The artist’s invincible tendency to exaggeration, that is caricature (in the Johnsonian definition of the word), was observed by his friend and ally, the late Charles James Lever, who remarked with reference to his illustrations of the novel of “Jack Hinton,” “Browne’s sketches are as usual caricatures; they make my scenes too riotous and disorderly. The character of my books for uproarious people and incident I owe mainly to Master Phiz.”[172] When Samuel Lover was sent over to Brussels by McGlashan, the publisher, to take a likeness of the novelist, he was accompanied by Browne, the object of whose visit was to confer with the author on the subject of these very illustrations. Lever was so anxious to restrain him from caricaturing his countrymen, that he even begged Browne to accompany him to Dublin for the purpose of seeing the natives, instead of the wretched specimens of Milesian humanity to be met with in London.

Another fault of this artist, which will be apparent to any one Lack of Vitality. acquainted with his work, is the weakness of his outline, and the singular absence of solidity, stability, and even of vitality in his figures. There is no lack of powerful situations in Frank Smedley’s novel of “Lewis Arundel,” but Browne’s illustrations are characterised by an utter absence of vitality, while shadow usurps the place of substantial bone and muscle. There are the usual thread-paper men in tail hats, with trousers so tightly strapped to their feet that they must go through the tedium of existence in intolerable discomfort. In one picture he shows us a fragile, attenuated man holding another fragile, attenuated man over the well of a staircase by the waistband of his trousers, a feat which, difficult of performance to a Hercules, would be absolutely beyond the power of a person so fragile, so absolutely destitute of bone and muscle, as the hero of this particular episode.

The weakness of which we now speak becomes strikingly apparent when he enables us to compare him with either of the distinguished trio to which he himself belonged. Such an opportunity offers itself in Mr. R. W. Surtees’ novel of “Mr. Facey Romford’s Hounds.” Compare John Leech’s illustration, Fresh as a Four-Year Old (the last he executed for the novelist before his firm, free hand was paralysed by death), with Hablot Knight Browne’s first etching in the same book. A better subject, surely, could scarcely have been selected: the hounds have just been let out of the kennel, and in actual life would, of course, be scampering over the place in all the exuberant consciousness of canine freedom; the scene, in fact, would be redolent of life and excitement, which is wholly wanting to Browne’s illustration. “Phiz,” from boyhood, had been accustomed to horses, and frequently hunted with the Surrey hounds, and to this circumstance is due the facility with which he usually delineated horses in the hunting field. In the delineation of hunting scenes, however, he falls far behind John Leech, and this inferiority is strikingly manifested in the illustration to which we are now referring. If you compare the fragile men, horses, and hounds, with those in Leech’s last etching, you cannot fail to be struck with the vigour and life-like reality of the latter drawing. Browne’s women as a rule are delicate, fragile, consumptive-looking creatures. The one in the etching referred to is both physically weak and a bad horsewoman to boot—sitting her horse with all the ungracefulness of a sack of flour.

