elves prevailed; for, as we have seen, they have treated the frogs ever since as a subject people. Most likely Mr Doyle found the narrative of this celebrated action, which he calls the sixteenth decisive battle of the world, in some ancient fairy chronicle, or perhaps woven in goblin tapestry, and hung on the walls of a palace in that strange country.

In much later times the elves met in battle a far more formidable enemy, the Crows,-not the Indian tribe of that name, but the predatory race against whom we ourselves wage war, chiefly with scarecrows a kind of troops possessing but little manoeuvring power, and from whom Mr Childers probably took his idea of short-service soldiers. The elves, as before, took up a strong position on a knoll crowned with an ancient tower; but against an enemy who descends from the air, advantages of ground do not count for much. The battle is very desperate: when elf meets crow, then comes the tug of war. Many elves are prostrate, and are being violently pecked; one has his pointed cap torn from his head-which is probably held as equivalent to taking his scalp. On the other hand, crows have fallen, and one in the distance is coming to earth transfixed by a goblin's arrow. Only the advancedguard of the crows is engaged; their supports are formed on a neighbouring group of leafless trees, while the battalions of reserve are coming up in such numbers as to darken the sky. If the commander of the rooks is not a mere vain babbler, cawing for ever in his own glorification, but an able tactician, he has evidently great chances open to him. The landscape of this picture is one of the best that Doyle ever painted: the evening sky darkened by the

cloud of birds, the trees in the inundated meadow, the ancient tower, are all of high order, and produce a most harmonious evening effect.

It has long been known that the government of fairyland is in form monarchical. The consort of the fairy king is treated with high respect, and, next to war, the most serious business of her subjects is the manifestation of respect and loyalty for her person. This takes a form quite different from our municipal addresses and deputations. In a small picture the elfqueen is seen seated in the moonlight on a tall mushroom, while around her, wheel in an informal dance her courtier-circle, each footing it according to his own notion of a step-an improved form of demonstration which we recommend to the consideration of the Lord Mayor and Common Council. The court seems to be constituted mainly on the principles of those of Europe, except that many of the courtiers are without clothes: there are young maids-of-honour, equerries, &c., descended, no doubt, from the ancient families of Cobweb, Peas-blossom, and Mustardseed; while greybeard officers of state are not wanting, figuring as Masters of the Ceremonies and old Sticks-in-Waiting. The whole circle are apt to flow forth in strange revelry, following some sudden impulse. Mr Doyle, while drawing a woodland dell in his best manner, once saw the whole court threading their way like a stream of coloured light under the broad leaves of the water-plants that grew on the margin of a pool, where they had disturbed, but not alarmed, a solitary kingfisher. And again, in sportive moments, they have disguised themselves in Watteau-like costumes, and, bewigged and behooped, enacted, under the

ancient trees of parks and lawns, the revels of long-departed owners and their guests.

It is apparently the fairy queen's gracious habit to sleep in any suitable spot surrounded with her court. We find her thus reposing on the rocky shore of a mountaintarn. The moonlight is painted in this picture with remarkable effect; and we thus learn that fairies do not always spend the night in roaming, which may be one reason why they are not to be seen any or every night, but sometimes prefer to sleep beneath the chaste beams of the watery moon. The fairy king seems to entertain unsocial and unconnubial views on the subject of repose; for we find him, betwixt afternoon and evening, asleep by himself under a hollow bank amid the roots of a tree, while overhead float slowly, guarding his slumbers, the lords and ladies of the bedchamber. After the lapse of so many ages since the time of the Midsummer Night's Dream,' the queen seems still occasionally to add to the legitimate succession; for we find her in one pretty scene nursing an elf-baby, with her crown on, while a blueclad fairy, possibly an elder sister, helps to tend and fondle the royal infant.

No living naturalist knows so much about dragons as Doyle. Next to fairies, he has studied them more than any other province of animated nature. For the most part they have been hostile to man, to the extent of habitually dining on human virgins; and many knights since St George have sought to win fame, and the favour of the rescued maidens, by defying them to single combat. Our artist shows us, not the combat itself, which has perhaps been so often treated by medieval painters as to be incapable of fresh presentation,

but the preface and the last scene. Thus the historic dragon of Wantley, roused by the loud challenge of the champion who defies him from the summit of the rock, is issuing from his craggy lair with an aspect suggestive of irritated feeling and bad language, which reminds us of the felonious inmate of a London slum once visited by Dickens, who looked out of window angrily demanding, "What the adjective substantive do you want here?" The end of the combat, under the title of "The Return of the Dragon-slayer," is a favourite subject with Doyle, who evidently commemorates several distinct events of this kind-for whereas in one the dragon slain is dragged by the tail, in others he is led in captive by his conqueror (in one case with the knight's pocket-handkerchief tied over the dragon's eye, injured in the conflict); and in a drawing which we remember as exhibited a few years ago, the reptile's longitude was such that, although he extended along an entire street, his tail was still round the corner. But in all cases the knight caracoles proudly through the town, amidst the applause of the populace and the greetings of civic functionary, dame, and demoiselle— everybody admiring and congratulating, except another knight who preserves a lofty and disdainful aspect, to show how lightly a warrior of his prowess esteems such feats. The dragon was not always, however, the enemy of man; he had his softer moments, as when he is seen playing chess with a princess, and could even make himself useful. It is well known that the christening of earthly princes and princesses is frequently attended by powerful fairies, their godmothers, who bestow on them various excellences of mind and person, though with what result in

after-life has never been quite clear. One of these generous sponsors is depicted as coming forth from the palace after the ceremony, to return to her own dominions; and, for conveyance, at the door is waiting her dragon, who has of necessity been kept in the street during the visit, as no building shorter than the Thames tunnel could have stabled an animal of his extent. This dragon is submitting to be held by a smart goblin-groom whom he could have swallowed like an oyster, and is good - humouredly unconscious that some street-boys, distant a few minutes' walk, are taking liberties with his tail.

