Part 30 (2/2)
The father of Robert William was an engraver and enameller, and under his directions he acquired a knowledge of this technical branch of art; but evincing a taste and preference for drawing and painting, he became a pupil of George Clint, A.R.A., under whose direction he studied subject and portrait painting. He painted fifteen theatrical portraits for Mr. c.u.mberland in ill.u.s.tration of his ”British Drama,” and a collection of these works was afterwards exhibited at that melancholy monument to past exhibitions, the Colosseum in the Regent's Park. He was employed by Charles Knight in the ill.u.s.trations to his ”Shakespeare,”
”London,” ”Old England,” ”Chaucer,” and the now forgotten ”Penny Magazine,” for all of which publications he executed many designs on wood.
It must not be supposed because Robert William Buss was not considered the right man to ill.u.s.trate ”Pickwick,” that he was therefore an indifferent draughtsman. His finest book etchings are probably those which he executed for Harrison Ainsworth's novel of ”The Court of James II.”; but in a higher and far more ambitious walk in art he was not only more successful, but achieved in his time a considerable reputation.
Among his pictures may be mentioned one of _Christmas in the Olden Time_, which, apart from its merits as a painting, showed that he possessed considerable antiquarian knowledge. Other works of his are, _The Frosty Morning_, purchased by Lord Charles Townshend; _The Stingy Traveller_, bought by the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Albans; _The Wooden Walls of Old England_, the property of Lord Coventry; _Soliciting a Vote_, and _Chairing the Member_; _The Musical Bore_; _The Frosty Reception_; _Master's Out_; _Time and Tide Wait for no Man_; _s.h.i.+rking the Plate_; _The First of September_; _The Introduction of Tobacco_; _The Biter Bit_; _The Romance_; and _Satisfaction_. For Mr. Hogarth, of the Haymarket, he painted four small subjects ill.u.s.trative of Christmas, ent.i.tled, _The Waits_; _Bringing in the Boar's Head_; _The Yule Log_, and _The Wa.s.sail Bowl_; all afterwards engraved. For Mr. James Haywood, M.P., he executed a series of drawings ill.u.s.trative of student life at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, London, and Paris; while two vast subjects, _The Origin of Music_ and _The Triumph of Music_ (each twenty feet wide by nine feet high), were painted for the Earl of Hardwick, and are, or lately were, in the music saloon at Wimpole, in Cambridges.h.i.+re. His pictures were seventy-one in number, twenty-five of which were engraved.
On the whole, therefore, Robert William Buss might afford to bear the refusal of Charles d.i.c.kens's patronage with equanimity.
The paintings and etchings of Robert William Buss evince a strong leaning in the direction of comic art, a taste which prompted him, in 1853, to deliver at various towns in the United Kingdom a course of very successful and interesting lectures on caricature and graphic satire, ill.u.s.trated by several hundred examples executed by himself. In 1874, the year before his death, he published for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his friends, and for private circulation only, the substance of these lectures, under the t.i.tle of ”English Graphic Satire and its Relation to Different Styles of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving.” The numerous ill.u.s.trations to this work were those drawn for his lectures by the artist, and reproduced for his book by the process of photo-lithography.
So far as comic art and caricaturists of the nineteenth century are concerned, the author has comparatively little to say; but the work is valuable as regards the subject generally, and might have been published with advantage to the public. The artist delivered also lectures on ”The Beautiful and the Picturesque,” as well as on ”Fresco Painting.”
Mr. Buss, if not very original as a comic designer, possessed nevertheless a keen sense of humour. One of his pictures (engraved by H.
Rolls), ent.i.tled _Time and Tide Wait for no Man_, represents an artist, sketching by the sea-sh.o.r.e, so absorbed in the contemplation of nature that he remains unconscious of the fast inflowing tide, and deaf to the warnings of the fisherman who is seen hailing him from the beach.
The comic publications which either preceded or ran side by side with _Punch_ had for the most part a somewhat short and unsatisfactory career. Perhaps the most successful of them was _Figaro in London_, 1831-36, which we have already noticed. _The Wag_, a long-forgotten publication, enjoyed a very transient existence. In 1832 appeared _Punchinello_, on the pages of which Isaac Robert Cruikshank was engaged. _Punchinello_, however, ceased running after its tenth number.
