Skip to main content

Full text of "English Coloured Books"

See other formats 


Google 



This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 

to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 

publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 
We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 

at |http : //books . google . com/| 



FOGG MUSEUM LIBRARY 
FROM THil BnQlIl-ST OF 

GRENVILLE LINDALL WINTHROP 

TO 

HARVARD UNTVHRSITY 



ID b* uld Of iKhiniitil 



From the 

Fine Arts Library 

Fogg Art Museum 
Harvard University 



THE CONNOISSEUR'S LIBRARY 

GENERAL EDITOR : CYRIL DAVENPORT 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



ENGLISH 
COLOURED !U)i 



MAKTiN IIAKi'i: 



ENGLISH 
COLOURED BOOKS 

BY 

MARTIN HARDIE 



NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON : METHUEN AND CO. 

1906 



GkENTILLE L. WdJTHEOP BEfiOESI 

POOO ART )*V2fm 
MRVARD umvCMITV 



TIrll PtiUulud i' 'toe 



TO MY WIFE 
LOVE'S LABOUR : LOVE'S GIFT 



PREFACE 

THERE seems nowadays to be a tendency to 
abolish the preface, but for the writer of a book 
there is this in favour of its retention, that it 
enables him at the very outset of his work to acknow- 
ledge thanks where thanks are due. I have received 
much kind assistance from Mr. G. H. Palmer, Mr. 
E. F. Strange, and my other colleagues in the National 
Art Libra^ at South Kensington ; and from Mr. 
Campbell Dodgson, Mr. A. E. Tompson, and Mr. 
Whitman at the British Museum. Mr. Cyril Daven- 
port, the editor of the present series, has also helped me 
considerably in researches at the British Museum, and 
has made many useful suggestions, of which I have 
been glad to avail myself Mr. Frank Short, A.R.A., 
has most kindly revised the chapter on the process of 
aquatint, and at several points has given valuable 
advice on questions of technique. I am much indebted 
to Mr. Carl Hentschel for personally showing me the 
full details of his ' three-colour ' process at Norwood ; 
also to the Dangerfield Lithographic Company at St. 
Albans, and to Mr. A. Warner, of Messrs. Jeffrey's 
fjaper-printing works, for a similar courtesy in connec- 
tion with their colour-printing. For other kind informa- 
tion and assistance I have to thank Mr. C. F. Bullock, 
Captain R. J. H. Douglas, Mr. Edwin J. Ellis, Mr. 
J. Grego, Mr. W. Gnggs, Mr. A. D. Hardie, Mr. 
J. Henderson, Mr. John I^ighton, and Mr. T. M'Lean. 
Last, but not least, my thanks are due to my wife, who, 
with infinite patience and care, has compiled for me a 

vii 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

complete bibliography of all the coloured books which 
have appeared for safe during the last five or six years. 
This bibliography, consisting of thousands of collated 
cuttings from booksellers' catalogues gathered from 
every part of the kingdom, has proved of invaluable 
service. 

It is impossible to mention here the many books 
which have been consulted for biographical and biblio- 
^^phical facts ; and I must frankly acknowledge that, 
in compressing the whole history of English colour 
illustration into a volume of the present size, I owe 
much to specialists who have devoted years of work to 
a man or a subject, where I have been able to give 
only a few pages. I have endeavoured to give specific 
references to such work at the points where I have 
found it of special value. I must, however, here ex- 
press particular indebtedness to Messrs. Singer and 
Strangs Etching, Rngraving, and the other methods 
of Printing Pictures. Their careful explanation of 

Erocesses, and their bibliography^ of books on the 
istory of engraving, have been an invaluable help. 
At the risk of a certain amount of dulness I have 
endeavoured to give in detail the names of the artists 
and engravers who worked on each book mentioned. 
A study of coloured books, particularly of the aquatint 
books of the early nineteenth century, brines to light 
several engravers whose ample achievements nave never 
received the recognition they deserve. Many of these 
coloured books contain the early and unrealised 
work of men who have become famous in our British 
school of engraving and of water-colour painting. 
There is a saying of one of the Earls of Orford that 
' the most useful of all historians is the maker of a 
good index,' and I trust that the appendices and index 
at the close of this book will supply a means of reference 
to much work for which artists and engravers have 
never received complete credit. 



PREFACE 

The colour-plates with which this volume is illus- 
trated have been executed with great care and skill, and 
are admirable examples of successful three-colour work. 
It is only right, however, to emphasise the fact that, 
while they give a faithful rendering of pictorial qualities, 
they are simply a process translation, and naturally 
cannot reproduce the technique and texture of the 
originals. 

The illustration representative of Kate Greenaway's 
work has been printed from the original wood-blocks 
by kind permission of Messrs. Warne, the printer being 
Edmund Evans, who printed the original edition. 

I must also take the opportunity of explaining that 
I have adopted the term ' coloured books ' as the only 
convenient way of avoiding the constant repetition of 
the phrase ' books with coloured illustrations.' 

In a book of this type, covering a long period and 
dealing with a mass of dates and figures, it is almost 
inevitable that mistakes should occur ; and I shall be 
greatly obliged to any of my readers who are kind 
enough to inform me of errors which their knowledge 
enables them to correct. 

MARTIN HARDIE 

National Art Li bear v 

Victoria ahd Albert Mitsbuh, S.W. 



' Readers may think that Processes do not concern 
them, and so skip this part of the book. £ut the 
truth is, that Processes concern every one who cares 
about art, or ever talks about it No one can speak 
with justice of the merits of any artist unless he 
clearly understands, and always takes into con- 
sideration, the technical conditions under which the 
artist has worked. It is true that there exists on 
the part of the public an impatience of technical 
considerations; and writers on art, who prudently 
avoid them, are praised by reviewers for this 
abstinence. But no one who is aware how closely 
the nature of Processes is involved in all that is 
best and highest in the Fine Arts, can think of the 
general ignorance of them without regret, and a 
desire to help in removing it Studies like those 
in the following chapters are the very basis and 
rudiments of criticism. Knowledge of this kind, 
however, seems so humble, and so far beneath the 
lofty r^ons of xstfaetic thought, that many con- 
noisseurs have a contempt for it.' 

P. G. Haherton 

' BttAing and Etcktrsl 1 868 



CONTENTS 



Preface, . 

List of Illustrations, 



Chapter I. The Book of St. Albans, . 

Colour illustration in books : its three 
provinces. Its origin, and early history in 
Germany. The Book of St. Albans. Tech- 
nique of colour-printing from wood-blocks. 
The hand-colounng of woodcuts. 

Chapter II. Hand-Coloured Plates from 
1500 to 1800 

Methods of book-illustration from 1500 
to 1800. Colouring of plates as an amateur 
amusement, and treatises on the subject. 
Books published with hand-coloured plates 
during the eighteenth century. 

Chapter III. John Baptist Jackson, . 

The art of chiaroscuro: its technique, its 
early history in Germany and Italy, its re- 
vival in £i^land. Kirkall, Pond, and 
Knapton. J. B. Jackson's Essay ok Chiaro 
Oscuro. Jackson's life and work; his 
paper-hangings, etc. Papillon, and John 
Skippe. 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

P.\CR 

Chapter IV. Wiluam Savage, ... 26 
Colour-printing from wood-blocks by 
William Savage. His Practical Hints on 
Decorative Printing. Sav!«e's methods 
of work, as shown in the illustrations to 
Practical Hints. Estimate of the book by 
W. J. Linton. 

Chapter V. George Baxter, • • • 33 
George Baxter and his work. His early 
life at Lewes. His first colour-prints and 
their method. The details of his patent 
His claims to originality. Prints by him 
at the British Museum. His later works. 
Licences granted to other firms for the use 
of his patent. The end of his career, and 
the disposal of his stock. 

Chapter VI. Jacob Christoph le Blon, . 44 
Colour-printing from metal, as distinct from 
wood. The essential nature of the process, 
and its two varieties. Early history of 
colour-printing from metal. Hercules Seg- 
hers and Johannes Teyler. The life and 
work of J. C. le Blon. His ' Picture 
Office.* The Colorito, and his three-colour 
process of mezzotint. His tapestry factory, 
and summary of his career. 

Chapter VII. The Golden Age of Mezzo- 
tint AND Stipple 54 

Eighteenth-century colour-prints. The his- 
tory of colour-printing from metal after the 
time of Le Blon. Gautier Dagoty, Captain 
Baillie, Robert Lawrie, Gamble. Ploosvan 
Amstel, and C. Josi's Collection tf Imitations 



CONTENTS 

PAGt 

de Dessins^ Similar sets of reproductions 
of drawings, engraved by Bartolozzi and 
his scliool. Cnamberlaine's edition of 
Holbein's portraits. Book-illustrations in 
coloured stipple, coloured mezzotint, etc. 

Chapter VIII. William Blake, ... 72 
Some biblicK^phical details. Blake's life 
and work. His method of colour-printing 
from metal in relief. His second method of 
impasto colour-printing from mill-board. 
The books printed in these respective styles. 
Original prices, from Blake s prospectus 
and letter. Prices at the Crewe Sale and 
elsewhere. 

Chapter IX. The Process of Coloured 

Aquatint 87 

The invention of aquatint. Le Prince and 
Sandby. The nature of the process. Col- 
oured aquatints in book-illustration, and the 
method of their making. Hand<olouring 
of aquatints. Some blemishes of aquatint 
illustrations. 

Chapter X. Rudolph Ackermann, . . 96 
The importance of Ackermann and his work. 
Authorities for his biography. His life and 
general activities. His efforts to promote 
lithography. His long series of coloured 
books with aquatint plates. Details of the 
books and their publication. 

Chapter XI. Drawing-Books, .117 

The early drawing-books and their impor- 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

PAOX 

tance. Drawing - books by David Cox, 
Samuel Prout, and others, with coloured 
aquatint illustrations. 

Chapter XII. Coloured Aquatints, 1790 to 
1830, 126 

Miscellaneous aquatint illustrations, 1790- 
1830. Messrs. J. and J. Boydefl. Books 
on landscape gardening by H. Repton. 
Other books on gardening and rural archi- 
tecture. The increased interest in foreign 
countries; sport and travel. Edward and 
William Orme ; Thomas and William 
Daniell. Indian subjects, and other pub- 
lications by Orme. The Life of Mortand. 
Books on sport and military subjects. 

Chapter XIII. Coloured Aquatints, 1790 to 

1830 — {continued), 140 

Miscellaneous aquatint illustrations, 1790- 
1830. Books oftravel and scenery. Hassell, 
Pyne, etc. Records oi military and naval 
achievements. The Coronation of George 
IV. Books of Costume. Miller's series. 
J. A. Atkinson, Colonel Hamilton Smith, 
etc. Some odd volumes of caricature. 

Chapter XIV. Thomas Rowlandson, . . 159 

Rowlandson as an illustrator of books. The 
story of his life. His connection with Acker- 
mann. Combe as librettist to Rowlandson. 
Combe's curious career. The Tours of Dr. 
Syntax, and other books with Rowlandson's 
coloured plates. 



CONTENTS 

rAGB 

Chapter XV. Henry Alken, 177 

Some biographical notes. Aiken's drawing- 
books. His connection with the firm of 
M'Lean. His position as a maker of sport- 
ing prints. Books with his coloured plates. 
' Nimrod,' Surtees, and John Mytton. Un- 
certainW as to Aiken's later years. The 
work of his sons. 

Chapter XVI. George and Robert Cruik- 

SHANK 188 

Isaac, George, and Robert Cruikshank : the 
confusion of the three. Life and early work 
of Robert and George. The coloured books 
of Robert Cruikshank. George Cruik- 
shank's method of etching and colouring. 
His coloured books. Pierce Egan's Life tn 
London, etc. Two criticisms of George 
Cruikshank and his work. 

Chapter XVII. Leech, Thackeray, and 

'Phiz,' . 204 

The early work of Leech, and his connection 
with Punch. The old school of caricature 
and the new. Leech's Sketches in Oil 
and his coloured book-illustrations. The 
Christmas Books, Comic Histories, the Sur- 
tees novels, etc. Thackeray, and his early 
career as an artist. His coloured illustra- 
tions. Christmas Books, etc. The coloured 
work of * Phiz.' 

Chapter XVIII. Nature-Printing, . . 221 
Alois Auer, and the discovery of nature- 
printing. "The process and its first appli- 
cation, described by Auer. Auer's claims 
b xvii 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

PACK 

disputed by Bradbury. The true sources 
of nature-printing, and justification of Auer. 
Bradbuiy's nature-printed illustrations in 
England. R. C. Lucas and his work. 
So-called ' nature-printing ' of butterflies. 

Chapter XIX. The Process of Chromo- 

LrrnoGRAPHY, 233 

Senefelder and the invention of lithogra- 
phy. The completeness of his discoveries. 
Colour - printing by lithography. Hull- 
mandel, Harding, etc. The old and new 
methods of chromo-Iithography. Its pre- 
sent position and its future. 

Chapter XX. Books Illustrated by Col- 
oured Lithographs, 242 

The pioneers of chromo-lithog^aphy. Hull- 
mandel, Day, Haghe, Owen Jones, etc. 
Lithc^raphs coloured by hand. N. Whit- 
tock, Bonington, Edmund Lear, etc. Hull- 
mandel's lithotint, and books in which it 
was employed. Other books illustrated by 
chromo-Iithography. T. S. Boys, David 
Roberts, Owen Jones, etc. The work of 
W. Griggs. 

Chapter XXI. The Chiswick Press and 

Children's Books 257 

The revival of colour-printing from wood- 
blocks. Charles Whittingham and the 
Chiswick Press. Whittingham's work in 
conjunction with Pickering. Books by 
Henry Shaw, etc. The regenerators of 
juvenile literature. Children s books with 
coloured plates. 



CONTENTS 

rAoi 

Chapter XXII. Edmund Evans, Crane, 
Greenaway, and Caldecott, . 266 

Edmund Evans, and the revival of colour- 
printing from wood-blocks. His early work 
with Birket Foster, etc. Coloured plates in 
The Graphic. Crane, Caldecott, and Green- 
away as illustrators of children's books. A 
consideration of their respective work. 

Chapter XXIII. Leighton, Vizetellv, 
Knight, and Fawcett 283 

Other colour-printers using wood-blocks. 
George Leighton : his connection with the 
Illustrated London News, and his work as 
a colour-printer. John Leighton and book 
ornament. The work of Vizetelly Brothers 
for John Murray. Charles Knight as a 
pioneer of cheap illustrated literature. Ben- 
jamin Fawcett, and his association with the 
Rev. F. O. Morris. 

Chapter XXIV. TheThree-Colour Process 
AND its Application, 290 

The rise and development of photo-mechani- 
cal processes — zincography and half-tone. 
The three-colour process, its history, theory, 
and method of working. Its increasing im- 
portance in modem book-illustration, and 
some notes on the books for which it has 
been employed. 

Chapter XXV. The Collecting of Col- 
oured Books : A Note on Catalogues 

AND Prices, 300 

xix 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Appendix 1. Coloured Books with Plates 
Printed by Baxter, 307 

Appendix IL Coloured Books Published by 
ackerhann 3io 

Appendix IIL Coloured Books with Plates 
BY Rowlandson, 315 

Appendix IV. Coloured Books with Plates 
BY Alken 319 

General Index 323 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

' The Halfpenny Showman.' From the Costume of 
Great Britain, by W. H. Pyne, 1808. (5«« 
p. 151.) Frontispiece. 

I. A Page from the ' Book of St. Albans,' i486. 
(Seep. 3.) Facing p. 4. 

u. The Designer, the Engraver, and the 
CoLOURER. From Schopper's Panoplia, 
1568. Engraved by Jost Amman. {See 
p. 6.) Facing p. 6. 

in. 'The Building and Vegetable.' From the 
Essay on the Invention of Engraving and 
Printing in Chiaro Oscuro, by J. B. Jackson, 
1754. {Seep. 19.) Facing p. 22. 

IV. 'Cottage and Landscape.' Engraved by J. 
Martin after J. Varley, and printed in colours 
by W. Savage. From Savage's Practical 
Hints on Decorative Printing, 1822. {^ee 
p. 26.) Facing p. 30. 

V. A Plate prom the ' Colorfto,' by J. C. \jt 
Blon, 1722, illustrating the final printing in 
Le Blon's process. {Seep. 50.) 

Facing p. 50. 

VI. 'A Protestant Church in the Low Coun- 
tries,' after Pieter Saenredam. Plate 8 of 

xxi 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

the Collection S Imitations de Dessins, by C. 
Josi, 1819. {See p. 59.) Pacing p. 60. 

VII. ' Mother Jak,' by Bartolozzi, after Hans Hol- 

bein. From Imitations of Original Drawings 
by Hans Holbein, I'jcfz. {Seep.t2.) 

Pacing p. 62. 

VIII. 'The Snowdrop and Crocus,' by W. Ward, 

after Pether. From The Temple of Flora, 
by R. J. Thornton, 1799-1807. (Seep. 67.) 

Pacing p. 68. 

IX. A Plate from ' Europe : A Prophecy,' by 
William Blake, 1794. (Seep. 79.) 

Pacing p. 72. 

X. A Plate from 'Visions of the Daughters 
of Albion,' by William Blake, 1793. (See 
p. 78.) Pacing p. 78. 

XL Interior View of Ackermann's * Repository 
OF Arts.' From the Repository of Arts, 
vol. i. p. 53, 1809. (Seep. 99.) Pacing p. 98. 

xii. ' A Watch-House,' by J. Bluck, after Row- 
landson and Pugin. Plate 91 of The Micro- 
cosm of London, 1810. (Seep. 100.) 

Pacing p. 100. 

xiiL ' Pembroke Hall, etc., from a Window at 
Peterhouse,' by J. C. Stadler, after F. 
Mackenzie. From Ackermann's History of 
the University of Cambridge, 1815. (See 
p. 104.) Pacingp. 106. 

xrv. 'Afternoon: A View in Surrey,' by H. 
Reeve, after David Cox. From A Treatise 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

on Landscape Painting and Effect in Heater- 
Colours. {Seep. Ii8.) Facing p. ii8. 

XV. ' Dunbar, Haddingtonshire.' Drawn and 
engraved by W. Daniell. From vol. vi. of 
A Voyage Round Great Britain, by W. 
Daniell, A.R.A., 1814-1825. {Seep. 138.) 

Facing p. 138. 

xvi. ' North Front of Windsor Castle,' by 
T. Sutherland, after G. Samuel. From the 
History of the Royal Residences, by W. H. 
Pyne, 1819. {Seep. 142.) Facing p. 142. 

XVII. ' Morning Dresses, Month of November, 
1795.' From the Gallery of Fashion, by N. 
Heideloff, 1795. {Seep. 150.) Facingp. 150. 

sviii. 'The Family Picture,' by T. Rowlandson. 
From The Vicar of IVakefield, 1817. {See 
p. 172.) Facingp. 172. 

XIX. ' Bull-Baiting.' Engraved by J. Clark, after 
Henry Aiken. ¥roxa The National Sports of 
Great Britain, 1821. {Seep. 182.) 

Facingp. 182. 

XX. 'Art of Self-Defence. Tom and Jerry 
RECEIVING Instructions prom Mr. Jackson 
AT HIS Rooms in Bond Street.' Drawn 
and engraved by I. R. and G. Cruikshank. 
From Life in London, by Pien:e Egan, 1821. 
{Seep. 197.) Facingp. 198. 

XXL ' The Battle of the Nile.' Drawn and 
etched by G. Cruikshank. From Greenwich 
Hospital, 1826. {Seep. 201.) 

Facingp. 202. 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

xxii. Mr. Jorrocks (log) — 'Come hup I I say — 
You ugly Beast.' Drawn and etched by 
John Leech. From HancUey Cross, or Mr. 
Jorrocki Hunt, by R. S. Surtees, 1854. (See 
f. 212.) Facing p. 212. 

xxm. ' Arundel Castle,' by J. D. Harding. From 
Harding s Portfolio, 1837. (Seep. 249.) 

Facing p. 236. 

xxre. ' Hotel de Cluny, Paris,' by T. S. Boys. 
From Picturesque Architecture in Paris, 
Ghent, Antwerp, and Rouen, 1839. (See 
p. 249.) Facing p. 248. 

XXV. ' Bethany.' From yiews in the Holy Land, 
by David Roberts, 1842-1849. (Seep. 251.) 
Facing p. 252. 

xxvL A Plate from ' Under the Window,' by 
Kate Greenaway. Printed from the original 
wood-blocks. (Seep. 277.) Facing p. 278. 

XXVII. ' Christie's Auction Rooms,' by J. Bluck, 
after Rowlandson and Pugin. From the 
Microcosm of London, 1810. (Seep. 100.) 

Facing p. 300. 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

CHAPTER I 

THE BOOK OF ST. ALBANS 
^Disstnrt inetptam et rtrum firimanUa Random.'— UJCKmus. 

A DISTINGUISHED writer began a work that 
has since been the study of many willing and 
unwilling g-enerations, with the straightforward 
remark — All Gaul is divided into three parts. With a 
like simplicity, and with an equal avoidance of un- 
necessary exordium, it may be said that all colour- 
illustration is divided into three parts. Its provinces 
are those of printing from wood, from stone, or from 
metal. The line of demarcation is, of course, exceed- 
ingly difficult to define, for the three provinces meet 
here, and overlap there, and all three possess a common 
Hinterland. As far as possible, however, each shall 
be treated separately, its features of interest noted, its 
limits defined ; but at times it will be necessary, after 
the manner of Baedeker's guide-books, to call a halt 
and hark back on another route, or to cross a border at 
a place for convenient excursion in a new neighbour- 
hood. And as the use of wood-blocks is the oldest of 
all methods of printing, and the use of coloured wood- 
blocks y^Mtfons et origo of all colour-printing, here lies 
our obvious starting-point. 

The wealth of invention and the marvels of artistry 
and technique displayed in the colour-prints of Japan 
are apt to lead to the wrong idea that the art of colour- 

A I 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

printing, like so many other discoveries, owes its first 
origin to the gorgeous East. It was not, however, till 
the eig"hteenth century that Japan began to produce 
the brilliant colour-prints that have so charmed and 
influenced the Western world, and there is no evidence 
to show that the art of printing in colours, which rose in 
Germany in the fifteenth century, owes its origin to any 
foreign or Eastern influence. In his Japanese Colour 
Prints^ Mr. E. F. Strange offers an interesting specula- 
tion as to the origin of colour-printing in the East. 
He points out that in the sixteenth century, under the 
auspices of St. Francis Xavier, Christianity was actively 
propagated in the island of Tan^shima, and in 1583 
an embassy was sent by the native Christians to the 
Pope at Rome. The art of chiaroscuro engraving, in 
all essentials identical with Japanese colour-printing, 
was largely in vogue at the time in Italy, and nothing 
is more probable, as Mr. Strange suggests, than that 
prints of saints and similar religious subjects may have 
been among the objects taken home by the ambassadors, 
and at a later period may have suggested their colour 
process to the Japanese. The absolute truth of this 
remains to be proved, but it is certain that Italy and 
Germany owe nothing to Japan. The fact is that in 
every civilised society which possesses an established 
art of painting, colour-printing rises from the natural 
inclination to apply colours by hand to impressions 
from woodcuts printed in black and white, and from 
this to the application of colour to the block itself is a 
natural and easy step. 

The earliest example in a book of printing in two 
or more colours by means of engraved wood-blocks is 
to be found in the Psalter, printed by Fust and 
Schoeffer at Mainz in 1457,^ where the capital letters 
are in blue and red. Herzog's edition of Crispus de 

' A perfect copy of this Psalter was sold at Sotheby's od December ii, 1904, 
for ;f 4000. 



THE BOOK OF ST. ALBANS 

Montibus's Repetitio tit. Institutionum de Heredibus, 
published at Venice in 1490, shows printing in red, 
brown, and green; and in 1493 Ratdolt's Missak 
Brixinense, published at Augsburg, gives examples of 
several colours printed from wood, with much additional 
colouring added by hand. Copies of all these books 
are in the King's Libraiy at the British Museum, and 
in the Print Room may be seen a single page of Senfel's 
Liber Selectarum Cantionum (a complete copy is in 
the Berlin Libraiy), printed at Augsburg by Gnmm and 
Wirsung in 1520,^ showing the use of seven or eight 
colours. The method of printing is the same as in 
the case of the chiaroscuros of this period, to which 
reference is made in Chapter m. 

It is strange that one of the earliest books printed 
in England should contain an isolated example of 
colour-printing. This is the work known from the 
town in whiui it was compiled and printed as TAe 
Book of St. Albans. The earliest printed book- 
illustrations of any sort in England are two little 
woodcuts in the Parvus et Magnus Cato, printed by 
Caxton in 1481, and appearing again with some others 
in the Mirrour of the tVorld, printed during the same 
year ; so that the Book of St. Albans, published in 
i486, contains not only the first colour illustration, but 
is within five years of the first English book-illustiation 
of any sort, and within ten years of Caxton's Dictes or 
Sayengis of the Philosophers, the first book printed in 
our country. 

The book itself bears no title, but as in many 
fifteenth century books, the subject of the work has to 
be learned from the text. It consists of four parts, the 
first of which is on hawking, the second on hunting, 
the third (the ' Liber Armorum ■) on the heraldic right 

* The eognvet working for Grimm and Wimug has recently been 
identified \rj Dr. H. R6ttinger and Mr. Campbell Dot^on as Hans Weidits 
ofStnssburg. 

3 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

to bear arms, and the fourth on ' the blasyne of armys.' 
The colophon of the whole book states : ' Here in thys 
boke afore ar contenyt the bokys of haukyng and 
huntyng with other plesuris dyverse as in the boke 
apperis and also of Cootarmuris a nobuU werke. And 
here now endyth the boke of blasyng of armys translatyt 
and compylyt togedyr at Seynt albons the yere from 
thincamacion of owre lorde Jhu Crist, m.cccclxxxvi.' 
There is a pleasing air of mystery about writer and 
about printer. Of the latter a little more information 
is supplied from an incidental notice by Wynki^ de 
Worde, who in his reprint of the Chronicles, originally 
issued from the St. Albans pres% says in his colophon : 
' Here endith this present Chronicle . . . compiled in 
a book and imprinted by our sometime Schoolmaster 
of St. Alban.' We have no time here for fanciful sur- 
mises as to the unknown schoolmaster, who set up his 
lonely printing-press beneath the shadow of the great 
cathedral, or as to Dame Juliana Bemers, who from 
the statement at the end of the book of hunting — 
' Explicit Dam. Julyans Barnes ' — has been credited 
with the authorship of the whole work. The at- 
tempted biographies, from the time of Bale and 
Holmshed onwards, have been torn to shreds by 
Mr. William Blades in the introduction to his i88i 
reprint of the Book of St. Albans. The sport-loving 
authoress and the studious schoolmaster-printer remain 
but a legend and a name. 

Our present interest lies in the fourth part of the 
book, dealing with the ' blasyng of armys. Book iii. 
had closed with : ' Here endeth the mooste speciall 
thyngys of the boke of the lynage of Coote armuns and 
how gentylmen shall be knowyn from ungentylmen, 
and now here foloyng be^nnyth the boke of blasyng 
of all man armys : m Tatyn french and English.' This 
fourth book consists of sixty-six printed pages, embel- 
lished with woodcut initial letters, and with 117 coats- 
4 



1 10 ■r\-, 
..■■1 111 1 .-. 



f i\ 



■ ■■. ;■...■:, ,,,H„f,!,. 

. ':\ :' ,' i '.--■osic .-jLC::i'' 
-■; ^ i' ' -.'ic arn.iuiis :::kI 

;■■ ''ii'.-f u^^;ii'-ii.'"i :':'■, 

'1 r'lti.ii i. !Ui-, :;r;d i^:in J17 <:;,.\\:- 



■: ]1(K)K OF .ST. .\I,I1AN>. Il-i-l 



THE BOOK OF ST. ALBANS 

of-arms. These initials and coats -of-arms are all 
colour-printed from wood blocks — blue, red, yellow, 
and an olive green being the principal colours — and 
the more unusual tints are added by hand. 

The use of two printed colours for initials dates as 
far back as the Mainz Psalter of 1457, mentioned 
above, which has the magnificent B at the head of the 
first psalm, as well as some two hundred and eighty 
smaller initials, all printed from wood blocks, in blue 
and red. The method of the printing has always been 
a vexed question. In the editions of 1457 and 1459 
the letter is in one colour and the surrounding orna- 
ment in another. In the edition of 1515, however, the 
same initials are used, but while the exterior ornament 
is printed, the letter and the interior ornament are 
omitted. This shows, at any rate, that two different 
blocks were used, and Mr. Weale is of opinion that 
they were not set up with the rest of the text, but 
' printed, subsequently to the typography, not by a pull 
of the press, but by the blow of a mallet on the super- 
imposed block.' The same statement presumably 
applies to the first edition of the Book of St. Albans^ 
which has the distinction of being not only the first, 
but for a period of almost three hundred years the 
only, colour-printed English book. The existing copies 
could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and were 
one to come into the market at the present day, its 
price would have to be reckoned in thousands. For- 
tunately there is a copy in the King's Library at the 
British Museum. 

The fact that for nearly three hundred years after 
the publication of the Book of St. Albans there was no 
colour-printing does not imply that there were no books 
issued with coloured plates, for many were published 
with the plates coloured throughout by hand. Wynkyn 
de Worde's reprint in 1496 of the Book of St. Albans, 
to take an early instance, has new blocks rather rudely 

5 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

hand-coloured. The battle royal between scribe and 
printer continued till well on in the fifteenth century, 
and it was no unusual thing for the printer to employ 
illuminators, not only because, while illuminators were 
still plentiful, hand-work was the least expensive method 
of decoration, but also because it was still necessary for 
him to vie with the excellence of illuminated manu- 
scripts. As early as 1471 woodcut initials were used by 
Zainer at Augsburg, consisting of outlines only, intended 
to be filled in by hand. Also, owing to the introduction 
of the ' director,' a small letter indicating what initial 
the rubricator was to supply, hand-painted initials 
obtained a new lease of life. 

The three principal people, apart from printer, 
binder, and so forth, who contributed to the making 
of an illustrated book in 1568, are perfectly portrayed by 
Jost Amman in his woodcuts illustrating Schoppers 
Panoplia, omnium illiberalium mechanicarmn aut seden- 
tariarum artium genera continens. One plate with the 
title ' Adumbrator : Der Reisser,' shows the artist making 
his drawing. In the next plate the engraver, ' Sculptor: 
Der Formschneider,' is at work on ms block. The 
most interesting, however, is that of the colourer of 
prints, ' Illuminator Imaginum : Brieffmaler.' He is 
seated at a table, with what appears to be a good north 
light from a leaded window at his right hand. On an 
oak chest beside him are brushes and dishes of paints. 
In front on the table is a pile of prints, one of which he 
is illuminating. Schopper's elegiac verses tell how the 
colourer's painstaking brush clothes the engraver's out- 
lines with the fitting colours, and how it revels in the 
glint of gold and silver, when opportunity offers for 
their dismay. 

' Effigies variis distinguo colortbus omnes, 
Quas habitu pictor simplidore dedit. 
Hie me peniculus juvat oniciosus in omni 
Parte, meumque vagis vestibus ornat opus. 

6 



■ ^- :'l ^cri^e .Hid 

• -.■ ;.:. -rr to cR;!oy 

; ;■■.. • ■■■■:v.-!Vf tiiidirKJ 

■ --.-. ■: ^., v.h;:t in[i;r,! 



:> L,-': .-a {■■> liic n:;:kip,; 

• 1"' ^-crfu^ctly pfrtrayi-J by 

.-.'■■ .!lu:-itrati!';< Schc!■p■^^^ 

}.'.:/;)! g- ■■ yi. i.'i:-c j-Litc \vi;li t'u; 

'..■rat'.r; • ' :,' s^v.-n^ l!;iiii;-ti>t I'.i/.k'r-" 

■- I' '■ . ;..' ih.^ c:p':rr.vcr. ' Scu'i'tor; 

■ work u'i'!;is l;!u':K. 'The 

r, is t:,..t of t!;e oi\ourtv of 

. ■-...inuiu : l.p.'rrni-iiLr/ Ife is 

■.■, l:.-X npi'-^.u s t.'i hv a <:'ooa n-M'th 

■1 art: l.:::-!if.> iv.vl ^':~!:t;S of l-,iiii' , 

.i'lo i> .1 rile of jif; I -.(.■■;(> (>f u iii! :. '■■- 

. i-tal.ir;., '.nwh r[ >\.k7, V-u: ■ ns^ravcr's f>i;t- 
ho !'!!!■ -r <."■'■ ■ . . .tii'I ' ■-'. it R-vcis in the 
1.1 i'liKi Mi-..: .■.!'■.■'; •- _ _..j'-tunily oiiv'r> k-r 



J 14- i 



f it' 

E ' 



S pi I 






i 
I 
1^ 



a 



if 'J 




-I 

ill 



I* 

I* 



i 
I 



PLAIN AND COLOURED 

Caique suum tribuo quem debet habere colorem, 

Materiis cultus omnibns addo saos. 
Utioiur argenti, radiantis et utimur auri 

Munere, cum rerum postulat ordo vices, 
Omaibus his furias pictoribus imprecor omnesi 

Qui bene nee piogunt, nee vigilanter agunt' 

Throughout the sixteenth century in Germany it was 
quite usual for illustrations as well as initial letters to 
be coloured by hand, just as separate woodcuts had 
been before. The practice only gradually disappeared 
after Dilrer's reforms in technique had caused the 
higher class of cuts to be accepted as complete in plain 
black-and-white. To Mr. Campbell Dodgson I am 
indebted for an amusing reference in the Schatzbe- 
halter to the common practice, the author in the 
explanatory text to the tenth woodcut requesting that if 
the cut be coloured the cow may be painted red, since 
the animal he has in his mind is the red heifer of 
Numbers xix. It is recorded also that the Nuremberg 
Chronicle was sold, unbound and uncoloured, for two 
Rhenish florins ; bound and coloured for six. 

Colouring of heraldic devices and of engraved title- 
pages and maps is so common throughout tiie books of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to make it a 
question of interest whether such colouring was con- 
temporary, and if so whether it was executed in the 
workshop of the printer. The exact relation between 
printer and illummator in the fifteenth and the early 
part of the sixteenth centuries still requires much 
investigation, but there is sufficient evidence that to a 
certain extent they worked side by side. Professor 
Middleton, in writing of illuminated manuscripts, 
draws a pleasing, though perhaps somewhat fanciful, 
picture of Gutenberg's shop, with its compositors and 
printers,. cutters and founders of type, illuminators of 
borders and initials, and skilful binders, who could 
cover books with various qualities and kinds of bind- 

7 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

ing. He suggests that a purchaser, for example, of 
Gutenberg's magnificent Bible, in loose sheets, would 
then have been asked what style of illumination he was 
prejpared to pay for, and then what kind of binding, 
and how many brass bosses and clasps he wished to 
have. Actual evidences, however, are against this 
pleasing picture ; for, if we take only the case of the 
Bible he mentions, Heinrich Cremer, who rubricated, 
illuminated, and bound the copy now in the Biblio- 
th^ue Nationale, and Johann rogel, whose stamps are 
found on two or three of the extant copies, appear in no 
way to have been associated with the worktop of the 
printer. 

If it is a doubtful supposition that the colouring was 
executed in the workshop, there is no reason to dispute 
the possibility of its having been done in many cases 
by an illuminator of the city where the book was pro- 
duced. It is impossible to read a list of the members 
of any mediaeval city guild without being struck by 
the infinite variety of the trades represented. In the 
records of the Guild of St. John the Evangelist, 
the patron saint of scribes, founded at Bruges in 1454, 
no less than fourteen branches of industry employed 
in the manufacture of books are represented, among 
the craftsmen being printers, painters of vignettes, 
painters {Schilderer), and illuminators {l^erlichter). It 
may therefore be reasonably supposed that the same was 
the case in England at London, Oxford, St. Albans, 
and other publishing centres. Possibly also there 
were travelling limners, like those in Germany, whose 
trade was to illuminate Stammbuch and Tumierbuch. 
Heraldic books, as might be expected, are among those 
most constantly illuminated, and it must be remem- 
bered that in the sixteenth century heraldry was a 
popular science. Knowledge of it marked the gentle- 
man, ignorance was the stajnip of a churl. Knowledge 
of heraldry implied the knowledge of the correct 
8 



BOOKS OF HERALDRY 

colouring of coats-of-arms, and there is no doubt that 
many illuminated heraldic books were coloured at the 
time of their issue l^ amateurs. That this is the case 
in England as well as abroad is shown by many books 
on the art of illumination, of which a good instance is 
that published by Richard Totill in 1573, 'in Flete- 
streete within Temple-barre, at the signe of the Hande 
and Starre,' — A very proper Treatise, wherein is 
briefly sett fort he the Arte of Limming . . . with diverse 
other thinges very mete and necessary to be fenowne to 
all such gentlenumne, and other persones as doe delite 
in limming, painting, or in tricking of armes in their 
right colors, and thereffre a worke very mete to be 
adioned to the bookes of armes. 



CHAPTER II 

HAND<:OLOURED PLATES FROM 150O TO l8cX) 

FOR as nearly as possible a century after the 
B<x>k of St. Attans the woodcut held undis- 
puted sway in English illustration. From 1540 
onwards a few line engravings on metal appear, and 
after 1590 engraved illustrations increase rapidly, 
ousting the woodcut from popular favour. For a 
hundred and fifty years or more, line engravings were 
the prevailing form of illustration in books of heraldry, 
of natural history, of furniture and ornament, in large 
county histories, or in series of reproductions of pictures, 
with or without letterpress. Line engraving does not 
naturally produce a successful result when printed in 
colour. Mezzotint, stipple, or aquatint plates, when 
printed in colour, give uniform tones, showing the tints 
in a mass ; but if a line engraving is printed in colour, 
the colours seem to emphasise the streakiness of the 
separate lines, and the result is never wholly pleasing. 
Many of these early books, however, are illustrated 
with line engravings coloured by hand. The colouring, 
although contemporary, does not always imply a 
systematic issue by the printers, but is frequently the 
result of amateur amusement, often producing excellent 
results. That the colouring of prints by hand was a 
popular practice is shown by various treatises on the sub- 
ject. A Book of drawing, limning, washing, or colouring 
of maps and prints was published in London in 1660. 
In 1723 there is a book by John Smith, entitled The Art 
10 



COLOURING BY HAND 

of Painting in Oyl . . . to which is added the whole Art 
and Mystery of Colouring Maps and other Prints with 
Water-Colours. The author states that he has 'as 
yet seen nothing published upon this subject that is 
Authentick.' A few ^ears later appeared The Art of 
Drawing and Painting in IVater-Colours. Whereby 
a Stranger to those Arts may be immediately rendef^d 
capable of Delineating any i^iew or Prospect with the 
utmost exactness; of Colouring any Print or Drawing 
in the most Beautiful Manner. This was printed ' for 
J. Peele, at Locke's Head, in Amen-Comer, 1731.' 
Chapter v. is headed, ' Of Colours for Illuminating of 
Prints in the best Manner; or of Painting in Water- 
Colours.* 

The same writer repeats his advice in his Method of 
learning to draw in Perspective, printed for J. Peele in 
1735. He gives some interesting notes of technique in 
colouring prints by hand, one of his main points being 
the avoidance of white paint. ' If you leave the Lights 
on this Occasion, the Whiteness of the Paper serves 
instead of the Use of White Paint, which is an heavy 
Colour, and would rather confound the edges of the 
Colours, which I have prescribed to be laid on, than 
do them any Service ; but the Colours which I have 
directed, where there is no White laid on, will agree- 
ably shine into the White of the Paper. I am more 
particular in this, because several, if they see a Flower 
of a blue Colour, will lay it all over with one Colour, 
though it is thick enough to hide both the Lights and 
the Shades, and then it remains like a Penny Picture, 
where there is nothing to be seen but a Jargon of Reds, 
Blues, and Yellows. With a little Practice of what I 
direct, you will soon see the good Effect of laying on 
Colours for this Use ; though the Dawbing of Prints 
in the Common Manner may please the Ignorant, when 
everyone of Taste will soon discover the Impertinence.' 
The employment of transparent water-colour as advised 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

in these treatises was soon extended from its original 
use for tinting of prints to the tinting of outline 
drawings ; and when aquatint came to be used as a 
means of producing coloured designs in facsimile, the 
occupation of washer became a regular branch of 
business. Turner and Girtin in their early days were 
both thus employed by the publishers of prints. It 
must not, however, be supposed that all books of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that now appear 
with coloured plates, were hand-coloured by their 
possessor for his own pleasure or edification. There 
IS, on the other hand, a large number of books, 
illustrated with line engravings, which were issued by 
the printer in a coloured state, the colouring being 
frequently done by the author, or under his immediate 
supervision. 

All through the eighteenth century numerous books 
were issued in this way, with engravings admirably 
coloured by hand. Some of those dealing with natural 
history are the most notable. A Natural History of 
English Insects, "^v^cM^tA in 1720 by 'Eleazer Albin, 
Painter,' contains one hundred engravings of moths 
and butterflies, all carefully coloured by the author. 
From 1 73 1 to 1738 Albin also published a Natural 
History of Birds , with two hundred and five coloured 
plates. 

Another noteworthy book of this period is The 
Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama 
Islands, by Mark Catesby, published from 1731-1748. 
It forms two volumes, with two hundred and twenty 
plates, hand-coloured by the author. In his preface he 
writes : * Of the Paints, particularly Greens, used in the 
Illumination of Figures, I had principally a regard to 
those most resembling Nature, that were durable and 
would retain their Lustre, rejecting others very specious 
and shining, but of an unnatural Colour and fading 
Quality.' His care and skill are proved by the excellent 



COLOURING BY HAND 

condition of many surviving copies. By the same 
author is the Hortus Europae Americanus, with 
sixty-three plates, published in 1767, 'price colour'd 
^2:2: 6.* 

Another early naturalist was George Edwards, who 
wrote with all the simplicity and piety of Isaac Walton. 
From 1743 to 1751 ne issued his Natural history of 
uncommon birds . . . to which is added a general idea 
of drawing and painting in water colours ; and from 
1753 to 1764 his Gleanings of Natural History. The 
two together form seven volumes containing over three 
hundred plates, coloured by the author. Another 
interesting book was .published in 1749 by Benjamin 
Wilkes : The English Moths and Butterflies. Together 
with the Plants, Flowers, and Fruits whereon th^ 
Feed. All Drawn and Coloured in such a manner as 
to represent their several beautiful Appearances. The 
book has one hundred and twenty copper-plates 'al! 
drawn and etched in a quite new manner, whereb)^ eveiy 
Design, when coloured, appears like a regular Piece of 
Painting. . . . The Price of this Work colour'd is 
Nine Pounds; Uncoloured, Three Pounds Thirteen 
Shillings and Sixpence.' The Flora Londinensts, 
1778-1798, by William Curtis, contains over four 
hundred hand-coloured plates of wild-flowers in the 
neighbourhood of London. A word, too, must be 
said of The Botanical Magazine, or Flower Garden 
displayed, started by William Curtis in 1787, and 
still in existence. From 1801 to 1826 it was continued 
by J. Sims as Curtis's Botanical Magazine. After 
1826 it was conducted by S. Curtis, Sir W. J. Hooker, 
and Sir J. D. Hooker successively. In 1901 a com- 
plete set from the commencement was offered for sale 

One of the last examples of the old style of colouring 
line engravings by hand is the work of William Fowler. 
Fowler was born at Winterton, Lancashire, on March 

^3 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

i3i 1761. He was trained as an architect and builder, 
but his real interest lay in purely antiquarian and 
artistic pursuits. To his wonderful industry and 
patient pertinacity is due the series of plates, Mosaic 
Pavements, Stained Glass, etc.^ of which a complete 
set is so extremely rare. The plates were issued 
separately, and without any definite order, from 1799 
onwards. It was not till twenty-seven subjects had 
appeared that Fowler thought of gathering them into a 
volume, published on October i, 1804. Emboldened 
by his success, he produced in 1809 an appendix with 
twenty-seven engravings, and in 1824 a second appendix 
with twenty-six plates. The principal subjects of the 
plates throughout are mosaics, stained glass, and 
monuments. All except the two plates of Roman 
tesselated pavements at Winterton and Horkston were 
engraved in line, with the occasional use of aquatint, 
by Fowler himself. Practically all were hand-coloured 
by Fowler; the few remaining ones were coloured 
under his supervision. The second appendix is almost 
unknown, and a perfect set of the three volumes seems 
never to have appeared in the sale-room. The most 
complete set offered for sale within recent years con- 
tained seventy-seven plates ; and Lowndes's Biblio- 
grapher's Manual describes it as 'a magnificent work 
in two volumes of fifty-four plates,' stating that thirty 
or forty copies only were printed. 



14 



CHAPTER III 

JOHN BAPTIST JACKSON 

IN the last chapter the history of books with illus- 
trations coloured by hand was sketched briefly as 
far as the year 1800. In regard to illustrations 
actually printed in colour, there is a long gap in Eng- 
land from the Book of St. Albans till the eighteenth 
century, when the revival of chiaroscuro by Kirkall, 
Jackson, and others brings a renewal of colour-printing 
from wood-blocks. As this revival of chiaroscuro is of 
no little importance in the history of illustration, it 
may not be out of place to trace briefly the earlier 
history of the art, its nature, methods, and alms, and 
to show its later development and influence. 

However well the g^eat masters of engraving suc- 
ceeded in expressing texture, tone, and the gradations 
of light and shade by means of pure black and white, 
there was alwa3rs the natural inclination to supply the 
want of those qualities that colour alone can bestow. 
And once the possibility of printing in two colours is 
grasped, you have the root idea that passes through 
the stages of chiaroscuro printing to develop into the 
finished product of coloured mezzotint, aquatint, and 
lithograph, and that finds its expression alike in the 
modest delicacy of a stipple-engraving by Ryland, and 
in the flaunting glare of some modem posters. One 
of the earliest manifestations of the natural instinct 
towards colour was the method of wood-eng^ving 
known as chiaroscuro, which, in rendering form as weu 

15 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

as colour, went a step further than the coloured orna- 
ment of the early German printers. Just as their 
coloured initials originated from the desire to imitate 
cheaply the work of the illuminator, so in its initial 
stages chiaroscuro was simply a method of copying 
drawings or sketches by the masters of the sixteenth 
century, executed in the prevalent fashion of two or 
three tones on a tinted paper, with the lights put in 
with white body-colour. The earliest work of this 
style in Germany (' St. Christopher ' and the ' Venus 
and Cupid ' by Lucas Cranach) is dated 1506, while the 
first Italian chiaroscuros (' The Death of Ananias ' and 
' j^neas and Anchises,' both by Ugo da Carpi after 
Raphael) bear the date of 1518. Though the former 
country has therefore the actual priority, the Italian 
masters, particularly Ugo da Carpi, developed the art 
with more artistic feeling. 

Of special interest in connection with the history of 
book illustration is the title-page of the Akxandri 
Magni Regis Macedonum Vita, by P. Gualterus, pub- 
lished at Strassbui^ in 1513. The title-page is simple 
and decorative, havmg a short title and the date printed 
in red and black. Round this is a border design, at 
the sides being twisted trees whose branches intertwine 
across the top. Birds are seated among the branches, 
and various animals are enclosed behind a fence at the 
bottom. The whole bears a curious resemblance to 
some of Blake's designs. The border has been over- 
printed with a second block covering the whole design, 
and conveying a red tint. It is in the chiaroscuro 
manner, the square centre for the lettering and the 
lights on the trees and animals having been cut away 
from the block. 

It is noticeable that in cases where the design to 

be reproduced was unusually large and complicated, 

as in Da Carpi's copies of Raphael, the chiaroscuro was 

printed on several separate sheets. The reason lay in 

16 



METHOD OF REGISTRATION 

the difficulty of finding large enough blocks and a 
sufficiently lar^e press ; and a division into sheets is 
still the case with all large picture-posters of to-day. 

To reproduce such sketdies as nave been mentioned, 
the wood-engraver had to make one block for each 
tone. The ordinary method was to make a first block, 
which was printed in black, containing the outline and 
in some cases the deeper shadows. On this printed 
outline were superimposed the other blocks, with tints 
of sepia, bistre, or green, as the case might be. Care 
had to be taken that each block should register exactly, 
and if this was carefully managed the result was a good 
imitation of the gradations obtained hy the painter from 
the use of flat tints of colour. This repetition of 
impression with coincidence of raster, forming what 
is termed by French writers the rentrie^ is of extreme 
importance in all colour-printing from successive blocks. 
Registration is obtained by means of fine points, placed 
at the four angles of the frame or on the tympan of the 
press, which may pierce the paper always at the same 
spot. These marks will be found on uncut proofs of 
any colour-printing done by successive impressions, 
such as that of Baxter, Janinet, Debucourt, and later 
men, as well as the early chiaroscurists. In Papillon's 
Traiti de la Gravure en Bois, published at Paris in 1 766, 
will be found an instructive example of the method, illus- 
trated by prints from each of the four separate blocks 
composing a chiaroscuro, as well as by an impression 
of the completed whole, produced by combining the 
four. The German school rarely used more than three 
blocks, while the Italians not infrequently employed 
four or five. There seems no doubt also that in a few 
instances the early German engravers used for the 
outline a metal plate instead of wood, resorting to 
wood-blocks for their colour impressions. In one 
instance, the Historia Imperatorum Ceesarum RomO' 
norum, with forty-six portraits by Hubert Goltzius and 
B 17 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Gietleughen (Bruges, 1563), it seems an accepted fact 
that not only the first impression but the two sub- 
sequent rentries as well were from metal plates. This 
substitution of a metal plate for a wood-biock must be 
borne in mind in considering the later work of Kirkall 
and Baxter. In printing chiaroscuros the paper was 
probably damped, and subjected to considerable pres- 
sure. Even when thick paper was employed, the oack 
bears quite an embossed appearance. 

The art of chiaroscuro never quite died out 
Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1658) executed a number 
of masterly chiaroscuros, using an etched plate to 
convey the first outlines. About 1623 Louis Businck^ 
a French engraver, produced prints after Bloemaert 
and Lalleman; between 1630 and 1647 Bartolomeo 
Coriolano practised at Bologna ; and later came 
Vincent le Sueur in France, 1691 to 1764. In Eng- 
land there began a revival with E. Kirkall, who 
between 1721 and 1724 executed several chiaroscuros 
after Italian paintings, in which he attempted an im- 
provement by printmg his first impression from a 
metal plate worked in mezzotint, and adding his 
colours from wood. A fine collection of Kirkall's 
work is in the Print Room at the British Museum, 
of particular interest being the '.-Eneas carrying his 
Fatner out of the Flames of Troy,' after Raphael, 
where there is a finished mezzotint plate of the subject 
as well as another print showing the colours from wood- 
blocks su[)erimposed. Kirkall's prices were not par- 
ticularly high, for there are in existence receipts, dated 
in 1722, in which the engraver acknowledges the sum 
of one guinea, and promises to deliver a dozen more 
prints on payment of a second. Between 1730 and 
1740 Arthur Pond and George Knapton published 
imitations of sketches, the tinted grounds, landscapes, 
draperies, and so on being impressed from wood-blocks 
over an impression from an etched plate. Some of 
18 



THE CHIAROSCURO METHOD 

Pond's best work reproduces the sepia drawings of 
Claude. 

This somewhat lengthy preamble brings us to the 
first book published in England with chiaroscuro 
illustrations, for the work mentioned so far has 
entirely consisted of separate prints. In 1754 John 
Baptist Jackson published an Essay on the Invention 
of Engraving a«rf Printing in Chtaro Oscuro, the first 
Enelish book — with the exception of Le Blon's Colorito, 
to be mentioned later — with illustrations printed in 
colour since the Book of St. Albans, and of extreme 
value and importance. Jackson was bom in 1701, 
and 'studied as a pupil under Kirkall in London and 
Papillon in Paris. From Paris he travelled to Venice, 
where he worked from 1738 to 1745. Encouraged by 
the Marquess of Hartington and Sir Roger Newdigate, 
who were travelling in Venice, as well as by Mr. Joseph 
Smith, the famous English consul and connoisseur, he 
published in 1745 a volume of chiaroscuros after Titian, 
Tintoretto, and Veronese.^ Subsequently he returned 
to England, and opened at Battersea a manufactory of 
paper-hangings printed in colours in the chiaroscuro 
method. Jackson knew little of the history of the art, 
and it was really to push this enterprise that the Essay 
was published, a snull quarto volume containing eight 
chiaroscuro prints, four in the old style, and four in 
' proper colours.' These last four are an attempt to go 
beyond the three or four shades of one colour hitherto 
employed in chiaroscuro, and to use different natural 
colours in imitation of drawings. It is difficult to 
refrain from quoting the essay in its entirety, so pleas- 
ing is the old-world flavour of its rambling preface, 
with its unblushing laudation of Mr. Jackson, and its 
side-reference to me establishment by the Duke of 

1 Titiani Vecellii, Pauli Caliarii, Jacobi Robust! et Jacobi de Ponte 
Opera Selectiora a Joanne BapttsU Jackson Anglo Ugno coelata et coloribui 
adumbrata. Venetiis, hdccxlv. 

>9 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Cumberland of a tapestry manufactory at Fulham, a 
laudable encouragement that the writer seems to hint 
might well be extended to Mr, Jackson and his work. 
The writer refers briefly to the chiaroscuro work of 
Dtirer, Ugo da Carol, and others, and continues : 
'After having said aU this, it may seem highly im- 
proper to give to Mr. Jackson the Merit of invei\ting 
this Art ; out let me be permitted to say that an Art 
recovered is little less than an Art invented. The 
Works of the former Artists remain indeed, but the 
Manner in which they were done, is entirely lost : the 
inventing then the Manner is really due to the latter 
Undertaker, since no Writings or other Remains are to 
be found by which the Method of former Artists can 
be discover d, or in what Manner they executed their 
Works ; nor, in Truth, has the Italian Method since 
the Beginning of the i6th Century been attempted by 
any one except Mr. Jackson' The writer completely 
ignores the work done in England alpne by Kirkall, 
Knapton, and Pond ; and misses Jackson's real claim 
to ori^nality in his attempt to reproduce landscapes 
in their natural colours — ' proper colours,' as he calls 
them. 

His first attempt to use, as it were, a fuller palette 
in colour-printing, and to. discard the conventional for 
the realistic treatment of landscape, appeared in a series 
of six prints, published at Venice, and dedicated to 
the Earl of Holderness, the British ambassador. On 
coming to England he developed still further this 
method, which is described fully in the Essay. ' It is 
not improbable,' says the preface, 'that Gentlemen 
acquainted with Mr. Le Blonds Manner of Printing 
Engravings on Copper in Colours * may imagine it to 
be the same with this of Mr. Jackson, and tnat from 
the former he has borrowed his Design ; but whoever 
will take the least Pains to enquire into the Difference, 

> See Chapter vi. 
20 



THE CHIAROSCURO METHOD 

will find it impossible that the cutting on Wood Blocks, 
and printing the Impressions in various Colours from 
them, can be done in the same Way that is done on 
the Copper Plates in the Mezzotinto or Fumo Manner. 
Every Man who knows any Thing of the Nature of 
Engraving must be convinced that those Mezzotinto 
Plates, of all others, are the most liable to wear out ; 
that it is impossible for any Two Prints to be alike 
in their Colours when taken off in that Manner, 
and for this Reason, because the delicate and exquisite 
Finishings of the Flesh, and the tender Shadowings of 
all the Colours must be destroy'd ; the very cleaning 
the Plates from one Colour to lay on another is suffi- 
cient to ruin all the fine Effect of the Workmanship, 
and render it impossible to take off ten Impressions 
without losing all the Elegance of the Graving. On 
the contrary, the Method discovered by Mr. Jackson is 
in no Degree subject to the like Inconveniency ; almost 
an infinite Number of Impressions may be taken off so 
exactly alike, that the severest Eye can scarcely perceive 
the least Difference amongst them. Added to this, 
Mr. Jackson has invented ten positive Tints in Chiaro 
Oscuro ; whereas Hugo di Carpi knew but four ; all 
which Tints can be taken off by four Impressions 
only.' 

The book has also a definite importance in the 
history of applied art and house decoration. To quote 
once more : — ' Mr. Jackson has imagined a more ex- 
tensive Way of applying this Invention than has 
hitherto been thought of by any of his Predecessors ; 
which is the printing Paper for the Hanging of Rooms. 
By this Thought he has certainly obtained the most 
agreeable and most useful Ends for the Generality of 
Mankind, in fitting up Houses and Apartments, which 
are Elegance, Taste and Cheapness. By this way of 
printing Paper, the Inventor has contrived, that the 
Lights and Shade shall be broad and bold, and give 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

great Relief to the Figures ; the finest Prints of all the 
antique Statues which imitate Drawing are introduced 
into Niches of Chiaro Oscuro in the Fannels of their 
Paper ; these are surrounded with a Mosaic Work, in 
imitation of Frames, or with Festoons and Garlands of 
Flowers, with great Elegance and Taste. ... In short, 
every Bird that flies, every Figure that moves upon the 
surface of the Earth from the Insect to the human ; 
and every Vw^etable that springs from the Ground, 
whatever is of Art or Nature, may be introduced into 
this Design of fitting up and furnishing Rooms.' 

The illustrations snow suggested panels of wall- 
paper, four pictures of classical statues being in ordinary 
chiaroscuro, and four of ' Buildings and Vegetables ' in 
superimposed natural colours. Tne author claims that 
* the Ruins of Rome, Athens, Palmyra or Egypt may 
be printed, and Landscapes of any Kind after the best 
Masters in any Size, and the Ground of the paper done 
of one Colour. This, as has been said, will make a 
lasting and genteel Furniture, as all the colouring is 
done in Oil, and not subject to fly off, as in Papers 
finish'd in Water Colours.' In the illustrations the 
colours are so badly compounded with oil that the 
paper is in consequence extremely stained, and those 
unacquainted with Jackson's previous work are not 
likely to form from the Essay a favourable impression 
of ins ability, however much value th^ may attach for 
its own sake to the book itself, which is indeed one of 
the most notable in the history of colour-printing. His 
Venice publication, more in the old Italian style of 
three or more shades of one colour, shows far finer 
execution. In the British Museum are several loose 
prints, pictures in the classical style of ruined temples 
and wooded landscapes, executed with several natural- 
istic colours. A certain amount of convention was 
employed in these, for Jackson never dreamed of the 
twenty or more printings used later by Baxter, and in 



, f.r ]..:U.r 



v.tl. ,>;veui: ■■ ,' ir-il- 
•. r !■)■ i.;'xt(.r. ari.i in 



"THE BUILDING AND VEGETABLK" 



JACKSON'S WALL-PAPERS 

the limitation of their colouring many of the prints 
have a suriiace affinity to modern work, say by Rivi6re. 
Jackson's supreme achievement is a laige battle scene, 
with wonderful masses of rich colour superbly blended, 
reminiscent of Velasquez in breadth, in dignity, and in 
glory of tone. 

That Jackson's manufactory at Battersea enjoyed 
more than a measure of patronage and success, is 
shown in the Letters of Horace W'aipole, those easy, 
polished chronicles of an eighteenth-century dilettante 
and connoisseur, wherein the modern collector finds so 
much of information, and so much that brings the 
water to his mouth. Who, for instance, can read un- 
moved that Walpole had been 'collecting for above 
thirty years, and originally never gave for a mezzotint 
above one or two shillings ; the lowest are now a crown ; 
most from half-a-guinea to a CTiinea ' ? The capricious 
Gothic villa at Strawberry Hill, of which its owner 
wrote that some ' might be disposed to condemn the 
fantastic fabric, and to think it a venr proper habitation 
of, as it was the scene that inspired, the author of the 
Castle of Otranto* was hung throughout with Jack- 
son's papers. In a letter of 1753 Walpole writes:— 
' Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window 
below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone- 
colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, 
which I could never endure while they pretended, 
infamous as they are, to be after Titian, etc., but when 
I gave them this air of barbarous basreliefs thw suc- 
ceeded to a miracle : it is impossible at first sight not 
to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or 
Tottila, done about the very aera. . . . The room on the 
ground-floor nearest to you is a bedchamber, hung 
with yellow paper and prints, framed in a new manner, 
invented by Lord Cardigan : that is, with black and 
white borders printed.' Another bedchamber, he tells 
us, was hung with red in the same manner ; the room 

23 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

that contained his water-colours was papered in g^reen ; 
another has a ' blue and white paper in stripes adorned 
with festoons ' ; and ' under this room is a cool little 
hall, where we generally dine, hung with paper to 
imitate Dutch tiles.' 

There is a certain charm in straying down these 
quaint, old-fashioned side alleys that attract one from 
the broad, main street of history, and we are tempted 
to turn aside once more to look at Papillon's Traiti de 
la Gravure en Bois, published in 1766, when its author 
was seventy-eight years of age. Papillon's father and 
grandfather before him had been working engravers on 
wood, so that his book contains the accumulated gossip 
as well as the experience of three generations. As 
Christopher North remarked of sheep's head, it con- 
tains a deal of fine confused feeding. Its interest at 
the present moment lies in Papillon's connection with 
Jackson, and his repudiation of Jackson's claim to 
have invented wall-papers coloured in the chiaroscuro 
manner. According to Papillon, the first to invent 
qploured or ' tapestry ' papers, as he calls them, was his 
own father, who placed them on the market in Paris 
about 1688. He tells us that in his own early days 
his principal work, rather to his disgust, was the hang- 
ing of these tapestry papers, and relates how in 17 19 
or 1720 he was sent to paper a room for a Mons. de 
Greder, a Swiss officer, who had a charming house in 
the village of Bagneux, near Mont-Rouge. After hang- 
ing the room, he was asked to paste coloured papers, m 
imitation of mosaic, between the shelves of the library, 
and it was here that he found in an ancient book the 
curious histoiy of the twin Cunios, those legendary 
engravers of the year 1284. Papillon has much to say 
of the Comte de Caylus, with whom Jackson had 
worked in Paris, of Le Blon, of Vincent and Nicolas 
Le Sueur, who printed in colours; and of Leffevre, 
Blondel, Panseron, Langlois, and others, who before 
24 



JOHN SKIPPE 

1750 were selling coloured wall-papers in Paris — all 
goine to show that Jackson, thinking himself safe in 
London, wilfully suppressed all mention of his indebted- 
ness to other workers in his own sphere. 

It is of interest to note that Thomas Bewick, the 
maker of modem wood-engraving, had in his possession 
some of Jackson's prints, and also a drawmg of the 
press he used. Their owner, it must be confessed, did 
not think much of these prints, though he gave Jackson 
some credit as a maker of paper-lungings. It is to 
Bewick, however, that we owe the account of Jackson's 
last days, which, he tells us, were spent in an asylum 
under the protecting care of Sir Gilbert Elliot, at some 
place on the Scottish border near the Teviot, or on 
Tweedside. 

The last to make a definite practice of chiaroscuro 
work was an amateur named John Skippe. He was a 
Gentleman-Commoner of Merton College, Oxford, and 
after leaving the University studied painting under 
Vernet. In 1781 he published in book-form two sets 
of chiaroscuros (these, however, are without text) — 
'Part the First, containing Ten Prints engraved in 
Chiaroscuro,* and 'Part the Second, containing Ten 
Prints eneraven in Chiaroscuro.' These are capital 
work in the old Italian manner, though Skippe does 
not hesitate to combine two distinct colours, as, for 
instance, sepia and green. With Skippe the art practi- 
cally died out, though it has still to be referred to in 
connection with Savage's Hints on Decorative Printing, 
and the work of Geoige Baxter. 



25 



CHAPTER IV 

WILLIAM SAVAGE 



^T the beginning of the nineteenth century the most 
opular 



L\ popular process for book illustration was 
■*■ * aquatint, printed in colour and finished by 
hand, to which reference will be made later. But 
while aquatint was the principal process employed, 
there was a notable revival of colour-printing from 
wood-blocks in continuation of the chiaroscuro work 
of Jackson and Skippe. This was due to William. 
Savage, who was bom in 1770 at Howden, York- 
shire, and in 1799 was appointed printer to the Royal 
Institution. TTie results of Savi^e's experiments in 
colour-printing appeared in his Practical Hints on 
Decorative J^nting, published in 1822. The pries 
of the book was five guineas for small-paper copies, 
and eleven for large; and for the satis&ction of 
subscribers it was decided that all the blocks used 
should be destroyed after the firet and only edition 
was printed. To prove the sincerity of this decision, 
the blocks were gashed across, and prints from the 
damaged surface are given at the end of the book. 
Though the book is extremely interesting as a typo- 
graphical curiosity, the plates on the whole are in- 
diflerent and not particularly 'decorative.' As an 
example, however, of straightforward printing in colour 
without any retouching by hand, one of the illustra- 
tions, the 'Cottage and Landscape,' after J. Varlw, 
reaches a remaroble d^^ree of excellence. All the 
26 



REVIVAL OF CHIAROSCURO 

illustrations were printed by Savage himself or by 
members of his family, and the fact that the author 
was a practical working printer adds to the instructive 
value of his book. The illustrations, he tells us, so far 
as regards the printing and the inks, are the result of 
a long and protracted series of experiments, prosecuted 
for the purpose of overcoming practical difficulties that 
arose in almost every st^e of his work, and which 
elicited new facts or gave hints for further improve- 
ments. Some idea of the scope and aim of these 
Practical Hints will be best given by an extract from 
the preface, where the author writes: 'Upon the 
whole, the art of printing has been contracted to the 
mere process of producing books, and impressions from 
engravings on wood; and the imitation of drawings 
has been disused. From an examination of what had 
been done I long felt that the powers of it might be 
extended considerably; and that the old practice of 
printing in chiaro oscuro might be restored, and the 
imitation of coloured drawings be attempted with 
success, so as to give fac similes of the productions of 
different masters, at a small expense, to serve as 
studies, or for the decoration of rooms, where, if 
framed and glazed, the eye should not be able to 
distinguish them from drawings. With these feelings 
the present work was projected, so far as relates to 
printing in colour.' 

Savage in another place gives credit to Jackson for 
being the first to reproduce a water-colour drawing in 
proper or natural colours, but he makes the further 
statement that since Skippe's death nothing had been 
done in England in colours, with the exception of a 
few engravings in books printed with brown ink, and 
lottery Dills printed in three colours. It may well be 
supposed that Savage was ignorant of the work done in 
France by Janinet and Debucourt, and that the coloured 
mezzotints of the late eighteenth century, notably the 

27 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

superb examples by W. Ward after Morland, were 
dismissed by him as outside his province of decorating 
books, but there is absolutely no excuse for his entire 
omission of all reference to the work in coloured aquatint, 
where two and often three of the colours were printed. 
This may have been due to professional jealousy, or a 
more charitable reason may be found in his probable 
lack of sympathy with any work except that of the 
wood-engraver ; yet Savage must have seen, and ought 
to have admired, some of the aquatint books published 
by Ackermann and Orme at the very period when he 
was writing. 

The book deals with the whole art of printing, 
treating of materials, types, and presses, but the centre 
of the book is the chapter on * Printing in Colours,* 
and it is to the art of colour-printing that most of the 
text and nearly all the illustrations bear reference. It 
should, however, be premised that all Savage's experi- 
ments were confined to the use of wood-blocks. His 
entire sympathy was with the art of wood-engraving, 
of which he seems to have been an ardent admirer. In 
reference to the use of a suite of blocks and the difficulty 
of registration he writes : ■ I have invariably printed 
the whole impression from each block before I have 
proceeded with the continuation, without experiencing 
any particular variation in the paper; adopting only 
common precautions to prevent its drying; one of 
which was, to keep the edges from being too near the 
fire ; and another, to keep the outside wrappers damp ; 
and to continue to work the succeeding blocks in the 
same order that I had the first ; so that, if there should 
be any variation in the dampness of the paper — provided 
it be kept in the same state as when the work was 
commenced — after register is once made accurately it 
will continue the same, even should some of the paper 
be wet and some dry. When wet paper is worked, I 
found the best method was to interleave it with damp 
28 



METHOD OF PRINTING 

paper, in the same manner that set-off sheets are used 
m fine work ; for, where thirteen or fourteen blocks are 
used, working the paper so many times will make it 
drier, and that alters its dimensions ; but when a subject 
requires only three or four blocks, I should work three 
or four hundred impressions, without any other pre- 
caution than wetting the outside wrappers at night, 
and perhaps at the dinner hour, and should have no 
fear of their getting out of register. When a subject 
requires many blocks, or when it is large, four points 
will be necessary. They keep the paper steadier than 
two ; and serve to show any variations that may arise 
from its shrinking or expanding. Sometimes there are 
small parts in a drawing of a difTerent colour from any 
other part. Where this happens it will save a block 
and time in the working, to introduce the small parts 
on some other block, where they may stand clear of its 
tint, and to beat them with their proper colour with a 
small ball.' In a similar way, as will be noted later, 
an extra stone is saved in the process of chromo- 
lithography, and Savage's remarks as to damping the 
paper and using pin-points for re^stration apply 
equally to the work of the lithographer, and indeed to 
all colour-printing. From time immemorial the system 
of registration by pin-points has been in use in India 
for printing coloured textiles. The only difference is 
that there the colour is applied from blocks stamped by 
hand, and the pins are on these blocks instead of the 
frame of a printing-press. 

The illustrations of the book consist of a number of 
specimens treated in different ways for the purpose of 
explaining the process and of showing the effect that 
may be produced in a variety of subjects. They com- 
prise wood-engravings printed first with black ink, 
then with various simple tints. In imitation of slight 
drawings in sepia or Indian ink three blocks are 
employed, their separate and combined effects being 

29 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

shown, while more finished water-colour drawings are 
reproduced by a combination of seven or nine blocks. 
The value of these illustrations is much increased by 
the descriptive notes showing the method in which 
each was executed. Of the * Cottage and Landscape/ 
drawn by J. Varley and engraved by J. Thompson, we 
are told that ' in tnis subject there is a suite of fourteen 
blocks. It commenced with printing the clouds, which 
are the Neutral Tint ; then the blue sky, with Antwerpt 
blue, and advanced progressively to the darkest shades; 
the trees were glazed with green after the deepest parts 
were printed.' Of the 'Mercy,' painted by W. H. 
Brool« and engraved by G. W. Bonner, he writes that 
it * consists of a suite of twenty-nine blocks, in one of 
which two colours were introduced, making thirty 
distinct tints in the working ; this number, including 
the different tints produced by the blocks passing 
repeatedly over each other in a partial way, make it the 
most complete subject that was ever produced in the 
Type Press.' It should be added that the frontispiece 
is a fine chiaroscuro of four blocks, beautifully repro- 
ducing the British Museum bas-relief of a Bacchante. 
Savage obtained help in the illustrations from C. 
Nesbit, G. Thurston, R. Branston, W. Hughes, J. Lee, 
J. Martin, W. C. Walker, J. Byfield, J. Beriyman, 
and H. White, in addition to the engravers already 
mentioned. 

After the publication of this book Savage seems to 
have given no further practical expression to his ideas 
on colour-printing, though he still continued to pro- 
secute his researches. In 1825 he was a candidate for a 
premium from the Society of Arts, and the Transactions 
state that 'the large silver medal and fifteen guineas 
were this session presented to Mr. Wm. Savage, 
Cowley-Street, Westminster, for his improvements in 
Block Printing in imitation of coloured drawings.' 
Savin's letter to the Society, dated 19th January 
30 



: / 



i i 

i 



COLOURED PRINTING INKS 

1825, is practically a recapitulation of the contents of 
his book, indeed for the most part consists of extracts. 
The last paragraph in reference to his use of coloured 
inks should perhaps be quoted : ' In venturing before 
the Society of Arts as a candidate for a premium, I 
certainly advance no pretensions as an inventor; but 
rest my expectations on having extended the application 
of the common printing press ; on having introduced 
additional colounng matters for printing ink; and on 
having introduced a simple varnish (balsam of capivi), 
in its natural state, for the composition of these mks, 
that does not affect the colours and renders them 
perfectly easy in their management, nothing more 
being required than a stone and mullar. On my ;>art 
this is a first attempt to open a path to raise printing 
to a higher scale than was Defore thought practicable — 
that of a closer imitation of works of art, and also of 
nature — ^which will, I trust, be carried to a far greater 
state of perfection, and thus enable the press to decorate 
its own productions with an elegance and splendour 
well suited to that art which bestows so many blessings 
on man.' 

A subject to which Savage devoted special attention 
was the improvement of printing inks, which in his 
day were of a most inferior quality. His aim, in which 
he was ultimately successful, was to procure a printing 
ink without oil in its composition, and the result of his 
labours was embodied in a little book published in 
1832 with the title, Preparations in Printing Ink in 
Various Colours. In 1841, two years before his death, 
he published a Dictionary of the Art of Printing, the 
compilation of which had occupied him for forty years. 

The Practical Hints on Decorative Printing is now 
a rare book, and has the greater value in that it contains 
the only examples of Savage's work in colour-printing. 
Though the illustrations themselves in most cases 
compare unfavourably with later work executed on the 

31 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

same lines, it must always be remembered that Sav^e 
was a pioneer, and that his experiments supplied the 
foundation on which Baxter, Edmund Evans, and other 
printers from wood-blocks have all built their work. 

It is an additional recommendation of Savage's 
book that it has won a reference in the monumental 
work on wood-engraving by Mr. W, J. Linton, the 
greatest authority on the art of which he was so great 
a master. Mr. Linton does not as a rule concern 
himself at all with colour-printing, but at the close of a 
few remarks on chiaroscuro, he refers particularly to 
■ Savage's Practical Hints on Decorative Printing. He 
is not altogether satisfied with the colour-printing, 
which he is inclined to think too ambitious, but of the 
chiaroscuros he speaks with high praise. ' These are 
the finest, the most finished chiaroscuros from wood 
that I know ; admirable copies of the original drawings, 
tints efficiently arranged and most carefully printed, 
the engraver's part well done.' 



32 



CHAPTER V 

GEORGE BAXTER 

A NAME of no little importance in the history of 
colour illustration is that of George Baxter, 
whose process of colour-printing has been 
treated as somewhat of a mystery, and whose work has 
come to be honoured in booksellers' catalogues with 
the title of ' Baxter print ' or ' Baxtertype.' Baxter's 
work possesses a certain rarity, which is the more 
extraordinaiy in that he is said to have published 
300,000 copies of some of his prints. The importance 
attached to his name has been further enhanced by the 
cult of a Baxter Society at Birmingham, 'where his 
works, cum notis 'variorum^ are talked about.' How 
far his work bears any claim to originality, or how far 
he has merited this distinction, is a matter for dis- 
cussion. For many of my facts as to his life and work 
I am indebted to information kindly supplied by Mr. 
Charles F. Bullock, and to the excellent pamphlet on 
Baxter which he published in 1901.^ 

George Baxter was bom in 1804 at Lewes, in Sussex, 
where his father was a well-known printer and pub- 
lisher in the High Street. After leaving the High 
School of his native town, Baxter worked for a time 
under a wood-engraver in London. Returning to 
Lewes, he assisted in illustrating Horsfield's History 

^ Lift of George Baxter, Engraver, Artist, and Colour-Frin^, by C. F. 
Bollock Binpinghain, 1901. 

c 33 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

of Lewes, published by his father, John Baxter. For 
the first volume, published in 1824, he executed several 
lithographs ; and the second volume, published in 1S27, 
when he was twenty-three years old, was illustrated 
throughout with line engravings from his original 
drawings. In the same year he engraved the illus- 
trations to Select Sketches in Brighton, another of 
his father's publications. 

By this time ideas for colour-printing were floating 
in his mind, and returning to London he spent several 
years in wood-engraving and in maturing his schemes, 
but it was not until 1834 that his colour-prints were 

E laced upon the market The first notice in regard to 
is new process appears in Mudie's Feathered Tribes 
of the British Isles (1834), in the preface of which the 
publisher writes : ' I should mention that the vignettes 
on the title-pages are novelties, being the first successful 
specimens of what may be termed polychromatic print- 
ing, or printing in many colours jrom wooden blocks. 
By this method every shade of colour, every breadth of 
tint, every delicacy of hatching, and every degree of 
evanescence can be obtained. In these vignettes Mr. 
Baxter had no coloured copies but the birds, which 
are from nature. I made him work from mere scratches 
in outline, in order to test his metal, and I feel con- 
fident that the public will agree with me in thinking it 
sterling. In carrying this very beautiful branch of the 
Typographical Art successfully into effect Baxter has 
completed what was the last project of the great Bewick, 
but which that truly original and admirable genius did 
not live to accomplish.' 

This book was followed ^ Mudie's The Heavens, 
The Earth, The Air, and The Sea, four duodecimo 
volumes, published in 1835. To 1835 also belongs 
Gandee's The Artist, the preface to which says : ' The 
frontispiece is a very successful specimen of a new Art. 
It is done by taking successive impressions from wood- 
34 



BAXTER'S PATENT 

blocks, and when it is stated that no less than twelve 
are used in this instance, and consequently that each 
plate goes through the press twelve times, some idea 
may be formed of the ingenuity and skill required to 
consider so difficult a process.' 

In 1835 Baxter applied for a patent, and in 1836 
his productions, hitherto inscribed 'Printed in Oil 
Colours by Geo. Baxter, 29, King Square, London,' 
have the word ' Patentee ' added. Before taking out 
this patent Baxter had worked solely by means of 
superimposed wood-blocks, entirely in the manner 
advocated by Savage, but now seems only to have used 
the wood-blocks for adding the colours to an impres- 
sion from a steel or copper plate. It is interesting to 
note that just at this time Owen Jones was engaged in 
his first essays at producing a similar result by means 
of successive printings in chromo-lithography. 

