scarce, so it would seem to have been printed in excess of the demand, which, judging by the laudatory criticism it received, could not have been meagre. [Illustration: BIRKET FOSTER 'PICTURES OF ENGLISH LANDSCAPE,' 1864 THE GREEN LANE] [Illustration: BIRKET FOSTER 'PICTURES OF ENGLISH LANDSCAPE,' 1864 THE OLD CHAIR-MENDER AT THE COTTAGE DOOR] 1862, the year of the second great International Exhibition, might have been expected to yield a full crop of lavishly produced books, but as a matter of fact there are singularly few. Two important exceptions occur: Christina Rossetti's _Goblin Market_, with the title-page and frontispiece by her brother, and _The New Forest_, by J. R. Wise, with drawings by Walter Crane, 'a very young artist, whom we shall be glad to meet with again,' as a contemporary criticism runs. Yet, on the whole the men of the sixties appear to have exhausted their efforts on the new magazines which had just attained full vigour; hence, as we might expect, publishers refrained from competing with the annual volumes, which gave at least twice as much for seven shillings and sixpence as they had hitherto included in a guinea table-book. Birket Foster's _Pictures of English Landscape_, with pictures in words by Tom Taylor (Routledge 1863), contains thirty singularly fine drawings engraved by Dalziels, of which the editor says: 'It is still a moot point among the best critics how far wood-engraving can be profitably carried--whether it can attempt, with success, such freedom and subtlety of workmanship as are employed, for example, on the skies throughout this series, or should restrict itself to simple effects, with a broader and plainer manner of execution.' Its companion was styled _Beauties of English Landscape_, and appeared much later. _Early English Poems, Chaucer to Pope_ (Sampson Low, 1863), is another book of the autumn of 1862, which like the rest is a quarto, with an elaborately designed cover and the usual hundred blocks delightfully engraved, after John Gilbert, Birket Foster, George Thomas, T. Creswick, R.A., R. Redgrave, R.A., E. Duncan, and many others. Although there is no reference to the fact in the book itself, many of the illustrations had already done duty in other books, or possibly did duty afterwards, for, without a tedious collation of first editions, it is difficult to discover the first appearance of any particular block. Probably this was the original source of many blocks which afterwards were issued in all sorts of volumes, so frequently that their charm is somewhat tarnished by memories of badly printed _clichés_ in children's primers and the like. [Illustration: FREDERICK SHIELDS DEFOE'S 'HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE,' 1862 THE PLAGUE-CART]