ON THE ART OF ENGRAVING. fo much does he breathe, in his finest It was about the year 1460, that engraving was invented. I fhall pafs over its early period, which I may have an opportunity of confidering on fome future occafion. No fooner had this art appeared, than it attracted general attention. All the great painters adopted it, with a view of multiplying their works, and of tranfmitting them with great certainty to pofterity. Albert Durer, and Andrea Mantegna, two of the greatest painters of that age, prac tifed the art of engraving, and have left us a variety of elegant compofitions. Thefe early productions of the art drew, by their novelty and excellence, the adniiration of all Italy. Raphael himfelf, that prince of painters, was particularly charmed with the works of Albert Durer; and, in return for fome prints he had received from him, fent kim a prefent of his own portrait, paint ed by himself. Marc Antonio, who, by studying Albert Durer's works, had improved the art of engraving, was among the first who carried it to Rome, when the genius of the divine Raphael prefided over the Roman fchool. Those who are converfant in the fine arts know, how much this painter encouraged engraving in Marc Antonio, his ingenious pupil. Examine that engraver's works, and you will find evident proofs of it, The Bolognese school furnishes more recent examples. Annibale and Agoftino Caracci gave the lead. Agostino, although one of the greatest painters that Italy ever produced, exercifed the art of engraving in preference to that of painting; and has thereby established to himself, and fecured to others, a reputation to the latest pofterity. Guido, Guercino, Simon Cantarini de Pefaro, the Siranis, &c. have all of them left us many elegant prints, which are fo many ftriking proofs of their having cultivated the art of engraving. To fee it ftill in a higher degree of perfection, let us examine it when the fchool of Rubens prefided in Flanders. Here we fhall find, that this great painter was no lefs intent upon cultivating this great art than that of painting; confcious that, by this means, he not only diffufed his reputation, but fecured it to fucceeding generations. Bolfwert, Pontius, Volterman, &c. were the com panions of his and of Vandyck's leifure hours. They esteemed one another they lived together as friends and equals; and, to use the words of a late ingenius writer, “ Sous leurs heureufes mains le cuivre devient or. Under their hands copper became gold." The works of thofe engravers, which are now fold at the price of pictures, are evident proofs of the honourable state of the arts in thofe days. ; What numberless examples too have not Rembrandt, Bergham, Oftade, and others of the Dutch mafters, left us of their defire to cultivate engraving? Have not the works of the former, which are now fold at the most amazing prices, tranfmitted a reputation both to himself and to his country, which time can never obliterate; the Bloem arts, arts, the Vischers, and others, were certainly ornaments to the age in which they lived. During the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth, what a number of great artists appeared in this profeffion, and did honour to France! the names of Gerard, Andran, Edelink, Poilly, &c. will be lafting ornaments to that kingdom. That magnificent prince frequently a mufed himself in this way; and fo charmed was he with the works of the ingenious Edelink, that he conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. It has been owing folely to the honourable rank given to this art, by the Royal Academy of painting at Paris, that it has been cherifhed and cultivated to fuch a degree of excellence, that, for a century past, Paris has been the depofitory of the finest productions in this way; and thefe have been the fource of incredible riches to France. Let us, in the laft place, follow this art into Great Britain. Queen Anne, whofe reign has been generally called the Auguftan age of this country, was defirous of tranfmit ting to pofterity the Cartoons of Raphael, which had been purchased byher grandfather, Charles the Firft. With this view the fent for Dorigny, the engraver, as this art was then but little cultivated in Britain. The reception he met with from the Queen is well known. She honoured him with an apartment in the royal palace of Hampton-court, vifited him from time to time, countenanced him on all occafions, and was the patronefs of his undertaking. After her death, King George the First imitated the example of Anne and, upon Dorigny's having