The Project Gutenberg eBook, English Illustration 'The Sixties': 1855-70, by Gleeson White
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ENGLISH ILLUSTRATION
THE SIXTIES
MORGAN LE FAY.
ENGLISH
ILLUSTRATION
'THE SIXTIES': 1855–70
BY GLEESON WHITE
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FORD MADOX BROWN : A. BOYD HOUGHTON
ARTHUR HUGHES : CHARLES KEENE
M. J. LAWLESS : LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A.
SIR J. E. MILLAIS, P.R.A. : G. DU MAURIER
J. W. NORTH, R.A.: G. J. PINWELL
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI : W. SMALL
FREDERICK SANDYS: J. McNEILL WHISTLER
FREDERICK WALKER, A.R.A. : AND OTHERS
London
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. LTD.
16 JAMES STREET HAYMARKET
1906
THIRD IMPRESSION
*** This is a re-impression of the original edition of 1897. A few small errors have been corrected. In other respects the text has been left, as it came from the late Mr. Gleeson White's hands, unaltered.
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
TO
A. M. G. W. AND C. R. G. W.
IN MEMORY OF THE
MANY HOURS SPENT
UNGRUDGINGLY IN
PROOF READING
[PREFACE]
In a past century the author of a well-digested and elaborately accurate monograph, the fruit of a life's labour, was well content to entitle it 'Brief Contributions towards a History of So-and-So.' Nowadays, after a few weeks' special cramming, a hastily written record of the facts which most impressed the writer is labelled often enough 'A History.' Were this book called by the earlier phrase, it would still be overweighted. Nor did an English idiom exist that would provide the exact synonym for catalogue-raisonné, could the phrase be employed truthfully. It is at most a roughly annotated, tentative catalogue like those issued for art critics on press-days with the superscription 'under revision'—an equivalent of the legal reservation 'without prejudice.' To conceal the labour and present the results in interesting fashion, which is the aim of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a 'Budget' night, ought also to be that of the compiler of any document crammed with distantly unrelated facts. But the time required for rewriting a book of this class, after it has grown into shape, would be enough to appal a person who had no other duties to perform, and absolutely prohibitive to one not so happily placed.
In estimating the errors which are certain to have crept into this record of a few thousand facts selected from many thousands, the author is obviously the last person to have any idea of their number; for did he suspect their existence, they would be corrected before the work appeared. Yet all the same, despite his own efforts and those of kindly hands who have re-collated the references in the majority of cases, he cannot flatter himself he has altogether escaped the most insidious danger that besets a compilation of this kind, namely, overlooking some patently obvious facts which are as familiar to him as to any candid critic who is sure to discover their absence.
The choice of representative illustrations has been most perplexing. Some twenty years' intimacy with most of the books and magazines mentioned herein made it still less easy to decide upon their abstract merits. Personal prejudice—unconscious, and therefore the more subtle—is sure to have influenced the selection; sometimes, perhaps, by choosing old favourites which others regard as second-rate, and again by too reticent approval of those most appreciated personally, from a fear lest the partiality should be sentimental rather than critical. But, and it is as well to make the confession at once, many have been excluded for matters quite unconnected with their art. Judging from the comments of the average person who is mildly interested in the English illustrations of the past, his sympathy vanishes at once if the costumes depicted are 'old-fashioned.' Whilst I have been working on these books, if a visitor called, and turned over their pages, unless he chanced to be an artist by profession as well as by temperament, the spoon-bill bonnet and the male 'turban' of the 'sixties' merely provoked ridicule. As my object is to reawaken interest in work familiar enough to artists, but neglected at present by very many people, it seems wiser not to set things before them which would only irritate. Again, it is difficult to be impartial concerning the beauty of old favourites; whether your mother or sister happen to be handsome is hardly a point of which you are a trustworthy judge. Other omissions are due to the right, incontestable if annoying, every other person possesses in common with oneself, 'to do what he likes with his own'; and certain publishers, acting on this principle, prefer that half-forgotten engravings should remain so.
The information and assistance so freely given should be credited in detail, yet to do so were to occupy space already exceeded. But I cannot avoid naming Mr. G. H. Boughton, R.A., Mr. Dalziel, Mr. G. R. Halkett, Mr. Fairfax Murray, and Mr. Joseph Pennell for their kind response to various inquiries. Thanks are also due to the many holders of copyrights who have permitted the illustrations to be reproduced. As some blocks have changed hands since they first appeared, the original source given below each picture does not always indicate the owner who has allowed it to be included. The artists' names are printed in many cases without titles bestowed later, as it seemed best to quote them as they stood at the time the drawing was published. Lastly, I have to thank Mr. Temple Scott for his elaborate index, prepared with so much care, which many interested in the subject will find the most useful section of the book.
The claims of wood-engraving versus process have been touched upon here very rarely. If any one doubts that nearly all the drawings of the 'sixties' lost much, and that many were wholly ruined by the engraver, he has but to compare them with reproductions by modern processes from a few originals that escaped destruction at the time. If this be not a sufficient evidence, the British Museum and South Kensington have many examples in their permanent collections which will quickly convince the most stubborn. If some few engravers managed to impart a certain interest at the expense of the original work, which not merely atones for the loss but supplies in its place an intrinsic work of art, such exceptions no way affect the argument. Wood-engraving of the first order is hardly likely to die out. It is true that, as the craft finds fewer recruits, the lessened number of journeymen, experts in technique (whence real artist-engravers may be expected to spring up at intervals), will diminish the supply. Given the artist as craftsman, he may always be trusted to distance his rival, whether it be mechanism or a profit-making corporation which reduces the individuality of its agents to the level of machines. For in art, still more than in commerce, it is the personal equation that finally controls and shapes the project to mastery, and the whole charm of the sixties is the individual charm of each artist. The incompetent draughtsman, then, was no less uninteresting than he is to-day; even the fairly respectable illustrators gain nothing by the accident that they flourished in 'the golden decade.' But the best of the work which has never ceased to delight fellow-workers will, no doubt, maintain its interest in common with good work of all schools and periods. Therefore, this rough attempt at a catalogue of some of its most striking examples, although its publication happens to coincide with a supposed 'boom,' may have more than ephemeral value if it save labour in hunting up commonplace facts to many people now and in the future. This plea is offered in defence of the text of a volume which, although cut down from its intended size, and all too large, is yet but a rough sketch.
Collectors of all sorts know the various stages which their separate hobbies impose on them. First, out of pure love for their subject, they gather together chance specimens almost at haphazard. Then, moved by an ever-growing interest, they take the pursuit more seriously, and, as one by one the worthier objects fall into their hands, they grow still more keen. Later, they discover to their sorrow that a complete collection is, humanly speaking, impossible: certain unique examples are not to be obtained for love or money, or, at all events, for the amount at their personal disposal. At last they realise, perhaps, that after all the cheapest and most easily procured are also the most admirable and delightful. This awakening comes often enough when a catalogue has been prepared, and on looking over it they find that the treasures they valued at one time most highly are only so estimated by fellow-collectors; then they realise that the more common objects which fall within the reach of every one are by far the best worth possessing.
A homely American phrase (and the word homely applies in a double sense) runs: 'He has bitten off more than he can chew.' The truth of the remark is found appropriate as I write these final words. To mark, learn, and inwardly digest the output of ten to fifteen years' illustration must needs be predestined failure, if space and time for its preparation are both limited. The subject has hitherto been almost untouched, and when in certain aspects it has attracted writers, they have approached it almost always from the standpoint of artistic appreciation and criticism. Here, despite certain unintentional lapses into that nobler path, the intention has been to keep strictly to a catalogue of published facts and with a few bibliographical notes added.
Setting out with a magnificent scheme—to present an iconography of the work of every artist of the first rank—the piles of manuscript devoted to this comprehensive task which are at my side prove the impracticability of the enterprise. To annotate the work of Sir John Gilbert or Mr. Birket Foster would require for each a volume the size of this. But as Punch, The Illustrated London News, and the Moxon Tennyson have already been the subject of separate monographs, no doubt in future years each branch of the subject that may be worth treating exhaustively will supply material for other monographs. The chief disappointment in preparing a reference-book of this class belongs to the first compiler only; the rest have the joy of exposing his shortcomings and correcting his errors, combined with the pleasure of indulging in that captious criticism which any overheard dialogue in the streets shows to be the staple of English conversation.
GLEESON WHITE.
10 Theresa Terrace,
Ravenscourt Park, W.,
October 1896.
[CONTENTS]
| CHAPTER I | |
| PAGE | |
| THE NEW APPRECIATION AND THE NEW COLLECTOR, | [1] |
| CHAPTER II | |
| THE ILLUSTRATED PERIODICALS BEFORE THE SIXTIES, | [9] |
| CHAPTER III | |
| SOME ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES OF THE SIXTIES: I. 'ONCE A WEEK,' | [16] |
| CHAPTER IV | |
| SOME ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES OF THE SIXTIES: II. 'THE CORNHILL,' 'GOOD WORDS,' AND 'LONDON SOCIETY,' | [38] |
| CHAPTER V | |
| OTHER ILLUSTRATED PERIODICALS OF THE SIXTIES: 'CHURCHMAN'S FAMILY MAGAZINE,' 'SUNDAY MAGAZINE, ETC., | [63] |
| CHAPTER VI | |
| SOME ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY PAPERS IN THE SIXTIES, | [88] |
| CHAPTER VII | |
| SOME ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE PERIOD BEFORE 1860, | [95] |
| CHAPTER VIII | |
| SOME ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE PERIOD 1860–1864, | [112] |
| CHAPTER IX | |
| SOME ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE PERIOD 1865–1872, | [125] |
| CHAPTER X | |
| THE AFTERMATH: A FEW BELATED VOLUMES, | [143] |
| CHAPTER XI | |
| CERTAIN INFLUENCES UPON THE ARTISTS OF THE SIXTIES, | [150] |
| CHAPTER XII | |
| SOME ILLUSTRATORS OF THE SIXTIES, | [155] |
| INDEX, | [181] |
[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS]
(Where two or more illustrations follow each other with no text between, the references are given to the nearest page facing)
| FACING PAGE | |||
| Anonymous, | 'Enoch Arden,' | Leisure Hour (Religious Tract Society), | [82] |
| Armstead, H. H., R.A., | A Dream, | Willmott's Sacred Poetry (Routledge), | [112] |
| Brown, Ford Madox, | Prisoner of Chillon, | Willmott's Poets of the Nineteenth Century (Routledge), | [104] |
| " | Elijah and the Widow's Son, | Bible Gallery (Routledge), | [150] |
| " | Joseph's Coat, | "" | [156] |
| " | Down Stream, from the original drawing in the wood (photographed by Mr. Fred Hollyer)—(photogravure), | "" | 80 |
| Burne-Jones, Bt., Sir E., | Parable of the Boiling-Pot, | "" | [146] |
| Clayton, J. R., | Olympia and Bianca, | Barry Cornwall's Dramatic Scenes (Chapman and Hall), | [108] |
| Crane, Walter | Treasure-trove, | Good Words (Strahan), | [176] |
| Dalziel, T., | Bedreddin Hassan and the Pastrycook, | Arabian Nights (Ward, Lock and Co.), | [178] |
| " | The Destruction of Sodom, | Bible Gallery (Routledge), | [178] |
| Du Maurier, G., | On her Deathbed, | Once a Week (Bradbury and Evans), | [34] |
| " | Per l'Amore d'una Donna, | "" | [34] |
| " | A Time to Dance, | Good Words (Strahan), | [44] |
| " | A Legend of Camelot (Nos. I. to V.), | Punch (Bradbury, Agnew, and Co.), | [88] |
| " | Send the Culprit from the House instantly, | Story of a Feather (Bradbury, Agnew, and Co.), | [132] |
| " | He felt the surpassing importance of his position, | "" | [132] |
| Fildes, S. L., | The Farmer's Daughter, | Sunday Magazine (Strahan), | [68] |
| Foster, Birket, | The Green Lane, | Pictures of English Landscape (Routledge), | [116] |
| " | The Old Chair-Mender, | "" | [116] |
| Gilbert, Sir John, R.A., | Hohenlinden, | Willmott's Poets of the Nineteenth Century (Routledge), | [106] |
| Graham, T., | Honesty, | Good Words (Strahan), | [48] |
| Gray, Paul, | Cousin Lucy, | The Quiver (Cassell), | [78] |
| Herkomer, Hubert, R.A., | Wandering in the Wood, | Good Words for the Young (Strahan), | [78] |
| Houghton, A. Boyd, | My Treasure, | Good Words (Strahan), | [166] |
| " | A Lesson to a King, | Sunday Magazine (Strahan), | [68] |
| " | Luther the Singer | "" | [68] |
| " | John Baptist, | "" | [68] |
| " | The Parable of the Sower, | "" | [70] |
| " | The Vision of Sheik Hamil, | The Argosy (Strahan), | [74] |
| " | Noureddin Ali, | Arabian Nights (Routledge), | [122] |
| " | Love, | Golden Thoughts from Golden Fountains (Warne), | [136] |
| " | Don Jose's Mule, | Good Words for the Young (Strahan), | [78] |
| " | Reading the Chronicles, from the original drawing on the block (photogravure), | (British Museum), | [164] |
| Hughes, Arthur, | Fancy, | Good Words (Strahan), | [54] |
| " | The Letter, | "" | [170] |
