Chapter XII: Some Illustrators of the Sixties (1)

Although space forbids biographical notice, even in the briefest form, of all the artists mentioned in the preceding pages, and it would be folly to summarise in a few hasty sentences the complete life-work of Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A., Sir John Gilbert, R.A., Mr. Birket Foster, or Mr. G. Du Maurier, to take but a few instances; yet in the case of Mr. Arthur Hughes, the late M. J. Lawless, and others, to give more exact references to their published illustrations is perhaps easier in this way than any other, especially as a complete iconography of all the chief artists in the movement had perforce to be abandoned for want of space. Many illustrators--Ford Madox Brown, Charles Keene, A. Boyd Houghton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, W. B. Scott, Fred Walker, and J. Wolf--have already been commemorated in monographs; not confined, it is true, in every instance to the subject of this book, but naturally taking it as part of the life-work of the hero, even when, as in Rossetti's case, the illustrations form but an infinitesimally small percentage of the works he produced. The artists hereafter noticed have been chosen entirely from the collector's standpoint, and with the intention of assisting those who wish to make representative or complete collections of the work of each particular man.

* * * * *

GEORGE HOUSMAN THOMAS (1824-1868) was born in London, December 4, 1824. When only fourteen he became apprenticed to G. Bonner, a wood-engraver, and at fifteen obtained the prize of a silver palette from the Society of Arts, for an original drawing, _Please to remember the Grotto_. After he had served his apprenticeship, in conjunction with Henry Harrison he set up in Paris as a wood-engraver. The firm became so successful that they employed six or seven assistants. He was then tempted to go to New York to establish an illustrated paper, which was also a success, although losses on other ventures forced the proprietors to give it up. This led the artist to turn his attention to another field of engraving for bank notes, which are estimated among the most beautiful of their kind. A few years later he returned to England, and became attached to the _Illustrated London News_. In 1848 a special expedition to Italy, which resulted in a long series of illustrations of Garibaldi's defence of Rome against the French, not merely established his lasting reputation, but incidentally extended his taste and knowledge by the opportunity it gave him for studying the works of the old masters. In 1854 a sketch of sailors belonging to the Baltic Fleet, which was published in the _Illustrated London News_, attracted the attention of the Queen, who caused inquiries to be made, which led to the artist being employed by Her Majesty to paint for her the principal events of her reign. Besides a series of important paintings in oil, he executed a large number of drawings and sketches which form an album of great interest.

'As an illustrator of books he was remarkable,' says his anonymous biographer,[8] 'for facility of execution and aptness of character.' His illustrations of _Hiawatha_ (Kent and Co.), _Armadale_ (Wilkie Collins), and _The Last Chronicle of Barset_ (Anthony Trollope), are perhaps the most important; but _London Society_, Mrs. Gatty's _Parables_, _Cassell's Magazine_, _The Quiver_, _Illustrated Readings_, and many other volumes of the period, contain numerous examples of his work in this department. In the person of his brother, Mr. W. Luson Thomas, the managing director of the _Graphic_ and the _Daily Graphic_, and his nephew, Carmichael Thomas, Art Director of the _Graphic_, the family name is still associated with the most notable movement in illustration during the period which immediately followed that to which this book is devoted.

* * * * *

DALZIELS' 'BIBLE
GALLERY' 1880

JOSEPH'S COAT]

SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS, Bart., P.R.A. (born June 8, 1829, died August 13, 1896).--As these proofs were being sent to press, the greatest illustrator of all (having regard to his place as the pioneer of the school which immediately succeeded the pre-Raphaelites, the number of his designs, and their superlative excellence), has joined the majority of his fellow-workers in the sixties. It would be impossible in a few lines to summarise his contributions to the 'black-and-white' of English art; that task will doubtless be undertaken adequately. But, if all the rest of the work of the period were lost, his contributions alone might justly support every word that has been or will be said in praise of 'the golden decade.' From the 1857 _Tennyson_ to his latest illustration he added masterpiece to masterpiece, and, were his triumphant career as a painter completely ignored, might yet be ranked as a great master on the strength of these alone.

* * * * *

PAUL GRAY (1848-1868).--A most promising young illustrator, whose early death was most keenly regretted by those who knew him best, Paul Gray was born in Dublin, May 17, 1848. He died November 14, 1868. In the progress of this work mention has been made of all illustrations which it has been possible to identify; many of the cartoons for _Fun_, being unsigned, could not be attributed to him with certainty. _The Savage Club Papers_, First Series (Tinsley, 1863), contain his last drawing, _Sweethearting_. In the preface we read: 'When this work was undertaken, that clever young artist [Paul Gray] was foremost in offering his co-operation; for he whom we mourned, and whose legacy of sorrow one had accepted, was his dear friend. The shock which his system, already weakened by the saddest of all maladies, received by the sudden death of that friend was more than his gentle spirit could sustain. He lived just long enough to finish his drawing, and then he left us to join his friend.' In the record of the periodicals of the sixties will be found many references to his work, which is, perhaps, most familiar in connection with Charles Kingsley's _Hereward the Wake_.

* * * * *

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (_b._ 1828, _d._ 1882). The comparatively few illustrations by Rossetti have been described and reproduced so often, that it would seem superfluous to add a word more here. Yet, recognising their influence to-day, we must also remember that many people who are attracted by this side of Rossetti's art may not be familiar with the oft-told story of his career. He, more than any modern painter, would seem to be responsible for the present decorative school of illustrators, whose work has attracted unusual interest from many continental critics of late, and is recognised by them as peculiarly 'English.' While the man in the street would no doubt choose 'Phiz,' Cruikshank, Leech, Tenniel, Gilbert, Fred Walker, or Pinwell as typically 'English,' the foreigner prefers to regard the illustrations by Rossetti, his immediate followers, and his later disciples as representing that English movement, which the native is apt to look upon as something exotic and bizarre.

