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Title: Suppressed Plates, Wood-engravings, &c. - Together with other Curiosities Germane Thereto
Author: Layard, George Somes
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Suppressed Plates, Wood-engravings, &c. - Together with other Curiosities Germane Thereto" ***
SUPPRESSED PLATES
AGENTS
AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
27 RICHMOND STREET WEST, TORONTO
INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY
309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA
[Illustration: The title-page of the unwritten “Death in London”]
SUPPRESSED PLATES WOOD ENGRAVINGS, &c.
TOGETHER WITH OTHER CURIOSITIES GERMANE THERETO
BEING
AN ACCOUNT OF CERTAIN MATTERS
PECULIARLY ALLURING TO
THE COLLECTOR
BY
GEORGE SOMES LAYARD
[Illustration: (colophon)]
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1907
_Published November 1907_
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO
MY TWO BOYS
JOHN AND PETER
WHO
I SINCERELY HOPE, WILL NOT HAVE SO MANY
_USELESS_ HOBBIES
AS
THEIR AFFECTIONATE
FATHER
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTORY . . . 1
2. “THE MARQUIS OF STEYNE” . . . 7
3. THE SUPPRESSED PORTRAIT OF DICKENS, “PICKWICK,” “THE BATTLE OF
LIFE,” AND “GRIMALDI” . . . 26
4. DICKENS CANCELLED PLATES: “OLIVER TWIST,” “MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT,”
“THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN,” “PICTURES FROM ITALY,” AND “SKETCHES BY BOZ”
. . . 43
5. ON SOME FURTHER SUPPRESSED PLATES, ETCHINGS, AND WOOD ENGRAVINGS BY
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK . . . 59
6. HOGARTH’S “ENTHUSIASM DELINEATED,” “THE MAN OF TASTE,” AND “DON
QUIXOTE” . . . 82
7. CANCELLED DESIGNS FOR “PUNCH” AND “ONCE A WEEK” BY CHARLES KEENE
AND FREDERICK SANDYS . . . 127
8. MISCELLANEOUS . . . 149
9. THE SUPPRESSED OMAR KHAYYAM ETCHING . . . 179
10. ADAPTED OR PALIMPSEST PLATES . . . 192
11. ADAPTED OR PALIMPSEST PLATES (_continued_) . . . 226
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Printed Separately_
The Title-page of the unwritten “Death in London” . . . _Frontispiece_
The Third Marquis of Hertford. (_From the engraving by W. Holl, of
the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence_) . . . _Between pages_ 20
_and_ 21
The Fourth Marquis of Hertford. (_From a photograph_)
. . . _Between pages_ 20 _and_ 21
The Third Marquis of Hertford when Lord Yarmouth. (_From the coloured
caricature by Richard Dighton_) . . . _Facing page_ 24
The suppressed portrait of Charles Dickens . . . _Facing page_ 28
The “Pickwick” suppressed plate: “The Cricket Match.” (_By R. W.
Buss_) . . . _Facing page_ 30
The “Pickwick” suppressed plate: “Tupman and Rachel.” (_By R. W.
Buss_) . . . _Between pages_ 32 _and_ 33
“Tupman and Rachel.” (_By H. K. Browne_) . . . _Between pages_ 32
_and_ 33
“The Last Song,” with the suppressed border (_By George Cruikshank_)
. . . _Facing page_ 40
The suppressed plate from “Oliver Twist” . . . _Facing page_ 48
1. “The Fireside Scene”
2. “The Fireside Scene,” as worked upon by Cruikshank
The suppressed plate from “Sketches by Boz” . . . _Facing page_ 56
“A Financial Survey of Cumberland or the Beggar’s Petition.” (_From
the only known uncoloured impression of the plate_) . . . _Between
pages_ 64 _and_ 65
“A Financial Survey of Cumberland or the Beggar’s Petition.” (_From
a coloured impression of the plate, with the figure of the valet
obliterated with lamp-black_) . . . _Between pages_ 64 _and_ 65
“Enthusiasm Delineated. (Humbly dedicated to his Grace the Arch Bishop
of Canterbury by his Graces most obedient humble Servant _Wm.
Hogarth_”) . . . _Between pages_ 88 _and_ 89
“Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism. A Medley” . . . _Between
pages_ 88 _and_ 89
Portrait of Hogarth with his Dog Trump . . . _Facing page_ 112
_The plate reversed and in its last state, now entitled_ “The Bruiser”
. . . _Facing page_ 112
The Cancelled Cartoon. (_By Charles Keene_) . . . _Facing page_ 128
The Cancelled “Social.” (_By Charles Keene_) . . . _Facing page_ 136
Suggestion by Joseph Crawhall for the Cancelled “Social” . . . _Facing
page_ 136
“The Painted Chamber.” (From _Antiquities of Westminster_, 1807)
. . . _Facing page_ 150
The suppressed portrait of “John Jorrocks, Esq., M.F.H., etc.” (_By
Henry Alken, the younger_) . . . _Facing page_ 160
The suppressed frontispiece for “Omar Khayyam.” (_By Edwin Edwards_)
. . . _Facing page_ 188
“L’Europe alarmée pour le Fils d’un Meunier.” (_The plate in its first
state_) . . . _Between pages_ 204 _and_ 205
_The plate in its second state, now entitled_ “La Cour de Paix
solitaire, entre les Roses piquantes et les Lis” . . . _Between
pages_ 204 _and_ 205
Queen Anne presiding over the House of Lords. (_The plate in its first
state_) . . . _Between pages_ 236 _and_ 237
_The plate in its second state, now representing_ George I. presiding
over the House of Lords . . . _Between pages_ 236 _and_ 237
“The Races of the Europeans, with their Keys.” (_The plate in its
first state_) . . . _Between pages_ 238 _and_ 239
“A Skit on Britain.” (_The plate in its second state_) . . . _Between
pages_ 238 _and_ 239
The Headless Horseman. (_The plate with the head burnished out_)
. . . _Facing page_ 240
The plate with Cromwell’s head . . . _Between pages_ 242 _and_ 243
The plate with Charles I.’s head . . . _Between pages_ 242 _and_ 243
Undescribed palimpsest plate. (_First state and second state_)
. . . _Facing page_ 244
Undescribed palimpsest plate. (_First state and second state_)
. . . _Facing page_ 246
_Printed in the Text_
1. The Suppressed Portrait of the Marquis of Steyne . . . 15
2. The Battle of Life. “Leech’s Grave Mistake” . . . 35
3. Rose Maylie and Oliver at Agnes’s Tomb. (_The substituted plate in
two states_) . . . 51
4. The Strange Gentleman . . . 55
5. “A Trifling Mistake”—Corrected— . . . 71
6. Philoprogenitiveness . . . 77
7. “Drop it!” . . . 79
8. Enlarged detail of Hogarth’s “Enthusiasm Delineated” . . . 85
9. The Chandelier in “Enthusiasm” . . . 95
The Chandelier in “Credulity” . . . 95
10. The Man of Taste . . . 105
11. Burlington Gate as it appeared prior to 1868 . . . 109
12. Don Quixote, No. 1.—The Innkeeper . . . 115
13. Don Quixote, No. 2.—The Funeral of Chrysostom . . . 117
14. Don Quixote, No. 3.—The Innkeeper’s Wife and Daughter . . . 119
15. Don Quixote, No. 4.—Don Quixote seizes the Barber’s Basin
. . . 120
16. Don Quixote, No. 5.—Don Quixote releases the Galley Slaves
. . . 122
17. Don Quixote, No. 6.—The First Interview . . . 123
18. Don Quixote, No. 7.—The Curate and the Barber . . . 125
19. Danaë in the Brazen Chamber . . . 143
20. Suppressed Illustration from _The Vicar of Wakefield_ . . . 172
21. Het beest van Babel, etc. (_The plate in its first state_)
. . . 218
22. Het beest van Babel, etc. (_The plate in its second state_)
. . . 219
23. Aan der Meester Tonge-Slyper. (_The plate in its first state_)
. . . 229
Aan der Meester Tonge-Slyper. (_As adapted by the Anti-Jesuits_)
. . . 229
24. The Stature of a Great Man, or the English Colossus . . . 234
25. The Stature of a Great Man, or the Scotch Colossus . . . 235
26. Aan den Experten Hollandschen Hoofd-Smith. (_The plate in its
first state_) . . . 245
27. Aan den Experten Hollandschen Hoofd-Smith. (_As adapted by the
Anti-Jesuits_) . . . 245
28. An adapted Copperplate. (_First state_) . . . 247
29. An adapted Copperplate. (_Second state_) . . . 247
30. A History of the New Plot. (_First state_) . . . 249
31. A History of the New Plot. (_Second state_) . . . 249
SUPPRESSED PLATES, ETC.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
No one who has the itch for book-collecting will deny that suppressed
book illustrations are, what the forbidden fruit was to our mother Eve,
irresistible. Whether such appetite represents the very proper ambition
to have at his elbow the earliest states of beautiful or interesting
books, of which the subsequently suppressed plate or wood engraving
is in general a sort of guarantee, or the less defensible desire to
possess what our neighbour does not, must be settled by the conscience
of each. The fact remains that such rarities are peculiarly alluring to
those whom Wotton calls “the lickerish chapmen of all such ware.” {2}
There are, of course, ridiculous[1] people who value such books as
the first issue of the first edition of Dickens’s _American Notes_
just because there is a mistake in the pagination; or a first edition
of Disraeli’s _Lothair_ because the prototype of “Monsignor Catesby”
is divulged by misprinting the name “Capel”; or _Poems_ by Robert
Burns, first Edinburgh Edition, because in the list of subscribers
“The Duke of Roxborough” appears as “The Duke of Boxborough”; or
Barker’s “Breeches” Bible of 1594, because on the title-page of the New
Testament the figures are transposed to 1495; or the first edition in
French of Washington Irving’s _Sketch Book_, because the translator,
maltreating the author’s name, has declared the book to be “traduit de
l’Anglais de M. Irwin Washington,” and in the dedication has labelled
Sir Walter Scott, _Barronnet_; or indeed a book of my own, in which I
described as “since dead” a gifted and genial gentleman who I am glad
to think still gives the lie to my inexcusable carelessness. {3}
[1] I am quite aware that “ridiculous” is a dangerous stone to throw,
when one lives in a glass house oneself.
But it is not _because_ of such errors that a true book-lover desires
to own _editiones principes_ of famous works. That ambition is
legitimate enough, but its legitimate reason is otherwhere to seek.
In the case of such a book as Rogers’s _Italy_, with the Turner
engravings, the matter is very different. Here the fact that the plates
on pp. 88 and 91 are transposed is a guarantee that the impressions of
the extraordinarily delicate engravings are of the utmost brilliancy,
for the error was discovered before many impressions had been taken.
The same applies, though in lesser degree, to such a book as Mr. Austin
Dobson’s _Ballad of Beau Brocade_, illustrated by Mr. Hugh Thomson, in
the earliest edition of which certain of the illustrations are also
misplaced.[2] There is reason in wishing to possess these. See what
Ruskin himself has said of the omission of the two engravings which
had appeared in the first edition of _The Two Paths_. He writes in the
preface to the 1878 reissue: {4}
[2] Compare also the early issues of the first edition of Ainsworth’s
_Tower of London_, in which the plates at pp. 28 and 45 vary from those
in the later issues.
“I own to a very enjoyable pride in making the first editions of my
books valuable to their possessors, who found out, before other people,
that these writings and drawings were good for something . . . and the
two lovely engravings by Messrs. Cuff and Armytage will, I hope, render
the old volume more or less classical among collectors.” From this we
gather that “the Professor” was of the right kidney.
It is hardly necessary to say that it is not my intention to make
this book a devil’s directory to illustrations which have been
suppressed because of indecency, and are referred to in the catalogues
of second-hand booksellers, whose cupidity is stronger than their
self-respect, as “facetiæ” or “very curious.” Indeed, this book
would itself in that case also very properly be put on the index
expurgatorius of every decent person. My purpose is to gather together,
correct and amplify the floating details concerning a legitimate class
of rarities, and to put the collector on his guard, where necessary,
against imposition.
By its very nature this treatise cannot be complete, but I have
included most of the {5} examples of any importance which, during many
years of bibliomania, have come under my observation. To these I have
added certain re-engraved or palimpsest plates, which are germane to
the subject.
As to these last I find amongst my papers a curious note from the
pen of R. H. Cromek, the engraver, who flourished at the end of the
eighteenth century.
“One of these vendors,” he writes (publishers of Family Bibles),
“lately called to consult me professionally about an engraving he
brought with him. It represented Mons. Buffon seated, contemplating
various groups of animals surrounding him. He merely wished, he said,
to be informed whether, by engaging my services to unclothe the
naturalist, and giving him a rather more resolute look, _the plate
could not, at a trifling expense, be made to do duty for ‘Daniel in the
lions’ den’_”!
That would be a palimpsest well worth possessing, if ever it were
carried into effect. It would be as fascinating an object of
contemplation as the Stothard designs for _Clarissa Harlowe_, {6}
which the same authority informs us were later used to illustrate the
Scriptures! But the history of the _cliché_, pure and simple, has yet
to be written. Our concern is with higher game than that.
{7}
CHAPTER II
“THE MARQUIS OF STEYNE”
Perhaps the most celebrated of suppressed book illustrations is the
wood-engraved portrait of the “Marquis of Steyne,” drawn by Thackeray
as an illustration to _Vanity Fair_, for which, if we are to believe
the statement of a well-known bookseller’s catalogue, “libellous
proceedings (_sic_) were threatened on account of its striking likeness
to a member of the aristocracy.” With the accuracy of this statement I
shall deal in due course.
Before, however, proceeding to the consideration of the suppressed
illustration itself, it will be as well to pause for a moment to
consider what antecedent probability there was that Thackeray would
pillory a well-known _roué_ of the period in terms that would make
the likeness undoubted and undeniable. And in pointing out what the
great {8} novelist’s practice was in this respect I would guard
myself against the charge of presuming to censure one who is not
here to answer for himself, and whose nobility of character was
sufficient guarantee of good faith and honourable intention. Let it
always be remembered that, if Thackeray flagellated others, he never
hesitated to taste the quality of his own whip first. Even in his book
illustrations, as I have pointed out elsewhere, he was as unsparing
of his own feelings as he was in his writings. And, in using himself
as a whipping-boy for our sins, he probably believed that he was
making himself as despicable as a Rousseau. Hence he came to the like
treatment of other real personages not with unclean hands.
Some of us may have seen, though very few of us can possess, a very
rare pamphlet, which was sold for as much as £39 on one of its
infrequent appearances in the auction-rooms, entitled _Mr. Thackeray,
Mr. Yates, and the Garrick Club_. In it was published a never-sent
reply to a letter written by Thackeray remonstrating with Yates on
the contents of a “pen-and-ink” sketch published by the latter in No.
6 of a periodical called _Town {9} Talk_, which resulted in Yates’s
expulsion from the Garrick Club.
In this unsent letter he charged Thackeray with having unjustifiably
introduced portraits both in his letterpress and illustrations. Mr.
Stephen Price appeared as Captain Shindy in the _Book of Snobs_. In
the same book Thackeray drew on a wood block what was practically a
portrait of Wyndham Smith, a fellow-clubman. This appeared amongst
“Sporting Snobs,” Mr. Smith being a well-known sporting man. In
_Pendennis_ he made a sketch of a former member of the Garrick Club,
Captain Granby Calcraft, under the name of Captain Granby Tiptoff. In
the same book, under the transparent guise of the unforgettable Foker,
he reproduced every characteristic, both in language, manner, and
gesture, of Mr. Andrew Arcedeckne, and even went so far as to give an
unmistakable portrait of him, to that gentleman’s great annoyance.
Besides the examples given by Yates, who was himself recognisable
as George Garbage in _The Virginians_, we know, too, that in the
same novel Theodore Hook appeared as Wagg, just as he did {10} as
Stanislaus Hoax in Disraeli’s _Vivian Grey_, and that Alfred Bunn
was the prototype of Mr. Dolphin. Archdeacon Allen was the original
of Dobbin, Lady Langford of Lady Kew; and last, but not least, we
have lately learned from Mrs. Ritchie that the inimitable Becky had
undoubtedly her incarnation.
So we see that the antecedent improbability is as the snakes in
Iceland; for the above examples, which no doubt could be largely added
to, prove that Thackeray did not hesitate to draw direct from the model
when it suited his purpose.
So far so good. Let us now proceed to inquire into the identity of the
“Marquis of Steyne.”
That his prototype was _a_ Marquis of Hertford is axiomatic with all
those who have ever taken any interest in the subject; but when we come
to inquire which marquis we find that opinions are astonishingly at
variance. It would seem almost as though any Marquis of Hertford would
serve, whereas in point of fact the portrait would be the grossest
libel upon each of that noble line save one; and so incidentally we
shall, by making the matter clear, rescue from calumny an honourable
{11} race, which has hitherto through heedlessness been tarred with
the same brush as its least honourable representative.
To show that this is not a reckless charge of inaccuracy, I quote from
four letters in my possession written by four persons most likely to
have special knowledge upon the subject.
The first, which is from a well-known printseller, informs me “that
the Marquis of Steyne in _Vanity Fair_ was Francis, second Marquis of
Hertford, who died in 1822.”
The second, which is from one more intimately acquainted with the
family than any other living person, says, “Unquestionably Francis,
third Marquis of Hertford, the intimate friend of George IV., was the
prototype of the Marquis of Steyne in Thackeray’s _Vanity Fair_.”
The third letter, which is from a well-known London editor, in general
the best-informed man I have ever met, says, “It was the fourth Lord,
who died in 1870.”
The last of the four letters supports this view and says: “It was the
fourth, not the third, Marquis of Hertford who was supposed to be the
prototype {12} of Thackeray’s Marquis of Steyne. . . . He was Richard
Seymour Conway, who was born in 1800 and died in 1870.”[3]
Now, considering that these are the only opinions for which I have
asked, and that they are so curiously divergent, it will, I think, be
clear that it is time an authoritative declaration were forthcoming,
based upon independent inquiries.
It may as well, then, be stated once for all that no one who has taken
the trouble to investigate the lives of the three marquises above
mentioned can hesitate for a moment in identifying the “Marquis of
Steyne” with the third Marquis of Hertford. To those who are curious
to know very full particulars about these noblemen I would recommend
the perusal of an interesting article entitled “Two Marquises” in
_Lippincott’s Magazine_ for February 1874. Nor should they fail to read
Disraeli’s _Coningsby_, and compare “Lord Monmouth” and his creature
“Rigby,” whose prototypes were the same Marquis of Hertford and _his_
creature Croker, with the {13} “Marquis of Steyne” and _his_ managing
man
[3] As I write, a great daily newspaper informs the world that it was
the _first_ Marquis. “
Wenham.”
And, whilst we are identifying the third Marquis in _Coningsby_ and
_Vanity Fair_, reference may be made to another most unflattering
portrait of that notorious nobleman in a book published anonymously in
1844, which was _immediately_ suppressed, but is now not infrequently
to be found in second-hand book catalogues. The book was (I believe)
written by John Mills, and had ten clever etched plates by George
Standfast (probably a _nom de plume_). Copies in the parts as
published are excessively rare. The title of the book is _D’Horsay;
or the Follies of the Day, by a Man of Fashion_.[4] It dealt with the
escapades, vices, and adventures of well-known men of the day under
the following transparent pseudonyms: Count d’Horsay, the Marquis of
Hereford, the Earl of Chesterlane, Mr. Pelham, General Reel, Lord
George Bentick, Mr. George Robbins, auctioneer, the Earl of Raspberry
Hill, Benjamin D——i, Lord Hunting-Castle, and others. The {14}
account of the “closing scene in the life of the greatest debauchee
the world has ever seen, the Marquis of Hereford,” is too horrible to
repeat.
[4] This scurrilous and poorly written book has lately been thought
worthy of resurrection and republication.
So much for the identity of the “Marquis of Steyne” as described in
Thackeray’s letterpress, which need not be dwelt upon here at greater
length, seeing that the immediate object of this chapter is to deal
with the accompanying engraving and its history. And in proceeding
to this examination it should not be forgotten, in fairness to the
novelist, that Thackeray has explained that his characters were made up
of little bits of various persons. This is no doubt true enough. At the
same time, we cannot but be aware that, although the details may have
been gathered, the outline has been drawn direct from the life.
[Illustration: The Suppressed Portrait of the Marquis of Steyne]
_Vanity Fair_ was issued originally in monthly parts. Its first title
was _Vanity Fair: Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society_. Its
first number was dated “January 1847,” and had “illustrations on steel
and wood by the Author.” On p. 336 of the _earliest issue_ of this
first edition appeared the wood engraving of the Marquis of Steyne,
wanting which a first edition is, to the {15} bibliomaniac, _Hamlet_
with Hamlet left out. In the later issues, the engraving (which I
here reproduce) was omitted, as also was the “rustic type” in which
the title appeared on the first page.[5] The publishers were Messrs.
Bradbury and Evans, {16} as was natural, Thackeray being at this time
on the staff of _Punch_. In later editions of the novel, published by
Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., the engraving reappears—viz. on p. 22
of vol. ii. in the standard edition, and on p. 158, vol. ii., of the
twenty-six-volume edition.[6]
[5] To the rabid bibliophile I here present another variation, which
has hitherto escaped the bookseller. In the first edition, on p. 453,
will be found the misprint “Mr.” (for “Sir”) Pitt and Lady Jane Crawley.
[6] It does not appear amongst the illustrations to the biographical
edition, which are restricted to the full-page plates.
What was the reason for its sudden removal immediately after
publication? As I have said above, it is commonly stated to have been
in consequence of a threatened action for libel, of course on account
of the undoubted likeness of the “Marquis of Steyne” to the third
Marquis of Hertford. But how does this tally with facts? Lord Hertford
had died in 1842, whilst the first number of _Vanity Fair_ did not
appear until 1847. Now every lawyer knows that you cannot libel a dead
man. This was made clear some few years ago (I think) in the case
of the Duke of Vallombrosa against a well-known English journalist.
Therefore it is quite certain that, although legal proceedings might
have been threatened, they would certainly have collapsed. {17}
Further than that, those who knew the fourth Marquis are aware that
he was the last man in the world to embark upon a lawsuit or court
publicity in any way. And if any doubt upon the matter should still
remain, I am able to state positively that no trace is to be discovered
amongst the Hertford family papers of any action threatened or brought
against Thackeray on any grounds whatsoever. I think, then, that we may
dismiss once for all this aspect of the case.
At the same time it is not impossible that some hint may have reached
the novelist’s ears that the illustration gave pain to persons then
living, and that he promptly had it removed. But against this view
there is a very strong presumption. If we turn the leaves of our
original issue of _Vanity Fair_, we shall, on p. 421, find another
wood engraving, and opposite p. 458 a full-page steel engraving, “The
Triumph of Clytemnestra,” both containing portraits of “The Marquis
of Steyne.” Now, considering that that nobleman’s august features are
as recognisable in these as in the suppressed engraving, it seems
unreasonable to suppose that the one would have been removed {18}
without the others, in consequence of family representations.
Possibly the real truth of the matter is a very much simpler one. It
may have been either that Thackeray was himself disgusted with the
brutal frankness of the picture when he saw it printed, and insisted
on its removal, or that the block met with some accident. Indeed, I
am inclined to think, judging from my memory of the subject, that the
idea of an action for libel is one that has only found expression in
more modern booksellers’ catalogues. If I am not mistaken, the older
booksellers used to speak of the engraving not as “suppressed,” but as
“extremely rare,” and that it was supposed to have disappeared from
later issues because it was broken before many impressions were taken.
Of course, a threatened action for libel, on account of its striking
likeness to a member of the aristocracy, added piquancy to the affair,
and so redounded to the benefit of the vendor of the earliest issue of
a first edition; and the identification of Lord Steyne’s prototype, in
the letterpress, gave colour to the idea. Once set going, we may be
certain that {19} the legend would not be allowed to lapse for lack of
advertisement. To adapt what Dr. Johnson said of the “Countess,” “Sir,”
said he to Boswell, “in the case of a (marquis) the imagination is more
excited.”
The accompanying portraits of the third and fourth Marquises of
Hertford give the reader an opportunity of forming his own opinion in
the matter of identity. That of the third Marquis is from the engraving
by William Holl of the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and certainly
seems to suggest, in the prime of life, the features and expression
which Thackeray has portrayed in old age. The bald head, and the
arrangement of the whiskers—which are allowed to approach the corners
of the mouth—are incontestable points of resemblance; and if the old
voluptuary is somewhat more battered than Lawrence’s rather spruce
model, we must remember that his portrait was painted by the courtly
President of the Royal Academy many years before the period of life at
which he is introduced to us by the novelist. Certainly he is not an
attractive object; and I was amused to receive a letter from a member
of the family to whom I first showed the wood {20} engraving in which
these words occur: “I find we have no portrait whatever of the Lord
Hertford in question, and am not surprised at it if he at all resembled
that of the Marquis in _Vanity Fair_!”[7]
As regards the fourth Marquis, it is a curious fact that,
notwithstanding his vast wealth, and his tastes as an artist and
connoisseur, no painted or engraved portrait of him is known. The
photograph here reproduced is the only counterfeit presentment extant,
and is enough, if further evidence were needed, to dispose for ever
of the idea that he was the prototype of the Marquis of Steyne. It is
hardly necessary to remind the reader that it is to him, through Sir
Richard and Lady Wallace, that the nation owes a debt of gratitude for
the splendid collection now housed in perpetuity in Hertford House.[8]
[7] This is the description of the Marquis in _Coningsby_: “Lord
Monmouth was in height above the middle size, but somewhat portly
and corpulent; his countenance was strongly marked: sagacity on the
brow, sensuality in the mouth and jaw; his head was bald, but there
were remains of the rich brown hair on which he once prided himself.
His large, deep blue eye, madid, and yet piercing, showed that the
secretions of his brain were apportioned half to voluptuousness,
half to common sense.” This might well pass as a description of the
Thackeray drawing.
[8] Just before Lady Wallace’s death, an examination of the Hertford
House library failed to discover a first edition of _Vanity Fair_, in
which I fancied some note might possibly have been found. This was
probably due to the fact that a large number of the Hertford books were
destroyed in the Pantechnicon fire.
[Illustration: The Third Marquis of Hertford. (_From the engraving by
W. Holl, of the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence_)]
[Illustration: The Fourth Marquis of Hertford. (_From a photograph_)]
{21}
It will be noticed that in this photograph Lord Hertford wears his Star
of the Order of the Garter, to obtain which he made the “tremendous
sacrifice” of which an amusing account is given in the _Lippincott_
article mentioned above. Of him the _Speaker_ wrote at the time of his
death:
Living in Paris a quiet and rather solitary life—in habits
more a Frenchman than an Englishman; in tastes an artist and a
connoisseur; in purse and opportunity unlimited by any niggard need
of self-control—the fourth Marquis of Hertford busied himself in
gathering together from the treasure-houses of Europe innumerable
precious specimens of the painter’s, the goldsmith’s, and the
cabinetmaker’s art. Year after year, with tranquil perseverance, he
heaped up on every side of him all the beautiful objects on which
he could lay hands—pictures, miniatures, furniture, enamels, china
and plate, bronzes, and coats of armour—until his storehouses were
full to overflowing of treasures which, except for the pleasure of
procuring them, he could hardly ever have enjoyed. In this congenial
task he was assisted by a young Englishman, the secret of whose
connection with the Hertford family, if any such there was, the public
has never penetrated yet. To this young Englishman, who was well
known and liked in Parisian society in the tawdry splendour of the
Second Empire, and whose active generosity {22} won him wide esteem
in that desolated capital amid the terrible events of the winter of
1870–71, Lord Hertford bequeathed the wonderful possessions which
he had accumulated in a lifetime of discriminating labour. When the
Franco-German War and the Commune were over, Richard Wallace brought
his spoils safely home, and exhibited them for a time at the Bethnal
Green Museum while he built the great galleries to hold them in
Manchester Square. But even here they were not destined to bring much
happiness to their possessor. After a short time Sir Richard Wallace
was left heirless—like Lord Hertford—by a cruel stroke of fate; and
now, by his widow’s gift, the splendid inheritance, which has passed
so quickly from the keeping of the hands that laid it up, goes to
enrich a public which will not be ungrateful for the donor’s rare
munificence, or unmindful of the sad and curious story it recalls.[9]
[9] A footnote on p. 229, vol. iv. of G. E. C.’s _Complete Peerage_
says: “[The fourth Marquis] is said never to have been in England.
He left his Irish estates (worth £50,000 a year) and most of his
personalty (which included the well-known Hertford collection of
pictures) to Sir Richard Wallace, Bart. (so _cr._ 1866), who is
supposed to have been an illegit. son, either of himself (when aged
18), or of his father, or even (not improbably) of his mother; which
Richard (_b._ in London, 26th July 1818) _d._ s.p. at Paris, 20th
July 1890, in his 72nd year, and was _bur._ in the family vault at
Père-la-Chaise. Sir Richard’s ‘art treasures’ (derived as above stated)
were valued at his death in 1890 at above two millions.”
To return again to the suppressed wood engraving itself, it is curious
to notice that old “Lady Kew” of _The Newcomes_ was sister to Lord
Steyne. Now the name “Kew” at once suggests {23} to those conversant
with the early doings of the century the nickname of the notorious
Duke of Queensberry, known to all and sundry as “Old Q,” and sets
us considering why the name should suggest itself to Thackeray in
connection with Lord Hertford. And what do we find?
When the third Marquis was but twenty-one, he married a young lady
named Marie Fagniani. She was believed to be the daughter of the Duke
of Queensberry and an opera dancer of that name. Nothing would be more
natural, therefore, than that Thackeray, having saturated himself with
the surroundings of the prototypes of his characters, should, probably
half unconsciously, have seized upon a capital name suggested to him
in the course of preparing for his novel, and so adapted it to his
requirements. This suggestion I only make for what it is worth. It
may, of course, merely be that a search through the suburban directory
suggested the name, as was no doubt the case in apportioning to her
ladyship’s husband his second title of Lord Walham. At any rate, the
coincidence seems worth recording.
