172Fitzpatrick’s “Life of Charles Lever.”173Now lately republished.174And republished in “Poole’s Miscellany.”175As I notice a similar remark in one of the obituary notices of the artist’s death, I think it necessary to observe that this chapter was written while “Phiz” was yet living.176Mr. Kitton’s “Memoir,” p. 19.
172Fitzpatrick’s “Life of Charles Lever.”
173Now lately republished.
174And republished in “Poole’s Miscellany.”
175As I notice a similar remark in one of the obituary notices of the artist’s death, I think it necessary to observe that this chapter was written while “Phiz” was yet living.
176Mr. Kitton’s “Memoir,” p. 19.
Inold and second-hand bookshops, and in booksellers’ catalogues, may often be found a book which is gradually becoming a literary rarity. It dates from 1840, and is a curiosity in its way, not only on account of the “portraits” which adorn its pages, but as a specimen of the literary padding on which men of letters (some of them distinguished) were content to employ their talents fifty years ago. It was published by Robert Tyas, of 50, Cheapside; professed to give “Portraits of the English” of the period, but served as a means of introducing certain characteristic pictorial sketches, more or less true to nature, by Kenny Meadows, an artist whose name and reputation, although he has been dead scarcely ten years, are already forgotten. Connected with these portraits are “original essays by distinguished writers,” including, amid names of lesser note, literary stars such as Douglas Jerrold, Leman Rede, Percival Leigh, Laman Blanchard, Leigh Hunt, William Howitt, and Samuel Lover. These essays, or rather letterpress descriptions, were written to the pictures, which were not drawn (as is generally supposed) in illustration of the text. The portraits are taken from almost every grade in life: from the dressmaker to the draper’s assistant, and from the housekeeper to the hangman; the last, by the way, being perhaps the most characteristicsketch of the series. The best of these forty-three “pictures” is the one which faces the title-page, a gathering of the company which individually take part in this “gallery of illustration.” The designs are characteristic of the artist’s style, but possess little power of attraction, being destitute of any claim to originality either of conception or treatment. The artist’s share of the work is by far the best part of the somewhat lugubrious entertainment, which the performances of his literary associates scarcely serve to enliven. The book, however, was a success in its day, for, if we mistake not, it was followed by a second series, is even now sought after by the “collector” (not bibliomaniac), and possesses some historical value by reason of the fact that national types, such asThe Diner-out,The Stockbroker,The Lion of the Party,The Fashionable Physician(that is to say, of 1840),The Linen Draper’s Assistant,The Barmaid,The Family Governess,The Postman,The Theatrical Manager,The Farmer’s Daughter, andThe Young Lord, no longer live and move and act their part amongst us. A change comes over the people in the course of forty years, and some years hence our grandchildren may well smile at the extraordinary monstrosities (female) who figure in the graphic satires of 1883-4.
Kenny Meadows was the son of a retired naval officer, and was born at Cardigan on the first of November, 1790. You will look in vain for any notice of him, or of his services in the cause of illustrative art, in any of the biographical dictionaries of his own or a subsequent period; and this appears to us an unaccountable omission, for he achieved in his time considerable celebrity as an artistic illustrator of books. His work will be found bound up with that of most of his artisticconfrèresin nearly all the illustrated periodicals of his day; he was one of the first to introduce wood-engraving among English publishers as a means of cheap and popular illustration; he was employed by the late Mr. Ingram, in the designs for the early Christmas numbers of theIllustrated London News; he will be found amongst the number of the artists who illustrated the early volumes ofPunch; he was in universal request as a designer of drawings to fairy and fanciful stories;among his intimate friends were men of mark; such as Leigh Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Clarkson Stanfield, David Roberts, and the Landseers; he did as much for illustrative art as, perhaps, any artist of his time; and yet, amongst men whose abilities scarcely exceeded his own in the same particular walk in art, no place is to be found in any biographical dictionary, so far at least as we know, for any mention of poor, kindly, genial, Kenny Meadows.
