th the minimum of lines. Thus
Caldecott worked, spending hours sometimes studying the art of leaving
out. Charles Keene's example may well be followed, making drawing after
drawing, no matter how trivial the subject, until he was satisfied that
it was right. "Either right or wrong," he used to say; "'right enough'
will not do for me."

[Illustration: No. XXXIII.

"PROUD MAIRIE." (LANCELOT SPEED.)

(_From "The Blue Poetry Book." London: Longmans._)

Pen-and-ink drawing by line process.]

Another influence on modern illustration--for good or bad--is the
electric light. It enables the photographic operator to be independent
of dark and foggy days, and to put a search-light upon objects which
otherwise could not be utilised. So far good. To the illustrator this
aid is often a doubtful advantage. The late Charles Keene (with whom I
have had many conversations on this subject) predicted a general
deterioration in the quality of illustrations from what he called
"unnatural and impossible effects," and he made one or two illustrations
in _Punch_ of figures seen under the then--(10 or 15 years ago)--novel
conditions of electric street lighting, one of which represented a man
who has been "dining" returning home through a street lighted up by
electric lamps, tucking up his trowsers to cross a black shadow which he
takes for a stream. Charles Keene's predictions have come true, we see
the glare of the magnesium light on many a page, and the unthinking
public is dazzled every week in the illustrated sheets with these
"unnatural and impossible effects."

Thus it has come about that what was looked upon by Charles Keene as
garish, exaggerated, and untrue in effect, is accepted to-day by the
majority of people as a lively and legitimate method of illustration.

DANIEL VIERGE.

One of the influences on the modern illustrator--a decidedly adverse
influence on the unlearned--is the prominence which has lately been
given to the art of Daniel Vierge.

There is probably no illustrator of to-day who has more originality,
style, and versatility--in short more genius--than Vierge, and none
whose work, for practical reasons, is more misleading to students.

As to his illustrations, from the purely literary and imaginative side,
they are as attractive to the scholar as drawings by Holbein or Menzell
are to the artist. Let us turn to the illustration on the next page,
from the _Pablo de Segovia_ by Quevedo; an example select