They were in
pursuit of a great Chimera, which emerged over the edge of the bowl in
guise of a handle, while on the opposite side bounded the youthful
Bellerophon, his bow at full stretch against the monster. The ornaments
of the base and the edge were of rare elegance. The inside was gilded,
the metal sonorous as a bell, and weighed three hundred pounds. Its
shape was extremely harmonious.
Never had Andrea Sperelli experienced so intensely both the delight and
the anxiety of the artist who watches the blind and irreparable action
of the acid; never before had he brought so much patience to bear upon
the delicate work of the dry point. The fact was, that like Lucas of
Leyden, he was a born engraver, possessed of an admirable knowledge, or,
more properly speaking, a rare instinct as to the most minute
particularity of time and degree, which may aid in varying the efficacy
of the acid on copper. It was not only practice, industry, and
intelligence, but more especially this inborn, well-nigh infallible
instinct which warned him of the exact instant at which the corrosion
had proceeded far enough to give such and such a value to the shadows
as, in the artist's intention, the engraving required. It was just this
triumph of mind over matter, this power of infusing an aesthetic spirit
into it, as it were, this mysterious correspondence between the throb of
his pulses and the progressive gnawing of the acid that was his pride,
his torment, and his joy.
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