engaged on a similar work, is recorded in every life of Irving; how greatly his courtesy was appreciated by Prescott is made evident by another Ms. in this collection, wherein Prescott refers to Irving's unselfishness, at the same time furnishing Irving with material for his "Life of Washington."

After viewing these four cases, containing for the most part Irving's journals from the years 1804-1842, we reach the fifth case, with its manuscripts and printed books, drawings by Darley, and unique proofs by Hollyer, of engravings after Darley's drawings, relating to "Knickerbocker's History of New York" and "The Sketch Book." These two works, to which Irving owes his lasting fame, have an unparalleled place in American literature and history. To the former, New York City owes its name of Father Knickerbocker; to the latter is due the debt for the legend of Rip Van Winkle. Such flavor of old times and old traditions, as that in which we who live on the banks of the Hudson still delight, emanates from the pages of these two books.

The English years provide the material shown in Case 6. Here the most important items are the original Ms. of "Oliver Goldsmith," the greatest of Irving's biographical works; and of "Bracebridge Hall," the famous book dealing with English institutions and traditions. A Ms. notebook contains miscellaneous material, the exposed page showing what are said to be unpublished verses by Lord Byron; while first editions of "Tales of a Traveller" and of "Bracebridge Hall," etc., are among the other items displayed here.

The seventh case is devoted entirely to letters written by Irving, between one hundred and fifty and two hundred in all. The most important group, as it is indeed the longest and most fascinating of Irving's correspondences, is the series to Henry Brevoort, Irving's life-long friend and intimate adviser. Fascinating also are the epistles to brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces, of whom Irving was very fond; and to a great number of distinguished men of letters who were his friends, such as Thomas Moore, Lockhart, Allan Cunningham; and to historians and diplomats.

In Case 8 are Mss. of books having to do with Irving's writings on American lands and customs. "Astoria," "Communipaw" (the first essay in "The Book of the Hudson"), "The Tour of the Prairies," "Wolfert's Roost and Other Stories," are here shown in initial or final Ms. form. These books were widely read, Irving having become a great favorite with his countrymen, who had quite forgotten the criticisms that some of their number so unjustifiably directed against Irving for having remained away from America during the greater part of his early manhood. It was now recognized that he, more than any other, had brought Europe to regard with respect that American literature which Europeans had previously neglected or despised; and the letter here shown, signed by many prominent New Yorkers (1832), inviting Irving to a dinner in his honor, together wtih newspapers of the time, recording the proceedings at this banquet, is but one of the many indications of American pride in Irving.

Writings relating to Spain occupy the ninth case. Here are Mss. notes for Irving's "Life of Mahomet and his Successors," together with presenta

tion copies given by Irving to his nieces, Julia Irving and Sarah Storrow. An original drawing by Darley, illustrating the "Life of Mahomet”; first editions of the "Life and Voyages of Columbus"; Ms. notes of American trade with Spain; and other related items are here. But most interesting to the eye is the Arabic notebook whose exposed pages reveal in picturesque script Irving's studies in the African-Arabic alphabet, the ancient Cufic-Arabic, and Arabic arithmetical cyphers.

Irving's final and most arduous enterprise as an author was the "Life of Washington," and in the tenth case, we have the original Ms. notes for this work, covering two hundred and fifty-two pages; together with various chapters of the fifth and last volume, the only part of the Ms. extant, the first four volumes having been destroyed by a fire at Putnam's. The Ms. notebook for the "Life of Washington"; a Darley drawing illustrating it; the unpublished Prescott letter referred to above; and Irving's letter to an American author, Henry T. Tuckerman, dated Sunnyside, June 8, 1859, and written only a short time before his death, also revolve around Irving's most ambitious undertaking as a biographer.

The last case contains the Grolier Club edition of George William Curtis's "Washington Irving"; memorial volumes and books of essays on Irving, with Mss. and rare prints and documents. Here also are privately printed letters from Irving, and the sermons preached in Christ Church, Tarrytown, on Irving's death, and published by request of the vestry.

