The prettiest, indeed the most beautiful, book from an artistic point of view is undoubtedly Mr. Walter Crane’s Flora’s Feast.  It is an imaginative Masque of Flowers, and as lovely in colour as it is exquisite in design.  It shows us the whole pomp and pageant of the year, the Snowdrops like white-crested knights, the little naked Crocus kneeling to catch the sunlight in his golden chalice, the Daffodils blowing their trumpets like young hunters, the Anemones with their wind-blown raiment, the green-kirtled Marsh-marigolds, and the ’Lady-smocks all silver-white,’ tripping over the meadows like Arcadian milk-maids.  Buttercups are here, and the white-plumed Thorn in spiky armour, and the Crown-imperial borne in stately procession, and red-bannered Tulips, and Hyacinths with their spring bells, and Chaucer’s Daisy—­

      small and sweet,
   Si douce est la Marguerite.

Gorgeous Peonies, and Columbines ‘that drew the car of Venus,’ and the Rose with her lover, and the stately white-vestured Lilies, and wide staring Ox-eyes, and scarlet Poppies pass before us.  There are Primroses and Corncockles, Chrysanthemums in robes of rich brocade, Sunflowers and tall Hollyhocks, and pale Christmas Roses.  The designs for the Daffodils, the wild Roses, the Convolvulus, and the Hollyhock are admirable, and would be beautiful in embroidery or in any precious material.  Indeed, any one who wishes to find beautiful designs cannot do better than get the book.  It is, in its way, a little masterpiece, and its grace and fancy, and beauty of line and colour, cannot be over-estimated.  The Greeks gave human form to wood and stream, and saw Nature best in Naiad or in Dryad.  Mr. Crane, with something of Gothic fantasy, has caught the Greek feeling, the love of personification, the passion for representing things under the conditions of the human form.  The flowers are to him so many knights and ladies, page-boys or shepherd-boys, divine nymphs or simple girls, and in their fair bodies or fanciful raiment one can see the flower’s very form and absolute essence, so that one loves their artistic truth no less than their artistic beauty.  This book contains some of the best work Mr. Crane has ever done.  His art is never so successful as when it is entirely remote from life.  The slightest touch of actuality seems to kill it.  It lives, or should live, in a world of its own fashioning.  It is decorative in its complete subordination of fact to beauty of effect, in the grandeur of its curves and lines, in its entirely imaginative treatment.  Almost every page of this book gives a suggestion for some rich tapestry, some fine screen, some painted cassone, some carving in wood or ivory.

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