the ex-libris series. edited by gleeson white. the decorative illustration of books. by walter crane. [illustration: g bell and sons] of the decorative illustration of books old and new by walter crane [illustration] london: george bell and sons york street, covent garden, w.c. new york: fifth avenue mdcccxcv printed at the chiswick press by charles whittingham & co. tooks court, chancery lane, london, e.c. and first published december, second edition, revised, feb. third edition, revised, jan. preface. this book had its origin in the course of three (cantor) lectures given before the society of arts in ; they have been amplified and added to, and further chapters have been written, treating of the very active period in printing and decorative book-illustration we have seen since that time, as well as some remarks and suggestions touching the general principles and conditions governing the design of book pages and ornaments. it is not nearly so complete or comprehensive as i could have wished, but there are natural limits to the bulk of a volume in the "ex-libris" series, and it has been only possible to carry on such a work in the intervals snatched from the absorbing work of designing. within its own lines, however, i hope that if not exhaustive, the book may be found fairly representative of the chief historical and contemporary types of decorative book-illustration. in the selection of the illustrations, i have endeavoured to draw the line between the purely graphic aim, on the one hand, and the ornamental aim on the other--between what i should term the art of _pictorial statement_ and the art of _decorative treatment_; though there are many cases in which they are combined, as, indeed, in all the most complete book-pictures, they should be. my purpose has been to treat of illustrations which are also book-ornaments, so that purely graphic design, as such, unrelated to the type, and the conditions of the page, does not come within my scope. as book-illustration pure and simple, however, has been treated of in this series by mr. joseph pennell, whose selection is more from the graphic than the decorative point of view, the balance may be said to be adjusted as regards contemporary art. i must offer my best thanks to mr. gleeson white, without whose most valuable help the book might never have been finished. he has allowed me to draw upon his remarkable collection of modern illustrated books for examples, and i am indebted to many artists for permission to use their illustrations, as well as to messrs. george allen, bradbury, agnew and co., j. m. dent and co., edmund evans, geddes and co., hacon and ricketts (the vale press), john lane, lawrence and bullen, sampson low and co., macmillan and co., elkin mathews, kegan paul and co., walter scott, charles scribner's sons, and virtue and co., for their courtesy in giving me, in many cases, the use of the actual blocks. to mr. william morris, who placed his beautiful collection of early printed books at my disposal, from which to choose illustrations; to mr. emery walker for help in many ways; to mr. john calvert for permission to use some of his father's illustrations; and to mr. a. w. pollard who has lent me some of his early italian examples, and has also supervised my bibliographical particulars, i desire to make my cordial acknowledgments. walter crane. kensington: _july th, _. note to third edition. a reprint of this book being called for, i take the opportunity of adding a few notes, chiefly to chapter iv., which will be found further on with the numbers of the pages to which they refer. as touching the general subject of the book one may, perhaps, be allowed to record with some satisfaction that the study of lettering, text-writing, and illumination is now seriously taken up in our craft-schools. the admirable teaching of mr. johnston of the central school of arts and crafts and the royal college of art in this connection cannot be too highly spoken of. we have had, too, admirable work, in each kind, from mr. reuter, mr. mortimer, mr. treglown, mr. alan vigers, mr. graily hewitt, and mr. a. e. r. gill; and mrs. traguair and miss kingsford are remarkable for the beauty, delicacy, and invention of their work as illuminators among the artists who are now pursuing this beautiful branch of art. so that the ancient crafts of the scribe and illuminator may be said to have again come to life, and this, taken in connection with the revival of printing as an art, is an interesting and significant fact. as recent contributions to the study of lettering we have mr. lewis f. day's recent book of alphabets, and mr. g. woolliscroft rhead's sheets for school use. i have to deplore the loss of my former helper in this book, mr. gleeson white, since the work first appeared. his extensive knowledge of, and sympathy with the modern book illustrators of the younger generation was remarkable, and as a designer himself he showed considerable skill and taste in book-decoration, chiefly in the way of covers. as a most estimable and amiable character he will always be remembered by his friends. walter crane. kensington: _june, _. contents. chapter i.--of the evolution of the illustrative and decorative impulse from the earliest times; and of the first period of decoratively illustrated books in the illuminated mss. of the middle ages. . chapter ii.--of the transition, and of the second period of decoratively illustrated books, from the invention of printing in the fifteenth century onwards. . chapter iii.--of the period of the decline of decorative feeling in book design after the sixteenth century, and of the modern revival. . chapter iv.--of recent development of decorative book illustration, and the modern revival of printing as an art. . chapter v.--of general principles in designing book ornaments and illustrations: consideration of arrangement, spacing and treatment. . index. . [illustration] list of illustrations. german school, xvth century. page "leiden christi." (bamberg, ) boccaccio, "de claris mulieribus." (ulm, ) , "buch von den sieben todsünden." (augsburg, ) "speculum humanæ vitæ." (augsburg, _cir._ ) bible. (cologne, ) terrence: "eunuchus." (ulm, ) "chronica hungariæ." (augsburg, ) "hortus sanitatis." (mainz, ) "chroneken der sassen." (mainz, ) bible. (lübeck, ) "Æsop's fables." (ulm, ) flemish and dutch schools, xvth century. "spiegel onser behoudenisse." (kuilenburg, ) "life of christ." (antwerp, ) french school, xvth century. "la mer des histoires." initial. (paris, ) "paris et vienne." (paris, _cir._ ) italian school, xvth century. "de claris mulieribus." (ferrara, ) tuppo's "Æsop." (naples, ) p. cremonese's "dante." (venice, ) "discovery of the indies." (florence, ) "fior di virtù." (florence, ) stephanus caesenas: "expositio beati hieronymi in psalterium." (venice, ) "poliphili hypnerotomachia." (venice, ) , ketham's "fasciculus medicinæ." (venice, ) pomponius mela. (venice, ) italian school, xvith century. artist unknown. bernadino corio. (milan, minuziano, ) school of bellini: "supplementum supplementi chronicarum, etc." (venice, ) "the descent of minerva": from the quatriregio. (florence, ) aulus gellius. (venice, ) quintilian. (venice, ) ottaviano dei petrucci. (fossombrone, ) ambrosius calepinus. (tosculano, ) artist unknown: portrait title: ludovico dolci, . (venice, giolito, ) german school, xvith century. albrecht dürer: "kleine passion." (nuremberg, ) , , albrecht dürer: "plutarchus chaeroneus." (nuremberg, ) albrecht dürer: "plutarchus chaeroneus." (nuremberg, ) hans holbein: "dance of death." (lyons, ) , hans holbein: title-page: gallia. (basel, _cir._ ) hans holbein: bible cuts. (lyons, ) , ambrose holbein: "neues testament." (basel, ) hans burgmair: "der weiss könig." ( - ) hans burgmair: "iornandes de rebus gothorum." (augsburg, ) hans burgmair: "pliny's natural history." (frankfort, ) hans burgmair: "meerfahrt zu viln onerkannten inseln," etc. (augsburg, ) hans baldung grün: "hortulus animæ." (strassburg, ) , , , hans wächtlin: title page. (strassburg, ) hans sebald beham: "das papstthum mit seinen gliedern." (nuremberg, ) reformation der bayrischen landrecht. (munich, ) fuchsius: "de historia stirpium." (basel, ) virgil solis: bible. (frankfort, ) johann otmar: "pomerium de tempore." (augsburg, ) french school, xvith century. oronce finé: "quadrans astrolabicus." (paris, ) modern illustration. william blake: "songs of innocence," william blake: "phillip's pastoral" edward calvert: original woodcuts: "the lady and the rooks," "the return home," "chamber idyll," "the flood," "ideal pastoral life," "the brook," - , dante gabriel rossetti: "tennyson's poems," dante gabriel rossetti: "early italian poets," albert moore: "milton's ode on the nativity," henry holiday: cover for "aglaia," randolph caldecott: headpiece to "bracebridge hall," kate greenaway: title page of "mother goose" arthur hughes: "at the back of the north wind," , arthur hughes: "mercy" ("good words for the young," ) robert bateman: "art in the house," , , , heywood sumner: peard's "stories for children," , charles keene: "a good fight." ("once a week," ) louis davis: "sleep, baby, sleep" ("english illustrated magazine," ) henry ryland: "forget not yet" ("english illustrated magazine," ) frederick sandys: "the old chartist" ("once a week," ) m. j. lawless: "dead love" ("once a week," ) walter crane: grimm's "household stories," walter crane: "princess fiorimonde," walter crane: "the sirens three," selwyn image: "scottish art review," william morris and walter crane: "the glittering plain," , , c. m. gere: "midsummer" ("english illustrated magazine," ) c. m. gere: "the birth of st. george" arthur gaskin: "hans andersen," e. h. new: "bridge street, evesham" inigo thomas: "the formal garden," , henry payne: "a book of carols," f. mason: "huon of bordeaux," gertrude, m. bradley: "the cherry festival," mary newill: porlock celia levetus: a bookplate c. s. ricketts: "hero and leander," c. s. ricketts: "daphnis and chloe," c. h. shannon: "daphnis and chloe," aubrey beardsley: "morte d'arthur," , , edmund j. sullivan: "sartor resartus," patten wilson: a pen drawing laurence housman: "the house of joy," l. fairfax muckley: "frangilla" charles robinson: "a child's garden of verse," , , j. d. batten: "the arabian nights," , r. anning bell: "a midsummer night's dream," r. anning bell: "beauty and the beast," r. spence: a pen drawing a. garth jones: "a tournament of love," william strang: "baron munchausen," , h. granville fell: "cinderella," john duncan: "apollo's schooldays" ("the evergreen," ) john duncan: "pipes of arcady" ("the evergreen," ) robert burns: "the passer-by" ("the evergreen," ) mary sargant florence: "the crystal ball," paul woodroffe: "ye second book of nursery rhymes," paul woodroffe: "ye book of nursery rhymes," m. rijsselberghe: "dietrich's almanack," walter crane: "spenser's faerie queen," , , , howard pyle: "otto of the silver hand" , will. h. bradley: covers for "the inland printer," will. h. bradley: prospectus for "bradley his book," will. h. bradley: design for "the chap book," alan wright: headpieces from "the story of my house," , the untitled tailpieces throughout this volume are from grimm's "household stories," illustrated by walter crane. (macmillan, .) appendix of half-tone blocks. i. book of kells. irish, vith century. ii., iii., iv. arundel psalter. english, xivth century. (arundel mss. b. m.) v. epistle of phillipe de comines to richard ii. french, xivth century. (royal mss. b. vi. b. m.) vi., vii. bedford hours. (mss. , b. m.) viii. romance of the rose. english, late xvth century. (hast. mss. , .) ix. choir book. siena. italian, xvth century. x., xi. hokusai. japanese, xixth century. [illustration] chapter i. of the evolution of the illustrative and decorative impulse from the earliest times; and of the first period of decoratively illustrated books in the illuminated mss. of the middle ages. my subject is a large one, and touches more intimately, perhaps, than other forms of art, both human thought and history, so that it would be extremely difficult to treat it exhaustively upon all its sides. i shall not attempt to deal with it from the historical or antiquarian points of view more than may be necessary to elucidate the artistic side, on which i propose chiefly to approach the question of design as applied to books--or, more strictly, the book page--which i shall hope to illustrate by reproductions of characteristic examples from different ages and countries. i may, at least, claim to have been occupied, in a practical sense, with the subject more or less, as part of my work, both as a decorator and illustrator of books, for the greater part of my life, and such conclusions as i have arrived at are based upon the results of personal thought and experience, if they are also naturally coloured and influenced from the same sources. all forms of art are so closely connected with life and thought, so bound up with human conditions, habits, and customs; so intimately and vividly do they reflect every phase and change of that unceasing movement--the ebb and flow of human progress amid the forces of nature we call history--that it is hardly possible even for the most careless stroller, taking any of the by-paths, not to be led insensibly to speculate on their hidden sources, and an origin perhaps common to them all. the story of man is fossilized for us, as it were, or rather preserved, with all its semblance of life and colour, in art and books. the procession of history reaching far back into the obscurity of the forgotten or inarticulate past, is reflected, with all its movement, gold and colour, in the limpid stream of design, that mirror-like, paints each passing phase for us, and illustrates each act in the drama. in the language of line and of letters, of symbol and picture, each age writes its own story and character, as page after page is turned in the book of time. here and there the continuity of the chapters is broken, a page is missing, a passage is obscure; there are breaks and fragments--heroic torsos and limbs instead of whole figures. but more and more, by patient research, labour, and comparison, the voids are being filled up, until some day perhaps there will be no chasm of conjecture in which to plunge, but the volume of art and human history will be as clear as pen and pencil can make it, and only left for a present to continue, and a future to carry to a completion which is yet never complete. [sidenote: illuminated mss.] if painting is the looking-glass of nations and periods, pictured-books may be called the hand-glass which still more intimately reflects the life of different centuries and peoples, in all their minute and homely detail and quaint domesticity, as well as their playful fancies, their dreams, and aspirations. while the temples and the tombs of ancient times tell us of the pomp and splendour and ambition of kings, and the stories of their conquests and tyrannies, the illuminated mss. of the middle ages show us, as well as these, the more intimate life of the people, their sports and their jests, their whim and fancy, their work and their play, no less than the mystic and religious and ceremonial side of that life, which was, indeed, an inseparable part of it; the whole worked in as with a kind of embroidery of the pen and brush, with the most exquisite sense of decorative beauty. [illustration: german school. xvth century. leiden christi. (bamberg, albrecht pfister, .)] mr. herbert spencer, in the course of his enunciation of the philosophy of evolution, speaks of the book and the newspaper lying on the table of the modern citizen as connected through a long descent with the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the ancient egyptians, and the picture-writing of still earlier times. we might go (who knows how much further?) back into prehistoric obscurity to find the first illustrator, pure and simple, in the hunter of the cave, who recorded the incidents of his sporting life on the bones of his victims. we know that the letters of our alphabet were once pictures, symbols, or abstract signs of entities and actions, and grew more and more abstract until they became arbitrary marks--the familiar characters that we know. letters formed into words; words increased and multiplied with ideas and their interchange; ideas and words growing more and more abstract until the point is reached when the jaded intellect would fain return again to picture-writing, and welcomes the decorator and the illustrator to relieve the desert wastes of words marshalled in interminable columns on the printed page. in a journey through a book it is pleasant to reach the oasis of a picture or an ornament, to sit awhile under the palms, to let our thoughts unburdened stray, to drink of other intellectual waters, and to see the ideas we have been pursuing, perchance, reflected in them. thus we end as we begin, with images. temples and tombs have been man's biggest books, but with the development of individual life (as well as religious ritual, and the necessity of records,) he felt the need of something more familiar, companionable, and portable, and having, in the course of time, invented the stylus, and the pen, and tried his hand upon papyrus, palm leaf, and parchment, he wrote his records or his thoughts, and pictured or symbolized them, at first upon scrolls and rolls and tablets, or, later, enshrined them in bound books, with all the beauty that the art of writing could command, enriched and emphasized with the pictorial and ornamental commentary in colours and gold. as already indicated, it is my purpose to deal with the artistic aspects of the book page, and therefore we are not now concerned with the various forms of the book itself, as such, or with the treatment of its exterior case, cover, or binding. it is the open book i wish to dwell on--the page itself as a field for the designer and illustrator--a space to be made beautiful in design. [illustration: german school. xvth century. from boccaccio, de claris mulieribus. (ulm, johann zainer, .)] [sidenote: the two great divisions.] both decorated and illustrated books may be divided broadly into two great periods: i. the ms., or period before printing. ii. the period of printed books. both illustrate, however, a long course of evolution, and contain in themselves, it might be said, a compendium--or condensation--of the history of contemporary art in its various forms of development. the first impulse in art seems to answer to the primitive imitative impulse in children--the desire to embody the familiar forms about them--to characterize them in line and colour. the salient points of an animal, for instance, being first emphasized--as in the bone scratchings of the cave men--so that children's drawings and drawings of primitive peoples present a certain family likeness, allowing for difference of environment. they are abstract, and often almost symbolic in their characterization of form, and it is not difficult to imagine how letters and written language became naturally evolved through a system of hieroglyphics, starting from the unsystemized but irrepressible tendency of the human to record his linear ideas of rhythm on the one hand, or his impressions of nature on the other. it would seem that the illustrator or picture writer came first in the order of things, and the book afterwards--like the system we have heard of under modern editors of magazines, of the picture being done first and then written up to, or down to, by the author. side by side with the evolution of letters and calligraphic art went on the evolution of the graphic power and the artistic sense, developing on the one hand towards close imitation of nature and dramatic incident, and on the other towards imaginative beauty, and systematic, organic ornament, more or less built upon a geometric basis, but ultimately bursting into a free foliation and flamboyant blossom, akin in inventive richness and variety to a growth of nature herself. the development of these two main directions of artistic energy may be followed throughout the whole world of art, constantly struggling, as it were, for the ascendancy, now one and now the other being paramount; but the history of their course, and the effect of their varying influences is particularly marked in the decoration and illustration of books. although as a rule the decorative sense was dominant throughout the illuminated books of the middle ages, the illustrator, in the form of the miniaturist, is in evidence, and in some, especially in the later mss., finally conquers, or rather absorbs, the decorator. there is a ms. in the egerton collection in the british museum (no. ), "the divina commedia" of dante, with miniatures by italian artists of the fourteenth century, which may be taken as an early instance of the ascendancy of the illustrator, the miniatures being placed somewhat abruptly on the page, and with unusually little framework or associated ornament; and although more or less decorative in the effect of their simple design, and frank and full colour, the main object of their artists was to illustrate rather than to decorate the text. [illustration: german school. xvth century. from boccaccio, de claris mulieribus. (ulm, johann zainer, .)] [sidenote: the book of kells.] the celtic genius, under the influence of christianity, and as representing the art of the early christian western civilization--exemplified in the remarkable designs in the book of kells--was, on the other hand, strictly ornamental in its manifestations, suggesting in its richness, and in the intricacy and ingenuity of its involved patterns, as well as the geometric forms of many of its units, a relation to certain characteristics of eastern as well as primitive greek art. the book of kells derives its name from the columban monastery of kells or kenlis, originally cennanas, a place of ancient importance in the county of meath, ireland, and it is supposed to have been the great gospel brought to the christian settlement by its founder, st. columba, and perhaps written by that saint, who died in the year . the original volume is in the library of trinity college, dublin. in one of the pages of this book is represented the greek monogram of christ, and the whole page is devoted to three words, christi autem generatio. it is a remarkable instance of an ornamental initial spreading over an entire page. the effect of the whole as a decoration is perhaps what might be called heavy, but it is full of marvellous detail and richness, and highly characteristic of celtic forms of ornamental design (_see_ no. , appendix). the work of the scribe, as shown in the form of the ordinary letters of the text, is very fine. they are very firm and strong in character, to balance the closely knit and firmly built ornamentation of the initial letters and other ornaments of the pages. we feel that they have a dignity, a distinction, and a character all their own. there is a page in the same book where the symbols of the evangelists are inclosed in circles, and panelled in a solid framing occupying the whole page, which suggests byzantine feeling in design. the full pages in the earlier illuminated mss. were often panelled out in four or more compartments to hold figures of saints, or emblems, and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries such panels generally had small patterned diapered backgrounds, on dark blue, red, green, or burnished gold. the anglo-saxon mss. show traces of the influence of the traditions of classic art drawn through the byzantine, or from the roman sources, which naturally affected the earliest forms of christian art as we see its relics in the catacombs. these classical traditions are especially noticeable in the treatment of the draperies clinging in linear and elliptical folds to express the limbs. in fact, it might be said that, spread westward and northward by the christian colonies, this classical tradition in figure design lingered on, until its renewal at the dawn of the renaissance itself, and the resurrection of classical art in italy, which, uniting with a new naturalism, grew to that wonderful development which has affected the art of europe ever since. the charter of foundation of newminster, at winchester, by king edgar, a.d. , written in gold, is another very splendid early example of book decoration. it has a full-page miniature of the panelled type above mentioned, and elaborate border in gold and colours by an english artist. it is in the british museum, and may be seen open in case in the king's library. [sidenote: anglo-saxon ms.] "the gospels," in latin. a ms. of the eleventh century, with initials and borders in gold and colours, by english artists, is another fine specimen of the early kind. here the titles of each gospel, boldly inscribed, are inclosed in a massively designed border, making a series of full title pages of a dignified type. [illustration: german school. xvth century. "buch von den sieben todsÜnden und den sieben tugenden." (augsburg, bÄmler, .)] as examples of illustrated books, according to the earlier mediæval ideas, we may look at twelfth and thirteenth century "herbals," wherein different plants, very full and frank in colour and formal in design, are figured strictly with a view to the ornamentation of the page. there is a very fine one, described as written in england in the thirteenth century, in the british museum. decoration and illustration are here one and the same. a magnificent specimen of book decoration of the most splendid kind is the "arundel psalter" (arundel ms. , brit. mus.), given by robert de lyle to his daughter audry, as an inscription in the volume tells us, in . here scribe, illuminator, and miniaturist are all at their best, whether one and the same or different persons. it is, moreover, english work. there is no doubt about the beauty of the designs, and the variety and richness of the decorative effect. like all the psalters, the book commences with a calendar, and full pages follow, panelled out and filled in with subjects from the life of christ. a particularly splendid full-page is that of the virgin and child under a gothic canopy, with gold diapered background. there are also very interestingly designed genealogical trees, and fine arrangements of double columned text-pages with illuminated ornament (_see_ nos. , , and , appendix). [illustration: german school. xvth century. speculum humanÆ vitÆ. (augsburg, gÜnther zainer, _circa_ .) (_size of original, - / in. × - / in._)] [sidenote: xiiith and xivth century mss.] the tenison psalter (addit. ms. ) is a specimen of english thirteenth century work. "probably executed for alphonso, son of edmund i., on his contemplated marriage with margaret daughter of florentius, count of holland, which was frustrated by the prince's death on st august, ." the full-page miniatures arranged in panels--in some instances four on a page, with alternate burnished gold and dark blue diapered backgrounds behind the figures, and in others six on a page, the miniature much smaller, and set in a larger margin of colour, alternate red and blue--are very full, solid, and rich in colour with burnished gold. the book is further interesting, as giving excellent and characteristic instances of another and very different treatment of the page (and one which appears to have been rather peculiarly english in style), in the spiny scrolls which, often springing from a large illuminated initial letter upon the field of the text, spreads upon and down the margin, or above and below, often holding in its branching curves figures and animals, which in this ms. are beautifully and finely drawn. note the one showing a lady of the time in pursuit of some deer. in the thirteenth century books the text is a solid tower or column, from which excursions can be made by the fancy and invention of the designer, up and down and above and beneath, upon the ample vellum margins; in some cases, indeed, additional devices appear to have been added by other and later hands than those of the original scribe or illuminator. there is a very remarkable apocalypse (brit. mus. mss. ; formerly belonging to the carthusian house of vau dieu between liège and aix) by french artists of the early fourteenth century, which has a series of very fine imaginative and weird designs (suggestive of orcagna), highly decorative in treatment, very full and frank in colour, and firm in outline. the designs are in oblong panels, inclosed in linear coloured borders at the head of each page, and occupying about two-thirds of it, the text being written in double columns beneath each miniature, with small illuminated initials. the backgrounds of the designs are diapered on grounds of dark green and red alternately. the imaginative force and expression conveyed by these designs--strictly formal and figurative, and controlled by the ornamental traditions of the time--is very remarkable. the illustrator and decorator are here still one. queen mary's psalter (brit. mus. ms. royal , b. vii.), again, is interesting as giving instances of a very different and lighter treatment of figure designs. we find in this ms., together with illuminations in full colours and burnished gold, a series of pale tinted illustrations in bible history drawn with a delicate pen line. the method of the illuminators and miniaturists seems always to have been to draw their figures and ornaments clearly out first with a pen before colouring. [illustration: german school. xvth century. bible, heinrich quentel. (cologne, .)] in the full-coloured miniatures the pen lines are not visible, but in this ms. they are preserved with the delicate tinted treatment. the designs i speak of are placed two on a page, occupying it entirely. they are inclosed in vermilion borders, terminated at each corner with a leaf. there is a very distinct and graceful feeling about the designs. the same hand appears to have added on the lower margins of the succeeding text pages a series of quaint figures--combats of grotesque animals, hunting, hawking, and fishing scenes, and games and sports, and, finally, biblical subjects. here, again, i think we may detect in the early illustrators a tendency to escape from the limitations of the book page, though only a tendency. a fine ornamental page combining illumination with miniature is given in the "epistle of philippe de comines to richard ii." at the end of the fourteenth century. the figures, interesting historically and as examples of costume, are relieved upon a diapered ground. the text is in double columns, with square initials, and the page is lightened by open foliation branching out upon the margin from the straight spiney border strips, which on the inner side terminate in a dragon. [sidenote: the bedford book of hours.] as a specimen of early fifteenth century work, both for illuminator, scribe, and miniaturist, it would be difficult to find a more exquisite book than the bedford hours (brit. mus. ms. add. ), dated , said to be the work of french artists, though produced in england. the kalendar, which occupies the earlier pages, is remarkable for its small and very brilliant and purely coloured miniatures set like gems in a very fine, delicate, light, open, leafy border, bright with burnished gold trefoil leaves, which are characteristic of french illuminated books of this period (_see_ nos. and , appendix). there is an elaborate full-page miniature containing the creation and fall, which breaks over the margin here and there. the thirteenth and fourteenth century miniaturists frequently allowed their designs to break over the framework of their diapered grounds or panels in an effective way, which pleasantly varied the formality of framed-in subjects upon the page, especially where a flat margin of colour between lines inclosed them; and some parts of the groups broke over the inner line while keeping within the limits of the outer one. very frequently, as in this ms., a general plan is followed throughout in the spacing of the pages, though the borders and miniatures in detail show almost endless variation. in such splendid works as this we get the complete and harmonious co-operation and union between the illustrator and the decorator. the object of each is primarily to beautify his page. the illuminator makes his borders and initial letters branch and bud, and put forth leaves and flowers spreading luxuriantly up and down the margin of his vellum pages (beautiful even as the scribe left them) like a living growth; while the miniaturist makes the letter itself the shrine of some delicate saint, or a vision of some act of mercy or martyrdom; while the careless world plays hide and seek through the labyrinthine borders, as the seasons follow each other through the kalendar, and the peasant ploughs, and sows, and reaps, and threshes out the corn, while gay knights tourney in the lists, or, with ladies in their quaint attire, follow the spotted deer through the greenwood. [sidenote: merry england.] in these beautiful liturgical books of the middle ages, as we see, the ornamental feeling developed with and combined the illustrative function, so that almost any illuminated psalter or book of hours will furnish not only lovely examples of floral decoration in borders and initials of endless fertility of invention, but also give us pictures of the life and manners of the times. in those of our own country we can realize how full of colour, quaint costume, and variety was life when england was indeed merry, in spite of family feuds and tyrannous lords and kings; before her industrial transformation and the dispossession of her people; ere boards of works and poor-law guardians took the place of her monasteries and abbeys; before her streams were fouled with sewage, and her cities blackened with coal smoke--the smoke of the burning sacrificed to commercial competition and wholesale production for profit by means of machine power and machine labour; before she became the workshop and engine-room of the world. [illustration: dutch school. xvth century. spiegel onser behoudenisse, kuilenburg. (jan veldener, .)] these books glowing with gold and colour tell of days when time was no object, and the pious artist and scribe could work quietly and lovingly to make a thing of beauty with no fear of a publisher or a printer before his eyes, or the demands of world market. in the midst of our self-congratulation on the enormous increase of our resources for the rapid and cheap production of books, and the power of the printing press, we should do well not to forget that if books of those benighted centuries of which i have been speaking were few, comparatively, they were fit, though few--they were things of beauty and joys for ever to their possessors. a prayer-book was not only a prayer-book, but a picture-book, a shrine, a little mirror of the world, a sanctuary in a garden of flowers. one can well understand their preciousness apart from their religious use, and many have seen strange eventful histories no doubt. the earl of shrewsbury lost his prayer-book (the talbot prayer-book) and his life together on the battle-field at castillon (about thirty miles from bordeaux) in . this book, as mr. quaritch states, was carried away by a breton soldier, and was only re-discovered in brittany a few years ago. [illustration: german school. xvth century. "deutsche uebersetzung des eunuchus des terentius." (ulm, dinckmut, .)] [sidenote: missals.] it has been suggested that the large coloured and illuminated initial letters in liturgical books had their origin as guides in taking up the different parts of the service; and, as i learn from mr. micklethwaite, in some of the missals, where the crucifixion is painted in an illuminated letter, a simple cross is placed below for the votary to kiss instead of the picture, as it was found in practice, when only the picture was there, the tendency was to obliterate it by the recurrence of this form of devotion. as an example of the influence of naturalism which had begun to make itself felt in art towards the end of the fifteenth century, we may cite the romance of the rose (harl. mss. ), in the british museum, which has two fine full-page miniatures with elaborate borderings, full of detail and colour, and which are also illustrative of costume (_see_ no. , appendix). the text pages show the effect of double columns with small highly-finished miniatures (occupying the width of one column) interspersed. the style of work is akin to that of the celebrated grimani breviary, now in the library of st. mark's, venice, the miniatures of which are said to have been painted by memling. they are wonderfully rich in detail, and fine in workmanship, and are quite in the manner of the flemish pictures of that period. we feel that the pictorial and illustrative power is gaining the ascendancy, and in its borders of highly wrought leaves, flowers, fruit, and insects, given in full relief with their cast shadows--wonderful as they are in themselves as pieces of work--it is evident to me, at least, that whatever graphic strength and richness of chiaroscuro is gained it is at the distinct cost of the beauty of pure decorative effect upon the page. after the delicate arabesques of the earlier time, these borders look a little heavy, and however great their pictorial or imitative merits, they fail to satisfy the conditions of a page decoration so satisfactorily. perhaps the most sumptuous examples of book decoration of this period are to be found in italy, in the celebrated choir books in the cathedral of siena. they show a rare union of imaginative form, pictorial skill, and decorative sense in the miniaturist, united with all the italian richness and grace in the treatment of early renaissance ornament, and in its adaptation to the decoration of the book page (_see_ no. , appendix). these miniatures are the work of girolamo da cremona, and liberale da verona. at least, these two are described as "the most copious and indefatigable of the artists employed on the corali." payments were made to them for the work in , and again in - , which fixes the date. [illustration: flemish school. xvth century. "life of christ." (antwerp, gheraert leeu, .) (_original, - / in. × - / in._)] [sidenote: illuminated mss.] i am not ignoring the possibility of a certain division of labour in the illuminated ms. the work of the scribe, the illuminator, and the miniaturist are distinct enough, while equally important to the result. mr. j. w. bradley, who has compiled a dictionary of miniaturists, speaking of calligrapher, illuminator, and miniaturist, says:--"each of these occupations is at times conjoined with either or both of the others," and when that is so, in giving the craftsman his title, he decides by the period of his work. for instance, from the seventh to the tenth centuries he would call him calligrapher; eleventh to fifteenth centuries, illuminator; fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, miniaturist. transcription he puts in another category as the work of the copyist scribe. but whatever division of labour there may or may not have been, there was no division in the harmony and unity of the effect. if in some cases the more purely ornamental parts, such as the floral borders and initials, were the work of one artist, the text of another, and the miniatures of another, all i can say is, that each worked together as brethren in unity, contributing to the beauty of a harmonious and organic whole; and if such division of labour can be ascertained to have been a fact, it goes to prove the importance of some co-operation in a work of art, and its magnificent possibilities. the illuminated ms. books have this great distinction and advantage in respect of harmony of text and decoration, the text of the calligrapher always harmonizing with the designs of the illuminator, it being in like manner all through the middle ages a thing of growth and development, acquiring new characteristics and undergoing processes of transformation less obvious perhaps, but not less actual, than the changes in the style and characters of the devices and inventions which accompanied it. the mere fact that every part of the work was due to the hand, that manual skill and dexterity alone has produced the whole, gives a distinction and a character to these ms. books which no press could possibly rival. the difficulty which besets the modern book decorator, illustrator, or designer of printers' ornaments, of getting type which will harmonize properly with his designs, did not exist with the mediæval illuminator, who must always have been sure of balancing his designs by a body of text not only beautiful in the form of its individual letters, but beautiful and rich in the effect of its mass on the page, which was only enhanced when the initials were relieved with colour on gold, or beautiful pen work which grew out of them like the mistletoe from the solid oak stem. the very pitch of perfection which penmanship, or the art of the calligrapher had reached in the fifteenth century, the calculated regularity and "purgation of superfluities" in the form of the letters, the squareness of their mass in the words, and approximation in length and height, seem to suggest and naturally lead up to the idea of the movable type and the printed page. before, however, turning the next page of our subject, let us take one more general and rapid glance at the ms. books from the point of view of design. [illustration: german school. xvth century. "chronica hungariÆ." (augsburg, ratdolt, .)] while examples of the two fields into which art may be said to be always more or less divided--the imitative and the inventive, or the illustrative and the decorative--are not altogether absent in the books of the middle ages, the main tendency and prevailing spirit is decidedly on the inventive and decorative side, more especially in the work of the illuminators from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and yet this inventive and decorative spirit is often allied with a dramatic and poetic feeling, as well as a sense of humour. we see how full of life is the ornament of the illuminator, how figures, birds, animals, and insects fill his arabesques, how he is often decorator, illustrator, and pictorial commentator in one. [illustration: french school. xvth century. initial from "la mer des histoires." (paris, pierre le rouge, .)] [sidenote: the beautiful page.] even apart from his enrichments, it is evident that the page was regarded by the calligrapher as a space to be decorated--that it should at least, regarded solely as a page of text, be a page of beautiful writing, the mass carefully placed upon the vellum, so as to afford convenient and ample margin, especially beneath. the page of a book, in fact, may be regarded as a flat panel which may be variously spaced out. the calligrapher, the illuminator, and the miniaturist are the architects who planned out their vellum grounds and built beautiful structures of line and colour upon them for thought and fancy to dwell in. sometimes the text is arranged in a single column, as generally in the earlier mss.; sometimes in double, as generally in the gothic and later mss., and these square and oblong panels of close text are relieved by large and small initial letters sparkling in gold and colour, inclosed in their own framework, or escaping from it in free and varied branch work and foliation upon the margin, and set with miniatures like gems, as in the bedford hours, the larger initials increasing to such proportions as to inclose a more important miniature--a subject-picture in short--a book illustration in the fullest sense, yet strictly a part of a general scheme of the ornamentation of the page. [illustration: german school. xvth century. "hortus sanitatis." (mainz, jacob meidenbach, .)] [sidenote: the miniaturists.] floral borders, which in some instances spread freely around the text and fill the margins, unconfined though not uninfluenced by rectangular lines or limits from a light and open, yet rich and delicate tracery of leaves and fanciful blossoms (as in the bedford hours); are in others framed in with firm lines (tenison psalter, p. ); and in later fifteenth century mss. with gold lines and mouldings, as the treatment of the page becomes more pictorial and solid in colour and relief. sometimes the borders form a distinct framework, inclosing the text and dividing its columns, as in "the book of hours of rené of anjou" (egerton ms. ), and the same design is sometimes repeated differently coloured. gradually the miniaturist--the picture painter--although at first almost as formally decorative as the illuminator--asserts his independence, and influences the treatment of the border, which becomes a miniature also, as in the grimani breviary, the romance of the rose, and the choir books of siena, until at last the miniature or the picture is in danger of being more thought of than the book, and we get books of framed pictures instead of pictured or decorated books. in the grimani breviary the miniature frequently occupies the whole page with a single subject-picture; or the miniature is superimposed upon a pictured border, which, strengthened by rigid architectural lines and tabernacle work, form a rich frame. [illustration: german school. xvth century. "chroneken der sassen." (mainz, schÖffer, .)] all these varieties we have been examining are, however, interesting and beautiful in their own way in their results. in considering any form of art of a period which shows active traditions, real life and movement, natural growth and development, we are fascinated by its organic quality, and though we may detect the absorption or adaptation of new elements and new influences from time to time leading to changes of style and structure of design, as well as changed temper and feeling, as long as this natural evolution continues, each variety has its own charm and its own compensations; while we may have our preferences as to which approaches most nearly to the ideal of perfect adaptability, and, therefore, of decorative beauty. in the progressive unfolding which characterizes a living style, all its stages must be interesting and possess their own significance, since all fall into their places in the great and golden record of the history of art itself. [illustration] chapter ii. of the transition, and of the second period of decoratively illustrated books, from the invention of printing in the fifteenth century onwards. we have seen to what a pitch of perfection and magnificence the decoration and illustration of books attained during the middle ages, and the splendid results to which art in the three distinct forms--calligraphy, illumination, and miniature--contributed. we have traced a gradual progression and evolution of style through the period of ms. books, both in the development of writing and ornament. we have noted how the former became more and more regular and compact in its mass on the page, and how in the latter the illustrative or pictorial size grew more and more important, until at the close of the fifteenth century we had large and elaborately drawn and naturalistic pictures framed in the initial letters, as in the choir books of siena, or occupying the whole page with a single subject, as in the grimani breviary. the tree of design, springing from small and obscure germs, sends up a strong stem, branches and buds in the favourable sun, and finally breaks into a beautiful free efflorescence and fruitage. then we mark a fresh change. the autumn comes after the summertide, winter follows autumn, till the new life, ever ready to spring from the husk of the old, puts forth its leaves, until by almost imperceptible degrees and changes, and the silent growth of new forces, the face of the world is changed for us. so it was with the change that came upon european art towards the end of the fifteenth century, the result of many causes working together; but as regards art as applied to books, the greatest of these was of course the invention and application of printing. like most great movements in art or life, it had an obscure beginning. its parentage might be sought in the woodcuts of the earlier part of the fifteenth century applied to the printing of cards. the immediate forerunners of printed books were the block books. characteristic specimens of the quaint works may be seen displayed in the king's library, british museum. the art of these block books is quite rude and primitive, and, contrasted with the highly-finished work of the illuminated ms. of the same time, might almost belong to another period. these are the first tottering steps of the infant craft; the first faint utterances, soon to grow into strong, clear, and perfect speech, to rule the world of books and men. [illustration: german school. xvth century. from the lÜbeck bible. (lÜbeck, steffen arndes, .)] [sidenote: the earliest printers.] germany had not taken any especial or distinguished part in the production of mss. remarkable for artistic beauty or original treatment; but her time was to come, and now, in the use of an artistic application of the invention of printing, and the new era of book decoration and illustration, she at once took the lead. seeing that the invention itself is ascribed to one of her own sons, it seems appropriate enough, and natural that printing should grow to quick perfection in the land of its birth; so that we find some of the earliest and greatest triumphs of the press coming from german printers, such as gutenberg, fust, and schoeffer, not to speak yet of the wonderful fertility of decorative invention, graphic force, and dramatic power of german designers, culminating in the supreme genius of albrecht dürer and hans holbein. the prosperous german towns, cologne, mainz, frankfort, strassburg, augsburg, bamberg, halberstadt, nuremberg, and ulm, all became famous in the history of printing, and each had its school of designers in black and white, its distinctive style in book-decoration and printing. italy, france, switzerland, and england, however, all had their share, and a glorious share, in the triumph of printing in its early days. the presses of venice, of florence, and of rome and naples, of paris, and of basel, and of our own william caxton, at westminster, must always be looked upon as in the van of the early progress of the art, and the richness of the decorative invention and beauty, in the case of the woodcut adornments used by the printers of venice and florence especially, gives them in the last years of the fifteenth century and the early years of the sixteenth a particular distinction. appears to be the earliest definite date that can be fixed on to mark the earliest use of printing. in that year, the mainz "indulgences" were in circulation, but the following year is more important, as to it is assigned the issue, from the press of gutenberg and fust at mainz, of the famous mazarin bible, a copy of which is in the british museum. mr. bullen says, "the copy which first attracted notice in modern times was discovered in the library of cardinal mazarin"--hence the name. it is noticeable as showing how transitional was the change in the treatment of the page. the scribe has been supplanted--the marshalled legions of printed letters have invaded his territory and driven him from his occupation; but the margin is still left for the illuminator to spread his coloured borders upon, and the initial letters wait for the touch of colour from his hand. the early printers evidently regarded their art as providing a substitute for the ms. book. they aimed at doing the work of the scribe and doing it better and more expeditiously. no idea of a new departure in effect seems to have been entertained at first, to judge from such specimens as these. [illustration: french school. xvth century. from paris et vienne. (paris, jehan treperel, c. .)] [sidenote: the mainz psalter.] another early printed book is the mainz psalter. it is printed on vellum, and comes from the press of fust and schoeffer in . it is remarkable not only as the first printed psalter and as the first book printed with a date, but also as being the first example of printing in colours. the initial letter b is the result of this method, and it affords a wonderful instance of true register. the blue of the letter fitted cleanly into the red of the surrounding ornament with a precision which puzzles our modern printers, and it is difficult to understand how such perfection could have been attained. mr. emery walker has suggested to me that the blue letter itself might have been cut out, inked, and dropped in from the back of the red block when that was in the press, and so the two colours printed together. if this could be done with sufficient precision, it would certainly account for the exactitude of the register. apart from this interesting technical question, however, the page is a very beautiful one, and the initial, with its solid shape of figured blue, inclosed in the delicate red pen-like tracery climbing up and down the margin, is a charming piece of page decoration. the original may be seen in one of the cases in the king's library, british museum. we have here an instance of the printer aiming at directly imitating and supplanting by his craft the art of the calligrapher and illuminator, and with such a beauty and perfection of workmanship as must have astonished them and given them far more reason to regard the printer as a dangerous rival than had (as it is said) the early wood engravers, who were unwilling to help the printer by their art for fear his craft would injure their own, which seems somewhat extraordinary considering how closely allied both wood engraver and printer have been ever since. the example of the mainz psalter does not seem to have been much followed, and as regards the application of colour, it was as a rule left as a matter of course to be added by the miniaturist, who evidently declined as an artist after he had got into the way of having his designs in outline provided for him ready-made by the printer; or, rather, perhaps the accomplished miniature printer, having carried his art as applied to books about as far as it would go, became absorbed as a painter of independent pictures, and the printing of books fell into inferior hands. there can be no doubt that the devices and decorations of the early printers were intended to be coloured in emulation of illuminated and miniatured mss., and were regarded, in fact, as the pen outlines of the illuminator, only complete when filled in with colours and gold. it appears to have been only by degrees that the rich and vigorous lines of the woodcut, as well as the black and white effect, became admired for their own sake--so slowly moves the world! [sidenote: german illustration.] a good idea of the general character of the development of the wood (and metal) cut in book and illustration and decoration in germany, from (leiden christi, pfister, bamberg, ) to (virgil solis' bible) , may be gained from a study of the series of reproductions given in this and the preceding chapter, in chronological order, with the names, dates, and places, as well as the particular characteristics of the style of the different designers and printers. [illustration: german school. xvth century. "das buch und leben des hochberÜhmten fabeldichters Æsopi." (ulm, .[ ])] [ ] this is the date of the copy from which the illustration is reproduced. the first edition of the book was, however, probably issued about . [sidenote: italian illustrations.] the same may be said in regard to the italian series which follows, and those from basel and paris. [illustration: italian school. xvth century. de claris mulieribus. (ferrara, .)] perhaps the most interesting examples of the use of early printing as a substitute for illumination and miniature are to be found in the books of hours which were produced at paris in the later years of the fifteenth and the early years of the sixteenth centuries ( - about) by vérard, du pré, philip pigouchet, kerver, and hardouyn. specimens of these books may be seen in the british museum, and at the art library at south kensington museum. the originals are mostly printed on vellum. [illustration: italian school. xvth century. tuppo's Æsop. (naples, .)] [sidenote: borders and ornaments.] the effect of the richly designed borders on black dotted grounds is very pleasant, but these books seem to have been intended to be illuminated and coloured. we find in some copies that the full-page printed pictures are coloured, being worked up as miniatures, and the semi-architectural borderings with renaissance mouldings and details are gilded flat, and treated as the frame of the picture. there is one which has the mark of the printer gillet hardouyn (g. h. on the shield), on the front page. in another copy ( ) this is painted and the framework gilded; the subject is nessus the centaur carrying off deianira, the wife of hercules; a sign of the tendency to revive classical mythology which had set in, in this case, in curious association with a christian service-book. it is noticeable how soon the facility for repetition by the press was taken advantage of, and a design, especially if on ornamental borderings of a page, often repeated several times throughout a book. these borderings and ornaments being generally in separate blocks as to headings, side panels, and tail-pieces, could easily be shifted and a certain variety obtained by being differently made up. here we may see commercialism creeping in. considerations of profit and economy no doubt have their effect, and mechanical invention comes in to cheapen not only labour, but artistic invention also. [illustration: italian school. xvth century. p. cremonese's "dante." (venice, november, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvth century. the discovery of the indies. (florence, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvth century. fior di virtÙ. (florence, ?)] [sidenote: the renaissance.] it took some time, however, to turn the printer into the manufacturer or tradesman pure and simple. nothing is more striking than the high artistic character of the early printed books. the invention of printing, coming as it did when the illuminated mss. had reached the period of its greatest glory and perfection, with the artistic traditions of fifteen centuries poured, as it were, into its lap, filling its founts with beautiful lettering, and guiding the pencil of its designers with a still unbroken sense of fitness and perfect adaptability; while as yet the influence of the revival of classic learning and mythology was only felt as the stirring and stimulating breath of new awakening spring--the aroma of spice-laden winds from unknown shores of romance--or as the mystery and wonder of discovery, standing on the brink of a half-disclosed new world, and fired with the thought of its possibilities-- "or like stout cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the pacific." had the discovery of printing occurred two or three centuries earlier, it would have been curious to see the results. but after all, an invention never lives until the world is ready to adopt it. it is impossible to say how many inventions are new inventions. "ask and ye shall have," or the practical application of it, is the history of civilization. necessity, the stern mother, compels her children to provide for their own physical and intellectual necessities, and in due time the hour and the man (with his invention) arrives. [illustration: italian school. xvth century. stephano caesenate peregrini inventore (s.c. p.i.). (venice, de gregoriis, .)] classical mythology and gothic mysticism and romance met together in the art and books of the early renaissance. ascetic aspiration strives with frank paganism and nature worship. the gods of ancient greece and rome seemed to awake after an enchanted sleep of ages, and reappear again unto men. italy, having hardly herself ever broken with the ancient traditions of classical art and religion, became the focus of the new light, and her independent republics, such as florence and venice, the centres of wealth, culture, refinement, and artistic invention. turkish conquest, too, had its effect on the development of the new movement by driving greek scholars and the knowledge of the classical writers of antiquity westward. these were all materials for an exceptional development of art, and, above all, of the art of the printer, and the decoration and illustration of books. the name of aldus, of venice, is famous among those of the early renaissance printers. perhaps the most remarkable book, from this or any press, for the beauty of its decorative illustration, is the _poliphili hypnerotomachia_--"the dream of poliphilus"--printed in , an allegorical romance of love in the manner of those days. the authorship of the design has been the subject of much speculation. i believe they were attributed at one time to mantegna, and they have also been ascribed to one of the bellini. the style of the designer, the quality of the outline, the simplicity yet richness of the designs, their poetic feeling, the mysticism of some, and frank paganism of others, places the series quite by themselves. the first edition is now very difficult to obtain, and might cost something like guineas. my illustrations are taken from the copy in the art library at south kensington museum, and are from negatives taken by mr. griggs, for the science and art department, who have issued a set of reproductions in photo-lithography, by him, of the whole of the woodcuts in the volume, of the original size, at the price, i believe, of _s._ _d._ here is an instance of what photographic reproduction can do for us--when originals of great works are costly or unattainable we can get reproductions for a few shillings, for all practical purposes as good for study as the originals themselves. if we cannot, in this age, produce great originals, we can at least reproduce them--perhaps the next best thing. [illustration: italian school. xvth century. poliphilus. (venice, aldus, .)] [illustration: italian school. =tertivs= xvth century. poliphilus. (venice, aldus, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvith century. alessandro minuziano. (milan, designer unknown, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvith century. school of giov. bellini. (venice, georgius de rusconibus, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvith century. the descent of minerva, from the quatriregio. (florence, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvith century. aulus gellius, printed by giov. tacuino. (venice, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvith century. quintilian. (venice, georgius de rusconibus, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvith century. ottaviano dei petrucci. (fossombrone, .)] there is a french edition of poliphilus printed at paris, by kerver, in ,[ ] which has a frontispiece designed by jean cousin. the illustrations, too, have all been redrawn, and are treated in quite a different manner from the venetian originals--but they have a character of their own, though of a later, florid, and more self-conscious type, as might be expected from paris in the latter half of the sixteenth century. the initial letters of a series of chapters in the book spell, if read consecutively, francisco columna (f.r.a.n.c.i.s.c.o. c.o.l.v.m.n.a.)--the name of the writer of the romance. [ ] the first french edition is dated . whether such designs as these were intended to be coloured is doubtful. they are very satisfactory as they are in outline, and want nothing else. the book may be considered as an illustrated one, drawings of monuments, fountains, standards, emblems, and devices are placed here and there in the text, but they are so charmingly designed and drawn that the effect is decorative, and being in open line the mechanical conditions are perfectly fulfilled of surface printing with the type. [sidenote: caxton.] after the beautiful productions of the german, italian (of which some reproductions are given here), and french printers, our own william caxton's first books seem rather rough, though not without character, and, at any rate, picturesqueness, if they cannot be quoted as very accomplished examples of the printer's art. the first book printed in england is said to be caxton's "dictes and sayings of the philosophers," printed by him at westminster in . a noticeable characteristic of the early printed books is the development of the title page. whereas the mss. generally did without one, with the advent of printing the title page became more and more important, and even if there were no other illustrations or ornaments in a book, there was often a woodcut title. such examples as some here given convey a good idea of what charming decorative feeling these title page designs sometimes displayed, and those greatest of designers and book decorators and illustrators, albrecht dürer and hans holbein, showed their power and decorative skill, and sense of the resources of the woodcut, in the designs made by them for various title pages. the noble designs of the master craftsman of nuremberg, albrecht dürer, are well known. his extraordinary vigour of drawing, and sense of its resources as applied to the woodcut, made him a great force in the decoration and illustration of books, and many are the splendid designs from his hand. three designs from the fine series of the little passion and two of his title pages are given, which show him on the strictly decorative side. the title dated may be compared with that of oronce finé (paris, ). there appears to have been a return to this convoluted knotted kind of ornament at this period. it appears in italian mss. earlier, and may have been derived from byzantine sources. [illustration: german school. xvith century. albrecht dÜrer, "kleine passion." (nuremberg, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. albrecht dÜrer, "kleine passion." (nuremberg, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. albrecht dÜrer, "kleine passion." (nuremberg, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. albrecht dÜrer. (nuremberg, heinrich steyner, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. designed by albrecht dÜrer. (nuremberg, .)] [sidenote: hans holbein.] there is a fine title page designed by holbein, printed by petri, at basle, in . it was originally designed and used for an edition of the new testament, printed by the same adam petri in . at the four corners are the symbols of the evangelists; the arms of the city of basle are in the centre of the upper border, and the printer's device occupies a corresponding space below. figures of ss. peter and paul are in the niches at each side. but the work always most associated with the name of holbein is the remarkable little book containing the series of designs known as the "dance of death," the first edition of which was printed at lyons in . the two designs here given are printed from the blocks cut by bonner and byfield ( ). these cuts are only about - / by inches, and yet an extraordinary amount of invention, graphic power, dramatic and tragic force, and grim and satiric humour, is compressed into them. they stand quite alone in the history of art, and give a wonderfully interesting and complete series of illustrations of the life of the sixteenth century. holbein is supposed to have painted this "dance of death" in the palace of henry viii., erected by cardinal wolsey at whitehall, life size; but this was destroyed in the fire which consumed nearly the whole of that palace in . [illustration: ger. school. xvith cent. holbein. "dance of death." the nun. (lyons, .)] the bible cuts of hans holbein are also a very fine series, and remarkable for their breadth and simplicity of line, as well as decorative effect on the page. [illustration: ger. school. xvith cent. holbein, "dance of death." the ploughman. (lyons, .)] it is interesting to note that holbein's father and grandfather both practised engraving and painting at augsburg, while his brother ambrose was also a fertile book illustrator. hans holbein the elder married a daughter of the elder burgmair, father of the famous hans burgmair, examples of whose fine and vigorous style of drawing are given. [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans holbein. (basel, adam petri, _circa_ .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans holbein. hist. vet. test. iconibus illustrata.] [sidenote: the german masters.] [sidenote: the german tradition.] albrecht dürer and holbein, indeed, seem to express and to sum up all the vigour and power of design of that very vigorous and fruitful time of the german renaissance. they had able contemporaries, of course, among whom are distinguished, lucas cranach (the elder) born , and hans burgmair, already named, who was associated with dürer in the work of the celebrated series of woodcuts, "the triumphs of maximilian;" one of the fine series of "der weiss könig," a noble title page, and a vigorous drawing of peasants at work in a field, here represent him. other notable designers were hans sebald beham, hans baldung grün, hans wächtlin, jost amman, and others, who carried on the german style or tradition in design to the end of the sixteenth century. this tradition of convention was technically really the mode of expression best fitted to the conditions of the woodcut and the press, under which were evolved the vigorous pen line characteristic of the german masters. it was a living condition in which each could work freely, bringing in his own fresh observation and individual feeling, while remaining in collective harmony. [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans holbein. bible.] [illustration: german school. xvith century. ambrose holbein. "das gantze neue testament," etc. (basel, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans burgmair. "der weiss kÖnig" ( - ).] [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans burgmair. (augsburg, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans burgmair. "historia mundi naturalis," pliny. (frankfort, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans burgmair. "die meerfahrt zu viln onerkannten inseln und kunigreichen." (augsburg, .)] [sidenote: printers' marks] [sidenote: emblem books.] the various marks adopted by the printers themselves are often decorative devices of great interest and beauty. the french printers, gillett hardouyn and thielman kerver, for instance, had charming devices with which they generally occupied the front page of their books of hours. others were pictorial puns and embodied the name of the printer under some figure, such as that of petri of basle, who adopted a device of a stone, which the flames and the hammer stroke failed to destroy; or the mark of philip le noir--a black shield with a negro crest and supporter; or the palm tree of palma isingrin. others were purely emblematic and heraldic, such as the dolphin twined round the anchor, of aldus, with the motto "_propera tarde_"--"hasten slowly." this, and another device of a crab holding a butterfly by its wings, with the same signification, are both borrowed from the favourite devices of two of the early emperors of rome--augustus and titus. this symbolic, emblematic, allegorizing tendency which had been more or less characteristic of both art and literature, in various degrees, from the most ancient times, became more systematically cultivated, and collections of emblems began to appear in book form in the sixteenth century. the earliest being that of alciati, the first edition of whose book appeared in , edition after edition following each other from various printers and places from that date to , with ever-increasing additions, and being translated into french, german, and italian. mr. henry green, the author of "shakespeare and the emblem writers" (written to prove shakespeare's acquaintance with the emblem books, and constant allusions to emblems), said of alciati's book that "it established, if it did not introduce, a new style for emblem literature--the classical, in the place of the simply grotesque and humorous, or of the heraldic and mystic." [illustration: hans baldung grÜn. "hortulus animÆ." (strassburg, martin flach, .)] [illustration: hans baldung grÜn. "hortulus animÆ." (strassburg, martin flach, .)] [illustration: hans baldung grÜn. "hortulus animÆ." (strassburg, martin flach, .)] [illustration: hans baldung grÜn. "hortulus animÆ." (strassburg, martin flach, .)] there is an edition of alciati printed at lyons (bonhomme), , a reprint of which was published by the holbein society in . the figure designs and the square woodcut subjects are supposed to be the work of solomon bernard--called the little bernard--born at lyons in . these are surrounded by elaborate and rather heavy decorative borders, in the style of the later renaissance, by another hand, some of them bearing the monogram p.v., which has been explained to mean either pierino del vaga, the painter (a pupil of raphael's), or petro de vingles, a printer of lyons. [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans wÄchtlin. (strassburg, mathias schÜrer, .)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. hans sebald beham. "das papstthum mit seinen gliedern." (nuremberg, hans wandereisen, .)] these borders, as we learn from a preface to one of the editions ("ad lectorem"--roville's latin text of the emblems), were intended as patterns for various craftsmen. "for i say this is their use, that as often as any one may wish to assign fulness to empty things, ornament to base things, speech to dumb things, and reason to senseless things, he may, from a little book of emblems, as from an excellently well-prepared hand-book, have what he may be able to impress on the walls of houses, on windows of glass, on tapestry, on hangings, on tablets, vases, ensigns, seals, garments, the table, the couch, the arms, the sword, and lastly, furniture of every kind." [sidenote: emblems.] an emblem has been defined ("cotgrave's dictionary," art. "emblema") as "a picture and short posie, expressing some particular conceit;" and by francis quarles as "but a silent parable;" and bacon, in his "advancement of learning," says:--"embleme deduceth conceptions intellectuall to images sensible, and that which is sensible more fully strikes the memory, and is more easily imprinted than that which is intellectual." [sidenote: the copper-plate.] all was fish that fell into the net of the emblem writer or deviser; hieroglyphic, heraldry, fable, mythology, the ancient egyptians, homer, ancient greece and rome, christianity, or pagan philosophy, all in their turn served "to point a moral and adorn a tale." as to the artistic quality of the designs which are found in these books, they are of very various quality, those of the earlier sixteenth century with woodcuts being naturally the best and most vigorous, corresponding in character to the qualities of the contemporary design. holbein's "dance of death," or rather "images and storied aspects of death," its true title, might be called an emblem book, but very few can approach it in artistic quality. some of the devices in early editions of the emblem books of giovio, witney, and even the much later quarles have a certain quaintness; but though such books necessarily depended on their illustrations, the moral and philosophic, or epigrammatic burden proved in the end more than the design could carry, when the impulse which characterized the early renaissance had declined, and design, as applied to books, became smothered with classical affectation and pomposity, and the clear and vigorous woodcut was supplanted by the doubtful advantage of the copper-plate. the introduction of the use of the copper-plate marks a new era in book illustration, but as regards their decoration, one of distinct decline. while the surface-printed block, whether woodcut or metal engraving (by which method many of the early book illustrations were rendered) accorded well with the conditions of the letter-press printing, as they were set up with the type and printed by the same pressure in the same press. with copper-plate quite other conditions came in, as the paper has to be pressed into the etched or engraved lines of the plate, instead of being impressed by the lines in relief of the wood or the metal. thus, with the use of copper-plate illustrations in printed books, that mechanical relation which exists between a surface-printed block and the letter-press was at once broken, as a different method of printing had to be used. the apparent, but often specious, refinement of the copper-plate did not necessarily mean extra power or refinement of draughtsmanship or design, but merely thinner lines, and these were often attained at the cost of richness and vigour, as well as decorative effect. [illustration: german school. xvith century. reformation der ba[:y]rischen landrecht. (munich, .)] the first book illustrated with copper-plate engravings, however, bears an early date-- . ["el monte sancto di dio." niccolo di lorenzo, florence]. in this case it was reserved for the full page pictures. the method does not seem to have commended itself much to the book designers, and did not come into general use until the end of the sixteenth century, with the decline of design. the encyclopædic books of this period--the curious compendiums of the knowledge of those days--were full of entertaining woodcuts, diagrams, and devices, and the various treatises on grammar, arithmetic, geometry, physiology, anatomy, astronomy, geography, were made attractive by them, each section preceded perhaps by an allegorical figure of the art or science discoursed of in the costume of a grand dame of the period. the herbals and treatises on animals were often filled with fine floral designs and vigorous, if sometimes half-mythical, representations of animals. [sidenote: fuchsius.] [sidenote: herbals.] there are fine examples of plant drawing in a beautiful herbal ("fuchsius: de historia stirpium"; basle, isingrin, ). they are not only faithful and characteristic as drawings of the plants themselves, but are beautiful as decorative designs, being drawn in a fine free style, and with a delicate sense of line, and well thrown upon the page. at the beginning of the book is a woodcut portrait of the author, leonard fuchs--possibly the fuchsia may have been named after him--and at the end is another woodcut giving the portrait of the artist, the designer of the flowers, and the draughtsman on wood and the formschneider, or engraver on wood, beneath, who appears to be fully conscious of his own importance. the first two are busy at work, and it will be noticed the artist is drawing from the flower itself with the point of a brush, the brush being fixed in a quill in the manner of our water-colour brushes. the draughtsman holds the design or paper while he copies it upon the block. the portraits are vigorously drawn in a style suggestive of hans burgmair. good examples of plant drawing which is united with design are also to be found in matthiolus (venice, ), and in a kreuterbuch (strasburg, ), and in gerard's herbal, of which there are several editions. as examples of design in animals, there are some vigorous woodcuts in a "history of quadrupeds," by conrad gesner, printed by froschover, of zurich, in . the porcupine is as like a porcupine as need be, and there can be no mistake about his quills. the drawings of birds are excellent, and one of a crane (as i ought, perhaps, more particularly to know) is very characteristic. [illustration: italian school. xvith century. (tosculano, alex. paganini, .) (_comp. dürer's title page, nuremberg, ._)] [illustration: german school. xvith century. "fuchsius: de historia stirpium." (basle, isingrin, .)] [sidenote: the new spirit.] but we have passed the rubicon--the middle of the sixteenth century. ripening so rapidly, and blossoming into such excellence and perfection as did the art of the printer, and design as applied to the printed page, through the woodcut and the press, their artistic character and beauty was somewhat short-lived. up to about this date ( was the date of our last example), as we have seen, to judge only from the comparatively few specimens given here, what beautiful books were printed, remarkable both for their decorative and illustrative value, and often uniting these two functions in perfect harmony; but after the middle of the sixteenth century both vigour and beauty in design generally may be said to have declined. whether the world had begun to be interested in other things--and we know the great discovery of columbus had made it practically larger--whether discovery, conquest, and commerce more and more filled the view of foremost spirits, and art was only valued as it illustrated or contributed to the knowledge of or furtherance of these; whether the reformation or the spirit of protestantism, turning men's minds from outward to inward things, and in its revolt against the half paganized catholic church--involving a certain ascetic scorn and contempt for any form of art which did not serve a direct moral purpose, and which appealed to the senses rather than to the emotions or the intellect--practically discouraged it altogether. whether that new impulse given to the imagination by the influence of the revival of classical learning, poetry, and antique art, had become jaded, and, while breaking with the traditions and spirit of gothic or mediæval art, began to put on the fetters of authority and pedantry, and so, gradually overlaid by the forms and cerements of a dead style, lost its vigour and vitality--whether due to one or all of these causes, certain it is that the lamp of design began to fail, and, compared with its earlier radiance, shed but a doubtful flicker upon the page through the succeeding centuries. chapter iii. of the period of the decline of decorative feeling in book design after the sixteenth century, and of the modern revival. as i indicated at the outset of the first chapter, my purpose is not to give a complete historical account of the decoration and illustration of books, but rather to dwell on the artistic treatment of the page from my own point of view as a designer. so far, however, the illustrations i have given, while serving their purpose, also furnished a fair idea of the development of style and variation of treatment of both the ms. and printed book under different influences, from the sixth to the close of the sixteenth century, but now i shall have to put on a pair of seven-league boots, and make some tremendous skips. we have seen how, at the period of the early renaissance, two streams met, as it were, and mingled, with very beautiful results. the freedom, the romance, the naturalism of the later gothic, with the newly awakened classical feeling, with its grace of line and mythological lore. the rich and delicate arabesques in which italian designers delighted, and which so frequently decorated, as we have seen, the borders of the early printer, owe also something to oriental influence, as indeed their name indicates. the decorative beauty of these early renaissance books were really, therefore, the outcome of a very remarkable fusion of ideas and styles. printing, as an art, and book decoration attained a perfection it has not since reached. the genius of the greatest designers of the time was associated with the new invention, and expressed itself with unparalleled vigour in the woodcut; while the type-founder, being still under the influence of a fine traditional style in handwriting, was in perfect harmony with the book decorator or illustrator. even geometric diagrams were given without destroying the unity of the page, as may be seen in early editions of euclid, and we have seen what faithful and characteristic work was done in illustrations of plants and animals, without loss of designing power and ornamental sense. [sidenote: the classical influence.] this happy equilibrium of artistic quality and practical adaptation after the middle of the sixteenth century began to decline. there were designers, like oronce finé and geoffroy tory, at paris, who did much to preserve the traditions in book ornament of the early italian printers, while adding a touch of grace and fancy of their own, but for the most part the taste of book designers ran to seed after this period. the classical influence, which had been only felt as one among other influences, became more and more paramount over the designer, triumphing over the naturalistic feeling, and over the gothic and eastern ornamental feeling; so that it might be said that, whereas mediæval designers sought after colour and decorative beauty, renaissance designers were influenced by considerations of line, form, and relief. this may have been due in a great measure to the fact that the influence of the antique and classical art was a sculpturesque influence, mainly gathered from statues and relievos, gems and medals, and architectural carved ornaments, and more through roman than greek sources. while suggestions from such sources were but sparingly introduced at first, they gradually seemed to outweigh all other motives with the later designers, whose works often suggest that it is impossible to have too much roman costume or too many roman remains, which crowd their bible subjects, and fill their borders with overfed pediments, corpulent scrolls, and volutes, and their interstices with scattered fragments and attitudinizing personifications of classical mythology. the lavish use of such materials were enough to overweight even vigorous designers like virgil solis, who though able, facile, and versatile as he was, seems but a poor substitute for holbein. [illustration: french school. xvith century. designed by oronce finÉ. (paris, simon de colines, .) (_comp. dürer's title to plutarch, , and st. ambrosius, ._)] [sidenote: the renaissance.] what was at first an inspiriting, imaginative, and refining influence in art became finally a destructive force. the youthful spirit of the early renaissance became clouded and oppressed, and finally crushed with a weight of pompous pedantry and affectation. the natural development of a living style in art became arrested, and authority, and an endeavour to imitate the antique, took its place. the introduction of the copper-plate marked a new epoch in book illustration, and wood-engraving declined with its increased adoption, which, in the form it took, as applied to books, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was certainly to the detriment and final extinction of the decorative side. [sidenote: copper-plate.] it has already been pointed out how a copper-plate, requiring a different process of printing, and exhibiting as a necessary consequence such different qualities of line and effect, cannot harmonize with type and the conditions of the surface-printed page, since it is not in any mechanical relation with them. this mechanical relation is really the key to all good and therefore organic design; and therefore it is that design was in sounder condition when mechanical conditions and relations were simpler. a new invention often has a dislocating effect upon design. a new element is introduced, valued for some particular facility or effect, and it is often adopted without considering how--like a new element in a chemical combination--it alters the relations all round. copper-plate engraving was presumably adopted as a method for book-illustration for its greater fineness and precision of line, and its greater command of complexity in detail and chiaroscuro, for its purely pictorial qualities, in short, and its adoption corresponded to the period of the ascendancy of the painter above other kind of artists. [illustration: german school. late xvith century. virgil solis, bible. (frankfort, sigm. feyrabend, .)] [illustration: venetian school. late xvith century. artist unknown. (venice, g. giolito, .)] as regards the books of the seventeenth century, while "of making many books there was no end," and however interesting for other than artistic reasons, but few would concern our immediate purpose. woodcuts, headings, initials, tail-pieces, and printers' ornaments continued to be used, but greatly inferior in design and beauty of effect to those of the sixteenth century. the copper-plates introduced are quite apart from the page ornaments, and can hardly be considered decorative, although in the pompous title-pages of books of this period they are frequently formal and architectural enough, and, as a rule, founded more or less upon the ancient arches of triumph of imperial rome. histories and philosophical works, especially towards the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, were embellished with pompous portraits in frames of more or less classical joinery, with shields of arms, the worse for the decorative decline of heraldry, underneath. the specimen given is a good one of its type from a venetian book of , and gives the earlier form of this kind of treatment. travels and topographical works increased, until by the middle of the eighteenth century we have them on the scale of piranesi's scenic views of the architecture of ancient rome. the love of picturesqueness and natural scenery, or, perhaps, landscape gardening, gradually developing, concentrated interest on qualities the antithesis of constructive and inventive design, and drew the attention more and more away from them, until the painter, pure and simple, took all the artistic honours, and the days of the foundation of academies only confirmed and fixed the idea of art in this restricted sense in the public mind. [sidenote: hogarth.] hogarth, who availed himself of the copper-plate and publication in book form of his pictures, was yet wholly pictorial in his sympathies, and his instincts were dramatic and satiric rather than decorative. able painter and designer as he was in his own way, the interest of his work is entirely on that side, and is rather valuable as illustrating the life and manners of his time than as furnishing examples of book illustration, and his work certainly has no decorative aim, although no doubt quite harmonious in an eighteenth century room. [sidenote: stothard.] chodowiecki, who did a vast quantity of steel frontispieces and illustrations for books on a small scale, with plenty of character, must also be regarded rather as a maker of pictures for books than as a book decorator. he is sometimes mentioned as kindred in style to stothard, but stothard was much more of an idealist, and had, too, a very graceful decorative sense from the classical point of view. his book designs are very numerous, chiefly engraved on steel, and always showing a very graceful sense of line and composition. his designs to rogers' "poems," and "italy," are well-known, and, in their earlier woodcut form, his groups of amorini are very charming. flaxman had a high sense of sculpturesque style and simplicity, and great feeling and grace as a designer, but he can hardly be reckoned as a book decorator. his well-known series to homer, hesiod, Æschylus, and dante are strictly distinct series of illustrative designs, to be taken by themselves without reference to their incorporation in, or relation to, a printed book. their own lettering and explanatory text is engraved on the same plate beneath them, and so far they are consistent, but are not in any sense examples of page treatment or spacing. [illustration: xixth century. william blake. "songs of innocence," .] [sidenote: william blake.] we now come to a designer of a very different type, a type, too, of a new epoch, whatever resemblance in style and method there may be in his work to that of his contemporaries. william blake is distinct, and stands alone. a poet and a seer, as well as a designer, in him seemed to awake something of the spirit of the old illuminator. he was not content to illustrate a book by isolated copper or steel plates apart from the text, although in his craft as engraver he constantly carried out the work of others. when he came to embody his own thoughts and dreams, he recurred quite spontaneously to the methods of the maker of the ms. books. he became his own calligrapher, illuminator and miniaturist, while availing himself of the copper-plate (which he turned into a surface printing block) and the printing press for the reproduction of his designs, and in some cases for producing them in tints. his hand-coloured drawings, the borderings and devices to his own poems, will always be things by themselves. his treatment of the resources of black and white, and sense of page decoration, may be best judged perhaps by a reference to his "book of job," which contains a fine series of suggestive and imaginative designs. we seem to read in blake something of the spirit of the mediæval designers, through the sometimes mannered and semi-classic forms and treatment, according to the taste of his time; while he embodies its more daring aspiring thoughts, and the desire for simpler and more humane conditions of life. a revolutionary fire and fervour constantly breaks out both in his verse and in his designs, which show very various moods and impulses, and comprehend a wide range of power and sympathy. sometimes mystic and prophetic, sometimes tragic, sometimes simple and pastoral. blake, in these mixed elements, and the extraordinary suggestiveness of his work and the freedom of his thought, seems nearer to us than others of his contemporaries. in his sense of the decorative treatment of the page, too, his work bears upon our purpose. in writing with his own hand and in his own character the text of his poems, he gained the great advantage which has been spoken of--of harmony between text and illustration. they become a harmonious whole, in complete relation. his woodcuts to phillip's "pastoral," though perhaps rough in themselves, show what a sense of colour he could convey, and of the effective use of white line. [illustration: william blake. woodcut from phillip's "pastoral."] [sidenote: edward calvert.] among the later friends and disciples of blake, a kindred spirit must have been edward calvert, whose book illustrations are also decorations; the masses of black and white being effectively distributed, and they are full of poetic feeling, imagination, and sense of colour. i am indebted for the first knowledge of them to mr. william blake richmond, whose father, mr. george richmond, was a friend of william blake and calvert, as well as of john linnell and of samuel palmer, who carried on the traditions of this english poetic school to our own times; especially the latter, whose imaginative drawings--glowing sunsets over remote hill-tops, romantic landscapes, and pastoral sentiment--were marked features in the room of the old water colour society, up to his death in . his etched illustrations to his edition of "the eclogues of virgil," are a fine series of beautifully designed and poetically conceived landscapes; but they are strictly a series of pictures printed separately from the text. palmer himself, in the account of the work given by his son, when he was planning the work, wished that william blake had been alive to have designed his woodcut headings to the "eclogues."[ ] [ ] a memoir of edward calvert has since been published by his son, fully illustrated, and giving the little engravings just spoken of. they were engraved by calvert himself, it appears, and i am indebted to his son, mr. john calvert, for permission to print them here. [sidenote: thomas bewick.] to thomas bewick and his school is due the revival of wood-engraving as an art, and its adaptation to book illustration, quite distinct, of course, from the old knife-work on the plank. bewick had none of the imaginative poetry of the designers just named, although plenty of humour and satire, which he compressed into his little tail-pieces. he shows his skill as a craftsman in the treatment of the wood block, in such works as his "british birds;" but here, although the wood-engraving and type may be said to be in mechanical relation, there is no sense of decorative beauty or ornamental spacing whatever, and, as drawings, the engravings have none of the designer's power such as we found in the illustrations of gesner and matthiolus at basle, in the middle of the sixteenth century. there is a very literal and plain presentment of facts as regards the bird and its plumage, but with scarcely more than the taste of the average stuffer and mounter in the composition of the picture, and no regard whatever to the design of the page as a whole. [illustration: xixth century. edward calvert. the return home. the flood. the chamber idyll. from the original blocks designed and engraved on wood by edward calvert. brixton, - - .] [illustration: xixth century. edward calvert. the lady and the rooks. ideal pastoral life. the brook. from the blocks designed and engraved on wood by edward calvert. brixton, - - .] it was, however, a great point to have asserted the claims of wood-engraving, and demonstrated its capabilities as a method of book illustration. [sidenote: the school of bewick.] bewick founded a school of very excellent craftsmen, who carried the art to a wonderful degree of finish. in both his and their hands it became quite distinct from literal translation of the drawing, which, unless in line, was treated by the engraver with a line, touch, and quality all his own, the use of white line,[ ] and the rendering of tone and tint necessitating a certain power of design on his part, and giving him as important a position as the engraver on steel held in regard to the translation of a painted picture. [ ] a striking instance of the use of white line is seen in the title page "pomerium de tempore," printed by johann otmar, augsburg, as early as . it is possible, however, that this is a metal engraving. it is given overleaf. such a book as northcote's "fables," published - , each fable having a head-piece drawn on wood from northcote's design by william harvey--a well-known graceful designer and copious illustrator of books up to comparatively recent times--and with initial letters and tail-pieces of his own, shows the outcome of the bewick school. finally "fineness of line, tone, and finish--a misused word," as mr. w. j. linton says, "was preferred to the simple charm of truth." the wood engravers appeared to be anxious to vie with the steel engravers in the adornment of books, and so far as adaptation was concerned, they had certainly all the advantage on their side. the ornamental sense, however, had everywhere declined; pictorial qualities, fineness of line, and delicacy of tone, were sought after almost exclusively. [sidenote: stothard and turner.] such books as rogers's "poems" and "italy," with vignettes on steel from thomas stothard and j. m. w. turner, are characteristic of the taste of the period, and show about the high-water mark of the skill of the book engravers on steel. stothard's designs are the only ones which have claims to be decorative, and he is always a graceful designer. turner's landscapes, exquisite in themselves, and engraved with marvellous delicacy, do not in any sense decorate the page, and from that point of view are merely shapeless blots of printers' ink of different tones upon it, while the letterpress bears no relation whatever to the picture in method of printing or design, and has no independent beauty of its own. book illustrations of this type--and it was a type which largely prevailed during the second quarter of the century--are simply pictures without frames. [illustration: german school. xvith century. johann otmar. (augsburg, .)] [sidenote: w. j. linton.] no survey of book illustration would be complete which contained no mention of william james linton--whom i have already quoted. i may be allowed to speak of him with a peculiar regard and respect, as i may claim him as a very kind early friend and master. as a boy i was, in fact, apprenticed to him for the space of three years, not indeed with the object of wielding the graver, but rather with that of learning the craft of a draughtsman on wood. this, of course, was before the days of the use of photography, which has since practically revolutionized the system not only of drawing for books but of engraving also. it was then necessary to draw on the block itself, and to thoroughly understand what kind of work could be treated by the engraver. i shall always regard those early years in mr. linton's office as of great value to me, as, despite changes of method and new inventions, it gave me a thorough knowledge of the mechanical conditions of wood-engraving at any rate, and has implanted a sense of necessary relationship between design, material, and method of production--of art and craft, in fact--which cannot be lost, and has had its effect in many ways. mr. linton, too, is himself a notable historic link, carrying on the lamp of the older traditions of wood-engraving to these degenerate days, when whatever wonders of literal translation, and imitation of chalk, charcoal, or palette and brushes, it has exhibited under spell of american enterprise--and i am far from denying its achievements as such--it cannot be said to have preserved the distinction and independence of the engraver as an artist or original designer in any sense. when not extinguished altogether by some form of automatic reproductive process, he is reduced to the office of "process-server"--he becomes the slave of the pictorial artist. the picturesque sketcher loves his "bits" and "effects," which, moreover, however sensational and sparkling they may be in themselves, have no reference as a rule to the decoration of the page, being in this sense no more than more or less adroit splashes of ink upon it, which the text, torn into an irregularly ragged edge, seems instinctively to shrink from touching, squeezing itself together like the passengers in a crowded omnibus might do, reluctantly to admit a chimney-sweep. while, by his early training and practice, he is united with the bewick school, mr. linton--himself a poet, a social and political thinker, a scholar, as well as designer and engraver--having been associated with the best-known engravers and designers for books during the middle of the century, and having had art of such a different temper and tendency as that of rossetti pass through his hands, and seen the effect of many new impulses, is finally face to face with what he himself has called the "american new departure." he is therefore peculiarly and eminently qualified for the work to which he has addressed himself--his great work on "the masters of wood engraving," which appeared in , and is in every way complete as a history, learned in technique, and sumptuous as a book. i have not mentioned gustave doré, who fills so large a space as an illustrator of books, because though possessed of a weird imagination, and a poetic feeling for dramatic landscapes and grotesque characters, as well as extraordinary pictorial invention, the mass of his work is purely scenic, and he never shows the decorative sense, or considers the design in relation to the page. his best and most spirited and sincere work is represented by his designs in the "contes drolatiques." [sidenote: the pre-raphaelites.] the new movement in painting in england, known as the pre-raphaelite movement, which dates from about the middle years of our century, was in every way so remarkable and far-reaching, that it is not surprising that it should leave its mark upon the illustrations of books; particularly upon that form of luxury known as the modern gift-book, which, in the course of the twenty years following , often took the shape of selections from or editions of the poets plentifully sprinkled with little pictorial vignettes engraved on wood. birket foster, john gilbert, and john tenniel were leading contributors to these collections. in appeared an edition of "tennyson's poems" from the house of moxon. this work, while having the general characteristics of the prevailing taste--an accidental collection of designs, the work of designers of varying degrees of substance, temper, and feeling, casually arranged, and without the slightest feeling for page decoration or harmony of text and illustration--yet possessed one remarkable feature which gives it a distinction among other collections, in that it contains certain designs of the chief leaders of the pre-raphaelite movement, d. g. rossetti, millais and holman hunt. [illustration: dante gabriel rossetti. from tennyson's poems. (moxon, .)] i give one of the rossetti designs, "sir galahad"; the "s. cecilia" and the "morte d'arthur" were engraved by the brothers dalziel, the "sir galahad" by mr. w. j. linton. it seems to me that the last gives the spirit and feeling of rossetti, as well as his peculiar touch, far more successfully. these designs, in their poetic imagination, their richness of detail, sense of colour, passionate, mystic, and romantic feeling, and earnestness of expression mark a new epoch. they are decorative in themselves, and, though quite distinct in feeling, and original, they are more akin to the work of the mediæval miniaturist than anything that had been seen since his days. even here, however, there is no attempt to consider the page or to make the type harmonize with the picture, or to connect it by any bordering or device with the book as a whole, and being sandwiched with drawings of a very different tendency, their effect is much spoiled. in one or two other instances where rossetti lent his hand to book illustration, however, he is fully mindful of the decorative effect of the page. i remember a title page to a book of poems by miss christina rossetti, "goblin market," which emphatically showed this. the title-page designed for his "early italian poets" (given here), and his sonnet on the sonnet too, in which the design encloses the text of the poem, written out by himself, are other instances. [illustration: dante gabriel rossetti. design for a title page.] [sidenote: dalziel's bible gallery.] some of the designs made for a later work (dalziel's bible gallery, about - ) also show the effect of the pre-raphaelite influence, as well as, in the case of the designs of sir frederic leighton and mr. poynter, the influence of continental ideas and training. i saw some of these drawings on the wood at the time, i remember. for study and research, and richness of resource in archæological detail, as well as firmness of drawing, i thought mr. poynter's designs were perhaps the most remarkable. a strikingly realized picture, and a bright and successful wood-engraving, is ford madox brown's design of "elijah and the widow's son." there is a dramatic intensity of expression about his other one also, "the death of eglon." still, at best, we find that these are but carefully studied pictures rendered on the wood. the pre-raphaelite designs show the most decorative sense, but they are now issued quite distinct from the page, whatever was the original intention, and while they may, as to scale and treatment, be justly considered as book illustrations, and as examples of our more important efforts in that direction at that time, they are not page decorations. one may speak here of an admirable artist we have lost, mr. albert moore, who so distinguished himself for his refined decorative sense in painting, and the outline group of figures given here shows that he felt the conditions of the book page and the press also. [illustration: albert moore. from milton's ode on christ's nativity. (nisbet, .)] [sidenote: henry holiday.] mr. henry holiday is also a decorative artist of great refinement and facility. he has not done very much in book illustration, but his illustrations to lewis carroll's "hunting of the snark" were admirable. his decorative feeling in black and white, however, is marked, as may be seen in the title to "aglaia." [illustration: henry holiday. cover for a magazine.] [sidenote: toy books.] as, until recently, i suppose i was scarcely known out of the nursery, it is meet that i should offer some remarks upon children's books. here, undoubtedly, there has been a remarkable development and great activity of late years. we all remember the little cuts that adorned the books of our childhood. the ineffaceable quality of these early pictorial and literary impressions afford the strongest plea for good art in the nursery and the schoolroom. every child, one might say every human being, takes in more through his eyes than his ears, and i think much more advantage might be taken of this fact. if i may be personal, let me say that my first efforts in children's books were made in association with mr. edmund evans. here, again, i was fortunate to be in association with the craft of colour-printing, and i got to understand its possibilities. the books for babies, current at that time--about to --of the cheaper sort called toy books were not very inspiriting. these were generally careless and unimaginative woodcuts, very casually coloured by hand, dabs of pink and emerald green being laid on across faces and frocks with a somewhat reckless aim. there was practically no choice between such as these and cheap german highly-coloured lithographs. the only attempt at decoration i remember was a set of coloured designs to nursery rhymes by mr. h. s. marks, which had been originally intended for cabinet panels. bold outlines and flat tints were used. mr. marks has often shown his decorative sense in book illustration and printed designs in colour, but i have not been able to obtain any for this book. it was, however, the influence of some japanese printed pictures given to me by a lieutenant in the navy, who had brought them home from there as curiosities, which i believe, though i drew inspiration from many sources, gave the real impulse to that treatment in strong outlines, and flat tints and solid blacks, which i adopted with variations in books of this kind from that time (about ) onwards. since then i have had many rivals for the favour of the nursery constituency, notably my late friend randolph caldecott, and miss kate greenaway, though in both cases their aim lies more in the direction of character study, and their work is more of a pictorial character than strictly decorative. the little preface heading from his "bracebridge hall" gives a good idea of caldecott's style when his aim was chiefly decorative. miss greenaway is the most distinctly so perhaps in the treatment of some of her calendars. [illustration: randolph caldecott. headpiece to "bracebridge hall." (macmillan, .)] [illustration: kate greenaway. key block of title-page of "mother goose." (routledge, n.d.)] [sidenote: children's books.] children's books and so-called children's books hold a peculiar position. they are attractive to designers of an imaginative tendency, for in a sober and matter-of-fact age they afford perhaps the only outlet for unrestricted flights of fancy open to the modern illustrator, who likes to revolt against "the despotism of facts." while on children's books, the poetic feeling in the designs of e. v. b. may be mentioned, and i mind me of some charming illustrations to a book of mr. george macdonald's, "at the back of the north wind," designed by mr. arthur hughes, who in these and other wood engraved designs shows, no less than in his paintings, how refined and sympathetic an artist he is. mr. robert bateman, too, designed some charming little woodcuts, full of poetic feeling and controlled by unusual taste. they were used in macmillan's "art at home" series, though not, i believe, originally intended for it. [illustration: arthur hughes. from "at the back of the north wind." (strahan, .)] [sidenote: japanese influence.] [sidenote: japanese illustration.] there is no doubt that the opening of japanese ports to western commerce, whatever its after effects--including its effect upon the arts of japan itself--has had an enormous influence on european and american art. japan is, or was, a country very much, as regards its arts and handicrafts with the exception of architecture, in the condition of a european country in the middle ages, with wonderfully skilled artists and craftsmen in all manner of work of the decorative kind, who were under the influence of a free and informal naturalism. here at least was a living art, an art of the people, in which traditions and craftsmanship were unbroken, and the results full of attractive variety, quickness, and naturalistic force. what wonder that it took western artists by storm, and that its effects have become so patent, though not always happy, ever since. we see unmistakable traces of japanese influences, however, almost everywhere--from the parisian impressionist painter to the japanese fan in the corner of trade circulars, which shows it has been adopted as a stock printers' ornament. we see it in the sketchy blots and lines, and vignetted naturalistic flowers which are sometimes offered as page decorations, notably in american magazines and fashionable etchings. we have caught the vices of japanese art certainly, even if we have assimilated some of the virtues. [illustration: arthur hughes. from "at the back of the north wind." (strahan, .)] in the absence of any really noble architecture or substantial constructive sense, the japanese artists are not safe guides as designers. they may be able to throw a spray of leaves or a bird or fish across a blank panel or sheet of paper, drawing them with such consummate skill and certainty that it may delude us into the belief that it is decorative design; but if an artist of less skill essays to do the like the mistake becomes obvious. granted they have a decorative sense--the _finesse_ which goes to the placing of a flower in a pot, of hanging a garland on a wall, or of placing a mat or a fan--taste, in short, that is a different thing from real constructive power of design, and satisfactory filling of spaces. [illustration: robert bateman. from "art in the house." (macmillan, .)] when we come to their books, therefore, marvellous as they are, and full of beauty and suggestion--apart from their naturalism, _grotesquerie_, and humour--they do not furnish fine examples of page decoration as a rule. the fact that their text is written vertically, however, must be allowed for. this, indeed, converts their page into a panel, and their printed books become rather what we should consider sets of designs for decorating light panels, and extremely charming as such. [illustration: robert bateman. from "art in the house." (macmillan, .)] these drawings of hokusai's (_see_ nos. and , appendix), the most vigorous and prolific of the more modern and popular school, are striking enough and fine enough, in their own way, and the decorative sense is never absent; controlled, too, by the dark border-line, they do fill the page, which is not the case always with the flowers and birds. however, i believe these holes, blanks, and spaces to let are only tolerable in a book because the drawing where it does occur is so skilful (except where the effect is intentionally open and light); and from tolerating we grow to like them, i suppose, and take them for signs of mastery and decorative skill. in their smaller applied ornamental designs, however, the japanese often show themselves fully aware of a systematic plan or geometric base: and there is usually some hidden geometric relation of line in some of their apparently accidental compositions. their books of crests and pattern plans show indeed a careful study of geometric shapes, and their controlling influence in designing. [sidenote: japanese printing.] as regards the history and use of printing, the japanese had it from the chinese, who invented the art of printing from wooden blocks in the sixth century. "we have no record," says professor douglas,[ ] "as to the date when metal type was first used in china, but we find korean books printed as early as with movable clay or wooden type, and just a century later we have a record of a fount of metal type being cast to print an 'epitome of the eighteen historical records of china.'" printing is supposed to have been adopted in japan "after the first invasion of the korea by the armies of hideyoshi, in the end of the sixteenth century, when large quantities of movable type books were brought back by one of his generals, which formed the model upon which the japanese worked."[ ] [ ] guide to the chinese and japanese illustrated books in the british museum. [ ] satow. "history of printing in japan." [illustration: robert bateman. from "art in the house." (macmillan, .)] i have mentioned the american development of wood-engraving. its application to magazine illustration seems certainly to have developed or to have occurred with the appearance of very clever draughtsmen from the picturesque and literal point of view. [illustration: robert bateman. from "art in the house." (macmillan, .)] [sidenote: joseph pennell.] the admirable and delicate architectural and landscape drawings of mr. joseph pennell, for instance, are well known, and, as purely illustrative work, fresh, crisp in drawing, and original in treatment, giving essential points of topography and local characteristics (with a happy if often quaint and unexpected selection of point of view, and pictorial limits), it would be difficult to find their match, but very small consideration or consciousness is shown for the page. if he will pardon my saying so, in some instances the illustrations are, or used to be, often daringly driven through the text, scattering it right and left, like the effect of a coach and four upon a flock of sheep. in some of his more recent work, notably in his bolder drawings such as those in the "daily chronicle," he appears to have considered the type relation much more, and shows, especially in some of his skies, a feeling for a radiating arrangement of line. [sidenote: american draughtsmen.] our american cousins have taught us another mode of treatment in magazine pages. it is what i have elsewhere described as the "card-basket style." a number of naturalistic sketches are thrown accidentally together, the upper ones hiding the under ones partly, and to give variety the corner is occasionally turned down. there has been a great run on this idea of late years, but i fancy it is a card trick about "played out." however opinions may vary, i think there cannot be a doubt that in elihu vedder we have an instance of an american artist of great imaginative powers, and undoubtedly a designer of originality and force. this is sufficiently proved from his large work--the illustrations to the "rubaiyat of omar khayyam." although the designs have no persian character about them which one would have thought the poem and its imagery would naturally have suggested, yet they are a fine series, and show much decorative sense and dramatic power, and are quite modern in feeling. his designs for the cover of "the century magazine" show taste and decorative feeling in the combination of figures with lettering. mr. edwin abbey is another able artist, who has shown considerable care for his illustrated page, in some cases supplying his own lettering; though he has been growing more pictorial of late: mr. alfred parsons also, though he too often seems more drawn to the picture than the decoration. mr. heywood sumner shows a charming decorative sense and imaginative feeling, as well as humour. on the purely ornamental side, the accomplished decorations of mr. lewis day exhibit both ornamental range and resource, which, though in general devoted to other objects, are conspicuous enough in certain admirable book and magazine covers he has designed. [illustration: heywood sumner. from "stories for children," by frances m. peard. (allen, .)] [illustration: charles keene. illustration to "the good fight." ("once a week," .) (_by permission of messrs. bradbury, agnew and co._)] [illustration: heywood sumner. from "stories for children," by f. m. peard. (allen, .)] [sidenote: the "english illustrated magazine."] "the english illustrated magazine," under mr. comyns carr's editorship, by its use of both old and modern headings, initials and ornaments, did something towards encouraging the taste for decorative design in books. among the artists who designed pages therein should be named henry ryland and louis davis, both showing graceful ornamental feeling, the children of the latter artist being very charming. [illustration: louis davis. from the "english illustrated magazine" ( ).] [illustration: henry ryland. from the "english illustrated magazine" ( ).] but it would need much more space to attempt to do justice to the ability of my contemporaries, especially in the purely illustrative division, than i am able to give. [sidenote: "once a week."] the able artists of "punch," however, from john leech to linley sambourne, have done much to keep alive a vigorous style of drawing in line, which, in the case of mr. sambourne, is united with great invention, graphic force, and designing power. in speaking of "punch," one ought not to forget either the important part played by "once a week" in introducing many first-rate artists in line. in its early days we had charles keene illustrating charles reade's "good fight," with much feeling for the decorative effect of the old german woodcut. such admirable artists as m. j. lawless and frederick sandys--the latter especially distinguished for his splendid line drawings in "once a week" and "the cornhill;" one of his finest is here given, "the old chartist," which accompanied a poem by mr. george meredith. indeed, it is impossible to speak too highly of mr. sandys' draughtsmanship and power of expression by means of line; he is one of our modern english masters who has never, i think, had justice done to him. [illustration: f. sandys. "the old chartist." ("once a week," .)] [illustration: m. j. lawless. "dead love." ("once a week," .)] i can only just briefly allude to certain powerful and original modern designers of germany, where indeed, the old vigorous traditions of woodcut and illustrative drawing seem to have been kept more unbroken than elsewhere. on the purely character-drawing, pictorial and illustrative side, there is of course menzel, thoroughly modern, realistic, and dramatic. i am thinking more perhaps of such men as alfred rethel, whose designs of "death the friend" and "death the enemy," two large woodcuts, are well known. i remember also a very striking series of designs of his, a kind of modern "dance of death," which appeared about , i think. schwind is another whose designs to folk tales are thoroughly german in spirit and imagination, and style of drawing. oscar pletsch, too, is remarkable for his feeling for village life and children, and many of his illustrations have been reproduced in this country. more recent evidence, and more directly in the decorative direction, of the vigour and ornamental skill of german designers, is to be found in those picturesque calendars, designed by otto hupp, which come from munich, and show something very like the old feeling of burgmair, especially in the treatment of the heraldry. i have ventured to give a page or two here from my own books, "grimm," "the sirens three," and others, which serve at least to show two very different kinds of page treatment. in the "grimm" the picture is inclosed in formal and rectangular lines, with medallions of flowers at the four corners, the title and text being written on scrolls above and below. in "the sirens three" a much freer and more purely ornamental treatment is adopted, and a bolder and more open line. a third, the frontispiece of "the necklace of princess fiorimonde," by miss de morgan, is more of a simple pictorial treatment, though strictly decorative in its scheme of line and mass. [sidenote: the influence of photography.] the facile methods of photographic-automatic reproduction certainly give an opportunity to the designer to write out his own text in the character that pleases him, and that accords with his design, and so make his page a consistent whole from a decorative point of view, and i venture to think when this is done a unity of effect is gained for the page not possible in any other way. indeed, the photograph, with all its allied discoveries and its application to the service of the printing press, may be said to be as important a discovery in its effects on art and books as was the discovery of printing itself. it has already largely transformed the system of the production of illustrations and designs for books, magazines, and newspapers, and has certainly been the means of securing to the artist the advantage of possession of his original, while its fidelity, in the best processes, is, of course, very valuable. its influence, however, on artistic style and treatment has been, to my mind, of more doubtful advantage. the effect on painting is palpable enough, but so far as painting becomes photographic, the advantage is on the side of the photograph. it has led in illustrative work to the method of painting in black and white, which has taken the place very much of the use of line, and through this, and by reason of its having fostered and encouraged a different way of regarding nature--from the point of view of accidental aspect, light and shade, and tone--it has confused and deteriorated, i think, the faculty of inventive design, and the sense of ornament and line; having concentrated artistic interest on the literal realization of certain aspects of superficial facts, and instantaneous impressions instead of ideas, and the abstract treatment of form and line. [illustration: walter crane. from grimm's "household stories." (macmillan, .)] [illustration: walter crane. frontispiece. "princess fiorimonde" (macmillan, ).] [illustration: walter crane. "the sirens three" opening page. (macmillan, .)] [sidenote: a decorative ideal.] this, however, may be as much the tendency of an age as the result of photographic invention, although the influence of the photograph must count as one of the most powerful factors of that tendency. thought and vision divide the world of art between them--our thoughts follow our vision, our vision is influenced by our thoughts. a book may be the home of both thought and vision. speaking figuratively, in regard to book decoration, some are content with a rough shanty in the woods, and care only to get as close to nature in her more superficial aspects as they can. others would surround their house with a garden indeed, but they demand something like an architectural plan. they would look at a frontispiece like a façade; they would take hospitable encouragement from the title-page as from a friendly inscription over the porch; they would hang a votive wreath at the dedication, and so pass on into the hall of welcome, take the author by the hand and be led by him and his artist from room to room, as page after page is turned, fairly decked and adorned with picture, and ornament, and device; and, perhaps, finding it a dwelling after his desire, the guest is content to rest in the ingle nook in the firelight of the spirit of the author or the play of fancy of the artist; and, weaving dreams in the changing lights and shadows, to forget life's rough way and the tempestuous world outside. [illustration] chapter iv. of the recent development of decorative book illustration and the modern revival of printing as an art. since the three cantor lectures, which form the substance of the foregoing chapters, were delivered by me at the rooms of the society of arts, some six or seven years have elapsed, and they have been remarkable for a pronounced revival of activity and interest in the art of the printer and the decorative illustrator, the paper-maker, the binder, and all the crafts connected with the production of tasteful and ornate books. publishers and printers have shown a desire to return to simpler and earlier standards of taste, and in the choice and arrangement of the type to take a leaf out of the book of some of the early professors of the craft. there has been a passion for tall copies and handmade paper; for delicate bindings, and first editions. there has grown up, too, quite a literature about the making of the book beautiful--whereof the ex-libris series alone is witness. we have, besides, the history of early printed books by mr. gordon duff, of early illustrated books by mr. pollard. the book-plate has been looked after by mr. egerton castle, and by a host of eager collectors ever since. mr. pennell is well known as the tutelary genius who takes charge of illustrators, and discourses upon them at large, and mr. strange bids us, none too soon, to become acquainted with our alphabets. i have not yet heard of any specialist taking up his parable upon "end papers," but, altogether, the book has never perhaps had so much writing outside of it, as it were, before. [sidenote: modern typography.] a brilliant band of illustrators and ornamentists have appeared, too, and nearly every month or so we hear of a new genius in black and white, who is to eclipse all others. for all that, even in the dark ages, between the mid-nineteenth century and the early eighties, one or two printers or publishers of taste have from time to time attempted to restrain the wild excesses of the trade-printer, with his terribly monotonous novelties in founts of type, alternately shouting or whispering, anon in the crushing and aggressive heaviness of block capitals, and now in the attenuated droop of italics. sad havoc has been played with the decorative dignity of the page, indeed, as well as with the form and breed of roman and gothic letters: one might have imagined that some mischievous printer's devil had thrown the apple of discord among the letters of the alphabet, so ingeniously ugly were so many modern so-called "fancy" types. we have had good work from the edinburgh houses, from messrs. r. and r. clark, and messrs. constable, and in london from the chiswick press, for instance, ever since the old days of its connection with the tasteful and well printed volumes from the house of pickering. various artists, too, in association with their book designs, from d. g. rossetti onwards, have designed their own lettering to be in decorative harmony with their designs. the century guild, with its "hobby horse" and its artists, like mr. horne and mr. selwyn image, did much to keep alive true taste in printing and book decoration, when they were but little understood.[ ] there have been printers, too, such as mr. daniel at oxford, and de vinne at new york, who have from different points of view brought care and selection to the choice of type and the printing of books, and have adapted or designed type. [ ] and they elicited a response from across the water in the shape of "the knight errant," the work of a band of young enthusiasts at boston, mass., of which mr. lee and mr. goodhue may be named as leading spirits--the latter being the designer of the cover of "the knight errant," and the former the printer. [illustration: selwyn image. from title-page. "the scottish art review" (scott, ).] [sidenote: the kelmscott press.] but the field for extensive artistic experiment in these directions was tolerably clear when mr. william morris turned his attention to printing, and, in , founded the kelmscott press. so far as i am aware, he has been the first to approach the craft of practical printing from the point of view of the artist, and although, no doubt, the fact of being a man of letters as well was an extra advantage, his particular success in the art of printing is due to the former qualification. a long and distinguished practice as a designer in other matters of decorative art brought him to the nice questions of type design, its place upon the page, and its relation to printed ornament and illustration, peculiarly well equipped; while his historic knowledge and discrimination, and the possession of an extraordinarily rich and choice collection of both mediæval mss. and early printed books afforded him an abundant choice of the best models. in the results which have been produced at the kelmscott press we trace the effect of all these influences, acting under the strongest personal predilection, and a mediæval bias (in an artistic sense) which may be said to be almost exclusive. the kelmscott roman type ("golden") perhaps rather suggests that it was designed to anticipate and to provide against the demand of readers or book fanciers who could stand nothing else than roman, while the heart of the printer really hankered after black letter. but compare this "golden" type with most modern lower case founts, up to the date of its use, and its advantages both in form and substance are remarkable. modern type, obeying, i suppose, a resistless law of evolution, had reached, especially with american printers, the last stage of attenuation. the type of the kelmscott press is an emphatic and practical protest against this attenuation; just as its bold black and white ornaments and decorative woodcuts in open line are protests against the undue thinness, atmospheric effect, and diaphanous vignetting by photographic process and tone-block of much modern illustration, which may indeed _illustrate_, but does not _ornament_ a book. the paper, too, hand-made, rough-surfaced, and tough, is in equally strong contrast to the shiny hot-pressed machine-made paper, hitherto so much in vogue for the finer kinds of printing, and by which it alone became possible. the two kinds--the two ideals of printing--are as far apart as the poles. those who like the smooth and thin, will not like the bold and rough; but it looks as if the kelmscott standard had marked the turn of the tide, and that, judging from the signs of its influence upon printers and publishers generally, the feeling is running strongly in that direction. (one would think the human eyesight would benefit also.) this is the more remarkable since the kelmscott books are by no means issued at "popular prices," are limited in number, and for the most part are hardly for the general reader--unless that ubiquitous person is more erudite and omnivorous than is commonly credited. [illustration: william morris & walter crane. a page from "the glittering plain." (kelmscott press, .)] books, however, which may be called monumental in the national and general sense, have been printed at the kelmscott press, such as shakespeare's "poems," more's "utopia"; and mr. morris's _magnum opus_, the folio chaucer, enriched by the designs of burne-jones, has recently been completed.[ ] [ ] completed, indeed, it might almost be said, with the life of the craftsman. it is sad to have to record, while these pages were passing through the press, our master printer--one of the greatest englishmen of our time--is no more. in mr. morris's ornaments and initials, nearly always admirably harmonious in their quantities with the character and mass of the type, we may perhaps trace mixed influences in design. in the rich black and white scroll and floral borders surrounding the title and first pages, we seem to see the love of close-filling and interlacement characteristic of celtic and byzantine work, with a touch of the feeling of the practical textile designer, which comes out again in the up-and-down, detached bold page ornaments, though here combined with suggestions from early english illuminated ms. these influences, however, only add to the distinctive character and richness of the effect, and no attempt is made to get beyond the simple conditions of bold black and white designs for the woodcut and the press. mr. morris adopts the useful canon in printing that the true page is what the open book displays--what is generally termed a double page. he considers them practically as two columns of type, necessarily separate owing to the construction of the book, but together as it lies open, forming a page of type, only divided by the narrow margin where the leaves are inserted in the back of the covers. we thus get the _recto_ and the _verso_ pages or columns, each with their distinctive proportions of margin, as they turn to the right or the left from the centre of the book--the narrowest margins being naturally inwards and at the top, the broadest those outwards and at the foot, which latter should be deepest of all. it may be called _the handle_ of the book, and there is reason in the broad margin, though also gracious to the eye, since the hand may hold the book without covering any of the type. it is really the due consideration of the necessity of these little utilities in the construction and use of a thing which enables the modern designer--separated as he is from the actual maker--to preserve that distinctive and organic character in any work so valuable, and always so fruitful in artistic suggestion, and this i think holds true of all design in association with handicraft. the more immediate and intimate--one might occasionally say imitative--influence of the kelmscott press may be seen in the extremely interesting work of a group of young artists who own their training to the birmingham school of art, as developed under the taste and ability of mr. taylor. three of these, mr. c. m. gere, mr. e. h. new, and mr. gaskin, have designed illustrations for some of mr. morris's kelmscott books, so that the connection of ideas is perfectly sequent and natural, and it is only as might be expected that the school should have the courage of their artistic opinions, and boldly carry into practice the results of their kelmscott inspirations, by printing a journal themselves, "the quest." [illustration: c. m. gere. from the "english illustrated magazine" ( ).] [illustration: (_by permission of the corporation of liverpool._) c. m. gere. from a drawing from his picture "the birth of st. george."] [illustration: arthur gaskin. from "hans andersen." (allen, .)] [illustration: edmund h. new. process block from the original pen drawing.] [sidenote: the birmingham school.] mr. gere, mr. gaskin, and mr. new may be said to be the leaders of the birmingham school. mr. gere has engraved on wood some of his own designs, and he thoroughly realizes the ornamental value of bold and open line drawing in association with lettering, and is a careful and conscientious draughtsman and painter besides. a typical instance of his work is the "finding of st. george." mr. gaskin's christmas book, "king wenceslas," is, perhaps, his best work so far as we have seen. the designs are simple and bold, and in harmony with the subject, and good in decorative character. his illustrations to hans christian andersen's "fairy tales" are full of a naïve romantic feeling, and have much sense of the decorative possibilities of black and white drawing. mrs. gaskin's designs for children's books show a quaint fancy and ornamental feeling characteristic of the school. mr. new's feeling is for quaint streets and old buildings, which he draws with conscientious thoroughness, and attention to characteristic details of construction and local variety, without any reliance on accidental atmospheric effects, but using a firm open line and broad, simple arrangements of light and shade, which give them a decorative look as book illustrations. it is owing to these qualities that they are ornamental, and not to any actual ornament. indeed, in those cases where he has introduced borders to frame his pictures, he does not seem to me to be so successful as an ornamentist pure and simple, though in his latest work, the illustrations to mr. lane's edition of isaac walton's "compleat angler," there are pretty headings and tasteful title scrolls, as well as good drawings of places. [illustration: inigo thomas. from "the formal garden." (macmillan, .)] the question of border is, however, always a most difficult one. one might compare the illustrative drawings of architecture and gardens of mr. inigo thomas in mr. reginald blomfield's work on gardens, with mr. new, as showing, with considerable decorative feeling, and feeling for the subject, a very different method of drawing, one might say more pictorial in a sense, the line being much thinner and closer, and in effect greyer and darker. the introduction of the titles helps the ornamental effect. [illustration: inigo thomas. from "the formal garden." (macmillan, .)] among the leading artists of the birmingham school must be mentioned mr. h. payne, mr. bernard sleigh and mr. mason for their romantic feeling in story illustrations; miss bradley for her inventive treatment of crowds and groups of children; miss winifred smith for her groups of children and quaint feeling; mrs. arthur gaskin also for her pretty quaint fancies in child-life; miss mary newill for her ornamental rendering of natural landscape, as in the charming drawing of porlock; and miss celia levetus for her decorative feeling. it may, at any rate, i think be claimed for it, that both in method, sentiment, and subject, it is peculiarly english, and represents a sincere attempt to apply what may be called traditional principles in decoration to book illustration. among the recent influences tending to foster the feeling for the treatment of black and white design and book illustrations, _primarily from the decorative point of view_, the arts and crafts exhibition society may claim to have had some share, and they have endeavoured, by the tendency of the work selected for exhibition as well as by papers and lectures by various members on this point, to emphasize its importance and to spread clear principles, even at the risk of appearing partial and biased in one direction, and leaving many clever artists in black and white unrepresented. [sidenote: illustration and decoration.] now for graphic ability, originality, and variety, there can be no doubt of the vigour of our modern black and white artists. it is the most vital and really popular form of art at the present day, and it, far more than painting, deals with the actual life of the people; it is, too, thoroughly democratic in its appeal, and, associated with the newspaper and magazine, goes everywhere--at least, as far as there are shillings and pence--and where often no other form of art is accessible. but graphic power and original point of view is not always associated with the decorous ornamental sense. it is, in fact, often its very antithesis, although, on the other hand, good graphic drawing, governed by a sense of style to which economy or simplicity of line often leads, has ornamental quality. i should say at once that sincere graphic or naturalistic drawing, with individual character and style, is always preferable to merely lifeless, purely imitative, and tame repetition in so-called decorative work. [illustration: henry payne. from "a book of carols." (allen, .)] [illustration: f. mason. from "huon of bordeaux." (allen, .)] [illustration: gertrude m. bradley. the cherry festival. (from a pen drawing.)] [illustration: mary newill. porlock. (from a pen drawing.)] [sidenote: decorative principles.] while i claim that certain decorative considerations such as plan, scale balance, proportion, quantity, relation to type, are essential to really beautiful book illustration, i do not in the least wish to ignore the clever work of many contemporary illustrators because they only care to be illustrators pure and simple, and prefer to consider a page of paper, or any part of it unoccupied by type, as a fair field for a graphic sketch, with no more consideration for its relation to the page itself or the rest of the book, than an artist usually feels when he jots down something from life in his sketch-book. [illustration: celia levetus. a bookplate.] i think that book illustration should be something more than a collection of accidental sketches. since one cannot ignore the constructive organic element in the formation--the idea of the book itself--it is so far inartistic to leave it out of account in designing work intended to form an essential or integral part of that book. i do not, however, venture to assert that decorative illustration can only be done in _one_ way--if so, there would be an end in that direction to originality or individual feeling. there is nothing absolute in art, and one cannot dogmatize, but it seems to me that in all designs certain conditions must be acknowledged, and not only acknowledged but accepted freely, just as one would accept the rules of a game before attempting to play it. the rules, the conditions of a sport or game, give it its own peculiar character and charm, and by means of them the greatest amount of pleasure and keenest excitement is obtained in the long run, just as by observing the conditions, the limitations of an art or handicraft, we shall extract the greatest amount of pleasure for the worker and beauty for the beholder. [sidenote: the dial.] many remarkable designers in black and white of individuality and distinction, and with more or less strong feeling for decorative treatment, have arisen during the last few years. among these ought to be named messrs. ricketts and shannon, whose joint work upon "the dial" is sufficiently well known. they, too, have taken up printing as an art, mr. ricketts having designed his own type and engraved his own drawings on wood. they are excellent craftsmen as well as inventive and original artists of remarkable cultivation, imaginative feeling and taste. there is a certain suggestion of inspiration from william blake in mr. shannon sometimes, and of german or italian fifteenth century woodcuts in the work of mr. ricketts. the weird designs of mr. reginald savage should also be noted, as well as the charming woodcuts of mr. sturge moore. [illustration: c s. ricketts. from "hero and leander." (the vale press.)] another very remarkable designer in black and white is mr. aubrey beardsley. his work shows a delicate sense of line, and a bold decorative use of solid blacks, as well as an extraordinarily weird fancy and grotesque imagination, which seems occasionally inclined to run in a morbid direction. although, as in the case of most artists, one can trace certain influences which have helped in the formation of their style, there can be no doubt of his individuality and power. the designs for the work by which mr. beardsley became first known, i believe, the "morte d'arthur," alone are sufficient to show this. there appears to be a strong mediæval decorative feeling, mixed with a curious weird japanese-like spirit of _diablerie_ and grotesque, as of the opium-dream, about his work; but considered as book-decoration, though it is effective, the general abstract treatment of line, and the use of large masses of black and white, rather suggest designs intended to be carried out in some other material, such as inlay or enamel, for instance, in which they would gain the charm of beautiful surface and material, and doubtless look very well. mr. beardsley shows different influences in his later work in the "savoy," some of which suggests a study of eighteenth century designers, such as callot or hogarth, and old english mezzotints. [sidenote: the studio.] [sidenote: contemporary illustrators.] "the studio," which, while under the able and sympathetic editorship of mr. gleeson white, first called attention (by the medium of mr. pennell's pen) to mr. beardsley's work, has done good service in illustrating the progress of decorative art, both at home and abroad, and has from time to time introduced several young artists whose designs have thus become known to the public for the first time, such as mr. patten wilson, mr. laurence housman, mr. fairfax muckley, and mr. charles robinson, who all have their own distinctive feeling: the first for bold line drawings after the old german method with an abundance of detail; the second for remarkable taste in ornament, and a humorous and poetic fancy; the third for a very graceful feeling for line and the decorative use of black and white--especially in the treatment of trees and branch work, leaves and flowers associated with figures. mr. j. d. batten has distinguished himself for some years past as an inventive illustrator of fairy tales. in his designs, perhaps, he shows more of the feeling of the story-teller than the decorator in line, on the whole; his feeling as a painter, perhaps, not making him quite content with simple black and white; and, certainly, his charming tempera picture of the sleeping maid and the dwarfs, and his excellent printed picture of eve and the serpent, printed by mr. fletcher in the japanese method, might well excuse him if that is the case. mr. henry ford is another artist who has devoted himself with much success to fairy tale pictures in black and white, being associated with the fairy books of many different colours issued under the fairy godfather's wand (or pen) of mr. andrew lang. he, too, i think perhaps, cares more for the "epic" than the "ornamental" side of illustration; he generally shows a pretty poetical fancy. at the head, perhaps, of the newer school of decorative illustrators ought to be named mr. robert anning bell, whose taste and feeling for style alone gives him a distinctive place. he has evidently studied the early printers and book-decorators in outline of venice and florence to some purpose; by no means merely imitatively, but with his own type of figure and face, and fresh natural impressions, observes with much taste and feeling for beauty the limitations and decorative suggestions in the relations of line-drawing and typography. many of his designs to "the midsummer night's dream" are delightful both as drawings and as decorative illustrations. [illustration: charles ricketts. from "daphnis and chloe." (the vale press.)] the newest book illustrator is perhaps mr. charles robinson, whose work appears to be full of invention, though i have not yet had sufficient opportunities of doing it justice. he shows quaint and sometimes weird fancy, a love of fantastic architecture, and is not afraid of outline and large white spaces. [illustration: c. h. shannon. from "daphnis and chloe." (the vale press.)] mr. r. spence shows considerable vigour and originality. he distinguished himself first by some pen drawings which won the gold medal at the national competitions at south kensington, in which a romantic feeling and dramatic force was shown in designs of mediæval battles, expressed in forcible way, consistent with good line and effect in black and white. his design of the legend of st. cuthbert in "the quarto" is perhaps the most striking thing he has done. i am enabled to print one of his characteristic designs of battles. [illustration: aubrey beardsley. from the "morte d'arthur." (j. m. dent and co.)] mr. a. jones also distinguished himself about the same time as mr. spence in the national competition, and showed some dramatic and romantic feeling. the design given shows a more ornamental side. [illustration: aubrey beardsley. from the "morte d'arthur." (dent.)] mr. william strang, who has made his mark in etching as a medium for designs full of strong character and weird imagination, also shows in his processed pen drawings vigorous line and perception of decorative value, as in the designs to "munchausen," two of which are here reproduced. [sidenote: the evergreen.] the publication of "the evergreen" by patrick geddes and his colleagues at edinburgh has introduced several black and white designers of force and character--mr. robert burns and mr. john duncan, for instance, more particularly distinguishing themselves for decorative treatment in which one may see the influences of much fresh inspiration from nature. [illustration: aubrey beardsley. from the "morte d'arthur." (dent.)] [sidenote: contemporary illustrators.] miss mary sargant florence shows power and decorative feeling in her outline designs to "the crystal ball." mr. granville fell must be named among the newer school of decorative illustrators; and mr. paul woodroffe, who also shows much facility of design and feeling for old english life in his books of nursery rhymes; his recent work shows much refinement of drawing and feeling. miss alice b. woodward ought also to be named for her clever treatment of mediæval life in black and white. more recently, perhaps the most remarkable work in book illustration has been that of mr. e. j. sullivan, whose powerful designs to carlyle's "sartor resartus" are full of vigour and character. force and character, again, seem the leading qualities in the striking work of another of our recent designers in black and white, mr. nicholson, who also engraves his own work. [illustration: edmund j. sullivan. from "sartor resartus." (bell.)] mr. gordon craig adds printing to the crafts of black and white design and engraving, and has a distinctive feeling of his own. the revival in england of decorative art of all kinds during the last five and twenty years, culminating as it appears to be doing in book-design, has not escaped the eyes of observant and sympathetic artists and writers upon the continent. the work of english artists of this kind has been exhibited in germany, in holland, in belgium and france, and has met with remarkable appreciation and sympathy. [illustration: patten wilson. from the pen drawing.] [illustration: laurence housman. title-page of "the house of joy." (kegan paul, .)] [illustration: l. fairfax muckley. from "frangilla." (elkin mathews.)] [illustration: charles robinson. from "a child's garden of verse." (lane, .)] [illustration: charles robinson. from "a child's garden of verse." (lane, .)] [illustration: charles robinson. from a "child's garden of verse." (lane, .)] [sidenote: belgium.] in belgium, particularly, where there appears to be a somewhat similar movement in art, the work of the newer school of english designers has awakened the greatest interest. the fact that m. oliver georges destrée has made sympathetic literary studies of the english pre-raphaelites and their successors, is an indication of this. the exhibitions of the "xx^e siècle," "la libre Æsthetique," at brussels and liège, are also evidence of the repute in which english designers are held. [illustration: j. d. batten. from "the arabian nights." (j. m. dent and co.)] [sidenote: the continent.] in holland, too, a special collection of the designs of english book illustrators has been exhibited at the hague and other towns under the auspices of m. loffelt. [illustration: j. d. batten. from "the arabian nights." (j. m. dent and co.)] at paris, also, the critics and writers on art have been busy in the various journals giving an account of the arts and crafts movement, the kelmscott press, and the school of english book-decorators in black and white, and the recent exhibitions of "l'art nouveau" and "le livre moderne" at paris are further evidence of the interest taken there in english art. [illustration: r. anning bell. from "a midsummer night's dream." (j. m. dent and co., .)] [illustration: r. anning bell. from "beauty and the beast." (j. m. dent and co., .)] [illustration: r. spence. from a pen drawing.] [illustration: alfred jones. a title-page.] [illustration: william strang. from "baron munchausen." (lawrence and bullen.)] [illustration: william strang. from "munchausen" (lawrence and bullen).] without any vain boasting, it is interesting to note that whereas most artistic movements affecting england are commonly supposed to have been imported from the continent, we are credited at last with a genuine home growth in artistic development. although, regarded in the large sense, country or nationality is nothing to art (being at its best always cosmopolitan and international) yet in the history of design, national and local varieties, racial characteristics and local developments must always have their value and historic interest. [illustration: h. granville fell. from "cinderella." (j. m. dent and co.)] [sidenote: belgium.] we may, perhaps, take it as a sympathetic response to english feeling, the appearance of such books as m. rijsselberghe's almanack, with its charming designs in line, from the house of dietrich at brussels. m. fernand knopff's work, original as it is, shows sympathy with the later english school of poetic and decorative design of which d. g. rossetti may be said to have been the father, though in book-illustration proper i am not aware that he has done much. in holland in black and white design there is m. g. w. dijsselhof and m. r. n. roland holst. [illustration: john duncan. from "the evergreen." (geddes and co., .)] [illustration: john duncan. from "the evergreen." (geddes and co., .)] [illustration: robert burns. from "the evergreen." (geddes and co., .)] [illustration: mary sargant florence. from "the crystal ball." (bell, .)] [illustration: paul woodroffe. from "second book of nursery rhymes." (george allen, .)] [illustration: paul woodroffe. from "nursery rhymes." (bell, .)] [sidenote: germany.] in germany, such original and powerful artists as josef sattler and franz stück; the former seemingly inheriting much of the grim and stern humour of the old german masters, as well as their feeling for character and treatment of line, while his own personality is quite distinct. while sattler is distinctly gothic in sympathy, stück seems more to lean to the pagan or classical side, and his centaurs and graces are drawn with much feeling and character. we have already mentioned the "munich calendar," designed by otto hupp, which is well known for the vigour and spirit with which the artist has worked after the old german manner, with bold treatment of heraldic devices, and has effectively used colour with line work. the name of seitz appears upon some effectively designed allegorical figures, one of gutenberg at his press. [sidenote: "jugend."] "jugend," a copiously illustrated journal published at munich by dr. hirth, shows that there are many clever artists with a more or less decorative aim in illustration, which in others seems rather overgrown with grotesque feeling and morbid extravagance, but there is an abundance of exuberant life, humour, whimsical fancy and spirit characteristic of south germany. [illustration: m. rijsselberghe.] "ver sacrum," the journal of the group of the "secession" artists of vienna, gives evidence of considerable daring and resource in black and white drawing, though mainly of an impressionistic or pictorial aim. m. larisch, of vienna, has distinguished himself by his works upon the artistic treatment and spacing of letters which contain examples of the work of different artists both continental and english. french artists in decoration of all kinds have been so largely influenced or affected by the japanese, and have so generally approached design from the impressionistic, dramatic, or accidental-individualist point of view, that the somewhat severe limits imposed by a careful taste in all art with an ornamental purpose, does not appear to have greatly attracted them. at all times it would seem that the dramatic element is the dominant one in french art, and this, though of course quite reconcilable with the ornament instinct, is seldom found perfectly united with it, and, where present, generally gets the upper hand. the older classical or renaissance ornamental feeling of designers like galland and puvis de chavannes seems to be dying out, and the modern _chic_ and daring of a cheret seems to be more characteristic of the moment. [sidenote: grasset.] yet, on the other hand, among the newer french school, we find an artist of such careful methods and of such strong decorative instinct as grasset, on what i should call the architectural side in contradistinction to the impressionistic. his work, though quite characteristically french in spirit and sentiment, is much more akin in method to our english decorative school. in fact, many of grasset's designs suggest that he has done what our men have done, studied the art of the middle ages from the remains in his own country, and grafted upon this stock the equipment and sentiment of a modern. [sidenote: lettering.] in his book illustrations he seems, however, so far as i know, to lean rather towards illustrations pure and simple, rather than decoration, and exhibits great archæological resource as well as romantic feeling in such designs as those to "les cinq fils d'aymon." the absence of book decoration in the english sense, in france, however, may be due to the want of beauty or artistic feeling in the typographer's part of the work. modern french type has generally assumed elongated and meagre forms which are not suggestive of rich decorative effect, and do not combine with design: nor, so far as i have been able to observe, does there seem to be any feeling amongst the designers for the artistic value of lettering, or any serious attempt to cultivate better forms. the poster-artist, to whom one would think, being essential to his work, the value of lettering in good forms would appeal, generally tears the roman alphabet to tatters, or uses extremely debased and ugly varieties. more recently, however, french designers and printers appear to be giving attention to the subject, and newly designed types are appearing; one firm at paris having issued a fount designed by eugene grasset. the charming designs of boutet de monvel should be named as among the most distinctive of modern french book illustrations, for their careful drawing and decorative effect, although, being in colours, they hardly belong to the same category as the works we have been considering, and the relation of type to pictures leaves something to be desired. a respect for form and style in lettering, is, i take it, one of the most unmistakable indications of a good decorative sense. a true ornamental instinct can produce a fine ornamental effect by means of a mass of good type or ms. lettering alone: and considered as accompaniments or accessories to design they are invaluable, as presenting opportunities of contrast or recurrence in mass or line to other elements in the composition. to the decorative illustrator of books they are the unit or primal element from which he starts. [illustration: walter crane. from spenser's "faerie queene." (george allen, .)] [sidenote: italy.] the publication at venice of "l'arte della stampa nel renascimento italiano venezia," by ferd. ongania--a series of reproductions of woodcuts, ornaments, initials, title-pages, etc., from some of the choicest of the books of the early venetian and florentine printers, may perhaps be taken as a sign of the growth of a similar interest in book decoration in that country, unless, like other works, it is intended chiefly for the foreign visitor. a sumptuously printed quarterly on art, which has of late made its appearance at rome, "il convito," seems to show an interest in the decorative side, and does not confine its note on illustrations to italian work, but gives reproductions from the works of d. g. rossetti, and from elihu vedder's designs to "the rubaiyat of omar khayyam." certainly if the possession of untold treasures of endlessly beautiful invention in decorative art, and the tradition of ancient schools tend to foster and to stimulate original effort, one would think that it should be easier for italian artists than those of other countries to revive something of the former decorative beauty of the work of her printers and designers in the days of aldus and ratdolt, of the bellini and botticelli. it does not appear to be enough, however, to possess the seed merely; or else one might say that where a museum is, there will the creative art spring also; it is necessary to have the soil also; to plough and sow, and then to possess our souls in patience a long while ere the new crop appears, and ere it ripens and falls to our sickle. it is only another way of saying, that art is the outcome of life, not of death. artists may take motives or inspiration from the past, or from the present, it matters not, so long as their work has life and beauty--so long as it is organic, in short. [illustration: howard pyle. from "otto of the silver hand." (scribner.)] [sidenote: howard pyle.] i have already alluded to the movement in boston among a group of cultured young men--mr. lee the printer and his colleagues--more or less inspired by "the hobby horse" and the kelmscott press, which resulted in the printing of "the knight errant." [illustration: howard pyle. from "otto of the silver hand." (scribner.)] some years before, however, mr. howard pyle distinguished himself as a decorative artist in book designs, which showed, among other more modern influences, a considerable study of the method of albert dürer. i give a reproduction which suggests somewhat the effect of the famous copperplate of erasmus. he sometimes uses a lighter method, such as is shown in the drawings to "the one horse shay." of late in his drawings in the magazines, mr. pyle has adopted the modern wash method, or painting in black and white, in which, however able in its own way, it is distinctly at a considerable loss of individuality and decorative interest.[ ] [ ] i am informed that the adoption of the wash method is not recent with mr. pyle, but that he adapts his method to his matter. this does not, however, affect the opinion expressed as to the relative artistic value of wash and line work. [illustration: will. h. bradley. a cover design. (chicago, .)] [illustration: will. h. bradley. prospectus of "bradley his book." (springfield, mass., .)] [illustration: will. h. bradley. design for "the chap-book." (chicago, .)] [sidenote: "the inland printer."] [sidenote: american artists.] another artist of considerable invention and decorative ability has recently appeared in america, mr. will. h. bradley, whose designs for "the inland printer" of chicago are remarkable for careful and delicate line-work, and effective treatment of black and white, and showing the influence of the newer english school with a japanese blend. [illustration] chapter v. of general principles in designing book ornaments and illustrations: considerations of arrangement, spacing, and treatment. it may not be amiss to add a few words as a kind of summary of general principles to which we seem to be naturally led by the line of thought i have been pursuing on this subject of book decoration. as i have said, there is nothing final or absolute in design. it is a matter of continual re-arrangement, re-adjustment, and modification or even transformation of certain elements. a kind of imaginative chemistry of forms, masses, lines, and quantities, continually evolving new combinations. but each artistic problem must be solved on its merits, and as each one varies and presents fresh questions, it follows that no absolute rules or principles can be laid down to fit particular cases, although as the result of, and evolved out of, practice, certain general guiding principles are valuable, as charts and compasses by which the designer can to a certain extent direct his course. to begin with, the enormous variety in style, aim, and size of books, makes the application of definite principles difficult. one must narrow the problem down to a particular book, of a given character and size. apart from the necessarily entirely personal and individual questions of selection of subject, motive, feeling or sentiment, consider the conditions of the book-page. take an octavo page--such as one of those of this volume. although we may take the open book with the double-columns as the page proper, in treating a book for illustration, we shall be called upon sometimes to treat them as single pages. but whether single or double, each has its limits in the mass of type forming the full page or column which gives the dimensions of the designer's panel. the whole or any part of this panel may be occupied by design, and one principle of procedure in the ornamental treatment of a book is to consider any of the territory not occupied by the type as a fair field for accompanying or terminating design--as, for instance, at the ends of chapters, where more or less of the type page is left blank. unless we are designing our own type, or drawing our lettering as a part of the design, the character and form of the type will give us a sort of gauge of degree, or key, to start with, as to the force of the black and white effect of our accompanying designs and ornaments. for instance, one would generally avoid using heavy blacks and thick lines with a light open kind of type, or light open work with very heavy type. (even here one must qualify, however, since light open pen-work has a fine and rich effect with black letters sometimes.) [illustration: walter crane. from spenser's "faerie queene." (george allen, .)] [illustration: walter crane. from spenser's "faerie queene." (george allen, .)] [illustration: walter crane. from spenser's "faerie queene." (george allen, .)] my own feeling--and designing must always finally be a question of individual feeling--is rather to acknowledge the rectangular character of the type page in the shape of the design; even in a vignette, by making certain lines extend to the limits, so as to convey a feeling of rectangular control and compactness, as in the tail-piece given here from "the faerie queene." [sidenote: of end papers.] but first, if one may, paradoxically, begin with "end paper" as it is curiously called, there is the lining of the book. here the problem is to cover two leaves entirely in a suggestive and agreeable, but not obtrusive way. one way is to design a repeating pattern much on the principle of a small printed textile, or miniature wall-paper, in one or more colours. something delicately suggestive of the character and contents of the book is in place here, but nothing that competes with the illustrations proper. it may be considered as a kind of quadrangle, forecourt, or even a garden or grass plot before the door. we are not intended to linger long here, but ought to get some hint or encouragement to go on into the book. the arms of the owner (if he is fond of heraldry, and wants to remind the potential book borrower to piously return) may appear hereon--the book-plate. if we are to be playful and lavish, if the book is for christmastide or for children, we may catch a sort of fleeting butterfly idea on the fly-leaves before we are brought with becoming, though dignified curiosity, to a short pause at the half-title. having read this, we are supposed to pass on with somewhat bated breath until we come to the double doors, and the front and full title are disclosed in all their splendour. [sidenote: of frontispieces and title pages.] even here, though, the whole secret of the book should not be let out, but rather played with or suggested in a symbolic way, especially in any ornament on the title-page, in which the lettering should be the chief ornamental feature. a frontispiece may be more pictorial in treatment if desired, and it is reasonable to occupy the whole of the type page both for the lettering of title and the picture in the front; then, if richness of effect is desired, the margin may be covered also almost to the edge of the paper by inclosing borders, the width of these borders varying according to the varying width of the paper margin, and in the same proportions, _recto_ and _verso_ as the case may be, the broad side turning outwards to the edge of the book each way. this is a plan adopted in the opening of the kelmscott books, of which that of "the glittering plain," given here, may be taken as a type. though mr. morris places his title page on the left to face the opening of first chapter, and does not use a frontispiece, he obtains a remarkably rich and varied effect of black and white in his larger title pages by placing in his centre panel strong black gothic letters; or, as in the case of the kelmscott chaucer, letters in white relief upon a floral arabesque adapted to the space, and filling the field with a lighter floral network in open line, and enclosing this again with the rich black and white marginal border. [illustration: from "the story of the glittering plain."] [illustration: william morris and walter crane. (kelmscott press, .)] if i may refer again to my own work, in the designs to "the faerie queene" the full-page designs are all treated as panels of figure design, or pictures, and are enclosed in fanciful borders, in which subsidiary incidents of characters of the poem are introduced or suggested, somewhat on the plan of mediæval tapestries. a reduction of one of these is given above. [sidenote: of outline and borders.] a full-page design may, thus inclosed and separated from the type pages, bear carrying considerably further, and be more realized and stronger in effect than the ornaments of the type page, just as in the illuminated mss. highly wrought miniatures were worked into inclosing borders on the centres of large initial letters, which formed a broad framework, branching into light floral scroll or leaves upon the margin and uniting with the lettering. much depends upon the decorative scheme. with appropriate type, a charming, simple, and broad effect can be obtained by using outline alone, both for the figure designs or pictures, and the ornament proper. the famous designs of the "hypnerotomachia poliphili," , may be taken as an instance of this treatment; also the "fasciculus medicinæ," , "Æsop's fables," , and other books of the venetian printers of about this date or earlier, which are generally remarkable for fine quality of their outline and the refinement and grace of their ornaments. one of the most effective black and white page borders of a purely ornamental kind is one dated , inclosing a page of roman type, (_see_ illustration, venice, , pomponius mela). a meandering arabesque of a rose-stem leaf and flower, white on a black ground, springing from a circle in the broad margin at the bottom, in which are two shields of arms. a tolerably well known but most valuable example. [sidenote: of designing type.] the opening chapter of a book affords an opportunity to the designer of producing a decorative effect by uniting ornament with type. he can place figure design in a frieze-shaped panel (say of about a fourth of the page) for the heading, and weight it by a bold initial letter designed in a square, from which may spring the stem and leaves of an arabesque throwing the letter into relief, and perhaps climbing up and down the margin, and connecting the heading with the initial. the initialed page from "the faerie queene" is given as an example of such treatment. the title, or any chapter inscription, if embodied in the design of the heading, has a good effect. harmony between type and illustration and ornament can never, of course, be quite so complete as when the lettering is designed and drawn as a part of the whole, unless the type is designed by the artist. it entails an amount of careful and patient labour (unless the inscriptions are very brief) few would be prepared to face, and would mean, practically, a return to the principle of the block book. [illustration: italian school. xvth century. ketham's "fasciculus medicinÆ." (venice, de gregoriis, .)] [illustration: italian school. xvth century. pomponius mela. (venice, ratdolt, .)] even in these days, however, books have been entirely produced by hand, and, for that matter, if beauty were the sole object, we could not do better than follow the methods of the scribe, illuminator, and miniaturist of the middle ages. but the world clamours for many copies (at least in some cases), and the artist must make terms with the printing press if he desires to live. it would be a delightful thing if every book were different--a millennium for collectors! perhaps, too, it might be a wholesome regulation at this stage if authors were to qualify as scribes (in the old sense) and write out their own works in beautiful letters! how it would purify literary style! there is no doubt that great attention has been given to the formation of letters by designers in the past. [sidenote: the dÜrer alphabets.] albrecht dürer, in his "geometrica," for instance, gives an elaborate system for drawing the roman capitals, and certainly produces by its means a fine alphabet in that type of letter, apparently copied from ancient roman inscriptions. he does the same for the black letters also.[ ] [ ] reproduced in "alphabets," by e. f. strange (pp. - ), ex-libris series. bell. for the roman capitals he takes a square, and divides it into four equal parts for the a. the horizontal line across the centre gives the crossbar. the sides of the square are divided into eighths, and one eighth is measured at the top of vertical dividing line, one eighth again from each bottom corner of the square to these points, the limbs of the a, are drawn; the up stroke and cross-bar being one-sixteenth, the down stroke being one-eighth of the square in thickness. circles of one-fourth of the square in diameter are struck at the top of the a where the limbs meet, and at lower corners, to form the outside serifs of the feet, the inside serifs being formed by circles of one-sixteenth diameter; and so the a is complete. various sub-divisions of the square are given as guides in the formation of the other letters less symmetrical, and two or three forms are given of some, such as the o, and the r, q, and s; but the same proportions of thick and thin strokes are adhered to, and the same method of forming the serifs. for the black letter (lower case german) text the proportions are five squares for the short letters i, n, m, u, the space between the strokes of a letter like u being one-third the thickness of the stroke, the top and bottom one being covered with one square, set diamond-wise. eight squares for the long letters l, h, b; the tops cut off diagonally, the feet turned diamond-wise. this is interesting as showing the care and sense of proportion which may be expended upon the formation of lettering. it also gives a definite standard. the division of eighths and fourths in the roman capital is noteworthy, too, in connection with the eight-heads standard of proportion for the human body; and the square basis reminds one of vitruvius, and demonstration of the inclosure of the human figure with limbs in extension by the square and the circle. those interested in the history of the form of lettering cannot do better than consult mr. strange's book on "alphabets" in this series. it might be possible to construct an actual theory of the geometric relation of figure design, ornamental forms, and the forms of lettering, text, or type upon them, but we are more concerned with the free artistic invention for the absence of which no geometric rules can compensate. the invention, the design, comes first in order, the rules and principles are discovered afterwards, to confirm and establish their truth--would that they did not also sometimes crystallize their vitality! i have spoken of the treatment of headings and initials at the opening of a chapter. in deciding upon such an arrangement the designer is more or less committed to carrying it out throughout the book, and would do well to make his ornamental spaces, and the character, treatment, and size of his initials agree in the corresponding places. this would still leave plenty of room for variety of invention in the details. the next variety of shape in which he might indulge would be the half-page, generally an attractive proportion for a figure design, and if repeated on the opposite page or column, the effect of a continuous frieze can be given, which is very useful where a procession of figures is concerned, and the slight break made by the centre margin is not objectionable. the same plan may be adopted when it is desired to carry a full-page design across, or meet it by a corresponding design opposite. [sidenote: of head and tail-pieces.] then we come to the space at the end of the chapter. for my part, i can never resist the opportunity for a tailpiece if it is to be a fully illustrated work, though some would let it severely alone, or be glad of the blank space to rest a bit. i think this lets one down at the end of the chapter too suddenly. the blank, the silence, seems too dead; one would be glad of some lingering echo, some recurring thought suggested by the text; and here is the designer's opportunity. it is a tight place, like the person who is expected to say the exactly fit thing at the right moment. neither too much, or too little. a quick wit and a light hand will serve the artist in good stead here. [sidenote: of tail-pieces.] page-terminations or tailpieces may of course be very various in plan, and their style correspond with or be a variant of the style of the rest of the decorations of the book. certain types are apt to recur, but while the bases may be similar, the superstructure of fancy may vary as much as we like. there is what i should call the mouse-tail termination, formed on a gradually diminishing line, starting the width of the type, and ending in a point. printers have done it with dwindling lines of type, finishing with a single word or an aldine leaf. then there is the plan of boldly shutting the gate, so to speak, by carrying a panel of design right across, or filling the whole of the remaining page. this is more in the nature of additional illustration to carry on the story, and might either be a narrow frieze-like strip, or a half, or three-quarter page design as the space would suggest. there is the inverted triangular plan, and the shield or hatchment form. the garland or the spray, sprig, leaf, or spot, or the pen flourish glorified into an arabesque. the medallion form, or seal shape, too, often lends itself appropriately to end a chapter with, where an inclosed figure or symbol is wanted. one principle in designing isolated ornaments is useful: to arrange the subject so that its edges shall touch a graceful boundary, or inclosing shape, whether the boundary is actually defined by inclosing lines or frame-work or not. floral, leaf, and escutcheon shapes are generally the best, but free, not rigidly geometrical. the value of a certain economy of line can hardly be too much appreciated, and the perception of the necessity of recurrence of line, and a re-echoing in the details of leading motives in line and mass. it is largely upon such small threads that decorative success and harmonious effect depend, and they are particularly closely connected with the harmonious disposition of type and ornamental illustration which we have been considering. [sidenote: the end.] it would be easy to fill volumes with elaborate analysis of existing designs from this point of view, but designs, to those who feel them, ought to speak in their own tongue for themselves more forcibly than any written explanation or commentary; and, though of making of many books there is no end, every book must have its end, even though that end to the writer, at least, may seem to leave one but at the beginning. [illustration] [illustration: arthur hughes. from "good words for the young." (strahan, .)] [sidenote: notes for new edition.] chap. iv. of the recent development, etc., p. . in addition to the names of the modern printers and presses mentioned in this chapter must now be added those of several workers in the field of artistic printing who have distinguished themselves since the kelmscott press. mr. cobden sanderson has turned from the outside adornment of the book to the inside, and, in association with mr. emery walker, whose technical knowledge and taste was so valuable on the kelmscott press, has founded "the doves press" at hammersmith, and has issued books remarkable for the pure severity of their typography, founded mainly upon jenson. mr. st. john hornby also must be named, more particularly for his revival of a very beautiful italian type founded upon the type of sweynheim and pannartz, the first printers in italy. the greek type designed by the late robert proctor, based on the alcala fount used in the new testament of the complutensian polyglot bible of , should be mentioned as the only modern attempt to improve the printing of greek, with the exception of mr. selwyn image's, which perhaps suffered by being cut very small to suit commercial exigences. mr. c. r. ashbee, too, has established a very extensive printery, "the essex house press," which he has since transplanted to chipping camden. he had the assistance of several of the workers from the kelmscott press, and has produced many excellently printed books of late years, such as the benvenuto cellini, and including such elaborate productions as edward vi.'s prayer book, with wood-engravings and initials and ornaments as well as the type of his own design. an interesting series of the english poets, also, with frontispieces by various artists, has been issued from this press. p. . the death of aubrey beardsley since the notice of his work was written must be recorded, and it would seem as if the loss of this extraordinary artist marked the decadence of our modern decadents. a perhaps equally remarkable designer, however, whose work has a certain kinship in some features with beardsley's, is mr. james syme, whose work has not before been noticed in this book. he has a powerful and weird imagination associated with grotesque and satirical design, and considerable skill in the use of line and black and white effect. p. . in writing of book illustrators in france, a leading place should be given to m. boutet de monvel, whose delicate drawing, tasteful colouring, and sense of decorative effect, combined with abundant resource in variety of costume, and skilful treatment of crowds, mediæval battle scenes, and ceremonial groups are seen to full advantage in his recent "ste. jean d'arc," although no particular relationship between illustration and type is attempted. p. . a recent proof of the revival of taste in book-decoration and artistic printing in italy may be referred to here as showing the influence of the english movement. i mean the edition of gabriele d'annunzio's "francesca da rimini" with illustrations or rather decorations by adolphus de karolis, printed by the fratelli treves in . this book shows unmistakable signs of study of recent english work, as well as of the early printers of venice, and it is strange to think how sometimes artists of one country may come back to an appreciation of a particular period of their own historic art by the aid of foreign spectacles. among the original designers of modern italy may be mentioned g. m. mataloni, who shows remarkable powers of draughtsmanship and invention, largely spent upon posters and ex-libris. italy, too, has an able critic and chronicler of the work of book-designers of all countries in sig. vittorio pica of naples, whose "attraverso gli albi e le cartelle" (istituto italiano d'arti grafiche editore bergamo) is very comprehensive. in vienna prof. larisch recently published a book of alphabets designed by various artists of europe; germany, france, italy, and england being represented. the group of viennese artists known as the "secession" have issued "ver sacrum," a monthly journal, or magazine, giving original designs of various artists more or less in the direction of book-decoration. latterly the designs offered seemed to lose themselves either in an affectation of primitiveness and almost infantine simplicity, or the wildest grotesqueness and eccentricity. appendix. [illustration: headpiece by alan wright.] [illustration: i. irish. vith century. book of kells. [_see page ._] [illustration: ii. english. xivth century. arundel psalter, . [_see page ._] [illustration: iii. english. xivth century. arundel psalter, . [_see page ._] [illustration: iv. english. xivth century. arundel psalter, . [_see page ._] [illustration: v. french. xivth century. epistle of philippe de comines to richard ii. [_see page ._] [illustration: vi. french. xvth century. bedford hours, page of calendar, a.d. . [_see page ._] [illustration: vii. french. xvth century. bedford hours, a.d. . [_see page ._] [illustration: viii. english. late xvth century. romance of the rose. [_see page ._] [illustration: ix. italian. xvth century. initial letter, choir book, siena ( ---- - ). [_see page ._] [illustration: x. japanese. xixth century. hokusai. [_see page ._] [illustration: xi. japanese. xixth century. hokusai. [_see page ._] index. abbey, edwin, . _Æsop's fables_ (venice, ), . ---- (ulm, ), . ---- (naples, ), . "aglaia," cover for, , . alciati's emblems, . aldus, , , , . alphabet (dürer's), . _alphabets_ (bell, ), , . amman, jost, . american wood-engraving, , . _andersen's fairy tales_ (allen, ), . anglo-saxon mss., , _et seq._ apocalypse, ms., th cent., . _arabian nights_ (dent, ), , . arndes, steffen, . _art in the house_ (macmillan, ), , - . arts and crafts exhibition society, . arundel psalter, ms., . aulus, gellius (venice, ), . bämler, . bateman, robert, , - . batten, j. d., , , . beardsley, aubrey, , , , , . _beauty and the beast_ (dent, ), . _bedford hours_, ms., , , . beham, hans sebald, , . bell, r. a., , , . bellini, giovanni, , . bernard, solomon, . bewick, thomas, , . bible (cologne, ), . ---- (lübeck, ), . ---- (mainz, ), . ---- (frankfort, ), , . bible cuts (holbein), , , . birmingham school, , , . blake, william, - . block books, . blomfield, reginald, . boccaccio's _de claris mulieribus_ (ulm, ), , ; (ferrara, ), . bonhomme, . _book of carols_ (allen, ), . books of hours, , , , , . borders, , . _bracebridge hall_ (macmillan, ), . bradley, gertrude m., , . ---- will. h., , , , . brown, ford madox, . _buch von den sieben todsünden_ (augsburg, ), . burgmair, hans, , , , , , . burne-jones, sir edward, . burns, robert, , . caesenas, stephanus, . caldecott, randolph, . calepinus, ambrosius, . calvert, edward, - . "card-basket style," the, . carroll, lewis, . castle, egerton, _english book-plates_, . caxton, william, , . _chaucer_ (kelmscott press, ), , . cheret, m., . _child's garden of verse_ (lane, ), , , . children's books, , . china, early printing in, . chiswick press, the, . chodowiecki, d., . _christ, life of_ (antwerp, ), . _chroneken der sassen_ (mainz, ), . _chronica hungariæ_ (augsburg, ), . _cinderella_ (dent, ), . _cinq fils d'aymon, les_, . clark, r. and r., . columna, francisco, . constable, t. and a., . _contes drolatiques_, . "convito," il, . copper-plate engraving, , , . "cornhill," the, . cousin, jean, . craig, gordon, . cranach, lucas, . crane, walter, , , , , , , , , , , , . cremonese, p., . _crystal ball, the_ (bell, ), , . "daily chronicle," illustrations in the, . dalziel brothers, the, . dalziel's _bible gallery_, . _dance of death_ (holbein's, ), , , . daniel, rev. h., of oxford, . dante, _divina commedia_ ms., . dante (venice, ), . _daphnis and chloe_ (vale press, ), , . davis, louis, , . day, lewis, . _de claris mulieribus_ (ulm, ), , ; (ferrara, ), . de colines, simon, . de gregoriis, , . _de historia stirpium_ (basel, ), , . _descent of minerva, the_ ( ), . destrée, oliver georges, . de vinne press, the, . "dial," the, . _dictes and sayings of the philosophers_ ( ), . dijsselhof, g. w., . dinckmut, conrad, . _discovery of the indies, the_ (florence, ), . doré, gustave, . duff, gordon, _early printed books_, . duncan, john, , , . du pré, . dürer, albrecht, , , , , , , , ; his _geometrica_, . _early italian poets_ (smith, elder, ), . edgar, king, newminster charter, . emblem books, , , , . end-papers, . "english illustrated magazine," the, , , , . evans, edmund, . "evergreen," the, , , , . "ex-libris series," the, . finé, oronce, , , . _fasciculus medicinæ_ (venice, ), . fell, h. granville, , . feyrabend, sigm., . _fior di virtù_ (florence, ?), . flach, martin, . flaxman, . flemish school, xvth cent., . florence, mary sargant, , . ford, henry, . _formal garden, the_ (macmillan, ), , . foster, birket, . france, modern illustration in, . _frangilla_ (elkin mathews, ), . french mss., , . french school, xvth cent., , , , . frontispieces, . froschover, . fuchsius, _de historia stirpium_ (basel, ), , . gaskin, arthur, , . ---- mrs., , . georgius de rusconibus, , . gerard's herbal, . gere, c. m., , , . german school, xvth cent., , , , , , , , , , , , , . ---- xvith cent., - , , , . germany, early printing in, , . ---- modern illustration in, , . gesner, conrad, . gilbert, john, . giolito, g., . giovio's emblems, . girolamo da cremona, . _glittering plain, the_ (kelmscott press, ), , , . _goblin market_ (macmillan, ), . "good words for the young," . gospels, the, in latin, ms., . grasset, m., , . greenaway, kate, , . grimani breviary, the, , , . _grimm's household stories_ (macmillan, ), , . grün, hans baldung, , , , , . halberstadt bible, the, , . hardouyn, gillet, , . harvey, william, . herbals, , , . _hero and leander_ (vale press, ), . "hobby horse," the, , . hogarth, . hokusai, . holbein, hans, , , , , , , , . ---- ambrose, , . holiday, henry, , . holland, illustration in, , . holst, r. n. roland, . horne, h. p., . _hortulus animæ_(strassburg, ), , , , . _hortus sanitatis_ (mainz, ), . _house of joy, the_ (kegan paul, ), . housman, laurence, , . hughes, arthur, - , . hunt, holman, . _hunting of the snark, the_, (macmillan, ), . _huon of bordeaux_ (allen, ), . hupp, otto, , . illuminated mss., - _et seq._ image, selwyn, , . _indulgences_ (mainz, ), . "inland printer," the, . isingrin, palma, , , . italian mss., , . italian school, xvth cent., - . ---- ---- xvith cent., - , , . italy, modern illustration in, , . japan, early printing in, , . japanese illustration, - . jones, a. garth, , . "jugend," . keene, charles, , . _kells, the book of_, , . kelmscott press, the, , , , , , , . kerver, thielman, , , . _king wenceslas_, . _kleine passion, die_ ( ), , , , . "knight errant," the (boston), , . knopff, fernand, . kreuterbuch (strasburg, ), . larisch, m., . lawless, m. j., , . leeu, gheraert, . _leiden christi_ (bamberg, ), , . leighton, sir frederic, . lettering, . levetus, celia, , . liberale da verona, . linnell, john, . linton, w. j., - , . lübeck bible, the, . macdonald's _at the back of the north wind_ (strahan, ), - . mainz, early printing at, . ---- indulgences, the, . ---- psalter, the, , . margins, . marks, h. s., . mason, f., , . matthiolus, . mazarine bible, the, . _meerfahrt zu viln onerkannten inseln_ (augsburg, ), . meidenbach, jacob, . menzel, adolf, . _mer des histoires, la_, ms., . _midsummer night's dream, a_ (dent, ), , . millais, sir j. e., . _milton's ode on christ's nativity_ (nisbet, ), . minuziano, alessandro, . missals, . _monte santo di dio, el_ (florence, ), . monvel, boutet de, . moore, albert, , . moore, sturge, . morris, william, , , , , , , . _morte d'arthur_ (dent, ), , , , . _mother goose_ (routledge), . muckley, l. fairfax, , . _munchausen, baron_ (lawrence and bullen, ), , , . neues testament (basel, ), . new, edmund h., , , . newill, mary, , . _newminster, charter of foundation of_, ms., . niccolo di lorenzo, . nicholson, w., . northcote's _fables_, . _nursery rhymes_ (bell, ; allen, ), , , . omar khayyam, . "once a week," , , , . ongania, ferd., . otmar, johann, , . ottaviano dei petrucci, . paganini, alex., . palmer, samuel, . _papstthum mit sienen gliedern_ (nuremberg, ), . _paris et vienne_, , . parsons, alfred, . payne, henry, , . peard's _stories for children_ (allen, ), , . pennell, joseph, , , . petri, adam, , . pfister, albrecht, , . philip le noir, . _philippe de comines, epistle of_, ms., . photography, influence of, , . pierre le rouge, . pigouchet, . pletsch, oscar, . pliny's _natural history_ (frankfort, ), . plutarchus chæroneus ( ), ; ( ), . _poliphili hypnerotomachia_ ( ), , , , . ----, french edition, . pollard, a. w., _early illustrated books_, . _pomerium de tempore_ (augsburg, ), . pomponius mela, , . poynter, e. j., . pre-raphaelites, the, . _princess fiorimonde, necklace of_ (macmillan, ), , . printers' marks, . psalters, mss., , , . psalter (mainz, ), , . "punch," , . pyle, howard, , , . _quadrupeds, history of_ (zurich, ), . quarles' emblems, , . "quarto," the, . quatriregio, . queen mary's psalter, ms., . quentel, heinrich, . "quest," the, . quintilian (venice, ), . ratdolt, erhardt, , . _reformation der bayrischen landrecht_ (_munich_, ), . renaissance, the, . rené of anjou, book of hours of, . rethel, alfred, . ricketts, c. s., , , . rijsselberghe, m., , . robinson, charles, , , , , . rogers' _poems_, , . ---- _italy_, , . _romance of the rose_, ms., , . rossetti, christina, . rossetti, d. g., , . rylands, henry, . sambourne, linley, . sandys, frederick, , . _sartor resartus_ (bell, ), . sattler, josef, . savage, reginald, . "savoy," the, . schöffer, p., , , . schürer, mathias, . schwind, m., . "scottish art review," the, . seitz, professor a., . shannon, c. h., , . siena, choir books of, , , . _sirens three, the_ (macmillan, ), . sleigh, bernard, . smith, winifred, . _songs of innocence_ ( ), . _speculum humanæ vitæ_ (augsburg, ), . spence, r., , . _spenser's faerie queene_ (allen, ), , , , , , . _spiegel onser behoudenisse_ (kuilenburg, ), . steyner, heinrich, . stothard, thomas, , . strang, william, , , . strange, e. f., _alphabets_, , . stück, franz, . "studio," the, . sullivan, e. j., , . sumner, heywood, , , . tacuino, giov., . tail-pieces, . talbot prayer-book, the, . tenison psalter, the, ms., , . tenniel, sir john, . tennyson's _poems_ (moxon, ), , . terence, _eunuchus_, german translation (ulm, ), . thomas, f. inigo, , , . title page, development of the, . tory, geoffroy, . _tournament of love, the_ (paris, ), . treperel, jehan, . _triumphs of maximilian, the_, . tuppo's Æsop, , . turner, j. m. w., . type as affecting design, , , . vedder, elihu, . veldener, jan, . ver sacrum, . vérard, . virgil solis, . wächtlin, hans, , . _walton's "angler"_ (lane, ), . wandereisen, hans, . _weiss könig, der_ ( - ), , . white, gleeson, . wilson, patten, , . witney's emblems, . _wood-engraving, masters of_ ( ), . woodroffe, paul, , , . woodward, alice b., . zainer, johann, , . ---- günther, . [illustration: headpiece by alan wright.] [illustration] transcriber's note illustrations have been moved near the relevant section of the text. i have used "=" to denote bolded text. [:y] is used in the text to represent y with an umlaut above it. page headers varied depending on the subjects under discussion. where the headers did not match the chapter title, i have treated the headers as sidenotes. inconsistencies have been retained in formatting, spelling, hyphenation, punctuation, and grammar, except where indicated in the list below: - right bracket added before "augsburg" on page x - "lubeck" changed to "lübeck" on page x - single quote changed to double quote before"morte" on page xiii - page number changed from " " to " " on page xiii - page number changed from " " and " " to " " and " " on page xiv - "liege" changed to "liège" on page - "chiaro-oscuro" changed to "chiaroscuro" on page - period added after "school" on page - period added after " " on page - period added after "century" on page - period added after "century" on page - "fusch" changed to "fuchs" on page - "fuschia" changed to "fuchsia" on page - "wood-cuts" changed to "woodcuts" on page - "caligrapher" changed to "calligrapher" on page - period added after " - - " on page - period added after "holiday" on page - "head-piece" changed to "headpiece" to match table of contents on page - "see" italicized on page - double quotes changed to single quotes around "epitome of the eighteen historical records of china." followed by a double quote on page - "occured" changed to "occurred" on page - period added after "strang" on page - "opportunites" changed to "opportunities" on page - "see" italicized on page - "mediaeval" changed to "mediæval" on page - "r.a" changed to "r. a." on page - comma added after "ms." on page - "lorenza" changed to "lorenzo" on page - colon changed to semicolon after " " on page - "pomponious" changed to "pomponius" on page - repeated line deleted on page - "vèrard" changed to "vérard" on page price cents _special_ winter number _of_ the international studio _children's books and their illustrators._ _by_ gleeson white [illustration] the international studio =john lane=, fifth avenue, _new york_ scribner's new books for the young =mrs. burnett's famous juveniles= =with all the original illustrations by reginald b. birch. vols. each mo $ . .= a writer in the _boston post_ has said of mrs. burnett: "she has a beauty of imagination and a spiritual insight into the meditations of childhood which are within the grasp of no other writer for children,"--and these five volumes would indeed be difficult to match in child literature. the new edition is from new plates, with all the original illustrations by reginald b. birch, is bound in a handsome new cover. "little lord fauntleroy," "two little pilgrims' progress," "piccino and other child stories," "giovanni and the other," "sara crewe," and "little saint elizabeth and other stories" (in one volume). =three new volumes by g. a. henty= =illustrated by walter paget and w. a. margetson. each mo $ . =. it would be a bitter year for the boys if mr. henty were to fail them with a fresh assortment of his enthralling tales of adventure, for, as the london _academy_ has said, in this kind of story telling, "he stands in the very first rank." "with frederick the great" is a tale of the seven years' war, and has twelve full-page illustrations by wal. paget; "a march on london" details some stirring scenes of the times when wat tyler's motley crew took possession of that city, and the illustrations are drawn by w. a. margetson, while wal. paget has supplied the pictures for "with moore at corunna," in which the boy hero serves through the peninsular war. (each mo, $ . .) =will shakespeare's little lad by imogen clarke= =with full-page illustrations by reginald b. birch. mo $ . .= "the author has caught the true spirit of shakespeare's time, and paints his home surroundings with a loving, tender grace," says the boston _herald_. =an old-field school girl by marion harland= (illustrated, mo, $ . .) "as pretty a story for girls as has been published in a long time," says the _buffalo express_, and the _chicago tribune_ is even more appreciative: "compared with the average books of its class 'an old-field school girl,' becomes a classic." =lullaby land= =verses by eugene field with fanciful illustrations by charles robinson. (uniform with stevenson's "a child's garden") mo $ . .= "a collection of those dearly loved 'songs of childhood' by eugene field, which have touched many hearts, both old and young, and will continue to do so as long as little children remain the joy of our homes. it was a happy thought of the publisher to choose another such child lover and sympathizer as kenneth grahame to write the preface to the new edition, and charles robinson to make the many quaint and most amusing illustrations."--_the evangelist._ =with crockett and bowie by kirk munroe= =with full-page illustrations by victor s. perard. mo $ . .= this "tale of texas; or, fighting for the lone star flag," completes the author's _white conqueror series_. the minneapolis _tribune_ says: "it is a breezy and invigorating tale. the characters, although drawn from real life, are surrounded by an atmosphere of romance and adventure which gives them the added fascination of being creatures of fiction, and yet there is no straining for effect." =the naval cadet= =with full-page illustrations by william rainey, r. i. crown vo $ . .= a story of adventure on land and sea, by gordon stables. a stirring tale of seafaring and sea-fighting on the coasts of africa, south america, australia, new guinea, etc., closing with a dramatic picture of the combat between the chinese and japanese fleets at yalu. =the stevenson song book= =with decorative borders. to $ . .= in this large and handsome quarto, twenty of the most lyrical poems from robert louis stevenson's "child's garden of verse", have been set to music by such composers as reginald dekoven, arthur foote, c. w. chadwick, dr. c. villers stanford, etc. the volume is uniform with and a fitting companion to the popular "field-de-koven song book." =twelve naval captains by molly elliot seawell= =with full-page portraits. mo $ . .= miss seawell here tells the notable exploits of twelve heroes of our early navy: john paul jones, richard dale, william bainbridge, richard somers, edward preble, thomas truxton, stephen decatur, james lawrance, isaac hull, o. h. perry, charles stewart, thomas macdonough. the book is illustrated attractively and makes a stirring and thrilling volume. =the knights of the round table= =with illustrations by s. r. benliegh. mo $ . .= "king arthur's knights and their connection with the mystic grail is here the subject of mr. william henry frost's translation into child language. many volumes have been prepared telling these wonderful legendary stories to young people, but few are so admirably written as this work," says the _boston advertiser_. =the last cruise of the mohawk by w. j. henderson= =illustrated by harry c. edwards. mo $ . .= the _observer_ says: "this is an exciting story that boys of today will appreciate thoroughly and devour greedily," and the _rochester democrat_ calls it "an interesting and thrilling story." =the king of the broncos by charles f. lummis= =illustrated by victor s. perard. mo $ . .= the title story and the other tales of new mexico, which mr. lummis has here supplied for the younger generation, have all his usual fascination. he knows how to tell his thrilling stories in a way that is irresistible? to boy readers. =the border wars of new england= =with illustrations and map. mo $ . .= mr. samuel adams drake is an expert at making history real and vital to children. the _boston advertiser_ says: "this is not a school book, yet it is exceedingly well adapted to use in schools, and at the same time will enrich and adorn the library of every american who is so fortunate or so judicious as to place it on his shelves." =the golden galleon by robert leighton= =with full-page illustrations by william rainey, r. i. mo $ . .= "a narrative of the adventures of master gilbert o'glander, and of how in the year he fought under the gallant sir richard grenville in the great sea-fight off flores, on board her majesty's ship, _the revenge_." the new york _observer_ has said: "mr. leighton as a writer for boys needs no praise as his books place him in the front rank." =lords of the world= =with full-page illustrations by ralph peacock. mo. $ . .= a story of the fall of carthage and corinth. by alfred j. church. in his own special field the author has few rivals. he has a capacity for making antiquity assume reality which is fascinating in the extreme. =adventures in toyland= =with colored plates and other illustrations by alice b. woodward. square vo. $ . .= by edith king hall. a clever and fascinating volume which will surely take a high place among this season's "juveniles." charles scribner's sons, - fifth ave, n.y. [illustration: "the heir to fairy-land" from a water-colour by robert halls] the international studio special winter-number - children's books and their illustrators. by gleeson white. [illustration: the "monkey-book" a favourite in the nursery (_by permission of james h. stone, esq., j.p._)] there are some themes that by their very wealth of suggestion appal the most ready writer. the emotions which they arouse, the mass of pleasant anecdote they recall, the ghosts of far-off delights they summon, are either too obvious to be worth the trouble of description or too evanescent to be expressed in dull prose. swift, we are told (perhaps a little too frequently), could write beautifully of a broomstick; which may strike a common person as a marvel of dexterity. after a while, the journalist is apt to find that it is the perfect theme which proves to be the hardest to treat adequately. clothe a broomstick with fancies, even of the flimsiest tissue paper, and you get something more or less like a fairy-king's sceptre; but take the pompadour's fan, or the haunting effect of twilight over the meadows, and all you can do in words seems but to hide its original beauties. we know that mr. austin dobson was able to add graceful wreaths even to the fan of the pompadour, and that another writer is able to impart to the misty twilight not only the eerie fantasies it shows the careless observer, but also a host of others that only a poet feels, and that only a poet knows how to prison within his cage of printed syllables. indeed, of the theme of the present discourse has not the wonder-working robert louis stevenson sung of "picture books in winter" and "the land of story books," so truly and clearly that it is dangerous for lesser folk to attempt essays in their praise? all that artists have done to amuse the august monarch "king baby" (who, pictured by mr. robert halls, is fitly enthroned here by way of frontispiece) during the playtime of his immaturity is too big a subject for our space, and can but be indicated in rough outline here. [illustration: "robinson crusoe." the wreck from an eighteenth-century chap-book] luckily, a serious study of the evolution of the child's book already exists. since the bulk of this number was in type, i lighted by chance upon "the child and his book," by mrs. e. m. field, a most admirable volume which traces its subject from times before the norman conquest to this century. therein we find full accounts of mss. designed for teaching purposes, of early printed manuals, and of the mass of literature intended to impress "the fear of the lord and of the broomstick." did space allow, the present chronicle might be enlivened with many an excerpt which she has culled from out-of-the-way sources. but the temptation to quote must be controlled. it is only fair to add that in that work there is a very excellent chapter to "some illustrators of children's books," although its main purpose is the text of the books. one branch has found its specialist and its exhaustive monograph, in mr. andrew tuer's sumptuous volumes devoted to "the horn book." [illustration: "crusoe and xury escaping" from an eighteenth-century chap-book] perhaps there is no pleasure the modern "grown-up" person envies the youngsters of the hour as he envies them the shoals of delightful books which publishers prepare for the christmas tables of lucky children. if he be old enough to remember mrs. trimmer's "history of the robins," "the fairchild family," or that poly-technically inspired romance, the "swiss family robinson," he feels that a certain half-hearted approval of more dreary volumes is possibly due to the glamour which middle age casts upon the past. it is said that even barbauld's "evenings at home" and "sandford and merton" (the anecdotes only, i imagine) have been found toothsome dainties by unjaded youthful appetites; but when he compares these with the books of the last twenty years, he wishes he could become a child again to enjoy their sweets to the full. [illustration: _"crusoe sets sail on his eventful voyage" from an eighteenth-century chap-book_] now nine-tenths of this improvement is due to artist and publisher; although it is obvious that illustrations imply something to illustrate, and, as a rule (not by any means without exception), the better the text the better the pictures. years before good picture-books there were good stories, and these, whether they be the classics of the nursery, the laureates of its rhyme, the unknown author of its sagas, the born story-tellers--whether they date from prehistoric cave-dwellers, or are of our own age, like charles kingsley or lewis carroll--supply the text to spur on the artist to his best achievements. [illustration: "the true tale of robin hood." from an eighteenth-century chap-book] it is mainly a labour of love to infuse pictures intended for childish eyes with qualities that pertain to art. we like to believe that walter crane, caldecott, kate greenaway and the rest receive ample appreciation from the small people. that they do in some cases is certain; but it is also quite as evident that the veriest daub, if its subject be attractive, is enjoyed no less thoroughly. there are prigs of course, the children of the "prignorant," who babble of botticelli, and profess to disdain any picture not conceived with "high art" mannerism. yet even these will forget their pretence, and roar over a _comic cuts_ found on the seat of a railway carriage, or stand delighted before some unspeakable poster of a melodrama. it is well to face the plain fact that the most popular illustrated books which please the children are not always those which satisfy the critical adult. as a rule it is the "grown-ups" who buy; therefore with no wish to be-little the advance in nursery taste, one must own that at present its improvement is chiefly owing to the active energies of those who give, and is only passively tolerated by those who accept. children awaking to the marvel that recreates a familiar object by a few lines and blotches on a piece of paper, are not unduly exigent. their own primitive diagrams, like a badly drawn euclidean problem, satisfy their idea of studies from the life. their schemes of colour are limited to harmonies in crimson lake, cobalt and gamboge, their skies are very blue, their grass arsenically green, and their perspective as erratic as that of the chinese. [illustration: "two children in the wood." from an eighteenth century chap-book] [illustration: "sir richard whittington." from an eighteenth-century chap-book] in fact, unpopular though it may be to project such a theory, one fancies that the real educational power of the picture-book is upon the elders, and thus, that it undoubtedly helps to raise the standard of domestic taste in art. but, on the other hand, whether his art is adequately appreciated or not, what an unprejudiced and wholly spontaneous acclaim awaits the artist who gives his best to the little ones! they do not place his work in portfolios or locked glass cases; they thumb it to death, surely the happiest of all fates for any printed book. to see his volumes worn out by too eager votaries; what could an author or artist wish for more? the extraordinary devotion to a volume of natural history, which after generations of use has become more like a mop-head than a book, may be seen in the reproduction of a "monkey-book" here illustrated; this curious result being caused by sheer affectionate thumbing of its leaves, until the dog-ears and rumpled pages turned the cube to a globular mass, since flattened by being packed away. so children love picture-books, not as bibliophiles would consider wisely, but too well. [illustration: "an american man and woman in their proper habits." illustration from "a museum for young gentlemen and ladies" (s. crowder. )] to delight one of the least of these, to add a new joy to the crowded miracles of childhood, were no less worth doing than to leave a sistine chapel to astound a somewhat bored procession of tourists, or to have written a classic that sells by thousands and is possessed unread by all save an infinitesimal percentage of its owners. when randolph caldecott died, a minor poet, unconsciously paraphrasing garrick's epitaph, wrote: "for loss of him the laughter of the children will grow less." i quote the line from memory, perhaps incorrectly; if so, its author will, i feel sure, forgive the unintentional mangling. did the laughter of the children grow less? happily one can be quite sure it did not. so long as any inept draughtsman can scrawl a few lines which they accept as a symbol of an engine, an elephant or a pussy cat, so long will the great army of invaders who are our predestined conquerors be content to laugh anew at the request of any one, be he good or mediocre, who caters for them. it is a pleasant and yet a saddening thought to remember that we were once recruits of this omnipotent army that wins always our lands and our treasures. now, when grown up, whether we are millionaires or paupers, they have taken fortress by fortress with the treasures therein, our picture-books of one sort are theirs, and one must yield presently to the babies as they grow up, even our criticism, for they will make their own standards of worth and unworthiness despite all our efforts to control their verdict. if we are conscious of being "up-to-date" in , we may be quite sure that by we shall be ousted by a newer generation, and by forgotten. long before even that, the children we now try to amuse or to educate, to defend at all costs, or to pray for as we never prayed before--they will be the masters. it is, then, not an ignoble thing to do one's very best to give our coming rulers a taste of the kingdom of art, to let them unconsciously discover that there is something outside common facts, intangible and not to be reduced to any rule, which may be a lasting pleasure to those who care to study it. it is evident, as one glances back over the centuries, that the child occupies a new place in the world to-day. excepting possibly certain royal infants, we do not find that great artists of the past addressed themselves to children. are there any children's books illustrated by dürer, burgmair, altdorfer, jost amman, or the little masters of germany? among the florentine woodcuts do we find any designed for children? did rembrandt etch for them, or jacob beham prepare plates for their amusement? so far as i have searched, no single instance has rewarded me. it is true that the _naïveté_ of much early work tempts one to believe that it was designed for babies. but the context shows that it was the unlettered adult, not the juvenile, who was addressed. as the designs, obviously prepared for children, begin to appear, they are almost entirely educational and by no means the work of the best artists of the period. even when they come to be numerous, their object is seldom to amuse; they are didactic, and as a rule convey solemn warnings. the idea of a draughtsman of note setting himself deliberately to please a child would have been inconceivable not so many years ago. to be seen and not heard was the utmost demanded of the little ones even as late as the beginning of this century, when illustrated books designed especially for their instruction were not infrequent. [illustration: "the walls of babylon." illustration from "a museum for young gentlemen and ladies" (s. crowder. )] as mr. theodore watts-dunton pointed out in his charming essay, "the new hero," which appeared in the _english illustrated magazine_ (dec. ), the child was neglected even by the art of literature until shakespeare furnished portraits at once vivid, engaging, and true in arthur and in mamillus. in the same essay he goes on to say of the child--the new hero: "and in art, painters and designers are vying with the poets and with each other in accommodating their work to his well-known matter-of-fact tastes and love of simple directness. having discovered that the new hero's ideal of pictorial representation is of that high dramatic and businesslike kind exemplified in the bayeux tapestry, mr. caldecott, mr. walter crane, miss kate greenaway, miss dorothy tennant, have each tried to surpass the other in appealing to the new hero's love of real business in art--treating him, indeed, as though he were hoteï, the japanese god of enjoyment--giving him as much colour, as much dramatic action, and as little perspective as is possible to man's finite capacity in this line. some generous art critics have even gone so far indeed as to credit an entire artistic movement, that of pre-raphaelism, with a benevolent desire to accommodate art to the new hero's peculiar ideas upon perspective. but this is a 'soft impeachment' born of that loving kindness for which art-critics have always been famous." [illustration: "mercury and the woodman." illustration from "bewick's select fables." by thomas bewick ( )] [illustration: "the brother and sister." illustration from "bewick's select fables." by thomas bewick ( )] [illustration: "little anthony." illustration from "the looking-glass of the mind." by thomas bewick ( )] [illustration: "little adolphus." illustration from "the looking-glass of the mind." by thomas bewick ( )] it would be out of place here to project any theory to account for this more recent homage paid to children, but it is quite certain that a similar number of the studio could scarce have been compiled a century ago, for there was practically no material for it. in fact the tastes of children as a factor to be considered in life are well-nigh as modern as steam or the electric light, and far less ancient than printing with movable types, which of itself seems the second great event in the history of humanity, the use of fire being the first. to leave generalities and come to particulars, as we dip into the stores of earlier centuries the broadsheets reveal almost nothing _intended_ for children--the many robin hood ballads, for example, are decidedly meant for grown-up people; and so in the eighteenth century we find its chap-books of "guy, earl of warwick," "sir bevis, of southampton," "valentine and orson," are still addressed to the adult; while it is more than doubtful whether even the earliest editions in chap-book form of "tom thumb," and "whittington" and the rest, now the property of the nursery, were really published for little ones. that they were the "light reading" of adults, the equivalent of to-day's _ally sloper_ or the penny dreadful, is much more probable. no doubt children who came across them had a surreptitious treat, even as urchins of both sexes now pounce with avidity upon stray copies of the ultra-popular and so-called comic papers. but you could not call _ally sloper_, that punchinello of the victorian era--who has received the honour of an elaborate article in the _nineteenth century_--a child's hero, nor is his humour of a sort always that childhood should understand--"unsweetened gin," the "broker's man," and similar subjects, for example. it is quite possible that respectable people did not care for their babies to read the chap-books of the eighteenth century any more than they like them now to study "halfpenny comics"; and that they were, in short, kitchen literature, and not infantile. even if the intellectual standard of those days was on a par in both domains, it does not prove that the reading of the kitchen and nursery was interchangeable. before noticing any pictures in detail from old sources or new, it is well to explain that as a rule only those showing some attempt to adapt the drawing to a child's taste have been selected. mere dull transcripts of facts please children no less; but here space forbids their inclusion. otherwise nearly all modern illustration would come into our scope. a search through the famous roxburghe collection of broadsheets discovered nothing that could be fairly regarded as a child's publication. the chap-books of the eighteenth century have been adequately discussed in mr. john ashton's admirable monograph, and from them a few "cuts" are here reproduced. of course, if one takes the standard of education of these days as the test, many of those curious publications would appear to be addressed to intelligence of the most juvenile sort. yet the themes as a rule show unmistakably that children of a larger growth were catered for, as, for instance, "joseph and his brethren," "the holy disciple," "the wandering jew," and those earlier pamphlets which are reprints or new versions of books printed by wynkyn de worde, pynson, and others of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. [illustration: _henry quitting school._ illustration from "sketches of juvenile characters" (e. wallis. )] in one, "the witch of the woodlands," appears a picture of little people dancing in a fairy ring, which might be supposed at first sight to be an illustration of a nursery tale, but the text describing a witch's sabbath, rapidly dispels the idea. nor does a version of the popular faust legend--"dr. john faustus"--appear to be edifying for young people. this and "friar bacon" are of the class which lingered the longest--the magical and oracular literature. even to-day it is quite possible that dream-books and prophetical pamphlets enjoy a large sale; but a few years ago many were to be found in the catalogues of publishers who catered for the million. it is not very long ago that the company of stationers omitted hieroglyphics of coming events from its almanacs. many fairy stories which to-day are repeated for the amusement of children were regarded as part of this literature--the traditional folk-lore which often enough survives many changes of the religious faith of a nation, and outlasts much civilisation. others were originally political satires, or social pasquinades; indeed not a few nursery rhymes mask allusions to important historical incidents. the chap-book form of publication is well adapted for the preservation of half-discredited beliefs, of charms and prophecies, incantations and cures. in "valentine and orson," of which a fragment is extant of a version printed by wynkyn de worde, we have unquestionably the real fairy story. this class of story, however, was not addressed directly to children until within the last hundred years. that many of the cuts used in these chap-books afterwards found their way into little coarsely printed duodecimos of eight or sixteen pages designed for children is no doubt a fact. indeed the wanderings of these blocks, and the various uses to which they were applied, is far too vast a theme to touch upon here. for this peripatetic habit of old wood-cuts was not even confined to the land of their production; after doing duty in one country, they were ready for fresh service in another. often in the chap-books we meet with the same block as an illustration of totally different scenes. [illustration: title-page of "the paths of learning" (harris and son. )] [illustration: page from "the paths of learning" (harris and son. )] the cut for the title-page of robin hood is a fair example of its kind. the norfolk gentleman's "last will and testament" turns out to be a rambling rhymed version of the two children in the wood. in the first of its illustrations we see the dying parents commending their babes to the cruel world. the next is a subject taken from these lines: "away then went these prity babes rejoycing at that tide, rejoycing with a merry mind they should on cock-horse ride." and in the last, here reproduced, we see them when "their prity lips with blackberries were all besmeared and dyed, and when they saw the darksome night, they sat them down and cried." but here it is more probable that it was the tragedy which attracted readers, as the _police news_ attracts to-day, and that it became a child's favourite by the accident of the robins burying the babes. the example from the "history of sir richard whittington" needs no comment. a very condensed version of "robinson crusoe" has blocks of distinct, if archaic, interest. the three here given show a certain sense of decorative treatment (probably the result of the artist's inability to be realistic), which is distinctly amusing. one might select hundreds of woodcuts of this type, but those here reproduced will serve as well as a thousand to indicate their general style. some few of these books have contributed to later nursery folk-lore, as, for example, the well known "jack horner," which is an extract from a coarse account of the adventures of a dwarf. one quality that is shared by all these earlier pictures is their artlessness and often their absolute ugliness. quaint is the highest adjective that fits them. in books of the later period not a few blocks of earlier date and of really fine design reappear; but in the chap-books quite 'prentice hands would seem to have been employed, and the result therefore is only interesting for its age and rarity. so far these pictures need no comment, they foreshadow nothing and are derived from nothing, so far as their design is concerned. such interest as they have is quite unconcerned with art in any way; they are not even sufficiently misdirected to act as warnings, but are merely clumsy. [illustration: illustration from "german popular stories." by g. cruikshank (charles tilt. )] [illustration: illustration from "german popular stories." by g. cruikshank (charles tilt. )] children's books, as every collector knows, are among the most short-lived of all volumes. this is more especially true of those with illustrations, for their extra attractiveness serves but to degrade a comely book into a dog-eared and untidy thing, with leaves sere and yellow, and with no autumnal grace to mellow their decay. long before this period, however, the nursery artist has marked them for his own, and with crimson lake and prussian blue stained their pictures in all too permanent pigments, that in some cases resist every chemical the amateur applies with the vain hope of effacing the superfluous colour. of course the disappearance of the vast majority of books for children (dating from to , and even later) is no loss to art, although among them are some few which are interesting as the 'prentice work of illustrators who became famous. but these are the exceptions. thanks to the kindness of mr. james stone, of birmingham, who has a large and most interesting collection of the most ephemeral of all sorts--the little penny and twopenny pamphlets--it has been possible to refer at first hand to hundreds, of them. yet, despite their interest as curiosities, their art need not detain us here. the pictures are mostly trivial or dull, and look like the products of very poorly equipped draughtsmen and cheap engravers. some, in pamphlet shape, contain nursery rhymes and little stories, others are devoted to the alphabet and arithmetic. amongst them are many printed on card, shaped like the cover of a bank-book. these were called battledores, but as mr. tuer has dealt with this class in "the horn book" so thoroughly, it would be mere waste of time to discuss them here. mr. elkin mathews also permitted me to run through his interesting collection, and among them were many noted elsewhere in these pages, but the rest, so far as the pictures are concerned, do not call for detailed notice. they do, indeed, contain pictures of children--but mere "factual" scenes, as a rule--without any real fun or real imagination. those who wish to look up early examples will find a large and entertaining variety among "the pearson collection" in the national art library at south kensington museum. turning to quite another class, we find "a museum for young gentlemen and ladies" (collins: salisbury), a typical volume of its kind. its preface begins: "i am very much concerned when i see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasure and diversions.... the greater part of our british youth lose their figure and grow out of fashion by the time they are twenty-five. as soon as the natural gaiety and amiableness of the young man wears off they have nothing left to recommend, but _lie by_ the rest of their lives among the lumber and refuse of their species"--a promising start for a moral lecture, which goes on to implore those who are in the flower of their youth to "labour at those accomplishments which may set off their persons when their bloom is gone." the compensations for old age appear to be, according to this author, a little knowledge of grammar, history, astronomy, geography, weights and measures, the seven wonders of the world, burning mountains, and dying words of great men. but its delightful text must not detain us here. a series of "cuts" of national costumes with which it is embellished deserves to be described in detail. _an american man and woman in their proper habits_, reproduced on page , will give a better idea of their style than any words. the blocks evidently date many years earlier than the thirteenth edition here referred to, which is about . indeed, those of the seven wonders are distinctly interesting. [illustration: illustration from "the little princess." by j. c. horsley, r.a. (joseph cundall. )] [illustration: i had a little nut-tree, nothing would it bear, but a silver nutmeg and a golden pear. the king of spain's daughter, came to visit me,-- and all because of my little nut-tree. illustration from "child's play." by e. v. b. (now published by sampson low)] here and there we meet with one interesting as art. "an ancestral history of king arthur" (h. roberts, blue boar, holborn, ), shown in the pearson collection at south kensington, has an admirable frontispiece; and one or two others would be worth reproduction did space permit. although the dates overlap, the next division of the subject may be taken as ranging from the publication of "goody two shoes--otherwise called mrs. margaret two-shoes"--to the "bewick books." of the latter the most interesting is unquestionably "a pretty book of pictures for little masters and misses, or tommy trip's history of beasts and birds," with a familiar description of each in verse and prose, to which is prefixed "a history of little tom trip himself, of his dog towler, and of coryleg the great giant," written for john newbery, the philanthropic bookseller of st. paul's churchyard. "the fifteenth edition embellished with charming engravings upon wood, from the original blocks engraved by thomas bewick for t. saint of newcastle in "--to quote the full title from the edition reprinted by edwin pearson in . this edition contains a preface tracing the history of the blocks, which are said to be bewick's first efforts to depict beasts and birds, undertaken at the request of the new castle printer, to illustrate a new edition of "tommy trip." as at this time copyright was unknown, and newcastle or glasgow pirated a london success (as new york did but lately), we must not be surprised to find that the text is said to be a reprint of a "newbery" publication. but as saint was called the newbery of the north, possibly the bewick edition was authorised. one or two of the rhymes which have been attributed to oliver goldsmith deserve quotation. appended to a cut of _the bison_ we find the following delightful lines: "the bison, tho' neither engaging nor young, like a flatt'rer can lick you to death with his tongue." the astounding legend of the bison's long tongue, with which he captures a man who has ventured too close, is dilated upon in the accompanying prose. that goldsmith used "teeth" when he meant "tusks" solely for the sake of rhyme is a depressing fact made clear by the next verse: "the elephant with trunk and teeth threatens his foe with instant death, and should these not his ends avail his crushing feet will seldom fail." nor are the rhymes as they stand peculiarly happy; certainly in the following example it requires an effort to make "throw" and "now" pair off harmoniously. "the fierce, fell tiger will, they say, seize any man that's in the way, and o'er his back the victim throw, as you your satchel may do now." yet one more deserves to be remembered if but for its decorative spelling: "the cuccoo comes to chear the spring, and early every morn does sing; the nightingale, secure and snug, the evening charms with jug, jug, jug." [illustration: illustration from "the honey stew" by harrison weir (jeremiah how. )] but these doggerel rhymes are not quite representative of the book, as the well-known "three children sliding on the ice upon a summer's day" appears herein. the "cuts" are distinctively notable, especially the crocodile (which contradicts the letterpress, that says "it turns about with difficulty"), the chameleon, the bison, and the tiger. bewick's "select fables of Ã�sop and others" (newcastle: t. saint, ) deserves fuller notice, but Ã�sop, though a not unpopular book for children, is hardly a children's book. with "the looking glass for the mind" ( ) we have the adaptation of a popular french work, "l'ami des enfans" ( ), with cuts by bewick, which, if not equal to his best, are more interesting from our point of view, as they are obviously designed for young people. the letterpress is full of "useful lessons for my youthful readers," with morals provokingly insisted upon. "goody two shoes" was also published by newbery of st. paul's churchyard--the pioneer of children's literature. his business--which afterwards became messrs. griffith and farran--has been the subject of several monographs and magazine articles by mr. charles welsh, a former partner of that firm. the two monographs were privately printed for issue to members of the sette of odde volumes. the first of these is entitled "on some books for children of the last century, with a few words on the philanthropic publisher of st. paul's churchyard. a paper read at a meeting of the sette of odde volumes, friday, january , ." herein we find a very sympathetic account of john newbery and gossip of the clever and distinguished men who assisted him in the production of children's books, of which charles knight said, "there is nothing more remarkable in them than their originality. there have been attempts to imitate its simplicity, its homeliness; great authors have tried their hands at imitating its clever adaptation to the youthful intellect, but they have failed"--a verdict which, if true of authors when charles knight uttered it, is hardly true of the present time. after goldsmith, charles lamb, to whom "goody two shoes" is now attributed, was, perhaps, the most famous contributor to newbery's publications; his "beauty and the beast" and "prince dorus" have been republished in facsimile lately by messrs. field and tuer. from the _london chronicle_, december to january , , mr. welsh reprinted the following advertisement: [illustration: "blue beard." illustration from "comic nursery tales." by a. crowquill (g. routledge. )] [illustration: "robinson crusoe." illustration from "comic nursery tales." by a. crowquill (g. routledge. )] "the philosophers, politicians, necromancers, and the learned in every faculty are desired to observe that on january , being new year's day (oh that we may all lead new lives!), mr. newbery intends to publish the following important volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby invites all his little friends who are good to call for them at the bible and sun in st. paul's churchyard, but those who are naughty to have none." the paper read by mr. welsh scarcely fulfils the whole promise of its title, for in place of giving anecdotes of newbery he refers his listeners to his own volume, "a bookseller of the last century," for fuller details; but what he said in praise of the excellent printing and binding of newbery's books is well merited. they are, nearly all, comely productions, some with really artistic illustrations, and all marked with care and intelligence which had not hitherto been bestowed on publications intended for juveniles. it is true that most are distinguished for "calculating morality" as the _athenæum_ called it, in re-estimating their merits nearly a century later. it was a period when the advantages of dull moralising were over-prized, when people professed to believe that you could admonish children to a state of perfection which, in their didactic addresses to the small folk, they professed to obey themselves. it was, not to put too fine a point on it, an age of solemn hypocrisy, not perhaps so insincere in intention as in phrase; but, all the same, it repels the more tolerant mood of to-day. whether or not it be wise to confess to the same frailties and let children know the weaknesses of their elders, it is certainly more honest; and the danger is now rather lest the undue humility of experience should lead children to believe that they are better than their fathers. probably the honest sympathy now shown to childish ideals is not likely to be misinterpreted, for children are often shrewd judges, and can detect the false from the true, in morals if not in art. by literature for children had become an established fact. large numbers of publications were ostentatiously addressed to their amusement; but nearly all hid a bitter if wholesome powder in a very small portion of jam. books of educational purport, like "a father's legacy to his daughter," with reprints of classics that are heavily weighted with morals--dr. johnson's "rasselas" and "Ã�sop's fables," for instance--are in the majority. "robinson crusoe" is indeed among them, and bunyan's "pilgrim's progress," both, be it noted, books annexed by the young, not designed for them. [illustration: illustration from "robinson crusoe." by charles keene (james burns. )] the titles of a few odd books which possess more than usually interesting features may be jotted down. of these, "little thumb and the ogre" (r. dutton, ), with illustrations by william blake, is easily first in interest, if not in other respects. others include "the cries of london" ( ), "sindbad the sailor" (newbery, ), "valentine and orson" (mary rhynd, clerkenwell, ), "fun at the fair" (with spirited cuts printed in red), and watts's "divine and moral songs," and "an abridged new testament," with still more effective designs also in red (lumsden, glasgow), "gulliver's travels" (greatly abridged, ), "mother gum" ( ), "anecdotes of a little family" ( ), "mirth without mischief," "king pippin," "the daisy" (cautionary stories in verse), and the "cowslip," its companion (with delightfully prim little rhymes that have been reprinted lately). the thirty illustrations in each are by samuel williams, an artist who yet awaits his due appreciation. a large number of classics of their kind, "the adventures of philip quarll," "gulliver's travels," blake's "songs of innocence," charles lamb's "stories from shakespeare," mrs. sherwood's "henry and his bearer," and a host of other religious stories, cannot even be enumerated. but even were it possible to compile a full list of children's books, it would be of little service, for the popular books are in no danger of being forgotten, and the unpopular, as a rule, have vanished out of existence, and except by pure accident could not be found for love or money. [illustration: illustration from "comic nursery tales" (g. routledge. )] with the publications of newbery and harris, early in the nineteenth century, we encounter examples more nearly typical of the child's book as we regard it to-day. among them harris's "cabinet" is noticeable. the first four volumes, "the butterfly's ball," "the peacock at home," "the lion's masquerade," and "the elephant's ball," were reprinted a few years ago, with the original illustrations by mulready carefully reproduced. a coloured series of sixty-two books, priced at one shilling and sixpence each (harris), was extremely popular. with the "paths of learning strewed with flowers, or english grammar illustrated" ( ), we encounter a work not without elegance. its designs, as we see by the examples reproduced on page , are the obvious prototype of miss greenaway, the model that inspired her to those dainty trifles which conquered even so stern a critic of modern illustration as mr. ruskin. on its cover--a forbidding wrapper devoid of ornament--and repeated within a wreath of roses inside, this preamble occurs: "the purpose of this little book is to obviate the reluctance children evince to the irksome and insipid task of learning the names and meanings of the component parts of grammar. our intention is to entwine roses with instruction, and however humble our endeavour may appear, let it be recollected that the efforts of a mouse set the lion free from his toils." this oddly phrased explanation is typical of the affected geniality of the governess. indeed, it might have been penned by an assistant to miss pinkerton, "the semiramis of hammersmith"; if not by that friend of dr. johnson, the correspondent of mrs. chapone herself, in a moment of gracious effort to bring her intellect down to the level of her pupils. to us, this hollow gaiety sounds almost cruel. in those days children were always regarded as if, to quote mark twain, "every one being born with an equal amount of original sin, the pressure on the square inch must needs be greater in a baby." poor little original sinners, how very scurvily the world of books and picture-makers treated you less than a century ago! life for you then was a perpetual reformatory, a place beset with penalties, and echoing with reproofs. even the literature planned to amuse your leisure was stuck full of maxims and morals; the most piquant story was but a prelude to an awful warning; pictures of animals, places, and rivers failed to conceal undisguised lessons. the one impression that is left by a study of these books is the lack of confidence in their own dignity which papas and mammas betrayed in the early victorian era. this seems past all doubt when you realise that the common effort of all these pictures and prose is to glorify the impeccable parent, and teach his or her offspring to grovel silently before the stern law-givers who ruled the home. [illustration: title-page from "the scouring of the white horse." by richard doyle (macmillan and co. )] of course it was not really so, literature had but lately come to a great middle class who had not learned to be easy; and as worthy folk who talked colloquially wrote in stilted parody of dr. johnson's stately periods, so the uncouth address in print to the populace of the nursery was doubtless forgotten in daily intercourse. but the conventions were preserved, and honest fun or full-bodied romance that loves to depict gnomes and hob-goblins, giants and dwarfs in a world of adventure and mystery, was unpopular. children's books were illustrated entirely by the wonders of the creation, or the still greater wonders of so-called polite society. never in them, except introduced purposely as an "awful example," do you meet an untidy, careless, normal child. even the beggars are prim, and the beasts and birds distinctly genteel in their habits. fairyland was shut to the little ones, who were turned out of their own domain. it seems quite likely that this continued until the german _märchen_ (the literary products of germany were much in favour at this period) reopened the wonderland of the other world about the time that charles dickens helped to throw the door still wider. discovering that the child possessed the right to be amused, the imagination of poets and artists addressed itself at last to the most appreciative of all audiences, a world of newcomers, with insatiable appetites for wonders real and imaginary. [illustration: illustration (reduced) from "misunderstood" by george du maurier (richard bentley and son. )] but for many years before the victorian period folklore was left to the peasants, or at least kept out of reach of children of the higher classes. no doubt old nurses prattled it to their charges, perhaps weak-minded mothers occasionally repeated the ancient legends, but the printing-press set its face against fancy, and offered facts in its stead. in the list of sixty-two books before mentioned, if we except a few nursery jingles such as "mother hubbard" and "cock robin," we find but two real fairy stories, "cinderella," "puss-in-boots," and three old-world narratives of adventure, "whittington and his cat," "the seven champions of christendom," and "valentine and orson." the rest are "peter piper's practical principles of plain and perfect pronunciation," "the monthly monitor," "tommy trip's museum of beasts," "the perambulations of a mouse," and so on, with a few things like "the house that jack built," and "a, apple pie," that are but daily facts put into story shape. now it is clear that the artists inspired by fifty of these had no chance of displaying their imagination, and every opportunity of pointing a moral; and it is painful to be obliged to own that they succeeded beyond belief in their efforts to be dull. of like sort are "a visit to the bazaar" (harris, ), and "the dandies' ball" ( ). [illustration: illustration from "the princess and the goblin." (strahan. . now published by blackie and son)] nor must we forget a work very popular at this period, "keeper in search of his master," although its illustrations are not its chief point. according to a very interesting preface mr. andrew tuer contributed to "the leadenhall series of reprints of forgotten books for children in ," "dame wiggins of lee" was first issued by a. k. newman and co. of the minerva press. this book is perhaps better known than any of its date owing to mr. ruskin's reprint with additional verses by himself, and new designs by miss kate greenaway supplementing the original cuts, which were re-engraved in facsimile by mr. hooper. mr. tuer attributes the design of these latter to r. stennet (or sinnet?), who illustrated also "deborah dent and her donkey" and "madame figs' gala." newman issued many of these books, in conjunction with messrs. dean and mundy, the direct ancestors of the firm of dean and son, still flourishing, and still engaged in providing cheap and attractive books for children. "the gaping wide-mouthed waddling frog" is another book of about this period, which mr. tuer included in his reprints. among the many illustrated volumes which bear the imprint of a. k. newman, and dean and mundy, are "a, apple pie," "aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos," "the house that jack built," "the parent's offering for a good child" (a very pompous and irritating series of dialogues), and others that are even more directly educational. in all these the engravings are in fairly correct outline, coloured with four to six washes of showy crimson lake, ultramarine, pale green, pale sepia, and gamboge. [illustration: illustration from "gutta percha willie." by arthur hughes (strahan. . now published by blackie and son)] [illustration: illustration from "at the back of the north wind." by arthur hughes (strahan. . now published by blackie and son)] even the dreary text need not have made the illustrators quite so dull, as we know that randolph caldecott would have made an illustrated "bradshaw" amusing; but most of his earlier predecessors show no less power in making anything they touched "un-funny." nor as art do their pictures interest you any more than as anecdotes. of course the cost of coloured engravings prohibited their lavish use. all were tinted by hand, sometimes with the help of stencil plates, but more often by brush. the print colourers, we are told, lived chiefly in the pentonville district, or in some of the poorer streets near leicester square. a few survivors are still to be found; but the introduction first of lithography, and later of photographic processes, has killed the industry, and even the most fanatical apostle of the old crafts cannot wish the "hand-painter" back again. the outlines were either cut on wood, as in the early days of printing until the present, or else engraved on metal. in each case all colour was painted afterwards, and in scarce a single instance (not even in the rowlandson caricatures or patriotic pieces) is there any attempt to obtain an harmonious scheme such as is often found in the tinted mezzo-tints of the same period. [illustration: illustration from "at the back of the north wind." by arthur hughes (strahan. . now published by blackie and son)] of works primarily intended for little people, an "hieroglyphical bible" for the amusement and instruction of the younger generation ( ) may be noted. this was a mixture of picture-puns and broken words, after the fashion of the dreary puzzles still published in snippet weeklies. it is a melancholy attempt to turn bible texts to picture puzzles, a book permitted by the unco' guid to children on wet sunday afternoons, as some younger members of large families, whose elder brothers' books yet lingered forty or even fifty years after publication, are able to endorse with vivid and depressed remembrance. foxe's "book of martyrs" and bunyan's "pilgrim's progress" are of the same type, and calculated to fill a nervous child with grim terrors, not lightened by watts's "divine and moral songs," that gloated on the dreadful hell to which sinful children were doomed, "with devils in darkness, fire and chains." but this painful side of the subject is not to be discussed here. luckily the artists--except in the "grown-up" books referred to--disdained to enforce the terrors of dr. watts, and pictured less horrible themes. with cruikshank we encounter almost the first glimpse of the modern ideal. his "grimm's fairy tales" are delightful in themselves, and marvellous in comparison with all before, and no little after. [illustration: illustration from "the little wonder horn." by j. mahoney (h. s. king and co. . griffith and farran. )] these famous illustrations to the first selection of grimm's "german popular stories" appeared in , followed by a second series in . coming across this work after many days spent in hunting up children's books of the period, the designs flashed upon one as masterpieces, and for the first time seemed to justify the great popularity of cruikshank. for their vigour and brilliant invention, their _diablerie_ and true local colour, are amazing when contrasted with what had been previously. wearied of the excessive eulogy bestowed upon cruikshank's illustrations to dickens, and unable to accept the artist as an illustrator of real characters in fiction, when he studies his elfish and other-worldly personages, the most grudging critic must needs yield a full tribute of praise. the volumes (published by charles tilt, of fleet street) are extremely rare; for many years past the sale-room has recorded fancy prices for all cruikshank's illustrations, so that a lover of modern art has been jealous to note the amount paid for by many extremely poor pictures by this artist, when even original drawings for the masterpieces by later illustrators went for a song. in mr. temple scott's indispensable "book sales of " we find the two volumes ( - ) fetched £ _s._ [illustration: "in nooks with books" an auto-lithograph by r. anning bell.] these must not be confounded with cruikshank's "fairy library" ( - ), a series of small books in paper wrappers, now exceedingly rare, which are more distinctly prepared for juvenile readers. the illustrations to these do not rise above the level of their day, as did the earlier ones. but this is owing largely to the fact that the standard had risen far above its old average in the thirty years that had elapsed. amid the mass of volumes illustrated by cruikshank comparatively few are for juveniles; some of these are: "grimm's gammer grethel"; "peter schlemihl" ( ); "christmas recreation" ( ); "hans of iceland" ( ); "german popular stories" ( ); "robinson crusoe" ( ); "the brownies" ( ); "loblie-by-the-fire" ( ); "tom thumb" ( ); and "john gilpin" ( ). [illustration: illustration from "speaking likenesses." by arthur hughes (macmillan and co. )] the works of richard doyle ( - ) enjoy in a lesser degree the sort of inflated popularity which has gathered around those of cruikshank. with much spirit and pleasant invention, doyle lacked academic skill, and often betrays considerable weakness, not merely in composition, but in invention. yet the qualities which won him reputation are by no means despicable. he evidently felt the charm of fairyland, and peopled it with droll little folk who are neither too human nor too unreal to be attractive. he joined the staff of _punch_ when but nineteen, and soon, by his political cartoons, and his famous "manners and customs of y^e english drawn from y^e quick," became an established favourite. his design for the cover of _punch_ is one of his happiest inventions. so highly has he been esteemed that the national gallery possesses one of his pictures, _the triumphant entry; a fairy pageant_. children's books with his illustrations are numerous; perhaps the most important are "the enchanted crow" ( ), "feast of dwarfs" ( ), "fortune's favourite" ( ), "the fairy ring" ( ), "in fairyland" ( ), "merry pictures" ( ), "princess nobody" ( ), "mark lemon's fairy tales" ( ), "a juvenile calendar" ( ), "fairy tales from all nations" ( ), "snow white and rosy red" ( ), ruskin's "the king of the golden river" ( ), hughes's "scouring of the white horse" ( ), "jack the giant killer" ( ), "home for the holidays" ( ), "the whyte fairy book" ( ). the three last are, of course, posthumous publications. still confining ourselves to the pre-victorian period, although the works in question were popular several decades later, we find "sandford and merton" (first published in , and constantly reprinted), "the swiss family robinson," the beginning of "peter parley's annals," and a vast number of other books with the same pseudonym appended, and a host of didactic works, a large number of which contained pictures of animals and other natural objects, more or less well drawn. but the pictures in these are not of any great consequence, merely reflecting the average taste of the day, and very seldom designed from a child's point of view. [illustration: illustration from "undine." by sir john tenniel (james burns. )] this very inadequate sketch of the books before is not curtailed for want of material, but because, despite the enormous amount, very few show attempts to please the child; to warn, to exhort, or to educate are their chief aims. occasionally a bewick or an artist of real power is met with, but the bulk is not only dull, but of small artistic value. that the artist's name is rarely given must not be taken as a sign that only inept draughtsmen were employed, for in works of real importance up to and even beyond this date we often find his share ignored. after a time the engraver claims to be considered, and by degrees the designer is also recognised; yet for the most part illustration was looked upon merely as "jam" to conceal the pill. the old puritan conception of art as vanity had something to do with this, no doubt; for adults often demand that their children shall obey a sterner rule of life than that which they accept themselves. [illustration: illustration from "elliott's nursery rhymes" by w. j. wiegand (novello, )] before passing on, it is as well to summarise this preamble and to discover how far children's books had improved when her majesty came to the throne. the old woodcut, rough and ill-drawn, had been succeeded by the masterpieces of bewick, and the respectable if dull achievements of his followers. in the better class of books were excellent designs by artists of some repute fairly well engraved. colouring by hand, in a primitive fashion, was applied to these prints and to impressions from copperplates. a certain prettiness was the highest aim of most of the latter, and very few were designed only to amuse a child. it seems as if all concerned were bent on unbending themselves, careful to offer grains of truth to young minds with an occasional terrible falsity of their attitude; indeed, its satire and profound analysis make it superfluous to reopen the subject. as one might expect, the literature, "genteel" and dull, naturally desired pictures in the same key. the art of even the better class of children's books was satisfied if it succeeded in being "genteel," or, as miss limpenny would say, "cumeelfo." its ideal reached no higher, and sometimes stopped very far below that modest standard. this is the best (with the few exceptions already noted) one can say of pre-victorian illustration for children. [illustration: illustration from "elliott's nursery rhymes" by h. stacy marks, r.a. (novello. )] if there is one opinion deeply rooted in the minds of the comparatively few britons who care for art, it is a distrust of "the cole gang of south kensington;" and yet if there be one fact which confronts any student of the present revival of the applied arts, it is that sooner or later you come to its first experiments inspired or actually undertaken by sir henry cole. under the pseudonym of "felix summerley" we find that the originator of a hundred revivals of the applied arts, projected and issued a series of children's books which even to-day are decidedly worth praise. it is the fashion to trace everything to mr. william morris, but in illustrations for children as in a hundred others "felix summerley" was setting the ball rolling when morris and the members of the famous firm were schoolboys. [illustration: illustration from "the water babies" by sir r. noel paton (macmillan and co. )] to quote from his own words: "during this period (_i.e._, about ), my young children becoming numerous, their wants induced me to publish a rather long series of books, which constituted 'summerley's home treasury,' and i had the great pleasure of obtaining the welcome assistance of some of the first artists of the time in illustrating them--mulready, r.a., cope, r.a., horsley, r.a., redgrave, r.a., webster, r.a., linnell and his three sons, john, james, and william, h. j. townsend, and others.... the preparation of these books gave me practical knowledge in the technicalities of the arts of type-printing, lithography, copper and steel-plate engraving and printing, and bookbinding in all its varieties in metal, wood, leather, &c." copies of the books in question appear to be very rare. it is doubtful if the omnivorous british museum has swallowed a complete set; certainly at the art library of south kensington museum, where, if anywhere, we might expect to find sir henry cole completely represented, many gaps occur. how far mr. joseph cundall, the publisher, should be awarded a share of the credit for the enterprise is not apparent, but his publications and writings, together with the books issued later by cundall and addey, are all marked with the new spirit, which so far as one can discover was working in many minds at this time, and manifested itself most conspicuously through the pre-raphaelites and their allies. this all took place, it must be remembered, long before . we forget often that if that exhibition has any important place in the art history of great britain, it does but prove that much preliminary work had been already accomplished. you cannot exhibit what does not exist; you cannot even call into being "exhibition specimens" at a few months notice, if something of the same sort, worked for ordinary commerce, has not already been in progress for years previously. [illustration: illustration from "the royal umbrella." by linley sambourne (griffith and farran. )] [illustration: illustration from "on a pincushion." by william de morgan (seeley, jackson and halliday. )] almost every book referred to has been examined anew for the purposes of this article. as a whole they might fail to impress a critic not peculiarly interested in the matter. but if he tries to project himself to the period that produced them, and realises fully the enormous importance of first efforts, he will not estimate grudgingly their intrinsic value, but be inclined to credit them with the good things they never dreamed of, as well as those they tried to realise and often failed to achieve. here, without any prejudice for or against the south kensington movement, it is but common justice to record sir henry cole's share in the improvement of children's books; and later on his efforts on behalf of process engraving must also not be forgotten. to return to the books in question, some extracts from the original prospectus, which speaks of them as "purposed to cultivate the affections, fancy, imagination, and taste of children," are worth quotation: "the character of most children's books published during the last quarter of a century, is fairly typified in the name of peter parley, which the writers of some hundreds of them have assumed. the books themselves have been addressed after a narrow fashion, almost entirely to the cultivation of the understanding of children. the many tales sung or said from time to time immemorial, which appealed to the other, and certainly not less important elements of a little child's mind, its fancy, imagination, sympathies, affections, are almost all gone out of memory, and are scarcely to be obtained. 