completed his engravings, not only made him a very confiderable prefent, but conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. From the departure of this artift, who executed a work which will reflect lafting honour to Britain, the art of engraving again relapsed into its former obfcurity, till toward the middle of this century; when it was revived afresh, by the introduction of other foreigners, together with the fuccefsful endeavours of feveral ingenious natives of these kingdoms. ON THE PRIMEVAL FORM OF EUROPE. WHETHER the earth's motion have a tendency progreffively to gather the ocean about the equator, as theorifts have maintained Whether fome great convulfions of nature, breaking down the fouthern mound of the Cafpian, occafioned a vaft mafs of fea to flow fouthward, along the course of the Dejleh and the Forât, (Tigris and Euphrates,) deluging whole provinces, and forming, or deforming, with its alluvion fand, much of the plainy peninfula of Arabia, as various traditional and natural evidence confpire to prove Whether, by an unrelenting procefs, the water on this globe, is gradually metamorphofed into folid and into atmofpheric fubftance, without being reproduced with correfponding celerity; as, from experiment, is poffible, and, from obfervation, highly probable Certain it is, that the European feas, north of forty-five degrees latitude, have greatly diminished in extent. Linnæus obferves upon this fubject: "It is evident, from occular infpection, that the land increases from year to year, and that the bounds of our continent are expanded, "We fee the fea-ports of Eaft and Weft Bothnia every year decreafing, and becoming incapable of admitting veffels, by the fand and foil thrown up, which are always adding new increments to the fhore. The inhabitants of the ports are obliged to change their feats, and fometimes remove a quarter of a mile nearer to the fea; of this we have feen examples at Pithea, Lulea, and Hudwickval. On the eaftern fide of Gothland, near Hoburg, the increase Select Differtations from the Amenitates Academicæ, p. 82. of years, is diftinctly visible, being from two to three toifes annually. Near Slite and Kylle, in the fame country, are enormous ftones, which rudely reprefent temples, giants, and coloffal ftatutes in their magnitude, yet worked out of the most folid rock, by the force of the water. of the continent, for the last hundred ed from their original rock; then, vast banks of rolled pebbles and of gravel, mingled with fragments of calcareous ftone, of petrifactions, broken or changed into flint, and even of bones. A like fubverfion of the original ftrata, and efpecially of the calcareous beds, has been obferved in the environs of the lake Onega, where those mountains begin to rife which join the Laplandifh and Swedish Alps. Thefe traces of the fea may be observed in all the lands contiguous to the Gulph of Finland, where, for the most part, the lefs folid ftrata are removed from the surface of the ancient rock itself, too firm to be affected. It almost seems fufficient to dwell upon the map with an intelligent eye, in order to be convinced, that the great number of lakes between this gulf and the white fea-that the islands, rocks, and broken coafts of these regions, are effects of a deluge, which there fought an outlet ." "The two very tall mountains of Torfburgh and Hoburg, in Gothland, are formed of calcareous rock, and were marked and hollowed out by the force of the water, at the fame time that all Gothland lay immerfed in the fea, except thefe two mountains, which raised their heads out of the deep in the fame manner, and with a fimilar appearance to the Carolinian islands (Carlsoc) in their prefent state." "The inhabitants of West Bothnia have observed, by marks upon rocks, that the fea decreases every ten years, five inches and five or fix lines perpendicularly, which amounts, in an age, to about four feet and a half. According to which calculation, 6000 years ago, the fea was two hundred and feventy feet deeper than it is at prefent." Not only in the Gulf of Bothnia, but in that of Finland, is the withdrawment of the Baltic, very fenfible. Profeffor Pallas obferves: "As foon as from the marches of Ingria, which forms toward the Baltic a fort of gulf of low lands, you begin afcending the elevated foil of Ruffia, the inclination of which forms what are called the Mountains of Valdais, ancient traces of the fea occur at every ep. At first, in a foil interfected with ravines, which has visibly fuffered by an inundation of the greatest