beautiful art publications issued by the _Shimbi Shoin_ and the _Kokka_ company. These xylographs prove that the Japanese art-artisan of the present day was not surpassed by the greatest of his predecessors in this line. (E. F. S.; F. By.) Book Illustration. The history of the illustrated book in Japan may be said to begin with the _Ise monogatari_, a romance first published in the 10th century, of which an edition adorned with woodcuts appeared in 1608. In the course of the 17th century many other works of the same nature were issued, including some in which the cuts were roughly coloured by hand; but the execution of these is not as good as contemporary European work. The date of the first use of colour-printing in Japanese book illustration is uncertain. In 1667 a collection of designs for _kimono_ (garments) appeared, in which inks of several colours were made use of; but these were only employed in turn for single printings, and in no case were two of them used on the same print. It is certain, however, that the mere use of coloured inks must soon have suggested the combination of two or more of them, and it is probable that examples of this will be discovered much earlier in date than those known at present. About the year 1680 Hishigawa Moronobu achieved a great popularity for woodcut illustration, and laid the foundations of the splendid school which followed. The names of the engravers who cut his designs are not known, and in fact the reputation of these craftsmen is curiously subordinated to that of the designers in all Japanese work of the kind. With Moronobu must be associated Okumura Masanobu, a little later perhaps in date, whose work is also of considerable value. During the ensuing thirty years numerous illustrated books appeared, including the earliest yet known which are illustrated by colour-printing. Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1751) illustrated a very large number of books, many of which were not published until after his death. With him may be associated Ichio Shumboku (d. c. 1773) and Tsukioka Tange (1717-1786), the latter of whom made the drawings for many of the _meisho_ or guide-books which form so interesting and distinctive a branch of Japanese illustration. The work of Tachibana Morikuni (1670-1748) is also of great importance. The books illustrated by the men of this school were mainly collections of useful information, guide-books, romances and historical and religious compilations; but much of the best of their work is to be found in the collections of pictorial designs, very often taken from Chinese sources, which were produced for the use of workers in lacquer, pottery and similar crafts. These, both for design and for skill of cutting, hold their own with the best work of European wood-cutting of any period. The development of the art of Japanese colour-printing naturally had its effect on book-illustration, and the later years of