| " | The Dial (Sun comes, Moon comes), | "" | [170] |
| " | My Heart, | Sunday Magazine (Strahan), | [70] |
| " | Blessings in Disguise, | "" | [70] |
| " | Barbara's Pet Lamb, | Good Words for the Young (Strahan), | [78] |
| " | Mercy, | "" | [78] |
| Hunt, W. Holman, | The Lent Jewels, | Willmott's Sacred Poetry (Routledge), | [144] |
| Keene, Charles, | 'A Good Fight,' | Once a Week (Bradbury and Evans), | [26] |
| Lawless, M. J., | Effie Gordon, | "" | [28] |
| " | Dr. Johnson's Penance, | "" | [28] |
| " | John of Padua, | "" | [28] |
| " | Rung into Heaven, | Good Words (Strahan), | [48] |
| " | The Bands of Love, | "" | [48] |
| " | The Player and the Listeners, | "" | [50] |
| " | Honeydew, | London Society (Hogg), | [56] |
| " | One Dead, | Churchman's Family Magazine (Hogg), | [64] |
| Lawson, J., | Ariadne, | Once a Week (Bradbury and Evans), | [144] |
| Leighton, Lord, P.R.A., | Cain and Abel, | Bible Gallery (Routledge), | [146] |
| " | Moses views the Promised Land, | "" | [146] |
| " | Abram and the Angel, | "" | [146] |
| Leighton, John, | A Parable, | Sunday Magazine (Strahan), | [70] |
| Mahoney, J., | Summer, | "" | [66] |
| " | Yesterday and To-day, | Good Words (Strahan), | [68] |
| Marks, H. S., R.A., | A Quiet Mind, | Willmott's Sacred Poetry (Routledge), | [114] |
| " | In a Hermitage, | "" | [114] |
| Millais, Sir J. E., P.R.A., | There's nae Luck about the House, | Home Affections (Routledge), | [108] |
| " | The Border Widow, | "" | [108] |
| " | Grandmother's Apology, | Once a Week (Bradbury and Evans), | [22] |
| " | The Plague of Elliant, | "" | [22] |
| " | Tannhäuser, | "" | [24] |
| " | Sister Anne's Probation, | "" | [24] |
| " | The Hampdens, | "" | [24] |
| " | Death Dealing Arrows, | "" | [24] |
| " | The Prodigal Son, | Good Words (Strahan), | [120] |
| " | The Tares, | "" | [120] |
| " | The Sower, | "" | [120] |
| Morten, T., | The Cumæan Sibyl, | Once a Week (Bradbury and Evans), | [34] |
| " | Izaak Walton, | The Quiver (Cassell), | [132] |
| " | Gulliver in Lilliput, | Gulliver's Travels (Cassell), | [134] |
| " | The Laputians | "" | [134] |
| North, J. W., R.A., | Glen Oona, | Wayside Poesies (Routledge), | [130] |
| " | Glen Oona (from the original drawing), | Magazine of Art (Cassell), | [130] |
| " | The Nutting, | Wayside Poesies (Routledge), | [130] |
| " | Afloat, | "" | [130] |
| " | Anita's Prayer, | Sunday Magazine (Strahan), | [68] |
| " | Winter, | "" | [66] |
| Pettie, J., R.A., | The Monks and the Heathen, | Good Words (Strahan), | [48] |
| Pickersgill, F. R., R.A., | The Water Nymph, | Willmott's Poets of the Nineteenth Century (Routledge), | [106] |
| Pinwell, G. J., | The Sailor's Valentine, | The Quiver (Cassell), | [74] |
| King Pippin, | Wayside Poesies (Routledge), | [125] | |
| " | The Little Calf, | "" | [128] |
| " | Madame de Krudener, | Sunday Magazine (Strahan), | [68] |
| " | What, Bill! you chubby rogue, | Goldsmith's Works (Ward and Lock), | [126] |
| " | From the original drawing on the block for She Stoops to Conquer— (photogravure), | (British Museum), | [1] |
| Poynter, E. J., P.R.A., | Joseph before Pharaoh, | Bible Gallery (Routledge), | [148] |
| " | Pharaoh honours Joseph, | "" | [148] |
| Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, | The Maids of Elfen-mere, | The Music-master (Routledge), | [98] |
| " | You should have wept her yesterday, | The Prince's Progress (Macmillan), | [162] |
| Sandys, Frederick, | The Three Statues of Ægina | Once a Week (Bradbury, and Evans), | [30] |
| " | The Old Chartist, | "" | [30] |
| " | Harold Harfagr, | "" | [30] |
| " | Death of King Warwolf, | "" | [143] |
| " | Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards, | "" | [30] |
| " | Legend of the Portent, | Cornhill Magazine (Smith and Elder), | [40] |
| " | Manoli, | "" | [40] |
| " | Cleopatra, | "" | [42] |
| " | The Waiting Time, | Churchman's Family Magazine (Hogg), | [64] |
| " | Amor Mundi— (photogravure), | Shilling Magazine (Bosworth), | [63] |
| " | Sleep, | Good Words (Strahan), | [48] |
| " | Until Her Death, | "" | [48] |
| " | 'If,' | The Argosy (Strahan), | [72] |
| " | October, | The Quiver (Cassell), | [174] |
| " | Danae in the Brazen Chamber, | The Hobby Horse (Chiswick Press), | [172] |
| " | Life's Journey, | Willmott's Sacred Poetry (Routledge), | [114] |
| " | A Little Mourner, | "" | [114] |
| " | Jacob hears the voice of the Lord, | Bible Gallery (Routledge), | [172] |
| " | Morgan le Fay— (photogravure), | [Frontispiece] | |
| Shields, Frederick, | The Plague-Cart, | Defoe's History of the Plague (Munby), | [118] |
| Small, W., | Between the Cliffs, | The Quiver (Cassell), | [78] |
| " | Mark the Grey-haired Man, | Golden Thoughts from Golden Fountains (Warne), | [136] |
| Solomon, Simeon, | The Veiled Bride, | Good Words (Strahan), | [46] |
| " | The Feast of Tabernacles, | Leisure Hour (Religious Tract Society), | [83] |
| " | The Day of Atonement, | "" | [83] |
| Tenniel, Sir John, | The Norse Princess, | Good Words (Strahan), | [48] |
| Walker, Frederick, | The Nursery Friend, | Willmott's Sacred Poetry (Routledge), | [112] |
| " | A Child in Prayer, | "" | [112] |
| " | Out among the Wild-Flowers, | Good Word (Strahan), | [46] |
| " | Portrait of a Minister, | English Sacred Poetry (Religious Tract Society), | [124] |
| " | Autumn, | A Round of Days (Routledge), | [126] |
| " | Autumn, from the original drawing on the block (photogravure), | (British Museum), | [125] |
| " | The Bit o' Garden, | Wayside Poesies (Routledge), | [128] |
| Watson, J. D., | Too Late, | London Society (Hogg), | [56] |
| " | Ash Wednesday, | "" | [56] |
| Whistler, James M'Neill, | The Major's Daughter, | Once a Week (Bradbury and Evans), | [32] |
| " | The Relief Fund in Lancashire, | "" | [32] |
| " | The Morning before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, | "" | [32] |
| " | Count Burckhardt, | "" | [32] |
SCENE FROM "SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER."
[ENGLISH ILLUSTRATION]
THE SIXTIES, 1855–1870
[CHAPTER I: THE NEW APPRECIATION AND THE NEW COLLECTOR]
The borderland between the hallowed past and the matter-of-fact present is rarely attractive. It appeals neither to our veneration nor our curiosity. Its heroes are too recent to be deified, its secrets are all told. If you estimate a generation as occupying one-third of a century, you will find that to most people thirty-three years ago, more or less, is the least fascinating of all possible periods. Its fashions in dress yet linger in faded travesties, its once refined tastes no longer appeal to us, its very aspirations, if they do not seem positively ludicrous, are certain to appear pathetically insufficient. Yet there are not wanting signs which denote that the rush of modern life, bent on shortening times of waiting, will lessen the quarantine which a period of this sort has had to suffer hitherto before it could be looked upon as romantically attractive instead of appearing repulsively old-fashioned. For the moment you are able to take a man of a former generation, and can regard him honestly, not as a contemporary with all human weakness, but with the glamour which surrounds a hero; he is released from the commonplace present and has joined the happy past. Therein he may find justice without prejudice. Of course the chances are that, be he artist or philosopher, the increased favour bestowed upon him will not extend to his subjects, or perhaps his method of work; but so sure as you find the artists of any period diligently studied and imitated, it is almost certain that the costumes they painted, the furniture and accessories they admired, and the thought which infused their work, will be less intolerable, and possibly once again restored to full popularity.
Not very long ago anything within the limits of the century was called modern. Perhaps because its early years were passed in yearnings for the classic days of old Greece, and later in orthodox raptures over the bulls of Nineveh and the relics of dead Pharaohs. Then by degrees the Middle Ages also renewed their interest: the great Gothic revival but led the way to a new exploration of the Queen Anne and Georgian days. So in domestic life England turned to its Chippendale and Sheraton, America to its colonial houses, and the word 'antique,' instead of being of necessity limited to objects at least a thousand years old was applied to those of a bare hundred. Now, when the nineteenth century has one foot in the grave, we have but to glance back a few years to discover that what was so lately 'old-fashioned' is fast attaining the glamour of antiquity. Even our immediate progenitors who were familiar with the railway and telegraph, and had heard of photography, seem to be in other respects sufficiently unlike our contemporaries to appear quite respectably ancestral to-day. It is true that we have compensations: the new photography and electric lighting are our own joys; and the new criticism had hardly begun, except perhaps in the Far West, during the time of this previous generation—the time that begins with a memory of the project for the Great Exhibition, and ends with an equally vivid recollection of the collapse of the Third Empire.
In those days people still preserved a sentimental respect for the artist merely because he was 'an artist,' quite apart from his technical accomplishment. It was the period of magenta and crinoline—the period that saw, ere its close, the twin domes of the second International Exhibition arise in its midst to dominate South Kensington before they were moved to Muswell Hill and were burnt down without arousing national sorrow—in short, it was 'the sixties.' Only yesterday 'the sixties' seemed a synonym for all that was absurd. Is it because most of us who make books to-day were at school then, and consequently surveyed the world as a superfluous and purely inconsequent background? For people who were children in the sixties are but now ripening to belief in the commonplace formulæ dear to an orthodox British citizen. To their amazement they find that not a few of the pupils of the 'seventies,' if not of the 'eighties,' have already ripened prematurely to the same extent. Have we not heard a youth of our time, in a mood not wholly burlesque, gravely discussing the Æsthetic movement of the 'eighties' as soberly as men heretofore discussed the movement of a century previous? Were the purpose of this book phrase-making instead of a dull record of facts, we might style this sudden appreciation of comparatively recent times the New Antiquity. To a child the year before last is nearly as remote as the time of the Norman Conquest, or of Julius Cæsar. Possibly this sudden enlightenment respecting the artistic doings of the mid-Victorian period may indicate the return to childhood which is part of a nonagenarian's equipment. At seventy or eighty, our lives are spent in recollections half a century old, but at ninety the privilege may be relaxed, and the unfortunate loiterer on the stage may claim to select a far more recent decade as his Golden Age, even if by weakening memory he confuses his second childhood with his first.
To-day not a few people interested in the Arts find 'the sixties' a time as interesting as in the last century men found the days of Praxiteles, or as, still more recently, the Middle Ages appeared to the early pre-Raphaelites. These few, however, are more or less disciples of the illustrator, as opposed to those who consider 'art' and 'painting' synonymous terms. Not long since the only method deemed worthy of an artist was to paint in oils. To these, perhaps, to be literally exact, you might add a few pedants who recognised the large aims of the worker in fresco, and a still more restricted number who believed in the maker of stained glass, mosaic, or enamel, if only his death were sufficiently remote. Now, however, the humble illustrator, the man who fashions his dreams into designs for commercial reproduction by wood-engraving or 'process,' has found an audience, and is acquiring rapidly a fame of his own.
For those who recognise most sincerely, and with no affectation, the importance of the mere illustrator, this attempt to make a rough catalogue of his earlier achievements may be not without interest. Yet it is not put forward as a novel effort. One of the most hopeful auguries towards the final recognition of the pen-draughtsmen of the sixties quickly comes to light as you begin to search for previous notices of their work. It was not Mr. Joseph Pennell who first appreciated them. It is true that he carried the report of their powers into unfamiliar districts; but, long before his time, Mr. J. M. Gray, Mr. Edmund Gosse, and many another had paid in public due tribute to their excellence. Nor can you find that they were unappreciated by their contemporaries. On the contrary, our popular magazines were filled with their work. Despite Mr. Ruskin's consistent 'aloofness' and inconsistent 'diatribes,' many critics of their own day praised them; their names were fairly well known to educated people, their works sold largely, they obtained good prices, and commissions, as the published results bear witness, were showered upon them.
But, until to-day, the draughtsman for periodicals was deemed a far less important person than the painter of Academy pictures. Now, without attempting to rob the R.A. of its historic glory, we see there are others without the fold who, when the roll-call of nineteenth-century artists is read, will answer 'Adsum.'
There are signs that the collector, always ready for a fresh hobby, will before long turn his attention to the English wood-engravings of this century, as eagerly as he has been attracted heretofore by the early woodcuts of German and Italian origin, or the copper-plates of all countries and periods. It is true that Bewick already enjoys the distinction, and that Cruikshank and Leech have also gained a reputation in the sale-rooms, and that Blake, for reasons only partly concerned with art, has for some time past had a faithful and devout following. But the prices realised, so far, by the finest examples of the later wood-engravings, in the Moxon edition of Tennyson's Poems, in Once a Week, and Messrs. Dalziels' books, are not such as to inspire faith in the collector who esteems his treasures chiefly for their value under the hammer. But in this case, as in others, the moderate prices demanded in 1896 may not be the rule a few months hence. Already, although books rarely fetch as much as the original published cost, they are getting scarce. You may hunt the London shops in vain, and ransack the second-hand stores in the big provincial towns and not light on Jean Ingelow's Poems, 4to, Thornbury's Legendary Ballads, or even Wayside Poesies, or a Round of Days, all fairly common but a short time ago.