violence, or rather by the flowing-off of an enormous mafs of water afterwards, in whole calcareous beds, which can only refult from the depofits of a fea at reft, and which the fcooping of the rivers has laid bare. First, occur ftrata of depofited earth, mingled with blocks of granite, detach †A. Celfii Obf. in A&t. Acad. &c. Senciæ 1743. "The idea of the indefatigable Tournefort, and of the Count de Buffon, concerning the ancient state of the Black Sea, and of its communication with the Cafpian, is more and more confirmed by the obfervations of travellers. The phocæ, fome fifh, and fome fhells, which the Cafpian has in common with the Black Sea, render this ancient communication almost indubitable; and these very circumstances also prove, that the lake Aral was once join. ed to the Cafpian. I have traced (in the third volume of my travels) the ancient extent of this fea over the whole defert of Aftrakhan, and beyond the Jaik, by the fymptoms of coaft with which the elevated plains of Ruffia border this defert, by the flate and the foffil productions of this ancient coaft, and by the faline mud, mingled with fea-fhells, calcined, which covers the whole furface of the defert itself. In the defcription of Ukrain, by Guillaume le Vaffeur (Rouen 4to. 1660) a paffage (p. 9) afcribes the fame appearActa Acad. Prepolitanæ, for 1777, P. ances, 49. vol. I, ances, to the plains of the Boryfthenes. greater part of Poland: that the EuxChandler, in his Travels through Afia ine, the Cafpian, and the Aṛal, were Minor, thinks, that the fea formerly united with each other, and with the extended to the fources of the Meander, northern ocean, by tracts of water coand formed a gulf between the moun- vering the delerts of Altrakhan and of tains of Mefloghis and Taurus. Others Munkifhalk. EUROPE, then, origihave found recent traces of fea in the nally confifted of A CLUSTER ОБ plains of Afia Minor and of Perfia, and ISLANDS. The middle ifland will first along the Danube, very far above the have been united with the Afiatic contiactual limits of the Cafpian and the nent, with Sarmatia, by means of the Black Sea. The ancient traditions of Polish ifthmus, that being the more elethe fudden effufion of the Black Sea vated and extenfive. The northern through the Propontis, which Tourne- ifland will next have been united with it fort has fupported by his Obfervations, by means of the Scandinavian ifthmus. feem, in all refpects, more plaufible And thus the ifthmus of Aftrakhan will than the opinion which fuppofes the an- have furnished the earliest path to the cient ftrait between the Black Sea and no-made nations of Afia to extend their the Cafpian to have been dried by the migrations into Europe. accumulation of alluvion foil from the rivers." Ditto, p. 62. The In reading the ancient writers, it is convenient to keep in view this progref The writer of this fragment, in a five change of form; for Europe appears journey through Polish Pruffia, was led to have become a continent within the to remark the fame fymptoms of exten- period of recorded hiftory. The Arfive deficcation in the fandy provinces gonautics of Orpheus are compofed uwhich encompass the Delta of the pon the prefumption, that it was poffible Weichfel (Viftula) and the Niemen. to fail from the Euxine into the Baltic; From the report of an intelligent Swifs a proof that fuch a tradition was still preofficer, in the Ruffian fervice, with valent among mariners. Ptolemy fpeaks whom he travelled a while, and whofe of Scandinavia as an island. military deftinations had familiarifed him with the furface of Livonia and Lithuania, it appears no lefs probable that the moraffy low lands, bordering the Duna and the Nieper, were once the bed of a frith, uniting the Baltic and the Euxine. Penzelius (De Arte Historica, p. 78.) mentions the digging up of an anchor in Novogrod, and other proofs of a recent emergency of the region, and fuppofes the falt-mines of Wielicz to be the point of fubfidency or lateft ftation of the old fea. Various local obfervations then confpire to prove, that the Baltic once joined the White Sea by a tract of water, covering the Jakes Onega and Ladoga, and the Black Sea by a tract of water, covering the GIBBON'S THE following account is given by Mr Gibbon (in his Mifcellaneous Works lately published) of the manner VOL. LVIII. Scythian geography of Herodotus, is wholly unintelligible, unless we cover with fea a confiderable part of Poland and Ruffia: yet thefe countries had, in his time, already acquired the rudiments of their prefent form. And may we not fuppofe the tradition of an At lantic inland which had disappeared, to have preferved the original name of Europe in its infular ftate? Upon the whole, the teftimony, though not the opinion, of ancient geographers *, appears more favourable to the doctrine of a progreffive deficcation of the fea in all quarters, than to that of local or fudden removals of the waters, by great convullions of nature. * Strabo, vol. 1. p. 49. 