Yet it is not necessary to discuss Rossetti's position as founder of the pre-Raphaelite school, nor to weigh his claims to the leadership against those of Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hunt. But, without ignoring the black-and-white work of the two last named, there can be no doubt that it is Rossetti who has most influenced subsequent draughtsmen.

Nor at the time was his position as an illustrator misunderstood. When we find that he received £30 each for the small Tennyson drawings on wood, the fact proves at the outset that the market value of his work was not ignored by his publishers. At the present day when any writer on men of the sixties is accused of an attempt to 'discover' them, and the appreciation he bestows is regarded as an attempt to glorify the appreciator at the expense of the appreciated, it is well to insist upon the fact that hardly one of the men in favour to-day failed to meet with substantial recognition at the time. It was not their fate to do drawings for love, or to publish engravings at their own cost, or sell as cheap curios works which now realise a thousand times their first cost.

Drawings paid for at the highest market rate, or, to speak more accurately, at 'star' prices, published in popular volumes that ran through large editions, received favourably by contemporary critics, and frequently alluded to as masterpieces by writers in current periodicals, cannot be said to have been neglected, nor have they even been out of favour with artists.

That work, which has afforded so much lasting pleasure, was not achieved without an undue amount of pain, is easily proved in the case of Rossetti. So pertinent is a description by his brother, published lately, that it may be quoted in full, to remind the illustrators of to-day, who draw on paper and card-board at their ease to any scale that pleases them, how much less exacting are the conditions under which they work than those encountered by the artists who were forced to draw upon an unpleasant surface of white pigment spread upon a shining wooden block:--

'The Tennyson designs, which were engraved on wood and
published in the _Illustrated Tennyson_, in which Millais,
Hunt, Mulready, and others co-operated,' says Mr. William
Michael Rossetti, 'have in the long run done not a little
to sustain my brother's reputation with the public. At the
time they gave him endless trouble and small satisfaction.
Not indeed that the invention or the mere designing of these
works was troublesome to him. He took great pains with them,
but, as what he wrought at was always something which informed
and glowed in his mind, he was not more tribulated by these
than by other drawings. It must be said, also, that himself
only, and not Tennyson, was his guide. He drew just what he
chose, taking from his author's text nothing more than a hint
and an opportunity. The trouble came in with the engraver
and the publisher. With some of the doings of the engraver,
Dalziel (not Linton, whom he found much more conformable to
his notion), he was grievously disappointed. He probably
exasperated Dalziel, and Dalziel certainly exasperated him.
Blocks were re-worked upon and proofs sent back with vigour.
The publisher, Mr. Moxon, was a still severer affliction. He
called and he wrote. Rossetti was not always up to time, though
he tried his best to be so. In other instances he was up to
time, but his engraver was not up to his mark. I believe that
poor Moxon suffered much, and that soon afterwards he died;
but I do not lay any real blame on my brother, who worked
strenuously and well. As to our great poet Tennyson, who also
ought to have counted for something in the whole affair, I
gather that he really liked Rossetti's designs when he saw
them, and he was not without a perceptible liking and regard
for Rossetti himself, so far as he knew him (they had first met
at Mr. Patmore's house in December 1849); but the illustration
to _St. Cecilia_ puzzled him not a little, and he had to give
up the problem of what it had to do with his work.'[9]

Later on, in the same volume, we find an extract from a letter dated February 1857, which Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote to W. Bell Scott:--

'I have designed five blocks for Tennyson, save seven which
are still cutting and maiming. It is a thankless task. After
a fortnight's work my block goes to the engraver, like Agag
delicately, and is hewn in pieces before the Lord Harry.

'ADDRESS TO DALZIEL BROTHERS

'O woodman spare that block,
O gash not anyhow!
It took ten days by clock,
I'd fain protect it now.

_Chorus_--Wild laughter from Dalziels' Workshop.'

Several versions of this incident are current, but Mr. Arthur Hughes's account has not, I think, been published. It chanced that one day, during the time he was working in Rossetti's studio, the engraver called, and finding Rossetti was out, poured forth his trouble and stated his own view of the matter with spirit. For his defence, as he put it, much sympathy may be awarded to him. The curious drawings executed in pencil, ink, and red chalk, crammed with highly-wrought detail, that were to be translated into clean black and white, were, he declared, beyond the power of any engraver to translate successfully. How Mr. Hughes pacified him is a matter of no importance; but it is but fair to recollect that, even had the elaborate designs been executed with perfection of technique, any engraver must have needs encountered a task of no ordinary difficulty. When, however, the white coating had been rubbed away in parts, and all sorts of strokes in pen, pencil, and pigment added, it is not surprising that the paraphrase failed to please the designer. Although the drawings naturally perished in the cutting, and cannot be brought forward as decisive evidence, we may believe that the engraver spoilt them, and yet also believe that no craftsman who ever lived would have been absolutely successful.

