It is evident that the series--the Home Treasury--took itself seriously. Its purpose was Art with a capital A--a discovery, be it noted, of this period. Sir Henry Cole, in a footnote to the very page whence the quotation above was extracted, discusses the first use of "Art" as an adjective denoting the _Fine_ Arts.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "HOUSEHOLD STORIES FROM GRIMM." BY WALTER CRANE (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1882)]
Here it is more than ever difficult to keep to the thread of this discourse. All that South Kensington did and failed to do, the æsthetic movement of the eighties, the new gospel of artistic salvation by Liberty fabrics and De Morgan tiles, the erratic changes of fashion in taste, the collapse of Gothic architecture, the triumph of Queen Anne, and the Arts and Crafts movement of the nineties--in short, all the story of Art in the last fifty years, from the new Law Courts to the Tate Gallery, from Felix Summerley to a Hollyer photograph, from the introduction of glyptography to the pictures in the _Daily Chronicle_, demand notice. But the door must be shut on the turbulent throng, and only children's books allowed to pass through.
The publications by "Felix Summerley," according to the list in "Fifty Years of Public Work," by Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. (Bell, 1884), include: "Holbein's Bible Events," eight pictures, coloured by Mr. Linnell's sons, 4_s._ 6_d._; "Raffaelle's Bible Events," six pictures from the Loggia, drawn on stone by Mr. Linnell's children and coloured by them, 5_s._ 6_d._; "Albert Dürer's Bible Events," six pictures from Dürer's "Small Passion," coloured by the brothers Linnell; "Traditional Nursery Songs," containing eight pictures; "The Beggars coming to Town," by C. W. Cope, R.A.; "By, O my Baby!" by R. Redgrave, R.A.; "Mother Hubbard," by T. Webster, R.A.; "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," "Sleepy Head," "Up in a Basket," "Cat asleep by the Fire," by John Linnell, 4_s._ 6_d._, coloured; "The Ballad of Sir Hornbook," by Thos. Love Peacock, with eight pictures by H. Corbould, coloured, 4_s._ 6_d._ (A book with the same title, also described as a "grammatico-allegorical ballad," was published by N. Haites in 1818.) "Chevy Chase," with music and four pictures by Frederick Tayler, President of the Water-Colour Society, coloured, 4_s._ 6_d._; "Puck's Reports to Oberon"; Four new Faëry Tales: "The Sisters," "Golden Locks," "Grumble and Cherry," "Arts and Arms," by C. A. Cole, with six pictures by J. H. Townsend, R. Redgrave, R.A., J. C. Horsley, R.A., C. W. Cope, R.A., and F. Tayler; "Little Red Riding Hood," with four pictures by Thos. Webster, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Beauty and the Beast," with four pictures by J. C. Horsley, R.A., coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Jack and the Bean Stalk," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, R.A., coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Cinderella," with four pictures by E. H. Wehnert, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "Jack the Giant Killer," with four pictures by C. W. Cope, coloured, 3_s._ 6_d._; "The Home Treasury Primer," printed in colours, with drawing on zinc, by W. Mulready, R.A.; "Alphabets of Quadrupeds," selected from the works of Paul Potter, Karl du Jardin, Teniers, Stoop, Rembrandt, &c., and drawn from nature; "The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox," with forty of the fifty-seven etchings made by Everdingen in 1752, coloured, 31_s._ 6_d._; "A Century of Fables," with pictures by the old masters.
