Wenceslaus, a celebrated engraver, born at Prague in 1607. His parents were in a genteel line of life; and he was at first designed for the study of the law. But the civil commotions which happened in his youth, ruining his family affairs, he was obliged to shift for himself; and by discovering some genius for the arts, he was placed with Marian, a very able designer and engraver of views. Being himself a man of great ingenuity, he profited hastily from the instruction of his tutor. He principally excelled in drawing geometrical and perspective views and plans of buildings, ancient and modern cities and towns; also landscapes, and every kind of natural and artificial curiosities; which he executed with a pen in a very peculiar style, excellently well adapted to the purpose. He travelled through several of the great cities of Germany; and, notwithstanding all his merit, met with so little encouragement, that he found it very difficult to support himself. The earl of Arundel being in Germany, took him under his protection, brought him to England, and recommended him to the favour of Charles I. He engraved a variety of plates from the Arundel collection, and the portrait of the earl himself on horseback. The civil wars, which happened soon after in England, ruined his fortune. He was taken prisoner, with some of the royal party, and with difficulty escaped; when he returned to Antwerp, and joined his old patron the earl of Arundel. He settled in that city for a time, and published a considerable number of plates; but his patron going to Italy soon after for the benefit of his health, Hollar fell again into difficulties, and was obliged to work for the print and bookellers of Antwerp at very low prices. At the restoration he returned into England; where, though he had sufficient employment, the prices he received for his engravings were so greatly inadequate to the labour necessarily required, that he could but barely subsist, and the plague, with the succeeding fire of London, putting for some time an effectual stop to business, his affairs were so much embarrassed, that he was never afterwards able to improve his fortune. It is said that he used to work for the bookellers at the rate of fourpence an hour, and always had an hour's grace before him. He was so very scrupulously exact, that when obliged to attend the calls of nature, or whilst talking, though with the persons for whom he was working, and about their own business, he constantly laid down the glass, to prevent the sand from running. Nevertheless, all his great industry, of which his numerous works bear ample testimony, could not procure him a sufficient maintenance. It is melancholy to add, that on the verge of his 70th year, he was attached with an execution at his lodgings in Gardener's lane, Westminster, when he desired only the liberty of dying in his bed, and that he might not be removed to any other prison than the grave, a favour which it is uncertain whether he obtained or not. He died, however, in 1677.—His works amount nearly to 24,000 prints, according to Vertue's Catalogue; and the lovers of art are always zealous to collect them. Generally speaking, they are etchings performed almost entirely with the point, and their merits are thus characterized by Mr Strutt: "They possess great spirit, with astonishing freedom and lightness, especially when we consider how highly he has finished some of them. His views of abbeys, churches, ruins, &c., with his shells, muffs, and every species of still life, are admirable; his landscapes frequently have great merit; and his distant views of towns and cities are not only executed in a very accurate, but a very pleasing manner." A somewhat colder character is given of them by Mr Gilpin in his Essay on Prints: "Hollar gives us views of particular places, which he copies with great truth, unornamented as he found them. If we are satisfied with exact representations, we have them nowhere better than in Hollar's works; but if we expect pictures, we must seek them elsewhere. Hollar was an antiquarian and a draughtsman, but seems to have been little acquainted with the principles of painting. Stiffness is his characteristic, and a painful exactness void of taste. His larger views are mere plans. In some of his smaller, at the expense of infinite pains, something of an effect is sometimes produced. But in general, we consider him as a repository of curiosities, a record of antiquated dresses, abolished ceremonies, and edifices now in ruins."