'little red riding hood,' and other fairy tales hallowed to children's use, are now turned into ribaldry as satires for men; as for the creation of a new fairy tale or touching ballad, such a thing is unheard of. that the influence of all this is hurtful to children, the conductor of this series firmly believes. he has practical experience of it every day in his own family, and he doubts not that there are many others who entertain the same opinions as himself. he purposes at least to give some evidence of his belief, and to produce a series of works, the character of which may be briefly described as anti-peter parleyism. [illustration: illustration from "the necklace of princess fiorimonde." by walter crane (macmillan and co. )] "some will be new works, some new combinations of old materials, and some reprints carefully cleared of impurities, without deterioration to the points of the story. all will be illustrated, but not after the usual fashion of children's books, in which it seems to be assumed that the lowest kind of art is good enough to give first impressions to a child. in the present series, though the statement may perhaps excite a smile, the illustrations will be selected from the works of raffaelle, titian, hans holbein, and other old masters. some of the best modern artists have kindly promised their aid in creating a taste for beauty in little children." did space permit, a selection from the reviews of the chief literary papers that welcomed the new venture would be instructive. there we should find that even the most cautious critic, always "hedging" and playing for safety, felt compelled to accord a certain amount of praise to the new enterprise. it is true that "felix summerley" created only one type of the modern book. possibly the "stories turned into satires" to which he alludes are the entirely amusing volumes by f. h. bayley, the author of "a new tale of a tub." as it happened that these volumes were my delight as a small boy, possibly i am unduly fond of them; but it seems to me that their humour--_à la_ ingoldsby, it is true--and their exuberantly comic drawings, reveal the first glimpses of lighter literature addressed specially to children, that long after found its masterpieces in the "crane" and "greenaway" and "caldecott" toy books, in "alice in wonderland," and in a dozen other treasured volumes, which are now classics. the chief claim for the home treasury series to be considered as the advance guard of our present sumptuous volumes, rests not so much upon the quality of their designs or the brightness of their literature. their chief importance is that in each of them we find for the first time that the externals of a child's book are most carefully considered. its type is well chosen, the proportions of its page are evidently studied, its binding, even its end-papers, show that some one person was doing his best to attain perfection. it is this conscious effort, whatever it actually realised, which distinguishes the result from all before. it is evident that the series--the home treasury--took itself seriously. its purpose was art with a capital a--a discovery, be it noted, of this period. sir henry cole, in a footnote to the very page whence the quotation above was extracted, discusses the first use of "art" as an adjective denoting the _fine_ arts. [illustration: illustration from "household stories from grimm." by walter crane (macmillan and co. )] here it is more than ever difficult to keep to the thread of this discourse. all that south kensington did and failed to do, the æsthetic movement of the eighties, the new gospel of artistic salvation by liberty fabrics and de morgan tiles, the erratic changes of fashion in taste, the collapse of gothic architecture, the triumph of queen anne, and the arts and crafts movement of the nineties--in short, all the story of art in the last fifty years, from the new law courts to the tate gallery, from felix summerley to a hollyer photograph, from the introduction of glyptography to the pictures in the _daily chronicle_, demand notice. but the door must be shut on the turbulent throng, and only children's books allowed to pass through. the publications by "felix summerley," according to the list in "fifty years of public work," by sir henry cole, k.c.b. (bell, ), include: "holbein's bible events," eight pictures, coloured by mr. linnell's sons, _s._ _d._; "raffaelle's bible events," six pictures from the loggia, drawn on stone by mr. linnell's children and coloured by them, _s._ _d._; "albert dürer's bible events," six pictures from dürer's "small passion," coloured by the brothers linnell; "traditional nursery songs," containing eight pictures; "the beggars coming to town," by c. w. cope, r.a.; "by, o my baby!" by r. redgrave, r.a.; "mother hubbard," by t. webster, r.a.; " , , , , ," "sleepy head," "up in a basket," "cat asleep by the fire," by john linnell, _s._ _d._, coloured; "the ballad of sir hornbook," by thos. love peacock, with eight pictures by h. corbould, coloured, _s._ _d._ (a book with the same title, also described as a "grammatico-allegorical ballad," was published by n. haites in .) "chevy chase," with music and four pictures by frederick tayler, president of the water-colour society, coloured, _s._ _d._; "puck's reports to oberon"; four new faëry tales: "the sisters," "golden locks," "grumble and cherry," "arts and arms," by c. a. cole, with six pictures by j. h. townsend, r. redgrave, r.a., j. c. horsley, r.a., c. w. cope, r.a., and f. tayler; "little red riding hood," with four pictures by thos. webster, coloured, _s._ _d._; "beauty and the beast," with four pictures by j. c. horsley, r.a., coloured, _s._ _d._; "jack and the bean stalk," with four pictures by c. w. cope, r.a., coloured, _s._ _d._; "cinderella," with four pictures by e. h. wehnert, coloured, _s._ _d._; "jack the giant killer," with four pictures by c. w. cope, coloured, _s._ _d._; "the home treasury primer," printed in colours, with drawing on zinc, by w. mulready, r.a.; "alphabets of quadrupeds," selected from the works of paul potter, karl du jardin, teniers, stoop, rembrandt, &c., and drawn from nature; "the pleasant history of reynard the fox," with forty of the fifty-seven etchings made by everdingen in , coloured, _s._ _d._; "a century of fables," with pictures by the old masters. to this list should be added--if it is not by "felix summerley," it is evidently conceived by the same spirit and published also by cundall--"gammer gurton's garland," by ambrose merton, with illustrations by t. webster and others. this was also issued as a series of sixpenny books, of which mr. elkin mathews owns a nearly complete set, in their original covers of gold and coloured paper. [illustration: illustration from "a wonder book for girls and boys." by walter crane (osgood, mcilvaine and co. )] it would be very easy to over-estimate the intrinsic merit of these books, but when you consider them as pioneers it would be hard to over-rate the importance of the new departure. to enlist the talent of the most popular artists of the period, and produce volumes printed in the best style of the chiswick press, with bindings and end-papers specially designed, and the whole "get up" of the book carefully considered, was certainly a bold innovation in the early forties. that it failed to be a profitable venture one may deduce from the fact that the "felix summerley" series did not run to many volumes, and that the firm who published them, after several changes, seems to have expired, or more possibly was incorporated with some other venture. the books themselves are forgotten by most booksellers to-day, as i have discovered from many fruitless demands for copies. the little square pamphlets by f. h. bayley, to which allusion has already been made, include "blue beard;" "robinson crusoe," and "red riding hood," all published about - . [illustration: illustration from "the queen of the pirate isle." by kate greenaway (edmund evans. )] whether "the sleeping beauty," then announced as in preparation, was published, i do not know. their rhyming chronicle in the style of the "ingoldsby legends" is neatly turned, and the topical allusions, although out of date now, are not sufficiently frequent to make it unintelligible. the pictures (possibly by alfred crowquill) are conceived in a spirit of burlesque, and are full of ingenious conceits and no little grim vigour. the design of robinson crusoe roosting in a tree-- and so he climbs up a very tall tree, and fixes himself to his comfort and glee, hung up from the end of a branch by his breech, quite out of all mischievous quadrupeds' reach. a position not perfectly easy 't is true, but yet at the same time consoling and new-- reproduced on p. , shows the wilder humour of the illustrations. another of blue beard, and one of the wolf suffering from undigested grandmother, are also given. they need no comment, except to note that in the originals, printed on a coloured tint with the high lights left white, the ferocity of blue beard is greatly heightened. the wolf, "as he lay there brimful of grandmother and guilt," is one of the best of the smaller pictures in the text. other noteworthy books which appeared about this date are mrs. felix summerley's "mother's primer," illustrated by w. m[ulready?], longmans, ; "little princess," by mrs. john slater, , with six charming lithographs by j. c. horsley, r.a. (one of which is reproduced on p. ); the "honey stew," of the countess bertha jeremiah how, , with coloured plates by harrison weir; "early days of english princes," with capital illustrations by john franklin; and a series of pleasant books for young children, _d._ plain and _s._ coloured, published by cundall and addey. [illustration: illustration from "little folks" by kate greenaway (cassell and co.)] in appeared a translation of de la motte fouqué's romances, "undine" being illustrated by john tenniel, jun., and the following volumes by j. franklin, h. c. selous, and other artists. the tenniel designs, as the frontispiece reproduced on p. shows clearly, are interesting both in themselves and as the earliest published work of the famous _punch_ cartoonist. the strong german influence they show is also apparent in nearly all the decorations. "the juvenile verse and picture book" ( ), also contains designs by tenniel, and others by w. b. scott and sir john gilbert. the ideal they established is maintained more or less closely for a long period. "songs for children" (w. s. orr, ); "young england's little library" ( ); mrs. s. c. hall's "number one," with pictures by john absolon ( ); "stories about dogs," with "plates by thomas landseer" (bogue, _c._ ); "the three bears," illustrated by absolon and harrison weir (addey and co., no date); "nursery poetry" (bell and daldy, ), may be noted as typical examples of this period. [illustration: illustration from "the pied piper of hamelin" by kate greenaway (edmund evans)] in "granny's story box" (piper, stephenson, and spence, about ), a most delicious collection of fairy tales illustrated by j. knight, we find the author in his preface protesting against the opinion of a supposititious old lady who "thought all fairy tales were abolished years ago by peter parley and the _penny magazine_." these fanciful stories deserve to be republished, for they are not old-fashioned, even if their pictures are. to what date certain delightfully printed little volumes, issued by tabart and co., bond street, may be ascribed i know not--probably some years before the time we are considering, but they must not be overlooked. the title of one, "mince pies for christmas," suggests that it is not very far before, for the legend of christmas festivities had not long been revived for popular use. "the little lychetts," by the author of "john halifax," illustrated by henry warren, president of the new society of painters in water-colours (now the r.i.) is remarkable for the extremely uncomely type of children it depicts; yet that its charm is still vivid, despite its "severe" illustrations, you have but to lend it to a child to be convinced quickly. "jack's holiday," by albert smith (undated), suggests a new field of research which might lead us astray, as smith's humour is more often addressed primarily to adults. indeed, the effort to make this chronicle even representative, much less exhaustive, breaks down in the fifties, when so much good yet not very exhilarating material is to be found in every publisher's list. john leech in "the silver swan" of mdme. de chatelaine; charles keene in "the adventures of dick bolero" (darton, no date), and "robinson crusoe" (drawn upon for illustration here), and others of the _punch_ artists, should find their works duly catalogued even in this hasty sketch; but space compels scant justice to many artists of the period, yet if the most popular are left unnoticed such omission will more easily right itself to any reader interested in the subject. many show influences of the gothic revival which was then in the air, but only those which have some idea of book decoration as opposed to inserted pictures. for a certain "formal" ornamentation of the page was in fashion in the "forties" and "fifties," even as it is to-day. [illustration: illustration from "cape town dicky" by alice havers (c. w. faulkner and co.)] to the artists named as representative of this period one must not forget to add mr. birket foster, who devoted many of his felicitous studies of english pastoral life to the adornment of children's books. but speaking broadly of the period from the queen's accession to , except that the subjects are of a sort supposed to appeal to young minds, their conception differs in no way from the work of the same artists in ordinary literature. the vignettes of scenery have childish instead of grown-up figures in the foregrounds; the historical or legendary figures are as seriously depicted in the one class of books as in the other. humour is conspicuous by its absence--or, to be more accurate, the humour is more often in the accompanying anecdote than in the picture. probably if the authorship of hundreds of the illustrations of "peter parley's annuals" and other books of this period could be traced, artists as famous as charles keene might be found to have contributed. but, owing to the mediocre wood-engraving employed, or to the poor printing, the pictures are singularly unattractive. as a rule, they are unsigned and appear to be often mere pot-boilers--some no doubt intentionally disowned by the designer--others the work of 'prentice hands who afterwards became famous. above all they are, essentially, illustrations to children's books only because they chanced to be printed therein, and have sometimes done duty in "grown-up" books first. hence, whatever their artistic merits, they do not appeal to a student of our present subject. they are accidentally present in books for children, but essentially they belong to ordinary illustrations. indeed, speaking generally, the time between "felix summerley" and _walter crane_, which saw two great exhibitions and witnessed many advances in popular illustration, was too much occupied with catering for adults to be specially interested in juveniles. hence, notwithstanding the names of "illustrious illustrators" to be found on their title-pages, no great injustice will be done if we leave this period and pass on to that which succeeded it. for the great exhibition fostered the idea that a smattering of knowledge of a thousand and one subjects was good. hence the chastened gaiety of its mildly technical science, its popular manuals by dr. dionysius lardner, and its return in another form to the earlier ideal that amusement should be combined with instruction. all sorts of attempts were initiated to make astronomy palatable to babies, botany an amusing game for children, conchology a parlour pastime, and so on through the alphabet of sciences down to zoology, which is never out of favour with little ones, even if its pictures be accompanied by a dull encylopædia of fact. [illustration: illustration from "the white swans" by alice havers (_by permission of mr. albert hildesheimer_)] therefore, except so far as the work of certain illustrators, hereafter noticed, touches this period, we may leave it; not because it is unworthy of most serious attention, for in sir john gilbert, birket foster, harrison weir, and the rest, we have men to reckon with whenever a chronicle of english illustration is in question, but only because they did not often feel disposed to make their work merely amusing. in saying this it is not suggested that they should have tried to be always humorous or archaic, still less to bring down their talent to the supposed level of a child; but only to record the fact that they did not. for instance, sir john gilbert's spirited compositions to a "boy's book of ballads" (bell and daldy) as you see them mixed with other of the master's work in the reference scrap-books of the publishers, do not at once separate themselves from the rest as "juvenile" pictures. nor as we approach the year (of the "music master"), and (when the famous edition of tennyson's poems began a series of superbly illustrated books), do we find any immediate change in the illustration of children's books. the solitary example of sir edward burne-jones's efforts in this direction, in the frontispiece and title-page to maclaren's "the fairy family" (longmans, ), does not affect this statement. but soon after, as the school of walker and pinwell became popular, there is a change in books of all sorts, and millais and arthur hughes, two of the three illustrators of the notable "music master," come into our list of children's artists. at this point the attempt to weave a chronicle of children's books somewhat in the date of their publication must give way to a desultory notice of the most prominent illustrators. for we have come to the beginning of to-day rather than the end of yesterday, and can regard the "sixties" onwards as part of the present. it is true that the millais of the wonderful designs to "the parables" more often drew pictures of children than of children's pet themes, but all the same they are entirely lovable, and appeal equally to children of all ages. but his work in this field is scanty; nearly all will be found in "little songs for me to sing" (cassell), or in "lilliput levee" ( ), and these latter had appeared previously in _good words_. of arthur hughes's work we will speak later. [illustration: illustration from "the red fairy book." by lancelot speed (longmans, green and co.)] another artist whose work bulks large in our subject--arthur boyd houghton--soon appears in sight, and whether he depicted babies at play as in "home thoughts and home scenes," a book of thirty-five pictures of little people, or imagined the scenes of stories dear to them in "the arabian nights," or books like "ernie elton" or "the boy pilgrims," written especially for them, in each he succeeded in winning their hearts, as every one must admit who chanced in childhood to possess his work. so much has been printed lately of the artist and his work, that here a bare reference will suffice. [illustration: illustration from "the red fairy book." by lancelot speed (longmans, green and co.)] arthur hughes, whose work belongs to many of the periods touched upon in this rambling chronicle, may be called _the_ children's "black-and-white" artist of the "sixties" (taking the date broadly as comprising the earlier "seventies" also), even as walter crane is their "limner in colours." his work is evidently conceived with the serious make-believe that is the very essence of a child's imagination. he seems to put down on paper the very spirit of fancy. whether as an artist he is fully entitled to the rank some of his admirers (of whom i am one) would claim, is a question not worth raising here--the future will settle that for us. but as a children's illustrator he is surely illustrator-in-chief to the queen of the fairies, and to a whole generation of readers of "tom brown's schooldays" also. his contributions to "good words for the young" would alone entitle him to high eminence. in addition to these, which include many stories perhaps better known in book form, such as: "the boy in grey" (h. kingsley), george macdonald's "at the back of the north wind," "the princess and the goblin," "ranald bannerman's boyhood," "gutta-percha willie" (these four were published by strahan, and now may be obtained in reprints issued by messrs. blackie), and "lilliput lectures" (a book of essays for children by matthew browne), we find him as sole illustrator of christina rossetti's "sing song," "five days' entertainment at wentworth grange," "dealings with the fairies," by george macdonald (a very scarce volume nowadays), and the chief contributor to the first illustrated edition of "tom brown's schooldays." in novello's "national nursery rhymes" are also several of his designs. this list, which occupies so small a space, represents several hundred designs, all treated in a manner which is decorative (although it eschews the dürer line), but marked by strong "colour." indeed, mr. hughes's technique is all his own, and if hard pressed one might own that in certain respects it is not impeccable. but if his textures are not sufficiently differentiated, or even if his drawing appears careless at times--both charges not to be admitted without vigorous protest--granting the opponent's view for the moment, it would be impossible to find the same peculiar tenderness and naïve fancy in the work of any other artist. his invention seems inexhaustible and his composition singularly fertile: he can create "bogeys" as well as "fairies." [illustration: illustration from "the red fairy book." by lancelot speed (longmans, green and co.)] [illustration: illustration from "down the snow stairs." by gordon browne (blackie and son)] it is true that his children are related to the sexless idealised race of sir edward burne-jones's heroes and heroines; they are purged of earthy taint, and idealised perhaps a shade too far. they adopt attitudes graceful if not realistic, they have always a grave serenity of expression; and yet withal they endear themselves in a way wholly their own. it is strange that a period which has bestowed so much appreciation on the work of the artists of "the sixties" has seen no knight-errant with "arthur hughes" inscribed on his banner--no exhibition of his black-and-white work, no craze in auction-rooms for first editions of books he illustrated. he has, however, a steady if limited band of very faithful devotees, and perhaps--so inconsistent are we all--they love his work all the better because the blast of popularity has not trumpeted its merits to all and sundry. three artists, often coupled together--walter crane, randolph caldecott, and kate greenaway--have really little in common, except that they all designed books for children which were published about the same period. for walter crane is the serious apostle of art for the nursery, who strove to beautify its ideal, to decorate its legends with a real knowledge of architecture and costume, and to "mount" the fairy stories with a certain archæological splendour, as sir henry irving has set himself to mount shakespearean drama. caldecott was a fine literary artist, who was able to express himself with rare facility in pictures in place of words, so that his comments upon a simple text reveal endless subtleties of thought. indeed, he continued to make a fairly logical sequence of incidents out of the famous nonsense paragraph invented to confound mnemonics by its absolute irrelevancy. miss greenaway's charm lies in the fact that she first recognised quaintness in what had been considered merely "old fashion," and continued to infuse it with a glamour that made it appear picturesque. had she dressed her figures in contemporary costume most probably her work would have taken its place with the average, and never obtained more than common popularity. [illustration: illustration from "robinson crusoe" by gordon browne (blackie and son)] but mr. walter crane is almost unique in his profound sympathy with the fantasies he imagines. there is no trace of make-believe in his designs. on the contrary, he makes the old legends become vital, not because of the personalities he bestows on his heroes and fairy princesses--his people move often in a rapt ecstasy--but because the adjuncts of his _mise-en-scènes_ are realised intimately. his prince is much more the typical hero than any particular person; his fair ladies might exchange places, and few would notice the difference; but when it comes to the environment, the real incidents of the story, then no one has more fully grasped both the dramatic force and the local colour. if his people are not peculiarly alive, they are in harmony with the re-edified cities and woods that sprang up under his pencil. he does not bestow the hoary touch of antiquity on his mediæval buildings; they are all new and comely, in better taste probably than the actual buildings, but not more idealised than are his people. he is the true artist of fairyland, because he recognises its practical possibilities, and yet does not lose the glamour which was never on sea or land. no artist could give more cultured notions of fairyland. in his work the vulgar glories of a pantomime are replaced by well-conceived splendour; the tawdry adjuncts of a throne-room, as represented in a theatre, are ignored. temples and palaces of the early renaissance, filled with graceful--perhaps a shade too suave--figures, embody all the charm of the impossible country, with none of the sordid drawbacks that are common to real life. in modern dress, as in his pictures to many of mrs. molesworth's stories, there is a certain unlikeness to life as we know it, which does not detract from the effect of the design; but while this is perhaps distracting in stories of contemporary life, it is a very real advantage in those of folk-lore, which have no actual date, and are therefore unafraid of anachronisms of any kind. the spirit of his work is, as it should be, intensely serious, yet the conceits which are showered upon it exactly harmonise with the mood of most of the stories that have attracted his pencil. grimm's "household stories," as he pictured them, are a lasting joy. the "bluebeard" and "jack and the beanstalk" toy books, the "princess belle etoile," and a dozen others are nursery classics, and classics also of the other nursery where children of a larger growth take their pleasure. [illustration: illustration from "robinson crusoe." by will paget. (cassell and co.)] without a shade of disrespect towards all the other artists represented in this special number, had it been devoted solely to mr. walter crane's designs, it would have been as interesting in every respect. there is probably not a single illustrator here mentioned who would not endorse such a statement. for as a maker of children's books, no one ever attempted the task he fulfilled so gaily, and no one since has beaten him on his own ground. even mr. howard pyle, his most worthy rival, has given us no wealth of colour-prints. so that the famous toy books still retain their well-merited position as the most delightful books for the nursery and the studio, equally beloved by babies and artists. [illustration: illustration from "english fairy tales" by j. d. batten (david nutt)] although a complete iconography of mr. walter crane's work has not yet been made, the following list of such of his children's books as i have been able to trace may be worth printing for the benefit of those who have not access to the british museum; where, by the way, many are not included in that section of its catalogue devoted to "crane, walter." [illustration: "so light of foot, so light of spirit." by charles robinson] the famous series of toy books by walter crane include: "the railroad a b c," "the farmyard a b c," "sing a song of sixpence," "the waddling frog," "the old courtier," "multiplication in verse," "chattering jack," "how jessie was lost," "grammar in rhyme," "annie and jack in london," "one, two, buckle my shoe," "the fairy ship," "adventures of puffy," "this little pig went to market," "king luckieboy's party," "noah's ark alphabet," "my mother," "the forty thieves," "the three bears," "cinderella," "valentine and orson," "puss in boots," "old mother hubbard," "the absurd a b c," "little red riding hood," "jack and the beanstalk," "blue beard," "baby's own alphabet," "the sleeping beauty." all these were published at sixpence. a larger series at one shilling includes: "the frog prince," "goody two shoes," "beauty and the beast," "alphabet of old friends," "the yellow dwarf," "aladdin," "the hind in the wood," and "princess belle etoile." all these were published from onwards by routledge, and printed in colours by edmund evans. [illustration: illustration from "english fairy tales." by j. d. batten (david nutt)] a small quarto series routledge published at five shillings includes: "the baby's opera," "the baby's bouquet," "the baby's own Ã�sop." another and larger quarto, "flora's feast" ( ), and "queen summer" ( ), were both published by cassells, who issued also "legends for lionel" ( ). "pan pipes," an oblong folio with music was issued by routledge. messrs. marcus ward produced "slate and pencilvania," "pothooks and perseverance," "romance of the three rs," "little queen anne" ( - ), hawthorne's "a wonder book," first published in america, is a quarto volume with elaborate designs in colour; and "the golden primer" ( ), two vols., by professor meiklejohn (blackwood) is, like all the above, in colour. of a series of stories by mrs. molesworth the following volumes are illustrated by mr. crane:--"a christmas posy" ( ), "carrots" ( ), "a christmas child" ( ), "christmas-tree land" ( ), "the cuckoo clock" ( ), "four winds farm" ( ), "grandmother dear" ( ), "herr baby" ( ), "little miss peggy" ( ), "the rectory children" ( ), "rosy" ( ), "the tapestry room" ( ), "tell me a story," "two little waifs," "us" ( ), and "children of the castle" ( ). earlier in date are "stories from memel" ( ), "stories of old," "children's sayings" ( ), two series, "poor match" ( ), "the merry heart," with eight coloured plates (cassell); "king gab's story bag" (cassell), "magic of kindness" ( ), "queen of the tournament," "history of poor match," "our uncle's old home" ( ), "sunny days" ( ), "the turtle dove's nest" ( ). later come "the necklace of princess fiorimonde" ( ), the famous edition of grimm's "household stories" ( ), both published by macmillan, and c. c. harrison's "folk and fairy tales" ( ), "the happy prince" (nutt, ). of these the "grimm" and "fiorimonde" are perhaps two of the most important illustrated books noted in these pages. randolph caldecott founded a school that still retains fresh hold of the british public. but with all respect to his most loyal disciple, mr. hugh thomson, one doubts if any successor has equalled the master in the peculiar subtlety of his pictured comment upon the bare text. you have but to turn to any of his toy books to see that at times each word, almost each syllable, inspired its own picture; and that the artist not only conceived the scene which the text called into being, but each successive step before and after the reported incident itself. in "the house that jack built," "this is the rat that ate the malt" supplies a subject for five pictures. first the owner carrying in the malt, next the rat driven away by the man, then the rat peeping up into the deserted room, next the rat studying a placard upside down inscribed "four measures of malt," and finally, the gorged animal sitting upon an empty measure. so "this is the cat that killed the rat" is expanded into five pictures. the dog has four, the cat three, and the rest of the story is amplified with its secondary incidents duly sought and depicted. this literary expression is possibly the most marked characteristic of a facile and able draughtsman. he studied his subject as no one else ever studied it--he must have played with it, dreamed of it, worried it night and day, until he knew it ten times better than its author. then he portrayed it simply and with irresistible vigour, with a fine economy of line and colour; when colour is added, it is mainly as a gay convention, and not closely imitative of nature. the sixteen toy books which bear his name are too well known to make a list of their titles necessary. a few other children's books--"what the blackbird said" (routledge, ), "jackanapes," "lob-lie-by-the-fire," "daddy darwin's dovecot," all by mrs. ewing (s.p.c.k.), "baron bruno" (macmillan), "some of Ã�sop's fables" (macmillan), and one or two others, are of secondary importance from our point of view here. [illustration: illustration from "the wonder clock." by howard pyle (harper and brothers)] [illustration: illustration from "the wonder clock." by howard pyle (harper and brothers)] [illustration: illustration from "the wonder clock." by howard pyle (harper and brothers. )] it is no overt dispraise to say of miss kate greenaway that few artists made so great a reputation in so small a field. inspired by the children's books of (as a reference to a design, "paths of learning," reproduced on p. will show), and with a curious naïvety that was even more unconcerned in its dramatic effect than were the "missal marge" pictures of the illuminators, by her simple presentation of the childishness of childhood she won all hearts. her little people are the _beau-idéal_ of nursery propriety--clean, good-tempered, happy small gentlefolk. for, though they assume peasants' garb, they never betray boorish manners. their very abandon is only that of nice little people in play-hours, and in their wildest play the penalties that await torn knickerbockers or soiled frocks are not absent from their minds. whether they really interested children as they delighted their elders is a moot point. the verdict of many modern children is unanimous in praise, and possibly because they represented the ideal every properly educated child is supposed to cherish. the slight taint of priggishness which occasionally is there did not reveal itself to a child's eye. miss greenaway's art, however, is not one to analyse but to enjoy. that she is a most careful and painstaking worker is a fact, but one that would not in itself suffice to arouse one's praise. the absence of effort which makes her work look happy and without effort is not its least charm. her gay yet "cultured" colour, her appreciation of green chairs and formal gardens, all came at the right time. the houses by a norman shaw found a morris and a liberty ready with furniture and fabrics, and all sorts of manufacturers devoting themselves to the production of pleasant objects, to fill them; and for its drawing-room tables miss greenaway produced books that were in the same key. but as the architecture and the fittings, at their best, proved to be no passing whim, but the germ of a style, so her illustration is not a trifling sport, but a very real, if small, item in the history of the evolution of picture-books. good taste is the prominent feature of her work, and good taste, if out of fashion for a time, always returns, and is treasured by future generations, no matter whether it be in accord with the expression of the hour or distinctly archaic. time is a very stringent critic, and much that passed as tolerably good taste when it fell in with the fashion, looks hopelessly vulgar when the tide of popularity has retreated. miss greenaway's work appears as refined ten years after its "boom," as it did when it was at the flood. that in itself is perhaps an evidence of its lasting power; for ten or a dozen years impart a certain shabby and worn aspect that has no flavour of the antique as a saving virtue to atone for its shortcomings. [illustration: illustration from "the wonder clock." by howard pyle. (harper and brothers)] [illustration: illustration from "the wonder clock." by howard pyle. (harper and brothers)] it seems almost superfluous to give a list of the principal books by miss kate greenaway, yet for the convenience of collectors the names of the most noteworthy volumes may be set down. those with coloured plates are: "a, apple pie" ( ), "alphabet" ( ), "almanacs" (from yearly), "birthday book" ( ), "book of games" ( ), "a day in a child's life" ( ), "king pepito" ( ), "language of flowers" ( ), "little ann" ( ), "marigold garden" ( ), "mavor's spelling book" ( ), "mother goose" ( ), "the pied piper of hamelin" ( ), "painting books" ( and ), "queen victoria's jubilee garland" ( ), "queen of the pirate isle" ( ), "under the window" ( ). others with black-and-white illustrations include "child of the parsonage" ( ), "fairy gifts" ( ), "seven birthdays" ( ), "starlight stories" ( ), "topo" ( ), "dame wiggins of lee" (allen, ), "stories from the eddas" ( ). many designs, some in colour, are to be found in volumes of _little folks_, _little wideawake_, _every girl's magazine_, _girl's own paper_, and elsewhere. [illustration: illustration from "children's singing games" by winifred smith (david nutt. )] the art of miss greenaway is part of the legend of the æsthetic craze, and while its storks and sunflowers have faded, and some of its eccentricities are forgotten, the quaint little pictures on christmas cards, in toy books, and elsewhere, are safely installed as items of the art product of the century. indeed, many a popular royal academy picture is likely to be forgotten before the illustrations from her hand. _bric-à-brac_ they were, but more than that, for they gave infinite pleasure to thousands of children of all ages, and if they do not rise up and call her blessed, they retain a very warm memory of one who gave them so much innocent pleasure. [illustration: illustration from "undine" by heywood sumner (chapman and hall)] [illustration: illustration from "the red fairy book" by l. speed (longmans, green and co. )] sir john tenniel's illustrations, beginning as they do with "undine" ( ), already mentioned, include others in volumes for young people that need not be quoted. but with his designs for "alice in wonderland" (macmillan, ), and "through the looking glass" ( ), we touch _the_ two most notable children's books of the century. to say less would be inadequate and to say more needless. for every one knows the incomparable inventions which "lewis carroll" imagined and sir john tenniel depicted. they are veritable classics, of which, as it is too late to praise them, no more need be said. certain coloured picture books by j. e. rogers were greeted with extravagant eulogy at the time they appeared "in the seventies." "worthy to be hung at the academy beside the best pictures of millais or sandys," one fatuous critic observed. looking over their pages again, it seems strange that their very weak drawing and crude colour could have satisfied people familiar with mr. walter crane's masterly work in a not dissimiliar style. "ridicula rediviva" and "mores ridiculi" (both macmillan), were illustrations of nursery rhymes. to "the fairy book" ( ), a selection of old stories re-told by the author of "john halifax," mr. rogers contributed many full pages in colour, and also to mr. f. c. burnand's "present pastimes of merrie england" ( ). they are interesting as documents, but not as art; for their lack of academic knowledge is not counterbalanced by peculiar "feeling" or ingenious conceit. they are merely attempts to do again what mr. h. s. marks had done better previously. it seems ungrateful to condemn books that but for renewed acquaintance might have kept the glamour of the past; and yet, realising how much feeble effort has been praised since it was "only for children," it is impossible to keep silence when the truth is so evident. [illustration: illustration from "katawampus" by archie macgregor (david nutt)] alfred crowquill most probably contributed all the pictures to "robinson crusoe," "blue beard," and "red riding hood" told in rhyme by f. w. n. bayley, which have been noticed among his books of the "forties." one of the full pages, which appear to be lithographs, is clearly signed. he also illustrated the adventures of "master tyll owlglass," an edition of "baron munchausen," "picture fables," "the careless chicken," "funny leaves for the younger branches," "laugh and grow thin," and a host of other volumes. yet the pictures in these, amusing as they are in their way, do not seem likely to attract an audience again at any future time. e. v. b., initials which stand for the hon. mrs. boyle, are found on many volumes of the past twenty-five years which have enjoyed a special reputation. certainly her drawings, if at times showing much of the amateur, have also a curious "quality," which accounts for the very high praise they have won from critics of some standing. "the story without an end," "child's play" ( ), "the new child's play," "the magic valley," "andersen fairy tales" (low, ), "beauty and the beast" (a quarto with colour-prints by leighton bros.), are the most important. looking at them dispassionately now, there is yet a trace of some of the charm that provoked applause a little more than they deserve. in british art this curious fascination exerted by the amateur is always confronting us. the work of e. v. b. has great qualities, yet any pupil of a board school would draw better. nevertheless it pleases more than academic technique of high merit that lacks just that one quality which, for want of a better word, we call "culture." in the designs by louisa, marchioness of waterford, one encounters genius with absolutely faltering technique; and many who know how rare is the slightest touch of genius, forgive the equally important mastery of material which must accompany it to produce work of lasting value. [illustration: illustration from "the sleeping beauty." by r. anning bell (dent and co.)] mr. h. s. marks designed two nursery books for messrs. routledge, and contributed to many others, including j. w. elliott's "national nursery rhymes" (novello), whence our illustration has been taken. two series of picture books containing mediæval figures with gold background, by j. moyr smith, if somewhat lacking in the qualities which appeal to children, may have played a good part in educating them to admire conventional flat treatment, with a decorative purpose that was unusual in the "seventies," when most of them appeared. in later years, miss alice havers in "the white swans," and "cape town dicky" (hildesheimer), and many lady artists of less conspicuous ability, have done a quantity of graceful and elaborate pictures _of_ children rather than _for_ children. the art of this later period shows better drawing, better colour, better composition than had been the popular average before; but it generally lacks humour, and a certain vivacity of expression which children appreciate. in the "sixties" and "seventies" were many illustrators of children's books who left no great mark except on the memories of those who were young enough at the time to enjoy their work thoroughly, if not very critically. among these may be placed william brunton, who illustrated several of the right hon. g. knatchbull-hugessen's fairy stories, "tales at tea time" for instance, and was frequent among the illustrators of hood's annuals. charles h. ross (at one time editor of _judy_) and creator of "ally sloper," the british punchinello, produced at least one memorable book for children. "queens and kings and other things," a folio volume printed in gold and colour, with nonsense rhymes and pictures, almost as funny as those of edward lear himself. "the boy crusoe," and many other books of somewhat ephemeral character are his, and routledge's "every boy's magazine" contains many of his designs. just as these pages are being corrected the news of his death is announced. [illustration: illustration from "fairy gifts." by h. granville fell (dent and co.)] [illustration: illustration from "a book of nursery songs and rhymes" by mary j. newill (methuen and co. )] others, like george du maurier, so rarely touched the subject that they can hardly be regarded as wholly belonging to our theme. yet "misunderstood," by florence montgomery ( ), illustrated by du maurier, is too popular to leave unnoticed. mr. a. w. bayes, who has deservedly won fame in other fields, illustrated "andersen's tales" (warne, ), probably his earliest work, as a contemporary review speaks of the admirable designs "by an artist whose name is new to us." [illustration: illustration from "the elf-errant" by w. e. f. britten (lawrence and bullen. )] it is a matter for surprise and regret that mr. howard pyle's illustrated books are not as well known in england as they deserve to be. and this is the more vexing when you find that any one with artistic sympathy is completely converted to be a staunch admirer of mr. pyle's work by a sight of "the wonder clock," a portly quarto, published by harper brothers in . it seems to be the only book conceived in purely düreresque line, which can be placed in rivalry with mr. walter crane's illustrated "grimm," and wise people will be only too delighted to admire both without attempting to compare them. mr. pyle is evidently influenced by dürer--with a strong trace of rossetti--but he carries both influences easily, and betrays a strong personality throughout all the designs. the "merry adventures of robin hood" and "otto of the silver hand" are two others of about the same period, and the delightful volume collected from _harper's young people_ for the most part, entitled "pepper and salt," may be placed with them. all the illustrations to these are in pure line, and have the appearance of being drawn not greatly in excess of the reproduced size. of all these books mr. howard pyle is author as well as illustrator. of late he has changed his manner in line, showing at times, especially in "twilight land" (osgood, mcilvaine, ), the influence of vierge, but even in that book the frontispiece and many other designs keep to his earlier manner. in "the garden behind the moon" (issued in london by messrs. lawrence and bullen) the chief drawings are entirely in wash, and yet are singularly decorative in their effect. the "story of jack bannister's fortunes" shows the artist's "colonial" style, "men of iron," "a modern aladdin," oliver wendell holmes' "one-horse shay," are other fairly recent volumes. his illustrations have not been confined to his own stories as "in the valley," by harold frederic, "stops of various quills" (poems by w. d. howells), go to prove. [illustration: illustration from "sinbad the sailor" by william strang (lawrence and bullen. )] [illustration: illustration from "ali baba" by j. b. clark (lawrence and bullen. )] it is strange that mr. heywood sumner, who, as his notable "fitzroy pictures" would alone suffice to prove, is peculiarly well equipped for the illustration of children's books, has done but few, and of these none are in colour. "cinderella" ( ), rhymes by h. s. leigh, set to music by j. farmer, contains very pleasant decoration by mr. sumner. next comes "sintram" ( ), a notable edition of de la motte fouqué's romance, followed by "undine" (in ). with a book on the "parables," by a.l.o.e., published about ; "the besom maker" ( ), a volume of country ditties with the old music, and "jacob and the raven," with thirty-nine illustrations (allen, ), the best example of his later manner, and a book which all admirers of the more severe order of "decorative illustration" will do well to preserve, the list is complete. whether a certain austerity of line has made publishers timid, or whether the artist has declined commissions, the fact remains that the literature of the nursery has not yet had its full share from mr. heywood sumner. luckily, if its shelves are the less full, its walls are gayer by the many fitzroy pictures he has made so effectively, which readers of the studio have seen reproduced from time to time in these pages. mr. h. j. ford's work occupies so much space in the library of a modern child, that it seems less necessary to discuss it at length here, for he is found either alone or co-operating with mr. jacomb hood and mr. lancelot speed, in each of the nine volumes of fairy tales and true stories (blue, red, green, yellow, pink, and the rest), edited by mr. andrew lang, and published by longmans. more than that, at the fine art society in may , mr. ford exhibited seventy-one original drawings, chiefly those for the "yellow fairy book," so that his work is not only familiar to the inmates of the nursery, but to modern critics who disdain mere printed pictures and care for nothing but autograph work. certainly his designs have often lost much by their great reduction, for many of the originals were almost as large as four of these pages. his work is full of imagination, full of detail; perhaps at times a little overcrowded, to the extent of confusion. but children are not averse from a picture that requires much careful inspection to reveal all its story; and mr. ford's accessories all help to reiterate the main theme. as these eight volumes have an average of pictures in each, and mr. ford has designed the majority, it is evident that, although his work is almost entirely confined to one series, it takes a very prominent place in current juvenile literature. that he must by this time have established his position as a prime favourite with the small people goes without saying. [illustration: illustration from "the flame flower." by j. f. sullivan (dent and co. )] mr. leslie brooke has also a long catalogue of notable work in this class. for since mr. walter crane ceased to illustrate the long series of mrs. molesworth's stories, he has carried on the record. "sheila's mystery," "the carved lions," "mary," "my new home," "nurse heathcote's story," "the girls and i," "the oriel window," and "miss mouse and her boys" (all macmillan), are the titles of these books to which he has contributed. a very charming frontispiece and title to john oliver hobbs' "prince toto," which appeared in "the parade," must not be forgotten. the most fanciful of his designs are undoubtedly the hundred illustrations to mr. andrew lang's delightful collection of "nursery rhymes," just published by f. warne & co. these reveal a store of humour that the less boisterous fun of mrs. molesworth had denied him the opportunity of expressing. mr. c. e. brock, whose delightful compositions, somewhat in the "hugh thomson" manner, embellish several volumes of messrs. macmillan's cranford series, has illustrated also "the parachute," and "english fairy and folk tales," by e. s. hartland ( ), and also supplied two pictures to that most fascinating volume prized by all lovers of children, "w. v., her book," by w. canton. perhaps "westward ho!" should also be included in this list, for whatever its first intentions, it has long been annexed by bolder spirits in the nursery. a. b. frost, by his cosmopolitan fun, "understanded of all people," has probably aroused more hearty laughs by his inimitable books than even caldecott himself. "stuff and nonsense," and "the bull calf," t. b. aldrich's "story of a bad boy," and many another volume of american origin, that is now familiar to every briton with a sense of humour, are the most widely known. it is needless to praise the literally inimitable humour of the tragic series "our cat took rat poison." in lewis carroll's "rhyme? and reason?" ( ), mr. frost shared with henry holiday the task of illustrating a larger edition of the book first published under the title of "phantasmagoria" ( ); he illustrated also "a tangled tale" ( ), by the same author, and this is perhaps the only volume of british origin of which he is sole artist. mr. henry holiday was responsible for the classic pictures to "the hunting of the snark" by lewis carroll ( ). mr. r. anning bell does not appear to have illustrated many books for children. of these, the two which introduced mr. dent's "banbury cross" series are no doubt the best known. in fact, to describe "jack the giant killer" and the "sleeping beauty" in these pages would be an insult to "subscribers from the first." a story, "white poppies," by may kendall, which ran through _sylvia's journal_, is a little too grown-up to be included; nor can the "heroines of the poets," which appeared in the same place, be dragged in to augment the scanty list, any more than the "midsummer night's dream" or "keats's poems." it is singular that the fancy of mr. anning bell, which seems exactly calculated to attract a child and its parent at the same time, has not been more frequently requisitioned for this purpose. in the two "banbury cross" volumes there is evidence of real sympathy with the text, which is by no means as usual in pictures to fairy tales as it should be; and a delightfully harmonious sense of decoration rare in any book, and still more rare in those expressly designed for small people. [illustration: for them i'd climb, 'most all the time and never tear no clothes! illustration from "red apple and silver bells." by alice b. woodward. (blackie and son. )] the amazing number of mr. gordon browne's illustrations leaves a would-be iconographer appalled. so many thousand designs--and all so good--deserve a lengthened and exhaustive eulogy. but space absolutely forbids it, and as a large number cater for older children than most of the books here noticed, on that ground one may be forgiven the inadequate notice. if an illustrator deserved to attract the attention of collectors it is surely this one, and so fertile has he been that a complete set of all his work would take no little time to get together. here are the titles of a few jotted at random: "bonnie prince charlie," "for freedom's cause," "st. george for england," "orange and green," "with clive in india," "with wolfe in canada," "true to the old flag," "by sheer pluck," "held fast for england," "for name and fame," "with lee in virginia," "facing death," "devon boys," "nat the naturalist," "bunyip land," "the lion of st. mark," "under drake's flag," "the golden magnet," "the log of the flying fish," "in the king's name," "margery merton's girlhood," "down the snow stairs," "stories of old renown," "seven wise scholars," "chirp and chatter," "gulliver's travels," "robinson crusoe," "hetty gray," "a golden age," "muir fenwick's failure," "winnie's secret" (all so far are published by blackie and son). "national nursery rhymes," "fairy tales from grimm," "sintram, and undine," "sweetheart travellers," "five, ten and fifteen," "gilly flower," "prince boohoo," "a sister's bye-hours," "jim," and "a flock of four," are all published by gardner, darton & co., and "effie," by griffith & farran. when one realises that not a few of these books contain a hundred illustrations, and that the list is almost entirely from two publishers' catalogues, some idea of the fecundity of mr. gordon browne's output is gained. but only a vague idea, as his "shakespeare," with hundreds of drawings and a whole host of other books, cannot be even mentioned. it is sufficient to name but one--say the example from "robinson crusoe" (blackie), reproduced on page --to realise mr. gordon browne's vivid and picturesque interpretation of fact, or "down the snow stairs" (blackie), also illustrated, with a grotesque owl-like creature, to find that in pure fantasy his exuberant imagination is no less equal to the task. in "chirp and chatter" (blackie), fifty-four illustrations of animals masquerading as human show delicious humour. at times his technique appears somewhat hasty, but, as a rule, the method he adopts is as good as the composition he depicts. he is in his own way the leader of juvenile illustration of the non-dürer school. [illustration: illustration from "katawampus." by archie macgregor. (david nutt)] [illustration: illustration from "to tell the king the sky is falling." by alice woodward (blackie and son. )] mr. harry furniss's coloured toy-books--"romps"--are too well known to need description, and many another juvenile volume owes its attraction to his facile pencil. of these, the two later "lewis caroll's"--"sylvia and bruno," and "sylvia and bruno, concluded," are perhaps most important. as a curious narrative, "travels in the interior" (of a human body) must not be forgotten. it certainly called forth much ingenuity on the part of the artist. in "romps," and in all his work for children, there is an irrepressible sense of movement and of exuberant vitality in his figures; but, all the same, they are more like fred walker's idyllic youngsters having romps than like real everyday children. mr. linley sambourne's most ingenious pen has been all too seldom employed on children's books. indeed, one that comes first to memory, the "new sandford and merton" ( ), is hardly entitled to be classed among them, but the travesty of the somewhat pedantic narrative, interspersed with fairly amusing anecdotes, that thomas day published in , is superb. no matter how familiar it may be, it is simply impossible to avoid laughing anew at the smug little harry, the sanctimonious tutor, or the naughty tommy, as mr. sambourne has realised them. the "anecdotes of the crocodile" and "the presumptuous dentist" are no less good. the way he has turned a prosaic hat-rack into an instrument of torture would alone mark mr. sambourne as a comic draughtsman of the highest type. nothing he has done in political cartoons seems so likely to live as these burlesques. a little known book, "the royal umbrella" ( ), which contains the delightful "cat gardeners" here reproduced, and the very well-known edition of charles kingsley's "water babies" ( ), are two other volumes which well display his moods of less unrestrained humour. "the real robinson crusoe" ( ) and lord brabourne's (knatchbull-hugessen's) "friends and foes of fairyland" ( ), well-nigh exhaust the list of his efforts in this direction. [illustration: illustration from "russian fairy tales" by c. m. gere (lawrence and bullen. )] [illustration: the singing lesson no. . from the original drawing by a. nobody] prince of all foreign illustrators for babyland is m. boutet de monvel, whose works deserve an exhaustive monograph. although comparatively few of his books are really well known in england, "little folks" contains a goodly number of his designs. la fontaine's "fables" (an english edition of which is published by the society for promoting christian knowledge) is (so far as i have discovered) the only important volume reprinted with english text. possibly his "jeanne d'arc" ought not to be named among children's books, yet the exquisite drawing of its children and the unique splendour the artist has imparted to simple colour-printing, endear it to little ones no less than adults. but it would be absurd to suppose that readers of the studio do not know this masterpiece of its class, a book no artistic household can possibly afford to be without. earlier books by m. de monvel, which show him in his most engaging mood (the mood in the illustration from "little folks" here reproduced), are "vieilles chansons et rondes," by ch. m. widor, "la civilité puérile et honnête," and "chansons de france pour les petits français." despite their entirely different characterisation of the child, and a much stronger grasp of the principles of decorative composition, these delightful designs are more nearly akin to those of miss kate greenaway than are any others published in europe or america. yet m. de monvel is not only absolutely french in his types and costumes but in the movement and expression of his serious little people, who play with a certain demure gaiety that those who have watched french children in the gardens of the luxembourg or tuileries, or a french seaside resort, know to be absolutely truthful. for the gallic _bébé_ certainly seems less "rampageous" than the english urchin. a certain daintiness of movement and timidity in the boys especially adds a grace of its own to the games of french children which is not without its peculiar charm. this is singularly well caught in m. de monvel's delicious drawings, where naïvely symmetrical arrangement and a most admirable simplicity of colour are combined. indeed, of all non-english artists who address the little people, he alone has the inmost secret of combining realistic drawing with sumptuous effects in conventional decoration. [illustration: the singing lesson--no. . from the original drawing by a. nobody] [illustration: illustration from "adventures in toy land" by alice b. woodward (blackie and son. )] [illustration: illustration from "prince boohoo" by gordon browne (gardner, darton and co. )] the work of the danish illustrator, lorenz froelich, is almost as familiar in english as in continental nurseries, yet his name is often absent from the title-pages of books containing his drawings. perhaps those attributed to him formally that are most likely to be known by british readers are in "when i was a little girl" and "nine years old" (macmillan), but, unless memory is treacherous, one remembers toy-books in colours (published by messrs. nelson and others), that were obviously from his designs. a little known french book, "le royaume des gourmands," exhibits the artist in a more fanciful aspect, where he makes a far better show than in some of his ultra-pretty realistic studies. other french volumes, "histoire d'un bouchée de pain," "lili à la campagne," "la journée de mademoiselle lili," and the "alphabet de mademoiselle lili," may possibly be the original sources whence the blocks were borrowed and adapted to english text. but the veteran illustrator has done far too large a number of designs to be catalogued here. for grace and truth, and at times real mastery of his material, no notice of children's artists could abstain from placing him very high in their ranks. oscar pletsch is another artist--presumably a german--whose work has been widely republished in england. in many respects it resembles that of froelich, and is almost entirely devoted to the daily life of the inmates of the nursery, with their tiny festivals and brief tragedies. it would seem to appeal more to children than their elders, because the realistic transcript of their doings by his hand often lacks the touch of pathos, or of grown-up humour that finds favour with adults. the mass of children's toy-books published by messrs. dean, darton, routledge, warne, marcus ward, isbister, hildesheimer and many others cannot be considered exhaustively, if only from the fact that the names of the designers are frequently omitted. probably messrs. kronheim & co., and other colour-printers, often supplied pictures designed by their own staff. mr. edmund evans, to whom is due a very large share of the success of the crane, caldecott, and kate greenaway (routledge) books, more frequently reproduced the work of artists whose names were considered sufficiently important to be given upon the books themselves. a few others of routledge's toy-books besides those mentioned are worth naming. mr. h.s. marks, r.a., designed two early numbers of their shilling series: "nursery rhymes" and "nursery songs;" and to j. d. watson may be attributed the "cinderella" in the same series. other sixpenny and shilling illustrated books were by c. h. bennett, c. w. cope, a. w. bayes, julian portch, warwick reynolds, f. keyl, and harrison weir. [illustration: illustration from "nonsense" by a. nobody (gardner, darton and co.)] the "greedy jim," by bennett, is only second to "struwwlpeter" itself, in its lasting power to delight little ones. if out of print it deserves to be revived. [illustration: illustration (reduced) from "the child's pictorial." by mrs. r. hallward (s.p.c.k.)] although mr. william de morgan appears to have illustrated but a single volume, "on a pincushion," by mary de morgan (seeley, ), yet that is so interesting that it must be noticed. its interest is double--first in the very "decorative" quality of its pictures, which are full of "colour" and look like woodcuts more than process blocks; and next in the process itself, which was the artist's own invention. so far as i gather from mr. de morgan's own explanation, the drawings were made on glass coated with some yielding substance, through which a knife or graver cut the "line." then an electro was taken. this process, it is clear, is almost exactly parallel with that of wood-cutting--_i.e._, the "whites" are taken out, and the sweep of the tool can be guided by the worker in an absolutely untrammelled way. those who love the qualities of a woodcut, and have not time to master the technique of wood-cutting or engraving, might do worse than experiment with mr. de morgan's process. a quantity of proofs of designs he executed--but never published--show that it has many possibilities worth developing. [illustration: illustration from "a, b, c" by mrs. gaskin (elkin mathews)] the work of reginald hallward deserves to be discussed at greater length than is possible here. his most important book (printed finely in gold and colours by edmund evans), is "flowers of paradise," issued by macmillan some years ago. the drawings for this beautiful quarto were shown at one of the early arts and crafts exhibitions. some designs, purely decorative, are interspersed among the figure subjects. "quick march," a toy-book (warne), is also full of the peculiar "quality" which distinguishes mr. hallward's work, and is less austere than certain later examples. the very notable magazine, _the child's pictorial_, illustrated almost entirely in colours, which the society for promoting christian knowledge published for ten years, contains work by this artist, and a great many illustrations by mrs. hallward, which alone would serve to impart value to a publication that has (as we have pointed out elsewhere) very many early examples by charles robinson, and capital work by w. j. morgan. mrs. hallward's work is marked by strong pre-raphaelite feeling, although she does not, as a rule, select old-world themes, but depicts children of to-day. both mr. and mrs. hallward eschew the "pretty-pretty" type, and are bent on producing really "decorative" pages. so that to-day, when the ideal they so long championed has become popular, it is strange to find that their work is not better known. [illustration: "king love. a christmas greeting." by h. granville fell] the books illustrated by past or present students of the birmingham school will be best noticed in a group, as, notwithstanding some distinct individuality shown by many of the artists, especially in their later works, the idea that links the group together is sufficiently similar to impart to all a certain resemblance. in other words, you can nearly always pick out a "birmingham" illustration at a glance, even if it would be impossible to confuse the work of mr. gaskin with that of miss levetus. [illustration: illustration from "the story of bluebeard" by e. southall (lawrence and bullen. )] arthur gaskin's illustrations to andersen's "stories and fairy tales" (george allen) are beyond doubt the most important volumes in any way connected with the school. mr. william morris ranked them so highly that mr. gaskin was commissioned to design illustrations for some of the kelmscott press books, and mr. walter crane has borne public witness to their excellence. this alone is sufficient to prove that they rise far above the average level. "good king wenceslas" (cornish bros.) is another of mr. gaskin's books--his best in many ways. he it is also who illustrated and decorated mr. baring-gould's "a book of fairy tales" (methuen). mrs. gaskin (georgie cave france) is also familiar to readers of the studio. perhaps her "a, b, c." (published by elkin mathews), and "horn book jingles" (the leadenhall press), a unique book in shape and style, contain the best of her work so far. miss levetus has contributed many illustrations to books. among the best are "turkish fairy tales" (lawrence and bullen), and "verse fancies" (chapman and hall). "russian fairy tales" (lawrence and bullen) is distinguished by the designs of c. m. gere, who has done comparatively little illustration; hence the book has more than usual interest, and takes a far higher artistic rank than its title might lead one to expect. miss bradley has illustrated one of messrs. blackie's happiest volumes this year. "just forty winks" (from which one picture is reproduced here), shows that the artist has steered clear of the "alice in wonderland" model, which the author can hardly be said to have avoided. miss bradley has also illustrated the prettily decorated book of poems, "songs for somebody," by dollie radford (nutt). the two series of "children's singing games" (nutt) are among the most pleasant volumes the birmingham school has produced. both are decorated by winifred smith, who shows considerable humour as well as ingenuity. among volumes illustrated, each by the members of the birmingham school, are "a book of pictured carols" (george allen), and mr. baring-gould's "nursery rhymes" (methuen). both these volumes contain some of the most representative work of birmingham, and the latter, with its rich borders and many pictures, is a book that consistently maintains a very fine ideal, rare at any time, and perhaps never before applied to a book for the nursery. indeed were it needful to choose a single book to represent the school, this one would stand the test of selection. [illustration: illustration from "nursery rhymes" by paul woodroffe (george allen. )] in messrs. dent's "banbury cross" series, the misses violet and evelyn holden illustrated "the house that jack built"; sidney heath was responsible for "aladdin," and mrs. h. t. adams decorated "tom thumb, &c." mr. laurence housman is more than an illustrator of fairy tales; he is himself a rare creator of such fancies, and has, moreover, an almost unique power of conveying his ideas in the medium. his "farm in fairyland" and "a house of joy" (both published by kegan paul and co.) have often been referred to in the studio. yet, at the risk of reiterating what nobody of taste doubts, one must place his work in this direction head and shoulders above the crowd--even the crowd of excellent illustrators--because its amazing fantasy and caprice are supported by cunning technique that makes the whole work a "picture," not merely a decoration or an interpretation of the text. as a spinner of entirely bewitching stories, that hold a child spell-bound, and can be read and re-read by adults, he is a near rival of andersen himself. h. granville fell, better known perhaps from his decorations to "the book of job," and certain decorated pages in the _english illustrated magazine_, illustrated three of messrs. dent's "banbury cross" series--"cinderella, &c.," "ali baba," and "tom hickathrift." his work in these is full of pleasant fancy and charming types. a very sumptuous setting of the old fairy tale, "beauty and the beast," in this case entitled "zelinda and the monster" (dent, ), with ten photogravures after paintings by the countess of lovelace, must not be forgotten, as its text may bring it into our present category. miss rosie pitman, in "maurice and the red jar" (macmillan), shows much elaborate effort and a distinct fantasy in design. "undine" (macmillan, ) is a still more successful achievement. richard heighway is one of the "banbury cross" illustrators in "blue beard," &c. (dent), and has also pictured Ã�sop's "fables," with designs (in macmillan's cranford series). mr. j. f. sullivan--who must not be confused with his namesake--is one who has rarely illustrated works for little children, but in the famous "british workman" series in _fun_, in dozens of tom hood's "comic annuals," and elsewhere, has provoked as many hearty laughs from the nursery as from the drawing-room. in "the flame flower" (dent) we find a side-splitting volume, illustrated with drawings by the author. for this only mr. j. f. sullivan has plunged readers deep in debt, and when one recalls the amazing number of his delicious absurdities in the periodical literature of at least twenty years past, it seems astounding to find that the name of so entirely well-equipped a draughtsman is yet not the household word it should be. e. j. sullivan, with eighty illustrations to the cranford edition of "tom brown's schooldays," comes for once within our present limit. j. d. batten is responsible for the illustration of so many important collections of fairy tales that it is vexing not to be able to reproduce a selection of his drawings, to show the fertility of his invention and his consistent improvement in technique. the series, "fairy tales of the british empire," collected and edited by mr. jacobs, already include five volumes--english, more english, celtic, more celtic, and indian, all liberally illustrated by j. d. batten, as are "the book of wonder voyages," by j. jacobs (nutt), and "fairy tales from the arabian nights," edited by e. dixon, and a second series, both published by messrs. j. m. dent and co. "a masque of dead florentines" (dent) can hardly be brought into our subject. louis davis has illustrated far too few children's books. his fitzroy pictures show how delightfully he can appeal to little people, and in "good night verses," by dollie radford (nutt), we have forty pages of his designs that are peculiarly dainty in their quality, and tender in their poetic interpretation of child-life. "wymps" (lane, ), with illustrations by mrs. percy dearmer, has a quaint straightforwardness, of a sort that exactly wins a critic of the nursery. j. c. sowerby, a designer for stained glass, in "afternoon tea" (warne, ), set a new fashion for "æsthetic" little quartos costing five or six shillings each. this was followed by "at home" ( ), and "at home again" ( , marcus ward), and later by "young maids and old china." these, despite their popularity, display no particular invention. for the real fancy and "conceit" of the books you have to turn to their decorative borders by thomas crane. this artist, collaborating with ellen houghton, contributed two other volumes to the same series, "abroad" ( ), and "london town" ( ), both prime favourites of their day. lizzie lawson, in many contributions for _little folks_ and a volume in colours, "old proverbs" (cassell), displayed much grace in depicting children's themes. nor among coloured books of the "eighties" must we overlook "under the mistletoe" (griffith and farran, ), and "when all is young" (christmas roses, ); "punch and judy," by f. e. weatherley, illustrated by patty townsend ( ); "the parables of our lord," really dignified pictures compared with most of their class, by w. morgan; "puss in boots," illustrated by s. caldwell; "pets and playmates" ( ); "three fairy princesses," illustrated by paterson ( ); "picture books of the fables of Ã�sop," another series of quaintly designed picture books, modelled on struwwlpeter; "the robbers' cave," illustrated by a. m. lockyer, and "nursery numbers" ( ), illustrated by an amateur named bell, all these being published by messrs. marcus ward and co., who issued later, "where lilies grow," a very popular volume, illustrated in the "over-pretty" style by mrs. stanley berkeley. the attractive series of toy-books in colours, published in the form of a japanese folding album, were probably designed by percy macquoid, and published by the same firm, who issued an oblong folio, "herrick's content," very pleasantly decorated by mrs. houghton. r. andre was (and for all i know is still) a very prolific illustrator of children's coloured books. "the cruise of the walnut shell" (dean, ); "a week spent in a glass pond" (gardner, darton and co.); "grandmother's thimble" (warne, ); "pictures and stories" (warne, ); "up stream" (low, ); "a lilliputian opera" (day, ); the oakleaf library (six shilling volumes, warne); and mrs. ewing's verse books (six vols. s.p.c.k.) are some of the best known. t. pym, far less well-equipped as a draughtsman, shows a certain childish naïveté in his (or was it her?) "pictures from the poets" (gardner, darton and co.); "a, b, c" (gardner, darton and co.); "land of little people" (hildesheimer, ); "we are seven" ( ); "children busy" ( ); "snow queen" (gardner, darton and co.); "child's own story book" (gardner, darton and co.). ida waugh in "holly berries" (griffith and farran, ); "wee babies" (griffith and farran, ); "baby blossoms," "tangles and curls," and many other volumes mainly devoted to pictures of babies and their doings, pleased a very large audience both here and in the united states. "dreams, dances and disappointments," and "the maypole," both by konstan and castella, are gracefully decorated books issued by messrs. de la rue in , who also published "the fairies," illustrated by [h?] allingham in . major seccombe in "comic sketches from history" (allen, ), and "cinderella" (warne, ), touched our theme; a large number of more or less comic books of military life and social satire hardly do so. coloured books of which i have failed to discover copies for reference, are: a. blanchard's "my own dolly" (griffith and farran, ); "harlequin eggs," by civilly (sonnenschein, ); "the nodding mandarin," by l. f. day (simpkin, ); "cats-cradle," by c. kendrick (strahan, ); "the kitten pilgrims," by a. ballantyne (nisbet, ); "ups and downs" ( ), and "at his mother's knee" ( ), by m. j. tilsey. "a winter nosegay" (sonnenschein, ); "pretty peggy," by emmet (low, ); "children's kettledrum," by m. a. c. (dean, ); "three wise old couples," by hopkins (cassell, ); "puss in boots," by e. k. johnson (warne); "sugar and spice and all that's nice" (strahan, ); "fly away, fairies," by clarkson (griffith and farran, ); "the tiny lawn tennis club" (dean, ); "little ben bate," by m. browne (simpkin, ); "nursery night," by e. dewane (dean, ); "new pinafore pictures" (dean, ); "rumpelstiltskin" (de la rue, ); "baby's debut," by j. smith (de la rue, ); "buckets and spades" (dean, ); "childhood" (warne, ); "dame trot" (chapman and hall, ); "in and out," by ismay thorne (sonnenschein, ); "under mother's wing," by mrs. clifford (gardner, darton, ); "quacks" (ward and lock, ); "little chicks" (griffith and farran, ); "talking toys," "the talking clock," h. m. bennett; "four feet by two," by helena maguire; "merry hearts," "cosy corners," and "a christmas fairy," by gordon browne (all published by nisbet). among many books elaborately printed by messrs. hildesheimer, are two illustrated by m. e. edwards and j. c. staples, "told in the twilight" ( ); and "song of the bells" ( ); and one by m. e. edwards only, "two children"; others by jane m. dealy, "sixes and sevens" ( ), and "little miss marigold" ( ); "nursery land," by h. j. maguire ( ), and "sunbeams," by e. k. johnson and ewart wilson ( ). f. d. bedford, who illustrated and decorated "the battle of the frogs and mice" (methuen), has produced this year one of the most satisfactory books with coloured illustrations. in "nursery rhymes" (methuen), the pictures, block-printed in colour by edmund evans, are worthy to be placed beside the best books he has produced. of all lady illustrators--the phrase is cumbrous, but we have no other--miss a. b. woodward stands apart, not only by the vigour of her work, but by its amazing humour, a quality which is certainly infrequent in the work of her sister-artists. the books she has illustrated are not very many, but all show this quality. "banbury cross," in messrs. dent's series is among the first. in "to tell the king the sky is falling" (blackie, ) there is a store of delicious examples, and in "the brownies" (dent, ), the vigour of the handling is very noticeable. in "eric, prince of lorlonia" (macmillan, ), we have further proof that these characteristics are not mere accidents, but the result of carefully studied intention, which is also apparent in the clever designs for the covers of messrs. blackie's catalogue, - . this year, in "red apple and silver bells," miss woodward shows marked advance. the book, with its delicious rhymes by hamish hendry, is one to treasure, as is also her "adventures in toy land," designs marked by the _diablerie_ of which she, alone of lady artists, seems to have the secret. in this the wooden, inane expression of the toys contrasts delightfully with the animate figures. mr. charles robinson is one of the youngest recruits to the army of illustrators, and yet his few years' record is both lengthy and kept at a singularly high level. in the first of his designs which attracted attention we find the half-grotesque, half-real child that he has made his own--fat, merry little people, that are bubbling over with the joy of mere existence. "macmillan's literary primers" is the rather ponderous title of these booklets which cost but a few pence each, and are worth many a half-dozen high-priced nursery books. stevenson's "child's garden of verse," his first important book, won a new reputation by reason of its pictures. then came "Ã�sop's fables," in dent's "banbury cross" series. the next year saw mr. gabriel setoun's book of poems, "child world," mrs. meynell's "the children," mr. h. d. lowry's "make believe," and two decorated pages in "the parade" (henry and co.). the present christmas will see several books from his hand. "old world japan" (george allen) has thirty-four, and "legends from river and mountain," forty-two, pictures by t. h. robinson, which must not be forgotten. "the giant crab" (nutt), and "andersen" (bliss, sands), are among the best things w. robinson has yet done. [illustration] "nonsense," by a. nobody, and "some more nonsense," by a. nobody (gardner, darton & co.), are unique instances of an unfettered humour. that their apparently naïve grotesques are from the hand of a very practised draughtsman is evident at a first glance; but as their author prefers to remain anonymous his identity must not be revealed. specimens from the published work (which is, however, mostly in colour), and facsimiles of hitherto unpublished drawings, entitled "the singing lesson," kindly lent by messrs. gardner, darton & co., are here to prove how merry our anonym can be. by the way, it may be well to add that the artist in question is _not_ sir edward burne-jones, whose caricatures, that are the delight of children of all ages who know them, have been so far strictly kept to members of the family circle, for whom they were produced. [illustration: illustration from "little folks." by maurice boutet de monvel. (cassell and co.)] the editor of the studio, to whose selection of pictures for reproduction these pages owe their chief interest, has spared no effort to show a good working sample of the best of all classes, and in the space available has certainly omitted few of any consequence--except those so very well known, as, for instance, tenniel's "alice" series, and the caldecott toy-books--which it would have been superfluous to illustrate again, especially in black and white after coloured originals. in mrs. field's volume already mentioned, the author says: "it has been well observed that children do not desire, and ought not to be furnished with purely realistic portraits of themselves; the boy's heart craves a hero, and the johnny or frank of the realistic story-book, the little boy like himself, is not in this sense a hero." this passage, referring to the stories themselves, might be applied to their illustration with hardly less force. to idealise is the normal impulse of a child. true that it can "make believe" from the most rudimentary hints, but it is much easier to do so if something not too actual is the groundwork. figures which delight children are never wholly symbolic, mere virtues and vices materialised as personages of the anecdote. real nonsense such as lear concocted, real wit such as that which sparkles from lewis carroll's pages, find their parallel in the pictures which accompany each text. it is the feeble effort to be funny, the mildly punning humour of the imitators, which makes the text tedious, and one fancies the artist is also infected, for in such books the drawings very rarely rise to a high level. the "pretty-pretty" school, which has been too popular, especially in anthologies of mildly entertaining rhymes, is sickly at its best, and fails to retain the interest of a child. possibly, in pleading for imaginative art, one has forgotten that everywhere is wonderland to a child, who would be no more astonished to find a real elephant dropping in to tea, or a real miniature railway across the lawn, than in finding a toy elephant or a toy engine awaiting him. children are so accustomed to novelty that they do not realise the abnormal; nor do they always crave for unreality. as coaches and horses were the delight of youngsters a century ago, so are trains and steamboats to-day. given a pile of books and an empty floor space, their imagination needs no mechanical models of real locomotives; or, to be more correct, they enjoy the make-believe with quite as great a zest. hence, perhaps, in praising conscious art for children's literature, one is unwittingly pleasing older tastes; indeed, it is not inconceivable that the "prig" which lurks in most of us may be nurtured by too refined diet. whether a child brought up wholly on the æsthetic toy-book would realise the greatness of rembrandt's etchings or other masterpieces of realistic art more easily than one who had only known the current pictures of cheap magazines, is not a question to be decided off-hand. to foster an artificial taste is not wholly unattended with danger; but if humour be present, as it is in the works of the best artists for the nursery, then all fear vanishes; good wholesome laughter is the deadliest bane to the prig-microbe, and will leave no infant lisping of the preciousness of cimabue, or the wonder of sandro botticelli, as certain children were reported to do in the brief days when the æsthete walked his faded way among us. that modern children's books will--some of them at least--take an honourable place in an iconography of nineteenth-century art, many of the illustrations here reproduced are in themselves sufficient to prove. [illustration: illustration from "gould's book of fairy tales." by arthur gaskin. (methuen and co.)] [illustration: illustration from "lullaby land" by charles robinson. (john lane. )] after so many pages devoted to the subject, it might seem as if the mass of material should have revealed very clearly what is the ideal illustration for children. but "children" is a collective term, ranging from the tastes of the baby to the precocious youngsters who dip into mudie books on the sly, and hold conversations thereon which astonish their elders when by chance they get wind of the fact. perhaps the belief that children can be educated by the eye is more plausible than well supported. in any case, it is good that the illustration should be well drawn, well coloured; given that, whether it be realistically imitative or wholly fantastic is quite a secondary matter. as we have had pointed out to us, the child is not best pleased by mere portraits of himself; he prefers idealised children, whether naughtier and more adventurous, or absolute heroes of romance. and here a strange fact appears, that as a rule what pleases the boy pleases the girl also; but that boys look down with scorn on "girls' books." any one who has had to do with children knows how eagerly little sisters pounce upon books owned by their brothers. now, as a rule, books for girls are confined to stories of good girls, pictures of good girls, and mildly exciting domestic incidents, comic or tragic. the child may be half angel; he is undoubtedly half savage; a pagan indifference to other people's pain, and grim joy in other people's accidents, bear witness to that fact. tender-hearted parents fear lest some pictures should terrify the little ones; the few that do are those which the child himself discovers in some extraordinary way to be fetishes. he hates them, yet is fascinated by them. i remember myself being so appalled by a picture that is still keenly remembered. it fascinated me, and yet was a thing of which the mere memory made one shudder in the dark--the said picture representing a benevolent negro with eva on his lap, from "uncle tom's cabin," a blameless sunday-school inspired story. the horrors of an early folio of foxe's "martyrs," of a grisly "bunyan," with terrific pictures of apollyon; even a still more grim series by h. c. selous, issued by the art union, if memory may be trusted, were merely exciting; it was the mild and amiable representation of "uncle tom" that i felt to be the very incarnation of all things evil. this personal incident is quoted only to show how impossible it is for the average adult to foretell what will frighten or what will delight a child. for children are singularly reticent concerning the "bogeys" of their own creating, yet, like many fanatics, it is these which they really most fear. [illustration: illustration from "make believe." by charles robinson (john lane. )] [illustration: illustration from "just forty winks" by gertrude m. bradley (blackie and son. )] certainly it is possible that over-conscious art is too popular to-day. the illustrator when he is at work often thinks more of the art critic who may review his book than the readers who are to enjoy it. purely conventional groups of figures, whether set in a landscape, or against a decorative background, as a rule fail to retain a child's interest. he wants invention and detail, plenty of incident, melodrama rather than suppressed emotion. something moving, active, and suggestive pleases him most, something about which a story can be woven not so complex that his sense is puzzled to explain why things are as the artist drew them. it is good to educate children unconsciously, but if we are too careful that all pictures should be devoted to raising their standard of taste, it is possible that we may soon come back to the miss pinkerton ideal of amusement blended with instruction. hence one doubts if the "ultra-precious" school really pleases the child; and if he refuse the jam the powder is obviously refused also. one who makes pictures for children, like one who writes them stories, should have the knack of entertaining them without any appearance of condescension in so doing. they will accept any detail that is related to the incident, but are keenly alive to discrepancies of detail or action that clash with the narrative. as they do not demand fine drawing, so the artist must be careful to offer them very much more than academic accomplishment. indeed, he (or she) must be in sympathy with childhood, and able to project his vision back to its point of view. and this is just a mood in accord with the feeling of our own time, when men distrust each other and themselves, and keep few ideals free from doubt, except the reverence for the sanctity of childhood. those who have forsaken beliefs hallowed by centuries, and are the most cynical and worldly-minded, yet often keep faith in one lost atalantis--the domain of their own childhood and those who still dwell in the happy isle. to have given a happy hour to one of the least of these is peculiarly gratifying to many tired people to-day, those surfeited with success no less than those weary of failure. and such labour is of love all compact; for children are grudging in their praise, and seldom trouble to inquire who wrote their stories or painted their pictures. consequently those who work for them win neither much gold nor great fame; but they have a most enthusiastic audience all the same. yet when we remember that the veriest daubs and atrocious drawings are often welcomed as heartily, one is driven to believe that after all the bored people who turn to amuse the children, like others who turn to elevate the masses, are really, if unconsciously, amusing if not elevating themselves. if children's books please older people--and that they do so is unquestionable--it would be well to acknowledge it boldly, and to share the pleasure with the nursery; not to take it surreptitiously under the pretence of raising the taste of little people. why should not grown-up people avow their pleasure in children's books if they feel it? [illustration: the spotted mimilus. illustration from "king longbeard." by charles robinson (john lane. )] [illustration: illustration from "the making of matthias" by lucy kemp-welch. (john lane. )] if a collector in search of a new hobby wishes to start on a quest full of disappointment, yet also full of lucky possibilities, illustrated books for children would give him an exciting theme. the rare volume he hunted for in vain at the british museum and south kensington, for which he scanned the shelves of every second-hand bookseller within reach, may meet his eye in a twopenny box, just as he has despaired of ever seeing, much less procuring, a copy. at least twice during the preparation of this number i have enjoyed that particular experience, and have no reason to suppose it was very abnormal. to make a fine library of these things may be difficult, but it is not a predestined failure. caxtons and wynkyn de wordes seem less scarce than some of these early nursery books. yet, as we know, the former have been the quest of collectors for years, and so are probably nearly all sifted out of the great rubbish-heaps of dealers; the latter have not been in great demand, and may be unearthed in odd corners of country shops and all sorts of likely and unlikely places. therefore, as a hobby, it offers an exciting quest with almost certain success in the end; in short, it offers the ideal conditions for collecting as a pastime, provided you can muster sufficient interest in the subject to become absorbed in its pursuit. so large is it that, even to limit one's quest to books with coloured pictures would yet require a good many years' hunting to secure a decent "bag." another tempting point is that prices at present are mostly nominal, not because the quarry is plentiful, but because the demand is not recognised by the general bookseller. of course, books in good condition, with unannotated pages, are rare; and some series--felix summerley's, for example--which owe their chief interest to the "get-up" of the volume considered as a whole, would be scarce worth possessing if "rebound" or deprived of their covers. still, always provided the game attracts him, the hobby-horseman has fair chances, and is inspired by motives hardly less noble than those which distinguish the pursuit of bookplates (_ex libris_), postage-stamps and other objects which have attracted men to devote not only their leisure and their spare cash, but often their whole energy and nearly all their resources. societies, with all the pomp of officials, and members proudly arranging detached letters of the alphabet after their names, exist for discussing hobbies not more important. speaking as an interested but not infatuated collector, it seems as if the mere gathering together of rarities of this sort would soon become as tedious as the amassing of dull armorial _ex libris_, or sorting infinitely subtle varieties of postage-stamps. but seeing the intense passion such things arouse in their devotees, the fact that among children's books there are not a few of real intrinsic interest, ought not to make the hobby less attractive; except that, speaking generally, your true collector seems to despise every quality except rarity (which implies market value ultimately, if for the moment there are not enough rival collectors to have started a "boom" in prices). yet all these "snappers up of unconsidered trifles" help to gather together material which may prove in time to be not without value to the social historian or the student interested in the progress of printing and the art of illustration; but it would be a pity to confuse ephemeral "curios" with lasting works of fine art, and the ardour of collecting need not blind one to the fact that the former are greatly in excess of the latter. [illustration: illustration from "miss mouse and her boys." by l. leslie brooke. (macmillan and co. )] the special full-page illustrations which appear in this number must not be left without a word of comment. in place of re-issuing facsimiles of actual illustrations from coloured books of the past which would probably have been familiar to many readers, drawings by artists who are mentioned elsewhere in this christmas number have been specially designed to carry out the spirit of the theme. for christmas is pre-eminently the time for children's books. mr. robert halls' painting of a baby, here called "the heir to fairyland"--the critic for whom all this vast amount of effort is annually expended--is seen still in the early or destructive stage, a curious foreshadowing of his attitude in a later development should he be led from the paths of philistia to the bye-ways of art criticism. the portrait miniatures of child-life by mr. robert halls, if not so well known as they deserve, cannot be unfamiliar to readers of the studio, since many of his best works have been exhibited at the academy and elsewhere. the lithograph by mr. r. anning bell, "in nooks with books," represents a second stage of the juvenile critic when appreciation in a very acute form has set in, and picture-books are no longer regarded as toys to destroy, but treasures to be enjoyed snugly with a delight in their possession. [illustration: illustration from "baby's lays" by e. calvert (elkin mathews. )] mr. granville fell, with "king love, a christmas greeting," turns back to the memory of the birthday whose celebration provokes the gifts which so often take the form of illustrated books, for christmas is to britons more and more the children's festival. the conviviality of the dickens' period may linger here and there; but to adults generally christmas is only a vicarious pleasure, for most households devote the day entirely to pleasing the little ones who have annexed it as their own special holiday. the dainty water-colour by mr. charles robinson, and the charming drawing in line by m. boutet de monvel, call for no comment. collectors will be glad to possess such excellent facsimiles of work by two illustrators conspicuous for their work in this field. the figure by mr. robinson, "so light of foot, so light of spirit," is extremely typical of the personal style he has adopted from the first. studies by m. de monvel have appeared before in the studio, so that it would be merely reiterating the obvious to call attention to the exquisite truth of character which he obtains with rare artistry. g. w. * * * * * the editor's best thanks are due to all those publishers who have so kindly and readily come forward with their assistance in the compilation of "children's books and their illustrators." owing to exigences of space reference to several important new books has necessarily been postponed. * * * * * [illustration: illustration from "national rhymes." by gordon browne (gardner, darton and co. )] for younger readers by martha finley elsie dinsmore. with illustrations by h. c. christy. large vo, cloth. $ . . elsie at home. similar in general style to the previous "elsie" books. mo, cloth. $ . . by rafford pyke. the adventures of mabel. for children of five and six. with many illustrations by melanie elizabeth norton. large vo. $ . . by barbara yechton. derick. illustrated. large mo, cloth. $ . . by amanda m. douglas. children at sherburne house, mo, cloth. $ . . nan. a sequel to "a little girl in old new york." illustrated. mo, cloth. $ . . by elizabeth stuart phelps. gipsy's year at the golden crescent. uniform with the previous volumes of the same series. fully illustrated. large mo, cloth. $ . . by elizabeth w. champney. witch winnie in venice. with many illustrations. large mo, cloth. $ . . pierre and his poodle. with numerous illustrations. mo, cloth. $ . . by beatrice harraden. untold tales of the past. by beatrice harraden, author of "ships that pass in the night," "hilda strafford," etc. illustrated. cloth. probably $ . . _the above are published by_ dodd, mead & company, fifth ave. & st street, new york * * * * * four capital books aaron in the wildwoods a delightful new thimblefinger story of aaron while a "runaway," by joel chandler harris, author of "_little mr. thimblefinger and his queer country_," "_mr. rabbit at home_," "_the story of aaron_," _etc._ with full-page illustrations by oliver herford. square vo. $ . . little-folk lyrics by frank dempster sherman. holiday edition. a beautiful book of very charming poems for children, with exquisite illustrations. mo. $ . . being a boy by charles dudley warner. with an introduction and capital full-page illustrations from photographs by clifton johnson. mo, gilt top. $ . . an unwilling maid a capital story of the revolution, for girls, by jeanie gould lincoln, author of "_marjorie's quest_," "_a genuine girl_," _etc._ with illustrations. $ . . few recent stories surpass it in the fortunate blending of vivacity and sweetness and stern loyalty to duty and tender and pathetic experiences. it is fascinatingly written and every chapter increases its delightfulness.--_the congregationalist, boston._ _sold by booksellers, sent, postpaid, by_ houghton, mifflin & co., _boston_ * * * * * new books for boys and girls _three new historical tales by e. everett green, author of "the young pioneers," etc._ a clerk at oxford, and his adventures in the baron's war. with a plan of oxford in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and a view of the city from an old print. vo, extra cloth. $ . . sister: a chronicle of fair haven. with eight illustrations by j. finnemore. vo, extra cloth. $ . . tom tufton's travels. with illustrations by w. s. stacey. vo, extra cloth, $ . . _two new books by herbert hayens, author of "clevely sahib," "under the lone star," etc._ an emperor's doom; or the patriots of mexico. a tale of the downfall of maximilian, with eight illustrations by a. j. b. salmon. vo, extra cloth. $ . . soldiers of the legion. a tale of the carlist war. vo, extra cloth, illustrated. $ . . the island of gold. a sailor's yarn. by gordon stables, m. d., r. n., author of "every inch a sailor," "how jack mckenzie won his epaulettes," etc. with six illustrations by allan stuart. vo, extra cloth. $ . . poppy. a tale. by mrs. isla sitwell, author of "in far japan," "the golden woof," etc. with illustrations. vo, cloth extra. $ . . vandrad the viking; or the feud and the spell. a tale of the norsemen. by i. storer clouston. with six illustrations by herbert payton. vo, cloth. cts. the vanished yacht. by e. harcourt burrage. cloth extra. $ . . little tora, the swedish schoolmistress, and other stories. by mrs. woods baker, author of "fireside sketches of swedish life," "the swedish twins," etc. cloth. cts. a book about shakespeare. written for young people. by i. n. mcilwraith. with numerous illustrations. cloth extra. cts. across greenland's icefields. an account of the discoveries by nansen and peary. with portraits of nansen and other illustrations. vo, cloth. cts. breaking the record. the story of north polar expeditions by the nova zembla and spitzbergen routes. by m. douglass, author of "across greenland's icefields," etc. with numerous illustrations. cloth extra. cts. _for sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid on receipt of price, send for complete catalogue,_ thomas nelson & sons, publishers, e. th st. (union sq.), n. y. childrens' books =the blackberries= thirty-two humorous drawings in color, with descriptive verses, by _e. w. kemble_ the famous delineator of "kemble's coons." large quarto, Ã� , on plate paper; cover in color. $ . . =kemble's coons= drawings by _e. w. kemble_. a series of beautiful half-tone reproductions, printed in sepia, of drawings of colored children and southern scenes, by e. w. kemble, the well-known character artist. large quarto, ½Ã� inches; handsomely bound in brown buckram and japan vellum printed in color. price, $ . . =the delft cat= _by robert howard russell._ three stories for children profusely illustrated by f. berkeley smith. printed on hand-made, deckle-edge linen paper with attractive cover in delft colors. price, cents. [illustration] =chip's dogs= a collection of humorous drawings by the late _f. p. w. bellew_ ("chip"), whose amusing sketches of dogs were so well known. a new and improved edition now ready. large quarto, ½Ã� inches, on plate paper, handsomely bound. price, $ . . =the autobiography of a monkey= a laughable conception in full-page and small drawings by _hy. mayer_, with verses by _albert bigelow paine_. large quarto, Ã� , with cover in color. price, $ . . =the tiddledywink's poetry book= illustrated by _charles howard johnson_. a book of nonsense rhymes by _mr. bangs_, accompanied by most amusing pictures. large quarto, with illuminated covers, full-page illustrations, colored borders to text. boards. price, $ . . =the mantel piece minstrels= _by john kendrick bangs._ a most attractive little volume containing four of mr. bangs' inimitably humorous stories, profusely illustrated with unique drawings by _f. berkeley smith_; printed on hand-made, deckle-edge linen paper, and tastefully bound in illuminated covers. mo. price, cents. =the dumpies= discovered and drawn by _frank verbeck; albert bigelow paine_, historian. an entertaining tale in prose and verse, as fascinating as "the brownies." large quarto, Ã� , with illustrations and cover in color. price, $ . . =tiddledywink tales= _by john kendrick bangs._ a charming book for children. the drawings by _charles howard johnson_ are quite in sympathy with the humor of the book. full cloth, gilt, pp. mo. price, $ . . =in camp with a tin soldier= _by john kendrick bangs._ a sequel to tiddledywink tales. illustrated by _t. m. ashe_, jimmieboy's adventures in the camp of the tin soldiers are most amusing. full cloth, gilt, pp. mo. price, $ . . =half hours with jimmieboy= _by john kendrick bangs._ illustrated by _frank verbeck_, _peter newell_ and others. sixteen short stories record the interesting adventures of the hero with all sorts of folks; dwarfs, dudes, giants, bicyclopædia birds and snowmen. full cloth, pp. mo. price, $ . . =the slambangaree= ten stories for children by _r. k. munkittrick_. on hand-made deckle-edge linen paper. price, cents. =in savage africa= _by e. j. glave_, one of stanley's pioneer officers. with an introduction by henry m. stanley. beautifully illustrated with seventy-five wood cuts, half-tones and pen-and-ink sketches by the author, _bacher_, _bridgman_, _kemble_ and _taber_. large octavo, full cloth, gilt. price, $ . . =an alphabet= _by william nicholson._ color plate for each letter in the alphabet. popular edition on stout cartridge paper, $ . . library edition, made on dutch hand-made paper; mounted and bound in cloth. price, $ . . _r. h. russell, new york_ the wayside press, springfield, mass. * * * * * transcriber's note: obvious punctuation errors repaired. advertising page, "navel" changed to "naval" (the naval cadet) advertising page, "facination" changed to "fascination" (his usual fascination) advertising page, "irresistable" changed to "irresistible" (that is irresistible) advertising page, under the golden galleon, "rainy" changed to "rainey" (by william rainey, r. i.) page , "n" changed to "in" (in comparison with all) page , "keat's" changed to "keats's" (or "keats's poems") page , twice, "de" changed to "de" (gather from mr. de) (mr. de morgan's process) page , "tiddlewink" changed to "tiddledywink" (sequel to tiddledywink tales) varied hyphenation was retained: woodcuts, wood-cuts and today, to-day and folklore, folk-lore. transcriber's notes inconsistent spellings and hyphenation have been retained as in the original. with the exception of minor changes to format or punctuation, any changes to the text are listed at the end of the book. in this plain text version of the e-book, symbols from the ascii and latin- character sets only are used. the following substitutions are made for other symbols in the text: [et] = latin small letter et [oe] and [oe] = oe-ligature (upper and lower case). other conventions used to represent the original text are as follows: italic typeface is indicated by _underscores_. small caps typeface is represented by upper case. superscript typeface is preceded by caret (e.g. y^e) footnotes are numbered in sequence throughout the book and presented at the end of each chapter. * * * * * _books about books_ _edited by a. w. pollard_ early illustrated books [illustration] early illustrated books a history of the decoration and illustration of books in the th and th centuries by alfred w. pollard [illustration] _second edition_ london kegan paul, trench, trubner & co., ltd. new york: e. p. dutton & co. mdccccxvii _first edition, _ _second edition, revised and corrected_ _may _ _the rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved_ preface this little book was written nearly a quarter of a century ago in the enthusiasm of a first acquaintance with a fascinating subject, and with an honest endeavour to see for myself as many as possible of the books i set out to describe. if i had tried to rewrite it now i might have made it more interesting to experts, but at the cost of destroying whatever merit it possesses as an introductory sketch. i have therefore been content to correct, as thoroughly as i could, its many small errors (not all of my own making), more especially those due to the ascription of books to impossible dates and printers, which before the publication of robert proctor's _index to the early printed books in the british museum_, in , was very difficult to avoid. in these emendations, and in getting the titles of foreign books into better form, i have had much kind help from mr. victor scholderer of the british museum. i am grateful also to mr. e. gordon duff for his leave to use again the chapter on english illustrated books which he kindly wrote for me for the first edition. a. w. p. contents chapter i page rubrishers and illuminators chapter ii the completion of the printed book chapter iii germany--i. chapter iv germany--ii. chapter v italy--i. chapter vi italy--ii. chapter vii france chapter viii the french books of hours chapter ix holland chapter x spain chapter xi england. by e. gordon duff index early illustrated books chapter i rubrishers and illuminators no point in the history of printing has been more rightly insisted on than that the early printers were compelled to make the very utmost of their new art in order to justify its right to exist. when a generation had passed by, when the scribes trained in the first half of the fifteenth century had died or given up the struggle, when printing-presses had invaded the very monasteries themselves, and clever boys no longer regarded penmanship as a possible profession, then, but not till then, printers could afford to be careless, and speedily began to avail themselves of their new license. in the early days of the art no such license was possible, and the striking similarity in the appearance of the printed books and manuscripts produced contemporaneously in any given city or district, is the best possible proof of the success with which the early printers competed with the most expert of the professional scribes. all this is trite enough, but we are somewhat less frequently reminded that, after some magnificent experiments by fust and schoeffer at mainz, the earliest printers deliberately elected to do battle at first with the scribes alone, and that in the fifteenth century the scribes were very far, indeed, from being the only persons engaged in the production of books. the subdivision of labour is not by any means a modern invention; on the contrary, it is impossible to read a list of the medieval guilds in any important town without being struck with the minuteness of the sections into which some apparently quite simple callings were split up. of this subdivision of labour, the complex art of book-production was naturally an instance. for a proof of this, we need go no further than the records of the guild of st. john the evangelist at bruges, in which, according to mr. blades's quotation of the extracts made by van praet, members of at least fourteen branches of industry connected with the manufacture of books joined together for common objects. in the fifteenth century a book of devotions, commissioned by some wealthy book-lover, such as the duke of bedford, might be written by one man, have its rubrics supplied by another, its small initial letters and borders by a third, and then be sent to some famous miniaturist in france or flanders for final completion. the scribe only supplied the groundwork, all the rest was added by other hands, and it was only with the scribe that the early printers competed. the restriction of their efforts to competition with the scribe alone, was not accepted by the first little group of printers until after some fairly exhaustive experiments. the interesting trial leaves, preserved in some copies of the -line bible, differ from the rest not only in having their text compressed into two lines less, but also in having the rubrics printed instead of filled in by hand. printing in two colours still involves much extra labour, and it was easier to supply the rubric by hand than to be at the pains of a second impression, even if this could be effected by the comparatively simple process of stamping. except, therefore, in the trial leaves, the rubrics of the first bible are all in manuscript. peter schoeffer, however, when he joined with the goldsmith fust in the production of the magnificent mainz _psalter_ of , was not content to rely on the help of illuminators for his rubrics and capitals, or, as the disuse of the word majuscules makes it convenient to call them, initial letters. accordingly, the psalter appeared not only with printed rubrics, but with the magnificent b at the head of the first psalm, which has so often been copied, and some two hundred and eighty smaller initials, printed in blue and red. schoeffer's initial letters appear again in two editions of the _canon of the mass_ attributed to , in the _psalter_ of , in the _rationale_ of durandus of the same year, and in a _donatus_ printed in the type of the bible. as mr. duff has pointed out, in some sheets of this bible itself the red initial letters are printed and the outline of the blue ones impressed in blank for the guidance of the illuminator in filling them in. thereafter schoeffer seems to have kept his initials for special occasions, as in the -line _donatus_ issued _c._ , perhaps when he was starting business for himself, and in the antiquarian reprints of the _psalter_ in and after . doubtless he was sorry when he could no longer print in the colophon of a book that it was 'venustate capitalium decoratus, rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus,' but while illuminators were still plentiful, handwork was probably the least expensive process of decoration. it is noteworthy, also, that mr. duff's discovery as regards the bible brings us down to the beginning of those troublous three years in the history of mainz, during which fust and schoeffer only printed 'bulls and other such ephemeral publications.' when they resumed the printing of important works in with the _decretals_ of boniface viii. and the _de officiis_ of cicero, schoeffer was content to leave decoration to the illuminator. the firm's expenses were thus diminished, and purchasers were able to economise in the amount of decoration bestowed upon the copy they were buying. it is noteworthy, indeed, that even in , when he was habitually using his printed initial letters, schoeffer did not refuse customers this liberty, for while one of the copies of the _rationale durandi_ at the bibliothèque nationale has the initials printed, in the others they are illuminated by hand. very little attention has as yet been devoted to the study of the illumination and rubrication of printed books, and much patient investigation will be needed before we can attain any real knowledge of the relation of the illuminators to the early printers. professor middleton, in his work on _illuminated manuscripts_, had something to say on the subject, but the pretty little picture he drew of a scene in gutenberg's (?) shop seems to have been rather hastily arrived at. 'the workshop,' he wrote, 'of an early printer included not only compositors and printers, but also cutters and founders of type, illuminators of borders and initials, and skilful binders, who could cover books with various qualities and kinds of binding. a purchaser in gutenberg's shop, for example, of his magnificent bible in loose sheets, would then have been asked what style of illumination he was prepared to pay for, and then what kind of binding, and how many brass bosses and clasps he wished to have.' what evidence there is on the subject hardly favours the theory which professor middleton thus boldly stated as a fact. the names we know in connection with the decoration of the -line bible are those of heinrich cremer, vicar of the church of st. stephen at mainz, who rubricated, illuminated, and bound the paper copy now in the bibliothèque nationale, and johann fogel, a well-known binder of the time, whose stamps are found on no fewer than three of the extant copies of this bible. we have no reason to believe that either cremer or fogel was employed in the printer's shop, so that as regards the particular book which he instances, it is hard to see on what ground professor middleton built his assertion. as regards schoeffer's practice after , the evidence certainly points to the majority of his books having been rubricated before they left his hands, but the variety of the styles in the copies i have seen, especially in those on vellum, forbids my believing that they were all illuminated in a single workshop. a copy in the british museum of his edition of the _constitutions_ of pope clement v. presents us with an instance, rather uncommon in a printed book, though not infrequently found in manuscripts, of an elaborate border and miniatures, sketched out in pencil and prepared for gilding, but never completed. the book could hardly have been sold in this condition, and would not have been returned so from any illuminator's workshop. we must conjecture that it was sold unilluminated to some monastery, where its decoration was begun by one of the monks, but put aside for some cause, and never finished. the utmost on this subject that we can say at present is that as a printer would depend for the sale of his books in the first place on the inhabitants of the town in which he printed, and as these would be most likely to employ an illuminator from the same place, the predominant style of decoration in any book is likely to be that of the district in which it was printed, and if we find the same style predominant in a number of books this may give us a clue to connect them altogether, or to distinguish them from some other group. in this way, for instance, it is possible that some light may be thrown on the question whether the -line bible was finished at bamberg or at mainz. certainly the clumsy, heavy initials in the british museum copy are very unlike those which occur in mainz books, and if this style were found to predominate in other copies we should have an important piece of new evidence on a much debated question. but our knowledge that schoeffer had an agency for the sale of his books as far off from the place of their printing as paris, the italian character of the illuminations added to some of his books, and the occurrence of a note in a book printed in italy that the purchaser could not wait to have it illuminated there, but entrusted it to a german artist on his return home, may suffice to warn us against any rash conclusion in the present very meagre state of our knowledge. apart from the question as to where they were executed, the illuminations in books printed in germany are not, as a rule, very interesting. germany was not the home of fine manuscripts during the fifteenth century, and her printed books depend for their beauty on the rich effect of their gothic types, their good paper and handsome margins, rather than on the accessories added by hand. the attempts of the more ambitious miniaturists to depict, within the limits of an initial, st. jerome translating the bible or david playing on the harp, are, for the most part, clumsy and ill-drawn. on the other hand, fairly good scroll-work of flowers and birds is not uncommon. as a rule it surrounds the whole page of text, but in some cases an excellent effect is produced by the stem of the design being brought up between the two columns of a large page, branching out at either end so as to cover the upper and lower margins, those at the sides being left bare. it may be mentioned that much good scroll-work is found on paper copies, the vellum used in early german books being usually coarse and brown, and sometimes showing the imperfections of the skin by holes as large as a filbert, so that it was employed apparently, chiefly for its greater resistance to wear and tear, rather than as a luxurious refinement, as was the case in italy and france. an extreme instance of the superiority of a paper copy to one on vellum may be found by comparing the coarsely-rubricated -line bible in the grenville collection at the british museum with the very prettily illuminated copy of the same book in the king's library. the grenville copy is on vellum, the king's on paper; but my own preference has always been for the latter. even in germany, however, good vellum books were sometimes produced, for the printers endeavoured to match the skins fairly uniformly throughout a volume, and a book-lover of taste would not be slow to pick out the best copy. the finest german vellum book with which i am acquainted is the lamoignon copy of the bible, now in the british museum. this was specially illuminated for a certain conradus dolea, whose name and initials are introduced into the lower border on the first page of the second volume. the scroll-work is excellent, and the majority of the large initials are wisely restricted to simple decorative designs. only in a few cases, as at the beginning of the psalms, where david is as usual playing his harp, is the general good taste which marks the volume disturbed by clumsy figure-work. in turning from the illuminations of the first german books to those printed by jenson and vindelinus de spira at venice we are confronted with an interesting discovery, first noted by the vicomte delaborde in his delightful book _la gravure en italie avant marc-antoine_ (p. ), carried a little further in the _bibliographie des livres à figures venitiens_, written by the prince d'essling when he was duc de rivoli, then greatly extended by the researches of dr. paul kristeller, some of the results of which, when as yet unpublished, he kindly communicated to me, and finally summed up in the prince d'essling's magnificent work, _les livres à figures venitiens_. in a considerable number--the list given me by dr. kristeller enumerated about forty--of the works published by jenson and vindelinus, from to , the work of the illuminator has been facilitated in some copies by the whole or a portion of his design having been first stamped for him from a block. the evidence of this stamping is partly in the dent made in the paper or vellum, partly in the numerous little breaks in the lines where the block has not retained the ink; but i was myself lucky enough to find in the grenville copy of the _virgil_ printed at venice by bartholomaeus de cremona in , an uncoloured example of this stamped work, which was reproduced in _bibliographica_, and subsequently by the prince d'essling. a copy of the _pliny_ of in the bibliothèque nationale, illuminated by means of this device, has an upper and inner border of the familiar white elliptical interlacements on a gold and green ground. in the centre of the lower border is a shield supported by two children, and at the feet of each child is a rabbit. the outer border shows two cornucopias on a green and gold ground. the upper and inner borders are repeated again in the _livy_ and _virgil_ of , in the _valerius maximus_ of , and in the _rhetorica_ of george of trebizond of . in this last book it is joined with another border, first found in the _de officiis_ of cicero of the same year. all these books proceeded from the press of johannes and vindelinus de spira. a quite distinct set of borders are found in jenson's edition of cicero's _epistolae ad familiares_ of ; but in an article in the _archivio storico delle arti_ dr. kristeller showed that the lower border of the _pliny_ of , described above, occurs again in a copy of the _de evangelica praeparatione_, printed by jenson in . the apparent distinction of the blocks used in the books of the two firms is thus broken down, and in face of the rarity of the copies thus decorated in comparison with those illuminated by hand, or which have come down to us with their blank spaces still unfilled, it seems impossible to maintain that either the preliminary engraving or the illumination was done in the printer's workshop. we should rather regard the engraving as a labour-saving device employed by some master illuminator to whom private purchasers sent the books they had purchased from the de spiras or jenson for decoration. no instance has as yet been found of a book printed after being illuminated in this way.[ ] apart from the special interest of these particular borders, the illumination in early italian books is almost uniformly graceful and beautiful. interlacements, oftenest of white upon blue, sometimes of gold upon green, are the form of ornament most commonly met with. still prettier than these are the floral borders, tapering off into little stars of gold. elaborate architectural designs are also found, but these, as a rule, are much less pleasing. in the majority of the borders of all three classes a shield, of the graceful italian shape, is usually introduced, sometimes left blank, sometimes filled in with the arms of the owner. more often than not this shield is enclosed in a circle of green bay leaves. the initial letters are, as a rule, purely decorative, the designs harmonising with the borders. in some instances they consist simply of a large letter in red or blue, without any surrounding scroll-work. we must also note that in some copies of books from the presses of the german printers at rome we find large initial letters in red and blue, distinctly german in their design, the work, possibly, of the printers themselves. germany and italy are the only two countries in which illumination plays an important part in the decoration of early books. in england, where the wars of the roses had checked the development of a very promising native school of illuminators, the use of colour in printed books is almost unknown. the early issues from caxton's press, before he began to employ printed initials, are either left with their blanks unfilled, or rubricated in the plainest possible manner. in france, the scholastic objects of the press at the sorbonne, and the few resources of the printers who succeeded it during the next seven or eight years, at first forbade any serious competition with the splendid manuscripts which were then being produced. in holland and spain woodcut initials, which practically gave the death-blow to illumination as a necessary adjunct of a book, were introduced almost simultaneously with the use of type. so far we have considered illumination merely as a means of completing in a not immoderately expensive manner the blanks left by the earliest printers. we may devote a few pages to glancing at the subsequent application of the art to the decoration of special copies intended for presentation to a patron, or commissioned by a wealthy book-lover. the preparation of such copies was practically confined to france and italy. a copy on vellum of the great bible of , presented to henry viii. by his 'loving, faithfull and obedient subject and daylye oratour, anthony marler of london, haberdassher,' has the elaborate woodcut title-page carefully painted over by hand, but this is almost the only english book of which i can think in which colour was thus employed. in germany its use was only too common, but for popular, not for artistic work, for at least two out of every three early german books with woodcut illustrations have the cuts garishly painted over in the rudest possible manner, to the great defacement of the outlines, which we would far rather see unobscured. it is tempting, indeed, to believe that in many cases this deplorable addition must have been the work of the 'domestic' artist; it is certainly rare to find an instance in which it in any way improves the underlying cut. in france and italy, on the other hand, the early printers were confronted by many wealthy book-lovers, accustomed to manuscripts adorned with every possible magnificence, and in a few instances they found it worth while to cater for their tastes. for this purpose they employed the most delicate vellum (very unlike the coarse material used by the germans for its strength) decorating the margins with elaborate borders, and sometimes prefixing a coloured frontispiece. in france this practice was begun by guillaume fichet and jean heynlyn, the managers of the press at the sorbonne. several magnificent copies of early sorbonne books--so sober in their ordinary dress--are still extant, to which fichet has prefixed a large miniature representing himself in his clerical garb presenting a copy of the book to the pope, to our own edward iv., to cardinal bessarion, or to other patrons. in some cases he also prefixed a specially printed letter of dedication, thereby rendering the copy absolutely unique. some twenty years later this practice of preparing special copies for wealthy patrons was resumed by antoine vérard, whose enterprise has bequeathed to the bibliothèque nationale a whole row of books thus specially decorated for charles viii., and to the british museum a no less splendid set commissioned by henry vii. nor were vérard's patrons only found among kings, for a record still exists of four books thus ornamented by him for charles d'angoulême, at a total cost of over two hundred livres, equivalent to rather more than the same number of pounds sterling of our present money. vérard's methods of preparing these magnificent volumes were neither very artistic nor very honest. the miniatures are thickly painted, so that an underlying woodcut, on quite a different subject, was sometimes utilised to furnish the artist with an idea for the grouping of the figures. thus a cut from ovid's _metamorphoses_, representing saturn devouring his children and a very unpleasing figure of venus rising from the sea, was converted into a holy family by painting out the venus and reducing saturn's cannibal embrace to an affectionate fondling. this process of alteration and painting out was also employed by vérard to conceal the fact that these splendid copies were often not of his own publication, but commissioned by him from other publishers. thus henry vii.'s copy of _l'examen de conscience_ has the colophon, in which it is stated to have been printed for pierre regnault of rouen, rather carelessly erased, and in charles viii.'s copy of the _compost et kalendrier des bergers_ ( )[ ] guiot marchant's device has been concealed by painting over it the royal arms, while the colophon in which his name appears has been partly erased, partly covered over by a painted copy of vérard's well-known device. vérard's borders, also, are as a rule heavy, consisting chiefly of flowers and arabesques arranged in clumsy squares or lozenges. altogether these princely volumes are perhaps rather magnificent than in good taste. the custom of illuminating the cuts in vellum books was not practised only by vérard. almost all the french publishers of books of hours resorted to it--at first, while the illumination was carefully done, with very splendid effect, afterwards to the utter ruin of the beautiful designs which the colour concealed. under francis i. illumination seems to have revived, for we hear of a vellum copy of the _de philologia_ of budæus, printed by ascensius ( ), having its first page of text enclosed in a rich border in which appear the arms of the dukes of orleans and angoulême to whom it was dedicated. in another work by budæus (himself a book-lover as well as a scholar), the _de transitu hellenismi_, printed by robert estienne in , the portrait and arms of francis i. are enclosed in another richly illuminated border, and the king's arms are painted in other books printed about this time. in a vellum copy of a french bible printed by jean de tournes at lyons in , there are over three hundred miniatures, and borders to every page. even by the middle of the seventeenth century the use of illumination had not quite died out in france, though it adds nothing to the beauty of the tasteless works then issued from the french presses. one of the latest instances in which i have encountered it is in a copy presented to louis xiv. of _la lyre du jeune apollon, ou la muse naissante du petit de beauchasteau_ (paris, ); in this the half-title is surrounded by a wreath of gold, and surmounted by a lyre, the title is picked out in red, blue, and gold, and the headpieces and tailpieces throughout the volume are daubed over with colour. by the expenditure of a vast amount of pains, a dull book is thus rendered both pretentious and offensive. in italy, the difference between ordinary copies of early books and specially prepared ones, is bridged over by so many intermediate stages of decoration that we are obliged to confine our attention to one or two famous examples of sumptuous books. the italian version of _pliny_, made by cristoforo landino and printed by jenson in , exists in such a form as one of the douce books (no. ) in the bodleian library. this copy has superb borders at the beginning of each book, and is variously supposed to have been prepared for ferdinand ii., king of naples, and for a member of the strozzi family of florence, the arms of both being frequently introduced into the decoration. still more superb are the three vellum copies of giovanni simoneta's _historia delle cose facte dallo invictissimo duca francesco sforza_, translated (like the _pliny_) by cristoforo landino, and printed by antonio zarotto at milan in . these copies were prepared for members of the sforza family, portraits of whom are introduced in the borders. the decoration is florid, but superb of its kind, and provoked dibdin to record his admiration of the copy now in the grenville library as 'one of the loveliest of membranaceous jewels' it had ever been his fortune to meet with. for many years in a case devoted to specimens of illuminated printed books in the king's library the british museum used to exhibit vellum copies of the aldine _martial_ of , and _catullus_ of , and side by side with them, printed respectively just twelve years later, and also on vellum, an _aulus gellius_ and _plautus_ presented by giunta, the florentine rival of aldus, to the younger lorenzo de' medici. the use of illumination in printed books was a natural and pleasing survival of the glories of the illuminated manuscript. its discontinuance was in part a sign of health as testifying to the increased resources of the printing press; in part a symptom of the carelessness as to the form of books which by the end of the seventeenth century had become well-nigh universal throughout europe. so long as a few rich amateurs cared for copies of their favourite authors printed on vellum, and decorated by the hands of skilful artists, a high standard of excellence was set up which influenced the whole of the book-trade, and for this reason the revival of the use of vellum in our own day may perhaps be welcomed. it may be noted that the especially italian custom of introducing the arms of the owner into the majority of illuminated designs left its trace in the blank shields which so frequently form the centre of the printed borders in italian books from to . theoretically these shields were intended to be filled in with the owner's arms in colour, but they are more often found blank. two examples of their use are here shown, one from the upper border of the _calendar_, printed at venice in (the first book with an ornamental title-page), the other from the lower border of the first page of text of the _trabisonda istoriata_, printed also at venice in . we may note also that the parallel custom of inserting the arms of the patron to whom a book was dedicated was carried on in spain in a long series of title-pages, in which the arms of the patron form the principal feature. [illustration: from the _calendar_ of .] [illustration: from _la trabisonda historiata_ of .] in england, also, a patron's coat was sometimes printed as one of the decorations of a book. thus on the third leaf of the first edition of the _golden legend_ there is a large woodcut of a horse galloping past a tree, the device of the earl of arundel, the patron to whom caxton owed his yearly fee of a buck in summer and a doe in winter. so, too, in the morton _missal_, printed by pynson in , the morton arms occupy a full page at the beginning of the book. under elizabeth and james i. the practice became fairly common. in some cases where the leaf thus decorated has become detached, the arms have all the appearance of an early book-plate, and the bagford example of sir nicholas bacon's plate has endured suspicions on this account. in this instance, however, the fortunate existence of a slight flaw in the block, which occurs also in the undoubtedly genuine gift-plate of , offers a strong argument in favour of its having been in the possession of sir nicholas himself, and therefore presumably used by him as a mark of possession. * * * * * [ ] in a copy of the edition of _suetonius_, printed by sweynheym and pannartz at rome in , which belonged to william morris, and is now in the morgan collection at new york, there are nine excellent woodcut capitals used with a handsome border-piece, which do not appear in other examples. dr. lippmann found similar decorations in the edition of _lactantius_, printed at subiaco by the same firm. in this case the blocks probably belonged to the printers, but were used to decorate only a few copies. [ ] a full description of this copy will be found in dr. sommer's introduction to the facsimile and reprint of the english translations of paris, , and london, (kegan paul, ). chapter ii the completion of the printed book as we have seen, the typical book during the first quarter of a century of the history of printing is one in which the printer supplied the place of the scribe and of the scribe alone. an appreciable, though not a very large, percentage of early books have come down to us in the exact state in which they issued from the press, with a blank space at their beginning for an illumination, blanks for the initial letters, blanks for the chapter headings, no head-lines, no title-page, no pagination, and no signatures to guide the binder in arranging the sheets in the different gatherings. our task in the present chapter is to trace briefly the history of the emancipation of the printer from his dependence on handwork for the completion of his books. we shall not expect to find this emancipation effected step by step in any orderly progression. innovations, the utility of which seems to us obvious and striking, occur as if by hazard in an isolated book, are then abandoned even by the printer who started them, and subsequently reappear in a number of books printed about the same time at different places, so that it is impossible to fix the chronology of the revived fashion. [illustration] we have already noted how the anxiety of the earliest mainz printers to rival at the very outset the best manuscripts with which they were acquainted, led them to anticipate improvements which were not generally adopted till many years afterwards. among these we must not reckon the use for the rubrics or chapter headings of red ink, which appears in the trial leaves of the -line bible, and was to a greater or less extent employed by schoeffer in most of his books. although red ink has appeared sporadically, and still does so, on the title-page of a book here or there, more especially on those which make some pretence to sumptuousness, its use in the fifteenth century was a survival, not an anticipation. for legal and liturgical works it was long considered essential; for other books the expense of the double printing which it involves soon brought it into disfavour and has kept it there ever since. the use of a colophon, or crowning paragraph, at the end of a book, to give the information now contained on our title-pages, dates from the mainz psalter of , and was continued by schoeffer in most of his books. a colophon occurs also in the _catholicon_ of , though it does not mention the printer's name (almost certainly gutenberg). there is an admirably full one in rhyming couplets (set out as prose) to pfister's _buch der vier historien von joseph, daniel, esther, und judith_, and the brothers bechtermüntze, who printed the _vocabularius ex quo_ at eltvil in , are equally explicit. in many cases, however, no colophon of any sort appears, and the year and place of publication have to be deduced from the information given in other books printed in the same types, or from the chance entry by a purchaser or rubricator of the date at which the book came into or left his hands. we may claim colophons as part of the subject of this book, because they early received decorative treatment. schoeffer prints them, as a rule, in his favourite red ink, and it was as an appendix to the colophon that the printer's device first made its appearance. schoeffer's well-known shields occur in this connection in his bible of . no other instance of a device is known until about , when they became common, some printers, like arnold ther hoernen of cologne, and colard mansion of bruges, imitating schoeffer in the modest size of their badges, while others, among whom some dutch printers are prominent, made their emblem large enough, if need be, to decorate a whole page. of schoeffer's coloured capitals enough has already been said. woodcut initials for printing in outline, the outline being intended to be coloured by hand, were used by günther zainer at augsburg at least as early as , and involved him in a controversy to which we shall allude in our next chapter. their use spread slowly, for it was about this date that the employment of hand-painted initials was given a fresh lease of life, by the introduction of the printed 'director,' or small letter, indicating to the illuminator the initial he was required to supply. the director had been used by the scribes, and in early printed books is frequently found in manuscript. it was, of course, intended to be painted over, but the rubrication of printed books was so carelessly executed that it often appears in the open centre of the coloured letter. in so far as it delayed the introduction of woodcut letters, this ingenious device was a step backward rather than an improvement. in the order of introduction, the next addition to a printer's stock-in-trade which we have to chronicle is the use of woodcut illustrations. these were first employed by albrecht pfister, who in was printing at bamberg. like schoeffer's coloured initials, pfister's illustrated books form an incident apart from the general history of the development of the printed book, and it will be convenient, therefore, to give them a brief notice here, rather than to place them at the head of our next chapter. they are six in number, or, if we count different editions separately, nine, of which only two have dates, viz.: one of the two editions of boner's _edelstein_, dated , and the _buch der vier historien von joseph, daniel, esther, und judith_, dated , with pfister's name in the rhyming colophon already alluded to. the undated books are another edition of the _edelstein_; the _belial seu consolatio peccatorum_; a _biblia pauperum_; two closely similar editions of this in german; two editions of the _rechtstreit des menschen mit dem tode_, also called _gespräch zwischen einem wittwer und dem tode_. attention was first drawn to these books by the pastor jacob august steiner of augsburg in , and when the volume which he described was brought to the bibliothèque nationale, with other spoils from germany, a learned frenchman, camus, read a paper on them before the institute in . the three tracts which the volume contained were restored to the library at wolfenbüttel in , but the bibliothèque has since acquired another set of three and a separate edition of the german _biblia pauperum_. the only other copies known are those in the spencer collection, one of the _belial_ at nuremberg, and a unique example of the undated _edelstein_ at berlin.[ ] these four books contain altogether no less than cuts, executed in clumsy outline. one hundred and one of these cuts belong to the _edelstein_, a collection of german fables written before . the book which contains them is a small folio of leaves, and with a width of page larger by a fourth than the size of the cuts. to fill this gap, pfister introduced on the left of the illustration a figure of a man. in the dated copy, in which the cuts are more worn, this figure is the same throughout the book; in the undated there are differences in the man's headgear, and in the book or tablet he is holding, constituting three different variations. in the _buch der vier historien_ the cuts number , six of which, however, are repeated, making impressions. in the impossibility of obtaining access to the originals, while the spencer collection was in the course of removal, the careful copy of one of these, made for camus in , was chosen for reproduction as likely to be less familiar than the illustrations from pfister's other books given by dibdin in his _bibliotheca spenceriana_. the subject is the solemn sacrifice of a lamb at bethulia after judith's murder of holofernes. the _biblia pauperum_ is in three editions, two in german, the third in latin; each consists of printed leaves, with a large cut formed of five separate blocks illustrating different subjects, but joined together as a whole, on each page. the last book of pfister's we have to notice, the _complaint of the widower against death_, is probably earlier than either of his dated ones. it contains leaves, with five full-page cuts, showing ( ) death on his throne, and the widower and his little son in mourning; ( ) death and the widower, with a pope, a noble, and a monk vainly offering death gold; ( ) two figures of death (one mounted) pursuing their victims; ( ) death on his throne, with two lower compartments representing monks at a cloister gate, and women walking with a child in a fair garden,--this to symbolise the widower's choice between remarriage and retiring to a monastery; ( ) the widower appearing before christ, who gives the verdict against him, since all mortals must yield their bodies to death and their souls to god. the cuts in this book are larger and bolder than the other specimens of pfister's work which we have noticed, but they are rude enough. [illustration: from pfister's _buch der vier historien_.] [illustration--transcription as follows: sermo ad populum predicabilis · in festo presentacionis. beatissime marie semper virginis nouiter cum magna diligencia. ad communem vsum multorum sacerdotum presertim curatorum collectus. et idcirco per impressonem multiplicatus. sub hoc currente. anno domini mº ccccº .lxxº. cuiusquidem collectionis atque etiam multiplicacionis eius non paruipendenda racio si placet · videri poteret. in folii laterem sequenti] after the introduction of woodcut illustrations, the next innovation with which we have to concern ourselves is the adoption of the title-page. what may be called accidental title-pages are found on both the latin and the german edition of a bull of pope pius ii. printed by fust and schoeffer in . after this arnold ther hoernen of cologne appears to have been the first printer lavish enough to devote a whole page to prefixing a title to a book. a facsimile is here given, from which we see that this 'sermon preachable on the feast of the presentation of the most blessed virgin' was printed in at the outset of ther hoernen's career. the printer, however, seems to have understood no better than schoeffer the commercial advantage of what he was doing, and the next title-page which has to be chronicled is another of the same kind, reading the 'tractatulus compendiosus per modum dyalogi timidis | ac deuotis viris editus instruens non plus curam | de pullis et carnibus habere suillis quam quo modo | verus deus et homo qui in celis est digne tractetur. | ostendens insuper etiam salubres manuductiones quibus | minus dispositus abilitetur,' etc. what we may call the business title of this book is much more sensibly set forth in the brief colophon: 'explicit exhortacio de celebratione misse per modum dyalogi inter pontificem et sacerdotem, anno lxx[et],' &c. still, here also, the absence of an incipit, and of any following text must be taken as constituting a title-page. three years later two augsburg printers, bernardus 'pictor' and erhardus ratdolt, who had started a partnership in venice with petrus löslein of langenzenn in bavaria, produced the first artistic title-page as yet discovered. this appears in all the three editions of a calendar which they issued in latin and italian in , and in german in . the praises of the calendar are sung in twelve lines of verse, beginning in the latin edition:-- aureus hic liber est: non est preciosior ulla gemma kalendario quod docet istud opus. aureus hic numerus; lune solisque labores monstrantur facile: cunctaque signa poli. then follows the date, then the names of the three printers in red ink. this letterpress is surrounded by a border in five pieces, the uppermost of which shows a small blank shield (see p. ), while on the two sides skilfully conventionalised foliage is springing out of two urns. the two gaps between these and the printers' names are filled up by two small blocks of tracery. it is noteworthy that this charming design was employed by printers from augsburg, the city in which wood-engraving was first seriously employed for the decoration of printed books. but the design itself is distinctly italian in its spirit, not german. like its two predecessors, the title-page of was a mere anticipation, and was not imitated. the systematic development of the title-page begins in the early part of the next decade, when the custom of printing the short title of the book on a first page, otherwise left blank, came slowly into use.[ ] the two earliest appearances of these label title-pages in england are ( ) in 'a passing gode lityll boke necessarye & behouefull agenst the pestilens,' by 'canutus, bishop of aarhus,' printed by machlinia, probably towards the close of his career [ - ?]; and ( ) in one of the earliest works printed by wynkyn de worde, caxton's foreman, after his master's death. here, in the centre of the first page, we find a three-line paragraph reading: the prouffytable boke for mañes soule and right comfortable to the body and specially in aduersitee & tribulation, which boke is called the chastysynge of goddes chyldern. other countries were earlier than england both in the adoption of the label title-page and in filling the blank space beneath the title with some attempt at ornament. in france the ornament usually took the form of a printer's mark, more rarely of an illustration; in italy and germany usually of an illustration, more rarely of a printer's mark. until the first quarter of the sixteenth century was drawing to a close the colophon still held its place at the end of the book as the chief source of information as to the printer's name and place and date of publication. the author's name, also, was often reserved for the colophon, or hidden away in a preface or dedicatory letter. title-pages completed according to the fashion which, until the antiquarian revival by william morris of the old label form, has ever since held sway, do not become common till about . perhaps the chief reason why the convenient custom of the title-page spread so slowly was that soon after the augsburg printers began to imitate in woodcuts the elaborate borders with which the illuminators had been accustomed to decorate the first page of the text of a manuscript or early printed book. when they first appear these woodcut borders grow out of the initial letter with which the text begin, and extend only over part of the upper and inner margins. in other instances, however, they completely surround the first page of text, and this is nearly always the case with the very beautiful borders which are found, towards the close of the century, in many books printed in italy. in these they are mostly preceded by a 'label' title-page. the use of borders to surround every page of text was practically confined[ ] to books of devotion, notably the books of hours, whose wonderful career began in and lasted for upwards of half a century. head-pieces are found in a few books, chiefly greek, printed at venice towards the close of the fifteenth century. in the absence of any previous investigations on the subject, it is dangerous to attempt to say where tail-pieces first occur, but their birthplace was probably france. pagination and head-lines are said to have been first used by arnold ther hoernen at cologne in and ; printed signatures by john koelhoff at the same city in . the date of koelhoff's book, an edition of nider's _expositio decalogi_, has been needlessly held to be a misprint, though it is a curious coincidence that we find signatures stamped by hand in one edition of franciscus de platea's _de restitutionibus_, venice, , and printed close to the text in the normal way in another edition issued at cologne the following year. none of these small matters have any direct bearing on the decoration of books, but they are of interest to us as pointing to the printer's gradual emancipation from his long dependence on the help of the scribe. it is perhaps worth while, for the same reason, to take as a landmark günther zainer's edition of the _de regimine principum_ of aegidius columna. this book is possessed of printed head-lines, chapter headings, paragraph marks, and large and small initial letters. from first page to last it is untouched by the hand of the rubricator, and shows that zainer at any rate had won his independence within five years of setting up his press. curiously enough, to this particular specimen of his work he did not give his name, though it is duly dated. [illustration: from ptolemy's _cosmographia_, ulm, .] * * * * * [ ] a leaf of the _rechtstreit_ is in the taylorian institute at oxford. [ ] it may be noted that in a few books, alike in germany, italy, and france, issued about , a label title is printed on the back of the last leaf, either instead of, or in addition to, that on the recto of the first. [ ] they are found also in some books of emblems, and in a few books printed at lyons in the middle of the sixteenth century. chapter iii germany-- - in the fifteenth century augsburg was one of the chief centres in germany for card-making and woodcut pictures. the cutters were jealous of their privileges, and when, in , günther zainer, a native of reutlingen, who had been printing in their town for some years (his first book was issued in march ), asked for admission to the privileges of a burgher, they not only opposed him, but demanded that he should be forbidden to print woodcuts in his books. the abbot of ss. ulric and afra, melchior de stamheim, who subsequently set up presses of his own, procured a compromise, and günther was allowed to employ woodcuts freely, so long as they were cut by authorised cutters. zainer's first dated book with illustrations is a translation of the _legenda aurea_ of jacobus de voragine, with a small cut prefacing each of the two hundred and thirty-four biographies. the first part of this was finished in october , and the second in april . in came also two editions of the _belial_ or 'processus luciferi contra jesum christum,' in which thirty-two cuts help the understanding of the extraordinary text, and to the same year belongs ingold's _das guldin spiel_, a wonderful work, in which the seven deadly sins are illustrated from seven games. as a copy of this book is available, which has had the good fortune to escape the colourist, one of its twelve cuts--that showing card-playing, with which an augsburg woodcutter would be especially familiar--is here reproduced. the face of the man at the far end of the table is perhaps the most expressive piece of drawing in all the series. in zainer printed for the abbot of ss. ulric and afra a _speculum humanae salvationis_, with numerous biblical woodcuts. he also issued two editions in and of a bible, with large initial letters, into each of which is introduced a little picture. at the end of the second of these editions he adds the fine device, shown on p. , which it is strange that he should not have used more often. in he printed an account of the supposed murder of a small boy, named simon, by the jews, illustrated with some quite vivid pictures, and to about this time belongs his finest work, an undated edition of the _speculum humanae vitae_, full of numerous delightful cuts illustrating various trades and callings. in he illustrated a german edition of the moralisation of the game of chess by jacobus de cessolis, of which caxton had helped to print an english version a year or two before. [illustration: from ingold's _guldin spiel_, augsburg, .] [illustration: device of günther zainer.] during the ten or twelve years of his activity at augsburg, which was brought to a close by his death in , günther zainer printed probably at least a hundred works, of which about twenty, mostly either religious or, according to the ideas of the time, amusing, have illustrations. of the works printed during the second half of his career, the majority have woodcut initials, large or small, and a few also woodcut borders to the first page. the initials (which sometimes only extend through a part of a book, blanks being left when the stock failed), if seen by themselves, are rather clumsy, but harmonise well with the remarkably heavy gothic type which zainer chiefly used during this period of his career. if his engraved work cannot be praised as highly artistic, it was at least plentiful and bold, and admirably adapted for the popular books in which it mostly appeared. johann bämler, who during twenty years from printed a long list of illustrated books at augsburg, can hardly have set much store by originality, for in several of these, _e.g._ the _belial_ ( ), the _plenarium_ ( ), the _legenda sanctorum_, &c., the cuts are wholly or mainly copied from those in editions previously issued by zainer. bämler began his own career as an illustrator with some frontispieces, as we may call them, which come after the table of contents, and facing the first page of text in the _summa confessorum_ of johannes friburgensis, the _goldenen harfen_ of nider, and others of his early books. in he issued the first of his three editions of the _buch von den sieben todsünden und den sieben tugenden_. the 'sins and virtues' are personified as armed women riding on various animals, with various symbolical devices on their shields, banners, and helmets. but the ladies' faces are all very much alike, and the armorial symbolism is so recondite, that a considerable acquaintance with medieval 'bestiaries' would be required to decipher it. far better than this conventional work are the cuts in the _buch der natur_, printed by bämler in the next year. this is a fourteenth-century treatise dealing with men and women, with the sky and its signs, with beasts, trees, vegetables, stones, and famous wells, and, as in zainer's _spiegel des menschlichen lebens_, the artist drew from nature far better than from his imagination. in an edition of königshofen's _chronik von allen königen und kaisern_, printed in , bämler inserted four full-page cuts representing christ in glory, the emperor sigismund dreaming in his bed, st. veronica holding before her the cloth miraculously imprinted with the face of christ, and the vision of pope gregory, when the crucified christ appeared to him on the altar. of bämler's later books, his edition (issued in ), of the history of the crusades (_türken-kreuzzüge_), by rupertus de sancto remigio, is perhaps the most noticeable. the large cut of the pope, attended by a young cardinal, preaching to a crowd of pilgrims, whose exclamation of 'deus vult' is represented by a scroll between them and the preacher, is really a fine piece of work, though the buildings in the background, from whose windows listeners are thrusting their heads, have the usual curious resemblance to bathing-machines. some of the smaller cuts also are good, notably one of a group of mounted pilgrims, which has a real out-of-door effect. after , though he lived another twenty years, bämler published few or no new works, being content to reprint his old editions. our next augsburg printer is anton sorg, whose first dated work with woodcuts is the _buch der kindheit unseres herrn_ ( ). in his _büchlein das da heisset der seelen trost_, he produced the first series of illustrations to the ten commandments,--large full-page cuts, rudely executed. his _passion nach dem texte der vier evangelisten_, first issued in , ran through no less than five editions in twelve years. in he produced the first german translation of the _travels of mandeville_, illustrated with numerous cuts of some merit. by far his most famous work is his edition of reichenthal's account of the council of constance, illustrated with more than eleven hundred cuts, chiefly of the arms of the dignitaries there present. the arms were necessarily intended to be coloured (the present system of representing the heraldic colours by conventional arrangements of lines and dots only dates from the seventeenth century), and this fate has also befallen the larger illustrations, whose workmanship is, indeed, so rude, that it could scarcely stand alone. these larger cuts represent processions of the pope and his cardinals, the dubbing of a knight, a tournament, the burning of huss for heresy, the scattering of his ashes (which half fill a cart) over the fields, and other incidents of the famous council. but the interest of the book remains chiefly heraldic. after , printers of illustrated books became numerous at augsburg, peter berger, johann schobsser, hans schauer, and lucas zeissenmaier being rather more important than their fellows. more prolific than these, but not more enterprising in respect to new designs, was the elder hans schoensperger, who began his long career in . his chief claim to distinction is his printing of the emperor maximilian's _theuerdank_, to which we shall refer in the next chapter. erhard ratdolt deserves mention for his ten years' stay at venice, where, as we have seen, he issued in the _calendar_, which is the first book with an ornamental title-page. in he returned to augsburg at the invitation of bishop friedrich von hohenzollern to print service-books, into which in future he put all his best work. his types and initial letters he brought with him from italy; for his illustrations, he had recourse to german artists of no exceptional ability. a few of his service-books, however, are distinguished by some interesting, if not very successful, experiments in printing some of the colours in his woodcuts. the foregoing sketch of the chief illustrated books published at augsburg during the fifteenth century can hardly escape the charge of dullness. it has been worth while, however, to plod through with it, because it may serve very well as an epitome of the average illustrated work done between and throughout germany. some of the works we have mentioned remained to the end augsburg books--_e.g._ the _buch der kunst geistlich zu werden_, the _buch der natur_, the _historie aus den geschichten der römer_, were repeatedly published there and nowhere else. others, _e.g._ the _historie des königs apollonius_, were shared between augsburg and ulm, chiefly, no doubt, through the relationship of the two zainers. the _historia trojana_ of guido delle colonne and the _geschichte des grossen alexander_ enjoyed long careers at augsburg, and were then taken up by martin schott at strasburg. eleven editions of the _belial_ of jacobus de theramo were shared fairly equally between the two cities. the bible and the _legenda aurea_ were of too widespread an interest to be monopolised by one or two places. a few books, like the _Æsop_ and the _de claris mulieribus_ of boccaccio, which start from ulm, or the early _fasciculus temporum_, of which more than half the early editions belonged to cologne, trace their source elsewhere than to augsburg. but it was at augsburg that the majority of the popular illustrated books of the fifteenth century were first published, and the editions issued in other towns were mostly more or less servile imitations of them. next in importance to augsburg in the early history of illustrated books in germany, ranks the neighbouring city of ulm, where the names of wood-engravers are found in the town registers from the early part of the century, and the printers had thus plenty of good material to call to their aid. the first illustrated book which we know with certainty to have been printed at ulm is the _de claris mulieribus_ of boccaccio, issued by johann zainer, in a latin edition dated , and in a german translation, with the same cuts, about the same time. this johann zainer was probably a kinsman of günther zainer of augsburg, but very little is known of him. the _de claris mulieribus_ begins with a fine engraved border extending over the upper and inner margins of the first page. it is not merely decorative but pictorial, the subject represented being the temptation of adam and eve. eve is handing her husband an apple from the forbidden tree, amid whose branches is seen the head of the serpent, his body being twisted into a large initial s, and then tapering away into the upper section of the border, where it becomes a branch, among the leaves of which appear emblems of the seven deadly sins. the numerous woodcuts in the text are quite equal to the average augsburg work. our illustration shows scipio warning massinissa to put away his newly married wife, and the hapless sophonisba drinking the poison, which is the only marriage gift her husband could send her. zainer's most striking success was achieved by his edition of steinhöwel's version of the _life and fables of Æsop_, of which no less than eleven editions were printed in various german towns before the end of the century, for the most part closely copied from the ulm original. in this, there are altogether two hundred woodcuts, eleven of which belong to the story of sigismund at the end of the book. the frontispiece is a large picture of Æsop, who, here and throughout the chapters devoted to his imaginary 'life,' is represented as a knavish clown, a variant of eulenspiegel or marcolphus. some of the illustrations to the fables are very good, notably those of the sower and the birds, the huntsman, and king stork, here reproduced from sorg's reprint. the _Æsop_ and the boccaccio _de claris mulieribus_ give johann zainer a high place among the german printers of illustrated books. his other work was unimportant and mostly imitative. his types are much smaller than those used in the early augsburg books, and his initials less heavy and massive. they are not more than an inch high, and consist of a simple outline overlaid with jagged work. [illustration: from boccaccio _de clar. mul._, ulm, .] [illustration: king log and king stork, from the ulm _Æsop_.] in , leonhard holl printed at ulm an edition of ptolemy's _cosmographia_, which contains the first woodcut map and fine initial letters, one of which, showing the editor, nicolaus germanus, presenting his book to the pope, is given as a frontispiece to this chapter. in he issued the first of many editions of the _buch der weisheit der alten menschen von anbeginn der welt_. the wisdom of the ancients chiefly takes the form of fables, which are illustrated with cuts, larger but much less artistic than those of zainer's _Æsop_. from conrad dinkmuth we have the first illustrated editions of three notable works, the _seelenwurzgarten_, or 'garden of the soul' ( ), thomas lirar's _schwäbische chronik_ ( ), and the _eunuchus_ of terence ( ). this last is illustrated with fourteen remarkable woodcuts, over five inches by seven in size, and each occupying about three-fourths of a page. the scene is mostly laid in a street, and there is some attempt at perspective in the vista of houses. the figures of the characters are fairly good, but not above the average ulm work of the time. two later ulm books, written by gulielmus caoursin and printed by johann reger in , are of great interest, one giving the _stabilimenta_ or ordinances, of the order of st. john of jerusalem, the other an account of the successful defence of rhodes by its knights against the turks. both are richly illustrated with woodcuts of very considerable artistic merit. [illustration: from the _eunuchus_, ulm, .] at lübeck in lucas brandis printed, as his first book, a notable edition of the _rudimentum noviciorum_, an epitome of history, sacred and profane, during the six ages of the world. the epitome is epitomised at the beginning of the book by ten pages of cuts, mostly of circles linked together by chains, and bearing the name of some historical character. into the space left by these circles are introduced pictures of the world's history from the creation and the flood down to the life of christ, which is told in a series of nine cuts on the last page. the first page of the text is surrounded, except at the top, by a border in three pieces, into one section of which are introduced birds, and into another a blank shield supported by two lions. the inner margin of the first page of text bears a fine figure of a man reading a scroll, and the two columns are separated by a spiral of leaves climbing round a stick. the cuts in the text are partly repeated from the preliminary pages, partly new, though extreme economy is shown in their use, one figure of a philosopher standing for at least twenty different sages. the large initial letters at the beginning of the various books have scenes introduced into them, the little battle-piece in the q of the 'quinta aetas' being the most remarkable. altogether this is a very splendid and noteworthy book, and one which brandis never equalled in his later work. at nuremberg in , johann sensenschmidt, its first printer, issued a german bible, introducing illustrations into the large initial letters. at cologne first one printer and then another published illustrated editions (ten in all) of the _fasciculus temporum_, though the cuts in these are mostly restricted to a few conventional scenes of cities, and representations of the nativity and crucifixion and of christ in glory. at cologne also, about , there appeared two great german dialect bibles in two volumes, in the type and with borders which are found in books signed by heinrich quentel, to whose press they are therefore assigned. there are altogether one hundred and twenty-five cuts, ninety-four in the old testament (thirty-three of which illustrate the life of moses), and thirty-one in the new. they are of considerable size, stretching right across the double-columned page, and are the work of a skilful, but not very highly inspired, artist. they have neither the naïveté of the early augsburg and ulm workmen, nor the richness of the later german work. they were, however, immensely popular at the time. in anton koberger copied them at nuremberg, omitting, however, the borders which occur on the first and third pages of the first volume, and at the beginning of the new testament, and rejecting also nineteen of the thirty-one new testament illustrations. the cuts were used again in other editions, and influenced later engravers for many years. hans holbein even used them as the groundwork for his own designs for the old testament printed by adam petri at basel in . at strassburg, illustrated books were first issued by knoblochtzer in , and after , martin schott and johann prüss printed them in considerable numbers. both these printers, however, were as a rule contented to reproduce the woodcuts in the different augsburg books, and the original works issued by them are mostly poor. an exception may be made in favour of the undated _buch der heiligen drei könige_ of johannes hildeshemensis, printed by prüss. this has a good border round the upper and inner margins of the first page of text woodcut initials, and fifty-eight cuts of considerable merit.[ ] at mainz, peter schoeffer was very slow in introducing pictures into his books, making no use of them until he took to missal printing in , when a cut of the crucifixion became almost obligatory. in , however, a remarkable reprint of the _meditationes_ of cardinal turrecremata had been issued at mainz by johann numeister or neumeister, a wandering mainz printer, who had previously worked at foligno, and is subsequently found at albi, but now while revisiting his native place published there reduced adaptations of the cuts in the editions printed by hahn at rome (see chapter v), worked on soft metal instead of on wood. in addition to the places we have mentioned, illustrated books were issued during this period by bernhard richel at basel, by conrad fyner at esslingen, and by other printers in less important german towns. but those we have already discussed are perhaps sufficient as representatives of the first stage of book-illustration in germany. they have all this much in common that they are planned and carried out under the immediate direction of the printers themselves, each of whom seems to have had one or more wood-engravers attached to his office, who drew their own designs upon the wood and cut them themselves. there is a maximum of outline-work, a minimum of shading and no cross-hatching. every line is as direct and simple as possible. at times the effect is inconceivably rude, at times it is delightful in its child-like originality, and the craftsman's efforts to give expression to the faces are sometimes almost ludicrously successful. to the present writer these simple woodcuts are far more pleasing than all the glories of the illustrated work of the next century. they are in keeping with the books they decorate, in keeping with the massive black types and the stiff white paper. after , we may almost say after , we shall find that the printing and illustrating of books are no longer closely allied trades. an artist draws a design with pen and ink, a clever mechanic imitates it as minutely as he can on the wood, and the design is then carelessly printed in the midst of type-work, which bears little relation to it. paper and ink also are worse, and types smaller and less carefully handled. everything was sacrificed to cheapness, and the result was as dull as cheap work usually is. by the time that the great artists began to turn their attention to book-illustration, printing in germany was almost a lost art. * * * * * [ ] many of knoblochtzer's books also have very pretentious borders, though the designs are usually coarse. a quarto border used in his _salomon et marcolfus_ with a large initial letter, and a folio one in his reprint of _Æsop_ perhaps show his best work. these are reproduced, with many other examples of his types, initials, and illustrations in _heinrich knoblochtzer in strassburg von karl schorbach und max spirgatis_. (strassburg, .) chapter iv germany, from the second period of book-illustration in germany dates from the publication at mainz in of bernhard von breydenbach's celebrated account of his pilgrimage to jerusalem. two years previously schoeffer had brought out a _herbarius_ in which one hundred and fifty plants were illustrated, mostly only in outline, and in he followed this up with another work of the same character, the _gart der gesundheyt_, which has between three and four hundred cuts of plants and animals, and a fine frontispiece of botanists in council. this in its turn formed the basis of jacob meidenbach's enlarged latin edition of the same work, published under the title of _hortus sanitatis_, with additional cuts and full-page frontispieces to each part. these three books in the naïveté and simplicity of some of their illustrations, belong to the period which we have reviewed in our last chapter, but in other cuts a real effort seems to have been made to reproduce the true appearance of the plant, and the increased care for accuracy links them with the newer work. it is, however, the _opus transmarinae peregrinationis ad sepulchrum dominicum in jherusalem_ which opens a new era, as the first work executed by an artist of distinction as opposed to the nameless craftsmen at whose woodcuts we have so far been looking. when bernhard von breydenbach went on his pilgrimage in he took with him the artist, erhard reuwich, and while breydenbach made notes of their adventures, reuwich sketched the inhabitants of palestine, and drew wonderful maps of the places they visited. on their return to mainz in , breydenbach began writing out his latin account of the pilgrimage, and reuwich not only completed his drawings, but took so active a part in passing the work through the press that, though the types used in it apparently belonged to schoeffer, he is spoken of as its printer. the book appeared in , and as its magnificence deserved, was issued on vellum as well as on paper. its first page was blank, the second is occupied by a frontispiece, in which the art of wood-engraving attained at a leap to an unexampled excellence. in the centre of the composition is the figure of a woman, personifying the town of mainz, standing on a pedestal, below and on either side of which are the shields of breydenbach and his two noble companions, the count of solms and sir philip de bicken. the upper part of the design is occupied by foliage amid which little naked boys are happily scrambling. the dedication to the archbishop of mainz begins with a beautiful, but by no means legible, r, in which a coat of arms is enclosed in light and graceful branches. this, and the smaller s which begins the preface are the only two printed initials in the volume. all the rest are supplied by hand. the most noticeable feature in the book are seven large maps, of venice, parenzo in illyria, corfu, modon, near the bay of navarino, crete, rhodes, and jerusalem. these are of varying sizes, from that of venice, which is some five feet in length, to those of parenzo and corfu, which only cover a double-page. they are panoramas rather than maps, and are plainly drawn from painstaking sketches, with some attempt at local colour in the people on the quays and the shipping. besides these maps there is a careful drawing, some six inches square, of the church of the holy sepulchre, headed 'haec est dispositio et figura templi dominici sepulchri ab extra,' and cuts of saracens (here shown), two jews, greeks, both seculars and monks, syrians and indians, with tables of the alphabets of their respective languages. spaces are also left for drawings of jacobites, nestorians, armenians, and georgians, which apparently were not engraved. [illustration: saracens from breydenbach.] after breydenbach and his fellows had visited jerusalem they crossed the desert to the shrine of st. katharine on mount sinai, and this part of their travels is illustrated by a cut of a cavalcade of turks in time of peace. there is also a page devoted to drawings of animals, showing a giraffe, a crocodile, two indian goats, a camel led by a baboon with a long tail and walking stick, a salamander and a unicorn. underneath the baboon is written 'non constat de nomine' ('name unknown'), and the presence of the unicorn did not prevent the travellers from solemnly asserting,--'haec animalia sunt veraciter depicta sicut vidimus in terra sancta!' at the end of the text is reuwich's device, a woman holding a shield, on which is depicted the figure of a bird. the book is beautifully printed, in a small and very graceful gothic letter. it obtained the success it deserved, for there was a speedy demand for a german translation (issued in ), and at least six different editions were printed in germany during the next twenty years, besides other translations. alike in its inception and execution breydenbach's _pilgrimage_ stands on a little pinnacle by itself, and the next important books which we have to notice, stephan's _schatzbehalter oder schrein der wahren reichthümer des heils und ewiger seligkeit_ and hartmann schedel's _liber chronicarum_, usually known as the _nuremberg chronicle_, are in every respect inferior, even the unsurpassed profusion of the woodcuts in the latter being almost a sin against good taste. both works were printed by anton koberger of nuremberg, the one in , the other two years later, and in both the illustrations were designed, partly or entirely, by michael wohlgemuth, whose initial w appears on many of the cuts in the _schatzbehalter_. of these there are nearly a hundred, each of which occupies a large folio page, and measures nearly seven inches by ten. the composition in many of these pictures is good, and the fine work in the faces and hair show that we have travelled very far away from the outline cuts of the last chapter. on the other hand, there is no lack of simplicity in some of the scenes from the old testament. in his anxiety, for instance, to do justice to samson's exploits, the artist has represented him flourishing the jawbone of the ass over a crowd of slain philistines, while with the gates of gaza on his back he is casually choking a lion with his foot. in the next cut he is walking away with a pillar, while the palace of the philistines, apparently built without any ground floor, is seen toppling in the air. in contrast with these primitive conceptions we find the figure of christ often invested with real dignity, and the representation of god the father less unworthy than usual. in the only copy of the book accessible to me the cuts are all coloured, so that it is impossible to give a specimen of them, but the figure of noah reproduced from the _nuremberg chronicle_ gives a very fair idea of the work of wohlgemuth, or his school, at its best. the _chronicle_, to which we must now turn, is a mighty volume of rather over three hundred leaves, with sixty-five or sixty-six lines to each of its great pages. it begins with the semblance of a title-page in the inscription in large woodcut letters on its first page, 'registrum huius operis libri cronicarum cum figuris et ymaginibus ab inicio mundi,' though this really amounts only to a head-line to the long table of contents which follows. it is noticeable, also, as showing how slowly printed initials were adopted in many towns in germany, that a blank is left at the beginning of each alphabetical section of this table, and a larger blank at the beginning of the prologue, and that throughout the volume there are no large initial letters. this is also the case with the _schatzbehalter_, the blanks in the british museum copy being filled up with garish illumination. after the 'table' in the _chronicle_ there is a frontispiece of god in glory, at the foot of which are two blank shields held by wild men. the progress of the work of creation is shown by a series of circles, at first blank, afterwards more and more filled in. in the first five the hand of god appears in the upper left-hand corner, to signify his creative agency. the two chief features in the _chronicle_ itself are its portraits and its maps. the former are, of course, entirely imaginary, and the invention of the artist was not equal to devising a fresh head for every person mentioned in the text, a pardonable economy considering that there are sometimes more than twenty of these heads scattered over a single page and connected together by the branches of a quasi-genealogical tree. the maps, if not so good as those in breydenbach's _pilgrimage_, are still good. for ninive, for 'athene vel minerva,' for troy, and other ancient places, the requisite imagination was forthcoming; while the maps of venice,[ ] of florence, and of other cities of italy, france, and germany, appear to give a fair idea of the chief features of the places represented. nuremberg, of course, has the distinction of two whole pages to itself (the other maps usually stretch across only the lower half of the book), and full justice is done to its churches of s. lawrence and s. sebaldus, to the calvary outside the city walls, and to the hedge of spikes, by which the drawbridge was protected from assault. [illustration: from the _nuremberg chronicle_.] we shall have very soon to return again to wohlgemuth and nuremberg, but in the year which followed the production of the great _chronicle_ sebastian brant's _narrenschiff_ attracted the eyes of the literary world throughout europe to the city of basel, and we also may be permitted to digress thither. in the year of the _chronicle_ itself a basel printer, michael furter, had produced a richly illustrated work, the _ritter vom thurn von den exempeln der gottesfurcht und ehrbarkeit_, the cuts in which have ornamental borders on each side of them. brant had recourse to furter a little later, but for his _narrenschiff_ he went to bergmann de olpe, from whose press it was published in . the engraver or engravers (for there seem to have been at least two different hands at work) of its one hundred and fourteen cuts are not known, but brant is said to have closely supervised the work, and may possibly have furnished sketches for it himself. many of the illustrations could hardly be better. the satire on the book-fool in his library is too well known to need description; other excellent cuts are those of the children gambling and fighting while the fool-father sits blindfold,--of the fool who tries to serve two masters, depicted as a hunter setting his dog to run down two hares in different directions,--of the fool who looks out of the window while his house is on fire,--of the sick fool (here shown) who kicks off the bedclothes and breaks the medicine bottles while the doctor vainly tries to feel his pulse,--of the fool who allows earthly concerns to weigh down heavenly ones (a miniature city and a handful of stars are the contents of the scales),--of the frightened fool who has put to sea in a storm, and many others. the popularity of the book was instantaneous and immense. imitations of the basel edition were printed and circulated all over germany: in bergmann published a latin version by jacob locher with the same cuts, and translations speedily appeared in almost every country in europe. it is noteworthy that in the _narrenschiff_ we have no longer to deal with a great folio but with a handy quarto, and that, save for its cuts and the adjacent brokers, it has no artistic pretensions. [illustration: the sick fool] in the same year ( ) as the _narrenschiff_, bergmann printed another of brant's works, his poems 'in laudem virginis mariae' and of the saints, with fourteen cuts, and in his _de origine et conservatione bonorum regum et laude civitatis hierosolymae_, which has only two, but these of considerable size. in the following year brant transferred his patronage to michael furter, who printed his _passio sancti meynhardi_, with fifteen large cuts, by no means equal to those of the _narrenschiff_. in the indefatigable author employed both his printers, giving to bergmann his _varia carmina_ and to furter his edition of the _revelatio s. methodii_, which is remarkable not only for its fifty-five illustrations, but for brant's allusion to his own theory, 'imperitis pro lectione pictura est,' to the unlearned a picture is the best text. after brant removed to strassburg, where his influence was speedily apparent in the illustrated books published by johann grüninger, who in had issued as his first illustrated book an edition of the _narrenschiff_, and in published an illustrated and annotated _terence_. he followed these up with other editions of the _narrenschiff_, brant's _carmina varia_, and a _horace_ ( ), with over six hundred cuts, many of which, however, had appeared in the printer's earlier books. in he produced an illustrated _boethius_, and in the next year two notable works, brant's _heiligenleben_ and an annotated _virgil_, each of them illustrated with over two hundred cuts, of which very few had been used before. the year was notable for the publication not only of the _narrenschiff_, but of a low saxon bible printed by stephan arndes at lübeck, where he had been at work since . the cuts to this book show some advance upon those in previous german bibles, but they are not strikingly better than the work in the _nuremberg chronicle_, to whose designers we must now return. in we find wohlgemuth designing a frontispiece to an _ode on s. sebaldus_, published by conrad celtes, a nuremberg scholar, with whom he had previously entered into negotiations for illustrating an edition of _ovid_, which was never issued. in celtes published the comedies of hroswitha, a learned nun of the tenth century, who had undertaken to show what charming religious plays might be written on the lines of terence. by far the finest of the large cuts with which the book is illustrated is the second frontispiece, in which hroswitha, comedies in hand, is being presented by her abbess to the emperor. the designs to the plays themselves are dull enough, a fault which those who are best acquainted with the good nun's style as a dramatist will readily excuse. her one brilliant success, a scene in which a wicked governor, who has converted his kitchen into a temporary prison, is made to inflict his embraces on the pots and pans, instead of on the holy maidens immured amidst them, was not selected for illustration. the woodcuts to the plays of hroswitha were designed by wohlgemuth or his scholars, and this was also the case with those in the _quatuor libri amorum_, published by celtes in , to which albrecht dürer himself contributed three illustrations. for three years, from st. andrew's day , dürer had served an apprenticeship to wohlgemuth, and when he returned to nuremberg after his 'wanderjahre,' during which he seems to have executed a single woodcut of no great merit for an edition of the _epistles of s. jerome_, printed by nic. kesler, at basel, in , he too began to work as an illustrator. his first important effort in this character is the series of sixteen wood-engravings, illustrating the apocalypse, printed at nuremberg in . the first leaf bears a woodcut title _die heimliche offenbarung johannis_, and on the verso of the last cut but one is the colophon, 'gedrücket zu nurnbergk durch albrecht dürer maler, nach christi geburt m.cccc und darnach im xcviij iar.' it has also in one or more editions some explanatory text, taken from the bible, but in spite of these additions it is a portfolio of engravings rather than a book, and as such does not come within our province. on the same principle we can only mention, without detailed description, the _epitome in divae parthenices mariae historiam_ of , the _passio domini nostri jesu_, issued about the same date, and the _passio christi_, or 'little passion,' as it is usually called, printed about . all these have descriptive verses by the benedictine monk chelidonius (though these do not appear in all copies), but they belong to the history of wood-engraving as such, and not to our humbler subject of book-illustration. still less need we concern ourselves with the 'triumphal car' and 'triumphal arch' of the emperor maximilian, designed by dürer, and published, the one in , the other not till after the artist's death. besides these works and the single sheet of the rhinoceros of , dürer designed frontispieces for an edition of his own poems in , for a life of s. jerome by his friend lazarus spengler in , and for the _reformation der stadt nürnberg_ of . in also he drew a set of designs for half-ornamental, half-illustrative borders to fill in the blank spaces left in the book of prayers printed on vellum for the emperor maximilian in . by him also was the woodcut of christ on the cross, which appears first in the eichstätt _missal_ of three years later. for us, however, dürer's importance does not lie in these particular designs, but in the fact that he set an example of drawing for the wood-cutters, which other artists were not slow to follow. in directing the attention of german artists to the illustration of books, the emperor maximilian played a more important part than dürer himself. as in politics, so in art, his designs were on too ambitious a scale, and of the three great books he projected, the _theuerdank_, the _weisskunig_, and the _freydal_, only the first was brought to a successful issue. this is a long epic poem allegorising the emperor's wedding trip to burgundy, and though attributed to melchior pfintzing was apparently, to a large extent, composed by maximilian himself. the printing was entrusted to the elder hans schoensperger of augsburg, but for some unknown reason, when the book was completed in , the honour of its publication was allowed to nuremberg. a special fount of type was cut for it by jost dienecker of antwerp, who indulged in such enormous flourishes, chiefly to any _g_ or _h_ which happened to occur in the last line of text in a page, that many eminent printers have imagined that the whole book was engraved on wood. the difficulties of the setting up, however, have been greatly exaggerated, for the flourishes came chiefly at the top or foot of the page, and are often not connected with any letter in the text. in the present writer's opinion it is an open question whether the type, which is otherwise a very handsome one, is in any way improved by these useless appendages. they add on an average about an inch at the top and an inch and a half at the foot to the column of the text, which is itself ten inches in height, and contains twenty-four lines to a full page. the task of illustrating this royal work was entrusted to hans schäufelein, an artist already in the emperor's employment, and from his designs there were engraved one hundred and eighteen large cuts, each of them six and a half inches high by five and a half broad. the cuts, which chiefly illustrate hunting scenes and knightly conflicts, are not conspicuously better than those produced about the same time by other german artists, but they have the great advantage of having been carefully printed on fine vellum, and this has materially assisted their reputation. the _weisskunig_, a celebration of maximilian's life and travels, and the _freydal_, in honour of his knightly deeds, were part of the same scheme as the _theuerdank_. the two hundred and thirty-seven designs for the _weisskunig_ were mainly the work of hans burgkmair,[ ] an augsburg artist of repute; its literary execution was entrusted to the emperor's secretary, max treitzsaurwein, who completed the greater part of the text as early as . but the emperor's death in found the great work still unfinished, and it was not until that it was published as a fragment, with the original illustrations (larger, and perhaps finer, than those in the _theuerdank_), of which the blocks had, fortunately, been preserved. the _freydal_, though begun as early as , was left still less complete; the designs for it, however, are in existence at vienna. the 'triumph of the emperor maximilian,' another ambitious work, with one hundred and thirty-five woodcuts designed by burgkmair, was first published in . the death of maximilian in and the less artistic tastes of charles v. caused german illustrators to turn for work to the augsburg printers, and during the next few years we find them illustrating a number of books for the younger schoensperger, for hans othmar, for miller, and for grimm and wirsung, all augsburg firms. the most important result of this activity was the german edition of petrarch's _de remediis utriusque fortunae_, for which in the years immediately following the emperor's death an artist named hans weiditz, whose identity has only lately been re-established, drew no less than two hundred and fifty-nine designs. owing to the death of the printer, grimm, the book was put on one side, but was finally brought out by heinrich steiner, grimm's successor, in . in the interim some of the cuts had been used for an edition of cicero _de senectute_, and they were afterwards used again in a variety of works. despite the excellence of the cuts the _petrarch_ is a very disappointing book. to do justice to the fine designs the most delicate press work was necessary, and, except when the pressmen were employed by an emperor, the delicacy was not forthcoming; it may be said, indeed, that it was made impossible by the poorness and softness of the paper on which the book is printed. at this period it was only the skill of individual artists which prevented german books from being as dull and uninteresting as they soon afterwards became. books of devotion in germany never attained to the beauty of the french _horae_, but they did not remain uninfluenced by them. in or before we find a _nouum b. mariae virginis psalterium_ printed at zinna, near magdeburg, with very beautiful, though florid, borders. in there appeared at augsburg a german prayer-book, entitled _via felicitatis_, with thirty cuts, all with rich conventional borders, probably by hans schäufelein, and we have already seen that in the same year dürer himself designed borders for the emperor's own _gebetbuch_. in , again, burgkmair had contributed a series of designs, many of which had rich architectural borders, to a _leiden christi_, published by schoensperger at augsburg. in the same artist designed another set of illustrations, with very richly ornamented borders of flowers and animals, for the _devotissimae meditationes de vita beneficiis et passione jesu christi_, printed by grimm. the use of borders soon became a common feature in german title-pages, especially in the small quartos in which the lutherans and anti-lutherans carried on their controversies; but it cannot be said that they often exhibit much beauty. the innumerable translations of the bible, which were another result of the lutheran controversy, also provided plenty of work for the illustrators. the two augsburg editions of the new testament in were both illustrated, the younger schoensperger's by schäufelein, silvan othmar's by burgkmair. burgkmair also issued a series of twenty-one illustrations to the apocalypse, for which othmar had not had the patience to wait. [illustration: border attributed to lucas cranach.] at wittenberg the most important works issued were the repeated editions of luther's translation of the bible. here also lucas cranach, who had previously (in ) designed the cuts for what was known as the _wittenberger heiligthumsbuch_, in produced his _passional christi und antichristi_, in which, page by page, the sufferings and humility of christ were contrasted with the luxury and arrogance of the pope. at wittenberg, too, the thin quartos with woodcut borders to their title-pages were peculiarly in vogue, the majority of the designs being poor enough, but some few having considerable beauty, especially those of lucas cranach, of which an example is here given. meanwhile, at strassburg, hans grüninger and martin flach and his son continued to print numerous illustrated works, largely from designs by hans baldung grün, and a still more famous publisher had arisen in the person of johann knoblouch, who for some of his books secured the help of urs graf, an artist whose work preserved some of the old-fashioned simplicity of treatment. at nuremberg illustrated books after koburger's death proceeded chiefly from the presses of jobst gutknecht and peypus, for the latter of whom hans springinklee, one of the minor artists employed on the _weisskunig_, occasionally drew designs. at basel michael furter continued to issue illustrated books for the first fifteen years of the new century, johann amorbach adorned with woodcuts his editions of ecclesiastical statutes and constitutions, and adam petri issued a whole series of illustrated books, chiefly of religion and theology. to basel urs graf gave the most and the best of his work, and there the young hans holbein designed in rapid succession the cuts for the new testament of , for an _apocalypse_, two editions of the pentateuch, and a vulgate, besides numerous ornamental borders. some of these merely imitate the rather tasteless designs of urs graf, in which the ground plan is architectural, and relief is given by a profusion of naked children, not always in very graceful attitudes. holbein's best designs are far lighter and prettier. the foot of the border is usually occupied by some historical scene, the death of john the baptist, mucius scævola and porsenna, the death of cleopatra, the leap of curtius, or hercules and orpheus. in a title-page to the _tabula cebetis_ he shows the whole course of man's life--little children crowding through the gate, which is guarded by their 'genius,' and the fortune, sorrow, luxury, penitence, virtue, and happiness which awaits them. the two well-known borders for the top and bottom of a page, illustrating peasants chasing a thieving fox and their return dancing, were designed for andreas cratander, for whom also, as for valentine curio, holbein drew printers' devices. ambrosius holbein also illustrated a few books, the most noteworthy in the eyes of englishmen being the edition of more's _utopia_, printed by froben. his picture of hercules gallicus, dragging along the captives of his eloquence, part of a border designed for an _aulus gellius_ published by cratander in , is worthy of hans himself. while the german printers degenerated ever more and more, those of basel and zurich maintained a much higher standard of press-work, and from to , when the demand for illustrated books had somewhat lessened, produced a series of classical editions in tall folios, well printed and on good paper, which at least command respect. they abound with elaborate initial letters, which are, however, too deliberately pictorial to be in good taste. in germany itself by the middle of the sixteenth century the artistic impulse had died away, or survived only in books like those of jost amman, in which the text merely explains the illustrations. it is a pleasure to go back some seventy or eighty years and turn our attention to the beginning of book-illustration in italy. * * * * * [ ] dr. lippmann was of opinion that the map of venice was adapted from reuwich's; that of florence from a large woodcut, printed at florence between and , of which the unique example is at berlin; and that of rome from a similar map, now lost, which served also as a model for the cut in the edition of the _supplementum chronicarum_, printed at venice in . [ ] burgkmair had already done work for the printers, notably for an edition of jornandes _de rebus gothorum_, printed in , on the first page of which king alewinus and king athanaricus are shown in conversation, the title of the book being given in a shield hung over their heads. chapter v italy--i the first illustrated books and those of venice surrounded by pictures and frescoes, and accustomed to the utmost beauty in their manuscripts, the italians did not feel the need of the cheaper arts, and for the first quarter of a century after the introduction of printing into their country, the use of engraved borders, initial letters, and illustrations was only occasional and sporadic. perhaps not very long after the middle of the century an italian block-book of the passion had been issued, probably at venice, as it was there that most of the cuts were used again in for an edition of the _devote meditatione_, attributed to s. bonaventura. a copy of this is in the british museum; of the block-book eighteen leaves are preserved at berlin. despite some ungainliness in the figures and rather coarse cutting, the pictures are vigorous and effective, but quite unlike any later venetian work. something of the same kind may be said of those in an edition of the _meditationes_ of cardinal turrecremata, printed by ulrich hahn at rome in , the first work printed in italy with movable type, in which woodcut illustrations were used. the cuts are thirty-four in number, and professed to illustrate the same subjects as the frescoes recently painted by the cardinal's order in the church of san maria di minerva at rome.[ ] the execution is so rude, that it is impossible to say whether they are the work of a german influenced by italian models, or of an italian working to please a german master, nor is the point of the slightest importance. thirty-three of the cuts were used again in the editions printed at rome in and , and it is from the edition that the accompanying illustration of the flight into egypt is taken. this in its original size is one of the best of the series, but the reduction necessary for its appearance on one of our pages has had a more than usually unfortunate effect, both on the cut itself and on the printer's type which appears below it. [illustration: from the _meditationes_ of turrecremata, rome, .] in , the courtier-printer, joannes philippus de lignamine, issued an edition of the _opuscula_ of philippus de barberiis adorned with twenty-nine cuts representing twelve prophets, twelve sibyls, st. john the baptist, the holy family, christ with the emblems of his passion, the virgin proba, and the philosopher plato. plato, malachi, and hosea are all represented by the same cut, another serves for both jeremiah and zechariah, and two of the sibyls are also made to merge their individualities. with the exception of the figure of christ, which is merely painful, the cuts are pleasantly and even ludicrously rude. nevertheless, they are not without vigour, and are, to my thinking, greatly preferable to the more conventional figures of the twelve sibyls and proba which appeared shortly afterwards in an undated edition of the same book, printed by sixtus riessinger. in this edition the figures are surrounded by architectural borders, and we have also a border to the first page and several large initial letters, all in exact imitation of the interlacement work, which is the commonest form of decoration in italian manuscripts of the time. riessinger's mark, a girl holding a black shield with a white arrow on it, and a scroll with the letters s.r.d.a. (sixtus riessinger de argentina), is found in the 'register' at the end of the book. to riessinger we also owe a _cheiromantia_, with figures of hands, which i have not seen, while from lignamine's press there was issued an edition of the _herbarium_ of apuleius barbarus (who was, of course, confused with his famous namesake), which has rude botanical figures and, at the end of the book, a most man-like portrait of a mandrake, with a dog duly tugging at one of his fibrous legs. the list of illustrated books printed at rome before also includes[ ] some little editions, mostly by silber or plannck, of the _mirabilia romae_, a guidebook to the antiquities of the city, in which there are a few cuts of pilgrims gazing at the cloth of s. veronica, of ss. peter and paul, of romulus and remus, and other miscellaneous subjects. the interest of all these books is purely antiquarian. if we turn from rome to the neighbouring city of naples, we shall find evidence of much more artistic work. in sixtus riessinger printed there for francesco tuppo an edition of boccaccio's _libro di florio e di bianzefiore_, or _philocolo_, illustrated with forty-one woodcuts, of no great technical merit, but by no means without charm. two years later a representation of the supposed origin of music by the figures of five blacksmiths working at an anvil occurs in an edition of the _musices theoria_ of francesco gafori, printed in by francesco di dino. much more important than this is a handsome edition of _Æsop_ published in by francesco tuppo, and printed for him by an anonymous firm known to bibliographers as the 'germain fidelissimi.' this contains eighty-seven large cuts heavily cut, but well drawn and with a massive vigour, one of which, representing the death of Æsop, occupies a full page. the cuts illustrating the fabulist's life have rather commonplace borders to them, but when the fables themselves are reached, these are replaced by much more important ones. into an upper compartment are introduced figures of hercules wrestling with antæus, hercules riding on a lion, and a combat between mounted pigmies. the fables have also a large border surrounding the first page of text, used again in the hebrew bible of . the ground-work of all the borders is black, but this has not always enabled them to escape the hand of the colourist. the book is also adorned by two large and two smaller printed initials. to the same artist as the illustrator of the _Æsop_ must be attributed the title-cut of granollach's _astrologia_, issued in or about the same year. in , again, matthias moravus printed one of the few italian _horae_, a charming little book, three inches by two, with sixteen lines of very pretty gothic type, printed in red and black, to each of its tiny pages, and four little woodcuts, which in the only copy i have seen have been painted over. a daintier prayer-book can hardly be conceived. when we turn from the south to the north of italy, we find that an italian printer at verona had preceded the german immigrants in issuing an important work with really fine woodcuts as early in . this is the _de re militari_ of robertus valturius, written some few years previously, and dedicated to sigismund malatesta. in this fine book, printed by john of verona, there are eighty-two woodcuts representing various military operations and engines, all drawn in firm and graceful outline, which could hardly be bettered. the designs for these cuts have been attributed to the artist matteo de' pasti, whose skill as a painter, sculptor, and engraver, valturius had himself commended in a letter written in the name of malatesta to mahomet ii. the conjecture rests solely on this commendation, but seems intrinsically probable. the book has no other adornment save these woodcuts and its fine type. another edition was printed in the same town eleven years later by boninus de boninis. besides the _valturius_, the only other early verona book with illustrations known to me is an edition of _Æsop_ in the italian version of accio zucco, printed by giovanni alvisio in . this has a frontispiece in which the translator is seen presenting his book to a laurel-crowned person sitting in a portico, through which there is a distant view. this is followed by a page of majuscules containing the title of the book, but ending with a 'foeliciter incipit.' on the back of this is a tomb-like erection, bearing the inscription 'lepidissimi Æsopi fabellae,' which gives it the rank of the second ornamental title-page (see p. for the first). facing this is a page surrounded by an ornamental border, at the foot of which is the usual shield supported by the usual naked boys. within the border are latin verses beginning: "vt iuuet et prosit conatum pagina praesens dulcius arrident seria picta iocis," the lines being spaced out with fragments from the ornamental borders which surround each of the pictures in the body of the book. these, on the whole, are not so good as those in the naples edition of , but were helped out, at least in some copies, by rather pretty colouring. the chief feature in the book is the care bestowed upon the preliminary leaves. in florence, before , we have no example of wood-engraving employed in book illustration, but in , nicolaus lorenz of breslau issued there the first of three books with illustrations engraved on copper. this is an edition of bettini's _monte santo di dio_ with three plates, representing respectively ( ) the holy mountain, up which a man is climbing by the aid of a ladder of virtues; ( ) christ standing in a 'mandorla' or almond-shaped halo formed by the heads of cherubs; and ( ) the torments of hell. this was followed in by a _dante_ with the commentary of landino, with engravings illustrating the first eighteen cantos. spaces were left for engravings at the head of the other cantos, but the plan was too ambitious, and they were never filled up. some copies of the book have no engravings at all, others only two, those prefixed to cantos and , the first of which is most inartistically introduced on the lower margin of the page, tempting mutilation by the binder's shears. the other venture of nicolaus lorenz, which has engraved work, is the _sette giornate della geographia_ of berlinghieri, in which he introduces numerous maps. at milan only two illustrated books are known to have been issued before , both of which appeared in . the rarer of these, which is seldom found in perfect condition, is the _summula di pacifica conscientia_ of fra pacifico di novara, printed by philippus de lavagna, and illustrated with three copper-plates, one of which represents the virtues of the madonna, the others containing diagrams exhibiting the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. the other book is a _breviarium totius juris canonici_, printed by leonard pachel and ulrich scinzenceller, with a woodcut portrait of its author, 'magister paulus florentinus ordinis sancti spiritus,' otherwise paolo attavanti. the illustrated books printed in italy which we have hitherto noticed are of great individual interest, but they led to the establishment of no school of book-illustration, and the value of wood engravings was as yet so little understood that the cuts in them often failed to escape the hands of the colourists. at venice, on the other hand, where bernhard maler and erhard ratdolt introduced the use of printed initials and borders in , we find a continuous progress to the record of which we must now turn. the border to the title-page of the kalendars of has already been noticed: both the latin and the italian editions also contained printed initials of a rustic shape, resembling those in some early books in ulm, but larger and better. the next year the partners made a great step in advance in the initials and borders of an _appian_, and an edition of cepio's _gesta petri mocenici_. these were followed by an edition of _dionysius periegetes_, and in by the _cosmographia_ of pomponius mela. three distinct borders are used in these books, all of them with light and graceful floral patterns in relief on a black ground. the large initials are of the same character, and both these and the borders are unmistakably italian. in ratdolt lost the aid of bernhard maler, who up to that date seems to have been the leading spirit of the firm, and the books subsequently issued are much less decorative. in another german, georg walch, issued an edition of the _fasciculus temporum_ with illustrations mostly poor enough, but with a quaint little attempt at realism in one of venice. these cuts of walch's, and also a decorative initial, ratdolt was content to copy on a slightly larger scale in an edition of his own the next year. he also printed an undated _chiromantia_, with twenty-one figures of heads, a reprint of which bearing his name and that of mattheus cerdonis de windischgretz was issued at padua in . in , came the _poetica astronomica_ of hyginus, with numerous woodcuts of the astronomical powers, those of mercury (here very slightly reduced) and sol being perhaps the best. to the same year belongs a reprint of the _cosmographia_ of pomponius mela with a curious map and a few good initials, also a _euclid_ with mathematical diagrams and a border and initials from the _appian_ of . [illustration: from the _hyginus_ of .] after ratdolt does not seem to have printed any new illustrated books, and in he ceased printing at venice and returned, as we have seen, to augsburg. subject to the doubt as to whether he has not been credited with praise which really belongs to bernhard maler, his brief italian career entitles him to a place of some importance among the decorators of books, for though his illustrations were unimportant, his borders and initials are among the best of the fifteenth century. in octavianus scotus printed three missals with a rude cut of the crucifixion, and these were imitated by other printers in , , and . the year was marked by the publication, by bernardino de benaliis, of an edition of the _supplementum chronicarum_ of giovanni philippo foresti of bergamo, with numerous outline woodcuts of cities, for the most part purely imaginary and conventional, the same cuts being used over and over again for different places. four years later a new edition was printed by bernardino de novara, in which more accurate pictures were substituted in the case of some of the more important towns, notably florence and rome. in both issues the first three cuts, representing the creation, the fall, and the sacrifice of cain and abel, are copied from those in the cologne bible. the year after his edition of the _supplementum_, bernardinus de benaliis printed an _Æsop_ with sixty-one woodcuts adapted from those in the veronese edition of . of this edition dr. lippmann, who had the only known copy under his charge at berlin, remarks that 'the style of engraving is, to a large extent, cramped and angular, and the entire appearance of the work is that of a genuine chapbook.' [illustration: from the _devote meditatione_, venice, [ ].] in we arrive at the first of the numerous illustrated editions of the _trionfi_ of petrarch. this was printed by bernardino de novara, and has six full-page cuts, measuring some ten inches by six, and illustrating the triumphs of love, of chastity, death, fame, and time, and of the true divinity over the false gods. the designs are excellent, but the engraver had very imperfect control over his point, and his treatment of the eyes of the figures introduced is by itself sufficient to spoil the pictures. curiously enough, the ornamental border of white figures on a black ground is certainly better cut than the pictures themselves. the same inferiority of the engraver to the designer is seen in the illustrations to the edition of the _deuote meditatione sopra la passione del nostro signore_ attributed to s. bonaventura. the first illustrated edition of this book, with eleven illustrations taken (slightly cut down) from the block book of the passion already mentioned, had been printed in by ieronimo de santis. the edition was printed by matteo di codecha (or capcasa) of parma, who republished the book no less than six times during the next five years, after which the cuts were used by other printers,--_e.g._ by gregorio di rusconi, from whose edition in our illustration of the mocking of christ is taken. it is interesting to compare this venetian series with the florentine edition published a little later by antonio mischomini, whose engraver, while taking many hints from the designs of his predecessor, greatly improved on them. the next year witnessed the first venetian edition of another work in which the artists of the two cities were to be matched together. this is the _fior di virtù_, whose title-cut of fra cherubino da spoleto gathering flowers in the convent garden shows a great advance on previous venetian work. unfortunately the british museum copy has been slightly injured, so that i am obliged to take my reproduction from the second of two similar editions published by matteo codecha in , . these have each thirty-six vignettes in the text, illustrating the examples in the animal world of the virtues which the author desired to inculcate. [illustration: from the _fior di virtù_, venice, .] we must now turn to the first illustrated edition of malermi's italian version of the bible, printed in . after the woodcut basis for the six little illuminations in the spencer copy of adam of ammergau's edition of , the first biblical woodcuts at venice are a series of thirty-eight small vignettes which decorate an edition of the _postilla_ or sermons, of nicolaus de lyra, printed for octavianus scotus in . in the bible itself, printed the next year by giovanni ragazzo for lucantonio giunta, the illustrations are on a very lavish scale, numbering in all three hundred and eighty-three, of which a few are duplicates, and about a fourth are adapted in miniature from the cuts in the cologne bibles, which formed a model for so many other editions. some of the best cuts in this and other venetian books are signed with a small _b_, which by some writers has been supposed to stand for the name of the artist who designed them, but is more probably to be referred to the workshop at which they were engraved. the craftsmen employed on the new testament were quite unskilled, but many of the illustrations to the old testament are delightful. the first page of the bible is occupied by six somewhat larger cuts, illustrating the days of creation, joined together within an architectural border. other editions containing the same cuts, with additions from other books, were issued in , , and . a rival edition, printed by guglielmo de monteferrato, with a new set of cuts of a similar character appeared in . these three religious works, the _meditatione_, the _postilla_, and the malermi bible thoroughly established the use of vignettes, or small cuts worked into the text, as an alternative to full-page illustrations, like those in the _petrarch_, and it was natural that this method of decoration should soon be applied to the greatest of italian works, the _divina commedia_. in producing an illustrated dante, venice had been anticipated not only by the florentine edition of , though the engravings in this are only found in the first few cantos, but by a very curious edition published at brescia in , with full-page cuts, surrounded by a black border with white arabesques. these large cuts, which measure ten inches by six, are very coarsely executed, and have no merit save what the earlier ones derive from their imitation of those in the florentine edition. in the course of the year two illustrated _dantes_ were published at venice, the first on march rd by bernardino benali and matteo [codecha] da parma, the second on november th by pietro cremonese. the earlier edition has a fine woodcut frontispiece illustrating the first canto, but the vignettes which succeed it are so badly cut as to lose all their beauty. in the later edition the same designs appear to have been followed, but the vignettes are larger and much better cut, so that they are at least somewhat less unworthy of their subject. both editions have printed initials, but of the poorest kind, and in both the text is hidden away amid the laborious commentary of landino. after dante's _divina commedia_ it is natural to expect an edition of boccaccio's _decamerone_, and this duly followed the next year from the press of gregorius de gregoriis. the first page is occupied by a woodcut of the ten fine ladies and gentlemen who tell the stories, seated in the beautiful garden to which they had retired from the plague which was raging around them. beneath this are seventeen lines of text, with a blank left for an initial h, and woodcut and text are surrounded by an architectural border, at the foot of whose columns little boys standing on the heads of lions are blowing horns, while in the lower section of the design the usual blank shield is approached from either side by cupids riding on rams. the blank for the initial is a great blot on the page, as any coloured letter would have destroyed the delicacy of the whole design. in the body of the work each of the ten books is headed by a double cut, in one part of which the company of narrators is standing in front of a gateway, while one of their number is playing a guitar; in the other they are all seated before a fountain, presided over by a wreath-crowned master of the story-telling. the vignettes which illustrate the different tales vary very much in quality, though some, like the little cut of the marquis and his friends approaching griselda as she brings water from the well, could hardly be bettered. the _boccaccio_ of heralded a long series of illustrated books from the press of gregorius de gregoriis and his brother john. most of these were devotional in their character, _e.g._ the _zardine de oratione_, the _monte dell' oratione_, the _vita e miracoli del sancto antonio di padova_, the _passione di cristo_, &c. the _novellino_ of masuccio salernitano formed a pendant to the _boccaccio_, and was published in the same year. to the gregorii we also owe the magnificent border, in white relief on a black ground, to the latin _herodotus_ of , repeated again in the second volume of the works of s. jerome published in - . equally famous with any of these is the same printer's series of editions of the _fascicolo de medicina_ of johannes ketham. in the first of these, printed in , the illustrations are confined to cuts of various dreadful-looking surgical instruments; but in large pictures were added, each occupying the whole of a folio page, and representing a dissection, a consultation of physicians, the bedside of a man struck down by the plague. the dissection was printed in several colours, but this experiment was abandoned, and a new block was cut for the subsequent editions. in some of his later books gregorius repaired the mistake of the _boccaccio_, and used excellent woodcut initials. the _herodotus_ of has only its magnificent border by way of illustration, but other classical authors received much more generous treatment during this decade. an italian _livy_, with numerous vignettes, was printed in by giovanni di vercelli, and a latin one in by p. pincio, lucantonio giunta in each case acting as publisher.[ ] in lazarus de soardis printed for simon de luere a _terence_ with numerous vignettes; and in the same year there appeared an illustrated edition, several times reprinted, of the _metamorphoses_ of ovid, the printer being giovanni rossi and the publisher once more lucantonio giunta. the cuts in this work measure something over three inches by five, and have little borders on each side of them; but the fineness of the designs is lost by poor engraving. some of them are signed _ia_, others n. we now approach one of the most famous books in the annals of venetian printing, the _hypnerotomachia poliphili_ printed by aldus in , at the expense of a certain leonardo crasso of verona, 'artium et iuris pontificis consultus,' by whom it was dedicated to guidobaldo, duke of urbino. the author of the book was francesco colonna, a dominican friar, who had been a teacher of rhetoric at treviso and padua, and was now spending his old age in the convent of ss. giovanni e paolo in venice, his native city. colonna's authorship of the romance is revealed in an acrostic formed by the initial letters of the successive chapters, which make up the sentence, 'poliam frater franciscus columna peramavit': 'brother francesco colonna greatly loved polia.' who polia was is a little uncertain. in the opening chapter she tells her nymphs that her real name was lucretia, but she has been identified with a hippolita lelio, daughter of a jurisconsult at treviso, who entered a convent after having been attacked by the plague, which visited treviso from to . on the other hand, it is plausibly suggested that polia ([greek: polia]), 'the grey-haired lady,' is only a symbol of antiquity, and at the beginning of the book there is at least a pretence of an allegory, though this is not carried very far. [illustration: from the _hypnerotomachia_, venice, .] in the story polifilo, a name intended to mean 'the lover of polia,' imagines himself in his dream as passing through a dark wood till he reaches a little stream, by which he rests. the valley through which it runs is filled with fragments of ancient architecture, which form the subjects of many illustrations. as he comes to a great gate he is frightened by a dragon. escaping from this, he meets five nymphs (the five senses), and is brought to the court of queen eleuterylida (free will). then follows a description of the ornaments of her palace and of four magnificent processions, the triumphs of europa, leda, and danaë, and the festival of bacchus. after this we have a triumph of vertumnus and pomona, and a picture of nymphs and men sacrificing before a terminal figure of priapus. meanwhile polifilo has met the fair polia, and together they witness some of the ceremonies in the temple of venus, and view its ornaments and those of the gardens round it. the first book, which is illustrated with one hundred and fifty-one cuts, now comes to an end. book ii describes how the beautiful polia, after an attack of the plague, had taken refuge in a temple of diana; how, while there, she dreamt a terrifying dream of the anger of cupid, so that she was moved to let her lover embrace her, and was driven from diana's temple with thick sticks; lastly, of how venus took the lovers under her protection, and at the prayer of polifilo caused cupid to pierce an image of polia with his dart, thereby fixing her affections as firmly on polifilo as he could wish--if only it were not all a dream! this second book is illustrated with only seventeen woodcuts, but as these are not interrupted by any wearisome architectural designs, their cumulative effect is far more impressive than those of the first, though many of the pictures in this--notably those of polifilo in the wood and by the river, his presentation to eleuterylida, the scenes of his first meeting with polia, and some of the incidents of the triumphs--are quite equal to them. unfortunately, the best pictures in both books are nearly square, so that it is impossible to reproduce them in an octavo except greatly reduced. the woodcuts of the _polifilo_ have been ascribed to nearly a dozen artists, but in every case on the very slenderest grounds. some of the cuts, like some of those in the mallermi bible, are marked with a little _b_; but this, as has been said, is almost certainly indicative of the engraver's workshop from which they proceeded, rather than of the artist who drew the designs. the edition of is a handsome folio; the text is printed in fine roman type, with three or four different varieties of beautiful initial letters. the title and headings are printed in the delicate majuscules which belong to the type, and have a very graceful appearance. a second edition of the _polifilo_ was published in , with, for the most part, the same cuts. this was followed in the next year by a french translation by jean martin, printed at paris by jacques kerver, and republished three times during the century. for the french editions the cuts were freely imitated, the rather short, plump italian women reappearing as ladies of even excessive height. in england in simon waterson printed an abridged translation with the pretty title, _hypnerotomachia, or the strife of love in a dreame_, with a few cuts copied from the italian originals. the book, now extremely rare, was apparently not well received, for waterson, abandoning all hope of a second edition, speedily parted with his wood-blocks. four of the cuts are found amid the most incongruous surroundings in the _strange and wonderful tidings happened to richard hasleton, borne at braintree in essex, in his ten yeares trauailes in many forraine countries_, though this egregious work was printed by a. i. for william barley in , only three years after the _strife of love in a dreame_. as we have noted, aldus printed the _hypnerotomachia_ on commission, and save for two discreditably bad cuts in his _musaeus_ and a rather fine portrait of s. catherine of siena in his edition of her letters printed in , he troubled himself with no other illustrations. in his larger works he revived the memory of the stately folios of jenson, and in his popular editions sought no other adornment than the beauty of his italic type. if pictures were needed to make a book more acceptable to a rich patron, he did not disdain to have recourse to the illuminator. some of his greek books have most beautiful initial letters, and in the aristotle of he employs good head-pieces, though these fall far short of the large oriental design, printed in red, placed by his friendly rival, zacharias kaliergos, at the top of the first page of the _commentary_ of simplicius on aristotle of . [illustration] the influence of aldus certainly helped to widen the gulf which already existed between the finely printed works intended for scholars and wealthy book-lovers and the cheaper and more popular ones in which woodcuts formed an addition very attractive to the humbler book-buyers. perhaps this in part accounts for the great deterioration in italian illustrated books after the close of the fifteenth century. the delicate vignettes and outline cuts only appear in reprints, and in new works their place is taken by heavily shaded engravings, mostly of very little charm. the numerous liturgical works published by lucantonio giunta and his successors perhaps show this work at its best. they are mostly printed in gothic type with an abundant use of red ink, and the heaviness of the illustrations is thus all the better carried off. but as the century advanced venetian printing deteriorated more and more rapidly: partly from excessive competition; partly, as mr. brown has shown in his _the venetian printing press_, from too much interference on the part of the government; partly, we must suppose, simply from the decline of good taste, though it is noticeable that between and , when the insides of books had become merely dull, is a brilliant period in the history of venetian binding. whatever the cause, within a few years after the close of the fifteenth century the glories of venetian printing had disappeared. [illustration: from the _epistole_ of pulci, florence, _c._ .] * * * * * [ ] the title of the book, printed in red, beneath the first woodcut, reads: 'meditationes rever[=e]dissimi patris dñi johannis de turre cremata sacros[~c]e romane eccl'ie cardinalis posite & depicte de ipsius m[~a]dato [~i] eccl'ie ambitu marie de minerva, rome.' [ ] maps hardly come under the head of illustrations, but we may note the appearance in of the edition of ptolemy's _cosmographia_, by arnold buckinck, with maps engraved by conrad sweynheim, the partner of pannartz. [ ] in the intervening year giunta had published the _santa catharina_, printed by matteo codecha, some copies of which have the false date mcccclxxxiii. chapter vi italy--ii florence and milan--italian printers' marks we must now return from venice to florence, where, after the experiments with engravings on copper in and , no illustrated books had been published until on march , , francesco di dino (whom we have already seen at work at naples ten years earlier) brought out an edition of the _specchio di croce_ of domenico cavalca, with a frontispiece representing the crucifixion. in september of the same year an edition of the _laudi_ of jacopone da todi (the franciscan author of the _stabat mater_), was printed by francesco buonaccorsi, which contains on the verso of its eighth leaf a most beautiful outline woodcut,[ ] st. jacopone kneeling by a little lectern, his book on the ground, while above him is a vision of the madonna enshrined in a 'mandorla,' supported below by three cherubs and above by four maturer angels. in we make the acquaintance of lorenzo di morgiani and giovanni tedesco da maganza, or johann petri of mainz, from whose press some of the most important of the florentine illustrated books were issued. the first result of their activity was a new edition of bettini's _monte santo di dio_, in which the three copperplates of the edition of were freely imitated upon wood. in the same year they printed a little treatise on arithmetic, written by philippo calandro and dedicated to giuliano dei medici. this is the most delightful of all arithmetic books. it has a title-cut of 'pictagoras arithmetice introductor,' and the earlier pages of the book are surrounded by a characteristic renaissance border. towards the end of the work there is a series of illustrated problems, only a little more absurd than those which still occur in children's school-books. one of these, however, is so good that we must permit ourselves a little digression to quote it in a free translation:-- "a squirrel flying from a cat climbed to the top of a tree - / arm's-lengths (_braccia_) in height. the cat, wanting to seize the squirrel, began to climb the tree, and each day leaped up half an arm's length, and each night descended a third of one. the squirrel, on its part, believing that the cat had gone away, wanted to get down from the tree, and each day descended a quarter of an arm's length, and each night went back one-fifth of one: i want to know in how many days the cat will reach the said squirrel?" the answer is days; but the picture must have been taken on the first or second, for the cat is still very plump, and so large in proportion to the tree that if he had but stood on his hind legs he ought to have reached the top! others of the pictures are without this charming touch of absurdity, perhaps the most perfect being a little cut of a traveller on horseback, as to the expenses of whose journey the teacher was anxious for some information from his young friends. these little cuts are all about an inch square, and drawn in outline. another edition of the arithmetic, in roman type instead of black letter, but otherwise very similar, was issued in by bernardo zucchetta. with the year we come to the first dated editions of the illustrated savonarola tracts, which play no inconsiderable part in the history of book illustration in italy. their existence is in itself the best refutation of the popular belief that the reformer's influence was wholly hostile to the interests of art, though the number of artists who reckoned themselves, formally or informally, among his followers should have sufficed to prevent the belief growing up. these tracts, save for the cuts with which they are adorned, are insignificant in appearance, being for the most part badly printed, and with few and poor initial letters. the woodcuts, seldom more than two in a tract, are, however, charming, and have won for them much attention. [illustration: from an undated savonarola tract, florence, _c._ .] the first publisher of these tracts seems to have been antonio mischomini, who on june , , issued a trac tato dello amore di iesu christo composto da frate hieronymo da ferrara del l'ordine de frati predica tori pri ore di san marcho di f i r e n z e with the title arranged cross-wise, as here shown. on the back of the title is a picture of the crucifixion, with the blessed virgin and s. john standing by the cross. this was followed on june th by the _tractato della humilta_, with a large title-cut representing the dead christ before his cross, an angel supporting each arm. neither of these cuts shows typical florentine work, for the blank spaces have all to be cleared away by the engraver, and there is an abundance of shading. the first design was clearly spoilt in the cutting, the second is of great beauty. the typical florentine work, in which white lines are cut out from a black ground, as well as black lines from a white, appears in the _tractato ouero sermone della oratione_, finished by mischomini on october th. here the title-cut shows the scene at gethsemane: the three disciples asleep in the foreground, christ in prayer, and the hands of an angel holding a cup appearing in a corner above. the picture, as always in distinctively florentine work, is surrounded by a little border or frame, in which a small white pattern is picked out from a black ground. the other illustrated savonarola tracts bearing an early date, with which i am acquainted, are the _de simplicitate christianae vitae_, printed 'impensis ser petri pacini,' august th, , and the _predica dell arte del bene morire_, preached on nov. of that year, taken down at the time by ser lorenzo violi, and doubtless published immediately afterwards. the _de simplicitate_ has on its first page a picture of a dominican friar writing in his cell, a sand-glass at his side, a crucifix in front of his desk, and books and his gown scattered on a table. the illustrations to the _arte del bene morire_ comprise a hideous outline cut of death, scythe on shoulder, flying over ground strewn with corpses (this is enclosed in a large black border used by mischomini in ), and cuts of death showing a young man heaven and hell,[ ] of a sick man with his good and bad angels watching him and death standing without the door, and of a dying man attended by a friar, death sitting now at his bed's foot, and the angels watching as before. turning now to the undated tracts, we find that the _expositione del pater noster_ contains ( ) a very beautiful variant of the representation of the scene on gethsemane, the angel appearing on the left instead of the right,[ ] ( ) a cut of s. james writing at a table, ( ) a small cut of david in prayer, and some still smaller pictures of prophets and of the crucifixion. at the end of the book is an _epistola a una devota donna bolognose_, which is headed and ended by a cut of a dominican preaching in the open air to a congregation of nuns. an undated edition of the _tractato della humilta_ has images of pity at the beginning and end, the former surrounded by a black border. yet another edition has an outline cut of christ holding his cross, while blood streams from his hand into a chalice. an edition of the _tractato dello amore di iesu_ has two outline cuts, one large, one small, showing the blessed virgin and s. john standing by the cross. a tract on self-examination, addressed to the abbess of the convent of the murate at florence, shows an aged friar being welcomed at the convent. other tracts have pictures of a priest elevating the host, a man praying before an altar, a man and woman praying, &c. one of the rarest is the superb cut to the _dyalogo della verita prophetica_, in which a friar is preaching to seven questioners arranged in a half-circle under a tree, a view of florence occupying the background. cuts in other books show savonarola meeting a devil and an astrologer, and represent him preaching to an intent congregation. with these tracts we must join the defence of savonarola by his follower domenico benivieni, who appears in the title-cut in earnest disputation with a group of florentines, while later on in the book there is a full-page illustration of the reformer's vision of the regeneration of the world and the church, in which the stream of christ's blood as he hangs on the cross is being literally used for the washing away of sins. this book was published by francesco buonaccorsi in . [illustration: from savonarola's _operetta sopra i dieci commandamenti di dio_, .] florentine book-illustration reached its highest in an edition of the _epistole e evangelii_,[ ] or liturgical gospels and epistles, printed in by lorenzo morgiani and johann petri at the instance of the ser piero pacini da pescia, who for the next fourteen or fifteen years seems to have been an active promoter of illustrated books. only two copies of the edition of the _epistole e evangelii_ are known to exist, but the owner of one of them, mr. c. w. dyson perrins, has reproduced all the woodcuts in it in very finely executed facsimile, together with a reprint of the text, for presentation to the roxburghe club, so that the illustrator's work can now be studied with comparative ease. the title-page shows s. peter and s. paul standing in a circle enclosed in an arabesque border of white floral ornaments and dolphins on a black ground. at the corners of the border are figures of the four evangelists. in the text there are twelve dozen large woodcuts and two dozen half-length figures of prophets, evangelists, and epistle-writers. of the larger cuts eleven represent s. paul writing and one s. peter, most of the rest scenes from the life of christ, several of those representing the passion having previously appeared in an undated edition of the _meditatione_ attributed to s. bonaventura from the press of mischomini. the cuts form a treasure-house of florentine art, and were frequently drawn upon by the printers of the later _rappresentationi_, at which we shall soon have to look. [illustration: from the _giuocho delli scacchi_, florence, .] we must return now to antonio mischomini, who published many other illustrated books besides the savonarola tracts. in he printed an edition of cristoforo landino's _formulare di lettere e di orationi uolgari_, with a large title-cut of a very young teacher addressing a class, and at the end of the book his mark (a cross-surmounted m within two squares and a circle), surrounded by the arabesque border which we have already noticed in the _arte del bene morire_ of . the next year (_i.e._ ) he printed the _libro di giuocho delli scacchi_ of jacobus de cessolis, with a large title-cut (repeated at the end of the book) representing courtiers playing in the presence of a king, and thirteen smaller cuts personifying the various pieces. these comprise a king and queen, a judge, a knight, a 'rook,' or vicar of the king to visit in his stead all parts of the realm, and the eight 'popolari' or pawns, a labourer, smith, wool-merchant, money-changer, physician, tavern-keeper (here shown), city-guard, and a runner to be at the rook's service. chess-players may be interested to know that the pawns actually in use in , as shown on the board in the title-cut, had already lost this excessive individuality, and resemble those of our own day. [illustration: from the _fior di virtù_, florence, .] in mischomini printed the commentary on the ten commandments by frate marco dal monte sancta maria, which has a title-cut of the friar preaching, and three full-page allegorical illustrations freely copied from those in an edition printed at venice. the first of these represents 'la figura della vita eterna' by a picture of the glories of heaven,[ ] and the earthly devotions by which they are to be attained; the second, which is in three divisions, the traversing of the desert of sin; and the third, mount sinai, up which moses is seen climbing. in the same year, , mischomini also published a catechism known as the _lucidario_, to which he prefixed a title-cut showing damocles at his feast, the sword hanging over his head, and in another compartment some little rabbits running happily in a wood. damocles and the rabbits have nothing whatever to do with the catechism, and the occurrence of the cut proves that before this date mischomini must have printed an edition of the _fior di virtù_, to which it rightfully belongs. we have already looked at the venetian editions of this book, and shall not be surprised to find that the florentine printers had the good sense to copy their charming title-cut, though they did not improve it by their addition of an incongruous border of pilasters, a vernicle, and an image of pity. the first florentine edition of this book, with which i am acquainted, has a fitfully rhyming colophon, adapted from that of the venetian edition of , showing that it was printed at florence in , and ought, at any rate, to be read on feast-days. to entice readers to persevere in this task, there are thirty-five illustrations, some of which, like the one in the _lucidario_, are divided into two parts, so as to secure a contrast or comparison between an animal and a man--as, for example, between a humble sheep and a proud general riding in triumph, or, as shown in our illustration, between the constancy of the ph[oe]nix, who permits herself to be burnt to ashes rather than quit her nest, and that of an emperor constantine who (by a gross plagiarism upon solon) quitted his country for ever, after making his counsellors swear to observe his laws unaltered until his return. the book was printed yet a third time, probably about , by gian stephano da pavia, at the request of bernardo pacini. the printer of the edition is not known; it cannot have been mischomini, who seems to have brought his brilliant career to a close about . the foregoing notice of his illustrated books is by no means exhaustive. passing mention has been made in the chapter on venice of one other important one, the undated _meditatione_, attributed to s. bonaventura, with cuts of peculiar interest, from the opportunity they afford of comparing the different styles in vogue in the two cities. three other florentine books issued during the fifteenth century remain to be mentioned, none of which i have seen. the first of these, an undated edition of domenico capranica's _arte di bene morire_ (not to be confounded with savonarola's), published by morgiani and johann petri about , contains twelve large cuts and twenty-two small ones. the larger cuts are interesting, because ten of them are based on those found in the old block books of the _ars moriendi_, the other two coming from savonarola's book of the same name. the smaller ones seem brought together rather at haphazard. the other two books, an _Æsop_, printed in by francesco buonaccorsi for piero pacini, and the _morgante maggiore_ (a long poem on the adventures of orlando) of ludovico pulci, printed in , both exist only in single copies in foreign libraries, but a good many illustrations from both have been reproduced by dr. kristeller. [illustration] of illustrated books printed at florence after , the most important is an edition of the _quatriregio del decorso della vita humana_ of federico frezzi, printed, this also, 'ad petitione di ser piero pacini di pescia,' as late as , though there is ground for believing that this may really be a reprint from a fifteenth century edition now no longer extant. like the author of the _hypnerotomachia_, frezzi was a dominican, and was consecrated bishop of foligno, his native place, in . he attended the council of constance, and died there in . he was a man of great learning and a book-collector, but rather a dull poet. his _quatriregio_ is an imitation of dante's _divina commedia_, and is divided into four books treating successively of the kingdoms 'of the god cupid,' 'of satan,' 'of the vices,' and 'of the goddess minerva and of virtue.' it was first printed in , and went through three other editions before it was honoured with illustrations. the importance of this illustrated edition has perhaps been overrated. taken individually, the best of the cuts are not superior to those in earlier florentine books of less pretensions, while the cumulative effect of the series of one hundred and twenty-six (several of which, it should be said, are duplicates) is seriously diminished, partly by the monotonous recurrence of the same figure in every cut, partly by the coarseness and angularity with which most of the blocks have been engraved. it must be mentioned that the cut on the first page of the poem is signed with the initials l. v., which were at one time interpreted as standing for luca egidio di venturi, _i.e._ luca signorelli, whose recognised signature, however, was l. c. (luca di cortona). two other great series of florentine illustrated books still remain to be considered. the first of these is the _rappresentazioni_, sacred and secular, which enjoyed a life extending over two centuries, and must be reckoned as the most artistic of chapbooks. in m. colomb de batines published at florence a bibliography of these 'antiche rappresentazioni italiane,' to which i am indebted for the following details concerning their chief authors. the plays are almost uniformly written in _ottava rima_, and poorly printed in double columns. a large number of them, at least a score, were written and printed during the fifteenth century, but these earliest editions are, as a rule, not illustrated. maffeo belcari ( - ) apparently was the first author who obtained the honours of print. his play of _abraham_ appeared in , after which it was reprinted some twenty times, the latest known edition belonging to the eighteenth century. belcari also wrote on the annunciation, on s. john the baptist visited by christ in the desert, and on s. panuntius. lorenzo de' medici himself wrote a play of s. john and s. paul, bernardo pulci (d. ) produced one on the legend of barlaam and josaphat, while his wife antonia was quite a prolific dramatist, claiming as her own plays on s. domitilla, s. guglielma, the patriarch joseph, s. francis, and the prodigal son. during the fifteenth century anonymous plays were written on the nativity, on the life of queen hester, on the angel raphael, on the conversion of three robbers by s. francis, and on s. eustachio, s. antony, and s. antonia. plays on the last judgment, on s. agatha, s. agnes, s. catharine, s. cecilia, s. christina, &c., also appeared at an early date. an angel, as a rule, acts as prologue, and the action of the drama is divided between numerous characters. most of the plays were, doubtless, intended to be acted on the feast-day of the saint whose life they celebrate, and in a church bearing the saint's name, but the multiplicity of the editions show that they also won the favour of a reading public. a few undated editions of these little books, from the types used in their press work, may be assigned to the end of the fifteenth century. the first printer who is known to have made a specialty of the _rappresentazioni_ is francesco benvenuto, who began printing them in , and enjoyed a career of thirty years. m. colomb de batines mentions several of his editions, but they are very scarce, and i have only myself seen a _raphael_ of with a title-cut of tobit and the angel enclosed in a border, partly the same as that of the _fior di virtù_ of , a _barlaam_ and _josafat_, also of , with six illustrations (including our friend damocles and the rabbit, whose fate seems to have been to be lugged in inappropriately), and a _miracolo di tre peregrini che andauano a sancto iacopo di galitia_, with a solitary cut of the saint rescuing one of the pilgrims who is being unjustly hanged. the great majority of the extant _rappresentazioni_ were printed between and , mostly anonymously, though giovanni baleni and a printer 'alle scale di badia' were responsible for a great many of them. of course, in many cases the cuts were sadly the worse for wear, but they held on wonderfully, and even in the seventeenth century editions a tolerable impression is sometimes met with. many of them, also, were recut, sometimes skilfully, so that it is not uncommon to find a better example in a later edition than in an earlier. the illustrations here shown are from an undated edition of lorenzo de' medici's _rappresentatione di san giovanni e paulo_, the careful printing of which is an argument for its belonging to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a picture of the martyrdom of s. dorothea from an edition of her _rappresentatione_ printed in . [illustration: martyrdom of s. dorothea.] with these religious _rappresentazioni_ m. colomb de batines joins a few secular poems, whose title to be considered dramatic is not very clear. of those which he mentions, the earliest is the _favola d' orfeo_, by angelo politiano, which forms part of _la giostra di giuliano di medici_, printed without name or date, probably about , with ten excellent cuts, that of aristeo pursuing the flying eurydice being, perhaps, the best. _la giostra di lorenzo di medici_, celebrated by luigi pulci, has only a single cut, but that a fine one--a meeting of knights in an amphitheatre. among other secular chapbooks which enjoyed a long popularity was a series of 'contrasti,'[ ] the contrast of carnival and lent, of men and women, of the living and the dead, of the blonde and the brunette, and of riches and poverty. i give here the first of the two cuts of the _contrasto di carnesciale e la quaresima_, undated, but probably early. with these little poems we must join the metrical _novelle_ and _istorie_, now chiefly known through the discovery in the university library at erlangen of a little collection of twenty-one tracts, all undated, and without any indication of their printers, but which may mostly be assigned to the end of the fifteenth century. among them are the _novella di gualtieri e griselda_, the _novella di due preti et un cherico_, the _novella della figliuola del mercatante_, &c. [illustration] the charm of these little florentine books is so great, and of late years has won such steadily increasing recognition, that i do not think an apology is needed for the length at which they have here been treated. none the less, we must remember that they were essentially popular books, and that the wealthy book lovers of the time probably regarded them very slightly. mischomini himself did not turn his attention to them till he had been printing nearly a dozen years, and even after his more expensive books, the great _plotinus_, for instance, issued in that year, kept strictly to the traditions of twenty years earlier, and were wholly destitute of ornament, even of printed initials. the two classes of books--those on good paper and in a large handsome type, and those on poor paper with small type carelessly printed, but with delightful woodcuts--were issued side by side, but the beauties of the two were never combined, and the florentine printers would doubtless have been greatly surprised if they had been told that it was the chapbooks which were to win the day. even in the little italic editions issued by the giuntas, in imitation of aldus, which appealed to an intermediate class of purchasers, woodcuts occur but rarely, and the only instance i can call to mind is a _dante_, printed by philippo giunta in , which, besides some plans of the _inferno_, &c., has a single cut illustrating the first canto. we have devoted so much space to venice and florence that the illustrated books of other towns must be noticed with rather unfair brevity. brescia may be taken as an example of a town at which the native artist did his best. we have already remarked the publication there of a _dante_ in . the same year witnessed the appearance of an _Æsop_, rudely imitated from the verona edition, and in baptista da farfengo printed another book in which we have been interested, a _fior di virtù_, with a title-cut of a student, head on hand, reading at a desk. on a ledge on the wall are two flower-pots, the flowers in which reach up to a very decorative ceiling. this is quite a nice example of brescian art, but the productions of the town have not been specially studied, and further research might show that they deserve more serious praise. at ferrara artists of the schools of venice and florence appear to have combined in the production of some very notable books. two of these were published by lorenzo di rossi in . the first is an edition of the epistles of s. jerome, with numerous vignettes and three frontispieces, the third of which, somewhat in the style of the venetian boccaccio, bears the date , divided between its two columns. this frontispiece appears also in the other work, the _de pluribus claris selectisque mulieribus_ of philippus bergomensis, the illustrations in the text of which show florentine influence in their black backgrounds. this book has a title-page printed in large gothic letters cut in wood, similar to that of the _nuremberg chronicle_. no illustrated books appear to have been issued at milan during the eighties, but in philippo mantegazza printed the _theorica musice_ of gafori with some coarse cuts, and this was followed in by the _triumfi_ of petrarch, printed by antonio zaroto with the usual six full-page illustrations. as befits the reputation of milan as a musical centre, the works of gafori were often printed there. in guillaume le signerre of rouen printed there the first edition of the _practica musice_, with a curious title-page representing the relations of the muses and the heavenly bodies, and fine ornamental borders to two pages of text. at the base of one of these are little scenes of choir-boys practising and a music-mistress giving a lesson. the style of the borders is distinctly venetian. in another work of gafori's printed at milan, the _de harmonia instrumentorum_ of (reprinted two years later at turin), the cuts exhibit the heavy milanese shading, one of them representing a lesson on the organ, and the other a performer playing. in le signerre printed a devotional work, the _specchio di anima_ of besalii, with seventy-eight full-sized cuts to its eighty-eight pages. most of the cuts relate to the passion of christ, and they are described by dr. lippmann as 'vigorously executed in coarse thick outlines, with scarcely any shading.' some of these cuts reappear three years later in the same printer's _tesauro spirituale_, of which the unique copy is in the berlin print-room. in le signerre printed an _Æsop_, the cuts in which are surrounded by small black borders relieved in white. the illustrations themselves are poor. at the end of the book is the printer's mark, a crowned stork in a shield within a circle, on either side of which stand a fox and a monkey. in this same year le signerre transferred his press to saluzzo, where in he issued the _tesauro spirituale_, and four years later an edition of the _de veritate contricionis_ of vivaldus, with a fine frontispiece representing s. jerome in the desert. the border shows typical milanese ornament, and recalls the illumination to the _sforziada_, mentioned in our first chapter. in a still finer work, an edition of the _opus regale_, also by vivaldus, was printed at saluzzo by jacobus de circis. this contains a fine picture of saint louis of france in prayer, and also a large portrait of the marquis of saluzzo, louis ii., whose taste has won for the town its little niche in the history of printing. [illustration: mark of bazalerius de bazaleriis.] [illustration: mark of stephanus guillireti.] [illustration: mark of francis de mazalis.] italian printers' devices are very decorative and interesting, and may now be studied in dr. paul kristeller's 'die italienischen buchdrucker- und verlegerzeichen,' which gives nearly a complete collection of those in use before , to the number of between three and four hundred. in the great majority of devices the ground is black, with a simple design, mostly including a circle and a cross, outlined in white. the mark of bazalerius de bazaleriis of bologna and reggio, taken from a copy of the _epistolae_ of philelphus, printed by him in , shows this class of design in almost its simplest form. in that of stephanus guillireti, who printed at rome from to , we have the addition of a shield (the arms on which, unluckily, have not been identified) and floral sprays. these floral sprays become the chief feature in the design of franciscus de mazalis of reggio, who printed from to ; though the initials, circle, and cross of the simpler devices are all retained. an even more beautiful example of this class of mark was used by egmont and barrevelt, the printers of the sarum missal, who added to its attractiveness by the use of red ink, instead of black. red ink also adds immensely to the effect of the well-known mark of nikolaos blastos, which occurs in a copy of the commentary of simplicius upon aristotle, printed by zacharias kaliergos at venice in . the delicate tracery of this design is unsurpassed by any work of the time. the mark of nicolaus gorgonzola, who printed at milan from to , in its floral ornaments, is very similar in style to those of mazalis and egmont, but, as in the mark of blastos, the cross and circle have disappeared, and the name is set out in full, instead of by its initials. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration: mark of niccolo zoppino.] purely ornamental designs, of the styles illustrated in these five examples, form the majority among italian devices, but more pictorial ones were by no means unknown. one of the best of these was that used by 'simon de gabiis dictus bevilaqua,' who printed at venice from to about . another good device is that of ser piero di pacini of pescia, the publisher of so many of the florentine illustrated books. this consists of a crowned dolphin on a black ground, with sometimes a smaller device of a bird, placed on each side of it. [illustration: mark of hieronymus francisci baldassaris.] as examples of later styles, though not very beautiful in themselves, we add here the rather clumsy woodcut of s. nicholas adopted by niccolò d'aristotele da ferrara, called 'il zoppino,' who printed at venice from to about , and the very florid device of hieronymus francisci baldassaris, a printer at perugia from about to . the arms there shown are those of the city of perugia, while the f. and the cross above it reproduce the mark used by the printer's father, francesco, the founder of the firm. the aldine anchor and the _fleur-de-lys_ of lucantonio giunta and his successors are too well known to need reproduction or comment, though both stand rather apart from the ordinary run of italian marks. [illustration] * * * * * [ ] this, and nearly all the florentine illustrations mentioned here, will be found reproduced in dr. paul kristeller's _early florentine woodcuts_, published in , after this chapter was written. [ ] there are two variants of this cut, the smaller introducing a little landscape background. [ ] there is yet a third variant, which may be recognised by the angel appearing on the right, but showing his whole body, not the hands only, as in the cut. [ ] a reprint was issued in . [ ] in contrast to the prevailing anthropomorphism of the time, the first person of the trinity is represented by a 'loco tondo et vacuo,' a blank circle, with a halo of angels round it. on either side of this circle stand christ and the blessed virgin. [ ] el contrasto di carnesciale e la quaresima; el contrasto degli huomini e delle donne; el contrasto del vivo e del morto; el contrasto della bianca e della brunetta; la contenzione della poverta contra la richezza, &c. chapter vii france--fifteenth century the earliest productions of the french press will not bear comparison with those of either the german or the italian: they have neither the massive dignity of the one, nor the artistic grace of the other. the worthy professors at the sorbonne, who called to their aid the swiss or german printers, crantz gering and friburger, bestowed, as we have seen in our first chapter, considerable trouble on the decoration by hand of special copies for presentation to influential friends or patrons, but in other respects, their books were wholly destitute of ornament. when, after little more than two years, they gave up their press, the three printers started again on their own account with a rather ugly gothic type, nor did gering, who afterwards worked both by himself and in combination with other printers, produce a really handsome book until about . the semi-gothic types of another firm of german printers in paris, peter caesaris and stoll, are much more attractive, but the average french work during the seventies is dull. the first attempt at decoration appears to have been made, not at the capital, but at lyons, where, in august , an anonymous printer, probably martin husz, completed a double-column edition of _le miroir de la redemption humaine_, translated from the latin by julien macho, with cuts previously used in a german edition of the _speculum_, printed at basel in . in , also, barthélemy buyer printed an edition of the romance of _baudoin, comte de flandre_, with no cuts, but with rude printed initials. in an edition of _les quatre filz aymon_, unsigned and undated, but printed at lyons about , the first page bears four grotesque woodcuts representing the reception of the youths by charlemagne, the buffet which the emperor's son gave one of them over a game of chess, the fatal blow with the golden chess-board by which the buffet was returned, and then the four youths fighting amid a crowd. on the next page a larger picture shows their expulsion from charlemagne's court. throughout the book are curious woodcut initials, interwoven with grotesque faces. about ortuin and schenck produced (anonymously) an edition of the _roman de la rose_ with eighty-six small woodcuts, which were imitated in later editions both at lyons and paris, and were not without a certain rude merit. in mathieu husz and pierre hongre issued a _légende dorée_, with large pictures of christ in glory on the last day, and of the crucifixion, and numerous very rough cuts at the head of the different chapters. in the same year, husz published, in conjunction with jean schabeler, an illustrated translation of boccaccio's _de casibus illustrium virorum_ ('du dechier des nobles hommes et femmes'). meanwhile, at albi, in languedoc, of all places in the world, neumeister had reprinted in an illustrated edition of the _meditationes_ of turrecremata, which he had produced two years previously at mainz. in we hear of illustrated books in three other towns. at rennes, pierre bellescullée and josses printed the _coutumes de bretagne_, with a woodcut of the arms of brittany, used again the next year in the same printers' _floret en francoys_, a book noticeable for having a woodcut title printed in white on a black ground. at vienne, pierre schenck printed another edition, in double-columns, of _l'abuzé en court_, with small cuts at the chapter headings. at chambéry, antoine neyret finished, on july th, an edition of the _exposition des Évangiles en romant_ of maurice de sully, and in the following november the romance of _baudoin comte de flandre_. the bishop's sermons have, on the first page, a large initial i and a very rough cut of the disciples loosing the ass and her colt for christ's use. with their other illustrations i am not acquainted. the romance of count baldwin has a full-page cut of the count riding on a gaily-decked charger, and thirteen smaller illustrations of his adventures, of which, however, several are repeated. the execution of them all is as rude as can well be conceived. two years later, neyret printed the first edition of a very famous book, _le livre du roi modus et de la reine ratio_, 'lequel fait mencion commant on doit deviser de toutes manières de chasses.' the cuts in this are numerous, and their representations of the various hunting scenes are more than sufficiently grotesque. the list of books we have named could certainly be extended, especially as regards those printed at lyons, but it is sufficiently full to enable us to draw some useful conclusions from it. the illustrations are, almost without exception, poor in design and badly cut, and are mostly accompanied by inferior types and press-work. some of them are imitated from the books of foreign printers, and they contain little evidence of the growth of any french school of illustrators. on the other hand, they testify to the spread of a demand for illustrated books, at least in the provinces, which local printers were doing their best to satisfy. at paris the demand, apparently, had not yet arisen. in the first dated book which bears the name of jean du pré, a _missale ad usum ecclesiae parisiensis_, printed by him in conjunction with didier huym in september , there is a large woodcut of god the father and the crucifixion, illustrating the canon. two months later du pré printed a verdun missal with a really fine metal cut of a priest at mass, and a little figure rising up to represent his soul in prayer. in february - appeared his first illustrated secular work, _de la ruine des nobles hommes_, another translation from boccaccio's _de casibus_, with a woodcut of varying merit at the head of each book. these have a special interest for english students, as some years later they were borrowed by pynson to illustrate his edition of lydgate's version of the same work. in may jacques bonhomme issued millet's _l'histoire de la destruction de troye la grant_, with numerous woodcuts of battles, frequently used in later works; and the following year guyot marchant produced the first of numerous editions of a _danse macabre_ illustrated with a wonderful series of pictures, full of grotesque vigour and skilfully cut, showing death as a grinning skeleton seizing on his prey in every class of society. marchant followed this up with a _danse macabre des femmes_ (somewhat less good) in , and also with a _compost et calendrier des bergers_, which was no less successful. meanwhile the greatest paris publisher of the century, antoine vérard, had come on the scene. although some of the innumerable works which bear his name are said to have been printed '_par_ antoine vérard,' it is clear that the expression must not be taken too literally, and that he was a 'libraire,' _i.e._ a bookseller or publisher, rather than a printer. his first dated book is an edition, enriched with a single woodcut, of laurent du premier fait's french version of the _decamerone_, and the colophon tells us that it was printed for antoine vérard, 'libraire, demeurant sur le pont notre dame, à l'image de saint jean l'evangéliste,' on november , . the types used in the book have been identified as belonging to jean du pré, and the association of the two men seems to have led to important results. the next year we find du pré printing an edition of s. jerome's _vie des anciens saintz pères_, with a delightful frontispiece of the saint preaching from a lectern in the open air, numerous smaller cuts, and initial letters with interwoven faces. during also, he assisted pierre gérard (who earlier in the year had printed by himself an edition of boutillier's _la somme rurale_ with a single cut), in producing at abbeville the first really magnificent french illustrated book, s. augustine's _cité de dieu_, in which paper and print and woodcuts of artistic value all harmonise.