GOOD WORDS
This popular, semi-religious, sixpenny magazine, established in 1860, achieved quickly a circulation that was record-breaking in its time. Edited by Dr. Norman Macleod, it was printed by Thomas Constable, and published (at first) in Edinburgh by Alexander Strahan and Co. Although, viewed in the light of its later issues, one cannot help feeling disappointed with the first volume, yet even there the pictures are distinctly interesting as a forecast, even if they do not call for any detailed notice by reason of their intrinsic merit. They rarely exceed a half page in size, and were engraved none too well by various craftsmen. Indeed, judging from the names of the artists, then as afterwards, given fully in the index of illustrations, it might not be unfair to blame the engravers still more strongly. The very fact that the illustrations are duly ascribed in a separate list is proof that, from the first, the editor recognised their importance. Such honourable recognition of the personality of an illustrator is by no means the rule, even in periodicals that have equal right to be proud of their collaborators. Where the artists' names are recorded it is rare to find them acknowledged so fully and thoroughly as in Good Words. In other magazines they are usually referred to under the title of the article they illustrate and nowhere else; or their name is printed (as in Once a Week) with a bare list of numerals showing the pages containing their pictures; but in Good Words the subject, titles, and artists' names have always been accorded a special index.
G. DU MAURIER
'GOOD WORDS'
1861, p. 579
A TIME TO
DANCE
In the first volume, for 1860, W. Q. Orchardson—not then even an Associate of the Royal Academy—supplies nine drawings, engraved by F. Borders. Admirable in their own way, one cannot but feel that the signature leads one to expect something much more interesting; and, knowing the quality of Mr. Orchardson's later work, it is impossible to avoid throwing the blame on the engraver. Keeley Halswelle contributes six; in these you find (badly drawn or spoilt by the engraver) those water-lilies in blossom, which in after years became a mannerism in his landscape foregrounds. J. W. M'Whirter has four—one a group of Autumn Flowers (p. 664), cut by R. Paterson, that deserves especial notice as a much more elaborate piece of engraving than any other in the volume. Erskine Nicol supplies two genre pieces, the full-page, Mary Macdonell and her friends (p. 216), being, most probably, a thoroughly good sketch, but here again the translator has produced hard scratchy lines that fail to suggest the freer play of pencil or pen, whichever it was that produced the original. Others by 'J. B.,' J. O. Brown, C. A. Doyle, Clarence Dobell, Jas. Drummond, Clark Stanton, Gourlay Steell, and Hughes Taylor, call for no particular comment.
From 1861 the chief full-page illustrations were printed separately on toned paper. A series of animal subjects by 'J. B.,' twelve 'Illustrations of Scripture,' engraved by Dalziel Brothers, were announced in the prospectus as a special feature. Somewhat pre-Raphaelite in handling they are distinctly interesting, but hardly masterly. But the volume will be always memorable for its early work by Frederick Walker and G. Du Maurier. A Time to Dance, by the latter, shows a certain decorative element, which in various ways has influenced his work at different periods, although no one could have deduced from it the future career of its brilliant author as a satirist of society, a draughtsman who imparted into his work, to a degree no English artist has surpassed, and very few equalled, that 'good form' so prized by well-bred people. The drawing unsigned The Blind School (p. 505), attributed to Fred Walker in the index, suggests some clerical error. Like one attributed to Sandys in a later volume, you hesitate before accepting evidence of the compiler of the list of engravings, which the picture itself contradicts flatly. Only a Sweep (p. 609) is signed, and, although by no means a good example, is unquestionably attributed rightly. John Pettie has two designs, Cain's Brand (pp. 376, 422); J. M'Whirter and W. Q. Orchardson, one each; H. H. Armstead, a pre-Raphaelite composition, A Song which none but the Redeemed ever sing, which is amongst the most interesting of the comparatively few illustrations by the Royal Academician, who is better known as a sculptor, as his Music, Poetry, and Painting in the Albert Memorial, the panels beneath Dyce's frescoes at Westminster Palace, and a long series of works shown at the Academy exhibitions suffice to prove. T. Morten, a draughtsman who has missed so far his due share of appreciation, is represented by The Waker, Dreamer, and Sleeper (p. 634), a powerful composition of a group of men praying at night by the side of a breaking dyke. John Pettie has two drawings; and J. D. Watson, six subjects—the first, The Toad, being singularly unlike his later style, and suggesting a closer discipleship with the pre-Raphaelites than he maintained afterwards. Two by Clarence Dobell, and three by T. Graham—one, The Young Mother, a charming arrangement in lines; with others by J. Wolf, Zwecker, W. M'Taggart, J. L. Porter, A. W. Cooper, A. Bushnell, W. Fyfe, W. Linney, and C. H. Bennett, are also included. Altogether the second volume shows marked advance upon the first, although this admirable periodical had not yet reached its high-water mark.
