During the nineteenth century, a period of great progress in the arts and the sciences, an ancient art form slips the surly bonds of earth

Unattributed woodcut, about 1850, in the Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003672999/. Photoshopped. The lines of verse are by the botanist-poet Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin.