Part 22 (1/2)
”D. MACLISE.
”I hope there may be time enough then not to hurry it.”
The following letter probably refers to the allegorical design on the t.i.tle-page, depicting the triumph of Virtue over Vice, in which the figures (with one exception) are nude: although, from an allusion to ”that tree,” it might be suggested that it was the frontispiece:--
”MY DEAR FORSTER,--I suppose the stern moralist, Thackeray, would have described the last design I made lecherous, libidinous, l.u.s.tful, lewd, and loose; but I meant it to be pure and 'mi-ld as the moo-n-beams.'
”... I only write to tell you, if you can exercise any control over its fate, that it may be placed in the hands of as good a wood-man as possible, and that he be recommended to spare _that_ tree-e-.
”I fear that my character is gone abroad, and that I am a dog with a bad name....--Ever yours,
”DANIEL MACLISE.”
Both the frontispiece and t.i.tle-page were excellently rendered on wood by John Thompson, one of the foremost engravers of the day. Maclise, however, had hoped the work would have been entrusted to others, for he observed to Forster: ”I am annoyed that neither Williams nor Dalziel are to do that little design. Some one called here and took it away on Monday, and he said that there was not time (the old excuse) to do it justice.” Judging from the following trenchant remarks, the artist was anything but gratified by the engraved reproductions of these drawings when they appeared in print:--
”MY DEAR F.,--I can never hope to get you to understand how I am mortified and humiliated by the effect of these d.a.m.nable cuts. It really is too much to be called upon to submit to, to be shown up in these little dirty scratches and to have one's name blazoned as if one was proud of them.
I wish to Heaven you would have my name cut out from the corners, that at least I might have the benefit of the doubt as to which of the blots is mine. I would give anything that I had kept to my original notion and had nothing to do with the thing.... I wish you had left me that last one; I would have tried to beguile myself with a belief that it might be improved. My curses light upon the miserable dog that produced it--I don't mean myself.--Ever yours,
”D. MACLISE.
”And what is the good of employing Thom[p]son--if the demon printers are to ruin them with their diabolic press?”
Maclise, like other draughtsmen on wood, doubtless often experienced a sense of disappointment when their delicately-pencilled drawings were hurriedly engraved and submitted to the arbitrary treatment of printer's ink. In this way those subtle touches upon which the artist prided himself were lost for ever, so that the designs appear coa.r.s.e and crude.
Such was obviously the case with regard to the ill.u.s.trations now under consideration, notwithstanding the fact that they bear the signatures of thoroughly experienced engravers. It is a fact worth recording here that Maclise did not draw from life the figures in his designs for the Christmas Books. Indeed, it was a matter of astonishment to his brother artists that, even when working upon his more important canvases, he very rarely resorted to the use of the living model, his singular facility in composition leading him, perhaps, too often to dispense with the study of the human form; yet his works, although possessing a mannered look, are distinctively marked by characteristics of individual as well as general nature.
As already intimated, the friends.h.i.+p subsisting between d.i.c.kens and Maclise was of a kind the most sincere, and it was naturally coupled with a true admiration which each entertained for the genius of the other. d.i.c.kens never tired of praising the talent of the artist, whom he thought ”a tremendous creature, who might do anything,” and recalled with delight those halcyon days when Maclise accompanied Clarkson Stanfield, Forster, and himself on that memorable Cornish trip in 1842, one result of which was a charming painting (now in the Forster Collection at South Kensington) of the Waterfall at St. Nighton's Keive, near Tintagel, into which the artist introduced as the princ.i.p.al feature a young girl carrying a pitcher, the model for whom was d.i.c.kens's sister-in-law, Miss Georgina Hogarth. It should be remembered that one of the finest of the early portraits of d.i.c.kens himself was painted by Maclise in 1839, at the instigation of Chapman & Hall, with a view to an engraving for ”Nicholas Nickleby,” the reproduction duly appearing as the frontispiece. The original picture was presented to d.i.c.kens by his publishers, and at the sale of the novelist's effects in 1870 this very interesting canvas was purchased for 693 by the Rev. Sir E. R. Jodrell, by whom it was bequeathed to the National Gallery, where it may now be seen. Maclise is responsible also for another excellent portrait of the novelist at the same youthful period--a slight pencil-drawing (executed in 1843) representing him with his wife and her sister.
The premature death of d.i.c.kens's raven, immortalised in ”Barnaby Rudge,”
was formally notified to Maclise by the novelist in the form of a letter narrating the details of that domestic calamity. The artist forwarded the missive to Forster, together with a sketch purporting to represent ”Grip's” apotheosis, while to d.i.c.kens himself he dispatched (March 13, 1841) the following letter, which does not appear in the published collection, and is one of a very few letters extant that were addressed by him to the novelist:[42]--
Footnote 42: Replying to Mr. W. J. O'Driscoll's application for the loan of any of the artist's correspondence, with a view to publis.h.i.+ng them in his Memoir of Maclise, d.i.c.kens stated that a few years previously he destroyed an immense correspondence, expressly because he considered it had been held with him and not with the public. Thus we have been deprived of valuable records which would have thrown additional light upon the friendly intercourse subsisting between the novelist and many of his distinguished contemporaries.
”MY DEAR d.i.c.kENS,--I received the mournful intelligence of our friend's decease last night at eleven, and the shock was great indeed. I have just dispatched the announcement to poor Forster, who will, I am sure, sympathise with us in our bereavement. I know not what to think of the probable cause of his death,--I reject the idea of the Butcher Boy, for the orders he must have in his (the Raven's) life-time received on account of the Raven himself must have been considerable.
I rather cling to the notion of _felo de se_--but this will no doubt come out upon the post-mortem. How blest we are to have such an intelligent coroner as Mr. Wakley. I think he was just of those melancholic habits which are the noticeable signs of your intended suicide, his solitary life, those gloomy tones,--when he did speak, which was always to the purpose. Witness his last dying speech, 'Hallo! old girl,' which breathes of cheerfulness and triumphant recognition,--his solemn suit of raven black, which never grew rusty. Altogether his character was the very prototype of a Byron hero--and even of a Scott--a Master of Ravenswood. He ought to be glad he had no family.
I suppose he seems to have intended it, however, for his solicitude to deposit in those Banks in the garden his savings was always very touching. I suppose his obsequies will take place immediately.
”It is beautiful, the idea of his return, even after death, to the scene of his early youth and all his a.s.sociations, and lie with kindred dusts amid his own ancestral graves after having made such a noise in the world, having clearly booked his place in that immortality-coach driven by d.i.c.kens. Yes, he committed suicide; he felt he had done it and done with life. The hundreds of years! what were they to him? There was nothing more to live for--and he committed the rash act.--Sympathisingly yours,
”DAN. MACLISE.”
It is evident from the following epistle, addressed to Forster at the time when ”Dombey and Son” was appearing in monthly numbers, that Maclise, while acknowledging his intense admiration of the novelist's powers, could not bring himself to appreciate certain of his youthful creations:--