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}