English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century Part 31

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAS. H. BENNETT. _"Shadow and Substance."_

"... creeping like a snail Unwillingly to school."--AS YOU LIKE IT.

_Face p. 371._]

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 genus _footman_, 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 b.u.t.tons, the dog-collar gradually a.s.sumes 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 b.u.mpkin; 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 of CHARLES 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 ill.u.s.trated was, we believe, _Diogenes_, a sort of rival of _Punch_, which made its appearance and ran a brief course in 1853-4. a.s.sociated with him in the ill.u.s.trations were 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 the _shadows_ of the figures represented, which are supposed to indicate their distinguishing failings and characteristics. Among them may be mentioned a tipsy woman amused at the _shadow_ cast 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 t.i.tle 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 being _Old Enough to Know Better_,--a bald-headed, superannuated old sinner behind the scenes, presenting a bouquet to a ballet girl, his figure casting a _shadow_ on the back of the scene of a bearded, long-eared, horned old goat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 the _Ill.u.s.trated 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 weekly _Punch_ council, 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 of _Punch_, 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 in _Punch_ records 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 a.s.sociates, 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. The _Punch_ men, however, with the unselfishness which so n.o.bly 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 of Messrs. Arthur Lewis,[184]

Wilbert 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 c.o.x" 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:--

"Only some friends of a lost friend, whose name Is all the inheritance his children claim (Save memory of his goodness), think it due To make some brief acknowledgment to you.

Brief but not cold; some thanks that you have come And helped us to secure that saddened home, Where eight young mourners round a mother weep A fond and dear loved father's sleep.

Take it from us--and with this word we end All sad allusion to our parted friend-- That for a better purpose generous hearts Ne'er prompted liberal hands to do their parts.

You knew his power, his satire keen but fair, And the rich fancy, served by skill as rare.

You did not know, except some friendly few, That he was earnest, gentle, patient, true.

A better soldier doth life's battle lack, And he has died with harness on his back."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "RESULT OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM."

THACKERAY'S MARGINAL SKETCHES, MADE WHEN AT SCHOOL, IN HIS SCHOOL-BOOKS, ETC.

_Back to p. 375._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THACKERAY'S MARGINAL SKETCHES, MADE WHEN AT SCHOOL, INHIS SCHOOL-BOOKS, ETC.

_Back to p. 375._]

The last verse alludes to Kate Terry's approaching marriage:--

"Last, but not least, in your dear love and ours, There is a head we'd crown with all our flowers.

Our kindest thanks to her whose smallest grace Is the bewitchment of her fair young face.

Our own Kate Terry comes, to show how much The truest art does with the lightest touch.

Make much of her while still before your eyes-- A star may glide away to other skies."

By this performance, a second which took place at Manchester on the 29th of July, and the efforts of Shirley Brooks and the members of the committee, a large sum was raised.

The _Punch_ volumes, prior to his withdrawal from its pages, are interspersed with numerous mirth-provoking drawings on wood by the late Mr. THACKERAY. Probably the best of these will be found in the "Novels by Eminent Hands," in one of which (in amusing burlesque of _Phiz's_ spirited t.i.tle-page to "Charles O'Malley") we see the hero flying over the heads of the French army. Charles Lever was nervously sensitive to ridicule, and, although he laughed at and enjoyed the clever _jeux d'esprit_ in which "Phil Fogarty," "Harry Jolly-cur," "Harry Rollicker,"

etc., put in their respective appearances, he declared nevertheless, with evident vexation, that he himself might just as well retire from business altogether. This, indeed, he proceeded to do; and although we miss from that time the rattling heroes of the Frank Webber and Charles O'Malley school, we are indebted to Thackeray for the striking proof which Charles Lever was thus enabled to afford us of the versatility of a genius which enabled him to change front and alter his style with manifest advantage to his literary reputation.

