It is a peculiar irony that attributes Beardsley’s _Morte d’Arthur_ phase to 1893-94; for whilst it is true that it was from mid-1893 that the book began to be published, Beardsley had turned his back upon it for months--indeed his principal drawings had been made for it in late 1892, and only with difficulty could they be extracted from him even in early 1893! The second of the two elaborate drawings in his “hairy line” called _The Questing Beast_ is dated by Beardsley himself “March 8, 1893”--as for 1894, it would have been impossible for Beardsley by that time to make such a drawing. Even as it is, the early 1893 decorations differ utterly from the more mediæval or Burne-Jonesesques decorations of late 1892; and by the time the _Morte d’Arthur_ began to be given to the public, Beardsley, as we have seen, had completely rejected his whole Burne-Jones convention. The two cover-designs for _The Studio No. I_ in April 1893 were obviously drawn at the same time as the design for the covers of the _Morte d’Arthur_--in the early Spring of 1893. They could well be exchanged without the least loss. They practically write Finis to the _Morte d’Arthur_ drawings. They make a good full stop to the record of Beardsley’s achievement in his twentieth year. There is a story told of Dent’s anxieties over Beardsley’s exasperating procrastination in delivering the later drawings for the _Morte d’Arthur_ on the eve of its appearing in numbers. Dent called on Mrs. Beardsley to beg her influence with Beardsley to get on with the work. Mrs. Beardsley went upstairs at once to see Beardsley who was still in bed, and to remonstrate with him on Dent’s behalf. Beardsley, but half awake, lazily answered his mother’s chiding with: There was a young man with a salary Who had to do drawings for Malory; When they asked him for more, he replied “Why? Sure You’ve enough, as it is, for a gallery.”