For Baxter's process it will be best to quote his 
own description, given in his specification for a patent, 
No. 6916 of 1835, entitled, ' Improvements in pro- 
ducing coloured steel plate, copper plate, and other 
impressions.' The specification begins with the usual 
formulary and rigmarole of ' To all to whom these 
presents shall come, I, Geome Baxter of Charterhouse 
Square, in the County of Middlesex, Engraver, send 
greeting ' ; and continues as follows : — 

' My Invention consists in colouring impressions of steel 
and copper plate engravings, and lithographic and zincographic 
printing, by means of block printing, in place of colouring such 
impressions by hand, as heretofore practised, and which is an 
expensive process, and by such improvements producing 
coloured impressions of a high degree of perfection, and far 
superior in appearance to those which are coloured by hand, 
and such prints as are obtained by means of block printing in 
various colours uncombined with copper, steel, lithographic, 
or zincographic impressions. The process of printing land* 
scapes, architectural, animal, and other decorative impressions, 

35 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

by means of wooden blocks, being well known and in common 
use, it will not be necessary to enter very extensively into a 
description of that art, farther than to explain its af^cation to 
the colouring of impressions of copper and steel plate and of 
lithographic and zincographic printing. In order to produce 
a number of ornamental prints resembling a highly coloured 
painting, whether in oil or water colours, according to my 
Invention, I proceed first to have the design engraved on 
a copper or steel plate, or on stone or zinc, as is well under- 
stood, observing, however, that I make several spots or points 
on the plate or stone from which the impressions are taken, in 
order to serve as register marks for the commencement of the 
raster, which is most material in carrying out my Invention 
with correctness and effect. . . . Having possessed myself of 
an engraving of the subject which it is desired to have coloured 
to represent a highly finished oil or water colour painting, and 
having a copy ofthe painting before me which it is desired to 
produce an extensive series of imitations, and having deter^ 
mined on the number of colours and tints it will require, which 
is a matter of taste, at the same time depending on the nature 
of the painting which is to be copied ; but this is the same as 
if the copies are to be produced merely by a succession 
of printings from a series of wooden blodcs without having 
my improvement combined therewith — that of taking such 
printings on to impressions firom steel or copper plates, or 
from stone or zinc, in order to colour the same, thereby pro- 
ducing coloured impressions having a high degree of finish. 
It will be found that b^ thus colouring such descriptions of 
impressions the result will be, that the prints produced will be 
more exquisite in their finish, more correct in their outline, and 
more soft and mellow in their appearance, for it will be found 
that successive colourings and tints of a series of blocks being 
received on copper or steel plate, or lithc^japhic or zinco- 
graphic impressions, more body and character will be given to 
tne finished print than when the coloured print is the result of 
the same series of blocks taken on plain paper, which has been 
the practice heretofore. Having determined on the number of 
blocks which are to be used, I take an equal number of impres- 
sions on papet off the engraved plate, and successively place 
one face downwards on each block, and subject them respec- 
tively to the pressure of the press. By this means the blocks 

36 



BAXTER'S PATENT 

inll each have an impFession of the engraving. I then proceed 
to marie out carefully the particular parts which are to be left 
in relief of each block, by colouring them in those parts, having 
the painting before me, by which I readily observe to what 
extent each colour is Uud on the original picture, and the 
various shades to be produced, and by this means, when the 
blocks have been properly cut, I thus obtain a series of blocks 
aiitable for the particular print which is to be produced ; but I 
would remark that such designing and cutting of the blocks 
form no part of my Invention, hut are in common use. Having 
taken the number of impressions, whether of steel or copper 
plate, or of Uth<^fraphy or zincc^rraphy, and having the 
necessary block in the press for the first colour, on the 
tympan there are four or other number of fine points to receive 
the impression which is to be coloured by a series of blocks, 
the fine points receiving each engraving, and on each tympan 
there are a number of points which are caused to strike through 
the paper in pulling the first printing of colour, and the point 
holes thus produced are those which are used for the purpose 
of securing a correct roister in all the future impressions from 
the wooden blocks.' (Here follows a detailed reference to his 
annexed illustrations, which show one of his plates printed 
with seventeen colour blocks on a steel plate impression, another 
printed by the old plan of block-printing alone, and another 
with the colour-printing on a Uthographic impression.) ' I 
would observe, that throughout the description I have spoken 
of the blocks for printing we colours as being of wood ; but it 
will be evident that metal blocks, being engraved in relief, in 
like manner to wood, would answer a similar puipose. Having 
thus described the nature of my invention, and the manner of 
carrying the same into effect, I would remark that I am aware 
that many years ago some attempts were made to tint copper- 
plate impressions, called claro obscuro, which consisted in 
rVii^ additional tints of the same or nearly the same colour, 
do not therefore lay any claim to such tinting. But what I 
claim as my improvement consists in colouring the impressions 
from steel or co[n)er plates, or from lithographic stones or from 
xinc, by means of block printing as descrmed.' ' 

In 1849 (Pat. No. 12,753, Aug. 30) an extension of 
five years of Letters Patent was granted to Baxter. It 

37 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

is interesting to note that on the occasion of this 
extension, the Committee of the Privy Council called 
on David Roberts, R.A., to give evidence as to the 
actual value of one of Baxter s shilling prints. The 
artist replied that he considered it ' worth tualf a guinea,' 
and that there was ' nothing known that equalled the 
Patentee's invention in Colour Printing.' In delivering 
judgment on the same occasion, the Right Hon. Lord 
Brougham, Chairman of the Judicial Committee, laid 
considerable stress on the public utility of Baxter's 
invention. 'Their Lordships,' he stated, 'are also of 
opinion that the invention is of public utility, because 
whatever makes good prints almost pictures, prints 
almost of the merits of paintings or drawings, is of great 
utility to the public in every respect.' * 

A careful examination of the detailed specification 
above shows that Baxter had no genuine claim to a 
patent for any invention. In the use of a succession of 
colour impressions from wood-blocks he had been 
anticipated by Jackson and Savage. What he claims 
as the original part of his process, namely the use of a 
metal plate for the first impression, followed by a 
succession of wood-blocks, nad been invented by 
German engravers of the sixteenth century, as shown 
in the work of Goltzius. Kirkall also had employed a 
mezzotint plate before applying colours from wood, 
and though Baxter's first plate was aquatint as a rule, 
the principle is not affected. Besides this, the work of 
Pond and Knapton, in its application of wooden blocks 
carrying tints to an impression from a metal plate, was 
essentially the same. The very first sentence of his 
patent proves that he was absolutely ignorant of the 
colour-printing of Janinet and Debucourt. It will be 
noticed that he makes no claim of invention for his use 
of oil colours, though there is no doubt that in this 
respect he made notable improvements. There is no 

1 See Belter's pre&ce to bis JPUtorial AVf to the Gnat ExhiHtmHf 1851. 

38 



COLOUR-PRINTING WITH WOOD-BLOCKS 

doubt also that in his regular use of twenty or thirty 
blocks for each print he carried the art of colour- 

?rinting to an elaboration it had never before reached, 
'he fact remains that his work is not really unique, 
that he was not an inventor or pioneer, though he did 
important work in widening and improving the tracks 
laid down by his predecessors. 

Those who are interested in Baxter's prints will find 
a large collection of proofs of his work in the Print 
Room at the British Museum. These illustrate clearly 
his method as he describes it in the Pictorial Album^ 
or Cabinet of Painting. — 'The first faint impression 
forming a ground is from a steel plate ; and above this 
ground, v^ich is usually a neutral tint, the positive 
colours are impressed from as many wood-blocks as 
there are distinct tints in the picture. Some idea of 
the difficulty of Picture-Printing may be conceived 
when the reader is informed that, as each tint has to be 
communicated by a separate impression, some of the 
subjects have required not less than twenty blocks ; and 
that even the most simple in point of colour have 
required not less than ten. The very tint of the paper 
upon which each imitative painting appears to be 
mounted, is communicated from a smooth plate of 
copper, which receives the colour and is printed in the 
same manner as a wood-block.' This first metal plate 
will be found to be usually aquatint, with occasionally 
some stipple engraving, and frequently some roulette 
work. In the British Museum is a print from wood- 
blocks, ' Butterflies,' said by his daughter to have been 
his first print in oil colours. Other proofs show 
instances of the same plate being treated with different 
colours, and many bear rows of pin-pricks in the 
margin, showing the method of r^istration. The 
print of 'Me Warm Now' shows the first printing 
from the metal, entirely in red, which may be presumed 
to be the prevalent tone that Baxter wanted to obtain 

39 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

before imposing his wood-blocks ; and in the same way 
the 'Belle of the Vill<^e' has a first printed state, 
entirely in blue, from an aquatint plate. It should be 
said that Baxter's book illustrations, with a few excep- 
tions, are by no means equal to his separately published 
prints. 

After taking out his patent, Baxter published in 
1836, tc^ether with his father at Lewes, the Horti- 
cultural Gleaner, which has a frontispiece and title-p^e 
in colours. Coming to London, he had an office for 
two years at 3 Charterhouse Square, and then moved 
to larger premises at 1 1 Northampton Square, where, 
in 1837, he issued The Pictorial Album, or Cabinet of 
Paintings, with eleven prints, one of his best illustratra 
works. The volume is also noteworthy for its interest- 
ing, though inadequate, history of colour-printing, con- 
taming the special reference to Baxter's own work, 
quoted above. A second edition was issued, in which 
the substitution of a few extra figures in the plate 
entitled ' Boa Ghaut ' forms the only difference. Be- 
coming interested in mission work about 1840, he 
illustrated several of the missionary publications of the 
Religious Tract Society. In 1842 he executed the 
illustrations for Sir 1^ H. Nicolas's History of the 
Orders of Knighthood, a book now in considerable 
demand. The illustrations are said to be by 'G. 
Baxter, Patentee,' but some are lithographic plates by 
Madeley, showing the full robes of various orders, in 
which it seems extremely doubtful whether any colour 
at all is actually printed. In fact, practically all of 
the plates, besides being printed in colour, are much 
painted over by hand, which is unusual in the case of 
Baxter's prints. 

In 1849 Baxter commenced granting licences to 
other printers, at a fee of two hundred gumeas, for the 
use of his patent. Among the many who availed them- 
selves of this privil^e the principal was Abraham Le 
40 



THE GREAT EXHIBITION 

Blond, who engaged Baxter's manager and produced 
some excellent work. Another firm which paid the fee 
for using the Baxter process was Messrs. Bradshaw 
and Blacklock. A curious link between Ktst and present 
is formed by the fact that Mr. Frederick Shields— whose 
noble work, particularly the frescoes in the Chapel of 
the Resurrection (near the Marble Arch), has hardly 
yet won the full recognition it deserves — ^worked as 
apprentice to this firm at designs to be printed in the 
Baxter manner. In a scrap of autobiography, written 
many years ago,' he refers to his early struggles as an 
artist at Newton-le-Willows, where he had b^n drawing 
portraits at seven shillings each. 'The mine of the 
little town,' he says, 'grew exhausted, and at this 
juncture old Bradshaw, the Quaker partner in the 
Railway Guide printing firm, sent for me, and said, 
" Dost thou think thyself able to design for Baxter's 
Patent Oil Printing Process?" Modestly, but con- 
fidently, I replied, "Yes." "What wages wilt thou 
require?" Seven shillings a week I had received at 
bobbin tickets, and I dared to ask ten shillings for the 
elevated post of designer, and returned to my old shop 
in honour. The despiseid became a head, with a little 
room to himself where no defilement of bobbin tickets 
ever entered ; and I revelled in gleaners and milk- 
maids and rustic lovers, and a box of colours for the 
first time.' 

To return to Baxter : he seems to have contributed 
no illustrations to books after 1849, ^^^ ^^ exception 
of a portrait in Waterhouse's Vah-ta-ah, the Feejeean 
Princess (1857). In 1851, however, he produced a little 
book, which is now of considerable rarity — Baxief's 
Pictorial K^ to the Great Exhibition, and Visitor's 
Guide to London. In this there are two coloured 
plates, one showing the Crystal Palace and grounds, 

* S«e Tht Atkmtit Monthly, October 1883 — 'An EngUeh Interpreter,' by 
H. B. Scsdder. 

4> 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

the other a really fine view of the Houses of Par- 
liament from the river, obviously done under the 
influence of Turner. It may be added that in the Fine 
Arts Court of the Crystal Palace more than sixty 
specimens of Baxter's work were exhibited, consisting 
of historical and architectural subjects, landscapes^ 
portraits, and flowers. ' Such was the demand,' we are" 
told, * for some of these gems, that it has been requisite 
to reproduce them, the sale of some having ex<%eded 
four hundred thousand ' I 

During all this period, however, Baxter's main work 
was not book-illustration, but the production of a series 
of separate plates. These won the notice of the Royal 
Family, and attained considerable popularity, as indeed 
is shown by Baxter's account of the quantity sold. 
They are of no little merit, though many of them — the 
pictures of the Great Exhibition, for instance, showing 
the statuary and exhibits in general — smack somewhat 
in sentiment and execution of the ' early Victorian ' 
period to which they belong. These plates hardly 
concern our present purpose, but among the most 
important may be mentioned 'The Coronation,' 'The 
Opening of the First Parliament,' and 'The Wreck.' 
The last is a remarkable piece of colour-printing. 

Baxter, who was now at the end of a busy and 
useful career, decided, in i860, to retire from business. 
A sale was advertised in May i860 to dispose of his 
stock of prints. The invitation card says that * upwards 
of 100.000 of these beautiful productions will be Sold 
by Auction ... in consequence of the Inventor and 
Patentee retiring from his Artistic Labours.' The sale, 
however, did not take place, and the whole stock, 
blocks as well as prints, passed by private arrangement 
into the hands of Mr. Vincent Brooks, who only issued 
a few plates. Baxter, after assisting Brooks for a time, 
seems to have led a secluded life at Sydenham, where 
he died on January 11, 1867. The plant, which had 
42 



ABRAHAM LE BLOND 

been bought by Brooks, then passed into the possession 
of Abraham Lie Blond, a fine colour-printer. Le Blond 
issued a large number of prints, many of them difficult 
to distinguish from Baxter's originals, but without any 
commeraal success. On his death in 1896, the whole 
of Baxter's remaining plates were sold at Birmingham, 
and dispersed throu^out the country.^ 

* A bibliogi^j of bodu with ookMu^lluttntions by Baxter is given in 
Ai^iendix I. 



43 



CHAPTER VI 

JACOB CHRISTOPH LE BLON 

SO far our attention has been confined to books 
illustrated by means of printing from wood- 
blocks, following a definite line of development 
from the two or three blocks used by the early German 
chiaroscurists to the thirty employed byGeoi^ Baxter. 
In certain instances it has been pointed out that a 
metal plate was employed in conjunction with the 
wood, but that its purpose was entirely subservient. 
It must not, however, be forgotten that during all this 
period colour-printing from metal plates enjoyed a 
separate existence, and the time has now come to 
retrace our steps and consider printing from metal as 
a separate and distinct development. The main differ- 
ence is that the design on a wood-block is in relief, that 
on a metal plate in intaglio. On the wood-block the 
lines or spaces that constitute the design, and are 
intended to hold the ink or colour, are left standing in 
relief, while all the spaces that are to appear white in 
the picture are cut away, as is the case with the type in 
a printed book. In the metal plate the lines and spaces 
that hold the ink or colour are normally sunk below 
the surface. The ink is wiped away from the surface 
of the plate, and allowed to remain only in the incised, 
sunk, or roughened parts. The print from the actual 
surface remains white, and is therefore diametrically 
opposite in principle to an impression from a wood- 
block. The fact that a mezzotint plate b^ns by print- 
44 



COLOUR-PRINTING FROM METAL 

ing a dead black makes it an apparent exception, but 
the gradual removal of the burr in the working reveals 
it as an intaglio print with the ink coming not from the 
surface, as with the wood-block, but from the incised 
dots and lines. A real exception is Blake's method of 
etching metal in relief, a unique process which has 
been described above. In modem times confusion has 
been caused by the substitution of metal for wood, and 
vice versa, particularly in the printing of wall-papers 
and posters ; but for all older work the fact holds good 
that, for the purposes of printing, the engpraved wood- . 
block is in relief, the metal plate m intagho. 

There are two methods of printing in colours from 
a copper plate. The one is to ink the plate all over 
at once with the required colours. This practically 
amounts to painting the plate, remembering that the 
colour has to be forced into the lines and bitings. 
It stands to reason that this method is laborious 
as well as difficult, for the printer has to see that in 
colouring one part of the plate he does not encroach on 
lines that should contain a different colour. It is there- 
fore extremely difficult to obtain entirely satisfactory 
results from the printing alone, and almost all colour- 
prints produced in this manner require to be finished 
with colour applied by hand. The natural result is 
that no two prints executed in this manner from a 
single plate are ever exactly alike. Except in the 
inking, colour-prints of this kind involve no new pro- 
cess, the plate being etched, stippled, or mezzotinted in 
the ordinary manner. Of almost every one-plate colour- 
print proofs have been printed in black before the issue 
of the coloured impressions ; indeed, as in the case of 
mezzotints, a bett^ colour result is obtained when the 
plate is somewhat worn. Besides its use with mezzo- 
tint, for examples of which one may point to the prints 
of J. R. Smith and W. Ward, now so justly appre- 
ciated, colour-printing with one plate has been most 

45 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

successful when applied to stipple engraving — ^witness 
the charming plates after Baitolozzi, Ryland, and others. 
In the following chapter some books containing mezzo- 
tint and stipple illustrations executed in this manner 
will be described ; and of colour-printing from a single 
aquatint plate something will be said later, when we 
come to the aquatint books of the early nineteenth 
century. 

The second method of colour-printing from metal is 
to employ a separate plate for each distinct colour, and 
to print such plates consecutively one upon the other, 
as is the case with all colour-printing from wood-blocks. 
The registering and damping of the sheets of paper are 
again important matters, and the methods used to 
obtain exactness are the same as those employed by 
Savage and Baxter for their wood-blocks. This second 
method is far easier in that it is more mechanical than 
the other, for each plate requires the application of one 
colour only, which any intelligent printer can under- 
take ; whereas by the first method the colouring of the 
plate requires the hand of an artist. The use of several 
copper plates for the transmission of colour to a single 
print finds almost its sole use for book-illustration 
in Le Blon's Colorito, an important work of which 
mention will shortly be made. Though not coming 
within the sphere of book-illustration, the splendid 
colour work done in aquatint by Alix, Janinet, and 
Debucourt is remarkable for the use of seven, eight, or 
even more plates, employed one after the other to convey 
the required colouring. In the Print Room at the 
British Museum are several proofs of the work of these 
three engravers, admirably showing the system of 
registration by means of pin-pricks all round the paper. 
In addition to this interest of technique these particular 
prints have a wonderful fascination in their subjects, 
especially those chosen from the beau monde of Paris of 
about 1800, the gay throng of fashionable ladies and 
46 



JOHANNES TEYLER 

gentlemen who Jostled one another in the arcades and 
gardens of the Palais Royal. 

The earliest attempt to print in colour after the 
work of the sixteenth century chiaroscurists seems to 
have been made by Hercules Sobers, a Dutch etcher 
of the first half of the seventeenth centuiy. His method 
is said to have consisted in the application of colour 
without shadows to paper or canvas, on the top of 
which he printed from an etched plate. He is also 
credited with the invention of aquatint, but his work is 
so tentative and experimental that it can hardly be 
classed as true colour-printing. Another early ex- 
perimentalist was Johannes Teyler, who worked m the 
first method described, by painting or inking his copper 
plate all over at once. Somewhere about 1670 he 
published at Amsterdam a book, of which only one 
copy seems to be known, with prints of birds, animals, 
flowers, landscapes, and architectural subjects, all deli- 
cately printed in colours ; ^ and while Mathematical 
Professor of the Military CollMje at Nymegen, his 
native town, he established on the premises a factory 
for producing prints in colours, not only engravings, 
but wall-hangings of linen or fabric as well. 

Round these earlier colour-printers from metal 
there lies a mist of uncertainty and romance, but with 
Le Blon daylight begins, facts take shape, and colour- 
printing from metal assumes a clear reality. Jacob 
Christoph Le Blon, son of a bookseller, was baptized 
on the 23rd of May 1667 at Frankfort-on-the-Main.' 
After studying art under Konrad Meyer at Zurich, he 
travelled in 1686 in the suite of the Comte de Martinitz 

1 jaibri f. Baiaoi, Chaltographi ingtnmissimi, oput Typxhromatiatm, i^. 
Typi atnd onuu tahnim gtntre impnssi, it ai ea if to primum imeitli. See 
Giaesse, J. G. T., lyisor de livret rarts ttprtdeux. Supplement, 1869. 

1 For Le Blon's biognphj see Laborde, L. de, Histoirt dt la gramin M 
maniirt Mire, 1S39 ; Gwinner, F., Kunif und KUnsthr in FranMfitri am Main, 
1861 ; and Singer, Dr. Hans W., JaaA Ckristaffel Le Blon and his Thru- 
Colmtr Prints, in The Studio, May 1903. 

47 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

to Rome, where he worked in the studio of Carlo 
Maratti, and also developed a talent for the painting of 
miniatures. Le Blon's reckless, Bohemian nature, his 
unsettled principles, and his lack of perseverance, pro- 
mised to bring him to little good, but at this juncture 
he was persuaded by his friend Overbeck, who was 
eager for his reform and anxious that his genuine 
talents should not be wasted, to accompany Um to 
Holland. Under Overbeck's guidance he practised for 
a time with some success as a miniature painter, and 
when his eyesight began to fail took to painting cabinet 
portraits in oil. 

To his want of perseverance, that led him always to 
seek some new thmg, and to his idleness, that made 
him persistent in the search for some cheap and easy way 
of multiplying pictures, we owe his invention of colour- 
printing from metal. While living in Amsterdam he 
was much impressed by Newton's theory of light, 
which reduced all colours to three, counting black as 
the absence of all colours and white as the combina- 
tion of all. Dealing on this basis with pigment colours, 
yellow, blue, and rra, Le Blon tried to apply the theory 
to colour-printing. His theory and the valuable results 
of its practice appeal the more to our interest as being 
the anticipation, two centuries ;^o, of the latest develop- 
ments of science in regard to the ' three-colour ' process 
of photo-mechanical printing. 

Le Blon's first experiments were made at Amster- 
dam and at the Hague. At both of these places and 
in Paris, though his portrait of General Salisch and 
his pictures of a nymph won much admiration, he was 
unsuccessful in obtaining the monetary support that 
he needed — his idea being always to form a company 
for the production and sale of his picture prints. In 
1719 he came to London, and, thanks to his persuasive 
powers, man<^ed to win the interest of several art- 
lovers, notably Colonel Sir John Guise and Lord 
48 



po' 
lov 



LE BLON'S PATENT 

Perceval. Under their advice he took out a patent 
(No. 423 of 1719), but as it seems to have been un- 
necessary in those days to put in any specification of 
the details of an invention, the sole interest of the 
document lies in the preamble, incorporating what 
appears to be the broken English of Le Blon's original 
title. 

'George by the grace of God, etc., to all to whom these 
Presents shall come, greeting. 

' Whereas James Christopher Le Blon hath by his petition 
humbly represented unto us that he hath by his great labour 
and expence found out and invented "A New Method of 
Multiplying op Pictures and Draughts by a Natural 
CoLLERis WITH IMPRESSION," which hath never yet been used or 
invented by any person, and as this is entirely new and meets 
a general approbation, as well for its ingenuity as the great 
benefit and advantage that will accrew to the publick ; thereby 
the petitioner hath humbly prayed us as a reward and encourage- 
ment for his great labour and expence in 6nding out and 
bringing the same to pfeccon, to grant him our Royal Letters 
Patent for the term of fourteen yeares, for the sole carrying on 
his said Invencon as the law allows in such cases ; wee being 
willing to give encouragement to all arts and Inventions that 
may be of publick use and benefit, are gratiously pleased to 
gratifie him his request.' 

So it runs for more than two pages of legal verbiage, 
with vain repetition of ' executors, administrators, and 
assignes,' having 'the sole use and exercise of the 
aforesaid Invention.' Not of much value, but still there 
it stands, recorded in the chronicles of the Great Seal 
Patent Office, and it makes Le Blon real. 

Armed with this patent, and fortified by the assist- 
ance of his influential friends, Le Blon promoted a com- 
pany with considerable capital. Portraits of George i. 
and Prince Frederick were published, followed by life- 
sized reproductions of paintings by the old masters 
at Kensmgton Palace and elsewhere, and shares rose 
D 49 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

from j^io to £25. The returns, however, were by 
no means sufficient to meet the necessary outlay, 
and general mismanagement, coupled with Le Blon's 
personal extravagance, soon involved the ' Picture 
Office/ as it was called, in bankruptcy. It was about 
this time, in 1722 to wit, that Le Blon, perhaps as a 
last despairing effort, published the book that brings 
him into our notice, the book in which, for the first 
time, he reveals the secret of his process. The title is 
Coloriio. Vharmome du coloris dans lapeinture, reduHe 
en pratique mecantque et it des rigles sures etfacUes: 
avec des figures en couleur, pour en faciltter t intelli- 
gence, non seulement aux peintres, mats d tous ceux qui 
aiment la peinture. Par J. C. Le Blon} 

The book, published in London in 1722, is undated 
and is written in English and French; but as the 
English is obviously a laboured translation by Le 
' Blon of the French, which came more naturally to his 
pen, quotation shall be made, where needed, from the 
latter language — slipshod and lacking in accents, but 
better than uie doggerel English. In his dedication 
to Robert Walpole, Chancellor of the Exchequer, he 
writes: — 

'C'est en cherchant cet Art (f.«. rHarmonie des Couleurs) 
que par occasion j'ai trouv^ I'lnvention d'imprimer les objects 
avec leurs Couleurs naturelles, pour laquelle Sa Majesty a 
bien voulu m' accorder ses Litres Patentes : les pieces faites 
sou ma direction (car je ne suis pas responsable des autres ;) 
& imprlm^ en presence & sous les Yeux des plusieurs 
Persones de Qualtt^ et de bon gout se recommendent elles 
mdmes. Cette Invention est approuv^ des Nations les plus 
eclair£es en Europe, d'autant plus qu'on I'avoit x^pxdhR 
comme impossible ; & les Representations Anatomiques, 
auxquelles je travaille actuellement sous la direction de Mons. 

1 Reprinted st Parii in 1756, edited by G. de Uont d'Orge, Le BIcm's 
pupil, with dw title L'art timprimer tu tabbamx. IVaiil fiaprit Its Eerib, 
Its Ofiratians, ttiu Instmctitns vet^aiss, ^J. C. Lt Bhm. 

so 



THE THREE-COLOUR THEORY 

St. Andr^, Anatomiste and Cbirurg^en du Roy, confinneront 
I'utilite de cette sorte d'imprimerie. C'est cette meme Invention 
qui dans la suite m'a trac^ la route des Sciences Theoretiques, 
sans lestjuelles je n'aurois pas pu reduire rHarmonie du Cdoris 
en Pracuque mecanique et k des R^les ; Je Soumets aujourdbui 
mon Sjrsteme au Jugement des savans.' 

His theory, fully developed in his book, is summed 
up in the following paragraph : — 

' La Peinture peut representer tous les Objets visibles avec 
trois Couleurs, savoir lejaune, le Jiottge, & le Bleu ; car toutes 
les autres Couleurs se peuvent composer de ces trois, que je 
nomme Couleurs primtiivts. Par exemple, le Jaune et le 
Rouge font I'Orang^ Le Rouge et le Bleu font le Pourpre & 
le Vitdet Le Bleu & le Jaune font le Verd. Et le mdange 
de ces trois Couleurs primitives ensemble produit le Noir et 
toutes les autres Couleurs ; comme je I'ai fait voir dans le 
Pratique de mon Invention d'imprimer tous les Objets avec 
leurs Couleurs naturelles. Je ne parle ici que des Couleurs 
materielUs, c'est k dire, des Couleurs dont se servent les 
Peintres ; car le melange de toutes les Couleurs primitives 
impalpables, ne produit pas le Noir, nuus precis^ent le con- 
traire, c'est k dire, le Blanc \ comme I'a d^montr^ I'incomparable 
Mons. le Chevalier Newton dans son Optique.' 

Working on this principle, Le Blon resolved each 
portion of the picture he intended to reproduce into its 
component parts of red, yellow, and blue, making a 
mezzotint plate for each colour. White was produced 
by leaving the paper untouched by colour ; olack by 
the super-printing of all three plates. It must be 
noted» therefore, that I-e Blon's prints are entirelv 
different from the coloured mezzotmt of our English 
engravers, where the colours were all applied to a 
single plate before printing. Le Blon's three plates 
were superimposed with careful registration, and the 
colours mended to produce the complex result attained 
by the ' three-colour ' prints of to-day. This book, con- 
Si 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

taining the theory, is important because it is illustrated 
by five colour plates, one of them representing a palette 
(the colours on which, being painted by hand, have 
oxidised in . existing copies), the others showing the 
gradual colouring of a girl's head and bust, starting 
from the plain mezzotint plate. 

Though this is the only illustrated book with which 
Le Blon is connected, the life and work of its author 
are of the highest importance in connection with the 
histoiy of colour-printmg. By no means disheartened 
by the failure of the Picture Office, Le Blon found a 
new field for his versatile genius in the promotion of 
another company to work a tapestry factory at Mulberry 
Ground, Chelsea. In 1727 he took out another patent 
for ' The Art of Weaving Tapestry in the Loom,' and 
in 1731 his inventions, both of printing and weaving, 
were brought to the notice of the Royal Society, whose 
secretary, Cromwell Mortimer, reported on them at 
length.^ He summarises clearly the salient points of 
Le Blon's process of colour-printing : — 

' This Art of Printing consists in Six Articles, viz. : — 

I. To produce any Object with three Colours, and 
three Plates. 
1 1. To make the Drawings on each of the three Plates, 
so that they may exacdy tally. 

III. To engrave the three Plates, so that they cannot fail 

to agree. 

IV. To enerav.e the three Plates in an uncommon way, 

so that they may produce 3000 and more good 
Prints. 
V. To find the three true primitive material Colours, 
and to prepare them, so that they may be imprim- 
able, durable, and beautiful. 
VI. To print the three Plates, so as that they may a^ree 
perfectly in the Impression. 
Tht first of which is the most considerable, comprehending 

> See PhilosophiaU Thuuaetioms, toL xxxriL, 1731-32. 

52 



JACOB CHRISTOPH LE BLON 

the Theoretical Part of the Invention ; and the other five are 
subservient, to bring it into mechanical Practice, and of such 
Importance, that if any one of them be wanting, nothing can 
be executed with Success or Exactness. Sometimes more than 
the three Plates may be employ'd ; viz. when Beauty, Cheap- 
ness, and Expedition require it* 

The new company came also to grief, and Le Blon 
fled to Holland in 1732. At the Hague and at Paris, 
where he was again granted letters patent (12th Nov- 
ember 1737), he enjoyed a measure of success and 
tranquillity, but is said to have been in poverty when 
he died on i6th May 1741. His character was well 
summed up by Horace Walpole : ' He was . . . very 
far from young when I knew him, but of surprising 
vivacity and volubility, and with a head admirably 
mechanic, but an universal projector, and . . . either a 
dupe or a cheat. I think the former ; though, as most 
of his projects ended in the air, the sufferers believed 
the latter. As he was much of an enthusiast, perhaps, 
like most enthusiasts, he was both one and the other.' 

As is the case with Baxter, it is unfair to estimate 
the work of Le Blon by a study of these book-illustra- 
tions only. Besides them he produced some fifty large 
prints, valuable not only on account of their exceeding 
scarcity, but for their intrinsic merit. In them he 
renders his subject in broad masses of harmonious 
colour, and there is no doubt that, setting aside his 
theory, he worked with an additional plate, and also 
added touches with a brush. However produced, they 
are among the wonders of colour-printing. 



53 



CHAPTER VII 
THE GOLDEN AGE OF MEZZOTINT AND STIPPLE 

THE history of colour-printing from metal 
after the time of Le Blon ba:omes rich in 
interest, for the last half of the eighteenth 
century is the golden age of coloured mezzotint and 
stipple. It was a remarkable period in English art, 
both of portraiture and landscape. Reynolds and 
Gainsborough, Romney and Hoppner, were painting 
portraits that have made our English school the envy 
of the world. Gainsborough and Morland were throw- 
ing off the fetters of the classical convention, and 
showing the pure beauty of natural landscape and 
simple rural life. In landscape and in portraiture alike, 
genius was being substituted for tradition. These 
great painters, however, owe no little of their immor- 
tality to the great mezzotint engravers — J. R. Smith, 
Earlom, Val. Green, the Wards, and others — who 
followed in their train. Along with these were work- 
ing the stipple engravers of the Bartolozzi school — 
Ryland, Burke, Caroline Watson and the rest. To 
them are due the fascinating miniature-like portraits 
and d^te subjects that illustrate the history of the 
Geoi^an era, with its subtle Court intrigues and 
political imbroglios. Mrs. Clarke, the impudent 
mistress of princes; Mrs. Robinson, the famous 
'Perdita,' who ensnared 'Florizel'; the Duchess of 
Devonshire, Miss Farren, the Linleys — a whole galaxy 
of beauties, some frail, some fickle, but all &ir — still 
54 



COLOURED MEZZOTINT AND STIPPLE 

smile for us from the colour-prints of more than a 
century ago. It is no wonder that the mellowed 
glories of coloured mezzotints and the dainty charms 
of coloured stipple are so strong a lure to the collector 
of to-day. 

It was the common practice among publishers of 
this period to issue mezzotint and stipple engravings 
in colour as well as plain. It makes one's mouth 
water to read a contemporary list of two hundred 
engravings after Morland ' to be had on applyii^ to 
James Omdee, Ivy-Lane, Paternoster Row.' Their 
prices range from half a crown to a guinea, though the 
latter price is rare, fifteen shillings bemg a fair average ; 
'prxx)fs and coloured prints always charged double.' 
Imagine coloured proofs of the whole Letitia series for 
£^, los., of Delia in Town and Delia in the Country 
for thirty shillings, of the Ale-House Door for fifteen I 
The history, however, of these prints, fascinating 
though it be, is somewhat alien to our present subject, 
for coloured mezzotint and stipple, probably owing to 
their expense, were only sparmgly employed in the 
illustration of books. 

A few facts, however, that bear directly or in- 
directly on colour -illustration, should perhaps be 
placed on record. First of all, it is of interest to 
note the further progress of Le Blon's process. Among 
his pupils in Paris was Gautier Dagoty, who shortly 
after Le Blon's death represented to the State that he 
was prepared to carry the principles of Le Blon's 
process to a still higher degree of perfection, and was 
granted a patent for a term of three years by order of 
Uie Counal at Versailles, September s, 1741. In 1745 
and 174S he was illustrating anatomical subjects, and 
in 1749 issued a pamphlet entitled Lettre concemant 
le mmvel art itimfnmer les tableaux avec quatre 
amieurs. Gautier is eager to disprove the idea that 
he had learned his methods from Le Blon, and in his 

5S 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Observations sur la Peinture, published in 1753, boldly 
claims the invention as his own — 'L'Art d'imprimer 
les Tableaux sous Presse, dont je suis I'lnventeur, 
n'est point un jeu Machinal, o£i les Peintres nc peu- 
vent rien comprendre ; c'est au contraire une nouvelle 
fa^on de peindre sans Pinceau et sans Gouleurs, avec 
le Burin seulement, et sur quatre Cuivres.' Gautier 
seems to protest too much, and when all is said and 
done, his laboured explanation shows little difference 
between his four-plate system and that of Le Blon. 
That his process roused mterest in England is shown 
by a notice in The Public Advertiser of November 21, 
1767. — 'Yesterday arrived a Mail from France. At 
Versailles on the 17th of this Month, a coloured Print 
of the King, engraved on Copper, was worked off in 
his Majesty s Presence, by M. Gautier Dagoty, assisted 
by one of his Sons. The Work was compleated in six 
Minutes, and the Picture came out finished with all its 
Colours.' 

So little has been written of colour-printing, that 
three more points, a little off the beaten track, may 
well be noted. One is that one of the early experi- 
mentalists was Captain William Baillie, well known 
for his etched imitations of Rembrandt. In the cata- 
logue of the tenth exhibition of the Royal Incorpor- 
ated Society of Artists, in 1769, No. 319 is 'A print 
in imitation of a drawing, printed in colours, from 
different plates, after Rembrandt.' This is interesting, 
because 1769 is an early date for coloured stipple. 
Captain Baillie's existing works in this method, such 
as his portrait of the Duke of Buckingham, after Van 
Dyck, and his ' Woman's Head,' after G. Dow, belong 
to a later date. The second point is that in 1776 
Robert Laurie, of Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, re- 
ceived from the Society of Arts a premium of thirty 
guineas for his proposed method of printing in (x>lours. 
After mezzotintmg his plate, he warmed it, and applied 
56 



PLOOS VAN AMSTEL 

a>lours by means of stump camel-hair pencils. The 
plate was then wiped with a coarse gauze canvas, or 
with the hand, and passed through the press. The 
process appears from his description to be identical 
with that employed by Smith, Ward, and the later 
masters of colour-printmg in mezzotint. Laurie's main 
idea at the time of his appearance before the Society of 
Arts seems to have been to illustrate books of natural 
history with pictures of animals, plants, and so on. A 
third point of interest is to be found in a trade-card in 
the British Museum collection, dated 1784, to which 
Mr. Whitman has kindly drawn my attention. On it 
is a stipple engraving in colour, picturing two cherubs, 
who support a plaque bearing the inscription — ' Gamble, 
Print-Seller and Inventor of Printing in Colours, Pall 
Mall, London.' Though all three men must have had 
considerable influence in their day, remarkably little 
is known of their colour-work. 

To go back now for a few years, one of the first after Le 
Blon to practise intaglio printing in colours was a Dutch 
amateur named Ploos van Amstel, born at Amsterdam 
in 1726. Originally he was a merchant, but having a 
strong inclination towards art retired from business 
and devoted himself to engraving, while his ample 
means enabled him to form a large and important 
collection of prints and drawings, which, after his 
death, fetched by auction at Amsterdam 109,406 florins. 
His engraving was of an experimental nature, and the 
mixed methods of his complicated process have always 
been a puzzle to the student of prints.^ Even in his 
own day their originality caused some doubt and per- 
plexity, and to silence suspicions Ploos van Amstel 
invited to his studio on 8tn October 1768 a commis- 
sion, which included the Mayor of Amsterdam, to 
initiate them into the mysteries of his process. Their 
testimony was ' that his figures were neither engraved 

^ See Singer and Strang, Etehtng, Engraving, etc., p. 120. 

57 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

by means of the burin, nor etched with a point, nor 
hammered with a puncheon on to the copper, but that 
they were rather produced by means of certain "ground "- 
varnishes, powders, and liquids ; that he by no means 
coloured the prints by hand, but printed them entirely, 
and not witn water-colours but with oil-colours.' 
This testimony is interesting as a historical docu- 
ment, but the fact remains that either the members of 
the commission were somehow hoodwinked by the 
engraver, or else the veracity of those days was not so 
rigid as might have been, for in existing prints bv 
Ploos van Amstel there is sufficient evidence that all 
the colours were not printed, and in many of them 
hand-work is undoubtedly plain to see. 

Now Ploos van Amstel forms an important link in 
our chain of events, for he is indirectly the author of a 
valuable work with coloured illustrations, published in 
London in 1821. In 1765 he had issued forty-six fac- 
simile engravings of drawings by the Dutch masters. 
These had met with deserved success, and his design 
was to continue the series in conjunction with his 
young relation. Christian Josi, who had come to 
London with a travelling studentship from the Art 
institute of Utrecht, and worked under John Raphael 
Smith from 1791 to 1796. Ovring to the death of 
Ploos in 1798 the scheme was never put into execution, 
but his stock, nevertheless, passed into Josi's hands. 
The latter worked for a time as an engraver, but owing 
to failing health ceased all active practice, and being a 
great traveller and collector, devoted himself to a kind 
of aristocratic art dealing, of a type not unfamiliar at 
the present day. Being a connoisseur of considerable 
honour in his own country, he was one of the commis- 
sioners appointed by the King of Holland to reclaim 
from Pans the objects of art removed by Napoleon in 
1810. He had long conceived thcproject of continuing 
Ploos van Amstel^ work, but was hindered for many 
58 



CHRISTIAN JOSI 

years by the unsettled state of his country, and again 
by this journey to Paris. In 1819, however, he re- 
moved with his family to London, and there devoted 
himself to the publication of his Collection limitations 
de Dessins ifaprh les principaux Mattres HoUandais 
et Flamands, coTnmencie par C. Ploos van Amstel, con- 
' tinuie et pori^ au nombre de Cent Morceaux . . . par 
C. Josi. A Amsterdam et i Londres, chez C. Josi, 
42, Gerrard Street, Soho Square. The book contains 
biographical notices of all the artists whose work is 
represented, both these and the preface being written in 
French, as the langua|;e most generally understood. 
The preface itself, instmct with all the enthusiasm of 
a connoisseur, is none the worse for its frank egotism. 
Interesting, too, at the present day, are the personal 
reminiscences of a keen and cultured collector of a 
hundred years since, his gossip of sale-room and 
studio, his notes and comments on prints and prices, 
his tales of his own triumphs, his story of how, amid 
the disasters that afflicted their native land of Holland, 
a little band of collectors met night by night to forget 
their national sorrow in the joy of turning over and 
discussing their portfolios of drawings. Notable, as 
showing the popularitjr of prints by J. R. Smith and 
his school, on the Continent as well as at home, is the 
anecdote Josi relates of the wholesale forgery of 
English colour-prints in Holland, and of his inability 
to sell his own work till he added a title and inscription 
in English I ' Rien n'dtait comparable aux estampes 
anglaises. Tel mdrite que pouvaient avoir d'autres, il 
sumsait, pour leur disgrace, qu'elles ne portassent pas 
des titres et des inscriptions en anglais, avec le nom 
du marchand dditeur k Londres.' 

The number of plates amounts to one hundred and 
fifty, most of them being in imitation of chalk or wash 
drawings in monotone, but many are coloured fac- 
similes of crayon or water-colour arawings. Aquatint 

59 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

is the prevalent process, though other methods are 
freely employed, and much of the colouring is con- 
veyed by nand with the brush. The reproductions in 
stipple of drawings executed in two or three crayons 
are remarkable, particularly fine being the ' Portrait of 
Rembrandt.' This was engraved by C. Josi himself, 
who says he was unable to. trust the execution of the 
two or three necessary plates to any engraver he knew; 
and though he had long relinquished the practice of 
engraving, his cunning seems by no means to have 
deserted him. Among the other engravers employed 
on the work were Cootwyck — a goldsmith by pro- 
fession and a personal friend of Ploos — Kornlein, 
Schroeder, J. de Bruyn, and Ditrich, with one print 
after a Rembrandt landscape by an Englishman, C. C, 
(? F. C.) Lewis. The edition was limited to a hundred 
copies for France and a hundred for England, the price 
being forty guineas to subscribers, fifty to non-sub- 
scribers, so that the high prices of iditions de luxe of 
some modern art publications are by no means without 
a precedent. Though he had the utmost difiiculty in 
disposing even of these two hundred copies, Josi 
had a firm belief in the ultimate success of his work-^ 
a belief that should shortly find fulfilment, for the 
book is extremely rare. ' Je me plais done i esp^rer,' 
he writes, ' et c'est dans la nature des choses, que cet 
ouvrage, devenant de plus en plus rare, doit devenir 
plus recherche, et qu' aiors le prix de quarante guindes 
doit prc^ressivement- augmenter.' It may be added 
that Josi died in 1828, and his collection of prints and 
drawings — many of them the originals of these illus- 
trations^ — ^was dispersed in 1829 at Christie's in a ten 
days' sale, bringing over ;£'240o; while the surplus 
was sold at Christie s in 1830 for ;^6i7. 

* One of these, a canal scene by Van der Neer, bearing the collectors' 
marks of Baron de Leyde, Josi, and W. Esdaile, is in the National Art 
Libiary. 

60 



1' I j.i J I i; :: I) ;;0'"' ■; s 



L . ! . 



■■■\ 



I; 



E-v r.i I . ;.> li.' 
ivr 



'.; to ■ Ir-.- 



.■■I J.- .'.'.Ts 



,ion ..t |,- 
.lis i.f ti . 



, ■ : wUm V.x: 



HUkCH IN' THK [.OW COUNTRIKS. 



REPRODUCTIONS OF DRAWINGS 

Josi's book has been mentioned first, because in its 
origin it dates back to Ploos van Amstel, but it stands 
by no means alone. The latter part of the eighteenth 
and the beginning of the nineteenth century was a great 
period for private collections of prints and drawings — 
it will be sufficient to mention those of Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, Benjamin Westj Richardson, Esdaile, Ottley, 
Udny, and Sir Thomas Lawrence. The interest taken in 
the prints and drawings of the old masters had caused 
a demand for several handsome volumes of reproduc- 
tions before Josi published his Collection d'Imitations 
de Dessins. Foremost among these is A Collection 
of Prints in Imitation of Drawings . . . with explana- 
tory and critical notes by C. Rogers, printed by J. 
Nichols and published by Boydell and others in 1778. 
It is in two volumes, and contains one hundred and 
fifteen engravings on one hundred and seven plates, 
including two frontispieces, and a charming mezzotint 

?)rtrait of Rogers by Rjrland, printed in a rich brown. 
he plates are etched, stippled, or mezzotinted, and are 
printed in inks of widely different colours, as a rule 
only one colour to each plate. They show that metal 
plates can reproduce the chiaroscuro drawing of the 
old masters no less than wood-blocks. The two 
frontispieces are in stipple by Bartolozzi, printed in 
red, and other plates are by J. Deacon, W. Hebert, 
S. Watts, and J. Basire. The rest, however, are all by 
Ryland, in etching or in red stipple, with the exception 
of a few plates, printed in more than one colour, by 
Simeon Watts. Among these are the ' Elizabeth ' and 
' Earl of Leicester ' after Zuccaro, and ' Helen Forman ' 
after Rubens — all executed in stipple, the figures printed 
in black or brown, the hands and faces in red. In a 
'Crucifixion' the ground-work is printed in a vivid grass 
green, while the etched outlines and the shaded figures 
are in a brown tint. This, of course, is a case where 
these different colours are printed from a single metal 

61 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

plate. Warning must be given that there is a later 
issue of the plates alone, without date, 'printed by 
Joseph Kay,* in which the impressions are much 
inferior. 

In 1789 Boydell and Co. published A CollectioH of 
Prints after the Sketches and Drawings of the late 
celebrated Gimanni Battista Cipriani, Esqr., R.A., 
Engraved by Mr. Richard Earlom. The plates are in 
aquatint and stipple, a few of them in two colours, 
exquisitely engraved, and making a wonderful imitation 
of ink and ch^k drawings. Of the fifty plates all are 
by Earlom except one by C. Prestel, one by Kirk, and 
three by Bartolozzi in a single tint of brown. 

To 1792 belongs Imit(3ions of Original Drawings 
by Hans Holbein . . . Published by fohn Chamberlaine. 
The eighty-four plates are all by Bartolozzi with the ex- 
ception of three by C. Metz — one of them the pleasing 
portrait of ' The Lady Eliot ' — and one by C. Knight. 
All are beautiful examples of stipple printed in colours. 
They gain added value from the interest attached, to 
the originals, which are now at Windsor Castle. After 
Holbein's death the drawings were sold into France, 
but returned to England on being presented to 
Charles i. by Mons. de Liancourt. Charles exchanged 
them with the Earl of Pembroke for a St. George, by 
Raphael, now in the Louvre. By the Earl of Pembroke 
the drawings were presented to Thomas, Earl of 
Arundel. In a manuscript in the Bodleian Library by 
Edward Notgate, entitled ' Miniatura, or the Art of 
Limning,' there is an interesting reference to this work 
by Hol&in. In speaking of crayons, Norgate writes 
that ' the better way was used by Holbein, by pinning 
a large paper with a carnation or complexion of flesh 
colour, whereby he made pictures by the life of many 
great lords and ladies of nis time, with black and red 
Sialke, with other flesh colours, made up hard and dry, 
like small pencill sticks. Of this kind was an excellent 

62 



/ v; .,f 

■■■■ la'ff 



. '. ;' •■■ . ■■. -v •■.:.! into rr.::>u'. 

: . . ■ •..:' ^ j;!-L;s.-nlC'-i u. 

^ ."t i. itanvs c:'C^h;ll\L^■■■I 

■■■ ■ ;.■■ ('■ ■!■ a ^;t. Ci.:or.'-e,"hv 

'■ ■:■:- ;■ .riof lV;.\[*n-:.;: 

■ i< ilhKn::-;, llarl of 

■: ■•■;■ )'.■ .-'ician L'br;irv by 

•'^ .. .^ii.'a, or the Art of 

; -^ :■'■.' I'. M'-iice to tills work 

i i^ • . >: { ;■ ;.'M';-.. Xor^'^ato writes 

\r:i'-- ■ - .:- .. . ' i-y JJoiU-in, by pinning 

>: . . -i V. ■■!■.'■ ■■-'1 -,ir coni;;lcxion of Jl*:.-;! 

- ■ t,o IV:,,.!,' ; i.tuirc? by the life of many 

'i..i l.'ulie.-, (.f his time, with bhick and red 

■ i,i,icr i\c:h colours. Tnn.(le up hard ar;d dry. 

I'Cnrill sti-.i:s. ('>f u,is kind was an exc-'Mri-.-it 



HV HAK101,o;!Zl. 



HOLBEIN'S PORTRAITS 

booke, while it remained in the hands of the most noble 
Earl of Arundel and Surrey. But I heare it has been 
a great traveller, and wherever now, he hath got his 
Errata, or (which is as good) hath met with an Index 
Expui^tohus, and is made worse with mending.' On 
the death of Thomas, Earl of Arundel, the drawings 
disappeared altogether, though in 1686 the editor of 
the London Gazette says he has reason to believe they 
were purchased for the Crown at the sale of Henry, 
Duke of Norfolk. They were finally discovered by 
Queen Caroline in a bureau of her closet at Kensington 
Palace. Under Chamberkune's auspices their beauties 
were made public, and, as his preface says, ' the world 
need not be told what to expect from Bartolozzi's 
engravings after Holbein's drawings.' Holbein's 
originals were drawn in his bold and Tree style, being 
little more than outlines in chalk, usually on paper of 
a flesh colour. The slight transparent tints that the 
artist added have been wonderfully rendered in Barto- 
lozzi's coloured stipple. The book was an expensive 
one, being published in fourteen numbers, at thirty-six 
guineas for the complete set. The same series of 
portraits was issued again in 1812 by Chamberlaine, 
who was keeper of the royal drawings and medals, with 
a fresh title. Portraits 0/ Illustrious Personages of the 
Court of Henry VIII. This edition is in quarto instead 
of large folio, and the engravings, again in coloured 
stipple, are b^ various engravers. The two volumes 
contain the eighty-four plates plain, with a duplicate 
set printed in colour. Of the engravings seventeen 
arc oy R, Cooper, thirteen Iw G. S. Facius, nine 
ly T. Cheesman, eight by A Cardon, seven each by 
E. Bocquet and J. Minasi, six by C. Knight, five \y^ 
Meyer, four each by M. A. Bourlier and Freeman, and 
two each by Bartolozzi and W. Nicholls. The list is 
^ven in detail because it contains representative names 
of the large school of stipple engravers who followed 

63 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Bartolozzi. Their work is a marvel of delicate engraving 
and colouring, the one fault being, as with the corre- 
sponding Bartolozzi set, a tendency to make the shadows 
round eye and nose of too bright a blue. Colour- 
printing, as a rule, has failed from attempting what is 
beyond its possibilities. In these two editions Holbein's 
slight tints lend themselves to simple and direct repro- 
duction, and in the history of the art there are few, if 
any, results more successfully and adequately achieved 
than these stippled illustrations. The rarity of the two 
series in the form of their original issue is due, of 
course, to their having been ruthlessly broken up for 
the sake of single prints. 

Another book of drawings, edited with biographical 
and historical notes by Chamberlaine, is Original 
Designs of the most Celebrated Masters of the Bolo- 
gnese, Roman, Florentine and Venetian Schools. The 
work was originally prepared for publication in 1796, 
and the original title-page, dated 1797, Engravings 
from the Original Designs by Annibale, Agostino and 
Ijtdffvico Caracci, is retained as a sub-title in Chamber- 
laine's edition of 181 2. One or two of the plates have 
a coloured border printed in a second ink. but the 
pictures themselves, etched or aquatinted, are printed 
in a single tint of sepia, brown, indigo, or Bartolozzi 
red. The book is a striking example of the use of 
diversified inks, and illustrates the power possessed by 
Bartolozzi and his school of reproducing with the 
utmost faithfulness all the spirit and the actual 
technique of a chalk or sepia drawing. Of the forty- 
five pictures, twenty-two are engraved by Bartolozzi, 
nine Dy F. C. Lewis, four by P. W. Tomkins, three by 
G. Lewis, three by Pastorini, two by Schiavonetti, with 
one by Facius, and one by Stephanofif. 

Another book illustrating the use of different inks 
is Imitations of ancient ami modem Drawings from 
the restoration of the arts in Italy to the present time. 

64 



COLOURED STIPPLE ILLUSTRATIONS 

This was printed for the author, C. M. Metz, in 1798, 
but the title-page is undated. A few of the hundred 
and fifteen plates are signed C. M., and it may be 
assumed that Metz, who was a capable engraver and a 
pupil of Bartolozzi, executed all himself. They repre- 
sent all methods — stipple, etching, aquatint, etc — 
particularly hne being a reproduction in aquatint, 
printed in at least three colours, of a drawing of a 
woman by Albert DOrer, dated 1500, and of a hunting 
scene by Titian, printed in two colours. . 

In 1808 app^ed a large volume in a similar style, 
entitled The British Gallery of Pictures, selected from 
the most admired prodiKtions of the Old Masters in 
Great Britain. The text was by H. Tresham, R.A., 
and W. Y. Ottley, the executive part being under the 
management of P. W. Tomkins. There ate twenty- 
five coloured plates in stipple, exquisitely finished, but 
with much additional hand-work. With each plate is 
a biography of the artist and a note as to the picture 
represented. The interpretation of an oil painting by 
Raphael, say, or Giorgione, is beyond the province of 
stipple, which finds its true office in rendering the 
delicate fancies of Angelica Kauffmann or Cipriani, and 
in reproducing chalk drawings with slight tints, like 
those of Holbein. Yet these plates, executed when 
the art of stipple was in its decadence, are triumphs 
of colour-printmg. The list of engravers contains 
some distinguished names, five plates being by 
Tomkins, three by A. Cardon, three by J. Scott, two 
each by R. Cooper and E. Scriven, while others ate 
by Cheesman, Bourlier, Freeman, Woodman, Wright, 
Agar, Schiavonetti, and Medland. The copy at South 
Kensington is one bought by Charles Landseer within 
two years after his election as an Academician, and 
on the fly-leaf is a note: 'I bought this handsome 
Volume of Mr. Bohn, for /'50. f consider it cheap 
I at that sum. Charles Landseer, 1847.' There must 

E 65 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

be very few copies intact now; certainly none has 
come into the market for some years. 

A final volume of the same class, showing the 
occasional use of two tints to reproduce drawings of 
old masters, is The Italian School of Design, by W. 
Y. Ottley, published in 1823. The original issue was 
in twelve monthly parts at one guinea, and on laige 
vellum paper, two guineas. Among the engravers are 
Ottley himself, G. and F. C. Lewis, Schiavonetti, and 
Gaetano Bartolozzi. 

In most of the books just mentioned the prevalent 
method is that of stipple. While combinations of 
aquatint and etching, elaborated with delicate and 
intricate tool-work, were engaging the attention ctf 
foreign engravers such as JanmSk and Debucourt, Alix 
and Descourtis, stipple engraving was firmly planted 
in England by William Wynne Ryland. Like mezzo- 
tint, it became an English art ; indeed, contemporary 
French writers allude to it always as la mani&re 
anglaise, a name that it still retains in art circles 
abroad. The method was expensive and not easy, and 
though a fair number of book illustrations in stipple 
were printed in the single ' Bartolozzi red,* the instances 
where two or three colours were used on the one plate 
are comparatively rare. In addition to the examples 
already noted, may be cited the Book of Common 
Prayer, published in 1794, with engravings in colour 
Iw Schiavonetti, Bartolozzi, Nutter and others. Paul 
Hentznef's Travels in England, translated by Horace, 
late Earl of Orford, republished by JefFery in 1797, is 
remarkable for three or four stipple engravings in red 
and black, among them the well-known portrait of Sir 
Philip Sidney, ' from a Curious Limning by Oliver.' 
Another example is a pret^ edition, published in 1817, 
of Hayley's Triumphs of Temper, where the frontis- 
piece, stippled by T. B. Brown and printed in colours, 
is a reproduction of Romney's * Serena.' The lines, 
66 



COLOURED MEZZOTINT ILLUSTRATIONS 

which it is chosen to illustrate, are appropriate 
enough : — 

* Possesst by sympathy's enchanting sway 
She reads, unconscious of the dawning day.' 

If the use of coloured stipple in book illustration is 
rare, that of coloured mezzotint is rarer still, though 
there are one or two notable instances of its use to oe 
chronicled. Of peculiar interest is Dr. R. J. Thorn- 
ton's Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature, being 
Picturesque Botanical Plates of the New Illustration 
of the Sexual System of Linmeus. Though this 
appeared in 1807, the date 1799 is given on the title- 
page, contained in two leaves, and also on some of the 
plates. The book belongs to a class of works contain- 
ing elaborate botanical specimens of great value to the 
student, but which, from the very exactitude of their 
detail and colouring, can hardly please the artistic sense. 
But in many cases Dr. Thornton's illustrators rise above 
the ordinary conventional treatment, and a glance at 
their names shows that in this instance the plates are 
of more than usual interest. The book opens with an 
engraved title-page, ' The Temple of Flora, or Garden 
of Nature,' followed by a second page with the sub-title, 
' Picturesque Botanical Plates of the New Illustration 
of the Sexual System of Linnaeus,' mdccxcix. Then 
follow three engraved plates, '.^Esculapius, Flora, Ceres 
and Cupid honouring the Bust of Linnseus,' ' Cupid in- 
spiring plants with Love,' ' Sexual System of Linnaeus,' 
in place of the first of which, in the South Kensington 
copy, is a coloured mezzotint representing Linnaeus in 
Lapland costume. Of the original drawings for the 
thirty illustrations which follow, fifteen are by Hender- 
son, ten by P. Reinagle, two by Pether, and one each 
by Hoffmann, S. Edwards, and R. J. Thornton himself. 
Reinagle's originals were exhibited at the Royal 
Academy, between the years 1797 and 1800. Among 

67 



ENGLISH, COLOURED BOOKS 

the engravers' names appear those of W. Ward, Earlom, 
and Dunkarton, enough in themselves to ensure the 
collector's interest The engraver who contributed 
most work is Caldwall, with seven plates. The work 
of Earlom and Ward is of course mere pot-boiling, if 
compared with such fine examples of their power as 
Earlom's Fruitpiece after Van Huysum, or Ward's 
Farmyard after Morland. It is strange to find the 
same men who produced these masterpieces fiUing up 
their foregrounds in Thornton's book with an enormous 
life-size snowdrop or tulip in full bloom, and adding 
a background of miles of distant landscape. The 
plates, however, are extremely valuable from the 
technical point of view. They are of a most experi- 
mental character, a plate with aquatint ground being 
frequently finished off with stipple or mezzotint work ; 
and in several cases at least three colours were em- 
ployed in the printing. The saving grace of the work 
IS that, though the botanical specimens are fault- 
less, the plates are hybrid in the extreme. Earlom's 
work, however, is almost entirely in pure mezzotint, 
having three or four colours printed, and then being 
finished with the brush. 

The 1807 edition of the Temple of Flora was a 
laige quarto, and in 1812 a smaller edition appeared 
with the title The Temple of Flora, or Garden of the 
Botanist, Poet, Painter and Philosopher. The illustra- 
tions of the earlier edition appear again, but for some 
of them new engravers have been found. The plates 
are smaller in size, but there is the same confusion of 
methods, and it is interesting to compare the work of 
the new engravers with that of the earlier ones. The 
names of Ward and Earlom have disappeared ; and 
Roffe, Stadler, Quilley, and Maddox engrave five plates 
each. 

Another interesting set of illustrations in coloured 
mezzotint occurs in A Series of Portraits of the 
68 



metho 
the n- 



. . ■' ■. ■ ; 'icJVLS to C.'iS-.:rC ll'.f 

■ *.,;:. .\ I : ■/ ho tt^ntiliiu'-od 

! ■...:; -vv'-! ;i-atcs. Ihi wo-"!; 

■ ■■;. i.j i Hicro po*"-bniiin:4", if 

:. J! rme - ■■s cf tlu'ir prwiri ;is 

■|',: .f n:'- ' iiuvsLiiri, cr W'^f-'I's 

T Mo ■ i{ is >'.r.--vrs- to ! "i ti;'.- 

■> :■. ;v'f.e n-,.\ .{err>i-x'c:> !.;.:n:ru;. 

. m\ bf'o].' v.'iih an Liiori'iO..-. 

,: 'v.\ (cW '.i:.;.m. x-.i k-.M:: ■: 

. r ufStarit l.iii:- .Liie. 1 .; . 

.■■.■■. icly \ ilr-iiilc fii>]ii tl..: 

i--cy ..:"vj f'f a iiiost C">";"-;:'i- 

•.>.it!; :'.;uat';ll j;rOfi'd ^'cii'LT 

. \ ;." ■• ; , i,; cr r)C7./.oi!-Tl v.oA . 

- .1 '. ■. ihi-'- c;.'.)iir5 \\.:;o «!i\ 

: -:•■■■;. s'-^-'*^ ''f ti'.e uc:' 

:: ll.i- ' ■ .■! ; ■:• iii.tns are i'au . 



■ \ cr, IS ii 

■or or fV-u 



in luni; 


mi.. 


/''■.'■ 


uc:. ;.nd 


Jien 


■b>:i-: 


•■•;;■ '■/ r, 


u'ni' 


U 1 . 


•- 1 ..it;.' 


1 ap 




(. .■•.- C:i 


(■ // 


,/'• 


■:.■■- '1 


^ C i: 


ir-,; 


■ ;-:l, h. 


t to 




■ : ■■: r C 


J I;'." 




■ '■■.-,-e I 


C V 





. .-.rd .. 
:-r, C i.. 



. r !T;:c:-c;:tir 



COLOURED MEZZOTINT ILLUSTRATIONS 

Emperors of Turk^, engraved by John Young, and 
published by the engraver and R. Ackermann, in 1815. 
The originals were a series of cabinet pictures at 
Constantinople, executed by a Greek artist from 
materials at the Turkish Court. The commission for 
engraving these was intrusted originally in 1806 by 
Selim the Third, one of the more enlightened emperors 
of Turkey, to the Turkish ambassador in England. 
Young, who was well to the front as a mezzotint 
engraver, was selected to execute the work, which was 
to be absolutely secret. The death of Selim and his 
advisers, coming with Oriental unexpectedness, closed 
the original commission ; but Young was encouraged 
to complete the work on his own account. In nis 
preface Young writes : ' It will scarcely be necessary 
for me to point out how materially these Portraits 
differ from plates engraved in the line manner, which 
when finished, will produce an impression of several 
thousand copies ; whereas of the mezzotintos which con- 
stitute the present volume, I can avail myself but of a 
very limited impression; as the process of coloiy- 
printing^ tends so materially to injure the plates. The 
impressions have all been printed in colours from the 
Pictures, and each Portrait has been attentively revised 
by myself.' The plates, thirty-one in all, arc fine, 
though not very interesting, specimens of coloured 
mezzotint, with more than a suspicion of added hand- 
colouring on all. 

A remarkable work, in which mezzotint, stipple, 
and aquatint were all envployed, is the Ceremonial of 
the Coronation of King George the Fourth, published 
by John Whittaker in 1823. As a contemporary notice 
of the book states, it was * designed for a specimen of 
typographical el^^ce not to be surpassed, and will be 
pnnted in g^old letters, accompanied with portraits of 
the distinguished persons who composed the splendid 
procession, in their respective dresses, richly coloured 

69 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

as drawings.* The frontispiece represents George iv. 
on his throne, holding his sceptre. The picture is 
finished in oils like a miniature, highly varnished, so 
that one can only guess that it is on a mezzotint basis. 
This is followed oy thirty-nine plates showing the 
various distinguished personages who took part in the 
ceremony, and also a plate picturing the regalia. Each 

f)late has a full description above it in stamped gold 
ettering on a cream ground. There are three addi- 
tional sheets in this gold lettering, one with the full 
titles of the Duke of York, the other two giving lists of 
names of those present. The plates of costume show 
the use of mezzotint, stipple, and aquatint, employed 
singly or in combination. The plates are all finished 
most carefully by hand-colouring, but in most cases 
two or more tints were printed. At the end of the 
series is a mezzotint, printed in colour and finished 
by hand, of the coronation ceremony, and another of 
the banquet scene. This last, like the frontispiece, is 
painted over with oils, but one can clearly see marks 
of roulette and rocker in places. The British Museum 
Library possesses the King of Holland's copy of this 
book, and a more magnificent show-book could scarcely 
be found. It contains an additional frontispiece show- 
ing the coronation chair beneath a canopy. Round 
the top of this, on pillars at the sides, ana elsewhere, 
are coats-of-arms on highly embossed gesso work, with 
the minutest details most elaborately painted. The 
title-p^e and the dedication page are similarly orna- 
mented ; and both book and binding represent the 
most lavish expenditure. 

Another book on the Coronation of George IV. was 
also commenced by Sir George Nayler, Garter King 
of Arms, and was announced to consist of five parts. 
The first part was issued in 1825, and the second part 
appeared two years later. Several thousands of pounds 
were lost in the venture, and owing to the death of its 
70 



CORONATION OF GEORGE IV. 

promoter in 1831, the work was stopped. In 1835 the 
remaining unsold copies of these parts, together with 
the copyright and copper-plates, were submitted for 
public sale. These and the plates for Whittaker's 
work were acquired together by Henry Bohn, who 
amalgamated the two issues and published them in 
one volume with text in 1837, omitting the stamped 
gold lettering of the Whittaker edition. In Bohn's 
edition thirty-three of the costume plates are reprinted 
from the Whittaker edition, and we now find from the 
inscriptions that, with the exception of one by Uwins, 
the drawings are all by Francis and James Stephanoff ; 
while the engravers are S. W. Reynolds, H. Meyer, 
W. Bond, W. Bennett, E. Scriven, and P. W. Tomkins. 
Reynolds's work, as might be expected, is mainly in 
mezzotint. Besides the costume plates there are eight 
others in aquatint of the Ceremony of the Hom^e, the 
Banquet, etc, printed in colour and finished by hand, 
by Bennett, R. Havell, and M. Dubouig after C. Wild, 
J. Stephanoff, and Augustus Pugin, the two last work- 
ing together on architectural views. Some of the 
ongin^ water-colours by them for this work are in the 
Vi^oria and Albert Museum. Another coloured plate, 
making forty-two in all, is a mezzotint in colour, by 
S. W. Reynolds after Stephanoff, of the Court of 
Claims. Another edition of the book was published 
by Bohn in 1839. 

Some coloured stipple and mezzotint engraving^ 
form part of the illustrations to Blagdon's Authentic 
Memoirs of George Morland, published by Orme, of 
which more will be said in connection with Orme's 
other publications. Finally, as an example of a some- 
what unusual colour process, may be mentioned two or 
three soft-ground etchings, printed in red and black, 
that occur in Pennant's Account of London, West- 
minster and Southwark, 1795. 

7" 



CHAPTER VIII 
WILLIAM BLAKE 

' 1 am inspiied. 1 know it is Tnitli I for I sing 
According to t)ie Inspiration of the Poetic Genius, 
Wbo is t£e Eternal, all-proteaing, Divine Humanity, 
To whom be Glory and Power and Dominion erermore.' 

W. Blau. 

II KE every man, from Socrates downwards, who by 
some of his fellows has been esteemed a seer, 
-^ by others a madman, William Blake remains 
isolated and remote. He is like a rugged fir-tree, 
standing solitary on a hillside, buffeted by storm- 
blasts, scorched by the summer sun, frozen by winter's 
ice and snow,^yet in sunshine and in storm living a 
free, open, unhampered life, with God's heaven always 
above. It were a Procrustean task to crush into the 
narrow limits of a page or two of print a history and 
criticism of the life and work of this great poet, mystic 
philosopher, painter, engraver, and book illustrator. 
Yet his books with coloured illustrations are so far 
unique that some account must be given of the method 
of their production. Fortunately for those who wish 
to pursue this study, there are three admirable works 
on Blake — Swinburne's William Blake, A Critical 
Essay, 1868 ; Life of IVilliam Blake, by A. Gilchrist, 
new edition, 1880 ; and The Works of William Blake, 
by E. J. Ellis and W. B. Yeats, 1893. 

Blake was bom on November 28, 1757, at 28 
Broad Street, Golden Square, where his father had a 
72 



ilAi'Thl: \' 









i:ru~: 




:i.t :'. 




- j: 


IL-! 



■." I 


■ nil' 


t 






V p i 
o( t 
to I 
■il 


■• .;,iciii.i . 

■rion. l' 






■:■■ i:,'.!/;. 




J. I-.;' 




\\ 


:;it^. l» 




1 ■ 


• 111 

-;1 S; 







I PLATE FROM " KUROPK : A PROPHECV,' 



BLAKE'S BOYHOOD 

moderately prosperous hosiery business. As a boy 
he was quiet and dreamy, with a stron? lilcing for art, 
and a Iceen love of solitary rambles in the country. 
During one of these he saw his first vision, ' a tree 
filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling 
every bough like stars.' In 1767, at the age of ten, 
he was sent to Mr. Pars's drawing-school in the Strand, 
which subsequently became Ackermann's showroom. 
At this early age he was a constant frequenter of sale- 
rooms, and at a time when auctioneers took threepenny 
bids, became a collector in a limited way. Langford, 
the auctioneer, ' called Blake his little connoisseur, and 
often knocked down a cheap lot with friendly precipita- 
tion.' This reminds one of the similar episodes in the 
life of Geddes, who as a boy used to haunt the 
salerooms of Edinburgh. Martin, the well-known 
auctioneer, would prelude the sale of a print, which 
he thought might suit his youthful bidder's purse, 
with, ' Now, my bonny man, now 's your time,' and 
when he knew a high price was imminent, 'Ye need 
na fash, wee creetur. 

At the age of fourteen Blake exchanged the drawing- 
school of Pars for the shop of Basire the engraver, in 
Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. His main 
work during his apprenticeship was making drawings 
of monuments in Westminster Abbey and other London 
churches, to be engraved by Basire for Gough the anti- 
quary. The task fed his romantic imagination and 
kindled a love of Gothic art. Apart from this he had 
little else for which to thank Basire, except a careful 
grounding in the mechanical side of the engraver's art. 
It was while an apprentice to Basire that he wrote the 
poems, published in 1783 with \hei\ii& Poetical Sketches, 
in whidi he struck a note to be repeated later in the 
work of Wordsworth, of Shellw, and of Keats. They 
were days of courtship also, for in 1782 he married 
Catherine Boucher, who was to become so loving and 

73 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

practical a iielpmate. Leaving Basire, he commenced 
a course of study in the Academy School under its first 
keeper, Moser, and also earned his livelihood by the 
joumev-work of an engraver, doing some capital work 
after Stothard for the Novelists' Magazine and the 
H^its' Magazine. 

On the death of his father in 1784, he entered part- 
nership with James Parker, a fellow-apprentice at 
Basire's, and started a business as printseller and 
engraver at 27 Broad Street, next door to his birth- 
place, where his father's business was continued by his 
brother Robert. Blake's union with Parker proved 
unsatisfactory, and when his brother Robert died in 
1787 he dissolved the partnership and moved to 28 
Poland Street, Mrs. Blake being now his sole pupil 
and assistant. 

By 1788 Blake had in readiness a new volume of 
poems with the proposed title. Songs of Innocence. He 
had even comptetol the illustrative designs in colour 
to accompany the poems, but lacked both ways and 
means of publishing them. For days and nights the 
question of publication formed the subject of anxious 
tnoughts and dreams, until in a vision during the 
night his brother Robert appeared before him and 
revealed a means of producing with his own hands 
a facsimile of song and design. On rising in the 
morning our artist sent out Mrs. Blake with half a 
crown — tht only money they possessed in the world — 
to spend one and tenpence on the necessary material 
for the fulfilment of the dream. Thus began the series 
of poems and writings illustrated by coloured plates 
which form the principal revelation of Blake's genius. 
It is the irony of fate that Blake lived and died in 
poverty, while a single copy of this little book, to make 
which he changed his last halfcrown, should now be 
worth many times its weight in gold. 

The method employed for ttie Songs of Innocence, 
74 



BLAKE'S METHODS 

and consistently adhered to in the later books, was 
absolutely original. It was a system of 'etching in 
relief both words and designs. The artist wrote his 
verses and drew his designs and marginal ornaments 
on a copper plate, using for this purpose probably the 
ordinary stopping-out varnish employed by etchers. 
He then applied acid, which bit away all the remainder 
of the plate. The text and designs now stood in relief, 
and could be printed in black or in any colour, while 
the bitten parts would remain white. As a rule the 
written part of the plate was printed in red, and to the 
rest the colour was given which was to be dominant in 
the final effect. The print thus produced was finished 
with colour applied by hand in every variety of tint. 
Mr. Gilchrist tells us mat Blake ground and mixed his 
water<olours himself on a piece of statuary marble, 
adding a mixture of diluted carpenter's glue, after the 
meth«l of the early Italians, a secret revealed to him 
in a vision by Joseph, the sacred carpenter. Mrs. 
Blake was his constant helper, soon learning to take off 
the impressions, to tint them with great artistic feeling, 
and finally to bind them in boards. From the making 
of the colours to the issue of the prospectus announcing 
the sale of the work, it was in every essential a home 
industry. 

It will be seen that there is a strong similarity 
between the plate thus produced and a wowl-block ; in 
fact, Blake himself attached a memorandum to his 
Public Address, with the direction : — ' To wood-cut on 
copper. Lay a ground as for etching ; trace, etc., and, 
instead of etching the blacks, etch the whites, and bite 
it in.' His method, indeed, of merging the outlines 
into the shadows and of balancing broad masses of pure 
black and pure white is essentially that of the early 
chiaroscurists and of all good engravers on wood. 
The description of the method employed is perfectly 
correct so far as the majority of Blake's coloured plates 

75 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

are concerned, but in one or two books, notably the 
Song of Los, Ahania, and Urizen, the method of 
colouring becomes more complicated. In these the 
underlying engraving is entirely hidden by an impasto 
of solid colour. The print has a curiously mottled or 
granulated appearance, obviously caused by the pres- 
sure of a flat surface covered with oil paint, which has 
adhered slightly and then been withdrawn. The effect 
is well known to the unhappy artist who has returned 
from a day's sketching with two of his boards acci- 
dentally stuck t<^ether. Blake's method was apparently 
to draw his design upon mill-boaFd, and apply oil- 
colour to this just as Le Blon did to his mezzotint 
plate. The impression on the paper was then colours! 
with water-colours, and the mill-board was used again 
for a second print. The appearance of the plates is 
exactly that of some of Le Blon's experimental work 
in oil-colours, and in a similar way the oil has pene- 
trated the paper employed for printing, however thick* 
it may be. Of course every design was most carefully 
finished by hand, and at first this seems impracticable 
owing to the apparent difficulty of painting in water- 
colour over oil. But if the oil were allowed to dry 
into the paper, the artist could easily proceed in the 
method he pursued in his 'frescoes' of adding a thin 
transparent wash of glue, and working over this in 
water-colour. 

It is impossible to express adequately the imagina- 
tion and the compass of Blake's actual colouring. 
There can be no terms of comparison, for his work is 
unique, and those who have attempted to describe it 
have invariably risen to a height of poetical eloquence. 
In the words of one perfervid chronicler : ' They are 
marvels of colouring ; such tender harmonies of delicate 
greens, and blues, and rosy pinks ; such brilliancy of 
strong golden and silver lights ; such gorgeous depths 
of purples and reds ; such pictures of the dark chasms 
76 



BLAKE'S ILLUSTRATIONS 

of the nethermost pit, lit up and made lurid by un- 
earthly glare of flame tongues — it has been in the 
power of no mortal brain to fancy, and no mortal hand 
to depict' Fire, indeed, seems to be the underlying 
motif of all Blake's work. Page after page is a furnace 
glowing and glittering with bursts of flame that leap 
and quiver in prismatic iridescence. You lay down 
one of Blake's books tenderly, says Gilchrist, 'as if 
you had been handling something sentient.' 

The Songs of Innocence was printed in the first 
method described, and finished with delicately laid 
tints of water-colour. The poems, with their melody 
of rhythm and their tender simplicity, bring recollec- 
tions of the heaven that lay about us in our infancy. 
They belong to a period before Blake, visionary though 
he already was, had adopted a mystical clothing for his 
thoughts. The drawings ate plain illustrations of the 
poems, decoratively expressed, but without any alle- 
gorical or cryptic symbolism. They show simple, 
domestic, and rural scenes, but have a grandeur of 
style and conception, presaging the larger and fuller 
development of^ his decorative schemes. Text and 
designs, as in the later books, mingle and interweave, 
showing a grasp of ornamental treatment as strange to 
the times in which the artist lived as the poems them- 
selves. The little book had no general circulation, and 
was not in a proper sense published. From time to 
time some friendly person would order a copy, but it is 
doubtfi4 whether fifty copies in all were ever printed 
and coloured. In the same year Blake used his new 
discovery for another illustrated poem. The Book of 
Thel, a strange mystical allegory. The book com- 
prises seven engraved pages, including the title, some 
six inches by four in size. The text, enigmatic and 
vague, but simple in comparison with the later 
prophetic books, is accompanied and interwoven by 
pictured shapes of flying angels, birds, serpents, and 

77 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

trailing plants, and a few copies were coloured by the 
artist with extraordinary elaboration. 

Following the mystical Book of Thel came in 1790 
the more mystical Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 
which Gilchrist describes as ' perhaps the most curious 
and significant, while it is certainly the most daring in 
conception and gorgeous in illustration, of all Blake's 
works.' It is an octavo volume, consisting of twenty- 
seven illuminated pages, about six inches by four in 
size, the letter text in some copies being red, and in 
others brown. In the best copies the artist seems to 
have sought inspiration for his colour scheme in the hues 
of the rainbow and the glow of the fire. The student 
who wishes to probe and dissect the hidden mysticism of 
this and the later prophetic books will find in Mr. Swin- 
burne's Critical Essay, and in the work of Messrs. Ellis 
and Yeats, interpretations of Blake's symbolism that are 
full of poetic insight and vivid imagination. 

In 1793 Blake moved to 13 Hercules Buildings, 
Lambeth, and there published TAe Gates of Paradise, 
printed in his usual way, but not coloured, and also 
two of his visionary books, printed in colour. The 
first of these was Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 
a folio volume of eleven engraved pages of designs and 
rhymeless verse, coloured with flat, even tints. The 
other volume bears the title America : a Prophecy, and 
is a folio of eighteen pages of text and designs. The 
theme is the American War of Independence, and the 
verse is dithyrambic, and unfathomable in meaning. 
The book sometimes occurs in a coloured form, but 
more often plain black, and occasionally blue and 
white, though it is doubtful whether Blake ever meant 
to send forth to the world any uncoloured copy. For 
sheer power and beauty the designs in this book rank 
with the finest of Blake's work. The colouring, par- 
ticularly in the copy of the Crewe collection, is almost 
dazzling in its brilliance. 

78 



J) 1; 


V 


.^ K S 


■:■.:] 


our 


:d by the 


/••..■ 


(.-.■ 


v: in ly^vo 


■ l'>? 




•l curioi;-- 


■■■;<■[ 


V j 


■ i,.i:n^ in 
,:. EiAc's 
r tv.rntv- 
V r.,:n- h. 
.'., and ::> 


. / , 


■il. 


>^' ^^icient 
•>ti'.;iyni of" 
Mr. S.iin- 




,s i 


/:;:■.(,(,-. 



■, .,v.rv.,/,i;.. 



r.c, a.v' .■ 
! I til,, i!?. 



■ c: ry "I- t: 



, 1-1 i; !.■ 



i PIATK FROM "VISIONS OF THID 



BLAKE'S ILLUSTRATIONS 

By the end of 1793 the Songs of Experience was 
added as a complement to the Songs of Innocence, and 
the two sets were issued in one volume in 1794 with 
the general title Songs of Innocence and Experience, 
showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. 
Some copies are in existence bearing the water-mark 
of 1825, naving been printed by Blake shortly before 
his death. The volume was composed of fifty-four 
engraved pages, and was sold at a modest price rising 
from thirty shillings or two guineas, though later copies 
were elaborately coloured by the artist for Sir Thomas 
Lawrence, Sir Francis Chantrey, and others, at from 
twelve to twenty guineas each. The illustrations of 
the additional Songs of Experience are of the same 
simple character as the first set, and among them is 
that of the * Tyger, tyger burning bright. In the forests 
of the night,' a poem which Charles Lamb pronounced 
'glorious.' Some one has remarked that the verses of 
this volume in their framework of birds and flowers 
and plumes, all softly and magically tinted, seem like 
some book out of King^ Oberon's library in fairyland, 
rather than the productions of a mortal press. 

To 1794 also belongs a sequel to the America, 
entitled Europe: a Prophecy, and consisting of seven- 
teen engraved quarto pages. The frontispiece is a 
majestic design representing the Almighty 'when He 
set a compass upon the face of the earth,' a picture 
composed with childlike fidelity, and one in the colour- 
ing of which the artist always took est>ecial pleasure. 
The eighth plate of this book, representing a male and 
a fem^e figure, carried in rapid motion through the 
air, and from a twisted horn scattering mildew upon 
ears of wheat, is one of the sublimest of Blake's con- 
ceptions; text and figures combine to form a superb 
piece of decorative design. 

