DALZIELS' 'BIBLE
GALLERY,' 1880

THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM

Among the young artists to whom they gave commissions, at the time in a student's career when encouragement of that description is so vital, we find:—Fred Walker, G. J. Pinwell, A. Boyd Houghton, J. D. Watson, John Pettie, R.A., Professor Herkomer, R.A., J. W. North, A.R.A., and Fred Barnard. Artists of eminence, who in all human probability would never have experimented in drawing upon wood but for Messrs. Dalziels' suggestion, include the late Lord Leighton, P.R.A., Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., and Mr. H. Stacy Marks, R.A. Other illustrators who owe much to the enterprise of this firm, and who in turn helped to make its reputation, include Mr. Birket Foster, Sir John Gilbert, R.A., Mr. George Du Maurier, Sir John Tenniel, and Mr. Harrison Weir.

It has been impossible to credit these engravers with their due share in every work mentioned in our pages, because to do this would have necessitated, in common justice, a complete record of the other engravers also; in itself enough to double the length of the chronicle already far too verbose. The engravings in Punch in its early years, and the Cornhill through its finest period, were intrusted to Messrs. Dalziel, while of Good Words and The Sunday Magazine the choice of pictures and their reproduction alike were entirely under their control.

The Dalziel Brothers were born at Wooler, Northumberland, but spent most of their early days in Newcastle-on-Tyne. Their craft was learned from pupils of Thomas Bewick. In 1835 George Dalziel came to London, followed soon after by Edward, and later by John and Thomas. They were all draughtsmen as well as engravers. Thomas devoted himself entirely to drawing. There was also a sister, 'Margaret' (who died in 1894), who practised the art of wood-engraving for many years, with results distinguished for their minute elaboration and fine feeling.

Soon after settling in London, George was associated with Ebenezer Landells (who died in 1869); and the brothers later became intimate with Bewick's favourite pupil, William Harvey, for whom they engraved many of his drawings for Lane's Arabian Nights, Charles Knight's Shakespeare and Bunyan, and many other works. Still later they became acquainted with [Sir] John Gilbert, and were 'the first who endeavoured to render his drawings throughout according to his own style of lining and suggested manipulation.'

Their effort was to translate the draughtsman's line, not to paraphrase it by tint-cutting. As a former apologist has written: 'This has been called "facsimile work"; but it is not so, strictly speaking. Certainly, whatever it may be called, it required as much artistic knowledge and taste to produce a good result as the so-called tint-work against which they [Dalziel Brothers] have no word to say, having practised that branch of art to a considerable extent, as may be seen in hundreds of instances, but perhaps most notably in the Rev. J. G. Wood's Natural History and The History of Man.'

The Dalziels had clever pupils to whom they attribute most readily no little of their success; of these Harry Fenn and C. Kingdon, who both went to America, may be specially mentioned. But a record of so notable an enterprise cannot be adequately treated here; yet a few authorised facts must needs find place. Did space permit, the eulogies of many artists who were entirely satisfied with Messrs. Dalziels' engraving could be quoted as a set-off to the few, Rossetti included, who were querulous. It would be invidious to pick out their best work, but Millais's Parables, Birket Foster's Beauties of English Landscape, and the illustrated editions of classics: Don Quixote, Arabian Nights, Goldsmith's Works, The Bible Gallery, etc. etc., which bear their imprint, may be numbered among their highest achievements.

The share of Mr. Edmund Evans in many notable volumes that owe at least a moiety of their interest to his engraving, and of Messrs. Swain, must needs be left without comment. Mr. Joseph Swain contributed to Good Words in 1888 some very interesting articles on Fred Walker, C. H. Bennett, and G. J. Pinwell. These have since been issued in a volume,[21] with essays, by various hands, on Frederick Shields, [Sir] John Tenniel, and others. It contains ninety illustrations, including the rare early 'Fred Walker' from Everybody's Journal, and specimens of Mr. Shields's illustrations to an edition of The Pilgrim's Progress, published (apparently) by the Manchester Examiner. But so far as I know, neither Mr. Evans nor Messrs. Swain (in the sixties at all events) projected works as Messrs. Dalziel did; and the appreciation which they merit, in their own field, would be unfairly recorded in a few hasty lines.