Besides his humour, Bewick has a delightfully rustic side, of which Hogarth gives but little indication. From the starved ewe in the snow nibbling forlornly at a worn-out broom, to the cow which has broken through the rail to reach the running water, there are numberless designs which reveal that faithful lover of the field and hillside, who, as he said, “would rather be herding sheep on Mickle bank top” than remain in London to be made premier of England. He loved the country and the country-life; and he drew them as one who loved them. It is this rural quality which helps to give such a lasting freshness to his quaint and picturesque fancies; and it is this which will continue to preserve their popularity, even if they should cease to be valued for their wealth of whimsical invention.
In referring to these masterpieces of Bewick’s, it must not be forgotten that he had the aid of some clever assistants. His younger brother John was not without talent, as is clear from his work for Somervile’s “Chace,” 1796, and that highly edifying book, the “Blossoms of Morality.” Many of the tail-pieces to the “Water Birds” were designed by Robert Johnson, who also did most of the illustrations to Bewick’s “Fables” of 1818, which were engraved by Temple and Harvey, two other pupils. Another pupil was Charlton Nesbit, an excellent engraver, who was employed upon the “Birds,” and did good work in Ackermann’s “Religious Emblems” of 1808, and the second series of Northcote’s “Fables.” But by far the largest portion of the tail-pieces in the second volume of the “Birds” was engraved by Luke Clennell, a very skilful but unfortunate artist, who ultimately became insane. To him we owe the woodcuts, after Stothard’s charming sketches, to the Rogers volume of 1810, an edition preceding those already mentioned as illustrated with steel-plates, and containing some of the artist’s happiest pictures of children and amorini. Many of these little groups would make admirable designs for gems, if indeed they are not already derived from them, since one at least is an obvious copy of a well-known sardonyx—(“The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche.”) This volume, generally known by the name of the “Firebrand” edition, is highly prized by collectors; and, as intelligent renderings of pen and ink, there is little better than these engravings of Clennell’s. [12] Finally, among others of Bewick’s pupils, must be mentioned William Harvey, who survived to 1866. It has been already stated that he engraved part of the illustrations to Bewick’s “Fables,” but his best known block is the large one of Haydon’s “Death of Dentatus.” Soon after this he relinquished wood-engraving in favour of design, and for a long period was one of the most fertile and popular of book-illustrators. His style, however, is unpleasantly mannered; and it is sufficient to make mention of his masterpiece, the “Arabian Nights” of Lane, the illustrations to which, produced under the supervision of the translator, are said to be so accurate as to give the appropriate turbans for every hour of the day. They show considerable freedom of invention and a large fund of Orientalism.
Harvey came to London in 1817; Clennell had preceded him by some years; and Nesbit lived there for a considerable time. What distinguishes these pupils of Bewick especially is, that they were artists as well as engravers, capable of producing the designs they engraved. The “London School” of engravers, on the contrary, were mostly engravers, who depended upon others for their designs. The foremost of these was Robert Branston, a skilful renderer of human figures and indoor scenes. He worked in rivalry with Bewick and Nesbit; but he excelled neither, while he fell far behind the former. John Thompson, one of the very best of modern English engravers on wood, was Branston’s pupil. His range was of the widest, and he succeeded as well in engraving fishes and birds for Yarrell and Walton’s “Angler,” as in illustrations to Molière and “Hudibras.” He was, besides, a clever draughtsman, though he worked chiefly from the designs of Thurston and others. One of the most successful of his illustrated books is the “Vicar of Wakefield,” after Mulready, whose simplicity and homely feeling were well suited to Goldsmith’s style. Another excellent engraver of this date is Samuel Williams. There is an edition of Thomson’s “Seasons,” with cuts both drawn and engraved by him, which is well worthy of attention, and (like Thompson and Branston) he was very skilful in reproducing the designs of Cruikshank. Some of his best work in this way is to be found in Clarke’s “Three Courses and a Dessert,” published by Vizetelly in 1830.