In spite of the laborious processes that the style of 
work involved, the Europe was rapidly followed in the 

79 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

same year by the Book of Urizen, which consists of 
twenty-six engraved pages, but text and desi^s alike 
are shapeless and incoherent. To the following year, 
1795, belong The Song of Los, The Book of Los, and 
The Book of Ahania. The first of these contains 
eight engraved pages, two being full-page pictures 
without text. In this work Blake began his first use 
of oil-colours for printing, with the result that the 
illustrations have a heavy and opaque appearance. 
The Book of Los, not mentioned by Gilchrist, consists 
of an engraved frontispiece and title, and three pa^es 
of finely etched script, with a vignette at the ban- 
ning and end. The colouring is again in oil, as is also 
the case with Ahania, which contains six engraved 

' pages, three of them being text only, as though Blake 
was weary of his pictorial elaborations. 

In 1797 Young's Night Thoughts was published 
by R. Edwards, with forty-three* engraved illustrations 
by Blake. It was not issued in colours, and the copy, 
coloured by the artist for Mr. Butts, and sold recently 
from Uie collection of the Earl of Crewe for £i']0, 
appears to be unique. After 1797 comes a gap of 
three years, so far as coloured books are concerned. 
In 1800 Flaxman introduced Blake to the poet Hayley, 
a country gentleman, at whose invitation Blake went 
to reside at Felpham. Here, except for a curious 
charge brought against him by a soldier, resulting in 
his trial for hi^h treason, Blake resided in peace and 
obscurity, workmg quietly at engravings to illustrate 
various publications by Hayley. ' Felpham,' he writes, 
' is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual 
than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her* 
golden gates ; her windows are not obstructed by 
vapours ; voices of celestial inhabitants are more dis- 
tinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen.' 

' The result of this sojourn in Sussex was a long poem 
descriptive of the 'spiritual acts of his three years* 
80 



BLAKE'S ILLUSTRATIONS 

slumber on the banks of Ocean' — so Blake himself 
described it. This poem, published in 1804, bears the 
title Jerusalem : the Emanation of the Giant Albion, 
and is a quarto volume with a hundred pages of 
engraved text and design, a few copies being published 
in colours at twen^ guineas. In connection with the 
pictorial part of this book, attention may be drawn to 
the extreme largeness and decorative character of the 
drawings, made up of massive forms thrown together 
on a grand, equal scale — a fact characteristic of all 
Blake's later work. The copy of this book in the 
Crewe collection, printed in a warm, reddish brown, 
was particularly remarkable for the breadth and 
grandeur of its colouring. 

The other book of 1804. was Milton : a Poem in 
Two Books. In this there are forty-five pages engraved 
and coloured in the usual manner, but more th^ half 
of these pages have slight marginal ornament only. 
The actual drawings are not particularly striking, and 
have little affinity with the text, and one — the picture 
of ' Blake's Cott^;e at Felpham ' — has as little connec- 
tion with the actual cottage as with Milton. After the 
publication of the Milton came dark years of poverty 
and neglect, lighted only by the artist's friendship with 
John Linnell and Varley, and in 1822 Blake was on 
the verge of want. But work was soon to come to him. 
A year or two before this, he had made for his patron 
Mr. Butts a set of water-colour illustrations to the 
Book of Job, which afterwards passed into the posses- 
sion of Lord Houghton. In 1823 Linnell, impressed 
with the power of these drawings, commissioned the 
artist to make a duplicate set and engrave them. For 
designs and copyright Blake received £iy> — the largest 
sum he ever obtained for any one series — but no profits 
were realised by the engravings, their sale Darely 
covering expenses. The engravings, esteemed by some 
as Blake's best work, were published in 1825 with the 
F 81 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

title Illustrations of the Book of Job. Th^ were not 
coloured, but are worthy of mention, because the two 
sets of original coloured designs are still in existence. 

Another book, not mentioned by Gilchrist, is There 
is no Natural Religion. The plates, twelve in number 
including the title, are small m size, being about two 
inches by one and a half, but wonderfully decorative. 
The ideas in the poem belong to almost the whole of 
Blake's life, but there is much to justify the opinion, 
kindly offered to me by Mr. Ellis, that the book belongs 
to the Felpham period. 

Blake's deatn took place on Sunday, the 12th of 
May 1827, nearly three months before the completion 
of his seventieth year, and he was buried on the follow- 
ing Friday in Bunhill Fields Cemetery. At first sight 
it appears strange that the Milton sad Jerusalem, both 
dated 1804, should have been Blake s last coloured 
publications. Mr. Ellis, however, has shown me that 
although both were begun on metal in 1804, they oc- 
cupied Blake in reality for several years. In the 
London Magazine for September 1820 ihci Jerusalem is 
reviewed by Wainewright as a new book. The Milton 
Blake left off regretfully because he could not make it 
twelve books instead of two. He meant practically to 
work under these two titles for an indefinite number of 
years. One more proof of this is that there are extra 
pages in various copies of the Milton, while the copy 
of \^^ Jerusalem, facsimiled in the Quaritch edition of 
Blake's works by Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, is not the 
same as that in the British Museum Print Room, and 
even the numbering of the pages differs. 

There are two interesting documents that throw 
light on the original issue of Blake's books and their 
prices. The first is extracted from a characteristic 
prospectus, egotistic indeed, but with the ^otism of 
genius. The original is in engraved writing, printed 
m blue on a single sheet. 
82 



BLAKE'S PROSPECTUS 

•TO THE PUBLIC 

'October lo, 1793. 

' The Labours of the Artbt, the Poet, the Musiciaji. have 
been proverbially attended by poverty and obscurity ; this was 
never the fault of the Public, but was owing to a neglect of 
means to propagate such works as have wholly absorbed the 
Man of Genius. Even Milton and Shakespeare could not 
publish their own works. 

' This difficulty has been obviated by the Author of the 
following productions now presented to the Public ; who has 
invented a method of Printing both Letter-press and Engraving 
in a style more omamentaT, unifonn, and grand, than any 
before discovered, while it produces works at less than one- 
fourth of the expense. 

' If a method of Printing which combines the Painter and 
the Poet is a phenomenon worthy of public attention, provided 
that it exceeds in elegance all former methods, the Author is 
sure of his reward. 

* The following are the Subjects of the several Worics now 
published and on Sale at Mr. Blake's, No. 13, Hercules 
BuUdings, Lambeth. 

3. America, a Prophecy, in Illuminated Printing. Folio, 

with 18 designs, price los. 6d. 

4. Visions of the Daughters of Albion, in Illuminated 

Printing. Folio, with 8 desi^s, price 7s. 6d, 

5. The Book of Thel, a Poem in Illuminated Printing. 

Quarto, with 6 designs, price 3s. 

6. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in Illuminated 

Printing. Quarto, with 14 designs, price 7s. 6d. 

7. Songs of Innocence, in lUuminatra Printing. Octavo, 

with 25 designs, price 5s. 
8- Songs of Experience, in Illuminated Printing. Octavo, 
wiSi 35 designs, price 5s. 

* The Illuminated Books are Printed in Colours, and on the 
most beautiful wove paper that could be procured. 

' No Subscriptions for the numerous great works now in 
hand are asked, for none are wanted ; but the Author will 
produce his works, and offer them to sale at a fair price.' 

83 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Another interesting reference to the original prices 
occurs in a letter written by Blake on April 12, 1827, to 
Mr. Cumberland, quoted in Blake*s fvorks, by Ellis 
and Yeats. 

* You are desirous, I know, to dispose of some of my works, 
but having none remaining of all I have printed, I cannot print 
more except at A great loss. I am now painting a set of the 
"Songs of Innocence and Experience" for a friend at ten 
guineas. The last work I produced is a poem entided " Jenisa- - 
lem, the Emanation of the Giant Albion," but find that to 
print it will cost my time to the amount of twenty guineas. 
One I have finished, but it is not likely I shall find a customer 
for it. As you wish me to send you a list with the prices, they 
are as follows : — 



America .... 


£6 6 


Europe .... 


6 6 


Visions, &c. . . . 


5 5 


Thel . . . . 


3 3 


Son^ of Innocence and Experience 


10 10 


Urizen .... 


6 6 



Blake's coloured books are naturally rare, and their 
appearance in the book market is extremely infrequent. 
Fortunately there is a good and representative collec- 
tion in the Library and Print Room of the British 
Museum. The finest collection, however, was that 
acquired by Mr. Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord 
Houghton. From him they passed into the possession 
of his son, the Earl of Crewe, who sold a selection at 
Sotheby's on March 30, 1903. 

I append a note of the prices at this and some other 
sales during the last twenty years. It must be borne 
in mind that the colouring varies with each separate 
copy, and also that Mrs. Blake coloured and sold some 
of ttie books after her husband's death. 



84 



PRICES OF BLAKE'S WORKS 









Crewe SaU,t90i 




1883 


^■46 


;f30O 


Songs of Innocence 


1890 


A8 and;f87 




and Experience, . 


1903 


^ai6 and 
2^9 




TheRookofThel, . 


1890 


m 




.89. 


^,4, .OS. 






■895 






I90I 


it, 






■905 




America, a Prophecy, . 


1888 


£^i 


^295 




1890 


£6, 






1904 


liol 






1890 




j^iaa 


Visions of the Daugh- 


and 






ters of Albion, 


1895 


/j6; ios. 






1905 


/■OS 




Europe, a Prophecy, . 
The Book of Urizen, . 


1901 


£66 


£'°i 


1890 


/307 


The Book of Ahania, . 






£^°l 


The Song of Los, 








Europe, and Visions 








of the Daughters of 








Albion, together, . 
The Song of Los, 


1901 


2l44 




1904 


£n^ 




(cop, iicomptete) 




The Marriage of 








Heaven and Hell, . 


1892 


;f50 


£?6o 

(The same copy, 

June 190S, liyi) 








Young's Night 








Thoughts, 






/170 
(Uniqae,m colours) 


Jerusalem, 

The Book of Job; 


188; 


^166 


£»3 








proofs of the engrav- 








mgsandthesi orig- 








inal coloured designs 






,^5600 



1 An exceptional cof^, with on omamental border round each design. 

8s 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

The Crewe sale gave a unique opportunity for 
collectors. A year or two often elapses between the 
appearance even of single copies, which are as expen- 
sive as they are rare. The ordinary collector must be 
patiently content with Mr. W. Muir's reprints, which, 
except from the sentimental standpoint, are quite 
wortny of being placed beside the ori^nals, and are of 
a satisfactory d^ree of scarcity withal. These reprints 
appeared from 1884 to 1886. The photographic tran- 
scripts give Blake's outlines with exactness, and the 
tints, laboriously studied, were patiently added by hand 
in careful facsimile of the originals. The worlcers at 
this task of colouring, Messrs. W. and J. B. Muir, 
Miss Muir, Miss E. J: Druitt, and Mr. J. D. Watts, 
well deserve that their names should be placed on 
record. 

Finally, it is perhaps only fair, in view of the flatter- 
ing criticisms quoted above, to append an adverse note. 
Ruskin speaks of Blake 'producing, with only one 
majestic series of designs from the Book of Job, nothing 
for his life's work but coarsely iridescent sketches of 
enigmatic dream.' 



86 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PROCESS OF COLOURED AQUATINT 

' It is wA unlikely that the day may airiTC when the conturiaaeur of a 
fotnre age shall tarn over the pagres of a boc^, and patise upon an aaaatinta 
print, with the same solemn delight, as those erf our day are wont to oo upon 
a woodcut of Albert Diirer, an etching of Hollar, or a production of any 
ancient engraTcr.'— Saui;sl Prodt, in 1813. 

IT is to be feared that there is a large class of 
educated and intelligent people in this country, 
collectors of books among them, who know 
nothing, or have that' little knowfcdge that is danger- 
ous, of the various processes by which book illustrations 
are produced. There are still many who cling to the 
comfortable old belief that a pen-and-ink drawing is an 
etching, people to whom a coloured plate in one of 
Ackermann's books a colour-plate is and nothing more. 
Seeing, therefore, that a lai^ proportion of all colour- 
plates in books consists of coloured aquatints, it seems 
opportune to give a short explanation of the process. 

From about the year 1790 to 1830 the principal 
process employed in book-illustration is aquatint en- 
graving. The original aim of aquatint was to produce 
an imitation of drawing in sepia or Indian ink. The 
art appears to have been invented, or at least perfected, 
by Jean Baptiste Le Prince (1733-1781), a French 
painter and engraver — something too of a scapegrace, 
who at eighteen married a woman of forty. His secret 
was purchased by the Hon. Charles Greville, and by 
him communicated to Paul Sandby, who at ont^ recog- 
nised the possibilities of the process, and in 1775 

87 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

published a set of quarto plates described as Twelve 
yiews in Aqwitinta, from Drawings taken on the 
spot in South Wales. From this time the art has a 
steadily Rowing pojpularity, till in the works of Malton, 
W. Darnell, and the Havells, it reaches its highest 
perfection in this country. 

As its name shows, aquatint is a means of producing 
a tint from a copper plate by means of biting with 
strone water. If an aquatint is examined with a 
magnifying glass, it will be seen that the * ground * con- 
sists of innumerable little rings, larger or smaller in 
size, and more or less broken and irregular, but all 
joining one another. There have been various methods 
of producing this ground. The most common is to 
place some nnely powdered resin in a box containing a 
circular fan working with a cord from outside. When 
this is set in rapid motion, the dust is raised in a cloud, 
and if a copper plate be then inserted, the fine dust of 
the resin will settle evenly on its surface. If the plate 
be then removed and heated to just the melting-point 
of the resin employed, atoms of dust will adhere to the 
copper, giving a ground of innumerable particles, almost 
touching one another, though there must always be 
minute spaces between them. If acid be now applied 
to the plate, it will fill these spaces, and bite the copper 
wherever it is unprotected. If the plate be then cleaned 
and printing ink applied, the ink, when the plate is 
wiped, will remain only in the bitten spaces, which will 
pnnt with that granulated 'ground' that appears in all 
aquatints. 

Another method, which appears to have been first 
employed by Sandby, is to use a fluid ground, con- 
sisting of resin dissolved in rectified spirits of wine. 
When drying upon the plate this breaks up into a 
gfranulation, which is coarser in proportion to the 
amount of resin used in the solution. In either case, 
when the ground has been obtained and the outline 



PROCESS OF COLOURED AQUATINT 

etched, the finished aquatint is produced by successive 
bitinc^s, any portion that is not intended to receive a 
tone being stm>ped out by covering it with Brunswick 
black. It will be seen that by this method any exact 
gradation of tone is extremely difficult to obtain, but 
while the perfection of gradation that is characteristic 
of fine mezzotint cannot easily be produced, the effect 
of an aquatint is extremely liquid and translucid, 
enabling it fairly to reproduce a sepia or water-colour 
drawing worked in simple washes. 

It remains now to consider the method of making 
the (xtloured aquatints, which for a period of more than 
thirty years at the banning of last century held the 
field as the principal means of colour-illustration. It 
is a method with which must always be specially asso- 
ciated the great names of Rowlandson and Aiken, as 
well as that of Ackermann the publisher. A careful 
examination of the coloured aquatints of the period 
shows that two or three coloured inks of neutral tints 
were employed in the printing of the plate. The usual 
process was to use a brown tint for the foreground and 
blue for the sky and distance. The prints thus made 
were afterwards finished by hand, the method of print- 
ing in two or three inks bemg adapted so as to save the 
colourist as much trouble as possible. From the latter 
half of the eighteenth centuiy the colouring of prints 
was a regular industry. Turner and Girtin both passed 
a boyho^ apprenticeship in tinting prints for Dayes, 
Malton, and John Raphael Smith. The laying of even 
washes in correct tone was an excellent training for the 
development of sureness and precision of colouring. 
Girtin, however, rebelled against the monotonous task 
of colouring prints for week upon week and month after 
month. He expostulated with his master Dayes, tell- 
ing him that his apprenticeship was meant to teach him 
drawing, but the tyrant Dayes committed him to prison 
as a Fe»actory apprentice, and there he remained till he 

89 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

was rescued by his future patron, the Earl of Essex. 
It is of interest to note that in 1836 F. W. Fairholt, 
the well-known author, artist, and antiquary, was glad 
to earn ten shillings a week at the same mechanical 
task. 

For the colouring of aquatints a publisher had to 
keep a number of workmen occupied m this particular 
task. Rudolph Ackermann, for instance, had a large 
staff of engravers and colourists working continually at 
his ' Repository of Arts.' The magnitude of the work 
will be best realised by considering what the issue of a 
single book meant. The Microcosm of London, for 
instance, contains one hundred and four plates, and one 
thousand copies of the book were published. This 
means that for this one book alone at least 104,000 
plates were separately coloured by hand ; and any one 
who has studied Ackermann's books knows with what 
uniform excellence this colouring was done, and to 
what a high d^ree of finish it frequently attained. 
Let us consider for a moment how one of Rowlandson's 
coloured plates for this work would be produced. The 
artist was summoned to the Repository from his lodg- 
ings in James Street, in the Adelphi, and supplied with 
paper, reed-pen, Indian ink, and some china saucers of 
water-colour. Thus equipped, he could dash off two 
caricatures for publication within the day ; but in the 
case of the coloured books he worked with greater care. 
With his rare certainty of style, he made a sketch, 
rapid but inimitable. This he etched in outline on a 
copper plate, and a print was immediately prepared for 
him on a piece of drawing-paper. Taking his Indian 
ink, he added to this outhne the delicate tints that ex- 
pressed the modelling of the figures, and the shadowing 
of interiors, architecture, or landscape. The copper 
plate was then handed to one of Ackermann's numerous 
staff of engravers — ^luck, Stadler, Havell, and the 
rest. When Rowlandson returned in the afternoon he 
90 



PROCESS OF COLOURED AQUATINT 

would find the shadows all dexterously transferred to 
the plate by means of aquatint. Taking a proof of this 
or his own shaded drawing, the artist completed it in 
those light washes of colour that are so peculiarly his 
own ; and this tinted impression was handed as a copy 
to the trained staff of colourists, who, with years of 
practice under Ackermann's personal supervision, had 
attained superlative skill. 

In the actual printing from the plate the ordinary 
method, as has been said, was to use two or three inks. 
A soft paper was employed, as a rule the best Whatman, 
which was then sized to prevent the colour blotting 
through. The print was finished by hand-colouring, 
as a water-colour drawing, in many cases the hi^ 
lights being systematically scraped out with a knife. 
Some of the elaborate botanical plates of Thornton's 
Flora will serve best as an example of the use of three 
colours in printing, while in Pyne's Royal Residences^ 
and in most of Ackermann's books, two inks have been 
employed. This is shown well by an uncoloured copy 
of the Royal Residences in the National Art Library, 
where the landscape views of Windsor, Hampton Court, 
etc., have the sky printed in a blue ink, and the build- 
ings, trees, and for^^ound in brown. It will often be 
found — in the Temple of Flora or in Cox's Treatise on 
Landscape Painting, for instance — that the ink used in 
the imprint for the title and artists' names varies from 
plate to plate, showing the particular ink, blue, green, 
or brown, which is predominant in each. Occasionally 
also, where two colours have been used, the artists 
name below is printed in the one colour, and the title 
in the other. 

With this method of printing in two or three colours 
on one plate it is extremely difficult to accomplish any 
delicate work, because of the necessity, in wiping off the 
superfluous ink, of not encroaching on the adjacent 
lines of another colour. Much, therefore, is necessarily 

91 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

left to the final touching with water-colour. In printing* 
from a copper plate, however, it is easy to leave — indeed 
often difficult to avoid leaving — a trace of the ink on 
the surface of the plate besides that retained in the 
sunk parts ; and this appearance of surface tint can be 
further helped by a process called by printers retrous- 
sage, which consists in dragging some of the ink 
evenly over the surface of the plate by means of a 
piece of soft rag or the palm of the hand. Apart from 
where this retroussage occurs, the usual test of what is 
hand-coloured work can be applied, namely, that where 
the paper between the dots and lines appears white 
when viewed through a magnifying glass, it can be 
assumed that the cofour is pnnted. Wiere colour has 
been applied in a wash by means of a brush, it will 
cover the whole surface, dots, lines, and space between 
as well. 

The process employed by Janinet and Debucourt, 
and in later times by Marie Jacounchikoif, Del^tre and 
others, of superimposing seven or eight aquatint plates, 
each being inked with a separate colour, seems never to 
have been applied to book illustration, probably because 
it would involve too much work and expense. The 
printing of coloured aquatint from one plate differs also 
in its result from the printing of coloured mezzotint. 
With mezzotint the softer, richer ground readily holds 
the colours, which are laid on with a stump on one plate, 
and gives a full, ' fat ' impression. With aquatint the 
finer and more open ground hardly holds the colour, and 
gives a thin and weak result, making hand-colouring 
essential as a finish. Of course the method of hand- 
colouring made the coloured plates much more expen- 
sive, and many books, such as those of Malton, were 
published in a ' plain ' state as well. One cannot but 
think that many of these, like the eighteenth century 
books mentioned in an earlier chapter, were bought at 
' one penny plain ' for the joy of amateur illumination. 
92 



HAND-COLOURING 

The fascination of colouring is the same that drew 
Stevenson when he purchased Skelt's * Juvenile 
Drama.' 'Nor can I quite foi^ve the child,' he 
writes, ' who wilfully foregoing pleasure stoops to 
" twopence coloured.' With crimson lake (hark to 
the sound of it — crimson lake I — the horns of elf-land 
are not richer to the ear) — with crimson lake and Prus- 
sian blue a certain purple is to be compounded, which 
for cloaks es[)eciany, Titian could not equal. The 
latter colour with gamboge, a hated name, although an 
exquisite pigment, supplied a green of such a savoury 
greenness that to-day my heart regrets it.' * Stevenson 
mentions Skelt's successors, but with what joy would 
he have known of his forerunners, Messrs. Hodgson and 
Company, of lo Newgate Street, who in 1822 and 1823 
published three volumes of theatrical characters, the 
plates ranging from * id. to 4d. plain,' and rising to as 
much as 'ga. coloured,' the luscious crimson lake 
and Prussian blue being cheap indeed at the price. 
Thackeray, too, knew the joy of colouring prints. In 
his essay on Cruikshank he writes : — ' Did we not 
forego tarts in order to buy his Breaking-up, or his 
Fashionable Monstrosities of the year eighteen hundred 
and something? Have we not before us at this very 
moment a print — one of the admirable Illustrations of 
Phrenology — ^which entire work was purchased by a 
joint-stock company of boys, each drawing lots after- 
wards for the separate prints, and taking his choice in 
rotation ? The writer of this, too, had the honour of 
drawing the first lot, and seized immediately upon 
Philoprogenitiveness — a marvellous print (our copy is 
not at all improved by being coloured, which operation 
we performed on it ourselves) — a marvellous print 
indeed.' Constable also spent a pleasant afternoon 
in colouring the plates of a book. He writes from 
Charlotte Street, on March 27, 1833, to his boy Charles 

1 Mtmoriei and Portraits, xiil, ' A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured.' 

93 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

at school : — ' I have coloured all the little pictures in 
Dr. Watts's Hymn-book for dear Emily, to De sent to 
her on her birthday. It looks very pretty." This 
coloured copy of the Songs Divine and Moral for the 
use of Children is now in the National Art Library. 
It is a dainty little book, published in 1832 by Charles 
Whittinghain at the Chiswick Press, with woodcuts 
after Stothard. A strange contrast it is, as you turn 
from the simple letter and the book with its simple 
colouring, to the rugged, massive strength and the 
Titanic grandeur of the large sketches for the Leaping 
Horse and the Hay- Wain in the gallery near by. 

Where a book is a genuine coloured copy, issued 
under the direction of the artist and the publisher, the 
collector must not grudge a little extra expense, for to 
colour a whole edition, following a given model for 
each plate, is no mean task. In many cases the 
engraver of the aquatint is the colourist as well, or 
at least, as in Ackermann's case, colourist and engraver 
worked side by side. There are only very few cases 
where the colourist's name is mentioned separately, as 
in the series of views of Northumberland, where the 
imprint says, 'Drawn and etched bvT. M. Richard- 
son. Coloured by B. Hunter. Engraved by D. 
Havell ' ; or in Ackermann's Scenery, Costumes and 
Architecture . . . of India, where J. B. Hogarth is 
mentioned as the colourist, distinct from the engraver. 

One of the best of these books, with the plates in 
perfect condition, is a real treasure, for, as any one 
who possesses a collection will know, there is a frequent 
tendency for the plates to become ' foxy,' and often the 
entire print will be reprinted in yellow over the text of 
the opposite page. In many other cases it happens 
that, where the text on the opposite ps^e is of lesser 
extent than the engraving, the engravmg loses its 
colour' round the margin outside the text where it is 
touched by the plain paper. In a copy I have seen of 

94 



COLOURED AQUATINT 

Ackennann's Picturesque Tour of the Seine, the 
frontispiece facing the title has lost its colour wherever 
it touched the bare paper, with the result that the 
reversed title appears as though printed in bright blue 
across a dead-coloured sky. It is a common fault, and 
Mr. Frank Short has suggested to me that it is due to 
the oil in the printer's ink havine preserved the colours 
that touched it, whereas some chemical used in bleach- 
ing the paper has tended to destroy the colour. It is 
not a case of rubbing off, for the colour vanishes with- 
out leaving a trace on the opposite p^e. A coloured 
aquatint without any of these imperfections reproduces 
better than any other method the elusive beauties of a 
water-colour drawing. It has a delicacy, refinement, 
and purity that its successor the lithograph has never 
attained. 

Before passing to the chapters on books illustrated 
by this method, I must state clearly that wherever I 
have used the term * coloured aquatint ' throughout 
these chapters, I mean by it an aquatint either partly 
or wholly coloured by hand. As explained above, it 
frequently has two (or three) tints printed in coloured 
inks as a preliminary assistance to the colourist, but it 
is invariably finished with water-colour applied by hand. 
In very many cases, in view of this hand-colouring, it 
is impossible to say definitely whether there are any 
underlying printed tints. 



95 



CHAPTER X 

RUDOLPH ACKERMANN 

AT the opening of the nineteenth century the great 
ZA presiding genius, before whose magic wand 
■^ *• so many pictorial books sprang into existence, 
was Rudolph Ackermann. Yet Ackermann was no 
romantic figure, but a shrewd, hard-headed German 
man of business, many-sided and resourceful, full of 
eneigy and enterprise, yet withal overflowing with 
kindness and charity. His influence and his per- 
sonality count for much in the story of coloured books 
in England. Though there was much to discourage 
his early efforts, yet by strenuous perseverance, backed 
by clear judgment of artistic merit, he fostered what at 
first was a weakling plant in a strange soil till it reached 
a glorious maturi^. As the first to gain real popularity 
for colour-illustration in books, Ackermann has consider- 
able claim on our attention. The only early accounts 
of his life seem to be the short biographical notice in 
the Gentleman's Magazine (1834), a somewhat fuller 
notice in Didaskalia (1864), and a biography adapted 
from this, with corrections by ' W. P.' (\^^tt Papworth), 
in Notes and Queries (1869). 

Ackermann was born on April 20, 1764, at Stolberg, 
in the Saxon Harz. Educated in his native town, he 
became apprentice to his father, a coach-builder and 
harness-maker, who in 1775 moved his business to 
Schneeber^. After receiving a thorough training in 
the designing branch of the trade, young Ackermann 
96 



RUDOLPH ACKERMANN 

visited Dresden and other German towns, and settled 
for a time in Paris, where he was the pupil and friend 
of Carossi, then of wide fame as a designer of equipages. 
Proceeding to London, he worked there for eight or ten 
years, furnishing all the principal coachmakers with new 
designs, among examples of his skill and success being 
the state coach built for the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland 
in 1 790 at a cost of jQ'jooo, and that for the Lord Mayor 
of Dublin in 1791. In 1795 he married an English- 
woman, who is chronicled as having no other dow^ 
than all the domestic virtues, and in order to provide 
a settled home for his expected family, he set up a print- 
shop at 96 Strand, moving in the following year to 
No. lOi. Here he had already revived a drawing- 
school established by William Shipley, the founder of 
the Society of Arts. Though he soon had eighty 
pupils, working under three masters, Ackermann saw 
nt to close the school in 1806, finding that his business 
as publisher, printseller, and dealer in fancy articles 
and artists' materials was so prospering that the room 
would be more profitable if used as a warehouse. 

His ingenuity and enterprise were not confined to 
art matters alone, for at the opening of last century he 
was one of the first who arrived at a method of water- 
proofing leather, paper, cloth, etc, and for this purpose 
he erected a factory at Chelsea. In 1805 he was in- 
trusted with the preparation of the hearse for Lord 
Nelson's funeral. In 1807 he made experiments in 
aerostation, inventing a balloon that distributed thirty 
printed notices a minute from a packet of three 
thousand. He was almost the first in London to 
adopt the use of gas to illuminate his business 
premises, and in 1818 he patented a movable axle for 
carriages. But amid all this business activity — and as 
yet nothing has been said of his enterprise as a pub- 
lisher — he found time for an equally active philanthropy. 
During the period when the French imtgrSs were so 
G 97 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

numerous in this country, he was one of the first to 
relieve their distress by liberal employment. He had 
seldom less than fifty nobles, priests, and ladies 
engaged in manufacturing screens, card-racks, flower- 
stands, and other ornaments. Again, when the sad 
affair of Leipzig, in. 1813, and the consequent distress 
in Germany, eave rise to a movement for the relief of 
the sufferers, Tor over two years Ackermann devoted all 
his energies to raising and distributing a sum of over 
;^2oo,ooo. In 1815 he was again active in the collec- 
tion and distribution of a targe sum for the relief of 
wounded Prussian soldiers and their relatives, and 
about the same time was enabled to aid the Spanish 
exiles, as he had those of France. To assist this 
branch of his charity he spent large sums in publishing 
Spanish translations of English Books and in forming 
branch ddpdts for their sde in many of the Souto 
American cities. 

In 1827 Ackermann returned to 96 Strand, his old 
premises having been rebuilt by J. B. Papworth, archi- 
tect by profession, and author of several architectural 
works wnich Ackermann published. He married for a 
second time, and in 1830 experienced an attack of 
paralysis, from which he never recovered sufficiently 
to take any personal interest in his business. He 
removed in consequence from his residence at Ivy 
Lodge, in the Fulham Road, to Finchley, but a second 
stroke brought a gradual decline of strength. On 
March 30, 1834, his useful life drew to its dose, and 
a few days later he was buried in the family grave at 
St. Clement Danes. 

Such is a brief outline of Ackermann's life, to show 
something of his largeness of heart and of iJie versa- 
tility of his genius. It remains to speak now of his 
connection with art, and of the publishing business, the 
foundation of which was his principal work. From the 
first his interest lay in illustrated books. Finding that 
98 



I-Of: 



( ; 



\.Cl: Ir:/ 



. ; st-criL'lll. 



■ ■ : ■- ^aJ■M..n^■slif;^ ;-js: 

!■ i... if, i<.i:i.ii;i - * i spiMk no-.v if 

.'.'i :\:\. anJ 'it Xl.c pnMi^hinjr business, 

.■''\vhi-";i \ias b'l riinrir-i! u->rk. i-'r'..; ' 

■rr.-,t i.-.v'in iiiij-Tr.itcd loai^s, I'indiif.': i 



i 



RISE OF LITHOGRAPHY 

among all the libraries of the metropolis there was 
none exclusively appropriated to boolcs on the line 
arts, he made up his mind to supply the want, and 
fitted up as a public library, from designs by Papworth, 
the large room at loi Strand, once used as a studio. 
This he now furnished 'with a copious collection of 
such books as relate to the arts, or are adorned with 
graphic illustrations, among which may be found the 
most splendid works, both ancient and modern.' A 
coloured aquatint of this library is included in vol. ix. 
of the Repository. Always ready to welcome any dis- 
covery in art, Ackermann was one of the first to 
encourage the new art of lithography, for which 
Senefelder had taken out an English patent in 1800. 
The inventor himself had taken no advantage of this, 
but a M. Andrfe of Offenbach, acting perhaps as Sene- 
felder's agent, published in 1803 his Specimens of Poly- 
autograpky. Though from this time the art began to 
take root, it was not till Ackermann showed a practical 
interest in it that real progress began. ' The admirable 
productions which have of late appeared in Munich,' 
says the Repository of 1817, ' have excited a spirit of 
emulation in Mr. Ackermann, who is determined to use 
his best endeavours to rival this art of the Continent.' 
The article, from which this quotation is drawn, deals 
with the technique of the process, and is illustrated 
with a lithograph by Prout. The most important out- 
come of Ackermann's interest in this art was the 
publication in 1819 of Senefelder's Complete Course of 
Lithography, an English translation of the original 
German edition, published a year before at Munich. 
The book, it should be remarked, contains as frontis- 
piece an ornamental initial, printed in red and black — 
the first example of colour lithography in an English 
book. All these essays are noteworthy as the incuna- 
bula of the colour lithographs which were later to form 
so important a branch of book illustration. 

99 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Ackermann's hiehest achievement^ however, was the 
great series of books with coloured illustrations, pub- 
lished from 1808 onwards, which have given him a high 
place in the roll o( publishers, from the Sosii downwards, 
who have won a place in history. To accomplish this 
work he had to train a large band of artists to act under 
his instructions and carry out his ideas. The result was 
a wonderful output of excellent work ; but just as the 
writers for a large newspaper, under the strong person- 
ality of an editor, produce work of singular similarity in 
style, so among Ackermann's staff tiiere was a trend 
towards uniformity and mediocrity. But the mediocrity 
was golden, and if the casual observer cannot s^, with- 
out a glance at the inscription below, ' There 's a Stadler,' 
or ' That 's by Bluck,' with the triumph of the lady who 
points out a Peter Graham or a MacWhirter without 
the aid of her catalogue, yet this want of ready distinc- 
tion is of little consequence where all is so excellent. 
Ackermann no doubt knew the men he dealt with, and 
when he 'discovered' Rowlandson,gave him unhampered 
scope for his genius. The very nature of coloured aqua* 
tint, when applied continually to architectural and topo- 
graphical views, caused a uniformity ; but when so his^h 
a standard was maintained, the publisher might well be 
content. 

In 1808 began the sumptuous series of books in 
elephant quarto.^ Printed on hot-pressed, handmade 
paper, these books were illustrated with coloured aqua- 
tints, which in the history of book illustration have 
scarcely been surpassed. All were published at Acker- 
mann's Repository of Arts, No. loi Strand, and were 
issued originally in monthly parts with paper covers. 
The first to appear was TAe Microcosm of London : or 
London in Mintature. The original idea was to publish 
this book in twenty-four numbers, at 7s. 6d. a number, 
but Ackermann soon found himself obliged to raise the 

1 Elephant quarto measures 14 hj ii} inches, atlas quarto 16} hf 13. 
100 



■ 1 * ■•■ >! .•\-'- :ii.r;t. li.-^wcvcr, was t...e 

.-- !i .■■i.-i'..l :i':. ti-Litions, y^'ib- 
.:' ::•. H>.i.ii i •■ . •.:',( n him a irc:h 
'.'. .'■ • ■;., :.'■.- ;~-..v-ii duwn\v.ir-ls, 

■ -■ ;■ :.•:■' io U'-i-'iriplish ti'.i=' 

■ . .■',,)■.■ I, I ,;.-:i-,t^ lo act litiuiT 

• i ■•> :.!La,-. The result \vj,.- 

■■ .'■ T-t '.\or-k ; but ju^t as ti;;.' 

■ .'. i;i;.'c'" ti.o strong ptTsoii- 

-■ "k .;f ■iitoiiiiir :>imiitirily ill 

. ■,-. 1 V . ':;rt' tiiere \\as a trcn ^ 

:. " . v:-r.y. But the mediocrity 

■- w .■■■-.•. ■■'.■■. r c:ir:n»'jt sav, witb- 

■,'!.,: ■■ ■ ! •■ . ' Ti,-.-ie 'sa Sudkr,". 

■■v :'.ii ; '.. !r ;■ ■ ph of the lady whn 

)■;':.>■ r a iarvV'hirtcr without 

: . ■ V : '.■ '. .■ .!:L (?f rc.idy dist'ii.- 

.■ -,'■( ..■ '- ,■ :'■! is so rxcell'^r' 

■1 in- '. ■,;,, 1 ,■ ■: !.: .-.(:;,it with. .i,i;.i 

':■ ■ ■ :■-■ ■-. . ■ ■-.( ;:;:!■ u:W).inipe!(.-; 

1 "": •\-'.'\ I .: ;r''i -; ■:i'i:p.d Htjii..- 

■ M...:!^ t. ..V !.:■-:■- r-l uid toj^o- 

■ : 1 .!.. ;■ .. ■; ■■:• ; 'i L u !^' n so W-v'\. 
.■■.:■. \^i.K- ■ '. ,-.::;■.- m'.ht well U 



tifiir^. V 
scar- 'iv 
man*' 



'THE MICROCOSM OF LONDON* 

price to los. 6d. and the number of parts to twenty- 
six, saying in the preface to the third volume that 
' when the price is compared with the work itself, the 
publisher flatters himself that it will appear that he has 
been influenced by other motives besides those of gain 
in the prosecution of it.' In its final form in three vol- 
umes, published in 1810, the book was sold at thirteen 
guineas. The striking feature, as in all this series, 
IS not so much the text (though the third volume is 
notable as the work of W. Combe) but the coloured 
illustrations, in this case the combined work of Pugin 
and Rowlandson. To quote from the preface : ' The great 
objection that men fond of the fine arts have hitherto 
made to engravings on architectural subjects has been 
that the buildings and figures have almost invariably 
been designed by the same artists. In consequence of 
this, the n^res have been generally n^lectnl, or are 
of a very mferior cast, and totally unconnected with 
the other jwrt of the print. . . . The architectural part 
of the subjects that are contained in this work, will be 
delineated, with the utmost precision and care, by Mr. 
Pugin, whose uncommon accuracy and el^^t taste 
have been displa3red in his former productions. With 
respect to the figures, they are from the pencil of 
Mr. Rowlandson, with whose professional t^Jents the 
public are already so well acquainted, that it is not 
necessary to expatiate on them here.' 

The pictures in this book cover all the well-known 
public buildings of London — churches, banks, prisons, 
theatres, etc., — capitally portrayed by Pugin. Pugin 
had exhibited first in the Royal Academy ten years 
before, and during the intervening period had been em- 
ployed in the office of Nash, the architect of Waterloo 
Place and Pall Mall. His work for Ackermann seems 
to have been his first essay in book illustration, but 
his architectural training enabled him to add g^eat 
care and accuracy of detail, to a bold and expressive 

lOI 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

style. Of Rowlandson and his connection with Acker- 
mann we shsJI have more to say in a separate chapter. 
The great metropolis, with its high life and low, its 
light and its shade, could have had no one better fitted 
to portray its inmates. The spirited figures that he 
adds to Pug^n's backgrounds show that his talents 
were not limited to the ludicrous and grotesque. With 
the happiest faculty for expressing character, he is 
equally at home amid a serious discussion of naval 
policy at the Admiralty Board-Room, or among the 
excited, gambling crowd of the Royal Cockpit. At 
Westminster Ab&y or Bridewell, the College of Physi- 
cians or Billingsgate, everywhere he has seized on the 
essential features and the typical frequenters of the 
place. Like every great satirist, he has stamped upon 
his work the humani nihil a me alienum fmto. The 
book is a living and delightful record of the old metro- 
polis of a hundred years ago, the London of Lamb, 
Jane Austen, Dickens, and Thackeray, of places and 
incidents that are now mere memories. You will find 
here the old playhouses — Covent Garden, Drury Lane, 
Astley's, and Sadler's Wells. You will find a picture 
of Doctors Commons, that recalls David Copperfield 
and Mr. Twemlow. You will find the Fleet Prison, 
with its memories of Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and 
Mr. Jingle. Here, too, is Vauxhall Gardens, where 
Becky Sharp so enjoyed herself. 

Of the hundred and four coloured aquatints after 
these two artists, fifty-four are engraved by J. Black, 
twenty-nine by J. C. Stadler, ten by T. Sutherland, ten 
by J. Hill, and one by Harraden. In addition there 
are three titles, one to each volume, engraved in line 
by R. Ashby after T. Tomkins, and at the head of 
each of these a small allegorical stipple by T. William- 
son after E. F. Burney. In each volume also is the 
mark of the printer, a very indifferent woodcut, looking 
as though Ackermann had deliberately left it to show 
1 02 



ACKERMANN'S 'WESTMINSTER ABBEY' 

the difference between a stock trade device and his own 
artistic productions. The Print Room at the British 
Museum possesses two of Rowlandson's original 
sketches for this volume, which are mounted along 
with a copy of the published aquatint. The first, a 
sketch for ' Christie's Auction Room/ differs consider- 
ably from the aquatint, where the architectural details 
have been added by Pugin, and the crowd of figures 
altered and re-arranged. The original sketch for 
' Mounting Guard, St. James's Park,' also shows much 
variation, and with all due deference to Pugin, the 
grouping of the buildings, and the architectural effect 
given by Rowlandson's slight wash of colour, are much 
preferable to Pugin's laboured perspective. 

Ackermann's next publication was The History of 
the Abbey Church of St. Petet^s, Westminster, whidi 
was intended as a 'companion and continuation of 
The Microcosm of London.' Published in sixteen 
monthly numbers, it appeared finally in two volumes 
in 1812 at £\$. The text was by Combe, and the 
book is an interesting one to the student of history and 
architecture, but after the life and variety of the Micro- 
cosm there is a certain dulness about the storied urns 
and monumental busts that form a great part of the 
illustrations. The artists seem somehow to have failed 
in producing the majesty of long-drawn aisle and fretted 
vault, the atmosphere that would be found in a line 
engraving is missing, and the blues and greens used in 
translating the colours of the stones are monotonous 
and not altogether convincing. Yet the work was one 
of which its publisher might be justly proud. When 
it was completed, he had all the original drawings 
bound up with the letterpress and mounted on vellum, 
making a unique copy. A special design with Gothic 
details was prepared by J. B. Papworth for the brass 
mountings and clasps of the two volumes, which cost 
j^i2o. This copy Ackermann valued so highly that 

103 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

he used to provide a pair of white kid gloves for the 
use of the happy individual who was granted the 
honour of inspecting it.* Eight engravers are repre- 
sented, the princip^ one again being J. Bluck, who 
executed forty-nine of the aquatints (seven in con- 
junction with other engravers), and T. Sutherland, 
who worked on fourteen. The other engravers are 
J. Hamble, Hopwood, W. J. White, Williamson, 
G. Lewis, and F. C. Lewis, who, in 1803, at the 
age of twenty-four, had aquatinted Girtin's ' Views of 
Paris,' and who afterwards became a prolific engraver 
of stipple portraits after Lawrence and others. The 
artists are seven in number, thirty-four of the drawings 
being by F. Mackenzie and eighteen by Pugin, while 
others are by W. J. White, H. Villiers, T. Uwins, 
Thompson, and G. Shepherd. Besides the eighty aqua- 
tints the book includes a plan, a title-page ene^ved in 
line by S. Mitan, and a portrait in stipple by H. Meyer 
after W. Owen. 

In The Historical Sketch of Moscow, published in 
1813 at ' £,1, IIS. 6d. plain, £%, 2s. coloured,' the 
twelve coloured aquatints are views of a panoramic 
nature, picturesque, but of no striking artistic value, 
the best being a view of Moscow from the balcony of 
the Imperial Palace. No artist's or engraver's name 
is mentioned, though the text is quite subservient to 
the pictures. The mtroduction states that the text ' is 
intended by the publisher merely to convey some 
historical recollections to the mind of the reader at the 
time of viewing the prints.' 

During 1813 and 1814 The History of the Univer- 
sity of Oxford and The History of the University 
of Cambridge were being issued in monthly parts, a 
thousand copies being published, the first five hundred 
at I2S., and the remaining five hundred at i6s. a part. 
To these was added a supplementary series of portraits 

> See Lifi of J. S. Pafworth, by W. Papworth. Priv»tely printed, 1879. 
104 



•OXFORD' AND 'CAMBRIDGE' 

of founders of the collies, and the two noble volumes 
thus completed were published in 1814 and 1815 respec- 
tively, their price being j£i6 in elephant and j£"27 in 
atlas quarto. The fine aquatints, with their somewhat 
old>world flavour, are well suited to reproduce the 
spirit and to recall the antique associations of the old 
quads and courts. Apart, too, from their fitness and 
beauty, the plates are of value a^ a historical record. 
To t^e St. John's, Cambridge, as a single instance, 
one view shows the old chapel, pulled down in 1863, in 
its place now being an erection by Sir Gilbert Scott ; 
and in the view from Fisher Lane several build- 
ings are shown on both sides of the river, which have 
since disappeared. The principal artists employed by 
Ackermann to make the drawings for these two bool^ 
were Pugin, Mackenzie, W. Westall, and F. Nash, and 
in interiors and exteriors alike their work is full of 
strength, sympathy, and charm. To prove the care 
spent on the orijginaJs one has only to examine Pugin's 
drawing, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 
for the ' High Street, Oxford, looking west.' In the 
Oxford volume twenty-three of the sixty-eight^ coloured 
aquatints are engraved by J. Bluck, twelve by J. Hill, 
eleven by J. C. Stadler, and the rest are divided amone 
F. C. Lewis, W. Bennett, D. Havell, G. Lewis, J. and 
R. Reeve, and T. Sutherland. Of the sixty-four Cam' 
bridge illustrations thirty-five are by Stadler, fourteen 
by Bluck, twelve by Havell, and the other three by 
R. Reeve and J. Hill. In each volume there is a series 
of hand-coloured plates of costume, in line and stipple, 
by J. Agar after T. Uwins, fifteen in the Cambridge, 
and seventeen in the Oxford? Mr. Uwins seems to 
have been inspired with the belief that all university 

^ la the index of plates these count as sixtT^foar, as four sheets contain two 
piates each. 

* These seventeen were all portraits. For a list of the originals, see the note 
by the Rer. J. Fickford in Notes and Queries, July 6, i8;8. 

105 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

dons are divinely tall and slender, with the exception 
of doctors of divinity, who alone in both volumes are 
depicted in possession of a comfortable portliness. In 
the Oxford volume there are thirty-two portraits of 
founders, in the Cambridge fifteen, in line and stipple, 
hand-coloured, but no engraver's name is mentioned. 
Each volume also has as frontispiece an engraved 

?>rtrait of the chancellor of the university by H. Meyer, 
he collector need not bemoan his fate if the plates of 
founders be missing, for they were purely a supple- 
ment, and Ackermann's index of plates provides for 
binding ' with or without the founders," and the value 
of the book lies in the aquatints. It may be noted 
that the exterior landscape views in these two volumes 
occasionally illustrate the use of a blue printed tint 
for the sky, and of a brown for buildings, trees, and 
ground. In the National Art Library tnere is what 
appears to be a rare copy of the Oxford with the plates 
on India paper, uncoloured. 

The Oxford and Cambridge were fittingly followed 
by a History of the Colleges, which embraces the 
principal public schools — ^Winchester, Eton, West- 
minster, Charterhouse, St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors, 
Harrow, Rugby, and Christ's Hospital. Of this also a 
thousand copies were issued in monthly parts, the first 
appearing on January i, 1816. The price for each part 
was again the same, but the whole, forming only one 
volume, was sold for seven guineas. The text, with 
the exception of the parts dealing with Winchester, 
Eton, and Harrow' (the work of \V. H. Pyne), was 
entirely written by Combe, and the same artists were 
employed in its decoration, the highest praise for which 
is that it equals, if not surpasses, that of the Oxford 
and Cambridge. 

The original drawings for the forty-eight coloured 

1 Camden Hotteo, in his memoir of Combe, Bays * Windieiter, Harrow, and 
Rugby,' but the above statement bears Ackermaan's own authority. 
106 



■ . • or; ki:i) nooKS 

-- ' ,..:■•'.': in h- ■Lii volijrncs .ir-,- 

■■■ ■ ■ ■■-"--■ r"-!'"-^- H 

-. ■ i.i(i(tv-t\vo p'-irriait^ .' i 
■ •■ ii:^<.n, in W-}:- and stip;-'-, 

■■ ■ r. . t ■■■ ••. vi'C i.< Il:.jnti(.'MC;l. 

■ ■' .■ .!,;i,'.i -,'■. c a:l <:rij.',r<t'. i"''-l 
].>r o!' \.\w v.n'.v: :-.;;v' '.y IL Mey,' ,. 
1 L<.;ini>n'i I::-; fit-, j the pi-it:.^ r-r 

KT th;;y \-.t^i; purely a si:;.; !c- 
:■ s i!;.!,'-; '.{ (■'atcs j/rovi;ljs ff- 
. ■ : •;.. U-Jiih-r^: :Mi'\ tK \^\:-<: 
■ ■ j-;:;:-:.::-. h nu\y b^- noU,! 



■1 r-r 

Art ( 


1 a ;. 


1 ^vl;-; U.o pbti:-. 


Iv.i.,' 


'J'.\- 


I-! ij'ibrjf-c-; t:.^ 

r, i;!ori, Wf^t 

' r :;;uil Taxi-'!- 

Oftliis al. .1 


6 J 


: ', , 


■/ :-.TK. l:,e S' , 

■'•, v: i'H- <Mc]l p-i . 
1 ' ; l;-st-; ^^■;,■ 
. i!. i'yno). \v. 
;-V' ■^r\^hl 



'. diT.wir.-, i f>,- 



"E 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL 

plates were distributed among Westall, who executed 
fifteen, and Pugin and Mackenzie, who did fourteen 
each, while one is by J. Gendall, who besides illus- 
trating Ackennann's publications was employed for 
some years in managing his business, particularly in 
developing the new art of lithc^raphy. The actual 
engraving was done by Havell and Stadler, with a few 
plates by Bluck and Bennett, and four line engravings 
of costume by Agar after Uwins. Here again it may 
be noticed that many of the aquatints are printed in 
two colours before being finished by hand. This and 
the two University volumes, published in three succes- 
sive years, with the kindred nature of their subject and 
the splendour of their illustrations, form a magnificent 
trilogy. The happy owner of all three books, with 
aquatints complete and clean, and the ample margin of 
the text uncut, has a possession both rich and rare. 

In 1820 bc^g^ ^ series of books dealing with travel 
and scenery. The first was Picturesque Illustrations 
of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, with descriptions 
of scenery, customs, and manners by E. E. Vidal. The 
book was issued in six monthly parts, seven hundred 
and fifty copies on elephant paper, and fifty on atlas, 
the final price being £^, 13s. 6d. and jQ6, 6s. The 
twenty-four aquatints, all after drawings by Vidal, four 
of them being lare^e folded plates, are engraved by 
G. Maile, J. Bluck, T. Sutherland, and D. Havell. 
These are not of any striking merit, and are not to be 
compared with those of the Oxford trilogy or the 
Microcosm, but, like all coloured aquatints, the^ possess 
a subtle charm of their own apart from their historical 
and geographical value. The same year saw the 
publication of a Picturesque Tour of the Rhine from 
Metz to Cologne, by Baron von Geming. The book is 
illustrated with twenty-four highly finished and coloured 
aquatints from the drawings of M. Schuetz, and it is 
impossible not to feel that in his selection of the artist 

107 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Ackennann was overcome by the exuberance of his own 
patriotism. Though finely produced, the volume fails 
to rise above the ordinary type of show-book for a 
drawing-room. The engravings are by Havell and 
Sutherbnd, but the subjects are too German in 
character, too pretty, and too lacking in breadth and 
atmosphere. The l>est, perhaps, is the view of Thum- 
berg, where the square turreted castle standing high 
above the Rhine lends its own dignity to the drawing. 

A companion volume, a Picturesque Tour of the 
Seine, by M. Sauvan, was published in the following 
year, 1821, being first issued, like all the others, in 
monthly parts. The paper covers have a design in litho- 
graphy by J. Gendall. Though the title-page states that 
the twenty-four coloured aquatints are from drawings 
by A. Pugm and J. Gendall, only one original is directly 
ascribed to the former, but two of the engravings are 
from drawings by Gendall after Pugin. The rest are all 
after Gendall, but it is possible, especially considering 
the number of architectural subjects, that Gendall may 
have worked from Pugin's drawings in other than the 
two cases mentioned. Sixteen of the engravings are by 
Sutherland and six by Havell, with two vignettes at 
beginning and end unascribed. Coloured aquatint, 
unless it be executed with consummate skill and care, 
fails most easily in the case of open landscape. Many 
of the engravings in this book are poor in composition 
and colouring, but the ' Pont de I'Arche,' ' Rouen,' and 
' Havre,' by Sutherland after Gendall, g^ve a charming 
effect. 

The same year saw the publication of a Picturesque 
Tour of the English Lakes, in the preface to which 
Ackermannpays fitting tribute to the beauty of English 
scenery. The prefaces to this and to the book on the 
public schools seem to have been the only ones written, 
or at any rate signed, by the publisher himself. The 
book came out in twelve monthly parts, seven hundred 
108 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL 

and fifty copies in demy quarto, and one hundred on 
el^hant paper, the final price being ;^3, 13s. 6d. and 
j[fi, 6s. Of the forty-eight coloured aquatints, thirty- 
five are after T. H. Fielding, twelve after J. Walton, 
and one after Westall. No engraver's name is men- 
tioned, but an announcement in the Repository shows 
the engraving to have been done entirely by Fielding. 
The book shows the frequent use of two preliminary 
tints in the printing of the aquatints. In most cases 
the hand-colouring is rather harsh and crude, deep 
browns being prevalent, with none of the transparency 
that is one of me beauties of aquatint. The engraver 
seems to have relied more on added water-colour than 
on the aquatint ground, and to have forsaken broad 
washes of colour for the sake of details. As has been 
said before, the colouring of an aquatint landscape has 
to be extremely good, or else is worse than useless. 
An indifferent architectural subject is invariably superior 
to an indifferent landscape. The test one naturally 
applies is to ask how far these pictures in frames would 
add to the adornment of a room or to its owner's 
delectation, and herein the Tour of the English Lakes 
is found wanting, but this is only when compared with 
the best of its kind. 

The next of this large series was a Picturesque 
Tour along the Rivers Ganges and Jumna, with views by 
Lieut.-Col. Forrest, published in six monthly parts in 
1824. Of the twenty-six coloured aquatints, nineteen 
are by T. Sutherland and five by G. Hunt, and in 
addition to these there are two vignettes not attributed. 
The illustrations are clear and bright, finely engraved, 
frequently printed in two colours, and well finished by 
hand ; yet they are too cool and shadowless to be ex- 
pressive of simmering, tropical heat. For all that, they 
are a brave attempt to express what the author in the 
glittering and oriental peroration to his preface describes 
as ' the enchanting features of India, eternally glowing 

109 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

in the brilliant glory of the resplendent Asiatic sun/ 
Ackermann's Repository in 1824 announces that Lieut.- 
Col. Forrest ' is engaged on a Picturesque Tour through 
the Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada,' to be 
illustrated by coloured lithc^raphic drawings. Of this 
book, if it were published, I fear I cannot speak from 
personal experience. 

In 1828, shortly after returning to his old premises, 
Ackermann produced another of the series, a Picturesque 
Tour of the River Thames, again in six monthly parts, 
with coloured aquatint illustrations. Two vmiettes 
and five plates, showing the open part of the Thames 
from Southwark to Sheerness, are after S. Owen, whose 
views of Thames scenery had recently been produced 
in a brilliant series of line engravings W W. B. Cooke. 
The other nineteen plates are after W. Westall. Fifteen 
of the engravings are by R. G. Reeve, the rest being 
by C. Bentley, f. Bailey, and J. Fielding. The use of 
two tints in printing is particularly noticeable, as the 
blue used for the s^ is unusually bright. The plates 
suffer from the fact that the engravers have laid very 
little, or else a very fine ground, leaving clear spaces, 
and evidently trusting to the hand-colouring for the 
final effect, which as a result is thin and without depth. 
Where the aquatint work is more careful, as in the 
' View of Richmond Hill ' by Reeve after Westall, the 
result is more satisfactory, but one cannot but feel that 
here subject and drawing made a special appeal to the 
engravers taste. 

Such were Ackermann's lai^er and more important 
single publications. It must not be supposed that 
these books repaid the risk, and in some cases the 
actual cost, of publication, but the losses were partly 
compensated by the wonderful success of smaller works, 
particularly the R^ository of Arts and the Poetical 
Magazine, both of them monthly periodicals. The 
Repository was an attempt to cut out the old-established 
no 



'THE REPOSITORY OF ARTS' 

GeHtUmaiis Magazine and European Magazine, which 
dealt with life and politics in a fashion somewhat lofty 
and severe, with only an occasional illustration. Pub- 
lished at 4s. a month (the first number appeared on 
January 2, 1809), it aimed throughout at popularity. 
Its full title, The Refository of Arts, Literature, Com- 
merce, Manufactures, Fashions and Politics, was no 
exaggeration, for its wares were as universal as those 
of Autolycus. The value and nature of the magazine 
are best shown by the success which attended the 
re-issue of its more important contents in separate 
volumes. Besides the continued articles, which were 
of sufficient length and importance to be deemed 
worthy of separate publication, there were criticisms 
of art exhibitions, reviews and announcements of books, 
reports on the public health, market prices, the weather, 
bankruptcies, etc. There were articles, too, on ' London 
Fashions,' and a monthly letter, treating of the latest 
confections of millinery, written in the most modem 
style by ' Eudocia ' to ' My dear Sophia,' under the 
general heading of ' French Female Fashions.' Corre- 
spondence was encouraged ; the latest discoveries and 
inventions were explained in simple terms ; the current 
topics were discussed. If ' the whole fashionable world 
was attracted to Pall Mall ' by some Indian jugglers, 
the country cousin would find in the next ReposUory a 
coloured picture and their complete history. In 1819 
you are told of the wonderful invention of a ' Pedestrian's 
hobby-horse," and hear that ' the swiftness with which 
a person well-practised can travel, is almost beyond 
belief; eight, nme, or even ten miles can be passed over 
within an hour. The price is from £Z to ;^io.' TTie 
' embellishments ' are numerous, consisting of wood- 
cuts, line and stipple engravings, after 1817 a gradual 
introduction of lithography, and throughout a large 
series of coloured aquatints. The Repository became 
a universal provider, and before the end of a year 

III 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

could boast of three thousand subscribers — ^a lai^e 
number for those early days of journalism. Under tne 
management of F. Shoberl as general editor, it con- 
tinued till December 1828, consisting of a first series 
of fourteen volumes, a second of fourteen, and a third 
of twelve. The coloured plates comprise about eight 
hundred of London streets, squares, palaces, etc. ; 
about four hundred and fifty of costumes and fashions ; 
numerous plates by Rowlandson ; about one hundred 
and eighty of noblemen's and gentlemen's seats, others 
of furniture, and so on. 

The character of the R^sitory, however, is best 
shown by the series of reprints, which were issued in 
book form. Letters from Italy, by Lewis Engelbach 
(1809-15), with eighteen plates by Rowlandson, was 
reprinted as Naples and the Campagna Felice in 1815. 
Select Views of London, seventy-six plates, with text 
by J. B. Papworth (1810-15), was republished in 1816, 
followed in 1818 by VsiigiworXKs Rural Residences {iBi€>- 
17). Sentimental Travels in the Southern Provinces of 
France, with eighteen plates by Rowlandson (1817-20), 
reappeared in 1821. A Picturesque Tour from Geneva 
to Milan (1818-20), with text by Shoberl and thirty- 
six plates, was republished in 1820 ; Pictorial Cards 
(1818-19) in 1819; Hints on Ornamental Gardening, 
thirty-four plates by J. B. Papworth, in 1823; and a 
Picturesque Tour through the Oberland, with seventeen 
plates (1821-22), in 1823. 

The prospectus of the Poetical Magazine appeared 
with the fourth number of the Repository, April 1809. 
The editor had evidently become tired of acknowledging 
among his answers to correspondents the receipt of 
'Angelica's beautiful lines on the faded Pensde,' and 
other 'very elegant trifles,' and decided to give scope 
to the growing talents of these poetical contributors. 
In the May number he notes the appearance of the new 
magazine. ' To the lovers of Poetry we have also to 



ACKERMANN'S PUBLICATIONS 

apologize for the disappointment they will experience 
from our present number. We shall endeavour in 
future to prevent its recurrence ; but, in the mean time, 
b^ leave to recommend to their notice the first 
number of the Poetical Magazine, published on the 
1st May by the Proprietor of the Repository' This 
first number in its introductory address remarks how 
many flights of fancy have been lost, how many odes, 
elegies, songs, ballads, and madrigals have been de- 
stroyed and forgotten because no immediate vehicle 
could be found to give them a chance of celebrity. 
The Poetical Magazine was established ' that no future 
offspring of the Muses may be born but to die, and that 
no poetic flower may blush unseen.' The mc^razine 
continued for three years, and amid pages replete with 
indiflerent and amateurish work it contained the first 
Tour of Dr. Syntax with its famous illustrations by 
Rowlandson, which was published later in book form, 
to be followed by the two other Tours, running through 
edition after edition.^ The illustrations to the magazine, 
all in coloured aquatint, are those of the Tour, with 
occasional views of Italian and English scenery. 

Among other works was a History of Madeira, in 
imperial quarto, published (at ^2, 2S.) in 1821 with a 
senes of twenty-seven coloured aquatints. No en- 
graver's name is mentioned, but the designs are stated 
to have been 'communicated by a resident of the 
island.' They are intended to display character as well 
as costume, and show priest, friar, peasant, and fisher- 
man at their daily occupations, not without a touch of 
humour. The entire text, most of it in verse, was 
from the pen of W. Combe, then in his seventy-ninth 
year. In 1822 appeared Illustrations of Japan, trans- 
lated from the French of I. Titsingh by F. Shoberl. 
The book consists of private memoirs and anecdotes 
of the sovereigns of Japan, descriptions of feasts and 

' S«e pp. 167-170. 
H 113 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

ceremonies, and remarks on language and literature. 
Its eleven coloured plates in aquatint or line, one 
being signed by J. C. Stadler, are of little value in 
themselves, but are of interest as illustrating one of the 
first books, dealing with things Japanese, introduced 
into this country. Isaac Titsingh, who for fourteen 
years served the Dutch East India Company as chief 
of their settlement at Nagasaki, is claimed by Mr. E. 
F. Strange in \(\% Japanese lllustratioti as the earliest 
European collector of Japanese prints, the modem 
appreciation of which may be said to date from the 
Paris Exhibition of 1867. 

From 1 82 1 onwards the IVorld in Mimaltire was 
published in monthly parts, formingat its close in 1827 
a series of forty-two volumes. The motto on each 
title-p<^e was ' The proper study of mankind is man,' 
and the idea was to produce a series, as the preface 
states, ' descriptive of the peculiar manners, customs, 
and characters of the different nations of the globe. 
Agreeably to this plan the reader will obtain, within a 
moderate compass, and at a very cheap rate, consideriiK^ 
the number and el^nce of the embellishments, su(£ 
circumstantial details respecting the various branches 
of the great family of Man, as are not to be found in 
any of our systems of geography.' The text was edited 
by Frederick Shoberl, the volumes are duodecimo, and 
the plates, none of which are signed, are in line and 
stipple coloured by hand. These form a valuable and 
dainty series of costume plates, and the publisher may 
well claim ' spirit, fidelity, and elegance of execution ' 
for his ' numerous graphic illustrations.' The first to 
appear was Illyria and Dalmatia in two parts at 12s., 
with thirty-two coloured engravings, and this was 
followed by Afnca in four volumes at 21s., with forty- 
five engravings, and Turkey in six volumes. In 1822 
came Hindoostan (six volumes), Persia (three), and two 
volumes of Russia. The third and fourth volumes of 
"4 



ACKERMANN'S PUBLICATIONS 

Russia appeared in 1823, and were followed by Austria 
(two), Chuta (two), Japan and the Netherlands (one). 
In 1824 were issued The South Sea Islands (two). 
The Asiatic Islands (two), and Tibet (one). In 1825 
came Sfaiu and Portugal (two), and in 1827 the series 
ended with England, Scotland, and Ireland in four 
volumes, edited by W. H. Pyne. 

In June 1826 the .S^«/or)">oted that ' Mr. Acker- 
mann has ready for publication a work intended for the 
present to consist of two parts in atlas 4", each con- 
taining six coloured plates in aquatint, illustrative of 
Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture, chiefly on the 
western side of India ... by Capt. R. M. Grindlay.* 
The two parts here referred to were published in 182(6, 
but after this the plates have the imprint of Smith, 
Elder, and the titl&'page of the book, published finally 
in 1830, is endorsed ' London, Smith, Elder & Co., 
Comhill.' Of the thirty-six original drawings for the 
book, fifteen were by Westall, ten by Grindlay, while 
other artists were W. Daniell, Clarkson Stanfield, 
D. Roberts, and Copley Fieldine. The principal en- 
gravers were R. G. Reeve with fourteen plates, T. 
Fielding with six, C. Bentley with seven, and G. Hunt 
with three. It may be added as somewhat exceptional 
that on many of the plates the name of J. B. Hogarth, 
the colourist, is given besides that of the engraver. In 
good condition mis is an exceedingl)^ fine book, and in 
Christopher North's Noctes Ambrostanee we read : — 
' Shepherd. What thin Folio's yon sprawling on the side- 
table ? 
North, Scenery, costume, and architecture, chiefly on the 
western side of India, by Captain R. M. Grindlay — a 
beautiful and a splendid work. Pen, pencil, or sword, 
come alike to the hand of an accomplished British 
officer. 
Shepherd. There maun be thousan's o' leebraiies in 
Britain, private and public, that ought to hae sic a 
wark.' 

"5 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

To the year 1828 belongs the Characters in the 
Grand Fancy Ball given by the British Ambassador, 
Sir Henry IVelksley, at Vienna, 1826. The book 
appeals to many by its thirteen plates (line engtavings, 
tinted by hand) and descriptive text of the dresses 
worn by the many people of rank and distinction, who 
formed quadrilles composed of characters from the 
novels of Sir Walter Scott and La Motte Fouqu^. 
'The profusion of jewels and precious stones displayed 
on this occasion was almost incredible. The grandeur 
of the whole, the high rank of the co-operating persons, 
the assemblage of the flower of the highest nobility, of 
female beauty, and of noble manly forms, the brilliant 
armour and weapons, the succession of characters of the 
East and of the West, of history and of romance — all 
served to heighten the impression of this extraordinary 
ffite, which can never be erased from the memory of 
those who had the good fortune to be present." 

One of Ackermann's last publications is the History 
and Doctrine of Buddhism, by Edward Upham, in 
1829. The illustrations are forty-three lithographs, 
coloured by hand, from original Singalese designs. 
These designs, consisting of friezes that slowly unroll 
some Eastern tale, pictures of gods and devils, signs of 
the zodiac, etc., are decorative in treatment and colour- 
ing. This seems to have been Ackermann's first 
venture with coloured lithographs, but no engraver's 
name is given. 

Some Drawing-Books published by Ackermann are 
referred to in the following chapter ; and in Appendix n. 
will be found an attempt to give a complete chrono- 
logical list of Ackermann's coloured books. 



116 



CHAPTER XI 
DRAWING-BOOKS 

OF special interest among books with coloured 
plates are some of the early drawing-books. 
ThCT ate of very distinct value in that they 
treat of the different ways of handling the water-colour 
medium at a time when the art was m its transitional 
stage. The painters in water-colour worked over a mono* 
chrome ground ; perfection of tone, by means of greyish 
blues and timid browns and yellows, was the final aim 
and object ; the brilliancy of colour produced by laying 
natural colours on white paper was considered a daring 
innovation. The contemporary drawing-books are 
therefore of the utmost importance in considering the 
evolution of the essentially English art of water-colour, 
and for our present purpose it is noteworthy that many 
are written by well-known artists, whose theories are 
illustrated by the reproduction in colour of their own 
sketches. 

Some of the earliest of these treatises were published 
by Ackermann. One of the first was Bryant s treatise 
on the use of Indian Inks and Colours, which appeared 
in 1808, with six plates in coloured aquatint, two being 
engraved by Harraden, and four by J. Bluck. The 
plate by Bluck after W. H. Pyne is a perfect example of 
printing in two tints from one plate, the ruins and rocks 
in the for^^und being in a rich brown colour, the 
water and custant hills in blue. It is to be noted that 
the publication line is printed in the brown ink used 

U7 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

for the foreground. In 1812 W. H. Pyne, already 
mentioned in connection with Ackermann, wrote his 
Rudiments of Landscape Drawing, illustrated by 
several aquatints somewhat roughly coloured by hand. 
But among many books of this kind issued by Acker- 
mann, the Dest and most important was the Rudiments 
of Landscape, by Samuel Prout, published in 1813. It 
contains many engravings and sixteen really fine aqua- 
tints, so coloured by hand as to be almost original 
water-colour drawings. I have known four of mese 
plates to be offered for sale as water-colours, marked as 
a genuine bargain at £^7Xi I In 1813, it may be added, 
eleven soft-ground etchings by Prout were published 
by T. Palser, but the hand-colouring is weaker than 
that of the Ackermann book, and the lines of the 
etching are always obtrusive. In a late work by Prout, 
A Series of Easy Lessons in Landscape Drawing, 
published by Ackermann in 1820 at £1, lis. 6d., there 
are again eight coloured aquatints. In 1821 The 
Cabinet of the Arts, being a New and Universal 
Drawing-Book, contains a few coloured aquatints after 
Prout and others. 

The best and most important of all the early draw- 
ing-books, in view of the position that their author 
now holds in public esteem, are those by David Cox. 
The first and twst, A Treatise on Landscape Painting 
and Rffectin IVater Colours, was published in large 
oblong quarto by S. and J. Fuller in 1814. Cox was 
then only thirty years of age, and it was not till 1840 
that he reached the fulness of his power, but the book 
is the more interesting in that it shows the man and 
his art in the making. Besides soft-ground etchings it 
contains fifteen aquatints in colour, engraved by R. 
Reeve, and so highly finished as to give almost the 
effect of an original water-colour. ' Afternoon ' and ' A 
Heath, Windy Effect,' may be mentioned as exception- 
ally brilliant in execution, and as typical examples of 
118 



1 • . ■.- W. II. Pyiic, aiivady 

■ . ,-■ . ■-.■■■^\''.y cciloured by hand. 

■ , ■ . kitid issued by Acker- 
.■ --:■ ;: ;. r'.-iM \va5 t!ie RH-lhuoila 

:wmi;-.l J .-..t. pi.l.iihod i:i 1813. Ii 

.•..i'r.vi . '..;id sixteen nriily fine aqua- 

«r(,:d i . -i as to be almost or'j,'in:u 

i-t" ■ 1 nave ki;o\vn foiir of tht-e 

■. .i ■ uii'rr-cc'lcuis, n"!ark"'-l as 

In i^'i3. it ii\iy be iiuded, 

.>■ by J'nnit wtre |aibli diLd 

■ ■,d-o'.:.->urJr;cr is \M..iki.:r l';:in 
, I-. I. and't'M- hues of \\ k\ 

..• ;ve. In a late v.:j)k by Proi.t, 

.:'.,i:-,i ill lt.!Oat/l. 1 is. 6d., tbci;: 

; a.'< n-.; ', ;i';;inlinLS. Jn 1821 77/j? 

■' .l^fs . ■ .; a A';..' .i.'iJ I'lii.rrsiii 

■'., cent;; ■. . z i*..w toiou-.d aquatints aftc-: 

'id V ' ■ ^I'orU'it (( ;''i the eatly dra'V- 

; .' [.'<-;:":-ii I'laL t'.eir author 

: ■!, a''^-- :-;.v-"c by l>avid Cox, 

' / r-i ■■,.,■ - V /,,i ■-■;/.*,■, .yV /\rtm:f:iT 

■ ■.',-.' ■^■■. v. L-. pi,b'i:.lied in larg." 

■ .. . ■ [ i\i;'(.r in 1014, Cox \\a~ 



en only 1 


-. . ■ .;'■ ': 


. ij'.id it V. 


.:s not iMl I 


at he n- 


: .hef. '■ 


. : i:-. vpv. 


'■r, Wa the b 


the r 




!j". t !t ■■ -'-^ 


■ :. t^i: man 
-iii.-d ctL-hin'- 




.■'i-\ ;•■■■ ■;;!■;-; 


).; * (■■: f. . 


:.: ixved by 




; ^0 h-;!i!y fini,- 


■•.:A :.. t.> 


; ■ .1=; aSinO'^t 




f>r-j;;n:,; watcr-C! 


)lour. *A'-^ 


■ r- ■..•■■m n-id 




ih'\' brVct,' nir-y 


be run.'.'- 'v 


■-,.! ,!•; oryy. 




'4 •'■. r^-ecutii)ji. 


:::.■*. as V- ^ 


< ..' ^•x.'::i; '.' 






S 3 



DRAWING. BOOKS 

Cok's work. In the possession of Mr. Frank Short 
ara proofs of two of the plates for this book, coloured 
by Cox for the hand-<olourist to copy. Several editions 
of the book were issued, the latest in 1841. This 
treatise was followed by a smaller oblong quarto, A 
Series of Progressive Lessons in fVater Colours. The 
first edition was published by T. Clay in 1816, and by 
1S33 the book had reached a fifth edition, having larger 
and improved aquatint illustrations, many in colour, 
engraved by G. Hunt. In this book Cox pursued, 
though to a lesser extent, the method adopted by 
Hassell in 1813, of giving in the text small squares of 
the required colour as a specimen. Of this book also 
there were several editions, the last in 1845. Its early 
success caused its author to follow it by another ' draw- 
ing-book of studies and landscape embellishments,' 
entitled the Young Artisfs Companion, and published 
by S. and J. Fuller in 1825. In this, in addition to 
crther plates, there is a coloured frontispiece, and at the 
end twelve coloured aquatints of still life and landscape 
engraved by T. Sutherland and R. Reeve, and again 
highly finisned in water-colour. 

A Practical Essay on the Art of Colouring and 
Painting Landscapes in IVater Colours, an earlier book 
than Cox's, was published in 1807 by E. Orme. Six of 
the ten aquatint plates are in colours, and all are engraved 
by J. Hamble after Clark. A second edition appeared 
in 1812. In 1824 Clark produced A Practical Illus- 
tration of Gilpirts Day . . . wth instructions in . . . 
painting in water Colours. Intended primarily as a 
drawing-book, it contains thirty aquatints coloured 
entirely by luuid, some of them the nearest approach to 
actual water-colour paintings that I have met with in a 
book. Mr. Clark has tried to obtain the washy effect 
of water-colour by disr^^aMing and softening the edges 
of the aquatint work, letting his colour, particularly in 
the case of foliage, run into i>lots. The subjects of the 

119 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

plates range from early dawn and the stages of the sun- 
rise, to dewy eve and the various phases of the moon. 
Some of the pictures, particularly where there is a pre- 
dominant tone of cool blue or grey, have strength and 
dignity. Although the colouring in others is naturally 
somewhat crude and startling, especially in the treat- 
ment of the sky at sunrise and sunset, or of rainbow or 
lightning effects, yet all are sug|;estive. One notices 
how skilfully the burnisher has been used in getting 
the effect of the rising mist in No. 23, ' Evening 
closing in,' and of the necky white clouds in No. 28, 
'Cloudy Moonlight.' It is noticeable also that in theefifort 
to obtain the full effect of a water-colour drawing the 
sparkling reflections of the moon in the water have been 
systematicallv scraped out by the colourist with a knife. 
A word should perhaps be said here as to the Rev. 
W. Gilpin, to whose writings on the picturesque and 
beautiful we owe Clark's book. Gilpin b^an Ruskin's 
work before Ruskin's time, and ' built up a storehouse 
of images and illustrations of external nature, remark- 
able for their fidelity and beauW.' Bom in 1724, he 
became a schoolmaster, and in his summer vacations 
visited parts of England on sketching tours, by the 
publication of which he became so well known. His 
ObsematioHS on the River Wye, published in 1782, was 
the first of a series of Ave works with similar tiUes, 
creating a new class of travels which exposed the 
author to the satire of Combe's ' Dr. Syntax.' The 
illustrations to all these books are in aquatint, over 
which is washed with the brush a tint of warm yellow 
or brown to give tone to the picture, as in Hassell's 
Isle of IVigkt. The description, from which Clark 
takes his title of ' Gilpin's Day,' occurs in a poem in 
Gilpin's Essays oh Pictorial Beauty, which tells of 
the ' arch ethereal . . . pregnant with change perpetual, 
from the morning's purple dawn, till the last glimm'ring 
ray of russet eve. 
120 



DRAWING-BOOKS 

Two or three drawing-books are by John Hassell, 
an engraver and drawing-master, and the friend of 
George Morland, whose fife he wrote in 1806. The 
date of his birth is unknown, but he exhibited first at 
the Royal Academy in 1789. He was one of the 
earliest to apply colour to aquatints, and in his Tour 
of the Isle of Height, published in 1790, he has experi- 
mented by washing a single tint of a blue, green, or 
reddish colour by hand over the finished aquatint. 
This is the method employed by Gilpin, except that 
Hassell varies his colours. In 1808 he produced his 
Speculum, or Art of Drawing in IVater Colours, 
which by 1818 had reached a third edition. On the 
front page is the advertisement : ' Drawing taught, and 
Schools attended by the Author. Letters addressed to 
J. Hassell, No. 5 Newgate-Street, will be duly attended 
to.' Both this and his Camera : or Art of Drawing 
in Water Colours, of 1823, have as frontispiece a 
brightly coloured aquatint. His lai^est and most in- 
teresting book is his Aqua Pictura, published in parts 
in 1813. The idea was, as the preface states, to take 
a drawing by one of the most celebrated draughtsmen 
of the age, and to publish four prints showing pro- 

fressive stages of the work. These appeared on the 
ret of each month. The drawings selected are by 
Payne, Varley, Girtin, Prout, Cox, and others. For 
the text the curious method was adopted of explaining 
in detail the progress of the accompanying drawing, 
analysing its methods, and illustrating by a dash of 
actual colour each colour mentioned as being employed 
in the picture, with the natural result that the text 
looks exceedingly like an advertisement of Aspinall's 
enamel. There are four plates to illustrate each picture 
selected — an etched outline to give the drawing, an 
aquatint to represent the drawing finished with Indian 
inlc or sepia, the same washed over with a yellow colour 
to give it warmth and tone, and an aquatint finished in 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

colours to repFcsent the completed water-colour. The 
same method is followed with each of the nineteen 
artists whose work is represented. 

In iSio was published Practical Directions for 
learning Flower Drawing, by Patrick Syme, Flower- 
Painter, Edinburgh. Syme, who was at this time 
a teacher of drawing, afterwards became a Royal 
Scottish Academician. He writes that 'in this work 
it is intended to illustrate the art of Drawing and 
Painting Flowers, hy progressive delineations consist- 
ing of Eighteen Drawings, accurately copied from 
Nature. Six of these are finished drawings, intended 
as examples of Yellow, Orange, Red, Furpje, Blue, and 
White Flowers; other six lepresent the successive 
stages of the colouring of these flowers ; and the 
remaining six are simple outlines of the same plants.' 
Though Syme was a distinguished scientific botanist, 
he knew as an artist the necessity of selection and the 
value of restraint. These plates are simple, direct, 
and wholly charming, differing widely from the pre- 
tentious examples of many botanical books of the 
period. It is worthy of remark also that among the 
books of the day the title-page of this stands out as 
a model of simplicity and taste. Another book by a 
water-colour painter of repute is Fiancia's Progressiiie 
Lessons tending to elucidate the character of Trees: 
with the process of sketchitig and fainting them in 
Water Colours, published by T. Clay in 1813. This 
contains twelve soft-ground etchings by Francia, eleven 
of them nicely coloured by hand, and well mounted 
on greyish paper. As a drawing-book also may be 
counted Studies of Landscapes, iy T, Gainsborough, 
J. Hoppner, T. Girtin, etc.. Imitated from the originals 
by L. Francia, 1810. The sixty plates are admirable 
examples of soft-ground etching by one of its best 
exponents. They are executed on paper of various 
tints, and many of them are delightfully coloured. 



