In March, 1883 there appeared a little oblong Sketch Book with canvas cover, full of original and delightful illustrations, many in colour, engraved and printed by Edmund Evans. This book is not very widely known, but there are drawings in it of great personal interest, now that the artist's hand is still. The [Sketch Book] suggests many thoughts and calls up many associations to those who knew him.
In 1883 he illustrated [Æsop's Fables] with "Modern Instances" (referred to on page [94]).
The kind of work that Caldecott liked best, and of which he would have been an artistic and delightful exponent had circumstances permitted, is indicated in the design at the head of the preface to this volume; it was drawn on brown paper, probably for a wood carving in relief, for the central panel of a mantelpiece. This sketch is selected from several designs of a similar kind.
In purely journalistic work, for which his powers seemed eminently fitted, he was never at home, his heart was not in it. Neither on Punch nor on the Graphic newspaper, would he have engaged to work regularly. He would do anything on an emergency to aid a friend—or a foe, if he had known one—but neither health nor inclination led him in that direction. And yet Caldecott, of all contemporary artists, owed his wide popularity to the wood engraver, to the maker of colour blocks, and to the printing press. No artist before him had such chances of dispersing facsimiles of daintily coloured illustrations over the world. All this must be considered when his place in the century of artists is written.
Mr. Clough touches a true note in the following (from the Manchester Quarterly):—
"If the art, tender and true as it is, be not of the highest, yet the artist is expressed in his work as perhaps few others have been. Nothing to be regretted—all of the clearest—an open-air, pure life—a clean soul. Wholesome as the England he loved so well. Manly, tolerant, and patient under suffering. None of the friends he made did he let go. No envy, malice, or uncharitableness spoiled him; no social flattery or fashionable success, made him forget those he had known in the early years."
Speaking generally of his friend Caldecott, whom he had known intimately in later years, Mr. Locker-Lampson (to whom we are indebted for the letters and sketches on pages [191], [192], and [199]), writes:—
"It seems to me that Caldecott's art was of a quality that appears about once in a century. It had delightful characteristics most happily blended. He had a delicate fancy, and his humour was as racy as it was refined. He had a keen sense of beauty, and, to sum up all, he had charm. His old-world youths and maidens are perfect. The men are so simple and so manly, the maidens are so modest and so trustful: The latter remind one of the country girl in that quaint old ballad,
"'He stopt and gave my cheek a pat,
He told a tender tale,
Then stole a kiss, but what of that?
'Twas Willie of the Dale!'
"Poor Caldecott! His friends were much attached to him. He had feelings, and ideas, and manners, which made him welcome in any society; but alas, all was trammelled, not obscured, by deplorably bad health."