In conclusion, there can be no possible doubt {24} that so far as
Thackeray’s letterpress is concerned, the prototype of the Marquis
of Steyne (Lord of the Powder Closet, etc. etc.) was Francis Charles
Seymour Conway (third Marquis of Hertford) of his branch; Earl of
Hertford and Yarmouth, Viscount Beauchamp, Baron Conway, and Baron of
Ragley in England; and Baron Conway and Kilultagh in the peerage of
Ireland; and as regards the suppressed wood engraving, there will, I
think, be little question that Thackeray the artist dotted his i’s
by an intentional representation of the noble lord’s not altogether
attractive features.
[Illustration: The Third Marquis of Hertford when Lord Yarmouth. (_From
the coloured caricature by Richard Dighton_)]
It is, however, only fair to state that Lord Hertford was probably
by no means the unmitigated scoundrel that those familiar with the
“Marquis of Steyne” might be led to suppose. That he participated in
all the amusements and most of the follies of a notorious society there
can be little doubt. At the same time, we have it on record (in the
somewhat pompous diction of the period) that he was extensively read in
ancient and modern literature, that his judgment was remarkable for its
solidity and sagacity, and that his {25} conversation was enlivened
by much of that refined and quaint pleasantry which distinguished his
near relative, Horace Walpole. He was a distinguished patron of all the
arts; and those who were more intimately acquainted with his private
life gave him the still higher praise of being a warm, generous, and
unalterable friend. “It is but justice to add,” to quote the final
words of the notice referred to, “that the writer has accidentally
become acquainted with instances of his Lordship’s benevolence, the
liberality of which was equalled only by the delicacy with which it was
conferred, and the scrupulous care with which he endeavoured to conceal
it.”
The caricature portrait of the third Marquis here reproduced was
etched, as will be seen, by Richard Dighton in 1818, when this
Marquis’s father was alive, and he was only the Earl of Yarmouth. The
watermark on the paper is 1826, which explains the inscription “Marquis
of Hertford,” evidently a later addition—an _ex post facto_ puzzle
which proved insoluble until it occurred to me to hold the portrait up
to the light.
{26}
CHAPTER III
THE SUPPRESSED PORTRAIT OF DICKENS, “PICKWICK,” “THE BATTLE OF LIFE,”
AND GRIMALDI
Having dealt in the last chapter with the suppression of the well-known
Thackeray wood-cut of the “Marquis of Steyne,” we naturally turn next
in order to the other great Victorian novelist, Charles Dickens. Much,
of course, has been written about the Buss plates in _Pickwick_,
and much about the “Fireside Scene” in _Oliver Twist_. All readers
of Forster’s _Life of Charles Dickens_ know something of the wood
engraving in _The Battle of Life_ which ought to have been, but never
was, cancelled; and some know what to look for in the vignette title
of _Martin Chuzzlewit_. It is, however, time that the scattered
details should be grouped, that reproductions of the plates themselves
should make reference easy to those {27} who would identify their
possessions, and that the additional information which is in some cases
scattered about in various impermanent writings of my own and others
should be focussed for the greater convenience of the collector.
In the first place, I shall present to the reader a suppressed
portrait of the great novelist, which has, I believe, never since been
reproduced. It was published about the year 1837 by Churton, but as to
the name of the artist by whom it was etched there is a mystery which
yet awaits solution. The plate is, as will be noticed, signed with the
familiar pen-name “Phiz,” but was almost immediately repudiated by the
chartered bearer of that title, H. K. Browne. It was promptly withdrawn
from publication, and is now, as a necessary consequence, much sought
after by the collector.[10] Of it the author of _Charles Dickens, the
Story of his Life_, writes:
A very remarkable [portrait] was etched about 1837 with the name
“Phiz” at the foot. It represents Dickens {28} seated on a chair and
holding a portfolio. In the background a Punch-and-Judy performance
is going on. The face has none of that delicacy and softness about
it which are observable in the Maclise portrait. It looks, however,
more like the real young face of the older man, as revealed in the
photograph now publishing [_i.e._ just after Dickens’s death]. This
portrait is very rare, and it is understood that it was withdrawn from
publication soon after it appeared. Mr. Hablot K. Browne, the genuine
“Phiz,” denies all knowledge of it.
[10] Since writing this, I have experienced a piece of scurvy luck.
Entering a shop in the outskirts of Birmingham, I saw an impression of
the etching lying on a table. I inquired its price and was met by the
answer that it had just been sold to a lady for eighteenpence!
The Hotten memoir thus whets the appetites of its readers, but does
not offer to satisfy them by a reproduction. This obvious duty I
therefore here take the opportunity of discharging, and would advise
the book-hunter to make a mental note of the etching in that pix of
the brain where is secreted the reagent which separates the rare gold
of the bookseller’s threepenny box from its too ordinary dross. The
reproduction here given is about the size of the original etching.
So much for the suppressed portrait. Now let us take up our first
edition of _Pickwick_, and say what has to be said about the
much-discussed Buss plates and their substitutes.
[Illustration: The suppressed portrait of Charles Dickens]
_Pickwick_, as we all know, was first published in parts, and only
one number had appeared when {29} Robert Seymour, its illustrator,
died by his own hand. Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the publishers, were
at their wits’ end to get the new number illustrated in time for
publication. Jackson, the well-known wood-engraver, who was at the
time working for them, proposed for the task R. W. Buss, a “gentleman
already well known to the public as a very humorous and talented
artist.” The publishers gladly adopted the suggestion, and the
appointment was made.
All this we find very fully set out in Mr. Percy Fitzgerald’s _History
of Pickwick_, to which I would refer the reader who is anxious to
acquaint himself with details of the transaction. The Buss etchings,
which we here reproduce, had for their subjects “The Cricket Match”
and “Tupman and Rachel,” and are to be found respectively opposite pp.
69 and 74 of the earliest issues of the first edition of the immortal
romance. They were, in the words of the artist himself, “abominably
bad,” and he was immediately superseded as illustrator by H. K. Browne,
who was destined to be inseparably connected with the novelist’s work
for so long a period. {30}
This episode has been so often dwelt upon, and so exhaustively dealt
with, that I shall not do much more than point out how those who have
written on the subject have altogether missed what is perhaps the most
important link in the whole chain of circumstances. So put to it, as I
have said, were the publishers to get the new number out in time lest
an expectant public should be disappointed, that they were forced to
fix upon Seymour’s substitute _without consulting Dickens_. This was
really the whole _crux_ of the situation. The author only recognised
the failure of the plates. He knew nothing of the difficulties under
which Buss had laboured, and so naturally made no allowances, and
knew of no reason why subsequent ones should be better. The plates
unquestionably were poor, but we find from Mr. Buss’s own private MS.,
to which, by his son’s kindness, I have had access, that this was not
by any means mainly the fault of the artist. He had previously had no
experience in etching, and only undertook the work after much pressure,
to accommodate the publishers. To quote from his own account: {31}
[Illustration: The “Pickwick” suppressed plate: “The Cricket Match.”
(_By R. W. Buss_)]
At Seymour’s death, Hall engaged me to illustrate Charles Dickens’s
_Pickwick_. I commenced practice, and worked hard, I may say day
and night, for at least a month on etching, and I furnished the
illustrations for _Pickwick_. Without any reason assigned, Hall broke
his engagement with me, in a manner at once unjust and unhandsome.
As a matter of fact, the plates, as they appeared, were not etched by
Buss at all, but by a professional etcher after his designs. And it is
curious to note that each of the plates is, notwithstanding, inscribed,
“Drawn & Etch’d by R. W. Buss.”
The artist’s bitterness against his employers was not unnatural. At the
same time, we must remember that the fact that they had on the spur
of the moment to decide upon an artist, without consulting Dickens,
puts the matter in a very different light. The fortunes of the venture
were at stake. The author, at all hazards, must be humoured. His will
was paramount, and when he insisted upon Buss’s supersession by H. K.
Browne, there was practically an end of the matter. Happily Buss’s
labour was not all lost, and it was with much pleasure that I seized
the opportunity offered me by the editor of the {32} _Magazine of
Art_ in June 1902, to point out in that publication how perverse has
been the fate which has made the name of an artist of no mean order
more familiar by his few failures than by his many successes. It is
not generally known that there are in existence two etched plates by
Buss showing that he contemplated a series of extra illustrations to
_Pickwick_. The one is a title-page with Mr. Pickwick being crowned;
the other is rather a poor rendering of “The Break-down.”
But to return to the plates themselves: only about seven hundred copies
were published when plates by Browne were substituted for them. “The
Cricket Match” was wholly suppressed, and the subject of “Tupman and
Rachel” was etched over again, considerably altered, but evidently
founded upon the Buss plate. The latter is here reproduced for the
purpose of comparison.
[Illustration: The “Pickwick” suppressed plate “Tupman and Rachel.”
(_By R. W. Buss_)]
[Illustration: “Tupman and Rachel.” (_By H. K. Browne_)]
That every Dickens collector desires to possess one of the seven
hundred copies of the first issue of the first edition which contain
the Buss plates, is a matter of course, and enough has been said to
make clear the reason of such desire. Should any of my readers fail to
sympathise, he must take {33} it as an incontrovertible sign that
he is immune from that most delightful of all diseases, bibliomania.
It need only be added that, in the beautiful “Victorian Edition” of the
novel, published in two volumes by Messrs. Chapman and Hall in 1887,
facsimiles may be seen of the original drawings made for the suppressed
plates, as well as two unpublished drawings prepared by Mr. Buss, but
not used. The subjects of these are “Mr. Pickwick at the Review,”
and “Mr. Wardle and his Friends under the Influence of the Salmon.”
The first is an excellent drawing, and goes far to prove that, had
Buss been given time, he would have no more failed as illustrator of
_Pickwick_ than he did as illustrator of various other most successful
publications. The same edition also contains facsimiles of an unused
drawing by “Phiz,” “Mr. Winkle’s First Shot,” and of a water-colour
drawing of “Tom Smart and the Chair,” sent in to the publishers by John
Leech as a specimen of his work. From which it will be seen that the
“Victorian Edition,” limited to two thousand copies, is also one which
every Dickens lover ought, if possible, to possess. {34}
The originals of the Buss drawings were in the possession of the
artist’s daughter, Miss Frances Mary Buss, the well-known founder of
the North London Collegiate and Camden Schools, until her death a few
years ago. They were then sold, and I have been unable to discover into
whose hands they have passed.
So much for the _Pickwick_ suppressed plates, which, if strict
chronology were to be observed, should naturally be followed by an
account of the “Rose Maylie and Oliver” plates in _Oliver Twist_.
These, however, we shall hold over for another chapter, as they will
have to be considered at some length. Meanwhile, we will deal shortly
with the curious wood engraving in _The Battle of Life_, and with
the etching of “The Last Song” in _The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi_.
The former is so far germane to our subject that it should have been
suppressed, but, out of consideration for the artist, was not.
[Illustration: The Battle of Life. “Leech’s grave mistake”]
Every Dickens collector desires to possess the complete set of the
“Christmas Books” in their dainty red cloth bindings, dated from
1843 to 1848. A really desirable set includes, of course, {36} the
_Christmas Carol_,[11] with coloured plates by Leech, with the
_green end-papers_ and “stave 1”; _The Chimes_, with the publishers’
names _within_ the engraved part of the title-page; and _The Battle
of Life_, with the publishers’ names on _both_ titles. But it is
only the last of these that is entitled to mention in a treatise on
cancelled illustrations, and that, as I have said, not because it _was_
suppressed, but because it should have been.
[11] It may be mentioned that there are two or three copies of the
_Christmas Carol_ known with the title-page and half-title printed in
green and red, instead of in red and blue. Much store is laid by this
variation amongst really moonstruck collectors.
By those who are familiar with the story it will be remembered that
an early part of the plot leads one to suppose that Marion Jeddler
had eloped with Michael Warden, when, as a matter of fact, she had
merely escaped to her aunt. Leech, who was engaged as illustrator,
was immensely busy, and only read so much of the story as seemed
necessary for his purpose. As a result he was deceived, as Dickens
intended his readers should be, and designed the double illustration
here reproduced, in which the festivities to welcome the bridegroom
at the top of the page {37} contrast with the flight of the bride
in company with Michael Warden represented below. Thus was Dickens
curiously “hoist with his own petard.” And the curious thing is that,
notwithstanding the publicity given to the mistake in Forster’s _Life
of Dickens_, this tragic woodcut, which wrongs poor Marion’s innocence
and makes a hash of the whole story, is reproduced in the reprints up
to this very day. The poor girl’s tragic figure remains, and seems
likely to continue to do so, a victim to the stereotype.
This episode is generally referred to as “Leech’s grave mistake,” and
grave undoubtedly it was; but the matter has its bright side, which
redounds to the credit of the great novelist. I take the liberty of
quoting from what has always seemed to me a very noble letter when we
remember that Dickens was of all men most sensitive to any shortcomings
in the work of his collaborators. He writes to Forster:
When I first saw it it was with a horror and agony not to be
expressed. Of course I need not tell _you_, my dear fellow, Warden
has no business in the elopement scene. _He_ was never there. In the
first hot sweat of this surprise and novelty I was going to implore
the printing of that sheet to {38} be stopped, and the figure taken
out of the block. But when I thought of the pain that this might give
to our kind-hearted Leech, and that what is such a monstrous enormity
to me, as never having entered my brain, may not so present itself to
others, I became more composed, though the fact is wonderful to me.
Of course, had it been in these days of hurried publication, Dickens
would hardly have given the matter a second thought. The average
illustrator of to-day is curiously superior to the requirements of his
author. He either does not read the episodes that he is called upon
to illustrate, or, if he reads them, he does not grasp their meaning,
or, if he grasps their meaning, the meaning does not meet with his
approval. At any rate, he constantly makes a hash of the whole thing.
Take for example _Penelope’s English Experiences_, by Miss Kate Wiggin,
now lying before me. Look at the illustration, opposite p. 58, of Lady
de Wolfe’s butler, who struck terror into Penelope’s soul because _he
did not wear a livery_, and try, if you can, to recognise him in the
shoulder-knotted, stripe-waistcoated, plush-breeched, silk-stockinged
menial with an “unapproachable haughtiness of demeanour,” which the
illustrator has portrayed. {39} Nor is this one of a few exceptional
cases: their number might be multiplied _ad infinitum_.
But to return to _The Battle of Life_. Curiously enough, there is
another little episode connected with this book, never, I believe,
noticed before, which accentuates our impression of the generosity of
Dickens’s character.
Three years after its publication a somewhat scurrilous little volume
(now excessively rare), bearing the allusive title _The Battle of
London Life; or Boz and his Secretary_, issued from the press. It was
illustrated by six lithographs signed with the name of George Augustus
Sala. It was a poor enough performance, but attracted attention by its
_ad captandum_ title, and the portrait of “Boz in his Study.” It is an
imaginary and far from complimentary account of Dickens’s employment
of a secretary, whose occupation it is to show him round the haunts
of vice in London, by way of providing “local colour” for the novels.
Eventually the secretary turns out to be a detective, who has been told
off by the Government to discover the nature of the novelist’s intimacy
with the revolutionist, Mazzini. It is a vulgar little {40} brochure,
and, for all its futility, must have been very distasteful to the idol
of the day. It was therefore the more magnanimous of Dickens to ignore
the part which Sala had in it, and to speak so generously of him as we
find him doing in the _Life_, besides employing him and pushing him, as
he did largely later on, in his periodicals. A smaller man would not
have allowed himself to forget such youthful indiscretions, for “memory
always obeys the commands of the heart.”
Judged as a work of art, _The Battle of Life_ is perhaps the least
successful of Dickens’s “Christmas Books.” Edward FitzGerald’s opinion
of it was shown in an autograph letter which came into the market only
the other day. “What a wretched affair is _The Battle of Life_!” he
writes; “it scarce even has the few good touches that generally redeem
Dickens.”
[Illustration: “The Last Song” with the suppressed border. (_By George
Cruikshank_)]
Whilst we are on the subject of an illustration which should have been
suppressed but was not, it should be pointed out that this was not the
only occasion upon which Leech misunderstood Dickens’s purport. This
we learn from Mr. F. G. Kitton’s monumental work, _Dickens and {41}
his Illustrators_. Here he tells us that in another Christmas book,
_The Chimes_, Leech delineated, in place of Richard as described in
the text, an extremely ragged and dissipated-looking character, with a
battered hat upon his head. When the novelist saw it the drawing had
already been engraved, but the woodcut was promptly suppressed; there
still exists, however, an impression of the cancelled engraving, which
is bound up with what is evidently a unique copy of _The Chimes_ (now
the property of Mr. J. P. Dexter), where blank spaces are left for
some of the woodcuts. This particular copy is probably the publishers’
“make-up,” which had accidentally left their hands.
Let us now consider for a moment a very remarkable etching which was,
so far only as regards an important portion of it, cancelled in all
but the very first issue of _The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi_. These
were published in two volumes in 1838. Besides writing the preface,
Dickens was only responsible for the editing of Mr. Egerton Wilks’s
manuscript, which had been prepared from autobiographical notes. A good
deal of fault was found with the work, particularly {42} on the ground
that Dickens himself could never have seen Grimaldi. To this he very
pertinently replied, “I don’t believe that Lord Braybrooke had more
than the very slightest acquaintance with Mr. Pepys, whose memoirs he
edited two centuries after he died!”[12]
The volumes are now most valued for the twelve etchings by George
Cruikshank; but the important thing from the bibliolater’s point of
view is to possess the earliest issue with “The Last Song” _surrounded
by a grotesque border_. This border, which is here produced, was
removed from the plate after the first issue of the first edition. I
have just had offered to me a copy of this edition containing “The Last
Song” _in the two states_, _i.e._ with and without the border, for the
modest sum of eight guineas!
[12] My attention was lately called to a copy of the memoirs in
which the former owner had pasted the following amusingly irrelevant
note:—“At the Beckford sale a copy of the famous Grimm—the Grimm with
the illustrations printed in bronze-coloured ink—fetched £64.” I have
a very shrewd suspicion that the annotator had an unmethodical brain,
and believed Grimm to be short for Grimaldi! _Requiescat in pace._
{43}
CHAPTER IV
DICKENS CANCELLED PLATES: “OLIVER TWIST,” “MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT,” “THE
STRANGE GENTLEMAN,” “PICTURES FROM ITALY,” AND “SKETCHES BY BOZ.”
In dealing with the episode of the suppressed plate in _Oliver
Twist_ we must be careful to bear in mind the fact that between the
publication of _Pickwick_ and the later novel there was an essential
difference. The former was first published in self-contained parts,
whereas the latter was published _serially_ in _Bentley’s Miscellany_.
Hence, the first editions of _Pickwick_ in book form are to be met
with bound from the parts, whereas the first editions in book-form
of _Oliver Twist_ are only to be found as issued by the publishers
complete in three volumes. And unless we grasp this distinction at the
outset we shall find it impossible to understand the apparently erratic
appearance and disappearance {44} of the suppressed plate of “Rose
Maylie and Oliver: the Fireside Scene” and its substitute.
The first instalment of the novel was published in the second number
of _Bentley’s Miscellany_, February 1837, and it continued to run for
nearly two years and a quarter. From this it will be seen that the last
instalment of the novel was not published until three months of the
year 1839 had elapsed.
In the meantime, however, the novel and the illustrations had been
completed, and the whole story was printed in book form and published
in three volumes in the second year of its serial issue, the exact date
being November 9, 1838.
As a consequence we shall find the following curious result—namely,
that the owners of the very earliest issue of _Oliver Twist_ find
themselves not in the happy possession of the suppressed plate, as
would be naturally expected, but in the melancholy possession of its
exceedingly ugly substitute.
This, to the uninitiated, would prove as great a puzzle as to
Macaulay’s New Zealander would appear the fact that in Truro Cathedral
the older {45} structure is of a later style than the new. But this
is comparing small things with great. For we are fain to confess that,
unlike the law, _de minimis curat helluo librorum_.
Thus, then, we have to face this apparent anomaly, that, to possess
a copy of _Oliver Twist_ with brightest impressions of the etchings
throughout, we are under the necessity of combining the early plates
from _Bentley’s Miscellany_ with the later plates from the first
edition published in volume form. This not uninteresting fact I may, I
believe, claim to be the first to point out, and it goes far to explain
a very misleading note on p. 151 of Reid’s monumental _Catalogue of
George Cruikshank’s Works_, which shows clearly that the late Keeper of
the Prints was greatly at sea in the matter.
Referring to the “Fireside Scene,” he says: “The plate was used in
1838, when the work reappeared in three volumes, in lieu of the
preceding (‘Rose Maylie and Oliver at Agnes’s Tomb’), which was thought
by the publisher to be of too melancholy a nature for the conclusion
of the story.” From which any casual reader would be {46} led to the
conclusion that “Rose Maylie and Oliver at the Tomb” was the suppressed
plate, and that the “Fireside Scene” was substituted for it, whereas
exactly the opposite was the case.
The novel was ready for publication complete in three volumes in
the autumn of 1838. The illustrations for the last volume had been
somewhat hastily executed “in a lump.” And Dickens, who always was most
solicitous about the work of his collaborating artists, did not set
eyes upon them until the eve of publication. One of them, “The Fireside
Scene,” he so strongly objected to that it had to be cancelled, and he
wrote to the artist asking him to design “the plate afresh and to do so
_at once_, in order that as few impressions as possible of the present
one may go forth.”[13] The publication of the book, however, could not
be delayed, and thus we have it that the earliest issue of the first
edition of _Oliver Twist_ in book-form contains the “Fireside Scene”
opposite p. 313, vol. iii., which it is the desire of every Dickens
collector to possess, while the later issue of the latter part of the
novel in _Bentley’s Miscellany_ {47} contains that which Cruikshank
substituted for it at the novelist’s request.
[13] _Vide_ Forster, _Life of Charles Dickens_, vol. i. p. 101.
(Library Edition.)
Both the plates are here reproduced for the convenience of the owner of
this or that edition.
But this is not all that has to be said upon the subject of the “Rose
and Oliver” plates, and again I claim to be the purveyor of a little
exclusive information.[14]
It has generally been supposed that Cruikshank, although naturally put
about by Dickens’s disapproval, did immediately proceed to carry out
his author’s suggestion. For example, we find Mr. Francis Phillimore,
in his introduction to the _Dickens Memento_, published by Messrs.
Field and Tuer, saying: “The author was so disgusted with the last
plate that he politely but forcibly asked Cruikshank to etch another.
This was done at once.” I am, however, in a position to prove that
this was emphatically not the case. And it is what one would naturally
expect, for George was the last person in the world to acquiesce calmly
and unhesitatingly in the condemnation of work which he had himself
deemed sufficiently good. {48}
[14] I first alluded to this in _Temple Bar_ for September 1892.
In the year 1892 I had the privilege of examining the splendid
collection of Mr. H. W. Bruton, of Gloucester, which has since been
dispersed. On that occasion he drew my attention to a unique impression
of the “Fireside” plate in his possession, from which we (he was the
first to see the point) drew the necessary conclusion which follows.
The importance of the impression lies in the fact that it shows that
a large amount of added work had been put into the plate, principally
of a stipply nature, after all the impressions which had so displeased
Dickens had been struck off. By which it is evident that George tried
hard to improve the original plate instead of at once falling in
with the suggestion that the subject should be designed afresh. This
proof was probably submitted to Dickens and again rejected, for no
impressions of the plate with stippled additions are known to have
been published.[15] And plainly it was only after considerable effort
to make the plate do, that the artist designed the {49} far worse
picture of “Rose Maylie and Oliver before the Tomb of Agnes,” which is
a questionable adornment to the later issues of the story. And had it
not been for the delay so caused, it is more than probable that the
suppressed plate would have been even a greater rarity than it actually
is.
[15] It need hardly be said that if any of my readers finds that his
copy contains “The Fireside Scene” differing from the first of those
here produced, he may congratulate himself on the possession of a great
rarity.
[Illustration: The suppressed plate from “Oliver Twist”: “The Fireside
Scene”]
[Illustration: The suppressed plate from “Oliver Twist”: “The Fireside
Scene,” as worked upon by Cruikshank]
As I have said above, Mr. Bruton’s collection was dispersed in 1897 at
Sotheby’s. No. 145 in that sale was an unrivalled run of the _Oliver
Twist_ illustrations, seeing that it consisted of a complete set of
proofs of the etchings, and included, with other rarities, the unique
proof just mentioned. The lot sold for £32:10s. By the kindness of its
late owner, I am enabled to present to my readers a reproduction of
this unique impression of the plate in its second state.
So much then for the story of the suppressed plate. There is, however,
something more to be said of its substitute.
If we turn to our edition of _Oliver Twist_, so long as it does not
happen to be one published subsequently to 1845, or one containing the
suppressed plate, we shall find Rose standing with her {50} arm on
Oliver’s shoulder before a tablet put up to his mother’s memory, and
we shall find that Rose’s dress is light in colour save for a dark
shawl or lace fichu, which is thrown across her shoulders and bosom.
In the 1846 edition of the book, the plate has been largely touched up
and shaded, and Rose’s dress turned into a black one.[16] Now, it is
perfectly evident that it is the old plate altered and used over again
and not a new plate copied from the old, for every line and every dot
in the illustration to the earlier editions reappears in this. The
perplexing matter that I have to draw your attention to, however, is
that, in the same lot (145) at the Bruton sale mentioned above, there
was sold a proof of this plate with Rose Maylie in the black dress, and
this _a proof before letters_, an impossible nut for the amateur to
crack who does not know that the lettering of plates may be stopped-out
or burnished away or covered up for the striking off of misleading
impressions; from which the moral may be drawn that it is better to
believe in proof impressions after letters where they are well {52}
authenticated, than to presume that a proof is before letters merely
because those letters do not appear. _Verb. sat sap._ The plate in this
state is here reproduced for the sake of comparison.
[Illustration: Rose Maylie and Oliver at Agnes’s Tomb. (_The
substituted plate in two states_)]
[16] The dress is also black in a reprint of the first edition
published by Messrs. Macmillan in 1892, and in the large edition with
the illustrations coloured, published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall in
1895.
Before passing from _Oliver Twist_, it should be pointed out that the
first issue of 1838, which contains the suppressed plate, is also
differentiated from the second issue of the same year by what is
sometimes alluded to as the “suppressed title-page,” which runs as
follows:—“Oliver Twist; / or, the / ‘Parish Boy’s Progress;’ / by
‘Boz,’ / in three volumes, / Vol. I (II. or III.) / London: / Richard
Bentley, New Burlington Street. / — — / 1838.”
The second issue, with the substituted plate, has:—“Oliver Twist / By
/ Charles Dickens, / Author of ‘The Pickwick Papers,’” the rest of the
title being as in the first. It is curious to notice, further, that in
a later edition the original title is resumed.
So much for _Oliver Twist_. We must not, however, quit Dickens without
mentioning one or two other items, which more or less of right find
their place in a treatise on “Suppressed Plates.” {53}
There is, for example, the etched title-page to the first issue of the
first edition of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, where the reward on the direction
post appears as “100£” instead of “£100,” which is often wrongly
labelled “suppressed.” As a matter of fact it was not suppressed
at all. It is nothing more than the _first state_ of a plate which
was afterwards altered. However, the bait is so valuable a one with
which to entice the bibliomaniac, that there is no prospect of the
description being lightly relinquished, and as it is one object of this
treatise to protect the unwary, allusion to it is not out of place.
The fact that it is the title-page issued after the book had appeared
serially with its forty illustrations, disposes of any lingering
idea that in acquiring it we are assured of the possession of early
impressions of the other plates. But the undiscriminating bibliomaniac
requires no logical justification, and the plate will still retain its
market value.
A like variation is to be found in a well-known etching by George
Cruikshank, entitled “The Worship of Wealth.” The head of Mammon is
represented by a small money-bag, and the {54} features of the face
by the letters GOLD. Of this plate only one state was known until in a
happy moment one of our best-known collectors discovered and secured a
unique proof with all the letters printed in reverse, thus:—
[Illustration]
—a triumph which only the true _dilettante_ will appreciate at its
proper value.
Another variation of the same kind is to be found in the first and
second issues of Pine’s beautiful edition of Horace (1733), in which
the text is engraved throughout. In the first there is the misprint
“Post est” on the medal of Cæsar. In the second “Potest” has been
substituted. Copies containing the mistake fetch twice as much in
the market as those containing the correction! This is, however,
justifiable, as the mistake connotes an early set of impressions.
[Illustration: The Strange Gentleman]
Another Dickens plate demanding mention is the exceedingly rare etched
frontispiece by “Phiz,” to be found in only a few copies of _The
Strange {55} Gentleman_, published in 1837 by Messrs. Chapman and
Hall. This “Comic Burletta” was founded upon “The Great Winglebury
Duel,” in _Sketches by Boz_, and was first performed at the St. James’s
Theatre in September 1836. A second edition was {56} published in 1860
with a coloured etching by Mr. F. W. Pailthorpe, the last illustrator
to carry on the tradition of Cruikshank and H. K. Browne. The “Phiz”
etching is here reproduced. Even the second edition is extremely rare,
and readily sells for between two and three pounds. The reason for
the disappearance of the “Phiz” plate is not known, and I only give
particulars of it here because of its excessive rarity, and because
it is constantly referred to as “suppressed,” though with no strict
justification. The British Museum copy of the book only contains Mr.
Pailthorpe’s frontispiece, but a copy with the “Phiz” plate is to be
found in the Forster Library, South Kensington.
Then, again, we have Dickens’s _Pictures from Italy_, published by
Messrs. Bradbury and Evans in 1846, with the beautiful “vignette
illustrations on the wood,” by that master engraver, Samuel Palmer.
