Sandys began to draw for _Once a Week_ in 1861, his initial effort being that splendid design, “Yet once more on the Organ play,” which is fit to rank with Rethel’s “Der Tod als Freund,” with which there is a certain similarity of sentiment. This was followed by eleven drawings within the five succeeding years, all breathing the spirit of Dürer, and carrying on the effort which Rethel, who had only died in 1859, had made to renew the life put into wood-engraving by the old German master. In either 1865 or 1866 Sandys projected an oil picture on the subject of “Danaë in the Brazen Chamber.” He had conceived a new version of the Danaë legend. Instead of Jove appearing to the imprisoned maiden in the form of a golden shower, he adopted the belief in Jove as the God of Dreams and adapted it to the legend.[27] Danaë, {147} who has never seen a man, is haunted by the appearance of Jove as he has presented himself in her sleeping hours. To comfort herself and satisfy her passionate longing she has spent her days in weaving the image so vouchsafed to her in tapestry. For the moment her work is discarded. The ball of wool with which she has been working lies at her feet, and she stands, “with white arm fixed in air,” calling upon the “Lord of Dreams” to come to her in very sooth. [27] καὶ γὰρ τ’ ὄναρ ἐκ Διός ἐστιν.—Homer, _Iliad_ i. 63. Frankly sensuous as is the picture, one cannot but admit that the theme is treated with all necessary restraint. This, however, does not appear to have been the opinion of Walford, the then editor of _Once a Week_. He wrote to Sandys requiring a modification of the design. This the artist flatly refused. The design must appear as it was or not at all. In this refusal he was gallantly supported by the proprietors of the periodical, Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. The editor, however, would not give way, and the result was a deadlock. The block was actually engraved by Mr. Swain, and in his best manner, but the editor’s will was paramount, and it never {148} adorned the pages for which it was intended. It was reserved to the _Century Guild Hobby Horse_, in 1888, to rescue it from the oblivion into which it had passed. I am indebted to Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew for permission to reproduce the design. Of it Mr. J. M. Gray says in his article on “Frederick Sandys and the Woodcut Designers of Thirty Years Ago”:—“It ranks among the very finest of Sandys’s woodcuts,” and the artist, who had not been uniformly satisfied with the engraved versions of his work, himself wrote to me: “It was engraved for _Once a Week_. Perfectly cut by Swain. From my point of view the best piece of woodcutting of our time.” And all who love this beautiful but fast disappearing handmaiden of the arts will heartily endorse Mr. Sandys’s opinion. {149} CHAPTER VIII MISCELLANEOUS