There are two great divisions of the objects that attract collectors. In the first come all items of individual handiwork, where no two can be precisely alike (since replicas by the authors are too rare to destroy the argument), and each specimen cannot be duplicated. Into this class fall paintings and drawings of all sorts, gems, sword-guards, lacquer, and ivories, and a thousand other objects of art. In the second, where duplicates have been produced in large numbers, the collector has a new ideal—to complete a collection that contains examples of every variety of the subject, be they artistic:—coins, etchings, or engravings of any sort; natural objects:—butterflies, or crystals, or things which belong neither to nature nor art:—postage-stamps, the majority of book-plates, and other trifles so numerous that even a bare list might extend to pages. The first class demands a long purse, and has, of necessity, a certain failure confronting it, for many of the best specimens are already in national collections, and cannot by any chance come into the market. But in the second class, no matter how rare a specimen may be, there is always a hope, and in many cases not a forlorn one, that some day, in some likely or unlikely place, its fellow may be discovered. And the chance of picking up a treasure for a nominal price adds to the zest of the collector, whose real delight is in the chase, far more than in the capture. Who does not hope to find a twopenny box containing (as once they did) a first edition of Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyám? or a Rembrandt's Three Trees in a first state? Or to discover a Tetradrachm Syracuse, B.C. 317, 'with the superb head of Persephone and the spirited quadriga, on the obverse,' in some tray of old coins in a foreign market-place?
Without more preamble, we may go on to the objects the new collector wishes to acquire; and to provide him with a hand-book that shall set him on the track of desirable specimens. This desultory gossip may also serve to explain indirectly the aims and limits of the present volume, which does not pretend to be a critical summary, not a history of art, and neither a treatise on engravers, nor an anecdotal record of artists, but merely a working book of reference, whatever importance it possesses being due only to the fine examples of the subject, which those concerned have most kindly permitted to be reproduced.
It is quite true that in collecting, the first of the two classes demands more critical knowledge, because as it is not a collection but only a selection that is within the reach of any one owner, it follows that each item must reflect his taste and judgment. In the second division there is danger lest the rush for comprehensiveness may dull the critical faculty, until, by and by, the ugly and foolish rarity is treasured far more than the beautiful and artistic items which are not rare, and so fail to command high prices.
In fact the danger of all collectors is this alluring temptation which besets other people in other ways. Many people prefer the exception to the rule, the imperfect sport to the commonplace type. If so, this discursive chatter is not wholly irrelevant, since it preludes an apology for including certain references to work distinctly below the level of the best, which, by its accidental position in volumes where the best occurs, can hardly be ignored completely.
Another point of conscience arises which each must decide for himself. Supposing that the collection of wood-engravings of the sixties assumes the proportion of a craze, must the collector retain intact a whole set of an illustrated periodical for the sake of a few dozen pictures within it, or if he decides to tear them out, will he not be imitating the execrable John Bagford, who destroyed twenty-five thousand volumes for the sake of their title-pages? Must he mutilate a Tennyson's Poems (Moxon, 1857) or The Music-master, or many of Dalziels' gift-books, for the sake of arranging his specimens in orderly fashion? The dilemma is a very real one. Even if one decides to keep volumes entire, the sets of magazines are so bulky, and in some cases contain such a small proportion of valuable work, that a collector cannot find space for more than a few of them. Possibly a fairly representative collection might be derived entirely from the back-numbers of periodicals, if any huge stores have yet survived the journey to the paper-mill or the flames; the one or the other being the ultimate fate of every magazine or periodical that is not duly bound before it has lost its high estate, as 'a complete set,' and become mere odd numbers or waste-paper.
So far the question of cost has not been raised, nor at present need it frighten the most economic. Taking all the subjects referred to in this book, with perhaps one or two exceptions (Allingham's Music-master, 1855, for instance), I doubt if a penny a piece for all the illustrations in the various volumes (counting the undesirable as well as the worthy specimens) would not be far above the market-price of the whole. But the penny each, like the old story of the horse-shoes, although not in this case governed by geometrical progression, would mount up to a big total. Yet, even if you purchase the books at a fair price, the best contain so many good illustrations, that the cost of each is brought down to a trifle.
Having decided to collect, and bought or obtained in other ways, so that you may entitle your treasures (as South Kensington Museum labels its novelties) 'recent acquisitions,' without scrupulous explanation of the means employed to get them, you are next puzzled how to arrange them. It seems to me that a fine book should be preserved intact. There are but comparatively few of its first edition, and of these few a certain number are doomed to accidental destruction in the ordinary course of events, so that one should hesitate before cutting up a fine book, and be not hasty in mutilating a volume of Once a Week or the Shilling Magazine. But if you have picked up odd numbers, and want to preserve the prints, a useful plan is to prepare a certain number of cardboard or cloth-covered boxes filled with single sheets of thick brown paper. In these an oblique slit is made to hold each corner of the print. By this method subjects can be mounted quickly, and, as the collection grows, new sub-divisions can be arranged and the subjects distributed among a larger number of boxes. This plan allows each print to be examined easily, the brown paper stands wear and tear and shows no finger-marks, and affords a pleasant frame to the engraving. Pasting-down in albums should be viewed with suspicion—either the blank leaves for specimens still to be acquired are constantly in evidence to show how little you possess, compared with your expectations; or else you will find it impossible to place future purchases in their proper order.
There is a process, known as print-splitting, which removes the objectionable printed back that ruins the effect of many good wood-engravings. It is a delicate, but not a very difficult operation, and should the hobby spread, young lady artists might do worse than forsake the poorly-paid production of nasty little head-pieces for fashion-papers and the like, and turn deft fingers to a more worthy pursuit. It needs an artistic temperament to split the print successfully, and a market would be quickly opened up if moderate prices were charged for the new industry.
One could wish that representative collections of the best of these prints were gathered together and framed inexpensively, for gifts or loans to schools, art industrial classes, and other places where the taste of pupils might be raised by their study. The cheap process-block from a photograph is growing to be the staple form of black and white that the average person meets with in his daily routine. The cost of really fine etchings, mezzotints, lithographs, and other masterpieces of black and white prohibits their being scattered broadcast; but while the fine prints by Millais, Sandys, Hughes, Pinwell, Fred Walker, and the rest are still to be bought cheaply, the opportunity should not be lost.
[CHAPTER II: THE ILLUSTRATED PERIODICALS BEFORE THE SIXTIES]
The more you study the position of illustrators during the last forty years, the more you are inclined to believe that they owe their very existence, as a class, to the popularity of magazines and periodicals. From the time Once a Week started, to the present to-day, the bulk of illustrations of any merit have been issued in serial publications. It is easy to find a reason for this. The heavy cost of the drawings, and, until recent times, the almost equally heavy cost of engraving them, would suffice to prohibit their lavish use in ordinary books. For it must not be forgotten that every new book is, to a great extent, a speculation; whereas the circulation of a periodical, once it is assured, varies but slightly. A book may be prepared for twenty thousand buyers, and not attract one thousand; but a periodical that sold twenty thousand of its current number is fairly certain to sell eighteen thousand to nineteen thousand of the next, and more probably will show a slight increase. Again, although one appears to get as many costly illustrations in a magazine to-day as in a volume costing ten times the price, the comparative sales more than readjust the balance. For a quarter of a million, although a record circulation of a periodical, is by no means a unique one; whereas the most popular illustrated book ever issued—and Trilby could be easily proved to merit that title—is probably not far beyond its hundred thousand. This very book was published in Harper's Magazine, and so obtained an enormous advertisement in one of the most widely circulated shilling monthlies. One doubts if the most popular illustrated volumes published at one or two guineas would show an average sale of two thousand copies at the original price. Therefore, to regard the periodical, be it quarterly, monthly, or weekly—and quite soon the daily paper may be added to the list—as the legitimate field for the illustrator, is merely to accept the facts of the case. True, that here and there carefully prepared volumes, with all the added luxury of fine paper and fine printing, stand above the magazine of their time in this mechanical production. But things are rapidly changing. One may pick up some ephemeral paper to-day, to find it has process-blocks of better quality, and is better printed, than 'the art book of the season,' be it what it may. The illustrator is the really popular artist of the period—the natural product of the newer conditions. For one painter who makes a living entirely by pictures, there are dozens who subsist upon illustrating; while, against one picture of any reputable sort—framed and sold—it would be impossible to estimate the number of drawings made specially for publication. Nor even to-day—when either the demand for illustration is ahead of the supply, or else many editors artfully prefer the second best, not forgetting all the feeble stuff of the cheap weeklies—would it be safe to declare that the artistic level is below that of the popular galleries. Certainly, even in the thirties, there were, in proportion, as many masterpieces done for the engraver as those which were carried out in oil or water-colour. Waiving the question of the damage wrought by engraver, or process-reproducer, the artist—if he be a great man—is no less worthy of respect as an illustrator in a cheap weekly, than when he chooses to devote himself solely to easel pictures. It is not by way of depreciating paintings that one would exalt illustration, but merely to recognise the obvious truth that the best work of an artist who understands his medium can never fail to be of surpassing interest, whether he uses fresco, tempera, oil, or water-colour; whether he works with brush or needle, pen or pencil. Nobody doubts that most of these products are entitled, other qualities being present, to be considered works of art; but, until lately, people have not shown the same respect for an illustration. Even when they admired the work, it was a common form of appreciation to declare it was 'as good as an etching,' or 'a composition worthy of being painted.' Many writers have endeavoured to restore black-and-white art to its true dignity, and the labours of Sir F. Seymour Haden, who awakened a new popular recognition of the claims of the etcher, and of Mr. Joseph Pennell, who fought with sustained vigour for the dignity and importance of illustration, have helped to inspire outsiders with a new respect. For it is only outsiders who ever thought of making absurd distinctions between high art and minor arts. If the thing, be it what it may, is good—as good as it could be—at no age did it fail to win the regard of artists; even if it had to wait a few generations to charm the purchaser, or awaken the cupidity of the connoisseur. It is a healthy sign to find that people to-day are interesting themselves in the books of the sixties; it should make them more eager for original contemporary work, and foster a dislike to the inevitable photograph from nature reproduced by half-tone, which one feared would have satisfied their love for black-and-white to the exclusion of all else.
If, after an evening spent in looking over the old magazines which form the subject of the next few chapters, you can turn to the current weeklies and monthlies, and feel absolutely certain that we are better than our fathers, it augurs either a very wisely selected purchase from the crowded bookstall, which, at each railway station as the first of the month approaches, has its hundreds of rival magazines, or else that it would be wiser to spend still more time over the old periodicals until a certain 'divine dissatisfaction' was aroused towards the average illustrated periodical of to-day.
Not that we are unable to show as good work perhaps, man for man, as they offer. We have no Sandys, no Millais, no Boyd Houghton, it is true; they had no E. A. Abbey, no Phil May, no ..., but it would be a delicate matter to continue a list of living masters here. But if you can find an English periodical with as many first-rate pictures as Once a Week, The Cornhill Magazine, Good Words, and others contained in the early sixties, you will be ... well ... lucky is perhaps the most polite word.
That the cheapness and rapidity of 'reproduction by process' should be directly responsible for the birth of many new illustrated periodicals to-day is clear enough. But it is surprising to find that a movement, which relatively speaking was almost as fecund, had begun some years before photography had ousted the engraver. Why it sprang into existence is not quite so obvious; but if we assume, as facts indicate, that the system of producing wood-engravings underwent a radical change about this time, we shall find that again a more ample supply provoked a larger demand. Hitherto, the engraver had only accepted as many blocks as he could engrave himself, with the help of a few assistants; but not very long before the date we are considering factories for the supply of wood-engravings had grown up. The heads of these, practical engravers and in some cases artists of more than average ability, took all the responsibility for the work intrusted to them, and maintained a singularly high standard of excellence; but they did not pretend that they engraved each block themselves. Such a system not merely permitted commissions for a large quantity of blocks being accepted, but greatly increased speed in their production.
There can be little doubt that something of the sort took place; it will suffice to name but two firms, Messrs. Dalziel and Messrs. Swain, who were each responsible often enough, not merely for all the engravings in a book, but often for all the engravings in a popular magazine. Under the old system, the publisher had thrown upon him the trouble of discovering the right engraver to employ, and the burden of reconciling the intention of the artist with the product of the engraver. This, by itself, would have been enough to make him very cautious before committing himself to the establishment of an illustrated magazine. But if we also remember that, under such conditions, almost unlimited time would be required for the production of the engravings, and that, to ensure a sufficient quantity being ready for each issue, a very large number of independent engravers must needs have been employed, it is clear that the old conditions would not have been equal to the task.
When, however, the publisher or editor was able to send all his drawings to a reputable firm who could undertake to deliver the engravings by a given time, one factor of great practical importance had been established. It is not surprising to find that things went even further than this, and that the new firms of engravers not only undertook the whole of the blocks, but in several cases supplied the drawings also.
Without claiming that such a system is the best, it is but fair to own that to it we are indebted for the masterpieces of the sixties. No doubt the ideal art-editor—a perfectly equipped critic, with the blank cheque of a millionaire at his back—might have done better; but to-day there are many who think themselves perfectly equipped critics, and perhaps some here and there who are backed by millionaires, yet on neither side of the Atlantic can we find better work than was produced under the system in vogue in the sixties. But after all, it is not the system, then or now, that is praiseworthy, but the individual efforts of men whose hearts were in their professions.