For some reason or other that representing “The Street of the Tombs,
Pompeii,” on the title-page, disappears after the exhaustion of
the first and second editions, both published in the same year. It
reappears, however, in the late {57} reprint of 1888, and is also
only here alluded to because sometimes referred to as “suppressed.”
[Illustration: The suppressed plate from “Sketches by Boz”]
The last of the Dickens illustrations germane to our subject is that
much-desired etching of “The Free and Easy,” which should be found
opposite page 29 of the “second series” of _Sketches by Boz_. Both the
first and second series were originally published in 1836. In 1839
another edition appeared with all the etchings to the original edition
enlarged (except “The Free and Easy,” which was cancelled), and with
thirteen additional plates. An edition on the lines of the first issue
of the second series, only with the illustrations in lithography, was
published in Calcutta in 1837.
It is important, in collating the first editions of the _Sketches_, to
bear in mind the fact that the first series was in two volumes and the
second in one. Otherwise it is impossible to understand why “Vol. III.”
is engraved on each of the plates in the second series. As showing how
eagerly these volumes in fine condition, and of course uncut and in
the original cloth binding, are sought after, it may be mentioned that
thirty pounds is by no means an unheard-of price. {58}
Unfortunately the plates will in most cases be found to be badly foxed.
The tissue of the paper itself has in many cases been attacked by damp
and rotted right through.
In such cases any remedy except the drastic one of punching is of
course out of the question. Hence the rarity of a really “desirable”
set of the plates,—a rarity which is largely due to the hoarding away
of books in glass cases; for books require fresh, dry air, with the
rest of God’s creatures.
It may not be out of place here, whilst on the subject of foxing, to
warn the collector that every plate in a book should be carefully
examined before any extravagant price is given for what is called a
fine copy. No doubt we are much indebted to the clever “doctors” of
prints who punch the fatal spots out and pulp them in, who fill up the
worm-holes and vamp up the cleaned prints with green-wood smoke and
coffee infusions to a respectable appearance of age. At the same time
we must never allow ourselves to forget that there are such occupations
as vamping and “improving,” and that it is not for vamped and improved
copies that we should pay excessive prices.
{59}
CHAPTER V
ON SOME FURTHER SUPPRESSED PLATES, ETCHINGS, AND WOOD ENGRAVINGS BY
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
In Chapter III. we have incidentally considered the suppressed
grotesque border to the etching of “The Last Song” by George Cruikshank
in the _Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi_. In this chapter we shall treat of
certain other suppressions to which the “inimitable” George’s work was
subjected.
The first to which I shall direct your attention has a curious and
romantic history attaching to it, instinct with the rough and brutal
methods of our immediate ancestors. It is a highly-coloured etched
broadside published in 1815, the very year of the tragic death of the
gifted and ill-fated Gillray, whose mantle, as political caricaturist,
was now fallen upon his brilliant young contemporary. {60} These
were the days of hard hitting, of reckless charges, of imprisonment
for libel, of dramatic political episodes, and the wonder is that
George Cruikshank escaped the fates of the Burdetts, the Hones, and
the Hobhouses of the period. The fact is that George was a very shrewd
young man and had a very shrewd idea of how far it was safe to go.
Indeed, in this partially suppressed cartoon we find him upon the very
verge of recklessness and only drawing back from danger just in the
nick of time.
I have spoken of the _partial_ suppression of this broadside, and in
this _partial_ cancellation it is differentiated from all others with
which we have hitherto dealt. Brutal enough as is the satire as we see
it, there is a brutality curiously hidden within, which, unsuspected
by the uninitiated, proves to what astounding lengths satire of that
period was sometimes ready to go.
Before dealing in detail with this “Financial Survey of Cumberland or
the Beggar’s Petition” it will be as well to relate the circumstances
which led up to its perpetration.
Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, born {61} 1771, was perhaps the
best hated of all the royal personages of the period then in England,
and this notwithstanding the fact that he was a man of conspicuous
bravery. He was, for a few years after Queen Victoria’s accession, next
heir to the throne of England. Later he ascended the throne of Hanover
under the regulations of the Salic law, and gained the affection of his
people, proving himself a wise and beneficent ruler. Probably William
IV. put his character into a nutshell when he said: “Ernest is not such
a bad fellow, but if any one has a corn he is sure to tread on it.”
However that may be, there is no doubt that there is hardly a crime in
the whole decalogue which was not at one time or another laid at his
door, and not the least among these was the crime of murder.
To quote the succinct account of this affair given in the _Dictionary
of National Biography_:—“On the night of 31st May 1810 the duke was
found in his apartments in St. James’s Palace with a terrible wound in
his head, which would have been mortal had not the assassin’s weapon
struck against the duke’s sword. Shortly afterwards his {62} valet,
Sellis,[17] was found dead in his bed with his throat cut. On hearing
the evidence of the surgeons and other witnesses, the coroner’s jury
returned a verdict that Sellis had committed suicide after attempting
to assassinate the duke. The absence of any reasonable motive... caused
this event to be greatly discussed, and democratic journalists did not
hesitate to hint that he really murdered Sellis.” One of these, Henry
White, was sentenced in 1815 to fifteen months’ imprisonment and a fine
of £200 for publishing the rumour. The story again cropped up in 1832,
when the duke had made himself particularly obnoxious to the radical
press, and was exploited by a pamphleteer named Phillips. The duke
prosecuted him, and he was promptly found guilty and sentenced to six
months’ imprisonment.
[17] Not Serres, as Reid has it in his descriptive account of
Cruikshank’s works. The keeper of the prints evidently confused the
name of the valet with that of Mrs. Olive Serres, who later on called
herself Princess Olive of Cumberland, and claimed to be the duke’s
legitimate daughter.
Notwithstanding this, there was little abatement in the persecution of
the duke. Even Lord Brougham in the House of Lords sneeringly called
{63} him to his face “the illustrious duke—illustrious only by
courtesy.” I take up a few consecutive numbers of that venomous little
contemporary paper, _Figaro in London_, and find week by week some very
plain speaking. Here are a few examples:—
“That he’s ne’er known to change his mind
Is surely nothing strange;
For no one ever yet could find
He’d any mind to change.”
Again:—
“He boasts about the truth, I’ve heard,
And vows he’d never break it;
Why zounds a man _must_ keep his word
When nobody will take it.”
Again, referring to a youth dressed _à la Prince de Cumberland_,
who had been brought up at Bow Street charged with being an expert
pickpocket, _Figaro_ says: “A similarity to the Duke of Cumberland is
a very serious matter, and in the opinion of Mr. Halls (the police
magistrate) quite sufficient to entitle any one to a couple of months’
imprisonment, as a common thief or an incorrigible vagabond.”
Again:—{64}
“INQUEST EXTRAORDINARY
Found dead of fright, a child, (how sad a case!)
Verdict—Saw Cumberland’s mustachioed face.”
Again:—“The new piece announced at Drury Lane under the title of _The
Dæmon Duke_ or _The Mystic Branch_ has no reference whatever to his
Royal Highness of Cumberland.”
But these might be multiplied almost to infinity. The examples quoted
make it sufficiently plain why it was that the Whig Cabinet of the day
felt it advisable to hurry on our late Queen’s marriage.
So much for a general review of the duke’s career. We will now return
to the year 1815 and the publication of the broadside with which we are
more particularly concerned.
The duke had just announced his intention of marrying the Princess
of Salm, who had been twice a widow. The Prince Regent had raised
no objection, but the Queen, who had a rooted aversion to second
marriages, made no secret of her disapproval. The country, too, was
indignant, because another royal marriage spelt, in accordance with
what was now the ordinary usage, a further burden upon the exchequer.
[Illustration: “A Financial Survey of Cumberland or the Beggars
Petition.” (_From the only known uncoloured impression of the Plate_)]
[Illustration: “A Financial Survey of Cumberland or the Beggars
Petition.” (_From a coloured impression of the plate, with the figure
of the valet obliterated with lamp-black_)]
{65}
On July 3 the proposal was made in the Commons to increase the duke’s
pension of £18,000 a year, which he held in addition to his salary of
£3000 a year as Colonel of the 1st Hussars, by £6000. The House was
equally divided on the vote, when a dramatic incident occurred. Lord
Cochrane, heir to the Dundonald peerage, and a member of the House of
Commons, had, in the previous year, been wrongfully found guilty of
participation in a Stock Exchange fraud and had been imprisoned. On
this very 3rd day of July he was released from prison, and immediately
repaired to Westminster. The House was at that moment going to a
division. His lordship entered just in time to record his casting
vote against the increase of the duke’s pension, and thus by an
extraordinary coincidence the duke was the poorer and the country the
richer by £6000 a year.
This is the moment seized by Cruikshank in the broadside here
reproduced. Before the half-open door of “St. Stephen’s,” behind
which is seen a crowd of members, Lord Cochrane fires, from a mortar
decorated with a full-bottomed wig, a {66} cannon-ball labelled
“casting vote.” This, striking the duke full in the rear, drives him
towards a bank on which stand three grenadiers, the Princess of Salm
(recognisable by the flag which she carries, labelled “Psalms”) and her
little boy, who sings—
My daddy is a grenadier
And he’s pleas’d my Mammy O,
With his _long swoard_ and _broadswoard_
And his bayonet so handy O.
The duke, from whose hand falls his petition, and whose head is adorned
with a cuckold’s horns, cries aloud, “Pity the sorrow of a poor young
man”; whilst Cochrane thunders out, “No, no, we’ll have no petitions
here. Do you thint (_sic_) we are not up to your hoaxing, cadging
tricks? You vagrant, do you think we’ll believe all you say or swear?
Do you think that your services or your merits will do you any good
here? If you do, I can tell you from experience that you are cursedly
mistaken. So set off and don’t show your ugly face here again. If you
do, shiver my timbers if I don’t send you to Ellenborough Castle: aye,
aye, my boy, I’ll clap you in the _grated chamber_, where there’s
neither door, window, {67} onr (_sic_) fireplace. I’ll put you in the
_Stocks_! I’ll put you in the _Pillory_! I’ll _fine_ you. I’ll, I’ll
play hell with you! D—— me, I think I have just come in time to give
you a shot between wind and water.”
On the ground below the flying duke lie documents recording his
pensions and salaries.
No wonder, you will say, that such a scandalous attack upon a personage
so near the throne should be suppressed with a high hand. The marvel is
that artist and publisher should have escaped the fate of Henry White
and the pamphleteer Phillips. But you will be more surprised than ever
when you learn that not only did artist and publisher go scot-free,
but that the plate, so far from being suppressed, was published and
scattered broadcast amongst the people without protest.
Why, then, it will be asked, does it take its place in a treatise on
suppressed plates? I will tell you.
Do you not notice in the darker impression of the plate here
reproduced—darker because the original has been painted—that such
perspective as the picture has is destroyed by a great black blot {68}
which reaches from the feet of the three soldiers right down to the
path in the right-hand lower corner of the design? Well, that great
black blot covers what would have inevitably landed George Cruikshank
and Mr. W. N. Jones of 5 Newgate Street, publisher, in a larger
building higher up the same street, if it had not been for a happy
afterthought of Mr. W. N. Jones, which took shape in a liberal use of
lamp-black.[18]
On the space so covered the reckless George, unmindful of the fate of
Henry White, had etched the scantily clothed figure of the unhappy
valet Sellis, with bleeding throat, crying aloud, “Is this a razor that
I see before me? Thou canst not say I did it.”
[18] This use of lamp-black has its parallel in the case of one of
the tailpieces to Bewick’s _Birds_, in the first edition of which an
apprentice was employed to veil certain indelicacies with a coat of
ink. Unfortunately, from want of density, the colouring rather serves
to accentuate than hide the offending details. In the next edition a
plug was inserted in the block and two bars of wood engraved in the
interests of decency.
After but one or two proofs had been pulled, George and his publisher
would seem to have become appalled at their temerity, and the plate
was only issued coloured and with the peccant {69} figure blotted out.
For many years I hoped and hoped in vain to come across an uncoloured
proof displaying the hidden figure. But it was not until 1905 that
I was fortunate enough to light upon the probably unique proof here
reproduced, which had passed out of the Bruton collection into that of
the omnivorous collector, the late Edwin Truman.
For the sake of those who have preserved the valuable catalogue of
the sale in 1897 of the Bruton collection of the works of George
Cruikshank, it should be observed that Reid’s misnomer of the valet to
which I have drawn attention above has been there repeated.
So much, then, for the partially suppressed broadside of 1815, which
incidentally may be looked upon as the forerunner of the blottesque
censorship of Russian newspapers. We will now pass on to another
broadside which was not only suppressed in full, but of which the
copies that had already been sold were assiduously bought up.
The circumstances surrounding this plate are by no means so dramatic
as those with which we have last dealt. At the same time, by means of
it we obtain one of those sharp contrasts in political {70} moods and
tenses which pleasurably tickle the imagination. We learn how little is
absolute in life, how much is relative. We realise how the reactionary
of to-day may have been the reformer of yesterday. In a word, we see
in this most conservative member of the Russell administration of
1846–1852 and of the Coalition of 1853, in this complacent recipient of
the peerage of Broughton de Gyfford and the Grand Cross of the Bath,
in this happy husband of a Marquis’s daughter,—we see, I say, in this
Tory nobleman of the ’fifties the irreconcilable John Cam Hobhouse of
the early years of the century, committed to Newgate for breach of
privilege, the author of the subversive _Letters to an Englishman_, and
the representative for Parliament of the Westminster mobocracy.
[Illustration: “_A Trifling Mistake_”——_Corrected_——]
In Cruikshank’s broadside here reproduced the future President of
the Board of Control is represented twirling his thumbs in enforced
retirement and with full leisure to repent of his indiscretions. Above
the mantelpiece representations of St. Stephen’s and Newgate are placed
in sharp contrast. Below the last a former occupant of the {72} cell
has scratched a rude gibbet. The grate is empty. On the table stand an
empty pewter pot and pipe. On the wall is seen a long quotation from
his anonymous pamphlet _A Trifling Mistake_, for which he has been
committed to prison. This, with a barbed addition, gives the title to
the broadside itself. The quotation runs:—
“What prevents ye people from walking down to ye house and pulling
out ye members by ye ears, locking up their doors and flinging ye
key into ye Thames? Is it any majesty which lodges in the members of
that assembly? Do we love them? Not at all: we have an instinctive
horror and disgust at the very abstract idea of ye boroughmonger. Do
we respect them? Not in the least. Do we regard them as endowed with
any superior qualities? On the contrary, there is scarcely a poorer
creature than your mere member of Parliament; though, in his corporate
capacity, ye earth furnishes not so absolute a bully. Their true
practical protectors, then—the real efficient anti-reformers,—are to
be found at ye Horse Guards and ye Knightsbridge Barracks. As long as
the House of Commons majorities are backed by the regimental muster
roll, so long may those who have got the tax power keep it and hang
those who resist”!!! !!! !!!
Vide _Trifling Mistake_.
Below this hangs a bill headed “Little Hob in the Well.” {73}
The reproduction of the etching here given is from a very interesting
touched proof in the British Museum. Upon it the artist’s work in
pencil can be plainly traced. To the right of the picture of Newgate
another roughly drawn gibbet can be distinguished. On the bill
the words have been added, “A New Song in Defence of the People,
corrected,” etc. The profile of the prisoner has been carefully
reduced, and a punning sub-title to the whole added, “How Cam you to be
in that Hobble?”
The date on the margin is January 1, 1819 (obviously a mistake for
1820), and its publication, no doubt, went some way towards Hobhouse’s
election as member for Westminster, which took place immediately after
his release on the 20th day of the month in the year 1820.
After his elevation to the peerage Hobhouse took no active part in
public affairs. He died as lately as 1869, leaving no issue. Probably
the plate was suppressed on the ground that it contained the long
quotation given above from the lawless pamphlet for which he was
imprisoned.
As I have said in an earlier chapter, it is not my {74} intention
to make this treatise in any way a devil’s directory for those in
search of salacious curiosities. I shall therefore not dwell upon the
suppressed woodcut, which is rather coarse than loose, of “The Dead
Rider” in the _Italian Tales_ of 1823. I merely mention it for the
sake of those who may be collating the book, and would find themselves
misled by Reid’s note on the subject. He speaks of the “Elopement”
woodcut being “wanting in two or three copies consulted of the first
edition,” as though this were a matter for surprise. He fails to draw
the very obvious conclusion that “The Elopement” was substituted for
“The Dead Rider,” so that the number of illustrations might continue to
tally with the announcement on the title-page, “Sixteen illustrative
drawings by George Cruikshank.” He has apparently been confused by the
fact, which I notice confuses a good many secondhand booksellers, that
every copy has _a_ woodcut entitled “The Dead Rider,” but that it is
only the first issue that has _two_ woodcuts with the same title.
And, whilst touching on the subject of Cruikshank’s early
indiscretions, it will, I think, be only {75} fair to repeat a story
of pretty and spontaneous atonement which I have told elsewhere, and
which deals with another suppressed broadside.
No. 887 in Reid’s catalogue is “Accidents in High Life, or Royal Hobbys
broke down, Dedicated to the Society for the Suppression of Vice.” Its
companion picture is “Royal Hobbys of the Hertfordshire Cock Horse,”
which was suppressed as being too suggestive even for so latitudinarian
an age as that of the Regency. In the former the artist portrays the
discomfiture of the Prince and the Marchioness of Hertford through the
pole of the hobby-horse, upon which they have been riding, breaking
and throwing both of them to the ground. The lady is cursing her
folly in trusting herself to “such an old stick,” while her admirer
is exclaiming that he shall try the Richmond Road in the future, the
Hertford one being so unsatisfactory. The Duke of York is suffering
from a similar disaster, and congratulating himself upon the softness
of the cushion by which his fall has been broken, in allusion to his
income of £10,000 for having charge of his father.
Now Mr. Bruton, who, like the late Mr. Truman, {76} had the advantage
of George Cruikshank’s friendship in later years, was able to obtain
authentication or repudiation of doubtful unsigned work from the
artist himself, and, amongst others, this plate was submitted to him
for judgment. The man’s honesty forced him to acknowledge himself to
be the author of this piece of full-blooded vulgarity, but his regret
has altered the usual laconic record of “Not by me, G. Ck.,” or “By my
brother, I. R. C.,” pencilled on the plate, to “Sorry to say this is by
me, G. C.” The old man was, when he came to look back upon a long life
of good and evil mixed, somewhat more human than that terribly pious
hero of Pope’s—
Who calmly looked on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to bear;
From nature’s temp’rate feast rose satisfy’d,
Thank’d heav’n that he had liv’d, and that he dy’d.
He looked back with genuine remorse upon youthful extravagances, and,
though doubtless inclined by nature to be something of a _poseur_,
and though he attitudinised somewhat too much over his virtuous
fads at last, was not going to bolster up his reputation by an easy
forgetfulness of early indiscretions. {77}
[Illustration: Philoprogenitiveness]
Only a few words need be said of the other Cruikshank suppressions here
reproduced. The first is the well-known plate “Philoprogenitiveness,”
which was published in the earliest separate edition of that noble
_Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank_, written by Thackeray
for, and reprinted {78} from, _The Westminster Review_ in 1840. And
surely it was a prurient and unnatural squeamishness which condemned
this illustration to exclusion in the subsequent editions. It is from
the _Phrenological Illustrations_, published in 1826, one of the
most famous of Cruikshank’s publications. I shall follow Thackeray’s
excellent example of refraining from any description, and just leave
the design to speak for itself, for it is a ridiculous task “to
translate his designs into words, and go to the printer’s box for a
description of all that fun and humour which the artist can produce by
a few skilful turns of his needle.”
The second is the cancelled wood engraving entitled “Drop it,” which
appears on page 18 of the first edition of _Talpa; or the Chronicle of
a Clay Farm, an Agricultural Fragment_, by C. M. H(oskyns), published
in 1853. For some unknown reason it disappears from subsequent
editions, and is only of importance to those who pride themselves on
being the possessors of Cruikshank _editiones principes_.
[Illustration: “Drop it!”]
There is another Cruikshank suppression which might, were we hard
up for material, be dragged {79} into a treatise on suppressed
illustrations. I refer to a wood engraving of the redoubtable George
himself taking his publisher, Brooks, by the nose with a pair of tongs,
which resulted in the suppression of the pamphlet entitled _A Pop-gun
fired off by George Cruikshank, etc._, in which it appeared. But if
we were to open these pages to the consideration of suppressed books
and pamphlets, I should soon find my publishers remonstrating, and
the volume too big to handle. Further, it affords me the gratifying
opportunity of referring the reader to a small book of mine, published
in 1897, by Mr. W. P. Spencer, of 27 New Oxford Street, and entitled
_George_ {80} _Cruikshank’s Portraits of Himself_ which I, as
the author, of course consider has not attained the circulation
it deserves. There will be found a full account of the suppressed
pamphlet, together with a reproduction of the offending design.
Let me close this chapter with “A Cruikshank Outrage,” which I
originally contributed to _The Gentleman’s Magazine_. It is, I
think, sufficiently apropos, and will, I hope, appeal to all good
Cruikshankians.
This is the bookcase, this the key;
None may open this lock but me;
And only those of the cult may come
Into my _sanctum sanc-to-rum_.
Swear “by George” on his “Omnibus”
You are assuredly one of us.
Swear “by George” on his “Almanack”
You will return each volume back.
Swear by “Grimm” _in the earliest state_
Theft and pillage you reprobate.
Yes, that’s bound by Rivière, but
Here’s _the original cloth, uncut_.
The “Bee and the Wasp” _on India, tilt_,
Zaehnsdorf binder, _morocco, gilt_.
But all my “Scourges” plain bound shall bide—
Plenty of “guilt” may be found inside. {81}
Here’s my “Omnibus,” worth a fief
Because I’ve the unpaged preface-leaf.
“London Characters,” set complete,
_Sm. 8vo, in hlf. clf. neat_.
Here a set of gigantic frauds
_In the original_ LABELLED _boards_.
“Oliver Twist,” as you will have guessed,
The “Rose and Oliver” plate suppressed:
Not with the stippling over-writ—
Only Bruton[19] can show you IT.
And here “The Bottle” COLOURED, date
Eighteen-hundred-and-forty-eight.
Yes, no doubt, ’twas among the first
Thrusts that the Master launched at Thirst.
! George, you say, was at best, you think,
As a Temperance man denouncing drink !
!! You dare tell me you interlope
In quest of books for your “Band of Hope” !!
!!! You swore “by George” on his “Omnibus”
You were assuredly one of us !!!
!!!! Avaunt, I prithee, aroynt, vacate
This orthodox shrine to George the Great !!!!
For only those of the cult may come
Into my _sanctum sanc-to-rum_.
[19] Since the Bruton sale in 1897 this, alas, is no longer true.
{82}
CHAPTER VI
HOGARTH’S “ENTHUSIASM DELINEATED,” “THE MAN OF TASTE,” AND “DON QUIXOTE”
In Mr. Austin Dobson’s _Hogarth_, to which all students of that master
are so deeply indebted, the following sentence concludes the list
of “Prints of an Uncertain Date”: “It has been thought unnecessary
to include two or three designs, the grossness of which neither the
ingenuity of the artist nor the coarse taste of his time can reasonably
be held to excuse.” And in this book I have made it a cardinal point to
emulate Mr. Dobson’s excellent example.
We remember in one of Mr. G. Russell’s amusing books the story of
the erstwhile Member of Parliament who had accepted a peerage,
notwithstanding his profession of democratic sentiments. Thereupon
one of his late supporters, {83} with excellent, though somewhat
brutal, metaphor, remarked, “Mr. —— says as how he’s going to the
House of Lords to leaven it. I tell you he can’t no more leaven the
House of Lords than you can sweeten a cart-load of muck with a pot of
marmalade.” _Per contra_, let us always bear in mind, that were the
cart full of marmalade, and the pot of muck, the latter would be fully
sufficient to render the whole an abomination. Fortunately for us, the
Hogarth “Suppressed Plates” which are befitting are of exceptional
interest. And it may as well be pointed out here that those peculiarly
gross ones which are often alluringly alluded to as “suppressed” are
nothing of the sort. So far from being indeed effectively withdrawn
from observation, they have had, as a matter of fact, particular
attention drawn _to_ them by the fussy ingenuity with which their
concealment has been emphasised.
The first of the Hogarth plates which we here reproduce—“Enthusiasm
Delineated”—is of far greater intrinsic importance than any of those
with which we have already dealt in the preceding chapters. It differs
essentially from them not {84} only in the fact that here the artist
himself is the fount and origin of the suppression but also in the
fact that it is a fine example of those palimpsest plates of which
more particular description will be found in later chapters of this
book. Peculiar interest, too, attaches to the circumstance that, superb
as it was in execution, and elaborate to a degree though it was in
conception, it was no sooner finished than the artist deliberately
decided against its publication, and destroyed the engraving after only
two impressions had been taken from the copper. Fortunately for us, one
of these is now in the possession of the British Museum.
It will be interesting to those who are the happy possessors of
_Hogarth Illustrated_ and the _Anecdotes_ to compare this with the
reduced _copy_ (a very different matter) made by Mills and published
in these volumes. For it must always be remembered that Hogarth’s
autograph engravings are infinitely more interesting than the copies,
however eminent the journeyman engraver may have been.
[Illustration: Enlarged detail of Hogarth’s “Enthusiasm Delineated”]
Another plate was engraved by Mills of the size of the original, and
published separately by Ireland {86} in 1795. The date of the original
plate is given in the British Museum Catalogue as 1739, but how that
date is arrived at I am at a loss to understand.
It will be noticed that there are upon the margin of our reproduction
some curious _remarques_ inscribed “the windmill,” “the scales,” and
others. These were drawn in pen-and-ink by Hogarth on the margins of
the two original impressions. They also appear engraved in facsimile on
the second state of Mills’s full-sized plate. It will therefore be well
for owners of this last not to jump to the hasty conclusion that they
are the fortunate possessors of one of the two impressions mentioned
above! It should be added that the MS. inscription on the British
Museum copy differs considerably from that engraved by Mills.
The method by which the suppression of this plate came about is
exceedingly curious.
It is probable that, after the design was completed, Hogarth came to
the conclusion that the intention of the satire might be mistaken, and
that, instead of bringing ridicule upon “the superstitious absurdities
of popery and ridiculous {87} personification delineated by ancient
painters,” it might be considered that his objective was religion
itself.
If this were so, the episode redounds greatly to the artist’s credit,
and throws an effective light upon a little-known side of his
character. It was an act of great nobleness to suppress what was the
result of long toil, nay, more than that, what was perhaps his highest
mental, though by no means his highest artistic, achievement, from what
some might consider hyper-conscientious motives.
It must be remembered that Hogarth lived in a gross and irreligious
age, and that what appears to us exceedingly profane was largely the
result of the outspokenness of the times.
Ireland says that he altered and altered this plate piecemeal until its
final suppression. This, however, I venture to doubt, for reasons given
below. At all events, in the end he had beaten out and re-engraved
every figure save one, and changed, as Mr. Dobson says, what “was a
compact satire” into “a desultory work—a work of genius for a lesser
man, but scarcely worthy of Hogarth.” The final design was entitled
{88} “Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism: a Medley,” and was
published in March 1762.
Let us now compare the two designs. Hogarth’s general purpose in the
first was, in his own words, to give “a lineal representation of the
strange effects of literal and low conceptions of Sacred Beings, as
also of the idolatrous tendency of Pictures in Churches and Prints
in Religious Books.” In the second his text was, “Believe not every
spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false
Prophets are gone out into the world.”
Before comparing the designs in detail, I should like to say that,
besides carefully examining the plates for myself, I have collated the
various descriptions of Ireland, Nichols, Mr. Austin Dobson, and Mr. F.
G. Stephens, whose conclusions I have not hesitated to adopt, add to,
discard or modify, as the circumstances have seemed to require.
Let us now particularise the incidents portrayed on the two states
of the plate, both of which are here reproduced for purposes of
comparison.
[Illustration: PLATE I. “Enthusiasm Delineated. (Humbly dedicated to
his Grace the Arch Bishop of Canterbury by his Graces most obedient
humble Servant _Wm. Hogarth_”)]
[Illustration: PLATE II. “Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism. A
Medley”]
Beginning with the preacher, we notice that {89} his is the only figure
practically unaltered and common to both engravings. By his “bull-roar”
(_vide_ the “scale of Vociferation” hanging on the wall to his left) he
has apparently succeeded in cracking the sounding-board above his head.
Notice his shaven crown, exposed by the fallen wig, which intimates
that he is a Papist in disguise; and the harlequin jacket underneath
his gown, which suggests that he is a religious merry-andrew. A point
worth remarking is that the halo surrounds his wig, and not his head!
From his right hand (Plate I.) he suspends a puppet (caricatured from
a picture of Raphael’s) supporting the sacred triangle, which, in
attempting to personify the Trinity, was considered by some to be a
profane materialisation of a mystical idea. This he has ingeniously
turned into a gridiron or trivet of the Inquisition by the simple
addition of three legs. In Plate II. this puppet has been removed and
its place taken by a witch, riding on a broom-handle, who is suckling
what appears to be a huge rat. Beyond the preacher’s hand we find a
further addition in the shape of a cherub, hunting-cap on head, bearing
in its mouth {90} a letter directed “To St. Moneytrap.” The sermon
paper, too, has been turned about so as to bring the words “I speak as
a fool” into greater prominence. In which connection it may be noticed
that in “Enthusiasm Delineated” all the lettering would seem to be from
the burin of Hogarth, whilst that in the “Medley” has been put in by a
writing engraver, with considerable weakening of the general effect.
Dangling from the preacher’s left hand is a devil with a gridiron
(after Rubens), practically identical in both plates, though obviously
re-engraved.
