In referring to Gilbert's book illustrations a recent writer says, "There is no sign of haste, though many are sketchy; still, there is nothing which suggests that greater excellence would have attended greater elaboration."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] It is stated that Sir Walter Scott was so delightfully charmed with Mackay's acting in this character that he declared "until he saw him act he had no idea of the extraordinary character he had drawn."
[3] An Institution long since defunct.
[4] The following lines, which were largely quoted by the American Press, were written on the occasion of Canon Prothero unveiling a bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in Westminster Abbey, March 1st, 1884:
There is no place in all the great wide world,
Where Anglo-Saxon is the spoken tongue,
Or where the British flag streams out unfurled,
Where patriotic song or ballad's sung,—
But there is heard in kindly company
With Burns and Hood, with Dibdin, Goldsmith, Moore,
The name of him from far across the sea
Who sang the noble song, Excelsior.
He touched the heart with sweet and silvery rhyme,—
He thrilled us with the pathos of his song,—
He showed us wild men in the olden time,
And painted suff'ring under cruel wrong.
Yet ever in the light of truest love
He swept with tender touch the sacred lyre;
And as he sang he caught, as from above,
A blaze of holy, pure, poetic fire.
He sang of changing seasons warm and bright,
He sang of times that were all cold and grey;
He sang of Flowers and of the darkening night,
Of Angel footsteps, and of Rainy day;—
Of Blacksmith as he by the anvil stood,
The Skipper and his daughter drowned at sea,
The Maiden stepping into womanhood,
And then God's Acre, with its mystery.
E'en as he sang, so lived he in his day,
Aye striving for some good deed to be done,—
To show some thing of beauty by the way,
And tell how fame and honour might be won.
"His life was beautiful,"[8] so sang his friend,
With constant charity of heart and hand;
This one more chaplet with his name we blend,—
"He was an honour to his native land."[8]
To-day we lay a humble tribute bare,
'Tis but a block of marble, in the place,
On which a human hand, with cunning rare,
Has deftly carved the sweetness of his face.
There in the Abbey, where our poets lie,
Where many a noble pageant we have seen,
Stands now this bust—where all the world may hie—
Of him who told us of Evangeline.
George Dalziel.
[5] Corbould had made a set of eight illustrations to Spencer's "Fairy Queen" for us.
[6] "The Bottle" was published in 1847.
[7] Here we think the writer of the article has over estimated the number, as Sir John had for many years before his death entirely severed his connection with the Illustrated London News, as well as all other journalistic work.