The Library [45]
efforts of Kenny Meadows in 1843, and also to the fancy designs of Harvey in Knight's "Pictorial Shakespeare." The "Illustrated Tennyson" of 1858 is also a remarkable production. The Laureate, almost more than any other, requires a variety of illustrators; and here, for his idylls, he had Mulready and Millais, and for his romances Rossetti and Holman Hunt. His "Princess" was afterwards illustrated by Maclise, and his "Enoch Arden" by Arthur Hughes; but neither of these can be said to be wholly adequate. The "Lalla Rookh" of John Tenniel, 1860, albeit somewhat stiff and cold, after this artist's fashion, is a superb collection of carefully studied oriental designs. With these may be classed the illustrations to Aytoun's "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," by Sir Noel Paton, which have the same finished qualities of composition and the same academic hardness. Several good editions of the "Pilgrim's Progress" have appeared,--notably those of C. H. Bennett, J. D. Watson, and G. H. Thomas. Other books are Millais's "Parables of our Lord," Leighton's "Romola," Walker's "Philip" and "Denis Duval," the "Don Quixote," "Dante," "La Fontaine" and other works of Dore, Dalziel's "Arabian Nights," Leighton's "Lyra Germanica" and "Moral Emblems," and the "Spiritual Conceits" of W. Harry Rogers. These are some only of the number, which does not include books like Mrs. Hugh Blackburn's "British Birds," Wolf's "Wild Animals," Wise's "New Forest," Linton's "Lake Country," Wood's "Natural History," and many more. Nor does it take in the various illustrated periodicals which have multiplied so freely since, in 1859, "Once a Week" first began to attract and train such younger draughtsmen as Sandys, Lawless, Pinwell, Houghton, Morten, and Paul Grey, some of whose best work in this way has been revived in the edition of Thornbury's "Ballads and Songs," recently published by Chatto and Windus. Ten years later came the "Graphic," offering still wider opportunities to wood-cut art, and bringing with it a fresh school of artists. Herkomer, Fildes, Small, Green, Barnard, Barnes, Crane, Caldecott, Hopkins, and others,--quos nunc perscribere longum est--have contributed good work to this popular rival of the older, but still vigorous, "Illustrated." And now again, another promising serial, the "Magazine of Art," affords a supplementary field to modern refinements and younger energies.
Not a few of the artists named in the preceding paragraph have also earned distinction in separate branches of the pictorial art, and specially in that of humorous design,--a department which has always been so richly recruited in this country that it deserves more than a passing mention. From the days of Hogarth onwards there has been an almost unbroken series of humorous draughtsmen, who, both on wood and metal, play a distinguished part in our illustrated literature. Rowlandson, one of the earliest, was a caricaturist of inexhaustible facility, and an artist who scarcely did justice to his own powers. He illustrated several books, but he is chiefly remembered in this way by his plates to Combe's "Three Tours of Dr. Syntax." Gillray, his contemporary, whose bias was political rather than social, is said to have illustrated "The Deserted Village" in his youth; but he is not famous as a book-illustrator. Another of the early men was Bunbury, whom "quality"-loving Mr. Walpole calls "the second Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original (!);" but whose prints to "Tristram Shandy," are nevertheless completely forgotten, while, if he be remembered at all, it is by the plate of "The Long Minuet," and the vulgar "Directions to Bad Horsemen." With the first years of the century, however, appears the great master of modern humorists, whose long life ended only a few years since, "the veteran George Cruikshank"--as his admirers were wont to style him. He indeed may justly be compared to Hogarth, since, in tragic power and intensity he occasionally comes nearer to him than any artist of our time. It is manifestly impossible to mention here all
Not a few of the artists named in the preceding paragraph have also earned distinction in separate branches of the pictorial art, and specially in that of humorous design,--a department which has always been so richly recruited in this country that it deserves more than a passing mention. From the days of Hogarth onwards there has been an almost unbroken series of humorous draughtsmen, who, both on wood and metal, play a distinguished part in our illustrated literature. Rowlandson, one of the earliest, was a caricaturist of inexhaustible facility, and an artist who scarcely did justice to his own powers. He illustrated several books, but he is chiefly remembered in this way by his plates to Combe's "Three Tours of Dr. Syntax." Gillray, his contemporary, whose bias was political rather than social, is said to have illustrated "The Deserted Village" in his youth; but he is not famous as a book-illustrator. Another of the early men was Bunbury, whom "quality"-loving Mr. Walpole calls "the second Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original (!);" but whose prints to "Tristram Shandy," are nevertheless completely forgotten, while, if he be remembered at all, it is by the plate of "The Long Minuet," and the vulgar "Directions to Bad Horsemen." With the first years of the century, however, appears the great master of modern humorists, whose long life ended only a few years since, "the veteran George Cruikshank"--as his admirers were wont to style him. He indeed may justly be compared to Hogarth, since, in tragic power and intensity he occasionally comes nearer to him than any artist of our time. It is manifestly impossible to mention here all