Besides the popular illustrated periodicals of his day, in most of which his familiar initials may be recognised, Kenny Meadows was in almost universal request both amongst authors and publishers of the time. We find him in 1832 illustrating, with Isaac Robert Cruikshank, a periodical bearing the somewhat unpromising title of “The Devil in London.” To an 1833 edition of “Gil Blas,” illustrated by George Cruikshank, he contributed a frontispiece; and we find his hand in the following: the late J. B. Buckstone’s dramas of “The Wreck Ashore,” “Victorine,” “May Queen,” “Henriette,” “Rural Felicity,” “Pet of the Petticoats,” “Married Life,” “The Rake and his Pupil,” “The Christening,” “Isabella,” “Second Thoughts,” and “The Scholar” (1835, 1836); Whitehead’s “Autobiography of Jack Ketch” (1835); “Heads of the People, or Portraits of the English” (1841); Mr. S. C. Hall’s “Book of British Ballads” (1842-44); an 1842 edition of Moore’s “Lalla Rookh”; Leigh Hunt’s “Palfrey, a Love Story of Old Times” (1842); “The Illuminated Magazine” (1843); Shakespeare (1843); “Whist, its History and Practice”; “Backgammon, its History and Practice,” by the same author; “The Illustrated London Almanacks” (from 1845 upwards); Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer’s “Leila,” and “Calderon” (1847); W. N. Bailey’s “Illustrated Musical Annual,” “The Family Joe Miller, a Drawing-room Jest Book” (1848); “Puck,” (a comic serial, 1848); Laman Blanchard’s “Sketches from Life” (1849); Samuel Lover’s “Metrical Tales and Poems;” “The Magic of Kindness,” by the brothers Mayhew; Mrs. S. C. Hall’s “Midsummer Eve;” “Punch,” up to and including the seventh volume; and (some time afterwards) its able opponent “The Man in theMoon” (now exceedingly scarce).177In these and very many other works we find him associated not only with George Cruikshank, John Leech, Hablot Knight Browne, and Richard Doyle, but with artists occupying the position of Sir John Gilbert, Frank Stone, Maclise, Clarkson Stanfield, Creswick, E. M. Ward, Elmore, Frost, Sir J. Noel Paton, Frederick Goodall, Thomas Landseer, F. W. Popham, Fairholt, Harrison Weir, Redgrave, Corbould, and Stephanoff. He was a thoroughly useful man; and a thousand examples of quaint imaginings—oftentimes of graceful workmanship—might be culled from the various works and serials in which his hand may be readily recognised.
But the merits of Kenny Meadows as an illustrator of books are very unequal. His friend, Mr. Hodder, who gives us in his pleasant “Memories” an occasional note of some of the artists with whom he was thrown in contact, says of him: “The quiet, unostentatious way in which he worked at his art, too often under the most adverse and discouraging circumstances, and the pride which he displayed when he felt he had made a ‘happy hit,’ was somewhat like the enthusiasm of a youth who had first attained the honour of a prize. As a draughtsman he never cared to be guided by those practical laws which regulate the academic exercise of the pictorial art; for he contended that too strict an adherence to nature only trammelled him, and he preferred relying upon the thought conveyed in his illustrations, rather than upon the mechanical correctness of his outline or perspective.” George Cruikshank showed, as we know, a tolerable contempt for nature when he undertook the delineation of a horse, a woman, or a tree; but it was one of the conditions of hisgeniusthat it should be left free and untrammelled to follow the dictates of its own inspiration, and the quaint effect which somehow or other he managed to impart to a design which, in its details might offend the educated taste of the art critic, made us forget the contempt too often displayed for those “practical laws” to whichMr. Hodder refers. To constitute a good comic artist, not only is it necessary that he should be a good draughtsman, but certain special gifts are indispensable,—a keen sense of the ridiculous, an inherent appreciation of humour, a quick and ready invention, qualities which no amount of artificial training will bestow. They were possessed in an eminent degree by Gillray, by Cruikshank, by John Leech, but were wholly wanting to Kenny Meadows. He could draw on occasion a queer face—for that matter his faces, intentionally or otherwise, were generally queer—and an eccentric figure, and so can many persons who have a natural taste for drawing, and have learnt to handle the pencil; but the caricaturist, like the poet,nasciiur non fit, and a hundred or even a thousand queer faces or eccentric figures, without the gift of invention or originality, will not of themselves constitute the designer a comic artist. The truth is that with Kenny Meadows mannerism takes the place of genius. You will recognise his hand anywhere without the familiar “K.M.” appended to it, for all his faces are chubby (not to say puffy), and their arms and legs look for all the world as if the hand that designed them had been guided by a ruler. The delusion which led him to imagine that his “genius” would enable him to soar superior to nature is no doubt responsible in some degree for this latter eccentricity, for the artist who would be bold enough to despise the laws “which regulate the exercise of the pictorial art,” would be prepared to view Hogarth’s line of beauty with like indifference and contempt.
