THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS, BY WILLIAM MULREADY, R.A.
In a review we made last January of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," illustrated by the Etching Club, we concluded our notice with recommending to those able artists the "Vicar of Wakefield;" and expressed a hope that Mr Maclise would lend his powerful aid, having in our recollection some very happy illustrations of his hand in pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition.
What the Etching Club are about, we know not; but the subject has been taken up by Mr Mulready; and we now feel it incumbent upon us to notice this new and illustrated edition of that immortal work. Immortal it must be; manners pass away, modes change, but the fashion of the heart of man is unalterable. The "Vicar of Wakefield" bears the stamp of the age in which it was written. Had it been laid aside by the author, discovered, and now first brought out, without a notice of the author, or of the time of its composition, received it must have been indeed with delight, but not as belonging to the present day. It differs in its literature and its manners. It is at once a most happy work for illustration, and the most difficult. It is universally known. Who has not shed previous and heart-improving tears over it? Taking up the tale now, for the hundredth time, we are become, from somewhat morose, tender as a lamb—propitious condition for a critic! We opened upon the scene where Mr Burchell so cruelly tries poor Sophia, by offering her a husband in Mr Jenkinson; we know the whole transaction perfectly, the bitter joke, the proposal
"impares
Formas atque animas in juga ahenea
Sævo mittere cum joco."
Yet how strangely are we moved! Had the taxman at the moment called for the income-tax, he would have concluded we were paying the last farthing of our principal. What art is this in a writer, that he should by one and the same passage continue to move his readers, though they know the trick! Readers, too, that would have turned the cold shoulder to real tales of greater distress, and met suspicion that all was a cheat halfway; but the acknowledged fictitious they yield to at once their whole hearts, throwing to the winds their beggarly stint. Never was there a writer that possessed to so great a degree as did Goldsmith this wondrous charm; and in him it is the more delightful in the light and pleasant allegria with which he works off the feeling. The volume is full of subjects that so move; and in this respect it is most admirable for illustration, inviting the ablest powers. But the difficulty, wherein does that lie? Look at all illustrations that have hitherto appeared in print, and you cry out to all—Away with the failure! Certain it is that but slender abilities have been hitherto employed; and when we hear of better artists coming to the undertaking, we are hardened against them. And then, how few come fresh to the tale. To those who do, perhaps a new illustration may have a tenfold charm; but to any one past five-and-twenty, it must come "with a difference." It is very difficult to reconcile one to a new Dr Primrose, a new Mrs Primrose. Beauty ever had the power of beauty, and takes us suddenly; we can more readily dismiss the old idea and pitch on the new, so that the Miss Primroses are more reconcilable and transferable creatures, than the Vicar and his wife, or the incomparable Moses and the unyielding Mr Burchell. We cannot pretend to tell how all these characters would have fitted their images given by Mr Mulready, had the work now first come into our hands. As it is, we can only say they are new to us. It requires time to reconcile this. In the meanwhile we must take it for granted, that they actually do represent those in Mr Mulready's vision, and he is a clear-sighted man, and has been accustomed to look into character well. His name as the illustrator, gave promise of success. Well do we remember an early picture by him—entitled, we believe, the Wolf and the Lamb. It represented two schoolboys—the bully, and the more tender fatherless child. The history in that little picture was quite of the manner of Goldsmith. The orphan boy's face we never can forget, not the whole expression of his slender form, though it is many years ago that we saw the picture. So that when the name of Mulready appeared as illustrator, we said at once, That will do—down came the book, and here it is before us. The pages have been turned over again and again. We cannot, nevertheless, quite reconcile our ideas to the new Dr and Mrs Primrose; but in attempting to do so, so many real artistical beauties have beamed from the pages, that we determined at once to pour out our hearts to Maga, and turn over page after page once more. The illustrations are thirty-two in number; one to head each chapter, though, and which we think a defect, the subject of the illustration is not always in the chapter at the head of which it is. The first is the choice of a wife—"and chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown." The intended bride is a very beautiful graceful figure, with a most sweet simplicity of countenance. This never could have resembled Mrs Deborah Primrose; the outline is most easy and graceful, even as one of Raffaelle's pure and lovely beings. The youth of the bride and bridegroom, fresh in their hopes of years of happiness, is happily contrasted with the staid age of the respectable tradesman, evidently one of honest trade and industrious habits—the fair dealer, one of the old race before the days of "immense sacrifices" brought goods and men into disrepute. The little group is charming; every line assists another, and make a perfect whole.
"The Dispute between the Vicar and Mr Wilmot."—"This, as may be expected, produced a dispute, attended with some acrimony." Old Wilmot is capital; there is acrimony in his face, and combativeness in his fists—both clenching confidently his own argument, and ready for action; the very drawing back of one leg, and protrusion of the other, is indicative of testy impatience. The vicar is a little too loose and slovenly, both in attitude and attire; the uniting of the figures (artistically speaking) is with Mr Mulready's usual ability.