The more you inquire into the practice of the best engravers then and now, the more you find that ultimately one person is responsible for the good. In the sixties the engraver saw new possibilities, and did his utmost to realise them; full of enthusiasm, and a master of his craft, he inspired those who worked with him to experiment and spare no effort. That he did marvels may be conceded; and to declare that the merely mechanical processes to-day have already distanced his most ambitious efforts in many qualities does not detract from his share. But in this chapter he is regarded less as a craftsman than as a middleman, an art-editor in effect if not in name; one who taught the artists with whom he was brought in contact the limits of the material in which their work was to be translated, and in turn learned from them no little that was of vital importance. Above all, he seems to have kept closely in touch with draughtsmen and engravers alike; one might believe that every drawing passed through his hands, and that every block was submitted to him many times during its progress. When you realise the mass of work signed 'Dalziels' or 'Swain,' it is evident that its high standard of excellence must not be attributed to any system, but to the personal supervision of the acting members of the firms—men who were, every one of them, both draughtsmen and engravers, who knew not only the effect the artist aimed to secure, but the best method of handicraft by which to obtain it.
If, after acknowledging this, one cannot but regret that the photographic transfer of drawings to wood had not come into general use twenty years before it did, so that the masterpieces of the Rossetti designs to Tennyson's Poems and a hundred others had not been cut to pieces by the engraver; yet at the same time we must remember that, but for the enterprise of the engraver, the drawings themselves would in all probability never have been called into existence in many cases. This is especially true of the famous volumes which Messrs. Dalziel issued under the imprint of various publishers, who were really merely agents for their distribution.
The Penny Magazine in 1832, and other of Charles Knight's publications, Sharp's Magazine, The People's Journal, Howitt's Journal of Literature, The Illustrated Family Journal, The Mirror, The Parterre, The Casket, The Olio, The Saturday Magazine, Pinnock's Guide to Knowledge, Punch, The Illustrated London News, had led the way for pictorial weekly papers, even as the old Annuals and the various novels by Ainsworth, Dickens, and Thackeray had prepared the way for magazines; but the artistic movement of the 'sixties,' so far as its periodicals are concerned, need be traced back no further than Once a Week. Perhaps, however, it would be unfair to forget the influence of The Art Journal (at first called The Art Union), which, started in 1851, brought fine art to the homes of the great British public through the medium of wood-engravings in a way not attempted previously; and certainly we must not ignore John Cassell, who, on the demise of Howitt's Journal and The People's Journal in 1850, brought out an illustrated chronicle of the Great Exhibition, which was afterwards merged in a Magazine of Art. As The Strand Magazine—the first monthly periodical to exploit freely the Kodak and the half-tone block—started a whole school of imitators, so Once a Week, depending chiefly on drawings by the best men of the day, engraved by the foremost engravers, was followed quickly by the Cornhill Magazine, Good Words, and the rest. Many of these were short-lived; nor, looking at them impartially to-day, are we quite sure that the survivors were always the fittest. Certainly they were not always the best. But the number of new ventures that saw the light about this time can scarce be named here. Then, as now, a vast army of quite second-rate draughtsmen were available, and a number of periodicals, which it were gross flattery to call second-rate, sprang up to utilise their talents. Besides these, many weekly and monthly publications, ostensibly devoted to catering for the taste of the masses, gained large audiences and employed talented artists, but demand no more serious consideration as art, than do the 'snippet' weeklies of to-day as literature. But some of these popular serials—such as The Band of Hope, The British Workman, The London Journal, The London Reader, Bow Bells, Every Week, and the rest—are not, relatively speaking, worse than more pretentious publications. It is weary work to estimate the place of the second and third bests, and whatever interest the subject possesses would be exhausted quickly if we tried to catalogue or describe the less important items. Yet, to be quite just, several of these, notably the cheap publications of Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, Messrs. S. W. Partridge and Co., and many others, employed artists by no means second-rate and gave better artistic value for their money than many of their successors do at present.
It is well to face the plain fact, and own that at no time has the supply of really creative artists equalled the popular demand. Not all the painters of any period are even passable, nor all the illustrators. Much that is produced for the moment fulfils its purpose admirably enough, although it dies as soon as it is born. Nature shows us the prodigal fecundity of generation compared with the few that ripen to maturity. The danger lies rather in appreciating too much, whether of 'the sixties' or 'the nineties'; yet, if one is stoical enough to praise only the best, it demands not merely great critical acumen, but no little hardness of heart. The intention always pleads to be recognised. We know that accidents, quite beyond the artist's power to prevent, may have marred his work. Each man, feeling his own impotence to express his ideas lucidly, must needs be lenient to those who also stammer and fail to interpret their imaginings clearly and with irresistible power. Yet, although the men of the sixties survive in greatly reduced numbers and one might speak plainly of much of its trivial commonplace without hurting anybody's feelings, there is no need to drag the rubbish to light.
[CHAPTER III: SOME ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES OF THE SIXTIES. I. 'ONCE A WEEK']
Once a Week.—On the second of July 1859 appeared the first number of Once a Week, 'an illustrated miscellany of Literature, Art, Science, and Popular Information.' Despite the choice of an extraordinary time of year, as we should now consider it, to float a new venture, the result proved fortunate. Not merely does the first series of this notable magazine deserve recognition as the pioneer of its class; its superiority is no less provable than its priority. The earliest attempt to provide a magazine with original illustrations by the chief artists of its time was not merely a bold and well-considered experiment but, as the thirteen volumes of its first series show, an instant and admirably sustained triumph. No other thirteen volumes of an English magazine, at any period, contain so much first-class work. The invention and knowledge, the mastery of the methods employed, and the superb achievements of some of its contributors entitle it to be ranked as one of the few artistic enterprises of which England may be justly proud.
When the connection of Dickens with his old publishers was severed, and All the Year Round issued from its own office, Messrs. Bradbury and Evans projected a rival paper that was in no sense an imitation of the former. The reasons for its success lie on the surface. Started by the proprietors of Punch, with the co-operation of an artistic staff that has been singularly fortunate in enlisting always the services of the best men of their day, it is obvious that few periodicals have ever been launched under happier auspices. Its aim was obviously to do for fiction, light literature, and belles-lettres, what Punch had accomplished so admirably for satire and caricature. At that time, with no rivals worth consideration, a fixed intention to obtain for a new magazine the active co-operation of the best men of all schools was within the bounds of possibility. To-day a millionaire with a blank cheque-book could not even hope to succeed in such a project. He would find many first-rate artists, whom no amount of money would attract, and others with connections that would be imperilled if they contributed to a rival enterprise. There are many who prefer the safety of an established periodical to the risk which must needs attend any 'up-to-date' venture. Now Once a Week was not merely 'up-to-date' in its period, but far ahead of the popular taste. As we cannot rival it to-day in its own line, even the most ardent defender of the present at the expense of the past must own that the improvement in process-engraving and the increased truth of facsimile reproductions it offers have not inspired draughtsmen to higher efforts. Why so excellent a magazine is not flourishing to-day is a mystery. It would seem as if the public, faithful as they are to non-illustrated periodicals, are fickle where pictures are concerned. But the memory of the third series of Once a Week relieves the public of the responsibility; changes in the direction and aim of the periodical were made, and all for the worse; so that it lost its high position and no more interested the artist. Punch, its sponsor, seems to have the secret of eternal youth, possibly because its original programme is still consistently maintained.
In another feature it resembled Punch more than any previous periodical. In The London Charivari many of the pictures have always been inserted quite independently of the text. Some have a title, and some a brief scrap of dialogue to explain their story; but the picture is not there to elucidate the anecdote, so much as the title, or fragment of conversation, helps to elucidate the picture. Unless an engraving be from a painting, or a topographical view, the rule in English magazines then, as now, is that it must illustrate the text. This is not the place to record an appreciation of the thorough and consistent way in which the older illustrators set about the work of reiterating the obvious incident, depicting for all eyes to see what the author had suggested in his text already, for it is evident that a design untrammelled by any fixed programme ought to allow the artist more play for his fancy. Nevertheless, the less frequent illustrations to its serial fiction are well up to the level of those practically independent of the text. In Once a Week there are dozens of pictures which are evidently purely the invention of the draughtsman. That a modest little poem, written to order usually, satisfies the conventions of established precedent, need not be taken as evidence that traverses the argument. Once a Week ranked its illustrators as important as its authors, which is clearly an ideal method for an illustrated periodical to observe. To write up to pictures has often been attempted; were not The Pickwick Papers begun in this way? But the author soon reversed the situation, and once more put the artist in a subordinate place. It is curious to observe that readers of light literature had been satisfied previously with a very conventional type of illustration. For, granting all sorts of qualities to those pictures by Cruikshank, 'Phiz,' and Thackeray, which illustrated the Dickens, Ainsworth, Lever, and Thackeray novels, you can hardly refer the source of their inspiration to nature, however remotely. Their purpose seems to have been caricature rather than character-drawing, sentimentality in place of sentiment, melodrama in lieu of mystery, broad farce instead of humour. These aims were accomplished in masterly fashion, perhaps; but is there a single illustration by Cruikshank, 'Phiz,' Thackeray, or even John Leech, which tempts us to linger and return again and again purely for its art? Its 'drawing' is often slipshod, and never infused by the perception of physical beauty that the Greeks embodied as their ideal, that ideal which the illustrators of Once a Week, especially Walker, revived soon after this date. Nor are they inspired by the symbolists' regard for nature, which attracted the 'primitives' of the Middle Ages, and their legitimate followers the pre-Raphaelites. Indeed, as you study the so-called 'immortal' designs which illustrate the early Victorian novels, you feel that if many of the artists were once considered to be as great as the authors whose ideas they interpreted, time has wreaked revenge at last. If a boy happens to read for the first time Thackeray's Vanity Fair with its original illustrations, the humour and pathos of the masterpiece lose half their power when the ridiculously feeble drawings confront him throughout the book. This is not the case with Millais' illustrations to Trollope, or those by Fred Walker to Thackeray. The costume may appear grotesque, but the men and women are vital, and as real in the picture as in the literature.
Lacking the virility of Hogarth, or the coarse animal vigour of Rowlandson, these caricaturists kept one eye on the fashion-book and one on the grotesque. It was 'cumeelfo' to depict the English maiden a colourless vapid nonentity, to make the villain look villainous, and the benevolent middle-aged person imbecile. Accidental deformities and vulgar personal defects were deemed worthy themes for laughter. The fat boy in Pickwick, the fat Joe Sedley in Vanity Fair, the Marchioness and Dick Swiveller, the Quilps' Tea-Party, and the rest, all belong to the order of humour that survives to-day in the 'knockabout artists,' or the 'sketch' performances at second-rate music-halls. Even the much-belauded Fagin in the Condemned Cell appears a trite and ineffective bit of low melodrama to-day. We know the oft-repeated story of the artist's despondency, his failure to realise an attitude to express Fagin's despair, and how as he caught sight of his own face in the glass he saw that he himself, a draughtsman troubled by a subject, was the very model for one about to be hanged. All the personality of anecdote and the sentimental log-rolling which gathered round the pictures, that by chance were associated with a series of masterpieces in fiction, no longer fascinate us. We recognise the power of the writers, but wish in our hearts that they had never been 'illustrated,' or if so, that they had enjoyed the good fortune which belongs to the novelists of the sixties. But to refuse to endorse the verdict of earlier critics does not imply that there was no merit in these designs, but merely that their illustrators must be classed for the most part (Leech least of all) with the exaggerators—those who aimed at the grotesque—with Gilray or Baxter, the creator of Ally Sloper, and not with true satirists like Hogarth or Charles Keene, who worked in ways that are pre-eminently masterly, even if you disregard the humorous element in their designs.
Without forcing the theory too far, it may be admitted that the idea of Once a Week owes more to these serial novels than to any previous enterprise. Be that as it may, the plan of the magazine, as we find in a postscript (to vol. i.), was at once 'ratified by popular acceptance.' Further, its publishers admit that its circulation was adequate and its commercial success established, after only thirty-six numbers had appeared. It is no new thing for the early numbers of magazines and papers to contain glowing accounts of their phenomenal circulation; but, in this case, there can be no doubt that the self-congratulation is both well deserved and genuine. To Once a Week may be accorded the merit of initiating a new type of periodical which has survived with trifling changes until to-day. Its recognition of 'fiction' and 'pictures,' as the chief items in its programme, has been followed by a hundred others; but the editing, which made it readable as well as artistic, is a secret that many of its imitators failed to understand. Although A Good Fight (afterwards rewritten and entitled The Cloister and the Hearth) is the only novel within its pages that has since assumed classic rank, yet the average of its art—good as it was—is not as far above the standard of its literature, as the illustrations of its predecessors fell below the text they professed to adorn.
In sketching the life-history of other illustrated magazines it seemed best to follow a chronological order, because the progress of the art of illustration is reflected more or less faithfully in the advance and retrogression they show. But the thirteen volumes which complete the first series of Once a Week may be considered better in a different way. For to-day it is prized almost entirely for its pictures, and they were contributed for the most part by the same artists year after year. While in other periodicals you find, with every new volume, a fresh relay of artists, Once a Week, during its palmy days, was supported by the same brilliant group of draughtsmen, who admitted very few recruits, and only those whose great early promise was followed almost directly by ample fulfilment.
The very first illustration is a vignette by John Leech to a rhymed programme of the magazine by Shirley Brooks. But Leech, who died in 1864, cannot be regarded as a typical illustrator of 'the sixties'—not so much because his work extended only a few years into that decade, as that he belonged emphatically to the earlier school, and represented all that is not characteristic of the period with which this book is concerned.
It is unnecessary to belittle his art for the sake of glorifying those who succeeded him in popularity. That he obtained a strong hold upon English taste, lettered and unlettered, is undeniable. It has become part and parcel of that English life, especially of the insular middle-class, whose ideal permitted it to regard the exhibition building of 1851 not as a big conservatory, but as a new and better Parthenon, and to believe honestly enough that the millennium of universal peace with art, no less than morals, perfected to the 'nth' degree (on purely British lines), was dawning upon humanity. That the efforts of 1851 made much possible to-day which else had been impossible may be granted.