Kenny Meadows was one of the early illustrators ofPunch, and contributed moreover to the first volume some of the best of the cartoons. Good specimens of his work will be found inYoung Loves to Sell, andThe Speculative Mama(sic), second vol.; in the third volume he illustrated “Punch’s Letters to His Son,” and the first of the almanacks contains six of his designs. In the fourth volume we find six of his cartoons, among themThe Milk of Poor Law Kindness, andThe First Tooth(the Queen and infant Prince of Wales); the doctor’s legs and shoes are thoroughly characteristic of his style, and look for all the world as if they had been drawn by a ruler. The cartoon,Punch Turned Out of Francein this volume is,if we mistake not, the work of Kenny Meadows.The Christian Bayadere Worshipping the Idol Siva, has reference to the tolerance which “John Company” wisely conceded to Hindoo religious ceremony, so long as its traditions were found consistent with the ordinary dictates of humanity. “The Story of a Feather” in this volume has five illustrations, two of which are very clever. Among the other cartoons we findThe Modern Macheath(the Captain being Sir Robert Peel). The fifth volume contains eight of his illustrations, six being cartoons; among them,The Irish Frankenstein(badly imagined and atrociously drawn),The Water Dropand theGin Dropare characterized by much poverty of invention, but the former is the best of the two.The Battle of the Alphabet(cartoon) is a better specimen of his work, although the legs and arms look as usual, as if drawn with a ruler. The sixth volume contains three of his cartoons, while the almanack of the year (1844) has several of his illustrations. To the seventh volume he contributed no less than thirty-one illustrations, some very good, one of the best being that of the two legal dogs quarrelling over a bone of litigation.Punchat the outset of his career had considerable difficulty in the selection of a graphic satirist, and one of his “right hand men” in those early days was a Mr. Henning, by whose side Kenny Meadows figures as an absolute genius. After his seventh volume, however, he met with artists better fitted to interpret his political and social views, and no trace of Meadows’ useful hand appears in succeeding volumes.
