From mid-1892 to mid-1893, Beardsley then had advanced in craftsmanship by leaps and bounds, nevertheless he was unknown at twenty-one except to a small artistic circle. The _Bon Mots_ grotesques, mostly done in the last half of 1892, began to appear, the first volume, _Sydney Smith and Sheridan_, in the April of 1893; the second volume at the year’s end, _Lamb and Douglas Jerrold_, in December 1893; and the third, the last volume, _Foote and Hooke_, in the February of 1894. The _Morte d’Arthur_ began to be published in parts in June 1893. The feverish creation of the mediæval designs in the late part of 1892 alongside of the _Bon Mots_ grotesques had exhausted Beardsley’s enthusiasm, and his style evaporated with the growth of his weariness--by mid-1893 he was finding the _Morte d’Arthur_ “very long-winded.” And what chilled him most, he found the public indifferent to both--yet Beardsley knew full well that his whole interest lay in publicity. It has been complained against Beardsley that he broke his bond. This is a larger question and a serious question--but it _is_ a question. It depends wholly on whether he could fulfil his bond artistically, as well as on whether that bond were a just bargain. We will come to that. But it must be stressed that just as Beardsley had rapidly developed his craftsmanship and style during his work upon the mediævalism of the _Morte d’Arthur_, by that time he came near to the end of the book he had advanced quite beyond the style he had created for it; so also his next development was as rapid, and by the time he is at the end of his new Japanese phase in _Salome_ we shall see him again advancing so rapidly to a newer development of his style that he grew weary of the _Salome_ before he completed it, and threw in a couple of illustrations as makeweight which are utterly alien to the work and disfigure it. And yet these two drawings were made immediately after working upon this _Salome_, and were thrown in only out of a certain sense of resentment owing to the suppression of two designs not deemed to be circumspect enough. But Beardsley did not refuse to make new drawings in key with the rest--he had simply advanced to a new style quite alien to _Salome_, and he found he could not go back. This will be clearer when we come to the _Salome_. So precisely with the _Morte d’Arthur_; even the last decorations he made were more akin to his Greek Vase style in _The Yellow Book_. * * * * *