The walls of the exhibition room are covered by twenty-one frames, containing 84 portraits of Irving, from early manhood to late life, reproduced from paintings and drawings by various American and European artists. Painters and engravers, magazine editors, of England and of America, of France, Germany, Italy and Spain, — all were eager to present the kindly lineaments of this lovable man, who, now that almost a century and a half has passed by since his birth, is still regarded by two continents as one of the most delightful of men of letters, and who, for the great city of New York, will remain for all time its most cherished author.

T

THE MAKING OF A MEZZOTINT

HE exhibitions - "Making of an Etching," "Making of a Lithograph,"

etc. which have already been held in the Print Gallery of the Library, have all been well attended and apparently useful. That is partly due, perhaps, to the fact that what was aimed at was not merely a dry exposition of technique. A complete description of the process was given, with the aid of printed matter, tools, plates, or any other exhibits serving the natural interest in "seeing the wheels go 'round." This was illustrated by the best procurable specimens of the art, thus emphasizing the old truth that technique is a language, and that the important thing is its application.

A similar course has been followed in arranging the exhibition "The Making of a Mezzotint," to be on view in the Print Gallery until Fall.

First, the manner of production is made clear by tools and materials — copper-plate, rocker, scraper, with descriptions and illustrations. Then, in a number of fine examples, drawn mainly from the collection bequeathed to the Library by John L. Cadwalader, the peculiar nature of mezzotint, imposed by the process by which it is made, is well and fully illustrated. An art of tones, of masses of light and shade (instead of lines, as is the case in etching or in engraving on copper and steel), mezzotint, with its soft outlines and gradations, was peculiarly adapted to the reproduction of paintings. For this it served particularly in the latter half of the eighteenth century in England, where it was inextricably bound up with the development of that brilliant group of painters including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hoppner, Romney, Lawrence and the American Gilbert Stuart. Moreover, these mezzotints can hardly be considered apart from that life and art and period of which they are the outcome. They reflect that period of British history so well that the interest of subject is an important factor in their appeal to collectors. They bring before us an imposing array of persons, a gallery of royalty, nobility, statesmen, soldiers, authors, actors, artists, with an especial grace and distinction devoted to the ladies.

In translating into black-and-white the notable achievement of this national school of portraiture, the mezzotinters developed an original energy, creative almost. As one looks over these plates by Smith, McArdell, Jones. Dean, Dickinson, Fisher, Watson, Green, Dixon, and others, the individual expression and style become apparent.

Mezzotint served also to preserve records of the genre painting of the day by George Morland and others. Not a few of these pictures of rural life and sports appeared in color. Caricature was another specialty served by the "black manner," as the French call it.

A noteworthy application of mezzotint to landscape design is found in J. M. W. Turner's monumental "Liber Studiorum," most remarkable in its range of light and shade. And Lucas offered masterly interpretations of

Constable.

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In our own day, there has been considerable revival of mezzotint, by T. G. Appleton, R. Josey (translator of Whistler), and others, and especially in color-prints, S. Arlent Edwards being prominent in that specialty. Mezzotint lacks the appeal of comparatively easy production which has made etching so pre-eminently a painter-art, a process for original work, — an appeal and quality which have indeed their drawback in leading weaker individualities to facile and inconsequential activity. But mezzotint has nevertheless been wooed by the experimental maker of original prints. By Haden, Sir Frank Short, Alphonse Legros, Pietschmann, James D. Smillie and Hubert Herkomer. They drew much from its rich resources. They availed themselves of its engaging qualities, which are its own, different from the suppleness or incisiveness of etching or lithography. Each art has its limits and possibilities, and finds its best results in the expression of its own nature. What is very briefly indicated in these notes is brought out fully in the exhibition.

TH

THE MIELATZ EXHIBITION

HE memorial exhibition by the late C. F. W. Mielatz in the Stuart Gallery (Room 316) closed on April 15. But it attracted so much attention that the half-hundred etchings by this artist which have recently come into the possession of the Library have been continued on exhibition in the same gallery.

