Part 29 (1/2)
THE ”JACK SHEPPARD” MANIA.
Theatrical London in 1840 was visited by an excitement second only to the ”Tom and Jerry” mania of 1821. The mania of 1840, if occupying a narrower area, was more morbid in its character, and certainly not less mischievous in its results. Harrison Ainsworth had brought out his peculiar romance of ”Jack Sheppard,” which, resting on its own merits, might have achieved perhaps a mild popularity and done but little harm.
Thanks, however, to the genius and fancy of George Cruikshank, the public became for a time Sheppard mad; the heroes presented to admiring and applauding audiences at the theatres were murderers, housebreakers, highway robbers, thieves, and their female companions. The morbid taste of the populace had in fact been thoroughly roused, a condition of things which was satirized by the artist's little-known etching of _The Way to the Gallows made Easy and Pleasant_, which appeared in ”The New Monthly Magazine” of 1840.[174] The inventive powers of the artist were almost _nil_, and the rare and able etching referred to was suggested to him by John Poole, the author of ”Paul Pry,” to whom we are indebted for the descriptive letterpress: ”At the foot of a gently sloping path strewed with flowers, stands a gibbet decorated, not with a halter, but wreaths of roses. Around it are many tombs of elegant construction, supposed to enclose the ashes of the ill.u.s.trious departed. Upon one is inscribed, 'Here repose the mortal remains of the ever-famed Jerry Abershaw'; upon another, 'Sacred to the memory of Poor Johnny Greenacre.' A third is remarkable for its touching simplicity--'Alas!
Poor Thurtell!' Another, somewhat more elaborate, gives us 'Burke and Hare! As they were loving friends in life, so in death are they undivided! Erected by their affectionate disciples, Bishop and May.'
Besides these there are many others all bearing names of mark and fame.
The whole is surrounded by a pretty arabesque composed of crowbars and other implements of burglary, pistols, knives, death's heads and cross-bones, halters, handcuffs, and fetters, ingeniously disposed and prettily intertwined with wreaths of roses.”
We said at the opening of this chapter that ”Phiz” was not _born_ a comic artist. He possessed a certain amount of humour, which was evoked in the first instance by the example of Cruikshank, and his abilities and desire to emulate the greater artist have enabled him unquestionably to realize many humorous designs. It is impossible, however, to examine the numerous etchings of this draughtsman, without coming to the conclusion that he is always seen at his best when not called on to exercise his purely comic powers. Take by way of example, _The Venice Gla.s.s_, in Ainsworth's romance of ”Crichton”; you will need no reference to the letterpress to understand it, for the artist tells his story far better than the novelist. Observe Crichton as he raises the goblet, and the poisoned wine bubbles and boils, and finally s.h.i.+vers the chalice into a thousand fragments; regard the agitation of Marguerite de Valois; the keen attention of Henri and his attendants. Where shall we find a finer ill.u.s.tration than the one in this book in which Esclairmonde is presented to Henri? The meeting of Mr. Tigg and Martin Chuzzlewit at the p.a.w.nbroker's shop is full of pathos. Look at the poor, wasted but still handsome mother waiting her turn whilst the gin-drinking laundress p.a.w.ns her flat-irons to gratify her pa.s.sion for the deadly drink; note the _insouciance_ of the thoughtless musician as he tw.a.n.gs the guitar which he is about to pledge, though probably dependent on it for bread. Notice the pictures above,--the Bacchante pressing grapes into a wine cup,--the bailiff distraining for rent. Hablot Knight Browne has no powers which would enable us to compare him with Hogarth, and yet the grim reality of this picture Hogarth himself might almost admire.
Regard again that wondrous tailpiece at page 96 of ”The Old Curiosity Shop,” where Quilp, the odious dwarf, sits up all night smoking and drinking, his countenance every now and then ”expanding with a grin of delight” as his patient, long-suffering wife makes some involuntary movement of restlessness or fatigue. Look at poor, wasted, shoeless Nell, as she reclines on the settee of the public-house, surrounded by sympathisers,--the kind-hearted motherly landlady administering mental and bodily solace to the motherless child,--the poor, foolish, gambling grandfather gazing into her face with wistful anxiety. Lastly, look at the ghastly corpse of old Quilp as he lies dead amid the mud and slime of the river, which, after playing with the ugly, malicious, ill-shapen thing until it was bereft of life, flung it contemptuously high and dry upon the swamps at low tide.
