In virtue of certain gentle and caressing qualities of style, Douglas
Jerrold conferred on one of his contributors--Miss Eliza Meteyard--the
pseudonym of "Silverpen." It is in the silver-pensive key that one would
wish to write of Mr. HUGH THOMSON. There is nothing in his work of
elemental strife,--of social problem,--of passion torn to tatters. He
leads you by no _terribile via_,--over no "burning Marle." You cannot
conceive him as the illustrator of _Paradise Lost_, of Dante's
_Inferno_--even of Doré's _Wandering Jew_. But when, after turning over
some dozens of his designs, you take stock of your impressions, you
discover that your memory is packed with pleasant fancies. You have been
among "blown fields" and "flowerful closes"; you have passed quaint
roadside-inns and picturesque cottages; you are familiar with the
cheery, ever-changing idyll of the highway and the bustle of animal
life; with horses that really gallop, and dogs that really bark; with
charming male and female figures in the most attractive old-world
attire; with happy laughter and artless waggeries; with a hundred
intimate details of English domesticity that are pushed just far enough
back to lose the hardness of their outline in a softening haze of
retrospect. There has been nothing more tragic in your travels than a
sprained ankle or an interrupted affair of honour; nothing more
blood-curdling than a dream of a dragoon officer knocked out of his
saddle by a brickbat. Your flesh has never been made to creep: but the
cockles of your heart have been warmed. Mechanically, you raise your
hand to lift away your optimistic spectacles. But they are not there.
The optimism is in the pictures.
It must be more than a quarter of a century since Mr. Hugh Thomson,
arriving from Coleraine in all the ardour of one-and-twenty, invaded the
strongholds of English illustration. He came at a fortunate moment.
After a few hesitating and tentative attempts upon the newspapers, he
obtained an introduction to Mr. Comyns Carr, then engaged in
establishing the _English Illustrated Magazine_ for Messrs. Macmillan.
His recommendation was a scrap-book of minutely elaborated designs for
_Vanity Fair_, which he had done (like Reynolds) "out of pure idleness."
Mr. Carr, then, as always, a discriminating critic, with a keen eye to
possibilities, was not slow to detect, among much artistic recollection,
something more than uncertain promise; and although he had already
Randolph Caldecott and Mr. Harry Furniss on his staff, he at once gave
Mr. Thomson a commission for the magazine. The earliest picture from his
hand which appeared was a fancy representation of the Parade at Bath for
a paper in June, 1884, by the late H. D. Traill; and he also illustrated
(in part) papers on Drawing Room Dances, on Cricket (by Mr. Andrew
Lang), and on Covent Garden. But graphic and vividly naturalistic as
were his pictures of modern life, his native bias towards imaginary
eighteenth century subjects (perhaps prompted by boyish studies of
Hogarth in the old Dublin _Penny Magazine_), was already abundantly
manifest. He promptly drifted into what was eventually to become his
first illustrated book, a series of compositions from the _Spectator_.
These were published in 1886 as a little quarto, entitled _Days with Sir
Roger de Coverley_.
It was a "temerarious" task to attempt to revive the types which, from
the days of Harrison's _Essayists_, had occupied so many of the earlier
illustrators. But the attempt was fully justified by its success. One
has but to glance at the head-piece to the first paper, where Sir Roger
and "Mr. Spectator" have alighted from the jolting, springless,
heavy-wheeled old coach as the tired horses toil uphill, to recognise at
once that here is an artist _en pays de connaissance_, who may fairly be
trusted, in the best sense, to "illustrate" his subject. Whatever one's
predilections for previous presentments, it is impossible to resist Sir
Roger (young, slim, and handsome), carving the perverse widow's name
upon a tree-trunk; or Sir Roger at bowls, or riding to hounds, or
listening--with grave courtesy--to Will Wimble's long-winded and
circumstantial account of the taking of the historic jack. Nor is the
conception less happy of that amorous fine-gentleman ancestor of the
Coverleys who first made love by squeezing the hand; or of that other
Knight of the Shire who so narrowly escaped being killed in the Civil
Wars because he was sent out of the field upon a private message, the
day before Cromwell's "crowning mercy,"--the battle of Worcester. But
the varied embodiments of these, and of Mrs. Betty Arable ("the great
fortune"), of Ephraim the Quaker, and the rest, are not all. The figures
are set in their fitting environment; they ride their own horses, hallo
to their own dogs, and eat and drink in their own dark-panelled rooms
that look out on the pleached alleys of their ancient gardens. They live
and move in their own passed-away atmosphere of association; and a
faithful effort has moreover been made to realise each separate scene
with strict relation to its text.