Another weakness of Hablot Knight Browne is a tendency to reproduce. If you look at any of his “interiors,” it will be apparent to you that the men and women—the furniture and fittings—the room itself, you have seen any number of times before. Charles Chesterfield becomes Nicholas Nickleby, and Nicholas Nickleby Harry Lorrequer; and with the slightest possible rearrangement, the scenes in which these gentlemen figure from time to time are so much alike, that we are reminded for all the world of the set scenes and artificial backgrounds of a photographer’s, “studio.” Take “Nicholas Nickleby,” by way of example: the room in which old Ralph Nickleby first finds his poor relations, does duty (with the slightest possible rearrangement) for the Yorkshire schoolmaster’s room at the Saracen’s Head; while a room in Kenwig’s house becomes successively an apartment in Mr. Mantalini’s residence, a green-room, Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s office, Mr. Charles Cheeryble’s room, a hairdresser’s shop, and so on. The illustrations to a novel may not inaptly be compared to the scenery and characters of a drama, and a theatre furnished with such a dearth of scenery and “properties,” would be a poor affair indeed. This tendency to reproduction becomes strikingly apparent wherever a romantic hero puts in an appearance. Thus, Mrs. Trollope’s Charles Chesterfield in a frock coat, becomes in a tailcoat Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby; in another frock coat, Martin Chuzzlewit; while a military surtout converts him, with equal facility, into Charles Lever’s Jack Hinton or Harry Lorrequer, according to the exigencies of the costume. The strange part of it is that this peculiarity is shown almost exclusively in the delineation of heroes of fiction. The imagination of the artist is evidently impressed by marked and clearly defined characters such as Squeers, Pecksniff, Gamp, Dombey, Macstinger, Quilp, or Carker, and their identity as a rule is admirably preserved. If pressed for an explanation, it is possible that Browne might have pleaded that heroes of romance present for the most part, with a few notable exceptions, a strong family likeness, being little better than dummies, introduced by their authors for the purpose of setting off personages possessed of greater force of character and decision of purpose. Be this as it may, the singular failing we refer to is certainly no mere fancy of our own. Charles Lever himself complained that in the supper scene of his second number, Lorrequer bore so striking a resemblance to his contemporary, Nicholas Nickleby; while his biographer, Mr. Fitzpatrick, observes that the identity of Harry Lorrequer is never maintained throughout the novel, that mercurial hero being alternately represented old, young, good-looking, and ugly. So much indeed was Lever impressed with the fact, that he actually besought the artist to represent O’Malley the same person throughout the book. A knowledge of Irish physiognomy was essential to any illustrator of Lever’s novels, and Hablot Knight Browne was so innocent of this knowledge that the author begged him to go down to the House of Commons and study the faces of the Irish members there, as the only accessible method of obtaining the necessary insight in England.

Hypercriticism, happily, would be out of place in a work dealing with caricaturists and graphic humourists of the nineteenth century. Faults such as those the author has ventured to indicate appear to him faults indeed of a grave character; but, while conscious of defects which cannot fail to be patent to the most ordinary observer, he is conscious at the same time of the great abilities of the artist, who like those of whom he has already treated, has passed over to the ranks of “the great majority.” If the scenery and properties are sometimes poor,—if there is no genius, and oftentimes a lack of decision and reality, there is on the other hand no lack of talent; and there are many designs of Hablot Knight Browne which place him in the very first rank of English book illustrators. His etching of The Goblin and the Sexton (the eccentric yew-tree notwithstanding), Mr. Pickwick in the Pound, and the very admirable little etchings which we find in that rare Paper of Tobacco by “Joseph Fume,” may be favourably compared with some of the best comic illustrations of George Cruikshank himself.

Phiz. [“Master Humphrey’s Clock,” 1840-1. DICK SWIVELLER AND THE LODGER. [Face p. 340.

Can any picture tell its story better than that first illustration to “Nicholas Nickelby.” “Nicholas Nickleby,” where old Ralph pays his “visit to his poor relations”? Mark the supercilious air with which the vulgar moneylender hands his hat to Nicholas, and the unveiled contempt with which he receives the attentions of poor Mrs. Nickleby and her daughter. A no less admirable illustration is the one wherein we see the Yorkshire schoolmaster nibbing his pen, whilst Snawley consigns his wretched step-sons to the tender mercies of the principal of Do-the-boys Hall. Observe the extraordinary anatomical proportions, hat and toggery, of Mr. Newman Noggs, as he stretches up to the top of the coach to hand a letter to Nicholas. Regard the nightcap and head-gear of the detestable Mrs. Squeers, as she administers matutinal brimstone and treacle to the starving pupils of Do-the-boys Hall. Mark the astonishment of Squeers and his victim, as the savage goes down under the thundering blows of Nickleby’s cane. Look at the old imbecile declaring his passion for the foolish Mrs. Nickleby. Behold his knee-breeches and shorts protruding from the chimney, when his benighted intellect prompted him, at the imminent hazard of strangulation, to pay a visit to the object of his affections via that unusually circuitous route. Look at the fatal brawl between Sir Mulberry Hawk and his hopeful pupil; and rejoice at the final retributive justice which overtakes Mrs. Squeers, when she falls into the hands of her late victims, and is drenched in her turn with the loathsome brew she had so long administered to themselves.

