separate—to compound and to simplify—to fuse detail into mass—to subordinate definition to space, distance, light, and air. Finally, it is the acumen to perceive the near relationship that expression bears to form, and the skill to draw them—not separately, but together.” THE TWO SOWERS. By ALEXANDER ANDERSON. Death came to the earth, by his side was Spring, They came from God’s own bowers, And the earth was full of their wandering, For they both were sowing flowers. “I sow,” said Spring, “by the stream and the wood, And the village children know The gay glad time of my own sweet prime, And where my blossoms grow. “There is not a spot in the quiet wood But hath heard the sound of my feet, And the violets come from their solitude When my tears hath made them sweet.” “I sow,” said Death, “where the hamlet stands, I sow in the churchyard drear; I drop in the grave with gentle hands, My flowers from year to year. “The young and the old go into their rest, To the sleep that awaits them below; But I clasp the children unto my breast, And kiss them before I go.” “I sow,” said Spring; “but my flowers decay When the year turns weak and old, When the breath of the bleak winds wears them away, And they wither and droop in the mould.