All of the "Coverley" series came out in the _English Illustrated_. So
also did the designs for the next book, the _Coaching Days and Coaching
Ways_ of Mr. Outram Tristram, 1888. Here Mr. Thomson had a topographical
collaborator, Mr. Herbert Railton, who did the major part of the very
effective drawings in this kind. But Mr. Thomson's contributions may
fairly be said to have exhausted the "romance" of the road. Inns and
inn-yards, hosts and ostlers and chambermaids, stage-coachmen,
toll-keepers, mail-coaches struggling in snow-drifts, mail-coaches held
up by highwaymen, overturns, elopements, cast shoes, snapped poles, lost
linch-pins,--all the episodes and moving accidents of bygone travel on
the high road have abundant illustration, till the pages seem almost to
reek of the stableyard, or ring with the horn.[30] And here it may be
noted, as a peculiarity of Mr. Thomson's conscientious horse-drawing,
that he depicts, not the ideal, but the actual animal. His steeds are
not "faultless monsters" like the Dauphin's palfrey in _Henry the
Fifth_. They are "all sorts and conditions" of horses; and--if truth
required it--would disclose as many sand-cracks as Rocinante, or as many
equine defects (from wind-gall to the bolts) as those imputed to that
unhappy "Blackberry" sold by the Vicar of Wakefield at Welbridge Fair to
Mr, Ephraini Jenkinson.
Note:
[30] Sometimes a literary or historical picture creeps into the text.
Such are "Swift and Bolingbroke at Backlebury" (p. 30); "Charles
II. recognised by the Ostler" (p. 144), and "Barry Lyndon cracks a
Bottle" (p. 116). _Barry Lyndon_ with its picaresque note and Irish
background, would seem an excellent contribution to the "Cranford"
series. Why does not Mr. Thomson try his hand at it? He has illustrated
_Esmond_, and the _Great Haggarty Diamond_.
The _Vicar of Wakefield_--as it happens--was Mr. Thomson's next
enterprise; and it is, in many respects, a most memorable one. It came
out in December, 1890, having occupied him for nearly two years. He took
exceptional pains to study and realise the several types for himself,
and to ensure correctness of costume. From the first introductory
procession of the Primrose family at the head of chapter i. to the
awkward merriment of the two Miss Flamboroughs at the close, there is
scarcely a page which has not some stroke of quiet fun, some graceful
attitude, or some ingenious contrivance in composition. Considering that
from Wenham's edition of 1780, nearly every illustrator of repute had
tried his hand at Goldsmith's masterpiece in fiction,--that he had been
attempted without humour by Stothard, without lightness by
Mulready,[31]--that he had been made comic by Cruikshank, and vulgarised
by Rowiandson,--it was certainly to Mr. Thomson's credit that he had
approached his task with so much refinement, reverence and originality.
If the book has a blemish, it is to be mentioned only because the
artist, by his later practice, seems to have recognised it himself. For
the purposes of process reproduction, the drawings were somewhat loaded
and overworked.
Note:
[31]: Mulready's illustrations of 1843 are here referred to, net his
pictures.
This was not chargeable against the next volumes to be chronicled. Mrs.
Gaskell's _Cranford_, 1891, and Miss Mitford's _Our Village_, 1893, are
still regarded by many as the artist's happiest efforts. I say "still,"
because Mr. Thomson is only now in what Victor Hugo called the youth of
old age (as opposed to the old age of youth); and it would be premature
to assume that a talent so alert to multiply and diversify its efforts,
had already attained the summit of its achievement. But in these two
books he had certain unquestionable advantages. One obviously would be,
that his audience were not already preoccupied by former illustrations;
and he was consequently free to invent his own personages and follow his
own fertile fancy, without recalling to that implacable and Gorgonising
organ, the "Public Eye," any earlier pictorial conceptions. Another
thing in his favour was, that in either case, the very definite, and not
very complex types surrendered themselves readily to artistic
embodiment. "It almost illustrated itself,"--he told an interviewer
concerning _Cranford_; "the characters were so exquisitely and
distinctly realised." Every one has known some like them; and the
delightful Knutsford ladies (for "Cranford" was "Knutsford"), the
"Boz"--loving Captain Brown and Mr. Holbrook, Peter and his father, and
even Martha the maid, with their _mise en scène_ of card-tables and
crackle-china, and pattens and reticules, are part of the memories of
our childhood. The same may be said of _Our Village_, except that the
breath of Nature blows more freely through it than through the quiet
Cheshire market-town; and there is a larger preponderance of those
"charming glimpses of rural life" of which Lady Ritchie speaks
admiringly in her sympathetic preface. And with regard to the "bits of
scenery"--as Mr. Thomson himself calls them--it may be noted that one of
the Manchester papers, speaking of _Cranford_, praised the artist's
intimate knowledge of the locality,--a locality he had never seen. Most
of his backgrounds were from sketches made on Wimbledon Common, near
which--until he moved for a space to the ancient Cinque Port of Seaford
in Sussex--he lived for the first years of his London life.
