of
Miss Kate Greenaway than are any others published in Europe or America.
Yet M. de Monvel is not only absolutely French in his types and costumes
but in the movement and expression of his serious little people, who
play with a certain demure gaiety that those who have watched French
children in the Gardens of the Luxembourg or Tuileries, or a French
seaside resort, know to be absolutely truthful. For the Gallic _bebe_
certainly seems less "rampageous" than the English urchin. A certain
daintiness of movement and timidity in the boys especially adds a grace
of its own to the games of French children which is not without its
peculiar charm. This is singularly well caught in M. de Monvel's
delicious drawings, where naively symmetrical arrangement and a most
admirable simplicity of colour are combined. Indeed, of all non-English
artists who address the little people, he alone has the inmost secret of
combining realistic drawing with sumptuous effects in conventional
decoration.

[Illustration: THE SINGING LESSON--No. 2. FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING BY
A. NOBODY]

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "ADVENTURES IN TOY LAND" BY ALICE B.
WOODWARD (BLACKIE AND SON. 1897)]

[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "PRINCE BOOHOO" BY GORDON BROWNE
(GARDNER, DARTON AND CO. 1897)]

The work of the Danish illustrator, Lorenz Froelich, is almost as
familiar in English as in Continental nurseries, yet his name is often
absent from the title-pages of books containing his drawings. Perhaps
those attributed to him formally that are most likely to be known by
British readers are in "When I was a Little Girl" and "Nine Years Old"
(Macmillan), but, unless memory is treacherous, one remembers toy-books
in colours (published by Messrs. Nelson and others), that were obviously
from his designs. A little known French book, "Le Royaume des
Gourmands," exhibits the artist in a more fanciful aspect, where he
makes a far better show than in some of his ultra-pretty realistic
studies. Other French volumes, "Histoire d'un Bouchee de Pain," "Lili a
la Campagne," "La Journee de Mademoiselle Lili," and the "Alphabet de
Mademoiselle Lili," may possibly be the original sources whence the
blocks were borrowed and adapted to English text. But the veteran
illustrator has done far too large a number of designs to be catalogued
here. For grace and truth, and at times real mastery of his material, no
notice of children's artists could abstain from placing him very hig