| “Here, Simon, you shall (silence there!) The truth and all the truth declare, And nothing but the truth be willing To speak, so help you G—d (a shilling).”[102] |
The artist possibly had this quotation in his mind when he designed the following:—The deponent is a country bumpkin, to whom an official tenders the Testament, at the same time extending his disengaged palm. “Pleas zur,” says Hodge, “wot be I to zay?” (To him the officer), “Say, This is the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God one and sixpence.”
The open and notorious bribery, corruption, and intimidation which prevailed in those days at parliamentary elections; Sir Robert Peel’s “New Police Act” (which was received with extraordinary suspicion and dislike); the Reform Bill; the universal distress and consequent bread riots of 1830-31, form the subjects of other pictorial satires by Robert Seymour, which seem, however, to call for little notice.
The artist’s talent and services were constantly in demand as a designer on wood; but finding that the productions of his pencil suffered at the hands of the wood-engravers to whom they were entrusted, and the very inferior paper upon which the impressions were taken, he, in or about the year 1827, began to learn the art of etching on copper. We believe his earliest attempts in this direction will be found in a work now exceedingly rare, bearing the title of “Assisting, Resisting, and Desisting.” A volume called “Vagaries, in Quest of the Wild and Wonderful,” which appeared in 1827, was embellished with six clever plates after the manner of George Cruikshank, and ran through no less than three editions.
The “Humorous Sketches,” several times republished, perhaps the only work by which Seymour is now known to the general public, appeared between the years 1834 and 1836. They were first published at threepence each by Richard Carlisle, of Fleet Street, who is said to have paid the artist fifteen shillings for each drawing on the stone. Carlisle falling into difficulties shortly before Seymour’s death, sold the copyright and lithographic stones to Henry Wallis, who in turn parted with the latter to Mr. Tregear, of Cheapside, but retaining his property in the copyright, transferred the drawings to steel, and published them in 1838, with letterpress by Alfred Crowquill. Mr. Henry G. Bohn issued an edition in 1842, and another some twenty-three years later, with plates so sadly worn and blurred by over use that the best part of this last edition (issued by the Routledges in 1878) is the binding.
The “Humorous Sketches” (we refer, of course, only to the early impressions), although affording fair examples of the artist’s comic style and manner, are in truth of very unequal merit. They comprise some eighty subjects, which, owing to the frequent republications, are so well known that it would be superfluous to attempt a detailed description of them here. The best is unquestionably the one numbered XXV., “This is a werry lonely spot, Sir; I wonder you arn’t afeard of being rob’d.” The inevitable sequel is amusingly related by Crowquill:—
| “Poor Timmins trembled as he gazed Upon the stranger’s face; For cut-purse! robber! all too plain, His eye could therein trace. ’Them’s werry handsome boots o’ yourn,’ The ruffian smiling cried; ’Jist draw your trotters out, my pal, And we’ll swop tiles beside. That coat, too, is a pretty fit,— Don’t tremble so—for I Vont rob you of a single fish, I’ve other fish to fry.’” |
The “Sketches,” with other detached works by the artist, reappeared in an edition published by the late John Camden Hotten, entitled “Sketches by Seymour,” comprising in all 186 subjects, for the most part sadly worn impressions. Although there is nothing whatever “Hogarthian” about the originals, as the amiable publisher would have us (as usual) believe, we may admit that the faces in No. 24, At a Concert, are a perfect study, and that this sketch, with Nos. 45 and 46 (Snuffing and Smoking), afford excellent examples of the artist’s ability as a draughtsman.
But the work which contains probably some of the best specimens “The Book of Christmas.” of the artist’s style is one now exceedingly scarce. Christmas books, like Christmas cards, are practically unsaleable after the great Christian festival has come and gone; and this was the experience of Mr. T. K. Hervey’s “Book of Christmas,” which, owing to the author’s dilatoriness, came out “a day after the fair,” and despite its attractions proved unmarketable. This circumstance, we need not say, by no means detracts from its value, and as a matter of fact, the collector will now deem himself fortunate if he succeeds in securing a copy at a price exceeding by one half the original cost. Those who have formed their ideas of Seymour’s powers from the oft republished and irretrievably damaged impressions of the “Humorous Sketches,” will be astonished at the unaccustomed style, vigour, and beauty of these illustrations. A few of the earlier etchings are somewhat faint and indistinct, as if the artist, even at that time, was scarcely accustomed to work on copper. They, however, improve as he proceeds with his work; the larger number are really beautiful, and are characterised by a vigour of conception and execution, of which no possible idea can be formed by those who have seen only the “Humorous Sketches.” Noteworthy among the illustrations may be mentioned the finely executed head of Old Christmas, facing page 23; the Baronial Hall (a picture highly realistic of the Christmas comfort and good cheer which is little better than a myth to many of us); The Mummers; Christmas Pantomime; Market, Christmas Eve; Boxing Day; and Twelfth Night in the London Streets. The cheery seasonable book shows us the Norfolk Coach with its spanking team rattling into London on a foggy Christmas Eve, heaped with fat turkeys, poultry, Christmas hampers and parcels. William Congreve tells us—