The fact of his waiting upon d.i.c.kens at his chambers in Furnival's Inn "with two or three drawings in his hand, which strange to say he did not find suitable" for "Pickwick," has been told so often that there is no occasion for repeating it again; but the circ.u.mstances under which he seems to have sought the interview not being, so far as we know, stated anywhere, we shall now proceed to relate them. Thackeray was in London when Seymour shot himself in 1836. The death of the latter caused a vacancy in the post of ill.u.s.trator to "Figaro in London," which at that time Seymour was ill.u.s.trating as well as "Pickwick," and such vacancy was supplied by Thackeray, who, I think, continued to ill.u.s.trate it until the paper died a natural death. His designs for "Figaro in London"

were drawn in pen and ink on paper, and transferred to the wood by the engravers, Messrs. Branstone and Wright, and the remuneration he received for them was very trifling, at most a few shillings each. It was probably this circ.u.mstance which put into his head the idea of ill.u.s.trating "Pickwick." From what we know of the graphic abilities of Thackeray and the fastidious requirements of d.i.c.kens, we may readily understand why the post rendered vacant by Seymour's suicide was given to an abler artist.

We wish that from a work dealing with comic art in the nineteenth century the name of Mr. Thackeray might be omitted; for no notice of him, however short, would be just or complete which failed to refer to his book ill.u.s.trations. To do this we must separate Thackeray the artist from Thackeray the man of letters. Regarding him simply in the character of ill.u.s.trator of the novels of W. M. Thackeray, we are bound in justice to the memory of that great and sterling humourist, to say that he has undertaken a task which is manifestly beyond his powers. While Thackeray with his _pen_ could most effectively describe a fascinating woman, like Becky Sharp, the illusion vanishes the moment his artist essays to draw her portrait with his pencil. While Thackeray's women are pretty and fascinating, well dressed and accomplished, the artist's women on the contrary are hideous; their waists commence somewhere in the region of their knees; and their clothes look as if they had been piled on their back with a pitchfork. The same remarks apply to the men; while the originals are witty or clever, handsome or well-dressed, those presented to us by the artist are dest.i.tute of calf, and their limbs so curiously constructed that the free use of them as nature intended would be a matter of utter impossibility. Those defects are the more noticeable because the artist has shown in his admirable essays on George Cruikshank and John Leech how thoroughly he was alive to the possession of artistic genius in others.

The admiration which we have for Thackeray the man of letters, and the way in which we have already expressed that admiration, render it unlikely that the drift of these remarks will be misunderstood. While rejoicing that the admirable tales and satires of the humourist are uninjured by ill.u.s.trations which are altogether unworthy of them, we venture to suggest how much better the result might have been had the latter been entrusted, as in the case of "The Newcomes," to other hands, and the artist contented himself with the initial letters and designs on wood with which his writings are pleasantly interspersed. We have seen it somewhere stated (we think in the volume ent.i.tled "Thackerayana") that the author's rapid facility of sketching was the one great impediment to his attainment of excellence in ill.u.s.trative art. Some of his designs indeed bear on their face evidence of the rapidity with which they were thrown off; but no satisfactory explanation appears to be possible of his contempt for what Mr. Hodder has termed the "practical laws which regulate the academic exercise of the pictorial art," and his apparent ignorance of the art of balancing his figures so as to enable them to stand upright, to walk straight, or to move their limbs with the grace and freedom a.s.signed to them by nature. One of the designs to "The Virginians" shows a horseman, who in the letterpress is described as crossing a bridge at full gallop, whereas in the picture both man and horse will inevitably leap over the parapet into the river below. Nothing could possibly avert the catastrophe, and the effect thus produced is due, not to the manifest carelessness and haste with which the sketch is thrown off, but to a palpable defect in the artistic powers of the designer himself. Yet in the face of defects so patent and so palpable we have found it gravely stated, "The world which is loth to admit high excellence in more than one direction, has never fitly recognised _Thackeray's great gift as a comic draftsman_. Here [_i.e._ in a work edited by his daughter] he will be found advantageously represented; inferior, it is true to the unjustly neglected Hablot Browne ('Phiz'), _but often equalling if not sometimes surpa.s.sing the greatly over-rated John Leech_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GRUFFANUFF."

"PRINCE BULBO SEIZED BY THE GUARDS." "MONKS OF THE SEVEREST ORDER OF FLAGELLANTS."

SKETCHES BY THACKERAY FROM HIS "ROSE AND THE RING."

