Part 13 (1/2)
The success attending the sale of the extra plates for ”Master Humphrey's Clock” encouraged a repet.i.tion of this form of independent publication, and a similar series of portraits were produced of the princ.i.p.al characters in ”Dombey and Son.” Four capital plates, consisting of portraits of Little Paul, Florence, Edith, and Alice, were designed by Browne, and engraved on steel (in stipple and line) by Edwards and Knight, under the superintendence of the artist and Robert Young, whose joint venture it was. The engravings were published with d.i.c.kens's sanction concurrently with the story; the original impressions are now very scarce, but the plates still exist in good condition, and have recently been reprinted. d.i.c.kens was much pleased with these delightful portraits, and in a hitherto unpublished letter to the artist (dated January 5, 1847) he thus referred to the drawings: ”I think Paul _very good indeed_--a beautiful little composition altogether. The face of Florence strikes me as being too old, particularly about the mouth.
Edith, not so handsome as in the little drawings, and something too long and flat in the face. The better Alice of the two, decidedly that which is opposite Edith.” There are extant as many as six pencil-sketches for the portrait of Alice, presenting slight variations in pose and expression, and Mr. Dexter owns an interesting study (in pencil and red chalk) of Florence Dombey, which has never been engraved.
Almost simultaneously with the production of the above portraits, ”Phiz”
designed and etched eight additional plates containing full-length presentments of Mr. Dombey and Carker, Mrs. Skewton, Old Sol and Captain Cuttle, Miss Tox, Mrs. Pipchin, Major Bagstock, Miss Nipper, and Polly Toodle. This undertaking was entirely a speculation of the artist, the plates being also issued in sets by Chapman & Hall. Dr. Browne informs me that the original drawings were unexpectedly discovered by him, rolled up and dirty, and were afterwards included in the Memorial Exhibition of his father's works at the Liverpool Art Club in 1883.
The first cheap edition of ”Dombey and Son,” 1858, includes a frontispiece by ”Phiz,” representing the flight of Carker. The artist also contributed to each of the two volumes of the Library Edition (1858-59) specially-designed vignettes, engraved on steel, the subjects being Mr. Dombey and the second Mrs. Dombey, and Paul with Florence at the seaside.
HABLoT K. BROWNE
III
”DAVID COPPERFIELD”--The Designs prepared in Duplicate--”Phiz's” Portrait of Mr. Micawber--Peggotty's Hut--Trifling Errors in the Plates--Original Drawings--Designs for ”I Make myself Known to my Aunt”--Variations in the Etchings--Frontispiece for the First Cheap Edition--Vignettes for the Library Edition--”BLEAK HOUSE”--Plates partly Duplicated--Some Curious Inaccuracies--Skimpole successfully Portrayed--”Phiz” takes Mental Notes--Original Drawings--Alterations in the Plates--The ”Bleak House”
Ill.u.s.trations Criticised--Frontispiece for the First Cheap Edition--Vignettes for the Library Edition--”LITTLE DORRIT”--Ill.u.s.trations Unsigned--”Machine-ruled Designs”--A Letter from d.i.c.kens respecting one of the Plates--Original Drawings--Pictorial Wrapper--”A TALE OF TWO CITIES”--A Letter from ”Phiz” to his Son--d.i.c.kens Forestalled--An Unpublished Design--Last of d.i.c.kens's Stories Ill.u.s.trated by ”Phiz”--The Artist's Conjectures as to the Cause of the Severance--His Tender Regard for the Novelist--His Antecedents--Apprentices.h.i.+p at Finden's--Exhibits at the Royal Academy--Inability to Draw from ”the Life”--Some Letters to d.i.c.kens--”The Pic Nic Papers”--An Early Reminiscence of d.i.c.kens--”Phiz's” Remuneration--From Prosperity to Adversity--Serious Illness--A Broken-down Old Man--Paralysis--A Pathetic Grievance--Applies for a Government Pension--Recognition by the Royal Academy--Decline of Imagination and Power of Invention--Death of the Artist--Mr. J. G. Fennell's Tribute--”Phiz's” Shyness--An Extraordinary Commission--Water-colour _Replicas_ of the d.i.c.kens Ill.u.s.trations--Vignettes for the Library Edition of ”Sketches by Boz” and ”Oliver Twist”--”Phiz's”
Fellow-Apprentice, Coadjutor, and Friend--Etching the Plates--Mezzotint Effects--Furnival's Inn--A Note from ”Phiz” to his Colleague--Mr. Robert Young's Autobiographical Sketch.
