produced when men are drawn this way and that by current influences. Among artists resolutely independent of contemporary coteries may be named W. Strang, whose grave, rugged work shows him a pupil, through Legros, of Dürer and others of the old masters; T. Sturge Moore, an original engraver of designs which have an equal affinity for Blake, Calvert and Hokusai; W. Nicholson, whose style shows a dignified return to the best part of the Rowlandson tradition; and E. J. Sullivan. In the closing years of the 19th century Aubrey Beardsley became the creator of an entirely novel style of decorative illustration. Drawing inspiration from all sources of European and Japanese art, he produced, by the force of a vivid personality and extraordinary technical skill, a result which was highly original and impressive. To a genuine liking for analysis of repulsive and vicious types of humanity he added an exquisite sense of line, balance and mass; and partly by _succès de scandale_, partly by genuine artistic brilliance, he gathered round him a host of imitators, to whom, for the most part, he was able to impart only his more mediocre qualities. United States. In America, until a comparatively recent date, illustration bowed the knee to the superior excellence of the engraver over the artist. Not until the brilliant pen-drawing of E. A. Abbey carried the day with the black-and-white artists of England did any work of real moment emanate from the United States, unless that of Elihu Vedder be regarded as an exception. Howard Pyle is a brilliant imitator of Dürer; he has also the ability to adapt himself to draughtsmanship of a more modern tendency. C. S. Reinhart was an artist of directness and force, in a style based upon modern French and German examples; while of greater originality as a whole, though derivative in detail, is the fanciful penmanship of Alfred Brennan. Other artists who stand in the front rank of American illustrators, and whose works appear chiefly in the pages of _Scribner's_, _Harper's_ and the _Century Magazine_, are W. T. Smedley, F. S. Church, R. Blum, Wenzell, A. B. Frost, and in particular C. Dana Gibson, the last of whom gained a reputation in England as an American du Maurier. France.