Chance influenced the two careers also in another way, which might have made any similarity between them altogether out of question. The first commission to illustrate a book which Miss Paterson obtained was a prose work, in which figures and household scenes entirely predominated,--in fact, all her black-and-white work was of this homely nature,--and for some years she had no call for the delineation of landscape. With Foster it was not very different. It is true that his first commission was _The Boys Spring and Summer Book_, in which he had to draw the seasons, and to draw them afield. But this might not have attracted him to landscape work, for his patron's next commission was quite in another direction. I may be excused for referring to it at length, for the little-known incident is of some interest now that the actors in it have each achieved such world-wide reputations. Certain of the young pre-Raphaelites, including Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Millais, had been entrusted with the illustration of _Evangeline_. The result was a perfect staggerer to the publisher Bogue, who was altogether unable to appreciate their revolutionary methods. "What shall I do with them?" he was asked by the engraver to whom he showed the blocks on which most elaborate designs had been most lovingly drawn. "This," said Bogue, and wetting one of them he erased the drawing with the sleeve of his coat, serving each in turn in the same way. After this drastic treatment the _Evangeline_ commission was handed over to Birket Foster. It can be easily imagined with what trepidation he, knowing these facts, approached and carried out his task, and his delight when even the _Athenæum_ could say, "A more lovely book than this has rarely been given to the public." The success of the work was enormous. His career was apparently henceforth marked out as an illustrator of verse in black and white, for his popularity continued until it was not a question of giving him commissions, but of what book there was for him to illustrate; and he used laughingly to say that finally there was nothing left for him but Young's _Night Thoughts_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_.[15] Thus we see that Birket Foster's art work was for long confined to subjects as to which he had no voice, but which certainly influenced his art, and it says much for his temperament that throughout it warranted the term "poetical." In like manner it is much to Mrs. Allingham's credit that her prosaic start did not prevent the same quality welling up and being always in evidence in her productions. If I have not wearied the reader I would like to point out some further coincidences in their careers which are of interest.