A technical study of British paintings from about 1700 to 1760 has established that more than half of them suffer from an unusual type of drying crackle which, largely because of its small dimensional scale, has not been properly documented. It is called microcissing. After a brief explanation of drying crackle in general, the article discusses microcissing in terms of its characteristic forms, its incidence in the work of the period, including paintings by Hogarth, and how it affects one's appreciation of the paintings.