de Libris; Prose and Verse

Excerpt: ... 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...