Part 6

Mr. Townsend has illustrated Hawthorne and Peacock, as well as Charlotte Brontë and Scott. Hawthorne's men and women--embodiments always of some essential quality, rather than of the combination of qualities that make 'character'--lend themselves to fine illustration as regards gesture, and Mr. Townsend's drawings represent, not insensitively, the movement and suggestion of 'The Blithedale Romance' and 'The House of the Seven Gables.' In the Peacock illustrations the artist had to keep pace with an essentially un-English humour, an imagination full of shapes that are opinions and theories and sarcasms masquerading under fantastic human semblances. Mr. Townsend kept to humanity, and found occasions for representing the eccentrics engaged in cheerful open-air and society pursuits in the pauses of paradoxical discussion. One realizes in the drawings the pleasant aspect of life at Gryll Grange and at Crotchet Castle, the courtesies and amusements out of doors and within, while the subjects of 'Maid Marian,' of 'The Misfortunes of Elphin' and of 'Rhododaphne' declare themselves in excellent terms of romance and adventure. Mr. Townsend has humour, and he is in sympathy with the vigorous spirit in life; whether the vigour is intellectual as in Jane Eyre and in Shirley Keeldar, or muscular as in 'Rob Roy,' in drawings to a manual of fencing, and in Marryat's 'The King's Own,' or eccentric as in the fantasies of Peacock. His work is never languid and never formal; and if in technique he is sometimes experimental, and frequently content with ineffectual accessories to his figures, his conception of the situation, and of the characters that fulfil the situation, is direct and effective enough.

As an illustrator of current fiction, Mr. Townsend has also a considerable amount of dexterous work to his name, but a record of drawings contributed to the illustrated journals cannot even be attempted within present limits of space.

Mr. Shepperson in his book-illustrations generally represents affairs with picturesqueness, and with a nervous energy that takes the least mechanical way of expressing forms and substances. Illustrating the modern novel of adventure, he is happy in his intrigues and conspiracies, while in books of more weight, such as 'The Heart of Midlothian' or 'Lavengro,' he expresses graver issues of life with un-elaborate and suggestive effect. The energy of his line, the dramatic quality of his imagination, render him in his element as an illustrator of events, but the vigour that projects itself into subjects such as the murder of Sir George Staunton, or the fight with the Flaming Tinman, or the alarms and stratagems of Mr. Stanley Weyman, informs also his representation of moments when there is no action. Technically Mr. Shepperson represents very little that is traditional in English black and white, though the tradition seems likely to be there for future generations of English illustrators.

In a recent work, illustrations to Leigh Hunt's 'Old Court Suburb,' Mr. Shepperson collaborates with Mr. E. J. Sullivan and Mr. Herbert Railton, to realize the associations, literary, historical and gossiping, that have Kensington Palace and Holland House as their principal centres. On the whole, of the three artists, the subject seems least suggestive to Mr. Shepperson. Mr. Sullivan contributes many portraits, and some subject drawings that show him in his lightest and most dexterous vein. These drawings of _beaux_ and _belles_ are as distinct in their happy flattery of fact from the rigid assertion of the artist's 'Fair Women,' as they are from the undelightful reporting style that in the beginning injured Mr. Sullivan's illustrations. One may describe it as the 'Daily Graphic' style, though that is to recognize only the basis of convenience on which the training of the 'Daily Graphic' school was necessarily founded. Mr. Sullivan's early work, the news-illustration and illustrations to current fiction of Mr. Reginald Cleaver and of his brother Mr. Ralph Cleaver, the black and white of Mr. A. S. Boyd and of Mr. Crowther, show this journalistic training, and show, too, that such a training in reporting facts directly is no hindrance to the later achievement of an individual way of art. Mr. A. S. Hartrick must also be mentioned as an artist whose distinctive black and white developed from the basis of pictorial reporting, and how distinctive and well-observed that art is, readers of the 'Pall Mall Magazine' know. As a book-illustrator, however, his landscape drawings to Borrow's 'Wild Wales' represent another art than that of the character-illustrator. Nor can one pass over the drawings of Mr. Maurice Greiffenhagen, also a contributor to the 'Pall Mall Magazine,' if better known in illustrations to fiction in 'The Ladies' Pictorial,' though in an article on book-illustration he has nothing like his right place. As an admirable and original technician and draughtsman of society, swift in sight, excellent in expression, he ranks high among black-and-white artists, while as a painter, his reputation, if based on different qualities, is not doubtful.

