per, or marks upon the ground, all sorts of forts, and other works proper for offence and defence. He should understand the art of fortification, so as to be able, not only to discover the defects of a place, but to find a remedy proper for them, as also how to make an attack upon, as well as to defend the place. Engineers are extremely necessary for these purposes: wherefore it is requisite that, besides being ingenious, they should be brave in proportion. When at a siege the engineers have narrowly surveyed the place, they are to make their report to the general, by acquainting him which part they judge the weakest, and where approaches may be made with most success. Their business is also to delineate the lines of circumvallation and contravallation, taking all the advantages of the ground; to mark out the trenches, places of arms, batteries, and lodgments, taking care that none of their works be flanked or discovered from the place. After making a faithful report to the general of what is a doing, the engineers are to demand a sufficient number of workmen and utensils, and whatever else is necessary. ENGRAFTING, or GRAFTING, in gardening. See the article GRAFTING. ENGRAILED, or INGRAILED, in heraldry, a term derived from the French, hail; and signifying a thing the hail has fallen upon and broke off the edges, leaving them ragged, or with half rounds, or semicircles, struck out of their edges. ENGRAVING. This term is at present confined to the art of excavating copper and wood, in lines, in so judicious a manner as to produce imitations of paintings and drawings when printed on paper. It is certain that engraving for the production of prints was unknown long after the practice of painting in oil had arrived to great perfection, but good prints are common from plates engraved in the fifteenth century, many of which are landscapes most laboriously, and even excellently performed by the graver, although it is well known that the instrument just mentioned cannot freely express those serrated and serpentine lines necessary for foliage and short grass intermixed with plants, since so admirably delineated in etchings. A goldsmith of Florence, named Maso Finiguerra, is said to have discovered the art; but this assertion must undoubtedly merely apply to his obtaining impressions from lines engraved originally without the least idea of such a result: were we to examine the subject closely, it might be proved, that outlines Historical engravings for the port folio and furniture seemed at one period to advance rapidly towards perfection, to which the late Alderman Boydell greatly contributed; but the death of Strange, Hall, and Woollet, have been almost fatal to the hopes of the amateur, which rest, in a great measure, upon Heath, Sharp, Bromley, and a few others, as in this particular instance we do not include those eminent foreigners who have, or do at present reside in England. Whatever deficiencies we may discover in the prosecution of the arts in this country, is fortunately not to be attributed to want of genius, or relaxation from study in the artist; the chill of apathy in the rich, who view a wretched coloured aquatint with the same or more pleasure than the most laboured production of the graver, is the baleful cause of the languishing state of historical engraving. When persons capable of affording patronage are taught discrimination, future Woollets will fascinate the best judges of engraving. We shall now proceed to explain the methods of executing different descriptions of engraving. The graver, an instrument of steel, is the primary object for engraving on copper; it is square for cutting of broad lines, and lozenge for the finest, and must be tempered to that exact state which will prevent the point from breaking or wearing by its action on the metal; to obtain this state, it is customary to heat it when too hard on the end of a red hot poker, till it assumes a straw colour, and then cool it in oil; if held too long, it will become blue, soft, and useless, till the process of tempering the steel is renewed. As it is possible a graver may be of the proper degree of solidity, except in some inconsiderable part, it would be well to rub it on the oil stone till that is ascertained. The graver is inserted in a handle of hard wood, resembling a pear with a longitudinal slice cut off, which is to enable the artist to use it as flat on the plate as his fingers and thumb will permit. In order to prepare this instrument for cutting a clear smooth line, great care must be taken in sharpening it, that the original general form should be preserved, by laying the sides flat upon the oilstone, and rubbing them so as not to round them in the least, after which the graver is to be held sloping towards the person, and rubbed thus till the point is extremely sharp; besides these precautions, it will be necessary that the point should not be exactly in a right line with the lower part of the graver, but a little higher, that it may not press too deep into the copper. In rubbing the sides of the graver, the usual manner has been to confine the right arm close to the side, placing the fore finger of the left hand on the upper side of the tool when on the stone. This instrument is used for finishing the imperfections discoverable in etchings, and exclusively in engraving writing, The scraper is a long triangular piece of steel, tapering gradually from the handle to the point; the three edges produced by this form, being sharpened on the oil-stone, are used for scraping off the roughness occasioned by the graver, and erasing erroneous lines. The burnisher is a third instrument of steel, hard, round, and highly polished, for rubbing out punctures or scratches in the copper. 