WILLMOTT'S 'SACRED
POETRY,' 1862
LIFE'S JOURNEY
FREDERICK SANDYS
WILLMOTT'S 'SACRED
POETRY,' 1862
A LITTLE
MOURNER
Goldsmith's Poems, with coloured illustrations by Birket Foster, appeared this year, which saw also many volumes (issued by Day and Son), resplendent with chromo-lithography and 'illuminations' in gold and colours. So that the Christmas harvest, that might seem somewhat meagre in the short list above, really contained as many high-priced volumes appealing to Art, 'as she was understood in 1860,' as the list of 1897 is likely to include. But the books we deem memorable had not yet appeared, and the signs of 1860 hardly point to the rapid advance which the next few years were destined to reveal. In passing it may be noted that this was the great magenta period for cloth bindings. 'Surely the most exquisite colour that ever left the chemist's laboratory,' exclaims a contemporary critic, after a rapturous eulogy.
The 'wicked fratricidal war in America,' we find by references in the trade periodicals of the time, was held responsible for the scarcity of costly volumes at this date. Perhaps the most important book of 1862 is Willmott's Sacred Poetry of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries (like many others issued the previous Christmas). It contains two drawings by Sandys, which are referred to elsewhere, three by Fred Walker, seven by H. S. Marks, two by Charles Keene, twenty-eight by J. D. Watson, one by Holman Hunt, eight by John Gilbert, and others by G. H. Andrews, H. H. Armstead, W. P. Burton, F. R. Pickersgill, S. Read, F. Smallfield, J. Sleigh, Harrison Weir, and J. Wolf. Although the absence of Millais and Rossetti would suffice to place it just below the Tennyson, it may be considered otherwise as about of equal interest with that and the earlier anthology of Poets of the Nineteenth Century, gathered together by the same editor. It is distinctly a typical book of the earlier sixties, and one which no collector can afford to miss.
Poetry of the Elizabethan Age, with thirty illustrations by Birket Foster, John Gilbert, Julian Portch, and E. M. Wimperis, is not quite representative of the sixties, but of a transitional period which might be claimed by either decade. The Songs and Sonnets of Shakespeare, with ten coloured and thirty black-and-white drawings by John Gilbert, to whatever period it may be ascribed, is one of his most superb achievements in book-illustration. Christmas with the Poets, 'embellished with fifty-three tinted illustrations by Birket Foster' (Bell and Daldy), can hardly be mentioned with approval, despite the masterly drawings of a great illustrator. As a piece of book-making, its gold borders and weak 'tinted' blocks, printed in feeble blues and browns, render it peculiarly unattractive. Yet in all honesty one must own that its art is far more thorough and its taste possibly no worse essentially than many of the deckle-edged superfluities with neo-primitive designs which are popular at the present time. The work of this artist is perhaps somewhat out of favour at the moment, but its neglect may be attributed to the inevitable reaction which follows undue popularity. There are legends of the palmy days of the Old Water-Colour Society, when the competition of dealers to secure drawings by 'Birket Foster' was so great that they crowded round the doors before they opened on the first day, and one enterprising trader, crushing in, went straight to the secretary and said, 'I will buy the screen,' thereby forestalling his rivals who were hastily jotting down the works by this artist hung with others upon it. But even popular applause is not always misdirected; and the master of English landscape, despite a certain prettiness and pettiness, despite a little sentimentality, is surely a master. There are 'bests' and bests so many; and if Birket Foster is easily best of his kind, and the fact would hardly be challenged, then as a master we may leave his final place to the future, sure that it is always with the great who have succeeded, and not with the merely promising who just escape success. Among the minor volumes of this year, now especially scarce, are Dr. George Mac Donald's Dealings with the Fairies, with illustrations by Arthur Hughes; and several of Strahan's children's books: The Gold Thread, by Dr. Norman Macleod, with illustrations by J. D. Watson, J. M'Whirter, and others; and The Postman's Bag, illustrated by J. Pettie and others. A curious volume, Spiritual Conceits, 'illustrated by Harry Rogers,' is printed throughout in black letter, and, despite the title, would be described more correctly to-day as 'decorated' by the artists, for the engravings are 'emblematical devices' more or less directly inspired by the emblem books of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. As one of the few examples of conventional design of the period, it is interesting. New copies are by no means scarce, so it would seem to have been printed in excess of the demand, which, judging by the laudatory criticism it received, could not have been meagre.
BIRKET FOSTER