[ ] two years later he joined with another provincial printer, jean le bourgeois, in producing a still more splendid book, the romance of _lancelot du lac_, the first volume of which was finished by le bourgeois at rouen on november th, and the second by du pré at paris on september th. in also, du pré produced his first 'book of hours,' but the french _horae_ form so important an episode in the history of the decoration of books, that we must reserve their treatment for a separate chapter, in which, besides those of du pré and vérard, we shall have to speak of the long series inaugurated by philippe pigouchet and simon vostre in . at starting, vérard's resources were probably small, and for a year or two he produced little beyond his _horae_. in , however, he published a french _livy_, with four small cuts, representing a battle, a siege, a king and his court, and some riders, whose hats have a very ecclesiastical shape, entering a town. the next year produced a work entitled _l'art de chevalerie selon végèce_, really an edition of the _faits d'arme et de chevalerie_ of christine de pisan. this has a single large cut representing a king and his court. the _livre de politiques d'aristote_, published in , has a large frontispiece of the translator, nicholas oresme, presenting his book to charles viii, in which the characteristic style of vérard's artist is fully developed. in , an edition of _lucain, suetone et saluste_, which i have not seen, was printed for vérard by pierre le rouge. to probably belongs his french _seneca_, and in this year he must have obtained the aid of the king or of some very rich patron, for his activity from to the end of the century is quite amazing. it is from about , also, that we may date the production of those magnificent special copies on vellum, enriched with elaborate, if not very artistic, miniatures, to which we have already alluded in our first chapter. the chief book of was undoubtedly the series of treatises making up the _art de bien vivre et de bien mourir_, of which a detailed description will be given later on. these treatises were printed for vérard by cousteau and menard, the first part being finished on july th, the last on december th. next to them in importance is a _josephus de la bataille judaique_, one of vérard's large folios, with columns of printed text, not reckoning any margin, nearly twelve inches long. the frontispiece is a fine cut of a triumphal entry of a king who should be french, since he wears the lilies. the design, however, must have been made for this book, for a label in the middle of the picture bears the name 'josephus,' while in the _gestes romaines_ and _lancelot_, in both of which the cut reappears, the label is left blank. the 'entry' is also used again, three times in the _josephus_ itself, at the beginning of the fourth, fifth, and seventh books. an entry of a different kind, that of joshua and his staff into jericho, is depicted in the cut (here reproduced) which heads the prologue. this is faced by the first page of text, headed by a cut of an author presenting his book to an ecclesiastic. both pages are surrounded by fine borders of flowers, women, and shield. the head-cut to the second book shows a monk handing a book to a king; that used for the third and sixth (repeated again in the _lancelot_ of ) shows a king on his throne surrounded by his courtiers, a sword of justice is in his hand, and a suppliant kneels before him. small cuts, fitting into the columns, head the different chapters in each book, but are of no great merit. occasionally a border about an inch wide runs up the side of one of the columns of text, usually on the outer margin, but sometimes on the inner. altogether the book is a very notable one. [illustration: from vérard's _josephus_, . (much reduced.)] in , vérard's activity was still on the increase, and we have at least eight illustrated books of his bearing the date of this year. in the romance of _le jouvencel_ and bonnor's _arbre des batailles_, both in to, the cuts, all of them small, are nearly identical, and are repeated again and again in each book. much more important than these are the editions of the _chronicques de france_ (printed for vérard by jehan maurand), and a translation of the metamorphoses of ovid, issued under the very taking title of _la bible des poetes_. this is another of vérard's great folios, with profuse illustrations, large and small, and in its vellum edition is a very gaudy and magnificent book. in vérard published his _lancelot_; and in , a _légende dorée_ and s. jerome's _vie des pères en françois_. this last book was finished on october , but its appearance was preceded by that of the first volume of the publisher's most ambitious undertaking, an edition of the _miroir historial_ of vincent de beauvais. this enormous chronicle is in thirty-two books, which vérard divided between five great folio volumes, averaging about three hundred and twenty leaves, printed in long double columns. the whole work thus contains about the same amount of matter as some fifty volumes of the present series, yet it was faultlessly printed on the finest vellum, and with innumerable woodcuts, subsequently coloured, in considerably less than a year. the first volume was finished on september , , and the colophon which announces the completion of the last, 'à l'honneur et louenge de nostre seigneur iesucrist et de sa glorieuse et sacrée mere et de la court celeste de paradis,' bears date may th, . in the face of such activity and enterprise, i feel ashamed of having girded at the good man for having used some of the _ovid_ cuts as a basis to his illuminations in this gigantic work. after to the end of the century, vérard's dated books are very few. the only one i have met with myself is a _merlin_ of . it is possible that he produced less (the _miroir_ may not have proved a financial success), but it is quite as likely that he merely discontinued his wholesome practice of dating his books, and that the _boethius_, the _roman de la rose_, the _gestes romaines_, the romances of _tristram_ and _gyron_, and other undated works, whose colophons show that they were printed while the pont notre dame was still standing, _i.e._ before october th, , belong to these years. after vérard's enterprise certainly seems less. he continued to issue editions of poets and romances, but they are much less sumptuous than of yore, and in place of his great folios we have a series of small octavos, mostly of works of devotion, with no other ornament than the strange twists of the initial l, which adorns their title-pages. the example here given is from an undated and unsigned edition of the _livre du faulcon_, but the letter itself frequently occurs in vérard's undoubted books. the first hint for this grotesque form of ornament may have been found in the small initials of du pré's edition of s. jerome's _vie des anciens saintz pères_, and variants of the l were used by other publishers besides vérard, _e.g._ by jacques maillet at lyons, and pierre le rouge and michel le noir at paris. the most noticeable examples of the l, besides the one here given, are the man-at-arms l of the edition of the _mer des histoires_ (p. lerouge), the monkey-and-bagpipes l, here shown, from maillet's edition of the _recueil des histoires troyennes_, a st. george-and-the-dragon l in a lyons reprint of the _mer des histoires_, and the january-and-may l which, i believe, was first used by vérard for a edition of the _matheolus_, or 'quinze joies du mariage,' but of which a counterpart existed at lyons. [illustration: initial l used by vérard.] [illustration: initial l used by maillet.] it seems probable that the attention which vérard paid to his vellum editions, in which the woodcuts were only useful as guides to the illustrator, made him less careful than he would otherwise have been to secure the best possible work in his ordinary books. certainly i think his most interesting cuts are to be found not in his later books but in the collection of six treatises which he had printed by gillet cousteau and jehan menard in , and republished, somewhat less sumptuously, the next year, under the collective title _l'art de bien vivre et de bien mourir_, the reprint coming from the press of pierre le rouge. the cuts in this collection have a special interest for us, because some of them were afterwards used in english books, and we may therefore be allowed to examine them at some length. [illustration: from vérard's _art de bien vivre_. (reduced.)] in the edition the first title-page _le liure intitule lart de bien mourir_ heralds only the first work, an adaptation of the old _ars moriendi_ showing the struggle between good and bad angels for the possession of the dying soul. the devils tempt the sufferer to hasten his end ('interficias teipsum' one of them is saying, the words being printed on a label), they remind him of his sins ('periuratus es'), tempt him to worldly thoughts ('intende thesauro'), persuade his physicians to over-commiseration ('ecce quantam penam patitur'), or flatter him with undeserved praise ('coronam meruisti'). to each of these assaults his good angels have a 'bonne inspiracion' by way of answer, and the devils have to confess 'spes nobis nulla' and to see the little figure of the soul received into heaven. the second treatise is called at the beginning _l'eguyllon de crainte divine pour bien mourir_, but on the title-page placed on the back of the last leaf 'les paines denfer et les paines de purgatoire.' its illustrations consist of large cuts in which devils are inflicting excruciating and revolting tortures on their victims. its colophon gives the printers' names and the date july , . the next three parts of the book are _le traité de l'avenement de l'antechrist, les quinze signes_, or fifteen tokens of judgment, and _les joies du paradis_. the printing of these was finished on october . only the middle treatise is much illustrated, but here the artist had full play for his powers in representing the fish swimming on the hills, the seas falling into the abyss, the sea-monsters covering the earth, the flames of the sea, the trees wet with blood, the crumbling of cities, the stones fighting among themselves, and the other signs of the last day. perhaps the best of this set of cuts is that representing the 'esbahissement' or astonishment of the men and women who had hidden themselves in holes in the earth, when at last they ventured forth. but in the last treatise, the _art de bien vivre_, quaintness and horror are replaced by really beautiful work. the cuts here are intended to illustrate the ave maria, lord's prayer, creed, ten commandments, and seven sacraments. those in the last series are the largest in the book, each of them occupying a full page. the creed has a series of smaller cuts of inferior work. but the picture which precedes this, representing the twelve apostles, and the pictures of the angelic salutation, of the pope invoking the blessed virgin (here shown), and of christ teaching the apostles, show the finest work, outside the _horae_, in any french books during the fifteenth century. these blocks appear also in two english books printed at paris, in , _the traytte of god lyuyng and good deyng_, and _the kalendayr of shyppars_, and in many of the english editions of the latter work from pynson's in onward. pierre lerouge, one of vérard's printers, produced at least one fine book quite independently of him. this is the first illustrated edition of _la mer des hystoires_, the french version of the _rudimentum noviciorum_ (see p. ), the general plan of which it follows, though not slavishly. pierre lerouge printed his edition for a publisher named vincent commin. it is in two tall folios, with the man-at-arms l to decorate its title-pages, and splendid initials p, i, and s, the first having within it a figure of a scribe at work, the s being twisted into the form of a scaly snake, and the body of the i containing a figure of christ. the cuts and borders of the book are not very remarkable. in vérard published a new edition of it, having obtained the use of the old blocks. a lyons reprint was issued about , and other editions during the sixteenth century. two other printers who cannot be said to have learnt anything from vérard are jean bonhomme, who as early as printed an illustrated edition of a very popular book, _le livre des profits champêtres_, translated from the latin of petrus crescentius, and germain bineaut, who in printed a _pathelin le grant et le petit_ which is said to have woodcuts. guyot marchant's series of editions of the _danse macabre_ or 'danse des morts,' has been already mentioned. an edition of the same work, printed at lyons, february , (no printer's name), a copy of which is among the books which entered the british museum under the bequest of mr. alfred huth, is especially interesting as containing cuts of the shops of a printer and a bookseller, at both of which death is at work. [illustration: from a lyons _danse macabre_, . (much reduced.)] another edition of the _danse_ was printed by nicole de la barre at paris in , and others of the same character in the early years of the next century. we shall have to recur to the book again both with reference to the _horae_ and for the later lyons editions, the cuts in which followed designs by holbein. the only other paris printer whom we have space here to mention is jean trepperel, whose career began in , in which year, according to hain, he issued a _histoire de pierre de provence et de la belle maguelonne_, probably illustrated. in he published an edition of the _chroniques de france_, with four cuts, one of the founding of a town, another of an assault, and two battle scenes. they are good of their kind, especially that which serves for all the founders of cities from Æneas and romulus to s. louis, but their repetition becomes a little wearisome. in an undated issue of jehan quentin's _orologe de devotion_ the cuts are all different, but fall into two series, one badly drawn and infamously engraved, the other showing really fine work, and having all the appearance of having been originally designed for a book of hours. the only other fifteenth century book of trepperel's with which i am acquainted is a charming quarto edition of the romance of _paris et vienne_, a copy of which is in the morgan collection. it is undated, but was printed while the pont notre dame was still standing. the title-cut shows signs of breakage, and may possibly have been designed for the earlier edition by denis meslier mentioned by brunet as having a single cut. the rest of the large cuts in the book have all the appearance of having been specially designed for the new edition, and are equal to the best work in the _horae_. meanwhile at lyons the rude cuts of the books which heralded illustrated work in france had been replaced by far more artistic productions. in michelet topie de pymont and jacques herrnberg produced a french version (by nicole le huen) of breydenbach's _peregrinatio_ (see p. ) with copies of some of the original cuts, the smaller ones cut on wood, the large maps engraved on copper. the next year jacques maillet brought out a rival version (by frere jehan de hersin) for which he acquired the original mainz woodblocks themselves. to maillet, also, we owe passable imitations of some of the less sumptuous books of vérard's. lastly, jean trechsel struck out a new line in a profusely illustrated _terence_ of . at rouen the missal and breviary printed by martin morin were adorned with a curious initial m and b in the same style as some of the more frequent ls, and pierre regnault did work which vérard found worthy of his vellum. paris, however, having once gained the predominance in illustrated work, had as yet no difficulty in maintaining her position. it remains for us to notice briefly the printers' devices in early french books. these are so numerous that it is possible to divide them into rough classes. the largest of these is formed by the marks which have as their central ornament a tree with a shield or label hung on the trunk, with supporters varied according to the owner's fancy, and which are not always easy to assign to their right place in the animal creation. durand gerlier preferred rams, michel tholoze wild men, denys janot a creature which looks like a kangaroo, hemon le fevre dancing bears duly muzzled and chained, simon vostre leopards, thielmann kerver unicorns, felix baligault rabbits, robert gourmont winged stags, jehan guyart of bordeaux dolphins. most of these devices have a dotted background, and they are sometimes found printed in red ink, which adds greatly to their decorative effect. another class, to which vérard's well-known device belongs, showed in their upper part the french lilies crowned and supported by angels. jean le forestier combined this with the tree of knowledge, choosing lions as its supporters, but adding also the sacred lamb (for his name 'jean'), and similar variations were adopted by other printers. in another large class the french printers, especially those of lyons, followed the simple cross and circle so common in italy. this was mostly printed in white on a black ground, as by pierre levet, matthieu vivian of orleans, and le tailleur. less often, as in the marks of berthold rembolt and georges wolf, the ground is white and the design black. guillaume balsarin who, as was very common, had two devices, had one of each kind. outside these classes the special designs are too many to be enumerated. the successive le noirs punned on their names in at least six different devices of black heads, and deny de harsy with less obvious appropriateness selected two black men with white waistbands to uphold his shields. guyot marchant's shoemakers, with the bar of music to complete his pious motto _sola fides sufficit_, form one of the earliest and best known of french marks. pierre regnault showed excellent taste in his flower-surrounded p, in which the letters of his surname may also be deciphered. the scholar-printer badius ascensius chose a useful, if not very pretty, design of printers at work, the two variants of which first appear respectively in and . all these devices and countless others will be found roughly figured in silvestre's _marques typographiques_, many of them appear also in brunet's _manuel du libraire_, and those of the chief fifteenth century printers have been reproduced with absolute fidelity in m. thierry-poux's _monuments de l'imprimerie française_. only the mark of du pré and one of those used by caillaut are therefore given here, the first (on p. ) in honour of a pioneer in french illustration, the second, as perhaps the most beautiful of any which the present writer has seen. [illustration: mark of antoine caillaut.] * * * * * the first greek book printed in france appeared in , and the awakening of classical feeling was accompanied, as in other countries, by the putting away of the last remnants of mediæval art and literature as childish things. the old romances continued to be published, chiefly by the lenoirs, but in a smaller and cheaper form, and for the most part with old cuts. vérard diminished his output, and the publishers of the _horae_ turned in despair to german designs in place of the now despised native work. soon only some little octavos remained to show that there was still an unclassical public to be catered for. these were chiefly printed by galliot du pré, with titles in red and black, and sometimes with little architectural borders in imitation of the more ambitious german ones. when they disappear we say farewell to the richness and colour which distinguishes the best french books of the end of the fifteenth century. instead of the black letter and quaint cuts we have graceful but cold roman types, or pretty but thin italics, with good initial letters, sometimes with good head-and tail-pieces, but with few pictures, and with only a neat allegoric device on the title-page instead of the rich designs used by the earlier printers. geoffroy tory of bourges was the first important printer of the new school. his earliest connection with publishing was as the editor of various classical works, but he returned from a visit to italy full of artistic theories as to book-making, which he proceeded to carry out, partly in alliance with simon colines, for whom he designed a new device representing time with his scythe. tory's own device of the 'pot cassé,' a broken vase pierced by a _toret_ or auger, is said to refer to his desolation on the death of his only daughter. devices of other printers have been ascribed to him on the ground of the appearance in them of the little cross of lorraine, which is found in some of tory's undoubted works. it is certain, however, that the cross was not his individual signature, but only that of his studio. after the _horae_, which we shall notice in our next chapter, tory's most famous book was his own _champfleury_, 'auquel est contenu l'art et science de la vraie proportion des lettres antiques,' printed in . this is a fantastic work, interesting for the prelude in which he speaks of his connection with the famous grolier, and for the few illustrations scattered about the text. the best of these are the vignettes of 'hercules gallicus,' leading in chains the captives of his eloquence, and of the triumphs of apollo and the muses. the specimen alphabets at the end of the book also deserve notice. they show that tory was better than his theories, for his attempt to prove, by far-fetched analogies and derivations, that there is an ideal shape for every letter, is as bad in art as it is false in history. tory was succeeded in his office of royal printer by robert estienne, and during the rest of the century the classical editions of this family of great printers form the chief glories of the french press. their books, both large and small, are admirably printed, and in excellent taste, though with no other ornaments than their printer's device, and good initials and head-pieces. but it must be owned that from the reign of francis i. onwards, the decoration of the text of most french books is far less interesting than the superb bindings on which the kings and their favourites began to lavish so much expense. only two more paris books need here be mentioned, both of them printed in , and both with cuts imitated from the italian--jacques gohary's translation of the _hypnerotomachia poliphili_ and the _amour de cupido et de psiché_ translated from apuleius. the first of these was published by jacques kerver, the second by jeanne de marnef. of original paris work of any eminence we have no record after the death of tory. meanwhile at lyons a new school of book-illustration was springing up. from the beginning of the century the lyons printers had imitated, or pirated, the delicate italic books printed by aldus. the luckless Étienne dolet added something to the classical reputation of the town, and by the middle of the century the printers there were turning out numerous pocket editions of the classics, which they sold to their customers in 'trade bindings' of calf stamped with gold, and often painted over with many-coloured interlacements. the fashion for small books was set, and when illustrations were fitted to them the result was singularly dainty. before considering the editions of jean de tournes and his rivals we must stop to notice the appearance at lyons in of the belated first edition of holbein's _dance of death_, the woodcuts for which, the work of h. l., whose identity with hans lützelburger has been sufficiently established, are known to have been in existence as early as , and were probably executed two or three years before that date. several sets of proofs from the woodcuts are in existence, with lettering said to be in the types of froben of basel, who may have abandoned the idea of publishing them because of the vigour of their satire on the nobles and well-to-do. the trechsels, the printers of the french edition, are known to have had dealings with a basel woodcutter with initials h. l., who died before june , and may have purchased the blocks directly from him, or at a later date from froben. in they issued forty-one woodcuts with a dedication by jean de vauzelles, and a french quatrain to each cut either by him or by gilles corrozet, giving to the book the title _les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort_. its success was as great as it deserved, and ten more cuts were added in subsequent editions. in the same year as the _dance of death_ the trechsels issued another series of upwards of a hundred cuts after designs by holbein, the _historiarum veteris testamenti icones_, with explanatory verses by gilles corrozet. these, though scarcely less beautiful, and at the time almost as successful as those in the _dance of death_, are not quite so well known, and i therefore select one of them, taken from the reprint of the following year, as an illustration. [illustration: from _historiarum veteris testamenti icones_, lyons, .] the success of these two books invited imitation, and during the next twenty years many dainty illustrated books were issued by franciscus gryphius, macé bonhomme, guillaume roville, and jean de tournes. in gryphius issued a little latin testament, with thirty-four lines of dainty roman type to a page, which only measures - / in. × , and in which are set charming cuts. bonhomme's chief success was an edition, printed in , of the first three books of the _metamorphoses_ translated into french verse by clément marot and barthélemy aneau. this has borders to every page, and numerous vignettes measuring only - / in. × . in the following year this was capped by jean de tournes with another version of the _metamorphoses_, with borders and vignettes attributed to bernard salomon, usually called 'le petit bernard,' and the success of the book caused it to be re-issued in dutch and italian. the borders are wonderfully varied, some of them containing little grotesque figures worthy of our own doyle, others dainty lacework, and others less pleasing architectural essays. this, like most of the best books of its kind, was printed throughout in italics, and the attempt about this time of robert granjon, another lyons printer, to supersede the italic by a type modelled on the french cursive hand, the 'caractères de civilité,' was only partially successful. in , and possibly in other years, jean de tournes published an almanack and engagement-book, a _calendrier historial_, with tiny vignettes representing the occupations appropriate to the seasons, and alternate pages for the entry of notes by any purchasers barbarous enough to deface so charming a book with their hasty handwriting. when the brief blaze of pretty books at lyons died out, french printing fast sinks into dulness, and the attempt of a frenchman at antwerp to revive its glories was only partially successful, though he has left behind him a great name. jean plantin was born at tours in , and after trying to earn a living first at paris and then at caen, set up a bookseller's shop at antwerp in , and six years later printed his first book, the _institution d'une fille de noble maison_. he was soon in a position to give commissions to good artists, luc de heere, pierre huys, godefroid ballain, and others, and issued the _devises héroiques_ of claude paradin ( ), and the _emblems_ of sambucus ( ), of hadrianus junius ( ), and alciati ( ), with illustrations from their designs. his _horae_, printed in and , with florid borders, and his _psalter_ of , attempted to revive a class of book then going out of fashion. besides the great antwerp polyglott, whose printing occupied him from to , and nearly brought him to ruin, plantin printed some other bibles, one in flemish in , and a 'bible royale' in , being noticeable for their ambitious decoration. he published also some great folio missals, more imposing than elegant. he had numerous sets of large initials, one specially designed for music books being really graceful, and a long array of variations on the device of the hand and compass which he adopted as his mark. the title-pages of his larger books are surrounded with heavy architectural borders, some of which were engraved on copper. at his death, in , he had attained _labore et constantia_, as his motto phrased it, to a foremost position among the printers of his day, but his florid illustrated books have very little real beauty, and mark the beginning of a century and a half of bad taste from which only the microscopic editions of the elzevirs are wholly free. * * * * * [ ] the only other abbeville illustrated book is the _triomphe des neuf preux_, with conventional portraits of most of the heroes (their legs wide apart), and a bullet-headed du guesclin, based on authentic tradition. in a reprint by michel le noir at paris, while some of the old cuts were retained this du guesclin was replaced by a much more showy figure. chapter viii the french books of hours in the course of the fourteenth century the hours of the blessed virgin superseded the psalter as the popular book of devotions for lay use. throughout the fifteenth century magnificently illuminated manuscript copies were produced in france in great numbers, and it is thus not surprising that it was in illustrated editions of this book that french printers and publishers achieved their most noteworthy success. each of the hours, we are told, had its mystical reference to some event in the lives of the blessed virgin and our lord. lauds referred to the visit of mary to elizabeth, prime to the nativity, terce to the angels' message to the shepherds, sext to the adoration by the magi, nones to the circumcision, vespers to the flight into egypt, compline to the assumption of the virgin. the subsidiary hours of the passion naturally suggested the crucifixion or, less frequently, the invention or finding of the cross by the emperor constantine, and those of the holy spirit the day of pentecost. we have here the subjects for nine pictures, which were almost invariably heralded by one of the annunciation, and might easily be increased by a representation of the adoration by the shepherds, of the murder of the innocents, and the death of the virgin. moreover, the contents of books of hours were gradually enlarged till they deserved the title, which has been given them, of the lay-folk's prayer-book. a typical book of hours would contain-- (i.) a kalendar (one picture). (ii.) passages from the gospels on the passion of christ. (one to three pictures.) (iii.) private prayers. (iv.) the hours themselves--horae intemeratae beatae mariae virginis--with the subsidiary hours of the passion and of the holy ghost. (nine to thirteen pictures.) (v.) the seven penitential psalms. (one or two pictures.) (vi.) the litany of the saints. (vii.) the vigils of the dead. (one to four pictures.) (viii.) seven psalms on christ's passion. the kalendar usually contained poetical directions for the preservation of health, and was therefore preluded by a rather ghastly anatomical picture of a man. the passages from the gospel, which began with the first chapter of s. john, were illustrated by a picture of the evangelist's martyrdom, and the passion by one of the kiss of judas, or of the crucifixion. to the penitential psalms were sometimes prefixed pictures of bathsheba bathing on her housetop, and of the death of uriah, or, more rarely, of an angel appearing to david with weapons in his hand, signifying the three punishments between which he must choose for his sin in numbering the people. the litany of the saints offered too wide a field for full-page cuts to be assigned it, but was often illustrated by smaller ones set in the text. to the vigils of the dead the commonest illustrations at first were those of 'les trois vifs et les trois morts,' three gay cavaliers meeting their own grinning corpses. 'dives and lazarus' was first joined with these and afterwards superseded them. we also find pictures of the day of judgment, the entombment, and in one instance of a funeral. two illustrations in honour of the eucharist are also of common occurrence--one of angels upholding a chalice,[ ] the other of the vision of s. gregory, when he saw the crucified christ appearing on the altar. if we add to these a picture of the tree of jesse, and another of the church in heaven and on earth, we shall have exhausted the list of subjects which appear with any frequency, though pictures of the creation and fall, of david and goliath, of the descent from the cross, and perhaps one or two others may occasionally be found. it should be mentioned that the illustrations to the psalms on the passion are usually repeated from others previously used, but putting these on one side, it will be found that we have accounted for the subjects of some five-and-twenty pictures, and this is in excess of the number found in any one book, which varies from six to twenty-two. in some of the earlier _horae_, as we shall see, the printers contented themselves with these large illustrations, and in others surrounded the text with purely decorative borders of flowers and birds. but in a typical edition the borders consist of a number of small blocks or plates, the figures in which reinforced the teaching of the main illustrations. in an edition printed by jean du pré in february - , five pages are devoted to an explanation of these vignettes, and it will not be a waste of space to quote a few lines: ¶cest le repertoire des histoires & figures de la bible tant du vieilz testame_n_t q_ue_ du nouueau _con_tenues dedens les vignettes de ces presentes heures imprimees en cuyure. en chascune desq_ue_lles vignettes so_n_t contenues deux figures du vieilz testame_n_t signifia_n_s une vraye histoire du nouueau. co_m_me il appert par les chapitres cottez et alleguez au propos tant en latin que fra_n_coys en chascune desd_its_ figures et histoires. ¶et premierement en la pagee [_sic_] ensuyuante listoire de lannu_n_ciation est p_re_figuree la natiuite nostre dame. com_m_e il appert par les deux figures de iesse et balaan. prouue par le liure de isaye, xi chapitre et des no_m_bres xxiiii. chap. ¶item en lautre pagee ensuyua_n_te p_ar_ rebecca et sara est ente_n_du co_m_me nostre dame fut espousee a ioseph. ai_n_si q_u_'on lit en genese xxiiii. c. & tho. vi. thus we see that, as first planned, the border vignettes formed a continuous series illustrating historically the teaching of the _horae_ by reference to old testament types, with chapter and verse for their significance. it will be noticed also that it is distinctly stated that the vignettes in this edition were 'imprimées en cuyvre,' printed on copper. two months later, in an edition published by antoine vérard (april , ), the same table was reproduced with very slight alterations. the words 'en cuyvre' were then omitted, but 'imprimées' was left in, awkwardly enough. there can be no doubt that the omission was deliberate, and we have thus two statements which reinforce the opinion of the best experts, that both wood and copper were employed in engraving different editions of these designs. these old testament types do not appear to have long retained their popularity, and were soon superseded by a less continuous form of illustration. the calendar offered an excuse for introducing one series of vignettes of the sports and occupations of each month, another of the signs of the zodiac, and a third giving pictures of the saints in connection with the days on which they were commemorated. the gospels of the passion were illustrated by vignettes on the same subject; the hours themselves by a long series on the lives of christ and of the blessed virgin. the dance of death was brought in to illustrate the vigils of the dead, and relief was given by some charming scenes of hunting and rural life, which formed the border to the private prayers and the litany of the saints. in addition to these, we have representations of the prophets and sibyls, of the cardinal virtues, and the lives of the saints, and an admixture of purely decorative or grotesque designs. between the vignettes spaces were often left, which were filled in, sometimes with illustrative texts, sometimes with a continuous prayer or exhortation, either in french or latin. thus in the preliminary leaves of some of the _horae_ the text read: tout bon loyal et vaillant catholique qui commencer aucune euure ymagine doit inuoquer en toute sa pratique premierement la puissance diuine par ce beau nom iesus qui illumine tout cueur humain & tout entendement. cest en tout fait ung beau commencement: and when we turn to the gospels of the passion we find a prayer beginning 'protecteur des bons catholiques donne nous croire tellement les paroles euangeliques,' &c. in vérard's earlier editions the book would have to be turned round to read the words on the lower border, but in pigouchet's this defect was remedied, so that we are left free to imagine that the prayer was meant for devotional use, and not merely as a decoration. the chief firms employed in the production of these beautiful prayer-books during the fifteenth century were (i.) jean du pré; (ii.) antoine vérard; (iii.) philippe pigouchet, working chiefly for simon vostre, a publisher, but also for de marnef, laurens philippe, and occasionally on his own account; (iv.) thielman kerver. the proportion of dated and undated editions is about equal, and with careful study it ought to be possible to trace the career of each of the important firms, noting when each new illustration or vignette makes its first appearance. unfortunately great confusion has been introduced into the bibliography of _horae_ by the presence in them of calendars, mostly for twenty years, giving the dates of the moveable feasts. all that these calendars show is that the edition in which they occur must have been printed before, probably at least five or six years before, the last year for which they are reckoned. the fact that, _e.g._, the editions printed by pigouchet in august and september have the to calendar is by itself sufficient to prove that they cannot do more than this. unluckily a connection has often been assumed between the first year of the calendar and the year of publication--_e.g._ undated _horae_ with the calendar for - are frequently ascribed on that ground only to , or with perverse ingenuity to ; as if a calendar of the moveable feasts were like an annual almanac, and must necessarily be printed in readiness for the new year. great confusion has thus been caused, so that it is impossible to trust any conjectural date for an _horae_ unless we know the grounds on which it is based. the earliest dated french _horae_ was finished by antoine vérard on august , , and followed by another the next year dated july , ; but the cuts in both of these are small and rude, mere guides to an illuminator, and as vérard's later editions bring him into connection with other publishers, it will be convenient to consider first three editions by jean du pré, all of which are of great interest. the one which we must rank as the earliest is an undated _hore ad vsum romanum_, signed 'jo. de prato' (_i.e._ j. du pré) which can be shown to have been issued some little time before feb. , - , the date of a psalter printed by antoine cayllaut in which one of the cuts appears in a more worn condition. the text measures - / in. by - / . this is the only one of the three which was known to brunet, whose list of _horae_ in the fifth volume of his _manuel du libraire_, long as it is, is very incomplete. its text, including the borders, measures - / in. by - / , and in addition to du pré's mark and the anatomical man is illustrated by nineteen engravings. nine of these are the usual illustrations to the hours themselves, and the subsidiary hours of the passion and of the holy ghost. the penitential psalms are illustrated by david's bathsheba and the death of uriah, and the vigils of the dead by a figure of death. in addition to these we have the fall of lucifer, descent from the cross, with emblems of the four evangelists, a figure of the trinity, the virgin and child in glory, s. christopher, s. mary magdalen, and the vision of s. gregory, with small pictures from the life of christ and figures of the saints. the borders carry out the plan of the table of vignettes, containing three scenes from the bible and three heads, with explanatory text, on each page throughout the greater part of the book. towards the end these are replaced by figures of saints and angels. the artist's designs have been rather spoilt by the engraver, whose strokes are frequently much too black. the second of du pré's editions is a very interesting book, for the illustrations are printed in three colours--blue, red, and green. it is dated , but without the mention of any month. it has some unusual illustrations--_e.g._ the three maries with the body of christ, david and goliath, lazarus in abraham's bosom and dives in torment, and s. christopher. many of the pages are without vignettes, and where these occur they are not joined neatly together to form a continuous border, but set, rather at haphazard, about the margin. pictures and vignettes are printed sometimes in the same, sometimes in different colours. the page of text measures - / in. by , or without borders, by - / . the last edition known to me by du pré is undated, and has a latin title-page, _hore ad usum romanum. jo. de prato._ the text with borders measures - / in. by - / . its borders are similar to those of the large folios of the period, having a floral groundwork, into which birds, figures of men and women, angels and grotesques are introduced. to make up for the lack of vignettes there are seven small illustrations of the passion set in the text. for the larger illustrations, which appear to be woodcuts, du pré again varied his subjects, introducing for the only time in these three editions _les trois vifs et les trois morts_, reduced reproductions of which are here given. [illustration: _les trois vifs._ from a _horae_ of jean du pré. (reduced.)] [illustration: _les trois morts._ from a _horae_ of jean du pré. (reduced.)] it was not to be expected that so enterprising a publisher as vérard would rest content with the very unpretentious _horae_ he produced in and , but the precise date at which he first made a more ambitious essay is not easy to fix. the undated edition of his _grandes heures_ for the use of rome is constantly assigned to , for no other reason than that it contains the - almanac, though the breaks in the borders suffice to show that this was not the first appearance of the blocks. at the library at toulouse there is said to be a vérard _horae ad usum romanum_ dated april , , that is, as the french year at this time began, at easter, , and this may be the first of vérard's new editions. this was followed the next year by the first edition of his _grandes heures_, with thirteen woodcuts and a frontispiece. i have not been fortunate enough to see a copy of either of these editions, but three undated _horae_ in the british museum, printed by vérard, seem to belong to the same type as the _grandes heures_. in addition to a poorly cut vision of heaven, the anatomical man, and the chalice, they contain, in varying order, fourteen large woodcuts--(i.) the fall of lucifer; (ii.) the history of adam and eve; (iii.) a double picture, the upper half showing the strife between mercy, justice, peace, and reason in the presence of god, and the lower half the annunciation, which followed the triumph of mercy; (iv.) the marriage of joseph and mary; (v.) the invention of the cross; (vi.) the gift of the spirit; (vii.) a double picture of the nativity and the adoration by the shepherds; (viii.) the adoration by the magi; (ix.) a double picture of the annunciation to the shepherds and of peasants dancing round a tree; (x.) the circumcision; (xi.) the killing of the innocents; (xii.) the crowning of the virgin; (xiii.) david entering a castle, with the words 'tibi soli peccavi,'--against thee only have i sinned,--issuing from his mouth; (xiv.) a funeral service, the hearse standing before the altar. the cut of the message to the shepherds here shown will give a fair idea of the characteristics of this series, as well as of the borders by which they were accompanied.[ ] a full list of the larger subjects has been given because some of them often occur in later editions joined with other pictures of the school of pigouchet, and it is useful to be able to fix their origin at a glance.[ ] six of them form the only large illustrations in the little _horae_, printed for vérard, april , , in which, as we have already noted, the words 'on copper' appear to have been deliberately omitted from the table of the vignettes. the size of the _grandes heures_ is in. by , that of the edition of april , in. by . brunet enumerates altogether thirty editions of _horae_ printed by vérard, the last of which bearing a date belongs to the year . so far as i am acquainted with them these later editions have few distinguishing characteristics, but are mostly made up with illustrations designed for other firms. [illustration: from a _grandes heures_ of antoine vérard.] we come now to the most celebrated of all the series of _horae_, those printed by pigouchet, chiefly for simon vostre. brunet in his list rightly discredits the existence of an edition by this printer dated as early as january , . he accepts, however, and briefly describes as if he had himself seen, one of september , , and mentions also an edition printed april , - . no copy of either of these editions has come to light during the twenty years in which the present writer has been interested in _horae_, and it seems fairly certain that pigouchet's first illustrated work is to be found in an edition _ad usum parisiensem_, dated december , . the large cuts in this are fairly good, but a little stiff; the small border-cuts include a long set of incidents in the life of christ with old testament types after the manner of the _biblia pauperum_. a _horae_ of may , , substitutes floral borders for these little pictures. in another set of editions in which pigouchet was concerned, apparently between and , the borders are made up of vignettes of very varying size, which may be recognised by many of them being marked with gothic letters, mostly large minuscules. sometimes one, sometimes two, vignettes thus lettered occur on a page, and we may presume that the lettering, which is certainly a disfigurement, was intended to facilitate the arrangement of the borders. in these _horae_, also, the designs are comparatively coarse and poor. some of the large illustrations are divided into an upper compartment, containing the main subject, and two lower compartments, containing its 'types.' [illustration: dives and lazarus, from pigouchet's _horae_, . (reduced.)] certainly by , and possibly in earlier editions which i have not seen, pigouchet had arrived at his typical style, of which a good specimen-page is given in our illustration from the edition of august , . his original idea appears to have been for editions with a page of text measuring - / in. by - / , such as he issued on april , , and january , - . but at least as early as november , , he added another inch both to the height and breadth of his page by the insertion of the little figures, which will be noticed at the left of the lower corner and on the right at the top. the extra inch was valuable, for it enabled him to surround his large illustrations with vignettes, but the borders themselves are not improved by them, for they mar the rich effect of the best work in which the backgrounds are of black with pricks of white. these same dotted backgrounds, which we have already noticed as present in some of the finest of the printers' marks, appear also in three plates, which are found in the editions, and thenceforward, but, as far as i can ascertain, not earlier. these three plates illustrate (i.) the tree of jesse; (ii.) the church militant and triumphant; (iii.) the adoration of the shepherds. all three plates are of great beauty, and the last is noticeable for the names--'mahault,' 'aloris,' 'alison,' 'gobin le gay,' and 'le beau roger'--which are assigned to the shepherds and their wives, and which are the same as those by which they are known in the french mystery-plays. the artists who used these dotted backgrounds evidently viewed the _horae_ rather from the mystery-play standpoint. they cared little for the 'types' which vérard and du pré so carefully explained in their early editions, but delighted in the dance of death and in scenes of hunting and rural life, or failing these in grotesques. they placed their talents at the disposal of religion, but they bargained to be allowed to introduce a good deal of humour as well. the best french _horae_ were all published within about ten years. during this decade, which just overlaps the fifteenth century, the only serious rival of pigouchet was thielman kerver, who began printing in , and by dint of close imitation approached very near indeed to pigouchet's success. with the lessening of pigouchet's activity about , there came an after-flood of bad taste, which swept everything before it. the old french designs were displaced by reproductions of german work utterly unsuited to the french types and ornaments, and along with these there came an equally disastrous substitution of florid renaissance borders of pillars and cherubs for pigouchet's charming vignettes and hunting scenes. thielman kerver, who had begun with better things, soon made his surrender to the new fashion, and his firm continued to print _horae_, for which it is difficult to find a good word until about . his activity was more than equalled by gilles hardouyn, who with his successors was responsible for some seventy editions during the first half of the sixteenth century. guillaume eustace, guillaume godard, and françois regnault were less formidable competitors, and besides these some thirty or forty editions are attributable to other printers. on january th (or to use the affected style of the colophon itself, 'xvii. kal. febr.'), , geoffroy tory, the scholar, artist, and printer, in conjunction with his friend simon colines, brought out a _horae_, which is certainly not open to the charge of bad taste. the printed page measures - / in. by - / , the type used is a delicate roman letter with a slight employment of red ink, but no hand work, the borders are in the most delicate style of the renaissance. the illustrations number twelve, of which one, that of the annunciation, occupies two pages. there are no unusual subjects, except that in the picture of the crucifixion tory displays his classical pedantry by surrounding the central picture with four vignettes illustrating virgil's 'sic vos non vobis' quatrain, on the sheep, the bees, the birds, and the oxen, whose life enriches others but not themselves. in the picture of the adoration by the magi, here given, tory obtains an unusually rich effect by the figure of the negro. he repeats this, on a smaller scale, in the black raven, croaking _cras, cras_, in the picture of the triumph of death. the tone of the other illustrations is rather thin, and the length of the faces and slight angularity in the figures (effects which tory, the most affected of artists, no doubt deliberately sought for) cause them just to fall short of beauty. compared, however, with the contemporary editions of other printers, tory's _horae_ seem possessed of every beauty. we know of five editions before his death or retirement in , and of some seven others before the close of the half century. after the publication of _horae_ in france almost entirely ceased, but some pretty editions were issued at antwerp by the french printer christopher plantin in and , and perhaps in other years. the decree of pope pius v. making the use of the office no longer obligatory on the clergy seems to have been preceded by a great falling off of the popularity of the hours among the laity, in whom the booksellers had found their chief customers, and after a very few editions sufficed to supply the demand of those who were still wedded to their use. [illustration: from tory's _horae_, . (reduced.)] * * * * * [ ] i join this with the other illustration as having a eucharistic significance, but in one of vérard's editions the full explanation is given: 'cest la mesure de la playe du coste de notre seigneur iesucrist qui fut apportee de constantinople au noble empereur saint charlemaine afin que nulz ennemys ne luy peussent nuire en bataille.' [ ] the defects in this reproduction appear also in the original, from which it is reduced. [ ] _e.g._, in an edition printed by jean poitevin, may , , the illustrations for terce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline are from vérard; the others, including the printer's device, were imitated from pigouchet. chapter ix holland thirty years ago, under the title _the woodcutters of the netherlands_ (a little suggestive of a story for boys on life in a dutch forest) sir martin conway wrote a treatise on the early book-illustrations of the low countries, which is still the standard work on the subject, and only needed plenty of facsimiles to make it completely illuminating. unfortunately in the process block was still in its infancy, and in the absence of this cheap method of reproduction the book was issued without a single picture. written some nine years later the present chapter epitomises so much of sir martin's treatise as the rather scanty stock of low country illustrated books in england enabled me to visualise, and for lack of an intervening pilgrimage to dutch libraries comparatively little can now be added to it. sir martin conway divided his book into three parts, the first giving the history of the woodcutters, the second a catalogue of the cuts, and the third a list of the books containing them. putting on one side the blocks imported or directly copied from france and germany, he attributes the illustrations in fifteenth century dutch books to some five-and-twenty different workmen and their apprentices. his first group is formed of-- (i.) a louvain woodcutter who worked for john and conrad de westphalia, for whom he cut two capital little vignette portraits of themselves, and for veldener, for whom he executed the nine illustrations in an edition of the _fasciculus temporum_, published on december , . (ii.) a utrecht woodcutter, whose most important works are a set of cuts to illustrate the _boeck des gulden throens_, published by a mysterious printer, gl., in , some additional cuts for a new edition by veldener of the _fasciculus temporum_, and a set of thirty-nine cuts, chiefly on the life of christ, for the same printer's _epistolen ende ewangelien_ of . (iii.) a bruges woodcutter, possibly the printer himself, who illustrated colard mansion's french edition of the _metamorphoses_ of ovid ( ); and (iv.) a gouda woodcutter, by whose aid gerard leeu started on his career as a printer of illustrated books with the _dialogus creaturarum_ (of which he printed six editions between june , , and august , ), and the _gesten van romen_, _vier uterste_, and _historia septem sapientum_. of these books, whose illustrations are grouped together as all executed in pure line work, the most interesting to us are the _metamorphoses_ and the _dialogus_. the former is handsomely printed in red and black in mansion's large type, and has seventeen single-column cuts of gods and goddesses and as many double-column ones illustrating the metamorphoses themselves. the larger cuts are the more successful, and are certainly superior to the average french work of the day, to which they bear a considerable resemblance. uncouth as they are, they were thought good enough by antoine vérard to serve as models for his own edition of . the _metamorphoses_, mansion's first illustrated book, was also the last work issued from his press; and part of the edition was not published till after his disappearance from bruges. the hundred and twenty-one cuts in leeu's _dialogus creaturarum_ are the work of a far more inspired, if very child-like, artist. with a minimum of strokes the creatures about whom the text tells its wonderful stories are drawn so as to be easily recognisable, and we have no reason to suppose that the humour which pervades them was otherwise than intentional. we come now to the best period of dutch illustration, which centres round the presses of leeu at gouda and antwerp, and of jacob bellaert at haarlem, whose business was probably only a branch of leeu's. during his stay at gouda, leeu commissioned an important set of sixty-eight blocks, thirty-two of which were used in the _lijden ons heeren_ of , and the whole set in a _devote ghetiden_, which sir martin conway conjectures to have been published just after the printer's removal to antwerp in the summer of . fifty-two of them were used again, in conjunction with other cuts, in the _boeck vanden leven christi_ of ludolphus in , and the history of many of them can be traced in other books to as late as . thus they were evidently popular, though neither their design nor their cutting calls for much praise. another set of seven cuts, to each of which is joined a sidepiece showing a teacher and a scholar, appears in leeu's last gouda book, the _van den seven sacramenten_ of june , , and evinces a much greater mastery over his tools on the part of the engraver. the little sidepiece, which was added to bring the breadth of the cuts up to that of leeu's folio page ( - / in.), is particularly good. after leeu's removal to antwerp his activity as a printer of illustrated books suffered a temporary check, and our interest is transferred to the office of jacob bellaert at haarlem, who, after borrowing some of leeu's cuts for a _lijden ons heeren_, issued in december , in the following february had printed under the name of _der sonderen troest_ a dutch version of the _belial_ of jacobus de theramo. this has altogether thirty-two cuts, the first of which occupies a full page, and represents in its different parts the fall of lucifer and of adam and eve, the flood, the passage of the red sea, and the baptism of christ. six half-page cuts represent incidents of the harrowing of hell, the ascension, and the day of pentecost. the other illustrations at a hasty glance seem to be of the same size ( in. by - / ), but are soon discovered to be separable into different blocks, usually three in number. eight blocks of - / in. each, and seventeen of half this width, are thus arranged in a series of dramatic combinations. thus we are first shown the different persons who answer the citation of solomon, whose judgment hall is the central block in thirteen illustrations; then the controversy in heaven before christ as the judge; then scenes in a royal council chamber, &c. our illustration is taken from the opening of solomon's court, with belial appearing to plead on one side, and christ answering the summons of the messenger, azahel, on the other. [illustration: from leeu's edition of _der sonderen troest_, antwerp, .] in october of the same year, , bellaert printed an edition of the _boeck des gulden throens_, in which four cuts, representing the soul, depicted as a woman with flowing hair, being instructed by an elder, serve as illustrations to all the twenty-four discourses. in we have first of all two romances, the _historie vanden vromen ridder jason_ and the _vergaderinge der historien van troyen_, both translated from raoul le fèvre, and illustrated with half-folio cuts, which i have not seen. at the end of the year came a translation of glanville's _de proprietatibus rerum_, with eleven folio cuts, of which the most interesting are the first, which shows the almighty seated in glory within a circle thrown up by a black background, and the sixth, which contains twelve little medallions, representing the pleasures and occupations of the different months. during bellaert printed three illustrated books, an _epistelen ende euangelien_, pierre michault's _doctrinael des tyts_, an allegory, in which virtue exhibits to the author the schools of vice, and a dutch version of deguileville's _pélerinage de la vie humaine_. the ten cuts in the second of these three books are described by sir martin conway as carefully drawn, the more numerous illustrations in the others showing hasty work, probably produced by an inferior artist. after bellaert disappears, and most of his cuts and types are found in the possession of gerard leeu, who, since his removal to antwerp, had lacked the help of a good engraver. he apparently secured the services of bellaert's artist, and now printed french and dutch editions of the romance of _paris and vienne_ (may ), an edition of _reynard the fox_, of which only a fragment remains, the already-mentioned edition of _ludolphus_, for which he used cuts both new and old, a _kintscheyt jhesu_ ( ), dutch and latin versions of the story of the seven wise men of rome, who saved the young prince from the wiles of his step-mother, and numerous religious works. at the time of his death, in , he was engaged on an edition of the _cronycles of england_, which has on its title-page a fine quarto cut showing the shield of england supported by angels. in leeu had copied (sir martin conway says, 'borrowed,' but this is a mistake) blocks from anton sorg, of augsburg, for an edition of _Æsop_, and in , in his _duytsche ghetiden_, he employed a set of woodcuts imitated from those in use in the french _horae_. sir martin assigns these directly to a french wood-cutter, but the work, both in the cuts and the borders, appears to me sufficiently distinctive to be set down rather as an imitation than as produced by a foreign artist. its success was immediate, and the designs appear in half a dozen books printed by leeu during the next two years, and in nine others issued by lieseveldt, their purchaser, between and the end of the century. we must now look very briefly at some of the illustrated books printed in other dutch towns. at zwolle, from onwards, peter van os issued a large number of devotional works, the cuts in many of which were copied from sets made for leeu. this, however, is not the case with a folio cut of the virgin manifesting herself to s. bernard, which is given as a frontispiece to three editions of the saint's _sermons_ ( , &c.), and is of great beauty. at delft, jacob van der meer also copied leeu's books; in he produced an original set of illustrations to the ever-popular _scaeckspul_ of jacobus de cessolis, and three years later, a _passionael_, with upwards of ninety cuts, which were used again and again in more than a score of similar works or editions. he was succeeded by christian snellaert, who, in , endeavoured to imitate leeu's french cuts in an edition of the _kerstenen spieghel_. john de westphalia continued to work at louvain until , but his illustrated books were few and unimportant. at gouda, gotfrid de os, after borrowing blocks from leeu, when the latter had departed for antwerp, issued a few books with woodcuts, notably the romance of godfrey of boulogne (_historie hertoghe godeuaerts van boloen_), and _le chevalier délibéré_ by olivier de lamarche, with sixteen large and very striking woodcuts, which have been reproduced in facsimile by the bibliographical society from the reprint issued about the end of the century at schiedam. at deventer, jacobus de breda and richard paffroet, from onwards, printed a large number of books with single cuts, none of any great importance. in the last decade of the century, hugo janszoen commissioned several sets of crude religious cuts, while the illustrated books issued at antwerp by godfrey back, who had married the widow of an earlier printer, mathias van der goes, do not seem to have been much better. this decline of good work sir martin conway attributes chiefly to the influence of the french woodcuts introduced by leeu. 'the characteristic quality,' he says, 'of the french cuts is the large mass of delicately cut shade lines which they contain. the workmen of the low countries finding these foreign cuts rapidly becoming popular, endeavoured to imitate them, but without bestowing upon their work that care by which alone any semblance of french delicacy could be attained. from the year onwards, dutch and flemish cuts always contain large masses of clumsily cut shade. the outlines are rude; the old childishness is gone; thus the last decade of the fifteenth century is a decade of decline.' when we pass from the illustrations to the other decorations in early dutch books, we find that large borders of foliage, boldly but rather coarsely treated, were used by veldener in his _fasciculus temporum_ of , and in gerard leeu's edition of the _dyalogus creaturarum_ the following year. veldener's is accompanied by a fine initial o, in which the design of the border is carried on. leeu's page contains a rather heavy s, and the woodcut of the faces of the sun and moon. in , as we have seen, leeu printed a _psalter of the blessed virgin_, by s. bernard, in imitation of the french _horae_. this has very graceful little floral borders in small patterns on grounds alternately black and white. after leeu's death, they passed into the possession of adrian van lieseveldt, who used them for a _duytsche ghetyden_ in . the most noteworthy initial letters are the five alphabets, printed in red, used by john of westphalia. in the smallest the letters are a third of an inch square, in the largest about an inch and a quarter. this and the next size are picked out with white scroll-work, somewhat in the same way as schoeffer's. peter van os at zwolle used a large n, four inches square, with intertwining foliage. he had also a fount of rustic capitals, almost undecipherable. leeu, besides his large s, had several good alphabets of initials. a very beautiful d, reproduced by holtrop from the _vier uterste_ (quatuor novissima) of , is much the most graceful letter in any dutch book. no other initials of the same style have been found. eckert van hombergh also had some good initials, in which the ground is completely covered with a light floral design. gotfrid van os at gouda, m. van der goes at antwerp, jacob jacobsoen at delft, and lud. de ravescoet at louvain, were the chief other possessors of initials, the use of which continued for a long time to be very partial. [illustration: mark of jacob bellaert.] several of the devices of the dutch printers are very splendid. the borders which surrounded the unicorn of h. eckert van hombergh and the eagle of jacob bellaert give them special magnificence. the castle at antwerp was used as a device by gerard leeu, and subsequently by thierry martens, and a printer at gouda placed a similar erection on an elephant, perhaps as a pun between _howdah_ and gouda. peter van os at zwolle had a large device of an angel holding a shield; m. van der goes at antwerp a still larger one of a ragged man flourishing a club, while his shield displays a white lion on a black ground. another antwerp printer, g. back, used several varieties of bird-cages as his marks, in one of which the antwerp castle is introduced on a shield hanging from the cage. several printers--_e.g._ colard mansion at bruges, jacob jacobsoen at delft, and gerard leeu at gouda, contented themselves with small devices of a pair of shields braced together. leeu, however, while at gouda, used also a large device of a helmeted shield supported by two lions. [illustration: from the romance of _tirant lo blanch_, valentia, .] chapter x spain since the first edition of this book appeared knowledge both of spanish incunabula and the types in which they are printed has been greatly increased, thanks to the researches of professor haebler. these have dealt incidentally, but only incidentally, with the illustration and decoration of early spanish books, and the present writer must still confine himself mainly to the little handful of illustrated books which have come under his own notice. the book-hand in use in spain's manuscripts during the fifteenth century was unusually massive and handsome, and the same characteristics naturally reappear in the majority of the types used by the early printers in spain. a considerable proportion of these were germans, whose tradition of good press-work was very fairly maintained by their immediate successors, so that throughout a great part of the sixteenth century spanish books retain much of the primitive dignity which we are wont to associate only with 'incunabula.' from a very early period, also, they are distinguished by the excellence of their initial letters, which are almost as plentiful as they are good; the great majority of books printed after , which i have seen, being fully provided with them. the prevailing form of initial exhibits very delicate white tracery on a black ground. in a few instances, as in a _seneca_ printed by meinardo ungut and stanislao polono, at seville, in , some of the initials are in red, and have a very decorative effect. a fine capital l and a appear in a work of jean de mena, issued by these printers in , and a good m in their _claros varones_ of pulgar in the following year. a _consolat_, printed, it is said, by pedro posa at barcelona in , is very remarkable for its profusion of fine initials. engraved borders are not of common occurrence in spanish books, though i shall have to notice two striking instances of their use in books printed at zamora and valencia. borders are found, also, on the title-pages of various laws printed at barcelona during the reign of ferdinand and isabella, but these are of no great beauty, and some of the pieces of which they are composed are poor copies from the french _horae_. as a rule, spanish title-pages are handsome and imposing. during the last few years of the fifteenth century and the beginning of its successor, the titles of books were often printed in large woodcut letters. a spanish _livy_, printed at salamanca in , a _vocabulary_ of antonio lebrixa, printed by kromberger at seville in , and a _mar de istorias_ printed at valladolid in , supply examples of this practice. in an _obra a llaors del benauenturat lo senyor sant cristofol_, printed at valencia in , the woodcut title is in white on a black ground, which is also relieved by a medallion of the saint fording the stream. pictures were also used in connection with the more ordinary woodcut titles in black--_e.g._ in juan de lucena's _tratado de la vita beata_, printed by juan de burgos in , we have a cut of a king, bearing his sword of justice and surrounded by his counsellors; and in a _libro de consolat tractant dels fets maritims_ of the same year, printed by johan luschner at barcelona, beneath the woodcut title there is a large figure of a ship up whose masts sailors are climbing, apparently in quest of a very prominent moon. woodcut pictures of the hero decorate the title-pages of the romances of spain as of other countries, and these pictorial title-pages are found also, though less frequently, in works of devotion and in plays. such pictures are less common in spain than elsewhere, because of the great popularity there of the heraldic title-page, in which the arms of the country, or of the hero or patron of the work, form a singularly successful method of ornament. these heraldic title-pages are found in a few books, printed before , and were in common use throughout the sixteenth century. the earliest spanish illustrated book with which i am acquainted is the _libro delos trabajos de hercules_ of the marquis enrique de villena, printed by antonio de centenera at zamora, on january th, ( ). this has eleven woodcuts, illustrating the hero's exploits, and so rudely executed that they are plainly the work of a native artist. far more interesting than these 'prentice cuts are the illustrative initials, apparently engraved on soft metal, in a _copilacion de leyes_, promulgated in , and supposed to have been printed by centenera in the same year. these initials are nine in number, and must have been designed and executed by finished artists, whose work is so fine that the printer in most instances has failed to do justice to it. on the first page of text an initial p contains within it figures of a king and queen, ferdinand and isabella. this page has at its foot a border containing a hunting scene, with a blank shield in its centre. the rest of the page is surrounded by a text, printed decoratively, so as to form an open-work border. the first section of the laws, treating of 'la santa fe,' has an initial e, showing god the father upholding the crucified christ. the second section sets forth the duty of the king to hear causes two days a week, and begins with an l, here reproduced, in which the king is unpleasantly close pressed by the litigants. [illustration: initial l from a _copilacion de leyes_, zamora, _c._ .] two knights spurring from the different sides of an s head the laws of chivalry; a canonist and his scholars in an a preside over matrimony; money-changers in a d over commerce, while a luckless wretch being hanged in the midst of a t warns evil-doers of what they may expect under the criminal law. the pages containing these initials are enriched also by a border in two pieces, the lower part of which shows a shield, with a device of trees, supported by kneeling youths. the perpendicular piece running up the outer margin bears a floral design. all the letters, while directly illustrating the subjects of the chapters which they begin, are at the same time essentially decorative, and they are certainly the best pictorial initials i have ever seen, though it must be reckoned against them that they were unduly difficult to print with the text. the page here reproduced, unfortunately only about one-third of its original size, from the famous romance of _tirant lo blanch_, gives us another example of this peculiar style of engraving. it is taken from the edition printed at valencia in , and may fairly be reckoned as one of the most decorative pages in any fifteenth-century book. the rest of the volume has no other ornament than some good initials. the first spanish book with woodcuts of any artistic merit with which i am acquainted is an edition of diego de san pedro's _carcel d'amor_, printed at barcelona in . this has sixteen different cuts, some of which are several times repeated. the title-cut, showing love's prison, is here reproduced, and gives a very good idea of a characteristic spanish woodcut. the other illustrations show the lover in various attitudes before his lady, a meeting in a street, the author at work on his book, &c. another edition of the _carcel d'amor_, with the same woodcuts, was printed at burgos in by fadrique aleman. [illustration: title-page of diego de san pedro's _carcel d'amor_, barcelona, .] most of the other spanish incunabula with woodcuts, which i have seen, were printed at seville by meinardo ungut and stanislao polono. the first of these, gorricio's _contemplaciones sobre el rosario de nuestra señora_, issued in , has some good initials, two large cuts nearly the full size of the quarto page, and fifteen smaller ones, with graceful borders mostly on a black ground. the small cuts illustrate the life of christ and of the b. virgin, and are, to some extent, modelled on the pictures in the french _horae_. in the same year, the same printers published ayala's _chronica del rey don pedro_, with a title-cut of a young king, seated on his throne, and also the _lilio de medicina_ of b. de gordonio with a title-cut of lilies. in , a firm of four printers, 'paulo de colonia, juan pegnicer de nuremberg, magno y thomas,' published an edition of juan de mena's _labirinto_ or _las ccc_ (so called from the number of stanzas in which it is written) with a title-cut of the author (?) kneeling before a king. three years later, still at seville, pedro brun printed in quarto the romance of the emperor _vespasian_, with fourteen full-page cuts of sea voyages, sieges, the death of pilate, &c. against these books printed at seville, during the last decade of the century, i have only notes of one or two books issued at salamanca, valencia, and barcelona, with unimportant title-cuts, and a reprint at burgos of the _trabajos de hercules_ ( ) with poor illustrations fitted into the columns of a folio page. but it is quite possible that my knowledge is as one-sided as it is limited, and i must, therefore, refrain from building up any theory that seville, rather than any other town, was the chief home of illustrated books in spain. after the spanish books which i have met have no important illustrations beyond the cuts which appear on some of their title-pages. but here, also, i should be sorry to make my small experience the basis of a general statement. the devices of the spanish printers were greatly influenced by those of their compeers of italy and france. the simple circle and cross, in white on a black ground, with the printer's initials in the semicircles, is fairly common, while diego de gumiel and arnaldo guillermo brocar varied it, according to the best italian fashion, with very beautiful floral tracery. the tree of knowledge and pendant shields, beloved of the french printers, appear in the marks of meinardo ungut and stanislao polono, and of juan de rosembach. arnaldo guillermo had another and very elaborate mark, showing a man kneeling before the emblems of the passion, and two angels supporting a shield with a device of a porcupine. one of the quaintest of all printers' marks was used by a later printer of the name juan brocar, whose motto 'legitime certanti' is illustrated by a mail-clad soldier grasping a lady's hair while he himself is being seized by the devil! [illustration: from the _canterbury tales_, nd edition.] chapter xi england _by_ e. gordon duff the art of the wood-engraver may almost be said to have had no existence in england before the introduction of printing, for there are not probably more than half a dozen cuts now known, if indeed so many, that are of an earlier date. the few that exist are devotional prints of the type known as the 'image of pity,' in which a half-length figure of christ on the cross stands surrounded with the emblems of the passion. it may be taken, i think, for granted that at the time caxton set up his press at westminster, that is, in the year , there was no wood-engraver competent to undertake the work of illustrating his books. we see, for instance, that in the first edition of the _canterbury tales_ there are no woodcuts, while they appear in the second edition; and it is not likely that caxton would have left a book so eminently suited for illustration without some such adornment had the necessary craftsmen been available. as it was, it was not till that woodcuts first appeared in an english printed book, the _mirror of the world_. in this there are two series of cuts. one, consisting of diagrams, is found in most of the mss. of the book; the other, which represents masters teaching their scholars or at work alone, was a new departure of caxton's. it is quite probable that they were intended for general use in books, indeed we find some used in the _cato_, but they do not appear to have been employed elsewhere. the diagrams are meagre and difficult to understand, so much so that the printer has printed several in their wrong places. the necessary letterpress occurring within them is not printed (caxton had not then a small enough type), but is written in by hand, and it is worth noticing that this is done in all copies in the same hand, and so must have been done in caxton's office, some are fond enough to suppose by caxton himself. in the next year appeared the second edition of the _game of chesse_, with a number of woodcuts. the first edition, printed at bruges by caxton and mansion, had no illustrations. the cuts are coarsely designed and roughly cut, but serve their purpose; indeed, they are evidently intended as illustrations rather than ornaments. some controversy has at different times arisen as to whether these cuts were executed in england or abroad, but mr. linton has very justly decided in favour of england. the work, he says, is so poor that any one who could hold a knife could cut them, therefore there was no necessity to send abroad. about we have two important illustrated books, the _canterbury tales_ and the _Æsop_; the former with illustrations, the latter with . the cuts of the _canterbury tales_ depict for the most part the various individuals of the pilgrimage, and there is also a bird's-eye view of all the pilgrims seated at an immense round table at supper, which was used afterwards by wynkyn de worde for the 'assembly of gods.' the copies of german cuts in the _Æsop_, with the exception of the full-page frontispiece (known only in the copy in the windsor library), are smaller, and are the work of two, if not three, engravers. one cut seems to have been hurriedly executed in a different manner to the rest, perhaps to take the place of one injured at the last moment. it is not worked in the usual manner with the outlines in black--_i.e._ raised lines on the wood-block, but a certain amount of the effect has been produced by a white line on a black ground--_i.e._ by the cut-away lines of the wood-block. the _golden legend_, which was the next illustrated book to appear, contains the most ambitious woodcuts which caxton used. those in the earlier part are the full width of a large folio page, and show, especially in their backgrounds, a certain amount of technical skill. the later part of the book contains a number of small cuts of saints very coarsely executed, and the same cut is used over and over again for different saints. in caxton first used his large woodcut device, which is probably, though the contrary is often asserted, of english workmanship. it is entirely un-french in style and execution, and was probably cut to print on the missal printed by maynyal for caxton in order that the publisher might be brought prominently into notice. about this time ( - ) two more illustrated books were issued,--the _royal book_ and the _speculum vite christi_. the series cut for the _speculum_ are of very good workmanship, though the designs are poor, but all of them were not used in the book. one or two appear later in books printed by w. de worde, manifestly from the same series. the _royal book_ contains only seven cuts, six of which are from the _speculum_. some of the cuts occur also in the _doctrinal of sapience_ and the _book of divers ghostly matters_. it is impossible not to think when examining caxton's books that the use of woodcuts was rather forced upon him by the necessities of his business, than deliberately preferred by himself. he seems to have wished to popularise the more generally known books, and only to have used woodcuts when the book absolutely needed them. he did not, as some later printers did, simply use woodcuts to attract the unwary purchaser. what cuts caxton possessed at the end of his career it is hard to determine. the set of large _horae_ cuts which w. de worde used must have been caxton's, for we find one of them, the crucifixion, used in the _fifteen o'es_, which was itself intended as a supplement to a _horae_, now unknown. in the same way there must have been a number of cuts for use in the vo _horae_, but as that is known only from a small fragment, we cannot identify them. from similarity of style and identity of measurement we can pick out a few from wynkyn de worde's later editions, but many must be passed over. on turning to examine the presses at work at the same time as caxton's one cannot but be struck by the scarcity of illustrations. lettou and machlinia, though they produced over thirty books, had no ornaments that we know of beyond a border which was used in their edition of the _horae ad usum sarum_, and passed into the hands of pynson. they seem to have been without everything except type, not having even initial letters. the st. alban's press was a step in advance. a few cuts were used in the _chronicles_, and the _book of st. alban's_ contains coats of arms, produced by a combination of wood-cutting and printing in colour. the oxford press was the most ambitious, and was in possession of two sets of cuts, in neither case intended for the books in which they were used. one set was prepared for a _golden legend_, but no such book is known to have been issued at the oxford press. one of these cuts appears as a frontispiece to lyndewode's _constitutions_. it represents jacobus de voragine writing the _golden legend_, so that it did equally well for lyndewode writing his law-book. others of the series are used in the _liber festialis_ of , but as that was a small folio and the cuts were large, the ends were cut off, and they are all printed in a mutilated condition. the other cuts used in the _festial_ are small, and form part of a set for a _horae_, but no _horae_ is known to have been printed at the oxford press. it would be natural to suppose in this case that these cuts had been procured from some other printer who had used them in the production of the books for which they were intended; but the most careful search has failed to find them in any other book. besides these cuts the oxford press owned a very beautiful border, which was used in the commentary on the _de anima_ of aristotle by alexander de hales and the commentary on the _lamentations of jeremiah_ by john lattebury, printed in and . the printers owned nothing else for the adornment of their books but a rudely cut capital g, which we find used many times in the _festial_. the poverty of ornamental letters and borders is very noticeable in all the english presses of the fifteenth century. caxton possessed one ambitious letter, a capital a, which was used first in the _order of chivalry_, and a series of eight borders, each made up of four pieces, and found for the first time in the _fifteen o'es_. they are of little merit, and compare very unfavourably with french work of the period. the best set of borders used in england belonged to notary and his partners when they started in london about . they are in the usual style, with dotted backgrounds, and may very likely have been brought from france. pynson's borders, which he used in a _horae_ about , are much more english in style, but are not good enough to make the page really attractive; in fact almost the only fine specimens of english printing with borders are to be found in the morton _missal_, which he printed in . in this book also there are fine initial letters, often printed in red. it is hard to understand why, as a rule, english initial letters were so very bad; it certainly was not from the want of excellent models, for those in the sarum missals, printed at venice by hertzog in , and sold in england by frederic egmont, contain most beautifully designed initials, as good as can be found in any early printed book. wynkyn de worde, when he succeeded in to caxton's business, found himself in possession of a large number of cuts, a considerably larger number than ever appeared in the books of caxton's that now remain to us. the first illustrated book he issued was a new edition of the _golden legend_, in which the old cuts were utilised. this was printed in . in a new edition of the _speculum vite christi_ was issued, of which only one complete copy is known, that in the library at holkham. it probably contains only the series of cuts used by caxton in his edition, for the few leaves to be found in other libraries have no new illustrations. about the same time ( ) de worde issued several editions of the _horae ad usum sarum_, one in octavo (known from a few leaves discovered in the binding of a book in the library of corpus christi college, oxford) and the rest in quarto. in the quarto editions we find the large series of pictures, among which are the three rioters and three skeletons, the tree of jesse, and the crucifixion, which occur in caxton's _fifteen o'es_. it is extremely probable that all the cuts in these editions had belonged to caxton. the two cuts in the fragment of the octavo edition, however, are of quite a different class, evidently newly cut, and much superior in style and simplicity to caxton's. it is much to be regretted that no complete copy of the book exists, for the neat small cuts and bold red and black printing form a very tasteful page. a curious specimen of engraving is to be found in the _scala perfectionis_, by walter hylton, also printed in . it represents the virgin and child seated under an architectural canopy, and below this are the words of the antiphon beginning, 'sit dulce nomen d[=n]i.' these words are not printed from type, but cut on the block, and the engraver seems to have treated them simply as part of the decoration, for many of the words are by themselves quite unreadable and bear only a superficial resemblance to the inscription from which they were copied. an edition of bartholomaeus' _de proprietatibus rerum_ issued about this time has a number of cuts, not of very great interest; and the _book of st. albans_ of has an extra chapter on fishing, illustrated with a picture of an angler at work, with a tub, in the german fashion, to put his fish into. it has also a curiously modern diagram of the sizes of hooks. in de worde issued an illustrated edition of malory's _morte d'arthur_. the cuts are very ambitious, but badly executed, and the hand of the engraver who cut them may be traced in several books. in an edition of _mandeville_ was issued, ornamented with a number of small cuts, and about this time several small books were issued having cuts on the title-page. richard pynson's first illustrated book was an edition of the _canterbury tales_, printed some time before . at the head of each tale is a rudely executed cut of the pilgrim who narrates it. these cuts were made for this edition, and were in some cases altered while the book was going through the press to serve for different characters: the squire and the manciple, the sergeant and doctor of physic, are from the same blocks with slight alterations. in came an edition of lydgate's _falle of princis_, a translation from the _de casibus virorum et feminarum illustrium_ of boccaccio, illustrated with the cuts used by jean dupré in his paris edition of a french version of the same work in . one of the neatest of these, depicting marcus manlius thrown into the tiber, is here shown. about an edition of the _speculum vite christi_ was issued, with a number of neatly executed small cuts, and in pynson printed the beautiful sarum missal, known as the _morton missal_. special borders and ornaments, introducing a rebus on the name of morton, were engraved for this, and a full-page cut of the prelate's coat of arms appears at the commencement of the book. [illustration: the death of marcus manlius. from lydgate's _the falle of princis_, pynson, . (reduced.)] after the year almost every book issued by w. de worde, who was pre-eminently the popular publisher, had an illustration on the title-page. this was not always cut for the book, nor indeed always very applicable to the letterpress, and the cuts can almost all be arranged into series made for more important books. there were, however, a few stock cuts: a schoolmaster with a gigantic birch for grammars, a learned man seated at a desk for works of more advanced scholarship, and lively pictures of hell for theological treatises. the title-page was formed on a fixed plan. at the top, printed inside a wood-cut ribbon, was placed the title, below this the cut. pynson, who was the royal printer, and a publisher of learned works, disdained such attempts to catch the more vulgar buyers. his title-pages rarely have cuts, and these are only used on such few popular books as he issued. both he and de worde had a set of narrow upright cuts of men and women with blank labels over their heads, which could be used for any purpose, and have the names printed in type in the label above. foreign competition was also at this time making its influence felt on english book-illustration. w. de worde had led the way by purchasing from godfried van os, about , some type initial letters, and at least one woodcut. pynson, early in the sixteenth century, obtained some cuts from vérard, which he used in his edition of the _kalendar of shepherdes_, , and julian notary, who began printing about , seems to have made use of a miscellaneous collection of cuts obtained from various quarters. he had, amongst other curious things, part of a set of metal cuts executed in the _manière criblée_, which have not been traced to any other book, but appear to have passed at a considerably later date into the hands of wyer, who commenced to print before . when w. de worde left westminster in to settle in fleet street, he parted with some of his old woodcuts to notary,--woodcuts which had been used in the _horae_ of , and had originally belonged to caxton. all these miscellaneous cuts appear in his _golden legend_ of , and the large cut of the 'assembly of saints' on the title-page seems also to have been borrowed. it was used by hopyl at paris in for his edition of the _golden legend_ in dutch, and passed afterwards with hopyl's business to his son-in-law prevost, who used it in a theological work of john major's. the engraved metal ornamental initials were obtained from andré bocard. some time before an extremely curious book, entitled the _passion of our lorde jesu_, was printed abroad, probably in paris. the uncouthness of the language seems to have brought about its destruction; for, though many fragments have been found in bindings, only one perfect copy, now in the bodleian, is known. it contains a number of large cuts of a very german appearance and quite unlike any others of the period. some are used also in the york _manual_ printed for de worde in . about this time too a number of popular books in english, some adorned with rude woodcuts, were issued by john of doesborch, a printer in antwerp. among them may be mentioned _the wonderful shape and nature of man, beasts, serpents, &c._, the _fifteen tokens_, the _story of the parson of kalenbrowe_, and the _life of virgilius_. a still earlier antwerp cut, which had been used by gerard leeu for the title-page of his english _solomon and marcolphus_, found its way to england and was used by copland. in the last years of henry vii.'s reign, from to , a few books may be mentioned as particularly interesting from their illustrations. in de worde printed the _ordinary of chrysten men_, a large book with a block-printed title. it was reprinted in . in appeared the _recuyles of y^e hystoryes of troye_, a typical example of an illustrated book of the period. there are about seventy cuts of all kinds, of which twelve were specially cut for the book: many others were used in the _morte d'arthur_, and the rest are miscellaneous. in we have the '_craft to live and die well_,' of which there is another edition in the following year. in appears the _castle of labour_, one of the few books entirely illustrated with cuts specially made for it; in the _kalendar of shepherdes_. the cuts in these last three books were all ultimately derived from french originals. an edition of the _seven wise masters of rome_, of which the only known copy is imperfect, appeared about , though the cuts which illustrate it were made before . the fragment contains seven cuts, but the set must have consisted of eleven. they are very careful copies of those used by gerard leeu in his edition of , and have lost none of the feeling of the originals. three books only of pynson's production during this period call for special notice. about he issued an edition of the _castle of labour_, with very well-cut illustrations closely copied from the french edition. in appeared his edition of the _kalendar of shepherdes_, which is illustrated for the most part with cuts obtained from vérard, and in an edition of the _golden legend_. of each of these books but one copy is known. for some unknown reason, the accession of henry vii. acted in the most extraordinary way upon the english presses, which in that year issued a very large number of books. perhaps the influx of visitors to london on that occasion made an unusual demand; but at any rate a number of popular books were then issued. amongst them are _rychard cuer de lyon_, the _fiftene joyes of maryage_, the _convercyon of swerers_, the _parliament of devils_, and many others. besides these there were, of course, a number of funeral sermons on henry vii., many of which have curious frontispieces. one of these was used again a little later, for the funeral sermon of the king's mother, the lady margaret, the royal pall and effigy on it being cut out and replaced by an ordinary pall. this method of inserting new pieces into old blocks, technically termed plugging, was not much used at this period when wood-engraving was so cheap. an excellent example, however, will be found in the books printed for william bretton, which contain a large coat of arms. a mistake was made in the cutting of the arms, and a new shield was inserted, the mantling and supporters being untouched. another notable book of that period is barclay's _ship of fools_, issued by pynson in . it contains one hundred and eighteen cuts, the first being a full-page illustration of the printer's coat of arms. the rest are copies, roughly executed, of those in the original edition. another version of this book, translated by henry watson, was issued the same year by wynkyn de worde. it is illustrated with a special series of cuts, which are used again in the later editions. of the original edition of only one copy is known, printed on vellum and preserved in the bibliothèque nationale. stray cuts from this series are found in several of de worde's other books, but may be at once recognised from the occurrence of the 'fool' in his typical cap and bells. about this time and a little earlier the title was very often cut entire on a block. the _de proprietatibus_ of _c._ contains the first and the most elaborate specimen, in which the words 'bartholomeus de proprietatibus rerum' are cut in enormous letters on a wooden board; indeed the whole block was so large that hardly any copy contains the whole. faques, pynson, and others used similar blocks, in which the letters were white and the background black (one of pynson's printed in red is to be found in the _ortus vocabulorum_ of ), but their uncouthness soon led to their disuse. numbers of service books were issued by pynson and wynkyn de worde, profusely illustrated with small cuts, most of which appear to have been of home manufacture, though unoriginal in design. it is worth noticing one difference in the cuts of the two printers. pynson's small cuts have generally an open or white background, de worde's are, as a rule, dotted in the french style. since in some of their service books these two printers used exactly similar founts of type the identification of their cuts is of particular value. but these service books almost from the first began to deteriorate. the use of borders was abandoned, and little care was given to keeping sets of cuts together, or using those of similar styles in one book. we find the archaic cuts of caxton, the delicate pictures copied from french models, and roughly designed and executed english blocks all used together, sometimes even on the same page. the same thing is noticeable in all the illustrated books of the period. de worde used caxton's cuts up to the very end of his career, though in many cases the blocks were worm-eaten or broken. the peculiar mixture of cuts is very striking in some books. take as an example the edition of _robert the devil_, published about . no cut used in it is original: one is from a book on good living and dying, another from the _ship of fools_,[ ] a third is from a devotional book of the previous century, and so on. in the _oliver of castile_ of , though there are over sixty illustrations, not more than three or four are specially cut for it, but come from the _morte d'arthur_, the _gesta romanorum_, _helias knight of the swan_, the _body of policy_, _richard cuer de lion_, the _book of carving_, and so on, and perhaps many are used in several. indeed, w. de worde minded as little about using the same illustrations over and over again as some of our modern publishers. for all books issued in the early years of the sixteenth century it was thought necessary to have at least an illustration on the title-page, so that practically an examination of the illustrated books of the period means almost an examination of the entire produce of the printing press. in time, when the subject has been thoroughly studied, it will be possible to separate all the cuts into series cut for some special purpose. a rather important influence was introduced into the history of english book illustration about , when pynson obtained a series of borders and other material, closely imitated from the designs made by holbein for froben.[ ] they are the first important examples of 'renaissance' design used in english books, and their effect was rapid and marked. wynkyn de worde, who in his devices had hitherto been content to use caxton's trade-mark with some few extra ornaments, introduced a hideous parody of one of froben's devices, poor in design, and wretched in execution. the series of borders used by pynson were good in execution, and their style harmonised with the roman type used by him at that time, but with other books it was different. the heavy english black letter required something bolder, and unless these borders were heavily cut, they looked particularly meagre. a very beautiful title-page of this type (here somewhat reduced) is that in sir thomas elyot's _image of governance_, printed by thomas berthelet at london in - . [illustration] [illustration: device of thomas berthelet.] the illustrated books of this period offer a curious mixture of styles, for nothing could be more opposed in feeling than the early school of english cuts and the newly introduced renaissance designs. the outsides of the books underwent exactly the same change, for in place of the old pictorial blocks with which the stationers had heretofore stamped their bindings, they used hideous combinations of medallions and pillars. the device of berthelet is an excellent specimen of the new style. despising good old english names and signs, he carried on business at the sign of lucretia romana in fleet street, and his device depicts that person in the act of thrusting a sword into her bosom. in the background is a classical landscape, and on either side pillars. above are festoons, and on ribbons at the head and feet of the figure the name of the printer and of his sign. though the cut is uninteresting it is a beautiful piece of work. another result of the new movement was the banishment of woodcuts from the title-page. those to pynson's books have already been noticed, but lesser printers like scot, godfrey, rastell, and treveris also made use of borders of classical design, and gave up the use of woodcuts. it is extremely curious to notice what excellent effects on a title-page the printers at this time produced from the poorest materials. they seem to have understood much better than those of a later date how to use different sized type with effect, and to make the whole page pleasing, without attracting too much attention to one particular part. [illustration: device of richard faques.] before leaving this early period it will be as well to return a little, and briefly notice some of the more marked illustrated books produced by printers other than pynson and de worde. the two printers of the name of faques, guillam and richard, produced a few most interesting books, and the device of the last named, founded on that of the paris printer, thielman kerver, is a fine piece of engraving. the name was originally cut upon the block as faques, and was so used in his two first books; but in order to make the name appear more english in form, the 'ques' was cut out and 'kes' inserted in type. the last dated book which he printed, the _mirrour of our lady_ of , contains several fine illustrations; that on the reverse of the title-page depicting a woman of some religious order writing a book, has at the bottom the letters e. g. joined by a knot, which may be the initials of the engraver. the cambridge press of - , from the scholastic nature of its books, required no illustrations, but it used for the title-page of the _galen_ a woodcut border, rather in the manner of holbein, but evidently of native production. in this border reappears in a dutch prognostication printed at antwerp. the oxford press of the early sixteenth century borrowed some of its cuts from de worde, but a few, such as the ambitious frontispiece and the four diagrams in the _compotus_ of , were original. john rastell in his _pastyme of people_ used a number of full-page illustrations of the kings of england, coarse in design and execution, and very remarkable in appearance. peter treveris issued a number of books with illustrations, some of which are well worthy of notice. the _grete herbal_, first published in , contained a large number of cuts. jerome of bruynswyke's _worke of surgeri_ has some curious plates of surgical operations, and though the subjects are rather repulsive, they are excellent specimens of the wood-cutting of the period. treveris' best known book is the _policronicon_ of , printed for john reynes, whose mark in red generally occurs on the title-page. this title-page is a fine piece of work, and has been facsimiled by dibdin in his _typographical antiquities_. some of the cuts and ornaments used by treveris passed after his death into the hands of the edinburgh printer, thomas davidson. lawrence andrewe of calais, who printed shortly before , also issued some curious illustrated books. before coming to england he had translated the extraordinary book, _the wonderful shape and nature of man, beasts, serpentes, &c._, printed by john of doesborch, whom we have spoken of above. on his own account he issued the _boke of distyllacyon of waters_ by jerome of brunswick, illustrated with pictures of apparatus, and _the mirror of the world_. this is founded on caxton's edition, but is much more fully illustrated, the cuts to the natural history portion being particularly curious. it is worth noticing that andrewe, like some other printers at this time, introduced his device into many of the initial letters and borders which were cut for him, so that they can be readily identified when they occur, after his death, in books by other printers. after the death of wynkyn de worde in , ideas as regards book-illustration underwent a great change. theology had become popular, and theological books were not adapted for illustration. the ordinary book, with pictures put in haphazard, absolutely died out; and cuts were only used in chap books, or in large illustrated volumes,--descriptions of horrible creatures, and the likenesses of comets or portents on the one hand, chronicles, books of travel, and scientific works on the other. the difference which we noticed between w. de worde and pynson, the one being a popular printer and the other a printer of standard works, is distinctly marked in the succeeding generation. while wyer, byddell, and copland published the popular books, grafton and whytchurch, wolfe and day, issued more solid literature. the old woodcuts passed into the hands of the poorer printers, and were used till they were worn out, and it is curious to notice how long in many cases this took. on the other hand, the illustrations made for new books are, as a rule, of excellent design and execution, owing a good deal, in all probability, to the influence of holbein, who, for the latter portion of his life, was living in england. as examples of his work, we may take two books published in , cranmer's _catechism_, published by walter lynne, and halle's _chronicles_, published by grafton. the first contains a number of small cuts, one of which is signed in full hans holbein, and two others are signed with his initials h. h. some writers insist that these three cuts alone are to be ascribed to him, and that the rest are from an unknown hand. besides these small cuts, there is one full-page cut on the back of the title of very fine work. it represents edward vi. seated on his throne with the bishops kneeling on his right, the peers on his left. from the hands of the king the bishops are receiving a bible. the cut at the end of halle's _chronicles_, very similarly executed and also ascribed to holbein, represents henry viii. sitting in parliament. almost all the volumes of chronicles, of which a number were issued in the sixteenth century, contain woodcuts, and two are especially well illustrated,--grafton's _chronicles_, published in , and holinshed's _chronicles_ in . the illustrations in the latter book, which mr. linton considers to have been cut on metal, do not appear in the later edition of . among the illustrations in the first edition, so dibdin says, is to be found a picture of a guillotine. [illustration: from cranmer's _catechism_, london, .] of all the english printers of the latter half of the sixteenth century, none produced finer books than john day, who, it has been suggested, engraved some of the woodcuts which he used. the best known, perhaps, of his books is the _book of christian prayers_, commonly called queen elizabeth's prayer book, which he published in . in a way, this book is undoubtedly a fine specimen of book-ornamentation, but as it was executed in a style then out of date, having borders like the earlier service books, it suffers by comparison with the 'books of hours' of fifty years earlier. another book of day's which obtained great popularity was the _history of martyrs_, compiled by john fox. we read on day's epitaph in the church of bradley-parva-- "he set a fox to wright how martyrs runne, by death to lyfe. fox ventured paynes and health, to give them light; day spent in print his wealth." considering the popularity of the book, and the number of editions that were issued, we can hardly imagine that day lost money upon it. the illustrations are of varied excellence, but the book contains also some very fine initial letters. one, the c at the commencement of the dedication, contains a portrait of queen elizabeth on her throne, with three men standing beside her, two of whom are supposed to be day and fox. below the throne, forming part of the letter, is the pope holding two broken keys. initial letters about this time arrived at their best. they were often very large, and contained scenes, mythological subjects, or coats-of-arms. a fine specimen of this last class is to be found in the _cosmographical glasse_, by william cuningham, . it is a large d containing the arms of robert, lord dudley, to whom the book is dedicated. very soon after this some ingenious printer invented the system of printing an ornamental border for the letter with a blank space for the insertion of an ordinary capital letter,--a system which soon succeeded in destroying any beauty or originality which letters had up to this time possessed. in conclusion, it will be well to notice the growth of engraving on metal in england. the earliest specimen that i know of is the device first used by pynson about . it is certainly metal, and has every appearance of having been cut in this country. some writers have put forward the theory that the majority of early illustrations, though to all appearance woodcuts, were really cut on metal. but wherever it is possible to trace an individual cut for any length of time, we can see from the breakages, and in some cases from small holes bored by insects, that the material used was certainly wood. julian notary had some curious metal cuts, but they were certainly of foreign design and workmanship, and the same may be said of the metal cuts found amongst the early english service books. the border on the title-page of the cambridge _galen_, usually described as engraved on metal, is really an ordinary woodcut. it is not till that we find a book illustrated with engravings produced in this country. this was thomas raynald's _byrth of mankynde_, which contains four plates of surgical diagrams. in some of the later editions these plates have been re-engraved on wood. in another medical book appeared, _compendiosa totius delineatio aere exarata per thomam geminum_. it has a frontispiece with the arms of henry viii., and forty plates of anatomical subjects. other editions appeared in and , and the title-page of the last is altered by the insertion of a portrait of elizabeth in place of the royal arms. the _stirpium adversaria nova authoribus petro pena et mathia de lobel_ of has a beautifully engraved title-page, and the edition of parker's _bible_ contains a map of the holy land with the following inscription in an ornamental tablet: 'graven bi humfray cole, goldsmith, an english man born in y^e north, and pertayning to y^e mint in the tower, .' humfray cole is supposed by some authorities to have engraved the beautiful portraits of elizabeth, the earl of leicester, and lord burleigh, which appear in the earlier edition of . saxton's maps, which appeared in , are partly the work of native engravers, for at least eight were engraved by augustine ryther and nicholas reynolds. in there are two books,--broughton's _concent of scripture_, and sir john harington's _ariosto_. the latter contains almost fifty plates, closely copied from a venetian edition, and was the most ambitious book illustrated with metal plates published in the century. there are a few other books published before which contain specimens of engraving, but none worthy of particular mention. * * * * * [ ] this particular cut, which represents the fool looking out of a window while his house is on fire, meant to illustrate the chapter 'of bostynge or hauynge confydence in fortune,' is not used in the edition of . it may, perhaps, occur in the edition of , of which the unique copy is at paris. [ ] sir thomas more, the friend and employer both of pynson and froben, had probably a good deal to do with this purchase of material. index abbeville, . Æsop, dutch, _leeu's_, ; english, _caxton's_, ; german, _steinhöwel's_, ; italian, _brescia_, ; _florence_, ; _milan_, ; _naples_, ; _venice_, ; _verona_, . albi, . aldus, - . antwerp, , _sq._ arndes, s., . _art de bien vivre et de bien mourir_, - . augsburg, - , - . _aymon, les quatre fils_, . _b_ (engraver's signature), . back, g., , . bacon, sir n., book-plate, . baldassaris, h., . baleni, g., . bämler, j., - . barberiis, p. de, . basel, - . bazaleriis, b. de, . belcari, m., . _belial_, by jacobus de theramo, , ; dutch version called _der sonderen troest_, - . bellaert, j., - , _sq._ benaliis, b. de, , . benivieni, domenico, . benvenuto, f., . bergomensis, philippus, _de claris mulieribus_, . berthelet, t., - . bettini, a., _monte santo di dio_, , . bevilaqua, s., device, . _bible des poetes_, . bibles: _english_, ; _german_, , ; and , ; _c._ , , ; , ; lübeck, , ; _italian_, ; _latin_, -line, , ; -line, ; , , , , . _biblia pauperum_, pfister's, _sq._ blastos, n., . boccaccio, g., _de claris mulieribus_, , ; _decamerone_, . bodner, _edelstein_, . bonaventura, st., _deuote meditatione_, _sq._ bonhomme, jacques, . bonhomme, macé, . brandis, l., - . brant, sebastian, - . breda, j. de, . brescia, . breydenbach, b. von, - , . brocar, a. g., . brocar, j., . bruges, _sq._ _buch der natur_, . _buch der vier historien_, _sq._ _buch der weisheit_, . _buch von den sieben todsünden_, . buonaccorsi, f., , . burgkmair, h., , . caillaut, a., . calandro, p., _arithmetic_, . _calendario_, , . caliergi, z. _see_ kaliergos. cambridge, . capcasa. _see_ codecha. capranica, d., _arte di ben morire_, . caxton, w., , - . celtes, c., . centenera, a., sq. cessolis, j. de, chess-book, _dutch_, ; _english_, ; _german_, ; _italian_, _sq._ chambéry, . _champfleury_, . chaucer, g., _canterbury tales_, caxton's, ; pynson's, . _chroniques de france_, . codecha (or capcasa) m. di, , , note. cole, h., . cologne, . colonna, f., . colophons, - . columna, Ægidius, _de regimine principum_, . _contrasti_, . conway, sir w. m., quoted, _sqq._ _copilacion de leyes_, , _sq._ cousteau, g., . cranach, l., . cremer, h., . cremonese, p., . dance of death (danse macabre), , . dante, _divina commedia_, brescia, , , ; florence, , ; , ; venice, , . day, j., _sq._ delfft, , . deventer, . _dialogus creaturarum_, . dienecker, jost, . dinckmut, c., . dino, fran. di, . directors, . doesborch, jan van, , . dolea, c., . dorothea, s., _rappresentatione_, . dupré, galliot, . du pré, jean, , - , , - . durandus, _rationale_ ( ), , . dürer, a., _sq._ egmont, f., , . _epistole ed evangelii_, . eustace, g., . faques, g. and r., . farfengo, b. da, . _fasciculus temporum_, cologneedd., ; ratdolt's, ; louvain and utrecht, . ferdinand ii., king of naples, . ferrara, . fichet, g., . _fifteen o'es_, , . _fior di virtú_, brescia, ; florence, ; venice, _sq._ florence, , - . fogel, j., . foresti, g. p., of bergamo, _supplementum chronicarum_, note, . fox, john, _acts and monuments_ (book of martyrs), . _freydal_, , . frezzi, f., _quatriregio_, . furter, michael, , . gafori, f., . _game of chess._ _see_ cessolis, j. de. _gart der gesundheit_, . gérard, p., . gerlier, d., . giunta, l. a., , , . godard, g., . _golden legend._ _see_ voragine, j. de. gorgonzola, n., device, . gorricio, g., _contemplaciones sobre el rosario_, . gouda, - , . graf, urs, _sq._ granjon, r., . gregoriis, g. de, . grün, hans baldung, . grüninger, j., , . gryphius, f., . guillireti, s., . haarlem, - . han, u., _sq._ hardouyn, g., . harrington, sir j., _orlando furioso_ ( ), . headlines, . headpieces, . _historiarum veteris testamenti icones_, _sqq._ holbein, a., . holbein, h., , , _sqq._ holl, l., . hours, books of, , - . hroswitha, . husz, m., . hyginus, _poetica astronomica_, _sq._ _hypnerotomachia_, - , . ingold, _das guldin spiel_, . jenson, n., , , . johann petri, . jornandes, _de rebus gothorum_, note. josephus, _de la bataille judaique_, _sq._ kaliergos, z., , . kerver, j., . kerver, t., , . ketham, j., _fascicolo de medicina_, . knoblochtzer, h., . knoblouch, j., . koberger, a., , . koelhoff, j., . l., french initial, - . landino, c., , , . lavagna, p., . leeu, g., _sqq._ le rouge, p., , , . le signerre, g., . lettou, j., . lieseveldt, a. van, . lignamine, j. p. de, , . lorenz, nicolaus, . louis ii., marquis of saluzzo, . louis, st., . louvain, . lübeck, , . _lucidario_ ( ), . lützelburger, hans, . lydgate, j., _falle of princes_, . lyndewode, w., _constitutiones_, . lyons, _sqq._, , , , - . machlinia, w. de, , . maillet, j., . mansion, c., . marchant, g., . martorel, t., _tirant lo blanch_, _sq._ maximilian, emperor, - . mazalis, f. de, . medici, l. de, . meer, jacob van der, . meidenbach, j., . menard, j., . _mer des hystoires_, . milan, , . _mirror of our lady_ ( ), . _mirror of the world_ ( ), . mischomini, a., , , , , , . more, sir t., note. morgiani, lorenzo di, . morin, martin, . _morton missal_, , , . naples, . neumeister, j., , . neyret, a., . nider, j., _expositio decalogi_, . novara, b. di, . _novelle_, . nuremberg, _sq._, . _nuremberg chronicle._ _see_ schedel. olpe, bergmann de, - . os, g. van, , . os, p. van, . ovid, _metamorphoses_, bruges ( ), ; lyons ( ), ; paris, vérard ( ), , ; venice ( ), . oxford, _sq._, . pachel, l., . pacini, bernardo di, . pacini, piero di, , . pagination, . paris, - . _paris et vienne_, . _passion of our lord jesu_, . pasti, matteo dei, . paulus florentinus, . petrarca, f., _de remediis utriusque fortunae_, ; _trionfi_, _sq._ petri, johann, . pfister, a., _sqq._ pigouchet, a., _sqq._ plantin, c., . politiano, angelo, . polono, stanislao, . presentation copies, _sq._ printers' workshop, cuts of, _sq._ prüss, johann, . ptolemy, _cosmographia_, . pulci, l., _morgante maggiore_, . pynson, richard, _sqq._ quentel, h., . _rappresentazioni_, _sqq._ rastell, j., , . ratdolt, erhard, , , - . _rechtstreit des menschen mit dem tode_, . regnault, f., . reichenthal, ulrich von, _conciliumbuch_, . rennes, . riessinger, s., _sq._ _robert the devil_, . rome, - . rouen, , . _rudimentum noviciorum_, , . rupertus de sancto remigio, _türken-kreuzzüge_, . saint albans, book of, . saluzzo, . san pedro, diego di, _carcel d'amor_, _sq._ santis, hier. de, . savonarola tracts, - . schäufelein, h., , . schedel, h., _liber chronicarum_, - . schenck, p., . schobsser, j., . schoeffer, p., - , , , _sq._ schönsperger, h., , . schott, m., . scinzenzeler, u., . scotus, oct., . sensenschmidt, j., . _seven wise masters of rome_, . seville, . sforza family, . simoneta, g., . snellaert, c., . sorg, a., . _speculum vitae christi_, caxton's, ; de worde's, ; pynson's, . stephan, p., _schatzbehalter_, . strassburg, , . strozzi family, . _supplementum chronicarum._ _see_ foresti. tailpieces, . _terence_, trechsel's, ; _eunuchus_, , . theramo, jac. de. see _belial_. _theuerdank_, - . _tirant lo blanch_, _sq._ title-pages, first use of, - . tory, g., _sq._ tournes, j., de. , , . _trabajos de hercules_, , . trechsel, j., . trechsel, m., . trepperel, j., . turrecremata, cardinal, _meditationes_, _sqq._ ulm, - . ungut, m., , . utrecht, . valencia, , . valturius, _de re militari_, . veldener, j., , . vellum, use of, _sq._, . venice, - . vérard, antoine, - , - , - . verona, _sq._ _vespasian_, spanish romance of, . vienne, . villena, e. de. see _trabajos de hercules_. vivaldus, j. l., . voragine, jac. de, _legenda aurea_, english, , , , , ; french, ; german, . vostre, simon, . _weisskunig_, , . westphalia, johann de, , . wittenberg, . wohlgemuth, michael, , . worde, wynkyn de, , _sqq._ zainer, günther, , _sqq._ zainer, johann, _sqq._ zamora, . zarotus, ant., . zinna, . zwolle, . _printed by_ morrison & gibb limited, _edinburgh_ * * * * * transcriber's note page : changed comma to period ( ... rather than a printer.) english book-illustration of to-day english book-illustration of to-day appreciations of the work of living english illustrators with lists of their books by r. e. d. sketchley with an introduction by alfred w. pollard [illustration] london kegan paul, trench, trÜbner and co., ltd. paternoster house, charing cross road, w.c. chiswick press: charles whittingham and co. tooks court, chancery lane, london. note. the four articles and bibliographies contained in this volume originally appeared in "the library." in connection with the bibliographies, i desire to express cordial thanks to the authorities and attendants of the british museum, without whose courtesy and aid, extending over many weeks, it would have been impossible to bring together the particulars. most of the artists, too, have kindly checked and supplemented the entries relating to their work, but even with the help given me i cannot hope to have produced exhaustive lists. my thanks are due to the publishers with whom arrangements have been made for the use of blocks. r. e. d. sketchley. contents. page note v introduction xi i. some decorative illustrators ii. some open-air illustrators iii. some character illustrators iv. some children's-books illustrators bibliographies. i. some decorative illustrators ii. some open-air illustrators iii. some character illustrators iv. some children's books illustrators index of artists list of illustrations from page "les quinze joies de mariage" xii the "dialogus creaturarum" xiii a venetian chapbook xvii the "rappresentazione di un miracolo del corpo di gesù" xviii the "rappresentazione di s. cristina" xix "la nencia da barberino" xxi the "storia di ippolito buondelmonti e dianora bardi" xxii ingold's "guldin spiel" xxiv the malermi bible xxv a french book of hours xxvii from by "a farm in fairyland." _laurence housman_ xxx grimm's "household stories." _walter crane_ "undine." _heywood sumner_ "keats' poems." _r. anning bell_ "stories and fairy tales." _a. j. gaskin_ "the field of clover." _laurence housman_ and "cupide and psyches." _charles ricketts_ "daphnis and chloe." _charles ricketts and c. h. shannon_ "the centaur." _t. sturge moore_ "royal edinburgh." _sir george reid_ facing "the warwickshire avon." _alfred parsons_ "the cinque ports." _william hyde_ "italian journeys." _joseph pennell_ facing "the holyhead road." _c. g. harper_ "the formal garden." _f. inigo thomas_ "the natural history of selborne." _e. h. new_ "british deer and their horns." _j. g. millais_ "death and the ploughman's wife." _william strang_ "the bride of lammermoor." _fred pegram_ "shirley." _f. h. townsend_ "the heart of midlothian." _claude a. shepperson_ "the school for scandal." _e. j. sullivan_ "the ballad of beau brocade." _hugh thomson_ "the essays of elia." _c. e. brock_ "the talk of the town." _sir harry furniss_ "hermy." _lewis baumer_ "to tell the king the sky is falling." _alice b. woodward_ "fairy tales of the brothers grimm." _arthur rackham_ "indian fairy tales." _j. d. batten_ "the pink fairy book." _h. j. ford_ "fairy tales by q." _h. r. millar_ introduction. some present-day lessons from old woodcuts. by alfred w. pollard. some explanation seems needed for the intrusion of a talk about the woodcuts of the fifteenth century into a book dealing with the work of the illustrators of our own day, and the explanation, though no doubt discreditable, is simple enough. it was to a mere bibliographer that the idea occurred that lists of contemporary illustrated books, with estimates of the work found in them, might form a useful record of the state of english book-illustration at the end of a century in which for the first time (if we stretch the century a little so as to include bewick) it had competed on equal terms with the work of foreign artists. fortunately the bibliographer's scanty leisure was already heavily mortgaged, and so the idea was transferred to a special student of the subject, much better equipped for the task. but partly for the pleasure of keeping a finger in an interesting pie, partly because there was a fine hobby-horse waiting to be mounted, the bibliographer bargained that he should be allowed to write an introduction in which his hobby should have free play, and the reader, who has got a much better book than he was intended to have, must acquiesce in this meddling, or resort to his natural rights and skip. [illustration: from 'les quinze joies de mariage,' paris, treperel, c. .] it is well to ride a hobby with at least a semblance of moderation, and the thesis which this introduction is written to maintain does not assert that the woodcuts of the fifteenth century are better than the illustrations of the present day, only that our modern artists, if they will condescend, may learn some useful lessons from them. at the outset it may frankly be owned that the range of the earliest illustrators was limited. they had no landscape art, no such out-of-door illustrations as those which furnish the subject for one of miss sketchley's most interesting chapters. again, they had little humour, at least of the voluntary kind, though this was hardly their own fault, for as the admission is made the thought at once follows it that of all the many deficiencies of fifteenth-century literature the lack of humour is one of the most striking. the rough horseplay of the life of aesop prefixed to editions of the fables can hardly be counted an exception; the wit combats of solomon and marcolphus produced no more than a title-cut showing king and clown, and outside the 'dialogus creaturarum' i can think of only a single valid exception, itself rather satirical than funny, this curious picture of a family on the move from a french treatise on the joys of marriage. on the 'dialogus' itself it seems fair to lay some stress, for surely the picture here shown of the lion and the hare who applied for the post of his secretary may well encourage us to believe that in two other departments of illustration from which also they were shut out, those of caricature (for which we must go back to thirteenth-century prayer-books) and christmas books for children, the fifteenth-century artist would have made no mean mark. it is, indeed, our children's gift-books that come nearest both to his feeling and his style. [illustration: from the 'dialogus creaturarum.' gouda, .] what remains for us here to consider is the achievement of the early designers and woodcutters in the field of decorative and character illustrations with which miss sketchley deals in her first and third chapters. here the first point to be made is that by an invention of the last twenty years they are brought nearer to the possible work of our own day than to that of any previous time. it has been often enough pointed out that, not from preference, but from inability to devise any better plan, the art of woodcut illustration began on wholly wrong lines. starting, as was inevitable, from the colour-work of illuminated manuscripts, the illustrators could think of no other means of simplification than the reduction of pictures to their outlines. with a piece of plank cut, not across the grain of the wood, but with it, as his material, and a sharp knife and, perhaps, a gouge as his only tools, the woodcutter had to reproduce these outlines as best he could, and it is little to be wondered at if his lines were often scratchy and angular, and many a good design was deplorably ill handled. after a time, soft metal, presumably pewter, was used as an alternative to wood, and perhaps, though probably slower, was a little easier to work successfully. but save in some florentine pictures and a few designs by geoffroy tory, the craftsman's work was not to cut the lines which the artist had drawn, but to cut away everything else. this inverted method of work continued after the invention of crosshatching to represent shading, and was undoubtedly the cause of the rapid supersession of woodcuts by copper engravings during the sixteenth century, the more natural method of work compensating for the trouble caused when the illustrations no longer stood in relief like the type, but had to be printed as incised plates, either on separate leaves, or by passing the sheet through a different press. the eighteenth-century invention of wood-engraving as opposed to woodcutting once again caused pictures and text to be printed together, and the amazing dexterity of successive schools of wood-engravers enabled them to produce, though at the cost of immense labour, work which seemed to compete on equal terms with engravings on copper. at its best the wood-engraving of the nineteenth century was almost miraculously good; at its worst, in the wood-engravings of commerce--the wood-engravings of the weekly papers, for which the artist's drawing might come in on a tuesday, to be cut up into little squares and worked on all night as well as all day, in the engravers' shops--it was unequivocally and deplorably, but hardly surprisingly, bad. upon this strange medley of the miraculously good and the excusably horrid came the invention of the process line-block, and the problem which had baffled so many fifteenth-century woodcutters, of how to preserve the beauty of simple outlines was solved at a single stroke. have our modern artists made anything like adequate use of this excellent invention? my own answer would be that they have used it, skilfully enough, to save themselves trouble, but that its artistic possibilities have been allowed to remain almost unexplored. as for the trouble-saving--and trouble-saving is not only legitimate but commendable--the photographer's camera is the most obliging of craftsmen. only leave your work fairly open and you may draw on as large a scale and with as coarse lines as you please, and the camera will photograph it down for you to the exact space the illustration has to fill and will win you undeserved credit for delicacy and fineness of touch as well. thus to save trouble is well, but to produce beautiful work is better, and what use has been made of the fidelity with which beautiful and gracious line can now be reproduced? the caricaturists, it is true, have seen their opportunity. cleverness could hardly be carried further than it is by mr. phil may, and a caricaturist of another sort, the late mr. aubrey beardsley, degenerate and despicable as was almost every figure he drew, yet saw and used the possibilities which artists of happier temperament have neglected. with all the disadvantages under which they laboured in the reproduction of fine line the craftsmen of venice and florence essayed and achieved more than this. witness the fine rendering into pure line of a picture by gentile bellini of a tall preacher preceded by his little crossbearer in the 'doctrina' of lorenzo giustiniano printed at venice in , or again the impressiveness, surviving even its little touch of the grotesque, of this armed warrior kneeling at the feet of a pope, which i have unearthed from a favourite volume of venetian chapbooks at the british museum. a florentine picture of jacopone da todi on his knees before a vision of the blessed virgin (from bonacorsi's edition of his 'laude,' ) gives another instance of what can be done by simple line in a different style. we have yet other examples in many of the illustrations to the famous romance, the 'hypnerotomachia poliphili,' printed at venice in . of similar cuts on a much smaller scale, a specimen will be given later. here, lest anyone should despise these fifteenth-century efforts, i would once more recall the fact that at the time they were made the execution of such woodcuts required the greatest possible dexterity, in cutting away on each side so as to leave the line as the artist drew it with any semblance of its original grace. in many illustrated books which have come down to us what must have been beautiful designs have been completely spoilt, rendered even grotesque, by the fine curves of the drawing being translated into scratchy angularities. but draw he never so finely no artist nowadays need fear that his work will be made scratchy or angular by photographic process. it is only when he crowds lines together, from inability to work simply, that the process block aggravates his defects. [illustration: la lega facta nouamente a morte e destructione de li franzosi & suoí seguaci. venice. c. .] [illustration: from the rappresentazione di un miracolo del corpo di gesÙ, . jac. chiti.] [illustration: from the rappresentazione di s. cristina, .] i pass on to another point as to which i think the florentine woodcutters have something to teach us. if we put pictures into our books, why should not the pictures be framed? a hard single line round the edge of a woodcut is a poor set-off to it, often conflicting with the lines in the picture itself, and sometimes insufficiently emphatic as a frame to make us acquiesce in what seems a mere cutting away a portion from a larger whole. our florentine friends knew better. here (pp. xiv-xv), for instance, are two scenes, from some unidentified romance, which in and respectively (by which time they must have been about fifty and sixty years old) appeared in florentine religious chapbooks, with which they have nothing to do. the little borders are simple enough, but they are sufficiently heavy to carry off the blacks which the artist (according to what is the true method of woodcutting) has left in his picture, and we are much less inclined to grumble at the window being cut in two than we should be if the cut were made by a simple line instead of quite firmly and with determination by a frame. [illustration: from lorenzo de' medici's la nencia da barberino, s.a.] i have given these two florentine cuts, much the worse for wear though they be, with peculiar pleasure, because i take them to be the exact equivalents of the pictures in our illustrated novels of the present day of which miss sketchley gives several examples in her third paper. they are good examples of what may be called the diffused characterization in which our modern illustrators excel. every single figure is good and has its own individuality, but there is no attempt to illustrate a central character at a decisive moment. decisive moments, it may be objected, do not occur (except for epicures) at polite dinner parties, or during the 'mauvais quart d'heure,' which might very well be the subject of our first picture. but it seems to me that modern illustrators often deliberately shun decisive moments, preferring to illustrate their characters in more ordinary moods, and perhaps the florentines did this also. where the illustrator is not a great artist the discretion is no doubt a wise one. what for instance could be more charming, more completely successful than this little picture of a messenger bringing a lady a flower, no doubt with a pleasing message with it? in our next cut the artist has been much more ambitious. preceded by soldiers with their long spears, followed by the hideously masked 'battuti' who ministered to the condemned, ippolito is being led to execution. as he passes her door, dianora flings herself on him in a last embrace. the lady's attitude is good, but the woodcutter, alas, has made the lover look merely bored. in book-illustration, as in life, who would avoid failure must know his limitations. [illustration: from the storia di ippolito buondelmonti e dianora bardi, s.a.] whatever shortcomings these florentine pictures may have in themselves, or whatever they may lose when examined by eyes only accustomed to modern work, i hope that it will be conceded that as character-illustrations they are far from being despicable. nevertheless the true home of character-illustration in the fifteenth century was rather in germany than in italy. inferior to the italian craftsmen in delicacy and in producing a general impression of grace (partly, perhaps, because their work was intended to be printed in conjunction with far heavier type) the german artists and woodcutters often showed extraordinary power in rendering facial expression. my favourite example of this is a little picture from the 'de claris mulieribus' of boccaccio printed at ulm in , on one side of which the roman general scipio is shown with uplifted finger bidding the craven massinissa put away his carthaginian wife, while on the other sophonisba is watched by a horror-stricken messenger as she drains the poison her husband sends her. but there is a naïveté about the figure of scipio which has frequently provoked laughter from audiences at lantern-lectures, so my readers must look up this illustration for themselves at the british museum, or elsewhere. i fall back on a picture of a card-party from a 'guldin spiel' printed at augsburg in , in which the hesitation of the woman whose turn it is to play, the rather supercilious interest of her vis-à-vis, and the calm confidence of the third hand, not only ready to play his best, but sure that his best will be good enough, are all shown with absolute simplicity, but in a really masterly manner. facial expression such as this in modern work seems entirely confined to children's books and caricature, but one would sacrifice a good deal of our modern prettiness for a few more touches of it. [illustration: from ingold's 'guldin spiel.' augsburg, .] the last point to which i would draw attention is that a good deal more use might be made of quite small illustrations. the full-pagers are, no doubt, impressive and dignified, but i always seem to see written on the back of them the artist's contract to supply so many drawings of such and such size at so many guineas apiece, and to hear him groaning as he runs through his text trying to pick out the full complement of subjects. the little sketch is more popular in france than in england, and there is a suggestion of joyous freedom about it which is very captivating. such small pictures did not suit the rather heavy touch of the german woodcutters; in italy they were much more popular. at venice a whole series of large folio books were illustrated in this way in the last decade of the fifteenth century, two editions of malermi's translation of the bible, lives of the saints, an italian livy, the decamerone of boccaccio, the novels of masuccio, and other works, all in the vernacular. at ferrara, under venetian influence, an edition of the epistles of s. jerome was printed in , with upwards of one hundred and eighty such little cuts, many of them illustrating incidents of monastic life. both at venice and ferrara the cuts are mainly in outline, and when they are well cut and two or three come together on a page the effect is delightful. in france the vogue of the small cut took a very special form. by far the most famous series of early french illustrated books is that of the hours of the blessed virgin (with which went other devotions, making fairly complete prayer-books for lay use), which were at their best for some fifteen years reckoning from . these hour-books usually contained some fifteen large illustrations, but their most notable features are to be found in the borders which surround every page. on the outer and lower margins these borders are as a rule about an inch broad, sometimes more, so that they can hold four or five little pictures of about an inch by an inch and a half on the outer margin, and one rather larger one at the foot of the page. the variety of the pictures designed to fill these spaces is almost endless. figures of the saints and their emblems and illustrations of the games or occupations suited to each month fill the margins of the calendar. to surround the text of the book there is a long series of pictures of incidents in the life of christ, with parallel scenes from the old testament, scenes from the lives of joseph and job, representations of the virtues, the deadly sins being overcome by the contrary graces, the dance of death, and for pleasant relief woodland and pastoral scenes and even grotesques. the popularity of these prayer-books was enormous, new editions being printed almost every month, with the result that the illustrations were soon worn out and had frequently to be replaced. i have often wished, if only for the sake of small children in sermon time, that our english prayer-books could be similarly illustrated. an attempt to do this was made in the middle of the last century, but it was pretentious and unsuccessful. the great difficulty in the way of a new essay lies in the popularity of very small prayer-books, with so little margin and printed on such thin paper as hardly to admit of border cuts. the difficulty is real, but should not be insuperable, and i hope that some bold illustrator may soon try his hand afresh. [illustration: from the malermi bible. venice, giunta, .] [illustration: from a french book of hours. paris, kerver, .] i should not be candid if i closed this paper without admitting that my fifteenth-century friends anticipated modern publishers in one of their worst faults, the dragging in illustrations where they are not wanted. in the fifteenth century the same cuts were repeated over and over again in the same book to serve for different subjects. modern publishers are not so simple-hearted as this, but they add to the cost of their books by unpleasant half-tone reproductions of unnecessary portraits and views, and i do not think that book-buyers are in the least grateful to them. miss sketchley, i am glad to see, has not concerned herself with illustrators whose designs require to be produced by the half-tone process. to condemn this process unreservedly would be absurd. it gives us illustrations which are really needed for the understanding of the text when they could hardly be produced in any other way, and while it does this it must be tolerated. but by necessitating the use of heavily-loaded paper--unpleasant to the touch, heavy in the hand, doomed, unless all the chemists are wrong, speedily to rot--it is the greatest danger to the excellence of our english book-work which has at present to be faced, while by wearying readers with endless mechanically produced pictures it is injurious also to the best interests of artistic illustration. [illustration: from mr. housman's "a farm in fairyland." by leave of messrs. kegan paul.] english book-illustration of to-day. i. some decorative illustrators. of the famous 'poems by alfred tennyson,' published in by edward moxon, mr. gleeson white wrote in : 'the whole modern school of decorative illustrators regard it, rightly enough, as the genesis of the modern movement.' the statement may need some modification to touch exact truth, for the 'modern movement' is no single-file, straightforward movement. 'kelmscott,' 'japan,' the 'yellow book,' black-and-white art in germany, in france, in spain, in america, the influence of blake, the style of artists such as walter crane, have affected the present form of decorative book-illustration. such perfect unanimity of opinion as is here ascribed to a large and rather indefinitely related body of men hardly exists among even the smallest and most derided body of artists. still, allowing for the impossibility of telling the whole truth about any modern and eclectic form of art in one sentence, there is here a statement of fact. what rossetti and millais and holman hunt achieved in the drawings to the 'tennyson' of , was a vital change in the intention of english illustrative art, and whatever form decorative illustration may assume, their ideal is effective while a personal interpretation of the spirit of the text is the creative impulse. the influence of technical mastery is strong and enduring enough. it is constantly in sight and constantly in mind. but it is in discovering and making evident a principle in art that the influence of spirit on spirit becomes one of the illimitable powers. to rossetti the illustration of literature meant giving beautiful form to the expression of delight, of penetration, that had kindled his imagination as he read. he illustrated the 'palace of art' in the spirit that stirred him to rhythmic translation into words of the still music in giorgione's 'pastoral,' or of the unpassing movement of mantegna's 'parnassus.' not the words of the text, nor those things precisely affirmed by the writer, but the spell of significance and of beauty that held his mind to the exclusion of other images, gave him inspiration for his drawings. as mr. william michael rossetti says: 'he drew just what he chose, taking from his author's text nothing more than a hint and an opportunity.' it is said, indeed, that tennyson could never see what the st. cecily drawing had to do with his poem. and that is strange enough to be true. it is clear that such an ideal of illustration is for the attainment of a few only. the ordinary illustrator, making drawings for cheap reproduction in the ordinary book, can no more work in this mood than the journalist can model his style on the prose of milton. but journalism is not literature, and pictured matter-of-fact is not illustration, though it is convenient and customary to call it so. however, here one need not consider this, for the decorative illustrator has usually literature to illustrate, and a commission to be beautiful and imaginative in his work. he has the opportunity of rossetti, the opportunity for significant art. the 'classics' and children's books give greatest opportunity to decorative illustrators. those who have illustrated children's books chiefly, or whose best work has been for the playful classics of literature, it is convenient to consider in a separate chapter, though there are instances where the division is not maintainable: walter crane, for example, whose influence on a school of decorative design makes his position at the head of his following imperative. representing the 'architectural' sense in the decoration of books, many years before the supreme achievements of william morris added that ideal to generally recognized motives of book-decoration, walter crane is the precursor of a large and prolific school of decorative illustrators. many factors, as he himself tells, have gone to the shaping of his art. born in at liverpool, he came to london in , and there after two years was 'apprenticed' to mr. w. j. linton, the well-known wood-engraver. his work began with 'the sixties,' in contact with the enthusiasm and inspiration those years brought into english art. the illustrated 'tennyson,' and ruskin's 'elements of drawing,' were in his thoughts before he entered mr. linton's workshop, and the 'once a week' school had a strong influence on his early contributions to 'good words,' 'once a week,' and other famous magazines. in messrs. warne published the first toy-book, and by - the 'walter crane toy-book' was a fact in art. the sight of some japanese colour-prints during these years suggested a finer decorative quality to be obtained with tint and outline, and in the use of black, as well as in a more delicate simplicity of colour, the later toy-books show the first effect of japanese art on the decorative art of england. italian art in england and italy, the prints of dürer, the parthenon sculptures, these were influences that affected him strongly. 'the baby's opera' ( ) and 'the baby's bouquet' ( ) are classics almost impossible to criticise, classics familiar from cover to cover before one was aware of any art but the art on their pages. so that if these delightful designs seem less expressive of the greece, germany, and italy of the supreme artists than of the 'crane' countries by whose coasts ships 'from over the sea' go sailing by with strange cargoes and strange crews, it is not in their dispraise. as a decorative draughtsman mr. crane is at his best when the use of colour gives clearness to the composition, but some of his most 'serious' work is in the black-and-white pages of 'the sirens three,' of 'the shepheardes calendar,' and especially of 'the faerie queene.' the number of books he has illustrated--upwards of seventy--makes a detailed account impossible. nursery rhyme and fairy books, children's stories, spenser, shakespeare, the myths of greece, 'pageant books' such as 'flora's feast' or 'queen summer,' or the just published 'masque of days,' his own writings, serious or gay, have given him subjects, as the great art of all times has touched the ideals of his art. [illustration: from mr. walter crane's 'grimm's household stories.' by leave of messrs. macmillan.] but whatever the subject, how strong soever his artistic admirations, he is always walter crane, unmistakable at a glance. knights and ladies, fairies and fairy people, allegorical figures, nursery and school-room children, fulfil his decorative purpose without swerving, though not always without injury to their comfort and freedom and the life in their limbs. an individual apprehension that sees every situation as a conventional 'arrangement' is occasionally beside the mark in rendering real life. but when his theme touches imagination, and is not a supreme expression of it--for then, as in the illustrations to 'the faerie queene,' an unusual sense of subservience appears to dull his spirit--his humorous fancy knows no weariness nor sameness of device. the work of most of mr. crane's followers belongs to 'the nineties,' when the 'arts and crafts' movement, the 'century guild,' the birmingham and other schools had attracted or produced artists working according to the canons of kelmscott. mr. heywood sumner was earlier in the field. the drawings to 'sintram' ( ) and to 'undine' ( ) show his art as an illustrator. undine--spirit of wind and water, flower-like in gladness--seeking to win an immortal soul by submission to the forms of life, is realized in the gracefully designed figures of frontispiece and title-page. where mr. sumner illustrates incident he is 'factual' without being matter-of-fact. the small drawing reproduced is hardly representative of his art, but most of his work is adapted to a squarer page than this, and has had to be rejected on that account. some of the most apt decorations in 'the english illustrated' were by mr. sumner, and during the time when art was represented in the magazine mr. ryland and mr. louis davis were also frequent contributors. the graceful figures of mr. ryland, uninterested in activity, a garden-world set with statues around them, and the carol-like grace of mr. davis's designs in that magazine, represent them better than the one or two books they have illustrated. [illustration: from mr. heywood sumner's 'undine.' by leave of messrs. chapman and hall.] among those associated with the 'arts and crafts' who have given more of their art to book-decoration, mr. anning bell is first. he has gained the approval even of the most exigent of critics as an artist who understands drawing for process. since , when the 'midsummer night's dream' appeared, his winning art has been praised with discrimination and without discrimination, but always praised. trained in an architect's office, widely known as the recreator of coloured relief for architectural decoration, mr. anning bell's illustrations show constructive power no less than that fairy gift of seeming to improvise without labour and without hesitancy, which is one of its especial charms. in feeling, and in many of his decorative forms, his drawings recall the art of florentine bas-relief, when agostino di duccio, or rossellino or mino da fiesole, created shapes of delicate sweetness, pure, graceful--so graceful that their power is hardly realized. the fairy by-play of the 'midsummer night's dream' is exactly to mr. anning bell's fancy. he knows better than to go about to expound this dream, and it is not likely that a more delightful edition will ever be put into the hands of children, or of anyone, than this in the white and gold cover devised by the artist. of his illustrations to the 'poems by john keats' ( ), and to the 'english lyrics from spenser to milton' of the following year--as illustrations--not quite so much can be said, distinguished and felicitous as many of them are. the simple profile, the demure type of beauty that he affects, hardly suit with isabella when she hears that lorenzo has gone from her, with lamia by the clear pool "wherein she passionëd to see herself escaped from so sore ills," or with madeline, 'st. agnes' charmëd maid.' mr. anning bell's drawings to 'the pilgrim's progress' ( ) reveal him in a different mood, as do those in 'the christian year' of three years earlier. his vision is hardly energetic enough, his energy of belief sufficient, to make him a strong illustrator of bunyan, with his many moods, his great mood. a little these designs suggest howard pyle, and anning bell is better in a way of beauty not gothic. [illustration: from mr. anning bell's 'keats.' by leave of messrs. george bell.] so if mr. anning bell represents the 'arts and crafts' movement in the variety of decorative arts he has practised, and in the architectural sense underlying all his art, his work does not agree with the form in which the influence of william morris on decorative illustration has chiefly shown itself. that form, of course, is gothic, as the ideal of kelmscott was gothic. the work of the 'century guild' artists as decorative illustrators is chiefly in the pages of 'the hobby horse.' mr. selwyn image and mr. herbert horne can hardly be included among book illustrators, so in this connection one may not stop to consider the decorative strength of their ideal in art. the birmingham school represents gothic ideals with determination and rigidity. morris addressed the students of the school and prefaced the edition of 'good king wenceslas,' decorated and engraved and printed by mr. a. j. gaskin 'at the press of the guild of handicraft in the city of birmingham,' with cordial words of appreciation for the pictures. these illustrations are among the best mr. gaskin has done. the commission for twelve full-page drawings to 'the shepheardes calendar' (kelmscott press, ) marks morris's pleasure in mr. gaskin's work--especially in the illustrations to andersen's 'stories and fairy tales.' if not quite in tune with spenser's elizabethan idyllism, these drawings are distinctive of the definite convictions of the artist. [illustration: from mr. gaskin's 'hans andersen.' by leave of mr. george allen.] these convictions represent a splendid tradition. they are expressive, in their regard for the unity of the page, for harmony between type and decoration, of the universal truth in all fine bookmaking. only at times, birmingham work seems rather heavy in spirit, rather too rigid for development. still, judging by results, a code that would appear to be against individual expression is inspiring individual artists. some of these--as mr. e. h. new--have turned their attention to architectural and 'open-air' illustration, in which connection their work will be considered, and many have illustrated children's books. their quaint and naïve fancy has there, at times, produced a portentous embodiment of the 'old-fashioned' child of fiction. mr. gere, though he has done little book-illustration, is one of the strongest artists of the school. his original wood engravings show unmistakably his decorative power and his craftsmanship. with mr. k. fairfax muckley he was responsible for 'the quest' ( - ). mr. fairfax muckley has illustrated and decorated a three-volume edition of 'the faerie queene' ( ), wherein the forest branches and winding ways of woodland and of plain are more happily conventionalized than are spenser's figures. some of the headpieces are especially successful. the artist uses the 'mixed convention' of solid black and line with less confusion than many modern draughtsmen. once its dangers must have been evident, but now the puzzle pattern, with solid blacks in the foreground, background, and mid-distance--only there is no distance in these drawings--is a common form of black and white. miss celia levetus, mr. henry payne, mr. f. mason, and mr. bernard sleigh, are also to the credit of the school. miss levetus, in her later work, shows that an inclination towards a more flexible style is not incompatible with the training in gothic convention. mr. mason's illustrations to ancient romances of chivalry give evidence of conscientious craftsmanship, and of a spirit sympathetic to themes such as 'renaud of montauban.' mr. bernard sleigh's original wood-engravings are well known and justly appreciated. strong in tradition and logic as is the work of these designers, it is, for many, too consistent with convention to be delightful. perhaps the best result of the birmingham school will hardly be achieved until the formal effect of its training is less patent. the 'sixties' might have been void of art, so far as these designers are concerned, save that in those days morris and burne-jones and walter crane, as well as millais and houghton and sandys, were about their work. far other is the case with artists such as mr. byam shaw, or with the many draughtsmen, including messrs. p. v. woodroffe, henry ospovat, philip connard, and herbert cole, whose art derives its form and intention from the sixties. differing in technical power and fineness of invention, in all that distinguishes good from less good, they have this in common--that the form of their art would have been quite other if the illustrated books of that period were among things unseen. mr. byam shaw began his work as an illustrator in with a volume of 'browning's poems,' edited by dr. garnett. he proved himself in these drawings, as in his pictures and later illustrations, an artist with a definite memory for the forms, and a genuine sympathy with the aims of pre-raphaelite art. evidently, too, he admires the black-and-white of mr. abbey. he has the gift of dramatic conception, sees a situation at high pitch, and has a pleasant way of giving side-lights, pictorial asides, by means of decorative head and tailpieces. his illustrations to the little green and gold volumes of the 'chiswick shakespeare' are more emphatic than his earlier work, and in the decorations his power of summarizing the chief motive is put to good use. there is no need of his signature to distinguish the work of byam shaw, though he shows himself under the influence of various masters. probably he is only an illustrator of books by the way, but in the meantime, as the 'boccaccio,' 'browning,' and 'shakespeare' drawings show, he works in black and white with vigorous intention. mr. ospovat's illustrations to 'shakespeare's sonnets' and to 'matthew arnold's poems' are interesting, if not very markedly his own. he illustrates the sonnets as a celebration of a poet's passion for his mistress. as in these, so in the matthew arnold drawings, he shows some genuine creative power and an aptitude for illustrative decoration. mr. philip connard has made spirited and well-realized illustrations in somewhat the same kind; miss amelia bauerle, and mr. bulcock, who began by illustrating 'the blessed damozel' in memory of rossetti, have made appearance in the 'flowers of parnassus' series, and mr. herbert cole, with three of these little green volumes, prepared one for more important work in 'gulliver's travels' ( ). the work of mr. woodroffe was, i think, first seen in the 'quarto'--the organ of the slade school--where also mr. a. garth jones, mr. cyril goldie, and mr. robert spence, gave unmistakable evidence of individuality. mr. woodroffe's wood-engravings in the 'quarto' showed strength, which is apparent, too, in the delicately characterized figures to 'songs from shakespeare's plays' ( ), with their borders of lightly-strung field flowers. his drawings to 'the confessions of s. augustine,' engraved by miss clemence housman, are in keeping with the text, not impertinent. mr. a. garth jones in the 'quarto' seemed much influenced by japanese grotesques; but in illustrations to milton's 'minor poems' ( ) he has shown development towards the expression of beauty more austere, classical, controlled to the presentment of milton's high thought. his recent 'essays of elia' remind one of the forcible work of mr. e. j. sullivan in 'sartor resartus.' mr. sullivan's 'sartor' and 'dream of fair women' must be mentioned. his mastery over an assertive use of line and solid black, the unity of his effects, the humour and imagination of his decorative designs, are not likely to be forgotten, though the balance of his work in illustrations to sheridan, marryat, sir walter scott, obliges one to class him with "character" illustrators, and so to leave a blank in this article. mr. laurence housman stands alone among modern illustrators, though one may, if one will, speak of him as representing the succession of the sixties, or as connected with the group of artists whose noteworthy development dates from the publication of 'the dial' by charles ricketts and charles shannon in . to look at mr. housman's art in either connection, or to record the effect of dürer, of blake, of edward calvert, on his technique, is only to come back to appreciation of all that is his own. as an illustrator he has hardly surpassed the spirit of the 'forty-four designs, drawn and written by laurence housman,' that express his idea of george meredith's 'jump to glory jane' ( ). these designs were the result of the appreciation which the editor, mr. harry quilter, felt for mr. housman's drawings to 'the green gaffer' in 'the universal review.' jane--the village woman with 'wistful eyes in a touching but bony face,' leaping with countenance composed, arms and feet 'like those who hang,' leaping in crude expression of the unity of soul and body, making her converts, failing to move the bishop, dying at last, though not ingloriously, by the wayside--this most difficult conception has no 'burlesque outline' in mr. housman's work, inexperienced and unacademic as is the drawing. 'weird tales from northern seas,' by jonas lie, was the next book illustrated by mr. housman. christina rossetti's 'goblin market' ( ), offered greater scope for freakish imagination than did 'jane.' the goblins, pale-eyed, mole and rat and weasel-faced; the sisters, whose simple life they surround with hideous fantasy, are realized in harmony with the unique effect of the poem--an effect of simplicity, of naïve imagination, of power, of things stranger than are told in the cry of the goblin merchants, as at evening time they invade quiet places to traffic with their evil fruits for the souls of maidens. the frail-bodied elves of 'the end of elfin town,' moving and sleeping among the white mushrooms and slender stalks of field flowers, are of another land than that of the goblin merchant-folk. illustrations to 'the imitation of christ,' to 'the sensitive plant,' and drawings to 'the were-wolf,' by miss clemence housman, complete the list of mr. housman's illustrations to writings not his own, with the exception of frontispiece drawings to several books. [illustration: mercury god of merchandise look on with favourable eyes by leave of messrs. kegan paul.] to explain mr. housman's vision of 'the sensitive plant' would be as superfluous as it would be ineffectual. in a note on the illustrations he has told how the formal beauty, the exquisite ministrations, the sounds and fragrance and sweet winds of the garden enclosed, seem to him as 'a form of beauty that springs out of modes and fashions,' too graceful to endure. in his pictures he has realized the perfect ensemble of the garden, its sunny lawns and rose-trellises, its fountains, statues, and flower-sweet ways; realized, too, the spirit of the sensitive plant, the lady of the garden, and pan, the great god who never dies, who waits only without the garden, till in a little while he enters, 'effacing and replacing with his own image and superscription, the parenthetic grace ... of the garden deity.' of a talent that treats always of enchanted places, where 'reality' is a long day's journey down a dusty road, it is difficult to speak without suggesting that it is all just a charming dalliance with pretty fancies, lacking strength. of the strength of mr. housman's imagination, however, his work speaks. his illustrations to his own writings, fairy tales, and poems, cannot with any force be discussed by themselves. the words belong to the pictures, the pictures to the words. the drawings to 'the field of clover' are seen to full advantage in the wood-engravings of miss housman. only so, or in reproduction by photogravure, is the full intention of mr. housman's pen-drawings apparent. [illustration: the field of clover by laurence housman, engraved by clemence housman be kindly to the weary drover & pipe the sheep into the clover by leave of messrs. kegan paul.] one may group the names of charles ricketts, c. h. shannon, t. sturge moore, lucien pissarro, and reginald savage together in memory of 'the dial,' where the activity of five original artists first became evident, though, save in the case of mr. ricketts and mr. shannon, no continuance of the classification is possible. the first number of 'the dial' ( ) had a cover design cut on wood by mr. c. h. shannon--afterwards replaced by the design of mr. ricketts. twelve designs by mr. ricketts may be said to represent the transitional--or a transitional--phase of his art, from the earlier work in magazines, which he disregards, to the reticent expression of 'vale press' illustrations. in the first book decorated by these artists appeared, 'the house of pomegranates,' by oscar wilde. there was, however, nothing in this book to suggest the form their joint talent was to take. many delightful designs by mr. ricketts, somewhat marred by heaviness of line, and full-page illustrations by mr. shannon, printed in an almost invisible, nondescript colour, contained no suggestion of 'daphnis and chloe.' the second 'dial'( ) contained mr. ricketts' first work as his own wood-engraver, and in the following year the result of eleven months' joint work by mr. ricketts and mr. shannon was shown in the publication of 'daphnis and chloe,' with thirty-seven woodcuts by the artists. fifteen of the pictures were sketched by mr. shannon and revised and drawn on the wood by mr. ricketts, who also engraved the initials. it is a complete achievement of individuality subordinated to an ideal. here and there one can affirm that mr. shannon drew this figure, composed this scene, mr. ricketts that; but generally the hand is not to be known. the ideal of their inspiration--the immortal 'hypnerotomachia'--seems equally theirs, equally potent over their individuality. speaking with diffidence, it would seem as though mr. shannon's idea of the idyll were more naïve and humorous. incidents beside the main theme of the pastoral loves of young daphnis and chloe--the household animals, other shepherds--are touched with humorous intent. mr. ricketts shows more suavity, and, as in the charming double-page design of the marriage feast, a more lyrical realization of delight and shepherd joys. the 'hero and leander' of is a less elaborate, and, on the whole, a finer production. i must speak of the illustrations only, lest consideration of vale press publications should fill the remaining space at my disposal. obviously the attenuated type of these figures shows mr. ricketts' ideal of the human form as a decoration for a page of type. the severe reticence he imposes on himself is in order to maintain the balance between illustrations and text. one has only to turn to illustrations to lord de tabley's 'poems,' published in , to see with what eager imagination he realizes a subject, how strong a gift he has for dramatic expression. that a more persuasive beauty of form was once his wont, much of his early and transitional work attests. but i do not think his power to achieve beauty need be defended. after the publication of 'hero and leander,' mr. shannon practically ceased wood-engraving for the illustration of books, though, as the series of roundel designs in the recent exhibition of his work proved, he has not abandoned nor ceased to go forward in the art. [illustration: from mr. ricketts' 'cupide and psyches.' reproduced by his permission.] [illustration: of the apparition of the three nymphs to daphnis in a dream. from messrs. ricketts and shannon's 'daphnis and chloe.' (mathews and lane.) reproduced by their leave and the publishers'.] 'the sphinx,' a poem by oscar wilde, 'built, decorated and bound' by mr. ricketts--but without woodcuts--was published in , just after 'hero and leander,' and designs for a magnificent edition of 'the king's quhair' were begun. some of these are in 'the dial,' as are also designs for william adlington's translation of 'cupide and psyches' in 'the pageant,' 'the dial,' and 'the magazine of art.' the edition of the work published by the new vale press in , is not that projected at this time. it contains roundel designs in place of the square designs first intended. these roundels are, i think, the finest achievement of mr. ricketts as an original wood-engraver. the engraving reproduced shows of what quality are both line and form, how successful is the placing of the figure within the circle. on the page they are what the artist would have them be. with the beginning of the sequence of later vale press books--books printed from founts designed by mr. ricketts--a consecutive account is impossible, but the frontispiece to the 'milton' and the borders and initials designed by mr. ricketts, must be mentioned. as a designer of book-covers only one failure is set down to mr. ricketts, and that was ten years ago, in the cover to 'the house of pomegranates.' mr. reginald savage's illustrations to some tales from wagner lack the force of designs in 'the pageant,' and of woodcuts in essex house publications. of m. lucien pissarro, in an article overcrowded with english illustrators, i cannot speak. his fame is in france as the forerunner of his art, and we in england know his coloured wood-engravings, his designs for 'the book of ruth and esther' and for 'the queen of the fishes,' printed at his press at epping, but included among vale press books. [illustration: from mr. sturge moore's 'the centaur.' reproduced by permission of mr. ricketts.] 'the centaur,' 'the bacchant,' 'the metamorphoses of pan,' 'siegfried'--young siegfried, wood-nurtured, untamed, setting his lusty strength against the strength of the brutes, hearing the bird-call then, and following the white bird to issues remote from savage life--these are subjects realized by the imagination of mr. t. sturge moore. there are few artists illustrating books to-day whose work is more unified, imaginatively and technically. it is some years since first mr. moore's wood-engravings attracted notice in 'the dial' and 'the pageant,' and the latest work from his graver--finer, more rhythmic in composition though it be--shows no change in ideals, in the direction of his talent. he has said, i think, that the easiest line for the artist is the true basis of that artist's work, and it would seem as though much deliberation in finding that line for himself had preceded any of the work by which he is known. the wood-engraving of mr. sturge moore is of some importance. always the true understanding of his material, the unhesitating realization of his subject, combine to produce the effect of inevitable line and form, of an inevitable setting down of forms in expression of the thought within. only that gives the idea of formality, and mr. moore's art handles the strong impulse of the wild creatures of earth, of the solitary creatures, mighty and terrible, haunting the desert places and fearing the order men make for safety. designs to wordsworth's 'poems,' not yet published, represent with innate perception the earth-spirit as wordsworth knew it, when the great mood of 'impassioned contemplation' came upon his careful spirit, when his heart leapt up, or when, wandering beneath the wind-driven clouds of march, at sight of daffodils, he lost his loneliness. 'the evergreen,' that 'northern seasonal,' represented the pictorial outlook of an interesting group of artists--robert burns, andrew k. womrath, john duncan, and james cadenhead, for example--and the racial element, as well as their own individuality, distinguishes the work of mr. w. b. macdougall and mr. j. j. guthrie of 'the elf.' mr. macdougall has been known as a book-illustrator since , when 'the book of ruth,' with decorated borders showing the fertility of his designing power, and illustrations that were no less representative of a unique use of material, appeared. the conventionalized landscape backgrounds, the long, straightly-draped women, seemed strange enough as a reading of the hebrew pastoral, with its close kinship to the natural life of the free children of earth. their unimpassioned faces, unspontaneous gestures, the artificiality of the whole impression, were undoubtedly a new reading of the ancient charm of the story. two books in , and 'isabella' and 'the shadow of love,' , showed beyond doubt that the manner was not assumed, that it was the expression of mr. macdougall's sense of beauty. the decorations to 'isabella' are more elaborate than to 'ruth,' and inventive handling of natural forms is as marked. again, the faces are de-characterized in accordance with the desire to make the whole figure the symbol of passion, and that without emphasis. mr. j. j. guthrie is hardly among book-illustrators, since 'wedding bells' of does not represent mr. guthrie, nor does the child's book of the following year, while the illustrations to edgar allan poe's 'poems' are still, i think, being issued from the pear tree press in single numbers. his treatment of landscape is inventive, his rhythmic arrangements, his effects of white line on black, are based on a real sense of the beauty of earth, of tall trees and wooded hills, of mysterious moon-brightness and shade in the leafy depths of the woodlands. mr. granville fell made his name known in by his illustrations to 'the book of job.' in careful detail, drawn with fidelity, never obtrusive, his art is pre-raphaelite. he touches japanese ideals in the rendering of flower-growth and animals, but the whole effect of his decorative illustrations is far enough away from the art of japan. in the 'book of job' he had a subject sufficient to dwarf a very vital imaginative sense by its grandeur. in the opinion of competent critics mr. granville fell proved more than the technical distinction of his work by the manner in which he fulfilled his purpose. the solid black and white, the definite line of these drawings, were laid aside for the sympathetic medium of pencil in 'the song of solomon' ( ). again, his conception is invariably dramatic, and never crudely dramatic, robust, with no trace of morbid or sentimental thought about it. the garden, the wealth of vineyard and of royal pleasure ground, is used as a background to comely and gracious figures. his other work, illustrative of children's books and of legend, the cover and title-page to mr. w. b. yeats's 'poems,' shows the same definite yet restrained imagination. mr. patten wilson is somewhat akin to mr. granville fell in the energy and soundness of his conceptions. each of these artists is, as we know, a colourist, delighting in brilliant and iridescent colour-schemes, yet in black and white they do not seek to suggest colour. mr. patten wilson's illustrations to coleridge's 'poems' have the careful fulness of drawings well thought out, and worked upon with the whole idea realised in the imagination. he has observed life carefully for the purposes of his art. but it is rather in rendering the circumstance of poems, such as 'the ancient mariner,' or, in a chaucer illustration--constance on the lonely ship--that he shows his grasp of the subject, than by any expression of the spiritual terror or loneliness of the one living man among the dead, the solitary woman on strange seas. few decorative artists habitually use 'wash' rather than line. among these, however, is mr. weguelin, who has illustrated anacreon in a manner to earn the appreciation of greek scholars, and his illustrations to hans andersen have had a wider and not less appreciative reception. his drawings have movement and atmosphere. mr. w. e. f. britten also uses this medium with fluency, as is shown by his successful illustrations to mr. swinburne's 'carols of the year' in the 'magazine of art' in - . since that time his version of 'undine,' and illustrations to tennyson's 'early poems,' have shown the same power of graceful composition and sympathy with his subject. ii. some open-air illustrators. open-air illustration is less influenced by the tradition of rossetti and of the romanticists of 'the sixties' than any other branch of illustrative art. the reason is obvious. of all illustrators, the illustrator of open-air books has least concern with the interpretation of literature, and is most concerned with recording facts from observation. it is true that usually he follows where a writer goes, and studies garden, village or city, according to another man's inclination. but the road they take, the cities and wayside places, are as obvious to the one as to the other. the artist has not to realize the personal significance of beauty conceived by another mind; he has to set down in black and white the aspect of indisputable cities and palaces and churches, of the actual highways and gardens of earth. no fugitive light, but the light of common day shows him his subject. so, although stevenson's words, that reaching romantic art one becomes conscious of the background, are completely true in application to the drawings of rossetti, of millais, sandys and houghton, these 'backgrounds' have had no traceable effect on modern open-air illustration. nor are the landscape drawings in works such as 'wayside poesies,' or 'pictures of english landscape,' at the beginning of the style or styles--formal or picturesque--most in vogue at present. birket foster has no followers; the pensive landscape is not suited to holiday excursion books; and, though mr. j. w. north is among artists of to-day, as a book-illustrator he has unfortunately added little to his fine record of landscape drawings made between and . one cannot include his work in a study of contemporary illustration, though it is a pleasure passed over to leave unconsidered drawings that in 'colour,' in effects of winter-weather, of leaf-thrown light and shade amid summer woods and over the green lanes of english country, are delightfully remote from obvious and paragraphic habits of rendering facts. with few exceptions the open-air illustrators of to-day began their work and took their place in public favour, and in the estimation of critics, after . mr. joseph pennell, it is true, had been making sketches in england, in france, and in italy for some years; mr. railton had made some preliminary illustrations; mr. alfred parsons illustrated 'old songs' with mr. abbey in ; and mr. fulleylove contributed to 'the picturesque mediterranean,' and published his 'oxford' drawings, in the same year. still, with a little elasticity, 'the nineties' covers the past activity of these men. the only important exception is sir george reid, president of the royal scottish academy, much of whose illustrative work belongs to the years prior to . the one subject for regret in connection with sir george reid's landscape illustrations is that the chapter is closed. he makes no more drawings with pen-and-ink, and the more one is content with those he has made, the less does the quantity seem sufficient. those who know only the portraits on which sir george reid's reputation is firmly based will find in his landscape illustrations a new side to his art. here, as in portraiture, he sees distinctly and records without prejudice the characteristics of his subject. he renders what he sees, and he knows how to see. his conception being clear to himself, he avoids vagueness and obscurity, finding, with apparent ease, plain modes of expression. a straight observer of men and of the country-side, there is this directness and perspicuity about his work, whether he paints a portrait, or makes pen-drawings of the village worthies of 'pyketillim' parish, or draws pyketillim kirk, small and white and plain, with the sparse trees beside it, or great river or city of his native land. but in these pen-stroke landscapes, while the same clear-headed survey, the same logical record of facts, is to be observed as in his work as a portrait painter, there is besides a charm of manner that brings the indefinable element into one's appreciation of excellent work. of course this is not to estimate these drawings above the portraits of sir george reid. that would be absurd. but he draws a country known to him all his life, and unconsciously, from intimate memory, he suggests more than actual observation would discover. this identification of past knowledge with the special scrutiny of a subject to be rendered is not usually possible in portraiture. the 'portrait in-time' is a question of occasion as well as of genius. the first book in which his inimitable pen-drawing of landscape can be properly studied is the illustrated edition of 'johnny gibb of gushetneuk, in the parish of pyketillim,' published in . here the illustrations are facsimile reproductions by amand-durand's heliogravure process, and their delicacy is perfectly seen. these drawings are of the aberdeenshire country-folk and country, the native land of the artist; though, as a lad in aberdeen, practising lithography by day, and seizing opportunities for independent art when work was over, the affairs and doings of gushetneuk, of smiddyward, of pyketillim, or the quiet of benachie when the snow lies untrodden on its slopes, were things outside the city of work. it is as difficult to praise these drawings intelligibly to those who have not seen them, as it is unnecessary to enforce their charm on those who have. unfortunately, a reproduction of one of them is not possible, and admirable as is the drawing from 'royal edinburgh,' it is in subject and in treatment distinct from the 'gushetneuk' and 'north of scotland' illustrations. the 'twelve sketches of scenery and antiquities on the great north of scotland railway,' issued in , were made in , and have the same characteristics as the 'gushetneuk' landscapes. the original drawings for the engraved illustrations in 'the life of a scotch naturalist,' belonging to --drawings made because the artist was 'greatly interested' in the story of thomas edward--must have been of the same delicate force, and the splendid volumes of plates illustrating the 'river clyde,' and the 'river tweed,' issued by the royal association for the promotion of the fine arts in scotland, contain more of his fine work. it was this society, that, in the difficult days following the artist's abandonment of aberdeen and lithography for edinburgh and painting, gave him the opportunity, by the purchase of two of his early landscapes, for study in holland and in paris. there is something of bosboom in a rendering of a church interior such as 'the west kirk,' but of israels, who was his master at the hague, there is nothing to be seen in sir george reid's illustrations. they are never merely picturesque, and when too many men are 'freakish' in their rendering of architecture, the drawings of north of scotland castles--well founded to endure weather and rough times of war--seem as real and true to scottish romance as the "pleasant seat," the martlet-haunted masonry of macbeth's castle set among the brooding wildness of inverness by the fine words of duncan and banquo. the print-black of naked boughs against pale sky, a snow-covered country where roofs are white, and the shelter of the woods is thin after the passing of the autumn winds--this black and white is the black and white of most of sir george reid's studies of northern landscape. to call it black and white is to stretch the octave and omit all the notes of the scale. pure white of plastered masonry, or of snow-covered roof or field in the bleak winter light, pure black in some deep-set window, in the figure of a passer-by, or in the bare trees, are used with the finesse of a colourist. look at the 'pyketillim kirk' drawing in 'johnny gibb.' between the white of the long church wall, and the black of the little groups of village folk in the churchyard, how quiet and easy is the transition, and how true to colour is the result. of the edinburgh drawings the same may be said; but, except in facsimile reproduction, one has to know the scale of tone used by sir george reid in order to see the original effect where the printed page shows unmodified black and white. in 'holyrood castle' the values are fairly well kept, and the rendering of the ancient building in the deep snow, without false emphasis, yet losing nothing of emphatic effect, shows the dominant intellectual quality of the artist's work. [illustration: holyrood castle. by sir george reid. from mrs. oliphant's "royal edinburgh." by leave of messrs. macmillan.] it does not seem as though sir george reid as an illustrator had any followers. he could hardly have imitators. if a man had delicacy and patience of observation and hand to produce drawings in this 'style,' his style would be his own and not an imitation. the number of artists in black and white who cannot plausibly be imitated is a small number. sir george reid is one, mr. alfred parsons is another. inevitably there are points of similarity in the work of artists, the foundation of whose black and white is colour, and who render the country-side with the understanding of the native, the understanding that is beyond knowledge. the difference between them only proves the essential similarity in the elements of their art; but that, like most paradoxes, is a truism. mr. parsons is, of course, thoroughly english in his art. he has the particularity of english nature-poets. pastoral country is dear to him, and homesteads and flowering orchards, or villages with church tower half hidden by the elms, are part of his home country, the country he draws best. it is interesting to compare his drawings for 'the warwickshire avon' with the scottish artist's drawings of the northern rivers. the drawings of shakespeare's river show spring trees in a mist of green, leafy summer trees, meadowsweet and hayfields, green earth and blue sky, and a river of pleasure watering a pleasant country. if a man can draw english summer-time in colour with black and white, he must rank high as a landscape pen-draughtsman. mr. alfred parsons has illustrated about a dozen books, and his work is to be found in 'harper's magazine,' and 'the english illustrated' in early days. two books, the 'old songs' and 'the quiet life,' published in and , were illustrated by e. a. abbey and alfred parsons. the drawings of landscape, of fruit and flowers, by mr. parsons, the chippendale people and rooms of mr. abbey, fill two charming volumes with pictures whose pleasantness and happy art accord with the dainty verses of eighteenth-century sentiment. 'the warwickshire avon,' and another river book, 'the danube from the black forest to the sea,' illustrated in collaboration with the author, mr. f. d. millet, belong to . the slight sketches--passing-by sketches--in these books, are among fortunate examples of a briefness that few men find compatible with grace and significance. sketches, mostly in wash, of a farther and more decorated country--'japan, the far east, the land of flowers and of the rising sun, the country which for years it had been my dream to see and paint'--illustrate the artist's 'notes in japan,' . in the written notes are memoranda of actual colour, of the green harmony of the japanese summer--harmony culminating in the vivid tint of the rice fields--of sunset and butterflies, of delicate masses of azalea and drifts of cherry-blossom and wisteria, while in the drawings are all the flowers, the green hills and gray hamlets, and the temples, shrines and bridges, that make unspoilt japan one of the perpetual motives of decorative art. illustrations to wordsworth--to a selected wordsworth--gave the artist fortunate opportunities to render the england of english descriptive verse. [illustration: elms by bidford grange. by alfred parsons. reproduced from quiller couch's 'the warwickshire avon.' by leave of osgood, mcilvaine and co.] it is convenient to speak first of these painter-illustrators, because, in a sense, they stand alone among illustrative artists. obviously, that is not to say that their work is worth more than the work of illustrators, who, conforming to the laws of 'process,' make their drawings with brain and hand that know how to win profit by concession. but popularisers of an effective topographical or architectural style are indirectly responsible for a large amount of work besides their own. in one sense a leader does not stand alone, and cannot be considered alone. before, then, passing on to a draughtsman such as mr. joseph pennell, again, to mr. railton, or to mr. new, whose successful and unforgettable works have inspired many drawings in the books whereby authors pay for their holiday journeys, other artists, whose style is no convenience to the industrious imitator, may be considered. another painter, known for his work in black and white, is mr. john fulleylove, whose 'pictures of classic greek landscape,' and drawings of 'oxford,' show him to be one of the few men who see architecture steadily and whole, and who draw beautiful buildings as part of the earth which they help to beautify. compare the greek drawings with ordinary archæological renderings of pillared temples, and the difference in beauty and interest is apparent. in mr. fulleylove's drawings, the relation between landscape and architecture is never forgotten, and he draws both with the structural knowledge of a landscape painter, who is also by training an architect. in aim, his work is in accord with classical traditions; he discerns the classical spirit that built temples and carved statues in the beautiful places of the open-air, a spirit which has nothing of the museum setting about it. the 'oxford' drawings show that mr. fulleylove can draw gothic. though not a painter, mr. william hyde works 'to colour' in his illustrations, and is generally successful in rendering both colour and atmosphere. he has done little with the pen, and it is in wash drawings, reproduced by photogravure, that he is best to be studied. of his early training as an engraver there is little to be seen in his work, though his appreciation of the range of tone existing between black and white may have developed from working within restrictions of monotone, when the colour sense was growing strong in him. at all events he can gradate from black to white with remarkable minuteness and ease. his earliest work of any importance after giving up engraving, was in illustration of 'l'allegro' and 'il penseroso,' , and shows his talent already well controlled. there are thirteen illustrations, and the opportunities for rendering aspects of light, from the moment of the lark's morning flight against the dappled skies of dawn, to the passing of whispering night-winds over the darkened country, given in the verse of a poet sensitive as none before him to the gradations of lightness and dark, are realized. so are the hawthorns in the dale, and the towered cities. but it is as an illustrator of another towered city than that imagined by milton, that some of mr. hyde's most individual work has been produced. in the etchings and pictures in photogravure published with mrs. meynell's 'london impressions,' london beneath the strange great sky that smoke and weather make over the gray roofs, london when the dawn is low in the sky, or when the glow of lamps and lamp-lit windows turns the street darkness to golden haze, is drawn by a man who has seen for himself how beautiful the great city is in 'between lights.' his other work is superficially in contrast with these studies of city light and darkness; but the same love for 'big' skies, for the larger aspects of changing lights and cloud movements, are expressed in the drawings of the wide country that is around and beyond the cinque ports, and in the illustrations to mr. george meredith's 'nature poems.' the reproduction is from a pen drawing in mr. hueffer's book, 'the cinque ports.' there is no pettiness about it, and the 'phrasing' of castle, trees and sky shows the artist. [illustration: saltwood castle. by william hyde. from f. m. hueffer's 'the cinque ports.' by leave of messrs. blackwood.] mr. d. y. cameron has illustrated a book or two with etchings--notably white's 'selborne' ,--but to consider him as a book-illustrator would be to stretch a point. a few of his etchings are to be seen in books, and one would like to make them the text for the consideration of other etchings by him, but it would be a digression. he is not among painter-illustrators, but among painters who have illustrated, and that would bring more names into this chapter than it could hold except in catalogue arrangement. coming to artists who are illustrators, not on occasion but always, there is no question with whom to begin. it is true that mr. pennell is american, but he is such an important figure in english illustration that to leave him out would be impossible. he has been illustrating europe for more than fifteen years, and the forcible fashion of his work, and all that he represents, have influenced black-and-white artists in this country, as his master rico influenced him. in range and facility, and in getting to the point and keeping there, there is no open-air illustrator to put beside mr. pennell. always interested and always interesting, he is apparently never bewildered, always ready and able to draw. surely there was never a mind with a greater faculty for quick study; and he can apply this power to the realization of an architectural detail, or of a cathedral, of miles of country with river curves and castles, trees, and hills and fields, and a stretch of sky over all; or of a great city-street crowded with traffic, of new or old buildings, of tuscany or of the stock exchange, with equal ease. to attempt a record of mr. pennell's work would leave no room for appreciation of it. as far as the english public is concerned, it began in with the publication of 'a canterbury pilgrimage,' and since then each year has added to mr. pennell's notes of the world at the rate of two or three volumes. the highways and byways of england--east, west, south and north--france from normandy to provence, the cities and spaces of italy, the saone and the thames, the 'real' alps and the new zealand alps, london and paris, the cathedrals of europe, the gipsy encampment and the ghetto, chelsea and the alhambra--mr. pennell has been everywhere and seen most things as he went, and one can see it in his drawings. he draws architecture without missing anything tangible, and his buildings belong to cities that have life--and an individual life--in their streets. but where he is unapproachable, or at all events unapproached among pen-draughtsmen, is in drawing a great scheme of country from a height. if one could reproduce a drawing such as that of the country of le puy in mr. wickham flower's 'aquitaine,' or, better still, the etching of the same amazing country, one need say no more about mr. pennell's art in this kind. unluckily the page is too small. this strange and lovely landscape, where curving road and river and tree-bordered fields are dominated by two image-crowned rocks, built about with close-set houses, looks like a design from a dream fantasy worked out by a master of definite imagination. one knows it is not. mr. pennell is concerned to give facts in picturesque order, and here he has a theme that affects us poetically, however it may have affected mr. pennell. his eye measures a landscape that seems outside the measure of observation, and his ability to grasp and render the characteristics of actuality serves him as ever. it is an unforgettable drawing, though the skill displayed in the simplification and relation of facts is no greater than in other drawings by the artist. that power hardly ever fails him. the 'devils of notre dame' again stands out in memory, when one thinks generally of mr. pennell's drawings. and again, though it seems as if he were working above his usual pitch of conception, it is only that he is using his keenness of sight, his logical grasp of form and power of expression, on matter that is expressive of mental passion. the man who carved the devils, like those who crowned the rocks of le puy with the haloed figures, created facts. the outrageous passion that made these evil things made them in stone. you can measure them. they are matter-of-fact. mr. pennell has drawn them as they are, with so much trenchancy, such assertion of their hideous decorativeness, their isolation over modern paris, that no drawings could be better, and any others would be superfluous. it is impossible to enumerate all that mr. pennell has done and can do in black-and-white. he is a master of so many methods. from the sheer black ink and white paper of the 'devils,' to the light broken line that suggests moorish fantastic architecture under a hot sun in the 'alhambra' drawings, there is nothing he cannot do with a pen. nor is it only with a pen that he can do what he likes and what we must admire. he covers the whole field of black-and-white drawing. [illustration: the harbour, sorrento. by joseph pennell. from howell's "italian journeys." by leave of mr. heinemann.] after mr. pennell comes mr. herbert railton. no architectural drawings are more popular than his, and no style is better known or more generally 'adopted' by the illustrators of little guide-books or of magazine articles. an architect's training and knowledge of structure underlies the picturesque dilapidation prevalent in his version of anglo-gothic architecture. his first traceable book-illustrations belong to , though in 'the english illustrated,' in 'the portfolio,' and elsewhere, he had begun before then to formulate the style that has served him so admirably in later work with the pen. the illustrations to mr. loftie's 'westminster abbey' ( ) show his manner much as it is in his latest pen drawings. there is a lack of repose. one would like to undecorate some of the masonry, to reveal the austere lines under the prevalence of pattern. at the same time one realizes that here is the style needed in illustration of picturesquely written books about picturesque places, and that the stone tracery of westminster, or the old brick and tiles of the inns of court, are more interesting to many people in drawings such as these than in actuality. but rico's 'broken line' is responsible for much, and not every draughtsman who adopts it direct, or through a mixed tradition, has the architectural knowledge of mr. railton to support his deviations from stability. mr. railton is the artist of the cathedral guide; he has drawn westminster, st. paul's, winchester, gloucester, peterborough, and many more cathedrals, inside and out, within the last ten years. in illustrations to books where a thread of story runs through historical fact, books such as those written by miss manning concerning mary powell, and the household of sir thomas more, the artist has collaborated with mr. jellicoe, who has put figures in the streets and country lanes. there are so many names in the list of those who, in the beginning, profited by the initiative of mr. pennell or of mr. railton that generally they may be set aside. of artists who have made some position for themselves, there are enough to fill this chapter. mr. holland tringham and mr. hedley fitton were at one time unmistakable in their railtonism. mr. fitton has illustrated cathedral books, and in later drawings by mr. tringham exaggeration of his copy has given place to a more direct record of beautiful buildings. miss nelly erichsen and miss helen james[ ] are two artists whose work is much in request for illustrated series, such as dent's 'mediæval towns.' miss james' drawings to 'rambles in dickens' land' ( ) showed study of mr. railton, which is also observable in other books, such as 'the story of rouen.' at the same time, she carries out her work from individual observation, and gets an effect that belongs to study of the subject, whether from actuality or from photographs. miss james and miss erichsen have collaborated in certain books on italian towns, but architectural drawing is only part of miss erichsen's illustrative work, though an important part, as the illustrations to the recently-published 'florentine villas' of mrs. ross show. illustrating stories, she works with graceful distinctness, and many of the drawings in the 'story of rome'--though one remembers that rome is in mr. pennell's province--show what she can do. mr. c. g. harper and mr. c. r. b. barrett are the most prominent among those writers of travel-books who are also their own illustrators. they belong, though with all the difference of time and development, to the succession of mr. augustus hare. mr. hissey also has made many books out of his driving tours through england, and may be said to have first specialized the subject that mr. harper and mr. barrett have made their own. it is plain that the kind of book has nothing to do with the kind of art that is used in its making. mr. hare's famous 'walks' may be the prototypes of later books, but each man makes what he can out of an idea that has obvious possibilities in it. mr. harper has taken to the ancient high-roads of england, and has studied their historical and legendary, past, present, and imagined aspects. of these he has written; while his illustrations rank him rather among illustrators who write than among writers who illustrate. since he has published a dozen books and more. in 'royal winchester'--the first of these--he is illustrator only. 'the brighton road' of is the first of the road-books, and the illustrations of the road as it was and is, of town and of country, have colour and open air in their black-and-white. since then mr. harper has been from paddington to penzance, has followed dick turpin along the exeter road, and bygone fashion from london to bath, while accounts of the dover road from southwark bridge to dover castle, by way of dickens' country and hop-gardens, and of the great north road of which stevenson longed to write, are written and drawn with spirited observation. his drawing is not so picturesque as his writing. it has reticence and justness of expression that would not serve in relating tales of the road, but which, together with a sense of colour and of what is pictorial, combine to form an effective and frequently distinctive style of illustration. the drawing reproduced, chosen by the artist, is from mr. harper's recent book on the holyhead road. [illustration: dunchurch. by c. g. harper. from 'the holyhead road.' by his permission.] mr. barrett has described and illustrated the 'highways and byways and waterways' of various english counties, as well as published a volume on the battlefields of england, and studies of ancient buildings such as the tower of london. he is always well informed, and illustrates his subject fully from pen-and-ink drawings. mr. f. g. kitton also writes and illustrates, though he has written more than he has drawn. st. albans is his special town, and the old inns and quaint streets of the little red city with its long cathedral, are truthfully and dexterously given in his pen drawings and etchings. mr. alexander ansted, too, as a draughtsman of english cathedrals and of city churches, has made a steady reputation since , when his etchings and drawings of riviera scenery showed ambition to render tone, and as much as possible of colour and atmosphere, with pen and ink. since then he has simplified his style for general purposes, though in books such as 'london riverside churches' ( ), or 'the romance of our ancient churches' of two years later, many of the drawings are more elaborate than is common in modern illustration. the names of mr. c. e. mallows and of mr. raffles davison must be mentioned among architectural draughtsmen, though they are outside the scope of a study of book-illustration. some of mr. raffles davison's work has been reprinted from the 'british architect,' but i do not think either of them illustrates books. an extension of architectural art lies in the consideration of the garden in relation to the house it surrounds, and mr. reginald blomfield's 'formal garden' treats of the first principles of garden design as distinct from horticulture. the drawings by mr. inigo thomas, whether one considers them as illustrating principles or gardens, are worth looking at, as 'the yew walk' sufficiently shows. [illustration: the yew walk; melbourne derbyshire by f. inigo thomas. from blomfield's 'the formal garden.' by leave of messrs. macmillan.] the sobriety and decorum of mr. new's architectural and landscape drawings are the antithesis of the flagrantly picturesque. i do not know whether mr. gere or mr. new invented this order of landscape and house drawing, but mr. new is the chief exponent of it, and has placed it among popular styles of to-day. it has the effect of sincerity, and of respectful treatment of ancient buildings. mr. new does not lapse from the perpendicular, his hand does not tremble or break off when house-walls or the ridge of a roof are to be drawn. his is a convention that is frankly conventional, that confines nature within decorous bounds, and makes formality a function of art. but though a great deal of mr. new's work is mechanical and done to pattern, so that sometimes little perpendicular strokes to represent grass fill half the pictured space, while little horizontal strokes to represent brick-work, together with 'touches' that represent foliage, fill up the rest except for a corner left blank for the sky; yet, at his best, he achieves an effective and dignified way of treating landscape for the decoration of books. sensational skies that repeat one sensation to monotony, scattered blacks and emphasized trivialities, are set aside by those who follow mr. new. when they are trivial and undiscriminating, they are unaffectedly tedious, and that is almost pleasant after the hackneyed sparkle of the inferior picturesque. mr. new's reputation as a book-illustrator was first made in , when an edition of 'the compleat angler' with many drawings by him appeared. the homely architecture of essex villages and small towns, the low meadows and quiet streams, gave him opportunity for drawings that are pleasant on the page. two garden books, or strictly speaking, one--for 'in the garden of peace' was succeeded by 'outside the garden'--contain natural history drawings similar to those of fish in 'the compleat angler' and of birds in white's 'selborne.' the illustrations to 'oxford and its colleges,' and 'cambridge and its colleges,' are less representative of the best mr. new can do than books where village architecture, or the irregular house-frontage of country high-streets are his subject. illustrating shakespeare's country, 'sussex,' and 'the wessex of thomas hardy,' brought him into regions of the country-town; but the most important of his recent drawings are those in 'the natural history of selborne,' published in . the drawing of 'selborne street' is from that volume. [illustration: selborne street by e. h. new. from white's 'selborne.' by leave of mr. lane.] with mr. new, mr. r. j. williams and mr. h. p. clifford illustrated mr. aymer vallance's two books on william morris. their illustrations are fit records of the homes and working-places of the great man who approved their art. mr. frederick griggs, who since has illustrated three or four garden books, also follows the principles of mr. new, but with more variety in detail, less formality in tree-drawing and in the rendering of paths and roads and streams and sunshine, in short, with more of art outside the school, than mr. new permits himself. the open-air covers so much that i have little room to give to another aspect of open-air illustration--drawings of bird and animal-life. the work of mr. harrison weir, begun so many years ago, is chiefly in children's books; but mr. charles whymper, who has an old reputation among modern reputations, has illustrated the birds and beasts and fish of great britain in books well known to sportsmen and to natural historians, as also books of travel and sport in tropical and ice-bound lands. the work of mr. john guille millais is no less well known. no one else draws animals in action, whether british deer or african wild beast, from more intelligent and thorough observation, and of his art the graceful rendering of the play of deer in cawdor forest gives proof that does not need words. birds in flight, beasts in action--mr. millais is undisputably master of his subject. many drawings show the humour which is one of the charms of his work. [illustration: figure-of-eight ring in cawdor forest. by j. g. millais. from his 'british deer and their horns.' by leave of messrs. sotheran.] footnotes: [footnote : since this book was in type, i have learned with regret of the death of miss helen james.] iii. some character illustrators. so far, in writing of decorative illustrators and of open-air illustrators, the difference in scheme between a study of book-illustration and of 'black-and-white' art has not greatly affected the scale and order of facts. the intellectual idea of illustration, as a personal interpretation of the spirit of the text, finds expression, formally at least, in the drawings of most decorative black-and-white artists. the deliberate and inventive character of their art, the fact that such qualities are non-journalistic, and ineffective in the treatment of 'day by day' matters, keeps the interpretative ideal, brought into english illustration by rossetti, and the artists whose spirits he kindled, among working ideals for these illustrators. for that reason, with the exception of page-decorations such as those of mr. edgar wilson, the subject of decorative illustration is almost co-extensive with the subject of decorative black-and-white. the open-air illustrator represents another aspect of illustration. to interpret the spirit of the text would, frequently, allow his art no exercise. much of his text is itinerary. his subject is before his eyes in actuality, or in photographs, and not in some phrase of words, magical with suggested forms, creating by its gift of delight desire to celebrate its beauty. still, if the artist be independent of the intellectual and imaginative qualities of the book, his is no independent form of black and white. it is illustration; the author's subject is the subject of the artist. open-air facts, those that are beautiful and pleasurable, are too uneventful to make 'news illustration.' unless as background for some event, they have, for most people, no immediate interest. so it happens that open-air drawings are usually illustrations of text, text of a practical guide-book character, or of archæological interest, or of the gossiping, intimate kind that tells of possessions, of journeys and pleasurings, or, again, illustrations of the open-air classics in prose and verse. but in turning to the work of those draughtsmen whose subject is the presentment of character, of every man in his own humour, the illustration of literature is a part only of what is noteworthy. these artists have a subject that makes the opportunities of the book-illustrator seem formal; a subject, charming, poignant, splendid or atrocious, containing all the 'situations' of comedy, tragedy or farce; the only subject at once realized by everyone, yet whose opportunities none has ever comprehended. the writings of novelists and dramatists--life narrowed to the perception of an individual--are limitary notions of the matter, compared with the illimitable variety of character and incident to be found in the world that changes from day to day. and 'real' life, purged of monotony by the wit, discrimination or extravagance of the artist, or--on a lower plane--by the combination only of approved comical or sentimental or melodramatic elements, is the most popular and marketable of all subjects. the completeness of a work of art is to some a refuge from the incompleteness of actuality; to others this completeness is more incomplete than any incident of their own experience. the first bent of mind--supposing an artist who illustrates to 'express himself'--makes an illustrator of a draughtsman, the second makes literature seem no more than _la reste_ to the artist as an opportunity for pictorial characterization. character illustration is then a subject within a subject, and if it be impossible to consider it without overseeing the limitations, yet a different point of view gives a different order of impressions. caricaturists, political cartoonists, news-illustrators and graphic humorists, the artists who pictorialize society, the stage, the slums or some other kind of life interesting to the spectator, are outside the scheme of this article--unless they be illustrators also. for instance, the illustrations of sir harry furniss are only part of his lively activities, and mr. bernard partridge is the illustrator of mr. austin dobson's eighteenth-century muse as well as the 'j. b. p.' of 'socials' in 'punch.' an illustrator of many books, and one whose illustrations have unusual importance, both as interpretations of literature and for their artistic force, mr. william strang is yet so incongruous with contemporary black-and-white artists of to-day that he must be considered first and separately. for the traditions of art and of race that find a focus in the illustrative etchings of this artist, the creative traditions, and instinctive modes of thought that are represented in the forms and formation of his art, are forces of intellect and passion and insight not previously, nor now, by more than the one artist, associated with the practice of illustration. to consider his work in connection with modern illustration is to speak of contrasts. it represents nothing that the gift-book picture represents, either in technical dexterities, founded on the requirements of process reproduction, or in its decorative ideals, or as expressive of the pleasures of literature. one phase of mr. strang's illustrative art is, indeed, distinct from the mass of his work, with which the etched illustrations are congruous, and the line-drawings to three masterpieces of imaginary adventure--to lucian, to baron munchausen and to sindbad--show, perhaps, some infusion of aubrey beardsley's spirit of fantasy into the convictions of which mr. strang's art is compounded. but these drawings represent an excursion from the serious purpose of the artist's work. the element in literature expressed by that epithet 'weird'--exiled from power to common service--is lacking in the extravagances of these _voyages imaginaires_, and, lacking the shadows cast by the unspeakable, the intellectual _chiaroscuro_ of mr. strang's imagination, loses its force. these travellers are too glib for the artist, though his comprehension of the grotesque and extravagant, and his humour, make the drawings expressive of the text, if not of the complete personality of the draughtsman. the 'types, shadows and metaphors' of 'the pilgrim's progress,' with its poignancies of mental experience and conflict, its transcendent passages, its theological and naïve moods, gave the artist an opportunity for more realized imagination. the etchings in this volume, published in , represent little of the allegorical actualities of the text. not the encounters by the way, the clash of blows, the 'romancing,' but the 'man cloathed with rags and a great burden on his back,' or christiana his wife, when 'her thoughts began to work in her mind,' are the realities to the artist. the pilgrims are real and credible, poor folk to the outward sight, worn with toil, limited, abused in the circumstances of their lives; and these peasant figures are to mr. strang, as to his master in etching, professor legros, symbols of endurance, significant protagonists in the drama of man's will and the forces that strive to subdue its strength. to both artists the peasant confronting death is the climax of the drama. in the etchings of professor legros death fells the woodman, death meets the wayfarer on the high-road. there is no outfacing the menace of death. but to mr. strang, the sublimity of bunyan's 'poor man,' who overcomes all influences of mortality by the strength of his faith, is a possible fact. his ballad illustrations deal finely with various aspects of the theme. in 'the earth fiend,' a ballad written and illustrated with etchings by mr. strang in , the peasant subdues and compels to his service the spirit of destruction. he maintains his projects of cultivation, conquers the adverse wildness of nature, makes its force productive of prosperity and order; then, on a midday of harvest, sleeps, and the 'earth fiend,' finding his tyrant defenceless, steals on him and kills him as he lies. 'death and the ploughman's wife' ( ) has a braver ending. it interprets in an impressive series of etchings how 'death that conquers a'' is vanquished by the mother whose child he has snatched from its play. the title-page etching shows a little naked child kicking a skull into the air, while the peasant-mother, patient, vigilant, keeps watch near by. in 'the christ upon the hill' of the succeeding year, a ballad by cosmo monkhouse with etchings by mr. strang, the artist follows, of course, the conception of the writer; but here, too, his work is expressive of the visionary faith that discerns death as one of those 'base things' that 'usher in things divine.' [illustration: from william strang's ballad, 'death and the ploughman's wife' (reduced from the original etching). by leave of mr. a. h. bullen.] the twelve etchings to 'paradise lost' ( ) do not, as i think, represent mr. strang's imagination at its finest. it is in the representation of rude forms of life, subjected to the immeasurable influences of passion, love, sorrow, that the images of mr. strang's art, at once vague and of intense reality, primitive and complex, have most force. adam and eve driven from paradise by the angel with the flaming sword, are not directly created by the artist. they recall masaccio, and are undone by the recollection. eve, uprising in the darkness of the garden where adam sleeps, the speech of the serpent with the woman, the gathering of the fruit, are traditionary in their pictorial forms, and the tradition is too great, it imposes itself between the version of mr. strang and our admiration. but in the thirty etchings illustrative of mr. kipling's works, as in the ballad etchings, the imagination of the artist is unfettered by tradition. the stories he pictures deal, for all their cleverness and definition, with themes that, translated out of mr. kipling's words into the large imagination of mr. strang, have powerful purpose. as usual, the artist makes his picture not of matter-of-fact--and the etching called 'a matter of fact' is specially remote from any such matter--but of more purposeful, more overpowering realities than any particular instance of life would show. he attempts to realize the value, not of an instance of emotion or of endeavour, but of the quality itself. he sets his mind, for example, to realize the force of western militarism in the east, or the attitude of the impulses of life towards contemplation, and his soldiers, his 'purun bhagat,' express his observations or imaginations of these themes. certainly 'a country's love' never went out to this kind of tommy atkins, and the india of mr. strang is not the india that holds the gadsbys, or of which plain tales can be told. but he has imagined a country that binds the contrasts of life together in active operation on each other, and in thirty instances of these schemed-out realities, or of dramatic events resulting from the clash of racial and national and chronological characteristics, he has achieved perhaps his most complete expression of insight into essentials. mr. strang's etchings in the recently published edition of 'the compleat angler,' illustrated by him and by mr. d. y. cameron, are less successful. the charm of his subject seems not to have entered into his imagination, whereas forms of art seem to have oppressed him. the result is oppressive, and that is fatal to the value of his etchings as illustrations of the book that 'it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read.' intensity and large statement of dark and light; fine dramatizations of line; an unremitting conflict with the superfluous and inexpressive in form and in thought; an art based on the realities of life, and without finalities of expression, inelegant, as though grace were an affectation, an insincerity in dealing with matters of moment: these are qualities that detach the illustrations of mr. strang from the generality of illustrations. save that mr. robert bryden, in his 'woodcuts of men of letters' and in the portrait illustrations to 'poets of the younger generation,' shows traces of studying the portrait-frontispieces of mr. strang, there is no relation between his art and the traditions it represents and any other book-illustrations of to-day. turning now to illustrators who are representative of the tendencies and characteristics of modern book-illustration, and so are less conspicuous in a general view of the subject than mr. strang, there is little question with whom to begin. mr. abbey represents at their best the qualities that belong to gift-book illustration. it would, perhaps, be more correct to say that gift-book illustration represents the qualities of mr. abbey's black and white with more or less fidelity, so effective is the example of his technique on the forms of picturesque character-illustration. it is nearly a quarter of a century since the artist, then a young man fresh from harper's drawing-office in new york, came to england. that first visit, spent in studying the reality of english pastoral life in preparation for his 'herrick' illustrations, lasted for two years, and after a few months' interval in the states he returned to england. resident here for nearly all the years of his work, a member of the royal academy, his art expressive of traditions of english literature and of the english country to which he came as to the actuality of his imaginings, one may include mr. abbey among english book-illustrators with more than a show of reason. in , when the 'selections from the poetry of robert herrick' was published, few of the men whose work is considered in this chapter had been heard of. chronologically, mr. abbey is first of contemporary character-illustrators, and nowhere but first would he be in his proper place, for there is no one to put beside him in his special fashion of art, and in the effect of his illustrative work on his contemporaries. there is inevitable ease and elegance in the pen-drawings of mr. abbey, and for that reason it is easy to underestimate their intellectual quality. he is inventive. the spirit of herrick's muse, or of 'she stoops to conquer,' or of the comedies of shakespeare, is not a quality for which he accepts any formula. he finds shapes for his fancies, rejecting as alien to his purpose all that is not the clear result of his own understanding of the poet. accordingly there is, in all his work, the expression of an intellectual conception. he sees, too, with patience. if he isolates a figure, one feels that figure has stepped forward into a clear place of his imagination as he followed its way through the crowd. if he sets a pageant on the page, or some piece of turbulent action, or moment of decision, the actors have their individual value. he thinks his way through processes of gradual realization to the final picture of the characters in the play or poem. one writes now with special reference to the illustrations of the comedies of shakespeare--so far, the illustrative work most exigent to the intellectual powers of the artist. herrick's verse, full of sweet sounds and suggestive of happy sights, 'she stoops to conquer,' where all the mistakes are but for a night, to be laughed over in the morning, the lilt and measure of 'old songs,' and of the charming verses in 'the quiet life,' called for sensitive appreciation of moods, lyrical, whimsical, humorous, idyllic, but--intellectually--for no more than this. as to mr. abbey's technique, curious as he is in the uses of antiquity as part of the pleasure of a fresh realization, clothing his characters in textiles of the great weaving times, or of a dainty simplicity, a student of architecture and of landscape, of household fittings, of armoury, of every beautiful accessory to the business of living, his clever pen rarely fails to render within the convention of black and white the added point of interest and of charm that these things bring into actuality. truth of texture, of atmosphere, and of tone, an alertness of vision most daintily expressed--these qualities belong to all mr. abbey's work, and in the shakespearean drawings he shows with greater force than ever his 'stage-managing' power, and the correctness and beauty of his 'mounting.' the drawings are dramatic: the women have beauty and individuality, while the men match them, or contrast with them as in the plays; the rogues are vagabonds in spirit, and the wise men have weight; the world of shakespeare has been entered by the artist. but there are gestures in the text, moments of glad grace, of passion, of sudden amazement before the realities of personal experience, that make these active, dignified figures of mr. abbey 'merely players,' his isabella in the extremity of the scene with claudio no more than an image of cloistered virtue, his hermione incapable of her undaunted eloquence and silence, his perdita and miranda and rosalind less than themselves. as illustrations, the drawings of mr. abbey represent traditions brought into english illustrative art by the pre-raphaelites, and developed by the freer school of the sixties. but, as drawings, they represent ideas not effective before in the practice of english pen-draughtsmen; ideas derived from the study of the black and white of spain, of france, and of munich, by american art students in days when english illustrators were not given to look abroad. technically he has suggested many things, especially to costume illustrators, and many names might follow his in representation of the place he fills in relation to contemporary art. but to work out the effect of a man's technique on those who are gaining power of expression is to labour in vain. it adds nothing to the intrinsic value of an artist's work, nor does it represent the true relationship between him and those whom he has influenced. for if they are mere imitators they have no relation with any form of art, while to insist upon derived qualities in work that has the superscription of individuality is no true way of apprehension. what a man owes to himself is the substantial fact, the fact that relates him to other men. the value of his work, its existence, is in the little more, or the much more, that himself adds to the sum of his directed industries, his guided achievements. and to estimate that, to attempt to express something of it, must be the chief aim of a study, not of one artist and his 'times,' but of many artists practising a popular art. so that if, in consideration of their 'starting-point,' one may group most character-illustrators, especially of wig-and-powder subjects, as adherents either of mr. abbey and the 'american school,' or of mr. hugh thomson and the caldecott-greenaway tradition, such grouping is also no more than a starting-point, and everything concerning the achievements of the individual artist has still to be said. considering the intention of their technique, one may permissibly group the names of mr. fred pegram, mr. f. h. townsend, mr. shepperson, mr. sydney paget, and mr. stephen reid as representing in different degrees the effect of american black and white on english technique, though, in the case of mr. paget, one alludes only to pen-drawings such as those in 'old mortality,' and not to his sherlock holmes and martin hewitt performances. the art of mr. pegram and of mr. townsend is akin. mr. pegram has, perhaps, more sense of beauty, and his work suggests a more complete vision of his subject than is realized in the drawings of mr. townsend, while mr. townsend is at times more successful with the activities of the story; but the differences between them seem hardly more than the work of one hand would show. they really collaborate in illustration, though, except in cassell's survey of 'living london,' they have never, i think, made drawings for the same book. mr. pegram served the usual apprenticeship to book-illustration. he was a news-illustrator before he turned to the illustration of literature; but he is an artist to whom the reality acquired by a subject after study of it is more attractive than the reality of actual impressions. neither sensational nor society events appeal to him. the necessity to compose some sort of an impression from the bare facts of a fact, without time to make the best of it, was not an inspiring necessity. that mr. pegram is a book-illustrator by the inclination of his art as well as by profession, the illustrations to 'sybil,' published in , prove. in these drawings he showed himself not only observant of facial expression and of gesture, but also able to interpret the glances and gestures of disraeli's society. from the completeness of the draughtsman's realization of his subject, illustrable situations develop themselves with credibility, and his graceful women and thoughtful men represent the events of the novel with distinction. with 'sybil' may be mentioned the illustrations to 'ormond,' wherein, five years later, the same understanding of the ways and activities of a bygone, yet not remote society, found equally satisfactory expression, while the technique of the artist had gained in completeness. in 'the last of the barons' ( ), mr. pegram had a picturesque subject with much strange humanity in it, despite lord lytton's conventional travesty of events and character. the names of richard and warwick, of hastings and margaret of anjou, are names that break through conventional romance, but the illustrator has to keep up the fiction of the author, and, except that the sham-mediævalism of the novel did not prevent a right study of costumes and accessories in the pictures, the artist had to be content to 'bulwerize.' illustrations to 'the arabian nights' gave him opportunity for rendering textures and atmosphere, and movements charming or grave, and the 'bride of lammermoor' drawings show a sweet-faced lucy ashton, and a ravenswood who is more than melancholy and picturesque. mr. pegram's drawings are justly dramatic within the limits prescribed by a somewhat composed ideal of bearing. a catastrophe is outside these limits, and the discovery of lucy after the bridal lacks real illustration in the artist's version, skilful, nevertheless, as are all his drawings, and expressed without hesitation. averse to caricature, and keeping within ideas of life that allow of unbroken expression, the novels of marryat, where action so bustling that only caricatures of humanity can endure its exigencies, and sentimental episodes of flagrant insincerity, swamp the character-drawing, are hardly suited to the art of mr. pegram. still, he selects, and his selection is true to the time and circumstance of marryat's work. in itself it is always an expression of a coherent and definite conception of the story. [illustration: from mr. pegram's 'the bride of lammermoor.' by leave of messrs. nisbet.] mr. townsend has illustrated hawthorne and peacock, as well as charlotte brontë and scott. hawthorne's men and women--embodiments always of some essential quality, rather than of the combination of qualities that make 'character'--lend themselves to fine illustration as regards gesture, and mr. townsend's drawings represent, not insensitively, the movement and suggestion of 'the blithedale romance' and 'the house of the seven gables.' in the peacock illustrations the artist had to keep pace with an essentially un-english humour, an imagination full of shapes that are opinions and theories and sarcasms masquerading under fantastic human semblances. mr. townsend kept to humanity, and found occasions for representing the eccentrics engaged in cheerful open-air and society pursuits in the pauses of paradoxical discussion. one realizes in the drawings the pleasant aspect of life at gryll grange and at crotchet castle, the courtesies and amusements out of doors and within, while the subjects of 'maid marian,' of 'the misfortunes of elphin' and of 'rhododaphne' declare themselves in excellent terms of romance and adventure. mr. townsend has humour, and he is in sympathy with the vigorous spirit in life; whether the vigour is intellectual as in jane eyre and in shirley keeldar, or muscular as in 'rob roy,' in drawings to a manual of fencing, and in marryat's 'the king's own,' or eccentric as in the fantasies of peacock. his work is never languid and never formal; and if in technique he is sometimes experimental, and frequently content with ineffectual accessories to his figures, his conception of the situation, and of the characters that fulfil the situation, is direct and effective enough. [illustration: from mr. townsend's 'shirley.' by leave of messrs. nisbet.] as an illustrator of current fiction, mr. townsend has also a considerable amount of dexterous work to his name, but a record of drawings contributed to the illustrated journals cannot even be attempted within present limits of space. mr. shepperson in his book-illustrations generally represents affairs with picturesqueness, and with a nervous energy that takes the least mechanical way of expressing forms and substances. illustrating the modern novel of adventure, he is happy in his intrigues and conspiracies, while in books of more weight, such as 'the heart of midlothian' or 'lavengro,' he expresses graver issues of life with un-elaborate and suggestive effect. the energy of his line, the dramatic quality of his imagination, render him in his element as an illustrator of events, but the vigour that projects itself into subjects such as the murder of sir george staunton, or the fight with the flaming tinman, or the alarms and stratagems of mr. stanley weyman, informs also his representation of moments when there is no action. technically mr. shepperson represents very little that is traditional in english black and white, though the tradition seems likely to be there for future generations of english illustrators. [illustration: "ye are ill, effie," were the first words jeanie could utter; "ye are very ill." from mr. shepperson's 'the heart of midlothian.' by leave of the gresham publishing company.] in a recent work, illustrations to leigh hunt's 'old court suburb,' mr. shepperson collaborates with mr. e. j. sullivan and mr. herbert railton, to realize the associations, literary, historical and gossiping, that have kensington palace and holland house as their principal centres. on the whole, of the three artists, the subject seems least suggestive to mr. shepperson. mr. sullivan contributes many portraits, and some subject drawings that show him in his lightest and most dexterous vein. these drawings of _beaux_ and _belles_ are as distinct in their happy flattery of fact from the rigid assertion of the artist's 'fair women,' as they are from the undelightful reporting style that in the beginning injured mr. sullivan's illustrations. one may describe it as the 'daily graphic' style, though that is to recognize only the basis of convenience on which the training of the 'daily graphic' school was necessarily founded. mr. sullivan's early work, the news-illustration and illustrations to current fiction of mr. reginald cleaver and of his brother mr. ralph cleaver, the black and white of mr. a. s. boyd and of mr. crowther, show this journalistic training, and show, too, that such a training in reporting facts directly is no hindrance to the later achievement of an individual way of art. mr. a. s. hartrick must also be mentioned as an artist whose distinctive black and white developed from the basis of pictorial reporting, and how distinctive and well-observed that art is, readers of the 'pall mall magazine' know. as a book-illustrator, however, his landscape drawings to borrow's 'wild wales' represent another art than that of the character-illustrator. nor can one pass over the drawings of mr. maurice greiffenhagen, also a contributor to the 'pall mall magazine,' if better known in illustrations to fiction in 'the ladies' pictorial,' though in an article on book-illustration he has nothing like his right place. as an admirable and original technician and draughtsman of society, swift in sight, excellent in expression, he ranks high among black-and-white artists, while as a painter, his reputation, if based on different qualities, is not doubtful. [illustration: from mr. e. j. sullivan's 'school for scandal.' by leave of messrs. macmillan.] mr. sullivan's drawings to 'tom brown's schooldays' ( ) are mechanical and mostly without charm of handling, having an appearance of timidity that is inexplicable when one thinks of the vigorous news-drawings that preceded them. the wiry line of the drawings appears in the 'compleat angler,' and in other books, including 'the rivals' and 'the school for scandal,' 'lavengro' and 'newton forster,' illustrated by the artist in ' and ' ; but the decorative purpose of mr. sullivan's later work is, in all these books, effective in modifying its perversity. increasing elaboration of manner within the limits of that purpose marks the transition between the starved reality of 'tom brown' and the illustrations to 'sartor resartus' ( ). these emphatic decorations, and those illustrative of tennyson's 'dream of fair women and other poems,' published two years later, are the drawings most representative of mr. sullivan's intellectual ideals. they show him, if somewhat indifferent to charm, and capable of out-facing beauty suggested in the words with statements of the extreme definiteness of his own fact-conception, yet strongly appreciative of the substance and purpose of the text. carlyle gives him brave opportunities, and the dogmatism of the artist's line and form, his speculative humour, working down to a definite certainty in things, make these drawings unusually interesting. tennyson's 'dream,' and his poems to women's names, are not so fit for the exercise of mr. sullivan's talent. he imposes himself with too much force on the forms that the poet suggests. there is no delicacy about the drawings and no mystery. they do not accord with the inspiration of tennyson, an inspiration that substitutes the exquisite realities of memory and of dream for the realities of experience. mr. sullivan's share of the illustrations to white's 'selborne' and to the 'garden calendar,' are technically more akin to the carlyle and tennyson drawings than to other examples by him. in these volumes he makes fortunate use of the basis of exactitude on which his work is founded, exactitude that includes portraiture among the functions of the illustrator. no portrait is extant of gilbert white, but the presentment of him is undertaken in a constructive spirit, and, as in 'the compleat angler' and 'the old court suburb,' portraits of those whose names and personalities are connected with the books are redrawn by mr. sullivan. except mr. abbey, no character-illustrator of the modern school has so long a record of work, and so visible an influence on english contemporary illustration, as mr. hugh thomson. in popularity he is foremost. the slight and apparently playful fashion of his art, deriving its intention from the irresistible gaieties of caldecott, is a fashion to please both those who like pretty things and those who can appreciate the more serious qualities that are beneath. for mr. thomson is a student of literature. he pauses on his subject, and though his invention has always responded to the suggestions of the text, the lightness of his later work is the outcome of a selecting judgment that has learned what to omit by studying the details and facts of things. in rendering facial expression mr. thomson is perhaps too much the follower of caldecott, but he goes much farther than his original master in realization of the forms and manners of bygone times. some fashions of life, as they pass from use, are laid by in lavender. the fashions of the eighteenth century have been so laid by, and mr. abbey and mr. thomson are alike successful in giving a version of fact that has the farther charm of lavender-scented antiquity. when 'days with sir roger de coverley,' illustrated by hugh thomson, was published in , the young artist was already known by his drawings in the 'english illustrated,' and recognized as a serious student of history and literature, and a delightful illustrator of the times he studied. his powers of realizing character, time, and place, were shown in this earliest work. sir roger is a dignified figure; mr. spectator, in the guise of steele, has a semblance of observation; and if will wimble lacks his own unique quality, he is represented as properly engaged about his 'gentleman-like manufactures and obliging little humours.' mr. thomson can draw animals, if not with the possessive understanding of caldecott, yet with truth to the kind, knowledge of movement. the country-side around sir roger's house--as, in a later book, that where the vicarage of wakefield stands--is often delightfully drawn, while the leisurely and courteous spirit of the essays is represented, with an appreciation of its beauty. 'coaching days and coaching ways' ( ) is a picturesque book, where types and bustling action picturesquely treated were the subjects of the artist. the peopling of high-road and county studies with lively figures is one of mr. thomson's successful achievements, as he has shown in drawings of the cavalier exploits of west-country history, illustrative of 'highways and byways of devon and cornwall,' and in episodes of romance and warfare and humour in similar volumes on donegal, north wales, and yorkshire. here the presentment of types and action, rather than of character, is the aim, but in the drawings to 'cranford' ( ), to 'our village,' and to jane austen's novels, behaviour rather than action, the gentilities and proprieties of life and millinery, have to be expressed as a part of the artistic sense of the books. that is, perhaps, why jane austen is so difficult to illustrate. the illustrator must be neither formal nor picturesque. he must understand the 'parlour' as a setting for delicate human comedy. mr. thomson is better in 'cranford,' where he has the village as the background for the two old ladies, or in 'our village,' where the graceful pleasures of miss mitford's prose have suggested delightful figures to the illustrator's fancy, than in illustrating miss austen, whose disregard of local colouring robs the artist of background material such as interests him. three books of verses by mr. austin dobson, 'the ballad of beau brocade' ( ), 'the story of rosina,' and 'coridon's song' of the following years, together with the illustrations to 'peg woffington,' show, in combination, the picturesque and the intellectual interests that mr. thomson finds in life. the eight pieces that form the first of these volumes were, indeed, chosen to be reprinted because of their congruity in time and sentiment with mr. thomson's art. and certainly he works in accord with the measure of mr. austin dobson's verses. both author and artist carry their eighteenth-century learning in as easy a way as though experience of life had given it them without any labour in libraries. [illustration: from mr. hugh thomson's 'ballad of beau brocade.' by leave of messrs. kegan paul.] mr. c. e. brock and mr. h. m. brock are two artists who to some extent may be considered as followers of mr. thomson's methods, though mr. c. e. brock's work in 'punch,' and humorous characterizations by mr. h. m. brock in 'living london,' show how distinct from the elegant fancy of mr. thomson's art are the latest developments of their artistic individuality. mr. c. e. brock's illustrations to hood's 'humorous poems' ( ) proved his indebtedness to mr. thomson, and his ability to carry out caldecott-thomson ideas with spirit and with invention. an active sense of fun, and facility in arranging and expressing his subject, made him an addition to the school he represented, and, as in later work, his own qualities and the qualities he has adopted combined to produce spirited and graceful art. but in work preceding the pen-drawing of , and in many books illustrated since then, mr. brock at times has shown himself an illustrator to whom matter rather than a particular charm of manner seems of paramount interest. in the illustrated gulliver of there is little trace of the daintiness and sprightliness of caldecott's illustrative art. he gives many particulars, and is never at a loss for forms and details, representing with equal matter-of-factness the crowds, cities and fleets of lilliput, the large details of brobdingnagian existence, and the ceremonies and spectacles of laputa. in books of more actual adventure, such as 'robinson crusoe' or 'westward ho,' or of quiet particularity, such as galt's 'annals of the parish,' the same directness and unmannered expression are used, a directness which has more of the journalistic than of the playful-inventive quality. the jane austen drawings, those to 'the vicar of wakefield,' and to a recent edition of the 'essays of elia,' show the graceful eighteenth-centuryist, while, whether he reports or adorns, whether action or behaviour, adventure or sentiment, is his theme, mr. brock is always an illustrator who realizes opportunities in the text, and works from a ready and observant intelligence. [illustration: from mr. c. e. brock's 'the essays of elia.' by leave of messrs. dent.] mr. henry m. brock is also an effective illustrator, and his work increases in individuality and in freedom of arrangement. 'jacob faithful' ( ) was followed by 'handy andy' and thackeray's 'songs and ballads' in . less influenced by mr. thomson than his brother, the lively thackeray drawings, with their versatility and easy invention, have nevertheless much in common with the work of mr. charles brock. on the whole, time has developed the differences rather than the similarities in the work of these artists. in the 'waverley' drawings and in those of 'the pilgrim's progress,' mr. h. m. brock represents action in a more picturesque mood than mr. charles brock usually maintains, emphasizing with more dramatic effect the action and necessity for action. the illustrations of mr. william c. cooke, especially those to 'popular british ballads' ( ), and, with less value, those to 'john halifax, gentleman,' may be mentioned in relation to the caldecott tradition, though it is rather of the art of kate greenaway that one is reminded in these tinted illustrations. mr. cooke's wash-drawings to jane austen's novels, to 'evelina' and 'the man of feeling,' as well as the pen-drawings to 'british ballads,' have more force, and represent with some distinction the stir of ballad romance, the finely arranged situations of miss austen, and the sentiments of life, as evelina and harley understood it. in a study of english black-and-white art, not limited to book-illustration, 'punch' is an almost inevitable and invaluable centre for facts. few draughtsmen of notability are outside the scheme of art connected with 'punch,' and in this connection artists differing as widely as sir john tenniel and mr. phil may, or mr. linley sambourne and mr. raven hill, form a coherent group. but, in this volume, 'punch' itself is outside the limits of subject, and, with the exception of mr. bernard partridge in the present, and sir harry furniss in the past, the wits of the pencil who gather round the 'mahogany tree' are not among character-illustrators of literature. mr. partridge has drawn for 'punch' since , and has been on the staff for nearly all that time. his drawings of theatrical types in mr. jerome's 'stage-land' ( )--which, according to some critics, made, by deduction, the author's reputation as a humorist--and to a first series of mr. anstey's 'voces populi,' as well as work in many of the illustrated papers, were a substantial reason for 'punch's' invitation to the artist. from the 'bishop and shoeblack' cut of , to the 'socials' and cartoons of to-day, mr. partridge's drawings, together with those of mr. phil may and of mr. raven hill, have brilliantly maintained the reputation of 'punch' as an exponent of the forms and humours of modern life. his actual and intimate knowledge of the stage, and his actor's observation of significant attitudes and expressions, vivify his interpretation of the middle-class, and of bank-holiday makers, of the 'artiste,' and of such a special type as the 'baboo jabberjee' of mr. anstey's fluent conception. if his 'socials' have not the prestige of mr. du maurier's art, if his women lack charm and his children delightfulness, he is, in shrewdness and range of observation, a pictorial humorist of unusual ability. as a book-illustrator, his most 'literary' work is in the pages of mr. austin dobson's 'proverbs in porcelain.' studied from the model, the draughtsmanship as able and searching as though these figures were sketches for an 'important' work, there is in every drawing the completeness and fortunate effect of imagination. the ease of an actual society is in the pose and grouping of the costumed figures, while, in the representation of their graces and gallantries, the artist realizes _ce superflu si nécessaire_ that distinguishes dramatic action from the observed action of the model. problems of atmosphere, of tone, of textures, as well as the presentment of life in character, action, and attitude, occupy mr. partridge's consideration. he, like mr. abbey, has the colourist's vision, and though the charm of people, of circumstance, of accessories and of association is often less his interest than characteristic facts, in non-conventional technique, in style that is as un-selfconscious as it is individual, mr. abbey and mr. partridge have many points in common. sir harry furniss, alone of caricaturists, has, in the many-sided activity of his career, applied his powers of characterization to characters of fiction, though he has illustrated more nonsense-books and wonder-books than books of serious narrative. sir john tenniel and mr. linley sambourne among cartoonists, sir harry furniss, mr. e. t. reed, and mr. carruthers gould among caricaturists, mark the strong connection between politics and political individualities, and the irresponsible developments and creatures of nonsense-adventures, as a theme for art. to summarize sir harry furniss' career would be to give little space to his work as a character-illustrator, but his character-illustration is so representative of the other directions of his skill, that it merits consideration in the case of a draughtsman as effective and ubiquitous in popular art as is 'lika joko.' the pen-drawings to mr. james payn's 'talk of the town,' illustrated by sir harry furniss in , have, in restrained measure, the qualities of flexibility, of imagination so lively as to be contortionistic, of emphasis and pugnacity of expression, of pantomimic fun and drama, that had been signalized in his parliamentary antics in 'punch' for the preceding five years. his connection with 'punch' lasted from to , and the 'parliamentary views,' two series of 'm.p.s in session,' and the 'salisbury parliament,' represent experience gained as the illustrator of 'toby m.p.' his high spirits and energy of sight also found scope in caricaturing academic art, 'pictures at play' ( ), being followed by 'academy antics' of no less satirical and brilliant purpose. as caricaturist, illustrator, lecturer, journalist, traveller, the style and idiosyncrasies of sir harry furniss are so public and familiar, and so impossible to emphasize, that a brief mention of his insatiable energies is perhaps as adequate as would be a more detailed account. [illustration: from sir harry furniss' 'the talk of the town.' by leave of messrs. smith, elder.] other book-illustrators whose connection with 'punch' is a fact in the record of their work are mr. a. s. boyd and mr. arthur hopkins. mr. jalland, too, in drawings to whyte-melville used his sporting knowledge on a congenial subject. mr. a. s. boyd's 'daily graphic' sketches prepared the way for 'canny' drawings of scottish types in stevenson's 'lowden sabbath morn,' in 'days of auld lang syne,' and in 'horace in homespun,' and for other observant illustrations to books of pleasant experiences written by mrs. boyd. mr. arthur hopkins, and his brother mr. everard hopkins, are careful draughtsmen of some distinction. without much spontaneity or charm of manner, the pretty girls of mr. arthur hopkins, and his well-mannered men, fill a place in the pages of 'punch,' while illustrations to james payn's 'by proxy,' as far back as , show that the unelaborate style of his recent work is founded on past practice that has the earlier and truer du maurier technique as its standard of thoroughness. mr. e. j. wheeler, a regular contributor to 'punch' since , has illustrated editions of sterne and of 'masterman ready,' other books also containing characteristic examples of his rather precise, but not uninteresting, work. save by stringing names of artists together on the thread of their connection with some one of the illustrated papers or magazines, it would be impossible to include in this chapter mention of the enormous amount of capable black-and-white art produced in illustration of 'serial' fiction. such name-stringing, on the connection--say--of 'the illustrated london news,' 'the graphic,' or 'the pall mall magazine,' would fill a page or two, and represent nothing of the quality of the work, the attainment of the artist. neither is it practicable to summarize the illustration of current fiction. one can only attempt to give some account of illustrated literature, except where the current illustrations of an artist come into the subject 'by the way.' mr. frank brangwyn may be isolated from the group of notable painters, including mr. jacomb hood, mr. seymour lucas and mr. r. w. macbeth, who illustrate for 'the graphic,' by reason of his illustrations to classics of fiction such as 'don quixote' and 'the arabian nights,' as well as to michael scott's two famous sea-stories. to some extent his illustrations are representative of the large-phrased construction of mr. brangwyn's painting, especially in the drawings of the opulent orientalism of 'the arabian nights,' with its thousand and one opportunities for vivid art. mr. brangwyn's east is not the vague east of the stay-at-home artist, nor of the conventional traveller; his imagination works on facts of memory, and both memory and imagination have strong colour and concentration in a mind bent towards adventure. one should not, however, narrow the scope of mr. brangwyn's art within the limits of his work in black and white, and what is no more than an aside in the expression of his individuality, cannot, with justice to the artist, be considered by itself. other 'graphic' illustrators--mr. frank dadd, mr. john charlton, mr. william small, and mr. h. m. paget, to name a few only--represent the various qualities of their art in black-and-white drawings of events and of fiction, and the 'illustrated,' with artists including mr. caton woodville, mr. seppings wright, mr. s. begg, m. amedée forestier and mr. ralph cleaver, fills a place in current art to which few of the more recently established journals can pretend. mr. frank dadd and mr. h. m. paget made drawings for the 'dryburgh' edition of the waverleys. in this edition, too, is the work of well-known artists such as mr. william hole, whose scott and stevenson illustrations show his inbred understanding of northern romance, and together with the character etchings to barrie, shrewd and valuable, represent with some justice the vigour of his art; of mr. walter paget, an excellent illustrator of 'robinson crusoe,' and of many boys' books and books of adventure, of mr. lockhart bogle, and of mr. gordon browne. in the same edition mr. paul hardy, mr. john williamson and mr. overend, showed the more serious purpose of black and white that has earned the appreciation of a public critical of any failure in vigour and in realization--the public that follows the tremendous activity of mr. henty's pen, and for whom dr. gordon stables, mr. manville fenn and mr. sydney pickering write. of m. amedée forestier, whose illustrations are as popular with readers of the 'illustrated' and with the larger public of novel-readers as they are with students of technique, one cannot justly speak as an english illustrator. he, and mr. robert sauber, contributed to ward lock's edition of scott illustrated by french artists. their work, m. forestier's so admirable in realization of episode and romance, mr. sauber's, vivacious up to the pitch of 'the impudent comedian'--as his illustrations to mr. frankfort moore's version of nell gwynn's fascinations showed--needs no introduction to an english public. the black and white of mr. sauber and of mr. dudley hardy--when mr. hardy is in the vein that culminated in his theatrical posters--has many imitators, but it is not a style that is likely to influence illustrators of literature. mr. hal hurst shows something of it, though he, and in greater measure mr. max cowper, also suggest the unforgettable technique of charles dana gibson. iv. some children's-books illustrators. leigh hunt is one of many authors gratefully to praise the best-praised publisher of any day, mr. newbery, who, at "the bible and sun" in st. paul's churchyard, dispensed to long-ago children 'goody two shoes,' 'beauty and the beast,' and other less famous little books, bound in gilt paper and rich with many pictures. charming memories prompt leigh hunt's mention of the little penny books 'radiant with gold,' that 'never looked so well as in adorning literature,' and if the radiance of his estimate of these nursery volumes is from an actual memory of gilt-paper binding, his words exemplify the spirit that makes right appreciation of the newest picture-books so difficult. in no other part of the subject of book-illustration are the books of yesterday fraught with charm so inimical to delight in the books of to-day. the modern child's book--except, let us hope, to the child-owner--is merely a book as other books are. its qualities are as patent as its size, or number of illustrations. the pictures are to the credit or discredit of a known and realized artist; they are, moreover, generally plain to see as a development of the ideas of some 'school' or 'movement.' one knows about them as examples of english book-illustration of to-day. but the pictures between the worn-out covers of the other child's books were known with another kind of knowledge, discovered in a long intimacy, and related, not to any artist, or fashion of art, but to all manner of unreasonable and delightful things. so it is well, perhaps, that the break between a subject of enthralling associations and a subject whose associations are unsentimental, should, by the ordering of facts, occur before the proper beginning of a study of contemporary illustration in children's books. for one reason or another, little work by artists whose reputation is of earlier date than to-day comes within present subject-limits. some, like randolph caldecott and kate greenaway, are dead, some have ceased to draw, or draw no longer for children. happily, the witching drawings of arthur hughes are still among nursery pictures, in reprints of 'at the back of the north wind,' and its companions--though the illustrator of these books, of 'the boy in grey,' and of 'tom brown's schooldays,' has long ceased to weave his fortunate dreams into pictures to content a child. the drawings of robert barnes, of mrs. allingham and of miss m. e. edwards--illustrators of a sound tradition--are known to the present nursery generation; and so are the outline and tinted drawings of 't. pym,' who devised, so far back as the seventies, the naïve and sympathetic style of illustration that is pleasantly unchanged in recent child-books, such as 'the gentle heritage' ( ), and 'master barthemy' ( ). the later work of walter crane is so bent to decorative and allegorical purpose, that the creator of the best nursery-rhyme pictures ever printed in colours--randolph caldecott's are rather ballad than nursery-rhyme pictures--is in his place among decorative illustrators rather than in this connection. sir john tenniel's neat, immortal little alice, with her ankle-strap shoes and pocketed apron, is still followed to wonderland by as many children as in , when she and the splendid prototypes of the degenerate jargon-beasts of to-day first captivated attention. the drawings of these artists, and perhaps also of 'e. v. b.'--for 'child's play,' though published in , is familiar to present children in a reprint--are mentioned because of the place they still take on nursery book-shelves. but from such brief record of some among the books 'radiant with gold' that 'never looked so well as in adorning literature,' one must turn to work that has no such radiance of sentiment and association over its merits and defects. since the eighties mr. gordon browne has been in the forefront of illustrators popular with story-book publishers and with readers of story-books. he is the son of hablot browne, but no trace of the 'caricaturizations' of 'phiz' is in mr. gordon browne's work. probably his earliest published work appeared in 'aunt judy's magazine' some time in the seventies. these unenlivening drawings suggest nothing of the picturesque and unhesitating invention that has shaped his style to its present serviceableness in the rapid production of effective illustrations. the range and quantity of his work is best realized in the bibliographical list, which records his illustrations to shakespeare and henty, to fairy-tales and boys' stories, girls' stories and toy-books, gulliver, cervantes, and sunday-school books, at the rate of six or seven volumes a year. in addition, one must remember unnumbered illustrations in domestic magazines. and, on the whole, the stories illustrated by gordon browne are adequately illustrated. it is true that as a general rule he illustrates stories whose plan is within limits of familiarity, such as those by mrs. ewing, mrs. l. t. meade, or, in a different vein, the boys' stories of henty, manville fenn, or ascott hope. romance and the clash of swords engaged the artist in the pages of 'sintram,' of froissart, of sir walter scott, and--pre-eminently--in the illustrations to the 'henry irving shakespeare,' numbering nearly six hundred, and representing the work of five years. illustrating these subjects, though in varying degree, the vitality and importance of an artist's conception of life and of art is put to the test. so far as prompt and definite representation of persons, places, and encounters, and unflagging facility in devising effective forms of composition constitute interpretation, the artist maintained the level of the undertaking. the illustration of stories such as those collected by the brothers grimm, or those andersen discovered in his exile of dreams among the facts of life, demands a quality of thought differing from, yet hardly less rare than, the thought needed to interpret shakespeare. a fine aptitude for discerning and rendering 'the mysterious face of common things,' a fancy full of shapes, perception of the _rationale_ of magic, are essential to the writer or artist who elects to send his fancy after the elusive forms of fairyland. the recent drawings to andersen, a volume of tales from grimm, published in , and illustrations to modern inventions, such as 'down the snow stairs' ( ), and mr. andrew lang's 'prince prigio,' show that mr. gordon browne's ideas of fairyland, ancient and modern, are no less brisk and picturesque than are his ideas of everyday and of romance. his technique is so familiar that it is surely unnecessary to make even a brief disquisition on its merits in expressing facts as they exist in a popular scheme of reality and imagination. it is a healthy style, the ideals of beauty and of strength are never coarse, wanton or listless, the humour is friendly, and if the pathos occasionally verges on sentimentality, the writer, perhaps, rather than the artist is responsible. mr. gordon browne draws the average child, and represents fun, fancy and adventure as the average child understands them. his art is unsophisticated. to him, the child is no _motif_ in a decorative fantasy, nor a quaint diagram figuring in nursery-gothic elements of design, nor a bold invention among picture-book monsters. the artists whose basis of art is the unadapted child, may, perhaps, be classed as the 'realists' among children's illustrators. among these realists are the illustrators of mrs. molesworth--with the exception of walter crane, first and chief of them. mr. leslie brooke succeeded mr. crane in as the illustrator of mrs. molesworth's stories, and the careful un-selfconscious fashion of his drawing, his understanding of child-life and home-life as known to children such as those of whom and for whom mrs. molesworth writes, make these pen-drawings true illustrations of the text. his drawings are the result of individual observation and of a sense of what is fit and pleasant, though neither in his filling of a page, nor in the conception of beauty, is there anything definitely inventive to be marked. on the whole, his children and young people are rather representative of a class that maintains a standard of good looks among other desirable things, than of a type of beauty; and if they are not artistic types, neither are they strongly individualized. in his 'everyday' illustrations mr. leslie brooke does not idealize, but that his talent has a range of fancy is proved in illustrations to 'a school in fairyland' ( ), and to some imaginings by roma white. graceful, regardful of an unspoilt ideal in the fairies, elves and flower-spirits, there are also frequent hints in these drawings of the humour that finds more complete expression in 'the nursery rhyme book' of , and in the happy extravagance of 'the jumblies' and 'the pelican chorus' ( ). outside the scope of picture-book drawings are the dainty tinted designs to nash's 'spring song,' and the skilful pen-drawings to 'pippa passes.' mr. lewis baumer's drawings of children, whether in 'the boys and i' and other stories by mrs. molesworth, or in less known child-stories, have distinction that is partly a development of an admiration for du maurier, though mr. baumer is too quick-sighted and appreciative of charm to remain faithful to any model in art with the model in life before his eyes. the children of mr. baumer are of to-day. the effect of the earlier 'punch' artist on the work of the younger man is hardly more than suggested in certain felicities of pose and expression added to those that a delightful kind of child discovers to an observer unusually sensitive to the vivid and engaging qualities of his subject. these children are swift of movement and of spirit, and the _verve_ of the artist's style is rarely forced, and still more rarely inadequate to the occasion. [illustration: from mr. lewis baumer's 'hermy.' by leave of messrs. chambers.] the acceptance of a formula, rather than the expression of a hitherto unexpressed order of form, is the basis of page-decoration by members of the birmingham school, whose work in its wider aspect has already been considered. originality finds exercise in modifying details, but, pre-eminent over differences in style, is the similarity of style that suggests 'birmingham' before the variations in detail suggest the work of an individual artist. the influence of kate greenaway is strongly marked in the work of many of these designers for children's books. indeed, miss winifred green's drawings to charles and mary lamb's 'poetry for children,' and to 'mrs. leicester's school,' contain figures that, if one allows for some assertion necessary to justify their reappearance, might have come direct from 'under the window.' the typical illustrative art of birmingham is, however, of another kind. the quaint propriety of 'old-fashioned' childhood, which kate greenaway's delicate pencil first represented at its artistic value, is akin to the conception of the child that prevails on the pages decorated by mrs. arthur gaskin, but the work of mrs. gaskin shows nothing of the stothard-like ideal that seems to have been the suggesting cause of 'greenaway' play-pictures. in the arabesques of flowers and leaves which decorate many pages designed by mrs. gaskin one sees a freedom and fluency of line that are checked to quaintness and naïve angularity when the child is the subject. her conception of a pictorial child is very definite, and in her later work, one must confess, it is a conception hardly corroborated by observation of fact. 'horn book jingles' and 'the travellers' of and show the culmination of a style that had more sympathetic charm in the tinted pages of the 'a. b. c.' ( ), or the 'divine and moral songs' of the following year. book-illustration is with mrs. gaskin, as with many members of the school, only a part of craftsmanship. miss calvert's winsome drawings in 'baby lays' and 'more baby lays' are obviously related to the drawings of mrs. gaskin, though observation of real babies seems to have come between a rigid adherence to the model. the decorative illustrations by the miss holdens to 'jack and the beanstalk' ( ), and to 'the real princess,' show evidence of fancy that finds expression while nothing of mr. gaskin's teaching is forgotten. as different in spirit from the drawings of the birmingham designers as is the lambs' 'poetry for children' from 'a child's garden of verses,' the captivating illustrations of mr. charles robinson seem a direct pictorial evocation of the mood of stevenson's child's rhymes, or of eugene field's lullabies. familiar now, and exaggerated in imitations and in some of the artist's later work, the children and child-fantasies of mr. robinson, as they were realized in the first unspoilt freshness of improvisation, are among the delightful surprises of modern book-illustration. in the pages of 'a child's garden of verses' ( ), of 'the child world,' and of field's 'lullaby land,' the frolic babes of his fancy play hide and seek wherever the text leaves space for them, rioting, or attitudinizing with spritely ceremony, from cover to cover. the mood of imaginative play, of daylight make-believe with its realistic and romantic excesses, and of the make-believe enforced by flickering fire-light, and by the shadows in the darkened house, is expressed in mr. robinson's drawings. not children, but child's-play, and the unexplored shadows and mysteries that lie 'up the mountain side of dreams' are the motives of the fantasies he sets on the page beside stevenson's rhymes of old delights, and the rhymes of the land of counterpane, where wynken blynken and nod, the rockaby lady from hushaby street, and all kind drowsy fancies close round and shut away the crooked shadows into the night outside the nursery. the three books mentioned represent, as i think, the artist's work at its truest value. there is variety of touch and of method, and the heavier fact-enforcing line of 'child voices,' of 'lilliput lyrics,' or of the coloured pictures to 'jack of all trades' is used, as well as the fanciful line of the by-the-way drawings, and the arabesques and delicate detail of the fantasy and dream pictures. a scheme of solid black and white, connected and rendered fully valuable by interweaving with line, white lines telling against black masses, and black lines relieved against white, with pattern as a resource to fill spaces when plain black or plain white seem uninteresting, is, of course, the scheme of the majority of decorative illustrators. but of this scheme mr. charles robinson has made individual use. whether his lines trace a fairy's transparent wing on a background of night-sky, of drifting cloud or of dream mountain-side, or make the child visible among dream-buildings, or seated on the world of fancy in the immensity of night, or passing in a sleep-ship through faëry seas, they have the quality of imagination, imagination in their disposition to form a decorative effect, and in the forms they express. the full-page drawings to 'king longbeard' have this quality, and hardly a drawing to any theme of fancy, whether in old or in new fairy tales, or in verses, but is the result of a vision of charm and distinction. it would seem that the imagination of mr. charles robinson realizes a subject with more delight when the text is suggestive, rather than impressive with definite conceptions. the mighty forms of 'the odyssey,' the chivalric symbolism of 'sintram and aslaugas knight,' even the magical particularity of hans andersen, are not, apparently, supreme in his imagination, as is his vision of fairy-seeing childhood. one is unenlightened by the graceful drawings to 'the adventures of odyseus,' or the romances of de la motte fouqué. that miss alice woodward has, on occasion, made one of the many illustrators who have profited by the example of mr. charles robinson, various drawings seem to show, but few of these illustrators have the originality and purpose that allow miss woodward to enlarge her range of expression without nullifying the spontaneity of her work. she has illustrated over a dozen books, beginning with 'banbury cross' in , and mostly she treats her subject with humour and variety and with a consistent idea of the pictorial aspect of things. she has quick appreciation of unconscious humour in attitude and in expression, though she seems at times to rely too much on memory, thereby diminishing vividness. when most successful she can draw a pleasing child with lines almost as few as those used by any modern artist. miss gertrude bradley is another pleasant illustrator. her later drawings of children are modified from the print-pinafore freshness of those in 'songs for somebody' ( ), to a type that has evident affinities with the charles robinson child, though in 'just forty winks' ( ) miss bradley proves her individual sense of humour. the taking simplicity of miss marion wallace-dunlop's illustrations of elf-babies in 'fairies, elves and flower babies,' and of the human twins who adventure in 'the magic fruit garden' also suggests the influence of the fortunate inventor of an admirable child. [illustration: from miss woodward's 'to tell the king the sky is falling.' by leave of messrs. blackie.] the greater amount of mr. bedford's work for children consists of coloured illustrations to nursery-books, and, when the humour of half-penny paper journalism is supposed to be entertainment for babies, one may be thankful for the pleasant and peaceful drawings of this artist. little miss muffet, wee willie winkie, and the activities of town and country, are a relief from the _jeunesse dorée_, and the lethargy of the war office as toy-book subjects, while 'the battle of the frogs and mice'--though miss barlow's version of aristophanes, with mr. bedford's effective decorations, is hardly a nursery-book--is a better child's subject than the punishable pretensions of other nations. in work hitherto noticed, the child may be regarded as the central figure of the design, whether fact or fancy be set about his little personality. besides the illustrators whose subject is childhood in some aspect or another, and those children's illustrators who pictorialize the wide imaginings of the national fairy tales, there are others in whose work the child figures incidentally, but not as the central fact. in this connection one may consider those draughtsmen who illustrate modern wonder-books with zankiwanks, krabs and wallypugs. mr. archie macgregor should be classed, perhaps, among artists of the child in wonderland, but the personalities of tomakin and his sisters, though judge parry sets them forth in prose and in verse with his usual high spirits, are not the illustrator's first care. 