In stating that the merits of Kenny Meadows as an illustrator of books are unequal, and in denying to him the possession of genius, we must not be held to imply that he was deficient of talent. An excellent example of the inequality of which we speak will be found in his Shakespeare (Robert Tyas, 1843), a work selected by us for the reason that it was considered by himself and his two favourable friends as his masterpiece. Although we cannot stay to notice all the strange conceptions with which he has enriched this book, we may be permitted to wonder whence he derived his preposterous ideas of Caliban, of Malvolio, of Shylock, of Juliet’s nurse, ofLaunce’s unhappy dog, of the Egpytian Sphynx in “Antony and Cleopatra.” The model of Shylock was evidently some “old clo’” dealer in Petticoat Lane. The figure of Armado (“Love’s Labour’s Lost”) is so wonderfully put together that his anatomy must sooner or later fall to pieces; the ghost of Hamlet’s father is the ghost of some colossal statue, certainly not the shade of one who had worn the guise of ordinary humanity. The head of the gentle Juliet might derive benefit from the application of a bottle of invigorating hair wash. The figure of the monk in “Romeo and Juliet” literally cut out of wood, carries as much expression in its face as a lay figure; while the walls of Northampton Castle (in “King John”) are so much out of the perpendicular, that the courtiers seem less concerned at finding the dead body of Arthur, than in seeking a place of shelter from the impending downfall. Henry the Eighth, although acknowledged to be a corpulent, was not, so far as we know, a deformed man; the preposterous “beak” of Richard the Third occupies one half of his otherwise remarkably short face, and its owner (in the well-known tent scene) suffers from an attack of tetanus instead of an accession of mental terror. These eccentric realizations, in which he has succeeded in setting all the rules of drawing at defiance, are rendered the more remarkable by reason of the circumstance that the work now under consideration is interspersed with numerous charming drawings, the effect of which is wholly marred by these erratic performances. Meadows was an admirable water-colour artist, and a scarce edition of this work contains some engravings of Shakespearian heroines after his designs. The Germans fancy they understand Shakespeare better than ourselves (an amiable and complimentary weakness), and the work was favourably received in Germany, the artist’s conception of Falstaff, in particular, being so highly appreciated that a bronze statuette was modelled after it, which enjoyed a large sale.
His ideas of female beauty were almost as eccentric as those of Cruikshank. A couple of beauties of the Meadows type will be found at page 3 of Henry Cockton’s “Sisters” (Nodes, 1844), where one lady is represented to us with a neck like that of agiraffe, whilst her sister beauty is sensibly inconvenienced by a lock of hair which has strayed into her eye,—a favourite device, by the way, of the artist. This book, now scarce (in the illustration of which he was assisted by Alfred Crowquill), is adorned with a portrait on steel, after a painting by Childe, in which the author is presented to us in a white waistcoat and dress coat, with a pen in his hand, leading us to the inference that his clumsily constructed novels (one of which—“Valentine Vox,” thanks perhaps to the illustrator, Onwhyn—still holds its ground) were written in evening costume.
But notwithstanding these failures, Kenny Meadows has happily left behind him work of a very much better kind. His Christmas pictures in particular are impressed with the kindly, genial humour which characterized the man; the “Illuminated Magazine,” a scarce and valuable work, contains sixty-three very fine specimens of his pencillings, including the illustrations to his friend Douglas Jerrold’s “Chronicles of Clovernook,” admirable in every respect, probably the finest designs he ever executed. The wood engravings in this charming serial have probably never been surpassed; we seldom see woodcuts in these days which equal the splendid workmanship of E. Landells.178After the third volume, the “Illuminated Magazine” passed into other hands, and although Kenny Meadows continued its mainstay for a time, the rest of the excellent artists left, and the literary matter visibly declined.
To the famous “Gallery of Comicalities” Kenny Meadows contributedSketches from LavaterandPhisogs of the Traders of London. During the last decade of his life his services in the cause of illustrative art were rewarded and recognised by a pension from the Civil List of £80 per annum. Like GeorgeCruikshank he remained hale and vigorous to the last, proud of his age, and fond of asserting there was “life in the old dog yet.” That this was no idle boast may be inferred from the fact that within a few months of his death he was engaged in painting a subject from his favourite Shakespeare. At the time of his death (in August, 1874) he had almost completed his eighty-fifth year.
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In hunting up materials for the present work, we have come at various times upon editions (specimens, perhaps, might be the better word) of the “Pickwick Papers,” which will possess an interest in the eyes of the collector. The first issue, in the original green sporting covers designed by Seymour, is of course exceedingly scarce; we have never indeed seen aperfectcopy, which would probably be worth some ten pounds, while the same edition bound may be purchased at prices varying from twenty-four shillings to three guineas, according to the condition of the volume. An Australian edition was published at Launceston, Van Dieman’s Land, in 1838, with plates after “Phiz” by “Tiz,” facsimiles on stone of the earliest issue of the parts in England. At a West of England bookseller’s we met with a first edition bound up with etchings by Onwhyn,179“Peter Palette,” and others. Then there are the twenty-four etchings from remarkably clever original drawings by Mr. F. W. Pailthorpe in illustration of scenes in “Pickwick,” of which the proofs before letters were published at three guineas; and lastly, there is the rare first edition, containing all the plates by Seymour and “Phiz,” supplemented by the two “suppressed” etchings, which are credited (wrongly) to the hand of Buss.
