Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/162

108 true mediæval atmosphere pervading them all. The fierce, revengeful hate burning in the sunken sockets of Baldassare as he grips Tito's throat by the riverside strikes a note of terror and of awe. There is something too real about the scene to be pleasing. It is not a nightmare, it is an actual episode. There is about this volume of illustrations a sense of tragedy difficult to dispel, unrelieved by the light touches of little Tessa drawn with consummate skill.

These illustrations were published in two sumptuous volumes in 1880 printed on india-paper, but they are not so strong as in the original issue, where the ink, after forty-six years, has grown mellow in tone.

We reproduce from the pages of Cornhill, 1860, a wood engraving by Dalziel after a design of The Great God Pan by Lord Leighton, illustrating Mrs. Browning's poem:—