tes and the love of early romance, whatever his pretence to
the contrary in his satire, _A Legend of Camelot_. But there was no
illustrator of his time with a greater gift for the romantic novel of
any period; and inevitably, he became, in due course, the illustrator of
_Esmond_.

It is impossible to return to the past except by the path of poetry. It
was possible to du Maurier in his illustrations to _Esmond_, because he
was a poet. He used the effect of fading light in the sky seen through
old leaded windows, and all the resources of poetic effect with a poet's
and not an actor-manager's inspiration, wrapping the tale in the glamour
in which Thackeray conceived it.

In 1865 du Maurier contributed a full page illustration and two
vignettes to Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_, published in parts by Cassell.
Other signed illustrations are by G.H. Thomas, John Gilbert, J.D.
Watson, A.B. Houghton, W. Small, A. Parquier, R. Barnes, M.E. Edwards,
and T. Morten. No book can be imagined which would afford the essential
nature of his art less opportunity of showing itself than this one. He
was no good at horrors, though his resourcefulness in the manifestation
of emotional light and shadow was encouraged by the character of the
full-page illustration which he had to supply. A signed full page
appears in Part XVI., page 541. It is a scene in which the four
martyrs, Bland, Frankesh, Sheterden, and Middleton, condemned by the
Bishop of Dover, 25th June 1555, are shown being burned at the stakes.
One of the martyrs certainly looks intensely smug with his hands folded
as if he were at grace before a favourite dinner. Yes, du Maurier
certainly failed to attain quite to the heights of the horror of this
book.

The following year we have from the artist's pencil illustrations to a
book of the heroine of which he was so fond that he named his own
daughter after her. That book was Mrs. Gaskell's _Wives and Daughters_,
"an everyday story," as it is called in its sub-title. For this story du
Maurier's art was much more fitted than for any other. In it, certainly,
and not in Foxe's book, we should expect his temperament to reveal
itself--and we are not disappointed. It is here that du Maurier is at
his best. His illustrations have a daintiness in this tale which they
have nowhere else. A sign of the presence of fine art is the
accommodation of style to theme. The illustrations had been made for
this book when it appeared serially in the _Cornhil