Far more important and more complete is Sir John Gilbert's edition of Shakespeare published by Routledge in three volumes, 1858 to 1860. This edition of Shakespeare has yet, as a whole, to be surpassed.
In 1859 "Once a Week" was started by Bradbury and Evans, and the first volume contained illustrations by H. K. Browne ("Phiz"), G. H. Bennett, W. Harvey, Charles Keene, W. J. Lawless, John Leech, Sir J. E. Millais, Sir John Tenniel, J. Wolf; this is the veritable connecting link between the work of the past as exemplified by Harvey, and of the present by Keene. The next year, 1860, the "Cornhill" appeared, for the first number of which Thackeray, more or less worked over by ghosts, and engravers, did the illustrations to "Lovel the Widower," but Millais was called in for the second or third number, and then George Sala. Frederick Sandys illustrated "The Legend of the Portent," and the volume ends with Millais' splendid design "Was it not a lie?" to "Framley Parsonage." It is curious to note that either Thackeray or the publishers refuse to mention the names of the artists in any way, only that Millais and Sala are allowed to sign their designs with their monograms. Leighton, I imagine, contributed the "Great God Pan" to the second volume, and Dicky Doyle began his "Bird's Eye Views of Society" in the third, but it is not until one is more than half way through this volume that the initials F. W. appear on what are supposed to be Thackeray's drawings—or, rather, it is not until then that the great author acknowledged his failure as an illustrator; though, in the "Roundabout Papers," he admitted his indebtedness to Walker.
The first drawing signed by Walker faces p. 556, "Nurse and Doctor," and illustrates Thackeray's "Adventures of Philip;" this is in May, 1861. "Good Words" was also started in 1860; in it in 1863 Millais' "Parables" were printed, as well as work by Holman Hunt, Keene and Walker, while A. Boyd Houghton, Frederick Sandys, Pinwell, North, Pettie, Armstead, Graham, and many others began to come to the front in this magazine and "Once a Week." About 1865 nearly as many good illustrated magazines must have been issued as there are to-day; not only were the three I have mentioned continued, but "The Argosy," "The Sunday Magazine," and "The Shilling Magazine," among others, printed fine work by all these artists.
BY SIR J. E. MILLAIS, BART. WOOD-ENGRAVING BY DALZIEL.
FROM “GOOD WORDS” (ISBISTER AND CO.).
The illustration was done in a curious, but very interesting sort of way. The entire illustration began to be undertaken by two firms, Messrs. Dalziel and Swain—and I believe in the case of "Good Words" the same system is still carried on by Mr. Edward Whymper. These firms commissioned the drawings from the artists, and then engraved them. The method seems to have been so successful that the engravers, notably the Dalziels, began not only to employ artists to draw for them, and to engrave their designs, but they became printers as well, and produced that set of books which are now the admiration and despair of the intelligent and artistic collector. When they were printed, they were sold to a publisher, who merely put his imprint on them. To this day they are known as Dalziel's Illustrated Editions. The first important book of this series that I have seen is Birket Foster's "Pictures of English Landscape," 1863 (Routledge), printed by Dalziel; with "Pictures in Words," by Tom Taylor, though this was preceded by a horrid tinted affair by the same artist, called "Odes and Sonnets." The binding is vile; the paper is spotting and losing colour, but the drawings must have been exquisite, and here and there the ink is spreading and giving a lovely tone, like an etching, to the prints on the page.
In 1864 Messrs. Dalziel, who had already engraved for "Good Words" in the previous year Millais' "Parables of Our Lord," published them through Routledge. This book, in an atrocious binding described as elaborate, and it truly is, bound up so badly that it has broken all to pieces printed with some text in red and black, contains much of the finest work Millais ever did. Nothing could exceed in dramatic power, in effect of light and shade, "The Enemy sowing Tares," to mention one block among so many that are good. But the whole book is excellent, and excessively rare in its first edition.
But 1865 is the most notable year of all; in this "Dalziel's Illustrated Arabian Nights' Entertainments" came out; originally published in parts, I believe, and later in two volumes, text and pictures within horrid borders. In this book A. Boyd Houghton first showed what a really great man he was. He clearly proves himself the English master of technique, as well as of imagination, although in this volume, issued by Ward and Lock, he has as fellow illustrators Sir J. E. Millais, J. D. Watson, Sir John Tenniel, G. J. Pinwell, and Thomas Dalziel—the latter of whom is a very big man, and for this, and some of the subsequent books, he made most remarkable drawings. But Houghton towers above them all, and Mr. Laurence Housman in an able article on him in "Bibliographica" well says:
"Among artists and those who care at all deeply for the great things of art, he cannot be forgotten: for them his work is too much an influence and a problem. And though officially the Academy shuts its mouth at him ... certain of its leading lights have been heard unofficially to declare that he was the greatest artist" who has appeared in England in black and white. In '65, also, his "Home Thoughts and Home Scenes" was published, much less imaginative than his later work, but containing more beauty; and after this, for ten years, he worked prodigiously, and yet excellently. His edition of "Don Quixote" (F. Warne and Co.), must be sought for in the most out-of-the-way places; easier to find are his "Kuloff's Fables," '69 (Strahan), and best known of all, the drawings in the early numbers of the "Graphic,"—the American series—which were not all published, I think, before he died. If some of these are grotesque, even almost caricature, they are amazingly powerful—and being the largest engraved works left, show him fortunately at his best. His original drawings scarce exist at all. I happen to have one of the most beautiful, "Tom the Piper's Son," from Novello's "National Nursery Rhymes," 1871. I have not pretended to give a list of Houghton's drawings, it would be nearly impossible; but those books and magazines I have mentioned contain many of the most important. In '65 Pinwell did a "Goldsmith" for Ward and Lock, which revealed his surprising powers.
