'THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD,' ROUTLEDGE, 1864 THE SOWER] It is difficult to place any book of 1863 next in order to _The Parables_; despite many fine publications, there is not one worthy to be classed by its side. Perhaps the most important in one sense, and the least in another, is Longmans' famous edition of the _New Testament_, upon the preparation of which a fabulous amount of money was spent. Yet, although an epoch-making book to the wood-engraver, it represents rather the end of an old school than the beginning of a new. Its greatly reduced illustrations, wherein a huge wall-painting occupies the space of a postage-stamp, the lack of spontaneity in its formal 'correct' borders, impress us to-day more as curiosities than as living craft. All the same, it was considered a marvellous achievement; but its spirit, if it ever existed, has evaporated with age; indeed, one cannot help thinking that it was out of date when it appeared. Ten years earlier it would have provoked more hearty approval; but, with Millais' treatment of the similar subjects, who could look at this precise, unimaginative work? That it ever exercised any influence on wood-engraving is doubtful, and that it repaid, even in part, its cost and labour is still more problematical. Bound, if memory can be trusted, in sham carved and pierced oak, it may be still encountered among the _rep_ and polished walnut of the period, a monument of misapplied endeavour. Its ideal seems to have been to imitate steel-plates by wood-blocks. Just as Crusaders' tombs had been modelled in Parian to do duty as match-boxes, and a thousand other attempts, then and since, with the avowed intention of imitation, have attracted no little common popularity; so its tediously minute handiwork no doubt won the approbation of those whose approval is artistic insult. One has but to turn to the tiny woodcuts of Holbein's _Dance of Death_ to find that size is of no importance; a _netsuke_ may be as broadly treated as a colossus, but the art of the miniature is too often miniature art. Therefore, side by side with the splendour of Millais, this mildly exciting 'art-book' comes as a typical contrast. No matter how Millais was rewarded, the mere engraver in this case must have been paid more, if contemporary accounts are true; yet the result is that nobody wants the one, and every artist, lay or professional, who is awake to really fine things, treasures a chance impression of a _Parable_, torn out of _Good Words_, as a thing to reverence.