'katawampus,' 'the first book of krab,' and 'butterscotia,' have made mr. macgregor's robust and strongly-defined drawings familiar, and, within the limits of the author's hearty imagination, his droll and unflagging representations of adventures, ceremonies and humours, are extremely apt. children, goblins, animals and queer monsters are drawn with unhesitating spirit and humour, and with decorative invention that would be even more successful if it were less fertile in devising detail. more fortunate in rendering action than facial expression, without the mystery that is the atmosphere of the magical fairy-land, the fact and fancy of mr. macgregor are so admirably illustrative of judge parry's text that one is almost inclined to attribute the absence of glamour to the artist's strong conception of the function of an illustrator. mr. alan wright's work, again, is inevitably associated with the invention of an author, though mr. farrow's 'wallypug' books have not all been illustrated by one artist. mr. wright's drawings are proof of an energetic and serviceable conception of all sorts of out-of-the-way things. his humour is unelaborate, he goes straight to the fact, and, having expressed its extraordinary and fantastic characteristics, he does not linger to develop his drawing into a decorative scheme. apparently he draws 'out of his head,' whether his subject is fact or extravagance. the three small humans who figure in 'the little panjandrum's dodo,' and the ambassador's son of 'the mandarin's kite,' are as briefly sketched as the whimsicalities with whom they consort. mr. arthur rackham's illustrations to 'two old ladies, two foolish fairies, and a tom-cat' ( ), and to 'the zankiwank and the bletherwitch' show inspiriting talent for nursery extravaganza. the children, whirled from reality into a phantasmagoria of adventure, are deftly and happily drawn, the fairies have fairy grace, and the rout of hobgoblins and grotesques fill their parts. drawing real animals, mr. rackham is equally quick to note what is characteristic, and his facility in realizing fact and magic finds expression in the illustrations to 'grimm's fairy tales' ( ). this is the most important work of mr. rackham as a child's illustrator, and if the drawings are somewhat calculated to impress the horrid horror of witches and forest enchantments on uneasy minds, the charm of princesses and peasant maids, the sagacious humour of talking animals and the grotesque enlivenment of cobolds and gnomes are no less vividly represented. that mr. rackham admires mr. e. j. sullivan's scheme of decorative black-and-white is evident in these drawings, but not to the detriment of their inventive worth. [illustration: from mr. arthur rackham's 'grimm's fairy tales.' by leave of messrs. freemantle.] mr. j. d. batten, mr. h. j. ford, and mr. h. r. millar represent, in various ways, the modern art of fairy-tale illustration at its best. mr. batten's connection with mr. joseph jacob's treasuries of fairy-lore, mr. ford's long record of work in the multicoloured fairy and true story books edited by mr. lang, and the drawings of mr. millar in various collections of fairy tales, entitle them to a foremost place among contemporary illustrators of the world's immortal wonder-stories. mr. batten knows the rules of chivalry, of sentiment, humour, and horridness, as they exist in the magical convention of the real fairy-tales, and whether their purpose be merry or sad, heroic or grotesque, he illustrates the old tales of celt and saxon, of india, arabia and greece with appreciation of the largeness and splendour of their conception. one might wish for more vitality in his women, and think that a representation of the mournful beauty of deirdre, the passion of circe or of medea, should differ from the untroubled sweetness of the king's daughter of faery. still one appreciates the dignity of these smooth-browed women, and, after all, the passionate figures of greek and celtic epics need translation before they can figure in fairy-tale books. mr. batten's ideas are never trite and never morbid. his giants are gigantic, his monsters of true devastating breed, and his drawings--especially the later ones--are as able technically as they are apt to the occasion. [illustration: from mr. batten's 'indian fairy tales.' by leave of david nutt.] there can hardly be an existent fairy-story among the hundreds told before the making of books that mr. ford has not illustrated in one version or another. the telling-house of every nation has yielded stories for mr. lang's annual volumes; and since the appearance of 'the blue fairy book' in , mr. ford, alone or in collaboration with mr. jacomb hood, mr. lancelot speed and other well-known artists, has illustrated the stories mr. lang has gathered. moreover, in addition to seven volumes of fairy tales, and many true story and animal story books, mr. ford has made drawings for Æsop, for the 'arabian nights,' and for 'early italian love stories.' his decorative and illustrative ideal has never lacked distinction, and his recent work is the coherent development of that of fourteen years ago, though he has gained in freedom and variety of conception and in quality of expression. mr. ford's art is obviously founded on that of walter crane, but he looks at a subject with greater interest in its dramatic possibilities, and in the facts of place and time than the later 'crane' convention admits. an abundant fancy, familiarity with the facts of legendary, romantic and animal life, over a wide tract of country and through long ages of time, fill the decorative pages of the artist with a plentitude of graceful, vigorous and persuasive forms. the well-devised pages of miss emily j. harding's 'fairy tales of the slav peasants and herdsmen,' are akin in form to the drawings of mr. batten and of mr. ford, though regard for the national tone of the stories gives these illustrations individuality and interest. [illustration: from mr. ford's 'pink fairy book.' by leave of messrs. longmans.] the principles of art represented by the drawings of mr. ford have little in common with those which determine the scheme of mr. millar's many illustrations. vierge, and gigoux, the master of vierge, are the indubitable suggesters of his style, and the antitheses of sheer black and white, the audacities, evasions and accentuations of these jugglers with line and form, are dexterously handled by mr. millar. he has not invented his convention, he has accepted it, and begun original work within accepted limits. a less original artist would thereby have doomed himself to extinction, but mr. millar has a lively apprehension of romance, especially in an oriental setting, and interest in subject is incompatible with merely imitative work. illustrations to 'hajji baba' ( ), and to 'eothen,' show how dramatic and true to picturesque notions of the east are the conceptions, and the same vigour projects itself into themes of western adventure in 'frank mildmay' and 'snarleyow.' but his right to be considered here is determined by the rapid visions of fairy romance realized in the pages of 'fairy tales by q.' ( ), of 'the golden fairy book' with its companions, and on the more concrete but not less sufficient drawings to 'the book of dragons,' and 'nine unlikely tales for children.' [illustration: from mr. millar's 'fairy tales by q.' by leave of messrs. cassells.] the pen-drawings of mr. t. h. robinson in the "andersen" illustrated by the brother artists, show ability to realize not only the incidents and ideas of the stories, but also something of the national inspiration that is an element in all _märchen_. at times determinedly decorative, his work is generally in closer alliance with actuality than is the typical work of mr. charles or of mr. w. h. robinson. character, action, costume, picturesque facts of life and scenery are suggested, and suggested with interest in the actual geographical and chronological circumstances of the stories, whether a poet's denmark, the arabia of scheherazade, the greece of kingsley's 'the heroes,' or the rivers and mountains of carmen sylva's stories determine the fact-scheme for his decorative invention. in addition to these vigorous and generally harmonious illustrations, the artist's drawings to 'cranford,' 'the scarlet letter,' 'lichtenstein,' 'the sentimental journey,' and 'esmond,' prove his interest and inventive sense to be effective in realizing actual historical and local conditions. if mr. w. h. robinson is also an apt illustrator of legends and of folk-tales, whose setting demands attention to the facts of life as they were to story-tellers in far countries of once-upon-a-time, the more individual side of his talent is discovered in work of wilder and more intense fancy. andersen's 'marsh king's daughter,' the snow queen with her frozen eyes, the picaresque mood of little claus, or the doom of proud inger, are to his mind, and in illustrations to 'don quixote' ( ), to 'the pilgrim's progress,' and especially in the fully decorated volume of poe's 'poems,' the forcible conceptions of the text find pictorial expression. mr. a. g. walker, though a sculptor by profession, claims notice as an illustrator of various children's books, notably 'the lost princess' ( ), 'stories from the faerie queene' ( ), and 'the book of king arthur.' his pen-drawings are expressive of a thoughtful realization of the subject in its actual and moral beauty. the nobility of spenser's conceptions, the remote beauty of the arthurian legend, appeal to him, and the careful rendering of costume, landscape and the aspect of things, is only part of a scheme of execution that has as its complete intention the rendering of the 'mood' of the narrative. these drawings are realizations rather than illuminations of the text, and one appreciates their thoroughness, clearness, and dignity. miss helen stratton published some pleasant but not very vigorous drawings of children in 'songs for little people' ( ), and illustrations to a selection from andersen suggested the later direction of her ability. this, as the copiously illustrated 'fairy tales from hans christian andersen' ( ), and the large number of drawings contributed to messrs. newnes' edition of 'the arabian nights,' show, is in realizing themes less actual than those of nursery lyrics. a sense of drama in the pose and grouping of the multitudes of figures on the pages of the danish and arabian stories, and a sufficient care for the background, as the poet's eyes might have seen it behind the dream-figures that passed between him and reality, are qualities that give miss stratton's competent work imaginative value. the work of miss r. m. m. pitman comes within the subject in her illustrations to lady jersey's fairy tale, 'maurice and the red jar,' and to 'the magic nuts' of mrs. molesworth. but though their decorative intention and technique represent the forms of the artist's work, the spirit of fantasy that informs her illustrations to 'undine' finds only modified expression. the symbolism of 'undine' is wrought into decorations of inventive elaborateness. the technical ideal of miss pitman suggests study of dürer's pen-drawing, and though at times there is too much sweetness and luxury in her representation of beauty, at her best she expresses free fancy with distinction not common in modern book-illustration. brief allusion only--where drawings of more definitely illustrative purpose over-crowd the available space--can be made to the numerous animal books, serious and comic. mr. percy j. billinghurst's full-page designs to 'a hundred fables of Æsop,' 'a hundred fables of la fontaine,' and 'a hundred anecdotes of animals' deserve more than passing mention for their decorative and observant qualities and their enlivening humour. another decorative draughtsman of animals for children's books is mr. carton moore park, who, since , when the 'alphabet of animals' and 'the book of birds' appeared, has published seven or eight volumes of his strongly devised designs. one can hardly conclude without reference to mr. louis wain, the cats' artist of twenty years' standing, and to mr. j. a. shepherd, chief caricaturist of animals; but while toy-book artists such as mrs. percy dearmer, mrs. farmiloe, miss rosamond praeger, mr. aldin, and mr. hassall (whose subject--the child--takes precedence of zoological subjects) must be left unconsidered, the humourists of the zoo can hardly be included. bibliography. bibliography. (_to september, ._) some decorative illustrators. amelia bauerle. _happy-go-lucky._ ismay thorn. º. (innes, .) f. p. _a mere pug._ nemo. º. (long, .) f. p. _allegories._ frederic w. farrar. º. (longmans, .) f. p. _sir constant._ w. e. cule. º. (melrose, .) f. p. _glimpses from wonderland._ º. j. ingold. (long, .) f. p. _the day-dream._ alfred tennyson. º. (lane, . 'flowers of parnassus.') illust. ( f. p.) r. anning bell. _jack the giant-killer_ and _beauty and the beast_. edited by grace rhys. º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) illust. ( f. p.) _the sleeping beauty_ and _dick whittington and his cat_. edited by grace rhys. º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) illust. ( f. p.) _the christian year._ º. (methuen, .) f. p. _a midsummer night's dream._ º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the riddle._ walter raleigh. º. (privately printed, .) illust. ( f. p.) _an altar book._ fol. (merrymount press, u.s.a., .) f. p. _keats' poems._ edited by walter raleigh. º. (bell, . endymion series.) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the milan._ walter raleigh. º. (privately printed, .) f. p. _english lyrics from spenser to milton._ º. (bell, . endymion series.) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _pilgrim's progress._ º. (methuen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _lamb's tales from shakespeare._ º. (fremantle, .) f. p. w. e. f. britten. _the elf-errant._ moira o'neill. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) f. p. _undine._ translated from the german of baron de la motte fouqué by edmund gosse. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) f. p., photogravure. _the early poems of alfred lord tennyson._ edited by john churton-collins. º. (methuen, .) f. p., photogravure. percy bulcock. _the blessed damozel._ dante gabriel rossetti. º. (lane, . 'flowers of parnassus.') illust. ( f. p.) herbert cole. _gulliver's travels._ j. swift. º. (lane, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the rubaiyat._ º. (lane, . 'flowers of parnassus.') illust. ( f. p.) _the nut-brown maid._ a new version by f. b. money-coutts. º. (lane, . 'f. of p.') illust. ( f. p.) _a ballade upon a wedding._ sir john suckling. º. (lane, . 'f. of p.') illust. ( f. p.) _the rime of the ancient mariner._ s. t. coleridge. º. (gay and bird, .) f. p. philip connard. _the statue and the bust._ robert browning. º. (lane, . 'flowers of parnassus.') illust. ( f. p.) _marpessa._ stephen phillips. º. (lane, . 'f. of p.') illust. ( f. p.) walter crane. _the new forest._ j. r. wise. º. (smith, elder, .) illust. engraved by w. j. linton. (a new edition, published by henry sotheran, , with the original illust. and etchings by heywood sumner.) _stories from memel._ mrs. de haviland. º. (william hunt, .) f. p. _walter crane's toy-books._ issued in single numbers, from - . ---- _collected editions_, all published in º, by george routledge, and printed throughout in colours. _walter crane's picture book._ ( .) pp. _the marquis of carabas' picture book._ ( .) pp. _the blue beard picture book._ ( .) pp. _song of sixpence toy-book._ ( .) pp. _chattering jack's picture book._ ( .) pp. _the three bears picture book._ ( .) pp. _aladdin's picture book._ ( .) pp. _the magic of kindness._ h. and a. mayhew. º. (cassell, petter and galpin, .) f. p. _sunny days, or a month at the great stowe._ author of 'our white violet.' º. (griffith and farran, .) f. p., in colours. _our old uncle's home._ 'mother carey.' º. (griffith and farran, .) f. p. _the head of the family._ mrs. craik. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _agatha's husband._ mrs. craik. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _tell me a story._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the quiver of love._ a collection of valentines, ancient and modern. º. (marcus ward, .) with kate greenaway. f. p. in colours. _carrots._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _songs of many seasons._ jemmett browne. º. (simpkin, marshall, .) with others. f. p. by walter crane. _the baby's opera._ º. (routledge, .) pictured pages in colours. ( f. p.) _the cuckoo clock._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _grandmother dear._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the tapestry room._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the baby's bouquet._ º. (routledge, .) pictured pages, in colours. ( f. p.) _a christmas child._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the necklace of princess fiorimonde._ mrs. de morgan. º. (macmillan, .) illust. _herr baby._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the first of may._ a fairy masque. j. r. wise. fol. (henry sotheran, .) decorated pages. ( f. p.) _household stories._ translated from the german of the brothers grimm by lucy crane. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _rosy._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _pan-pipes._ a book of old songs. theo. marzials. oblong folio. (routledge, .) pictured pages, in colours. _christmas tree land._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _walter crane's new series of picture books._ º. (marcus ward, - .) _slate and pencilvania._--_little queen anne._--_pothooks and perseverance._ pages each, in colours. _the golden primer._ j. m. d. meiklejohn. º. (blackwood, .) part i. and part ii. decorated pages in colours in each part. _folk and fairy tales._ c. c. harrison. º. (ward and downey, .) f. p. _"us."_ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the sirens three._ walter crane. º. (macmillan, .) pictured pages. _the baby's own Æsop._ º. (routledge, .) pictured pages, in colours. _echoes of hellas._ the tale of troy and the story of orestes from homer and aeschylus. with introductory essay and sonnets by prof. george c. warr. fol. (marcus ward, .) decorated pages. _four winds farm._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _legends for lionel._ º. (cassell, .) pictured pages, in colours. _a christmas posy._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the happy prince, and other tales._ oscar wilde. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations with g. p. jacomb-hood. f. p. by walter crane. _the book of wedding days._ quotations for every day in the year, compiled by k. e. j. reid, etc. º. (longmans, .) pictured pages. _the rectory children._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _flora's feast._ a masque of flowers. walter crane. º. (cassell, .) pictured pages, in colours. _the turtle dove's nest._ º. (routledge, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. _chambers twain._ ernest radford. º. (elkin matthews, .) f. p. _a sicilian idyll._ dr. todhunter. º. (elkin matthews, .) f. p. _renascence._ a book of verse. walter crane. including 'the sirens three' and 'flora's feast.' º. (elkin mathews, .) illust. and decorations, some engraved on wood by arthur leverett. _a wonder book for girls and boys._ nathaniel hawthorne. (osgood, .) illust. and decorations in colours. ( f. p.) _queen summer, or the tourney of the lily and the rose._ walter crane. º. (cassell, .) pictured pages in colours. _the tempest._ illust. to shakespeare's 'tempest.' engraved and printed by duncan c. dallas. (dent, .) _under the hawthorn._ augusta de gruchy. º. (mathews and lane, .) f. p. _the old garden._ margaret deland. º. (osgood, .) decorated pages. _the two gentlemen of verona._ illust. to shakespeare's 'two gentlemen of verona.' engraved and printed by duncan c. dallas. (dent, .) _the story of the glittering plain._ william morris. º. (kelmscott press. .) illust. borders, titles and initials by william morris. _the history of reynard the fox._ english verse by f. s. ellis. º. (david nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the merry wives of windsor._ illust. to shakespeare's 'merry wives of windsor.' engraved and printed by duncan c. dallas. º. (george allen, .) _the vision of dante._ miss harrison. º. . f. p. _the faerie queene._ edited by thomas j. wise. vols. º. (george allen, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _a book of christmas verse._ selected by h. c. beeching. º. (methuen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the shepheard's calendar._ edmund spenser. º. (harper, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the walter crane readers._ nelle dale. vols. º. (dent, .) pictured pages, in colours. ( f. p.) _a floral fantasy in an old english garden._ walter crane. º. (harper, .) pictured pages, in colours. h. granville fell. _our lady's tumbler._ a twelfth century legend transcribed for lady day, . º. (dent, .) f. p. _wagner's heroes._ constance maud. º. (arnold, .) f. p. _cinderella_ and _jack and the beanstalk_. º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) illust. ( f. p.) _ali baba_ and _the forty thieves_. º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) illust. ( f. p.) _the fairy gifts_ and _tom hickathrift_. º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) illust. ( f. p.) _the book of job._ º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., double pages.) _the song of solomon._ º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _wonder stories from herodotus._ re-told by c. h. boden and w. barrington d'almeida. º. (harper, .) illust. in colours. ( f. p.) a. j. gaskin. _a book of pictured carols._ designed by members of the birmingham art school under the direction of a. j. gaskin. º. (george allen, .) illust. and decorations with c. m. gere, henry payne, bernard sleigh, fred. mason, and others. ( f. p. by a. j. gaskin.) _stories and fairy tales._ hans andersen. º. (george allen. .) illust. ( f. p.) _a book of fairy tales._ re-told by s. baring gould. º. (methuen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _good king wenceslas._ dr. neale. º. (cornish brothers, birmingham, .) f. p. _the shepheard's calendar._ e. spenser. º. (kelmscott press, .) f. p. c. m. gere. _russian fairy tales._ r. nisbet bain. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) f. p. _news from nowhere._ william morris. º. (kelmscott press, .) f. p. _the imitation of christ._ thomas à kempis. introduction by f. w. farrar. º. (methuen, .) f. p. _a book of pictured carols._ see _a. j. gaskin_. j. j. guthrie. _wedding bells._ a new old nursery rhyme by a. f. s. and e. de passemore. º. (simpkin, marshall, .) decorated pages. _the little men in scarlet._ frances h. low. (jarrold, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the garden of time._ mrs. davidson. º. (jarrold, .) illust. ( f. p.) _an album of drawings._ fol. (the white cottage, shorne, kent, .) f. p. from various magazines. laurence housman. _jump-to-glory jane._ george meredith. º. (swan, sonnenschein, .) illust. ( f. p.) _goblin market._ christina rossetti. º. (macmillan, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _weird tales from northern seas._ from the danish of jonas lie. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _the end of elfin-town._ jane barlow. º. (macmillan, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _a farm in fairyland._ laurence housman. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _the house of joy._ laurence housman. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _poems._ francis thompson. º. (mathews and lane, .) f. p. _sister songs._ francis thompson. º. (lane, .) f. p. _green arras._ laurence housman. º. (lane, .) f. p. _all-fellows._ laurence housman. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _the were-wolf._ clemence housman. º. (lane, .) f. p. _the sensitive plant._ p. b. shelley. º. (aldine house, .) f. p. photogravure. _the field of clover._ laurence housman. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p., engraved by clemence housman. _the little flowers of saint francis._ translated by t. w. arnold. º. (dent, , temple classics.) f. p. _of the imitation of christ._ thomas à kempis. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _the little land._ laurence housman. º. (grant richards, .) f. p. _at the back of the north wind._ g. macdonald. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _the princess and the goblin._ g. macdonald. º. (blackie, .) f. p. a. garth jones. _the tournament of love._ w. t. peters. º. (brentano, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the minor poems of john milton._ º. (bell, . endymion series.) illust., and decorations. ( f. p.) _contes de haute-lisse._ jérome doucet. (bernoux and cumin, .) illust. and decorations. _contes de la fileuse._ jérome doucet. (tallandier, .) illust. and decorations. celia levetus. _turkish fairy tales._ trans. by r. nisbet bain. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _verse fancies._ edward l. levetus. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) _songs of innocence._ william blake. º. (wells, gardner, and darton, .) illust. ( f. p.) w. b. macdougall _chronicles of strathearn._ º. (david philips, .) f. p. _the fall of the nibelungs._ in two books. translated by margaret armour. º. (dent, .) f. p. in each book. _thames sonnets and semblances._ margaret armour. º. (elkin mathews, .) f. p. _the book of ruth._ introduction by ernest rhys. º. (dent, .) f. p. _isabella, or the pot of basil._ john keats. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _the shadow of love and other poems._ margaret armour. º. (duckworth, .) f. p. fred. mason. _a book of pictured carols._ see _a. j. gaskin_. _the story of alexander._ robert steele. º. (david nutt, .) illust. ( f. p.) _huon of bordeaux._ robert steele. º. (george allen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _renaud of montauban._ robert steele. º. (george allen, .) f. p. t. sturge moore. _the centaur._ _the bacchant._ translated from the french of maurice de guérin by t. sturge moore. (vale press, .) º. wood engravings. _some fruits of solitude._ william penn. º. (essex house press, .) wood engraving on title-page. l. fairfax muckley. _the faerie queene._ e. spenser. introduction by prof. hales. vols. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., double page.) _fringilla._ r. d. blackmore. º. (elkin mathews, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) by james linton. henry ospovat. _shakespeare's sonnets._ º. (lane, .) illust. ( f. p.) _poems._ matthew arnold. º. edited by a. c. benson. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) charles ricketts. _a house of pomegranates._ oscar wilde. º. (osgood, .) illust. with c. h. shannon. by c. ricketts. _poems, dramatic and lyrical._ lord de tabley. º. (mathews and lane, .) f. p., photogravure. _daphnis and chloe._ longus. translated by geo. thornley. º. (mathews and lane, .) illust. drawn on the wood by charles ricketts from the designs of charles ricketts and charles shannon. engraved by both artists. _the sphinx._ oscar wilde. º. (ballantyne press, .) illust. ( f. p.) _hero and leander._ christopher marlowe and george chapman. º. (vale press, .) illust., border and initials, drawn on the wood, engraved by charles ricketts and charles shannon. _nymphidia and the muses elizium._ michael drayton. º. (vale press, .) frontispiece, border and initials, engraved on wood. _spiritual poems._ t. gray. º. (vale press, .) frontispiece and border, engraved on wood. _milton's early poems._ º. (vale press, .) frontispiece, border and initials, engraved on wood. _songs of innocence._ w. blake. º. (vale press, .) frontispiece, border and initials, engraved on wood. _sacred poems of henry vaughan._ º. (vale press, .) frontispiece and border, engraved on wood. _the excellent narration of the marriage of cupide and psyches._ translated from the latin of lucius apuleius, by william adlington. º. (vale press, .) illust. engraved on wood. _the book of thel_, _songs of innocence_ and _songs of experience_. william blake. º. (vale press, .) frontispiece, initials and border, engraved on wood. _blake's poetical sketches._ º. (vale press, .) frontispiece and initials, engraved on wood. reginald savage. _der ring des nibelungen._ described by r. farquharson sharp. º. (marshall, russell, .) f. p. essex house press. _the pilgrim's progress._ _venus and adonis._ _the eve of st. agnes._ _the journal of john woolman._ _epithalamium._ ( - .) frontispiece engraved on wood to each volume. charles shannon. see _charles ricketts_. 'house of pomegranates,' 'hero and leander,' 'daphnis and chloe.' byam shaw. _poems by robert browning._ º. (bell, . endymion series.) illust. ( f. p.) _tales from boccaccio._ joseph jacobs. º. (george allen, .) f. p. _the chiswick shakespeare._ º. (bell, , etc.) illust. and decorations ( f. p.), in each volume. bernard sleigh. _the sea-king's daughter, and other poems._ amy mark. printed at the press of the birmingham guild of handicraft. (g. napier, birmingham, .) decorated pages ( f. p.), engraved with l. a. talbot. _a book of pictured carols._ see _a. j. gaskin_. f. p., by bernard sleigh. heywood sumner. _the itchen valley._ fol. (seeley, jackson and halliday, .) _the avon from naxby to tewkesbury._ fol. (seeley, jackson and halliday, .) etchings. _cinderella:_ a fairy opera. john farmer and henry leigh. º. (novello, ewer, .) illust. _epping forest._ e. m. buxton. º. (stamford, .) illust. ( f. p.) _sintram and his companions._ translated from the german of de la motte fouqué. º. (seeley, jackson and halliday, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the new forest._ j. r. wise. see _walter crane_. _undine._ º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the besom maker, and other country folk songs._ collected by heywood sumner. º. (longmans, .) decorated pages. f. p. _jacob and the raven._ frances m. peard. º. (george allen, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) j. r. weguelin. _lays of ancient rome._ lord macaulay. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the cat of bubastes._ g. a. henty. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _anacreon: with thomas stanley's translation._ edited by a. h. bullen. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) f. p. _the little mermaid and other stories._ hans andersen. translated by r. nisbet bain. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) illus. ( f. p.) _catullus: with the pervigilium veneris._ edited by s. g. owen. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) f. p. _the wooing of malkatoon_; _commodus_. lewis wallace. º. (harper, .) f. p. with du mond. by j. r. weguelin. patten wilson. _miracle plays. our lord's coming and childhood._ katherine tynan hinkson. º. (lane, .) f. p. _a houseful of rebels._ walter c. rhoades. º. (archibald constable, .) f. p. _selections from coleridge._ andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) f. p. _king john._ edited by j. w. young. º. (longmans, . swan shakespeare.) f. p. paul woodroffe. _shakespeare's songs._ edited by e. rhys. º. (dent, .) f. p. _the little flowers of st. francis._ º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _the confessions of st. augustine._ º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. title-page by laurence housman. _the little flowers of st. benet._ º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. some open-air illustrators. alexander ansted. _the rivers of devon._ j. l. warden-page. º. (seeley, .) illust. ( etched plates.) _the riviera._ notes by the artist. fol. (seeley, .) illust. ( etched plates.) _the coasts of devon._ j. l. warden-page. º. (h. cox, .) illust. _episcopal palaces of england._ canon venables and others. º. (isbister, .) etched frontispiece and illust. ( f. p.) _the master of the musicians._ emma marshall. º. (seeley, .) f. p. _london riverside churches._ a. e. daniell. º. (constable, .) illust. ( f. p.) english cathedral series. º. (isbister, - .) _salisbury cathedral._ the very rev. dean boyle. illust. ( f. p.) _york minster._ the very rev. dean purey-cust. illust. ( f. p.) _norwich cathedral._ the very rev. dean lefroy. f. p. _ely cathedral._ the rev. canon dickson. f. p. _carlisle cathedral._ chancellor r. s. ferguson. f. p. _the romance of our ancient churches._ sarah wilson. º. (constable, .) illust. ( f. p.) _boswell's life of johnson._ edited by augustine birrell. (constable, .) vols. frontispiece to each vol. c. r. b. barrett. _the tower._ c. r. b. barrett. fol. (catty and dobson, .) illust. ( etched plates.) _essex: highways, byways and waterways._ c. r. b. barrett. º. (lawrence and bullen, - .) series i. illust. ( etched plates.) series ii. illust. ( etched plates.) _the trinity house of deptford strond._ c. r. b. barrett. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) illust. ( etched plate.) _barrett's illustrated guides._ º. (lawrence and bullen, - .) numbers. _somersetshire: highways, byways and waterways._ c. r. b. barrett. º. (bliss, sands and foster, .) illust. ( etched plates.) _shelley's visit to france._ charles j. elton. º. (bliss, sands, .) illus. ( etched plates.) _charterhouse, in pen and ink._ by c. r. b. barrett. preface by george e. smythe. º. (bliss, sands and foster, .) illust. ( f. p.) _surrey: highways, byways and waterways._ c. r. b. barrett. º. (bliss, sands and foster, .) illust. ( etched plates.) _battles and battlefields of england._ c. r. b. barrett. º. (innes, .) illust. ( f. p.) d. y. cameron. _charterhouse, old and new._ e. p. eardley-wilmot and e. c. streatfield. º. (nimmo, .) etchings. _scholar gipsies._ john buchan. º. (lane, . the arcady library.) etchings. nelly erichsen. _the novels of susan edmonstone ferrier._ introduction by r. brimley johnson. º. (dent, .) vols. f. p. _the promised land._ translated from the danish of henrik pontoppidan by mrs. edgar lucas. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) _emanuel, or children of the soil._ translated from the danish of henrik pontoppidan by mrs. edgar lucas. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) mediæval towns. º. (dent, - .) _the story of assisi._ lina duff gordon. illust., with others. ( f. p.) by nelly erichsen. _the story of rome._ norwood young. illust., with others. ( f. p.) by nelly erichsen. _the story of florence._ edmund g. gardner. illust., with others. f. p. by nelly erichsen. hedley fitton. english cathedral series. º. (isbister, - .) _worcester cathedral._ the rev. canon teignmouth shore. f. p. _rochester cathedral._ the rev. canon benham. illust. ( f. p.) _hereford cathedral._ the very rev. dean leigh. illust. ( f. p.) _Æschylos._ translated by g. h. plumtre. vols. º. (isbister, .) f. p. john fulleylove. _henry irving._ austin brereton. º. (bogue, .) f. p. with others. _the picturesque mediterranean._ º. (cassell, .) with others. illust. by john fulleylove. _oxford._ with notes by t. humphry ward. fol. (fine art society, .) illust. ( plates.) _in the footprints of charles lamb._ see _herbert railton_. _pictures of classic greek landscape and architecture._ with text in explanation by henry w. nevinson. º. (dent, .) plates. _the stones of paris._ b. e. and c. m. martin. vols. º. (smith, elder, .) illust. ( f. p.) by j. fulleylove. frederick l. griggs. _seven gardens and a palace._ e. v. b. º. (lane, .) illust. with arthur gordon. by frederick l. griggs. _stray leaves from a border garden._ mary pamela milne-home. º. (lane, .) f. p. _the chronicle of a cornish garden._ harry roberts. º. (lane, .) f. p. charles g. harper. _royal winchester._ rev. a. g. l'estrange. º. (spencer, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the brighton road._ c. g. harper. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. _from paddington to penzance._ c. g. harper. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the marches of wales._ c. g. harper. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. _the dover road._ c. g. harper. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. _the portsmouth road._ c. g. harper. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. _some english sketching grounds._ c. g. harper. º. (reeves, .) illust. ( f. p.) _stories of the streets of london._ h. barton baker. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. _the exeter road._ c. g. harper. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. _the bath road._ c. g. harper. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. _the great north road._ c. g. harper. vols. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) by c. g. harper. william hyde. _an imaged world._ edward garnett. º. (dent, .) f. p. _milton's l'allegro and il penseroso._ º. (dent, .) f. p. _london impressions._ alice meynell. fol. (constable, .) etchings, photogravures. ( f. p.) _the nature poems of george meredith._ º. (constable, .) etched frontispiece and photogravures. _the cinque ports._ ford madox hueffer. º. (blackwood, .) illust. ( f. p., in photogravure.) _the victoria history of the counties of england. hampshire; norfolk._ º. (constable, .) f. p. frederic g. kitton. _charles dickens and the stage._ t. edgar pemberton. º. (redway, .) f. p., photogravure. _charles dickens by pen and pencil._ f. g. kitton. º. (sabini and dexter, - .) with others. by f. g. kitton. _in tennyson land._ j. cuming walters. º. (redway, .) f. p. _a week's tramp in dickens' land._ wm. r. hughes. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust., chiefly by f. g. kitton. ( f. p.) _hertfordshire county homes._ (published by subscription, .) f. p. _st. albans, historical and picturesque._ c. h. ashdown. º. (elliot stock, .) illust., chiefly by f. g. kitton ( f. p.) _st. albans abbey._ the rev. canon liddell. º. (isbister, . english cathedral series.) illust. ( f. p.) _the romany rye._ george borrow. (murray, .) f. p. john guille millais. _a fauna of sutherland, caithness and west cromarty._ j. harvie brown and t. e. buckley. º. (douglas, .) illust., with others. ( f. p.) by j. g. millais. _shooting._ lord walsingham and sir r. payne gallwey. (badminton library.) º. (longmans, .) with others. illust. ( f. p.) by j. g. millais. _a monograph of the charadriidae._ henry seebohm. º. (sotheran, .) illust. _a fauna of the outer hebrides._ j. harvie brown and t. e. buckley. º. (douglas, .) illust., with others. by j. g. millais. _a fauna of the orkney islands._ j. harvie brown and t. e. buckley. º. (douglas, .) illust., with others. f. p. photogravures by j. g. millais. _a fauna of argyll and the inner hebrides._ j. harvie brown and t. e. buckley. º. (douglas, .) illust., with others. photogravure by j. g. millais. _game-birds and shooting sketches._ j. g. millais. º. (sotheran, .) illust., plates. _a breath from the veldt._ j. g. millais. º. (sotheran, .) illust. ( plates.) _letters to young shooters._ rd series. sir r. payne gallwey. (longmans, .) illust. _elephant hunting in east equatorial africa._ arthur newmann. º. (ward, .) f. p. _british deer and their horns._ j. g. millais. º. (sotheran, .) illust., mostly by the author. ( plates.) _pheasants._ w. b. tegetmeier. º. (cox, .) illust. ( f. p. by j. g. millais.) with others. _encyclopaedia of sport._ edited by the earl of berkshire. (lawrence and bullen, .) illust. ( f. p. in photogravure.) _the wildfowler in scotland._ j. g. millais. º. (longmans, .) illust., plates. ( f. p.) edmund h. new. _the compleat angler._ izaak walton and charles cotton. edited by richard le gallienne. º. (lane, .) illust. ( f. p.) _in the garden of peace._ helen milman. º. (lane, . the arcady library.) illust. _oxford and its colleges._ j. wells. º. (methuen, .) drawings from photographs. _cambridge and its colleges._ a. hamilton thompson. º. (methuen, .) drawings from photographs. _the life of william morris._ j. w. mackail. vols. º. (longmans, .) illus. ( f. p.) _shakespeare's country._ bertram c. a. windle. º. (methuen, .) f. p. drawings from photographs. _the natural history of selborne._ gilbert white. edited by grant allen. º. (lane, .) illust. ( f. p.) _outside the garden._ helen milman. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. _sussex._ f. g. brabant. º. (methuen, .) f. p. drawings from photographs. _the malvern country._ bertram c. a. windle. º. (methuen, .) f. p. drawings from photographs. alfred parsons. _god's acre beautiful._ w. robinson. º. ("garden" office, .) f. p. _selections from the poetry of robert herrick._ º. (sampson low, .) illust. ( f. p.) with e. a. abbey. _springhaven._ r. d. blackmore. º. (sampson low, .) illust. ( f. p.) with f. barnard. _old songs._ º. (macmillan, .) illust. with e. a. abbey. _the quiet life._ certain verses by various hands: prologue and epilogue by austin dobson. º. (sampson low, .) illust. with e. a. abbey. by alfred parsons. ( f. p.) _a selection from the sonnets of william wordsworth._ º. (osgood, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the warwickshire avon._ notes by a. t. quiller-couch. º. (osgood, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the danube from the black forest to the sea._ f. d. millet. º. (osgood, .) illust. with f. d. millet. by alfred parsons. ( f. p.) _the wild garden._ w. robinson. º. (murray, .) wood-engravings. ( f. p.) _the bamboo garden._ a. b. freeman-mitford. º. (macmillan, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _notes in japan._ alfred parsons. º. (osgood, .) illust. ( f. p.) _wordsworth._ andrew lang. º. (longmans, . selections from the poets.) illust., and initials to each poem. ( f. p.) joseph pennell. _a canterbury pilgrimage._ elizabeth robins pennell. º. (seeley, .) illust. ( f. p.) _tuscan cities._ w. d. howells. º. (ticknor, boston, .) illust., chiefly by joseph pennell. ( f. p.) _the saone._ p. g. hamerton. º. (seeley, .) illust. with the author. by joseph pennell; by j. pennell after pencil drawings by p. g. hamerton. ( f. p.) _an italian pilgrimage._ elizabeth robins pennell. º. (seeley, .) f. p. _our sentimental journey through france and italy._ elizabeth robins pennell. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _old chelsea._ benjamin ellis martin. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _our journey to the hebrides._ elizabeth robins pennell. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _personally conducted._ f. r. stockton. º. (sampson low, .) illust. with others. _charing cross to st. paul's._ justin mccarthy. fol. (seeley, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the stream of pleasure._ joseph and elizabeth robins pennell. with a practical chapter by j. g. legge. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _play in provence._ joseph and elizabeth robins pennell. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the jew at home._ joseph pennell. º. (heinemann, .) illust. ( f. p.) _english cathedrals._ mrs. schuyler van rensselaer. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. _to gipsyland._ elizabeth robins pennell. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the devils of notre dame._ illust., with descriptive text by r. a. m. stevenson. fol. ('pall mall gazette,' .) _cycling._ the earl of albemarle and g. lacy hillier. º. (longmans, . the badminton library.) illust. with the earl of albemarle, and george moore. by joseph pennell. ( f. p.) _tantallon castle._ elizabeth robins pennell. º. (constable, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. by joseph pennell. _the makers of modern rome._ mrs. oliphant. º. (macmillan, .) illust. with henry p. riviere, and from old engravings. by joseph pennell. ( f. p.) _the alhambra._ washington irving. introduction by elizabeth robins pennell. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _on the broads._ anna bowman dodd. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _climbs in the new zealand alps._ e. a. fitzgerald. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. with others. ( f. p. by joseph pennell from paintings). _highways and byways in devon and cornwall._ arthur h. norway. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) with hugh thomson. by joseph pennell. _aquitaine, a traveller's tales._ wickham flower. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p.) _over the alps on a bicycle._ elizabeth robins pennell. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _highways and byways in north wales._ a. g. bradley. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) with hugh thomson. by joseph pennell. _highways and byways in yorkshire._ arthur h. norway. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) with hugh thomson. by joseph pennell. _highways and byways in normandy._ percy dearmer. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _a little tour in france._ henry james. º. (heinemann, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the stock exchange in ._ w. eden hooper. º. (spottiswoode, .) with dudley hardy. illust. by joseph pennell. proof plates. _highways and byways in the lake district._ a. g. bradley. º. (macmillan, .) illust. _east london._ walter besant. º. (chatto, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. by joseph pennell. _highways and byways in east anglia._ william a. dutt. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _italian journeys._ w. d. howells. º. (heinemann, .) illust. ( f. p.) herbert railton. _coaching days and coaching ways._ º. (macmillan, .) illust. with hugh thomson. by herbert railton. _the essays of elia._ charles lamb. edited by augustine birrell. º. (dent, . the temple library.) etchings. _select essays of dr. johnson._ edited by george birkbeck hill. º. (dent, . the temple library.) vols. etchings. figures by john jellicoe. _the poems and plays of oliver goldsmith._ edited by austin dobson. º. (dent, . the temple library.) vols. etchings with john jellicoe. by herbert railton. _pericles and aspasia._ w. s. landor. º. (dent, . the temple library.) vols. etchings. _westminster abbey._ w. j. loftie. fol. (seeley, .) illust. _the citizen of the world._ oliver goldsmith. edited by austin dobson. º. (dent, . the temple library.) vols. etchings. _the poetical works of thomas lovell beddoes._ edited, with a memoir, by edmund gosse. º. (dent, . the temple library.) vols. etchings. _in the footsteps of charles lamb._ benjamin ellis martin. º. (bentley, .) f. p. with john fulleylove. by herbert railton. _the collected works of thomas love peacock._ edited by richard garnett. º. (dent, .) vols. etchings. _essays and poems of leigh hunt._ selected and edited by r. brimley johnson. º. (dent, .) vols. etchings. _dreamland in history._ the very rev. dean spence. º. (isbister, .) illust. ( f. p.) engraved by l. chefdeville. _the peak of derbyshire._ john leyland. º. (seeley, .) illust. ( f. p.) with alfred dawson. by herbert railton. _ripon millenary._ º. (w. harrison, ripon, .) illust. with others, also from old prints. by herbert railton. ( f. p.) _the inns of court and chancery._ w. j. loftie. fol. (seeley, .) illust. ( f. p.) by herbert railton. _the household of sir thomas more._ anne manning. º. (nimmo, .) illust. ( f. p.) with john jellicoe. by herbert railton, figures by john jellicoe. _the haunted house._ thomas hood. introduction by austin dobson. (lawrence and bullen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _cherry and violet._ anne manning. º. (nimmo, .) illust. with john jellicoe. _hampton court._ william holden hutton. º. (nimmo, .) illust. ( f. p.) english cathedral series. º. (isbister, - .) _westminster abbey._ the very rev. dean farrar. f. p. _st. paul's cathedral._ the rev. canon newbolt. f. p. _winchester cathedral._ the rev. canon benham. f. p. _wells cathedral._ the rev. canon church. illust. ( f. p.) _gloucester cathedral._ the very rev. dean spence. f. p. _peterborough cathedral._ the very rev. dean ingram. f. p. _lincoln cathedral._ the rev. canon venables. f. p. _durham cathedral._ the rev. canon fowler. f. p. _chester cathedral._ the very rev. dean darby. f. p. _ripon cathedral._ the ven. archdeacon danks. illust. ( f. p.) _the maiden and married life of mary powell and deborah's diary._ anne manning. º. (nimmo, .) illust. with john jellicoe. _the old chelsea bun shop._ anne manning. º. (nimmo, .) illust. with john jellicoe. _travels in england._ richard le gallienne. º. (grant richards, .) f. p. _the natural history and antiquities of selborne_ and _a garden kalendar_. gilbert white. º. (freemantle, .) vols. illust. ( f. p.) with others. by herbert railton. _the story of bruges._ ernest gilliat smith. º. (dent, . mediæval towns.) illust. ( f. p.) with others. by herbert railton. _boswell's life of johnson._ edited by a. glover. introduction by austin dobson. º. (dent, .) illust. and portraits. sir george reid. _the selected writings of john ramsay._ alexander walker. º. (blackwood, .) portrait and illust. _life of a scotch naturalist._ samuel smiles. º. (murray, .) portrait and illust. ( f. p.) _george paul chalmers._ a. gibson. º. (david douglas, .) heliogravure plates. _johnny gibb of gushetneuk in the parish of pyketillim._ w. alexander. º. (david douglas, .) portrait, title-page and heliogravure plates. _twelve sketches of scenery and antiquities on the line of the great north of scotland railway._ heliogravure plates with illustrative letterpress by w. ferguson of kinmundy. º. (david douglas, .) _natural history and sport in norway._ charles st. john. º. (douglas, .) f. p., heliogravure. _the river tweed from its source to the sea._ fol. (royal association for the promotion of fine arts in scotland, .) f. p., heliogravure. _george jamesone, the scottish van dyck._ john bulloch. º. (david douglas, .) heliogravure plates. _the river clyde._ fol. (royal association for the promotion of fine arts in scotland, .) f. p., heliogravure. _salmon fishing on the ristigouche._ dean sage. º. (douglas, .) illust. ( f. p. photogravure). _lacunar basilicae sancti macarii aberdonensis._ º. (new spalding club, aberdeen, ). f. p., photogravure. _cartularium ecclesiae sancti nicholai aberdonensis._ vols. º. (new spalding club, aberdeen, - .) f. p., photogravure. _st. giles', edinburgh, church, college and cathedral._ j. cameron lees. º (chambers, .) f. p., heliogravure. _royal edinburgh._ mrs. oliphant. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _familiar letters of sir walter scott._ edited by d. douglas. vols. º. (douglas, .) vignettes, photogravure. f. inigo thomas. _the formal garden in england._ reginald blomfield and f. inigo thomas. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) by f. inigo thomas. charles whymper. _wild sport in the highlands._ charles st. john. º. (murray, .) illust. _the game-keeper at home._ richard jefferies. º. (smith, elder, .) illust. _siberia in europe._ henry seebohm. º. (murray, .) illust. _matabele land and victoria falls._ frank oates. º. (kegan paul, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. _siberia in asia._ henry seebohm. º. (murray, ). illust. _the fowler in ireland._ sir r. payne gallwey. º. (van voorst, .) illust. ( f. p.) _a highland gathering._ e. lennox peel. º. (longmans, .) illust. _a highland gathering._ e. lennox peel. º. (longmans, .) illust, engraved on wood by e. whymper. ( f. p.) _our rarer birds._ charles dixon. º. (bentley, .) illust. ( f. p.) _story of the rear-guard of emin relief expedition._ j. s. jameson. º. (porter, .) illust. _travel and adventure in south africa._ f. c. selous. º. (ward, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. by charles whymper. _birds of the wave and moorland._ p. robinson. º. (isbister, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. _sporting days in southern india._ lieut.-colonel pollock. º. (cox, .) illust. ( f. p.) _big game shooting._ clive phillipps-wolley and other writers. º. (longmans, . the badminton library.) vols. illust. with others. ( f. p.) by charles whymper. _the pilgrim fathers of new england and their puritan successors._ john brown. º. (religious tract society, .) illust. ( f. p.) _icebound on kolguev._ a. trevor-battye. º. (constable, .) illust. with others. f. p. by charles whymper. _the hare._ the rev. h. a. macpherson and others. º. (longmans, . fur, feather and fin series.) illust. with others. f. p. by charles whymper. _on the world's roof._ j. macdonald oxley. º. (nisbet, .) f. p. _in haunts of wild game._ frederick vaughan kirby. º. (blackwood, .) illust. ( f. p.) _in and beyond the himalayas._ s. j. stone. º. (arnold, .) f. p. _sunshine and storm in rhodesia._ f. c. selous. º. (ward, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. by charles whymper. _letters to young shooters._ sir r. payne gallwey. (longmans, .) illust., with j. g. millais. _the art of wildfowling._ abel chapman. º. (cox, .) illust. ( f. p.). with author. _wild norway._ abel chapman. º. (arnold, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. _travel and big game._ percy selous and h. a. bryden. º. (bellairs, .) f. p. _lost and vanishing birds._ charles dixon. º. (john macqueen, .) f. p. _off to klondyke._ gordon stables. º. (nisbet, .) f. p. _the rabbit._ james edmund harting. º. (longmans, . fur, feather and fin series.) illust. with others. f. p. by charles whymper. _exploration and hunting in central africa._ a. st. h. gibbons. º. (methuen, .) f. p. by charles whymper. _the salmon._ hon. a. e. gathorne hardy. º. (longmans, . fur, feather and fin series.) illust. by charles whymper. _homes and haunts of the pilgrim fathers._ alexander mackennal. º. (the religious tract society, .) illust. from original drawings and photographs. ( f. p.) _bird life in a southern county._ charles dixon. (scott, .) f. p. _the cruise of the marchesa to kamschatka and new guinea._ f. h. h. guillemard. º. (murray, .) illust. with others. engraved by e. whymper. _among the birds in northern shires._ charles dixon. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _shooting._ lord walsingham and sir ralph payne-gallwey. º. (longmans, . the badminton library.) illust. with others. by charles whymper. some character illustrators. edwin a. abbey. _selections from the poetry of robert herrick._ º. (sampson low, .) illust. with alfred parsons. ( f. p.) _the rivals and the school for scandal._ r. b. sheridan. edited by brander matthews. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. with others. f. p. by e. a. abbey. _sketching rambles in holland._ george h. boughton. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. by e. a. abbey. _old songs._ º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) with alfred parsons. by e. a. abbey. _the quiet life._ certain verses by various hands. prologue and epilogue by austin dobson. º. (sampson low, .) illust. ( f. p.) with alfred parsons. by e. a. abbey. _the comedies of shakespeare._ vols. º. (harper, .) photogravure plates. _she stoops to conquer._ oliver goldsmith. º. (harper, .) illust. ( f. p.) a. s. boyd. _peter stonnor._ charles blatherwick. º. (chapman, .) illust. with james guthrie. by a. s. boyd. _the birthday book of solomon grundy._ will roberts. º. (gowan and gray, .) illust. ( f. p.) _novel notes._ j. k. jerome. º. (leadenhall press, .) illust. with others. by a. s. boyd. _at the rising of the moon._ frank mathew. º. (mcclure, .) illust. with f. pegram. by a. s. boyd. _ghetto tragedies._ i. zangwill. º. (mcclure, .) f. p. _a protègèe of jack hamlin's._ bret harte. º. (chatto, .) illust. with others. by a. s. boyd. _the bell-ringer of angel's._ bret harte. º. (chatto, .) illust. with others. by a. s. boyd. _john ingerfield._ jerome k. jerome. º. (mcclure, .) f. p. with john gulich. _the sketch-book of the north._ george eyre todd. º. (morrison, .) illust. with others. f. p. by a. s. boyd. _pictures from punch._ vol. vi. º. (bradbury, agnew, .) with others. illust. by a. s. boyd. _rabbi saunderson._ ian maclaren. º. (hodder, .) f. p. _a lowden sabbath morn._ r. l. stevenson. º. (chatto and windus, .) f. p. _the days of auld lang syne._ ian maclaren. º. (hodder and stoughton, .) f. p. _horace in homespun._ hugh haliburton. º. (blackwood, .) f. p. _our stolen summer._ mary stuart boyd. º. (blackwood, .) illust. _a versailles christmas-tide._ m. s. boyd. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) frank brangwyn. _collingwood._ w. clark russell. º. (methuen, .) illust. f. p. by frank brangwyn. _the captured cruiser._ c. j. hyne. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _tales of our coast._ s. r. crockett, etc. º. (chatto and windus, .) f. p. _the arabian nights._ º. (gibbings, .) f. p. _the history of don quixote._ translated by thomas shelton. introduction by j. h. mccarthy. vols. º. (gibbings, .) illust. _tom cringle's log._ michael scott. º. (gibbings, .) vols. _the cruise of the midge._ michael scott. º. (gibbings, .) vols. _a spliced yarn._ g. cupples. º. (gibbings, .) f. p. _naval yarns._ collected and edited by w. h. long. º. (gibbings, .) f. p. charles e. brock. _the parachute and other bad shots._ j. r. johnson. º. (routledge, .) illust. ( f. p.) _hood's humorous poems._ preface by alfred ainger. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _scenes in fairyland._ canon atkinson. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the humour of america._ edited by j. barr. º. (scott, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the humour of germany._ edited by hans mueller-casenov. º. (scott, .) illust. ( f. p.) _english fairy and folk tales._ edited by e. s. hartland. º. (scott, .) f. p. _gulliver's travels._ preface by henry craik. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _history readers._ book ii. º. (macmillan, .) illust. with h. m. brock. by c. e. brock. _nema and other stories._ hedley peek. º. (chapman and hall, .) illust. ( f. p. photogravure plates.) _annals of the parish and the ayrshire legatees._ john galt. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _w. v. her book and various verses._ william canton. º. (isbister, .) f. p. _westward ho!_ charles kingsley. vols. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the poetry of sport._ edited by hedley peek. º. (longman, .) illust. with others. ( f. p. by c. e. brock.) _pride and prejudice._ jane austen. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) illust. ( f. p.) _racing and chasing._ see _h. m. brock_. _ivanhoe._ sir walter scott. º. (service and paton, . illustrated english library.) f. p. _the invisible playmate and w. v. her book._ william canton. º. (isbister, .) f. p. _the lady of the lake._ sir walter scott. º. (service and paton, .) f. p. _robinson crusoe._ daniel defoe. º. (service and paton, . ill. eng. lib.) f. p. _dent's second french book._ º. (dent, .) f. p. _the novels of jane austen._ edited by r. brimley johnson. º. (dent, .) vols. f. p. in each by c. e. and h. m. brock. by c. e. brock. in colours. _the vicar of wakefield._ oliver goldsmith. º. (service and paton, . ill. eng. lib.) f. p. _john gilpin._ william cowper. º. (dent, . illustrated english poems.) illust. ( f. p.) _the bravest of them all._ mrs. edwin hohler. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _m. or n._ g. j. whyte-melville. º. (thacker, .) f. p. coloured frontispiece. _the works of jane austen._ º. (dent, . temple library.) vols. f. p. in colours. with h. m. brock. by c. e. brock. _ivanhoe._ sir walter scott. º. (dent, .) f. p., in colours. _une joyeuse nichée._ º. (dent's modern language series, .) f. p. _the path finder._ _the prairie._ fenimore cooper. vols. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) f. p. each. _penelope's english experiences._ kate douglas wiggin. º. (gay and bird, .) illust. ( f. p.) _penelope's experiences in scotland._ kate douglas wiggin. º. (gay and bird, .) illust. ( f. p.) _ivanhoe._ sir w. scott. º. (dent, . temple classics for young people.) vols. f. p. with h. m. brock. by c. e. brock reproduced from edition. _the essays and last essays of elia._ edited by augustine birrell. º. (dent, .) vols. illust. ( f. p.) _the holly tree inn_ and _the seven poor travellers_. charles dickens. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p. photogravure plates.) henry m. brock. _macmillan's history readers._ see _c. e. brock_. _jacob faithful._ captain marryat. introduction by david hannay. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) illust. ( f. p.) _tales of the covenanters._ robert pollok. º. (oliphant anderson, .) illust. ( f. p.) _racing and chasing._ a. g. t. watson. º. longmans, . with others. illust. ( f. p.) by h. m. brock. _scenes of child life._ mrs. j. g. fraser. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _scenes of familiar life._ mrs. j. g. fraser. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _uncle john._ g. j. whyte-melville. º. (thacker, .) illust. with e. caldwell. f. p. by h. m. brock. _song and verses._ g. j. whyte-melville. º. (thacker, .) illust. ( . f. p.) _the little browns._ mabel e. wotton. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _asinette._ mrs. j. g. frazer. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p. in colours.) by fenimore cooper. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) _the deerslayer_, f. p.; _the last of the mohicans_, f. p.; _the pioneers_, f. p. _digby grand._ g. j. whyte-melville. º. (thacker, .) f. p. _the old curiosity shop._ charles dickens. º. (gresham pub. co., .) f. p. _japhet in search of a father._ captain marryat. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) illust. ( f. p.) _handy andy._ samuel lover. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) illust. ( f. p.) _ballads and songs._ w. m. thackeray. º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _cranford._ mrs. gaskell. º. (service and paton, . ill. eng. lib.) f. p. _the novels of jane austen._ . see _c. e. brock_. _waverley._ sir walter scott. º. (service and paton, . ill. eng. lib.) f. p. _the works of jane austen._ . see _c. e. brock_. _black but comely._ g. j. whyte-melville. º. (thacker, .) f. p. _the drummer's coat._ hon. j. w. fortescue. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _king richard ii._ edited by w. j. abel. º. (longmans, . swan edition.) f. p. _ivanhoe._ . see _c. e. brock_. _the pilgrim's progress._ john bunyan. º. (pearson, .) f. p. _ben hur._ general lew wallace. º. (pearson, .) f. p. _sister louise_ and _rosine_. _kate coventry._ _cerise._ g. j. whyte-melville. º. (thacker, .) f. p. each. frontispiece in colours. w. cubitt cooke. _evelina._ frances burney. vols. º. (dent, .) photogravure plates and portrait. _cecilia._ vols. uniform with above. f. p. _the man of feeling._ henry mackenzie. º. (dent, .) photogravure plates and portrait. _my study fire._ h. w. mabie. º. (dent, .) f. p., photogravure. _the vicar of wakefield._ o. goldsmith. º. (dent, .) f. p. _reveries of a bachelor._ d. g. mitchell. º. (dent, .) frontispiece. _the master beggars._ cope cornford. º. (dent, .) f. p. _the singer of marly._ ida hooper. º. (methuen, .) f. p. by charles dickens. º. (dent, . the temple dickens.) _sketches by boz_, vols.; _dombey and son_, vols.; _martin chuzzlewit_, vols.; _a christmas carol_, vol. f. p. in each vol. _the novels of jane austen._ edited by r. brimley johnson. vols. º. (dent, .) photogravure plates in each vol. _popular british ballads._ chosen by r. brimley johnson. vols. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) _by stroke of sword._ andrew balfour. º. (methuen, .) f. p. _john halifax._ mrs. craik. º. (dent, .) illust. in colours, with others. f. p. by w. c. cooke. sir harry furniss. _tristram shandy._ laurence sterne. º. (nimmo, .) etchings from drawings by harry furniss. _a river holiday._ º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the talk of the town._ james payn. vols. º. (smith, elder, .) f. p. _all in a garden fair._ walter besant. º. (chatto and windus, .) f. p. _romps at the sea-side_ and _romps in town_. verses by horace leonard. º. (routledge, .) pictured pages in colours. _parliamentary views._ º. (bradbury, agnew, .) f. p. _hugh's sacrifice._ c. m. norris. º. (griffith, farran, .) f. p. _more romps._ verses by e. j. milliken. º. (routledge, .) pictured pages in colours. _the comic blackstone._ arthur w. a'beckett. º. (bradbury, agnew, .) parts. illust. ( f. p. in colours.) _travels in the interior._ l. t. courtenay. º. (ward and downey, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the incompleat angler._ f. c. burnand. º. (bradbury, agnew, .) illust. ( f. p.) _how he did it._ harry furniss. º. (bradbury, agnew, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the moderate man and other verses._ edwin hamilton. º. (ward and downey, .) f. p. _pictures at play._ º. (bradbury, agnew, .) illust. ( f. p.) _sylvie and bruno._ lewis carroll. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _perfervid._ john davidson. º. (ward and downey, .) illust. ( f. p.) _m.p.s in session._ obl. º. (bradbury, agnew, .) illust. _wanted a king._ maggie browne. º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _brayhard._ f. m. allen. º. (ward and downey, .) illust. ( f. p.) _academy antics._ º. (bradbury, agnew, .) illust. _flying visits._ h. furniss. º. (simpkin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _olga's dream._ norley chester. º. (skeffington, .) illust. ( f. p.) with irving montague. by h. furniss. _a diary of the salisbury parliament._ henry w. lucy. º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _sylvie and bruno concluded._ lewis carroll. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the grand old mystery unravelled._ º. (simpkin, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the wallypug of why._ g. e. farrow. º. (hutchinson, .) illust. with dorothy furniss. by h. furniss. ( f. p.) _golf._ horace g. hutchinson. º. (longmans, . badminton library.) illust. with others. f. p. by h. furniss. _the missing prince._ g. e. farrow. º. (hutchinson, .) illust. with d. furniss. f. p. by h. furniss. _cricket sketches._ e. b. v. christian. º. (simpkin, .) illust. _pen and pencil in parliament._ harry furniss. º. (sampson low, .) illust. ( f. p.) _miss secretary ethel._ elinor d. adams. º. (hurst and blackett, .) illust. ( f. p.) _australian sketches._ harry furniss. º. (ward, lock, .) illust. ( f. p.) william b. hole. _the master of ballantrae._ r. l. stevenson. º. (cassell, .) f. p. _a window in thrums._ j. m. barrie. º. (hodder and stoughton, .) etchings. ( f. p.) _the heart of midlothian._ sir walter scott. º. (black, . dryburgh edition.) woodcuts. ( f. p.) _the little minister._ j. m. barrie. º. (cassell, .) f. p. woodcuts. _auld licht idylls._ j. m. barrie. º. (hodder and stoughton, .) etchings. ( f. p.) _catriona._ r. l. stevenson. º. (cassell, .) woodcuts. _kidnapped._ r. l. stevenson. º. (cassell, .) woodcuts. _beside the bonnie brier bush._ ian maclaren. º. (hodder and stoughton, .) etchings. _the century edition of the poetry of robert burns._ vols. º. (jack, .) f. p. etchings. h. m. paget. _kenilworth._ sir walter scott. º. (black, . dryburgh edition.) woodcuts. ( f. p.) _quentin durward._ sir walter scott. º. (black, . dryburgh edition.) woodcuts. ( f. p.) _pictures from dickens._ º. (nister, .) coloured illust. with others. _annals of westminster abbey._ e. t. bradley. º. (cassell, .) illust. with others. _the vicar of wakefield._ oliver goldsmith. º. (nister, .) illust. ( f. p. heliogravure plates.) also illustrations to boys' books by g. a. henty, etc. sidney paget. _adventures of sherlock holmes._ conan doyle. º. (newnes, .) illust. _rodney stone._ conan doyle. º. (smith elder, .) f. p. _the tragedy of the korosko._ conan doyle. º. (smith elder, .) f. p. _old mortality._ sir walter scott. º. (service and paton, . illustrated english library.) f. p. _terence._ b. m. croker. º. (chatto and windus, .) f. p. _the sanctuary club._ l. t. meade and robert eustace. º. (ward, lock, .) f. p. walter paget. _the black dwarf._ sir walter scott. º. (black, . dryburgh edition). f. p. _castle dangerous._ sir walter scott. º. (black, . dryburgh edition.) illust. ( f. p.) _the talisman._ sir walter scott. º. (ward, lock, .) illust. with others. _a legend of montrose._ sir walter scott. º. (ward, lock, .) illust. with a. de parys. _robinson crusoe._ daniel defoe. º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _treasure island._ r. l. stevenson. º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _tales from shakespeare._ charles and mary lamb. º. (nister, .) illust. ( f. p. printed in colours.) j. bernard partridge. _stage-land._ jerome k. jerome. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) _voces populi._ f. anstey. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _voces populi._ second series. . illust. ( f. p.) _my flirtations._ margaret wynman. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the travelling companions._ f. anstey. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _mr. punch's pocket ibsen._ f. anstey. º. (heinemann, .) f. p. _the man from blankley's._ f. anstey. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _when a man's single._ _a window in thrums._ _the little minister._ _my lady nicotine._ j. m. barrie. º. scribner, . f. p. each. _tommy and grizel._ j. m. barrie. º. (copp, torontono, .) f. p. _proverbs in porcelain._ austin dobson. º. (kegan paul, .) f. p. _under the rose._ f. anstey. º. (bradbury, agnew, .) f. p. _lyre and lancet._ f. anstey. º. (smith, elder, .) f. p. _puppets at large._ f. anstey. º. (bradbury, agnew, ). f. p. _baboo jabberjee, b.a._ f. anstey. º. (dent, .) f. p. _the tinted venus._ f. anstey. º. (harper, .) f. p. _wee folk; good folk._ l. allen harker. º. (duckworth, .) f. p. fred pegram. _at the rising of the moon._ see _a. s. boyd_. _mr. midshipman easy._ captain marryat. introduction by david hannay. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) f. p. _sybil or the two nations._ benjamin disraeli. introduction by h. d. traill. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) illust. ( f. p.) _the last of the barons._ lord lytton. º. (service and paton, . illustrated english library.) f. p. _masterman ready._ captain marryat. introduction by david hannay. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) illust. ( f. p.) _poor jack._ captain marryat. introduction by david hannay. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) illust. ( f. p.) _the arabian nights entertainments._ º. (service and paton, . ill. eng. lib.) f. p. _the bride of lammermoor._ sir walter scott. º. (service and paton, . ill. eng. lib.) f. p. _the orange girl._ walter besant. º. (chatto and windus, .) f. p. _ormond._ maria edgeworth. introduction by austin h. johnson. º. (gresham publishing company, .) f. p. _concerning isabel carnaby._ e. thorneycroft fowler. º. (hodder and stoughton, .) f. p. _the wide wide world._ miss wetherell. º. (pearson.) f. p. _martin chuzzlewit._ º. c. dickens. (blackie.) f. p. claude a. shepperson. _shrewsbury._ stanley j. weyman. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the merchant of venice._ edited by john bidgood. º. (longmans, . swan edition.) f. p. _the heart of mid-lothian._ sir walter scott. introduction by william keith leask. º. (gresham publishing company, .) f. p. _lavengro._ george borrow. introduction by charles e. beckett. º. (gresham publishing company, .) f. p. _coningsby._ benjamin disraeli. introduction by william keith leask. º. (gresham publishing company, .) f. p. _as you like it._ edited by w. dyche. º. (longmans, . swan edition.) f. p. william strang. _the earth fiend._ william strang. º. (elkin mathews and john lane, .) etchings. _lucian's true history._ translated by francis hickes. º. (privately printed, .) illust. with others. f. p. by william strang. _death and the ploughman's wife._ a ballad by william strang. fol. (lawrence and bullen, .) etchings. _nathan the wise._ g. e. lessing. translated by william jacks. º. (maclehose, .) etchings. _the pilgrim's progress._ john bunyan. º. (nimmo, .) etchings. _the christ upon the hill._ cosmo monkhouse. fol. (smith, elder, .) etchings. _the surprising adventures of baron munchausen._ introduction by thomas seccombe. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) illust. ( f. p.) with j. b. clark. by william strang. _paradise lost._ john milton. fol. (nimmo, .) etchings. _sindbad the sailor_, _ali baba and the forty thieves_. º. (lawrence and bullen, .) illust. ( f. p.) with j. b. clark. by william strang. _a book of ballads._ alice sargant. º. (elkin mathews, .) etchings. _a book of giants._ william strang. º. (unicorn press, . unicorn quartos.) f. p. woodcuts in colours. _western flanders._ laurence binyon. fol. (unicorn press, .) etchings. _a series of thirty etchings illustrating subjects from the writings of rudyard kipling._ fol. (macmillan, .) _the praise of folie._ erasmus. translated by sir thomas chaloner. edited by janet e. ashbee. (arnold, .) woodcuts, drawn by william strang and cut by bernard sleigh. edmund j. sullivan. _the rivals_ and _the school for scandal_. r. b. sheridan. introduction by augustine birrell. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _lavengro._ george borrow. introduction by augustine birrell. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) illust. ( f. p.) _the compleat angler._ izaak walton. edited by andrew lang. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) _tom brown's school-days._ º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the pirate_ and _the three cutters_. captain marryat. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) f. p. _newton forster._ captain marryat. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) f. p. _sartor resartus._ thomas carlyle. º. (bell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the pirate._ sir walter scott. º. (service and paton, . illustrated english library.) f. p. _the natural history and antiquities of selborne_ and _a garden kalendar_. gilbert white. º. (freemantle, .) vols. illust. ( f. p.) with others. by e. j. sullivan. _a dream of fair women._ lord tennyson. º. (grant richards, .) f. p. photogravure plates. hugh thomson. _days with sir roger de coverley._ º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _coaching days and coaching ways._ w. outram tristram. º. (macmillan, .) illust. with herbert railton. by hugh thomson. _cranford._ mrs. gaskell. preface by anne thackeray ritchie. º. (macmillan, .) illust. _the vicar of wakefield._ oliver goldsmith. preface by austin dobson. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the ballad of beau brocade._ austin dobson. º. (kegan paul, .) illust. ( f. p.) _our village._ mary russell mitford. introduction by anne thackeray ritchie. º. (macmillan, .) illust. _the piper of hamelin. a fantastic opera._ robert buchanan. º. (heinemann, .) plates. _st. ronan's well._ sir walter scott. º. (black, . dryburgh edition.) woodcuts. ( f. p.) _pride and prejudice._ jane austen. preface by george saintsbury. º. (allen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _coridon's song and other verses._ austin dobson. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _the story of rosina and other verses._ austin dobson. º. (kegan paul, .) illust. ( f. p.) _sense and sensibility._ jane austen. introduction by austin dobson. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) f. p. _emma._ jane austen. introduction by austin dobson. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) f. p. _the chace._ william somerville. º. (george redway, .) f. p. _the poor in great cities._ robert a. woods and others. º. (kegan paul, .) illust. ( f. p.) with others. by hugh thomson. _highways and byways in devon and cornwall._ arthur h. norway. º. (macmillan, .) illust. with joseph pennell. f. p. by hugh thomson. _mansfield park._ jane austen. introduction by austin dobson. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) illust. ( f. p.) _northanger abbey and persuasion._ jane austen. introduction by austin dobson. º. (macmillan, . ill. stan. nov.) illust. ( f. p.) _cranford._ mrs. gaskell. preface by anne thackeray ritchie. º. (macmillan, .) illust. in colours. _riding recollections._ g. j. whyte-melville. (thacker, .) f. p. coloured frontispiece. _highways and byways in north wales._ arthur g. bradley. º. (macmillan, .) illust. with joseph pennell. f. p. by hugh thomson. _highways and byways in donegal and antrim._ stephen gwynn. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _highways and byways in yorkshire._ arthur h. norway. º. (macmillan, .) illust. with joseph pennell. f. p. by hugh thomson. _peg woffington._ charles reade. introduction by austin dobson. º. (allen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _this and that._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _ray farley._ john moffat and ernest druce. º. (fisher unwin, .) f. p. _a kentucky cardinal_ and _aftermath_. james lane allen. º. (macmillan, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) f. h. townsend. _a social departure._ sara jeannette duncan. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) _an american girl in london._ sara jeannette duncan. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the simple adventures of a memsahib._ sara jeannette duncan. º. (chatto and windus, .) illust. ( f. p.) illustrated standard novels. º. (macmillan, - .) the novels of thomas love peacock. edited by george saintsbury. _maid marian and crotchet castle._ illust. ( f. p.) _gryll grange._ f. p. _melincourt._ illust. ( f. p.) _the misfortunes of elphin and rhododaphne._ illust. ( f. p.) _the king's own._ captain marryat. introduction by david hannay. º. illust. ( f. p.) illustrated english library. º. (service and paton, - .) _jane eyre._ charlotte brontë. f. p. _shirley._ charlotte brontë. f. p. _rob roy._ sir walter scott. f. p. _bladys of the stewponey._ s. baring gould. º. (methuen, .) illust. with b. munns. f. p. by f. h. townsend. the works of nathaniel hawthorne. edited by moncure d. conway. º. (service and paton, - .) _the scarlet letter._ f. p. _the house of the seven gables._ f. p. _the blithedale romance._ f. p. _the path of a star._ sara jeannette duncan. º. (methuen, .) f. p. some children's books illustrators. john d. batten. _oedipus the wreck; or, 'to trace the knave.'_ owen seaman. º. (f. johnson, cambridge, .) illust. ( f. p.) with lancelot speed. _english fairy tales._ collected by joseph jacobs. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. by henry ryland. ( f. p.) _celtic fairy tales._ selected and edited by joseph jacobs. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _indian fairy tales._ selected and edited by joseph jacobs. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _fairy tales from the arabian nights._ edited and arranged by e. dixon. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p. in photogravure.) _more english fairy tales._ collected and edited by joseph jacobs. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _more celtic fairy tales._ selected and edited by joseph jacobs. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _more fairy tales from the arabian nights._ edited and arranged by e. dixon. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p. in photogravure.) _a masque of dead florentines._ maurice hewlett. obl. fol. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the book of wonder voyages._ edited by joseph jacobs. º. (nutt, .) illust. ( f. p. in photogravure.) _the saga of the sea-swallow and greenfeather the changeling._ º. (innes, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) with hilda fairbairn. lewis baumer. _jumbles._ lewis baumer. º. (pearson, .) pictured pages. ( f. p., in colours.) _hoodie._ mrs. molesworth. º. (chambers, .) illust. ( f. p.) _elsie's magician._ fred whishaw. º. (chambers, ) illust. ( f. p.) _the baby philosopher._ ruth berridge. º. (jarrold, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the story of the treasure seekers._ e. nesbit. º. (fisher unwin, .) f. p.; by gordon browne. by mrs. molesworth. º. (chambers, - .) _hermy._ _the boys and i._ _the three witches._ illust. ( f. p.) in each. f. d. bedford. _old country life._ s. baring-gould. º. (methuen, .) illust. and decorations. _the deserts of southern france._ s. baring-gould. vols. º. methuen, . illust. and diagrams; by f. d. bedford. ( f. p.) _the battle of the frogs and mice._ rendered into english by jane barlow. (methuen, .) pictured pages. ( f. p.) _old english fairy tales._ s. baring-gould. º. (methuen, .) illust. _a book of nursery rhymes._ º. (methuen, .) pictured pages. ( f. p. in colours.) _the vicar of wakefield._ o. goldsmith. º. (dent, .) f. p. in colours. _the history of henry esmond._ w. m. thackeray. º. (dent, .) f. p., in colours. _the book of shops._ e. v. lucas. obl. º. (grant richards, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p. in colours.) _four and twenty toilers._ e. v. lucas. obl. º. (grant richards, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p. in colours.) _westminster abbey._ g. e. troutbeck. º. methuen, . illust. ( f. p.) percy j. billinghurst. _a hundred fables of Æsop._ from the english version of sir roger l'estrange. introduction by kenneth grahame. º. (lane, .) f. p. _a hundred fables of la fontaine._ º. (lane, .) f. p. _a hundred anecdotes of animals._ º. (lane, .) f. p. gertrude m. bradley. _songs for somebody._ dollie radford. º. (nutt, .) pictured pages. ( f. p.) _the red hen and other fairy tales._ agatha f. º. (wilson, dublin, .) f. p. _new pictures in old frames._ gertrude m. bradley and amy mark. º. (mark and moody, stourbridge, .) pictured pages. ( f. p.) _just forty winks._ hamish hendry. º. (blackie, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _tom, unlimited._ m. l. warborough. º. (grant richards, .) illust. ( f. p.) _nursery rhymes._ º. (review of reviews, .) pictured pages. with brinsley le fanu. ( f. p. in colours.) _puff-puff._ gertrude bradley. obl. fol. (sands, .) f. p. in colours. _pillow stories._ s. l. howard and gertrude m. bradley. (grant-richards, ). illust. l. leslie brooke. _miriam's ambition._ evelyn everett-green. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _thorndyke manor._ mary c. rowsell. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _the secret of the old house._ evelyn everett-green. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _the light princess._ george macdonald. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _brownies and rose leaves._ roma white. º. (innes, .) illust. ( f. p.) _bab._ ismay thorn. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _marian._ annie e. armstrong. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _a hit and a miss._ hon. eva knatchbull-hugessen. º. (innes, . dainty books.) illust. ( f. p.) _moonbeams and brownies._ roma white. º. (innes, . dainty books.) illust. ( f. p.) _penelope and the others._ amy walton. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _school in fairy land._ e. h. strain. º. (fisher unwin, .) f. p. _the nursery rhyme book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (warne, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _a spring song._ t. nash. º. (dent, .) pictured pages, in colours. _pippa passes._ robert browning. º. (duckworth, .) f. p. lemerciergravures. _the pelican chorus and other nonsense verses._ edward lear. º. (warne, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _the jumblies and other nonsense verses._ edward lear. º. (warne, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) by mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, - .) _nurse heatherdale's story._ _the girls and i._ _mary._ _my new home._ _sheila's mystery._ _the carved lions._ _the oriel window._ _miss mouse and her boys._ illust. ( f. p.) in each. gordon browne. _stories of old renown._ ascott r. hope. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _a waif of the sea._ kate wood. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _miss fenwick's failures._ esme stuart. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _thrown on the world._ edwin hodder. º. (hodder, .) f. p. _winnie's secret._ kate wood. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _robinson crusoe._ daniel defoe. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _kirke's mill._ mrs. robert o'reilly. º. (hatchards, .) f. p. _the champion of odin._ j. f. hodgetts. º. (cassell, .) f. p. _'that child.'_ by the author of 'l'atelier du lys.' º. (hatchards, .) f. p. _christmas angel._ b. l. farjeon. º. (ward, .) illust. _the legend of sir juvenis._ george halse. obl. º. (hamilton, .) f. p. _mary's meadow._ juliana horatia ewing. º. (s.p.c.k., .) illust. _fritz and eric._ john c. hutcheson. º. (hodder, .) f. p. _melchior's dream._ juliana horatia ewing. º. (bell, .) f. p. _the hermit's apprentice._ ascott r. hope. º. (nimmo, .) illust. ( f. p.) _gulliver's travels._ jonathan swift. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _rip van winkle._ washington irving. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _devon boys._ geo. manville fenn. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _the log of the 'flying fish.'_ harry collingwood. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _down the snow-stairs._ alice corkran. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _dandelion clocks._ juliana horatia ewing. º. (s.p.c.k., .) illust. by gordon browne, etc. ( f. p.) _the peace-egg._ juliana horatia ewing. º. (s.p.c.k., .) illust. ( f. p.) _the seven wise scholars._ ascott r. hope. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _chirp and chatter._ alice banks. º. (blackie, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the henry irving shakespeare. the works of william shakespeare._ edited by henry irving and frank a. marshall. º. (blackie, , etc.) vols. illust. by gordon browne, w. h. margetson and maynard brown. ( f. p. etchings.) by gordon browne. ( etchings.) _snap-dragons._ juliana horatia ewing. º. (s.p.c.k., .) illust. ( f. p.) _a golden age._ ismay thorn. º. (hatchards, .) f. p. _fairy tales by the countess d'aulnoy._ translated by j. r. planché. º. (routledge, .) illust. ( f. p.) _harold the boy-earl._ j. f. hodgetts. º. (religious tract society, .) f. p. with alfred pearse. _bunty and the boys._ helen atteridge. º. (cassell, .) f. p. _tom's nugget._ j. f. hodgetts. º. (sunday school union, .) illust. ( f. p.) _claimed at last._ sibella b. edgcumb. º. (cassell, .) f. p. _great-uncle hoot-toot._ mrs. molesworth. º. (s.p.c.k., .) illust. ( f. p.) _my friend smith._ talbot baines reed. º. (religious tract society, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the origin of plum pudding._ frank hudson. º. (ward, .) illust. ( f. p., in colours.) _prince prigio._ andrew lang. º. (arrowsmith, bristol, .) illust. ( f. p.) _a flock of four._ ismay thorn. º. (wells, gardner, .) f. p. _a apple pie._ º. (evans, .) pictured pages. _syd belton._ g. manville fenn. º. (methuen, .) f. p. _great-grandmamma._ georgina m. synge. º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _master rockafellar's voyage._ w. clarke russell. º. (methuen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the red grange._ mrs. molesworth. º. (methuen, .) f. p. _a pinch of experience._ l. b. walford. º. (methuen, .) f. p. _the doctor of the 'juliet.'_ h. collingwood. º. (methuen, .) f. p. _a young mutineer._ l. t. meade. º. (wells, gardner, .) f. p. _graeme and cyril._ barry pain. º. (hodder, .) f. p. _the two dorothys._ mrs. herbert martin. º. (blackie, .) f. p. _one in charity._ silas k. hocking. º. (warne, .) f. p. _the book of good counsels._ hitopadesa. translated by sir edwin arnold. º. (w. h. allen, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _beryl._ georgina m. synge. º. (skeffington, .) f. p. _fairy tales from grimm._ with introduction by s. baring gould. º. (wells, gardner, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _prince boohoo and little smuts._ harry jones. º. (gardner, darton, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _sintram and his companions_ and _undine_. baron de la motte fouqué. º. (gardner, darton, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the surprising adventures of sir toady lion._ s. r. crockett. º. (gardner, darton, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _an african millionaire._ grant allen. º. (grant richards, .) illust. _butterfly ballads and stories in rhyme._ helen atteridge. º. (milne, .) illust. ( f. p.) with louis wain and others. by gordon browne. _paleface and redskin and other stories._ f. anstey. º. (grant richards, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _dr. jollyboy's a. b. c._ º. (wells, gardner, .) pictured pages. ( f. p.) _paul carah cornishman._ charles lee. º. (bowden, .) f. p. _macbeth._ wm. shakespeare. º. (longmans, . swan edition.) f. p. _miss cayley's adventures._ grant allen. º. (grant richards, .) illus. ( f. p.) _the story of the treasure seekers._ (see _baumer_.) _stories from froissart._ henry newbolt. º. (wells, gardner, .) illust. ( f. p.) _eric, or little by little._ f. w. farrar. º. (black, .) illust. _hilda wade._ grant allen. º. (grant richards, .) illust. ( f. p.) _st. winifred's._ f. w. farrar. º. (black, .) illust. _daddy's girl._ l. t. meade. º. (newnes, .) illust. ( f. p.) _gordon browne's series of old fairy tales._ º. (blackie, - .) _hop o' my thumb._ pictured pages. ( f. p.) _beauty and the beast._ pictured pages. ( f. p.) _ivanhoe._ _guy mannering._ _count robert of paris._ walter scott. º. (black. dryburgh edition.) woodcuts from drawings by gordon browne. by g. a. henty. º. (blackie, , etc.) _bonnie prince charlie._ _with wolfe in canada._ _true to the old flag._ _in freedom's cause._ _with clive in india._ _under drake's flag._ f. p. in each vol. _with lee in virginia._ _the lion of st. mark._ f. p. in each vol. _orange and green._ _for home and fame._ _st. george for england._ _hold fast for england._ _facing death._ f. p. in each vol. edith calvert. _baby lays._ a. stow. º. (elkin matthews, .) illust. ( f. p.) _more baby lays._ a stow. º. (elkin matthews, .) illust. ( f. p.) marion wallace-dunlop. _fairies, elves and flower babies._ m. rivett-carnac. obl. º. (duckworth, .) pictured pages. ( f. p.) _the magic fruit garden._ marion wallace-dunlop. º. (nister, .) illust. ( f. p.) h. j. ford. _Æsop's fables._ arthur brookfield. º. (fisher unwin, .) illust. _the blue fairy book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) with g. p. jacomb hood. _the red fairy book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) with lancelot speed. _when mother was little._ s. p. yorke. º. (fisher unwin, .) f. p. _a lost god._ francis w. bourdillon. º. (elkin matthews, .) photogravures. _the blue poetry book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) with lancelot speed. _the green fairy book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the true story book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) with l. bogle, etc. _the yellow fairy book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the animal story book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the blue true story book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) with lucien davis, etc. some from _the true story book_. _the red true story book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the pink fairy book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the arabian nights' entertainment._ selected and edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _early italian love stories._ taken from the original by una taylor. º. (longmans, .) illust. and photogravure frontispiece. _the red book of animal stories._ selected and edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the grey fairy book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the violet fairy book._ edited by andrew lang. º. (longmans, .) illust. ( f. p., in colours.) mrs. arthur gaskin. _a. b. c._ mrs. arthur gaskin. º. (elkin matthews, .) pictured pages. _divine and moral songs for children._ isaac watts. º. (elkin matthews, .) illust. ( f. p.) in colours. _horn-book jingles._ mrs. arthur gaskin. º. (leadenhall press, - .) pictured pages. _little girls and little boys._ mrs. arthur gaskin. º. (dent, .) pictured pages, in colours. _the travellers and other stories._ mrs. arthur gaskin. º. (bowden, .) pictured pages, in colours. winifred green. _poetry for children._ charles and mary lamb. prefatory note by israel gollancz. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _mrs. leicester's school._ charles and mary lamb. obl. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) emily j. harding. _an affair of honour._ alice weber. º. (farran, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the disagreeable duke._ ellinor davenport adams. º. (geo. allen, .) f. p. _fairy tales of the slav peasants and herdsmen._ from the french of alex. chodsko. translated by emily j. harding. (allen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _hymn on the morning of christ's nativity._ (see _t. h. robinson_.) violet m. and e. holden. _the real princess._ blanche atkinson. º. (innes, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the house that jack built._ º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) archie macgregor. _katawampus: its treatment and cure._ judge parry. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _butterscotia, or a cheap trip to fairyland._ judge parry. º. (nutt, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the first book of krab._ judge parry. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the world wonderful._ charles squire. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) h. r. millar. _the humour of spain._ selected with an introduction and notes by susan m. taylor. º. (scott, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the golden fairy book._ george sand, etc. (hutchinson, .) illust. ( f. p.) _fairy tales far and near._ º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the adventures of hajji baba of ispahan._ james morier. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the silver fairy book._ sarah bernhardt, etc. º. (hutchinson, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the phantom ship._ captain marryat. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) f. p. _headlong hall, and nightmare abbey._ t. love peacock. with introduction by george saintsbury. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _frank mildmay._ captain marryat. introduction by david hannay. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) illust. ( f. p.) _snarleyyow._ captain marryat. introduction by david hannay. º. (macmillan, . illustrated standard novels.) illust. ( f. p.) _the diamond fairy book._ isabel bellerby, etc. º. (hutchinson, .) illust. ( f. p.) _untold tales of the past._ beatrice harraden. º. (blackwood, .) illust. ( f. p.) _eothen._ a. w. kinglake. º. (newnes, .) illust. ( f. p.) _phroso._ anthony hope. º. (methuen, .) f. p. _the book of dragons._ e. nesbit. º. (harper, .) f. p. decorations by h. granville fell. _nine unlikely tales for children._ e. nesbit. º. (fisher unwin, .) f. p. _booklets by count tolstoi._ º. (walter scott, - .) f. p. in each vol. _master and man._ _ivan the fool._ _what men live by._ _where love is there god is also._ _the two pilgrims._ carton moore park. _an alphabet of animals._ carton moore park. º. (blackie, .) pictured pages. ( f. p.) _a book of birds._ carton moore park. fol. (blackie, .) f. p. _a child's london._ hamish hendry. º. (sands, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the confessions of harry lorrequer._ charles lever. with introduction by w. k. leask. º. (gresham publishing co., .) f. p. _a book of elfin rhymes._ norman. º. (gay and bird, .) illust., in colours. _the child's pictorial natural history._ º. (s.p.c.k., .) illust. ( f. p.) rosie m. m. pitman. _maurice, or the red jar._ the countess of jersey. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _undine._ baron de la motte fouqué. º. (macmillan, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the magic nuts._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) arthur rackham. _the dolly dialogues._ anthony hope. º. ('westminster gazette,' .) f. p. _sunrise-land._ mrs. alfred berlyn. º. (jarrold, .) illust. ( f. p.) _tales of a traveller._ washington irving. vols. º. (putman, . buckthorne edition.) illust., with borders and initials. photogravures by arthur rackham. _the sketch book._ washington irving. vols. º. (putman, . van tassel edition.) illust., with others. borders. photogravures by arthur rackham. _the money spinner and other character notes._ henry seton merriman and s. g. tallintyre. º. (smith, elder, .) f. p. _the zankiwank and the bletherwitch._ s. j. adair fitzgerald. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) _two old ladies, two foolish fairies and a tom cat._ maggie browne. º. (cassell, .) illust. ( f. p., in colours.) _charles o'malley._ charles lever. º. (service and paton, .) f. p. _the grey lady._ henry seton merriman. º. (smith, elder, .) f. p. _evelina._ frances burney. º. (newnes, .) f. p. _the ingoldsby legends._ h. r. barham. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) printed in colours. _feats on the fjords._ harriet martineau. º. (dent, . temple classics for young people.) f. p. _tales from shakespeare._ charles and mary lamb. º. (dent, . temple classics for young people.) f. p. _fairy tales of the brothers grimm._ translated by mrs. edgar lucas. º. (freemantle, .) illust. ( f. p., in colours.) charles robinson. _Æsop's fables._ º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _animals in the wrong places._ edith carrington. º. (bell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the child world._ gabriel setoun. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _make-believe._ h. d. lowry. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _a child's garden of verses._ robert louis stevenson. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _dobbie's little master._ mrs. arthur bell. (bell, .) illust. ( f. p.) _king longbeard, or annals of the golden dreamland._ barrington macgregor. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _lullaby land._ eugene field. selected by kenneth grahame. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _lilliput lyrics._ w. b. rand. edited by r. brimley johnson. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _fairy tales from hans christian andersen._ translated by mrs. e. lucas. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) with messrs. t. h. and w. h. robinson. _pierrette._ henry de vere stacpoole. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _child voices._ w. e. cule. º. (melrose, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the little lives of the saints._ rev. percy dearmer. º. (wells, gardner, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the adventures of odysseus._ retold in english by f. s. marion, r. j. g. mayor, and f. m. stawell. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _the true annals of fairy land. the reign of king herla._ edited by william canton. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _sintram and his companions_ and _aslauga's knight_. baron de la motte fouqué. º. (dent, . temple classics for young people.) f. p., in colours. _the master mosaic-workers._ george sand. translated by charlotte c. johnston. º. (dent, . temp. class. for young people.) f. p., in colours. _the suitors of aprille._ norman garstin. º. (lane, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _jack of all trades._ j. j. bell. º. (lane, .) f. p., in colours. t. h. robinson. _old world japan._ frank rinder. º. (allen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _cranford._ mrs. gaskell. º. (bliss, sands, .) illust. ( f. p.) _legends from river and mountain._ carmen sylva and alma strettell. º. (allen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the history of henry esmond._ w. m. thackeray. º. (allen, .) illust. and decorations, ( f. p.) _the scarlet letter._ nathaniel hawthorne. º. (bliss, sands, .) f. p. _a sentimental journey through france and italy._ laurence sterne. º. (bliss, sands, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _hymn on the morning of christ's nativity._ john milton. º. (allen, .) f. p. with emily j. harding. _a child's book of saints._ w. canton. º. (dent, .) f. p. ( in colours.) _the heroes, or greek fairy tales for my children._ chas. kingsley. º. (dent, . temple classics for young people.) f. p., in colours. _fairy tales from the arabian nights._ f. p., in colours. _fairy tales from hans christian andersen._ º. (dent, .) (see _c. h. robinson_.) _a book of french songs for the young._ bernard minssen. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _lichtenstein._ adapted from the german of wilhelm hauff by l. l. weedon. º. (nister, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the scottish chiefs._ jane porter. º. (dent, .) illust. ( f. p.) w. h. robinson. _don quixote._ translated by charles jarvis. º. (bliss, sands, .) f. p. _the pilgrim's progress._ john bunyan. edited by george offer. º. (bliss, sands, .) f. p. _the giant crab and other tales from old india._ retold by w. h. d. rouse. º. (nutt, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _danish fairy tales and legends._ hans christian andersen. º. (bliss, sands, .) f. p. _the arabian nights' entertainments._ º. (newnes, by arrangement with messrs. constable, .) illust. with helen stratton, a. d. mccormick, a. l. davis and a. p. norbury. ( f. p.) _the talking thrush and other tales from india._ collected by w. cooke. retold by w. h. d. rouse. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _fairy tales from hans christian andersen._ (see _charles robinson_.) _the poems of edgar allan poe._ introduction by h. noel williams. º. (bell, . the endymion series.) illust. and decorations. ( double-page, f. p.) _tales for toby._ ascott r. hope. º. (dent, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) with s. jacobs. helen stratton. _songs for little people._ norman gale. º. (constable, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _tales from hans andersen._ º. (constable, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _beyond the border._ walter douglas campbell. º. (constable, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the fairy tales of hans christian andersen._ º. (newnes, by arrangement with messrs. constable, .) illust. some reprinted from _tales from hans andersen_. _the arabian nights' entertainments._ (see _w. h. robinson_.) a. g. walker. _the lost princess, or the wise woman._ george macdonald. º. (wells, gardner, .) illus. ( f. p.) _stories from the faerie queene._ mary macleod. with introduction by j. w. hales. º. (gardner, darton, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the book of king arthur and his noble knights._ stories from sir thomas malory's _morte d'arthur_. mary macleod. º. (wells, gardner, .) illust. ( f. p.) alice b. woodward. _eric, prince of lorlonia._ countess of jersey. º. (macmillan, .) f. p. _banbury cross and other nursery rhymes._ º. (dent, . banbury cross series.) pictured pages. ( f. p.) _to tell the king the sky is falling._ sheila e. braine. º. (blackie, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _bon-mots of the eighteenth century._ º. (dent, .) grotesques. ( f. p.) _bon-mots of the nineteenth century._ º. (dent, .) grotesques. ( f. p.) _brownie._ alice sargant. music by lilian mackenzie. obl. folio. (dent, .) pictured pages, in colours. _red apple and silver bells._ hamish hendry. º. (blackie, .) pictured pages. ( f. p., in colours.) _adventures in toyland._ edith hall king. º. (blackie, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _the troubles of tatters and other stories._ alice talwin morris. º. (blackie, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p.) _the princess of hearts._ sheila e. braine. º. (blackie, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _the cat and the mouse._ obl. º. (blackie, .) pictured pages. ( f. p., in colours.) _the elephant's apology._ alice talwin morris. º. (blackie, .) illust. _the golden ship and other tales._ translated from the swahili. º. (universities' mission, .) illust. and decorations, with lilian bell. ( f. p., by a. b. woodward.) _the house that grew._ mrs. molesworth. º. (macmillan, .) illust. ( f. p.) alan wright. _queen victoria's dolls._ frances h. low. º. (newnes, .) illust. and decorations. ( f. p., in colours.) _the wallypug in london._ g. e. farrow. º. (methuen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _adventures in wallypug land._ g. e. farrow. º. (methuen, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the little panjandrum's dodo._ g. e. farrow. º. (skeffington, .) illust. ( f. p.) _the mandarin's kite._ g. e. farrow. º. (skeffington, .) illust. index of artists. abbey, e. a., , , , . allingham, mrs., . ansted, alexander, , . barnes, robert, . barrett, c. r. b., , , . batten, j. d., , , . bauerle, amelia, , . baumer, lewis, , . bedford, f. d., , . bell, r. anning, , . billinghurst, p. j., , . boyd, a. s., , , . bradley, gertrude m., , . brangwyn, frank, , . britten, w. e. f., , . brock, c. e., , . brock, h. m., , , . brooke, l. leslie, , . browne, gordon, , . bryden, robert, . bulcock, percy, , . burns, robert, . cadenhead, james, . calvert, edith, , . cameron, d. y., , , . cleaver, ralph, . cleaver, reginald, . clifford, h. p., . cole, herbert, , , . connard, philip, , , . cooke, w. cubitt, , . cowper, max, . crane, walter, , , , . dadd, frank, . davis, louis, . davison, raffles, . duncan, john, . dunlop, marion wallace, , . edwards, m. e., . erichsen, nelly, , . fell, h. granville, , . fitton, hedley, , . ford, h. j., , , . forestier, amedée, , . fulleylove, j., , , . furniss, sir harry, , , , . gaskin, a. j., , . gaskin, mrs. arthur, , . gere, c. m., , , . goldie, cyril, . gould, f. carruthers, . green, winifred, , . greiffenhagen, maurice, . griggs, f. l., , . guthrie, j. j., , , . harding, emily j., , . hardy, dudley, . hardy, paul, . hare, augustus, . hartrick, a. s., . harper, c. g., , . hill, l. raven, , . holden, violet m. and e., , . hole, william b., , . hood, g. p. jacomb, . hopkins, arthur, . hopkins, edward, . horne, herbert, . housman, laurence, , . hughes, arthur, . hurst, hal, . hyde, william, , . image, selwyn, . jalland, g. p., . james, helen, . jones, a. garth, , , . kitton, f. g., , . levetus, celia, , . macdougall, w. b., , . macgregor, archie, , . mallows, c. e., . mason, fred, , . may, phil, , . millais, j. g., , . millar, h. r., , , . millet, f. d., . moore, t. sturge, , , . muckley, l. fairfax, , . new, e. h., , , , . north, j. w., . ospovat, henry, , , . paget, h. m., , . paget, sidney, , . paget, walter, , . park, carton moore, , . parsons, alfred, , , . partridge, j. bernard, , , . payne, henry, . pegram, fred, , , . pennell, joseph, , , , . pissarro, lucien, , . pitman, rosie m. m., , . "pym, t.," . rackham, arthur, , . railton, herbert, , , , , reed, e. t., . reid, sir george, , . reid, stephen, . ricketts, charles, , . robinson, charles, , , . robinson, t. h., , . robinson, w. h., , , . ryland, henry, . sambourne, linley, , . sauber, robert, . savage, reginald, , , . shannon, c. h., , . shaw, byam, , . shepherd, j. a., . shepperson, c. a., , , . sleigh, bernard, , . speed, lancelot, . spence, robert, . strang, william, , . stratton, helen, , . sullivan, e. j., , , , . sumner, heywood, , . tenniel, sir john, , , . thomas, f. inigo, , . thomson, hugh, , , . townsend, f. h., , , , . tringham, holland, . wain, louis, . walker, a. g., , . weguelin, j. r., , . weir, harrison, . wheeler, e. j., . whymper, charles, , . williams, r. j., . wilson, edgar, . wilson, patten, , . woodroffe, p. v., , , . woodward, alice b., , . wright, alan, , . [illustration] chiswick press: charles whittingham and co. tooks court, chancery lane, london. * * * * * transcriber's notes italicized text is shown within _underscores_. quarto, (normally to), is shown as º, and octavo, (normally vo), is shown as º. illustrations were moved outside of paragraphs and closer to their pertinent paragraphs. although the list of illustrations displays the original page number, the html version of this book links the page numbers to the illustrations. made minor punctuation corrections and the following changes: page vii: contents, bibliographies: changed "book" to "books" and "illustrations" to "illustrators". orig.: some children's-book illustrations. page : illustration: changed "homes" to "horns". orig.: from his 'british deer and their homes.' page : indented essex house press under author reginald savage. changed "woolam" to "woolman". orig.: essex house press ... the journal of john woolam. page : changed "tho" to "the". orig.: ripon cathedral. tho ven. archdeacon danks. page : changed "ohe" to "the", and "hesla" to "herla". orig.: the true annals of fairy land. ohe reign of king hesla. note: the remainder of this text matches the original publication, which might contain additional title, author, or spelling errors. generously made available by internet archive (https://archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the numerous original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see https://archive.org/details/englishillustrat whit english illustration the sixties [illustration: morgan le fay.] english illustration 'the sixties': - by gleeson white with numerous illustrations by ford madox brown : a. boyd houghton arthur hughes : charles keene m. j. lawless : lord leighton, _p._r.a. sir j. e. millais, _p._r.a. : g. du maurier j. w. north, r.a.: g. j. pinwell dante gabriel rossetti : w. small frederick sandys: j. mcneill whistler frederick walker, a.r.a. : and others london archibald constable and co. ltd. james street haymarket _third impression_ *.* _this is a re-impression of the original edition of . a few small errors have been corrected. in other respects the text has been left, as it came from the late mr. gleeson white's hands, unaltered._ edinburgh: t. and a. constable, printers to his majesty to a. m. g. w. and c. r. g. w. in memory of the many hours spent ungrudgingly in proof reading preface in a past century the author of a well-digested and elaborately accurate monograph, the fruit of a life's labour, was well content to entitle it 'brief contributions towards a history of so-and-so.' nowadays, after a few weeks' special cramming, a hastily written record of the facts which most impressed the writer is labelled often enough 'a history.' were this book called by the earlier phrase, it would still be overweighted. nor did an english idiom exist that would provide the exact synonym for _catalogue-raisonné_, could the phrase be employed truthfully. it is at most a roughly annotated, tentative catalogue like those issued for art critics on press-days with the superscription 'under revision'--an equivalent of the legal reservation 'without prejudice.' to conceal the labour and present the results in interesting fashion, which is the aim of the chancellor of the exchequer on a 'budget' night, ought also to be that of the compiler of any document crammed with distantly unrelated facts. but the time required for rewriting a book of this class, after it has grown into shape, would be enough to appal a person who had no other duties to perform, and absolutely prohibitive to one not so happily placed. in estimating the errors which are certain to have crept into this record of a few thousand facts selected from many thousands, the author is obviously the last person to have any idea of their number; for did he suspect their existence, they would be corrected before the work appeared. yet all the same, despite his own efforts and those of kindly hands who have re-collated the references in the majority of cases, he cannot flatter himself he has altogether escaped the most insidious danger that besets a compilation of this kind, namely, overlooking some patently obvious facts which are as familiar to him as to any candid critic who is sure to discover their absence. the choice of representative illustrations has been most perplexing. some twenty years' intimacy with most of the books and magazines mentioned herein made it still less easy to decide upon their abstract merits. personal prejudice--unconscious, and therefore the more subtle--is sure to have influenced the selection; sometimes, perhaps, by choosing old favourites which others regard as second-rate, and again by too reticent approval of those most appreciated personally, from a fear lest the partiality should be sentimental rather than critical. but, and it is as well to make the confession at once, many have been excluded for matters quite unconnected with their art. judging from the comments of the average person who is mildly interested in the english illustrations of the past, his sympathy vanishes at once if the costumes depicted are 'old-fashioned.' whilst i have been working on these books, if a visitor called, and turned over their pages, unless he chanced to be an artist by profession as well as by temperament, the spoon-bill bonnet and the male 'turban' of the 'sixties' merely provoked ridicule. as my object is to reawaken interest in work familiar enough to artists, but neglected at present by very many people, it seems wiser not to set things before them which would only irritate. again, it is difficult to be impartial concerning the beauty of old favourites; whether your mother or sister happen to be handsome is hardly a point of which you are a trustworthy judge. other omissions are due to the right, incontestable if annoying, every other person possesses in common with oneself, 'to do what he likes with his own'; and certain publishers, acting on this principle, prefer that half-forgotten engravings should remain so. the information and assistance so freely given should be credited in detail, yet to do so were to occupy space already exceeded. but i cannot avoid naming mr. g. h. boughton, r.a., mr. dalziel, mr. g. r. halkett, mr. fairfax murray, and mr. joseph pennell for their kind response to various inquiries. thanks are also due to the many holders of copyrights who have permitted the illustrations to be reproduced. as some blocks have changed hands since they first appeared, the original source given below each picture does not always indicate the owner who has allowed it to be included. the artists' names are printed in many cases without titles bestowed later, as it seemed best to quote them as they stood at the time the drawing was published. lastly, i have to thank mr. temple scott for his elaborate index, prepared with so much care, which many interested in the subject will find the most useful section of the book. the claims of wood-engraving _versus_ process have been touched upon here very rarely. if any one doubts that nearly all the drawings of the 'sixties' lost much, and that many were wholly ruined by the engraver, he has but to compare them with reproductions by modern processes from a few originals that escaped destruction at the time. if this be not a sufficient evidence, the british museum and south kensington have many examples in their permanent collections which will quickly convince the most stubborn. if some few engravers managed to impart a certain interest at the expense of the original work, which not merely atones for the loss but supplies in its place an intrinsic work of art, such exceptions no way affect the argument. wood-engraving of the first order is hardly likely to die out. it is true that, as the craft finds fewer recruits, the lessened number of journeymen, experts in technique (whence real artist-engravers may be expected to spring up at intervals), will diminish the supply. given the artist as craftsman, he may always be trusted to distance his rival, whether it be mechanism or a profit-making corporation which reduces the individuality of its agents to the level of machines. for in art, still more than in commerce, it is the personal equation that finally controls and shapes the project to mastery, and the whole charm of the sixties is the individual charm of each artist. the incompetent draughtsman, then, was no less uninteresting than he is to-day; even the fairly respectable illustrators gain nothing by the accident that they flourished in 'the golden decade.' but the best of the work which has never ceased to delight fellow-workers will, no doubt, maintain its interest in common with good work of all schools and periods. therefore, this rough attempt at a catalogue of some of its most striking examples, although its publication happens to coincide with a supposed 'boom,' may have more than ephemeral value if it save labour in hunting up commonplace facts to many people now and in the future. this plea is offered in defence of the text of a volume which, although cut down from its intended size, and all too large, is yet but a rough sketch. collectors of all sorts know the various stages which their separate hobbies impose on them. first, out of pure love for their subject, they gather together chance specimens almost at haphazard. then, moved by an ever-growing interest, they take the pursuit more seriously, and, as one by one the worthier objects fall into their hands, they grow still more keen. later, they discover to their sorrow that a complete collection is, humanly speaking, impossible: certain unique examples are not to be obtained for love or money, or, at all events, for the amount at their personal disposal. at last they realise, perhaps, that after all the cheapest and most easily procured are also the most admirable and delightful. this awakening comes often enough when a catalogue has been prepared, and on looking over it they find that the treasures they valued at one time most highly are only so estimated by fellow-collectors; then they realise that the more common objects which fall within the reach of every one are by far the best worth possessing. a homely american phrase (and the word homely applies in a double sense) runs: 'he has bitten off more than he can chew.' the truth of the remark is found appropriate as i write these final words. to mark, learn, and inwardly digest the output of ten to fifteen years' illustration must needs be predestined failure, if space and time for its preparation are both limited. the subject has hitherto been almost untouched, and when in certain aspects it has attracted writers, they have approached it almost always from the standpoint of artistic appreciation and criticism. here, despite certain unintentional lapses into that nobler path, the intention has been to keep strictly to a catalogue of published facts and with a few bibliographical notes added. setting out with a magnificent scheme--to present an iconography of the work of every artist of the first rank--the piles of manuscript devoted to this comprehensive task which are at my side prove the impracticability of the enterprise. to annotate the work of sir john gilbert or mr. birket foster would require for each a volume the size of this. but as _punch_, _the illustrated london news_, and the moxon _tennyson_ have already been the subject of separate monographs, no doubt in future years each branch of the subject that may be worth treating exhaustively will supply material for other monographs. the chief disappointment in preparing a reference-book of this class belongs to the first compiler only; the rest have the joy of exposing his shortcomings and correcting his errors, combined with the pleasure of indulging in that captious criticism which any overheard dialogue in the streets shows to be the staple of english conversation. gleeson white. theresa terrace, ravenscourt park, w., _october _. contents chapter i page the new appreciation and the new collector, chapter ii the illustrated periodicals before the sixties, chapter iii some illustrated magazines of the sixties: i. 'once a week,' chapter iv some illustrated magazines of the sixties: ii. 'the cornhill,' 'good words,' and 'london society,' chapter v other illustrated periodicals of the sixties: 'churchman's family magazine,' 'sunday magazine, etc., chapter vi some illustrated weekly papers in the sixties, chapter vii some illustrated books of the period before , chapter viii some illustrated books of the period - , chapter ix some illustrated books of the period - , chapter x the aftermath: a few belated volumes, chapter xi certain influences upon the artists of the sixties, chapter xii some illustrators of the sixties, index, list of illustrations (where two or more illustrations follow each other with no text between, the references are given to the nearest page facing) facing page anonymous, 'enoch arden,' _leisure hour_ (religious tract society), armstead, h. h., r.a., a dream, _willmott's sacred poetry_ (routledge), brown, ford madox, prisoner of chillon, _willmott's poets of the nineteenth century_ (routledge), elijah and the widow's son, _bible gallery_ (routledge), joseph's coat, " " down stream, from the original drawing in the wood (photographed by mr. fred hollyer)--(_photogravure_), " " burne-jones, bt., sir e., parable of the boiling-pot, " " clayton, j. r., olympia and bianca, _barry cornwall's dramatic scenes_ (chapman and hall), crane, walter treasure-trove, _good words_ (strahan), dalziel, t., bedreddin hassan and the _arabian nights_ pastrycook, (ward, lock and co.), the destruction of sodom, _bible gallery_ (routledge), du maurier, g., on her deathbed, _once a week_ (bradbury and evans), per l'amore d'una donna, " " a time to dance, _good words_ (strahan), a legend of camelot (nos. i. _punch_ (bradbury, agnew, to v.), and co.), send the culprit from the _story of a feather_ (bradbury, house instantly, agnew, and co.), he felt the surpassing importance of his position, " " fildes, s. l., the farmer's daughter, _sunday magazine_ (strahan), foster, birket, the green lane, _pictures of english landscape_ (routledge), the old chair-mender, " " gilbert, sir john, r.a., hohenlinden, _willmott's poets of the nineteenth century_ (routledge), graham, t., honesty, _good words_ (strahan), gray, paul, cousin lucy, _the quiver_ (cassell), herkomer, hubert, r.a., wandering in the wood, _good words for the young_ (strahan), houghton, a. boyd, my treasure, _good words_ (strahan), a lesson to a king, _sunday magazine_ (strahan), luther the singer " " john baptist, " " the parable of the sower, " " the vision of sheik hamil, _the argosy_ (strahan), noureddin ali, _arabian nights_ (routledge), love, _golden thoughts from golden fountains_ (warne), don jose's mule, _good words for the young_ (strahan), reading the chronicles, from the original drawing on the block (_photogravure_), (british museum), hughes, arthur, fancy, _good words_ (strahan), the letter, " " the dial (sun comes, moon comes), " " my heart, _sunday magazine_ (strahan), blessings in disguise, " " barbara's pet lamb, _good words for the young_ (strahan), mercy, " " hunt, w. holman, the lent jewels, _willmott's sacred poetry_ (routledge), keene, charles, 'a good fight,' _once a week_ (bradbury and evans), lawless, m. j., effie gordon, " " dr. johnson's penance, " " john of padua, " " rung into heaven, _good words_ (strahan), the bands of love, " " the player and the listeners, " " honeydew, _london society_ (hogg), one dead, _churchman's family magazine_ (hogg), lawson, j., ariadne, _once a week_ (bradbury and evans), leighton, lord, p.r.a., cain and abel, _bible gallery_ (routledge), moses views the promised land, " " abram and the angel, " " leighton, john, a parable, _sunday magazine_ (strahan), mahoney, j., summer, " " yesterday and to-day, _good words_ (strahan), marks, h. s., r.a., a quiet mind, _willmott's sacred poetry_ (routledge), in a hermitage, " " millais, sir j. e., p.r.a., there's nae luck about the house, _home affections_ (routledge), the border widow, " " grandmother's apology, _once a week_ (bradbury and evans), the plague of elliant, " " tannhäuser, " " sister anne's probation, " " the hampdens, " " death dealing arrows, " " the prodigal son, _good words_ (strahan), the tares, " " the sower, " " morten, t., the cumæan sibyl, _once a week_ (bradbury and evans), izaak walton, _the quiver_ (cassell), gulliver in lilliput, _gulliver's travels_ (cassell), the laputians " " north, j. w., r.a., glen oona, _wayside poesies_ (routledge), glen oona (from the original drawing), _magazine of art_ (cassell), the nutting, _wayside poesies_ (routledge), afloat, " " anita's prayer, _sunday magazine_ (strahan), winter, " " pettie, j., r.a., the monks and the heathen, _good words_ (strahan), pickersgill, f. r., r.a., the water nymph, _willmott's poets of the nineteenth century_ (routledge), pinwell, g. j., the sailor's valentine, _the quiver_ (cassell), king pippin, _wayside poesies_ (routledge), the little calf, " " madame de krudener, _sunday magazine_ (strahan), what, bill! you chubby rogue, _goldsmith's works_ (ward and lock), from the original drawing on the block for _she stoops to conquer_--(_photogravure_), (british museum), poynter, e. j., p.r.a., joseph before pharaoh, _bible gallery_ (routledge), pharaoh honours joseph, " " rossetti, dante gabriel, the maids of elfen-mere, _the music-master_ (routledge), you should have wept _the prince's progress_ her yesterday, (macmillan), sandys, frederick, the three statues of Ægina, _once a week_ (bradbury and evans), the old chartist, " " harold harfagr, " " death of king warwolf, " " rosamund, queen of the lombards, " " legend of the portent, _cornhill magazine_ (smith and elder), manoli, " " cleopatra, " " the waiting time, _churchman's family magazine_ (hogg), amor mundi--(_photogravure_), _shilling magazine_ (bosworth), sleep, _good words_ (strahan), until her death, " " 'if,' _the argosy_ (strahan), october, _the quiver_ (cassell), danae in the brazen _the hobby horse_ chamber, (chiswick press), life's journey, _willmott's sacred poetry_ (routledge), a little mourner, " " jacob hears the voice of the lord, _bible gallery_ (routledge), morgan le fay-- (_photogravure_), _frontispiece_ shields, frederick, the plague-cart, _defoe's history of the plague_ (munby), small, w., between the cliffs, _the quiver_ (cassell), mark the grey-haired man, _golden thoughts from golden fountains_ (warne), solomon, simeon, the veiled bride, _good words_ (strahan), the feast of tabernacles, _leisure hour_ (religious tract society), the day of atonement, " " tenniel, sir john, the norse princess, _good words_ (strahan), walker, frederick, the nursery friend, _willmott's sacred poetry_ (routledge), a child in prayer, " " out among the wild-flowers, _good word_ (strahan), portrait of a minister, _english sacred poetry_ (religious tract society), autumn, _a round of days_ (routledge), autumn, from the original drawing on the block (_photogravure_), (british museum), the bit o' garden, _wayside poesies_ (routledge), watson, j. d., too late, _london society_ (hogg), ash wednesday, " " whistler, james m'neill, the major's daughter, _once a week_ (bradbury and evans), the relief fund in lancashire, " " the morning before the massacre of st. bartholomew, " " count burckhardt, " " [illustration: scene from "she stoops to conquer."] english illustration the sixties, - chapter i: the new appreciation and the new collector the borderland between the hallowed past and the matter-of-fact present is rarely attractive. it appeals neither to our veneration nor our curiosity. its heroes are too recent to be deified, its secrets are all told. if you estimate a generation as occupying one-third of a century, you will find that to most people thirty-three years ago, more or less, is the least fascinating of all possible periods. its fashions in dress yet linger in faded travesties, its once refined tastes no longer appeal to us, its very aspirations, if they do not seem positively ludicrous, are certain to appear pathetically insufficient. yet there are not wanting signs which denote that the rush of modern life, bent on shortening times of waiting, will lessen the quarantine which a period of this sort has had to suffer hitherto before it could be looked upon as romantically attractive instead of appearing repulsively old-fashioned. for the moment you are able to take a man of a former generation, and can regard him honestly, not as a contemporary with all human weakness, but with the glamour which surrounds a hero; he is released from the commonplace present and has joined the happy past. therein he may find justice without prejudice. of course the chances are that, be he artist or philosopher, the increased favour bestowed upon him will not extend to his subjects, or perhaps his method of work; but so sure as you find the artists of any period diligently studied and imitated, it is almost certain that the costumes they painted, the furniture and accessories they admired, and the thought which infused their work, will be less intolerable, and possibly once again restored to full popularity. not very long ago anything within the limits of the century was called modern. perhaps because its early years were passed in yearnings for the classic days of old greece, and later in orthodox raptures over the bulls of nineveh and the relics of dead pharaohs. then by degrees the middle ages also renewed their interest: the great gothic revival but led the way to a new exploration of the queen anne and georgian days. so in domestic life england turned to its chippendale and sheraton, america to its colonial houses, and the word 'antique,' instead of being of necessity limited to objects at least a thousand years old was applied to those of a bare hundred. now, when the nineteenth century has one foot in the grave, we have but to glance back a few years to discover that what was so lately 'old-fashioned' is fast attaining the glamour of antiquity. even our immediate progenitors who were familiar with the railway and telegraph, and had heard of photography, seem to be in other respects sufficiently unlike our contemporaries to appear quite respectably ancestral to-day. it is true that we have compensations: the new photography and electric lighting are our own joys; and the new criticism had hardly begun, except perhaps in the far west, during the time of this previous generation--the time that begins with a memory of the project for the great exhibition, and ends with an equally vivid recollection of the collapse of the third empire. in those days people still preserved a sentimental respect for the artist merely because he was 'an artist,' quite apart from his technical accomplishment. it was the period of magenta and crinoline--the period that saw, ere its close, the twin domes of the second international exhibition arise in its midst to dominate south kensington before they were moved to muswell hill and were burnt down without arousing national sorrow--in short, it was 'the sixties.' only yesterday 'the sixties' seemed a synonym for all that was absurd. is it because most of us who make books to-day were at school then, and consequently surveyed the world as a superfluous and purely inconsequent background? for people who were children in the sixties are but now ripening to belief in the commonplace formulæ dear to an orthodox british citizen. to their amazement they find that not a few of the pupils of the 'seventies,' if not of the 'eighties,' have already ripened prematurely to the same extent. have we not heard a youth of our time, in a mood not wholly burlesque, gravely discussing the Æsthetic movement of the 'eighties' as soberly as men heretofore discussed the movement of a century previous? were the purpose of this book phrase-making instead of a dull record of facts, we might style this sudden appreciation of comparatively recent times the new antiquity. to a child the year before last is nearly as remote as the time of the norman conquest, or of julius cæsar. possibly this sudden enlightenment respecting the artistic doings of the mid-victorian period may indicate the return to childhood which is part of a nonagenarian's equipment. at seventy or eighty, our lives are spent in recollections half a century old, but at ninety the privilege may be relaxed, and the unfortunate loiterer on the stage may claim to select a far more recent decade as his golden age, even if by weakening memory he confuses his second childhood with his first. to-day not a few people interested in the arts find 'the sixties' a time as interesting as in the last century men found the days of praxiteles, or as, still more recently, the middle ages appeared to the early pre-raphaelites. these few, however, are more or less disciples of the illustrator, as opposed to those who consider 'art' and 'painting' synonymous terms. not long since the only method deemed worthy of an artist was to paint in oils. to these, perhaps, to be literally exact, you might add a few pedants who recognised the large aims of the worker in fresco, and a still more restricted number who believed in the maker of stained glass, mosaic, or enamel, if only his death were sufficiently remote. now, however, the humble illustrator, the man who fashions his dreams into designs for commercial reproduction by wood-engraving or 'process,' has found an audience, and is acquiring rapidly a fame of his own. for those who recognise most sincerely, and with no affectation, the importance of the mere illustrator, this attempt to make a rough catalogue of his earlier achievements may be not without interest. yet it is not put forward as a novel effort. one of the most hopeful auguries towards the final recognition of the pen-draughtsmen of the sixties quickly comes to light as you begin to search for previous notices of their work. it was not mr. joseph pennell who first appreciated them. it is true that he carried the report of their powers into unfamiliar districts; but, long before his time, mr. j. m. gray, mr. edmund gosse, and many another had paid in public due tribute to their excellence. nor can you find that they were unappreciated by their contemporaries. on the contrary, our popular magazines were filled with their work. despite mr. ruskin's consistent 'aloofness' and inconsistent 'diatribes,' many critics of their own day praised them; their names were fairly well known to educated people, their works sold largely, they obtained good prices, and commissions, as the published results bear witness, were showered upon them. but, until to-day, the draughtsman for periodicals was deemed a far less important person than the painter of academy pictures. now, without attempting to rob the r.a. of its historic glory, we see there are others without the fold who, when the roll-call of nineteenth-century artists is read, will answer 'adsum.' there are signs that the collector, always ready for a fresh hobby, will before long turn his attention to the english wood-engravings of this century, as eagerly as he has been attracted heretofore by the early woodcuts of german and italian origin, or the copper-plates of all countries and periods. it is true that bewick already enjoys the distinction, and that cruikshank and leech have also gained a reputation in the sale-rooms, and that blake, for reasons only partly concerned with art, has for some time past had a faithful and devout following. but the prices realised, so far, by the finest examples of the later wood-engravings, in the moxon edition of _tennyson's poems_, in _once a week_, and messrs. dalziels' books, are not such as to inspire faith in the collector who esteems his treasures chiefly for their value under the hammer. but in this case, as in others, the moderate prices demanded in may not be the rule a few months hence. already, although books rarely fetch as much as the original published cost, they are getting scarce. you may hunt the london shops in vain, and ransack the second-hand stores in the big provincial towns and not light on jean ingelow's _poems_, to, thornbury's _legendary ballads_, or even _wayside poesies_, or a _round of days_, all fairly common but a short time ago. there are two great divisions of the objects that attract collectors. in the first come all items of individual handiwork, where no two can be precisely alike (since replicas by the authors are too rare to destroy the argument), and each specimen cannot be duplicated. into this class fall paintings and drawings of all sorts, gems, sword-guards, lacquer, and ivories, and a thousand other objects of art. in the second, where duplicates have been produced in large numbers, the collector has a new ideal--to complete a collection that contains examples of every variety of the subject, be they artistic:--coins, etchings, or engravings of any sort; natural objects:--butterflies, or crystals, or things which belong neither to nature nor art:--postage-stamps, the majority of book-plates, and other trifles so numerous that even a bare list might extend to pages. the first class demands a long purse, and has, of necessity, a certain failure confronting it, for many of the best specimens are already in national collections, and cannot by any chance come into the market. but in the second class, no matter how rare a specimen may be, there is always a hope, and in many cases not a forlorn one, that some day, in some likely or unlikely place, its fellow may be discovered. and the chance of picking up a treasure for a nominal price adds to the zest of the collector, whose real delight is in the chase, far more than in the capture. who does not hope to find a twopenny box containing (as once they did) a first edition of fitzgerald's _omar khayyám_? or a rembrandt's _three trees_ in a first state? or to discover a _tetradrachm_ syracuse, b.c. , 'with the superb head of persephone and the spirited quadriga, on the obverse,' in some tray of old coins in a foreign market-place? without more preamble, we may go on to the objects the new collector wishes to acquire; and to provide him with a hand-book that shall set him on the track of desirable specimens. this desultory gossip may also serve to explain indirectly the aims and limits of the present volume, which does not pretend to be a critical summary, not a history of art, and neither a treatise on engravers, nor an anecdotal record of artists, but merely a working book of reference, whatever importance it possesses being due only to the fine examples of the subject, which those concerned have most kindly permitted to be reproduced. it is quite true that in collecting, the first of the two classes demands more critical knowledge, because as it is not a collection but only a selection that is within the reach of any one owner, it follows that each item must reflect his taste and judgment. in the second division there is danger lest the rush for comprehensiveness may dull the critical faculty, until, by and by, the ugly and foolish rarity is treasured far more than the beautiful and artistic items which are not rare, and so fail to command high prices. in fact the danger of all collectors is this alluring temptation which besets other people in other ways. many people prefer the exception to the rule, the imperfect sport to the commonplace type. if so, this discursive chatter is not wholly irrelevant, since it preludes an apology for including certain references to work distinctly below the level of the best, which, by its accidental position in volumes where the best occurs, can hardly be ignored completely. another point of conscience arises which each must decide for himself. supposing that the collection of wood-engravings of the sixties assumes the proportion of a craze, must the collector retain intact a whole set of an illustrated periodical for the sake of a few dozen pictures within it, or if he decides to tear them out, will he not be imitating the execrable john bagford, who destroyed twenty-five thousand volumes for the sake of their title-pages? must he mutilate a tennyson's _poems_ (moxon, ) or _the music-master_, or many of dalziels' gift-books, for the sake of arranging his specimens in orderly fashion? the dilemma is a very real one. even if one decides to keep volumes entire, the sets of magazines are so bulky, and in some cases contain such a small proportion of valuable work, that a collector cannot find space for more than a few of them. possibly a fairly representative collection might be derived entirely from the back-numbers of periodicals, if any huge stores have yet survived the journey to the paper-mill or the flames; the one or the other being the ultimate fate of every magazine or periodical that is not duly bound before it has lost its high estate, as 'a complete set,' and become mere odd numbers or waste-paper. so far the question of cost has not been raised, nor at present need it frighten the most economic. taking all the subjects referred to in this book, with perhaps one or two exceptions (allingham's _music-master_, , for instance), i doubt if a penny a piece for all the illustrations in the various volumes (counting the undesirable as well as the worthy specimens) would not be far above the market-price of the whole. but the penny each, like the old story of the horse-shoes, although not in this case governed by geometrical progression, would mount up to a big total. yet, even if you purchase the books at a fair price, the best contain so many good illustrations, that the cost of each is brought down to a trifle. having decided to collect, and bought or obtained in other ways, so that you may entitle your treasures (as south kensington museum labels its novelties) 'recent acquisitions,' without scrupulous explanation of the means employed to get them, you are next puzzled how to arrange them. it seems to me that a fine book should be preserved intact. there are but comparatively few of its first edition, and of these few a certain number are doomed to accidental destruction in the ordinary course of events, so that one should hesitate before cutting up a fine book, and be not hasty in mutilating a volume of _once a week_ or the _shilling magazine_. but if you have picked up odd numbers, and want to preserve the prints, a useful plan is to prepare a certain number of cardboard or cloth-covered boxes filled with single sheets of thick brown paper. in these an oblique slit is made to hold each corner of the print. by this method subjects can be mounted quickly, and, as the collection grows, new sub-divisions can be arranged and the subjects distributed among a larger number of boxes. this plan allows each print to be examined easily, the brown paper stands wear and tear and shows no finger-marks, and affords a pleasant frame to the engraving. pasting-down in albums should be viewed with suspicion--either the blank leaves for specimens still to be acquired are constantly in evidence to show how little you possess, compared with your expectations; or else you will find it impossible to place future purchases in their proper order. there is a process, known as print-splitting, which removes the objectionable printed back that ruins the effect of many good wood-engravings. it is a delicate, but not a very difficult operation, and should the hobby spread, young lady artists might do worse than forsake the poorly-paid production of nasty little head-pieces for fashion-papers and the like, and turn deft fingers to a more worthy pursuit. it needs an artistic temperament to split the print successfully, and a market would be quickly opened up if moderate prices were charged for the new industry. one could wish that representative collections of the best of these prints were gathered together and framed inexpensively, for gifts or loans to schools, art industrial classes, and other places where the taste of pupils might be raised by their study. the cheap process-block from a photograph is growing to be the staple form of black and white that the average person meets with in his daily routine. the cost of really fine etchings, mezzotints, lithographs, and other masterpieces of black and white prohibits their being scattered broadcast; but while the fine prints by millais, sandys, hughes, pinwell, fred walker, and the rest are still to be bought cheaply, the opportunity should not be lost. chapter ii: the illustrated periodicals before the sixties the more you study the position of illustrators during the last forty years, the more you are inclined to believe that they owe their very existence, as a class, to the popularity of magazines and periodicals. from the time _once a week_ started, to the present to-day, the bulk of illustrations of any merit have been issued in serial publications. it is easy to find a reason for this. the heavy cost of the drawings, and, until recent times, the almost equally heavy cost of engraving them, would suffice to prohibit their lavish use in ordinary books. for it must not be forgotten that every new book is, to a great extent, a speculation; whereas the circulation of a periodical, once it is assured, varies but slightly. a book may be prepared for twenty thousand buyers, and not attract one thousand; but a periodical that sold twenty thousand of its current number is fairly certain to sell eighteen thousand to nineteen thousand of the next, and more probably will show a slight increase. again, although one appears to get as many costly illustrations in a magazine to-day as in a volume costing ten times the price, the comparative sales more than readjust the balance. for a quarter of a million, although a record circulation of a periodical, is by no means a unique one; whereas the most popular illustrated book ever issued--and _trilby_ could be easily proved to merit that title--is probably not far beyond its hundred thousand. this very book was published in _harper's magazine_, and so obtained an enormous advertisement in one of the most widely circulated shilling monthlies. one doubts if the most popular illustrated volumes published at one or two guineas would show an average sale of two thousand copies at the original price. therefore, to regard the periodical, be it quarterly, monthly, or weekly--and quite soon the daily paper may be added to the list--as the legitimate field for the illustrator, is merely to accept the facts of the case. true, that here and there carefully prepared volumes, with all the added luxury of fine paper and fine printing, stand above the magazine of their time in this mechanical production. but things are rapidly changing. one may pick up some ephemeral paper to-day, to find it has process-blocks of better quality, and is better printed, than 'the art book of the season,' be it what it may. the illustrator is the really popular artist of the period--the natural product of the newer conditions. for one painter who makes a living entirely by pictures, there are dozens who subsist upon illustrating; while, against one picture of any reputable sort--framed and sold--it would be impossible to estimate the number of drawings made specially for publication. nor even to-day--when either the demand for illustration is ahead of the supply, or else many editors artfully prefer the second best, not forgetting all the feeble stuff of the cheap weeklies--would it be safe to declare that the artistic level is below that of the popular galleries. certainly, even in the thirties, there were, in proportion, as many masterpieces done for the engraver as those which were carried out in oil or water-colour. waiving the question of the damage wrought by engraver, or process-reproducer, the artist--if he be a great man--is no less worthy of respect as an illustrator in a cheap weekly, than when he chooses to devote himself solely to easel pictures. it is not by way of depreciating paintings that one would exalt illustration, but merely to recognise the obvious truth that the best work of an artist who understands his medium can never fail to be of surpassing interest, whether he uses fresco, tempera, oil, or water-colour; whether he works with brush or needle, pen or pencil. nobody doubts that most of these products are entitled, other qualities being present, to be considered works of art; but, until lately, people have not shown the same respect for an illustration. even when they admired the work, it was a common form of appreciation to declare it was 'as good as an etching,' or 'a composition worthy of being painted.' many writers have endeavoured to restore black-and-white art to its true dignity, and the labours of sir f. seymour haden, who awakened a new popular recognition of the claims of the etcher, and of mr. joseph pennell, who fought with sustained vigour for the dignity and importance of illustration, have helped to inspire outsiders with a new respect. for it is only outsiders who ever thought of making absurd distinctions between high art and minor arts. if the thing, be it what it may, is good--as good as it could be--at no age did it fail to win the regard of artists; even if it had to wait a few generations to charm the purchaser, or awaken the cupidity of the connoisseur. it is a healthy sign to find that people to-day are interesting themselves in the books of the sixties; it should make them more eager for original contemporary work, and foster a dislike to the inevitable photograph from nature reproduced by half-tone, which one feared would have satisfied their love for black-and-white to the exclusion of all else. if, after an evening spent in looking over the old magazines which form the subject of the next few chapters, you can turn to the current weeklies and monthlies, and feel absolutely certain that we are better than our fathers, it augurs either a very wisely selected purchase from the crowded bookstall, which, at each railway station as the first of the month approaches, has its hundreds of rival magazines, or else that it would be wiser to spend still more time over the old periodicals until a certain 'divine dissatisfaction' was aroused towards the average illustrated periodical of to-day. not that we are unable to show as good work perhaps, man for man, as they offer. we have no sandys, no millais, no boyd houghton, it is true; they had no e. a. abbey, no phil may, no ..., but it would be a delicate matter to continue a list of living masters here. but if you can find an english periodical with as many first-rate pictures as _once a week_, _the cornhill magazine_, _good words_, and others contained in the early sixties, you will be ... well ... lucky is perhaps the most polite word. that the cheapness and rapidity of 'reproduction by process' should be directly responsible for the birth of many new illustrated periodicals to-day is clear enough. but it is surprising to find that a movement, which relatively speaking was almost as fecund, had begun some years before photography had ousted the engraver. why it sprang into existence is not quite so obvious; but if we assume, as facts indicate, that the system of producing wood-engravings underwent a radical change about this time, we shall find that again a more ample supply provoked a larger demand. hitherto, the engraver had only accepted as many blocks as he could engrave himself, with the help of a few assistants; but not very long before the date we are considering factories for the supply of wood-engravings had grown up. the heads of these, practical engravers and in some cases artists of more than average ability, took all the responsibility for the work intrusted to them, and maintained a singularly high standard of excellence; but they did not pretend that they engraved each block themselves. such a system not merely permitted commissions for a large quantity of blocks being accepted, but greatly increased speed in their production. there can be little doubt that something of the sort took place; it will suffice to name but two firms, messrs. dalziel and messrs. swain, who were each responsible often enough, not merely for all the engravings in a book, but often for all the engravings in a popular magazine. under the old system, the publisher had thrown upon him the trouble of discovering the right engraver to employ, and the burden of reconciling the intention of the artist with the product of the engraver. this, by itself, would have been enough to make him very cautious before committing himself to the establishment of an illustrated magazine. but if we also remember that, under such conditions, almost unlimited time would be required for the production of the engravings, and that, to ensure a sufficient quantity being ready for each issue, a very large number of independent engravers must needs have been employed, it is clear that the old conditions would not have been equal to the task. when, however, the publisher or editor was able to send all his drawings to a reputable firm who could undertake to deliver the engravings by a given time, one factor of great practical importance had been established. it is not surprising to find that things went even further than this, and that the new firms of engravers not only undertook the whole of the blocks, but in several cases supplied the drawings also. without claiming that such a system is the best, it is but fair to own that to it we are indebted for the masterpieces of the sixties. no doubt the ideal art-editor--a perfectly equipped critic, with the blank cheque of a millionaire at his back--might have done better; but to-day there are many who think themselves perfectly equipped critics, and perhaps some here and there who are backed by millionaires, yet on neither side of the atlantic can we find better work than was produced under the system in vogue in the sixties. but after all, it is not the system, then or now, that is praiseworthy, but the individual efforts of men whose hearts were in their professions. the more you inquire into the practice of the best engravers then and now, the more you find that ultimately one person is responsible for the good. in the sixties the engraver saw new possibilities, and did his utmost to realise them; full of enthusiasm, and a master of his craft, he inspired those who worked with him to experiment and spare no effort. that he did marvels may be conceded; and to declare that the merely mechanical processes to-day have already distanced his most ambitious efforts in many qualities does not detract from his share. but in this chapter he is regarded less as a craftsman than as a middleman, an art-editor in effect if not in name; one who taught the artists with whom he was brought in contact the limits of the material in which their work was to be translated, and in turn learned from them no little that was of vital importance. above all, he seems to have kept closely in touch with draughtsmen and engravers alike; one might believe that every drawing passed through his hands, and that every block was submitted to him many times during its progress. when you realise the mass of work signed 'dalziels' or 'swain,' it is evident that its high standard of excellence must not be attributed to any system, but to the personal supervision of the acting members of the firms--men who were, every one of them, both draughtsmen and engravers, who knew not only the effect the artist aimed to secure, but the best method of handicraft by which to obtain it. if, after acknowledging this, one cannot but regret that the photographic transfer of drawings to wood had not come into general use twenty years before it did, so that the masterpieces of the rossetti designs to tennyson's _poems_ and a hundred others had not been cut to pieces by the engraver; yet at the same time we must remember that, but for the enterprise of the engraver, the drawings themselves would in all probability never have been called into existence in many cases. this is especially true of the famous volumes which messrs. dalziel issued under the imprint of various publishers, who were really merely agents for their distribution. _the penny magazine_ in , and other of charles knight's publications, _sharp's magazine_, _the people's journal_, _howitt's journal of literature_, _the illustrated family journal_, _the mirror_, _the parterre_, _the casket_, _the olio_, _the saturday magazine_, _pinnock's guide to knowledge_, _punch_, _the illustrated london news_, had led the way for pictorial weekly papers, even as the old annuals and the various novels by ainsworth, dickens, and thackeray had prepared the way for magazines; but the artistic movement of the 'sixties,' so far as its periodicals are concerned, need be traced back no further than _once a week_. perhaps, however, it would be unfair to forget the influence of _the art journal_ (at first called _the art union_), which, started in , brought fine art to the homes of the great british public through the medium of wood-engravings in a way not attempted previously; and certainly we must not ignore john cassell, who, on the demise of _howitt's journal_ and _the people's journal_ in , brought out an illustrated chronicle of the great exhibition, which was afterwards merged in a _magazine of art_. as _the strand magazine_--the first monthly periodical to exploit freely the kodak and the half-tone block--started a whole school of imitators, so _once a week_, depending chiefly on drawings by the best men of the day, engraved by the foremost engravers, was followed quickly by the _cornhill magazine_, _good words_, and the rest. many of these were short-lived; nor, looking at them impartially to-day, are we quite sure that the survivors were always the fittest. certainly they were not always the best. but the number of new ventures that saw the light about this time can scarce be named here. then, as now, a vast army of quite second-rate draughtsmen were available, and a number of periodicals, which it were gross flattery to call second-rate, sprang up to utilise their talents. besides these, many weekly and monthly publications, ostensibly devoted to catering for the taste of the masses, gained large audiences and employed talented artists, but demand no more serious consideration as art, than do the 'snippet' weeklies of to-day as literature. but some of these popular serials--such as _the band of hope_, _the british workman_, _the london journal_, _the london reader_, _bow bells_, _every week_, and the rest--are not, relatively speaking, worse than more pretentious publications. it is weary work to estimate the place of the second and third bests, and whatever interest the subject possesses would be exhausted quickly if we tried to catalogue or describe the less important items. yet, to be quite just, several of these, notably the cheap publications of messrs. cassell, petter, and galpin, messrs. s. w. partridge and co., and many others, employed artists by no means second-rate and gave better artistic value for their money than many of their successors do at present. it is well to face the plain fact, and own that at no time has the supply of really creative artists equalled the popular demand. not all the painters of any period are even passable, nor all the illustrators. much that is produced for the moment fulfils its purpose admirably enough, although it dies as soon as it is born. nature shows us the prodigal fecundity of generation compared with the few that ripen to maturity. the danger lies rather in appreciating too much, whether of 'the sixties' or 'the nineties'; yet, if one is stoical enough to praise only the best, it demands not merely great critical acumen, but no little hardness of heart. the intention always pleads to be recognised. we know that accidents, quite beyond the artist's power to prevent, may have marred his work. each man, feeling his own impotence to express his ideas lucidly, must needs be lenient to those who also stammer and fail to interpret their imaginings clearly and with irresistible power. yet, although the men of the sixties survive in greatly reduced numbers and one might speak plainly of much of its trivial commonplace without hurting anybody's feelings, there is no need to drag the rubbish to light. chapter iii: some illustrated magazines of the sixties. i. 'once a week' once a week.--on the second of july appeared the first number of _once a week_, 'an illustrated miscellany of literature, art, science, and popular information.' despite the choice of an extraordinary time of year, as we should now consider it, to float a new venture, the result proved fortunate. not merely does the first series of this notable magazine deserve recognition as the pioneer of its class; its superiority is no less provable than its priority. the earliest attempt to provide a magazine with original illustrations by the chief artists of its time was not merely a bold and well-considered experiment but, as the thirteen volumes of its first series show, an instant and admirably sustained triumph. no other thirteen volumes of an english magazine, at any period, contain so much first-class work. the invention and knowledge, the mastery of the methods employed, and the superb achievements of some of its contributors entitle it to be ranked as one of the few artistic enterprises of which england may be justly proud. when the connection of dickens with his old publishers was severed, and _all the year round_ issued from its own office, messrs. bradbury and evans projected a rival paper that was in no sense an imitation of the former. the reasons for its success lie on the surface. started by the proprietors of _punch_, with the co-operation of an artistic staff that has been singularly fortunate in enlisting always the services of the best men of their day, it is obvious that few periodicals have ever been launched under happier auspices. its aim was obviously to do for fiction, light literature, and _belles-lettres_, what _punch_ had accomplished so admirably for satire and caricature. at that time, with no rivals worth consideration, a fixed intention to obtain for a new magazine the active co-operation of the best men of all schools was within the bounds of possibility. to-day a millionaire with a blank cheque-book could not even hope to succeed in such a project. he would find many first-rate artists, whom no amount of money would attract, and others with connections that would be imperilled if they contributed to a rival enterprise. there are many who prefer the safety of an established periodical to the risk which must needs attend any 'up-to-date' venture. now _once a week_ was not merely 'up-to-date' in its period, but far ahead of the popular taste. as we cannot rival it to-day in its own line, even the most ardent defender of the present at the expense of the past must own that the improvement in process-engraving and the increased truth of facsimile reproductions it offers have not inspired draughtsmen to higher efforts. why so excellent a magazine is not flourishing to-day is a mystery. it would seem as if the public, faithful as they are to non-illustrated periodicals, are fickle where pictures are concerned. but the memory of the third series of _once a week_ relieves the public of the responsibility; changes in the direction and aim of the periodical were made, and all for the worse; so that it lost its high position and no more interested the artist. _punch_, its sponsor, seems to have the secret of eternal youth, possibly because its original programme is still consistently maintained. in another feature it resembled _punch_ more than any previous periodical. in _the london charivari_ many of the pictures have always been inserted quite independently of the text. some have a title, and some a brief scrap of dialogue to explain their story; but the picture is not there to elucidate the anecdote, so much as the title, or fragment of conversation, helps to elucidate the picture. unless an engraving be from a painting, or a topographical view, the rule in english magazines then, as now, is that it must illustrate the text. this is not the place to record an appreciation of the thorough and consistent way in which the older illustrators set about the work of reiterating the obvious incident, depicting for all eyes to see what the author had suggested in his text already, for it is evident that a design untrammelled by any fixed programme ought to allow the artist more play for his fancy. nevertheless, the less frequent illustrations to its serial fiction are well up to the level of those practically independent of the text. in _once a week_ there are dozens of pictures which are evidently purely the invention of the draughtsman. that a modest little poem, written to order usually, satisfies the conventions of established precedent, need not be taken as evidence that traverses the argument. _once a week_ ranked its illustrators as important as its authors, which is clearly an ideal method for an illustrated periodical to observe. to write up to pictures has often been attempted; were not _the pickwick papers_ begun in this way? but the author soon reversed the situation, and once more put the artist in a subordinate place. it is curious to observe that readers of light literature had been satisfied previously with a very conventional type of illustration. for, granting all sorts of qualities to those pictures by cruikshank, 'phiz,' and thackeray, which illustrated the dickens, ainsworth, lever, and thackeray novels, you can hardly refer the source of their inspiration to nature, however remotely. their purpose seems to have been caricature rather than character-drawing, sentimentality in place of sentiment, melodrama in lieu of mystery, broad farce instead of humour. these aims were accomplished in masterly fashion, perhaps; but is there a single illustration by cruikshank, 'phiz,' thackeray, or even john leech, which tempts us to linger and return again and again purely for its art? its 'drawing' is often slipshod, and never infused by the perception of physical beauty that the greeks embodied as their ideal, that ideal which the illustrators of _once a week_, especially walker, revived soon after this date. nor are they inspired by the symbolists' regard for nature, which attracted the 'primitives' of the middle ages, and their legitimate followers the pre-raphaelites. indeed, as you study the so-called 'immortal' designs which illustrate the early victorian novels, you feel that if many of the artists were once considered to be as great as the authors whose ideas they interpreted, time has wreaked revenge at last. if a boy happens to read for the first time thackeray's _vanity fair_ with its original illustrations, the humour and pathos of the masterpiece lose half their power when the ridiculously feeble drawings confront him throughout the book. this is not the case with millais' illustrations to trollope, or those by fred walker to thackeray. the costume may appear grotesque, but the men and women are vital, and as real in the picture as in the literature. lacking the virility of hogarth, or the coarse animal vigour of rowlandson, these caricaturists kept one eye on the fashion-book and one on the grotesque. it was 'cumeelfo' to depict the english maiden a colourless vapid nonentity, to make the villain look villainous, and the benevolent middle-aged person imbecile. accidental deformities and vulgar personal defects were deemed worthy themes for laughter. the fat boy in _pickwick_, the fat joe sedley in _vanity fair_, the _marchioness and dick swiveller_, the _quilps' tea-party_, and the rest, all belong to the order of humour that survives to-day in the 'knockabout artists,' or the 'sketch' performances at second-rate music-halls. even the much-belauded _fagin in the condemned cell_ appears a trite and ineffective bit of low melodrama to-day. we know the oft-repeated story of the artist's despondency, his failure to realise an attitude to express fagin's despair, and how as he caught sight of his own face in the glass he saw that he himself, a draughtsman troubled by a subject, was the very model for one about to be hanged. all the personality of anecdote and the sentimental log-rolling which gathered round the pictures, that by chance were associated with a series of masterpieces in fiction, no longer fascinate us. we recognise the power of the writers, but wish in our hearts that they had never been 'illustrated,' or if so, that they had enjoyed the good fortune which belongs to the novelists of the sixties. but to refuse to endorse the verdict of earlier critics does not imply that there was no merit in these designs, but merely that their illustrators must be classed for the most part (leech least of all) with the exaggerators--those who aimed at the grotesque--with gilray or baxter, the creator of _ally sloper_, and not with true satirists like hogarth or charles keene, who worked in ways that are pre-eminently masterly, even if you disregard the humorous element in their designs. without forcing the theory too far, it may be admitted that the idea of _once a week_ owes more to these serial novels than to any previous enterprise. be that as it may, the plan of the magazine, as we find in a postscript (to vol. i.), was at once 'ratified by popular acceptance.' further, its publishers admit that its circulation was adequate and its commercial success established, after only thirty-six numbers had appeared. it is no new thing for the early numbers of magazines and papers to contain glowing accounts of their phenomenal circulation; but, in this case, there can be no doubt that the self-congratulation is both well deserved and genuine. to _once a week_ may be accorded the merit of initiating a new type of periodical which has survived with trifling changes until to-day. its recognition of 'fiction' and 'pictures,' as the chief items in its programme, has been followed by a hundred others; but the editing, which made it readable as well as artistic, is a secret that many of its imitators failed to understand. although _a good fight_ (afterwards rewritten and entitled _the cloister and the hearth_) is the only novel within its pages that has since assumed classic rank, yet the average of its art--good as it was--is not as far above the standard of its literature, as the illustrations of its predecessors fell below the text they professed to adorn. in sketching the life-history of other illustrated magazines it seemed best to follow a chronological order, because the progress of the art of illustration is reflected more or less faithfully in the advance and retrogression they show. but the thirteen volumes which complete the first series of _once a week_ may be considered better in a different way. for to-day it is prized almost entirely for its pictures, and they were contributed for the most part by the same artists year after year. while in other periodicals you find, with every new volume, a fresh relay of artists, _once a week_, during its palmy days, was supported by the same brilliant group of draughtsmen, who admitted very few recruits, and only those whose great early promise was followed almost directly by ample fulfilment. the very first illustration is a vignette by john leech to a rhymed programme of the magazine by shirley brooks. but leech, who died in , cannot be regarded as a typical illustrator of 'the sixties'--not so much because his work extended only a few years into that decade, as that he belonged emphatically to the earlier school, and represented all that is _not_ characteristic of the period with which this book is concerned. it is unnecessary to belittle his art for the sake of glorifying those who succeeded him in popularity. that he obtained a strong hold upon english taste, lettered and unlettered, is undeniable. it has become part and parcel of that english life, especially of the insular middle-class, whose ideal permitted it to regard the exhibition building of not as a big conservatory, but as a new and better parthenon, and to believe honestly enough that the millennium of universal peace with art, no less than morals, perfected to the '_n_th' degree (on purely british lines), was dawning upon humanity. that the efforts of made much possible to-day which else had been impossible may be granted. the grace and truth of john leech's designs may be recognised despite their technical insufficiency, but at the same time we may own that, in common with cruikshank and the rest, he has received infinitely more appreciation than his artistic achievement merited, and leave his share unconsidered here, although no doubt it was a big commercial factor in the success. to vol. i. of _once a week_ he contributed no less than thirty-two designs, to vol. ii. forty-six, to vol. iii. seven, to vol. iv. one, and to vol. v. four. john tenniel, although he began to work much earlier, and is still an active contemporary, may be considered as belonging especially to the sixties, wherein he represents the survival of an academic type in sharply accentuated distinction to the pre-raphaelism of one group or to the romantic naturalism of a still larger section. on page of vol. i. we find his first drawing, a vignette, and page a design, _audun and the white bear_, no less typically 'a tenniel' in every particular than is the current cartoon in _punch_. those on pages , , , , , , and are all relatively unimportant. _the king of thule_ (p. ) is an illustration to sir theodore martin's familiar translation of goethe's poems. others are on pp. , , . to vol. ii. he is a less frequent contributor. the designs, pp. , , , and call for no comment. the one on p. (not p. as the index has it), to tom taylor's ballad _noménoë_, is reprinted in _songs and ballads of brittany_ (macmillan, ). in vol. iii. there is one (p. ) of small value. on pp. , , , , , , and are pictures to shirley brooks's _the silver cord_, showing the artist in his less familiar aspect as an illustrator of fiction. the one on p. is irresistibly like a 'wonderland' picture, while that on p. (vol. iv.) suggests a _punch_ cartoon; but, on the whole, they are curiously free from undue mannerism in the types they depict. in vol. iv. are more illustrations to _the silver cord_ (pp. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and ), and illustrations to owen meredith's poem, _fair rosamund_ (pp. , ). in volume v. _the silver cord_ is continued with ten more designs (pp. , , , , , , , , , ), and there is one to _mark bozzari_ (p. ), translated from müller by sir theodore martin. in volume vi. tenniel appears but four times: _at crutchley prior_ (p. ), _the fairies_ (p. ), a very delicate fancy, _prince lulu_ (p. ), and _made to order_ (p. ). from the seventh and eighth volumes he is absent, and reappears in the ninth with only one drawing, _clytè_ (p. ), and in the tenth (dec. -june ) with one, _bacchus and the water thieves_ (p. ). nor does he appear again in this magazine until , with _lord aythan_, the frontispiece to vol. iii. of the new series. sir john tenniel, however, more than any other of the _punch_ staff, seems never thoroughly at home outside its pages. the very idea of a tenniel drawing has become a synonym for a political cartoon; so that now you cannot avoid feeling that all his illustrations to poetry, fiction, and fairy-tale must have some satirical motive underlying their apparent purpose. [illustration: j. e. millais 'once a week' vol. i. p. grandmother's apology] [illustration: j. e. millais 'once a week' vol. i. p. the plague of elliant] it is difficult to record sir john everett millais' contributions to this magazine with level unbiassed comments. notwithstanding the palpable loss they suffered by translation under the hands of even the most skilful of his engravers, the impressions belong to a higher plane than is reached by their neighbours save in a very few instances. the millais wood-engravings deserve a deliberately ordered monograph as fully as do the etchings by rembrandt and whistler, or hokousaï's prints. it is true that not quite all his many illustrations to contemporary literature are as good as the best works of the great artist just named; but if you search through the portfolios of the past for that purpose, you will find that even the old masters were not always adding to a cycle of masterpieces. the astounding fact remains that sir john millais, dealing with the hair-net and the dundreary whiskers, the crinoline and peg-top trousers, imparted such dignity to his men and women that even now they carry their grotesque costumes with distinction, and fail to appear old-fashioned, but at most as masqueraders in fancy dress. for in millais' work you are face to face with actual human beings, superbly drawn and fulfilling all artistic requirements. they possess the immense individuality of a velasquez portrait, which, as a human being, appeals to you no less surely, than its handling arouses your æsthetic appreciation. at this period it seems as if the artist was overflowing with power and mastery--everything he touched sprang into life. whether he owed much or little to his predecessors is unimportant--take away all, and still a giant remains. it is so easy to accept the early drawings of millais as perfect of their kind, beyond praise or blame, and yet to fail to realise that they possess the true vitality of those few classics which are for all time. the term monumental must not be applied to them, for it suggests something dead in fact, although living in sentiment and admired by reason of conventional precedent. the millais drawings have still the power to excite an artist as keenly as a great rembrandt etching that he sees for the first time, or an early whistler that turns up unexpectedly in a loan collection, or an unknown utamaro colour print. the mood they provoke is almost deprived of critical analysis by the overwhelming sense of fulfillment which is forced on your notice. in place of gratified appreciation you feel appalled that one man should have done over and over again, so easily and with such certainty, what dozens of his fellows, accomplished and masterly in their way, tried with by no means uniform success. if every canvas by the artist were lost, he might still be proved to belong to the great masters from his illustrations alone; even if these were available only through the medium of wood-engraving. the first volume of _once a week_ contains, as millais' first contribution, _magenta_ (p. ), a study of a girl who has just read a paper with news of the great battle that gave its name to the terrible colour which typifies the period. it is badly printed in the copy at my side, and, although engraved by dalziels, is not an instance of their best work. in _grandmother's apology_ (p. ) we have a most delightful illustration to tennyson, reproduced in his collected volume, but not elsewhere. _on the water_ (p. ) and _la fille bien gardée_ (p. ) may be passed without comment. but _the plague of elliant_ (p. ), a powerful drawing of a woman dragging a cart wherein are the bodies of her nine dead children, has been selected, more than once, as a typical example of the illustrator at his best. _maude clare_ (p. ), _a lost love_ (p. ), and _st. bartholomew_ (p. ), complete the millais' in vol. i. in the second volume we find _the crown of love_ (p. ), a poem by george meredith. this was afterwards painted and exhibited under the same title in the royal academy of . _a wife_ (p. ), _the head of bran_ (p. ), _practising_ (p. ), (a girl at a piano), and _musa_ (p. ), complete the list of the five in this volume. in vol. iii. there are seven: _master olaf_ (p. ), _violet_ (p. ), _dark gordon's bride_ (p. ), _the meeting_ (p. ), _the iceberg_ (pp. , ), and _a head of hair for sale_ (p. ). in vol. iv. but two appear, _iphis and anaxarete_ (p. ) and _thorr's hunt for the hammer_ (p. ), both slighter in execution than most of the _once a week_ millais'. volume v. also contains but two, _tannhäuser_ (p. ) and _swing song_ (p. ), a small boy in a spanish turban swinging. volume vi. houses a dozen: _schwerting of saxony_ (p. ), _the battle of the thirty_ (p. ), _the child of care_ (pp. , ), five designs for miss martineau's _sister anne's probation_ (pp. , , , , ), _sir tristem_ (p. ), _the crusader's wife_ (p. ), _the chase of the siren_ (p. ), and _the drowning of kaer-is_ (p. ). the seventh volume contains eleven examples by this artist: _margaret wilson_ (p. ), five to miss martineau's _anglers of the don_ (pp. , , , , ), _maid avoraine_ (p. ), _the mite of dorcas_ (p. ), (which is the subject of the academy picture, _the widow's mite_ of ; although in the painting the widow turns her back on the spectator), _the parting of ulysses_ (p. ), _the spirit of the vanished island_ (p. ), and _limerick bells_ (p. ), a design of which a eulogist of the artist says: 'the old monk might be expanded as he stands into a full-sized picture.' in the eighth volume _endymion on latmos_ (p. ), a charming study of the sleeping shepherd, is the only independent picture; the other nine are by way of illustration to miss martineau's _the hampdens_ (pp. , , , , , , , , , ). these are delightful examples of the use of costume by a great master. neither pedantically correct, nor too lax, they revivify the period so that the actors are more important than the accessories. [illustration: j. e. millais 'once a week' vol. v. p. tannhÄuser] [illustration: j. e. millais 'once a week' vol. vi. p. sister anne's probation] [illustration: j. e. millais 'once a week' vol. viii. p. the hampdens] [illustration: j. e. millais 'once a week' , vol. i. p. death dealing arrows] the ninth volume, like the eighth, has only one picture by millais not illustrating its serial. this is _hacco the dwarf_ (p. ). the others represent scenes in miss martineau's _sir christopher_ (pp. , , , , , , , ), a seventeenth-century story. the illustrators of to-day should study these and other pictures where the artist was hampered by the story, and imitate his loyal purpose to expound and amplify the text, accomplishing it the while with most admirably dramatic composition and strong character-drawing. in the remaining volume of the first series there are no other examples by millais; nor, with the exceptions _death dealing arrows_ (jan. , , p. ), one in the _christmas number for _, and _taking his ease_, (p. ), does he appear as a contributor to the magazine. it must not be forgotten that high prices are often responsible for the desire, or rather the necessity, of using second-rate work. when an artist attains a position that monopolises all his working hours, it is obvious that he cannot afford to accept even the highest current rate of payment for magazine illustration; nor, on the other hand, can an editor, who conducts what is after all a commercial enterprise, afford to pay enormous sums for its illustrations. for later drawings this artist was paid at least five times as much as for his earlier efforts, and possibly in some cases ten or twelve times as much. charles keene, the great illustrator so little appreciated by his contemporaries, whose fame is still growing daily, was a frequent contributor to _once a week_ for many years. starting with volume i. he depicted, in quasi-mediæval fashion, charles reade's famous _cloister and the hearth_, then called, in its first and shorter form, _a good fight_ (pp. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ). coincidently he illustrated also _guests at the red lion_ (pp. , ), _a fatal gift_ (p. ), _uncle simkinson_ (pp. , ), _gentleman in the plum-coloured coat_ (p. ), _benjamin harris_ (pp. , , ), _my picture gallery_ (p. ), and _a merry christmas_ (p. ). in volume ii. there are only five illustrations by him (pp. , , , , and ) to shorter tales; but to george meredith's _evan harrington_, running through this volume and the next, he contributes thirty-nine drawings, some of them in his happiest vein, all showing strongly and firmly marked types of character-drawing, in which he excelled. volume iii. contains also, on pages , , , , and , less important works: _the emigrant artist_ on p. is a return to the german manner which distinguished the _good fight_. the drawings for _sam bentley's christmas_ commence here in (pp. , ), and are continued (pp. , , , ) in vol. iv., where we also find _in re mr. brown_ (pp. , ), _the beggar's soliloquy_ (p. ), _a model strike_ (p. ), _the two norse kings_ (pp. , ), and _the revenue officer's story_ (p. ). in volume v. are: _the painter alchemist_ (p. ), _business with bokes_ (p. ), _william's perplexities_ (pp. , , , , ), also a romantic subject, _adalieta_ (p. ): a poem by edwin arnold, and _the patriot engineer_ (p. ). to the sixth volume, the illustrations for _the woman i loved and the woman who loved me_ (pp. , , , , , , , ) are by keene, as are also those to _my schoolfellow friend_ (p. ), _a legend of carlisle_ (p. ), a curiously germanic _page from the history of kleinundengreich_ (p. ), _nip's daimon_ (p. ), and _a mysterious supper-party_ ( ). in vol. vii. and vol. viii. _verner's pride_, by mrs. henry wood, supplies motives for seventeen pictures. in vol. viii. _the march of arthur_ (p. ), _the bay of the dead_ (p. ), and _my brother's story_ (p. ). in vol. ix. _the viking's serf_ (p. ), _the station-master_ (pp. , ), and _the heirloom_ (pp. , ) complete charles keene's share in the illustration of the thirteen volumes of the first series. fred walker is often supposed to have made his first appearance as an illustrator in _once a week_, vol. ii. with _peasant proprietorship_ (p. ); and, although an exception of earlier date may be discovered, it is only in an obscure paper (of which the british museum apparently has no copy) barely a month before. for practical purposes, therefore, _once a week_ may be credited with being the first-established periodical to commission a young artist whose influence upon the art of the sixties was great. this drawing was quickly followed by _god help our men at sea_ (p. ), _an honest arab_ (p. ), _après_ (p. ), _lost in the fog_ (p. ), _spirit painting_ (p. ), and _tenants at no. _ (p. ), and _the lake at yssbrooke_ (p. ). looking closely at these, in two or three only can you discover indications of the future creator of _philip_. those on pages and are obviously the work of the fred walker as we know him now. but those on pp. , , , and would pass unnoticed in any magazine of the period, except that the full signature 'f. walker' arouses one's curiosity, and almost suggests, like lewis carroll's re-attribution of the _iliad_, 'another man of the same name.' [illustration: charles keene 'once a week' vol. i. p. 'a good fight'] in vol. iii. a poem, _once upon a time_, by eliza cook, has two illustrations (pp. , ), which, tentative as they are, and not faultless in drawing, foreshadow the grace of his later work. in _markham's revenge_ (pp. - ) the artist is himself, as also in _wanted a diamond ring_ (p. ). _a noctuary of terror_ (pp. , ), _first love_ (p. ), _the unconscious bodyguard_ (p. ), are unimportant. _the herberts of elfdale_ (pp. , , , , ), possibly the first serial walker illustrated, is infinitely better. _black venn_ (p. ), _a young wife's song_ (p. ), and _putting up the christmas_, a drawing group, complete the examples by this artist in vol. iii. volume iv. contains: _under the fir-trees_ (p. ), _voltaire at ferney_ (p. ), a very poor thing, _the fan_ (p. ), _bring me a light_ (pp. - ), _the parish clerk's story_ (p. ), _the magnolia_ (pp. , ), _dangerous_ (p. ), _an old boy's tale_ (p. ), _romance of the cab-rank_ (p. ), and _the jewel case_ (p. ). in vol. v. we find _jessie cameron's bairn_ (p. ), _the deserted diggings_ (p. ), _pray, sir, are you a gentleman_? (pp. , ), _a run for life_ (p. ), _cader idris_ (p. ), and a series of illustrations to _the settlers of long arrow: a canadian story_ (pp. , , , , , , , , , , and ). to volume vi. walker contributes _patty_ (pp. , ), _a dreadful ghost_ (p. ), and nine to dutton cook's _the prodigal son_ (pp. , , , , , , , , ), which story, running into volume vii., has further illustrations on pp. , , and . _the deadly affinity_ (pp. , , ), and _spirit-rapping extraordinary_ (p. ) are the only others by the artist in this volume. the eighth volume has but one, _after ten years_ (p. ), and _the ghost in the green park_ (p. ) is the only one in volume ix., and his last in the first series. vol. i. of the new series has the famous _vagrants_ (p. ) for one of its special art supplements. amid contemporary notices you often find the work of m. j. lawless placed on the same level as that of millais or sandys; but, while few of the men of the period have less deservedly dropped out of notice, one feels that to repeat such an estimate were to do an injustice to a very charming draughtsman. for the sake of his future reputation it is wiser not to attempt to rank him with the greatest; but in the second order he may be fitly placed. for fancy and feeling, no less than for his loyal adherence to the dürer line, at a time it found little favour, lawless deserves to be more studied by the younger artists of to-day. a great number of decorative designers are too fond of repeating certain mannerisms, and among others, lawless in england and howard pyle in america, two men inspired by similar purpose, should receive more attention than they have done. _once a week_ contains the largest number of his drawings. in vol. i., to _sentiment from the shambles_, there are three illustrations attributed to him. those on pp. and are undoubtedly by lawless, but that on p. is so unlike his method, and indeed so unimportant, that it matters not whether the index be true or in error. [illustration: m. j. lawless 'once a week' vol. iv. p. effie gordon] [illustration: m. j. lawless 'once a week' vol. vi. p. dr. johnson's penance] [illustration: m. j. lawless 'once a week' vol. x. p. john of padua] in vol. ii. are ten examples, two on the same page to _the bridal of galtrim_ (p. ), _the lay of the lady and the hound_ (p. ), a very pre-raphaelite composition, _florinda_ (p. ), (more influenced by the later millais), _only for something to say_ (p. ), a study of fashionable society, which (as mr. walter crane's attempts show) does not lend itself to the convention of the thick line, _the head master's sister_ (pp. , , ), _the secret_ (p. ), and _a legend of swaffham_ (p. ). in vol. iii. _oysters and pearls_ (p. ) is attributed to lawless, but one hopes wrongly; _the betrayed_ (p. ), elfie meadows (p. ), _the minstrel's curse_ (p. ), _the two beauties_ (unsigned and not quite obviously a lawless) (p. ), and _my angel's visit_ (p. ) are the titles of the rest. in the fourth volume there are: _the death of oenone_ (pp. , ), _valentine's day_ (p. ), _effie gordon_ (pp. , ), and _the cavalier's escape_ ( ), all much more typical. in vol. v. we find _high elms_ (p. ), _twilight_ (p. ), _king dyring_ (p. ), and _fleurette_ (p. ). in the sixth volume there are only three: _dr. johnson's penance_ (one of the best drawings of the author), (p. ), _what befel me at the assizes_ (p. ), and _the dead bride_ (p. ). in the seventh volume there is one only to a story by a. c. swinburne, _dead love_ (p. ). despite the name of jacques d'aspremont on the coffin, the picture is used to a poem with quite a different theme, _the white witch_, in thornbury's _legendary ballads_, which contains no less than twenty of lawless's _once a week_ designs. in vol. viii. are two, _the linden trees_ (p. ) and _gifts_ (p. ). in vol. ix. three only: _faint heart never won fair lady_ (p. ), _heinrich frauenlob_ (p. ), and _broken toys_ (p. ). in vol. x. appears the last of lawless's contributions, and, as some think, his finest, _john of padua_ (p. ). the first work by frederick sandys in _once a week_ will be found in vol. iv.: it is not, as the index tells you, _the dying hero_, on page , which is wrongly attributed to him; _yet once more on the organ play_ (p. ) is by sandys, as is also _the sailor's bride_ (p. ) in the same volume. in vol. v. are three, _from my window_ (p. ), _the three statues of Ægina_ (p. ), and _rosamund, queen of the lombards_ (p. ). in vol. vi. we find _the old chartist_ (p. ), _the king at the gate_ (p. ), and _jacques de caumont_ (p. ). in vol. vii. _harold harfagr_ (p. ), _the death of king warwolf_ (p. ), and _the boy martyr_ (p. ). thence, with the exception of _helen and cassandra_, published as a separate plate with the issue of april , (p. ), no more sandys are to be found. to _once a week_ holman hunt contributed but three illustrations: _witches and witchcraft_ (ii. p. ), _at night_ (iii. p. ), and _temujin_ (iii. p. ); yet this very scanty representation is not below the average proportion of the work of this artist in black and white compared with his more fecund contemporaries. a still more infrequent illustrator, j. m'neill whistler, is met with four times in _once a week_, and, i believe, but twice elsewhere. speaking of the glamour shed upon the magazine by its sandys drawings, it is but just to own that to another school of artists these four 'whistlers' were responsible for the peculiar veneration with which they regarded an old magazine. the illustrations to _the major's daughter_ (vi. p. ), _the relief fund in lancashire_ (vii. p. ), _the morning before the massacre of st. bartholomew_ (vii. p. ), and _count burckhardt_ (vii. p. ), a nun by a window, are too well known to need comment. that they show the exquisite sense of the value of a line, and have much in common with the artist's etchings of the same period, is evident enough. g. j. pinwell first makes his appearance in _once a week_, in the eighth volume, with _the saturnalia_ (p. ), a powerful but entirely untypical illustration of a classical subject by an artist who is best known for pastoral and bucolic scenes, _the old man at d._ (p. ), _seasonable wooing_ (p. ), _a bad egg_ (p. ), and _a foggy story_ (p. ); but only in the latter do you find the curiously personal manner which grew to a mannerism in much of his later work. these, with _blind_ (p. ) and _tidings_ (p. ), are all well-thought-out compositions. to volume ix. he contributes _the strong heart_ (p. ), _not a ripple on the sea_ (p. ) (a drawing which belies its title), _laying a ghost_ (p. ), _the fisherman of lake sunapee_ (p. ), _waiting for the tide_ (p. ), _nutting_ (p. ), and _the sirens_ (p. ). in volume x. he is represented by _bracken hollow_ (pp. , ), _the expiation of charles v._ (p. ), _the blacksmith of holsby_ (pp. , ), _calypso_ (p. ), _horace winston_ (p. ), _proserpine_ (p. ), _a stormy night_ (p. ), _mistaken identity_ (p. ), _hero_ (p. ), _the vizier's parrot_ ( ), _a pastoral_ (p. ), _a' beckett's troth_ (p. ), and _the stonemason's yard_ (p. ). the eleventh volume contains only four: _hettie's trouble_ (p. ), _delsthorpe sands_ (p. ), _the legend of the bleeding cave_ (p. ), and _rosette_ (p. ); and volume xii. has three: _followers not allowed_ (p. ), _homer_ (p. ), and _dido_ (p. ). the last volume of the first series ( ) has but one, _achilles_ (p. ). pinwell's work bulks so largely in the sixties that a bare list of these must suffice; but this period, before he developed the curiously immobile manner of his later years, is perhaps the most interesting. [illustration: frederick sandys 'once a week' vol. v. p. the three statues of Ægina] [illustration: frederick sandys 'once a week' vol. vi. p. the old chartist] [illustration: frederick sandys 'once a week' vol. vii. p. harold harfagr] [illustration: frederick sandys 'once a week' vol. v. p. rosamund, queen of the lombards] the index asserts that george du maurier is responsible for the pictures in _once a week_, vol. iii. pp. - , signed m.b., and as you find others unmistakably du maurier's signed with various monograms, its evidence must not be gainsaid; but neither these nor others, to _my adventures ... in russia_ (pp. , ), _the two hands_ (p. ), and _the steady students_ (pp. , ), betray a hint of his well-known style. but _non satis_ (p. ) is signed in full, and obviously his, as a glance would reveal. in vol. iv., _indian juggling_ (p. ), _the black spot_ (p. ), _a life story_ (p. ), _in search of garibaldi_ (p. ), and _the beggar's soliloquy_ (p. , more like a charles keene) are from his hand. in the picture here reproduced, _on her deathbed_ (p. ), the artist has found himself completely, yet _a portuguese tragedy_ (p. ) has no trace of his manner. in vol. v. _recollections of an english gold miner_ (p. ), _monsieur the governor_ (p. ), _a man who fell among thieves_ (p. ), _sea-bathing in france_ (p. ), and _the poisoned mind_, are his only contributions. in vol. vi. are three illustrations to _the admiral's daughters_ (pp. , , ), _the hotel garden_ (p. ), _the change of heads_ (p. ), _the latest thing in ghosts_ (p. ), _metempsychosis_ (p. ), _per l'amore d'una donna_ (p. ), _a parent by proxy_ (p. ), and _threescore and ten_ (p. ). vol. vii. contains _miss simons_ (p. ), _santa_ (pp. , , , ), _only_ (p. ), and the _cannstatt conspirators_ (p. ). _a notting hill mystery_ is pictured on pages , , , and of the seventh volume, and in vol. viii. is continued on pages , , , ; _out of the body_ (p. ), is also here. _eleanor's victory_ is illustrated on pages , , , , , , , and , and continued in vol. ix on pages , , , , , , , . vol. x. contains _the veiled portrait_ (p. ), _the uninvited_ (p. ), _my aunt tricksy_ (p. ), _the old corporal_ (p. ), and _detur digniori_ (pp. and ). in vol. xi. we find two illustrations only by this artist, _philip fraser's fate_, and vols. xii. and xiii. contain no single example. a few illustrations by t. morten appear, and these are scattered over a wide space. the first, _swift and the mohawks_ (iv. p. ), is to a ballad by walter thornbury; _the father of the regiment_ (v. p. ), _wish not_ (x. p. ), _the coastguardsman's tale_ (x. p. ), _late is not never_ (xi. p. ), _the cumæan sibyl_ (xi. p. ), and _macdhonuil's coronach_ (xii. p. ), make one regret the infrequent appearance of one who could do so well. edward j. poynter (the present director of the national gallery) is also sparsely represented: _the castle by the sea_ (vi. p. ), a very pre-raphaelite decoration to uhland's ballad, _wife and i_ (vi. p. ), _the broken vow_ (vii. p. ), _a dream of love_ (vii. pp. , ), _a fellow-traveller's story_ (vii. pp. , ), _my friend's wedding-day_ (viii. p. ), _a haunted house in mexico_ (viii. p. ), _ducie of the dale_ (viii. p. ), and _a ballad of the page to the king's daughter_ (viii. p. ), are all the examples by this artist in _once a week_. charles green, of late known almost entirely as a painter, was a fecund illustrator in the sixties. beginning with vol. iii., in which seven of his works appear (pp. , , , , , , ), he contributed freely for several years; in vol. iv. there are examples on pp. , , , , , , and , and on pp. , of the fifth volume, and and of the sixth, on pp. , , , and of the seventh. but not until the eighth volume, with _the wrath of mistress elizabeth gwynne_ (p. ), do we find one that is of any importance. whether spoilt by the engraver, or immature work, it is impossible to say; but the earlier designs could scarcely be identified except for the index. in the same volume _the death of winkelried_ (p. ), _milly leslie's story_ (p. ), _the countess gabrielle_ (p. ), _corporal pietro micca_ (p. ), _damsel john_ (p. ), _my golden hill_ (p. ), _five days in prison_ (p. ), _the queen's messenger_ (p. ), _the centurion's escape_ (p. ), and _the cry in the dark_ (p. ), are so curiously unlike the earlier, and so representative of the artist we all know, that if the 'c. green' be the same the sudden leap to a matured style is quite remarkable. in volume ix. but three appear: _paul garrett_ (p. ), _a modern idyll_ (p. ), and _my affair with the countess_ (p. ); but in the tenth are nine: _norman's visit_ (pp. , ), _legend of the castle_ (p. ), _a long agony_ (p. ), _the lady of the grange_ (p. ), _the gentleman with the lily_ (pp. , ), _the mermaid_ (p. ), and _t' runawaa lass_ (p. ). _the hunt at portskewitt_ (p. ) is in vol. xi., the last appearance of the artist i have met with in this magazine. f. j. shields, so far as i can trace his drawings, is represented but three times: _an hour with the dead_ (iv. p. ), _the risen saint_ (v. p. ), and _turberville_ (x. p. ). as reference to this comparatively infrequent illustrator appears in another place no more need be said of these, except that they do not show the artist in so fine a mood as when he illustrated defoe's _history of the plague_. simeon solomon contributes a couple only of drawings of jewish ceremonies (vii. pp. , ). j. luard, an artist, whose work floods the cheaper publications of the time, shows, in an early drawing, _contrasts_ (iii. p. ), a pre-raphaelite manner, and a promise which later years did not fulfil, if indeed this be by the luard of the penny dreadfuls. [illustration: j. m'neill whistler 'once a week' vol. vi. p. the major's daughter] [illustration: j. m'neill whistler 'once a week' vol. vii. p. the relief fund in lancashire] [illustration: j. m'neill whistler 'once a week' vol. vii. p. the morning before the massacre of st. bartholomew] [illustration: j. m'neill whistler 'once a week' vol. vii. p. count burckhardt] m. e. edwards, a most popular illustrator, appears in the last volume of the first series, with _found drowned_ (xiii. pp. , , , , , , , , , , , ), in which volume j. lawson has three: _ondine_ (p. ), _narcissus_ (p. ), and _adonis_ ( ). of a number of more or less frequent contributors, including f. eltze, r. t. pritchett, p. skelton, f. j. slinger, j. wolf (the admirable delineator of animals), space forbids even a complete list of their names. among other occasional contributors to the first thirteen volumes are: j. d. watson with _the cornish wrecker's hut_ (viii. p. ), _no change_ (ix. p. ), and _my home_ (ix. ); a. boyd houghton:--_the old king dying_ (xii. p. ), _the portrait_ (xiii. p. ), _king solomon_ (xiii. p. ), _the legend of the lockharts_ (xiii. p. ), and _leila and hassan_ (xiii. p. ); walter crane:--_castle of mont orgueil_ (ix. p. ) and _the conservatory_ (xiii. p. ); j. w. north:--_bosgrove church_ (ix. p. ), _the river_ (xii. p. ), and _st. martin's church, canterbury_ (xii. p. )--the two latter being worthy to rank among his best work; paul gray with _hans euler_ (xii. p. ), _moses_ (xiii. p. ), _the twins_ (xiii. pp. - ), _two chapters of life_ (xiii. p. ), and _quid femina possit_ (xii. pp. , , , ); a. r. fairfield (x. pp. , , , , ); w. s. burton, _romance of the rose_ (x. p. ), _the executioner_ (xi. p. ), _dame eleanor's return_ (xi. p. ), and _the whaler fleet_ (xi. p. ); t. white (viii. p. ); f. w. lawson, _dr. campany's courtship_ (xii. pp. , , , ), and others on pp. , , ; (xiii. pp. , , , _lucy's garland_, p. ); c. dobell (vi. p. ); _our secret drawer_, by miss wells (v. p. ); and four by miss l. mearns, which are of genuine interest (xiii. pp. , , , ). the new series of _once a week_, started on january , , was preceded by a christmas number, wherein one of the most graceful drawings by paul gray is to be found, _the chest with the silver mountings_ (p. ). it contains also a full-page plate by g. b. goddard, _up, up my hounds_ (p. ), and designs by w. small, _a golden wedding_ (p. ); g. du maurier, _the ace of hearts_ (p. ); j. lawson, _a fairy tale_ (p. ), and others of little moment. the new series announced, as a special attraction, 'extra illustrations by eminent artists, printed separately on toned paper.' those to the first volume include _little bo peep_, a delightful and typical composition by g. du maurier (_frontispiece_); _the vagrants_ (p. ), by fred walker; _helen and cassandra_ (p. ), by f. sandys; _the servants' hall_ (p. ), by h. s. marks; _alonzo the brave_ (p. ), by sir john gilbert, and _caught by the tide_, by e. duncan (p. ). [illustration: g. du maurier 'once a week' vol. iv. p. on her deathbed] [illustration: g. du maurier 'once a week' vol. vi. p. per l'amore d'una donna] [illustration: t. morten 'once a week' vol. xi. p. the cumÆan sibyl] 'a specimen of the most recent application of the versatile art of lithography' which is also given, dates the popular introduction of the coloured plate by which several magazines, _nature and art_, _the chromo-lithograph_, etc., were illustrated entirely; others, especially _the sunday at home_, _leisure hour_, _people's magazine_, etc., from onwards issued monthly frontispieces in colours and gold--a practice now confined almost wholly to boys' magazines. the pictures by artists already associated with _once a week_ include (in vol. i. p. ) two by a. boyd houghton, _the queen of the rubies_ (p. ) and _a turkish tragedy_ (p. ); four by paul gray, _the phantom ship_ (p. ), _blanche_ (pp. , ), and _the fight on rhu carn_ (p. ); two by t. morten, _the dying viking_ (p. ), a drawing curiously like sandys's _rosamunda_, and _king eric_ (p. ); six by w. small, _billy blake's best coffin_ (p. ), _kattie and the deil_ (p. ), _the king and the bishop_ (p. ), _the staghound_ (p. ), _thunnors slip_ (p. ), and _larthon of inis-huna_ (p. ); five by j. lawson: _the watch-tower_ (p. ), _theocritus_ (p. ), _in statu quo_ (p. ), _ancient clan dirge_ (p. ), and _wait on_ (p. ); one by f. w. lawson, _a sunday a century ago_ (p. ), and others. among recruits we find r. barnes with _lost for gold_ (p. ), b. bradley with _a raid_ (p. ), eleven by edward hughes, and many by g. bowers, r. t. pritchett, f. j. slinger, and others. altogether the new series started bravely. in vol. ii. new series, the so-called 'extra illustrations' include _the suit of armour (frontispiece)_, by sir john gilbert; _evening_ (p. ), by basil bradley; _poor christine_ (p. ), by edward hughes; _among the breakers_ (p. ), by e. duncan; _the nymph's lament_ (p. ), by g. du maurier; and _the huntress of armorica_ (p. ), by paul gray. of 'old hands' du maurier has another of his graceful drawings, _lady julia_ (p. ), and paul gray has, besides the special plate, eleven to _hobson's choice_ (pp. , , , , , , , , , , and ); three by a. boyd houghton are _a dead man's message_ (p. ); and _the mistaken ghost_ (pp. , ); t. morten has only a couple, _the curse of the gudmunds_ (p. ) and _on the cliffs_ (p. ); and g. j. pinwell one, _the pastor and the landgrave_ (p. ); j. w north's _luther's gardener_ (p. ) is a curious drawing to a curious poem; w. small, with _eldorado_ (p. ), _dorette_ (p. ), _the gift of clunnog vawr_ (p. ), _the prize maiden_ (pp. , , ), and _tranquillity_ (p. ), shows more and more that strong personality which by and by influenced black and white art, so that men of the seventies are far more disciples of small than even were the men of the sixties of millais. m. e. edwards's _avice and her lover_ (p. ); six by basil bradley (pp. , , , , , and ), charles green's _kunegunda_ (p. ), _hazeley mill_ (p. ), and _michael considine's daughter_ (p. ); five by edward hughes (pp. , , , , and ); three by j. lawson: _ariadne_ (p. ), _the mulberry-tree_ (p. ), and _gabrielle's cross_ (p. ). f. w. lawson's _a midshipman's yarn_ (p. ) and _grandmother's story_ (p. ) deserve to be noted. others by g. bowers, f. eltze, r. t. pritchett, p. j. skelton, e. wimpress (_sic_), and j. wolf among the rest, call for no comment. for the christmas number for this year , w. small has _the brown imp_ (p. ); j. lawson, _the birth of the rose_ (p. ); e. hughes, _the pension latoque_ (p. ); ernest griset, _boar hunting_ (p. ); g. b. goddard, _christmas eve in the country_ (p. ); and basil bradley, _a winter piece_ (p. ); john leighton contributes a frontispiece and illustrations to _st. george and the dragon_, a poem by the author of _john halifax_. in volume iii. the extra illustrations are still distinguished by a special subject index; they include _lord aythan (frontispiece)_, by j. tenniel; _coming through the fence_ (p. ), by r. ansdell, a.r.a.; _feeding the sacred ibis_ (p. ), by e. j. poynter; _come, buy my pretty windmills_ (p. ), by g. j. pinwell; _hide a stick_ (p. ), by f. j. shields; and _highland sheep_ (p. ), by basil bradley. another extra plate, a drawing by helen j. miles, 'given as an example of graphotype,' is not without technical interest. in the accompanying article we find that the possibilities of mechanical reproduction are discussed, and the writer adds, as his highest flight of fancy, 'who shall say that graphotype may not be the origin of a daily illustrated paper?' it would be out of place to pursue this tempting theme, and to discuss the _daily graphic_ of new york and succeeding illustrated dailies, for all these things were but dreams in the sixties. yet, undoubtedly, graphotype set people on the track of process-work. by and by the photographer came in as the welcome ally, who left the draughtsman free to work upon familiar materials, instead of the block itself, and presently supplanted the engraver also, and the great rival of wood-cutting and wood-engraving sprang into life. among the ordinary illustrations a. boyd houghton is represented by _the mistaken ghost_ (p. ), _a hindoo legend_ (p. ), and _the bride of rozelle_ (p. ); g. j. pinwell by _joe robertson's folly_ (p. ) and _the old keeper's story_ (p. ); j. w. north by _the lake_ (p. ); w. small by _a queer story about banditti_ (pp. , ); s. l. fildes by a strongly-drawn design, _the goldsmith's apprentice_ (p. ); ernest griset by a slight yet distinctly grotesque _tale of a tiger_ (p. ); m. ellen edwards by _wishes_ (p. ) and kate edwards by _cherry blossom_ (p. ); j. lawson by _the legend of st. katherine_ (p. ), _sir ralph de blanc-minster_ (p. ), and _hymn to apollo_ (p. ); f. w. lawson by _the singer of the sea_ (p. ). the various examples by f. a. fraser, t. green, t. scott (a well-known portrait engraver), e. m. wimpress, and the rest may be dismissed with bare mention. in vol. iv., new series, we find charles keene with a frontispiece, _the old shepherd_; _the haymakers_ (p. ), e. m. wimpress; _cassandra_ (p. ), s. l. fildes; _fetching the doctor_ (p. ), h. s. marks; _imma and eginhart_ (p. ), w. small; and _the christmas choir_ (p. ), f. a. fraser, are the other separate plates. those printed with the text include _the child queen_ (p. ) and _feuilles d'automne_ (p. ), by s. l. fildes; _evening tide_ (p. ), a typical pastoral, by g. j. pinwell; _zoë fane_ (p. ), by j. mahoney; and others by b. bradley, e. f. brewtnall, f. eltze, t. green, e. hughes, f. w. lawson, e. sheil, l. straszinski, t. sulman, e. m. wimpress, etc. despite the presence of many of the old staff, the list of names shows that the palmy days of the magazine are over. the christmas number contains, _inter alia_, a frontispiece by john gilbert; _my cousin renie_ (p. ), by j. mahoney; _scotch cattle_, by basil bradley; and _the maiden's test_, by m. e. edwards (p. ). in another new series starts. a notable feature has disappeared: the illustrations no longer figure in a separate list, but their artists' names are tacked on to the few articles and stories which are illustrated in the ordinary index. yet the drawings by du maurier to charles reade's _foul play_ (pp. , , , , , , , , ) would alone make the year interesting. people, who regard du maurier as a society draughtsman only, must be astonished at the grim melodramatic force displayed in these. 'john millais, r.a.,' also appears as a contributor with _death dealing arrows_ (p. ); s. l. fildes has _the orchard_ (p. ); f. w. lawson, _the castaway_ (p. ); basil bradley is well represented by _the chillingham cattle_ (p. ), and _another day's work done_ (p. ); f. s. walker appears with _a lazy fellow_ (p. ), john gilbert with _the armourer_ (p. ), and m. e. edwards with the society pictures, _the royal academy_ (p. ) and _a flower show_ (p. ). in the second volume for we find _salmon fishing_ (p. ) and _daphne_ (p. ), both by s. l. fildes; _found out_ (p. ), _a town cousin_ (p. ), _left in the lurch_ (p. ), and _blackberry gatherers_ (p. ), by h. paterson; _sussex oxen_ (p. ) and _the foxhound_ (p. ), by basil bradley; _the picnic_ (p. ), by f. w. lawson, who has also _the waits_, the frontispiece of the christmas number, which contains _taking his ease_ (p. ), the last millais in the magazine; a clever gallery study; _boxing night_, by s. l. fildes, and a capital domestic group, _the old dream_ (p. ), by m. e. edwards. in , vol. iii., new series, contains a single example by g. j. pinwell, _a seat in the park_ (p. ); five by s. l. fildes; _the duet_ (p. ), _the juggler_ (p. ), _hours of idleness_, the subject of a later academy picture (p. ), _led to execution_ (p. ), and _basking_ (p. ); and others by fred barnard (pp. , , , ), b. bradley (pp. , , ), val prinsep (p. ), f. w. lawson (p. ), and ford madox brown, _the traveller_ (p. ). to state that vol. iv., new series, is absolutely without interest is to let it off cheaply. in the volume for the names of artists are omitted, and if we follow the editor's example no injustice will be done, despite a few clever drawings by r. m[acbeth]; the work, not merely in date but in spirit, is of the new decade, and as it is exceptionally poor at that for the most part, it no longer belongs to the subject with which this volume is concerned. chapter iv: some illustrated magazines of the sixties: ii. 'the cornhill,' 'good words,' and london society' the cornhill magazine, which began in with thackeray as editor, showed from the very first that the aim of the magazine was to keep the level of its pictures equal to that of its text. in looking through the forty-seven volumes of the first series it is gratifying to find that this purpose was never forgotten. many a rival magazine has been started since under the happiest auspices, with the most loyal intention to have the best and only the very best illustrations; but in a few years the effort has been too exacting, and the average commonplace of its padding in prose and verse has been equalled by the dull mediocrity of its pictures. only those who have experienced the difficulty which faces an editor firmly resolved to exclude the commonplace of any sort can realise fully what a strain a successful effort, lasting over twenty years, must needs impose on the responsible conductors. thackeray, as we know, soon found the labour too great; but his successors kept nobly to their purpose, and few magazines show more honourable fulfilment of their projected scheme than the classic _cornhill_, which has introduced so many masterpieces in art and literature to the public. curiously enough, the weakest illustrations under the _régime_ he inaugurated so happily are those by the editor himself. thackeray's designs to _lovel the widower_, and the one example by g. a. sala in the first volume, link the new periodical with the past. they belong to the caricature type of illustrations which had been accepted by the british public as character-drawing. like the 'phiz' plates for dickens's works, and many of john leech's sketches, they have undoubtedly merit of a sort, but not if you consider them as pictures pure and simple. later experience shows that an illustration to a story, which catches the spirit of the writer, and realises in another medium the characters he had imagined, may also be fine art--art as self-sufficient and as wholly beautiful as that of a dürer wood-cut or a rembrandt etching. the masterpieces of modern illustrations to fiction which the _cornhill magazine_ contains would by themselves suffice to prove this argument up to the hilt. the collection of drawings chiefly by millais, walker, and leighton, in a volume of carefully-printed impressions, from one hundred of the original wood-blocks, issued under the title of the _cornhill gallery_ in , may in time to come be prized as highly as _bible wood-cuts_, _the dance of death_, or the _liber studiorum_. it is true that the pictures aimed only to fulfil their actual purpose, and it may be argued, reasonably enough, that a picture which illustrates a story is for that very reason on a different level to a self-contained work--inspired solely by the delight of the artist in his subject. but, in their own way, they touched high-water mark. upon one of dürer's blocks he is said to have written in latin, 'better work did no man than this,' and on many a _cornhill_ design the same legend might have been truly inscribed. it is true that most of the etchings and wood-cuts beside which they deserve to be ranked are untrammelled autograph work throughout, and that here the drawing done direct on the block was paraphrased by an engraver. not always spoilt, sometimes (as even the draughtsman himself admitted), improved in part, but still with the impress of another personality added. and this argument might be extended to prove that an engraving by another craftsman can never be so interesting as an etching from a master's hand, or a block cut by its designer. yet, without forcing such comparison, we may claim that the engravings in _once a week_, _good words_, and the _cornhill_ enriched english art to lasting purpose. although sets of the _cornhill magazine_ are not difficult to procure, and a large number of people prize them in their libraries, yet by way of bringing together those scattered facts of interest which pertain to our subject, it may be as well to indicate briefly the principal contents of the first thirty-two volumes which cover the period to which this book is limited. in we find six full-page illustrations to _lovel the widower_, three to _the four georges_, two to _roundabout papers_, all by thackeray, to whom they are all formally attributed in the _cornhill gallery_. possibly one, entirely unlike the style of the rest to the _four georges_, is from another hand--the fact that it is not included in the reprint seems to confirm this suspicion. millais' first contributions included _unspoken dialogue_, _'last words,'_ and the beginning of the illustrations to _framley parsonage_, which he equalled often but never excelled. f. sandys is represented by _legends of the portent_ (i. p. ), and frederick leighton by _the great god pan_ (ii. p. ) to mrs. browning's poem. _ariadne in naxos_, an outline-drawing in a decorative frame, is unsigned, and so strangely unlike the style of the magazine that it provokes curiosity. in thackeray started illustrating his serial story, _the adventures of philip_, but, after four full-page drawings, relinquished the task to fred walker, who at first re-drew thackeray's compositions, but afterwards signed his work with the familiar 'f. w.' we may safely attribute eight solely to him. millais continued his series of drawings to illustrate _framley parsonage_, and has besides one other, entitled _temptation_ (iii. p. ). a series of studies of character, _the excursion train_, by c. h. bennett, is a notable exception to the practice of the magazine, which printed all its 'pictures' on plate-paper apart from the text, the blocks in the text (always excepting the initial letters) being elsewhere limited to diagrams elucidating the matter and obviously removed from consideration as pictures. this year doyle began those outline pictures of society which attained so wide a popularity. [illustration: frederick sandys 'cornhill magazine' vol. i. p. legend of the portent] [illustration: frederick sandys 'cornhill magazine' vol. vi. p. manoli] in walker concludes his _philip_ series with eight full-page drawings, including the superb _philip in church_, of which he made a version in water-colours that still ranks among his most notable work. the first two illustrations to miss thackeray's _story of elizabeth_ are also from his hand. millais is represented by _irené_, a kneeling figure (v. p. ), and by the powerfully conceived _bishop and the knight_ (vi. p. ), and the first four illustrations to trollope's _small house at allington_. richard doyle continues the series of _pictures of english society_; but now that their actuality no longer impresses, we fail to discover the special charm which endeared them to contemporaries. f. sandys is represented by _manoli_ (vi. p. ), the second of his three contributions, which deepens the regret that work by this fine artist appeared so seldom in this magazine. but the most notable feature this year is found in the drawings contributed by frederick leighton, then not even an associate of the royal academy, which illustrate george eliot's _romola_. with these the _cornhill_ departed from its ordinary custom, and gave two full-page illustrations to each section of the serial month by month. consequently in the volumes in and the usual two-dozen plates are considerably augmented. in twelve more of the _romola_ series complete leighton's contributions to the magazine. millais has twelve more to _the small house at allington_, walker is represented by one drawing, _maladetta_, another to _mrs. archie_, two to _out of the world_, and one more to the _story of elizabeth_. du maurier, destined to occupy the most prominent position in later volumes, appears for the first time with _the cilician pirates_, _sibyl's disappointment_, _the night before the morrow_, and _cousin phillis_. possibly a drawing entitled 'the first meeting' to a story, _the ... in her closet_, is from his hand; but the style is not clearly evident, nor is it included in the _cornhill gallery_ which, published in the next year, drew its illustrations from the few volumes already noticed, with the addition of five others from the early numbers of . another drawing, signed a. h., to _margaret denzil_, is by arthur hughes. in two other illustrations complete _the small house at allington_, and millais has also two others for _madame de monferrat_. sir noel paton appears for the only time with a fine composition, _ulysses_ (ix. p. ). _margaret denzil_ has its three illustrations signed r. b., probably the initials of robert barnes, who did much work in later volumes. charles keene, a very infrequent contributor, illustrated _brother jacob_, a little-known story by george eliot. du maurier supplies the first four illustrations to mrs. gaskell's unfinished _wives and daughters_, and fred walker contributes five to the other serial, also interrupted by its author's death, the delightful _denis duval_. here we see the artist employed on costume-work, and hampered somewhat by historical details, yet infusing into his designs the charm which characterises his idyllic work. g. j. pinwell is represented by _the lovers of ballyvookan_. g. h. thomas starts wilkie collins's _armadale_ with two pictures that do not accord with the rest of the _cornhill_ work, but belong to a differently considered method, popular enough elsewhere, but rarely employed in this magazine. the volume contains also a portrait of thackeray engraved on steel, by j. c. armytage, after laurence. in the _armadale_ illustrations take up twelve full pages, and du maurier supplies the remaining twelve stories to _wives and daughters_. in six _armadale_ and one _wives and daughters_ are reinforced by eleven illustrations to _the claverings_ by m. ellen edwards. fred walker is again a contributor with five drawings for miss thackeray's _village on the cliff_, and frederick sandys, with a fine composition illustrating swinburne's _cleopatra_ (xiv. p. ), makes his last appearance in the magazine. in m. e. edwards signs five of _the claverings_ and seven to _the bramleighs of bishop's folly_. _the satrap_, an admirable composition, is signed f. w. b., but for whom these initials stand is not clear. fred walker completes his illustrations to the _village on the cliff_, and adds one other to _beauty and the beast_, and two to _a week in a french country house_ and one to _red riding hood_. f. w. lawson makes his _entrée_ with the four drawings to _stone edge_, and du maurier has a curiously massive _joan of arc_. in walker has three illustrations to _jack the giant killer_, '_i do not love you_,' and _from an island_ respectively. m. ellen edwards is responsible for ten to _the bramleighs_, one to a story, _the stockbroker_, and the first two to _that boy of norcott's_. f. w. lawson has four to _avonhoe_, and two to _lettice lisle_, and du maurier two to _my neighbour nelly_, and one to _lady denzil_. in _that boy of norcott's_ supplies the subjects for three others by m. e. edwards, and _lettice lisle_ for four by f. w. lawson. the first chapters of _put yourself in his place_, charles reade's trades-union novel, are illustrated by ten drawings by robert barnes, f. walker has one to _sola_, for which tale du maurier supplies another, as well as one to the _courtyard of the ours d'or_, and the three for _against time_. in robert barnes continues illustrating charles reade's novel with seven full pages. du maurier contributes ten to _against time_, and four to george meredith's _adventures of harry richmond_, and s. l. fildes (more familiar to-day as luke fildes) comes in with three admirable compositions to charles lever's _lord kilgobbin_. [illustration: frederick sandys 'cornhill magazine' vol. xiv. p. cleopatra] in the latter story engages twelve full pages, and _harry richmond_ and eleven others, du maurier has the first to a _story of the plébiscite_. in du maurier continues _the plébiscite_ with one full page (the others to the same story are signed 'h. h.'), and has four others to francillon's _pearl and emerald_, and ten to _the scientific gentleman_. fildes concludes his embellishment of _lord kilgobbin_ with three full pages. hubert herkomer (the 'h. h.' of _the plébiscite_ probably) appears as a recruit with two most satisfactory designs to _the last master of the old manor-house_, and g. d. leslie, also a fresh arrival, finds, in miss thackeray's _old kensington_, the themes for nine graceful compositions. in to du maurier are devoted twelve subjects illustrating _zelda's fortune_. g. d. leslie has four others concluding _old kensington_. s. l. fildes illustrates _willows_ with two, and marcus stone is represented by half-a-dozen idyllic and charming, if somewhat slight, designs for _young brown_. in h. paterson, w. small, and du maurier contribute all the pictures excepting one by marcus stone. _far from the madding crowd_ by thomas hardy, illustrated by the first artist, and _a rose in june_, and black's _three feathers_ by the second. in h. allingham supplies most graceful pictures to _miss angel_. du maurier is the artist chosen for another hardy novel, _the hand of ethelberta_. a. hopkins illustrates mr. henley's wonderful achievement, _hospital outlines_, as the poems were called when they appeared in july . from this date to the last number of the shilling series, june , the artists are limited to small and du maurier for the most part, and as this record has already exceeded its limits, no more need be said, except that until the last, the high standard of technical excellence was never abandoned. although the rare mastery of millais and the charm of walker were hardly approached by their successors, yet the magazine was always representative of the best work of those of its contemporaries who devoted themselves to black and white, and not infrequently, as this notice shows, attracted men who have made few, if any other, attempts to draw for publication. it is curious to find that, notwithstanding the evident importance it attached to its pictorial department, no artist's name is ever mentioned in the index or elsewhere. in a graceful and discriminative essay 's. c.' speaks feelingly and appreciatively of fred walker just after his death; but that seems to be the only time when the anonymity imposed on the artists was divulged in the magazine itself. it is but fair to add that the literary contents were never signed, or attributed in the index, except that a few articles bear the now familiar initials, 'l. s.', 'w. e. h.', 'r. l. s.', 'g. a.', and others. good words this popular, semi-religious, sixpenny magazine, established in , achieved quickly a circulation that was record-breaking in its time. edited by dr. norman macleod, it was printed by thomas constable, and published (at first) in edinburgh by alexander strahan and co. although, viewed in the light of its later issues, one cannot help feeling disappointed with the first volume, yet even there the pictures are distinctly interesting as a forecast, even if they do not call for any detailed notice by reason of their intrinsic merit. they rarely exceed a half page in size, and were engraved none too well by various craftsmen. indeed, judging from the names of the artists, then as afterwards, given fully in the index of illustrations, it might not be unfair to blame the engravers still more strongly. the very fact that the illustrations are duly ascribed in a separate list is proof that, from the first, the editor recognised their importance. such honourable recognition of the personality of an illustrator is by no means the rule, even in periodicals that have equal right to be proud of their collaborators. where the artists' names are recorded it is rare to find them acknowledged so fully and thoroughly as in _good words_. in other magazines they are usually referred to under the title of the article they illustrate and nowhere else; or their name is printed (as in _once a week_) with a bare list of numerals showing the pages containing their pictures; but in _good words_ the subject, titles, and artists' names have always been accorded a special index. [illustration: g. du maurier 'good words' , p. a time to dance] in the first volume, for , w. q. orchardson--not then even an associate of the royal academy--supplies nine drawings, engraved by f. borders. admirable in their own way, one cannot but feel that the signature leads one to expect something much more interesting; and, knowing the quality of mr. orchardson's later work, it is impossible to avoid throwing the blame on the engraver. keeley halswelle contributes six; in these you find (badly drawn or spoilt by the engraver) those water-lilies in blossom, which in after years became a mannerism in his landscape foregrounds. j. w. m'whirter has four--one a group of _autumn flowers_ (p. ), cut by r. paterson, that deserves especial notice as a much more elaborate piece of engraving than any other in the volume. erskine nicol supplies two _genre_ pieces, the full-page, _mary macdonell and her friends_ (p. ), being, most probably, a thoroughly good sketch, but here again the translator has produced hard scratchy lines that fail to suggest the freer play of pencil or pen, whichever it was that produced the original. others by 'j. b.,' j. o. brown, c. a. doyle, clarence dobell, jas. drummond, clark stanton, gourlay steell, and hughes taylor, call for no particular comment. from the chief full-page illustrations were printed separately on toned paper. a series of animal subjects by 'j. b.,' twelve 'illustrations of scripture,' engraved by dalziel brothers, were announced in the prospectus as a special feature. somewhat pre-raphaelite in handling they are distinctly interesting, but hardly masterly. but the volume will be always memorable for its early work by frederick walker and g. du maurier. _a time to dance_, by the latter, shows a certain decorative element, which in various ways has influenced his work at different periods, although no one could have deduced from it the future career of its brilliant author as a satirist of society, a draughtsman who imparted into his work, to a degree no english artist has surpassed, and very few equalled, that 'good form' so prized by well-bred people. the drawing unsigned _the blind school_ (p. ), attributed to fred walker in the index, suggests some clerical error. like one attributed to sandys in a later volume, you hesitate before accepting evidence of the compiler of the list of engravings, which the picture itself contradicts flatly. _only a sweep_ (p. ) is signed, and, although by no means a good example, is unquestionably attributed rightly. john pettie has two designs, _cain's brand_ (pp. , ); j. m'whirter and w. q. orchardson, one each; h. h. armstead, a pre-raphaelite composition, _a song which none but the redeemed ever sing_, which is amongst the most interesting of the comparatively few illustrations by the royal academician, who is better known as a sculptor, as his _music, poetry, and painting_ in the albert memorial, the panels beneath dyce's frescoes at westminster palace, and a long series of works shown at the academy exhibitions suffice to prove. t. morten, a draughtsman who has missed so far his due share of appreciation, is represented by _the waker, dreamer, and sleeper_ (p. ), a powerful composition of a group of men praying at night by the side of a breaking dyke. john pettie has two drawings; and j. d. watson, six subjects--the first, _the toad_, being singularly unlike his later style, and suggesting a closer discipleship with the pre-raphaelites than he maintained afterwards. two by clarence dobell, and three by t. graham--one, _the young mother_, a charming arrangement in lines; with others by j. wolf, zwecker, w. m'taggart, j. l. porter, a. w. cooper, a. bushnell, w. fyfe, w. linney, and c. h. bennett, are also included. altogether the second volume shows marked advance upon the first, although this admirable periodical had not yet reached its high-water mark. in we find added to its list of artists, millais, keene, sandys, whistler, holman hunt, e. burne-jones, a. boyd houghton, tenniel, s. solomon, and lawless, a notable group, even in that year when so many magazines show a marvellous 'galaxy of stars.' to millais fell the twelve illustrations to _mistress and maid_, by the author of _john halifax_, and two others, _olaf_ (p. ) and _highland flora_ (p. ). that these maintain fully the reputation of the great illustrator, whose later achievements in oil have in popular estimation eclipsed his importance as a black-and-white artist, goes without saying. if not equal to the superb _parables_ of the following year, they are worthy of their author. indeed, no matter when you come across a millais, it is with a fresh surprise each time that one finds it rarely falls below a singularly high level, and is apt to seem, for the moment, the best he ever did. [illustration: simeon solomon 'good words' , p. the veiled bride] [illustration: frederick walker 'good words' , p. out among the wild-flowers] the two illustrations by j. m'neill whistler seem to be very little known. those to _once a week_, possibly from the fact of their being reprinted in thornbury's _legendary ballads_, have been often referred to and reproduced several times; but no notice (so far as i recollect) of these, to _the first sermon_, has found its way into print. the one (p. ) shows a girl crouching by a fire, with a man, whose head is turned towards her, seated at a table with his hand on a lute. the other (p. ) is a seated girl in meditation before a writing-table. not a little of the beauty of line, which distinguishes the work of the famous etcher, is evident in these blocks, which were both engraved by dalziel, and as whatever the original lost cannot now be estimated, as they stand they are nevertheless most admirable works, preserving the rapid touch of the pen-line in a remarkable degree. the charles keene drawing to _nanneri the washerwoman_ is another dalziel block which merits praise in no slight measure; as here again one fancies that the attempt has been to preserve a facsimile of each touch of the artist, and not to translate wash into line. the _king sigurd_ of burne-jones has certainly lost a great deal; in fact, judging by drawings of the same period still extant, it conveys an effect quite different from that its author intended. certainly, at the present time, he regards it as entirely unrepresentative; but no doubt then as now he disliked drawing upon wood. to-day it has been said that his chaucer drawings in pencil were practically translated by another hand in the course of their being engraved on wood. certainly technique of lead pencil is hardly suggested, much less reproduced in facsimile in the entirely admirable engravings by the veteran mr. w. h. hooper. but if the designs were photographed on the block such translation as they have undergone is no doubt due to the engraver. a drawing by simeon solomon, _the veiled bride_ (p. ), seems also much less dainty than his pencil studies of the same period. many artists, when they attempt to draw upon wood, find the material peculiarly unsympathetic. rossetti has left his opinion on record, and it is quite possible that in both the burne-jones and solomon, as in the tennyson drawings, although the engravers may have accomplished miracles, what the artist had put down was untranslatable. for the delicacies of pencil may easily produce something beyond the power of even the most skilful engraver to reproduce. the sandys, _until her death_ (p. ), illustrating a poem, loses much as it appeared in the magazine; you have but to compare a proof from the block itself, in a reprinted collection of messrs. strahan's engravings, to realise how different a result was secured upon good paper with careful printing. a. boyd houghton is represented by four subjects: _my treasure_ (p. ), _on the cliff_ (p. ), _true or false_ (p. ), and _about toys_ (p. ); they all belong to the manner of his _home scenes_, rather than to his oriental illustrations. _the battle of gilboa_ (p. ), by tenniel, is typical. m. j. lawless is at his best in _rung into heaven_ (p. ), and in the _bands of love_ (p. ) shows more grace than he sometimes secured when confronted by modern costume. t. morten has a finely-engraved night-piece, _pictures in the fire_ (p. ), besides _the christmas child_ (p. ) and _the carrier pigeon_ (p. ). the holman hunt, _go and come_ (p. ), a weeping figure, is not particularly interesting. _honesty_ (p. ), by t. graham, gives evidence of the power of an artist who has yet to be 'discovered' so far as his illustrations are concerned. h. h. armstead's _seaweeds_ (p. ), and eight by j. d. watson (pp. , , , , , , , ) need no special comment, nor do the ten by j. pettie (pp. - ). fred walker is represented by _the summer woods_, a typical pastoral (p. ), _love in death_, a careworn woman in the snow (p. ), and _out among the wild flowers_ (p. ), the latter an excellent example of the grace he imparted to rustic figures. these, with a few diagrams and engravings from photographs, complete the record of a memorable, if not the most memorable, year of the magazine. [illustration: t. graham 'good words' , p. honesty] [illustration: m. j. lawless 'good words' , p. rung into heaven] [illustration: m. j. lawless 'good words' , p. the bands of love] [illustration: j. pettie 'good words' , p. the monks and the heathen] [illustration: frederick sandys 'good words' , p. sleep] [illustration: frederick sandys 'good words' , p. until her death] [illustration: john tenniel 'good words' , p. the norse princess] in we find less variety in the artists and subjects, which is due to the presence of the superb series of drawings by millais, _the parables_, wherein the great illustrator touched his highest level. to call these twelve pictures masterpieces is for once to apply consistently a term often misused. for, though one ransacked the portfolios of europe, not many sets of drawings could be found to equal, and very few to excel them. the twelve subjects appeared in the following order: _the leaven_ (p. ), _the ten virgins_ (p. ), _the prodigal son_ (p. ), _the good samaritan_ (p. ), _the unjust judge_ (p. ), _the pharisee and publican_ (p. ), _the hid treasure_ (p. ), _the pearl of great price_ (p. ), _the lost piece of money_[ ] (p. ), _the sower_ (p. ), _the unmerciful servant_ (p. ), and _the labourers in the vineyard_ (p. ). to f. sandys two drawings are attributed; one is obviously from another hand, but _sleep_ (p. ) undoubtedly marks his final appearance in this magazine. t. morten is represented by _cousin winnie_ (p. ), _hester durham_ (p. ), _the spirit of eld_ (p. , unsigned), a powerful composition that at first glance might almost be taken for a sandys, and _an orphan family's christmas_ (p. ). in _autumn thoughts_ (p. ) we have an example of j. w. north, more akin to those he contributed to the dalziel table-books, a landscape, with a fine sense of space, despite the fact that it is enclosed by trees. john tenniel, in _the norse princess_ (p. ) and _queen dagmar_ (p. ), finds subjects that suit him peculiarly well. _the summer snow_ (p. ), attributed to 'christopher' jones, is by sir edward burne-jones of course, and the final contribution of the artist to these pages. h. j. lucas, a name rarely encountered, has one drawing, _the sangreal_ (p. ). a. boyd houghton, in _st. elmo_ (p. ), _a missionary cheer_ (p. ), and _childhood_ (p. ), is showing the more mature style of his best period. g. j. pinwell has but a single drawing, _martin ware's temptation_ (p. ), and that not peculiarly individual; john pettie appears with six, _the monks and the heathen_ (p. ), _the passion flowers of life_ (p. ), a study of an old man seated in a creeper-covered porch with a child on his lap, _the night walk over the mill stream_ (p. ), and _not above his business_ (p. ), _a touch of nature_ (p. ), and _the negro_ (p. ). to a later generation, who only know the pictures of the royal academician, these come as a surprise, and prove the versatility of an artist whose painting was somewhat mannered. walter crane's--a fine group of oriental sailors--_treasure-trove_ (p. ), and j. d. watson's six drawings are all capable and accomplished; _a pastoral_ (p. ), a very elaborate composition which looks like a copy of an oil-painting, _fallen in the night_ (p. ), _the curate of suverdsio_ (p. ), _the aspen_ (p. ), _rhoda_ (p. ), and _olive shand's partner_ (p. ), with the not very important _sheep and goats_ wrongly attributed to sandys, two decorated pages by john leighton, one drawing by e. w. cooke and five by t. graham, complete the year's record. the volume for is distinctly less interesting. nevertheless it holds some fine things. notably five millais', including _oh! the lark_ (p. ), _a scene for a study_ (p. ), _polly_ (p. ), (a baby-figure kneeling by a bed, which has been republished elsewhere more than once), _the bridal of dandelot_ (p. ), and _prince philibert_ (p. ), another very popular childish subject, a small girl with a small boy holding a toy-boat. frederick walker, in his illustrations to mrs. henry wood's novel, _oswald cray_ (pp. - , , , , , , and ), shows great dramatic insight, and a certain domestic charm, which has caused the otherwise not very entrancing story to linger in one's memory in a way quite disproportionate to its merits. the remaining illustrations to _oswald cray_ are by r. barnes (pp. , , ), the same artist contributing also _grandmother's snuff_, (p. ), _a burn case_ (p. ), _a lancashire doxology_, (p. ), _blessed to give_ (p. ), and _the organ fiend_ (p. ). m. j. lawless is responsible for only one subject, a study of a man and a harpsichord, _the player and the listeners_; in this case, as, on turning over the pages, you re-read a not very noteworthy poem, you find it has lingered in memory merely from its association with a picture. arthur hughes has a graceful design, _at the sepulchre_ (p. ), which seems to have lost much in the engraving; john tenniel is also represented by a solitary example, _the way in the wood_ (p. ); g. j. pinwell, in five full-page drawings, _a christmas carol_ (p. ), _the cottage in the highlands_ (p. ), _m'diarmid explained_ (p. ), _malachi's cove_ (p. ), and _mourning_ (p. ), sustains his high level. other subjects, animal pictures by j. wolf, and figures and landscapes by r. p. leitch, florence claxton, f. eltze, j. w. ehrenger, r. t. pritchett, and w. colomb, call for no special mention. to john pettie is attributed a tail-piece of no importance. [illustration: m. j. lawless 'good words' , p. the player and the listeners] with comes a sudden cessation of interest, as seventy of the illustrations are engraved 'from photographs of oriental scenes to illustrate the editor's series of travel papers,' _eastward_. this leaves room merely for pictures to the two serials. paul gray contributed those to charles kingsley's novel, _hereward, the last of the english_; but the twelve drawings are unequal, and in few show the promise which elsewhere he exhibited so fully. robert barnes supplies nine for the story, _alfred hagart's household_, by alexander smith of _city poems_ fame. these, like all the artist's work, are singularly good of their kind, and show at once his great facility and his comparatively limited range of types. in , although engravings after photographs do not usurp the space to the extent they did in the previous year, they are present, and the volume, in spite of many excellent drawings, cannot compare in interest with those for - . the frontispiece, _lilies_, is a most charming figure-subject by w. small, who contributes also three others: _the old yeomanry weeks_ (p. ), _deliverance_ (p. ), a typical example of a landscape with figures in the foreground, which, in the hands of this artist, becomes something entirely distinct from the 'figure with a landscape beyond' of most others; and _carissimo_ (p. ), a pair of lovers on an old stone bench, 'just beyond the julian gate,' which seems as carefully studied as if it were intended for a painting in oils. to compare the average picture to a poem to-day, with the work of mr. small and many of his fellows, is not encouraging. thirty years ago it seemed as if the draughtsman did his best to evolve a perfect representation of the subject of the verses; now one feels doubtful whether the artist does not keep on hand, to be supplied to order, a series of lovers in attitudes warranted to fit, more or less accurately, any verses by any poet. of course for one picture issued then, a score, perhaps a hundred, are published to-day, and it might be that numerically as many really good drawings appear in the course of a year now, as then; but, while our average rarely descends to the feeblest depths of the sixties, it still more rarely comes near such work as mr. small's, whose method is still followed and has influenced more decidedly a larger number of draughtsmen than has that of millais, walker, pinwell, or houghton. studying his work at this date, you realise how very strongly he influenced the so-called '_graphic_ school' which supplanted the movement we are considering in the next decade. despite the appreciation, contemporary and retrospective, already bestowed upon his work, despite the influence--not always for good--upon the younger men, it is yet open to doubt if the genius of this remarkable artist has received adequate recognition. in a running commentary upon work of all degrees of excellence, one is struck anew with its admirably sustained power and its constantly fresh manner. this digression, provoked by the four delightful 'small' drawings, must not lead one to overlook the rest of the pictures in _good words_ for . they include _the island church_, by j. w. north (p. ), _the life-boat_, by j. w. lawson (p. ), _between the showers_, by w. j. linton, (p. ), six illustrations to _ruth thornbury_, by m. e. edwards, and one by g. j. pinwell, _bridget dally's change_. perhaps the most notable of the year are the five still to be named: a. boyd houghton's _the voyage_, and a set of four half-page drawings, _reaping_, _binding_, _carrying_, _gleaning_, entitled _the harvest_ (pp. , ). these have a decorative arrangement not always present in the work of this clever artist, and a peculiarly large method of treatment, so much so that if the text informed you that they were pen-sketches from life-size paintings, you would not be surprised. whether by accident or design, it is curious to discover that the landscapes in each pair, set as they are on pages facing one another, have a look of being carried across the book in japanese fashion. might be called the pinwell year, as a dozen of his illustrations to dr. george mac donald's _guild court_, and one each to _a bird in the hand_ and _the cabin boy_, account for nearly half the original drawings in the volume. w. small is seen in five characteristic designs to dr. macleod's _the starling_, and one each to _beside the stile_ (p. ) and _the highland student_ (p. ). arthur boyd houghton contributes _omar and the persian_ (p. ) and _making poetry_ (p. ); the first a typical example of his oriental manner, the latter one of his home scenes. s. l. fildes appears with _in the choir_ (p. ), a church interior showing the influence of william small. f. w. lawson illustrates _grace's fortune_ with three drawings, also redolent of small, and fred walker has _waiting in the dusk_, a picture of a girl in a passage, which does not illustrate the accompanying verses, and has the air of being a picture prepared for a serial some time before, that, having been delayed for some reason, has been served up with a poem that chanced to be in type. in pinwell and houghton between them are responsible for quite half the separate plates, and small contributes no less than thirty-four which illustrate delightfully _the woman's kingdom_, a novel by the author of _john halifax_, together with a large number of vignetted initials, a feature not before introduced into this magazine. without forgetting the many admirable examples of mr. small's power to sustain the interest of the reader throughout a whole set of illustrations to a work of fiction, one doubts if he has ever surpassed the excellence of these. the little sketches of figures and landscapes in the initials show that he did not consider it beneath his dignity to study the text thoroughly, so as to interpret it with dramatic insight. your modern _chic_ draughtsman, who reads hastily the few lines underscored in blue pencil by his editor, must laugh at the pains taken by the older men. indeed, a very up-to-date illustrator will not merely refuse to carry out the author's idea, but prefer his own conception of the character, and say so. that neither course in itself produces great work may be granted, but one cannot avoid the conclusion that if it be best to illustrate a novel (which is by no means certain) that artist is most worthy of praise who does his utmost to present the characters invented by the author. true, that character-drawing with pen and pencil is out of date,--subtle emotion has taken its place,--it is not easy to make a picture of a person smiling outwardly, but inwardly convulsed with conflicting desires; the smile you may get, but the conflicting desires are hard to work in at the same time. appreciation of mr. small's design need not imply censure of the work of others; but, all the same, the cheap half-tone from a wash-drawing, in the current sixpenny magazine, looks a very feeble thing after an hour devoted to the illustrations to _guy waterman's maze_, _the woman's kingdom_, _griffith gaunt_, and the rest of the serials he illustrated. in this volume two others, _the harvest home_ (p. ) and _a love letter_ (p. ), are also from the same facile hand. the first of the boyd houghtons is a striking design to tennyson's poem of _the victim_ (p. ); neither picture nor poem shows its author at his best. others signed a. b. h. are: _the church in the cevennes_ (pp. , ), _discipleship_ (p. ), _the pope and the cardinals_ (p. ), _the gold bridge_ (p. ), _the two coats_ (p. ), _how it all happened_ (seven illustrations), _dance my children_ (p. ), a typical example of the peculiar mannerism of its author, and a _russian farmyard_ (p. ); also a number of small designs to _russian fables_, some of which were illustrated also by zwecker. g. j. pinwell illustrates _notes on the fire_ (pp. , ), _much work for little pay_ (p. ), _a paris pawn-shop_ (p. ), _mrs. dubosq's daughter_ (four pictures), _una and the lion_ (p. ), _lovely, yet unloved_ (pp. , ), _hop gathering_ (p. ), _the quakers in norway_ (p. ). s. l. fildes has _the captain's story_, a good study of fire-light reflected on three seated figures. other numbers worth noting are an excellent example of j. mahoney, _yesterday and to-day_ (p. ), briton rivière's _at the window_ (p. ), r. buckman's _the white umbrella_ (p. ), and seven by francis walker to _hero harold_, and one each to _glenalla_ (p. ), _the bracelet_ (p. ), and _thieves' quarter_ (p. ). with we lose sight of many of the men who did so much to sustain the artistic reputation of this magazine. w. small has but one drawing, _the old manor-house_ (p. ). hubert herkomer is represented by _the way to machaerus_ (pp. , ). j. mahoney by five designs to _the staffordshire potter_, francis walker by nine to _the connaught potters_ and _a burial at machaerus_ and _holyhead breakwater_. arthur hughes, an infrequent contributor so far, contributes two illustrations to _carmina nuptialia_. f. barnard has two to _house-hunting_; f. a. fraser has no less than seventy-five: thirty-five to _debenham's vow_, and thirty-three to _noblesse oblige_, with seven others, none of them worth reconsideration, although they served their purpose no doubt at the time. with we reach the limit of the present chronicle, to which francis walker and f. a. fraser contribute most of the pictures. the most interesting are: arthur hughes's _fancy_ (p. ) and _the mariner's cave_ (p. ); j. d. linton, _married lovers_ (p. ); j. mahoney, _the dorsetshire hind_ (p. ), _ascent of snowdon_ (p. ); and _dame martha's well_ (p. ), and g. j. pinwell's three very representative drawings, _rajah playing chess_ (p. ), _margaret in the xebec_ (p. ), and _a winter song_ (p. ). [illustration: arthur hughes 'good words' , p. fancy] is memorable for three of arthur hughes's designs, made for a projected illustrated edition of tennyson's _loves of the wrens_, a scheme abandoned at the author's wish; the three drawings cut down from their original size, _fly little letter_ (p. ), _the mist and the rain_ (p. ), and _sun comes, moon comes_ (p. ), are especially dear to collectors of mr. hughes's work, which appeared here with the lyrics set to sir arthur sullivan's music; another by the same artist, _the mother and the angel_ (p. ), is also worth noting. one boyd houghton, _baraduree justice_ (p. ), twenty-one drawings by w. small to katharine saunders, _the high mills_, and one by the same artist to _an unfinished song_ (p. ) are in this volume, besides four by pinwell, _aid to the sick_ (p. ), _the devil's boots_ (p. ), _toddy's legacy_ (p. ), and _shall we ever meet again?_ (p. ). without discussing the remaining years of this still flourishing monthly one can hardly omit mention of the volume for , in which william black's _macleod of dare_ is illustrated by g. h. boughton, r.a., j. pettie, r.a., p. graham, r.a., w. q. orchardson, r.a., and john everett millais, r.a., a group which recalls the glories of its early issues. london society this popular illustrated shilling magazine, started in february under the editorship of mr. james hogg, has not received so far its due share of appreciation from the few who have studied the publications of the sixties. yet its comparative neglect is easily accounted for. it contains, no doubt, much good work--some, indeed, worthy to be placed in the first rank. but it also includes a good deal that, if tolerable when the momentary fashions it depicted were not ludicrous, appears now merely commonplace and absurd. a great artist--millais especially--could introduce the crinoline and the dundreary whiskers, so that even to-day their ugliness does not repel you. but less accomplished draughtsmen, who followed slavishly the inelegant mode of the sixties, now stand revealed as merely journalists. journalism, useful and honourable as its work may be, rarely has lasting qualities which bear revival. aiming as it did to be a 'smart' and topical magazine, with the mood of the hour reflected in its pages, it remains a document not without interest to the social historian. amid its purely ephemeral contents there are quite enough excellent drawings to ensure its preservation in any representative collection of english illustrations. [illustration: m. j. lawless 'london society' vol. iv. p. honeydew] [illustration: j. d. watson 'london society' , p. too late] [illustration: j. d. watson 'london society,' vol. i. p. ash wednesday] in the first volume for we find a beautiful lawless, _beauty's toilet_ (p. ), spoilt by its engraving, the texture of the flesh being singularly coarse and ineffectual. fred walker, in _the drawing-room, 'paris'_ (i. p. ), is seen in the unusual and not very captivating mood of a 'society' draughtsman. _ash wednesday_ (p. ), by j. d. watson, is a singularly fine example of an artist whose work, the more you come across it, surprises you by its sustained power. the frontispiece _spring days_ and _a romance_ and _a curacy_ (p. ), are his also. other illustrations by t. morten, h. sanderson, c. h. bennett, adelaide claxton, julian portch, and f. r. pickersgill, r.a., call for no special comment. in the second volume there are two drawings by lawless, _first night at the seaside_ (p. ) and _a box on the ear_ (p. ); several by du maurier, one _a kettledrum_ (p. ), peculiarly typical of his society manner; others, _refrezzment_ (p. ), _snowdon_ (p. ), _oh sing again_ (p. ), _jewels_ (p. ), and a _mirror scene_ (p. ), which reveal the cosmopolitan student of nature outside the artificial, if admirable, restrictions of 'good form.' _the border witch_ (p. ), by j. e. millais, a.r.a., is one of the very few examples by the great illustrator in this periodical. j. d. watson, in _moonlight on the beach_ (p. ), _married_[ ] (p. ), _a summer eve_ (p. ), _on the coast_ (p. ), _holiday life_ (p. ), and _how i gained a wife_ (p. ), again surprises you, with regret his admirable work has yet not received fuller appreciation by the public. walter crane contributes some society pictures which reveal the admirable decorator in an unusual, and, to be candid, unattractive aspect. _kensington gardens_ (p. ), _a london carnival_ (p. ), and _which is fairest?_ (p. ), are interesting as the work of a youth, but betray little evidence of his future power. robert barnes, in _dreaming love and waiting duty_ (p. ), shows how early in his career he reached the level which he maintained so admirably. a. boyd houghton's _finding a relic_ (p. ) is a good if not typical specimen of his work. the designs by e. j. poynter, _tip cat_ (p. ), _i can't thmoke a pipe_ (p. ), and _lord dundreary_ (pp. , ), are singularly unlike the usual work of the accomplished author of _israel in egypt_. to these one must add the names of c. h. bennett (_beadles_, three), w. m'connell, c. a. doyle, george h. thomas, e. k. johnson, f. j. skill, f. claxton, h. sanderson, and a. w. cooper. so that offers, at least, a goodly list of artists, and quite enough first-rate work to make the volumes worth preserving. in vol. iii. there is a drawing, _the confession_ (p. ), engraved by dalziel, that is possibly by pinwell. three by t. morten, _after the opera_ (p. ), _a struggle in the clouds_ (p. ), and _ruth grey's trial_ (p. ), are good, if not the best of this artist's work. two by george du maurier (pp. , ) employ, after the manner of the time, a sort of pictured parable entitled _on the bridge_ and _under the bridge_. _our honeymoon_, by marcus stone, is interesting. _struck down_ (p. ) and _the heiress of elkington_ (p. ), both by j. d. watson, are as good as his work is usually. _a may morning_ (p. ), by george h. thomas, is also worthy of mention, but the rest, by e. k. johnson, e. h. corbould, w. brunton, w. cave thomas, louis huard, etc., are not peculiarly attractive. the concluding volume for has a very dainty figure, _honey-dew_, by m. j. lawless (p. ). the three du mauriers are _a little hop in harley st._ (p. ), _lords: university cricket match_ (p. ), and the _worship of bacchus_ (p. ) at first sight so curiously like a charles keene that, were it not for the signature, one would distrust the index. nine drawings by t. morten to _the first time_ are good, especially those on p. , and _a first attempt_, charles green (p. ), is also worth notice. two drawings by g. j. pinwell, _wolsey_ (p. ) and another (p. ), are characteristic. for the rest, c. h. bennett, louis huard, felix darley, w. m'connell, w. brunton, matt morgan, florence claxton, t. godwin, waldo sargent, george thomas, and c. a. doyle, provide _entrées_ and sweets a little flavourless to-day, although palatable enough, no doubt, at the time. in , m. j. lawless's _not for you_ (p. ); a fine j. d. watson, _the duet_ (p. ); _charley blake_, by g. du maurier (p. ); _at swindon_ (p. ), m. e. edwards, and _little golden hair_, by r. barnes, are the only others above the average. adelaide claxton, w. m'connell, h. sanderson, and j. b. zwecker provide most of the rest. the second half of the year (vol. vi.) is far better, contains some good work by the 'talented young lady,' m. e. e. (to quote contemporary praise); that her work was talented all students of the 'sixties' will agree. _a holocaust_ (p. ), _dangerous_ (p. ), _gone_ (p. ), _magdalen_ (p. ), _milly's success_ (p. ), and _unto this last_ (p. ) are all by miss edwards. a fine millais, _knightly worth_ (p. ), and a good j. d. watson, _blankton weir_ (p. ), would alone make the volume memorable. c. a. doyle has some of his best drawings to _a shy man_, and g. h. thomas and others maintain a good average. rebecca solomon has a good full page (p. ). in the extra christmas number you will find e. j. poynter's _a sprig of holly_ (p. ), j. d. watson's _story of a christmas fairy_ (p. ), a notable design, besides capital illustrations by du maurier, r. dudley (_the blue boy_), r. barnes, and marcus stone. is a du maurier year. in vol. vii. eleven drawings by this fecund artist on pp. , , , , , , , , , and , all excellent examples of his early manner. arthur hughes, with _the farewell valentine_ (p. ), makes his first appearance within the pages of _london society_. a. w. cooper, j. pasquier, t. r. lamont, and a. claxton are to the fore, and c. h. bennett has a series of typical members of various learned societies, which, characteristic as they are, might have their titles transposed without any one being the wiser. in vol. viii. , paul gray appears with _my darling_ (p. ). t. morten has three capital drawings: _two loves and a life_ (p. ), _a romance at marseilles_ (p. ), and _love and pride_ (p. ); and du maurier has _codlingham regatta_ (p. ), _how not to play croquet_ (p. ), _where shall we go?_ (p. ), _old jockey west_ (p. ), _the rev. mr. green_ (p. ), _furnished apartments_ (p. ), and _ticklish ground_ (p. ). g. j. pinwell is represented by a solitary example, _the courtship of giles languish_ (p. ), j. d. watson by _green mantle_ (pp. , , ), and m. e. edwards by _georgie's first love-letter_ (p. ), _faithful and true_ (p. ), _firm and faithful_ (p. ). the other contributors are a. w. bayes (_to gertrude_, p. ), l. c. henley, t. r. lamont, j. a. pasquier, kate edwards, w. brunton, t. s. seccombe, john gascoine, etc. in , vol. ix., george du maurier signs the frontispiece, _two to one_, and also two illustrations to _much ado about nothing_ (pp. , ), two to _second thoughts_ (pp. , ), and two to _queen of diamonds_ (pp. - ). t. morten has again three designs: _mrs. reeve_ (p. ), _on the wrekin_ (p. ), and _the man with a dog_ (p. ); r. dudley supplies one, _the tilt-yard_ (p. ), and kate edwards one, _the june dream_ (p. ). m. ellen edwards in three admirable examples, _in peril_ (p. ), _mutually forgiven_ (p. ), and _the cruel letter_ (p. ), shows how cleverly she caught the influence in the air. other artists contribute many drawings of no particular interest. vol. x. shows w. small with two drawings, _agatha_ (p. ) and _the reading of locksley hall_ (p. ). it is curious to see how the sentimentality of the poem has influenced the admirable draughtsman, who is not here at his best. paul gray has also two, _an english october_ (p. ) and _to a flirt_ (p. ); g. du maurier is represented by one only, _life in lodgings_ (p. ); j. g. thompson by one also, _caught at last_ (p. ); t. morten again contributes three: _marley hall_ (p. ), _may's window_ (p. ), and _the trevillians' summer trip_ (p. ); a. boyd houghton is represented by _ready for supper_ (p. ), and m. e. edwards by two drawings to _something to my advantage_ (pp. - ). the christmas number contains one boyd houghton, _the christmas tree_ (p. ); a j. d. watson, _given back on christmas morn_ (p. ); a very good f. w. lawson, _did i offend?_ (p. ); a delightful charles keene, _how i lost my whiskers_ (p. ); _sir guy's goblet_ (p. ), by m. e. edwards, and one by george cruikshank, _my christmas box_, looking curiously out of place here. in the eleventh volume ( ) the four by w. small are among the most important. they are _a pastoral episode_ (p. ), _quite alone_ (p. ), _the meeting_ (p. ), and _try to keep firm_ (p. ); a j. d. watson, _changes_ (p. ); a paul gray, _goldsmith at the temple gate_ (p. ); a j. g. thompson, _an expensive journey_ (p. ); m. e. edwards's _winding of the skein_ (p. ), and l. c. henley's _how i set about paying my debts_ (p. ), are all that need be mentioned. in the twelfth volume ( ) a. boyd houghton signs a couple of drawings to _a spinster's sweepstake_ (pp. , ), g. j. pinwell supplies two to _beautiful mrs. johnson_ (pp. - ), f. w. lawson two to _dedding revisited_ (p. ), _without reserve_ (p. ), and four to _mary eaglestone's lover_ (pp. , , , ). charles green is responsible for _the meeting at the play_ (p. ), and j. g. thompson for a series, _threading the mazy at islington_. the christmas number is honoured by two fine drawings by charles keene (p. ) and a good double page by j. d. watson, _christmas at an old manor-house_. sir john gilbert, a rare contributor to these pages, is represented by _the rowborough hollies_ (p. ), m. e. edwards by _the christmas rose_ (p. ), and f. w. lawson by _my turn next_ (p. ). with its thirteenth volume ( ) _london society_ still keeps up to the level it established. among much that was intended for the moment only there is also work of far more sterling value. charles keene, in two drawings for _tomkins' degree supper_ (pp. , ), is seen at his best, and how good that is needs no retelling. sir john gilbert, among a new generation, keeps his place as a master, and in four drawings (pp. , , , ) reveals the superb qualities of his work, coupled, it must be said, with certain limitations which are almost inseparable from rapid production. g. du maurier is represented by two, _lift her to it_ (p. ) and _the white carnation_ (p. ). the inscription of _expectation_ (p. ), by 'the late m. j. lawless', marks the final discharge of an illustrator who did much to impart permanent interest to the magazine. it is always a regret to find that mr. sandys chose other fields of work, and that death withdrew lawless so soon; for these two, not displaying equal power, together with walter crane maintained the decorative ideal through a period when it was unpopular with the public and apparently found little favour in editors' eyes. m. e. edwards's _my valentine_ (p. ) and _married on her tenth birthday_ (p. ). to this list must be added w. small, with a delightful out-of-doors study, _'you did not come'_ (p. ); g. b. goddard with some capital 'animal' pictures: _spring of life_ (p. ), _buck shooting_ (p. ), and _dogs of note_ (pp. , ); wilfrid lawson, _a spring-tide tale_ (p. ); f. barnard, _a bracing morning_ (p. ); a. w. cooper, _the old seat_ (p. ); and others by tom gray, j. g. thomson, w. l. thomas, j. a. pasquier, w. s. gilbert, s. e. illingworth, rice, w. brunton, h. french, a. crowquill, edwin j. ellis, fane wood, and isaac l. brown. vol. xiv., the second of , contains j. d. watson's _the oracle_ (p. ); w. small's _the lights on gwyneth's head_ (p. ); a. boyd houghton, _the turn of the tide_ (p. ); john gilbert's _cousin geoffrey's chamber_ (_frontispiece_), and _box and cox in bay of bengal_ (p. ); birket foster's _the falconer's lay_, probably engraved from a water-colour drawing (p. ); wilfrid lawson's _crush-room_ (p. ); _for charity's sake_ (p. ); _behind the scenes_ (p. ), _the gentle craft_ (p. ), and _the golden boat_ (p. ), with many others by the regular contributors. in the christmas number we find _linley sambourne_, whose work is encountered rarely outside the pages of _punch_, with a design for a _christmas day costume_ (p. ); charles keene, with two drawings for _our christmas turkey_ (pp. , ); g. b. goddard's full-page, _knee-deep_ (p. ); j. d. watson's _aunt grace's sweetheart_ (p. ) and _the two voices_ (p. ) deserve noting. in wilfrid lawson illustrates whyte-melville's _m. or n._, and has several other full-page drawings in his best vein (pp. , , , , , , , , ); j. mahoney is first met here with _officers and gentlemen_ (p. ), and j. d. watson supplies the frontispiece to vol. xv., _bringing home the hay_, and also that to vol. xvi., _second blossom_. in this latter wilfrid lawson has illustrations to _m. or n._ (pp. , , , ); t. morten, a powerful drawing, _winter's night_ (p. ); g. b. goddard, _the sportman's resolve_ (p. ). the other artists, including some new contributors, are m. a. boyd, horace stanton, e. j. ellis, t. sweeting, james godwin, f. roberts, a. w. cooper, l. huard, and b. ridley. the christmas number for contains a good charles keene, _the coat with the fur lining_ (pp. , ); gilbert's _secret of calverly court_ (p. ); m. e. edwards's _how the choirs were carolling_ (p. ); and j. mahoney's _mr. daubarn_ (p. ), with others of no particular importance. the numbers for contain, _inter alia_, in the first half-year, a good j. d. watson, _going down the road_ (_frontispiece_); _a leaf from a sketch-book_, by linley sambourne (printed, like a series this year, on special sheets of thick white paper, as four-page supplements), which contained lighter work by artists of the hour, but none worth special mention. j. mahoney's _going to the drawing-room_ (p. ), and _sir stephen's question_ (p. ), and _spring-time_, drawn and engraved by w. l. thomas (p. ), are among the most interesting of the ordinary full pages. in the second half of the year, volume , there is a full page, _not mine_ (p. ), by arthur hughes, which links to ; a. w. small, _after the season_ (p. ); the very unimportant drawing by m. j. lawless, _an episode of the italian war_ (p. ), has interest as a relic; j. mahoney contributes two to _the old house by the river_ (pp. , ), and many others by h. paterson, wilfrid lawson, a. claxton. this year a holiday number appeared, with a not very good j. d. watson, _a landscape painter_ (p. ), and two francis walkers, _a summer holiday_ and _rosalind and celia_, and other seasonable designs by various hands. the christmas number has a coloured frontispiece and other designs by h. d. marks; j. d. watson illustrates _what might have happened_ (pp. , , ); and charles keene, _gipsy moll_ (pp. , ); francis walker has _the star rider_ (p. ) and _a tale_ (p. ); f. a. fraser, typical of the next decade, and one might say, without undue severity, of the decadence also, and f. gilbert, that facile understudy of _sir john_, show examples of work differing as far as it well could; but is the last stage we need note here in the career of a magazine which did notable service to the cause of illustration, and brought a good many men into notice who have taken prominent part in the history of 'black and white.' without placing it on a level with _once a week_, it is an interesting collection of representative work, with some really first-rate drawing. [illustration: frederick sandys,del. "oh, what's that in the hollow, so pale i quake to follow? oh, that's a thin dead body which waits th'eternal term." _christina rossetti._] chapter v: other illustrated periodicals of the sixties. 'churchman's family magazine,' 'sunday magazine,' etc. in devoting another chapter to periodicals one must insist upon their relative importance; for the time and money expended on them in a single year would balance possibly the cost of all the books mentioned in this volume. in a naïve yet admirable article in the christmas _bookseller_, , written from a commercial standpoint, the author says, speaking of some pictures in _good words_: 'some of these, we are informed, cost as much as £ a block, a sum which appears marvellous when we look at the low price of the magazine'; he instances also the celebrated 'j. b.'[ ], 'whose delineations of animals are equal to landseer. the magazines to be noticed are those only which contain original designs; others, _the national magazine_, the _fine arts quarterly_, and the like, which relied upon the reproductions of paintings, are not even mentioned. the churchman's family magazine any periodical containing the work of millais and sandys is, obviously, in the front rank, but _the churchman's family magazine_, which started in january , did not long maintain its high level; yet the first half a dozen volumes have enough good work to entitle them to more than passing mention. this, like _london society_, was published by mr. james hogg, and must not be confounded with another of the same price, with similar title, _the churchman's shilling magazine_, to which reference is made elsewhere. in the familiar octavo of its class, it is well printed and well illustrated. the first volume contains two full pages by millais, _let that be please_ (p. ) and _you will forgive me_ (p. ); three illustrations by e. j. poynter to _the painter's glory_ (pp. , , ); three by t. morten (pp. , , and ); five by j. d. watson, _only grandmamma_ (p. ), _christian martyr_ (p. ), _sunday evening_ (p. ), _the hermit_ (p. ), and _mary magdalene_ (p. ); three by charles green to _how susy tried_ (pp. , , ), and one each to _henry ii._ (p. ), and _an incident in canterbury cathedral_ (p. ), a drawing strangely resembling a 'john gilbert.' h. s. marks is represented by _home longing_ (p. ) and _age and youth_ (p. ); h. h. armstead by _fourth sunday in lent_ (p. ) and _angel teachers_ (p. ); j. c. horsley by _anne boleyn_ (p. ); f. r. pickersgill by _the still small voice_ (p. ); g. h. thomas by _catechising in church_ (p. ), and r. barnes by _music for the cottage_ (p. ) and _the strange gentleman_ (p. ). besides these the volume contains others by rebecca (sister to simeon) solomon (p. ), l. huard, d. h. friston, h. c. selous, t. macquoid, w. m'connell, t. sulman, e. k. johnson (_spenser_, p. ), and j. b. zwecker--a very fairly representative group of the average illustrator of the period. the second half of (vol. ii.) enshrines the fine frederick sandys, _the waiting time_, an incident of the lancashire cotton famine (p. ). another of m. j. lawless's most charming designs, _one dead_ (p. ), (reprinted under the title of _the silent chamber_), will be found here. m. e. edwards contributes two, _ianthe's grave_ (p. ) and _child, i said_ (p. ); g. j. pinwell is represented once with _by the sea_ (p. ); and t. morten with _the bell-ringers' christmas story_ (p. ). the other artists include h. c. selous, c. w. cope, f. r. pickersgill, e. armitage, a. w. cooper, e. h. wehnert, e. h. corbould, marshall claxton, p. w. justyne, p. skelton, paulo priolo, d. h. friston, h. sanderson, creswick, and t. b. dalziel. in vol. iii. ( ) m. j. lawless has _harold massey's confession_ (p. ); c. green, _thinking and wishing_ (p. ); g. j. pinwell, _march winds_ (p. ); m. e. edwards, _at the casement_ (p. ); and t. morten, _the twilight hour_ (p. ). among other contributors are florence caxton, l. huard, h. m. vining, w. m'connell, rebecca solomon, h. fitzcook, john absolon, percy justyne, f. w. keyl, w. j. allen. [illustration: m. j. lawless 'churchman's family magazine' vol. ii. p. 