[F] Water-colour white.
[G] Publishers frequently availed themselves of his facile pencil, and would instruct him to furnish illustrations for books already in the press, for which he was often inadequately paid.
[H] The Sculptor, and an old coadjutor on Once a Week. He is also the author of A Salad of Stray Leaves now in the press, which contains a frontispiece by "Phiz," the last design from his pencil. This he executed under some difficulties, for owing to an attack of rheumatism in his hands, the design—teeming with fancy—had to be made on a large scale, and afterwards reduced by the process of photography.
[I] A favourite game with the children.
[J] The Old Curiosity Shop.
[K] Master Humphrey's Clock.
A List of the Principal Works Illustrated by "Phiz."
To enumerate all the works illustrated by "Phiz" would be a next to impossible task, for "their name is legion." No artist was so popular or so prolific as a book-illustrator, with the exception, perhaps, of George Cruikshank. It may fairly be questioned whether the works of Charles Dickens, with which the name of "Phiz" is most intimately associated in our minds, would have achieved such notoriety without the aid of the etching needle so ably wielded. Mr. John Hollingshead, in his essay on Dickens, says:—
"The greater the value of a book as a literary production, the more will the circle of its influence usually be narrowed. The very shape, aspect, and garments of the ideal creatures who move through its pages, even when drawn by the pen of the first master of fiction in the land, will be faint and confused to the blunter perception of the general reader, unless aided by the attendant pencil of the illustrative artist. For the sharp, clear images of Mr. Pickwick, with the spectacles, gaiters, and low crowned hat—of Sam Weller, with the striped waistcoat and the artful leer—of Mr. Winkle, with the sporting costume and the foolish expression—more persons are indebted to the caricaturist, than to the faultless descriptive passages of the great creative mind that called the amusing puppets into existence."