distinction is a most convenient one to an artist, because it entitles him thereafter to exhibit whatever he pleases, without having first to submit his work to the scrutiny of the jury of admission.

Unlike some masters, such as Turner, or Ruskin in his writings, Fantin-Latour seems never to have gone through more or less contradictory "periods" in the course of his career, nor to have been impeded (or stampeded) by any of the ephemeral fads of the day. Roger Marx writes of him: "He remains always and inalterably himself." Allowing for the development which time and experience afford to any serious worker, what he was at first he remained to the last - an idealist, an imaginative dreamer; in a word, a poet. Apart from his own art, his lifelong dominating passion was classical music; and here a very curious detail may be mentioned: it is that Fantin-Latour did not know how to play any instrument. His most poetical pictures were inspired by the instrumental music of such masters as Schumann, Berlioz, Wagner, and Brahms, and in these pictures he never followed the stage directions of any composer, but idealized the sound of the music itself into dreamy, beautiful, human forms.

While engaged in making portraits in oils or pastel the artist is of necessity tied down to hard actualities. But when Fantin-Latour, saturated with noble music, undertook a lithograph, the whole poetry of the man's nature had unimpeded liberty. In the case of his lithographs M. Fantin's unworldliness is almost provoking. He would

create a masterpiece on the lithographic stone, print at the most some twenty proofs from it, and then destroy the original, while this same stone could have printed ten times the number of good proofs. For this reason full collections of the lithographs are very difficult to form. Two of the best collections in existence are those of the late Samuel P. Avery of New York and Mr. Charles L. Freer of Detroit.

The whole subject of lithography, as a vehicle for multiplying the autographic design of the creative artist, is now receiving serious attention. In original etching the technical difficulties of the "biting-in" and of printing from the plate are very great; but the lithographic stone faithfully yields back exactly what the artist has drawn upon it.

M. Fantin never achieved a great outside popularity; but neither did that old master in music, Johann Sebastian Bach: yet after the lapse of more than a century Bach still remains the musicians' musician, and similarly, though of course in a lesser degree, few competent authorities will demur if we venture to call Fantin-Latour an artists' artist.

THE ILLUSTRATORS OF "PUNCH”

F the illustrators of Punch should be named in the order of their comparative importance, and not in the order of chronology, such a list would probably read - Charles Keene, Phil May, John Leech, and George du Maurier.

Taking them, however, in chronological sequence, we commence with John Leech, who in the year 1841 became the "bright particular star" of Punch, and so remained until his death in 1864. He was born in London in 1817, of Irish parentage, and was a pupil at Charterhouse school along with Thackeray. Leech was educated as a surgeon (as was the great etcher Sir Seymour Haden), but his unconquerable bent towards art in its gayer phases led him, at the age of twenty-four, to join the staff of Punch.

In this connection it is interesting to note that at a later date Sir Seymour Haden published a treatise to demonstrate that every surgeon should be a practical draughtsman, and that the habit of close and accurate observation, so necessary to the surgeon, was in itself almost a training in the art of good drawing.

Leech's designs possess the quality of gaiety in a high degree. Even when he was satirical this expression of genuine fun is generally the dominant