”DOMBEY AND SON.”
”Dombey and Son” called for comparatively little exercise of Browne's _comic_ power, and consequently we shall find in this book examples of some of his finest book etchings. The pompous London merchant, the frigid influence he exercises on those about him, the distrustful look of the nurse as she brings baby Paul into his presence, the shrinking form of little Florence as the frightened child cowers with folded hands behind her repellent father's chair, are finely depicted in the etching of _The Dombey Family_. In _Mrs. Dombey at Home_, the proud, haughty beauty chafing under the consciousness that she has been sacrificed to the wealth of the heartless merchant, takes no pains to veil the contempt she feels for the admiring men who surround her. These men (by the way) are scarcely men at all, they are all grossly exaggerated; but ”Phiz,” like many artists of greater pretensions, has sacrificed everything to his central figure, and the presence and bearing of the disdainful beauty makes the _coup d'oeil_ delightful. _Abstraction and Recognition_ is a wonderful etching; both man and horse are admirably drawn, whilst the figures scowling out of the dark entry on the pa.s.sing and unconscious horseman require no reference to the letterpress. In his etching of _The Dark Road_, Mr. Browne developed a style of etching of which he afterwards frequently availed himself, and by which (as in ”Bleak House” and ”Roland Cashel”) he sometimes succeeded in producing remarkable effects. It shows us a postilion driving a team of horses over a dark and dreary road bordered on either hand by dismal moorland; the streaks of the approaching dawn illuminate the edges of the landscape; the single occupant of the berlin, unable to control his agitation, stands upright, and gazes anxiously around him. So realistic is the drawing, that as we look at the flying team we may almost hear the jingle of the splinter-bars and harness as the horses rattle along the dismal road. Cruikshank, to save his life, could draw neither a horse, a tree, or a pretty woman; when he did so it was rather by accident than by design. ”Phiz” (with all his faults) could draw all three, and impart to them a grace, a beauty, and a poetry peculiar to himself. Look at that etching of _Carker in his Hour of Triumph_, where Edith, after using the villain as a tool to revenge herself upon her husband, turns upon her miserable dupe with all the force of her superior intellect, and laughs in the face of the man she has so egregiously befooled. This really is an admirable drawing; the anger and humiliation on the face of the dumbfounded villain, who feels himself absolutely powerless in the hands of the scornful, resolute woman, are powerfully depicted. A more perfect realization of Edith Dombey it seems to us could scarcely be imagined. Leech, _perhaps_, might have reached the idea. He would certainly have put more breadth and solidity into the figure of Carker; but the woman he could scarcely have improved upon--I doubt if he could have matched her. As for Cruikshank, he would have given her an impossible waist, a puffy face surmounted with bandeaux of raven hair scrupulously plastered to each side of her lofty forehead; whilst Carker would have been presented to us in an uncomfortable coat, hair parted and dressed after the Cruikshankian fas.h.i.+on, and a pair of boots at least half a yard in length.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PHIZ. ”_Master Humphrey's Clock_,” 1840-1.
THE RIOTERS.
_Face p. 346._]
”BLEAK HOUSE” AND ”ROLAND CASHEL.”
”Bleak House” (1852-3) has been described as the most successful of ”Phiz's” ill.u.s.trated work; but although it contains some of the best etchings he ever designed for Charles d.i.c.kens, the rest are in truth of unequal merit. Among the best may be mentioned _Consecrated Ground_; _The Old Man of the name of Tulkinghorn_; _Morning_; _Tom All Alone's_; and the sunset scene in the _Long Drawing-room at Chesney Wold_. In the dreary twilight of the _Ghost's Walk_ and of the room in which the murder was consummated we have a pair of drawings unsurpa.s.sed by any of the ill.u.s.trations he executed for Charles Lever's ”Roland Cashel,” which last contains unquestionably the finest of his designs.