Further puppets hang ready for use on the panels of the pulpit. In
Plate I. they are caricature representations, from pictures of the
Old Masters, of Adam and Eve (suggested by Albert Dürer), of Peter
with his Key, and Paul in a black periwig armed with two swords and
elevated by high-heeled shoes (travestied from Rembrandt), and of Moses
and Aaron. In Plate II. these scriptural puppets are exchanged for
the superstitious images of Mrs. Veal’s ghost (see the writing on the
book), who, according to Defoe, appeared the day after her death to
Mrs. Bargrave {91} of Canterbury, September 8, 1705; of Julius Cæsar’s
apparition, starting at its own appearance in the looking-glass; and
of that of Sir George Villers (_sic_), not “Villiers” as Ireland has
it, whose appearance to an officer at Windsor, charging him to warn
his son, the Duke of Buckingham, of his approaching assassination, is
recorded by Lord Clarendon and Lilly the astrologer.
In the foreground, on the right, we have in both plates a most
remarkable mental thermometer, the bulb of which is inserted in a
Methodist’s brain. In Plate I. the mercury stands at “low-spirits”;
in Plate II. at “lukewarm.” In the first a dove surmounts the whole;
in the second the Methodist’s brain rests upon “Wesley’s Sermons,”
and “Glanvid” (an evident misprint for “Glanvil”) on “Witches.” The
lettering, too, is altered, and, in place of the inscription in the
top division, is a picture of the Cock Lane Ghost, of which Walpole
wrote—“Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit Women were modest impostors
in comparison of this.” The whole is surmounted by a figure of the
Tedworth drummer immortalised by Addison. {92}
In the adjoining pew a nobleman, as can be seen by the decoration half
concealed by his coat, makes love to a girl, who discards a heavenly
for a very earthly affection, point to which is given by the quotation
from Whitfield’s hymn which can be read on the paper hanging over the
adjacent clerk’s desk. The “mixed expression of religious hypocrisy and
amorous desire” on the girl’s face is marvellously expressed. The other
occupant of the pew is a repentant thief, as may be seen from the “T”
branded on his cheek.
In the first account of the plate given in the _Catalogue of Prints and
Drawings in the British Museum_, the suggestion that the felon sniffs
at a bottle of spirits held in the hands of the image is obviously
incorrect. He is dropping his tears into the bottle. In Plate II. a
less aristocratic and somewhat more decently behaved pair of lovers
occupy the pew. The puppet held by the man is clearly a repetition of
the Cock Lane Ghost, only bearing in its hand a lighted candle in place
of a hammer. What the meaning of this is I fail to understand. Of the
two other occupants of the pew one is weeping and the other asleep.
{93} A winged devil whispers evil thoughts into the sleeper’s ear.
In both plates, on a bracket attached to the side of the pew and
inscribed “The Poor’s Box,” rests a wire rat-trap in place of the
proper receptacle.
Turning now to the clerk’s desk, which in Plate I. has the inscription
“Cherubim and Seraph [ — ] do cry,” and in Plate II. “Continually do
cry,” we find a hideous and brutal-looking clerk singing lustily from
a book which he half supports in his claw-like fingers. Supporting him
are two winged cherubs, the ridiculous nothingness of whose bodies
(so envied by Thackeray in his days of pupilage) is accentuated by
the significant addition of ducks’ feet. Their pitiful faces accord
with the punning inscription on the edge of the desk. In Plate II. the
ducks’ feet have been removed, but to make up for the loss we have the
clerk himself, now a lean and hungry-looking individual, also decorated
with a pair of wings.
Below the desk in Plate I. howls a dog, his collar engraved with
Whitfield’s name, whilst, below the hassock on which he sits, a ragged
{94} figure squats embracing an image. In Plate II. a book entitled
_Demonology, by K. James Ist._, surmounted by a shoeblack’s basket
in which _Whitfield’s Journal_ is stuck, takes the place of the dog,
whilst the boy of Bilston, vomiting forth nails, displaces the ragged
figure. From the neck of the bottle in his hand a figure, similar to
that held by the man in the pew, rises expelling the cork, which falls
to the ground.
In the forefront of Plate I. lies the bloated figure of Mother Douglas,
who, after a most licentious life, was said to have become a rigid
devotee. Hogarth, who has portrayed her in other of his plates, here
ridicules her conversion. A hand belonging to a figure outside the
plate holds a bottle of salts to her nose. In Plate II. Mary Tofts, “ye
Godliman woman,” takes her place. Her well-known imposture, which it
would be out of place to particularise here, gave rise to a voluminous
literature, and a sheaf of remarkable caricatures. In place of the
salts a glass of cordial is applied as a restorative.
[Illustration: The Chandelier in “Enthusiasm”]
[Illustration: The Chandelier in “Credulity”]
In Plate I., behind the prostrate woman a bearded Jew regards the
preacher with mock {96} devotion, what time he kills a flea between
his thumb-nails. Before him lies a book open at a picture of Abraham
offering up Isaac. In Plate II. the figure of the Jew is much weakened,
whilst a knife inscribed “Bloody” is laid across a picture of an altar
on the page of the open book.
In the background of both plates a motley collection of devotees
assists at these religious orgies. To the extreme left of Plate II.,
which, by the addition of several persons in the congregation, has
become greatly overcrowded, a minister directs the attention of a
terrified wretch, whose hair bristles with fear, to the extraordinary
double-globed chandelier above their heads.
Final emphasis is given to the whole satire by the figure of a Turk
(slightly varied in the two plates), who regards with amusement through
the window the idolatry of those “dogs of Christians.”
So much for the details of the plates. As regards the general effect of
the whole, the superiority of the suppressed design will be evident at
a glance. In lighting, balance, and composition, the substituted design
is immeasurably removed from the original. Nor would this be wonderful
if, {97} as Ireland surmised, “the alterations were made by degrees.”
With this view, however, I find it, as I have said above, impossible
to concur. If, as he suggests, the figures were beaten out one by one,
their substitutes would occupy practically identical spaces on the
plate; but a little measurement demonstrates the fact that, with the
exception of the figure of the preacher, which has been left where it
was, and of the mental thermometer, which has been raised, almost the
whole of the design has been shifted downwards.
I am therefore inclined to think that from the first Hogarth, from
one cause or another, made up his mind to change the direction of his
satire, and at once beat out all the figures on the plate save one.
That the arrangement of the new design should coincide generally with
that of the first is, I think, no more than one would naturally expect,
and does not in any way weaken the argument.
In conclusion, it should be pointed out, for the sake of those who
would study the matter further, that the accounts of the impressions of
the several plates in the _Catalogue of Prints and Drawings {98} in
the British Museum_ are not easily found, being somewhat arbitrarily
placed at pages 301–307, vol. iii., part i., and pages 644–648, vol.
ii., respectively.
* * * * *
So far we have seen Hogarth in his character of general iconoclast and
antipapist. It is now our business to deal with him in what was a more
personal polemic.
In the year 1731 Pope first published his notorious attack upon the
Duke of Chandos in his satire _Of Taste: An Epistle to the Right Hon.
Richard, Earl of Burlington_.
Hogarth forthwith entered the lists, and designed and published a
well-deserved pictorial counterblast, allusively entitled “The Man of
Taste,” or “Burlington Gate.” This was immediately “suppressed” on a
prosecution being threatened because of what was deemed its scurrilous
and defamatory character.
Notwithstanding this prompt suppression, however, the design reappeared
the following year, reduced in size, as frontispiece to a pirated
edition of Pope’s “Epistle,” which was included in a pamphlet entitled
_A Miscellany on Taste; by {99} Mr. Pope, etc._, published by Lawton
and others. Its contents were (1) Of Taste in Architecture, an Epistle
to the Earl of Burlington, with _Notes Variorum_, and a complete
Key; (2) Of Mr. Pope’s Taste in Divinity: viz., the Fall of Man,
and the First Psalm, translated for the use of a Young Lady; (3) Of
Mr. Pope’s Taste of Shakespeare; (4) His Satire on Mr. P——y; and
(5) Mr. Congreve’s fine Epistle on Retirement and Taste, addressed
to Lord Cobham. In this copy of the plate Pope, who is shown in the
original by means of the back of his head and figure, and as wearing
a full-bottomed wig, is more distinctly satirised, his face being
displayed in profile, and his head enclosed by a linen cap instead of a
wig. Amongst a few other minor alterations, it may be noticed that the
palette held by Kent is transferred from one hand to the other.
Referring to the republication of Hogarth’s cartoon in this form,
Mr. Dobson seems somewhat inclined to argue against the story of
its “suppression,” or, at any rate, its effectual suppression; but
he does not allude to the important fact that the publisher of this
pamphlet {100} was _also_ promptly prosecuted, and the sale strictly
prohibited. From which it is clear that the suppression was as
unqualified and as prompt as could reasonably be expected.
Steevens indeed mentions a copy upon which the following inscription
had been made:—
“Bo^t. this book of Mr. Wayte, at the Fountain Tavern, in the Strand,
in the presence of Mr. Draper, who told me he had it of the Printer,
Mr. W. Rayner.
“J. COSINS.”
The signatory was an Attorney, and the wording of the memorandum
suggests the intended prosecution.
To return to Pope’s poem. In it he passes the most scathing criticism
upon the splendid but tasteless surroundings of “Timon” at his
stupendous villa.
“Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught
As brings all Brobdingnag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down:
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect, shivering at the breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole, a labour’d quarry above ground.
Two cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call,
On every side you look, behold the wall! {101}
No pleasing intricacies intervene,
No artful wildness to perplex the scene;
Grove nods at grove, each valley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.”
And then, at the end of it all, he proceeds to justify Providence, in
giving riches to those who squander them, in a way that will hardly
commend itself to the student of the dismal science. A bad taste, he
says in effect, employs more hands, and diffuses wealth more usefully
than a good one! One would like to have heard John Stuart Mill on the
subject of “Pope.”
The “Epistle” was addressed to Pope’s patron, the Earl of Burlington,
who was one of the noblemen who had helped to screen him a few years
before on his publication of the _Dunciad_.
“Timon” (mainly though not entirely) referred to the Duke of Chandos,
who was, Johnson says, a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and
show, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had consequently the
voice of the public in his favour.[20] {102}
[20] Bowles says, “As Pope was the first to deal in personalities, the
following severe retaliation was published in the papers of the time:
“Let Pope no more what Chandos builds deride,
Because he takes not Nature for his guide;
Since, wond’rous critic! in thy form we see
That _Nature_ may mistake, as well as he.”
A violent outcry was therefore raised against the ingratitude and
treachery of Pope, who was said to have been indebted to the patronage
of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, and who gained the
opportunity of insulting him by the kindness of his invitation to
“Canons,” the Duke’s seat near Edgware.
In a pamphlet entitled _Ingratitude_ published in 1733, of which only
a portion of the frontispiece is in the British Museum,[21] the matter
is thus alluded to. “A certain animal of diminutive size, who had
translated a book into English metre (or at least had it translated for
him), addressed himself to a nobleman of the first rank, and in the
style of a gentleman-beggar requested him to subscribe a guinea for one
of his books. The nobleman entertained him at dinner in a sumptuous
manner, and continued so to do as often as the insignificant mortal
came to his house. After dinner this generous man of quality, taking
him aside, put a bank-note for five hundred pounds into his hands, and
desired he might have but one book. But {103} what was the consequence
of this? Why, truly, the wretch, who is a composition of peevishness,
spleen and envy, having no regard to the benefits he had received,
in a few years after, and without any manner of provocation, or the
least foundation for truth, publishes a satire, as he terms it, but in
reality it is an infamous and calumnious libel, calculated, with all
the malice and virulency imaginable, to defame and render odious the
character of his best benefactor.”
[21] Vide _Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum_,
Division I., _Satires_, vol. ii., No. 1935.
From which it will be seen that Hogarth was not out of the fashion in
retaliating upon Pope’s devoted head with the cartoon which we here
reproduce.
Let us examine it in detail. The gate, which is the main feature in the
picture, is a travesty of that which is familiar to old frequenters
of Piccadilly. Until as lately as 1868, it formed the frontage to
Burlington House. It was the joint design of Lord Burlington and
Colin Campbell, and, although well-proportioned and inoffensive,
hardly justifies the fulsome praise which has been bestowed upon
it. Kent, originally a coach-painter, with whose statue Hogarth has
surmounted the {104} structure, was patronised by, and brought
his practical knowledge to the assistance of, Lord Burlington,
himself undoubtedly a man of enlightened taste. The alteration and
reconstruction of the original Burlington House, which had been built
by his great-grandfather, the first Earl, was the first of his many
architectural projects. It was eventually taken down to make way for
the existing Royal Academy and Science Buildings. Lord Hervey laughed
at its inconvenience in the following couplet:—
“Possessed of one great hall of state,
Without a room to sleep or eat.”
The best of Lord Burlington’s and Kent’s joint work is to be found
in the northern park front of the Treasury Buildings in Whitehall,
“which,” says Fergusson, “if completed, would be more worthy of Inigo
Jones than anything that has been done there since his time.”
[Illustration: The Man of Taste]
Flanking the ex-coach-painter, Hogarth has placed reclining figures
of Raphael and Michael Angelo, who regard the modern architect with
respectful admiration! On the platform is Pope rough-casting the front
of the structure, and {106} incidentally bespattering the passers-by
with whitewash from his huge brush. Chief amongst these is the Duke of
Chandos, who vainly strives to protect himself with his hat. Ascending
the ladder is Lord Burlington, who carries up more whitening for the
beautifying of his own gate and the defilement of his neighbours’
clothes. Over the gate Hogarth has sarcastically inscribed the solitary
word “TASTE.” The double distribution of flattery and satire is an
excellent pictorial burlesque of the _Epistle to Lord Burlington_, and
who can say that it was not richly deserved? At any rate, stroke and
counterstroke were fierce and unhesitating in those days, and, although
Pope’s and his patrons’ influence was sufficient to get Hogarth’s witty
plate suppressed, it is a tribute to the wholesome respect which the
poet had for the artist, that, pugnacious and irrepressible as his pen
generally was, Pope never ventured to make any written retaliation upon
the libeller.
It should be mentioned that this was not the first occasion upon
which Hogarth had attacked the charlatanry of Kent. In the first
plate published on his own account, in 1724—“Masquerades and {107}
Operas”—he had included him in his ridicule of what Mr. Dobson calls
“foreign favourites and dubious exotics.” In that plate, also, he had
ridiculed “Burlington Gate,” and, curiously prompted by the spirit of
prophecy, had labelled it “Accademy (_sic_) of Arts!” He had also, in
the following year, burlesqued Kent’s scandalous altarpiece at St.
Clement Danes, which had lately been taken down in response to the
outcry against its sacrilegious impudence.
By the kindness of the publisher of _The Builder_, I am enabled to
reproduce a wood engraving of Burlington Gate as it actually was, which
appeared in that journal on October 28, 1854. Comparing this with the
cartoon, it will be seen that Hogarth did not scruple to heighten the
effect of his satire by depriving Lord Burlington’s edifice of such
merits as it undoubtedly possessed.
So much for Hogarth in his polemic with Pope. We will now turn for
a moment to Hogarth and his quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill, in
which we shall find him working over an old plate as in the case of
“Enthusiasm Delineated,” but with a very different object in view. Here
he adopts a method {108} of retaliation which, as we shall learn from
later chapters of this book, had become already customary amongst the
producers of political broadsides in the seventeenth century. Hitherto
Hogarth had kept clear of politics, but now, in his sixty-fifth year,
he threw himself into the fray. John Wilkes had started a paper called
_The North Briton_ in opposition to _The Briton_, the organ of the
Tory party of which Lord Bute was the leader. Hogarth had long enjoyed
Bute’s favour. He had also until now been on friendly terms with Wilkes
and his henchman Charles Churchill, the poet. On September 7, 1762,
taking sides with his patron, he published _The Times_ (Plate I.).
This so enraged Wilkes that he retaliated on the Saturday following,
in the seventeenth number of _The North Briton_, with a violent attack
on Hogarth both as man and artist. In the May following Hogarth
retorted by publishing a portrait of John Wilkes which, professing to
be a likeness, cleverly exhibited his most repulsive characteristics.
Wilkes being now on his trial for libel, Churchill came to the rescue
with his savage and slashing _Epistle to William Hogarth_. This was
published on August 1. {110} With a promptitude astonishing in those
days of tardy copper-plate engraving, Hogarth, by a clever expedient,
retaliated within a month with his exceedingly venomous print of “The
Bruiser.” The plate from which this was printed had already done duty
as a portrait of Hogarth himself with his dog Trump, engraved from the
well-known painting now in the National Gallery.
[Illustration: Burlington Gate as it appeared prior to 1868]
Pressed for time, in ill-health, and apprehensive lest the public might
attribute delay in replying to inability to do so, he took the old
plate, burnished out his own portrait, and substituted in its place the
head of a bear, with torn and soiled clerical bands about its neck,
ruffles on its wrists, and clasping against its chest a foaming pot
of beer, in allusion to the personal habits of the poet and ci-devant
parson. With his left paw the beast clasps a huge club, the knots of
which are labelled “Lye 1,” “Lye 2,” referring to the falsities of _The
North Briton_. There are other minor alterations which may be seen at a
glance. The whole was entitled “THE BRUISER, CHARLES CHURCHILL (once
the Rev^d.!) In the character of a RUSSIAN HERCULES, regaling himself
after having killed {111} the MONSTER CARICATURE, that so sorely gall’d
his virtuous friend, the Heaven-born Wilkes.” The plate thus altered is
to be found in five states, particulars of which may be found on p. 286
of Mr. Austin Dobson’s _William Hogarth_, 1891. That here reproduced is
from a _copy_ of the last state engraved by Dent for John Ireland.[22]
It is only in the last two states that the clever little engraving in
front of the palette is to be found.
[22] In copying, the design, as will be seen, has been turned from left
to right.
So far we have dealt with work done by Hogarth in his individual
capacity. Let us now turn to such of his collaborative work as suffered
cancellation.
In dealing with the series of suppressed _Quixote_ plates we shall be
brought into touch with two not uninteresting and accessory episodes
in the artist’s career. In the first of these Hogarth made a great
success, where a rival artist had made a signal failure. In the second,
by way of righting the balance of things, fate ordained it that this
same artist should badly best Hogarth, and that in a manner peculiarly
galling to the latter’s vanity.
Hogarth’s father-in-law was Sir James Thornhill, {112} whose drawing
academy in Covent Garden had not proved as valuable an institution
as had been anticipated. Johan Van der Banck, the rival artist above
alluded to, had been one of Sir James’s pupils. By heading a secession
and establishing a rival school he had undoubtedly largely contributed
to the failure of his master’s venture. However, in due time, his
school too proved to be lacking in the elements of success, and came to
an untimely end.
On Sir James’s death the “neglected apparatus” of his father-in-law
passed into Hogarth’s hands, and he set to work to establish the
academy on a different footing. The result was that it became a
successful educational centre, which only ceased to exist many years
afterwards on the establishment of the Royal Academy. A picture by
Hogarth of the interior of the school with the students drawing from
life is to be seen on the staircase leading to the Diploma Gallery at
Burlington House.
In this case Hogarth had the laugh on his side. In the other, which is
immediately relevant to our subject, the laugh was with Van der Banck.
[Illustration: Portrait of Hogarth with His Dog Trump[23]]
[23] The plate being re-engraved for _Hogarth Illustrated_ became
transposed.
[Illustration: _The plate reversed and in its last state, now entitled_
“The Bruiser”]
In 1738 Lord Carteret’s Spanish edition of _Don {113} Quixote_ was
published. For this Hogarth had been commissioned to design a series of
illustrations. Eight of these were executed, but, on being submitted
to Lord Carteret, did not meet with his approval. The commission was
consequently transferred to Johan van der Banck, who thus succeeded
in revenging himself for his former failure, and at the same time
unconsciously provided us with matter for consideration in these
papers. His sixty-eight designs were engraved by Van der Gucht and
republished in the English edition of 1756, of which Charles Jarvis was
the translator. Of Hogarth’s unsuccessful venture John Ireland writes
with some indignation, “As they are etched in a bold and masterly
style, I suppose the noble peer did not think them _pretty enough_ to
embellish his volume and therefore laid them aside for Vandergucht’s
engravings from Vanderbank’s designs.” It is a slight satisfaction to
know that Hogarth’s completed etchings were paid for!
One curious fact about Jarvis’s edition demands our attention. The
plate representing the Don’s first sally in quest of adventure is
without any {114} signature, but the “style of the etching and the
air of the figures” indisputably determine for us the fact that it is
from the pencil and burin of Hogarth, so that it is open to any one who
has access to this edition to judge for themselves of the justice of
Ireland’s strictures upon Lord Carteret.
For those who have not access to Jarvis’s edition it may be mentioned
that a copy engraved by J. Mills appears in Ireland’s _Hogarth
Illustrated_ and in the _Anecdotes of William Hogarth_, published by
Nichols in 1833. Of Hogarth’s eight designs we are therefore left with
only seven, which were “suppressed.” Of these six were published from
Hogarth’s own plates in Baldwin, Cradock and Joy’s splendid collection
of the _Works_ in 1822; whilst previously, in 1798, John Ireland had
published small copies of them together with an unfinished design of
“The Innkeeper” in his possession, engraved by J. Mills. These plates
were used over again in the _Anecdotes_ of 1833 with altered lettering
and the etchings considerably worn.
[Illustration: Don Quixote No. 1.—The Innkeeper]
The accompanying reproductions are, save for {116} No. 1., not made
from any of the foregoing, but from the early states of the plates,
never before published, to be found in the British Museum. Thus they
will prove not only of interest to the casual reader but also valuable,
for purposes of comparison, to the possessors of any of the three
editions of Hogarth’s _Works_ mentioned above. The full descriptions of
the plates may be found in Ireland and Nichols, but for the convenience
of the reader I append a short commentary.
No. I. _The Innkeeper_ is from an unfinished etching and is of
particular interest. By some its authenticity is doubted, but John
Ireland believed in it, and I, for one, see no reason to call his
judgment into question, more particularly as this figure bears a more
than chance resemblance to that of “The Innkeeper” in the undoubted
Hogarth referred to above published in Jarvis’s edition. In the Van
der Banck plate, which represents the knighting of the Don by the
Innkeeper, it is also evident that Hogarth’s rival has done him the
compliment of adopting his model.
[Illustration: Don Quixote No. II.—The Funeral of Chrysostom]
No. II. _The Funeral of Chrysostom, Marcella vindicating herself._ This
scene was also taken {118} by Van der Banck for illustration, and a
comparison of the two plates is not favourable to Hogarth.
No. III. _The Innkeepers Wife and Daughter taking care of the Don after
he had been beaten._ “Much superior to the same scene designed by Van
der Banck.”
No. IV. _Don Quixote seizes the Barber’s Basin for Mambrino’s Helmet._
On the whole inferior to Van der Banck’s. The barb of the Don’s weapon
is different from that in the Hogarth design published by Jarvis. The
stirrups and saddling of the horse too are different. These points have
not been referred to before, but I mention them by way of argument
against the authenticity of the Jarvis plate. As I have said before,
personally I have no doubt that it is from Hogarth’s burin.
No. V. _Don Quixote releases the Galley Slaves._ Here the Don is found
wearing the barber’s basin as his helmet. By a not unusual oversight it
will be noticed Hogarth has made his figures left-handed, forgetful of
the reversing process due to printing from a plate. A superior design
to that of Van der Banck, who, as Ireland says, “has {121} given to
two or three of the thieves the countenances of apostles.”
[Illustration: Don Quixote No. III.—The Innkeeper’s Wife and Daughter]
[Illustration: Don Quixote No. IV.—Don Quixote seizes the Barber’s
Basin]
No. VI. _The First Interview of the Valorous Knight of La Mancha with
the Unfortunate Knight of the Rock._ Distinctly superior to Van der
Banck.
No. VII. _The Curate and Barber disguising themselves to convey Don
Quixote home._ An excellent representation of the curate assuming the
dress of a distressed virgin who, by his tale of having been wronged by
a naughty knight, hopes to induce the Don to return to his home.
Whilst on the subject of Don Quixote it may be mentioned that, much
earlier in his career, Hogarth had designed and engraved a plate
dealing with “Sancho’s feast,” but this must not be in any way
identified or confused with the series begun for Lord Carteret,
although Ireland groups them all together.
[Illustration: Don Quixote No. V.—Don Quixote releases the Galley
Slaves]
[Illustration: Don Quixote No. VI.—The First Interview]
So much for Hogarth’s suppressed illustrations, and it is, it must be
confessed, something of a relief to turn again from his cognate art to
that which is individual and typical. For we do not much value Hogarth
as an illustrator. In this character he rarely does more than repeat
for us {124} in another medium the obvious matters already dealt
with in the letterpress. “Illustration,” as Mr. Laurence Housman has
well said, “should be something in the nature of a brilliant commentary
throwing out new light upon the subject, an exquisite parenthesis of
things better said in this medium than could be said in any other: in
a word, the result of another creative faculty at work on the same
theme.” And this in no way describes Hogarth’s work as an illustrator.
It is as a great original painter working out consummately the
homeliest of morals that he appeals to us. Those morals which, to quote
Thackeray, are “as easy as Goody Twoshoes,” the moral of “Tommy was a
naughty boy and the master flogged him, and Jacky was a good boy and
had plum-cake.” For it is in “Marriage à la Mode,” “A Rake’s Progress,”
“Industry and Idleness,” that he succeeds inimitably, carrying out the
motto beneath “Time Smoking a Picture”:—
“To Nature and your Self appeal
Nor learn of others what to feel.”
[Illustration: Don Quixote No. VII.—The Curate and the Barber]
But this only in passing, for our subject debars us from lingering over
Hogarth’s best. {126} From the nature of our theme we are confined
to the examination in the majority of cases of that which verges upon
failure either from artistic or social considerations.
{127}
CHAPTER VII
CANCELLED DESIGNS FOR _PUNCH_ AND _ONCE A WEEK_
[CHARLES KEENE AND FREDERICK SANDYS]
In the present chapter I propose to deal with three masterly drawings
prepared for the publications of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans (the
predecessors of Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew) which were suppressed for
various reasons. Two of them are drawings by Charles Keene done for
_Punch_, which were never even “brought to the block.” The third is by
Frederick Sandys, designed for _Once a Week_, and actually engraved,
but cancelled before publication for reasons which shall appear.
For leave to reproduce the first—one of the rare cartoons (in this
case a double-page one) drawn by Keene for _Punch_—I am indebted
to {128} the generosity of Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew, to whom the
original drawing now belongs. For years it has hung amongst other
well-nigh priceless treasures in the dining hall in Bouverie Street,
Whitefriars, and, until reproduced by me in the _Pall Mall Magazine_
in 1899, was only known to the privileged few whose good fortune
it has been to penetrate into that Temple of the Comic Muse. It is
therefore with the greater satisfaction that it is here reproduced
for the delight of that surely increasing public which recognises in
Charles Keene the greatest master of pen-and-ink drawing that England
has produced. But this is not the place to linger over the qualities of
artists. At the same time we cannot but congratulate ourselves that, by
good fortune, our chosen subject brings us into contact not only with
work to which adventitious interest attaches, but also with artistic
work evidencing a technical mastery hard indeed to surpass.
[Illustration: The Cancelled Cartoon. (_By Charles Keene_)]
The only public mention before the year 1899 made of this splendid
pen-and-ink drawing is to be found on page 60 of Mr. Spielmann’s
monumental work, _The History of Punch_. There, in his most {129}
interesting description of _The “Punch” Dining Hall_, it is
described as “a masterly drawing, 2 feet long, by Keene, bought by the
late Mr. Bradbury at a sale—the (unused) cartoon of Disraeli leading
the principal financiers of the day in hats and frock-coats across the
Red Sea. (‘Come along, it’s getting shallower!’)”
Now, since this was written, further inquiries have been made upon the
subject, and two theories present themselves for consideration. The
first of them in its general outline supports Mr. Spielmann’s account,
and maintains that the picture was bought direct from Keene himself
by the late Mr. Agnew (not Mr. Bradbury), as a _solatium_ on account
of its not being used, and that the reason for suppressing it was the
anti-Jewish feeling by which it was inspired.
In support of this view it should be remembered that Keene all along
refused to accept a fixed salary for his _Punch_ work, and was always
paid by the piece. Considering, too, that the subject of the weekly
cartoons was (and still is) a matter of general discussion at the
Wednesday _Punch_ dinners, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the
{130} subject was embarked upon with the authority of the editor, and
that other counsels only prevailed after the drawing had reached the
stage at which it now appears.[24] This being so, it seems not unlikely
that a generous employer would feel himself in some degree answerable
for the futile labour to which the artist had been put, and would offer
to buy the picture as it stood rather than that the artist should in
any way be prejudiced. If this were the case (which does not sound
improbable) it throws an interesting and edifying side-light upon the
relations existing between the artists and publishers of our great
comic paper.
[24] Of course Sir John Tenniel was cartoonist in chief, but sometimes
the cartoon was duplicated, and on very rare occasions Sir John took a
holiday.
Against this theory, however, I have the opinion of Sir John Tenniel
and Mr. Linley Sambourne that the drawing was done on Keene’s own
initiative by way of frontispiece to one of the _Punch_ pocket-books.
But this view of the matter I am, with submission, not myself inclined
to accept, and for two reasons. First and foremost, the drawing differs
in shape from the pocket-book folding frontispieces; and secondly, it
was the {131} practice in these yearly productions rather to satirise
some social folly or fashion of the period than to deal with matters
political or international. In addition to which it does tally in shape
with the double-page cartoons of _Punch_ itself, and, as a matter of
fact, Keene’s few cartoons were mostly done during the years 1875,
1876, and 1877, when the matter of the Suez Canal was making a new
departure in politics—a fact which, as will appear, has some bearing
upon the matter before us.
So much for the circumstances connected with the production and
proposed destination of the picture. Let us now consider its subject
and the probable reason of its suppression.
