Early in the Sixties we had been commissioned by Messrs. Routledge, Warne and Routledge to find an artist—"A new man, sir," as Mr. George Routledge expressed it, who could illustrate Bunyan's "Pilgrims Progress" with a fair amount of originality, and give something better than had ever been done in this way before. This, we naturally felt, was a very difficult task, and fully realised the responsibility that would rest upon us for the success or failure of the work—the number of artists of great ability working in black and white at that time was very different to what it is now.
Abject Prayer. By J. D. Watson, R.W.S.
By permission of Mr. James Hogg. FROM "LONDON SOCIETY."
We had had many conversations on the subject as to the most fitting man for the work, when early in the year 1865 Mr. Alexander Strahan sent us two drawings to engrave for a short fairy tale he was about to publish in Good Words. There was novelty and freshness of style, as well as a purity of drawing, in the designs which attracted our attention, and at once suggested the idea that the artist might be competent to undertake the pictures for the "Bunyan." On enquiry we found he was John Dawson Watson, a young man living in Edinburgh, who subsequently became eminent as a black and white artist, as well as a painter in oil and water colours, and a prominent member of the Old Water Colour Society. We at once wrote to him about the "Pilgrim's Progress," asking if he would send us two drawings as examples of the manner in which he would propose to treat the subject. His reply came by return of post, not accompanied by drawings, but saying he was coming to London at once, and would call upon us on his arrival. This he did, and a very pleasant interview terminated by our placing in his hands the commission to do one hundred drawings for this work.
"To seek the wanderer, forth himself doth come
And take him in his arms, and bear him home.
So in this life, this grove of Ignorance,
As to my homeward I myself advance,
Sometimes aright, and sometimes wrong I go,
Sometimes my pace is speedy, sometimes slow."