'one dead'] [illustration: frederick sandys 'churchman's family magazine' vol. ii. p. the waiting time] in vol. iv. are j. d. watson's _crusaders in sight of jerusalem_ (p. ), t. b. dalziel's _in the autumn twilight_ (p. ), and a. w. cooper's _lesson of the watermill_ (p. ); florence caxton illustrates the serial. and in vol. v. m. e. edwards's _deare childe_ (p. ), and _the emblem of life_ (p. ), and a. boyd houghton's _a word in season_ (p. ), are best worth noting. vol. vi. has a good study of a monk, _desert meditations_ (p. ), and a _gretchen's lament_ (p. ), by m. e. edwards. from vol. vii. onwards portraits, chiefly of ecclesiastical dignitaries, take the place of pictures. the shilling magazine this somewhat scarce publication is often referred to as one of the important periodicals of the sixties, but on looking through it, it seems to have established its claim on somewhat slender foundation. true, it contains one of sandys' most memorable designs--here reproduced in photogravure from an early impression of the block, a peculiarly fine drawing--to christina rossetti's poem, _amor mundi_. it was reproduced from a photograph of the drawing on wood in the first edition of mr. pennell's admirable _pen drawing and pen draughtsmen_, and in the second edition are reproductions by process, not only of mr. sandys' original drawing as preserved in a hollyer photograph, but of preliminary studies for the figures. the rest of the illustrations of the magazine, which only lived for a few months, are comparatively few and not above the average in merit. the numbers, may to may , contain eight drawings by j. d. watson, illustrating mrs. riddell's _phemie keller_. thirteen by paul gray illustrate _the white flower of ravensworth_, by miss m. betham-edwards. others noteworthy are: _gythia_, by t. r. lamont; _dahut_, and _an incident_ of , by j. lawson; _mistrust_ and _love's pilgrimage_, by edward hughes; a fine composition, _lost on the fells_, by w. small, and a few minor drawings mostly in the text. it was published by t. bosworth, regent street. this is a brief record of a fairly praiseworthy venture, but there is really no more to be said about it. the sunday magazine, another sixpenny illustrated monthly more definitely religious in its aim than _good words_, of which it was an offspring, was started in . the illustrations from the first were hardly less interesting than those in the other publications under the direction of mr. alexander strahan. indeed, it would be unjust not to express very clearly and unmistakably the debt which all lovers of black-and-white art owe to the publisher of these magazines. the conditions of oil-painting demand merely a public ready to buy: whether the artist negotiates directly with the purchaser, or employs an agent, is a matter of convenience. but black-and-white illustration requires a well-circulated, well-printed, well-conducted periodical: not as a middleman whose services can be dispensed with, but as a vital factor in the enterprise. therefore drawings intended for publication imply a publisher, and one who is not merely a man with pronounced artistic taste, but also a good administrator and a capable man of business. these triple qualifications are found but rarely together, and when they do unite, the influence of such a personality is of the utmost importance. mr. strahan, who appears to have combined in no small degree the qualities which go to make a successful publisher, set on foot two popular magazines, which, in spite of their having long passed their first quarter of a century, are still holding their own. a third, full of promise, _good words for the young_, was cut off in its prime, or rather died of a lingering disease, caused by that terrible microbe _the foreign cliché_. others, _the day of rest_ and _saturday journal_, also affected by the same ailment, succumbed after more or less effort; but the magazines that relied on the best contemporary illustrators still flourish. the moral, obvious as it is, deserves to be insisted upon. to-day the photograph from life is as popular with many editors as the _cliché_ from german and french originals was in the seventies; but a public which tired of foreign electros may soon grow weary of the inevitable photograph, and so the warning is worth setting down. [illustration: j. mahoney 'sunday magazine' , p. summer] [illustration: j. w. north 'sunday magazine' , p. winter] like its companion, _good words_, it has known fat years and lean years; volumes that were full of admirable drawings, and volumes that barely maintained a respectable average. from the very first volume of the _sunday magazine_ we find among others r. barnes, a. boyd houghton, m. e. edwards, paul gray, j. lawson, f. w. lawson, j. w. north, g. j. pinwell, and marcus stone well represented. the standard of excellence implied by these names was preserved for a considerable time. to this pinwell contributes two drawings, _the house of god_ (p. ) and _only a lost child_ (p. ), a typical character-study of town life. paul gray has a full page, _the maiden martyr_ (p. ), engraved by swain; either the drawing is below his level, or it has suffered badly at the hands of the engraver. _the orphan girl_ (p. ), _clara linzell's commentary_ (p. ), and _dorcas_ (p. ), by the same artist, are all interesting, but do not represent him at his best. the single contribution by a. boyd houghton, _friar ives_ (p. ), is not particularly good. in _winter_, by j. w. north (p. ), we have a most excellent drawing of a snow-clad farm with a thrashing machine at work in the distance, and two children in the foreground. the delicacy and breadth of the work, and its true tonality deserve appreciation; it was engraved by swain. _drowned_ (p. ), by marcus stone, is not very typical. _the watch at the sepulchre_ (p. ), by j. lawson, is a spirited group of roman soldiers. _caught in a thunderstorm_, by r. p. leitch, engraved by w. j. linton, is interesting to disciples of 'the white line.' edward whymper supplies the frontispiece, _the righi_. m. e. edwards, in the drawings to _grandfather's sunday_ (pp. , ), appears to be under the influence of g. h. thomas. robert barnes has twenty illustrations to _kate the grandmother_, and one each to _light in darkness_ (p. ) and _our children_. a series of fourteen to _joshua taylor's passion_, engraved by dalziel, are unsigned; the style leads one to credit them to f. a. fraser, who in later volumes occupied a prominent position. f. w. lawson, in _a romance of truth_ (pp. , ) and _the vine and its branches_ (p. ), has not yet found his individual manner. the rest of the pictures by t. dalziel, f. j. slinger, r. t. pritchett, f. eltze, w. m'connell, etc., call for no special comment. in j. mahoney's _summer_, the frontispiece to the volume, is a notable example of a clever artist, whose work has hardly yet attracted the attention it deserves; _marie_ (p. ), a study of an old woman knitting, is no less good. birket foster's _autumn_ (p. ) is also a very typical example. paul gray's _among the flowers_ (p. ), a group of children from the slums in a country lane, is fairly good. w. small, in _hebe dunbar_ 'from a photograph' (p. ), supplies an object-lesson of translation rather than imitation, which deserves to be studied to-day. in it, a really great draughtsman has given you a personal rendering of facts, like those he would have set down had he worked from life, and thereby imparted individual interest to a copy of a photograph. this one block, if photographers would but study it, should convince them that a good drawing is in every way preferable to a 'half-tone' block from a photograph of the subject; it might also teach a useful lesson to certain draughtsmen, who employ photographs so clumsily that the result is good neither as photography nor as drawing, but partakes of the faults of both. three designs to the _annals of a quiet neighbourhood_, by dr. george mac donald, (pp. , , ), the first quite in the mood of the hour, a capital piece of work, and _a sunday afternoon in a london court_, complete mr. small's share in this volume. robert barnes supplies the other eight drawings to dr. mac donald's story, and another, _the pitman and his wife_ (p. ), an excellent specimen of his 'british workman' manner. f. j. shields, a very infrequent contributor to these magazines, has a biblical group, '_even as thou wilt_' (p. ). edward hughes (who must not be confounded with arthur hughes, nor with the present member of the old water-colour society, e. r. hughes) is responsible for _under a cottage roof_ (p. ), _the bitter and sweet_ (p. ), _the first tooth_ (p. ), and _the poor seamstress_ (p. ); although a somewhat fecund illustrator not devoid of style and invention, his work fails to interest one much to-day. j. gordon thomson, so many years the cartoonist of _fun_, is represented by _on the rock_ (p. ). f. w. lawson's _hope_ (p. ) and a. w. bayes's _saul and david_ (p. ), with a drawing of wild animals drinking, by wolf, complete the list of original work, the rest being engraved from photographs. [illustration: s. l. fildes 'sunday magazine,' , p. the farmer's daughter] [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'sunday magazine' , p. a lesson to a king] [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'sunday magazine' , p. luther the singer] [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'sunday magazine' john baptist] [illustration: j. mahoney 'good words' , p. yesterday and to-day] [illustration: j. w. north 'sunday magazine' , p. anita's prayer] [illustration: g. j. pinwell 'sunday magazine' , p. madame de krudener] in a. boyd houghton is well to the fore with twelve illustrations to the serial story by sarah tytler, _the huguenot family in the english village_, besides full-page drawings, some in his best manner, to _a proverb illustrated_ (p. ), _heroes_ (p. ), _luther the singer_ (p. ), _the martyr_ (p. ), _the last of the family_ (p. ), and _a lesson to a king_ (p. ). w. small is only represented twice, with _wind me a summer crown_ (p. ) and _philip's mission_ (p. ). j. w. north has three admirable drawings, _foundered at sea_ (p. ), _peace_ (p. ), _anita's prayer_ (p. ), the first and last of these, both studies of shipwrecks, deserve to be remembered for the truth of movement of the drawing of the waves, and one doubts if any sea-pieces up to the date of their appearance had approached them for fact and beauty combined. both are engraved by dalziels in an admirably intelligent fashion. f. w. lawson's _the chained book_ (p. ) and _the revocation of the edict of nantes_ (p. ), and _in the times of the lollards_ (p. ), all deal with acrimonious memories of the past. after the scenes of cruelty, persecution, and martyrdom which unfortunately are too often the chief dishes in the _menu_ of a religious periodical, it is a relief to turn to the _cottar's farewell_ (p. ), by j. d. watson, or to the 'norths' before quoted. this most straightforward and accomplished study of a dying peasant and his family shows the dignified and simple treatment which the artist at his happiest moments employed with complete mastery. in a. boyd houghton is again the most frequent contributor of full-page designs; a bare list must suffice. _sunday at hippo_ (p. ), _three feasts of israel_ (p. ), _paul's judge_ (p. ), _sunday songs, sweden_ (p. ), _the charcoal burners_ (p. ), a drawing which looks like an intentional 'exercise in the manner of gustave doré,' who, despite his enormous popularity in england, seems to have had singularly little influence on english artists, so that this stands out as a unique exception. houghton has also _the feast of the passover_ (p. ), _the poor man's shuttle_ (p. ), _feast of pentecost_ (p. ), _samuel the ruler_ (p. ), _george herbert's last sunday_ (p. ), _baden-baden_ (p. ), _the good samaritan_ (p. ), _church of the basilicas_ (p. ), _joseph's coat_ (p. ), _st. paul preaching_ (p. ), and _the parable of the sower_ (p. ). g. j. pinwell is seen in three examples, _a westphalian parsonage_ (p. ), _madame de krudener_ (pp. , ); s. l. fildes is here for the first time with _the farmer's daughter_ (p. ); j. pettie has a small drawing, _my sister_ (p. ); j. wolf, a clever 'lamb' study (p. ); and w. small a most typical, almost mannered, _sunday morning_ (p. ). j. mahoney supplies twenty-eight illustrations to _the occupations of a retired life_, by edward garrett, besides separate plates, _sunday songs from denmark_ (p. ), _love days_ (p. ), and _just suppose_ (p. ). j. gordon thomson contributes eighteen drawings for dr. george macdonald's _the seaboard parish_, and others of no particular interest are attributed to shield, f. a. fraser, c. morgan, miles, lamont, and pasquier. here, as in many other volumes, are vignettes and tail-pieces by t. dalziel, some of them most admirably drawn and all charmingly expressed in the engraving. in a. boyd houghton still maintains his position. this year his drawings are _wisdom of solomon_ (p. ), _the jews in the ghetto_ (p. ), _martha and mary_ (p. ), _rehoboam_ (p. ), _jewish patriotism_ (p. ), _sunday in the bush_ (p. ), _miss bertha_ (pp. , ), _babylonian captivity_ (p. ), _john baptist_ (p. ), and _samson_ (p. ). g. j. pinwell illustrates edward garrett's _the crust and the cake_ with thirty-four cuts. in one of these (p. ), as in two other designs by the same artist, you find that in drawing the lines of a harpsichord, or grand piano, he has forgotten that the reversal required by engraving would represent the instrument with its curve on the bass, instead of the treble side--a sheer impossibility, which any pianist cannot help noticing at a glance. his one other contribution this year is _the gang children_ (p. ). represented by a solitary example in each case are j. m'whirter, _sunday songs_ (p. ); j. pettie, _philip clayton's first-born_ (p. ); edward hughes, _mother mahoney_ (p. ); towneley green, _village doctor's wife_ (p. ); robert barnes, _a missionary in the east_ (p. ); and arthur hughes, _blessings in disguise_ (p. ). j. mahoney has _the centurion's faith_ (p. ), _building of the minster_ (p. ), _hoppety bob_ (p. ), _roger rolf_ (p. ), and _christmas eighteenth century_ (p. ). francis walker, with his _sunday songs_ (p. ), _bird fair, shoreditch_ (p. ), _feast of tabernacles_ (p. ), _widow mullins_ (p. ), and _a little heroine_ (p. ); h. french, with '_it is more blessed_' (p. ), and _a narrative sermon_ (p. ); and f. a. fraser with _jesuit missions_ (p. ), _wesley_ (p. ), _the year_ (p. ), _a queer charity_ (p. ), and _a schwingfest_ (p. ); the three latter belong by rights to the men of the seventies rather than to the group with which this volume is concerned. [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'sunday magazine' , p. the parable of the sower] [illustration: arthur hughes 'sunday magazine' p. my heart] [illustration: arthur hughes 'sunday magazine' , p. blessings in disguise] [illustration: j. leighton 'sunday magazine' , p. a parable] in a. boyd houghton, one of the heroes of the sixties, reappears with five contributions, one, quite out of his ordinary manner, being a design for a group of statues, _st. paul's companions_ (p. ); the others are _my mother's knee_ (p. ), _sunday at aix-les-bains_ (p. ), achsah's _wedding gifts_ (p. ), and _sister edith's probation_ (p. ). j. mahoney signs but two: _a sun-dial in a churchyard_ (p. ) and _passover observances_ (p. ). f. a. fraser and towneley green supply the illustrations to the serials. w. j. wiegand contributes decorative head-pieces, and hubert herkomer has two drawings, _diana's portrait_ and _diana coverdale's diary_. in houghton has but two: _a woman that was a sinner_ (p. ) and _the withered flower_ (p. ). arthur hughes, in three delightful designs, _my heart_ (p. ), _the first sunrise_ (p. ), and _tares and wheat_ (p. ); j. mahoney with _diet of augsburg_ (p. ) and _our milkmen_ (p. ); and w. small with _the sea-side well_ (p. ), _one of many_ (p. ), and fourteen illustrations to _the story of the mine_, are about the only remnants of the old army. john leighton, a frequent contributor of decorative borders and head-pieces, has a typical full-page, _a parable_ (p. ). the 'seventies' are represented by r. macbeth's _tom joiner's good angel_ (p. ); and c. green (who, like small, belongs to both periods) with his designs to _the great journey_ (p. ) and _mills of clough_ (pp. , ). cassell's magazine, a popular monthly periodical that is still in full vigour under a slightly altered title, started in the decade immediately before the date that this book attempts to cover. as _cassell's family paper_, a large folio weekly, beyond the fact that the ubiquitous sir john gilbert did innumerable good things for its pages, one is not greatly interested in it. but in it was changed to a quarto shape, and although l. huard supplied the front page pictures to vol. i., and so the artistic position of the paper was not improved, yet soon after the change we find a great illustrator contributing the weekly drawing for its chief serial. for despite the indifferent engraving accorded to many of the blocks and the absence of any signature, the autograph of william small is legible in every line of the illustrations to _bound to the wheel_ which started with vol. ii. in august , , and has sixteen half-page illustrations. this was followed by _the secret sign_, with the same artist for a few chapters. then another hand appears, and soon after the monogram f. g. shows that the second gilbert (a brother, i believe, of the more famous artist) has replaced w. small. to one drawing of another serial, _the lion in the path_, the signature of t. morten is appended. in april its title is changed to _cassell's family magazine_, and it is printed on toned paper. the serial, _anne judge, spinster_, by f. w. robinson, has thirty illustrations by charles green. no doubt the originals were worthy of that admirable draughtsman; indeed, despite their very ordinary engraving, enough remains to show the handling of a most capable artist. the succeeding serial, _poor humanity_, is illustrated by b. bradley. j. d. watson contributes occasional drawings--_ethel_, on p. , being the first. m. ellen edwards also appears, with f. w. lawson, f. a. fraser, henley, c. j. staniland, r. t. pritchett, m. w. ridley, j. mahoney, and g. h. thomas. it is noteworthy of the importance attached to the illustrator at this date, that the names of those artists who have contributed to the magazine are printed in bold type upon the title-page to each volume. these, as later, bear no date, so that only in volumes bound with the wrappers in british museum fashion can you ascertain the year of their publication. in vol. iii. (may onwards) you discover on p. a drawing, _cleve cliff_, by g. j. pinwell. its serial, _a fight for life_, is illustrated by g. h. thomas, whose pictures are not signed, nor have i found that the authorship is attributed to the artists within the magazine itself. but in the 'in memoriam' volume, published soon after his death, several are reprinted and duly credited to him. they were all engraved by w. thomas. the first appearance of s. l. fildes, _woodland voices_, is on p. of this volume. t. blake wirgman has also a notable composition, _a sculptor's love_, and in this and in volume iv. there are other drawings by fildes, pinwell, and many by f. barnard, f. s. walker, and other popular draughtsmen of the period. [illustration: frederick sandys 'the argosy' , vol. i. p. 'if'] in we find another change, this time to a page that may be a quarto technically, but instead of the square proportions we usually connect with that shape, it seems more akin to an octavo. the illustrations are smaller, but far better engraved and better printed. w. small illustrates wilkie collins's cleverly-constructed story, _man and wife_, with thirty-seven pictures. his character-drawing appears at its best in 'bishopriggs,' the old scotch waiter, his love of beauty of line in two or three sketches of the athlete, 'geoffrey delamayne,' the working villain of the story. the dramatic force of the group on p. , the mystery of the scene on p. , or the finely-contrasted emotions of anne silvester and sir patrick on p. , could hardly be beaten. the other contributors to this vol. i. of the new series, include r. barnes, basil bradley, h. k. browne, w. r. duckman, e. h. corbould, m. e. edwards, e. ellis, s. l. fildes, f. a. fraser, e. hughes, f. w. lawson, h. paterson, and others, most of whom it were kindness to ignore. for side by side with mr. small's masterly designs appear the weakest and most commonplace full pages. hardly one, except s. l. fildes's _a sonnet_ (p. ), tempts you to linger a moment. in vol. ii. the serial story, _checkmate_, is illustrated by towneley green. the drawings throughout are mainly by those who contributed to the first volume. in the third volume, charles reade's _a terrible temptation_ is illustrated by edward hughes; a somewhat powerful composition by j. d. l[inton], p. ; one by w. small (p. ), and others by j. lawson, f. w. lawson, m. e. edwards, are all that can claim to be noted. belgravia this illustrated shilling monthly, the same size and shape as most of its predecessors, was not started until , and its earlier volumes have nothing in them sufficiently important to be noticed. in the seventies better things are to be found. the argosy this monthly periodical, as we know it of late years, suggests a magazine devoted to fiction and light literature, with a frontispiece by some well-known artist, and small engravings in the text mostly from photographs, or belonging to the diagram and the record rather than to fine art. i am not speaking of the present shilling series, but of the long array of volumes from until a few years ago. nor does this opinion belittle the admirable illustrations by walter crane, m. ellen edwards, and other artists who supplied its monthly frontispiece. but the first four half-yearly volumes were planned on quite different lines, and these deserve the attention of all interested in the subject of this book, to a degree hardly below that of the better-known magazines; better known, that is to say, as storehouses of fine illustrations. as these volumes seem to be somewhat scarce, a brief _résumé_ of their contents will not be out of place. in the year we have william small at his best in twelve illustrations to charles reade's dramatic novel, _griffith gaunt_. whether because the ink has sunk into the paper and given a rich tone to the prints, or because of their intrinsic merit, it is not quite easy to say, but the fact remains that these drawings have peculiar richness, and deserve to be placed among the best works of a great artist not yet fully recognised. one design by f. sandys to christina rossetti's poem, _if_, is especially noticeable, the model biting a strand of hair embodies the same idea as that of _proud maisie_, one of the best-known works of this master. a. boyd houghton has a typical eastern figure-subject, _the vision of sheik hamil_; edward hughes one, _hermione_; paul gray, a singularly good drawing to a poem _the lead-melting_, by robert buchanan. another to a poem by george macdonald, _the sighing of the shell_, is unsigned, whether by morten or paul gray i cannot say, but it is worthy of either artist; j. lawson has one to _the earl of quarterdeck_, m. ellen edwards one to _cuckoo_ and one to _cape ushant_, a ballad by william allingham; a group, with napoleon as the central figure, is by g. j. pinwell, and j. mahoney contributes three: _autumn tourists, bell from the north_, a girl singing by a trafalgar square fountain, and _the love of years_. the next year, , is illustrated more sparsely. _robert falconer_, by george macdonald, has one unsigned drawing, and nine by william small; these, with _a knight-errant_ by boyd houghton, make up the eleven it contains. in the next year walter crane illustrates the serial, _anne hereford_, by mrs. henry wood, and also a poem, _margaret_, by his sister. [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'the argosy' , vol. i. p. the vision of sheik hamil] [illustration: g. j. pinwell 'the quiver' the sailor's valentine] the quiver this semi-religious monthly magazine, published by messrs. cassell and co., was not illustrated at first. it is almost unnecessary to describe it volume by volume, as a reprint of its principal illustrations was made in , when fifty-two pictures were sandwiched between poems, and published in a small quarto volume entitled '_idyllic pictures_, drawn by barnes, miss ellen edwards, paul gray, houghton, r. p. leitch, pinwell, sandys, small, g. thomas, etc' the curiously colloquial nomenclature of the artists on the title-page is the only direct reference to their share in the book, which is well printed, and includes some admirable illustrations. the book is now exceptionally scarce, and like its companion, _pictures of society_, selected from _london society_, must be searched for long and patiently. personal inquiries at all the accessible shops in london, bath, and edinburgh failed to find one bookseller who had ever heard of either book. yet, in spite of it, single copies of both turned up alternately on the shelves of men who were at the moment of its discovery glibly doubting its existence. the ignorance of booksellers concerning this period is at once the terror and the joy of the collector. for when they do know, he will have to pay for their knowledge. yet it would be unfair to the reputation of a periodical which issued so many designs by representative artists of the sixties to dismiss it without a little more detail. started as a non-illustrated paper on october , , it entered the ranks with a very capable staff. in a third series on toned paper still further established its claim to be considered seriously, and the fact that these few years supplied the matter for the volume just mentioned shows that it fulfilled its purpose well. in volume i. third series ( ), pictures by a. boyd houghton will be found on pages , , , , , , and ; and in vol. ii. , he appears upon pages and . those by william small (pp. , ), g. j. pinwell (pp. , ), and j. d. watson (p. ) also deserve looking up. m. w. ridley, an illustrator of promise, is also represented. in vol. iii. , j. d. watson's designs on pages , , , , , and are perhaps his best. drawings by john lawson (p. ), hubert herkomer (p. ), a. boyd houghton (pp. , , , ), s. l. fildes (pp. , , ), g. j. pinwell (pp. , , , , and ), c. green (p. ), j. mahoney (p. ), and t. b. wirgman (p. ) all merit notice. in vol. iv. many of the above artists are represented--s. l. fildes (p. ), j. d. watson (p. ), w. small (p. ), and the designs by s. l. fildes and j. d. watson in the christmas number being perhaps the most noticeable. other frequent contributors include r. barnes, c j. staniland, m. e. edwards, j. a. pasquier, g. h. thomas, f. w. lawson, and edith dunn. although not to be compared artistically with its rivals, _good words_ and the _sunday magazine_, it is nevertheless a storehouse of good, if not of exceptionally fine, work. the churchman's shilling magazine, a periodical of the conventional octavo size, affected by the illustrated shilling periodicals of the sixties, was commenced in . the first two volumes contain little of note, and are illustrated by r. huttula, john leigh, e. f. c. clarke; the third volume has m. e. edwards, and in the fifth volume walter crane supplies two full pages (pp. , ). despite the fact that it credited its artists duly in the index, and seemed to have been most favourably noticed at the time, it may be dismissed here without further notice. tinsley's magazine this shilling monthly was started in august with illustrations by 'phiz,' w. brunton, d. h. friston, and a. w. cooper. a. boyd houghton's contributions include _the story of a chignon_ (i. p. ), _for the king_ (ii. p. ), and _the return from court_ (ii. p. ). j. d. watson appears in vol. iii. pp. , , , and a drawing, signed a. t. (possibly alfred thompson), is on p. . but the magazine, although published at a shilling, and therefore apparently intended as a rival to the _cornhill_ and the rest, is not important so far as its illustrations are concerned. the broadway this international magazine, heralded with much flourish in by messrs. routledge, is of no great importance, yet as it was illustrated from its first number in september to july , it must needs be mentioned. examples of the following artists will be found therein:--f. barnard, g. a. barnes, w. brunton, m. e. edwards, paul gray, e. griset, a. b. houghton, r. c. huttula, f. w. lawson, matt morgan, thomas nash, j. a. pasquier, alfred thompson, and j. gordon thomson. saint paul's, yet another shilling magazine which was started in october , and published by messrs. virtue and co., is memorable for its twenty-two drawings by millais. these appeared regularly to illustrate trollope's _phineas finn the irish member_. a few illustrations by f. a. fraser were issued to _ralph the heir_, the next story, and to _the three brothers_, but from it appears without pictures. by way of working off the long serial by trollope, _ralph the heir_, independent supplements as thick as an ordinary number, but entirely filled with chapters of the story in question, were issued in april and october . so curious a departure from ordinary routine is worth noting. good words for the young, a most delightful children's magazine, which began as a sixpenny monthly under the editorship of dr. norman macleod in , bids fair to become one of those books peculiarly dear (in all senses) to collectors. there are many reasons why it deserves to be treasured. its literature includes several books for children that in volume-form afterwards became classics; its illustrations, especially those by arthur hughes, appeal forcibly to the student of that art, which is called pre-raphaelite, Æsthetic, or decorative, according to the mood of the hour. like all books intended for children, a large proportion of its edition found speedy oblivion in the nursery; and those that survive are apt to show examples of the amateur artist in his most infantile experiments with a penny paint-box. from the very first it surrounded itself with that atmosphere of distinction, which is well-nigh as fatal to a magazine's longevity as saintliness of disposition to a sunday-school hero. after a career that may be called truthfully--brilliant, it suddenly changed to a periodical of no importance, illustrated chiefly by foreign _clichés_. how long it lingered in this state does not concern us. indeed, it is only by a liberal interpretation of the title of this book that a magazine which was not started until can be included in _the sixties_ at all; but it seems to have continued the tradition of the sixties, and until the first half of , although it changed its editor and its title (to _good things_), it kept the spirit of the first volume unimpaired; but after that date it joined the majority of uninteresting periodicals for children, and did not survive its recantation for many years. in arthur hughes has twenty-four drawings to george macdonald's _at the back of the north wind_, and ten to the earlier chapters of henry kingsley's _boy in grey_. the art of a. boyd houghton is seen in three instances: _cocky locky's journey_ (p. ), _lessons from russia_ (p. ), and _the boys of axleford_ (p. ). j. mahoney has about a dozen; h. herkomer one to _lonely jane_ (p. ); and g. j. pinwell one to _black rock_ (p. ). although, following the example set by its parent _good words_, it credits the illustrations most faithfully to their artists in a separate index, yet it developed a curious habit of illustrating its serials with a fresh artist for each instalment; and, as their names are bracketed, it is not an easy task to attribute each block to its rightful author. the list which i have made is by my side, but it is hardly of sufficient general interest to print here; as many of the sketches, despite the notable signatures upon them, are trivial and non-representative. other illustrations in the first volume include one hundred and fifty-five grotesque thumb-nail sketches by w. s. gilbert to his _king george's middy_, and many by f. barnard, b. rivière, e. f. brewtnall, e. dalziel, f. a. fraser, h. french, s. p. hall, j. mahoney, j. pettie, t. sulman, f. s. walker, w. j. wiegand, j. b. zwecker, etc. in arthur hughes contributes thirty-six illustrations to _ranald bannerman's boyhood_, by george mac donald (who succeeded dr. macleod as editor), forty-eight to the continuation of the other serial by the same author, _at the back of the north wind_, four to the concluding chapters of henry kingsley's _boy in grey_, and one to _the white princess_. a. boyd houghton has but two: _two nests_ (p. ), _keeping the cornucopia_ (p. ); _miss jane_ 'wandering in the wood' (p. ) is by h. herkomer, while most of the artists who contributed to the first volume reappear; we find also e. g. and t. dalziel, charles green, towneley green, and ernest griset. [illustration: paul gray 'the quiver' cousin lucy] [illustration: h. herkomer 'good words for the young' , p. wandering in the wood] [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'good words for the young' , p. don jose's mule] [illustration: arthur hughes 'good words for the young' , p. barbara's pet lamb] [illustration: arthur hughes 'good words for the young' , p. mercy] [illustration: w. small 'the quiver' between the cliffs] in , arthur hughes, the chief illustrator of this magazine, to whose presence it owes most of its interest (since other artists are well represented elsewhere, but he is rarely met with outside its pages), contributes thirty pictures to dr. george mac donald's _princess and the goblin_, and fourteen others, some of which have been republished in _lilliput lectures_ and elsewhere,--one, _mercy_ (p. ), reappearing in that work, and again as the theme of a large painting in oils, which was exhibited at the royal academy , and reproduced in _the illustrated london news_, may rd of that year. a. boyd houghton, in _don josé's mule_ (p. ), has a most delightfully grotesque illustration, and in two drawings for _the merry little cobbler of bagdad_ (pp. - ), both in his 'arabian nights' vein, is typically representative. for the rest, w. small in _my little gypsy cousin_ (p. ), a good full page, and ernest griset with ten of his humorous animal pictures, combine with most of the artists already named to maintain the well-deserved reputation of the magazine. in arthur hughes supplies nine delightful designs for _gutta-percha willie_, by the editor; twenty-four to _innocent's island_, a long-rhymed chronicle by the author of _lilliput levée_, and a curiously fantastic drawing to george mac donald's well-known poem, _the wind and the moon_. some one, with the initials f. e. f. (not f. a. f.), illustrates _on the high meadows_ in nineteen sketches; with the exception of two by j. mahoney, the rest of the pictures are chiefly by f. a. fraser, t. green, f. s. walker, w. j. wiegand, and j. b. zwecker. in the magazine changed its name to _good things_. the most attractive illustrations are by arthur hughes: ten to _sindbad in england_ (pp. , , , , , , , , ), two to _henry and amy_ (pp. , ), and one each to _a poor hunchback_ (p. ), _the wonderful organ_ (p. ), and _my daughter_ (p. ). j. mahoney has a small design, _the old mill_ (p. ). the rest are by ernest griset, w. j. wiegand, and francis walker. on and after the _cliché_ enters, and all interest ceases. at this time the business of trading in _clichés_ had begun to assume large proportions. you find sometimes, in the course of a single month, that an english periodical hitherto exclusively british becomes merely a vehicle for foreign _clichés_. in this instance the change is so sudden that, excepting a few english blocks which we may presume had been prepared before, the foreigner is supreme. that, in at least three cases, the demise of the publication was merely a question of months is a sequel not to be regretted. but we need not assume too hastily that the _cliché_ killed it--possibly it had ceased to be profitable before, and the false economy of spending less has tempted the proprietor to employ foreign illustrations. britannia, another shilling illustrated magazine, was started in . the british museum, it seems, possesses no set, and my own copy has disappeared, excepting the first volume, but so far as that proves, and my memory can be trusted, it was illustrated solely by matt morgan, a brilliant but ephemeral genius who shortly after migrated to new york. the peculiarity of this magazine is that, like _the tomahawk_, a satirical journal illustrated by the same artist, its pictures were all printed in two colours, after the fashion of the old venetian wood-blocks. the one colour was used as a ground with the high lights cut away; the other block, for the ordinary convention of line-drawing. some of the pictures are effective, but none are worthy of very serious consideration. dark blue although _dark blue_, a shilling monthly magazine, did not begin until march , and ran its brief career until march only, it deserves mention here, because quite apart from its literary contributions which were notable, including as they did swinburne's _end of a month_, rossetti's _down stream_, its earlier volumes contain at least two drawings that will be prized when these things are collected seriously. besides, it has a certain _cachet_ of its own that will always entitle it to a place. its wrapper in colours, with three classically-attired maidens by a doorway, is singularly unlike that of any other publication; possibly f. w. l. would not be anxious to claim the responsibility of its design, yet it was new in its day, and not a bad specimen of the good effect of three simple colours on a white ground. its serial, _lost_, a romance by j. c. freund, was illustrated by f. w. lawson, t. w. perry, t. robinson, and d. t. white; and its second serial, _take care whom you trust_, by m. e. freere and t. w. ridley. a full-page drawing (they are all separately printed plates in this magazine), by cecil lawson, _spring_, is far more interesting. _musaeus_, by a. w. cooper, a somewhat jejune representation of the hero and leander motive, and other illustrations by e. f. clarke, w. j. hennessey, m. fitzgerald, d. h. friston, s. p. hall, j. a. h. bird, are commonplace designs engraved by c. m. jenkin; but _the end of a month_, a study of two heads, by simeon solomon, and _down stream_, by ford madox brown, (here reproduced from the original drawing on wood by kind permission of mr. frederick hollyer), represent the work of two artists who very rarely appeared as magazine illustrators. the literature includes many names that have since become widely known, but the project failed, one imagines, to secure popular support, and so it must be numbered with the long list of similar good intentions. the british workman it would be unjust to ignore a very popular penny magazine because of its purely philanthropic purpose. for from the first it recognised the importance of good illustrations as its great attraction, and enlisted some of the best draughtsmen to fulfil its didactic aim. we cannot help admiring its pluck, and congratulating the cause it championed (and still supports), and its fortune in securing coadjutors. the first number, issued in february , has a design, the _loaf lecture_, by george cruikshank on its first page; for some time h. anelay and l. huard were the most frequent contributors; then came john gilbert and harrison weir, the earliest important gilbert being _the last moments of thomas paine_ (january ). as a sample of white-line engraving, a block after a medallion of the _prince consort_, by l. c. wyon, and another of _h.m. the queen_, would be hard to beat. among these more frequent contributors, we find drawings by j. d. watson, _my account with her majesty_ (august ) and _parley and flatterwell_ (december ) being the most notable; and others by a. w. cooper, and lastly many by r. barnes, whose studies of humble life yet await the full appreciation they deserve. these large and vigorous engravings maintain a singularly high level of excellence, and, if not impeccable, are yet distinctly of art, and far above the ephemeral padding of more pretentious magazines. the band of hope review of all unlikely publications to interest artist or collector a halfpenny monthly devoted to teetotalism might take first place. not because of its price, nor because it was a monthly with a mission, for many cheap serials have attracted the support of artists who gave liberally of their best for the sake of the cause the publications championed. _the band of hope review_ is no esoteric pamphlet, but a perfect instance of a popular venture unconcerned, one would think, with art. it would be easy to claim too much for it; still the good work in its pages merits attention. it was started in as a folio sheet about the size of _the sketch_, its front page being always filled by a large wood-engraving. the first full page, by h. anelay, a draughtsman whose speciality was the good little boy and girl of the most commonplace religious periodicals, promises little enough. a series of really fine drawings of animals and birds by harrison weir commenced in no. . the third issue included a page by l. huard, whose work occasionally found its way to the shilling magazines, although the bulk of it appeared in the mass of journals of the type of the _london journal_, _bow bells_, etc. in the fifth number john gilbert (not then knighted) appears with a fine drawing, _the golden star_; j. wolf, honourably distinguished as an illustrator of animals, is also represented. for december john gilbert provided a decorative composition of _the ten virgins_, that is somewhat unlike his usual type. in august robert barnes appears for the first time with admirably drawn boys and girls full of health and characteristically british. afterwards one finds many of his full pages all vigorous and delightfully true to the type he represents. in august a group, _young cadets_, may be selected as a typical example of his strength and perhaps also of his limitations. in the falling off apparent everywhere is as noticeable in this unimportant publication as in those of far higher pretensions. here, as elsewhere, the foreign _cliché_ appears, or possibly the subjects were engraved specially, and were not, as was so often the case, merely replicas of german and french engravings. but all the same they are from oil-paintings, not from drawings made for illustration. [illustration: unknown 'leisure hour' enoch arden] [illustration: simeon solomon 'leisure hour' , p. the feast of tabernacles] [illustration: simeon solomon 'leisure hour' , p. the day of atonement] the leisure hour the publications of the religious tract society have employed an enormous mass of illustrations, but as the artist's name rarely appears at the period with which we are concerned, either in the index of illustrations or below the engravings, the task of tracing each to its source would be onerous and the result probably not worth the labour. yet, in the volumes of the _leisure hour_ for the sixties, there are a few noteworthy pictures which may later on attract collectors to a periodical which so far appealed more, one had thought, to parish workers than to art students. the volume starts with the st number of the magazine, illustrated by 'gilbert' (probably sir john). in coloured plates are given monthly, three being after originals by the same artist, but, although attributed duly in the advertising pages of its wrapper, the name of the design does not appear in the index. with a surprise faces you in the illustrations to _hurlock chase_, which are vigorous, dramatic, and excellently composed, full of colour and breadth. that they are by g. du maurier internal evidence proves clearly, but there is no formal recognition of the fact. robert barnes has a full page, _granny's portrait_ (p. ). _enoch arden_ is by 'an amateur whose name the publishers are not able to trace.'[ ] in the illustrations to _the awdries_, also unsigned, are distinctly interesting; later the well-known monogram of j. mahoney is met with frequently. in a series of ten illustrations of the ceremonies of modern jewish ritual, domestic and ecclesiastical (pp. , , , , - , , , , ) appear. contrary to the rule usually observed here, they are entitled, 'by s. solomon.' these are, so far as i know (with four exceptions), the only contributions to periodical literature by simeon solomon, an artist who at this date bade fair to be one of the greatest pre-raphaelite painters. they are distinctly original both in their technical handling and composition, and excellently engraved by butterworth and heath. for their sake no collector of the sixties should overlook a book which is to be picked up anywhere at present. the illustrations to _the great van bruch property_, unsigned, are most probably by j. mahoney. others include _george iii. and mr. adams_, a full page by c. j. staniland (p. ); a series of _pen and pencil sketches among the outer hebrides_, r. t. pritchett; _finding the body of william rufus_, j. m. in j. mahoney illustrates the serial, _the heiress of cheevely dale_, and contributes a full page, _the blue-coat boy's mother_ (p. ); whymper has two series, _on the nile_ and _a trip through the tyrol_, both oddly enough attributed to him in the index. silent, with scarce an exception, as regards other artists, the sentence, 'engraved by whymper,' finds a place each time. in are more mahoneys; in charles green illustrates the serial. the sunday at home this magazine, uniform with the _leisure hour_ in style and general arrangement, is hardly of sufficient artistic interest to need detailed comment here. started in it relied, like its companion, on gilbert and other less important draughtsmen. in the sixties it was affected a little by the movement. in there is one design by g. j. pinwell, _the german band_ (p. ), several by c. green, and one probably by du maurier (p. ), who has also six most excellent drawings to _the artist's son_ in the number for january, and one each to short stories, _john henderson_ and _siller and gowd_, later in the year. a serial in and one in are both illustrated by j. mahoney; and, in the latter year, w. small supplies drawings to another story. beyond a full page, obviously by r. barnes, there is nothing else peculiarly interesting in ; in the volume f. w. lawson and charles green contribute a good many designs. in s. l. fildes has one full page, _st. bartholomew_ (p. ), and f. a. f. appears; in charles green is frequently encountered, but the magazine is not a very happy hunting-ground for our purpose. other serial publications serial issues of cassell's _history of england_, the _family bible_, and other profusely illustrated works might also repay a close search, but, as a rule, the standard is too ordinary to attract any but an omnivorous collector. still, men of considerable talent are among the contributors, (sir) john gilbert for instance, and others like h. c. selous, paolo priolo, who never fell below a certain level of respectability. _golden hours_, a semi-religious monthly, started in as a penny magazine. in its price was raised to sixpence, and among its artist-contributors we find m. e. edwards, r. barnes, and a. boyd houghton (represented once only) with _an eastern wedding_ (p. ). in towneley green, c. o. murray, and others appear, but the magazine can hardly be ranked as one representative of the period. nor is it essential to record in detail the mass of illustrations in the penny weeklies and monthlies--to do so were at once impossible and unnecessary; nor the mass of semi-religious periodicals such as _our own fireside_ and _the parish magazine_, which rarely contain work that rises above the dull average. the boys' own magazine the art of this once popular magazine may be dismissed very briefly. j. g. thomson made a lot of designs to _silas the conjuror_ and other serials. r. dudley, a conscientious draughtsman whose speciality was mediæval subjects, illustrated its historical romances with spirit and no little knowledge of archæological details. a. w. bayes, j. a. pasquier, and others adorned its pages; but from to its death it contains nothing interesting except to a very rabid collector. every boy's magazine this well-intentioned periodical (routledge, , etc.), except for certain early works by walter crane, would scarce need mention here. its wrapper for onwards was from a capital design by walter crane, who contributed coloured frontispieces and titles to the and volumes. c. h. bennett illustrated his own romance of _the young munchausen_. in it called itself _the young gentleman's magazine_; an heraldic design by j. forbes nixon, with the shields of the four great public schools, replaced the crane cover. t. morten, m. w. ridley, and others contributed. a. boyd houghton illustrated _barford bridge_, its serial for , and walter crane performed the same offices to mrs. henry wood's _orville college_ in . these few facts seem to comprise all of any interest. aunt judy's magazine the sixpenny magazine for children, edited by mrs. alfred gatty, issued its first number, may . the artists who contributed include f. gilbert, j. a. pasquier, t. morten, m. e. edwards, e. griset, f. w. lawson, e. h. wehnert, a. w. bayes, a. w. cooper, and others. there are two drawings by george cruikshank, and later on randolph caldecott will be found. in both cases the illustrations were for mrs. ewing's popular stories, which had so large a sale, reprinted in volume-form. neither in the drawings nor in their engraving do you find anything else which is above the average of its class. two other magazines remain to be noticed out of their chronological order, both of little intrinsic importance, but of peculiar value to collectors. everybody's journal, a weekly periodical the size of the _london journal_, and not more attractive in its appearance, nor better printed, began with no. , october , , and ceased to exist early in the following year; probably before the end of january, since the british museum copy in monthly parts is inscribed 'discontinued' on the part containing the december issues. that a complete set is not in our great reference library is a matter for regret; for the first published illustration by fred walker, which was issued in _everybody's journal_, january , must needs have been in the missing numbers. those which are accessible include drawings by (sir) john gilbert, t. morten, and harrison weir, none of peculiar interest. among the names of the contributors will be found several that have since become widely known. entertaining things this twopenny monthly magazine, which is probably as unfamiliar to those who read this notice as it was to me until a short time since, was published by virtue and co., the first number appearing in january . it contains many designs by j. portch, f. j. skill, m. s. morgan, e. weedar, w. m'connell, p. justyne, and w. j. linton, none being particularly well engraved. but it contains also walter crane's first published drawing--a man in the coils of a serpent (p. ), illustrating one of a series of articles, _among the mahogany cutters_, which is not very important; another a few pages further on in the volume is even less so. collectors will also prize _a nocturne_ by g. du maurier, and some designs by t. morton (_sic_). the christmas number contains a delightful design by a. boyd houghton, _the maid of the wool-pack_, and another drawing by du maurier. the publication ceased, according to a note in the british museum copy, in may . among rarities of the sixties this magazine may easily take a high place, for one doubts if there are many copies in existence. should the mania for collecting grow, it is quite possible this volume, of such slight intrinsic value, will command record prices. beeton's annuals these were of two sorts, a badly printed shilling annual, which appealed to children of all ages, and a six-shilling variety, which appealed to those of a smaller growth. in the higher-priced volumes for t. morten, j. g. thomson, and j. a. pasquier appear. in the shilling issue, an independent publication, are more or less execrably engraved blocks, after c. h. bennett, g. cruikshank, jun., and others who would probably dislike to have their misdeeds chronicled. these publications added to the gaiety of nations, but when they ceased no eclipse was reported. yet a patient collation of their pages renewed a certain boyish, if faded, memory of their pristine charm, which the most cautious prophet may assert can never be imparted anew to any reader. _kingston's annuals_ and _peter parley's annuals_, also revisited, left impressions too sad to be expressed here. nor need _routledge's christmas annuals_ be noticed in detail. _tom hood's comic annuals_, which contained much work typical of the seventies, although it began its long career in , includes so little work by heroes of the 'sixties' that it need not be mentioned. the mass of penny magazines for children do not repay a close search. here and there you will find a design by a notable hand, but it is almost invariably ruined by poor engraving; so that it were kinder not to attempt to dispel the obscurity which envelops the juvenile 'goody-goody' literature of thirty years ago. [illustration: g. du maurier 'punch.' march , a legend of camelot, part i] [illustration: g. du maurier 'punch.' march , a legend of camelot, part ii] [illustration: g. du maurier 'punch.' march , . a legend of camelot, part iii] [illustration: g. du maurier 'punch.' march , a legend of camelot, part iv] [illustration: g. du maurier 'punch.' march , a legend of camelot, part v] chapter vi: some illustrated weekly papers in the sixties punch.--it is impossible to overlook the famous weekly that from its own pages could offer a fairly representative group of the work of any decade since it was established; a paper which, if it has not attracted every great illustrator, could nevertheless select a hundred drawings from its pages that might be fairly entered in competition with any other hundred outside them. but, at the same time, to give a summary of its record during the sixties, even as compressed as those of _the cornhill magazine_, _once a week_, etc., would occupy more pages than all the rest put together. fortunately the labour has been accomplished quite recently. mr. m. h. spielmann's _history of punch_ supplies a full and admirably digested chronicle of its artistic achievements. so that here (excluding the staff-artists, sir john tenniel, mr. du maurier, mr. linley sambourne, and the rest, and the greatest _punch_ artist, charles keene, who was never actually upon its staff) it will be sufficient to indicate where admirers of the men of the sixties may find examples of their work for _punch_; sir john millais appears twice upon p. of vol. xliv. ( ) with a design to _mokeanna_, mr. f. c. burnand's laughable parody, and again with _mr. vandyke brown's sons thrashing the lay figure_, in the _almanac_ for , a drawing that faces, oddly enough, one of fred walker's two contributions, _the new bathing company, limited, specimens of costumes to be worn by the shareholders_. the other fred walker, _captain jinks of the 'selfish,'_ is on p. of vol. lvii. ; george j. pinwell is an infrequent contributor from to ; walter crane appears but once, p. (vol. li. ); frederick shields's three initials, which appeared in , were drawn in ; m. j. lawless is represented by six drawings, which appeared between may and january ; f. w. lawson has some initials and one vignette in the volume for ; ernest griset appears in the _almanac_ for ; j. g. thomson, for twenty years cartoonist of _fun_, is an occasional contributor between and ; h. s. marks appears in , and paul gray, also with a few initials and 'socials,' up to ; charles keene's first drawing for _punch_ is in , he was 'called to the table' in , and on a few occasions supplied the political cartoon. the mass of his work within the classic pages is too familiar to need more than passing reference. the first drawing by 'george louis palmella busson du maurier' appears in , the _legend of camelot_, with five drawings, which are already historic, in . these delicious parodies (here reproduced) of the pre-raphaelite manner are as fascinating to-day as when they first appeared. fun this popular humorous penny weekly, which is still running, would be forever memorable as the birthplace of the famous _bab_ ballads, with w. s. gilbert's own thumb-nail sketches: yet it would be foolish to rank him as an illustrator, despite the grotesque humour of these inimitable little figures. the periodical, not (i believe) at first under the editorship of tom hood, the younger, began in september , . the mass of illustrations must be the only excuse for failing to include an orderly summary; yet there is not, and there is certainly no necessity for, an elaborate chronicle of the paper, like mr. spielmann's admirable monograph in _punch_. but those who are curious to discover the work of less-known men of the sixties will find plenty to reward their search. a clever parody of millais' pre-raphaelite manner is given as a tail-piece to the preface of vol. i. a. boyd houghton supplied the cartoons for a short period, november to april , . at least those signed a. h. are attributed to him, and the first would almost suffice by itself to decide it, did any doubt exist. another cartoonist, who signed his work with the device of a hen, is very freely represented. f. barnard was also cartoonist for a long time-- onwards--and j. g. thomson, for a score of years, did excellent work in the same department. the authorship of many of the drawings scattered through its pages is easily recognised by their style--others, as for instance one on page five of the _almanac_ for , puzzle the student. it looks like a paul gray, but the monogram with which it is signed, although it is indecipherable, is certainly not 'p. g.' w. j. wiegand, w. brunton, h. sanderson, matt stretch, lieut. seccombe, l. c. henley, f. s. walker, and f. w. lawson (see for instance, _almanac_ for , p. ) contributed a great many of the 'socials' to the early volumes. then, as now, you find unconscious or deliberate imitations of other artists' mannerisms. a rash observer might attribute drawings here to c. keene (_almanac_ for , vi.), and credit tenniel with the title-page to vol. iv. n.s. still, as a field to discover the work of young artists who afterwards become approximately great, _fun_ is not a very happy hunting-ground. despite some notable exceptions, its illustrators cannot be placed even upon the average of the period that concerns us; the presence of a half a dozen or so of first-rate men hardly makes a set of the comic paper essential to a representative collection. after renewed intimacy with its pages there is a distinct feeling of disappointment. that its drawings pleased you mightily, and seemed fine stuff at the time, may be true; but it only proves that the enjoyment of a schoolboy cannot be recaptured in after-life if the quality of the drawing be too poor to sustain the weight of old-fashioned dress and jokes whose first sparkle has dimmed beyond restoration. judy, the twopenny rival to _punch_, began life on may , . although matt morgan supplied many of the early cartoons and 'socials,' the really admirable level it reached in the eighties is not foreshadowed even dimly by its first volumes. with vol. ii. j. proctor, an admirable draughtsman, despite his fondness for the decisive, unsympathetic line which sir john tenniel has accustomed us to consider part and parcel of a political cartoon, is distinctly one of the best men who have worked this particular form of satire. afterwards 'w. b.' contributed many. the mass of work, in the volumes which can be considered as belonging to the period covered by this book, contains hardly a single drawing to repay the weary hunt through their pages. yet the issues of a later decade are as certain to be prized by students of the 'eighties' as the best periodicals of the sixties are by devotees of that period. punch and judy, beginning in october , yet another paper on similar lines, ran a short but interesting career of twelve weeks, and continued, in a commonplace way, for a year or two longer. the reason the first dozen issues are worth notice here is that the illustrations are all by 'graphotype process' (which must not be confused with the far earlier 'glyptography'), and so appeal to students of the technique of illustration. the principle of the graphotype process, it is said, was discovered accidentally. the inventor was removing, with a wet camel-hair brush, the white enamel from the face of a visiting-card, when he noticed that the printing on it was left in distinct relief. after many experiments the idea was developed, and a surface of metal was covered with a powdered chalky substance, upon which the drawing was made with a silicate ink which hardened the substance wherever it was applied. the chalk was then brushed away and the drawing left in low but distinct relief on the metal-plate, from which electrotypes could be taken in the usual way. the experiment gained some commercial success, and quite a notable group of artists experimented with it for designs to an edition of dr. isaac watts's _divine and moral songs_, a most curious libretto for an artistic venture. in _punch and judy_ the blocks are by no means bad as regards their reproduction. despite the very mediocre drawing of the originals, they are nevertheless preferable to the cheap wood-engravings of their contemporaries. after its change, 'g. o. m.' (if one reads the initials aright), or 'c. o. m.,'contributes some average cartoons. when it first appeared, at least one schoolboy was struck with the curious difference of technique that the illustrations showed, and from that time onwards had his curiosity aroused towards process-work. therefore, this lapse into anecdotage, in the short record of a venture otherwise artistically unworthy to be noticed here, may be pardoned. will o' the wisp this, another periodical of the same class, started on september , , but unlike its fellows relied at first solely upon a double-page political cartoon. from the second number these were contributed by j. proctor until and after april , , when other pictures were admitted. with the st of july another hand replaces proctor's vigorous work. the volume for contains many woodcuts (i use the word advisedly), unintentionally primitive, that should please a certain school to-day. whether the journal ceased with its fourth volume, or lasted into the seventies, the british museum catalogue does not record, nor is it worth while to pursue the inquiry further. the illustrated london news to notice this important paper in a paragraph is little better than an insult, and yet between a full monograph (already anticipated partially in mr. mason jackson's _the pictorial press_) and a bare mention there is no middle course. as a rule the drawings are unsigned, and not attributed to the artists in the index. the christmas numbers, however, often adopt a different method, and print the draughtsman's name below each engraving, which is almost always a full page. in that for we find alfred hunt, george thomas, s. read, and john gilbert, all regular contributors, well represented. in the christmas number of there is boyd houghton's _child's christmas carol_, and other drawings by corbould, s. read, j. a. pasquier, charles green, matt morgan, and c. h. bennett. other illustrated weeklies _the illustrated times_, first issued in october , maintained a long and honourable effort to achieve popularity. a new series was started in , but apparently also failed to gain a footing. the artists included many men mentioned frequently in this volume. the non-topical illustrations occasionally introduced were supplied chiefly by m. e. edwards, adelaide and florence claxton, lieut. seccombe, p. skelton, and t. sulman. yet a search through its pages revealed nothing sufficiently important to notice in detail. _the illustrated weekly news_ and _the penny illustrated weekly news_ are other lost causes, but the _penny illustrated paper_, which started in , is still a flourishing concern; yet it would be superfluous to give a detailed notice of its work. _pan_ (date uncertain[ ]), a short-lived sixpenny weekly. its cover was from a design by jules chéret. facsimiles of _a head_ by lord leighton, and _proud maisie_ by frederick sandys, appeared among its supplements. the graphic that this admirably conducted illustrated weekly revolutionised english illustration is granted on all sides. its influence for good or ill was enormous. with its first number, published on december , , we find a definite, official date to close the record of the 'sixties'; one by mere chance, chronologically as well as technically, appropriate. of course the break was not so sudden as this arbitrary limit might suggest. the style which distinguished the _graphic_ had been gradually prepared before, and if mr. william small is credited with the greatest share in its development, such a statement, incomplete as most generalities must needs be, holds a good part of the truth, if not the whole. the work of mr. small introduced new qualities into wood-engraving; which, in his hands and those of the best of his followers, grew to be meritorious, and must needs place him with those who legitimately extended the domain of the art of drawing for the engraver. but to discuss the style which succeeded that of the sixties would be to trespass on new ground, and that while the field itself is all too scantily searched. mr. ruskin dubbed the new style 'blottesque,' but, as we have seen, he was hardly more enamoured of the manner that immediately preceded it. many of the surviving heroes of the sixties contributed to the _graphic_. charles green appears in vol. i. with _irish emigrants_, g. j. pinwell with _the lost child_ (january , ), a. boyd houghton has a powerful drawing, _night charges_, and later, the marvellous series of pictures recording his very personal visit to america. william small, r. w. macbeth, s. l. fildes, hubert herkomer, and a crowd of names, some already mentioned frequently in this book, bore the weight of the new enterprise. but a cursory sketch of the famous periodical would do injustice to it. the historian of the seventies will find it takes the place of _once a week_ as the happy hunting-ground for the earliest work of many a popular draughtsman and painter--that is to say, the earliest work after his student and experimental efforts. to declare that it still flourishes, and with the _daily graphic_, its offspring, keeps still ahead of the popular average, is at once bare truth and the highest compliment which need be paid. the illustrated weeklies in the sixties were almost as unimportant, relatively speaking, as are the illustrated dailies to-day. yet to say that the weeklies did fair to monopolise illustration at the present time is a common truth, and, remembering what the _daily graphic_ and the _daily chronicle_ have already accomplished, to infer that the dailies will do likewise before has attained its majority is a prophecy that is based upon a study of the past. chapter vii: some illustrated books of the period before to draw up a complete list, with the barest details of title, artist, author, and publisher of the books in the period with which this volume is concerned would be unnecessary, and well-nigh impossible. the _english catalogue_, - , covering but a part of the time, claims to give some , entries. many, possibly a large majority, of these books are not illustrated; but on the other hand, the current periodicals not included contain thousands of pictures. the following chapters cannot even claim to mention every book worth the collector's notice, and refer hardly at all to many which seemed to the compiler to represent merely the commercial average of their time. whether this was better or worse than the commercial average to-day is of no moment. nearly all of the books mentioned have been referred to personally, and the facts reported at first hand. in spite of taxing the inexhaustible courtesy of the officials of the british museum to the extent of eighty or more volumes during a single afternoon, i cannot pretend to have seen the whole output of the period, for it is not easy to learn from the catalogue those particulars that are needed to identify which books are illustrated. so far as we are concerned here, the interest of the book lies solely in its illustrations, but the catalogue may not even record the fact that it contains any, much less attribute them to their author. of those in which the artist's share has been recognised by the publisher in his announcements, i have done my best to find the first edition of each. by dint of patient wading through the advertisements, and review columns of literary journals, trade periodicals, and catalogues, a good many have turned up which had otherwise escaped notice; although for the last twenty years at least i have never missed an opportunity of seeing every illustrated book of the sixties, with a view to this chronicle, which had been shaping itself, if not actually begun, long before any work on modern english illustrators had appeared. when a school-boy i made a collection of examples of the work of each artist whose style i had learned to recognise, and some of that material gathered together so long ago has been of no little use now. these personal reminiscences are not put forward by way of magnifying the result; but rather to show that even with so many years' desultory preparation the digesting and classification of the various facts has proved too onerous. a staff of qualified assistants under a capable director would be needed to accomplish the work as thoroughly as mr. sidney lee has accomplished a not dissimilar, if infinitely more important, task--_the dictionary of national biography_. a certain proportion of errors must needs creep in, and the possible errors of omission are even more to be dreaded than those of commission. a false date, or an incorrect reference to a given book or illustration, is easily corrected by a later worker in the same field; but an omission may possibly escape another student of the subject as it escaped me. as a rule, in a majority of cases--so large that it is practically ninety-nine per cent., if not more--the notes have been made side by side with the publication to which they refer. but in transcribing hasty jottings errors are apt to creep in, and despite the collation of these pages when in proof by other hands, i cannot flatter myself that they are impeccable. for experience shows that you never open the final printed text of any work under your control as editor or author, but errors, hitherto overlooked, instantly jump from the page and force themselves on your notice. an editor of one of the most widely circulated of all our magazines confesses that he has made it a rule never to glance at any number after it was published. he had too often suffered the misery of being confronted with obvious errors of fact and taste which no amount of patient care on his part (and he is a most conscientious workman) had discovered, until it was too late to rectify them. in the matter of dates alone a difficulty meets one at first sight. many books dated one year were issued several months before the previous christmas, and are consequently advertised and reviewed in the year before the date which appears upon their title-page. again, many books, and some volumes of magazines (messrs. cassell and co.'s publications to wit), bear no date. 'women and books should never be dated' is a proverb as foolish as it is widely known. yet all the same, inaccuracy of a few months is of little importance in this context; a book or a picture does not cease to exist as soon as it is born, like the performance of an actor or a musician. consequently, beyond its relative place as evidence of the development or decline of the author's talent, it is not of great moment whether a book was issued in or , whether a drawing was published in january or february. but for those who wish to refer to the subjects noted, the information has been made as exact as circumstances permitted. when, however, a book has been reissued in a second, or later edition, with no reference to earlier issues, it is tempting to accept the date on its title-page without question. one such volume i traced back from to , and for all i know the original may have been issued some years earlier; for the british museum library is not complete; every collector can point with pride to a few books on his shelves which he has failed to discover in its voluminous catalogue. to select a definite moment to start from is not easy, nor to keep rigidly within the time covered by the dates upon the cover of this book. it is necessary to glance briefly at some work issued before , and yet it would be superfluous to re-traverse ground already well covered in _the history of wood engraving_, by chatto and jackson, with its supplementary chapter by h. g. bohn (in the edition), in mr. w. j. linton's _masterpieces of engraving_, in mr. joseph pennell's two sumptuous editions of _pen drawing and pen draughtsmen_ (macmillan), and the same author's _modern illustrations_ (bell), not to mention the many admirable papers read before learned societies by messrs. w. j. linton, comyns carr, henry blackburn, walter crane, william morris, and others. still less is it necessary to attempt to indorse their arguments in favour of wood-engraving against process, or to repeat those which support the opposite view. so that here, in the majority of cases, the question of the engraver's share has not been considered. mr. pennell, for one, has done this most thoroughly, and has put the case for process so strongly, that if any people yet believe a wood-engraving is always something sacred, while a good process block of line work is a mere feeble substitute, there is little hope of convincing them. here the result has been the chief concern. the object of these notes is not to prove what wood-engraving ruined, or what might or ought to have been, but merely to record what it achieved, without too frequent expression of regret, which nevertheless will intrude as the dominant feeling when you study many of the works executed by even the better class wood-engravers. one must not overlook the very obvious fact that, in the earlier years, an illustration was a much more serious affair for all concerned than it is to-day. in jackson's _pictorial press_ we find the author says: 'illustration was so seldom used that the preparation of even a small woodcut was of much moment to all concerned. i have heard william harvey relate that when whittingham, the well-known printer, wanted a new cut for his chiswick press series, he would write to harvey and john thompson, the engraver, appointing a meeting at chiswick, when printer, designer, and engraver talked over the matter with as much deliberation as if about to produce a costly national monument. and after they had settled all points over a snug supper, the result of their labours was the production a month afterwards of a woodcut measuring perhaps two inches by three. at that time perhaps only a dozen persons besides bewick were practising the art of wood-engraving in england.' but this preamble does not seek to excuse the meagre record it prefaces. a complete bibliography of such a fecund illustrator as sir john gilbert would need a volume to itself. to draw up detailed lists of all the various drawings in _the illustrated london news_, _punch_, and other prominent weeklies, would be a task needing almost as much co-operation as dr. murray's great dictionary. the subject, if it proves to be sufficiently attractive, will doubtless be done piece by piece by future workers. i envy each his easy pleasure of pointing out the shortcomings of this work, for no keener joy awaits the maker of a handbook than gibbeting his predecessors, and showing by implication how much more trustworthy is his record than theirs. [illustration: d. g. rossetti 'the music-master' by william allingham the maids of elfenmere] few artistic movements are so sharply defined that their origin can be traced to a particular moment, although some can be attributed more or less to the influence of one man. even the pre-raphaelite movement, clearly distinct as its origin appears at first glance, should not be dated from the formal draft of the little coterie, january th, , for, as mr. w. m. rossetti writes, 'the rules show or suggest not only what we intended to do, but what had been occupying our attention since . the day when we codified proved also to be the day when no code was really in requisition.' nor has the autumn any better claim to be taken as the exact moment, for one cannot overlook the fact that there was ford madox brown, a pre-raphaelite, long before the pre-raphaelites, and that ruskin had published the first volume of _modern painters_. there can be little doubt that it was the influence of the so-called pre-raphaelites and those in closest sympathy with them, which awakened a new interest in illustration, and so prepared the ground for the men of the sixties; but to confine our notice from to --a far more accurate period--would be to start without sufficient reference to the work superseded by or absorbed into the later movement. so we must glance at a few of the books which preceded both the _music-master_ of and the _tennyson_ of , either volume, the latter especially, being an excellent point whence to reckon more precisely 'the golden decade of british art,' as mr. pennell terms it so happily. without going back too far for our purpose, one of the first books that contains illustrations by artists whose work extended into the sixties (and, in the case of tenniel, far beyond) is _poems and pictures_, 'a collection of ballads, songs, and poems illustrated by english artists' (burns, ). so often was it reprinted that it came as a surprise to discover the first edition was fourteen years earlier than the date which is upon my own copy. despite the ornamental borders to each page, and many other details which stamp it as old-fashioned, it does not require a rabid apologist of the past to discuss it appreciatively. from the first design by c. w. cope, to the last, _a storm at sea_, by e. duncan, both engraved by w. j. linton, there is no falling off in the quality of the work. the influence of mulready is discernible, and it seems probable that certain pencil drawings for the _vicar of wakefield_, engraved in facsimile--so far as was within the power of the craftsmen at that time--did much to shape the manner of book-illustrations in the fifties. nor does it betray want of sympathy with the artists who were thus influenced to regret that they chose to imitate drawings not intended for illustration, and ignored in very many cases the special technique which employs the most direct expression of the material. in _the mourner_, by j. c. horsley (p. ), you feel that the engraver (thompson) has done his best to imitate the softly defined line of a pencil in place of the clearly accentuated line which is most natural in wood. yet even in this there is scarcely a trace of that elaborate cross-hatching so easily produced in plate-engraving or pen drawing, so tedious to imitate in wood. another design, _time_, by c. w. cope (p. ), shows that the same engraver could produce work of quite another class when it was required. curiously enough, these two, picked at random, reappear in almost the last illustrated anthology mentioned in these chapters, cassell's _sacred poems_ ( ). several books earlier in date, including de la motte fouqué's _undine_, with eleven drawings by 'j. tenniel, junr.' (burns, ), and _sintram and his companions_, with designs by h. s. selous and a frontispiece after dürer's _the knight and death_ need only be mentioned. the _juvenile verse and picture book_ (burns, ), with many illustrations by gilbert, tenniel, 'r. cruikshank,' weigall, and w. b. scott, which was reissued with altered text as _gems of national poetry_ (warne, ), and _Æsop's fables_ (murray, ), with illustrations by tenniel, deserve a bare mention. nor should _the 'bon gaultier' ballads_ (blackwood, ) be forgotten. the illustrations by doyle, leech, and crowquill were enormously popular in their day, and although the style of humour which still keeps many of the ballads alive has been frequently imitated since, and rarely excelled, yet its drawings have often been equalled and surpassed, humorous although they are, of their sort. _the salamandrine_, a poem by charles mackay, issued in a small quarto (ingram, cooke, and co., ), with forty-six designs by john gilbert, is one of the early volumes by the more fecund illustrators of the century. it is too late in the day to praise the veteran whose paintings are as familiar to frequenters of the royal academy now as were his drawings when the great exhibition entered a formal claim for the recognition of british art. honoured here and upon the continent, it is needless to eulogise an artist whom all agree to admire. the prolific invention which never failed is not more evident in this book than in a hundred others decorated by his facile pencil, yet it reveals--as any one of the rest must equally--the powerful mastery of his art, and its limitations. thomson's _seasons_, illustrated by the etching club ( ), s. c. hall's _book of british ballads_ ( ), an edition of _the arabian nights_, with illustrations by w. harvey ( ), and _uncle tom's cabin_, with drawings by george thomas, can but be named in passing. gray's _elegy_, illustrated by 'b. foster, g. thomas, and a lady,' (sampson low), _the book of celebrated poems_, with eighty designs by cope, kenny meadows, and others (sampson low), _the vicar of wakefield_, with drawings by george thomas, _the deserted village_, illustrated by members of the etching club--cope, t. creswick, j. c. horsley, f. tayler, h. j. townsend, c. stenhouse, t. webster, r.a., and r. redgrave--all published early in the fifties--may also be dismissed without comment. about the same time the great mental sedative of the period--tupper's _proverbial philosophy_ (hatchard, )--was reprinted in a stately quarto, with sixty-two illustrations by c. w. cope, r.a., e. h. corbould, birket foster, john gilbert, j. c. horsley, f. r. pickersgill and others, engraved for the most part by 'dalziel bros.' and h. vizetelly. the dull, uninspired text seems to have depressed the imagination of the artists. despite the notable array of names, there is no drawing of more than average interest in the volume, except perhaps _to-morrow_ (p. ), by f. r. pickersgill, which is capitally engraved by dalziel and much broader in its style than the rest. _poems by henry wadsworth longfellow_ (david bogue, ) appears to be the earliest english illustrated edition of any importance of a volume that has been frequently illustrated since. this book is uniform with the _poetical works of john milton_ with engravings by thompson, williams, etc., from drawings by w. harvey, _the works of william cowper_ with seventy-five illustrations engraved by j. orrin smith from drawings by john gilbert; thomson's _seasons_ with illustrations 'drawn and engraved by samuel williams,' and _beattie and collins' poems_ with engravings by the same hand from designs by john absolon. the title-page of the longfellow says it is illustrated by 'jane e. benham, birket foster, etc.' it is odd to find the not very elegant, 'etc.' stands for john gilbert and e. wehnert, also to note that the engravers have in each of the above volumes taken precedence of the draughtsman. except that we miss the pre-raphaelite group for which we prize the moxon _tennyson_ to-day, the ideal of these books is very nearly the same as of that volume. this edition of longfellow must not be confused with another, a quarto, issued the following year (routledge, ), 'with over one hundred designs drawn by john gilbert and engraved by the brothers dalziel.' this notable instance of the variety and inventive power of the artist also shows (in the night pieces especially, pp. , ), that the engraver was trying to advance in the direction of 'tone' and atmospheric effect; and endeavouring to give the effect of a 'wash' rather than of a line drawing or the imitation of a steel engraving. this tendency, which was not the chief purpose of the work of the sixties, in the seventies carried the technicalities of the craft to its higher achievements, or, as some enthusiasts prefer to regard it, to its utter ruin, so that the photographic process-block could beat it on its own ground. but these opposite views have been threshed out often enough without bringing the parties concerned nearer together to encourage a new attempt to reconcile the opposing factions. the longfellow of was reissued with the addition of _hiawatha_ in . another edition of _hiawatha_, illustrated by g. h. thomas, issued about this time, contains some of his best work. allingham's _music-master_ (routledge, ) is so often referred to in this narrative that its mere name must suffice in this context. but, as the book itself is so scarce, a sentence from its preface may be quoted: 'those excellent painters' (writes mr. allingham), 'who on my behalf have submitted their genius to the risks of wood-engraving, will, i hope, pardon me for placing a sincere word of thanks in the book they have honoured with this evidence through art of their varied fancy.' to this year belongs also _the task_, illustrated by birket foster (nisbet, ). _eliza cook's poems_ (routledge, ) is another sumptuously illustrated quarto gift-book with many designs by john gilbert, j. wolf, harrison weir, j. d. watson, and others, all engraved by dalziel brothers. a notable drawing by h. h. armstead, _the trysting place_ (p. ), deserves republication. in this year appeared also the famous edition of adams's _sacred allegories_ with a number of engravings from original drawings by c. w. cope, r.a., j. c. horsley, a.r.a., samuel palmer, birket foster, and george c. hicks. the amazing quality of the landscapes by samuel palmer stood even the test of enormous enlargement in lantern slides, when mr. pennell showed them at his lectures on the men of the sixties; had w. t. green engraved no other blocks, he might be ranked as a great craftsman on the evidence of these alone. in _george herbert's poetical works_ (nisbet, ), with designs by birket foster, john clayton, and h. n. humphreys, notwithstanding the vitality of the text, the drawings are sicklied over with the pale cast of religious sentimentality which has ruined so much religious art in england. a draughtsman engaged on new testament subjects of that time rarely forgot overbeck, raphael, or still more 'pretty' masters. in the religious illustrations of the period many landscapes are included, some of them exquisite transcripts of english scenery, others of the 'oriental' order dear to the annuals. the delightful description of one of these imaginary scenes, by leland, 'hans breitmann,' will come to mind, when he says of its artist that 'all his work expanded with expensive fallacies, castles, towered walls, pavilions, real-estately palaces. in the foreground lofty palm-trees, as if full of soaring love, bore up cocoa-nuts and monkeys to the smiling heavens above; jet-black indian chieftains--at their feet, too, lovely girls were sighing, with an elephant beyond them, here and there a casual lion.' george herbert the incomparable may be hard to illustrate, but, if the task is attempted, it should be in any way but this delineation of pretty landscapes, with 'here and there a casual lion.' this reflection upon the mildly sacred compositions of 'gift-book' art generally, although provoked by this volume, is applicable to nearly every one of its fellows. in _rhymes and roundelays_, illustrated by birket foster (bogue, ), the designs are not without a trace of artificiality, but it contains also some of the earliest and best examples of a most accomplished draughtsman, and in it many popular blocks began a long career of 'starring,' until from guinea volumes some were used ultimately in children's primers and the like. _the works of william shakespeare_ illustrated by john gilbert (routledge, - ) will doubtless be remembered always as his masterpiece. at a public dinner lately, an artist who had worked with sir john gilbert on the _illustrated london news_, and in nearly all the books of the period illustrated by the group of draughtsmen with whom both are associated, spoke of his marvellous rapidity--a double-page drawing done in a single night. yet so sure is his touch that in the mass of these hundreds of designs to shakespeare you are not conscious of any scamping. without being archæologically impeccable, they suggest the types and costumes of the periods they deal with, and, above all, represent embodiments of actual human beings. they stand apart from the grotesque caricatures of an earlier school, and the academic inanities of both earlier and later methods. virile and full of invention, the book is a monument to an artist who has done so much that it is a pleasure to discover some one definite accomplishment that from size alone may be taken as his masterpiece, if merely as evidence that praise, scantily bestowed elsewhere, is limited by space only. [illustration: ford madox brown willmott's 'poets of the nineteenth century,' the prisoner of chillon] scott's _lady of the lake_, illustrated by john gilbert, appeared in . the other volumes, _marmion_, the _lady of the lake_, and the _lay of the last minstrel_, appear to have been published previously; but to ascertain their exact date of issue, the three bulky volumes of the british museum catalogue devoted to 'scott (walter)' can hardly be faced with a light heart. this year saw an edition of bunyan's _pilgrim's progress_ with outline drawings by j. r. clayton, who is sometimes styled 'j. r.,' and sometimes 'john.' an illustrated guinea edition of a once popular 'goody' book, _ministering children_, with designs by birket foster and h. le jeune (nisbet, ), an edition of _edgar allan poe's works_, illustrated by e. h. wehnert and others (addey, ); coleridge's _ancient mariner_, with pictures by birket foster, a. duncan, and e. h. wehnert, are also of this year, to which belongs, although it is post-dated, pollok's _course of time_ (w. blackwood, ), a book containing fifty fine illustrations by birket foster, john tenniel, and j. r. clayton, engraved by edward evans, dalziel brothers, h. n. woods, and john green. a block by dalziel, after clayton, on page , shows a good example of the white line, used horizontally, for the modelling of flesh, somewhat in the way, as pannemaker employed it so effectively in many of gustave doré's illustrations years after. the twenty-seven birket fosters are full of the special charm that his work possesses, and show once again how a great artist may employ a method, which, merely 'pretty' in inferior hands, has something of greatness when he touches it. in the next year appeared the famous '_poems by alfred tennyson, d.c.l._, poet-laureate. london. edward moxon, dover st., .' not even the bare fact that it was illustrated appears on the title-page. as the book has been re-issued lately in a well-printed edition, a detailed list of its contents is hardly necessary; nor need any of the illustrations be reproduced here. it will suffice to say that dante gabriel rossetti is represented by five designs to _the lady of shallott_ (p. ), _mariana_ (p. ), _palace of art_ (pp. - ), _sir galahad_ (p. ); millais has eighteen, w. holman hunt seven, w. mulready four, t. creswick six, j. c. horsley six, c. stanfield six, and d. maclise two. a monograph by mr. g. somes layard, _tennyson and his pre-raphaelite illustrators_ (stock, ), embodies a quantity of interesting facts, with many deductions therefrom which are not so valuable. in the books about rossetti and the pre-raphaelites, and their name is legion, this volume has rarely escaped more or less notice, so that one hesitates to add to the mass of criticism already bestowed. the whole modern school of decorative illustrators regard it rightly enough as the genesis of the modern movement; but all the same it is only the accidental presence of d. g. rossetti, holman hunt, and millais, which entitles it to this position. it satisfies no decorative ideal as a piece of book-making. except for these few drawings, it differs in no respect from the average 'quarto poets' before and after. the same 'toned' paper, the same vignetted pictures, appear; the proportions of the type-page are merely that in ordinary use; the size and shape of the illustrations was left apparently to pure chance. therefore, in place of talking of the volume with bated breath as a masterpiece, it would be wiser to regard it as one of the excellent publications of the period, that by the fortuitous inclusion of a few drawings, quite out of touch with the rest, has acquired a reputation, which, considered as a complete book, it does not deserve. the drawings by rossetti, even as we see them after translation by the engraver had worked his will, must needs be valued as masterpieces, if only for the imagination and thought compressed into their limited space, and from their exquisite manipulation of details. at first sight, some of these--for instance, the soldier munching an apple in the _st. cecilia_--seem discordant, but afterwards reveal themselves as commentaries upon the text--not elucidating it directly, but embroidering it with subtle meanings and involved symbolism. such qualities as these, whether you hold them as superfluous or essential, separate these fine designs from the jejune simplicity of the mass of the decorative school to-day. to draw a lady with 'intense' features, doing nothing in particular, and that in an anatomically impossible attitude, is a poor substitute for the fantasy of rossetti. no amount of poorly drawn confused accessories will atone for the absence of the dominant idea that welded all the disturbing elements to a perfect whole. one artist to-day, or at most two, alone show any real effort to rival these designs on their own ground. the rest appear to believe that a coarse line and eccentric composition provide all that is required, given sufficient ignorance of academic draughtsmanship. [illustration: john gilbert willmott's 'poets of the nineteenth century,' hohenlinden] [illustration: f. r. pickersgill willmott's 'poets of the nineteenth century,' the water nymph] another book of the same year, _the poets of the nineteenth century_, selected and edited by the rev. robert aris willmott (routledge, ), is in many respects quite as fine as the tennyson, always excepting the pre-raphaelite element, which is not however totally absent. for in this quarto volume millais' _love_ (p. ) and _the dream_ (p. ) are worthy to be placed beside those just noticed. ford madox brown's _prisoner of chillon_ (p. ) is another masterpiece of its sort. for this we are told the artist spent three days in a dissecting-room (or a mortuary--the accounts differ) to watch the gradual change in a dead body, making most careful studies in colour as well as monochrome all for a foreshortened figure in a block - / by inches. this procedure is singularly unlike the rapid inspiration which throws off compositions in black and white to-day. in a recent book received with well-deserved applause, some of the smaller 'decorative designs' were produced at the rate of a dozen in a day. the mere time occupied in production is of little consequence, because we know that the apparently rapid 'sketch' by phil may may have taken far more time than a decorative drawing, with elaborately minute detail over every inch of its surface; but, other qualities being equal, the one produced with lavish expenditure of care and thought is likely to outlive the trifle tossed off in an hour or two. in the _poets of the nineteenth century_ the hundred engravings by the brothers dalziel include twenty-one of birket foster's exquisite landscapes, all with figures; fourteen by w. harvey, nine by john gilbert, six by j. tenniel, five by j. r. clayton, eleven by t. dalziel, seven by j. godwin, five by e. h. corbould, two by d. edwards, five by e. duncan, seven by j. godwin, and one each by arthur hughes, w. p. leitch, e. a. goodall, t. d. hardy, f. r. pickersgill, and harrison weir--a century of designs not unworthy as a whole to represent the art of the day; although rossetti and holman hunt, who figure so strongly in the tennyson, are not represented. this year john gilbert illustrated the _book of job_ with fifty designs; _the proverbs of solomon_ (nisbet, ), a companion volume, contains twenty drawings. another noteworthy volume is barry cornwall's _dramatic scenes and other poems_ (chapman and hall, ) illustrated by many of the artists already mentioned. the fifty-seven engravings by dalziel include one block on p. , from a drawing by j. r. clayton, which is here reprinted--not so much for its design as for its engraving; the way the breadth of the drapery is preserved, despite the elaborate pattern on its surface, stamps it as a most admirable piece of work. thornbury's _legends of the cavaliers and roundheads_ (hurst and blackett, ), was illustrated by h. s. marks. so far the few books of noticed have considerable family likeness. the bunyan's _pilgrim's progress_ (nisbet, ), illustrated with twenty designs by g. h. thomas, more slight in its method, reflects the journalistic style of its day rather than the elaborate 'book' manner, which in many an instance gives the effect of an engraving 'after' a painting or a large and highly-wrought fresco. as one of the many attempts to illustrate the immortal protestant romance it deserves noting. to this year belongs _the poetical works of edgar allan poe_, illustrated with some striking designs by john tenniel, and others by f. r. pickersgill, r.a., birket foster, percival skelton; and besides these, felix darley, p. duggan, jasper cropsey, and a. w. madot--draughtsmen whose names are certainly not household words to-day. in the lists of 'artists' the portrait of the author is attributed to 'daguerreotype'! one of the earliest instances i have encountered of the formal appearance of the ubiquitous camera as an artist. longfellow's prose romance, _kavanagh_ (kent, ), with exquisite illustrations by birket foster, appeared this year; _hyperion_ (dean), illustrated by the same author, being issued the following christmas. _poetry and pictures from thomas moore_ (longman, ), the _poems and songs of robert burns_ (bell and daldy, ), both illustrated by birket foster and others, and _the fables of Æsop_, with twenty-five drawings by c. h. bennett, also deserve a passing word. _gertrude of wyoming_, by thomas campbell (routledge, ), is only less important from its dimensions, and the fact that it contains only thirty-five illustrations, engraved by the brothers dalziel, as against the complete hundred of most of its fellows. the drawings by birket foster, thomas dalziel, harrison weir, and william harvey include some very good work. _lays of the holy land_ (nisbet, ), clad in binding of a really fine design adapted from persian sources, is another illustrated quarto, with one drawing at least--_the finding of moses_--by j. e. millais, which makes it worth keeping; a 'decorative' _song of bethlehem_, by j. r. clayton, is ahead of its time in style; the rest by gilbert, birket foster, and others are mostly up to their best average. the title-page says 'from photographs and drawings,' but as every block is attributed to an artist, the former were without doubt redrawn and the source not acknowledged--a habit of draughtsmen which is not obsolete to-day. [illustration: j. r. clayton barry cornwall's 'dramatic scenes' olympia and bianca] [illustration: j. e. millais 'home affections from the poets,' there's nae luck about the house] [illustration: j. e. millais 'home affections from the poets,' the border widow] perhaps the most important illustrated volume of the next year is _the home affections [portrayed] by the poets_, by charles mackay (routledge, ), which continues the type of quarto gilt-edged toned paper table-books so frequent at this time. its illustrations are a hundred in number, all engraved by dalziels. its artists include birket foster, john gilbert, j. r. clayton, harrison weir, t. b. dalziel, s. read, john abner, f. r. pickersgill, r.a., john tenniel, with many others, 'and' (as play-bills have it) j. everett millais, a.r.a. _there's nae luck about the house_ (p. ) and _the border widow_ (p. ) are curiously unlike in motive as well as handling; the one, with all its charm, is of the mulready school, the other intense and passionate, highly wrought in the pre-raphaelite manner. yet after the millais' all the other illustrations in the book seem poor. a landscape by harrison weir (p. ), _lenore_, by a. madot (p. ), a very typical tenniel, _fair ines_ (p. ), _oriana_ (p. ), _hero and leander_ (p. ), _the hermit_ (p. ), and _good-night in the porch_ (p. ), by pickersgill, claim a word of appreciation as one turns over its pages anew. whether too many copies were printed, or those issued were better preserved by their owners than usual, no book is more common in good condition to-day than this. another book of the same size, with contents less varied, it is true, but of almost the same level of excellence, is _wordsworth's selected poems_ (routledge, ), illustrated by birket foster, j. wolf, and john gilbert. this contains the hundred finely engraved blocks by the brothers dalziel, some of them of the first rank, which was the conventional equipment of a gift-book at that time. other noteworthy volumes of - are _merrie days of england, sketches of olden times_, illustrated by twenty drawings by birket foster, g. thomas, e. corbould, and others; _the scouring of the white horse_, with designs by richard doyle (macmillan), his foreign tour of _brown, jones, and robinson_, and the same artist's _manners and customs of the english_, all then placed in the first rank by most excellent critics; _favourite english poems of the last two centuries_, illustrated by birket foster, cope, creswick, and the rest; wordsworth's _white doe of rylstone_ (longmans), also illustrated by birket foster and h. n. humphreys; _childe harold_, with many designs by percival skelton and others; blair's _grave_, illustrated by tenniel (a. and c. black); milton's _comus_ (routledge, ), with illustrations by pickersgill, b. foster, h. weir, etc.; and c. h. bennett's _proverbs with pictures_ (chapman and hall). _thomas moore's poems_ (longmans, ); _child's play_, by e. v. b., appeared also about this time. krummacher's _parables_, with forty illustrations by j. r. clayton (bohn's library, ), is another unfamiliar book likely to be overlooked, although it contains good work of its sort; inspired a little by german design possibly, but including some admirable drawings, those for instance on pages and . _the shipwreck_, by robert falconer, illustrated by birket foster (edinburgh, black, ), contains thirty drawings, some of them charmingly engraved by w. t. green, dalziel brothers, and edward evans in 'the turner vignette' manner; they are delightful of their kind. in there seems to be a falling off, which can hardly be traced to the starting of _once a week_ in july, for christmas books--and nearly all the best illustrated volumes fall into that category--are prepared long before midsummer. c. h. bennett's illustrated bunyan's _pilgrim progress_ (longmans) is one of the best of the year's output. a survival of an older type is _a book of favourite modern ballads_, illustrated by c. w. cope, j. c. horsley, a. solomon, s. palmer, and others (kent), which, but for the publisher's announcement, might well be regarded as a reprint of a book at least ten years earlier; but its peculiar method was unique at that time, and rarely employed since, although but lately revived now for half-tone blocks. it consists in a double printing, black upon a previous printing in grey, not solid, but with the 'lights' carefully taken out, so that the whole looks like a drawing on grey paper heightened by white chalk. whether the effect might be good on ordinary paper, these impressions on a shiny cream surface, set in gold borders, are not captivating. _odes and sonnets_, illustrated by birket foster (routledge, ), has also devices by henry sleigh, printed in colours. it is not a happy experiment; despite the exquisite landscapes, the decoration accords so badly that you cannot linger over its pages with pleasure. _byron's childe harold_, with eighty illustrations by percival skelton, is another popular book of . _hiawatha_, with twenty-four drawings by g. h. thomas, and _the merchant of venice_ (sampson low, ), illustrated by g. h. thomas, birket foster, and h. brandling, with ornaments by harry rogers, are two others a trifle belated in style. of different sort is _the voyage of the constance_, a tale of the arctic seas (edinburgh, constable), with twenty-four drawings by charles keene, a singularly interesting and apparently scarce volume which reveals powers of imagining landscape which he had never seen in a very realistic manner. i once heard him declare that he had never in his life been near either an irish bog or a scotch moor, both subjects being very frequent in his work. _the seasons_, by james thomson (nisbet, ), illustrated by birket foster, f. r. pickersgill, r.a., j. wolf, g. thomas, and noel humphreys, is another small quarto gift-book with the merits and defects of its class. yet, after making all due allowance, one feels that even these average volumes of the fifties, if they do not interest us as much as those of the sixties, are yet ahead, in many important qualities, of the average christmas gift-book to-day. the academic scholarship and fine craft of this era would equip a whole school of 'decorative students,' and leave still much to spare. yet if we prefer, in our heart of hearts, the birmingham books to-day, this is merely to confess that modernity, whether it be frankly actual, or pose as mediæval, attracts us more than a far worthier thing out of fashion for the moment. but such preference, if it exists, is hardly likely to outlast a serious study of the books of 'the sixties.' chapter viii: some illustrated books of the period - among the books dated , or issued in the autumn of that year, are more elaborately illustrated editions of popular poets--all, as a rule, in the conventional quarto, or in what a layman might be forgiven for describing as 'quarto,' even if an expert preferred to call it octavo. of these tennyson's _the princess_, with twenty-six drawings by maclise, may be placed first, on account of the position held by author and artist. all the same, it belongs essentially to the fifties or earlier, both in spirit and in style. a more ample quarto, _poems_ by james montgomery (routledge, ), (not the montgomery castigated by lord macaulay), 'selected and edited by robert aris wilmott (routledge), with one hundred designs by john gilbert, birket foster, f. r. pickersgill, r.a., j. wolf, harrison weir, e. duncan, and w. harvey, is perhaps slightly more in touch with the newer school. its engravings by the brothers dalziel are admirable. _the clouds athwart the sky_ (p. ), by john gilbert, and other landscapes by the same hand, may hold their own even by the side of those in the moxon _tennyson_, or in wilmott's earlier anthology. of quite different calibre is moore's _lalla rookh_, with its sixty-nine drawings by tenniel, engraved by the dalziels (longmans, ). if to-day you hardly feel inclined to indorse the verdict of the _times_ critic, who declared it to be 'the greatest illustrative achievement by any single hand,' it shows nevertheless not a few of those qualities which have won well-merited fame for our oldest cartoonist, even if it shows also the limitations which just alienate one's complete sympathy. yet those who saw an exhibition of sir john tenniel's drawings at the fine art society's galleries will be less ready to blame the published designs for a certain hardness of style, due in great part (one fancies) to their engraver. [illustration: h. h. armstead willmott's 'english sacred poetry' , p. a dream] [illustration: frederick walker willmott's 'sacred poetry,' the nursery friend] [illustration: frederick walker willmott's 'sacred poetry,' a child in prayer] in bunyan's _pilgrim's progress_ (routledge), with a hundred and ten designs by j. d. watson, engraved by the dalziels, we are confronted with a book that is distinctly of the 'sixties,' or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that most of its illustrations are distinguished by the broader treatment of the new school. it is strange that the ample and admirable achievements of this artist have not received more general recognition. when you meet with one of his designs set amid the work of the greatest illustrators, it rarely fails to maintain a dignified equality. if it lack the supreme artistry of one or the fine invention of another, it is always sober and at times masterly, in a restrained matter-of-fact way. some sketches reproduced in the _british architect_ (january , ) display more freedom than his finished works suggest. _quarles' emblems_ (nisbet), illustrated by c. h. bennett, a caricaturist whose style seems to have lost touch with modern taste, with decorative adornments by w. h. rogers, must not be overlooked; nor tennyson's _may queen_ (sampson low), with designs by e. v. b., a gifted amateur, whose work in this book, in _child's play_, and elsewhere, has a distinct charm, despite many technical shortcomings. _lyra germanica_ (longmans, ), an anthology of hymns translated from the german by catherine winkworth, produced under the superintendence of john leighton, f.s.a., must not be confused with a second series, with the same title, the same anthologist and art editor, issued in . this book contains much decorative work by john leighton, who has scarcely received the recognition he deserves as a pioneer of better things. at a time when lawless naturalistic detail was supreme everywhere he strove to popularise conventional methods, and deserves full appreciation for his energetic and successful labours. the illustrations include one fine charles keene (p. ), three by m. j. lawless (pp. , , ), four by h. s. marks (pp. , , , ), and five by e. armitage (pp. , , , , ). the engraving by t. bolton, after a flaxman bas-relief, is apparently the same block bohn includes in his supplementary chapter to the edition of chatto and jackson's _history of wood-engraving_, as a specimen of the first experiment in mr. bolton's 'new process for photographing on the wood.' as this change was literally epoch-making, this really beautiful block, with its companion p. , is of historic interest. _shakespeare: his birthplace_, edited by j. r. wise, with twenty-three pictures drawn and engraved by w. j. linton (longmans); _the poetry of nature_, with thirty-six drawings by harrison weir (low), and _household song_ (kent, ), illustrated by birket foster, samuel palmer, g. h. thomas, a. solomon, j. andrews, and others, including two rather powerful blocks, _to mary in heaven_ especially, by j. archer, r.s.a.; _chambers's household shakespeare_, illustrated by keeley halswelle, must not be forgotten; nor _a boy's book of ballads_ (bell and daldy), illustrated by sir john gilbert; but _the adventures of baron munchausen_, with designs by a. crowquill (trübner), is not very important. an illustrated edition of mrs. gatty's _parables from nature_ (bell and daldy) would be remarkable if only for the _nativity_ by 'e. burne-jones.' it is instructive to compare the engraving with the half-tone reproduction of the original drawing which appears in mr. pennell's _modern illustrations_ (bell). but there are also good things in the book by john tenniel, holman hunt, m. e. edwards, and drawings of average interest by w. (not j. e.) millais, otto speckter, f. keyl, l. frolich, harrison weir, and others. in the respective editions of and the illustrations vary considerably. another book that happened to be published in would at any time occupy a place by itself. founded on blake, david scott developed a distinctly personal manner, that has provoked praise and censure, in each case beyond its merit. yet without joining either detractors or eulogists, one must own that the bunyan's _pilgrim's progress_ (edinburgh, ), illustrated by david and w. b. scott, if a most ugly piece of book-making, contains many very noteworthy designs. it is possible, despite the monograph of j. m. gray (one of the earliest critics who devoted special study to the works of frederick sandys) and a certain esoteric cult of a limited number of disciples, that david scott still remains practically unknown to the younger generation. yet this book, and coleridge's _ancient mariner_, which he also illustrated, contain a great many weird ideas, more or less adequately portrayed, which should endear themselves to the symbolist to-day. [illustration: h. s. marks, r.a. willmott's 'sacred poetry' a quiet mind] [illustration: h. s. marks willmott's 'sacred poetry,' in a hermitage] [illustration: frederick sandys willmott's 'sacred poetry,' life's journey] [illustration: frederick sandys willmott's 'sacred poetry,' a little mourner] _goldsmith's poems_, with coloured illustrations by birket foster, appeared this year, which saw also many volumes (issued by day and son), resplendent with chromo-lithography and 'illuminations' in gold and colours. so that the christmas harvest, that might seem somewhat meagre in the short list above, really contained as many high-priced volumes appealing to art, 'as she was understood in ,' as the list of is likely to include. but the books we deem memorable had not yet appeared, and the signs of hardly point to the rapid advance which the next few years were destined to reveal. in passing it may be noted that this was the great magenta period for cloth bindings. 'surely the most exquisite colour that ever left the chemist's laboratory,' exclaims a contemporary critic, after a rapturous eulogy. the 'wicked fratricidal war in america,' we find by references in the trade periodicals of the time, was held responsible for the scarcity of costly volumes at this date. perhaps the most important book of is willmott's _sacred poetry of the th, th, and th centuries_ (like many others issued the previous christmas). it contains two drawings by sandys, which are referred to elsewhere, three by fred walker, seven by h. s. marks, two by charles keene, twenty-eight by j. d. watson, one by holman hunt, eight by john gilbert, and others by g. h. andrews, h. h. armstead, w. p. burton, f. r. pickersgill, s. read, f. smallfield, j. sleigh, harrison weir, and j. wolf. although the absence of millais and rossetti would suffice to place it just below the tennyson, it may be considered otherwise as about of equal interest with that and the earlier anthology of _poets of the nineteenth century_, gathered together by the same editor. it is distinctly a typical book of the earlier sixties, and one which no collector can afford to miss. _poetry of the elizabethan age_, with thirty illustrations by birket foster, john gilbert, julian portch, and e. m. wimperis, is not quite representative of the sixties, but of a transitional period which might be claimed by either decade. _the songs and sonnets of shakespeare_, with ten coloured and thirty black-and-white drawings by john gilbert, to whatever period it may be ascribed, is one of his most superb achievements in book-illustration. _christmas with the poets_, 'embellished with fifty-three tinted illustrations by birket foster' (bell and daldy), can hardly be mentioned with approval, despite the masterly drawings of a great illustrator. as a piece of book-making, its gold borders and weak 'tinted' blocks, printed in feeble blues and browns, render it peculiarly unattractive. yet in all honesty one must own that its art is far more thorough and its taste possibly no worse essentially than many of the deckle-edged superfluities with neo-primitive designs which are popular at the present time. the work of this artist is perhaps somewhat out of favour at the moment, but its neglect may be attributed to the inevitable reaction which follows undue popularity. there are legends of the palmy days of the old water-colour society, when the competition of dealers to secure drawings by 'birket foster' was so great that they crowded round the doors before they opened on the first day, and one enterprising trader, crushing in, went straight to the secretary and said, 'i will buy the screen,' thereby forestalling his rivals who were hastily jotting down the works by this artist hung with others upon it. but even popular applause is not always misdirected; and the master of english landscape, despite a certain prettiness and pettiness, despite a little sentimentality, is surely a master. there are 'bests' and bests so many; and if birket foster is easily best of his kind, and the fact would hardly be challenged, then as a master we may leave his final place to the future, sure that it is always with the great who have succeeded, and not with the merely promising who just escape success. among the minor volumes of this year, now especially scarce, are dr. george mac donald's _dealings with the fairies_, with illustrations by arthur hughes; and several of strahan's children's books: _the gold thread_, by dr. norman macleod, with illustrations by j. d. watson, j. m'whirter, and others; and _the postman's bag_, illustrated by j. pettie and others. a curious volume, _spiritual conceits_, 'illustrated by harry rogers,' is printed throughout in black letter, and, despite the title, would be described more correctly to-day as 'decorated' by the artists, for the engravings are 'emblematical devices' more or less directly inspired by the emblem books of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. as one of the few examples of conventional design of the period, it is interesting. new copies are by no means scarce, so it would seem to have been printed in excess of the demand, which, judging by the laudatory criticism it received, could not have been meagre. [illustration: birket foster 'pictures of english landscape,' the green lane] [illustration: birket foster 'pictures of english landscape,' the old chair-mender at the cottage door] , the year of the second great international exhibition, might have been expected to yield a full crop of lavishly produced books, but as a matter of fact there are singularly few. two important exceptions occur: christina rossetti's _goblin market_, with the title-page and frontispiece by her brother, and _the new forest_, by j. r. wise, with drawings by walter crane, 'a very young artist, whom we shall be glad to meet with again,' as a contemporary criticism runs. yet, on the whole the men of the sixties appear to have exhausted their efforts on the new magazines which had just attained full vigour; hence, as we might expect, publishers refrained from competing with the annual volumes, which gave at least twice as much for seven shillings and sixpence as they had hitherto included in a guinea table-book. birket foster's _pictures of english landscape_, with pictures in words by tom taylor (routledge ), contains thirty singularly fine drawings engraved by dalziels, of which the editor says: 'it is still a moot point among the best critics how far wood-engraving can be profitably carried--whether it can attempt, with success, such freedom and subtlety of workmanship as are employed, for example, on the skies throughout this series, or should restrict itself to simple effects, with a broader and plainer manner of execution.' its companion was styled _beauties of english landscape_, and appeared much later. _early english poems, chaucer to pope_ (sampson low, ), is another book of the autumn of , which like the rest is a quarto, with an elaborately designed cover and the usual hundred blocks delightfully engraved, after john gilbert, birket foster, george thomas, t. creswick, r.a., r. redgrave, r.a., e. duncan, and many others. although there is no reference to the fact in the book itself, many of the illustrations had already done duty in other books, or possibly did duty afterwards, for, without a tedious collation of first editions, it is difficult to discover the first appearance of any particular block. probably this was the original source of many blocks which afterwards were issued in all sorts of volumes, so frequently that their charm is somewhat tarnished by memories of badly printed _clichés_ in children's primers and the like. [illustration: frederick shields defoe's 'history of the plague,' the plague-cart] _the life of st. patrick_, by h. formby, is said to be illustrated by m. j. lawless, but the labour in tracking it was lost; for, whoever made the designs, the wood-engravings are of the lowest order, and the book no more interesting than an illustrated religious tract is usually. a sumptuously produced volume, _moral emblems_ (longmans), 'from jacob cats and robert fairlie,' contains 'illustrations freely rendered from designs found in their works,' by john leighton. the text is by richard pigot, whose later career affords us a moral emblem of another sort; if indeed he be the hero of the parnell incident, as contemporary notices declared. its two hundred and forty-seven blocks were engraved by different hands--leighton, dalziel, green, harral, de wilde, swain, and others, all duly acknowledged in the contents. it is only fair to say that the decorators rarely fall to the level of the platitudes, interspersed with biblical quotations, which form the text of the work. among other volumes worth mentioning are: _papers for thoughtful girls_, by sarah tytler, illustrated by j. e. millais; _children's sayings_, with four pictures by walter crane; _stories of old_, two series, each with seven illustrations by the same artist; _stories little breeches told_, illustrated by c. h. bennett; and volumes of laurie's _shilling entertainment library_, including probably (the date of the first edition is not quite clear) defoe's _history of the plague_, with singularly powerful designs by frederick shields,--'rembrandt-like in power,' mr. joseph pennell has rightly called them; and _puck on pegasus_, a volume of humorous verses by h. cholmondeley pennell, illustrated, and well illustrated, by leech, tenniel, doyle, millais, sir noel paton, 'phiz,' portch, and m. ellen edwards. the doyle tailpiece is the only one formally attributed, but students will have little difficulty in identifying the work of the various hands represented in its pages. a volume, artless in its art, that has charmed nevertheless for thirty years, and still amuses--lear's _book of nonsense_ appeared this year; but luckily its influence has been nil so far, except possibly upon modern posters; wordsworth's _poems for the young_, with fifty illustrations by john pettie and j. m'whirter; an illustrated edition of mrs. alexander's _hymns for little children_, mildly exciting as works of art, _famous boys_ (darton), illustrated by t. morten; _one year_, with pictures by clarence dobell (macmillan), and _wood's natural history_, with fine drawings by zwecker, wolf, and others, are also in the sterile crop of the year . _passages from modern english poets_ ( ), illustrated by the junior etching club, an important book of its sort, is noticed elsewhere. in millais' _parables of our lord_ was issued, although it is dated . of the masterpieces it contained a reviewer of the period wrote: 'looked at with unfeeling eyes there is little to commend them to the average class of book-buyers.' this, which is no doubt a fairly representative opinion, may be set against the wide appreciation by artists they aroused at the time, and ever since, merely to show that the good taste of the sixties was probably confined to a minority, and that the public in or , despite its pretence of culture, is rarely moved deeply by great work. it is difficult to write dispassionately of this book. granted that when you compare it with the drawings of some of the subjects which are still extant, you regret certain shortcomings on the part of the engravers; yet, when studied apart from that severe test, there is much that is not merely the finest work of a fine period, but that may be placed among the finest of any period. we are told in the preface that 'mr. millais made his first drawing to illustrate the _parables_ in august , and the last in october ; thus he has been able to give that care and consideration to his subjects which the beauty as well as the importance of _the parables_ demanded.' it is not necessary to describe each one of the many illustrations. those which appeared in _good words_ are printed with the titles they first bore in the notice of that magazine. the other eight are: _the tares_, _the wicked husbandman_, _the foolish virgins_, _the importunate friend_, _the marriage feast_, _the lost sheep_, _the rich man and lazarus_, and _the good shepherd_, all engraved by the brothers dalziel, who (to quote again from the preface), 'have seconded his efforts with all earnestness, desiring, as far as their powers would go, to make the pictures specimens of the art of wood-engraving.' here it would be superfluous to ask whether the designs could have been better engraved, or even whether photogravure would not have retained more of the exquisite beauty of the originals. as they are, remembering the conditions of their production, we must needs accept them; and the full admiration they demand need not be dashed by useless regret. in place of blaming dalziels, let us rather praise lavishly the foresight and sympathy which called into being most of the books we now prize. indeed, a history of dalziels' undertakings fully told would be no small part of a history of modern english illustration. if any one who loves art, especially the art of illustration, does not know and prize these _parables_, then it were foolish to add a line in their praise, for ignorance of such masterpieces is criminal, and lukewarm approval a fatal confession. [illustration: j. e. millais 'the parables of our lord,' routledge, the prodigal son] [illustration: j. e. millais 'the parables of our lord,' the tares] [illustration: j. e. millais 'the parables of our lord,' routledge, the sower] it is difficult to place any book of next in order to _the parables_; despite many fine publications, there is not one worthy to be classed by its side. perhaps the most important in one sense, and the least in another, is longmans' famous edition of the _new testament_, upon the preparation of which a fabulous amount of money was spent. yet, although an epoch-making book to the wood-engraver, it represents rather the end of an old school than the beginning of a new. its greatly reduced illustrations, wherein a huge wall-painting occupies the space of a postage-stamp, the lack of spontaneity in its formal 'correct' borders, impress us to-day more as curiosities than as living craft. all the same, it was considered a marvellous achievement; but its spirit, if it ever existed, has evaporated with age; indeed, one cannot help thinking that it was out of date when it appeared. ten years earlier it would have provoked more hearty approval; but, with millais' treatment of the similar subjects, who could look at this precise, unimaginative work? that it ever exercised any influence on wood-engraving is doubtful, and that it repaid, even in part, its cost and labour is still more problematical. bound, if memory can be trusted, in sham carved and pierced oak, it may be still encountered among the _rep_ and polished walnut of the period, a monument of misapplied endeavour. its ideal seems to have been to imitate steel-plates by wood-blocks. just as crusaders' tombs had been modelled in parian to do duty as match-boxes, and a thousand other attempts, then and since, with the avowed intention of imitation, have attracted no little common popularity; so its tediously minute handiwork no doubt won the approbation of those whose approval is artistic insult. one has but to turn to the tiny woodcuts of holbein's _dance of death_ to find that size is of no importance; a _netsuke_ may be as broadly treated as a colossus, but the art of the miniature is too often miniature art. therefore, side by side with the splendour of millais, this mildly exciting 'art-book' comes as a typical contrast. no matter how millais was rewarded, the mere engraver in this case must have been paid more, if contemporary accounts are true; yet the result is that nobody wants the one, and every artist, lay or professional, who is awake to really fine things, treasures a chance impression of a _parable_, torn out of _good words_, as a thing to reverence. on turning back to a scrap-book, where a number of them were preserved by the present writer in the late sixties, the old surprise comes back with irresistible force to find that things which he then ranked first still maintain their supremacy. at that time, when the wonders of japanese art were a sealed book, the masterpieces of dürer and rembrandt, the triumphs of whistler, and the exquisite engravings of the french wood-engravers, past and present, all unknown to him, he, in common with dozens of others, was conscious that here was something so great that it was almost uncanny, for, obvious and simple as it looked, it yet accomplished what all others seemed only to attempt. there are very few pictures which after thirty years retain the old glamour; but while the longmans' _new testament_ when seen anew raises no thrill of appreciation, the _parables_ appear as astoundingly great to one familiar with modern illustrations as they did to an ignorant boy thirty years ago. other _fetishes_ have gone unregretted to the lumber-room, but the millais of is a still greater master in . they builded better than they knew, these giants of the sixties, and that the approval of another generation indorses the verdict of the best critics of their own may be taken as a promise of abiding homage to be paid in centuries yet to come. curiously enough, among some literary notes for christmas , we find that 'early next year messrs. dalziel hoped to issue their bible pictures,' and the writer goes on to praise several of the drawings--notably the leightons, which were even then engraved: this note, nearly twenty years before the book actually appeared, is interesting, but it must not be thought that the time was devoted entirely to the engraving or in waiting for the perfection of photographic transfer to wood. an english edition of michelet's _the bird_, illustrated by giacomelli (nelson), was issued this year, and the highly wrought naturalistic details of the engravings became extremely popular. its 'pretty' finish, and tame, colourless effect influenced no little work of the period, and, coupled with the _clichés_ of gustave doré engravings, so lavishly reprinted here about this date, did much to promote a style of wood-engraving which found its highest expression in the pages of american magazines years afterwards, and its lowest in the 'decorated' poems of cheap 'snippet' weeklies, which to-day are yet imitated unconsciously by those who work in wash for half-tone processes. the next important volume of the year, after millais' _parables_, judged by our standard, is unquestionably dalziels' edition of _the arabian nights_ (ward, lock, and tyler)--'illustrated by a. boyd houghton,' one feels tempted to add to the title. but although the book is often referred to as the work of one artist, as a matter of fact it is the work of many. houghton does not even contribute the largest number; his eighty-seven designs are beaten by t. dalziel's eighty-nine. nor is he the greatest draughtsman therein, for there are two by millais. still, notwithstanding these, and eight by john tenniel, ten by g. j. pinwell, one by t. morten, two by j. d. watson, and six by e. dalziel, it is for houghton's sake that the book has suddenly assumed importance, even in the eyes of those who do not search through the volumes of the sixties for forgotten masterpieces, but are content with _once a week_, the _cornhill gallery_, and thornbury's _legendary ballads_. one thing is beyond doubt: that with the _arabian nights_ and the others on this short list you have a national gallery of the best things--not the best of all possible collections, not even an exhaustive collection of specimens of each, but a good working assortment that suffices to uphold the glory of 'the golden decade,' and can only be supplemented but not surpassed by the addition of all the others. the book was issued in weekly numbers, as you see on opening a first edition of the volume at the risk of breaking its back. close to the fold appears the legend, 'printed by dalziel brothers, the camden press, n.w.,' etc. it was eventually issued in two volumes in october , but dated ' .' mr. laurence housman's volume, _arthur boyd houghton_ (kegan paul, ), and his excellent article in _bibliographica_, are available for those who wish for a fuller appreciation of this fine book. [illustration: a. boyd houghton dalziels' 'arabian nights,' p. noureddin ali on his journey] by the side of the books already mentioned the rest seem almost commonplace, but another edition of _the pilgrim's progress_, with one hundred illustrations by t. dalziel, must not be overlooked. these show that one of the famous engravers was also an artist of no mean importance, and explain much of the fine taste that distinguished the publications of the firm with which he was associated. elsewhere the many original designs by other members of the firm go to prove this up to the hilt. it is curious to find the date of the 'new' illustrated edition of _the ingoldsby legends_ (bentley).[ ] those familiar with contemporary volumes would have hazarded a time ten to fifteen years earlier, had the matter been open to doubt. it is profusely illustrated by leech, tenniel, and cruikshank, but in no way a typical book of the sixties. _english sacred poetry of the olden time_ (religious tract society, ) was issued this year. it contains f. walker's _portrait of a minister_ (p. ); _the abbey walk_ (p. ), and _sir walter raleigh_ (p. ), by g. du maurier; ten drawings by j. w. north, three by c. green, three by j. d. watson, and many by tenniel, percival skelton, and others, all engraved by whymper; _our life illustrated by pen and pencil_ (religious tract society, undated), is a similar book with designs by j. d. watson, pinwell, c. h. selous, du maurier, barnes, j. w. north. aytoun's _lays of the scottish cavaliers_ is another book of that is noticeable for its illustrations, from designs by [sir] noel paton. _robinson crusoe_, with one hundred designs by j. d. watson (routledge); wordsworth's _poetry for the young_, illustrated by j. pettie and j. m'whirter (strahan, ); c. h. bennett's _london people_, and the same artist's _mr. wind and madam rain_ (sampson low); _hymns in prose_ by mrs. barbauld, illustrated by barnes, whymper, etc.; dr. cumming's _life and lessons of our lord_, with pictures by c. green, p. skelton, a. hunt, and others; yet another _pilgrim's progress_, this time with illustrations by h. c. selous and p. priolo (cassell), and another _robinson crusoe_, illustrated by g. h. thomas (cassell); the _family fairy tales_, illustrated 'by a young lady of eighteen,' signed m. e. e., the first published works of m. ellen edwards, who soon became--and deservedly--one of the most popular illustrators of the day; _homes without hands_, by j. g. wood, with animal drawings by f. w. keyl; _hacco the dwarf_, with illustrations, interesting, because they are (i believe) the earliest published work by g. j. pinwell; and _golden light_ (routledge), with eighty drawings by a. w. bayes, are some of the rest of the books of this year that must be dismissed with a bare record of their titles. _the lake country_, with illustrations drawn and engraved by w. j. linton (smith and elder, ), is of technical rather than general interest. champions of the 'white line' will find practical evidence of its masterly use in the engravings. _the victorian history of england_ (routledge, ) has at least one drawing by a. b. houghton, but, so far as a rapid turn over of its pages revealed, only one--the frontispiece. _the golden harp_ (routledge) appears to be a re-issue of blocks by j. d. watson used elsewhere. _what men have said about women_ (routledge) is illustrated by the same artist, who is responsible--indirectly, one hopes--for coloured designs to _melbourne house_, issued about this time. _the months illustrated with pen and pencil_ (religious tract society, undated) contains sixty engravings by butterworth and heath, after j. gilbert, robert barnes, j. w. north, and others; uniform in style with _english sacred poetry_, it does not reach the same level of excellence. a book, _words for the wise_ (nelson), illustrated by w. small, i have failed to see; a critic calls attention to it as 'the work of a promising young artist hitherto unknown to us.' _pictures of english life_, with sixteen engravings by j. d. cooper, after drawings by r. barnes (sampson low), contains blocks of a size unusual in books. the superb drawings by charles keene to _mrs. caudle's curtain lectures_ (bradbury and evans) enrich this prolific period with more masterpieces. [illustration: frederick walker 'english sacred poetry' r. t. s. portrait of a minister] [illustration: g. j. pinwell 'wayside poesies,' king pippin] [illustration: autumn] chapter ix: some illustrated books, - with we reach the height of the movement--this and the following year being of all others most fertile in books illustrated by the best representative men. it saw rossetti's frontispiece and title to _the prince's progress_ (macmillan, ), these two designs being almost enough to make the year memorable. _a round of days_ (routledge), one of the finest of the illustrated gift-books, contains walker's _broken victuals_ (p. ), _one mouth more_ (p. ), and the well-known _four seasons_ (pp. , , , ), for one of which the drawing on wood is at south kensington museum. a. boyd houghton appears with fourteen examples (pp. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ), j. w. north with three exquisite landscapes (pp. , , ), g. j. pinwell with five subjects, paul gray with one (p. ), j. d. watson with five (pp. , , , , ), t. morten with one (p. ), a. w. bayes with two, t. dalziel with seven, and e. dalziel with two. these complete its contents, excepting two delicately engraved studies of heads after warwick brookes. the book itself is distinctly a lineal descendant from the annuals of the earlier half of the century; a typical example of a not very noble ideal--a scrap-book of poems and pictures made important by the work of the artists. yet, with full recognition of the greater literalism of reproductive process to-day, one doubts if even _the london garland_ (macmillan, ), which most nearly approaches it, will maintain its interest more fully, after thirty years' interval, than does this sumptuous quarto, and a few of its fellows. that we could get together, at the present time, as varied and capable a list of artists is quite possible; but where is the publisher who would risk paying so much for original work designed for a single book, when examples by the same men are to be obtained in equally good reproductions, and not less well printed in many of the sixpenny weeklies and the monthly magazines? the change of conditions seems to forbid a revival of volumes of this class, although the _yellow book_, _the pageant_, _the savoy_, and _the quarto_, are not entirely unrelated to them. to belongs formally _the cornhill gallery_, a hundred impressions from the original blocks of pictures. among the early volumes issued for christmas , this is, perhaps, the most important book, but, as its contents are fully noticed elsewhere, no more need be said here. it is amusing to read that a critic disliked 'mr. leighton's unpleasant subjects'--the romola designs! dalziels' _illustrated goldsmith_ (ward and lock, ), may be considered, upon the whole, the masterpiece of g. j. pinwell, who designed the hundred illustrations which seemed then to be accepted as the only orthodox number for a book. how charming some of these are every student of the period knows. pinwell, as certain original drawings that remain prove only too clearly, suffered terribly at the engraver's hands, and, beautiful as many of the designs are, one cannot avoid regret that they were not treated more tenderly. it is quite possible that bold work was needed for the serial issue in large numbers, and that the engravers simplified the drawings of set purpose; but the delicacy and grace of the originals are ill-replaced by the coarser modelling of the faces and the quality of the 'line' throughout. this year saw also _home thoughts and home scenes_, a book with thirty-five drawings of children, by a. boyd houghton (routledge, ); which was afterwards reprinted as _happy day stories_. this book is absolutely essential to any representative collection of the period, but nevertheless its designs can hardly be regarded as among the artist's most masterly works. warne's edition of _the arabian nights_ ( ), with sixteen drawings, eight by a. boyd houghton, must not be confused with the other edition to which he contributed quite distinct subjects. this, and _don quixote_ (warne) appear in the christmas lists for . the great spanish novel hardly seems to have sustained the artist to his finest achievements throughout. it contains most interesting designs; some that reveal his full accomplishment. at the same time it fails to astound you, as the _arabian nights_ have a knack of doing again and again, whenever you turn over their pages. [illustration: g. j. pinwell dalziels' 'illustrated goldsmith,' p. what, bill! you chubby rogue] [illustration: frederick walker 'a round of days' autumn] this was a great year for gustave doré. so many english editions of his books were issued that a summary of the year's art begins with an apology for calling it 'l'année dorée.' among these _don quixote_ gained rapid and firm hold of popular fancy. many people who have risen superior to doré to-day, and speak of him with contempt now, at that time grovelled before the french artist's work. a contemporary critic writes of him as one who, 'by common consent occupies the first place of all book-illustrators of all time.' as he is not in any sense an english illustrator we need not attempt to appraise his work here, but it influenced public taste far more than it influenced draughtsmen; yet the fact that _don quixote_, as houghton depicted him, even now fails to oust the lean-armoured, grotesque hero (one of doré's few powerful creations), may be the reason for houghton's version failing to impress us beyond a certain point. a book of the year, _ballads and songs of brittany_, from the french of hersart de la villemarqué, by tom taylor (macmillan), should be interesting to-day, if only for the two steel plates after tissot, which show that, in his great eastern cycle of biblical drawings, he reverts to an earlier manner, which he had employed before the _mondaine_ and the _demi-monde_ attracted him. the book contains also four millais', and a fine keene, which, with most of the other subjects, had already appeared with the poems in _once a week_. _enoch arden_ (e. moxon & co., ), with twenty-five most dainty drawings by arthur hughes, is said, in some contemporaneous announcements of the season, to be the first successful attempts at photographing the designs on wood; but we have already noticed the fine example of mr. bolton's new process for photographing on wood, a bas-relief after flaxman, in the _lyra germanica_ ( ). another table-book, important so far as price is concerned, is _the life of man symbolised_ (longmans, ), with many illustrations by john leighton, f.s.a. _gems of literature_, illustrated by noel paton (nimmo); _pen and pencil pictures from the poets_ (nimmo), with forty illustrations by keeley halswelle, pettie, m'whirter, w. small, j. lawson, and others; and _scott's poems_, illustrated by keeley halswelle, were also issued at this time. an epoch-making book of this season, _alice in wonderland_ (macmillan), with tenniel's forty-two immortal designs, needs only bare mention, for who does not know it intimately? a very interesting experiment survives in the illustration to watts's _divine and moral songs_ (nisbet, ). this book, edited by h. fitzcock, the enthusiastic promoter of graphotype, enlisted the services of notable artists, whose tentative efforts, in the first substitute for wood-engraving that attained any commercial recognition, make the otherwise tedious volume a treasure-trove. the du maurier on page , the j. d. watson (p. ), t. morten (p. ), holman hunt (p. ), m. e. edwards (p. ), c. green (p. ), and w. cave thomas (p. ), are all worth study. a not very important drawing, _the moon shines full_, by dr. c. heilbuth (p. ), is a very successful effort to rival the effect of wood-engraving by mechanical means. the titles of the poems come with most grotesque effect beneath the drawings. an artist in knickerbockers, by du maurier, entitled 'the excellency of the bible,' for instance, is apt to raise a ribald laugh; and some of the calvinistic rhymes and unpleasant theology of the good old doctor are strangely ill-matched with these experiments in a medium which evidently interested the draughtsman far more than the songs which laid so heavy a burden on the little people of a century ago. _legends and lyrics_, by a. a. procter (bell and daldy, ), is another quarto edition of a popular poet, but here, in place of the usual hundred birket fosters, gilberts, and the rest, we have but nineteen engravings; but they are all full pages. charles keene's two subjects are _the settlers_ and _rest_ (a night bivouac of soldiers); john tenniel with _a legend of bregenz_, and du maurier with _a legend of provence_ and _the requital_, also represent the _punch_ contingent. the others are by w. t. c. dobson, a. r. a., l. frolich, t. morten, g. h. thomas, samuel palmer, j. d. watson, w. p. burton, j. m. carrick, m. e. edwards, and william h. millais; all engraved by horace harral, who cannot be congratulated upon his rendering of some blocks. a very charming set of drawings by j. e. millais will be found in henry leslie's _little songs for me to sing_ (cassell, undated). the subjects, seven in number, are slightly executed studies of childhood by a master-hand at the work. the first volume of cassell's _shakespeare_, which contains a large number of drawings by h. c. selous, was issued this year. [illustration: g. j. pinwell 'wayside poesies' the little calf] [illustration: frederick walker 'wayside poesies' the bit o' garden] a fine collection of reprinted illustrations is _pictures of society_ (sampson low, ); its blocks are taken from mr. james hogg's publications, _london society_ and _the churchman's family magazine_, and include the fine sandys, _the waiting time_, and m. j. lawless's _silent chamber_, both reproduced here by his permission. it is a scarce but very interesting, if unequal, book. the minor books at this time are rich in drawings by most of the artists who are our quest in this chronicle. the number, and the difficulty of ascertaining which of them contain worthy designs, must be the excuse for a very incomplete list, which includes _keats's poetical works_, with a hundred and twenty designs by g. scharf; _the children's hour_ (hunter, edinburgh), w. small, etc.; _jingles and jokes for little folks_, paul gray, etc.; _the magic mirror_, w. s. gilbert (strahan); _dame dingle's fairy tales_, j. proctor (cassell); _ellen montgomery's bookshelf_, twelve plates in colour by j. d. watson (nisbet); _an old fairy tale_, r. doyle (routledge); _what the moon saw_, eighty illustrations by a. w. bayes (routledge); _ernie elton the lazy boy_, _patient henry_, _the boy pilgrims_, all illustrated by a. boyd houghton and published by warne; _sybil and her snowball_, r. barnes (seeley); _stories told to a child_, houghton, etc. (strahan); _aunt sally's life_, g. thomas, (bell); _mother's last words_, m. e. edwards, etc. (jarrold), and _watts's divine songs_ (sampson low), with some fine smalls and birket fosters. although the style of work that prevailed in - was so widely popular, it did not find universal approval. critics deplored the 'sketchy' style of dalziels' engraving and, comparing it unfavourably with longmans' _new testament_, moaned, 'when shall we find again such engraving as in mulready's drawings by thompson.' in _don quixote_ they owned houghton's designs were clever, but thought, 'on the whole, the worthy knight deserved better treatment.' and so all along the line we find the then present contrasted with the golden past; even as many look back to-day to the golden 'sixties' from the commonplace 'nineties.' this time saw the beginning of the superb toy-books by walter crane--which are his masterpieces, and monuments to the skill and taste of edmund evans, their engraver and printer. for wood-block printing in colours, no western work has surpassed them even to this date. _poems by jean ingelow_ (longmans, ) is a very notable and scarce volume, which was published in the autumn of . it contains twenty drawings by g. j. pinwell, of which the seven to _the high tide_ are singularly fine; but that they suffered terribly at the engraver's hands some originals, in the possession of mr. joseph pennell, prove only too plainly. j. w. north is represented by twenty-four, a. boyd houghton by sixteen, j. wolf by nine, e. j. poynter by one, w. small by four, e. dalziel by three, and t. dalziel by twenty. the level of this fine book is singularly high, and it must needs be placed among the very best of one of the most fruitful years. another book published at this time, _ballad stories of the affections_, by robert buchanan (routledge, undated), contains some singularly fine examples of the work of g. j. pinwell, w. small, a. b. houghton, e. dalziel, t. dalziel, j. lawson, and j. d. watson, engraved by the brothers dalziel; _signelil_ (pp. and ), _helga and hildebrand_ (p. ), _the two sisters_ (p. ), and _signe at the wake_ (_frontispiece_) show houghton at his best; _maid mettelil_ (p. ) exhibits pinwell in an unusually decorative mood. indeed, the thirty-four illustrations are all good, and the book is decidedly one of the most interesting volumes of the period, and unfortunately one least frequently met with to-day. [illustration: j. w. north 'wayside poesies' glen oona] [illustration: j. w. north from the original drawing glen oona] [illustration: j. w. north 'wayside poesies,' the nutting] [illustration: j. w. north 'wayside poesies' afloat] if _wayside poesies_ (routledge, ) is not the finest illustrated book of the christmas season of , it is in the very front rank. its eighteen drawings by g. j. pinwell are among the best things he did; the five by fred walker are also well up to his best manner, and the nineteen by j. w. north include some of the most exquisite landscapes he ever set down in black and white. it was really one of messrs. dalziels' projects, and its publishers were only distributors; so that the credit--and it is not slight--of producing this admirable volume belongs to the popular engravers whose names occur in one capacity or another in almost every paragraph of this chronicle. still more full of good things, but all reprinted, is _touches of nature by eminent artists_ (strahan, ). this folio volume, 'into which is gathered much of the richest fruit of strahan and company's magazines,' does not belie its dedication. as almost every one of its ninety-eight subjects is referred to in the record of the various magazines whence they were collected, it will suffice to note that it contains three by sandys, nine by fred walker, four by millais, five by a. boyd houghton, eight by g. j. pinwell, two by lawless, and many by j. w. north, w. small, j. pettie, g. du maurier, j. tenniel, j. d. watson, robert barnes, with specimens of charles keene, j. mahoney, marcus stone, w. orchardson, f. j. shields, paul gray, h. h. armstead, and others. a volume of even greater interest is _millais's collected illustrations_ (strahan, ). the eighty drawings on wood include many subjects originally published in _lays of the holy land_, _once a week_, _tennyson's poems_, _good words_, _orley farm_, etc. etc. copies in good condition are not often in the market; but it should be the blue riband of every collector, for the blocks here receive more careful printing than that allowed by the exigencies of their ordinary publication, and, free from any gold border, set on a large and not too shiny page, they tell out as well as one could hope to find them. as you linger over its pages you miss many favourites, for it is by no means an exhaustive collection even from the sources mentioned; but it is representative and full of superb work, interspersed though it be with the less fine things done while the great draughtsman was still hampered by the conventions of mulready and maclise. _idyllic pictures_ (cassell, ) is another reprinted collection, this time selected entirely from one magazine, _the quiver_. it contains a fine sandys here called _october_, elsewhere _the advent of winter_, whereof the artist complained bitterly of the 'cutting.' in march , the _art journal_ contained a very excellent paper on 'frederick sandys,' by j. m. gray, where the original drawing for this subject is reproduced by process. the more important things in _idyllic pictures_ are: g. j. pinwell's _faded flowers_ (p. ), _sailor's valentine_ (p. ), _the angel's song_ (p. ), _the organ-man_ (p. ), and _straight on_ (p. ); a. boyd houghton's _wee rose mary_ (p. ), _st. martin_ (p. ), and _sowing and reaping_ (p. ); paul gray's _cousin lucy_ (_frontispiece_), _a reverie_ (p. ), _by the dead_ (p. ), _mary's wedding-day_ (p. ), and _the holy light_ (p. ); w. small's _between the cliffs_ (p. ), _my ariel_ (p. ), _a retrospect_ (p. ), _babble_ (p. ), and _church bells_ (p. ); t. morten's _izaak walton_ (p. ) and _hassan_ (p. ); m. e. edwards's _a lullaby_ (p. ), _seeing granny_ (p. ), and _unrequited_ (p. ), with others by the artists already named, and r. barnes, h. cameron, r. p. leitch, c. j. staniland, and g. h. thomas. _two centuries of song_, selected by walter thornbury (sampson low, ), is a book almost exactly on the lines of those of the earlier sixties, which seems at first sight to be out of place amid the works of the newer school. it has nineteen full-page drawings, set in ornamental borders, which, printed in colours, decorate (? disfigure) every page of the book. the illustrations, engraved by w. j. linton, gavin smith, h. harral, are by eminent hands: h. s. marks, t. morten, w. small, g. leslie, and others. the frontispiece, _paying labourers, temp. elizabeth_, by the first named, is very typical; _phyllis_, by g. leslie, a pretty half-mediæval, half-modern 'decorative' subject; and _colin and phoebe_, by w. small, a delightful example of a broadly-treated landscape, with two figures in the distance--a really notable work. in my own copy, freely annotated with most depreciatory criticisms of text and pictures in pencil by a former owner, the illustration (p. ) has vanished, but on its fly-leaf the late owner has written-- 'this verse its picture had, a vulgar lass and lout; the _wood-cut_ was so bad that i _would cut_ it out.' that it is signed g. w. is a coincidence more curious than pleasing to me, and i quote the quatrain chiefly to show that the term 'wood-cut' for 'wood-engraving' has been in common use unofficially, as well as officially, all through this century. nevertheless it is a distinct gain to differentiate between the diverse methods, by refusing to regard the terms as synonymous. [illustration: g. du maurier 'story of a feather' p. 'send the culprit from the house instantly'] [illustration: g. du maurier 'story of a feather' p. 'he felt the surpassing importance of his position'] [illustration: t. morten 'the quiver' izaak walton] foxe's _book of martyrs_ (cassell, undated), issued about this time, has a number of notable contributors; but the one-sided gruesome record of cruelties which, whether true or false, are horribly depressing, has evidently told upon the artists' nerves. the illustrators, according to its title-page, are: 'g. h. thomas, john gilbert, g. du maurier, j. d. watson, a. b. houghton, w. small, a. pasquier, r. barnes, m. e. edwards, t. morten, etc.' some of the pictures have the names of artist and engraver printed below, while others are not so distinguished. those most worthy of mention are by a. boyd houghton (pp. , , , , , and ), s. l. fildes (p. ), g. du maurier (p. ), and w. small (pp. , , ). among artists not mentioned in the title-page are f. j. skill, j. lee, j. henley, and f. w. lawson. the first volume of cassell's _history of england_ appeared this year with many engravings after w. small and others. another book of the season worth noting is _heber's hymns_ (sampson low, ). it contains illustrations by t. d. scott, w. small, h. c. selous, wilfrid lawson, percival skelton, and others; but they can hardly be styled epoch-making. _christian lyrics_ (sampson low, ) (re-issued later in warne's _chandos classics_), contains illustrations by a. b. houghton, r. barnes, and others. _the story of a feather_ (bradbury, evans, and co. ), illustrated by g. du maurier, is a book that deserves more space than can be allowed to it. it holds a large number of drawings, some of which, especially the initial vignettes, display the marvellously fecund and dramatic invention of the artist. _the spirit of praise_ (warne, ) is an anthology of sacred verse, containing delightful drawings by w. small (pp. , , , ), by paul gray (p. ), by g. j. pinwell (pp. , ), by a. boyd houghton (p. ), and others by j. w. north and t. dalziel. to belongs most probably _gulliver's travels_, illustrated with eighty designs by 'the late t. morten,' in which the ill-fated artist is seen at his best level; they display a really convincing imagination, and if, technically speaking, he has done better work elsewhere, this is his most successful sustained effort. _moore's irish melodies_ (mackenzie) contains many illustrations by birket foster, harrison weir, cope, and others. _art and song_ has thirty original illustrations engraved on _steel_, which naturally looks very out of date among its fellows. _a new table-book_ by mark lemon (bradbury) is illustrated by f. eltze. mackay's _gems of poetry_ (routledge) numbers among its illustrations at least one millais. books containing designs by artists whose names appear after the title, may be noted briefly here. _little songs for little folks_, j. d. watson; _Æsop's fables_, with drawings by harrison weir (routledge); _washerwoman's foundling_, w. small (strahan); _lilliput levée_, j. e. millais, g. j. pinwell, etc. (strahan); _roses and holly_ (nimmo); _moore's irish melodies_, birket foster, h. weir, c. w. cope, etc. (mackenzie); _chandos poets: longfellow_, a. boyd houghton, etc. (warne); _things for nests_ (nisbet). the popularity of the illustrator at this time provoked a critic to write: 'book-illustration is a thriving fad. _jones fecit_ is the pendant of everything he does. the dearth of intellectual talent among book-illustrators is amazing. the idea is thought less of than the form. mental growth has not kept pace with technical skill'--a passage only worth quoting because it is echoed to-day, with as little justice, by irresponsible scribblers. in another criticism upon this year's books we find: 'for the pre-raphaelite draughtsman and the pre-bewick artist, who love scratchy lines without colour, blocks which look like spoilt etchings, and the first "proofs" of artists' work untouched by the engraver, nothing can be better.' it was the year of doré's _tennyson_, and doré's _tupper_, a year when the fine harvests were nearly at an end, when a new order of things was close at hand, and the advent of _the graphic_ should set the final seal to the work of the sixties and inaugurate a new school. but, although the christmas of saw the ingathering of the most fertile harvest, the next three years must be not overlooked. in _lucile_, with du maurier's designs, carries on the record; and _north coast and other poems_, by robert buchanan (routledge, ), nobly maintains the tradition of dalziels. it contains fifty-three drawings: thirteen by houghton, six by pinwell, two by w. small, one by j. b. zwecker, three by j. wolf, twenty-five by t. and three by e. dalziel, and the engraving is at their best level, the printing unusually good. [illustration: t. morten 'gulliver's travels' cassell gulliver in lilliput] [illustration: t. morten 'gulliver's travels' cassell the laputians] _golden thoughts from golden fountains_ (warne, ) is another profusely illustrated anthology, on the lines of those which preceded it. the first edition was printed in sepia throughout, but the later editions printed in black do more justice to the blocks. in it we find seventy-three excellent designs by a. boyd houghton, g. j. pinwell, w. small, j. lawson, w. p. burton, g. dalziel, t. dalziel, and others; if the book, as a whole, cannot be placed among the best of its class, yet all the same it comprises some admirable work. the _savage club papers_, (tinsley), has also a galaxy of stars in its list of illustrators, but their sparkle is intermittent and feeble. true that du maurier, a. boyd houghton, j. d. watson, and a host of others drew, and dalziels, swain, harral, and the rest engraved their work; but all the same it is but an ephemeral book. _krilof and his fables_ (strahan, ) enshrines some delightful, if slight, houghtons, and many spirited animal drawings by zwecker. wood's _bible animals_ is also rich in fine zoological pictures. the _ode on the morning of christ's nativity_ (nisbet, ) would be notable if only for its three designs by albert moore, who appears here as an illustrator, probably the only time he ever contributed to any publication. notwithstanding two or three powerful and fantastic drawings by w. small, the rest are a very mixed lot, conceived in all sorts of manners. _the illustrated book of sacred poems_ (cassell, undated) is a big anthology, with a silver-print photograph by way of frontispiece. it contains a rather fine composition, _side by side_ (p. ), with no signature or other means of identification. w. small (p. ), j. d. watson (pp. , , , , ), m. e. edwards, h. c. selous, j. w. north, and many others are represented; but the engravers, for the most part, cannot be congratulated upon their interpretation of the artists' designs. other books worth mention are: _the mirage of life_, with twenty-nine characteristic illustrations by john tenniel (religious tract society); _the story without an end_, illustrated by e. v. b.; _cassell's illustrated readings_, two volumes with a mass of pictures of unequal merit, but the omnivorous collector will keep them for the sake of designs by f. barnard, j. d. watson, j. mahoney, w. small, s. l. fildes, and many another typical artist of the sixties, in spite of the unsatisfactory blocks; _fairy tales_, by mark lemon, illustrated by c. h. bennett and richard doyle; _pupils of st. john the divine_, illustrated by e. armitage (macmillan); _puck on pegasus_ (the new and enlarged edition); _poetry of nature_, illustrated by harrison weir; and _original poems_ by j. and e. taylor (routledge, ), with a large number of designs by r. barnes, a. w. bayes, etc. with the end is near; the few books of real merit which bear its date were almost all issued in the autumn of the previous year. _the savage club papers_, , is a book not worth detailed comment; _five days' entertainment at wentworth grange_, by f. t. palgrave (macmillan), contains some charming designs by arthur hughes; _stories from memel_, illustrated by walter crane (w. hunt and co.), is a pleasant book of the year; and, about this time, other work by the same artist appeared in _the merrie heart_ (cassell). _king gab's story bag_ (cassell), _the magic of kindness_ (cassell), and other children's books i have been unable to trace, nor the _poetry of nature_, edited by j. cundall. _lyra germanica_ (longmans), a second anthology of hymns translated from the german, contains three illustrations by ford madox brown, _at the sepulchre_, _the sower_, and _abraham_, six by edward armitage, r.a., and many headpieces and other decorations by john leighton, which should not be undervalued because the taste of to-day is in favour of a bolder style, and dislikes imitation gothic detail. of their sort they are excellent, and may be placed among the earliest modern attempts to decorate a page, with some show of consistency of treatment. compared with the so-called 'rustic' borders of earlier efforts, they at once assume a certain importance. the binding is similar to that upon the first series. _tom brown's school days_, illustrated by arthur hughes and s. p. hall, is one of the most notable books of the year. it is curious that at the close of the period, as at its beginning, this artist is so much to the fore, although examples of his work appear at long intervals during the years' chronicle. yet, as shows his work in the van of the movement, so also he supplies a goodly proportion of the interesting work which is the aftermath of the sixties, rather than the premature growth of the seventies. _tom brown_ is too well known in its cheap editions, where the same illustrations are used, to require any detailed comment here. _gray's elegy_ (illustrated in colour by r. barnes, birket foster, wimperis, and others) is of little importance. [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'golden thoughts from golden fountains' love] [illustration: w. small 'golden thoughts from golden fountains' mark the grey-haired man] in _the nobility of life_ (warne), an anthology, edited by l. valentine, is attractive, less by reason of its coloured plates after j. d. watson, c. green, e. j. poynter, and others, than from its headpieces, by a. boyd houghton (pp. , , , , , ), francis walker (pp. , ), j. mahoney (p. ), which, subsidiary as they appear here, are in danger of being overlooked. _carmina crucis_ (bell and daldy, ), poems by dora greenwell, has two or three decorative pieces, by g. d. l[eslie], which might be attributed to the influence of the _century guild hobby horse_, if direct evidence did not antedate them by twenty years. _miss kilmansegg_, illustrated by seccombe; _the water babies_, sir noel paton and p. skelton; _in fairyland_, r. doyle (longmans); _vikram and the vampire_, e. griset (longmans), and _Æsop's fables_ (cassell), with one hundred clever and humorous designs, by the same artist, are among the few others that are worth naming. several series of volumes, illustrated by various hands, may be noticed out of their due order. for the date of the first volume is often far distant from the last, and yet, as the series maintained a certain coherency, it would be confusing to spread its record over a number of years and necessitate continual reiteration of facts. the _choice series_ of selections from the poets, published by messrs. sampson low and co., include several volumes issued some time before they were included as part of this series. the ideal of all is far more akin to that of the early fifties--when the original editions of several of these were first issued--than to that of the sixties. they include bloomfield's _farmer's boy_ ( ), campbell's _pleasures of hope_ ( ), coleridge's _ancient mariner_ ( ), goldsmith's _deserted village_ and _vicar of wakefield_, gray's _elegy_ ( ), keats's _eve of st. agnes_, milton's _l'allegro_, warton's _the hermit_, wordsworth's _pastoral poems_, and rogers's _pleasures of memory_ ( ). all the volumes, but the last, have wood-engravings by various hands after drawings by birket foster, harrison weir, gilbert and others; but in the _pleasures of memory_ 'the large illustrations' are produced by a new method without the aid of an engraver, and some little indulgence is asked for them on the plea of the inexperience of the artists in this process. 'the drawing is made' (to continue the quotation) 'with an etching needle, or any suitable point, upon a glass plate spread with collodion. it is then photographed [? printed] upon a prepared surface of wax, and from this an electrotype is formed in relief which is printed with the type.' samuel palmer, j. d. watson, charles green, and others are the artists to whom this reference applies, and the result, if not better than the best contemporary engraving, is certainly full of interest to-day. the _golden treasury_ series (macmillan and co.) contains, in each volume, a vignette engraved on steel by jeens, after drawings by j. e. millais, t. woolner, w. holman hunt, sir noel paton, arthur hughes, etc. although the 'household edition' of charles dickens's complete works was issued early in the seventies, it is illustrated almost entirely by men of the sixties, and was possibly in active preparation during that decade. fred barnard takes the lion's share, the largest number of drawings to the most important volumes. his fame as a dickens illustrator might rest secure on these alone, although it is supplemented by many other character-drawings of the types created by the author of _pickwick_. to _sketches by boz_ he supplies thirty-four designs, to _nicholas nickleby_ fifty-nine, to _barnaby rudge_ forty-six, to _christmas books_ twenty-eight, to _dombey and son_ sixty-four, to _david copperfield_ sixty, to _bleak house_ sixty-one, and to the _tale of two cities_ twenty-five. 'phiz' re-illustrates _the pickwick papers_ with fifty-seven designs, concerning which silence is best. j. mahoney shows excellent work in twenty-eight drawings to _oliver twist_ and fifty-eight each to _little dorrit_ and _our mutual friend_; charles green's thirty-nine illustrations to the _old curiosity shop_ are also admirable. f. a. fraser is responsible for thirty to _great expectations_, e. g. dalziel for thirty-four to _christmas stories_ (from _all the year round_), twenty-six to the _uncommercial traveller_, and a few to minor pieces, issued with _edwin drood_, which contain s. l. fildes's excellent designs. h. french contributes twenty to _hard times_, a. b. frost illustrates _american notes_, j. gordon thomson _pictures from italy_, and j. m'l. ralston supplies fifteen for _a child's history of england_. to re-embody characters already stereotyped, for the most part, by the earlier plates of the original editions, was a bold enterprise: that it did not wholly fail is greatly to its credit. it is quite possible that as large a number of readers made their first acquaintance with the _dramatis personæ_ of the novels in these popular editions as in the older books, and it would be interesting to discover what they really felt when the much-vaunted copper-plates afterwards fell under their notice. the sentiment of english people has been amply expended on the hablot k. browne designs. cruikshank is still considered a great master by many people; but if one could 'depolarise' their pictures (to use wendell holmes's simile), and set them before their admirers free from early associations, free from the glamour of dickens romance, and then extract a frank outspoken opinion, it would be, probably, quite opposite to that which they are now ready to maintain. recognising that the old illustrations are still regarded with a halo of memory and romance, not unlike that which raises mumbo jumbo to a fetish among his worshippers, a wish to estimate anew the intrinsic value, considered as works of art, of these old illustrations, is not provoked by merely destructive tendencies. so long as thackeray's drawing of _amelia_ is accepted as a type of grace and beauty, how can the believer realise the beauty of millais's _was it not a lie?_ in _framley parsonage_. in the earlier and later engravings alike, the costume repels; but in the one there is real flesh and blood, real passion, real art, in the other a merely conventional symbol, which we agree to accept as an interesting heroine, in the way a child of five accepts the scratches on his slate as real pirates and savages. there is little use in trying to appreciate the best, if the distinctly second-best is reverenced equally; and so, at any cost of personal feeling, it is simply the duty of all concerned to rank the heroes of the sale-room, 'phiz,' cruikshank, and leech at their intrinsic value. this is by no means despicable. for certain qualities which are not remotely connected with art belong to them; but the beauty of truth, the knowledge born of academic accomplishment, or literal imitation of nature, were alike absolutely beyond their sympathy. hence to praise their work as one praises a dürer, a whistler, or a millais, is apt to confuse the minds of the laity, already none too clear as to the moment when art comes in. this protest is not advanced to prove that every drawing mentioned in these pages surpasses the best work of the men in question, but merely to suggest whether it would not be better to recognise that the praise bestowed for so many years was awarded to a conventional treatment now obsolete, and should not be regarded as equivalent to that bestowed upon works of art which owe nothing to parochial conventions, and are based on unalterable facts, whether a hokousaï or a menzel chances to be the interpreter. the _chandos poets_ (warne), a series of bulky octavos, with red-line borders, are of unequal merit. some, _willmott's poets of the nineteenth century_, _james montgomery's poems_, _christian lyrics_, and _heber's poetical works_, appear to be merely reprints of earlier volumes with the original illustrations; others have new illustrations by men of the sixties. the _longfellow_ has several by a. boyd houghton, who is also represented by a few excellent designs in the _byron_; _legendary ballads_ (j. s. roberts) has three full-page designs, by walter crane, to _thomas of ercildoune_ (p. ), _the jolly harper_ (p. ), and _robin hood_ (p. ). later volumes, with designs by f. a. fraser and h. french, do not come into our subject. other series of the works of 'standard poets,' as they were called, all resplendent in gold and colours, and more or less well illustrated, were issued by messrs. routledge, nimmo, warne, cassell, moxon, and others, beginning in the fifties. here and there a volume has interest, but one suspects that many of the plates had done duty before, and those which had not are not always of great merit; as, for instance, the drawings by w. b. scott to the poetical works of l. e. l. (routledge). in these various books will be found, _inter alia_, examples of sir john gilbert, birket foster, e. h. corbould, w. small, and keeley halswelle. _hurst and blackett's standard library_ is the title of a series of novels by eminent hands in single volumes, each containing a frontispiece engraved on steel. that to _christian's mistake_ is by frederick sandys, engraved by john saddler. _john halifax_, _nothing new_, _the valley of a hundred fires_, and _les misérables_, each have a drawing by millais, also engraved by john saddler. in _studies from life_ holman hunt is the draughtsman and joseph brown the engraver. _no church_, _grandmother's money_, and _a noble life_, contain frontispieces by tenniel, _barbara's history_, one by j. d. watson, and _adèle_, a fine design by john gilbert. others by leech and edward hughes are not particularly interesting. the steel engraving bestowed upon most of these obliterated all character from the designs, and superseded the artist's touch by hard unsympathetic details; but, all the same, compositions by men of such eminence deserve mention. with the end of our subject is reached; it is the year of _edwin drood_, which established s. l. fildes's position as an illustrator of the first rank; it also has a pleasant book of quasi-mediæval work, _mores ridicula_, by j. e. rogers (macmillan), (followed later by _ridicula rediviva_ and _the fairy book_, by the author of _john halifax_, with coloured designs by the same artist), of which an enthusiastic critic wrote: 'worthy to be hung in the royal academy side by side with rossetti, sandys, barnes, and millais'; whymper's _scrambles on the alps_, a book greatly prized by collectors, with drawings by whymper and j. mahoney; _the cycle of life_ (s.p.c.k.); and _episodes of fiction_ (nimmo, ) containing twenty-eight designs by r. paterson, after c. green, c. j. staniland, p. skelton, f. barnard, harrison weir, and others. _novello's national nursery rhymes_, by j. w. elliott, published in , belongs to the sixties by intrinsic right. it includes two delightful drawings by a. boyd houghton--one of which, _tom the piper's son_ (owned by mr. pennell), has been reproduced from the original by photogravure in mr. laurence housman's monograph--and many by h. s. marks, w. small, j. mahoney, g. j. pinwell, w. j. wiegand, arthur hughes, t. and e. dalziel, and others. _h. leslie's musical annual_ (cassell, ) contains a fine drawing, _the boatswain's leap_, by g. j. pinwell, and a steel engraving, _a reverie_, after millais, which was re-issued in _the magazine of art_, september . _pictures from english literature_ (cassell) is an excuse for publishing twenty full-page engravings after elaborate drawings by du maurier, s. l. fildes, w. small, j. d. watson, w. cave thomas, etc. etc. this anthology, with a somewhat heterogeneous collection of drawings, seems to be the last genuine survivor of the old christmas gift-books, which is lineally connected with the masterpieces of its kind. soon after the inevitable anthology of poems reappeared, in humbler pamphlet shape, as a birthday souvenir, or a christmas card, embellished with chromo-lithographs, as it had already been allied with photographic silver-prints; but it is always the accident of the artists chosen which imparts permanent interest to the otherwise feeble object; whether it take the shape of a drawing-room table-book, gaudy, costly, and dull, or of a little booklet, it is a thing of no vital interest, unless by chance its pictures are the work of really powerful artists. the decadence of a vigorous movement is never a pleasant subject to record in detail. fortunately, although the king died, the king lived almost immediately, and _the graphic_, with its new ideals and new artists, quickly established a convention of its own, which is no less interesting. if it does not seem, so far as we can estimate, to have numbered among its articles men who are worthy in all respects to be placed by rossetti, millais, sandys, houghton, pinwell, fred walker, and the rest of the typical heroes of the sixties, yet in its own way it is a worthy beginning of a new epoch. before quitting our period, however, a certain aftermath of the rich harvest must not be forgotten; and this, despite the comparatively few items it contains, may be placed in a chapter by itself. [illustration: frederick sandys 'once a week' vol. vii. p. death of king warwolf] chapter x: the aftermath, a few belated volumes that thornbury's _legendary ballads_ (dated ) should be regarded as a most important volume in a collection of the 'sixties' is not odd, when you find that its eighty-one illustrations were reprinted from _once a week_. many of the drawings were republished in this book, with the poem they originally illustrated; others, however, were joined to quite different text. if the memories of those living are to be trusted, not a few of the artists concerned were extremely annoyed to find their designs applied to new purposes. to take a single instance, the sandys design to _king warwolf_ re-accompanied the poem itself, but the drawing by john lawson, which is herein supposed to illustrate the lines, 'and then there came a great red glare that seemed to crimson fitfully the whole broad heaven.' was first published with a poem, _ariadne_, by w. j. tate, in august , long after _king warwolf_ first appeared. its design is obviously based on this passage: 'my long hair floating in the boisterous wind, my white hands lightly grasping theseus' knees, while he, his wild eyes staring, urged his slaves to some last effort of their well-tried skill.' but it requires a great effort of perverted imagination to drag in the picture, which shows a greek hero on one ship, watching, you suppose, the dying norse king on another ship; when the ballad infers, and the dramatic situation implies, that the old monarch put out at once across the bar, and his people from the shore watched his ship burn in the night. to wrench such a picture from its context, and apply it to another, was a too popular device of publishers. as, however, it preserves good impressions of blocks otherwise inaccessible, it would be ungracious to single out this particular instance for blame. yet all the same, those who regard the artist's objection to the sale of _clichés_ for all sorts of purposes, as a merely sentimental grievance, must own that he is justified in being annoyed, when the whole intention of his work is burlesqued thereby. a contemporary review says that the illustrations had 'appeared before in _once a week_, _the cornhill_, and elsewhere.' it would be a long and ungrateful task to collate them, but, so far as my own memory can be trusted, they are all from the first named. in place of including a description of the book itself, a few extracts, from a review by mr. edmund gosse in the _academy_ (february , p. ), will not only give a vivid appreciation of the work of two of the artists, but show that twenty years ago the book was prized as highly as we prize it to-day. he says: 'we have thought the illustrations sufficiently interesting to demand a separate notice for themselves, the more so as in many cases they are totally unconnected with mr. thornbury's poems.... we are heartily glad to have collected for us some of the most typical illustrations of a school that is, above all others, most characteristic of our latest development in civilisation, and of which the principal members have died in their youth, and have failed to fulfil the greatness of their promise. 'the artists represented are mainly those who immediately followed the so-called pre-raphaelites, the young men who took up many of their principles, and carried them out in a more modern and a more quiet way than their more ambitious masters. mr. sandys, who pinned all his early faith to holbein, and messrs. walker, pinwell, lawless, and houghton, who promised to form a group of brother artists unrivalled in delicacy and originality of sentiment, are here in their earliest and strongest development.... m. j. lawless contributes no less than twenty designs to the volume. we have examined these singular and beautiful drawings, most of them old favourites, with peculiar emotion. the present writer [mr. edmund gosse] confesses to quite absurd affection for all the few relics of this gifted lad, whose early death seems to have deprived his great genius of all hope of fame. years ago these illustrations, by an unknown artist, keenly excited a curiosity which was not to be satisfied till we learned, with a sense of actual bereavement, that their author was dead. he seems to have scarcely lived to develop a final manner; with the excessive facility of a boy of high talent we find him incessantly imitating his elder rivals, but always with a difference.... no doubt, in m. j. lawless, english art sustained one of the sharpest losses it ever had to mourn. [illustration: w. holman hunt willmott's 'sacred poetry,' the lent jewels] [illustration: j. lawson 'once a week' vol. ii. n. s. p. ariadne] 'of pinwell no need to say so much. he has lived, not long enough indeed to fulfil the great promise of his youth, but to ensure his head a lasting laurel. there have been stronger intellects, purer colourists, surer draughtsmen among his contemporaries, but where shall we seek a spirit of poetry more pathetic, more subtle, more absolutely modern than his? the critics are for ever urging poets and painters to cultivate the materials that lie about them in the common household-life of to-day. it is not so easy to do so; it is not to be done by writing "idylls of the gutter and the gibbet"; it is not to be done by painting the working-man asleep by his baby's cradle. perhaps no one has done it with so deep and thorough a sympathy as pinwell; and it is sympathy that is needed, not curiosity or pity.' but it would be hardly fair to quote further from mr. gosse's appreciation twenty years ago of artists still living. the volume contains eight designs by sandys, namely, _labours of thor_ (_harold harfagr_), _king warwolf_, _the apparitor of the secret tribunal_ (_jacques de caumont_), _tintoretto_ (_yet once more on the organ play_), _the avatar of zeus_ (_the king at the gate_), _the search of ceres for proserpine_ (_helen and cassandra_), _the boy martyr_, _the three statues of egina_, and _the miller's meadow_ (_the old chartist_); the alternative title given in brackets is that of the original as it first appeared in _once a week_. to show how carelessly the author treated the artists, to whom, in a flowery preface, he says he owes so much, 'for they have given to his airy nothings a local habitation and a name, and have caught and fixed down on paper, like butterflies in an entomologist's cabinet, many a fleeting cynthia of his brain,' it will suffice to quote his profuse acknowledgments to 'mr. poynter, an old schoolfellow of the author's, and now professor in the london university, [who] has expended all his learning, taste, and thought in the _the three statues_. the drapery might be copied by a sculptor, it is arrayed with such fine artistic feeling, and over the whole the artist has thrown the solemnity of the subject, and has shown, in pluto's overshadowing arm, the vanity of all things under the sun--even the pure ambition of a great artist.' this charming eulogy, be it noted, is bestowed on a drawing that is by frederick sandys!!! not by poynter, who is unrepresented in the book. the four whistlers of _once a week_ are all here, absurdly renamed. there are twenty by m. j. lawless, seven by t. morten, ten by j. lawson, one by a. boyd houghton, two by fred walker, eight by g. j. pinwell, six by w. small, three by j. tenniel, three by f. eltze, and one each by j. d. watson, c. keene, g. du maurier, towneley green, c. green, t. r. macquoid, p. skelton, a. fairfield, e. h. corbould, and a. rich. the book is well printed, and a treasure-house of good things, which appear to more advantage upon its 'toned paper' than in the pages of the periodical where they first saw daylight. the preface to _dalziels' bible gallery_ is dated october , so that the volume was probably issued for the season of - . as we have seen, the work was in active preparation in the early sixties. it contained sixty-nine blocks excellently printed upon an india tint. these include nine by the late lord leighton, p.r.a., three by g. f. watts, r.a., five by f. r. pickersgill, r.a., twelve by e. j. poynter, r.a., three by e. armitage, r.a., two by h. h. armstead, r.a., one by sir e. burne-jones, one by holman hunt, three by ford madox brown, six by simeon solomon, two by a. boyd houghton, two by w. small, one by e. f. brewtnall, fourteen by t. dalziel, one by e. dalziel, two by a. murch, and one by f. s. walker, and one by frederick sandys. the praise lavished on these designs is amply justified if you regard them as a whole; but, turning over the pages critically after a long interval, there is a distinct sense of disillusion. at the time they seemed all masterpieces; sixteen years after they stand confessed as a very mixed group, some conscientious pot-boilers, others absolutely powerful and intensely individual. the book is monumental, both in its ambitious intention and in the fact that it commemorates a dead cause. it is easy to disparage the work of the engravers, but when we see what fine things owe their very existence to messrs. dalziels' enterprise, it is but just to pay due tribute to the firm, and to regret that so powerful an agency is no longer actively engaged in similar enterprises. [illustration: edward burne jones dalziels' 'bible gallery,' the parable of the boiling pot] [illustration: sir frederick leighton, p.r.a. dalziels' 'bible gallery,' cain and abel] [illustration: sir frederick leighton, p.r.a. dalziels' 'bible gallery,' moses viewing the promised land] [illustration: sir frederick leighton, p.r.a. dalziels' 'bible gallery,' abram and the angel] as copies are both scarce and costly, it may be well to call attention to a volume entitled _art pictures from the old testament_ (society for promoting christian knowledge, ), wherein the whole sixty-nine reappear supplemented by twenty-seven others, which would seem to have prepared for the _bible gallery_, but not previously issued: thirteen of these added designs are by simeon solomon, two by h. h. armstead, r.a., three by e. armitage, r.a., three by f. r. pickersgill, r.a., three by t. dalziel, and one each by f. s. waltges (_sic_), g. j. pinwell, and e. g. dalziel. as impressions of the famous blocks are obtainable at a low cost, it would be foolish to waste space upon detailed descriptions. of course the popular reprint ought not to be compared with the fine proofs of the great _édition-de-luxe_, which cost about twenty times as much. but for many purposes it is adequate, and gives an idea of the superb qualities of the leighton designs, and the vigour and strongly dramatic force of the poynters. it is interesting to compare sir edward burne-jones's original design for _the boiling pot_, reproduced in _pen-drawing and pen-draughtsmen by joseph pennell_ (macmillan, ), with the engraving, which is from an entirely different version of the subject. other drawings on wood obviously intended for this work, but never used, can be seen at south kensington museum. a few belated volumes still remain to be noticed--they are picked almost at random, and doubtless the list might be supplemented almost indefinitely: _the trial of sir jasper_, by s. c. hall (virtue, undated), with illustrations by gilbert, cruikshank, tenniel, birket foster, noel paton, and others, including w. eden thomson and g. h. boughton. the latter, a drawing quite in the mood of the sixties, seems to be the earliest illustration by its author. another design by h. r. robertson, of a dead body covered by a cloth in a large empty room, is too good to pass without comment. _beauties of english landscape_, drawn by birket foster, is a reprint, in collected form, of the works of this justly popular artist; it is interesting, but not comparable to the earlier volume with a similar title. in _nature pictures_, thirty original illustrations by j. h. dell, engraved by r. paterson (warne), the preface, dated october , refers to 'years of patient painstaking labour on the part of artist and engraver'; so that it is really a posthumous child of the sixties, and one not unworthy to a place among the best. _songs of many seasons_, by jemmett brown (pewtress and co., ), contains two little-known designs by walter crane, two by g. du maurier and one by c. m. (c. w. morgan). _pegasus re-saddled_ (h. s. king, ), with ten illustrations by g. du maurier is, as its title implies, a companion volume to the earlier _puck on pegasus_, by h. cholmondeley pennell. _the children's garland_ (macmillan, ), contains fourteen capital things by john lawson--no relative of 'cecil' or 'f. w. lawson.' _the lord's prayer_, illustrated by f. r. pickersgill, r.a., and henry alford, d.d. (longmans, ), has a curiously old-fashioned air. one fancies, and the preface supports the theory, that its nine designs should be considered not as an aftermath to the sixties, but as a presage of the time, near the date of _the music-master_. their vigorous attempt to employ modern costume in dignified compositions deserves more than patronising approval. any art-student to-day would discover a hundred faults, but their one virtue might prove beyond his grasp. although engraved on wood by dalziel, printed as they are upon a deep yellow tint, the pictures at first sight suggest lithographs, rather than wood-engravings. _rural england_, by l. seguin (strahan, ) has many delightful designs by millais and pinwell, but all, apparently, reprints of blocks used in _good words_ and elsewhere. possibly the whole series of mr. walter crane's toy-books, which began to be issued in the mid-sixties, should be noticed here; but they deserve a separate and complete iconography. in fact, any attempt to go beyond the arbitrary date is a mistake, and this chapter were best cut short, with full consciousness of its being a mere fragment which may find place in some future volume, upon 'the seventies,' that i hope may find its historian before long. [illustration: edward j. poynter, r.a. dalziels' 'bible gallery,' joseph before pharaoh] [illustration: edward j. poynter, r.a. dalziels' 'bible gallery,' pharaoh honours joseph] a book of this sort, which aimed to be complete, should contain a critical summary of the period it attempts to record. but to extract from the mass of material a clearly-defined purpose, and build up a plausible theory to show that all the diverse tendencies could be traced to a common purpose, would surely be at best merely an academic argument. all that the sixties prove, to a very sincere if incapable student, seems to be that the artist, if he be indeed an artist, can make the meanest material serve his purpose. the men of the sixties tried obviously to do their best. they took their art seriously, if not themselves. it is tempting to affirm that the tendency now is for no one to take himself seriously, and even at times to look upon his art, whatever it may be, as merely a useful medium to exploit for his own ends. yet such an opinion would be probably too sweeping; and one is driven back to the primal fact, that the energy and knowledge which results in masterly achievement is, and must always be, beyond rules, beyond schools, as it is beyond fashion or mood. a man who tries to do his best, if he be endowed with ripe knowledge and has the opportunity, will make a fine thing; which, whether intended for a penny paper, or a guinea gift-book, will possess both vitality and permanent value. but the men of the sixties took themselves quite seriously; and this is surely evident from their drawings. not a few committed suicide, or died from over-work; neither catastrophe being evidence of flippant content with the popularity they had achieved. whether inspired by pure zeal for art, by rivalry, or by money-making, they felt the game well worth the candle, and did all they could do to play it fairly. those of us to-day who try to do our best may be inept, ignorant, and attain only failure; yet the best is not achieved by accident, and the only moral of the sixties is the moral of the nineties: 'whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.' whether it be the triumph of a master or a pot-boiling illustrator, the real artist never takes his art lightly. life, even reputation, he may play with, but his craft is a serious thing. in short, the study of the thousands of designs--some obviously burlesqued by the engraver, others admirably rendered--will not leave an unprejudiced spectator with a cut and dried opinion. that, as it happened, a number of really distinguished men enlisted themselves as illustrators may be granted, but each one did his own work in his own way; and to summarise the complex record in a sentence to prove that any method, or any manner, is a royal road to greatness is impossible. yet no one familiar with the period can avoid a certain pride in the permanent evidence it has left, that english art in illustration, (no less than english music in the part-songs of the elizabethan period), has produced work worthy to be entered on the cosmopolitan roll of fame. this is unquestionable; and being granted, no more need be said, for an attempt to appraise the relative value of totally distinct things is always a foolish effort. chapter xi: certain influences upon the artists of the sixties although it would be retraversing beaten paths to trace the illustrator of the sixties back to bewick, or to still earlier progenitors in dürer or the florentines, there can be little doubt that the pre-raphaelites gave the first direct impulse to the newer school. that their work, scanty as it is, so far as book-illustration is concerned, set going the impulse which in kelmscott press editions, the birmingham school, the vale press, beardsley, bradley, and a host of others on both sides of the atlantic, is 'the movement' of the moment is too obvious to need stating. but for 'the sixties' proper, the paramount influence was millais--the millais after the pre-raphaelite brotherhood had disbanded. despite a very ingenious attempt to trace the influence of menzel upon the earlier men, many still doubt whether the true pre-raphaelites were not quite ignorant of the great german. later men--fred walker especially, and charles keene many years after--knew their menzel, and appreciated him as a few artists do to-day, and the man in the street may at no distant future. but some of the survivors of the pre-raphaelites, both formal and associated, deny all knowledge of menzel at this date; others, however, have told mr. joseph pennell that they did know his work, and that it had a distinct influence. some who did not know him then regret keenly that they were unaware of his very existence until they had abandoned illustration for painting. all agree, of course, in recognising the enormous personality of one who might be called, without exaggeration, the greatest illustrator of the century; so that, having stated the evidence as it stands, no more need be added, except a suggestion that the theory of menzel's influence, even upon those who declare they knew not the man, may be sound. an edition of _frederick the great_, by kügler, with five hundred illustrations by menzel, was published in england (according to the british museum catalogue, the book itself is undated) in .[ ] it is quite possible that any one of the men of the time might have seen it by chance, and turned over its pages ignorant of its artist's name. a few minutes is enough to influence a young artist, and the one who in all honesty declares he never heard of menzel may have been thus unconsciously influenced. but, if a foreign source must be found, so far as the pre-raphaelites are concerned, rethel seems a far more possible agent. his famous prints, _death the friend_ and _death the avenger_, had they met his eye, would doubtless have influenced mr. sandys, and many others who worked on similar lines. [illustration: ford madox brown dalziels' 'bible gallery,' elijah and the widow's son] whether lasinio's 'execrable engravings,' as ruskin calls them, or others, will be found to have exerted any influence, i have no evidence to bring forward. in fact the theory is advanced only as a working hypothesis, not as an argument capable of proof. it is possible that france at that time was an important factor as regards technique, as it has been since, and is still. but, without leaving our own shores, the logical sequence of development from bewick, through harvey, mulready and others, does not leave very many terrible gaps. it is true that this development is always erratic--now towards the good, now to meretricious qualities. the more one studies the matter, the more one fancies that certain drawings not intended for engraving by mulready, and others by maclise, must have had a large share in the movement which culminated about and died out entirely about . but whatever the influence which set it going, the ultimate result was british; and, for good or evil, one cannot avoid a feeling of pride that in the sixties there was art in england, not where it was officially expected perhaps, but in popular journals. it is quite possible that the revival of etching as a fine art, which took place early in the second half of this century, had no little direct influence on the illustration of the period. many artists, who are foremost as draughtsmen upon wood, experimented with the etcher's needle. _the germ_, , was illustrated by etchings; but, with every desire to develop this suggestion, it would be folly to regard the much discussed periodical as the true ancestor of _once a week_ and the rest; even the etching which millais prepared for it, but never issued, would not suffice to establish such claim. two societies, the etching club and the junior etching club, are responsible for the illustration of several volumes, wherein the etched line is used in a way almost identical with the same artists' manner when drawing for the engraver. indeed, the majority of these etchings would suffer little if reproduced by direct process to-day, as the finesse of _rebroussage_ and the more subtle qualities of biting and printing are not present conspicuously in the majority of the plates. the _poems by tom hood_, illustrated by the junior etching club, include two delightful millais', _the bridge of sighs and ruth_, a _lee shore_ by charles keene, and two illustrations to the _ode to the moon_, and _the elm-tree_ by henry moore. _passages from modern english poets_, illustrated by the junior etching club, was issued (undated), by day and son, in , in a large octavo. in another edition in larger quarto, with the etchings transferred to stone, and printed as lithographs, was published by william tegg. in this notable volume millais is represented by _summer indolence_ (p. ), a most graceful study of a girl lying on her back in a meadow with a small child, who is wearing a daisy chain, seated at her side. mr. j. mcneill whistler contributes two delightful landscapes, _the angler_ (p. ) and _a river scene_ (p. ). in these the master-hand is recognisable at a glance, although the authorship of many of the rest can only be discovered by the index. they would alone suffice to make the book a treasure to light upon. to praise them would be absurd, for one can conceive no more unnecessary verbiage than a eulogy of mr. whistler's etchings--one might as well praise the beauty of june sunshine. there are many other good things in the book--a tenniel, _war and glory_ (p. ), four capital studies by henry moore (pp. , , , ), which come as a revelation to those who only know him as a sea-painter. four others by m. j. lawless, an artist who has been neglected too long, _the drummer_ (p. ), _sisters of mercy_ (p. ), _the bivouac_ (p. ), and _the little shipwrights_ (p. ), are all interesting, if not quite so fascinating, as his drawings upon wood. h. s. marks has a _genre_ subject, _a study in the egyptian antiquity department of the british museum_. this portentous title describes an etching of a country lad in smock-frock, who, with dazed surprise, is staring into vacancy amid the gigantic scarabs, the great goddess pasht, and other familiar objects of the corridor leading to the refreshment-room in the great bloomsbury building, which people of grub street hurry through daily, with downcast eyes, to enjoy the frugal dainties that a beneficent institution permits them to take by way of sustenance during the intervals of study in the reading-room. another plate, _scene of the plague in london_, , by charles keene, would hardly tempt one to linger before it, but for its signature. it is a powerful bit of work, but does not show the hand of the great _punch_ artist at its best. the rest of the contributions to this volume are by c. rossiter, f. smallfield, viscount bury, lord g. fitzgerald, j. w. oakes, a. j. lewis, f. powell, j. sleigh, h. c. whaite, walter severn, and w. gale. two by j. clark deserve mention. to find the painter of cottage-life, with all his dutch realistic detail, in company with mr. whistler, is a curious instance of extremes meeting. without wishing to press the argument unduly, it is evident that etching which afterwards developed so bravely, and left so many fine examples, exerted also a secondary influence on the illustration of the sixties. hence the somewhat extended reference to the few books which employed it largely for illustrations. those who would have you believe that the great english masters of illustration failed to obtain contemporary appreciation should note the three editions of this work as one fact, among a score of others, which fails to support their theory. whether from a desire to extol the past or not, it is certain that those publishers who have been established more than a quarter of a century claim to have sold far larger editions of their high-priced illustrated volumes then than any moderately truthful publisher or editor would dare to claim for similar ventures to-day. of course there were fewer books of the sort issued, and the rivalry of illustrated journalism was infinitely less; still the people of the fifties, sixties, and seventies paid their tribute in gold freely and lavishly, and if they offered the last insult of the populace--popularity--to these undoubted works of art, it prevents one placing artists of the period among the noble army of martyrs. their payment was quite equal to that which is the average to-day, as a file-copy of one of the important magazines shows. they were reproduced as well as the means available permitted; the printing and the general 'get-up' of the books, allowing for the different ideals which obtained then, was not inferior to the average to-day, and, as a rule, the authorship of the drawings was duly acknowledged in the table of contents, and the artists 'starred' in contemporary advertisements. it is painful to own that even the new appreciation is not absolutely without precedent. one notable instance of depreciation cannot be forgotten. mr. ruskin, who never expressed admiration of the illustrations of the sixties, in _ariadne florentina_, chose the current number of the _cornhill magazine_ for the text of a diatribe in which the following passages occur:-- 'the cheap popular art cannot draw for you beauty, sense, or honesty; but every species of distorted folly and vice--the idiot, the blackguard, the coxcomb, the paltry fool, the degraded woman--are pictured for your honourable pleasure in every page, with clumsy caricature, struggling to render its dulness tolerable by insisting on defect--if, perchance, a penny or two may be coined out of the cockneys' itch for loathsomeness.... these ... are favourably representative of the entire art industry of the modern press--industry enslaved to the ghastly service of catching the last gleams in the glued eyes of the daily more bestial english mob--railroad born and bred, which drags itself about the black world it has withered under its breath. in the miserable competitive labour of finding new stimulus for the appetite--daily more gross, of this tyrannous mob, we may count as lost beyond any hope, the artists who are dull, docile, or distressed enough to submit to its demands. and for total result of our english engraving industry for the last hundred and fifty years, i find that practically at this moment [ ] i cannot get a _single_ piece of true, sweet, and comprehensible art to place for instruction in any children's school.' but ignoring mr. ruskin--if it be possible to ignore the absolute leader of taste in the sixties--we find little but praise. yet the popularity of - naturally incurred the inevitable law of reaction, and was at its lowest ebb in the eighties; but now late in the nineties our revived applause is but an echo of that which was awarded to the work when it appealed not only by all its art, but with novelty and an air of being 'up to date' that cannot, in the course of things, be ever again its portion. we are not so much better than our fathers, after all, in recognising the good things of the sixties, or in trying to do our best in our way. which is just what they tried to do in theirs. chapter xii: some illustrators of the sixties although space forbids biographical notice, even in the briefest form, of all the artists mentioned in the preceding pages, and it would be folly to summarise in a few hasty sentences the complete life-work of sir j. e. millais, p.r.a., sir john gilbert, r.a., mr. birket foster, or mr. g. du maurier, to take but a few instances; yet in the case of mr. arthur hughes, the late m. j. lawless, and others, to give more exact references to their published illustrations is perhaps easier in this way than any other, especially as a complete iconography of all the chief artists in the movement had perforce to be abandoned for want of space. many illustrators--ford madox brown, charles keene, a. boyd houghton, dante gabriel rossetti, w. b. scott, fred walker, and j. wolf--have already been commemorated in monographs; not confined, it is true, in every instance to the subject of this book, but naturally taking it as part of the life-work of the hero, even when, as in rossetti's case, the illustrations form but an infinitesimally small percentage of the works he produced. the artists hereafter noticed have been chosen entirely from the collector's standpoint, and with the intention of assisting those who wish to make representative or complete collections of the work of each particular man. * * * * * george housman thomas ( - ) was born in london, december , . when only fourteen he became apprenticed to g. bonner, a wood-engraver, and at fifteen obtained the prize of a silver palette from the society of arts, for an original drawing, _please to remember the grotto_. after he had served his apprenticeship, in conjunction with henry harrison he set up in paris as a wood-engraver. the firm became so successful that they employed six or seven assistants. he was then tempted to go to new york to establish an illustrated paper, which was also a success, although losses on other ventures forced the proprietors to give it up. this led the artist to turn his attention to another field of engraving for bank notes, which are estimated among the most beautiful of their kind. a few years later he returned to england, and became attached to the _illustrated london news_. in a special expedition to italy, which resulted in a long series of illustrations of garibaldi's defence of rome against the french, not merely established his lasting reputation, but incidentally extended his taste and knowledge by the opportunity it gave him for studying the works of the old masters. in a sketch of sailors belonging to the baltic fleet, which was published in the _illustrated london news_, attracted the attention of the queen, who caused inquiries to be made, which led to the artist being employed by her majesty to paint for her the principal events of her reign. besides a series of important paintings in oil, he executed a large number of drawings and sketches which form an album of great interest. 'as an illustrator of books he was remarkable,' says his anonymous biographer,[ ] 'for facility of execution and aptness of character.' his illustrations of _hiawatha_ (kent and co.), _armadale_ (wilkie collins), and _the last chronicle of barset_ (anthony trollope), are perhaps the most important; but _london society_, mrs. gatty's _parables_, _cassell's magazine_, _the quiver_, _illustrated readings_, and many other volumes of the period, contain numerous examples of his work in this department. in the person of his brother, mr. w. luson thomas, the managing director of the _graphic_ and the _daily graphic_, and his nephew, carmichael thomas, art director of the _graphic_, the family name is still associated with the most notable movement in illustration during the period which immediately followed that to which this book is devoted. * * * * * [illustration: ford madox brown dalziels' 'bible gallery' joseph's coat] sir john everett millais, bart., p.r.a. (born june , , died august , ).--as these proofs were being sent to press, the greatest illustrator of all (having regard to his place as the pioneer of the school which immediately succeeded the pre-raphaelites, the number of his designs, and their superlative excellence), has joined the majority of his fellow-workers in the sixties. it would be impossible in a few lines to summarise his contributions to the 'black-and-white' of english art; that task will doubtless be undertaken adequately. but, if all the rest of the work of the period were lost, his contributions alone might justly support every word that has been or will be said in praise of 'the golden decade.' from the _tennyson_ to his latest illustration he added masterpiece to masterpiece, and, were his triumphant career as a painter completely ignored, might yet be ranked as a great master on the strength of these alone. * * * * * paul gray ( - ).--a most promising young illustrator, whose early death was most keenly regretted by those who knew him best, paul gray was born in dublin, may , . he died november , . in the progress of this work mention has been made of all illustrations which it has been possible to identify; many of the cartoons for _fun_, being unsigned, could not be attributed to him with certainty. _the savage club papers_, first series (tinsley, ), contain his last drawing, _sweethearting_. in the preface we read: 'when this work was undertaken, that clever young artist [paul gray] was foremost in offering his co-operation; for he whom we mourned, and whose legacy of sorrow one had accepted, was his dear friend. the shock which his system, already weakened by the saddest of all maladies, received by the sudden death of that friend was more than his gentle spirit could sustain. he lived just long enough to finish his drawing, and then he left us to join his friend.' in the record of the periodicals of the sixties will be found many references to his work, which is, perhaps, most familiar in connection with charles kingsley's _hereward the wake_. * * * * * dante gabriel rossetti (_b._ , _d._ ). the comparatively few illustrations by rossetti have been described and reproduced so often, that it would seem superfluous to add a word more here. yet, recognising their influence to-day, we must also remember that many people who are attracted by this side of rossetti's art may not be familiar with the oft-told story of his career. he, more than any modern painter, would seem to be responsible for the present decorative school of illustrators, whose work has attracted unusual interest from many continental critics of late, and is recognised by them as peculiarly 'english.' while the man in the street would no doubt choose 'phiz,' cruikshank, leech, tenniel, gilbert, fred walker, or pinwell as typically 'english,' the foreigner prefers to regard the illustrations by rossetti, his immediate followers, and his later disciples as representing that english movement, which the native is apt to look upon as something exotic and bizarre. yet it is not necessary to discuss rossetti's position as founder of the pre-raphaelite school, nor to weigh his claims to the leadership against those of ford madox brown and holman hunt. but, without ignoring the black-and-white work of the two last named, there can be no doubt that it is rossetti who has most influenced subsequent draughtsmen. nor at the time was his position as an illustrator misunderstood. when we find that he received £ each for the small tennyson drawings on wood, the fact proves at the outset that the market value of his work was not ignored by his publishers. at the present day when any writer on men of the sixties is accused of an attempt to 'discover' them, and the appreciation he bestows is regarded as an attempt to glorify the appreciator at the expense of the appreciated, it is well to insist upon the fact that hardly one of the men in favour to-day failed to meet with substantial recognition at the time. it was not their fate to do drawings for love, or to publish engravings at their own cost, or sell as cheap curios works which now realise a thousand times their first cost. drawings paid for at the highest market rate, or, to speak more accurately, at 'star' prices, published in popular volumes that ran through large editions, received favourably by contemporary critics, and frequently alluded to as masterpieces by writers in current periodicals, cannot be said to have been neglected, nor have they even been out of favour with artists. that work, which has afforded so much lasting pleasure, was not achieved without an undue amount of pain, is easily proved in the case of rossetti. so pertinent is a description by his brother, published lately, that it may be quoted in full, to remind the illustrators of to-day, who draw on paper and card-board at their ease to any scale that pleases them, how much less exacting are the conditions under which they work than those encountered by the artists who were forced to draw upon an unpleasant surface of white pigment spread upon a shining wooden block:-- 'the tennyson designs, which were engraved on wood and published in the _illustrated tennyson_, in which millais, hunt, mulready, and others co-operated,' says mr. william michael rossetti, 'have in the long run done not a little to sustain my brother's reputation with the public. at the time they gave him endless trouble and small satisfaction. not indeed that the invention or the mere designing of these works was troublesome to him. he took great pains with them, but, as what he wrought at was always something which informed and glowed in his mind, he was not more tribulated by these than by other drawings. it must be said, also, that himself only, and not tennyson, was his guide. he drew just what he chose, taking from his author's text nothing more than a hint and an opportunity. the trouble came in with the engraver and the publisher. with some of the doings of the engraver, dalziel (not linton, whom he found much more conformable to his notion), he was grievously disappointed. he probably exasperated dalziel, and dalziel certainly exasperated him. blocks were re-worked upon and proofs sent back with vigour. the publisher, mr. moxon, was a still severer affliction. he called and he wrote. rossetti was not always up to time, though he tried his best to be so. in other instances he was up to time, but his engraver was not up to his mark. i believe that poor moxon suffered much, and that soon afterwards he died; but i do not lay any real blame on my brother, who worked strenuously and well. as to our great poet tennyson, who also ought to have counted for something in the whole affair, i gather that he really liked rossetti's designs when he saw them, and he was not without a perceptible liking and regard for rossetti himself, so far as he knew him (they had first met at mr. patmore's house in december ); but the illustration to _st. cecilia_ puzzled him not a little, and he had to give up the problem of what it had to do with his work.'[ ] later on, in the same volume, we find an extract from a letter dated february , which dante gabriel rossetti wrote to w. bell scott:-- 'i have designed five blocks for tennyson, save seven which are still cutting and maiming. it is a thankless task. after a fortnight's work my block goes to the engraver, like agag delicately, and is hewn in pieces before the lord harry. 'address to dalziel brothers 'o woodman spare that block, o gash not anyhow! it took ten days by clock, i'd fain protect it now. _chorus_--wild laughter from dalziels' workshop.' several versions of this incident are current, but mr. arthur hughes's account has not, i think, been published. it chanced that one day, during the time he was working in rossetti's studio, the engraver called, and finding rossetti was out, poured forth his trouble and stated his own view of the matter with spirit. for his defence, as he put it, much sympathy may be awarded to him. the curious drawings executed in pencil, ink, and red chalk, crammed with highly-wrought detail, that were to be translated into clean black and white, were, he declared, beyond the power of any engraver to translate successfully. how mr. hughes pacified him is a matter of no importance; but it is but fair to recollect that, even had the elaborate designs been executed with perfection of technique, any engraver must have needs encountered a task of no ordinary difficulty. when, however, the white coating had been rubbed away in parts, and all sorts of strokes in pen, pencil, and pigment added, it is not surprising that the paraphrase failed to please the designer. although the drawings naturally perished in the cutting, and cannot be brought forward as decisive evidence, we may believe that the engraver spoilt them, and yet also believe that no craftsman who ever lived would have been absolutely successful. the number of rossetti's book-illustrations is but ten in all, according to the list given in mr. william sharp's admirable monograph. to these one might perhaps add the frontispiece to that volume; as although the pen-drawing, _a sonnet is a moment's monument_, was never intended for reproduction, it forms a most decorative page. there is also a design for a frontispiece to the _early italian poets_, which was first reproduced in the _english illustrated magazine_, no. . the actual frontispiece was etched but never used, and the exquisitely dainty version survives only in two impressions from the plate, both owned by mr. fairfax murray. another frontispiece, to _the risen life_,[ ] a poem by r. c. jackson, in a cover designed by d. g. r. (r. elkins and co., castle st., east oxford st., w., ), belongs to the same category, in which may be placed _the queen's page_, drawn in , and reproduced in _flower pieces_ by allingham (reeves & turner, ). the ten which were all (i believe) drawn upon the wood include: _elfen-mere_, published first in william allingham's _the music-master_, , and afterwards reprinted in a later volume, _life and phantasy_, and again in _flower pieces_ ( ), by the same author. this design 'revealed to young burne-jones' (so his biographer, mr. malcolm bell, has recorded) that there existed a strange enchanting world beyond the hum-drum of this daily life--a world of radiant, many-coloured lights, of dim mysterious shadows, of harmonies of form and line, wherein to enter is to walk among the blest--that far-off world of art into which many a time since he has made his way and brought back visions of delight to show his fellow-men. the first suspicion of that land of faëry came to him when, in a small volume of poems by william allingham, he found a little wood-cut, 'elfen-mere,' signed with a curious entwinement of the initials d. g. r. the slumbering spirit of fancy awoke to life within him and cast her spells upon him never to be shaken off.' in the _oxford and cambridge magazine_, , mr. burne-jones wrote of this very design: 'there is one more i cannot help noticing, a drawing of higher finish and pretension than the last, from the pencil of rossetti, in allingham's _day and night songs_, just published. it is, i think, the most beautiful drawing for an illustration i have ever seen: the weird faces of the maids of elfen-mere, the musical, timed movement of their arms together as they sing, the face of the man, above all, are such as only a great artist could conceive.' this picture, 'three damsels clothed in white,' who came 'with their spindles every night; two and one, and three fair maidens, spinning to a pulsing cadence, singing songs of elfen-mere,' reproduced here, is still issued in william allingham's volume of poems entitled _flower pieces_ (reeves and turner, ). five illustrations to moxon's edition of _tennyson's poems_, , two in christina rossetti's _the goblin market and other poems_, , and two in _the princes progress and other poems_, , by the same author, complete the ten in question. as the _tennyson_ has been republished lately, and a monograph, _tennyson and his pre-raphaelite illustrators_, by g. somes layard (elliot stock, ), has brought together every available scrap of material connected with the famous quintette of designs, it would be superfluous to describe them here in detail. any distinctly recognised 'movement' is very rarely a _crescendo_, but nearly always a waning force that owes what energy it retains to the original impetus of its founder. should this statement be true of any fashion in art, it might be most easily supported, if applied to rossetti's ten drawings on wood, set side by side with the whole mass of modern 'decorative' illustration. even a great artist like howard pyle has hardly added a new motive to those crowded into these wood-engravings. the lady by the casement, '_the long hours come and go_,' upon the title-page of _the princes progress_, is an epitome of a thousand later attempts. mr. fairfax murray has collected over a dozen studies and preliminary drawings for this little block, that would appal some of the younger men as evidence of the intense care with which a masterpiece was wrought of old. highly-finished drawings were done over and over again until their author was satisfied. the frontispieces to _goblin market_ and to _the prince's progress_, no less than the tennyson designs, form, obviously enough, the treasure-trove whence later men have borrowed; too often exchanging the gold for very inferior currency. without attempting to give undue credit to rossetti, or denying that collateral influences--notably that of walter crane--had their share in the revival of the nineties, there can be no doubt that the strongest of the younger 'decorative' artists to-day are still fascinated by rossetti--no less irresistibly than 'the young burne-jones' was influenced in . therefore the importance of these ten designs cannot be exaggerated. whether you regard their influence as unwholesome, and regret the morbidity of the school that founded itself on them, or prefer to see in them the germ of a style entirely english in its renaissance, which has already spread over that continent which one had deemed inoculated against any british epidemic, the fact remains that rossetti is the golden milestone wherefrom all later work must needs be measured. no doubt the superb work of frederick sandys, had it been more accessible to the younger artists when the new impetus to decorative black-and-white began to attract a popular audience, would have found hardly as ardent disciples. [illustration: dante gabriel rossetti you should have wept her yesterday 'the prince's progress' ] * * * * * m. j. lawless (born , died ).--this artist, faithful to the best tradition of the pre-raphaelite illustrators, seems to have left few personal memories. born in , a son of barry lawless, a dublin solicitor, he was educated at prior park school, bath, and afterwards attended several drawing schools, and was for a time a pupil of henry o'neil, r.a. he died august , . mr. edward walford, who contributes a short notice of matthew james lawless to the _dictionary of national biography_, has only the barest details to record. nor do others, who knew him intimately, remember anything more than the ordinary routine of a short and uneventful life. but his artistic record is not meagre. in contemporary criticism we find him ranked with millais and sandys; not as equal to either, but as a worthy third. a fine picture of his, _the sick call_ (from the leathart collection), was exhibited again in at the guildhall. but it is by his work as an illustrator he will be remembered, and, despite the few years he practised, for his first published drawing was in _once a week_, december , (vol. i. p. ), he has left an honourable and not inconsiderable amount of work behind him. no search has lighted upon any work of his outside the pages of the popular magazines, except a few etchings (in the publications of the junior etching club), three designs of no great importance in _lyra germanica_ (longmans, ), and a pamphlet, the _life of st. patrick_, with some shocking engravings, said by his biographer to be from lawless's designs. in the chapters upon _once a week_, _london society_, _good words_, etc., every drawing i have been able to identify is duly noted. it is not easy to refrain from eulogy upon the work of a draughtsman with no little individuality and distinction, who has so far been almost completely forgotten by artists of the present day. the selection of his work reproduced here by the courtesy of the owners of the copyright will, perhaps, send many fresh admirers to hunt up the rest of it for themselves. * * * * * arthur boyd houghton ( - ) was born in , the fourth son of his father, who was a captain in the royal navy. he visited india, according to some of his biographers; others say that he was never in the east, but that it was a brother who supplied him with the oriental details that appear in so many of his drawings. be that as it may, his fellow-workers on the _arabian nights_ pretended to be jealous of his egyptian experience, and declared that it was no good trying to rival from their imaginings the scenes that he knew by heart. at present, when all men unite to praise him, it would almost lend colour to a belief that he was unappreciated by his fellows to read in a contemporary criticism: 'his designs were often striking in their effects of black and white, but were wanting in tone and gradation--a defect partly due to the loss of one eye.' this is only quoted by way of encouragement to living illustrators, who forget that their hero, despite sympathy and commissions, suffered also much the same misunderstanding that is often their lot. against this may be set a criticism of yesterday, which runs:-- 'as regards "the school of the sixties," now that it has moved away, we can rightly range the heads of that movement, and allowing for side impulses from the technique of menzel, and still more from the magnetism of rossetti's personality, we see, broadly speaking, that with millais it arrived, with houghton it ceased. under these two leaders it gathered others, but within ten years its essential work was done. it has all gone now nobly into the past from the hands of men, some still living, some dead but yesterday. 'in houghton's work, two things strike us especially, when we see it adequately to-day: its mastery of technique and style, and its temperament: the mastery so swift and spontaneous, so lavish of its audacities, so noble in its economies; the temperament so dramatic, so passionate, so satiric, and so witty. in many of his qualities, in vitality and movement, houghton tops millais. what is missing from his temperament, if it be a lack and not a quality, is the power to look at things coolly; he has not, as millais, the deep mood of stoical statement, of tragedy grown calm. his tragic note is vindictive, a little shrill: when he sets himself to depict contemporary life, as in the _graphic america_ series, he is sardonic, impatient, at times morose: his humour carries an edge of bitterness. but in whatever mood he looks at things, the mastery of his aim is certain.'[ ] [illustration: _drawn by a. boyd houghton._ _swan electro-engraving co._ reading the chronicles] the mass of work accomplished in illustration alone, between his first appearance and his death in , is amazing. there is scarce a periodical of any rank which has not at least one example from his pen. the curt attention given here to the man must be pardoned, as reference to his work is made on almost every page of this book. for an appreciative essay, that is a model of its class, one has but to turn to mr. laurence housman's volume[ ] which contains also five original drawings on wood (reproduced in photogravure) and eighty-three others from _dalziel's arabian nights_ (ward, lock & co., - and warne, ), _don quixote_, the two volumes of mr. robert buchanan's poems--_ballad stories of the affections_ ( ), and _north coast_ ( ), _home thoughts_ ( ), _national nursery rhymes_ ( ), and _the graphic_ ( ). * * * * * frederick walker[ ] ( - ), who was born in marylebone on the th of may , has been the subject of so many appreciations, and at least one admirable monograph, that a most brief notice of his career as an illustrator will suffice here. his father was a designer of jewelry and his grandfather had some skill in portrait-painting. how he began drawing from the elgin marbles in the british museum at the age of sixteen has been told often enough. many boys of sixteen have done the same, but it is open to doubt if any one of them has absorbed the spirit of their models so completely as fred walker did. it would be hardly asserting too much to say for him that they replaced humanity, and that his male figures seem nearly always youths from the parthenon in peasant costume. at seventeen or eighteen he was working at leigh's life-class in newman street, and at the same time was employed in mr. whymper's wood-engraving establishment. his first appearance in _everybody's journal_ is duly noted elsewhere, also his first drawing in _once a week_; but the peculiar affection he had inspired by his work has kept most of his critics from saying that some of his earliest designs, as we know them after engraving, appear distinctly poor. but, from the time he ceased to act as 'ghost' for thackeray, and signed his work with the familiar f. w., his career shows a distinct and sustained advance until the ill-fated , in which george mason, g. j. pinwell, and a. boyd houghton also died. it is unnecessary to recapitulate in brief the various contributions to the _cornhill magazine_, _good words_, _once a week_, etc., which have already been noted in detail. nor would it be in place here to dwell upon the personality of the artist; sufficient matter has been printed already to enable lovers of his works to construct a faithful portrait of their author--lovable and irritable, with innate genius and hereditary disease both provoking him to petulant outbursts that still live in his friends' memories. one anecdote will suffice. a group of well-known painters were strolling across a bridge on the upper thames. walker, who was passionately fond of music, had been playing on a tin whistle, which one of the party, half in joke, half weary of the fluting, struck from his mouth, so that it fell into the stream below. in a moment walker had thrown off his clothes, and, 'looking like a statue come to life, so exquisitely was he built,' plunged from the wall of the bridge, and, diving, rescued his tin whistle, which he bore to land in triumph. the trifling incident is an epitome of the character of the wayward boy, who kept his friends nevertheless. 'he did not seek beauty,' wrote an ardent student of his work, 'but it came, while pinwell thought of and strove for beauty always, yet often failed to secure it.' that he knew menzel, and was influenced by him, is an open secret; but he also owes much to the pre-raphaelites--millais especially. yet when all he learned from contemporary artists is fully credited, what is left, and it is by far the largest portion, is his own absolutely--owing nothing to any predecessor, except possibly to the sculptors of greece. he died in scotland in june , and was buried at the marlow he painted so delightfully, leaving behind him the peculiar immortality that is awarded more readily to a half-fulfilled life than to one which has accomplished all it set out to do, and has outlived its own reputation. * * * * * george john pinwell ( - ).--this notable illustrator, whose work bulks so largely in the latter half of the sixties, was born december , , and died september , . he studied at the newman street academy, entering in . at first his illustrations show little promise; some of the earliest, in _lilliput levée_, a book of delightful rhymes for children, by matthew browne, are singularly devoid of interest. no engraver's name appears on them, nor is it quite clear by what process they were reproduced. they are inserted plates, and, under a strong magnifying glass, the lines suggest lithography. the unfamiliar medium, supposing they were drawn in lithographic ink, or by graphotype, or some similar process, would account for the entire absence of the qualities that might have been expected. some others, in _hacco the dwarf_ and in _the happy home_, the latter in crude colours, are hardly more interesting. [illustration: a. boyd houghton 'good words' , p. my treasure] according to mr. harry quilter,[ ] pinwell began life as a butterman's boy in the city road, whose duty, among other things, was to 'stand outside the shop on saturday nights shouting buy! buy! buy!' later on he seems to have been a 'carpet-planner.' if one might read the words as 'carpet-designer,' the fact of turning up about this time at leigh's night-school, where he met fred walker, would not be quite so surprising. between walker and pinwell a friendship sprang up, but it seems to have been thomas white who introduced the former to _once a week_, wherein his first contribution, _the saturnalia_, was published, january , . in he began to work for messrs. dalziel on the _arabian nights_ and the _illustrated goldsmith_, which latter is his most important volume. in he became a member of the old water colour society, but his work as a colourist does not concern us here. nor is it necessary to recapitulate the enormous quantity of his designs which in magazines and books are noticed elsewhere in these pages. some illustrations to _jean ingelow's poems_, notably seven to _the high tide_, represent his best period. but he suffered terribly by translation at the engravers' hands. the immobility, which characterises so many of his figures, does not appear in the few drawings which survive. mr. pennell is the fortunate possessor of several of the designs for _the high tide_; but the pleasure of studying these originals is changed to pain when one remembers how many others were cut away by the engraver. it is curious that three men, so intimately associated as walker, pinwell, and houghton, should have preserved their individuality so entirely. it is impossible to confuse the work of any of them. walker infused a grace into the commonplace which, so far as the engravings are concerned, sometimes escaped pinwell's far more imaginative creations; while houghton lived in a world of his own, wherein all animate and inanimate objects obeyed the lines, the swirling curves, he delighted in. if, as has been well said, walker was a greek--but a dull greek--then pinwell may be called a naturalist with a touch of realism in his technique, while houghton was romantic to the core in essence and manipulation alike. * * * * * arthur hughes.--in appeared _the music-master_, the second enlarged and illustrated edition of _day and night songs_, a book of poems by william allingham, to which reference has been made several times in this chronicle. of its ten illustrations, seven and a vignette are from the hand of arthur hughes. the artist thus early associated with the leaders of the pre-raphaelite movement, and still actively at work, was never, technically, a member of the brotherhood. in , however, we find him one of the enthusiastic young artists rossetti had gathered round him with a view to the production of the so-called frescoes in the oxford union. the oft-told tale of this noble failure need not be repeated here. those who were responsible for the paintings in question appear more or less relieved to find that the work has ceased to exist. true, the majority of picture-lovers who have never seen them regard them, sentimentally, as the fine flower of pre-raphaelite art, which faded before it was fully open. judging from the restored fragments which remain, had they been permanent, they would not have been more than interesting curiosities; examples of the 'prentice efforts' of men who afterwards shaped the course of british art, not merely for their own generation, but, as we can see to-day, for a much longer time. the great difficulties of the task these ardent novices undertook so light-heartedly may or may not have checked the practice of wall-painting in england, if, indeed, one can speak of a check to a movement that never existed. to trace in detail the course of mr. hughes's work, from this date to the present, would be a pleasant and somewhat lengthy task. yet, although greater men are less fully dealt with, a running narrative showing where the illustrations appeared will be more valuable than any attempt to estimate the intrinsic value of the work, or explain its attractive quality. that the work is singularly lovable, and has found staunch and ardent admirers amid varying schools of artists, is unquestionable. without claiming that it equals the best work of the 'brotherhood,' it has a charm all its own. the sense of delight in lovely things is present throughout, nor does its elegance often degenerate to mere prettiness. the naïve expression of a child's ideal of lovely forms, with a curiously well-sustained type of beauty, neither greek nor gothic, yet having a touch of paganism in its mysticism, is always present in it. with a peculiarly individual manner--so that the signature, which is usually to be found in some unobtrusive corner, is needless,--a student of illustration can 'spot' an arthur hughes at the most rapid glance as surely as he could identify a du maurier. there are painters and draughtsmen of all periods, before whose work you are well content to cease from criticism, and to enjoy simply, with all their imperfections, the qualities that attract you. passionate intensity, the perfection of academic draughtsmanship, dramatic composition as it is usually understood, may, or may not, be always evident. whether they are or not is in this case of entirely secondary importance. certain indefinable qualities, lovable and lasting, are sure to be the most noticeable, whether you light on a print that has escaped you hitherto, or turn up one that you have known since the day it was published. like caters for the like, and this love which the work provokes from those to whom it appeals seems also its chief characteristic. in the whole mass of pictorial art you can hardly find its equal in this particular respect. the care and sorrow of life, its disillusions and injustice, are not so much forgotten, or set aside thoughtlessly, as recognised at their relative unimportance when contrasted with the widespread, yet absolutely indefinable thing, which it is convenient to term love. not, be it explained, love in its carnal sense, but, in an abstract spiritual way, which seeks the quiet happiness in adding to the joy of others, and trusts that somehow, somewhere, good is the final end of ill. it may be that this attempt to explain the impression of mr. hughes's work is a purely personal one, but it is one that intimate study for many years strengthens and raises to the unassailable position of a positive fact. at the risk of appearing mawkishly sentimental, even with the greater risk of reflecting sentimentality upon artistic work which it has not, this impression of mr. arthur hughes's art must be set down unmistakably. looking upon it from a purely technical aspect, you might find much to praise, and perhaps a little to criticise; but, taking it as an art addressed often enough to the purpose of forming artistic ideals in the minds of the young, you cannot but regret that the boys and girls of to-day, despite the army of artists of all ranks catering for them, cannot know the peculiar delight that the children of the sixties and early seventies enjoyed. arthur hughes was born in london in , and became a pupil of soames of the royal academy schools, exhibiting for the first time at the annual exhibition in . in appeared, as we have just seen, _the music-master_. the artist seems to have worked fitfully at illustrations, but his honourable labours in painting dispose of any charge of indolence, and, did but the scope of this work permit it, a still more interesting record of his artistic career could be made by including a list of pictures exhibited at the royal academy, the institute, the grosvenor, the new gallery, and elsewhere. between and i have found no illustrations, nor does he himself recall any. in the latter year there are two designs in _the queen_ to poems by george mac donald and f. greenwood. the next magazine illustration in order is _at the sepulchre_ in _good words_, . in appeared an edition of tennyson's _enoch arden_, with twenty-five illustrations by arthur hughes.' this noteworthy book is one of the essential volumes to those who make ever so small a collection of the books of the sixties. although the work is unequal, it contains some of his most delightful drawings. in the same year _london society_ contained _the farewell salutation_. in george mac donald's _dealings with the fairies_ was published. this dainty little book, which contains some very typical work, is exceptionally scarce. another book which was published in is now very difficult to run across in its first edition, _five days' entertainment at wentworth grange_, by f. t. palgrave, illustrated with seventeen designs, the woodcuts (_sic_) being by j. cooper, and a vignette engraved on steel by c. h. jeens. [illustration: arthur hughes 'good words' , p. the letter] [illustration: arthur hughes 'good words' , p. the dial--'sun comes, moon comes'] to belongs the book with which the artist is most frequently associated, _tom brown's school days_, by tom hughes, not a relative of the illustrator as the name might suggest. to descant on the merits of this edition to-day were foolish. when one hears of a new illustrated edition being contemplated, it seems sacrilege, and one realises how distinctly a newly illustrated _tom brown_ would separate the generation that knew the book through mr. arthur hughes's imagination from those who will make friends with it in company with another artist. incidents like these bring home the inevitable change of taste with passing time more vividly than far weightier matters enforce it. _good words_ in contains two drawings to _carmina nuptialia_, and _the sunday magazine_ the same year has a very beautiful composition, _blessings in disguise_. in - _good words for the young_ includes, in the first two volumes, no less than seventy-six illustrations by mr. hughes to _at the back of the north wind_, fourteen to _the boy in grey_, thirty to _ranald bannerman's boyhood_, thirty to _the princess and goblin_, ten to _lilliput revels_, six to _lilliput lectures_, and two to _king arthur_, besides one each to _fancy_, _the mariner's cave_, and a notable design to _the wind and the moon_. in also belongs _my lady wind_ (p. ), _little tommy tucker_ (p. ), in _novello's national nursery rhymes_. in _good words_ contains four: _the mother and the angel_ and three full-page designs, which rank among the most important of the artist's work in illustration, to tennyson's _loves of the wrens_. this song-cycle, which the late poet laureate wrote expressly for sullivan to set to music, was issued in in a sumptuous quarto. the publisher, strahan, who at that time issued all tennyson's work, had intended to include illustrations, and three were finished before the poet vetoed the project. these were cut down and issued with the accompanying lyrics in _good words_. although the artist, vexed no doubt at their curtailment, and by no means satisfied with their engraving, does not rank them among his best things, few who collect his work will share his view. despite the trespass beyond the limit of this book, it would be better to continue the list to date, and it is all too brief. in _good words_ contains five of his designs, and _good words for the young_ twenty-four to _innocent's island_, and eight to _gutta-percha willie_. saw two remarkably good volumes decorated by this artist, t. gordon hake's _parables and tales_ (chapman and hall) and _sing song_, a book of nursery rhymes by christina rossetti (routledge). in ten to _sindbad the sailor_, and six or seven others appeared in _good words for the young_, now entitled _good things_. to this year belongs also _speaking likenesses_ by christina rossetti, with its dozen fanciful and charming designs; and a frontispiece and full page (p. ), in mr. george mac donald's _england's antiphon_ (macmillan). in or _the graphic_ christmas number contained two full-page illustrations by this artist. to belongs a delightful vignette upon the title-page of mrs. george mac donald's _chamber dramas_. with a bare mention of seven drawings, inadequately reproduced in _the london home monthly_, , the record of mr. arthur hughes's work must close; several designs to a poem by jean ingelow, _the shepherd's lady_, the artist has lost sight of, and the date of the first edition of _five old friends and a young prince_, by miss thackeray, with a vignette, i have failed to trace at the british museum or elsewhere. as mr. arthur hughes, in the _music-master_ ( ), heads the list, so it seemed fit to mark his position by a fuller record than could be awarded to other of his contemporaries still living; partly because the comparatively small number of illustrations made a fairly complete record possible. * * * * * frederick sandys.--this most admirable illustrator 'was born in norwich in , the son of a painter of the place, from whom he received his earliest art-instruction. among his first drawings was a series of illustrations of the birds of norfolk, and another dealing with the antiquities of his native city. probably he first exhibited in , with a portrait (in crayons) of "henry, lord loftus" which appears as the work of "f. sands" in the catalogue of the royal academy to whose exhibitions he has contributed in all forty-seven pictures and drawings.'[ ] the above, extracted from mr. j. m. gray's article, 'frederick sandys and the woodcut designers of thirty years ago,' gives the facts which concern us here. a most interesting study of the same artist by the same critic, in the _art journal_,[ ] supplies more description and analysed appreciation. the eulogy by mr. joseph pennell in _the quarto_[ ] must not be forgotten. further references to mr. sandys appear in a lecture delivered by professor herkomer at the royal institution, printed in the _art journal_, , and in a review of thornbury's _ballads_ by mr. edmund gosse in _the academy_.[ ] [illustration: frederick sandys 'century guild hobby-horse' vol. iii. p. danae in the brazen chamber] [illustration: frederick sandys dalziels' 'bible gallery,' jacob hears the voice of the lord] it is quite possible, although only thirteen of the thirty or so of illustrations by frederick sandys appeared in _once a week_, that these thirteen have been the most potent factor in giving the magazine its peculiar place in the hearts of artists. the general public may have forgotten its early volumes, but at no time since they were published have painters and pen-draughtsmen failed to prize them. during the years that saw them appear there are frequent laudatory references in contemporary journals, with now and again the spiteful attack which is only awarded to work that is unlike the average. elsewhere mention is made of articles upon them which have appeared from time to time by messrs. edmund gosse, j. m. gray, joseph pennell, and others. during the 'seventies,' no less than in the 'eighties' or 'nineties,' men cut out the pages and kept them in their portfolios; so that to-day, in buying volumes of the magazine, a wise person is careful to see that the 'sandys' are all there before completing the purchase. therefore, should the larger public admit them formally into the limited group of its acknowledged masterpieces, it will only imitate the attitude which from the first fellow-artists have maintained towards them. the original drawings, '_if_,' _life's journey_, _the little mourner_, and _jacques de caumont_, were exhibited at the 'arts and crafts,' . that a companion volume to millais's _parables_, with illustrations of _the story of joseph_, was actually projected, and the first drawings completed, is true, and one's regret that circumstances--those hideous circumstances, which need not be explained fully, of an artist's ideas rejected by a too prudish publisher--prevented its completion, is perhaps the most depressing item recorded in the pages of this volume. that some thirty designs all told should have established the lasting reputation of an artist would be somewhat surprising, did not one realise that almost every one is a masterpiece of its kind. owing to the courtesy of all concerned, so large a number of these are reproduced herewith that a detailed description of each would be superfluous. but, at the risk of repeating a list already printed and reprinted, it is well to condense the scattered references in the foregoing pages in a convenient paragraph, wherein those republished in thornbury's _legendary ballads_ (chatto, ) are noted with an asterisk:-- the cornhill magazine: _the portent_ (' ), _manoli_ (' ), _cleopatra_ (' ); once a week: *_yet once more on the organ play_, _the sailor's bride_, _from my window_, *_three statues of Ægina_, _rosamund queen of the lombards_ (all ), *_the old chartist_, *_the king at the gate_, *_jacques de caumont_, *_king warwolf_, *_the boy martyr_, *_harold harfagr_ (all ' ), and _helen and cassandra_ (' ); good words: _until her death_ (' ), _sleep_ (' ); churchman's family magazine: *_the waiting time_ (' ); shilling magazine: _amor mundi_ (' ); the quiver: _advent of winter_ (' ); the argosy: _'if'_ (' ); the century guild hobby horse: _danae_ (' ); wilmot's sacred poetry: _life's journey_, _the little mourner_; cassell's family magazine: _proud maisie_ (' ); and dalziels' bible gallery: _jacob hears the voice of the lord_. [illustration: frederick sandys 'the quiver' october] in addition, it may be interesting to add notes of other drawings:--_the nightmare_ ( )[ ], a parody of _sir isumbras at the ford_, by millais, which shows a braying ass marked 'j. r.' (for john ruskin), with millais, rossetti, and holman hunt on his back; _morgan le fay_, reproduced as a double-page supplement in _the british architect_, october , ; a frontispiece, engraved on steel by j. saddler, for miss muloch's _christian's mistake_ (hurst and blackett), and another for _the shaving of shagpat_ (chapman and hall, ); a portrait of matthew arnold, engraved by o. lacour, published in _the english illustrated magazine_, january ; another of professor j. r. green, engraved by g. j. stodardt, in _the conquest of england_, ; and one of robert browning, published in _the magazine of art_ shortly after the poet's death; _miranda_, a drawing reproduced in _the century guild hobby horse_, vol. iii. p. ; _medea_, reproduced (as a silver-print photograph) in col. richard's poem of that name (chapman and hall, ); a reproduction of the original drawing for _amor mundi_, and studies for the same, in the two editions of mr. pennell's _pen-drawing and pen-draughtsmen_ (macmillan); a reproduction of an unfinished drawing on wood, _the spirit of the storm_, in _the quarto_ (no. , ); _proud maisie in pan_ ( ), reissued in _songs of the north_, and engraved by w. spielmayer (from the original in possession of dr. john todhunter) in the _english illustrated magazine_, may , and the original drawing for the _advent of winter_ and one of _two heads_, reproduced in j. m. gray's article in the _art journal_ (march ). whether the _judith_ here reproduced was originally drawn for engraving i cannot say. to add another eulogy of these works is hardly necessary at this moment, when their superb quality has provoked a still wider recognition than ever. concerning the engraving of some mr. sandys complained bitterly, but of others, notably the _danae_, he wrote in october : 'my drawing was most perfectly cut by swain, from my point of view, the best piece of wood-cutting of our time--mind i am not speaking of my work, but swain's.' to see that the artist's complaint was at times not unfounded one has but to compare the _advent of winter_ as it appears in a reproduction of the drawing (_art journal_, march ) and in _the quiver_. 'it was my best drawing entirely spoilt by the cutter,' he said; but this was perhaps a rather hasty criticism that is hardly proved up to the hilt by the published evidence. as a few contemporary criticisms quoted elsewhere go to prove, sandys was never ignored by artists nor by people of taste. to-day there are dozens of men in europe without popular appreciation at home or abroad, but surely if his fellows recognise the master-hand, it is of little moment whether the cheap periodicals ignore him, or publish more or less adequately illustrated articles on the man and his work. frederick sandys is and has been a name to conjure with for the last thirty years. though still alive, he has gained (i believe) no official recognition. but that is of little consequence. there are laureates uncrowned and presidents unelected still living among us whose lasting fame is more secure than that of many who have worn the empty titles without enjoying the unstinted approval of fellow-craftsmen which alone makes any honour worthy an artist's acceptance. * * * * * sir edward burne-jones.--the illustrations of this artist are so few that it is a matter of regret that they could not all be reproduced here. but the artist, without withholding permission, expressed a strong wish that they should not be reprinted. the two in _good words_ have been already named. others to a quite forgotten book must not be mentioned; but it is safe to say that no human being, who did not know by whom they were produced, would recognise them. a beautiful design[ ] for a frontispiece to mr. william morris's _love is enough_ was never engraved. the _nativity_ in gatty's _parables from nature_, and the one design in the _dalziel bible_ have already been named. many drawings for _cupid and psyche_, the first portion of a proposed illustrated folio edition of _the earthly paradise_, were actually engraved, some of the blocks being cut by mr. morris himself. several sets of impressions exist, and rumour for a long time babbled of a future kelmscott press edition. of his more recent designs nothing can be said here; besides being a quarter of a century later than the prescribed limits of the volume, they are as familiar as any modern work could be. * * * * * walter crane.--this popular artist was born in liverpool, august , , his father being sometime secretary and treasurer of the (then) liverpool academy. after a boyhood spent mostly at torquay the family came to london in . in he became a pupil of mr. w. j. linton, the well-known engraver, and remained with him for three years. about he first saw the work of burne-jones at the society of painters in water colours. these drawings, and some japanese toy-books which fell in his way, have no doubt strongly influenced his style; but the earlier pre-raphaelites and the _once a week_ school had been eagerly studied before. although mr. crane, with his distinctly individual manner, is not a typical artist of the sixties any more than of the seventies, or of to-day, and although his style had hardly found its full expression at that time, except in the toy-books, yet no record of the period could be complete without a notice of one whose loyalty to a particular style has done much to found the modern 'decorative school.' [illustration: walter crane 'good words' , p. treasure-trove] his first published drawing, _a man in the coils of a serpent_, appears in a quite forgotten magazine called _entertaining things_, vol. i. , p. (virtue); others, immature, and spoilt by the engraver, are in _the talking fire-irons_ and similar tracts by the rev. h. b. power. in many of the magazines, of which the contents are duly noted,--_good words_, _once a week_, _the argosy_, _london society_, etc.--reference has been already made to each of his drawings as it appeared therein. a bibliography of his work, to be exhaustive, would take up more room than space permitted here. as it will be the task of the one, whoever he may be, who undertakes to chronicle english illustrations of the seventies, it may be left without further notice. for, with the exception of the _new forest_ ( ), all the other books which may be called masterpieces of their order, _grimms' household stories_, _the necklace of princess fiorimonde_, _the baby's bouquet_, _baby's opera_, _Æsop's fables_, _flora's feast_, _queen summer_, the long series of mrs. molesworth's children's books, many 'coloured boards' for novels, and the rest, belong to a later period. to find that a large paper copy of _grimms' household stories_ fetched thirty-six pounds at lord leighton's sale is a proof that collectors of 'cranes' are already in full cry. two hundred and fifty copies of this book were issued in large paper; the copy in question, although handsomely bound, did not derive its value solely from that fact. modern readers rubbed their eyes to find a recent _édition de luxe_ fetching a record price; but, if certain signs are not misleading, the market value of many books of the sixties will show a rapid increase that will surprise the apathetic collector, who now regards them as commonplace. to believe that the worth of anything is just as much as it will bring is a most foolish test of intrinsic value; but, should the auctioneer's marked catalogue of a few years hence show that 'the sixties' produced works which coax the reluctant guineas out of the pockets of those who a short time before would not expend shillings, it will but reflect the well-seasoned verdict of artists for years past. in matters of science and of commerce the man in the street acts on the opinion of the expert, but in matters of art he usually prefers his own. if, when he wakens to the intrinsic value of objects about which artists know no difference of opinion, he has to pay heavily for his conceited belief in his own judgment, it is at once poetic justice and good common sense. space forbids, unfortunately, detailed notices of fred barnard, c. h. bennett, t. morten, george du maurier, john pettie, r.a., and many other deceased artists whose works have been frequently referred to in previous chapters. fairly complete iconographies had been prepared of the works of mr. birket foster, sir john gilbert, and ernest griset. these, and other no less important lists, have also been omitted for the same reason. nor is it necessary to include here notices of artists whose fame has been established in another realm of art--such as mr. whistler, mr. luke fildes, r.a., professor herkomer, r.a., messrs. w. q. orchardson, r.a., h. s. marks, r.a., h. h. armstead, r.a., edmund j. poynter, r.a., g. h. boughton, j. w. north, r.a., and george frederick watts, r.a. others, including w. small, charles green, sir john tenniel, would each require a volume, instead of a few paragraphs, to do even bare justice to the amazing quantity of notable illustrations they have produced. fortunately most of them are still alive and active, so that a more worthy excuse remains for omitting to give a complete iconography of each one here, for they belong to a far more extended period than is covered by this book. dalziel brothers the firm of dalziel brothers deserves more notice than it has received in the many incidental references throughout this book. to mr. thomas dalziel (still alive though past fourscore) and to his brother edward may be awarded the credit of exercising keen critical judgment in the discovery of latent talent among the art students of their day, and of acting as liberal patrons of the art of illustration. in a most courteous letter, written in reply to my request for some details of the establishment of the firm, the youngest brother of the four (mr. thomas dalziel) writes: 'we were constant and untiring workers with our own hands, untiring because it was truly a labour of love. the extension and development of our transactions and the carrying out of many of the fine art works which we published, is unquestionably due to my brother edward dalziel, and to this i am at all times ready to bear unhesitating testimony.' that these talented engravers were draughtsmen of no mean order might be proved in a hundred instances; one or two blocks here reprinted will suffice to establish their right to an honourable position as illustrators. [illustration: t. dalziel dalziels' 'arabian nights,' p. bedreddin hassan and the pastrycook] [illustration: t. dalziel dalziels' 'bible gallery,' the destruction of sodom] among the young artists to whom they gave commissions, at the time in a student's career when encouragement of that description is so vital, we find:--fred walker, g. j. pinwell, a. boyd houghton, j. d. watson, john pettie, r.a., professor herkomer, r.a., j. w. north, a.r.a., and fred barnard. artists of eminence, who in all human probability would never have experimented in drawing upon wood but for messrs. dalziels' suggestion, include the late lord leighton, p.r.a., mr. g. f. watts, r.a., and mr. h. stacy marks, r.a. other illustrators who owe much to the enterprise of this firm, and who in turn helped to make its reputation, include mr. birket foster, sir john gilbert, r.a., mr. george du maurier, sir john tenniel, and mr. harrison weir. it has been impossible to credit these engravers with their due share in every work mentioned in our pages, because to do this would have necessitated, in common justice, a complete record of the other engravers also; in itself enough to double the length of the chronicle already far too verbose. the engravings in _punch_ in its early years, and the _cornhill_ through its finest period, were intrusted to messrs. dalziel, while of _good words_ and _the sunday magazine_ the choice of pictures and their reproduction alike were entirely under their control. the dalziel brothers were born at wooler, northumberland, but spent most of their early days in newcastle-on-tyne. their craft was learned from pupils of thomas bewick. in george dalziel came to london, followed soon after by edward, and later by john and thomas. they were all draughtsmen as well as engravers. thomas devoted himself entirely to drawing. there was also a sister, 'margaret' (who died in ), who practised the art of wood-engraving for many years, with results distinguished for their minute elaboration and fine feeling. soon after settling in london, george was associated with ebenezer landells (who died in ); and the brothers later became intimate with bewick's favourite pupil, william harvey, for whom they engraved many of his drawings for lane's _arabian nights_, charles knight's _shakespeare_ and _bunyan_, and many other works. still later they became acquainted with [sir] john gilbert, and were 'the first who endeavoured to render his drawings throughout according to his own style of lining and suggested manipulation.' their effort was to translate the draughtsman's line, not to paraphrase it by tint-cutting. as a former apologist has written: 'this has been called "facsimile work"; but it is not so, strictly speaking. certainly, whatever it may be called, it required as much artistic knowledge and taste to produce a good result as the so-called tint-work against which they [dalziel brothers] have no word to say, having practised that branch of art to a considerable extent, as may be seen in hundreds of instances, but perhaps most notably in the rev. j. g. wood's _natural history_ and _the history of man_.' the dalziels had clever pupils to whom they attribute most readily no little of their success; of these harry fenn and c. kingdon, who both went to america, may be specially mentioned. but a record of so notable an enterprise cannot be adequately treated here; yet a few authorised facts must needs find place. did space permit, the eulogies of many artists who were entirely satisfied with messrs. dalziels' engraving could be quoted as a set-off to the few, rossetti included, who were querulous. it would be invidious to pick out their best work, but millais's _parables_, birket foster's _beauties of english landscape_, and the illustrated editions of classics: _don quixote_, _arabian nights_, _goldsmith's works_, _the bible gallery_, etc. etc., which bear their imprint, may be numbered among their highest achievements. the share of mr. edmund evans in many notable volumes that owe at least a moiety of their interest to his engraving, and of messrs. swain, must needs be left without comment. mr. joseph swain contributed to _good words_ in some very interesting articles on fred walker, c. h. bennett, and g. j. pinwell. these have since been issued in a volume,[ ] with essays, by various hands, on frederick shields, [sir] john tenniel, and others. it contains ninety illustrations, including the rare early 'fred walker' from _everybody's journal_, and specimens of mr. shields's illustrations to an edition of _the pilgrim's progress_, published (apparently) by the _manchester examiner_. but so far as i know, neither mr. evans nor messrs. swain (in the sixties at all events) projected works as messrs. dalziel did; and the appreciation which they merit, in their own field, would be unfairly recorded in a few hasty lines. index abner, j., . absolon, j., illustrations to beattie and collins's 'poems,' . adams's 'sacred allegories' ( ), illustrations to, by cope, birket foster, horsley, hicks, and s. palmer, , . 'adventures of philip,' . 'Æsop's fables' ( ), tenniel's illustrations to, . ( ) c. h. bennett, . ( ) h. weir, . ( ) e. griset, . 'alice in wonderland' ( ), tenniel's illustrations to, . allen, w. j., . allingham's 'the music-master' ( ), , , , , , . ---- 'day and night songs,' , . ---- 'flower pieces,' . ---- 'life and phantasy,' . _ally sloper_, . andrews, g. h., . andrews, j., . anelay, h., , . 'anglers of the dove,' millais's illustrations to, . ansdell, r., . 'arabian nights' ( ), w. harvey's illustrations to, . ---- dalziels' edition ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, t. and e. dalziel, g. j. pinwell, t. morten, j. tenniel, and j. d. watson, . ---- (warne, ) illustrations by boyd houghton, etc., . archer, j., . _argosy_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . boyd houghton, a., . crane, w., , . edwards, m. e., , . gray, paul, . hughes, e., . lawson, j., . mahoney, j., . pinwell, g. j., . sandys, f., . small, w., . 'armadale,' , . armitage, e., ; illustrations to: 'lyra germanica,' , . 'pupils of st. john the divine,' . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . armstead, h. h., illustrations to: _good words_, . 'albert memorial,' , . _churchman's family magazine_, . eliza cook's 'poems,' . 'sacred poetry,' . 'touches of nature,' . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . 'art pictures from old testament,' . armytage, j. c., . art, the new appreciation for, - . ---- old and new tastes in, . ---- of the 'sixties,' - , . ---- of the 'thirties,' . ---- black and white, . ---- influence of great exhibition of on, . 'art and song' ( ), . _art journal_, . artists of the 'sixties,' contemporary appreciation of, . ---- comparison with present-day artists, . ---- collectors of the works of, . ---- of the 'thirties,' . ---- value of, in various mediums, . ---- considerations which influence their quality of work, . 'art pictures from the old testament' ( ), reprints of the illustrations in the 'bible gallery,' , . _art union_, . 'aunt sally's life' ( ), illustrations by g. thomas, . _aunt judy's magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . bayes, a. w., . caldecott, r., . cooper, a. w., . cruikshank, g., . edwards, m. e., . gilbert, f., . griset, e., . lawson, f. w., . morten, t., . pasquier, j. a., . wehner, e. h., . aytoun's 'lays of the scottish cavaliers' ( ), illustrations by noel paton, . bagford, john, . 'ballads and songs of brittany' ( ), illustrations by c. keene and j. e. millais, . _band of hope, the_, . ---- _review_, illustrations and illustrators of, , ; characters of, . anelay, h., . barnes, r., . gilbert, sir j., . huard, l., . weir, h., . wolf, j., . barbauld's 'hymns in prose' ( ), illustrations by barnes and whymper, . barnard, f., , illustrations to: _once a week_, . _good words_, . _london society_, . _cassell's magazine_, . _broadway_, . _good words for the young_, . _fun_, . cassell's 'illustrated readings,' . dickens's 'works' (household edition), . 'episodes of fiction,' . barnes, g. a., . barnes, r., illustrations to: _once a week_, - . _cornhill magazine_, , . _good words_, , . _london society_, , , . _churchman's family magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, , , , . _cassell's magazine_, . _quiver_, , . _british workman_, . _band of hope review_, . _leisure hour_, . _sunday at home_, . _golden hours_, . 'our life,' . 'the months illustrated,' . 'pictures of english life,' . 'sybil and her snowball,' . 'touches of nature,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' . 'christian lyrics,' . 'original poems' (taylor), . gray's 'elegy,' . baxter (_ally sloper_), . bayes, a. w., , , , , , , , . beattie and collins's 'poems,' illustrations by j. absolon, . 'beauties of english landscape,' . ---- illustrations by b. foster, . _beeton's annuals_, illustrators of, : bennett, c. h., . cruikshank, g., . morten, t., . pasquier, j. a., . thomson, j. g., . _belgravia_, illustrations of, . benham, j. e., . bennett, c. h., illustrations to: 'the excursion train,' _cornhill magazine_, . _good words_, . _london society_, , , . _every boy's magazine_, . _beeton's annuals_, . _illustrated london news_, . 'fables of Æsop,' . 'proverbs with pictures,' . 'pilgrim's progress,' . quarles's 'emblems,' . 'stories little breeches told,' . 'london people,' . 'mrs. wind and madam rain,' . lemon's 'fairy tales,' . bewick, collectors of, . 'bible gallery.' _see_ dalziel. 'bible woodcuts,' . bird, j. a. h., . black and white art, . b[lackburn], j., illustrations to _good words_, , . blake, collectors of, . blair's 'grave' ( ), illustrations by tenniel, . 