The famous reply of an early Editor to the usual complaint that _Punch_ was not as good as it used to be--"No, sir, it never was"--cannot be considered to hold good in any comparison between the present period and that in which the arts of du Maurier and Keene held sway. There have been periods, there is such a one now, when the literary side of _Punch_ has touched a high-water mark. But on the illustrative side _Punch_ seems to be always hoping that another Keene or du Maurier will turn up. It does not seem prepared to accept work in quite another style. But there is no more chance of there ever being another Keene than of there being another Rembrandt, or of there ever being another du Maurier than another Watteau. The next genius to whom it is given to illuminate the pages of the classic journal in a style that will rival the past is not likely to arise from among those who think that there is no other view of life than that which was discovered by their immediate predecessors. By force of his genius--or, if you prefer it, of sympathy--which means the same thing--for some particular phase of life, some artist may at any moment uncover in its pages an altogether fresh kind of humour and of beauty. § 9 Du Maurier's art covers the period when England was flushed with success. Artists in such times grow wealthy, and by their work refine their time. But in spite of the number of wealthy Academicians living upon Society in the mid-Victorian time, the influence of Art upon Society was less than at any time in history in which circumstances have been favourable to the artist. The great wave of trade that carried the shop-keeper into the West-end drawing-room strewed also the curtains and carpets with that outrageous weed of _trade_ design which gave to the mid-Victorian world its complexion of singular hideousness.