Among the etchers of book illustration after 1836, we may nameRobert William Buss, whose etchings will be found in Mrs. Trollope’s “Widow Married” (a sequel to her “Widow Barnaby”), which made its appearance in the “New Monthly Magazine” of 1839, and whose hand will also be found in Marryat’s “Peter Simple,” “Jacob Faithful,” Harrison Ainsworth’s “Court of King James II.,” etc. Although his designs lack the genius, the artistic power, the finish and the comic invention of Leech or Cruikshank, they show nevertheless that as an etcher and designer he was possessed of exceptional talent and ability. The first experience, however, of this able artist as an etcher was peculiarly unfortunate and vexatious.
When poor Seymour shot himself in 1836, the draughtsman first called in to supply his place was Robert William Buss. He had been recommended to Messrs. Chapman and Hall by John Jackson, the wood-engraver, but does not seem at that time to have had any practical experience of etching, as he himself explained to the member of the firm who called upon him. Mr. Buss, in fact, was decidedly indisposed to undertake the work, being then engaged on a picture he was preparing for exhibition, and he undertook it only after considerable pressure. He immediately began to practise the various operations of etching and biting in, and produced a plate with which the publishers expressed themselves satisfied. Two subjects were then selected for illustration,The Cricket Match, andThe Fat Boy Watching Mr. Tupman and Miss Wardle. When, however, Mr. Buss began to etch them on the plate, he found, having had little or no experience in laying his ground, that it holed up under the etching point; and as time was precious, he placed the plates in the hands of an experienced engraver to be etched and bitten in. Had opportunity been given him, his son (from whom we take this account) tells us he would have cancelled these plates and issued fresh ones of his own etching. Designs were prepared by him for the following number, when he received an intimation that the work of illustrating the “Pickwick Papers” had been placed in other hands. The illustrations referred to were suppressed, and the collectors who are so anxious to secure an edition with the two “Buss plates,” will be pleased to learn that,although the design was his, not one line of the etchings which bear his name are due to the artist’s point.180
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. Cumberland in illustration 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 illustrations 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 illustrate “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 ofChristmas 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 Duchess of St. Albans;The Wooden Walls of Old England, the property of Lord Coventry;Soliciting a Vote, andChairing the Member;The Musical Bore;The Frosty Reception;Master’s Out;Time and Tide Wait for no Man;Shirking the Plate;The First of September;The Introduction of Tobacco;The Biter Bit;The Romance; andSatisfaction. For Mr. Hogarth, of the Haymarket, he painted four small subjects illustrative of Christmas, entitled,The Waits;Bringing in the Boar’s Head;The Yule Log,andThe Wassail Bowl; all afterwards engraved. For Mr. James Haywood, M.P., he executed a series of drawings illustrative of student life at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, London, and Paris; while two vast subjects,The Origin of MusicandThe 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 Cambridgeshire. 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 Dickens’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, illustrated by several hundred examples executed by himself. In 1874, the year before his death, he published for the amusement of his friends, and for private circulation only, the substance of these lectures, under the title of “English Graphic Satire and its Relation to Different Styles of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving.” The numerous illustrations 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), entitledTime and Tide Wait for no Man, represents an artist, sketching by the sea-shore, 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.