The grace and truth of John Leech's designs may be recognised despite their technical insufficiency, but at the same time we may own that, in common with Cruikshank and the rest, he has received infinitely more appreciation than his artistic achievement merited, and leave his share unconsidered here, although no doubt it was a big commercial factor in the success. To vol. i. of Once a Week he contributed no less than thirty-two designs, to vol. ii. forty-six, to vol. iii. seven, to vol. iv. one, and to vol. v. four.
John Tenniel, although he began to work much earlier, and is still an active contemporary, may be considered as belonging especially to the sixties, wherein he represents the survival of an academic type in sharply accentuated distinction to the pre-Raphaelism of one group or to the romantic naturalism of a still larger section. On page 4 of vol. i. we find his first drawing, a vignette, and page 5 a design, Audun and the White Bear, no less typically 'a Tenniel' in every particular than is the current cartoon in Punch. Those on pages 21, 30, 60, 90, 101, 103, and 170 are all relatively unimportant. The King of Thule (p. 250) is an illustration to Sir Theodore Martin's familiar translation of Goethe's poems. Others are on pp. 285, 435, 446. To vol. ii. he is a less frequent contributor. The designs, pp. 39, 98, 99, and 103 call for no comment. The one on p. 444 (not p. 404 as the index has it), to Tom Taylor's ballad Noménoë, is reprinted in Songs and Ballads of Brittany (Macmillan, 1865). In vol. iii. there is one (p. 52) of small value. On pp. 533, 561, 589, 617, 645, 673, and 701 are pictures to Shirley Brooks's The Silver Cord, showing the artist in his less familiar aspect as an illustrator of fiction. The one on p. 589 is irresistibly like a 'Wonderland' picture, while that on p. 225 (vol. iv.) suggests a Punch cartoon; but, on the whole, they are curiously free from undue mannerism in the types they depict. In vol. iv. are more illustrations to The Silver Cord (pp. 1, 29, 57, 85, 113, 141, 169, 197, 225, 253, 281, 309, 337, 365, 393, 421, 449, 477, 505, 533, 561, 589, 617, 645, 673, and 701), and illustrations to Owen Meredith's poem, Fair Rosamund (pp. 294, 295). In volume v. The Silver Cord is continued with ten more designs (pp. 1, 29, 57, 85, 113, 141, 169, 197, 225, 253), and there is one to Mark Bozzari (p. 659), translated from Müller by Sir Theodore Martin.
In volume vi. Tenniel appears but four times: At Crutchley Prior (p. 267), The Fairies (p. 379), a very delicate fancy, Prince Lulu (p. 490), and Made to Order (p. 575). From the seventh and eighth volumes he is absent, and reappears in the ninth with only one drawing, Clytè (p. 154), and in the tenth (Dec. 1863-June 1864) with one, Bacchus and the Water Thieves (p. 658). Nor does he appear again in this magazine until 1867, with Lord Aythan, the frontispiece to vol. iii. of the New Series. Sir John Tenniel, however, more than any other of the Punch staff, seems never thoroughly at home outside its pages. The very idea of a Tenniel drawing has become a synonym for a political cartoon; so that now you cannot avoid feeling that all his illustrations to poetry, fiction, and fairy-tale must have some satirical motive underlying their apparent purpose.
J. E. MILLAIS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. I. p. 241
GRANDMOTHER'S
APOLOGY
J. E. MILLAIS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. I. p. 316
THE PLAGUE OF
ELLIANT
It is difficult to record Sir John Everett Millais' contributions to this magazine with level unbiassed comments. Notwithstanding the palpable loss they suffered by translation under the hands of even the most skilful of his engravers, the impressions belong to a higher plane than is reached by their neighbours save in a very few instances. The Millais wood-engravings deserve a deliberately ordered monograph as fully as do the etchings by Rembrandt and Whistler, or Hokousaï's prints. It is true that not quite all his many illustrations to contemporary literature are as good as the best works of the great artist just named; but if you search through the portfolios of the past for that purpose, you will find that even the old masters were not always adding to a cycle of masterpieces. The astounding fact remains that Sir John Millais, dealing with the hair-net and the Dundreary whiskers, the crinoline and peg-top trousers, imparted such dignity to his men and women that even now they carry their grotesque costumes with distinction, and fail to appear old-fashioned, but at most as masqueraders in fancy dress. For in Millais' work you are face to face with actual human beings, superbly drawn and fulfilling all artistic requirements. They possess the immense individuality of a Velasquez portrait, which, as a human being, appeals to you no less surely, than its handling arouses your æsthetic appreciation. At this period it seems as if the artist was overflowing with power and mastery—everything he touched sprang into life. Whether he owed much or little to his predecessors is unimportant—take away all, and still a giant remains. It is so easy to accept the early drawings of Millais as perfect of their kind, beyond praise or blame, and yet to fail to realise that they possess the true vitality of those few classics which are for all time. The term monumental must not be applied to them, for it suggests something dead in fact, although living in sentiment and admired by reason of conventional precedent. The Millais drawings have still the power to excite an artist as keenly as a great Rembrandt etching that he sees for the first time, or an early Whistler that turns up unexpectedly in a loan collection, or an unknown Utamaro colour print. The mood they provoke is almost deprived of critical analysis by the overwhelming sense of fulfillment which is forced on your notice. In place of gratified appreciation you feel appalled that one man should have done over and over again, so easily and with such certainty, what dozens of his fellows, accomplished and masterly in their way, tried with by no means uniform success. If every canvas by the artist were lost, he might still be proved to belong to the great masters from his illustrations alone; even if these were available only through the medium of wood-engraving.
The first volume of Once a Week contains, as Millais' first contribution, Magenta (p. 10), a study of a girl who has just read a paper with news of the great battle that gave its name to the terrible colour which typifies the period. It is badly printed in the copy at my side, and, although engraved by Dalziels, is not an instance of their best work. In Grandmother's Apology (p. 41) we have a most delightful illustration to Tennyson, reproduced in his collected volume, but not elsewhere. On the Water (p. 70) and La Fille bien gardée (p. 306) may be passed without comment. But The Plague of Elliant (p. 316), a powerful drawing of a woman dragging a cart wherein are the bodies of her nine dead children, has been selected, more than once, as a typical example of the illustrator at his best. Maude Clare (p. 382), A Lost Love (p. 482), and St. Bartholomew (p. 514), complete the Millais' in vol. i.
In the second volume we find The Crown of Love (p. 10), a poem by George Meredith. This was afterwards painted and exhibited under the same title in the Royal Academy of 1875. A Wife (p. 32), The Head of Bran (p. 132), Practising (p. 242), (a girl at a piano), and Musa (p. 598), complete the list of the five in this volume. In vol. iii. there are seven: Master Olaf (p. 63), Violet (p. 140), Dark Gordon's Bride (p. 238), The Meeting (p. 276), The Iceberg (pp. 407, 435), and A Head of Hair for Sale (p. 519). In vol. iv. but two appear, Iphis and Anaxarete (p. 98) and Thorr's Hunt for the Hammer (p. 126), both slighter in execution than most of the Once a Week Millais'.
Volume v. also contains but two, Tannhäuser (p. 211) and Swing Song (p. 434), a small boy in a Spanish turban swinging. Volume vi. houses a dozen: Schwerting of Saxony (p. 43), The Battle of the Thirty (p. 155), The Child of Care (pp. 2, 39), five designs for Miss Martineau's Sister Anne's Probation (pp. 309, 337, 365, 393, 421), Sir Tristem (p. 350), The Crusader's Wife (p. 546), The Chase of the Siren (p. 630), and The Drowning of Kaer-is (p. 687). The seventh volume contains eleven examples by this artist: Margaret Wilson (p. 42), five to Miss Martineau's Anglers of the Don (pp. 85, 113, 141, 169, 197), Maid Avoraine (p. 98), The Mite of Dorcas (p. 224), (which is the subject of the Academy picture, The Widow's Mite of 1876; although in the painting the widow turns her back on the spectator), The Parting of Ulysses (p. 658), The Spirit of the Vanished Island (p. 546), and Limerick Bells (p. 710), a design of which a eulogist of the artist says: 'the old monk might be expanded as he stands into a full-sized picture.'
In the eighth volume Endymion on Latmos (p. 42), a charming study of the sleeping shepherd, is the only independent picture; the other nine are by way of illustration to Miss Martineau's The Hampdens (pp. 211, 239, 267, 281, 309, 337, 365, 393, 421, 449). These are delightful examples of the use of costume by a great master. Neither pedantically correct, nor too lax, they revivify the period so that the actors are more important than the accessories.
J. E. MILLAIS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. V. p. 211
TANNHÄUSER
J. E. MILLAIS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VI. p. 42
SISTER ANNE'S
PROBATION
J. E. MILLAIS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VIII. p. 365
THE HAMPDENS
J. E. MILLAIS
'ONCE A WEEK'
1868, Vol. I. p. 79
DEATH DEALING
ARROWS
The ninth volume, like the eighth, has only one picture by Millais not illustrating its serial. This is Hacco the Dwarf (p. 504). The others represent scenes in Miss Martineau's Sir Christopher (pp. 491, 519, 547, 575, 603, 631, 659, 687), a seventeenth-century story. The illustrators of to-day should study these and other pictures where the artist was hampered by the story, and imitate his loyal purpose to expound and amplify the text, accomplishing it the while with most admirably dramatic composition and strong character-drawing. In the remaining volume of the first series there are no other examples by Millais; nor, with the exceptions Death Dealing Arrows (Jan. 25, 1868, p. 79), one in the Christmas Number for 1860, and Taking his Ease, 1868 (p. 65), does he appear as a contributor to the magazine. It must not be forgotten that high prices are often responsible for the desire, or rather the necessity, of using second-rate work. When an artist attains a position that monopolises all his working hours, it is obvious that he cannot afford to accept even the highest current rate of payment for magazine illustration; nor, on the other hand, can an editor, who conducts what is after all a commercial enterprise, afford to pay enormous sums for its illustrations. For later drawings this artist was paid at least five times as much as for his earlier efforts, and possibly in some cases ten or twelve times as much.
Charles Keene, the great illustrator so little appreciated by his contemporaries, whose fame is still growing daily, was a frequent contributor to Once a Week for many years. Starting with volume i. he depicted, in quasi-mediæval fashion, Charles Reade's famous Cloister and the Hearth, then called, in its first and shorter form, A Good Fight (pp. 11, 31, 51, 71, 91, 111, 131, 151, 171, 191, 211, 231, 251, 254, 273). Coincidently he illustrated also Guests at the Red Lion (pp. 61, 65), A Fatal Gift (p. 141), Uncle Simkinson (pp. 201, 203), Gentleman in the Plum-coloured Coat (p. 270), Benjamin Harris (pp. 427, 449, 471), My Picture Gallery (p. 483), and A Merry Christmas (p. 544). In volume ii. there are only five illustrations by him (pp. 1, 5, 54, 111, and 451) to shorter tales; but to George Meredith's Evan Harrington, running through this volume and the next, he contributes thirty-nine drawings, some of them in his happiest vein, all showing strongly and firmly marked types of character-drawing, in which he excelled. Volume iii. contains also, on pages 20, 426, 608, 687, and 712, less important works: The Emigrant Artist on p. 608 is a return to the German manner which distinguished the Good Fight. The drawings for Sam Bentley's Christmas commence here in (pp. 687, 712), and are continued (pp. 19, 45, 155, 158) in vol. iv., where we also find In re Mr. Brown (pp. 330, 332), The Beggar's Soliloquy (p. 378), A Model Strike (p. 466), The Two Norse Kings (pp. 519, 547), and The Revenue Officer's Story (p. 713). In volume v. are: The Painter Alchemist (p. 43), Business with Bokes (p. 251), William's Perplexities (pp. 281, 309, 337, 365, 393), also a romantic subject, Adalieta (p. 266): a poem by Edwin Arnold, and The Patriot Engineer (p. 686). To the sixth volume, the illustrations for The Woman I Loved and The Woman who loved me (pp. 85, 113, 141, 169, 197, 225, 253, 281) are by Keene, as are also those to My Schoolfellow Friend (p. 334), A Legend of Carlisle (p. 407), a curiously Germanic Page from the History of Kleinundengreich (p. 531), Nip's Daimon (p. 603), and A Mysterious Supper-Party (659). In vol. vii. and vol. viii. Verner's Pride, by Mrs. Henry Wood, supplies motives for seventeen pictures. In vol. viii. The March of Arthur (p. 434), The Bay of the Dead (p. 546), and My Brother's Story (p. 617). In vol. ix. The Viking's Serf (p. 42), The Station-master (pp. 1, 69), and The Heirloom (pp. 435, 463) complete Charles Keene's share in the illustration of the thirteen volumes of the first series.
Fred Walker is often supposed to have made his first appearance as an illustrator in Once a Week, vol. ii. with Peasant Proprietorship (p. 165); and, although an exception of earlier date may be discovered, it is only in an obscure paper (of which the British Museum apparently has no copy) barely a month before. For practical purposes, therefore, Once a Week may be credited with being the first-established periodical to commission a young artist whose influence upon the art of the sixties was great. This drawing was quickly followed by God help our Men at Sea (p. 198), An honest Arab (p. 262), Après (p. 330), Lost in the Fog (p. 370), Spirit Painting (p. 424), and Tenants at No. 27 (p. 481), and The Lake at Yssbrooke (p. 538). Looking closely at these, in two or three only can you discover indications of the future creator of Philip. Those on pages 424 and 481 are obviously the work of the Fred Walker as we know him now. But those on pp. 165, 198, 330, and 538 would pass unnoticed in any magazine of the period, except that the full signature 'F. Walker' arouses one's curiosity, and almost suggests, like Lewis Carroll's re-attribution of the Iliad, 'another man of the same name.'