DRAWING-BOOKS 

though unfortunately in many cases the white used 
for the hirh lights has oxidised. The book is rather a 
rarity, and a copy in eood condition (and the condition 
varies exceedingly) should give unfailing pleasure to 
its possessor. Very inferior to these, though not with- 
out instructive value, ate some books by G«)rge Brook- 
shaw. A New Treatise on Flower Painting, or every 
Lady her own Drawing Master, was published by 
Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orrae, and Brown in 1818. 
The plates are in stippled outlines, to show the method 
of drawing the outhne in pencil. Several of these are 
coloured, out the examples are stiff and unnatural. Of 
a similar nature are Six Birds, Groups of Fmii, and 
Groups of Flowers, ' drawn and accurately coloured 
after nature ' by the same artist, all three volumes being 

C' lished by T. M'Lean in 1819. All Brookshaw's 
ks are typical of a period when painting in water- 
colours was a necessary accom^dishment of every 
young lady who aspired to elegance and taste. A few 
sentences from a single preface will show how these 
books were produced to meet popular requirement. 
' The following Drawings are submitted to Young 
Ladies with the view of promoting the taste for draw- 
ing Birds, many of which, from their el^ant forms 
and beautiful plumage, are interesting and appropriate 
subjects for the pencil. . . . They progressively unfold 
the delicate touches of the art, and tend to awaken a 
taste for the chastened and elegant beauties of nature. 
The next attempt will be on Fruit Painting, in the 
coarse of which will be introduced instructions and 
designs for Painting on Velvet." 

T%e Amateut's Assistant, by J. Clark — different, I 
think, from J. H. Clark — ^was published by S. Leigh 
in 1826, and is of technical value in that it represents 
the different stages of water-colour by an aquatint 
printed in blue, and bitten in successive stages, show- 
ing how much can be produced by a print in even one 

123 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

colour. The Lessons oh Landscape, by F. Calvert 
(1815), has six coloured aquatints, which may be dis- 
missed as of no consequence. The Practice of Draw- 
ing and Painting Landscape from Nature, by Francis 
Nicholson, one of the prominent members of the 
early British school of water-colour painters, was 
published by J. Booth and T. Clay in 1820. There 
is an interesting folding plate in coloured aquatint by 
T. Fielding after Nicholson, with four sketches show- 
ing the method of laying successive washes in water- 
colours. A second edition was published by John 
Murray in 1823, and the same four sketches are re- 
produced by lithography. Nothing could be more 
instructive than to place the two side by side, and the 
merest glance will show the utter w^kness of the 
lithograph when finished with colour in the aquatint 
method. Where the ground in an aquatint seems to 
give a tone, 'pulling tc^^ether' the whole picture, the 
coarse blackness of the lithograph seems irrepressible, 
and quite unsuitable for reproducing- the effect of a 
water-colour drawing. 

T. H. A, Fielding's Index of Colours and Mixed 
Tints, published in 1830, is interesting for its eighteen 
plates, which are not pictorial, but contain squares of 
colour (twenty-eight on each plate) actually applied by 
hand to illustrate different varieties of tint The labour 
and care involved in producing an edition of a book, each 
copy of which contains five hundred and four distinct 
colours, applied one at a time by hand, is truly extra- 
ordinary. A later book, with some pleasing illustra- 
tions in coloured aquatint, is the Principles of Effect 
and Colour, by G. F. Phillips, published in 1838 by 
Darton and Clark. The same artist's Theory and 
Practice of Painting in IVater Colours, and his 
Practical Treatise on Drawing and Painting in Heater 
Colours, both appeared, in 1839 with a few coloured 
plates. 
124 



DRAWING-BOOKS 

From 1819 to 1821 Ackermann was publishing The 
Cabinet of Arts, being a new and Universal Drawing 
Book. It appeared in thirty-two monthly numbers, in 
dark blue paper wrappers ; each part, published at three 
shillings, containing four engravings, three plain and 
one coloured, with twelve pages of letterpress. The 
original intention was to have thirty numbers, but two 
more were added, the last being a valuable one, giving 
an interesting account, with illustrations, of Acker- 
mann's lithographic experiments. The coloured plates 
illustrate shells, flowers, and landscape. It should be 
added that this drawing-book is really a second edition, 
considerably enlarged, of that published by T. Ostell 
in 1805, with only one coloured plate. To about the 
same date belong Ackermann's five Books of Shipping, 
fc^ Atkins, published ' plain ' and ' coloured ' ; The 
Masons and Pomona, by Henderson, published at two 
guineas and one guinea respectively; and A Series 
of Lessons on the Drawing of Bruit and Blowers, by 
Madame Vincent, at the price of five guineas. 



125 



CHAPTER XII 
COLOURED AQUATINTS, 1790-1830 

THE years 1790 to about 1830 form the great 
period of coloured aquatint illustration — the 
'golden aee,' it may be called, of coloured 
books in England. Ackermann has been placed by 
himself, for he occupies by far the leading position in 
this blanch of the publishing trade. Other publishers, 
however, issued during this period hundreds of books, 
which have a claim to record and remembrance for the 
beauty of their coloured plates. This and the following 
chapter, therefore, will contain some account of the 
chief of these miscellaneous volumes, roughly classified, 
where possible, according to publisher or subject 

Foremost among Ackermann's contemporaries in 
the publishing world were Messrs. John and Josiah 
Boydell. As printseller, publisher, founder of the 
Shakespeare Gallery, and Lord Mayor of London, 
John Boydell has gained a lasting name in the history 
of English printing and engraving. At the close of 
the eighteenth century he and Josiah Boydell, his 
nephew and partner, had won a unique reputation as 

Clishers of line engravings, issued separately or as 
k illustrations. They seem to have published only 
a few books with coloured aquatint plates. The most 
important is their History of the Rtver Thames, with 
text by W. Combe,, published in 1794 at £,\o, los. 
The seventy-six hand-coloured aquatints are all by 
J. C. Stadler after J. Farington, R.A., the treatment of 
126 



BOOKS OF GARDENING 

landscape beine very similar to that employed so effec- 
tively by Roimndsoa. The pictures themselves are 
excellent, some of them, the 'Windsor Bridge,' for 
example, delightful compositions ; but the colourii^ is 
sunk and dead, and lacks variety and sparkle. The 
same applies to Boydell's Picturesque Scenery of Nor- 
vay (1820), containing eighty hand-coloured aquatints, 
drawn and engraved by J. W. Edy. These exhibited 
some of the wildest and most romantic scenery in the 
world ; the drawings, however, are weak in execution 
and colouring, and fail to do justice to the magnificent 
scenery of fiord and mountain. It must be remembered 
that these were the days when water-colour paintings 
were still ' tinted drawings,' not yet emancipated from 
a monotony of grey. The early colourists of aquatints 
were among the pioneers of the movement to heighten 
the key, and give bold contrasts of bright tints, making 
water-colour doff its grey, Puritan sobriety for the gay 
colours of a Cavalier costume. Views in the South 
Seas, published by Boydell in 1808, has sixteen plates 
drawn and engraved by J. Webber, R.A, Webber was 
draughtsman to Captain James Cook's expedition on 
the ResolutioK, and the splendid original drawings for 
the plates are preserved at the Admiralty. 

Another book published by J. and J. Boydell was 
the Sketches and Hints of Landscape Gardening in 
1794, by H. Repton. This contains details and descrip- 
tions of different gardens and parks laid out by Repton, 
and only two hundred and fifty copies were printed. 
Repton, whose first work in landscape gardening was 
done at Cobham in 1790, was employed afterwards by 
the chief noblemen of the day. He laid out Russell 
Square in London, and altered Kensington Gardens. 
The phrase 'Landscape Gardening' was invented by 
Repton, and its first use is in the title of this book. 
The author explains that he has adopted the tsrm 
' because the art can only be advanced and perfected by 

127 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

the united powers of the landscape painter and the 
practical gardener.' The fourteen plates in hand- 
coloured aquatint are ingenious contrivances. Each 
plate shows the park or garden in its original condition 
before Repton's improvements ; but, on examination, it 
will be found that a portion lifts back on the principle 
of some Christmas cards, disclosing to view the altera- 
tions, suggested or executed. Plate i., for example, 
presents ' a scene in the garden at Btandsbury, where 
a sunk fence is used instead of a pale, which had been 
so injudiciously placed as to exclude a very rich and 
distant prospect' The sliding panel, on being removed, 
shows this prospect opened up by the removal of the 
fence. 

This was the only work by Repton published by 
Boydell, but his other books are worthy of notice. His 
Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape 
Gardening, printed for J. Taylor in 1803, has a laro;e 
number of aquatints, among them twelve coloured by 
hand, working on the same sliding system. In 1804 
he published a curious little medley of plays, poetry, 
and essays, in two small volumes, with ten hand- 
coloured aquatints by J. C. Stadler, after drawings by 
the author. 

To 1808 belongs his Designs for the Pavilion at 
Brighton, printed for J. C. Stadler, No. 15 Villieis 
Street, Strand. Repton had been commissioned by 
George iv., then Prince of Wales, to draw up designs 
for altering the buildings and gardens of the Royal 
Pavilion at Brighton, which, like Carlton House in 
London, was the scene of many a gay meeting in the 
days of the Prince Regent. Repton, who had recently 
been much impressed by the Indian drawings of his 
friend T. Daniell, determined to adopt the Indian style 
of architecture. His plans are illustrated with aqua- 
tints by J. C. Stadler, many of them coloured by hand, 
with ingenious slips, like those of the Landscape Gar- 



GARDENING AND RURAL ARCHITECTURE 

dening, that fold back to show the proposed alterations. 
These ideas of Repton won the approval of the Prince, 
but through want of funds were never carried out. 
When Joseph Nash, however, was appointed architect, 
Repton's ideas were largely followed, as may be seen'in 
Illustrations of Her Majesty s Palace at Brighton, 
formerly the Pavilion, published by Nash in 1838 with 
highly finished aquatint views of exterior and interior. 

The twenty-four coloured plates of Repton's Frag- 
ments of the Theory and Practice of Landscape 
Gardening (1816) follow the same system. A col- 
lected edition of his works, edited by J. C. Loudoun, 
was published in 1840, illustrated by cheap woodcuts, 
coloured by hand, showing the sad decline in book- 
illustration that took place in less than thirty years. 

Repton's works are representative of the keen 
interest displayed in country estates at this period. 
Within ten years or so, works on rural architecture were 
written by Atkinson, Cordier, Deam, Gandy, Low, 
Pocock, and many others. An Essay on British 
Cottage Architecture, with plates drawn and engraved 
by J. Malton, appeared in 1798 ; and in 1804 a second 
edition was issued with twenty-three aquatint illustra- 
tions, £\, 15s. plain and £2, 2s. coloured. Malton's 
Designs for Rural Retreats appeared in 1802, with 
thirty-four plates, ' principally in the Gothic and Castle 
styles,' showing the Gothic survival in its most debased 
aspects. Architectural Sketches for Cottages, Rural 
Dwellings, and Villas, by R. Lugar (1805), has thirty- 
eight plates, twenty-one of them pleasingly coloured. 
In 1816 R. Elsam produced his Hints for Improving 
the Condition of the Peasantry, published by Acker- 
mann, with ten picturesque coloured aquatints of 
countty cottages. Papwortn's Rural Residences (1818) 
and Hints on Ornamental Gardening (1823) have 
already been mentioned as published by Ackermann. 

Towards the beginning of the nineteenth century 
I 129 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

there seems to have risen a love of travel, coupled with 
a keen interest in foreign countries and the manners 
and customs of their inhabitants. This is sufficiently 
shown by the demand for the large and expensive 
wdrks on continental scenery and travel, issued by 
Ackermann. But the interest was not confined to the 
Continent, for Englishmen were beginning to give 
their attention to India and its government, its sport, 
and its possibilities. Proof enough of this is that a 
book of pure satire and caricature like Qui Hi in 
Hindostan should have had its vogue. ' Science has 
had her adventurers,' wrote Daniell in his Picturesque 
Voyage to India, ' and philanthropy her achievements ; 
the shores of Asia have been invaded by a race of 
students with no rapacity but for lettered relics; by 
naturalists whose cruelty extends not to one human 
inhabitant; by philosophers ambitious only for the 
extirpation of error, and the diffusion of truth. It 
remains for the artist to claim his part in these guilt- 
less spoliations, and to transport to Europe the pictur- 
esque beauties of these favoured regions.' One of the 
earliest books dealing with India from the artistic 
point of view was Select Views in India, drawn on 
the Spot in 1780, 1781, 1782 and 1783 hy William 
Hodges, R.A. This was printed for the author in 
1786, and contains forty-eight plates engraved by him- 
self. His sketches are bold, and coloured by hand 
with a freedom that makes them practically original 
water-colours. The colouring, indeed, tends to sup- 
press, rather than employ ana accentuate, the aquatint 
ground. 

The principal promoters, however, by means of 
book and picture, of this interest in India, were Edward 
Orrae, and Thomas and William Daniell. Possibly 
Orme, who was publisher to His Majesty and the 
Prince Regent, was a kinsman of Robert Orme, author 
of that forgotten classic. The History of the British 
130 



BOOKS ON INDIA 

Nation m Indostan, of which the first volume appeared 
in 1763, and in that case his love of India may have 
been inherited. Orme opens his Indian campaign with 
Twelve yiews of Places in the Kingdom of Mysore, 
by R. H. Colebrooke. The first edition seems to have 
appeared in 1794, the second in 1805. The twelve 
coloured aquatints by J. W. Edy after Colebrooke are 
large rather than fine, but give a eood notion of Indian 
scenery. In 1803 the field is still in the Far East, but 
changes to the Holy Land, with Picturesque Scenery in 
the Holy Land and Syria, the text being by F. B. 
Spilsbury, who was surgeon on H.M.S. Le Tigre 
during the campaigns of 1799 and 1800. The b<x>k, 
published originally in five parts at £1, is. each, has 
nineteen coloured plates ; nine are coloured aquatints by 
J. C. Stadler, three by H. Merke and two by Jeakes, 
while two are soft-ground etchings by Vivares. The 
drawings from which they are executed were by Daniel 
Orme after sketches by Spilsbury. A second edition 
appeared in 1819. In 1803 appeared Twenty-four 
Views in Hindostan, drawn by IV. Orme from the 
Original Pictures, Painted by Mr. Daniell and Colonel 
Ward. Of the coloured aquatint engravings nine are 
bjr Stadler, five by Merke, four by Hartaden, two by 
Fellcws, while four are unascribed. This fine set is 
particularly valuable, because in the National Art 
Library it is possible to compare with the prints 
W. Orme's original drawings for the engravers, and 
to note with what wonderful success coloured aquatint 
produces the effect of water-colour. It is possible also 
to recognise its limitations. Here, for instance, where 
the landscape is a bright green, the aquatint fails 
through the printer havmg used a brown ink for his 
ground. Picturesque Scenery in the Kingdom of Mysore 
was Orme's next work, in 1805. It contains a portrait 
in stipple of Tippoo Sahib, and forty coloured aquatints 
after James Hunter, twenty being engraved by H. 

131 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Merke, fourteen by R. B. Haxraden, and six by J. C. 
Stadler — forming an interesting series of Indian views. 
In 1805 Orme added to the series ^ brief History of 
Ancient and Modem India, by F. W. Blagdon, con- 
taining a stippled title-page, and one plate of portraits 
of Indian judges in coloured stipple. This last was 
issued with the intention of its being bound by sub- 
scribers along with the volume of yiews in Hinaostan 
or the Picturesque Scenery in Mysore. All three are 
frequently found bound in one volume. 

A book that has a somewhat interesting history 
is Orme's The Costume of Hindostan, a series of 
sixty plates published with descriptive text at £% 8s. 
in 1805. The title-page is undated, and the purchaser 
must be wary; for a later edition, with the imprint 
of 1805 still on the plates, was printed on Whatman 
paper with the water-mark date of 1823. The genesis 
of the book is a series of Two hundred ana Fifty 
Drawings descriptive of the manners, customs, and 
dresses of the Hindoos, by B. Solvyns, the originals 
of which are in the National Art Library. These 
were published at Calcutta with the above title in 
1799, the plates being etched, and coloured by hand» 
and a separate catalogue being issued with descriptive 
text. From Solvyns' drawings W. Orme, as he had 
done with the Twenty-four views in Hindostan, made a 
set of sixty water-colour copies (also in the National 
Art Library), infinitely better drawn than the originals,; 
and Orme's drawings are the originals of the plates in 
The Costume of Hindostan, in which Solvyns appears 
as the artist without any acknowledgment being made 
of the Calcutta publications. The plates are in stipple, 
and seem to be all by Scott with the exception of four 
very poor ones by T. Vivares, son of the more famous 
Francis Vivares. 

Another book of Orme's was The European in 
India, by Captain Thomas Williamson, published in 
132 



BOOKS ON INDIA 

1813. Incorporated with this is Blagdon's History of 
Ancient and Modem India, mentioned above. The 
book contains twenty coloured aquatints, of no special 
merit, by J. H. Clark and C. Duboui^ after C. Doyley. 
These plates without Blagdon's history seem to have 
been published separately in the same year as The 
Costume and Customs 0/ Modem India, with the 
descriptions by Williamson. An Indian book in which 
Orme had an interest was A Picturesque Voyage to 
India, by the way of China (1810), by Thomas and 
William Daniell. Thomas Daniell had two nephews 
— William, bom in 1769, and Samuel, bom in 1775 — 
both of whom followed in his steps as painters of 
landscape, and who were also engravers of remarkable 
proficiency. In 1784 Thomas Daniell went to India, 
taking with him his nephew William, then aged four- 
teen. They stayed for ten years, gathering material 
for several important works from r^ons then almost 
entirely unvisited by artists. Their Picturesque Voyage 
to India has fifty plates, valuable as a series of world 
views, but rather small and of indifferent quality, 
lacking the distinction of those in W. Daniell's later 
work. The Voyage round Great Britain. Thomas 
Daniell's other nephew, Samuel, seems also to have 
acquired the family taste for travel, and spent several 
years in Africa, returning to England in 1804. About 
a year later he went to Ceylon, but his constitution 
suffered by his residence in forests and swainps in 

Eursuit of^his art, and he died there in 1811. Before 
is death he published two volumes. The first was 
African Scenery and Animals, published in 1804-5. 
There is no title-page, the title here given being taken 
from the dedication plate with which the book opens. 
There are thirty plates in the volume, drawn and en- 
graved by S. Daniell. He was a skilled draughtsman, 
and some of the plates in this interesting series show 
him at his best. "The other book was A Picturesque 

133 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Illustration of the Scenery, Aninmls, and Native In- 
habitants of the Island of Ceylon, which appeared in 
1808 with twelve coloured aquatints after his drawings. 
The best plates in the book are those of landscape, and 
one notes specially an excellent view of Trincomalee 
and another of the ferry at Cultura. His yiews in 
Bootan contains six plates, which after his death were 
engraved and published by his brother William, but 
hardly bear comparison with his other works. 

Another Indian book that should be mentioned is 
Oriental Drawings: sketched between the years 1791 
and 1798, by Captain Charles Gold, published by 
G. and W. Nicoll m 1806. Gold's drawings are some- 
what weak, but the subjects they portray are attractive 
and valuable, particularly the uniforms of the early 
native regiments, and the costume of various religious 
sects and enthusiasts. Specially peculiar are the pic- 
tures of the Gentoo zealot who rolled from TrichinopoH 
to Pylney, a distance of over a hundred miles, and 
of the Pandoram, who walked about wearing an iron 
grating riveted on his neck to prevent his ever lying 
down. The fifty plates in hand-coloured aquatint are 
engraved by T. Medland, Hassell, Ellis, and others. 
An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of 
the Bengal Native Infantry, by Captain Williams, 
published by J. Murray in 1817, is also illustrated by 
four aquatints of native regimental uniforms. 

So much for India as an inspiration for coloured 

filates. We have now to consider Orme's other pub- 
ications. In 1806 he had issued a unique book of 
quite a different type, namely, the Authentic Memoirs 
of the late George Morland. This contains twenty- 
one plates, among them four soft-ground etchings by 
T. Vivares, two mezzotints by E. Bell, an aquatint by 
R. Dodd, and several stipple engravings. The sketches 
by Morland are bold and boldly reproduced, while 
the colour-printing, unless one compares it with the 
134 



BOOKS ON SPORT 

masterpieces of W. Ward after Morland, is more than 
satisfactory. One mezzotint, signed Malgo (Mango }), 
is particularly striking. In the text the most is made 
of Morland's somewhat chequered career, anecdotes of 
his life are freely introduced, and his habits as a toper 
are by no means whitewashed. The interest of the text, 
and probably also the fact that the book has frequently 
been broken up for the sake of selling the prints singly, 
have made the Authentic Memoirs Both rare and valu- 
able. Its interest is further enhanced by its standing 
alone in the method of its illustration (I refer particu- 
larly to the colour-printed mezzotints) among a host 
of books with coloured aquatints. On December 7, 
1903, a copy was sold at Sotheby's for £SA. In 1806, 
Orme's Graphic History of the Life, Exploits, and 
Death of Horatio Nelson contains a memoir by 
F. W. Blazon, and sixteen plates. Of these, four 
only are m colours ; one, anonymous, represents 
'Youthful Intrepidity' — Nelson as a middy attacking 
a Polar bear ; and the other three, on whicn J. Clark, 
J. Hamble, H. Merke, and J. Godby all worked, illus- 
trate the funeral procession and the ceremony in St. 
Paul's Cathedral. 

In 181 2 Orme published The British Sportsman, 
by Samuel Howitt. This contains seventy of Howitt's 
capital etchings illustrative of every manner of sport 
on field and river, all tinted by hand. The plates 
seem to have been first issued in 1800, but were re- 
published in this collected form by Orme. This heralds 
a series of books, which were bound to appeal to the 
sporting instincts of the British race. Orme's Collec- 
tion of British Field Sports, in 1807, without text, 
has a series of twenty coloured aquatints by Clark, 
Merke, Godby, and Vivares after Howitt. To the 
same year belongs the Oriental Field Sports, issued 
originally in twenty monthly parts at j^i, is. each. 
The text is \xy Captain Thomas Williamson, and the 

135 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

forty plates, which, as a bookseller's catalc^e insidi- 
ously remarks, would make a fascinating series in 
frames to adorn a smoking-room, are from William- 
son's designs, re-drawn by Howitt. The preface, in 
the florid language of the period, claims that in this 
book 'the British Nimrod may view with no small 
satisfaction a new and arduous species of the Chase. 
The Artist may reap a rich harvest of information ; 
... the Philosopher and the Historian may either 
confirm or correct their conceptions of former details.' 
The book is not only a mine of information as to the 
manners, customs, scenery, and costume of India, but 
contains one of the finest series of sporting plates ever 
published. All are coloured aquatints engraved by 
H. Merke, with the exception of two by J. Hamble, 
and a soft-ground etching by Vivares. Another similar 
book is the Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, Sporting 
Anecdotes, etc., published in 1814, which attracts the 
grown sportsman and appeals to the healthy schoolboy 
as well. The text is possibly a little pedantic ; the 
typical anecdote of the American boy shut up with the 
wolves in a log-hut brings recollections of early child- 
hood, with a remembrance of Blackie's School Reader, 
No. v. The plates illustrate every kind of hunting, 
trapping, and adventure. Some are so theatrical as to 
be almost comic — ^witness the picture of the Indian 
bobbing up in the waves beside the turtle. Among 
the plates are a valuable set of thirteen in gay colours, 
illustrating a bull-fight. The artists employed were 
J. H. Clark, S. Howitt, and F. J. Manskirch, a German 
painter who resided for some ten years at this period 
in England. The engravings are almost entirely by 
Dubourg, whose name appears alone or in conjunction 
with another on over seventy of the hundred plates. 
His principal helpers were Howitt and Merke. To quote 
the enticing words of another bookseller's catalogue, 
* every plate is worthy of framing.' There is a supple- 
130 



NAVAL AND MILITARY TRIUMPHS 

mentaiy series of ten plates dealing with Field Sports 
. . . of New South Ivales, dated 1813, with ten plates 
by J. H. Clark. A second edition of the whole 
appeared in 1819, ' published and sold by H. R. Young, 
56 Paternoster Row.' 

Orme's Life of Nelson found a successor in 1814 in 
The Historical Memento representing the . . . scenes 
of public rejoicing which took place the first of August 
. . . in Celebration of the Peace of 18 14, etc. ' In 
the course of the war,' writes Blagdon in his text, 
' Mr. Edward Orme has not been inactive in the good 
cause ; he has omitted no opportunity of bringing for- 
ward to public admiration, by the graphic art, the 
principal events in which our arms nave triumphed 
t)oth by sea and land ; publishing at various penods, 
engravings of those great exploits most calculated to 
impress the mind with correct ideas of the arduous 
struggles which have immortalised the British name.' 
The riistorical Memento describes the different scenes 
of public rejoicing which took place on August ist in 
St. James's Park and Hyde Parle, in celebration of the 
glorious peace of 1814. The six coloured aquatints by 
M. Dubourg after J. H. Clark show the pavilions and 
pagodas that adorned the parks, the balloon ascents, 
displays of iireworks and of allegorical transparencies, 
and the wonderful Naumachia that took place on the 
Serpentine to show the action between the French and 
English fleets. 

Another book of the same class is the Historic, 
Military, and Naval Anecdotes of personal valour, etc., 
which occurred to the armies of Great Britain and her 
allies in the last long contested war, terminating with 
the Battle of IVdterloo. ' The many important vicissi- 
tudes and national anecdotes,' says the preface, ' which 
occurred during the late disastrous war, have occasioned 
too general an interest to be overlooked. The object 
of the present work is to consolidate those transac- 

137 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

tions, and to concentrate their brilliancy in one focus.' 
The forty coloured aquatints, vividly depicting all the 
horrors and incidents of warfare, are from drawings 
by J. A. Atkinson, F. J. Manskirch, W. Heath, 
J. H. Clark, etc ; one being by George Scharf, a 
German who was attached to the British army through 
the Waterloo campaign, and who later became the 
father of Sir George Scharf Of the engravings, thirty- 
one are by M. Dubourg, seven by Clark and Dubourg 
together, and two by Fry and Sutherland together. 
Among the plates are ' Nelson in the Cock-Pit,' ' Board- 
ing of the Chesapeake,' ' Horse Guards at Waterloo,' 
etc. The book is remarkable for its brilliant colouring, 
and makes a capital companion for the two series of 
Martial and Naval Achievements, which will be men- 
tioned later. 

Orme's Picture of St. Petersburgh represented in 
a collection of twenty interesting views of the city, 
the sledges, and the people, appeared in 1815. The 
plates by Clark and Dubourg 3Uter Momay are lurid 
m colouring, very much in the style of toy theatre 
scenery. 

The same publisher also had an interest in A Voyage 
round Great Britain . , . by Richard Ayrton, with a 
series of views . . . drawn and engraved by IViUiam 
Danieil, A.R.A., which for its wonderful series of 
coloured aquatints could scarcely be surpassed. It 
appeared in eight volumes, from 1814 to 1825, and con- 
tains no less than three hundred and eight plates, drawn 
and engraved by William Danieil. The work was 
published in the days before railways turned remote 
fishing villages into fashionable watering-places, be- 
fore even Southend — witness the plate uiereof — was 
known to trippers. The writer's idea was that ' many 
who would not venture in pursuit of amusement out 
of the latitude of good inns and level roads, to make 
paths for themselves over rocks and crags, may still be 






I -v tllL., 



.'. ■. '■■ :/J . / ■- '-'OH ^cifh (, 
. ,./ n['^.'..-.-./ hy fVilluvi 

.'y \.L - .^ruassc'i. it 

. ■•■■I 1.^:4 t'! :S25,and '.''n- 

1 -i:i i t::;.'i r i-!.i.tc"^, drawn 

i ■- :;..'i. 'i\x. svork. V.:--; 

' . . '..■■■>•(: ' ;,v,,..\s turned ler.ioic 

. i-i }';'.•■.'■:■" ;-;!c v.:!;eriii;,''-pLice-", l;--- 

■i — -m: ■ t'lie Y..\\i thereof— vM\- 

71-'. '.iicr's i>j^.;i \v;h tliat ' n;'--y 

■'■■ y.: \'\ piTsuIt of aniuscnient ..-. . 

■ ..' itjLS a.r.d level roads, to r-'-i ; 

■ '.■■■cr rock? and cmgs, may \,v'.\ \ 1. 



1 1 



'VOYAGE ROUND GREAT BRITAIN' 

pleased to become acquainted, at a cheaper rate, with 
the character of their own shores, where they are 
most conspicuous for boldness and picturesque beauty.' 
Author and artist began their task in 1813, sparing no 
pains and shirking no task to make complete their sur- 
vey of the coast in all its rugged wildness as well as 
peaceful beauty. Though they apologise for 'frequently 
sailing on horseback,' their voyage was a literal one, 
whenever they were unhindered by the ' rapid tides, 
ground-swells, unsurmountable surfs, strong winds and 
foul winds, which were frequently all raging at the 
same time, and no one of which could be encountered 
with safety in a small and open boat.' Vol. iii. (1818) 
contains Daniell's dedication to Mr. Walter, not yet 
Sir Walter, Scott, and refers to 'the vivid pictures 
which your last great poem presents of the magnificent 
scenery of the Isles.' Where all the plates are so ex- 
cellent, it seems unfair to make distinctions, but where 
Daniell specially excels is in suggesting the warm 
haze that hangs over a summer sea, or sunlight playing 
on the roofs of a fishing village and the walls of its 
harbour — note, for instance, his 'Tenby, Pembroke- 
shire,' or his ' Dunbar.' Among other particularly fine 
plates are ' Solva, near St David's,' and ' Clovelly ' 
(vol. i.), 'Gribune Head' and 'Ayr' (vol. iii.), 'Gair- 
loch ' (vol. iv.), ' Dunbeath Castle ' (vol. v.), ' Freshwater 
Bay ' (vol. vii.), and ' St. Michael's Mount ' (vol. viii.) — 
but the list might be indefinitely extended. Daniell's 
original sketch for his ' View of Lancaster Castle,' cor- 
responding almost exactly with the coloured plate, is in 
the National Art Library. 



139 



CHAPTER XIII 

COLOURED AQUATINTS, 1790-183O— (Co»tt»»«0 

OUR list of miscellaneous books illustrated with 
coloured aquatints, and dealing with scenery 
and travel, is by no means yet exhausted. 
John Hassell has been mentioned as the author of 
drawing-books, but he also produced several glorified 
guide-books, illustrated with coloured aquatints. In 
1793 his Picturesque Guide to Bath takes us all the 
way to the west country, starting from London by 
'that beautiful and elegant outlet, Piccadilly.' The 
book contains sixteen hand -coloured aquatints of 
much merit, all engraved by Hassell, fourteen from 
his own drawings, with one after J. Laporte and 
one after J. C. Ibbetson. In eight of Hassell's 
drawings the figures are inserted by Ibbetson. 
In 1817 was published his Picturesque Rides and 
Walks . . . round the British Metropolis, two dumpy 
volumes in small octavo. These are copiously 
illustrated by a hundred and twenty views, which, 
though small, are charmingly composed and tinted, 
and make an interesting record of the topo- 
graphy of London and its suburbs in the early part 
of last centuiy, when Paddington and Kensmgton 
were still rural villages. The sixty plates of the first 
volume are all drawn and engraved by Hassell ; in the 
second volume the majority are by D. Havell after 
Hassell. The Tour of the Grand Junction, an octavo 
volume with twenty-four aquatints drawn, and probably 
140 



COLOURED AQUATINTS 

engraved, by Hassell, appeared in 1819. The colouring 
of tile views shows a lack of care and refinement, but 
none the less they are of great topographical interest. 
Canals at this period were the great highways of com- 
merce, and the shares of the Grand Junction, opened as 
far as Uxbridge in 1801, had risen in 1818 from their 
original price of .^^loo to j£^2So. Shortly before the 
publication of this book it had been the vogue for 
London Society to yisit Uxbridge on barges drawn by 
horses gaily decked with ribbons. This was a favourite 
excursion with NoUekens, the miserly sculptor, and the 
pleasures of the trip induced Benjamin West, when 
President of the Academy, to paint a picture of the 
barge he travelled by, introducing his own portrait 
among the passengers on the crow{^d deck. Hassell's 
last engraved work appears in the aquatints for Excur- 
sions of pleasure ana sports on the Thames, published 
in 1823. 

A Picturesque and Descriptive yiew of the City of 
Dublin, by J. Malton, published in parts from 1792 to 
1797, is one of the earliest and best of books with 
coloured aquatints. It should, however, be added that 
it appeared in a plain state as well. Malton as a topo- 
graphical draughtsman had few equals, and the plates, 
of which there are twenty-five in colour, besides map 
and title-page, have a distinction of their own in addi- 
tion to their value as an architectural record. 

Views in Egypt, printed for R. Bowyer in 1801, is 
illustrated by forty-eight drawings by Luigi Mayer, 
engraved by and under the direction of Thomas 
Milton. It is still early days for coloured aquatint, 
and those in this book are a little crude, but are 
interesting from the nature of the subjects, among 
them being some capital views of the interior of the 
Pyramids. Another book with rather unsatisfactory 
coloured aquatints is Travels through part of the 
Russian Empire and the Country of Poland, by 

141 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Robert Johnston, printed for J. J. Stockdale, No, 41 
Pall Mall, in 1815. The nineteen illustrations look as 
though Mr. R. Johnston was one of those gifted 
amateurs whose work must have taxed the engraver's 
utmost powers to translate into respectability. It is 
interesting to note that five of the engravings are by 
H. Dawe, then only twenty-five years of age, and not 
yet known to fame as a mezzotinter. I^ur are by 
F. C. Lewis, and the rest ate tw J. Hill, C. J. Canton, 
J. Gleadah, C. Williams, and T. Cartwright. Better 
than either of these books is Landmann's Historical, 
Military, and Picturesque Observations on Portugal, 
printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies in 1818. The 
seventy-five coloured aquatints are after Landmann's 
drawings, and the book was published in fourteen 
monthly parts at a guinea each. Among the plates are 
four by J. C. Stadler, representing the four d^;rees of 
torture employed by the Inquisition, which possess a 
considerable amount of the vigour and gruesome- 
ness that characterise the work of Goya. Besides 
these there are numerous views of Portuguese scenery 
of great, though not transcendent, merit by J. Jeakes, 
J. Hill, D. Havell, J. Baily, and J. Ogbome. 

An important book of this period is FVne's History 
of the Royal Residences, published by A. Dry of 36 
Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, in 1819. Pyne, 
though a water<olour painter of some repute (he was 
one of the original members of the Water Colour 
Society), in his later life devoted himself entirely to 
literature. The only books that he illustrated himself 
were his Microcosm, a series of above a thousand small 
groups of rustic figures 'for the embellishment of 
landscapes,' and his Costume of Great Britain, 
He wrote part of Ackermann's book on the Colleges, 
edited the later part of the IVorld in Miniature, 
and was the author of IVine and IValnuts. The 
Royal Residemes, edited by him, contains one hundred 
142 



■ '.:'•!. fi(;::HD liOOKS 

i I .'r J. ]. S(,)^.k.l;.l'.:, Kn. 41 

! ;;. 'iu-^tr.i'.l'cis look a-i 

; V. .^ .. -^ of tlvise ,:;-i!'u-i,i 

.: " :. ; \.'.\c t.i;.M the cnc^ravur'-^ 

■ • i: I-.; ■■■:-~;M-,l.,!>ility; U is 

,. .! .:\i- .1 !! ,: c:v.,-.>\;:.;'-s ure Ly 

. . r. ■ t- ;;■ ■ \\:'.;s uf ai^e, and n.-t 

,■. . -1 ..■- .' ■.: -iUr. I'or.r arc by 

'- :r • I'-.' J i'liil, C. J. Catitoii, 

-, ;. :i r. C,vri\vri-ht. licl'er 

-■■■i\::j.\i- '':■.' -''-f :;!:.\i/is en I'orturul, 

Jl :;••.! \V. i.i,".ie^ in iSiS. The 

-.', .; ;i. '-j::!.^ ;*.■'.; n'';ci" Landiiiann's 

' '^ \..i:; p:il'!i'.i;i-il in fourt'-Mi 

,. i.i.i:. A i ';ii-; t!ie platc;; are 

.'-j.cTiiii!:.; I'..: t'our dc^rjt.s r.l' 

.\\- ■- . .*-^- In'.;ii! ■..■.:'."!, ■■.hich possc>s a 

..'ijii.' .'. .■<' t-M' \ ''■■: *.;r and griK>oiiit;- 

;-i.:it c!~ .; - ■; t'.^c u-'ik nf G'..ya. iSc-iid'- i 

there ■< ■ " ;■ ''ij view ■. cf l-i-ftii^rLiCjic sccr-.^ry 

.;. ' ' transcc;: i -lit, r'Urit Ijy J. Jcakj.i. 

J. \'--V'\\ , •■■.j J. (.';_! i.srnc. 

';■ i\ <-' :'ms p.^;i(.il i-i J'yiu-'s History 

• ■'■ < \ iih!:.-.[ . ■! hy A. Dry of 36 

1819. Pync 





\ un:. 


: L.f 


-i:;:-:: rejii'.te (he vas 






• S .■■!' 


0.>: \\'alcr CoIal-t 


.'. !■■: 


: ■ ■ .' \.\- K-- 


. \ .■,- ! 


'■ 1. iL.cIf entirely to 


'. .:X-xx:-. 


, V i • ;.-: 1 




." :i!iistratcd hiin!:.oir 


.:-ehi:> 


;-yj;,.', ;' ■-. ^ > 


-t .■:•■ 


\L a tliousanti '^nu-.!- 


"om-' 


..:stic t' . •: -, ■; 


. >■ f: 


■ .-!:»;iishmc,n ■" 


■■■. ' 


ami ir- ( ■-•- . 




,'/ Or/.'/ /.V//.- 


\ \' 


::irt of A^.!^c.f■■:i^J 


n -; !■■ 


■: !. . w the Cello-.; 




!;'t',T part of t 


■!..* .' 


\i;i iu Mil !,it' 


■ as t' 


!.r .r.^^uir of /*' 


'i:u' ■> 


'■.! irai;iiifs. \ ' 


r. ,/ 


... ., vM' !hyl 


.i.'.i. 1. 


:".t.!''i,s one h-i" . 



si 



PYNE'S 'ROYAL RESIDENCES' 

coloured aquatint views of Windsor Castle, St. James's 
Palace, Carlton House, Kensington Palace, Hampton 
Court, Buckingham Palace, and Frogmore. Of the 
original drawings fifty-nine were by C. Wild, twenty- 
five by J. Stepnanoff, nine by R. Cattermole, six by 
W. Westall, and one by G. Samuel. Of these, thirty- 
six are engraved by T. Sutherland, twenty-three by 
W. J. Bennett, twenty-eight by R. Reeve, eleven by 
D. Havell, and two by J. Baily. An uncoloured copy 
of this book in the National Art Library is important, 
for it shows that for all the interior views in this 
book the aquatint was printed in a single tint, whereas 
for all the exteriors a blue tint was used for the 
sky, and a brown for buildings and playground. 
Artists and engravers have combined in making 
this a production that ranks with the best of Acker- 
mann's publications. The colouring of some of the 
landscapes, notably the view of Windsor Castle, is 
delightfully soft and delicate, but the garish magni- 
ficence of the royal interiors, gleaming with purple 
and gold, is rather monotonous. You will find here 
the gilded grandeur of Carlton House, with its Gothic 
conservatory and dining-room, its Golden Drawing- 
Room, and its vestibule with pillars of green marble 
crowned with capitals of gold. Royal residences are 
not always notable for perfect taste in decoration and 
furniture, so that it is almost a relief to come on a pic- 
ture of the stone staircase of the Round Tower, pleasing 
in its unadorned solidity. The view of St. George's 
Chapel proves again how inadequately a coloured 
aquatint interprets the atmosphere and majesty of a 
lofty building. Personal predilection may cause 
criticism of the architectural features and the furni- 
ture represented, but this need not prevent the frank 
statement that as an artistic production the book is 
deserving of unqualified praise. 

Another booK of a similar nature, smaller in size 

143 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

but almost as fine, is Havell's Series of Picturesque 
Views of Noblemen's and Gentlemeii s Seats, published 
in 1823. Here most of the landscapes show a single 
tint for the printing, but in many towards the end of 
the book a blue for the sky and brown for the rest are 
quite apparent beneath the hand-colouring. He has a 
wonderful knack of expressing the play of sunlight, and 
the effect of atmosphere on distant hills. The twen^ 
coloured engravings in the Noblemen's and Gentlemen s 
Seats, including the title-page, are all attributed to 
' Robert Havell and Son.' Six are after W. Havell, 
six after C. V. Fielding, and the rest from drawings by 
Turner, F. Nicholson, and others. Havell's highest 
achievement, however, was his Views of the River 
Thames, coloured aquatints published without text in 
1812. Another book dealing with English scenery is 
Picturesque Views of the A rchitectunu Antiquities of 
Northumberland (1820?), the engraving^ being coloured 
aquatints after drawings by Thomas Miles Richardson, 
a water-colour painter of considerable repute. The 
engravers are D. Havell and T. Sutherland, while the 
imprint has the somewhat unusual addition of the 
name of the hand-colourist — B. Hunter. The best are 
the frontispiece, — 'The Barbican or Utter Ward of 
Alnwick Castle,' engraved by Havell, and the ' Remains 
of Dunstanborough Castle and ' Bamborough Castle,' 
engraved by Sutherland. The latter is a good example, 
at least in the case of the copy that has come under my 
notice, of the paper being scraped away to give the high 
lights on the water. To 1820 also belongs i%e 
Northern Cambrian Mountains ; or a Tour through 
North IVales, published by Thomas Clay. Of the 
forty plates, twenty-seven are after T. Compton, with 
one each after Turner, De Wint, Prout, and others. 
■Twenty-three of these ate engraved by D. Havell, nine 
b^ T. H. Fielding, with others bv J. Baily and T. 
dartwright. Three are unascribed, and there is an 
"44 



COLOURED AQUATINTS 

isolated lithograph by H. Walter, with colour applied 
. by hand, giving a very soft and pleasing effect. The 
quality of the aquatints is extremely varied, but some 
of Havell's work is particularly delicate. Views of the 
Lake and of the VaU of Keswick, published in 1820 
at three guineas, contains twelve coloured aquatints, 
drawn and engraved by William Westall, in which 
he interprets well his water-colour treatment of distant 
hills and cloud effects. A Selection of Fac-SimiUs of 
Water Colour Drawit^s, published by R. Bowyer in 
1825, contains twelve aquatints, beautifully executed 
and coloured. No engraver's name is mentioned, but 
the plates are after S. Prout, R. Hills, F. Nicholson, 
W. Collins, and J. Smith. 'The dripping fountain,' 
after Nicholson, will appeal to many as a tour de 
force of engraving and colouring, and some of Prout's 
characteristic Normandy sketches are reproduced with 
sympathy and skill. 

Sketches of Portugiiese Life, Manners, Costume, 
and Character, by A.P.D.G., published in 1826, is 
illustrated with twenty coloured aquatints unsigned. 
Plates and text describe with vivacity, and often in a 
most outspoken way, the peculiarities of the country 
and its people, priest and peasant in particular. The 
writer is annoyed with 'the fair authoress [Marianne 
Baillie] of some late letters from Portugal,' who 
declared in her preface that ' the whole truth should 
not be told,' and prides himself that ' he can without 
impropriety enter into details of habits and circum- 
stances, to which modesty will not even permit her to 
allude.' The author professes to have lived for many 
years in Portugal, and disclaims all prejudice against 
the country ; yet if the truth is in his mouth, Portugal 
can have been no pleasant place in the early part of last 
century. 

Two other books of travel, both published in 1822, 
may be added, but their coloured aquatints are a little 
K 145 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

coarse in execution. The first is A Selection of Views 
i» Egypt, Palestine, etc., by the Rev. C. Willyams, 
printed for John Heame. Of the thirty-eight illustra- 
tions thirty-two are engraved by J. C. Stadler, after 
drawings by Willyams. The second is Travels in 
South Africa, by the Rev. John Campbell, published 
by the London Missionary Society, with plates by 
Clark after Campbell's drawings. 

In our last chapter mention was made of the books 
published by Orme as a record of the Waterloo cam- 
paign, but several books of a similar nature issued by 
other publishers are no less noteworthy. An IllnS' 
trated Record of Important Events in the Annals of 
Europe during the years 1812-1815, published by 
R. Bowyer, comprises a series of nineteen coloured 
aquatints, giving excellent views of the Kremlin, 
Berlin, Dresden, etc., and depicts the ' Entrance of 
the Allied Sovereigns into Paris,' 'Ceremony of the 
Te Deum at Paris,' ' Flight of the French through 
Leipsic,' and other scenes. The Martial Achievements 
of Great Britain and her Allies from 1799 to 1815 
was published by J. Jenkins in 1815. Besides the 
dedication and title pages there are fifty coloured aqua- 
tints after W. Heath, thirty-eight engraved by T. 
Sutherland, seven by M. Duboutg, four by D. Havell, 
and one by D. Hill. This was followed in 1817 by 
a companion volume, The Naval Achievements of 
Great Britain from the year 1793 to 1817, containing 
fifty -four coloured aquatints jifter T. Whitcombe, 
forty-five engraved by Sutherland, six by J. Bailey, 
and three by J. Jeakes. The two volumes depict battle- 
scenes, and make a glorious record of acts of heroism 
and valour performed by our soldiers and sailors in 
bygone days. Among the militaiy scenes depicted are 
the battles of Maida, Vimiera, 'Talavera, Salamanca, 
The Burning of Moscow, Wellington's Entrance into 
Salamanca, Entry of the Allies into Paris, Sortie 
146 



COLOURED AQUATINTS 

from Bayonne, etc. ; and amongthe naval eng^ements 
are the Defeat of the Spanish Fleet off Cape St. Vin- 
cent, Bombardment of Algiers, Destruction of the 
Danish Fleet off Copenhagen, Capture of the Chesa- 
peake by the ShannoH, Defeat of the French fleet off 
the Nile by Admiral Nelson, etc. The two volumes 
form a brilliant and worthy record of a brilliant period 
in our country's history. To 1817 also belongs An 
Historical Account of the Campaign in the Nether- 
lands in 1815, by W. Mudford, published by Henry 
Colbum. It has a frontispiece, ' Portraits of the General 
Officers,' a second frontispiece, 'The Battle of Waterloo,' 
and an illustrated title-page, all ' drawn and etched by 
G. Cruikshank.' The imprint adds, ' Rouse sculp.,' 
which must imply that Rouse added the aquatint work 
to Cruikshank's etching. There are twenty-five other 
aquatint plates, and a^o two engraved maps. These 
twenty-five are engraved by James Rouse, three from 
drawings by C. C. Hamilton, one after Cruikshank, 
and the rest from his own originals. These, with the 
frontispieces and title-page, are all in aquatint coloured 
by hand. Some of the plates are technically interest- 
ing in that they show a curious combination of soft- 
ground etching and aquatint, both badly bitten, giving 
quite a Hthographic appearance. 

The yiuortes of the Duke of fVellington, published 
by Rodwelland Martin in 1819, is another book of the 
same class, but smaller and of less importance. It 
owes its chief interest to the fact that its twelve plates 
are from drawings by R. Westall, R.A. Westall as a 
book illustrator, like Thomas Stothard, will always be 
remembered by his innumerable vignettes, so daintily 
engraved for editions of Pope, Dryden, Crabbe, Gray, 
Moore, the Arabian Nights, etc ; and some day the 
'little masters' of this class of engraving (Heath, 
Robinson, Greatbach, the Findens, Kemot, and the 
rest) will surely come into their own again. Here 

>47 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Westall is not at his best, and his classical treatment 
of military subjects, as though he had a large canvas 
before him, is unsuited to the size of the book and the 
manner of reproduction. The coloured aquatints, with 
the exception of one by C. Heath, are all by T. Field- 
ing. Another book of this class is An Impartial 
Historical Narrative of those Momentous Events 
which have taken place in this country during the 
Period from the year 1816-1823, published by R. Bowyer 
in 1823. The main events treated in the book are the 
Napoleonic campaigns and the trial of Queen Caroline. 
A series of nineteen unsigned coloured aquatints shows 
views of Moscow, Leipzig, Dresden, and other towns 
throujgh which Napoleon passed, ending with two plates 
showing the grand entry of the Allied Sovereigns into 
Paris. Two interesting coloured aquatints by Dubourg 
show the procession of watermen in 1820 to present an 
address to Queen Caroline, and the Queen returning 
from her trial before the House of Lords. An engrav- 
ing by Stothard gives a page of medallion portraits, 
and another by J. G. Murray after Pugin and Stephanoff 
shows the interior of the House of Lords during the 
trial. Another coloured aquatint by Dubourg after 
Pugin and Stephanoff displays the interior of %Vest- 
minster Abbey on tJie occasion of the Coronation of 
George iv. 

George iv.'s coronation gave rise to two munificent 
works by Whittaker and Sir George Nayler, published 
in 1823 and 1825, and amalgamated later in 1837, 
They contain a quantity of coloured aquatint work, but 
were mentioned above in chapter vii. on account of 
their more uncommon display of mezzotint and 
stipple. 

One remarkable feature of this period is the enor- 
mous output of books whose sole object was the illus- 
tration of costume of our own and foreign lands. 
Orme's Costume of Hindostan is a typicd volume 
148 



COSTUME PLATES 

already mentioned, while in other books like Grindlay's 
Costume and Architecture of India, costume, if not 
the main subject, forms an integral and important part 
of the book. The interest in English costume is easy 
to understand, for the period was one of rapid change 
and development, and the fashion-plate was coming 
into vogue, forming the prominent feature of Acker- 
mann's Repository, La Belle Assembl4e, and other 
popular magazines of the day. Frills and furbelows, 
fashions new and old, make a perennial appeal to 
feminine fancy. It is interestinsc ^*^ \'Qf^ back upon 
this particular period, and note the progression, or re- 
trogression, from the patches and powder, the hoops 
and elaborate high-piled head-dresses of 1770, through 
the eccentricities of the classical revival, with its hi^- 
waisted, scant decency of clinging silk, inaugurated by 
the incroyables and merveilleuses of empire times in 
Paris, to the monstrosities of early Victorian bonnets 
and crinolines. You can note each step in turning over 
the prints of Hogarth, Rowlandson, Gillray, and John 
Leech, and it is one of the everlasting wonders of 
Leech's genius, that even to the early Victorian bonnet 
and crinoline his pencil could lend unfailing g^race and 
charm. 

Why there should have been sufficient interest in 
the costume of foreign countries, particularly of Russia, 
Turkey, and the Far East, to cause a demand for large 
and expensive volumes of costume pure and simple, is 
harder to understand. It seems clear, however, that 
the time of the Napoleonic campaigns was one of ex- 
pansion, when travel became easier and more popular, 
and the interest in other lands consequently greater. 
In painting there was a demand for accuracy and 
appropriateness of costume and surroundings. The 
days when a Roman toga was the accepted clothing for 
a British general were happily coming to a dose. 
Sculpture clung longer to old conventions, the utter 

149 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

folly and bathos of which are revealed in the statue by 
John Bacon of Dr. Johnson — Dr. Johnson of all people, 
semi-nude and clad in toga — erected in St. Paul's 
Cathedral in 1795. The sta^e, too, was becoming 
modernised, the 'wretched pair of flats' that formed 
the scenic decoration in the days of Garrick were con- 
sidered insufficient, and though it was not till die 
Shakespearean revivals of Charles Kean at the Hay- 
market in the 'fifties that absolute accuracy of costume 
and accessories was obtained by painstaking research, 
still there was a growing tendency to the production 
of topical subjects and their proper placing upon the 
stage. In proof of this it may be mentioned that in 
181 2 a realistic representation of the burning of the 
Kremlin at Moscow was a popular attraction in theatres 
all over the country. All these influences no doubt 
contributed their share in promoting the demand for 
books of costume. 

It is impossible to mention all the ephemera! col- 
lections of fashion-plates that appeared from 1790 
onwards, but one of the first of these has more per- 
manent value and is worthy of special attention. This 
is the Gallery of Fashion, published by N. Heideloff, 
of which the first number appeared in April 1794. The 
price to subscribers was three guineas for the twelve num- 
bers that formed a volume, or to non-subscribers 7s. 6d. 
each number. The whole series, completed in 1802, 
forms nine volumes, and is illustrated by two hundred 
and fifty-one engravings and aquatints, delicately tinted 
by hand, and heightened with gold. It claims to be 
' a collection of ^1 the most fashionable and elegant 
Dresses in vogue ... in short it forms a Repository of 
Dress.' There is no attribution of the plates to any 
engraver, but it may be assumed that they are by 
Heideloff himself, who executed the engraving for 
Ackermann's Costume of the Swedish Army. These 
prints, at any rate, are full of life and spirit, and the 
150 



COLD II i; Ii!) i;OOK s 

•■'. I- .'v,: u-.-.'.,!, J ;i\ lUc st:.iiM: . ; 

■ - -l T. j.':i;i.~on of :iii j.".'.;.'.: 
. i;i ; ! ; i--.rixt'jil in Si. Ki^i' 

. ' "t ■•:■■:, t'jo. v;-s Uc: \<:.- 

■ .-■■■ '- ■ .T (.if ;'.A'' x]:.-i (•■<■:, ■ 

:: , .: .:.,;■;: uf <:^r:i,l: v.,„,j r. , 
■ : v..,:i;'!; il w.ii n-jt lii! iw 

■ i-i...:i -, Kc:\n :a ihc if.iv 
. :il'^-i':i ■ .i.,^u,--tcy of c -U!r,i 

. ii; ( ti .1 :.■ y to t\:C [TOJ--- ■■ 

■..1 UK-'- pi :ir uii^.in,' u'-in t:.. 

■lis It 1 .-) ^c in;;ri:i(^:icd t;'K ;: 

■ . '-:■' ^\'-- ■ i I'i-"- builil!);,'' ci i'" 

. . .1 ;.■• '-'-i" -I'l^.u Jon in ti^: ;:■■"■ 

\ 1 ;.n-,c i:.^!;^'[n.-::> nil tlil/ 

-.-o-a, .;•:•■ l.i; (!ciii:;i,.i f' 



■ •■ .■ ■-• . ■ ■.lion C-. . I'.-. ti!-(-nurji (.■-' 
. f i;o.i;. > . , \i; -t i'..;.-\'-o'! f.,.m n- 
hiit on. ■ ■ o h:..l of li.^-s; h.K more o.- 

"■OCnr! ■i"'.il\ i-f :::'-.c(.;.il .;l'."nli'n\ 'j i. 

'--.■ • .' .; ju^|.;;.l,. i bvN. iloio,'...' 

,: ..j.iooi : ii Ay::\ 17,4. T. 

. i.;rocyii!T;,isi.;ii!h:t\'.i-ivc nio:; 

■ ■■ot:,o:-v> n---j-\i&:<csA.vr^';^. (...' 



by ■I-' 



but it m--iy 1 <• ;;< v!:;.. ■.! '.' :--L rn-y .; ■ 

Inn' iolf, V hu cxe:.i;u-;i I:' ..;' : r.o ;;' . 

m^ : .:..V.,;o<v" /.:■•■ 5.'. /. ■ ./.-.o,.. ' [ 

.'. ■■ 1 ..-, n.e'fi.il of : :•_ .0.1 :,-,,■., ;, . : 



"MORNINi; DKKSSKS,- MONTH Of ! 



COSTUME PLATES 

graceful figures illustrated are quite unlike the conven- 
tions of the stereotyped fashion-plate. A complete copy 
is rare, and now fetches from thirty pounds upwards. 

A most important series of books on costume was 
that issued by W. Miller from 1800 to 1808, the 
volumes being sold at a price of six to eight guineas, 
all of them, except the Costume of Great Britain, 
having text in French as well as English. The first 
to appear was the Costume of China by Lieutenant- 
Colonel Mason. The sixty plates were engraved by 
J. Dadley in stipple and coloured by hand, from draw- 
ings by Peu Qua of Canton. This was followed in 
\€o\ \>y the Punishments of China, with twenty-two 
engravings, ^^in in stipple by Dadley. In the Cos- 
tume of Turkey (1802), the plates are by Dadley and 
Poole after O. Dalvimart. The Costume of Russia 
(1803) contains seventy-three plates engraved by 
Dadley, and was followed in 1804 by the Costume of 
Austria. In 1805 came the Costume of China with 
forty-eight plates after W. Alexander, who was 
draughtsman to the Embassy of Earl Macartney. 
Being executed by a British artist, the work forms 
a contrast to that from the pencil of Peu Qua, and also 
contains a different selection of subjects. The series 
was completed in 1808 by a seventh volume of the 
Costume of Great Britain, by W. H. Pyne, the whole 
set consisting of three hundred and seventy-three 
engravings, and being sold for ^£^48, i6s. 6d. The 
last volume is by far the best, for Pyne's work reaches 
a high standard, and instead of giving single figures, 
as in the other volumes, he illustrates all types" and 
classes of the people, singly or in groups, engaged in 
their several occupations. To judge the scope of the 
work one has only to glance at such titles of the 
plates as ' Leather Dressing,' 'Woman selling Salop,' 
' Halfpenny Showman,' ' Lord Mayor," ' Lamplighter,' 
' Lottery Wheel,' and so on in indiscriminate sequence. 

151 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

These are only a few selected at random from sixty 
coloured plates, intensely pictorial, full of human 
interest, and illustrating many quaint English customs 
and occupations. The engravings are all in aquatint 
coloured by hand, and as no engraver's name is 
mentioned, they are presumably by Pyne himself. 

The years 1803 and 1804 brought forward a new 
illustrator of costume in J. A. Atkinson. A Pic- 
turesque Representation of the Manners, Customs and 
Amusements of the Russians forms three folio volumes 
printed for its authors, J. A. Atkinson and J. Walker, 
m 1803-4, ^"<i published at £1$, 15s. The illustra- 
tions consist of one hundred soft-^ound etchings by 
Atkinson, coloured by hand. Walker and Atkinson in 
1807 began a Picturesque Representation of the Naval, 
Military and Miscellaneous Costumes of Great Britain. 
This was to have been published by W. Miller and J. ■ 
Walker in three volumes, but one volume only seems 
to have appeared, containing thirty-three soft-ground 
etchings coloured by hand. These two books reveal 
Atkinson as a vigorous and capable, and at times a 
brilliant, draughtsman. He has the power of selection 
and suppression that make for greatness in drawing, 
and his work seems never to have received the recog- 
nition it deserves. The colouring in both books is 
delicately applied in the Rowlandson manner, the flat 
tints being extremely like the method of some modem 
posters. There is nothing stiff or stereotyped in Atkin- 
son's treatment of scenes and figures, and these two 
books are among the most charming of books on 
costume. 

The Army of Russia, Containing the Uniforms 
in Portrait of the Russian soldiery, was published in 
1807 by E. Orme at £1, is. The frontispiece hy J. 
Godby after Pinchoa is a good example of stipple 
printed in colours. The eight other plates adequately 
represent various uniforms, but are not of particular 
152 



COSTUME PLATES 

merit. Russian Cries . . . from dranmngs done on the 
spot by G. Orlowski, was published by Orme in 1809, 
and contains eight interesting plates in stipple, coloured 
by hand, by J. Godby,' and a hand-coloured line 
engraving by J. Swaine. Costume of the Russian 
Empire, published by E. Harding in 181 1, with text 
in French and English, contains a fine series of 
seventy-one plates, engraved in line and stipple, and 
coloured by hand. The Military Costume of India, 
by Captain James, published by T. Goddard in 1813, 
has thir^five plates of etched outlines coloured by 
hand. They are somewhat ^otesque, but form 
faithful representations of the uniform and the manual 
and platoon exercises of native troops of the period. 

Among books of 1814 is the Costume of York- 
shire, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and 
Brown, with text in French and English. The forty- 
one coloured aquatints, by R. and D. Havell after 
George Walker, are faithful presentments of British 
peasantry in their various occupations, and also depict 
Yorkshire military uniforms, sea-bathing from machines 
at Bridlington, hawking on the moors, the Doncaster 
races, and other popular subjects. In 1814 also John 
Murray takes his place among the publishers of coloured 
books of costume, with a series of volumes in small 
quarto. In 1813 he had published Picturesque Repre- 
sentations of the Dress and Manners of the Austnans, 
by W. Alexander, with fifty plates. Picturesque Re- 
presentations of the Dress ana Manners of the Chinese 
by the same author, was issued in 1814 with fifty 
plates. Both of these books bear on the title-page, 
' Printed for Thomas M"Lean,' though the imprint on 
the plates gives Murray as the pubhsher. These and 
the three others of the series published in 1814 are all 
illustrated by aquatints, but no engraver's name is 
mentioned. The others are Picturesque Representa- 
tions of the Dress and Manners of the Turks, with 

IS3 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

sixty plates ; Picturesque Representatums of the Dress 
ana Manners of the Russians, with sixty-four plates ; 
and Picturesque Representations of the Dress and 
Manners of the English. In the last volume the 
strange juxtaposition of characters reminds one of the 
old rhyme of ' tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor,' etc. The 
titles of some of the illustrations may be quoted in the 
amusing order in which the^ stand without respect to 
persons — 'Yeomen of the Guard, Shrimper, Peer in 
his Robes, Dustman, . . . Dairy Maid, Drayman, 
Speaker of the House of Commons, Butcher's Boy, 
Admiral,' and so on. There are fifty plates in all, 
admirably drawn and hand-coloured in a style so Uke 
that of Atkinson that they may well be accepted 
as his work. In 1814 also Colnaghi and Company 
added to the books of costume Selections of the 
Ancient Costume of Great Britain and Ireland from 
the seventh to the sixteenth century, by Colonel Hamil- 
ton Smith. The sixty-one plates are all inscribed as 
' etched by J. A. Atkinson,' who infused much of his 
own spirit into the original drawings. They are finished 
in coloured aquatint by J. Hill, J. Merigot, and R. and 
D. Havell. The costumes represented are those of the 
seventh to the sixteenth century, and the figures wearing 
them are placed in appropriate surroundings. The Cos- 
tume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Isles 
from the earliest periods to the stxih century, pub- 
lished by R. Haven in the following year, is by Hamil- 
ton Smith and S. R. Meyrick. 'This is a handsome 
folio volume, but the twenty-five plates in coloured 
aquatint by R. Havell after Hamilton Smith are very 
inferior to Atkinson's work in the previous volume, and 
though they embody much antiquarian research and 
information, are dull and of little general interest. 

After a study of Colonel Hamilton Smith's drawings, 
it is apparent that much of the liveliness that appears in 
the first set of engravings was imparted to tiiem by 
•54 



COSTUME PLATES 

Atkinson. Hamilton Smith was a keen traveller, and 
in the intervals of his active military career he accumu- 
lated materials for numerous subjects of historical, 
zoological, and antiquarian research. These two books 
on the costume of Great Britain have ever since been 
one of the principal sources from which illustrators of 
ancient costume have derived their material, and it is 
scarcely possible to open any pictorial English history, 
or any work bearing on the dress and manners of our 
ancestors, without recognising some group of figures 
appropriated or adapted from Smith's drawings. 

An even greater work, on the title-page of which 
Colonel Smith's name does not appear, but which is in 
reality hardly less indebted to him, is Sir Samuel 
Meyrick's Critical Enquiry into the History of 
Ancient Armour. This appeared first in three 
volumes in 1824 with eighty plates, and was reissued 
in 1842, i^in in three volumes, with a hundred plates. 
The greater part of the coloured plates, with which the 
three volumes are profusely decorated, were copied 
from Colonel Hamilton Smith's drawings. Eight 
volumes of his drawings for these and other books 
are in the National Art Library. The ancient costume 
and manners, not only of Europe but of eveiy part of 
the world, architectural remains, monumental effigies, 
arms and armour, heraldry, military antiquities, topo- 
graphy, and natural history, are all delineated with an 
exact and unwearied pencil. Colonel Hamilton Smith 
was a personal friend of Benjamin West, and ther% is 
no doubt that his arguments and his exact research 
were of considerable weight in making West abandon 
the old and careless ideas as to costume in pictures. 
Hamilton Smith might well laugh at a President of the 
Royal Academy for representing the Conqueror and 
Edward in. both habited like Charles i. 

The preface to the Military Costume of Turkey, 
published in 1818, states that ' T. M'Lean respectfully 

■55 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

begs to inform the Public that the Costumes of the 
Various Countries published by Mr. Miller are become 
his Property.' This additional volume on Turkey is of 
interest at the present time, and a paragraph in the 
preface, attempting to explain the decline of Turkish 
power, goes to the root of the matter. ' The rays of 
despotic power which can vivify every energy and com- 
mand every resource in the immediate vicinity of the 
Ottoman throne, diminish their influence as they 
diveree, until they are lost in the extent of empire ; 
and the monarch whose frown is death at Constanti- 
nople, not unfrequently finds his power derided, and his 
majesty insulted, by the murder of the Capidigi, who 
bears his imperial mandate, by the Pachas and Beys of 
the more distant provinces.' Tne book is a large volume, 
containing thirty coloured aquatints by J. H. Clark. 

J. A. Atkinson has been so frequently mentioned 
in the last few paragraphs, that one may add here 
another work by him on entirely different fines. This 
is his Sixteen Scenes taken from the miseries of Human 
Life, by one of the IVretched. It was published by W. 
Miller in 1807, and is illustrated by etchings, mostly 
in soft-ground, coloured by hand. His spirited and 
clever drawings are full of character, surpassing those 
of Aiken. No. 11., ' Seeing the boy who is next above 
you flogged for a repetition which you know you cannot 
say,' should appeal to most Britons. The angry school- 
master, laying on the birch with a will, the pathetic 
countenance of the horsed victim, and the anguished 
stare of the miserable onlooker, waiting his turn with 
book in hand, are all most happily and naturally 
expressed. Another excellent drawing, well worthy of 
Rowlandson, is No. ix. — ' Miseries of Watering-Places.' 
A noteworthy point about the book is that the title 
and the idea of^ the illustrations seem to have inspired 
Rowlandson, whose Miseries of Human Life appeared, 
a year later, in 1808. 
156 



CARICATURES 

This book by Atkinson brings us to a laige number 
of works whose only purpose was comedy and carica- 
ture. Rowlandson, Aiken, and Cruikshank stand 
apart amone the early ' caricaturists who illustrated 
books, and tneir work must be treated separately, as it 
deserves. Here, however, may be added a note of one 
or two odd volumes belonging to this class. Of the 
same nature as some of Rowlandson 's works are Here 
and There over the water: being Cullings in a trip to 
the Netherlands, and j4iry Nothings, or Scraps and 
Naughts, and Odd-cum-Shorts, etc., both drawn and 
written by ' M. E., Esq.,' and engraved and published 
by George Hunt in 1825. Both volumes are illustrated 
by spirited aquatints in colour, which are valuable as a 
record of topography and costume. The first gives 
interesting views of Antwerp, Brussels, Ostend, and 
Waterloo, with wayside pictures of curious barges, 
coaches, and costumes. Ine second deals in the same 
way with our own countiy, the author travelling from a 
Street Breakfast in London to a Trip up Loch Lomond 
by steamer, and a Ride up the Phoenix Park in Dublin, 
and showing on the way the manners and customs of 
the inhabitants. Lovers of the ' Kailyard School ' and 
of Winsome Charteris will enjoy the picture of Scotch 
lasses washing clothes in tubs beneath the Calton 
Hill. 

Among other books of a caricature nature should 
be ranked some by William Heath — ' poor Heath, the 
ex-Captain of Dragoons, facile and profuse, unscrupu- 
lous and clever,' so Dr. John Brown sums up his 
character. It will be remembered that he drew the 
originals of the plates to the Martial Achievements, 
and many of those to the Historic, Military and Naval 
Anecdotes. The Life of a Soldier, a Narrative and 
Descriptive Poem, with Heath's illustrations, was pub- 
lished by W. Sams in 1823. The book is obviously 
imitated from the Military Adventures of Johnny 

157 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Newcome, illustrated by Rowlandson in 1815; and 
though the eighteen coloured etchings are of little 
merit, with the figures stiff and ungainly like wooden 
dolls, it has always commanded a good price. Among 
Heath's other works are Studies from the Stage, or 
the Vicissitudes of Life, in 1823 ; Parish Characters, 
Household Sefvants, and Theatrical Characters, all 
between 1823 and 1829; and Omnium Gatherum aad 
Old ff^ays and New IVays, about 1830. All of these 
are sets of plates without text. 

Another book owing its origin to Johnny Newcome 
is the Post Captain, or Adnentures of a True British 
Tar: by a Naval Officer. This was published in 
1817, and has twenty-five plates in coloured aquatint 
(including the title-page), by C. Williams. The draw- 
ings are spirited, and much superior to those in Heath's 
similar work. 

M'Lean at this period issued several sets of plates 
by R. Seymour, among them the March of Intellect, 
the Trip to Margate, Humorous Illustrations of 
Heraldry, and A Search after the Comfortable, all 
with six plates in hand-coloured etching, published at 
twelve shillings or fifteen shillings. 



iS8 



CHAPTER XIV 

THOMAS ROWLANDSON 

'All the real masters of cariaittire deserve honour in this respect, that 
their gift is peculiarly their own — innate and incmnmunicable' 

RUSKIN'S Modem PaiMttn, ir. 377. 

TO all who seek information as to Rowlandson 
and his work, Mr. Grego's Rowiandson the 
Caricaturist is invaluable. Here we have to 
consider Rowlandson and his career only in their 
limited connection with illustrated books. For though 
he published hundreds of separate caricatures for each 
of his book illustrations, one is tempted to believe that 
it is by the books that all the world shall know him. 
His caricature sheets are for the most part hasty car- 
toons, dealing only with the passing, and often petty, 
questions of the hour. His claim on posterity lies in 
his creation of Dr. Syntax, and in his more serious 
work for the Dance of Death, the Microcosm of London, 
or the Vicar of IVakefield. 

There is a world of difference between the careful 
plates executed for Ackermann's coloured books and 
the lurid caricatures that were issued by Tegg in 
Cheapside, bespattered with garish daubs of red, blue, 
and yellow. Yet these last pass current in the print- 
shops of to-day, and many who are ignorant of Row- 
landson as an illustrator of books condemn him on 
their account as a vulgar caricaturist. His caricature 
work, without doubt, frequently displays a coarseness of 
sentiment that occasionally verges on absolute vulgari^. 
The broad humour, associated with an age that still 

159 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

called a spade a spade, and that we may pardon and 
even enjoy in Smollett and Fielding and Sterne, is 
carried so far as to be indefensible. Too many of 
Rowlandson's drawings and caricatures, like those of 
his contemporaries, Bunbury and Gillray, are marred 
by an ill-odoured taint of coarseness that makes them 
repulsive. In the books, however, owing perhaps to 
Ackermann's gliding hand, the limits of decency are 
never outstepped. 

Rowlandson was born in the Old Jewry in July 
1756, the same year as Isaac Cruikshank, six years 
after Bunbury, and a year before Gillray. Attending 
* a scholastic symposium of celebrity,' presided over by 
Dr. Barrow in Soho Square, he had as his schoolfellows 
Jack Bannister, the celebrated actor, and Henry Angelo, 
. son of the Angelo who was fencing-master to the Royal 
family. Even in his schooldays his genius for humor- 
ous drawing began to assert itself, and the margins of 
his books were filled with grotesque sketches. For a 
short time Rowlandson attended the schools of the 
Royal Academy, but in 1771 was invited to Paris by 
his widowed aunt, who paid the expenses of his educa- 
tion at a Parisian art school. His two years in Paris 
were spent to good advantage, and he learned there the 
dash and brilliance that characterised French art of the 
day. On his return he resumed his studies at the 
Academy schools, and in 1775 exhibited in the Academy 
his first picture, ' Delilah paying Samson a visit while 
in prison at Gaza.' From 1777 we find him settled at 
Wardour Street, and devoting himself to the painting 
of portraits, several of which appeared at the Academy. 
In 1778 he travelled on the Continent, passing through 
Flanders, Holland, and Germany. The notes made 
during this journey of travellers and coaches, ordinaries 
and innyards, foreigners and their habits, with all the 
incidents of the road, show their influence in much of 
his later work. 
160 



THOMAS ROWLANDSON 

About this time Rowlandson appears to have 
plunged into a career of dissipation, aggravated by the 
receipt of a l^acy left to him on the decease of his aunt 
in Paris. He became a familiar figure in the gaming- 
houses of London, but though he squandered his aunt s 
fortune and other moneys as well, it is chronicled that 
he played as a gentleman, and that his word passed 
current even when his purse was empty. A friend of 
forty years' standing, who wrote the obituary notice in 
the Gentleman's Magazine in 1827, says that on Row- 
landson's own word he had ' freciuently played through 
a night and the next day ; and that once, such was his 
infatuation for the dice, he continued at the gaming- 
table nearly thirty-six hours, with the intervention 
only of the time for refreshment.' All this is related 
partly to account for Rowlandson's insight into the 
seamy side of London life, partly because it no doubt 
contributed to his abandonment of ' the legitimate ' in 
art Rowlandson was not one ' to scorn delights and 
live laborious days.' When his means were exhausted 
he is said to have sat down to produce a series of new 
designs, saying, ' I have played the fool, but ' — holding 
up his reed pen — ' here is my resource.' The success, 
too, of his picture ' Vauxhall Gardens ' at the Academy 
in 1784, and of his series of caricatures, published 
during the excitement of the celebrated Westminster 
election in the same year, doubtless was a factor in his 
adoption of a career which offered ease and a ready 
supply of money. So facile was his dexterity, and so 
fertile his imagination, that he could produce a finished 
picture in a few hours ; and at the time of the * inquiry 
into the corrupt practices of the Commander-in-Chief 
in the administration of the army,' involving the scandal 
of the notorious Mrs. Clarke, fresh caricatures by the 
artist were issued from Ackermann's Repository, hot, 
as it were, from the oven, twice daily. 

Ackermann remained the artist's best friend, cer- 
I. 161 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

tainlv his best adviser. At a time in his career when 
indolence and dissipation were doing their worst, 
Ackermann stepped to his help, and thenceforth sup- 
plied him with ideas, published and paid libeially for 
his work, and finally with Bannister and Angelo, 
the two friends of his youth, followed him to the 
grave. It was Ackermann who introduced the artist 
to Combe, inaugurating a union that was fruitful of 
results as that of Gilbert and Sullivan in later days 
and another sphere, and the similarity goes further, for 
Combe, like Gilbert, did far more than write up a 
libretto to go with a master's work. To judge by the 
varied vicissitudes of Combe's career, nature seems to 
have made him the fitting companion and collaborator 
for Rowlandson, Born in 1 741, he went to Eton and 
Oxford, and in 1763 started for three Watulerjahre, 
passing his time in France and in Italy, where he fell 
m with Sterne, naturally a kindred spirit and welcome 
comrade. In 1766 he returned to England, and came 
into a fortune left by an uncle, quickly to be squandered 
in the gaming-houses of London, and amid the fashion- 
able attractions of Bath and Tunbridge Wells. He 
lived in a most princely style, and though a bachelor, 
kept his carriages, several horses, and a large retinue 
of servants, bemg known in town by the nickname of 
' Count Combe.' Over head and ears in debt, he dis- 
appeared from London, and is said to have become 
soldier, teacher of elocution, under-waiter in a tavern 
at Swansea, and to have spent a year in the French 
army — all contributing to that larger insight into men 
and things, into the nighest life and the lowest, that 
enabled him to write equally well, whether his subject 
was a sermon, or the text for Dr. Syntax and the 
Dance of Death. By 1772 his worst wild oats were 
sown, and he set himself to a life of toil in the journal- 
istic world of London. Though tales are told of his 
continued gaming, thieving, intriguing, and discredit- 
162 



WILLIAM COMBE 

able marru^e — ' the infamous Combe ' he was dubbed 
by Walpole— much of this may be regarded as exag-. 
gerated gossip. His worst fault seems to have been a 
wild extravagance, and to his credit he was a 'tee- 
totaller * in a day when drunkenness was a fashionable 
virtue. True it is that he spent the greater part of his 
life as a prisoner for debt in the precincts of King's 
Bench Prison ; and a dozen different aliases perpleud 
his brother authors, for Combe was rarely in a position 
to sign his own name. A most voluminous author, he 
wrote and edited, between 1773 and 1823, upwards of 
a hundred books, and contributed to a score of journals. 
Satire, history, theology, politics, topography, humour, 
were all graced by his versatile pen. For some years 
he was in receipt of j^200 a year from the Pitt party, 
and for several years was on the staff of the Times. 

In 1809 Combe had reached the age of sixty-eight, 
and was earning a bare living by literary hack-work — 
he had just been writing seventy-three sermons — when 
Ackermann summoned him to the Strand. Rowland- 
son had offered the publisher a number of drawings 
representing an old clergyman and schoolmaster travel- 
ling during his holidays in search of the picturesque. 
The idea had been suggested partly by his friend 
Bannister. The artist had requested an idea for em- 
bodying his Cornwall and Devon sketches, with adven- 
tures at inns and comic incidents on the road. ' I have 
it I ' said Bannister : ' You must fancy a skin-and-bone 
hero, a pedantic old prig in a shove] hat, with a pony, 
sketching-stools and rattletraps, and place him in such 
scrapes as travellers frequently meet with — hed^ ale- 
houses, second and third rate inns, thieves, gibbets, 
mad bulls, and the like.' The result was Dr. Syntax, 
and Ackermann at once saw that the specimen sketches 
submitted would make the success of his new Poetical 
AfagasifUy if a narrative in verse could be found to 
accompany them. The proposal was made to Combe, 

163 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

who at once accepted it, and writes that ' an etching or 
drawing was sent me every month, and I composed a 
cert^n proportion of pages in verse, in which, of course, 
the subject of the design was included : the rest 
depended on what my im<^nation could furnish. 
When the first print was sent to me I did not know 
what would be the subject of the second ; and in this 
manner, in a great measure, the artist continued design- 
ing, and I continued writing every month for two years, 
till a work containing near ten thousand lines was 
completed.' A writer in the London Cychpadia} who 
knew Combe, describes how he used r^^larly to pin 
up the sketch against a screen of his apartment in the 
IGng's Bench, and write off his verses as the printer 
wanted them. 

We shall return later to the Tours of Dr. Syntax ^ 
for these, and the other books for which Combe sup- 
plied the text, were not Rowlandson's first appearance 
on our stage of coloured books. With foreign mvasion 
threatening our shores, martial ardour was the keynote 
of the year 1799, and subscribers were readily found 
for the Hungarian and Highland Broadsword Ex- 
ercise, with twenty-four plates designed and etched by 
Rowlandson for Messrs. Angclo and Son, Fencing- 
Masters to the Lieht Horse volunteers of London and 
Westminster, and published by H. Angelo, Curzon 
Street, Mayfair. ' At a period,' writes Rowlaiidson in 
his dedication, 'when tne spirit of the Nation is so 
eminently manifested, and wlien all that is loyal and 
honourable in this Empire is ranged in Arms to sup- 
port its Government and Constitution, I may safely 
indulge the hope that my Countrymen will readily 
acknowledge the utility of the Work which I herewith 
offer to them.' The twenty-four plates in coloured 
aquatint show military exercises and movements of 
cavalry, but the single figures in the foreground, illus- 

' Vol. vi p. 4S7, 1819. 

164 



THOMAS ROWLANDSON 

trating sword exercises, are relieved and animated by 
the introduction in the background of various skir- 
mishes, assaults, and battle-scenes, so that the plates 
lose all sense of formality. In the general liveliness 
of the picture you forget that the two central figures 
illustrate 'Cut two, and horse's off side protect, new 
guard,' and other formulae of broadsword exercise, 
just as for the nonce in a stage duel you forget that 
cut, thrust, and parry are planned, rehearsed, and 
mechanical. 

