Notwithstanding the exhibition, after his death, of water-colours “Auriol.” and other works, which took the public by surprise, Hablot Knight Browne will continue to be known to most of us as an illustrator of books, and nothing more. “Oh! I’m aweary, I’m aweary,” he said himself in a letter to one of his sons, “of this illustration business.” Some of these illustrations, however, are wonderfully graceful, and one in particular seems to call for special notice. It will be found in the “New Monthly Magazine” for 1845, and is undoubtedly one of the best examples of the artist’s work which may be found anywhere. It represents a prisoner in a dungeon lying at the foot of a pillar, which, except in a ghastly carved work running round it of skulls and cross bones, reminds us somewhat of Bonneval’s pillar at Chillon. The lights and shadows are wonderfully rendered, and the work is characterized by a softness, a beauty, and a finish only to be observed in work which took the artist’s fancy. This etching is entitled, Rougemont’s Device to Perplex Auriol; and Ainsworth’s story which it illustrates—a peculiarly unsatisfactory one—commenced, I think, in “Ainsworth’s Magazine,” passed into the “New Monthly,” when its author purchased that periodical in 1845, and (whether the novelist got himself into an intellectual fix or otherwise I know not) finished, I believe, eventually nowhere.
Browne indeed finds a place here more by virtue of his book illustrations than by reason of any just pretensions to be considered a graphic humourist. His comic powers appear to us more the result of education and emulation than natural gifts, and the consequence is, that in attempting to be funny, his work too often degenerates into absolute exaggeration. His excellencies must be sought for in his serious illustrations, which fall more within the province of the art critic than the scope and purpose of a work which treats of graphic satirists and comic artists of the nineteenth century. Some of his finest illustrations of a serious character will be found in the pages of the “Illuminated Magazine”; in Charles Lever’s admirable story of “St. Patrick’s Eve”; in the “Fortunes of Colonel Forlogh O’Brien”; in Augustus Mayhew’s “Paved with Gold”; in Ainsworth’s “Mervyn Clithero”; and “Revelations of London”; and above all, in Charles Lever’s novel of “Roland Cashel.”
Hablot Knight Browne lived to see the decline and fall of that peculiar and powerful art of book illustration which was introduced by Cruikshank; was fostered and encouraged by Charles Dickens, Charles James Lever, their imitators and contemporaries; and died, so to speak, with these distinguished men. His work in later years, as might naturally have been expected, shows a woeful decline of power; and when the suggestors from whom he derived inspiration were no longer at his back, the poverty of invention which characterized the man when left to his own devices becomes painfully apparent.
“Phiz” drew in later years for Judy and other comic papers, and it is simple justice to say that his designs are characterized by an utter absence of comic power. The true comic inspiration possessed in so wonderful a degree by Cruikshank, by John Leech, and even by Robert Seymour, he never indeed possessed. Some fifteen years before his death he suffered from incipient paralysis, and furthermore injured his thumb, which obliged him to hold his pencil between his middle and fore-fingers. Gradually this great and graceful artist dropped so far behind in the race of life that he yielded latterly to proposals to illustrate boys’ literature of a very inferior class.
In addition to an absence of comic inspiration, the creative faculty of Cruikshank and Leech was wanting to Hablot Knight Browne. In order to carry out an idea, it was necessary that it should be put into his head; for leave him to himself, and he could do absolutely nothing.[175] George Cruikshank and John Leech after receiving instructions would proceed to realize them in their own way and after their own fashion; but this was not the case with Hablot Knight Browne. While he could realize the idea of another with peculiar success when the subject took his fancy, he could neither enlarge nor improve upon it, and in this lies the difference between genius and mere ability. Lacking an inherent sense of humour, he copied Cruikshank, and hence his exaggerations and failures as a comic designer; but he was ultimus Romanorum,—the last representative of the famous men whose art was fostered and encouraged by Charles Dickens, by Charles Lever, by Harrison Ainsworth, and by Richard Bentley. The services which these eminent men rendered to the novelists who like them are dead and gone can scarcely be appreciated; for we presume few will deny that their labours lent a charm, a beauty, and an interest to their works, which largely tended to promote their sale. The fortunes of “Jack Sheppard,” of “The Miser’s Daughter,” of “The Tower of London,”—the success obtained by nearly all the stories of Ainsworth which obtained any success at all, was mainly due to the pencil of Cruikshank. The reputation of “Oliver Twist”—a morbid novel—was made in a great measure by him; but for John Leech, neither “Mr. Ledbury,” “The Scattergood Family,” “The Marchioness of Brinvilliers,” or “Richard Savage,” would have survived to our day. To him the novels of Mr. R. W. Surtees owe their entire popularity; while his genius has conferred vitality on the rubbish of À Beckett. It is curious, however, how little these facts were recognised at the time, and what little credit was given in contemporary reviews and by contemporary critics to the artists who rendered to successful novelists the priceless aid and assistance of their pencils.