In 1862 we find added to its list of artists, Millais, Keene, Sandys, Whistler, Holman Hunt, E. Burne-Jones, A. Boyd Houghton, Tenniel, S. Solomon, and Lawless, a notable group, even in that year when so many magazines show a marvellous 'galaxy of stars.' To Millais fell the twelve illustrations to Mistress and Maid, by the author of John Halifax, and two others, Olaf (p. 25) and Highland Flora (p. 393). That these maintain fully the reputation of the great illustrator, whose later achievements in oil have in popular estimation eclipsed his importance as a black-and-white artist, goes without saying. If not equal to the superb Parables of the following year, they are worthy of their author. Indeed, no matter when you come across a Millais, it is with a fresh surprise each time that one finds it rarely falls below a singularly high level, and is apt to seem, for the moment, the best he ever did.
SIMEON SOLOMON
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 592
THE VEILED
BRIDE
FREDERICK WALKER
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 657
OUT AMONG THE
WILD-FLOWERS
The two illustrations by J. M'Neill Whistler seem to be very little known. Those to Once a Week, possibly from the fact of their being reprinted in Thornbury's Legendary Ballads, have been often referred to and reproduced several times; but no notice (so far as I recollect) of these, to The First Sermon, has found its way into print. The one (p. 585) shows a girl crouching by a fire, with a man, whose head is turned towards her, seated at a table with his hand on a lute. The other (p. 649) is a seated girl in meditation before a writing-table. Not a little of the beauty of line, which distinguishes the work of the famous etcher, is evident in these blocks, which were both engraved by Dalziel, and as whatever the original lost cannot now be estimated, as they stand they are nevertheless most admirable works, preserving the rapid touch of the pen-line in a remarkable degree.
The Charles Keene drawing to Nanneri the Washerwoman is another Dalziel block which merits praise in no slight measure; as here again one fancies that the attempt has been to preserve a facsimile of each touch of the artist, and not to translate wash into line. The King Sigurd of Burne-Jones has certainly lost a great deal; in fact, judging by drawings of the same period still extant, it conveys an effect quite different from that its author intended. Certainly, at the present time, he regards it as entirely unrepresentative; but no doubt then as now he disliked drawing upon wood. To-day it has been said that his Chaucer drawings in pencil were practically translated by another hand in the course of their being engraved on wood. Certainly technique of lead pencil is hardly suggested, much less reproduced in facsimile in the entirely admirable engravings by the veteran Mr. W. H. Hooper. But if the designs were photographed on the block such translation as they have undergone is no doubt due to the engraver.
A drawing by Simeon Solomon, The Veiled Bride (p. 592), seems also much less dainty than his pencil studies of the same period. Many artists, when they attempt to draw upon wood, find the material peculiarly unsympathetic. Rossetti has left his opinion on record, and it is quite possible that in both the Burne-Jones and Solomon, as in the Tennyson drawings, although the engravers may have accomplished miracles, what the artist had put down was untranslatable. For the delicacies of pencil may easily produce something beyond the power of even the most skilful engraver to reproduce. The Sandys, Until her Death (p. 312), illustrating a poem, loses much as it appeared in the magazine; you have but to compare a proof from the block itself, in a reprinted collection of Messrs. Strahan's engravings, to realise how different a result was secured upon good paper with careful printing. A. Boyd Houghton is represented by four subjects: My Treasure (p. 504), On the Cliff (p. 624), True or False (p. 721), and About Toys (p. 753); they all belong to the manner of his Home Scenes, rather than to his oriental illustrations. The Battle of Gilboa (p. 89), by Tenniel, is typical. M. J. Lawless is at his best in Rung into Heaven (p. 135), and in the Bands of Love (p. 632) shows more grace than he sometimes secured when confronted by modern costume.