CHARLES KEENE
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. I. p. 91
'A GOOD FIGHT'
In vol. iii. a poem, Once upon a Time, by Eliza Cook, has two illustrations (pp. 24, 25), which, tentative as they are, and not faultless in drawing, foreshadow the grace of his later work. In Markham's Revenge (pp. 182–184) the artist is himself, as also in Wanted a Diamond Ring (p. 210). A Noctuary of Terror (pp. 294, 295), First Love (p. 322), The Unconscious Bodyguard (p. 359), are unimportant. The Herberts of Elfdale (pp. 449, 454, 477, 505, 508), possibly the first serial Walker illustrated, is infinitely better. Black Venn (p. 583), A Young Wife's Song (p. 668), and Putting up the Christmas, a drawing group, complete the examples by this artist in vol. iii. Volume iv. contains: Under the Fir-trees (p. 43), Voltaire at Ferney (p. 66), a very poor thing, The Fan (p. 75), Bring me a light (pp. 102–105), The Parish Clerk's Story (p. 248), The Magnolia (pp. 263, 267), Dangerous (p. 416), An Old Boy's Tale (p. 499), Romance of the Cab-rank (p. 585), and The Jewel Case (p. 631). In vol. v. we find Jessie Cameron's Bairn (p. 15), The Deserted Diggings (p. 83), Pray, sir, are you a Gentleman? (pp. 127, 133), A Run for Life (p. 306), Cader Idris (p. 323), and a series of illustrations to The Settlers of Long Arrow: a Canadian Story (pp. 421, 449, 477, 505, 533, 561, 589, 617, 645, 673, and 701). To volume vi. Walker contributes Patty (pp. 126, 127), A Dreadful Ghost (p. 211), and nine to Dutton Cook's The Prodigal Son (pp. 449, 477, 505, 533, 561, 589, 617, 673, 701), which story, running into volume vii., has further illustrations on pp. 1, 29, and 57. The Deadly Affinity (pp. 421, 449, 477), and Spirit-rapping Extraordinary (p. 614) are the only others by the artist in this volume. The eighth volume has but one, After Ten Years (p. 378), and The Ghost in the Green Park (p. 309) is the only one in volume ix., and his last in the first series. Vol. i. of the New Series has the famous Vagrants (p. 112) for one of its special art supplements.
Amid contemporary notices you often find the work of M. J. Lawless placed on the same level as that of Millais or Sandys; but, while few of the men of the period have less deservedly dropped out of notice, one feels that to repeat such an estimate were to do an injustice to a very charming draughtsman. For the sake of his future reputation it is wiser not to attempt to rank him with the greatest; but in the second order he may be fitly placed. For fancy and feeling, no less than for his loyal adherence to the Dürer line, at a time it found little favour, Lawless deserves to be more studied by the younger artists of to-day. A great number of decorative designers are too fond of repeating certain mannerisms, and among others, Lawless in England and Howard Pyle in America, two men inspired by similar purpose, should receive more attention than they have done. Once a Week contains the largest number of his drawings. In vol. i., to Sentiment from the Shambles, there are three illustrations attributed to him. Those on pp. 505 and 509 are undoubtedly by Lawless, but that on p. 507 is so unlike his method, and indeed so unimportant, that it matters not whether the index be true or in error.
M. J. LAWLESS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. IV. p. 407
EFFIE GORDON
M. J. LAWLESS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VI. p. 14
DR. JOHNSON'S PENANCE
M. J. LAWLESS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. X. p. 71
JOHN OF PADUA
In vol. ii. are ten examples, two on the same page to The Bridal of Galtrim (p. 88), The Lay of the Lady and the Hound (p. 164), a very pre-Raphaelite composition, Florinda (p. 220), (more influenced by the later Millais), Only for something to say (p. 352), a study of fashionable society, which (as Mr. Walter Crane's attempts show) does not lend itself to the convention of the thick line, The Head Master's Sister (pp. 386, 389, 393), The Secret (p. 430), and A Legend of Swaffham (p. 549). In vol. iii. Oysters and Pearls (p. 79) is attributed to Lawless, but one hopes wrongly; The Betrayed (p. 155), Elfie Meadows (p. 304), The Minstrel's Curse (p. 351), The Two Beauties (unsigned and not quite obviously a Lawless) (p. 462), and My Angel's Visit (p. 658) are the titles of the rest. In the fourth volume there are: The Death of Œnone (pp. 14, 15), Valentine's Day (p. 208), Effie Gordon (pp. 406, 407), and The Cavalier's Escape (687), all much more typical. In vol. v. we find High Elms (p. 420), Twilight (p. 532), King Dyring (p. 575), and Fleurette (p. 700). In the sixth volume there are only three: Dr. Johnson's Penance (one of the best drawings of the author), (p. 14), What befel me at the Assizes (p. 194), and The Dead Bride (p. 462). In the seventh volume there is one only to a story by A. C. Swinburne, Dead Love (p. 434). Despite the name of Jacques d'Aspremont on the coffin, the picture is used to a poem with quite a different theme, The White Witch, in Thornbury's Legendary Ballads, which contains no less than twenty of Lawless's Once a Week designs. In vol. viii. are two, The Linden Trees (p. 644) and Gifts (p. 712). In vol. ix. three only: Faint heart never won fair lady (p. 98), Heinrich Frauenlob (p. 393), and Broken Toys (p. 672). In vol. x. appears the last of Lawless's contributions, and, as some think, his finest, John of Padua (p. 71).
The first work by Frederick Sandys in Once a Week will be found in vol. iv.: it is not, as the index tells you, The Dying Hero, on page 71, which is wrongly attributed to him; Yet once more on the Organ play (p. 350) is by Sandys, as is also The Sailor's Bride (p. 434) in the same volume. In vol. v. are three, From my Window (p. 238), The three Statues of Ægina (p. 491), and Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards (p. 631). In vol. vi. we find The Old Chartist (p. 183), The King at the Gate (p. 322), and Jacques de Caumont (p. 614). In vol. vii. Harold Harfagr (p. 154), The Death of King Warwolf (p. 266), and The Boy Martyr (p. 602). Thence, with the exception of Helen and Cassandra, published as a separate plate with the issue of April 28, 1866 (p. 454), no more Sandys are to be found.
To Once a Week Holman Hunt contributed but three illustrations: Witches and Witchcraft (ii. p. 438), At Night (iii. p. 102), and Temujin (iii. p. 630); yet this very scanty representation is not below the average proportion of the work of this artist in black and white compared with his more fecund contemporaries.
A still more infrequent illustrator, J. M'Neill Whistler, is met with four times in Once a Week, and, I believe, but twice elsewhere. Speaking of the glamour shed upon the magazine by its Sandys drawings, it is but just to own that to another school of artists these four 'Whistlers' were responsible for the peculiar veneration with which they regarded an old magazine. The illustrations to The Major's Daughter (vi. p. 712), The Relief Fund in Lancashire (vii. p. 140), The morning before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew (vii. p. 210), and Count Burckhardt (vii. p. 378), a nun by a window, are too well known to need comment. That they show the exquisite sense of the value of a line, and have much in common with the artist's etchings of the same period, is evident enough.
G. J. Pinwell first makes his appearance in Once a Week, in the eighth volume, with The Saturnalia (p. 154), a powerful but entirely untypical illustration of a classical subject by an artist who is best known for pastoral and bucolic scenes, The Old Man at D. 8 (p. 197), Seasonable Wooing (p. 322), A Bad Egg (p. 392), and A Foggy Story (p. 477); but only in the latter do you find the curiously personal manner which grew to a mannerism in much of his later work. These, with Blind (p. 645) and Tidings (p. 700), are all well-thought-out compositions. To volume ix. he contributes The Strong Heart (p. 29), Not a Ripple on the Sea (p. 57) (a drawing which belies its title), Laying a Ghost (p. 85), The Fisherman of Lake Sunapee (p. 225), Waiting for the Tide (p. 281), Nutting (p. 378), and The Sirens (p. 616). In volume x. he is represented by Bracken Hollow (pp. 57, 85), The Expiation of Charles V. (p. 99), The Blacksmith of Holsby (pp. 113, 154), Calypso (p. 183), Horace Winston (p. 211), Proserpine (p. 239), A Stormy Night (p. 253), Mistaken Identity (p. 281), Hero (p. 350), The Vizier's Parrot (406), A Pastoral (p. 490), A' Beckett's Troth (p. 574), and The Stonemason's Yard (p. 701). The eleventh volume contains only four: Hettie's Trouble (p. 26), Delsthorpe Sands (p. 586), The Legend of the Bleeding Cave (p. 699), and Rosette (p. 713); and volume xii. has three: Followers not allowed (p. 71), Homer (p. 127), and Dido (p. 527). The last volume of the first series (1866) has but one, Achilles (p. 239). Pinwell's work bulks so largely in the sixties that a bare list of these must suffice; but this period, before he developed the curiously immobile manner of his later years, is perhaps the most interesting.
FREDERICK SANDYS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. V. p. 491
THE THREE STATUES
OF ÆGINA
FREDERICK SANDYS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VI. p. 183
THE OLD CHARTIST
FREDERICK SANDYS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VII. p. 154
HAROLD HARFAGR
FREDERICK SANDYS
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. V. p. 631
ROSAMUND, QUEEN
OF THE LOMBARDS
The index asserts that George Du Maurier is responsible for the pictures in Once a Week, vol. iii. pp. 378–379, signed M.B., and as you find others unmistakably Du Maurier's signed with various monograms, its evidence must not be gainsaid; but neither these nor others, to My Adventures ... in Russia (pp. 553, 557), The Two Hands (p. 640), and The Steady Students (pp. 691, 695), betray a hint of his well-known style. But Non Satis (p. 575) is signed in full, and obviously his, as a glance would reveal. In vol. iv., Indian Juggling (p. 41), The Black Spot (p. 134), A Life Story (p. 165), In search of Garibaldi (p. 210), and The Beggar's Soliloquy (p. 378, more like a Charles Keene) are from his hand. In the picture here reproduced, On her Deathbed (p. 603), the artist has found himself completely, yet A Portuguese Tragedy (p. 668) has no trace of his manner. In vol. v. Recollections of an English Gold Miner (p. 361), Monsieur the Governor (p. 445), A man who fell among thieves (p. 463), Sea-Bathing in France (p. 547), and The Poisoned Mind, are his only contributions. In vol. vi. are three illustrations to The Admiral's Daughters (pp. 1, 29, 57), The Hotel Garden (p. 24), The Change of Heads (p. 71), The latest thing in Ghosts (p. 99), Metempsychosis (p. 294), Per l'Amore d'una Donna (p. 390), A Parent by Proxy (p. 435), and Threescore and Ten (p. 644). Vol. vii. contains Miss Simons (p. 166), Santa (pp. 253, 281, 309, 337), Only (p. 490), and the Cannstatt Conspirators (p. 561). A Notting Hill Mystery is pictured on pages 617, 645, 673, and 701 of the seventh volume, and in vol. viii. is continued on pages 1, 5, 7, 85; Out of the Body (p. 701), is also here. Eleanor's Victory is illustrated on pages 295, 351, 407, 463, 519, 575, 631, and 687, and continued in vol. ix on pages 15, 71, 127, 183, 239, 295, 351, 407. Vol. x. contains The Veiled Portrait (p. 225), The Uninvited (p. 309), My Aunt Tricksy (p. 393), The Old Corporal (p. 462), and Detur Digniori (pp. 505 and 533). In vol. xi. we find two illustrations only by this artist, Philip Fraser's Fate, and vols. xii. and xiii. contain no single example.
A few illustrations by T. Morten appear, and these are scattered over a wide space. The first, Swift and the Mohawks (iv. p. 323), is to a ballad by Walter Thornbury; The Father of the Regiment (v. p. 71), Wish Not (x. p. 421), The Coastguardsman's Tale (x. p. 561), Late is not Never (xi. p. 141), The Cumæan Sibyl (xi. p. 603), and Macdhonuil's Coronach (xii. p. 161), make one regret the infrequent appearance of one who could do so well.
Edward J. Poynter (the present director of the National Gallery) is also sparsely represented: The Castle by the Sea (vi. p. 84), a very pre-Raphaelite decoration to Uhland's ballad, Wife and I (vi. p. 724), The Broken Vow (vii. p. 322), A Dream of Love (vii. pp. 365, 393), A Fellow-Traveller's Story (vii. pp. 699, 722), My Friend's Wedding-day (viii. p. 113), A haunted house in Mexico (viii. p. 141), Ducie of the Dale (viii. p. 476), and A Ballad of the Page to the King's Daughter (viii. p. 658), are all the examples by this artist in Once a Week.
Charles Green, of late known almost entirely as a painter, was a fecund illustrator in the sixties. Beginning with vol. iii., in which seven of his works appear (pp. 246, 327, 330, 375, 472, 612, 633), he contributed freely for several years; in vol. iv. there are examples on pp. 41, 52, 53, 357, 359, 361, and 529, and on pp. 518, 519 of the fifth volume, and 206 and 255 of the sixth, on pp. 306, 505, 589, and 670 of the seventh. But not until the eighth volume, with The Wrath of Mistress Elizabeth Gwynne (p. 169), do we find one that is of any importance. Whether spoilt by the engraver, or immature work, it is impossible to say; but the earlier designs could scarcely be identified except for the index. In the same volume The Death of Winkelried (p. 224), Milly Leslie's Story (p. 225), The Countess Gabrielle (p. 253), Corporal Pietro Micca (p. 364), Damsel John (p. 490), My Golden Hill (p. 505), Five Days in Prison (p. 533), The Queen's Messenger (p. 561), The Centurion's Escape (p. 589), and The Cry in the Dark (p. 673), are so curiously unlike the earlier, and so representative of the artist we all know, that if the 'C. Green' be the same the sudden leap to a matured style is quite remarkable. In volume ix. but three appear: Paul Garrett (p. 1), A Modern Idyll (p. 322), and My Affair with the Countess (p. 337); but in the tenth are nine: Norman's Visit (pp. 1, 43), Legend of the Castle (p. 14), A Long Agony (p. 127), The Lady of the Grange (p. 141), The Gentleman with the Lily (pp. 169, 197), The Mermaid (p. 295), and T' Runawaa Lass (p. 630). The Hunt at Portskewitt (p. 126) is in vol. xi., the last appearance of the artist I have met with in this magazine.
