Another book published at this time, _Ballad Stories of the Affections_, by Robert Buchanan (Routledge, undated), contains some singularly fine examples of the work of G. J. Pinwell, W. Small, A. B. Houghton, E. Dalziel, T. Dalziel, J. Lawson, and J. D. Watson, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel; _Signelil_ (pp. 7 and 9), _Helga and Hildebrand_ (p. 17), _The Two Sisters_ (p. 29), and _Signe at the Wake_ (_frontispiece_) show Houghton at his best; _Maid Mettelil_ (p. 47) exhibits Pinwell in an unusually decorative mood. Indeed, the thirty-four illustrations are all good, and the book is decidedly one of the most interesting volumes of the period, and unfortunately one least frequently met with to-day. [Illustration: J. W. NORTH 'WAYSIDE POESIES' GLEN OONA] [Illustration: J. W. NORTH FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING GLEN OONA] [Illustration: J. W. NORTH 'WAYSIDE POESIES,' 1867 THE NUTTING] [Illustration: J. W. NORTH 'WAYSIDE POESIES' AFLOAT] If _Wayside Poesies_ (Routledge, 1867) is not the finest illustrated book of the Christmas season of 1866, it is in the very front rank. Its eighteen drawings by G. J. Pinwell are among the best things he did; the five by Fred Walker are also well up to his best manner, and the nineteen by J. W. North include some of the most exquisite landscapes he ever set down in black and white. It was really one of Messrs. Dalziels' projects, and its publishers were only distributors; so that the credit--and it is not slight--of producing this admirable volume belongs to the popular engravers whose names occur in one capacity or another in almost every paragraph of this chronicle. Still more full of good things, but all reprinted, is _Touches of Nature by Eminent Artists_ (Strahan, 1866). This folio volume, 'into which is gathered much of the richest fruit of Strahan and Company's magazines,' does not belie its dedication. As almost every one of its ninety-eight subjects is referred to in the record of the various magazines whence they were collected, it will suffice to note that it contains three by Sandys, nine by Fred Walker, four by Millais, five by A. Boyd Houghton, eight by G. J. Pinwell, two by Lawless, and many by J. W. North, W. Small, J. Pettie, G. Du Maurier, J. Tenniel, J. D. Watson, Robert Barnes, with specimens of Charles Keene, J. Mahoney, Marcus Stone, W. Orchardson, F. J. Shields, Paul Gray, H. H. Armstead, and others.