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The comic publications which either preceded or ran side by side withPunchhad for the most part a somewhat short and unsatisfactory career. Perhaps the most successful of them wasFigaro in London, 1831-36, which we have already noticed.The Wag, a long-forgotten publication, enjoyed a very transient existence. In 1832 appearedPunchinello, 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 Londonwas a little more fortunate. This periodical commenced running on the 29th of February, 1832, and the illustrations of Isaac Robert Cruikshank and Kenny Meadows enabled it to reach its thirty-seventh number. Tom Dibdin’sPenny Trumpetignominiously blew itself out after the fourth number.The Schoolmaster at Home, notwithstanding Seymour’s graphic exertions, collapsed at its sixth number.The Whig Dresser, illustrated by Heath, enjoyed an existence exactly of twelve numbers.The Squib(1842) lasted for thirty weeks before it exploded and went out.Puck(1848), illustrated by W. Hine, Kenny Meadows, and Gilbert, died the twenty-fifth week after its first publication.Chatran its course in 1850 and 1851.The Man in the Moon, under the literary guidance of Shirley 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 McConnell181and 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 illustrated by McConnell, lasted a very limited time.London, started by George Augustus Sala in rivalry ofPunch, soon ceased running; while thePuppet Show, notwithstanding the ability of Mr. Procter, enjoyed but a very brief and transitory existence. The strong and healthy constitution ofPunchenabled him not only to outlive all these, but even a publication superior in some important respects to himself. We allude to theTomahawk, whose cartoons are certainly the most powerful and outspoken satires which have appeared since the days of Gillray.182
Among the draughtsmen whomPunchcalled in to help him in his early days was a useful and ingenious artist, inferior in many respects to Kenny Meadows, his name wasAlfred Henry Forrester, better known to most of us under hisnom de guerreof “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.” InThe Footmanwe have a gorgeous figure, adorned with epaulets, lace, and a cocked 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 Difficultiesis a more ambitious performance. “Punch’s Guide to the Watering Places” (vol. iii.) is illustrated with a number of coarsely executed cuts, wholly destitute of merit; the fourth volume contains a cartoon entitledPrivate Opinions. But the graphic humour of Alfred Crowquill, although amusing and sometimes bright and sparkling, was unsuited to the requirements of a periodical such asPunch. As better men came forward, he gradually dropped out of its pages, and we see nothing more of him after the fourth volume.
Alfred Crowquill.[From “The Book of Days.”FROZEN OUT GARDENERS.[Face p. 368.
Alfred Crowquill.
[From “The Book of Days.”
FROZEN OUT GARDENERS.
[Face p. 368.
Alfred Crowquill.[From “The Book of Days.”“SWEARING THE HORNS” AT HIGHGATE.“When any person passed 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.
Alfred Crowquill.
[From “The Book of Days.”
“SWEARING THE HORNS” AT HIGHGATE.
“When any person passed 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.
Alfred Crowquill was a sort of “general utility” man, essaying the character of alittérateuras 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 editorshipof Mr. Timbs; while as an artist he illustrated his own writings, besides those of a host of other authors. An early effort of his pencil is entitled,Der Freyschutz Travestied; this was followed by “Alfred Crowquill’s Sketch Books,” which were dedicated to the (then) Princess Victoria, by command of the Duchess 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 assistance in its difficulties with George Cruikshank. The best of his illustrative works (mostly designs on wood) were executed for this periodical, and selections were afterwards collected and published under the title of “The Phantasmagoria of Fun.”
In these days a man like Forrester would be almost at a discount, but at the time when he started there was less competition, 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 title-page he executed for a work published by Kent & Co., under the title of “Merry Pictures by the Comic Hands of Alfred Crowquill, Doyle, Meadows, Hine, and Others” (1857), aréchauffageof cuts and illustrations 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.”183Some 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 “MemorandumBook” (1834) will give us a good idea of his style. In “Tea Leaves for Breakfast,”Strong Blackis represented by a sturdy negro carrying a heavy basket; a tall youth with a small father personatingHyson; a housemaid shaking a hall mat, to the discomfort of herself and the passers-by, is labelledFine dust; a cockney accidentally discharging his fowling-piece does duty forGunpowder; whileMixedis aptly personified by a curious group of masqueraders. The vowels put in a comical appearance:Awith his hands behind him listens toE, who points toIas the subject of his remarks, which must be of a scandalous character, as the injured vowel looks the picture of anger and astonishment.Efinds a ready listener inO, 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 entitled,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 asFour Specimens of the Reading Public(Fairburn, 1826): “Romancing Molly,” “Sir Lacey Luscious,” a “Political Dustman,” and “French à la Mode.” Two, in which he was assisted by George Cruikshank, entitled,Indigestion, andJealousy, 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.
