JACOB, an eminent engraver, was the son of Arnold Houbraek, a native of Holland, and born on the 25th of December 1698. By whom he was instructed in engraving we are not informed, but he is supposed to have been initiated in the principles of the art by his father, and to have studied the portraits of Edelink, especially that of Lebrun, which is usually prefixed to the engravings of Gerard Audran from the battles of Alexander. For some time he worked in obscurity without obtaining either profit or fame, and he had attained the meridian of life before he engaged in the undertaking by which he is best known; a work founded on a plan of George Vertue, who proposed to give sets or classes of eminent men, though the design was afterwards adopted by others, and thus taken out of the hands of the projector. The persons who undertook and brought to a conclusion this great national work were the Knaptons, booksellers, who, encouraged by the success of Rapin's History of England, employed both Vertue and Houbraeken, but chiefly the latter. Some of Houbraeken's heads were carelessly executed, especially those of the moderns; but others display a wonderful union of softness and freedom, with good drawing and a masterly determination of the features, such as we observe in the works of Nanteuil, Edelink, and Drevet. From his solicitude to avoid the appearance of an outline, he frequently neglected the little sharpnesses of light and shadow which appear in nature, and, like the accidental semitones in music, excite a pleasing sensation in the mind, in proportion as the variation is judiciously managed. For want of attention to this essential beauty, many of his productions have a hazy appearance, and do not strike the eye with the force which might be expected from the excellence of the engraving. Houbraeken lived to a good old age, and died at Amsterdam in 1780.