This somewhat scarce publication is often referred to as one of the important periodicals of the sixties, but on looking through it, it seems to have established its claim on somewhat slender foundation. True, it contains one of Sandys' most memorable designs—here reproduced in photogravure from an early impression of the block, a peculiarly fine drawing—to Christina Rossetti's poem, Amor Mundi. It was reproduced from a photograph of the drawing on wood in the first edition of Mr. Pennell's admirable Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen, and in the second edition are reproductions by process, not only of Mr. Sandys' original drawing as preserved in a Hollyer photograph, but of preliminary studies for the figures.
The rest of the illustrations of the magazine, which only lived for a few months, are comparatively few and not above the average in merit. The numbers, May 1865 to May 1866, contain eight drawings by J. D. Watson, illustrating Mrs. Riddell's Phemie Keller. Thirteen by Paul Gray illustrate The White Flower of Ravensworth, by Miss M. Betham-Edwards. Others noteworthy are: Gythia, by T. R. Lamont; Dahut, and An Incident of 1809, by J. Lawson; Mistrust and Love's Pilgrimage, by Edward Hughes; a fine composition, Lost on the Fells, by W. Small, and a few minor drawings mostly in the text. It was published by T. Bosworth, 215 Regent Street. This is a brief record of a fairly praiseworthy venture, but there is really no more to be said about it.
THE SUNDAY MAGAZINE,
Another sixpenny illustrated monthly more definitely religious in its aim than Good Words, of which it was an offspring, was started in 1865. The illustrations from the first were hardly less interesting than those in the other publications under the direction of Mr. Alexander Strahan. Indeed, it would be unjust not to express very clearly and unmistakably the debt which all lovers of black-and-white art owe to the publisher of these magazines. The conditions of oil-painting demand merely a public ready to buy: whether the artist negotiates directly with the purchaser, or employs an agent, is a matter of convenience. But black-and-white illustration requires a well-circulated, well-printed, well-conducted periodical: not as a middleman whose services can be dispensed with, but as a vital factor in the enterprise. Therefore drawings intended for publication imply a publisher, and one who is not merely a man with pronounced artistic taste, but also a good administrator and a capable man of business. These triple qualifications are found but rarely together, and when they do unite, the influence of such a personality is of the utmost importance. Mr. Strahan, who appears to have combined in no small degree the qualities which go to make a successful publisher, set on foot two popular magazines, which, in spite of their having long passed their first quarter of a century, are still holding their own. A third, full of promise, Good Words for the Young, was cut off in its prime, or rather died of a lingering disease, caused by that terrible microbe the foreign cliché. Others, The Day of Rest and Saturday Journal, also affected by the same ailment, succumbed after more or less effort; but the magazines that relied on the best contemporary illustrators still flourish. The moral, obvious as it is, deserves to be insisted upon. To-day the photograph from life is as popular with many editors as the cliché from German and French originals was in the seventies; but a public which tired of foreign electros may soon grow weary of the inevitable photograph, and so the warning is worth setting down.
J. MAHONEY
'SUNDAY MAGAZINE'
1866, p. 825
SUMMER
J. W. NORTH
