FREDERICK WALKER
WILLMOTT'S 'SACRED
POETRY,' 1862
A CHILD IN
PRAYER
In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Routledge), with a hundred and ten designs by J. D. Watson, engraved by the Dalziels, we are confronted with a book that is distinctly of the 'sixties,' or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that most of its illustrations are distinguished by the broader treatment of the new school. It is strange that the ample and admirable achievements of this artist have not received more general recognition. When you meet with one of his designs set amid the work of the greatest illustrators, it rarely fails to maintain a dignified equality. If it lack the supreme artistry of one or the fine invention of another, it is always sober and at times masterly, in a restrained matter-of-fact way. Some sketches reproduced in the British Architect (January 22, 1878) display more freedom than his finished works suggest.
Quarles' Emblems (Nisbet), illustrated by C. H. Bennett, a caricaturist whose style seems to have lost touch with modern taste, with decorative adornments by W. H. Rogers, must not be overlooked; nor Tennyson's May Queen (Sampson Low), with designs by E. V. B., a gifted amateur, whose work in this book, in Child's Play, and elsewhere, has a distinct charm, despite many technical shortcomings.
Lyra Germanica (Longmans, 1861), an anthology of hymns translated from the German by Catherine Winkworth, produced under the superintendence of John Leighton, F.S.A., must not be confused with a second series, with the same title, the same anthologist and art editor, issued in 1868. This book contains much decorative work by John Leighton, who has scarcely received the recognition he deserves as a pioneer of better things. At a time when lawless naturalistic detail was supreme everywhere he strove to popularise conventional methods, and deserves full appreciation for his energetic and successful labours. The illustrations include one fine Charles Keene (p. 182), three by M. J. Lawless (pp. 47, 90, 190), four by H. S. Marks (pp. 1, 19, 57, 100), and five by E. Armitage (pp. 29, 62, 111, 160, 197). The engraving by T. Bolton, after a Flaxman bas-relief, is apparently the same block Bohn includes in his supplementary chapter to the 1861 edition of Chatto and Jackson's History of Wood-Engraving, as a specimen of the first experiment in Mr. Bolton's 'new process for photographing on the wood.' As this change was literally epoch-making, this really beautiful block, with its companion p. 111, is of historic interest.
Shakespeare: His Birthplace, edited by J. R. Wise, with twenty-three pictures drawn and engraved by W. J. Linton (Longmans); The Poetry of Nature, with thirty-six drawings by Harrison Weir (Low), and Household Song (Kent, 1861), illustrated by Birket Foster, Samuel Palmer, G. H. Thomas, A. Solomon, J. Andrews, and others, including two rather powerful blocks, To Mary in Heaven especially, by J. Archer, R.S.A.; Chambers's Household Shakespeare, illustrated by Keeley Halswelle, must not be forgotten; nor A Boy's Book of Ballads (Bell and Daldy), illustrated by Sir John Gilbert; but The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, with designs by A. Crowquill (Trübner), is not very important.
An illustrated edition of Mrs. Gatty's Parables from Nature (Bell and Daldy) would be remarkable if only for the Nativity by 'E. Burne-Jones.' It is instructive to compare the engraving with the half-tone reproduction of the original drawing which appears in Mr. Pennell's Modern Illustrations (Bell). But there are also good things in the book by John Tenniel, Holman Hunt, M. E. Edwards, and drawings of average interest by W. (not J. E.) Millais, Otto Speckter, F. Keyl, L. Frolich, Harrison Weir, and others. In the respective editions of 1861 and 1867 the illustrations vary considerably.
Another book that happened to be published in 1860 would at any time occupy a place by itself. Founded on Blake, David Scott developed a distinctly personal manner, that has provoked praise and censure, in each case beyond its merit. Yet without joining either detractors or eulogists, one must own that the Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Edinburgh, 1860), illustrated by David and W. B. Scott, if a most ugly piece of book-making, contains many very noteworthy designs. It is possible, despite the monograph of J. M. Gray (one of the earliest critics who devoted special study to the works of Frederick Sandys) and a certain esoteric cult of a limited number of disciples, that David Scott still remains practically unknown to the younger generation. Yet this book, and Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, which he also illustrated, contain a great many weird ideas, more or less adequately portrayed, which should endear themselves to the symbolist to-day.