lines were often narrowed further by scraping down their edges, an operation that caused them to merge imperceptibly into the white paper. In this way, although the natural vigor of the woodcut suffered, an effect of space and distance was achieved. Because of the small scale this technique was difficult, especially when cross-hatching was added, and special knives as well as a phenomenal deftness were needed to work out these bits of jewelry on the plank grain of pear, cherry, box, and serviceberry wood.

Jackson’s initial impression of the state of woodcutting in France is described in the Enquiry (p. 27):

From this Account it is evident that there was little Encouragement to be hoped for in England to a Person whose Genius led him to prosecute his Studies in the ancient Manner; which obliged Mr. Jackson to go over to the Continent, and see what was used in the Parisian Printing-houses. At his arrival there he found the French Engravers on Wood working in the old Manner; no Metal Engravers, or any of the same Performance on the end of the Wood, was ever used or countenanced by the Printers or Booksellers in that City. He tells us that he thought himself a tolerable good Hand when he came to Paris, but far inferior to the Performances of Monsieurs Vincent le Seur and Jean M. Pappillon....

Jackson admits benefiting from the friendship and advice of these woodcutters, then goes on to describe their work with a ruthless frankness. Le Sueur, he

says, was a brilliant copyist of the line engravings of Sébastien Le Clerc but, because he was a line-for-line copyist, lacked skill in drawing. Papillon’s father, also a woodcutter who copied LeClerc, avoided cross-hatching, which Jackson considered an essential ingredient of the true style of black-and-white woodcutting; Papillon himself, while described as a draughtsman of the utmost accuracy, was criticized for making his work so minute that it was impossible to print clearly. Jackson says in the Enquiry (pp. 29-30):

If his Father neglected Cross Hatching, the Son affected to outstrip the le Seurs in this difficult Performance, and even the ancient Venetians, believing to have fixed a Non plus ultra in our Times to any future Attempts with Engraving on Wood.

... I saw the Almanack17 in a horrid Condition before I left Paris, the Signs of the Zodiack wore like a Blotch, notwithstanding the utmost Care and Diligence the Printer used to take up very little Ink to keep them clean. I have chosen to make mention of these two Frenchmen as the only Persons in my time keeping up to the Stile of the ancient Engraving on Wood; and as they favoured me with their Friendship and Advice during my abode in Paris, I thought in Justice to their good Nature it was proper to give some Account of their Merit!

Acknowledgment of friendship and merit in this vein, while entirely true (Papillon was minute to the point of exhibitionism, and his cuts were often not adapted to clear printing), demonstrates the lack of tact that made powerful enemies for Jackson wherever he traveled. Papillon no doubt read the Enquiry, in which he was discussed at length, and the well-known Essay, with its aggressive tone and irresponsible claims. When Papillon’s Traité came out in 1766 he took the opportunity to put the English artist in his place. Certainly his account was colored by Jackson’s writings; there is no other explanation for this display of personal bitterness in a work published 36 years after the Englishman left Paris (pp. 327-328):

J. Jackson, an Englishman who lived in Paris for a few years, might have perfected himself in wood engraving, which he had learned, as I said previously on page 323, from an English painter, if he had been willing to follow my advice. As soon as he arrived in Paris he came to me asking for work; I gave him some things to execute for a few months in order to allow him to live, for which he repaid me with ingratitude by making a duplicate of a floral ornament of my design which he offered, before delivering the block to me, to the person for whom it was to be

made. From the reproaches I received when the matter was discovered, I refused, naturally, to employ him further. Then he went the rounds of the printing houses in Paris, and was forced to offer his work ready-made and without order, almost for nothing, and many printers, profiting by his distress, supplied themselves amply with his cuts. He had acquired a certain insipid and limited taste, little above the mosaics on snuffboxes, similar to other mediocre engravers, with which he surcharged his works. His mosaics, however delicately engraved, are always lacking in effect, and show the engraver’s patience and not his talent; for the remainder of the cut has only delicate lines without tints or gradations of light and shade, and lack the contrast necessary to make a striking effect. Engravings of this sort, however deficient in this regard, are admired by printers of vulgar taste who foolishly believe that they closely resemble copper plate engraving, and that they give better impressions than those of a picturesque type having a greater variety of tints.

Jackson, having been forced by poverty to leave Paris, where he could find nothing further to do, traveled in France; then, disgusted with his art, he followed a painter to Rome, after which he went to Venice, where, I am told, he married, and then returned to England, his native country.

Whether or not Jackson was unethical he was certainly an active competitor and many printers “supplied themselves amply with his cuts.” He must have produced an enormous amount of work during his five years in Paris because John Smith, in his Printers Grammar,18 says that Jackson’s cuts were used so widely and for so many years in Paris that they replaced the fashion of using “flowers,” or typographical ornaments, and that this style did not come into vogue again until the cuts were completely worn down through use.

This statement is not entirely true, but it is probable that Jackson’s woodcuts, more broadly executed than the typical French products, outlasted all others of the 1725-30 period. They were consistently re-used, and appeared, as far as they can be traced, well into the 1780’s.19

Elsewhere in the Traité, however, Papillon has a good word for Jackson’s abilities:20

Jackson, of whom I have already spoken, also engraved in chiaroscuro; I have a little landscape by him which is very nicely done.

It was inevitable that Papillon and Jackson should clash. The Frenchman’s notion of woodcutting was influenced, as we have seen, by copper plate engraving; he wanted, by incredible minuteness of cutting, to achieve approximately the same results. This was in keeping with the delicate French rocaille tradition on which Papillon was nurtured; to him any other contemporary