The martial spirit of the day was further encouraged 
by the Loyal Volunteers of London and Em/irons, the 
first of the handsome publications with Rowlandson's 
plates inaugurated by Ackermann. The eighty-seven 
illustrations represent the infantry and cavalry of the 
various corps m their respective uniforms, and show 
the whole of the manual, platoon, and funeral exercises. 
Ackermann himself, in a preface full of sincere pat- 
riotism, though sometimes smacking of Baboo Chunder 
Mookerjee's more modem style in the cheerful mixture 
of its metaphors, writes : ' The high fermented state 
of Politics at Home, in conjunction with the crooked 
policy of our enemies Abroad, was truly alarming: 
for the perturbed spirits of France were hastening ue 
progress of disorder, while internal disaffection made 
all the way it could for its extension. At this moment, 
the enemy had advanced their best regulated legions to 
the shore of the British Channel ; and for the deter- 
mined purpose of spreading through our land such 
miseries as have already rendered wretched their own. 
... As a detester of Gallic atrocities, and from a 
sincere attachment to the best of Sovereigns, the Pro- 
prietor of this Work cheerfully contributes his Mite 
towards the general welfare of a Country, that has from 
early time, lixe a sturdy rock, amidst the buffetings of 
the storm and insolence of the billows, raised fearless 
its gorgeous head to Heaven, yielding matchless fruits 

165 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

beneath a blaze of sunshine and unremitted salubrity.' 
On June 21, 1799, the king came in procession through 
London, inspecting the loyal volunteers, to the number 
of 12,208, who lined the royal route; so that Acker- 
mann's book, issued in parts from June i, met the 
wave of popular enthusiasm at its height. The plates 
are in aquatint, finely coloured by hand and liberally 
heightened with gold. The single figures, undergoing 
various military exercises, though they give little play 
for Rowlandson's real genius, show his skilful diaugnts- 
manship and form a valuable record of costume. 

la 1799 also he supplied a frontispiece in colours to 
the Musical Bouquet by E. Jones ; in 1802 he con- 
tributed another to the same author's Bardic Museum 
of Primitive British Literature ; in 1804 to the com- 
panion volume of Lyric Airs ; and in 1806 to his 
Selection of the most Admired and Original German 
IValtzes. The last book is interesting, for waltzing 
at the time was a new invention ' ma& in Germany, 
and recently introduced into our country. Craob 
Robinson, in his Diary for 1800, speaking of Frank- 
fort society, writes : ' 'The dancing is unlike anything 
you ever saw. You must have heard of it under the- 
name of waltzing — that is, rolling or turning, though 
the rolling is not horizontal but perpendicular. Yet 
Werther, after describing his first waltz with Charlotte, 
says — and I say so too — " I felt that if I were married, 
my wife should waltz with no one but myself." Judge — 
the man places the palms of his hands gently against 
the sides of his partner, not far from the arm-pits. His 
partner does the same, and instantly with as much 
velocity as possible they turn round and at the same 
time gradu^ly glide round the room.' It may be added 
that m 1806 Rowlandson illustrated the Sorrows of 
IVerther with a picture of a 'German Waltz,' not, 
however, in colours. 

The Chesterfield Travestk, or School for Modem 
166 



THE TOURS OF DR. SYNTAX 

Manners, published by T. Tegg of Cheapside in 1808, 
has a fine hand-coloured frontispiece and other full- 
page illustrations by Rowlandson; and to the same 
year belongs the Beauties of Tom Brown, by C, H. 
Wilson, published by T^^, with a hand-coloured 
frontispiece representing a gaming-house. This year 
also saw the publication of The Miseries of Human 
Life, a collected edition in a reduced size of fifty 
etdied plates coloured by hand, which had been issued 
separately during the previous years. Rowlandson's 
pnncipal work, however, of 1808, was for Acker- 
mann s Microcosm of London, with its hundred and 
five plates, of which a more extended notice was given 
in chapter x. 

In 1809 An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously 
Tormenting, again published \^ Tegg, has five plates, 
etched by Rowlandson after G. M. Woodward, and 
coloured by hand. To the same year belong the two 
similarly coloured plates for Sterne's Sentimental 
Journey and two for the Beauties of Sterne, both pub- 
lished by T^^ at 4s. 6d. The year, however, is most 
remarkable for the issue by Ackermann of the Poetical 
Magaaine, which, under the title of the ' School- 
master's "Tour,' contained the original impressions of 
the plates for the Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of 
the Picturesque. The Repository for January 181 2 
announces that Ackermann ' is preparing for the press 
the Adventures of Dr. Syntax, so highly admired on 
their first appearance in the Poetical Magazine, revised 
and augmented by the humorous author. They will 
form an octavo volume embellished with a considerable 
quantity of engravings.' A new set of plates, with 
very slight variations, was expressly prepared to take 
the place of the originals, rather worn by their use for 
the Poetical Magazine. The illustrations were now 
thirty-one, three new subjects being added : a frontis- 
piece showing the Doctor meditating at his desk over 

167 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

the idea of the Tour ; a title-page with a vignette of 
architectural ruins ; and plate 27, introducing the 
Doctor's dream of the Battle of Books. The good- 
natured moralising schoolmaster became a public char- 
acter and a gener^ favourite. Syntax was the popular 
title of the day, and shop windows displayed Syntax 
hats, Syntax wigs, and Syntax coats. A racehorse, 
too, was called by the name of Dr. Syntax, and was 
honoured by having his portrait painted by James 
Ward, R.A. By 1822 his winnings in cups, plates, 
and money exceeded those of any other racer known. 

The Repository for October 1812 announces that 
owing to the rapid and extensive demand for the book, 
a very large impression has been completely exhausted, 
and that a second edition will be re<uly in a few days. 
The book reached a fifth edition in 1813, a sixth in 
1815, a seventh in 1817, and an eighth in 1819. Its 
success produced a host of parodies and spurious imita- 
tions. Among them the best perhaps is the Tour of 
Dr. Syntax through London, with twenty plates, pub- 
lished in 1820. Others were Dr. Comtcus, or the 
Frolics of Fortune, in 1815, with fifteen plates ; and 
the Adventures of Dr. Comicus, by a modem Syntax, 
with fifteen plates. It looks as if Com-icus were a pun 
on Combe's name, to add insult to injury. Other 
imitations were Syntax in Paris, which appeared in 
1820, with seventeen plates; and the Tour of Dr. 
Prosody in Search of the j4ntique, etc., in 1821, with 
twenty plates by W. Read. A French edition with 
twenty-six lithc^iaph renderings by Malapeau of Row- 
landson's originals appeared in 1821 with the title Le 
Don Quichotte Romantique, ou Voyage du Docteur 
Syntaxe it la Recherche du Pittoresque ; and a German 
edition of the original work was published at Berlin in 
1822 under the title Die Reise des Doktors Syntax 
um das Malerische aufzusuchen, with lithographs by 
F. E. Rademacher. 
168 



THE TOURS OF DR. SYNTAX 

The success which attended the first Tour led the 
publisher to project a second series with the help of 
Rowlandson and Combe. Dr. Syntax's termagant 
spouse has died, and an excuse is found for further 
eccentric travels — Dr. Syntax in Search of Consolation. 
The dame of good Squire Worthy tells Dr. Syntax 
that she has a certain cure for his sorrows : — 

' Make another Tour, 
And when you 've made It you shall write it ; 
The world, I 'II wager, will not slight it ; 
For where 's the dly, where 's the town, 
Which is not full of your renown ? 
Nay, such is your establish'd name, 
So universal is your fame. 
That Dunces, though to dulness doom'd. 
Have with a Dunce's art presum'd 
To pass their silly tales and tours. 
And other idle Trash, for Yours.' 

The volume, issued in monthly parts, with twenty- 
four plates by Rowlandson, was completed in 1820, 
and published in octavo, uniform with the first volume. 
This was quickly followed by a third and final tour, 
Dr. Syntax in Search of a tVife, which, after being 
issued in monthly parts, appeared in a collected form in 
1821, uniform with the others, and containing twenty- 
five plates. So great was the popularity of the (x>mplete 
work that Ackermann issued a pocket edition in 1823. 
Its three volumes were in i6mo instead of 8vp, fresh 
plates were engraved, and the price was 7s. a volume, 
the earlier volumes having cost a guinea each. It may 
be noted that the original drawings for the aquatints in 
the early editions, * Dr. Syntax pursued by a Bull ' 
(vol. i. p. 40), 'Dr. Syntax Drawing from Nature' (vol. i. 
p. 121), and 'Dr. Syntax at a Card Party' (vol. iii. 
p. 163), are in the Dyce Collection at South Kensing- 
ton. Placed beside the aquatints, these show very 
slight variations, and illustrate excellently both the 
style of Rowlandson's original water-colours, and the 

169 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

manner of their reproduction under Aclcermann's aus- 
pices. Besides tliese three, there are fourteen other 
drawings of incidents in the life of Dr. Syntax, which 
were submitted to Combe, but never used, though it is 
apparent from his verse that in some cases he accepted 
the suggestions they conveyed. 

In 1813 Ackermann published ^z Poetical Sketches 
0/ Scarborough, with twenty-one plates in aquatint, 
etched by Rowlandson after J. Green, and coloured by 
hand. The ' advertisement ' states that ' the originals 
of the plates introduced in this volume were sketches 
made as souvenirs of the place durii^ a visit to Scar- 
borough in the season of 1812. They were not intended 
for piu>lication, but being found to interest many per- 
sons of taste, several of whom expressed a desire to 
possess engravings of them ; and, some gentlemen 
having offered to add metrical illustrations to each, 
the present form of publication has been adopted.' The 
illustrations show comically all the delights and amuse- 
ments of a fashionable watering-place. They might serve 
as illustrations to Humphrey Clinker's notable mis- 
adventures at the same place some forty years earlier. 
Though etched 1^ Rowlandson, the plates are signed 
by J. Bluck and Jf. C. Stadler after J. Green, so that it 
may be presumed that they passed through the hands 
of these artists to receive the aquatint and colour. 
Both Combe and J. B. Papworth contributed to the 
text. 

In 181 5 appeared the Military Adventures 0/ Johnny 
Newcome, with an account of his Cam^ign on the 
Peninsula and in Pall Mall, printed for P. Martin, 198 
Oxford Street. The fifteen plates are comic and in- 
teresting, but not in Rowlandson's best style, and not 
executed with the finish th»r would have received from 
Ackermann's assistants. Naples and the Campagna 
Felice, with eighteen plates, reprinted by Ackermann 
in June of this year from the Repository, reaches a 
170 



THOMAS ROWLANDSON 

higher standard. Later in the year T^;g published 
The Grand Master, or Aduentures of Qui Hi in 
Hindostan, by Quiz, with twenty-eight hand-coloured 
aquatints by Rowlandson. Entitled a 'Hudibrastic 
poem,' this is a lampoon on the Marquis of Hastings' 
governorship of India, and shows the public estimation 
of the East India Company, with its toleration of 
suttee for revenue purposes, and its total disregard 
otherwise of Hindu prejudices. The British mission- 
ary comes in for many cynical sneers both in text and 
in illustration. 

In 1816, after being issued in twenty-four monthly 
parts, the English Dance of Death was published by 
Ackermann m two volumes, royal octavo, at three 
guineas, with seventy-two illustiations, besides frontis- 
piece and title-page. The subject of the book lies in 
the often quoted saying of Horace — ' Pallida Mors 
aequo pulsatpede pauperum tabemas Rq^mque turres.' 
The idea of Death as the universal depredator, stretch- 
ing out his bony hand to seize his prey at moments 
inopportune and unexpected, showing the vanity of 
human life and the futility of human pleasures and 
pursuits, had been pictured by many artists before 
Rowlandson, notably in the famous series by Hol- 
bein. In 1794 an edition of Hollar's en^vings after 
Holbein had been published by Francis Douce, and 
in 1804 this was reissued by J. Harding. In 1816 
J. Coxtiead had the same plates retouched, and pub- 
lished a somewhat garish hand-coloured edition. This 
may have inspired Rowlandson with the idea, but in 
his Dance of Death he takes his characters from the 
world around him, sees them in his own original way, 
and imparts to the subject his own satirical humour, 
with its curious combination of the sublime and the 
ludicrous. It is obvious at a glance that the artist 
bestowed exceptional care on the illustrations for this 
book. The union of the gruesome and the grotesque 

171 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

appealed strongly to his imagination, and in com- 
pleteness of detail and carefulness of grouping the 
illustrations excel nearly all his other work. The 
hand-colouring also has been delicately and judiciously 
applied. Combe's versification is full of wit, and shows 
a force and vigour surprising in a man who had passed 
his allotted threescore years and ten — a fact that adds 
a certain grimness to the humour of the work. 

The Dance of Death was followed in 1817 by the 
Dance of Life, published first in eight monthly parts, 
and then as a companion volume to the other at .;^i , i s. 
Its twenty-six plates are full of cheerful and humorous 
satire of life and its follies. To 1817 also belongs an 
. illustrated edition of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, 
with twenty-four designs by Rowlandson, published by 
Ackermann. The tale itself is one of perpetual charm, 
and Rowlandson's plates show his full sympathy with 
the text. Nothing could be better than the spirited 
way in which he &s realised Goldsmith's idea of the 
' Family Picture.' — * My wife desired to be represented as 
Venus, and the painter was desired not to be too frugal 
of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair. Her two 
little ones were to be as Cupids by her side ; while I, 
in my gown and band, was to present her with my 
books on the Whistonian controversy. Olivia would 
be drawn as an Amazon, sitting upon a bank of flowers, 
dressed in a green Joseph, richly laced with gold, and a 
whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, 
with as many sheep as the painter could put in for 
nothing ; and Moses was to be dressed out with a hat 
and white feather. Our taste so much pleased the 
Squire, that he insisted on being put in as one of the 
family, in the character of Akxander the Great, at 
Olivia's feet' In this connection it may be recalled 
that the Vicar of Wakefield was written in 1766, five 
years before Benjamin West caused a sensation by his 
' Death of Wolfe,' with its startling innovation in sub- 
172 



( .il.OL'T;!: l: p...>OKS 



.'i'.a U"j 



r.id ;ii. 



Si 



THOMAS ROWLANDSON 

stituting a regulation military coat, cocked hat, and 
musket, in place of the classical paludamentum, with 
helmet, spear, and shield. Rowlandson's Vicar of 
IVakefieM has frequently of late fetched over £^2,o in 
the saleroom. The collector, however, should note that 
another edition was published in 1823, with the plates 
dated 18 17. 

In 1818 the Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the 
Navy, by Alfred Burton, published by W. Simpkin 
and R. Marshall, has sixteen plates by Rowlandson. 
This was followed in 1819 by an open imitation by 
J. Mitfotd bearine the same title, and illustrated with 
twenty plates. Mitford, at one time an officer in the 
navy, was a constant inmate of the Fleet, and wrote 
his Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the gravel pits 
at Bayswater, where he lay in hiding, receiving from 
his publisher a shilling daily in return for his copy, 
wherewith to purchase gin and cheese. He was the 
editor of the Scourge, which helped to make Cruikshank 
famous, and after a very chequered career died in St. 
Giles's workhouse. 

The Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders 
was published by S. Leigh in 1820 at 7s. as a supple- 
. ment to his New Picture of London (1819), the two 
being sold separately, or in one volume at 15s. No 
subjects could be better adapted to Rowlandson's pencil 
than these fifty-four sketches. Etched in outline, and 
tinted by hand, they show many phases of London 
street life that have now disappeared. The coal-heaver, 
and other characters always with us, are interesting 
in their bygone guise ; while the night-watchman, 
the raree-showman, the sellers of poodles, bandboxes, 
saloop, and other commodities, are quaintly repre- 
sentative of London life in olden da^. As says 
the 'advertisement' (for publishers' puffs are by no 
means a modern invention), ' There is so much truth 
and genuine feeling in his delineations of human char- 

173 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

acter, that no one can inspect the present collection 
without admiring his masterly style of drawing, and 
admitting his just claim to originality.' 

In 1 82 1 ^t Journal of Sentimental Travels in the 
Sonihem Provinces of France was republished by 
Ackermann from the Repository^ with seventeen plates. 
This, as the title suggests, is a close imitation — hngo 
sedproximus interv^So — of the inimitable Sentimental 
Journey by Sterne. 

In 1822 Ackermann produced The History of 
Johnny Quae Genus, the tittle Foundling of the late 
Dr. Syntax. The text by Combe was illustrated with 
twenty-four coloured aquatints by Rowlandson. The 
introduction gives the best clue to the nature of the 
contents: 'The favour which has been bestowed on 
the different tours of Dr. Syntax has encouraged the 
writer of them to g^ve a " History of the Foundling," 
who has been thought an interesting object in the 
latter of these volumes, and it is written in the same 
style and manner with a view to connect it with them. 
This child of chance, it is presumed, is led through a 
tracic of life not unsuited to the peculiarity of his con- 
dition and character, while its varieties, as m the former 
works, are represented by the pencil of Mr. Rowland- 
son with its accustomed characteristic felicity. TTie 
idea of an English Gil Bias predominated through the 
whole of this volume, which must be considered as for- 
tunate in no common d^ee, if its readers, in the 
course of their perusal, should be disposed to acknow- 
ledge even a remote similitude to the incomparable 
works of Le Sage.' The eccentricity of the title is 
explained in the opening stanzas : — 

* But whether 'twas in hum'rous mood, 
Or l^ some classic whim pursaed, 
Or as, in Eton's Grammar known. 
It bore relation to his own, 
Syntax — it was at Whitsuntide, 
And a short time before he died — 
"74 



THOMAS ROWLANDSON 

In pleasant humour, after dinner, 
Sumam'd, in wine, the little sinner. 
And thus amid the table's roar 
Gave him, from good old Lilly's store, 
A name which none e'er bad before.' 

The death of Combe in the following year put an 
end to their brilliant collaboration. It says much for 
his buoyant nature that between the ages of seventy 
and eighty-two he should have produced such vigorous 
work as TAe Tours of Dr. Syntax, The Dance of 
Death, The Dance of Life, and Johnny Quae Genus. 
It is a curious fact also that be never made the 
personal acquaintance of Rowlandson till the first 
Tour of Dr. Syntax and the Dance of Death had been 

{mblished. From 1822 till his death in 1827 Row- 
andson produced very little work, certainly no coloured 
illustrations, with the exception of two plates in West- 
macott's English Spy, in 1825. No. 32 is ' R.-A.'s of 
Genius Reflecting on the True Line of Beauty at the 
Life Academy, Somerset House.' No. 36, 'Jemmy 
Gordon's Frolic, or Cambridge Gambols at Peter 
House,' is in Rowlandson's coarser style.' The rest 
are by Robert Cruikshank. 

Apart from the intrinsic merit of their illustrations, 
these books all form a valuable record of contemporary 
costume and manners. One likes to remember that 
Stevenson found in them suggestions for two of his 
books. ' I have written to Charles,' says one of his 
letters from VaiUma in 1893, ' asking for Rowlandson's 
Syntax and Dance of Death out of our house, and 
begging for anything about fashions and manners 
(fashions particularly) for 1814. Can you help? Both 
the Justice Clerk » and St. Ives fall in that fated 
year. 

In conclusion, I would fain append a quaint pass:^ 
from the chit-chat of Wine and IValnuts (1823), by 

1 See also p. 193. * Afterwaida published as Wrirof Btrmiiton. 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Ephraim Hardcastle (W. H. Pyne), which supplies a 
contemporary frame to our picture of the caricaturist ; — 

* Master Caleb was on his way up the Hill in the Adelphi to 
his post at the Society of Arts, and who should he stumble 
upon at the corner of James Street, just turning round from 
Rowlandson's, but Master Mitchell, the quondam banker. He 
had, as usual, been foraging; among the multitudinous sketches 
of that original artist, and held a portfolio under his arm ; and 
as he was preparing to step into his chariot, Caleb accosted 
him. — " Wdl, worthy sir, what more choice bits, more graphic 
whimsies, to add to the collection at Enfield, hey ? Wdl, how 
fares it with our old friend Roily ? " 

'"Why, yes, Mister Caleb Whiteford, I go collecting on, 
though I begin to think I have enough already, for I nave 
some hundreds of his spirited works ; but somehow there is a 
sort of fascination in these matters, and — heigh — ha — ho — hoc " 
(gaping), " I will never go up — up — bless the man ! why will he 
live so high? it kills me to climb his stairs," holding his 
ponderous sides, " I never go up, Mister Caleb, but I find 
something new, and am tempted to pull my purse-strings. His 
invention, his humour, his oddity is exhaustless." 

' " Yes," said Whiteford, " Master RoUy is never at a loss 
for a subject ; and I should not be surprised if he is taking a 
bird's-eye view of you and I at this moment, and marking us 
down for game. But It is not hts drawings alone ; why, he 
says he has etched as much copper as would sheathe a first-rate 
man-of-war." 

' *' Yes," replied the banker, " he ought to be rich, for his 
genius is certainly the most exhaustless, the most — the most- 
No, Mister Caleb, there is no end to him ; he manufactures his 
humorous ware with such unceasing vigour, that I know not 
what to compare his prolific fancy to. . . . Come, then, my 
old friend, none can be more welcome. You shall have a 
bottle of the best, and we will gossip of old times. Roily has 
promised to come down — I would have taken the rogue with 
me, only that he is about some new scheme for his old friend 
Ackermann there, and says he must complete it within an hour. 
You know Roll/s expedition, and so he will come down by the 
stage." ' 

176 



CHAPTER XV 

HENRY ALKEN 

"Ones aad ioTft is some men's &1IC7. Tli^'re wtttles snd diink — 
lodKing, wife, and children — rending, writing, and 'ntbmetic — snofl^ tobncker, 
sad sleep.' — Dttvid Copptrfield. 

DURING the last few years of Rowlandson's 
career two other caricaturists — George Cruik- 
shank and Henry Aiken — were rising into 
fame as illustrators of coloured books. The greater 
of the two is George Cruikshank, but his work is 
reserved to the following chapter, because he forms a 
link between the old school of Rowlandson and Aiken 
and the newer school of Leech and Thackeray. Here 
we may consider the work of Henry Aiken, which 
stands more by itself. 

As Montaigne hoped that all the world should 
know him by his books, so till recently one had to be 
content to know Henry Aiken by his drawings and 
prints. Any biography was of necessity a thing of 
shreds and tatters; for where the Dictionary of 
National Biography failed, who should hope to suc- 
ceed? Sir Walter Gilbey, however, while writing his 
Animal Painters (igoo), was fortunate in obtaining 
many personal details of the Aiken family from a 
grandson and a granddaughter of Henry Aiken, and to 
his book I am indebted for some dates which were first 
published owing to his research. Henry Aiken, it 
appears, was born in Suffolk in 1784. His uncle, 
Samuel Aiken, who died in 1825, was an engraver, and 
also draughtsman of sporting subjects. From 1822 to 
M 177 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

1824 he supplied the originals for a series of coloured 
plates in the Annals of Sporting, published in thirteen 
volumes from 1822 to 1828. It may be remarked in 
passing that, while odd volumes of this frequently 
appear, the complete set is hard to obtain, and has 
been sold for ;^8o and upwards. It was probably the 
influence of Samuel Aiken that determined the career 
of Henry Aiken and the character of his work. 

There seems to be no authenticity for the commonly 
accepted statement that Henry Aiken was huntsman, 
stud-groom, or trainer to the Duke of Beaufort. The 
first real fact about him is that he exhibited at the 
Royal Academy a miniature portrait of Miss Gubbins 
and a portrait of Miss Jackson, sending them from the 
address, ' at Mr. Barber's, Southampton Street' His 
earliest sporting prints appeared anonjrmously under 
the signature of ' Ben Tallyho,' but in 1816 he pub- 
lished in his own name The Beauties and Defects in 
the Figure of the Horse comparatively delineated. He 
seems at this time to have been occupied as a teacher 
of drawing and etching. In his Art and Practice of 
Etching, published in 1849, he writes : ' Forty years of 
practice in the various methods of engraving, with some 
natural mechanical genius, may be considered as some 
qualification for this task. Nor will my endeavours 
prove less successful from the fact that during a great 
portion of that time I have been in the habit of giving 
lessons in the library, parlour, and drawing-room, by 
which I must naturally have acquired a method of 
mitigating, and, where practicable, avoiding the un- 
pleasant processes of the Art.' 

Vxa!a\i\(>^\%H,hesAtsi}at Beauties and Defects, 
which has hand-coloured plates, he published several 
drawing-books, illustrated by uncoloured soft-ground 
etchings or lithographs. Among these are Illustrations 
for Landscape Scenery, Sporting Sketches, Sketches of 
Cattle, and Rudiments for Drawing the Horse (1822). 
•78 



HENRY ALKEN 

Scraps from the Sketch Book (1821), A Sporting Scrap 
Book (1824), and Sketches {i^ii^ — all with uncoloured 
soft-ground etchings — ^are in reality drawing-books, but 
aim at a wider popularity by giving groups and scenes 
that have a certain life and interest apart from their 
value for the copyist. 

Aiken's principal publisher was M'Lean, of No. 26 
Haymarket, and Mr. T. M'Lean, the present representa- 
tive of the firm, tells me that in his father's days Aiken 
occupied a room in the upper part of the house in the 
Haymarket, and received thiity shillings a day. Mr. 
M'Lean, in turning over some old stock that had not 
been disturbed for years, came on treasure trove of over 
a hundred of Aiken's drawings. From 1821 onwards 
a large number of Aiken's coloured j)lates appeared 
from this publisher's ' Repository of Wit and Humour,* 
evidently a rival to Ackermann's ' Repository of Art.' 
The distinction, however, of these name^ has a subtle 
reality, for Aiken's work contains a quantity of wit and 
humour to the sacrifice of art. It is doubtful even 
whether he can lay claim to humour, for there has 
always been a happy distinction, well understood 
though not easy of definition, between wit that is 
shallow, with sparkling surface, and humour, whose 
still waters run deep. His wit, as in the Symptoms of 
being Amused, or the Specimens of Riding, is rather 
of the nature that one associates with the cheap comic 
papers of to-day. It is a forced wit that Rowlandson 
only occasionally descended to, and that is very different 
from the easy, genuine humour of Leech or Caldecott. 
His work differs from that of these two men, just as 
among Frendi caricaturists the work of Vernier and 
'Cham' differs from that of Daumier. Leech and 
Caldecott and Daumier are not caricaturists in the first 
sense of the word. By their power of observation, 
backed by sheer force of brilliant draughtsmanship, th^ 
transfnred to paper the humour that faced them in 

179 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

real life. Aiken, Vernier, and ' Cham ' produced their 
ludicrous effects by an obvious effort, by exaggeration, 
in a word, by caricature. 

Even in his more serious work Aiken lacks genuine- 
ness. His appeal is to the sportsman who wishes every 
horse that meets his eye in book or print to be a creature 
of blood and mettle, a potential winner of the Derby or 
the Oaks. The sportsman pure and simple is rarely 
capable of appreciating the refinements of art, and this 
no doubt accounts for the popularity of sporting prints 
that depict horses standing with elongated legs and a 
diminutive jockey insecurely perched on the top ; or 
else galloping round Tattenham Corner with all four 
legs wide outstretched — a sheer contradiction of nature, 
but long accepted by convention, and stereotyped in the 
nursery rockmg-horse. Ruskin complained bitterly 
that he could ' get at the price of lumber any quantity 
of British squires flourishing whips and falling over 
hurdles.' It may be rank heresy to say it, but it is to 
this class that Aiken's work belongs. His drawings 
are frigid and academical; his horses are uniform, 
exaggerated, ideal. His figures lack individuality and 
variety of character. He gives you mere puppets on 
horseback, very different from the ' British bone and 
beef and beer' that form the honest sportsmen of 
Leech or Keene or Caldecott. His work leaves you 
cold and unmoved, whereas, enthusiast for hunting or 
not, you are carried off by Caldecott's ' Tallyho I * along 
with his jovial squires in pink, in all the joy, excitement, 
and reality of the chase. 

For all this, Aiken represents a phase and a period, 
and no sporting squire or yeoman of credit and renown 
has his library complete without The Life of a Sfiorts- 
man and the Natimal Sforts of Great Britain. These 
are the best of Aiken's coloured books, but by no means 
all, for he was a most prolific worker. Booksellers are 
fully aware that the name of Aiken is one to conjure 

l8o 



HENRY ALKEN 

with where sporting prints are concerned, and so he 
has come to resemble the ' poor Pagan Poets,' of whom 
Byron wrote that — 

' Time, and tnmscriblng and critical Dote 
Have fathered much on them which they never wrote,' 

The idea, moreover, of his fertility may be fictitiously 
enhanced, if it is not remembered that he left two sons, 
George and Henry Gordon, both of them artists, and 
both sporting artists, who worked in aquatint, litho- 
graphy, and etching. Henry Gordon, who died recently 
at a great age, spent his whole life in the deliberate 
imitation of his father's pictures. Many of these copies, 
particularly as they were signed ' Henry Aiken, or 
' H.A.,' have been sold as originals. Heniy Aiken, 
junior, was enough of an artist for George Augustus 
Sala to write of him in 1878 as ' the well-known painter 
of racing and coaching scenes ' ; and it is interesting 
to note that Sala, in his early days an illustrator 
and engraver, worked along with him in etching a 
panoramic view (over five feet in length) of the funeral 
of the Duke of Wellington.^ 

It remains to give more detailed consideration to 
some of Aiken's principal works. His Beauties and 
Defects of the Horse, comparatively delineated, pub- 
lished by S. and J. Fuller in 1816, contains eighteen 
soft-ground etchings coloured by hand. This is really 
a drawing-book, and the plates contain studies of por- 
tions of the horse, and illustrations of the horse in 
motion, galloping, jumping, etc. Specimens of Riding 
near Lmdou, published by T. M'Lean in 1821, has 
fourteen plates, again soft-ground etchings coloured by 
hand. The humour of the pictures, ' One of the com- 
forts of riding in company,' ' Symptoms of things going 
down hilt,' etc., is forced and exaggerated, but it must 

^ See Nola and Qiieriet, August 1867 ; and 77u GtHtlamiit's Afagaunt, 
May 1878. 

181 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

be admitted that Aiken displays a keen knowledge <^ 
the horse, and the book is one that the British admirer 
of horseflesh may, an it please him, bow down and 
worship to his heart's content. In 182 1, also, M'Lean 
published the National Shorts of Great Britain. The 
temptation to separate the plates has caused the book 
to become extremely rare in a complete state, with the 
result that a good copy fetches anything between forty 
and seventy pounds. It is a folio volume, published 
originally at ten guineas, with descriptive text in Eng- 
lish and French, and fifty hand-coloured aquatints by 
J. H. Clark after Aiken. These have large margins, 
and as the booksellers' catalc^es are cruel enough to 
suggest, 'form a unique set for framing purposes.' 
They are full of sheer delight for the sportsman, and 
are of historic interest, for they not only include plates 
of all sorts and conditions of hunting, shooting, angling, 
and racing, but also of many obsolete, so^iall^ ' sports,' 
such as bull-baiting, biulger-baiting, bear-baiting, cock- 
fighting, and so on. Readers of Evelyn's Diary will 
recall now, in 1699, a bill of great consequence was 
lost in the House of Commons by ten votes, owing to 
so many supporters of the measure having preferred 
the counter-attraction of a tiger baited by dogs. In 
Aiken's day press and pulpit were uniting their in- 
fluence to put a stop to these inhuman amusements, 
and as the writer of the National Shorts says, ' their 
exertions have not been altogether useless ; for although 
bull-baiting and the baiting of other animals still pre- 
vail to a degree to be lamented, yet the extent of such 
barbarous follies is, in no degree of comparison, equal 
to that of former times.' A quarto volume with the 
same title and preface, containing fifty hand-coloured 
soft-ground etchings by Aiken, was issu»l by M'Lean 
in 1825. The plates cover the same subjects, but vary 
considerably from those of the 182 1 edition, and the 
collector must not be misled by the similarity of title. 
182 



"■ ■! rOMiURE D HO (IKS 

A ■... i;!, i^^;s .1 !,■ -n k:;jMk !;■; , < 

. ' - ': • ; -iil. In ] :i. ,:!-'», \i i ■ ' 
■ .■/.--/■■■../(;;■•■ f,w ■/■■,/;.■. •;■.: 

■^ ', r V;.,';,V.ii,,;,i",^V!:i;.-, luih •>■." 

■' ■' !':'::',> i.'.r','.'v;r„:;.:;.:j:'-".-i 



Iiow, • 

, i:,„ I' 









HENRY ALKEN 

Symptoms of being Amused and lUustratvms to 
Popular Songs, published by T. M'Lean in 1822 and 
1823, are oblong quartos, containin|f forty-two plates 
each. These are soft-ground etchings, coloured by 
hand, and were originmly issued in seven monthly 
parts, at 12s. a part. Each p:^e is packed tight with 
random, haphazard sketches, with titles laboriously 
fitted, of a strained and very tiresome wittiness. They 
form a kind of rough-^d-tumble, knock-about enter- 
tainment, with little taste or refinement, that seems to 
have had some topical interest at the time of publica- 
tion, for we are told of the Symptoms that ' an unpre- 
cedented Sale of 30,000 bespeaks the Public estimation 
of the tmrivalled spirit and fertility of design, evinced 
throughout this Novel and Elegant Work.' 

A Touch at the Fine Arts, published by M'Lean 
at one guinea in 1824, is, says the preface, 'an attempt 
to elucidate, by graphic delineations, a variety of terms 
generally and perhaps exclusively made use of by artists, 
amateurs, connoisseurs, virtuosos, and the like. Long, 
indeed, has a generous public been, doubtless, puzzled in 
the endeavour to discover some ray of meaning in those 
glowing, brilliant ^.-ai forcible phrases, which the critical 
catalogues, Catalogues Raisonn^s, etc., of the day are 
woefuriy burthened with.' It is a cheap kind of humour 
at the best. To take two of the most deserving sub- 
jects — ' A Moving Efiect ; the Execution rapid,' is 
represented by a runaway coach, with expressions of 
the utmost horror in the faces and attitudes of the 
occupants; 'A Striking Effect, the handling by no 
means good or pleasant to the eye,' is illustrated by a 
fracas between two returning roisterers and some night- 
watchmen. In these and in plate 2, a prison-scene 
depicting 'An unpleasant effect, but the Keeping is 
Good,' Aiken shows genuine power as a draughtsman, 
and infuses his work: with a character lacking else- 
where. Ilie last plate, indeed, might almost be a 

183 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

coloured lithograph from the hand of Daumier. All 
twelve plates, it should be said, are soft-ground 
etching^, with colour applied by hand. 

In his Sporting Scrap Book, published by M'Lean 
in 1824, Aiken returns to his combination of drawing 
copies and sporting scenes. The fifty plates are in 
soft-ground etching, one plate often containing several 
studies of dogs, horses, cattle, etc There are, how- 
ever, several full plates of shooting, hunting, racing, 
coursing, and sporting incidents in gener^. This 
book is not so often found in coloured state as some 
of the others. 

Of the many attempts to represent Shakespeare's 
Seven Ages of Man in pictures, Aiken's is one of the 
poorest His seven plates with this title, published in 
oblong quarto by M'Lean in 1824, are 'counterfeit 
presentments ' of the weakest type. Aiken has no 
business dans cette galbre ; he should have stuck to his 
horses and his cockfights. The only plate of the seven 
that is really good is * The Schoolboy,' ' with his satchel 
and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwill- 
ingly to school.' Here the artist succeeds, because he 
has chosen surroundines where he is thoroughly at 
home. The schoolboy loiters on a wooden brieve that 
spans a brook, stopping to watch two other boys with 
dogs, all hot in the excitement of a rat-hunt. Their 
eager energy serves to emphasise the schoolboy's slow 
and idle progress, while the background suggests a 
charming piece of flat landscape, with red-roofM build- 
ings on the left, on one of which the mystic letters 
— EMY (every school was an Academy in Aiken's d^) 
show through an angle of the bridge. All the other 
plates are tawdry and ineffective, but about this one 
there is a feeling of truth to nature and of restrained 
power that makes one wish Aiken had always gone 
and done likewise. Two plates further on we come to 
its very antithesis, ' The Soldier,' a picture that in con- 
184 



HENRY ALKEN 

ception and execution might well liave been accom- 
plished an hour later by the aforesaid schoolboy, to 
console his feelings after the necessarily uncomfortable 
interview with his pedagogue. 

In his illustrations to the Memoirs of the Life of 
John MyttoK, published by Ackermann in 1837, Aiken 
is again in his proper element The author and the 
hero of the book are alike calculated to win his sym- 
pathy. Its author, C. J. Apperley, better known by 
his pseudonym of ' Nimrod,' after being educated at 
Rugby, was gazetted a comet in Sir Watkin Wynn's 
ancient light British Dragoons. After serving in the 
suppression of the Irish rebellion he returned to Eng- 
land to settle as a yeoman farmer, hunting with the 
Quom, the Pytchley, and the Warwickshire hounds. 
He was a good, all-round sportsman, and when experi- 
ments in farming tan away with his capital, turned his 
hand to the writing of sporting reminiscences. He 
wrote at first with reluctance, having the conviction 
that no ' gentleman ' ever wrote for a sporting paper ; 
but his scruples were soon overcome, and he contri- 
buted largely to the success of the Sporting Magazine 
and the Sporting Review ; nor must it be foigotten 
that he helped to win popular appreciation for the 
work of Surtees. But his greatest success was in 
his books illustrated by Henry Aiken. The first of 
these was The Chace, the Turf and the Road, which 
appeared in 1837, with thirteen plates, uncoloured. 
The Memoirs t^ the Life of John Mytton, Esq., was 
issued in the same year with twelve coloured plates, 
but owing to its popularity it appeared within a few 
months in a second and better edition with eighteen 
plates. This is not a work of fiction, for John Mytton, 
a lather inglorious character for a biography, was a 
hard-living, hard-drinking country squire of Halston, 
Shropshire, capable of the utmost physical endurance, 
and ready to accept any wager to walk, shoot, or ride 

18s 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

against any man. Many of bis feats are recorded and 
^phically delineated, including the climax of his folly 
m setting his nightshirt on fire to cure a hiccough. Of 
the eighteen plates, all engraved by E. Duncan, nine 
are after originals by Aiken, eight alter Aiken working 
with T. J. Rawlins, and one after Rawlins alone. 
There have been many reprints of the book, the best 
being the third edition of 1851, which contains a 
memoir by Surtees of ' Nimrod,' who died in 1843. 

The Life of a Sportsman, by ' Nimrod,' published 
by Ackermann in 1842, again gave Aiken the oppor- 
tunity he wanted. ' In his character as a sportsman,' 
says the author, ' I make my hero commence with the 
Icmesi branches of the art, of which rat-catching is, I 
believe, the type. He thence proceeds to the rabbit 
and the badger, progressing gradually to the higher 
sports of the field, and finishes as a Leicestershire fox- 
hunter, and a horseman of the first class. I have also 
made him a coachman — that is to say, an ardent ama- 
teur of the coach-box, characteristic of the era in which 
I place him, which is, as nearly as may be, my own.' 
Here was full scope for Aiken, who produced thirty- 
six plates, coloured by hand, drawn and etched by 
himself, many containing aquatint, showing sporting 
scenes of every variety of mterest. The book was 
published at two guineas. Copies are often found 
with the plates cut close and mounted ; and it is just 
possible that R. Ackermann, junior, who published it, 
may have directed this process. The earliest copies 
were issued in blue cloth, and the colour was after- 
wards changed. In May 1904 a copy realised 
j^35, los. in the saleroom. There was an edition 
by Routledge in 1869, another in 1874, and a two 
volume edition in 1901. The sporting novels of R. 
Surtees will be referred to later, but here it must be 
stated that the famous Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities, 
or the Htmting, Shoottng, Racing, Driving, Sailing, 
186 



HENRY ALKEN 

Eccentric and Extravagant Exploits of that re- 
nowned sporting Citizen, Mr. John Jorrocks of St. 
Botoiph Lane and Great Coram Street, after being 
published in 1838 with twelve illustrations by ' Phiz,' 
was reissued in 1843 with sixteen plates after Aiken. 

With the Analysis of the Hunting Field, a series 
of six hand-coloured plates engraved by Harris after 
Aiken in 1846, and the Art and Practice of Etching 
in 1849 — ^ curious finale for a sporting artist — Aiken's 
work draws to a close. He died in 1851, and was 
buried in Highgate Cemetery. Since his death he has 
become so mucn'the object of a sort of fetish-worship 
that booksellers have still further complicated the 
natural confusion between father and son by attaching 
the name of Henry Aiken to book or print on the 
slightest pretext or opportunity. Many books of later 
days have also been illustrated with reproductions of 
his work, among them Down the Road, or Remini- 
scences of a G^tleman Coachman, by C. T. S. Birch 
Reynardson (1875-6), and some books by W. C. A. 
Blew, among them The Quom Hunt and its Masters 
(1899) and A History ofSte^lechasing (1891), 



187 



CHAPTER XVI 

GEORGE AND ROBERT CRUIKSHANK 

'And jret it is no trifle to be a good ouinturitt.' 

Prof. Wilson on G. Crai ki h wik 
io Blaelnooottt Mt^tuim, 1833. 

ROBERT CRUIKSHANK died in 1856, and 
though Geoi^e Cruikshank lived till the year 
- 1878, it must be remembered that, bom in 
1792, he was the contemporary of Rowlandson, and 
that his best work was all done before 1850. Isaac 
Cruikshank, their father, who hailed from north of the 
Tweed, was an engraver, etcher, and painter in water- 
colours. Coming to London about 1788, he became 
one of the most prominent of the many caricaturists at 
the opening of the nineteenth century, and one of the 
first steps towards art made by his two sons was to 
work, togetlier with their mother, at colourine their 
father's prints. The work of the father and the two 
sons has been considerably confounded, foi" George 
Cruikshank in his boyhood used to work on his fath^s 
plates, and also assisted his brother, Isaac Robert (or 
Robert, as he was generally known), when the latter 
forsook miniature painting for drawing' on wood and 
etching. The varying signatures — I. Ck., I. R. Ck., 
R. Ck., and G. Ck. — have caused natural confusion among 
dealers, printsellers, and collectors. Some reference to 
this confusion by an English author has no doubt led 
to the amusing entry in Nagler's great Kiinstler- 
188 



GEORGE AND ROBERT CRUIKSHANK 

Lexicon: — 'Pure, Simon, der eigentliche Name des 
berUhmten Caricaturzeichners Georg Cruikshank.' ^ 

Robert, the elder of the two sons, was bom on 
27th September 1789, three years to a day before 
Geoi^. The two brothers were educated at an ele- 
mentary school at Edgeware, and then Robert, inspired 
by the ' moving accidents by flood and field ' related by 
his mother's lodger, Mungo Park, went to sea as a 
midshipman in the East India Company's service. 
During a storm at St. Helena he was left on shore and 
reported as lost, so that his return three years later 
caused no little astonishment to his moummg family. 
During his brother's absence George had made con- 
siderable progress in his art, producing headings for 
songs, comic valentines, lotteiy prints, and so forth. 
The two brothers now worked in partnership, and on 
their lather's death kept on the family home at Dorset 
Street. Now that Gillray, Bunbury, and Dighton were 
dead, and Rowlandson growing old and careless, they 
commanded a ready market for their caricatures. For 
a time, of course, they may be called Rowlandson's 
rivals, for they assailed the same abuses, censured the 
same crimes. The Regent, Napoleon, the 'delicate 
investigation,' and Queen Caroline, attracted these 
humourists together. George Cruikshank, in particu- 
lar, levelled endless manifestoes against Buonaparte, 
and ' did his very prettiest for the Princess,' believing 
that she was ' the most spotless, pure-mannered darling 
of a Princess that ever married a heartless debauchee 
of a Prince Royal.' Ackermann, Fores, and Fairbum 
came with plentiful commissions, but the leading prize- 
fighters of the day were made equally at home m their 
studio, and the two brothers formed an extensive and 
peculiar acquaintance with the ' Tom and Jerry ' life 
that they so admirably depicted. George in particular, 

^ ' Pds^ Simon, the proper lume of the famous cuicaturigt, George Cioik- 
ahank.* 

189 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

as his friend Mr. G. A. Sala contended, knew London 
and London life 'better than the majority of Sunday- 
school children know their Catechism/ Robert, how- 
ever, finding some success as a portrait painter, married 
and moved to a more fashionable quarter at St. James's 
Place, but still continued his work as a caricaturist and 
illustrator. 

Robert, when the spirit moved him, could produce 
brilliant work, but was often apt to be hasty and 
sk>venly, and cannot be compared with his more gifted 
brother. The latter, long before he reached middle 
age, entirely abandoned caricature for book illustration, 
beginning humbly with illustrations for chap-books, 
one of the earliest of his coloured frontispieces bearine 
the attractive title of 'Horrid Murder of Elizabeth 
Beasmore.' Publishers soon found that Geoi^e Cruik- 
shank could be relied on to treat any subject under the 
sun with resource and sympathy, and his remarkable 
fecundity is shown by the five pages of cross-references 
under his name in the British Museum Catalogue, and 
by the 5265 entries in Reid's Catalogue of his work. 
What interests us now is that 669 of these entries 
refer, not to separately published prints, but to books 
or tracts illustrated by the artist — not, of course, all 
published with coloured plates — some having merely 
a frontispiece, but others with forty or more of his 
illustrations. Many of these, it is true, were ephemeral 
and minor publications, that even Cruikshank s genius 
could not raise above mediocrity, and in many cases he 
took the stage in a character to which he was utterly 
unsuited, as when he supplied some forty etchings to 
Byron's Poems. With this enormous output it is no 
wonder that in 1665, on being shown the Life in Paris, 
he ' at first professed his utter ignorance of the entire 
performance.' 

The work of Robert Cruikshank as a maker of 
coloured illustrations may be briefly summed up before 
190 



ROBERT CRUIKSHANK 

we describe that of his more distinguished brother. 
Besides contributing frontispieces to several books, 
he illustrated Lessons of Thrift with twelve coloured 
aquatint plates in 1820; The Commercial or Gentleman 
Traveller with five plates, and The British Dance of 
Deathwith eighteen plates, in 1822; and Pierce Egan's 
Sporting Anecdotes in 1825. His illustrations for 
Life in London, done conjointly with George, and the 
Finish to the Adventures of Tom, ferry, and Logic, to 
which this gave rise, must be referred to in connection 
with George's work. Apart from these, Robert Cruik- 
shank's most important work was the illustration of 
The English Spy: an Original IVork, characteristic, 
satirical, and humorous . . . being Portrmts of the 
Illustrious, Eminent, Eccentric, and Notorious. Drawn 
from the life by Bernard Blackmantle, published in 
1825. ' Bernard Blackmantle ' is the pseudonym of 
Charles MoUoy Westmacott, who died in 1868, and 
who was long famous, or rather infamous, as the pro- 
prietor and editor of The Age, a paper which levied 
blackmail without mercy. For the suppression of 
certain information he had acquired as to a scandalous 
intrigue involving some members of the court, he 
obtained on one occasion not less than ;^5ooo. The 
English spy is a veritable chronique scandaleuse of 
the time. In the pa^es of this extraordinary work 
figure all the notabUities of the day, either openly or 
under slight disguise; and Tom Best, White-headed 
Bob, 'Pea-green' Hayne, Colonel Berkeley, the 'Golden* 
Ball, Dr. Kett, Charles Mathews, Jemmy Gordon, and 
a host of others of equal notoriety, mingle, cheek by 
jowl, in the vivid and moving panorama.^ The first 
volume is occupied mainly with life at Eton and 
Oxford, and in the second volume life in London of 
all sorts and conditions is even more vividly depicted 

1 Su Madise, D., A Gallery of Illusirioui Literary CkaracUrs. Edited by 
W. Bates, 1873. 

191 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

than in Pierce Egan's famoas book. The English Spy, 
says the preface, ' contains copper-plates, etched, aqua- 
tinted, and coloured, by and under the direction of the 
respective artists whose names appear to the different 
subjects.' Of the seventy-two hand-coloured aquatint 
plates, all are by Robert Cruikshank with the exception 
of four. One of these is by G. M. Brightly, and one by 
J. Wageman. The other two are by Rowlandson, one 
illustrating 'Jemmy Gordon's Frolic, or Cambridge 
Gambols at Peter House,' the other ' R.-A.'s of Genius 
reflecting on the True Line of Beauty.' This last repre- 
sents West, Shee, Haydon, Lawrence, Westmacott, 
Flaxman, and others — the identity indicated by the 
initials on their drawing-boards, even if the portraits 
were not recognisable — gloating over the nude charms 
of a model who might have sat for Rubens. Besides 
the coloured plates there are numerous woodcuts, and 
it is noteworthy that the last in the book, by Robert 
Cruikshank, under the title of 'Bernard Blackmantle 
and Bob Transit,' presents portraits of the author and 
the artist. 

George Cruikshank was not a great draughtsman ; 
he showed no refinement in his handling of line or 
composition, and had no notion of how to draw a horse 
or a tree. Yet he was a keen observer of character, 
possessing the high qualities of imagination, wit, fancy, 
and tragic power ; and his work is always alive and 
expressive, vivid and spontaneous. With these quali- 
ties was combined an exuberance of invention that 
made him never content with his main idea, but drove 
him to crowd humorous details into every comer of his 
picture. His drawings were often full to overflowing 
with episodes and incidents, to each of which he devoted 
an equal concentration, often n^lecting artistic unity, 
and sacriflcing art for mere popular interest 

The coloured plates by Robert and George consist 
of etched outlines, with occasionally some aquatint, 
192 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 

tinted b^ hand. Etching was adopted by all the 
caricatunsts of the period as a cheap and convenient 
method of reproducing their work. George Cruik- 
shank's etchings are marked by a certain cnspness of 
execution that made Ruskin write of their 'pure un- 
affected rightness of method, utterly disdaming all 
accident, scrawl, or tricks of biting.' Cruikshank's 
published work conveys no idea of the painstaking 
study and the endless elaboration by which it was pro- 
duce. For every illustration he would make several 
sketches in pencil or ink, and it was his habit to add 
in the margin, as he worked, numerous little studies 
of figures, suggesting an alteration in position or in 
features, often expressed in a few lines, yet always full 
of animation. Whether his illustration was intended 
to be pubUshed in colours or not, he often finished his 
pencil drawing in water-colour, perhaps because he 
obtained by this means a better feeling of light, shade, 
and atmosphere, and could enter better into the spirit 
of the scene. His colouring, it should be said, was of 
the simplest, consisting of slight washes of yellow, 
green, and blue, in pure tints, with here and there a 
suggestion of red. From the drawing thus completed 
he made a pencil tracing to be transferred to the copper 
for etching. If the illustration were to be published in 
a coloured state, a proof of the etching was tinted by 
the artist. With this as a model, hundreds of similarly 
tinted copies were produced by the colourists working 
for the publisher, precisely as was the case with Row- 
landson and his coloured plates published by Acker- 
mann. ' Coloured etching ' in reference to Cruikshank's 
illustrations invariably means an etching coloured by 
hand, not printed in colour. 

These methods of procedure were anmly illustrated 

in the ' George Cruikshank Collection ' of etchings and 

drawings, selected by the artist himself, and exhibited 

in 1863 at Exeter Hall. This collection subsequently 

H 193 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

passed into the possession of the Westminster Aqua- 
rium, whose manafi^ers bought it from the artist in 
1876 for jf 2300, with a life annuity for himself or his 
wife of j^S- When the Aquarium premises were dis- 
posed of in 1903, the Cruikshank collection was sold 
on May 22nd and 23rd of that year at Sotheby's. 
Among a large number of water-colour and pencil 
sketches for book-illustrations, were the twenty water- 
colour drawings made for Harrison Ainsworui's The 
Miset^s Daughter. These were sold for j^igo, while 
the twenty original water-colours for the Irish Re- 
bellion fetched ]^iZo. Both of these sets are remark- 
able for the clever marginal sketches, so characteristic 
of the artist's style. The collection also contained 
Cruikshank's own coloured versions of twelve etchings 
for Greenwich Hospital. 

The collection in the National Art Library, given 
by the late Mrs. Cruikshank, is also thoroughly repre- 
sentative of the artist's methods. There are dozens of 
trial studies to show the pains he bestowed on the 
smallest designs for woodcuts; and his liking for 
water-colours is proved by his existing coloured 
sketches for The Greatest Plague of Life^ Ben 
Brace, The Bottle, and other works not issued in 
colours. Though only four numbers of the Comic 
Almanack appeared with hand-coloured illustrations, 
the original sketches at South Kensington include 
several in water-colour, notably the famous one of 
' Lord Comwallis ' being soused under the fountain. 
In the same collection are Cruikshank's own hand- 
coloured copies of the etchings for George Cruikshank's 
Magazine, the Comic Alphabet, Punch and Judy, and 
Greenwich Hospital. Of the latter there are trial 
proofs of the etchings as well as the finished copy in 
colours. On one trial proof returned to the publisher 
with pencil corrections, the artist writes : ' This is an 
unfinished proof You will not be able to judge what 
194 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 

it will look like until coloured.' In the Print Room at 
the British Museum there is a superb collection of 
Cruikshank's original drawings. Full details of these 
will be found in the valuable Catalogue of Drawings iy 
British Artists, conmiled by Mr. Laurence Binyon. 

The two sets of^ water-colour drawings for The 
Miser's Daughter and the Irish Rebellion, referred to 
above, were admirably reproduced by the three-colour 
process in a volume entitled Cruikshank's IVater- 
Colours, i>ublished in 1903 by Messrs. A. and C. Black, 
with an introduction by Mr. Joseph Gr^o. Along 
with them was included a set of Oliver Twist draw- 
ings. To avoid misapprehension, it should be stated 
that though Cruikshank made these coloured drawings 
for The Miser's Daughter, the book was never issued 
with coloured plates. Nor was the original issue of 
Oliver Twist in colours, and the set of drawings repro- 
/duced in Cruikshank's Heater-Colours was prepared 
in 1866 by the artist as a special commission for 
Mr. F. W. Cosens. They are to some extent replicas 
of the published etchings, but were carefully and con- 
scientiously finished by Cruikshank, showing his full 
powers as a colourist. He enjoyed his task, for he 
supplemented the set with thirteen smaller drawings 
and a humorous title-page. These drawings passed 
into the possession of Mr. Grego, under whose direc- 
tion they were expensively repr<xluced in photogravure 
by Messrs. Chapman and Hall in an idition de luxe of 
Oliver Twist in 1894. 

It is noticeable that Cruikshank moved with the 
times, and that his work forms a link between the old 
style of caricaturists and the new, between Rowlandson, 
Gillray, Bunbury on the one hand. Leech and ' Phiz ' on 
the other. In his early days he rejoiced in the 
exaggerated ugliness and broad grossness of Row- 
landson's coarser work, but after his ' Tom and Jerry ' 
phase he passed by a gradual transition into the school 

"95 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

of modem caricaturists, who without sacrifice of humour 
could produce serious work full of observation and of 
truth to nature. 

The books containing coloured illustrations by 
George Cniikshank are so numerous that comment 
must be confined to a ' short leet,' as the Scots phrase 
has it, representing only the most important. It is 
in the Scourge, or Monthly Expositor of Imposture 
and Polly, that Cniikshank's best work, coloured by 
hand, b^ins. By Cniikshank it must be understood 
that George is now meant. In the pungent caricatures 
of this magazine, often severe to the extreme, and not 
infrequently coarse and indelicate, the political and 
social history of the time is vividly portrayed. The 
Regent and his mistress, the ' sainted ' Queen Caroline, 
Buonaparte, Tom Cribb, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Siddons, 
Kean, Vaccination (' The Cow-Pox Tragedy ') are all 
among the subjects of his satire. The magazine was 
published in sixty-six monthly numbers, in yellow 
pictorial wrappers, from ist January 1811 to June 
1816. Of a similar nature are Town Talk, or Living 
Manners (181 1-14), and the Meteor, or Monthly Censor 
(1813-15). A complete copy of the latter is excessively 
rare, and one sold at Sotheby's on 7th December 1903 
for/85. 

In 18 15 the Life of Napoleon, a Hudibrasttc Poem 
in Fifteen Cantos, by Dr. Syntax, appeared in parts, 
with fifteen illustrations by Cruikshank, and was re- 
issued with the date 1817 on the title. The plates are 
coarse in sentiment and execution, and the verse mere 
doggerel, but the book is rare, illustrating events from 
the youthful Napoleon dreaming in the military collie 
to the landing in Elba. This is not to be confounded 
with W. H. Ireland's Life of Napoleon, with twenty- 
seven plates by Cruikshank, etchings coloured by hand, 
from his own designs or those of Isabey, Denon, Vemet, 
and others. This was issued in sixty-four parts, the 
196 



p. EGAN'S 'LIFE IN LONDON' 

first forty-eight, forming- the first three volumes, 
being published by Fairburn. The publication was 
then taken over by Cumberland, and finished in sixteen 
more parts, the whole being published in four volumes 
in 1828. To the same year as the Syntax Life of 
Napoleon belongs another book of the same class, An 
Historical Account of the Campaign in the Netherlands 
in 1815, by William Mudford. This contains twenty- 
eight etchings by Cniikshank, coloured by hand (four 
only are signed), and was issued first in four parts. 

Perhaps the most important, certainly one of the 
rarest, of the books with coloured plates by Cniikshank 
is The Humourist, a Collection of Entertaining Tales, 
Repartees, Witty Sayings, Epigrams, Son Mots, Jeu 
ctEsprits, This was issued in numbers from ist 
January 1819, and formed four volumes when com- 
plete in 1820. The forty hand-coloured etchings show 
Cniikshank at his best, and are full of variety, as the 
contents of any one volume will show. Pick up 
volume ii., for instance, and note the list of contents : 
^■The Bashful Man; An Awkward Mistake; The 
Whiskers ; The Witty Porter in the Stocks ; Cooke 
the Actor, the Dirty Beau, and Big Ben ; John Audley ; 
Daniel Lambert and the Dancing Bears ; The Biter 
Bitten ; Monsieur Tonson. If you knew Cniikshank 
without knowing this book, you could imagine the wit 
and relish with which he treats these subjects. 

In the following year, 1821, Robert and Geoige 
Cniikshank won a nuge success by their illustrations 
to Pierce Egan's Lifi in London; or the Day and 
Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his elegant 
friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic the 
Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the 
Metropolis. Containing thirty-six aquatint plates, 
coloured by hand, as wdl as numerous wood-engrav- 
ings by the two brothers, it appeared in shilling 
numbers from August 1820 to July 1821, and took 

197 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

town and country by storm. So great, indeed, was 
the demand for copies that the colourists found them- 
selves unable to keep pace with the printers. 

Twenty years later, Thackeray still remembered the 
leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green spectacles 
of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom, and 
in a charming essay recalled his schoolboy's delight 
in the book. ' In the days when the work appeared,* 
he writes, ' we firmly believed the three heroes to be 
types of the most elegant, fashionable young fellows 
the town afforded, and thought their occupations and 
amusements were those of all high-bred English gentle- 
men. Tom knocking down the watchman at Temple 
Bar; Tom and Jerry dancing at Almack's, or flirting 
in the saloon at the theatre ; at the night-houses after 
the play; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver cup 
then in the possession of the champion ; at Bob 
Logic's chambers, where, if we mistake not, " Corin- 
thian Kate " was at a cabinet piano, singing a song ; 
ambling gallantly in Rotten Row, or examining the 
poor fellow at Newgate who was having his chains 
knocked off before hanging ; all these scenes remain 
indelibly engraved upon the mind. As to the literaiy 
contents of the book, they have passed sheer away. It 
was, most likely, not particularly refined ; nay, the 
chances are that it was absolutely vulgar. But it 
must have had some merit of its own, that is clear ; it 
must have given striking descriptions of life in some 
part or other of London, for all London read it, and 
went to see it in its dramatic shape.' 

Like Rowlandson's Tours of Dr. Syntax, the Life 
in London was followed by a host of imitations and 
pirated copies. Real Life in London, or Rambles 
and Adventures of Bob Tally ho, £sq., and the Hon. 
Tom Dashall in High and Low Life, issued in six- 
penny parts from 1821 to 1822 with thirty-four aquatint 
plates, coloured by hand, by Aiken, Rowlandson, Heath, 

198 



(■!''. i: [) i.or>K 



■■■■''.■■'ZlCu I 



■ h. 



- ' . 1 . ' • . il i'^0 bcroi-: to !■, 
■ ■ ' ■ ■ .: .1-;' i" I'; young (-Ah: ' 

■ ] ': ■ . : 1 1 ;r '-^cuf.'iitions ^v.^. 

'■ ■ ' ''■'■ ■■- tl tvii.j'Jsh c,'entl';- 

: ■ r , ' ikiiinjn at Tt-ni])!;: 

■ '■ !. ..r .\:-:i, ;(!.'<;. or flirting,'- 

■■ ; ; .!•. t!: ■ n:c:ht-houses aft .;■ 

I ■ . (.■:■:•' ■^'- the silver cv.;- 

■ '.. ■ : \ .■ -. ; .t'l pion ; at B*"'' 
'■■■■■■ 'i' \. ;::^i..'.tse nnt. " Corii. 
r. .,.' '.■: • I . i:\!, ^ii-:;;i;i:;- a son;:". 

;■■ '•' ■' .' !■.■■..>•, --T cxarninint,^ thc 

,■■ V l-,'» i..-.-^ !i\inii his cnni; ■: 

■■■■.. .; ; :■;( \'r.-- ■>.: j^ivii:.--^ rcTn/ii.. 

.. C. r.-.'.-iA, A:, to the litcr;ir\ 

. ■. :'' .: !..;■■■.■ ;■' .. vd ^'vcr a\^ :iy. i; 

, ■- p •!,- i.l '[-Iv p fip ■'( ; pay, !;■.■. 

.: ., ..t•..':.;^;y vi.'-ar. jiul <: 

.•' :,{ n-; <>•■■ ■!. ll"..it is cle:ir; '1: 

■■■■■. ';.■■■;■ :p;i>i!is tA life in son- - 

i : ■ ■.:':'■ ;v:': J or.'ioi: read it. an-.i 

.:-.;/ .- .//:y. .S>;/Am', the ZZ/J 
\.----\\ .1 i V ci I-0-.t of imitations an-" 

AV ,-■ /.-.'■.■• /..' /,o -yji?, or Rt'ihUc 

oflU'l' V<.'y:.^\ /.-.sq., and the //*■,; 

///;■'> .'■■' y /.'•-.' ///V, ij^ued in r:A. 

iB.'i ti) ;.-'.>■> Villi thi'-t,y-four a(|i..'ti..' 
, ji.i.:..', ' ■ .\:;ci. ;''rr-'. >and'on, Heath, 



p. EGAN'S 'LIFE IN LONDON' 

Dighton, etc., is perh^s as good as the original. In 
1 82 1, Real Life in Ireland, or the Day and Night 
Scenes, Ravings, Ramblings, and Sprees, &c., of Brian 
Bom and Sir Skawn ODogherty, has nineteen aqua- 
tint plates by Aiken, Heath, Marks, and others, 
coloured by hand. The imitation that most deserves 
special record is David Carey's Life in Paris: com- 
prising the Rambles, Sprees, atid Amours of Dick 
IVildfire, of Corinthian celebrity, and his Bang-up 
Companions, Squire JenMns and Captain O'Shuffleton, 
etc. This was published by Fairbum in 1822, and 
has twenty-one coloured aquatints by George Cruik- 
shank, 'representing scenes from real life.' The 
pictures are extrem^y spirited and true, and are all 
the more wonderful in view of the fact that the artist's 
continental experiences were limited to one day spent 
at Boulogne. 

A French translation of the Ufe in London was 
published at Paris in 1823 with the title Diorama 
Anglais on Promenades Pittoresques i Londres, and 
reproduces twenty-four of the original plates with 
wonderful exactness. Dramatic versions at the play- 
houses increased the notoriety of the book. W. Bariy- 
more's play at the Royal Amphitheatre was produced 
on September 17, 1821. At the Olympic an extrava- 
ganza called ' Life in London ' appeared on November 
12, 1 82 1. For the dramatic version at the Adelphi, 
entitled 'Tom and Jerry, or Life in London,' the 
scenery was arranged by Robert Cruikshank. This 
last version travelled all through the country and the 
United States, with crowded houses wherever it went. 
At Sadler's Wells a dramatic version by Egan himself 
ran for one hundred and ninety-one nights. The 
songs, duets, choruses, etc., in the Adelpni Burletta 
were published in 1821 with a frontispiece, a hand- 
coloured etching by Robert Cruikshank, representing 
Mr. Wrench as Corinthian Tom, and replaced in a 

199 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

second issue by Mr. Wilkinson as Bob Logic. By 
Robert also is the frontispiece in 1821, coloured by 
hand, to Tom and Jerry in Prance, or yive la Baga- 
telle, a Musical Entertainment in tkree Acts, as 
performed at the Royal Coburg Theatre. Of the 
Sadler's Wells version the Songs, Parodies, etc., in- 
troduced into the new Pedestrian Equestrian Extrava- 
ganza and Operatic Burletta . . . called Tom and 
Jerry, were published with a frontispiece by George 
Cruikshank. 

In 1829 Pierce Egan published a Finish to the 
Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, of the same 
size as its predecessor, and again with thirty-six plates, 
but this time all by Robert Cruikshank. In this 
volume the author rounds off his story; Corinthian 
Kate, Tom, and Bob Logic all come to a melancholy 
end ; and the book ends with ' all happiness at Haw- 
thorn Hall, and the Nuptials bf Jerry and Mary 
Rosebud.' The plates are excellent, but compare them 
with the first series, and the absence of George Cruik- 
shank's vitality is apparent. 

In i827came the Points of Humour, published by 
C. Baldwyn, at eight shillings plain, twelve shillings 
coloured, with ten etchings by George Cruikshank, and 
this was followed in 1824 by a second part at the same 
price, with ten more plates. ' The collector,' says Thack- 
eray, ' cannot fail to have them in his portfolio, for thnr 
contain some of the best efforts of Mr. Cruikshank s 
genius, and though not quite so highly laboured as some 
of his later productions, are none the worse, in our 
opinion, for their comparative want of finish. All the 
effects are perfectly given, and the expression is as good 
as it could be in the most delicate engraving upon steel. 
The artist's style, too, was then completely formed; 
and, for our part, we should say that we preferred his 
manner of 1825 to any other which he has adopted 
since.' The points of humour consist largely of scenes 
200 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 

from Smollett, but the book is also notable as con- 
taining an early reprint, certainly the first illustrated 
version, of the ' Jolly B^;gars ' of Bums. The poet's 
muse had been too high kilted 'as shegaed owre the 
lea ' for the earlier editors of Bums to include in their 
collections what Sir Walter Scott calls ' a cantata for 
humorous description and nice discrimination of char- 
acter, inferior to no poem of the same length in the 
whole range of English poetry.' 

Greemvich Hospital: A Series of Naval Sketches, 
descriptive of the Life of a Man of IVat^s Man, was 
published in 1826 with twelve hand-coloured etchings 
by Cruikshank, besides numerous woodcuts. It was 
issued originally in four parts at five shillings each, or 
one guinea when complete. The plates are in a more 
free and open style than the artist usually adopted, 
with less crowding of detail and incident. ' Greenwich 
Hospital,' to quote Thackeray once more, ' is a hearty, 
good-natured book, in the Tom Dibdin school, treating 
of the virtues of British tars, in approved nautic^ 
language. They maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, they 
go out in brigs and take frigates, they relieve women 
m distress, and are yard-arm and yard-arming, athwart- 
hawsing, marlinspiking, binnacling and helm s-a-leeing, 
as honest seamen invariably do, in novels, on the 
stage, and doubtless on board ship. This we can- 
not take upon us to say, but the artist, like a trae 
Englishman, as he is, loves dearly these brave guardians 
of Old England, and chronicles their rare or fanciful 
exploits with the greatest good-will.' 

In 1826 Cruikshank started to publish on his own 
account, at 22 Myddelton Terrace, Pentonville, a series 
of books in small oblong folio, after the type of those by 
Aiken and Seymour, consisting of sets of etchings with- 
out text, each plate containing a number of small sketches. 
All were published originally, in paper wrappers, at eight 
shillings plain, twelve shillings coloured, and on India 

201 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

paper at fifteen shillings. Phrenological IllustratioHS, 
published on August i, 1826, contains six plates, among 
them the * Philopropenitiveness/ which appealed so 
strongly to the youthful Thackeray. Illustrations of 
Time, published on May i, 1827, has six similar plates. 
Scraps and Sketches was issued with six plates on 
May 20, 1828, and bears on the title-page the remark, 
'To be continued occasionally.' Part 2 appeared in 
1830, Part 3 in 1831, and Part 4 in 1832, each con- 
taining six plates. In 1834 was issued 'Plate i, for 
Part 5 of Scraps and Sketches, Anticipated Effect of 
the Tailors' Strike, or Gentlemen's Fashions for 1834.' 
This was, however, all of the 5th Part that appeared, 
and collectors should bind the odd plate at the end of 
the four published parts. My Sketch Book began in 
1834, consisting of nine numbers, each with four plates 
containing several subjects. They were issued at 2s. 6d. 
plain, 3s. 6d. coloured, ' The r^der,' says Thackeray, 
'will examine the work called My Sketch Book with 
not a little amusement, and may gather from it, as we 
fancy, a good deal of information regarding the char- 
acter of the individual man George Cruikshank. What 
points strike his eye as a painter; what move his 
anger or admiration as a moralist ; what classes he 
seems most especially disposed to observe, and what 
to ridicule.' There is, finally, one book that must be 
mentioned, because it shows Cruikshank's power of 
depicting scenes of pathos and tragedy as well as those 
of humour. This is Maxwell's History of the Irish 
Rebellion in 1798, published with Cruikshank's illus- 
trations in 1845. 'The twenty hand-coloured etchings 
— the original drawings have been already mentioned — 
show a wonderful comprehension of Irish character, 
and illustrate with dramatic intensity wild scenes of 
savagery and lust for blood. 

Such are the contributions of George Cruikshank 
to coloured illustration, and they are but a small 

202 



' /'i.-fi.-!-;- '. 

. -.;-j"C.'.' ■ 1 



.! ' r;:ito I. 



/:\:'- . 



ndcrfui c.^--; 



: -■ '. ■.■.■..■; ;.L the er,/ 
, .■;■ '[■■-. /y.-^f: be-;:;-. 
-■ :■ :; v,t!: f.>ur i ■-*. 

-' .... '.r,\,.-.s Tha'].' " 
::■ ; .'.y S\\-:(/i Book v. 
i . .•■ ^■.-.'.hcr frun; it, ;i. \ 

1 . ■>.. V Cruslv-hank. \\'.- 

• I .■''\i::r\ whit m->w ': 
ii..*;Ml.i;t ; vh.it clas^ts ' 
-, .: I'j i.iv .:rvo, :in^5 ■; ;■ 
,;y. ore l)n(.;]: that in\i-l '! 
',• J <>"nhl--hank's r-nwur 
*■-■! trr.c ::!y ;ts v.-lj ,!s :!. 
■..iis y'/.'V/'.'/'V '?/ A'/c' 7,. 
.! vi'Ji Cnii!;^h.'ink."s ''r 
;'v iiand-coioiircd et- b"i 
■ '.. ■."ii a'lVt.'v iTieiitioT.; .' 
■c-isicn (f Ir'.-h ch.ira; ■ 



■ ate \vit:i uiMr.i-' ;;.: 

■ml 'ii>t for Mood. 

:ir.- ihe contnbiitio!'-; (-f Geori;^ Cniil^ ';". 

; i illi!.'tia.tion, and t!';iy an; but a -; 



GEORGE CRUIKSHANK 

fraction of his life's work — work that Ruskin thought 
was wasted. ' Among the reckless losses of the right 
services of intellectual power with which this century 
must be charged, very few are, to my mind, more 
to be regretted than that which is involved in its 
having turned to no higher purpose than the illustra- 
tion of the career of Jack Sheppard and the Irish 
Rebellion, the great, grave (I use the words deliber- 
ately and with large meaning), and singular genius of 
George CruikshanK.* We prefer to accept the saner 
and more human judgment expressed by Thackeray : 
' Week by week, for thirty years, to produce something 
new; some smiling offspring of painful labour, quite 
independent and distinct from its ten thousand jovial 
brethren. ... He has told a thousand truths in as 
many strange and fascinating ways ; he has given a 
thousand new and pleasant thoughts to millions of 
people ; he has never used his wit dishonestly. How 
little do we think of the extraordinary power of this 
man, and how ungrateful we are to him I ' It is, 
indeed, no trifle to be a good caricaturist. 



203 



CHAPTER XVII 
LEECH, THACKERAY, AND 'PHIZ' 

IF Cruikshank, representing in his own jierson both 
the old school and the new, is typical of the 
transition, with Leech, Thackeray, ' Phiz,' and 
Doyle we are among the moderns — so much so, indeed, 
that only a slight recapitulation of bic^raphical facts 
should lie necessary. To some extent, However, these 
must be given, where they throw light on the artists in 
relation to their work, and give to their book illustra- 
tions added interest and importance. 

John Leech was born on August 19, 1817. His 
father, a man of fine culture and a thorough gentleman, 
was landlord of the London Coffee House, once a 
famous hostelry on Ludgate Hill. Leech was sent to 
the Charterhouse at the age of seven, and began there 
a friendship with Thackeray that grew daily in warmth, 
and was severed only by Thackeray's death. On leaving 
school he went as a medical student to St. Bartholo- 
mew's Hospital, but his heart already was in his 
drawing, and his lecture notes consisted of caricatures 
of his medical professors and his fellow-students. At 
the age of eighteen he launched, timidly and obscurely, 
his first artistic venture, entitled Etchtngs and Sketch- 
ings, by A. Pen, Esq. This consisted of four quarto 
sheets, without text, containing numerous sketches of 
cabmen, policemen, broken-down hacks, and all the 
oddities of London life. The book is now extremely 
rare, and is of interest to us because it was published 
204 



JOHN LEECH 

at ' 2s. plain, 3s. coloured.' The first real success that 
brought his name into public notice was his clever cari- 
cature of the Mulready envelope, and he soon became 
well known by his constant contributions to Bell's Life 
in London. In August 1841 Leech's services were 
secured for Punch, the first number of which had 
appeared three weeks before. From this time till his 
death, more than twenty years later, he was the leading 
spirit of the paper, contributing over three thousand 
drawings, and earning by his contributions from first 
to last the sum of ^^40,000. ' Fancy a number of 
Punch! wrote Thackeray, 'without Leech's pictures I 
What would you give for it ? ' * 

But during all the time Leech was engaged in 
working for Punch, he was also producing book-illus- 
trations, many of them issued in colours. Looking 
at his career as a whole, it may be said that Leech 
was the first of our English caricaturists whose work 
throughout was pure and wholesome. There is no 
Tom-and-Jerry stage in his career, as in that of 
Cruikshank. As some one has remarked, the most 
scrupulous mammas can find no intimation in his 
work that there is a Seventh Commandment sometimes 
broken. The coarseness of the old school of carica- 
turists disappears. In its place is a humour invariably 
fresh and innocent. With Leech, as with Izaak Walton, 
you feel a spirit of honest mirth, a sense of simplicity 
and sweetness, of clear skies and caller breezes. To 
make the truth of this the more apparent, you have 
but to glance at the work of his contemporaries in 
France, of Gavarni in particular. Leech infused into 
his work his own honest, cheerful, and wholesome 
nature. A note in Punch on the day of his funeral 

1 Anthony TroUope relates that for a week the writen and artista at the 
Piuuk office felt very sore about this awkward question. Then the author in- 
vited the confratemitT to dine — mtn Thafktrayano — and the confraternity 
came, and all was forgiven. 

205 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

said well that 'he illustrated every phase of society 
with a truth, a grace, and a tenderness heretofore 
unknown to satiric art.* 

The work of Leech marks not only the change to a 
purer atmosphere, but yet another difference between 
the old and new schools of caricature. The new men 
relied less and less on actual caricature in its proper 
sense of ex^geration and grotesqueness, and more on 
the inherent liumour of the life that surrounded them. 
They worked straight from nature with a keen and 
accurate observation, and their humour in consequence 
is less forced and boisterous, and far nearer to truth 
and ordinary experience. The term 'caricaturist,' in- 
deed, though useful in its generic sense, is wrongly 
applied to men like Leech and Keene and Phil May. 
They belong to the school to which the Japanese 
give the quaint yet beautiful title Ukiyoye — ' mirror of 
ttie passing world.' In Leech's work there is a con- 
stant freshness, an ever-changing variety of scenes 
and characters. A Scotch gillie, an Irish driver of a 
jaunting-car, a Frenchman tathing at Boulogne, a fine 
lady or a crossing-sweeper are all touched with equal 
excellence. 'John Leech,' wrote Ruskin, 'was an 
absolute master of the elements of character.' 

Leech's extraordinary versatility was shown not only 
in his grasp of character, which won Ruskin's praise, 
but in nis keen observation of horses and landscape. 
That he was himself a zealous sportsman, angler as 
well as huntsman, is apparent in all his work, most of 
all, perhaps, in his pidiures of Mr, Briggs and his 
Doings. He constantly rode with the FVtchley hounds, 
and it is stated that though he would follow a single 
huntsman for hours, noting his every movement, every 
button and wrinkle on his coat, yet in his own dress 
he invariably presented an utterly incong^ous appear- 
ance. That he rode with his eyes wide open not only 
as to gate, hedge, ditch, and surrounding landscape, 

2C» 



JOHN LEECH 

but to every droll and comic aspect of sporting life, is 
shown ly his illustrations to Mr. Sponge's Sporting 
Tour, Mandley Cross, and the rest of Surtees's novels. 
A few of Leech's illustrations in books are litho- 
graphs tinted by hand. The rest are etchings, and it 
may be supposed that he himself, like Rowlandson and 
Cruikshank, furnished the first coloured copy. The 
tints consist of simple washes of colour, requiring little 
skill in their manipulation, but Leech must have 
revelled in putting in the touches of 'pink* on the 
huntsmen's coats. He was not naturally a colourist, 
and the story of his exhibition of * Sketches in Oil ' at 
the Egyptian Hall in 1862, as related by Dr. John 
Brown/ is somewhat curious. The idea originated 
with his friend and colleague Mark Lemon, who saw 
that by a new invention — a beautiful piece of machinery 
— the impression of a block in Punch, being first taken 
on a piece of indianibber, could readily be enlarged by 
stretching the rubber, when, by a lithographic process, 
the copy obtained could be transferred to the stone, 
and impressions printed on a large sheet of canvas. 
Having thus obtained an outline consisting of his 
own Imes enlarged to some eight times the size of 
the original block, Leech proceeded to colour these. 
His knowledge of the technique of oil painting was 
very slight, and it was under the guidance of his friend 
Sir John Millais that his first attempts were made. 
He used a kind of transparent colour which allowed 
the coarse lines of the enlargement to show through, so 
that the production presented the appearance of an 
indifferent lithograph, slightly tinted. In a short time, 
however, he obtained great mastery over oil-colour, and 
instead of allowing the thick, fatty lines of printer's ink 
to remain on the canvas, he removed the ink with 
turpentine, particularly from the lines of the face and 
figure. These he re-drew, using a considerable skill in 

' Sea John Leteh and other Papers, by Dr. John &t)Wn, 1881. 