And, if we take down our volume of collected _Punch_ cartoons and
turn to those dealing with Disraeli, we shall be disinclined to think
that it was out of any consideration for “Benjamin Bombastes” himself
that this splendid drawing was withheld from publication. But thinly
disguised contempt is the attitude almost invariably maintained
towards him, whilst but thinly disguised personal admiration for
his great rival discounts even the bitterest political taunts {132}
flung at that devoted head. No! I am inclined to think that events
at this time, to which this cartoon referred, were wringing unwilling
approbation even from “The Asiatic Mystery’s” most bitter enemies,
and that Bouverie Street could not but acknowledge that here at least
“Ben-Dizzy” deserved well of his country. For surely the cartoon
has reference to nothing less than that crowning act of wisdom, the
purchase of nearly half the shares in the Suez Canal for four millions
sterling. Here we have Disraeli with his umbrella pointing the way,
not across the Red Sea as Mr. Spielmann imagines, but up the Canal
_towards_ the Red Sea. He calls out, “Don’t be afraid! it’s getting
shallower,” thus possibly referring to the original notion (afterwards
disproved) that the level of the Mediterranean was 30 feet below that
of the Red Sea. On the right-hand, and Egyptian, side of the water, if
we look carefully, we discover the shadowy outline of the Sphinx and
the Pyramids, which latter rise dimly to the margin of the drawing. On
the bank indistinct forms of the Liberal “Opposition” wave their arms,
hurl stones and shout “Yah” at the {133} wading financiers. Such was
the hardly congratulatory attitude assumed towards this masterly move
by Charles Keene.
But when we turn to the cartoons dealing with this subject by Sir
John Tenniel,[25] which _did_ appear, what do we find? The first is
“Mosé in Egitto”!!! published on December 11, 1875, to which, in the
collected cartoons, the following note is appended:—“Mr. Disraeli
extorted the admiration of the country by purchasing for £4,000,000,
on behalf of the Government, the shares in the Suez Canal held by the
Khedive of Egypt.” The second is entitled “The Lion’s Share—_Gare
à qui la touche_,” on February 26, 1896, to which the note appended
runs: “The acquisition of the Suez Canal shares was accepted by the
country as securing the safety of ‘The Key to India.’” These, as will
be seen, frankly recognise the wisdom of the purchase. Hence it is not
surprising if the feeling against the suggestion contained in Keene’s
cartoon—that the financiers of the day were being put into a {134}
ridiculous position by the Conservative Leader—was strong enough to
result in its rejection. Its inclusion would have gone far to stultify
the effect of the congratulatory attitude taken up by _Punch’s_
chartered cartoonist. At any rate, this view of the case appears to be
most reasonable, and I give it for what it is worth.
[25] It may be mentioned as an interesting fact that no engraved
cartoon after Sir John Tenniel has ever failed to find its place in the
number for which it was designed.
The drawing is a fine example of Keene’s power of endowing his models
with the qualities requisite to his design. Not a man of these
seventeen financiers suggests a model posing, and yet all, for this was
Keene’s invariable custom, were drawn from the life. Not one of them
but is balanced as though he were wading in water up to his knees; and
yet not one of them, we may be sure, was wading against a stream when,
probably unconsciously, he was forced into the service of the artist’s
pencil. The pose of one and all is as inevitable as is the expression
on the face of each. I would ask all my readers who are seekers after
consummate draughtsmanship to give more particular attention to this
beautiful drawing than its mere subject would demand, remembering that
Keene’s achievements in black-and-white are {135} unsurpassed, and, I
am inclined to think, unsurpassable.
We will now turn to the consideration of the other suppressed Keene
drawing. This, we shall find, owed its rejection not to political but
to social considerations. And it is of peculiar interest, not only as
showing the scrupulous care taken by the then editor of _Punch_ to
avoid the risk of offending the susceptibilities of his readers, but
also as an example of the extensive collaboration which existed between
Keene and the late Mr. Joseph Crawhall in the supply of “socials” to
that paper week by week.
Let us pause for a moment, then, to recall the particulars of this
remarkable co-operation. Early in the ’seventies, Keene, who was often
gravelled for humorous subjects on which to exercise his pencil,
was by good fortune introduced to the author of _Border Notes and
Mixty-Maxty_, and many other droll books of a like character. This
gentleman, always a lover of things quaint, grotesque and jocular,
had been for years in the habit of jotting down any telling incident
that came in his way, illustrating it at leisure for his {136} own
amusement. He was no great artist; but, like Thackeray, his inadequate
pencil was so compelled and inspired by the appreciation of his
subjects that he was able to set them down pictorially in a manner so
naïve and at the same time so intelligent that they are a joy to the
beholder. These suggestive drawings, by the time the introduction had
taken place, filled several volumes.
Keene’s delight, then, may be well imagined when he was given _carte
blanche_ to cull the best of the subjects for use in _Punch_. He
wrote:—
“I can’t tell you how strongly I have felt your rare generosity and
unselfishness in letting me browse so freely in your pastures.”
And again:—
“Many thanks for the loan of the sketch-books. I enjoyed them again
and again, with renewed chucklings; but what a mouth-watering larder
to lay open to a ravenous joke-seeker!”
[Illustration: The Cancelled “Social.” (_By Charles Keene_)]
[Illustration: Suggestion by Joseph Crawhall for the Cancelled “Social”]
Fortunately Mr. Crawhall was as delighted to be of service to the great
artist as Keene was to avail himself of his opportunity. Hence we have
that delightful partnership of which full particulars {137} may be
found in my _Life and Letters of Charles Keene of_ “_Punch_.”
It is necessary to say so much for the purpose of introducing the
subject of the second of Keene’s cancelled drawings. By a great piece
of good fortune I have in my possession Mr. Crawhall’s pictorial
suggestion for the rejected picture itself, presented to me by the
artist. I reproduce it here alongside Keene’s drawing for the purpose
of comparison. The humour of it is certainly rather brutal, and one is
not surprised to find that the editor considered that it would “jar
upon feelings.” Keene, on the other hand, was naturally disgusted
at his labour being thrown away, and vented his wrath somewhat
unreasonably upon the “Philistine editor.”
For the sake of those who would like to gain some idea of the
personality of the artist’s friend who acted, as Boswell did to
Johnson, in the capacity of a “starter of mawkins,” it may be mentioned
that an excellent back view of Mr. Crawhall, drawn by Keene, appears in
_Punch_, March 11, 1882, over the following delicious “legend”:— {138}
_LAPSUS LINGUÆ_
PATER: “Now, look here, my boy, I can’t have these late hours. When I
was your age my father wouldn’t let me stay out after dark.”
FILIUS: “Humph! nice sort o’ father you must have had, I should say.”
PATER (_waxing_): “Deuced sight better than you have, you young——”
(_Checks himself, and exit._)
The original of the _Punch_ drawing here reproduced was presented to
Mr. Crawhall by Charles Keene. This was the latter’s method of repaying
the former for his unqualified generosity. Mr. Crawhall was, however,
somewhat embarrassed by what he considered to be excessive payment for
services which he held required no other recompense than the honour
thus conferred on his poor drawings. The result was a generous contest
which resulted in his finally refusing to accept them, “For,” said he,
“you don’t know the value of your work. The reward is too great, and
our happy connection must cease if you put me under these obligations.”
Keene, nevertheless, always afterwards made a colourable excuse to
send them when he could think of one, although by this time he was
well {139} aware that he was as great a magician as the Old Lady
of Threadneedle Street, and could by a few strokes of his pen make
the back of an old envelope rival the value of one of _her_ crisp
bank-notes.
But we must not linger over the cancelled drawings of an artist who,
had he been as great in imagination as he was in originality of method
and mastery over his pencil, would have been as great as the greatest
in Art. It is now our delightful task to turn to another of the men
of the ’sixties, whose imagination and sympathy with high romance has
rarely been surpassed, and whose technical mastery, though not the
equal of his great contemporary, was yet so distinguished that, even
divorced from his other qualities, it would give him a niche in the
Temple of Fame. Frederick Sandys has but lately left us, and how few
there are who recognise the greatness of his work! For years it has
been a matter of astonishment to me that his name was not on every
tongue. Keene, alive, was practically unknown. Keene, dead, occupies
an unassailable position. Sandys is known and esteemed only by {140}
the few. The time will come when his pictures will be a fashionable
craze, and every woodcut after him, whether it be in _Once a Week_,
_The Cornhill_, _Good Words_, _London Society_, _The Churchman’s Family
Magazine_, _The Shilling Magazine_, _The Quiver_, _The Argosy_, or
what not, will be eagerly appropriated by those who wish to pass as
discerning dilettanti.
But we must not generalise, for our concern is here with one particular
design, and enthusiasm must not be allowed to run. Done for _Once a
Week_, and cut exquisitely on the wood by Swain, that with which we
have to do was at the last moment cancelled by a timidly fastidious
editor.
If we turn to page 672 of vol. iv. of _Once a Week_ (new series), 1867,
we shall find the following set of verses, signed “W.,” the origin and
authorship of which I am now able to make public:—
DANAË
The hour of noonday sleep was o’er,
And Danaë dreamt her dream no more;
Yet still its image lingered on her loom;
For there in woven colours bright,
And touched to life by purpling light,
Smiled the one godhead of the captive’s room. {141}
She raised her from the Tyrian sheet,
And clasped her sandals on her feet,
And lightly drew around her virgin zone;
And sighed—and knew not why she sighed;
And murmured, while her work she plied,
“The World may leave my love and me alone.”
Thus sang the maiden of the brazen tower,
And longed, unconscious, for the golden shower.
“The days and months have grown to years,
And I have dried my childish tears,
And half forgotten why they ever ran;
My soul is plighted to the sky,
And we,—my wrinkled nurse and I,—
What matter if we see no more of man?
She wearies me with omens dire,
My son foredoomed to kill my sire,—
But sire and son are empty names to me.
My love! I only rest awhile,
To dream the beauty of thy smile.
And only wake again to picture thee.”
Thus sang the maiden of the brazen tower,
And longed, unconscious, for the golden shower.
She ceased: for now began to fade
The figure of that mighty shade,
With loins and shoulders meet to sway the world;
And awful through the gloom appeared
His massive locks of hair and beard,
Like clouds in lurid light of thunder curled.
Yet, long as twilight glimmered there,
She gazed upon a vision fair;
His brow more beautiful than Parian stone,
And nestling nearer like a dove,
Soft on his lips she breathed her love, {142}
And lit his eyes with lustre of her own.
Then passion stung the maiden of the tower,
And fast she panted for the golden shower.
She stood, with white arm fixed in air,
And head thrown back, and streaming hair,
“Oh, Lord of Dreams!” she cried, “dost thou behold?”
Then thunderous music shook the cell,
And, sliding through the rafters, fell
On Danaë’s burning breast, three drops of gold.
Her bosom thrilled—but not with pain:—
Faster and brighter flowed the rain,
And starred with light the chamber of the bride:
Her cheek sank blushing on her hand,
Her eyelids drooped, her silken band
Unloosed itself,—and Jove was at her side.
Black loured the earth around the captive’s tower,
But Heaven embraced her in the golden shower.
I insert the poem here, as it constitutes the only trace in the pages
of _Once a Week_ of the matter with which we have to deal.
Before proceeding to detail the circumstances connected with the
production and final suppression of the engraving, which prompted this
passable set of verses, I shall endeavour to correct certain statements
regarding it which have gained currency. In the _Artist_ monograph
on “The Art of Frederick Sandys,” in 1896, we find a few lines only
given to the consideration of the {144} wood-engraving of “Danaë in
the Brazen Chamber”; but in these few lines we have one undoubtedly
incorrect statement, and another which is open to the gravest
suspicion. The first is that the “Danaë” was engraved for _The Hobby
Horse_ in 1888; the second that it was drawn for _Once a Week_ in 1860.
[Illustration: Danaë in the Brazen Chamber]
As regards its engraving, this was done by Swain for _Once a Week_,
when the drawing was sent in. That it was first _published_ in _The
Hobby Horse_ as an illustration to an article by the late J. M. Gray
is another matter altogether. As regards the date of its design, 1860
is almost certainly some years too early. Indeed, I had it from Sandys
himself that the probable date of the _first sketch_ of the subject
was as late as 1865, and that it was not till after he had traced it
on a panel[26] (the figure some two feet high) for a never-completed
oil-painting, and later had made a chalk-drawing of it for a Yorkshire
gentleman, that he decided to make a drawing on the wood at all. This
being done, its beauty prompted two poems by two of his personal
friends, the one {145} given above by Mr. Ward, the other, so far as I
can gather never published, by Colonel Alfred Richards. Now, the fact
that Mr. Ward’s poem did not appear in _Once a Week_ till 1867 lends
such overwhelming weight to Mr. Sandys’s recollection of the matter
that we may, I think, unhesitatingly reject the date of 1860 given by
the author of the _Artist_ monograph and adopt a date at least five
years later. Further evidence, too, is to be found in the fact that Mr.
Sandys continued to draw on the wood certainly as late as 1866, and his
recollection is clear as to “Danaë” being his last essay in that medium.
[26] This is now, I believe, in the possession of Mr. Ashby-Sterry.
I have been thus particular to correct this matter because it will,
I believe, prove of importance, when Sandys’s artistic career comes
finally to be described, to get his different productions into
chronological order for a proper understanding of his artistic
development.
So far, then, we have arrived, at any rate approximately, at the
date when Sandys did what proved to be not only his one “suppressed”
drawing, but, as I have said, the very last drawing done by him on the
wood. {146}
Let us now consider the circumstances under which it was produced for,
but in the event suppressed by, the editor of _Once a Week_. And that
this periodical is the poorer for its loss will be obvious to all who
love beautiful drawing, “splendid paganism,” and fine wood-engraving.
Sandys began to draw for _Once a Week_ in 1861, his initial effort
being that splendid design, “Yet once more on the Organ play,” which
is fit to rank with Rethel’s “Der Tod als Freund,” with which there
is a certain similarity of sentiment. This was followed by eleven
drawings within the five succeeding years, all breathing the spirit of
Dürer, and carrying on the effort which Rethel, who had only died in
1859, had made to renew the life put into wood-engraving by the old
German master. In either 1865 or 1866 Sandys projected an oil picture
on the subject of “Danaë in the Brazen Chamber.” He had conceived a
new version of the Danaë legend. Instead of Jove appearing to the
imprisoned maiden in the form of a golden shower, he adopted the belief
in Jove as the God of Dreams and adapted it to the legend.[27] Danaë,
{147} who has never seen a man, is haunted by the appearance of Jove
as he has presented himself in her sleeping hours. To comfort herself
and satisfy her passionate longing she has spent her days in weaving
the image so vouchsafed to her in tapestry. For the moment her work is
discarded. The ball of wool with which she has been working lies at her
feet, and she stands, “with white arm fixed in air,” calling upon the
“Lord of Dreams” to come to her in very sooth.
[27] καὶ γὰρ τ’ ὄναρ ἐκ Διός ἐστιν.—Homer, _Iliad_ i. 63.
Frankly sensuous as is the picture, one cannot but admit that the
theme is treated with all necessary restraint. This, however, does not
appear to have been the opinion of Walford, the then editor of _Once a
Week_. He wrote to Sandys requiring a modification of the design. This
the artist flatly refused. The design must appear as it was or not at
all. In this refusal he was gallantly supported by the proprietors of
the periodical, Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. The editor, however, would
not give way, and the result was a deadlock. The block was actually
engraved by Mr. Swain, and in his best manner, but the editor’s will
was paramount, and it never {148} adorned the pages for which it was
intended. It was reserved to the _Century Guild Hobby Horse_, in 1888,
to rescue it from the oblivion into which it had passed.
I am indebted to Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew for permission to reproduce
the design. Of it Mr. J. M. Gray says in his article on “Frederick
Sandys and the Woodcut Designers of Thirty Years Ago”:—“It ranks among
the very finest of Sandys’s woodcuts,” and the artist, who had not been
uniformly satisfied with the engraved versions of his work, himself
wrote to me: “It was engraved for _Once a Week_. Perfectly cut by
Swain. From my point of view the best piece of woodcutting of our time.”
And all who love this beautiful but fast disappearing handmaiden of the
arts will heartily endorse Mr. Sandys’s opinion.
{149}
CHAPTER VIII
MISCELLANEOUS
I propose in this chapter to group together certain sporadic
suppressions in lithography, etching, wood-engraving, and process work.
They are not sufficiently important each to demand a chapter to itself,
nor do they fall into any particular categories as do the “Dickens,”
“Hogarth,” and “Cruikshank” plates. At the same time each has an
interest of its own, and is a footprint upon the byway of art with
which we are concerned.
Fortunately for us the first of these cancelled illustrations is,
at a time when we have but lately been celebrating the centenary of
Senefelder’s great invention, lithography, of extraordinary interest,
for it was one of the earliest book illustrations produced in England
by this method. The {150} volume in which it appears (if we are lucky
enough to possess one of the first three hundred copies issued) is the
_Antiquities of Westminster_, with two hundred and forty-six engravings
by J. T. Smith.
The date of the volume is 1807—a fact which would at first sight
seem to tell against our claim to be dealing with a pioneer English
lithograph. We must, however, remember that a book of this kind took
many years to produce, and that the publication of the illustrations
was, in many cases, of necessity years later than their execution.
Lowndes oddly refers to the lithograph as the first “_stone-plate_”
ever attempted, but in this he claims for it too great a distinction.
To name no others, there was, we know, as early as 1803 a portfolio
containing drawings by West, Fuseli, Barry, and Stothard issued as
_Specimens of Polyautography_, by which term lithography was for a few
years described, which contains lithographs dated 1801 and 1802.
[Illustration: “The Painted Chamber.” (From _Antiquities of
Westminster_, 1807.)]
The subject of the design here reproduced in facsimile is the inside of
the Painted Chamber which was part of the Old Palace of Westminster.
{151} The mural paintings which were discovered at the beginning of
this century, after the removal of the tapestry hangings which are to
be seen in the lithograph, were, it will scarcely be credited, promptly
ordered by the authorities of the day to be “improved” away by a coat
of whitewash because of their untidiness! And this although they were
known to have been in existence since 1322, and although there were
strong reasons for the belief even at that time that they were executed
as early as the reign of Henry III.! Such an act of vandalism would be
inconceivable were it not that we have learnt to look upon its like as
so lamentably common.
The account of the preparation of the lithograph, and of the
stone’s untimely fate, is fully set forth on pages 49 and 50 of the
_Antiquities_. It is too long to quote in this place, but is well worth
looking up by those who are interested in the history of this method.
It is sufficient for our purpose to say that after three hundred
impressions had been taken off, the stone was laid by for the night
without care having been taken to keep it properly moist. The result
was that {152} on the application of the ink balls in the morning
they proved too tenacious, and on their removal were found to have
torn up portions of the drawing from the stone. Consequently we have
it that impressions of this, one of the first English lithographs, are
exceedingly scarce, and are only to be found in the first three hundred
copies of the book issued. This fact connotes the further result that
the impressions of the etchings throughout the book in their earliest
states are to be found in the copies containing the lithograph.
Before quitting this subject it should be stated that in “collating”
this book we must bear in mind a very pretty quarrel which took place
between the artist and J. S. Hawkins, who was largely responsible
for the letterpress. As has been pointed out, the first 300 copies
contained the “stone-plate.” But in only a very few copies is to
be found the suppressed title-page bearing the name of John Sidney
Hawkins, and the dedication to George III., signed “The Author.” These
few copies contain the very earliest impressions of the plates. In the
later copies the dedication is signed “John Thomas Smith,” and bound
up {153} in most of these is found a “Vindication” by J. T. Smith in
answer to “A Correct Statement and Vindication of the conduct of John
Sidney Hawkins, Esq., F.A.S., towards Mr. John Thomas Smith, drawn up
and published by Mr. Hawkins himself.” Lond. 1807, 8vo, p. 87. J. T.
Smith’s answer was further replied to in another pamphlet by Hawkins
dated 1808.
We will now turn from this specimen of lithography to a very remarkable
example of the sister art of wood-engraving. (_Vide_ Frontispiece.)
In the April number 1896 of _Good Words_, I dealt with some
bibliographical curiosities, one of which was the remarkable suppressed
title-page in my possession here reproduced. My object on that occasion
was to verify the fact of which I felt practically certain, that
the book for which it was prepared had never come into being, and
that therefore we had the curious anomaly of an elaborately engraved
title-page wanting a book. Books wanting their engraved title-page are
unfortunately common enough, owing to the barbarism of certain ruthless
collectors. But a title-page not only wanting a book, but which {154}
never had one, was as extraordinary as the grin of the Cheshire Cat
in _Alice in Wonderland_, which was left behind after its author had
disappeared.
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “but a
grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my
life.”
But then Alice had never seen this title-page of a book by “Sholto
Percy” which was never written, and of which _Death in London_ was to
have been the title. The wood-block is a very beautiful one, cut by
Mason, no doubt Abraham John, who engraved Cruikshank’s illustrations
to _Tales of Humour and Gallantry_.
“Sholto Percy” was the pen-name of Joseph Clinton Robertson, who, with
Thomas Byerley, published the _Percy Anecdotes_, 1821–23. Their full
pseudonyms were “Sholto and Reuben Percy, Brothers of the Benedictine
Monastery, Mount Benger.” The anecdotes were published in forty-one
parts, at half-a-crown a-piece, before the close of the year 1823, and,
of these, two hundred and sixty thousand copies were sold during the
four years of issue! What number subsequent editions {155} have run to
it is impossible to conjecture. The title of the book had its origin
from the Percy Coffee-House in Rathbone Place, which the collaborators
frequented. They also compiled _London, or Interesting Memorials of its
Rise, Progress, and Present State_. 3 vols. 1823.
In the dedication of this last work to George IV. we find facsimile
signatures of the two “Brothers.” That of “Sholto Percy,” the author
of the book which was evidently projected but never published, tallies
with that on the title-page here reproduced. From the fact that
Reuben’s signature is absent we gather that, for some reason or other,
the collaboration had come to an end. At any rate nothing more is heard
of the partnership, nor indeed was anything else published under one
or other of these _noms-de-plume_. And although I received various
communications from strangers upon the subject of the bibliographical
curiosities dealt with in the _Good Words_ article, no light was thrown
upon this perplexing title-page. Suppressed, therefore, it doubtless
was, because it had no reason to be anything else, and remains a rather
pathetic memorial of the gifted {156} artist and the author whose
projected enterprise was perchance cut short by one of the forms of the
Dread Enemy here portrayed.
The block is worthy of careful scrutiny. The only impression in
existence (as I believe it to be) and in my possession is beautifully
printed on India paper. In it we find Bewick’s white line used with
excellent effect. Behind the main panel the colossal form of Death is
just visible, holding in either hand “Death in the Cup” and “Death in
the Dish.” At the lower corners his skeleton feet are just visible,
fixed on the Arctic and Antarctic portions of the Globe. At the top
of the panel Death drags a wheel off the chariot which is making
a dash from London to Gretna Green. Immediately below this is a
nail-studded coffin from which hangs a pall inscribed with the words
“Death in London.” This overhangs the central group, in which Death
spectacled and seated on a tombstone at a desk supported by human
thighs, with a human skull as footstool, receives despatches and
directs his myrmidons. Supporting this central panel two skeletons
hurl death-dealing darts, whilst below one skeleton {157} starves in
prison, and another, crowned with straw, rages as a maniac.
On the right-hand border a skeleton highwayman, pistol in hand,
awaits his victim, ignoring the gallows which is seen under the moon
in the background, and ignorant of the noose already round his neck,
manipulated by a skeleton hangman in the division above. On the
left-hand border a somewhat cryptic design represents a skeleton toper
surmounting a skeleton quack physician who sucks a cane and, with
medicine bottle in hand, goes forth on his death-dealing mission.
At the base Death, in a deluge of wind and rain, overturns a sailing
boat, and incidentally presses down a struggling victim with his foot.
The whole effect is finely decorative, and far surpasses anything else
of Seymour’s of which I have knowledge.
But we must not linger too long over each item of our promiscuous
collection of cancelled illustrations.
I shall now bring to your notice a very rare coloured plate by Henry
Alken, which, though not suppressed in the strictest sense, is yet
{158} sufficiently relevant to the subject to admit of its inclusion
in these papers. It was undoubtedly prepared for a book of which Alken
was the illustrator, but, for some reason or other, although engraved,
it was not included among the published plates.
During the years 1831–39 there appeared in _The New Sporting Magazine_,
edited by R. Surtees, a series of sporting sketches of which “Mr. John
Jorrocks” was the hero. These papers were collected and published in
1838 under the alliterative title of _Jorrocks’s Jaunts and Jollities_,
illustrated by “Phiz.” This volume was brought to the notice of
Lockhart, who thereupon advised Surtees to try his hand at a sporting
novel. The immediate result was _Handley Cross_. In 1843 a third
edition of _Jorrocks’s Jaunts and Jollities_ appeared, with sixteen
coloured plates after Henry Alken. The novels in the meantime were
being issued with illustrations by Leech and “Phiz.” That the former
has at this distance of time lost nothing of its popularity (rather, of
course, on account of the illustrations than for the letterpress, which
reads poorly enough now) is evidenced by {159} the fact that only
the other day a copy fetched at public auction the remarkable sum of
£20. One wonders what the bidding would have reached had the book been
extra-illustrated with the unused illustration of which it is here my
purpose to treat.
Now we must be careful, in considering any work signed “Alken,” to bear
in mind the fact mentioned by Mr. R. E. Graves in the _Dictionary of
National Biography_, that although the fertility of Alken’s pencil was
amazing, the idea of it might be fictitiously enhanced if the fact were
not grasped that he left two or three sons—one of whom was also named
Henry—all artists and all sporting artists, who have, since their
father’s time, been incessantly painting, lithographing, aquatinting
and etching for the sporting publishers and for private patrons of the
turf.
But the original Henry Alken did his work between 1816 and 1831;
hence it is clear that the illustrations to _Jorrocks_ were the work
of Henry the younger. And this is a point which should be emphasised
for the guidance of the bibliomaniac, for it is the practice of many
second-hand booksellers to lump all work by “Alken” under one head,
from {160} ignorance possibly—in some cases I fear from unworthy
motives. For it is the work of Henry Alken, the founder of the line,
which is of greatest rarity and greatest merit, and to palm off
work done by a namesake as work done by him is plain cheating. We
remember the parallel case of George Cruikshank, who exposed a certain
publisher, in a somewhat intemperate pamphlet afterwards suppressed,
entitled _A Popgun fired off by George Cruikshank, etc., etc._ In
that case the publisher had been guilty of the more than questionable
proceeding of advertising certain “story-books” as “illustrated by
Cruikshank,” which were in reality the work of George’s nephew, Percy,
who, I fancy, would have been the last to concur in what was an
undoubted attempt to mislead the public.[28]
[28] The woodcut of the irascible George suspending the unhappy Brooks
by the nose from a pair of tongs is reproduced in my little book on
_Cruikshank’s Portraits of Himself_.
[Illustration: The suppressed portrait of “John Jorrocks, Esq., M.F.H.,
etc.” (_By Henry Alken, the younger_)]
Let it be clearly understood, then, that the plate which we here
reproduce was the work of Henry Alken the younger. Though of little
artistic merit, it is yet not unworthy of those which were published,
and the reason of its {161} suppression is difficult to fathom.
The plate should be undoubtedly annexed, on its very rare appearance,
by him who values his _Jorrocks_. This would make his copy, in the
words of the second-hand booksellers, a “really desirable” one. Our
reproduction is not quite the size of the original, which exactly
tallies in size and shape with the published plates. The line of
publication runs: “London, Published by R. Ackermann at his Eclipse
Sporting Gallery, 191 Regent St. 1843.” The method employed in its
production is a mixture of etching and aquatinting, and this impression
has been coloured by hand with the brilliant tints which appealed
to our sporting forebears. There need be no complaint about its
lowness of tone. It would put to the blush the most versi-coloured of
kaleidoscopes! To parody Dr. Johnson’s animadversion upon a certain
ode, it would be just from the strict artistic standpoint to say,
“Bolder colour and more timorous meaning, I think, were rarely brought
together.”
* * * * *
So much for some unattached suppressions of the first half of the
century. We will conclude {162} this chapter with certain cancelled
plates of only yesterday.
To those who have not yet grasped the fact (cried aloud in the
wilderness by Mr. Kipling) that our age is as romantic as any other
if we only know how to regard matters, the fact will probably come as
something of a surprise that the last decade of the nineteenth century
has as surely its crop of “suppressed plates,” as have those ages
which were, we choose to flatter ourselves, more brutal than our own.
Less unmannerly in some respects doubtless we tend to become, and that
perhaps is the very reason (paradoxical though it may sound) why we do
not have to search in vain for “modern instances.” For now that Mrs.
Grundy is sharper-eyed than she was (notwithstanding her age), and the
libel laws are more closely knit by precedents, slips which would have
been treated as passing peccadilloes by our less squeamish forebears
rise to the dignity of “copy” for the pressman, and form staple
conversation for the insatiate tea-table.
And when we mention the late most five-o’clock and kind-hearted of
artists, Mr. du Maurier, and {163} the still living most dainty limner
of hoops and patches, Mr. Hugh Thomson, as the providers of century-end
“cancelled illustrations,” we may be sure that the details will not be
very scandalous, nor the outrages very shocking.
Not but that I was forced to go somewhat warily when originally
recording the famous incident of du Maurier and the peccant
illustration of the “Two Apprentices” in _Trilby_, for was I not
thereby involving myself with another, and greater, artist (very much
alive indeed!), whose pen was only not mightier than his pencil because
the latter was unsurpassable, but who might in turn pillory me in his
gallery of artfully constructed Enemies?
It was indeed a topsy-turvy world which found the “Butterfly,” which
is popularly supposed to end its life wriggling upon the pin of the
“soaring human boy,” revenging itself upon humanity with epigrams that
“stick for ever.”