Chas. H. Bennett.[“Shadow and Substance.”“... creeping like a snailUnwillingly to school.”—As You Like It.[Face p. 371.
Chas. H. Bennett.
[“Shadow and Substance.”
“... creeping like a snail
Unwillingly to school.”—As You Like It.
[Face p. 371.
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 Intemperancewere engraved from his painting in oils, and called forth a letter ofthanks from the great apostle of temperance, Father Mathew himself. Other works wereThe Ups and Downs of Life, the well-knownPresidentandVice President(both engraved), and many others. A clever artist in “black and white,” two of his pen-and-ink sketches—The Huntsman’s RestandThe 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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Some of our readers may possibly remember seeing in one of the comic publications published concurrently with or shortly after the appearance of Mr. Charles Darwin’s work, a series of comical designs ridiculing the theory of the “origin of species” in a manner which must have astonished as well as amused the learned philosopher. The origin of the genusfootman, and of the dish he carries to his master’s table, is traced out as follows: The dish carries a bone, which eventually finds its way into the jaws of a mongrel cur with a peculiarly short tail. The process then goes merrily onwards; the dog gradually develops; his skin turns into a suit of livery with buttons, the dog-collar gradually assumes the form of a footman’s tie, until the process is ended and the species complete. In like manner, a cat develops into a spinster aunt; a monkey into a mischievous urchin; a pig into a gourmand; a sheep into a country bumpkin; a weasel into a lawyer; a dancing bear into a garrotter; a shark into a money-lender; a snail into the schoolboy to which Shakespeare likens him; a fish into a toper, and so on. These “developments” (twenty in number), which were dedicated to Mr. Darwin, are signed “C. H. B.” and these are the initials ofCharles H. Bennett, one of the gentlest, most promising, and withal most original graphic humourists of the century.
Amongst the earliest of the serials which he illustrated was, we believe,Diogenes, a sort of rival ofPunch, which made its appearance and ran a brief course in 1853-4. Associated with him in the illustrationswere McConnell and Watts Phillips, the latter of whom contributed largely also to the literary matter. We find a clever design of his (in Leech’s style) in the second volume: “Now, gentlemen of the jury,” says a brazen-faced barrister, “I throw myself upon your impartial judgment as husbands and fathers, and I confidently ask, Does the prisoner [the most murderous-looking ruffian un-hung] look like a man who would knock down and trample upon the wife of his bosom? Gentlemen, I have done!”
There was considerable originality in the designs of Bennett, which is more particularly manifested in the well-known series of humorous sketches in which the effect intended to be produced is effected by means of theshadowsof the figures represented, which are supposed to indicate their distinguishing failings and characteristics. Among them may be mentioned a tipsy woman amused at theshadowcast by her own figure of a gin bottle; an undertaker, in his garb of woe wrung from the pockets of widows and orphans, casts the appropriate shadow of a crocodile; a red-nosed old hospital nurse of a tea-pot; a worn-out seamstress of a skeleton; a mischievous street boy of a monkey; an angry wife sitting up for a truant husband of an extinguisher; a tall, conceited-looking parson, with a long coat, of a pump; while a sweep, with his “machine,” to his mortal terror beholds his own shadow preceding him in the guise of Beelzebub himself. The series is continued in a work published by W. Kent & Co. in 1860, under the title of “Shadow and Substance,” the letterpress of which is contributed to Bennett’s pictures by Robert B. Brough. Literary work of this description, like William Combe’s “Doctor Syntax,” is necessarily unsatisfactory; but the pictures themselves are distinctly inferior to the series which preceded them, the best beingOld Enough to Know Better,—a bald-headed, superannuated old sinner behind the scenes, presenting a bouquet to a ballet girl, his figure casting ashadowon the back of the scene of a bearded, long-eared, horned old goat.