207 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

fiesh-colourine, which greatly enhanced the value and 
beauty of his later worfe. This exhibition took London 
captive, was enthusiastically noticed by Thackeray in 
the Times, and brought in j^50oo to the artist Dr. 
John Brown relates how one day a sporting nobleman 
visited the gallery with his huntsman, whose n^ve and 
knowing cnticisms greatly amused his master. At last, 
coming to one of Leech s favourite hunting pictures, 
he said, * Ah I my lord, nothin' but a party as knows 
*osses cud have draw'd them 'ere 'unters.' Ten of these 
oil sketches were reproduced in chromo-lithM^phy by 
Messrs. Agnew and Sons in 1865, and published under 
the title TiunHng: Incidents of the Noble Science. 
Among them is a large edition of the illustration to 
Haw^y Cross — ' Mr. Jorrocks (loq.) — " Come hup I 
I say— You ugly Beast 1 " ' 

The importance of these oil sketches lay in the 
opportunity they gave to the public of s^ing Leech's 
actual work face to face. ' The greater part of my life,' 
said Leech in his preface to the illustrated catalogue,^ 
* was passed in drawing upon wood, and the engravers 
cut my work away as fast as I produced it.' His draw- 
ings on the surface of the wood-block were extremely 
beautiful, and perhaps no one has suffered more at the 
hands of the engraver. He was working in the days 
before photography, when any large drawing was 
executed on a wood-block composed of a number of 
small squares screwed together, the squares being 
handed to different engravers, none of whom had any 
idea of the proportion of light and shade his particular 
piece bore to the whole. When Leech had finished a 
block he would show it to his friends and say, * Look 
at this, and watch for its appearance in Punch' ' How 
I wish that the world could have seen those blocks I ' 
says Canon Hole — ' They were committed, no doubt, to 

1 Tie Origina/s {from ' Putuh *) of Mr, John Letch's She/ehes in Oil, exhiHted 
at the Egyptiam Sail, JHccadilfy. Bndbuiy and Bnni, i86a. 
208 



JOHN LEECH 

the most skilful gravers of the day, but the exquisite fine- 
ness, clearness, the faultless grace and harmony of the 
drawing, could not be reproduced. The perfection of 
the original was gone. . . . Again and again I have heard 
him sigh, as he looked over the new number of Punch.' 
Now, whereas all the wood-engravings after Leech in 
Punch and elsewhere give a carefuX but often very 
inferior, interpretation o? his work, in all his coloured 
plates you get a ground-work of etching — that is to 
say, the work of Leech's own hand, put as directly on 
to the plate as if it were an original drawing. The 
immense superiority of the a)loured etchings over the 
woodcuts is shown by a glance at the Surtees novels 
where both methods stand side by side. The thick 
lines and the ruled skies of the wood-engraving will 
bear no comparison with the etching. Leech's humour 
is inherent in all his work, however reproduced, but to 
find Leech the draughtsman you must go to his original 
drawings or to his coloured plates, etched by the artist 
himself; and coloured by hand in facsimile of his own 
tinted proof. 

There is a long gap between Leech's first publica- 
tion with plates coloured by hand, the Etchings and 
Sketchings of 1836, and his next venture in 1843, 
though in the meantime he had become the most suc- 
cessful artist*humourist of the day. In 1843 his services 
were secured by Charles Dickens to illustrate the 
Christmas Carol, the first and best of Dickens's Christ- 
mas books, and the only one illustrated exclusively by 
Leech. The original issue was in brown cloth with 

flit devices and edges, and bears as the heading to the 
rst chapter, ' Stave i.,' afterwards altered to ' Stave 
One' to harmonise with the other headings, which 
were always ' Stave Two,' ' Three,' ' Four,' and ' Five.' 
Moreover, in the first issue the end-papers are green, 
in the second they are yellow. In it there are four full- 
page etchings, beautifully tinted, and four wood-engrav- 
o 209 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

in^s drawn by the artist in his best manner. The first 
edition of the book (it reach^l a tenth edition by 1846) 
is valuable for the sake of both artist and author as 
well as for its rarity. It was followed by The Chimes 
in 1845, The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle of 
Life in 1846, and The Haunted Man in 1848, all of 
them partly illustrated by Leech, but without any plates 
in colour. 

In 1845 appeared Young Troublesome, or Master 
Jacky's Holidays, published at 5s. plain, 7s. 6d. col- 
oured, with twelve plates by Leech, comprising twenty- 
five etchings. The Illuminated Magazine, edited by 
DouG^las Jerrold, was issued from 1843 to 1845, and 
besides numerous woodcuts by Leech, 'Phiz,' and 
others, contains two larg^e coloured plates by Leech. 
These have so frequently been removed for framing 
that a perfect set of the magazine is rather rare. 

Leech's next coloured work was for The Comic 
History of England, with text by Gilbert & Beckett, 
one of the Punch staff. This was published by Brad- 
bury, Aenew and Co. in 1847, in two volumes, at a 
guinea, out the title-page is undated. The venture 
was warmly opposed at its inception by Douglas 
Jerrold, whose wrath at the idea of burlesquing His- 
torical person^es was expressed with vehemence. The 
text is often tiresomely brilliant, an indigestible pud- 
ding of puns. It proved, however, ample food for 
Leech's rich and abundant humour, and his twenty 
plates (X)loured by hand, and two hundred and forty 
wood-engravings, though sometimes slight and hurried, 
are full of rollicking mn and ready satire. In 1852, 
again with no date on the title-page, appeared the com- 
panion volume, The Comic History of Rome, by Gilbert 
^ Beckett, published at iis. Leedi's ten hand-coloured 
etchings and ninety-eight wood-engravings again exem- 
plify nis exuberance of fancy and irresistible humour. 
His drawings are as anachronistic in regard to costume 
210 



JOHN LEECH 

as the text is in the treatment of facts. While he 
preserves the idea of a toga, the nether extremities of 
his characters often fxhibit an incongruous mixture of 
modem apparel, and the umbrella appears to be an 
equipment as essential to the ancient Roman as to Ally 
Sloper. Both volumes were reissued from the Punch 
office in 1864, and in 1897 there was a reprint in 
fourteen parts of the Comic History o/Englam. 

A year after the issue of the Comic Histoty of 
England^ Leech combined with Richard Doyle in illus- 
trating Punch's Almanack/or 1848, published at 'Two 
shillings and sixpence, plain ; Five snillings, a)loured.' 
This was a reprint of the usual Almanac on large 
paper, with illustrations coloured by hand. The book 
consists of twelve plates, each containing numerous 
sketches, those in the border being by Etoyle, the two 
principal ones in the centre by Leech. The drawings 
are characteristic of the seasons — a typical one, that for 
De<^mber, showing an old gentleman with influenza, 
who welcomes his guest with, ' This is really very kind 
of you to call. Can I offer you anything — a basin of 
gruel, or a glass of cough mixture ? Don t say No.' 

In 1848 was also published The Rising Generation, 
a series of twelve lithographs, coloured by hand, from 
the original designs in Punch, issued from the Punch 
offi(% at los. 6d. Like the etchings, these may be said 
to come straight from the artist's hands, and it is 
interesting to compare them with the originals in 
Pimch. Some of Leech's early work, notably the 
parody of the Mulready envelope, was executed in 
lithography, but in later days he almost entirely dis- 
carded this method. In the book before us he has 
been wonderfully successful in his use of his old 
method. The drawing has been kept light, and is 
therefore well adapted to receive the hand-colouring 
for which it was intended. 

Among Leech's most important work, with illustra- 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

tions coloured by hand, is the series of plates for the 
sporting novels by R. S. Surtees. This exemplary 
sporting J.P. and Higfh Sheriff for Durham died just 
forty years ago, and his work must be well within the 
memory of many people now alive. His novels are in 
their way inimitable, and the author could have found 
no better illustrator than Leech. Jorrocks' Jaunts and 
Jollities, with its illustrations by Aiken, has already 
been noticed, but Aiken's work, compared with that of 
Leech in the later volumes, seems laboured and in- 
effective, l^eech had the real genius for character, and 
his drawings for the series have subtle qualities that 
will repay careful study. After the Jaunts ami Jollities 
came Htllingdon Hall, without illustrations, in 1845 ; 
then Hawbuck Grange in 1847, with eight illustrations 
by ' Phiz,' not coloured. Leech's first illustrations to a 
novel by Surtees were those for Mr. Sponge's Sporting 
Tour, in 1853. This and the other novels by Surtees, 
illustrated by Leech, appeared originally in monthly 
parts, with paper covers of a terra-cotta colour, pub- 
lished at a shilling each, each part having numerous 
woodcuts in addition to one etching coloured by hand. 
In the two earlier volumes there is an occasional ten- 
dency on the part of the artist to make too much of his 
limited space, and to crowd his picture with figures and 
incidents after the manner of Cruikshank. In the later 
books there is a largeness and freedom of style, a 
breezy freshness of execution, the expression of an in- 
dividuality that has shaken off all convention. In 
these illustrations, almost as well as in the pages of 
Punch, you can trace the development of the artist's 
power. Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, originally in 
thirteen monthly parts, has thirteen etchings, coloured 
by hand. It was followed in 1854 by Handley Cross, 
or Mr. Jorrocks' Hunt, with seventeen similar coloured 
plates, one in each of the original parts. ' Mr. Jor- 
rocks,' says the Preface, ' having for many years main- 



• . : .. I.I, ]-. l!iC ::-,vk-^ of plalC:: '-.■■■ 

■ ■- k. S. -i;;vti.-;-. This is.tsir..' 
. 1 l[\ 'i S .. ri.T {..y Diirh.iin :l;.;.i J 
.T-i '..-; ■\.,.:-k mn'.t be n\-'l wdV.'- • 
-. ■ ' . ii-".\v aii\v-. His ;iovi-!.: .,'• 





. '.s Iv Aiken, h:.^ al/c: 


._-;•. -^ 11 




;;=,;--. 


.1 ;.;.:;:iu^ for chj.ra.u ■. ■ 


' ;■ 't i 


■,;- »■, , ■! ei^ht illuslr.it' 


: an.j' 


<■•. ■;•;.. • iUu-lrations ^ 
:■■•. ,"■ r.-.'-'-is by Sfr-. 


■ *'[■;"■ 


- ■ . . ; :;.;)')- in 1m ii.. 


w\i:r'^ '. 


: .1 ;. ^i .•■ -'.i' coLuit", ; 


: t-U':. 


;-,i -^ : -■: :. .' ..-ic: i'ur/<-. 


■n I,' .,;■ 


.-:!.!v./, V -iouKd by ^ 


I.:. ■■■. ■ 


1 t i- ;■■. '■■ ;■ ^- ■.■'. '".-lire- 
.. .■:: ■ ■ ..: .-f St- 



■ - ivitt..; ■, 

', '-U C.h'i ■ . 

,1 r.-.-n-'-iy i ■ 

..'id. It M'a^ '•'>.' .- 

■ y..'i-'"?ii:s' I /■:■■:. 

i •, >'":c in '.-.ii ji in 

..■ -,,^^ ;;..: I'l-rfar-.-. 



SURTEES'S SPORTING NOVELS 

tained his popularity, it is believed that, with the aid of 
the illustrious Leech, he is now destined for longevity.' 
Leech's model for Jorrocks was a coachman, of whom 
the artist made a surreptitious sketch as he sat in a 
neighbouring pew during a church service. 

The next volume was Ask Mama, or the Richest 
Commoner in England, with thirteen hand-coloured 
etchings. The preface to this eives a good description 
of the nature of the Surtees st^e of novel — ' It may be 
a recommendation to the lover of light literature to be 
told that the following story does not involve the com- 
plication of a plot, ft is a mere continuous narrative 
of an almost everyday exaggeration, interspersed with 
sporting scenes and excellent illustrations by Leech.' 
In i860 came Plain or Ringlets, with thirteen hand- 
coloured etchings, and in i&s Mr. Facey Romford s 
Hounds. This was Surtees's last work, and at the time 
of his death, in March 1864, he had just prepared it for 
its appearance in serial parts. During the issue of the 
parts Leech himself di«J, having completed only four- 
teen plates. The remaining ten were entrusted to 
' Phiz,' and it is curious to note how stron&ly his style 
has been influenced by that of Leech. Possibly he 
deliberateK' imitated Leech's work, as Quiller-Couch 
imitated Stevenson in his similarly forced copipletion 
of St. Ives. Mr. Facey Romford s Hounds brings the 
Surtees series of sporting novels to a close. The rarity 
of forrocks' f aunts and Hawbuck Grange makes it 
difficult to obtain a complete set, which is worth from 
j^50 upwards. 

One or two other books illustrated by Leech during 
the period of his work for Surtees must be added. One 
of the best is A Little Tour in Ireland, being a Visit 
to Dublin, Limerick, Killarney, Cork, etc. By an 
Oxonian. This was published in 1859, the Oxonian 
being Canon Hole, who accompanied Leech on a tour 
to Ireland in 1858, and at the artist's own suggestion 

213 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

wrote his impressions, while Leech contributed folding 
plates (etchings coloured by hand) and woodcuts. The 
whole story of the tour and his general reminiscences 
of Leech were communicated by Canon Hole to Dr. 
John Brown, who published them in his \o\wxit,John 
Leech and of her Papers (1882). 

Nor must Mr. Briggs and his Doings, published 
in i860, be forgotten. It was issued from tne Punch 
office, and contains twelve plates colournl by hand. 
Briggs is a kind of Mr. Jorrocks — a peppery, generous, 
plucky British citizen, smitten with the craze for sport 
and hunting in general. As he shot, fished, lode, 
raced, and hunted, Mr. Briggs got into a thousand pre- 
dicaments, but, undismayed by a thousand failures, 
pursued his sport with undaunted enterprise. Leech's 
pictures had made him a friend to the readers of Punch 
for a year or two before the publication of these coloured 
plates. Besides Mr. Facey Romford*s Hounds, one 
of Leech's last publications with coloured plates was 
Follies of the Year, issued from the Punch office in 
1864. It contains twenty-one hand-coloured etchings 
from Punch's Pocket Books of 1844 to 1864, and enables 
one to judge comprehensively the growth of the artist's 
individuality, and his advance from the cramped 
method of Cruikshank to a larger and bolder simplicity. 
The notes to accompany the plates were written by 
Shirley Brooks, and contain a slight, gossiping chron- 
ology of the years in which the drawings respectively 
app^red. The work itself, as he remarks, is ' quite 
out of the jurisdiction of criticism.' 

One of the warmest admirers of the work of 
Cruikshank and Leech was W. M. Thackeray, who 
himself supplied illustrations to books, some of them 
coloured. That he started life with the intention of 
becoming an artist, and was draughtsman and illus- 
trator before he was a writer of books, is a fact realised 
by few readers of his novels. At Charterhouse, as a 
214 



W. M. THACKERAY 

' rather pretty timid boy,' he fonned a friendship with 
his schoolfellow Leech, which no doubt encouraged and - 
developed his love of humorous drawing. In all his 
boyish work the element of caricature predominates, 
and it was always in caricature that his ability as an 
artist was shown. On leaving Cambridge in 1830 he 
studied for the Bar, and after some timid ventures in 
journalism, made up his mind that he could draw 
better than anything else, and accordingly in 1834, 
at the age of twenty-three, started to study art in a 
Paris studio. He possessed the specific gift of creative 
satire, and had he been endowed with the native cunning 
of Cruikshank or of Leech might have equalled or sur- 
passed either as a caricaturist. Fortunatel}^, however, 
for literature, his powers of draughtsmanship failed to 
develop in proportion to his aspirations, and his art 
studies became dilatory and desultory, the more so as 
his subtle grasp of character and power of invention 
began to find a richer and more genial soil. It was 
decreed that Thackeray ' should paint in colours which 
will never crack and never need restoration.' 

It was doubtless to his art studies in Paris that 
Thackeray owed the sympathetic insight and nicety of 
judgment that made him capable of writing such ex- 
cellent art criticism as the Essays on Leech and 
Cruikshank. Throughout his whole life his sympathy 
with art continued, and he executed a large number of 
illustrations, which though immeasurably inferior to 
his written work, are well worth consideration. 'The 
illustrations he produced,' says Sir Leslie Stephen, 
' have the rare interest of being interpretations by an 
author of his own conceptions, though interpretations 
in an imperfectly known language.' And it is interest- 
ing to note that in 1848 Charlotte Bront£ avowed 
herself a warm admirer of the drawings of Thackeray 
— ' a wizard of a draughtsman.' 

Thackeray's first essay as an illustrator, in fact his 

215 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

6rst independent publication of any sort, was Flore 
et Zipkyr, Ballet Mytkologique, published in 1836. 
This was a small folio, representing the career of a 
danseuse, and consisted of eight designs, slightly 
tinted, and drawn on the stone by Mr. Edward 
Morton, brother of the author of Box and Cox. 
In 1838 Damascus and Palmyra: a Journey to the 
East, by C. G. Addison, was illustrated with ten 
drawings by Thackeray, reproduced in lithography 
by Madeley, and coloured by hand. Thackeray's 
name does not appear on the plates, nor is there any 
mention of him in the book, yet in booksellers' cata- 
Ic^es the illustrations are now invariably ascribed to 
him. The authority seems to be a copy of the book, 
sold at Sotheby's in 1891, for ^^27, which is said to 
have contained inside the a>ver Thackeray's receipt, 
when a very young man, for twenty pounds for his 
illustrations for this work. The two volumes of Comic 
Tales and Sketches have twelve plates etched by Thack- 
eray, and printed in a tint of brown on a machine- 
ruled ground. It is interesting; to note that, while in 
many of the illustrations the lights are left white from 
the surface of the plate, in several instances the high 
lights throughout the edition have been systematically 
scraped out with a knife on the print itself, as was 
pointed out in the case of some coloured aquatints. 
Notes of a Journey from Comhill to Cairo, published 
in 1846, has an etched frontispiece, 'A Street View at 
Constantinople,' coloured by hand ; and the story of 
how Thackeray was whisked off at thirty-six hours* 
notice, wiUi a free passage from the Directors of the 
P. and O. Company, is told in the preface for the 
benefit of those who insisted that he wrote ' out of 
pure fancy in retirement at Putney.' 

In 1846 Thackeray began a series of Christmas 
books, issued, with plates plain or coloured, in pink 
pictorial boards. Text and illustrations show a rich 
216 



W. M. THACKERAY 

and graphic humour combined with an intense ap- 
preciation of the virtues, the failings, and the foibles 
of the great middle class. All were published for the 
Christmas season, but bear the date of the following 
year on the title-page. The first, dated 1847 for 
Christmas 1846, was Mrs. Perkins's Ball, published at 
7s. 6d. plain, los. 6d. coloured. The illustrations con- 
sist of twenty-two wood-engravings after drawings by 
the author, with one yellow tone printed, leaving white 
spaces for the high lights, and the whole finished by 
hand. Our Street, i^jS, was illustrated in the same 
way with sixteen plates. These are excellently done, 
and the picture of ' The lady whom nobody knows ' is 
almost equal to Leech at his best. This and the later 
books were published at 5s. plain, 7s. 6d. coloured. 
Dr. Birch and his Young Friends, 1849, has sixteen 
plates, executed in soft-ground etching, a method in 
which Thackeray was a novice, and which, apart from 
the humour of the pictures, gives a not very satis- 
factory result. Reoecca and Rowena, 1850, was 
illustrated with eight plates by Doyle, but in 1851 
Thackeray again took up his pencil for The Kickkburys 
on the Rhine. The fifteen plates are engraved on wood, 
and finished with one colour printed and the rest added 
by hand, as in Our Street and Dr. Birch and his 
Young Friends. The Kickleburys on the Rhine is 
notable for the fierce criticism it provoked from the 
Times. It was no wonder that a suggestion of the 
Christmas books owing their origin to ' the vacuity of 
the author's exchequer,' with a further reference to ' the 
rinsings of a void brain,' roused Thackeray's wrath 
and satirical humour. The second edition of The 
Kickleburys in 1851 is as valuable as the first, for it 
contains the well-known * Essay on Thunder and Small 
Beer,' in which Thackeray ridicules the pompous diction 
and affected superiority of his mighty assailant. 

Another small point in connection with Thackeray 

217 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

and illustrated books is that in Sand and Canvas; a 
narrative of Adventures in Egypt, with a sofoum 
among the Artists in Rome, by Samuel Bevan, 
containing hand-coloured wood-engravings after the 
author's drawings, there comes the first appearance in 
print of the famous ballad of 'The three sailors in 
Bristol city, who took a boat and went to sea.' This 
was an impromptu contribution by Thackeray to an 
evenine's entertainment by the artists in Rome, at 
which ne and Bevan were lioth present. 

Another caricaturist, contemporary with Leech and 
Thackeray, and like them sometimes making book- 
illustrations in colour, is Hablot Knight Browne, 
better known as ' Phiz ' — 3. sobriquet that he adopted 
to harmonise with Dickens's ' Boz.' He was bom on 
July 12, 1815, and was apprenticed to Finden, the 
well-known line-engraver. The laborious method of 
engraving on steel was little to his taste, and he 
soon forsook this work for water-colour painting and 
for book-illustration, which he could produce rapidly 
by etching. His first real chance of distinction came 
with the unhappy death of Seymour, who had finished 
the first seven plates for the Posthumous Papers of the 
Pickwick Club. ' Phiz ' and Thackeray were both candi- 
dates for the office of illustrator, and the choice fell 
upon ' Phiz.' In his long series of illustrations to 
Dickens's works he has given the supreme example 
of the power of an artist's pencil to realise and 
embody the creations of an author's imagination, 
making them clear to the blunter perceptions of the 
ordinary reader. Mr. Pickwick in his spectacles and 
gaiters, Sam Weller with his striped waistcoat, Mrs. 
Gamp propoging a toast, are all characters whose 
appearance in the flesh has been made real and im- 
mortal by ' Phiz,' and imitated by every later illustrator 
of Dickens. ' More persons are indebted to the cari- 
caturist,' says Mr. Hollingshead, ' than to the faultless 
218 



'PHIZ' 

descriptive passages of the great creative mind that 
called the amusing puppets into existence.' 

While illustrations to Dickens are the principal 
work by ' Phiz/ there also exists a considerable number 
of his coloured illustrations for books. The plates for 
Mr. Facey Romforefs Hounds have already been men- 
tioned, and the best of his coloured work was of a 
similar sporting nature. How Pippins enjtyyed a Day 
with the Fox Hounds, A Run with the Stag Hounds, 
and Hunting Bits (1862), are sets of twelve hand- 
coloured etchings, vigorous and spirited. In Dame 
Perkins and her Grey Mare, or the Mount for Market, 
published in 1866, Lindon Meadows's humorous verse 
gave an opening for eight most amusing plates repro- 
duced in coloured lithography by Vincent Brooks. 
The rest of the artist's coloured work appears to ■ 
assume a * pot-boiling ' character. With Home Pictures 
— Sixteen domestic scenes of Childhood, published in 
1851, he inaugurated a series of moral but sickly- 
sentimental scenes of domesticity, and was doomed, to 
his sorrow, to illustrate children's books year after 
year. Illustrations of the Five Senses in 1852 was 
issued at 3s. 6d. plain, 5s. 6d. coloured, the five plates 
being etchings with a machine-ruled ground. In 1853 
he made eight etchings for A Day of Pleasure, a 
Simple Story for Young Children, by Mrs. Harriet 
Myrtle, and in the following year for The Water Lily, 
by the same authoress, nineteen illustrations engraved 
on wood by T. Bolton, all of them coloured by hand. 

Snowfiakes, by M. Betham Edwards, published 
in 1862, is interesting for its illustrations by 'Phiz,' 
printed in colour from wood-blocks by Edmund Evans. 
There are twelve coloured plates, consisting of a full- 
page frontispiece and eleven pi^es of text and picture 
surrounded by a floral border. The other pages with 
a margin of plain wood-engraving are, to tell the truth, 
much to be preferred. Still the book was popular, and 

219 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

was republished in 1883 by Messrs. Routledge, who in 
the same year issued Phi^s Toy Book with forty-four 
coloured plates, containing Phiz's Merry Hours with 
eight plates, Phizes Funny Alphabet with sixteen, 
Pnids Funny Stories with eight, and Phiz's Baby 
Siveethearts with twelve plates. AH of these were 
first published separately. Throughout his children's 
books ' Phiz ' seems to be labouring at an uncongenial 
task, and appears to have little sympathy with nursery 
life. It must be remembered, however, that those were 
days when children were 'seen. and not heard,' were 
surveyed from distant Olympian heights, and spoon- 
fed with ' moral ' literature. Since the days of ' Phiz,' 
thanks to Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, Lewis Carroll, 
Kenneth Grahame and others, there has grown a 
wonderful appreciation of the true inwardness of child- 
life, and children's literature has suffered a marvellous 
change. How the modem child, surrounded by scores 
of coloured books, would scorn the paltry morals of 
well-meaning Mrs. Myrtle and the insipid nursery 
scenes of 'Phiz 'I 



CHAPTER XVIII 

NATURE-PR INT I NG 

A MONG the many methods of printing that had a 
Z.\ short and struggling existence in the middle of 
■^ *- the nineteenth century, the process of Nature- 
Printing stands out as having a more permanent interest 
than the rest. The first publication definitely dealing 
with the subject was a pamphlet published at Vienna 
in 1853 with the title The Discovery of the Natural 
Printing-Process. This was read before the Imperial 
Acadeniy of Sciences at Vienna by Alois Auer, Director 
of the Government Printing Office. It was evidently 
translated at once into different languages ; at any rate, 
the copy now before me is in Englisn. With it are 
twelve plates illustrating the nature-printing of ferns, 
leaves, sea-weeds, etc. 

First, however, a word as to the process itself, and 
its origin as stated by Auer. At the beginning of his 
book he explains that nature-printing is a method of 
obtaining an exact representation of some original, 
be it plant, flower, insect, material or textile, produced 
directly from the original itself. The object to be 
reproduced is passed between a copper plate and a lead 
plate, through two rollers closely screwed together. As 
a result of high pressure the original leaves its image 
impressed witn all its peculiar delicacies on the lead 
plate. If colours are then applied to this stamped lead 
plate, a copy can be obtained in the most varying 
colours by means of a single impression of each plate. 

221 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

The lead plate, on account of its softness, is not capable 
of furnishing a large number of impressions, but it 
may be stereotyped or galvanised. Such is a summary 
of Auer's simple prefatory remarks, but their simplicity 
is spoiled by the assertive arrc^ance which mars the 
rest of his book. 

The origfin of Auer's invention in Vienna was 
entirely due to an effort to rival England in the com- 
mercial field, in which she was then recognised as 
supreme. It is hardly necessary at the present day to 
pomt the moral of the story, which is as follows :— -On 
August 2, 1852, the Secretary of the Viennese Chamber 
of Commerce drew the attention of the ministry to some 
lithographed samples of lace issued by a Nottingham 
firm, and forwarded to Vienna by the Austrian consul in 
London. The Ministry of Commerce at once realised 
the ^vanta^e of this compared with the ordinary and 
expensive methods of circulating pieces of real lace, 
which soon became crumpled and dirty. They pub- 
lished accordingly a circular pointing out 'that this 
circumstance served as an example and as a new proof 
what great value the English set upon getting up in a 
handsome and el^ant manner their sample-books, and 
how much they endeavour to make their goods known as 
much as possible and to present them to their customers 
in an inviting manner.' 

These English designs were then submitted to Alois 
Auer, who was extremely jealous for the prestige of the 
Imperial Printing Office. Within twenty-four hours he 
prcKJuced fresh patterns from real lace by means of the 
nature-process described, the idea of using a soft lead 
plate instead of guttapercha being suggested by his 
overseer Worring. In the case of lace it is obvious 
that, the ground on the stereotyped plate being raised 
and the pattern in intaglio, it was possible by applying 
colour to the ground to produce the exact effect of a 
lace pattern pinned on blue paper. It was a proud 



NATURE-PRINTING 

moment for Auer when the council ' found the resem- 
blance so deceptive that they took them to be real lace, 
until, by touching and closely examining them, they 
convinced themselves that they were the production of 
the printing press.' 

It was now suggested to Auer by Haidinger, of the 
Austrian geological institution, that the process should 
be used for producing facsimiles of leaves. Professor 
Leydolt showed great interest in this idea, and some 
wonderful impressions of oak leaves were taken. Auer 
now gave his process the name of 'the natural self- 
actine printing-process ' {Naturselbstdruck), and added 
that ne expected that in a short time the seWst would 
vanish. On October 12, 1852, he took out in Worring's 
name a patent with exclusive rights for Austria. 

There now steps upon the scene an angry English- 
man, in the person of Henry Bradbury, eldest son of 
William Bradbun^, of the firm of Bradbury and Evans, 
the proprietors of /Vk«^A. He was born in 1831, and 
in 1850 entered, as a pupil, the Imperial Printing 
Office at Vienna. Full of intense indignation at the 
honours assumed by Auer, he started a crusade, stating 
it as his object ' by an investigation of dates and the 
separate pretensions of individuals to endeavour to 
clear away the mist that self-interest or self-flattery 
may have induced.' On May 11, 1855, he delivered a 
lecture on Nature-Printing: its Origin and Objects, 
before the Royal Institution of Great Britain. This he 
published in 1856, dedicating it somewhat cruelly to 
Alois Auer. The main object of this work was to 
show that the employes of the Austrian government 
were not justified in asserting an exclusive right to 
priority in the invention, simply on account of its first 
application in its fullest form at the Imperial Printing 
Office. Bradbury points triumphantly to experiments 
made in nature-printing on the Continent dating as far 
back as two hundred and fifty years before his time. 

223 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Surely, however, Auer makes sufficient acknowledg- 
ment in ' Remark 3 ' of his pamphlet, where he refers 
to these experiments; and one cannot help having 
something more than a suspicion that this is the 
source of Bradbury's own information. Moreover, in 
his Royal Institution lecture, Bradbury very discreetly 
never mentioned the fact that on June 28, 1853, a 
patent was granted to Messrs. W. Bradbury and F. M. 
Evans for 'taking Impressions and Producing Printing 
Surfaces.' Their declaration stated that ' this Invention 
consists of placing plants and other vegetable matters, 
insects, and other substances, between a surface of steel 
and a surface of polished lead, and by pressure obtain- 
ing an impression on the lead, and from such impression 
obtaining an electrotype surface suitable for printing.' 
This is essentially Auer's process, but in the descrip- 
tion there is no mention of Auer, and only a casual 
remark in parenthesis that the process has been ' com- 
municated from abroad.' Yet they claim it as an 
invention, and take out a patent, without mentioning 
Auer, and substituting the vaguest of phrases for his 
straightforward title ' Nature-Printing.' Then, with a 
flourish of trumpets, th^ published a set of twenty- 
one plates, in paper wrappers (at j^i, is. or at is. 6d. for 
separate plates), with the title ' A few leaves from the 
Newly-Invented Process oi Nature-Printing. Bradbury 
and Evans, Patentees, 1854.' 

The early experiments to which Bradbury refers in 
his Royal Institution lecture are of considerable interest. 
In the Book of Art of Alexis Pedemontanus, in 1572, 
may be found the first recorded hint as to taking im- 
pressions of plants. In 1650 De Moncoys in his 
Journal des Voyages gave instructions as to a method 
employed by a Dane, Welkenstein. He dried his 
plants, blackened them over a lamp, and took an im- 
pression by placing them between two soft leaves of 
paper. Simnar impressions were made in 1707 by 
224 



NATURE-PRINTING 

Hessel, says Linnaeus in his Pkilosofhica Boianica; and 
later, Professor Kniphof worked in the same manner 
in his printing office, established at Erfurt in conjunc- 
tion with a boolcseller, Funke. Kniphof produced in 
1 761 his Botanica in Originali} consisting of twelve 
volumes with twelve hundred plates, nature-printed in 
black. Kniphof 's only new step was to use printer's 
ink instead of lamp-black, and a flat press in place of 
the smoothing bone. Seligmann, an engraver, made 
similar expenments ; and from 1788 to 1796 Hoppe 
edited his Ectypa Plantarum Ratisbonensium and his 
Ectyfa Plantarum Selectarum, with illustrations pro- 
duced in the manner of Kniphof All this Auer knew 
and readily acknowledged. He was probably, however, 
entirely unaware of the obscure discoveries of Peter 
Khyl, a Danish goldsmith and engraver, whose work 
first raised nature-printing of leaves from a simple 
contrivance to an art. In a manuscript dated May i, 
1833, with the title The Description of the Method 
to copy Flat Objects of Nature and Art, Khyl gave 
details of his invention, and the description was accom- 
panied by forty-six plates representing printed copies 
of leaves, linen, woven stuffs, laces, bird feathers, fish 
scales, and serpent skins. Khyl states his. method with 
careful precision. He used a rolling-machine with two 
polished cylinders of steel. If the object to be repro- 
duced was a leaf, it was dried and placed between a 
polished steel plate, half an inch thick, and a thoroughly 
heated lead plate with a fine surface. These two plates 
were run rapidly between the (flinders, and the leaf 
under the pressure yielded its form on the softer lead 
plate, showing the raised and sunk parts exactly as in 
nature. He notes that laces, figured ribbons, and 

* D. Jo. Hieron. Knipbofii Botanica in Origiindi Ma Herbarinm Vivum, 
10 quo Flantaiuu tam indigcnamin qnan exotiGanim pcculiari quadaaa 
operoiaque encheireti attamento impiestorio obdnctarom elegaatissiina ectypa 
exhibentnr. Haiae Higd, 1761. 

P 335 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

other textile materials, can be printed without prepara- 
tion, but that a leaf must be thoroughly dried and freed 
from sap. 

Khyl died in the year which saw his invention 
employed, and the only step still required to bring it to 
perfection was the idea of electrotyping the lead mould 
so that an infinity of impressions might be taken. In 
England also various efforts were being made in a 
similar direction. Dr. Branson of Shefhela commenced 
a series of experiments in 1847, and in 1851 read a 
paper embodying his results before the Society of Arts, 
and suggested the application of the most essential 
and most important element in Nature-Printing — the 
electrot}^. His first experiments were made by taking 
impressions of ferns on guttapercha. He discarded 
this in favour of electrotype copies, but even this 
method he found too tedious and costly for practical 
use. Various other experiments had been made by 
Messrs. Sturges and Aitken in decorating metal objects 
with nature-printed impressions. All these instances 
are accumulated with gathering scorn by Bradbury, but 
there is yet another early effort in nature-printing, un- 
known even to Bradbury. In The Art of Drawing, 
and Painting in IVater-Colours, printed for J. Pede 
in 1731, is given 'A speedy Way of Painting me Leaf 
of any Tree or Herb, as exact as Nature itself,' and 
also ' Another Way of Printing the Leaves of Plants so 
that the Impression shall appear as black as if it had 
been done in a Printing Press.' The directions given 
are for taking impressions by means of linseed oil or 
printer's ink. But the author goes a step further when 
he adds, 'The Method of Taking-off the Leaves of 
Plants in Plaister of Paris, so that they may afterwards 
be cast in any Metal.' All this would have appealed to 
Bradbury, especially as the author claims no patent, 
and indeed appends the quaint and obliging note that 
'if any Gentleman or Lady should meet with any 
226 



NATURE-PRINTING 

Difficulty in performing any Thing directed in this 
Treatise, and will send Word to the Publisher thereof 
where they may be waited upon, the Author will attend 
them and shew them how to perform every experiment 
therein mentioned, upon a reasonable Satisfaction.' 

All these experiments, however, were tentative and 
incomplete, and there is no reason to suppose that Auer 
benefited to any extent by early researches. The work 
of Khyl and Branson, especially in view of the fact that 
neither published nor made practical use of his experi- 
ments, was probably quite unknown in Vienna. The 
idea of nature-printing was doubtless in the air at the 
time, but Worring seems to have arrived quite inde- 
pendently at his application of soft lead, and there 
seems to be no reason why Auer should not have the 
credit for the first definite and practical development of 
the process. Even if Auer had availed himself of the 
scattered experiences of different experimentalists, Brad- 
bury's attack would be unjustifiable. Certainly he need 
not have written that 'it is evident that Councillor 
Auer, who has arrogated to himself the sole discovery 
of Nature-Printing, has given proof of a selfish and 
unfair desire to aggrandise himself at the expense of 
others : his passion for fame has led him even beyond 
the warrantable bounds of propriety,' and so forth. 
Auer may have obtained hints from prior work, but 
he was not a thief or a plagiarist ; and as Alfred de 
Musset says — ' C'est imiter quelqu'un que de planter 
des choux. 

The first application of the process to book illus- 
tration was made by Auer in the Chevalier Von Heufler's 
SfKimaiFloraeCryptogamaeyallisArpaschCarfatae 
Transylvam, published at Vienna in 1853. With later 
German publications we are not concerned. Within 
two years Bradbury, profiting by his studies in Vienna, 
introduced the process into England. His description 
of his method of printing and of colouring is of some 

227 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

interest Where there were three, four, or more colours 
to be employed — ^as in the case of plants, with stems, 
roots, leaves, and flowers — the plan adopted was to 
apply first the darkest colour, generally that of the 
roots. The superfluous ink was cleaned off, and the 
next darkest colour, perhaps that of the stems, was then 
applied; and so on till every part received its right 
tint In this state, before the plate was printed, the 
colours on the different parts of the copper looked as 
if the actual plant was embedded in the metal. By 
putting on the darkest colour at the beginning, there 
was less chance of smearing the lighter and more deli- 
cate tints, and the method also made it easier to blend 
one colour with another. It will be seen that this way of 
printing in colours is entirely analc^ous to that followed 
m the case of a coloured mezzotint or aquatint plate. 
Bradbuty explains, too, that the embossed appearance 
of a nature-printed plate is produced by the use of four 
or Ave thicknesses of blanketing between the rollers of 
the printing-press. The impression on the plate itself is 
in deep intaglio, and it is the wonder of nature-printing 
that soft lead should receive an instantaneous imprint 
of fern or sea-weed complete in every detail, at the very 
moment when the object itself is squashed to a pulp. 

The first English book for which the process was 
employed was The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, 
by T. Moore and J. Lindley, published by Bradbury 
and Evans in 1855, with illustrations nature-printed 
by Henry Bradbury. The book contains fifty-one 
plates and is in large folio. It was republished in 
1857, ^"^ appeared in octavo in 1859. Nature-printing 
lent itself with great success to the reproduction of 
ferns, giving complicated forms and the tender organ- 
isation of veins with minute accuracy. As Lindley 
points out in the preface to this book, botanical draw- 
ings, when compared with nature-printing, are ' little 
more than indifferent diagrams.' 
228 



NATURE-PRINTING 

Another work by Bradbury is The Nature-printed 
British Sea-Weeds. This was published in 1859 with 
text by W. G. Johnstone and A. Croall. It is in four 
volumes with over two hundred plates, showing with 
realistic precision the tangled intricacies of every 
species of^ sea-weed. ' It is by touch alone,' said the 
Times of the period, * that the spectators can be con- 
vinced that these wonderful groups of sea-weed, spread 
on the sheet in all their rich variety of tints and minute 
structural organisation, are not actually the pressed 
weeds themselves.' 

The only other besides Bradbury to make real use 
of nature-printing was an eccentric amateur named 
R. C. Lucas. He published some volumes of etchings 
that possess considerable quaintness, and his work as 
a nature-printer is exceedingly artistic His book of 
nature-pnnts issued by himself at Cbilwoith Tower in 
1858 is exceedingly rare, but a copy can be seen in the 
British Museum Library. It has the etched title — 
Facsimiles of Nature from the Valley, the Forest, the 
Field, and the Garden, by R. C. Lucas, Sculptor, Chil- 
worth Tower, Hants. The plates are executed entirely 
in Bradbury's manner, but are finer in colouring. They 
are all on India paper, and owing to this, or to amateur 
printing, the colours have run together, never leaving 
a hard eilge and giving a certain charm of accidental 
softness. 

The inevitable costliness of the process was the 
only bar to its extended use. Nature-printing seems 
to have died with Bradbury, and a unique and valiutble 
method of reproducing botanical speamens was lost. 
It is a sad fact that Bradbury died by his own hand in 
i860 at the early ^e of twenty-nine. He had accom- 
plished much before his death, for in addition to the 
work mentioned he was a recognised authori^ on 

?rinting, had lectured more than once at the Royal 
nstitution, and had published two books on Bsutk 

239 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Note Engraving. At the time of his death he thought 
of producing a large work in folio on the graphic arts 
of the nineteenth century, but never got beyond a pro- 
spectus that was ample enough to indicate the wide 
scale of his design. 

The nature-printing of Auer and Bradbury is not 
to be confused with a method of taking impressions of 
butterfly wings, to which the term 'nature-printing* 
has also been applied. Directions for this are given 
as far back as 1731 in the aforementioned book on The 
Art of Drawing. Under the heading, ' The manner 
of making the Impressions of any Butterfly in a 
Minute in all their Colours/ is given the following 
account : — 

* When you have taken a Butterfly, kill it without spoiling 
the Wings, and contrive to spread them In a flying manner as 
r^fularly as may be ; then take a piece of white Paper, and 
with a small Brush or Pencil wash a part of the Paper with 
Gum- Water ; then lay your Butterfly on the Paper, and when 
'tis well fixt, cut away the Body close to the Wmgs, then lay 
the Paper on a smooth Board with the Fly upwards, and on 
that another Paper, upon which put a smooUi Trencher, and a 
great weight upon that; or else put your whole Preparation 
mto a Screw-press, and screw it down very hard, letting it so 
remain for an Hour ; then take off your Butterfly's Wings, and 
their perfect Impression, with all their beautiful Colours maric'd 
distinctly, will remain on the Paper, I have done several this 
Way, which answers very well ; and to explain the Reason why 
it can be so, you must understand, that all the Fine Colours 
observ'd on a Butterfly's Wings, are properly Feathers, which 
stick to the Gum so fast, that, when the Gum is dry, they leave 
the Wing. When you have done this, draw between the Wings 
of your Impression the Body of the Butterfly, and colour your 
Drawing of that Body after the Life.' 

It is a far crv from 1731 to 1880, but it is not till 
the latter year that there appears to be any further 
reference to this particular kind of nature-printing. 
230 



NATURE- PRINTING 

In 1880 a little book was published by ' A. M. C with 
the title A Guide to Nature-Printing Butterflies and 
Moths. The author seems to have no idea of the 
antiquity of his process, though he says that 'the 
French missionaries in India had a recipe, many years 
ago, for transferring the wines of Butterflies. His 
method is exactly that of Peele s book, though he gives 
other processes of using wax, varnish, or rice-water, 
and adds some advice as to touching up defects by 
hand. There is a frontispiece showing three butterfly 
wings reproduced by this process. Where this differs 
from the nature-printing of Auer and Bradbury is of 
course that it necessitates the destruction of a separate 
butterfly for each single impression, and therefore 
cannot be of any practic^ use. 

This last method has been brought to absolute 
perfection in a book published at Boston, U.S.A, in 
1900 : As Nature shmus them : Moths and Butterflies 
of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, 
by Sherman F. Denton. Besides four hundred half- 
tone illustrations there ar« fifty-six coloured plates 
which the author describes as Nature Prints. He 
explains that they are direct transfers from the insects 
themselves, the scales of the wings being transferred to 
the paper, while the bodies are pnnted from engravings, 
and are afterwards coloured by hand. I am inclined to 
think that in the case of the wings there must be a 
slight substratum of colour either printed or hand- 
painted, and on this the actual wings must have 
been transferred under very high pressure. For this 
edition the author had to make over 50,000 transfers, 
no one else being able to do the work to his satisfac- 
tion ; and more than half of the specimens used were 
collected by himself. The coloured illustrations are 
magnificent, embodying all the perfection and beauty 
of the acttial specimens. 'As you look at the plates 
sideways, and move them in the light, the glint and 

231 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

sheen of the butterfly wings show ever -dungings 
beauties of iridescent colour. The method, of course, 
is one that can be applied only to butterflies ; but in 
the history of colour-iUustration I know nothing more 
wonderful than this book. 



T\a 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE PRCXXSS OF CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHY 

BETWEEN 1830 and 1840 the aquatint process 
was bein? gradually ousted from its dominion 
bv tlie cheaper method of lithography. The 
story of the invention and rise of lithography is so well 
known that it may sufRce to recall simply its outstand- 
ing facts and dates before passing to the development 
of chromo-lithography. Aloys Senefelder, the inventor 
of lithwraphy, was Dom at Prague in 1771 or I77». 
At the first he earned a precarious living as an author, 
and like Blake in England sought some means of be- 
coming composer, printer, and publisher of his own 
productions. As the acquisition of a printing-press 
was beyond his means he b^an a series of experiments, 
having as their object the discovery of some cheaper 
and readier means of printing. It is curious that both 
Blake and Senefelder aimed at some method of leaving 
their writing in relief, and that both, within a period m 
ten years from each other, accompUshed their object in 
essentially the same way^-Blake on copper, Senefelder 
on stone. 

In his attempt to find a stopping-out varnish for 
use on an etched copper-plate, Senefelder hit on a com- 
position of three parts of^wax, with one part of common 
soap, melted together over the fire, mixed with a small 
quantity of lamp-black, and dissolved in nun-water. At 
the same time he conceived the notion that the Kell- 
heim stone, which he used for grinding colours, might 

»33 



z 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

economically be substituted for metal plates, and he 
accordingly perfected a means of polishing and etching 
the stone, and printing from it. This was not genuine 
lithography, but it led to the discovery of the essential 
principle of lithography, as Senefelder himself relates 
in his Complete Course of Lithography, published by 
Ackermann in 1819. 

He was working one day in his small laboratory, 
and had just finished polishing a stone plate, whiui 
he intended to cover with etching ground, when his 
mother entered the room and asked him to write out a 
bill for the washerwoman, who was waiting for the 
linen. There happened to be not a scrap of paper at 
hand, and not a drop of ink in the inKstand. His 
mother was in a hurry, and Senefelder, without much 
thought, wrote the list with his composition of wax, 
soap, and lamp-black, on the stone which he had just 
been polishing, meaning to copy it out at leisure. Some 
time after, he was on the point of wiping this list from 
the stone, when the idea suddenly struck him to leave 
the writing, and try the effect of biting the, stone with 
aqua-fortis, wondering whether it might not perhaps 
be possible to apply printing ink and take impressions 
in the same way as from a wood-block. Acting on 
this, he found that the unprotected parts of the stone 
were bitten away, leaving the writing sufficiently ele- 
vated for printer s ink to be applied and impressions to 
be taken. This took place in 1798, but there was still 
a further discovery to be made, which gave entirely 
new shape to the art of lithography, and left it in its 
present form. 

The whole secret lies in the chemical antagonism 
existing between water and grease, when applied to a 
surface possessing a like affinity for both. The litho- 
grapher takes a stone, and on this draws his design 
with an ink composed of tallow, wax, soap, shellac, and 
Paris black. A weak solution of acid poured over this 
234 



CHRO MO-LITHOGRAPHY 

decomposes the carbonate of lime in the stone and the 
soap in the ink. The solution of the acid renders those 
parts of the stone that have not been drawn on still 
more averse to receiving any fatty substance such as 
printer's inic, and the resistance is increased by the 
addition of a solution of gum. Before printing, the 
stone is well moistened with water, and when mked 
with the roller will receive the ink only on the greasy 
parts, that is the parts drawn upon, and will reject the 
ink from the parts treated with acid, gum, and water. 
Senefelder's final discovery, therefore, is a form of 
printing from stone without resorting to engraving 
either m relief or intaglio. The original inventor, in 
fact, elaborated the whole art to a wonderful perfection. 
He devised roller, press, and tools ; he worked out the 
most efficient details for each stage of the process ; he 
gives directions for almost every method of lithography 
now employed ; points out that his methods are applic- 
able to zinc, copper, and other metals ; and even antici- 
pates the latest developments by devising a 'stone 
paper ' to take the place of all of them. 

Probably no inventor has ever so immediately and so 
fully realised the possibilities of his invention as Sene- 
felder did in the case of lithography. Though he had 
hardly time or opportunity to put all his theories into 

firactice, there were few of the later developments of 
ithography that its inventor had not foreseen. It was 
many years, for instance, before chromo-lithography 
became an accomplished fact, yet the Complete Course 
contains several allusions to the process, and at the 
banning of the book is an initial letter from an early 
printed book, reproduced in red and blue as well as 
black. Senefelder was quick to notice that the drawing 
on the natural tint of the stone often deceived the artist 
as to the just gradation of his tones, and that in general 
the drawing on the half-tinted stone had a better effect 
than the print on white shining paper. This induced 

235 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

him to try the effect of an impression on a yellowish 
paper, but here the difficulty was that paper of this 
kind, if of the best quality, was very expensive ; while 
inferior kinds contained ingredients m the colour which 
soiled the impressions. After many fruitless experi- 
ments in printing the paper and then colouring it, he 
devised the method of printing a yellowish tmt by 
means of a second stone, over the drawing already 
printed. This method was found to be not only the 
cheapest and most expeditious, but possessed the addi- 
tional advantaf^e that the margins of the print could 
be left white, thus contributing to heighten the effect of 
the drawing. A further suggestion was made to Sene- 
fdder by Piloty that he should print the lights in white 
colour, so as to make the impressions more like auto- 
graph drawings. Experiments, however, with white 
oil-colour for this purpose proved unsuccessful, and 
Senefelder then discovered the method of leaving out 
spaces for the lights in colouring the tint-plate, or by 
cutting them out altogether before the plate was col- 
oured, thus producing the effect of high light by means 
of the white untinted paper. 

The idea of printmg lithographs with one or more 
tint plates to resemble chalk drawings thus originated 
with Senefelder, but one of its principal exponents was 
Charles Joseph HuUmandel. It is interesting to note 
in passing that HuUmandel for scraping out the lights 
on the stone used an ordinary mezzotint scraper, kept 
extremely sharp. Closely associated with Hullmandel 
is J. D. Harding, who did much to encourage him in 
his experiments, and who, in 1827, before his connec- 
tion with Hullmandel, had published Winter Skitckts 
in Lafland with twenty-four plates, printed with a 
single yellow tint added afterwards. Hullmandel dis- 
covered means of produciiu; neutral and graduated tints, 
and in November 1840 took outa patent for his method 
of lithotint — 'A New Effect of Light and Shadow, 
»36 



COLOUR IIP BOO' 

. I -''f lin VC-... -■ s.on rn :. : 

A:'*:*- x\ . .w'xi'.. 



t ;■■■ 



HAND-COLOURED LITHOGRAPHS 

Imitating a Brush or Stump Drawing, or both com- 
bined, Produced on Paper, being an Impression from 
Stone, Prepared in a Particular Manner for that Pur- 
pose.' The process, put briefly, consisted first in com- 
pleting a drawing on stone with lithographic ink by 
means of a brush. This was covered with gum-water 
and weak nitric acid to fix it, and a solution of resin, 
exactly as in the case of aquatint, was poured over the 
stone. This resin reticulated in the usual way, and if 
Strang acid was then poured over, it entered all the 
fissures, leaving the drawing protected where the 
resinous particles adhered, and therefore printed with 
a granulated effect. Lithotint may be treated in colour, 
or have a single yellow tone applied, as for example in 
The Baronial Halls of England, with its lithotints 
made under the superintendence of Harding from 
drawings by Cattermole, Prout, and others. 

It must not be supposed that all coloured lithographs 
that appear in books are printed in colour. For a long 
time the system was the same as that pursued in the 
case of coloured aquatints. There is a substratum of 
printed colour, usually the flat yellow tone, with the 
nigh lights left in white, which has already been referred 
to. The rest of the colouring is applied entirely by 
hand, and for the finest result of this method one may 
look at Roberts's Holy Land. It must be remembered 
that Haghe, who executed the lithographs for this 
work, was an accomplished artist, and had the cunning 
to keep the lines of his lithography in a soft grw. 
With a feebler or less skilled practitioner you ^t m 
the hand-coloured lithograph an inevitable sootiness. 
The set of lithographed views of Scotland by R. P. 
Bonington, published in colour after his death, may be 
dted as a sufficient example. Any one who has inade 
a finished and shaded pencil drawing, and has then 
attempted to colour it, will recognise the result I mean. 
The painter, too, knows how valueless and muddy a 

237 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

water-colour drawing becomes when any element of 
black is allowed to intrude. With an aquatint, on the 
other hand, or with the grey broken lines of soft-ground 
etching, the etched lines and ground may be employed, 
as pencil often is in a water-colour, to help out the use 
of colour and give subtle suggestions of form. That 
soft-ground etching was ever superseded by lithography 
was due to the comparative ease of the latter method ; 
but where the early soft-ground etching was soft and 
grey, the early lithograph was black and gritty. Herein 
lies the weakness of the hand-coloured litho^ph as 
compared with the aquatint printed in two tints and 
finished by hand. If the lithograph is made on white 
paper, there is the inevitable sootiness in the colouring. 
If, on the other hand, a yellow tone is printed, the added 
colouring must always be a little flat. The lithc^^ph 
finished in colour by hand — one says it with mis- 
giving as one looks at the plates in the Holy Land — 
lacks the quality, the transparency, the play of delicate 
colour, the buoyant and liquid freshness of the coloured 
aquatint. The true possibilities of hand-coloured litho- 
graphy were never so well grasped by our English 
artists and printers as by some of the contemporary 
Frenchmen, such as Lami and Monnier. Using little 
more than an outline of lithography, these, last two 
artists (their ' Voyage en Angleterre is an interesting 
and excellent example of their method) worked over 
this in subdued tints that are perfect in their quiet 
harmony of tone. 

Colour-printing proper in lithography was a de- 
velopment of Senefelder's process of printing in chalk 
tints. Senefelder himself made various experiments, 
but found difliculty in printing successfully except with 
black, vermilion, and dark blue. However, he was 
working on the right lines. ' The manner of printing 
in different colours,' he wrote, 'is capable of such a 
d^;ree of perfection that I have no doubt perfect paint- 



CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHY 

ings will one day be produced by it. The experience 
which I have gained in this respect corroborates my 
conviction ; ana if my time were not so much taken up 
by various occupations, I would justify it by some 
specimens.' When chromo-lithography was first seri- 
ously started the three-colour theory was given a trial, 
but was quickly abandoned. The system now is to 
print one colour on each stone, or rather one tone, for 
the chromo-lithographer often builds up what may 
seem simple colours by the super-position of two or 
more tones. A saving, however, of time and expense 
may occasionally be eiiected by the same stone carrying 
two distinct colours on two separate parts. The system 
of registration and printing differs hardly at all from 
that described as in use for other processes. A finished 
chromo-Iithe^raph is frequently the result of twenty 
printings, and in exceptional cases the number is even 
larger. The whole process is made admirably simple 
in the Art of Chromolithography, by Mr. G. A. Auds- 
Iqr, published in 1883. The writer selects as an 
example of the process one of the plates in his Oma- 
mental Arts of Japan, and in the forty-four plates of 
the Art of Chromolithography the whole process of its 
making is analysed, showing the twenty-two printings 
that made up the original, singly and in combina- 
tion. The modus operandi is completely explained 
by the chromo-lithographer, M. Alfred Lemercier, of 
Paris. The book is interesting and easily accessible, 
but of even greater interest is a unique series of bound 
plates, of the date 1853, in the National Art Library. 
They bear a title written in ink : — How a Picture is 
reproduced Fac Simile in Color of the Original by 
means of Chromo-Lithography. By Day & Son, 
Lithographers to the Queen. Presented to Col'. Sir 
Proby Cantley by Day & Son. The twenty-three 
plates show the twelve printings employed, separately 
and in combination. Another set of mterestmg ex- 

»39 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

amples, showing the different st^es by which a chromo- 
lithograph is built up, appears in Dibdin's Progressive 
Lessons in tVater-Colour Painting (1858). 

The method, put briefly, is to prepare a key draw- 
ing, and then as many separate stones as there will be 
colours or tints required, each bearing a ' false transfer ' 
of the key or outline drawing, in its reduced or correct 
size. It is interesting to note that to reduce a drawin? 
it is transferred to a Targe sheet of indiarubber, whi<£ 
is then allowed to contract to the required size; this 
being precisely opposite to the method employed by 
Leech for producing his ' Sketches in Oil.' The next 
step is for the artist to prepare his scale of colours, 
which requires great skill and experience, for apart 
from effects of light and shade he has to consider all 
the results produced by the combination of several 
colours or over-printings. For guidance of the artist 
the scale of colours is reproduced in a series of small 
contiguous squares on the margins of the proofs. This 
is frequently seen in the coloured plates forming Christ- 
mas supplements, and represents the exact colours 
needed for successive printings, placed in the proper 
order. The artist then has to take each of the stones 
and proceed to fill in with a black fatty ink those 
portions which he has decided shall be printed in a 
particular colour. Needless to say, the printing requires 
the greatest care and experience. The printer must be 
an artist scarcely infenor to the one who places the 
design on the stone, for the slightest inaccuracy or 
want of skill on his part, in registration or in colour- 
ing, may destroy the result of the best set of drawings 
produced. 

In most chromo-lithographs produced in this way 
there is somethine frigid and artificial, degenerating at 
its worst into the hideous glossiness and formality 
that have made the German oleograph a byword for 
ugliness. Easiness of imitation led the mechanical, 
240 



CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHY 

commercial lithographer to the cheap and vulgar re- 
production of the worst type of popular pictures. For 
the illustration of books pure chromo-lithography has 
almost ceased to find emplc^ment, and its main uses 
are for the larg^ plates given with Christmas numbers 
and for posters. To the poster is due a remarkable 
revival in chromo-lithography. Of late years the artist 
has begun to object to building up his colour by 
super-printing several tones, has ceased his laborious 
imitation of nature, and his pernicious striving after 
realism, and in the manner of the artists of Japan 
has invented a colour scheme of his own. The con- 
ventional colours and designs of the modem poster are 
often superb in their decorative effect, and belong to 
the highest art in that they are not only decorative, but 
admirably adapted to the end for which they were made. 
In book-illustration the success of lithography in 
the future is merged in that of process-work. Lttho- 
g^phy must either succumb to the inroads of mechan- 
ical process, or it must maintain its utility by means of 
a union with process. . The work of the camera can be 
employed as a ground for colour imparted by litho- 
graphy, while the dazzling effect produced by the mesh 
of the mechanical screen is mellowed and softened by 
tints artistically applied by lithographic means. On 
the Continent lithc^raphy has already been employed 
in conjunction with photogravure and collotype with 
most artistic results, and similar combinations have 
been successfully used in our own country. In Biblio- 
graphica {1894-97), ^^r instance, will be found plates 
that show a union of collotype and chromo-lithography ; 
and in Mr. Cyril Davenport's English Embroiled 
Bookbindings the colour has been applied by chromo- 
lithography to half-tone plates with most excellent 
results. It is on the development of such conjunctions 
as these that the future success of lithography must 
depend. 

Q 241 



CHAPTER XX 
BOOKS ILLUSTRATED BV COLOURED LITHOGRAPHS 

BEFORE speaking of the books illustrated by the 
various processes described in the last chapter, 
it may be as well to put in their proper per- 
spective the men whose names are most closely asso- 
. ciated with the development of chromo-lithogiaphy in 
this country. The most important of them, Charles 
Joseph Hullmandel, was born in London in 1789, and 
after travelling on the Continent, published, in 1818, 
Twenty-four yiews of Italy, drawn and lithographed 
by himself. This, it should be remembered, was a year 
before Senefelder's book was published in English, so 
that Hullmandel may be reckoned as one of the pioneers 
of the art. In 1827 he issued a pamphlet. On some 
important Imfrovements in Lithographic Printing. 
Amongst the artists who availed themselves of Hull- 
mandel's processes were Clarkson Stanfield, David 
Roberts, Haghe, Nash, and Cattermole. With the last 
he was alliedin his invention of lithotint, the applica- 
tion of liquid ink to stone by means of a brush ; and 
among other improvements that he discovered or de- 
velopSd were the employment of a graduated tint, the 
introduction of white in the high lights, and the use of 
the stump on the stone. 

The earliest and most important firm of lithographic 
printers and publishers was that of Messrs. IHiy and 
Hc^he. Louis Haghe was bom at Toumay, in Bel- 
gium. It is interesting to note that his work was 
242 



OWEN JONES 

executed with his left hand entirely, his rieht hand 
being defonned from his birth. He studied lithography 
at Toumay, worlcing with the Chevalier de la Barnire 
and J. B. de Jonghe. Shortly after 1810 he came to 
England and entered into partnership with William 
Day, a publisher at Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
The series of works produced by this firm raised litho- 

¥-aphy to perhaps the highest point it ever attained, 
heir success was largely due to Haghe's own artistic 
powers, and also to the fact that Day and Haghe had 
the knack, like Ackermann, of gathering round them 
a brilliant and resourceful staff. In 1852 Haghe pub- 
lished his last work in lithography, a set of views of 
Santa Sophia at Constantinople. From this date he 
devoted himself entirely to water-colour painting, and 
his talent raised him, in 1873, to the high office of 
President of the New Society of Painters in Water- 
Colours, now the Royal Institute. After H^he's 
resignation the firm was continued as Day and Sons, 
and still continues in existence as 'Vincent Brooks, 
Day and Son.' 

Closely associated with Day and Haghe was Owen 
Jones, so well known as an architect and designer, and 
particularly as the author of the Grammar of Ornament, 
Bom in London in 1825, he was educated at the 
Charterhouse, and then became the pupil of VuUiamy 
the architect. In 1834 he travelled in Spain, and 
brought back material for his book on the Alhambra, 
which will be referred to later. After a further visit to 
Granada in 1837 he started a complete lithographic 
establishment at John Street, Adelphi, employing a 
staff of artists to carry out his ideas. For the Alhambra 

f>ictures he worked along with Day and Haghe, and 
ater on moved to 9 Argyll Place, where, during the 
'forties and early 'fifties, he executed a great d^ of 
illuminated work for Messrs. Longman and Co. An 
older firm, already mentioned in connection with aqua- 

243 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

tint illustrations, which adopted the new process oii 
lithography with considerable success, was that of 
M'Lean in the Haymarket. 

Before treating of chromo-Hthography proper, a few 
of the books may oe mentioned in which the colouring 
was applied by hand throughout the edition. 

One of the first to publish lithograph illustrations, 
systematically coloured by hand, was N. Whittock, 
who styled himself ' Lithographer and Draftsman to 
the University of Oxford.' The second edition of his 
Microcosm of Oxford, in 1828, has a frontispiea and 
five lithographed costume plates, all tinted by hand. 
In 1829 he produced The Art of drawing ana colour' 
ingfrom nature, Plowers, Fruits and Shells : to which 
is added correct directions for ^repariTtg the most' 
brilliant colours for Painting on Velvet. There is a 
plain and a coloured copy of each illustration, all of 
them lithc^raphs, representing very naturalistic flowers 
and shells, highly suitable for their intended destiny. 
One shudders to think of the resultant black velvet 
cushions, painted by amiable and accomplished young' 
ladies, for the adornment of drawing-rooms. In 1827 
appeared Whittock's Decorative Painter's and Glazier's 
Guide; containing the most approved methods of imi-i 
fating oak, mahogany, maple, marbles, etc., in oil and\ 
distemper colour. A third edition of this, with con-' 
sideraole additions, appeared in 1832, and the illustra- 
tions of the book are mteresting, more from the method 
employed in their production than from their pictorial \ 
attractiveness. In representing various woods andj 
marbles, the effect of colour and polish has been obtained] 
by first painting the lithograph with bright water- 
colours, and then covering this with a solution of gum-l 
arable, used as a varnish. The final result, though; 
somewhat startling, no doubt satisfied the author's 
wishes in depicting a shiny, polished surface. In 1840I 
Whittock issued a work On the Construction ana 

244 



COLOURED LITHOGRAPHS 

decoration of the Shop Fronts of London, illustrated 
.with coloured representations. 

From 1820 to 1835, however, hand-coloured litho- 
graphs were by no means common. One of the few 
other books that call for notice is the Scotch Sketches 
by R. P. Bonington, published by Colnaehi and Co. in 
1829. These were originally published at Paris in 
1826,* and on Bonington's death in 1828 appeared in 
the present form. Badly printed and coloured, they 
are a distinct libel on a great artist. 

Notable among the early lithogiaph illustrations col- 
oured entirely by iiand is Edward Lear's Illustrations 
of the Family of Psittacidae or Parrots, published by the 
author in 1832, the plates being printed by Hullmandel. 
The parrots are excellently figured, and drawing and 
colouring show close observation of nature coupled 
with much artistic feeling. Lear at the time drew for 
the Zoological Society, and after the publication of this 
book was employed by the Earl of Derby in drawing 
the plates for the volume entitled The Knowsley Mena- 
gerie. It was for Lord Derby's grandchildren that 
Lear at this time composed the famous 'nonsense 
verses,' which will probably perpetuate his memory 
long after his Family of Psittacidae is forgotten. 
Practically a companion volume, published in the same 
year, 1832, is J. Gould's Century of Birds from the 
Himalaya Mountains. It contains eighty lithographs 
printed by Hullmandel, and finely coloured by hand. 

The next step in the history of coloured lithographs 
was the discovery of Hullmandel's lithotint process, 
and of the method of superimposing a yellow tint, 
leaving the high lights in white. From 1837 there is an 
endless succession of books illustrated in this manner, 
too numerous for the mention of all. They assume a 
stereotyped form ; and a glance at the pictured title- 

^ Vues Pittoresqws ie rAcosst. Texte par Am. Picbot. Ch. GoueUn et 
Lami-Denoaui, ^teura. 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

p^e, the dedication page in lithc>graphic ' copper-plate ' 
writing, and the succession of tinted landscape views, 
will fix the date of a book as 1836 to 1845. A few of 
the more important may be mentioned in detail, espe- 
cially as many contain the lithographic work of men 
who rose to considerable fame as painters. 

In Harding's Sketches at Home and Abroad, pub- 
lished in 1836, Hullmandel's lithotint printing made 
its first appearance. The preface to Harding s Portfolio, 
published a year later, says that 'in the Sketches at 
Home and Abroad Mr. Harding has applied a new 
mode of his own for introducing the whites in printing 
instead of laying them on with the pencil.^ By this 
process a lasting effect is produced ; the tints thus 
obtained being permanent and free from dinginess 
which has hitherto been such a fatal objection to their 
production in the usual manner.' The Sketches at 
Home and Abroad was dedicated to Louis-Philippe, 
King of the French. To show his approval of the 
work, Louis wished to decorate the artist with the 
' Legion of Honour.' This, however, being unaccept- 
able according to English etiquette concerning foreign 
decorations. His Majesty ordered a breakfast service 
of Sivres china to be forwarded instead. Fate, how- 
ever, was again unpropitious, for one of the principal 
pieces met with an accident en route. His Majes^ 
therefore sent instead, by the hands of Count Sebastiani, 
an autograph letter with a magnificent diamond ring. 

Lewis s Sketches and Drawings of the Alhatnbra 
has twenty-six plates, ten lithographed by W. Gauci, 
eight by J. F. Lewis himself, seven by J. D. Harding, 
and one by R. J. Lane. To the same date, 1836 or 
1837, belongs Lewies Illustrations of Constantinople, 
the twenty-eight plates being drawn on stone by J. F. 
Lewis after original sketches by Coke Smyth. The 
printer is C. Hullmandel, the publisher M'Lean. In 

' ' Pendl 'inthesenseof w&ter4»lotir brush. 
246 



COLOURED LITHOGRAPHS 

1836 was published Lewis's Sketches of Spain and 
Spanish Characters, with twenty-six plates printed by 
KuUmandel. 

An early work in this style, published by Day and 
Sons without date, is Picturesque Sketches in Spain : 
Taken during the Years 1832 and 1833, by David 
Roberts. To 1837 belongs Sketches in Italy, Switzer- 
land, France, etc., by T. M. Richardson, junior, with 
eleven plates hthoeiaphed by himself, and fifteen by 
J. B. Pyne. By J. B. Pyne in the following year is 
JVindsor, with its Surrounding Scenery, 'printed in 
Chromatic Lithography by A. Duc6t^, 70 St. Martin's 
Lane,' and published by M'Lean. In 1838 also we 
have Sketches on the Moselle, the Rhine, and the 
Meuse, by Clarkson Stanfield, with sixteen lithographs 
by T. S. Boys, seven by W. Gauci, four by A. Picken, 
and three by L. Haghe. In the same year Sketches on 
the Danube, by George Hering, was published by 
M'Lean, with twenty-six plates lithographed for Day 
and Haghe, nearly all by J. B. Pyne, with a few by 
Catterson Smith. 

Nash's Architecture of the Middle Ages, published 
in 1838, has a reference to Hullmandel's process in the 
preface : — ' In producing the effects of the ori^nal 
sketches Mr. Nash begs leave to express the oWiga- 
tion he is under to the new Style of Lithography 
invented by Mr. HuUmandel, without which, indeed, 
Mr. Nash would never have had coun^e to encounter 
the labour necessary, by the old methM, to have pro- 
duced the desired eflect. By the introduction of the 
stump in place of the point for making large tints, the 
Artist has an instrument placed in his nands, which for 
freedom and rapidity of execution, admitting at the 
same time both of the greatest delicacy as well as force 
of tint, nearly equals the pencil in colour — indeed it 
may almost be called luiinting on stone.' This work 
was issued also in an edition coloured by hand. 

247 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

In 1839 T. M. Richardson, senior and junior, pub- 
lished together a set of seven lithographs entitled 
Sketches at Shotley Bridge Spa and on the Derwent ; 
and an interesting work of the same year is Groups of 
Cattle by T. Sidney Cooper, published by Ackermann, 
with twenty-six plates printed by Hullmandel. In 
1841 M'Lean published The Park and the Forest, 
with lithographs by J. D. Harding, printed by Hull- 
mandel, From 1840 to 1850 Hi^he, who was a 
splendid draughtsman with the knack of making his 
interiors interesting by the introduction of appropriate 
scenes and costumes, issued his Sketches in Belgium 
and Germany. The book was printed by Day and 
Haghe, and published by Hodgson and Graves. The 
first volume appeared in 1840 with twenty-six plates, 
the second in 184.5 ^^h twenty-six plates, and the third 
with twenty-seven plates in 1850. The last volume is 
often found with the plates coloured by hand. From 
1839 to 1849 The Mansions of England in the Olden 
Time, by Joseph Nash, was published by M'Lean in 
four parts, each with twenty-six plates, the first in 1839, 
the second in 1840, and the third and fourth in 1841 
and 1849 respectively. The parts could be had either 
plain or coloured, in the latter case the colour htvas 
applied by hand. Of a similar nature is C. J. Richard- 
son's Studies from Old English Mansions, published 
by M'Lean in four series from 1841 to 1848, one or 
two plates of goldsmiths' work being coloured by 
hand. Among Richardson's other works may also 
be mentioned Architectural Remains of the Reigns 
of Elizabeth and fames I. (1840), The Workmaiis 
Guide to the Study of Old English Architecture 
{1845), and Studies of Ornamental Design (1851). 

Before 1850 the method of toned lithotint was 

becoming out of date, and was beinp; superseded by 

work in colour. In 1847 such distinguished artists 

as David Roberts, Stanfield, J. D. Harding, Nash, and 

248 



THOMAS SHOTTER BOYS 

others, joined in illustrating by lithotint a book entitled 
Scotland Delineated. The work was not a success, 
and the reason was clearly defined in a private letter by 
Csudell, the well-known publisher. ' It has two draw- 
backs/ he writes; 'the first, it is rather late; the 
second, too dear. Success will attend no one thing in 
these scrambling, pushing, competing, bustling times, 
that is not good, new, and cheap. I mean by new that 
it must have a dash of originality.' 

The tinted method was admirably adapted for 
hand-colouring, and many of the books mentioned 
were issued in colours as well as plain. By 1837, 
however, HuUmandel was be^nning to make more 
determined advances in printmg graduated colours, 
and some of his publications in which the colour- 
ing is of special note, must here be recalled. His 
earliest book in this manner was Hardin^s Port' 
folio (1837). Its twenty-four plates form a delightful 
set of landscape drawings, pleasing alike in colour, 
composition, and draughtsmanship. Next came a 
genuine triumph in the Picturesque Architecture in 
Paris, Ghent, Antwerp, and Rouen, published in 1839 
with twenty-six plates by Thomas Shotter Boys, a 
rather neglected artist who merits a far higher place 
than he has ever been awarded in the annals of the 
English water-colour school. Many of the lithograph 
illustrations already mentioned have been the work of 
no ordinary men, but in this book Boys is head and 
shoulders above them all. His drawing is refined and 
sensitive, and his colouring cool, simple, and direct. 
The dedication is noteworthy — 'To C. HuUmandel 
Esq. in acknowledgment of his great Improvements 
and highly important discoveries m Lithography this 
Work, forming another Epoch, and presenting entirely 
new capabilities of the Art, is dedicated by his sincere 
Friend, Thomas Shotter Boys.' In the Descriptive 
Notice the publisher pointed out that ' the whole of 

249 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

the drawings composing this volume are produced 
entirely by means of lithography, they are printed in 
oil colours and come from the press precisely as they 
appear. It was expressly stipulated . . . that not a 
touch should be added afterwards, and this injunction 
has been strictly adhered to. They are pictures drawn 
on stone and reproduced by printmg in colours, every 
touch is the work of the artist, ana every impression 
the product of the press. This is the first and as 
yet the only attempt to imitate pictorial effects of 
landscape architecture in chromo*lithography, and in 
its application to this class of subjects, it has been 
carried so far beyond what was required in copying 
polychrome architecture, hieroglyphics, arabesques, 
etc., that it has become almost a new art.' This 
last remark is evidently aimed at the work of Owen 
Jones in the volume on the Alhambra, then appear- 
ing; and the publisher adds an explanation of the 
difference between the two methods of working. ' In 
mere decorative subjects,' he says, 'the colours are 
positive and opaque, the tints flat, and the several 
hues of equal mtensity throughout, whereas in these 
views the various effects of light and shade, of local 
colour and general tone, result from transparent and 
graduated tints.' The clear transparency of the artist's 
colouring, and in particular the sparkle of white in the 
blue sky, are admirably rendered. The method, how- 
ever, of piling up opaque colours was the one that sur- 
vived, and the Picturesque Architecture in Paris stands 
almost alone as a genuinely artistic production in 
chromo-lithography. There is the same strength and 
attractiveness of draughtsmanship in Bots's Original 
y^iews of London, published in 1842. The plates of 
this are, as a rule, printed in a yellow tone, without 
further colouring ; but there seem to be coloured copies 
in existence. 

Another striking book printed in one or two tints, 
250 



DAVID ROBERTS 

is the Viffws in the Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, AraHa, 
Egypt, and Nubia, by David Roberts, R.A. There is 
a deep and absorbing interest in the subject, for in no 
other publication have the sites and buildings famous 
in sacred history and Eastern legend been so vividly 
represented. It is difficult to speak in sufficiently high 
terms of the beauty and interest of the varied subjects 
in this great work. It represents the results of Roberts's 
travels in the East during the years 1838 and 1839. 
The extraordinary merit and interest of the drawings 
which he exhibited on his return created a great sensa- 
tion. The fidelihr of his accurate pencil, his skilful 
adherence to truth of costume and surroundings, his 
attention to characteristic effect in architecture and 
landscape, won immediate recognition and praise. 
Commissions from royal and other patrons of art 
crowded upon him for pictures of his Eastern subjects, 
and a publisher, F. G. Moon, was soon found to under- 
take tneir reproduction for wider circulation. The 
result was the present work with about two hundred 
and fifty plates, accompanied by an admirable descrip- 
tive text Dy the Rev^ Dr. Croly and W. Brockedon. 
The book was published in parts from 1842 to 1849, 
and the original cost for subscribers for a coloured 
copy was close on ;^i5o. For the coloured edition 
the plates were all executed in two tints by Louis 
Haghe, and were exquisitely coloured by hand in 
imitation of the orig'inal drawings. It should be said 
that Roberts himself did no drawing on the stone for 
this book. The lithographs were done entirely from 
Roberts's drawings by Harding and Haghe, the latter 
of whom devoted about eight years to the series. The 
book is really in six volumes. Three dealing with 
the Holy Land contain one hundred and twen^-two 
coloured plates, and three of Egypt and Nubia 
contain one hundred and twenty-three plates. In 
addition to the coloured plates there are maps and a 

251 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

portrait A small edition with fresh plates was published 
in six volumes by Day and Son in 1855. 

So far we have dealt mainly with ' tint printing,' 
where one or two ground or surface tints, usuaUy 
of a yellow tone, were used in conjunction with the 
black outlines of the picture, the whole being occa- 
sionally finished by hand-colouring. Reference has 
also been made to Hullmandel's success in printing 
in a few colours with a graduated tint. It now re- 
mains to speak of the plates produced by elaborate 
over-printing of colours m the fully developed process, 
descnbed in Audsley's Art of Chromo-Lithography, 
and mentioned in our last chapter. 

The method was particularly suited to the render- 
ing of brilliant colours and intricate details of form. 
It opened up new possibilities for the illustration of 
objects of art, costume, textiles, heraldry, botany, 
zoology, and so forth. One of the earliest books 
illustrated in this style is Owen Jones's Plans, Ele- 
vations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra, 
published by Day and Haghe. The book is in two 
volumes, the first of which appeared in 1842, the 
second in 1845. Victor Hugo s{x>ke of the Alhambra 
as ' un palais que les G^nies ont dor^ comme un r^ve 
et rempli d'harmonies.' Its external glories and the 
mysteries of its interior, with the fretted work on dome 
and arch and column, pass description in colour as in 
words. This book, however, almost accomplishes the 
difficult task. The line engravings fully suggest the 
nobility of the architecture, while the numerous colour 
plates depict faithfully the ornamental decoration, con- 
sisting mainly of a scheme of blue, red, and gold. The 
plates are of a large size, and are produced in six or 
seven tints. Many of them were drawn, lithographed, 
printed in colours, and published by Owen Jones 
at his own establishment, and are dated from 1836 
onwards. Some of the finest plates, however, have the 
252 



■ L\ :i.i 1 '-:;n in i-V'/._; 
■ ■ ■'. i": !'..'i!ily %■ ;;.!: "tint pri; l!;';;,' 
■ •'■■■■■:.■'[ or -hrfi'-<- t.nu, u^'.v-"y 
■<; \r-.'..\ in coi:j;ai'-i.:i.n v i\!i t'-v 

■.-.■ ;'!',.:v!,-. t!;e v-r;(MJ Ix-Ul;^- •HV't- 
■ ■: a ;^r.i Ji.i.-:.;i t.nt. Ii 1^AV i- - 

.'.:iV..':'a!lv'l;i;t,.l t .^ t!:-: •■.:u:..r- 
. 0, u-aV;'.-s. !„raio;-y. b ;i. '.• . 



n i "; (:■■:■ ■ I .Ir i: 

.::•■,",■•■ - I' 

r ill. ■.. ■ ■. i .■ 



Cf t!: 



COLOURED LITHOGRAPHS 

imprint — 'printed in colours by Day and Haghe.' The 
whole work, a m^^ificent procluction, was published at 
a hundred and fifty guineas a copy, but it was not a 
commercial success, and can now be bought for a 
fraction of its original value. 

The Industrial Arts of the XlXth Century at the 
Great Exhibition, 1851, by M. Digby Wyatt, was 
published from 1851 to 1853 in forty parts, with one 
hundred and sixty plates, printed in colour. The book 
is interesting as a record of early Victorian art, with its 
few beauties and its many atrocities. It is valuable, too, 
for its clear account in the preface of the position of 
chromo-lithography at the time, and of the particular 
method of producing the plates. Among the principal 
lithographers em^oyed were F. Bedford, J. Sleigh, and 
J. A. Vintner. The greatest number of printings for 
any one subject was fourteen, and the average number 
seven. The work necessitated the use of 1069 stones, 
weighing in all twenty-five tons. The storing of these 
stones, it may be added, is one of the difficulties in any 
lithographic establishment, and to an unaccustomed 
outsider the place appears at first entry like a disused 
graveyard. The stones, which come from Bavaria only, 
cost several pence a pound, and as they frequently con- 
sist of large slabs, many inches thick, their cost is no 
small consideration. Of course, the surface is con- 
tinually being ground down, to admit of its fresh employ- 
ment. Good stones are nowadays difficult to obtain, 
and the failure of any old firm is looked on by brother 
lithc^raphers as a happy opportunity for acquiring 
valuable stock. 