The number of Rossetti's book-illustrations is but ten in all, according to the list given in Mr. William Sharp's admirable monograph. To these one might perhaps add the frontispiece to that volume; as although the pen-drawing, _A sonnet is a moment's monument_, was never intended for reproduction, it forms a most decorative page. There is also a design for a frontispiece to the _Early Italian Poets_, which was first reproduced in the _English Illustrated Magazine_, No. 1. The actual frontispiece was etched but never used, and the exquisitely dainty version survives only in two impressions from the plate, both owned by Mr. Fairfax Murray. Another frontispiece, to _The Risen Life_,[10] a poem by R. C. Jackson, in a cover designed by D. G. R. (R. Elkins and Co., 10 Castle St., East Oxford St., W., 1884), belongs to the same category, in which may be placed _The Queen's Page_, drawn in 1854, and reproduced in _Flower Pieces_ by Allingham (Reeves & Turner, 1888). The ten which were all (I believe) drawn upon the wood include: _Elfen-mere_, published first in William Allingham's _The Music-master_, 1855, and afterwards reprinted in a later volume, _Life and Phantasy_, and again in _Flower Pieces_ (1888), by the same author. This design 'revealed to young Burne-Jones' (so his biographer, Mr. Malcolm Bell, has recorded) that there existed a strange enchanting world beyond the hum-drum of this daily life--a world of radiant, many-coloured lights, of dim mysterious shadows, of harmonies of form and line, wherein to enter is to walk among the blest--that far-off world of Art into which many a time since he has made his way and brought back visions of delight to show his fellow-men. The first suspicion of that land of faëry came to him when, in a small volume of poems by William Allingham, he found a little wood-cut, 'Elfen-mere,' signed with a curious entwinement of the initials D. G. R. The slumbering spirit of fancy awoke to life within him and cast her spells upon him never to be shaken off.'

In the _Oxford and Cambridge Magazine_, 1856, Mr. Burne-Jones wrote of this very design: 'There is one more I cannot help noticing, a drawing of higher finish and pretension than the last, from the pencil of Rossetti, in Allingham's _Day and Night Songs_, just published. It is, I think, the most beautiful drawing for an illustration I have ever seen: the weird faces of the maids of Elfen-mere, the musical, timed movement of their arms together as they sing, the face of the man, above all, are such as only a great artist could conceive.'

This picture, 'three damsels clothed in white,' who came

'With their spindles every night;
Two and one, and three fair maidens,
Spinning to a pulsing cadence,
Singing songs of Elfen-mere,'

reproduced here, is still issued in William Allingham's volume of poems entitled _Flower Pieces_ (Reeves and Turner, 1888).

Five illustrations to Moxon's edition of _Tennyson's Poems_, 1857, two in Christina Rossetti's _The Goblin Market and other Poems_, 1862, and two in _The Princes Progress and other Poems_, 1866, by the same author, complete the ten in question. As the _Tennyson_ has been republished lately, and a monograph, _Tennyson and his pre-Raphaelite Illustrators_, by G. Somes Layard (Elliot Stock, 1894), has brought together every available scrap of material connected with the famous quintette of designs, it would be superfluous to describe them here in detail. Any distinctly recognised 'movement' is very rarely a _crescendo_, but nearly always a waning force that owes what energy it retains to the original impetus of its founder. Should this statement be true of any fashion in art, it might be most easily supported, if applied to Rossetti's ten drawings on wood, set side by side with the whole mass of modern 'decorative' illustration. Even a great artist like Howard Pyle has hardly added a new motive to those crowded into these wood-engravings. The lady by the casement, '_The long hours come and go_,' upon the title-page of _The Princes Progress_, is an epitome of a thousand later attempts. Mr. Fairfax Murray has collected over a dozen studies and preliminary drawings for this little block, that would appal some of the younger men as evidence of the intense care with which a masterpiece was wrought of old. Highly-finished drawings were done over and over again until their author was satisfied. The frontispieces to _Goblin Market_ and to _The Prince's Progress_, no less than the Tennyson designs, form, obviously enough, the treasure-trove whence later men have borrowed; too often exchanging the gold for very inferior currency. Without attempting to give undue credit to Rossetti, or denying that collateral influences--notably that of Walter Crane--had their share in the revival of the nineties, there can be no doubt that the strongest of the younger 'decorative' artists to-day are still fascinated by Rossetti--no less irresistibly than 'the young Burne-Jones' was influenced in 1855.

Therefore the importance of these ten designs cannot be exaggerated. Whether you regard their influence as unwholesome, and regret the morbidity of the school that founded itself on them, or prefer to see in them the germ of a style entirely English in its renaissance, which has already spread over that Continent which one had deemed inoculated against any British epidemic, the fact remains that Rossetti is the golden milestone wherefrom all later work must needs be measured. No doubt the superb work of Frederick Sandys, had it been more accessible to the younger artists when the new impetus to decorative black-and-white began to attract a popular audience, would have found hardly as ardent disciples.

You should have wept her yesterday

'THE PRINCE'S PROGRESS'
1866]

* * * * *

M. J. LAWLESS (born 1837, died 1864).--This artist, faithful to the best tradition of the pre-Raphaelite illustrators, seems to have left few personal memories. Born in 1837, a son of Barry Lawless, a Dublin solicitor, he was educated at Prior Park School, Bath, and afterwards attended several drawing schools, and was for a time a pupil of Henry O'Neil, R.A. He died August 6, 1864. Mr. Edward Walford, who contributes a short notice of Matthew James Lawless to the _Dictionary of National Biography_, has only the barest details to record. Nor do others, who knew him intimately, remember anything more than the ordinary routine of a short and uneventful life. But his artistic record is not meagre. In contemporary criticism we find him ranked with Millais and Sandys; not as equal to either, but as a worthy third. A fine picture of his, _The Sick Call_ (from the Leathart Collection), was exhibited again in 1895 at the Guildhall.

But it is by his work as an illustrator he will be remembered, and, despite the few years he practised, for his first published drawing was in _Once a Week_, December 15, 1859 (vol. i. p. 505), he has left an honourable and not inconsiderable amount of work behind him. No search has lighted upon any work of his outside the pages of the popular magazines, except a few etchings (in the publications of the Junior Etching Club), three designs of no great importance in _Lyra Germanica_ (Longmans, 1861), and a pamphlet, the _Life of St. Patrick_, with some shocking engravings, said by his biographer to be from Lawless's designs. In the chapters upon _Once a Week_, _London Society_, _Good Words_, etc., every drawing I have been able to identify is duly noted. It is not easy to refrain from eulogy upon the work of a draughtsman with no little individuality and distinction, who has so far been almost completely forgotten by artists of the present day. The selection of his work reproduced here by the courtesy of the owners of the copyright will, perhaps, send many fresh admirers to hunt up the rest of it for themselves.