T. Morten has a finely-engraved night-piece, Pictures in the Fire (p. 200), besides The Christmas Child (p. 56) and The Carrier Pigeon (p. 121). The Holman Hunt, Go and Come (p. 32), a weeping figure, is not particularly interesting. Honesty (p. 736), by T. Graham, gives evidence of the power of an artist who has yet to be 'discovered' so far as his illustrations are concerned. H. H. Armstead's Seaweeds (p. 568), and eight by J. D. Watson (pp. 9, 81, 144, 201, 209, 302, 400, 433) need no special comment, nor do the ten by J. Pettie (pp. 264–713). Fred Walker is represented by The Summer Woods, a typical pastoral (p. 368), Love in Death, a careworn woman in the snow (p. 185), and Out among the wild flowers (p. 657), the latter an excellent example of the grace he imparted to rustic figures. These, with a few diagrams and engravings from photographs, complete the record of a memorable, if not the most memorable, year of the magazine.
T. GRAHAM
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 736
HONESTY
M. J. LAWLESS
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 153
RUNG INTO HEAVEN
M. J. LAWLESS
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 632
THE BANDS
OF LOVE
J. PETTIE
'GOOD WORDS'
1863, p. 14
THE MONKS AND
THE HEATHEN
FREDERICK SANDYS
'GOOD WORDS'
1863, p. 589
SLEEP
FREDERICK SANDYS
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 312
UNTIL HER
DEATH
JOHN TENNIEL
'GOOD WORDS'
1863, p. 201
THE NORSE
PRINCESS
In 1863 we find less variety in the artists and subjects, which is due to the presence of the superb series of drawings by Millais, The Parables, wherein the great illustrator touched his highest level. To call these twelve pictures masterpieces is for once to apply consistently a term often misused. For, though one ransacked the portfolios of Europe, not many sets of drawings could be found to equal, and very few to excel them. The twelve subjects appeared in the following order: The Leaven (p. 1), The Ten Virgins (p. 81), The Prodigal Son (p. 161), The Good Samaritan (p. 241), The Unjust Judge (p. 313), The Pharisee and Publican (p. 385), The Hid Treasure (p. 461), The Pearl of Great Price (p. 533), The Lost Piece of Money[1] (p. 605), The Sower (p. 677), The Unmerciful Servant (p. 749), and The Labourers in the Vineyard (p. 821). To F. Sandys two drawings are attributed; one is obviously from another hand, but Sleep (p. 589) undoubtedly marks his final appearance in this magazine. T. Morten is represented by Cousin Winnie (p. 257), Hester Durham (p. 492), The Spirit of Eld (p. 629, unsigned), a powerful composition that at first glance might almost be taken for a Sandys, and An Orphan Family's Christmas (p. 844). In Autumn Thoughts (p. 743) we have an example of J. W. North, more akin to those he contributed to the Dalziel table-books, a landscape, with a fine sense of space, despite the fact that it is enclosed by trees. John Tenniel, in The Norse Princess (p. 201) and Queen Dagmar (p. 344), finds subjects that suit him peculiarly well. The Summer Snow (p. 380), attributed to 'Christopher' Jones, is by Sir Edward Burne-Jones of course, and the final contribution of the artist to these pages. H. J. Lucas, a name rarely encountered, has one drawing, The Sangreal (p. 454). A. Boyd Houghton, in St. Elmo (p. 64), A Missionary Cheer (p. 547), and Childhood (p. 636), is showing the more mature style of his best period. G. J. Pinwell has but a single drawing, Martin Ware's Temptation (p. 573), and that not peculiarly individual; John Pettie appears with six, The Monks and the Heathen (p. 14), The Passion Flowers of Life (p. 141), a study of an old man seated in a creeper-covered porch with a child on his lap, The Night Walk over the Mill Stream (p. 185), and Not above his Business (p. 272), A Touch of Nature (p. 417), and The Negro (p. 476). To a later generation, who only know the pictures of the Royal Academician, these come as a surprise, and prove the versatility of an artist whose painting was somewhat mannered. Walter Crane's—a fine group of oriental sailors—Treasure-trove (p. 795), and J. D. Watson's six drawings are all capable and accomplished; A Pastoral (p. 32), a very elaborate composition which looks like a copy of an oil-painting, Fallen in the Night (p. 97), The Curate of Suverdsio (p. 333), The Aspen (p. 401), Rhoda (p. 520), and Olive Shand's Partner (p. 774), with the not very important Sheep and Goats wrongly attributed to Sandys, two decorated pages by John Leighton, one drawing by E. W. Cooke and five by T. Graham, complete the year's record.