Of all his ill.u.s.trators, Hablot Knight Browne was the one who best suited the requirements of Charles d.i.c.kens. A man of talent without a single idea of his own, he was found more malleable and manageable than Cruikshank, who, as we have seen, would have had a hand (if he could) not only in the ill.u.s.trations, but also in the management of the story.
The conditions under which ”Phiz” ill.u.s.trated ”Pickwick” were wholly different from those which poor Seymour had endeavoured to impose upon his author. ”It is due to the gentleman,” says d.i.c.kens, in his preface to the ”Pickwick Papers,” ”It is due to the gentleman whose designs accompany the letterpress, to state that the interval has been so short between the production of each number in ma.n.u.script and its appearance in print, that the greater portion of the ill.u.s.trations have been executed by the artist from the author's _verbal description of what he intended to write_.” Cruikshank would certainly not have done this, and we doubt whether John Leech would have consented to work under such conditions. But as regards Browne, the case was entirely different. He had no _genius_ or ideas of his own, and could only work from the suggestions of others. The interest and anxiety which d.i.c.kens felt in the character of the ill.u.s.trations to his novels, is shown by reference to the ill.u.s.trations to ”Dombey.” ”The points for ill.u.s.tration, and the enormous care required, make me,” he says, ”excessively anxious! The man for Dombey, if Browne could see him, the cla.s.s of man to a T, is Sir A---- E----, of D----s. Great pains will be necessary with Miss Tox. The Toodle family should not be too much caricatured, because of Polly.” As the story unwinds itself, he proceeds, ”Browne is certainly interesting himself and taking pains;” and again, in another letter, ”Browne seems to be getting on well.” Still ”Browne,” with all his pliability, found it a hard matter to please him. He made a particular point of Paul, Mrs.
Pipchin, and the cat by the fire; and the result to himself was so eminently unsatisfactory that it produced a characteristic protest. ”I am really distressed by the ill.u.s.tration of Mrs. Pipchin and Paul. It is so frightfully and wildly wide of the mark. Good heaven! in the commonest and most literal construction of the text, it is all wrong!
She is described as an old lady, and Paul's 'miniature arm-chair' is mentioned more than once. He ought to be sitting in a little arm-chair down in a corner of the fireplace, staring up at her. I can't say what pain and vexation it is to be so utterly misrepresented. I would cheerfully have given a hundred pounds to have left this ill.u.s.tration out of the book. He never could have got that idea of Mrs. Pipchin if he had attended to the text. Indeed, I think he does better without the text; for then the notion is made easy to him, a _short description_, and _he can't help taking it in_.” This last sentence exactly describes the man: a personal description with him did more than any amount of letterpress, however lucid.
One may readily understand this almost nervous anxiety of Charles d.i.c.kens with reference to the _character_ of his ill.u.s.trations. He worked, be it remembered, under conditions entirely different to the novelist of a later date. The etched ill.u.s.trations of his day formed a most important--in some cases (the works of inferior men, such as Albert Smith, for instance) by far the most important--portion of the work itself. Under the charm of the ill.u.s.trations and the mode of issue, the tale was protracted to a length which would be impossible in a novel of Charles Reade or Wilkie Collins, which depends for its success upon the skill of the novelist alone. The novel issued in monthly numbers depended on two sources of attraction--the skill of the novelist and the skill of his artistic coadjutor. d.i.c.kens' requirements, however, were of so exacting a nature that they proved in the end too exacting even for the patience of the accommodating artist, and the reader will not be surprised to learn that a coolness was ultimately established between artist and author, the outcome of which was the employment of Marcus Stone and Luke Fildes on the later novels of ”Our Mutual Friend” and ”Edwin Drood.”
Those who would find fault with Charles d.i.c.kens for the mode in which he controlled his artists quite fail to understand the man himself.
