The Seine and the Loire. After Drawings by J. M.
W. Turner, R.A. (J. S. Virtue and Co.)—Rather more than fifty years ago, "Charles Heath, a publisher" (we hope that this once famous person is not conscious of the disrespect), published three volumes in three successive years, under the title of "Turner's Annual Tour." The subject was the scenery of the Seine and the Loire, Turner contributing the illustrations, and Leitch Ritchie (who, by-the-way, was something better than a "hack writer ") the letterpress. The drawings were reproduced in line-engraving by some of the most skilful artists of a day when line-engraving was -at its best. Sixty-one of these engravings—the total number was sixty-two—are included in the volume before us, Mr. Marcus B. Huish supplying an interesting introduction, in which he gives a history of the original undertaking and of the drawings, which, It should be said, remained the property of the artist. He has further added an explanatory note to each engraving. We are very -glad to have these fine specimens of an almost extinct art brought within the reach of ordinary purchasers. We cannot, on the whole, regret that photography and etching have dispossessed the costly process of the line-engraver ; but this does not prevent us from valuing these fine specimens of an art to which Turner, more perhaps than any other painter, was indebted for appreciation from the public. It is surely an eccentricity in Mr. Huish when he says that "etching owes its popularity more to the skill of the printer than the author," though it bears out a remark made the other day in the Spectator of the importance of the etcher printing his own work. If he will do this, there is no process which brings the artist into so direct a rapport with the public.
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