York, of which Chancellor Livingston was president. Its success caused another effort to be made in Philadelphia, and through the indefatigable exertions of Judge Hopkinson and a few others, the Pennsylvania Academy of Design was opened in 1807. The celebrated Robert Fulton, (who painted portraits well,) aided this enterprise by loaning them his large gallery of busts and paintings, to be exhibited for the benefit of the institution. This academy led to the formation of another society, in 1810, called the Society of Artists of the United States. This was the first real school formed in this country. They proposed to unite with the Academy, but their proposition was rejected. In the autumn of 1811, both societies opened a public exhibition, but little success attended them.

In the meanwhile, the American Academy of Fine Arts progressed, and in 1808 they procured a charter from the legislature for twenty-five years. After its new organization, Chancellor Livingston was chosen president; but it was almost forgotten till 1816, when the late Governor Clinton was elected president, Colonel Trumbull vice-president, and the late Doctor Hosack and five other enterprising gentlemen were chosen directors. For three or four years it was very successful, and a good collection of casts was opened for the use of the students On the resig nation of Clinton, Colonel Trumbull was elected president, but the Academy declined on account of opposition to the schools. The rooms of this association are now in Barclay-street, where the old collection of casts still exists. Its principal revenue, we believe, is derived from itinerant exhibitions of paintings.

In 1821, an Academy of Fine Arts was estab lished in Charleston, S. C., of which Joel R. Poinsett, the present Secretary of War, was president. Several fine exhibitions were got up, but it finally declined, and the property was sold to pay its debts.

In 1825, Samuel F. B. Morse and other artists formed a Drawing Association in New York city, under the auspices of the old Academy, and for some time they made use of its casts. Disputes, however, arose, and after some fruitless attempts to maintain a union of the two societies a successful effort was made to form a new Academy, called the National Academy of Design. Mr. Morse was chosen president, which situation he still fills. The first exhibition opened over the Arcade Baths in Chambers-street, where none but the productions of living American artists were permitted to enter. They subsequently removed to Clinton-Hall, where, for the last fourteen years they have had annual exhibitions, attended with various success. They have a collection of casts, and the antique school, which is open from December till April, is generally well attended.

All of these Academies have been and are the results of individual enterprise, and it needs but the powerful aid of government, to establish a School of Arts in this country more than equal in point of usefulness to the Royal Academy of London. We need a national nursery of this kind, and we trust but few years will elapse before the cultivated taste of the people will insruct their representatives in Congress to legislate upon a subject so closely connected with the morals of society and the glory of the Republic.

HISTORY OF THE FINE ARTS

PART IV.

ENGRAVING.

CHAPTER I.

Earliest Mode of Engraving-Inscription on Dighton RockWalls of Babylon-Egyptian Hieroglyphics-Gem Engra ving-The Art among the Early Hebrews-Signet RingsEngraving among the Greeks-Early Greek Gem Engravers→ Die-sinking and Coining-Its Origin-Etruscan und Greek Coins-The Roman Mint-State of the Art during the Middle Ages--American Relics-Discovery of Copperplate Engraving Proper-Early Italian and German Engravers-Modern European Engravers-The Art in the United States.

ALTHOUGH engraving is undoubtedly the most ancient of all the arts of design, and its utility, as it is now practised, universally acknowledged, yet writers on the practice of the various arts, and the pen of the historian, have been almost silent upon this subject. When we consider, however, that engraving, such as inscriptions on rocks or pillars, and hieroglyphics, is but the incipient effort of the sculptor, it is not a matter of surprise that its antiquity has been overlooked. Indeed many decide that the gem sculpture,

seal making, and die-sinking of the ancients, do not properly belong to engraving, but rather to sculpture. From that opinion we beg leave to dissent, for it matters not to what use an art is applied, when we wish to determine its character and station. We have noticed hieroglyphics and coining under the head of sculpture, not as belonging exclusively to that art, but as specimens of the first efforts of the early generations of men in sculpture, making the graphic art the root. In this view of the case we shall notice various ancient engravings as belonging to that profession now appreciated as the great disseminator of pictures.

Engraving was doubtless the first mode adopted by man in recording useful information for the benefit of posterity; and we find that laws, consequent upon, and necessary to, the formation of the social compact, were, in earlier times, engraven upon durable materials. We read that the ten commandments promulgated by Moses, were written upon two tablets of stone; and profane history informs us that the poems of Orpheus and Hesiod were cut in lead. Josephus also tells us that the sons of Seth (a son of Adam) raised two pillars, and engraved astronomical calculations thereon. In that beautiful

poem called the Book of Job the Chaldee, which is supposed to have been written before the promulgation of the Jewish law, we find this remarkable passage: "Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!" Dr. Good's translation renders the latter clause less ambiguous, and reveals the important fact that records were at