Venr similar in nature to the Industrial Arts is 
The Art Treasures of the United Kingdom. The 
book was compiled by J. B. Waring, and published by 
Day and Sons in 1858, with eighty-two chromo-litho- 
graphs by F. Bedford. These are slightly more 
advanced than those of the Industrial Arts, but the 

253 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

advance of the art is made apparent by a glance at a 
third similar volume, published in 1863, in which the 
plates are characterised by a much higher finish. This 
IS the Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture at 
the International Exhibition, 1862. The objects illus- 
trated were selected and described by J. B. Waring, 
and the whole work was issued by Day and Sons wifli 
three hundred and one chromo-lithographs made by 
and under the direction of W. R. Tymms, A. Warren, 
and G. MacCulloch. 

Chromo-lithography was also applied at this time to 
landscape plates. The Gardens of England, hy E. A. 
Brooke, is illustrated with twenty-seven chromo-litho- 
graphs in brilliant, not to say startling, colours. The 
book represents chromo-lithography in its naked 
hideousness, with its futile attempts at realism ; and 
yet I have heard these plates described as ' lovely.' A 
far better result is attained in India Ancient and 
Modem, a collection of fifty plates after drawings by 
William Simpson, the famous war correspondent. 
Simpson was a keen archaeologist as well as an in- 
defatigable worker, and after the close of the Indian 
Mutiny had gathered a great mass of valuable sketches. 
It was intended to emlxxiy these in a great work pub- 
lished in forty-two parts at two guineas each. Owing 
to the failure of Messrs. Day and Son, the project had to 
be abandoned, and the present work was issued instead 
in ten parts. The text is by Sir John Kaye, and the 
plates attain a remarkable degree of perfection, giving 
a wonderfully good idea of the landscape, costume, and 
native industnes of our Indian empire. Simpson's 
earlier work, published in two or three tints of litho- 
graphy, is worth notice, particularly his ioriy illustra- 
tions to Brackenbury's Campaign in the Crimea, and 
the eighty-one plates in The Seat of War in the East, 
both published by Day in 1855. The latter work 
gives the names of many lithographers working for 

254 



WILLIAM GRIGGS 

Messrs. Day and Son, among them C. Haghe, B. 
Morin, E. Walker, T. Picken, J. Needham, I. A. 
Vintner, T. G. Dutton, R. M. Biyson, and F. Jones. 
Simpson himself, when he first came from Glasgow 
to London, found employment with Messrs. Day and 
Haghe, and his Autobiography (1903) contains many 
references to his work and fellow-workmen. 

A series of plates after Joseph Wolf, entitled 
Zoological Sketches {^^i), is another good example of 
chromo-lithography. The fifty plates, lithographed by 
Vincent Brooks, are a faithful, if not veiy artistic, 
rendering of animal life. A second series of fifty plates 
appeared in 1867. 

During all this period, and for some twenty years 
later, chromo-lithography was applied to books of every 
kind, too numerous for mention. Much of its continued 
success, even in the face of modern colour processes, 
has been due to the admirable results produced by 
Mr. William Griggs. For some time Mr. Griggs was 
in charge of all the photo-lithographic work done for 
the Indian Government at Whitehall, and between i860 
and 1870 had opportunities of studying the new pro- 
cesses of photo-zincography discovered and used by 
Sir Henry James, of the Ordnance Survey Office at 
Southampton. Mr. Griggs has since devoted his life- 
study to the reproduction of art objects by means of 
chromo-lithography assisted by photography. His first 
works were produced for the Indian Government, who 
were eager to promote a wider knowledge of Indian art 
manufactures, and to appeal to those interested in India 
to prevent the decline or d^radation of its native in- 
dustries. The Textile Fabrics of India (1874-80) and 
\ht Journal of Indian Art (1886 — ) were admirably 
suited to this purpose. Textiles of Kashmir, brass and 
copper of the Punjab, enamels of Jeypore, pottery from 
Mooltan — these and kindred objects were reproduced 
by Mr. Griggs in chromo-lithographs of extraordinary 

»5S 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

beauty and fidelity. Of the various other works under- 
taken at his art factory at Peckham, it is uanecessaiy 
to speak in detail. Under the auspices of the Board of 
Education he has produced his fine series of Portfolios 
of Industrial Art\i^i — ). For the British Museum 
he has facsimiled the Pafyrus of Ani, and since 1899 
has been eng<^ed in reproducing the Illuminated 
Manuscripts, The last is a most striking piece of 
work, and for some of the plates no less than forty-five 
printings have been employed. His skill in executii^ 
richly coloured facsimiles of ancient bookbindings has 
been shown in the Burlington Fine Arts Club catalogue 
of the Exhibition of Bookbindings (1891), and in 
Fletcher's Foreign Bookbindings (1896). Unfortun- 
ately, however, Mr. Grig^ at that time was unable to 
procure a permanent gold, with the result that the gold 
in the elaborate tooling is tending to become black. 
One of his most successful reproductions of a binding 
is one in illustration of a paper by Mr. Cyril Davenport 
in Bibliographica (1896), where the plate is in collotype 
and chromo-lithography, a yellow colour being used 
instead of gold. 

But for the brilliant and painstaking work of Mr. 
Griggs, chromo-lithography as a means of illustrating 
books would be almost a lost art, like that of coloured 
aquatint. To a certain extent one may gauge his 
importance to the collector by the fact that the second- 
hand catalcwTie (the collector's barometer) always inserts 
the name of Griggs, when it omits those of Day, Haghe, 
or Hullmandel. 



256 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE CHISWICK PRESS, AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS 

A NOTABLE revival of colour-printing from wood- 
blocks dates from the rise of the famous Chis- 
wick Press. Charles Whittingham, nephew 
of the founder of the original business at Chiswick, 
established a separate printing-office at 21 Took's 
Court, and soon afterwards came to know William 
Pickering, one of the most remarkable and enterprising 
of English publishers. Pickering had started in busi- 
ness in 1821 as a seller of old books in a little shop at 
31 Lincoln's Inn Fields, He soon found patrons with 
long purses, and employed his fine taste and knowledge 
in producing for their gratification ' elegant reprints of 
the best literature.' With Whittingham he formed an 
alliance that enriched the world of books with many 
beautiful editions ; and even if the only achievement of 
the two had been the revival of the old-faced Roman 
type, invented by Nicolas Jenson, they would still 
have deserved well of all readers of books. Their 
names and works were so intimatehr associated that it 
was natural enough for a friend of Whittingham to ask 
one day which infiuenced the other most. ' My dear 
sir,' replied Charles, ' when you tell me which half of a 
pair of scissors is the most useful, 1 will answer your 
question.' 

In his book The Charles JVhittingkams, privately 
printed by the Grolier Club in 1896, Mr. A. Warren 
gives a pleasing picture of the introduction of these 
R *S7 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

two worthies, telling how the bookseller, a short, fat 
man, addicted to maroon waistcoats whose elaborate 
embroideries were not entirely concealed by the snuff 
which descended on them in frequent showers, greeted 
his new acquaintance with the courtesy demanded by 
the occasion, and then fell to talking of title-pages. 
The two cronies after this meeting would go together 
for their midday meal to the Crown Coffee-House in 
Holbom, and talk of new projects for books and of 
fresh fancies in paper, type, and binding. They 
suffered no book to drift unheeded through the st^es 
of its manufacture. In the little summer-house in 
Whittingham's garden at Chiswick th^ would for- 

father on a Sunday afternoon, with side-pockets 
ulging with well-worn title-pages and samples of 
t)T>e, to settle the final form and proportion of the 
future work. 

After his uncle's death at Chiswick in 1840, Charles 
Whittingham kept up the two printing-presses for 
about nine years, the one at Took's Court, the other at 
Chiswick; but wherever the books came from they 
bore the stamp of the 'Chiswick Press.' Some of the 
finest specimens of Whittingham's nephew's craftsman- 
ship are to be found in the books of Henry Shaw, all 
of whose works appear to have been published by 
Pickering. Whittingham must have known some- 
thing of Savage's work, and in some books by Shaw 
he continues the revival of colour-printing from wood- 
blocks, which had been undertaken by Savage without 
apparent success. In Shaw's early books the illustra- 
tions are all engraved on metal and coloured by hand, 
and though Whittingham printed the text, he clung to 
wood-blocks for pictorial effects, and would have no 
hand in plate engraving. In 1833 he printed for Shaw 
a volume, published by Pickering, called Illuminated 
Ornaments selected from Manuscripts and Early 
Printed Books from the Sixth to the Seventeenth Cen- 
258 



THE CHISWICK PRESS 

turies. Sir Frederic Madden, of the British Museum, 
wrote the descriptive text, while Shaw, who was a rare 
artist in his way, drew, engraved, and coloured many 
of the illustrations. With their careful selection of 
pigments and their faithful colouring, Shaw's repro- 
ductions attain almost to the brilliancy of an original 
manuscript, and those interested in Shaw's work, and 
in mediaevsd manuscripts generally, should see a collec- 
tion of this artist's original facsimiles in the National 
Art Library. The laborious method of illustration by 
means of his own hand-coloured engravings was con- 
tinued by Shaw for seven years, as may oe seen in 
Specimens of Ancient Furniture, with descriptions by 
Sir S. R. Meyrick, and Ancient Plate and Pumiture 
from the Colleges of Oxford and the Ashmolean 
Museum, both printed at the Chiswick Press, and 
published by Pickering in 1836 and 1837 respectively. 

Till 1840 no colour-printing was produced by the 
Chiswick Press with the exception of some headpieces, 
titles, and borders, printed in black and red. There is, 
however, one doubtful instance in a volume of the year 
1820, an edition of Puckle's Club} one of the many 
books that the Chiswick Press helped to revive and 
make popular. Puckle's Club made its first appearance 
in 171 1, and in 1817 it was reprinted with twenty-five 
wood-engravings by Branston, Thompson, and others, 
after Thurston. These engravings by themselves were 
issued with a titl&-page in 1820, and a new edition of 
the whole book, with text and illustrations, was pub- 
lished by Charles Whittingham, nephew, in 1834. It 
is the 1820 edition that now claims our attention, for 
it was ' printed (for the proprietor) in colours, from the 
original blocks, and limited to one hundred impres- 
sions.' The method of colouring is that of the old 
chiaroscuros and of the first attempts at chromo-litho- 

* A foil account of Pudde and his book appears in Hi. Aoatin Dobson'a 
Eighteenth Century Vignettes (scr. Hi.). 

259 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

graphy, a single tint with the high lights omitted being 
printed over the black-and-white pnnt. The tints in 
this case were conveyed from wood-blocks, and difTerent 
colours were used to suit the different subjects. Mr. 
Warren is inclined to think that the 1817, and pre- 
sumably also the 1820, edition of the Puckle book is 
not a Whittingham production, but it is claimed as 
such by Mr. W. J. Linton in his work on wood- 
engravmg, and in favour of his claim is the decorative 
WTon the 1817 and 1820 title-pages. It is, however, 
equally possible that the W stands for Mr. Edward 
Walmsley, 'a gentleman whose taste led him to the 
love of embellisned books,' and who selected this old- 
world book as a medium for Thurston's illustrations. 
It is, therefore, just possible that the two earlier 
editions were printed by or for Whittingham senior, 
and that to the Pickering influence was due the repro- 
duction of text and illustrations in their new and 
dainty form of 1834. The wood-engraving is good 
enough to win Mr. Linton's praise, and the chiaroscuro 
style of the 1820 edition is so unusual, that it makes 
this edition rare and valuable, especially when it is 
remembered that only a hundred impressions were 
taken for it from the blocks, which were used years 
later for the new edition. 

Setting aside this book, we find the first definite 
colour-printing of the Chiswick Press in 1840, when 
Whittingham began to set up Shaw's Rncyclopadia of 
Ornament, which appeared two years later. For this 
book he made his first experiments in real colour- 
printing from wood-blocks, and the result was some 
reproductions of book-bindings at the beginning of the 
Eticyclofadia, and one later plate depicting needle- 
work. The rest of the plates are all engraved on 
copper, and coloured by Shaw as before. The best 
piece by Whittingham is the title-page, reproducing 
' an old binding in the possession of George Lucy, Esq. 
260 



HENRY SHAW 

of Charlecote, Warwickshire,' ' It is printed in black, 
red, green, blue, and yellow. Shaw was so pleased 
with the success of this experiment that he resolved to 
employ the method in future for all his books. In 
1843 he produced his Dresses UHd Decorations of the 
Middle Ages, issued originally in parts, and then in 
a single large paper volume. Here Whittingham's 
colour-printing was much more extensively employed 
to supplement the engraved work, and to reproduce 
initial letters and manuscript ornaments. Two years 
later came the Alphabets, Numerals, and Devices of 
the Middle Ages, again with a portion of the illustra- 
tions worked in colour at the Chiswick Press. 

Shaw's books were too costly in their production 
to be a financial success. His old-fashioned style of 
work, produced with most loving care and with infinite 
pains by artist and printer alike, was being ousted 
by the newer method of chromo-lithography, by this 
time well advanced. The bitterest epigram contains a 
modicum of truth, and if we are not altogether a 

* nation of shopkeepers,' we must nevertheless acknow- 
ledge as our fitting motto the old saying, ^iXoKoXoCfiei' 
fier' edreXcuxs. Chromo- lithography offered a cheaper 
market, and Whittingham's coloured woodcuts had to 
go to the wall. 

Whittingham seems to have stood almost alone in 
this revival of colour-printing from wood between 1840 
and 1850. In the Memorials of the Antiquity and 
Architecture of the County of Essex by the Rev. A. 
Suckling, published by J. Weale in 1845, besides 
litht^^phs, there are two or three wood -engravings 

* printed in colors by Gregory, Collins and R^nolds,' 
to whom I shall have occasion to refer in a succeeding 
chapter. 

^ Mr, Warren ii sorely mistaken in giving this as the title-page of Shaw's 
Elizabethan ArchittOun, which he vkjb appeared in 184a with \Wuttinghain's 
first spedmens of block colour-printuig. The Efaaiet/iaH ArcAiteefure was 
published in 1839, and contains no colour plates. 

261 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Though colour-printing from wood-blocks for such 
works as those of Shaw proved unremunerative, 
Whittingham found another use for wood-blocks, 
which was to be fruitful of results. This was in the 
illustration of children's books. The close of the 
eighteenth century saw the publication of an endless 
number of * books for the young,* mostly of the ' penny 
plain and twopence coloured ' order. Many of them 
come really under the category of chap-books, illus- 
trated by rude woodcuts, and hawkd by country 
pedlars. Among prominent publishers who issued 
such books during the first few decades of last century 
were J. Lumsden and Sons, of Glasgow ; J. G. Rusher, 
Bridge Street, Banbu™; and J. Kendrew, of Collier- 
gate, York. Among London publishers, whose scale 
rises to 'one shilling plain, two shillings coloured,' 
were J. Newbery, of St. Paul's Churchyard (who was 
succeeded by T. Carnan, and his son E. Newbery, and 
later by J. Harris) ; Darton and Harvey ; Tilt and 
Bogue; J. Marshall, and others. Mr. Tuer in his 
Forgotten ChildretCs Books tells how the colouring of 
the pictures was done by children in their teens, who 
worked with astonishing celerity and precision. They 
sat round a table, each with a little pan of water-colour, 
a brush, a partly coloured coinr as a guide, and a pile 
of printed sheets. One child would paint the red, 
another the yellow, and so on till the colouring was 
complete. 

To the John Newbery mentioned above, we must 
always be grateful for having inspired Mr. Austin 
Dobson with the subject of one of his delightful E^h- 
teentk Century Vignettes, under the title of ' An Old 
London Bookseller.' He was patron and publisher to 
Johnson and Goldsmith and Christopher Smart, but 
his claim to the gratitude of posterity lies, to quote his 
biographer Mr. Welsh, in his Deing 'the first bookseller 
who made the issue of books, specially intended for 
262 



CHILDREN'S BOOKS 

children, a business of any importance.' He was the 
publisher of The Renowned History of Giles Ginger- 
bread, of Mrs. Margery Two-Shoes, of the redoubtable 
Tommy Trip ana his dog Jouler, all of which Dr. 
Johnson thought too childish, but which Charles Lamb 
preferred to the Barbaulds and Trimmers, ' those blights 
and blasts of all that is human in man and child.* 

Perhaps Goldsmith was the author of some of New- 
bery's * classics of the nursery * ; at any rate, Newbery's 
publications are an oasis in the desert. The ' blights 
and blasts * are all too common. The note of early 
children's books is a priggish piety, bom of the solemn 
ignorance of human nature under which their writers 
seem to have laboured. The precocious child of the 
period was burdened with depressing moralities and 
melancholy instruction, all conveyed in stilted and 
affected phrasing. Among ^pical titles are The Child's 
spiritual Treasury, The First Principles of Religion 
and the Existence of a Deity explained in a series of 
dialogues adapted to the Capacity of the Infant Mind, 
Geography and A stronomy familiarized for the Youth 
of Both Sexes, A Child s Thoughts on Death I Most 
of us have Sandford and Merton (1858), one of the 
more enlightened survivals of this style, among the 
recollections of our early childhood. 

English-speaking children, the wide world over, owe 
much to a trio of men who strove to regenerate juvenile 
literature, to protect children from over-doses of Mrs. 
Markham and 'useful knowledge' in general, and to 
revive old tales sung or said from time immemorial, 
with all the elements of fancy, imagination, sympathy, 
and affection, that appeal to the child mind. These 
three regenerators were Sir Henry Cole, who wrote 
under the nom de plume of ' Felix Summerly,* Joseph 
Cundall, the publisher, and Charles Whittingham, the 
printer. The outcome of this union was the series 
known as * The Home Treasury.' We are apt to flatter 

263 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

ourselves that modem children's books possess artistic 
qualities peculiarly their own, but a rlance at 'The 
Home Treasuiy ' of sixty years ago snows how much 
we are indebted to these three pioneers. Their books 
were attractively printed in fine old-faced type, with 
choicely designed borders, and with illustrations by 
the best artists of the day. In 1843 appeared Sir 
Hornbook^ Little Red Ridtng-Hood, Beauty and the 
Beast, ami Jack and the BeanStalk ; in 1844, PucHs 
Report to OberoK and An Alphabet of Quadrupeds ; 
in 1845, Jack the Giant Killer and Cinderella; in 
1846, Taksfrom Spenser's Faerie Queene — and this is 
only a selection. Among the artists employed were 
J. C. Horsley, T. Webster, C. W. Cope, R. Redgrave, 
J. H. Townsend, and J. Absolon. The usual price of 
the books was 2s. or 2s. 6d. plain, 3s. 6d. or 4s. 6d. 
coloured — the colouring here being almost always done 
by hand, and not printed as in Shaw's books. The 
Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox (1846) 
with its twenty-four pictures after Albert van Ever- 
dingen, was more expensive, costing 6s. 6d. In Fraset^s 
Magazine for April 1846 Thackeray writes with ecstasy 
of these Cundall volumes, the mere sight of which, he 
says, is ' as good as a nosegay.' 

■There is another volume printed by Whittingham, 
which appears to be unique of its kind. Though pub- 
lished by Longman, it contains a preface written from 
' Camden Cottages ' and signed ' J. C — i.e. Joseph 
Cundall. The book appeared in 1849, and bears ue 
title Songs, Madrigals and Sonnets: A gathering of 
some of the most pleasant flowers of old English 
Poetry. Each page is enclosed in double lines of dif- 
ferent colours, and has a border of coloured ornament, 
with arabesques often enclosing vignettes. The whole 
is designed in an old Italian style to suit the supposed 
origin of the sonnet and the madrigal ; and on the fly- 
leaf, above Whittingham's imprint, is a special note 
264 



ORNAMENTAL BORDERS 

that 'the ornamental borders in this book have been 
printed by means of wood-blocks.' There are sixty- 
three coloured borders in addition to the title-page. 
The least number of printings employed is three, and 
some pages show the use of considerably more. The 
colouring is rich, the designs elegant, and the whole 
book is a worthy record of one of our greatest English 
printers. It is well worth a pound or two to the happy 
finder, and surely it was with prophetic instinct that 
Shakespeare wrote in the Merry IVives of IVindsor, ' I 
had rather than forty shillings I had my book of Songs 
and Sonnets.' 



265 



T 



CHAPTER XXII 

EDMUND EVANS 
CRANE, GREENAWAY, AND CALDECOTT 

HE modem revival of colour-printing from 
wood-blocks, inaugurated by Whittingham, 
Leighton, and others, owes its full success to 
the eneigy, enterprise, and artistic skill of Edmund 
Evans. It is this printer that we have to thank for 
the delightful coloured plates by Caldecott, Greenaway, 
and Crane, that during the last thirty years have won 
the affection of old and young. Most of all, perhaps, 
are those of us indebted, who are young enough to 
remember the joys of our childish days, when under 
the Window y The Three Jovial Huntsmen^ and The 
Great Panjandrum Himself, delightful beyond all books 
that we had ever seen or imagined, were gift-books 
new and fresh. Where are they now, all those dear 
companions of our nursery days ? Perhaps they were 
too dear, too well-thumbed to live. One looks back 
across the years, and thinks of them with sorrow and 
regret, as of friends departed. Did they survive, they 
should hold a place of honour in the bookcase that we 
cherish most. 

Edmund Evans was bom at Southwark in Feb- 
ruary 1826, and at the age of fourteen found employ- 
ment in the composing-room of Samuel Bentley's 
printing establishment at Bangor House, Shoe Lane. 
When sweeping out the press-room before the arrival 
of the workmen in the morning, he would scratch 
266 



EDMUND EVANS 

designs on some thick piece of slate, and try his hand 
at taking impressions. His interference with the 
presses brou^t him into trouble, but it also taught 
his employers that the boy was capable of somethmg 
beyond the drudgery of his present occupation. Through 
the influence of the two overseers at Bangor House he 
was introduced to Ebenezer Landells, and joined him 
in May 1840 for a seven years' apprenticeship. Birket 
Foster, one year senior to Evans, was articled to 
Landells at the same time. The two pupils had many 
tastes in common, particularly a love of the picturesque, 
and would often jom in sketching excursions. 

At the expiration of the seven years, in May 1847, 
Edmund Evans launched out as a wood-engraver on 
his own account, first at his private residence at Cam- 
berwell, then (in 1 851) at Racquet Court, Fleet Street. 
He secured his first orders from the firm of Ingram, 
Cooke and Co., whose manager was E. Ward, after- 
wards a partner in the firm of Ward and Lock. In 

1852 Birket Foster was preparing for Ingram, Cooke 
and Co. a set of illustrations to Madame Ida Pfeifler's 
Travels in the Holy Land. These were handed over 
to Edmund Evans, who engraved them for three print- 
ings. A key-block, giving the outlines, was worked in 
a dark brown tint, the second block in buff, and the 
third in a greyish blue. A similar method was pur- 
sued with the illustrations for Fern Leaves from 
Fanny's Portfolio, Little Ferns, etc., written about 

1853 by Miss G. P. Willis under the pseudonym of 
' Fanny Fern.' 

Mr. Evans's next work for this firm was the pre- 
paration of an illustrated cover, then quite a novelty, 
for Mayhew's Letters Left at the Pastrycook's. It was 
printed in a bright red and a dark blue on white paper, 
the blue printed over the red producing a black shade. 
A similar cover was engraved from a design by Birket 
Foster for The Log of the Water Lily, and also for the 

267 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Lximpligkter, published by G. Routledge and F. Warae. 
It was found, however, that the white paper used for 
these covers was easily soiled. This caused Mr. Evans 
to substitute a yellow paper with an enamel surface, 
which had an immediate popularity, and was greatly in 
request for railway novels — whence our mocfern term 
' yellow-back.' In some cases publishers commissioned 
Mr. Evans to supply these yellow covers for 'remainders' 
left in stock, with the result that they not only sold the 
remnant, but a reprint as well. An enormous number 
of these covers was printed for all the leading pub- 
lishers of the day, and among the artists who made 
the illustrations were Birket Foster, Sir John Gilbert, 
George Cruikshank, ' Phiz,' Charles Keene, and others. 
Edmund Evans's first colour-printing of real im- 
portance as book illustration was for The Poems of 
Oliver Goldsmith, an edition published in 1858 with 
pictures by Birket Foster and ornaments by F. NoCl 
Humphreys. It is my privil^e to quote the story of 
this in Mr. Evans's own words : ^ ' Birket Foster made 
his first drawings on wood. After I engraved each, I 
sent him a pull on drawing-paper, which he coloured 
as he wishea it to appear. I followed this as faithfully 
as I could, buying the dry colours from the artist 
colourman, and grinding them by hand. Birket Foster 
never liked this book, though it sold very well indeed.' 
The colours that the printer bought were those used by 
Foster himself — cob^t blue, raw sienna, burnt sienna, 
etc., among them — and every care was taken to r^ro- 
duce as accurately as possible the texture of the original. 
The printing, it should be mentioned, was all done on 
a hand-press. The first edition was soon sold out, 
and a second edition with a number of fresh pictures 
appeared in 1859. 

1 I <^uote fiom a very kind letter written to me bjr Mr. Evatis about a year 
befon his death. He was then tiTing in retirement at Ventnor, and though 
cbse OD dghty could still enjoy his daily amusement of painting in water- 
colour. 

268 



EDMUND EVANS 

From 1858 to i860 Evans engraved and printed 
the wood-blocks to illustrate the Common Objects of the 
Sea Shore and the Common Objects of the Country, by 
the Rev. J. G. Wood ; also Our Woodlands, Heaths, 
and Hedges, and British Butterflies. All of these 
books were illustrated by W. S. Coleman, and the 
printing was done in six to twelve colours on a hand- 
press. In i860 appeared Common Wayside Flowers, 
by Thomas Miller, some of the colour reproductions 
of Birket Foster's drawings being most delicate and 
effective. Other books of this period that had a large 
sale were Foster's Bible Emblem Anniversary Book, 
Lieut.-Col. Seccombe's Army and Navy Birthday 
Book, and Little Bird Red and Little Bird Blue, by 
M. Betham Edwards, with illustrations by T. R. 
Macquoid. 

In The Art Album, published for Joseph Cundall 
by W. Kent and Co. in 1861, an attempt was made to 
reproduce water-colour drawings by some of the best- 
known artists of the day. The sixteen plates illustrate 
the uncertainty, the power as well as the inherent weak- 
ness, of colour-printing from wood. 'Winter,' by T. 
Sidney Cooper, or ' Fruit,' by W. Hunt, could not have 
been better translated in any other process employed 
for book-illustration. Of the fourteen other plates a 
few are fair, but most are feeble. 

Evans's next work of importance was A Chronicle 
of England, written and illustrated by James E. Doyle, 
brother of Dicky Doyle, the well-known Punch artist, 
and son of ' H. B.' the caricaturist. The artist drew 
the designs on wood himself, and coloured a proof 
of each subject as he received it from the printer. 
For each of the eighty -one illustrations nine or ten 
colour-blocks were engraved, and the whole work was 
done on a hand-press, employed on this book for the 
last time. The work was published in 1864 at two 
guineas, and the entire edition sold out within a year 

269 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

of its publication. Colour illustrations are almost 
invariably on separate plates, and it is a striking 
feature of this book that all the illustrations are in 
the text. Mr. Evans told me that he considered this 
the most carefully executed book he had ever printed. 

It should be noted in passing that the first two 
coloured plates presented by the Graphic to its readers 
were executed by Edmund Evans. One of these, a 
large double-page picture of the Albert Memorial in 
gold and colours, appeared in 1872. The other is 'The 
Old Soldier/ a picture of a veteran war-horse in a field, 
stirred by the sound of a trumpet as some soldiers 
pass. This was after a water-colour drawing by Basil 
Bradl^, and appeared in July 1873. 

It IS, however, in the colour-printing of children's 
books by Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, and Kate 
Greeriaway that Edmund Evans has built his most 
enduring monument. Reference was made in our last 
chapter to the crudity and worthlessness of children's 
books in the early years of the nineteenth century. The 
appearance of the Whittingham books banished the old 
order of things, and led the way to the complete revolu- 
tion in children's books culminating in the work of the 
three artists mentioned above. All three have been 
grouped under the title of ' Academicians of the Nur- 
sery, and their names have long been household words. 
As contemporary illustrators of children's books they 
must always be linked together, though all have gifts 
peculiarly their own, with a style as distinct ana in- 
dividual as possible. A glance at a pictured page by 
any one of them reveals the artist ; no need, like Alfred 
on his jewel, to say Greenaway, Crane, Caldecott ' had 
me made.' 

Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott both died 
at a comparatively young age; Mr. Walter Crane is 
the only one of the trio now alive. For the sake of 
convenience, however, one must use the present tense 

270 



CRANE: GREENAWAY: CALDECOTT 

throughout in speaking of these three artists and their 
work together. All three of them, distinct though 
their styles are, work to a large extent on common 
ground. They grasp the fact that the child's book 
need neither be childish nor priggishly instructive ; 
that the child mind is essentially receptive, and that 
designs inherently beautiful will find ready appreciation 
from young as well as old. In consequence, they have 
made the ideal books for children ; not books osten- 
sibly intended for the young, while coquetting with 
grown-ups under their false disguise ; but books full 
of real lascination for the child mind, and at the same 
time instinct with charm for the ' Olympian,' who still 
is fortunate enough to retain something of childhood's 
happy spirit. The child, it must be remembered, 
' moves about in worlds not realised ' ; he still has eyes 
for wonderment, a mind receptive and impressionable, 
overflowing with fancy and im^nation, with a literal 
preference in his play for symbolism rather than reality : 
make-believe is the essence of his being. The child, too, 
is serious in his fun, and all three artists have adopted 
just that right attitude of playful gravity which is the 
key to childhood's heart. 

The work of these three artists, moreover, owes 
much of its success to an air of convincing sincerity. 
They work as if they could not help it, for the sheer 
joy of working ; and they laugh, and make others 
laugh, with aliumour that is irrepressible. Every 
picture shows that the painter's heart and soul was in 
It, and reveals the fact that it was made for his own 
satisfaction no less than for the delight of youthful 
spectators. In technique also there is this point of 
similarly, that all of them take into consideration the 
method by which their drawings are to be reproduced, 
and study its obvious advantages as well as its obvious 
deficienaes. The result is that in their individual way 
all display consummate skill in working with pure 

271 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

colours and flat tones, with a simple and direct treat- 
ment that adapts itself to the scope of the wood-engraver 
and the colour-printer from wood-blocks. 

Like all other firms of wood-engravers, that of 
E. Evans and Sons has been driven to adopt the 
modem three-colour process. Knowing this, I asked 
the late Mr. Edmund Evans to say frankly whether he 
thought colour-printing from wood must yield to the 
three-colour process. He wrote in reply : — ' I must say 
I do think the three-colour process will utterly drive out 
this now old method of colour-printing. I do think 
the Walter Crane toy-books or the Caldecott drawings 
could not have been better reproduced by any process, 
but Birket Foster could.' In reproducing Birket Foster 
the printer had to superimpose block upon block, 
struggling to express a finished water-colour drawing, 
with Its full scheme of graduated colour, and the result 
was that not only was tne transparency of water-colour 
lost, but the artist's drawing was completely misinter- 
preted. The three artists now in question worked with 
an eye to the possibilities of reproduction, with the 
result that the work of Edmund Evans will bear placing 
beside the original for comparison. The National Art 
Library is rich in the possession of a large number of 
original drawings by Crane, Caldecott, and Green- 
away; and, when possible, these are mounted along 
with the reproduction, making the excellence of the 
printer's work readily apparent. 

It is diflicult to realise that Mr. Walter Crane 
published his first toy-books fifteen years before Kate 
Greenaway and Caldecott entered the field. One of his 
boyhood efforts as an artist was a set of coloured page 
designs to Tennyson's ' Lady of Shalott,' made about 
1858, when the artist was only fourteen. These were 
shown to Ruskin and to W. J. Linton, the famous 
wood-engraver. The former praised them, and the 
latter took Crane for three years as his apprentice. It 

272 



WALTER CRANE 

was for a sixpenny series of toy-books, published partly 
by Ward and partly by Routledge, that Crane first 
appeared as an illustrator in colour. The artist was 
amused one day by a request sent by the publishers 
throueh Mr. Evans that some children designed for his 
next book ' should not be unnecessarily covered with 
hair,' this being considered a dangerous innovation of 
Pre-Raphaelite tendency. 

Two or three of these toy-books were issued 
every year; and to the period between 1864 and 
1869 belong The Railroad Alphabet, The Farmyard 
ABC, Cock Robin, The House that Jack Built, Dame 
Trot and her Comical Cat, The Waddling Frog, Chat- 
tering Jack, Annie and Jack in London, Hov) Jessie was 
Lost, One — two — Buckle my Shoe, Multiplication Table 
in Verse, Grammar in Rhyme, and, best of all in decora- 
tive aim and quaint humour, the Song of Sixpence. In 
these books the artist was limited in his scale of colour 
to red and blue, with black for the k^ block, so tiiat a 
certain crudity was unavoidable. With King Luckie- 
boys Party, The Fairy Ship, and The Little Pig, in 
18159 and 1870, there was a marked advance. The 
range of tints was extended ; black was employed as a 
colour as well as for outline, its use in broad masses 
becoming one of the decorative features of the books ; 
yellow was added, and with it the tints produced by 
superimposing yellow upon red and blue. The colour- 
ing therefore became as harmonious as the limited 
range of printing ink could effect. The printer did all 
he could to express the life and the superb decoration 
of the originals, and Mr. Crane is the first to acknow- 
ledge it. ' Mr. Edmund Evans,' he writes,* ' was 
known for the skill with which he had developed 
colour-printing, and I was fortunate in being thus 
associated with so competent a craftsman and so 
resourceful a workshop as his.' Mr. Crane confesses 

> Arljotmat; EaiUr Art Annual, 189S. 

s 273 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

also to being strongly influenced by some Japanese 
prints given to him in 1S65 by a naval officer; and in 
The Fairy Ship and King Luckieboy's Party his study 
of Japanese methods is strikingly apparent. A second 
influence came with a long visit to Italy between 1871 
and 1873, and the forms of later Renaissance art are to 
be traced in the treatment and accessories of designs 
for later books, notably Princess BeUe Etoik, TheHmd 
in the Wood, The Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the 
Beast, Goody Two Shoes, and others of the ' Shilling 
Toy-Books.' The whole series, comprising forty 
vommes in all, came to a close in 1876. 

In 1877 Edmund Evans ventured on an enterprise of 
his own by arranging with Walter Crane a book to be 
published by Routledge under the title of The Body's 
Opera. Every page contains a rendering in verse of 
some old nursery tale, with accompanying tunes and 
illustrated borders. The price was five shillings, and 
Routledge laughed at the notion of ten thousand copies 
being printed, especially with no gold on the cover! 
The public, however, thought diflerently, and a second 
edition was soon in demand. The range of colour in 
this book was much wider. Light blues, yellows, and 
brick reds, delicately blended, take the place of the 
more direct and vivid colours of the earlier toy-books. 
It is particularly noticeable in this book that certain of 
the illustrations — ' Here we go round the mulberry 
bush,' ' How does my lady s garden grow ? ' and 
' Lavender blue,' to take a few instances — stand out as 
unmistakable influences upon Kate Greenaway, whose 
first work appeared two years later. The success 
of the Babys Opera caused it to be followed by a 
second book containing French and German, as well 
as English, nursery songs. This was the Baby's 
Bouquet ; and to complete the triplets, as the artist him- 
self has named them, there ^peared some seven years 
later, in 1886, The Baby's Own Aesop, wonderful for 
274 



WALTER CRANE 

its realistic rendering of animal forms decoratively 
adapted. 

With Slateandpencilvania, Little Queen Anne, and 
Pothooks and Perseverance, a new series of nursery 
books b^an in 1885, but the illustrations for these 
were drawn on zinc lithographic plates, a method that 
was also adopted lox Echoes of Hellas (1887), Florals 
Feast (1889), and Queen Summer (1891). In these and 
the later books illustrated in colour by this process the 
difference of technique can be felt, purity of line and 
simplicity of fiat tints being abandoned for more 
elaborate colour effects. In Flora's Feast and Queen 
Summer, the colouring, although fuller, is marked by 
extreme delicacy, the tints being kept to a subdued 
scale. It is unnecessary to dwell on the charm of 
poetical imagination that has given life and movement 
to all the flowers as they rise from sleep to Flora's call, 
or gather round the banners of the Lily and the Rose. 

In A Floral Fantasy (1899) the same ideas are 
repeated, but the artist returns to Edmund Evans for his 
wood-blocks, which give flatness to the tints, but are 
able to convey a softer and richer effect of colouring. 
It strikes one, however, that the use of a key-block 
would have strengthened the outlines, and pulled to- 
gether the whole design. This book completes the list 
of the principal colour-printed books of Walter Crane, 
and Evans might justly have added, without boasting, 
his 'quorum pars magna fui' Mr. Crane gladly ac- 
knowledges that he owed much in the beginnmg to the 
f)rinter's suggestions, and that no small amount of his 
ater success was due to the loving care bestowed by the 
printer on every detail of the work. Colour-printing 
with Edmund Evans was always a labour of love. 

Looking through all these books by Walter Crane, 
it is at once realised that the important element, the 
alpha and the omega of his work, is decoration. The 
artist's mind is steeped in the study of mediaeval books. 

27s 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

He seems to have had a prior existence in the da)rs when 
books glowed with gold and colour, when artist and 
scribe worked lovingly and piously together to make a 
thing of beauty, undismayed by the fears of a publisher 
or the demands of the world-market. Supreme though 
his work is in graphic skill, originality, and inventive 
variety, all of these qualities are dominated by the de- 
corative sense. Purity of line and beauty of colour are 
always present, but always as part and parcel of an 
ornamental design. Picture and printed type must 
blend in harmonious unison. Plan, balance, propor- 
tion, relation to Wpe, are all essential in the artist's 
mind to a beautiuu book illustration. Everywhere 
you see signs of the creed, expressed and developed in 
his Decorative Illustration of Books, that book illus- 
tration means something more than a collection of 
pictorial sketches ; that each picture is an organic ele- 
ment, forming an integral and constructive part of the 
book as a unified whole. 

So in these books mentioned above you may note 
this perfect union of type and picture in relation to the 
page, and for many of them the artist has even designed 
end-papers and (X)ver as well. These end-papers are 
printed in colour like the rest of the book, and their 
maker's idea was to produce ' something delicately sug- 
gestive of the character and contents of the book, but 
nothing that competes with the illustrations proper. It 
may be considered as a kind of quadrangle, forecourt, 
or even a garden or grass plot before the door.' 

To pass from the work of Crane to that of Kate 
Greenaway is like passing from the poetry of one 
country to that of another. Each language has special 
beauties and peculiar charms that make comparison 
difficult and choice impossible, particularly when one 
could be happy with either. The principal elements in 
the work of Walter Crane are decoration and symbolism. 
Kate Greenaway, too, had an instinctive sense of deco- 
276 



KATE GREENAWAY 

ration, but in her case ornament, spacing, and proportion 
were secondary objects. Her work is more purely pic- 
torial, with a grace, beauty, and tenderness peculiarly 
its own ; and perhaps it is the directness of the pictorial 
motives that makes the Greenaway pictures of one's 
childhood linger so clearly outlined in the memory. 
With womanly winsomeness she made herself a queen 
in a little kingdom of her own, a kingdom like the 
island-valley of Avilion, ' deep-meadowed, happy, fair 
with orchard lawns,' a land of flowers and gardens, of 
red-brick houses with dormer windows, peopled with 
charming children clad in long, high-waisted gowns, 
muffs, pelisses, and sun-bonnets. In all her work 
there is a ' sweet reasonableness,' an atmosphere of old- 
world peace and simple piety that recalls Izaak Walton's 
Compleat Angler and ' fresh sheets that smell of laven- 
der. The curtains and frocks of dainty chintz and 
dimity, the houses with the reddest of red bricks, the 
gardens green as green can be, the little lads and lasses 
'with rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,' tumbling, toddling, 
dancing, singing — all make for happiness, all are * for 
the best in the Best of all possible worlds.' 

Born in 1846, a year later than Crane, it was not 
till 1879 that Kate Greenaway won any real success. 
Before that date she designed a large number of Christ- 
mas cards and valentines as well as casual book illus- 
trations. About 1871 she did some unsigned work for 
some children's books. Aunt Louisa's Toy-Books, pub- 
lished by Warne, and Nursery Toy-Books, published 
by Gall and Inglis. It is interesting to note that in 
1876 she collaborated with Crane, a fact that one 
would not recognise but for the title, The Quiver of 
Love, a Collection of Valentines^ Ancient and Modem, 
with Illustrations in Colours from Drawings by Walt^ 
Crajte andK. Greenaway. At the end of 1879 appeared 
Under the Window, a book which was entirely a ven- 
ture on the part of Edmund Evans. It was both 

277 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

written and illustrated by Kate Greenaway, pictorial 
and literary inspiration working harmoniously together 
as they did in the case of Blake. The book achieved 
an instant and wonderful triumph, being printed and 
reprinted till 100,000 copies were issued, witnout taking 
into account the Frencn and German editions. The 
original drawings were exhibited at the Fine Art 
Society in 1879, on which occasion Raskin saw them, 
and exhausted the resources of his vocabulary in praise 
of their unaffected beauty, their sweetness and naivete, 
their delicacy of sentiment, their subtlety of humour, 
and their exquisiteness of simple technique. It was 
the last-named quality that enabled Evans to repro- 
duce these and all the artist's illustrations with so 
large a measure of success. 

To 1 88 1 belongs Mother Goose, or the Old Nursery 
Rhymes, always one of Kate Greenaway's own favourites. 
Mother Goose was followed, in 1881, by ^ Day in a 
Child's Life, containing various songs set to music by 
Mr. M. B. Foster, and m 1882 hy Little Ann and other 
Poems, a selection of verses by Jane and Ann Taylor. 
In Marigold Garden (1885) Kate Greenaway was again 
her own poet, writing verses that make one wish for 
more. In 1882 appeared the Language of Flowers, a 
delightful book, for Kate Greenaway loved flowers and 
drew them exquisitely. Kate Greenaway's Painting- 
Book of 1884 consisted of illustrations collected from 
the various books which have been already mentioned. 

These are the best and most typical of her picture- 
books. In her other coloured work illustrating Bret 
Harte's Queen of the Pirate Isle (1886), Browning's 
Pied Pifir of Hamelin (1888), and The April Batys 
Book of Tunes (1900), she was not so happy as when 
pencil and brush followed her own fancies. The series 
of dainty little Almanacks, published yearly from 1883 
to 1897, must not be forgotten, for every volume is full 
of the perennial charm that characterises all the artist's 
278 



■ f -■■ :•: ■ 1 


:',tv oi nmr- 
■.:.:';,:^. Il : 
:.■ ui.s to ri.'- 
■ --.:io:;^ with' 


■ '• '■-.■. '■■" 


/,-, Oi'/JVa---:. 


■/' ■■ ' ■■■' '■ 




■ jL,y/..- 


. s,t t.) m-.i.-;. 
.: .-ti.il ill'-: .■•■ 


■M-^ ':'\ I ■■ ■- 


.:r.<i ,Anil ']..'.' 




..i;^ ■■n. wi.-h 



■ \ i.'-Ll.; < ■'■■j^L.'iH :y 1 '\ .1 (' owt r^- :■-■ 

;.■■;;'..! '-f i!!;uf:at; ,.r, cu'lccti->! •; ■ . 

■ . ", , V ! ..' il I. .vi.' l,vi il :.M-.- ■-uv nionlion. ■;. 

;, ■ . \-.;- 'i '..':! i'-i.-t t\ ;■.-■. -.1 nf her picn:-.. 

'-■ ;-. ! !■■■■- r c. -"M-i^l \:- ''■: i'Ki^tnitino' ]-.; 

.; ■/ /'.' r.-r :fc /-•;■ (! ■<■".:>). Brownip-, 

.' ,■'/-"-■ •,'" l':<;:ih:->;: {\\v::>. an.i /»<,■ April Ba'.y 

■ (!':;V0), :-'ic \v:iS P.Ot So hlipp} as \\!. ■ 

.-.■ \\ t'.-.il'.n' ^:d hor own fiviicics. Tlu' M:r. 

■ ■' ^\c .H-iU'hurKs-. ja'.b'i'.ho^l \carly from j- 

■. , \..w-'i net \>c f'liwolU'n. for c\xry voluiix- i.-> 1 

. [■trt.Tiiv.il chaiTii tluU charactcri-c-^ all tlir' .^'-l:- 



RANDOLPH CALDECOTT 

colour work. Kate Greenaway lived to fulfil Ruskin's 
early words of encouragement : — * Holbein lives for all 
times with his grim and ugly " Dance of Death " ; a not 
dissimilar and more beautiful immortality may be in 
store for you if you worthily apply yourself to produce 
a Dance of Life.' 

Caldecott was bom in 1846, the same year as Kate 
Greenaway, but for a long time he missed his true 
vocation. It was not till 1872 that he settled in 
London, and the clink of sovereigns and rustle of 
bank-notes in a Manchester bank became sounds of 
the past. Even in Manchester, however, he was 
draughtsman first and bank-clerk second, and in 
these early days developed a style peculiarly his own, 
obtaining wonderful effects by sheer power of line. 
He studied the * art of leaving out as a science,' believ- 
ing, to use his own words, that * the fewer the lines, 
the less error committed.' Phil May has been credited 
with the invention of drawing in terse, dramatic out- 
line that is never strictly outline at all, and it has been 
stated that his style was caused by the exigencies of 
the cheap Australian printing presses. There is, in my 
opinion, little in his actual technique that you do not 
find already fully developed by Caldecott. In boUi 
cases the economy of means and apparent simplicity 
suggested by the final drawing were only achieved by 
endless studies. Nobody knows the true inwardness 
of Phil May's work till he has seen his carefully 
finished pencil studies. The same statement is equally 
true of Caldecott ; and, to give a single instance, among 
the original drawings by him at South Kensington are 
no less than nine careful studies for the small and 
insignificant fox that adorns the Aesop fable of the 
Fox and the Stork. Another striking example of 
apparent simplicity is the famous sketch of the mad 
dog dancing. At first sight it is in outline, broken 
peniaps, but outline for ^1 that — a rapid and effective 

279 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

sketch. Now analyse it, and you will find that it is 
composed of over two hundred and fifty separate 
strokes of the pen, not one of which is meaningless 
or unnecessary. 

In 1875 and 1876 Caldecott was making black- 
and-white illustrations for Washington living's Old 
Christmas and Bracebridge Hall. It was here that 
he found his trae milieu. He is a caricaturist, but his 
caricatures are always poetical and romantic. His 
world lies in the past, among the old manners and 
customs of eighteenth -century England, not the 
eighteenth century of Pope and Sheridan, amid the 
elegant and dissipated beau-monde of the town ; but 
rather that of Oliver Goldsmith, amid simple country 
life with its ' homely joys and destiny obscure.' He 
excelled in expressing fresh and breezy scenes of the 
English squirearchy in manor-house and hunting-field. 
His work is full of eloquent design, an abundance of 
kindly humour, an inexhaustible store of fancy — all 
expressed in attractive colour. In 1876 he became one 
of the foremost draughtsmen of the Graphic, the editor 
of which was the first to reveal to the public Caldecott's 
delicate colouring and astonishing freshness of inven- 
tion. Christmas yisitors, which appeared in the 
Graphic in 1876, was followed by other coloured 
reproductions every summer and winter till 1886. 
Mr. Chumle/s Holidays, Flirtations in France, The 
Rivals, Mr. Carlyoris Christmas, and The Strange 
Adventures of a Dog-Cart, are among those that will 
always be gratefully remembered by Graphic readers. 
The complete collection, printed by Edmund Evans, 
was published in one volume in 1888, and also in three 
oblong folios from 1887 to 1889. With these may be 
mentioned A Sketch-Book of H. Caldecott's, also re- 
produced by Evans, and published by Routledge in 
1883. 

It is again to the credit of Edmund Evans that he 
280 



RANDOLPH CALDECOTT 

first suggested to the artist that he should make 
coloured illustrations for children's books. Caldecott 
himself was doubtful as to this venture, and wrote to 
a friend, ' I get a small, small royalty.' The small- 
ness of the royalty, however, was amply balanced by 
the immediate success of his first two picture-books. 
The House that Jack Built ajxAJokn Gilpin, published 
in 1878. It was the year of Kate Greenaw^'s Under 
the Window, and two such ' discoveries ' as Greenaway 
and Caldecott in one year should count for ever to 
Edmund Evans's honour. There were sixteen of these 
Caldecott picture-books in all, issued at a shilling each 
in coloured paper covers, and appearing two a year 
towards Christmas time with unfailing r^^larity till 
the artist's death. Ostensibly picture-books for chil- 
dren, they were in reality works of art full of subtle 
charm and rare originality. Every variety of talent the 
artist possessed finds its full display in his ingenious 
adaptation of nurseiy rhymes, old ballads, and the 
comic poems of the eighteenth century. In his colour- 
ing he employed flat tints of great variety, sometimes 
making finished water-colour drawings, but more often 
making a pen-drawing first, and then colouring a 
proof of the wood-engraving sent by the printer. 
Examples of these cofoured proofs may be seen at 
South Kensington. 

With The House that Jack Built and John Gilpin 
Caldecott set himself a very high standard, which he 
nevertheless managed to sustain with only an occa- 
sional falling off, due partly to want of complete sym- 
pathy with his subject, partly to failing health. John 
Gilpin seemed inimitable, yet it was followed in 1879 
by the fascinating Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, 
and by The Babes in the Wood. The complete list 
continues as follows : — Three Jovial Huntsmen and Sing 
a Song of Sixpence (1880) ; The Queen of Hearts and 
The Farmef^s Boy (1881) ; The Milkmaid, Hey-diddle- 

281 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

diddle the Cat and the Fiddle, and Baby Bunting (the 
last two in one volume, 1882); The Fox jumps over 
the Parson's Gate, and j4 Frog he would a-wooing go 
(1883) ; Come Lasses and Lads, Ride a Cock Horse to 
Banbury Cross, and A Farmer went trotting upon his 
Grey Mare (the last two in one volume, 1^4) ; Mrs. 
Mary Blaize and The Great Panjandrum Himself 
(1885). Since the original issue of these books in 
separate parts more than one collected edition has 
be«n printed by Edmund Evans and published by 
Routledee 

We have dwelt at such length on the work of 
these three artists in association with Edmund Evans, 
partly because of its importance in the history of 
colour-printing, partly also because collectors are 
oftered here a fresh field and an interesting oppor- 
tunity. The work of these * academicians of the 
nursery' is well worth treasuring, and the number 
of volumes that have passed unscathed through years 
of nursery life must be comparatively small. Yet even 
Kate Greenaway's books, which are the rarest of all, 
can now be purchased for a ' mere song.' Before many 
years have passed they should be worth their weight 
m gold. 



282 



CHAPTER XXIII 

LEIGHTON, VIZETELLY, KNIGHT, AND FAWCETT 

IT must not be supposed that Edmund Evans and 
the Chiswick Press were the only firms associated 
with the revival of colour-printing from wood- 
blocks, or that the process was employed solely for the 
illustration of children's books. A notable landmark 
in the history of English illustration was the appear- 
ance of a special Christmas supplement to the Illus- 
trated London News in 1855, containing the first 
examples of colour illustration in an English news- 
paper. The four plates — two after Sir John Gilbert, 
and one after ' Phiz ' and G. Thomas respectively — 
were printed from wood-blocks by George Leighton, of 
Red Lion Square. 

George Leighton was born about 1826, and began 
his career as an apprentice to Baxter. In 1849 Baxter 
made application to the Judicial Committee of the 
Privy Council for an extension of his patent George 
Leighton opposed this application on the ground that 
he had served his time with Baxter in the hope of 
practising the art himself, and that, if the extension 
were granted, he would be without employment, five 
years of his apprenticeship having been devoted solely 
to his study of Baxter's methods. Leighton, however, 
lost his case, and Lord Brougham, in delivering judg- 
ment on behalf of the court, remarked on the great 
merit and utility of the patent, concluding by the state- 
ment that the court would recommend the extension 

283 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

of the patent for five years without any conditions. 
Leighton was therefore left to his own resources, and 
accordingly took over the business of Messrs. Gregory, 
Collins and Reynolds. This firm, founded in 1843, 
had been producing colour-printing work on Savs^e's 
lines, contributing illustrations to some of the children's 
books published T)y Cundall. In the Art Union (the 
forerunner of the Art Journal) for April 1846 is a 
specimen of their printing in seven colours on an 
ordinary hand-press. The work, though it shows an 
advance on that of Savage, is still hard and mechanical. 
In 1849 Reynolds left London in order to work for 
Messrs. Winton, the pottery firm, and his departure 

fave Leighton the opportunity of acquiring the 
usiness. 
Leighton at once set himself to improve on the 
Baxter tradition. For the Art Journal of 1851 he 
printed a reproduction of Landseer's ' Hawking Party,' 
m sixteen transparent tints. In this picture he departed 
from Baxter's method, by printing entirely from wood ; 
but in his later work he used metal plates freely for 
conveying the colours. The ' Hawking Party ' was 
accompanied by an appreciative notice from the editorial 
pen, and Baxter, still smarting perhaps from a sense of 
mjury, seems to have felt ^^grieved at his rebellious 
pupil being honoured with such prominence. He 
accordingly protested to the editor, with the result that 
a description of his own process appeared three months 
later, with a full acknowledgment of its value, but 
without any disparagement of Leighton's rival work. 

A good example of the early work of Leighton 
Brothers — for George Leighton took into partnership 
his brother Blair — is to be found in Miller's Village 
Queen, published by Cundall and Addey in 1852, with 
five facsimiles of water-colour drawings. Not long 
after this date George Leighton found a patron in 
Mr. Herbert Ingram, founder and proprietor of the 
284 



GEORGE AND JOHN LEIGHTON 

Illustrated London News. The association bore fruit 
in the plate of 1855, already mentioned ; and from 1858 
Leighton was printer and publisher of the paper. 
Colour-printing from wood-Dlocks, or wood-blocks 
combined with metal, held its own in this paper till 
the eighties, when it was driven from the field by the 
chromo-lithograph. 

A large amount of the work of Leighton Brothers 
appears in the children's books published by Routledge, 
often in crude and glaring colours, a typical example 
being The Coloured Scraf-Book. It was probably one 
of this set, ' things got up cheap to catch the eyes of 
mothers at bookstalls/ that roused Ruskin's wrath 
when in 1872 he was delivering the lectures published 
later in Ariadne Florentina. Puss in Boots particularly 
irritated him — 'a most definite work of the colour 
school, red jackets and white paws and yellow coaches 
as distinct as Giotto or Raphael would have kept them. 
But the thing is done by fools for money, and becomes 
entirely monstrous and abominable.' Much better 
examples of the firm's work appear in The Fields and 
the IVoodlands and The Pictortal Beauties of Nature, 
published at one guinea each in 1873, each with twenty- 
four plates ' in the highest style of chromographic art.' 
Even finer work are some of the delightml coloured 
plates printed by Leighton Brothers from drawings by 
* E.V.B.,' notably those for Beauty and the Beast, pub- 
lished in 1875. For some of these overadozen printmgs 
were employed, and the soft tints in the drapery are 
extremely delicate. In spite of the excellent results thus 
obtained, Leighton Brothers were unable to make a 
financial success of printing in oil-colours from wood- 
blocks, and the firm disappears in 1885. 

Mention must be made too of George Leighton's 
cousin, Mr. John Leighton, F.S.A., who was bom in 
1822, and lives to tell the tale of how he rode daily 
from his house at Regent's Park, where he still resides, 

28s 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

to assist Owen Jones in arranging the art exhibits of 
the 1862 Exhibition. Kindly, genial, and humorous, 
Mr. Leighton can make time pass very quickly amid 
anecdotes of these old days, but their place is not here. 
Probably no man has ever designed so much book 
ornament, so many title^>aees, frontispieces, borders, 
head and tail pieces, as Mr. Leighton, and much of his 
admirable work was printed in coloured inks. A note- 
worthy example is The Life of Man Symbolised, of the 
year 1866, a book that cost ^\ 100 for the actual print- 
mg, the borders being executed in single colours of 
red, yellow, and blue. 

Probably owing to the influence of Owen Jones this 
style of coloured border became exceedingly popular at 
this period, the firm of Murray being among the fore- 
most of its supporters. One of the colour-prmters who 
worked for Murray was Henry R. Vizetelly, afterwards 
so well known as the Paris correspondent of the Illus- 
trated London News, and the publisher of Zola's 
novels. The connection of the firm of Vizetelly 
Brothers with Murray came about through a break- 
down in Owen Jones's establishment during the print- 
ing of an illustrated edition of Ancient Spanish Ballads 
by J. G. Lockhart, in 1841. The printing was finished 
by Vizetelly, who contributed the titles, borders, and a 
number of decorative designs, though the whole of the 
ornament was designed by Owen Jones. Red, blue, 
and yellow were all freely employed, either singly or 
in combination. The same style of border decoration 
appears in the Book of Common Prayer, printed for 
Murray by Vizetelly in 1845, and again in 1850. It is 
decorated with a great variety of vignettes, initials, 
borders, and ornaments by Owen Jones, who probably 
executed the chromo-lithography of the eight title- 
pages. The rest of the decorative ornament is printed 
m red and blue, apparently from wood-blocks. Milman's 
Horace, printed by Vizetelly in 1849 fo"" Jo^n Murray, 
286 



CHARLES KNIGHT 

is another remarkable example of the use of decorative 
borders, in this case classical in style, printed in 
diflerent colours. A typical example of the colour- 
printing of ordinary illustrations by Vizetelly is 
Christmas with the Poets, published by Bogue in 1851. 
The fifty illustrations, engraved by Vizetelly himself 
from designs by Birket Foster, were printed m tints of 
grey, brown, and a brownish pink,* with a gold line 
bonier, and with ornamental initials in black and gold. 
This book was selected by the trustees of the British 
Museum to be shown at the great Exhibition of 1851, 
as representative of the best in English printing and 
illustration. 

Another colour-printer who employed wood-blocks 
was Charles Knight, the great pioneer of cheap illus- 
trated literature- In 1838 he patented a process for 
printing four colours on the sheet in one passage 
through the press, but it is doubtful whether his pro- 
cess, like others directed to the same end, ever had any 
commercial value. Knight's outstanding work was his 
Old England, issued in parts during 1844 ^^^ ^^AS- 
It forms two folio volumes, and is a unique and 
wonderful publication, considering that it contains 
nearly two thousand five hundred wood-engravings, 
with a page of illustrations following almost every 
page of text, and with a dozen full-page coloured plates 
to each volume. The only reference in the book to the 
method of the colour-printing is a brief note in regard 
to a picture of the Coronation Chair, stating that it 
was reproduced by means of twelve plates, from a 
drawing specially prepared. The word ' plates ' is pro- 
bably used in a wide sense, for the embossing at the 
back of each print shows that the colouring was applied 
by means of surface printing from wood-blocks. Old 
England's IVorthies, published in 1847, ^^ illustrated 

1 In the National Art IJbnuy is a set <^ proofs printed in ordinary iok on 
India paper. 

287 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

by twenty similar coloured plates, in addition to 
numerous wood-engravings. The colour, however, in 
all Knight's work, seems rather dead and oily, and is 
frequently put on in dense, heavy masses, making it 
lack sparkle and expression. 

Another noteworthy contemporary of Leighton and 
Evans was Benjamin Fawcett, bom at BridHngton in 
the East Riding of Yorkshire in 1808. Fawcett pro- 
duced some remarkable examples of colour-printing 
from wood-blocks on the ordinary hand-press, and 
seems to have arrived at his results independently of 
all tradition. He was, however, specially fortunate in 
having as his literary assistant the Rev. F. Orpen 
Morris, Vicar of Napperton, two miles from where he 
started work as a jobbing printer and stationer. Morris 
was a prolific writer on subjects of natural history as 
well as religion, and with his co-operation Fawcett 
produced the series of subscription works, all of them 
illustrated with plates printed in colours from wood- 
blocks, of which the History of British Birds was the 
first. This book appeared originally in monthly parts 
from 1851 to 1857. It was reissued in a new and 
enlarged form in 1862, and by 1895 some eight editions 
had appeared. A Natural History of British Butter- 
flies made its first appearance in 1853 in a single 
volume, while A Natural History of the Nests and 
Eggs of British Birds was issued in monthly parts 
from 1853 to 1856. Both of these books, as well as 
The County Seats of Great Britain and Ireland, for 
which Morris also supplied the text, have appeared in 
several editions. The same ^plies to the Ruined 
Abbeys of Britain by F. Ross, Couch's History of the 
Fishes of the British Islands, and Lowe's Beautiful 
Leaved Plants, all of them with plates printed by 
Fawcett. It should be said that there is agood deal 
of hand-colouring in some of these books. The whole 
of Fawcett's work— designing, engraving, and printing 
288 



BENJAMIN FAWCETT 

— was carried out by locally trained workers at the little 
town of Driffield, in East Yorkshire, with a population 
of under six thousand. The County Seats is said to 
have brought in, from first to last, some j^30,ooo, but 
in spite of this apparent prosperity Fawcett, like 
George Leighton, was unable to make his colour- 
printing a commercial success. For some years before 
his death in 1894 be was in failing health, and the 
business gradually declined. His successors were 
unable to continue it, and in 1895 the stock was sold. 



289 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE THREE-COLOUR PROCESS AND ITS APPLICATION 

SO far we have been dealing with artistic processes, 
in which the personal element is always present. 
Copper-plate, wood-block, and stone convey the 
creation of an artist's fancy as the result of actual 
manual labour, and yield their pictures only to in- 
dividual and patient craftsmanship. The end of last 
century, however, witnessed the attempt to displace all 
manu^ labour in book illustration by purely mechanical 
processes. The natural agency of photography took 
the place of the artist's brain and hand, and of the 
millions of pictures that appear in books and magazines 
throughout Europe and Ainerica, all but an infinitesi- 
mal fraction are photo-mechanical productions. The 
impetus given by process to illustrated journalism can 
only be realised after an examination of the illustrated 
periodicals of the last twenty years. In 1883 there 
were only four sixpenny weekly papers, using about 
eighty blocks, nearly all wood-engravings. Now there 
are about fifteen sixpenny papers published weekly, 
employing over a thousand process-blocks. In 1888 
a number of the Illustrated London News contained 
twenty-six pictures, made up of seventeen wood-en- 
gravings, seven line process-blocks, and two half-tone 
process-blocks, whereas one of the present numbers 
contains more than fifty process-blocks and not a single 
wood-engravi ng. 

The first achievement in photo-mechanical repro- 
290 



THE THREE-COLOUR PROCESS 

duction was the perfection by M. Gillot, of Paris, of the 
art of zincography. The earliest public reo^ition of 
the value of this process was at the Paris Exhibition 
of 1855, when it won the distinction of Honourable 
Mention. Though it was used extensively by M. Gillot, 
who died in 1872, at his establishment in Paris, it was 
not till about 1876 that the process was employed in 
England. Zinco«^phy is a means of reproducing 
drawings executea in clear black lines or masses, with- 
out any half-tones, the drawing bein^ transferred by 
phot(^raphy to zinc, and all me white spaces being 
then bitten away by acid. It is, in effect, a woodcut 
produced by mechanical means, without the artistic 
work of drawing on the block and the manual trouble of 
carving away the superfluous wood from the design. 

Zincography, however, will only produce line draw- 
ings, and the next step was the discovery of a method 
of representing gradations of tone, and so making 
possible the reproduction of oil-paintings, water-colours, 
wash drawings, or photographs from nature. This was 
achieved by the half-tone process, of which Meisenbach, 
who patented it in 1882, may claim to be the inventor 
and pioneer.* This process killed wood-engraving all 
over the world, and has done more to revolutionise 
book illustration than all other methods put together. 
Its important feature is the use of a glass screen, finely 
ruled with lines, which is interposed in the camera 
between the lens and the negative. The n^ative is 
broken up by the screen into a laig^e number of minute 
squares or dots, which are strong or weak in proportion 
as the corresponding parts of the original are light or 
dark. The picture produced is thus built up of an 
infinity of dots, shadows being represented by the 

> For a full and valuable account of the rise and deYelopment of process 
work, see the p^ter by Carl Heotschel on 'Process Eogranng' in ibe/trnmat 
ofth4 Sedtty of Arts for 1900 ; and the Cantor Lectures, by J. D. Geddes, on 
' Fhotcq^phy as ^pliod to Illustration and Printing,' in the same publicatiCHi 
for 1901. 

291 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

grouping of dots close together. The negative is then 
transferred to a sensitised piece of copper, and the 
spaces round the dots forming the picture are etched 
away. To the half-tone print single tints of colour may 
be applied, a method that has been adopted with con- 
siderable success in the American monthly mf^azines, 
and in the illustration of a certain number of English 
books. 

Trichromatic photography is based on the half-tone 
process. The ' three-cmour ' process is by far the most 
important development in the whole range of photo- 
graphic illustration invented or evolved during the past 
half century. In so far as it is a mechanical, as opposed 
to an artistic, process, we need not go into the formid- 
able theories of colour analysis, of molecular swings, of 
the undulation of light. The general principle on which 
it is based is the accepted theory that any colour can be 
resolved into the three primary colours of red, yellow, 
and blue-violet, which form its component parts. It 
was on this theory that Le Blon, as has been seen in 
chapter vi., based his system of colour-printing. Le 
Blon's work seems to have attracted some popular in- 
terest, for in the early part of the nineteenth century 
several books by Moses Harris and others treated of 
the three-colour theory in relation to painting. Few, 
however, had such faith in their theories as G. Field, 
the author of ^h Essay on the Analogy and Harmony 
of Colours, He works himself into a state of devotional 
ecstasy and mysticism, culminating in his final para- 
graph : — ' If all reason be allied to the Universal, then 
must the development of reason in a sensible object 
indicate the universal reason or intelligence to whidi it 
belongs. Dull of consciousness therefore will be the 
mind that in contemplating a system so simple, various, 
and harmonious as that of colours, should not discover 
therein a type of that Triune Essence who could not 
but construct all things after the pattern of His own 
292 



THE THREE-COLOUR PROCESS 

perfection ' I All these books show that the theoiy \vas 
well to the fore, and it is not surprisincf to note that 
the early chromo-lithc^raphers attempted its application. 
An example is to be found in Aresti's Lithozographia 
(1857), one of the plates in which reproduces a fresco 
by Michelangelo, showing the 'effect of the three 
primary colours printed over each other' 

The phenomena connected with the three-colour 
theory in its relation to photographic processes have 
been the subject of various mvestigations by well- 
known scientists, from Duhauron and Cross in the 
'forties to Sir William Abney in modem days. Once 
the principle is accepted that any combination of colours, 
say in a painting, can be resolved into its primary ele- 
ments, it remains only for the photographer to obtain 
three natives, which, as it were, automatically dissect 
the original, making three distinct photographic records 
of the reds, yellows, and blues which enter into the 
composition. This result is obtained by the use of 
transparent screens of coloured pigment or liquid, 
' light filters,' as th^ are technically termed, placed in 
front of the lens. 'These filters admit any two of the 
primary colours and absorb the other one. Three 
separate screens are employed, each with the lines ruled 
at a different angle, and when the n^^tive records of 
the colour analysis are obtained, the three photographs 
are converted into printing surfaces, exactly as m the 
ordinary half-tone process described above. On the 
metal printing surface the separate colours are impressed 
in ink and transferred to paper. The block represent- 
ing the yellow tones of the original is printed first with 
yellow ink ; over this picture the block representing red 
is accurately registers and printed in red ; while the 
final block representing blue is printed over the com- 
bination of the first two, with blue ink. The result is 
a complete picture containing all the shades of the 
original, no matter whether the original is a natural 

293 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

object, an oil-painting, or a water-colour, an object of 
art or of commerce. 

Theoretically the three-colour process is all-sufficient 
for the correct reproduction of a coloured original, but 
it must not be forgotten that the printer can ink the 
plates with colour which differs materially from what it 
ought to be, so that there is, after all, no necessarily 
true reproduction. To neutralise previous incorrectness 
of printing, and to secure more perfect harmony, a 
fourth plate, inked with grey or black, is occasionally 
used, just as it was by Le Blon. This, however, should 
only be necessary where the difficulties of ascertaining 
the true colours in ink have led the printer astray. 
The fourth colour, however chosen, will always tend to 
decrease considerably the luminosity of a three-colour 
print, and by the really good colour-printer the fourth 
plate is only employed where the original, as for 
instance a portrait by Rembrandt or Velasquez, is 
altogether deep in tone, with rich browns, almost ap- 
proaching black, in the background ; or where a modem 
artist has worked with a wash of colour over a drawing 
in black or grey chalk. 

One of the main objections to the process is its 
mechanical nature. It can be understood that a col- 
lector may treasure an aquatint, a chromo-lithc^iaph, a 
coloured wood-engiaving — but a process plate, never. 
Moreover, it is extremely unlikely that the clay-surfaced 
paper, essential to the finest printing from half-tone 
blocks, will survive for a hundred years. Certainly it 
will never remain sound and unfaded like the r^ 
papers of olden days. Another objection is the dazzling 
nature of the mesh ; and though modem science has 
not yet succeeded in finding a substitute for the screen, 
et It is fair to say that the reticulation of the screen 
las been made so fine, and the methods of its applica- 
tion have become so ingenious, that the mesh in the 
best work is hardly apparent. It may be noted that 
294 



I' 
hi 



THE THREE-COLOUR PROCESS 

under certain conditions of lines an effect as of shot 
silk is accidentally produced. It is a remarkable result, 
and often not unpleasing, but it is absolutely untrue as 
far as the original is concerned. Last of all, there is 
the tendency of the colours to overlap in the printing. 
It is impossible to rely on a printer to secure ^ways an 
absolutely exact registration. The difficulty will never 
be overcome till some means is discovered of printing 
the three colours at once, and though several inventors 
have professed to accomplish this, their machines have 
never proved an entire success. What is most wanted 
is an ink that will dry with great rapidi^. Two damp 
inks superimposed one on the other produce a muddy 
effect, and under present conditions the best result is 
procured by allowing each ink several hours to dry, and 
l^ keeping the paper in an absolutely even temperature, 
so as to avoid all risk of its shrinking before the nect 
printing. By these means a complete three-colour print 
can be easily produced from a drawing or from nature 
within two days. The weekly paper, with half of its 
illustrations in colour, already an accomplished fact in 
America, is one of the immediate possibilities of the 
future for our own country as well. Under pressure, 
the print can be completed in far less time, for, in con- 
nection with a recent law-suit, Mr. Carl Hentschel, to 
show before some barristers his process at Norwood, 
executed colour-prints from a water-colour drawing of 
Lincoln's Inn within four hours from start to finish. 

The great value of the three-colour process lies in 
the speed and cheapness with which the prints can be 
produced. As an artistic method of reproducing water- 
colours, or natural objects such as butterflies or leaves, 
it is sometimes wonderfully successful, but the results 
are very uneven. At its best the three-colour process 
produces excellent results ; at its worst it is a positive 
conflagration of crude blues and greens and oranges 
that coalesce without harmony. Such as it is, however, 

295 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

the process has come to stay. It is winning increasing 
importance in every kind of pictorial, scientific, educa- 
tional, and industrial application. The comparative 
ease and cheapness of production have stimulated the 
output to a remarkable degree, and the last few years 
have seen the use of the three-colour process for the 
wide illustration of general literature, from classical 
reissues to children's books. 

While the printing processes are still imperfect, and 
while fuller researches into theory and practice may be 
expected to bring about constant improvements, it is 
unnecessary to enter into any detailed account of the 
many bool^ to which the process has been applied. At 
the same time, attention may be drawn to a few tacts 
and dates that mark the rise and development of this 
method of colour-work in relation to book illustration. 
In March 1897 the editor of the Magcunne of Art 
published a full-page three-colour plate of ' Hadrian's 
Villa,' after the well-known picture by Richard Wilson 
in the National Gallery. The blocks were made under 
exceptional difficulties, for the picture had to be photo- 
graphed where it hung, without the aid of the electric 
[amps which play so important a part in the three- 
colour studio. Yet the reproduction is eminently 
satisfactory, suggesting with success the fat, oily nature 
of the paint itself, and the grey-green tones that the 
painter loved. IThe reproduction was the work of 
Messrs. Andr^ and Sleigh, of Bushey, and I have laid 
special stress upon it, not only because to my mind it 
has not since been surpassed, out also because it is one 
of the earliest instances of the process being used for a 
plate in a book. 

Though it found occasional use for frontispieces 
and illustrations of natural history specimens, ceramic 
objects, and so forth, it was not till about 1900 that 
the three-colour process became firmly established as a 
method of book illustration. Messrs. Adam and Charles 
296 



F 

la 



THE THREE-COLOUR PROCESS 

Black were the first to appreciate its wide scope, and 
to publish a whole series of books illustrated throu^- 
out in colour. The first of these were IVar Imfressums 
and Japan, with illustrations by Mortimer Menpes. 
The drawings of the same artist serve also to illustrate 
IVorU Pictures (1902), fforlits Children (1903), and 
the Durbar (1903). Mr. Menpes has always been a 
wanderer over the face of the earth, and these books 
are delightful reproductions of the treasures of his 
sketch-books. The Holy Land (1902) and Egypt 
(1902), with illustrations by John Fulleytove and R. 
Talbot Kelly respectively, Holland (1904) and Norway 
(1905), both by Nico Jungmann, are among several 
books showing how fascinating an addition may be 
lent by coloured plates to books of foreign travel. 

It may be noted that in most modem coloured books 
the text is frankly subservient to the illustrations. The 
three-colour process has produced the paradoxical 
result that the plates make the book, while the text 
merely illustrates. Further examples of the successful 
reproduction of water-colours in facsimile are Cruik- 
shanHs Water-Colours (1903), Happy England (igos), 
with its illustrations of Mrs. Allingham's charming 
drawings — both of these being published by Black — 
and British Water-CoUmr Art (1904), published by 
The Studio. It is only fair to add that nearly all the 
colour-plates for Messrs. A. and C. Black have been 
executed by Mr. Carl Hentschel. For some, however, 
Mr. Mortimer Menpes, who has established a press of 
his own, is responsible; and he has produced some 
particularly good results in the reproduction of his own 
drawings. 

One of the best and earliest examples of the three- 
colour process as a means of reproducinc^ ceramic 
objects IS Cosmo Monkhouse's History and Descrip- 
tion 0/ Chinese Porcelain, published by Cassell in 1901, 
with thirty-one colour-plates by Andrd and Sleigh. 

297 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Another book worthy of special mention is the 
PiHtoricchio, by C. Ricci, translated by Florence Sim- 
monds, and published by Heinemann in 1902. It was 
one of the first books to show the use of the three- 
colour process in the reproduction of paintings by an 
old master. The fifteen plates are admiiable for the 
fine effects of their colouring, and this in spite of the 
fact that the plates, which measure ten by eight inches 
in colour surface, are far beyond the ordinary limits of 
size to which the process is supposed to be subject. 

Having spoken of the use for colour-printing in 
modem days of lithc^^phy, wood-blocks, and process, 
separately and in conjunction, it is right to add a 
reference to the rarer and more expensive method of 
colour photo^vure. This is a way of printing photo- 
engravings in colours at one impression after the 
manner of the old mezzotints and stipple. Messrs. 
Boussod, Valadon et Cie. have been {^rticularly suc- 
cessful in their reproduction of water-colours by this 
method ; and for its application to books one may 
mention the magnificent Goupil series of ' English 
Historical Memoirs' (1893 — ), Skelton's Charles I., 
Holmes's Queen Victoria, etc. 

Finally, one must call attention to the numerous 
editions, with illustrations in the three<olour process, 
which Messrs. Methuen began to produce in 1903, of 
the famous books which delighted our grandfathers 
and ancestors. Their ' Burlington Libraiy of Coloured 
Books' ranges from the splendid folio edition of 
Aiken's National Sports, for which the collector must 
pay five guineas, to the reproductions in a reduced 
quarto 01 Pugin and Rowlandson's Microcosm of 
London, and of numerous other volumes mentioned in 
the preceding pages. For the poorer man their ' Illus- 
trated Pocket Libraiv' provides reprints in miniature 
of Aiken's sporting books, the Tours of Dr. Syntax, 
and the other volumes of prose and verse which the 
298 



THE THREE-COLOUR PROCESS 

grotesque fancy of Rowlandson has enriched. The 
extraordinary increase in the value of old books which 
has marked the t>ook-sales of the last three years is a 
clear proof that the collector is discovering that rare 
books grow rarer. It is impossible to reproduce the 
atmosphere and aroma or all the grace and dignity of 
the past; but, with care and piety, Messrs. Methuen 
have been able to present in facsimile or miniature to 
the modem book-buyer some of the volumes which in 
their original form are becoming impossible of acquisi- 
tion by me owner of a slender purse. 

One never knows to what unforeseen and unexpected 
ends the unknown forces of science are secretly work- 
ing. What seems an impossibility to-day may become 
accomplished fact to-morrow. A successful means of 
direct photography from nature may bring a sudden 
revolution in pictures and in the illustration of books. 
But in the scientific and mechanical there must always 
be lacking the element of human sympathy and human 
interpretation. ' All art,' says Walter Pater, ' which is 
in any way imitative or reproductive of fact — form, 
colour, or incident, is the representation of such fact as 
connected with soul, of a specific personality, in its 
preferences, its volition, and power.' Photography can 
see only the surface, never the spirit ; it can never 
penetrate the mystery that underlies the surface of the 
commonest things. This is where all process-work 
fails, and always will fail, when compared with the 
older methods of artistic engraving. To take one 
modem instance, the finest photogravure of Mr. Watts's 
Lne and Death or of his Orpheus and Eurydice will 
not for a moment bear comparison with the mezzotint 
rendering of the same picture by Mr. Frank Short. 
In process you will always miss the human element, 
' the heart to resolve, the head to contrive, the hand 
to execute.' 

299 



. \\ 



-.. 10 th.- LlLlV 


c' 


1 ■r.'K\ his J'!. :■ 




.1 -iMpil!!)!^ Llji 

..-;■.: .•f 'cho;- 


1 1' 


.. 'I.!-. thK .■•i 


^> 


'.W- js old .t: 




i<" --■-■■■■''!• '• 


i i- 



f.,r I, 



ry of the - 

r,' \r li;;il.M -. v; .i \. - i . if.i i . i-*';.;- f^e pii"H .: 

. ' '■- .. '■•,'. t I (:■■•: :'■. ii." x'-.is iiothii.'jj in th*- v 
■ ■ .. .1 i,L\.* ;.i.;' <-.;'!' liven then, it .' 
■ .ii\( 'A i: ':■:■■, uki-iior quil'Min,!;; a-^ l^^ t'. 

'■ (■•^-■,-. t-i'r !!..-n vv<H;!J v'.ill collect. 