Sad to relate, Whistler could never be brought to see du Maurier’s
rather caustic “retaliation,” particulars of which are given below,
in its proper proportions. Indeed, when I asked him to allow me to
reproduce, as a pictorial curiosity, the {164} suppressed print
of the “Two Apprentices,” which only the owners of _Trilby_, as it
appeared in serial form, are now destined to possess, he informed me
in the politest manner possible that my doing so would involve me in
an expensive and uncomfortable correspondence with his solicitors. And
what could not be done then cannot be done now, for reasons into which
I need not enter. Nevertheless, to treat seriously a hyperbolical and
exaggerated caricature as anything more than a legitimate response to
a not altogether kindly sarcasm on the part of Mr. Whistler himself,
appears to me now, as it appeared to me then, well-nigh incredible. No
one looked upon “Joe Sibley” as a true likeness, either pictorially
or verbally. It was written and read as a joke, part true, but mostly
false, and so would have stood had it not been given undue importance
by the correspondence in the _Pall Mall Gazette_. As a result, in
book form “Joe Sibley” is wanting in that delightful gallery which
contains “Durier,” Pygmalion to Trilby’s Galatea—a Galatea whose
marble heart would never beat for him; “Vincent,” the great American
oculist, “whose daughters are {165} so beautiful and accomplished
that they spend their autumn holiday in refusing the matrimonial
offers of the British aristocracy”; “The Greek,” who was christened
Poluphoisboiospaleapologos Petrilopetrolicoconose “because his real
name was thought much too long”; “Carnegie,” who “is now only a rural
dean, and speaks the worst French I know, and speaks it wherever and
whenever he can”; “Antony, the Swiss” (substituted for “Joe Sibley”);
“Lorrimer,” who was so thoroughgoing in his worship of the immortals,
Veronese, Tintoret and Co., and was “so persistent in voicing it, that
he made them quite unpopular in the Place St. Anatole des Arts”; not
to speak of “Dodor” and “l’Zouzou,” who were distinguished for being
“_les plus mauvais garniments_ of their respective regiments,” and the
rest of Trilby’s delightful adorers. Why, it seems to me that to have
obtained a niche in that pillory (forgive the mixing of metaphors), and
to see the fun of a little exaggerated banter, and perchance learn a
little lesson from it, would not be so very bad a fate after all. But I
suppose it all depends on the point of view. {166}
As I say, I have by me a delightfully ironic missive from the late
president of the Society of the Butterfly himself, acknowledging
“the exceedingly amiable and flattering form of the playful request”
contained in my letter, with a hint at the end that lawyers might look
upon any reproduction of the forbidden matter as less than tolerable.
Alas! that it is so, and all I can do is to refer my readers to the
columns of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ for May 15 and 25, 1894, in which
appeared Whistler’s two letters, and quote here the interview with
du Maurier upon the matter. They form a curious commentary upon the
“Gentle Art of Losing—Friends.”
Extract from _Pall Mall Gazette_, May 19, 1894.[29]
MR. WHISTLER AND MR. DU MAURIER THE “PUNCH” ARTIST’S ATTITUDE
Mr. George du Maurier, “hidden in Hampstead” as Mr. Whistler put it
in his letter to us a day or two ago, was discovered by a _Pall Mall
Gazette_ reporter without the aid of any exploring party yesterday,
when that representative called to see what the famous _Punch_ artist
had to say in reply to Mr. Whistler. Mr. du Maurier was not disposed
at first to vouchsafe any answer. “If a bargee insults one {167} in
the street,” he said, “one can only pass on. One cannot stop and argue
it out.” But on second thoughts Mr. du Maurier added a few words. “I
should,” he said, “have avoided all reference to Mr. Whistler, or
anything which could have been construed into reference to him, if I
had imagined it would have pained him. I should have written privately
to him to say so, if his letter had been less violent and less brutal.
Certainly, in the character of Sibley, in my serial story _Trilby_
I have drawn certain lines with Mr. Whistler in my mind. I thought
that the reference to those matters would have recalled some of the
good times we used to have in Paris in the old days. I thought that
both with Mr. Whistler and with other acquaintances I have similarly
treated, pleasurable recollections would have been awakened. But he
has taken the matter so terribly seriously. It is so unlike him.
[29] By kind permission of the Proprietor.
“You know of no reason why he should not have taken it all
good-naturedly?”—“No. I thought it might have drawn from him
something funny, something droll, to which I could have replied in
kind. But, of course, a letter like his puts a reply out of the
question. I think he must have been quite out of sorts to have allowed
himself to get so angered.” “I believe Mr. Whistler has himself said
things which the objects of them have not particularly relished!”
“Why, he has gone about all his life in England making unkind remarks
and publishing them. Here is a little book of his, _The Gentle Art of
making Enemies_, and I am one of his victims. It is not very terrible
what he says. It is rather droll. Listen! ‘Mr. du Maurier and Mr.
Wilde, happening to meet in the rooms where Mr. Whistler was {168}
holding his first exhibition of Venice jottings, the latter brought
the two face to face, and, taking each by the arm, inquired, “I say,
which one of you two invented the other, eh?”’ The obvious retort
to that on my part would have been that if he did not take care I
would invent him, but he had slipped away before either of us could
get a word out. This is really too small a matter to refer to; but
the explanation of this bit of drollery of Mr. Whistler’s is that it
suggested that I was unknown until I began to draw Postlethwaite,
the æsthetic character, out of whom I got some fun. Postlethwaite
was said to be Mr. Oscar Wilde, but the character was founded, not
on one person at all, but a whole school. As a matter of fact, I
had been drawing for _Punch_ twenty years before the invention of
Postlethwaite. However, that was Mr. Whistler’s little joke, and one
would have thought that if he made jokes about me, he might have
expected me to play the same game upon him without anticipating that I
should hurt his feelings. Then Mr. Whistler implies that I am a foul
friend, stating that I have thought a foul friend a finer fellow than
an open enemy. I am neither his friend nor his enemy. I am a great
admirer of his genius and his wit; but I cannot say that I could call
myself his friend for thirty years past. We were intimate in the old
days, but that is all. No, his whole letter is incomprehensible to
me. Of course, he has been embittered through life, by reason of his
genius not being recognised at its full value by the wide public, and
it certainly has not. This circumstance, and possibly illness, may
account for the leave he has taken of good manners. He talks of my
pent-up envy and malice. I must ask you to believe that I am not {169}
such a beast as that. I have no occasion either for malice or for
envy, and, as I say, I should never have written even what I have, had
I imagined it would give Mr. Whistler pain.”
“Do you contemplate deleting the character of Sibley when you publish
in volume form?” “If I had a word or sign of regret from Mr. Whistler
for the savage things he says in his letter I might consider that. I
did what I did in a playful spirit of retaliation for this little gibe
about me in his book. A man so sensitive as Mr. Whistler now seems to
be should beware how he goes about joking of others. I had no idea of
taking any notice of Mr. Whistler’s letter, but since you have come
and asked me I say that if I had known it would have given pain and
brought such a torrent of abuse upon me, I should have denied myself
the little luxury of the playful retaliation in which I indulged.”[30]
[30] After reading Mr. Menpes’s _Whistler as I knew Him_, one discovers
that extraordinary phenomenon, a man who would rather destroy a
friendship by what he considered a brilliant phrase than sacrifice the
brilliant phrase and preserve the friendship. It is not wonderful that
all Whistler’s friends did not prove so complaisant and generous as Mr.
Menpes.
Let me then here put it on record that _Trilby_ in book form is not
only innocent of “Joe Sibley” and the “cut” of the “Two Apprentices”
but is in other respects far inferior to its serial issue. The
illustrations have been greatly reduced, and in the process have
lost much of their charm. There was, however, a large-paper edition
of the novel published in 1895, containing the same number of {170}
illustrations as the small-paper, together with “facsimiles of the
pencil studies.” This is the most desirable edition outside _Harper’s_.
The ideal form is, of course, the serial issue extracted from the
Magazine and bound up, “Joe Sibley,” the suppressed “cut” and all.
This, then, is all that must be said about the “suppressed plate,”
which is so rigidly put under hatches that it must not even be paraded,
on this occasion only, with its fellows. “When the sleeper wakes,”
perchance, and copyright is out, a cheap edition of this present
volume, with the suppressed block inserted, will be published, and our
children’s children will marvel.[31]
[31] The curious should refer to a delightful open Letter entitled
_Trilby_ from Mr. Whistler’s pen, which appeared in the initial number
of Mr. Harry Furniss’s late lamented _Lika Joko_.
The whole episode is a nice commentary upon Mr. George Meredith’s
distinction between Irony and Humour. “If,” says he, “instead of
falling foul of the ridiculous person with a satiric rod, to make him
writhe and shriek aloud, you prefer to sting him under a semi-caress,
by which he shall in his anguish be rendered dubious whether indeed
anything has hurt him, you are an engine of {171} Irony.” But “if you
laugh all round him, tumble him, roll him about, deal him a smack,
and drop a tear on him, own his likeness to you and yours to your
neighbour, spare him as little as you shun him, pity him as much as you
expose, it is a spirit of Humour that is moving you.”
In conclusion, it may be interesting to record the fact that no
communication passed between du Maurier and Whistler upon the subject,
other than that which appeared in print.
So much for the episode of the suppressed _Trilby_ illustration, which,
as we have seen, was complicated by personal considerations.
Let us now turn our attention for a moment to a charming little
tailpiece which has fallen a victim, not to the susceptibilities of
an individual, but to an undue consideration for the feelings of that
most living of Tom Morton’s creations, Mrs. Grundy. It is to be found
in the first edition of the immortal _Vicar of Wakefield_ as pictured
by Mr. Hugh Thomson. And in, entering our protest against the deference
which has in this instance been shown to prudishness, we must at the
same time admiringly recognise the spirit by {172} which the action
has been prompted. The “young person” no doubt succeeds on occasion in
rendering us a little ridiculous. At the same time we must not forget
that to her we largely owe our immunity from what would often shock
even the moral olfactories of her elders.
[Illustration: Suppressed Illustration from _The Vicar of Wakefield_]
Surely, however, the tender morals which could bear to read of
Thornhill’s attempted seduction of Olivia could not logically find
offence in the {173} charming little conceit, which by its suppression
has rendered a first edition of the _Vicar_, as illustrated by Mr. Hugh
Thomson, an allurement to the modern Mæcenas.
Unlike _Coaching Days and Coaching Ways_, illustrated by the same
artist, after the first edition of which certain drawings also
disappeared, but without others being substituted in the later
editions, the first edition of the Thomson _Vicar of Wakefield_, dated
1890, which was published both on small and large paper, contains the
same number of illustrations as those which succeeded it. This, of
course, is because in this instance the type was not reset, and so
it was obligatory to substitute an illustration for that which was
suppressed.
The tailpiece, here reproduced by the kind permission of Mr. Thomson
and Messrs. Macmillan, only appears on page 95 of the issues of 1890.
After that date we have a drawing which, though a pretty enough little
picture of Lady Blarney and Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs (I
love, like the Vicar himself, to give the whole name), is to my mind
far inferior to that {174} which seems to have given offence to some
extraordinarily constructed purists.
Mr. Austin Dobson, to whom we are indebted for the enlightening
Prefatory account, in this volume, of the more important illustrated
editions of the _Vicar_, tells me that he has an impression that the
immediate cause of the disappearance of the peccant tailpiece was a
certain objection raised by a reviewer in the _Spectator_. In justice,
however, to that organ I must at once put it on record that I can find
no trace of its having so demeaned itself.
As a matter of fact I have reason to believe that suggestions were
made by certain persons who arrogate to themselves a sort of private
proprietorship in the “fine old English novel” and the “fine old
English caricature” that the little tailpiece was in rather bad
taste, and that the artist, rather than allow the slightest grounds
for such an imputation to exist, hastened to remove the offender, and
substituted one that was irreproachable. Personally I grieve to think
that there should be any one in existence with a moral digestion so
dyspeptic as to discover the least coarseness or ill-flavour in {175}
this dainty little fancy, And though the artist, we may be sure, has
not troubled himself unduly about the insinuation, I cannot but feel
indignant that even a hint of indecorousness should be made against
one who, above all others, has kept his pencil free from any taint of
unworthiness. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good,
and we are fain to congratulate ourselves upon thus being enabled to
enrol Mr. Hugh Thomson in a brotherhood which he certainly will not
repudiate.
Passing allusion has been made above to certain illustrations which
also disappeared from Mr. Outram Tristram’s very readable book
_Coaching Days and Coaching Ways_, illustrated by Mr. Hugh Thomson and
Mr. Herbert Railton, after the first edition of that very charming
volume was exhausted. It had been my intention to reproduce these
cancelled drawings here, but I have since come to the conclusion that
it would be little short of an outrage to perpetuate what would be
cruelly unrepresentative of Mr. Hugh Thomson’s work. So far as the
artist himself is concerned no obstacle is raised, for he writes {176}
to me in the most generous way, “‘Calling for the Squire’s Mailbag’
was withdrawn for the same reason as ‘Wild Darrell’ (viz. because it
was not considered sufficiently good). _I should like to withdraw
scores of other drawings._ However, one cannot help oneself. It is not
very pleasant to have these reproduced again, but I quite understand
the motive of your book, and should be very churlish indeed to put
any obstacle in your way.” This seems to me so nobly altruistic an
attitude that I feel I should be lacking in mannerliness were I to take
advantage of it.
It will be enough merely to draw attention to facts which will be of
interest to those who possess one or other of the editions of this book.
First and foremost then, take down your copy and note whether the
number of the illustrations is 216 or 219. Happy as you are if you
possess the latter, twice happy will you be if the former be yours,
for in this case you will be the owner, not only of a first edition,
not only of an edition containing the cancelled illustrations, but
also of the edition from which the best idea of the beauty of the
original drawings may be got. And for this {177} reason, that in all
but this, the 1888 edition, the reproductions have been greatly reduced
in size. Of course we are here concerned with the cancelled pictures,
“Wild Darrell” on page 43 and “Calling for the Squire’s Mailbag” on
page 311, but we must remember that their chief value lies in their
being the guarantees of our having an _editio princeps_. So we have
it that in this instance as in the case of _Trilby_ the earliest
issues have the double charm of satisfying at the same time our taste
for the beautiful and our appetite for the curious. Unlike the case
of _Trilby_, however, we have here no romantic circumstances such as
appeal to the true bibliomaniac. The cancellation is merely the result
of a laudable determination on the part of the artist and his publisher
to eliminate such illustrations as they do not consider altogether
exemplary. Incidentally of course their action enhances, in the eyes of
the bibliomaniac, the value of those copies which they rightly consider
marred by their inclusion. But this is no business of theirs. They are
not concerned with diseased humanity but with the poor sane public for
whom they cater. {178}
The above remarks apply of course to many minor suppressions of the
same kind. There is, to take one example, the well-known case of
Curmer’s 1838 edition of _Paul et Virginie_ and _La Chaumière Indienne_
superbly illustrated by Meissonier, Tony Johannot, Huet, and others.
This book is a standing compliment to British wood-engraving of the
day, for, though published in Paris by a French publisher, by far the
larger number of the blocks were entrusted to Samuel Williams, Orrin
Smith, and other British hands. In the earliest issue appears on page
418 the wood-engraving of “La Bonne Femme.” Engraved by Lavoignat after
Meissonier it was suppressed in later issues probably because of its
ugliness, whether the fault of artist or engraver I know not. At any
rate the engraver was not one of the British contingent.
{179}
CHAPTER IX
THE SUPPRESSED OMAR KHAYYAM ETCHING
When the iconography of Edward FitzGerald’s _Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam_
comes to be compiled, there will be one item which will be found to be
well-nigh unattainable by the enthusiastic collector. That item is not
unnaturally dismissed in a very few words by Colonel W. F. Prideaux
in his “Notes for a Bibliography of Edward FitzGerald.” He is dealing
with the third edition, published by Quaritch in the year 1872. “It may
be added,” he writes, “that a weird frontispiece to this edition was
designed and etched by Mr. Edwin Edwards, the artist friend to whom
FitzGerald lent his house at the beginning of 1871, and whose death in
1879 was a source of sorrow to him. A few copies of the etching were
struck off, but it did not meet with the {180} approval of FitzGerald,
and was consequently never used.”
Now, I am inclined to think that this, as I believe, the only published
reference to an interesting rarity, will hardly satisfy the craving
of the FitzGerald enthusiast. I shall therefore give the fullest
information on the subject, whereby the modern Mæcenas will be afforded
full particulars of what only a few of the cult of Omar can ever hope
to possess.
Those who know their _Ruba’iyat_ as they should will remember that
there are several allusions made by the philosopher to the amusements
of his countrymen.
Take the FitzGerald quatrain:—
“When you and I behind the veil are passed,
Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the Sea’s self should heed a pebble cast.”
Here, in the last line, we have what is probably an allusion to the
game of “Ducks and Drakes,” “which,” says Mr. Edward Heron-Allen in the
notes to his admirable translation, “was known to the Egyptians and
also to the Greeks under the {181} name of ἐποστρακισμος. It was played
with oyster-shells. The curious are referred to Minutius Felix (A.D.
207), who describes the game in his preface.” This last is a gentleman
with whose name I am free to confess I have hitherto been unfamiliar,
and to whose writings I have no access. I must therefore leave the
enthusiastic reader to follow up the clue for himself. However, with
the aid of Liddell and Scott, I find myself able to go one better than
Mr. Heron-Allen, and would refer the reader to Archæologus Pollux, the
author of _Onomastikon_, whose date is prior to Felix by twenty-nine
years!
Another game which we find Omar Khayyam alluding to is that of
chequers, which is familiar to us in FitzGerald’s oft-quoted quatrain:—
“But helpless pieces of the game he plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays”;
altered in the later edition to:—
“’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days,
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays;
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays.”
{182}
Again we have allusion to what is probably some form of the game of
tennis in the following:—
“The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes,
And He that tossed Thee down into the Field
He knows about it all—HE knows—HE knows.”
Other passages might be quoted, but these are enough for our purpose,
for the form of amusement with which we have immediately to concern
ourselves is rather a toy than a game—a toy indeed which would seem to
have been the forerunner of a somewhat elaborate apparatus which, being
used at first for more frivolous purposes, has now been largely adapted
to educational ends.
The Magic Lantern of modern times is generally referred back to
Athanasius Kircher, who died in 1680, although, according to some,
it was known four centuries earlier to Roger Bacon. This may be true
enough so far as the “projecting lantern” is concerned, but it can
hardly be doubted that it had in the line of its earlier ancestors the
Persian Fanus i Khiyal or Lantern of Fancy, which is used with such
effect by the Philosopher of Naishápur, and which instigated the design
of the {183} rare suppressed etching of which I here propose to treat
with some particularity.
As literally translated by Mr. Heron-Allen, the quatrain referring
thereto runs as follows:—
“This vault of heaven, beneath which we stand bewildered,
We know to be a sort of magic-lantern;
Know thou that the sun is the lamp flame and the universe is the lamp,
We are like figures that revolve in it.”
As literally translated by Mr. John Payne it run:—“This sphere of
the firmament, wherein we are amazed, The Chinese lantern I think a
likeness of it; The sun the lamp-stand and the world the lantern; We
like the figures are that in it revolve.”
As metrically translated by him into a throwback quatrain it runs:—
“The Sphere and mankind, who therein in amaze are,
Chinese-lantern like, well it may seem, to our gaze are;
See, the sun is the lamp and the world is the lantern
And the figures ourselves, that revolve round the blaze are.”
As rendered by FitzGerald more literally than is his wont it ran in its
first state as follows:—
“For, in and out, above, below,
’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play’d in a box whose Candle is the Sun
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.”
{184}
As altered later, it assumed the following more familiar form:—
“We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic-Shadow shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumin’d Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.”
All who have read the published letters of Edward FitzGerald will have
been struck by the infinite pains which he took to make this highest
effort of his genius, the translation of Omar, as perfect as possible.
His correspondence with his friend Professor Cowell teems with
allusions to, and innumerable discussions on, minute points of meaning
in the Persian.
Therefore it will not surprise us to find that the figure of the Fanus
i Khiyal (literally the lanthorn[32] of fancy), here made use of in so
masterly a manner, had its characteristics and peculiarities carefully
considered.
[32] It is a not uninteresting fact that the old English spelling of
the word “lantern” used above is due to the mistaken association of
the word with the plates of transparent horn formerly used in place of
glass.
By the kindness of Mrs. Edwin Edwards and the late Professor Cowell,
I am enabled to give extracts from an unpublished letter written
by the {185} latter to FitzGerald in the year 1868, dealing
somewhat exhaustively with the matter. This letter appears to have
been forwarded by FitzGerald to Edwin Edwards, the artist, by way
of inspiration for an etched frontispiece to the edition of _The
Ruba’iyat_ which was to be published by Quaritch in 1871, not, I think,
in 1872, as Colonel Prideaux has it.
_From Professor Cowell to Edward FitzGerald._
MY DEAR E. F. G.—I have sent off one letter to you to-day, but I did
not answer a question of yours in it, after all, which you remind me
of in your letter just received by this evening’s post.
First as to the famous Fanus i Khiyal—you will find it explained
in a note by the editor at the end of my Calcutta Review Paper. I
have often seen them in Calcutta. The lantern is about a foot and a
half high—and nearly a foot in diameter, and it moves round with
a slow and slightly vibratory motion. The candle is placed inside,
and the draught sends it round. The editor in his note explains how
the draught is produced:—They are made of a talc[33] cylinder with
figures of men and animals cut out of paper and pasted on it. The
cylinder, which is very light, is suspended on an axis, round which it
easily turns. A hole {186} is cut near the bottom, and the part cut
out is fixed at an angle to the cylinder so as to form a vane. When a
small lamp or candle is placed inside, a current of air is produced
which keeps the cylinder slowly revolving. (Here is a small drawing.)
I cannot recollect how it was suspended, the reviewer says, “on an
axis.” I think it was hung by a string from the top over a candle.
I remember seeing it go round one evening in our dining-room—the
Khánsamah brought one to show me. . . .
Nicolas’s Fanus[34] is more elaborate than our Calcutta one, but on
the same principle. He says the figures move round from right to left
or _vice versa_—as may be. His _fanal_[35] is like mine, only it has
a metal top and bottom—the cylindrical sides being of waxed cloth and
painted; it has a handle fixed on the top which the man holds; the
candle is placed inside on the metal floor. . . .
(Here is another small drawing.) . . .
Yours affectionately,
EDW. B. COWELL.
CAMBRIDGE,
_January 16, 1868._
[33] This word is curiously enough misprinted “tall” in both Nichols’
and Quaritch’s editions of Mr. Heron-Allen’s book, whilst in the note
to Professor Cowell’s article it is printed “tale.” It is something of
a record, I should think, to find so many compositors and readers all
at fault.
[34] Professor Cowell here refers to J. B. Nicolas, author of a French
translation of Omar, published at Paris, 1867. In a note to _Les
quatrains de Khéyam traduit du Persan_, he says: “In Persia the lantern
is made of two copper basins, separated by a shade of waxed calico
about a yard high. The lower one contains the candle, and the upper one
has a handle for the arm of the ferrásh who carries it. The shade is
folded like the familiar ‘Chinese lantern.’ Ornaments are painted on
the cloth, and it is to the vacillation of these, as the carrier shifts
it from one hand to another, that Omar refers.”
[35] Qy.: Has this French word for lantern the same root as Fanus?
{187}
The letter was illustrated with two rough drawings of the Fanus
for FitzGerald’s guidance. The last of them represented the toy
held out by a truncated arm. Edwin Edwards, to whom the letter was
forwarded, at once with true artistic instinct caught at the suggestion
unintentionally conveyed, and, as will be seen from the etching here
reproduced, accentuated the hidden presence of the “Master of the
Show,” by making the arm which holds suspended this “Sun-illumined
Lantern” of a world issue from the impenetrable darkness which hides
its mysterious lord. Unfortunately, the Fanus is not etched with great
success, although the artist made a special visit to the old India
Museum, now dispersed, to study an example there on exhibition. Had the
etching equalled the conception, the design could hardly have failed to
satisfy even FitzGerald’s fastidious requirements. As it was, only a
limited number[36] of proofs (from twenty to twenty-five) were printed
by that cleverest printer of etchings, Mrs. Edwin Edwards, and the
plate destroyed. Hence their rarity. {188}
[36] At least six of these have lately gone to America where they were
feverishly bought up by enthusiastic Omarians.
The conception is a really fine one, and might well have proved an
illustration of the text in the best sense of that much-abused term,
being, as it is, a very different thing from a mere translation of
the words into pictorial form. It is far more than this. It is an
illuminator of the meaning, and accentuates its spiritual significance.
This is what illustration should do, but rarely does do, in these days
of rapid and perfunctory production.
Of Edwin Edwards the artist I should like to take this opportunity
of saying a word. His name is little known outside artistic circles,
and it would be somewhat unfair to advertise it in connection with an
etched plate which failed to give satisfaction without at the same time
making allusion to pictorial work which was successful and meritorious.
That he did produce work of real value is evident from the fact that
one of his oil pictures of the Thames hangs at the Luxembourg in the
Salle des Étrangers (for he was always more appreciated in France than
in England), and that two years ago another canvas, and that hardly one
of the best examples of his {189} work, was chosen by Sir Edward
Poynter to be well hung in the Tate Gallery.
[Illustration: The suppressed frontispiece For “Omar Khayyam.” (_By
Edwin Edwards_)]
It may also be mentioned that high appreciation of his talents has been
shown across the Channel by eulogistic articles in the _Gazette des
Beaux Arts_, _Les Beaux Arts Illustrés_, _La Vie Moderne_, _L’Art_,
etc., etc.
It is, however, on his work as an etcher that his reputation must
chiefly rest, and it would be more than unjust to allow the artist who
produced such a _tour de force_ as the great etching of “London from
the Greenwich Observatory,” to mention only one of his three hundred
and seventy-one works in this medium, to be advertised by an etching,
finely conceived it is true, but unsatisfactorily carried to an issue.
Not that these facts will in any way affect the thoroughgoing
rarity-hunter in his estimate of the suppressed plate here described.
It will be enough for him to know that not more than a quarter of a
hundred of his rivals can own a proof of the etching to make him ready
to sell his last shirt for its acquisition. He will continue to value a
print for its rarity rather than for its beauty, {190} a book for its
height in millimetres rather than for its depth in thought.
No doubt these be hard words. Then why, it will be asked, pander to
so foolish a passion? Shall I confess? Yes, indeed, and glory in the
confession that I, too, am of the gentle brotherhood, that I, too, am
a subscriber to _The Connoisseur_ (or “The Connoyzer,” as one of my
friends at Mr. W. H. Smith’s bookstall used to call that delightful
publication), that I, too,—in fine, that I am, by the favour of
Fortune, the happy possessor of two proofs of the suppressed etching to
the Omar of 1872!
And now just one word with that gentle hunter, Mr. Thomas B. Mosher
of Portland, Maine, U.S.A., who did me the honour of transferring a
large portion of the above, originally written for _The Bookman_, to
the pages of his beautiful 1902 edition of _The Ruba’iyat_. Of that
I make no complaint, for I think it very probable that he asked and
obtained my permission. What I do complain of is that, in a footnote,
he falls foul of me for being “ungracious” to Colonel Prideaux in
suggesting the date 1871 as the year of publication of the {191} third
edition, instead of the year 1872, as Colonel Prideaux has it in his
most valuable little “Notes for a Bibliography of Edward FitzGerald”
1901. Mr. Mosher says “no manner of doubt exists as to the date.” Let
me tell him that I have it on the authority of one who was on intimate
terms both with FitzGerald and Edwin Edwards at the time when this
third edition was published that, though the book bore the date 1872
on the title, as a matter of fact it was _published_ in the autumn of
1871 and _post-dated_. If it be “ungracious” to give Colonel Prideaux
a piece of information which he had not the opportunity of obtaining
for himself, then I sincerely hope that all who read this volume, and
find themselves better informed, as well they may, than I am, will be
equally “ungracious” to me. _La plupart des hommes n’ont pas le courage
de corriger les autres, parcequ’ils n’ont pas le courage de souffrir
qu’on les corrige._
{192}
CHAPTER X
ADAPTED OR PALIMPSEST PLATES
“God bless the King, I mean the faith’s defender,
God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender.
Who that Pretender is, and who is King—
God bless us all!—that’s quite another thing.”
So sang the old Jacobite John Byrom, and, taking my cue from him, I
do not propose to enter here into the vexed question of James Francis
Edward Stuart’s claim to this or that title.[37] It is merely a happy
accident that lends me so picturesque a figure round which to group
certain pictorial rarities, germane to our subject, of which little is
known, and of which the _petit-maître_ will be therefore grateful for
some particulars.
[37] It may be mentioned that Jesse, in his _Memoirs of the
Pretenders_, always calls him James _Frederick_.
The history of the engraved copperplate is full of that kind of romance
which peculiarly {193} commends itself to the lover of what is quaint
and curious in the byways of art, and perhaps the most romantic phase
of its history is that with which I am about to deal. It is the sort of
romance which was inseparable from what may be called the pre-machinery
days, and is as foreign to the spirit of this age as are the slashed
doublets of our forefathers or the starched irrelevances of their wives.
It may be, of course, that the Process block of to-day will be found
to be as full of romance to-morrow. Indeed we have already found some
indications of this in a former chapter, and it is probably true that
romance is as all-pervading in the mental as ether is in the physical
world, and that it is only lack of the proper intellectual reagent that
makes the discovery of it difficult.
However that may be, one thing is certain, that most of us find it
easier to come at the “poetry of circumstance” when centuries or
decades have left it behind than when it is at our immediate threshold.
In these days of lightning pictorial satire, when Monday’s political
move is on Tuesday served up {194} in genial topsy-turvy by “F. C.