'bon gaultier ballads' ( ), illustrations to, by doyle, leech, and crowquill, . books, illustrated, the destruction of, for collecting purposes, . ---- the difficulty of collecting them, . ---- the value of dates in, , . ---- difficulties in compiling a complete bibliography of, . 'book of british ballads' (s. c. hall, ), . 'book of celebrated poems,' illustrations by cope and k. meadows, . 'book of favourite modern ballads' ( ), illustrations by cope, horsley, a. solomon, and s. palmer, . 'book of job' ( ), illustrated by j. gilbert, . borders, f., . boughton, g. h., viii, , . _bow bells_, . bowers, g., , . 'boy pilgrims,' the ( ), illustrations by a. boyd houghton, . 'boy's book of ballads' ( ), illustrations by sir j. gilbert, . _boy's own magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . bayes, a. w., . dudley, r., . pasquier, j. a., . thomson, j. g., . boyd houghton, a., illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _good words_, , , , , , , . _london society_, , , . _churchman's family magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, - . _argosy_, . _quiver_, , . _tinsley's magazine_, . _broadway_, . _good words for the young_, , . _golden hours_, . _every boy's magazine_, . _fun_, . _illustrated london news_, . _graphic_, , . dalziels' 'arabian nights,' , . 'victorian history of england,' . 'a round of days,' . 'home thoughts and home scenes,' , . 'happy day stories,' . 'arabian nights,' , . 'don quixote,' , . 'ernie elton, the lazy boy,' . 'patient henry,' . 'stories told to a child,' . 'the boy pilgrims,' . jean ingelow's 'poems,' . 'ballad stories of the affections,' , . 'touches of nature,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' , . 'christian lyrics,' . 'spirit of praise,' . longfellow's 'poems,' , . 'north coast and other poems,' , . 'golden thoughts from golden fountains,' . 'savage club papers,' . 'nobility of life,' . novello's 'national nursery rhymes,' , . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' , . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . ---- biographical account of, , , . ---- the quality of his designs, . ---- catalogue of forty designs exhibited ( ), . ---- his great fecundity in work, . ---- mr. laurence housman's book on, , . bradley, b., - , , . brandling, h., . brewtnall (e. f.), , , . _britannia_, illustrations for, by matt morgan, . _british architect_, . _british workman_, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, . anelay, h., . barnes, r., . cruikshank, g., . cooper, a. w., . gilbert, sir j., . huard, l., . watson, j. d., . weir, harrison, . wyon, l. c., . _broadway, the_, illustrators of, . barnard, f., . barnes, g. a., . boyd houghton, a., . brunton, w., . edwards, m. e., . gray, paul, . griset, e., . huttula, r. c., . lawson, f. w., . morgan, matt, . nash, thomas, . pasquier, j. a., . thompson, alfred, . thomson, j. g., . brookes, warwick, . brown, ford madox, illustrations to: _once a week_, . _dark blue_, . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . 'lyra germanica,' . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . brown, isaac l., . brown, j. o., . browne, h. k. _see_ 'phiz.' browning (mrs.) 'ariadne in naxos,' . brunton, w., illustrations to: _london society_, , , . _tinsley's magazine_, . _broadway_, . _fun_, . buchanan's 'ballad stories of the affections' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, e. and t. dalziel, j. lawson, g. j. pinwell, w. small, and j. d. watson, . ---- 'north coast and other poems' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, e. and t. dalziel, g. j. pinwell, w. small, j. wolf, j. b. zwecker, . buckman, w. r., , . bunyan's 'pilgrim's progress' ( ), illustrations by: clayton, . ( ) j. h. thomas, . ( ) c. h. bennett, . ( ) d. scott and w. b. scott, . ( ) dalziel, . ( ) p. priolo and c. h. selous, . burne-jones (sir e.), illustrations to: _good words_, , , , . chaucer drawings, . 'parables from nature,' , . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' , . 'cupid and psyche,' . ---- on rossetti, . ---- summary of his work, . ---- design for 'love is enough,' . burns's 'poems and songs' ( ), illustrations by birket foster, . burton, w. p., , , . burton, w. s., illustrations to _once a week_, . bury, viscount, . bushnell, a., . caldecott, randolph, illustrations to _aunt judy's magazine_, . cameron, h., . caricaturists, victorian, , . carrick, j. m., . carroll's 'alice in wonderland' ( ), tenniel's illustrations to, . cassell and co., publications of, . _cassell's family paper_, . ---- illustrations by w. small, sir j. gilbert, l. huard, f. gilbert, and t. morten, . _cassell's magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, , , . barnard, f., . barnes, r., . bradley, b., , . browne, h. k., . corbould, e. h., . duckman, w. r., . edwards, m. e., , . ellis, e., . fildes, s. l., , . fraser, f. a., , . green, c., . green, t., . henley, . hughes, e., . lawson, j., . lawson, f. w., , . linton, j. d., . mahoney, j., . paterson, h., . pinwell, g. j., . pritchett, r. t., . ridley, m. w., . small, w., , . staniland, c. j., . thomas, g. h., . walker, f. s., . watson, j. d., . wirgman, t. b., . cassell's 'history of england' ( , vol. i.), illustrations by w. small, . ---- 'illustrated readings' ( ), illustrations by f. barnard, j. mahoney, s. l. fildes, w. small, and j. d. watson, . cassell, john, . _casket, the_, . 'chambers's household shakespeare' ( ), illustrations by k. halswelle, . 'chandos poets,' the ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, fraser, and french, . chatto and jackson's 'history of wood engraving,' , . 'childe harold' ( ), illustrations by skelton, , . 'children's garland,' the ( ), illustrations by j. lawson, . 'children's hour,' the ( ), illustrations by w. small, . 'children's sayings' ( ), illustrations by w. crane, . 'child's play' ( ), . 'choice series,' the ( ), illustrations by b. foster, gilbert, h. weir, etc., , . 'christian lyrics' ( ), illustrations by r. barnes, boyd houghton, etc., . 'christmas with the poets' ( ), illustrations by birket foster, , . _chromo-lithograph, the_, . _churchman's family magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, , , . allen, w. j., . armitage, e., . armstead, h. h., . barnes, r., boyd houghton, a., . claxton, f., . claxton, m., . cooper, a. w., . cope, c. w., . corbould, e. h., , creswick, . dalziel, t. b., . edwards, m. e., , . fitzcook, h., . friston, d. h., . green, c, , . horsley, j. c., . huard, l., . johnson, e. k., , justyne, p. w., . keyl, f. w., . lawless, m. j., . m'connell, w., . macquoid, t., . marks, h. s., . millais, j. e., . morten, t., , . pickersgill, f. r., . pinwell, g. j., . poynter, e. j., . priolo, p., . sanderson, h., . sandys, f., . selous, h. c., . skelton, p., . solomon, r., . sulman, t., . thomas, g. h., . vining, h. m., . watson, j. d., , . wehnert, e. h., . zwecker, j. b., . _churchman's shilling magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, . crane, w., . edwards, m. e., . huttula, r., . leigh, john, . clark, j., . clarke, e. f. c., , . claxton, a., illustrations to _london society_, . ---- other illustrations, , , , . claxton, florence, , , , . claxton, marshall, . clayton, john, illustrations to: herbert's 'poetical works,' . 'pilgrim's progress,' . pollok's 'course of time,' . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . 'dramatic scenes,' . 'lays of the holy land,' . 'home affections,' . krummacher's 'parables,' . _clichés_, beginning of the use of, . ---- bad influence on original productions, . 'cloister and the hearth,' the, . coleridge's 'ancient mariner' ( ), illustrations by: b. foster, a. duncan, and wehnert, . ( ), d. scott, . collecting, cost of, . collections, how to arrange, . ---- methods for preserving, . collectors, two objects of, - . ---- delights of, . ---- objects supplied by the present volume for, x. - . ---- dangers to be avoided by, . collins's (wilkie) 'armadale,' , . colomb, w., . cook's (eliza) 'poems' ( ), illustrations by armstead, j. gilbert, j. d. watson, h. weir, j. wolf, . cope, c. w., , , , , ; illustrations to: 'favourite english poems,' . 'book of favourite modern ballads,' . moore's 'irish melodies,' . cooke, e. w., . cooper, a. w., , , , , , , , , . corbould, e. h., , , , , , , , , . 'cornhill gallery': its quality and characteristics, , . _cornhill magazine_, . ---- aim of its editor, . ---- the anonymity of artists in, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, - . allingham, h., . barnes, r., , . bennett, c. h., . doyle, r., . du maurier, g., , , . edwards, m. e., . fildes, s. l., . herkomer, h., . hopkins, a., . hughes, a., . keene, c., . lawson, f. w., . leighton, f., . leslie, c. d., . millais, j. e., . paterson, h., . paton, noel, . pinwell, g. j., . sandys, f., , . small, w., . stone, marcus, . thackeray, w. m., , . walker, f., , , . cornwall (barry), 'dramatic scenes' ( ), illustrations by dalziel, clayton, . cowper's 'works,' illustrations by john gilbert, . ---- 'the task,' illustrations by birket foster, . crane, w., illustrations to: _once a week_, , . _good words_, , . _london society_, , , . _argosy_, , , . _churchman's shilling magazine_, . _every boy's magazine_, . _punch_, . _entertaining things_, . 'the new forest,' , . 'children's sayings,' . 'stories of old,' . toy-books, , . 'stories from memel,' . 'merry heart,' . 'king gab's story bag,' . 'magic of kindness,' . 'poetry of nature,' . roberts's 'legendary ballads,' . 'songs of many seasons,' . 'the necklace of princess fiorimonde,' . grimms' 'fairy tales,' . 'the baby's bouquet,' . 'baby's opera,' . Æsop's 'fables,' . 'flora's feast,' . 'queen summer,' . ---- critical and biographical notice of, , . ---- a pupil of w. j. linton, . ---- influence of burne-jones and japanese art, . creswick, t., , ; illustrations to: tennyson's 'poems,' . 'favourite english poems,' . 'early english poems,' . cropsey, j., . crowquill, a., ; illustrations to: 'bon gaultier ballads,' . 'munchausen,' . cruikshank (g.), collectors of, . ---- quality of his art work, , ; illustrations to: _london society_, . _british workman_, . _aunt judy's magazine_, . _beeton's annuals_, . 'ingoldsby legends,' . cruikshank, r., . cumming's 'life and lessons of our lord' ( ), illustrations by c. green, a. hunt, and p. skelton, . 'cycle of life,' the ( ), . dalziels' 'bible gallery' ( - ), illustrations by f. leighton, g. f. watts, f. r. pickersgill, e. j. poynter, e. armitage, h. h. armstead, burne-jones, holman hunt, madox brown, s. solomon, boyd houghton, w. small, e. f. brewtnall, e. and t. dalziel, a. murch, f. s. walker, and f. sandys, . dalziel, e., , , , , , , , , . dalziel, t. b., viii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , . ---- his own expressions about his work, . dalziels, the, , . ---- sketch of their careers, , , . ---- commissions given by them, . ---- works engraved by them, , . ---- their aims in engraving, . ---- their pupils, . 'dame dingle's fairy tales' ( ), illustrations by j. proctor, . 'dance of death,' . _dark blue_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . bird, j. a. h., . brown, ford madox, . clarke, e. f., . cooper, a. w., . fitzgerald, m., . freere, m. e., . friston, d. h., . hall, s. p., . hennessey, w. j., . lawson, cecil, . lawson, f. w., . perry, t. w., . ridley, t. w., . robinson, t., . solomon, simeon, . white, d. t., . darley, felix, , . 'day and night songs,' , . _day of rest_, . 'dealings with the fairies' ( ), illustrations by a. hughes, . defoe's 'history of the plague,' shield's illustrations to, , . defoe's 'robinson crusoe' ( ), illustrations by: j. d. watson, . ( ) g. h. thomas, . dell, j. h., illustrations to 'nature pictures,' . 'denis duval,' . 'deserted village' (etching club), . dickens's works, illustrations of, , . ---- 'household edition' ( ), illustrations by fred barnard, 'phiz,' j. mahoney, c. green, f. a. fraser, e. g. dalziel, s. l. fildes, h. french, g. b. frost, j. g. thomson, j. m'l. ralston, , . ---- 'edwin drood' ( ), illustrations by s. l. fildes, . 'divine and moral songs' ( ), illustrations by du maurier, m. e. edwards, c. green, morten, w. c. thomas, and g. d. watson, , . dobell, c., , , . dobson, w. t. c., . 'don quixote' ( ), illustrations by: dorÉ, , . boyd houghton, . dorÉ, g., . ---- illustrations to 'don quixote,' , . doyle, c. a., illustrations to _london society_, , . doyle, j. o., . doyle, r., 'pictures of society,' ; illustrations to: 'bon gaultier ballads,' . 'foreign tour of brown, jones, and robinson,' . 'manners and customs of the english,' . 'scouring of the white horse,' . 'puck on pegasus,' . 'an old fairy tale,' . 'lemon's fairy tales,' . 'in fairyland,' . drummond, j., . dudley, r., illustrations to: _london society_, , . _boys' own magazine_, . du maurier, g., illustrations to: _once a week_, , , , , . 'foul play,' . _cornhill_, , . 'wives and daughters,' , . 'harry richmond,' , . 'the hand of ethelberta,' . _good words_, . _london society_, , , , , . _leisure hour_, . _sunday at home_, . _punch_, , . 'sacred poetry,' . 'our life,' . watts's 'divine and moral songs,' . 'the moon shines full,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . 'touches of nature,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' , . 'story of a feather,' . 'lucile,' . 'savage club papers,' . 'pictures from english literature,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . 'songs of many seasons,' . 'pegasus re-saddled,' . duncan, a., illustrations to 'ancient mariner,' . duncan, e., , , , , . dunn, edith, . 'early english poems' ( ), illustrations by creswick, duncan, b. foster, j. gilbert, r. redgrave, and j. thomas, . edwards, d., . edwards, kate, , , . edwards, m. e., illustrations to: _once a week_, , , , , . _cornhill magazine_, . _good words_, . _london society_, - . _churchman's family magazine_, , . _sunday magazine_, , . _cassell's magazine_, , . _argosy_, , . _quiver_, . _churchman's shilling magazine_, . _broadway_, . _golden hours_, . _aunt judy's magazine_, . _illustrated times_, . 'parables from nature,' . 'puck on pegasus,' . 'family fairy tales,' . watts's 'divine and moral songs,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . 'mother's last words,' , . 'idyllic pictures,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' . 'illustrated book of sacred poems,' . ehrenger, j. w., . 'ellen montgomery's book-shelf' ( ), illustrations by j. d. watson, . eliot, g., 'romola,' . ---- 'brother jacob,' . ellis, e. j., , , . eltze, f., illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _good words_, . _sunday magazine_, . lemon's 'a new table-book,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . 'english sacred poetry of the olden time' ( ), illustrations by du maurier, c. green, j. w. north, j. tenniel, p. skelton, f. walker, and j. d. watson, , . engravers, old methods of, . ---- work in the 'sixties,' . ---- enterprise of, . engraving, responsibility of artist in, . ---- relation of publisher to, . ---- object of an, . ---- white line, . _entertaining things_, its rarity, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, , . boyd houghton, a., . crane, w., . du maurier, g., , . justyne, p., . linton, w. j., . m'connell, w., . morgan, m. s., . morten, t., . portch, j., . skill, f. j., . weedar, e., . 'episodes of fiction' ( ), illustrations by f. barnard, c. green, r. paterson, p. skelton, c. j. staniland, h. weir, etc., . 'ernie elton the lazy boy' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, . etching, influence of the revival of, , , , . etching club, the, , , . 'evan harrington,' keene's illustrations to, . evans, edmund, . _everybody's journal_, the british museum edition imperfect, . ---- illustrators of, . gilbert, sir, j., . morten, t., . walker, f., , . weir, harrison, . _every boy's magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, . bennett, c. h., . boyd houghton, a., . crane, walter, . morten, t., . nixon, j. forbes, . ridley, m. w., . _every week_, . ewart, h. c., 'toilers in art,' . exhibition of , influences of, on art, . fairfield, a. r., illustrations to: _once a week_, . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . falconer's 'the shipwreck' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, . 'family fairy tales' ( ), illustrations by m. e. edwards, . 'famous boys' ( ), illustrations by t. morten, . 'favourite english poems of the last two centuries' ( ), illustrations by cope, creswick, foster, . fildes, s. l., , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . fitzcook, h., . fitzgerald, lord g., . fitzgerald, m., . foster, birket, x, , , illustrations to: gray's 'elegy,' , . 'proverbial philosophy,' . longfellow's 'poems' ( ), . cowper's 'the task,' . adams's 'sacred allegories,' . herbert's 'poetical works,' . 'rhymes and roundelays,' . 'ministering children,' . 'ancient mariner,' . 'course of time,' . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . poe's 'poetical works,' . 'kavanagh,' . 'moore's poetry,' . burns's 'poems and songs,' . 'gertrude of wyoming,' . 'lays of the holy land,' . 'home affections,' . wordsworth's 'poems,' . 'merry days of england,' . 'favourite english poems,' . 'white doe of rylstone,' . 'comus,' . 'shipwreck,' . 'odes and sonnets,' . 'merchant of venice,' . 'the seasons,' . montgomery's 'poems,' . 'household song,' . goldsmith's 'poems,' . 'poetry of the elizabethan age,' . 'christmas with the poets,' . 'early english poems,' . 'pictures of english landscape,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . moore's 'irish melodies,' . 'choice series,' . 'standard poets,' . 'the trial of sir jasper,' . 'beauties of english landscape,' . ---- rage for his drawings, . 'flower pieces,' . 'foul play,' du maurier's illustrations to, . 'found drowned,' edwards's illustrations to, . 'four georges,' the, . foxe's 'book of martyrs' ( ?), r. barnes, boyd houghton, du maurier, m. e. edwards, j. gilbert, j. henley, j. lee, f. w. lawson, a. pasquier, t. morten, f. j. skill, w. small, g. h. thomas, and j. d. watson, , . 'framley parsonage,' . fraser, f. a., , illustrations to: _good words_, . _london society_, . _sunday magazine_, , , . _cassell's magazine_, , . _saint paul's_, . _good words for the young_, , . dickens's works (household edition), . chandos poets, . freere, m. e., . french, h., , , , , . friston, d. h., , , . frÖlich, l., , . frost, a. b., . _fun_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . barnard, f., . boyd houghton, a., . brunton, w., . gilbert, w. s., . henley, l. c., . lawson, f. w., . sanderson, h., . seccombe, lieutenant, . stretch, matt, . thomson, j. g., . walker, f. s., . fyfe, w., . gale, w., . gascoine, j., . gaskell, mrs., 'wives and daughters,' , . 'gems of literature' ( ), illustrations by noel paton, . 'gems of national poetry' ( ), . 'gertrude of wyoming' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, t. dalziel, h. weir, w. harvey, . giacomelli, illustrations to michelet's 'the bird,' . gilbert, f., , , . gilbert, sir john, x.; illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _london society_, , . _cassell's family paper_, . _british workman_, . _band of hope review_, . _leisure hour_, . _sunday at home_, . illustrations to cassell's serials, . _illustrated london news_, . 'the salamandrine,' , . 'proverbial philosophy,' . longfellow's 'poems' ( ), . ---- ( ), . cowper's 'works,' . eliza cook's 'poems,' . shakespeare's 'works,' . scott's 'lady of the lake,' . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . 'book of job,' . 'proverbs of solomon,' . 'lays of the holy land,' . 'home affections,' . wordsworth's 'poems,' . montgomery's 'poems,' . 'boy's book of ballads,' . 'sacred poetry,' . 'poetry of the elizabethan age,' . 'songs and sonnets of shakespeare,' . 'early english poems,' . 'months illustrated,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' . 'the choice series,' . 'standard poets,' . 'standard library' (hurst and blackett), . gilbert, w. s., illustrations to: _london society_, . _good words for the young_, . _fun_, . 'juvenile verse picture book,' . 'magic mirror,' . gilray, j., . goddard, g. b., , , , , . godwin, j., . godwin, t., . 'golden harp,' the ( ), illustrations by watson, etc., . _golden hours_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . barnes, r., . boyd houghton, a., . edwards, m. e., . green, t., . murray, c. o., . 'golden light' ( ), illustrations by a. w. bayes, . 'golden thoughts from golden fountains' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, w. p. burton, the dalziels, j. lawson, g. j. pinwell, and w. small, , . 'golden treasury series' ( ), illustrations by a. hughes, holman hunt, millais, noel paton, and t. woolner, . 'gold thread,' the ( ), illustrations by j. m'whirter and j. d. watson, . goldsmith's 'poems' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, . ---- 'works,' illustrations by pinwell (dalziel, ), . ---- 'deserted village,' illustrations by etching club, . goodall, e. a., . 'good fight,' a, . _good words_, . ---- poverty of early work in, . ---- good indexes in, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, - . armstead, h. h., , . barnard, f., . barnes, r., , . bennett, c. h., . b[lackburn], j., . boyd houghton, a., , , , , , , . brown, j. o., . buckman, r., . burne-jones, e., , , . bushnell, a., . cooke, e. w., . cooper, a. w., . crane, w., . dobell, c., . doyle, c. a., . drummond, j., . du maurier, g., . edwards, m. e., . fildes, s. l., , . fraser, f. a., . fyfe, w., . graham, t., , , . gray, p., . halswelle, k., . herkomer, h., . hughes, a., , , . hunt, holman, , . keene, c., . lawless, m. j., , , . lawson, j. w., . leighton, j., . linney, w., . linton, j. d., . linton, w. j., . lucas, h. j., . m'taggart, w., . m'whirter, j. w., . mahoney, j., . millais, j. e., , , , , . morten, t., , , . nicol, erskine, . north, j. w., . orchardson, , , . pettie, j., , , , , , . pinwell, g. j., , , , , . porter, j., . riviere, briton, . sandys, f., , , . solomon, s., , . small, w., , , , , . stanton, clark, . steele, gourlay, . taylor, hughes, . tenniel, j., , , , . walker, fred, , , . walker, francis, . watson, j. d., , , . whistler, j. m'n., . wolf, j., . zwecker, j. b., . _good words for the young_, . ---- its value to collectors, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, , , . barnard, f., . boyd houghton, , . brewtnall, e. f., . dalziel, e., . dalziel, t., . fraser, f. a., , . french, h., . gilbert, w. s., . green, c., . green, t., , . griset, e., , . hall, s. p., . herkomer, h., . hughes, a., , , . mahoney, j., , . pettie, j., . pinwell, c. j., . riviÈre, b., . small, w., . sulman, t., . walker, f. s., , . wiegand, w. j., , . zwecker, j. b., , . gosse, e., . ---- on thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' , . ---- on sandys, . _germ, the_ ( ), . graham, p., . graham, t., illustrations to _good words_, , , . _graphic, the_, its influence on english illustration, . ---- w. small's work in it, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, , . boyd houghton, a., . fildes, s. l., . green, c., . herkomer, h., . macbeth, r. w., . pinwell, c. j., . small, w., . _graphic_ school, . graphotype, , . ---- the beginning of 'process-work,' . ---- its principle and development, . ---- illustrations in _punch and judy_, . ---- watts's 'songs,' , . gray's 'elegy' ( ), illustrations to, by b. foster and g. thomas, . ( ) r. barnes, b. foster, wimperis, etc., . gray, j. m., . ---- paper on sandys in _art journal_, . gray, paul, illustrations to: _once a week_, , . _good words_, . _london society_, , . _shilling magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, , . _argosy_, . _quiver_, . _broadway_, . _punch_, . 'a round of days,' . 'jingles and jokes for little folks,' . 'touches of nature,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . 'spirit of praise,' . ---- biographical notice of, . ---- _fun_ cartoons, . ---- his last drawing in 'savage club papers,' . ---- illustrations to kingsley's 'hereward,' . gray, tom, . green, charles, illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _london society_, , . _churchman's family magazine_, , . _sunday magazine_, . _cassell's magazine_, . _good words for the young_, . _sunday at home_, . _illustrated london news_, . _graphic_, . 'sacred poetry,' . cumming's 'life of our lord,' . watts's 'divine and moral songs,' . 'nobility of life,' . 'choice series,' . dickens's works (household edition), . 'episodes of fiction,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . green, t., , , , , , . greenwell, dora, 'carmina crucis' ( ), . grimms' 'fairy tales,' illustrations by w. crane, . griset, e., , , , , , , . 'gulliver's travels' ( ?), illustrations by t. morten, . 'hacco the dwarf' ( ), illustrations by g. j. pinwell, , . haden, sir seymour, . halkett, g. r., viii. hall's 'book of british ballads' ( ), . hall, s. p., , , . hall's 'the trial of sir jasper,' illustrations by cruikshank, b. foster, gilbert, g. h. boughton, w. eden thomson, h. r. robertson, noel paton, and tenniel, . halswelle, k., illustrations to: _good words_, . 'pen and pencil pictures,' . scott's 'poems,' . 'standard poets' (routledge, etc.), . 'hampdens,' the, millais's illustrations to, . 'happy day stories,' . hardy, thomas, 'far from the madding crowd,' . ---- 'the hand of ethelberta,' . hardy, t. d., . _harper's magazine_, . 'harry richmond,' du maurier's illustrations to, , . harvey, w., illustrations to: 'arabian nights,' . milton's 'poetical works,' . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . 'gertrude of wyoming,' . montgomery's 'poems,' . heber's 'hymns' ( ), illustrations by w. lawson, t. d. scott, h. c. selous, p. skelton, and w. small, . henley, l. c., , , , . hennessey, w. j., . 'herberts of elfdale,' the, fred walker's illustrations to, . herbert's 'poetical works' ( ), illustrations by birket foster, j. clayton, h. n. humphreys, . herkomer, hubert, illustrations to: _cornhill magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, . _quiver_, . _good words for the young_, . _graphic_, . 'lecture on sandys,' . hicks, g. c., . 'history of wood engraving' (chatto and jackson), , . hogarth, w., . 'home affections' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, j. gilbert, clayton, h. weir, t. dalziel, s. read, j. abner, pickersgill, millais, tenniel, madot, , . 'home thoughts and home scenes' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, . 'home without hands' ( ), illustrations by f. w. keyl, . _hood's comic annuals_, . hood's 'miss kilmansegg' ( ), illustrations by seecombe, . ---- 'poems,' illustrations by junior etching club (millais, c. keene, and h. moore), . hooper, w. h., . horsley, j. c., , , , , , , . houghton. _see_ boyd houghton. 'household song' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, s. palmer, g. h. thomas, a. solomon, and j. andrews, , . housman, l., on boyd houghton, , . _howitt's journal of literature_, . huard, l., , , , , . hughes, arthur, illustrations to: _cornhill magazine_, . _good words_, , , , , . _london society_, , , . _sunday magazine_, , , . _good words for the young_, , , , . _the queen_, . _the graphic_, . _the london home monthly_, . tennyson's 'loves of the wrens,' , , . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . 'dealings with the fairies,' , . 'enoch arden,' , . 'five days' entertainment at wentworth grange,' , . 'tom brown's school days,' , . 'golden treasury series,' . 'national nursery rhymes,' . 'the music-master,' . designs for _the queen_, . hake's 'parables and tales,' . rossetti's 'sing song,' . 'sinbad the sailor,' . rossetti's 'speaking likenesses,' , . 'england's antiphon,' . 'chamber dramas,' . ingelow's 'the shepherd's lady,' . miss thackeray's 'five old friends,' . 'at the back of the north wind,' . 'ranald bannerman's boyhood,' . 'the princess and goblin,' . 'lilliput lectures,' . ---- biographical account of, - . ---- appreciation of his work, , . ---- his association with the pre-raphaelites, . ---- impression of his work, , . hughes, e., , , , , , , , . hughes, t., 'tom brown's school days' ( ), illustrations by a. hughes and s. p. hall, . hunt, alfred, , . hunt, holman, illustrations to: _once a week_, . _good words_, , . tennyson's 'poems,' . 'parables from nature,' . 'sacred poetry,' . watts's 'divine and moral songs,' . 'golden treasury series,' 'studies from life,' . humphrey's, h. n., illustrations to: herbert's 'poetical works,' . 'white doe of rylstone,' . thomson's 'seasons,' . hurst and blackett's 'standard library,' illustrations by f. sandys, holman hunt, j. gilbert, j. d. watson, j. leech, and e. hughes, , . huttula, r., . 'hymns for little children' ( ), . 'hyperion' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, . 'idyllic pictures' ( ), illustrations by r. barnes, boyd houghton, h. cameron, m. e. edwards, p. gray, r. p. leitch, g. j. pinwell, f. sandys, w. small, c. j. staniland, and g. h. thomas, , . illingworth, s. e., . 'illustrated book of sacred poems' ( ?), illustrations by m. e. edwards, j. w. north, h. c. selous, w. small, and j. d. watson, . _illustrated chronicle of the great exhibition_, . _illustrated family journal_, . _illustrated london news_, ; illustrations of the 'seventies,' . bennett, c. h., . boyd houghton, a., . corbould, e. h., . gilbert, j., . green, c., . hunt, alfred, . morgan, matt, . pasquier, j. a., . read, s., . thomas, george, . _illustrated times_, illustrations in, by a. claxton, f. claxton, m. e. edwards, lieutenant seccombe, p. skelton, t. sulman. _illustrated weekly news_, . illustration, reasons for serial issue of, ---- demand for, . ---- importance of, . ---- influence of 'process-work' on, . ---- earliest attempt of magazine, . ---- object of, . ---- to the early victorian novels, . ---- to the _cornhill_, , . ---- black and white, its requisites, , . ---- influence of photography on, . ---- preference of a drawing to a photograph, , . ---- in daily papers, . ---- new method employed in 'pleasures of memory' ( ), , . ---- regard for the older, . ---- comparisons of old and modern, . illustrator, position of the modern, , . ---- the popular artist of the period, , . ---- appreciation of, . ---- summary of the work of the sixties, , . ingelow, jean, 'poems' ( , to), ; illustrations to, by boyd houghton, e. and t. dalziel, j. w. north, e. j. poynter, g. j. pinwell, and j. wolf, , . 'ingoldsby legends,' the ( ), illustrations by cruikshank, leech, and tenniel, . jackson, mason, 'the pictorial press,' , . jackson's 'engraving.' _see_ chatto. jerrold's 'story of a feather' ( ), illustrations by du maurier, . 'jingles and jokes for little folks' ( ), illustrations by paul gray, . johnson, e. k., , . journalism, . _judy_, general poorness of its drawings, . ---- illustrated by matt morgan and j. proctor, . ---- value as representative of the 'eighties,' . junior etching club, , , , . justyne, p. w., . 'juvenile verse and picture book' ( ), gilbert, tenniel, r. cruikshank, weigall, and w. b. scott's illustrations to, . 'kavanagh' ( ), illustrations by birket foster, . keats's 'poetical works' ( ), illustrations by g. scharf, . keene, charles, . ---- quality of his work, ; illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _cornhill magazine_, . _good words_, . _london society_, - . _punch_, , . 'voyage of the _constance_,' , . 'lyra germanica,' . 'sacred poetry,' . 'mrs. caudle's curtain lectures,' . 'ballads and songs of brittany,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . 'touches of nature,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . hood's 'poems,' . 'passages from modern english poets,' . kennedy, t., . keyl, f. w., , , . 'king gab's story bag' ( ), illustrations by w. crane, . kingsley, c., 'hereward,' . ---- 'the water babies' ( ), illustrations by paton and skelton, . _kingston's annuals_, . 'krilof and his fables' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton and zwecker, . krummacher's 'parables' ( ), illustrations by clayton, , . 'lake county,' the ( ), illustrations by linton, . lamont, t. r., , . landon (l. e.), 'poetical works' ( ), illustrations by w. b. scott, . lasinio, his influence, . laurie's 'shilling entertainment library' ( ), . lawless, m. j., quality of his work, ; illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _good words_, , , , . _london society_, , , , , . _churchman's family magazine_, . _punch_, . 'lyra germanica,' , . 'life of st. patrick,' . _churchman's shilling magazine_, . 'touches of nature,' . 'legendary ballads,' , . 'passages from modern english poets,' . ---- biographical accounts of, , . ---- his picture 'the sick call,' . lawson, cecil, . lawson, f. w., illustrations to: _once a week_, - . _cornhill magazine_, . _london society_, - . _shilling magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, - . _cassell's magazine_, , . _quiver_, . _broadway_, . _dark blue_, . _aunt judy's magazine_, . _punch_, . _fun_, . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' . heber's 'hymns,' . lawson, j., - ; illustrations to: _good words_, . _sunday magazine_, , . _cassell's magazine_, . _argosy_, . _quiver_, . 'pen and pencil pictures,' . 'ballad stories of the affections,' . 'golden thoughts,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' , . 'children's garland,' . layard, g. s., 'tennyson and his pre-raphaelite illustrators,' , , . 'lays of the holy land' ( ), illustrations by millais, clayton, birket foster, gilbert, . lear's 'book of nonsense,' . lee, j., . leech (j.), collectors of, . ---- quality of his art work, , ; illustrations to: _once a week_, , . 'bon gaultier ballads,' . 'puck on pegasus,' . 'ingoldsby legends,' . hurst and blackett's 'standard library,' . 'legends and lyrics' ( ), illustrations by burton, carrick, du maurier, w. t. c. dobson, m. e. edwards, l. frÖlich, birket foster, john gilbert, charles keene, morten, w. h. millais, s. palmer, j. tenniel, and g. h. thomas, . leigh, john, . leighton, lord, p.r.a., illustrations to: 'cornhill gallery,' . _cornhill magazine_, . 'romola,' . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . leighton, john, , , ; illustrations to: 'lyra germanica,' , . 'moral emblems,' . dalziels' 'bible pictures,' . 'life of man symbolised,' . _leisure hour_, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, , , . barnes, r., . du maurier, g., . gilbert, sir j. (?), . green, c., . mahoney, j., . pritchett, r. t., . solomon, s., . staniland, c. j., . whymper, . leitch, r. p., , , , , . le jeune, h., designs to 'ministering children,' . lemon's, m., 'a new table-book' ( ), illustrations by f. eltze, . ---- 'fairy tales' ( ), illustrations by c. h. bennett and r. doyle, . leslie, g., . leslie's 'musical annual' ( ), illustrations by millais and pinwell, . lever, c., 'lord kilgobbin,' . lewis, a. j., . 'liber studiorum,' . 'life and phantasy,' . 'life of man symbolised' ( ), illustrations by john leighton, . 'life of st. patrick' ( ), illustrations by m. j. lawless, . 'lilliput lectures,' , . 'lilliput levée' ( ), illustrations by millais, pinwell, etc., , , . linney, w., . linton, j. d., illustrations to: _good words_, . _cassell's magazine_, . linton's 'masterpieces of engraving,' . linton, w. j., , ; illustrations to: wise's 'shakespeare,' . 'the lake country,' . 'little songs for me to sing' ( ), illustrations by j. e. millais, . 'little songs for little folks' ( ), illustrations by j. d. watson, . 'london garland,' the ( ), . _london journal, the_, . 'london people' ( ), illustrations by c. h. bennett, . _london reader_, . _london society_, account of its neglect, . ---- its excellence, , . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, - . barnard, f., . barnes, r., , , . bayes, a. w., . bennett, c. h., , , . boyd, m. a., . boyd houghton, a., , , . brown, isaac l., . brunton, w., , , . claxton, a., , , , . claxton, f., . cooper, a. w., , , . corbould, e. h., . crane, w., , . crowquill, a., . cruikshank, g., . darley, felix, . doyle, c. a., , . dudley, r., , . du maurier, g., - . edwards, k., , . edwards, m. e., - . ellis, e. j., , . fraser, f. a., . french, h., . foster, birket, . gascoine, j., . gilbert, f., . gilbert, sir j., , . gilbert, w. s., . goddard, g. b., , . godwin, t., . gray, p., , . gray, tom, . green, c., , . henley, l. c., , . huard, l., . hughes, a., , . illingworth, s. e., . johnson, e. k., . keene, c., - . lamont, t. r., . lawless, m. j., , , , . lawson, f. w., - . m'connell, w., . mahoney, j., , . marks, h. s., . millais, j. e., , . morgan, matt, . morten, t., - . paterson, h., . pasquier, j., , . pickersgill, f. r., . pinwell, g. j., , , . portch, j., . poynter, e. j., , . rice, . ridley, b., . sambourne, l., . sanderson, h., , . sandys, f., . sargent, waldo, . seccombe, t. s., . skill, f. j., . small, w., , , . solomon, rebecca, . stanton, h., . stone, marcus, , . sweeting, t., . thomas, g. h., , . thomas, w. cave, . thomas, w. l., . thomson, j. g., , . walker, francis, . walker, fred, . watson, j. d., - . wood, fane, . zwecker, j. b., . longfellow's 'hiawatha' ( ), illustrations to, by g. h. thomas, , . ---- 'poems' ( ), illustrations to: jane e. benham, birket foster, gilbert, and wehnert, . ( ) boyd houghton, etc., . longmans' 'new testament' ( ), . 'lord's prayer,' the ( ), illustrations by f. r. pickersgill, . luard, j., illustrations to _once a week_, . lucas, h. j., . 'lucile' ( ), illustrations by du maurier, . 'lyra germanica' ( ), illustrations by: j. leighton, h. s. marks, e. armitage, m. j. lawless, c. keene, . ( ) e. armitage, madox brown, and j. leighton, . m[acbeth], r., , , . m'connell, w., , , . mackay's ' gems of poetry' ( ), illustrations by millais, . maclise, (d.), illustrations to: tennyson's 'poems,' . 'the princess,' . macquoid, t. r., , . m'taggart, w., . m'whirter, j. w., illustrations to: _good words_, . _sunday magazine_, . 'the gold thread,' . wordsworth's 'poems for the young,' , . 'pen and pencil pictures,' . madot, a. w., , . _magazine of art_, . magazines, collecting of, . ---- precursors of weekly papers, . ---- earliest attempt of illustrated, . 'magic mirror,' the ( ), illustrations by w. s. gilbert, . 'magic of kindness,' the ( ), illustrations by w. crane, . mahoney, j., , , , ; illustrations to: _sunday magazine_, , , , . _cassell's magazine_, . _argosy_, . _quiver_, . _good words for the young_, , . _leisure hour_, . _sunday at home_, . 'touches of nature,' . cassell's 'illustrated readings,' . 'nobility of life,' . dickens's works (household edition), . 'scrambles on the alps,' . 'national nursery rhymes,' . marks, h. d., . marks, h. s., , , ; illustrations to: thornbury's 'legends of the cavaliers,' . 'lyra germanica,' . 'sacred poetry,' . 'two centuries of song,' . 'national nursery rhymes,' . 'passages from modern english poets,' . 'masterpieces of engraving,' (linton), . meadows, kenny, illustrations to 'book of celebrated poems,' . mearns, miss l., . 'melbourne house' ( ), . menzel, his influence on english illustrators, . ---- his illustrations to kügler's 'frederick the great,' , . meredith, g., 'evan harrington,' . ---- 'adventures of harry richmond,' , . 'merrie days of england' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, g. thomas, and corbould, . 'merrie heart,' the ( ), illustrations by w. crane, . michelet's 'the bird' ( ), illustrations by giacomelli, , . miles, helen j., . millais, sir j., p.r.a., illustrations to: trollope, , . _once a week_, , , , , . 'cornhill gallery,' . _cornhill magazine_, , . 'small house at allington,' , . _good words_, , , , , . _london society_, , . _churchman's family magazine_, . _saint paul's_, . _punch_, . tennyson's 'poems,' , . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . 'lays of the holy land,' . 'home affections,' . 'papers for thoughtful girls,' . 'puck on pegasus,' . 'parables of our lord,' , , , , . 'ballads and songs of brittany,' . 'little songs for me to sing,' . 'gems of poetry,' . 'collected illustrations,' . 'lilliput levée,' . 'golden treasury series,' . hurst and blackett's 'standard library,' . leslie's 'musical annual,' . hood's 'poems,' . 'passages for modern english poets,' . ---- characteristics of his work, , . ---- advantages in studying them, . ---- biographical notice of, , . ---- appreciation of his work, , . millais, w., , . milton's 'poetical works,' harvey's illustrations to, . ---- 'comus' ( ), illustrations by foster, pickersgill, and weir, . 'ministering children' ( ), illustrations by b. foster and h. le jeune, . 'mirage of life,' the ( ), illustrations by tenniel, . _mirror, the_, . 'modern illustration' (pennell), , . 'months illustrated by pen and pencil' ( ), illustrations by r. barnes, j. gilbert, and j. w. north, . moore (albert), illustrations to 'ode on the nativity,' . moore, h., illustrations to: hood's 'poems,' . 'passages from modern english poets,' . moore's 'poetry and pictures' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, . ---- 'poems' ( ), . ---- 'irish melodies' ( ), illustrations by c. w. cope, b. foster, and h. weir, , . 'moral emblems' ( ), illustrations by j. leighton, . 'mores ridicula' ( ), illustrations by j. e. rogers, . morgan, c. w., , ; illustrations to 'songs of many seasons,' . morgan, matt, , ; illustrations to: _britannia_ and the _tomahawk_, . _illustrated london news_, . morten, t., illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _good words_, , , . _london society_, , , , , . _churchman's family magazine_, , . _cassell's family paper_, . _every boy's magazine_, . _aunt judy's magazine_, . _beeton's annuals_, . 'famous boys,' . dalziels' 'arabian nights,' . 'a round of days,' . watts's 'divine and moral songs,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . 'two centuries of song,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' . 'gulliver's travels,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . 'mother's last words' ( ), illustrations by m. e. edwards and t. kennedy, . 'mrs. caudle's curtain lectures' ( ), illustrations by c. keene, . 'mrs. wind and madam rain' ( ), illustrations by c. h. bennett, . mulock (miss), 'the fairy book' ( ), illustrations by j. e. rogers, . mulready, w., illustrations in 'vicar of wakefield,' . ---- his influence on the 'sixties,' . ---- illustrations to tennyson's 'poems,' . 'munchausen' ( ), illustrations by a. crowquill, . murch, a., . murray, c. o., . murray, fairfax, viii; his rossetti collections, , . 'music-master,' , , , , . nash, t., . _nature and art_, . 'nature pictures' ( ), illustrations by j. h. dell, . 'new forest,' the ( ), illustrations by w. crane, . nicol erskine, illustrations to _good words_, . nixon, j. forbes, . 'nobility of life,' the ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, c. green, j. mahoney, e. j. poynter, francis walker, and j. d. watson, , . north, j. w., illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _good words_, . _sunday magazine_, , , . 'sacred poetry,' . 'our life,' . 'the months illustrated,' . 'a round of days,' . jean ingelow's 'poems,' . 'wayside poesies,' . 'touches of nature,' . 'spirit of praise,' . 'illustrated book of sacred poems,' . novello's 'national nursery rhymes' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, e. and t. dalziel, a. hughes, h. s. marks, j. mahoney, g. j. pinwell, w. small, w. j. wiegand, . oakes, j. w., . odd numbers, method for preserving, . 'ode on the morning of christ's nativity' ( ), illustrations by a. moore, w. small, etc., . 'odes and sonnets' ( ), illustrations by foster, sleigh, . 'old fairy tale,' an ( ), illustrations by r. doyle, . _olio, the_, . _once a week_, collectors of, , , . ---- its original aim, . ---- its characteristics, . ---- its success and merits, , . ---- its illustrations and illustrators, - . ansdell, , . barnard, f., . barnes, r., - . boyd houghton, a., , , . bradley, - . brewtnall, , . brown, ford madox, . burton, . crane, w., . dobell, c., . du maurier, g., , , , , . duncan, e., , , . edwards, kate, . edwards, m. e., , , , , . eltze, f., . fairfield, . fraser, a. w., , , . fildes, s. l., , , , . gilbert, sir j., , , . goddard, , , . gray, p., , . green, c., , , . green, t., . griset, e., , . hughes, a., , . hughes, edward, . hunt holman, . keene, c., , . lawson, j., , , , . lawson, f. w., , , . leech, j., , . leighton, j., , . luard, j., . macbeth, r., . mahoney, j., , . marks, h. s., , . mearns (miss), . miles, h. j., , . millais, j. e., - , . morten, t., , . north, j. n., , . paterson, h., , . pinwell, g. j., , , , , . poynter, e. j., , . prinsep, val, . pritchett, r. t., . sandys, f., , , . scott. t., . sheil, e., , . shields, f. j., , . skelton, . slinger, . small, w., , , , . solomon, s., . straszinski, . sulman, t., . tenniel, j., , , . walker, fred, , , . watson, j. d., . wells (miss), . whistler, j. m'n., . white, . wimpress, e. m., . wolf, j., . 'one year' ( ), illustrations by c. dobell, . orchardson, w. q., illustrations to: _good words_, , , . 'touches of nature,' . 'original pictures' ( ), illustrations by r. barnes, a. w. bayes, etc., . 'our life illustrated by pen and pencil' ( ), illustrations by barnes, du maurier, north, pinwell, h. c. selous, and j. d. watson, . _oxford and cambridge magazine_ ( ), . 'pageant,' the, . palgrave's 'five days' entertainment at wentworth grange' ( ), illustrations by a. hughes, . palmer, s., , , , , . _pan_, , . 'papers for thoughtful girls' ( ), illustrations by j. e. millais, . 'parables from nature' ( ), illustrations by e. burne-jones, m. e. edwards, l. frÖlich, holman hunt, f. keyl, otto specker, j. tenniel, and h. weir, . 'parables of our lord' ( ), illustrations by j. e. millais, , , . _parterre, the_, . partridge and co., publications of, . pasquier, j., , , , , , , , , . 'passages from modern english poets' ( and ), illustrations by junior etching club (millais, whistler, tenniel, h. moore, m. j. lawless, h. s. marks, c. keene, c. rossetti, f. smallfield, viscount bury, lord c. g. fitzgerald, j. w. oakes, a. j. lewis, f. powell, j. sleigh, h. c. whaite, w. severn, w. gale, and t. clark), , , . 'patient henry' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, . paterson, h., , , , . paterson, r., , . paton, sir noel, illustrations to: _cornhill_, . 'puck on pegasus,' . aytoun's 'lays,' . 'gems of literature,' . 'the water babies,' . 'golden treasury series,' . 'pegasus re-saddled' ( ), illustrations by du maurier, , . 'pen and pencil pictures from the poets' ( ), illustrations by k. halswelle, j. lawson, j. m'whirter, pettie, and w. small, . pennell, joseph, viii, , . ---- 'pen drawing and pen draughtsmen,' , . ---- 'modern illustrations,' , . ---- arguments for wood-engraving, . ---- on shield's illustrations, . ---- eulogy on f. sandys in _the quarto_, . 'pen drawing and pen draughtsmen' (pennell), , . _penny illustrated paper_, . _penny illustrated weekly news_, . _penny magazine_, . _people's journal, the_, . _people's magazine_, . periodicals, legitimate field for illustration, . ---- estimation of, - . perry, t. w., . _peter parley's annuals_, . pettie, john, illustrations to: _good words_, , , , . _sunday magazine_, , . _good words for the young_, . 'the postman's bag,' . wordsworth's 'poems for the young,' , . 'pen and pencil pictures,' . 'touches of nature,' . phillips (c.), monograph on f. walker, . 'philip in church,' . 'phiz,' quality of his art work, , , . ---- illustrations to 'puck on pegasus,' . pickersgill, f. r., , , . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . poe's 'poetical works,' . 'home affections,' . 'comus,' . 'the seasons,' . montgomery's 'poems,' . 'sacred poetry,' . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . 'art pictures from old testament,' . 'the lord's prayer,' . 'pickwick papers,' , . 'pictorial press' (jackson), , . 'pictures from english literature' ( ), illustrations by du maurier, s. l. fildes, w. small, w. c. thomas, and j. d. watson, . 'pictures of english life' ( ), illustrations by r. barnes, . 'pictures of english landscape' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, . 'pictures of society' ( ), reprints of illustrations by sandys, lawless, etc., , . pinnock's _guide to knowledge_, . pinwell, g. j., illustrations to: _once a week_, , , , , , . _cornhill magazine_, . _good words_, , , , , . _london society_, , , . _churchman's family magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, , , . _cassell's magazine_, . _argosy_, . _quiver_, , . _good words for the young_, . _sunday at home_, . _punch_, . _graphic_, . 'arabian nights' (dalziels'), , . 'our life,' . 'hacco the dwarf,' , , . 'a round of days,' . dalziels' 'goldsmith,' , . jean ingelow's 'poems,' , . 'ballad stories of the affections,' . 'wayside poesies,' . 'touches of nature,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . 'spirit of praise,' . 'lilliput levée,' , . 'north coast and other poems,' . 'golden thoughts from golden fountains,' . 'national nursery rhymes,' . leslie's 'musical annual,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . 'art pictures from the old testament,' . 'the happy home,' . ---- biographical account of, , , . ---- quilter (h.), on, . ---- comparison with walker and boyd houghton, . 'pleasures of memory' ( ), illustrations by s. palmer, j. d. watson, c. green, etc., , . poe's 'poetical works' ( ), illustrations by: wehnert, etc., . ( ), tenniel, pickersgill, birket foster, p. skelton, felix darley, duggan, j. cropsey, madot, , . 'poems and pictures' ( ), . 'poems for the young' ( ), illustrations by j. m'whirter and j. pettie, . 'poetry of the elizabethan age' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, j. gilbert, and e. m. wimperis, . 'poetry of nature' ( ), illustrations by h. weir, . ---- new edition ( ), . ---- ( , edited by j. cundall), illustrations by w. crane, . 'poets of the nineteenth century' ( ), illustrations by millais, ford madox brown, birket foster, w. harvey, j. gilbert, tenniel, clayton, t. dalziel, j. godwin, e. h. corbould, d. edwards, e. duncan, arthur hughes, w. b. leitch, e. a. goodall, t. d. hardy, f. r. pickersgill, h. weir, , . pollok's 'course of time' ( ), illustrations by b. foster, clayton, and tenniel, , . portch, j., , , . porter, j. l., . 'postman's bag' ( ), illustrations by j. pettie, . powell, f., . poynter, e. j., illustrations to: _once a week_, , . _london society_, , . _churchman's family magazine_, . jean ingelow's 'poems,' . 'nobility of life,' . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . pre-raphaelitism, w. m. rossetti on, , . ---- influence of, , . ---- somes layard on, . ---- exposition of, , . pritchett, r. t., , , , , , , , . process-work, influence on illustration, , . proctor, j., illustrations to _judy_, . ---- illustrations in _will o' the wisp_, , . 'prodigal son,' the, fred walker's illustrations to, . prinsep, val, . print-splitting, , . priolo, paulo, , , . 'proverbs of solomon' ( ), illustrations by j. gilbert, . 'proverbs with pictures' ( ), illustrations by c. h. bennett, . _punch_, , . ---- spielmann's history of, . ---- selected list of its illustrators, , . crane, walter, . du maurier, g., , . gray, paul, . griset, ernest, . keene, charles, , . lawless, m. j., . lawson, f. w., . millais, sir j., . pinwell, g. j., . sambourne, linley, . tenniel, sir j., . thomson, j. g., . walker, fred, . _punch and judy_, illustrations in graphotype, . 'puck on pegasus' ( ), illustrations by doyle, m. e. edwards, leech, millais, noel paton, 'phiz,' and portch, , . 'pupils of st. john the divine' ( ), illustrations by e. armitage, . quarles's 'emblems' ( ), illustrations by c. h. bennett, . _quarto, the_, . quilter, harry, on pinwell, . _quiver_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . barnes, r., , . boyd houghton, a., , . dunn, edith, . edwards, m. e., . fildes, s. l., . gray, paul, . herkomer, h., . lawson, j., . lawson, f. w., . leitch, r. p., . mahoney, j., . pasquier, j. a., . pinwell, g. j., , . ridley, m. w., . sandys, f., . small, w., , . staniland, c. j., . thomas, g. j., , . watson, j. d., . ---- reprint of illustrations in 'idyllic pictures,' in volume, . ralston, j. m'l., . read, s., , , . reade, (c.), 'the cloister and the hearth' ('a good fight'), . ---- 'foul play,' . ---- 'put yourself in his place,' . redgrave, r., , . rethel's influence, . 'rhymes and roundelays' ( ), illustrations by birket foster, . rice, . rich, a., . 'ridicula rediviva' ( ), illustrations by j. e. rogers, . ridley, b., . ridley, m. w., , , , . riviÈre, briton, illustrations to: _good words_, . _good words for the young_, . robertson, h. r., . robinson, t., . rogers, w. h., . ---- 'spiritual conceits,' . rogers, j. e., illustrations to 'mores ridicula,' 'ridicula rediviva,' and miss mulock's 'fairy tales,' . 'romola,' . 'roses and holly' ( ), . rossiter, c., . rossetti, christina, _amor mundi_, sandys's illustration to, . ---- 'if,' sandys's illustrations, . ---- 'goblin market' ( ), illustrations by d. g. rossetti, , . ---- 'the prince's progress' ( ), illustrations by d. g. rossetti, . ---- 'sing song' ( ), illustrations by a. hughes, . rossetti, christina, 'speaking likenesses' ( ), illustrations by a. hughes, . rossetti, d. g., opinion on wood as an artistic medium, . ---- designs to tennyson's 'poems,' , , . ---- 'goblin market,' , , . ---- 'the prince's progress,' , . ---- biographical notice of, , , , , , . ---- his relations with a. hughes, , . ---- prices received for his work, . ---- frontispiece to 'early italian poets,' . ---- frontispiece to 'the risen life,' . ---- 'the queen's page,' . ---- burne-jones on, . ---- 'day and night songs,' . ---- 'flower pieces,' . ---- 'life and phantasy,' . ---- number of book-illustrations and their importance, , , . rossetti, w. m., on pre-raphaelitism, , , . ---- his biography of d. g. rossetti, , . 'round of days,' a ( ), ; illustrations by a. w. bayes, boyd houghton, w. brooks, t. and e. dalziel, p. gray, j. w. north, t. morten, f. walker, and j. d. watson, . _routledge's christmas annuals_, . rowlandson, . ruskin, j., criticism of the engraving of the 'sixties,' . 'sacred poetry' ( ), illustrations by g. h. andrews, h. h. armstead, w. p. burton, j. gilbert, holman hunt, c. keene, h. s. marks, f. r. pickersgill, s. read, f. smallfield, j. sleigh, f. sandys, f. walker, j. d. watson, and h. weir, . _saint paul's magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, , . fraser, f. a., . millais, j. e., . sala, g. a., . 'salamandrine,' the ( ), gilbert's illustrations to, , . sanderson, h., illustrations to: _london society_, , . _churchman's family magazine_, . _fun_, . sandys, frederick, quality of his work, ; illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _cornhill magazine_, , . _good words_, , , . _london society_, . _churchman's family magazine_, . _shilling magazine_, . _argosy_, . _quiver_, . _churchman's shilling magazine_, . supplement to the _british architect_, . _english illustrated magazine_, . 'touches of nature,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . hurst and blackett's 'standard library,' , . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' , , , . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . _century guild hobby horse_, . 'the shaving of shagpat,' . ---- complete list, , . ---- portraits of arnold, green, and browning, . ---- miss mulock's 'christian's mistake,' . ---- critical and biographical summary of, , , , . ---- mr. gray on, , . ---- mr. pennell on, in _the quarto_, . ---- prof. herkomer on, . ---- mr. gosse on, . ---- sandys's complaint of engravers, . sambourne, linley, illustrations to: _london society_, . _punch_, . sargent, waldo, . _saturday journal_, . _saturday magazine, the_, . 'savage club papers' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, du maurier, and j. d. watson, ; ( ) . _savoy, the_, . scharf, g., illustrations to keats's 'poems,' . scott's 'poems' ( ), illustrations by k. halswelle, . ---- 'lady of the lake' ( ), illustrations by gilbert, . scott, david, illustrations to: 'pilgrim's progress,' . 'ancient mariner,' . scott, t., , . scott, w. b., ; illustrations to: 'pilgrim's progress,' . landon's 'poetical works,' . 'scouring of the white horse,' the ( ), illustrations by doyle, . seccombe, colonel t. s., , , , . seguin, l., 'rural england' ( ), . selous, h. c., , , , , , , . 'settlers of long arrow,' fred walker's illustrations to, . severn, w., . 'shakespeare, his birthplace' ( ), illustrations by w. j. linton, . shakespeare's 'works' ( - ), illustrations by gilbert, . shakespeare's 'works' ( ), illustrations by h. c. selous, . ---- 'merchant of venice' ( ), illustrations by g. h. thomas, b. foster, h. brandling, h. rogers, . _sharp's magazine_, . sharp (w.), monograph on d. g. rossetti, . sheil, e., . shields, f., illustrations to: defoe's 'history of the plague,' . 'touches of nature,' . _once a week_, , . _sunday magazine_, . _shilling magazine_, . ---- illustrators and illustrations of, . ---- sandys's designs to _amor mundi_, etc., . ---- watson's, j. d., . ---- gray, paul, . ---- pritchett, r. t., . ---- lamont, t. r., . ---- lawson, j., . ---- hughes, edward, . ---- small, w., . 'sintram and his companions,' selous's illustrations to, . 'sir christopher,' millais's illustrations to, . 'sister anne's probation,' millais's illustrations to, . 'sixties,' the, first public appreciation of the art of, . ---- contemporary appreciation of the artists of, . ---- collection of the wood-engravings of, . ---- interest in the art of, . ---- comparison with the art of the present day, , . ---- work of engraver in, . ---- origin of the movement in _once a week_, . ---- appreciation of, . ---- summary of the work of the artists of, , . ---- biographical notices of the artists of, - . skelton, p., , , , , , , , , , , , . skill, f. j., , . sleigh, h., , . sleigh, j., . slinger, f. j., , , . small, w., ; illustrations to: _once a week_, - . _good words_, - . ---- quality of his work in, , . 'the woman's kingdom,' . _london society_, , , . _shilling magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, - , . _cassell's family paper_, . _cassell's magazine_, , . _argosy_, . _quiver_, , . _good words for the young_, . _sunday at home_, . _graphic_, . 'words for the wise,' . 'pen and pencil pictures,' . 'children's hour,' . jean ingelow's 'poems,' . 'ballad stories of the affections,' . 'touches of nature,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . 'two centuries of song,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' , . heber's 'hymns,' . 'spirit of praise,' . 'washerwoman's foundling,' . 'north coast and other poems,' . 'goden thoughts from golden fountains,' . 'ode on the morning of christ's nativity,' . 'illustrated book of sacred poems,' . cassell's 'illustrated readings,' . 'standard poets,' . novello's 'national nursery rhymes,' . 'pictures from english literature,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . smallfield, f., , . 'small house at allington,' , . solomon, a., , . solomon, rebecca, , . solomon, simeon, illustrations to: _once a week_, . _good words_, , . _dark blue_, . _leisure hour_, . dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . 'art pictures from the old testament,' . 'songs and ballads of brittany' ( ), tenniel's illustrations to, . 'songs of many seasons' ( ), illustrations by w. crane, du maurier, and c. w. morgan, . 'songs and sonnets of shakespeare' ( ), illustrations by gilbert, . specker, otto, . 'spirit of praise, the' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, t. dalziel, p. gray, j. w. north, g. j. pinwell, and w. small, . 'spiritual conceits' ( ), illustrations by h. rogers, . stanfield, c., illustrations to tennyson's 'poems,' . staniland, c. j., , , , , . stanton, clark, . stanton, h., . steele, gourlay, . stenhouse, c., . stone, marcus, illustrations to: _cornhill magazine_, . _london society_, , . _sunday magazine_, , . 'touches of nature,' . 'stories from memel' ( ), illustrations by w. crane, . 'stories little breeches told' ( ), illustrations by c. h. bennett, . 'stories of old' ( ), illustrations by w. crane, . 'stories told to a child' ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, . 'story of elizabeth,' . 'story without an end' ( ), illustrations by e. v. b., . strahan, a., , . _strand magazine_, . straszinski, l., . stretch, matt, . sulman, t., , , , . _sunday at home_, . ---- illustrations and illustrators of, . barnes, r., . du maurier, g. (?), . fildes, s. l., . gilbert, sir j., . green, c., . lawson, f. w., . mahoney, j., . pinwell, c. j., . small, w., . _sunday magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, - . barnes, r., , , , . bayes, a. w., . boyd houghton, a., - . dalziel, t., , . edwards, m. e., , . eltze, f., . fildes, s. l., . foster, birket, . fraser, f. a., , , . french, h., . gray, paul, , . green, c., . green, townley, . herkomer, hubert, . hughes, a., , . hughes, e., , . lamont, miles, . lawson, f. w., - . lawson, j., , . leighton, john, . leitch, r. p., . macbeth, r., . m'connell, w., . m'whirter, j., . mahoney, j., , , , . morgan, c., . north, j. w., , , . pasquier, . pettie, j., , . pinwell, g. j., , , . pritchett, r. t., . shields, f. j., . slinger, f. j., . small, w., , , , . stone, marcus, , . thomson, j. gordon, , . walker, francis, . watson, j. d., . whymper, e., . wiegand, w. j., . wolf, j., , . swain, , , , . sweeting, t., . 'sybil and her snowball' ( ), illustrations by r. barnes, . symbolists, . tayler, f., . taylor, hughes, . tenniel, john, illustrations to: _once a week_, , , . _good words_, , , , . _punch_, . 'juvenile verse and picture book,' . pollok's 'course of time,' . 'poets of nineteenth century,' . poe's 'works,' . 'home affections,' , . blair's 'grave,' . moore's 'lalla rookh,' . 'parables from nature,' . 'puck on pegasus,' . dalziels' 'arabian nights,' . 'ingoldsby legends,' . 'english sacred poetry,' . 'alice in wonderland,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . 'mirage of life,' . 'a noble life,' . 'passages from modern english poets,' . tennyson's 'poems,' (moxon edition), , , , . ---- illustrations by rossetti, millais, holman hunt, mulready, creswick, horsley, stanfield, maclise, . ---- rossetti's designs to, , . ---- 'loves of the wrens,' a. hughes's designs to, , . ---- 'criticism of the moxon poems,' , . ---- 'may queen' ( ), illustrations by e. v. b., . ---- 'enoch arden' ( ), illustrations by a. hughes, . tennyson's 'loves of the wrens' ( ). ---- hughes's illustrations to, . ---- 'the princess,' illustrations by maclise, . thackeray (miss), 'story of elizabeth,' . ---- 'village on the cliff,' . ---- 'old kensington,' . thackeray (w. m.), quality of his drawings, . ---- walker's illustration to, . ---- 'vanity fair,' . ---- editor of _cornhill_, . ---- 'love the widower,' . ---- 'adventures of philip,' . ---- 'denis duval,' . ---- portrait by armitage, . 'things for nests' ( ), . thomas, g. h., illustrations to: _cornhill magazine_, , . _london society_, , , . _churchman's family magazine_, . _cassell's magazine_, , . _quiver_, , , . _broadway_, . _illustrated london news_, , . 'uncle tom's cabin,' . gray's 'elegy,' . 'vicar of wakefield,' . longfellow's 'hiawatha,' , . 'pilgrim's progress,' . 'merrie days of england,' . 'hiawatha,' , . thomson's 'seasons,' . 'household song,' . 'early english poems,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . 'robinson crusoe,' . 'aunt gatty's life,' . 'idyllic pictures,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' . ---- biographical notice of, , . ---- obtains the society of arts prize, . ---- sets up as a wood engraver, . ---- engraves bank notes, . ---- the garibaldi illustrations, . ---- is employed by the queen, . ---- illustrations to 'armadale,' . thomas, w. cave, , , . thomas, w. l., , . thompson, alfred, . thompson, alice, . thomson, j. g., , , , , , , , , . thomson, w. e., . thomson's 'seasons' ( ), . ---- ( ), . ---- ( ), illustrations by b. foster, humphreys, pickersgill, thomas, and wolf, . thornbury's 'legendary ballads' ( ), . ---- illustrations by boyd houghton, lawless, t. green, du maurier, f. eltze, j. lawson, a. fairfield, e. h. coebould, a. rich, t. r. macquoid, c. green, t. morten, j. tenniel, w. small, p. skelton, pinwell, sandys, whistler, and walker, , , , . thornbury's 'legends of cavaliers and roundheads' ( ), illustrations by h. s. marks, . ---- 'two centuries of song ( ), illustrations by g. leslie, h. s. marks, t. morten, and w. small, . _tinsley's magazine_, illustrations and illustrators of, . boyd houghton, a., . browne, h. k. ('phiz'), . brunton, w. d., . cooper, a. w., . friston, d. h., . thompson, alice, . watson, j. d., . tissot, illustrations to 'ballads and songs of brittany,' . _tomahawk_, illustrations to, by matt morgan, . 'toilers in art,' . 'touches of nature by eminent artists' ( ), illustrations by r. barnes, boyd houghton, h. h. armstead, du maurier, p. gray, c. keene, j. mahoney, j. e. millais, j. w. north, w. orchardson, g. j. pinwell, f. sandys, f. j. shields, marcus stone, j. pettie, w. small, g. tenniel, f. walker, and j. d. watson, , . townsend, h. j., . 'trilby,' . trollope, millais's illustrations to, , , . ---- 'framley parsonage,' . ---- 'small house at allington,' , . tupper's 'proverbial philosophy' ( ), illustrations by cope, corbould, birket foster, john gilbert, horsley, and pickersgill, . 'uncle tom's cabin,' illustrations to, by g. thomas, . 'undine' ( ), tenniel's illustrations to, . 'vagrants,' the, by fred walker, , . 'verner's pride,' keene's illustrations to, . 'vicar of wakefield,' mulready's illustrations to, . ---- thomas's illustrations to, . 'victorian history of england,' the ( ), illustrations by boyd houghton, . 'vikram and the vampire' ( ), illustrations by e. griset, . vining, h. m., . 'voyage of the constance,' the ( ), illustrations by c. keene, , . walker, francis, , , , , , , , , . walker, fred, illustrations to thackeray's works, . _once a week_, , , , , . 'cornhill gallery,' . _cornhill_, , , , . 'adventures of philip,' . 'philip in church,' . 'story of elizabeth,' , . 'denis duval,' . 'village on the cliff,' . _good words_, , , , . _london society_, . _punch_, . 'sacred poetry,' , . 'a round of days,' . 'wayside poesies,' . 'touches of nature,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' , . ---- biographical account of, , . ---- employed by mr. whymper, . ---- anecdote of him, , . ---- monograph on, by c. phillips, . ---- menzel's influence on, . ---- paper in _good words_ by j. swain, . waltges, f. s., . 'washerwoman's foundling' ( ), illustrations by w. small, . watson, j. d., illustrations to: _once a week_, . _good words_, , , . _london society_, - . _churchman's family magazine_, , . _shilling magazine_, . _sunday magazine_, . _cassell's magazine_, . _quiver_, . _tinsley's magazine_, . _british workman_, . eliza cook's 'poems,' . 'pilgrim's progress,' , . 'sacred poetry,' . 'the gold thread,' . dalziels' 'arabian nights,' . 'english sacred poetry,' . 'our life,' . 'robinson crusoe,' . 'the golden harp,' . 'what men have said about women,' . 'a round of days,' . watts's 'divine and moral songs,' . 'legends and lyrics,' . 'ellen montgomery's bookshelf,' . 'ballad stories of the affections,' . 'touches of nature,' . foxe's 'book of martyrs,' . 'little songs for little folks,' . 'savage club papers,' . 'illustrated book of sacred poems,' . cassell's 'illustrated readings,' . 'nobility of life,' . 'choice series,' . 'barbara's history,' . leslie's 'musical annual,' . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . watts, g. f., illustrations to dalziels' 'bible gallery,' . 'wayside poesies' ( ), illustrations by j. w. north, g. j. pinwell, and f. walker, , . webster, t., . wehnert, e. h., , , . ---- illustrations to poe's 'works,' . weigall, . weir, harrison, , , ; illustrations to: 'poets of nineteenth century,' . 'gertrude of wyoming,' . 'home affections,' . 'comus,' . montgomery's 'poems,' . 'poetry of nature,' , . 'parables from nature,' . 'sacred poetry,' . moore's 'irish melodies,' . Æsop's 'fables,' . 'choice series,' . 'episodes of fiction,' . wells, miss, . whaite, h. c., . 'what men have said about women' ( ), illustrations by j. d. watson, . 'what the moon saw' ( ), illustrations by a. w. bayes, . whistler, j. m'neill, illustrations to: _once a week_, . _good words_, , . thornbury's 'legendary ballads,' . 'passages from modern english poets,' . white, d. t., . white line engraving, . white, t., . whittingham, c., his care in choosing wood-engravings, . whymper, e., , . ---- 'scrambles among the alps' ( ), . ---- 'ancient mariner,' . wiegand, w. j., , , , . williams, s., . _will o' the wisp_, illustrations in, by j. proctor, . wimpress, e., , , , . wirgman, t. b., . 'wives and daughters,' , . wolf, j., , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 'woman i loved,' the, keene's illustrations to, . wood engravings _versus_ process, ix; collection of, . ---- print-splitting, . ---- factories for the spply of, . ---- responsibility of artists in, . ---- work of publisher in, . ---- advantages of over etching, . ---- rossetti's opinion of the material, . ---- white line, . ---- arguments in favour of, . ---- whittingham's care in choosing, . ---- influence of g. doré on, . ---- critics of - on, . wood, fane, . wood's 'natural history' ( ), illustrations by j. wolf and zwecker, . ---- 'bible animals' ( ), . woolner, t., . 'words for the wise' ( ), illustrations by w. small, . wordsworth's 'selected poems' ( ), illustrations by foster, gilbert, and wolf, . ---- 'white doe of rylstone' ( ), illustrations by foster and humphreys, . ---- 'poetry for the young' ( ), illustrations by j. m'whirter and j. pettie, . wyon, l. c., . _yellow book, the_, . zwecker, j. b., , , , , , , , , . printed by t. and a. constable, printers to his majesty, at the edinburgh university press footnotes: [ ] engraved by dalziels about double the size of this page, the subject was issued afterwards in _the day of rest_ (strahan). [ ] this is entitled _too soon_, in _pictures of society_, . [ ] 'j. b.' was mrs. blackburn, wife of hugh blackburn, professor of mathematics in the university of glasgow. landseer said that in the drawing of animals he had nothing to teach her. [ ] possibly a. r. fairfield. [ ] the british museum has no copy, and my own has been mislaid. [ ] the first edition, vols., , was illustrated by cruikshank and leech only. [ ] virtues issued another edition in . [ ] _in memoriam, george h. thomas_ (cassell, undated), a folio volume with about one hundred illustrations. [ ] _dante gabriel rossetti: letters and memories_, by william michael rossetti. ellis and elvey, , vol. i. p. . [ ] a silver-print photograph only. [ ] a catalogue of forty designs by a. boyd houghton, exhibited at _the sign of the dial_, warwick street, w. [ ]. [ ] _arthur boyd houghton_, by laurence housman, kegan paul & co., . [ ] _the portfolio_, june : 'frederick walker,' by claude phillips. [ ] preface to a catalogue of the _birmingham society of artists_, march . [ ] _century guild hobby horse_, vol. iii. p. ( ). [ ] march . [ ] no. , . [ ] , i. . [ ] a large broadsheet reproduced by some lithographic process. [ ] owned by mr. fairfax murray. [ ] _toilers in art_, edited by h. c. ewart (isbister and co.). * * * * * * transcribers' note: punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired quotation marks were retained. ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. repeated inconsistent spellings, such as "mac donald" and "macdonald", have beeen retained. list of illustrations: the illustation "down stream, from the original drawing...." was not found in the printed book. page : "linley sambourne" was italicized, but most artists' names are not. page : "frederick sandys,del." was printed without a space after the comma in at least two editions. page : " , to" was printed that way. the connoisseur's library general editor: cyril davenport fine books [illustration: deucalion et pyrrha repeuplant la terre, suivant l'oracle de themis.] fine books by alfred w. pollard [illustration: the connoisseur's library] new york: g. p. putnam's sons london: methuen & co. ltd. to sir edward maunde thompson, g.c.b. director and principal librarian of the british museum - preface if the mere taking of trouble ensured good work, this contribution to the _connoisseur's library_ should be entitled to the modest praise of being "superior to the rest" of its author's book-makings, since it has been ten years on the stocks and much of it has been written two or three times over, either because the writer's own information had increased or to take account of the successful researches of others. yet in the end defeat in one main point has to be acknowledged. the book was begun with a confident determination to cover the whole ground, from the beginnings of printing and printed book-illustration down to our own day, and in the case of printing the survey has been carried through, however sketchily. but the corresponding survey of book-illustration ends, with rather obvious marks of compression and fatigue, about , leaving the story of a hundred and thirty years of very interesting picture-work untold. pioneering is always so exciting that recognition of the impossibility of carrying out the full plan of the book within the limits either of the present volume or of the author's working life was not made without sincere regret. the subject, however, of the abandoned chapter was not only very large, but very miscellaneous, and the survey for it would have had to include at least three other countries (france, germany, and the united states) besides our own. to one section, moreover, that of illustrations in colour, a separate volume of this series has already been devoted. the author would, therefore, fain console himself with the hope that in one or more other volumes a competent account may be given by some other hand of the wood-engravings, etchings, steel-engravings, and lithographs, with which books have been decorated since . the poorness of paper and print with which these modern illustrated books have too often been handicapped has caused collectors to take little interest in them--it even suggested the unworthy excuse for the failure to write the missing chapter that these are not really _fine books_, but only books with fine pictures in them, and so are outside our subject. but both students and collectors have their duties as well as their delights, and in view of the high artistic value of quite a large proportion of these modern illustrations, the preservation of clean and uncropped copies of the books in which they occur and the tribute of careful cataloguing and description are certainly their due. while the desired completeness has not been attained the ground here covered is still very wide, and for the book as a whole no more can be claimed than that it is a compilation from the best sources--a list of these will be found in the bibliography--controlled by some personal knowledge, the amount of which naturally varies very much from chapter to chapter. the obligations incurred in writing it have thus been great, and a sad number of these are to fellow-workers and friends--proctor, john macfarlane, w. h. allnutt, konrad burger, dr. lippmann, anatole claudin, and the prince d'essling--who have died while the book has been in progress. among those still happily alive acknowledgment must specially be made to sir sidney colvin for help received from his masterly introduction to the great monograph on _early engravers and engraving in england_ published by the trustees of the british museum; to mr. a. m. hind for use made of the list of engravers and their works in the same book; to mr. campbell dodgson for dippings into the wealth of information in his _catalogue of german and flemish woodcuts in the print room of the british museum_ (vols. i and ii); to mr. gordon duff for help derived from his three series of sandars lectures on english printing, and to mr. evans for information obtained from his _american bibliography_. among other obligations the chief is to the writers (notably mr. h. r. plomer) of numerous papers contributed to the _transactions_ of the bibliographical society and to _the library_, and these are acknowledged with special pleasure. a. w. p. contents page chapter i. collectors and collecting " ii. block-books " iii. the invention of printing--holland " iv. the invention of printing--mainz " v. other incunabula " vi. the development of printing " vii. early german and dutch illustrated books " viii. early italian illustrated books " ix. early french and spanish illustrated books " x. later foreign books " xi. foreign illustrated books of the th century " xii. printing in england ( - ) " xiii. english books printed elsewhere than at london " xiv. english woodcut illustrations " xv. engraved illustrations " xvi. modern fine printing bibliography index list of plates i. deucalion and pyrrha repeopling the world. from ovid's _metamorphoses_, paris, _frontispiece_ to face page ii. an author (caxton?) presenting a book to margaret of burgundy. fifteenth century engraving inserted in the chatsworth copy of the _recuyell of the historyes of troye_ (from the plate made for the bibliographical society's edition of mr. seymour de ricci's _census of caxtons_.) iii. the "bona inspiratio angeli contra vanam gloriam." from a smaller version of the _ars moriendi_. block-book from the lower rhine, _c._ iv. leaf a of a fragment of the _doctrinale_ of alexander gallus. one of the so-called "costeriana" v. beginning, with printed capital, of the _rationale diuinorum officiorum_ of gulielmus duranti. mainz, fust and schoeffer, vi. leaf b of the first book printed at cologne, cicero, _de officiis_, ulrich zel, not later than the space left in the sixth line from the foot stands for the words _ab ostentatione_, which the printer apparently could not read in his manuscript. the word _vacat_ at the end was inserted to show that the space in the last line was accidental and that nothing had been omitted. vii. leaf a of cicero's _rhetorica_, venice, nicolas jenson, , showing spaces left for a chapter heading and capital viii. part of leaf a, with woodcut, from the _geschicht von dem seligen kind symon_ of tuberinus. augsburg, günther zainer, about ix. woodcuts of saracens and syrians from breidenbach's _sanctae peregrinationis in montem syon atque in montem sinai descriptio_. mainz, erhard reuwich, x. woodcut on leaf b of the _egloga theoduli_. leipzig, conrad kachelofen, xi. page (sig. h verso) from the _psalterium beatae mariae virginis_ of nitschewitz, showing the emperor frederick and his son maximilian. from a press at the cistercian monastery at zinna, _c._ xii. the harrowing of hell, with text, from leaf a of the _belial_ of jacobus de theramo. haarlem, bellaert, . (size of the original, ¼" × ") xiii. woodcut of the betrayal. from leaf b of the _meditatione sopra la passione del nostro signore_ attributed to s. bonaventura. venice, geronimo di sancti, . (size of original, ¾" × ¼") xiv. woodcut, de atheniensibus petentibus regem, illustrating fable xxii. in the _aesop_ printed at naples, by francesco tuppo, xv. woodcut of lorenzo giustiniano preceded by a crucifer, from his _della vita religiosa_. venice, xvi. page with woodcut of the procession to calvary, from the _meditatione sopra la passione del nostro signore_ attributed to s. bonaventura. florence, ant. miscomini, _c._ xvii. titlepage of _la festa di san giovanni_. florence, bart. di libri, _c._ xviii. leaf a, with woodcut of death seizing an archbishop and a chevalier, from the _danse macabre_. paris, gui marchant, . (size of original ¾" × ¼") xix. leaf a, with woodcut of adam and eve, from a _bible en francoys_. paris, antoine vérard, about . (size of original, ¾" × ") xx. page (sig. c verso), with woodcut of the massacre of the innocents, from the _grandes heures_. paris, antoine vérard, about . (size of original, ( / )" × ¼") xxi. page (sig. u verso) from the edition of _terence_, printed by j. trechsel at lyon, xxii. titlepage from the _improbratio alcorani_ of ricoldus. seville, stanislaus polonus, xxiii. hroswitha presenting her plays to the emperor otto i, leaf b of the _opera hrosvite_. nuremberg, sodalitas celtica, xxiv. titlepage of jornandes _de rebus gothorum_. augsburg, xxv. page (leaf b) of a _missale romanum_, printed at venice by gregorius de gregoriis, xxvi. title-cut from _les dix premiers livres de l'iliade d'homère, prince des poètes, traduictz en vers françois, par m. hugues salel_. paris, jehan loys for vincent sertenas, xxvii. page from the _fifteen oes_. westminster, caxton, about xxviii. first page of text from the first edition (left incomplete) of tyndale's _new testament_. cologne, xxix. part of sig. k recto, with woodcut of christ raising the centurion's daughter, from the _speculum vitae christi_ of s. bonaventura. westminster, w. caxton, about xxx. titlepage of bishop fisher's funeral sermon on henry vii. london, w. de worde, xxxi. woodcut of the translator presenting his book to the duke of norfolk, from alexander barclay's version of sallust's _jugurtha_. london, r. pynson, about xxxii. portrait of the author, from john heywood's _the spider and the flie_. london, t. powell, xxxiii. woodcut of queen elizabeth hawking, from turberville's _the booke of faulconrie_, xxxiv. engraving of christ in a mandorla from bettini's _monte santo di dio_. florence, nicolaus laurentii, . (size of original, " × ") xxxv. last page of preface, giving the arms of the bishop of würzburg, from the würzburg _agenda_. würzburg, g. reyser, xxxvi. titlepage of the _dialogus_ of amadeus berrutus. rome, gabriel of bologna, xxxvii. engraved portrait of the author by theodore de bry after j. j. boissard, from the _emblemata_ of denis le bey. frankfort, de bry, xxxviii. page from the _hieroglyphikes of the life of man_ by quarles, the engraving by w. marshall, london, xxxix. page, with engraving after eisen, from dorat's _les baisers_, la haye et se vend à paris, lambert, xl. engraving by w. w. rylands after samuel wale, from walton's _compleat angler_. london, t. hope, [illustration: _engraving of an author, possibly caxton, presenting a book to margaret, duchess of burgundy, prefixed to the chatsworth copy of the 'recuyell.'_] fine books chapter i collectors and collecting from the stray notes which have come down to us about the bibliophiles of the later roman empire it is evident that book-collecting in those days had at least some modern features. owing to the abundance of educated slave-labour books were very cheap, almost as cheap as they are now, and book-collectors could busy themselves about refinements not unlike those in which their successors are now interested. but in the middle ages books were by no means cheap, and until quite the close of the fourteenth century there were few libraries in which they could be read. princes and other very wealthy book-buyers took pleasure in possessing finely written and illuminated manuscripts, but the ruling ideals were mainly literary and scholastic, the aim (the quite right and excellent aim) being to have the best books in as many subjects as possible. after printing had been invented the same ideals continued in force, the only difference being that they could now be carried out on a larger scale. libraries like those formed in the sixteenth century by archbishop cranmer and lords arundel and lumley, or that gathered in france by the historian de thou, were essentially students' libraries, and the books themselves and the catalogues of them were often classified so as to show what books had been acquired in all the different departments of human knowledge. even in the sixteenth century, when these literary ideals were dominant, we find some examples of another kind. in jean grolier, for instance, we find the book-lover playing the part, too seldom assumed, of the discriminating patron of contemporary printing and bookbinding. instead of collecting more old books than he could find time to read, grolier bought the best of his own day, but of these sometimes as many as four or five copies of the same work that he might have no difficulty in finding one for a friend; and whatever book he bought he had bound and decorated with simple good taste in venice or at home in france. it would be an excellent thing if more of our modern collectors, instead of taking up antiquarian hobbies, were content to follow grolier's example. books always look best when clad in jackets of their own time, and this in the future will apply to the books of the twentieth century as much as to any others. moreover, there is more actual binding talent available in england just now than at any previous time, and it is much to be desired that modern groliers would give it scope, not in pulling about old books, but in binding beautifully those of our own day. grolier found a modest imitator in england in the person of thomas wotton, but with some at least of the elizabethan book-lovers the havoc wrought in the old libraries by the commissioners of henry viii and edward vi provoked an antiquarian reaction which led them to devote all their energies to collecting, from the unworthy hands into which they had fallen, such treasures of english literary and bookish art as still remained. putting aside john leland who worked (to what extent and with what success is not quite clear) for henry viii, matthew parker, archbishop of canterbury, was the earliest of these antiquaries, to the great benefit of the libraries of lambeth palace and of corpus christi college, cambridge, though as to how he came by his books perhaps the less said the better. parker was soon followed by sir robert cotton, whose success in gathering books and documents illustrating english history was so great that his library was sequestered and very nearly altogether taken from him, on the plea that it contained state papers which no subject had a right to possess. owing to the carelessness and brutality of the previous generation, cotton's opportunities were as great as his zeal in making use of them, and at the cost of his fortune he laid the foundations of a national library. humbler men imitated him without being able to secure the same permanence for their collections, more especially humphrey dyson, a notary, who seems to have acquired early printed books and proclamations, with the same zeal which cotton devoted to manuscripts. many of his treasures passed into the hands of richard smith, the secondary of the poultry compter, but at his sale they were scattered beyond recall, and the unity of one of the most interesting of english collections was thus unkindly destroyed. both these men, and some others of whom even less is known, worked with a public aim, and already sir thomas bodley had gone a step further by founding anew the university library at oxford on lines which at once gave it a national importance. this it preserved and developed for over a century and a half, and has never since lost, though no national help, unfortunately, has ever been given it, save the right already conceded by the stationers' company, of claiming a copy of any new english book offered for sale. bodley's munificent donation marked an epoch in the history of english book-collecting because its tendency was to make private book-collecting of the kind which was then admired incongruous and even absurd. when there were no public libraries open to scholars, for a great man to maintain a splendid library in his own house and allow students to read in it was worthy of aristotle's [greek: megalopsychos], the man who does everything on a scale that befits his dignity. but in proportion as public collections of books and facilities for obtaining access to them are increased, the preservation of a library on a large scale in a private house, where none of the inmates have any desire to use it, becomes an easy and justifiable object of satire. a man without literary instincts who inherits a fine library is indeed in a parlous state, for if he keeps it he is as a dog in the manger, and if he sells it he is held up to opprobrium. that considerations of this kind were beginning to have weight is shown by the rapidity with which during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries one private collection after another drifted into public ownership. in some cases there were intermediate stages. thus archbishop usher's books were not bequeathed to trinity college, dublin, but were purchased for it by the subscriptions of the soldiers of cromwell's army in ireland. the manuscripts of sir simeon d'ewes remained in the possession of his family for nearly a century, were then purchased by harley, and came to the british museum with harley's collection. stillingfleet's manuscripts were in the same temporary ownership; his printed books came to dublin through the public spirit of archbishop marsh. so again bishop moore's books were purchased for the university library at cambridge by george i. thus even when a collector was not inspired by, or could not afford to indulge, public motives, respect for his memory or desire to benefit an institution often brought his books to a safe haven. but more often the munificence was personal and direct. for some cause not quite easy to see the flow of benefactions to english libraries has dwindled sadly of late years,[ ] so that journalists with short memories write of gifts and bequests to american libraries as if they were unprecedented. even of late years, however, the foundation of the john rylands library, chancellor christie's gifts and bequest to the victoria university, the sandars legacy to the university library, cambridge, and mr. alfred huth's bequest to the british museum of any fifty books it might choose to select from his fine collection, show that the stream is not quite dried up, while for nearly two centuries and a half from the foundation of the bodleian it ran with splendid freedom. thus archbishop williams gave noble gifts of books to s. john's college, cambridge, and to the chapter house library at westminster abbey; selden's books enriched the bodleian; laud was a generous benefactor alike to the bodleian, to s. john's college, oxford, and to the library of lambeth palace; sir kenelm digby gave both to bodley and to harvard; ralph sheldon benefited the heralds' college; pepys (through his nephew) bequeathed his collection to magdalene college, cambridge; archbishop marsh founded a library at dublin; richard rawlinson gave his manuscripts to the bodleian, and harley arranged that his should be offered to the nation. the example of the men who bought under the influence of an intention to bestow their books on some public institution naturally affected others, and was responsible for a good deal of rather haphazard collecting in the eighteenth century. the private modern library was often confused with the antiquarian collection, and the antiquarian collection itself was seldom dominated by any central idea. yet collectors who devoted themselves to one subject and knew thoroughly well what they were aiming at were already coming into existence, and these also, when their work was done, were inspired by an honourable ambition to preserve it intact, and so the libraries were once more enriched. thus garrick, guided by his professional interest, devoted himself to early plays, and bequeathed his collection to the british museum. malone bought the books which were useful to him as a student of elizabethan literature, more especially of shakespeare, and bequeathed them to the bodleian, while capell left his similar collection to trinity college, cambridge. the library of natural history books brought together by sir joseph banks and bequeathed by him to the british museum is another example of well-defined collecting, though of a different sort. among men who were not themselves specialists the vogue lay in the direction of first editions of the greek and latin classics and of a few italian and english authors of special merit, together with books illustrating the history of printing down to about the year or . the early classics seem to have been the indispensable element in any collection of the first rank, and they appear with monotonous regularity in the libraries of george iii, of the rev. clayton mordaunt cracherode, and of thomas grenville, which all three passed to the british museum; in the spencer collection, now in the john rylands library, manchester; and in the sunderland library, sold at auction in - . when these prizes were secured the collector seems to have felt himself free to follow his individual taste in supplementary purchases, and the grenville library is a fine proof of the broader interests of its possessor. two notable collectors, heber, the last of the great book-gluttons, and william henry miller, founder of the famous christie-miller library at britwell, cut themselves free from the cult of the _editio princeps_, the latter (despite a taste for modern latin verse) devoting himself to english poetry, while heber added to this the literatures of france, italy, and spain. despite the exceptions we have mentioned, in almost all of the collections of the early years of the nineteenth century two different ideals were combined: the student's ideal of the best books in the best editions, and the antiquary's ideal of the books by which the history of printing and its kindred arts could be most vividly illustrated. the combination is still common, for one of à beckett's comic histories (though i am not prepared to assert that this is a "best book") still figures as the first entry in many sale catalogues which contain also incunabula assuredly not bought for their literary interest. it is more easy to defend such a medley on the ground of sentiment than of logic. whoever uses books has reason to be grateful to the men who invented or diffused the art of printing, and may be interested in learning something about them. yet it can hardly be denied that to collect various kinds of books from an antiquarian, æsthetic, or any other well-defined point of view, not directly literary, is an independent pursuit in its own right, just as to collect old or beautiful china or silver is an independent pursuit, whether or no the china or silver be used for eating or drinking from. it will be said, of course, that on this view books are no better than china (or postage stamps), and there are indeed some strange instances of men who have fallen below their possibilities and have collected books, and not without success, despite a most amazing indifference to their contents. this reduces the joy they can get from their hobby to the bare pleasure of collecting for the sake of collecting, an ignoble delight in indulging acquisitiveness, redeemed to some extent by the higher pleasure of overcoming difficulties and observing the rules of the game. but the ignorant book-collector, until he has educated himself, is like a rose-fancier who cannot distinguish one odour from another. by the time they attract the collector books have become, or are on the road to becoming, so precious that their primary usefulness has to be left dormant. to use them constantly for our daily reading would approach the fault which the greeks called [greek: hubris], the arrogance which makes a man esteem himself so highly that he thinks nothing too good for his own use. but even when this limitation is recognized, for those who can appreciate them they preserve all the associations of their primary use, and it is because these associations are so delightful and so various that the bookman claims that his form of collecting is the best of all. what then are the associations and qualities which give books value in the eyes of a collector? we may answer the question negatively in the first instance by reducing to their proper importance the two qualities which are popularly supposed to be the most attractive to the book-hunter--rarity and age. if a book is otherwise uninteresting, what is it the better for being rare? in passing it may be noted that unless a book is interesting for other reasons its rarity is necessarily an unknown quantity. sir sidney lee's census of the extant copies of the first folio shakespeare, a comparatively common book, but of supreme interest for its associations, is a striking example of the zeal with which every discoverable copy of a valuable book is now hunted down. those whose business it is to gather such information can tell in the case of dozens of books of much less importance exactly how many copies have been discovered and in whose possession they remain. but in the case of a book of little interest the most that can be said is that it is "undescribed," and it may be "undescribed" not in the least because it is really rare, but because no bibliographer has troubled himself to make a note of it. were some real point of interest discovered in it the chances are that the attention thus attracted would speedily bring to light other copies, as in the case of the school magazine to which mr. kipling was found to have contributed. of this the first set catalogued sold for over £ , with the result that so many others were unearthed that the price speedily sank to less than as many shillings. granted, however, that it could be proved that a dull book is not merely undescribed, but absolutely, what so few works are, unique, in what way does this make it of interest to the collector? a great library might buy it for a trifle out of compassion, or under the idea that its registration in a catalogue might help to piece out a genealogy, or that it might count as another unit in statistics (a poor reason), or justify its purchase in some other haphazard way. but considerations of this kind, such as they are, cannot affect private collectors. a really dull book is merely a nuisance, and whether only one copy of it, or many, can be proved to exist, nobody wants it. if this be so we are justified in saying that, although as soon as a book is found desirable for any other reason its rarity becomes of paramount importance in determining its price, rarity by itself is of no interest to collectors. the attractiveness bestowed by age cannot be treated quite so summarily, because although the same line of argument can be followed, it has to be helped out by an explanation arising from a particular case. no collector would value a dull sermon printed in any higher than a dull sermon printed in , and if we go back two centuries instead of one, in the case of a book printed in london its value is none the greater for the extra hundred years. if, however, the sermon chanced to have been printed in in some provincial town, its age would distinctly be an element of value. down to printing was only permitted in london, oxford, cambridge, and (after the outbreak of the civil war[ ]) at york. when the restraining act was dropped in printing made its way, not very rapidly, into one provincial town after another. hence a dull sermon with a provincial imprint may be dear to the heart of some local antiquary as the first-fruit of the press in his neighbourhood. if we go back another sixty years from we reach another typographic zone, as we may call it, within which some slight interest attaches to all examples of english printing, for the end of the year is the limit of the special catalogues of early books published by the british museum, the cambridge university library, and the john rylands library, manchester. the first and last of these have indexes of printers; in the second the primary arrangement is typographical. thus all books which are old enough to have been printed before the end of are thereby invested with some slight interest solely as products of english presses. when we get back to before we are in the period covered by the different editions of the _typographical antiquities_ of joseph ames. when we go back another hundred years we are within the fifteenth century; printing has been introduced into england for less than twenty-five years, and the smallest fragment of a book from one of the early presses at work at westminster, oxford, st. albans, or the city of london, is esteemed as of interest and importance. thus if we go far enough back age does add to the interest of a book, but only by bringing it under another influence, that the interest of an english fifteenth century book is due to its importance in the history of printing and not to its antiquity being easily demonstrated by the fact that a contemporary unadorned manuscript of the same work will probably have only a fraction of the value of the printed edition. there are, of course, other cases in which age may be said to have some secondary influence, as in the case of books dealing with social customs, ballads and the like. but here it is still more evident that the social or literary interest is the primary consideration, and that this cannot be created, though it is greatly enhanced, by age. having thus to the best of our ability abated the pride both of age and rarity, we come back to our original question as to what are the qualities and associations which give books value in the eyes of a collector. the only good qualities which a book can possess in its own right are those of strength and beauty of form. everything else about it is inherent in no single edition, though association of ideas may give greater dignity to one edition than to another. type, paper, ink, presswork, the arrangement of the page, and also (though not quite in the same way or to the same extent) the illustrations, are all part and parcel of the book itself, and may be combined, at least so bookmen believe, in a really beautiful unity. no doubt as to this students run some risk of losing their sense of proportion. i myself am conscious, for instance, that i have looked at so many fifteenth century woodcuts, as compared with other works of art, that i distinctly overrate them. mr. robert proctor, who knew more about fifteenth century books than any other man has ever known, or is ever likely to know, once said to me in all seriousness, that he did not think he had ever seen an ugly one. allowing, however, for this very human tendency to set up our own esoteric standard, there yet remains a more generally recognizable beauty of form which some books possess in a higher degree than others, and to collect such beautiful books independently of any other kind of attraction would be no unworthy pursuit. as a matter of fact, bookmen are more inclined to make beauty of form a secondary consideration to which, as to age and rarity, they pay attention, but without adopting it as the basis of their collection. as a secondary consideration the attention collectors pay to beauty can hardly be exaggerated in respect to the condition of copies, the ratio of an unusually good to an unusually bad copy of the same book, even if the bad copy have no leaves actually wanting, being often as ten to one. the unusually bad copy, indeed, would often have no selling value at all were it not that it may be useful to students and so win a purchaser at a small price. the collector should leave it severely alone, partly because such "working copies" are the rightful perquisite of poor scholars, partly because, as he presumably buys books for his pleasure, he defeats his own object if, except in the case of the very rarest, he buys copies at which he cannot look without regretting that their headlines are cut off or the paper rotten through bad cleaning. mr. frederick locker recorded in his catalogue that his copy of blake's _songs of innocence and of experience_ had been cut down by a previous owner to the dimensions of the old covers of a washing-book. i think it was his chivalry, his piety toward blake's memory, that induced him to rescue it from this dishonour. had he bought such a poor copy simply because it was cheap, he would have fallen far below his standard as a collector. putting on one side beauty of form, the interest of books in the eyes of a collector lies in their associations, historical, personal, or purely literary. for reasons touched on already but which we may now consider more fully, among historical associations those connected with the history of printing fill a very large place. as we have said before, the invention of an art by which books were so greatly cheapened and multiplied was an event of almost unique importance in the social history of europe, and everything which throws light on the first discovery, on the manner in which it was carried from one country and city to another, and on the methods and lives of the early printers, is of interest, and in its degree and measure, of importance. moreover, just as foxes are hunted because they show such good sport, so these early books are collected because the study of them combines in a singular degree the charms of scientific and historical discovery, with all sorts of literary, social, and human side-interests. the claim which henry bradshaw put forward that antiquarian bibliography must be studied scientifically has been perverted by the unwise into the assertion that bibliography is a science, or as they are sometimes pleased to put it, an exact science, till sensible people are wearied of the silly phrase. but the claim itself is absolutely true, and the gifts which enabled mr. proctor to classify, exactly or approximately, any fragment of early printing according to its country, place, printer, and date, if employed on any other field of scientific inquiry would easily have gained him a fellowship of the royal society, besides the european recognition which, in his own small field, was already his before he died. a large proportion of early printed books are without any indication whatever of their place of origin, printer, or date. the dates are obscured by the quickness or slowness of individual printers in adopting various improvements--sheet-numbering, leaf-numbering, printed capitals, titlepages, methods of imposition, etc.--which thus become uncertain and delusive landmarks. the place of origin is obscured by the existence of almost identical types in different cities and even in different countries. a fortiori the identity of the individual printer may baffle research from types being transferred or copied in all but one or two letters of the fount, which thus become the sole means of differentiating them. as helps the bibliographer has, in the first place, such a classification of the two or three thousand fifteenth century types as he is able to carry in his head. this, in proportion to its completeness, enables him to narrow down the field to be investigated. some small typographical peculiarity, the way in which the illuminator or rubricator has filled the blank spaces, the note which by good fortune he may have appended in this or some other known copy saying when he finished his work, similar notes by early purchasers which occasionally give the date of their bargain, these and other points may all help forward the happy moment of final identification. such a hunt as this may sound alarmingly difficult, as if it were all over five-barred gates and inconveniently hedged ditches. but facsimiles and other aids have been greatly multiplied of late years; many a book can be run down and the identification verified in a few minutes, and the possibility of hunting successfully in one's own library presupposes the purchase of many books giving full information as to their origin. these, while offering the means of identifying other books, will themselves raise no questions, so that the collector's life need not be unceasingly strenuous. the side-interests of these old books are very varied. many of them, at least to eyes trained to perceive it, are of great beauty. others, although the half century during which printing was in its infancy produced few masterpieces of literature, have real literary interest. more than any other single event the invention of printing hurried on the transition from the medieval world to the modern, but while many printers in italy nearly ruined themselves by the zeal with which they helped forward the classical renaissance, all over europe the medieval books which were still read were seized on for the press, so that in the books printed between and we are presented with a conspectus or summary of medieval literature. caxton printed the works of chaucer and gower and prose renderings of the old romances. the italian presses were busy with boccaccio, petrarch, and dante. the enormous size of the great speculum or encyclopædia of vincent de beauvais did not deter the printers of france and germany, and the ponderous tomes of medieval theology and law seem to have found a ready market. above all, the highest skill available in the best equipped workshops was employed almost ceaselessly in the production of beautiful and often magnificent editions of the service-books of the church for the use both of priests and laity, and it is hardly possible to dabble much in old books without acquiring an interest in liturgiology. owing to this fact, that the early presses were so largely occupied with printing the works of the previous three centuries, there is comparatively little human interest in incunabula on their literary side. instead of authors we have mostly to deal with editors, an assertive and depreciatory race, always vaunting their own accuracy and zeal and insisting on the incredible blunders by which previous editions had been deformed past recognition. we receive, however, no small compensation in the personal details which many of the early printers give us about themselves. titlepages, though they occur at haphazard in a few books of the early seventies (and there is one still earlier example), did not become common till about , and even twenty years later we find many books still without them. the information which we now expect to find on a titlepage was given in a paragraph, mostly at the end of the book, to which bibliographers have agreed to give the name "colophon," from [greek: kolophôn], the greek for a "finishing stroke." as we have already noted, in many books no information of this kind is given, but when printers, or their proof readers or editors, took the trouble to write a colophon at all, they had no reason to confine themselves to the severe brevity and simplicity of statement which marks the modern titlepage. it was in colophons that editors cast stones at their predecessors, or demanded sympathy for the severity of their own labours, and it is in colophons that we find the expressions of the printer's piety and pride, his complaints of his troubles with his workmen and rivals, his pleas for encouragement, and occasionally, penned by another hand, the record of how he was struck down by death in the midst of his work. i have never heard of any one making a representative collection of books with interesting colophons, but collecting has taken many worse forms. to lend grace to their colophons, or sometimes as a substitute for them, the early printers and publishers often used a woodcut containing their mark, sign, or device. like the colophon itself, this was printed as a token of the master's pride in his work and his desire that it might be recognized as his, and many printers' marks are very decorative and even beautiful. comparatively neglected until recently, within the last few years the devices used in various countries have been almost exhaustively reproduced in facsimile, thus leaving few chances of fresh discovery. the mention of devices brings us to a very interesting section of early printed books, and one which has attracted only too much attention of recent years, those decorated with the primitive cuts on wood or metal with which fifteenth century printers endeavoured to imitate the glories of illuminated manuscripts, or to increase the popularity of their books with not too critical readers. occasionally, as in the metal cuts in the best editions of the french horae, in the florentine and venetian woodcuts of the last ten years of the century, and in the best work of other countries, these early pictures possess real beauty. often they are badly spoilt by the incompetence of the cutters, who were working without the aid of modern gravers or modern methods of preparing the wood. the early german wood-cutters, whilst their outlines are often less graceful than those of their french and italian competitors, had a special gift for characterization, and the quality of their work is much more uniform, perhaps because even before the invention of printing with movable types they were an organized craft. but in almost all fifteenth century cuts there is a certain naive simplicity which captivates those who allow themselves to study it, until they are apt, as the present writer has confessed is probably true of himself, to rate it too highly. as is the case with the more ambitious artists in oils of the same periods, wherever there was any demand for book-illustrators a local school with strongly marked characteristics at once appears. the work of the augsburg cutters can be told at a glance from that executed at strassburg, and the styles predominant at venice and florence, at milan and naples are all absolutely distinct. with one or two exceptions we know nothing, until after , of the men who designed or cut these illustrations, and (except in the case of those of the low countries) hardly any attempt has been made, or seems possible, to subdivide the work done in any given locality so as to group it under individual masters. otherwise the problems of fifteenth century book-illustrations are much like the problems of the types with which they harmonize so well, and the collector can either devote himself to representing as fully as possible the work done in any single district, or range at large over the continent (as regards fifteenth century illustrations england may almost be left out of account) and collect a few good specimens of each school. it has been made a cause of complaint recently against bibliographers that they know more of the work done at any insignificant fifteenth century press than of the history of printing at any subsequent time. it is not easy to coerce men into taking up any sections of a subject beyond those in which they are interested, and the supposed culprits have at least this much justification for their neglect of the later work that very little of it repays examination. until , save for some possible dutch experiments, germany enjoyed the monopoly of printing. from to about she shared the primacy in it with italy, though during most of this period italy was slightly ahead; from to about france was far in advance of the rest of europe; after there was a higher technical level in the low countries than elsewhere, and plantin and the elzevirs gained individual reputations. but there was very little good taste even in the low countries, and from a typographical standpoint the seventeenth century is a sahara with hardly any oases. from this wilderness the eighteenth century, under the guidance of france and england, timidly felt its way back to a kind of trim neatness, but the positive experiments of baskerville and the didots, and in italy of bodoni, were not very exciting, and at present are quite out of fashion. in the nineteenth century the work of the whittinghams in england deserves more attention from collectors than it has received, and throughout the whole period any one working on historical lines, with the desire to illustrate the vicissitudes of the art of printing and not merely its successes, has an ample field. but for positive excellence, after the period of "origins," the french books of the middle of the sixteenth century offer almost the only hunting ground in which the fastidious collector is likely to find an attractive quarry, and it is no use to try to tell any other tale. of the later book illustrations a somewhat better account may be given. owing to the steady deterioration of paper and presswork, which was the real cause of the typographical decline, woodcuts by the end of the sixteenth century had gone quite out of fashion, the old simple style having been lost and no printer being able to do justice to the finer work on which designers insisted. but copper engravings throve in germany and the low countries, and when the fashion of engraved frontispieces and titles took root in england in the last years of the century it was pursued with considerable success for a couple of generations, while in the eighteenth century the french _livres à vignettes_ attained an extraordinary brilliancy and elegance, and gravelot and other french engravers bestowed some of their skill on english books. the use of wood, now worked with the graver and no longer with the knife, was revived in england by bewick about , and was pursued with varying success for over a century, great technical skill and, at least in the "sixties," very fine design being marred by the poverty and often the tawdriness of its typographical setting. despite these drawbacks, the collectors who are bestowing attention on all this wood-engraved work of the nineteenth century will probably reap their reward. when wood engraving was killed a few years ago by the extraordinary perfection attained, at a much smaller cost, by the process block, its fate was shared by the line-engraved illustrations which had appeared fitfully throughout the century, and had lingered on in the beautiful work of c. h. jeens, who died in , and in the use of old plates. as the wood engraving was killed by the half-tone block, so the line engraving disappeared before the photogravure, and the colour processes now being rapidly perfected threaten to reduce all black and white illustrations to unimportance. in so far, however, as the new processes necessitate the use of heavily loaded papers as a condition of their being even tolerably well printed, the least antiquarian of collectors may be forgiven for neglecting the books illustrated by them. some of them can only be preserved by every plate being backed with sound paper, and a hundred years hence of all this illustrated work, much of it really beautiful, which is now being produced in such quantities, very little will remain. the modern groliers whom we tried to call forth at the beginning of this chapter will need to be experts both in paper and in leather if they are to leave behind them any permanent record of their good taste. but this is only a crowning proof of how urgently they are needed. it would be pleasant to glance briefly at some of the more literary considerations which bring books within the collector's scope. but the scheme of this series restricts the subject of the present volume to books which are prized either for their typographical beauty, their place in the history of printing, or the charm of their illustrations. this is in itself so large a field that no more pages must be wasted on introducing it. footnotes: [ ] even mr. carnegie will only help to found new libraries, not to make old ones more efficient. [ ] during the civil war itself presses were also set up temporarily at newcastle-on-tyne, at shrewsbury, and perhaps elsewhere. chapter ii block-books the collector of the time of george iii, whose heart was set on typographical antiquities, and who was ambitious enough to wish to begin at the beginning, must have hungered after a block-book. even in the days of bagford, at the very outset of the eighteenth century, interest had been aroused in the block-printed editions of the _speculum humanae saluationis_, so that bagford himself travelled from amsterdam to haarlem on purpose to see a copy of one of the dutch editions, and set an english wood-cutter to work, with very poor success, to manufacture a bogus specimen of it, wherewith "to oblige the curious." this, with a similar imitation of a page in the _biblia pauperum_, was intended to illustrate the history of printing which bagford had the temerity to plan, although such of his smaller dissertations as have been preserved show conclusively that he was quite incapable of carrying it out. the interest thus early shown in block-books sprang from an entirely reasonable, but probably incorrect, view of the part which they had played in the development of printing with movable type. it was known that woodcuts without letterpress were printed in germany quite early in the fifteenth century, the cut of s. christopher, formerly in the spencer collection, now in the john rylands library, bearing the date .[ ] on the other hand, printing with movable type was practised at mainz in the fifties, and about albrecht pfister published at bamberg several books with woodcut illustrations and printed letterpress. in the logical order of development nothing could be more reasonable than the sequence: i. woodcut pictures. ii. woodcut pictures and woodcut text. iii. woodcut pictures and text printed from movable type. facts, however, do not always arrange themselves with the neatness which commends itself to an a priori historian, and the most recent students of block-books are unable to discover sufficient justification for the early dates which their predecessors assigned to them. on the old theory, in order to put it in front of the invention of printing with movable types, the _biblia pauperum_, which appears to be the oldest of the block-books, was placed about or , and the _ars moriendi_ and the other chief specimens of block-printing were all supposed to have been produced before , the main period of block-printing thus coinciding with the interval between the s. christopher of and pfister's activity at bamberg about . positive evidence in favour of this chronology there was none. it rested solely on the idea, at which bibliographers had jumped, that the block-books were necessary "steps towards the invention of printing," as they have often been called, and on what seemed the improbability that any one, when the art of printing with movable type had once been invented, would have troubled himself laboriously to cut letterpress on wood. so far from block-printing being unable to co-exist with printing from movable type, it was not till nearly a century after printing had been invented that block-books finally ceased to be produced. the example generally quoted as the latest[ ] is the _opera nova contemplativa per ogni fedel christiano laquale tratta de le figure del testamento vecchio: le quale figure sonno verificate nel testamento nuovo_. as its title implies, this, curiously enough, is an adaptation of the _biblia pauperum_, which was thus the last, as it may have been the first, of the block-books. it is undated, but has the name of its publisher, giovanni andrea vavassore, who worked at venice about . the _opera nova contemplativa_ was from one point of view a mere survival, but vavassore is not likely to have produced it solely to cause twentieth century antiquaries surprise. he must have had a business reason for having recourse to block-printing, nor is that reason very hard to find. from the frequency with which the early printers changed and recast their types, and the short intervals at which popular books printed with types were set up afresh, it is clear ( ) that the type-metal[ ] employed was much softer and less durable than that now in use, and that only small impressions[ ] could be taken from the same setting up; ( ) that only a small amount of type was cast at a time, and that type was quickly distributed and used again, never kept standing on the chance that another edition would be wanted. now when we come to the illustrations in printed books, we find the same woodblocks used for five or six successive editions, and then, in many cases, enjoying a second lease of life as job-blocks, used at haphazard by inferior printers. it is clear, therefore, that while it was a much more difficult and laborious business to cut the letterpress of a book on blocks of wood than to set it up with movable types, when the blocks were once made much more work could be got out of them. in a word, in the case of a small book for which there was a steady demand, a printer might be tempted to have it cut as a block-book for the same reasons as might cause a modern publisher to have it stereotyped. the labour of cutting the letterpress on wood was much greater than that now involved in stereotyping, and the result clumsier. hence it was only to short books intended for unexacting purchasers that the process was applied and with two or three exceptions it was used only for illustrated books with a small amount of text. but within this restricted field it had its own commercial possibilities, and there is thus nothing surprising in its coexistence with printing from movable type. when the theory that block-books were "steps towards the invention of printing" is thus opposed by the rival theory that they were forerunners of stereotyped plates, we are left free to consider, uncoerced by supposed necessities, such evidence as exists as to the dates of the specimens of block-printing still extant. putting aside the late italian block-book as a mere survival, we find two[ ] broadly distinguished groups, one earlier, the dates of members of which can only be conjectured, the other later, several of which can only be definitely connected with the years to . the characteristics of the earlier group are that they are printed ( ) with a watery brown ink; ( ) always on one side of the paper only; ( ) without mechanical pressure;[ ] ( ) two consecutive pages at a time, so that they cannot be arranged in quires, but must be folded and stitched separately, and the book thus formed[ ] begins and ends with a blank page and has a pair of blank pages between each pair of printed ones. this arrangement in some extant copies has been altered by modern binders, who have divided the sheets, mounted each leaf on a guard, and then gathered them, at their own will, into quires. the inconvenient intervention of the blank pages has also sometimes been wrestled with (at an early date) by gluing the leaves together, so that all the leaves, except the first and last, are double, and the printed pages follow each other without interruption. these expedients, however, are easily detected, and the original principle of arrangement is free from doubt. in the later block-books, on the other hand, we note one or more of the following characteristics: ( ) the use of the thick black ink (really a kind of paint) employed in ordinary printing; ( ) printing on both sides of the paper; ( ) marks of pressure, showing that the paper has been passed through a printing-press; ( ) the arrangement of the blocks in such a way as to permit the sheets to be gathered into quires. in the case of the more popular block-books which went through many issues and editions[ ] we can trace the gradual substitution of later characteristics for earlier ones. at what intervals of time these changes were made we have bibliographically no adequate grounds even for guessing. analogies from books printed with movable types may be quoted on both sides. on the one hand, we find the blocks for book-illustrations enjoying an amazingly long life. thus blocks cut at venice and florence between and continued in use for fifteen or twenty years, were then laid aside, and reappear between and , certainly the worse for wear, but yet capable by a lucky chance of yielding quite a fair impression. the fact that one issue of a block-book can be positively assigned to or , thus does not of itself forbid an earlier issue being placed as far back in the fifteenth century as any one may please to propose. on the other hand, when a printed book was a popular success editions succeeded each other with great rapidity, and one centre of printing vied with another in producing copies of it. the chief reason for the current disinclination to assume a date earlier than or for any extant block-book is the total absence of any evidence demanding it. if such evidence were forthcoming, there would be no inherent impossibility to set against it. but in the absence of such evidence twenty years seems an ample time to allow for the vogue of the block-books, and (despite the neatness of the a priori theory of development mentioned at the beginning of this chapter) this fits in better with the history both of printing and of book-illustration than any longer period. the first attempt to describe the extant block-books was made by carl heinrich von heinecken in , in his _idée générale d'une collection d'estampes_. this held the field until the publication in of samuel legh sotheby's _principia typographica: the block-books issued in holland, flanders and germany, during the fifteenth century_, a painstaking and well-illustrated work in three folio volumes. the most recent and probably the final treatment of the subject is that by dr. w. l. schreiber, in vol. iv of his _manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois et sur métal au xv^e siècle_, published in (facsimiles in vols. vii and viii, - ). dr. schreiber enumerates no fewer than thirty-three works as existing in the form of block-books, the number of extant issues and editions of them amounting to over one hundred. here it must suffice to offer brief notes on some of the more important. _biblia pauperum_ a series of forty composite pictures, the central compartment in each representing a scene from the life of christ, while on each side of it is an old testament type, and above and below are in each case two half-figures of prophets. the explanatory letterpress is given in the two upper corners and also on scrolls. schreiber distinguishes ten issues and editions, in addition to an earlier german one of a less elaborate design and with manuscript text, which belongs to a different tradition. the earlier of these ten editions appear to have been made in the netherlands. an edition with german text was published with the colophon, "friederich walther mauler zu nördlingen vnd hans hurning habent dis buch mitt einender gemacht," and a second issue of this (without the colophon) is dated . in the following year another edition, with copied cuts, was printed with the device of hans spoerer. _ars moriendi_ twenty-four leaves, two containing a preface, and the remaining twenty-two eleven pictures and eleven pages of explanatory letterpress facing them, showing the temptations to which the dying are exposed, and the good inspirations by which they may be resisted, and, lastly, the final agony. the early editions are ascribed to the netherlands or district of the rhine; the later to germany. there are also editions with german text, one of them signed "hanns sporer," and dated . a set of engravings on copper by the master e. s. (copied by the master of s. erasmus) may be either imitations or the originals of the earliest of these _ars moriendi_ designs. (see lionel cust's _the master e. s. and the ars moriendi_.) the designs were imitated in numerous printed editions in various countries. in addition to a copy of the edition usually regarded as the earliest extant, the british museum possesses one with the same characteristics, but of a much smaller size (the blocks measuring by mm. instead of by ), and from this, as much less known, a page is here given as an illustration. _cantica canticorum_ sixteen leaves, each containing two woodcuts, illustrating the song of songs as a parable of the blessed virgin. produced in the netherlands. _apocalypsis sancti johannis_ fifty leaves, or in some editions forty-eight, showing scenes from the life of s. john and illustrations of the apocalypse, mostly with two pictures on each leaf. the early editions are assigned to the netherlands, the later to germany. a copy of the edition regarded as the fourth, lately sold by herr ludwig rosenthal, bears a manuscript note, most probably as to the writer, just possibly as to the book, entering the household of the landgrave heinrich of hesse in . [illustration: iii. ars moriendi, blockbook, c. inspiratio contra vanam gloriam] _speculum humanae saluationis_ scenes from bible history, arranged in pairs, within architectural borders, with explanatory text beneath. no complete xylographic, or block-printed, edition is known, but twenty leaves printed from blocks are found in conjunction with forty-four leaves printed from type, and have not unreasonably been held to prove the previous production of a complete block-printed edition now lost. in like manner, the fact that two different types are used in different parts of a dutch printed edition has encouraged dr. hessels to believe that this "mixed edition" should be regarded as proving the production of two complete editions, one in each type. on this theory we have ( ) a hypothetical latin block-printed edition; ( - ) three dutch editions, each printed in a different type; ( ) a latin edition, entirely printed from type; ( ) a latin edition, printed partly from type, partly from some of the blocks of no. . the copy of this "mixed latin edition," as it is called, in the university library at munich, is dated in manuscript , and the hypothetical complete block-printed edition may be as much earlier than this as any one pleases to imagine. but other bibliographers recognize only four editions and arrange them differently. _antichristus_ thirty-eight leaves, with two pictures on each leaf, illustrating the legends relating to the coming of antichrist, and the fifteen signs which were to precede the last judgment. the text is in german, and the block-book was executed in germany, probably about . _franciscus de retza. defensorium inviolatae castitatis virginis mariae_ sixteen leaves, mostly with four pictures and four pieces of explanatory letterpress on each leaf, concerning marvels in the natural world which were supposed to be equally wonderful with that of the virgin birth, and therefore to render faith in this easier. unfortunately the marvels are so very marvellous that they do not inspire belief, e.g. one story relates how the sun one day drew up the moisture from the earth with such rapidity that an ox was drawn up with it and subsequently deposited out of a cloud in another field. one edition was issued by a certain f. w. in , another at ratisbon by johann eysenhut the following year. _johann mÜller (johannes regiomontanus). kalender_ thirty-two leaves, containing lunar tables, tables of the eclipses for fifty-six years ( - ), other astronomical information, and a figure of the human body with notes of the signs of the zodiac by which it was influenced. composed by the famous astronomer, johann müller, and sold by hans briefftruck, probably hans spoerer, about - , at nuremberg and elsewhere. _johann hartlieb. die kunst chiromantia_ forty-four figures of hands, with a titlepage and page of text and a printed wrapper. early issues are printed on one side of the paper only, later on both. the printer appears to have been jorg schaff, of augsburg, and the date of issue about . the date found in the book is that of composition, and it probably circulated in manuscript for many years before being printed. _mirabilia romae_ a german guide-book for visitors to rome. ninety-two leaves, printed with black ink on both sides of the leaf, with only a few illustrations. it was perhaps first published to meet the rush of german pilgrims to rome at the jubilee of pope sixtus iv, . the blocks were probably cut in germany, and the printing done at rome. some of the ornaments are said to have been used in type-printed editions by stephan plannck. this suggests that the book may have been published by his predecessor, ulrich han. * * * * * in addition to these block-books of low country and german origin, mention must also be made of a very curious italian one, a _passio domini nostri jesu christi_, fully described by the prince d'essling. the copy of this at berlin contains eighteen leaves, and was probably executed at venice about the middle of the fifteenth century. some of the blocks were subsequently used (after a scroll at the foot had been cut off) for an edition of the _devote meditatione sopra la passione del nostro signore_ (attributed to s. bonaventura), published at venice in by jeronimo di sancti e cornelio suo compagno, and a page from this is reproduced as a frontispiece to our chapter on italian illustrated books. mention has already been made of the _opera nova contemplativa_, an adaptation of the _biblia pauperum_, printed as a block-book at venice about . the only extant french block-book, if it can be called one, is that of the "nine worthies" (_les neuf preux_). this consists of three sheets, the first showing three heathen worthies--hector, alexander, and julius cæsar; the second, three from the old testament--joshua, david, and judas maccabæus; the third, three from medieval romance--arthur, charlemagne, and godfrey of boulogne. under each picture are six lines of verse. these three triple woodcuts, with the woodcut text, are assigned to about . no english block-book has yet been discovered, nor is it in the least likely that one ever existed, though there are a few single woodcuts. * * * * * block-books possess two permanent attractions in addition to their supposed historical importance in the development of the invention of printing on which doubt is now cast--the attraction of popular literature and the attraction of the illustrated book. as we have seen, it would not have been worth any one's while to cause a block-book to be laboriously engraved, or cut, unless a large and speedy sale could be expected for it. the most famous block-books are nearly all of a religious character, and they prove a widespread desire for simple instruction as to the incidents of the life of christ and the events in the old testament history which were regarded as prefigurements of them, as to the dignity of the blessed virgin and the doctrine of the virgin birth, as to the end of the world and the coming of antichrist, and as to the spiritual dangers and temptations of the dying and the means by which they might be resisted. as early specimens of book-illustration the value of the block-books varies very greatly. the majority of them are more curious than beautiful, but the pictures of the _cantica canticorum_, the _speculum humanae saluationis_, and the _ars moriendi_ have all very great merit. the tall, slender figures in the song of songs have a charm as great as any dutch book-illustrations of the fifteenth century; the cuts of the _speculum_ are full of vigour, while the serene dignity of the scenes in the _ars moriendi_ illustrating the inspirations of the good angel is as impressive as the grotesque force used in depicting the diabolic suggestions. if we must grant, as the weight of authority now bids us, that these woodcuts are copies from the copper engravings of the master e. s., it can hardly be disputed that the wood-cutter was the better artist of the two. the block-books are a striking example of the difficulty of gleaning where the earlier collectors have reaped, a difficulty to which we shall often have to call attention. they vary greatly in positive rarity. of the _biblia pauperum_ and _ars moriendi_, which in their different issues and editions enjoyed the longest life and early attracted attention, dr. schreiber (if i have counted rightly) was able to enumerate in the one case as many as eighty-three copies--many of them, it is true, mere fragments--in the other sixty-one. of the _apocalypse_ fifty-seven copies were known to him, of the _speculum_ twenty-nine, of the _antichrist_ thirteen, of the _defensorium_ twelve, and of the _mirabilia romae_ six. but of these copies and fragments no fewer than are recorded as being locked up in public libraries and museums, the ownership of thirteen was doubtful, and only twenty-five are definitely registered as being in the hands of private collectors, viz. of the _apocalypse_, eight copies or fragments; of the _biblia pauperum_, six; of the _speculum_ and _ars moriendi_, four each; of the _defensorium_, two; and of the _cantica canticorum_, one. the chief owners known to dr. schreiber were the earl of pembroke, baron edmond de rothschild, and major holford, to whom must now be added mr. pierpont morgan and mr. perrins. no doubt the copies in public institutions are much more easily enumerated than those in private hands, and probably most of the untraced copies are owned by collectors. but when allowance has been made for this, it remains obvious that this is no field where an easy harvest can be reaped, and that the average collector may think himself lucky if he obtains one or two single leaves. the last great opportunity of acquiring such treasures was at the sale in of the wonderful collection formed by t. o. weigel,[ ] at which the british museum bought a very fine copy of the first edition of the _ars moriendi_, the first edition, dated , of the _biblia pauperum_, in german, a block-book illustrating the virtues of the hymn _salve regina_, and the compassion of the blessed virgin, printed at regensburg about , besides fragments and woodcut single sheets. the foundation of the museum collection of block-books had been laid by george iii, added to by mr. grenville, and completed by a series of purchases from to this final haul of , since when there have been few opportunities for new acquisitions. it is now quite adequate for purposes of study, though not so rich as that of the bibliothèque nationale at paris. footnotes: [ ] the authenticity of a still earlier date, , on a cut of the blessed virgin at brussels is disputed. [ ] the _libro di m. giovanbattista palatino_, printed at rome in , is spoken of by mr. campbell dodgson as a "belated specimen" of a block-book. but this was a writing-book, and hardly counts. [ ] numerous references in colophons show that the metal mostly used was brass, e.g. "_primus in adriaca formis impressit aenis vrbe libros spira genitus de stirpe johannes_," and the use of chalcographi as a name for printers. but there are one or two references to printing "_stanneis typis_," with types of tin. [ ] of the first book printed at venice only copies were struck off, but the number was trebled in the case of its immediate successors. at rome sweynheym and pannartz mostly printed copies, only in a few instances as many as . but at the end of the century pynson was printing at least copies of large books and as many as of small ones. [ ] a very small third group, earlier than either of these, consists of woodcuts with manuscript text. the most important of these is a german _biblia pauperum_ quite distinct from those started in the netherlands. [ ] some early woodcuts were printed by pressing the block down on the paper by hand; for the early block-books, however, the usual method seems to have been to press the paper on to the face of the block by rubbing it on the back with a burnisher. the paper was thus quite as strongly indented as if passed through a press, but the impression is usually less even. the friction on the back of the paper often gives it a polished appearance. as long as this method continued in use it was, of course, impossible to print on both sides of the paper. [ ] it is possible that the earliest specimens of block-printing were intended not to be bound in books but to be pasted on walls. in the case of the _biblia pauperum_, for instance, the space between the two woodcuts placed on each sheet is so small in some issues that the sheets cannot be bound without concealing part of the pictures. [ ] different issues are distinguished by the signs of wear in the blocks, or occasionally by their being differently arranged, or with changes made in the blocks. in a different edition we have to deal with a new set of blocks. [ ] since this was written the interesting collection formed by dr. schreiber himself has been dispersed. chapter iii the invention of printing--holland up to the year only one firm of printers evinced any appreciation of the uses of advertisement. in johann fust and peter schoeffer, of mainz, set their names at the end of the liturgical psalter which they were issuing from their press, and stated also the date of its completion, "in vigilia assumpcionis," on the vigil of the feast of the assumption, i.e. august th. save in the case of a few unimportant books this preference for publicity remained the settled practice of the firm until peter schoeffer's death early in the sixteenth century, and later still when it was in the hands of his son johann. with other printers at first the tendency was all the other way. albrecht pfister placed his name in one or two of the handful of popular illustrated books which he printed at bamberg about . no other book before contains its printer's name, and both at strassburg and at basel the practice of publishing anonymously continued in fashion throughout the 'seventies--in strassburg, indeed, for the best part of another decade. [illustration: iv. early dutch press alexander galles, doctrinale ( ^a)] while printing continued mainly anonymous chroniclers took no note of it, but in the ten years which began in the progress of the art was rapid and triumphant. printers, mostly germans, invaded the chief cities of europe, and boasted in their books of having been the first to practise it in this place or that. curiosity as to the beginnings of the invention was thus aroused, and from onwards we meet with numerous attempts, not always accurate, to satisfy it. the earliest of these attempts is in a letter from guillaume fichet, a professor at the sorbonne, who was mainly responsible for bringing the first printers to paris, to his friend robert gaguin. this is contained in one copy of the second paris book, the _orthographia_ of gasparinus barzizius, printed in , fichet having a fondness for giving individuality to special copies by additions of this kind. in this letter he speaks of the great light which he thinks learning will receive from the new kind of bookmen whom germany, like another trojan horse, has poured forth. ferunt enim illic, haut procul a ciuitate maguncia, ioannem quendam fuisse cui cognomen bonemontano, qui primus omnium impressoriam artem excogitauerit, qua non calamo (ut prisci quidem illi) neque penna (ut nos fingimus) sed æreis litteris libri finguntur, et quidem expedite, polite et pulchre. dignus sane hic uir fuit quem omnes musæ, omnes artes, omnesque eorum linguæ qui libris delectantur, diuinis laudibus ornent, eoque magis dis deabusque anteponant, quo propius ac presentius litteris ipsis ac studiosis hominibus suffragium tulit. si quidem deificantur liber et alma ceres, ille quippe dona liei inuenit poculaque inuentis acheloia miscuit uuis, hæc chaoniam pingui glandem mutauit arista. atque (ut poeta utamur altero) prima ceres unco glebam dimouit aratro, prima dedit fruges alimenta mitia terris. at bonemontanus ille, longe gratiora diuinioraque inuenit, quippe qui litteras eiusmodi exculpsit, quibus quidquid dici, aut cogitari potest, propediem scribi ac transcribi & posteritatis mandari memoriæ possit. the good fichet is absurdly rhetorical, but here in is a quite clear statement that, according to report, there (i.e. in germany), not far from[ ] the city of mainz, a certain john, surnamed gutenberg, first of all men thought out the printing art, by which books are fashioned not with a reed or pen, but with letters of brass, and thus deserved better of mankind than either bacchus or ceres, since by his invention whatever can be said or thought can forthwith be written and transcribed and handed down to posterity. four years later in his continuation of the _chronica summorum pontificum_, begun by riccobaldus, joannes philippi de lignamine, the physician of pope sixtus iv, who had set up a press of his own at rome, wrote as one of the events of the pontificate of pius ii ( - ), how "jakob gutenberg, a native of strassburg, and a certain other whose name was fust, being skilled in printing letters on parchment with metal forms, are known each of them to be turning out three hundred sheets a day at mainz, a city of germany, and johann mentelin also, at strassburg, a city of the same province, being skilled in the same craft, is known to be printing daily the same number of sheets."[ ] a little later de lignamine records the arrival at rome of sweynheym and pannartz, and also of ulrich han, and credits them also with printing three hundred sheets a day. other references follow in later books without adding to our knowledge, save by proving the widespread recognition in the fifteenth century that printing was invented at mainz; but there is nothing specially to detain us until the publication by johann koelhoff in of the cologne chronicle--_die cronica van der hilliger stat coellen_--in which occurs a famous passage about printing, which may be translated or paraphrased as follows:-- "this right worthy art was invented first of all in germany, at mainz, on the rhine. and that is a great honour to the german nation that such ingenious men are found there. this happened in the year of our lord , and from that time until the art and all that pertains to it was investigated, and in , which was a golden year, men began to print, and the first book that was printed was the bible in latin, and this was printed with a letter as large as that now used in missals. "although this art was invented at mainz, as far as regards the manner in which it is now commonly used, yet the first prefiguration (vurbyldung) was invented in holland from the donatuses which were printed there before that time. and from and out of these the aforesaid art took its beginning, and was invented in a manner much more masterly and subtler than this, and the longer it lasted the more full of art it became. "a certain omnibonus wrote in the preface to a quintilian, and also in other books, that a walloon from france, called nicolaus jenson, was the first inventor of this masterly art--a notorious lie, for there are men still alive who bear witness that books were printed at venice before the aforesaid nicolaus jenson came there, and began to cut and make ready his letter. but the first inventor of printing was a burgher at mainz, and was born at strassburg, and called yunker johann gutenberg. "from mainz the art came first of all to cologne, after that to strassburg, and after that to venice. the beginning and progress of the art were told me by word of mouth by the worshipful master ulrich zell of hanau, printer at cologne in this present year , through whom the art came to cologne."[ ] zell, or his interviewer, ignores the books printed anonymously at strassburg by mentelin and eggestein, and also the handful printed by albrecht pfister at bamberg; he also is misled by gutenberg's long residence at strassburg into calling him a native of that city; in other respects, so far as we are able to check this account, it is quite accurate. it tells us emphatically that "this right worthy art was invented first of all in germany, at mainz, on the rhine"; and again, that "the first inventor of printing was a burgher at mainz named junker johann 'gudenburch'"; but between these two unqualified statements is sandwiched a reference to a prefiguration which took shape in holland in _donatuses_, printed there before the mainz presses were at work, and much less masterly and subtle than the books which they produced. he connects no name with this "vorbildung," and, unhappily, he gives no clue as to how it foreshadowed, and was yet distinct from, the real invention. sixty-nine years[ ] after the appearance of this carefully balanced statement, the facts as to dutch "prefigurations" which had inspired it moved a dutch chronicler, hadrianus junius, in compiling his _batavia_ (not published till ), to write the well-known passage as to the invention of printing, which has been summarized as follows:-- there lived, about , at haarlem, in the market-place opposite the town hall, in a respectable house still in existence, a man named lourens janszoon coster, i.e. laurence, son of john coster. the family name was derived from the hereditary office of sacristan, or coster of the church--a post both honourable and lucrative. the town archives give evidence of this, his name appearing therein many times, and in the town hall are preserved his seal and signature to various documents. to this man belongs the honour of inventing printing, an honour of which he was unjustly robbed, and which afterwards was ascribed to another. the said laurence coster, one day after dinner, took a walk in the wood near haarlem. while there, to amuse himself, he began to cut letters out of some beech-bark. the idea struck him to ink some of these letters and use them as stamps. this he did to amuse his grandchildren, cutting them in reverse. he thus formed two or three sentences on paper. the idea germinated, and soon with the help of his son-in-law, and by using a thick ink, he began to print whole pages, and to add lines of print to the block-books, the text of which was the most difficult part to engrave. junius had seen such a book, called _spieghel onzer behoudenisse_. it should have been said that coster was descended from the noble house of brederode, and that his son-in-law was also of noble descent. coster's first efforts were of course very rude, and to hide the impression of the letters on the back, they pasted the leaves, which had one side not printed, together. his letters at first were made of lead, which he afterwards changed for tin. upon his death these letters were melted down and made into wine-pots, which at the time that junius wrote were still preserved in the house of gerrit thomaszoon, the grandson of coster. public curiosity was greatly excited by coster's discovery, and he gained much profit from his new process. his trade, indeed, so increased that he was obliged to employ several workmen, one of whom was named john. some say this was john faust, afterwards a partner with gutenberg, and others say he was gutenberg's brother. this man when he had learnt the art in all its branches, took the opportunity one christmas eve, when all good people are accustomed to attend church, to break into the rooms used for printing, and to pack up and steal all the tools and appliances which his master, with so much care and ingenuity, had made. he went off by amsterdam and cologne to mainz, where he at once opened a workshop and reaped rich fruit from this theft, producing several printed books. the accuracy of this story was attested by a respectable bookbinder, of great age but clear memory, named cornelis who had been a fellow-servant with the culprit in the house of coster, and indeed had occupied the same bed for several months, and who could never talk of such baseness without shedding tears and cursing the thief. written nearly a hundred and thirty years after the supposed events which it narrates, this story is damned by its circumstantiality. it is thus that legends grow, and it is not difficult to imagine haarlem bookmen picking up ideas out of colophons in old books and asking the "respectable bookbinder of great age" whether it was not thus and thus that things happened. many of the details of the story are demonstrably false; its one strong point is the bookbinder, cornelis, for a binder of this name is said to have been employed as early as and as late as to bind the account-books of haarlem cathedral, and in the two years named, and also in , to have strengthened his bindings by pasting inside them fragments of _donatuses_ printed on vellum in the type of the _speculum humanae saluationis_. the fragment in the account-book for is rubricated, and must thus either have been sold or prepared for selling, i.e. it is not "printer's waste," but may have been bought by cornelis for lining his covers in the ordinary way of trade. but we have here a possible link between zell's story of early dutch _donatuses_ and the story of junius about coster and his servant cornelis, since we find fragments of a _donatus_ in the possession of this particular man. there were plenty of such _donatuses_ in existence in the netherlands about . in dr. hessels, in his _haarlem the birthplace of printing, not mentz_, enumerated fragments of twenty different editions, printed in eight types, of which the type used in the _speculum humanae saluationis_ (see p. ) is one, while the other seven are linked to it, or to each other, in such a way that we may either suppose them to have all belonged to the same printer, or distribute them among two or more anonymous firms. besides these twenty editions of _donatus_ on the eight parts of speech, dr. hessels enumerated eight editions of the _doctrinale_ of alexander gallus[ ] (another school book popular in the fifteenth century), three of the distichs of dionysius cato (the work from which dame pertelote quoted to convince chantecleer of the futility of dreams), and one or two editions each of a few other works, the _facetiae morales_ of laurentius valla (twenty-four leaves), the _singularia juris_ of ludovicus pontanus, with a treatise of pope pius ii (sixty leaves), and the _de salute corporis_ of gulielmus de saliceto with other small works (twenty-four leaves). these latter books offer no very noticeable features; some of the _donatus_ fragments, on the other hand, have printing only on one side of the leaf (whence they are called by the barbarous term "anopisthographic," "not printed on the back") and have a very rude and primitive appearance. this may have been caused in part at least by their having been pasted down, and possibly scraped, by binders, for almost all of them have been found in bindings; but it counts for something. not one of the books or fragments of which we have been speaking makes any mention of its printer, or of the place or date at which it was produced. a copy of one of the later books, the _de salute corporis_ of gulielmus de saliceto, was purchased by conrad du moulin while abbot of the convent of s. james at lille, a dignity which he held from to . the earliest haarlem account-book which contained _donatus_ fragments was for the year . it is entirely a matter of opinion as to how much earlier than this any of the extant fragments can be dated. there is no reason why some of them should not be later. as to the place or places at which these books were printed, there is no evidence of any weight. but, as has been already said, the whole series can be closely or loosely connected with the types used in editions of the _speculum humanae saluationis_, and in jan veldener, a wandering printer, while working at utrecht, introduced into an edition of the epistles and gospels in dutch two woodcuts, each of which was a half of one of the double pictures in the _speculum_. two years later, when at kuilenburg, he printed a quarto edition of the _speculum_ itself (dutch version), in which he used a large number of the original _speculum_ blocks, all cut up into halves, so as to fit a small page. as veldener (as far as we know) used the _speculum_ blocks first at utrecht, it is supposed that it was at utrecht that he obtained them. if the blocks were for sale at utrecht, this may have been the place at which the earlier editions of the _speculum_ were issued, and thus, in the absence of any evidence which they were willing to recognize in favour of any other place, henry bradshaw and his disciples attributed the whole series of editions of the _speculum_, _donatus_, _doctrinale_, etc., to utrecht, about, or "not after," - . bradshaw himself clearly indicated that this attribution was purely provisional. he felt "compelled to leave" the books at utrecht, so he phrased it, i.e. the presumption that veldener found the blocks of the _speculum_ there constituted a grain of evidence in favour of utrecht; and if a balance is sufficiently sensitive and both scales are empty, a grain thrown into one will suffice to weigh it down. it would have been better, in the present writer's opinion, if the grain had been disregarded, and no attempt made to assign these books and fragments to any particular place. as it is, bradshaw's attribution of them to utrecht has been repeated without any emphasis on its entirely provisional character, even without any mention of this at all, and perhaps with a certain humorous enjoyment of the chance of prejudicing the claims of haarlem by an unusually rigorous application of the rules as to bibliographical evidence. in the eyes of dr. hessels, on the other hand, the legend narrated by junius offers a sufficient reason for assigning all these books to haarlem, and to lourens janszoon coster as their printer. dr. hessels was even ill-advised enough to point out that, as there are twenty editions of _donatus_ in this group of types, we have only to allow an interval of a year and a half between each to take back the earliest very close to , the traditional date of the invention of printing. this is perfectly true, but as no reason can be assigned for fixing on this particular interval the value of such a calculation is very slight. one result of all this controversy is that the whole series of books and fragments have been dubbed "costeriana," and the convenience of having a general name for them is so great that it has been generally adopted, even by those who have no belief in the theory which it implies. all that is known of lourens janszoon coster is that he resided at haarlem from to , and that contemporary references show him to have been a chandler and innkeeper, without making any mention of his having added printing to his other occupations. it is difficult to claim more for the story told by junius than that it represents an unknown quantity of fact with various legendary additions. it is difficult to dismiss it as less than a legend which must have had some element of fact as its basis. in so far as it goes beyond the statements of the cologne chronicle, it is supported only by the evidence that coster and the venerable bookbinder cornelis existed, and that the latter bound the account-books of haarlem cathedral. but no indiscretion of hadrianus junius writing in can affect the credit of the statements made in the cologne chronicle in on the authority of ulrich zell, and we have now to mention an important piece of evidence in favour of zell's accuracy. this is the entry in the diaries of jean de robert, abbot of saint aubert, cambrai, of the purchase in and again in of a copy of the _doctrinale_ of alexander gallus, _jeté en moule_, a phrase which, while far from satisfactory as a description of a book printed from movable type, cannot possibly refer to editions printed from woodblocks, even if these existed. the _doctrinale_, which was in verse, was a less popular school-book than the _donatus_. it is significant that among the so-called "costeriana" there are eight editions of the one against twenty of the other. where the _doctrinale_ was used we may be sure that the _donatus_ would be used also, and in greater numbers, so that this mention of a "mould-casted" _doctrinale_ as purchased as early as is a real confirmation of zell's assertion. we have no sufficient ground for believing that any of the fragments, either of the one book or the other, now in existence were produced as early as this. it is of the nature of school-books to be destroyed, and every improvement in the process of production would help to drive the earlier experiments out of existence. but taking zell's statement and the entries in the abbot's diaries together, it seems impossible to deny that there is evidence of some kind of printing being practised in holland not long after . an ingenious theory as to the form which these "prefigurements" may have taken has lately been suggested, viz. that the earliest types may have consisted simply of flat pieces of metal, without any shanks to them, and that they were "set up" by being glued upon wood or stiff paper in the order required. they would thus be movable, but with a very low degree of movability, so that we can easily understand why short books like the _donatus_ and _doctrinale_ were continually reprinted without any attempt being made to produce a large work such as the bible. it is curious, however, that in the description of a "ciripagus" by paulus paulirinus, of prag,[ ] "we have a reference" to a bible having been printed at bamberg "super lamellas," a phrase which might very well refer to types of this kind, though the sentence is usually explained as referring to either the latin or german edition of the _biblia pauperum_ issued by albrecht pfister. i think it just possible myself that the reference is really to the latin bible known as the thirty-six line bible, which seems certainly to have been sold, if not printed, at bamberg a little before , and that paulirinus, having seen books printed "super lamellas," supposed (wrongly) that this was printed in that way. but the statement that it was printed in four weeks is against this. whether the dutch "vorbildung" of the art of printing subsequently invented at mainz took the form of experiments with shankless types, or fell short of the fully developed art in some other way, does not greatly concern the collector. it is in the highest degree improbable that the claim put forward on behalf of the so-called "costeriana" will ever be decisively proved or disproved. they are likely to remain as perpetual pretenders, and as such will always retain a certain interest, and a specimen of them always be a desirable addition to any collection which aims at illustrating the history of the invention of printing. such a specimen will not be easy to procure, because many of the extant fragments have been found in public libraries, more especially the royal library at the hague, and have never left their first homes. on the other hand, the number of fragments known has been considerably increased by new finds. thus there is no reason to regard a specimen as unattainable. footnotes: [ ] dr. hessels supposes that this phrase indicates the monastery of saint victor, outside mainz, with which gutenberg was connected, and that the "report," therefore, can be traced to gutenberg himself. if so, we have the very important fact that gutenberg himself claimed to be the inventor. [ ] iacobus cognomento gutenbergo: patria argentinus, & quidam alter cui nomen fustus, imprimendarum litterarum in membranis cum metallicis formis periti, trecentas cartas quisque eorum per diem facere innotescunt apud maguntiam germanie ciuitatem. iohannes quoque mentelinus nuncupatus apud argentinam eiusdem prouincie ciuitatem: ac in eodem artificio peritus totidem cartas per diem imprimere agnoscitur.... conradus suueynem: ac arnoldus pannarcz vdalricus gallus parte ex alia teuthones librarii insignes romam uenientes primi imprimendorum librorum artem in italiam introduxere trecentas cartas per diem imprimentes. [ ] item dese hoichwyrdige kunst vursz is vonden aller eyrst in duytschlant tzo mentz am rijne. ind dat is der duytschscher nacion eyn groisse eirlicheit dat sulche synrijche mynschen syn dae tzo vynden. ind dat is geschiet by den iairen vns heren, anno domini. mccccxl. ind van der zijt an bis men schreue. l. wart vndersoicht die kunst ind wat dair zo gehoirt. ind in den iairen vns heren do men schreyff. mccccl. do was eyn gulden iair, do began men tzo drucken ind was dat eyrste boich dat men druckde die bybel zo latijn, ind wart gedruckt mit eynre grouer schrifft. as is die schrifft dae men nu mysseboicher mit druckt. item wiewail die kunst is vonden tzo mentz, als vursz vp die wijse, als dan nu gemeynlich gebruicht wirt, so is doch die eyrste vurbyldung vonden in hollant vyss den donaten, die dae selffst vur der tzijt gedruckt syn. ind van ind vyss den is genommen dat begynne der vursz kunst. ind is vill meysterlicher ind subtilicher vonden dan die selue manier was, vnd ye langer ye mere kunstlicher wurden. item eynre genant omnebonum der schrijfft in eynre vurrede vp dat boich quintilianus genoempt. vnd ouch in anderen meir boicher, dat eyn wale vyss vranckrijch, genant nicolaus genson haue alre eyrst dese meysterliche kunst vonden, mer dat is offenbairlich gelogen. want sij syn noch jm leuen die dat getzuigen dat men boicher druckte tzo venedige ee der vursz nicolaus genson dar quame, dair he began schrifft zo snijden vnd bereyden. mer der eyrste vynder der druckerye is gewest eyn burger tzo mentz. ind was geboren van straiszburch. ind hiesch joncker johan gudenburch. item van mentz is die vursz kunst komen alre eyrst tzo coellen. dairnae tzo straisburch, ind dairnae tzo venedige. dat begynne ind vortganck der vursz kunst hait myr muntlich vertzelt d' eirsame man meyster vlrich tzell van hanauwe. boich drucker zo coellen noch zertzijt. anno. mccccxcix. durch den die kunst vursz is zo coellen komen. [ ] the first trace of the legend is in a reference to coster as having "brought the first print into the world in " in a manuscript pedigree of the coster family compiled about . [ ] a page from a fragment of one of these in the british museum forms the frontispiece to this chapter (plate iv). [ ] et tempore mei pambergæ quidam scripsit integrum bibliam super lamellas, et in quatuor septimanis totam bibliam super pargameno subtili presignavit scriptura. chapter iv the invention of printing--mainz no contrast could be much greater than that between the so-called "costeriana" and the incunabula printed at mainz. annually as a small boy i used to be taken to the crystal palace, and there a recognized part of the programme in each visit was to spend half an hour in solemnly pedalling backwards and forwards on a semicircular track on a machine miscalled a velocipede. perhaps these clumsy toys really constituted a definite stage in the invention and perfection of the modern bicycle. on the other hand, whatever may be the historical facts, there is no reason in the nature of things why the modern bicycle should not have been invented quite independently of them. the relative positions of holland and germany as regards the invention of printing are very analogous to those of the old velocipede and the bicycle. even if it could be proved decisively that some dutch fragment of a _donatus_ was earlier than any experiment made at mainz or strassburg, it was at mainz that the possibility was first demonstrated of producing by print books as beautiful as any written by the scribes, and it was from germany, not from holland, that printers carried the art which they had proved to be practicable to all parts of europe, including holland itself. [illustration: v. mainz, fust and schoeffer, duranti, rationale divinorum officiorum ( ^a)] in the development of the art of printing at mainz three men had a share, though the precise part which each of them played is matter of conjecture rather than knowledge. the first of the three was johann gutenberg, the johannes bonemontanus whom fichet, as early as , acclaimed as the first of all men to think out the printing art, whom the popular verdict has recognized as the inventor, and whom patriotic german bibliographers delight to invest with every virtue that distinguishes themselves. gutenberg's real name was gänsfleisch, gutenberg being an addition to his mother's surname[ ] which he assumed for reasons not known to us. he was born about , and just when he attained manhood his family, which belonged to the patrician party at mainz, was banished and sought refuge at strassburg. at strassburg gutenberg remained till about , and legal and municipal records, so far as we can trust to their authenticity, offer us some tantalizing glimpses of his career there. when the town clerk of strassburg came to mainz the exile caused him to be arrested for a debt due to his family, and the matter had to be arranged to avoid a quarrel between the two cities. on the other hand, gutenberg was himself called to account for unpaid duties on wine, and was sued for a breach of promise of marriage. in he was the defendant in a much more interesting trial. he had admitted two partners to work an invention with him, and on one of these partners dying his brother claimed, unsuccessfully, to take his place in the partnership. the use of the words "presse," "forme," and "trucken" in connection with this invention leaves it hardly open to doubt that it was concerned with some kind of printing, and loans which gutenberg negotiated in and were presumably raised for the development of this. about the middle of the decade he returned to mainz and there also borrowed money, presumably again for the same object. at this point we are confronted with five fragmentary pieces of printing, all but one of them only recently discovered. the latest of these, according to german bibliographers, is a fragment of an astronomical calendar in german verse for an unspecified year, which might be , , or , but does not exactly fit any of them; the earliest is part of a leaf of a _sibyllenbuch_ (originally known as _das weltgericht_, because the text of this fragment deals with the last judgment). between these two are placed fragments of three editions of _donatus, de octo partibus orationis_, two found recently in copies of an edition of herolt's _sermones de tempore et sanctis_ printed at strassburg[ ] by martin flach in and now at berlin, the third one of the minor treasures of the bibliothèque nationale at paris, where it has lain for over a century. granting that the calendar was printed for use in (it has been argued, on the other hand, that its mention of movable festivals was intended to be only approximate), and that the other four pieces can be proved by typographical evidence to have preceded it, we may suppose the _sibyllenbuch_ to have been printed by gutenberg shortly after his return to mainz, i.e. about , or shortly before this at strassburg. soon after the supposed date of the calendar the second of the three protagonists in the development of printing at mainz comes on the scene. this was johann fust, a goldsmith, who in or about august, , lent gutenberg eight hundred guilders to enable him to print books, himself, nominally or truly, borrowing the money from another capitalist, and thereby gaining the right to charge interest on it without breaking the canon law. by about december, , the loan was exhausted, and fust made a fresh advance of the same amount. the inner history of the next four years is hid from us, and the undisputed facts which belong to them have consequently been interpreted in every variety of way that human ingenuity can devise. these facts are that-- (i) printing was continued with the fount of type used for the calendar attributed to , fragments of more than a dozen different editions of _donatus_ printed with it being still extant, also a prognostication, _manung widder die durken_, printed in december, , a bull of pope calixtus "widder die turcken" of , a medical calendar for , and an undated _cisianus_, another work of an astronomical character. (ii) when the pardoners employed by the proctor-general of the king of cyprus came to mainz in the autumn of to raise money by means of a papal indulgence, valid till april of the following year, they were able to substitute two typographically distinct editions for the manuscript copies which they had previously used, the text of each of these indulgences being printed in a separate fount of beautifully clear small type, while a larger type was used for a few words. in one of these indulgences the larger type belongs, with some differences, to the same fount as the books named in our last paragraph. this indulgence has thirty-one lines, and four issues of it have been distinguished, three of them dated (the earliest of these being the earliest dated piece of printing) and the fourth . in the other indulgence there are only thirty lines, the large type is neater, and three issues have been distinguished, one dated , the other two . (iii) in november, , an action brought by fust to recover the guilders which he had lent gutenberg, with the arrears of interest, reached its final stage. in this suit the third of the mainz protagonists, peter schoeffer, was a witness on the side of fust, and we hear also, as servants of gutenberg, of heinrich keffer and bertolf von hanau, who may apparently be identified with printers who worked subsequently at nuremberg and basel. the document which has come down to us and is now preserved at the university library at göttingen is that recording the oath taken by fust, as the successful plaintiff, in order to obtain judgment for the amount of his claim. (iv) in august, , heinrich cremer, vicar of the collegiate church at mainz, recorded his completion of the rubrication and binding of a magnificent printed bible in two volumes, now preserved in the bibliothèque nationale at paris, the type of which used to be thought identical with the larger type of the thirty-line indulgence mentioned above, but is now considered to be only closely similar. for this last undoubted date of rubrication, august, , german bibliographers have lately substituted a reference to a manuscript date, , in another copy of this printed bible, now preserved in the buchgewerbe-museum at leipzig, formerly owned by a well-known german collector of the last century, herr klemm. while, however, this date appears to have been written at a period approximating to that of the production of the book, its relevance as evidence of the date of printing is highly disputable, more especially as there appear to be signs of erasure near it. its owner, herr klemm, preserved a discreet silence as to its existence, and it is certainly not obligatory at present to accept it as valid evidence. in a work which does not pretend to the dignity of a history of printing it is impossible to discuss, or even to enumerate, the different theories as to the events of the years - , which have been formulated to account for these facts. the edition of the bible of which heinrich cremer rubricated the copy now at paris is so fine a book and so great a landmark in typographical history, that the desire to regard it as the production of the man who is credited with the invention of printing, johann gutenberg, easily becomes irresistible. to refuse to call it the gutenberg bible may, indeed, appear almost pedantic, though its old name, the "mazarine bible," which it gained from the accident of the copy in the mazarine library at paris being the first to attract attention, still survives, and it is also known among bibliographers as the "forty-two line bible," a safe uncontroversial title based on the number of lines in most of its columns. whoever printed it appears to have been possessed of ample means and to have been a master of detail and an excellent organizer. under the minute examination to which it has been subjected the book has yielded up some of its secrets, and we know that it was printed simultaneously on six different presses, that the body of the type was twice reduced, forty-two lines finally occupying slightly less space than the forty which had at first formed a column, that after the printing had begun it was resolved to increase the size of the edition, and that there is some reason to think that eventually a hundred and fifty copies were printed on paper and thirty on vellum,[ ] and that the paper was ordered in large quantities and not in small parcels as it could be paid for. to the present writer it appears that if gutenberg had possessed the financial means, the patience and the organizing power needed to push through this heavy piece of work in the way described, it is difficult to perceive any reason why the capitalist fust should have quarrelled with him, or to imagine how gutenberg exposed himself to such an action as that which fust successfully carried against him. on the supposition that the bible was completed in or soon after the difficulty becomes almost insuperable, for it is inconceivable that if gutenberg had produced the book within a few months of receiving his second loan from fust he should not, by the autumn of , have paid his creditor a single guilder, either for principal or interest. after his quarrel with fust, gutenberg apparently had dealings with two other men, with albrecht pfister who is found in possession of a later casting of the heavier fount of type in which the astrological calendar attributed to had been printed, and with a dr. homery. he ended his days as a pensioner at the court of the archbishop of mainz, while fust, with the aid of peter schoeffer, whom he made his son-in-law, developed a great business. the inventor who lacks organizing power and whose invention never thrives till it has passed into other hands is no unfamiliar figure, and such a conception of gutenberg perhaps accords better with the known facts of his career than that of a living incarnation of heroism and business ability such as his german eulogists love to depict. according to a theory developed by the present writer in an article in _the library_ for january, (second series, vol. viii), though no originality is claimed for it, the key to the situation lies in the assertion[ ] made on behalf of peter schoeffer that his skill in engraving had enabled him to attain results denied to the two johns, johann gutenberg and johann fust. according to this theory, it was schoeffer who engraved the two founts of small type used in the two sets of indulgences of - , and thus demonstrated that the new art could be applied to produce every kind of book and document which had previously circulated in manuscript. fust gave him his daughter christina in marriage, and johann schoeffer, the offspring of the alliance, distinctly tells us that this was in reward for his services. from the first, or almost the first, the firm adopted a policy of advertisement which other printers were slow to imitate, the partners giving their names in their earliest colophons and making no secret of the fact that they were using an "adinuentio artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi" which enabled them to dispense with the pen. in , in the _catholicon_ of that year, the work of an anonymous printer to which we shall have to recur (see p. _sqq._), the invention is distinctly claimed for mainz, and from this claim was taken over by peter schoeffer, who in the colophons of his subsequent books again and again celebrated mainz as the city singled out by divine favour to give the art to the world. the fact that for nearly forty years ( - ) these statements remained unchallenged, and passed into the contemporary history of the time, is the strongest evidence in favour of the substantial invention of the art at mainz that can be conceived. a single reference in [ ] to prefigurations of a humbler kind in _donatuses_ printed in holland and the presentation of a rival theory in cannot deprive of its due weight the evidence that during all the years when the facts were easily ascertainable judgment in favour of mainz was allowed to go by default. but the fust and schoeffer colophons tell us more than this, for while they make no mention of gutenberg they never claim the invention of printing as their own achievement. it is clear that fust could not claim this himself, and while he was alive his son-in-law did not think fit to put forward, or allow to be put forward, any claim on his own behalf. it was only in , when both gutenberg and fust were dead, that schoeffer's "corrector," or reader, magister franciscus, was permitted to assert on his behalf, in the _justinian_ of that year, that though two johns had the better in the race he, like his namesake s. peter, had entered first into the sepulchre, i.e. the inner mysteries of printing. the claim, thus irreverently put forward, is deprived of much of its weight by the moment at which it was made; nevertheless it can hardly have been baseless. the desire to credit gutenberg with some really handsome and important piece of printing has caused his name to be connected with two other large folios, a latin bible, of thirty-six lines to a column, printed in a variety of the type used for the _sibyllenbuch_ and the _kalendar_ of " ," and a latin dictionary known by the name _catholicon_, the work of a thirteenth century writer, joannes balbus, of genoa. the type of the thirty-six line bible passed into the hands of albrecht pfister, of bamberg, who printed a number of popular german books with it in and . there is considerable evidence, moreover, that a large number of copies of the bible itself were sold at bamberg about . the greater part of the text appears to have been set up from a copy of the forty-two line bible. where, when, and by whom it was printed we can only guess, but the place was more probably bamberg than mainz, and as the type is believed to have been originally gutenberg's, and there is evidence that pfister, when he began printing the popular books of - , was quite inexperienced, gutenberg has certainly a better claim to have printed this volume than any one else who can be suggested. the thirty-six line bible is a much rarer book than the forty-two line, but copies are known to exist at the british museum, john rylands library, bibliothèque nationale, and musée plantin, and at greifswald, jena, leipzig, stuttgart, vienna, and wolfenbüttel. a copy is also said to be in private hands in great britain, but has not been registered. none has been sold in recent times. besides the more complete copies mentioned above, various fragments have been preserved and some of these are on vellum. the vellum fragment of leaf now in the british museum was at one time used as a book-cover. the _catholicon_ is printed in a small type, not very cleanly cut. it was issued without printer's name, but with a long colophon, which has been translated: by the help of the most high, at whose will the tongues of infants become eloquent, and who oft-times reveals to the lowly that which he hides from the wise, this noble book catholicon, in the year of the lord's incarnation , in the bounteous city of mainz of the renowned german nation, which the clemency of god has deigned with so lofty a light of genius and free gift to prefer and render illustrious above all other nations of the earth, without help of reed, stilus, or pen, but by the wondrous agreement, proportion and harmony of punches and types has been printed and brought to an end. upon this follow four latin verses in honour of the holy trinity and the virgin mary and the words "deo gracias." we can imagine an inventor who, despite his invention, remained profoundly unsuccessful, writing the opening words of this colophon, and it is not easy to see their appropriateness to any one else. it is thus highly probable that gutenberg set up this book and refused to follow fust and schoeffer in their advertising ways. he may even have had a special reason for this, for among the forty-one copies registered (almost all in great libraries) two groups may be distinguished, one embracing the copies on vellum and the majority of the paper copies, the other the rest of the paper copies. the groups are distinguished by various differences, of which the most important is that in the one case the workmen used four and in the other two pins to keep the paper in its place while being printed. an attractive explanation of all this would be that while gutenberg set up the book and was allowed to print for himself a certain number of copies, there was a richer partner in the enterprise whose pressmen pulled the greater part of the edition. but dr. zedler, who has brought together all the available information about the book in his monograph _das mainzer catholicon_, has a different explanation. in the same type as the _catholicon_ are two small tracts of little interest, the _summa de articulis fidei_ of thomas aquinas, and the _dialogus_ of matthaeus de cracovia; also an indulgence of pope pius ii. in the type is found in the hands of heinrich bechtermünze at eltvil, who died while printing a vocabulary. this was completed by his brother nicholas, who also printed three later editions of it. during the years which precede , johann fust and peter schoeffer, the one a goldsmith, the other a clerk in minor orders of the diocese of mainz, are involved in the obscurity and uncertainty which surround gutenberg's career. reasons have been offered for believing that it was schoeffer who designed the small neat types used in the mainz indulgences of - , and that he with his skill and fust with his money pushed the forty-two line bible to a successful completion. if they printed this, they no doubt printed also a liturgical psalter in the same type, of which a fragment is preserved at the bibliothèque nationale at paris. but we do not touch firm ground until we come to the famous psalter of , the colophon of which leaves us in no doubt as to its typographical authorship. this runs: presens psalmorum[ ] codex venustate capitalium decoratus rubricationibusque sufficienter distinctus adinuentione artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaracione sic effigiatus, et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus, per iohannem fust ciuem maguntinum, et petrum schoffer de gernszheim anno domini millesimo .cccc.lvij. in vigilia assumpcionis. the present book of the psalms, decorated with beautiful capitals and sufficiently marked out with rubrics, has been thus fashioned by an ingenious invention of printing and stamping without any ploughing of a pen, and to the worship of god has been diligently brought to completion by johann fust, a citizen of mainz, and peter schoeffer of gernsheim, in the year of the lord, , on the vigil of the assumption. thus in the psalter of we have the first example of a book informing us when and by whom it was manufactured; it also illustrates in a very remarkable way the determination of the new partners to produce a volume which should fully rival the best shop-made manuscripts. the effort to print rubrics had already been made in the forty-two line bible, but the red printing was abandoned in that instance as too troublesome. now it was revived with complete success, and with the printed rubrics came also printed capitals or initial letters in two colours, red and blue, and several different sizes. a good discussion of the manner in which these were printed will be found in the _catalogue of the manuscripts and printed books exhibited at the historical music loan exhibition_ ( ) by mr. w. h. j. weale. in an article in the first volume of _bibliographica_ mr. russell martineau showed that part of the edition was printed twice. when mr. martineau wrote nine copies were known, all on vellum, viz. (i) five of an issue of leaves containing the psalms and canticles only, these being at the british museum, royal library windsor, john rylands library, bibliothèque nationale paris, and royal library darmstadt; (ii) four of an issue of leaves, containing also the vigils of the dead, these being at the bibliothèque nationale paris, university library berlin, royal library dresden, and imperial library vienna. to these must now be added a copy of the larger issue, wanting five leaves, presented in by rené d'anjou to the franciscans of la baumette-les-angiers and now in the municipal library at angers. the distribution of the psalms in this edition is that of the general "roman use," but blank spaces were left for the insertion of the characteristic differences of the use of any particular diocese. two years later ( august, ) fust and schoeffer produced another psalter, in the same types and with the same capitals, with twenty-three instead of twenty lines to a page. this was stated in the colophon to have been printed "ad laudem dei ac honorem sancti jacobi," and was thus apparently commissioned by the benedictine monastery of s. james at mainz. its arrangement is that generally in use at the time in german monasteries. thirteen copies of this edition are preserved, all on vellum, viz. four in england (british museum, bodleian, john rylands library, and the earl of leicester's library at holkham), two at paris, one at the hague, five in germany, and one in mr. morgan's collection at new york. this last was bought by mr. quaritch at the sale of the library of sir john thorold for £ . between the production of these two psalters fust and schoeffer printed in the same types on twelve leaves of vellum the canon of the mass only, obviously that it might be bought by churches which owned missals otherwise in good condition, but with these much-fingered leaves badly worn. the unique copy of this edition of the canon was discovered at the bodleian library in a mainz missal of and identified by mr. gordon duff. it is described by mr. duff in his _early printed books_, and by dr. falk and herr wallau in part iii of the publications of the gutenberg gesellschaft, with facsimiles of ten pages. in october, , fust and schoeffer took an important step forward by printing in small type the _rationale diuinorum officiorum_ of gulielmus duranti, a large work explaining the meaning of the various services of the church and the ceremonies used in them. the text is printed in double columns with sixty-three lines in each column, and the type measures mm. to twenty lines. a copy at munich is printed partly on paper, partly on vellum. all the other forty-two copies described by mr. de ricci are entirely on vellum. the book has also one large and two smaller capitals printed in two colours, and the first of these has been reproduced as a frontispiece to this chapter, together with a piece of the neat small type which, by demonstrating the possibility of cheap printing, set up a real landmark. in fust and schoeffer gave another proof of their skill in their edition of the _constitutions_ of pope clement v with the commentary of joannes andreae. the text of the constitutions is printed in two columns in the centre of each page in a type measuring mm. to twenty lines, with the commentary completely surrounding it in the type used in the _duranti_. headings and colophon are printed in red, and the general effect is extremely rich and handsome. all the fourteen copies known to mr. de ricci are printed on vellum. in printing was put to a new use by the publication of a series of eight placards (one in two editions) relative to the struggle between the rival archbishops of mainz--a papal bull deposing diether von isenburg, the emperor's confirmation of this, papal briefs as to the election of adolf von nassau, a petition of diether's to the pope, and the manifestos of the two archbishops. all these, and also a bull of the same year as to a crusade against the turks, are printed in the neat type, and though we may be struck by the difficulty of reading the long lines unrelieved by any headings, these publications must have been a great advertisement for the new art. in the archiepiscopal struggle led to mainz being sacked, but on august there was completed there perhaps the finest of all the early bibles, printed throughout in the type, with headings in red and numerous two-line capitals and chapter-numbers in red and blue, though spaces were left for others to be supplied by hand. three different colophons to this book have been described, and examples of all of these are in the british museum. of the sixty-one extant copies registered by mr. de ricci at least thirty-six are printed on vellum. the lamoignon copy bequeathed to the museum by mr. cracherode has good painted capitals added by hand and is a singularly fine book. the bible of marks the close of the great period of printing at mainz. whether six, seven, or nine years separate it from the forty-two line bible the time had been splendidly employed. the capacity of the new art had been demonstrated to the full, and taken as a group these early fust and schoeffer incunabula have never on their own lines been surpassed. the disaster of the sack of mainz and perhaps the financial strain involved in the production of the bible almost reduced their press to silence until , and it was during these years that their workmen are said to have left them and begun carrying the art into other towns and countries.[ ] when the partners resumed active work in they struck out a new line in their _de officiis_ and _paradoxa_ of cicero, but attained no special excellence in such small folios and quartos. fust died about this time, and schoeffer, left to himself, displayed no further originality. the bible of , save for the absence of printed capitals, is a close copy of that of . the clementine constitutions of were reprinted, and similar editions were issued of the institutes and codex of justinian, decretals of pope gregory ix, etc. for his miscellaneous books schoeffer seems rather to have followed the lead of other printers at strassburg and rome than to have set new fashions himself. in he printed a breslau missal, and this was followed by two reprints and editions for the use of cracow, meissen, gnesen, and mainz itself. he also printed the _hortus sanitatis_ in , and in the first of several psalters in the style of the editions of and . in he was succeeded by his son johann. about - a few unimportant books were issued at mainz by an anonymous printer known as the "printer of the darmstadt prognostication," from the fact that the first copy of the prognostication in question to attract notice was that in the darmstadt library. the books of this press attained undeserved notoriety from the forged dates inserted in many of them about , in order to connect them with gutenberg. the work of three other printers, johann neumeister, erhard reuwich, and jacob meidenbach is chiefly important in the history of book-illustration, and will be found mentioned in chapter vii. the only other mainz printer in the fifteenth century was peter von friedberg, who is chiefly notable as having printed a little series of works by johannes trithemius (tritheim or trittenheim), the erudite abbot of spanheim. after about mainz was easily surpassed as a centre of printing by strassburg, cologne, augsburg, and nuremberg. but if no book had been printed there after the sack of the city ten years earlier, its fame as long as civilization lasts would still be imperishable. footnotes: [ ] her maiden name was elsa wyrich, but she lived at the hof zum gutenberg at mainz, and the name gutenberg thus came into the family. [ ] it will be noted that this connection with strassburg offers just a grain of evidence in favour of the _donatuses_ having been printed there rather than at mainz. [ ] according to the excellent _catalogue raisonné des premières impressions de mayence_ of mr. seymour de ricci, eleven copies on vellum and thirty on paper can now be located, but some of these have only one of the two volumes. the vellum copy belonging to mr. robert hoe sold in for $ , . [ ] in the verses by magister franciscus in the _justinian_ of , subsequently twice reprinted. [ ] in the cologne chronicle. see _supra_, p. . [ ] misprinted _spalmorum_. [ ] it seems reasonable to believe that ulrich zell, the first printer at cologne, who was a clerk of the diocese of mainz, and sweynheym and pannartz, who introduced printing into italy, owed their training to fust and schoeffer. chapter v other incunabula in august, , the struggle between its rival archbishops led to mainz being sacked. very little more printing was done there until , and we need not doubt the tradition that journeymen trained by gutenberg and fust and schoeffer, finding no work for them at mainz, carried such experience as they had gained to other towns and countries, where they appear, after a few years spent in manufacturing presses and types, in all the glory of "prototypographers." but even before two other cities possessed the art--bamberg and strassburg. at bamberg it was practised possibly by gutenberg, who may have printed there the thirty-six line bible about , certainly by albrecht pfister, who is found in possession of the type of this bible, and may himself have had copies for sale. the books he himself printed at bamberg are nine in number,[ ] and three or four bound volumes seem to have preserved all the remnants of them that we possess, and all of these have found their way to public libraries. the large and stately folios produced by the early strassburg printers have naturally resisted the ravages of time better than the bamberg popular books. certainly clumsier than the contemporary mainz books, they yet have a dignity and character of their own which command respect. the first strassburg printer, johann mentelin, was at work there in or before , and was helped during his life and succeeded after his death ( ) by his son-in-law, adolf rusch, who never put his name to a book, and most of whose impressions pass under the name of "the r-printer," from the peculiar form of that letter found in one of his types. mentelin himself did not place his name at the end of a book till he had been at work more than a dozen years; heinrich eggestein, who began work about , was equally reticent, and throughout the 'seventies and 'eighties a large proportion of the books printed at strassburg were anonymous. heinrich knoblochtzer, who started about , combines some of the charm of the earlier printers with greater literary interest and the attraction of illustrations and ornamental capitals and borders. of him we shall have to speak in a later chapter. but after the bulk of strassburg printing was dull and commercial. in the fifteenth century basel was not yet, as it became in , a member of the swiss confederacy, and typographically its relations with mainz, strassburg, nuremberg and other german towns were very close. in what year printing began there is not known. there is no dated book from a basel press until as late as , but the date of purchase, , in a book (s. gregory's _moralia in job_), printed by berthold ruppel, of hanau, takes us back six years, and it is possible that ruppel was at work even before this. he is identified with reasonable certainty with one of the servants of gutenberg mentioned in connection with the lawsuit ended in , and he printed latin bibles and other large works such as appealed to the ambition of the german prototypographers. [illustration: vi. cologne, ulrich zell, - cicero. de officiis ( ^b)] the second and more interesting basel printer, michael wenssler, seems to have taken schoeffer as his model, and reprinted many of schoeffer's editions, following the wording of his colophons and investing them with the same glories of red ink. whereas, however, from about schoeffer's activity was much less conspicuous, wenssler for the next ten years poured out edition after edition of all the heaviest legal and theological works, until he must have overstocked the market. then he devoted himself almost exclusively to liturgical printing, but his affairs became hopelessly involved, and in he fled from his creditors at basel, and became a wandering printer, finding commissions at cluny and maçon, and then settling for a time at lyon. many of the early printers in italy made this mistake of flooding the market with a single class of book, but wenssler is almost the only notable example in germany of this lack of business instinct. travelling along the rhine from mainz in the opposite direction we come to cologne, and here ulrich zell, like berthold ruppel, a native of hanau, but who calls himself in his books a "clerk of the diocese of mainz," enrolled his name on the register of the university in june, , doubtless for the sake of the business privileges which the senate had it in its power to confer. the first dated book from his press, s. john chrysostom, _super psalmo quinquagesimo_ (psalm li., according to our english reckoning), was issued in , but before this appeared he had almost certainly produced an edition of the _de officiis_ (see the frontispiece to this chapter, plate vi), the most popular of cicero's works in germany, which fust and schoeffer had printed in and reprinted the next year. avoiding the great folios on which the early printers of mainz, strassburg, and basel staked their capital, zell's main work was the multiplication of minor theological treatises likely to be of practical use to priests. of these he issued countless editions in small quarto, along with a comparatively few small folios, in which, however, his skill as a printer is seen to better advantage. he continued in active work until , gave, as we have seen (chapter iii.), his version of the origin of printing to the compiler of the cologne chronicle published in , and was still alive as late as . zell's earliest rival at cologne was arnold ther hoernen, who printed from to . he may very likely have been self-taught, for his early work is very uneven, but he developed into an excellent craftsman. he is the first notable example of a printer getting into touch with a contemporary author, and regularly printing all his works, the author in this case being werner rolewinck, a carthusian of cologne, who wrote sermons and historical works, including the _fasciculus temporum_, an epitome of history, which found much favour all over europe. ther hoernen used to be credited with the honour of having printed the first book with a titlepage, the _sermo ad populum predicabilis in festo presentacionis beatissime marie semper virginis_ of . schoeffer, however, had preceded him by some seven years by devoting a separate page to the title of each of his editions of a bull of pius ii (see p. ), and as neither printer continued the practice these isolated instances must be taken as accidental. in the same book, ther hoernen for the first time placed printed numbers on the leaves, but this improvement also was not followed up. the third cologne typographer, johann koelhoff the elder, was the first (in ) to place printed "signatures" on the quires of a book, so as to show the binder the order in which they were to be arranged. hitherto the quires had been marked by hand, and this improvement was not suffered to drop for a time like the others, but quickly spread all over europe. at augsburg günther zainer completed his first book, an edition of the latin meditations on the life of christ taken from the works of s. bonaventura, on the th march, . though he followed this with three heavy books which had found favour at mainz and strassburg, zainer had the wisdom to strike out a line for himself. augsburg had long been the chief centre of the craftsmen who cut and printed the woodcuts of saints, for which there seems to have been a large sale in germany, and also the pictures used for playing-cards. the cutters were at first inclined to regard the idea of book-illustrations with suspicion, as likely to interfere with their existing business. it was decided, however, by the local abbot of ss. ulrich and afra, an ecclesiastic with typographical tastes, that illustrated books might be printed so long as members of the wood-cutters' guild were employed in making the blocks. with this as a working agreement, illustrated books greatly prospered at augsburg, not only günther zainer, but johann bämler and anton sorg (a very prolific printer), turning them out with much success throughout the 'seventies. at nuremberg printing was introduced in by johan sensenschmidt, who for a short time had as his partner heinrich kefer, of mainz, another of gutenberg's servants. much more important, however, was the firm of anton koberger, who began work the next year, and speedily developed the largest business of any printer in germany. koberger was able to deal successfully in all the heavy books, which after other firms found it wiser to leave alone, and seems to have employed adolf rusch at strassburg and perhaps other printers elsewhere, to print for him. he also printed towards the end of the century some very notable illustrated books. next to koberger, friedrich creussner, who started in , had the largest business in nuremberg, and georg stuchs made himself a reputation as a missal printer, a special department from which koberger held aloof. at speier, after two anonymous firms had worked in and without much success, peter drach ( ) developed an important business. at ulm johann zainer, a kinsman of günther zainer, of augsburg, began in by printing illustrated books, which were subsequently taken up in the 'eighties by leonhard holle, conrad dinckmut, and johann reger, while zainer himself became a miscellaneous printer. at lübeck lucas brandis produced a universal history called the _rudimentum nouitiorum_ in and a fine _josephus_, important liturgical work being subsequently done by bartholomaeus ghotan, matthaeus brandiss and stephan arndes, similar work being also produced at magdeburg partly by some of these lübeck printers. fine liturgical work was also done at würzburg by georg reyser, who may previously have printed anonymously at speier, and who started his kinsman michel in a similar business at eichstätt. at leipzig, where marcus brandis printed one or two books in , and the following years, a sudden development took place about , and a flood of small educational works was poured out by some half a dozen printers, of whom conrad kachelofen and martin landsberg were the most prolific. presses were also set up in numerous other places, so that by the end of the century at least fifty german cities, towns and villages had seen a printer at work. in many of these the art took no root, and in some the printer was only employed for a short time to print one or more books for a particular purpose. but the total output of incunabula in germany was very large, and leaving out of count the fugitive single sheets, the scanty remnants of which can bear no relation to the thousands which must have been produced, out of about , different books and editions printed in the fifteenth century registered as extant at the time of writing probably nearly a third were produced in germany. if, as is likely, a large proportion of the eleven thousand undescribed incunabula (among which, however, there must be many duplicates and triplicates) reported to have been discovered by the agents of the german royal commission for a general catalogue of incunabula are german, this rough estimate must be largely increased, and it may be proved that germany was as prolific as italy itself. considerable as was this output of german printing at home, it was probably nearly equalled by the work done by german printers in the other countries of europe to which they hastened to carry the new art. turning first to italian incunabula we find that the first book printed in italy has perished utterly. the cruel little latin grammar which passed under the name of _donatus_ had, as we have seen, been frequently printed in holland and by the first mainz printers, and there are several later instances of an edition of it being produced as soon as a press was set up, merely to show the printer's types. this was done by conrad sweynheym and arnold pannartz, the two germans who began printing at the monastery of saint scholastica at subiaco, some forty miles from rome, in , or perhaps in the previous year. being a school-book, the _donatus_ was thumbed to pieces, so that no copy now survives, and it is only known from the printer's allusion to it as the book "_unde imprimendi initium sumpsimus_" in a list of their publications drawn up in . of the three other books printed by them at subiaco, cicero's _de oratore_ has no printed date, but a copy described by signor fumagalli bears a manuscript note dated pridie kal. octobres m.cccclxv., i.e. september, , the authenticity of which has, however, been challenged, though probably without good reason. the two others both bear printed dates, the works of _lactantius_, that of october, , and s. augustine's _de ciuitate dei_, june, . probably even before this last book was completed the printers were already moving some of their material to rome, where they found shelter in the palace of pietro de' massimi, for their edition of the _epistulae familiares_ of cicero was completed there in the same year, probably in or before november. even so it is not certain that this was the first book printed at rome, for ulrich han, a native of vienna and citizen of ingolstadt, whose later work, like that of michael wenssler at basel, shows a tendency to imitate schoeffer, completed an edition of the _meditationes de vita christi_ of cardinal turrecremata on the last day of the same year, and mr. proctor (after the publication of his _index_) assigned to han's press and to an even earlier date than the _meditationes_ a bulky edition of the epistles of s. jerome, which must certainly have taken a year to print. the career of sweynheym and pannartz in partnership at rome lasted but little over six years, their latest book bearing the date december, . already in march, , they were in difficulties, and printed a letter to pope sixtus iv begging for some pecuniary aid. they had printed, they said, no fewer than , volumes, and gave a list of the different books and of the numbers printed of each. four of these editions were of copies, the rest of , and we can see from the list that there had been three editions of the _lactantius_ and _de ciuitate dei_ and two each of cicero's _epistulae familiares_, _de oratore_, and _opera philosophica_, and also of virgil, so that clearly some of their books had shown a profit. but the list is entirely made up of latin classics, "profane" and theological, and by march, , printing had been introduced into at least ten other italian cities (venice, foligno, trevi, ferrara, milan, florence, treviso, bologna, naples, and savigliano), and in most, if not all of these, the one idea of the first printers was to produce as many latin classics as possible, as though no other firm in italy were doing the same thing. unable to obtain help from the pope, sweynheym and pannartz dissolved partnership, the former devoting himself to engraving maps for an edition of ptolemy's _geographia_, which he did not live to see (it was printed by arnold bucking in ), while pannartz resumed business on a somewhat smaller scale on his own account, and died in . at venice, the first printer, johann of speier, seems to have had some foreboding of what might happen, and thoughtfully protected himself against competition by procuring from the senate an exclusive privilege for printing at venice during the space of five years. this might seriously have retarded the development of the press at venice. johann, however, after printing two editions of cicero's _epistulae ad familiares_ and pliny's _historia naturalis_ in , was carried off by death while working on his fourth book, s. augustine's _de ciuitate dei_, in , and his brother wendelin, or vindelinus, who took over the business, had no privilege to protect him from competition. in , the way thus being left clear, a frenchman, nicolas jenson, set up the second press in venice, and by the beauty of his fine roman type speedily attained a reputation which has lasted to this day. another fine printer, christopher valdarfer, produced his first book in the same year. in three other firms (an italian priest, clemente of padua, and two germans, adam of ammergau and franz renner of heilbronn) began publishing, and in yet seven more (three germans and four italians). but the pace was impossible, and by this time men were rapidly falling out. as we have seen, sweynheym and pannartz, after their ineffectual attempt to obtain a subsidy from the pope, dissolved their partnership at rome after , and ulrich han in had taken a moneyed partner, with whose aid he weathered the storm. at venice wendelin, after producing thirty-one books in the previous two years, reduced his output to six in , and soon after seems to have ceased to work for himself. jenson's numbers sank from twenty-eight in - to six in - . valdarfer gave up after , and is subsequently found at milan. other venetian printers also dropped out, and only two new firms began work in . at florence after the first printer bernardo cennini and his sons had produced a virgil in , and johann petri of mainz boccaccio's _philocolo_ and petrarch's _trionfi_ in , printing ceased for some years. presses started at foligno, trevi, and savigliano came to a speedy end. at treviso, where gerardus lisa had published four books in , there was, according to mr. proctor, a gap from december in that year till the same month in , though dr. copinger quotes one book each for the intervening years. only one book was published at ferrara in . what happened at naples is hard to say, since sixtus riessinger, the first printer there, issued many books without dates. at bologna trade seems to have been stationary. at milan, where both antonius larotus in and philippus de lavagna in had begun with extreme caution, there was healthy progress, and these two firms continued issuing editions of the classics, and with the great falling off of competition may have found it profitable to do so. but of the reality of the crisis in the italian book trade in - , although little is said of it in histories of printing, there can be no doubt. when it was over there were symptoms of a similar over-production of some of the great legal commentaries. but this danger was avoided. there was a steady increase in the range of the literature published, and the bourgeois book-buyer was remembered as well as the aristocratic student. soon there came a great extension, not only of the home but of the foreign market, and italy settled down to supply the world with books, a task for which venice, both from its geographical position and its well-established commercial relations, was peculiarly fitted. but it is the books printed before that form the real italian incunabula. in the subsequent work within the limits of the fifteenth century rome took no very important part. ulrich han continued to print till . joannes philippi de lignamine, papal physician and native of sicily, produced some exceptionally interesting books between and , and again in - , and georg lauer, who worked from to , and completed an edition of s. jerome's letters, left unfinished by pannartz at the time of his death, showed himself a good craftsman. the later printers, especially stephan plannck and eucharius silber, had some good types, but produced few notable books, the bulk of the roman output after being editions in small quarto of official documents and speeches at the papal court. to devise any summary description of fifteenth century printing at venice is wellnigh impossible. some firms were at work there; at a low estimate some four thousand extant books and editions must be credited to them, and these embraced almost every kind of literature for which readers could be found in the fifteenth century, and many varieties of craftsmanship. from a decorative point of view, the firm of erhard ratdolt did exceptionally good work, and it is also remarkable for specializing mainly on astronomy, mathematics, and history. liturgical printing began somewhat late (there seems to have been a prejudice against printed service books in italy, and i can remember none printed at rome); in the fifteenth century johann hammann or herzog and johann emerich were its chief exponents. franz renner produced chiefly latin theology, a department much less predominant at venice than in germany. several firms, e.g. jacques le rouge, baptista de tortis, andreas torresanus (father-in-law of aldus and a very fine printer), and georgius arrivabene devoted themselves like jenson first mainly to latin classics and then to law; others, such as filippo di pietro mingled latin and italian classics. filippo's kinsman, gabriele di pietro, was one of the earliest vernacular printers. many firms, such as that of bonetus locatellus, who seems to have had a university connection, and printed all kinds of learned latin books, despised the vernacular altogether. the brothers giovanni and gregorio dei gregorii were perhaps the most prolific and miscellaneous printers in both latin and italian. johannes tacuinus, a learned printer towards the end of the century, is notable for adorning his books with pictorial capitals, mostly of boys at play. aldus manutius will be spoken of in a later chapter. while all this activity was displayed at venice other cities were not idle. at milan upwards of eight hundred incunabula were produced, mostly by its earliest printer, antonius zarotus, and two germans, leonhard pachel and ulrich scinzenzeler. ferrara seems to have been able to support only one press at a time, and at florence it was some years before printing flourished, but in the last quarter of the century many interesting books were printed there, both learned and vernacular, as to the illustrations in which much will have to be said later on. some of the early treviso books from the press of gerard lisa are distinctly pretty. bologna produced about three hundred incunabula. naples probably not so many, but of much better quality. altogether well over ten thousand italian incunabula must still be extant, and these were produced at no fewer than seventy different places, though many of these were of no typographical importance, and only find their way into histories of printing from having sheltered a wandering printer for a few weeks as he was on his way from one large town to another. in france also the earliest books were addressed to students of the classics, though they were produced on a much more limited scale. there the first printers, three germans, had been invited to set up their presses at paris in the sorbonne by two of its professors, guillaume fichet and jean heynlin, of stein, better known in his own day as johannes de lapide. between the summer of and the autumn of eighteen works were printed at the sorbonne, mostly of the kind which would be of use to its students. among them was sallust, three works of cicero, virgil's bucolics and georgics, the satires of juvenal and persius, terence, some text books, the _speculum humanae vitae_ of bishop roderic of zamora, and the orations of fichet's patron, cardinal bessarion. in august, , the cardinal arrived in france on a fruitless mission to rouse the king to a crusade against the turks. he was rebuffed and ordered to leave france. fichet accompanied him, and never returned to paris. as early as the previous march heynlin seems to have been called away, and now the imported german printers, michael freiburger, ulrich gering, and martin crantz, were left wholly to their own devices. thus abandoned they printed four books of a less special character, for which they sought princely instead of scholarly patronage, and then in april, , moved from the sorbonne and set up for themselves at the sign of the soleil d'or in the rue s. jacques. here they printed still in latin, but a much more popular class of books, and soon had to contend with two rival firms, that of pieter de keysere and johann stol, and the printers at the sign of the "soufflet vert" or green bellows. the finest of the subsequent printers was jean dupré, who used excellent capitals and issued many illustrated books, but three prolific printers, antoine caillaut, gui marchand, and pierre levet, along with many dull books issued some very interesting ones. towards the end of the century an enterprising publisher, antoine vérard, kept many of the paris printers busy, and paris became noted typographically for its fine illustrated editions of the hours of the blessed virgin, issued by vérard, dupré, pigouchet (and his publisher, simon vostre), and thielman kerver. but these with the publications of vérard belong to another chapter. at lyon printing was introduced by the enterprise of one of its citizens, barthélemi buyer, who engaged guillaume leroy (a native of liège) to print for him, and subsequently employed other printers as well. the first lyon book was a little volume of popular religious treatises, containing among other things the _de miseria humanae conditionis_ of pope innocent iii. it was completed september, . until nearly the books printed at lyon were mainly popular in character with a considerable proportion of french books, many of them illustrated. from onwards learned latin books occur more frequently, and printing rapidly became as general or miscellaneous as at paris itself, although only a single attempt was made, unsuccessfully, to rival the paris _horae_. the two cities between them probably produced more than three-fourths of the three thousand incunabula, which at a rough guess may be attributed to french presses, the share of paris being about twice as great as that of lyon. according to the stereotyped phrase, printing was introduced into no fewer than thirty-seven other french towns during the fifteenth century, but as a rule the printers were but birds of passage, and it was only at poitiers ( ) and rouen ( ) that it took root and flourished continuously, though on but a small scale. in other towns the struggle to maintain a press continued for several years, as at toulouse, or was abandoned after the fulfilment of a single commission. in holland the first books which bear the name of their printer and date and place of imprint are those produced at utrecht by nicolaus ketelaer and gerardus leempt, who began work in . it is tolerably certain, however, that some of the so-called "costeriana" (see chap. ii) preceded this date, and they are at least as likely to have been printed at haarlem as at utrecht, there being no decisive evidence in favour of either place. no namable printer appears at haarlem until the end of , when jacob bellaert set up a short-lived press there. for some seven years ( - ) excellent work was done at gouda by gerard leeu, who then moved to antwerp. at delft, where a fine bible was printed by jacob jacobszoen and mauricius yemantszoen in , printing was kept up continuously by jacobszoen, christian snellaert, and hendrik eckert till the end of the century, though there seems to have been only work enough for one firm at a time. at zwolle, pieter van os, who began work in , was able to maintain himself, with a brief interval about , till past the magic date . lastly, at deventer, where richardus pafraet started in the same year, an output was speedily attained greater than in any other dutch town, and for the latter years of the century a rival firm, that of jacobus de breda, shared pafraet's prosperity. the great majority of the deventer books, however, belong to the minor literature of ecclesiasticism and education, and are far from exciting. the beginnings of printing are much more interesting in the southern netherlands, which correspond roughly to what we now call belgium. here also the first positive date is , the year in which johann of paderborn in westphalia, best known to english collectors as john of westphalia, printed three books at alost. a fourth followed in may, , but by the following december john had removed to louvain, a university town, where he remained doing excellent and abundant work till nearly the end of the century. at louvain he had found another printer, jan veldener, already in the field, and seems to have hustled him away not very honourably. veldener, however, was not ruined, but is subsequently found at utrecht and kuilenburg, and again for a short time at louvain. at bruges the first printers were colard mansion and william caxton, names well known to english book-lovers, though not all the labours of mr. william blades and mr. gordon duff have made it quite clear which of the two was the leader. only two english books were printed, the _recuyell of the histories of troy_ and _the game and play of the chess_, when caxton returned to england and set up his presses in the almonry at westminster. whether he had any pecuniary interest in the french _recueil_ and the _quatre dernières choses_, and whether printings at bruges began with the _recuyell_, or, as mr. proctor contended, with the french boccaccio _de la ruine des nobles hommes et femmes_ of , are points of controversy. from till his flight from bruges to avoid arrest for debt in , mansion worked steadily by himself, and the total output of his press amounts to twenty-five french works and two in latin. at brussels the brothers of the common life, who worked also as printers in other places, published numerous popular latin works between and , about which time their press seems to have stopped. but the removal of gerard leeu's business from gouda to antwerp in soon gave that town a typographical importance which (except for a few years at the end of the century) it long maintained. the true incunabula of the netherlands are, of course, the "costeriana." whatever view we may take of their date and birthplace, they were undoubtedly home products, with a strongly marked individuality. ketelaer and leempt, however, at utrecht, veldener at louvain and elsewhere, caxton and mansion at bruges, were real pioneers. in a sense this is true also of john of westphalia and gerard leeu, notably of the former, who had learnt his art in italy and by the type which he had brought thence raised the standard of printing in his new home. it is, indeed, almost exclusively at deventer that we get the dull commercial work which has nothing primitive or individual about it, and thus, perhaps because their grand total is so much smaller than in the case of germany, italy, or even france, the special interest of incunabula attaches to rather a high proportion of the early books of the netherlands. if this be true of the netherlands, it is even truer of the two countries with which we have still to deal in this rapid survey, spain and england. of spanish incunabula about seven hundred are now registered; of english, three hundred is a fairly liberal estimate of the grand total still extant. within the limits of the fifteenth century neither country reached the purely mechanical stage of book production to which so many german and italian books belong after about . in england, indeed, this stage was hardly reached until the general downfall of good printing towards the end of the sixteenth century. the first book printed in spain was a thin volume of poems in honour of the blessed virgin, written by bernardo fenollar and others on the occasion of a congress held at valentia in march, . it offers no information itself on any bibliographical point, but it was presumably printed not long after the congress, at valentia where the congress was held, and by lambertus palmart (or palmaert), who on august, , completed there the third part of the _summa_ of s. thomas aquinas and duly described it as "impressa valentie per magistrum lambertum palmart alemanum, anno m.cccc.lxxvii, die vero xviii. mensis augusti." palmart is supposed to have been a fleming (a nationality to which the description _alemannus_ is often applied), but nothing is known of him. he printed a work called _comprehensorium_ and the _bellum jugurthinum_ of sallust in february and july, , without putting his name to them, and these with the fenollar and other anonymous books now attributed to him are in roman type. in he completed a catalan bible in conjunction with a native spaniard, alonzo fernandez de cordoba, and thereafter worked by himself until , using gothic types in these later books. seven other firms worked at valentia during the fifteenth century, but none of these attained much importance. another fleming, of the name of matthew or matthaeus, printed the _manipulus curatorum_ of guido de monte rotherii at saragossa in october, , and five other presses were established there before , that of paul hurus being the most prolific. at tortosa a single book (the _rudimenta grammaticae_ of perottus) was printed by nicolaus spindeler and pedro brun early in , and in august of the same year antonio martinez, alonso del puerto, and bartolome segura completed the first fully dated book (the _sacramental_ of sanchez de vercial) at seville, where printing subsequently throve as much as anywhere in spain. the following year spindeler and brun, having moved from tortosa, introduced printing into barcelona, a date mcccclxviii in a treatise by bartholomaeus mates, _pro condendis orationibus_, being obviously a misprint, though to what it should be corrected cannot positively be shown.[ ] at salamanca printing was introduced as early as , and continued more actively after , mainly for the production of educational works. at burgos friedrich biel, who had been trained under michael wenssler at basel, began printing in , and a native of the place, juan de burgos, brought out his first book in , both of these firms doing excellent work. altogether, twenty-four towns and places in spain possessed presses during the fifteenth century, but in many cases only for a short time. the outline of the story of printing in england during the fifteenth century may be very quickly sketched, fuller treatment being reserved for a later chapter. at michaelmas, , caxton rented premises in the almonry from the abbot of westminster, and here he stayed till his death in , printing, as far as we know, about a hundred books and documents. in a press was set up at oxford, presumably by theodoric rood of cologne, whose name, however, does not appear in any book until . by rood had been joined by an english stationer, thomas hunte, but in or the following year the press was closed after printing, as far as we know, only seventeen books. the few books printed at oxford were all more or less scholastic in character, and six out of eight works printed by caxton's second rival (apparently a friendly one), the schoolmaster-printer at st. albans, belonged to the same class, his two more popular books being caxton's _chronicles of england,_ with a new appendix, and the famous _book of st. albans_. of these eight works, the earliest bearing a date was issued in , the latest in . a more formidable competitor to caxton than either the oxford or the st. albans printer began work in the city of london in . this was john lettou, i.e. john the lithuanian, who, as mr. gordon duff notes, used type identical save in a single letter with a fount used at rome in by johann bulle of bremen. lettou appears to have been financed in the first instance by a londoner, william wilcock. in he was joined by william machlinia (presumably a native of malines), and after five law books had been printed in partnership, lettou dropped out, and machlinia continued working by himself, possibly until as late as or , when his stock seems to have been taken over by richard pynson, a norman, from rouen. on caxton's death in his business passed into the hands of his foreman, wynkyn de worde, a native of lorraine. the only other press started in the fifteenth century was that of julyan notary, who worked at first with two partners, i.b. and i.h. of these i.b. was certainly jean barbier, and i.h. probably jean huvin of rouen. we have no information as to the nationality of notary, but if, as seems probable, he was a frenchman, printing in england for some twenty years after caxton's death was wholly in the hands of foreigners. * * * * * meagre and bare of details as is this sketch of the beginnings of printing in the chief countries of europe, it should yet suffice to prove that the purely arbitrary date and the slang word _incunabula_, used to invest all fifteenth century impressions with a mystic value, are misleading nuisances. by the time that printing reached england it was beginning to pass into its commercial stage in germany and italy. in both of these countries, and in a less degree in france, scores and hundreds of books were printed during the last fifteen years of the century which have little more connection with the invention of printing, or the story of its diffusion, than english or spanish books a century later. from the point of view of the history of literature and thought there is much to be gained from the collection in large libraries of all books printed before . from the point of view of the history of printing every decade of book-production has its interest, and the decade to among the rest. incidentally it may be noted that in respect of book-illustration this particular decade in italy is one of exceptional interest. but books of the third generation of german or italian printers, men like flach, for instance, at strassburg, or plannck at rome, should not be collected under the idea that they are in any true sense of the word incunabula. what constitutes a true incunable cannot be defined in a sentence. we must consider the country or city as well as the book, the individual man as well as the art of which he was perhaps a belated exponent. the same piece of printing may have much more value and interest if we can prove that it was produced in one place rather than another. after the publication of his _index_, mr. proctor satisfied himself that some anonymous books in roman type which he had classed as the work of an unidentified press at naples were really among the earliest specimens of palmart's typography in spain, and one does not need to be a spaniard to appreciate the distinction thus added to them. if sentiment is to count for anything we must admit the interest of the first books printed in any country which possesses an important history and literature--if only because we may legitimately be curious to know on what books a printer, with all the extant literature to choose from, ventured his capital as likely in that particular country and time to bring him the quickest and most profitable return. that the first large book in germany was a bible, the first books in italy latin classics, the first produced for the english market one that we must call an historical romance, cannot be regarded as merely insignificant. nor are the differences in the types and appearance of the page unimportant, for these also help to illustrate national characteristics. if this is true of the early books printed in any country, it is also true in only slightly less degree of those which first appeared in any great city which afterwards became a centre of printing. strassburg, cologne, and nuremberg, rome, venice, and florence, paris and lyon, antwerp and london (if we may be permitted for once to ignore the separate existence of westminster), each has its own individuality, and in each case it is interesting to see with what wares, and in what form, the first printers endeavoured to open its purse-strings. but when we come to towns and townlets some distinction seems needed. i may be misled by secret sympathy with that often scholarly, too often impecunious figure, the local antiquary. to him the first book printed in his native townlet, though by a printer merely stopping on his way between one great city and another, must needs be of interest, and it is hard that its price should be forced beyond his reach by the competition between dealers keen to do business with a rich collector to whom the book will have none of the fragrance it would possess for him. typographical itinerancy, this printing by the roadside, as we may almost call it, must needs be illustrated in great collections, like any other habit of the early printers. but the ordinary private collector can surely dispense with buying books because they have been printed in places which have no associations for him, of which perhaps he has never heard. as for the individual man, if we would keep any oases green in what may easily become a sandy desert, we must surely treasure every trace of his personality. one large element in the charm of incunabula is the human interest of difficulties overcome, and wherever a craftsman began work by cutting a distinctive type to suit the calligraphic fashion of the neighbourhood, at whatever date he started, his books will still have some interest. when he becomes articulate and tells us of his difficulties, or boasts of how they have been overcome, we may value his work still higher. as the first book printed at florence, the commentary of servius on virgil needs no added attraction, and yet how much its charm is enhanced by its printers' addresses to the reader. here is the second of them roughly englished: to the reader. bernardino cennini, by universal allowance a most excellent goldsmith, and domenico his son, a youth of very good ability, have been the printers. pietro, son of the aforesaid bernardo, has acted as corrector, and has made a collation with many very ancient copies. his first anxiety was that nothing by another hand should be ascribed to servius, that nothing which very old copies showed to be the work of honoratus should be cut down or omitted. since it pleases many readers to insert greek words with their own hand, and in their own fashion, and these in ancient codices are very few, and the accents are very difficult to mark in printing he determined that spaces should be left for the purpose. but since nothing of man's making is perfect, it must needs be accounted enough if these books (as we earnestly hope) are found exceptionally correct. the work was finished at florence on october , . it is impossible to read a colophon such as this without feeling ourselves in the very atmosphere of the printing house, with the various members of the printer's family at work around us. blank spaces are found in many early books where greek quotations occurred in the manuscripts from which they were printed. but it was not every printer who took so much trouble as cennini to justify the omission. as many as twenty-one years later, when printing in the great towns was becoming merely mechanical, we find the same personal note in a little grammar-book printed at acqui. here the colophon tells us: the doctrinale of alexander of villedieu (god be praised!) comes to a happy end. it has been printed amid enough inconveniences, since of several things belonging to this art the printer, in making a beginning with it, could obtain no proper supply, owing to the plague raging at genoa, asti and elsewhere. now this same work has been corrected by the prior venturinus, a distinguished grammarian, and that so diligently that whereas previously the doctrinale in many places seemed by the fault of booksellers too little corrected, now by the application of his care and diligence it will reach men's hands in the most correct form possible. after this date books will be printed in type of another kind, and elegantly, i trow; for both artificers and a sufficiency of other things of which hitherto the putter forth has been in need he now possesses by the gift of god, who disposes all things according to the judgement of his will. late as he appeared and small as was the town at which he produced his one book--his hopes and promises as to others seem to have come to naught--this man had the true pioneer spirit, and deserves to be remembered for it. of a different kind, but no less, is the interest in what is perhaps my own favourite colophon, that recording the death of gerard leeu at antwerp, while engaged in printing an edition of _the chronicles of england_ for the english market. here ben endyd the cronycles of the reame of englond, with their apperteignaunces. enprentyd in the duchy of braband in the towne of andewarpe in the yere of our lord m.cccc.xciij. by maistir gerard de leew a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunnyng: whych nowe is come from lyfe unto the deth, which is grete harme for many [a] poure man. on whos sowle god almyghty for hys hygh grace haue mercy. amen. leeu had been killed accidentally by one of his workmen in the course of a dispute, and this testimonial to him in the colophon, which reads as if the compositor had slipped it in of his own accord, is very gracious and touching in its simplicity. just as the possession of a personal colophon brings a book within a circle of interest to which it otherwise would not have approached, so we may justly value a piece of printing all the more if it chances, through any accident, to throw light on the printer's methods. i have felt a peculiar affection for an edition of valerius maximus, printed by schoeffer in , ever since i discovered that a change in the form of the punctuation at certain points of the book makes it possible to work out the number of presses on which it was being printed, the order in which the sheets were being set up, and how quickly the type of the worked pages was distributed. the slowness of the presswork in the simple form of press at first used obliged the printers to keep several presses, sometimes as many as six, occupied with different sections of the same book, and the trouble they were given to make the end of one section join neatly to the beginning of the next has left many traces. any book which thus lets us into the secrets of the early printing offices possesses in a very high degree the charm which should attach to an incunable, if that hardly used word is to retain, as it should, any reference to the infancy of printing. but more will be said as to this aspect of early books in our next chapter. footnotes: [ ] two editions of boner's _edelstein_, both illustrated with over a hundred woodcuts, one dated th february, (copy at wolfenbüttel), the other undated (royal library, berlin); _die historij von joseph, danielis, judith, hester,_ dated in rhyming verse "nat lang nach sand walpurgentag" (rylands library and bibliothèque nationale); the _belial seu consolatio peccatorum_ of jacobus de theramo (rylands and germanisches museum, nuremberg); two issues of a german _biblia pauperum_ with thirty-four woodcuts (both at the bibliothèque nationale, the first also at rylands and wolfenbüttel); the same work in latin (rylands); lastly two editions of a poem called _rechtstreit des menschen mit dem tode_ (both at wolfenbüttel, the second also at the bibliothèque nationale). [ ] in its colophon the book is said to have been "a docto viro bertolommeo mates conditus et per p. johannem matoses christi ministrum presbiterumque castigatus et emendatus sub impensis guillermi ros et mira arte impressa per johannem gherlinc alamanum." gherlinc is only heard of again in , and then not at barcelona. chapter vi the development of printing one great cause of changes of fashion in book-collecting is that after any particular class of book has been hotly competed for by one generation of book-lovers, all the best prizes gradually get locked up in great public or private collections, and come so seldom into the market that new collectors prefer to take up some other department rather than one in which it is impossible for them to attain any striking success. the first-fruits of printing, if reckoned strictly chronologically, are probably as nearly exhausted as any class of book which can be named. no matter how rich a man may be, the chances of his ever obtaining a copy of the thirty-six line bible, the psalter, or the first book printed at venice, are infinitesimally small. other incunabula, if not hopelessly out of reach even of the very rich, are only likely to be acquired after many years of waiting and a heavy expenditure when the moment of possible acquisition arrives. many of the books hitherto here mentioned belong to this class. and yet, from what may be called the logical as opposed to the chronological standpoint, incunabula little, if at all, less interesting are still to be obtained at quite small prices by any one who knows for what to look. any collector who sets himself to illustrate the evolution of the printed book from its manuscript predecessors, and the ways of the early printers, will find that he has undertaken no impossible task, though one which will need considerable pursuit and good taste and judgment in the selection of appropriate specimens. [illustration: vii. venice, jenson, cicero. rhetorica ( ^a)] roughly speaking, it took about a century for printed books to shake off the influence of manuscript and establish their own traditions. the earliest books had no titlepage, no head-title, no running title, no pagination, and no printed chapter-headings, also no printed initials or illustrations, blank spaces being left often for the one and occasionally for the other to be supplied by hand. at the time when printing was invented the book trade in many large cities had attained a high degree of organization, so that the work of the calligrapher or scribe was clearly distinguished from that of the luminer or illuminator, and even from that of the rubricator (rubrisher). take, for instance, this bury st. edmunds bill of for a psalter, preserved among the paston letters: for viij hole vynets, prise the vynet xij^d viij^s item for xxj demi-vynets ... prise the demi-vynett iiij^d vij^s item for psalmes letters xv^c and di' ... the prise of c. iiij^d vj^s ij^d item for p'ms letters lxiij^c ... prise of c. j^d v^s iij^d item for wrytynge of a quare and demi ... prise the quayr xx^d ij^s vj^d item for wrytenge of a calender xij^d item for iij quayres of velym, prise the quayr xx^d v^s item for notynge of v quayres and ij leves, prise of the quayr viij^d iii^s vij^d item for capital drawynge iij^c and di', the prise iij^d item for floryshynge of capytallis, v^c v^d item for byndynge of the boke xij^s ------------ li^s ij^d ------------ it is possible that the work in this case was all done by one man, though it is equally possible that several were engaged on it, under the direction of a master-scrivener, but in either case the fact that vignettes and demi-vignettes, psalter letters (i.e. the small red letters at the beginning of each verse of a psalm, sometimes called versals), the mysterious "p'ms letters" (possibly the dabs of colour bestowed on small initials), the writing of the text, the writing of the calendar, the musical notation, and the drawing and flourishing the capitals, were all charged separately, at so much a piece or so much a hundred, shows how distinct each operation was kept. partly, no doubt, from policy, so as not to rouse the wrath of more than one industry at a time, partly to save themselves trouble and expense, the earliest printers, with few exceptions, set themselves to supplant only the calligrapher, and sold their books with all the blanks and spaces, which the most modest or perfunctory scribe could have left to be filled by his kindred craftsmen. no better starting-point for a typographical collection could be desired than fine copies of two well-printed books in which the printer has confined himself severely to reproducing the text, leaving all headings, capitals, and ornaments to be supplied by hand. in one (as in the page from a book of jenson's, which forms the illustration to this chapter, plate vii) the blanks should remain blanks (as more especially in early books printed in italy they often did remain), in the other they should have been filled in with red ink or colours by a rubricator. the owner of two such volumes is really as much at the fountain-head as the possessor of the mainz indulgences of , or any still earlier document that may yet be found.[ ] this is the logical beginning, and the logic of history is quite as interesting as the chronology. from the starting-point of the book of which the printer printed nothing but the text the collector can advance in many different directions. there was no regular and unbroken progress in the development of the modern form of book, nor does it matter greatly that the examples of any particular improvement should be either absolutely or nearly the earliest. the main thing is that they should be good illustrations of the special feature for which they are acquired. the problem how to dispense with the aid of a rubricator had to be faced by countless printers in many different towns, for rubricating by hand must have added very considerably to the cost of a book. the obvious thing to do was to print in red all the headings, chapter-numbers, etc., which the rubricator used to add in that colour. but this was both expensive and troublesome, as it involved two printings and the placing of the paper in exactly the same position in the press in each. caxton and one or two other early printers tried to avoid this double printing and difficulty of registration by putting on both red and black ink at the same time--very probably, where they came close together, they were rubbed on with a finger--but this so often resulted in smudges and lines half of one colour, half of another, that it was soon abandoned. double printing was mostly soon abandoned also, except by the most expert men. it was tried and abandoned by the printer of the forty-two line bible, though subsequently fust and schoeffer completely mastered it. between and it was tried and abandoned by almost every printer in strassburg. the difficulty was generally[ ] overcome by substituting, for red ink used with type of the same size or face as the text, type of a larger size or heavier face, which could be printed in black ink with the text and yet stand out sufficiently clearly from it to catch the eye. the need for this differentiation accelerated the tendency to reduce the size of types, which was doubtless in the first place dictated by a desire for economy. the earlier german text-types for ordinary books very commonly measure about mm. a line. to enable small differences to be shown they are quoted in the british museum catalogue of incunabula by the measurements of twenty lines, and many of the early mainz and strassburg types range closely round the number . these large text-types are often the only ones used in a book, notes or other accompaniments of the text being clumsily indicated by brackets or spaces. the better printers, however, gradually imitated fust and schoeffer, and along with their text-types used smaller commentary types measuring about to ½ mm. a line, or from to mm. for twenty lines. in the great folio commentaries on the canon and civil law a very fine effect is produced by two short columns of text in large type being placed two-thirds way up the page and then completely surrounded by the commentary in smaller type, also in double columns. but the economy of using the smaller type for the text of books without commentary was quickly perceived, and along with to ½ mm. small text-types, heavy and often rather fantastic types of just twice this size ( to mm. a line, to mm. to twenty lines) came into use for headings, and the opening words of books and chapters. the same course was followed with respect to headlines, when it was desired to add these to a book without the aid of a scribe. eggestein printed one book with headlines in red, but the same heavy type which was used for chapter headings was soon used for headlines, and also, with very ugly effect, for numbering the leaves. in considering what specimens of printing to collect englishmen who have been accustomed for more than two centuries to nothing but roman types may well be bewildered, as they look through any volume of facsimiles, by the extraordinary variety of the founts. the main reasons for this variety may be sought ( ) in the dependence of the first printers on the styles of writing which they found in vogue at the time, and in the countries and towns where they made their ventures; and ( ) in the different styles considered appropriate to different classes of books--latin and vernacular, liturgical and secular, etc. even now, when bookhands can hardly be said to exist, the varieties of handwriting are endless, and there are strongly marked differences between those of one country and another. in the fifteenth century, when there was less intercommunication between distant countries, the differences were even greater. as to this, however, it is possible to make some distinctions. the unifying effect of the church is seen in the smaller range of variations in the books for liturgical use, and the fellowship of scholars exercised at least some influence in the same direction. in italy, the home of ancient learning, the aristocratic bookhand was the fine round minuscules which had been evolved, by a conscious antiquarian revival, from the bookhand of the twelfth century, itself a revival of the carlovingian bookhand of the eighth and ninth. sweynheym and pannartz, being germans, failed in the first instance to realize the hopelessness of seeking scholarly favour with any other kind of character, and their subiaco books are printed in a light and pleasing gothic much admired by william morris, and used by mr. st. john hornby for his splendid ashendene dante. when they started afresh at rome in they gave up their gothic fount and used instead a fine roman character noticeable for its use of the long _[s]_ at the end of words, a peculiarity often found in italian manuscripts of this period. the early printers at venice made no false start, but all used roman characters from the outset, venetian gothic type making its first appearance in . that gothic type was used at all in italy was due partly to the difficulty found in cutting very small roman type, so that gothic was used for economy, partly to the advantages of the heavy gothic face when a contrast was needed between text and commentary. in germany roman types were tried by adolf rusch (the r-printer) at strassburg about , and by both günther zainer at augsburg and johann zainer at ulm, but met with no favour until in the last years of the century they were reintroduced for the books written or edited by brant, locher, wimpheling, peter schott, and the other harbingers of the new learning. in the netherlands john of westphalia started with a round but rather thin roman type brought from italy. in france the scholarly ideals of the patrons of the first paris press were reflected in the use for the books printed at the sorbonne of a beautiful roman type, only injured by the excessive prominence of the serifs. in spain also the first books, those printed at valentia by lambert palmart, were in roman; but in both countries gothic types long commanded the favour of the general reader, while in england their supremacy was unchallenged for a third of a century, no book entirely in roman type appearing until . as regards the æsthetic value of the different roman types in use during the fifteenth century, the superiority of the italian is so marked that, with the exception of the first french type, the rest, from this point of view, may be neglected. almost all the roman types used in italy until late in the 'seventies are either beautiful or at least interesting, and it is remarkable that some of the most beautiful are found in small places like cagli, mondovi, viterbo, and aquila, or in the hands of obscure printers, such as the self-taught priest clemente of padua, who worked at venice in . the pre-eminence of jenson's fount is indisputable, though he often did it injustice by his poor presswork. but those used by john and wendelin of speier, and at a later date by antonio miscomini, were also good, as also were several of the founts used at rome and milan. at naples and bologna, on the other hand, some quite early roman founts are curiously hard and heavy. after about roman types in italy enter on a second stage. they no longer have the appearance of being founded directly on handwriting. doubtless the typecutters were so used to their work that they no longer needed models, but designed new types according to their own ideas. naturally the letters are more uniform and regular than in the earlier founts, but naturally also they have less charm, and the ordinary close-set venetian type of the end of the century is singularly dull. even the large roman type used by aldus to print the _hypnerotomachia poliphili_ is no real exception, as the letters are narrow for their height. a far finer fount is the large text type used by the silbers at rome, on both sides of . this is well proportioned and beautifully round, and it is surprising that it has not yet been imitated by any modern typecutter. when we pass from roman to gothic types there is a bewildering field from which to choose. here again dull commercialism gained the upper hand about , and towards the end of the century an ugly upright text-type of mm. to twenty lines, with a fantastic headline type of twice its size, or a little more, found its way all over germany. but types with a twenty-line measurement ranging round mm., such as those of peter schoeffer or the printer of henricus ariminensis, are often extraordinarily handsome. both of schoeffer's earlier small types and the small type of ulrich zell at cologne are engagingly neat, and at the opposite end there is the magnificently round gothic used by ulrich han at rome. most of the finest gothic types were used for latin books of law and theology, the peculiar appropriateness of roman type being considered to be confined to works appealing to classical scholars. in germany, for some time, not much distinction was observed, but there was a tendency in classical books to use an f and long [s] starting from the level of the line, whereas in most vernacular books the tails of these letters came below the line, giving a strangely different appearance to the type. in the 'nineties a distinctively cursive type called schwabacher, usually measuring mm. to twenty lines, makes its appearance all over germany. in italy, both at naples and by ulrich han at rome, a very small text type, which is certainly cursive in its affinities, was used at the very outset, but found no favour. the typical vernacular french types are also very often on a slope. the small cursive type cut for aldus in by francesco da bologna was thus not quite so great a revolution as is sometimes represented. its clearness in proportion to its size, its extreme compactness, and the handiness of the small octavos with which it was at first specially connected, gained for it a great success, and it gradually, though only gradually, usurped the name of italic, the upright italian bookhand being distinguished from it as roman. few treatises on printing or the development of books give any idea of the immense popularity of italics during the sixteenth century. about they seemed to have established themselves as the fashionable vernacular type both in italy and france, and even in england whole books were printed in them. in switzerland also and germany they gained some hold; but gradually the tide turned, the upright bookhand regained its predominance, and italics now survive chiefly for emphasis and quotations--in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were often used for proper names--giving to the page on which they occur an unpleasantly spotty appearance. their occasional use in prefaces and dedicatory letters is much more appropriate. the completion of books at first by a colophon, afterwards by a titlepage, may be illustrated in the same way as that by which we have traced the evolution of the text from incompleteness to completeness and the development of different classes of types. at least one printer, johann mentelin of strassburg, seems to have considered the addition of colophons as the proper business of the rubricator. while printed colophons in his books are exceptionally rare, several copies have come down to us in which full colophons have been added by hand, e.g. in a vellum copy of the _speculum morale_ in the bibliothèque nationale, after praise of the book, we read: impressumque in inclyta vrbe argentinensium ac nitide terse emendateque resertum per honorandum dominum dominum iohannem mentelin artis impressorie magistrum famosissimum. anno a partu virginis salutifero millesimo quadringentesimo septuagesimo sexto. die mensis nouembris sexta. despite a few instances of this kind, however, it is certain that the majority of printers who omitted to print colophons to their books did so, not in the expectation that they would be supplied by hand, but in imitation of the manuscript books to which they were accustomed, in which it is distinctly exceptional to find any mention of the name of the scribe. but the men who took a pride in their new art, and who thought that their work was good enough to bring more custom to their press if their name were associated with it, took the opposite course, and so colophons from onwards are common in the best books, and may perhaps be found in about per cent of the incunables that have come down to us. by the men who were skilful in using red ink they were often thus printed, and whether in red or in black, they frequently had appended to them the printer's mark or device, which gave a very decorative finish to the book. nowadays, when we have been accustomed all our lives to the luxury of titlepages, it may well seem to us merely perverse to hide the title of a book, the name of the author, and information as to where, when, and by whom it was printed in a closely set paragraph at the end of the book. but if we think for a moment of how the manuscript books to which the early printers were accustomed had been produced we shall see that it was the most natural thing in the world. a scribe would take his quire of paper or vellum, and if he were a high-class scribe, mindful of the need of keeping his text clean, he would leave his first leaf blank and begin at the top of his second. but here he would begin to write straight away, sometimes with the first words of his text, sometimes with a preliminary paragraph, which may be called the _incipit_, from the important word in it. in this paragraph he would give either the name of his book or, almost as commonly, the name of the first section of it, introducing the title only incidentally. incipit racionale diuinorum officiorum. incipiunt constitutiones clementis pape v una cum apparatu ioannis andree. marci tullii ciceronis arpinatis consulisque romani ac oratorum maximi ad m. tullium ciceronem filium suum officiorum liber incipit. incipit epistola sancti hieronimi ad paulinum presbiterum de omnibus diuine historie libris. that it did not occur to him to devote his blank page to a displayed title of the book he was copying was due to the fact that every medieval manuscript was the direct descendant, through many or few stages, of the author's own original draft, and that this was the most pretentious way and least natural in which any author could begin to write a book. so the scribes imitated the author in his normal beginning, and the early printers imitated the scribes, and because an author was more inclined to relieve his feelings at the end of a book than to express them volubly at the beginning, it was only when books multiplied so greatly that purchasers wanted to see at a glance what was the name of the book at which they were looking that titlepages superseded colophons. the proof of this explanation being the true one is that titlepages become common just about the time ( to ) that book-production was beginning to be divided up between publishers and printers, and that the publisher very quickly claimed them for his own. the earliest titlepages, those of the mainz _bul zu deutsch des bapst pius ii_ ( ), rolewinck's sermon for the feast of the presentation (cologne: arnold ther hoernen, ), the _flores sancti augustini_ (cologne, ), and the _kalendarium_ of joannes de monteregio and its italian translation (venice: ratdolt and partners, ), were all more or less of the nature of "sports." when titlepages came to stay, a year or two later than the last of these precursors, they everywhere took the form of labels, a single sentence containing the short title of the book, printed sometimes in large, sometimes in small type, but with no other information. the label title, being usually printed high up on the page, left two-thirds, or thereabouts, blank beneath it, and this space was soon filled, sometimes by a pictorial woodcut, sometimes by a mark or device, which at first might be either that of the printer or publisher, but gradually came to be much more often the publisher's. the short title and device taken together filled the page sufficiently for decorative purposes, but they left room for a further paragraph of type to be added if desired, and the advantage of filling this with the name and address of the firm from whom the book might be obtained was so obvious that the "imprint," as it is rather loosely called, soon made its appearance and gradually became recognized as an essential part of the titlepage. when printers and publishers lost pride in their work and ceased to care to decorate their titlepages with pictures or devices, the title was displayed in a series of single lines and made to straggle down the page till it came nearly low enough to meet the imprint. if we go back to the habits of the scribes it is easy to understand another point in the early history of books, their make-up into quires and the marking of these quires by signatures and catchwords. the word _quaire_ or _quire_ is a shortened form of the latin _quaternio_, the name devised for four sheets of paper folded down the middle so as to form eight leaves. a gathering of five sheets making ten leaves was called a _quinternion_, and this, though it has yielded no modern word, was for generations such a popular form that _quinterniones_ was sometimes used as a general expression for manuscripts. gatherings of three sheets, making six leaves, were called _terniones_; gatherings of two sheets, making four leaves, _duerniones_. a few, but only a few, books exist--nearly all of those which i have seen are either block-books or thin folios of poetry of the reign of charles ii--which are made up in single sheets not placed one within the other, but following consecutively. but the system of gathering from two to five or more sheets together into quires was practically universal both before and after the invention of printing, and this for the excellent reason that it reduced the quantity of sewing necessary in binding a book, and reduced also the risk of the sewing cutting through the paper or vellum, as it would be very likely to do if there were only a single thickness to resist it. when the scribe had arranged his quire or gathering he wrote first page by page on all the leaves on the left hand until he came to the middle of the quire, when he proceeded to write page by page on all the leaves on the right hand. thus in a quire of four sheets the left half of the first sheet would be leaf , pages and , and the right half would be leaf , pages and , so that the same sheet formed the beginning and end of the quire. in the earliest printed books the quires were printed page by page exactly as the quires of a manuscript had been written. but early in the 'seventies (peter schoeffer can be proved to have adopted the practice between and september, ) the advantage was perceived of printing both the pages on the upper or lower side of a sheet at the same time, i.e. in a quaternion, page together with page . as soon as a printer had learnt to print two folio pages together, it became easy to print four quarto pages, or eight octavo pages, or sixteen sextodecimo pages. in each case the amount of type to be printed at a pull would be approximately the same. it thus ceased to be disadvantageous to print small books, whereas so long as each page had to be pulled separately it was obviously wasteful to make that page a very small one. even when the printers had learnt how to print two folio pages at the same time the presswork remained very laborious. the earliest presses were worked with only a single screw, and when the pressman had pulled the lever one way to bring the platen down on the type, he had to push the lever back again in order to raise the platen and release the paper. thus in order to print a large book quickly four or six sets of pressmen had to work on it at once, each at a different press. to avoid mistakes, therefore, the practice was to allot one section of the book to each press. thus if a book were calculated to run to leaves, six presses might begin simultaneously at leaves , , , , , and . what more often happened was that either to follow the natural sections of the book, or because some of the printers were engaged on other tasks and not ready to begin at once, the sections were of much less regular lengths, and we can sometimes prove that the first press was far advanced in its section before the fifth and sixth had begun. now in all these cases, unless they were reprinting an earlier book, page for page, it is obvious that some nice calculations would be needed to make each section end with the end of a quire so as to be able to join on with the beginning of the quire containing the next section without any gap or crowding. hence the striking irregularities in the make-up of many early books. instead of a book being printed in a succession of quinternions or a succession of quaternions we have many a make-up which can only be expressed by a cruelly mathematical formula, such as this, which represents the quiring of the forty-two line bible. a-i^ ; k^ + lm^ n^ + ; o-z^ [inverted ]^ [@]^ + ; a-f^ g^ : aa-nn^ ; oo pp^ qq^ + ; rr-zz aa-cc^ ; dd^ ee^ + ; ff gg^ hh^ + ii^ . in this the index-letter shows the number of leaves in the quire, a-i^ being a short way of stating that each of the nine quires a b c d e f g h i has ten leaves in it. in the tenth quire (k) there is an extra leaf, and again in the thirteenth (n) the printer found that he had too much copy for six leaves and not enough for eight, and was therefore obliged to put in an odd one, because another press had already printed off the beginning of the next quire (o). not infrequently it would happen that the odd amount of copy for a section was very difficult to fit exactly into a leaf even when the printer had compressed it by using as many contractions as possible, or eked it out by using no contractions at all. this accounts for the occurrence of a blank space, large or small, at the end of some sections without any break in the text, as the printer was sometimes careful to explain by the printed notice "hic nihil deficit," or as in our page from ulrich zell, "vacat." as has been already noted, in a moment of enthusiasm mr. proctor once said to the present writer that it was impossible to find a fifteenth century book that was really ugly. this was certainly putting the case for his beloved incunables a peg too high, for there were plenty of bad printers before , and even such a master as jenson was by no means uniformly careful as to the quality of his presswork. but one of the legacies which the early printers received from the scribes was the art of putting their text handsomely on the page, and the difference which this makes in the appearance of a book is very marked, little as many modern printers and publishers attend to it. but in the books of the best printers of our own day, as well as in those of the best of the fifteenth century, from per cent to per cent of the height of the page is devoted to the text, from per cent to per cent being reserved for the upper and lower margins, of which at least two-thirds is for the lower and not more than one-third for the upper. as compared with the height of a page of type the breadth is usually in the proportion of about to (a trifle more in a quarto), and here again the outer margin is at least twice as great as the inner. thus in a book with a page measuring by ¼ inches, the type-page should measure about by ¾ inches, with a lower margin of about inches, an upper of inch, an outer of ¾ inches, and an inner of ¾ inch. it will be greatly to the advantage of book-buyers to bear these proportions in mind, in order to measure how much a book offered to them has been cut down, and also to be able to instruct their binders as to how to reduce the absurd margins of some modern "large paper" copies to more artistic dimensions. whether it is legitimate further to reduce the margins of an old book which has already been mangled by a binder in order to get the proportions better balanced is a nice question of taste. if a two-inch lower margin has been halved and a one-inch upper margin left intact, if the upper margin is reduced, the book will become a pleasant "working copy" instead of an obviously mangled large one, and the collector must settle in his own conscience whether this be a sufficient justification for snipping off a centimetre of old paper. exactly why the proportions here laid down, with their limits of variation, are right for books cannot easily be set forth. it is easiest to see in the case of the relation between the inner and outer margins. as william morris was never tired of insisting, the unit in a book is, not a single page, but the two pages which can be seen at the same time. the two inner margins separate the two type-pages by a single band of white, which, if each inner margin were as large as the outer, would become insufferably conspicuous. as for the proportions between the lower and upper margins, the explanation may lie in the angle at which we habitually read books, or by the need for leaving room for the reader to hold the book in his hands. but whether it be a matter of inherent rightness or merely of long-established convention, the pleasure of handling a book with correct margins is very great, and a collector who secures an uncut copy of even a poorly printed book of the period when margins were understood, will find that it presents quite a pleasing and dignified appearance. and so in regard to other points, any book which illustrates the relations of the early printers to the scribes, the difficulties which they experienced in their work and the expedients by which they were surmounted deserves, whatever its date or present price, to be reckoned as a real incunable, and the collector who gets together a few dozen books of this kind will have far better sport for his outlay than he who is tied down too rigorously by chronology. footnotes: [ ] it will be so much the better if the collector can add to them a copy of one of the early books printed at rome (the german ones are too rare) in which there still survives the text of the rubrics, printed not in their appropriate places, but on a separate leaf or quire for the guidance of the rubricator. [ ] by jenson and many early printers in italy, and by husner and a few others in germany, the majuscules of the founts used in the text were massed together in headings with admirable effect. but for a time the heavy heading types carried all before them. chapter vii early german and dutch illustrated books [illustration: viii. augsburg, g. zainer, c. tuberinus. geschicht von dem seligen kind symon] the natural method of illustrating a book printed with type is by means of designs cut in relief, which can be locked up in the forme with the type, so that text and illustrations are printed together by a single impression[ ] without any special preparation of the paper. so long as the design to be printed stands out clearly on the block it matters nothing whether it be cut on wood or on soft metal. even as between the design cut by hand and the process line-block which has as its basis a photograph taken direct from a pen drawing, the difference can hardly be said to be one of better and worse. we lose the individuality of the wood-cutter or wood-engraver, but we are brought into closer touch with the individuality of the artist, and whether we gain or lose depends on the ability of the artist to dispense with a skilled interpreter. the one requisite for success is that either the artist, or an interpreter for him, should recognize the limits within which his work can be effective. the reproductions of the artist's designs will be looked at, not in isolation, but as part of an _ensemble_ made up of two pages printed in a type which, perhaps with a little trouble, can be ascertained beforehand, and they will be printed not as proofs on a special press by a special workman on paper chosen solely to suit them, but with average skill and care in an ordinary press and on paper the choice of which will be dictated by several considerations. whenever relief blocks have been used for any length of time as a method of book-illustration the rivalry of artists has tended to cause these restrictions to be forgotten. in our own day line-blocks have been almost driven out of the field by "half-tones," which cannot be printed without the aid of paper specially coated, or at least rolled or "calendared." shortly before the process line-block was perfected the extreme fineness of the american school of wood-engraving had induced a nearly similar result. the successors of bewick worked with equal disregard of the need for clearly defined lines, and when we travel back to the first half of the sixteenth century we find the holbeins, burgkmair, weiditz, and other artists producing designs far too delicate for the conditions under which they were to be reproduced. thus the charm of the woodcuts in books of the fifteenth century is by no means confined to that "quaintness" which is usually the first thing on which the casual observer comments. the "quaintness" is usually there, but along with it is a harmony between print, paper, and woodcut which has very rarely since been attained. the claim made in the last paragraph must be understood as applying only to books honestly illustrated with blocks specially made for them. books decorated with a job lot of cuts, as was often the case, especially after about , may accidentally be delightful and often possess some of the charm of a scrapbook. it is good sport, for instance, to take one of vérard's later books and trace the origin of the cuts with which that cheaply liberal publisher made his wares attractive. but the incongruity is mostly manifest, and collectors might well be more fastidious than they show themselves and refuse to waste the price of a good book with homogeneous illustrations in buying half a dozen dull little volumes with an old horae cut at the beginning and the end of each. a second exception must be recognized in the books illustrated by untrained wood-cutters. in germany and the low countries few, if any, quite untrained wood-cutters were employed, and this is true also of paris and florence. but at lyon and other provincial towns in france (the abbeville cutters, who probably came from paris, are strikingly good), in a few books printed at rome and venice, here and there in spain, and in one or two of caxton's and several of wynkyn de worde's books in england, the cutting is so bad that, though it is possible sometimes to see that excellent designs underlie it, the effect is either ludicrous or repellent. only fanatics could admire such pictures as we find in the early lyonnese _quatre fils d'aymon_ (_s.n._, but about ), in the _opuscula_ of philippus de barberiis printed by joannes de lignamine (rome, ), in a large number of the cuts of the malermi bible of (venice, g. ragazzo for l. a. giunta, ), in _los doze trabajos de ercules_ (zamora, ), in caxton's _aesop_ or in wynkyn de worde's _morte d'arthur_ ( ). books such as these (the malermi bible is on a different footing from the rest owing to the wonderful excellence of the good cuts) may be bought as curiosities, or for the light they throw on the state of the book trade when such work could be put on the market, but no artistic merit can be claimed for them. in germany good work began early, because, to supply the demand for playing-cards and pictures of saints, schools of wood-cutters had grown up, more especially at augsburg and at ulm. block-books also had come into existence in the district of the lower rhine, and these, which in their earliest forms can hardly be later than , must be divided between the low countries and germany and prove the existence of competent workmen. the earliest type-printed books which possess illustrations are the little handful printed by albrecht pfister at bamberg in and about , described in chapter v, but it was at augsburg in the early seventies that book-illustration first flourished. as has been mentioned in chapter v, trade difficulties at first stood in the way, but by the arbitration of melchior stanheim, abbot of the local monastery of ss. ulrich and afra, these were settled on the sensible basis that printers might have as many illustrations in their books as they chose to provide, but that they must be designed and cut by augsburg craftsmen. the series seems to have begun with some tolerably good column-cuts to an edition of the lives of the saints in german, of which the first part was issued in october, , and the second in april, . in _das guldin spiel_ of a dominican writer, ingold, finished on august of the latter year, we find for the first time real power of characterization. lovers of woodcuts owe some gratitude to the medieval trick of attaching edifying discourses to matters of everyday interest and amusement, for whereas the edifying discourses themselves could hardly carry illustrations, hunting, chess, or, as here, seven games which could be likened to the seven deadly sins, gave opportunities for showing pictures by which the natural man would be attracted. another important book of this year, only known to me in bämler's plagiarism of it, was the first edition of the _belial_, the amazing book which tells the story of christ being summoned for the trespass committed in harrowing hell. in the heavy gothic type which zainer used in these illustrated books was put at the disposal of the abbot of ss. ulrich and afra and used to print a _speculum humanae saluationis_, to which was added a summary in verse by frater johannes, an inmate of his monastery. this book was illustrated by different cuts of biblical subjects, of varying degrees of merit. in the same year, and again in , zainer printed an illustrated _plenarium_, i.e. the epistles and gospels for the round of the church's year. in or shortly after he printed and illustrated a narrative of great contemporary interest, the story, written by one tuberinus, of a child named simon, who was supposed to have been slain by the jews out of hatred of the christian faith and desire to taste christian flesh. the tale appears to contain internal evidence of its untruth, and the unhappy jews who were cruelly executed had much better claims to be regarded as martyrs than "das susses kind" simon. but some of the pictures are quite animated, especially one (see plate viii) of the hired kidnapper beguiling the child through the streets and then deftly hurrying him into the house of doom with a touch of his knee. in or , and again with the date , zainer produced editions of the german bible in large folio, illustrated with great pictorial capitals at the beginning of each book. but his greatest achievement was in an undated book of this period, the _speculum humanae vitae_ of rodericus bishop of zamora, in the german translation of heinrich steinhowel. if this mirror of man's life had been written by a man with his eyes open instead of by a vapid rhetorician it should have been one of the most valuable documents for the social life of the fifteenth century, since it professes to contrast the advantages and evils of every rank and occupation of life, from the pope and the emperor down to craftsmen and labourers. there is but little joy to be gained from its text, but the augsburg artist has atoned for many literary shortcomings by his vivid and charming pictures of scenes from the social life of his day, though it is not to be supposed that german judges took bribes quite so openly as he is pleased to represent. in addition to fifty-four woodcuts of this kind, there is a large genealogical tree of the house of hapsburg, which is a triumph of decorative arrangement. two other early augsburg printers devoted themselves to illustrated work, johann bämler and anton sorg. the former at first contented himself with prefixing a full-page frontispiece to his books, as in the _summa_ of johannes friburgensis and _die vier und zwanzig goldenen harfen_, both of , and again in the picture of s. gregory and peter the deacon in the dialogues of the former printed for the monastery of ss. ulrich and afra, and that of the dying empress in the _historie von den sieben weisen meistern_ of the following year. in the _belial_ of and _plenarium_ of bämler was content for most of the cuts to borrow or copy from the editions of zainer, but in the _alexander der grosse_ of the former year and _melusine_ and _sieben todsünden_ of the latter he himself led the way with some excellent sets of woodcuts, which were copied by others. again, in _das buch der natur_ of we find a dozen specially designed full-page cuts, one to each book, illustrating man, the spheres, beasts, birds, mermaids, serpents, insects, etc.; in the _chronica von allen kaisern and königen_ of there are four large cuts, showing christ in glory, the dream of the emperor sigismund, the vision of s. gregory at mass, and s. veronica holding before her the cloth with the imprint of christ's face. it was perhaps in this same year that bämler issued, without dating it, jacob sprenger's _die rosenkranz bruderschaft_, with two very striking cuts, one of the offering of garlands to our lady, the other of christ's scourgers looking back mockingly as they leave him. a dated edition appeared in . another book of with a good set of cuts was the romance of apollonius, king of tyre. in bämler issued a _buch der kunst_, which, like the _buch der natur_, went through several editions; it must be noted, however, that there is no such contrast between art and nature as the short title of this book might suggest, the full title being _buch der kunst geistlich zu werden_. the illustrations for the most part represent a soul in different situations, but there are also many of biblical subjects. the last book of bämler's which need be mentioned is the _turken-kreuzzüge_ of rupertus de sancto remigio, which has an effective frontispiece of the pope preaching to the crusaders and some vigorous smaller cuts. anton sorg began printing in and issued his first illustrated book the next year. he was a prolific printer, and issued many close imitations of books originated by günther zainer and others. the most famous work specially connected with his name is ulrich von reichenthal's _das conciliumbuch geschehen zu costencz_ ( ), illustrated with forty-four larger cuts, all in the first ninety leaves, and coats of arms of the various dignitaries present at the council. the larger cuts show the knighting of the burgermeister of constance, processions, a tournament, and the martyrdom of huss (despite his safe conduct) and the scattering of his ashes over a field. the later augsburg illustrated books, issued by the elder schoensperger, johann schobsser, peter berger, and hans schauer, though they maintain a respectable level of craftsmanship, have less interest and individuality than these earlier ones. one augsburg printer, erhard ratdolt, who had made himself a reputation by ten years' work at venice ( - ), shortly after his return issued a notable illustrated book, the _chronica hungarorum_ of thwrocz. his main business was the production of missals and other service books, in some of which he made experiments in colour-printing. at the neighbouring city of ulm, where also the wood-cutters had long been at work, illustrated books began to be issued in by johann zainer, no doubt a kinsman of günther zainer of augsburg. his chief books are ( ) latin and german editions of boccaccio's _de claris mulieribus_ ( ), with a fine borderpiece of adam and eve and numerous spirited little pictures which, though primitive both in conception and execution, are full of life, and ( ) an _aesop_ which was reprinted at augsburg and copied elsewhere in germany, and also in france, the netherlands, and england. from onwards he seems to have been in continual financial trouble. he was apparently able, however, to find funds to issue two rather notable books about , the _prognosticatio_ of lichtenberger, and a totentanz. the blocks of both of these passed to meidenbach at mainz. most of the forty books of a later printer, conrad dinckmut ( - ), have illustrations. his _seelenwurzgarten_ ( ) appears at first sight to be a most liberally decorated book, crowded with full-page cuts, but of its illustrations only seventeen are different, one, representing the tortures of the damned, being used as many as thirty-seven times, a deplorable waste of good paper, which the printer had the good sense to reduce in a later edition. dinckmut's most famous book is a german edition of the _eunuchus_ of terence "ain maisterliche vnd wolgesetzte comedia zelesen vnd zehören lüstig und kurtzwylig, die der hochgelert vnd gross maister und poet therencius gar subtill mit grosser kunnst und hochem flyss gesetzt hat." this has twenty-eight nearly full-page cuts in which the characters are well drawn, the setting for the most part showing the streets of a medieval town. a _chronik_, by thomas lirer, issued about the same time, was begun to be illustrated on a generous scale with eighteen full-page cuts in the first twenty-eight leaves, but was hastily finished off with only three more cuts in the remaining thirty-six. they are less carefully executed than those of the _eunuchus_, but show more variety, and are on the whole very pleasing. another ulm printer, who began work in , leonhard holl, printed in that year a magnificent edition of ptolemy's _cosmographia_, with woodcut maps (one signed "insculptum est per iohann[=e] schnitzer de armszheim") and fine capitals. the first of these, a pictorial n, shows the editor, nicolaus germanus, presenting his book to the pope. of later ulm books by far the most important are two by gulielmus caoursin, published by johann reger in , and both concerned with the knights of st. john of jerusalem at rhodes. one volume gives their _stabilimenta_ or constitution, the other _obsidionis urbis rhodiae descriptio_, an illustrated history of their defence of their island against the turks and their subsequent dealings with the infidel, who at one time were so complaisant as to present them with no less valuable a relic than the arm of their patron, which was duly honoured with processions and sermons. altogether the two books contain fifty-six full-page pictures, rather roughly cut, but full of vigour and bringing the course of the siege and the character of the wild turkish horsemen very vividly before the reader. william morris was even tempted to conjecture that the designs may have been made by erhard reuwich, the illustrator of the mainz _breidenbach_, of which we shall soon have to speak. at nuremberg book-illustration begins with the _ars et modus contemplatiuae vitae_, six leaves of which partake of the nature of a block-book. in or about johann müller of königsberg (whose variant names, johannes regiomontanus, johannes de monteregio, have trapped more bibliographers into inconsistencies than those of any other fifteenth century author) issued calendars and other works with astronomical diagrams, and prefixed to his edition of the _philalethes_ of maffeus vegius a woodcut (for which dr. schreiber suspects an italian origin) showing philalethes in rags and truth with no other clothing than a pair of very small wings. in june, , sensenschmidt and frisner illustrated their folio edition of justinian's _codex_, with ten charming little column-cuts; the following month sensenschmidt produced a _heiligenleben_, with more than illustrations, which, according to dr. schreiber, are very noteworthy as they stand, and would have been more so had not the wood-cutter been hurried into omitting the backgrounds in the later cuts, those to the "pars aestiualis." sensenschmidt also printed an undated german bible with pictorial capitals. in creussner issued the travels of marco polo with a woodcut of the traveller, and about the same time latin and german editions of the tract of tuberinus on the supposed fate suffered by "das kind simon" at the hand of the jews. in anton koberger published his first illustrated book, _postilla super bibliam_ of nicolaus de lyra, with forty-three woodcuts, which were imitated not only at cologne, but at venice, though their interest is not very great. in his german bible of he himself was content to acquire blocks previously used at cologne. the next year he prefixed to his edition of the _reformation der stadt nuremberg_ a notable woodcut of s. sebald and s. laurence in the style of michael wolgemut. the cuts in his _heiligenleben_ of are mainly improved rehandlings of previous versions; of his _schatzbehalter_ and schedel's chronicle we speak later on. at basel martin flach was the first printer of illustrated books, ornamenting his edition of the ackermann von böhmen with a woodcut of death, the labourer, and the dead woman, his _cato_ with the usual picture of a master and scholar, his _rosenkranz_ with a cut of a traveller beseeching the virgin's protection from robbers, and another of a scene in heaven, and his _streit der seele mit dem korper_ (these and the two preceding are undated) with eight illustrations of various moments in the dispute. more important than these are three profusely illustrated books from the press of bernhard richel. the first of these, his _spiegel menschlicher behaltnis_, has woodcuts, the work of two different hands, the earlier of the two showing less technical skill, but much more vigour and originality.