* * * * *

ARTHUR BOYD HOUGHTON (1836-1875) was born in 1836, the fourth son of his father, who was a captain in the Royal Navy. He visited India, according to some of his biographers; others say that he was never in the East, but that it was a brother who supplied him with the oriental details that appear in so many of his drawings. Be that as it may, his fellow-workers on the _Arabian Nights_ pretended to be jealous of his Egyptian experience, and declared that it was no good trying to rival from their imaginings the scenes that he knew by heart. At present, when all men unite to praise him, it would almost lend colour to a belief that he was unappreciated by his fellows to read in a contemporary criticism: 'His designs were often striking in their effects of black and white, but were wanting in tone and gradation--a defect partly due to the loss of one eye.' This is only quoted by way of encouragement to living illustrators, who forget that their hero, despite sympathy and commissions, suffered also much the same misunderstanding that is often their lot. Against this may be set a criticism of yesterday, which runs:--

'As regards "the school of the sixties," now that it has
moved away, we can rightly range the heads of that movement,
and allowing for side impulses from the technique of Menzel,
and still more from the magnetism of Rossetti's personality,
we see, broadly speaking, that with Millais it arrived, with
Houghton it ceased. Under these two leaders it gathered others,
but within ten years its essential work was done. It has all
gone now nobly into the past from the hands of men, some still
living, some dead but yesterday.

'In Houghton's work, two things strike us especially, when we
see it adequately to-day: its mastery of technique and style,
and its temperament: the mastery so swift and spontaneous,
so lavish of its audacities, so noble in its economies; the
temperament so dramatic, so passionate, so satiric, and so
witty. In many of his qualities, in vitality and movement,
Houghton tops Millais. What is missing from his temperament,
if it be a lack and not a quality, is the power to look at
things coolly; he has not, as Millais, the deep mood of
stoical statement, of tragedy grown calm. His tragic note is
vindictive, a little shrill: when he sets himself to depict
contemporary life, as in the _Graphic America_ series, he is
sardonic, impatient, at times morose: his humour carries an
edge of bitterness. But in whatever mood he looks at things,
the mastery of his aim is certain.'[11]

_Drawn by A. Boyd Houghton._ _Swan Electro-Engraving Co._

READING THE CHRONICLES]

The mass of work accomplished in illustration alone, between his first appearance and his death in 1875, is amazing. There is scarce a periodical of any rank which has not at least one example from his pen. The curt attention given here to the man must be pardoned, as reference to his work is made on almost every page of this book. For an appreciative essay, that is a model of its class, one has but to turn to Mr. Laurence Housman's volume[12] which contains also five original drawings on wood (reproduced in photogravure) and eighty-three others from _Dalziel's Arabian Nights_ (Ward, Lock & Co., 1863-65 and Warne, 1866), _Don Quixote_, the two volumes of Mr. Robert Buchanan's Poems--_Ballad Stories of the Affections_ (1866), and _North Coast_ (1868), _Home Thoughts_ (1865), _National Nursery Rhymes_ (1871), and _The Graphic_ (1870).

* * * * *

FREDERICK WALKER[13] (1840-1875), who was born in Marylebone on the 26th of May 1840, has been the subject of so many appreciations, and at least one admirable monograph, that a most brief notice of his career as an illustrator will suffice here. His father was a designer of jewelry and his grandfather had some skill in portrait-painting. How he began drawing from the Elgin marbles in the British Museum at the age of sixteen has been told often enough. Many boys of sixteen have done the same, but it is open to doubt if any one of them has absorbed the spirit of their models so completely as Fred Walker did. It would be hardly asserting too much to say for him that they replaced humanity, and that his male figures seem nearly always youths from the Parthenon in peasant costume. At seventeen or eighteen he was working at Leigh's life-class in Newman Street, and at the same time was employed in Mr. Whymper's wood-engraving establishment. His first appearance in _Everybody's Journal_ is duly noted elsewhere, also his first drawing in _Once a Week_; but the peculiar affection he had inspired by his work has kept most of his critics from saying that some of his earliest designs, as we know them after engraving, appear distinctly poor. But, from the time he ceased to act as 'ghost' for Thackeray, and signed his work with the familiar F. W., his career shows a distinct and sustained advance until the ill-fated 1875, in which George Mason, G. J. Pinwell, and A. Boyd Houghton also died.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate in brief the various contributions to the _Cornhill Magazine_, _Good Words_, _Once a Week_, etc., which have already been noted in detail. Nor would it be in place here to dwell upon the personality of the artist; sufficient matter has been printed already to enable lovers of his works to construct a faithful portrait of their author--lovable and irritable, with innate genius and hereditary disease both provoking him to petulant outbursts that still live in his friends' memories. One anecdote will suffice. A group of well-known painters were strolling across a bridge on the Upper Thames. Walker, who was passionately fond of music, had been playing on a tin whistle, which one of the party, half in joke, half weary of the fluting, struck from his mouth, so that it fell into the stream below. In a moment Walker had thrown off his clothes, and, 'looking like a statue come to life, so exquisitely was he built,' plunged from the wall of the bridge, and, diving, rescued his tin whistle, which he bore to land in triumph. The trifling incident is an epitome of the character of the wayward boy, who kept his friends nevertheless. 'He did not seek beauty,' wrote an ardent student of his work, 'but it came, while Pinwell thought of and strove for beauty always, yet often failed to secure it.' That he knew Menzel, and was influenced by him, is an open secret; but he also owes much to the pre-Raphaelites--Millais especially. Yet when all he learned from contemporary artists is fully credited, what is left, and it is by far the largest portion, is his own absolutely--owing nothing to any predecessor, except possibly to the sculptors of Greece. He died in Scotland in June 1875, and was buried at the Marlow he painted so delightfully, leaving behind him the peculiar immortality that is awarded more readily to a half-fulfilled life than to one which has accomplished all it set out to do, and has outlived its own reputation.