_Asmodeus in London_, notwithstanding the support it derived from Seymour's pencil, was by no means a commercial success. _The Devil in London_ was a little more fortunate. This periodical commenced running on the 29th of February, 1832, and the ill.u.s.trations of Isaac Robert Cruikshank and Kenny Meadows enabled it to reach its thirty-seventh number. Tom Dibdin's _Penny Trumpet_ ignominiously blew itself out after the fourth number. _The Schoolmaster at Home_, notwithstanding Seymour's graphic exertions, collapsed at its sixth number. _The Whig Dresser_, ill.u.s.trated by Heath, enjoyed an existence exactly of twelve numbers.
_The Squib_ (1842) lasted for thirty weeks before it exploded and went out. _Puck_ (1848), ill.u.s.trated by W. Hine, Kenny Meadows, and Gilbert, died the twenty-fifth week after its first publication. _Chat_ ran its course in 1850 and 1851. _The Man in the Moon_, under the literary guidance of s.h.i.+rley Brooks, Albert Smith, G. A. Sala, and the Brothers Brough, enjoyed a comparatively glorious career of two years and a half.
_Diogenes_ (started in 1853, under the literary conduct of Watts Phillips, the Broughs, Halliday, and Angus Bethune Reach), notwithstanding the graphic help rendered by McConnell[181] and Charles H. Bennett, gave up the ghost in 1854. _Punchinello_ (second of the name) flickered and went out at the seventh number. _Judy_ (the predecessor of the present paper) appeared 1st February, 1843, but soon died a natural death. _Town Talk_, edited by Halliday and ill.u.s.trated by McConnell, lasted a very limited time. _London_, started by George Augustus Sala in rivalry of _Punch_, soon ceased running; while the _Puppet Show_, notwithstanding the ability of Mr. Procter, enjoyed but a very brief and transitory existence. The strong and healthy const.i.tution of _Punch_ enabled him not only to outlive all these, but even a publication superior in some important respects to himself. We allude to the _Tomahawk_, whose cartoons are certainly the most powerful and outspoken satires which have appeared since the days of Gillray.[182]
Among the draughtsmen whom _Punch_ called in to help him in his early days was a useful and ingenious artist, inferior in many respects to Kenny Meadows, his name was ALFRED HENRY FORRESTER, better known to most of us under his _nom de guerre_ of ”Alfred Crowquill.” The scribes of the ”Catnach,” or Seven Dials school, of literature are satirized by Forrester (in the second volume), wherein we see a ”Literary Gentleman”
hard at work at his vocation of a scribe of cheap and deleterious literature, consulting his authorities--”The Annals of Crime,” a ”Last Dying Speech and Confession,” and the ”Newgate Calendar.” In _The Footman_ we have a gorgeous figure, adorned with epaulets, lace, and a c.o.c.ked hat, reading (of all things in the world) the ”Loves of the Angels,” over a bottle of hock and soda-water! _The Pursuit of Matrimony under Difficulties_ is a more ambitious performance. ”Punch's Guide to the Watering Places” (vol. iii.) is ill.u.s.trated with a number of coa.r.s.ely executed cuts, wholly dest.i.tute of merit; the fourth volume contains a cartoon ent.i.tled _Private Opinions_. But the graphic humour of Alfred Crowquill, although amusing and sometimes bright and sparkling, was unsuited to the requirements of a periodical such as _Punch_. As better men came forward, he gradually dropped out of its pages, and we see nothing more of him after the fourth volume.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ALFRED CROWQUILL. _From ”The Book of Days.”_
FROZEN OUT GARDENERS.
_Face p. 368._]
Alfred Crowquill was a sort of ”general utility” man, essaying the character of a _litterateur_ as well as that of an artist, and achieving as a natural consequence no permanent success in either. In his literary capacity, Alfred Henry Forrester made his first appearance (we believe) in ”The Hive,” and ”The Mirror,” under the editors.h.i.+p of Mr. Timbs; while as an artist he ill.u.s.trated his own writings, besides those of a host of other authors. An early effort of his pencil is ent.i.tled, _Der Freyschutz Travestied_; this was followed by ”Alfred Crowquill's Sketch Books,” which were dedicated to the (then) Princess Victoria, by command of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent. We find him afterwards employed on the pages of the ”New Monthly,” but on the death of its editor, Mr. Theodore Hook, his useful talents procured him an engagement on the staff of ”Bentley's Miscellany,” to whose pages he was not only an indefatigable contributor, but rendered it substantial a.s.sistance in its difficulties with George Cruikshank. The best of his ill.u.s.trative works (mostly designs on wood) were executed for this periodical, and selections were afterwards collected and published under the t.i.tle of ”The Phantasmagoria of Fun.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ALFRED CROWQUILL. _From ”The Book of Days.”_
”SWEARING THE HORNS” AT HIGHGATE.
