PROOFS of Prints, were anciently a few impressions taken off in the course of an engraver's process. He proved a plate in different states, that he might ascertain how far his labours had been successful, and when they were complete. The excellence of such early impressions, worked with care, and under the artist's eye, occasioning them to be greedily sought after, and liberally paid for, it has been customary among our modern print-fellers to take off a number of them, amounting perhaps, to hundreds, from every plate of considerable value; and yet their want of rareness has by no means abated their price. On retouching a plate, it has been also usual, among the same conscientious fraternity, to cover the inscription, which was immediately added after the first proofs were obtained, with slips of paper, that a number of secondary proofs might also be created.