* * * * *

GEORGE JOHN PINWELL (1842-1875).--This notable illustrator, whose work bulks so largely in the latter half of the sixties, was born December 26, 1842, and died September 8, 1875. He studied at the Newman Street Academy, entering in 1862. At first his illustrations show little promise; some of the earliest, in _Lilliput Levée_, a book of delightful rhymes for children, by Matthew Browne, are singularly devoid of interest. No engraver's name appears on them, nor is it quite clear by what process they were reproduced. They are inserted plates, and, under a strong magnifying glass, the lines suggest lithography. The unfamiliar medium, supposing they were drawn in lithographic ink, or by graphotype, or some similar process, would account for the entire absence of the qualities that might have been expected. Some others, in _Hacco the Dwarf_ and in _The Happy Home_, the latter in crude colours, are hardly more interesting.

'GOOD WORDS'
1862, p. 504

MY TREASURE]

According to Mr. Harry Quilter,[14] Pinwell began life as a butterman's boy in the City Road, whose duty, among other things, was to 'stand outside the shop on Saturday nights shouting Buy! Buy! Buy!' Later on he seems to have been a 'carpet-planner.' If one might read the words as 'carpet-designer,' the fact of turning up about this time at Leigh's night-school, where he met Fred Walker, would not be quite so surprising.

Between Walker and Pinwell a friendship sprang up, but it seems to have been Thomas White who introduced the former to _Once a Week_, wherein his first contribution, _The Saturnalia_, was published, January 31, 1863. In 1864 he began to work for Messrs. Dalziel on the _Arabian Nights_ and the _Illustrated Goldsmith_, which latter is his most important volume. In 1869 he became a member of the Old Water Colour Society, but his work as a colourist does not concern us here. Nor is it necessary to recapitulate the enormous quantity of his designs which in magazines and books are noticed elsewhere in these pages. Some illustrations to _Jean Ingelow's Poems_, notably seven to _The High Tide_, represent his best period. But he suffered terribly by translation at the engravers' hands. The immobility, which characterises so many of his figures, does not appear in the few drawings which survive. Mr. Pennell is the fortunate possessor of several of the designs for _The High Tide_; but the pleasure of studying these originals is changed to pain when one remembers how many others were cut away by the engraver. It is curious that three men, so intimately associated as Walker, Pinwell, and Houghton, should have preserved their individuality so entirely. It is impossible to confuse the work of any of them. Walker infused a grace into the commonplace which, so far as the engravings are concerned, sometimes escaped Pinwell's far more imaginative creations; while Houghton lived in a world of his own, wherein all animate and inanimate objects obeyed the lines, the swirling curves, he delighted in. If, as has been well said, Walker was a Greek--but a dull Greek--then Pinwell may be called a Naturalist with a touch of realism in his technique, while Houghton was romantic to the core in essence and manipulation alike.

* * * * *

ARTHUR HUGHES.--In 1855 appeared _The Music-master_, the second enlarged and illustrated edition of _Day and Night Songs_, a book of poems by William Allingham, to which reference has been made several times in this chronicle. Of its ten illustrations, seven and a vignette are from the hand of Arthur Hughes. The artist thus early associated with the leaders of the pre-Raphaelite movement, and still actively at work, was never, technically, a member of the Brotherhood. In 1858, however, we find him one of the enthusiastic young artists Rossetti had gathered round him with a view to the production of the so-called frescoes in the Oxford Union. The oft-told tale of this noble failure need not be repeated here. Those who were responsible for the paintings in question appear more or less relieved to find that the work has ceased to exist. True, the majority of picture-lovers who have never seen them regard them, sentimentally, as the fine flower of pre-Raphaelite art, which faded before it was fully open. Judging from the restored fragments which remain, had they been permanent, they would not have been more than interesting curiosities; examples of the 'prentice efforts' of men who afterwards shaped the course of British art, not merely for their own generation, but, as we can see to-day, for a much longer time. The great difficulties of the task these ardent novices undertook so light-heartedly may or may not have checked the practice of wall-painting in England, if, indeed, one can speak of a check to a movement that never existed. To trace in detail the course of Mr. Hughes's work, from this date to the present, would be a pleasant and somewhat lengthy task. Yet, although greater men are less fully dealt with, a running narrative showing where the illustrations appeared will be more valuable than any attempt to estimate the intrinsic value of the work, or explain its attractive quality. That the work is singularly lovable, and has found staunch and ardent admirers amid varying schools of artists, is unquestionable. Without claiming that it equals the best work of the 'Brotherhood,' it has a charm all its own. The sense of delight in lovely things is present throughout, nor does its elegance often degenerate to mere prettiness. The naïve expression of a child's ideal of lovely forms, with a curiously well-sustained type of beauty, neither Greek nor Gothic, yet having a touch of paganism in its mysticism, is always present in it. With a peculiarly individual manner--so that the signature, which is usually to be found in some unobtrusive corner, is needless,--a student of illustration can 'spot' an Arthur Hughes at the most rapid glance as surely as he could identify a Du Maurier.

There are painters and draughtsmen of all periods, before whose work you are well content to cease from criticism, and to enjoy simply, with all their imperfections, the qualities that attract you. Passionate intensity, the perfection of academic draughtsmanship, dramatic composition as it is usually understood, may, or may not, be always evident. Whether they are or not is in this case of entirely secondary importance. Certain indefinable qualities, lovable and lasting, are sure to be the most noticeable, whether you light on a print that has escaped you hitherto, or turn up one that you have known since the day it was published. Like caters for the like, and this love which the work provokes from those to whom it appeals seems also its chief characteristic. In the whole mass of pictorial art you can hardly find its equal in this particular respect. The care and sorrow of life, its disillusions and injustice, are not so much forgotten, or set aside thoughtlessly, as recognised at their relative unimportance when contrasted with the widespread, yet absolutely indefinable thing, which it is convenient to term Love. Not, be it explained, Love in its carnal sense, but, in an abstract spiritual way, which seeks the quiet happiness in adding to the joy of others, and trusts that somehow, somewhere, good is the final end of ill.