50. HISTORY. in which his celebrated Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was planned and written: 4 F Ir IT was at Rome (fays he) on the which I purchafed, the Theodocian 15th of October 1764, as I fat mufing Code, with the Commentary of James amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while Gonefroy, must be gratefully rememthe bare-footed fryars were finging vef- bered. I used it (and much I used it) pers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the as a work of history, rather than of idea of writing the decline and fall of jurifprudence; but in every light it may the city first started to my mind. But be confidered as a full and capacious remy original plan was circumfcribed to pofitory of the political state of the Emthe decay of the city rather than of the pire in the fourth and fifth centuries. empire: and, though my reading and As I believed, and as I still believe, reflections began to point towards that that the propogation of the Gofpel, and object, fome years elapfed, and feveral the triumph of the church, are infepaavocations intervened, before I was fe- rably connected with the decline of the rioufly engaged in the execution of that Roman monarchy, I weighed the caufes laborious work, and effects of the revolution, and contrafted the narratives and apologies of the Chriftians themselves, with the glances of candour or enmity which the Pagans have caft on the rifing fects. The Jewifh and Heathen teftimonies, as they are collected and illustrated by Dr Lardner, directed, without fuperfeding, my fearch of the originals; and in an ample differtation on the miraculous darkness of the paffion, I privately drew my conclufions from the filence of an unbelieving age. I have affembled the preparatory ftudies, directly or indirectly relative to my hiftory; but, in ftrict equity, they must be fpread beyond this period of my life, over the two fummers (1771 and 1772) that elapfed between my father's death and my fettlement in London. 1 As foon as I was released from the fruitlefs task of the Swifs revolutions, (1768) I began gradually to advance from the wifh to the hope, from the hope to the defign, from the defign to the execution, of my historical work, of whose limits and extent I had as yet a very inadequate notion. The Claffics, as low as Tacitus, the younger Pliny, and Juvenal, were my old and familiar companions. I infenfibly plunged into the ocean of the Auguftan hiftory; and in the descending feries I inveftigated, with my pen almoft always in my hand, the original records, both Greek and Latin, from Dion Caffius to Ammianus Marcellinus, from the reign of Trajan to the last age of the western Cæfars. The fubfidiary rays of medals, and infcriptions of geography and chronology, No fooner was I fettled in my wwere thrown on their proper objects; house and library, (continues our auand I applied the collections of Tille-thor,) than I undertook the compofimont, whose inimitable accuracy almost tion of the first volume of my history. affumes the character of genius, to fix At the outfet all was dark and doubtand arrange within my reach the loofe ful; even the title of the work, the and scattered atoms of hiftorical infor- true æra of the Decline and Fall of the mation. Through the darkness of the Empire, the limits of the introduction, middle ages I explored my way in the the divifion of the chapters, and the orannals and antiquities of Italy, of the der of the narrative; and 1 was often learned Muratori; and diligently com tempted to caft away the labour of separed them with the parellel or tranfverfe ven years. The ftile of an author fhould lines of Sigonius and Maffei, Baronius be the image of his mind, but the choice and Pagi, till I almost grafped the ruins of and command of language is the fruit Rome in the fourteenth century, without of exercise. Many experiments were fufpecting that this final chapter muft be made before I could hit the middle attained by the labour of fix quartos tone between a dull chronicle and a and twenty years. Among the books rhetorical declamation: three times did |