In strict order of time, Mr. Thomson's next important effort should have
preceded the books of Miss Mitford and Mrs. Gaskell. The novels of Jane
Austen--to which we now come--if not the artist's high-water mark, are
certainly remarkable as a _tour de force_. To contrive some forty page
illustrations for each of Miss Austen's admirable, but--from an
illustrator's standpoint--not very palpitating productions,--with a
scene usually confined to the dining-room or parlour,--with next to no
animals, and with rare opportunities for landscape accessory,--was an
"adventure"--in Cervantic phrase--which might well have given pause to a
designer of less fertility and resource. But besides the figures there
was the furniture; and acute admirers have pointed out that a nice
discretion is exhibited in graduating the appointments of Longbourn and
Netherfield Park,--of Rosings and Hunsford. But what is perhaps more
worthy of remark is the artist's persistent attempt to give
individuality, as well as grace, to his dramatis persona;. The
unspeakable Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet, the horsy Mr. John Thorpe, Mrs.
Jennings and Mrs. Norris, the Eltons--are all carefully discriminated.
Nothing can well be better than Mr. Woodhouse, with his "almost
immaterial legs" drawn securely out of the range of a too-fierce fire,
chatting placidly to Miss Bates upon the merits of water-gruel; nothing
more in keeping than the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, "in
the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind" of her indignation,
superciliously pausing to patronise the capabilities of the Longbourn
reception rooms. Not less happy is the dumbfounded astonishment of Mrs.
Bennet at her toilet, when she hears--to her stupefaction--that her
daughter Elizabeth is to be mistress of Pemberley and ten thousand a
year. This last is a head-piece; and it may be observed, as an
additional difficulty in this group of novels, that, owing to the
circumstances of publication, only in one of the books. _Pride and
Prejudice_, was Mr, Thomson free to decorate the chapters with those
ingenious _entêtes_ and _culs-de-lampe_ of which he so eminently
possesses the secret.[32]
Note:
[32] That eloquence of subsidiary detail, which has had so many
exponents in English art from Hogarth onwards, is one of Mr. Thomson's
most striking characteristics. The reader will find it exemplified in
the beautiful book-plate at page 111, which, by the courtesy of its
owner, Mr. Ernest Brown, I am permitted to reproduce.
By this time his reputation had long been firmly established. To the
Jane Austen volumes succeeded other numbers of the so-called "Cranford"
series, to which, in 1894, Mr. Thomson had already added, under the
title of _Coridon's Song and other Verses_, a fresh ingathering of
old-time minstrelsy from the pages of the _English Illustrated_. Many of
the drawings for these, though of necessity reduced for publication in
book form, are in his most delightful and winning manner,--notably
perhaps (if one must choose!) the martial ballad of that "Captain of
Militia, Sir Bilberry Diddle," who
--dreamt, Fame reports, that he cut all the throats
Of the French as they landed in flat-bottomed boats
--or rather were going to land any time during the Seven Years' War.
Excellent, too, are John Gay's ambling _Journey to Exeter_., the
_Angler's Song_ from Walton (which gives its name to the collection),
and Fielding's rollicking "A-hunting we will go." Other "Cranford"
books, which now followed, were James Lane Allen's _Kentucky Cardinal_,
1901; Fanny Burney's _Evelina_, 1903; Thackeray's _Esmond_, 1905; and
two of George Eliot's novels--_Scenes of Clerical Life_, 1906, and
_Silas Marner_, 1907. In 1899 Mr. Thomson had also undertaken another
book for George Allen, an edition of Reade's _Peg Woffington_,--a task
in which he took the keenest delight, particularly in the burlesque
character of Triplet. These were all in the old pen-work; but some of
the designs for _Silas Marner_ were lightly and tastefully coloured.