It may be that this attempt to explain the impression of Mr. Hughes's work is a purely personal one, but it is one that intimate study for many years strengthens and raises to the unassailable position of a positive fact. At the risk of appearing mawkishly sentimental, even with the greater risk of reflecting sentimentality upon artistic work which it has not, this impression of Mr. Arthur Hughes's art must be set down unmistakably. Looking upon it from a purely technical aspect, you might find much to praise, and perhaps a little to criticise; but, taking it as an art addressed often enough to the purpose of forming artistic ideals in the minds of the young, you cannot but regret that the boys and girls of to-day, despite the army of artists of all ranks catering for them, cannot know the peculiar delight that the children of the sixties and early seventies enjoyed.

Arthur Hughes was born in London in 1832, and became a pupil of Soames of the Royal Academy Schools, exhibiting for the first time at the annual exhibition in 1854. In 1855 appeared, as we have just seen, _The Music-master_. The artist seems to have worked fitfully at illustrations, but his honourable labours in painting dispose of any charge of indolence, and, did but the scope of this work permit it, a still more interesting record of his artistic career could be made by including a list of pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Institute, the Grosvenor, the New Gallery, and elsewhere. Between 1855 and 1861 I have found no illustrations, nor does he himself recall any. In the latter year there are two designs in _The Queen_ to poems by George Mac Donald and F. Greenwood. The next magazine illustration in order is _At the Sepulchre_ in _Good Words_, 1864. In 1866 appeared an edition of Tennyson's _Enoch Arden_, with twenty-five illustrations by Arthur Hughes.' This noteworthy book is one of the essential volumes to those who make ever so small a collection of the books of the sixties. Although the work is unequal, it contains some of his most delightful drawings. In the same year _London Society_ contained _The Farewell Salutation_. In 1867 George Mac Donald's _Dealings with the Fairies_ was published. This dainty little book, which contains some very typical work, is exceptionally scarce. Another book which was published in 1868 is now very difficult to run across in its first edition, _Five Days' Entertainment at Wentworth Grange_, by F. T. Palgrave, illustrated with seventeen designs, the woodcuts (_sic_) being by J. Cooper, and a vignette engraved on steel by C. H. Jeens.

'GOOD WORDS'
1871, p. 33

THE LETTER]

'GOOD WORDS'
1871, p. 183

THE DIAL--'SUN COMES,
MOON COMES']

To 1869 belongs the book with which the artist is most frequently associated, _Tom Brown's School Days_, by Tom Hughes, not a relative of the illustrator as the name might suggest. To descant on the merits of this edition to-day were foolish. When one hears of a new illustrated edition being contemplated, it seems sacrilege, and one realises how distinctly a newly illustrated _Tom Brown_ would separate the generation that knew the book through Mr. Arthur Hughes's imagination from those who will make friends with it in company with another artist. Incidents like these bring home the inevitable change of taste with passing time more vividly than far weightier matters enforce it.

_Good Words_ in 1869 contains two drawings to _Carmina Nuptialia_, and _The Sunday Magazine_ the same year has a very beautiful composition, _Blessings in Disguise_. In 1870-1871 _Good Words for the Young_ includes, in the first two volumes, no less than seventy-six illustrations by Mr. Hughes to _At the Back of the North Wind_, fourteen to _The Boy in Grey_, thirty to _Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood_, thirty to _The Princess and Goblin_, ten to _Lilliput Revels_, six to _Lilliput Lectures_, and two to _King Arthur_, besides one each to _Fancy_, _The Mariner's Cave_, and a notable design to _The Wind and the Moon_. In 1871 also belongs _My Lady Wind_ (p. 38), _Little Tommy Tucker_ (p. 46), in _Novello's National Nursery Rhymes_.

In 1870 _Good Words_ contains four: _The Mother and the Angel_ and three full-page designs, which rank among the most important of the artist's work in illustration, to Tennyson's _Loves of the Wrens_. This song-cycle, which the late Poet Laureate wrote expressly for Sullivan to set to music, was issued in 1870 in a sumptuous quarto. The publisher, Strahan, who at that time issued all Tennyson's work, had intended to include illustrations, and three were finished before the poet vetoed the project. These were cut down and issued with the accompanying lyrics in _Good Words_. Although the artist, vexed no doubt at their curtailment, and by no means satisfied with their engraving, does not rank them among his best things, few who collect his work will share his view. Despite the trespass beyond the limit of this book, it would be better to continue the list to date, and it is all too brief. In 1872 _Good Words_ contains five of his designs, and _Good Words for the Young_ twenty-four to _Innocent's Island_, and eight to _Gutta-Percha Willie_.

1872 saw two remarkably good volumes decorated by this artist, T. Gordon Hake's _Parables and Tales_ (Chapman and Hall) and _Sing Song_, a book of nursery rhymes by Christina Rossetti (Routledge).