[ ] the other two books are undated editions of the romance of _melusina_, with sixty-seven cuts, in which suggestions from the first augsburg edition have been improved on by an abler workman, and a _mandeville_ with cuts, most of which passed into the hands of m. hupfuff at strassburg, who used them in . after this richel turned his attention to liturgies, and is credited by dr. schreiber with being the first printer to insert in his missals the woodcut of the crucifixion, which thenceforth is so frequently found facing the first page of the canon. after the publication of these works illustration seems to have languished for some years at basel, but was taken up again about by johann von amerbach, lienhart ysenhut, and michael furter, the work of the two latter being mainly imitative. johann froben, who began work about this time, was too learned a publisher to concern himself with woodcuts, catering chiefly for students of the university. one of the professors, however, at the university was far from sharing this indifference to pictures. born at strassburg, sebastian brant was educated at basel, and it was while holding there the professorship of laws that he ensured the popularity of his _narrenschiff_ ( ) by equipping it with admirable illustrations. the original edition from the press of johann bergmann von olpe was published in february, and before the end of the year peter wagner at nuremberg, greyff at reutlingen, schoensperger at augsburg had all pirated it with copies of the basel cuts. when the latin translation by brant's friend, jakob locher, was published by bergmann in , the success of the book became european, and probably no other illustrated work of the fifteenth century is so well known. probably in the same year as the _narrenschiff_ was first issued, bergmann printed for brant his _in laudem gloriosae virginis mariae_, with sixteen woodcuts by the same hand. in brant supplied him with two works in honour of the emperor maximilian, one celebrating the alliance with pope alexander vi, illustrated with coats of arms, the other the _origo bonorum regum_, with two woodcuts, in which the emperor is shown receiving a sword from heaven. brant was now in high favour with maximilian, and his appointment as a syndic and imperial chancellor at strassburg led to his return and a consequent notable quickening of book-illustration in his native city. at strassburg johann mentelin had used woodcuts for diagrams in an undated edition of the _etymologiae_ of s. isidore, printed about , but the first producer of books pictorially illustrated was heinrich knoblochtzer, who worked from to , and issued over thirty books with woodcuts. most of these were copies from other men's work, e.g. his _belial_ and _melusina_ from bämler's, his _philalethes_ from the nuremberg edition of johann müller, his _aesop_ and _historie der sigismunda_ from johann zainer's, his _leben der heiligen drei königen_ probably from an anonymous edition by johann prüss. early in his career in he issued two books on the great subject of the hour, the death of charles the bold, _peter hagenbach und der burgundische krieg_ and the _burgunderkrieg_ of erhard tusch, in both of which he used eight woodcuts, most of them devoted to incidents of the duke's ill-fated campaign. an anonymous edition of the _euryalus und lucretia_ of aeneas sylvius (pope pius ii) has nineteen cuts, which were apparently commissioned by knoblochtzer, but he did not secure the services of a sufficiently skilled wood-cutter. it should be said, however, that his "historiated" or pictorial capitals are apparently original and mostly good. to johann prüss at strassburg are now assigned editions in high and low german of the lives of the fathers and of antichrist, which mr. proctor, though he had a shrewd suspicion of their origin, left floating about among the german "adespota." the cuts to the former reach the average of early work; those to the _antichrist_ vary greatly, that of antichrist preaching before a queen being extraordinarily successful as a presentation of a type of coarse spiritual effrontery. the acknowledged work of prüss includes editions of the travels of _mandeville_, of the _directorium humanae vitae_, and of the _flores musicae_ of hugo reutlingensis, with a rather famous cut showing how musical notes are produced by the wind, by a water wheel, by tapping stones, and hammering on an anvil. prüss also printed several illustrated editions of the _hortus sanitatis_. far more prolific than either of the foregoing strassburg printers was johann reinhard of grüningen, usually called grüninger after his birthplace. setting up his press in , he began book-illustration two years later with a german bible with woodcuts copied from those in the low german bibles printed at cologne and used in at nuremberg by koberger. some minor books followed, and in he issued the _antidotarius animae_ of nicolaus de saliceto, with rather rude borders to each page and a woodcut of the assumption. this, however, like some of his earlier illustrated books, appears to have been a commission, and in a reprint of the decorations disappear. it was not until , under the influence of sebastian brant, that he undertook any important original illustrated work on his own account. in that year he produced his first illustrated classic, the comedies of terence (_terentius cum directorio_), with a large woodcut of a theatre and eighty-seven narrow cuts of the dramatis personae, or of scenery, used five at a time in different combinations. critically examined, the cuts are rather unpleasing, and were regarded at the time as likely to provoke mirth otherwise than by expressing the humorous intent of the playwright, but another edition and a german translation similarly decorated appeared in , and grüninger issued on the same plan a _horace_ (edited by locher) in , and the _de consolatione philosophiae_ of boethius in . his full strength was reserved for the _virgil_ of the following year, which was superintended by brant, and is crowded with wonderful pictures, in which on the very eve of the renaissance virgil is thoroughly medievalized. besides these classics, grüninger printed many other illustrated editions, minor works by brant, medical treatises by brunschwig, an _evangelienbuch_, a _legenda s. katherinae_ in latin and also in german, editions of the _hortulus animae_, the romance of hug schapler, etc., in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth a sufficient number of illustrated books to bring his total up to about editions. these may be said to form a school by themselves, distinguished by a certain richness of effect partly due to heavy cutting, but with less power of characterization and fewer gleams of beauty than are to be found in the best work of other towns, the figures being often unpleasing and notably lean in the legs. martin scott, hupfuff, and kistler were other strassburg printers of the fifteenth century who also used illustrations. at cologne book-illustration began in with editions of the _fasciculus temporum_ of werner rolewinck, from the presses of ther hoernen and nicolaus götz. but with the notable exception of two great bibles issued by heinrich quentell, illustrated books before are neither important nor numerous. even in the edition of the _historia septem sapientum_ of johannes de hauteselve, issued by the elder koelhoff, was adorned with cuts obtained from gerard leeu at antwerp. quentell issued a few stock cuts in one book after another, and johann landen, martin von werden (if he be rightly identified with the printer "retro minores"), and cornelis von zierickzee all used a few cuts, some of the latter's having a curiously italian appearance. but the only important illustrated book, other than the bibles, is the cologne chronicle, issued (not to his profit, since he was imprisoned for it) by the younger koelhoff in , with armorial cuts and a few pictures of kings and queens somewhat too frequently repeated. quentell's bibles in high and low german are in curious contrast to all this work. they are illustrated with large oblong pictures, firmly if rather coarsely cut, and full of story-telling power, several successive incidents being sometimes brought into the same picture in true medieval fashion. the book was imitated at nuremberg and elsewhere, and the illustrators of the venetian malermi bible of , and even hans holbein himself, did not disdain to take ideas from it. at lübeck a finely decorated edition of the _rudimentum noviciorum_, a universal history, was issued by lucas brandis as early as , with some good pictorial capitals, and pictures beginning with the creation and coming down to the life of christ. in we come to a _levend s. jeronimi_, printed by bartholomaeus ghotan and illustrated by an anonymous artist whose work can be traced during the next ten years in other books of ghotan's, in several very interesting editions by the unidentified "poppy-printer" (so called from his mark), including a _dodendantz_ ( and ), _imitatio christi_, _bergitten openbaringe_ ( ), _reynke de vos_ ( ), _schakspil_, etc., and in the splendid low german bible printed in by stephan arndes, with cuts which improve on those in the cologne editions. [illustration: ix. mainz, erhard reuwich, breidenbach. peregrinatio in montem syon saracens and syrians] at mainz, which led the way so energetically in typography, book-illustration is not represented at all until , and then almost accidentally in the _meditationes_ of cardinal turrecremata, printed by johann neumeister "ciuem moguntinensem," with thirty-four curious metal-cuts imitating on a smaller scale the woodcuts in the editions printed at rome by ulrich han. two years later these metal-cuts were used by neumeister at albi, and they are subsequently found at lyon. that this book was printed at mainz was made practically certain by the type appearing subsequently in the possession of peter von friedberg, but that the cuts were executed at mainz seemed to me improbable until the publication of dr. schreibers work on german illustrated books acquainted me with the existence of an _agenda moguntinensis_ of june, , also attributed to neumeister's press, with a metal-cut of s. martin and the beggar, and the arms not only of archbishop diether and the province of mainz, but of canon bernhard von breidenbach, of whom we shall soon hear again. the _agenda_ and its metal-cuts are thus firmly fixed as executed at mainz, and the metal-cuts of the _meditationes_ must therefore be regarded as mainz work also. in mainz atoned for her long delay in taking up illustrated work, with the _peregrinationes in montem syon_ of the aforesaid canon bernhard von breidenbach, printed with type of schoeffer's, under the superintendence of erhard reuwich of utrecht, the illustrator. the text of breidenbach's book is full of interest, for he gives a vivid account of the voyage and of the hardships and extortions to which pilgrims were exposed. in his preface he states that reuwich was expressly taken on the expedition to illustrate the narrative, and he certainly had ample skill to justify the engagement. unfortunately, far too much of his labour was spent on great maps or views of venice, parenzo, rhodes and other places passed on the way. these are certainly interesting, as they mark all the chief buildings and are very decoratively drawn. but in the text of the book there are just a few sketches from the life, jewish moneylenders and groups of saracens, syrians (see plate ix), indians, etc., and these are so vivid and vigorous that we may well regret that the labour bestowed on the great maps left time for very few of them. they are interesting, moreover, not only as designs, but also for their cutting, as they introduce cross-hatching for the first time, and that very effectively, and are handled with equal firmness and freedom. at the end of the book is a jest, a full-page woodcut subscribed "hec sunt animalia veraciter depicta sicut vidimus in terra sancta," among the animals thus certified as having been seen personally in the holy land being a unicorn and a creature (name unknown--_non constat de nomine_) with a great mane of hair and long tail, which might well serve for the missing link between a man and a gorilla. the frontispiece of the book, on the other hand, is a striking design of a woman (symbolizing the city of mainz?) standing on a pedestal surrounded with the arms of breidenbach and the two friends who went with him, decoratively treated, while above her is a canopy of trelliswork amid which children are joyously climbing. with the mainz _breidenbach_ we feel that we have passed away from the naive craftsmanship of the earliest illustrated books into a region of conscious art. naturally craftsmanship was not extinguished by the arrival of a single artist. we find it at work again in the charming and little known cut to a leipzig edition of the eclogues of theodulus, printed in , which the delight of recent discovery tempts me to show here (see plate x), and at mainz itself in the simple cuts to the _hortus sanitatis_, printed by meidenbach, also in , though here again there is an advance, as instead of plants and animals drawn out of the illustrator's head merely for decorative effect we find in many of the cuts fairly careful copies made from the life. in conrad botho's _cronecken der sassen_, printed by schoeffer the following year, most of the armorial illustrations and pictures of the foundation of towns are merely decoratively treated, but in one cut in which a rather wild-looking charlemagne with lean legs is shown seated in a chair of state surmounted by an eagle, an idol crushed under his feet, the designer has given free play to his imagination. [illustration: x. leipzig, conrad kachelofen, theodulus. egloga (i^b)] the transition to different ideals of illustration thus begun at mainz was carried on at nuremberg, where michael wolgemut illustrated two important works, the _schatzbehalter_ in and the famous _nuremberg chronicle_ in , this latter with the help of his stepson, wilhelm pleydenwurff, and no doubt also of several inferior designers. the _schatzbehalter_, of which the text is ascribed to stephanus fridelinus, a nuremberg franciscan, is one of several examples of a too ambitious scheme of decoration perforce abandoned for lack either of time or of money. in the first half there are ninety-two different full-page woodcuts, mostly illustrating scripture history, but in some cases allegorical; in the second half the number is no more than two. the pictures executed before the scheme was thus cut down vary greatly in quality, from the fine design of christ kneeling before the throne of the father and pointing to the emblems of the passion, which prepares us for the work which dürer, who was then being trained in wolgemut's studio, was soon to execute, down to the amusing but uninspired craftsmanship of the picture of solomon and a selection of his wives banqueting. for the _liber chronicarum_ of hartman schedel plans had been much more carefully worked out than for the _schatzbehalter_, and by studying economy a seemingly profuse system of illustration was maintained to the end. the industry of mr. sydney cockerell has evolved for us the exact figures as to the illustration of this book. real liberality is shown in the large, double-page topographical cuts of twenty-six different cities, for many of which sketches must have been specially obtained, and not one of these is used a second time; but twenty-two other large cuts of cities and countries were made to serve for sixty-nine different subjects, and when we come to figures of emperors, kings, and popes we find ninety-six blocks used times, or on an average half a dozen times apiece. mr. cockerell's grand totals are pictures printed from different blocks, so that the repetitions number no fewer than . both in the designs and their execution there is great inequality, but no single picture can compare with that of christ kneeling before the father in the _schatzbehalter_, and both books, fine as their best work is, must be regarded rather as the crown of german medieval craftsmanship in book-building than as belonging to the period of self-conscious artistic aim which is heralded by the mainz _breidenbach_ but really begins with dürer. with this nuremberg work we may perhaps class that in the one book printed at the cistercian monastery at zinna, near magdeburg, the _psalterium beatae mariae virginis_, of hermann nitschewitz, the most richly decorated german book of the fifteenth century, executed in honour of the emperor frederick and his son maximilian, who in the page here shown (plate xi) are both represented. primitive dutch and flemish book-illustrations when compared with german ones exhibit just the general likeness and specific differences which we might expect in the work of such near neighbours. the low country wood-cutters are on the whole more decorative than the germans, they were more influenced by the work of the engravers on copper, and they were attracted by different types of the human figure, the faces and bodies of the men and women they drew being often long and thin, and often also showing a slightly fantastic touch rarely found in german work. unfortunately, these low country illustrated books are even rarer than the german ones, far fewer of them have found their way to england, and no attempt has been made to reproduce a really representative selection of them in facsimile. in sir w. m. conway, as the result of prolonged studies on the continent, wrote an excellent account of these illustrations and the makers of them under the title, _the woodcutters of the netherlands in the fifteenth century_, which was unhappily allowed to appear without any facsimiles to elucidate the text. thus the study of these low country illustrated books is still difficult. [illustration: xi. zinna. monasterium cisterciense, c. nitschewitz. psalterium beatae mariae virginis frederick and maximilian] in the production of the early block-books (see chapter ii) the low countries had played a principal part, and we meet again with traces of them in later illustrated books, cuts from the _biblia pauperum_ being used by peter van os at zwolle in his _episteln ende evangelien_ of january, , and one from the _canticum canticorum_ in his edition of mauberne's _rosetum exercitiorum spiritualium_ in . two cut-up pieces from the block-book _speculum humanae saluationis_ were used by veldener in his _episteln ende evangelien_ completed at utrecht april, , and all the old blocks, each divided in two, in a new edition of the _speculum_ printed at kuilenburg september, , with twelve new cuts added to them. sir w. m. conway has also shown that a set of sixty-four cuts used in a _boec van der houte_ or legend of the holy cross, issued by veldener at kuilenburg earlier in (on march), must have been obtained by dividing in a similar manner the double cuts of a block-book now entirely lost. the first printer in the low countries who commissioned a woodcut for a book printed with movable type was johann of paderborn (john of westphalia) at louvain, the cut being a curious little representation of his own head, shown in white on a black oval. this he used in his _institutiones_ of justinian of november, , and a few other books, and a similar but even better likeness of his kinsman, conrad, appeared the next year in the _formulae epistularum_ of maneken ( december, ). although johann of paderborn thus led the way in the use of cuts, he only resorted to them subsequently for a few diagrams, and towards the end of his career for some half-dozen miscellaneous blocks for devotional books. the portrait of johann of paderborn being used only as a device, book-illustration begins, though on a very small scale, with veldener's edition of the _fasciculus temporum_ ( december, ), with its handful of poor little cuts modelled on those of the cologne editions. five years later veldener reprinted the _fasciculus_ with a few new cuts, the originals of which have been found in the lübeck _rudimentum noviciorum_. the only picture which seems to have been specially designed for him was a folio cut in his _passionael_ (utrecht, september, ), where in delicate simple outline a variety of martyrdoms are shown as taking place in the hollows of a series of hills. mention has already been made of his two kuilenburg reprints of block-books. in the same place he issued dutch and latin herbals with cuts copied from schoeffer's mainz _herbarius_, and this completes the story of his illustrated ventures. [illustration: xii. haarlem, bellaert, jacobus de theramo. belial ( ^a) the harrowing of hell] we come now to gerard leeu, who on june, , issued at gouda the first completely illustrated book from a dutch press, the _dialogus creaturarum moralisatus_, a glorified version of the old bestiaries, full of wonderful stories of animals. this was illustrated with specially designed cuts (mostly about four inches by two), and leeu's liberality was rewarded by the book passing through nine editions, six in latin and three in dutch, in eleven years. the first page is decorated with a picture of the sun and moon, a large capital, and an ornamental border of foliage, but the merit of the book lies in the simple skill with which the craftsman, working entirely in outline, has reproduced the humour of the text. to the same hand are attributed ten cuts for leeu's vernacular _gesta romanorum_ ( april, ), four for an undated _historia septem sapientum_, and four others, of the four last things, which, to our puzzlement, appear first in a french edition printed by arend de keysere at audenarde, and then ( august, ) in a dutch one of leeu's. in the previous month he had brought out a _liden ende passie ons heeren_ with thirty-two quarto cuts, part of a set of sixty-eight made for editions of the _devote ghetiden_ or dutch version of the _horae_, the first of which (unless a gouda one has perished) appeared after his removal to antwerp. during the following nine years he made good use of his old blocks. for his dutch _aesop_ of october, , and latin edition of september, , he used cuts copied from the original ulm and augsburg set. these he bought from knoblochtzer of strassburg and sold to koelhoff of cologne. in he issued an illustrated _reynard the fox_, of which only a fragment survives, and the pleasant romance of _paris and vienne_, with twenty-five fairly successful cuts, with the help of which five editions were sold, the first in french, the next three in dutch, and the last ( june, ) in english. according to sir w. m. conway these _paris and vienne_ cuts were the work of a haarlem craftsman, who from to had worked for jacob bellaert, whose press was intimately connected with leeu's, type and cuts passing freely from one to the other. bellaert had begun by using some of leeu's passion cuts for a _liden ons heeren_, but seems soon to have discovered his haarlem wood-cutter, with whose aid he produced ( february, ) _der sonderen troest_, the sinners' trust, a dutch version of that remarkable work the _belial_ or _consolatio peccatorum_ of jacobus de theramo, of which the augsburg edition has already been mentioned. this begins with a full folio-page cut combining in one panorama the fall of angels and of adam and eve, the flood, the egyptians overtaken in the red sea, and the baptism of christ. six of the other cuts fill half-pages and show the harrowing of hell (here reproduced, plate xii), devils in consultation, satan kneeling before the lord, the last judgment, ascension and descent of the holy spirit. the remaining half-page pictures are all composite, made up of different combinations of eight centre-pieces and seventeen sidepieces. the centre-pieces for the most part represent the different judges before whom the trials are heard, the side-pieces the messengers and parties to the suit. the combinations are occasionally a little clumsy, but far less so than in the strassburg books printed by grüninger in which the same labour-saving device was adopted, and in excellence of design and delicacy of cutting this dutch _belial_ ranks high among illustrated incunabula. later in ( october) bellaert issued a _boeck des golden throens_ with four-column cuts, often repeated, of an elder instructing a maiden; in may, , le fèvre's _jason_, and a little earlier than this an undated edition of the same author's _recueil des histoires de troie_, both in dutch and both profusely illustrated; on christmas eve in the same year a dutch _de proprietatibus rerum_, and in versions of pierre michault's _doctrinal_, in which a dreamer is shown the schools of virtue and of vice, and of guillaume de deguilleville's _pélérinage de la vie humaine_, the medieval prototype of bunyan's _pilgrim's progress_. the _de proprietatibus_ is the only one of these books of - that i have seen, and its full-page cuts are notable both for their own sake and as having been widely copied, although they illustrate only eleven of the nineteen books. no other low country printer showed anything like the enterprise of leeu and bellaert in commissioning long sets of original woodcuts from competent craftsmen, but several fine illustrated books were produced by other firms. beginning in peter van os printed numerous illustrated books at zwolle, few of which attain excellence. yet one of the earliest of them, the sermons of s. bernard, has a frontispiece of the virgin and child and the saint gazing at them which is unequalled by any other single cut in the low country book in its large pictorial effect. at gouda, in , gottfried van os issued the _chevalier délibéré_ of olivier de la marche, with sixteen large cuts, in which the author's minute instructions for each picture are faithfully carried out with extraordinary freedom and spirit, though the ambitious designs are more suitable to frescoes than to book-illustrations. about the end of the century the book was reprinted at schiedam with the same cuts, from which facsimiles were made in by dr. lippmann and published by the bibliographical society. at louvain in egidius van der heerstraten issued the _de praeclaris mulieribus_ of boccaccio with copies of the cuts of the ulm edition of great interest for the differences in handling revealed when the two are compared. a little later than this another louvain printer, ludovicus de ravescot, published the _de anno die et feria dominicae passionis_ of petrus de rivo, with a title-cut of the author kneeling before the virgin and child, and three large cuts of the last supper, crucifixion, and resurrection, somewhat in the temper of the illustrations in the cologne bibles, but with characteristic low country touches. lastly, mention must be made of the clumsy outline cuts in the bruges edition of ovid's _metamorphoses_, issued in by caxton's partner colard mansion. mansion certainly, and possibly caxton also, were among the early experimenters with copperplate illustration, but the story of these will be told in chapter xv. footnotes: [ ] dr. schreiber, in the introduction to tome v of his _manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois au xv^e siècle_, dealing with german book-illustrations, shows that some little difficulty was found at first in effecting this. in boner's _edelstein_ (bamberg, ), probably the first illustrated book printed in germany, the cuts were printed after the text. in zainer's _heiligenleben_, the first illustrated book printed at augsburg, the cuts must have been printed first, as part of the text is sometimes printed over them. [ ] a set of proofs of cuts to this book, previously in the possession of the marquis of blandford and mr. perkins, was among the favourite possessions of william morris, and is now owned by mr. morgan. an illustrated _plenarium_, assigned by dr. copinger to richel, appears to be a "ghost," due to some confusion with this _spiegel_. chapter viii early italian illustrated books as a frontispiece to this chapter (plate xiii) we give a page from the edition of the _devote meditatione sopra la passione del nostro signore_, printed at venice by "jeronimo di sancti e cornelio suo compagno," the woodcuts in which, as already mentioned, are cut down from those in a block-book of some twenty or five-and-twenty years earlier, and must thus rank as the earliest italian illustrations. the illustration of books printed in movable type began in italy as early as , ulrich han issuing that year at rome an edition of cardinal turrecremata's _meditationes_, decorated with thirty-one rude cuts chiefly from the life of christ. a few of these have a coarse vigour, but in the greater number any merit in the original designs (professedly taken from the frescoes with which the cardinal had decorated the cloisters of the church of santa maria sopra minerva) is lost in bad cutting. notwithstanding this the work went through at least three editions (three new pictures being added to the second and one omitted), and served as a model for the metal-cuts of neumeister's editions at mainz and elsewhere, and for the small neat woodcuts of one by plannck. but though han's venture was thus successful beyond its deserts, it took italy nearly twenty years to make up its mind to welcome printed illustrations. during this time nothing approaching a style of book-illustration emerges, though individual books of importance appeared at several towns. thus at verona the _de re militari_ of robertus valturius (written not later than ) was printed in by a certain joannes of that city, with over eighty woodcuts of weapons and implements of war, including a galley which looks more picturesque than seaworthy, chariots, and mangonels, all well drawn and well cut, but a little spoilt by paper and presswork much less good than was usual at this time. eleven years later latin and italian editions with practically the same cuts were printed, also at verona, by boninus de boninis. the only other early veronese book with illustrations is an italian version of one of the medieval collections of fables which sought shelter under the name of aesop. this, which has some spirited cuts, was printed by giovanni alvise in . [illustration: xiii. venice, geronimo di sancti, bonaventura. meditatione ( ^b reduced) the betrayal] at naples, sixtus riessinger printed boccaccio's _libro di florio et di bianzefiore chiamato filicolo_ in , and also (without date) an italian version of ovid's _heroides_, both with numerous cuts, some of them by no means devoid of charm. in an illustrated _aesop_ was produced at the expense of a book-loving jurist, francesco tuppo, probably from the press of certain "fidelissimi germani." the cuts in this, which are hard and heavy but of considerable merit (see plate xiv), may possibly be due to a mixture of italian and german influences, but are more probably the work of a spanish wood-cutter. a picture of an astronomer engaged on his calculations found in the _arte di astrologia_ of granollachs, probably also printed in , may be from the same hand. in the _aesop_ each picture is placed in an architectural frame, in the upper sections of which there are representations sometimes of hercules and a lion, sometimes of his wrestle with antaeus, sometimes of a battle of mounted pygmies. the first page of text also has a fine decorative border, the design being in white on a black ground. at florence an ornamental capital in a _psalter_ printed in is the earliest woodcut in any extant dated book. but engravings on copper had been employed as early as for three pictures in bettini's _monte santo di dio,_ and in for nineteen in a _divina commedia_; as to these something will be said in chapter xv. two books printed at milan in contain illustrations, the _summula di pacifica conscientia_ of fra pacifico di novara, being ornamented with three engravings; two of the degrees of consanguinity and the third of a crown bearing the names of the virtues of the madonna, while the _breuiarium totius juris canonici_ of paolo attavanti printed by pachel and scinzenzeler has a little woodcut, which purports to be a portrait of the author. in venice book-illustration appears to have begun in the office not of a printer, but of an illuminator. quite a number of books printed by various firms during the years to have a woodcut groundwork to their illuminated borders, and in the spencer copy of the italian bible (malermi's translation), printed in by adam of ammergau, the six miniatures of the creation, with which the blanks left on leaves and are filled, have in the same way rough woodcuts beneath their colouring.[ ] the workshop in which these decorated borders and miniatures were supplied seems to have closed or given up the practice in , and until erhard ratdolt and his partners löslein and maler began publishing in , no more woodcuts were produced at venice. the work of the new firm was decorative rather than pictorial, consisting mainly of the fine borders and capital letters with which they ornamented their calendars ( , , and ), their _appian, gesta petri mocenici_ of coriolanus cepio and _de situ orbis_ of dionysius periegetes, all in , _arte di ben morire_ of the following year, and _euclid_ of . with the exception of the earlier calendars, where the borders to the titlepage (the first so decorated) are of flower-vases, these consist of highly conventionalized foliage (jasmine? vine, oak, etc.) or strapwork, some of them unequalled in their own kind until william morris combined the same skill with a much bolder and richer treatment of his material. illustration properly so called begins with georg walch's edition ( ) of the _fasciculus temporum_, a chronological epitome by werner rolewinck of cologne. this has a quaint little view of the piazza of san marco and other pictures, which ratdolt, not at all handsomely, proceeded to copy the next year. in ratdolt adorned the _tractatus de actionibus_ oi baptista de sancto blasio with rather a graceful little figure of a woman holding the stem of a tree. in he produced an edition of the _poeticon astronomicon_ of hyginus with some figures of the planets which, rude as they were, served as models for many subsequent editions. in the same year the _oratoriae artis epitomata_ of jacobus publicius was ornamented with some figures including a chessboard, cut in white on black, designed to assist the memory. [illustration: xiv. naples, francesco tuppo, aesop. fabula xxii., de atheniensibus petentibus regem] in the later years of his stay at venice, ratdolt seems to have lost interest in book-decoration, but the popularity of woodcuts steadily increased throughout the 'eighties, and by the end of the decade was in full tide. in bernardinus benalius gave some rough illustrations to the _fioretti_ of saint francis; in pietro cremonese bestowed a formal but quite interesting decorated titlepage on the _doctrinale_ of alexander gallus, with the title inscribed in a cartouche, above which rise an urn and lamps. in the same year we have in the _supplementum chronicarum_ printed by bernardinus benalius a few cuts of some size "translated" into an italian style from those on the same subject in quentell's cologne bible (c. ), also a little view of venice copied in reverse from the _fasciculus temporum_. the _supplementum chronicarum_ was re-issued several times (the author, jacobus philippus bergomensis, bringing the statement of his age up to date in each edition which he revised), and changes were constantly made in the cuts. in also came an edition of the _libro de la divina lege_ of marco del monte s. maria, with cuts of mount sinai and its desert, notable as having been copied by a much more skilful wood-cutter at florence eight years later; produced the first of the venetian illustrated _aesops_, the cuts having borders of white scroll-work on a black ground and being influenced by the naples edition of . with this must be mentioned a _fior di virtu_, with a title cut of a friar plucking blossoms from a tree, which was thought good enough to be copied at milan, but was replaced at venice three years later by a delightful picture of a walled garden. it was in also that there appeared the edition of the _devote meditatione sopra la passione_, with cuts taken from the old block-book (see p. ). in subsequent editions (of , etc.) these were replaced by new woodcuts of varying merit. a later edition still ( ) has a fine picture of the entry into jerusalem which prince d'essling connects with the _hypnerotomachia_ of . in we come to the first illustrated edition of the _trionfi_ of petrarch, printed by bernardino de novara. this has six large cuts, showing respectively the triumphs of love, of chastity, death, fame, time, and the divinity. all are well designed, but spoilt by weak cutting. in the same year appeared two other illustrated books, a _sphaera mundi_, with a few cuts not in themselves of great importance, and the _de essent et essenta_ of s. thomas aquinas, with a striking little picture of a child lighting a fire by means of a burning-glass. by studying these books in conjunction prince d'essling has shown that they were designed by one of their printers, johann santritter, and executed by the other, hieronymus de sanctis, and that to the latter may thus be attributed the illustrations (one at least of them of unusual beauty) in an _officium beatae virginis_ which issued from his press april, . the information on the last two pages is all epitomized from the prince d'essling's great work _les livres à figures vénitiens_ ( , etc.), and is quoted here in some detail as showing that from the time of erhard ratdolt onwards book-illustrations are found with some frequency at venice, a fact for which, until the prince published the results of his unwearying researches, there was very little evidence available. the event of was the publication by lucantonio giunta of an edition of niccolo malermi's italian version of the bible, illustrated with cuts, many of them charming, measuring about three inches by two. the success of this set a fashion, and several important folio books in double columns similarly illustrated appeared during the next few years, a _vite di sancti padre_ in , boccaccio's _decamerone_, masuccio's _novellino_, and a _legendario_ translated from the latin of jacobus de voragine in , a rival italian bible and an italian livy in , a _morgante maggiore_ in , and an italian _terence_ in , while in quarto we have a _miracoli de la madonna_ ( ), _vita de la vergine_ and _trabisonda istoriata_ ( ), _guerrino meschino_ ( ), and several others. in some of these books cuts are found signed with f, in others with n, in others with i or ia; in the malermi bible and some other books we sometimes find the signature b or .b. such signatures, which at one time aroused keen controversy, are now believed to have belonged not to the designer, but to the workshop of the wood-cutters by whom the blocks were cut. in the case of the malermi bible of workmen of very varying skill were employed, some of the illustrations to the gospels being emptied of all delight by the rudeness of their cutting. where the designer and the cutter are both at their best the result is nearly perfect of its kind, and it is curious to think that some of these dainty little blocks were imitated from the large, heavy woodcuts in the cologne bibles printed by quentell some ten years earlier. in the rival bible of the best cuts are not so good, nor the worst so bad as in the original edition of . in the other books (i have not seen the masuccio) the cutting is again more even, but the designs, though often charming and sometimes amusing, are seldom as good as the best in the bible. most of these books have one or more larger cuts used at the beginning of the text or of sections of it, and these are always good. two editions of dante's _divina commedia_, both published in , one by bernardinus benalius and matheo codeca in march, the other by pietro cremonese in november, must be grouped with the books just mentioned, as they are also illustrated with small cuts (though those in the november edition are a good deal larger than the usual column-cuts), and these are signed in some cases with the letter .b. which appears in the malermi bible of . neither designer has triumphed over the monotonous effect produced by the continual reappearance of the figures of dante and his guide, and the little cuts in the march edition are far from impressive. on the other hand it has a good frontispiece, in which, after the medieval habit, the successive incidents of the first canto of the _inferno_ are all crowded into the same picture. popular as were the little vignettes, they were far from exhausting the energies of the venetian illustrators of this decade. at the opposite pole from them are the four full-page pictures in the and later editions of the _fascicolo de medicina_ of joannes ketham. these represent a physician lecturing, a consultation, a dissection, and a visit of a doctor to an infectious patient, whom he views by the light of two flambeaux held by pages, while he smells his pouncet-box. this picture (in the foreground of which sits a cat, afterwards cut out to reduce the size of the block) is perhaps the finest of the four, but that of the dissection has the interest of being printed in several colours. erhard ratdolt had made some experiments in colour-printing in the astronomical books which he printed at venice, and at augsburg completed the crucifixion cut in some of his missals partly by printed colours, partly by hand. in a venetian printer, johann herzog, had illustrated the _de heredibus_ of johannes crispus de montibus with a genealogical tree growing out of a recumbent human figure, and had printed this in brown, green, and red. but the dissection in the _fascicolo di medicina_ was the most elaborate of the venetian experiments in colour-printing and apparently also the last. with the illustrations to the ketham may be mentioned for its large pictorial effect, though it comes in a quarto, the fine cut of the author in the _doctrina della vita monastica_ of san lorenzo giustiniano, first patriarch of venice. the figure of san lorenzo as he walks with a book under his arm and a hand held up in benediction is imitated from that in a picture by gentile bellini, but he is here shown (plate xv) preceded by a charming little crucifer, whose childish face enhances by contrast the austerer benignity of the saint. [illustration: xv. venice, anonymous press, lorenzo giustiniano. della vita religiosa portrait of the author] however good the large illustrations in venetian books, the merits of them are rather those of single prints than of really appropriate bookwork. the little column-cuts, on the other hand, are almost playful in their minuteness, and even when most successful produce the effect of a delightful border or tailpiece without quite attaining to the full possibilities of book-illustration. the feverish production of these column-cuts began to slacken, though it did not cease, in , and about that date a few charming full-page pictures are found at the beginning and end of various small quartos. from the treatment of the man's hair and beard it is clear that the delightful frontispiece to the _fioretti della biblia_ of (prince d'essling, i, ) was the work of the illustrator of the second malermi bible from which the small cuts in the text are taken. the three cuts to the _fioretti_ of s. francis, completed june in the same year, that of the _chome l'angelo amaestra l'anima_ of pietro damiani, dated in the following november, of an undated _monte de la oratione,_ and again of the _de la confessione_ of s. bernardino of siena, all in the same style, form a group of singular beauty (see prince d'essling, i, _sqq._; ii, , , ). those of s. catherine's _dialogo de la divina providentia_, may, (d'essling, ii, _sqq._), were probably no less happily designed, but have lost more in their cutting, and with these must be grouped the picture of a venetian school in the _regulae sypontinae_ of nicolaus perottus, march, (d'essling, ii, ), used also in the _de structura compositionis_ of nicolaus ferettus, printed three years later at forlì. the style is continued in the _specchio della fede_ of robertus caracciolus, april, (d'essling, ii, ), in the headpiece of the _commentaria in libros aristotelis_ of s. thomas aquinas, sept., , and in the two admirable pictures of terence lecturing to his commentators, and of a theatre as seen from the back of the stage, found in the _terentius cum tribus commentariis_ of july, (d'essling, ii, , and _sqq._). still in the same style, but carelessly designed and poorly cut, are the illustrations to the well-known ovid of april, (d'essling, iii, _sqq._), and this leads us on to the still more famous _hypnerotomachia poliphili_ of francesco colonna, printed by aldus for leonardo crassus, a jurisconsult, in december, , and finally to the cut of christ entering jerusalem in the _devote meditatione_ of the following april (d'essling, i, ), where the hand of the artist of the _hypnerotomachia_ is clearly visible, though he has surrounded his picture with a frame in the florentine manner, which was then beginning to make its influence felt at venice. the primacy usually given to the _hypnerotomachia_ among all these books is probably in part due to considerations which have little to do with its artistic merit. the story is a kind of archaeological romance which appealed greatly to the dilettante, for whose benefit leonardo crassus commissioned aldus to print it, but which was far from exciting the popular interest which shows its appreciation for a book by thumbing it out of existence. the _hypnerotomachia_ is probably almost as common a book as the _nuremberg chronicle_ or the first folio shakespeare, and thus its merits have become known to all lovers of old books. it is impressive, moreover, from its size and the profusion of its illustrations of various sizes, while the extraordinary variety of these and the excellence of their cutting are further points in its favour. the initial letters of the successive chapters form the sentence poliam frater franciscus colvmna peramavit, and this with the colophon assigning the completion of the book to may-day, , at treviso, reveals the author as francesco colonna, a dominican, who had taught rhetoric at treviso and padua, and in , when his book was printed, was still alive and an inmate of the convent of ss. giovanni and paolo at venice. the polia whom he so greatly loved has been identified with lucretia lelio, daughter of a jurisconsult at treviso. the story of the _hypnerotomachia_, or "strife of love in a dream," as its english translator called it, is greatly influenced by the renaissance interest in antique architecture and art which is evident in so many of its illustrations. polifilo's dreams are full, as the preface-writer says, of "molte cose antiquarie digne di memoria, & tutto quello lui dice hauere visto di puncto in puncto & per proprii uocabuli ello descriue cum elegante stilo, pyramidi, obelisce, ruine maxime di edificii, la differentia di columne, la sua mensura, gli capitelli, base, epistyli," etc. etc. but he is brought also to the palace of queen eleuterylida, and while there witnesses the triumphs or festivals of europa, leda, danae, bacchus, vertumnus, and pomona, which provide several attractive subjects for the illustrator. the second part of the book is somewhat less purely antiquarian. lucrezia lelio had entered a convent after being attacked by the plague which visited treviso from to , and so here also polia is made to take refuge in the temple of diana, whence, however, she is driven on account of the visits of polifilo, with whom, by the aid of venus, she is ultimately united. one other point to be mentioned is that many of the full-page venetian illustrations, both in quartos and folios, have quasi-architectural borders to them, the footpiece being sometimes filled with children riding griffins or other grotesques, while school-books were often made more attractive to young readers by a border in which a master is flogging a boy duly horsed for the purpose on the back of a schoolfellow. in two of the most graceful of venetian borders, those to the _herodotus_ of (and also in the edition of s. jerome's epistles) and johann müller's epitome of ptolemy's _almagest_ (of ), the design is picked out in white on a black ground. a few florentine woodcut illustrations have borders of the kind just mentioned in which the design stands out in white on a black ground. in one of these borders there are rather ugly candelabra at the sides, at the top two lovers facing each other in a circle supported by cupids, at the foot a shield supported by boys standing on the backs of couchant stags. another has mermen at the top, a shield within a wreath supported by eagles at the foot, and floral ornaments and armour at the sides. in a third on either side of the shield in the footpiece boys are tilting at each other mounted on boars. in a fourth are shown saints and some of the emblems of the passion, supported by angels. but as a rule, while nearly all florentine woodcuts have borders these are only from an eighth to three-sixteenths of an inch in depth, and the pattern on them is a leaf or flower or some conventional design of the simplest possible kind. a very few cuts have only a rule round them, one of the largest a triple rule. a rude cut of the crucifixion is found in francesco di dino's edition of cavalca's _specchio di croce_ surrounded by a rope-work border two-fifths of an inch deep, and this border, partly broken away, also surrounds a really beautiful pietà (christ standing in a tomb, his cross behind him, his hands upheld by angels) in miscomini's edition of savonarola's _trattato dell' umiltà_. when the same publisher used dino's crucifixion cut, also in , for savonarola's _tractato dell' amore di gesù_, he left it without either border or rule round it, the only instance of a florentine cut so treated in the fifteenth century. dr. paul kristeller, whose richly illustrated monograph on _early florentine woodcuts_ (kegan paul, ) is the standard work on the subject, suggests with much plausibility that these two cuts, of the crucifixion and the pietà, were originally made for earlier books now lost, and belong to an older school of wood-cutting, more akin to that which produced the few extant florentine single prints. the earliest work of the new school of illustration is the magnificent cut of the virgin in a mandorla appearing to s. jacopone da todi as he kneels in prayer. this, surrounded by the triple rule already mentioned, is prefixed to an edition of jacopone's _laude_ printed by francesco buonacorsi and dated september, . apparently the earliest dated cut with a typical florentine border is that to the _lunare_ of granollachs printed by lor. morgiani and giovanni da magonza in september, . it measures more than inches by , and is copied, and transfigured in the process, from the heavy cut in a naples edition of . two months later the same firm issued the _soliloqui_i of s. augustine with an extraordinarily fine title-cut of the saint (the same picture did duty in for s. antonino) writing at a desk in his cell. this has a border, but with a white ground instead of a black. on january, - , still from the same firm, we have surely the prettiest arithmetic ever printed, that of filippo calandri, with delightful little pictures and border pieces, cut in simple outline, in the venetian rather than the florentine manner. on march, morgiani and his partner produced a new edition of bettini's _monte santo di dio_ with the three copperplates of (see chapter xv) skilfully translated into duly bordered woodcuts, the first two filling a folio page, the third somewhat shorter. a _mandeville_ with a single cut followed in june, and in december the _trattati_ of ugo pantiera, also with a single cut, perhaps by the designer of the calandri, since it employs the same trick of representing a master on a much larger scale than a disciple as is found in the picture of pythagoras in the earlier book.[ ] one of the earliest (and also most delightful) of the title-cuts of another prolific publisher, the picture of a lecturer and his pupils in antonio miscomini's edition of landini's _formulario_,[ ] measures about inches by . but after this the period of experiment was at an end, and with very few exceptions the woodcuts in florentine books for the rest of the century all measure either a little over or a little under inches by , and are all surrounded by a narrow border with some simple design in white upon a black ground. some pains have been taken to make clear both the experiments as to style, size, and borders in the florentine book-illustrations of - , and the external uniformity in size and borders in the great bulk of the work of the next few years, because in the first number of the _burlington magazine_ and subsequently in his fine book on florentine drawings, mr. bernhard berenson put forward with considerable confidence the theory that nine-tenths of the florentine book-illustrations of this period were made from designs supplied by a single artist whom he identifies with a certain bartolommeo di giovanni. this bartolommeo contracted in july, , with the prior of the innocents to paint before the end of october seven predelle (innocenti museum, nos. - ) for an altarpiece of the adoration of the magi, the commission for which had been given to domenico ghirlandajo. mr. berenson believes that in addition to these predelle (the only works with which bartolommeo is connected by any evidence other than that of style) he painted the massacre of the innocents, as an episode in ghirlandajo's altarpiece at the innocenti, that he must have been one of the more famous painter's apprentices in the years - , and subsequently helped him with altarpieces at lucca and at the accademia at florence, and painted a fresco for the church of s. frediano at lucca and numerous fronts to the cassonì or ornamental chests, which were at this period the most decorative articles of florentine furniture. as a minor painter bartolommeo di giovanni[ ] is pronounced by mr. berenson to have been "incapable of producing on the scale of life a figure that can support inspection": in predelle and cassone-fronts he is "feeble, if vivacious, and scarcely more than pleasant," yet with no authenticated work to build on except the predelle in the innocenti, mr. berenson does not hesitate to assert that "in florence between and few apparently, if any, illustrated books were published without woodcuts for which alunno di domenico[ ] furnished the designs," and on the strength of this assumption bestows on him the praise, amply deserved by the florentine school as a whole, that he was "a book-illustrator, charming as few in vision and interpretation, with scarcely a rival for daintiness and refinement of arrangement, spacing and distribution of black and white." mr. berenson's theories oblige him to credit bartolommeo with having copied at least from filippo lippi, botticelli, and piero di cosimo, as well as from ghirlandajo, and push the licence accorded to "connoisseurship" to its extreme limit. as i have already acknowledged elsewhere,[ ] if any one man is to be credited with the whole, or nearly the whole of the florentine book-illustrations of this decade, a minor artist used to painting predelle and cassone-fronts would be the right kind of man for the task, but on the very scanty evidence at present available i am personally more inclined to attribute such unity as can be traced in these florentine cuts to their having all come from one large wood-cutter's shop, without attempting to trace them back to a single designer. in the year , when the form of the florentine woodcuts had become fairly fixed, savonarola was called to the death-bed of lorenzo the magnificent, only to refuse him absolution. his _amore di gesù_ and _trattato dell' umiltà_ were printed in june of that year by miscomini, each decorated with a single cut. during the six years ending with his execution in may, , some twenty-three different tracts from his pen, illustrated with one or more woodcuts, were printed at florence, most of them in several different editions. in the _de simplicitate christianae vitae_ ( ) a friar is shown writing in his cell; in other cuts we see a friar preaching, or visiting the convent of the "murate" or recluses of florence, or talking with seven florentines under a tree, but in no case has any attempt been made at portraiture. this is true also of the _compendio di revelatione_ ( ), in which there are some charming cuts showing savonarola escorted by four holy women representing simplicity, prayer, patience, and faith, on an embassy to the blessed virgin. in the first of these they meet the devil attired as a hermit; in the second they arrive at the gate of the celestial city of which the wall is crowded with saints and angels; in the third they are ushered forth by s. peter. a tract by domenico benivieni in defence of savonarola, besides a cut of the usual size representing benivieni arguing with his opponents, has a full-page one of the river of blood flowing from christ's wounds and sinners cleansing themselves in it and marking their foreheads with the sign of the cross. one of the finest cuts in the savonarola series represents a citizen of florence in prayer before a crucifix. but almost all of them are good. besides the savonarola tracts the miscellaneous religious treatises illustrated with one or more woodcuts are very numerous. in some cases outside models were still sought. one of the most important of these books is the _meditatione sopra la passione_ attributed to s. bonaventura, of which two undated editions were issued, one with eight cuts, the other with twelve, three of the additional cuts in the second edition--the entry into jerusalem, christ before pilate, and procession to calvary (see plate xvi)--being exceptionally fine. the earlier designer probably had the venetian edition of before him, but used it quite freely. two of the three cuts in the florentine edition of the _libro delli commandamenti di dio_ of marco del monte s. maria are improved copies of those in the venetian edition of . the third cut, which appears also in the same author's _tabula della salute_ (also of ), representing the monte della pietà, is copied on a reduced scale from a large copper engraving attributed to baccio baldini, of which an example is in the print room of the british museum. of the thirty-four cuts in cardinal capranica's _arte del benmorire_, eleven are imitated from the well-known series in the german block-books. [illustration: xvi. florence, miscomini, c. bonaventura. meditatione. the procession to calvary] for the _rappresentazioni_ or miracle-plays in honour of various saints originality was more imperative, and numerous cuts were designed, only a few of which have come down to us in editions of the fifteenth century, most being known as they survive in reprints of the second half of the sixteenth. our example (plate xvii) is from an undated edition of _la festa di san giovanni_, in which, as on many other titlepages, an angel is shown above the title-cut as the speaker of the prologue. purely secular literature in the shape of _novelle_ was no doubt plentiful, despite the influence of savonarola, but most of it has perished, thumbed to pieces by too eager readers. a volume of _novelle_ at the university library, erlangen, is illustrated with delightful cuts, and others survive here and there in different libraries. of more pretentious quartos angelo politiano's _la giostra di giuliano di medici_ (first edition undated, second ) is very finely illustrated, and petrarch's _trionfi_ ( ) has good versions of the usual six subjects. many of the best of the quartos and all the illustrated folios were financed by a publisher, ser piero pacini of pescia, who was succeeded early in the sixteenth century by his son bernardo. pacini in began his career with a very ambitious venture, a folio edition of the _epistole et evangelii et lectioni_ as they were read in the mass throughout the year. this has a decorative frontispiece, in the centre of which stand ss. peter and paul, while small cuts of the four evangelists are placed in the corners. the text is illustrated with different woodcuts, besides numerous fancy portraits of evangelists, prophets, etc. a few of the cuts are taken from the _meditationes_ of s. bonaventura, and one or two, perhaps, from other books already published; but the enormous majority are new, and from the consistency of the portrait-types of christ, s. peter, s. john, etc., appear all to have been designed by the same man. some are less successful than others, but the average is exceptionally high, and the best cuts are full of movement and life. an _aesop_ followed in , pulci's _morgante maggiore_ in , and the _quatriregio_, a dull poem in imitation of dante by bishop frezzi, in . it has been conjectured, however, that an earlier edition of the _quatriregio_ may have been printed in the fifteenth century with the same illustrations, and there is considerable reason to doubt whether any fresh cuts in the old style were made at florence after the temporary cessation of publishing brought about by the political troubles of . on the other hand, the old cuts went on being used, sometimes in the originals, sometimes in copies, throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century, and it is only in these reprints that many of them are known to survive. at no other italian town was there any outburst of book-illustration at all comparable to those at venice and florence in the last decade of the fifteenth century. at ferrara, after a fine cut of s. george and a much ruder one of s. maurelius in a _legenda_ of the latter saint printed in ,[ ] no illustration appeared until , when the _compilatio_ of alfraganus was adorned with a picture of the astronomer instructing a diminutive hermit. after this, in we have a fine cut of the virgin and child in the _de ingenuis adolescentium moribus_, and in two important folio books, both from the press of lorenzo rossi, the _de claris mulieribus_ of jacobus philippus bergomensis ( april) and the epistles of s. jerome ( october). the former of these is distinctly native work, with the exception of an architectural border, decorated chiefly with _putti_ and griffins, etc., which is thoroughly venetian in style, and was used again in the s. jerome. there are two large illustrations, one showing the author presenting his book to the queen of hungary and bohemia, the other containing eight scenes from the life of the blessed virgin. fifty-six cuts in the text are made to serve as portraits of different women, and under the strain of such repetition individuality perforce disappears. but at the end of the book are seven cuts of italian ladies of the fifteenth century: bona of lombardy, bianca maria of milan, catherine countess of fréjus and imola, leonora duchess of ferrara, bianca mirandula, genebria sforza, and damisella trivulzia, and these, some of them fair, some rather forbidding, appear all to be genuine portraits. the cutting is mostly rather stiff and heavy (damisella trivulzia is exceptionally tenderly treated), and much use is made of black grounds. [illustration: xvii. florence, bart. di libri, c. la festa di san giovanni. (title)] in contrast to those in the _de claris mulieribus_, the cuts in the _epistulae_ of s. jerome are distinctly venetian in style. as one of the two architectural borders is dated , it is possible that the book was at first intended to be issued at venice, but was transferred to ferrara when venetian interest in small column-cuts was found to be on the wane. it possesses in all over of these, those illustrating conventual life in the second part of the book being much the most interesting. at milan the _theorica musicae_ of franchino gafori, printed in by philippus mantegatius, has a title-cut of a man playing the organ, and four coarsely cut pictures, together occupying a page, showing primitive musical experiments. four years later the same author's _practica musicae_ was issued by another printer, guillaume le signerre, with a title-cut illustrating the different measures and the muses and signs of the zodiac to which they belong, and with two fine woodcut borders surrounding the opening pages of books i and iii, and ii and iv. in le signerre produced two much more profusely illustrated books, the _specchio dell' anima_ of ludovicus besalii and an _aesop_, some of the cuts of the former being used again in in the _tesoro spirituale_ of johannes petrus de ferrariis. after this he migrated to saluzzo, and in produced there a fine edition of the _de veritate contritionis_ of vivaldus, with a frontispiece of s. jerome in the desert. at modena in dominicus rocociola printed a _legenda sanctorum trium regum_, with a rather pleasing cut of their adoration of the holy child; and two years later, at the same place, the _prognosticatio_ of johann lichtenberger, printed by pierre maufer, was illustrated with three full-page quarto cuts and forty-two half-page ones, careful directions for each picture being supplied in the text, but the cuts being modelled on those in the german editions at ulm and mainz. at aquila in an _aesop_ was produced, copied from the naples edition of . at pavia in the _sanctuarium_ of jacobus gualla was illustrated with seventy woodcuts and some excellent initials. at saluzzo in another work by vivaldus, printed by jacobus de circis and sixtus de somachis, was decorated with three large woodcuts of very exceptional merit: a portrait of the marquis ludovico ii (almost too striking for a book-illustration), a picture of s. thomas aquinas in his cell, and another of s. louis of france. the treatise of paulus de middelburgo on the date of easter, printed by petruzzi at fossombrone in , contains some very fine borders, and the _decachordum christianum_ of marcus vigerius, printed at fano in by hieronymus soncinus, has ten cuts by florio vavassore, surrounded with good arabesque borders. to multiply isolated examples such as these would turn our text into a catalogue. here and there special care was taken over the decoration of a book, and worthy results produced. but throughout italy the best period of illustration had come to an end when the sixteenth century was only a few years old. footnotes: [ ] in the masterly work of the prince d'essling on _les livres à figures vénitiens_, the discovery of this interesting fact is inadvertently ascribed to mr. guppy, the present librarian of the john rylands library. it was made by his predecessor, mr. gordon duff, a note by whom on the subject was quoted in my _italian book-illustrations_ (p. ), published in . [ ] the same trick is used in the _rudimenta astronomica_ of alfraganus, printed at ferrara by andreas bellfortis in . [ ] also used in an undated edition of the _flores poetarum_. [ ] mr. berenson prefers to call him "alunno di domenico," ghirlandajo's pupil. [ ] introduction to the roxburghe club edition (presented by mr. dyson perrins) of the _epistole et evangelii_ of . [ ] there were two issues or editions of this book in , one of which is said to have only the cut of s. maurelius. chapter ix early french and spanish illustrated books although interrupted by the death of its veteran author, claudin's magnificent _histoire de l'imprimerie en france_, in the three volumes which he lived to complete, made it for the first time possible for students to trace the early history of book-illustration at paris and lyon, the two great centres of printing in france. no illustrated books were printed at the sorbonne, nor by its german printers when they set up in the rue s. jacques, nor by their rivals there, keysere and stoll, and the french printers at the sign of the soufflet vert. in january, - , in the first french book printed at paris, the _chroniques de france_ or de _s. denis_, pasquier bonhomme so far recognized the possibility of illustration as to leave a space for a miniature on the first page of text,[ ] but he used no woodcuts himself, and his son jean suffered himself to be anticipated in introducing them by jean du pré. although he worked on rather narrow lines, du pré was the finest of the early parisian printers, and possessed far better taste than the prolific publisher, antoine vérard, of whom so much more has been written. his first book, a paris missal issued in partnership with didier huym, september, , has a large picture of the père Éternel and the crucifixion. although this is fairly well cut, it is baldly handled, and was far surpassed two months later ( november) in a similar missal for the diocese of verdun, by a really fine metal-cut of a priest and other worshippers at prayer at an altar. from the priest's uplifted hands a little figure of a man is rising up to a vision of the père Éternel, seen with his angels against the background of a sky full of stars. the little figure is the priest's soul, and the cut (often confused with pictures of the mass of s. gregory, in which the host is seen as a figure of christ) illustrates the opening words of the introit: "ad te levavi animam meam." in the same missal are a number of smaller cuts which look as if they had been prepared for a horae, and may indeed have been used for one now entirely lost. the "ad te levavi" cut reappears in many of the later missals of du pré, and subsequently of wolfgang hopyl. du pré's first secular book to be illustrated was an edition of boccaccio's _de la ruine des nobles hommes_, completed february, - , and of peculiar interest to english bookmen because the woodcuts were acquired by richard pynson, and used in his edition of lydgate's _falles of princes_, an english verse-rendering of the same work. they are well designed and clearly cut, if rather hard, and till their french origin was discovered were justly praised as "some of the very best" english woodcuts of the fifteenth century. only a few weeks later jean bonhomme ( may, ) issued maistre jacques millet's _l'histoire de la destruction de troye la grant_, illustrated with a number of cuts rather neater and firmer, but of much the same kind, and possibly from the same workshop. they passed almost at once into the possession of vérard, and cuts from the series illustrating battles, landings, councils, audiences, and other romantic commonplaces are found in his _végèce_ of and _les commentaires iules césar_ of about the same date (see macfarlane's _antoine vérard_, cuts vi-ix). a new edition of millet's book was printed by jean driard for vérard may, . two of the best of the cuts are those of the lamentation over the dead body of hector and the sacrifice of polyxena on the tomb of achilles. the only other illustrated book published by jean bonhomme was his edition of the _livre des ruraulx prouffitz du labeur des champs_, a french version of crescentius, with a frontispiece of the translator presenting his book to charles vii ( october, ). meanwhile, a new publisher of illustrated books had arisen, guyot marchant, who in september, , issued a _danse macabre_ which went through several editions. its grim fantastic pictures (executed with unusual skill and delicacy, see plate xviii) of death as a grinning skeleton claiming his prey from every class of society seem to have become quickly popular, and additional cuts were made for later editions, including one in latin ( october, ), in which the dance is called _chorea ab eximio macabro versibus alemanicis edita_. a _danse macabre des femmes_ followed ( may, ), but the figures in this are mostly less good, as are those of a third part (the debate between soul and body, and other pieces), despite the vivacity with which they represent the tortures of the damned. akin to the _danse macabre_ is the _compost et kalendrier des bergers_ (also of ), a medley of weather-lore, rules for health, and moral and religious instruction, liberally illustrated with cuts of shepherds, of moses, christ and the apostles, and of the tortures of the damned. this in its turn was followed, in , by a similar book for the shepherdesses, of which a new edition appeared in , with added pastoral cuts, some of which have unusual charm. besides guyot marchant, pierre levet began book-illustration in , but most of his work was done for vérard. his earliest venture, an _exposition de la salutation angélique_, has a cut of the annunciation, the shading in which suggests that he may have imported a cutter from lyon. [illustration: xviii. paris, marchand, danse macabre ( ^a). death and the archbishop. (reduced)] in jean du pré was very busy. at paris he completed in june a _vie des anciens saintz pères_, with a large cut of s. jerome writing in a stall and the holy fathers passing before him, also numerous very neat column-cuts and capital letters. meanwhile, at abbeville du pré was helping pierre gérard to produce one of the finest french books of the fifteenth century, the magnificent edition of s. augustine's _cité de dieu_. early in gérard had already printed there an edition of _la somme rurale_, but this had only a single woodcut, and it was probably mainly in connection with the illustrations that he now enlisted the help of du pré. in the first volume of the _cité de dieu_ (finished november, ) there are eleven woodcuts, in the second (finished april, - ) twelve, i.e. a woodcut at the beginning of each of the twenty-two books and a frontispiece of s. augustine writing, and the translator, raoul de preules, presenting his book to the king of france. the subjects and general design of the cuts correspond with greater or less closeness to those in royal ms. d. at the british museum (books i-xi only), so that the same original was probably followed by both. one of the most effective pictures is that to book xiv, which shows a man seated in a tree, offered a crown by an angel and a money-chest by a devil, while death is sawing the tree asunder, and two dragons wait at its foot. another shows s. augustine writing, while five devils play with his books, and an angel protects his mitre. the cutting throughout is excellent, and the pictures, though sometimes fantastic, are very effectively drawn. there can be little doubt that they were the work of paris craftsmen. as for pierre gérard, in he printed by himself, still at abbeville, an edition of _le triomphe des neuf preux_, with rather childishly conventional cuts of the legendary heroes, but for bertrand du guesclin a portrait which at least faithfully reproduces his bullet head. we find du pré forming a similar alliance two years later with jean le bourgeois of rouen, for whom he completed at paris the second volume of a _roman des chevaliers de la table ronde_, september, , while le bourgeois was still struggling at rouen with vol. i, which ultimately got finished november. this has some large cuts of the feast at the round table, etc. in du pré produced a _legende dorée_, a companion volume to his _vie des saintz pères_ of . but by this time he was already producing horae, which will be spoken of later on, and horae and missals were his main occupations for the rest of his career, though he produced a fine edition of the allegorical romance _le chevalier délibéré_ by olivier de la marche, bonnor's _arbre des batailles_ (in which he used some of the same cuts), , _les vigilles du roi charles vii_ and some other secular books. the great paris publisher antoine vérard started on his busy career in , and the history of book-illustration at paris is soon immensely complicated by his doings. many of the printers at paris printed for him; illustrations originally made for other men gravitated into his possession and were used occasionally for new editions of the book for which they had been made, much more often as stock cuts in books with which they had nothing to do; while if another firm brought out a successful picture-book, vérard imitated the cuts in it with unscrupulous and unblushing closeness. the monograph of my late friend and colleague john macfarlane[ ] describes some books published by vérard between and , and like most bibliographical work done at first hand by personal examination of the books themselves gets at the root of the matter, although the absence of information as to vérard's predecessors and contemporaries, such as has since been supplied by m. claudin, prevented the author from pressing home some of his points. thus in his estimate that sets of blocks had been "expressly cut to adorn some thirty editions," macfarlane did not make sufficient allowance for the cases in which these apparent sets were themselves not original, having been acquired by vérard from earlier owners. nevertheless, he had no difficulty in finding support for his contention that "the illustrations in vérard's books, when closely examined, hardly bear out their reputation." thus he showed that "besides being repeatedly used in book after book, it not uncommonly happens that the same cut is used again and again in the same book," and gave as an extreme instance of this the repetition no fewer than twenty times of the same cut in the _merlin_ of .[ ] he pointed out, moreover, that some far-fetched plea is nearly always needed to justify the presence of a cut in any but the work it was designed for. "for instance, in the _josephus_ of the spoliation of a country is represented by the burial of a woman, the death of samson by a picture of the temple, and the sacrifice of isaac helps the reader to conceive the execution of a malefactor, while a mention of the sea brings out a cut of noah's ark." however crowded a book may be with cuts, if the cuts are mostly irrelevant it cannot truly be said to be illustrated, and the number of vérard's books which a rigorous application of this principle would condemn is very large. an explanation of at least some of these incongruities may be found in vérard's early training as an illuminator, and his habit of preparing special copies on vellum for charles viii of france, henry vii of england, the comte d'angoulême, and other royal and noble patrons. a woodcut in itself quite inappropriate to the text might save an illuminator some trouble by suggesting the grouping of the figures in a picture, and a cut of saturn devouring his children was actually used in this way in one of the henry vii books in the british museum as a ground plan for an illumination of a holy family. if king henry ever held that illumination up to the light he would have had no difficulty in seeing the scythe of chronos and the limbs of a child protruding from saturn's mouth, but i have never seen a paper copy of this book, and can only wonder whether the same cut was allowed to appear in it. vérard's earliest book was the translation of boccaccio's _decamerone_ by laurent du premierfait, completed november, , and illustrated with a single cut of the author writing in an alcove looking out on a garden where the storytellers are seen seated. an edition of _les dits moraux des philosophes_ of guillaume de tignonville (caxton's _dicts and sayings of the philosophers_) followed in april, , and the _livre des ruraulx prouffitz_, translated from crescentius, with a few small cuts, not so good as those in the edition just issued by jean bonhomme, in the following july. his first important illustrated book was the _cent nouvelles nouvelles_, of christmas eve, , with two large cuts, very alike in style, of an author presenting his book to a king, and forty column-cuts, most of them used several times, occasionally with mutilations intended to erase features unsuitable to the later stories. the next important book was a _chevalier délibéré_ of august, , with some excellent cuts which reappear frequently in later books. passing over many inferior books, we come in to a really fine one, containing four separate treatises: ( ) _art de bien mourir_, illustrated with copies of the old german block-book; ( ) _traité des peines d'enfer_ (otherwise known as _l'aiguillon de crainte divine_), with grotesque but striking cuts of the tortures of the damned; ( ) _advenement de antichrist_ and fifteen tokens of judgment, very poorly illustrated compared with the other parts of the book; and ( ) _l'art de bien vivre_, copiously decorated with scenes from bible history, an oblong set, illustrating the adoration of the virgin and child, the lord's prayer, commandments, apostles, etc.; ( ) a very fine set of cuts illustrating the sacraments. in june, , vérard published in three large folio volumes, printed for him by jean morand, _les croniques de france_, with pictures of a coronation, royal entry into a town, a king sitting in judgment, etc. etc., the cutting being only of average delicacy, but good enough to do justice to the vigour of some of the designs. from this point onwards his interest seems more and more to have centred in his illuminated copies, and almost all the later vérard illustrations in m. claudin's great work are taken from these. along, however, with many old cuts in his undated _bible historiée_ there are two very fine ones specially made for the work, one of adam and eve in eden, a round cut placed, below the roots of a tree, in a square of black, from which it stands out with extraordinary vividness (see plate xix), and a picture of the trinity and the four evangelists. in an undated _terence en francois_, printed about , vérard availed himself of an idea already exploited by grüninger and some of the low country illustrators, the use of blocks made up of five or six pieces used in different combinations, so as to give an effect of great variety at very small expense. many of the individual blocks, though the figures are not at all terentian, are very charming, and a few of them were freely copied for the english market, where they may be traced for over a century. about the same time as this vérard published a _livre des ordonnances de la prevosté des marchans et eschevinage de la ville de paris_, with numerous small illustrations of different crafts and a most interesting picture of the court of the prevosté with its judges and officials. after the first few years of the sixteenth century vérard seems to have relied more than ever on his stock of old cuts, and does not seem to have produced any notable new books. [illustration: xix. paris, vÉrard, bible en francoys ( ^a). adam and eve. (reduced)] a few books printed or published by less prolific firms remain to be noticed before we speak of the horae which form so important a section among paris illustrated books as to require separate treatment. one of vérard's printers was pierre le rouge, a member of a family which worked also at chablis and at troyes. in july, , and february, - , le rouge printed "pour vincent commin marchand libraire" _la mer des histoires_ in two great folios with large cuts of the kind vérard subsequently used in his _chroniques de france_, and on the titlepage a particularly fine capital l. philippe pigouchet, mainly a printer of horae, produced in for his usual publisher, simon vostre, a charmingly illustrated edition of a dull poem, _le chasteau de labeur_, attributed to the playwright of victor hugo's _notre dame de paris_, pierre gringore. wolfgang hopyl printed some fine missals, mostly after ; le petit laurens, besides working for vérard, printed for g. marnef _la nef des folles_, with a few cuts by one of the most skilled of paris craftsmen, and these were rivalled by jean treperel in an undated _paris et vienne_; gillet couteau and jean ménard printed a _danse macabre_ in (not so good as gui marchant's) and a new version of the _biblia pauperum_ entitled _les figures du vieil testament et du nouveau;_ jean lambert, in , produced _la nef des folz du monde_, with cuts imitating those in the basel editions. it would be easy to mention other books, but not without turning our pages into a catalogue. we must turn now to the paris horae. as already noted, among the pictures in jean du pré's verdun missal of november, , there are a set of cuts which seem to have been designed for a horae, though if they were even put to this use no copy of the edition in which they appeared has been recorded. the earliest illustrated horae of which copies exist are three editions published by vérard, in february - , august , and july , all of them small and with insignificant cuts, and all known only from single copies, of which that of the earliest edition (in private hands) is imperfect, while the woodcuts in the other two, both at the bibliothèque nationale, are heavily coloured. vérard's horae of and are said to have been printed for him by jean du pré, and in the next group of editions du pré on his own account seems to have played the chief part, with levet and caillaut as subordinate actors. it is probable that the group may have been started by a psalter printed by levet september, , and reprinted february, - , the cuts of these appearing in an undated _horae ad usum romanum_, printed by du pré, now in the british museum. this measures about ( / ) × ¼ inches, and of the same size, but with different woodcuts, are another undated horae by du pré in the bodleian, and a third, with caillaut's mark at the end, in the bibliothèque nationale. the cuts in all three are delightfully simple and naive, and those in the bodleian du pré edition show really delicate work. the group, which comprised other editions only known from fragments, seems to be continued by two dated respectively may, , and february, - , each measuring about ( / ) × ( / ) inches, the illustrations in which are distinctly stated to have been cut on copper (_les vignettes de ces presentes heures imprimees en cuyvre_). the illustrations especially referred to are the borderpieces, which are of great importance as containing the earliest examples of a series of small horae cuts continued from page to page, in this case depicting incidents in the life of christ and their prefigurements, on the plan of the old block-book _biblia pauperum_. lastly, in , we have a du pré horae, with very fine cuts and with some of the miscellaneous borderpieces of the editions just mentioned, which is of exceptional interest in the history of french book-illustration and printing, since the cuts and borders in it are printed in different colours, faint red, blue and green, two colours (laid on the same block and printed at the same time) usually appearing together. the british museum possesses one of two known copies of this horae, and the late prince d'essling bought the other. [illustration: xx. paris, vÉrard, grandes heures (sig. c verso). massacre of the innocents] in the horae of the group we have been describing the subjects of the larger cuts became fairly well settled, in accordance with the normal contents of the prayer book. for the kalendar there is the figure of a man with an indication of the parts of his body presided over by the different planets: for the sequence of the gospels of the passion, sometimes a crucifixion, sometimes a picture of s. john; for the hours of the blessed virgin, the annunciation, visitation, nativity, shepherds, magi, circumcision, massacre of the innocents or flight into egypt, and assumption of the blessed virgin; for the hours of the cross, a crucifixion; for the hours of the holy spirit, his descent at pentecost; for the penitential psalms, david's fall (bathsheba bathing or the death of uriah) or repentance; for the office of the dead, either a funeral, dives and lazarus, or the three gallants and three skeletons (_les trois vifs et trois morts_); for the suffrages, small pictures of various saints. any edition might have one or more additional cuts with less usual subjects, but those named occur in almost all. passing on, we come now to vérard's countermove to du pré's group, horae measuring inches or a little under by about ½. editions of these were issued in april, - , and in january, february, and april of the following year. the last of these, completed april, - , i wrongly described, in an article in vol. iii of _bibliographica_, as having a titlepage bearing the words _les figures de la bible_. it has such a titlepage in the copy in the british museum, but i have now woke up to the fact that it is a modern fabrication, added either by an artful bookseller or an artless owner. in these horae the borders are made up of four pieces, one of which extends along most of the outer and lower margins, and shows children wrestling with each other, or playing with hobbies or go-carts. on july, , these are found in a horae issued by laurens philippe. vérard could the better afford to part with them, since in august, , perhaps earlier, he had substituted much larger borders, the subjects in which seem imitated from those of du pré's metal-cuts, the printed page now measuring about × inches, and thus winning for them the title grandes heures, by which they are generally known (see plate xx). the large cuts, of which, though not all appear in every edition, there seems to have been seventeen, illustrate the following subjects:-- . prayer to the virgin; . anatomical man; . a chalice the circumference of which represents the measurement of christ's wound; . fall of angels; . creation of eve and fall; . controversy in heaven between mercy, justice, peace, and reason, and annunciation; . reconciliation of joseph and mary, and visitation; . nativity and adoration by the shepherds; . angels and shepherds, shepherds dancing; . magi; . circumcision; . massacre of innocents; . coronation of the virgin; . david's choice of punishments; . hearse in a chancel; . invention of the cross; . pentecost. the cutting is good and the pictures are both quaint and decorative, their larger size enabling them to avoid the overcrowding which had damaged the effect of the earlier sets. these cuts continued in use till , successive editions in may, july, and october of that year, from the press of jean poitevin, showing their gradual replacement by copies of philippe pigouchet's second set. this famous printer-illustrator was certainly printing as early as , though mr. proctor in his "index" makes the horae for the use of paris, finished december, , his earliest book. although not his earliest book, i still believe that this was pigouchet's earliest book of hours, and regret that m. claudin, while rejecting supposed editions of and , should have accepted as authentic one of september, , said to have very rude and archaic cuts, while owning that he could not trace a copy. until the book can be produced i shall continue to believe that this edition of september, , is a ghost begotten of a double crime, a bookseller's manipulation of the date of one of pigouchet's best-known editions, that of "le xvi iour de septembre lan mil cccc.iiii.xx et xviii," by omitting the x in xviii, and a bibliographer's endeavour to make this imaginary edition of september, , more credible by assuming--and asserting--that its cuts were rude and archaic because over three years earlier than any authenticated horae from pigouchet's press. his edition of december, , was printed partly for sale by himself, partly for de marnef, who subsequently owned the blocks. besides the usual illustrations for the hours, it has pictures of s. john writing and of the betrayal for the gospels of the passion, of david's choice of punishments for the penitential psalms, and of les trois vifs et trois morts, and dives and lazarus for the office for the dead; also a small cut, with a criblé background of the vision of s. gregory, and numerous small cuts of saints. the sidepieces, which are marked with letters to indicate their sequence, illustrate the creation, the prophecies of the sibyls, and the subjects of the _biblia pauperum._ during the years and at least eight or ten horae for various uses were printed by pigouchet, mostly for simon vostre. of most of these a good many copies have survived printed on vellum and often illuminated for wealthy purchasers. the paper copies, which presumably formed the bulk of each edition, are now far rarer, and to students of book-illustration much preferable to the coloured vellum copies. good vellum copies with the pictures and borders uncoloured, but with their pages brightened by illuminated capitals and coloured paragraph marks, are the pleasantest to possess. at the end of or early in pigouchet began replacing the woodcuts of this series of editions with a new set much more graceful and less stiff, a few changes being made in the subjects. at the same time he substituted new borderpieces for the old, among the new blocks being a fine series of the dance of death, which were brought into use as they were completed, so that we can trace the increase of them from month to month, so frequent now were the editions. in and further additions were made to the large pictures by the addition of new metal cuts with criblé backgrounds for the anatomical man, chalice, stem of jesse, adoration by the shepherds, descent from the cross, death of uriah, and the church militant and triumphant. by the end of new criblé borderpieces had been added, illustrating the life of joseph, history of the prodigal son, history of susanna, fifteen tokens of judgment, christ seated in judgment, the cardinal virtues, and woodland and hunting scenes. from august, , to the end of pigouchet's editions were at their finest. meanwhile the cuts of his second set were slavishly copied in editions printed for vérard. from , moreover, he had to face serious competition from thielman kerver, who issued closely similar editions with pictures and borders by cutters little, if at all, inferior either in technical skill or charm. on april, , jean pychore and remy de laistre completed an edition, in which pigouchet probably had a hand, with three very large cuts of the annunciation, nativity, and adoration by the magi, and eight smaller ones surrounded by architectural framework, representing s. john before the latin gate, the crucifixion, the emperor octavian and the sibyl, the massacre of the innocents, descent of the holy spirit, death of the virgin, and raising of lazarus, some of them showing strong traces of the influence of dürer. from this point onwards the renaissance spirit became increasingly powerful in these prayer books, and while in almost all their advances to meet it the work of pigouchet himself, and of thielman kerver, continues interesting (though the mixture of old and new styles in their editions is often confusing), in the numerous editions poured forth by germain and gillet hardouyn, many of them printed for them by guillaume anabat, and again in those printed by nicolas higman for guillaume eustace, the cuts are very inferior, so that they look best when most heavily illuminated. in a few editions published by the hardouyns spaces appear to have been left for the illuminator to work unaided. in most of these late editions only the pages with cuts have borders, and these of the nature of picture frames, as contrasted with the old historiated borders. in geoffroi tory, a native of bourges (born about ), who at this period of his life was at once a skilled designer, a scholar, and a printer, completed a horae which, though somewhat thin and unsatisfying compared with the richer and more pictorial work of pigouchet at his best, far surpassed any edition produced at paris for the previous twenty years. part of the edition was taken up by the great publisher of the day, simon colines, and while the body of the book was only printed once, differences in the titlepages and colophons and in the arrangement of the almanac and privilege constitute altogether three different issues. whereas the best earlier editions had been printed in gothic letter this is in roman, and both the borders and the twelve illustrations aim at the lightness and grace necessary to match the lighter type. the vase-like designs of the borders are meaningless, but the pictures, despite the long faces and somewhat angular figures, have a peculiar charm. they were used again, with some additions, in a horae completed october, . an edition of october, , described by tory's chief biographer, auguste bernard, as printed, "chez simon de colines en caractères romains avec des vignettes de même genre, mais beaucoup plus petites," i have never seen. three weeks later tory printed in gothic letter a paris horae with borders of birds and fruits and flowers rather in the style of some of the flemish manuscripts. in february, , he produced a much smaller horae in roman type without borders, but with some very delicate little cuts, used again by olivier mallard, who married his widow, in . tory appears to have died in , and attributions of later work to him on the ground of its being marked with a "cross of lorraine" (i.e. a cross with two transverse strokes) should be received with caution, unless the cuts are found in books by tory's widow or her second husband. it is not quite clear that the cross is not the mark of a wood-cutter rather than a designer, and if it really marks the designer we must believe that it was used by others beside tory, so various is the work on which it is found. illustrated books were published at lyon somewhat earlier than at paris, and in point of numbers, if the comparison be confined to secular books with sets of cuts especially appropriated to them, the provincial city probably equalled, if it did not surpass, the metropolis. but if it must be reckoned to the credit of lyon that it had no antoine vérard, reckless in his use of unsuitable stock cuts, it must be noted, on the other hand, that strikingly good illustrations are rare and bad ones numerous. inasmuch as lyon, before it welcomed the art of printing, had established some reputation for the manufacture of playing-cards, the number of rude and badly cut illustrations is indeed surprisingly large. the first lyonnese printer to use pictorial woodcuts in a dated book was martin huss, who issued a _miroir de la rédemption_, august, , with the aid of blocks previously used ( ) by bernard richel at basel; cuts of surgical instruments appeared in the following march, - , in the _chirurgia_ of guido de cauliaco printed for barth. buyer by nicolaus philippi and marcus reinhart, and the same printers' undated _legende dorée_ with very rude pictures is probably contemporaneous with this. the earliest woodcut of any artistic interest and of lyonnese origin is a picture, occupying a folio-page, of the blessed virgin, with the holy child in her arms, standing in front of a curtain. this is found in the _histoire du chevalier oben qui vouloist acuplir le voiage de s. patrix_, printed by leroy about , of which the only known copy is at the british museum. after all the firms we have named continued to issue illustrated books of varying merit. on september, , leroy completed a _livre des eneydes_ with cuts which are often grotesque, though sometimes neat and sometimes giving evidence of a vigour of design too great for the wood-cutter's skill. in he found a lyonnese cutter able to copy for him the paris cuts of jean bonhomme's edition of the _destruction de troye la grant_ quite competently, though in a much heavier style. in may, , he printed a _livre des sainctz anges_ with a figure of christ in a mandorla (perhaps suggested by the engraving of the same subject in bettini's _monte santo di dio_), and this, despite a certain clumsiness in the face, is quite good. in the same year, in an edition of _fierabras_, leroy went back to cuts of incredible rudeness, while about in _les mysteres de la saincte messe_, we find him employing for a cut of the annunciation a skilled craftsman, signing himself i. d. (jean dalles?), whose work, though lacking in charm, is neatness itself. some shaded cuts in his romance of bertrand du guesclin (undated, but _c._ ) are among the best work in any book by leroy. among his other undated illustrated books are editions of _pierre de provence_, _melusine_, and the _roman de la rose_. nicolaus philippi and marcus reinhart in illustrated a _mirouer de la vie humaine_ (from the latin of rodericus zamorensis) with augsburg cuts purchased from the stock of günther zainer[ ], and copied a paris edition in their _vie des saintz pères hermites_ and german originals in their _mandeville_ and _aesop_. their edition of the _postilla guillermi_ (_c._ ) has rather a fine crucifixion and some primitive but vigorous illustrations of the gospels. martin huss issued an undated _exposition de la bible_ with rude cuts and a french _belial_ (version of pierre ferget), first printed in november, , and at least five times subsequently. after his death in his business was carried on by a kinsman, mathieu huss, who became a prolific publisher of illustrated books, with cuts of very varying merit. two of his earliest ventures were the _proprietaire des choses_ ( november, ), a french version of the _de proprietatibus rerum_ of bartholomaeus anglicus, and a _fasciculus temporum_ ( ), both with very rude cuts. during a partnership with johann schabeler he issued (about ) a french version of boccaccio's _de casibus illustrium virorum_, the pictures in which are hard, stiff, and a little grotesque, but not without character. of his later books several are illustrated with cuts borrowed or copied from other editions; but beyond a _legende dorée_ with shaded column-cuts, frequently reprinted, he does not seem to have commissioned any important illustrated book. while the pictorial work of the lyonnese presses was thus largely imitative, at least two very important books were first illustrated there. the earlier of these was the _roman de la rose_, of which the first printed edition, decorated with eighty-six cuts mostly small and rudely executed, but which at least have the merit of intelligently following the text, is now attributed to the press of ortuin and schenck at lyon about .[ ] these primitive pictures were quickly copied by a cutter of somewhat greater skill but much less intelligence, who "improved" the original designs without troubling to understand them. this new set of cuts was used twice at lyon, by jean syber (about ) and by leroy (about ), and was then acquired (less one of the two larger cuts) by jean du pré of paris, who issued an edition about . about , and again a few years later, new editions were issued in which most of the same cuts reappear, jean petit having a share in both editions and vérard in the first, despite the fact that he had issued a rival edition about .[ ] [illustration: xxi. lyon, trechsel, terence (sig. a verso)] the other famous lyonnese illustrated book was an annotated edition of _terence_ "with pictures prefixed to every scene" printed in by johann trechsel. this has a curious full-page picture at the beginning, giving the artist's idea of a roman theatre, with a box for the aediles at the side and a ground floor labelled "fornices." the text is illustrated by half-page cuts, a little hard, but with abundance of life (see plate xxi). these certainly influenced the strassburg edition of grüninger ( ), and through grüninger's that published at paris by vérard about , and to an even greater extent the illustrated editions issued at venice. how eagerly lyonnese publishers looked out for books to imitate may be seen from the rival lyonnese renderings of breidenbach's _peregrinationes_ and brant's _narrenschiff_. of the breidenbach, michel topie and jac. de herrnberg issued in november, , an adaptation by nicolas le huen with copies on copperplate of the maps and on wood of the smaller pictures, both very well executed. rather over a year later, in february, , a translation by "frere iehan de hersin" was published by jacques maillet with the original mainz blocks. as for the ship of fools, jacques sacon, the leading publisher at the end of the century, issued an edition of locher's latin version with close copies of the basel cuts in june, , and in the following august a french edition was published by guillaume balsarin with cuts so hastily executed that in many cases all the background has been omitted. a few illustrated incunabula were issued at chambéry, and isolated books elsewhere, but with the exception of lyon and abbeville no french provincial town produced any notable work. in spain the fine gothic types and frequent use of woodcut capitals give a very decorative appearance to most of the incunabula, but pictorial illustrations are rare, and of the few sets of cuts known to us several are borrowed or copied from french or german editions. the earliest spanish illustrated book known to me is a _fasciculus temporum_, printed by bart. segura and alfonsus de portu at seville in , with a dozen metal-cuts of the usual stock subjects; the earliest with original illustrations, the marquis of villena's _trabajos de hercules_, printed by antonio de centenera at zamora, january, , with eleven extraordinarily rude cuts of the hero's adventures. in and an unidentified printer at huete produced editions of the _copilacion de leyes_ of diaz de montalvo, with some striking metal-cut pictorial capitals, illustrating the subjects of the successive books. in one copy of the edition i have seen a very fine full-page cut, but could not satisfy myself as to whether this belonged to the book, or was an insertion. an edition of martorell's romance, entitled _tirant lo blanch_, printed at valentia in by nic. spindeler, has a decorative metal-cut border to the first page of text, and during the following decade illustrated books become fairly numerous. at saragossa paul hurus issued in a spanish version of the _speculum humanae vitae_ of rodericus zamorensis, with cuts copied from the augsburg edition, another in of boccaccio's _de claris mulieribus_, with seventy-two cuts, copied from the editions printed by johann zainer at ulm, and four from some other source, another in of breidenbach's _peregrinatio_, and other books, not known to me personally, but which from their titles almost certainly contain copies of foreign cuts. in , when his press had been taken over by three partners, coci, hutz, and appentegger, there issued from it an _officia quotidiana_, ornamented with some fifty pictures and many hundreds of fine capitals. [illustration: xxii. seville, stanislaus polonus, ricoldus. improbatio alcorani. (title)] at barcelona several illustrated books were printed by juan rosenbach, one of the earliest of them, the _carcel d'amor_ of diego de san pedro ( ), having sixteen original cuts, characteristically spanish in tone and showing good craftsmanship. in or about the same year friedrich biel of basel (usually quoted as fadrique de basilea, or fadrique aleman) headed an edition of the _passion de christo_ with a striking metal-cut of christ standing upright in the tomb, watched by the b. virgin and s. john. for his spanish _aesop_ of he presumably copied the german cuts, and he certainly did so for his _exemplario contra engaños_ of , the cuts of which are all careless copies of those in prüss's edition of the _directorium humanae vitae._ even when in (or about) the next year he was issuing the first edition of the _celestina_ or _tragicomedia de calisto y melibea_, he could not do so without german models, and based his sixteen little pictures on some of those in grüninger's _terence_, while for his _stultiferae naues_ of badius ascensius he went, of course, to the charming french cuts of de marnef. as a rule, these spanish versions of foreign cuts have the interest which always attaches to a free rehandling by a craftsman with a characteristic touch and style of his own. none the less it is refreshing to turn to more original work, and at least a little of this (though some one with wider knowledge than myself may further minimize the statement) is to be found at seville. here in ungut and stanislaus polonus issued a _regimiento de los principes_, translated from the latin of aegidius columna, with a fine title-cut of a young prince (his hair is long) seated in a chair of state, holding a sword and royal orb. the same partners were responsible for another striking titlepage in , that of the _lilio de medicina_, bernardus de gordonio, where two angels are seen upholding seven lilies in a pot; they also issued in the same year the _contemplaciones sobre el rosario de nuestra señora_, a fine and typically spanish book, printed in red and black, with good capitals, two large cuts and fifteen smaller ones, enclosed in borders of white tracery on a black ground. in the last year of the century they issued an _improbatio alcorani_ with a swart picture of a disputation on the titlepage, not easily forgotten (see plate xxii). it was at seville also that in pedro brun printed in quarto the romance of the emperor vespasian, illustrated with fourteen excellent cuts, some of them full of life and movement; but for these a foreign model is quite likely some day to be discovered. on the other hand, at valentia also there was at least a little work indisputably of native origin, as in the case of the title-cut to the _de regimine domus_ of s. bernard, printed by nic. spindeler about , and (less certainly) another to the _obra allaors de s. christofol_, issued by peter trincher in the same year. pictorial title-cuts are not so common in spanish books as in those of other countries, because of the spanish fondness for filling the titlepage with an elaborate coat of arms. but nearly all their early bookwork is strong and effective, and the printer who placed a cut on a titlepage nearly always secured a good one. is it too much to hope that dr. conrad haebler, who has already done such admirable work in recording spanish incunabula and printing facsimiles of their types, will some day complete his task by publishing a similar volume of facsimiles of spanish cuts? footnotes: [ ] similar spaces were left in the typographically anonymous french version of valerius maximus, printed about the same date. [ ] _antoine vérard._ by john macfarlane. illustrated monographs published by the bibliographical society. no. vii. printed at the chiswick press, september, . [ ] so in the _lucain suetonne et saluste_ of , five cuts of battle-scenes, all borrowed from the _mer des histoires_, printed by lerouge in , are made to do duty sixty-four times. [ ] in these are found at saragossa in an edition printed by hurus. [ ] it has also been attributed to jean croquet at geneva, but there is only a typographical argument for this ascription, whereas on the side of lyon, in addition to (rather weaker) typographical arguments, we have to reckon with lyonnese paper, the similarity of the illustrations to those of a cutter employed by martin huss, and the fact that the book was copied in two editions undoubtedly lyonnese. see f. w. bourdillon's _the early editions of the roman de la rose_ ( ). [ ] only a few of the cuts in this were specially designed for it, all the later ones being taken from stock in vérard's most haphazard fashion. chapter x later foreign books one of the chief charms of the books of the fifteenth century is that they are so unlike those of our own day. in the first year of its successor a great step was taken towards their modernization by the production of the first of the aldine octavos, and the process went on very rapidly. in the early days of printing all the standard works of the previous three centuries that could by any possibility be considered alive were put on the press. by men were thinking of new things. new editions of many of the old religious and didactic treatises, the old poems and romances, continued to be printed, though mostly in a form which suggests that they were now intended for a lower class of readers, but the new publishers would have little to do with them. scholarship, which till now had been almost confined to italy, spread rapidly to all the chief countries of europe, and amid the devastation which constant war soon brought upon italy, was lucky in being able to find new homes. with the new literary ideals came new forms for books, and new methods of housing them. before several publishers had found it worth their while to print editions in five huge volumes of the _speculum_ of vincent de beauvais, each volume measuring eighteen inches by thirteen and weighing perhaps a dozen pounds, though paper in those days was not yet made of clay. these great volumes had been cased in thick wooden boards, covered with stout leather and protected with bosses or centre-pieces and corner-pieces of metal. they were not intended to stand on shelves like modern books, but were laid on their sides, singly, on shelves and desks, and from pictures which have come down to us we can see that the library furniture of the day included a variety of reading-stands with the most wonderful of screws. the men for whom aldus catered wanted books which they could put in their pockets and their saddlebags, and it was not long before the publishers of paris and lyon outdid aldus in the smallness and neatness of their editions. of course large books continued to be issued. the _complutensian polyglott_ will not easily be got either into a pocket or a saddlebag, but it is a good deal smaller than the _speculum_ of vincent de beauvais, and, speaking generally, small folios took the place of large folios, and octavos the place of quartos, and in a little time the octavos themselves were threatened by the still smaller sextodecimos. there is, indeed, no stop till in the seventeenth century we come to the tiny elzevirs, which remained the last word in book-production until the diamond editions of didot and pickering. aldus manutius, who led the revolution, has often been wrongly praised. he can hardly be called a great printer. he burdened greek scholarship for three centuries with a thoroughly bad style in greek types, and the cursive substitute which he provided for the fine roman founts for which italy had been famous almost drove them from the field. both the greek type and the italics were the outcome of confused thinking. they were based upon styles of handwriting which aldus and his scholarly friends doubtless found more expeditious than the formal book-hands which had previously been in use. quickness in writing is an excellent thing. but a sloping type takes just as long to set up as an upright one, and absolutely nothing is gained by the substitution of an imitation of a quicker hand for the imitation of a slower one. aldus had begun publishing at venice early in [ ] with an edition of the greek grammar of lascaris, an earlier edition of which, issued at milan in , had been the first book wholly in greek to obtain the honour of print. the idylls of theocritus and the poem of hesiod called _works and days_ had been printed at the same place in and a greek psalter in . at florence the famous first edition of homer was printed (by bartolommeo libri) in , and was followed in the years - (i.e. about the time that aldus began work) by five books printed entirely in majuscules on the model of the letters used in inscriptions. among these books were the greek anthology, four plays of euripides, and an apollonius rhodius. the printing of the greek classics had thus made a start, although a slow one. aldus now greatly quickened the pace, producing his great aristotle in four (or, as it is sometimes reckoned, five) volumes, between the years and , and following it up with nine comedies of aristophanes in , thucydides, sophocles, and herodotus in , xenophon's _hellenics_, and the plays of euripides in and demosthenes in . the service which he thus rendered to greek scholarship was incalculable, but it was accompanied by a very serious drawback, the evil effects of which lasted for nearly three centuries. the greek quotations in many books printed in italy before this time had been printed in types imitating the writing in fairly old greek manuscripts, handsome in appearance and fairly free from contractions; aldus is said to have taken as his model the handwriting of his friend marcus musurus, with all its crabbed and often fantastic ligatures, and the simplicity of the greek alphabet was thus intolerably complicated. as we have seen, the introduction of the aldine italics, though in themselves a better fount than the greek type, was almost as mischievous in its effects. on the other hand, the service which aldus rendered to scholarship by his cheap and handy series of the latin and italian classics was very great. the first book which he printed in his new type was a virgil, and this was quickly followed by works by petrarch and dante and a whole series of similar editions. aldus had powerful supporters in these ventures, among them being jean grolier, the famous bibliophile, who for many years was resident in italy as treasurer of the duchy of milan. despite this encouragement he did not find printing very profitable, partly, no doubt, on account of the wars in which venice was at this time engaged. on the death of aldus in his business was for some time carried on by his father-in-law, andrea de torresani, an excellent printer, but with little of aldus's scholarship. in , at the age of twenty-one, paulus manutius, the youngest son of aldus, took over the management of the firm, and proved himself an even finer scholar than his father. financially he was no more successful, and when he was made printer to the pope the anxiety of carrying on business at rome as well as at venice only added to his difficulties. on his death in his son, aldus manutius the younger, succeeded him and worked till , but without adding anything to the reputation of the firm, perhaps because he had been pushed on prematurely in his boyhood, as is witnessed by his compilation of a volume of elegant extracts at the age of nine. the family of printers and publishers which came nearest to rivalling the fame of the aldi in italy during the sixteenth century was that of the giunta. springing originally from florence, members of it worked for some time simultaneously at florence and venice, and lucantonio giunta, the earliest member of it to rise into note, was already one of the foremost publishers at venice in the closing years of the fifteenth century, and subsequently printed for himself instead of always employing other men to print for him. the speciality of this venetian firm was at first illustrated books of all kinds, afterwards the production of large and magnificent missals and other service books of the roman church, and these they continued to publish until nearly the end of the sixteenth century. at florence, filippo giunta competed with aldus of venice in printing pretty little editions of the classics, his competition sometimes taking the form of unscrupulous imitation. at rome, eucharius silber and his successor marcellus were the chief printers from to . a little later the bladi took their place, and under the auspices of the council of the propaganda of the faith a press was set up for printing in syriac, armenian, and other oriental languages. the output also of the presses in other italian cities was still considerable. nevertheless, from the same causes which produced her political decay italy rapidly ceased to be the head-quarters of european printing, yielding this honour to france about the end of the first quarter of the century, and by some thirty or forty years later becoming quite uninfluential. to the german printing trade, also, the sixteenth century brought a notable decline of reputation. in its first two decades johann schoeffer (son of peter) produced some fine books at mainz; at strassburg grüninger poured forth illustrated books, and johann knoblouch and matthias schürer were both prolific. the importance of cologne diminished, though the sons of heinrich quentell had a good business. augsburg, on the other hand, came to the front, the elder and younger schoensperger, johann and silvanus otmar, erhard oglin, johann miller, and the firm of sigismund grim and marcus wirsung all doing important work. at nuremberg the chief printing houses were those of hieronymus hölzel, johann weissenburger, and friedrich peypus. leipzig and hagenau both greatly increased their output, and with the advent of luther, wittenberg soon became an important publishing centre. luther's activity alone would have sufficed to make the fortunes of any publisher had it not been for the fact that as each pamphlet from his pen was produced at wittenberg by hans lufft, or some other authorized printer, it was promptly pirated in other cities, often with the retention of the original imprint. many of these luther tracts had ornamental borders, and, as will be narrated in another chapter, the german book-illustrations of this period were often very finely designed, but the paper used, even in important books, was poor compared to that found in german incunabula, and the presswork too often careless. these defects are found intensified in almost all the german books published after this date, and german printing soon lost all its technical excellence, though the output of its presses continued to be large, and the great annual fair at frankfort during the course of the sixteenth century became the most important event in the book-trade of northern europe. a little before germany gave herself up to theological strife, the conjunction at basel of the great printer johann froben and the great scholar erasmus temporarily raised that city to importance as an intellectual centre. froben had begun printing at basel in , but until he formed his friendship with erasmus in published only a few editions of the bible, some of the papal decretals, the works of s. ambrose, and a few other books of no special interest. from onwards his output increased rapidly both in quantity and importance, so that by the time of his death in he had printed over three hundred books, including almost all the works of erasmus and many books in greek. during this period, also, border-pieces and initials were designed for him by the two holbeins (hans and ambrosius) and other skilful artists, and he was entitled to rank as the greatest printer-publisher in europe in succession to aldus. after his death in the supremacy of european printing rested for the next generation indisputably with france. during the fifteenth century printing in france had developed almost entirely on its own lines. vernacular books of every description had poured from the presses of paris and lyon, and many of them had been charmingly illustrated in a style worthy of the great french school of illustrators of manuscripts. in the first half of the sixteenth century the publication of these popular books--romances, poetry, and works of devotion--still continued, though with some loss of quality, the print and paper being less good and the illustrations often consisting of a medley of old blocks, or where new ones were made being executed in a coarser and heavier style. but to the vernacular literature there was now added a learned and scholarly literature which soon rose to great importance. as early as johann trechsel, a printer of lyon, had possessed himself of sufficient greek type to print quotations in that language, and in the following year he issued the profusely illustrated edition of _terence_, the cuts in which were imitated by grüninger at strassburg. trechsel's press corrector and general editor was a young scholar named josse bade, of asch, near ghent, better known by the latin form of his name as jodocus badius ascensius, or ascensianus. in , after trechsel's death, ascensius started business for himself in paris, and his editions of the classics, well known from the device of a printing-press found on many of their titlepages, obtained a considerable reputation. almost simultaneously, in , henri estienne, the first of a famous family of scholar-printers, had started in business by an expedient of which we hear a great deal in the annals of english printing, that of marrying a printer's widow. of henri estienne's three sons the eldest, françois, became a bookseller, robert a scholar-printer, and charles, in the first instance, a physician. in the technical side of his business henri had been helped by simon de colines, who, on his employer's death, in , became his widow's third husband, and carried on the business until , when he handed it over to robert estienne, and started on his own account in another house in the same street. thus, just as the co-operation of erasmus with froben, which began shortly before the death of aldus, brought the basel press into prominence, so this duplication, just before the death of froben, of the business of henri estienne with the two firms of robert estienne and simon de colines materially aided the rivalry of paris. greek printing, which by this time had become essential to a printer's reputation for scholarship, had at last begun there with the publication of a greek grammar in , and had increased somewhat, though not very rapidly. in françois i appointed robert estienne royal printer for latin and hebrew, and conrad neobar, a german from the diocese of cologne, his printer for greek. it was soon after this that plans were formed for the printing of greek texts from manuscripts in the royal library, and the preparation for this purpose of a special fount of greek type. neobar died from overwork the following year, and the office of royal printer in greek was added to robert estienne's other honours, and with it the supervision of the new greek type. for this angelus vergetius, a celebrated greek calligrapher, had probably already made the drawings, and the cutting of the punches was entrusted to claude garamond. by a fount of great primer had been completed and a book printed in it, the _praeparatio euangelica_ of eusebius. a smaller type, of the size known as pica, was next put in hand, and a pocket greek testament in sextodecimo printed with it in . lastly, a third fount, larger than either of the others, was produced and used for the text of a folio greek testament in , the other two founts appearing in the prefatory matter and notes. these royal greek types became very famous and served as a model to all designers of greek characters for nearly two centuries. technically, indeed, they are as good as they could be, showing a great advance in clearness and dignity upon those of aldus, from which nevertheless they inherited the fatal defect of being based on the handwriting of contemporary greek scholars, instead of on the book-hand of a nobler period of greek writing. while the name of robert estienne is thus connected with these royal greek types he was himself distinctly a latinist, and his own personal contribution to scholarship was a latin dictionary (_thesaurus linguae latinae_) published in , which remained a standard work for two centuries. he published, too, as did also simon de colines, many very pretty little editions of latin classics in sextodecimo, some in italics, others in roman type, thus carrying a step further the triumphant march of the small book, which aldus had only taken as far as octavos. simon de colines, while sharing in work of this kind, did not neglect other classes of literature, and, as has already been noted, joined with geoffroi tory, another scholar-printer, who was also a scholar-artist, in producing some remarkable editions of the hours of the blessed virgin. this scholar-artist, geoffroi tory, was a native of bourges, who had been a professor at several of the paris colleges and was at one time proof-reader to henri estienne. his career as a printer began in and ended with his death in , after which his business was carried on by olivier mallard, who married his widow. tory printed a few scholarly books and wrote and published a curious work, to which he gave the name _champfleury_, on the right forms and proportions of the letters of the alphabet. it is, however, by his books of hours that he is now chiefly remembered. while all this good work was going on in paris the printers at lyon were no less busy. at the beginning of the century aldus had been justly annoyed at the clever counterfeits of his italic octavos which were put on the market at lyon. but in sebastian gryphius (a german, born in at reutlingen) lyon became possessed of a printer who had no need to imitate even aldus. after printing one or two works in the four preceding years his press got into full swing in and, by the time of his death in he had issued very nearly a thousand different editions, mostly in latin, and many of them in the dainty format in sextodecimo which estienne and de colines were using in paris. in the luckless etienne dolet, soon to be burnt as a heretic, arrived at lyon, and with some friendly help from gryphius printed between and some seventy editions. in jean de tournes, who had been a journeyman in the office of gryphius, started business for himself, and soon proved a worthy rival to his master. meanwhile excellent popular work was being done by other printers, such as françois juste, claude nourry, macé bonhomme, and guillaume roville. from the old lyonnese firm of trechsel proceeded in two books illustrated by holbein (the _dance of death_ and _historiarum veteris testamenti icones_, see p. ), and numerous other lyonnese books were charmingly illustrated and also, it may be added, charmingly bound, a very pretty style of trade bindings being just then in vogue. against the pretty bindings and vignettes and the popular books to which they were applied little or no opposition was raised, and they continued to be issued till the taste for them died out about . but against all the scholarly work of the french presses the leaders of the church took up an attitude of unrelenting hostility. foremost in this opposition, regretful that their predecessors had introduced printing into france, were the theologians of the sorbonne, who forbade the study of hebrew as dangerous and likely to lead to heresy, and looked with eyes almost as unfriendly on that of greek. in (just after the iniquitous campaign against the vaudois) etienne dolet was hanged on a charge of atheism, and his body cut down and burnt amid a pile of his books. in , despite his position as a royal printer, robert estienne, who had just completed his fine folio edition of the greek testament, was obliged to seek safety by flying to geneva, and a generation later jean de tournes the younger, of lyon, was obliged to follow his example. the kings of france and their advisers at this period were determined to be rid of both huguenots and freethinkers at all costs, and french scholarship and french printing were both the recipients of blows from which it took them some generations to recover. when robert estienne fled to geneva, his brother, the physician, charles, was allowed to succeed to his office at paris, and he in turn was followed by a younger robert, who died in . meanwhile robert i had taken with him a set of matrices of the royal greek types, and with these and other founts printed at geneva until his death in . his son, henri estienne ii, then took over the business, but was of too restless and roving a disposition to conduct it with success. as a scholar he was even greater than his father, excelling in greek as robert had in latin, and producing in a greek dictionary (_thesaurus graecae linguae_) which became as famous as the latin one which robert had published forty years earlier. henri estienne the younger died in , but the estienne tradition was kept up by his son paul ( - ) and grandson antoine ( - ), the latter bringing back into the family the office of royal printer at paris, and printing an edition of the septuagint. under the discouraging conditions of the middle of the sixteenth century french printers gradually ceased to be scholars and enthusiasts, but christopher plantin, a frenchman, born in the neighbourhood of tours in , built up by his energy and industry a great business at antwerp, the memory of which is preserved in the famous plantin museum. he had started at antwerp in as a binder, but about six years later turned his attention to printing, in consequence (it is said) of an accident which disabled him for binding-work. the most famous of his books is the great antwerp polyglott edition of the bible in eight volumes, published between the years and . over this he came so near to ruining himself that the spanish government granted him special privileges for the production of service-books by way of compensation. the sack of antwerp by the spaniards in was another heavy financial blow, and for a time plantin removed to leyden, and also for a time kept a branch business at paris. but he ultimately returned to antwerp, and his premises remained in the possession of the descendants of one of his sons-in-law, joannes moretus, until they were purchased in for £ , as the musée plantin. after plantin's death the branch business which he had left at leyden was carried on by another of his sons-in-law, franciscus raphelengius, who printed some pretty little editions of the classics and other good books. plantin's own work as a printer was costly and pretentious rather than beautiful, and the bad style of his ornaments and initials exercised a powerful influence for evil on the printers of the ensuing century. the mention of plantin's antwerp polyglott may remind us that the first polyglott edition of the bible had been printed between and at alcalà, in spain, under the auspices of cardinal ximenes. the latin name of alcalà being complutum, this edition is generally quoted as the complutensian polyglott. among the notable features in it is the use of a singularly fine greek type in the new testament. absolutely different from the aldine and all the other greek types imitating the rapid handwriting of the greek scholars of the sixteenth century, this was based on the book-hand used in some early manuscript, possibly the one which the pope had lent from the vatican to aid cardinal ximenes in forming his text. it was on this greek type that mr. robert proctor, shortly before his death, based his own fount of greek, supplying the majuscules which (with a single exception) are wanting in the original and making other improvements, but keeping closely to his model and thus producing by far the finest greek type ever cast. this has been used to print notable editions of the _oresteia_ and _odyssey_, the former at the chiswick, the latter at the clarendon press. save for the complutensian polyglott there is nothing striking to record of the spanish printing of the sixteenth century, which retained its massive and archaic character for some decades, and then became as dull and undistinguished as the printing of all the rest of europe tended to be towards the end of the century. the enthusiasm with which the new art had at first been received had died out. printers were no longer lodged in palaces, monasteries, and colleges; church and state, which had at first fostered and protected them, were now jealous and suspicious, even actively hostile. thriving members of other occupations and professions had at one time taken to the craft. a little later great scholars had been willing to give their help and advice, and at least a few printers had themselves been men of learning. all this had passed or was passing. printing had sunk to the level of a mere craft, and a craft in which the hours appear to have been cruelly long and work uncertain and badly paid. in the eighteenth century the dutch journeymen were certainly better paid than our own, and it may be that it was through better pay that they did better work in the seventeenth century also. it seems certain, moreover, that the improvements in the construction of printing presses which were introduced in that century originated in holland. the primacy of the dutch is proved by the large amount of dutch type imported into england, and indeed the dutch books of the seventeenth century are neater and in better taste than those of other countries. it was in holland also that there worked the only firm of printers of this period who made themselves any abiding reputation. the founder of this firm, louis elzevir, was a bookseller and bookbinder at leyden, where, in , he began printing on his own account, and issued between that year and his death in over a hundred different books of no very special note. no fewer than five of his seven sons carried on his business, and the different combinations of these and of their successors in different towns are not a little bewildering. bonaventura elzevir with his nephew abraham issued pretty little editions of the classics in very small type in mo and mo, of which the most famous are the greek testament of and , the virgil, terence, livy, tacitus, pliny, and caesar of - , and a similar series of french historical and political works and french and italian classics. after the deaths of abraham and bonaventura in the business was carried on by their respective sons jean and daniel, who issued famous editions of the _imitatio christi_ and the psalter. meanwhile louis elzevir (another grandson of the founder) had been working at amsterdam, and in was joined there by daniel, the new partnership producing some fine folio editions. other members of the family went on working at utrecht and leyden until as late as , so that its whole typographical career extended over a hundred and thirty years. but it is only the little classical editions, and a french cookery book called _le pastissier françois_, that are at all famous, and the fame of these (the little classics being troublesome to read and having more than a fair share of misprints, though edited by david heinsius) probably rests on a misconception. these small classical editions were the last word for two centuries in that development of the small book which we have already traced in the aldine editions at venice, those of de colines and robert estienne of paris, of sebastian gryphius at lyons, and of the successors of plantin at antwerp. now the small books of the elzevirs were produced at a very important period in the history of bookbinding, and when we hear of large sums having been paid for an elzevir it will mostly turn out that the excellence of its binding has had a good deal to do with the price. the cookery book is an exception, the value of this, though often enhanced by a fine binding, being yet considerable, even in a shabby jacket. but the interest in this case is due to the antiquarian instincts of book-loving gourmets, and not in any way to the printing. the little classics, even when of the right date and with all the right little headpieces and all the right misprints, have never been worth on their own merits more than a few pounds, while shabby, cropped copies have no selling value whatever. footnote: [ ] he was born at bassiano in the papal states in . chapter xi foreign illustrated books of the sixteenth century [illustration: xxiii. nuremberg, sodalitas celtica. hroswitha. opera ( ^b). hroswitha and the emperor otho (attributed to dÜrer)] as we have already said, the charm of the woodcut pictures in incunabula lies in their simplicity, in their rude story-telling power, often very forcible and direct, in the valiant effort, sometimes curiously successful in cuts otherwise contemptibly poor, to give character and expression to the human face, and as regards form in the harmony between the woodcuts and the paper and type of the books in which they appear. in the book-illustrations of the sixteenth century the artist is more learned, more self-conscious, and his design is interpreted with far greater skill by the better trained wood-cutters of his day. more pains are taken with accessories, and often perhaps for this reason the cut does not tell its story so quickly as of old. it is now a work of art which demands study, no longer a signpost explaining itself however rapidly the leaf is turned. lastly, the artist seems seldom to have thought of the form of the book in which his work was to appear, of the type with which the text was to be printed, or even of how the wood-cutter was to interpret his design. book-illustration, which had offered to the humble makers of playing-cards and pictures of saints new scope for their skill, became to the artists of the sixteenth century a lightly valued method of earning a little money from the booksellers, their better work being reserved for single designs, or in some cases for the copperplates which at first they executed, as well as drew, themselves. thus the book-collector is conscious, on the one hand, that less pains have been taken to please him, and on the other that he is separating by his hobby one section of an artist's work from the rest, in connection with which it ought to be studied. he may even be in some doubt as to where his province ends, since many of the illustrated books of the sixteenth century, although they possess a titlepage and are made up in quires, are essentially not books at all, the letterpress being confined to explanations of the woodcuts printed either below them or facing them on the opposite pages. the bibliographer himself, it may be added, feels somewhat of an intruder in this field, which properly belongs to the student of art, although in so far as art is enshrined in books and thus brought within the province of the book-collector, bibliography cannot refuse to deal with it. although we have taken off our caps in passing to erhard reuwich and michael wolgemut for their admirable work, the one in the mainz _breidenbach_, the other in the _schatzbehalter_ and _nuremberg chronicle_, it is albrecht dürer who must be regarded as the inaugurator of the second period of german book-illustrations. during his wanderjahre dürer had produced at basel for an edition of s. jerome's epistles, printed by nicolaus kesler in (reprinted ), a rude woodcut of the saint extracting a thorn from his lion's foot. dürer's important bookwork begins in , when his fifteen magnificent woodcuts illustrating the apocalypse (which influenced all later treatments of this theme) were issued twice over at nuremberg, in one edition with german title and text, in the other with latin. stated in their colophons to have been "printed by albrecht dürer, painter," neither edition bears the name of a professional printer. the types used in each case were those of anton koberger, dürer's godfather, and the effect of the artist's personal superintendence, which the colophons attest, is seen in the excellence of the presswork. the following year koberger published an illustrated edition of the _reuelationes sanctae birgittae_ (german reprint in ), and dürer has been supposed to have helped in this, but the theory is now discredited. in he probably contributed two woodcuts to an edition of the comedies of hroswitha, a tenth century nun of the benedictine abbey at gandersheim. conrad celtes had unearthed these comedies some years previously in a ratisbon library, and they were now printed under his editorship for the _sodalitas celtica_ at nuremberg. the illustrations to the comedies themselves, which vie in heaviness with their subjects, are attributed by mr. campbell dodgson to wolfgang traut.[ ] one of the cuts assigned to dürer represents celtes offering the book to frederick iii, elector of saxony; the other shows hroswitha herself presenting her plays to the emperor otto i (see plate xxiii). in dürer designed another cut of a presentation and an illustration of philosophy (both very feebly rendered by the cutter) for the _quatuor libri amorum_ of celtes. in the latin apocalypse was reprinted, and three other sets of woodcuts by dürer appeared in book form, in each case with latin text by benedictus chelidonius. one of these commemorated in twenty designs the life of the blessed virgin (_epitome in diuae parthenices marie historiam ab alberto durero norico per figuras digestam cum versibus annexis chelidonii_), the other two the passion of christ, the great passion (_passio domini nostri jesu ex hieronymo paduano, dominico mancino, sedulio et baptista mantuano per fratrem chelidonium collecta cum figuris alberti dureri norici pictoris_, in folio) in twelve large woodcuts, the little passion (_passio christi ab alberto durer norembergensi effigiata c[=u] varij generis carminibus fratris benedicti chelidonij musophili_, in quarto) in thirty-seven smaller ones. after this dürer was caught up by the emperor maximilian and set to work on some of the various ambitious projects for illustrating his reign, as to which more will be said later. his later bookwork includes a crucifixion and s. willibald for an eichstätt missal (nuremberg, h. hölzel, ), some large designs for the _etliche vnderricht zu befestigung der stett schloss vnd flecken_ (nuremberg, ), and his own book on the proportion of the human body, which was issued both in german and in a latin translation by camerarius. several borders and illustrations formerly ascribed to dürer are now attributed to one of his pupils, hans springinklee, who lived in dürer's house at nuremberg, where he worked from about to . most of springinklee's bookwork was done for anton koberger, who published some of it at nuremberg, while some was sent to the lyon printers, clein, sacon, and marion, who were in koberger's employment. a border of his design bearing the arms of bilibaldus pirckheimer is found in several works which pirckheimer edited ( - ). in a _hortulus animae_, printed by j. clein for koberger at lyon, , fifty cuts are by springinklee. the _hortulus animae_ was as popular in germany as the illustrated _horae_ in france and england. in another edition appeared with erhard schön as its chief illustrator, and only a few of springinklee's cuts. the next year springinklee produced a new set of cuts, and schön's work was less used. springinklee and schön were also associated in bible illustrations printed for koberger by sacon at lyon, and to springinklee are now assigned two full-page woodcuts in an eichstätt missal (h. hölzel, nuremberg, ), and a border to the _reuelationes birgittae_ (f. peypus, nuremberg, ), formerly ascribed to dürer. a woodcut of johann tritheim presenting his _polygraphia_ to maximilian, formerly attributed to holbein as having been printed at basel (adam petri, ), is now also placed to the credit of springinklee, who, moreover, worked for the _weisskunig_ and probably for other of the artistic commemorations of himself which maximilian commissioned. hans sebald beham is best known as a book-illustrator from his work for christian egenolph at frankfurt am main, which began in . but he belonged to the nuremberg school, had worked for ten or twelve years for merckel, peypus, petreius and other nuremberg firms, and has had the honour of having some of his single cuts attributed to dürer. his most important books for egenolph were the _biblische historien_, a series of small illustrations to the bible, first printed in , which went through many editions in german and latin, and another series illustrating the apocalypse, of which the first edition appeared in , the texts of the latin _historiae_ and also to the apocalypse cuts being supplied by georgius aemilius. a set of medallion portraits of roman emperors by him also appeared in several german and latin chronicles published by egenolph. between the nuremberg book-illustrators and those of augsburg, to whom we must now turn, a connecting link may be found in the person of hans leonhard schäufelein, born about , soon after his father, a nördlingen wool merchant, had settled at nuremberg. he worked under dürer, and his earliest book-illustrations were made for dr. ulrich pinder, the owner of a private press at nuremberg. several unsigned cuts in _der beschlossen gart des rosenkrantz marie_ (pinder, ), and thirty out of thirty-four large cuts in a _speculum passionis_ (pinder, ), are ascribed to schäufelein, his associate in each book being hans baldung. about schäufelein removed to augsburg, and, despite his return to his paternal home at nördlingen where he took up his citizenship in , he worked for the chief augsburg publishers for the rest of his life, though between and nothing is known as to what he was doing. among the earlier augsburg books with illustrations attributed to schäufelein are tengler's _der neu layenspiegel_ ( ), henricus suso's _der seusse ( ), heiligenleben_ ( ), geiler's _schiff der penitentz_ ( ), and the _hystori und wunderbarlich legend katharine von senis_ ( ), all published by j. otmar. in he had illustrated for adam petri of basel a _plenarium_ or _evangelienbuch_, which went through several editions. another _evangelienbuch_, printed by thomas anshelm at hagenau in , contains several cuts with schäufelein's signature, but in a different style, probably partly due to a different wood-cutter; these were used again in other books. in the _theuerdank_ of about twenty cuts are assigned to schäufelein, some of them bearing his signature. the following year he illustrated leonrodt's _himmelwagen_ for otmar with twenty cuts, mostly signed, some of which were used afterwards on the titlepages of early luther tracts. after an interval schäufelein is found in working for heinrich steyner of augsburg, who employed him to illustrate his german editions of the classics, thucydides ( ), plutarch ( ), cicero ( ), apuleius ( ), etc. the blocks for some of his cuts subsequently passed into the possession of christian egenolph of frankfort. the first native augsburg artist whom we have to notice is hans burgkmair, who was born in , and began bookwork in by illustrating missals for erhard ratdolt with pictures of patron saints and of the crucifixion. the chief augsburg publisher for whom he worked in his early days was johann otmar, for whom he illustrated several books by the popular preacher, johann geiler von kaisersberg (_predigen teutsch_, and , _das buch granatapfel_, , _nauicula poenitentiae_, ), and other devotional and moral works. in hans schoensperger the younger employed him to supply a dedication cut and seven designs of the passion for a _leiden christi_, and to the _theuerdank_ published by schoensperger the elder at nuremberg in he contributed thirteen illustrations (only one signed). he had already been employed ( ) on a few of the cuts in the genealogy of the emperor maximilian, which a wholesome fear lest its accuracy should be doubted caused that self-celebrating monarch to withhold from publication, and much more largely ( - ) on the _weisskunig_, which was first printed, from the original blocks, at vienna in ; and he was the chief worker ( - ) on the woodcuts for the triumphal procession of maximilian printed by order of the archduke ferdinand in . while these imperial commissions were in progress burgkmair designed a few title-cuts for johann miller, notably the very fine one (see plate xxiv) to the _de rebus gothorum_ of jornandes ( ), showing kings alewinus and athanaricus in conversation, and subsequently worked for grimm and wirsung and for h. steiner, although not nearly to the extent which was at one time supposed, as most of the illustrations supplied to these firms with which he used to be credited are now assigned to hans weiditz. jörg breu, who was born and died ( ) some half-dozen years later than burgkmair, like him illustrated missals for ratdolt and contributed passion-cuts to mann's _leiden christi_. his most important piece of bookwork was the redrawing of the cuts in anton sorg's edition of reichenthal's _conciliumbuch_ for a reprint by steiner in . illustrations by him also occur in a _melusina_ ( ), and german versions of boccaccio's _de claris mulieribus_ and _de casibus illustrium virorum_ issued after his death by the same firm. leonhard beck contributed largely to the illustration of maximilian's literary ventures, especially the _theuerdank_, _weisskunig_, and saints of the house of austria (published at some date between and ). [illustration: xxiv. augsburg, j. miller, jornandes. de rebus gothorum. (title). attributed to burgkmair] we come now to hans weiditz, the immense extension of whose work by the attributions of recent years can only be compared to mr. proctor's raising of bartolommeo de' libri from one of the smallest to one of the most prolific of florentine printers. only two or three augsburg woodcuts bearing his initials are known, while scores and even hundreds are now assigned to him, most of which had previously been credited to burgkmair. weiditz began bookwork in or before , in which year he contributed a title-cut to the _nemo_ of ulrich von hutten, while in he made twelve illustrations to the same author's account of maximilian's quarrel with the venetians. in he had begun working for the firm of grimm and wirsung, and this, with a few commissions from other augsburg publishers, kept him busy till about , when he himself moved to strassburg, whence his family had come, while in the same year grimm and wirsung gave up business and sold their blocks to steiner. these included not only many title-borders by weiditz, twenty illustrations to two comedies of plautus and a set of cuts to the _deuotissime meditationes de vita et passione christi_, and another to a german _celestina_, all published in , but a series of some masterly illustrations to a german version of petrarch's _de remediis utriusque fortunae_. steiner used some of these cuts in a cicero _de officiis_ of , which has in addition sixty-seven important cuts by weiditz, presumably of the same period, and also in a _justinus_ of the same year, but the work for which they were specially designed did not appear until a year later. needless to say, selections from both the petrarch and the cicero sets appear in later work. after removing to strassburg, weiditz copied some wittenberg bible cuts and also holbein's apocalypse set for knoblauch in . in he illustrated for j. schott the _herbarium_ of brunfels, which went through several editions both in latin and german, and for this comparatively humble work was praised by name in both editions, so that until it was only as the illustrator of the herbal that he was known. many of his augsburg woodcuts subsequently passed to that persistent purchaser of old blocks, christian egenolph of frankfort. before passing away from the nuremberg and augsburg book-illustrators, it seems necessary to describe briefly, but in a more connected form, the literary and artistic enterprises of the emperor maximilian, to which so many incidental allusions have been made. the emperor's first attempt to glorify himself and his lineage took the form of a genealogy for which several antiquaries--mennel, sunthaim, tritheim, and stabius--made researches. burgkmair made designs of some ninety ancestors and their heraldic coats in - , and the wood-blocks were cut. it was apparently intended to print them in , but the whole project was abandoned, and the work is now only known from a few sets of proofs, no one of which is quite complete. after this failure maximilian planned a triumphal arch and procession, the programme for the arch being drawn up by stabius, that of the procession by treitzsaurwein. the plan of the arch was largely worked out by dürer, with help from springinklee, traut, and altdorfer, whose designs were carried out in woodblocks cut by hieronymus andrea and his assistants. when the impressions from these are put together they make a design measuring nearly twelve feet by ten. in the centre is the gate of honour, to the left and right the gates of praise and nobility. above the main gate rises a tower on which are displayed the emperor's ancestors and their arms, above the other gates a series of incidents of maximilian's life, surmounted by busts of his imperial predecessors and of contemporary princes. this was printed in - at nuremberg, and in - and at vienna. on the procession or triumph, dürer, springinklee, schäufelein, burgkmair, and beck were all engaged. the blocks composing it were cut by andrea and jost de negker in - , and it was printed by order of the archduke ferdinand in . a triumphal car designed by dürer in , in connection with the same project, was published in eight sheets in . a series of representations of saints of the house of hapsburg had been planned soon after the abandonment of the genealogy, and assumed shape in . from drawings now attributed to leonhard beck, woodblocks were made, and an edition in book form was printed some time after . the romance of _theuerdank_ was written by melchior pfintzing, under maximilian's direction, to celebrate his wooing of mary of burgundy and other exploits. the bulk (seventy-seven) of the illustrations in it are now ascribed to beck, seventeen to schäufelein, thirteen to burgkmair, and three, two, and one respectively to schön, traut, and breu. it was published as a sumptuous folio, several copies being struck on vellum by the elder schoensperger at nuremberg in , and reprinted two years later. the _weisskunig_, or white king, an account of maximilian's parentage, education, and exploits, was dictated by him in fragments to treitzsaurwein, but never fully edited. of the illustrations about half are by burgkmair, most of the others by beck. with the exception of thirteen the blocks were preserved at vienna, and the book was printed there for the first time in . lastly, the _freydal_, which was to have given an account of maximilian's tourneys and "mummereien," is known to us by the preservation of the original miniatures from which the illustrations were to have been made, but only five blocks out of were actually cut. the patronage of the emperor maximilian gives special importance to the work done during his lifetime at nuremberg and augsburg, but there was no lack of book-illustrations elsewhere. at tübingen some of the mathematical works of johann stöffler were curiously decorated, and the second edition of his _ephemerides_ ( ) has a fine portrait of the author in his seventy-ninth year. at ratisbon, albrecht altdorfer was the most important worker for the wood-cutters, and to him are now attributed thirty-eight cuts illustrating the fall and redemption of man, published at hamburg in , under the name of dürer, as "nunc primùm è tenebris in lucem editæ." their minute and rather niggling style renders the bad printing which they have mostly received peculiarly destructive to them. another ratisbon artist, michael ostendorfer, illustrated a few books published at ratisbon itself, and others printed at ingolstadt. at wittenberg, from a little before , the influence of martin luther made itself as much felt as that of maximilian at augsburg and nuremberg. hither, in , had come a franconian artist, lucas cranach, who had already illustrated some missals for winterburger of vienna. numerous pictures of saints, which he drew for the wittenberg _heiligthumsbuch_ of , are subsequently found dispersed in other works, such as the _hortulus animae_. a few title-cuts on tracts by luther and others are assigned to him, but a great mass of bookwork, including numerous fine borders, found in wittenberg books of the luther period, while showing abundant traces of the elder cranach's influence, is yet clearly not by him. it has recently been assigned, with some probability, to his eldest son, hans. his younger son, lucas cranach ii, also supplied a few borders and illustrations to the wittenberg booksellers. georg lemberger also produced borders for titlepages and some bible cuts, and two other wittenberg bible-illustrators of this school were erhard altdorfer, brother of albrecht, whose best bookwork is found in a fine danish bible printed at copenhagen in , and hans brosamer, bibles, or parts of the bible, with whose cuts appeared both at wittenberg and at frankfort. at strassburg, hans baldung grien, whose work shows the influence of dürer, illustrated the _granatapfel_ ( ) and other works by geiler of kaisersberg, the _hortulus animae_ printed by flach ( ), etc. johann wächtlin, who had contributed a resurrection to a set of passion cuts published by knoblauch in , illustrated a _leben christi_ for the same printer in . we find his work again in the _feldbuch der wundarznei_ of hans von gersdorff, printed by schott in . the work of hans weiditz for strassburg publishers has already been mentioned. it was here also that urs graf worked for some little time for knoblauch, to whose passion set of he contributed, and other publishers. in he is found at basel, where two years later he became a citizen, supplying ninety-five little woodcuts to an edition of the _postilla_ of guillermus, and also designing title borders. as a centre of printing basel was now rapidly increasing in importance, and when erasmus allied himself with the foremost basel printer, johann froben, for a time the city succeeded, in point of quality though not of quantity, to the typographical supremacy which venice was fast losing. scholarly works such as approved themselves to erasmus and froben offered, of course, very little scope for book-illustration properly so called, but the desire for beauty found vent, not only with them, but with the other basel printers of the day, valentin curio, johann bebel, adam petri, andreas cratander, etc., in elaborate borders to titlepages, headpieces and tailpieces, ornamental capitals and trade devices. the arrival of hans holbein (born at augsburg in ) at basel in on his wanderjahre supplied a decorator of a skill altogether outshining that shown in the rather tasteless architectural work, varied with groups of children, produced by urs graf, though holbein himself was content to begin in this style. in his most characteristic work the footpiece of the border illustrates some classical scene, mutius scaevola and porsenna, the death of cleopatra, or quintus curtius leaping into the abyss; less commonly a scriptural one, such as the death of john the baptist. the most elaborate of his titlepages was that to the _tabula_ of cebes ( ), in which little children crowd through the gate of life to meet all the varied fortunes which life brings. delightful humour is shown in an often used headpiece and tailpiece, showing villagers chasing a fox and returning home dancing. during and the following year, when hans holbein was absent from basel, his brother ambrosius worked there on the same lines, and decorated, among other books, more's _utopia_. after his return to basel in , hans holbein remained at work there until , and it was during this period that his book-illustrations, properly so called, were executed, including those to the apocalypse and his two most famous pieces of bookwork, his _dance of death_ and _historiarum veteris testamenti icones_, both of which were first published in at lyon by melchior and gaspar trechsel. these (with perhaps some exceptions) and many of his other designs[ ] were cut in wood by hans lutzelburger who signed a holbein titlepage to a german new testament printed by thomas wolff in , and who, if rightly identified with the hans formschneider with whose widow the trechsels were in correspondence in and , must have died about the time that holbein left basel. pen copies, moreover, of some of the cuts of the _dance of death_ are preserved at the berlin museum, and one of these is dated , so that there can be no question that the originals belong to this period of holbein's life, and the british museum possesses a set of proofs of forty out of the original series of forty-one, printed on four sheets, ten on a sheet. it has been conjectured that the occupations of some of the great personages whom death is depicted as seizing may have been considered as coming under the offence of _scandalum magnatum_ and so have caused the long delay before the blocks were used, but as this explanation does not apply to the illustrations to the old testament it seems inadequate. as published in by the trechsels the cuts are accompanied by french quatrains from the pen of gilles corrozet and other appropriate matter, and have prefixed to them a titlepage reading: _les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamm[=e]t pourtraictes que artificiellement imaginees. a lyon, soubz lescu de coloigne, m.d.xxxviii._ a second edition with latin instead of french verses was published by jean and françois frellon, and others followed, in one of which, that of , one, and in another, that of , eleven additional cuts were printed, while in , when the book was still in frellon's hands, five woodcuts of children make their appearance, though they have no connection with the original series. that holbein's old testament designs also belong to his basel period is shown by copies of them appearing in a bible printed by froschouer in , though the original cuts were not published till seven years later. as printed by the trechsels they are eighty-six in number, and while the cutting of the best is worthy of lutzelburger, their execution is too unequal for it to be certain that the whole series was executed by him. the cuts were also used by the trechsels in a bible of the same year, and both the bible and the cuts under their own title _historiarum veteris testamenti icones_ were republished by the frellons. considerations of space forbid more than a bare mention of the _bambergische halssgericht_ ( ), with its all too vivid representations of the cruel punishments then in use, and the illustrated classics published at later dates by johann schoeffer at mainz, or of the work of jakob köbel at oppenheim with its rather clumsy imitations of ratdolt's italian ornaments, or of the illustrated books printed by johann weissenburger at landshut, or of those from the press of hieronymus rodlich at siemen, the _thurnierbuch_ of , _kunst des messens_ of the following year, and _fierabras_ of . after about little original book-illustration of any importance was produced in other german cities, but in nuremberg and frankfurt it continued plentiful, virgil solis and jobst amman working assiduously for the booksellers in both places. in no other country did the first thirty years of the sixteenth century produce so much interesting work as in germany. interesting, moreover, as this german work is in itself, it is made yet more so by the fact that a sufficient proportion of it is signed to enable connoisseurs to pursue their pleasant task of distributing the unsigned cuts among the available artists. less intrinsically good, and with very few facilities for playing this fascinating game, the book-illustrations of other countries have been comparatively little studied. in italy the new century brought some evil days to the book trade. printing itself ceased for a time at brescia; at florence publishers for many years relied chiefly on their old stock of cuts; at milan, at ferrara and pavia a little new work was done. at venice the thin delicate outline cuts of the last decade of the fifteenth century ceased to be produced any longer, though the old blocks sometimes reappear. more often the old designs were either simply copied or imitated in the more heavily shaded style which was now coming into vogue. the interest of some of this shaded work is increased by the occasional appearance on it of a signature. thus in the _missale romanum_ of july, , published by stagninus, some of the cuts in this shaded style bear the same signature, "ia," as appears on the outline work in the ovid of . work done by "ia" is also sometimes found copied by another cutter calling himself vgo, whose name is also found on some copies of french horae cuts in a venice horae of . [illustration: xxv. venice. greg. de gregoriis, missale romanum ( ^b). the ascension] signatures which occur with some frequency between and are the z.a., z.a., and i.a. used by zoan andrea, i.e. johannes andreas vavassore. this zoan andrea was an assiduous copyist. early in his career ( - ) we find him imitating dürers large illustrations to the apocalypse; in his title-cut for the _de modo regendi_ of antonio cornazano imitates that of burgkmair on the _de rebus gothorum_ of jornandes. in he prefixed to a livy printed by giunta an excellent portrait modelled, as the prince d'essling has shown, on a sculpture set up at padua to the memory either of the historian himself or of one of his descendants; in he copied marcantonio raimondi's engraving of horatius cocles, and in the same year another by raimondi of quintus curtius. this was for an edition of boiardo, and for a later edition of zoan andrea copied yet another engraving, that of scipio africanus. in he imitated holbein's elaborate border to the _tabula cebetis_, applying it to a _dictionarium graecum_. about this time also he produced the well-known block-book (at least three editions known) _opera noua contemplatiua_, imitating dürer's little passion in some of the cuts. because of the rarity of signed woodcuts in italian books zoan andrea has attracted more attention than the quality of his work deserves. it seems probable that he was the head of a workshop, and the craftsmanship of the cuts bearing his signature is very unequal. turning to the general course of book-illustration in venice as it may be studied in the great work of the prince d'essling, unhappily left without the promised introduction at the time of his lamented death, we find several different influences at work. as has been already noted, the shaded work which had begun to make its appearance before , as in the frontispiece to the _epitome almagesti_ of regiomontanus ( ), rapidly became the predominant style. we find it combined with some of the charm of the earlier outline vignettes in the small pictures of a virgil of , and in some of those of another edition in , though the larger ones in this are heavy and coarse. the extreme of coarseness is found in an edition of the _legendario di sancti_ of , the woodcuts being more suited to a broadside for a cottage wall than to venetian bookwork. the style is seen at its best in the illustrations of a well-known horae printed by bernardinus stagninus in , and, generally speaking, it is in the missals, breviaries, and horae published by l. a. giunta, stagninus and the de gregoriis (see plate xxv) that the most satisfactory bookwork of this period is found. another style which may be traced in many books of the early years of the century is a rather coarse development of the characteristic florentine manner of the fifteenth century. the cuts are as a rule considerably larger than the florentine ones, and the ornamental borders which surround them are much deeper. as in many of the florentine cuts, more use is made of black spaces than was usual at venice, but the cutting as a rule is coarse, and there is none of the charm of the best florentine work. woodcuts in this style are found most frequently on the titlepages of popular books in small quarto, published by the sessas, who apparently did not see their way to commissioning more than a single illustration to each book. but the influence of the style affected the pictures in a few works of larger size--for instance, the edition of the _chronica chronicarum_ of bergomensis, and the well-known picture of a choir in the _practica musices_ of gafori ( ). despite his connection with the _hypnerotomachia_, which, however, was printed on commission, aldus concerned himself little with book-illustrations, and if the miserable cuts which he put into his edition of _hero and leander_ of musaeus are fair specimens of what he thought sufficiently good when left to himself, he was well advised in holding aloof from them. nevertheless, the popularity which he gained for the small octavos which he introduced in was an important factor in the development of book-illustration in the sixteenth century. although aldus did not illustrate them himself, it was impossible that the lightly printed handy books which he introduced should remain permanently unillustrated, and when italic type was ousting roman and small books taking the place of large, the introduction of smaller illustrations, depending for their effect on the delicacy of their cutting, became inevitable. if we take any popular book of the century, such as the _sonetti_ of petrarch, and note the illustrations in successive editions, we shall find them getting smaller and smaller and more and more lightly cut and lightly printed, in order to match better with the thin italic types. the new style is seen at its best in the books of - , the petrarch of printed by gabriel giolito, boccaccio's _decamerone_ printed by valgrisi in , ovid's _metamorphoses_ by giolito in . finally, book-illustration peters out at venice in pictorial capitals, which take as their subjects any heroes of greek and roman history and mythology whose names begin with the required letter, on the principle of the nursery alphabet in which "a was an archer who shot at a frog, b was a butcher who had a great dog." to an age which, not otherwise to its loss, neglects the study of lemprière's classical dictionary, many of these puzzle initials are bafflingly obscure, relieved only by a recurring q, which in almost all alphabets depicts quintus curtius leaping into the chasm at rome. some similar sets of old testament subjects are much easier. books decorated with capitals of this kind are found as late as the end of the seventeenth century. isolated initials designed on this plan are found also in other countries, but outside italy it is only seldom that we come across anything approaching a set. as to french book-illustrations of the sixteenth century, a competent historian should have much to say, but the present writer has made no detailed study of them, and in the absence of any monograph to steal from must be content with recording general impressions, only here and there made precise by references to books which he has examined. far more than those of germany or venice, french publishers of the sixteenth century relied on the great stock of woodcuts which had come into existence during the decades - . that they did so may be regarded as some compensation for the exceptional rarity of most of the more interesting french incunabula. we have spoken disrespectfully of the little devotional books printed about with an old horae cut on the back of the titlepage or at the end, but in the popular books printed by the lenoirs and other publishers as late as , and even later, cuts will be found from millet's _destruction de troie_ and other incunabula now quite unobtainable, and it is even possible at times from salvage of this kind to deduce the former existence of fifteenth century editions of which no copy can now be found. after about the french horae decline rapidly in beauty and interest, but many fine missals were issued by wolfgang hopyl and other firms, some with one or more striking pictures, almost all with admirable capitals. among non-liturgical books it is difficult to find any class for which new illustrations were made at all freely. several books of chronicles by monstrelet, robert gaguin, and others have one or more cuts at the beginning which may have been made for them, e.g. a folio cut of s. denis and s. rémy, with shields of arms found in the _compendium super francorum gestis_ by robert gaguin (this, however, dates back to ), a double cut of s. louis blessed by the pope and confronting the turks (found in gaguin's _sommaire historial de france, c._ , and elsewhere), another double cut of clovis baptized and in battle (gaguin's _mer des chronicques_, , but much earlier), a spirited battle scene (_victoire du roy contre les vénitiens_, ), etc. but wherever we find illustrations in the text, there we are sure to light on a medley of old cuts (e.g. in _les grands chronicques de france_, , gaguin's _chronicques_, , and the _rozier historial_, ), and it will be odds that millet's _destruction de troie_ will be found contributing its woodcuts of the trojan war as illustrations of french history. when an original cut of this period can be found, it seldom has the charm of the best work of the last five years of the fifteenth century, but is usually quite good; there is, for instance, a quite successful metal-cut with criblé background of justinian in council in an edition of his laws printed by bocard for petit in , and some of the liturgical cuts are admirable. there is thus no reason to impute the falling off in new cuts to lack of artists. it seems clear that the demand for illustrations had for the moment shifted to an uncritical audience who liked (small blame to them) the fifteenth century cuts which had delighted more educated people a generation earlier, and were not at all particular as to their appropriateness. meanwhile the educated book-buyers were learning greek and preparing themselves to appreciate the severe, unillustrated elegance of the books of the estiennes, and new cuts were not needed. the inception of a new style must certainly be connected with the name of geoffroi tory, whose best work is to be found in his books of hours, which have already been described in an earlier chapter. its predominant note is a rather thin elegance of outline, in which the height of the figures is usually somewhat exaggerated. tory is supposed to have brought home this style after his visit to italy, but its application to bookwork appears to have been his own idea. there is, indeed, a striking resemblance between the little cuts of tory's third horae set, dated february, , and those in an aldine horae of october of the same year, but to the best of my belief tory reckoned his year from january, not in the old french style from easter, and if so it was tory who supplied the aldine artist with a model, which indeed is a logical continuation of his editions of and . it is greatly to be regretted that his own _champfleury_ of is so slightly illustrated. the little picture of hercules gallicus which comes in it is quite delightful. if any guide were in existence to the illustrated french books of the thirties in the sixteenth century it would probably be possible to trace the spread of tory's influence. in simon colines illustrated jean ruel's _veterinaria medicina_ with a good enough cut in the old french style slightly modified. for the same author's _de natura stirpium_ of he provided a woodcut, of an alcove scene in a garden, the tone of which is quite new. it is evident that french publishers were waking up to new possibilities and sending their artists to foreign models, as a _perceforest_ printed for gilles gourmont in and a _meliadus de leonnoys_ for denis janot in , have both of them elaborate title borders in the style which the holbeins had made popular at basel. the latter is signed .f., a signature found in several later books in the new style. in we find wechel issuing a _valturius_ with neat adaptations of the old verona illustrations. doubtless there were many other interesting books, with cuts original or copied of this decade, but the only one of which i have a note is the _l'amant mal traicte de sa mye_ (translated from the spanish of diego de san pedro), printed by denis janot for v. sertenas in , in which the title is enclosed in a delicately cut border, the footpiece of which shows the lovers in a garden. not long after this janot printed (without putting his name or a date) _la touche naifue pour esprouver lamy and le flateur_ of antoine du saix, in which the rules enclosing the title cut into a pretty oval design of flowers and ribbons. in we find the new style fully established in the _hecatongraphie cest à dire les descriptions de cent figures & hystoires_, a book of emblems, by gilles corrozet, printed by denis janot, which i only know in the third edition, that of . here we find little vignettes, much smaller than those in the malermi bible, with a headline over them and a quatrain in italics beneath, the whole enclosed in an ornamental frame. the little cuts have the faults inevitable in emblems, and some of them are poorly cut, but the best of them are not only wonderfully delicate, but show a sense of movement and a skill in the manipulation of drapery never reached in the fifteenth century. [illustration: xxvi. paris, j. loys for v. sertenas, homer. l'iliade en vers francois. (title-cut)] in appeared, again from the press of denis janot, "imprimeur du roy en langue françoise," another emblem book, _le tableau de cebes de thebes, ancien philosophe & disciple de socrate: auquel est paincte de ses couleurs, la uraye image de la vie humaine, & quelle uoye l'homme doit élire, pour peruenir à vertu & perfaicte science. premierem[=e]t escript en grec & maintenant expose en ryme francoyse_. the french rhymester was again the author of the _hecatongraphie_, and the imprint, "a paris on les uend en la grand [_sic_] salle du palais en la boutique de gilles corrozet," shows that he not only wrote the verses and perhaps inspired the illustrations, but sold the books as well. in we find this same style of design and cutting on a larger scale in _les dix premiers livres de l'iliade d'homère, prince des poetes, traduictz en vers françois, par m. hugues salel_, and printed by iehan loys for vincent sertenas. the cuts are in two sizes, the smaller being surrounded with toryesque borders. it is difficult to pass any judgment other than one of praise on such delicate work. nevertheless, just as the _fanfare_ style of binding used by nicolas eve, with its profuse repetition of small tools, is much more effective on a small book cover than on a large, so here we may well feel that some bolder and clearer design would be better suited to the illustration of a folio. in the title-cut here shown (plate xxvi) a rather larger style is attempted with good results. the year after the homer there appeared at paris from the press of jacques kerver a french translation of the _hypnerotomachia_ by jean martin. this is one of the most interesting cases of the rehandling of woodcuts, the arrangement of the original designs being closely followed, while the tone is completely changed by the substitution of the tall rather thin figures which had become fashionable in french woodcuts for the short and rather plump ones of the venetian edition, and by similar changes in the treatment of landscape. in the second half of the century at paris excellent woodcut portraits, mostly in an oval frame, are sometimes found on titlepages, and in other cases decoration is supplied by a neatly cut device. where illustrations are needed for the explanation of works on hunting or any other subjects they are mostly well drawn and cut. but the use of woodcuts in books of imaginative literature became more and more rare. at lyon, as at paris, at the beginning of the century the store of fifteenth century cuts was freely drawn on for popular editions. considerable influence, however, was exercised at first by italian models, afterwards by germany, so that while in the early sixteenth century latin bibles the cuts are mostly copied from giunta's malermi bible, these were gradually superseded by german cuts, which anton koberger supplied to the lyonnese printers who worked for him. while in italy the small octavos popularized by aldus continued to hold their own, in france, from about , editions in ° came rapidly into fashion, and about the middle of the century these were especially the vogue at lyon, the publishers often casing them in very gay little trade bindings sometimes stamped in gold, but often with painted interlacements. the publication by the trechsels in of the two holbein books, the _dance of death_ and illustrations to the old testament, must have given an impetus to picture-making at lyon, but this was at first chiefly visible in illustrated bibles and new testaments. gilles corrozet, who had written the verses for both the holbein books, continued his career, as we have seen, at paris. the most typical lyonnese illustrated books were the rival editions of ovid's _metamorphoses_ in french, one printed by macé bonhomme in , with borders to every page and little cuts measuring about ½ in. by , and a similar edition (reissued in dutch and italian) of the next year from the press of jean de tournes, the borders and little pictures in which are attributed to bernard salomon. in de tournes issued also the _devises héroiques_ of claude paradin, and he was also the publisher of a _calendrier historial_, a memorandum book charmingly decorated with cuts of the seasons. partly owing to religious troubles the book trade at lyon soon after this rapidly declined, but the french style was carried on for a while at antwerp by christopher plantin, who printed paradin's _devises héroiques_ in and in , and the two following years three books of emblems, those of sambucus, hadrianus junius, and alciatus himself. his earlier horae are also illustrated with woodcuts, and in at least one edition we find the unusual combination of woodcut borders and copperplate pictures. but although plantin never wholly gave up the use of woodcuts, for his more sumptuous editions he developed a marked preference for copperplates, and by his example helped to complete the downfall of the woodcut, which by the end of the sixteenth century had gone almost completely out of fashion. footnotes: [ ] mr. dodgson also ascribes to traut the illustrations in the _legend des heyligen vatters francisci_ (nuremberg, ), and some of the cuts in the _theuerdank_ ( ). [ ] including perhaps the four sets of decorative capitals attributed to holbein, one ornamental, the others representing a dance of peasants, children, and a dance of death. chapter xii printing in england ( - )[ ] something has already been written about the earliest english books on the scale to which they are entitled in a rapid survey of european incunabula. we may now consider them more in detail as befits a book written in english. [illustration: xxvii. westminster, caxton, c. the fifteen oes.] william caxton, a kentishman, born about , had been brought up as a mercer in the city of london, and the relations between the english wooltraders and the clothmakers of flanders being very intimate, he had, as he tells us himself, passed thirty years of his life (in round numbers the years from twenty years of age to fifty) "for the most part in brabant, flanders, holland, and zealand." during the last few years of this time he had held the important position of governor of the english merchants at bruges, but about he surrendered this in order to become secretary to edward iv's sister, margaret, wife of charles the bold, duke of burgundy. some years before this, raoul lefèvre, chaplain to the duke's predecessor, had compiled an epitome of the histories of troy, _le recueil des histoires de troye_, and in march, , caxton amused himself by beginning to translate this into english. dissatisfied with the result he laid it on one side, but was bidden by his patroness, the duchess, to continue his work. this he finished on september, , while staying at cologne. according to a distinct statement by wynkyn de worde, whom (at least as early as ) he employed as his foreman, caxton printed at cologne "himself to avaunce" the first latin edition of the _de proprietatibus rerum_, a kind of encyclopaedia "on the properties of things," by an english friar of the thirteenth century named bartholomew. now the first edition of this work is undoubtedly one printed at cologne about or at an anonymous press which bradshaw called that of the printer of the edition of the _dialogi decem auctorum_, and mr. proctor, less happily, that of the printer of the _flores sancti augustini_, an undated book in the same type. the _de proprietatibus rerum_ is certainly slightly earlier than either of these, and there are some typographical differences which suggest that between the completion of the one book and the beginning of the other two the press may have changed masters. the _de proprietatibus_ is by far the largest book of the whole group, and being by, or credited to, an english author, it is highly probable that the well-to-do ex-governor of the english merchants became temporarily a member of the firm for its production and shared in the venture. this is the natural meaning of wynkyn de worde's statement that caxton was the "first prynter of this boke," and is quite as likely to be true as the supposition that he took part in printing it as a kind of amateur journeyman to advance himself in the art. it may be noted, moreover, that the books of this anonymous press belong to the less advanced school of printing at cologne, a school technically several years behind that of ulrich zell, and this takes the force out of the objection raised by william blades, that if caxton had learnt printing at cologne, he must have printed better when he made his start. caxton does not seem to have followed up this beginning at all quickly, and it was not till printing had been brought much nearer to bruges by the starting of presses at alost in and at louvain in that he was stirred to action. the first printer at louvain was jan veldener, who worked there from to , and mr. gordon duff conjectures that caxton may have received some help from him. there is no doubt, however, that his partner at bruges was colard mansion, a skilled calligrapher, who continued printing there till , when he fled from the town, leaving his rent unpaid. caxton's own account in the _recuyell of the histories of troye_ of how he came to start is that for as moche as in the wrytyng of the same my penne is worn, myn hande wery and not stedfast, myn eyen dimmed with ouer-moche lokyng on the whit paper ... and also because i haue promysid to dyuerce gentilmen and to my frendes to adresse to hem as hastily as i myght this sayd book. therfore i haue practysed & lerned at my grete charge and dispence to ordeyne this saide book in prynte after the maner & forme as ye may here see. there is nothing here to encourage the idea which mr. proctor seems to have entertained that colard mansion had already begun work on his own account, and that caxton obtained his help for his english books. it seems more likely that it was caxton who made the start, and that the first two books printed at bruges were both in english, the first being the _recuyell_, and the second _the game and pleye of the chesse_, a translation of a moral treatise in which the functions of the chessmen were used as texts for sermonizing, written in latin by jacobus de cessolis. after this a new type was cut and another didactic book, _les quatre derennières choses_, a treatise of the four last things (death, judgment, hell, and heaven) printed in it in french. these three books probably appeared in and the early months of . by this time charles the bold was picking a quarrel with the swiss, and his disastrous defeat at morat on june, , must have powerfully quickened the desire with which we may reasonably credit caxton, of being the first printer in his native land. he made arrangements to rent a shop in the sanctuary at westminster from the following michaelmas and departed for england, taking with him the newer of the two types and leaving the older one to colard mansion, who printed with it the original french of lefèvre's _recueil des histoires de troye_, and the same author's _les fais et prouesses du noble et vaillant cheualier jason_, and then abandoned it, having already cut a larger type for his own use. the first dated book produced by caxton in england was _the dictes or sayengis of the philosophers_, a translation by earl rivers (the brother of edward iv's queen) from a french version of an anonymous latin book of the fourteenth century. caxton was entrusted by the earl with the oversight of the translation, and contributed to it an amusing epilogue, in which he gives some unfavourable remarks about women attributed to socrates, with his own comments. the epilogue is dated , and in one copy more minutely, november. though this is the first dated english book, it cannot be said that it was the first book printed in england, as it was probably preceded both by caxton's english version of lefèvre's _jason_, and also by some of the thin quartos in the same type. among the earlier books printed by caxton after he set up his press at westminster was chaucer's _canterbury tales_, of which later on he printed a second edition which he imagined to be from a better text, and ornamented with clumsy pictures of the pilgrims. he printed also in separate volumes most of chaucer's other works, including his translation of boethius, _de consolatione philosophiae;_ also gower's _confessio amantis_, some of the shorter poems of lydgate, malory's _morte d'arthur_, and several translations of french romances (_charles the great_, _paris and vienne_, the _four sons of aymon_, etc.), translations of _aesop_ and of _reynard the fox_, higden's _polychronicon_, and the _chronicles of england_, the _golden legend_ (the name given to the great collection of lives of the saints by jacobus de voragine), several editions of the hours of the blessed virgin, a latin psalter, a decorative edition of the prayers called the _fifteen oes_ with a border to every page (see plate xxvii), numerous moral treatises and books of devotion, and several indulgences. in all just one hundred books and documents issued from his press, printed in eight different types (including that left behind at bruges). more than twenty of these books he had translated himself, and to others he contributed interesting prologues or epilogues. while many printers on the continent easily surpassed him in typographical skill, few published more books which can still be read with pleasure, and his prefaces and epilogues show a real love of good literature (especially of chaucer) and abundant good sense, kindliness, and humour. caxton died in while engaged on translating into english the latin lives of the fathers, and the account-books of the churchwardens of s. margaret's, westminster, show that he was buried in its churchyard, four torches being supplied at a cost of two shillings and sixpence, and another sixpence being charged for the bell. during caxton's lifetime only one other englishman set up a press, an anonymous schoolmaster at st. albans, who began work in (possibly in ) and printed till , producing first six scholastic books and then two english ones. he appears to have borrowed some type from caxton, so that it was presumably with the latter's goodwill that he reprinted his version of the _chronicles of england_, adding thereto an appendix entitled _fructus temporum_, or fruits of time. it is from wynkyn de worde's reprint of this edition in that we obtain our only knowledge of the printer, for we are there told that it was "compiled in a booke and also enprynted by one sometyme scolemayster of saynt albons, on whose soule god haue mercy." his other popular book was that famous trio of treatises _of haukyng and huntyng and also of cootarmuris_, commonly known as the _book of st. albans_. the second treatise, which is in metre, ends with the words "explicit dam julyan barnes in her boke of huntyng," and this is the only basis for the popular attribution of all three treatises to a hypothetical juliana bernes or berners, who is supposed to have been the daughter of sir james berners (executed in ), and prioress of the nunnery of sopwell, a dependency of st. albans, of which the list of prioresses has conveniently perished.[ ] between and or ' , some seventeen books were printed at oxford by theodoric rood of cologne, who towards the end of his career was in partnership with an english bookseller named thomas hunte. the earliest of his books,[ ] all of which are in latin, was an exposition on the apostles' creed wrongly attributed to s. jerome. by the accidental omission of an x this is dated mcccclxviii, i.e. , but such misprints are common in early books, and no one now maintains that it was printed until ten years later. among the other books printed at oxford we may note an edition of cicero's _pro milone_, the spurious letters of phalaris, and a very large folio, lyndewode's _provincial constitutions_ of the english church. that the oxford press came to an end so soon and that none was started at cambridge during the fifteenth century may be attributed to a statute of richard iii's permitting the free importation of books into england. although this measure was amply justified by the interests of learning, it made it practically impossible for any scholastic press to maintain itself in the limited english market against the competition of the fine editions which could be imported from italy. caxton's press was at westminster, which in the fifteenth century was much more sharply distinguished for business purposes from the city of london than it is now. the first press set up within the city itself was that of john lettou, whose surname shows him to have been a native of lithuania, which in caxton's time, as in chaucer's, was known in england as lettowe. mr. gordon duff thinks that john lettou must have learnt to print at rome and brought his punches with him to england, as the type with which he started to print here is indistinguishable from one used by a small printer at rome, who bore the curiously english name john bulle, though he came from bremen. lettou printed an indulgence in , and also a commentary on the metaphysics of aristotle, a curiously learned work for a city press, but which he was commissioned to print by a certain william wilcocks, for whom the next year he printed also a commentary on the psalms. after lettou was joined by william of mechlin, or malines, in belgium, usually known by the latin name of his birthplace, machlinia. lettou and machlinia printed five law books together, and then lettou disappears and machlinia in started working by himself, at first at a house near the bridge over the fleet, where he printed eight books, and then in holborn, where he printed fourteen. when working by himself he printed in addition to law books some works of a more popular character, a book of hours, the _revelation to a monk of evesham_,[ ] _speculum christiani_ (a devotional work interspersed with english verse), the _chronicles of england_, and several editions of "a little treatise against the pestilence" by a certain bishop canutus of aarhus. one of these editions was the first english book which has a titlepage. it is printed in two lines, and reads:-- "a passing gode lityll boke necessarye & behouefull agenst the pestilens." the exact date at which machlinia died, or gave up work, is not known. he was printing in , but his books after that are undated. we may take or a little earlier as the year of his disappearance, and it is practically certain that his stock of books was taken over by richard pynson from normandy, who probably began printing in or (his first dated book was finished in november of the latter year), and while he was getting his workshop ready commissioned guillaume le talleur of rouen to print two law books for him for sale in england. up to the death of caxton the only native english printer besides himself was the unidentified schoolmaster-printer at st. albans, thomas hunte, who joined theodoricus rood at oxford, being only a stationer. after his death, for over twenty years there was no native englishman at work as a master printer[ ] at all. two of the three presses at work were in the hands of wynkyn de worde of lorraine and richard pynson of normandy, and the third was worked for some time with two french partners by julyan notary, who was probably a frenchman himself, since in he spells his name as notaire. by far the most prolific of these three firms was that of wynkyn de worde, who was born, as his name implies, at worth, now in alsace, but formerly part of the duchy of lorraine. he probably came to england with caxton in , since we hear of him as early as in a legal document about a house. after caxton's death de worde made a cautious start, only issuing five books in the first two years and not putting his own name in an imprint until . by the end of the century, however, he had printed books of which copies or fragments survive, and by the time of his death in the number had risen to , an extraordinarily high total, more especially when it is remembered that the small quarto editions of romances and popular works of devotion, of which he printed a great many, were peculiarly likely to be thumbed to pieces, so that his actual output was probably much greater. as far as his choice of books was concerned he showed himself a mere tradesman, seldom printing an expensive book unless caxton's experience had shown it to be saleable. for two apparent exceptions to this lack of enterprise there were special reasons. the first, a translation of the _lives of the fathers_, he was almost bound in honour to take up, since caxton had completed it on his death-bed. the second book, a really fine edition (issued about ) of trevisa's version of the _de proprietatibus rerum_, was also, as we have seen, connected with caxton, who, de worde tells us, had acted as "the fyrst prynter of this boke in latin tongue at coleyn himself to avaunce." de worde's edition is itself notable as being the first book printed on english paper, the manufacturer being john tate of hertford. in de worde moved from caxton's house at westminster to the sign of the sun in fleet street, perhaps for the greater protection offered by the city against attacks by anti-alien mobs. in he was appointed printer to the countess of richmond and derby, mother of henry vii, a very old lady, who died the following year. de worde himself must have been a very old man at his death towards the end of or early in january, , as he had by that time been at work in england for between fifty and sixty years. towards the end of his life he seems to have had some of his books printed for him by john skot, and robert copland was also employed in his business. the output of richard pynson was only about half that of wynkyn de worde, and his taxable property amounted to only £ against over _£_ at which de worde was assessed. nevertheless the fact that for the last twenty-two years of his life ( - ) he was the king's printer helped to procure him a few important books, and also kept his workmanship at a considerably higher standard. as already mentioned, he probably came to england about and took over machlinia's stock, employing guillaume le talleur of rouen to print two law books for him while his own type was being made. he probably began work with a fine edition of chaucer's _canterbury tales_, but his first dated book is an ugly little edition of the _doctrinale_ of alexander gallus, issued in november, . a copy of this was unearthed a few years ago in the library of appleby grammar school, and to secure the first dated book printed by pynson the british museum had to pay over £ for it. in pynson brought out lydgate's poem on the _falles of princes_, translated from the latin of boccaccio, illustrating it with woodcuts borrowed from jean du pré's french edition of the same book.[ ] in he printed a _terence_. up to the close of the fifteenth century he had printed about eighty-eight books known to mr. gordon duff, against the printed by wynkyn de worde. in he moved from the parish of s. clement dane's, outside temple bar, to the sign of s. george, at the corner of chancery lane and fleet street, the change bringing him inside the city walls. among the best of the books printed by him after this are alexander barclay's _ship of fools_ ( ), a translation of sebastian brant's _narrenschiff_; fabyan's _chronicle_ ( ), barclay's translation of sallust (about ), henry viii's _assertio septem sacramentorum_ ( ), and lord berners' translation of froissart's _chronicles_ ( - ). he also printed some fine service-books, notably a sarum missal, called after cardinal morton who favoured it the morton missal ( ). mr. duff conjectures that in the latin books he printed from onwards pynson was aided by thomas berthelet.[ ] julian notary's business was on a far smaller scale than those of wynkyn de worde and pynson, for less than fifty books are known to have been printed by him. he began work in london about in partnership with jean barbier and another printer or bookseller whose initials were i. h., probably jean huvin of rouen. in i. h. had left the firm and notary and barbier were at westminster. in , like de worde and pynson, he changed houses, moving to just outside temple bar, possibly to pynson's old house, giving his new premises the sign of the three kings. at a later date he had also a bookstall in s. paul's churchyard, and ultimately moved his printing office into the city. notary's books were of much the same kind as de worde's--the golden legend, the chronicles of england, the shepherds' calendar, sermons, lives of the saints, etc. he has the distinction of having printed the smallest english incunable of which any trace has come down to us, an edition of the hours of the blessed virgin, finished in april, , measuring only an inch by an inch and a half. he seems to have ceased printing about , but was alive in . summing up the work of these printers who were active before , we may note that caxton printed books and editions that have come down to us; de worde before , about altogether; pynson before , nearly altogether; notary about before , and altogether; lettou and machlinia about , oxford , st. albans . thus the total number of english incunabula at present known is about , but pynson and wynkyn de worde were both large printers in the sixteenth century. as we have seen, pynson became king's printer in . he had been preceded in that office by william faques, who like himself was a norman, and was the first to hold the title. he was worthy of the distinction, for though he only printed eight books and documents that have come down to us, his work was very good. his dated books belong to the year , when he printed a proclamation against clipped money, with a fine initial h and some neat woodcuts of coins; also a beautiful little latin psalter. his business was in the heart of the city, in abchurch lane. after his death it passed to richard faques, who made his name more english by spelling it first fakes, then fawkes. richard worked in s. paul's churchyard, and among his publications were the _salus corporis salus anime_ of gulielmus de saliceto, a sarum horæ, skelton's _goodly ballad of the scottish king_ ( ), and _garland of laurell_ ( ), and lastly, _the myrroure of our lady_ ( ). with robert copland we come to the first native english printer after caxton and the schoolmaster of st. albans. copland is rather an interesting person, who made translations and wrote prefaces and addresses to the reader in verse, besides printing books. his name occurs in the imprints of only twelve books, spread over twenty-two years, - , the explanation being that he was probably working for de worde during this time, and only occasionally indulged in a private venture. after a long interval he printed two books for andrew borde in - , and appears to have died while the second was in progress. he was succeeded by william copland, probably his son, who printed numerous romances and other entertaining books, and died in or . at intervals during the years - , john rastell, an oxford graduate, barrister of lincoln's inn and brother-in-law of sir thomas more, issued nine dated law books. in he printed two jest books, in he became involved in religious controversy on the protestant side, and died in poverty and prison in . altogether some forty books are attributed to him, including some plays, which may perhaps rather have been printed by his son william. william rastell was also a lawyer, and not sharing his father's protestantism, became a judge of the queen's bench under mary, on whose death he fled to louvain. as a printer he worked only from to , printing over thirty books, including several works by his uncle, sir thomas more, and five plays by john heywood. between and henry pepwell printed a few popular books at the sign of the trinity in s. paul's churchyard; for the rest of his life he appears to have been only a stationer. john skot, who printed at four different addresses in the city of london between and , worked partly for de worde, partly on his own account, printing upwards of thirty books for himself, a few of them legal, the rest popular english books. two printers began to issue books in . robert bankes, who turned out a few popular books in his first six years, was then silent for a time, and reappears in the religious controversies of - , and robert redman, who seems to have followed in pynson's footsteps both in s. clement's without temple bar and at the sign of the george. in his office of royal printer pynson was succeeded by thomas berthelet, or bartlet, who had probably worked with him for upwards of ten years before starting on his own account in fleet street at the sign of lucrece in . we know of altogether about pieces of printing from his press, but a large proportion of these consists of editions of the statutes and proclamations. for the proclamations some of berthelet's bills survive, and we learn that he charged a penny a piece for them, and imported his paper from genoa. with his official printing must be reckoned his editions of the _necessary doctrine of a christian man_, issued with the royal sanction on may, . in order to produce sufficient copies of this he printed it simultaneously eight times over, all eight editions bearing the same date. of the books which he printed on his own account the place of honour must be given to his handsome edition of gower's _confessio amantis_ in an excellent black-letter type in , and the various works of sir john eliot, all of which came from his press. on the accession of edward vi berthelet ceased to be royal printer, the post being given to grafton. berthelet died in september, , leaving considerable property. he was buried as an esquire with pennon and coat armour and four dozen scutcheons, and all the craft of printers, stationers, and booksellers followed him to his grave. richard grafton, who succeeded berthelet as royal printer, had a very chequered career. he was originally a member of the grocers' company, and, in conjunction with edward whitchurch and anthony marler of the haberdashers' company, superintended the printing of the english bible of , probably at antwerp, and that of by françois regnault at paris. when bible-printing was permitted in england grafton and whitchurch shared between them the printing of the six editions of the great bible during and . but when cromwell, earl of essex, the chief promoter of bible-printing, was beheaded, grafton was himself imprisoned. in , on the other hand, he and whitchurch obtained an exclusive patent for printing primers, and before henry viii's death grafton was appointed printer to the prince of wales. thus when edward became king grafton displaced berthelet as royal printer, and henceforth had time for little save official work. five editions of the homilies and seven of injunctions, all dated july, , were issued from his presses; in he published halle's _union of lancaster and york_ and several editions of the order of communion and statutes; in came two bibles and five editions of the first prayer book of edward vi; in a reprint of halle and an edition of marbeck's book of common prayer noted; in wilson's _rule of reason_; in six editions of the second prayer book of edward vi, and more statutes. proclamation-work, of course, went on steadily throughout the reign, and on edward's death grafton printed the enormously long document by which the adherents of lady jane grey tried to justify her claim to the crown. he did his work very handsomely, but on the triumph of mary, though he impartially printed a proclamation for her nine days after "queen jane's," he naturally lost his post and might easily have lost his head also. for the rest of his life he was mainly occupied in writing his chronicle. but he printed a book of common prayer in , and (according to herbert) a bible in . he died in . while grafton was the king's printer for english books, the post of royal printer in latin, greek, and hebrew had been conferred in on reginald or reyner wolfe. wolfe, who had come to england from gelderland, was at first a bookseller, and was employed by various distinguished persons as a letter-carrier between england and germany. when he set up as a printer in , with type which he seems to have obtained from a relative at frankfort, he was employed by the great antiquary, john leland, and by john cheke, professor of greek at cambridge, for whom he printed in two homilies of s. chrysostom in greek and latin, this being the first greek work printed in england. during edward vi's reign he does not seem to have been given much to do in latin, greek, or hebrew, but printed cranmer's _defence of the sacrament_ and _answer unto a crafty cavillation_. after keeping quiet during mary's reign he enjoyed the patronage of elizabeth and archbishop parker, and lived, like grafton, till . though he never worked on a large scale, wolfe certainly raised the standard of printing in england. in john day it is pleasant to come to a native englishman who did equally good work, and that in a larger way of business. day was a suffolk man, born in at dunwich, a town over which the sea now rolls. he began printing in partnership with william seres as early as , but, save some fairly good editions of the bible, produced nothing of importance during this period. his first fine book, published in , is _the cosmographicall glasse_, a work on surveying, by william cunningham. this has a woodcut allegorical border to the titlepage, a fine portrait of cunningham, a map of norwich, and some good heraldic and pictorial capitals. its text is printed throughout in large italics. the book thus broke away entirely from the old black-letter traditions of english printing, and could compare favourably with the best foreign work. day printed other folios in this style, and in some of them instead of a device placed a large and striking portrait of himself. in he printed the first edition of _acts and monumentes of these latter and perillous days touching matters of the church_, better known as _foxe's book of martyrs_. this is a book of over two thousand pages, and is plentifully illustrated with woodcuts of varying degrees of merit. day by this time had attracted the patronage of archbishop parker, and in printed for him a book called _a testimony of antiquitie, showing the auncient fayth of the church of england touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the lord here publikely preached and also receaved in the saxons tyme, above yeares agoe_. for this sermon, attributed to archbishop aelfric, some anglo-saxon type, the first used in england, was specially cut. later on day printed at lambeth palace parker's _de antiquitate britannicae ecclesiae_. he also printed ascham's _scholemaster_ and other important works. he appears, moreover, to have possessed a bookbinding business, or at least to have had binders in his employment who invented a very striking and dignified style of binding. altogether, day is a man of whom english bookmen may well be proud. he died in . richard tottell was another printer of some importance. the son of an exeter man, he began printing about , and early in his career received a patent which gave him a monopoly of the publication of law books. these, to do him justice, he printed very well, and he also published a number of works of literary interest. chief among these, and always associated with his name, is the famous _songs and sonnets_ of wyatt and surrey and other tudor poets, edited by nicholas grimald, but often quoted, for no very good reason, as _tottell's miscellany_. to his credit must also be placed editions of lydgate's _falles of princes_, hawes's _pastime of pleasure_, tusser's _five hundreth points of good husbandry_, the works of sir thomas more in folio pages, gerard legh's _accedens of armoury_, numerous editions of guevara's _diall of princes_, as translated by sir thomas north, and a version of cicero's _de officiis_, by nicholas grimald. in tottell petitioned unsuccessfully for a monopoly of paper-making in england for thirty years, in order to encourage him to start a paper-mill. he lived till . henry denham ( - ), henry bynneman ( - ), and thomas vautrollier ( - ), and the latter's successor, richard field, were the best printers of the rest of the century. denham was an old apprentice of tottell's, who gave him some important books to print for him. herbert remarks of him: "he was an exceeding neat printer, and the first who used the semicolon with propriety." among his more notable books were grafton's _chronicle_ (for tottell and toy, ), editions of the olynthiac orations of demosthenes in english ( ) and latin ( ), _an alvearie or quadruple dictionarie containing foure sundrie tongues, namelie, english, latine, greeke, and french_, with a pleasing titlepage showing the royal arms and a beehive ( ), thomas bentley's _the monument of matrons: containing seuen seuerall lamps of virginitie_, a work in praise of piety and queen elizabeth ( ), hunnis's _seuen sobs of a sorrowfull soule for sinne_, a metrical version of the penitential psalms ( ), and the second edition of holinshed's _chronicles_ ( ). henry bynneman, though not so high in archbishop parker's favour as john day, was yet recommended by him to burghley in , and deserved his patronage by much good work. he printed an english version of epictetus, dr. caius's _de antiquitate cantabrigiensis academiæ_ ( ), a handsome book with the text in italics, according to the fashion of the day, van der noodt's _theatre of voluptuous worldlings_ ( ), a latin text of virgil believed to be the first printed in england ( ), the _historia brevis_ of thomas walsingham ( ), a handsome folio, several books by gascoigne and turberville, the first edition of holinshed's _chronicles_ ( , published by john harrison), and a few books in greek. thomas vautrollier, a french refugee, set up a press at blackfriars, at which he printed several editions of the prayer book in latin (_liber precum publicarum in ecclesia anglicana_), and of the new testament in beza's latin version, for which latter he was granted a ten years' privilege in . in he printed two very notable works, fenton's translation of the history of guicciardini and sir thomas north's _plutarch_, the latter being one of the handsomest of elizabethan books. in and again in he went to edinburgh, printing several books there in and . his second visit is said to have been due to trouble which came upon him for printing the _spaccio della bestia triomphante_ of giordano bruno. his press at blackfriars continued to work during his absence. his daughter jakin married richard field, who succeeded to his house and business in , and continued his excellent traditions. a company of stationers had existed in london since , and in this was reconstituted and granted a royal charter. the object of the crown was to secure greater control over printing, so that no inconvenient criticisms on matters of church or state might be allowed to appear. the object of the leading printers and booksellers, who formed the court of the company, was to diminish competition, both illegitimate and legitimate. both objects were to a very considerable degree attained. the quarter of a century which followed the grant of a charter witnessed a great improvement in the english standard of book production. up to this time it seems probable that few english printers, who had not the royal patronage, had found their craft profitable. caxton no doubt did very well for himself--as he richly deserved. he enjoyed the favour of successive kings, and received good support from other quarters. we may guess, moreover, that both as translator and publisher he kept his finger on the pulse of well-to-do book-buyers to an extent to which there is no parallel for the next two centuries. no one else in england possessed this skill, and certainly no one else enjoyed caxton's success. the act of richard iii permitting unrestricted importation of books quickly killed the presses at oxford and st. albans, which could not compete with the publications of the learned printers of italy, france, and switzerland. until more than half-way through the reign of elizabeth the united output of books from oxford and cambridge amounted to less than a couple of score. for more than twenty years after caxton's death there was no undoubted englishman as a master printer. mr. gordon duff has lately published[ ] the assessments of some of the chief stationers and printers from the lay subsidy rolls of - . by far the highest of them is the £ at which was assessed john taverner, a stationer who is only otherwise known as having bound some books for the royal chapel, and who was wise enough not to meddle with printing. wynkyn de worde, most commercial of printers, was assessed at £ s. d.; a practically unknown stationer named neale at £ ; pynson, who was royal printer and did really good work, at £ ; three other stationers, one of whom printed (henry pepwell), at £ apiece; julyan notary at £ s. d.; other printers at £ (robert redman), £ s. d. (john rastell), and £ (robert wyer). it is tolerably clear that there was absolutely no inducement to an english stationer to take up printing. in henry viii repealed the act of , on the plea that native printing was now so good that there was less need to import books from abroad, the king's real reason, no doubt, being to make it easier to check the importation of heretical works. mr. duff has written of the king's action: "the fifty years of freedom from to not only brought us the finest specimens of printing we possess, but compelled the native workman in self-protection to learn, and when competition was done away with his ambition rapidly died also. once our english printing was protected, it sank to a level of badness which has lasted, with the exception of a few brilliant experiments, almost down to our own day."[ ] as a rule, whatever mr. duff writes about english printing is incontrovertible, but this particular pronouncement seems curiously unfounded. whether we consider what they printed or how they printed it, the work of the english presses from - is better, not worse, than the work of the corresponding period, - . there is nothing in the earlier period to compare with the great bibles, and the books of berthelet and reyner wolfe are fairly equal to those of pynson. if we take as a fresh point of departure, the books issued from then to about present a still more remarkable advance. while the work of the rest of europe deteriorated, that of england, in the hands of such men as day, denham, and bynneman, improved, and alike for their typography, their illustrations and decorations and their scholarship, they surpass those of any previous period since the days of caxton, and deserve far more attention from collectors than they have yet received. footnotes: [ ] for english provincial printing after see chapter xiii. [ ] a fourth treatise, that on fishing with an angle, is often included in the attribution with even less reason. this was first printed by wynkyn de worde in , with the following curious explanation of its being tacked on to the _book of st. albans_: "and for by cause this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondys of eche ydle persone whyche wolde desire it yf it were enprynted allone by it self & put in a lytyll paunflet, therfore i haue compyled it in a greter volume of dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll & noble men, to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde haue but lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fyshynge sholde not by this meane utterly destroye it." [ ] two points may be noted about rood: (i) he does not put his name in his earliest books, and as there is a change of type in his signed work, it is possible, though unlikely, that the books in type are from another press; (ii) he is not to be identified, as was once proposed, with a certain theodoricus of cologne, lately proved by dr. voullième to be theodoricus molner, a stepson of ther hoernen. [ ] the place-name here is an early misreading for "eynsham." [ ] this statement should perhaps be modified to admit of the possibility that julian notary was english rather than french, as is generally assumed. [ ] this and the _dives and pauper_ of (which, until the discovery of the _doctrinale_, was reckoned pynson's first dated book) and several other of his earliest editions were published partly at the expense of a merchant named john rushe, who took six hundred copies of the _dives_ and the _boccaccio_ at s. apiece. see _two lawsuits of richard pynson_, by h. r. plomer, in _the library_, second series, vol. x. [ ] see _the library_, second series, vol. viii, pp. _sqq._ [ ] in _the library_, second series, vol. ix, pp. - . [ ] "the printers, stationers, and bookbinders of westminster and london, - " (last paragraph). chapter xiii english books printed elsewhere than at london [illustration: xxviii. cologne, printer uncertain, tyndale's new testament, first page of text] during the fifteenth century presses were set up in more than fifty places in germany, in more than seventy in italy, in nearly forty in france, in more than twenty in the netherlands, in twenty-four in spain, in only three (counting london and westminster as one) in england. in london and westminster over books are known to have been printed; in oxford and st. albans only twenty-five. the reason for this paucity of provincial printing in england must be found by the social historian. the beginning of the sixteenth century brought no change in the facts. for thirty years from march, , there was no printing-press at oxford. in december, , a latin commentary on the posterior analytics of aristotle appeared with the imprint "academia oxonie," and in four subsequent books, printed in , the printer of this gave his name as johannes scolar. a fragment of a sixth book has lately been found at the british museum. in scolar's place was taken by carolus kyrforth, who printed a _compotus_, or small arithmetic book. a prognostication by jaspar laet may have been printed apparently either by scolar or kyrforth. after the appearance of these eight books there was no more printing at oxford until a press was started there in by joseph barnes, under the auspices of the university. the last book of the schoolmaster-printer appeared at st. albans in , and after this there was no more printing there until . in that year, at the request of abbot catton, a printer named john hertfort, or herford, printed there _the glorious lyfe and passion of seint albon_. robert catton was succeeded as abbot by richard stevenage, and in the years - three religious books were printed for him by hertfort, who also printed an arithmetic and two other books on his own account, making seven books in all. then, in october, , john hertfort fell under suspicion of having printed a "little book of detestable heresies,"[ ] and the abbot had to send him to london. the abbey itself was suppressed by the king the same year, and hertfort, deprived of his patron, had no inducement to return. he is next heard of as printing in london in . at york a _directorium_ was printed by hugo goes, and there is a seventeenth century reference to a _donatus minor_ and _accidence_ from his press. three small books are also known to have been printed by ursyn mylner in and . previous to this, in or about , an _expositio hymnorum et sequentiarum_ for use at york had been printed at rouen by pierre violette for a stationer named gerard freez (also known as gerard wandsforth), who died in . this gerard freez had a brother frederick, who is described not only as a bookbinder and stationer, but as a printer, and may therefore have printed books which have perished without leaving any trace behind them. but the only extant york books of the sixteenth century are the _directorium_ of , two small service-books of , and a little grammatical work in . after this there was no more printing in york until . at cambridge a stationer named john laer, of siberch, i.e. siegburg, near cologne, settled, in or about , and acted as publisher to an edition of croke's _introductiones in rudimenta græca_, printed at cologne by eucharius cervicornus. after this, in and , siberch himself printed nine small books at cambridge, the first of them being a latin speech by henry bullock addressed to cardinal wolsey. among the other books was a dialogue of lucian's ([greek: peri dipsadôn]), for which siberch had to use some greek type, and a work on letter-writing (_de conscribendis epistolis_) by erasmus, with whom he seems to have been on friendly terms. after no more books were printed at cambridge until . at tavistock in a monk named thomas richard printed a translation of boethius's _de consolatione philosophiae_ for "the ryght worschypful esquyer mayster robert langdon." nine years later, in , the same press printed the _statutes_ concerning the devonshire stannaries or tin mines. these are the only two early books known to have been printed at tavistock. at abingdon in , john scolar, presumably the same man who had previously worked a few miles off at oxford, printed a portiforium or breviary for the use of the monastery. no other early book is known to have been printed there. from , when john hertfort was summoned from st. albans, to the end of the reign of henry viii, we know of no provincial printing in england. but on the accession of edward vi the extreme protestants who had fled from england to the netherlands, germany, and switzerland, came flocking back, and some of them seem to have stopped at ipswich. two, or perhaps three printers, all in the protestant interest, worked there in the first few months of the new reign. the first of these, anthony scoloker, printed seven books at ipswich in and , and then went on to london. the second, john overton, brought over with him from wesel the text of bishop bale's latin bibliography of the illustrious writers of britain, printed there by theodoricus plateanus, otherwise dirick van der straten, and may or may not have printed at ipswich two additional sheets, which he dated there july, .[ ] the third printer, john oswen, printed at ipswich eleven tracts, mostly controversial, in or about , and then removed to worcester. on his arrival at worcester late in , or early in , john oswen obtained a special privilege from edward vi for printing service-books for use in the principality of wales, and produced there three editions of the first prayer book of edward vi and a new testament. besides these, from to he printed eighteen other books, mostly of controversial theology, calling himself in his imprints "printer appoynted by the kinges maiestie for the principalitie of wales and the marches of the same." on the accession of mary, it being no longer safe to print protestant theology, oswen's press ceased working. at canterbury in john mychell, or mitchell, who had moved there after producing a few books in london, printed an english psalter, "poynted as it shall be songe in churches." during edward's reign mychell printed at canterbury altogether some twenty books and tracts, mostly more or less controversial treatises on the protestant side. on the accession of mary he ceased publishing till , when his press was employed by cardinal pole to print his articles of visitation. the next year, by the charter granted to the stationers' company, printing outside london was forbidden, the prohibition being subsequently relaxed in favour of the two universities, although it was nearly thirty years before they availed themselves of their right. in the previous eighty years only about a hundred books[ ] had been produced at the provincial presses, and in the year in which the charter was granted it can hardly be said that any press outside london was in existence. the new regulation stood in the way of development, but it was a development for which there seems to have been little demand. we may see some slight confirmation of this view in the fact that during elizabeth's reign there was very little secret printing, though there had probably been a good deal under mary. the three elizabethan secret presses which have been chronicled were: ( ) a puritan press which printed various tracts on church government, written by thomas cartwright. these were printed secretly in and , first at wandsworth, afterwards at hempstead, near saffron walden, in essex. the press was seized in august, , and the type handed to henry bynneman, who, the next year, used it to reprint cartwright's attack, interpolating whitgift's replies in larger type. ( ) a jesuit press which printed for edmund campion and robert parsons in and , first at greenstreet house in east ham, afterwards at stonor park, near henley. the press was managed by stephen brinckley, who was ultimately captured and imprisoned for nearly two years. ( ) the puritan travelling press, from which issued the famous martin marprelate tracts in and . some of these were printed in east molesey, in surrey; others in the house of sir richard knightley at fawsley, near daventry, others in that of roger wigston of wolston priory, between coventry and rugby. the chief printer of them was robert waldegrave, who eventually fled first to la rochelle, where he may have printed one of the tracts, and then to edinburgh, where he became a printer of some importance. while there was thus very little secret printing in england, exiled protestants, catholics, and nonconformists all in turn made frequent recourse to foreign presses, and apparently succeeded in circulating their books in england. religious repression, however, though the chief, was not the only cause of english books being printed abroad. from a very early time the superior skill of foreign printers had procured them many commissions to print service-books for the english market, alike on account of their greater accuracy, their experience in printing in red and black, and the more attractive illustrations which they had at their disposal. not long after a sarum breviary was printed abroad, possibly at cologne. caxton employed george maynyal, of paris, to print a missal (and probably a _legenda_) for him in , and johann hamman or herzog printed a sarum missal in as far away as venice. when the paris printers and publishers had won the admiration of all europe by their pretty editions of the hours of the blessed virgin, they competed with each other for the english market. early in the sixteenth century wolfgang hopyl printed some magnificent sarum missals and also an antiphoner and _legenda_, besides some very fine editions of lyndewood's constitutions. breviaries, missals, and primers were also poured out for english use by françois regnault, and in lesser numbers by nearly a dozen other paris firms, and martin morin and other printers plied the same trade at rouen, while christoffel van remunde, of endhoven, was busy at antwerp. the predominance of the foreign editions of these books over those printed in england may be estimated from the fact that of sarum service-books printed before in the possession of the british museum, one was printed at basel, one at venice, eleven at rouen, twelve at antwerp, as many as fifty-six at paris, and only twenty-four in england.[ ] in addition to service-books, a good many of the smaller latin grammatical works were printed for the english market in france and the low countries, their destination being occasionally stated, but more often inferred from the appearance in them of english explanations of latin words or phrases. a few attempts were also made to issue popular english works in competition with those produced at home. the most formidable of these rivalries was that of gerard leeu at antwerp, who, after printing three entertaining books (_the history of jason_, _knight paris and the fair vienne_, and the _dialogue of salomon and marcolphus_), embarked on a more important work, _the chronicles of england_, and might have seriously injured the home trade had he not met his death in a quarrel with a workman while the _chronicles_ were still on the press.[ ] soon after another antwerp printer, adriaen von berghen, in addition to holt's _lac puerorum_, published the commonplace book of a london merchant which passes under the name of _arnold's chronicle_, and is famous as containing the earliest text of the _nutbrown maid_. a little later still, jan van doesborch was at work at the same place, and between and produced at least eighteen popular english books, including _tyll howleglas_, _virgilius the magician_, _robin hood_, and an account of recent discoveries entitled, "of the new landes and of the people found by the messengers of the kynge of portyngale named emanuel." doesborch's books are poorly printed and illustrated, but his texts are not noticeably worse than those in contemporary editions published in england. the reverse is the case with two english books produced ( ) by the famous paris publisher, antoine vérard, _the traitte of god lyuyng and good deying_ and _the kalendayr of shyppars_. these have the illustrations which book-lovers prize so highly in the _kalendrier des bergers_ and _art de bien viure et de bien mourir_, but the translations seem to have been made by a scot, only less ill equipped in scottish than in french. in a third translation, from pierre gringore's _chasteau de labeur_, vérard was more fortunate, for the _castell of labour_ was rendered into (for that unpoetical period) very passable verse by alexander barclay. vérard, however, had no cause to congratulate himself, for both pynson and de worde reprinted barclay's translation with copies of the woodcuts, and the other two books in new translations, so that in future he left the secular english market alone. it may be supposed that the act of , restricting the importation of foreign books into england, finally put an end to competition of the kind which leeu, vérard, and doesborch had attempted. but isolated english books have continued to appear abroad down to our own day, and form a miscellaneous, but curious and interesting appendix in the great volume of the english book trade. from onwards, however, until nearly the end of the seventeenth century, compared with the masses of theological books alternately by protestant and roman catholic english exiles, printed in the low countries, germany, switzerland, and france, the output of secular work sinks into insignificance. the stream begins with tyndale's new testament, of which a few sheets were printed at cologne (see plate xxviii), two editions at worms, and half a dozen or more at antwerp before it was suffered to appear in england. the first english bible is believed to have been printed ( ) by christopher froschauer at zurich, the second ( ) at antwerp, the third ( ) was begun at paris and completed in england. besides their new testaments, tyndale and george joy published a good many controversial works at antwerp. in the next generation the city became one of the strongholds of the romanist exiles after the accession of elizabeth, and hans de laet, john fouler, willem sylvius, and gillis van diest the younger were frequently called on in - to provide paper and print for stapleton, harding, william rastell, and the other antagonists of bishop jewel. in and the following year books by tyndale, roy, and frith appeared purporting to be printed by "hans luft at malborowe in the land of hesse." a later book with this imprint has been shown by mr. sayle to have been printed at antwerp; whether these earlier works were really produced at marburg, or, as has been conjectured, at cologne, or again at hamburg, is still uncertain. in the 'forties and 'fifties christopher froschauer printed several english protestant books at zurich, including _a faythfull admonycion of a certen trewe pastor and prophete sent unto the germanes_, translated from luther's _warnunge_, with the pleasing imprint "at grenewych by conrade freeman in the month of may ." in the 'fifties, again, jean crespin and other geneva printers worked for john knox, and the geneva new testament was produced there in and the bible in . in the 'sixties, as we have seen, many treatises attacking bishop jewel were issued at antwerp, others appeared at louvain, and about the same time ( ), at emden, g. van der erven was printing for exiled puritans some of their diatribes against the "popish aparrell" (i.e. the surplice) which elizabeth prescribed for the english church. in we encounter at amsterdam a curious group of nine little books "translated out of base-almayne into english," in which hendrik niclas preached the doctrines of the "family of love." from that time onwards a good deal of theological literature on the protestant side was published by amsterdam presses. richard schilders at middelburg was also an extensive publisher of this class of book. presses at leyden and dort made similar contributions, but on a smaller scale. on the roman catholic side the head-quarters of propagandist literature, as we have seen, were at first at antwerp and louvain, at both of which places john fouler had presses. in the 'eighties the existence of the english college at rheims caused several catholic books to be printed there, notably the translation of the new testament which was made in the college itself. for like reasons much catholic literature was published from onwards at st. omer, and from onwards at douai. books of the same class, though in smaller numbers, appeared also at paris and rouen. individually the books from the presses we have been naming, both on the romanist and the puritan side, are unattractive to look at and dull to read. collectively they form a very curious and interesting episode in english bibliography, which deserves more study than it has yet received, though mr. sayle has made an excellent beginning in his lists of english books printed on the continent in the third volume of his _early english printed books in the university library, cambridge_. since then mr. steele and mr. dover wilson have made important contributions to the subject, but much still remains to be done. it was doubtless the existence of these foreign safety-valves which rendered the course of english printing after the grant of a charter to the stationers' company so smooth and uneventful.