”When any person pa.s.sed through Highgate for the first time on his way to London, he, being brought before the horns, had a mock oath administered to him, to the effect that he would never drink small beer when he could get strong, unless he liked it better; that he would never eat brown bread when he could get white, or water-gruel, when he could command turtle-soup; that he would never make love to the maid when he might to the mistress; and so on . according to the wit of the imposer of the oath, and simplicity of the oath-taker.”
_Face p. 369._]
In these days a man like Forrester would be almost at a discount, but at the time when he started there was less compet.i.tion, and a useful, clever man, like he undoubtedly was, was fortunately not lost. His hands, in fact, were always full, and a list of some of the books to which his pen and his pencil contributed will be found in the Appendix.
One of the best of his designs was a t.i.tle-page he executed for a work published by Kent & Co., under the t.i.tle of ”Merry Pictures by the Comic Hands of Alfred Crowquill, Doyle, Meadows, Hine, and Others” (1857), a _rechauff.a.ge_ of cuts and ill.u.s.trations which had previously done duty for books of an ephemeral character, such as ”The Gent,” ”The Ballet Girl,” and even of the superior order of ”Gavarni in London.”[183] Some excellent designs executed by him on wood will be found in Messrs.
Chambers' ”Book of Days.” In his dual character of a writer and comic artist, Crowquill was an inveterate punster. Leaves from his ”Memorandum Book” (1834) will give us a good idea of his style. In ”Tea Leaves for Breakfast,” _Strong Black_ is represented by a st.u.r.dy negro carrying a heavy basket; a tall youth with a small father personating _Hyson_; a housemaid shaking a hall mat, to the discomfort of herself and the pa.s.sers-by, is labelled _Fine dust_; a c.o.c.kney accidentally discharging his fowling-piece does duty for _Gunpowder_; while _Mixed_ is aptly personified by a curious group of masqueraders. The vowels put in a comical appearance: _A_ with his hands behind him listens to _E_, who points to _I_ as the subject of his remarks, which must be of a scandalous character, as the injured vowel looks the picture of anger and astonishment. _E_ finds a ready listener in _O_, who opens his mouth and extends his hands in real or simulated amazement and horror.
Crowquill was a clever caricaturist, and began work when he was only eighteen. We have seen some able satires of his executed between the years 1823 and 1826 inclusive. One of the best, published by S. Knight in 1825, is ent.i.tled, _Paternal Pride_: ”Dear Doctor, don't you think my little Billy is like me?” ”The very picture of you in every feature!”
_Ups and Downs_ (Knights, 1823), comprise ”Take Up” (a Bow Street runner); ”Speak Up” (a barrister); ”Hang Up” (a hangman); ”Let-em-Down”
(a coachman); ”Knock-em-Down” (an auctioneer); ”Screw-em-Down” (an undertaker). The following are given as _Four Specimens of the Reading Public_ (Fairburn, 1826): ”Romancing Molly,” ”Sir Lacey Luscious,” a ”Political Dustman,” and ”French a la Mode.” Two, in which he was a.s.sisted by George Cruikshank, ent.i.tled, _Indigestion_, and _Jealousy_, will be found in the volume published (and republished) under the name of ”Cruikshankiana.” The latter shows on the face of it that, while Crowquill was responsible for the design, the etching and a large share of the invention are due to Cruikshank.
If not a genius, the man was talented and clever,--a universal favourite. He could draw, he could write; he was an admirable vocalist, setting the table in a roar with his medley of songs. Even as a painter he was favourably known. _Temperance and Intemperance_ were engraved from his painting in oils, and called forth a letter of thanks from the great apostle of temperance, Father Mathew himself. Other works were _The Ups and Downs of Life_, the well-known _President_ and _Vice President_ (both engraved), and many others. A clever artist in ”black and white,” two of his pen-and-ink sketches--_The Huntsman's Rest_ and _The Solitary_--were honoured with a place among the drawings at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1846. His talents did not end here; most of the Christmas pantomimes of his time were indebted to him for clever designs, devices, and effects. The kindly, genial, gifted man died in 1872, in his sixty-eighth year.
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