F. J. Shields, so far as I can trace his drawings, is represented but three times: An hour with the dead (iv. p. 491), The Risen Saint (v. p. 378), and Turberville (x. p. 378). As reference to this comparatively infrequent illustrator appears in another place no more need be said of these, except that they do not show the artist in so fine a mood as when he illustrated Defoe's History of the Plague. Simeon Solomon contributes a couple only of drawings of Jewish ceremonies (vii. pp. 192, 193). J. Luard, an artist, whose work floods the cheaper publications of the time, shows, in an early drawing, Contrasts (iii. p. 84), a pre-Raphaelite manner, and a promise which later years did not fulfil, if indeed this be by the Luard of the penny dreadfuls.
J. M'NEILL WHISTLER
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VI. p. 712
THE MAJOR'S DAUGHTER
J. M'NEILL WHISTLER
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VII. p. 140
THE RELIEF FUND
IN LANCASHIRE
J. M'NEILL WHISTLER
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VII. p. 210
THE MORNING BEFORE THE
MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW
J. M'NEILL WHISTLER
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VII. p. 378
COUNT BURCKHARDT
M. E. Edwards, a most popular illustrator, appears in the last volume of the first series, with Found Drowned (xiii. pp. 14, 42, 70, 98, 253, 281, 309, 337, 365, 393, 442, 471), in which volume J. Lawson has three: Ondine (p. 351), Narcissus (p. 463), and Adonis (686). Of a number of more or less frequent contributors, including F. Eltze, R. T. Pritchett, P. Skelton, F. J. Slinger, J. Wolf (the admirable delineator of animals), space forbids even a complete list of their names.
Among other occasional contributors to the first thirteen volumes are: J. D. Watson with The Cornish Wrecker's Hut (viii. p. 602), No Change (ix. p. 210), and My Home (ix. 266); A. Boyd Houghton:—The Old King Dying (xii. p. 463), The Portrait (xiii. p. 209), King Solomon (xiii. p. 603), The Legend of the Lockharts (xiii. p. 715), and Leila and Hassan (xiii. p. 769); Walter Crane:—Castle of Mont Orgueil (ix. p. 713) and The Conservatory (xiii. p. 763); J. W. North:—Bosgrove Church (ix. p. 447), The River (xii. p. 15), and St. Martin's Church, Canterbury (xii. p. 713)—the two latter being worthy to rank among his best work; Paul Gray with Hans Euler (xii. p. 322), Moses (xiii. p. 55), The Twins (xiii. pp. 378–406), Two Chapters of Life (xiii. p. 519), and Quid Femina Possit (xii. pp. 491, 517, 547, 575); A. R. Fairfield (x. pp. 546, 589, 617, 686, 712); W. S. Burton, Romance of the Rose (x. p. 602), The Executioner (xi. p. 14), Dame Eleanor's Return (xi. p. 210), and The Whaler Fleet (xi. p. 638); T. White (viii. p. 98); F. W. Lawson, Dr. Campany's Courtship (xii. pp. 351, 390, 407, 446), and others on pp. 586, 631, 722; (xiii. pp. 127, 141, 169, Lucy's Garland, p. 516); C. Dobell (vi. p. 420); Our Secret Drawer, by Miss Wells (v. p. 98); and four by Miss L. Mearns, which are of genuine interest (xiii. pp. 85, 153, 657, 742).
The New Series of Once a Week, started on January 6, 1866, was preceded by a Christmas number, wherein one of the most graceful drawings by Paul Gray is to be found, The Chest with the Silver Mountings (p. 30). It contains also a full-page plate by G. B. Goddard, Up, up my hounds (p. 34), and designs by W. Small, A Golden Wedding (p. 37); G. Du Maurier, The Ace of Hearts (p. 56); J. Lawson, A Fairy Tale (p. 44), and others of little moment.
The New Series announced, as a special attraction, 'extra illustrations by eminent artists, printed separately on toned paper.' Those to the first volume include Little Bo Peep, a delightful and typical composition by G. Du Maurier (Frontispiece); The Vagrants (p. 112), by Fred Walker; Helen and Cassandra (p. 454), by F. Sandys; The Servants' Hall (p. 560), by H. S. Marks; Alonzo the Brave (p. 359), by Sir John Gilbert, and Caught by the tide, by E. Duncan (p. 280).
G. DU MAURIER
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. IV. p. 603
ON HER
DEATHBED
G. DU MAURIER
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. VI. p. 390
PER L'AMORE
D'UNA DONNA
T. MORTEN
'ONCE A WEEK'
VOL. XI. p. 603
THE CUMÆAN SIBYL
'A specimen of the most recent application of the versatile art of lithography' which is also given, dates the popular introduction of the coloured plate by which several magazines, Nature and Art, The Chromo-lithograph, etc., were illustrated entirely; others, especially The Sunday at Home, Leisure Hour, People's Magazine, etc., from 1864 onwards issued monthly frontispieces in colours and gold—a practice now confined almost wholly to boys' magazines. The pictures by artists already associated with Once a Week include (in vol. i. p. 8) two by A. Boyd Houghton, The Queen of the Rubies (p. 177) and A Turkish Tragedy (p. 448); four by Paul Gray, The Phantom Ship (p. 43), Blanche (pp. 291, 317), and The Fight on Rhu Carn (p. 713); two by T. Morten, The Dying Viking (p. 239), a drawing curiously like Sandys's Rosamunda, and King Eric (p. 435); six by W. Small, Billy Blake's Best Coffin (p. 15), Kattie and the Deil (p. 99), The King and the Bishop (p. 183), The Staghound (p. 295), Thunnors Slip (p. 351), and Larthon of Inis-Huna (p. 575); five by J. Lawson: The Watch-tower (p. 121), Theocritus (p. 211), In statu quo (p. 463), Ancient Clan Dirge (p. 491), and Wait On (p. 631); one by F. W. Lawson, A Sunday a Century ago (p. 671), and others. Among recruits we find R. Barnes with Lost for Gold (p. 407), B. Bradley with A Raid (p. 659), eleven by Edward Hughes, and many by G. Bowers, R. T. Pritchett, F. J. Slinger, and others. Altogether the New Series started bravely. In vol. ii. New Series, the so-called 'extra illustrations' include The Suit of Armour (Frontispiece), by Sir John Gilbert; Evening (p. 97), by Basil Bradley; Poor Christine (p. 245), by Edward Hughes; Among the Breakers (p. 344), by E. Duncan; The Nymph's Lament (p. 476), by G. Du Maurier; and The Huntress of Armorica (p. 706), by Paul Gray. Of 'old hands' Du Maurier has another of his graceful drawings, Lady Julia (p. 239), and Paul Gray has, besides the special plate, eleven to Hobson's Choice (pp. 169, 197, 225, 253, 281, 309, 337, 365, 393, 421, and 449); three by A. Boyd Houghton are A Dead Man's Message (p. 211); and The Mistaken Ghost (pp. 687, 723); T. Morten has only a couple, The Curse of the Gudmunds (p. 155) and On the Cliffs (p. 308); and G. J. Pinwell one, The Pastor and the Landgrave (p. 631); J. W North's Luther's Gardener (p. 99) is a curious drawing to a curious poem; W. Small, with Eldorado (p. 15), Dorette (p. 379), The Gift of Clunnog Vawr (p. 463), The Prize Maiden (pp. 491, 519, 560), and Tranquillity (p. 575), shows more and more that strong personality which by and by influenced black and white art, so that men of the seventies are far more disciples of Small than even were the men of the sixties of Millais. M. E. Edwards's Avice and her Lover (p. 141); six by Basil Bradley (pp. 140, 252, 279, 532, 603, and 659), Charles Green's Kunegunda (p. 71), Hazeley Mill (p. 85), and Michael Considine's Daughter (p. 351); five by Edward Hughes (pp. 183, 407, 547, 585, and 599); three by J. Lawson: Ariadne (p. 127), The Mulberry-tree (p. 323), and Gabrielle's Cross (p. 699). F. W. Lawson's A Midshipman's Yarn (p. 113) and Grandmother's Story (p. 223) deserve to be noted. Others by G. Bowers, F. Eltze, R. T. Pritchett, P. J. Skelton, E. Wimpress (sic), and J. Wolf among the rest, call for no comment. For the Christmas number for this year 1866, W. Small has The Brown Imp (p. 12); J. Lawson, The Birth of the Rose (p. 20); E. Hughes, The Pension Latoque (p. 25); Ernest Griset, Boar Hunting (p. 57); G. B. Goddard, Christmas Eve in the Country (p. 58); and Basil Bradley, A Winter Piece (p. 62); John Leighton contributes a frontispiece and illustrations to St. George and the Dragon, a poem by the author of John Halifax.
In volume iii. 1867 the extra illustrations are still distinguished by a special subject index; they include Lord Aythan (Frontispiece), by J. Tenniel; Coming through the Fence (p. 112), by R. Ansdell, A.R.A.; Feeding the Sacred Ibis (p. 238), by E. J. Poynter; Come, buy my pretty windmills (p. 360), by G. J. Pinwell; Hide a Stick (p. 569), by F. J. Shields; and Highland Sheep (p. 692), by Basil Bradley. Another extra plate, a drawing by Helen J. Miles, 'given as an example of graphotype,' is not without technical interest. In the accompanying article we find that the possibilities of mechanical reproduction are discussed, and the writer adds, as his highest flight of fancy, 'who shall say that graphotype may not be the origin of a daily illustrated paper?' It would be out of place to pursue this tempting theme, and to discuss the Daily Graphic of New York and succeeding illustrated dailies, for all these things were but dreams in the sixties. Yet, undoubtedly, graphotype set people on the track of process-work. By and by the photographer came in as the welcome ally, who left the draughtsman free to work upon familiar materials, instead of the block itself, and presently supplanted the engraver also, and the great rival of wood-cutting and wood-engraving sprang into life. Among the ordinary illustrations A. Boyd Houghton is represented by The Mistaken Ghost (p. 15), A Hindoo Legend (p. 273), and The Bride of Rozelle (p. 663); G. J. Pinwell by Joe Robertson's Folly (p. 225) and The Old Keeper's Story (p. 483); J. W. North by The Lake (p. 303); W. Small by A Queer Story about Banditti (pp. 55, 83); S. L. Fildes by a strongly-drawn design, The Goldsmith's Apprentice (p. 723); Ernest Griset by a slight yet distinctly grotesque Tale of a Tiger (p. 7); M. Ellen Edwards by Wishes (p. 633) and Kate Edwards by Cherry Blossom (p. 543); J. Lawson by The Legend of St. Katherine (p. 127), Sir Ralph de Blanc-Minster (p. 168), and Hymn to Apollo (p. 406); F. W. Lawson by The Singer of the Sea (p. 603). The various examples by F. A. Fraser, T. Green, T. Scott (a well-known portrait engraver), E. M. Wimpress, and the rest may be dismissed with bare mention. In vol. iv., New Series, we find Charles Keene with a frontispiece, The Old Shepherd; The Haymakers (p. 105), E. M. Wimpress; Cassandra (p. 345), S. L. Fildes; Fetching the Doctor (p. 494), H. S. Marks; Imma and Eginhart (p. 644), W. Small; and The Christmas Choir (p. 762), F. A. Fraser, are the other separate plates. Those printed with the text include The Child Queen (p. 135) and Feuilles d'Automne (p. 285), by S. L. Fildes; Evening Tide (p. 255), a typical pastoral, by G. J. Pinwell; Zoë Fane (p. 705), by J. Mahoney; and others by B. Bradley, E. F. Brewtnall, F. Eltze, T. Green, E. Hughes, F. W. Lawson, E. Sheil, L. Straszinski, T. Sulman, E. M. Wimpress, etc. Despite the presence of many of the old staff, the list of names shows that the palmy days of the magazine are over. The Christmas number contains, inter alia, a frontispiece by John Gilbert; My Cousin Renie (p. 13), by J. Mahoney; Scotch Cattle, by Basil Bradley; and The Maiden's Test, by M. E. Edwards (p. 49).
In 1868 another new series starts. A notable feature has disappeared: the illustrations no longer figure in a separate list, but their artists' names are tacked on to the few articles and stories which are illustrated in the ordinary index. Yet the drawings by Du Maurier to Charles Reade's Foul Play (pp. 12, 57, 140, 247, 269, 312, 421, 464, 530) would alone make the year interesting. People, who regard Du Maurier as a society draughtsman only, must be astonished at the grim melodramatic force displayed in these. 'John Millais, R.A.,' also appears as a contributor with Death Dealing Arrows (p. 79); S. L. Fildes has The Orchard (p. 396); F. W. Lawson, The Castaway (p. 242); Basil Bradley is well represented by The Chillingham Cattle (p. 100), and Another day's work done (p. 346); F. S. Walker appears with A Lazy Fellow (p. 211), John Gilbert with The Armourer (p. 364), and M. E. Edwards with the society pictures, The Royal Academy (p. 409) and A Flower Show (p. 516). In the second volume for 1868 we find Salmon Fishing (p. 292) and Daphne (p. 397), both by S. L. Fildes; Found Out (p. 31), A Town Cousin (p. 150), Left in the Lurch (p. 230), and Blackberry Gatherers (p. 213), by H. Paterson; Sussex Oxen (p. 110) and The Foxhound (p. 355), by Basil Bradley; The Picnic (p. 270), by F. W. Lawson, who has also The Waits, the frontispiece of the Christmas number, which contains Taking his ease (p. 264), the last Millais in the magazine; a clever gallery study; Boxing Night, by S. L. Fildes, and a capital domestic group, The Old Dream (p. 48), by M. E. Edwards.