G.” in the _Westminster_ or “G. R. H.” in the _Pall Mall_, and when
_Punch’s_ weekly cartoon is voted seven days late by the Man in the
Street, it is difficult for us to realise the shifts to which political
satire was put when the laborious engraved or etched broadside was the
quickest method of getting at the picture-loving masses. Just imagine
the agony of impatience of the political satirist who had designed his
broadside and had to await the tardy engraving of the copperplate, to
be followed by the deliberate hand-printing and hand-painting of the
impressions before they could be published, perhaps only to find in the
end that the nine-days’ wonder was past, or that events had blunted his
most telling points.
So, too, when satirist was employed against satirist, how hopeless it
seemed for retaliation to follow swiftly enough upon the occasion to
make any retort in kind worth while at all.
Then it was that the wit of man, quickened by necessity, conceived the
clever stratagem of the _adapted_ copperplate, of which it is here my
purpose to give some remarkable examples. {195}
I fancy I see the victim of some shrewder libel than usual, with which
the town has been flooded, pricking off in hot haste to the pictorial
satirist in his pay, and demanding the production of a trenchant and
immediate reply, so that the retort may be in the printsellers’ windows
before the attack has had time to do its deadly work.
The satirist names a month as the earliest possible date. His employer
curses him for a blundering slowcoach. Before a month is out the
mischief will be done beyond repairing. And he is flinging himself out
of the workshop when a happy thought comes with a flash into his head.
How about the copperplate of that broadside which fell so flat a year
ago because of its tardiness? It was meant to be a counter-thrust to
just such another attack as this, but it was a month too late. Is there
no way of fitting a new barb on to the old arrow? Is there no way of
adapting the year-old weapon to the present necessity?
And then there follows anxious discussion and careful examination. The
head of A. burnished out here can be re-engraved in the similitude
of B. {196} C. will stand as he is and do duty, with a new index
number and altered footnote, for D. Here an inappropriate object can
be replaced by a panel of appropriate verse. The inscriptions on the
banderoles issuing from the characters’ mouths must be altered. And,
hey presto! in the twinkling of a bedpost we have our answer ready for
a not too critical public.
The original lampooner, who counted on a good month’s start, will be
confronted with a retort before he has time to turn round. The whole
town will be set buzzing about the successful ruse, and the laugh will
be turned upon the aggressor.
Of course it would be comparatively rarely that the adapted plate could
be wholly _apropos_, but such capital ingenuity was exercised, once the
stratagem had been imagined, that the practice was not so uncommon nor
so unsuccessful as might be naturally expected. In this chapter I am
only treating of those dealing with one particular episode, but I have
in my possession at least thirty of these remarkable productions.
From them we find that it was not always the engraver of a plate
who re-adjusted his own {197} handiwork, but piratical hands were
sometimes laid upon the work of a master by mere journeymen engravers
who did not scruple to leave the original artist’s name for the better
selling of the plate, although it had ceased to represent even in the
remotest degree his sentiments or intentions.
Indeed, I could tell of at least one remarkable plate originally
prepared in honour of a certain great personage, which, being
thievishly appropriated by his opponents, was by them so judiciously
metamorphosed as to cover him with as much confusion as it had
originally panoplied him with honour.[38]
[38] Mozley, in his entertaining _Reminiscences_, tells the following
story of the latter days of the Oxford Movement, which is somewhat
parallel: “Isaac Williams published a volume of poetry called _The
Baptistry_, upon a series of curious and very beautiful engravings, by
Boetius a Bolswert, in an old Latin work, entitled _Via Vitæ Æternæ_.
In these pictures, besides other things peculiar to the Roman Church,
there frequently occurs the figure of the Virgin Mother, crowned
and in glory, the object of worship, and distributing the gifts of
Heaven. For this figure Williams substituted the Church, and thereby
incurred a protest from Newman for adopting a Roman Catholic work
just so far as suited his own purpose, without caring for the further
responsibilities.”
This is, I believe, the first time that any attempt has been made to
bring this fascinating subject before the public. Incidentally it
has {198} been touched upon once or twice in publications of my own
as it affected other byways in art, and has been alluded to in the
Introductions to the _Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British
Museum_ (_Satires_), prepared under the direction of the late Keeper
of the Prints and Drawings, George William Reid, by F. G. Stephens,
to which monumental work all students of such subjects are profoundly
indebted. But it has never been treated with anything approaching the
completeness that it deserves. It is practically an unworked phase of
print-collecting—a new craze in which the dilettante may specialise.
As I have said, we are fortunate in having in this place so picturesque
a figure as that of the Old Pretender, or the Chevalier de St. George,
as some like to call him, round whom to group our first batch of these
pictorial palimpsests.
James Francis Edward Stuart was, as all who know their history will
remember, the son of James II. by his second wife, Mary of Modena. He
was born on June 10, 1688, at St James’s Palace.
James II. was then in his fifty-fifth year. By {199} his cruelties
after Monmouth’s rebellion, by his attack on the Universities, by
the Trial of the Seven Bishops, by his Court of Commissioners of
Ecclesiastical Causes, and by his misuse of the Dispensing Power he had
alienated the whole nation, with the exception of a few Roman Catholics
and hangers-on of the Court, and his throne was tottering.
The only element of strength in his position was the certainty that
sooner or later the crown was bound to pass to one of the Protestant
daughters of his first marriage; for though the present Queen had borne
him four or five children they had all died young. It was now six years
since there had been any hint of a royal birth. What were probably
grossly exaggerated accounts of the King’s early irregularities were
matter of common gossip, and the Queen’s health was far from robust.
Suddenly, at a most opportune moment for the Roman Catholics—so
opportune a moment indeed that intrigue at once suggested itself—it
was announced to the world that Mary was with child, and a day of
thanksgiving was appointed five months before the Queen’s delivery.
{200}
Now was the occasion for reviving a report which had been sedulously
spread by the enemies of the Court from the very earliest days of the
Queen’s marriage—_that the King, in order to transmit his dominions
and his bigotry to a Roman Catholic heir, had determined to impose a
surreptitious offspring on his Protestant subjects_.
In due course came her Majesty’s lying-in at St. James’s, and although
the King took every precaution, by the solemn depositions of forty-two
persons of rank who were present, against questions arising as to the
child’s identity, the celebrated “warming-pan” story was hatched,
which continued to gain credence for more than half a century. Nor
were circumstantial details of the most intimate nature in support of
the lie wanting. During the labour, it was maintained, the curtains of
the bed were drawn more closely than usual on such occasions; neither
the Princess of Orange, the nearest Protestant heir to the throne, nor
her immediate adherents were asked to be in attendance; an apartment
had been selected for the Queen’s accommodation in which there was a
door near the head of the bed which opened on a back {201} staircase.
Though the weather was hot, and the room heated by the great crowd of
persons present, a warming-pan was introduced into the bed; and finally
the pan contained a new-born child, which was immediately afterwards
presented to the bystanders as the offspring of the Queen!
The following song, sung by two gentlemen at the Maypole in the Strand,
is sufficiently explanatory:
“As I went by St. James’s I heard a bird sing,
That the Queen had for certain a boy for a King;
But one of the soldiers did laugh and did say,
_It was born overnight and brought forth the next day._
This bantling was heard at St. James’s to squall,
Which made the Queen make so much haste from Whitehall.”
The last line referred to the fact that the Queen had played at cards
at Whitehall Palace till eleven o’clock on Saturday, June 9, whence she
was carried in a chair to St. James’s Palace, and on the Sunday, June
10, between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, “was brought to
bed of a prince.”
It is a remarkable fact [says Jesse] that as early as 1682 (six years
before this), when the Queen, then Duchess of York, was declared to be
pregnant, the same rumours were {202} propagated as on the present
occasion—that an imposture was intended to be obtruded upon the
nation. Fortunately on that occasion the infant proved to be a female,
or doubtless some improbable fiction would have been invented similar
to that which obtained credit in 1688.
Undoubtedly the whole thing was a lie, but it did its deadly work.[39]
The whole nation was prepared to accept the flimsiest evidence, and
within six months father, mother, and child had fled to France.
[39] Certain imprudent Roman Catholics gave colour to the popular
belief by loudly expressing their opinion that a miracle had been
wrought. One fanatic had even gone so far as to prophesy that the Queen
would give birth to twins, of whom the elder would be King of England
and the younger Pope of Rome!
So much for the story that inspired the remarkable broadsides with
which it is here our purpose to deal. It will be noticed that these
broadsides are all Dutch in their origin, a fact that is not surprising
when we remember that they formed part of the propagandum which was
soon to land William of Orange, the husband of James’s eldest daughter,
on the throne of England.
The first that we reproduce is entitled “L’Europe Alarmée pour le Fils
d’un Meunier.”
The artist is that remarkably clever Dutchman, {203} Romeyn de Hooghe,
whose delicate and facile handling of the point is well exemplified in
the seascape at the back of the picture.
Let us examine in detail the most important features of this elaborate
broadside.
The centre of attraction is, of course, the surreptitious infant
Prince of Wales, who lies in his cradle to the left of the picture.
Those assembled about him are discussing the possibility of the plot
having been discovered. On his coverlet are various playthings, amongst
which is conspicuous a toy mill, emphasising, of course, the generally
accepted belief that he was the son of a miller, for, in their lying,
James’s enemies were nothing if not circumstantial. This allusive toy
figures in almost all the satiric prints dealing with the Old Pretender.
At the foot of the cradle, which is decorated with an owl, an owlet,
and a snake (emblems of evil), is a pap-bowl and spoon, half concealed
by the arm of “the first mother”[40] (1) {204} who seems to be
pointing out to Father Petre (2), the instigator of the plot, that the
child has been _born too old_. The Father, whose intimacy with the lady
is suggested by a tender fondling of her right hand with his left,
fingers his rosary with the other, and gazes fixedly into her eyes.
[40] It is not easy to decide which of the female figures is intended
to represent Mary of Modena and which the miller’s wife. At first sight
one would expect the Queen to be represented by the central figure 3,
but, on the other hand, I have in my possession a very rare mezzotint
of the period which represents Father Petre and the Queen in almost
identical attitudes as figures 1 and 2 in the present plate. This view
of the matter is supported by the following scandalous verse of the day:
Some priests, they say, crept nigh her honour,
And sprinkled some good holy water upon her,
Which made her conceive of what has undone her.
Edward Petre was one of the best-hated men in the country, and was
popularly looked upon as James’s evil genius. The King would have made
him Archbishop of York, but the Pope refused his dispensation. In the
year preceding the production of this satire he had been made a Privy
Councillor.
[Illustration: “L’Europe alarmée pour le Fils d’un Meunier.” (_The
plate in its first state_)]
[Illustration: _The plate in its second state, now entitled_ “La Cour
De Paix solitaire, entre les Roses piquantes et les Lis”]
In the middle of the picture sits the “second mother” (3) in a
highly-wrought chair, round the legs of which twine carved serpents.
Tears course down her cheeks. With her right hand she points to the
cradle as she listens to the counsels of the papal nuncio Count
Ferdinand d’Adda (4), who, with armour peeping from under {205}
his robes and with his armoured foot treading on his naked weapon,
recommends submission of the whole matter to the arbitrament of the
sword.
Immediately beyond the Cardinal stands Louis XIV. (5), James’s faithful
ally. In one hand he carries a bag of money, referring, doubtless,
to his offer of five hundred thousand livres for the equipment of an
English fleet to oppose the Prince of Orange’s threatened invasion;
with the other he exposes to view a list of his army.
Behind, and to the right of Cardinal d’Adda, Louis’ son, the Dauphin
of France, makes as though he would draw his sword, whilst the Pope
(Innocent XI.), in shadow at the extreme right of the picture (7, the
number is very indistinctly seen on the dark clothing) grasps the keys
of St. Peter, and would seem to be sarcastically doubtful of the whole
affair. “The Pope,” says Voltaire, “founded very little hopes on the
proceedings of James, and constantly refused Petre a cardinal’s hat.”
Beyond the Pope is seen the armoured figure of Leopold I. (8), with the
German eagle on his helmet. With his right hand he grasps his {206}
sword-hilt; with his left he gesticulates as though reminding the war
party that he also has to be reckoned with. No. 9 I cannot identify.
Behind Mary of Modena’s chair stands (13, the figure is on her
breast) Catherine of Braganza, the childless wife of Charles II. She
is doubtless lamenting that, when residing at Whitehall, she had not
herself manufactured a prince on the Modena plan. Next to her (11, the
figure is on the pillar) a doctor of the Sorbonne promises them all
dispensations—a hit at James’s well-known misuse of the dispensing
powers. Next to him, with his right hand convulsively grasping a
roll of charters, stands James himself (10). In his left he carries
parliamentary and corporation papers. With despairing eyes he gazes at
the baby who, so far from giving, as he had fondly hoped, the finishing
touch to the Roman Catholic triumph in England, is likely to prove the
most damning count in the country’s indictment of his iniquities and
treasons. To the left the midwife (12) encourages him to proceed with
the imposture. Below her two monks (14 and 15), greatly alarmed, pray
aloud at the head of the cradle. {207}
Immediately behind them two heralds, one mounted on an ass, blow
on trumpets to call attention to the Dutch fleet, which is seen
approaching through the right-hand arch, whilst through the left a fort
is seen belching forth smoke and resisting the landing of the longboats.
In the left corner of the picture certain Quakers (17, 18, 19), whose
curious friendship with James must not be forgotten, deprecate the
priests’ blasphemies, whilst beyond them a crowd of Irish papists is
suggested by their waving symbols and a torn flag embroidered with the
sacred monogram. Behind the Quakers an oriental-looking person scans
the heavens through a telescope.
The colonnade beneath which all this takes place has its pillars
surmounted by owls and a demoniacal bat. The arches are inscribed
with the words “Het word hier nacht,” and other inscriptions are seen
on the walls. On the extreme right of the picture is reared a banner
bearing what appear to be the words “In utrumque Turgam,” of which it
is difficult to imagine the meaning. “In utramque Furcam,” which would
be intelligible, has been suggested to me as an {208} alternative
reading, but cannot, I think, be accepted. Another friend hazards “In
utrumque (modum) resurgam,” which may be freely translated, “I shall be
‘dormy’ either way,” and would certainly make sense. Farther than that
I cannot go with him.
So much for the first state of this elaborate copperplate which did its
part in propagating the lie which went far to lose for James II. the
crown of England.
After having served this purpose the plate was laid aside for nearly a
quarter of a century. During this period the throne of England had been
occupied by James II.’s two daughters, Mary and Anne, to the exclusion
of their father, who died in exile in 1701, and of the Chevalier de
St. George, whose proclamation by Louis of France as James III. of
England[41] had been followed by the war of the Spanish Succession.
[41] In the Stuart Room at Madresfield Court Lord Beauchamp lately
showed me a portrait of the Chevalier, labelled “James III.”!
In 1713, just twenty-four years after the plate had been engraved,
the Peace of Utrecht, so vitally important as marking the beginning
of {209} England’s commercial prosperity, was signed between England
and France. Amongst other things it secured the Protestant Succession
to the throne of England through the House of Hanover, and the
dismissal of the Chevalier from France. The suspension of arms between
the English and the French which preceded the signing of the treaty
was seized upon as the opportunity for resuscitating the plate and
adapting: it to the altered circumstances. Now did some pictorial
vandal wrench and twist the figures to new and undreamt-of uses and
turn the Council of War of 1688 into the Court of Peace between the
Roses and Lilies of 1712! The plate now professes to be published
in London, though, from the fact that the publication line runs. “A
Londres chez Turner,” and from sundry misspellings, it would appear
certain that the alterations on the plate were effected abroad.
In this second state the plate has been reduced at the top as far as
the capitals of the pillars, and at the bottom as far as the left foot
of the figure which represented Father Petre in the original. The index
figures have also been changed. {210}
The explanation of the design as it now stands is contained in
eighty-three lines of doggerel French verse. Taking the alterations one
by one we find in the first place that the infant and cradle have been
bodily removed, and (1) the “Plan de Paix” substituted. It bears the
legend “Vrede tussen het Lelien en Roosen hof. Paix entre les Lis et
les Roses picantes.”
The central figure (2) of the picture is now changed into an
allegorical personage labelled “Pax,” who holds in her left hand a
paper inscribed “Juste Protestation des Alliés,” whilst with her right
she indicates the “Plan de Paix.” In this way the new artist, with some
ingenuity, suggests that the spirit of peace is in sympathy with the
dissatisfaction of the Allies at the negotiations which are proceeding
between England and France. Her remonstrances are addressed to the
figure on her left (3), which formerly represented Cardinal d’Adda,
but is now labelled “Pole.” (the Abbé Melchior de Polignac), who tries
to allay her forebodings. The difficulty of the Cardinal’s hat, which
is of course out of place on an Abbé, is ingeniously got over by the
writer of the French {211} libretto, who refers to him as a Cardinal
_in petto_. As a matter of fact the writer proved a good prophet,
for, on the conclusion of the peace, for which Polignac was largely
responsible, he was, on the nomination of the Chevalier de St. George,
created and appointed Cardinal Maître de la Chapelle du Roi. He was at
the time of the publication of the altered plate plenipotentiary in
Holland for the French. It will be noticed that the _pince-nez_ and
moustache have now been dispensed with.
The figure behind Polignac (4), which originally stood for the Dauphin,
who, by the way, was but lately dead, is now labelled at the foot
“Mont-or” (the Duke of Ormond’s name reversed), and at the head “Tori.”
By an ingenious turn of thought, the Dauphin’s warlike action of
_drawing_ his sword is now metamorphosed into the Duke’s conciliatory
action of _sheathing_ his. This refers, of course, to the instructions
which he had received from the English Government, on taking over
the command of the troops in the Low Countries from the Duke of
Marlborough, to do all in his power to bring about a peaceful issue.
{212}
Beyond Polignac the figure (5) which formerly represented Louis XIV.
is now put to humbler uses, and merely represents a French herald. The
paper in his left hand, which originally enumerated Louis’ forces, now
bears the gratifying legend:
Bonne Paix
De l’Anglois
Me rend guai.
The lady in front of him (6), who formerly stood for Catherine of
Braganza, now represents Maria Louisa of Savoy, the first wife of
Philip V. of Spain (fortunately for him not such a firebrand as his
second wife proved to be). She turns to her handsome young husband
(7) (here somewhat libellously represented by the whilom “Old Hatchet
Face”) who has just renounced for himself and descendants all claims of
succession to the crown of France. His right hand rests on the scroll
of “charters” as before, but the document in his left now bears the
legend: “Leli afstand onder Conditie” (The lily to surrender under
conditions).
Passing almost to the extreme right of the picture, the eagle-helmeted
figure (8) which {213} before represented the Emperor Leopold I. now
represents his son Charles VI., “Le Seigneur juste de la Cour d’Orient
et Occident.” Clutching his huge sword, he expresses the anger of the
Imperialists at the project for peace between England and France. In
the end he refused to concur in the peace of Utrecht, and continued at
war with France until 1714.
On either side of him are two figures numbered alike (9, 9). That on
his right, which bears the word “Wigh” engraved on his hat, represents
the Duke of Marlborough, the deposed military leader of the Whigs. That
on his left is one of the Duke’s followers, who, by his drawn sword,
points the allusion of the librettist to the “Pacificateur par le fer.”
To the extreme right of the picture (10) the Pope, now Clement XI. in
place of Innocent XI., encourages Polignac in his efforts for peace,
and promises him “La Pourpre” as his reward.
Returning to the middle background of the crowd we find (11, 11) two
Jesuits. The one who looks over the left shoulder of No. 7 was in
the first state of the plate a doctor of the {214} Sorbonne. The
index number of this figure is now on his hat. Originally it was on
the pillar above him. This the adapter has apparently attempted to
turn into a rough ornamentation by the addition of parallel strokes.
Becoming dissatisfied, he has crossed out the whole by irregular
horizontal lines. To the left of figure 7 is seen (12) the Pretender,
the surreptitious infant of the original, now grown to manhood,
whispering in Philip of Spain’s ear that though he claims as a
Protestant the throne of his father, he is in his heart of the Romish
faith. This figure originally represented the midwife, but has been
metamorphosed by the addition of a man’s hat, wig, and ruffles.
To the extreme left of the foreground of the picture the erstwhile
Father Petre is now transformed (13) into a Jesuit confessor, who
amorously converses with (14) “La Courtisane de Bourbon,” Madame de
Maintenon. This cruel aspersion on the character of one who was really,
though secretly, Louis XIV.’s wife, and whose nobleness of character
is now fully established, was characteristic of the times. The Plan
de Paix, {215} which was so obnoxious to the author of the satire,
would seem to have just fallen from her fingers, and doubtless he is
right in recognising that she had a hand in its consummation. Beyond
the table sit a monk and friar (15, 15), as formerly, except that the
removal of the cradle has necessitated an extension of their figures.
In the background, against the left-hand pillar, is (16) the “Harlequin
de France.” In front of him the three figures (17, 18, 19), originally
Quakers, are now referred to as “Esprits Libres.” The man with the
telescope (20) is “The Observer of Foreign Countries.” The other
subordinate figures are the same as before, save for the addition, in
some cases, of index numbers.
It is interesting to notice that this plate was so successful in
its adapted state that it was made the basis of a design engraved
for a German broadside of the following year entitled “Der
Fridens-Hoffzwischen der Rose und der versöhnten Lilie,” with which it
has many points in common.
I have treated of this plate at considerable length because it is
the most important of the palimpsest plates of this period. I shall
close {216} this chapter by reproducing one other remarkable example
designed in its first state to expose the same supposed wicked plot. In
the next chapter I shall give another dealing with the birth of the Old
Pretender, from which we shall gain some idea of the extent to which
this clever stratagem of the adapted copperplate was made use of in the
deliberate days of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
For the present I must pass over two elaborate broadsides engraved by
Jean Bollard, and entitled respectively “Aan den Experten Hollandschen
Hoofd-Smith” (To the Expert Dutch Head-Smith), and “Aan der Meester
Tonge-Slyper” (To the Master Tongue-Grinder). These, as we shall see
later, after doing their work against James II. and the Old Pretender,
were seized upon many years afterwards by the piratical publisher of a
remarkable Jansenist tract, called “Roma Perturbata, Ofte’t Beroerde
Romen, etc.,” and adapted to the uses of the anti-Jesuit propagandum,
in the same way as “L’Europe Alarmée pour le Fils d’un Meunier,”
described above, was adapted after twenty-five years of idleness as a
satire upon the Peace of Utrecht. {217}
It was this same piratical tractarian who seized upon the elaborate
plate which I am here reproducing, divorced it from its letterpress,
cut the plate down to the size of his tract, and appropriated it in its
second state to the purposes of “Roma Perturba ta.”
In its first state, which I give here, together with its accompanying
letterpress, the line of publication runs: “Gisling, Geneve, exc.” and
the title:
Het beest van Babel is aan’t vluesten
Die Godsdienst heeft niet méer te duckten.
(The beast of Babel is flying,
Religion has nothing more to fear.)
[Illustration: Het beest van Babel, etc. (_The plate in its first
state._)]
[Illustration: Het beest van Babel, etc. (_The plate in its second
state._)]
The design is very elaborate and crowded with figures, those in the
foreground being executed with considerable spirit. The Dutch Lion (1)
carries a sword in its right front claws, as does that on the Persian
flag of to-day. On its back rides William of Orange (7) with lance
in rest and bearing a shield upon which St. Michael is represented
combating sin in the shape of a dragon. William is supported by
mounted soldiers, one of whom bears a flag inscribed with {218} the
words “Prot religion and libe”—(For religion and liberty). Over his
head flies a winged Revenge (3) carrying a shield in one hand and
the lightnings of God’s wrath in the other. Before him flies the
seven-headed Beast of Babel (2), shorn of two of his heads, which lie
bleeding on the ground beneath the lion. The monster, which “utters
horrible shrieks,” bears upon its back between its wings Father Petre
(6), who holds on his lap the infant Pretender (5), to whom his “brains
have so infamously given birth.” The too-old infant carries in his hand
the ever-present toy windmill. Blood pours from the decapitated necks
of the Beast as he plunges with his accompanying rabble into the “pool
of horrors.” Priests and other Romish officials, some mounted on goats,
asses, and wolves, flee (4) or are trampled under foot (8).
In the mid background William of Orange (9), by a poetic licence able
to be in two places at once, a fairly common convention even in serious
pictures of that and an earlier date,[42] is being {221} greeted by
the English nobles as their saviour. To the left, through an archway,
James II. (10) is seen fleeing by boat with his wife and infant,
though, as a matter of fact, he remained in England some months after
the latter were safely abroad. To the right, through another arch,
Louis XIV. (11) is seen “embracing the child and taking pity on his
mother,” and putting two of the curious, hearse-like carriages of
the period at their disposal. Here we not only find Mary of Modena
duplicated, but the infant Pretender triplicated in the same picture!
So much for the plate in its first state.
[42] See, for example, Tintoret’s great picture of “Adam and Eve” in
the Accademia at Venice.
In its second and adapted state it takes its place in the armoury of
the anti-Jesuits. The Jansenist controversy was at its height in the
year of grace 1705, and Jansenism, although nominally subject to Rome,
was regarded favourably by the Protestant Dutch as being a reforming
movement within the Roman Catholic Church against the theological
casuistry of the Jesuits.
This is not the place to go into the anti-Jansenist polemics of the
Jesuits since the publication of the “Augustinus” of 1640, though the
{222} interest of the matter is sufficiently tempting. We must content
ourselves with remembering that now at the beginning of a new century
a supreme effort was being made by the Jesuits in France to destroy
completely the pious community of Port Royal; that within four years
they were to succeed in dispersing the nuns; within another year the
cloister itself was to be pulled down; that in 1711 the very bodies of
the departed members of the community were destined to be disinterred
from the burial ground with the greatest brutalities and indecencies;
and in 1713 the church itself demolished.
But, though Port Royal itself was doomed, Jansenism was finding freedom
under the Protestant Government of Holland.
In 1689 Archbishop Codde had been appointed by the Pope Vicar Apostolic
in Holland. Soon, however, it was discovered by the Jesuits that he
favoured the Jansenists.
By the machinations of the Jesuits he was therefore _invited_ to Rome,
and treacherously detained there for _three years_, in defiance of
all canonical regulations. In the meantime the Pope {223} appointed
Theodore de Cock in his place, with the intention of crushing the
Jansenists in Holland. Codde thereupon made his escape from Rome, and
the well-known struggle of the Jansenists of Utrecht and Haarlem for a
legitimate episcopal succession began.
This was the juncture at which our copperplate was to do duty a second
time, and for such different ends.
It has been divorced from its letterpress, altered in certain details
and slightly cut away at the top and bottom. Like those dealing with
the Head Smith and Tongue Sharpener, as will be seen in the next
chapter, it has been appropriated to the uses of “Roma Perturbata.” It
is now entitled on the panel which has been inserted at the spring of
the arches “Door Munnike-Jagt, Word Babel Verkracht” (By chasing monks,
Babel is assailed), and the piratical publisher has made many ingenious
alterations. The possibly punning publication line runs: “Benedictus
Antisolitarius excudit Rom.” Above this appears the chronograph:
“hos heros MonaChos apprenDe bataVe rebeLLes.” {224}
The Lion (1) still represents Holland and hunts the Beast of Babel (2)
assisted by the winged Revenge (3), whose lightnings have now been
increased to seven to represent the heraldic arrows of the Seven United
Provinces. This device also now appears on the shield of Holland’s
Knight (7) in place of that of St. Michael and the Dragon. The banner
of his followers is now inscribed “Pro Secularibus.” As champion of
the Jansenists the Knight puts to rout “all the bald heads (4, 4, 4,
4), together with ‘their protector Kok’” (6), who “in disguise” rides
between the wings of the Beast with an illegitimate child (5) on his
lap, from whose right hand the toy windmill of the infant Pretender
has been removed. In the background to the left, others, in the quaint
words of the Dutch letterpress (10), “escape quickly from the town by
water, while they are clothed like gentlemen in order not to be known
as monks.” In the background to the right, others flee “like great
gentlemen in carriages,” a fairly ingenious adaptation of James II.’s
flight and Louis’ welcome of the fugitives. {225}
The group in the middle background is now made to represent Codde
(8.B), who has escaped from Rome and is being welcomed back by the
representatives of the State (9, 9).
{226}
CHAPTER XI
ADAPTED OR PALIMPSEST PLATES (_continued_).
In the last chapter I claim to have introduced the reader to a phase
of print-collecting which has in it a sporting element of a peculiarly
enticing character. The pursuit of what I have called palimpsest
copperplates offers entertainment of the very best to one who would
make it a speciality, and, perhaps, the most alluring thing about this
curious quarry is that the hunter will never be satisfied after running
it to earth until he has secured and coupled it in his portfolio with
its necessary and enchanting fellow.
I propose in this chapter to give a few more specimens of these curious
adapted plates.
Many examples of reheaded statues and adapted portraits lie around us.
Mr. Augustus Hare tells of a representation of Lady Georgina Fane in
Brympton Church, which consists of the head of {227} that ready-witted
lady “added to the body of an ancestress who was headless,” whilst any
visitor to Yarmouth Church, Isle of Wight, may see the imposing marble
effigy of Admiral Sir Robert Holmes, which consists of the head of
that gallant sailor surmounting the body of Louis XIV. It appears that
Sir Robert, having captured the vessel in which the Italian-made torso
of the Grand Monarque was being conveyed to France for the modelling
of the head, retained the unfinished work and crowned it with his own
august features—a good example of the resourcefulness of the English
character.
Again, Macaulay, enlarging upon the popularity of Frederick the Great
in England, tells how at one time enthusiasm reached such a height that
the sign-painters were everywhere employed in touching up the portraits
of Admiral Vernon, which hung outside innumerable public-houses, into
the likeness of the King of Prussia, a curious commentary, by the way,
on the family motto, “Ver non semper virit.”[43] Further, it is on
record {228} that after Trafalgar such was Nelson’s popularity, that
Daniel Orme, engraver to George III., bought a plate of Napoleon at the
sale of a Ludgate Hill printseller’s effects, and altered it into a
portrait of our national hero.