Mr. Sullivan's drawings to 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' (1896) are mechanical and mostly without charm of handling, having an appearance of timidity that is inexplicable when one thinks of the vigorous news-drawings that preceded them. The wiry line of the drawings appears in the 'Compleat Angler,' and in other books, including 'The Rivals' and 'The School for Scandal,' 'Lavengro' and 'Newton Forster,' illustrated by the artist in '96 and '97; but the decorative purpose of Mr. Sullivan's later work is, in all these books, effective in modifying its perversity. Increasing elaboration of manner within the limits of that purpose marks the transition between the starved reality of 'Tom Brown' and the illustrations to 'Sartor Resartus' (1898). These emphatic decorations, and those illustrative of Tennyson's 'Dream of Fair Women and other Poems,' published two years later, are the drawings most representative of Mr. Sullivan's intellectual ideals. They show him, if somewhat indifferent to charm, and capable of out-facing beauty suggested in the words with statements of the extreme definiteness of his own fact-conception, yet strongly appreciative of the substance and purpose of the text. Carlyle gives him brave opportunities, and the dogmatism of the artist's line and form, his speculative humour, working down to a definite certainty in things, make these drawings unusually interesting. Tennyson's 'Dream,' and his poems to women's names, are not so fit for the exercise of Mr. Sullivan's talent. He imposes himself with too much force on the forms that the poet suggests. There is no delicacy about the drawings and no mystery. They do not accord with the inspiration of Tennyson, an inspiration that substitutes the exquisite realities of memory and of dream for the realities of experience. Mr. Sullivan's share of the illustrations to White's 'Selborne' and to the 'Garden Calendar,' are technically more akin to the Carlyle and Tennyson drawings than to other examples by him. In these volumes he makes fortunate use of the basis of exactitude on which his work is founded, exactitude that includes portraiture among the functions of the illustrator. No portrait is extant of Gilbert White, but the presentment of him is undertaken in a constructive spirit, and, as in 'The Compleat Angler' and 'The Old Court Suburb,' portraits of those whose names and personalities are connected with the books are redrawn by Mr. Sullivan.

Except Mr. Abbey, no character-illustrator of the modern school has so long a record of work, and so visible an influence on English contemporary illustration, as Mr. Hugh Thomson. In popularity he is foremost. The slight and apparently playful fashion of his art, deriving its intention from the irresistible gaieties of Caldecott, is a fashion to please both those who like pretty things and those who can appreciate the more serious qualities that are beneath. For Mr. Thomson is a student of literature. He pauses on his subject, and though his invention has always responded to the suggestions of the text, the lightness of his later work is the outcome of a selecting judgment that has learned what to omit by studying the details and facts of things. In rendering facial expression Mr. Thomson is perhaps too much the follower of Caldecott, but he goes much farther than his original master in realization of the forms and manners of bygone times. Some fashions of life, as they pass from use, are laid by in lavender. The fashions of the eighteenth century have been so laid by, and Mr. Abbey and Mr. Thomson are alike successful in giving a version of fact that has the farther charm of lavender-scented antiquity.

