SIMEON SOLOMON
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 592
THE VEILED
BRIDE
FREDERICK WALKER
'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 657
OUT AMONG THE
WILD-FLOWERS
The two illustrations by J. M'Neill Whistler seem to be very little known. Those to Once a Week, possibly from the fact of their being reprinted in Thornbury's Legendary Ballads, have been often referred to and reproduced several times; but no notice (so far as I recollect) of these, to The First Sermon, has found its way into print. The one (p. 585) shows a girl crouching by a fire, with a man, whose head is turned towards her, seated at a table with his hand on a lute. The other (p. 649) is a seated girl in meditation before a writing-table. Not a little of the beauty of line, which distinguishes the work of the famous etcher, is evident in these blocks, which were both engraved by Dalziel, and as whatever the original lost cannot now be estimated, as they stand they are nevertheless most admirable works, preserving the rapid touch of the pen-line in a remarkable degree.
The Charles Keene drawing to Nanneri the Washerwoman is another Dalziel block which merits praise in no slight measure; as here again one fancies that the attempt has been to preserve a facsimile of each touch of the artist, and not to translate wash into line. The King Sigurd of Burne-Jones has certainly lost a great deal; in fact, judging by drawings of the same period still extant, it conveys an effect quite different from that its author intended. Certainly, at the present time, he regards it as entirely unrepresentative; but no doubt then as now he disliked drawing upon wood. To-day it has been said that his Chaucer drawings in pencil were practically translated by another hand in the course of their being engraved on wood. Certainly technique of lead pencil is hardly suggested, much less reproduced in facsimile in the entirely admirable engravings by the veteran Mr. W. H. Hooper. But if the designs were photographed on the block such translation as they have undergone is no doubt due to the engraver.