m Lady Macbeth, printed at this time, is in
existence. The same information is repeated until the list of July 2,
1895, in which the book is announced as to be a 'small 4to (special
size),' i. e., the size afterwards adopted for The Earthly Paradise. It
was not, however, begun, nor was the volume of Mr. Watts-Dunton's poems.
Of the Vitas Patrum, which was to have been uniform with The Golden
Legend, a prospectus and specimen page were issued in March, 1894, but
the number of subscribers did not justify its going beyond this stage.
Two trial pages of the Catalogue were set up; some of the material
prepared for it has now appeared in Some German Woodcuts of the
Fifteenth Century. In addition to these books, The Hill of Venus, as
stated on p. 38, was in preparation. Among works that Mr. Morris had
some thought of printing may also be mentioned The Bible, Gesta
Romanorum, Malory's Morte Darthur, The High History of the San Graal
(translated by Dr. Sebastian Evans), Piers Ploughman, Huon of Bordeaux,
Caxton's Jason, a Latin Psalter, The Prymer or Lay Folk's Prayer-Book,
Some Mediaeval English Songs and Music, The Pilgrim's Progress, and a
Book of Romantic Ballads. He was engaged on the selection of the
Ballads, which he spoke of as the finest poems in our language, during
his last illness.

THE IDEAL BOOK: AN ADDRESS BY WILLIAM MORRIS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, MDCCCXCIII.

By the Ideal Book, I suppose we are to understand a book not limited by
commercial exigencies of price: we can do what we like with it,
according to what its nature, as a book, demands of art. But we may
conclude, I think, that its matter will limit us somewhat; a work on
differential calculus, a medical work, a dictionary, a collection of a
statesman's speeches, or a treatise on manures, such books, though they
might be handsomely and well printed, would scarcely receive ornament
with the same exuberance as a volume of lyrical poems, or a standard
classic, or such like. A work on Art, I think, bears less of ornament
than any other kind of book ("non bis in idem" is a good motto); again,
a book that must have illustrations, more or less utilitarian, should, I
think, have no actual ornament at all, because the ornament and the
illustration must almost certainly fight.

Still whatever the subject matter of the book may be, and however bare
it may be of decoration, it can still be a work of art, if the type be
good an