'The oil-stone has been already mentioned, to those may be added the needle or dry point for etching, and making those extremely fine lines which cannot be done with the graver. Cushions made of soft leather, and filled with fine sand, hence called sand-bags, are required for the support of the plate in engraving, which, from their circular surface, permits the copper to turn with ease, and facilitates the cutting of those true curves composing the shading of most subjects. The oil rubber and charcoal are necessary for polishing the plate. Every thing depends upon the free use of the graver, therefore the utmost care must be taken to hold it properly, by preventing the interposition of the fingers between the graver and the plate, with the fore finger on the upper angle, which enables the artist to conduct it parallel with the substance engraved, thus preventing the point from entering deeply, and impeding the progress of the tool. To engrave well requires good materials, though those are nearly confined to two, the graver, and the best copper, the latter should be free from flaws, small punctures, well hammered to close the pores, and polished to such a degree as to be free from the slightest scratches, To trace the design intended for engraving accurately on the plate, it is usual to heat the latter sufficiently to melt white wax, with which it must be covered equally and thin, and suffered to cool; the drawing is then copied in outlines with a black-lead pencil on paper, which is laid with the pencilled side upon the wax, and the back rubbed gently with the burnisher, which will transfer the lead to the wax, The design must next be traced with an etching needle through the wax on the copper, when, on wiping it clean, it will exhibit all the outlines ready for the graver. The table intended for engraving on should be perfectly steady, and the sandbags placed equally firm; in cutting of curved or undulating lines, the graver must be held still, or moved, to suit the turning of the plate with the left hand, but when straight lines are intended, the plate is to be held stationary, and the graver urged forward with more or less pressure, according to the thickness of the line. Great care is necessary to carry the hand with such steadiness and skill as to prevent the end of the line from being stronger and deeper than the commencement; and sufficient space must be left between the lines to enable the artist to make those stronger, gradually, which require it. The roughness or burr occasioned by the graver must be removed by the scraper, the lines filled by the oil-rubber, and the surface of the copper cleansed, in order that the progress of the work may be ascertained. If any accident should occur by the slipping of the graver beyond the boundary required, or lines are found to be placed erroneously, they are to be effaced by the burnisher, which leaving deep indentings, those must be levelled by the scraper, rubbed with charcoal and water, and finally polished lightly with the burnisher. As the uninterrupted light of the day causes a glare upon the surface of the copper, hurtful and dazzling to the eyes, it is customary to engrave beneath the shade of silk paper, stretched on a square frame, which is placed reclining towards the room near the sill of a window. Such are the directions and means to be employed in engraving historical subjects; indeed the graver is equally necessary for the completion of imperfections in etching, to which must be added the use of the dry point in both, for making the faintest shades in the sky, architecture, drapery, water, &c. &c. Engraving of Mezzotintos differs entirely from the manner above described; this method of producing prints, which resemble drawings in Indian ink, is said by Evelyn, in his history of chalcography, to have been discovered by Prince Rupert, and was some years past a very favourite way of engraving portraits and historical subjects; of the former, the large heads by Fry are of superior excellence. The tools required for this easy and rapid mode of proceeding, are the grounding-tool, the scraper, and the burnisher; the copper plate should be prepared as if intended for the graver, and laid flat upon a table, with a piece of flannel spread under it to prevent the plate from slipping; the grounding-tool is then held perpendicularly on it, and rocked with moderate pressure backwards and forwards, till the teeth of the tool have equally and regularly marked the copper from side to side, the operation is after wards repeated from end to end, and from each corner to the opposite; but it is necessary to observe, that the tool must never be permitted to cut twice in the same place; by this means the surface is converted into a rough chaos of intersections, which, if covered with ink and printed, would present a perfectly black impression upon the paper. To transfer the design to be scraped, it is usual to rub the rough side of the plate with a rag dipped into the scrapings of black chalk, or to smoke it with burning wax taper, as in the process for etching; the back of the design is then covered with a mixture of powdered red chalk and flake white, and laid on the plate through which it is traced; particles of red, in the form of the outlines, are thus conveyed to the black chalk on the plate, which are to be secured there by the marks of a blunted point; the process must then be carried on with the scraper, by restoring the plate in the perfectly light parts of the intended print to a smooth surface, from which the gradations are preserved by scraping off more or less of the rough ground; but the burnisher is necessary to polish the extreme edges of drapery, &c., where the free touch of the brush in painting represents a brilliant spot of light. The deepest shades are sometimes etched and corroded by aqua fortis, and so blended with the mezzotinto ground added afterwards, that there is nothing offensive to the eye in the combination. Many proofs are required to ascertain whether the scraping approaches the desired effect, which is done by touching the deficient parts with white or black chalk, on one of the proofs from the original draw. ing, and then endeavouring to make the plate similar by further scraping, or re-laying the ground with a small tool made for this particular purpose, where too much of the roughness has been effaced. Engraving on Steel is confined to the cutting of punches, for the conveyance of any form a certain depth into that of any other metal, seals, and dyes, for impressing the designs of coins, medals, &c. on gold, silver, or copper, &c. The punches are engraved from models in wax made in relievo, and when completed, are tempered to that degree of solidity which will bear the violent blows without blunting the finest parts or breaking them, necessary to produce the matrix in the steel intended for striking of medals or coins, which must be heated to prevent such a disaster, and tempered |