How far the needle of “Phiz” contributed to the ultimate success of the great raconteur, Charles James Lever, we are in no position to state; that it proved a very large factor in that result there can be no manner of doubt. That success was not achieved immediately. Lever commenced life as a struggling country doctor, and “Harry Lorrequer,” first brought out in the “Dublin University Magazine,” before it appeared in illustrated shilling numbers, was almost wholly ignored by the London press, the criticisms and favourable remarks coming almost wholly from provincial journals. There was one exception by the way, a military paper, the critic of which went into such ecstacies over this sparkling military medley, that he asserted he would rather be author of “Lorrequer” than of all the “Pickwicks” or “Nicklebys” in the world. This notice (unknown to Lever) was published with the advertisements of the book, and (strange to say) gave so much annoyance to Dickens that he sent an angry reply to a civil letter which came to him shortly afterwards from the Irish novelist, and their friendly intercourse was for some years suspended in consequence.
| Phiz. [“Master Humphrey’s Clock,” 1840-1. SAM WELLER AND HIS FATHER. [Face p. 352. |
The decline of Hablot Browne’s popularity was painfully apparent to himself. Although our chapter was written long before the appearance of Mr. Kitton’s pamphlet, we may be permitted to re-open it to extract from the latter the following melancholy observations which we find in a letter to his son, Dr. Browne: “I am at present on a sporting paper, supported by some high and mighty nobs; but I fear, like everything I have to do with, now a-days, it will collapse, for some of the proprietors of the paper are also shareholders, etc., etc., in the Graphotype Company, so they want to work the two together. I hate the process; it takes quite four times as long as wood, and I cannot draw and express myself with a nasty, finicking brush, and the result when printed seems to alternate between something all as black as my hat, or as hazy and faint as a worn-out plate. If on wood, I should like it well enough; as it is it spoils four days a week, leaving little time for anything else. Oh! I’m aweary, I’m aweary! of this illustration business.”[176] This seems to us inexpressibly sad. We hear nothing of it in earlier days, when he was drawing the excellent designs for “Roland Cashel,” for “Dombey,” or for “Bleak House.”
Of the works and sketches in water colour and oils exhibited in Liverpool after the artist’s death, personally we have seen nothing. They took the public by surprise, for few at least of the outer world suspected that this shy, retiring illustrator of books was a persevering and accomplished water-colour artist. We ourselves were aware of the fact, and had seen some thirty original and highly characteristic sketches, some of them studies of characters in novels of Charles Dickens and Lever; all executed prior to 1846, some in Indian ink, some in crayon, a few in pencil. Among them was a small but highly finished water-colour drawing, representing a group of seven knights in full martial panoply, and a striking effect is produced by the glint of the sun on the burnished armour of the central figure. The author of a recent sketch would cite these water colours as a complete answer to those who like ourselves maintain, in no mere spirit of detraction, that the artist possessed not one particle of genius. Surely he cannot be in earnest. If so, we have only to say, that if painting subjects in oils or water colour from the thousand and one hints to be gathered from history, fiction, or every-day life, be a test of genius, the walls of every summer and winter exhibition—to say nothing of the Royal Academy—would be furnished annually with examples from end to end.