In 1873 ten to _Sindbad the Sailor_, and six or seven others appeared in _Good Words for the Young_, now entitled _Good Things_. To this year belongs also _Speaking Likenesses_ by Christina Rossetti, with its dozen fanciful and charming designs; and a frontispiece and full page (p. 331), in Mr. George Mac Donald's _England's Antiphon_ (Macmillan). In 1889 or 1890 _The Graphic_ Christmas number contained two full-page illustrations by this artist. To 1892 belongs a delightful vignette upon the title-page of Mrs. George Mac Donald's _Chamber Dramas_. With a bare mention of seven drawings, inadequately reproduced in _The London Home Monthly_, 1895, the record of Mr. Arthur Hughes's work must close; Several designs to a poem by Jean Ingelow, _The Shepherd's Lady_, the artist has lost sight of, and the date of the first edition of _Five Old Friends and a Young Prince_, by Miss Thackeray, with a vignette, I have failed to trace at the British Museum or elsewhere. As Mr. Arthur Hughes, in the _Music-master_ (1855), heads the list, so it seemed fit to mark his position by a fuller record than could be awarded to other of his contemporaries still living; partly because the comparatively small number of illustrations made a fairly complete record possible.

* * * * *

FREDERICK SANDYS.--This most admirable illustrator 'was born in Norwich in 1832, the son of a painter of the place, from whom he received his earliest art-instruction. Among his first drawings was a series of illustrations of the birds of Norfolk, and another dealing with the antiquities of his native city. Probably he first exhibited in 1851, with a portrait (in crayons) of "Henry, Lord Loftus" which appears as the work of "F. Sands" in the catalogue of the Royal Academy to whose exhibitions he has contributed in all forty-seven pictures and drawings.'[15]

The above, extracted from Mr. J. M. Gray's article, 'Frederick Sandys and the woodcut designers of thirty years ago,' gives the facts which concern us here. A most interesting study of the same artist by the same critic, in the _Art Journal_,[16] supplies more description and analysed appreciation. The eulogy by Mr. Joseph Pennell in _The Quarto_[17] must not be forgotten. Further references to Mr. Sandys appear in a lecture delivered by Professor Herkomer at the Royal Institution, printed in the _Art Journal_, 1883, and in a review of Thornbury's _Ballads_ by Mr. Edmund Gosse in _The Academy_.[18]

'CENTURY GUILD HOBBY-HORSE'
VOL. III. p. 147

DANAE IN THE
BRAZEN CHAMBER]

DALZIELS' 'BIBLE
GALLERY,' 1880

JACOB HEARS THE VOICE
OF THE LORD]

It is quite possible, although only thirteen of the thirty or so of illustrations by Frederick Sandys appeared in _Once a Week_, that these thirteen have been the most potent factor in giving the magazine its peculiar place in the hearts of artists. The general public may have forgotten its early volumes, but at no time since they were published have painters and pen-draughtsmen failed to prize them. During the years that saw them appear there are frequent laudatory references in contemporary journals, with now and again the spiteful attack which is only awarded to work that is unlike the average. Elsewhere mention is made of articles upon them which have appeared from time to time by Messrs. Edmund Gosse, J. M. Gray, Joseph Pennell, and others. During the 'seventies,' no less than in the 'eighties' or 'nineties,' men cut out the pages and kept them in their portfolios; so that to-day, in buying volumes of the magazine, a wise person is careful to see that the 'Sandys' are all there before completing the purchase. Therefore, should the larger public admit them formally into the limited group of its acknowledged masterpieces, it will only imitate the attitude which from the first fellow-artists have maintained towards them.

The original drawings, '_If_,' _Life's Journey_, _The Little Mourner_, and _Jacques de Caumont_, were exhibited at the 'Arts and Crafts,' 1893. That a companion volume to Millais's _Parables_, with illustrations of _The Story of Joseph_, was actually projected, and the first drawings completed, is true, and one's regret that circumstances--those hideous circumstances, which need not be explained fully, of an artist's ideas rejected by a too prudish publisher--prevented its completion, is perhaps the most depressing item recorded in the pages of this volume.

That some thirty designs all told should have established the lasting reputation of an artist would be somewhat surprising, did not one realise that almost every one is a masterpiece of its kind. Owing to the courtesy of all concerned, so large a number of these are reproduced herewith that a detailed description of each would be superfluous. But, at the risk of repeating a list already printed and reprinted, it is well to condense the scattered references in the foregoing pages in a convenient paragraph, wherein those republished in Thornbury's _Legendary Ballads_ (Chatto, 1876) are noted with an asterisk:--

THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE: _The Portent_ ('60), _Manoli_ ('62), _Cleopatra_ ('66); ONCE A WEEK: *_Yet once more on the organ play_, _The Sailor's Bride_, _From my Window_, *_Three Statues of Ægina_, _Rosamund Queen of the Lombards_ (all 1861), *_The Old Chartist_, *_The King at the Gate_, *_Jacques de Caumont_, *_King Warwolf_, *_The Boy Martyr_, *_Harold Harfagr_ (all '62), and _Helen and Cassandra_ ('66); GOOD WORDS: _Until her Death_ ('62), _Sleep_ ('63); CHURCHMAN'S FAMILY MAGAZINE: *_The Waiting Time_ ('63); SHILLING MAGAZINE: _Amor Mundi_ ('65); THE QUIVER: _Advent of Winter_ ('66); THE ARGOSY: _'If'_ ('65); THE CENTURY GUILD HOBBY HORSE: _Danae_ ('88); WILMOT'S SACRED POETRY: _Life's Journey_, _The Little Mourner_; CASSELL'S FAMILY MAGAZINE: _Proud Maisie_ ('81); and DALZIELS' BIBLE GALLERY: _Jacob hears the voice of the Lord_.