[Sidenote: =David Copperfield, 1849-50.=]
In ”David Copperfield,” the most fascinating of d.i.c.kens's novels, it cannot be said that ”Phiz” quite rose to the occasion. Although some of these plates he never excelled, the majority are marked by a certain hardness and stiffness of treatment, and are conspicuously deficient in that vigour and deftness of touch which characterise his previous efforts.
As in the case of ”Dombey and Son,” the whole of the designs were etched in duplicate, the _replicas_ differing but slightly from the originals.
About half of the series were executed singly on octavo steels, instead of in couples on the usual quarto plates. In one of the designs, viz., ”The River,” the artist has again resorted to the ruling-machine for attaining the desired effect, but the result is poor and meagre. He has succeeded admirably in his presentment of Micawber, respecting which d.i.c.kens wrote to Forster: ”Browne has sketched an uncommonly characteristic and capital Mr. Micawber for the next number.” The most pleasing of all these etchings, however, are those in which the boy-hero figures, such as those depicting him with the ”friendly waiter” at the bar of the public-house, and as, with battered hat and ragged raiment, he ”makes himself known to his aunt.”
It has been a.s.serted that ”Phiz” at this period sometimes grew careless, and that d.i.c.kens did not exercise that particular surveillance over the artist's work which he customarily bestowed upon it in the early days.
For example, the novelist thus describes Peggotty's odd residence, an old boat drawn up on land and fas.h.i.+oned into a house: ”There was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in it.” He never refers to it as an _inverted_ boat, although it is so delineated by ”Phiz,”--indeed, the inference is that the vessel stood upon its keel, for elsewhere it is mentioned as being left ”high and dry,” as though it were a boat that had been washed ash.o.r.e. If such was the novelist's conception, it seems strange and unaccountable that he should have accepted without a protest the artist's misrepresentation of Peggotty's home. Curiously enough, there might have been seen within recent years, on the open Denes at Yarmouth, an inverted boat similarly converted into a cosy residence, the existence of which apparently gives actuality to ”Phiz's” drawing.
In some of the etchings may be discovered a few trivial errors; for instance, in the plate ent.i.tled ”Somebody Turns Up,” Mrs. Heep is left-handed, an oversight which (as in previous cases) is doubtless the result of the etching being in reverse of the original design, although ”Phiz” was generally careful to remember this when preparing his sketches. Strange to relate, in the scene depicting divine service at Blunderstone Church, he has omitted the officiating clergy! In ”My First Fall in Life,” the horses (especially the leaders) are undoubtedly disproportionate, and the same criticism applies to the figures in the ill.u.s.tration depicting the unexpected arrival of David and his friend at Peggotty's fireside. In the etching of ”The River,” the scene should have been reversed, and from this point of view (the river-side at Millbank) the dome of St. Paul's is not visible, although it is shown in the picture. Another curious mistake is apparent in the interesting plate ent.i.tled ”Our Housekeeping;” here David is seen struggling with a _loin_ of mutton, whereas in the text the joint is distinctly described as a _boiled leg_ of mutton. It is amusing to note the appropriate character of the pictures adorning the walls of some of ”Phiz's”
interiors. In the etching of ”The Friendly Waiter and I” he has thus introduced the scene ill.u.s.trating the familiar fable of the Fox and the Stork; in ”Changes at Home” we have the Return of the Prodigal Son and the Finding of Moses in the bulrushes; and in the plate delineating Steerforth and Miss Mowcher will be noticed over the fireplace a scene from Gulliver's adventures in Brobdingnag, an allusion to the diminutive proportions of the remarkable dwarf who was ”so volatile.”