This was a plan the author had adopted, with good effect, not only in a
special edition of _Cranford_ (1898), but for some of his original
drawings which came into the market after exhibition. Nothing can be
more seductive than a Hugh Thomson pen-sketch, when delicately tinted in
sky-blue, _rose-Du Barry_, and apple-green (the _vert-pomme_ dear--as
Gautier says--to the soft moderns)--a treatment which lends them a
subdued but indefinable distinction, as of old china with a pedigree,
and fully justifies the amiable enthusiasm of the phrase-maker who
described their inventor as the "Charles Lamb of illustration."
From the above enumeration certain omissions have of necessity been
made. Besides the books mentioned, Mr. Thomson has contrived to prepare
for newspapers and magazines many closely-studied sketches of
contemporary manners. Some of the best of his work in this way is to be
found in the late Mrs. E.T. Cook's _Highways and Byways of London Life_,
1902. For the _Highways and Byways_ series, he has also illustrated,
wholly or in part, volumes on Ireland, North Wales, Devon, Cornwall and
Yorkshire. The last volume, Kent, 1907, is entirely decorated by
himself. In this instance, his drawings throughout are in pencil, and he
is his own topographer. It is a remarkable departure, both in manner and
theme, though Mr. Thomson's liking for landscape has always been
pronounced. "I would desire above all things," he told an interviewer,
"to pass my time in painting landscape. Landscape pictures always
attract me, and the grand examples, Gainsboroughs, Claudes, Cromes, and
Turners, to be seen any day in our National Gallery, are a source of
never-failing yearning and delight." The original drawings for the Kent
book are of great beauty; and singularly dexterous in the varied methods
by which the effect is produced. The artist is now at work on the county
of Surrey. It is earnest of his versatility that, in 1904, he
illustrated for Messrs. Wells, Darton and Co., with conspicuous success,
a modernised prose version of certain of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_,
as well as _Tales from Maria Edgeworth_, 1903; and he also executed, in
1892 and 1895,[33] some charming designs to selections from the verses of
the present writer, who has long enjoyed the privilege of his friendship.
Personal traits do not come within the province of this paper, or it
would be pleasant to dwell upon Mr. Thomson's modesty, his untiring
industry, and his devotion to his art. But in regard to that art, it may
be observed that to characterise it solely as "packing the memory with
pleasant fancies" may suffice for an exordium, but is inadequate as a
final appreciation. Let me therefore note down, as they occur to me,
some of his more prominent pictorial characteristics. With three of the
artists mentioned in this and the preceding paper, he has obvious
affinities, while, in a sense, he includes them all. If he does not
excel Stothard in the gift of grace, he does in range and variety; and
he more than rivals him in composition. He has not, like Miss Greenaway,
endowed the art-world with a special type of childhood; but his children
are always lifelike and engaging. (Compare, at a venture, the boy
soldiers whom Frank Castlewood is drilling in chapter xi. of _Esmond_,
or the delightful little fellow who is throwing up his arms in chapter
ix. of _Emma_.) As regards dogs and horses and the rest, his colleague,
Mr, Joseph Pennell, an expert critic, and a most accomplished artist,
holds that he has "long since surpassed" Randolph Caldecott.[34] I doubt
whether Mr. Thomson himself would concur with his eulogist in this. But
he has assuredly followed Caldecott close; and in opulence of
production, which--as Macaulay insisted--should always count, has
naturally exceeded that gifted, but shortlived, designer. If, pursuing
an ancient practice, one were to attempt to label Mr. Thomson with a
special distinction apart from, and in addition to, his other merits, I
should be inclined to designate him the "Master of the
Vignette,"--taking that word in its primary sense as including
head-pieces, tail-pieces and initial letters. In this department, no
draughtsman I can call to mind has ever shown greater fertility of
invention, so much playful fancy, so much grace, so much kindly humour,
and such a sane and wholesome spirit of fun.
Notes:
[33] _The Ballad of Beau Brocade_, and _The Story of Rosina_.
[34] _Pen-Drawing and Pen-Draughtsmen, 2nd ed. 1894, p. 358._