'THE QUIVER'

OCTOBER]

In addition, it may be interesting to add notes of other drawings:--_The Nightmare_ (1857)[19], a parody of _Sir Isumbras at the Ford_, by Millais, which shows a braying ass marked 'J. R.' (for John Ruskin), with Millais, Rossetti, and Holman Hunt on his back; _Morgan le Fay_, reproduced as a double-page supplement in _The British Architect_, October 31, 1879; a frontispiece, engraved on steel by J. Saddler, for Miss Muloch's _Christian's Mistake_ (Hurst and Blackett), and another for _The Shaving of Shagpat_ (Chapman and Hall, 1865); a portrait of Matthew Arnold, engraved by O. Lacour, published in _The English Illustrated Magazine_, January 1884; another of Professor J. R. Green, engraved by G. J. Stodardt, in _The Conquest of England_, 1883; and one of Robert Browning, published in _The Magazine of Art_ shortly after the poet's death; _Miranda_, a drawing reproduced in _The Century Guild Hobby Horse_, vol. iii. p. 41; _Medea_, reproduced (as a silver-print photograph) in Col. Richard's poem of that name (Chapman and Hall, 1869); a reproduction of the original drawing for _Amor Mundi_, and studies for the same, in the two editions of Mr. Pennell's _Pen-Drawing and Pen-Draughtsmen_ (Macmillan); a reproduction of an unfinished drawing on wood, _The Spirit of the Storm_, in _The Quarto_ (No. 1, 1896); _Proud Maisie in Pan_ (1881), reissued in _Songs of the North_, and engraved by W. Spielmayer (from the original in possession of Dr. John Todhunter) in the _English Illustrated Magazine_, May 1891, and the original drawing for the _Advent of Winter_ and one of _Two Heads_, reproduced in J. M. Gray's article in the _Art Journal_ (March 1884). Whether the _Judith_ here reproduced was originally drawn for engraving I cannot say.

To add another eulogy of these works is hardly necessary at this moment, when their superb quality has provoked a still wider recognition than ever. Concerning the engraving of some Mr. Sandys complained bitterly, but of others, notably the _Danae_, he wrote in October 1880: 'My drawing was most perfectly cut by Swain, from my point of view, the best piece of wood-cutting of our time--mind I am not speaking of my work, but Swain's.' To see that the artist's complaint was at times not unfounded one has but to compare the _Advent of Winter_ as it appears in a reproduction of the drawing (_Art Journal_, March 1884) and in _The Quiver_. 'It was my best drawing entirely spoilt by the cutter,' he said; but this was perhaps a rather hasty criticism that is hardly proved up to the hilt by the published evidence.

As a few contemporary criticisms quoted elsewhere go to prove, Sandys was never ignored by artists nor by people of taste. To-day there are dozens of men in Europe without popular appreciation at home or abroad, but surely if his fellows recognise the master-hand, it is of little moment whether the cheap periodicals ignore him, or publish more or less adequately illustrated articles on the man and his work. Frederick Sandys is and has been a name to conjure with for the last thirty years. Though still alive, he has gained (I believe) no official recognition. But that is of little consequence. There are laureates uncrowned and presidents unelected still living among us whose lasting fame is more secure than that of many who have worn the empty titles without enjoying the unstinted approval of fellow-craftsmen which alone makes any honour worthy an artist's acceptance.

* * * * *

SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES.--The illustrations of this artist are so few that it is a matter of regret that they could not all be reproduced here. But the artist, without withholding permission, expressed a strong wish that they should not be reprinted. The two in _Good Words_ have been already named. Others to a quite forgotten book must not be mentioned; but it is safe to say that no human being, who did not know by whom they were produced, would recognise them. A beautiful design[20] for a frontispiece to Mr. William Morris's _Love is Enough_ was never engraved. The _Nativity_ in Gatty's _Parables from Nature_, and the one design in the _Dalziel Bible_ have already been named. Many drawings for _Cupid and Psyche_, the first portion of a proposed illustrated folio edition of _The Earthly Paradise_, were actually engraved, some of the blocks being cut by Mr. Morris himself. Several sets of impressions exist, and rumour for a long time babbled of a future Kelmscott Press edition. Of his more recent designs nothing can be said here; besides being a quarter of a century later than the prescribed limits of the volume, they are as familiar as any modern work could be.

* * * * *

WALTER CRANE.--This popular artist was born in Liverpool, August 15, 1845, his father being sometime secretary and treasurer of the (then) Liverpool Academy. After a boyhood spent mostly at Torquay the family came to London in 1857. In 1859 he became a pupil of Mr. W. J. Linton, the well-known engraver, and remained with him for three years. About 1865 he first saw the work of Burne-Jones at the Society of Painters in Water Colours. These drawings, and some Japanese toy-books which fell in his way, have no doubt strongly influenced his style; but the earlier pre-Raphaelites and the _Once a Week_ school had been eagerly studied before. Although Mr. Crane, with his distinctly individual manner, is not a typical artist of the sixties any more than of the seventies, or of to-day, and although his style had hardly found its full expression at that time, except in the toy-books, yet no record of the period could be complete without a notice of one whose loyalty to a particular style has done much to found the modern 'decorative school.'

'GOOD WORDS'
1863, p. 795

TREASURE-TROVE]

His first published drawing, _A man in the coils of a serpent_, appears in a quite forgotten magazine called _Entertaining Things_, vol. i. 1861, p. 327 (Virtue); others, immature, and spoilt by the engraver, are in _The Talking Fire-irons_ and similar tracts by the Rev. H. B. Power. In many of the magazines, of which the contents are duly noted,--_Good Words_, _Once a Week_, _The Argosy_, _London Society_, etc.--reference has been already made to each of his drawings as it appeared therein. A bibliography of his work, to be exhaustive, would take up more room than space permitted here. As it will be the task of the one, whoever he may be, who undertakes to chronicle English illustrations of the seventies, it may be left without further notice. For, with the exception of the _New Forest_ (1862), all the other books which may be called masterpieces of their order, _Grimms' Household Stories_, _The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde_, _The Baby's Bouquet_, _Baby's Opera_, _Æsop's Fables_, _Flora's Feast_, _Queen Summer_, the long series of Mrs. Molesworth's children's books, many 'coloured boards' for novels, and the rest, belong to a later period.