Mr. Henry M. Brock is also an effective illustrator, and his work increases in individuality and in freedom of arrangement. 'Jacob Faithful' (1895) was followed by 'Handy Andy' and Thackeray's 'Songs and Ballads' in 1896. Less influenced by Mr. Thomson than his brother, the lively Thackeray drawings, with their versatility and easy invention, have nevertheless much in common with the work of Mr. Charles Brock. On the whole, time has developed the differences rather than the similarities in the work of these artists. In the 'Waverley' drawings and in those of 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Mr. H. M. Brock represents action in a more picturesque mood than Mr. Charles Brock usually maintains, emphasizing with more dramatic effect the action and necessity for action.
The illustrations of Mr. William C. Cooke, especially those to 'Popular British Ballads' (1894), and, with less value, those to 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' may be mentioned in relation to the Caldecott tradition, though it is rather of the art of Kate Greenaway that one is reminded in these tinted illustrations. Mr. Cooke's wash-drawings to Jane Austen's novels, to 'Evelina' and 'The Man of Feeling,' as well as the pen-drawings to 'British Ballads,' have more force, and represent with some distinction the stir of ballad romance, the finely arranged situations of Miss Austen, and the sentiments of life, as Evelina and Harley understood it.
In a study of English black-and-white art, not limited to book-illustration, 'Punch' is an almost inevitable and invaluable centre for facts. Few draughtsmen of notability are outside the scheme of art connected with 'Punch,' and in this connection artists differing as widely as Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Phil May, or Mr. Linley Sambourne and Mr. Raven Hill, form a coherent group. But, in this volume, 'Punch' itself is outside the limits of subject, and, with the exception of Mr. Bernard Partridge in the present, and Sir Harry Furniss in the past, the wits of the pencil who gather round the 'mahogany tree' are not among character-illustrators of literature. Mr. Partridge has drawn for 'Punch' since 1891, and has been on the staff for nearly all that time. His drawings of theatrical types in Mr. Jerome's 'Stage-land' (1889)—which, according to some critics, made, by deduction, the author's reputation as a humorist—and to a first series of Mr. Anstey's 'Voces Populi,' as well as work in many of the illustrated papers, were a substantial reason for 'Punch's' invitation to the artist. From the 'Bishop and Shoeblack' cut of 1891, to the 'socials' and cartoons of to-day, Mr. Partridge's drawings, together with those of Mr. Phil May and of Mr. Raven Hill, have brilliantly maintained the reputation of 'Punch' as an exponent of the forms and humours of modern life. His actual and intimate knowledge of the stage, and his actor's observation of significant attitudes and expressions, vivify his interpretation of the middle-class, and of bank-holiday makers, of the 'artiste,' and of such a special type as the 'Baboo Jabberjee' of Mr. Anstey's fluent conception. If his 'socials' have not the prestige of Mr. Du Maurier's art, if his women lack charm and his children delightfulness, he is, in shrewdness and range of observation, a pictorial humorist of unusual ability. As a book-illustrator, his most 'literary' work is in the pages of Mr. Austin Dobson's 'Proverbs in Porcelain.' Studied from the model, the draughtsmanship as able and searching as though these figures were sketches for an 'important' work, there is in every drawing the completeness and fortunate effect of imagination. The ease of an actual society is in the pose and grouping of the costumed figures, while, in the representation of their graces and gallantries, the artist realizes ce superflu si nécessaire that distinguishes dramatic action from the observed action of the model. Problems of atmosphere, of tone, of textures, as well as the presentment of life in character, action, and attitude, occupy Mr. Partridge's consideration. He, like Mr. Abbey, has the colourist's vision, and though the charm of people, of circumstance, of accessories and of association is often less his interest than characteristic facts, in non-conventional technique, in style that is as un-selfconscious as it is individual, Mr. Abbey and Mr. Partridge have many points in common.
Sir Harry Furniss, alone of caricaturists, has, in the many-sided activity of his career, applied his powers of characterization to characters of fiction, though he has illustrated more nonsense-books and wonder-books than books of serious narrative. Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Linley Sambourne among cartoonists, Sir Harry Furniss, Mr. E. T. Reed, and Mr. Carruthers Gould among caricaturists, mark the strong connection between politics and political individualities, and the irresponsible developments and creatures of nonsense-adventures, as a theme for art. To summarize Sir Harry Furniss' career would be to give little space to his work as a character-illustrator, but his character-illustration is so representative of the other directions of his skill, that it merits consideration in the case of a draughtsman as effective and ubiquitous in popular art as is 'Lika Joko.' The pen-drawings to Mr. James Payn's 'Talk of the Town,' illustrated by Sir Harry Furniss in 1885, have, in restrained measure, the qualities of flexibility, of imagination so lively as to be contortionistic, of emphasis and pugnacity of expression, of pantomimic fun and drama, that had been signalized in his Parliamentary antics in 'Punch' for the preceding five years. His connection with 'Punch' lasted from 1880 to 1894, and the 'Parliamentary Views,' two series of 'M.P.s in Session,' and the 'Salisbury Parliament,' represent experience gained as the illustrator of 'Toby M.P.' His high spirits and energy of sight also found scope in caricaturing academic art, 'Pictures at Play' (1888), being followed by 'Academy Antics' of no less satirical and brilliant purpose. As caricaturist, illustrator, lecturer, journalist, traveller, the style and idiosyncrasies of Sir Harry Furniss are so public and familiar, and so impossible to emphasize, that a brief mention of his insatiable energies is perhaps as adequate as would be a more detailed account.
