Words_. Of
Arthur Hughes's work we will speak later.

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE RED FAIRY BOOK." BY LANCELOT SPEED
(LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.)]

Another artist whose work bulks large in our subject--Arthur Boyd
Houghton--soon appears in sight, and whether he depicted babies at play
as in "Home Thoughts and Home Scenes," a book of thirty-five pictures of
little people, or imagined the scenes of stories dear to them in "The
Arabian Nights," or books like "Ernie Elton" or "The Boy Pilgrims,"
written especially for them, in each he succeeded in winning their
hearts, as every one must admit who chanced in childhood to possess his
work. So much has been printed lately of the artist and his work, that
here a bare reference will suffice.

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE RED FAIRY BOOK." BY LANCELOT SPEED
(LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.)]

Arthur Hughes, whose work belongs to many of the periods touched upon in
this rambling chronicle, may be called _the_ children's
"black-and-white" artist of the "sixties" (taking the date broadly as
comprising the earlier "seventies" also), even as Walter Crane is their
"limner in colours." His work is evidently conceived with the serious
make-believe that is the very essence of a child's imagination. He seems
to put down on paper the very spirit of fancy. Whether as an artist he
is fully entitled to the rank some of his admirers (of whom I am one)
would claim, is a question not worth raising here--the future will
settle that for us. But as a children's illustrator he is surely
illustrator-in-chief to the Queen of the Fairies, and to a whole
generation of readers of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" also. His
contributions to "Good Words for the Young" would alone entitle him to
high eminence. In addition to these, which include many stories perhaps
better known in book form, such as: "The Boy in Grey" (H. Kingsley),
George Macdonald's "At the Back of the North Wind," "The Princess and
the Goblin," "Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood," "Gutta-Percha Willie" (these
four were published by Strahan, and now may be obtained in reprints
issued by Messrs. Blackie), and "Lilliput Lectures" (a book of essays
for children by Matthew Browne), we find him as sole illustrator of
Christina Rossetti's "Sing Song," "Five Days' Entertainment at Wentworth
Grange," "Dealings with the Fairies," by George Macdonald (a very scarce
volume nowadays), and the chief contributor to the first illustrated
edition of "Tom Br