Chas. H. Bennett.[“Shadow and Substance.”“OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER.”[Face p. 372.
Chas. H. Bennett.
[“Shadow and Substance.”
“OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER.”
[Face p. 372.
We are in no position to give a detailed list of Charles Bennett’s work, which was of a very miscellaneous kind, comprising among others a series of slight outline portraits of members of parliament,which appeared in theIllustrated Times, an edition of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” edited by the Rev. Charles Kingsley; “John Todd,” a work by the Rev. John Allen; “Shadows,” and “Shadow and Substance,” just spoken of; “Proverbs, with Pictures by Charles H. Bennett,” etc., etc. His talent at last attracted the notice of the weeklyPunchcouncil, and he received the coveted distinction of being engaged on the permanent staff of that periodical.
His life, however, was a brief one. The diary of Shirley Brooks, who took much personal interest in him, refers with some anxiety to his illness on the 30th of March, 1867. On the 31st of March the report was somewhat more favourable; but the 2nd of April brought a letter from the editor ofPunch, Mark Lemon, which said that Charles Bennett had died between the hours of eight and nine o’clock that morning. “I am very sorry,” adds Shirley Brooks in an autograph note appended beneath the letter referred to. “B[ennett] was a man whom one could not help loving for his gentleness, and a wonderful artist.” The obituary notice by the same hand which appears inPunchrecords that “he was a very able colleague, a very dear friend. None of our fellow-workers,” it continues, “ever entered more heartily into his work, or laboured with more earnestness to promote our general purpose. His facile execution and singular subtilty of fancy were, we hoped, destined to enrich these pages for many a year. It has been willed otherwise, and we lament the loss of a comrade of invaluable skill, and the death of one of the kindliest and gentlest of our associates, the power of whose hand was equalled by the goodness of his heart.” Charles Bennett was only thirty-seven when he died.
He left a widow and eight children unprovided for, for his health having precluded it, no life insurance had been effected. ThePunchmen, however, with the unselfishness which so nobly characterizes them, put their shoulders to the wheel for the family of their stricken comrade. “We shall have to do something,” said Shirley Brooks in his diary of the 3rd of April; and they did it accordingly. A committee was immediately started, on which we find the names ofMessrs. Arthur Lewis,184Wilbert Beale, Mark Lemon, Du Maurier, John Tenniel, Arthur Sullivan, and W. H. Bradbury. Then came rehearsals, and, on the 11th of May, a performance at the Adelphi in aid of the Bennett fund. Mr. Arthur Sullivan had, in conjunction with Mr. F. C. Burnand, converted the well-known farce of “Box and Cox” into an operetta of the most ludicrous description. This was the opening piece—the forerunner of “Pinafore,” “Pirates,” “Patience,” and other triumphs. Arthur Sullivan himself conducted, and the players were Mr. Du Maurier, Mr. Quinton, and Mr. Arthur Blunt. Then followed “A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing,” in which Mesdames Kate Terry, Florence Terry, Mrs. Stoker, Mrs. Watts (the present Ellen Terry), and Messrs. Mark Lemon, Tom Taylor, Tenniel, Burnand, Silver, Pritchett, and Horace Mayhew took part. This was succeeded by Offenbach’s “Blind Beggars,” who were admirably personated by Mr. Du Maurier and Mr. Harold Power. The evening concluded with a number of part songs and madrigals sung by the Moray Minstrels—so called from their chiefly performing at Moray Lodge, the residence of Mr. Arthur Lewis. Between the two portions of their entertainment, Shirley Brooks came on and delivered an address written by himself, which contained the following allusion to him for whose family the generous work had been undertaken:—