Her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Albans possesses the complete series of ”working” drawings for ”David Copperfield.” Like the ”Dombey” designs, these highly-finished drawings are executed chiefly in pencil and the effects washed in with indian-ink, while a few are in pencil only. Of that well-known design, ”I Make myself Known to my Aunt,” there exist no less than three tentative sketches; the first (on which the artist has written ”Or--so--so?”) represents Miss Trotwood sitting ”flat down on the garden-path,”--a pose which, although accurate enough according to the text, was rightly deemed inartistic, whereupon the artist prepared another design, and submitted it to d.i.c.kens. In the second picture (where ”Phiz” has queried, ”Or--so?”), the lady stands erect, but the pathetic appearance of David is lost, and the composition of the background proves less fortunate. In the etching ”Phiz” combined the two designs,--that is, he used the first drawing, but subst.i.tuted the standing figure of Miss Trotwood for the seated one. On the margin of the second design the artist (in a humorous mood) has limned an unmerciful caricature of the whole incident. The third tentative drawing for this subject, believed to be the first sketch, was sold at Sotheby's in 1887 for 6, 15s.; it is now in the collection of Mr. Thomas Wright, of Paris.
With the sketch for ”The Friendly Waiter and I” the novelist was delighted. ”Phiz” originally represented David as wearing a long jacket, but this not being quite in accordance with d.i.c.kens's idea, he wrote asking the artist to ”put Davy in a little jacket instead of this coat, without altering him in any other respect,” which was accordingly done.
In the drawing for the plate ent.i.tled ”My Magnificent Order at the Public-house,” the form of the two large spirit-vessels behind David are more jug-shaped than in the etching. The ”little white hat,” by-the-way, as here worn by David, is just such head-gear as d.i.c.kens himself disported when a boy. In the drawing of David on the box-seat of the coach, ”My First Fall in Life,” the western towers of Canterbury Cathedral are indicated in the distance, but these are omitted in the etching. In the scene, ”Mr. Micawber Delivers some Valedictory Remarks,”
certain faint lines are observable near the princ.i.p.al figure, indicating that he was originally delineated in a different att.i.tude. The effective sketch of ”The Wanderer” portrays more of the woman's figure than is visible in the plate. In the design ent.i.tled ”Our Housekeeping,” the frame of a mirror or picture is introduced on the wall behind David, but this was afterwards considered superfluous; and in the drawing of ”The Emigrants,” Mr. Micawber grasps a telescope, which does not appear in the plate. The drawing of ”Mr. Peggotty's Dream Comes True” varies considerably from the etching, for not only is David seen wearing a hat (which in the etching is placed upon the table), but the artist has included a fourth figure, that of Rosa Dartle, who, seated in the chair, leans her head upon her arms above the table. The introduction of Miss Dartle is, of course, incorrect, as she had left the room before Mr.
Peggotty entered; but the error was detected, and the necessary alteration effected in the published design.
”Phiz's” pictorial wrapper for the monthly parts is replete with detail, around the t.i.tle in the centre being displayed various figures apparently exemplifying the Seven Ages of Man, with Dame Fortune crowning the whole.
The first cheap edition of ”David Copperfield,” 1858, contained a frontispiece by ”Phiz,” engraved on wood by Swain, representing Little Em'ly and David as children on Yarmouth Sands; to the Library Edition (1858-59) the artist contributed two vignettes (engraved on steel), the subject in the first volume being Little Em'ly and David by the sea, and for the second, another version of the etching ent.i.tled ”Mr. Peggotty's Dream Comes True.”
[Sidenote: =Bleak House, 1852-53.=]
In the forty ill.u.s.trations for ”Bleak House” the artist introduced a greater variety of subjects, and resorted more frequently to the use of the ruling-machine, no less than ten being so treated with considerable success. ”Phiz” etched one complete set of the plates and duplicates of the machine-ruled designs, which were repeated probably because they could not so readily withstand the wear-and-tear of the printing.