The volume for 1864 is distinctly less interesting. Nevertheless it holds some fine things. Notably five Millais', including Oh! the Lark (p. 65), A Scene for a Study (p. 161), Polly (p. 248), (a baby-figure kneeling by a bed, which has been republished elsewhere more than once), The Bridal of Dandelot (p. 304), and Prince Philibert (p. 481), another very popular childish subject, a small girl with a small boy holding a toy-boat. Frederick Walker, in his illustrations to Mrs. Henry Wood's novel, Oswald Cray (pp. 32–129, 202, 286, 371, 453, 532, and 604), shows great dramatic insight, and a certain domestic charm, which has caused the otherwise not very entrancing story to linger in one's memory in a way quite disproportionate to its merits. The remaining illustrations to Oswald Cray are by R. Barnes (pp. 691, 761, 827), the same artist contributing also Grandmother's Snuff, (p. 411), A Burn Case (p. 568), A Lancashire Doxology, (p. 585), Blessed to Give (p. 641), and The Organ Fiend (p. 697). M. J. Lawless is responsible for only one subject, a study of a man and a harpsichord, The Player and the Listeners; in this case, as, on turning over the pages, you re-read a not very noteworthy poem, you find it has lingered in memory merely from its association with a picture. Arthur Hughes has a graceful design, At the Sepulchre (p. 728), which seems to have lost much in the engraving; John Tenniel is also represented by a solitary example, The Way in the Wood (p. 552); G. J. Pinwell, in five full-page drawings, A Christmas Carol (p. 30), The Cottage in the Highlands (p. 427), M'Diarmid explained (p. 504), Malachi's Cove (p. 729), and Mourning (p. 760), sustains his high level. Other subjects, animal pictures by J. Wolf, and figures and landscapes by R. P. Leitch, Florence Claxton, F. Eltze, J. W. Ehrenger, R. T. Pritchett, and W. Colomb, call for no special mention. To John Pettie is attributed a tail-piece of no importance.
M. J. LAWLESS
'GOOD WORDS'
1864, p. 168
THE PLAYER AND
THE LISTENERS
With 1865 comes a sudden cessation of interest, as seventy of the illustrations are engraved 'from photographs of oriental scenes to illustrate the editor's series of travel papers,' Eastward. This leaves room merely for pictures to the two serials. Paul Gray contributed those to Charles Kingsley's novel, Hereward, the Last of the English; but the twelve drawings are unequal, and in few show the promise which elsewhere he exhibited so fully. Robert Barnes supplies nine for the story, Alfred Hagart's Household, by Alexander Smith of City Poems fame. These, like all the artist's work, are singularly good of their kind, and show at once his great facility and his comparatively limited range of types.
In 1866, although engravings after photographs do not usurp the space to the extent they did in the previous year, they are present, and the volume, in spite of many excellent drawings, cannot compare in interest with those for 1862–64. The frontispiece, Lilies, is a most charming figure-subject by W. Small, who contributes also three others: The Old Yeomanry Weeks (p. 127), Deliverance (p. 663), a typical example of a landscape with figures in the foreground, which, in the hands of this artist, becomes something entirely distinct from the 'figure with a landscape beyond' of most others; and Carissimo (p. 736), a pair of lovers on an old stone bench, 'just beyond the Julian gate,' which seems as carefully studied as if it were intended for a painting in oils. To compare the average picture to a poem to-day, with the work of Mr. Small and many of his fellows, is not encouraging. Thirty years ago it seemed as if the draughtsman did his best to evolve a perfect representation of the subject of the verses; now one feels doubtful whether the artist does not keep on hand, to be supplied to order, a series of lovers in attitudes warranted to fit, more or less accurately, any verses by any poet. Of course for one picture issued then, a score, perhaps a hundred, are published to-day, and it might be that numerically as many really good drawings appear in the course of a year now, as then; but, while our average rarely descends to the feeblest depths of the sixties, it still more rarely comes near such work as Mr. Small's, whose method is still followed and has influenced more decidedly a larger number of draughtsmen than has that of Millais, Walker, Pinwell, or Houghton.
