Whether an idyllic landscape or a fantastic _bal masqué_ of Montmartre or an Elysian _fête galante_ was his theme, the work itself is always permeated with the spirit of Conder. His nude figure ‘Pearl,’ his ‘L’Oiseau Bleu,’ his ‘Femme dans une loge au théâtre,’ are typical of his successful achievements. The ‘Fickle Love’ fan is but one of the numerous exquisite works he produced in this branch of art; while ‘The Masquerade’ is the work of a Beardsley-like fancy which could colour like Conder. Like his personality, his work suffered from certain unhappy moods, and that is what makes so much of it uneven. Born in 1868, a descendant of Louis Francis Roubiliac, the famous sculptor, whose work for the figures of our eighteenth century porcelain factories is so well known, of Conder it may be said, as of all artists with French blood in them, when he is successful he is irresistible. He might not be able to draw modern men, but how beautifully he drew the women of his day can be seen in ‘La Toilette.’ He delighted, indeed, in designing women wandering in dream gardens, in painting roses and Princes Charming. It would be pleasant to travel through this world of delightful dreams, were we not restricted of set purpose to the literary side of the movement. And has it not already been done in Mr. Frank Gibson’s _Charles Conder_? Again, some of the publishers who produced the books of these men have their right to something more than scant mention. To Mr. Elkin Mathews, particularly as the first publisher of the Rhymers’ Club books and as the issuer of John Gray’s first volume of poetry, bibliophiles owe a debt of gratitude. In the early days of the nineties Mr. John Lane became associated with him, until the autumn of 1894 witnessed ‘Parnassus divided into two peaks.’ Later, after the Wilde débâcle, an extraordinary figure, worthy of a romance, in the person of the late Leonard Smithers, who was at one time in the legal profession at Sheffield, took the field as a publisher by way of H. S. Nichols. He was no mere publisher but a man of considerable scholarship, who not only issued but finished the Sir Richard Burton translation of Catullus. Round him, to a considerable extent, the vanishing group rallied for a little while before Death smote them one by one. Here is no place to pay due justice to this amiable Benvenuto Cellini of book printing himself, but it must be remembered his figure bulks largely in the closing scenes. He kept Dowson from starvation. Beardsley wrote of him as ‘our publisher.’[21] He, when others failed, had the courage to launch on the English publishing market the released Wilde’s now famous _Ballad of Reading Gaol_. If he did exceed certain rules for himself, he at least took risks to help others. He was no supine battener on the profits of books for young ladies’ seminaries. He was a printer, and his bankruptcy may be said to have closed the period.