_Back to p. 378._]

Ay! "the world _is_ loth to admit high excellence in more than one direction," and experience has taught it that few men, however gifted, are capable of exercising two different arts with an equal measure of success. Thackeray was both a genius and an artist, but the world has long recognised the fact that the former manifested itself only when he laid down the pencil and took up the pen. If called on to _prove_ his incapacity to ill.u.s.trate his own work, we will refer the reader to his admirable novel of "Vanity Fair." The time selected for the story is the early part of the present century; and on the plea that he had "not the heart to disfigure his heroes and heroines" by the correct but "hideous"

costumes of the period, Thackeray has actually habited these men and women of 1815 in the dress of 1848! Cruikshank, Leech, "Phiz," or Doyle, it is unnecessary to say, would have been guiltless of such an absurdity; and the difficulty in which the gifted author found himself, and the confession of his inability to cope with it, afford the clearest possible evidence of his utter incapacity to ill.u.s.trate the story itself. If any further proof be wanted, look at the designs themselves.

Captain Dobbin would be laughed out of any European military service; such a guardsman as Rawdon Crawley could find no place in her Majesty's guards; "Jemima" (at p. 7), "Miss Sharp in the schoolroom" (p. 80), the children waiting on Miss Crawley (p. 89), the figures in the fencing scene (p. 207), "The Family Party at Brighton," "Gloriana" trying her fascinations on the major, "Jos" (at p. 569), and "Becky's second appearance as Clytemnestra," without meaning to be so, are caricatures pure and simple; and yet these are admirable compared with the designs to "The Virginians," which may safely be reckoned amongst the worst in the entire range of English ill.u.s.trative art. Contrast them with ill.u.s.trations confessedly not up to the severe standard of excellence required by the art critic, but admirably adapted for their purpose, Mr. Doyle's etchings to "The Newcomes," and remark the immeasurable superiority of the latter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: W. M. THACKERAY. "_The Rose and the Ring._"

"ANGELICA ARRIVES JUST IN TIME."

_Back to p. 379._]

And yet, in justice to the great humourist of the nineteenth century, let us hear what another great writer has to say upon the very ill.u.s.trations which seem to us to call for such severe animadversion.

After telling us that Thackeray studied drawing at Paris, affecting especially Bonnington (the young English artist who died in 1828), Mr.

Anthony Trollope goes on to say, "He never learned to draw,--perhaps never could have learned. That he was idle and did not do his best, we may take for granted. He was always idle, and only on some occasions, when the spirit moved him thoroughly, did he do his best even in after life. But with drawing--or rather without it--he did wonderfully well, even when he did his worst. He did ill.u.s.trate his own books, and every one knows how incorrect were his delineations. But as ill.u.s.trations they were excellent. How often have I wished that characters of my creating might be sketched as faultily, if with the same appreciation of the intended purpose. Let any one look at the 'plates,' as they are called, in 'Vanity Fair,' and compare each with the scenes and the characters intended to be displayed, and then see whether the artist--if we may call him so--has not managed to convey in the picture the exact feeling which he has described in the text. I have a little sketch of his, in which a cannon-ball is supposed to have just carried off the head of an aide-de-camp,--messenger I had perhaps better say, lest I might affront military feelings,--who is kneeling on the field of battle and delivering a despatch to Marlborough on horseback. The graceful ease with which the duke receives the message though the messenger's head be gone, and the soldierlike precision with which the headless hero finishes his last effort of military obedience, may not have been portrayed with well-drawn figures, but no finished ill.u.s.tration ever told its story better."[185] We read these remarks with profound astonishment, and can only ask in reply: If, as Mr. Trollope has admitted, Thackeray "never learned to draw,--perhaps never could have learned," how he could manage "to convey" in any of his pictures "the exact feeling he has described in the text"?--how, in the face of the admitted incorrectness of "his delineations," he could be in any way fitted to ill.u.s.trate a novel of such transcendent excellence as "Vanity Fair"?

It has been a.s.sumed, without any sort of authority, that it was only when Thackeray found he could not succeed as an artist that he turned to literature. The statement is altogether unwarranted. At or about the very time he was engaged in drawing the cuts for "Figaro in London," he was--if we are to judge of the sketch of "the Fraserians" in the "Maclise Portrait Gallery," in which young Thackeray may easily be recognised--writing for "Fraser's Magazine." Be this, however, as it may, it seems tolerably certain that the rebuff he received from d.i.c.kens had no hand in turning him into the path of letters, towards which his genius and unerring judgment alone most fortunately guided him.

FOOTNOTES:

[177] There is a scarce edition of the "Bon Gaultier Ballads," which contains some unacknowledged tailpieces, etc., by Kenny Meadows; in all subsequent editions these are omitted--why, we know not.