Studying his work at this date, you realise how very strongly he influenced the so-called 'Graphic School' which supplanted the movement we are considering in the next decade. Despite the appreciation, contemporary and retrospective, already bestowed upon his work, despite the influence—not always for good—upon the younger men, it is yet open to doubt if the genius of this remarkable artist has received adequate recognition. In a running commentary upon work of all degrees of excellence, one is struck anew with its admirably sustained power and its constantly fresh manner.
This digression, provoked by the four delightful 'Small' drawings, must not lead one to overlook the rest of the pictures in Good Words for 1866. They include The Island Church, by J. W. North (p. 393), The Life-Boat, by J. W. Lawson (p. 248), Between the Showers, by W. J. Linton, (p. 424), six illustrations to Ruth Thornbury, by M. E. Edwards, and one by G. J. Pinwell, Bridget Dally's Change. Perhaps the most notable of the year are the five still to be named: A. Boyd Houghton's The Voyage, and a set of four half-page drawings, Reaping, Binding, Carrying, Gleaning, entitled The Harvest (pp. 600, 601). These have a decorative arrangement not always present in the work of this clever artist, and a peculiarly large method of treatment, so much so that if the text informed you that they were pen-sketches from life-size paintings, you would not be surprised. Whether by accident or design, it is curious to discover that the landscapes in each pair, set as they are on pages facing one another, have a look of being carried across the book in Japanese fashion.
1867 might be called the Pinwell year, as a dozen of his illustrations to Dr. George Mac Donald's Guild Court, and one each to A Bird in the Hand and The Cabin Boy, account for nearly half the original drawings in the volume. W. Small is seen in five characteristic designs to Dr. Macleod's The Starling, and one each to Beside the Stile (p. 645) and The Highland Student (p. 663). Arthur Boyd Houghton contributes Omar and the Persian (p. 104) and Making Poetry (p. 248); the first a typical example of his oriental manner, the latter one of his home scenes. S. L. Fildes appears with In the Choir (p. 537), a church interior showing the influence of William Small. F. W. Lawson illustrates Grace's Fortune with three drawings, also redolent of Small, and Fred Walker has Waiting in the Dusk, a picture of a girl in a passage, which does not illustrate the accompanying verses, and has the air of being a picture prepared for a serial some time before, that, having been delayed for some reason, has been served up with a poem that chanced to be in type.
In 1868 Pinwell and Houghton between them are responsible for quite half the separate plates, and Small contributes no less than thirty-four which illustrate delightfully The Woman's Kingdom, a novel by the author of John Halifax, together with a large number of vignetted initials, a feature not before introduced into this magazine. Without forgetting the many admirable examples of Mr. Small's power to sustain the interest of the reader throughout a whole set of illustrations to a work of fiction, one doubts if he has ever surpassed the excellence of these. The little sketches of figures and landscapes in the initials show that he did not consider it beneath his dignity to study the text thoroughly, so as to interpret it with dramatic insight. Your modern chic draughtsman, who reads hastily the few lines underscored in blue pencil by his editor, must laugh at the pains taken by the older men. Indeed, a very up-to-date illustrator will not merely refuse to carry out the author's idea, but prefer his own conception of the character, and say so. That neither course in itself produces great work may be granted, but one cannot avoid the conclusion that if it be best to illustrate a novel (which is by no means certain) that artist is most worthy of praise who does his utmost to present the characters invented by the author. True, that character-drawing with pen and pencil is out of date,—subtle emotion has taken its place,—it is not easy to make a picture of a person smiling outwardly, but inwardly convulsed with conflicting desires; the smile you may get, but the conflicting desires are hard to work in at the same time. Appreciation of Mr. Small's design need not imply censure of the work of others; but, all the same, the cheap half-tone from a wash-drawing, in the current sixpenny magazine, looks a very feeble thing after an hour devoted to the illustrations to Guy Waterman's Maze, The Woman's Kingdom, Griffith Gaunt, and the rest of the serials he illustrated. In this volume two others, The Harvest Home (p. 489) and A Love Letter (p. 618), are also from the same facile hand.
