I shall always regard those early years in Mr. Linton's office as of great value to me, as, despite changes of method and new inventions, it gave me a thorough knowledge of the mechanical conditions of wood-engraving at any rate, and has implanted a sense of necessary relationship between design, material, and method of production--of art and craft, in fact--which cannot be lost, and has had its effect in many ways. Mr. Linton, too, is himself a notable historic link, carrying on the lamp of the older traditions of wood-engraving to these degenerate days, when whatever wonders of literal translation, and imitation of chalk, charcoal, or palette and brushes, it has exhibited under spell of American enterprise--and I am far from denying its achievements as such--it cannot be said to have preserved the distinction and independence of the engraver as an artist or original designer in any sense. When not extinguished altogether by some form of automatic reproductive process, he is reduced to the office of "process-server"--he becomes the slave of the pictorial artist. The picturesque sketcher loves his "bits" and "effects," which, moreover, however sensational and sparkling they may be in themselves, have no reference as a rule to the decoration of the page, being in this sense no more than more or less adroit splashes of ink upon it, which the text, torn into an irregularly ragged edge, seems instinctively to shrink from touching, squeezing itself together like the passengers in a crowded omnibus might do, reluctantly to admit a chimney-sweep. While, by his early training and practice, he is united with the Bewick school, Mr. Linton--himself a poet, a social and political thinker, a scholar, as well as designer and engraver--having been associated with the best-known engravers and designers for books during the middle of the century, and having had art of such a different temper and tendency as that of Rossetti pass through his hands, and seen the effect of many new impulses, is finally face to face with what he himself has called the "American New Departure." He is therefore peculiarly and eminently qualified for the work to which he has addressed himself--his great work on "The Masters of Wood Engraving," which appeared in 1889, and is in every way complete as a history, learned in technique, and sumptuous as a book. I have not mentioned Gustave Doré, who fills so large a space as an illustrator of books, because though possessed of a weird imagination, and a poetic feeling for dramatic landscapes and grotesque characters, as well as extraordinary pictorial invention, the mass of his work is purely scenic, and he never shows the decorative sense, or considers the design in relation to the page. His best and most spirited and sincere work is represented by his designs in the "Contes Drolatiques." [Sidenote: THE PRE-RAPHAELITES.]