[ ] two violations of the terms of the charter were winked at or authorized, in some way not known to us, by the crown. the first of these was the printing of a few books for the use of foreign refugees by antony de solempne at norwich. most of these books were in dutch, but in antony corranus, previously pastor of the spanish protestant congregation at antwerp, published through de solempne certain broadside tables _de operibus dei_ in latin, french, dutch, and english, of which copies only of the first and second have been traced. in another english broadside commemorated the execution at norwich of thomas brooke. archbishop parker seems to have resented the publication, unexamined, of the _de operibus dei_, but de solempne placed the royal arms and a loyal motto (godt bewaer de coninginne elizabeth) on some of his books, and seems in some way or another to have secured the queen's protection. mr. allnutt, to whose exhaustive articles on "english provincial printing" in the second volume of _bibliographica_ all subsequent writers on the subject must needs be indebted, conscientiously includes among his notes one on the edition of archbishop parker's _de antiquitate ecclesiae britannicae_ printed for him by john day, in all probability at lambeth palace, where a small staff of book-fashioners worked under the archiepiscopal eye. eton is a good deal farther "out of bounds" than lambeth, but the employment of the king's printer, john norton, and a dedication to the king saved sir henry savile from any interference when he started printing his fine edition of the works of s. john chrysostom in the original greek. the eight folio volumes of which this consists are dated from to , and in these and the two following years five other greek books were printed under savile's supervision. after this his type was presented to the university of oxford, where a fairly flourishing press had been at work since . that printing at oxford made a new start in was due no doubt to the example of cambridge, which two years earlier had at last acted on a patent for printing granted by henry viii in , the year, it will be remembered, in which restrictions were placed on the importation of foreign books on account of the proficiency in the art to which englishmen were supposed to have attained. in the interim printers to the university seem to have been appointed, but it was not till that a press was set up, whereupon, as soon as a single book had been printed, it was promptly seized by the stationers' company of london as an infringement of the monopoly granted by their charter. although the bishop of london seems to have backed up the stationers, lord burghley (the chancellor of the university) and the master of the rolls secured the recognition of the rights of the university. forty years later they were again attacked by the stationers, and the privy council forbade the cambridge printer to print bibles, prayer books, psalters, grammars, or books of common law, but in the judges pronounced strongly in favour of the full rights of the university, and the next year these were recognized with some modifications by the privy council. up to this time there had been three printers, thomas thomas ( - ), john legate ( - ), and cantrell legge ( - ), the university library possessing (in ) books and documents printed by the first, by the second, and by the third, or a total of for a period of forty-six years. from to the majority of cambridge books bear no individual names on them, but have usually the imprint "cantabrigiæ, ex academiæ celeberrimæ typographeo." but thomas and john buck and roger daniel, in various combinations, were responsible for a good many publications. while burghley was chancellor of cambridge, dudley, earl of leicester, held the oxford chancellorship, and doubtless felt that, charter or no charter, it concerned his honour to see that his university should be allowed all the privileges possessed by the other. under his auspices a press was started late in or early in by joseph barnes, an oxford bookseller, to whom the university lent £ to enable him to procure the necessary equipment, and on leicester's visiting the university on january, , a _carmen gratulatorium_ in four elegiac couplets was presented to him, printed on an octavo leaf at the new press. the first book to appear was a _speculum moralium quaestionum in uniuersam ethicen aristotelis_, by john case, a former fellow of s. john's, with a dedication to leicester by the author and another by the printer. in the latter the promise was made "ea solum ex his prælis in lucem venient que sapientum calculis approbentur & sybille foliis sint veriora," but the remaining publications of the year were a polemical treatise by thomas billson, two issues of a protestant adaptation of the _booke of christian exercise appertaining to resolution_, by robert persons, the jesuit, and two sermons. in no fewer than seventeen books were printed (a number not again attained for several years), and among them was an edition of six homilies of s. chrysostom, "primitiæ typographi nostri in græcis literis preli." after this the press settled down to an average production of from eight to a dozen books a year, including a fair number of classical texts and translations, with now and then a volume of verse which brings it into connection with the stream of elizabethan literature. among the more interesting books which it produced, mention may be made of the _sixe idillia_ of theocritus ( ), poems by nicholas breton and thomas churchyard ( ), richard de bury's _philobiblon_ ( ), the _microcosmus_ of john davies of hereford ( ), captain john smith's _map of virginia, with a description of the countrey_ ( ), and burton's _anatomy of melancholy_ ( ). in the 'twenties of the seventeenth century the average annual output was still only ; in the 'thirties, under the fostering care of laud, it had risen as high as . in it was but . then, on the outbreak of the civil war, the king came to oxford, and under the stress of official publications and royalist controversy the numbers shot up to about in , followed by in , about in , and in . then they become normal again, and in under the parliamentary _régime_ sink as low as seven. these statistics are taken from the various works of mr. falconer madan, mentioned in our bibliography, and from the same source we learn that until the nineteenth century the annual average of production, calculated by periods of ten years, never exceeded thirty-two. similar causes to those which brought about the sudden increase in the oxford output in led to the establishment of presses at newcastle and york. in , when charles i marched against the scots, his head-quarters were at newcastle, and the royal printer, robert barker,[ ] printed there a sermon by the bishop of durham, the _lawes and ordinances of warre_, and some proclamations. in march, , again barker was in attendance on the king at york, and printed there _his majesties declaration to both houses of parliament_, in answer to that presented to him at newmarket, and some thirty-eight other pieces. another london printer, stephen bulkley, was also given employment, and in the years - printed at york some twenty-eight different pieces. bulkley also attended the king at newcastle in , when he was in the hands of the scots, and remained printing there and at gateshead until the restoration, when he returned to york, where a puritan press had in the meantime been set up by thomas broad. charles i left york on august, , and six days later the royal standard was raised at nottingham. _his majesties instructions to his commissioners of array_, dated "at our court at nottingham, th august, ," were printed by barker at york. two days later the king ordered that the press should be brought to nottingham, but we next hear of barker at shrewsbury, where he served the king's immediate needs, and then remained at work for the rest of the year and the greater part of reprinting oxford editions and publishing other royalist literature. after the capture of bristol for the king on august he removed once more and printed there during and . during the confusion of the civil war an exeter stationer, thomas hunt (the local publisher of herrick's _hesperides_), had a book printed for him--thomas fuller's _good thoughts in bad times_--which is described in the dedication as the "first fruits of the exeter presse," and another is said to have been printed there in . but we hear of no other presses being set up. after the restoration printing was allowed to continue at york. otherwise provincial printing outside the universities was once more non-existent. the arrival of william of orange caused some broadsides to be printed at exeter in , and in the same year thomas tillier printed at chester, not only _an account of a late horrid and bloody massacre in ireland_ on a single leaf, but also a handsome folio, _the academy of armory_, for randall holme, who rewarded him for any risk he may have run by devising for him a fancy coat. nevertheless, despite the change of government, the act of parliament restricting printing to london, oxford, cambridge, and york was not allowed to expire till . a press was set up at bristol the same year. plymouth and shrewsbury followed in , exeter in , and norwich in , the first provincial newspaper, _the norwich post_, dating from september in that year. by about seventy-five provincial towns possessed presses, cities and small country places starting them at haphazard, not at all in the order of their importance. the dates for some of the chief are as follows (all on the authority of mr. allnutt): , newcastle-upon-tyne; , worcester; , nottingham; , chester; , liverpool; , salisbury; , birmingham; , canterbury; , ipswich, leeds, and taunton; , manchester and derby; , northampton; , coventry and hereford; , reading; , bath; , sheffield; , stratford-on-avon; , portsmouth. as a side-consequence of the lapsing of the licensing act in , it became possible for any private person to buy a printing press, hire a journeyman printer, and start printing any books he pleased. several private presses were thus set up during the second half of the eighteenth century, the most famous of them being that of horace walpole at strawberry hill, near twickenham. walpole started in by printing two of the odes of his friend gray, and at intervals during the next twenty-seven years printed several of his own works, and a few other books, of which an edition of grammont's _mémoires_ was the most important. walpole's example was followed by george allan, m.p. for durham, and francis blomefield, the historian of norfolk; also in the nineteenth century by thomas johnes, who printed his translation of froissart in four large quarto volumes at his own house at hafod in cardiganshire in - , and followed them up with a joinville in and a monstrelet in . between and sir egerton brydges caused a number of interesting literary reprints to be issued for him in limited editions from a press in or near his house at lee priory in kent. the work of both these presses, like that of walpole's, was perhaps equal to the best commercial printing of its day, but was not superior to it, and perhaps the same may be said of the few reprints manufactured, in still more jealously limited editions, by e. v. utterson between and at beldornie house, ryde. sir thomas phillipps, who printed numerous antiquarian documents between and at middle hill in worcestershire, and between and at cheltenham, set even less store by typographical beauty and accuracy. the other private presses of the first half of the nineteenth century are not more interesting, though that of gaetano polidori at park village east, near regent's park, - , has become famous as having printed gabriel rossetti's _sir hugh the heron_ in , and christina rossetti's first volume of verse four years later, polidori being the grandfather of the young authors on their mother's side. passing north of the tweed, where the most formidable competitors of the london printers now abide, we find the first scottish press at work at edinburgh in . in september of the previous year andrew myllar, a bookseller who had gained some experience of printing at rouen, and walter chapman, a merchant, had been granted leave to import a press, chiefly that they might print an aberdeen breviary, which duly appeared in - . the books which anticipated it in were a number of thin quartos, _the maying or disport of chaucer_, dated april, the _knightly tale of golagros and gawane_, dated april, the _porteous of noblenes_, "translated out of franche in scottis be maistir andrew cadiou," dated april, and eight undated pieces, three of them by dunbar (_the goldyn targe_, _the flyting of dunbar and kennedy_, and the _twa marrit wemen and the wedo_, with other poems), the others being the _ballad of lord barnard stewart_, _orpheus and eurydice_, the _buke of gude counsale_, _sir eglamoure of artoys_, and _a gest of robyn hode_. all these have survived (some of them much mutilated) in a single volume, and it is at the reader's pleasure to decide whether they represent the harvest of some careful person who bought up all chapman and myllar's fugitive pieces, or are merely the remnants of a much larger output. the aberdeen breviary, which the printers were encouraged to produce by protection against the importation of sarum books from england or abroad, is really handsomely printed in black and red. at the end of one of the four or five copies of it now known is an addendum, the _officium compassionis beatae virginis_ (commemorated on the wednesday in holy week), which bears the colophon "impressum edinburgi per johannem story nomine & mandato karoli stule," which scottish bibliographers assign to about . a fragment of a _book of the howlat_ may belong to the same period. thus although scottish writers, such as john vaus and hector boece of aberdeen, had to send their books to france to be printed, it is possible that presses were at work in edinburgh or elsewhere in scotland, of which nothing is now known. the next printer of whom we have certain information is thomas davidson, who in february, ( ), produced a handsome edition of _the new actis and constitutionis of parliament maid be the rycht excellent prince iames the fift_. this was his only dated book, but he issued also a fine edition of _the hystory and croniklis of scotland_, translated by "johne bellenden, archdene of murray, chanon of ros," from the latin of hector boece, and some smaller works. the next scottish printer is john scot, whom the best authorities, despite the fact that he is first heard of in edinburgh in , refuse to identify with the john skot who printed in london from to . whoever he was, he had no very happy existence, as notwithstanding some efforts to please the protestant party, the work he did for the catholics twice brought him into serious trouble. his first dated book, archbishop hamilton's _catechism_, did not appear till august, , and was printed not at edinburgh, but at st. andrews. how he had been employed between and this date we have no means of knowing. at st. andrews scot printed patrick cockburn's _pia meditatio in dominicam orationem_ ( ), and probably also lauder's _dewtis of kingis_ ( ). scot also printed controversial works on the catholic side by the abbot of crosraguell (quentin kennedy) and ninian winzet, and for the opposite party _the confessione of faith professit and belevit be the protestantes within the realme of scotland_ ( ). he issued also two editions ( and ) of the works of sir david lindesay, while his undated books include some of lindesay's single poems. since john scot printed mainly on the catholic side, the protestant general assembly in december, , started a printer in opposition to him, robert lekpreuik, lending him "twa hundreth pounds to help to buy irons, ink and papper and to fie craftesmen for printing." he had previously, in , like scot, printed the _confession of the faith_, also robert noruell's _meroure of an chr[i]stiane_ and an _oration_ by beza. the grant allowed him was in connection with an edition of the psalms, which eventually appeared in , together with the _form of prayer and ministration of the sacraments used in the english church at geneva_ and the catechism (dated ). lekpreuik continued active till , and after an interval issued three books in and perhaps one in . in mr. aldis's list he is credited with ninety-one publications (mostly controversial) as against four assigned to davidson and fifteen to scot. during he printed at stirling, and the next two years at st. andrews. like scot, he found printing perilous work, his intermission after the beginning of being due to imprisonment. thomas bassandyne, who had previously published books at edinburgh, began printing there in . he produced but ten (extant) books and documents in all, but his name is famous from its connection with the first scottish bible, of which he produced the new testament in , the old testament being added, and the whole issued by his successor, alexander arbuthnot, in . besides the bible, only five books were printed by arbuthnot. between and twenty-six were produced by john ross, and on his death henry charteris, a bookseller, took over his material, and by the time of his death in had printed forty more. but the best edinburgh work towards the end of the century was produced by two craftsmen from england, thomas vautrollier, who produced ten books in - , and robert waldegrave ( - ), who had to flee from england for his share in the marprelate tracts, and during his thirteen years in edinburgh issued books. when joseph ames was desirous of obtaining information about early printing in ireland he applied to a dr. rutty, of dublin (apparently a quaker), who could only furnish the name of a single book printed there before , this being an edition of the book of common prayer, which states that it is "imprinted by humphrey powell, printer to the kynges maiesti, in his highnesse realme of ireland dwellyng in the citie of dublin in the greate toure by the crane. cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum. anno domini mdli." we know from the records of the english privy council that humphrey powell, an inconspicuous english printer, was granted £ in july, , "towards his setting up in ireland," and this prayer book was doubtless the first fruits of his press. powell remained in dublin for fifteen years, but the only other products of his press still in existence are two proclamations, one issued in against shane o'neill, the other in against the o'connors, and _a brefe declaration of certein principall articles of religion_, a quarto of eight leaves set out by order of sir henry sidney in . in john o'kearney, treasurer of st. patrick's, was presented with a fount of irish type by queen elizabeth, and a catechism by him and a broadside poem on the last judgment, by philip, son of conn crosach, both in irish type, are still extant. but there seems to be no trustworthy information as to where they were printed, though it was probably at dublin. an almanac, giving the longitude and latitude for dublin, for the year , appears to have been printed at london. but in william kearney printed a proclamation against the earl of tyrone and his adherents in ireland "in the cathedrall church of the blessed trinitie, dublin." we reach continuous firm ground in when john francke, or franckton (as he called himself in and thenceforward), printed one or more proclamations at dublin. in franckton was appointed king's printer for ireland, and he continued at work till , when he assigned his patent to felix kyngston, matthew lownes, and thomas downes. some four-and-twenty proclamations and upwards of a dozen books and pamphlets from his press are extant, some of them in irish type. in the office of printer-general for ireland was granted for a period of twenty-one years to kingston, lownes, and downes, all of them members of the london stationers' company, and the usual imprint on the books they issued is that of the company ( - ) or society ( - ) of stationers. they seem to have appointed an agent or factor to look after their interests, and the last of these factors, william bladen, about took over the business. the earliest allusion to books printed in what afterwards became the united states of america occurs in the diary of john winthrop, governor of massachusetts bay, for march, : "a printing house was begun at cambridge by one stephen daye, at the charge of mr. glover, who died on sea hitherward. the first thing which was printed was the freemen's oath; the next was an almanac made for new england by mr. william pierce, mariner; the next was the psalms newly turned into metre." the mr. glover here mentioned was the rev. joseph glover, rector of sutton in surrey from to , who, after collecting funds for the benefit of harvard college at cambridge, mass., sailed with his family from england in the summer of , but died on the way. his widow (elizabeth glover), shortly after her arrival, married the rev. henry dunster, the first president of harvard, and thus, as had happened in paris, the first press in america was set up in a college under clerical auspices. stephen day, the printer whom glover had brought from england, is naturally supposed to have been a descendant of john day, the great elizabethan printer, but of this there is no evidence. he obtained some grants of land in consideration of his services to the colony, but did not greatly thrive, and in , or early in , was superseded by samuel green. of the specimens of his press mentioned by governor winthrop the _oath of a freeman_ and the _almanac_ have perished utterly. of the "bay psalter," or the "new england version of the psalms," as it was subsequently called, at least eleven copies are known to be extant, of which five are stated to be perfect.[ ] it is a small octavo of leaves, disfigured by numerous misprints, but with passable presswork. the translation was made by the massachusetts clergy, who prefixed to it "a discourse declaring not only the lawfullnes but also the necessity of the heavenly ordinance of singing scripture psalmes in the churches of god." its titlepage bears the name neither of printer nor of place, but merely "imprinted ." there is no doubt, however, that it was produced by day at cambridge, whereas the edition of appears to have been printed in london. the massachusetts records make it probable that day printed several books and documents now lost. an imperfect copy of harvard theses with the imprint "cantabrigiæ nov. ang., mens. " is the next production of his press still extant. after this comes an historical document of some interest: "_a declaration of former passages and proceedings betwixt the english and the narrowgansets, with their confederates, wherein the grounds and iustice of the ensuing warre are opened and cleared_. published by order of the commissioners for the united colonies. at boston the of the sixth month ." another broadside of harvard theses (for ) and a couple of almanacs for and , the first of which has the imprint "cambridge printed by matthew daye and to be solde by hez. usher at boston. ", are the only other remnants of this stage of the press. of matthew day nothing more is known. samuel green appears to have taken over day's business without any previous technical training, so that it is thought that day may have helped him as a journeyman. the first book ascribed to green is: a platform of church discipline gathered out of the word of god: and agreed upon by the elders: and messengers of the churches assembled in the synod at cambridge in new-england. to be presented to the churches and generals court for their consideration and acceptance in the lord. the eighth moneth, anno . printed by s.g. at cambridge in new-england and are to be sold at cambridge and boston anno dom. . his next extant piece of work is an almanac for , his next the third edition (the second, as noted above, had been printed at london in ) of the bay psalter, "printed by samuel green at cambridge in new-england, ." this was followed in by richard mather's _the summe of certain sermons upon genes_. . , a treatise on justification by faith, and then green seems to have begun to busy himself with work for the corporation in england for the propagation of the gospel amongst the indians in new england, or corporation for the indians, as it is easier to call it. a second press was sent over to enable this work to be undertaken, and a primer by john eliot ("the apostle to the indians") was printed in , and the books of genesis and matthew the next year, all three in the indian language, all three now known only from records. the same destruction has befallen an indian version of some of the psalms mentioned as having been printed in , but of another indian book of the same year, abraham peirson's _some helps for the indians, shewing them how to improve their natural reason to know the true god, and the true christian religion_, two issues have been preserved, one in the new york public library, the other at the british museum. another edition, dated the next year, is also at the museum, though it has escaped the notice of mr. evans, the author of the latest "american bibliography." by this time the corporation for the indians had sent over a skilled printer, marmaduke johnson, to aid green in his work. unfortunately, despite the fact that he had left a wife in england, johnson flirted with green's daughter, and this conduct, reprehensible anywhere, in new england brought down on him fines of £ and a sentence of deportation, which, however, was not carried out. johnson's initials appears in conjunction with green's in _a brief catechism containing the doctrine of godlines_, by john norton, teacher of the church at boston, published in , and the two men's names in full are in the indian new testament of and the complete bible of . of the new testament it is conjectured that a thousand, or perhaps fifteen hundred copies, were printed, of which five hundred were bound separately, and forty of these sent to england. how many copies were printed of the old testament is not known, but of the complete bible some forty copies are still extant in no fewer than eight variant states produced by the presence or absence of the indian and english titlepages, the dedication, etc., while of the new testament about half as many copies may be known. during the progress of the indian bible green had continued his english printing on his other press, and had produced among other things _propositions concerning the subject of baptism_ collected by the boston synod, and bearing the imprint "printed by s.g. for hezekiah vsher at boston in new england ." printing at boston itself does not appear to have begun until , when john foster, a harvard graduate, was entrusted with the management of a press, and during that and the six following years printed there a number of books by increase mather and other ministers, as well as some almanacs. on his death in the press was entrusted to samuel sewall, who, however, abandoned it in . meanwhile, samuel green had continued to print at cambridge, and his son, samuel green junior, is found working by assignment of sewall and for other boston booksellers. in his brother bartholomew green succeeded him, and remained the chief printer at boston till his death in . at philadelphia, within three years of its foundation in , a _kalendarium pennsilvaniense, or america's messinger: being and [sic] almanack for the year of grace _, by samuel atkins, was issued with the imprint, "printed and sold by william bradford, sold also by the author and h. murrey in philadelphia and philip richards in new york, ," and in the same year there was published anonymously thomas budd's _good order established in pennsilvania & new jersey in america, being a true account of the country; with its produce and commodities there made_. in bradford printed _an epistle from john burnyeat to friends in pensilvania_ and _a general epistle given forth by the people of the lord called quakers_; in william penn's _the excellent privilege of liberty and property being the birthright of the free-born subjects of england_; in a collection including böhme's _the temple of wisdom_, wither's _abuses stript and whipt_, and bacon's _essays_, edited by daniel leeds. in bradford began working for george keith, and three years later he was imprisoned for printing keith's _appeal from the twenty eight judges to the spirit of truth and true judgement in all faithful friends called quakers_. in consequence of this persecution bradford left philadelphia the next year and set up his press at new york. reinier jansen and jacob taylor are subsequently mentioned as printers at philadelphia, and in andrew bradford, son of william, came from new york and worked there until his death in . from he had as a competitor samuel keimer, and it was in keimer's office that benjamin franklin began printing in philadelphia. his edition of a translation of cicero's _cato major on old age_, by j. logan of philadelphia, is said to have been the first rendering of a classic published in america. meanwhile, william bradford had set up his press in new york in , and obtained the appointment of government printer. his earliest productions there were a number of official acts and proclamations, on which he placed the imprint, "printed and sold by william bradford, printer to king william and queen mary, at the city of new york." in he was apparently employed to print an anonymous answer to increase mather's _order of the gospel_, and a heated controversy arose as to whether the refusal of bartholomew green to print it at boston was due to excessive "awe" of the president of harvard or to a more praiseworthy objection to anonymous attacks. bradford remained new york's only printer until , when johann peter zenger set up a press which became notable for the boldness with which it attacked the provincial government. such attacks were not regarded with much toleration, nor indeed was the press even under official regulation greatly beloved by authority. in sir william berkeley, governor of virginia, in an official document remarked: "i thank god we have not free schools nor printing; and i hope we shall not have these hundred years. for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government. god keep us from both." eleven years later ( february, ) there is an entry in the virginian records: "john buckner called before the l^d culpeper and his council for printing the laws of , without his excellency's license, and he and the printer ordered to enter into bond in £ not to print anything hereafter, until his majesty's pleasure shall be known." as a result there was no more printing in virginia till about , nor are any other towns than those here mentioned known to have possessed presses during the seventeenth century, the period within which american books may claim the dignity of incunabula. footnotes: [ ] mr. duff is no doubt right in his suggestion that this is _a very declaration of the bond and free wyll of man: the obedyence of the gospell and what the gospell meaneth_, of which a copy, with colophon, "printed at saint albans," is in the spencer collection at the john rylands library. this increases hertfort's total to eight. [ ] mr. duff plausibly suggests that overton's name in the colophon was merely a device for surmounting the restrictions on the circulation in england of books printed abroad. [ ] those recorded by mr. e. g. duff in his sandars lectures on "the english provincial printers, stationers, and bookbinders to ," by my reckoning number . [ ] this reckoning was made in , but the proportion has not been substantially altered. [ ] the colophon to the _chronicles_ which commemorates leeu has already been quoted (p. ). [ ] before the incorporation of the company brought english printing more easily under supervision, at least a few books had been issued by english printers with spurious foreign imprints, of which the most impudent was "at rome under the castle of st. angelo." [ ] robert barker himself was imprisoned for debt in the king's bench at london in , and died there in . what is here written applies to his deputy, who may have been his son of the same name. [ ] the assertion by mr. charles evans (_american bibliography_, p. ) that one of these, "the crowninshield copy, was privately sold by henry stevens to the british museum for £ s.," despite its apparent precision, is an exasperating error. chapter xiv english woodcut illustrations [illustration: xxix. westminster, caxton, c. bonaventura. meditationes. (part of sig. k recto) christ raising the daughter of jairus] a few illuminated manuscripts of english workmanship and a few with illustrations in outline have come down to us from the fifteenth century, but amid the weary wars with france and the still wearier struggles of yorkists and lancastrians, the artistic spirit which had been so prominent in england in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries seems to have died out altogether. until the reign of queen elizabeth, or perhaps we should rather say until the advent of john day, few english books were illustrated, and of these few quite a large proportion borrowed or copied their pictures from foreign originals. nevertheless, english illustrated books are rightly sought after by english collectors, and though we may wish that they were better, we must give the best account of them we can. as we shall see in a later chapter, there is some probability that an engraving on copper was specially prepared for the first book printed by caxton, _the recuyell of the histories of troye._ for the present, however, we must concern ourselves only with illustrations on wood, or on soft metal cut in relief after the manner of wood, a difference of more interest to the technical student than to book-lovers. the first english books thus illustrated appear in or about , the year in which jean du pré began the use of cuts in paris. england was thus fairly well to the front in point of time; it is the quality which is to seek. the first of these illustrated books was probably an undated edition of the _mirrour of the world_, a translation of a french version of a latin _speculum_ or _imago mundi_. besides some woodcut diagrams copied from drawings found in the french manuscripts, this has ten little cuts, seven of the masters of the seven liberal arts, one of the author, and two of the creation. two of the cuts illustrating the arts were used again almost at once in caxton's third edition of the _parvus et magnus cato_, a book of moral instruction for children in a series of latin distichs. in also caxton ornamented the second edition of the didactic treatise, _the game and play of the chess_ (from the latin of jacobus de cessolis), with sixteen woodcuts, representing the characters after which the different pieces and pawns were called. the pictures are clumsy and coarsely cut, comparing miserably with the charming little woodcuts in the italian edition printed at florence, but they illustrate the book, and may conceivably have increased its sales. in any case, caxton seems, in a leisurely way, to have set about producing some more, since by or about appeared three of his most important illustrated books, the _golden legend_, the second edition of chaucer's _canterbury tales_, and an _aesop_. the _golden legend_ is ornamented with eighteen large and thirty-two smaller woodcuts; the _aesop_ with a full-page frontispiece and one hundred and five smaller cuts; the _canterbury tales_ with a large cut of the pilgrims seated at a round table, and with some twenty smaller pictures of the different story-tellers on their horses, some of these being used more than once. for the _aesop_, like many other foreign publishers, caxton sent his illustrators to the designs made for the zainers at augsburg and ulm, and quickly imitated all over germany, and the copies he obtained are merely servile and so clumsy as occasionally to attain to unintended humour. foreign influence is also evident in some at least of the cuts in the _golden legend_; on the other hand, we may be sure that the device of the earl of arundel on leaf verso, a horse galloping past a tree, must have been made in england. original, too, of necessity, were the illustrations to the _canterbury tales_, for which no foreign models could have been found. but the succession of pilgrims, each decked with a huge string of praying-beads and mounted on a most ungainly horse, is grotesque in its cumulation of clumsiness, though when we find that the miller really has got a kind of bagpipe, we recognize that the illustrator had at least read his text. apparently caxton himself realized that these english-made woodcuts were a failure, for the only two important illustrated books which he issued after this, the _speculum vitae christi_, printed about (see plate xxix), and the _fifteen oes_ of a year or two later, both seem to be decorated with cuts of flemish origin. the _fifteen oes_ (a collection of fifteen prayers, each beginning with o), though i have called it important, is so mainly as proving that caxton must have printed a horae of the same measurements (of which it may, indeed, have formed a part), illustrated with a set of very spirited woodcuts, undoubtedly imported from flanders and subsequently found in the possession of wynkyn de worde. that the cuts in the _speculum vitae christi_ are also flemish is a degree less certain, but only a degree. some of these were used again in the _royal book_, the _doctrinal of sapience_, and the _book of divers ghostly matters_. but the seven books which we have named are the only ones for which caxton troubled to procure sets of cuts, and of these seven sets, as we have seen, one was certainly and another probably imported, one certainly and another probably copied, and only three are of english origin, and these the rudest and clumsiest. while our chief native printer made this poor record his contemporaries did no better. lettou and machlinia used no woodcuts which have come down to us save a small border, which passed into the possession of pynson; for use at oxford two sets of cuts were imported from the low countries, one which mr. gordon duff thinks was originally designed for a _legenda aurea_, the other clearly meant for a horae. these were used together in the oxford edition of mirk's _liber festivalis_, and the cut of the author of the _legenda aurea_ (jacobus de voragine) is used for lyndewood in an edition of his _constitutions_. at st. albans some poor little cuts were used in the _chronicles of england_, but from the point of view of illustration the anonymous schoolmaster-printer is chiefly memorable for having printed some cuts of coat-armour in the "book of st. albans" (_the boke of haukyng, huntyng and also of cote-armuris_) in colours. wynkyn de worde inherited caxton's stock of woodcuts, and early in his career used some of them again in reprints of the _golden legend_ and _speculum vitae christi_, and in his larger horae used the full set of cuts which, while in caxton's hands, is only known from those which appear in the _fifteen oes_. about he purchased some ornamental capitals (caxton had only used a single rather graceful rustic a) and one or more cuts from govaert van os of gouda. in his edition of walter hylton's _scala perfectionis_ (the first book in which he put his name) he used a woodblock consisting of a picture of christ suckled by his mother with a long woodcut inscription, part of which reads "sit dulce nomen domini nostri ihesu christi et nomen genitricis virginis marie benedictum," the whole surrounded by a graceful floral border. in came higden's _polychronicon_ with a few woodcut musical notes, the "hystorye of the deuoute and right renommed lyues of holy faders lyuynge in deserte" (usually quoted as the _vitas patrum_), with one large cut used six times and forty small ones used as , and about the same time a handsome edition of bartholomaeus anglicus's _de proprietatibus rerum_, with large cuts (two-thirds of the folio page) prefixed to each of the twenty-two books, apparently copied partly from those in a dutch edition printed at haarlem in , partly from the illustrations (themselves not original) in a french edition printed at lyon, of which caxton, who finished the translation on his death-bed, had made use. in , in reprinting the _book of st. albans_ de worde added a treatise on _fishing with an angle_, to which he prefixed a cut of a happy angler hauling up a fish which will soon be placed in a well-filled tub which stands beside him on the bank. this is quite good primitive work and was sufficiently appreciated to be used for numerous later editions, but soon after this de worde employed a cutter who served him very badly, mangling cruelly a set of rather ambitious designs for the _morte d'arthur_ of (several of them used again in the _recuyell_ of ), and also some single cuts used in different books. for the next half-dozen years de worde relied almost exclusively on old cuts, but at last found a competent craftsman who enabled him to bring out in january, - , an english version of the _art de bien vivre et de bien mourir_ with quite neat reductions of the pictures in vérard's edition of . it was, no doubt, the same workman who copied in the vérard-pigouchet cuts in pierre gringore's _chasteau de labeur_ as translated by alexander barclay, but from the frequent omission of backgrounds it is obvious that in these he was hurried, and they are by no means so good as those in the edition by pynson with which de worde was enviously hastening to compete. the _calendar of shepherds_ was another translation from the french, illustrated with copies of french cuts, while in the prose _ship of fools_, translated by henry watson from a french version of the german _narrenschiff_ of sebastian brant, basel originals were reproduced probably from intermediate copies. but when in henry vii died, de worde for once seems to have let his craftsman do a bit of original work for a title-cut to a funeral sermon by bishop fisher. in this (see plate xxx) the bishop is shown preaching in a wooden pulpit, immediately below which is the hearse covered by a gorgeous pall on which lies an effigy of the dead king, while beyond the hearse stands a crowd of courtiers. it is evident that perspective was not the artist's strong point, as the pavement seems climbing up the wall and the shape of the hearse is quite indeterminate, but the general effect of the cut is neat and pleasing. that it is an english cut is certain. a few months later bishop fisher preached another funeral sermon, over henry vii's aged mother, margaret duchess of richmond, and when de worde economically wished to use the same woodcut on the titlepage of his edition of this, there was a craftsman on the spot able to cut out the royal hearse from the block and plug in a representation of an ordinary one, and the similarity of touch shows that this was done by the original cutter. [illustration: xxx. london, wynkyn de worde, bishop fisher. funeral sermon on henry vii. (title)] as we have already noted in chapter xii, wynkyn de worde was singularly unenterprising as a publisher, and although he lived for nearly a quarter of a century after the accession of henry viii, during all this time he printed no new book which required copious illustration. on the other hand, he was a man of fixed habits, and one of these habits came to be the decoration of the titlepage of nearly every small quarto he issued with a woodcut of some kind or other, the title itself being sometimes printed on a riband above it. when a new picture was absolutely necessary for this purpose it was forthcoming and generally fairly well cut, but a few stock woodcuts, a schoolmaster holding a birch for grammatical books, a knight on horseback for a romance, etc., were used again and again, and often the block was picked out (we are tempted to say "at random," but that would be an exaggeration) from one of the sets already described, which de worde had commissioned in more lavish days. one of richard pynson's earliest books was an edition of chaucer's _canterbury tales_ with about a score of woodcuts of the pilgrims obviously influenced by those in caxton's second edition, but in no way an improvement on them. it is true that not only is the miller again allowed his bagpipe, but a little mill is placed in the corner of the cut to identify him beyond doubt. on the other hand, the knight's horse is bedecked with the cumbrous skirts used in the tilt-yard, but which would have become sadly draggled ere much progress had been made along the miry road to canterbury. the clerk, moreover, is made to carry a bow as if, instead of having his mind set on aristotle, he were of the lusty sort that loved to get venison where they should not. round most of the cuts there is a heavy edge of black, as if from an untrimmed block, which does not improve their appearance. altogether they are poor work, and it was doubtless his recognition of this that caused pynson in future to rely so largely on the purchase or imitation of foreign blocks. for his edition of lydgate's _falles of princes_, a verse rendering of boccaccio's _de casibus illustrium virorum_, issued in , he procured the woodcuts made for the fine french edition (_de la ruine des nobles hommes_), printed at paris by jean du pré in . before he brought out an _aesop_, copying as usual the german cuts. in he printed alexander barclay's version of pierre gringore's _chasteau du labeur_ with cuts closely and fairly skilfully copied from those in the pigouchet-vérard editions. in he went further and procured from vérard the blocks for a new edition of the _kalendar of shepherds_, which, however, he caused to be retranslated, with sundry remarks on the extraordinary english of the version published by vérard. in he produced in a fine folio barclay's free rendering of brant's _narrenschiff_, illustrating this english _ship of fools_ with cuts copied from the originals. in he procured from froben some border-pieces for small quartos, one showing in the footpiece a boy carried on the shoulders of his fellows, another an elephant, a third mutius scaevola and porsenna. [illustration: xxxi. london, pynson, c. barclay's version of sallust's jugurtha. the translator and the duke of norfolk. (reduced)] if pynson had dealt largely in illustrated books the borrowings and copyings here recited might seem insignificant. he published, however, very little english work which can be set against them, and even of the cuts which pass for english the native origin is not always sure. i should be sorry to pledge myself, for instance, as to the provenance of some neat but rather characterless column-cuts in his edition of the _speculum vitae christi_ (fifteenth century). the title-cut to the _traduction and mariage of the princesse_ (katherine), printed in , is almost certainly english in its heaviness and lack of charm, but despite the fact that they must have been produced in london we can hardly say as much of the two far prettier pictures which adorn the _carmen_ of petrus carmelianus on the treaty of marriage between the future charles v and the princess mary ( ). in the first of these the ambassadors are being received by henry vii, in the second by the princess who is attended by her maids, and the latter is perhaps the first english book-illustration with any touch of grace. unluckily there is a half spanish, half low-country look about it, which suggests that some member of the ambassadors' suite with an artistic turn may at least have supplied the design, so that one hesitates to claim it too vigorously as english work. we may be more confident about the one good cut (the rest are a scratch lot) in the edition of lydgate's _the hystory sege and dystruccion of troy_. in this henry v is shown seated in a large room, with his suite, while lydgate in his black habit as a benedictine presents him with his book. there is a general resemblance between this and another good piece of work, the picture in alexander barclay's translation of sallust's _jugurtha_ (undated) of this other black monk offering his book to the duke of norfolk (see plate xxxi). probably both were from the same hand. it may be noted that the cut of barclay was used again in the _myrrour of good maners conteyning the iiii. vertues called cardynall compyled in latin by domynicke mancyn_, of which he was the industrious translator. in pynson's edition of fabyan's _chronicle_, besides some insignificant column-cuts of kings and some decorative heraldic work, there is an excellent picture of a disembarkation. in other books we find cuts of a schoolmaster with his pupils, of an author, of a woman saint (s. bridget, though used also for s. werburga), etc. towards the end of his career in the collection of chaucer's works ( ) and reprint of lydgate's _falles of princes_ ( ), pynson drew on his stock of miscellaneous blocks rather than allow works with which illustrations had become associated to go forth undecorated.[ ] but with his purchase of the border-pieces from froben in , it would seem that he more or less definitely turned his back on pictorial illustration. mr. gordon duff has shown that a change comes over the character of his books about this time, and has suggested that during the latter years of his life his business was to some extent in the hands of thomas berthelet, who succeeded him as king's printer. berthelet himself in the course of his long and prosperous career eschewed illustrations altogether, while he took some trouble to get good capitals and had a few ornamental borders. it is thus hardly too much to say that from for some forty years, until in john day published cunningham's _cosmographicall glasse_, book-illustration in england can only be found lurking here and there in holes and corners. in peter treveris issued the _grete herbal_ with numerous botanical figures; in john rastell printed his own _pastime of people_ with huge, semi-grotesque cuts of english kings; a few of robert copland's books and a few of robert wyer's have rough cuts of no importance. but when we think of pynson's edition of lord berners' _froissart_, of berthelet's of gower's _confessio amantis_, of godfray's _chaucer_, and of grafton's edition of halle's _chronicle_, all illustratable books and all unillustrated, it is evident that educated book-buyers, wearied of rudely hacked blocks, often with no relevance to the book in which they were found, had told the printers that they might save the space occupied by these decorations, and that the reign of the primitive woodcut in english books, if it can be said ever to have reigned, was at an end. this emphatic discouragement of book-illustrations during so many years in the sixteenth century was perhaps the best thing that could have happened--next to an equally emphatic encouragement of them. there can have been no reason in the nature of things why english book-illustrations should continue over a long period of time to be third-rate. a little help and a little guidance would probably have sufficed to reform them altogether. nevertheless it can hardly be disputed that as a matter of fact they were, with very few exceptions, third-rate, the superiority of pynson's to wynkyn de worde's being somewhat less striking than is usually asserted. in the absence of the needed help and guidance it was better to make a sober dignity the ideal of book-production than to continue to deface decently printed books by the use of job lots of column cuts. the borders and other ornaments used by berthelet, reyner wolfe, and grafton, the three principal firms of this period, are at least moderately good. all three printers indulged in the pleasing heresy of pictorial or heraldic capitals, wolfe in the _homiliae duae_ of s. chrysostom ( ), grafton in halle's chronicle entitled _the union of the families of lancaster and york_ ( ), and berthelet in some of his later proclamations. as regards their devices, grafton's punning emblem (a tree grafted on a tun), though in its smallest size it may pass well enough, was not worthy of the prominence which he sometimes gave it; but wolfe's "charitas" mark, of children throwing sticks at an apple tree, is perhaps the most pleasing of english devices, while berthelet's "lucrece," despite the fact that her draperies have yielded to the renaissance temptation of fluttering in the wind rather more than a roman lady would have thought becoming at the moment of death, is of its kind a fine piece of work. as for pictures, from which berthelet, as far as i remember, was consistent in his abstinence--wolfe and grafton were wisely content to make an exception in favour of holbein, a little medallion cut after his portrait of sir thomas wyatt adorning wolfe's edition of leland's _naeniae_ ( ), and grafton owing to him the magnificent titlepage to the great bibles in which cranmer and cromwell, with a host of other worthies, are seen distributing bibles under the superintendence of henry viii. after the fall of cromwell his armorial bearings were cut out of the block, a piece of petty brutality on a level with that which compelled owners of prayer books and golden legends to deface them by scratching out the word "pope" and as much as they could of the service for the day of that certainly rather questionable saint, thomas à becket. [illustration: xxxii. london, t. powell, heywood. the spider and the fly. portrait of heywood] in we come across a definitely illustrated book, cranmer's _catechism_, published by walter lynne, with a delicately cut titlepage[ ] showing figures of justice, prudence, and victory, and also the royal arms, and in the text numerous small biblical pictures, two of which are signed "hans holbein," while others have been rashly attributed to bernard salomon. in we find heywood's _spider and the fly_ illustrated not only with various woodcuts of spiders' webs, but with a portrait of the author stiff and ungainly enough in all conscience, but carrying with it an impression of lank veracity (see plate xxxii). about this time, moreover, william copland was issuing folio and quarto editions of some of the poems and romances which had pleased the readers of the first quarter of the century, and some of these had the old cuts in them. it is evident that illustrations would have come back in any case--book-buyers can never abstain from them for long together. but it is only fair to connect this return with the name of john day, who made a strenuous effort, which only just failed of success, to bring up book-illustration to the high level at which he was aiming in printing. day had issued a few books during the reign of edward vi, notably a bible with an excellent pictorial capital showing the promoter of the edition, edmund becke, presenting a copy of it to the king. as a staunch protestant he had been in some danger under queen mary, but with the accession of elizabeth he came quickly to the front, thanks to the help of archbishop parker, and the edition of _the cosmographicall glasse_ of william cunningham, which he issued in , is thus, as we have already suggested, a real landmark in english book-production. in addition to its fine types, this book is notable for its woodcut diagrams and pictorial capitals, ornamental titlepage, large map of norwich and, most important of all, a strong and vigorous portrait of the author, his right hand on a globe, a _dioscorides_ with a diagram of a rose lying open before him, and a wooded landscape being seen in the distance. the whole is enclosed in an oval frame, round which runs a greek motto cut in majuscules, [greek: Ê megalÊ eudaimoniÊ oudeni phthonein] ("the great happiness is to envy no man"), with the author's age, "Ætatis " at the foot. the portrait measures about inches by ½, and occupies the whole folio page. it is only too probable that it was the work not of a native englishman, but of some dutch refugee, but here at last in an english book was a piece of living portraiture adequately cut on wood, and with better luck it should have been the first of a long series. john day himself did his best to promote a fashion by prefixing a small portrait of becon to that author's _pomander of prayer_, , and having a much larger one of himself cut the next year, "Ætatis svÆ xxxx," as the inscription tells us, adding also his motto, "liefe is deathe and death is liefe", the spelling in which suggests a dutch artist, though dutch spelling about this time was so rampant in england that we may hope against hope that this was english work. the oval portrait is surrounded with strap-work ornament, another fashion of the day, and at the foot of this are the initials i. d. on one interpretation these would lead us to believe not only that the work is english, but that day himself was the cutter. but bindings from his shop are sometimes signed i. d. p. (ioannes day pegit), and we must hesitate before attributing to him personal skill not only in printing, but in binding and wood-cutting as well. the portrait itself is taken side-face and shows a cropped head, keen eye, and long beard, the neck being entirely concealed by a high coat-collar within which is a ruff. the ground to the front of the face is all in deep shadow, that at the back of the head is left white, a simple contrast which perhaps makes the general effect more brilliant. day used this portrait as a device in some of his largest folio books--for instance, his three-volume edition of becon's works ( - ) and foxe's _book of martyrs_ ( ). the full title of the _book of martyrs_, which we have now reached, is _actes and monuments of these latter and perillous dayes, touching matters of the church, wherein ar comprehended and described the great persecutions and horrible troubles, that have bene wrought and practised by the romishe prelates, especially in this realm of england and scotlande, from the yeare of our lorde a thousande unto the tyme nowe present_. it bears an elaborate titlepage showing protestants and catholics preaching, protestants being burnt at the stake contrasted with catholics offering the sacrifice of the mass, and finally the protestant martyrs uplifted in heaven, while the catholic persecutors are packed off to hell. the text is very unevenly illustrated, but the total number of woodcuts even in the first edition ( ) is very considerable, and as many new pictures were added in the second ( ), the book was certainly the most liberally illustrated with cuts specially made for it which had yet been produced in england. one or two of the smaller cuts, mostly the head of a martyr praying amid the flames, are used several times; of the larger cuts only a very few are repeated, and, considering the monotonous subject of the book, it is obvious that some trouble must have been taken to secure variety in the illustrations. a few of these occupy a whole page, that illustrating the protestant legend of the poisoning of king john by a fanatic monk being divided into compartments, while others showing some of the more important martyrdoms are ambitiously designed. the drawing of some of the later pictures is coarse, but on the whole the designs are good and with a good deal of character in them. the cutting is careful and painstaking, but hardly ever succeeds in making the picture stand out boldly on the page, so that the general effect is grey and colourless. as to the personality of the designers and cutters we know nothing. day at one time was anxious to get leave to keep more than the permitted maximum of four foreigners in his employment, but we have really no sufficient ground for arguing either for an english or a foreign origin for these illustrations. a few years after this, in , when the new edition of the _book of martyrs_ was in preparation, day issued another illustrated book: _a christall glasse of christian reformation, wherein the godly maye beholde the coloured abuses used in this our present tyme. collected by stephen bateman_, better known as the "batman uppon bartholomew," i.e. the editor by whom the _de proprietatibus rerum_ of bartholomaeus anglicus was "newly corrected, enlarged, and amended" in . the _christall glasse of christian reformation_ is a dull book with dull illustrations, which are of the nature of emblems, made ugly by party spirit. a more interesting book by the same author and issued in the same year was _the travayled pylgrime, bringing newes from all partes of the worlde_, to which bateman only put his initials and which was printed not by day, but by denham. this, although i cannot find that the fact has been noted, is largely indebted both for its scheme and its illustrations to the _chevalier délibéré_ of olivier de la marche, though the woodcuts go back not to those of the gouda and schiedam incunabula, but to the antwerp edition of , in which these were translated into some of the most graceful of sixteenth century cuts. needless to say, much of the grace disappears in this new translation, although the cutting is more effective than in the _book of martyrs_. besides these two books by stephen bateman, saw the issue of the first edition of one of john day's most famous ventures, _a booke of christian prayers, collected out of the ancient writers and best learned in our time, worthy to be read with an earnest mind of all christians, in these dangerous and troublesome daies, that god for christes sake will yet still be mercifull vnto us_. from the presence on the back of the titlepage of a very stiff portrait of the queen kneeling in prayer (rather like a design for a monumental brass), this is usually quoted as _queen elizabeth's prayer book_. it was reprinted in (perhaps also earlier), , and , and the later editions, the only ones i have seen, ascribe the compilation to r. d., i.e. richard day, john day's clergyman son. the book is in appearance a kind of protestant horae, having borders to every page divided into compartments as in the paris editions, showing scenes from the life of christ, the cardinal virtues and their opposites, the works of charity, and a dance of death. compared with the best, or even the second best, of the horae of pigouchet or kerver, the book looks cold and colourless, but the rarity of the early editions shows that it must have been very popular. the only other book issued by day with borders to every page was the (supposititious) _certaine select prayers gathered out of s. augustines meditations, which he calleth his selfe-talks with god_, which went through several editions, of which the first is dated . this is a much less pretentious book, the borders being decorative instead of pictorial, but it makes rather a pretty little octavo. another book which has cuts is the edition of grafton's _chronicle_ of that year, printed by henry denham, but as the cuts look like a "job" lot, possibly of german origin, and are only placed at the beginnings of sections in the short first book, while all the history from onwards is left unillustrated, this speaks rather of decadence than progress. [illustration: xxxiii. london, c. barker, turberville. booke of faulconrie. queen elizabeth hawking] in , towards the close of his career, day was employed to print john derrick's _image of ireland_, giving an account of sir henry sidney's campaign against the irish "wood-karnes." in some few copies this work is illustrated with eight very large woodcuts, the most ambitious in some respects that had ever been attempted in england. the first four are wretchedly cut; the last four, showing sir henry's battle with the rebels and his triumphal return, are both well designed and well executed. meanwhile, other printers and publishers had produced a few more illustrated books in the 'seventies. thus in henry bynneman had printed turberville's _booke of faulconrie_ for christopher barker. the numerous excellent illustrations of hawks (and probably those of dogs also) are taken from french books, but there is a fairly vigorous picture of queen elizabeth hawking attended by her suite, badged, back and front, with large tudor roses, and this (see plate xxxiii) looks like english work. in a much later edition--that of --it is curious to note that the portrait of the queen was cut out and one of james i substituted. in a rather forbidding woodcut portrait of george gascoigne was printed (by r. smith) in that worthy's _steele glas_. in came a very important work, the famous _chronicle_, begun on a vast scale by reyner wolfe and completed for england, scotland, and ireland by raphael holinshed, now published by john harrison the elder. this has the appearance of being much more profusely illustrated than the _book of martyrs_ or any other english folio, but as the cuts of battles, riots, executions, etc., which form the staple illustrations, are freely repeated, the profusion is far less than it seems. the cuts, moreover, are much smaller than those in foxe's _martyrs_. as a rule they are vigorously designed and fairly well cut, and if it had come fifty years earlier the book would have been full of promise. but, as far as pictorial cuts in important books are concerned, we are nearing the end. in h. singleton published spenser's _shepheardes calender_ with a small cut of no great merit at the head of each "æglogue," and in the same year vautrollier illustrated north's _plutarch_ with insignificant little busts which derive importance only from the large ornamental frames, stretching across the folio page, in which they are set. woodcuts did not cease to be used after this date. they will be found in herbals (but these were mainly foreign blocks), military works, and all books for which diagrams were needed. they continued fashionable for some time for the architectural or other forms of borders to titlepages, some of them very graceful, as, for instance, that to the early folio editions of sidney's _arcadia_; also for the coats of arms of the great men to whom books were dedicated. they are found also at haphazard in the sixpenny and fourpenny quartos of plays and romances, and many of the old blocks gradually drifted into the hands of the printers of ballads and chapbooks, and appear in incongruous surroundings after a century of service. but i cannot myself call to mind any important english book after for which a publisher thought it worth his while to commission a new set of imaginative pictures cut on wood, and that means that woodcut illustration as a vital force in the making of books had ceased to exist. they needed good paper and careful presswork, and all over europe paper and presswork were rapidly deteriorating. they cost money, and book-buyers apparently did not care enough for them to make them a good investment. the rising popularity of copper engravings for book-illustration on the continent probably influenced the judgment of english book-lovers, and although, as we shall see, copper engraving was for many years very sparingly used in england save for portraits, frontispieces, and titlepages, woodcuts went clean out of fashion for some two centuries. footnotes: [ ] he had apparently returned the blocks borrowed from du pré for the _falles of princes_, as none of them is used in , although one or two are copied. i have not met with all the chaucer illustrations, and it is possible that a few of these are new. [ ] used again the same year in a treatise by richard bonner. chapter xv engraved illustrations the good bookman should have no love for "plates," and to do them justice bookmen have shown commendable fortitude in resisting their attractions, great as these often are. as a form of book-decoration the plate reached its highest development in the french _livres-à-vignettes_ of the eighteenth century, the charm of the best bookwork of moreau, eisen, and their fellows being incontestable. it would, indeed, have argued some lack of patriotism if french book-lovers had not yielded themselves to the fascination of a method of book-illustration which had thus reached its perfection in their own country, and they have done so. but as he reads the enthusiastic descriptions of these eighteenth century books by m. henri béraldi, a foreign book-lover may well feel (to borrow the phrase which jonson and herrick used of the over-dressed ladies of their day) that the book itself has become its "own least part." a book which requires as an appendix an album of original designs, or of proofs of the illustrations, or (worse still) which has been mounted on larger paper and guarded so that these proofs or designs can be brought into connection with the text, is on its way to that worst of all fates, the avernus of extra illustration or graingerism. when it has reached this, it ceases to be a book at all and becomes a scrap-album of unharmonized pictures. lack of means may make it easy for a bookman to resist the temptation to supplement the illustrations in a book with duplicates in proof or any like extravagances, but even then few books which have plates in them fail to bring trouble. if the plates are protected with "flimsies," the owner's conscience may be perturbed with doubts as to whether these may lawfully be torn out. if there are no flimsies, the leaf opposite a plate often shows a set-off from it and is sometimes specially badly foxed. moreover, not being an integral part of the book, the plate presents problems to publishers and binders which are too often left unsolved. it ought to be printed on paper sufficiently wide to allow of a flap or turn-over, so that the leaf can be placed in the quire and properly sewn. but the flap thus left is not pretty, and unless very thin may cause the book to gape. thus too often the plate is only glued or pasted into its place, with the result that it easily comes loose. hence misplacements, imperfections, and consequent woe. it is the charm of the earlier books illustrated with incised engravings that the impressions are pulled on the same paper as the rest of the book, very often on pages bearing letterpress, and almost always, even when they chance to occupy a whole page, the back of which is left blank, as part of the quire or gathering. the price, however, which had to be paid for these advantages was a heavy one, the trouble not merely of double printing, as in the case of a sheet printed in red and black, but of double printing in two different kinds, one being from a raised surface, the other from an incised. it is clear that this trouble was found very serious, as both at rome and florence in italy, at bruges in the low countries, at würzburg and eichstätt in germany, and at lyon in france, the experiment was tried independently and in every case abandoned after one or two books had been thus ornamented. [illustration: xxxiv. florence, nicolus laurentii, bettini. monte santo di dio. christ in glory. (reduced)] at rome, after the failure of his printing partnership with pannartz, conrad sweynheym betook himself to engraving maps to illustrate an edition of ptolemy's _cosmographia_, and this was brought out after his death by arnold buckinck, october, . thirteen months earlier nicolaus laurentii, of breslau, had published at florence the _monte santo di dio_ of antonio bettini, with two full-page engravings and one smaller one. the first of these shows the ladder of prayer and the sacraments up which, by the virtues which form its successive rungs, a cassocked youth is preparing to climb to heaven, where christ stands in a mandorla supported by angels. the second plate is given up entirely to a representation of christ in a mandorla, both drawing and engraving being excellent, and the little angels who are lovingly upholding the frame being really delightful (see plate xxxiv). the third picture, printed on a page with text, is smaller than these and represents the pains of hell. when a second edition of the _monte santo di dio_ was needed in the copperplates were replaced by woodcuts, a fact which may remind us that not only the trouble of printing, but the small number of impressions which could be taken from copperplates, must have been a formidable objection to their use in bookwork. but at the time the first edition may well have been regarded as a success. if so, it was an unlucky one, as nicolaus laurentii was thereby encouraged to undertake a much more ambitious venture, an annotated _divina commedia_ with similar illustrations, and this, which appeared in , can only be looked on as a failure. no space was left at the head of the first canto, and the engraving was printed on the lower margin, where it is often found cruelly cropped. in subsequent cantos spaces were sometimes left, sometimes not, but after the second the engravings are generally founded printed on separate slips and pasted into their places, and in no copy do they extend beyond canto xix. they used to be assigned to botticelli, but the discovery of his real designs to the _divina commedia_ has shown that these of were only slightly influenced by them. in germany the only copper engravings found in fifteenth century books are the coats of arms of the bishops and chapters of würzburg and eichstätt in the books printed for them at these places by georg and michel reyser respectively. in order more easily to persuade the clergy of these dioceses to buy properly revised service-books to replace their tattered and incorrect manuscript copies, the bishops attached certain "indulgences" to their purchase, and as a proof that the recital of these was not a mere advertising trick of the printer permitted him to print their arms at the foot of the notice. these arms, most charmingly and delicately engraved, are found in the würzburg missals of (this i have not seen) and , and the "agenda" of (see plate xxxv), and no doubt also in other early service-books printed by georg reyser. the eichstätt books of his kinsmen michel are similarly adorned--for instance, the _statuta synodalia eystettensia_ of , though neither the design nor the engraving is so good. in how many editions by the reysers these engraved arms appeared i cannot say, as the books are all of great rarity; but by , if not earlier, they had been abandoned, for in the würzburg _missale speciale_ of that year we find the delicate engraving replaced by a woodcut copy of nearly four times the size and less than a fourth of the charm. the only french book of the fifteenth century known to me as possessing copper engravings is a very beautiful one, the version of breidenbach's _peregrinatio ad terram sanctam_, by frère nicole le huen, printed at lyon by michel topie and jacob heremberck in , and adorned with numerous excellent capitals. in this all the cuts in the text of the mainz editions are fairly well copied on wood, but the large folding plans of venice and other cities on the pilgrims' route are admirably reproduced on copper with a great increase in the delicacy of their lines. [illustration: xxxv. wÜrzburg, g. reyser, wÜrzburg agenda. (end of preface)] we come now to a book bearing an earlier date than any of those already mentioned, but not entitled to its full pride of place because it is doubtful to what extent the engravings connected with it can be reckoned an integral part of it. this is the french version of boccaccio's _de casibus illustrium virorum_ ("des cas des nobles hommes"), printed at bruges by colard mansion and dated . as originally printed there was no space left for any pictorial embellishments; but in at least two copies the first leaf of the prologue has been reprinted so as to leave room for a picture; in another copy, which in belonged to lord lothian, spaces are left also at the beginning of each of the nine books into which the work is divided, except the first and sixth, and all the spaces have been filled with copper engravings coloured by hand; in yet another copy there is a space left also at the beginning of book vi. according to the monograph on the subject by david laing (privately printed in ), the subjects of the engravings are:-- ( ) prologue, the author presenting his work to his patron, mainardo cavalcanti. ( ) book i. adam and eve standing before the author as he writes. ( ) book ii. king saul on horseback, and lying dead. ( ) book iii. fortune and poverty. ( ) book iv. marcus manlius thrown into the tiber. ( ) book v. the death of regulus. ( ) book vi. not known. ( ) book vii. a combat of six men. ( ) book viii. the humiliation of the emperor valerian by king sapor of persia. ( ) book ix. brunhilde, queen of the franks, torn asunder by four horses. from the reproductions which laing gives in his monograph it is evident that the engraver set himself to imitate the style of the contemporary illuminated manuscripts of the bruges school, and that he used his graver rather to get the designs on to the paper than with any real feeling for the characteristic charm of his own art. my own inclination is to believe that we must look on these plates as a venture of colard mansion's rather in his old capacity as an illuminator, anxious to decorate a few special copies, than as a printer intent on embellishing a whole edition. the engravings may have been made at any time between and , when they were clearly used as models by jean du pré for his paris edition, the wood-blocks for which, as we have seen, were subsequently sold or lent to pynson. the variations in the number of spaces in different copies may quite as well be due to a mixing of quires as to successive enlargements of the plan, and the fact that more copies of the engravings have survived apart from than with the book draws attention once more to the difficulty found in printing these incised plates to accompany letterpress printed from type standing in relief. there is still one more engraving connected with an early printed book to be considered, and though the connection is not fully established, the facts that the book in question was the first from caxton's press, and that the engraving may possibly contain his portrait, invite a full discussion of its claims. the plate (see frontispiece to chapter i, plate ii) represents an author on one knee presenting a book to a lady who is attended by five maids-of-honour, while as many pages may be seen standing in various page-like attitudes about the room. a canopy above a chair of state bears the initials cm and the motto _bien en aveingne_, and it is thus clear that the lady represents margaret duchess of burgundy, and that the offering of a book which it depicts must have taken place after her marriage with charles the bold, july, , and before the latter's death at nancy, january, . during the greater part of this time caxton was in the service of the duchess; the donor of the book is represented as a layman, and a layman not of noble birth, since there is no feather in his cap; he appears also to be approaching middle-age. all these points would be correct if the donor were intended for caxton, and as we know from his own statement that before his _recuyell of the histories of troy_ was printed he had presented a copy of it (in manuscript) to the duchess, probably in or soon after , until some more plausible original is proposed the identification of the donor with our first printer must remain at least probable. unfortunately, although the unique copy of the engraving is at present in the duke of devonshire's copy of the _recuyell_, it is certain that it is an insertion, not an original part of the book, and beyond a high probability that it has occupied its present position since the book was bound for the duke of roxburghe some time before his sale in , nothing is known as to how it came there. a really amazing point is that although the connection of this particular copy with elizabeth, queen of edward iv, caused it to be shown at the caxton exhibition, until the appearance of mr. montagu peartree's article in the _burlington magazine_ for august, , no notice had ever been paid to the engraving. analogy with the _boccaccio_ suggests that caxton had the plate made before he realized the difficulties of impression, and that some prints were separately struck from it and one of these pasted inside the binding of the devonshire copy, whence it was removed to its present position when the book was rebound. it should be noted that the style of the engraving is quite unlike that of the _boccaccio_ prints, and suggests that caxton procured it from a dutch rather than a bruges engraver, possibly with the aid of veldener, from whom, or with whose help, according to mr. duff's suggestion, he procured his first type. for over a quarter of a century after the engraving of the plans in the lyon _breidenbach_ printers seem to have held aloof altogether from copperplates. in we find four engraved plans, of only slight artistic interest, printed as plates in a topographical work on _nola_ by ambrogius leo, the printer being joannes rubeus (giovanni rossi) of venice. three years later, in , a really charming print is found (set rather askew in the museum copy) on the titlepage of a thin quarto printed at rome, for my knowledge of which i am indebted to my friend, mr. a. m. hind. the book is a _dialogus_, composed by the right reverend amadeus berrutus, governor of the city of rome, on the weighty and still disputable question as to whether one should go on writing to a friend who makes no reply,[ ] and the plate shows the four speakers, amadeus himself, austeritas, amicitia, and amor, standing in a field or garden outside a building. the figures, especially that of austeritas, are charmingly drawn (see plate xxxvi); the tone of the little picture is delightful, and it is enclosed in a leafy border, which reproduces in the subtler grace of engraved work the effect of the little black and white frames which surround the florentine woodcuts of the fifteenth century. with the _dialogus_ of bishop berrutus copper engravings as book-illustrations came to an end, as far as i know, for a period of some forty years. i make this statement thus blankly in the hope that it may provoke contradiction, and at least some sporadic instances be adduced. but i have hunted through descriptions of all the books most likely to be illustrated--bibles, horae, editions of petrarch's _trionfi_ and ariosto's _orlando furioso_ and books of emblems, and outside england (the necessity of the exception is almost humorous) i have lighted on nothing. [illustration: xxxvi. rome, gabriel of bologna, berrutus. dialogus. (title)] we may, perhaps, trace the revival of engraved illustrations to the influence of hieronymus or jerome cock, an antwerp engraver, who in may, , issued a series of plates from the designs of f. faber, entitled _praecipua aliquot romanae antiquitatis ruinarum monimenta_, without any letterpress save the name of the subject engraved on each plate. cock followed this up in with twelve engravings from the designs of martin van veen illustrating the victories of charles v, which are also celebrated in verses in french and spanish. he issued also various other series of biblical and antiquarian plates, which do not concern us, and in a set of thirty-two illustrating the funeral of charles v. for this, aided by a subsidy, christopher plantin acted as publisher, and we thus get a connection established between engraving and printing. this did not, however, bear fruit at all quickly. plantin's four emblem-books of , , , and were illustrated not with copper engravings, but with woodcuts; so was his bible of , so were his earlier horae. that of has unattractive woodcut borders to every page and small woodcut illustrations of no merit. in he began the use of engravings for his horae, but in a copy in the british museum, printed on vellum almost as thick as cardboard, he was reduced to pulling the pictures on paper and pasting them in their places. in he illustrated the _humanae salutis monumenta_ of his friend arias montanus with some rather pretty copperplates, each surrounded with an effective engraved border of flowers and birds, but for a new horae (on paper) in , for which he had commissioned a set of full-page plates of some merit (printed with the text on their back), he had not troubled to procure borders. two years later he produced a really curious edition in which the engraved illustrations (some of them from the _humanae salutis monumenta_) are surrounded with woodcut borders, and in many cases have red underlines, so that each page must have undergone three printings.[ ] although woodcuts were considered sufficiently good for plantin's bible of , for his great polyglot it was indispensable to have titlepages engraved on copper, and to the first volume he prefixed no fewer than three, engraved by p. van der heyden after designs by p. van der borcht. all of them are emblematical, the first symbolizing the unification of the world by the christian faith and the four languages in which the old testament was printed in the polyglott, the second the zeal of philip ii for the catholic faith, the third the authority of the pentateuch. while some volumes had no frontispiece others contained a few illustrations, and the total number of plates was twenty-eight. some of these were used again in plantin's bible of , and raphelengius, into whose possession the whole set passed in , used sixteen of them three years later to illustrate the _antiquitates judaicae_ of arias montanus. for his missals and breviaries as for his horae plantin sometimes used woodcuts, sometimes copperplates. for his editions of the works of s. augustine and s. jerome ( ) he caused really fine portrait frontispieces to be engraved by j. sadeler from the designs of crispin van den broeck. as regards his miscellaneous secular books he was by no means given to superfluous illustrations, and, as we have seen, continued to use woodcuts contemporaneously with plates. probably his earliest secular engravings (published in , but prepared some years earlier) are the anatomical diagrams in imitation of those in the roman edition of _valverde_ mentioned below, to which he prefixed a better frontispiece than that of his model. in he produced a fine book of portraits of physicians and philosophers, _icones veterum aliquot ac recentium medicorum philosophorumque_, in sixty-eight plates, with letterpress by j. sambucus. the next year he issued another illustrated book, the _de rerum usu et abusu_ of bernardus furmerius, sharing the expense of it with ph. gallus, a print-seller, for whom later on he published several books on commission. from onwards he printed for ortelius, the great cosmographer. in he published the _pegasides_ of y. b. houwaert, in waghenaer's _spieghel der zeevaerdt_, and other illustrated books followed. but none of them, little indeed that plantin ever produced, now excite much desire on the part of collectors. of what took place in other countries and cities in the absence of even tentative lists of the books printed after anywhere except in england it is difficult to say. in an anatomical book translated from the spanish of juan de valverde was published at rome with engraved diagrams of some artistic merit and a rather poorly executed frontispiece. in "in venetia appresso rampazetto," a very fine book of impresas, or emblematical personal badges, made its appearance under the title _le imprese illustre con espositioni et discorsi del s^or ieronimo ruscelli_, dedicated "al serenissimo et sempre felicissimo re catolico filippo d'austria." this has over a hundred engraved _imprese_ of three sizes, double-page for the emperor (signed g. p. f.), full-pagers for kings and other princely personages, half-pagers for ordinary folk (if any owner of an _impresa_ may be thus designated), and all these are printed with letterpress beneath, or on the back of them, and very well printed too. in another book of _imprese_, published in this same year , the text, consisting of sonnets by lodovico dolce, as well as the pictures, is engraved, or rather etched. this is the _imprese di diuersi principi, duchi, signori, etc., di batt^a pittoni pittore vicentino_. it exists in a bewildering variety of states, partly due to reprinting, partly apparently to the desire to dedicate it to several different people, one of the british museum copies being dedicated by pittoni to the earl of arundel and having a printed dedicatory letter and plate of his device preceding that of the emperor himself. another noteworthy venetian book, with engraved illustrations, which i have come across is an _orlando furioso_ of , "appresso francesco de franceschi senese e compagni," its engraved titlepage bearing the information that it has been "nuouamente adornato di figure di rame da girolamo porro," a little-known milanese engraver, who had reissued pittoni's _imprese_ in . the illustrations are far too crowded with incident to be successful, and their unity is often sacrificed to the old medieval practice of making a single design illustrate several different moments of the narrative. their execution is also very unequal. nevertheless, they are of interest to english collectors since, as we shall see, they served as models for the plates in sir john harington's version of the _orlando_ in . all of them are full-pagers, with text on the back, and the printer was also compliant enough to print at the head of each canto an engraved cartouche within which is inserted a type-printed "argomento." of sixteenth century engraved book-illustrations in france i have no personal knowledge. in germany, as might be expected, they flourished chiefly at frankfort, which in the last third of the century had, as we have seen, become a great centre for book-illustration. jost amman, who was largely responsible for its development in this respect, illustrated a few books with copper engravings, although he mainly favoured wood. but it is the work of the de brys, theodor de bry and his two sons johann israel and johann theodor, which is of conspicuous importance for our present purpose, for it was they who originated and mainly carried out the greatest illustrated work of the sixteenth century, that known to collectors as the _grands et petits voyages_. this not very happy name has nothing to do with the length of the voyages described, but is derived from the fact that the original series which is concerned with america and the west indies is some two inches taller (fourteen as compared with twelve) than a subsequent series dealing with the east indies. for the idea of such a collection of voyages theodor de bry was indebted to richard hakluyt, whose famous book _the principall navigations, voiages, and discoveries of the english nation_, published in , was in preparation when de bry was in england, where he worked in - . the first volume, moreover, was illustrated with engravings by de bry after some of the extraordinarily interesting water-colour drawings made by an englishman, john white, in virginia, and now preserved in the british museum.[ ] this first part was published in latin at frankfort by j. wechel in and a second edition followed the same year. a second part describing florida followed in , a third describing brazil in . by nine parts had been issued, all at frankfort, though by different publishers, the name of j. feyrabend being placed on the fourth, and that of m. becker on the ninth. after an interval of seventeen years two more parts of the latin edition (x. and xi.) were printed at oppenheim "typis h. galleri," and then an appendix to part xi. at frankfort in , where also were issued part xii. in and part xiii., edited by m. merian, in , this last being accompanied by an "elenchus," or index-volume, to the whole series. parallel with this latin series ran a german one with about the same dates. one or two parts were also issued in french and at least one in english. there is also an appendix of "other voyages" usually added, mostly french, and issued at amsterdam, and of nearly every volume of the whole series there were several issues and editions, all of them with differences in the plates. the "petits voyages" followed a similar course, beginning in and ending in . although the engravings, many of which are placed unpretentiously amid the text, vary greatly alike in the interest of their subjects, the value of the original designs, and the skill of the engraving, taken as a whole they have given to these _grands et petits voyages_ a unique position among books of travel, and a small literature has grown up round them to certify the collector as to the best state of each plate and what constitutes a complete set. while the illustrations to the voyages formed their chief occupation, the de brys found time to engrave many smaller plates for less important books. thus in theodor de bry issued an emblem book _emblemata nobilitati et vulgo scitu digna_ (text in latin and german), in which each emblem is enclosed in an engraved border, mostly quite meaningless and bad as regards composition, but of a brilliancy in the "goldsmiths' style" which to lovers of bookplates will suggest the best work of sherborn or french. the plates marked b and d, illustrating the lines "musica mortales divosque oblectat et ornat" and "cum cerere et baccho veneri solemnia fiunt," are especially fine and the "emblems" themselves more pleasing than usual. in there was printed, again with latin and german text, a _noua alphabeti effictio, historiis ad singulas literas correspondentibus_. the _motif_ is throughout scriptural. thus for a adam and eve sit on the crossbar on each side of the letter, the serpent rests on its peak amid the foliage of the tree of knowledge. in b abel, in c cain is perched on a convenient part of the letter, and so on, while from one letter after another, fish, birds, fruit, flowers, and anything else which came into the designer's head hang dangling on cords from every possible point. nothing could be more meaningless or lower in the scale of design, yet the brilliancy of the execution carries it off. the year after this had appeared theodor de bry engraved a series of emblems conceived by denis le bey de batilly and drawn by j. j. boissard. the designs themselves are poor enough, but the book has a pretty architectural titlepage, and this is followed by a portrait of le bey set in an ornamental border of bees, flowers, horses, and other incongruities, portrait and border alike engraved with the most brilliant delicacy (see plate xxxvii). in the following year, again, , the two younger de brys illustrated with line engravings the _acta mechmeti saracenorum principis_, and (at the end of these) the _vaticinia severi et leonis_ as to the fate of the turks, also the _david_ of arias montanus. the plates are fairly interesting, but in technical execution fall far below those of their father. [illustration: xxxvii. frankfort, de bry, le bey. emblemata. portrait of author by t. de bry, after j. j. boissard] turning now to england, we find engraving in use surprisingly early in some figures of unborn babies in _the birth of mankind_, translated from the latin of roesslin by richard jonas and printed in by thomas raynold, a physician, who five years later issued a new edition revised by himself, again with engravings. in there appeared a much more important medical work, a _compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio_ professedly by thomas geminus, a flemish surgeon and engraver attached to the english court. in reality this was a rather shameless adaptation of the _de fabrica humani corporis_ of vesalius (basel, ), with engravings copied by geminus from the woodcuts of his original. for us its chief interest lies in an elaborate engraved titlepage showing the royal arms surrounded by a wealth of architectural and strapwork ornament in the style, if not actually the work, of peter cock of alost, as has been shown by sir sidney colvin in the invaluable introduction to his _early engravings and engravers in england_ ( ). in an english translation of the anatomy was published by nicholas hyll, and in a second edition of this, printed in , a rather heavy and stiff portrait of elizabeth replaces the royal arms, which were burnished out to make room for it. geminus subsequently produced a much larger portrait of the queen, set in an architectural frame studded with emblematical figures, and a royal proclamation forbidding unauthorized "paynters, printers, and gravers" to meddle with so great a subject seems to have been provoked by his handiwork. in john shute for his work on _the first and chief groundes of architecture_ produced four amateurish engravings to illustrate four of the five "orders," a woodcut being considered good enough for the fifth. in we find the first edition of the "bishops'" bible adorned with an engraved titlepage in the centre of which, in an oval, is a not unpleasing portrait of the queen, holding sceptre and orb, set in a mass of strapwork, amid which are seated charity and faith with the royal arms between them, while below the portrait a lion and dragon support a cartouche enclosing a text. besides this titlepage, attributed by sir sidney colvin to franciscus hogenberg, before the book of joshua there is an engraved portrait of leicester, while the "blessed is the man" of the first psalm is heralded by another engraved portrait which shows lord burghley holding in front of him a great b. in remigius hogenberg, brother of franciscus, engraved after a picture by john lyne a stiff but rather impressive portrait of archbishop parker, prefixed to some copies of his _de antiquitate ecclesiae britanniae_. the year before this the second edition of the "bishops'" bible had been enriched with a decorative engraved map of the holy land, and in archbishop parker employed john lyne to engrave for the _de antiquitate academiae cantabrigiensis_ of dr. caius (printed by day) a plate of the arms of the colleges, a plan of the university schools, and a large map of the town. in there appeared a work which had occupied the intermediate five years, a series of maps of england from the drawings of christopher saxton, engraved by augustine ryther (like saxton a native of leeds), remigius hogenberg and others, and with a fine frontispiece showing the queen seated in state beneath an architectural canopy, which sir sidney colvin thinks may perhaps be the work of ryther. ryther was subsequently concerned with other maps, including the series illustrating the defeat of the armada (_expeditionis hispanorum in angliam vera descriptio_), and other cartographers got to work who hardly concern us here. two long engraved rolls, the first by marcus gheraerts, representing a procession of the knights of the garter ( ), the second by theodor de bry, from the designs of thomas lant, the funeral of sir philip sidney ( ), although most safely preserved when bound in book form, can hardly be reckoned as books. yet over the latter i must stop to confess a dreadful sin of my youth, when i jumped to the conclusion that the portrait on the first page stood for sidney himself, whereas it really represents the too self-advertising lant. that it appears in the sky, above the black pinnace which bore home sidney's body, and itself bears the suggestive motto "god createth, man imitateth, virtue flourisheth, death finisheth," may palliate but cannot excuse the crime which enriched an edition of _astrophel and stella_ with a portrait, not of sidney, but of the illustrator of his funeral. not until , when hugh broughton's _concent of scripture_ was accompanied by some apocalyptic plates engraved by jodocus hondius (subsequently copied by w. rogers), do we come across what can really be called engraved illustrations in an english book, and these, which are of little interest, were speedily eclipsed the next year by sir john harington's _orlando furioso in english heroical verse_ with its engraved titlepage and forty-six plates. of these the translator writes in his introduction: as for the pictures, they are all cut in brasse, and most of them by the best workemen in that kinde, that haue bene in this land this manie yeares: yet i will not praise them too much, because i gaue direction for their making, and in regard thereof i may be thought partiall, but this i may truely say, that (for mine owne part) i have not seene anie made in england better, nor (in deede) anie of this kinde in any booke, except it were in a treatise, set foorth by that profound man, maister broughton, the last yeare, upon the reuelation, in which there are some . or . pretie figures (in octauo) cut in brasse verie workemanly. as for other books that i haue seene in this realme, either in latin or english, with pictures, as liuy, gesner, alciats emblemes, a booke _de spectris_ in latin, & (in our tong) the chronicles, the booke of martyrs, the book of hauking and hunting, and m. whitney's excellent emblems, yet all their figures are cut on wood, & none in metall, and in that respect inferior to these, at least (by the old proverbe) the more cost, the more worship. the passage is of considerable interest, but hardly suggests, what is yet the fact, that, save for the addition on the titlepage of an oval portrait of the translator and a representation of his dog, all the plates in the book are closely copied from the engravings by girolamo porro in the venice edition of . the english titlepage was signed by thomas cockson. we are left to conjecture to whom harington was indebted for the rest of the plates. although, as we shall see, from this time forward a great number of english books contain engraved work, those which can be said to be illustrated during the next sixty years are few enough, a study of mr. a. m. hind's very useful _list of the works of native and foreign line-engravers in england from henry viii to the commonwealth_,[ ] tempting me to place the number at about a score. the year after the _orlando furioso_ came another curious treatise by hugh broughton, not printed with type, but "graven in brasse by j. h.," whom sir sidney colvin identifies with jodocus hondius, a fleming who lived in england from about to , and may have done the plates in the _concent of scripture_ and some at least of those in the _orlando_. six years later ( ) we find lomazzo's _tracte containing the artes of curious paintinge_ with an emblematical titlepage and thirteen plates by richard haydock, the translator, four of the plates being adapted from dürer's book on proportion, and all of them showing very slight skill in engraving. in came sir william segar's _honour, military and civil_, with eight plates showing various distinguished persons, english and foreign, wearing the robes and insignia of the garter, the golden fleece, s. michael, etc. three of the plates are signed by william rogers, the most distinguished of the english elizabethan engravers, and the others are probably his also. most of them are very dignified and effective in the brilliantly printed "first states" in which they are sometimes found, but ordinary copies with only the "second states" are as a rule disappointing. the beginning of the reign of james i was directly responsible for one ambitious engraved publication, stephen harrison's _the archs of triumph erected in honor of the high and mighty prince james, the first of that name king of england and the sixt of scotland, at his maiesties entrance and passage through his honorable city & chamber of london vpon the th day of march [ ] invented and published by stephen harrison joyner and architect and graven by william kip_. here an engraved titlepage, with dangling ornaments in the style of the de bry alphabet, is followed by seven plates of the seven arches, the most notable of which (a pity it was not preserved) was crowned with a most interesting model of jacobean london, to which the engraver has done admirable justice. in came robert glover's _nobilitas politica et civilis_, re-edited two years later by t. milles as the _catalogue of honour_, with engraved illustrations (in the text) of the robes of the various degrees of nobility, attributed by sir sidney colvin to renold elstracke, the son of a flemish refugee, and also two plates representing the king in a chair of state and in parliament. after this we come to two works illustrated by an english engraver of some note, william hole, tom coryat's _crudities_ ( ), with a titlepage recalling various incidents of his travels (including his being sick at sea) and five plates (or in some copies, six), and drayton's _polyolbion_ ( , reissued in with the portrait-plate in a different state), with a poor emblematic title, a portrait of prince henry wielding a lance, and eighteen decorative maps of england. in we come to a really well-illustrated book, the _relation of a journey_, by george sandys, whose narrative of travel in turkey, egypt, and the holy land, and parts of italy, is accompanied with little delicately engraved landscapes and bits of architecture, etc., by francis delaram. the work of the decade is brought to a close with two print-selling ventures, the _basili[omega]logia_ of and _her[omega]ologia_ of . the former of these works describes itself as being "the true and lively effigies of all our english kings from the conquest untill this present: with their severall coats of armes, impreses and devises. and a briefe chronologie of their lives and deaths. elegantly graven in copper. printed for h. holland and are to be sold by comp.[ton] holland over against the exchange." the full set of plates numbers thirty-two, including eight additions to the scheme of the book, representing the black prince, john of gaunt, anne boleyn, a second version of elizabeth, mary queen of scots, anne of denmark, prince henry, and prince charles. fourteen of the plates, mostly the earlier ones, are signed by elstracke, and simon passe and francis delaram each contributed four. it need hardly be said that they are of very varying degrees of authenticity as well as merit. several of the later plates are found in more than one state. with the second of the two ventures henry holland was also concerned, but the expenses of the book were shared by crispin passe and an arnhem bookseller named jansen. its title reads: "her[omega]ologia anglica: hoc est clarissimorum et doctissimorum aliquot anglorum qui floruerunt ab anno cristi md. usque ad presentem annum mdcxx." it is in two volumes, the first containing thirty-seven plates, the second thirty. two of these represent respectively queen elizabeth's tomb and the hearse of henry prince of wales. all the rest are portraits of the notable personages of the reigns of henry viii and his successors, some of them based on drawings by holbein, the majority on earlier prints, and all engraved by william passe (younger brother of simon) and his sister magdalena. [illustration: xxxviii. london. j. marriot, quarles. hieroglyphikes of the life of man. page engraved by w. marshall] the next decade was far from productive of works illustrated with more than an engraved titlepage and a portrait, but in appeared captain john smith's _true travels_ with several illustrations, one of them by martin droeshout; in - came wither's _emblems_, with plates by william marshall, and in thomas heywood's _hierarchie of the blessed angels_, with an engraved title by thomas cecill and plates representing the several orders, seraphim, cherubim, and thrones being entrusted to john payne, dominations to marshall, powers and principalities to glover, virtues to droeshout, etc. some of the plates record the name of the patron who paid for them, another suggestion that it was money which stood most in the way of book-illustrating. in marshall illustrated quarles's _hieroglyphikes of the life of man_, with engravings, most of which seem chiefly made up of a candle, but in one the candle is being extinguished by death egged on by time, and to this not very promising subject (plate xxxviii) marshall, the most unequal engraver of his day, has brought some of his too rare touches of delicacy and charm. in wenceslaus hollar, whom thomas earl of arundel had discovered at cologne (he was born at prague) and brought to england, published his charming costume book _ornatus muliebris anglicanus_, and his larger work, _theatrum mulierum_, must have been almost ready when charles i hoisted his standard at nottingham, since it was published in . after this the civil war interfered for some time with the book trade. while fully illustrated books were thus far from numerous in the half century which followed the _orlando furioso_ of , the output of engraved titlepages and portraits to be prefixed to books was sufficient to find work for most of the minor engravers. the earlier titlepages were mostly architectural and symbolical, their purport being sometimes explained in verses printed opposite to them, headed "the mind of the front." william rogers engraved a titlepage to gerard's _herbal_ ( ), which is never found properly printed, and others to linschoten's _discourse of voyages into y^e east and west indies_ ( ), camden's _britannia_ ( --a poor piece of work), and moffett's _theatrum insectorum_, this last having only survived in a copy pasted at the head of the author's manuscript at the british museum. william hole did an enlarged title for camden's _britannia_ ( ), titles for the different sections of chapman's _homer_, a portrait of john florio for the italian-english dictionary which he was pleased to call _queen anna's new world of words_, a charming titlepage to a collection of virginal music known as _parthenia_ ( - ), another to browne's _britannia's pastorals_, and much less happy ones to drayton's _polyolbion_ ( ), and the _works_ of ben jonson ( ). the best-known titlepages engraved by renold elstracke are those to raleigh's _history of the world_ ( ) and the _workes of the most high and mightie prince james_ ( ), the latter a good piece of work which when faced, as it should be, by the portrait of the king by simon van de passe, makes the most decorative opening to any english book of this period. passe himself was responsible for the very imaginative engraved title to bacon's _novum organum_ ( ), a sea on which ships are sailing and rising out of it two pillars with the inscription: "multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia" (many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased). his son william, besides his work on the _her[omega]ologia_, already mentioned, engraved a complicated title for chapman's version of _the batrachomyomachia_ or battle of the frogs and mice, humorously called _the crowne of all homer's worckes_. after the old architectural and symbolical titlepages began to be replaced by titles in compartments, in which a central cartouche is surrounded by little squares, each representing some incident of the book. portraits of the author remained much in request, and nearly a hundred of these were done by william marshall, who was employed also on about as many engraved titlepages. as has been noted, his work was strangely uneven, and he fully deserved the scorn poured on him by milton for the wretched caricature of the poet prefixed to the _poems_ of . yet marshall could at times do a good plate, as, for instance, that in quarles's _hieroglyphikes_ already mentioned, a portrait of bacon prefixed to the oxford edition of his _advancement of learning_ and the charming frontispiece to brathwait's _arcadian princess_. marshall at his worst fell only a little below the work of thomas cross; at his best he rivalled or excelled the good work of thomas cecill and george glover. after cromwell's strong hand had given england some kind of settled government the book market revived, and some ambitiously illustrated books were soon being published. the too versatile john ogilby, dancing-master, poet, and publisher, appeared early in the field, his version of the fables of aesop, "adorned with sculpture," being printed by t. warren for a. crook in . the next year came benlowe's _theophila, or love's sacrifice_, a mystical poem, some copies of which have as many as thirty-six plates by various hands, with much more etching than engraving in them. in ogilby produced his translation of virgil, a great folio with plates dedicated to noble patrons by pierre lambart. ogilby's other important ventures were the large _odyssey_ of , and the aesop's _fables_ of the same year, with plates by hollar, d. stoop, and f. barlow, and two portraits of the translator engraved respectively by pierre lambert and w. faithorne. faithorne embellished other books of this period, e.g. the poems of the "matchless orinda" ( ), with portraits, and publishers who could not afford to pay faithorne employed r. white. the presence of a portrait by white in a copy of the first edition of bunyan's _pilgrim's progress_, to which it was very far indeed from certain that it really belonged,[ ] has once made the book sell for over £ , but save for the sake of completeness his handiwork is not greatly prized by collectors, nor is there any english illustrated book of this period after the restoration which is much sought after for the sake of its plates, although those of ogilby's _virgil_ were sufficiently well thought of to be used again for dryden's version in . meanwhile, books with illustrations _en taille douce_ were being issued in some numbers both at paris and at amsterdam. in the former city françois chauveau ( - ), in the latter jan and casper luyken are credited by mr. hind (_a short history of engraving and etching_, ) with having produced "hosts of small and undistinguished plates," and these damning epithets explain how it is that even patriotic french collectors like eugène paillet and henri béraldi thought it wise to leave the illustrated books of the seventeenth century severely alone. we meet the first advance guard of the brilliant french eighteenth century school of book-illustration in , when a pretty little edition of _les amours de daphnis et chloé_ (as translated by bishop amyot from the greek of longus) made its appearance with twenty-eight plates by benoît audran, after the designs of no less a person than the regent of france, and duly labelled and dated "philippus in. et pinx. ." the plates vary very much in charm, but that with the underline _chloé sauve daphnis par le son de sa flûte_ certainly possesses it, and one of the double-plates in the book, _daphnis prend ses oyseaux pendant l'hyver pour voir chloé_, is really pretty. we find no other book to vie with this until we come to a much larger and more pretentious one, the works of molière in six volumes, royal quarto, published in . this was illustrated with thirty-three plates, in the mixture of etching and engraving characteristic of the french school of the day, by laurent cars, after pencil drawings by françois boucher, and by nearly two hundred vignettes and tailpieces (not all different) after boucher and others by cars and françois joullain. another edition of this in four volumes with boucher's designs reproduced on a smaller scale was published in and reprinted three times within the decade. after the molière, books and editions which collectors take count of come much more quickly. there was an edition of montesquieu's _le temple de gnide_ in (imprint: londres), a _virgil_ in with plates by cochin, engraved by cochin père, the _contes_ of la fontaine (amsterdam, - ) also illustrated by cochin, guer's _moeurs et usages des turcs_, with plates after boucher ( ), an edition of the works of boileau in five volumes, with vignettes by eisen and tailpieces by cochin ( - ), and in a _manon lescaut_ (imprint: amsterdam) with some plates by j. j. pasquier, which are stiff, and others by h. gravelot, which are feeble. in the four-volume edition of the _fables_ of la fontaine ( - ) with illustrations after j. b. oudry, we come to a very ambitious piece of work, handsomely carried out, which a book-lover may yet find it hard to admire. oudry's designs are always adequate, and have more virility in them than is often found in the work of this school, and they are competently interpreted by a number of etchers and engravers, some of whom, it may be noted, worked together in pairs on the same plate, so that we find such signatures as "c. cochin aqua forti, r. gaillard cælo sculpsit," and "gravé à l'eau forte par c. cochin, terminé au burin par p. chenu"--a very explicit statement of the method of work. but adequate as the plates may seem, if they are judged not as book-illustrations but as engravings, no one could rate them high, and as a book what is to be said of an edition of la fontaine's _fables_, which fills four volumes, each measuring nearly nineteen inches by thirteen? the bookman can only regard such a work as a portfolio of plates with accompanying text, and if the plates as plates are only second rate, enthusiasm has nothing to build on. we return to book-form in , when boccaccio's _decamerone_ was published in italian (imprint: londra) in five octavo volumes, with charming vignettes and illustrations mostly by gravelot, although a few are by boucher and eisen. gravelot, who was more industrious than successful as an illustrator, is seen here to advantage, and deserves some credit for having made his designs not less but more reticent than the stories he had to illustrate. this praise can certainly not be given to the famous edition of the _contes_ of la fontaine, the cost of which was borne by the fermiers-généraux (imprint: amsterdam). the _fleurons_ by choffard are throughout delightful and the plates are brilliantly engraved, but the lubricity of eisen's designs is wearisome in the first volume and disgusting in the second, and possessors of the book are not to be envied. it is to be regretted that the next book we have to notice, the _contes moraux_ of marmontel ( vols., ), has very little charm to support its morality, the plates after gravelot being poor, while the head- and tailpieces, or rather the substitutes for them, are wretched. a much better book than either of these last is the edition in french and latin of ovid's _metamorphoses_ in four quarto volumes ( - ); with plates after boucher, eisen, gravelot, and moreau, and headpieces by choffard at the beginning of each book. the imprint, "a paris, chez leclerc, quai des augustins, avec approbation et privilège du roi," prepares us to find that the designers have kept their licence within bounds, and many of the plates have a combined humour and charm which are very attractive. if i had to choose a single plate to show gravelot at his best, i doubt if prolonged search would find any success more complete than that of the illustration to book i, xi., _deucalion et pyrrha repeuplant la terre, suivant l'oracle de themis_ (see the frontispiece to this volume, plate i), and though eisen was a much better artist than gravelot, his _apollon gardant les troupeaux d'admet, dans les campagnes de messene_ (ii, x.) is certainly one of his prettiest pieces. [illustration: xxxix. paris, lambert, . dorat. les baisers. page with engraved headpiece after eisen] during the next few years illustrated books became the fashion, so that in cazotte wrote _le diable amoureux, nouvelle d'espagne_, with the false imprint naples (paris, lejay) and six unsigned plates, said to be by moreau after marillier, on purpose to ridicule the craze for putting illustrations into every book. in the indefatigable gravelot had illustrated an edition of the works of voltaire, published at geneva, with forty-four designs. in _les saisons_, a poem by saint lambert, was published at amsterdam, with designs by gravelot and le prince and _fleurons_ by choffard. in the same year there was published at paris meunier de queslon's _les graces_, with an engraved title by moreau, a frontispiece after boucher, and five plates after moreau. in came voltaire's _henriade_ with ten plates and ten vignettes after eisen, and more highly esteemed even than this, dorat's _les baisers_ (la haye et paris), with a frontispiece and plate and forty-four head- and tailpieces, all (save two) after eisen, not easily surpassed in their own luxurious style (see plate xxxix). in gravelot, more indefatigable than ever, supplied designs for twenty plates and numerous head- and tailpieces for an edition of tasso's _gerusalemme liberata_, and was honoured, as eisen had been in the fermiers-généraux edition of la fontaine's _contes_, by his portrait being prefixed to the second volume. in a new edition of montesquieu's _le temple de gnide_, in which the text was engraved throughout, was illustrated with designs by eisen, brilliantly interpreted by le mire, and imbert's _le jugement de paris_ was illustrated by moreau, with, _fleurons_ by choffard. in _le temple de gnide_ was versified by colardeau, and illustrated by monnet, and selections from anacreon, sappho, bion, and moschus by eisen, while moreau and others illustrated the _chansons_ of laborde in four volumes and the works of molière in six. after this the pace slackened, and we need no longer cling to the methods of the annalist. moreau illustrated saint lambert's _les saisons_ and fromageot's _annales du règne de marie therèse_ (both in ), marmontel's _les incas_ ( ), the seventy-volume voltaire ( - ), _paul et virginie_ ( ), and many other works, living on to illustrate goethe's _werther_ in ; other books were adorned by marillier, cochin, duplessis, bertaux, desrais, saint quentin, fragonard, gérard, and le barbier, and the fashion survived the revolution and lingered on till about . we must go back now to england, where at the end of the seventeenth century the requirements of book-illustration were neglected, partly because of the growing taste for a neat simplicity in books, partly because the chief english engravers all devoted themselves to mezzotint. a few foreigners came over to supply their place, and michael burghers, of amsterdam, illustrated the fourth edition of _paradise lost_, a stately folio, in , with plates which enjoyed a long life and were also imitated for smaller editions. burghers also illustrated the oxford almanacs, and supplied frontispieces to the bibles and other large books issued by the university press up to about . another dutchman who came to england not much later (in about ) was michael van der gucht, who worked for the booksellers, as his children did after him. how low book-illustration had fallen in england at the beginning of the eighteenth century may be seen by a glance at the wretched plates which disfigure rowe's shakespeare in , the first edition on which an editor and an illustrator were allowed to work their wills. the year after this louis du guernier came to england, and was soon engaged in the not too patriotic task of helping claude du bosc to illustrate the victories of marlborough. in he and du bosc were less painfully, though not very successfully, employed in making plates for pope's _rape of the lock_. du bosc subsequently worked on the _religious ceremonies of all nations_ ( ), an english edition of a book of bernard picart's, and on plates for rapin's _history of england_ ( ), but he was far from being a great engraver. it is a satisfaction that the plates to the first edition of _robinson crusoe_ ( ) were engraved by two englishmen, and not very badly. their names are given as "clark and pine," the clark being presumably john clark ( - ), who engraved some writing-books, and the pine, john pine ( - ), who imitated some designs by bernard picart to the book of jonah in , and may have been a pupil of his at amsterdam. it should, perhaps, have been mentioned that two years before _crusoe_ an english engraver, john sturt ( - ), produced a book of common prayer, of which the text as well as the pictures was engraved. this is rather a curiosity than a work of art, the frontispiece being a portrait of george i made up of the creed, lord's prayer, ten commandments, prayer for the royal family, and psalm xxi. written in minute characters, instead of lines. sturt produced another engraved book, _the orthodox communicant_, in . in william hogarth began what might have proved a notable career as a book-illustrator had not he soon found more profitable work. he illustrated the travels of aubry de la mottraye in , briscoe's _apuleius_ ( ), cotterel's translation of _cassandra_ ( ), blackwell's _compendium of military discipline_ ( ), and (also in ) butler's _hudibras_, his plates to which, though grotesque enough, show plenty of character. for some years after this he worked on frontispieces, e.g. to leveridge's _songs_ ( ), cooke's _hesiod_ ( ), j. miller's comedy, _the humours of oxford_ ( ), theobald's _perseus and andromeda_ ( ), and in to a molière, fielding's _tragedy of tragedies_, and mitchell's _highland fair_. but the success of his set of prints on "the harlot's progress" diverted him from bookwork, although many years after he contributed frontispieces to vols. ii and iv of _tristram shandy_, and in a head-and tailpiece (engraved by grignion) to a catalogue of the society of arts. in hubert gravelot was invited from france by du bosc to help in illustrating picart's _religious ceremonies_. he illustrated gay's _fables_ in , richardson's _pamela_ in , theobald's _shakespeare_ in , and, mainly after hayman, hanmer's in - . neither of the sets of shakespeare plates deserves any higher praise than that of being neat and pretty, but at least they were a whole plane above those in rowe's edition. the year after gravelot came to england, in , pine produced the first volume of his _horace_, engraved throughout, and with head- and tailpieces in admirable taste. the second volume followed in , and in the first of an illustrated _virgil_ which pine did not live to complete. besides his work on hanmer's _shakespeare_, francis hayman designed illustrations to moore's _fables of the female sex_ ( ), which were well engraved, some of them by charles grignion, a pupil of gravelot's, born in england ( ), but of foreign parentage. hayman also illustrated the _spectator_ ( ), newton's _milton_ ( - ), and later on, with the aid of grignion, smollett's _don quixote_ ( ), and baskerville's edition of congreve's _poems_ ( ). the plates to the earlier edition of _don quixote_, that of , had been chiefly engraved by gerard van der gucht after vanderbank, but two are by hogarth. [illustration: xl. london, t. hope, walton, compleat angler w. w. rylands after s. wale] samuel wale (died ), a pupil of hayman, was also an illustrator, and in supplied sir john hawkins with fourteen drawings for his edition of walton's _angler_. these were engraved by the luckless w. w. rylands, who was hanged for forgery in , and the walton thus produced is one of the prettiest and least affected of the illustrated books of its day (see plate xl). wale also drew designs for wilkie's _fables_ ( ) and goldsmith's _traveller_ ( ). he also worked for the magazines which about the middle of the century made rather a feature of engravings, often as headpieces to music. a few of the isolated books may be named, thus paltock's _peter wilkins_ ( ) was illustrated very well by louis peter boitard, who had previously contributed numerous plates to spence's _polymetis_, and in supplied a frontispiece to each of the six books of the _scribleriad_ by r. o. cambridge. another book which, like _peter wilkins_, was concerned with flight, lunardi's _account of the first aerial voyage in england_ ( ), has a portrait of the author by bartolozzi and two plates. for baskerville's edition of the _orlando furioso_ (birmingham, ) recourse was had to plates by de launay, after moreau and eisen. footnotes: [ ] "in quo precipue tractat: an amico sepe ad scribendum prouocato ut scribat, non respondenti sit amplius scribendum." [ ] it was probably from his horae plates that plantin illustrated the _rerum sacrarum liber_ of laur. gambara in . they are printed with the text and are of average merit. [ ] they were bought to accompany the fine set of de bry collected by mr. grenville, but have since been transferred to the department of prints and drawings. [ ] contributed to the work by sir sidney colvin, _early engravers and engraving in england_, already quoted. [ ] this was an early proof of the portrait which is found in a slightly different state in copies of the third edition, and seemed to be an insertion in the first edition rather than an integral part of it. chapter xvi modern fine printing after the restoration, printing and the book trade generally in england became definitely modern in their character, and the printer practically disappears from view, his work, with here and there an exception, as in the case of robert foulis or john baskerville, being altogether hidden behind that of the publisher, so that it is of herringman and bernard lintott and dodsley that we hear, not of newcomb and roycroft. notwithstanding this decline in the printer's importance, there was a steady improvement in english printing. as an _art_ it had ceased at this time to exist. if a publisher wished to make a book beautiful he put in plates. if he wanted to make it more beautiful he put in more or larger plates. if he wanted to make it a real triumph of beauty he engraved the whole book, letterpress and all, as in the case of sturt's prayer books and pine's _horace_. that a printer by the selection and arrangement of type, by good presswork and the use of pretty capitals and tailpieces, could make a book charming to eye and hand, without any help from an illustrator--such an idea as this had nearly perished. there was little loss in this, since if any artistic work had been attempted it would assuredly have been bad, whereas the craftsmen, when set to do quite plain work, gradually learnt to do it in a more workmanlike way. in this they were helped by certain improvements in printing which rendered the task of the pressman less laborious. in the middle of the seventeenth century william blaew, of amsterdam, invented an improved press, "fabricated nine of these new fashioned presses, set them all on a row in his printing house and called each press by the name of one of the muses." clearly blaew was an enthusiast. his chronicler, joseph moxon, was a fairly good english printer, and his description of the equipment of a printing house in the second part of his _mechanick exercises_ ( ) contains much information still interesting. we gather from moxon that blaew's improvements were slowly copied in england, and we know that the english printers still continued to buy their best founts from holland. thus when bishop fell, about , was equipping the university press at oxford with better type, he employed an agent in holland to purchase founts for him. english founts of which we have any reason to be proud date from the appearance about of william caslon, who established a firm of type founders which has enjoyed a long and deservedly prosperous career. the next move came from the north. robert foulis (the name was originally spelt faulls), born in , the son of a glasgow maltster, had been originally apprenticed to a barber. he was, however, a man of bookish tastes, and, when already over thirty years of age, was advised to set up in business as a printer and bookseller. with his brother andrew, five years younger than himself and educated for the ministry, he went on a book-buying tour on the continent, and on his return started book-selling in , and printed in that year dr. william leechman's _temper, character, and duty of a minister of the gospel_, and four other books, including a phaedrus and a volume of cicero. in march, , he was appointed printer to the university of glasgow, and his edition of _demetrius phalerus de elocutione_ in greek and latin was the first example of greek printing produced at glasgow. a _horace_ which was hung up in proof in the university, with the offer of a reward for every misprint detected (in spite of which six remained), followed in , an _iliad_ in , an edition of _hardyknute_ in , and a _cicero_ in . in as many as thirty works were printed at the foulis press. the next two years were mainly spent in touring on the continent, and on his return robert foulis unhappily started an academy of art at glasgow, which he had neither the knowledge nor the taste to direct successfully, and which sapped his energies without producing any valuable results. an edition of the greek text of callimachus in was rewarded by an edinburgh society with a gold medal, and other greek and latin texts followed, including the _iliad_ in , _anacreon_ in , _virgil_ and the _odyssey_ in , and _herodotus_ in . among the more notable later books of the firm were an edition of gray's _poems_ in , and a _paradise lost_ in . the younger brother died in , and robert, after a mortifying experience in london, where he sold the "old masters" he had bought as models for his academy for less than a pound over the expenses incurred in the sale, followed him the next year. the two brothers had raised printing at glasgow from insignificance to an excellence which equalled, and perhaps surpassed, the standard attained at london, oxford or cambridge, or, indeed, for the moment, anywhere in europe. this was no small achievement, and their compatriots and fellow citizens may well show them honour. but they were content to work according to the best standards set by other men without making any positive advance upon them or showing any originality. they avoided the snare of bad ornaments by using none; their greek types were modelled on the french royal types associated with the name of the Étiennes; their roman types exhibit no special excellence. historically, their chief importance is that they proved that care and enthusiasm for fine printing was re-awakening, and that printers with high ideals would not lack support. meanwhile, in the english midlands an interesting and creditable, though wrong-headed, attempt to improve on existing founts had been made by john baskerville, a worcestershire man, born in , who worked at birmingham, and in printed there in his own types a quarto edition of _virgil_ which attracted considerable notice. the merit of baskerville's type is its distinctness; its fault is the reappearance in a slightly different form of the old heresy of aldus, that what is good, or is thought to be good, in penmanship must necessarily be good in type. in imitation of the writing-masters baskerville delighted in making his upstrokes very thin and his downstrokes thick, and his serifs--that is, all the little finishing strokes of the letters--sharp and fine. it is probable that his ideals were influenced in this direction by books like pine's _horace_ ( - ), in which, as already noted, the letterpress as well as the illustrations and ornament is engraved throughout. these contrasts of light and heavy lines would naturally please an engraver; but they have no advantage when transferred to type, only making the page appear restless and spotty. contemporary opinion in england was no more than lukewarm in their favour. the _virgil_ procured baskerville a commission from the university of oxford to cut a greek fount, but this was generally condemned, though it had the merit of being free from contractions. editions of milton's _paradise lost_ and _paradise regained_ ( ), and other classics, were more successful, and baskerville was appointed printer to the university of cambridge for ten years; but his profits were small, and when he died in , in default of an adequate english offer, his types were sold to a french society for £ , and used in printing a famous edition of the works of voltaire ( - ). the most conspicuous exponent of baskerville's methods was an italian, giovanni battista bodoni, born in piedmont in . bodoni settled at parma, and it was at parma that he did most of his printing. even more notably than baskerville, he tried to give to the pages which he printed the brilliancy of a fine engraving. he used good black ink (which is to his credit), exaggerated the differences between his thick strokes and his thin, and left wide spaces between his lines so as to let the elegance of his type stand out as brilliantly as possible against the white paper. the judgment of the best modern printers is against these vivid contrasts and in favour of a more closely set page, the two pages which face each other being regarded as an artistic whole which should not be cut into strips by a series of broad white spaces. bodoni's books, which used to be highly esteemed, are now perhaps unduly neglected, for his work in its own way, whether he used roman type, italics, or greek, is very good, and his editions of _virgil_, _homer_, and the _imitatio christi_ are very striking books, though built on wrong lines. bodoni died at padua in . while the names of caslon, the brothers foulis, and baskerville in great britain, and of bodoni in italy, stand out from amid their contemporaries, the premier place in french book-production was occupied by members of the didot family. the first of these was françois didot ( - ); his eldest son, françois ambroise ( - ), was a fine printer; his younger son, pierre ( - ), was also a typefounder and papermaker. in the third generation pierre's son henri ( - ) was famous for his microscopic type, while pierre ii ( - ), the eldest son of françois ambroise and nephew of pierre i, printed some fine editions of latin and french classics at the press at the louvre; and his brother firmin didot ( - ) won renown both as a typefounder and engraver, and also as a printer and improver of the art of stereotyping, besides being a deputy and writer of tragedies. in the fourth generation, the two sons of firmin didot, ambroise ( - ) and hyacinthe, carried on the family traditions. incidentally, ambroise wrote some valuable treatises on wood-engraving and amassed an enormous library, which, when sold at auction in - , realized nearly £ , . with the names of bodoni and the didots we may link that of the german publisher and printer georg joachim goeschen, grandfather of the late viscount goschen. he was born in , died in , and worked the greater part of his life at leipzig. he brought out pretty illustrated editions, made experiments with greek types, much on the same lines as bodoni, and devoted his life to the improvement of printing and bookmaking and the spread of good literature, enjoying the friendship of schiller and other eminent german writers. coming back to england, we may note the beginning of the chiswick press in , the year of the french revolution. charles whittingham was then only twenty-two (he had been born at coventry in ), and for his first years as his own master he was content to print hand-bills and do any other jobbing work that he could get. he began issuing illustrated books in , and after a time the care he took in making ready wood-blocks (the use of which had been revived by bewick) for printing gained him a special reputation. from about to his death in he left one branch of his business in the city under the charge of a partner, while he himself lived and worked at chiswick, whence the name the chiswick press by which the firm is still best known. his nephew, charles whittingham the younger, was born in , was apprenticed to his uncle in and worked with him until . then he set up for himself at tooks court off chancery lane, and came rapidly to the front, largely from the work which he did for william pickering, a well-known publisher of those days. on his uncle's death in the younger whittingham inherited the chiswick business also. four years after this, in , he led the way in the revival of old-faced types. the examples of baskerville at home and of bodoni and other printers abroad had not been without effect on english printing. brilliancy had been sought at all costs, and in the attempt to combine economy with it the height of letters had been increased and their breadth diminished so that, while they looked larger, more of them could be crowded into a line. the younger whittingham had the good taste to see that the rounder, more evenly tinted type, which caslon had made before these influences had come into play, was much pleasanter to look at and less trying to the eyes. he was already thinking of reviving it when he was commissioned by longmans to print a work of fiction, _so much of the diary of lady willoughby as relates to her domestic history and to the eventful period of the reign of charles the first_, and it occurred to him that the use of old-faced type would be especially in keeping with such a book. a handsome small quarto was the result, and the revival of old-faced type proved a great success. not content with reviving old type, the younger whittingham revived also the use of ornamental initials, causing numerous copies to be cut for him from the initials used in french books of the sixteenth century. some of these are good, some almost bad, or while good in themselves, suitable only for use with black-letter founts and too heavy for use with roman letter. still the attempt was in the right direction, and the books of this period with the imprint of the chiswick press are worth the attention of collectors interested in the modern developments of printing. during the succeeding forty years there is little by which they are likely to be attracted save the issues of the private press kept and worked by the rev. c. h. o. daniel of worcester college, oxford, of which he is now provost. while he was yet a lad mr. daniel had amused himself with printing, and a thin duodecimo is still extant entitled _sir richard's daughter, a christmas tale of olden times_, bearing the imprint "excudebat h. daniel: trinity parsonage, frome, ." in mr. daniel resumed his old hobby at oxford, printing _notes from a catalogue of pamphlets in worcester college library_, and in _a new sermon of the newest fashion by ananias snip_, of which the original is preserved in the library of worcester college. it was, however, in , by an edition of thirty-six copies of _the garland of rachel_ "by divers kindly hands," that the daniel press won its renown. rachel was mr. daniel's little daughter, and the eighteen contributors to her "garland" included frederick locker, robert bridges, austin dobson, andrew lang, edmund gosse, john addington symonds, lewis carrol, w. henley, and margaret woods. each poet was rewarded by a copy in which his name was printed on the titlepage, and the "garland" soon came to be regarded as a very desirable possession. mr. daniel subsequently printed numerous little books by interesting writers (robert bridges, walter pater, canon dixon, and others), and while neither his types nor his presswork were exceptionally good, succeeded in investing them all with a charming appropriateness which gives them a special place of their own in the affections of book-lovers. another venture in which a high literary standard was combined with much care for typography was _the hobby-horse_, a quarterly magazine edited by herbert p. horne and selwyn image between and , after which it appeared fitfully and flickered out. the change in the type, the setting it close instead of spaced, and the new initials and tailpieces which may be noted at the beginning of vol. iii ( ), constituted a landmark in the history of modern printing of an importance similar to that of the return to old-faced type in _lady willoughby's diary_. the progress of the movement can be followed (i) in the catalogue of the exhibition of arts and crafts exhibition society, held at the new gallery in the autumn of , with an article on printing by mr. emery walker; (ii) in three books by william morris, viz. _the house of the wolfings_, _the roots of the mountains_, and the _gunnlaug saga_, printed under the superintendence of the author and mr. walker at the chiswick press in and . in william morris gave an immense impetus to the revival of fine printing by setting up a press at no. upper mall, hammersmith, close to his own residence, kelmscott house. "it was the essence of my undertaking," he wrote subsequently, "to produce books which it would be a pleasure to look upon as pieces of printing and arrangement of type," and no one will be inclined to deny that the kelmscott press books fulfil this aim. the gothic type, whether in its larger or smaller size (the troy type designed for the reprint of caxton's _recuyell of the histories of troy_, and the chaucer type designed for the great _chaucer_), will hold its own against any gothic type of the fifteenth century. the golden type (designed for the reprint of caxton's _golden legend_) cannot be praised as highly as this. "by instinct rather than by conscious thinking it over," morris confessed, "i began by getting myself a fount of roman type," and it is no unfair criticism of it to say that it betrays the hand of a man whose natural expression was in gothic letter forcing roman into yielding some of the characteristic gothic charm. the _golden legend_ would have been a far finer book if it had been printed in the chaucer type, and the shelley, keats, herrick and other books which morris printed in it to please f. s. ellis or other friends cannot stand the test of comparison with _the wood beyond the world_ and the other romances which he printed entirely to please himself. but whether he used his roman or his gothic type the exquisite craftsmanship which he put into all his books enabled morris to attain his aim, and his wonderful borders and capitals crown them with the delight which this king of designers took in his work. no other printer since printing began has ever produced such a series of books as the fifty-three which poured from the kelmscott press during those wonderful seven years, and no book that has ever been printed can be compared for richness of effect with the chaucer which was the crowning achievement of the press. morris's example brought into the field a host of competitors and plagiarists and a few workers in the same spirit. by his side throughout his venture had stood mr. emery walker, who had no small part in starting the whole movement, whose help and advice for more than twenty years have been freely at the service of any one who has shown any inclination to do good work, and who, whenever good work has been achieved, will almost always be found to have lent a hand in it. after morris's death mr. walker joined with mr. cobden sanderson in producing the doves press books, printed, all of them, in a single type, but that type a fine adaptation of jenson's and handled with a skill to which jenson not only never attained but never aspired. the first book printed in it was the _agricola_ of tacitus, and this and mr. mackail's lecture on morris and other early books are entirely without decoration. woodcut capitals and borders, it was thought, had reached their highest possible excellence under the hand of william morris, and since not progress but retrogression would be the certain result of any fresh experiments, decoration of this sort must be abandoned. the reasoning was perhaps not entirely cogent, since the decoration appropriate to the doves type would hardly enter into any direct competition with morris's gothic designs. later on, however, it was more than justified by the use in the _paradise lost_, the bible, and most subsequent books (these later ones issued by mr. sanderson alone) of very simple red capitals, which light up the pages on which they occur with charming effect. similar capitals on a less bold scale, some in gold, others in red, others in blue, are a conspicuous feature in the masterpieces of the ashendene press belonging to mr. st. john hornby. this was started by mr. hornby at his house in ashendene, herts, in , and was for some time worked by mr. hornby himself and his sisters, with, as at least one colophon gratefully acknowledges, "some little help of cicely barclay," who subsequently, under a different surname, appears as a joint proprietor. the early books--the _journals_ of joseph hornby, _meditations_ of marcus aurelius, _prologue_ to the _canterbury tales_, etc.--are not conspicuously good, but in , in a type founded on that used by sweynheym and pannartz at subiaco, mr. and mrs. hornby produced the first volume of an illustrated _divina commedia_ which cannot be too highly praised. its story is told in the red-printed colophon, the wording of which is very prettily turned: fine della prima cantica appellata inferno della commedia di dante poeta eccellentissimo. impressa nella stamperia privata di ashendene a shelley house, chelsea, per opera e spesa di st. john & cicely hornby coll' aiuto del loro cugino meysey turton. le lettere iniziali sono l'opera di graily hewitt, le incisioni in legno di c. keates secondo disegni fatti da r. catterson smith sopra gli originali dell' edizione di . finita nel mese di dicembre dell' anno del signore mcmii, nel quale dopo dieci secoli di bellezza cadde il gran campanile di san marco dei veneziani. the third type happily inspired by the example of morris was the greek type designed by robert proctor on the model of that used for the new testament of the complutensian polyglott in , with the addition of majuscules and accents, both of them lacking in the original. an edition of the _oresteia_ of aeschylus in this type was being printed for mr. proctor at the chiswick press at the time of his death, and appeared in . in it was followed by an edition of the _odyssey_ printed at the clarendon press. like morris's gothic founts, this greek type may or may not be admired, but that it attains the effects at which it aims can hardly be denied. no page of such richness had ever before been set up by any printer of greek. to write of books printed in types which for one reason or another seem less successful than those already named is a less grateful task, but there are several designers and printers whose work approaches excellence, and who worked independently of morris, though with less sure touch. foremost among these must be placed mr. charles ricketts,[ ] whose vale type, despite a few blemishes, is not very far behind the golden type of the kelmscott press, and whose ornament at its best is graceful, and that with a lighter and gayer grace than morris's, though it cannot compare with his for dignity or richness of effect. in a later type, called the kinge's fount from its use in an edition of _the kinges quair_ ( ), mr. ricketts's good genius deserted him, for the mixture of majuscule and minuscule forms is most unpleasing. the eragny books printed by esther and lucien pissarro on their press at epping, bedford park, and the brook, chiswick, were at first ( - , nos. - ) printed by mr. ricketts's permission in the vale type. in june, , a "brook" fount designed by mr. pissarro was completed, and _a brief account of the origin of the eragny press_ printed in it. mr. pissarro's books are chiefly notable for their woodcuts, which are of very varying merit. in the united states, in addition to some merely impudent plagiarisms, several excellent efforts after improved printing were inspired by the english movement of which morris was the most prominent figure. mr. clarke conwell at the elston press, pelham road, new rochelle, new york, printed very well, both in roman and black letter, his edition of the _tale of gamelyn_ ( ) in the latter type being a charming little book. mr. berkeley updike of the merrymount press, boston, and mr. bruce rogers during his connection with the riverside press, boston, have also both done excellent work, which is too little known in this country. the artistic printing which mr. rogers did while working for the riverside press is especially notable because of the rich variety of types and styles in which excellence was attained. footnote: [ ] like proctor, mr. ricketts had no press of his own. his books were printed for him by messrs. ballantyne. select bibliography general works ferguson, j. _some aspects of bibliography._ edinburgh, . peddie, r. a. _a list of bibliographical books published since the foundation of the bibliographical society in _ (_bib. soc. transactions_, vol. x., pp. - ). london, . * * * * * bigmore and wyman. _a bibliography of printing._ with notes and illustrations, vols. london, . reed, t. b. _a list of books and papers on printers and printing under the countries and towns to which they refer._ (bibliographical society.) london, . * * * * * bibliographical society. _transactions._ london, , etc. edinburgh bibliographical society. _transactions._ edinburgh, , etc. * * * * * _le bibliographe moderne._ paris, , etc. _bibliographica._ vols. london, - . _centrallblatt für bibliothekswesen._ leipzig, , etc. _the library._ london, , etc. * * * * * _zeitschrift für bücherfreunde._ bielefeld, , etc. brunet, j. c. _dictionnaire de géographie ancienne et moderne à l'usage du libraire et de l'amateur de livre. par un bibliophile._ paris, . with notes on the introduction of printing into the places named. crane, w. _of the decorative illustration of books old and new._ second edition. london, . duff, e. g. _early printed books._ (_books about books._) london, . vo. humphreys, h. n. _masterpieces of the early printers and engravers_: series of facsimiles from rare and curious books, remarkable for illustrative devices, beautiful borders, decorative initials, printers' marks, and elaborate titlepages. fol. london, . kristeller, p. _kupferstich und holzschnitt in vier jahrhunderten._ to. berlin, . lang, a. _the library._ with a chapter on modern english illustrated books by austin dobson, london, . ---- second edition. london, . lippmann, f. _druckschriften des xv. bis xviii. jahrhunderts in getreuen nachbildungen herausgegeben von der direction der reichsdruckerei unter mitwirkung von dr. f. lippmann and dr. r. dohme._ fol. berlin, - . morgan, j. p. _catalogue of early printed books from the libraries of william morris, richard bennett, etc., now forming portion of the library of j. p. morgan._ [by s. aldrich, e. g. duff, a. w. pollard, r. proctor.] vols. large to. london, . with many facsimiles. rouveyre, e. _connaissances nécessaires à un bibliophile._ vols. paris, . i.--collectors and collecting elton, c. i. and m. a. _the great book collectors._ london, . fletcher, w. y. _english book-collectors._ london, . quaritch, b. _contributions towards a dictionary of english book collectors._ london, - . davenport, c. _english heraldic book-stamps._ london, . with biographical notes. guigard, j. _nouvel armorial du bibliophile. guide de l'amateur des livres armoriés._ tom. paris, . with biographical notices of many french collectors. * * * * * _book prices current._ london, , etc. _american book prices current._ new york, , etc. livingston, l. s. _auction prices of books._ - . vols. new york, . lawler, j. _book auctions in england in the seventeenth century._ london, . roberts, w. _catalogues of english book sales._ london, . ---- _rare books and their prices._ london, . wheatley, h. b. _prices of books_: an inquiry into the changes in the price of books which have occurred in england at different periods. london, . * * * * * brunet, j. c. _manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres, contenant ^o un nouveau dictionnaire bibliographique_, etc. cinquième Édition. vols. paris, - . graesse, j. g. t. _trésor de livres rares et précieux: ou nouveau dictionnaire bibliographique._ vols. dresde, - . these two books mark the close of the fashion of general collecting. ii.--block-books sotheby, s. l. _principia typographica._ the block-books issued in holland, flanders, and germany during the fifteenth century, etc. vols. fol. london, . schreiber, w. l. _livres xylographiques et xylo-chirographiques. fac-similés des livres xylographiques._ (_manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois et sur métal au xv^e siècle_, tomes , , .) vo and fol. leipzig, , , . pilinski, a. _monuments de la xylographie ... reproduits en fac-similé sur les exemplaires de la bibliothèque nationale, précédés des notices par gustave pawlowski._ fol. paris, - . . apocalypse. . ars moriendi. . bible des pauvres. . oraison dominicale. . ars memorandi. . cantica canticorum. biblia pauperum. _biblia pauperum. nach dem einzigen in darstellungen herausgegeben von p. heitz, w. l. schreiber._ to. strassburg, . cust, l. h. _the master e. s. and the ars moriendi._ to. oxford, . iii. and iv.--the introduction of printing--holland and mainz grolier club. _a description of the early printed books owned by the grolier club_, with a brief account of their printers and the history of typography in the fifteenth century. fol. new york, . quotes numerous early references to the invention of printing, and gives some facsimiles. enschedÉ, c. _laurens jansz. coster de uitvinder van de boekdrukkunst._ haarlem, . ---- _technisch onderzoek naar de uitvinding van de boekdrukkunst._ haarlem, . hessels, j. h. _gutenberg: was he the inventor of printing?_ london, . ---- _haarlem the birthplace of printing, not mentz._ london, . ---- article "typography" in the _encyclopædia britannica._ gutenberg gesellschaft. _veröffentlichungen._ mainz, , etc. to. i. zedler, g. _die älteste gutenbergtype._ . ii. schwenke, p. _die donat- und kalendertype._ . iii. _das mainzer fragment vom weltgericht. der canon missae vom jahre._ . iv. zedler. _das mainzer catholicon._ v-vi. _das mainzer fragment vom weltgericht. die type b^ im missale von . die missaldrucke p. und joh. schöffers. die bucheranzeigen p. schöffers._ viii-ix. seymour de ricci. _catalogue raisonné des premières impressions de mayence_ ( - ). dziatzko, c. _was wissen wir von dem leben und der person joh. gutenbergs?_ [ .] ---- _gutenberg's früheste druckerpraxis auf grund einer ... vergleichung des -zeiligen und -zeilgen bibel._ (sammlung, no. .) . hessels, j. h. _gutenberg: was he the inventor of printing?_ london, . ---- _the so-called gutenberg documents._ (reprinted from _the library._) london, . v.--other incunabula panzer, g. w. _annales typographici ab artis inventæ origine ad annum md._ (_ad annum mdxxxvi_). vols. to. norimbergæ, - . hain, l. _repertorium bibliographicum, in quo libri omnes ab arte typographica inventa usque ad annum md. typis expressi ordine alphabetico vel simpliciter enumerantur vel adcuratius recensentur._ stuttgartiæ et tubingæ, . ---- _indices uberrimi operâ c. burger._ lipsiæ, . copinger, w. a. _supplement to hain's repertorium bibliographicum._ (index by konrad burger.) vols. london, - . reichling, d. _appendices ad hainii copingeri repertorium bibliographicum. additiones et emendationes._ pt. monachii, - . pellechet, m. l. c. _catalogue général des incunables des bibliothèques publiques de france._ [continued by m. l. polain.] vols. i.-iii. paris, , etc. proctor, r. _an index to the early printed books in the british museum, with notes of those in the bodleian library, oxford._ vols. london, . british museum. _catalogue of books printed in the fifteenth century, now in the british museum._ vols. i-ii. [block-books and germany, mainz-trier.] to. london, , etc. providence, r.i. annmary brown memorial. _catalogue of books mostly from the presses of the first printers, showing the progress of printing with movable metal types through the second half of the fifteenth century._ collected by rush c. hawkins. catalogued by a. w. pollard. to. oxford, . burger, k. _monumenta germaniae et italiae typographica. deutsche und italienische inkunabeln in getreuen nachbildungen._ parts - . fol. berlin, , etc. gesellschaft fÜr typenkunde des . jahrhunderts. _veröffentlichungen._ fol. uppsala, , etc. type facsimile society. _publications._ ( - edited by r. proctor; - by g. dunn.) to. oxford, , etc. woolley photographs. _woolley photographs. photographs of fifteenth century types of the exact size of the originals, designed to supplement published examples, with references to robert proctor's index of books in the british museum and bodleian library._ [edited by george dunn, with a list of the photographs.] fol. woolley, - . haebler, k. _typenrepertorium der wiegendrucke._ vols. leipzig, , etc. vo. this supplies the measurement and some guide to the characteristics of every recorded fifteenth century type, with helps to the identification of the printers of unsigned books by means of the different forms of m, qu, etc. bernard, a. j. _de l'origine et des débuts de l'imprimerie en europe._ vols. paris, . valuable for its numerous references to notes and dates in individual copies. hawkins, rush c. _titles of the first books from the earliest presses established in different cities, towns, and monasteries in europe, before the end of the fifteenth century. with brief notes upon their printers._ to. new york, . claudin, a. _histoire de l'imprimerie en france._ vols. i.-iii. to. paris, , etc. thierry-poux, o. _premiers monuments de l'imprimerie en france au xv^e siècle._ [ sheets of facsimiles.] fol. paris, . holtrop, j. w. _monuments typographiques des pays-bas au quinzième siècle._ [ plates of facsimiles.] fol. la haye, . campbell, m. f. a. g. _annales de la typographie néerlandaise au xv^e siècle._ (with four supplements.) la haye, ( - ). fumagalli, g. _lexicon typographicum italiae. dictionnaire géographique d'italie pour servir à l'histoire de l'imprimerie dans ce pays._ florence, . haebler, k. _bibliografia iberica del siglo ._ la haya, . ---- _the early printers of spain and portugal._ [bibliog. soc. illust. monographs, .] to. london, . ---- _typographie ibérique du xv^e siècle. reproduction en fac-similé de tous les caractères typographiques employés en espagne et en portugal jusqu'à ._ fol. la haye, . vi.--the development of the printed book pollard, a. w. _an essay on colophons._ with specimens and translations, by a. w. pollard, and an introduction by r. garnett (caxton club). chicago, . ---- _last words on the history of the titlepage._ to. london, . roberts, w. _printers' marks: a chapter in the history of typography._ london, . bÜchermarken. _die büchermarken oder buchdrucker und verlegerzeichen._ to. strassburg, , etc. . _elsässische büchermarken bis anfang des . jahrhunderts._ herausgeg. von p. heitz, . . _die italienischen buchdrucker- und verlegerzeichen bis ._ herausgeg. von p. kristeller, . . _die basler büchermarken bis anfang des . jahrhunderts._ herausgeg. von p. heitz, . . _die frankfurter drucker und verlegerzeichen bis anfang des . jahrhunderts._ herausgeg. von p. heitz, . . _spanische und portugiesische bücherzeichen des xv. und xvi. jahrhunderts._ herausgeg. von. k. k. haebler, . . _kölner büchermarken bis zum anfang des xvii. jahrhunderts._ herausgeg. von dr. zaretzky, . . _genfer buchdrucker, und verlegerzeichen von xv. xvi. und xvii. jahrhundert._ von p. heitz, . silvestre, l. c. _marques typographiques, ou recueil des monogrammes ... des libraires et imprimeurs en france, depuis l'introduction de l'imprimerie jusqu'à la fin du xv^e siècle._ paris, - . jennings, o. _early woodcut initials._ london, . vii.--early german and dutch illustrated books dodgson, c. _catalogue of early german and flemish woodcuts preserved in the department of prints and drawings in the british museum._ vols. i.-ii. london, , . muther, r. _die deutsche bücherillustration der gothik und frührenaissance ( - )._ bde. to. münchen, . schreiber, w. l. _catalogue des incunables à figures imprimés en allemagne, en suisse en autriche-hongrie et en scandinavie, avec des notes critiques et bibliographiques._ (_manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois et sur métal au xv^e siècle_, tom. & .) leipzig, . cockerell, s. c. _some german woodcuts of the fifteenth century._ to. hammersmith, . conway, sir w. m. _the woodcutters of the netherlands in the fifteenth century._ cambridge, . viii.--early italian illustrated books lippmann, f. _the art of wood-engraving in italy in the fifteenth century._ london, . pollard, a. w. _italian book-illustrations, chiefly of the fifteenth century._ (portfolio monographs, .) london, . kristeller, p. _early florentine woodcuts._ with an annotated list of florentine illustrated books. london, . essling, prince d'. _les missels imprimés à venise de à . description, illustration, bibliographie. ouvrage orné de planches sur cuivre et de gravures._ fol. paris, . ---- _Études sur l'art de la gravure sur bois à venise. les livres à figures vénitiens de la fin du ^e siècle et du commencement du ^e._ fol. paris, , etc. ix.--early french and spanish illustrated books murray, c. f. _catalogue of a collection of early french books in the library of c. fairfax murray._ compiled by h. w. davies. to. london, . vindel, p. _bibliografia grafica_: reproduccion en facsimil de portadas, retratos, colofones y otras curiosidades útiles á los bibliófilos, que se hallan en obras únicas y libros preciosos ó raros. tom. madrid, . facsimiles of titlepages, illustrations, etc., of spanish books, unfortunately neither well selected, nor well arranged, but still useful. x.--later foreign books proctor, r. _an index to the early printed books in the british museum. part ii._ - . germany. london, . nijhoff, w. _bibliographie de la typographie néerlandaise des années à ._ la haye, , etc. ---- _l'art typographique dans les pays-bas, - _: reproduction en fac-similé des caractères, typographiques, des marques d'imprimeurs, etc. fol. la haye, , etc. renouard, a. a. _annales de l'imprimerie des aldes, ou histoire des trois manuces, et de leurs éditions. troisième édition, avec notes de la famille des juntes, etc._ vols. paris, . ---- _annales de l'imprimerie des estiennes ou histoire de la famille des estiennes et de ses éditions._ ^e édition. paris, . rooses, max. _christopher plantin, imprimeur anversois. biographie et documents._ ^e édition. fol. anvers, . willems, a. _les elzevier. histoire et annales typographiques._ bruxelles, etc., . goldsmid, e. m. _bibliotheca curiosa._ a complete catalogue of all the publications of the elzevir presses. edinburgh, . xi.--sixteenth century illustrations *** many of the books entered under vii, viii, and ix relate also to this period. butsch, a. f. _die bücherornamentik der renaissance, eine auswahl stylvoller titeleinfassungen, initialen, leisten, vignetten und druckerzeichen hervoragender italienischer, deutscher, und französischer officinen aus der zeit der frührenaissance._ to. leipzig, . xii.--english printing, - hazlitt, w. c. _handbook to the popular, poetical and dramatic literature of great britain, from the invention of printing to the restoration._ london, . hazlitt, w. c. _collections and notes._ three series with supplements. london, - . ---- _a general index to hazlitt's handbook and his bibliographical collections, - ._ by g. t. gray. london, . british museum. _catalogue of books in the library of the british museum printed in england, scotland, and ireland, and of books in english printed abroad, to the year ._ [mainly by g. w. eccles.] vols. london, . duff, e. g. _catalogue of books in the john rylands library, manchester, printed in england, scotland, and ireland, and of books in english printed abroad to the end of the year ._ to. manchester, . sayle, c. e. _early english printed books in the university library, cambridge, - ._ cambridge, - . the books are arranged under the printers. ames, j. _typographical antiquities_: being an historical account of printing in england; with some memoirs of our antient printers, and a register of the books printed by them, - . with an appendix concerning printing in scotland and ireland to the same time. to. london, . ---- considerably augmented.... by w. herbert. vols. to. london, - . ---- greatly enlarged, with copious notes and engravings by t. f. dibdin. vols. i.-iv. to. london, - . duff, e. g. _english printing on vellum to the end of ._ (bibliographical society of lancashire.) to. aberdeen, . ---- _a century of the english book trade_: short notices of all printers, stationers, bookbinders, and others connected with it, - . to. bibliographical society, london, . ---- _the printers, stationers, and bookbinders of westminster and london, - ._ (sandars lectures.) cambridge, . ---- _early english printing_: a series of facsimiles of all the types used in england during the fifteenth century. fol. london, . ---- (and others.) _handlists of english printers, - ._ parts - . to. bibliographical society, london, , etc. arber, e. _a transcript of the registers of the company of stationers of london, - ._ vols. to. london, - . blades, w. _the life and typography of william caxton._ vols. to. london, - . ---- _biography and typography of caxton._ london, . duff, e. g. _william caxton._ (caxton club of chicago.) to. chicago, . ricci, seymour de. _a census of caxtons._ (bibliographical society, illust. monographs, .) london, . * * * * * plomer, h. r. _a short history of english printing, - ._ (english bookman's library.) london, . reed, t. b. _history of the old english letter foundries._ to. london, . xiii.--early printing in english outside london allnutt, w. h. _english provincial presses._ (bibliographica, parts - .) london, . duff, e. g. _the english provincial printers, stationers, and bookbinders to ._ (sandars lectures.) cambridge, . bowes, r. _a catalogue of books printed at or relating to the university, town and county of cambridge, - ._ cambridge, . madan, f. l. oxford books. vol. . _the early oxford press_: a bibliography of printing and publishing at oxford " - ." ---- ---- vol. . _oxford literature, - , and - ._ oxford, , . ---- _a chart of oxford printing, " "- ._ with notes and illustrations. to. oxford, . ---- _a brief account of the university press at oxford._ with illustrations, together with a chart of oxford printing. to. oxford, . davies, r. _a memoir of the york press._ with notices of authors, printers, and stationers in the th, th, and th centuries. westminster, . dobson, a. _horace walpole: a memoir._ with an appendix of books printed at the strawberry hill press. new york, . aldis, h. g. _a list of books printed in scotland before , including those printed furth of the realm for scottish booksellers._ with brief notes on the printers and stationers. to. edinburgh bibliographical society, edinburgh, . dickson, r., and edmond, t. p. _annals of scottish printing: from the introduction of the art in to the beginning of the th century._ to. cambridge, . dix, e. r. mcc. _a list of irish towns and dates of earliest printing in each._ second edition. dublin, . ---- _the earliest dublin printing._ with list of books, etc., printed in dublin prior to . dublin, . gilbert, sir j. t. _irish bibliography._ two papers. with an introduction, notes, and appendices by e. r. mcc. dix. dublin, . watkins, g. t. _bibliography of printing in america_: books, etc., relating to the history of printing in the new world. boston, . evans, c. _american bibliography...._ a chronological dictionary of all books, pamphlets, and periodical publications printed in the united states from to . to. chicago, , etc. thomas, j. _the history of printing in america._ with a biography of printers, etc. second edition. vols. albany, . roden, r. f. _the cambridge press, - _: a history of the first printing press in english america, together with a bibliographical list of the issues. new york, . xiv.--english woodcut illustrations chatto and jackson. _a treatise on wood engravings_: historical and practical. second edition. london . linton, w. j. _the masters of wood-engraving._ folio. london, . xv.--engraved books--illustrations hind, a. m. _a short history of engraving and etching for the use of collectors and students._ with full bibliography, classified list, and index of engravers. second edition, revised. london, . colvin, sir s. _early engraving and engravers in england, - ._ fol. british museum. london, . hind, a. m. _list of the works of native and foreign line-engravers in england from henry viii to the commonwealth._ british museum. london, . reprinted from sir s. colvin's work. cohen, h. _guide de l'amateur de livres à gravure du ^e siècle, ^e édition, augmentée par seymour de ricci._ paris, . levine, j. _bibliography of the th century art and illustrated books._ london, . bÉraldi, j. h. _estampes et livres, - ._ to. paris, . a catalogue of the compiler's own collection of french illustrated books. xvi.--modern fine printing straus, r., and dent, r. k. _john baskerville: a memoir._ to. cambridge, . goschen, viscount. _the life and times of georg joachim goeschen, publisher and printer of leipzig, - ._ vols. london, . werelet, e. _Études bibliographiques sur la famille des didot, imprimeurs, etc., - ._ (extrait de l'histoire du livre en france.) paris, . warren, a. _the charles whittinghams, printers._ (grolier club.) new york, . morris, w. _a note by william morris on his aims in founding the kelmscott press._ with a short description of the press by s. c. cockerell, and an annotated list of the books printed thereat. hammersmith, . ricketts. _a bibliography of the books issued by hacon and ricketts._ (the vale press.) london, . steele, r. _the revival of printing._ london, . index abbeville, illustrated books, _sq._ aberdeen breviary, printed at edinburgh, _sq._ abingdon, printing at, acqui, colophon, _ad te levavi_ woodcut, aesop, illustrated editions, , , , , , , , , , , alcalà, cardinal ximenes' polyglott printed at, ; greek testament type imitated by proctor, aldus manutius. _see_ manutius. alexander gallus, early edition of his _doctrinale_ "jeté en moule," ; colophon of acqui ed. quoted, _sq._; venice ed. of, ; pynson's, alexander of villedieu. _see_ alexander gallus allan, george, private press, allnutt, w., on english provincial printing, , _alphabeti noua effictio._ de bry's, , altdorfer, albrecht, illustrator, _sq._ -- erhard, bible illustrated by, alunno di domenico. _see_ bartolommeo di giovanni american colonies, early printing in, - ammann, jost, book-illustrations, , amsterdam, english books printed at, ; engravings, , ; presses improved at, anabat, guil., his _horae_, andrea, hieronymus, wood-cutter, _antichristus_, block-book, antwerp, printing, , _sq._; woodcuts, _sq._; english books printed, _sqq._; engraved illustration, _sqq._ _apocalypsis s. johannis_, block-book, aquila, good roman type, ; illustrated _aesop_, arbuthnot, alexander, edinburgh printer, ariosto, lodovico, _orlando furioso_, illustrated editions, , , _ars moriendi_, block-book, _art de bien vivre et de bien mourir_, vérard's edition, , de worde's, arundel, earl of, caxton's cut of his device, ascensius. _see_ badius ascensius ashendene press, audran, benoît, engraver, augsburg printing, , ; book-illustration, _sqq._, _sqq._ augustine, s., abbeville edition of his _de ciuitate dei_, .b., woodcuts signed, _sq._ bacon, francis, engraved title to _novum organum_, badius ascensius, jodocus, printer at lyon and paris, bagford, john, his copies from block-books, bämler, johann, illustrated books, bankes, robert, london printer, banks, sir joseph, his natural history books, barbier, jean, partner of julyan notary, barcelona, early printing, ; illustration, barclay, alexander, translator of sallust, ; of gringore's _chasteau de labeur_, , , barker, robert, royal printer, _sq._ barnes, dam julyan, "her boke of huntyng," -- joseph, oxford printer, bartholomaeus anglicus, editions of his _de proprietatibus rerum_, , ; printed by caxton, ; by de worde, , ; edited by s. bateman, bartolommeo di giovanni, mr. berenson's attribution of florentine woodcuts to, bartolozzi, f., portrait of lunardi, basel printing, , , book-illustration, , _sq._ basiliologia engravings, baskerville, john, birmingham printer, _sq._ bassandyne, thomas, edinburgh printer, bateman, stephen, illustrated books by, _bay psalter_, first book printed in north america, _sq._ beck, leonhard, illustrator, , _sq._ beham, hans sebald, illustrator, belgium, early printing, _belial siue consolatio peccatorum. see_ theramo, jac. de bellaert, jacob, illustrated books, _sq._ bellini, gentile, woodcut after, benlowes, e., _theophila_, berenson, bernhard, attributes all early florentine cuts to "alunno di domenico," berghen, adriaen von, english books printed by, bergomensis, jac. phil., his _supplementum cronicarum_, ; _de claris mulieribus_, berkeley, sir william, on free schools and printing, berrutus, amadeus, engraving in his _dialogus_, berthelet, thomas, connection with pynson, , ; royal printer, , bettini, ant., illustrated editions of his _monte santo di dio_, , _sq._ bible, english, early editions, , _sq._, , ; french _bible historiée_, ; german, illustrated editions of, , , , ; indian (narraganset), _sq._; italian, illustrated editions of, , ; latin, the -line, _sqq._, ; the -line, _sq._, ; of , ; of , ; polyglott, , , ; scottish, _biblia pauperum_, block-book, , ; its plan imitated in _horae_ borders, , biel, fried., illustrated books, binneman. _see_ bynneman birmingham, baskerville's press at, _birth of mankind_, first english book with engravings, bladen, william, dublin printer, bladi, printers at rome, blaew, william, improves printing-press, block-books, - , blomefield, francis, private press, boccaccio, giov., _de casibus illustrium virorum_, , , , , , note, ; _de claris mulieribus_, , , , ; _decamerone_, bodleian library, effect of its foundation on private book-collecting, bodoni, giovanni battista, printer at parma, _boec von der houte. see_ cross, the holy boitard, peter, illustrator, bonaventura, s., illustrations to his _devote meditatione_, , , bonhomme, jean, his illustrated books, , book-illustration, natural method of, ; in germany and holland, - , - ; in italy, - , - ; in france and spain, - , - ; in england, - ; engraved, - borderpieces, stamped by illuminators, ; venetian, , ; florentine, ; other italian, , ; spanish, ; basel, ; london, , , _sq._, boston, mass., early printing, ; modern, boucher, françois, illustrator, bradford, andrew, printer at philadelphia, -- william, first printer at philadelphia, ; and at new york, bradshaw, henry, his claim for bibliography, ; on the printer of the _speculum_, brandis, lucas, first lübeck printer, , brant, sebastian, connected with book-illustration, , , , , , brass, types made of, note breidenbach, bernhard von, his arms on a mainz _agenda_, ; his _peregrinatio in montem syon_, , , , brinckley, stephen, jesuit printer, bristol printing, _sq._ british museum, bequests to, - ; block-books in, brosamer, hans, bibles illustrated by, broughton, hugh, plates in his _concent of scripture_, bruges early printing, , , _sq._; engravings in books printed at, - brussels early printing, brydges, sir egerton, private press, buckner, john, virginia printer, bulkley, stephen, printer at york, bulle, john, printer at rome, lettou's relation with, bunyan, john, portrait in _pilgrim's progress_, burghers, michael, engraver, burgkmair, hans, illustrator, _sq._, _sq._ burgundy, margaret duchess of. _see_ margaret bynneman, henry, london printer, , cagli, good roman type, _calendar of shepherds_, french editions, ; english, , cambridge, printing at, , _sq._, cambridge, mass., printing at, _sq._, _canon missae_, mainz edition of, ; crucifixion woodcut to, , canterbury, printing at, _canterbury tales. see_ chaucer _canticum canticorum_, block-book, , caoursin, gulielmus, woodcuts in books by, capell, edward, bequeaths his shakespeare books to trin. coll., camb., capitals, pictorial and heraldic, , , , _sqq._ carmelianus, petrus, pictures in his _carmen_, cartwright, thomas, his tracts printed at a secret press, caslon, william, typefounder, _catholicon_, possibly printed by gutenberg, caxton, william, , ; press at bruges, , _sq._; at westminster, , _sq._; method of printing in red, ; illustrated books, - ; possible engraved portrait of, _sq._ cazotte, j., his _le diable amoureux_, cecill, thomas, engraver, cennini, bernardo, first printer at florence, ; colophon of his _virgil_, cervicornus, eucharius, printer at cologne, chapman, walter, printer at edinburgh, charteris, henry, printer at edinburgh, chaucer, geoffrey, early editions, , , , chauveau, françois, engraver, _chess, game and play of the_, , chester, printing at, , etc. chiromantia, block-book, choffard, p. p., _fleurons_ by, _sq._ _christian prayers, book of_ (queen elizabeth's prayer book), christopher, s., early woodcut of, ciripagus, meaning of the word, civil war, its effects on oxford printing, clark, john, engraver, classics, first editions of the, claudin, anatole, his _histoire de l'imprimerie en france_, clement v, edition of his _constitutiones_, clemente of padua, self-taught printer at venice, , cochin, c., paris engraver, _sq._ cock, hieron, antwerp engraver, -- peter, alost engraver, cockson, thomas, london engraver, colines, simon, his _horae_, ; relations with the estiennes, ; illustrated books, collectors and collecting, - , cologne, printing at, , , , , ; book-illustration at, _cologne chronicle_, its story of the invention of printing, colonna, francesco. _see hypnerotomachia poliphili_ colophons, ; specimens quoted, _sq._; in manuscript, colour-printing in incunabula, _sq._, columna, aegidius, his _regimiento de los principes_, colvin, sir sidney, his _early engravings_ quoted, , complutensian polyglott. _see_ alcalà constance, _das conciliumbuch_, illustrated editions of, , conway, sir m., his _woodcutters of the netherlands_ conwell, clarke, american printer, copland, robert, london printer, , -- william, london printer, , cornelis, the bookbinder, of haarlem, _sq._, corrozet, gilles, his verses to holbein's cuts, ; other illustrated books by, _sq._ coryat, thomas, _crudities_, coster, lourens, legend of his inventing printing, _sqq._ "_costeriana_," group of books so called, - , cotton, sir robert, his collections, cranach, lucas, his bookwork at wittenberg, cremer, heinrich, copy of -line bible rubricated by, _sq._ creussner, f., nuremberg printer, , cromwell, thomas, earl of, arms on title of great bible, croquet, jean, of geneva, first edition of _roman de la rose_ attributed to, note cross, the holy, block-book history of, cunningham, william, his _cosmographicall glasse_, , dalles, jean, lyonnese wood-cutter, daniel, rev. c. h. o., private press, _danse macabre_, illustrations to, , dante alighieri, illustrated editions of _divina commedia_, , , _sq._ darmstadt prognostication, printer of the, forged dates in his books, davidson, thomas, edinburgh printer, _sq._ day, john, london printer, _sq._, ; illustrated books, _sq._ -- matthew, printer at cambridge, mass., -- stephen, first printer in north america, de bry, family of engravers, - , _defensorium inviolatae castitatis virginis mariae_, block-book, defoe, daniel, plates to _robinson crusoe_, delaram, francis, engraver, _sq._ delft, early printing at, denham, henry, london printer, derrick, john, _image of ireland_, deventer, early printing at, , d'ewes, sir simeon, fate of his manuscripts, _dialogus creaturum_, woodcuts in, _dictes or sayengis of the philosophers_, caxton's, didot, family of printers at paris, digby, sir kenelm digby, benefactions to libraries, dinckmut, conrad, illustrated books, _sq._ doesborg, jan van, english books printed by, dolet, etienne, printer at lyon, donatus, aelius, early editions of his _de octo partibus orationis_, , , , , douay, english catholic books printed at, dorat, c. j., _les baisers_, doves press, downes, thomas, english bookseller, patentee for irish printing, drach, peter, speier printer, drayton, michael, _polyolbion_, dublin, early printing at, _sq._ du bosc, claude, engraver, dudley, earl of leicester, encourages oxford printing, duff, e. g., on woodcuts in bible, note; on berthelet and pynson, ; on free trade in books, ; on a book printed at st. albans, du guernier, louis, engraver, du guesclin, bertrand, woodcut of, du moulin, conrad, buys a _de salute corporis_, dupré, jean, fine printer at paris, ; his illustrated books, _sqq._, ; his _horae_, _sq._ dürer, albrecht, book-illustrations by, _sq._, dutch printing and book-illustration. _see_ holland duranti, gulielmus, _rationale diuinorum officiorum_, edition, dyson, humphrey, book-collector, edinburgh printing, - editions, number of copies in early, edward vi, woodcut of, egenolph, christian, illustrated books, , eichstätt service-books, engravings in, eisen, c., illustrator, _sqq._ eliot, john, books by, printed at cambridge, mass., elizabeth, queen, portraits of, , , _sq._; her "prayer book," elston press, elstracke, renold, engraver, _sq._, elzevir, family of printers, _sqq._ emblem books, , emden, puritan books printed at, england, printing in, _sq._, - , - , - english books printed abroad, - english engraved illustrations, - , - english woodcut illustrations, - engraved illustrations, - _epistole ed evangelii_, illustrated florentine ed., , eragny press, erasmus, desiderius, his relations with froben, , erven, g. van der, printer at emden, e. s., the master, _ars moriendi_ engravings by, essling, prince d', his _livres à figures venitiens_ quoted, note, , _sq._ estienne, family of scholar-printers, _sqq._ eton, printing at, eustace, guil., his _horae_, exeter, early printing at, f, woodcuts signed, at venice, ; at paris, fabyan's _chronicle_, pynson's ed., faithorne, w., engraver, faques or fawkes, richard, london printer, faques, william, royal printer, fell, bishop, buys dutch types for oxford, ferrara, early printing at, , ; book-illustrations, fichet, guillaume, letter on invention of printing, , ; invites printers to the sorbonne, field, richard, london printer, _fifteen oes_, caxton's edition, first books printed in different countries and towns, their interest, _sq._ fisher, bishop, woodcuts to his funeral sermons, florence, early printing, , , book-illustration at, - , ; venetian imitation of florentine style, florio, john, engraved portrait, foliation, or leaf-numbers, first used by ther hoernen, foster, john, first printer at boston, mass., fouler, john, english printer at antwerp and louvain, foulis, robert and andrew, glasgow printers, foxe, john, his _actes and monuments_, or _book of martyrs_, , france, printing in, - , - , ; book-illustration, - , - , - franciscus, magister, schoeffer's corrector, francke (or franckton), john, dublin printer, frankfort am main, book-illustration at, , , _sqq._ franklin, benjamin, printer at philadelphia, freez (or wandsforth), gerard, york printer, freiburger, gering and crantz, first paris printers, _sq._ frezzi, bishop, _quatriregio_, illustrated editions, froben, johann, scholarly printer at basel, ; his book-decorations, front, the mind of the, froschauer, christopher, zurich printer, his english books, _sq._ fust, johann, dealings with gutenberg, _sqq._; books printed by, _sq._, gafori, francesco, illustrations to his music-books, , gaguin, robert, illustrations to his chronicles, _game and pley of the chesse_, garamond, claude, french royal greek types cut by, _garland of rachel_, garrick, david, his collection of plays, geiler, johann, of kaisersberg, illustrations to his books, , geminus, thomas, engraved work, geneva, english books printed at, gérard, pierre, first printer at abbeville, germany, printing in, - , _sq._, ; book-illustration, - , - giunta, family of printers at florence and venice, , _sq._, giustiniano, lorenzo, portrait of, glasgow, fine printing at, glover, rev. joseph, benefactor of harvard college, goes, hugo, york printer, goeschen, georg joachim, printer at leipzig, _golden legend_, caxton's editions, , gothic type, , _sq._ gouda, printing and illustration, , , graf, urs, book-decorations by, grafton, richard, royal printer, , ; his _chronicle_, gravelot, h., engraver at paris, _sqq._, and london, greek printing in italy, , ; in france, _sqq._; in spain, ; in england, , , , , , green, bartholomew, printer at boston, mass., _sq._ -- samuel, printer at cambridge, mass., _sqq._ gregorii, giov. and greg. dei, printers at venice, , grenewych by conrade freeman, spurious imprint, grenville, thomas, character of his collection, grien, hans baldung, illustrator, grignion, charles, engraver, gringore, pierre, _chasteau de labeur_, _sq._; english editions, _sq._, grolier, jean, example as a book-buyer, ; supports aldus, grüninger, johann, of strassburg, illustrated books, _sq._ gryphius, sebastian, lyon printer, gutenberg, johann, claims to the invention of printing, - , _sqq._; books he may have printed, _sq._ haarlem, its claims to be the birthplace of printing, _sqq._, hakluyt, richard, _voyages_, hamman, johann. _see_ herzog han, ulrich, early printer at rome, , _sq._, types, ; printed the first italian illustrated book, hardouyn, germain and gilles, their _horae_, harington, sir john, on the plates in his _orlando furioso_, harrison, stephen, _archs of triumph_, hartlieb, johann, block-book of _die kunst chiromantia_, harvard college, printing at, _sq._ haydock, richard, engraver, hayman, francis, illustrator, heber, richard, character of his collection, hempstead (essex), secret printing at, henry v, woodcut of lydgate offering book to, henry vii, books decorated by vérard for, ; woodcut of his funeral, henry viii "protects" english book-trade, , _heroologia_ engravings, hertfort or herford, john, printer at st. albans and london, _sq._ herzog, johann, prints sarum missal at venice, hessels, dr., his theories on the invention of printing, _sqq._ heynlyn, jean, superintends first paris press, heywood, thomas, woodcut of, ; engravings to his _hierarchie of the blessed angels_, higman, nicolas, _horae_, hind, a. m., quoted, , _hobby-horse_, experiments in printing in, hogarth, william, book-illustrations, _sq._ hogenberg, franciscus and remigius, engravers, _sq._ holbein, ambrosius, book-decorations, -- hans, book-decorations and illustrations, _sq._, _sq._ hole, william, engraver, , holinshed, raphael, _chronicle_, holland, claims to the invention of printing, - ; printing in, ; book-illustrations, - holland, h., print-seller, hollar, wenceslaus, engraver, homer, the florentine, ; in french, ; chapman's, ; ogilby's odyssey, ; proctor's, hondius, jodocus, engraver, _sq._ hopyl, wolfgang, missals by, , _horace_, pine's ed., _sq._, ; foulis, _horae_, paris editions, - , ; plantin's, hornby, c. st. john, private press, , hroswitha, illustrations to her comedies, hunte, thomas, oxford stationer, partner in rood's press, , hurning, hans. _see_ walther, f., and hans hurning hurus, paul, illustrated books, huss, martin, illustrated books, huvin, jean, probable partner (i. h.) of jul. notary, hylton, walter, _scala perfectionis_, de worde's ed., _hypnerotomachia poliphili_, , _sq._; french version of, i, ia., woodcuts signed, i.d., woodcut signed, _imprese_, engravings of, incipits of books, quoted, incunabula, study of, _sq._; the word misleading, ; points of, _sq._ indulgences, printed at mainz, ipswich, printing at, ireland, printing in, _sq._ italic type, , italy, printing in, - , - , ; book-illustration in, - james i, works and portrait, janot, denis, printer of french illustrated books, jenson, nicolas, printer at venice, , jesuit press ( ), jewel, bishop, books against, printed at antwerp and louvain, johnes, thomas, private press, johnson, marmaduke, printer at cambridge, mass., junius, hadrianus, his story of coster, _sq._ justinian, in council, metal-cut of, kearney, william, dublin printer, kefer, or keffer, heinrich, servant of gutenberg, , keimer, samuel, printer at philadelphia, keith, george, his _appeal from the twenty-eight judges_, kerver, thielmann, _horae_, ketham, johannes, _fascicolo di medicina_, illustrated, kipling, r., contribution to a school magazine, knoblochtzer, h., strassburg printer, ; illustrated books, köbel, jakob, printer at oppenheim, koberger, anton, largest nuremberg printer, ; illustrated books, , koelhoff, johann, father and son, printers at cologne, kyngston, felix, english bookseller, patentee for irish printing, kyrforth, samuel, oxford printer, laer, john, of siberch. _see_ siberch la fontaine, jean, illustrated editions of his _fables_ and _contes_, _sq._ laing, david, on the bruges _des cas des nobles hommes_, la marche, olivier de, illustrations to his _chevalier délibéré_, , , , lambeth palace, printing at, lant, thomas, engraver, la rochelle, marprelate tract printed at, laud, archbishop, benefactions to libraries, lauer, georg, early printer at rome, le bey, denis, his emblems, leeu, gerard, printer at gouda and antwerp, ; colophon recording his death quoted, ; sells cuts to koelhoff, , ; his illustrated books, _sq._; english books printed by, _sq._ legate, john, cambridge printer, legge, cantrell, cambridge printer, le huen, nicole, his adaptation of _breidenbach_, , leipzig printing, , ; book-illustrations, lekpreuit, robert, scottish printer, lemberger, georg, bookwork at wittenberg, le rouge, pierre, prints for vérard, leroy, guil., first printer at lyon, ; illustrated books, _sq._ le signerre, guil., illustrated books, le talleur, guil., printer at rouen, prints for pynson, _sq._ lettou, john, first printer in the city of london, , , leyden, printing at, , lignamine, joh. phil. de, on the invention of printing, ; his own press, lirer, thomas, _chronik_, illustrated ed., lisa, gerard, first printer at treviso, _sq._, locatellus, bonetus, venice printer, locker-lampson, f., his copy of blake's _songs of innocence and experience_, london, printing in the city of, longus, _daphnis et chloé_, louvain, early printing at, ; book-illustration, ; english books, lownes, matthew, english bookseller, patentee for irish printing, lübeck early printing, ; book-illustration at, _sq._ lucrece, berthelet's device of, lutzelburger, hans, holbein's wood-cutter, luyken, jan and casper, engravers, lydgate, john, woodcut of, . for his _falles of pryncis_, see boccaccio, _de casibus_ lyne, john, engraver, lyon, printing at, , , _sq._; illustration, - , macfarlane, john, monograph on antoine vérard, machlinia, william, printer at london, , , madan, falconer, on oxford printing, magdeburg early printing, mainz, printing as a practical art invented at, - ; book-illustration, _sq._ malborow in the land of hesse, doubtful imprint, malermi bible. _see_ bible, italian malone, e., bequeaths books to the bodleian, mansion, colard, bruges printer, , , _sq._, _sq._ manutius, aldus, his work, - ; large roman type, ; italic octavos, , , ; _hypnerotomachia_, _sq._; lyonnese counterfeits of his octavos, -- -- the younger, -- paulus, marchant, gui., illustrated books, margaret duchess of burgundy, caxton's patron, , -- duchess of richmond, woodcut of her funeral, margins, right proportions, marprelate press, marsh, archbishop, library founded by, - marshall, william, engraver, _sqq._ mary, princess, daughter of henry vii, woodcut of her reception of spanish embassy, master and pupil, method of depicting, and note maximilian, the emperor, illustrated books in his honour, _sq._, _sq._, _sq._ maynyal, george, prints service-books for caxton, mentelin, johann, first printer at strassburg, ; manuscript colophon of, _sq._ merrymount press, boston (mass.), middelburg, english books printed at, milan early printing, _sq._; book-illustration, , miller, w. h., character of his collection, millet, jacques, illustrations to his _destruction de troye la grant_, , , milton, john, portrait by marshall, _mirabilia romæ_, block-book, misprinted dates at barcelona, ; at oxford, mitchell, john. _see_ mychell molière, françois, illustrations to, , molner, theodoricus, confused with theod. rood, mondovi, good roman type, montanus, arias, relations with plantin, _sq._ monte regio, johannes de. _see_ müller montesquieu, _le temple de gnide_, , moore, bishop, fate of his books, moreau, french illustrator, morris, william, admired subiaco type, ; on the double page as the unit in a book, ; on the illustrator of caoursin, ; his set of proofs of richel's _spiegel_, note; his decorative bookwork, ; the kelmscott press, _sq._ moxon, joseph, his _mechanick exercises_, müller, johann, his calendars, , ; his work as a printer, musurus, marcus, aldus copies his greek script, mutius scaevola, border representing, mychell (or mitchell), john, printer at canterbury and london, myllar, andrew, first scottish printer, mylner, ursyn, york printer, n, woodcuts signed, naples early printing, ; book-illustration, negker, andrea and jost de, wood-cutters, neobar, conrad, printer of greek, netherlands. _see_ holland; belgium _neuf preux_, les, french block-book, neumeister, johann, printer at foligno, mainz, albi, etc., newcastle, printing at, _sq._; new testament, tyndale's, ; eliot's, niclas, hendrik, his books printed at amsterdam, nitschewitz, hermann, _psalterium b.m.v._, norwich, dutch books printed at, ; other printing at, notary, julyan, early printer at london, , _sq._, nuremberg, printing at, , ; book-illustration at, , _sq._, - , _nuremberg chronicle. see_ schedel _nut-brown maid_, the earliest text in arnold's _chronicle_, ogilby, john, illustrated books, o'kearney, john, irish printing by, _opera nova contemplativa_, venetian block-book, _sq._, oppenheim, book-decoration at, ortuin and schenck, printers of _roman de la rose_, os, pieter van, early printer at zwolle, ostendorfer, michael, illustrations by, oswen, john, printer at ipswich and worcester, _sq._ overton, john, printer (?) at ipswich, ovid, illustrations to his _metamorphoses_, oxford, printing at, , , , _sqq._, , _sq._ pacini, piero and bernardo, publishers of illustrated books at florence, paderborn, johann. _see_ westphalia, john of palmart, lambert, first printer in spain, , , paper, made at hertford, ; tottell seeks a monopoly for making, paris, printing in, _sqq._, _sqq._; book-illustration, - , - , - parker, archbishop, his efforts to rescue old books, ; patron of john day, ; and of bynneman, ; his _de antiquitate brit. eccl._ perhaps printed at lambeth, , ; engraved portrait, parma, baskerville's press at, passe family, engravers, , _passio domini nostri jesu christi_, venetian block-book, , paulirinus, paulinus, on the word _ciripagus_, pavia, book-illustration at, peartree, montagu, article on possible portrait of caxton, pepwell, henry, london printer, pepys, s., bequest of his books, petrarca, f., illustrated editions of his _trionfi_, , petri, johann, early printer at florence, pfister, albrecht, printer of illustrated books at bamberg, , , , philadelphia, first printing at, philippe, regent of france, engraved illustrations to longus, phillipps, sir thomas, private printing by, pigouchet, philippe, prints _le chasteau de labeur_, ; his _horae_, pinder, ulrich, private press at nuremberg, pine, john, engraver, _sqq._ plantin, christopher, printer at antwerp, _sq._; woodcut illustration, _sq._; engraved, _sqq._ plateanus, theodoricus (dirick van der straten), printer at wesel, plates, troubles arising from in books, pleydenwurff, wilhelm, book-illustrations by, poitiers, early printing at, polidori, gaetano, his private press, pope, erasure of the word, popish apparel, puritan tracts against, "poppy-printer" of lübeck, porro, girolamo, engraves plates for _orlando furioso_, , powell, humphrey, english printer in dublin, printing, changes in the primacy of, , , , ; invention of, - ; early progress of, in various countries, - ; its technical development, - ; in the sixteenth century, - ; in england, - ; in the provinces of england, - , - ; on the continent for the english market, - ; private, _sq._; in scotland, _sqq._; in ireland, _sq._; in the english colonies in america, _sqq._ private presses in england, _sq._, _sqq._ proctor, robert, found beauty in all incunabula, , ; classification of them, ; greek type, , provincial printing in england, , , _sq._, - , - prüss, johann, of strassburg, illustrated books, , psalms, the new england version of the, _sq._ psalter, latin, of , , ; of , ; cost of writing and illuminating a manuscript, ptolemy, _cosmographia_ (or _geographia_), illustrated editions of, , pynson, r., number of copies in his editions, ; work as a printer, , _sq._, ; book-illustrations, - quarles, francis, _hieroglyphikes of the life of man_, quentell, heinrich, of cologne, his illustrated books, ; his bible cuts copied, , , , quinterniones, a name for manuscripts, quire, origin of the word, quiring in old books, _sqq._; collection by, _sq._ r-printer, the, of strassburg, _rappresentazioni_, illustrated florentine editions, rarity, effect on value of books, _sq._ rastell, john, lawyer-printer, , , -- william, printed english plays, ratdolt, erhard, early printer at venice, ; titlepage to his calendar, ; his decorative work at venice, _sq._; at augsburg, ; colour-printing by, rawlinson, richard, gives manuscripts to the bodleian, raynold, thomas, his ed. of the _birth of mankind_, _recuyell of the histories of troye_, , ; engraving in chatsworth copy of caxton's, redman, robert, pynson's successor, , red printing, difficulty of, , _sq._; colophons in, regiomontanus. _see_ müller reinhard, johann. _see_ grüninger retza, fran. de, block-book of his _defensorium_, reuwich, erhard, illustrator of breidenbach's _peregrinatio_, , _sq._ reyser, georg, first würzburg printer, , _sq._ -- michel, first eichstätt printer, , _sq._ rheims, english catholic books printed at, richard iii, statute permitting free importation of books into england, , richard, thomas, printer at tavistock, richel, bernhard, early printer at basel, his illustrated books, , ricketts, charles, the vale press books, rodericus zamorensis, illustrated editions of his _speculum humanae vitae_, , , rodlich, hieronymus, his illustrated books, rogers, bruce, fine printer, -- william, engraver, , rolewinck, werner, all his books printed by ther hoernen, ; venice editions of his _fasciculus temporum_, ; seville ed., roman de la rose, early editions of, roman type, - rome, printing at, , ; book-illustration at, , , , rome under the castle of st. angelo, spurious imprint, rood, theodoricus, printer at oxford, ross, john, edinburgh printer, rouen early printing, , ; english books, , ruppel, berthold, of hanau, basel printer, , ruscelli, jerononimo, his _imprese_, rusch, adolf, the r-printer, ; roman type used by, rylands, w. h., engraver, ryther, augustine, engraver, saint albans, printing at, , , _sq._, saint andrews, printing at, saint omer, english catholic books printed at, saluzzo, book-illustration at, sanctis, hieronymus de, wood-cutter and printer at venice, sanderson, cobden, fine printing by, sandys, george, _relation of a journey_, santritter, johann, illustrator and printer at venice, saragossa, early printing at, ; illustration, sarum service-books mostly printed abroad, ; their importation into scotland forbidden, savonarola, girolamo, illustrated editions of his tracts, _sq._, savile, sir henry, his press at eton, saxton, christopher, maps by, sayle, c., his catalogue of english books in cambridge university library, schatzbehalter. _see_ stephan schaüfelein, hans leonhard, book-illustrations by, , _sq._ schedel, hartmann, his _liber chronicarum_, schilders, richard, english books printed by, _sq._ schoeffer, johann, printer at mainz, , -- peter, a witness on the side of fust, ; his share in the invention of printing, _sq._; books printed by him, - ; his method of printing, - , ; his type, schön, erhard, illustrations by, schreiber, w., his _manuel de l'amateur_, quoted, , note, ; his block-books, schwabacher type, scolar, johannes, printer at oxford, ; and at abingdon, scoloker, anthony, printer at ipswich and london, scot, john, scottish printer, _sq._ scotland, printing in, - secret printing in elizabeth's reign, segar, sir w., _honour, military and civil_, selden, w., his books go to the bodleian, sensenschmidt, johann, first printer at nuremberg, ; his illustrated books, sessa, family of printers, illustrated books, seville, early printing at, ; illustration, , shakespeare, first folio, ; illustrations to, _sqq._ shrewsbury, printing at, _sq._ siberch, john laer of, first cambridge printer, _sibyllenbuch_, early mainz fragment of, sidney, sir philip, title-border to ed. of his _arcadia_, ; engraving of his funeral, siemen, illustrated books published at, signatures of artists or wood-cutters in italian books, , ; in german books, ; in french books, , signatures (typographic), first used by joh. koelhoff, ; their origin, ; example of collation by, silber, eucharius, printer at rome, simon, "das süsses kind," woodcuts of his history, , small books, ; stages in their popularity, , , smith, richard, book-collector, solempne, antony de, dutch printer at norwich, sorbonne, first paris press at the, ; roman type used at, ; persecution of printers by its theologians, sorg, anton, of augsburg, illustrated books, spaces left blank for headings and capitals, ; for illustrations, spain, early printing in, - , _sq._, ; book-illustration, - spanish armada, engravings of, _speculum humanae saluationis_ partly block-printed, , ; fate of the blocks, , ; augsburg ed. of, ; basel ed. of (in german), , ; french ed. at lyons, _speculum humanae vitae. see_ rodericus zamorensis _speculum vitae christi_, caxton's edition, _sq._ speier, early printing at, -- johann of, first printer at venice, sq., -- wendelin of, successor of johann, , spenser, edmund, woodcuts to his _shepheardes calender_, spindeler, nic., illustrated books, _sq._ spoerer, hans, block-books printed by, springinklee, hans, illustrator, , stagninus, bernardinus, his illustrated service-books, stanheim, melchior, arbitrator on book-illustrating, , stationers' company, _sq._, , _sq._ steele, robert, on english books printed abroad, stephan, p., _schatzbehalter_, steyner, hans, illustrated books by, , stillingfleet, archbishop, fate of his library, stöffler, hans, mathematical works by, curiously decorated, story, john, edinburgh printer, strassburg, printing at, _sq._, ; book-illustration at, _sqq._, , _sq._ straten, dirick van der. _see_ plateanus strawberry hill, horace walpole's press at, stuchs, g., nuremberg printer, stule, karolus, edinburgh publisher, sturt, john, engraver, _sq._ subiaco, books printed at, sweynheym and pannartz, number of copies in their editions, note, ; early reference to, ; books printed by, _sq._; their types, -- conrad, engraves maps for ptolemy, , tacuinus, joannes, venice printer, tate, john, papermaker, taverner, john, london stationer, tavistock, printing at, terence, illustrated editions of, , , , , , , theramo, jacobus de, illustrated editions of his _belial_, ther hoernen, arnold, second cologne printer, thomas, thomas, cambridge printer, thomas à becket, erasure of the service for, tillier, thomas, chester printer, tin, types made of, note titlepage, early examples of, , , tortosa early printing, tory, geoffroi, printer at paris, ; his _horae_, _sq._, tottell, richard, london printer, tournes, jean de, father and son, printers at lyon, traut, wolfgang, illustrator, , trechsel family of printers at lyon, , , , _sq._ treviso, early printing at, _sq._, tuberinus, his account of the death of "das susses kind simon," , tübingen, book-decoration at, turberville, george, _booke of faulconrie_, turrecremata, cardinal, illustrated editions of his _meditationes_, , tyndale, w., editions of his new testament, types, characteristics of, in early books, _sq._ ugo (vgo), woodcuts signed, ulm early printing, _sq._; illustrated books, _sqq._ ungut and polonus, illustrated books of, united states of america, colonial printing in, - ; modern fine printing, updike, berkeley, fine printer, usher, archbishop, fate of his library, utrecht, "costeriana" attributed to, , utterson, e. v., private printing by, valdarfer, christopher, printer at venice and milan, valentia, early printing at, _sq._; illustration, valturius, r., _de re militari_, verona editions of, _sq._; french version of, van der gucht, michael, engraver, vautrollier, thomas, printer at london and edinburgh, , vavassore, giovanni andrea, block-printed _opera nova contemplativa_ by, ; woodcuts signed z.a., etc., by, _sq._ veldener, jan, early printer at louvain, kuilenburg and utrecht, , , , , venice early printing, _sq._; book-illustration, - , - , vérard, antoine, publisher at paris, - ; his _horae_, _sq._; his english books, ; his use of old cuts, , , vergetius, angelus, french royal greek types designed by, verona early book-illustration, _sq._ villena, marquis of, _trabajos de hercules_, vincent de beauvais, his _speculum_, violette, pierre, rouen printer, virgil, printed by b. cennini, colophon quoted, ; grüninger's, ; leroy's, ; aldine, ; first english, _sq._; ogilby's, ; baskerville's, virginia, early printing in, viterbo, good roman type, voltaire, edition of his works printed with baskerville's type, vostre, simon, books printed by pigouchet for, , _sqq._ wächtlin, johann, illustrator, waldegrave, robert, prints marprelate tracts, . _see_ prints at edinburgh, wale, samuel, illustrator, walker, emery, expert in printing, _sqq._ walpole, horace, private press, walther, f., and hans hurning, printers of a _biblia pauperum_, walton, izaak, illustrations to his _angler_, wandsforth, gerard. _see_ freez wandsworth, secret press at, weiditz, hans, illustrator, _sq._ wenssler, michael, basel printer, _sq._ wesel, bale's _catalogus_ printed there, westphalia, john of, early printer at alost and louvain, ; used roman type, ; his woodcut portrait, white, john, his drawings of virginia, -- robert., engraver, whittingham, charles (uncle and nephew), printers, _sq._ wilcocks, william, gave commissions to wynkyn de worde, williams, archbishop, gifts of books by, wilson, j. d., on english books printed abroad, winthrop, john, allusion to printing at cambridge, mass., wittenberg, printing at, ; illustrations, wolfe, reyner, royal painter, , wolgemut, michael, book-illustrator, woodcuts, early, their charm and distinctiveness, worde, wynkyn de, on caxton's printing the _de proprietatibus_, _sq._; on the st. alban's printer, ; on _fishing with an angle_, note; his work as a printer, _sq._; his assessment, ; book-illustrations, _sq._ würzburg, early printing at, -- missals, engravings in, wyer, robert, london printer, ximenes, cardinal, polyglott bible, york, printing at, , _sqq._ z.a., z.a., woodcuts signed, zainer, günther, first augsburg printer, _sq._; used roman type, ; his illustrated books, -- johann, first ulm printer, ; used roman type, ; his illustrated books, zarotus, antonius, first printer at milan, , zell, ulrich, his story of the invention of printing, ; the first printer at cologne, zenger, joh. peter, new york printer, zinna, the _psalterium b.v.m._ printed at, zoan andrea. _see_ vavassore, zurich, english books printed at, _sq._ zwolle early printing, ; book-illustrations at, printed by william brendon and son, ltd. plymouth internet archive (https://archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see https://archive.org/details/somenotesonearly morrrich some notes on early woodcut books, with a chapter on illuminated manuscripts, by william morris copyright, by h. m. o'kane [illustration: from terence's eunuchus, ulm, conrad dinckmut, ] notes on woodcut books on the artistic qualities of the woodcut books of ulm and augsburg in the fifteenth century. the invention of printing books, and the use of wood-blocks for book ornament in place of hand-painting, though it belongs to the period of the degradation of mediæval art, gave an opportunity to the germans to regain the place which they had lost in the art of book decoration during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. this opportunity they took with vigour and success, and by means of it put forth works which showed the best and most essential qualities of their race. unhappily, even at the time of their first woodcut book, the beginning of the end was on them; about thirty years afterwards they received the renaissance with singular eagerness and rapidity, and became, from the artistic point of view, a nation of rhetorical pedants. an exception must be made, however, as to albert dürer; for, though his method was infected by the renaissance, his matchless imagination and intellect made him thoroughly gothic in spirit. amongst the printing localities of germany the two neighbouring cities of ulm and augsburg developed a school of woodcut book ornament second to none as to character, and, i think, more numerously represented than any other. i am obliged to link the two cities, because the early school at least is common to both; but the ornamented works produced by ulm are but few compared with the prolific birth of augsburg. it is a matter of course that the names of the artists who designed these wood-blocks should not have been recorded, any more than those of the numberless illuminators of the lovely written books of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the names under which the ulm and augsburg picture-books are known are all those of their printers. of these by far the most distinguished are the kinsmen (their degree of kinship is not known), gunther zainer of augsburg and john zainer of ulm. nearly parallel with these in date are ludwig hohenwang and john bämler of augsburg, together with pflanzmann of augsburg, the printer of the first illustrated german bible. anthony sorg, a little later than these, was a printer somewhat inferior, rather a reprinter in fact, but by dint of reusing the old blocks, or getting them recut and in some cases redesigned, not always to their disadvantage, produced some very beautiful books. schoensperger, who printed right into the sixteenth century, used blocks which were ruder than the earlier ones, through carelessness, and i suppose probably because of the aim at cheapness; his books tend towards the chap-book kind. the earliest of these picture-books with a date is gunther zainer's golden legend, the first part of which was printed in ; but, as the most important from the artistic point of view, i should name: first, gunther zainer's speculum humanæ salvationis (undated but probably of ); second, john zainer's boccaccio de claris mulieribus (dated in a cut, as well as in the colophon, ); third, the Æsop, printed by both the zainers, but i do not know by which first, as it is undated; fourth, gunther zainer's spiegel des menschlichen lebens (undated but about ), with which must be taken his german belial, the cuts of which are undoubtedly designed by the same artist, and cut by the same hand, that cut the best in the spiegel above mentioned; fifth, a beautiful little book, the story of sigismonda and guiscard, by gunther zainer, undated; sixth, tuberinus, die geschicht von symon, which is the story of a late german hugh of lincoln, printed by g. zainer about ; seventh, john bämlers das buch der natur ( ), with many full-page cuts of much interest; eighth, by the same printer, das buch von den todsünden und den tugenden ( ); ninth, bämler's sprenger's rosencranz bruderschaft, with only two cuts, but those most remarkable. to these may be added as transitional (in date at least), between the earlier and the later school next to be mentioned, two really characteristic books printed by sorg: (a) der seusse, a book of mystical devotion, , and (b) the council of constance, printed in ; the latter being, as far as its cuts are concerned, mainly heraldic. at ulm, however, a later school arose after a transitional book, leonard hol's splendid ptolemy of ; of this school one printer's name, conrad dinckmut, includes all the most remarkable books: to wit, der seelen-wurzgarten ( ), das buch der weisheit ( ), the swabian chronicle ( ), terence's eunuchus (in german) ( ). lastly, john reger's descriptio obsidionis rhodiæ ( ) worthily closes the series of the ulm books. it should here be said that, apart from their pictures, the ulm and augsburg books are noteworthy for their border and letter decoration. the ulm printer, john zainer, in especial shone in the production of borders. his de claris mulieribus excels all the other books of the school in this matter; the initial s of both the latin and the german editions being the most elaborate and beautiful piece of its kind; and, furthermore, the german edition has a border almost equal to the s in beauty, though different in character, having the shield of scotland supported by angels in the corner. a very handsome border (or half-border rather), with a zany in the corner, used frequently in j. zainer's books [by the by, in gritsch's quadragesimale, , this zany is changed into an ordinary citizen by means of an ingenious piecing of the block], e.g., in the and editions of the rationale of durandus, and, associated with an interesting historiated initial o, in alvarus, de planctu ecclesiæ, . there are two or three other fine borders, such as those in steinhowel's büchlein der ordnung, and petrarch's griseldis (here shown), both of , and in albertus magnus, summa de eucharistiæ sacramento, . a curious alphabet of initials made up of leafage, good, but not very showy, is used in the de claris mulieribus and other books. an alphabet of large initials, the most complete example of which is to be found in leonard hol's ptolemy, is often used and is clearly founded on the pen-letters, drawn mostly in red and blue, in which the dutch 'rubrishers' excelled. [another set of initials founded on twelfth century work occurs in john zainer's folio books, and has some likeness to those used by hohenwang of augsburg in the golden bibel and elsewhere, and perhaps was suggested by these, as they are not very early (c. ), but they differ from hohenwang's in being generally more or less shaded, and also in not being enclosed in a square.] this big alphabet is very beautiful and seems to have been a good deal copied by other german printers, as it well deserved to be. [the initials of knoblotzer of strassburg and bernard richel of basel may be mentioned.] john reger's caoursin has fine handsome 'blooming-letters,' somewhat tending toward the french style. in augsburg gunther zainer has some initial i's of strap-work without foliation: they are finely designed, but gain considerably when, as sometimes happens, the spaces between the straps are filled in with fine pen-tracery and in yellowish brown; they were cut early in gunther's career, as one occurs in the speculum humanæ salvationis, c. , and another in the calendar, printed . these, as they always occur in the margin and are long, may be called border-pieces. a border occurring in eyb, ob einem manne tzu nemen ein weib is drawn very gracefully in outline, and is attached, deftly enough, to a very good s of the pen-letter type, though on a separate block; it has three shields of arms in it, one of which is the bearing of augsburg. this piece is decidedly illuminators' work as to design. gunther's margarita davidica has a border (attached to a very large p) which is much like the ulm borders in character. a genealogical tree of the house of hapsburg prefacing the spiegel des menschlichen lebens, and occupying a whole page, is comparable for beauty and elaboration to the s of john zainer above mentioned; on the whole, for beauty and richness of invention and for neatness of execution, i am inclined to give it the first place amongst all the decorative pieces of the german printers. gunther zainer's german bible of c. has a full set of pictured letters, one to every book, of very remarkable merit: the foliated forms which make the letters and enclose the figures being bold, inventive, and very well drawn. i note that these excellent designs have received much less attention than they deserve. in almost all but the earliest of gunther's books a handsome set of initials are used, a good deal like the above mentioned ulm initials, but with the foliations blunter, and blended with less of geometrical forms: the pen origin of these is also very marked. ludwig hohenwang, who printed at augsburg in the seventies, uses a noteworthy set of initials, alluded to above, that would seem to have been drawn by the designer with a twelfth century ms. before him, though, as a matter of course, the fifteenth century betrays itself in certain details, chiefly in the sharp foliations at the ends of the scrolls, etc. there is a great deal of beautiful design in these letters; but the square border round them, while revealing their origin from illuminators' work, leaves over-large whites in the backgrounds, which call out for the completion that the illuminator's colour would have given them. bämler and the later printer sorg do not use so much ornament as gunther zainer; their initials are less rich both in line and design than gunther's, and sorg's especially have a look of having run down from the earlier ones: in his seusse, however, there are some beautiful figured initials designed on somewhat the same plan as those of gunther zainer's bible. now it may surprise some of our readers, though i should hope not the greatest part of them, to hear that i claim the title of works of art, both for these picture-ornamented books as books, and also for the pictures themselves. their two main merits are first their decorative and next their story-telling quality; and it seems to me that these two qualities include what is necessary and essential in book-pictures. to be sure the principal aim of these unknown german artists was to give the essence of the story at any cost, and it may be thought that the decorative qualities of their designs were accidental, or done unconsciously at any rate. i do not altogether dispute that view; but then the accident is that of the skilful workman whose skill is largely the result of tradition; it has thereby become a habit of the hand to him to work in a decorative manner. to turn back to the books numbered above as the most important of the school, i should call john zainer's de claris mulieribus, and the Æsop, and gunther zainer's spiegel des menschlichen lebens the most characteristic. of these my own choice would be the de claris mulieribus, partly perhaps because it is a very old friend of mine, and perhaps the first book that gave me a clear insight into the essential qualities of the mediæval design of that period. the subject-matter of the book also makes it one of the most interesting, giving it opportunity for setting forth the mediæval reverence for the classical period, without any of the loss of romance on the one hand, and epical sincerity and directness on the other, which the flood-tide of renaissance rhetoric presently inflicted on the world. no story-telling could be simpler and more straightforward, and less dependent on secondary help, than that of these curious, and, as people phrase it, rude cuts. and in spite (if you please it) of their rudeness, they are by no means lacking in definite beauty: the composition is good everywhere, the drapery well designed, the lines rich, which shows of course that the cutting is good. though there is no ornament save the beautiful initial s and the curious foliated initials above mentioned, the page is beautifully proportioned and stately, when, as in the copy before me, it has escaped the fury of the bookbinder. the great initial 's' i claim to be one of the very best printers' ornaments ever made, one which would not disgrace a thirteenth century ms. adam and eve are standing on a finely-designed spray of poppy-like leafage, and behind them rise up the boughs of the tree. eve reaches down an apple to adam with her right hand, and with her uplifted left takes another from the mouth of the crowned woman's head of the serpent, whose coils, after they have performed the duty of making the s, end in a foliage scroll, whose branches enclose little medallions of the seven deadly sins. all this is done with admirable invention and romantic meaning, and with very great beauty of design and a full sense of decorative necessities. as to faults in this delightful book, it must be said that it is somewhat marred by the press-work not being so good as it should have been even when printed by the weak presses of the fifteenth century; but this, though a defect, is not, i submit, an essential one. in the Æsop the drawing of the designs is in a way superior to that of the last book: the line leaves nothing to be desired; it is thoroughly decorative, rather heavy, but so firm and strong, and so obviously in submission to the draughtman's hand, that it is capable of even great delicacy as well as richness. the figures both of man and beast are full of expression; the heads clean drawn and expressive also, and in many cases refined and delicate. the cuts, with few exceptions, are not bounded by a border, but amidst the great richness of line no lack of one is felt, and the designs fully sustain their decorative position as a part of the noble type of the ulm and augsburg printers; this Æsop is, to my mind, incomparably the best and most expressive of the many illustrated editions of the fables printed in the fifteenth century. the designs of the other german and flemish ones were all copied from it. gunther zainer's spiegel des menschlichen lebens is again one of the most amusing of woodcut books. one may say that the book itself, one of the most popular of the middle ages, runs through all the conditions and occupations of men as then existing, from the pope and kaiser down to the field labourer, and, with full indulgence in the mediæval love of formal antithesis, contrasts the good and the evil side of them. the profuse illustrations to all this abound in excellent pieces of naïve characterisation; the designs are very well put together, and, for the most part, the figures well drawn, and draperies good and crisp, and the general effect very satisfactory as decoration. the designer in this book, however, has not been always so lucky in his cutter as those of the last two, and some of the pictures have been considerably injured in the cutting. on the other hand the lovely genealogical tree above mentioned crowns this book with abundant honour, and the best of the cuts are so good that it is hardly possible to rank it after the first two. gunther zainer's speculum humanæ salvationis and his golden legend have cuts decidedly ruder than these three books; they are simpler also, and less decorative as ornaments to the page, nevertheless they have abundant interest, and most often their essential qualities of design shine through the rudeness, which by no means excludes even grace of silhouette: one and all they are thoroughly expressive of the story they tell. the designs in these two books by the by do not seem to have been done by the same hand; but i should think that the designer of those in the golden legend drew the subjects that 'inhabit' the fine letters of gunther's german bible. both seem to me to have a kind of illuminator's character in them. the cuts to the story of simon bring us back to those of spiegel des menschlichen lebens; they are delicate and pretty, and tell the story, half so repulsive, half so touching, of 'little sir hugh,' very well. i must not pass by without a further word on sigismund and guiscard. i cannot help thinking that the cuts therein are by the same hand that drew some of those in the Æsop; at any rate they have the same qualities of design, and are to my mind singularly beautiful and interesting. of the other contemporary, or nearly contemporary, printers bämler comes first in interest. his book von den todsünden, etc., has cuts of much interest and invention, not unlike in character to those of gunther zainer's golden legend. his buch der natur has full-page cuts of animals, herbs, and human figures exceedingly quaint, but very well designed for the most part. a half-figure of a bishop 'in pontificalibus' is particularly bold and happy. rupertus a sancto remigio's history of the crusade and the cronich von allen konigen und kaisern are finely illustrated. his rosencranz bruderschaft above mentioned has but two cuts, but they are both of them, the one as a fine decorative work, the other as a deeply felt illustration of devotional sentiment, of the highest merit. the two really noteworthy works of sorg (who, as aforesaid, was somewhat a plagiaristic publisher) are, first, the seusse, which is illustrated with bold and highly decorative cuts full of meaning and dignity, and next, the council of constance, which is the first heraldic woodcut work (it has besides the coats-of-arms, several fine full-page cuts, of which the burning of huss is one). these armorial cuts, which are full of interest as giving a vast number of curious and strange bearings, are no less so as showing what admirable decoration can be got out of heraldry when it is simply and well drawn. to conrad dinckmut of ulm, belonging to a somewhat later period than these last-named printers, belongs the glory of opposing by his fine works the coming degradation of book-ornament in germany. the seelen-wurzgarten, ornamented with seventeen full-page cuts, is injured by the too free repetition of them; they are, however, very good; the best perhaps being the nativity, which, for simplicity and beauty, is worthy of the earlier period of the middle ages. the swabian chronicle has cuts of various degrees of merit, but all interesting and full of life and spirit: a fight in the lists with axes being one of the most remarkable. das buch der weisheit (bidpay's fables) has larger cuts which certainly show no lack of courage; they are perhaps scarcely so decorative as the average of the cuts of the school, and are somewhat coarsely cut; but their frank epical character makes them worthy of all attention. but perhaps his most remarkable work is his terence's eunuchus (in german), ornamented with twenty-eight cuts illustrating the scenes. these all have backgrounds showing (mostly) the streets of a mediæval town, which clearly imply theatrical scenery; the figures of the actors are delicately drawn, and the character of the persons and their action is well given and carefully sustained throughout. the text of this book is printed in a large handsome black-letter, imported, as my friend mr. proctor informs me, from italy. the book is altogether of singular beauty and character. the caoursin ( ), the last book of any account printed at ulm, has good and spirited cuts of the events described, the best of them being the flight of turks in the mountains. one is almost tempted to think that these cuts are designed by the author of those of the mainz breidenbach of , though the cutting is much inferior. all these books, it must be remembered, though they necessarily (being printed books) belong to the later middle ages, and though some of them are rather decidedly late in that epoch, are thoroughly 'gothic' as to their ornament; there is no taint of the renaissance in them. in this respect the art of book-ornament was lucky. the neo-classical rhetoric which invaded literature before the end of the fourteenth century (for even chaucer did not quite escape it) was harmless against this branch of art at least for more than another hundred years; so that even italian book-pictures are gothic in spirit, for the most part, right up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, long after the new birth had destroyed the building arts for italy: while germany, whose gothic architecture was necessarily firmer rooted in the soil, did not so much as feel the first shiver of the coming flood till suddenly, and without warning, it was upon her, and the art of the middle ages fell dead in a space of about five years, and was succeeded by a singularly stupid and brutal phase of that rhetorical and academical art, which, in all matters of ornament, has held europe captive ever since. [illustration: from john zainer's griseldis, ulm, ] [illustration: from gunther zainer's speculum humanæ salvationis, augsburg, c. ] [illustration: from gunther zainer's ingold, das golden spiel, augsburg, ] [illustration: from john zainer's boccaccio de claris mulieribus, ulm, ] [illustration: from gunther zainer's epistles and gospels, augsburg, c. ] [illustration: from gunther zainer's spiegel d. menschl. lebens, augsburg, c. ] [illustration: from gunther zainer's tuberinus, geschicht von dem heiligen kind symon, augsburg, c. ] [illustration: from the Æsop] the woodcuts of gothic books notes on woodcut books i shall presently have the pleasure of showing you in some kind of sequence a number of illustrations taken from books of the th, and first years of the th centuries. but before i do so i wish to read to you a few remarks on the genesis and the quality of the kind of art represented by these examples, and the lessons which they teach us. since the earliest of those i have to show is probably not earlier in date than about , and almost all are more than fifty years later than that, it is clear that they belong to the latest period of mediæval art, and one or two must formally be referred to the earliest days of the renaissance, though in spirit they are still gothic. in fact, it is curious to note the suddenness of the supplanting of the gothic by the neo-classical style in some instances, especially in germany: e.g., the later books published by the great nuremberg printer, koburger, in the fourteen-nineties, books like the "nuremberg chronicle," and the "schatzbehalter," show no sign of the coming change, but ten years worn, and hey, presto, not a particle of gothic ornament can be found in any german printed book, though, as i think, the figure-works of one great man, albert dürer, were gothic in essence. the most part of these books, in fact all of them in the earlier days (the exceptions being mainly certain splendidly ornamented french books, including the sumptuous books of "hours"), were meant for popular books: the great theological folios, the law books, the decretals, and such like of the earlier german printers, though miracles of typographical beauty, if ornamented at all, were ornamented by the illuminator, with the single exception of gutenberg's splendid "psalter," which gives us at once the first and best piece of ornamental colour-printing yet achieved. again, the dainty and perfect volumes of the classics produced by the earlier roman and venetian printers disdained the help of wood blocks, though they were often beautifully illuminated, and it was not till after the days of jenson, the frenchman who brought the roman letter to perfection, it was not till italian typography began to decline, that illustration by reproducible methods became usual; and we know that these illustrated books were looked upon as inferior wares, and were sold far cheaper than the unadorned pages of the great printers. it must be noted in confirmation of the view that the woodcut books were cheap books, that in most cases they were vernacular editions of books already printed in latin. the work, then, which i am about to show you has first the disadvantage of the rudeness likely to disfigure cheap forms of art in a time that lacked the resource of slippery plausibility which helps out cheap art at the present day. and secondly, the disadvantage of belonging to the old age rather than the youth or vigorous manhood of the middle ages. on the other hand, it is art, and not a mere trade "article;" and though it was produced by the dying middle ages, they were not yet dead when it was current, so that it yet retains much of the qualities of the more hopeful period; and in addition, the necessity of adapting the current design to a new material and method gave it a special life, which is full of interest and instruction for artists of all times who are able to keep their eyes open. all organic art, all art that is genuinely growing, opposed to rhetorical, retrospective, or academical art, art which has no real growth in it, has two qualities in common: the epical and the ornamental; its two functions are the telling of a story and the adornment of a space or tangible object. the labour and ingenuity necessary for the production of anything that claims our attention as a work of art are wasted, if they are employed on anything else than these two aims. mediæval art, the result of a long unbroken series of tradition, is preëminent for its grasp of these two functions, which, indeed, interpenetrate then more than in any other period. not only is all its special art obviously and simply beautiful as ornament, but its ornament also is vivified with forcible meaning, so that neither in one or the other does the life ever flag, or the sensuous pleasure of the eye ever lack. you have not got to say, now you have your story, how are you going to embellish it? nor, now you have made your beauty, what are you going to do with it? for here are the two together, inseparably a part of each other. no doubt the force of tradition, which culminated in the middle ages, had much to do with this unity of epical design and ornament. it supplied deficiencies of individual by collective imagination (compare the constantly recurring phases and lines in genuine epical or ballad poetry); it ensured the inheritance of deft craftsmanship and instinct for beauty in the succession of the generations of workmen; and it cultivated the appreciation of good work by the general public. now-a-days artists work essentially for artists, and look on the ignorant layman with contempt, which even the necessity of earning a livelihood cannot force them wholly to disguise. in the times of art, they had no one but artists to work for, since every one was a potential artist. now, in such a period, when written literature was still divine, and almost miraculous to men, it was impossible that books should fail to have a due share in the epical-ornamental art of the time. accordingly, the opportunities offered by the pages which contained the wisdom and knowledge of past and present times were cultivated to the utmost. the early middle ages, beginning with the wonderful calligraphy of the irish mss., were, above all times, the epoch of writing. the pages of almost all books, from the th to the th century, are beautiful, even without the addition of ornament. in those that are ornamented without pictures illustrative of the text, the eye is so pleasured, and the fancy so tickled by the beauty and exhaustless cheerful invention of the illuminator, that one scarcely ventures to ask that the tale embodied in the written characters should be further illustrated. but when this is done, and the book is full of pictures, which tell the written tale again with the most conscientious directness of design, and as to execution with great purity of outline and extreme delicacy of colour, we can say little more than that the only work of art which surpasses a complete mediæval book is a complete mediæval building. this must be said, with the least qualification, of the books of from about to . after this date, the work loses, in purity and simplicity, more than it gains in pictorial qualities, and, at last, after the middle of the th century, illuminated books lose much of their individuality on the ornamental side; and, though they are still beautiful, are mostly only redeemed from commonplace when the miniatures in them are excellent. but here comes in the new element, given by the invention of printing, and the gradual shoving out of the scribe by the punch-cutter, the typefounder, and the printer. the first printed characters were as exact reproductions of the written ones as the new craftsmen could compass, even to the extent of the copying of the infernal abbreviations which had gradually crept into manuscript; but, as i have already mentioned, the producers of serious books did not at first supply the work of the illuminator by that of the woodcutter, either in picture work or ornament. in fact, the art of printing pictures from wood blocks is earlier than that of printing books, and is undoubtedly the parent of book illustration. the first woodcuts were separate pictures of religious subjects, circulated for the edification of the faithful, in existing examples generally coloured by hand, and certainly always intended to be coloured. the earliest of these may be as old as , and there are many which have been dated in the first half of the th century; though the dates are mostly rather a matter of speculation. but the development of book illustration proper by no means puts an end to their production. many were done between and , and some in the first years of the th century; but the earlier ones only have any special character in them. of these, some are cut rudely and some timidly also, but some are fairly well cut, and few so ill that the expression of the design is not retained. the design of most of these early works is mostly admirable, and as far removed from the commonplace as possible; many, nay most of these cuts, are fine expressions of that pietism of the middle ages which has been somewhat veiled from us by the strangeness, and even grotesqueness which has mingled with it, but the reality of which is not doubtful to those who have studied the period without prejudice. amongst these may be cited a design of christ being pressed in the wine press, probably as early as the end of the th century, which may stand without disadvantage beside a fine work of the th century. the next step towards book illustration brings us to the block-books, in which the picture-cuts are accompanied by a text, also cut on wood; the folios being printed by rubbing off on one side only. the subject of the origin of the most noteworthy of these books, the "ars moriendi," the "lord's prayer," the "song of solomon," the "biblia pauperum," the "apocalypse," and the "speculum humanæ salvationis," has been debated, along with the question of the first printer by means of movable types, with more acrimony than it would seem to need. i, not being a learned person, will not add one word to the controversy; it is enough to say that these works were done somewhere between the years and , and that their style was almost entirely dominant throughout the gothic period in flanders and holland, while it had little influence on the german wood-cutters. for the rest, all these books have great merit as works of art; it would be difficult to find more direct or more poetical rendering of the events given than those of the "speculum humanæ salvationis;" or more elegant and touching designs than those in the "song of solomon." the cuts of the "biblia pauperum" are rougher, but full of vigour and power of expression. the "ars moriendi" is very well drawn and executed, but the subject is not so interesting. the "apocalypse" and "the lord's prayer" are both of them excellent, the former being scarcely inferior in design to the best of the apocalypse picture mss. of the end of the thirteenth century. we have now come to the wood-cuts which ornament the regular books of the gothic period, which began somewhat timidly. the two examples in germany and italy, not far removed from each other in date, being the "historie von joseph, daniel, judith, and esther," printed by albrecht pfister, at bamberg, in ; and the "meditations of turrecremata (or torquemada)," printed at rome by ulric hahn, in the year , which latter, though taken by the command of the pope from the frescoes of a roman church (sta. maria sopra minerva) are as german as need be, and very rude in drawing and execution, though not without spirit. but, after this date, the school of wood-carving developed rapidly; and, on the whole, germany, which had been very backward in the art of illumination, now led the new art. the main schools were those of ulm and augsburg, of maintz, of strasburg, of basel, and of nuremberg, the latter being the later. the examples which i shall presently have the pleasure of showing you are wholly of the first and the last, as being the most representative, ulm and augsburg of the earlier style, nuremberg of the later. but i might mention, in passing, that some of the earlier basel books, notably bernard richel's "speculum humanæ salvationis," are very noteworthy; and that, in fourteen-eighties, there was a school at maintz that produced, amongst other books, a very beautiful "herbal," and breydenbach's "peregrinatio," which, amongst other merits, such as actual representations of the cities on the road to the holy land, must be said to contain the best executed woodcuts of the middle ages. of course, there were many other towns in germany which produced illustrated books, but they may be referred in character to one or other of these schools. in holland and flanders there was a noble school of woodcutting, delicately decorative in character, and very direct and expressive, being, as i said, the direct descendant of the block-books. the name of the printer who produced most books of this school was gerard leeuw (or lion), who printed first at gouda, and afterwards at antwerp. but colard mansion, of bruges, who printed few books, and was the master of caxton in the art of printing, turned out a few very fine specimens of illustrated books. one of the most remarkable illustrated works published in the low countries--which i mention for its peculiarity--is the "chevalier deliberé" (an allegorical poem on the death of charles the rash), and i regret not being able to show you a slide of it, as it could not be done satisfactorily. this book, published at schiedam in , decidedly leans towards the french in style, rather than the native manner deduced from the earlier block-books. france began both printing and book illustration somewhat late, most of its important illustrated works belonging to a period between the years and ; but she grasped the art of book decoration with a firmness and completeness very characteristic of french genius; and also, she carried on the gothic manner later than any other nation. for decorative qualities, nothing can excel the french books, and many of the picture-cuts, besides their decorative merits, have an additional interest in the romantic quality which they introduce: they all look as if they might be illustrations to the "morte d'arthur" or tristram. in italy, from about onward, book illustrations became common, going hand-in-hand with the degradation of printing, as i said before. the two great schools in italy are those of florence and venice. i think it must be said that, on the whole, the former city bore away the bell from venice, in spite of the famous aldine "polyphilus," the cuts in which, by the way, are very unequal. there are a good many book illustrations published in italy, i should mention, like those to ulric hahn's "meditations of turrecremata," which are purely german in style; which is only to be expected from the fact of the early printers in italy being mostly germans. i am sorry to have to say it, but england cannot be said to have a school of gothic book illustration; the cuts in our early printed books are, at the best, french or flemish blocks pretty well copied. this lamentable fact is curious, considered along with what is also a fact: that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the english were, on the whole, the best book decorators. i have a few words to say yet on the practical lessons to be derived from the study of these works of art; but before i say them, i will show you, by your leave, the slides taken from examples of these woodcuts. only i must tell you first, what doubtless many of you know, that these old blocks were not produced by the graver on the end section of a piece of fine-grained wood (box now invariably), but by the knife on the plank section of pear-tree or similar wood--a much more difficult feat when the cuts were fine, as, e.g., in lützelberger's marvellous cuts of the "dance of death." [mr. morris then showed a series of lantern slides, which he described as follows:] . this is taken from the "ars moriendi," date about . you may call it flemish or dutch, subject to raising the controversy i mentioned just now. . the "song of solomon," about the same date. . from the first illustrated book of the ulm school. the renowned and noble ladies of boccaccio. it begins with adam and eve. the initial letter is very characteristic of the ulm school of ornament. the trail of the serpent forms the s, and in the knots of the tail are little figures representing the seven deadly sins. . another page from the same book. "ceres and the art of agriculture." one of the great drawbacks to wood block printing in those times was the weakness of the presses. their only resource was to print with the paper very wet, and with very soft packing, so that the block went well into the paper; but many books, and this amongst others, have suffered much from this cause. . another page of the same book. the date is . . this is from an augsburg book. "speculum humanæ vitæ," written by a spanish bishop, which was a great favourite in the middle ages. it gives the advantages and disadvantages of all conditions of life. this block contains a genealogical tree of the hapsburg family, and is an exceedingly beautiful piece of ornamental design, very well cut. . from the same book; representing not the "five alls," with which you are familiar, but the "four alls;" the gentleman, the merchant, the nobleman, and the poor man, who is the support of the whole lot, with his toes coming through his shoes. this is a fine specimen of printing of gunther zainer. the initial letters are very handsome in all these augsburg books. . there is a picture of the unjust lawyer, from the same book, taking money from both sides. the date of this book is about . . from "Æsop's fables," a reproduction of the "ulm Æsop," by antony sorg, of augsburg (but the pictures are printed from the same blocks), the "fly on the wheel," and the "jackdaw and peacock." these designs for the Æsop pictures went all through the middle ages, with very little alteration. . "king stork and king log," from the same book. . this is from the table-book of bidpay, by conrad dinckmuth, who carried on the early glories of the ulm school in a later generation; about . . the parrot in a cage, with the ladies making a sham storm to cause the poor bird to be put to death. dinckmuth did some very remarkable work: one of the best of which was a german translation of the "eunuchus" of terence; another the "chronicle of the swabians." . the "schatzbehalter," published by koburger, of nuremberg, . although so late, there is no trace of any classical influence in the design. the architecture, for instance, is pure late german architecture. . from the same book, "joshua meeting the angel," and "moses at the burning bush." . a page, or part of a page, from the celebrated nuremberg chronicle, printed by koburger in . this is, in a way, an exception to the rule of illustrated books being in the vernacular, as it is in latin; but there is also a german edition. . another specimen of the same book. . from a curious devotional book, "der seusse," printed by antony sorg, at augsburg, about . . another page, which shows the decorative skill with which they managed their diagram pictures. . an example of the flemish school, and characteristic of the design of white and black, which is so often used both by the florentine and the flemish wood-cutters. it is from a life of christ, published by gerard leeuw in . . another page from the same book. there are certainly two artists in this book, and the one on the left appears to be the more pictorial of the two; though his designs are graceful, he is hardly as good as the rougher book illustrator. gerard leeuw had a very handsome set of initial letters, a kind of ornament which did not become common until after . . another one from the same book. . from another flemish book, showing how the style runs through them all. st. george and the dragon; from "a golden legend," . . one of french series, from a very celebrated book called "la mer des histoires." it begins the history of france a little before the deluge. it is a most beautiful book, and very large. one would think these borders were meant to be painted, as so many "books of hours" were, but i have never seen a copy which has had the borders painted, though, as a rule, when the borders are meant to be painted, it is not common to find one plain. . another page from the same book; but the slide does not do justice to it. i will here mention that one failing of the french publishers was to make one picture serve for several purposes. the fact is, they were more careful of decoration than illustration. . another french book by a french printer, the "aubre des batailles," which illustrates that curious quality of romance which you find in the french pictures. it is true that many of these cuts were not made for this book; in fact, they were done for another edition of the chevalier delibré, the flemish edition of which i have mentioned before, for some have that name on them. . another from the same book. . another good example of the french decorative style. it is from petrarch's "remedy of either fortune." this is the author presenting his book to the king, and is often used in these french books. . from another french book of about the same date (the beginning of the sixteenth century), "the shepherd's calendar," of which there were a great number of english editions, even as late as , the cuts being imitated from these blocks. . a page from one of the beautiful "books of hours," which were mostly printed on vellum, every page of which is decorated more or less with this sort of picture. here is the calendar, with the signs of the zodiac, the work of the months, the saints that occur in it, and games and sports; on the other side is the sangraal. this book is throughout in the same style--wholly gothic. it was printed in , and about twenty years after these service-books became very much damaged by having renaissance features introduced from german artists of the time. . another page from the same book. the resurrection, and the raising of lazarus are the principal subjects. . nominally an italian woodcut; the book was printed at milan, but this cut is probably of german design, if not execution. . from a very beautiful book in the florentine style. one of the peculiarities is the copious use of white out of black. . another from the same--"the quatre reggio," . . another, very characteristic of the florentine style, with its beautiful landscape background. . this is one in which the ornament has really got into the renaissance style. it is a sort of "lucky book," with all sorts of ways of finding your fortune, discovering where your money has gone, who is your enemy, and so on. one of the peschia books, actually printed at milan, but of the venetian school. . from a book of the venetian style, about the same date. i show it as an example of the carefulness and beauty with which the artists of the time combined the border work with the pictures. there is something very satisfactory in the proportion of black and white in the whole page. now you have seen my examples, i want once more to impress upon you the fact that these designs, one and all, while they perform their especial function--the office of telling a tale--never forget their other function of decorating the book of which they form a part; this is the essential difference between them and modern book illustrations, which i suppose make no pretence at decorating the pages of the book, but must be looked upon as black and white pictures which it is convenient to print and bind up along with the printed matter. the question, in fact, which i want to put to you is this, whether we are to have books which are beautiful as books; books in which type, paper, woodcuts, and the due arrangement of all these are to be considered, and which are so treated as to produce a harmonious whole, something which will give a person with a sense of beauty real pleasure whenever and wherever the book is opened, even before he begins to look closely into the illustrations; or whether the beautiful and inventive illustrations are to be looked on as separate pictures imbedded in a piece of utilitarianism, which they cannot decorate because it cannot help them to do so. take, as an example of the latter, mr. fred. walker's illustrations to "philip" in the "cornhill magazine," of the days when some of us were young, since i am inclined to think that they are about the best of such illustrations. now they are part of thackeray's story, and i don't want them to be in any way less a part of it, but they are in no respect a part of the tangible printed book, and i do want them to be that. as it is, the mass of utilitarian matter in which they are imbedded is absolutely helpless and dead. why it is not even ugly--at least not vitally ugly. now the reverse is the case with the books from which i have taken the examples which you have been seeing. as things to be looked at they are beautiful, taken as a whole; they are alive all over, and not merely in a corner here and there. the illustrator has to share the success and the failure, not only of the wood-cutter, who has translated his drawing, but also of the printer and the mere ornamentalist, and the result is that you have a book which is a visible work of art. you may say that you don't care for this result, that you wish to read literature and to look at pictures; and that so long as the modern book gives you these pleasures you ask no more of it; well, i can understand that, but you must pardon me if i say that your interest in books in that case is literary only, and not artistic, and that implies, i think, a partial crippling of the faculties; a misfortune which no one should be proud of. however, it seems certain that there is growing up a taste for books which are visible works of art, and that especially in this country, where the printers, at their best, do now use letters much superior in form to those in use elsewhere, and where a great deal of work intending to ornament books reasonably is turned out; most of which, however, is deficient in some respect; which, in fact, is seldom satisfactory unless the whole page, picture, ornament, and type is reproduced literally from the handiwork of the artist, as in some of the beautiful works of mr. walter crane. but this is a thing that can rarely be done, and what we want, it seems to me, is, not that books should sometimes be beautiful, but that they should generally be beautiful; indeed, if they are not, it increases the difficulties of those who would make them sometimes beautiful immensely. at any rate, i claim that illustrated books should always be beautiful, unless, perhaps, where the illustrations are present rather for the purpose of giving information than for that of giving pleasure to the intellect through the eye; but surely, even in this latter case, they should be reasonably and decently good-looking. well, how is this beauty to be obtained? it must be by the harmonious coöperation of the craftsmen and artists who produce the book. first, the paper should be good, which is a more important point than might be thought, and one in which there is a most complete contrast between the old and the modern books; for no bad paper was made till about the middle of the sixteenth century, and the worst that was made even then was far better than what is now considered good. next, the type must be good, a matter in which there is more room for excellence than those may think who have not studied the forms of letters closely. there are other matters, however, besides the mere form of the type which are of much importance in the producing of a beautiful book, which, however, i cannot go into tonight, as it is a little beside my present subject. then, the mere ornament must be good, and even very good. i do not know anything more dispiriting than the mere platitudes of printers' ornaments--trade ornaments. it is not uncommon now-a-days to see handsome books quite spoiled by them--books in which plain, unadorned letters would have been far more ornamental. then we come to the picture woodcuts. and here i feel i shall find many of you differing from me strongly; for i am sure that such illustrations as those excellent black and white pictures of fred. walker could never make book ornaments. the artist, to produce these satisfactorily, must exercise severe self-restraint, and must never lose sight of the page of the book he is ornamenting. that ought to be obvious to you, but i am afraid it will not be. i do not think any artist will ever make a good book illustrator, unless he is keenly alive to the value of a well-drawn line, crisp and clean, suggesting a simple and beautiful silhouette. anything which obscures this, and just to the extent to which it does obscure it, takes away from the fitness of the design as a book ornament. in this art vagueness is quite inadmissible. it is better to be wrong than vague in making designs which are meant to be book ornaments. again, as the artists' designs must necessarily be reproduced for this purpose, he should never lose sight of the material he is designing for. lack of precision is fatal (to take up again what i have just advanced) in an art produced by the point of the graver on a material which offers just the amount of resistance which helps precision. and here i come to a very important part of my subject, to wit, the relation between the designer and the wood-engraver; and it is clear that if these two artists do not understand one another, the result must be failure; and this understanding can never exist if the wood-engraver has but to cut servilely what the artist draws carelessly. if any real school of wood-engraving is to exist again, the wood-cutter must be an artist translating the designer's drawing. it is quite pitiable to see the patience and ingenuity of such clever workmen, as some modern wood-cutters are, thrown away on the literal reproduction of mere meaningless scrawls. the want of logic in artists who will insist on such work is really appalling. it is the actual touches of the hand that give the speciality, the final finish to a work of art, which carries out in one material what is designed in another; and for the designer to ignore the instrument and material by which the touches are to be done, shows complete want of understanding of the scope of reproducible design. i cannot help thinking that it would be a good thing for artists who consider designing a part of their province (i admit there are very few such artists) to learn the art of wood-engraving, which, up to a certain point, is a far from difficult art; at any rate for those who have the kind of eyes suitable for the work. i do not mean that they should necessarily always cut their own designs, but that they should be able to cut them. they would then learn what the real capacities of the art are, and would, i should hope, give the executing artists genuine designs to execute, rather than problems to solve. i do not know if it is necessary to remind you that the difficulties in cutting a simple design on wood (and i repeat that all designs for book illustrations should be simple) are very much decreased since the fifteenth century, whereas instead of using the knife on the plank section of the wood, we now use the graver on the end section. perhaps, indeed, some of you may think this simple wood-cutting contemptible, because of its ease; but delicacy and refinement of execution are always necessary in producing a line, and this is not easy, nay it is not possible to those who have not got the due instinct for it; mere mechanical deftness is no substitute for this instinct. again, as it is necessary for the designer to have a feeling for the quality of the final execution, to sympathise with the engravers difficulties, and know why one block looks artistic and another mechanical; so it is necessary for the engraver to have some capacity for design, so that he may know what the designer wants of him, and that he may be able to translate the designer, and give him a genuine and obvious cut line in place of his pencilled or penned line without injuring in any way the due expression of the original design. lastly, what i want the artist--the great man who designs for the humble executant--to think of is, not his drawn design, which he should look upon as a thing to be thrown away when it has served its purpose, but the finished and duly printed ornament which is offered to the public. i find that the executants of my humble designs always speak of them as "sketches," however painstaking they may be in execution. this is the recognised trade term, and i quite approve of it as keeping the "great man" in his place, and showing him what his duty is, to wit, to take infinite trouble in getting the finished work turned out of hand. i lay it down as a general principle in all the arts, where one artist's design is carried out by another in a different material, that doing the work twice over is by all means to be avoided as the source of dead mechanical work. the "sketch" should be as slight as possible, i.e., as much as possible should be left to the executant. a word or two of recapitulation as to the practical side of my subject, and i have done. an illustrated book, where the illustrations are more than mere illustrations of the printed text, should be a harmonious work of art. the type, the spacing of the type, the position of the pages of print on the paper, should be considered from the artistic point of view. the illustrations should not have a mere accidental connection with the other ornament and the type, but an essential and artistic connection. they should be designed as a part of the whole, so that they would seem obviously imperfect without their surroundings. the designs must be suitable to the material and method of reproduction, and not offer to the executant artist a mere thicket of unnatural difficulties, producing no result when finished, save the exhibition of a tour de force. the executant, on his side, whether he be the original designer or someone else, must understand that his business is sympathetic translation, and not mechanical reproduction of the original drawing. this means, in other words, the designer of the picture-blocks, the designer of the ornamental blocks, the wood-engraver, and the printer, all of them thoughtful, painstaking artists, and all working in harmonious coöperation for the production of a work of art. this is the only possible way in which you can get beautiful books. some notes on the illuminated books of the middle ages. notes on illuminated books the middle ages may be called the epoch of writing par excellence. stone, bronze, wooden rune-staves, waxed tablets, papyrus, could be written upon with one instrument or another; but all these--even the last, tender and brittle as it was--were but makeshift materials for writing on; and it was not until parchment and vellum, and at last rag-paper, became common, that the true material for writing on, and the quill pen, the true instrument for writing with, were used. from that time till the period of the general use of printing must be considered the age of written books. as in other handicrafts, so also in this, the great period of genuine creation (once called the dark ages by those who had forgotten the past, and whose ideal of the future was a comfortable prison) did all that was worth doing as an art, leaving makeshifts to the period of the new birth and the intelligence of modern civilisation. byzantium was doubtless the mother of mediæval calligraphy, but the art spread speedily through the north of europe and flourished there at an early period, and it is almost startling to find it as we do in full bloom in ireland in the seventh century. no mere writing has been done before or since with such perfection as that of the early irish ecclesiastical books; and this calligraphy is interesting also, as showing the development of what is now called by printers "lower-case" letter, from the ancient majuscular characters. the writing is, i must repeat, positively beautiful in itself, thoroughly ornamental; but these books are mostly well equipped with actual ornament, as carefully executed as the writing--in fact, marvels of patient and ingenious interlacements. this ornament, however, has no relation in any genuine irish book to the traditional style of byzantium, but is rather a branch of a great and widespread school of primal decoration, which has little interest in the representation of humanity and its doings, or, indeed, in any organic life, but is contented with the convolutions of abstract lines, over which it attains to great mastery. the most obvious example of this kind of art may be found in the carvings of the maoris of new zealand; but it is common to many races at a certain stage of development. the colour of these irish ornaments is not very delightful, and no gold appears in them. [example: "the book of kells," trinity college, dublin, &c.] this irish calligraphy and illumination was taken up by the north of england monks; and from them, though in less completeness, by the carlovingian makers of books both in france and even in germany; but they were not content with the quite elementary representation of the human form current in the irish illuminations, and filled up the gap by imitating the byzantine picture-books with considerable success [examples: durham gospels, british museum, gospels at boulogne, &c.], and in time developed a beautiful style of illumination combining ornament with figure-drawing, and one seat of which in the early eleventh century was winchester. [example: charter of foundation of newminster at winchester, british museum.] gold was used with some copiousness in these latter books, but is not seen in the carefully-raised and highly-burnished condition which is so characteristic of mediæval illumination at its zenith. it should be noticed that amongst the byzantine books of the earlier period are some which on one side surpass in mere sumptuousness all books ever made; these are written in gold and silver on vellum stained purple throughout. later on again, in the semi-byzantine-anglo-saxon or carlovingian period, are left us some specimens of books written in gold and silver on white vellum. this splendour was at times resorted to (chiefly in italy) in the latter half of the fifteenth century. the just-mentioned late anglo-saxon style was the immediate forerunner of what may be called the first complete mediæval school, that of the middle of the twelfth century. here the change for the better is prodigious. apart from the actual pictures done for explanation of the text and the edification of the "faithful," these books are decorated with borders, ornamental letters, &c., in which foliage and forms human, animal, and monstrous are blended with the greatest daring and most complete mastery. the drawing is firm and precise, and it may be said also that an unerring system of beautiful colour now makes its appearance. this colour (as all schools of decorative colour not more or less effete) is founded on the juxtaposition of pure red and blue modified by delicate but clear and bright lines and "pearlings" of white, and by the use of a little green and spaces of pale pink and flesh-colour, and here and there some negative greys and ivory yellows. in most cases where the book is at all splendid, gold is very freely used, mostly in large spaces--backgrounds and the like--which, having been gilded over a solid ground with thick gold-leaf, are burnished till they look like solid plates of actual metal. the effect of this is both splendid and refined, the care with which gold is laid on, and its high finish, preventing any impression of gaudiness. the writing of this period becoming somewhat more definitely "gothic," does not fall short of (it could not surpass) that of the previous half-century. from this time a very gradual change--during which we have to note somewhat more of delicacy in drawing and refinement of colour--brings us to the first quarter of the thirteenth century; and here a sundering of the styles of the different peoples begins to be obvious. throughout the twelfth century, though there is a difference, it is easier to distinguish an english or french book from a german or italian by the writing than by the illumination; but after the first glance on opening the book will most often cry out at you, german, italian, or french-english. for the rest, the illuminations still gain beauty and delicacy, the gold is even more universally brilliant, the colour still more delicious. the sub-art of the rubricator, as distinguished from the limner and the scribe, now becomes more important, and remains so down to the end of the fifteenth century. work of great fineness and elegance, drawn mostly with pen, and always quite freely, in red and blue counterchanged, is lavished on the smaller initials and other subsidiaries of the pages, producing, with the firm black writing and the ivory tone of the vellum, a beautiful effect, even when the more solid and elaborate illumination is lacking. during this period, apart from theological and philosophical treatises, herbals, "bestiaries," &c., the book most often met with, especially when splendidly ornamented, is the psalter, as sung in churches, to which is generally added a calendar, and always a litany of the saints. this calendar, by the way, both in this and succeeding centuries, is often exceedingly interesting, from the representations given in it of domestic occupations. the great initial b (beatus vir qui non) of these books affords an opportunity to the illuminator, seldom missed, of putting forth to the full his powers of design and colour. the last quarter of the thirteenth century brings us to the climax of illumination considered apart from book-pictures. nothing can exceed the grace, elegance, and beauty of the drawing and the loveliness of the colour found at this period in the best-executed books; and it must be added that, though some work is rougher than other, at this time there would appear, judging from existing examples, to have been no bad work done. the tradition of the epoch is all-embracing and all-powerful, and yet no single volume is without a genuine individuality and life of its own. in short if all the other art of the middle ages had disappeared, they might still claim to be considered a great period of art on the strength of their ornamental books. in the latter part of the thirteenth century we note a complete differentiation between the work of the countries of europe. there are now three great schools: the french-flemish-english, the italian, and the german. of these the first is of the most, the last of the least, importance. as to the relations between england and france, it must be said that, though there is a difference between them, it is somewhat subtle, and may be put thus: of some books you may say, this is french; of others, this is english; but of the greater part you can say nothing more than, this belongs to the french-english school. of those that can be differentiated with something like certainty, it may be said that the french excel specially in a dainty and orderly elegance, the english specially in love of life and nature, and there is more of rude humour in them than in their french contemporaries; but he must be at once a fastidious and an absolute man who could say the french is better than the english or the english than the french. the norwich psalter, in the bodleian library; the arundel, queen mary's, and tennison psalters, in the british museum, are among the finest of these english books: nothing can surpass their fertility of invention, splendour of execution, and beauty of colour. this end of the thirteenth century went on producing splendid psalters at a great rate; but between and or the greatest industry of the scribe was exercised in the writing of bibles, especially pocket volumes. these last, it is clear, were produced in enormous quantities, for in spite of the ravages of time many thousands of them still exist. they are, one and all, beautifully written in hands necessarily very minute, and mostly very prettily illuminated with tiny figure-subjects in the initials of each book. for a short period at the end of this and the beginning of the next century many copies of the apocalypse were produced, illustrated copiously with pictures, which give us examples of serious gothic designs at its best, and seem to show us what wall-pictures of the period might have been in the north of europe. the fourteenth century, the great mother of change, was as busy in making ornamental books as in other artistic work. when we are once fairly in the century a great change is apparent again in the style. it is not quite true to say that it is more redundant than its predecessor, but it has more mechanical redundancy. the backgrounds to the pictures are more elaborated; sometimes diapered blue and red, sometimes gold most beautifully chased with dots and lines. the borders cover the page more; buds turn into open leaves; often abundance of birds and animals appear in the borders, naturalistically treated (and very well drawn); there is more freedom, and yet less individuality in this work; in short the style, though it has lost nothing (in its best works) of elegance and daintiness--qualities so desirable in an ornamental book--has lost somewhat of manliness and precision; and this goes on increasing till, towards the end of the century, we feel that we have before us work that is in peril of an essential change for the worse. [in france "bibles historiaux," i.e., partial translations of the bible, very copiously pictured, were one of the most noteworthy productions of the latter half of the century. the bible taken in the tent of the french king at the battle of poitiers, now in the british museum, is a fine example.] the differentiation, too, betwixt the countries increases; before the century is quite over, england falls back in the race [though we have in the british museum some magnificent examples of english illumination of the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, e.g., "the salisbury book;" a huge bible (harl. i., e. ix.) ornamented in a style very peculiarly english. the wyclifite translation of the bible at the museum is a good specimen of this style], and french-flanders and burgundy come forward, while italy has her face turned toward renaissance, and germany too often shows a tendency toward coarseness and incompleteness, which had to be redeemed in the long last by the honesty of invention and fitness of purpose of her woodcut ornaments to books. many most beautiful books, however, were turned out, not only throughout the fourteenth, but even in the first half of the fifteenth century. ["the hours of the duke of berry" (bibliothèque nationale, paris), and the "bedford hours," in the british museum, both french, are exceedingly splendid examples of this period.] the first harbinger of the great change that was to come over the making of books i take to be the production in italy of most beautifully-written copies of the latin classics. these are often very highly ornamented; and at first not only do they imitate (very naturally) the severe hands of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but even (though a long way off) the interlacing ornament of that period. in these books the writing, it must be said, is in its kind far more beautiful than the ornament. there were so many written and pictured books produced in the fifteenth century that space quite fails me to write of them as their great merits deserve. in the middle of the century an invention, in itself trifling, was forced upon europe by the growing demand for more and cheaper books. gutenberg somehow got hold of punches, matrices, the adjustable mould, and so of cast movable type; schoeffer, mentelin, and the rest of them caught up the art with the energy and skill so characteristic of the mediæval craftsman. the new german art spread like wildfire into every country of europe; and in a few years written books had become mere toys for the immensely rich. yet the scribe, the rubricator, and the illuminator died hard. decorated written books were produced in great numbers after printing had become common; by far the greater number of these were books of hours, very highly ornamented and much pictured. their style is as definite as any of the former ones, but it has now gone off the road of logical consistency; for divorce has taken place between the picture-work and the ornament. often the pictures are exquisitely-finished miniatures belonging to the best schools of painting of the day; but often also they are clearly the work of men employed to fill up a space, and having no interest in their work save livelihood. the ornament never fell quite so low as that, though as ornament it is not very "distinguished," and often, especially in the latest books, scarcely adds to the effect on the page of the miniature to which it is a subsidiary. but besides these late-written books, in the first years of printing, the rubricator was generally, and the illuminator not seldom, employed on printed books themselves. in the early days of printing the big initials were almost always left for the rubricator to paint in in red and blue, and were often decorated with pretty scroll-work by him; and sometimes one or more pages of the book were surrounded with ornament in gold and colours, and the initials elaborately finished in the same way. the most complete examples of this latter work subsidiary to the printed page are found in early books printed in italy, especially in the splendid editions of the classics which came from the presses of the roman and venetian printers. by about all book illumination of any value was over, and thus disappeared an art which may be called peculiar to the middle ages, and which commonly shows mediæval craftsmanship at its best, partly because of the excellence of the work itself, and partly because that work can only suffer from destruction and defacement, and cannot, like mediæval buildings, be subjected to the crueller ravages of "restoration." here end the notes on early wood-cut books by william morris. of this book there have been printed one hundred and twenty copies by clarke conwell at the elston press: finished this twentieth day of february, mdccccii. sold by clarke conwell at the elston press, pelham road, new rochelle, new york * * * * * * transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.