volume V of _The Yellow Book_, printed for April, but suppressed at

the last moment, ended his achievement in this phase and style and craftsmanship. When the blow fell, he was already embarking upon a new craftsmanship; indeed towards this development he markedly moves in the later _Yellow Book_ designs. Had Beardsley died in mid-1895, at twenty-three, he would have left behind him the achievement of an interesting artist; but not a single example of the genius that was about to astonish the world.

* * * * *

_The Yellow Book_ phase of Beardsley’s art is very distinct from what went before and what was to come after. There are two types: a fine firm line employed with flat black masses of which the famous _Lady Gold’s Escort_ and _The Wagnerites_ are the type, and of which The Nightpiece is the triumph--and a very thin delicate line, generally for portraiture, to define faintly the body to a more firmly drawn head--of which the _Mrs. Patrick Campbell_ is the type and _L’Education sentimentale_ a variant--whilst the three remarkable _Comedy-Ballets of Marionettes I, II, and III_, show white masses used against black.

Beardsley employed his “Japanesque mark” for the last time in mid-1894 in the July volume, No. 2, of _The Yellow Book_. The _Plays of John Davidson_, several _Madame Réjanes_, the fine _Les Passades_, the _Scarlet Pastorale_, and the _Tales of Mystery and Wonder_ by Edgar Allan Poe, are all of the early 1894 _Yellow Book_ phase.

But in the third volume of _The Yellow Book_, the fanciful and delightful portrait of _The Artist in bed_, “_Par les dieux jumeaux tous les monstres ne sont pas en Afrique_,” and the famous _La Dame aux Camélias_ standing before her dressing table, advance his handling in freedom and rhythm; as does the exquisite _The Mysterious Rose Garden_, which Beardsley described as “the first of a series of Biblical illustrations, and represents nothing more nor less than the _Annunciation_”--indeed he could not understand the objections of the prudish to it and resented its being misunderstood! The _Messalina with her Companion_ is of this later _Yellow Book_ phase; and the _Atalanta without the hound_ of the suppressed Fifth Volume is a fine example of it.

The beautifully wrought _Pierrot Invitation Card_ for John Lane; the remarkable wash drawings _A Nocturne of Chopin_ from the suppressed