WALKER, FREDERICK, The Nursery Friend, _Willmott's Sacred Poetry_ (Routledge), 112 A Child in Prayer, " " 112 Out among the Wild-Flowers, _Good Word_ (Strahan), 46 Portrait of a Minister, _English Sacred Poetry_ (Religious Tract Society), 124 Autumn, _A Round of Days_ (Routledge), 126 Autumn, from the original drawing on the block (_photogravure_), (British Museum), 125 The Bit o' Garden, _Wayside Poesies_ (Routledge), 128 WATSON, J. D., Too Late, _London Society_ (Hogg), 56 Ash Wednesday, " " 56 WHISTLER, JAMES M'NEILL, The Major's Daughter, _Once a Week_ (Bradbury and Evans), 32 The Relief Fund in Lancashire, " " 32 The Morning before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, " " 32 Count Burckhardt, " " 32 [Illustration: SCENE FROM "SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER."] ENGLISH ILLUSTRATION THE SIXTIES, 1855-1870 CHAPTER I: THE NEW APPRECIATION AND THE NEW COLLECTOR The borderland between the hallowed past and the matter-of-fact present is rarely attractive. It appeals neither to our veneration nor our curiosity. Its heroes are too recent to be deified, its secrets are all told. If you estimate a generation as occupying one-third of a century, you will find that to most people thirty-three years ago, more or less, is the least fascinating of all possible periods. Its fashions in dress yet linger in faded travesties, its once refined tastes no longer appeal to us, its very aspirations, if they do not seem positively ludicrous, are certain to appear pathetically insufficient. Yet there are not wanting signs which denote that the rush of modern life, bent on shortening times of waiting, will lessen the quarantine which a period of this sort has had to suffer hitherto before it could be looked upon as romantically attractive instead of appearing repulsively old-fashioned. For the moment you are able to take a man of a former generation, and can regard him honestly, not as a contemporary with all human weakness, but with the glamour which surrounds a hero; he is released from the commonplace present and has joined the happy past. Therein he may find justice without prejudice. Of course the chances are that, be he artist or philosopher, the increased favour bestowed upon him will not extend to his subjects, or perhaps his method of work; but so sure as you find the artists of any period diligently