FROM SIR HARRY FURNISS' 'THE TALK OF THE TOWN.'
BY LEAVE OF MESSRS. SMITH, ELDER.
Other book-illustrators whose connection with 'Punch' is a fact in the record of their work are Mr. A. S. Boyd and Mr. Arthur Hopkins. Mr. Jalland, too, in drawings to Whyte-Melville used his sporting knowledge on a congenial subject. Mr. A. S. Boyd's 'Daily Graphic' sketches prepared the way for 'canny' drawings of Scottish types in Stevenson's 'Lowden Sabbath Morn,' in 'Days of Auld Lang Syne,' and in 'Horace in Homespun,' and for other observant illustrations to books of pleasant experiences written by Mrs. Boyd. Mr. Arthur Hopkins, and his brother Mr. Everard Hopkins, are careful draughtsmen of some distinction. Without much spontaneity or charm of manner, the pretty girls of Mr. Arthur Hopkins, and his well-mannered men, fill a place in the pages of 'Punch,' while illustrations to James Payn's 'By Proxy,' as far back as 1878, show that the unelaborate style of his recent work is founded on past practice that has the earlier and truer Du Maurier technique as its standard of thoroughness. Mr. E. J. Wheeler, a regular contributor to 'Punch' since 1880, has illustrated editions of Sterne and of 'Masterman Ready,' other books also containing characteristic examples of his rather precise, but not uninteresting, work.
Save by stringing names of artists together on the thread of their connection with some one of the illustrated papers or magazines, it would be impossible to include in this chapter mention of the enormous amount of capable black-and-white art produced in illustration of 'serial' fiction. Such name-stringing, on the connection—say—of 'The Illustrated London News,' 'The Graphic,' or 'The Pall Mall Magazine,' would fill a page or two, and represent nothing of the quality of the work, the attainment of the artist. Neither is it practicable to summarize the illustration of current fiction. One can only attempt to give some account of illustrated literature, except where the current illustrations of an artist come into the subject 'by the way.' Mr. Frank Brangwyn may be isolated from the group of notable painters, including Mr. Jacomb Hood, Mr. Seymour Lucas and Mr. R. W. Macbeth, who illustrate for 'The Graphic,' by reason of his illustrations to classics of fiction such as 'Don Quixote' and 'The Arabian Nights,' as well as to Michael Scott's two famous sea-stories. To some extent his illustrations are representative of the large-phrased construction of Mr. Brangwyn's painting, especially in the drawings of the opulent orientalism of 'The Arabian Nights,' with its thousand and one opportunities for vivid art. Mr. Brangwyn's east is not the vague east of the stay-at-home artist, nor of the conventional traveller; his imagination works on facts of memory, and both memory and imagination have strong colour and concentration in a mind bent towards adventure. One should not, however, narrow the scope of Mr. Brangwyn's art within the limits of his work in black and white, and what is no more than an aside in the expression of his individuality, cannot, with justice to the artist, be considered by itself. Other 'Graphic' illustrators—Mr. Frank Dadd, Mr. John Charlton, Mr. William Small, and Mr. H. M. Paget, to name a few only—represent the various qualities of their art in black-and-white drawings of events and of fiction, and the 'Illustrated,' with artists including Mr. Caton Woodville, Mr. Seppings Wright, Mr. S. Begg, M. Amedée Forestier and Mr. Ralph Cleaver, fills a place in current art to which few of the more recently established journals can pretend. Mr. Frank Dadd and Mr. H. M. Paget made drawings for the 'Dryburgh' edition of the Waverleys. In this edition, too, is the work of well-known artists such as Mr. William Hole, whose Scott and Stevenson illustrations show his inbred understanding of northern romance, and together with the character etchings to Barrie, shrewd and valuable, represent with some justice the vigour of his art; of Mr. Walter Paget, an excellent illustrator of 'Robinson Crusoe,' and of many boys' books and books of adventure, of Mr. Lockhart Bogle, and of Mr. Gordon Browne. In the same edition Mr. Paul Hardy, Mr. John Williamson and Mr. Overend, showed the more serious purpose of black and white that has earned the appreciation of a public critical of any failure in vigour and in realization—the public that follows the tremendous activity of Mr. Henty's pen, and for whom Dr. Gordon Stables, Mr. Manville Fenn and Mr. Sydney Pickering write. Of M. Amedée Forestier, whose illustrations are as popular with readers of the 'Illustrated' and with the larger public of novel-readers as they are with students of technique, one cannot justly speak as an English illustrator. He, and Mr. Robert Sauber, contributed to Ward Lock's edition of Scott illustrated by French artists. Their work, M. Forestier's so admirable in realization of episode and romance, Mr. Sauber's, vivacious up to the pitch of 'The Impudent Comedian'—as his illustrations to Mr. Frankfort Moore's version of Nell Gwynn's fascinations showed—needs no introduction to an English public. The black and white of Mr. Sauber and of Mr. Dudley Hardy—when Mr. Hardy is in the vein that culminated in his theatrical posters—has many imitators, but it is not a style that is likely to influence illustrators of literature. Mr. Hal Hurst shows something of it, though he, and in greater measure Mr. Max Cowper, also suggest the unforgettable technique of Charles Dana Gibson.