The Excellency of the pen and pencil exemplifying the uses of them in the most exquisite and mysterious arts of drawing, etching, engraving, limning, painting in oyl, washing of maps & pictures, also the way to cleanse any old painting, and preserve the colours : collected from the writings of the ablest masters both ancient and modern, as Albert Durer, P. Lomantius, and divers others ; furnished with divers cuts in copper, being copied from the best masters ...

To the READER.

AMong the many Operations of Mysterious Nature, the Intel∣lectual Part of Man hath no equal: Among the multifarious Productions of Man's Ʋnder∣standing, the Art of LIMNING is by none excelled; whether we consider the Grandeur of Spirit therein expressed, or the Ingenious De∣light thereby acquired. What Ray of the Great Creator's Image is more conspicuous in the Soul of Man, than that of Intense Desire to produce Crea∣tures of his own? And wherein is that Inclination so compleatly answered, as by Delineating the Work∣manship of God in Artificial Resemblances contrived and wrought by his proper Wit? Nor can any Satisfaction equal what is derived from the Per∣fection of these Designs. Are the Proportions exact? How strongly do they attract the Eye? Be the Sha∣dowings accurate? How strangely do they affect the Mind? But if the Artist hath stoln so much of Promethean Fire as to add the Excellency of Life to

well-disposed Lineaments, representing the Native Air and sprightly Gesture of the Person in vive; How unspeakably doth he gratify both?

To exercise this Faculty and comply with this Fancy in Man, is this little Tract compiled, in Five Books.

The First lays down the Primordial Rudiments of the Art of Drawing with the Pen and Pastils: In a due and orderly Method proposing the Description of Man's Body in its distinct parts, presenting sun∣dry Draughts of them in the plain Circumferential Lines, and giving Directions for the Proper Shades, as of Naked Bodies, so of Drapery; by Instructions and Copies so easy and intelligible, that the meanest Capacity need not doubt to undertake the Drawing of that Admirable Fabrick, and arrive to the Per∣fection of this Mystery in exact Symmetry, suitable Proportions, and enlivening Postures, if well perus'd and practised. For which purpose also certain Geo∣metrical Rules, Definitions, and Figures are inserted, to exemplify and adorn this Mistress of Proportion; in the Accomplishing whereof that nothing may be defective, some succinct Advertisements concerning Landskip are added in the Close.

Having premised these more plain and easy Fun∣damentals, the Second proceeds to discover the Secret and Ingenious Skill of Etching with Aqua fortis; where the most perspicuous and familiar Ground pos∣sible is described, and Prescriptions, for carrying on and perfecting that Work, no less Rational annexed. And for as much as some may perhaps take more Pleasure in, or reap more Profit from, that of Gra∣ving;

you have the Instruments most Necessary in that kind, and the Manner of Ʋsing them most Con∣venient, particularly demonstrated; Together with that abstruse Slight of transferring the Copy upon the Copper.

But because this alone may seem barely Mecha∣nick, that which suits with the most Gentile, and can not derogate from the most Honourable, is offered in the Third; where the Requisits for Limning in Water-Colours are deposed, the Gums and their Waters in few words digested, the Colours particu∣larly nominated, and the true way to prepare and compound them specified: All which are but as so many Degrees and Ingredients to approach and ac∣complish the desirable and ultimate Design of Mini∣ture; for the Practice whereof you are throughly furnished with the Choice of the meetest Light, Po∣sition, and Implements at hand, by the particular Description of Drawing a Face to the Life in ••ittle, according to its duly methodized Progress at the first, second, and third Sitting; not omitting the Orna∣ments thereunto perteining.

And to supply the Fading and Decay of these, the Fourth delivers Rules and Directions for P••inting in Oyl, answerable to that depth of Judgement required in that more durable kind of Operation; naming the proper Colours, and declaring its peculiar Ʋtensils, with accurate Instructions how to temper and diver∣sifie the former, for all Complexions and Garments, of what variety soever; and to use the later in the Artificial Painting of a Face, the only Exemplar prescribed, because it includes all the Art and Diffi∣culty of this Science.

The Fifth, and last, displays a pretty superficial Experiment; imparting what Colours and other Necessaries are best fitted for the Washing or Co∣louring of Maps and Printed Pictures: And, to help the divers Exigencies that concern this Affair, some Expedients put a Period to the whole Work.

Plainness and Brevity (which may procure Con∣tempt from the Nice or Vulgar) are sufficient to recommend this Piece to Ingenious Aspirers after any of those Excellencies therein taught; since they have done the Art and Artist Right, in rescuing both, from such obscure Intricacies and voluminous Imper∣tinencies as would discourage the one, or disparage the other: And these Muniments have so justly pre∣vented all Censure, that nothing can suggest the least Imputation of Difficulty but want of Diligence, nor any one surmise it Tedious but the Slothfull.

Farewell.