gallery has already been
filled, and a study of the water-colour drawing of "Tony Weller
at the Belle Sauvage," which is reproduced in the present volume,
only increases our desire, like the immortal Oliver, to ask for
more.

[Illustration: "THE DES(S)ERTS OF BOHEMIA".
_From "Dinners with Shakespeare"_]

Frank Reynolds as a colourist is less known to the general public
than Frank Reynolds the black-and-white artist. It is only of recent
years, indeed, that he has turned his attention to painting. But his
work, as seen at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
(of which body he was elected a member in 1903) and elsewhere,
proves that his skill with the brush is no less than with pen or
pencil. The present volume includes, besides the drawing of Tony
Weller just referred to, his picture of "The Warrener," another
fine character-study, exhibited at the Royal Institute in 1907.
"The Introduction," an example of a "time sketch" done at the London
Sketch Club, illustrates the quick readiness with which the artist
nimbly catches the spirit of his subject, and the subtle touch
which invests his drawing with the evasive quality of atmosphere.
Another Sketch Club study is that of the curate at the play, which
bears the title "Frivolity." As a study in expression it is amazingly
clever: and it must be a painful and melancholy respect for the cloth
which can suppress the smile which it summons. Even an Archbishop
will scarce forbear to snigger!

[Illustration]

It is not uncommon to hear modern black-and-white art in this country
decried by some persons--mostly of that shallow critical class
which can praise nothing in the present, and has encomiums only
for that which is past. But while English art can point to such
work in black-and-white as Frank Reynolds (to say nothing of others,
with whom this volume is not concerned) produces, he must have
dull senses who deplores the present and must hark back to the
days, let us say, of Charles Keene to find satisfaction for his
artistic cravings.

[Illustration: GOING IT!
SHE: After this, what do you say to a jaunt on one of the new tubes?]

If it be a merit to add to the gaiety of nations, then Frank Reynolds,
on that count alone, deserves of his fellow men more than a passing
approbation. He is something more than a mere jester, however: his
humour but flavours, as it were, a serious study of human nature.
Ignoring, for a moment, the skill and charm of his technique