Specially noteworthy is the bright little picture on the title-page, “Martin Chuzzlewit.” where the coach, with its spanking four-in-hand, gallops on its distant journey after depositing Martin Chuzzlewit at his destination. The guard, as he mounts up behind, watches with curious interest Pecksniff’s unctuous reception of the new pupil. Nothing can well be cleverer than his realization of the Pleasant Little Family Party at Mr. Pecksniff’s, where that hypocritical personage, surrounded by foes, assumes a look of persecuted benevolence, and gravely requests his daughter, when he takes his chamber candlestick that night, to remind him to be more particular in praying for Mr. Anthony Chuzzlewit, “who had done him an injustice.” The Warm Reception of Mr. Pecksniff by his Venerable Friend gives us the liveliest satisfaction. If old Chuzzlewit’s face is one of the “caricatures” referred to, it must be remembered that it is distorted with passion, and the fact is forgotten in the satisfaction with which we hail the detection and punishment of the whining rascal, the sting of which is envenomed by the astounding revelation that all the while he has been weaving his web of falsehood around his intended victim, he himself has been the dupe of the man he had schemed so long to hoodwink and deceive.

Regard again Quilp, the dwarf, and his elfin errand boy (in the “The Old Curiosity Shop.” “Old Curiosity Shop”), enjoying the agonies of Sampson Brass as he essays to smoke a long churchwarden. Behold Quilp upon his back taunting the large fierce dog with hideous grimaces, triumphant in the consciousness that the shortness of his chain will not permit him to advance another inch. Look at Mrs. Jarley’s wax-work brigand, “with the blackest possible head and the clearest possible complexion,” going his rounds in the company of little Nell, his eyes fixed on the miniature of his lady-love, and his hand pressed to his stomach instead of his heart. Behold the dwarf once more, as he entertains Sampson and his sister Sally in the ruined outhouse overlooking the river; the rain pours down on the head of the hapless attorney, who, with coat buttoned up to the chin, and evidently suffering from severe influenza, looks the picture of shivering discomfort. Although in no better plight herself, Sally rejoices in the sufferings of her brother, and as she sips her tea, her repulsive features are distorted with a hideous grin of satisfaction. Quilp, seated on his barrel beneath the only remnants of a roof, occupies a comparatively dry corner, and looks the very picture of rollicking fun and enjoyment.

But incomparably one of the best of Browne’s comic illustrations is the one in “Dombey,” wherein Captain Cuttle encounters Mrs. Macstinger in charge of Bunsby, bent on rivetting matrimonial chains upon that confused and ancient mariner. Bunsby is one of the “Bunsby.” happiest of Dickens’s creations; stupid as an owl, he has nevertheless an oracular mode of delivering himself, and the simple-minded Cuttle places as much reliance upon this wooden-headed sailor as the ancients did on the mysterious utterance of the Delphic Apollo. That the powerful will of Macstinger should hold himself in subjugation so long as he was under the dominion of her eye was a matter of course; but that this man of wisdom should be so easily boarded and captured by the enemy, is so absolutely beyond his simple comprehension that he scratches his head in sheer amazement. As for poor Bunsby, the cup of his humiliation is full. So far as his wooden features are capable of expression, they indicate two distinct trains of thought: a conviction that his own pretensions have been detected and exposed, and a desire to run,—an inclination repressed by the powerful clutch of his strong-minded bride, who retains his wrist in a grasp of iron. Compare the look of bewilderment on Cuttle’s face with the look of mingled contempt and triumph on the features of Macstinger; and then look at poor Bunsby!