From this time forth, however, one hears less of the engraver and more of the artist. The establishment of the “Penny Magazine” in 1832, and the multifarious publications of Charles Knight, gave an extraordinary impetus to wood-engraving. Ten years later came “Punch,” and the “Illustrated London News,” which further increased its popularity. Artists of eminence began to draw on or for the block, as they had drawn, and were still drawing, for the “Annuals.” In 1842–6 was issued the great “Abbotsford” edition of the “Waverley Novels,” which, besides 120 plates, contained nearly 2000 wood-engravings; and with the “Book of British Ballads,” 1843, edited by Mr. S. C. Hall, arose that long series of illustrated Christmas books, which gradually supplanted the “Annuals,” and made familiar the names of Gilbert, Birket Foster, Harrison Weir, John Absolon, and a crowd of others. The poems of Longfellow, Montgomery, Burns, “Barry Cornwall,” Poe, Miss Ingelow, were all successively “illustrated.” Besides these, there were numerous selections, such as Willmott’s “Poets of the Nineteenth Century,” Wills’s “Poets’ Wit and Humour,” and so forth. But the field here grows too wide to be dealt with in detail, and it is impossible to do more than mention a few of the books most prominent for merit or originality. Amongst these there is the “Shakespeare” of Sir John Gilbert. Regarded as an interpretative edition of the great dramatist, this is little more than a brilliant tour de force; but it is nevertheless infinitely superior to the earlier efforts of Kenny Meadows in 1843, and also to the fancy designs of Harvey in Knight’s “Pictorial Shakespeare.” The “Illustrated Tennyson” of 1858 is also a remarkable production. The Laureate, almost more than any other, requires a variety of illustrators; and here, for his idylls, he had Mulready and Millais, and for his romances Rossetti and Holman Hunt. His “Princess” was afterwards illustrated by Maclise, and his “Enoch Arden” by Arthur Hughes; but neither of these can be said to be wholly adequate. The “Lalla Rookh” of John Tenniel, 1860, albeit somewhat stiff and cold, after this artist’s fashion, is a superb collection of carefully studied oriental designs. With these may be classed the illustrations to Aytoun’s “Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,” by Sir Noel Paton, which have the same finished qualities of composition and the same academic hardness. Several good editions of the “Pilgrim’s Progress” have appeared,—notably those of C. H. Bennett, J. D. Watson, and G. H. Thomas. Other books are Millais’s “Parables of our Lord,” Leighton’s “Romola,” Walker’s “Philip” and “Denis Duval,” the “Don Quixote,” “Dante,” “La Fontaine” and other works of Doré, Dalziel’s “Arabian Nights,” Leighton’s “Lyra Germanica” and “Moral Emblems,” and the “Spiritual Conceits” of W. Harry Rogers. These are some only of the number, which does not include books like Mrs. Hugh Blackburn’s “British Birds,” Wolf’s “Wild Animals,” Wise’s “New Forest,” Linton’s “Lake Country,” Wood’s “Natural History,” and many more. Nor does it take in the various illustrated periodicals which have multiplied so freely since, in 1859, “Once a Week” first began to attract and train such younger draughtsmen as Sandys, Lawless, Pinwell, Houghton, Morten, and Paul Grey, some of whose best work in this way has been revived in the edition of Thornbury’s “Ballads and Songs,” recently published by Chatto and Windus. Ten years later came the “Graphic,” offering still wider opportunities to wood-cut art, and bringing with it a fresh school of artists. Herkomer, Fildes, Small, Green, Barnard, Barnes, Crane, Caldecott, Hopkins, and others,—quos nunc perscribere longum est—have contributed good work to this popular rival of the older, but still vigorous, “Illustrated.” And now again, another promising serial, the “Magazine of Art,” affords a supplementary field to modern refinements and younger energies.
