On turning back to a scrap-book, where a number of them were preserved by the present writer in the late sixties, the old surprise comes back with irresistible force to find that things which he then ranked first still maintain their supremacy. At that time, when the wonders of Japanese Art were a sealed book, the masterpieces of Dürer and Rembrandt, the triumphs of Whistler, and the exquisite engravings of the French wood-engravers, past and present, all unknown to him, he, in common with dozens of others, was conscious that here was something so great that it was almost uncanny, for, obvious and simple as it looked, it yet accomplished what all others seemed only to attempt. There are very few pictures which after thirty years retain the old glamour; but while the Longmans' _New Testament_ when seen anew raises no thrill of appreciation, the _Parables_ appear as astoundingly great to one familiar with modern illustrations as they did to an ignorant boy thirty years ago. Other _fetishes_ have gone unregretted to the lumber-room, but the Millais of 1863 is a still greater master in 1896. They builded better than they knew, these giants of the sixties, and that the approval of another generation indorses the verdict of the best critics of their own may be taken as a promise of abiding homage to be paid in centuries yet to come. Curiously enough, among some literary notes for Christmas 1863, we find that 'early next year Messrs. Dalziel hoped to issue their Bible pictures,' and the writer goes on to praise several of the drawings--notably the Leightons, which were even then engraved: this note, nearly twenty years before the book actually appeared, is interesting, but it must not be thought that the time was devoted entirely to the engraving or in waiting for the perfection of photographic transfer to wood. An English edition of Michelet's _The Bird_, illustrated by Giacomelli (Nelson), was issued this year, and the highly wrought naturalistic details of the engravings became extremely popular. Its 'pretty' finish, and tame, colourless effect influenced no little work of the period, and, coupled with the _clichés_ of Gustave Doré engravings, so lavishly reprinted here about this date, did much to promote a style of wood-engraving which found its highest expression in the pages of American magazines years afterwards, and its lowest in the 'decorated' poems of cheap 'snippet' weeklies, which to-day are yet imitated unconsciously by those who work in wash for half-tone processes.