In 1869, vol. iii., New Series, contains a single example by G. J. Pinwell, A seat in the park (p. 518); five by S. L. Fildes; The Duet (p. 56), The Juggler (p. 188), Hours of Idleness, the subject of a later Academy picture (p. 475), Led to Execution (p. 540), and Basking (p. 562); and others by Fred Barnard (pp. 166, 254, 346, 450), B. Bradley (pp. 78, 210, 496), Val Prinsep (p. 298), F. W. Lawson (p. 34), and Ford Madox Brown, The Traveller (p. 144). To state that vol. iv., New Series, is absolutely without interest is to let it off cheaply.
In the volume for 1870 the names of artists are omitted, and if we follow the editor's example no injustice will be done, despite a few clever drawings by R. M[acbeth]; the work, not merely in date but in spirit, is of the new decade, and as it is exceptionally poor at that for the most part, it no longer belongs to the subject with which this volume is concerned.
[CHAPTER IV: SOME ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES OF THE SIXTIES: II. 'THE CORNHILL,' 'GOOD WORDS,' AND LONDON SOCIETY']
THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, which began in 1860 with Thackeray as editor, showed from the very first that the aim of the Magazine was to keep the level of its pictures equal to that of its text. In looking through the forty-seven volumes of the first series it is gratifying to find that this purpose was never forgotten. Many a rival magazine has been started since under the happiest auspices, with the most loyal intention to have the best and only the very best illustrations; but in a few years the effort has been too exacting, and the average commonplace of its padding in prose and verse has been equalled by the dull mediocrity of its pictures. Only those who have experienced the difficulty which faces an editor firmly resolved to exclude the commonplace of any sort can realise fully what a strain a successful effort, lasting over twenty years, must needs impose on the responsible conductors. Thackeray, as we know, soon found the labour too great; but his successors kept nobly to their purpose, and few magazines show more honourable fulfilment of their projected scheme than the classic Cornhill, which has introduced so many masterpieces in art and literature to the public.
Curiously enough, the weakest illustrations under the régime he inaugurated so happily are those by the editor himself. Thackeray's designs to Lovel the Widower, and the one example by G. A. Sala in the first volume, link the new periodical with the past. They belong to the caricature type of illustrations which had been accepted by the British public as character-drawing. Like the 'Phiz' plates for Dickens's works, and many of John Leech's sketches, they have undoubtedly merit of a sort, but not if you consider them as pictures pure and simple. Later experience shows that an illustration to a story, which catches the spirit of the writer, and realises in another medium the characters he had imagined, may also be fine art—art as self-sufficient and as wholly beautiful as that of a Dürer wood-cut or a Rembrandt etching. The masterpieces of modern illustrations to fiction which the Cornhill Magazine contains would by themselves suffice to prove this argument up to the hilt. The collection of drawings chiefly by Millais, Walker, and Leighton, in a volume of carefully-printed impressions, from one hundred of the original wood-blocks, issued under the title of the Cornhill Gallery in 1864, may in time to come be prized as highly as Bible Wood-cuts, The Dance of Death, or the Liber Studiorum. It is true that the pictures aimed only to fulfil their actual purpose, and it may be argued, reasonably enough, that a picture which illustrates a story is for that very reason on a different level to a self-contained work—inspired solely by the delight of the artist in his subject. But, in their own way, they touched high-water mark. Upon one of Dürer's blocks he is said to have written in Latin, 'Better work did no man than this,' and on many a Cornhill design the same legend might have been truly inscribed.
It is true that most of the etchings and wood-cuts beside which they deserve to be ranked are untrammelled autograph work throughout, and that here the drawing done direct on the block was paraphrased by an engraver. Not always spoilt, sometimes (as even the draughtsman himself admitted), improved in part, but still with the impress of another personality added. And this argument might be extended to prove that an engraving by another craftsman can never be so interesting as an etching from a master's hand, or a block cut by its designer. Yet, without forcing such comparison, we may claim that the engravings in Once a Week, Good Words, and the Cornhill enriched English art to lasting purpose.
Although sets of the Cornhill Magazine are not difficult to procure, and a large number of people prize them in their libraries, yet by way of bringing together those scattered facts of interest which pertain to our subject, it may be as well to indicate briefly the principal contents of the first thirty-two volumes which cover the period to which this book is limited.
In 1860 we find six full-page illustrations to Lovel the Widower, three to The Four Georges, two to Roundabout Papers, all by Thackeray, to whom they are all formally attributed in the Cornhill Gallery. Possibly one, entirely unlike the style of the rest to The Four Georges, is from another hand—the fact that it is not included in the reprint seems to confirm this suspicion. Millais' first contributions included Unspoken Dialogue, 'Last Words,' and the beginning of the illustrations to Framley Parsonage, which he equalled often but never excelled. F. Sandys is represented by Legends of the Portent (i. p. 617), and Frederick Leighton by The Great God Pan (ii. p. 84) to Mrs. Browning's poem. Ariadne in Naxos, an outline-drawing in a decorative frame, is unsigned, and so strangely unlike the style of the magazine that it provokes curiosity.
In 1861 Thackeray started illustrating his serial story, The Adventures of Philip, but, after four full-page drawings, relinquished the task to Fred Walker, who at first re-drew Thackeray's compositions, but afterwards signed his work with the familiar 'F. W.' We may safely attribute eight solely to him. Millais continued his series of drawings to illustrate Framley Parsonage, and has besides one other, entitled Temptation (iii. p. 229). A series of studies of character, The Excursion Train, by C. H. Bennett, is a notable exception to the practice of the magazine, which printed all its 'pictures' on plate-paper apart from the text, the blocks in the text (always excepting the initial letters) being elsewhere limited to diagrams elucidating the matter and obviously removed from consideration as pictures. This year Doyle began those outline pictures of Society which attained so wide a popularity.
FREDERICK SANDYS
'CORNHILL MAGAZINE'
VOL. I. p. 62
LEGEND OF
THE PORTENT
FREDERICK SANDYS
'CORNHILL MAGAZINE'
VOL. VI. p. 346
MANOLI
In 1862 Walker concludes his Philip series with eight full-page drawings, including the superb Philip in Church, of which he made a version in water-colours that still ranks among his most notable work. The first two illustrations to Miss Thackeray's Story of Elizabeth are also from his hand. Millais is represented by Irené, a kneeling figure (v. p. 478), and by the powerfully conceived Bishop and the Knight (vi. p. 100), and the first four illustrations to Trollope's Small House at Allington. Richard Doyle continues the series of Pictures of English Society; but now that their actuality no longer impresses, we fail to discover the special charm which endeared them to contemporaries. F. Sandys is represented by Manoli (vi. p. 346), the second of his three contributions, which deepens the regret that work by this fine artist appeared so seldom in this magazine. But the most notable feature this year is found in the drawings contributed by Frederick Leighton, then not even an Associate of the Royal Academy, which illustrate George Eliot's Romola. With these the Cornhill departed from its ordinary custom, and gave two full-page illustrations to each section of the serial month by month. Consequently in the volumes in 1862 and 1863 the usual two-dozen plates are considerably augmented.
In 1863 twelve more of the Romola series complete Leighton's contributions to the magazine. Millais has twelve more to The Small House at Allington, Walker is represented by one drawing, Maladetta, another to Mrs. Archie, two to Out of the World, and one more to The Story of Elizabeth. Du Maurier, destined to occupy the most prominent position in later volumes, appears for the first time with The Cilician Pirates, Sibyl's Disappointment, The Night before the Morrow, and Cousin Phillis. Possibly a drawing entitled 'The First Meeting' to a story, The ... in her Closet, is from his hand; but the style is not clearly evident, nor is it included in the Cornhill Gallery which, published in the next year, drew its illustrations from the few volumes already noticed, with the addition of five others from the early numbers of 1864. Another drawing, signed A. H., to Margaret Denzil, is by Arthur Hughes.
In 1864 two other illustrations complete The Small House at Allington, and Millais has also two others for Madame de Monferrat. Sir Noel Paton appears for the only time with a fine composition, Ulysses (IX. p. 66). Margaret Denzil has its three illustrations signed R. B., probably the initials of Robert Barnes, who did much work in later volumes. Charles Keene, a very infrequent contributor, illustrated Brother Jacob, a little-known story by George Eliot. Du Maurier supplies the first four illustrations to Mrs. Gaskell's unfinished Wives and Daughters, and Fred Walker contributes five to the other serial, also interrupted by its author's death, the delightful Denis Duval. Here we see the artist employed on costume-work, and hampered somewhat by historical details, yet infusing into his designs the charm which characterises his idyllic work. G. J. Pinwell is represented by The Lovers of Ballyvookan. G. H. Thomas starts Wilkie Collins's Armadale with two pictures that do not accord with the rest of the Cornhill work, but belong to a differently considered method, popular enough elsewhere, but rarely employed in this magazine. The volume contains also a portrait of Thackeray engraved on steel, by J. C. Armytage, after Laurence.
In 1865 the Armadale illustrations take up twelve full pages, and Du Maurier supplies the remaining twelve stories to Wives and Daughters.
In 1866 six Armadale and one Wives and Daughters are reinforced by eleven illustrations to The Claverings by M. Ellen Edwards. Fred Walker is again a contributor with five drawings for Miss Thackeray's Village on the Cliff, and Frederick Sandys, with a fine composition illustrating Swinburne's Cleopatra (xiv. p. 331), makes his last appearance in the magazine.
In 1867 M. E. Edwards signs five of The Claverings and seven to The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. The Satrap, an admirable composition, is signed F. W. B., but for whom these initials stand is not clear. Fred Walker completes his illustrations to the Village on the Cliff, and adds one other to Beauty and the Beast, and two to A Week in a French Country House and one to Red Riding Hood. F. W. Lawson makes his entrée with the four drawings to Stone Edge, and Du Maurier has a curiously massive Joan of Arc.
In 1868 Walker has three illustrations to Jack the Giant Killer, 'I do not love you,' and From an Island respectively. M. Ellen Edwards is responsible for ten to The Bramleighs, one to a story, The Stockbroker, and the first two to That Boy of Norcott's. F. W. Lawson has four to Avonhoe, and two to Lettice Lisle, and Du Maurier two to My Neighbour Nelly, and one to Lady Denzil.
In 1869 That Boy of Norcott's supplies the subjects for three others by M. E. Edwards, and Lettice Lisle for four by F. W. Lawson. The first chapters of Put yourself in his place, Charles Reade's trades-union novel, are illustrated by ten drawings by Robert Barnes, F. Walker has one to Sola, for which tale Du Maurier supplies another, as well as one to the Courtyard of the Ours d'Or, and the three for Against Time.
In 1870 Robert Barnes continues illustrating Charles Reade's novel with seven full pages. Du Maurier contributes ten to Against Time, and four to George Meredith's Adventures of Harry Richmond, and S. L. Fildes (more familiar to-day as Luke Fildes) comes in with three admirable compositions to Charles Lever's Lord Kilgobbin.
FREDERICK SANDYS
'CORNHILL MAGAZINE'
VOL. XIV. p. 331
CLEOPATRA
In 1871 the latter story engages twelve full pages, and Harry Richmond and eleven others, Du Maurier has the first to a Story of the Plébiscite.
In 1872 Du Maurier continues The Plébiscite with one full page (the others to the same story are signed 'H. H.'), and has four others to Francillon's Pearl and Emerald, and ten to The Scientific Gentleman. Fildes concludes his embellishment of Lord Kilgobbin with three full pages. Hubert Herkomer (the 'H. H.' of The Plébiscite probably) appears as a recruit with two most satisfactory designs to The Last Master of the Old Manor-House, and G. D. Leslie, also a fresh arrival, finds, in Miss Thackeray's Old Kensington, the themes for nine graceful compositions.
In 1873 to Du Maurier are devoted twelve subjects illustrating Zelda's Fortune. G. D. Leslie has four others concluding Old Kensington. S. L. Fildes illustrates Willows with two, and Marcus Stone is represented by half-a-dozen idyllic and charming, if somewhat slight, designs for Young Brown.
In 1874 H. Paterson, W. Small, and Du Maurier contribute all the pictures excepting one by Marcus Stone. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, illustrated by the first artist, and A Rose in June, and Black's Three Feathers by the second.
In 1875 H. Allingham supplies most graceful pictures to Miss Angel. Du Maurier is the artist chosen for another Hardy novel, The Hand of Ethelberta. A. Hopkins illustrates Mr. Henley's wonderful achievement, Hospital Outlines, as the poems were called when they appeared in July 1875. From this date to the last number of the shilling series, June 1883, the artists are limited to Small and Du Maurier for the most part, and as this record has already exceeded its limits, no more need be said, except that until the last, the high standard of technical excellence was never abandoned. Although the rare mastery of Millais and the charm of Walker were hardly approached by their successors, yet the magazine was always representative of the best work of those of its contemporaries who devoted themselves to black and white, and not infrequently, as this notice shows, attracted men who have made few, if any other, attempts to draw for publication. It is curious to find that, notwithstanding the evident importance it attached to its pictorial department, no artist's name is ever mentioned in the index or elsewhere. In a graceful and discriminative essay 'S. C.' speaks feelingly and appreciatively of Fred Walker just after his death; but that seems to be the only time when the anonymity imposed on the artists was divulged in the magazine itself. It is but fair to add that the literary contents were never signed, or attributed in the index, except that a few articles bear the now familiar initials, 'L. S.', 'W. E. H.', 'R. L. S.', 'G. A.', and others.