When 'Days with Sir Roger de Coverley,' illustrated by Hugh Thomson, was published in 1886, the young artist was already known by his drawings in the 'English Illustrated,' and recognized as a serious student of history and literature, and a delightful illustrator of the times he studied. His powers of realizing character, time, and place, were shown in this earliest work. Sir Roger is a dignified figure; Mr. Spectator, in the guise of Steele, has a semblance of observation; and if Will Wimble lacks his own unique quality, he is represented as properly engaged about his 'gentleman-like manufactures and obliging little humours.' Mr. Thomson can draw animals, if not with the possessive understanding of Caldecott, yet with truth to the kind, knowledge of movement. The country-side around Sir Roger's house--as, in a later book, that where the vicarage of Wakefield stands--is often delightfully drawn, while the leisurely and courteous spirit of the essays is represented, with an appreciation of its beauty. 'Coaching Days and Coaching Ways' (1888) is a picturesque book, where types and bustling action picturesquely treated were the subjects of the artist. The peopling of high-road and county studies with lively figures is one of Mr. Thomson's successful achievements, as he has shown in drawings of the cavalier exploits of west-country history, illustrative of 'Highways and Byways of Devon and Cornwall,' and in episodes of romance and warfare and humour in similar volumes on Donegal, North Wales, and Yorkshire. Here the presentment of types and action, rather than of character, is the aim, but in the drawings to 'Cranford' (1891), to 'Our Village,' and to Jane Austen's novels, behaviour rather than action, the gentilities and proprieties of life and millinery, have to be expressed as a part of the artistic sense of the books. That is, perhaps, why Jane Austen is so difficult to illustrate. The illustrator must be neither formal nor picturesque. He must understand the 'parlour' as a setting for delicate human comedy. Mr. Thomson is better in 'Cranford,' where he has the village as the background for the two old ladies, or in 'Our Village,' where the graceful pleasures of Miss Mitford's prose have suggested delightful figures to the illustrator's fancy, than in illustrating Miss Austen, whose disregard of local colouring robs the artist of background material such as interests him. Three books of verses by Mr. Austin Dobson, 'The Ballad of Beau Brocade' (1892), 'The Story of Rosina,' and 'Coridon's Song' of the following years, together with the illustrations to 'Peg Woffington,' show, in combination, the picturesque and the intellectual interests that Mr. Thomson finds in life. The eight pieces that form the first of these volumes were, indeed, chosen to be reprinted because of their congruity in time and sentiment with Mr. Thomson's art. And certainly he works in accord with the measure of Mr. Austin Dobson's verses. Both author and artist carry their eighteenth-century learning in as easy a way as though experience of life had given it them without any labour in libraries.

Mr. C. E. Brock and Mr. H. M. Brock are two artists who to some extent may be considered as followers of Mr. Thomson's methods, though Mr. C. E. Brock's work in 'Punch,' and humorous characterizations by Mr. H. M. Brock in 'Living London,' show how distinct from the elegant fancy of Mr. Thomson's art are the latest developments of their artistic individuality. Mr. C. E. Brock's illustrations to Hood's 'Humorous Poems' (1893) proved his indebtedness to Mr. Thomson, and his ability to carry out Caldecott-Thomson ideas with spirit and with invention. An active sense of fun, and facility in arranging and expressing his subject, made him an addition to the school he represented, and, as in later work, his own qualities and the qualities he has adopted combined to produce spirited and graceful art. But in work preceding the pen-drawing of 1893, and in many books illustrated since then, Mr. Brock at times has shown himself an illustrator to whom matter rather than a particular charm of manner seems of paramount interest. In the illustrated Gulliver of 1894 there is little trace of the daintiness and sprightliness of Caldecott's illustrative art. He gives many particulars, and is never at a loss for forms and details, representing with equal matter-of-factness the crowds, cities and fleets of Lilliput, the large details of Brobdingnagian existence, and the ceremonies and spectacles of Laputa. In books of more actual adventure, such as 'Robinson Crusoe' or 'Westward Ho,' or of quiet particularity, such as Galt's 'Annals of the Parish,' the same directness and unmannered expression are used, a directness which has more of the journalistic than of the playful-inventive quality. The Jane Austen drawings, those to 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' and to a recent edition of the 'Essays of Elia,' show the graceful eighteenth-centuryist, while, whether he reports or adorns, whether action or behaviour, adventure or sentiment, is his theme, Mr. Brock is always an illustrator who realizes opportunities in the text, and works from a ready and observant intelligence.

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.

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.