In January 1896 _The Savoy_ appeared, and made a sensation in the art world only to be compared with the public sensation of _The Yellow Book_. It was a revelation of genius. It thrust Beardsley forward with a prodigious stride. The fine cover design, the ivory-like beauty of the superb Title Page--the two black-masked figures in white before a dressing table--the deft witty verses of the naughty _Three Musicians_, the _Bathers on Dieppe Beach_, the three sumptuously rich designs of _The Abbé_, the _Toilet of Helen_, and _The Fruit-bearers_ for the novel _Under the Hill_ which began in this number, capped by the stately _Christmas Card_ of _The Madonna and Child_ lifted the new magazine at a stroke into the rank of the books of the year. The great French engravers of the 18th century, St. Aubin and the rest, with the high achievement of the Illustrators of the ’Sixties which Gleeson White constantly kept before Beardsley’s eyes, had guided him to a craftsmanship of such musical intensity that he had evolved from it all, ’prenticed to it by the facility acquired from his _Morte d’Arthur_ experience, an art that was pure music. It was a revelation even to us who were well versed in Beardsley’s achievement. And the artistic and literary society of London had scarce recovered breath from its astonishment when about the end of February there appeared the masterpieces of Beardsley’s illustrations to _The Rape of the Lock_--masterpieces of design and of mood that set Beardsley in the first rank, from the beautiful cover to the cul-de-lampe, _The New Star_--with the sumptuous and epoch-making drawings of _The Dream_, the exquisite _Billet-Doux_, the _Toilet_, the _Baron’s Prayer_, and the magnificent _Rape of the Lock_ and _Battle of the Beaux and Belles_. [Illustration: THE TOILET] [Illustration: THE RAPE OF THE LOCK]