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Introduction THE considerable advances that have taken place of late in the methods of illustrating books, and the comparative ease with which satisfactory translations of pictures are now produced, have naturally turned the attention of authors to any unexhausted subjects in the field of Art literature, and the output is increasing so rapidly that it behoves a writer on that subject to be rarely circumspect in whatever he nowadays puts his pen to, and to be prepared to give very sufficient reasons for his pushfuIness in adding anything to a gathering that threatens to be very much overstocked. What, then, are the reasons for the present augmentation of the number They are these The profession of painting in water colours, which has been described with some amount of accuracy as the only art that is thoroughly British, is this year celebrating the hundredth anniversary of its practice under the xgis of a properly constituted body. This centenary occurs practically at the same time as the commencement of a new century in the worlds era and the British Water-Colour Art accession of a new Sovereign. The hour appears, therefore, to be not only a convenient but a fitting one at which to set down both the growth of that art in the past and its condition to-day. But it may be said that much of this service has aIready been rendered in works that have been offered to the public. This is not so. The first compilation of any importance on the subject-namely.....