The first of the Boyd Houghtons is a striking design to Tennyson's poem of The Victim (p. 18); neither picture nor poem shows its author at his best. Others signed A. B. H. are: The Church in the Cevennes (pp. 56, 57), Discipleship (p. 112), The Pope and the Cardinals (p. 305), The Gold Bridge (p. 321), The Two Coats (p. 432), How it all happened (seven illustrations), Dance my Children (p. 568), a typical example of the peculiar mannerism of its author, and a Russian Farmyard (p. 760); also a number of small designs to Russian Fables, some of which were illustrated also by Zwecker. G. J. Pinwell illustrates Notes on the Fire (pp. 47, 49), Much work for Little Pay (p. 89), A Paris Pawn-shop (p. 233), Mrs. Dubosq's Daughter (four pictures), Una and the Lion (p. 361), Lovely, yet unloved (pp. 376, 377), Hop Gathering (p. 424), The Quakers in Norway (p. 504). S. L. Fildes has The Captain's Story, a good study of fire-light reflected on three seated figures. Other numbers worth noting are an excellent example of J. Mahoney, Yesterday and To-day (p. 672), Briton Rivière's At the Window (p. 630), R. Buckman's The White Umbrella (p. 473), and seven by Francis Walker to Hero Harold, and one each to Glenalla (p. 384), The Bracelet (p. 753), and Thieves' Quarter (p. 553).
With 1869 we lose sight of many of the men who did so much to sustain the artistic reputation of this magazine. W. Small has but one drawing, The Old Manor-House (p. 849). Hubert Herkomer is represented by The Way to Machaerus (pp. 353, 497). J. Mahoney by five designs to The Staffordshire Potter, Francis Walker by nine to The Connaught Potters and A Burial at Machaerus and Holyhead Breakwater. Arthur Hughes, an infrequent contributor so far, contributes two illustrations to Carmina Nuptialia. F. Barnard has two to House-hunting; F. A. Fraser has no less than seventy-five: thirty-five to Debenham's Vow, and thirty-three to Noblesse Oblige, with seven others, none of them worth reconsideration, although they served their purpose no doubt at the time.
With 1870 we reach the limit of the present chronicle, to which Francis Walker and F. A. Fraser contribute most of the pictures. The most interesting are: Arthur Hughes's Fancy (p. 777) and The Mariner's Cave (p. 865); J. D. Linton, Married Lovers (p. 601); J. Mahoney, The Dorsetshire Hind (p. 21), Ascent of Snowdon (p. 201); and Dame Martha's Well (p. 680), and G. J. Pinwell's three very representative drawings, Rajah playing Chess (p. 211), Margaret in the Xebec (p. 280), and A Winter Song (p. 321).
ARTHUR HUGHES
'GOOD WORDS'
1870, p. 777
FANCY
1871 is memorable for three of Arthur Hughes's designs, made for a projected illustrated edition of Tennyson's Loves of the Wrens, a scheme abandoned at the author's wish; the three drawings cut down from their original size, Fly Little Letter (p. 33), The Mist and the Rain (p. 113), and Sun Comes, Moon Comes (p. 183), are especially dear to collectors of Mr. Hughes's work, which appeared here with the lyrics set to Sir Arthur Sullivan's music; another by the same artist, The Mother and the Angel (p. 648), is also worth noting. One Boyd Houghton, Baraduree Justice (p. 464), twenty-one drawings by W. Small to Katharine Saunders, The High Mills, and one by the same artist to An Unfinished Song (p. 641) are in this volume, besides four by Pinwell, Aid to the Sick (p. 40), The Devil's Boots (p. 217), Toddy's Legacy (p. 336), and Shall we ever meet again? (p. 817).
Without discussing the remaining years of this still flourishing monthly one can hardly omit mention of the volume for 1878, in which William Black's Macleod of Dare is illustrated by G. H. Boughton, R.A., J. Pettie, R.A., P. Graham, R.A., W. Q. Orchardson, R.A., and John Everett Millais, R.A., a group which recalls the glories of its early issues.