Although he had no knowledge of the pencil, although he himself had no knowledge of drawing, he was nevertheless a thorough artist in heart and mind. There is scarcely a character in his books which does not show the care and thought which he bestowed upon its elaboration. Ralph Nickleby, Squeers, Smike, little Nell, Quilp, Barnaby Rudge, Steerforth, Paul Dombey, Lady Dedlock, Joe, each and all show how carefully they were elaborated; how distinctly they presented themselves to the retina of the mind of their distinguished creator. When this is borne in mind, it will be at once understood why the Mrs. Pipchin of Hablot Browne was not _the_ Mrs. Pipchin with whose outward appearance and mental peculiarities the author himself was so intimately acquainted.
”AURIOL.”
Notwithstanding the exhibition, after his death, of water-colours and other works, which took the public by surprise, Hablot Knight Browne will continue to be known to most of us as an ill.u.s.trator of books, and nothing more. ”Oh! I'm aweary, I'm aweary,” he said himself in a letter to one of his sons, ”of this ill.u.s.tration business.” Some of these ill.u.s.trations, however, are wonderfully graceful, and one in particular seems to call for special notice. It will be found in the ”New Monthly Magazine” for 1845, and is undoubtedly one of the best examples of the artist's work which may be found anywhere. It represents a prisoner in a dungeon lying at the foot of a pillar, which, except in a ghastly carved work running round it of skulls and cross bones, reminds us somewhat of Bonneval's pillar at Chillon. The lights and shadows are wonderfully rendered, and the work is characterized by a softness, a beauty, and a finish only to be observed in work which took the artist's fancy. This etching is ent.i.tled, _Rougemont's Device to Perplex Auriol_; and Ainsworth's story which it ill.u.s.trates--a peculiarly unsatisfactory one--commenced, I think, in ”Ainsworth's Magazine,” pa.s.sed into the ”New Monthly,” when its author purchased that periodical in 1845, and (whether the novelist got himself into an intellectual fix or otherwise I know not) finished, I believe, eventually nowhere.
Browne indeed finds a place here more by virtue of his book ill.u.s.trations than by reason of any just pretensions to be considered a graphic humourist. His comic powers appear to us more the result of education and emulation than natural gifts, and the consequence is, that in attempting to be funny, his work too often degenerates into absolute exaggeration. His excellencies must be sought for in his serious ill.u.s.trations, which fall more within the province of the art critic than the scope and purpose of a work which treats of graphic satirists and comic artists of the nineteenth century. Some of his finest ill.u.s.trations of a serious character will be found in the pages of the ”Illuminated Magazine”; in Charles Lever's admirable story of ”St.
Patrick's Eve”; in the ”Fortunes of Colonel Forlogh O'Brien”; in Augustus Mayhew's ”Paved with Gold”; in Ainsworth's ”Mervyn c.l.i.thero”; and ”Revelations of London”; and above all, in Charles Lever's novel of ”Roland Cashel.”
Hablot Knight Browne lived to see the decline and fall of that peculiar and powerful art of book ill.u.s.tration which was introduced by Cruikshank; was fostered and encouraged by Charles d.i.c.kens, Charles James Lever, their imitators and contemporaries; and died, so to speak, with these distinguished men. His work in later years, as might naturally have been expected, shows a woeful decline of power; and when the suggestors from whom he derived inspiration were no longer at his back, the poverty of invention which characterized the man when left to his own devices becomes painfully apparent.
”Phiz” drew in later years for _Judy_ and other comic papers, and it is simple justice to say that his designs are characterized by an utter absence of comic power. The true comic inspiration possessed in so wonderful a degree by Cruikshank, by John Leech, and even by Robert Seymour, he never indeed possessed. Some fifteen years before his death he suffered from incipient paralysis, and furthermore injured his thumb, which obliged him to hold his pencil between his middle and fore-fingers. Gradually this great and graceful artist dropped so far behind in the race of life that he yielded latterly to proposals to ill.u.s.trate boys' literature of a very inferior cla.s.s.
In addition to an absence of comic inspiration, the _creative_ faculty of Cruikshank and Leech was wanting to Hablot Knight Browne. In order to carry out an idea, it was necessary that it should be put into his head; for leave him to himself, and he could do absolutely nothing.[175]