[43] The following extract from a recent newspaper shows that the
practice has not yet altogether died out:—
“In the action of Tussaud _v._ Stiff, heard in the Chancery Division
by Mr. Justice Buckley yesterday, the plaintiff, Mr. Louis Tussaud,
sought to restrain defendant by injunction from carrying on his
business of exhibiting models in such a way as to induce the public
to believe that the models he showed were the work of the plaintiff.
It was stated by the plaintiff’s counsel that, in consequence of
an injunction granted some years ago, it became necessary for the
plaintiff to carry on his exhibition as Louis Tussaud’s New Exhibition
in Regent Street. It was afterwards turned into a limited liability
company, and removed to the Alexandra Palace. Some of the models were
sold to the defendant, but no goodwill of the business was sold. The
defendant had since opened several exhibitions of waxworks, other
models had been added to those sold by the plaintiff, and the models
of the plaintiff had been split into a considerable number of pieces,
while models made by other persons than the plaintiff were exhibited
as Louis Tussaud’s waxworks. Counsel informed the Court that _in one
case the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury had been put on the body
of Charles Peace, and in another instance Napoleon was represented as
taking part in the execution of Mary Queen of Scots_. The defendant’s
present exhibition was a penny show in the Edgware Road. _In another
instance the head of Mr. Ritchie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was
put upon a dying soldier._”
The Mr. Louis Tussaud here mentioned must not be confused with Mr.
John Tussaud of the Marylebone Road Exhibition.
Examples such as these might be multiplied, but here are enough for
our purpose. They show that the systematic practice of copperplate
adaptation has its counterpart in other departments of art.
[Illustration: Aan der Meester Tonge-Slyper. (_The plate in its first
state_)]
[Illustration: Aan der Meester Tonge-Slyper. _As adapted by the
Anti-Jesuits_]
We will now consider a curious broadside {230} published about the
year 1688, the copperplate heading of which was destined to be seized
upon and adapted to other purposes nearly twenty years later by the
piratical publisher referred to in the last chapter.
As will be seen from our reproduction, its letterpress is addressed,
“Aan der Meester Tonge-Slyper” (“To the Master Tongue Grinder”). The
engraver’s name does not appear, but the work is easily distinguished
as that of Jean Bollard, by comparing it with other signed engravings
of the same series of pictorial satires.
Two men at a grindstone sharpen a tongue, Another tongue lies on the
anvil. Two labourers empty a large hamper of tongues into a basket,
which is steadied by a woman. Point is given to the picture by the
gossiping groups seen through the door and window, and especially by
the two Xantippes who, with arms akimbo, are slanging each other in
good earnest.
The doggerel letterpress refers to the birth of the Old Pretender, and
the mendacious tongues of the conspirators are being delivered to the
smith to be coerced into speaking the truth. {231}
Here is a free translation of the passage, beginning “Heden zyn my over
London”:—
“To-day I received from London a cargo of those goods which you have
to take in hand; I have some of the biggest size, _The Admiral of
the First Flag_, which has been used so much and has become black
from lying, and which, after all appearances, seems to have had his
end bitten off; scrape thoroughly his thick skin or he will be up
to anything; swearing oaths, breaking bonds, falsely protecting the
Church is his daily work.”
And so on, until it ends with the moral:—
“Nothing more useful than whetting the tongue
When its aim is to speak the truth.
But when it is given to lying,
It must be pierced, flayed, and scraped.”
So much for the plate in its first state. In its second we find it
published seventeen years later, and somewhat ingeniously adapted
to the new exigencies. It now takes its place in the armoury of the
anti-Jesuits, and is published without any acknowledgment in the
pamphlet, entitled _Roma Pertubata Ofte’t Beroerde Romen, etc.,
etc._, referred to in the last chapter. This pamphlet, which is a
very warren of palimpsest plates (it has at least four, and possibly
there are others), may {232} be seen in the print-room of the British
Museum. It may, too, as I have myself proved, be discovered at rare
intervals in the shops of the old printsellers in Holland. Mine is in a
parti-coloured paper wrapper, whether as issued or added later I cannot
say. It consists of title-page, table of contents, and eleven full-page
copperplate engravings of extraordinary interest. Curiously enough,
the table of contents makes no reference to the eleventh and last. Our
palimpsest is number 9.[44]
[44] Grateful acknowledgments are here due to the splendid _Catalogue
of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum_, 5 vols., which should
be in the library of every collector of satirical prints.
In its new surroundings it has (_vide_ reproduction) been divorced from
its letterpress, and been cut away at the bottom. A descriptive panel
has been engraved over the doorway, and other lettering added here and
there. The publication line, “tot Tongeren by J: la Langue,” apparently
a bogus one, playing on the words of the original, “à Langres chez
Tongelel,” now appears within the border of the design.
The tongue which lies on the anvil is now pierced by the seven
heraldic arrows of the Dutch Provinces, and words are engraved below to
the {233} effect that “There is no worse evil than that a Pope’s tongue
dares slander the State,” and on the base of the anvil, “He has given
way to slander. You must forge him before you grind him.”
Below the quarrelling women are the words: “These maids are quarrelling
for de Kok,” referring to scandals which were afloat concerning the
morality of the Pope’s vicar-general, and a Latin chronograph appears
at the feet of the chief smith.
The inscription over the door gives directions to “The Romish Dutch
Grinder of Tongues,” and, amongst other things, says of the tongue on
the anvil, “That is de Kok’s tongue, wounded by seven arrows, because
he has slandered the State by his speech,” which statement hardly
tallies with the inscription on the anvil, unless the vicar-general may
be regarded as the very mouthpiece of the Pope.
This is no place, as I have said, to enlarge upon the Jansenist
propagandum, but it will well repay the enthusiastic historian to
follow out the above allusions to their original source.
So much for our adapted broadside.
{234}
[Illustration: The Stature of a Great Man, or the English Colossus]
{235}
[Illustration: The Stature of a Great Man, or the Scotch Colossus]
I would ask you now to look at the two prints entitled respectively
“The Stature of a Great Man, or the English Colossus,” and “The Stature
of a Great Man, or the SCOTCH Colossus.”
{236}
The first, dated 1740, represents Sir Robert Walpole, then in the
plenitude of his power. He stands on two woolpacks. Between his legs is
seen the British fleet lying inactive. He is flanked by Marines on the
left crying “Let us fight,” and sailors with drawn swords on the right
declaring their readiness to die “Pro Patriâ.” The plate teems with
allusions to his reluctance to go to war, by which he was subjecting
his country to the insults and aggressions of Spain and France.
Twenty-two years later the plate was resurrected and altered to
its second state, in which it is made to represent Lord Bute. The
lower part of the plate, bearing the quotation from Shakespeare and
the “Description,” has been now cut away, and “Scotch” inserted in
the place of “English” in the title. The chief alterations are the
reduction of the full-bottomed wig and the addition of a wig-tie of
black ribbon, the addition {237} of a star on the breast, and a
new and abusive inscription on the right-hand document. In this case
the adapter has shown but little ingenuity.
[Illustration: Queen Anne presiding over the House of Lords. (_The
plate in its first state_)]
[Illustration: _The plate in its second state, now representing_ George
I. presiding over the House of Lords]
We will now turn to a far more elaborate example, which, in its first
state, as will be seen in the reproduction, represents Queen Anne
presiding in state over the House of Lords. The plate is etched by
Romeyn de Hooghe.
At the top of the picture, between female figures representing Plenty
and War, is suspended a cloth, on which the Queen is shown presiding
over the House of Commons. At her side sits Prince George of Denmark.
The whole is surmounted by the words, “Het Hoog en Lager Huys van
Engeland.” Left and right of the cloth are scrolls bearing the legends,
“Hinc gloria regni” and “Hinc felicitas publica.”
At the base of the plate are two small self-contained etchings. That
on the left shows the heralds proclaiming the Queen; that on the right
shows Her Majesty sitting in Council. Between these are inscribed the
following words:—
“Annæ D. G.
Magnæ Britanniæ Reginæ,” etc., etc.
{238}
The main design is crowded with details and figures of the utmost
interest, any description of which is forbidden by the space at my
disposal. The artist’s signature is to be seen on the floor of the Hall.
Thirteen years were now to elapse before it was transformed into
the glorification of George I. The King now takes the place of the
late Queen in the House of Lords. The throne in the House of Commons
is vacant. The inscription on the cloth has been re-engraved, and
“Engeland” changed to “Engelandt.” The title and the panels at the
bottom of the plate have been cut away, and the index numbers on the
main design and the index letters on the cloth have been altered. The
designer’s name has been removed from the floor of the House, and
engraved on the right-hand corner of the plate.
These are the main differences. The curious reader may occupy himself
in discovering others.
The next example here reproduced I give because of the peculiarly
drastic changes which have been made by the pirate into whose hands the
plate has fallen. {239}
[Illustration: “The Races of the Europeans, with their Keys.” (_The
plate in its first state_)]
[Illustration: “A Skit on Britain.” (_The plate in its second state_)]
In its original state it bears the punning title, “The Races of the
Europeans with their Keys.” The line of publication runs:—“Geo.
Bickham, jun^{r.,} inv^{t.} et sculp. According to the late Act,
1740. Price 1s. Sold at ye Black Moors Head against Surry Street
in y^e Strand.” The composite design is made up of variorum copies
of four separate prints recently published. These are enclosed in
the four quarters of an elaborate design, surmounted by a crouching
wolf. At the point where the four corners meet is a grotesque horned
head. At the foot are a mask and a poniard. Each panel is differently
dated, and surmounts its own set of explanatory notes. The allusions
to contemporary politics are most ingeniously conceived, but are so
numerous that space forbids even their barest description.
In its second state the plate is entitled “A Skit on Britain.” The
line of publication runs the same as before, saving the name of the
artist, which has been changed into “Ged Bilchham.” A line of script
has also been added on this copy, which states that “This plate is
upon the same copper as ‘The Races of the Europeans,’ much of the {240}
allusions not having been obliterated,” which seems considerably to
understate the case. The enclosing design is certainly much the same
as before, though in this there are many alterations in detail, but of
the four engravings by far the greater portion has been removed. The
aerial parts are practically untouched, but of the crowds of figures
only a few unimportant groups remain. All the tables of reference have
been burnished out, and are replaced by doggerel verses. The dates have
been removed from the four compartments, and in the places of three of
them appear “Porto Bello, Nov. 1739,” “Cartagena,” and “The Havana,”
while the fourth is left blank. The main part of the satire is directed
against the policy of Sir Robert Walpole, but is of too elaborate a
nature to be entered upon here.
[Illustration: The Headless Horseman. (_The plate with the head
burnished out._)]
Before concluding this account of palimpsest plates I shall reproduce
three very curious prints in which the substitution of one head for
another is more than usually outrageous.[45] The original {241}
engraving was by Pierre Lombart after a made-up portrait of Charles
I., on horseback, professing to be by Vandyck.
[45] The earliest example of the artist as Headsman that I have come
across is a very rare portrait of Queen Elizabeth, full length, seated
on a throne, dressed in a robe of state, holding globe and sceptre,
engraved about 1590. The Queen’s figure was subsequently burnished
out, and that of James I. substituted. This, unfortunately, I do not
possess.
The plate was executed before the execution (save the mark!) of the
Martyr King. After his death the head of Cromwell was substituted,
no doubt for commercial purposes. Finally, Charles the First’s head
was restored (again save the mark!) after the Restoration. Our
reproductions are from what would seem to be the second, third, and
fourth states of the plate though a first state is not known. It will
be observed that, in the earliest—namely, that in which the head
has been removed altogether—the scarf is brought across the left
shoulder, and tied under the right arm, whilst the page-boy has bands
and frills to his breeches. In the next, or third state, in which
Cromwell’s head has been inserted, the scarf has been removed from the
shoulder, and is tied round the waist, whilst the bands and frills
have been removed from the page-boy’s nether garments. In the next,
or fourth stage of the plate, in which {242} Charles’s head has been
re-inserted, there are, besides the substitution of one head for the
other, a few minor alterations, such as the addition of the Cavalier
moustache to the face of the page-boy, the restoration of the frills
to his breeches, the alteration of the pattern of the rider’s collar,
the addition of the order of St. George to the rider’s breast, and
the substitution of the royal coat of arms for those of the Protector
at the bottom of the engraving. There are also other known states of
the plate, reproductions of which may be seen in Mr. Alfred Whitman’s
_Print-Collector’s Handbook_. These were unknown to me when I wrote the
above description.[46]
[46] Since writing this I paid a visit to the Hall of the Middle
Temple, when the very intelligent custodian told me that Cromwell
ordered the great Vandyck, which hangs over the high table, to be
taken down, and his own somewhat repellent countenance painted in
in the place of that of Charles I. Fortunately for posterity this
outrageous order was not carried out. The whole affair reminds one of
the unconsciously grim entry in a certain bookseller’s catalogue which
ran, “Memoirs of Charles the First with a head _capitally executed_.”
[Illustration: The plate with Cromwell’s head]
[Illustration: The plate with Charles I.’s head]
So much for historical instances of putting new heads on old shoulders.
But, if I am not mistaken, the very modern restoration of the west
front of one of our great cathedrals shows a late Dean’s head
surmounting the body of a saint or king, {243} which had been
mutilated by Cromwell. It would be cruel, perhaps, to be more specific,
as vanity is not the most pleasing of the Christian virtues.
Again, there was lately a good deal of laughter caused by one of the
whims of the German Emperor. It appears that his artistic eye had been
offended by the incompleteness of a fine headless torso which was
brought to the fatherland some years since. Everything, he was aware,
could be _made in Germany_, so what more natural than to offer a prize
for the best completion of the work of a Phidias or a Praxiteles?
_Finis coronat opus_, and the sculptors of Germany were called upon to
compete. None of the results, however, satisfied His Imperial Majesty,
and two of the artists have been commissioned to try again. Would it be
_lese-majestie_ to suggest that there is only one head in Germany that
would prove quite acceptable? I present the idea to the competitors.
Enough has been written to show that the pursuit of the palimpsest
plate is sport of the very finest for the collector, for it is a sport
which does not cease with the running of the quarry to earth. {244}
I have reproduced, without comment, opposite pages 244 and 246, and on
pages 245, 247, and 249, a few more of these adapted copperplates for
the sake of any one who may be fortunate enough to possess either the
original or the palimpsest. He will find it no bad sport to go hunting
for its fellow.
[Illustration: Undescribed palimpsest plate. (_First state and second
state._)]
{245}
[Illustration: Aan den Experten Hollandichen Hoofd-Smith. (_The plate
in its first state_)]
[Illustration: Aan den Experten Hollandichen Hoofd-Smith. (_As adapted
by the Anti-Jesuits_)]
[Illustration: Undescribed palimpsest plate. (_First state and second
state._)]
{247}
[Illustration: An adapted Copperplate. _First state_]
[Illustration: An adapted Copperplate. _Second state_]
{249}
[Illustration: A History of the New Plot. _First state_]
[Illustration: A History of the New Plot. _Second state_]
{251}
INDEX
“Aan den Experten Hollandschen Hoofd-Smith,” 216, 243
“Aan der Meester Tonge-Slyper,” 216, 230–233
ADAPTED COPPER PLATES, 192–247
Ainsworth, Harrison, 3
Alken, Henry, 157–160
Allen, Archdeacon, 10
_American Notes_, 2
Anne, Queen, 237, 238
_Antiquities of Westminster_, 150–153
_A Pop-Gun fired off by George Cruikshank_, 79
“A Skit on Britain,” 239, 240
“A Trifling Mistake,” 70–73
_Ballad of Beau Brocade, The_, 3
“Becky Sharp,” 10
_Bentley’s Miscellany_, 43–52
Bewick’s _Birds_, 68
_Book of Snobs_, 9
“Breeches” Bible, Barker’s, 2
Brougham, Lord, 62
Browne, H. K., 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 54–56
Bruton, Mr. H. W. 48, 49, 69, 75, 81
Buffon, M., 5
Bunn, Alfred, 10
Burlington, Earl of, 98–107
“Burlington Gate,” 108
Burns, Robert, 2
Buss, Miss F. M., 34
Buss, R. W., 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34
Bute, Lord, 235, 236
Calcraft, Captain Granby, 9
Capel, Monsignor, 2
“Captain Granby Tiptoff,” 9
“Captain Shindy,” 9
Carteret, Lord, 112 _et seq._
_Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum_, 92 _et
passim_, 198 _et passim_
Chandos, Duke of, 101
Chapman and Hall, Messrs., 33, 55
Charles I., 241–242
_Charles Dickens, The Story of his Life_, 27
Churchill, Charles, 107–111
_Clarissa Harlowe_, 5
_Coaching Days and Coaching Ways_, 175–178
Cochrane, Lord, 65
_Coningsby_, 12, 13, 20
Cowell, Professor, 184–186
Crawhall, Joseph, 135–138
“Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism: a Medley,” 88 _et seq._
Croker, J. W., 12
Cromek, R. H., 5
Cromwell, Oliver, 241, 242
Cruikshank, George, 42, 45–54, 59–81, 161
_Cruikshank’s Portraits of Himself_, 80
Cumberland, Duke of, 60–69
Cumberland, Princess Olive of, 62
“Danaë in the Brazen Chamber,” 140–148
_Death in London_, 154–158
Dexter, Mr. J. P., 41
_D’Horsay; or the Follies of the Day, by a Man of Fashion_, 13
_Dickens and his Illustrators_, 40, 41
Dickens, Charles, 2, 26 _et seq._ his _American Notes_, 2 his
suppressed portrait, 27, 28
_Dickens Memento_, 47
_Dictionary of National Biography_, 61, 62
Dighton, Richard, 25
Disraeli, Benjamin, 2, 10, 12, 131–134
Dobson, Mr. Austin, 3, 82 _et passim_, 174
_Don Quixote_, 113 _et seq._
“Don Quixote releases the Galley Slaves,” 118, 122
“Don Quixote seizes the Barber’s Basin,” 118, 120
“Drop it!”, 78
Du Maurier, George, 162–173
Edwards, Edwin, 179–191
Elizabeth, Queen, 240
“Enthusiasm Delineated,” 83 _et seq._
_Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank_, 77
Fane, Lady Georgina, 226
Fanus i Khiyal, 185–191
_Figaro in London_, 63, 64
“Financial Survey of Cumberland or the Beggar’s Petition,” 60
FitzGerald, Edward, 40, 179–191
Frederick the Great, 227
Garrick Club, The, 8, 9
George I., 238
George IV., 11
“George Garbage,” 9
Gray, J. M., 148
_Grimm’s Fairy Tales_, 42
“Harry Foker,” 9
Hertford, Marchioness of, 75
Hertford, Marquis of, 10 _et seq._
_History of Pickwick_, 29
Hobhouse, John Cam, 70–73
_Hogarth Illustrated_, 84
Hogarth, William, 82 _et seq._
Holmes, Sir Robert, 227
Hook, Theodore, 9, 10
Ireland, John, 84 _et seq._, 113 _et seq._
Irving, Washington, 2
_Italian Tales_, 74
_Italy_, 3
James I., 241
Jansenists, the, 221 _et seq._
Jesuits, The, 221 _et seq._
“Joe Sibley,” 163–173
Jones, W. N., 68
_Jorrocks’s Jaunts and Jollities_, 158
Keene, Charles, 127–139
Kitton, F. G., 40
“Lady Kew,” 10, 22
Langford, Lady, 10
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 19
Leech, John, 33, 36–38, 40, 41
“L’Europe alarmée pour le Fils d’un Meunier,” 202–216
_Life of Dickens_, 37, 46
_Lippincott’s Magazine_, 10
“Lord Walham,” 23
_Lothair_, 2
“Marquis of Hereford,” 14
_Martin Chuzzlewit_, 26, 53
“Monsignor Catesby,” 2
“Mr. Dolphin,” 10
“Mr. John Jorrocks,” 158–161
“Mr. Pickwick at the Review,” 33
“Mr.” Pitt Crawley, 15
_Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Yates, and the Garrick Club_, 8
“Mr. Wardle and his Friends under the Influence of the Salmon,” 33
“Mr. Winkle’s First Shot,” 33
Napoleon, Emperor, 228
Nelson, Lord, 228
_Oliver Twist_, 26, 43–52
_Once a Week_, 127, 140–148
Orange, William of, 217 _et seq._
Pailthorpe, Mr. F. W., 56
_Pall Mall Gazette_, 166–169
Palmer, Samuel, 56
_Pendennis_, 9
_Penelope’s English Experiences_, 38
Phillimore, Mr. F., 47
“Philoprogenitiveness,” 77, 78
_Pickwick_, 26, 28 _et seq._, 43
_Pictures from Italy_, 56
Pine’s Horace, 54
_Poems_, Burns’s, 2
Pope, Alexander, 98–107
Price, Stephen, 9
Prideaux, Colonel, 190–191
_Punch_, 127 _et seq._
Queensberry, Duke of, 23
Reid’s _Catalogue of George Cruikshank’s Works_, 45, 62, 69
Ritchie, Mrs., 10
Robertson, J. C., 154–158
Rogers, Samuel, 3
“Roma Perturbata, Ofte’t Beroerde Romen, etc.,” 216 _et seq._
“Rose Maylie and Oliver at Agnes’s Tomb,” 45 _et seq._
Roxborough, Duke of, 2
“Royal Hobbys of the Hertfordshire Cock Horse,” 75
Ruskin, John, 3, 4
Sala, G. A., 30, 40
Sandys, Frederick, 127, 139–148
Scott, Sir Walter, 2
Seymour, Robert, 29, 31
“Sholto Percy,” 154–158
_Sketch Book_, Washington Irving’s, 2
_Sketches by Boz_, 55, 57, 58
Smith, J. T., 150
Smith, Wyndham, 9
Spielmann, Mr. M. H., 128 _et passim_
_Sporting Snobs_, 9
Stanislaus Hoax, 10
Stephens, F. G., 88
Stothard, T., 5
Stuart, James Francis Edward, 198 _et seq._
SUPPRESSED PLATES, 1–191
Surtees, R., 158
Swain, Mr. Joseph, 140–148
_Talpa_, 78
Tenniel, Sir John, 133
Thackeray, W. M., 7 _et seq._
_The Artist_, 145
_The Battle of Life_, 26, 34–40
_The Battle of London Life;_ or _Boz and his Secretary_, 39
“The Bruiser,” 110, 111
_The Builder_, 107
_The Chimes_, 36, 41
_The Christmas Carol_, 36
“The Cricket Match,” 29, 32
“The Curate and the Barber,” 121, 125
“The Dead Rider,” 74
“The Fireside Scene,” 26, 44 _et seq._
“The First Interview,” 121, 123
“The Free and Easy,” 57
“The Funeral of Chrysostom,” 116
_The History of Punch_, 128 _et seq._
_The Hobby Horse_, 144
“The Innkeeper,” 114
“The Innkeeper’s Wife and Daughter,” 118
“The Last Song,” 42
“The Man of Taste,” 98–107
“The Marquis of Steyne,” 7 _et seq._
_The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi_, 41, 42
_The Newcomes_, 22
“The Painted Chamber,” 150–153
“The Races of the Europeans with their Keys,” 239
_The Ruba’iyat_ of Omar Khayyam, 179–191
_The Speaker_, 21
“The Stature of a Great Man, or The English Colossus,” 236
“The Stature of a Great Man, or The Scotch Colossus,” 236
_The Strange Gentleman_, 54, 55
“The Street of the Tombs, Pompeii,” 56
_The Times_, 109
_The Tower of London_, 3
“The Two Apprentices,” 163–173
_The Two Paths_, 3
_The Vicar of Wakefield_, 171–175
_The Virginians_, 9
“The Worship of Wealth,” 53, 54
Thomson, Mr. Hugh, 3, 171–178
Thornhill, Sir James, 111, 112
“Tom Smart and the Chair,” 33
_Town Talk_, 8, 9
_Trilby_, 162–173
Tristram, Mr. Outram, 175
Truman, Edwin, 69
“Tupman and Rachel,” 29, 32
Van der Banck, Johan, 112, 113
_Vanity Fair_, 7 _et seq._
Vernon, Admiral, 227
_Vivian Grey_, 10
Wallace, Sir Richard, 20, 22
Walpole, Horace, 25
Walpole, Sir Robert, 234, 236
_Westminster Review_, 78
Whistler, James M’N., 163–173
Wilde, Oscar, 168
Wilkes, John, 109–111
Yates, Edmund, 8, 9
THE END
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
ADVERTISEMENTS
KATE GREENAWAY
BY
M. H. SPIELMANN AND G. S. LAYARD.
Containing upwards of 80 full-page illustrations (53 in colour,
reproduced from original water-colour drawings by Kate Greenaway.)
Square demy 8vo, cloth, gilt top, with Kate Greenaway end-papers, price
20s. net.
_SOME PRESS OPINIONS_
“This delightful volume, with its scores of illustrated letters, and
sketches and charming pictures, will be very widely welcomed. No one
could wish for a more satisfactory memorial of the artist and her
work.”—_Daily Graphic._
“Whether as regards its subject, its letterpress, or its
illustrations, this is one of the most delightful, as it is likely
to become one of the most popular volumes of the series to which it
belongs.”—_Aberdeen Journal._
“Certainly one of the most beautiful monuments that could be erected
to the memory of a modest artist.”—_Daily Mail._
“By reason of its sympathetic treatment of an intensely interesting
subject, of the charm, the quality, and the profusion of its
illustrations, and of the faultless taste of its get-up, should
rank among the favourite gift-books of the approaching Christmas
season.”—_Observer._
“A book which will delight young and old by its engaging
charm.”—_Jewish World._
“The volume, magnificent to behold, is a deeply interesting
one to read, and should be peculiarly attractive to our
readers.”—_Gentlewoman._
“This delightful book should prove a capital present to give to young
folks at Christmas time. The pictures in it are very beautiful, while
the story of Kate Greenaway’s fight for fame is sympathetically
told.”—_Scottish Review._
“The book is admirably done, thorough, sympathetic, and
accurate.”—_Outlook._
BIRKET FOSTER
By H. M. CUNDALL, F.S.A.
Containing 91 full-page illustrations (73 in colour) and numerous
thumbnail sketches in the text. Square demy 8vo, cloth, gilt top, price
20s. net.
It may safely be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that
the dainty water-colour drawings executed by Birket Foster appeal
to the majority of the British public more than the works of any
other artist. He produced scenes from nature with such exactness
and minuteness of detail that the most uninitiated in art are able
to understand and appreciate them, but the chief features in his
paintings are the poetic feeling with which he endued them, and the
care with which his compositions were selected. He revelled in sunny
landscapes with roaming sheep and with rustic children playing in the
foreground, and in the peaceful red-bricked cottages with thatched
roofs; it is, perhaps, by these scenes of rural England that Birket
Foster is best known. He, however, was an indefatigable painter,
and produced works selected from all parts of England, Wales, and
Scotland; he travelled frequently on the Continent; Venice, as well
as the Rhine, had its charms for him, and the picturesque scenery of
Brittany has also been portrayed by his brush.
The collection of Birket Foster’s drawings reproduced in this volume
is thoroughly representative, and is sufficiently extensive to include
all phases of his work. The accompanying biographical text by Mr.
H. M. Cundall will be found to be most sympathetic, intimate, and
interesting.
A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.
GEORGE MORLAND
By Sir WALTER GILBEY, Bart.
AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF GEORGE STUBBS, R.A.”
Containing 60 full-page reproductions in colour of the artist’s best
work. Square demy 8vo, cloth, gilt top, price 20s. net.
There will also be an Édition de Luxe, with letterpress printed
on handmade paper, containing the earliest impressions of the
illustrations, and limited to 250 signed and numbered copies, price £2:
2s. net.
There is plenty of room for another Morland book, especially when
written by the greatest living authority upon the works of the artist,
and where the illustrations are reproduced, with most excellent
results, from masterpieces loaned from private collections hitherto
mostly unknown to the artistic public, and of which only a few have
either been engraved or gravured—at all events, not before reproduced
in colour.
George Morland’s work is characterised by its great strength and
beauty of colouring. To reproduce so many of his choicest pictures,
and bring the book into this series, is no easy matter, but to
ensure success the publishers have spared no efforts to make their
reproductions worthy of the artist’s work and entirely satisfying to
the collector and student.
The collection of pictures reproduced in this volume is thoroughly
representative, and each illustration is a gem; they show the several
phases of Morland’s charming scenes of English life in the renowned
Academician’s time.
The student and all collectors and admirers of Morland will also
rejoice to have the appreciative text by Sir Walter Gilbey.
A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with some
exceptions noted below. Original printed page numbers are shown like
this: {52}. Original small caps are now uppercase, except that on
page 223 the small caps phrase is rendered thus: “hos heros
MonaChos apprenDe bata Ve rebeLLes”, in the simple text
edition. Italics look _like this_. Footnotes have been relabeled
1–46, and moved from within paragraphs to nearby locations between
paragraphs. The transcriber produced the cover image and hereby assigns
it to the public domain. Original page images are available from
archive.org—search for “suppressedplates00laya”.
The List of Illustrations contains two divisions, those that were
printed upon numbered pages, and those that were printed on unnumbered
pages. Most illustrations originally printed inside paragraphs of
text have been moved to nearby locations between paragraphs, and the
corresponding page numbers have been removed as necessary to maintain
proper order of the remaining page numbers. Captions of Illustrations
were sometimes altered to conform more closely—in substance or in
typography—to the titles in the List of Illustrations (LOI). In such
cases, the original captions (if any) are nevertheless retained as part
of the image. On page 172, a caption was inserted where none had been
printed, to match the LOI.
Page 10. “protoype” to “prototype”.
Page 212. “fireband” to “firebrand”.
Page 254. “Whistler, James M‘N” to “Whistler, James M’N”.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Suppressed Plates, Wood-engravings, &c. - Together with other Curiosities Germane Thereto" ***
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