THE

SAMUEL COLMAN'S ETCHINGS

HE Prints Division has placed on exhibition, in the Stuart Gallery (Room 316), its collection of etchings by Samuel Colman, who was identified with that interesting and influential movement of the eighteen-eighties toward original etching. A true painter-etcher, he executed his plates in strong lines and a characteristic and original style.

THE

HELEN HYDE, MAKER OF COLOR PRINTS

HE exhibition of "Recent Additions" to the print collection includes a number of color prints by the late Helen Hyde. To these have been added the prints by her which were already in possession of the Library, as well as some bibliographical material, thus forming a memorial exhibition. Miss Hyde, who lived much in Japan and chose Japanese subjects, caught much of the spirit of the native print-makers and their delicate and subdued colorharmonies, and even won a prize in competition with artists of Nippon. Yet she did not copy slavishly, and while the gesture was Japanese, the language was English.

A YEAR'S ADDITIONS TO THE PRINT COLLECTION

THE

HE annual exhibition of "Recent Additions" to the Prints Division is of the usual and natural miscellaneous character. Its very variety emphasizes the inclusiveness of such a public print collection, the varied interests which it meets.

Important groups are formed by accessions to the Avery and the Cadwalader Collections. The latter has been enriched notably by those wonderful wood-cut illustrations to the Apocalypse, by Duerer, that magnificent and impressive series, “abounding in vitality and dramatic invention," as Campbell Dodgson says. They form an effective centre around which are grouped Duerer's engraving "Adam and Eve" and the woodcuts "Virgin and the many Angels," "Martyrdom of early Christians," and "Siege of a Town." Other additions to the collection of old prints are: Leyden's "Temptation of St. Anthony," Stimmer's "End of the Jewish Kingdom," J. Van Assen's "Christ on the Cross," A. Spingler's "Creation," a chiaroscuro ("Neptune") by Goltzius, Mantegna's "Scourging of Christ," one of the "Baldini" Dante illustrations, Rembrandt's "Amsterdam" and "Dessinateur d'apres le modele," and Callot's "Tour de Nesle." A group of 17th and 18th century engravers includes Pitau, Van Schuppen, Vorsterman, Hondius, J. Smith, J. Beckett, and our own John Norman (“Battle of Bunker Hill"). A number of these are gifts from Cortlandt F. Bishop, Mrs. C. S. Fairchild, Mr. Herbert Adams, Mrs. A. S. Sullivan, and Mr. George H. Sullivan.

To the Avery collection have been added etchings by Steinlen ("Les trois compagnons"), Paul Du Pont ("Workhorses") and F. W. Benson ("The Alarm"); 22 etchings by various artists after Delacroix; two woodcuts by Ruzicka, and lithographs by Pryse, Jones and Nevinson. American etching is represented by: J. T. Arms, W. B. Closson, Paul Dougherty, Eugene Higgins, Thomas Moran, V. Pandolfi, C. A. Platt, J. Reich, W. G. Reindel, H. B. Shope, J. C. Vondrous, Emily B. Waite. American wood-engraving by W. Bobbett, Helen Hyde (17 pieces, which form a sort of memorial exhibition), J. J. Lankes, J. J. A. Murphy, F. Treidler (linoleum cut). American lithography by Bolton Brown, W. M. Hunt, Wm. Oberhardt.

One of E. D. French's elaborately fine certificate plates is here, and that famous wood-engraving in the steel-plate manner, by Wm. Harvey after B. R. Haydon, "Assassination of L. S. Dentatus." There are book-plates by C. Bragdon, A. J. Brown, G. W. Edwards, W. E. Fisher, E. H. Garrett, N. Hurd, A. N. Macdonald, Ruzicka, W. P. Schoonmaker, S. L. Smith. Other specialties include a selection from a lot of one hundred 18th-century line engravings, colored, of the kind used in the "peep-shows" of old, of interest not artistic but historical. The sporting lithograph of other days is seen in various examples by L. Maurer. Finally, Hiroshige is shown in a number of interesting color-prints.

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