Not a few of the artists named in the preceding paragraph have also earned distinction in separate branches of the pictorial art, and specially in that of humorous design,—a department which has always been so richly recruited in this country that it deserves more than a passing mention. From the days of Hogarth onwards there has been an almost unbroken series of humorous draughtsmen, who, both on wood and metal, play a distinguished part in our illustrated literature. Rowlandson, one of the earliest, was a caricaturist of inexhaustible facility, and an artist who scarcely did justice to his own powers. He illustrated several books, but he is chiefly remembered in this way by his plates to Combe’s “Three Tours of Dr. Syntax.” Gillray, his contemporary, whose bias was political rather than social, is said to have illustrated “The Deserted Village” in his youth; but he is not famous as a book-illustrator. Another of the early men was Bunbury, whom “quality”-loving Mr. Walpole calls “the second Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original (!);” but whose prints to “Tristram Shandy,” are nevertheless completely forgotten, while, if he be remembered at all, it is by the plate of “The Long Minuet,” and the vulgar “Directions to Bad Horsemen.” With the first years of the century, however, appears the great master of modern humorists, whose long life ended only a few years since, “the veteran George Cruikshank”—as his admirers were wont to style him. He indeed may justly be compared to Hogarth, since, in tragic power and intensity he occasionally comes nearer to him than any artist of our time. It is manifestly impossible to mention here all the more important efforts of this indefatigable worker, from those far-away days when he caricatured “Boney” and championed Queen Caroline, to that final frontispiece for “The Rose and the Lily”—“designed and etched (according to the inscription) by George Cruikshank, age 83;” but the plates to the “Points of Humour,” to Grimm’s “Goblins,” to “Oliver Twist,” “Jack Sheppard,” Maxwell’s “Irish Rebellion,” and the “Table Book,” are sufficiently favourable and varied specimens of his skill with the needle, while the woodcuts to “Three Courses and a Dessert,” one of which is here given, are equally good examples of his work on the block. The “Triumph of Cupid,” which begins the “Table Book,” is an excellent instance of his lavish wealth of fancy, and it contains beside, one—nay more than one—of the many portraits of the artist. He is shown en robe de chambre, smoking (this was before his regenerate days!) in front of a blazing fire, with a pet spaniel on his knee. In the cloud which curls from his lips is a motley procession of sailors, sweeps, jockeys, Greenwich pensioners, Jew clothesmen, flunkies, and others more illustrious, chained to the chariot wheels of Cupid, who, preceded by cherubic acolytes and banner-bearers, winds round the top of the picture towards an altar of Hymen on the table. When, by the aid of a pocket-glass, one has mastered these swarming figures, as well as those in the foreground, it gradually dawns upon one that all the furniture is strangely vitalised. Masks laugh round the border of the tablecloth, the markings of the mantelpiece resolve themselves into rows of madly-racing figures, the tongs leers in a degagé and cavalier way at the artist, the shovel and poker grin in sympathy; there are faces in the smoke, in the fire, in the fireplace,—the very fender itself is a ring of fantastic creatures who jubilantly hem in the ashes. And it is not only in the grotesque and fanciful that Cruikshank excels; he is master of the strange, the supernatural, and the terrible. In range of character (the comparison is probably a hackneyed one), both by his gifts and his limitations, he resembles Dickens; and had he illustrated more of that writer’s works the resemblance would probably have been more evident. In “Oliver Twist,” for example, where Dickens is strong, Cruikshank is strong; where Dickens is weak, he is weak too. His Fagin, his Bill Sikes, his Bumble, and their following, are on a level with Dickens’s conceptions; his Monk and Rose Maylie are as poor as the originals. But as the defects of Dickens are overbalanced by his merits, so Cruikshank’s strength is far in excess of his weakness. It is not to his melodramatic heroes or wasp-waisted heroines that we must look for his triumphs; it is to his delineations, from the moralist’s point of view, of vulgarity and vice,—of the “rank life of towns,” with all its squalid tragedy and comedy. Here he finds his strongest ground, and possibly, notwithstanding his powers as a comic artist and caricaturist, his loftiest claim to recollection.
Cruikshank was employed on two only of Dickens’s books—“Oliver Twist” and the “Sketches by Boz.” [13] The great majority of them were illustrated by Hablot K. Browne, an artist who followed the ill-fated Seymour on the “Pickwick Papers.” To “Phiz,” as he is popularly called, we are indebted for our pictorial ideas of Sam Weller, Mrs. Gamp, Captain Cuttle, and most of the author’s characters, down to the “Tale of Two Cities.” “Phiz” also illustrated a great many of Lever’s novels, for which his skill in hunting and other Lever-like scenes especially qualified him.