Incidentally we learn from Doyle a good deal about the personal attributes of dragons. We perceive that as there are one-humped and two-humped camels, and onehorned and two-horned rhinoceroses, so there are one-headed and two-headed dragons. One groom, however, suffices to hold a twoheaded dragon, used for draught or riding, as he might suffice for a pair of horses. Besides the teeth and claws, the spiky wings, shaped on the principle of holly-leaves, would cause considerable annoyance to an antagonist if vigorously flapped about his head; and further, the end of the tail is furnished with an arrow-head sting, which, if time permits, can be brought up and buried in the body of the foe. Also the dragon's eyes burn and his breath smokes, as if from an internal furnace; so that the knight who would tackle him would find, altogether, a very ugly customer. We see also that the tradition expressed in the tavern sign of the Green Dragon is a true one-the creature's coat-of-mail is of the sheen of the ivy-leaf; and though Campbell tells us how War "yoked the red dragons of her iron car," we may, on Doyle's authority, safely

affirm of the dragon's colour, as of the chameleon's, ""Tis green—'tis green, sir, I assure ye."

One of the most curious and unexpected facts of dragon-life which our artist has brought to light is that respecting the young brood. Having supposed them to be rare animals, we were surprised to find them existing in flocks, hatched apparently from eggs, and used as a kind of farm - stock. Several representations show us witches driving young dragons to market. Who the purchasers can be of these strange articles of commerce we cannot divine-perhaps they are bought up by dealers who, after breaking them to harness or saddle, sell them to rich fairies. In one case the sorceress, young and not ungraceful, and clad in diaphanous drapery, is descending a mountainside in misty moonlight; in another, an old witch, of the kind that Macbeth knew of, is driving with outstretched broom her singular poultry along the shore of a lake, on the margin of which standsa ruined monastery. In all cases the character of the flock is much the same: though quite newly hatched

for they are no bigger than turkeys-there is plenty of latent truculence to be developed with maturity; they show the fire of the race glowing in eye and nostril, and are extremely troublesome to drive.

It was pleasant to see last year, at the Institute in Piccadilly, an indication that an artist, Mr Fitzgerald, existed among us capable of carrying on the traditions of Doyle. He had chosen for his subject a hare just escaped from the hounds, and resting within a screen of grass and brambles. In the distance the hunters and the pack are seen jogging homeward against the evening sky. Round the fugitive are drawing the pitying fairy population of the district. A sylph, splendidly

clad, is floating towards her, expressing as plainly as looks may, "Poor dear!" while another in white raiment pats her panting breast. Two sprites that have woven a necklace of grass are putting it round the hare's neck; two more are bringing her red berries, as a slight refreshment after her exertions the one presenting the offering on a leaf-platter, the other on the point of a thorn. An elf in scarlet, seated easily, though it might be thought uncomfortably, on the stem of a bramble, is watching the hunters, evidently in order to give notice if they should return. And besides these, the grass and stems are populous with quaint forms, half sprite, half insect, who have no particular concern in the hare, but have been disturbed by the commotion, as a swarm of flies by an approaching step. This drawing, beautifully executed, is the more welcome as showing the race to be actuated by the novel impulse of benevolence.

When not employed in his more serious and important function of showing us what goes on in fairy and dragon circles, Mr Doyle could relax into representations of our own scenery. He could show us the leafy recesses of a dell in Devonshire, or the stately towers of a baronial castle in the North. One of his best landscapes represents the park and seat of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, which, contrary to what might be anticipated respecting the surroundings of that apostle of temperance, contains no water, but is full of spirit. On the verge of the crowded tombstones of Haworth churchyard, he has placed the dreary parsonage where the Brontës lived their intense imaginative lives the picture being perhaps his reply to the question, "Tell me, where is Fancy bred?"

In early days he gave us the many comic outlines of daily life which adorned 'Punch,' and the grotesque illustrations of our national history which he describes as rejected in the competition for decorating the walls of Westminster. But his real business lay with the scenery of that pleasant moonlit land where Oberon ruled in the days of Duke Theseus and Bully Bottom, and which in more recent times had been illustrated by the French fairy chroniclers, Perrault and Madame d'Aulnois.

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A superficial observer would never have guessed from Mr Doyle's aspect that he was connected intimately with the inhabitants fairyland, or painter-in-ordinary to its royal family. Goodly of stature, he was also substantial of person, and could not be thought of for a moment as one who could join in racing on rabbits, leaping over toadstools, riding on bats, or floating about clothed in glorified cobwebs; nor, on the other hand, was he of a temper to challenge dragons to combat. Kind and pleasant of discourse, gentle of voice, courteous of bearing, his value as a companion was very widely recognised, and his society was much coveted by the Titanias of Mayfair and Belgravia. His agreeable humour was by no means restricted to his pictures: he was quaint in speech as in art; and his way of showing that something uttered had amused him-by retiring into his cravat, in the recesses of which a soft smothered laugh would be heard, and then emerging to cap the jest-was special to himself. For the many who appreciated him, some of the brightness and grace which spread a wholesome illusion over common life died out of the world last year with Richard Doyle.