[• 1 ; . i::i ■ ■■\:::i in '■■■•. 'i.::i nr.t";'^. hi'-n in th- 

' i:. 1-...IC ■;. l;:r-->' ■■(■■■i;ic ( oilt ctcd in a qaiv: 
■;;m): r v.- . vVjv.ie I =_.tT: bvvift to his Stella in 1 7 
■ I ^v;,--. .'. ! -.'.'.'• •v.r.\-. ih-^- tt'o!.-.>e!!cr's. to sec a tin-,- 
i^^'r.'t'." ■ - IM-, i-'..:',,hr ; :inil n">y fi..f;ers itchtd. r-s ■.■ 
v-oi.'-. ■■ .;! .1 i.'.'-iv.i ?1h.ji: i..ut I resisted, and t-~-.. 
CA'ci ; ■-'.:!"' ; 'i- > d. ar, ,inJ I hz\c fooled away too rp .■ 
ni.':,.Y I' .A V. >\ ■.vvemW.' W'alpole and the great . 
• :s,-' '.Ts ■■! M'iiVs time paid their pound-, \\\: 
■idrtd 1 ti'-d.-y \.!,»uld be of no avail. vVaIpoi>: »\ v" 
PI Str;v.l>ciiy Hill in 1770: — ' Another r.i/-: i:. : ■ 



If" 



if 
I 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE COLLECTING OP COLOURED BOOKS: A NOTE 
ON CATALOGUES AND PRICES 

'TT is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but 
I when he has gone on his way, then he boasteth.' 
■•- Old as the days of Solomon and his proverbs are 
the joy of collecting, the delight of snapping up uncon- 
siderOT trifles, the keen excitement of 'chop, swop, 
barter, or exchange,' the pride in a bargain fairly won. 
It is a fit subject for the philosopher, this obsessing 
instinct that makes men gather things old and rare, 
often for the mere pride of their possession. There is 
a story, possibly apocryphal, of a secretary of the Society 
of Antiquaries, who was heard to utter the pious aspira- 
tion, ' Would to God there was nothing in this world 
older than a new-laid egg I ' Even then, it may be 
affirmed, without much ulterior quibbling as to the age 
of new-laid ^gs, that men would still collect. The 
passion is inherent in human nature, bom in the blood. 
' In tea-cup times ' people collected in a quiet and 
sober way. Wrote Dean Swift to his Stella in lyii : — 
' I was at Bateman's, the bookseller's, to see a fine old 
library he has bought ; and my fingers itched, as yours 
would do at a china shop ; but I resisted, and found 
everything too dear, and I have fooled away too much 
money that way already.' Walpole and the great con- 
noisseurs of Swift's time paid their pounds, where 
hundreds to-day would be of no avail. Walpole writes 
from Strawberry Hill in 1770: — 'Another rage is (or 
300 



i MU \ X V 



'. ! ■ 



,01.( = 'v"RKI) BOOKS? A \'j". '■ 
:'-./I-S AND FRJCLS 



nv;.>n liSV->. tlien Ku '"i ;; 

-.-if S<ii,!ni(in and his j-r.^vt- 

.• iJK* (icii.i^'ht <jt snapping U]> ;i 

■ : k^vn cN* 'ttrncnt of 'chti!. 

' -■;.' till prii'e in a bargain fiurl". 

- ..t Tir thi^ ph:i*>-;(:i>iuT, thi^ ■■! ' 

:-. ■'■:■:•': v\ci-i t-v.l' .T thi'-'^'s old .<:. i 

,;.■;. .v' .-.i\- ' i!.i f .1 -cnt.iry of tl'C- 
:.s. w -.> \ -•-- h ...irii i . ii'l:..T t! e piO!:~ .1 
■J t>(: ■.. t':.'ic v-.i.-^ uoth'it.-^ in thi- ■> 

.1 I ■;■.■. :.,. ; r- ;■ ' ' l',^cn thcii. it ■ 
Vi '■ ■![ [■ ■■■■': ul ^ ■■ -iir {'■lil.il'liii','" .i ; ;. ' ' 

::!i;.v:nt i.i i=. .: : n.-.ti!.c. 1 'n in ;1 '■■ 
: ■■••> tii.;--s ■ 1 ' ■ ■. ■'■ ; Si'v-' tc.l ii; ;i ■. '■ 
^^'l .;o W-.y- ;-.-■'* tn jiis .Stf-I';i ii; ! 

..:r-.:;,'s. i:;. !• .;. -llT's. to -r.; ^ 
I- ; ^-i h; ; .■'. ! ;■ v i: .. --rs iii-hc.!. :■. 



If 



CATALOGUES AND PRICES 

prints of English portraits. I have been collecting 
them for above thirty years, and originally never gave 
for a noezzotint above one or two shillings. The lowest 
are now a crown, most from half-a-^inea to a guinea.' 
Now that artxollecting is a fashionable mania, it is 
fenced in on every side with the barriers of modem 
commercialism. There are corners in pictures and 
prints no less than in wheat and steel. ' Bulls * and 
' bears * make a zoological garden of Christie's and 
Sotheby's, as well as the Stock Exchange. 

The itch for collecting is almost as widespread and 
fatal a disease as the cacoethes scrtbendi, and at the 
same time it is infinitely more expensive as an amuse- 
ment. The big game — pictures, china, jewellery, and 
what not — seems to have become the preserve of the 
millionaire. But those whose aspirations are limited 
by the length (^ their purse may still find solace in the 
collecting of books. The coloured books of which we 
write, thoi^h not to be found in the fourpenny-box, 
can still be had for a moderate price. ' With Coloured 
Plates ' is now one of the finger-posts of booksellers' 
catalogues ; and Ackermann, Rowlandson, Aiken, 
Baxter, and other names that have figured in our past 
chapters, are writ large among the prominent catch- 
words. If these coloured books are rising in price, the 
rise is natural and Intimate. It is due not only to 
their intrinsic merits, but also to their increasing rarity, 
and the reason for this is not far to seek. 

Any second-hand bookseller's catalogue of to-day 
contains a delightful quantity of varied entertainment 
for the lover of books. Most irritating, as a rule, the 
catalc^e entries are, with their haphazard headings 
and their unscientific arrangement. My personal in- 
terest, however, lies less in these than in the brevier 
notes that come at intervals to enliven the page. So 
long as these notes content themselves with saying of 
a Iraok — and it must be understood that I quote from 

301 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

catalogues before me — that ' this is a beautiful ^voric 
for the drawing-room table,' or ' a prize for collectors/ 
or that ' the female figures are particularly charming/ 
or that it is ' a scurrilous publication/ then their com- 
ments may be pardoned. So also when they contain 
a touch of unconscious humour. The Dictionary of 
English Authors, offered for the ridiculous sum of 
two and sixpence, is unblushingly claimed to be ' Alli- 
bone, Lowndes, and the Dictionary of National 
Biography condensed into a handy volume/ Of the 
Illustraitons of British Mycology, by Mrs. T. J. 
Hussey, we are told that 'the figures are so faithful 
that there can be no difficulty in at once determining 
with certainty the objects they are intended to repre- 
sent.' These notes may even be forgiven for occasional 
ventures in literary criticism. Of Fatrbum's Rverlast- 
ing Songster, for instance, with its Cruikshank illustra- 
tions, we read : — ' This is a ripping collection, including 
a laig^e number of the famous " patter songs," full of 
witty hits and funny passages. The music-hall singers 
of to-day should remtroduce this feature. I have 

heard some of them try, — but ' 

Such remarks as tiie above are harmless, and often 
edifying, not to say amusing. They have a way, how- 
ever, these brevier notes, of recommending ruthless 
destruction with a persuasiveness that is all the more 
dangerous because there is something seductive and 
innocent and insinuating in the very nature of brevier 
type. They sing in various keys a siren's song that 
has lured to destruction many a stout-bound volume, 
shattered its sturdy back, and made flotsam and jetsam 
of pages of fair and valuable text. Aiken's National 
sports of Great Britain, we are told, is * a unique set 
for framing purposes.' Of Orme's Oriental Field 
sports it is said — ' These famous plates measure 22 x 18 
inches, and framed would make a fascinating series to ' 
adorn a smoking-room.' Frequent remarks are made 
302 



CATALOGUES AND PRICES 

to the effect that ' every plate is worthy of framing,' or 
' to cut up for the fine plates, copy is worth more than 
the price now asked.' 

Then there are those higher flights, perhaps less 
dangerous because they amuse the more. ' These 
loveTy plates,' says the note on F^nelon's Adventures 
of Telemachus, 'disposed in groups of twelves and 
eights in frames, would make a notable addition to the 
mural ornamentation of a home of taste, where art was 
not only respected, but represented.' Next comes one 
that surely by its style and solemn aposiopesis he that 
runs may mark as the work of our litenuy frequenter 
of the halls of music. Bartolozzi's VAtnico dei Fan- 
ciulli is the book in question, and — says the note — ' the 
book itself is such a pretty one, and so nice an example 
of a superior child's txnk of last century, that it would 
be a pity to — but, really, those Bartolozzis in black and 
gold frames r With the ethics of bookselling we are 
not concerned, and, after all, these notes are but the 
modern translation of the more outspoken, ' What d 'ye 
lack, noble sir?' 'What d'ye lack, beauteous madam?' 
with which passing squire and dame in olden days 
were wheedled and cajoled. ' But yet, the pity of 
itr 

These notes, none the less, are signs of the times, 
and the very fact that booksellers think it worth while 
to print such cruel suggestions shows that there is a 
constant demand for coloured plates for the purpose of 
framing. If further proof be wanted, it will be found 
in the fact that the plates are often offered singly for 
sale. I note, for instance, in a 1902 catalc«^e, a list of 
several plates from Orme's Oriental FielaSforts, sold 
separately at 6s. and 7s. 6d. apiece, and from Rowland- 
son's Loyal Voltmteers at ss. each, and must myself 
plead guilty to having purchased plates by Danietl at 
an even smaller price. But there is yet another source 
of destruction to coloured books, one fortunately less 

303 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

frequent than it used to be — I mean 'the pernicious 
vice of cutting plates and title-pages out of many books 
to illustrate one book ' that has made the name of 
Granger immortal. Books of portraits, of topography, 
and of costume, are among the first to suffer, and 
Ackermann's Microcosm of London and Daniell's 
Voyage round Great Britain are prominent examples. 
Lysons's Magna Britannia was recently offered for sale 
at £(x>, extra illustrated with the fine series of plates 
by Byrne for Heame's Antiquities of Great Britain, 
the set of Thames views by Farington, and several 
plates from Pyne's Royal Residences — ^thus involving 
the ruin of three superb books. The catalogues, you 
will find, speak politely of these inserted excerpts as 
' extra illustrations,' and chai?e extra accordingly — ^but 
alas for the poor victims whose glory is departed, no 
longer to be proudly described as 'a unique copy, 
uncut, in the original covers, complete ' I 

All these adversities make the scarcity and the con- 
sequent high prices of coloured books easy to under- 
stand — indeed, it is to be wondered that the prices 
have risen no higher. The difficulties of colour printing 
and of colouring by hand have always caused coloured 
books to appear in a limited and comparatively expen- 
sive edition. Of most of Ackernnann's books, for 
instance, only a thousand copies were printed, so that 
allowing for shrinkage by wear and tear, the ravages of 
time, and the mutilation for purposes of framing or 
'extra-illustration,' it will be seen that a sound cow, in 
good condition, of the Oxford or Cambridge, the iVest- 
tninster Abbey or the Microcosm of London, is a distinct 
rarity, and therefore has a reasonable claim to an 
enhanced price. 

Any one whose work connects him with a library is 
constantly besieged by well-meaning friends and rela- 
tions anxious to learn the value of books of which they 
wish to dispose. Now, unless you happen to have 
304 



CATALOGUES AND PRICES 

been making a study of recent market prices of the 
particular chss of book in question, it is difficult, and 
well-nigh impossible, to state a price. Personally, if I 
have reason to think the book of value, I advise the 
owner to send it to Sotheby's, and obtain what will be 
the fair market price, minus of course the commission. 
This chapter, however, may meet the eye of some 
owners of books to whom tt may not be untimely to 
utter a word of warning. The ignorant book-owner is 
very apt to be attracted by an advertisement to this 
effect — ' Books wanted, all First Editions, Original 
Bindings, unless otherwise stated,' or ' j£^ offeFed for 
the following . . .' With the ethics of bookselling, as 
was said before, I am not concerned, and the vendor 
may in this way get a fair price without trouble. Mr. 
Andrew Lang, however, recently drew attention to the 
enormous discrepancy existing in many cases between 
the amounts offered by these advertisers and the actual 
prices of the auction-room, which can readily be found 
m Slater's BooJk Prices Current. In a recent weekly 
paper I noted an offer of twenty-five shillings lot Jor- 
rocks' Jaunts and Jollities, whereas in booksellers* 
catalogues the third edition is priced at three to five 
guineas, and a good copy of the first edition is worth 
considerably more. Another offer of twenty-five shil- 
lings was made for Hawbuck Grange, a book worth 
two or three pounds in good condition. In another 
place j^3 is offered for Ireland's Life of Napoleon, but 
m the current catalogues the price runs from jQzo to 
j^30. A still more startling example, though not re- 
lating to a coloured book, has just come to my notice. 
Among ' Books wanted, 25s. each offered,' comes Shel- 
ley's Fictore and Cazire, 1810, a book of which four 
copies at the most are known ; and for the last one sold 
Mr. T. J. Wise had to pay the heavy ransom of jQ^tyo ! 
The advertiser seems to realise the absurdity, for a few 
weeks later he names no amount, but says simply ' a 
u 30s 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

high price paid.' Advertisers, indeed, are rapidly 
' bwoming more shy in offering cash prices in black 
and white, but this makes it the more necessary that 
the unwary book-collector should be forewarned and 
forearmed. 



306 



APPENDIX I 

COLOURED BOOKS WITH PLATES PRINTED 
BY BAXTER 

MuDiE, R. Feathered Tribes of the British Isles. 

Two vols., with vignette title in each. 1834. 
Fisher's Drawing-Room Scrap Book. Frontispiece. 

1835- 
Gandee, B. F. The Artist, or Instructor in Painting, 

Drawing, etc. Frontispiece and bordered title. 

1835- 
MuDiE, R. The Seasons : Spring, Summer, Autumn, 

and Winter. Four vols., with frontispieces and 

vignette titles. 1835-37. 
MuDiE, R. The Firmaments : The Earth, the Air, 

the Heavens, the Sea. Four vols., with frontispieces 

and vignette titles. 1835-38. 
Peter Parley's Annual. With folding plate. 1835. 
Baxter, J. Agricultural and Horticultural Gleaner. 

Frontispiece and title-page. 1836. 
Garland of Love. Frontispiece. 1836. 
Germany and the Germans in 1834, 1835, and 1836. 

Two vols. Frontispieces. 1836. 
Baxter's Pictorial Album, or Cabinet of Paintings for 

the year 1837. "Ten plates and vignette title. 1837. 
Saunders, E. Advice on the Teeth. Frontispiece. 

1837- 

307 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Williams, J. Narrative of Missionary Enterprise with 
South Sea Islanders. Frontispiece to first edition, 
and in later editions another portrait. 1837-39. 

M'Intosh, C. The Greenhouse. The first edition 
(1837) has one plate by Baxter, the second (1838) 
has about half a dozen. 1837-38. 

MuDiE, R. Man in his physical structure ; Man in his 
intellectual faculties ; Man as a moral and account- 
able beine ; Man in his relations to society. Four 
vols., with frontispieces and vignette titles. 1838-40. 

Medhurst, W. H. China, its state and prospects. 
Engravings on wood by Baxter, and coloured 
frontispiece. 1838. 

Cook, E. Melaia and other Poems. Frontispiece and 
vignette on title. 1838. 

Elus, Rev. W. Histoiy of Madagascar. Frontis- 
piece. 1838. 

Campbell, J. British India, etc. Frontispiece. 1839. 

Wilson, Rev. S. S. A Narrative of Greek Missions. 
Frontispiece. 1839. 

Campbell, J. Maritime Discovery and Christian 
Missions. Frontispiece. 1840. 

Freeman and Jones. Persecutions of the Christians 
in Madagascar. One plate. 1840. 

Shells and their Inmates. Frontispiece. 1841. 

Nicolas, Sir N. H. History of the Order of Knight- 
hood. Fully illustrated by Baxter. Four vols. 1842. 

MOFPAT, R. Missionary Labours and Scenes in 
Southern Africa. Wood-engravings by Baxter, 
and coloured frontispiece. I&t2. 

Campbell, J. The Martyr of Erromanga. Frontis- 
piece. 1842. 

MiLNER, Rev. T. Astronomy and the Scripture. 
Frontispiece. 1843. 
308 



PLATES BY BAXTER 

Transactions of the British and Foreign Institute. 
One plate. 1845. 

Child's Companion for 1846. Frontispiece. 1846. 

Child's Companion for 1847. Frontispiece. 1847. 

Sherwood, Mrs. Social Tales for the Young. Front- 
ispiece. 1847. 

Le Souvenir, or Pocket Tablet for 1847. Several illus- 
trations. 1847. 

Mallet, P. H. Northern Antiquities. Frontispiece. 
, 1847. 

Child's Companion for 1848. Frontispiece. 1848. 

Child's Companion for 1849. Frontispiece. 1849. 

Child's Companion for 1850. Frontispiece. 1850. 

Humboldt, F. H. A. Views of Nature. Frontispiece. 
1850. 

Female Agency among the Heathen. Folding plate. 
1850. 

Child's Companion for i8sl Frontispiece. 1851. 

Baxter's Pictorial Key to the Great Exhibition. Two 
plates. 1851. 

Waterhouse, Rev. J. Vah-ta-ah, the Feejeean 
Princess. 1857. 

Not dated 
Elliot, M. Tales for Boys. Frontispiece. 
Loiterings among the Lakes. Frontispiece. 
Perennial, The. Frontispiece. 
Sights in all Seasons. Frontispiece. 
Sherwood, Mrs. Caroline Mordaunt. Frontispiece. 
Wilson, H. C. England's Queen and Prince Albert 

Two portraits. 
Wilson, Rev. S. S. Sixteen years in Malta and 

Greece. Frontispiece. (184 — \ 

309 



APPENDIX II 
COLOURED BOOKS PUBLISHED BY R. ACKERMANN 

•The Loyal Volunteers of London and Environs. 
87 pi. by Rowlandson. 1799. 

Costume of the Russian Army. 8 pi. 1807. 

Costume of the Swedish Army. 24 pi. 1808. 

The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manu- 
facture, and Politics. Issued monthly. 1809- 
1828. 

•The Poetical Magazine. (Issued monthly.) 1809- 
1811. 

• The Microcosm of London ; or London in Miniature. 

Text to vols. I and 2 by W. H. Pyne ; to vol. 3 
by W. Combe. 104 pi. by Pugin and Rowland- 
son. 1810. 

New ed. ' Burlington Library of Coloured 
Books.' Methuen, 1904. 
The History of the Abbqr Church of St Peter's, West- 
minster. Text by W. Combe. 83 pi. 1812. 

• The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque. 

Text by W. Combe. (This is the first Tour only ; 
published originally in the Poetical Magazine.) 
31 pi. I8l2. 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 
Historical Sketch of Moscow. 12 pi. 1813. 

* S«e also Appendix III. 
310 



PUBLISHED BY R. ACKERMANN 

* Poetical Sketches of Scarborough. Text by J. B. Pap- 

worth, Rev. F. Wrangham, and W. Combe. 21 
pi. by Rowlandson. 1813. 

History of the University of Oxford. 81 pi. (including 
17 of costume), and 32 supplementary portraits of 
Founders. 1814. 

History of the University of Cambridge. 79 pi. (in- 
cluding 15 of costume), and 15 supplementary 
portraits of Founders. 1814. 

Sketches of Russia. 15 pi. 1814. 

• The Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome. 1 2 pi. 

by Rowlandson. 1815. 

A Series of Portraits of the Emperors of Turkey. 31 
pi. by J. Young. 1815. 

• Naples and the Campagna Felice. By Lewis Engel- 

bach. (Published originally in the 'Repository,' 
1809-15, with the title, ' Letters from Italy.') 18 
pi. by Rowlandson. 1815. 

* The English Dance of Death. By W. Combe. 74 pi. 

(including frontispiece and title-page) by Rowland- 
son. 1816. 
New edition. Methuen, 1904. 

•The Grand Master; or. Adventures of Qui Hi in 
Hindostan. 28 pi. 1816. 

History of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton, and West- 
minster; with the Charterhouse and the Schools 
of St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, Rugby, 
and Christ's Hospital. Text by W. Combe and 
W. H. Pyne. 48 pi. 1816. 

Hints for Improving the Condition of the Peasantry. 
By R. Elsam. 10 pi. 1816. 

* See also Appendix III. 

311 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Select Views of London. Text by J. B. Papworth. 
(Published originally in the 'Repository, 1810- 
15.) 76 pi. 1816. 

• The Dance of Life. By W. Combe. 26 pi. by Row- 

landson. 1817. 
New edition. Methuen, 1904. 
Costume of the Netherlands. 30 pi. 1817. 

* The Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith. 24 

pi. by Rowlandson. 181 7. 

New edition. Methuen, 1903. 

Rural Residences. Text by J. B. Papworth. (Pub- 
lished originally in the ' Repository,' 1816-17, with 
the title ' Architectural Hints.) 27 pi. 1818. 

* The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of Consolation. By 

W. Combe. 24 pi. by Rowlandson. 1820. 

New edition. Methuen, 1904. 

Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Monte 
Video. By E. E. Vidal. 24 pi. 1820. 

A Picturesque Tour of the Rhine from Metz to Cologne. 
By Baron von Geming. 24 pi. 1820. 

A Picturesque Tour from Geneva to Milan. By F. 
Shoberl. (Published originally in the 'Reposi- 
tory,' 1818-20.) 36 pi. 1820. 

A Picturesque Tour of the Seine. By M. Sauvan. 
24 pi. 1821. 

A Picturesque Tour of the English Lakes. 48 pi. 
1821. 

• The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of a Wife. 24 pi. 

by Rowlandson. 1821. 

* See also Appendix III. 

312 



PUBLISHED BY R. ACKERMANN 

* Sentimentai Travels in the Southern Provinces of 

France. (Published originally in the ' Repository,' 
1817-20.) 18 pi. by Rowlandson. 1821. 
History of Madeira. By W. Combe. 27 pi. 1821. 
The World in Miniature. 42 vols. Edited by F. 
Shoberl. 1821-1827. 

Illyria and Daloiatia. 2 vols. 1B21, 

Auica. 4 vols. 1821. 

Turkey. 6 vols. 1821. 

Hindostan. 6 vols. 1822. 

Persia. 3 vols. 1822. 

Russia. 4 vols. 1822-23. 

Austria. 2 vols. 1823. 

China. 2 vols. 1823. 

Japan, i vol. 1823, 
-^ The Netherlands. 1 voL 1823. 

The South Sea Islands. 2 vols. 1834. 

The Asiatic Islands. 2 vols. 1S34. 

Tibet I vol. 1834. 

Spain and Portugal. 2 vols. 1825. 

England, Scotland, and Ireland. 4 vols. 1827. 

Illustrations of Japan. By M. Titsingh. 1 1 pi. 1822. 

* The History of Johnny Quae Genus. By W. Combe. 

24 pi. by Rowlandson. 1822. 
New edition. Methuen, 1904. 
Hints on Ornamental Gardening. By J. B. Papworth. 

(Published originally in the ' Repository.') 34 pi. 

1823. 
A Picturesque Tour through the Oberland in the Canton 

of Berne. (Publishal originally in the ' Reposi- 
tory,' 1821-22.) 17 pi. 1823. 
Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe. By W. D. Fel- 

lowes. 1823. 
A Picturesque Tour along the rivers Ganges and Jumna. 

26 pi. 1824. 

* See also Appendix III. 

313 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Academy for Grown Horsemen. By G. Gambado. 

27 pi. 1825. 
A Picturesque Tour of the Thames. 24 pi. 1828. 
Characters in the Grand Fancy Ball given by the 

British Ambassador, Sir Henry Wellesley, at 

Vienna, 1826. 1828. 
The History and Doctrine of Buddhism. By E. 

Upham. 43 pi. 1829. 
Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture, chiefly on the 

western side of India. By Captain R. M. Grind- 

1^. 36 pi. (Two parts issued by Ackermann in 

1826; but published finally by Smith, Hlder.) 

1830. 



314 



APPENDIX III 



COLOURED BOOKS WITH PLATES BY ROWLANDSON 



Jones, E. Musical Bouquet, or Popular Songs and 

Ballads, etc. Frontispiece. Sm. obi. 4to. 1799. 
The Loyal Volunteers of London and Environs. 87 pi. 

4to. Ackermann, 1799. 
Hungarian and Highland Broadsword Exercise. 24 pi. 

Obi. fol. H. Angelo, 1799. 
Jones, E. The Bardic Museum ; or Primitive British 

Literature, etc. Frontispiece. Fol. 1802. 
Jones, E. Selection of the most Admired and Original 

German Waltzes. Frontispiece. Sm. obi. 4to. 

1806. 
Beresford, T. Pleasures of Human Life, Investigated 

in a Dozen Dissertations. 5 pi. Cr. 8vo. 1807. 
Chesterfield Travestie, or School for Modern Manners. 

Folding front, etc. Post 8vo. Tegg, 1808. 
Brown, T. Beauties, consisting of Humorous Pieces 

in Prose and Verse. Folding frontispiece. 1808. 
The Microcosm of London, or London in Miniature. 

104 pi. by Rowlandson and Pugin. 3 vols. 

Roy. 4to. Ackermann, 1808-10. 
New ed. 'Burlington Library of Coloured 

Books.' Methuen, 1904. 
The Miseries of Human Life. 50 pi. 1808. 
Stevens, G. A. A Lecture on Heads. Folding 

frontispiece. Sm. 8vo. 1808. 

315 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting. 5 
pi. by Rowlandson after G. M. Woodward. Sm. 
8vo. Tegg, 1809. 

Tile Poetical Magazine. PI. by Rowlandson, etc. 
(including original series for 'Dr. Syntax in Search 
of the Picturesque"). 4 vols. 8vo. Ackermann, 
1809-11. 

Surprising Adventures of the renowned Baron Mun- 
chausen. 8 pi. Svo. 1809. 

Sterne, L. Sentimental Journey through France and 
Italy. 2 pi. i2mo. Tegg, 1809. 

The Beauties of Sterne. 2 pi. 12 mo. Tegg, 1809. 

DR. SYNTAX — FIRST TOUR 

Combe, W. The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the 
Picturesque. 31 pi. Roy. 8vo. Ackermann, 1812. 

Four editions were published in i8i2, the fifth 
in 1813, sixth in 1815, seventh in 1817, eighth in 
1819. New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

French edition. ' Le Don Quichotte Romantique, 
ou Voyage du Docteur Syntaxe, h la Recherche da 
Pittoresque.' 26 pi. Paris, 182 1. 

German edition. 'Die Reise des Doktors Syntax 
um das Malerische aufzusuchen.' 31 pi. £!erlin, 
1822. 

DR. SYNTAX — SECOND TOUR 

CoMBE, W. The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of 
Consolation. 24 pi. Roy. Svo. Ackermann, 182a 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

DR. SYNTAX — ^THIRD TOUR 

CoMBE, W. The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of a 
Wife. 25 pi. Roy. 8vo. Ackermann, 1821. 

New ed. Methuen, 1904. 
316 



PLATES BY ROWLANDSON 

DR. SYNTAX — COLLECTED EDITIONS 

Combe, W. The Three Tours of Dr. Syntax. A 
miniature ed. 80 pi. i6ino. Ackermann, 1823. 

Later reprints by Nattali and Bond, and by J. 
Camden Hotten. 

New ed. in 3 vols. Methuen, 1904. 

DR. SYNTAX — IMITATIONS, ETC. 

{TAe plates not by Rowlandson^ 

The Tour of Dr. Syntax through London. 20 pi. 

Roy. 8vo. 1820. 
Syntax in Paris, or a Tour in search of the Grotesque. 

17 pi. Roy. 8vo. 1820. 

The Tour of Dr. Prosody, in search of the Antique and 
Picturesque. 20 pi. 8vo. 1821. 

Adventures of Dr. Comicus, a comic satirical poem for 
the Squeamish and the Queer. 8vo. Blake, n.d. 

Dr. Comicus, or the Frolics of Fortune. 15 pi. 8vo. 
Jacques and Wright, n.d. 



Poetical Sketches of Scarborough. 21 pi. by Row- 
landson after T. Green. 8vo. Ackermann, 1813. 

Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome. 15 pi. 8vo. 
Ackermann, 1815. 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

Naples and the Campagna Felice. 18 pi. Roy. 8vo. 
Ackermann, 181 5. 

The Grand Master: or. Adventures of Qui Hi in 
Hindostan. 28 pi. Roy. 8vo. Ackermann, i8i6. 

317 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 

Combe, W. The English Dance of Death. 72 pL 

(Originally in 24 monthly parts, 1815-16.) 2 vols. 

Roy. 8vo. Ackermann, 1816. 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 
Combe, W. The Dance of Life. 26 pi. (Originally 

in 8 monthly parts, 181 7.) Roy. 8vo. Ackermana, 

1817. 

New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

Goldsmith, O. The Vicar of Wakefield. 24 pL 
Ackermann, 181 7. 

Burton, A. Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the 
Navy. i6 pi. 8vo. 1818. 
Newed. Methuen, 1904. 

The Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders. 54 
pi. i2mo. Leigh, 1820. 

Journal of Sentimental Travels in the Southern Pro- 
vinces of France. 18 pi. Roy. 8va Ackermann, 
1821. 

Real Life in London, Rambles and Adventures of Bob 
Tallyho, Esq., etc. (PI. by Rowlandson and 
others.) 2 vols. 8vo. 1822. 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

Combe, W. The History of Johnny Quae Genus. 
24 pi. Roy. 8vo. Ackermann, 1822. 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

Westmacott, R. The English Spy. (2 pi. by Row- 
landson, the rest by R. Cruiksnank.) 8vo. 1827. 



318 



APPENDIX IV 
COLOURED BOOKS WITH PLATES BY ALKEN 

The Beauties and Defects in the Figure of the Horse, 

comparatively delineated. i8 pi. Imp. 8vo. S. 

and J. Fuller, 1816.. 
Reprint, 1881. 
Specimens of Riding near London. 14 pi. Ob. fol. 

M'Lean, 1821. 
• The National Sports of Great Britain. 50 pi. Fol. 

M'Lean, 1821. 
New ed. * Burlington Library of Coloured 

Books.' Methuen, 1903. 
Real Life in Ireland. (Contains 19 pi. by H. A. and 

others.) 8vo. 1821. 
4th ed. Evans [1822]. 
Real Life in London. (Contains 32 pi. by H. A. and 

others.) 2 vols. 8vo. 1821-24. 
Symptoms of Being Amused. 42 pi. Ob. fol. M'Lean, 

1822. 
Illustrations to Popular Songs. 42 pi. Ob. fol. 

M'Lean, 1823. 
A Touch at the Fine Arts. 12 pi. Imp. 8vo. M'Lean, 

1824. 
Aiken's Sporting Scrap Book. 50 pi. Sm. ob. fol. 

M'Lean, 1824. 
Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man. 7 pi. Ob. fol. 

M'Lean, 1824. 

* See also p. 330. 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 
British Proverbs. 6 pi. Ob. fol. Ackermann, 1824. 

* The National Sports of Great Britain. 50 pi. M'Lean, 
1825. 

Egan, p. Sporting Anecdotes, (i pi. only by H. 
Aiken.) Sherwood, 1825. 

'Nimrod' (C. J. Apperley). The Chace, the Turf, 
and the Road, (ist ed. 1837.) 1st ed. with 
the 14 pi. by H. Aiken coloured. 8vo. Murray, 
1870. 

Vyner, R. T. Notitia Venatica. 8 pi. 8vo. Acker- 
mann, 1841. 

' Nimrod ' (C. J. Apperley). Memoirs of the Life of 
John Mytton, Esq. ist ed. 12 pi. 8vo. Acker- 
mann, 1837. 

2nd ed. 18 pi. Ackermann, 1837. 

3rded. Ackermann, 185 1. 

4th ed. 1869. 

5th ed. 187a 

6th ed. 1877. 

7th ed. 1899. 

New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

' Nimrod ' (C. J. Apperley). The Life of a Sports- 
man. 36 pi. Roy. 8vo. Ackermann, 1842. 
Another ed. 1873. 
Another ed. 1874. 
Another ed. 1901. 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

Anal}rsis of the Hunting Field. 7 pi. 8vo. 1846. 
New ed. Methuen, 1904. 

Aiken's Hunting Accomplishments. 6 pi. Ob. fol. 
Fores, 1850. 

* The plates ire different from thoie of Zb National Sports, i8ai. 
320 



PLATES BY ALKEN 

SuRTEES, R. Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities, ist ed. 
(PI. by ' Phiz.T 1838. 

2naed. 16 pi. by H. Aiken. 1843. 

A reprint of the 2nd ed. Methuen, 1904. 
3rd ed. Routledge, 1869. 
4th ed. 1874. 
5th ed. 1893. 

6th ed. (PI. by H. Aiken and ' Phiz.') 1900. 
7th ed. „ „ 1901. 

Reynardson, C. T. S. Birch. Down the Road, or 
Reminiscences of a Gentleman Coachman. 12 pi. 
Roy. 8vo. Longmans, 1875. 
Blew, W. C. A. The Quom Hunt and its Masters. 
24 pi. (12 coloured). Roy. 8vo. 1889. 
New ed. 1899. 
Blew, W. C. A. A History of Steeplechasing. 28 pi. 
(chiefly after H. Aiken). Roy. 8vo. 189L 
New ed. 1901. 



aai 



GENERAL INDEX 

(Tf/bs efboehs ea^ printed in italies.) 



Abney, Sir W. 393 

AbsolcHi, 1 364 

Amdimyfor Grown horsemen, . 313 
Account of London, ffes/mimfer, 

and Soutkwark, • T^ 

Ackentumi, R., 38, 69, 73, 87, 89, 90, 

9I1 94i 95. 96-118. las, 126, 139, 

1301 143. "49. »5o. 160-3. "65-7, 

169-72, 179, 185, 186, 189, 334, 

301, 310-14. 
Addison, C. G., . . 316 

Adoen/urts ofI>r. Cemau, . 168, 317 
Adwnturet i^ Johnny Nttoeome in 

the Navy, . 173.318 

Admx on the lie/h, .307 

A^iea, 114 

Afriean Seetitry and Animals, . 133 

Agar, — , 65 

JT 105, 106 

Ainswcnth, H., .... 194 

Air, The, 34 

Aitken, — , 337 

Albin, E., 12 

Alexander, W., . . 151,153 

Alexandri JUagni Segis Maeedo- 

num Vita, .16 

Alix,P. M., 46.66 

Aiken, G., 181 

HeniT,89, 177-87. 198-9. ao'.3oi 

Henry Gordon, . . iSi 

■ S., .... 177. 178 

Alketfs Hunting Aefomflishments, 320 

porting Scrap Book, . , 319 

Allingham, Mts., . 397 

Almanacks {¥jAc On)aia.yia.ffi), . 378 
Alfhahets, Numerais, and Dances, a6i 
America : a J'nrpheey, . . 78, 83-5 
Amman, Jost, .... 6 
Amstel, PIooB nn, 57-61 



Anafysis of the Hunting Fltld, 187, 
Amient Piatt and Furniture , , . of 

Oxford, 

Spanish Ballads, 

Andr^ and Sleigh, . 396, 

Andrie, — , .... 
Angelo, H., . 160, 163, 

Annals of Sporting, 
Annie and Jack in London, . 

Apperley, C J 185, 

April Baifs Booh of Jitnes, 
Agua JVctura, .... 
Aquatint, coloured: illustrations, 

59. 6a, 64, 65, 68, 70, 87-175, 1 

186, 191, 193, 197-9. 
: technique, 10, 28, 39, 

40, 46, 86-95, 108-10, 117, 133, 
Architectural Jiematns . . . of 

Elisabeth and James I., . 

Sketches for Cottages, . 

ArchsteOure of the JkHddie Ages, . 

Aresti, J., 

Army and Ifaoy Birthday Book, . 

of Russia, .... 

Art Album, .... 

and Proftice of Btthit^, 178, 

Art Journal, .... 

of Ckromo-Lithegraphy, 339, 

of Drawing and Colouring 

from Nature, .... 
of Drawing and Painting in 

WaUr-Colours, 11, 336, : 
•^^ ^ Painting in Oyl, etc., 10, 
Treasures of the t/nited 

Xingdom, .... 

Artist, The 

or Instructor in Piiinting, . 

Art Union, .... 
Asbt?, R., 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



PAGB 

Asiatic Iilands, . ■ i ' 5 

Ask Mama, .... 313 
As Nature shows tfum : ifelhs 

and Bulterflits, . 331 

Astronomy and tke ScriptHre, . 308 
Atkins, — , . ■ I'S 

Atkinson, j. A., . .138,153,154-6 
Andsley, G. A., . . 339, 353 

Auer, A., . 331-7,330,331 

Aunt Louisas Thy-Books, . . 377 

Austria, 115 

Authentic Memoirs of George 

-Morland, 71, 134, 135 

AyrWn, R., . 138, 139 

Boies in the Wood, . aSi 

Bad^s Bouquet, .... 374 

Opera, . .374 

Own Aesop, . . 374 

Bailey, J., . . no, 146 

BaiUie, W., .... 56 

Baily.J., .... 143-4 
Bannister, J., . 160, i6a, 163 

bardic Museum of Primitive 

British Literature, . . 166,315 
Baronial Haiis of England, . 337 

Bairi^re, Cher, de la, . . 343 

B&rrymoie, W., . - 199 

Bartolozd, F., . 46, 54, 61-5. 

G 66 

Buire, J., . 61, 73 

Battle of Life, .... 310 
Baxter, G., 17, 18, 25, 33-44, 46, 53, 

283, 384, 301, 307-9. 

J 307 

BaxUt's PutonalKey to the Great 

Exhibition, .... 309 
Beauties and Defetts in the Figure 

of the Horse. . . 178, 181, 319 
Beauties, consisting of Humorous 

Bieces, 315 

Beauties of Sterne, . 167 

ofThmBromn, . . 167 

Beautiful Leaved LHants, . . 388 
Beauty and the Beast, 364, 374, 385 
Beckett, G. i, . .310 

Bedford, F. 353 

Bell. E. 134 

1 W., 71, 105, 106 

- W. J., . . . . .34 

324 



Bentley, C no, 115 

Beresford, T. 315 

Berners, Dame Juliana, 4 

Beiryman, J-, ■ • 3° 

Bewick, T., .... 35 

Bible £inilem Anniversary Booh, 369 
Bihliographica, .... 341 
Binyon,!., .... 195 

Black, A. and C, ■ 397 

Blackinantle, B., . 191, 193 

Blades, W., .... 4 

Blagdon, — 71 

F. W., . 133, 133, 13s, 137 

Blake, W., . . 16, 45, 73-86, 333 
Blake's Methods of Colonr-print- 

ing, . . 74-6, 81-3 

Blew, W. C A 187,331 

Bloemaert, A., . .18 

Blondel, — , .... 34 
Bluck, J., 90, 100, I03, 104-7, i'7i 

170. 
Bocqnet, E., .... 63 
Bohn, H., -71 

Bolton, T., 8 19 

BoDd, W., 71 

BoniAgton, R. P., . . 337, 345 
Bonner, G. W., . . . 30 

Book ofAhania, . 7^1 80, 85 

Booh of Common Prayer, 66, 3S6 

Book of Drawing, Limning, etc., . 10 
Book of Job, . 83. 8s, 86 

Book of St. Albans, 1-5, 10, 15, 

19. 



BoohofTheU . 




77, 83.85 


BookofUriten, . 


76, 80, 84, 8s 


Books of Shipping, 




■ "S 


Booth, J., . 




■ Ja4 


Borders, ornamental. 


.6, 


.86, >87 


Botanica in OriginaH, 




• "S 


Botanical Magasine, 




• ^3 


Bourlier, M. A., . 




«3,«S 


Boussod, Valadon et C 




..^ 


Bowyer, R., 14 


■, MS 


146, 148 


Boydell, J. and J., 


ki, 67 


..6, ,.7 


Boys, T. Shotter, 


247 


249, »S« 


Sracebridge HaU, 




. ^ 


Bradbuiy, H., 




3J3-30 


Bradbury, W., . 




. 3H 


BranBon, Dr., 




aa6, 327 


BnuutoD, A. R., . 




3o.»S9 



INDEX 



Bri^ Histvry of Anatnt end 

M&dtm India, . 
Brightly, G. M., . 
British Stiiterfiia, 

■ I}afite o/Dta/Jk, 

Galitry of Pitiurei 

• India, 

British Museum ; Library, 3, 5, 70, 

84, 339. 
Print Room, ai, 39, 46, 

57, 84. I9S- 
British J'nvtrht, . 330 

^ortsman, .135 

' ■ Water^Colour Art, . 297 

Brockedoo, W., . . .151 

Brooke, E. A., . . 154 

Brooks, S., ai4 

Vincent, . 43, 319, 343, 355 

Brookshaw, G 123 

Blown, J 307, 214 

— T., 315 

Browne, H. K. See' Phiz.' 

Bniyn, J. de, . .60 

Bryanft J>eatise on . . . Indian 

Inks and Colours, . . 117 

Biyson; R. M., .... 355 
Bullock, C. F., . . vii, 33 

Bunbnry, H., . 160, 189, 195 

Burice, — , 54 

Barney, E. F., . . loz 



Butterflies, colour-printed repro- 
ductions of, . . . 130-2 

Butts, — , 81 

Byfleld, J., 30 

Cabinet of the Arts, . . 118, 125 

Cadell, T., r43 

Caldecott, R., 179, 180, aso, 370-3, 

379-83, 
Caldwall,— , . . . . «8 
Camera ; or Art of Drawing in 

Water'ColoHTS, .131 

Can^ai^ in th€ Crimea, . 354 

Campbell, J., . . . . 308 
Canton, C. J., . . . 143 

Cardon, A., . . . 63, 65 

Carey, D., 199 

Caricaturists, English and French, 179, 

I So, 305-6. 



Caroline Mordaunt, . . 309 
Carpi, Ugo da, . . r6, ao, 31 
Cartwright, T., . . 14a, 144 
Catalogues, booksellers', . 300-6 
Catesby, M., .13 
Cattermole, G 337 

R.. 143 

Caxton, P. 3 

Caylus, Comte de, . a4 

Century of Birds, . 345 

Cerem^mial of the Coronation of 

King George IV., ... 69 
Chaee, the Turf, and the Road, . 185 
'Cham,' .... 179, 180 
Chamberlaine, J., . . . 63-4 

Chap-books 363 

Chanuteristie Shetehes of the Lower 

Orders, .... 173,318 
Characters in the Grand Fan^ 
Bail . . . at Vienna, . .116, 314 

Charles I., 398 

Chattering faek, .... 273 
Cheesman, — , . -65 

63 

Chesterfield TravesHt, . . 166,31$ 
Chiaroscuro engravitig ; iUustrations, 
a, 1S-15. 37. 30. 33- 

technique, 15*31, 37, 360, 

a6r. 
Children's Books, . 363-4, 366-83 
Chiles Companion, . . 309 

Chimes, The, . . aio 

China, xi% 

its state and prospects, . . 308 

Chiswick Press, The, . 94, 357-65 

Christmas Carol, . 209 

Chromo-lithography: book illus- 
trations, 40, 99, 943-56. See 
also Lithographs, band-coloured. 

technique, . 333-41, 393 

Chronifk of Et^nd, 
Cinderella, . 
Cipriani, G. B., . 
Clark, -^ . 

J.H, 

Clay, T. 



269 

364 
■ 65 
19, 146 
"3. 133. 135-*. 156. >8a 
. 119, laa, ra4, 144 
Coeh Bobin, . . .373 

Cole, Sir H., . . . . 363 
Colebrooke, R. H., . . . 131 
Coleman, W. S., . . . 369 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



PAGI 

Collecdi^ of coloured booka, 300-6 
CoUttiUmd'ImitaHotadeDtiUns, 59, 61 
—— of British Field Sports, . 135 

of Prints afttr . . . Cipriani, 6» 

of Prints in Imtaiion of 

Drittnngs, .61 

Collins, W., .... 145 
Collotype in colour-printiag, . 341 
Coiorito, . . -46) 50-3 

'Coloured Aquatint': defiiution 

of the tenn, . -94 

Cohurtd Serap-Book, . . .285 
Colour-printing, origin and first 

application of, . . • 3, 3 

Colours used in colour-printing, as, 

58, 75, 76, 80, 91, 3ti8. 
Combe, W., loi, 103, 106, 113, 136, 

163-4, 168-70. 173. 174. 175- 
Come,Lasset and Lads, . 383 

Comk A^hahet, .... 194 
-^^ History of England, . 310,311 

of Rome, . . 3io 

7\iles and Sketches, . . 216 

Commereial or Gentkman Timel- 
ier, rgi 

Common Objectsofthe Country, . 269 

■ of the Sea Shore, . . 169 

Waystde lowers, . . 369 

Complete Course of Lithography, 99, 

234, a35- 
Compton, T., . 
Constable, J., • . -93 

Cook, E., . . 
Cooke, W. B., . 

Cooper, R 63, 65 

T. Sidney, . . 348, 269 

Cootwyck, — , . 

Cop^ C. W., . . . 364 

Cordier, — , 

Coriolano, B., 

CoronaOoH if George IV., 69-71,148 

Cosens, F. W. r95 

Costumt and AreMteeinre of India, 149 

and Customs of Modem In^a, 133 

of Austria, , , , .151 

of China (^), .151 

of Great Britain, . 143,151 

ofHindostan, . 133, 148 

of Russia, .... 151 

of the Netherlands, . . 313 



Costume of the Original Inhabitants 
of the British Isles, . 

iftheRussian Army, 

of the Russian Empire, 

of the Smedisk Army, 

ofHirkey, . 

^ YorksMre, 

Costume plates, . 



Count)/ SMts ^ Great Britain and 



Ireland, . 

Covers, colour-printed, 



388, 389 
367-8 



Cox, David, 9I1 irS, 119, i 

Craoacb, Lucas, . 

Crane, W., . 

Cremer, H., 

Crewe Collection of Blake's books, 78, 

80, 81, 84, 85. 
Crieket on the Hearth, . . 310 

CriHeal Inquiry into , . , Aneient 

Armour, 155 

Croall, A., 339 

Croly, Dr., 351 

Cruikshank, G., 93, 147, 177, 188-203, 

214, 315, a68. 

I. 160, 188 

R., . 188-93, 197, 199, 200 

Cruikshanhfs Water-Colours, 195, 397 
Cundall, J., 363, 364, 369, 384 



Cundee, f.> ■ 
Cuni08,The, 

Curtis, S 

W., . . . . 

Curtiis Botanical Magatine, 



55 



13 



Dadlbv, J., . . . . 151 
Dagoty, G., ... 55, 56 
Dalvimait, O., .... 151 
Damascus and Palmyra, . . 2r6 
Dame Perkins and her Grey Mare, 319 

jyot and her Comical Cat, . 273 

DanaoflAfe, . i7«i i75. 3". 3^8 

Daniell, S., 133 

T., . . 138, 130, 133 

W.,88, irs, 130, 131, 133, 138, 

■39. 303. 304- 
Darton and Harvey, . . 363 

Daumier, H., 
Davenpcnt, Cyril, 
Davies, W., 
Dawe, H., . 



326 



INDEX 



Day, W., 139, 142, 243, 247, 348, 353, 

353. asfi- 
Df^ in a ChilSi Lift, 
' of Pleasure, 
Dayes, — , . 
Deacon, J., . 
Dearn, — , . . 
Debucouit, L. P., 17, 37, 38, 46, 66, 93 
jDeearaUve Painter's and Glatier's 

Guide, 344 

Delitie, E., .... 93 

Descourtis, C. M 66 

Description of the Method to Copy 

Flat Objects, . . .325 

Designs for Rurai Retreats, . . 129 
De Wint, P., . . . . 144 
Dickens, C, . . . . 209 
Didesor^tt^ of the Philosophers, 3 
Dictionary of the Art of Printing, 3 1 
DightoD, R., . . . 1S9, 199 
Diorama An^is, . 199 

Discovery ^ the Natural Printing- 



Ditrich, — , .... 60 

Dobson, A., . . . 359, 263 

Dodd, R^ 134 

D<K^[son, Campbell, . . vii, 3, 7 
Don QuichotU Romantique, , ,168 
Douglas, R. ]. H., . .vii 

Down tie Road, . . 187, 331 

Doyle, J. E., . 369 

R., .... 204,211 

Doyley, C 133 

Dnwing-books, . ii7''5 

Drawings descriptive of the manners 

. . . of the Bindoos, . . 133 

Drawings, original existing, for 
colour-illustrationt ; — 

W. Blake, . 81, 83, 85 



R. Caldecott, . 
G. Cruiksfaank, 
W. Daniell, . 
Hamilton Smith, 
W. Onne, 

A. Pugin, 
T. RowlandsoD, 

B. Solryns, . 
J. StM^anoff, . 
Van der Neer, . 

Dr, Birch and his Young Priends, 



279 

94, 203 

■ 139 



PAOK 

Dr. Comicus, or the P^vUes of For- 
tune, 168 

Dr. SytOax in Search of\ 
Consolation, . .1 See 

in Search of the \ Tours 

Picturesque, . . I of Dr. 

■ in Search of a I Syntax. 

Wifi. . . . .] 
Dresses and Decorations of the 

Middle Ages, 261 

Dmitt, E. J., . . . 86 

Dry, A. 143 

Dubourg, C, . . . . 133 

M., . . 71, 136-8, 146, 148 

Ducdt^ A., .... 247 
Duhauron, — , . . . 293 
Duncan, K, . , . . 186 
Dunkarton, R., . . .68 
Durbar, The, .... 297 
Diirer, A., . . . , 7, 30 
Dutton, T. G. 255 

Earlou, R., . . . 62, 68 
Earth, The, . . ,34 

JSehoes ef JfeUas, . . . 275 

Ectypa Planlarum RatisboneHtium, 235 
Edwards, G., . . . .13 

M. Betham, . . 319,269 

S., 67 

Edy.J.W., . . 137-31 

Egan, P., 191, 193, 197, 199, 300, 320 

Egypt, 297 

Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, 381 
Elizabethan Architecture, . 361 

EUiot, M., 309 

EUis, — 134 

— - E. J., . .vii, 12, 78, 83, 84 

■ W., 308 

Elsam, R., 139 

Emperors of Turkey, . . . 69 
Encycb^tedia of Ornament, . . 261 
End-papers, .... 376 

Engelbach, L 113 

England, Scotland, and/reland, . 115 
En^nd"! Queen and Prince Albert, 309 
En^ish Dance of Death, 159, 163, 171, 
>7'. 175. 3". 3'8- 

Emiroidered Soohbindings, . 341 

Moths and Butteries, . 13 

— spr, ■ ■ 175. 191. »9". 318 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



Sngramngs from the Original 

DesigfuiyA., A. andL. Caracci, 64 
Essay on British Cottags Archi- 

tatvre, 129 

^■^ on the Analogy . ..of Colours, 393 
• on the Art of In^ntously 

Tormenting, . . 167, 316 
on the Invention of Engraving 

and Printing in Chiaro Oscuro, 19- 

Etching in relief: Bl&ke's method, 75 
Etchings and Sketchings, . 304, 309 
Etchings coloured by hand, 133, 153, 
158, 167, 173, 193-303, 309, 210, 
313-14, 3i6, 319. See also Soft- 
ground. 
European in Indict, . i$2 

Europe.- a Prophecf, . 79, 84, 85 

Bvans, Edmm^ 33, 119, 366-83, 283, 
a$8. 

E. V. B., 385 

Everdingen, A. van, . . . 264 
Excursions . . , on the Thames, . 141 

Facsimiles of Nature, . . 339 

Fadus, G. S., . 63,64 

Fairholt, F. W., . .90 

Fairy Sh^, ■ 373, 374 

Farington, J., . > 136, 304 

Farmer went trotting upon his Grey 

Mare, 382 

Fkrmtr's Boy, . .281 

Fam^ard A B C, . 373 

Fawcett, B., . . . 388, 389 
Feathered Tribes of the British 

Isles, - 34. 307 
Fellows, — , .... 131 
Female Agency Among the Seathen, 309 
'Fern, Fanny,' .... 367 
Fern Leaves from Fannys Fort- 
folio, 367 

Rms of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, 328 

Fisw Leaves from the . . . Process 
of Nature-Printing, . . 334 

Field, G. 393 

fields and the Woodlands, . . 385 
Fie^ Sports of. . . Neto South 

Wales. 137 

Fielding, C, . . .115 

328 



Fielding, C. V 144 

J., iro 

T. H., 109, IIS, 134, '44. 148 

Finish to the Adventures of Tom, 
ferry, and Lope, . 191, 300 



307 



356 



Firmaments, The, 

First Principles of Religion, . 

Fisher's Drawit^-Room Scrap- 
Booh, . 

Floral FanAisy, . 

Flora Londinensis, 

Flora's Feast, 

Flore et Zipkyr, . 

FogeI,J., . 

Follies of the Year, 

foreign Boo/Endings, . 

Field Sports, 

Forrest, Lt-CoL, 

Foster, Birket, . . 

Four-plate sj^tem instead of three, 53, 
55. 56. '94. 

Fowler, W., ... 13, 14 

Fox jumps over the Parson's Gate, 28a 

Francia, L., 

Freeman, — , . . , 

and Jones, . 

Frog he would a-wooing go. 

Fry,-, . . . 

Fuller, S. and J., 

Fulleylove, J., 

Fust, J., . 



109, I TO 

r67-9, 387 



63.65 
308 
38a 
138 
8, 119, 181 



Gallery of Fashion, 
Gamble, — , 
Gandee, B. F., . 
Gandy, J. P., 



397 



ISO 
57 
34.307 
. 129 



Gardening, coloured books txi, 139, 



Gardens of England, 
Garland of Love, 
Gates of Paradise, 
Gaud, W., . 
Gavami, 
Geddes, A., 

J. D., . 

Geadall, J., 



• 254 
- 307 
. 78 

346, 347 
. 20s 
■ 75 
. 391 

107, loS 



Geography and Astronon^ famsl- 

iarised, 263 

George Cruikshank's Mapuine, . 194 
Germany and the Germans,. . 307 



INDEX 



PACK 

Geming, — von, . 107 

GUbert,SirJ., . . . 968,383 
GU6ey,SirW., . .177 

Gilchrist, A., . 73, 75, 80, 83 

Gillot, — , 391 

GiUray, J., . . )6o, 1S9, 195 

GUpin, W., 119,130 

Girtin, T., . . . ta, 89, 104, isi 

Gleadah, J. 143 

GitaHikgi ofNfOund History, 1 3 

Godby, J., . . 135, 153, 153 

Gold,C 134 

Goldsmitb, O., . 173, 363, 363, 36S 
Goltdus, H., . . . 17, 38 
Geady Too Shots, .374 

Gould, J., 345 

Grammar in Rhymt, , . -373 

ef Ornament, . . . 243 

Grand Master, or Adoenturts of 

Qui Hi, . . 171, 311, 317 

Grangerised books, . 304 

Graphic History of the lift ... of 

Horatio Nelson, . . 135,137 
Graphic, The, , . 370, 380 

Great Exhibitioo, The, . 41-2 

Great J'aHjandniM Himself, a66, 382 
Greatest Plague of Zifi, . 194 

Green, J., 170 

Greenaway, Kate, aso, 370-1, 374, 376- 

9, 381, 383. 
Greenhouse, The, . 308 

Greenmeh Hospital, . . 194, 301 
Grego, J., . . . vii, 159. ^95 
Gregory, Collins, and Reynolds, 361, 

384. 

Grevill^C 87 

Griggs, W., . . . Tii, 355, 356 
Gcindlay, R. H., . 115, 149 

Groups of Cattle, .248 

— — ofFhwers,. , 123 

of Fruit, .... J33 

Gualtenis, P., . . .16 

Guide to Nature-Printing Butter- 

yK"> 23J 

Guild of St John at Bruges, 8 

Gutenberg, Jf. 7, 8 

Hagbb, C .... 355 

L., 337, 343, 343, 347, 348, 351, 

353. 



PAQt 

Haidinger, — , . . . .333 
Half-tone process, 391-3 

Hamble J., . 104, 119, 135, 136 

Hamerton, P. G., . zi 

Hamilton, C. C, ... 147 
Hand-colouring as a finish to 

colour-printing, 45, 76, 89-95, 363 
Hand-colourist } name added in 

imprint, . -115, 144 

Handle Cross, . , 307, 308, 313 
Hand-press, use of, . . 368, 369 
Happy Et^land, , . 397 

Hardcastle, E., . . .175 

Harding, J. D., 336, 337, 346, 348, 

249, 351- 
Hardit^s Portfalio, . . 346, 349 
Harraden, R. B., 103, ir?, 131, 133 

Harris, — , 187 

J., 363 

M., 393 

Hassell, J.,. ri9-3i, r34, 140, i4r 
Haunted Man, The, . 310 

Havell, D., 88, 94, 105-^, 140, 143, 

144. 146, 153. 154- 

R., . 71,88,144,153,154 

W. 144 

Hcnobutk Grangt, . srs, Z13, 305 
Hayley, William, . 66, 80 

Heath, C, 148 

. W., . 138, r46, 157, 198, 199 

Hea:vens, The, -34 

Hebert, W., .... 61 
Heideloff, N., . . . 150 

Henderson, — , . . . 67,135 
Hentschel, C, . vii, 391, 395, 397 
Heraldic illustrations, colouring 

of, 5. 7-9 

Here and there over the Water, . 157 
Hering, G., .... 347 

Heufier, Cher, von, . . 227 

Hey-diddle-diddle the Cat and the 

Fiddle, 289 

Hill. D., 146 

J., . . 102, 105, 14a, 154 

HiUingdon HaU,. . .312 

Hills, R., 14s 

Hind in the Wood, .374 

Hindostan, 114 

Hints for Improving the Condition 

cf the Peasantry, . 139,311 

329 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



Hints on Decorative Printing, z$, 26-33 
on Omamtntal Gardening, 11 3, 

"9. 313- 
Hisloria Imperatorum Cxsarum 

Romanorum, . • ^7 

Bittoric, Military, and Naval 

Anecdotes 137 

Hiitorical Account of the . . . Ben- 

ptl Native Infantry, ■ <34 

Historieal Account of the Campaign 

in the Netherlands, . . 1471 197 
Memento . . . of the I^act of 

1814. 137 

Military and Pictureique 

Observations on I^rtugai, . 143 

• Shetch of Moscow, . 104,310 

History and Descri/tion of Chinese 
Porcelain, .... 397 

- and Doctrine of Buddhism, . 116 

of Ancient and Modem India, 133 

of British Birds, . 388 

— ■ — of Johnny Quae Genus, 174, 313, 

318. 

of Lewes, . .33 

of Madagascar, , , 308 

of Madeira, . 113,313 

— — of Sieepiechasing, . . 187, 331 
of the Abbey Church of . , . 

Westminster, . - 103. 304, 310 

of the British Nation in 

Indastan, -131 

of the Colleges, . . 106,311 

of the Doctrine of Buddhism, 3 1 4 

of the Fishes of the British 

Islands, 388 

■ of the Irish Rebellion, 194, 195, 

303. 

of the Order of Kn^ki- 

hood, .... 40, 308 

o/the River Thames, . . 136 

of the Royal Residences, . 143 

■ of the University of Cam- 
bridge, . . 104-6,304,311 

of the UnaxrsityofO:>^d, 104-7, 

304. 3'i- 

Hodges. W., 

Hodgson and Co., 

Hoffmann, — , . -67 

H(^:aTth, G. B., . 

- J.B.,. . 



Hotbein, H., 63-5 

Hole, Dean, . .313 

Holland, 397 

Holmes, R., .398 

Holy Land {Viahum't), 237,338,351 

7%e (J. Fulleylore), . 397 

Home Pictures, . .319 

Hooker, Sir J. D., . . . 13 

SirW. J., .... 13 

Hoppe, — 335 

Hopwood, — , . . 104 

Horace, 386 

Horsley, J. C, . ■ 364 

HorHatltural Gleaner, The, . . 40 
Hortus Evropae Amerieanus, 13 

Hotten, J. C, . . . 106 

Household Servants, . .158 

House that fad Built, . 373,380 
How a Puture is reproduced . . . 

by . . . Chromo-Uthagraphy, . 339 
Hewitt, S., . . . 13s. 13* 

How Jessie was Lost, . . . 373 
How Pippins enjoyed a Day with 

the Rx Hounds, . .319 

Hughes, W., .... 30 
HulWiidel, C. J., 336, 343, 345-9, 

356. 
Humboldt, F. H. A. von, . ■ 3<^ 
Humorous Illustrations of Her- 
aldry, 158 

Humourist, Tae, . . i97 

Hungarian and Htghiand Broad- 
sword Exercise, . iiS4< 315 
Hunt, G., . . 109, 115, 119, 157 

W., 369 

Hunter, B., ... 94i i44 
Hunting Sits, . .319 
Bunting: Incidents of the NodU 
Science, aoS 

Ibbstson, J. C. 14° 

niuminattd MagiMne, . sio 

Manuscripts, . ■ 356 

Omcmatts . . . from Manu- 
scripts, 358 

IllustraUd London News, 383, 385, 390 

Record of Important Events 

. . . 1812-1815, . .146 
Ulustrationsfor Landscape Scenery, 
etc., 178 



INDEX 



lUustraiions »f OmstanHttopk, . 
of Her Majesty s Palace at 

Brighton, .... 

of Japan, . • "3. 

of Phrenology, 

of the Book of Job, . 8a 

—— of the Family of Psitfaddae, 

of the Phe Semes, 

of Time, . . . . 

' to Popular Songs, 
Ilfyria and Dalmatia, . 
Imitations ofAndeni and Modem 

2}rawings, .... 
of . . . Drawings by Sans 

HoWein, 

Imfartial Sistoric Narrative of . . . 

Momentous Events, 1816-1833, 
Index of Colours and Mixed Tints, 
India, Ancient and Modem, 
India, coloured books on, . 139- 
Industrial Arts ^ the Ninetuntk 

Century, .... 

Ingram, H. 

Inks for colour-printing, 31, 91. 

also Colours. 
Ireland, W. H., . 
Iiring, Washington, . 
Isle of Wight, . . . . 
Italian School of Uesign, 



Jach and thi Bean-Stalk, 

the Giant-KUkr, 

Jackson, J. B., . 

Jacounchikoff, M., 

James, Captain, . 

Janinet, F., 17, a?, 38, 

Japan, 

Japanese Colour Prints, 

Illustration, 

Jeake3,J., . 
Jerrold, D., 
Jerusalem, . 
fokn Gi^n, 
Johnston, R., 
Johnstone, W. G., 
Jones, E., . 

F.. . 

Owen, 35, a43, 

Jongbe, J. B. de. 



. 364 
. 164 

, '9-'7. 38 
• 9> 
■ '53 

46, 66, 93 

"5. 297 



8a, 84, 8s 



JorroAi Jaunts and JolMfies, 186, aia, 

2^3. 305. 321- 

Josi, C, .... 58-60 

Journal des Voyages, . . 334 

of Indian Art, . . 355 

of Sentimental Travels, . 174 

Jungmann, N., . . 397 



Xaie Greenaways Painting-Book, 
Kay, J., . 



Keene, C, . 
KeUy, R T., 
Kendrew, J., 
Khyl, P., . 
Ki£kleburys on the Rhine, 
^ing Lucktebq/s Party, 
Kirk, — , . 
Kirkall, £., 
Knapton, G., 
Knight, C, 
Kniphof, J. H., 
Kornlein, — , 



5, 18, 19, ao, 38 

18, 30, 38 

6a, 63, a87, a88 



La Belle Assemble, . 149 

Latni, E., 338 

LampHghier, JTie, . .368 

Landells, E., . . . . 367 
Landmann, — , . . 14a 

Landseer, C, . -65 

Lane, R. J 146 

Langlois, 34 

Zangua^ of Flowers, . . 378 

Lapotte, J., .... 140 

L'Art d' Imprinter les Tableaux, . 50 

Laurie, R., 56 

Lear, Edward, .... 345 
Le Bloo, J. C, 30, 44-53, 55, 393, 

394. 
Le Blond, A., . . . 40, 43 

Lee, J 30 

Leech, J., 149, 177, 179, 180, 195, 

304-15. 

Leftvre, 34 

Leigh, S., .... 133,173 
Leighton, B., . . 384 

G., . 366, 383-5, 388, 389 

J.. . . yA, 385, 386 

Le Merder, A., . . . 339 

331 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



Lemon, M., .... 307 
Le Prince, J. B., ... 87 

LesiOHS in Landsoipt, . . i34 

Lessons 0/ Thrift, . . . 190 
Zi Souvenir, .... 309 
Le Sueur, N., . ■ 34 

v., . 18,24 

Letters from Italy, . .113 

left at tke PastrycooJ^s, . 367 

Lettrt tonamaHt le neivel art 
ifimprimer . . . aoee guatre 

amUttrs, 55 

Lewis, F. C, 60, 64, 66, 104, tos> 
143. 

G., . $4) fi6> J04i loS 

J. F., . . . 346, 247 

Liher Seketarum Cantionum, 3 

Life in London, . . 191,197,198 

in Farts, . . 190, 199 

of a Soldier, . ,157 

of a Sportsman, 180, 186, 330 

-^— of Man Symdolised, . 386 

—^ of Nafoieon, . 196,305 

of Nelson, . . 135, 137 

Lindley, J., .... 338 

Line-engnvings, printed in colour, 10 
Linuell, J., .... 81 

Linton, W. J., 32, 260, 372 

Lithographs, hsnd - coloured, as 
illustrations,it4, 116, 134, 307, 311, 
216, 219, 337, 238, 344, 245, 248, 
349. 
— ■ — hand<o)ouring of, . 337, 338 
lithography, Ackermann's en- 
couragement of, 



lithotint, 

LitlU Ann and other Poems, 

Bird Blue, . 

• J^ms, 

Hi, . . . 

^leen Anne, 

Ked Riding-Ifood, 

— Tour in Ireland, 
Lockhart, J. G., . 
Leg of the Water Uly, 
Loitering! among the Lakes, 
Longman, — , 
Loudoun, J. C, 
Low, — , . . . 
Lowe, — , . 



336, 237 
. 278 
. 269 
. 267 



PAGB 

L/^l Volunteers of London, 165, 303, 

310. 315- 
Lucas, R. C, . . . .339 

Lugar, R., 139 

Lumsden, J., . • 263 

Lyric Airs, . .166 

MacCulloch, G., . . . 254^ 
Machine-raled ground, . . 316 
Mackenme, F., . . 104, 105, 107 
Macquoid, T. R., . . . 369 
Madden, Sir F., . . . 359 

Maddox,— 68 

Madeley, — , . . 4O1 ^'6 

Magatine of Art, . 396 

Maile, G., 107 

Malgo, — 13S 

MaUet, P. H., . . . .309 
Malton, J., . .88) 89, 92, 139, 141 
Man as a Moral . . . Being, , 308 
Man in His Intellectual Faculties, 308 

in His Physical Structure, . 308 

in His Reltttums to Society, . 308 

Mango, — , -135 

Mansions of England, . . zcfi 

Manskirch, F. J., . 136, 13S 

March of Intellect, .158 

Maripild Garden, . 378 

Maritime Discovery and Christian 

Missions, .... 308 
Markham, Mrs., .... 363 

Marks, — , 199 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 78, 

83. 85- 
Marshall,}., .26a 

Mcirtial Achievements of Great 

Britain 146 

Martial and Nctval Achieve~ 

ments, 138 

Martin, J., 30 

Martyr ofErromanga, . 308 

Mason, Lieutenant-Colonel, . 151 
Masterpieces of Industrial Art, . 354 
Maxwell, W. H., 
May, Phil, . 
Mayer, L., , 
Mayhew, — , , . , . 367 
Meadows, L., . . . . 319 
Medhurat, W. H., . . . 308 



332 



INDEX 



Medland,— , .... 65 
Medland, T., . .134 

Meiienbach, — , . .391 

Melaia and otfur J^atms, . 308 

Memanaii of the Antiquity amd 

ArcMkOure . . . of Essex, . 261 
Memoirs of tht £4fi of John 

ifytioM, .... 185, 330 
Menpei^ M., -397 

Merigot,! 154 

Merke, H., . 131, 132, 135, 136 

MeUl plate in conjunction with 

wood-blocks, . 17, 18, 35-g 
plates, colour-printing from, 44- 

47. See aiso Aquatint, Mescodnt, 

Stipple. 
Meteor, or Motithly Censor, . . 196 
Method of Learning to Draw in 

PtrspecHoe, . n 

Metz, C, . 63, 65 

Meyer, H., . . 63, 71, 104, loti 
Meyrick, S. R., . . 154, 155, 259 
Mezzotint, colour-illustrations in, 49- 

71. 134, 135- 
— — colour-printiDg in ; technique, 10, 

". 38. 44. 56-8. 7a. 73. 9a- 
Microeosm of London, 90, 100-3, i^7i 

»S9. 1^7. a98.304T3"o.3i5- 

of Oi^ord, .... 344 

(Pyne-fl). . . . .143 

Middleton, 7 

Military Adoenturet of Johnny 

Newcowte, 158,170,311,317 

Costume of India, . . 153 

ofTurhey, . .155 

Milkmaid, TTie, . .381 

Miller, — , 384 

T., 369 

W.. . . . 151,153,156 

Milner, T., 308 

Milnes, R. M., . .84 

Milton, . 81, 83 

Milton, T., 141 

Minasi, J., 63 

Mintosh, C, . .308 

Mirroetr of the World, 3 

Miseries of JETuMttn Life, 156, 166, 

315- 
Miser's Daughter, . 194,195 

MiisaU Srixinense, ... 3 



Missionary Laiourt ...in Southern 

Africa, 308 

Mitan, S., 104 

Mitford, J., .... 173 

M'Lean, T., vii, 133, 153, 155, 158, 

179. i8i-4, »4S- 

Mofikt, R., 308 

Monkhouse, C, . . 397 

Monoier, H 338 

Moadbus, Citspus de, . . 3 

Moore, T., 338 

Morin, B., 355 

Morland, G., 54, 55, isi, 134, 135 
Mornay, — , .138 

Morris, F. O., . . . 388 

Morton, E., .... 316 
Mosaic Pavements, etc., . 14 

Most Deleetaile ISstory ofXtynard 

the Fox, 364 

Mother Goose 37S 

Mr. Briggs and His Doings, 306, 314 
Mr. J^xcey Romfor^s Hounds, 313, 

314, 319. 
Mrs. Margery lYtio-Shoes, . . 363 
Mrs. Mary Blaiie, 
Mrs. Perking s Ball, 
Mr. Spongis Sporting Tlmr, 
Hudford, W. 



Mudie, R., 
Muir, Miss, 
J. B., . 



-W., 



Murray, J., . 
Muiiay, J. G., . 
Musical Bouquet, 
Myrtle, H., 
My Shetch-Boek, 
Mytton, J., 



. 317 

307, 313 
147, 197 

34. 307. 3«8 
86 
86 
86 

134, 134, 153. '86 
. 148 
166, 315 
319, 330 

. 303 

. .85 



Naples and the Can^agna JiUee, 113, 

170.311. 317. 
JVarratioe ofGreeh Missions, . 308 

of Missiorutry Enterprise, . 308 

Nash, F., 105 

J., . . 139,347,348 

National Art Library. See Vic- 
toria and Albert Musenm. 
National ^ortt of Great Britain, 180, 

181, 398, 303, 330. 
Natural ISstory of Birds, , .13 

333 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



NaturaJMittoryof. . . BriHshBir^, 288 

ofBrithh Buttetflus, . 38S 

— -■ ef Carolina, FJarida, 

and tJie Bahama Islands, 12 

of En^isk Insects, . la 

of Uncommon Birds, . 13 

Natnre-prinUdBriHshS&t-Wuds, 339 
Nature-Printing, . 931-33 

Nature Printing: Us Ori^n and 

Objtets, 333 

Naval and Military Triompha, 

coloured books on, . 137-8 

Nayler, Sir G., . 
Needluun, }., 
Nesbit, C, . 
Heihertands, Tht, 
New Pietura ef London, . 173 

New Treatiu on Mower-Painting, laj 
Newbery, '&.,.... 369 

J'l ■ ' '^^> '*3 

Newdigate, Sir R.^ ■ ^9 

Newton, Sir 1 48 

Newton's theory <tf light, 48, 51 

NidicJl«,W^ .... 63 



70, 148 



"4. 144. »4S 
. 40.308 



80, 85 
186, 330 



■ 309 



Nicholson, F., . 
NicoUs, Sir N. H., 
Nicoll, G. and W.. . 
NigU T/ioughis, 
'Nimrod,' . . 185, 

Nollekens, J-, • 
' North, Christopher,' . 
Northern Antiquities, . 

CamMdn Mountains, . . 144 

Norway' 297 

Notes of a Journey from Cemhill 

to Cairo, .... 3i6 

Notitia Venatiea, . 330 

Nuremberg Chronkle, ... 7 
Nursery 7ly-Boois, • 977 

Nutter,—, .... 66 



Ganieni^g, 

on the Jiiver Wye, 

Ogbome, J.. 
Old Christmas, . 

England, . 

£/lgian^s Worthies, 

Old Ways and New Ways, 
Oliver Twist, 

334 



PAOB 

Omnium Gatherum, . .158 

One — two — SuekUmyShoe, . 373 
On the Construetion and Detoror 

tion of Shop Pronts, . . 344 

Oriental I}rawingt: shettkid. . . 

1791-1798, .134 

l^eU ^orts, 13s, 136, 303, 303 

Oripnal Designs ef . , . Ceiebmted 

Masters of the Bofygntse, tk^ 

Schools, 64 

Views of London, . 350 

Orme, D., 131 

E., aS, 119, 130-5, 137, 138, 148. 

IS"- 



-W., 



I3» 



Omamatiai Arts of Japan, . . 239 

08telI,T., 135 

Ottley, W. Y., . . 61, 65. 66 

Our Street, 368 

Woodlands, Heaths, and 

Hedges, 369 

Owen, S., no 

W., 104 



Palubr, G. H Tii 

Falser, T. 118 

Panopiia, omnium... artiitm genera 

coHtinens, .... 6 

Panseron, 24 



17. 19. 94 
• 99i 103, 104, ira, 



256 



PapilloD, J. M., 
Papworth, J. B., < 
139, r70. 

W., .... 

Papyrus of Ani, . 
Parish Chareufers, 
Park and the Portst, . 
Parker, J., . 

Pars,— 

Ptrvus et Magnus Cato, 

Pastorini, — , . . . 

Piiul Stntener's Thsoels, . 

Payne, William, . 

Peele,J., .... 

Petuunt, Thomas, 

Perennial, The, . 

Persecutions . , . in Madagascar, 

Persia, .... 

P«her,W.,. 

Peter Parkas Annual, 



INDEX 



Peu Qu*, 151 

Pfeiffer, I., 367 

Phillips, G. F., . . 134 

'Phiz,' 187, 195, 204, 9IO, 311, 318- 

ao, 368, 383, 331. 
l%i^s Baty Softetkearts, . sao 

Rmt^ A^habtt, . aao 

^— limny Stories, . .330 

Merry Meuit, . aao 

Toy Book, . .330 

Photographic piocesses, 390-9 

Photogravure in colour-printiiig, 341, 

398. 
Fkrvnohgieal mmtrations, . . 303 

Picken, A., 347 

— T., 355 

Pickedng, W., . 357-9 

Pictorial Album, or CaHiut of 

Painttng, . 39, 401 307 

Btauties of Ifatmrt, . 385 

Cards, , .113 

Xey to tie Great BxMNtum, 38, 

41. 
Picture Office, Le Blon'a, . 50 

Fieture of St, Betersbur^h, . . 138 
Bieturesftu and Deseriptivt View 

of. , . Dvilin, . 141 
Arthitecturt in Boris, eft, 949, 






350. 



Guide to Bath, . 

/llnstratiensofB»tnos4y't, i< 

3". 

Bhatration of the Seenery 

. . . ofCtylon, . . 133, I 

— B^rtsentation of the . . . 
Costumes <f Great BritatM, . i 

of the Dress and Man- 
ners of the Atistrians, . I 

— of the Dress and Man- 
ners of the Chinese, . . 1 

__ of the Dress and Man- 
ners of the EngUsk, , . . I 

— of the Dress and Man- 
ners of the Bussians, . 1 

— — of the Dress and Man- 
ners of the Titrhs, . . 1 

— of the Manners, etc., 

. . . of the Bussians, . i 

Bides and Walks, . i 



67 



Pieiuresque Scenery in ... Mysore, 131, 

Scenery in the Siffy Land, . 131 

Seenery of Norway, . . 137 

Sketches in ^ain, . . 347 

7\mr along the . . . Ganges 

and Jumna, . . 109, 313 

' Tour from Geneva to Milan, 1 1 1, 

3"- 
of the Stilish Lakes, 108, 

109, 313. 

of the Bhine, . 107,313 
of the Bioer Thamei, 1 10, 

313- 

oftiu Seine, 95, 105, 313 

■ through . , . Canada, . no 

—— through the Oberland, 113, 

313. 
- — Views of . . . Nortkumber- 

land, 144 

Voyage to India, . 

Pied Piper of Hamelin, 

Piloty, Kar! von, 

Pinchon, — , 

Pinforicehio, 

Plain or Sit^lets, 

Plans, EkvatiMs, Sections, 

Details of the Alhambra, . 
Pocock, W. F., 
Poems of Oliver Goldsmith, . 



378 
136 
152 
398 
ai3 
and 

. 129 

, 368 



18, 30, 38 



Poetical Magasine, no, lis, 113, 163, 

167,310. 316- 

Sketches, .... 73 

Sketches 0/ Scarborough, 170, 311, 

317- 
Points of Humour, , 20a 

Pomona, 134 

Pond, A., . 

Poole,—, . . , 

Portfolio (Harding's), . . 346, 349 

Port^Hos of Industrial Art, . 356 

Portraits of Illustrious Personages, 63 

Post Captain, or Adventures ^ a 

True British Ihr, . .158 

Posters, colour-printed, , an 

Pothooks and Perseverance, . 
Practical Directions for . . 

Drawing, .... 133 
Essay on the Art of Colouring 

. . . in Water Colours, . 119 

335 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



Practial IlhutraHom of Gilpin's 

Day, 

Tnaiise on 

Water Colours, 
Praetice ef Drawing and Painting 

Landscape, - 124 

PrtparaHons in Printing Ink in 

Various Colours, . .31 

Prestal, C, 6a 

Princess BtUe 6unk, . . 374 

Principles 0/ £fect and Colour, . 134 
Prog^sive Lessons in Water- 

Colour Painting, . 140 
Lessons tending to Elucidate 

tAt Charaeter of Trees, . 123 

Frout, S., 87, 99, 118, 121, 144, 145, 

"37- 
Psalter, tht Mains, ■ 2, 5 
PuekUs Club, . . 359, 260 
PugiD, A., . 71, 101-5, 107, 108, 148 
Pun^ 309-11, 314 
— ' — and Judy, . 
Pwuh's Almanaek (184S), 
Punishments of China, 
Puss in Boots, . .385 
Pyne, J. B., . . . 247 
W. H., 91, 106, IIS, "7i "*i 

142, 151, 152, 175.304- 

Queen of Hearts, .. 381 

of the PiraU IsU, .378 

——Summer, .... 375 

Vieioria, .... 39S 

Qui Hi in Hindostan, . ■ ^3° 

QuUley,— , .68 

Quiver of Love, .... 377 
Quoth Hunt and its Masters, 187,321 



ReUlrbad A^hahet, 
Ritdolt, E., 
Rawlins, T. J., . 
Read,W., . 
Real L^e in Irtland, 

" ■ in London, 

RAuea andJiowena, 
Redgrave, R., . 
Reeve, R., . 

R. G., 

Reem, J., . 
R., . 



■ 373 



. 168 
"99.3I9 
198, 318, 319 
. 317 
. 364 
118, 119, 143 
O1I15 
■ 105 
. 105 



PACK 

Registratton in colour • printiog, 

methods of, 17, 38, 29, 39, 46. 
Ranagle, P., . • ^7 

Peise dej DoJUffTS Syntax, . . 16S 
Penawned History ^ Giles Ginger- 

bread, 263 

Repetitio tit. Institutionum de 

Herediims, . j 

R^sUory of Arts, 99, 109-13, 115, 149, 

167, 168, 170, 310. 

ReptOQ, H ■27-9 

Rctroussage, . -92 

Reynardson, C. T. S. B., . 187, 321 
Reynolds, — , . . . . 384 

S. W 71 

Ricd, C, 398 

Richardson, C. J., . . . 248 

T. M,, .94. 144. 247. 248 

Ride a Coek Horse, . . . aSa 
Rising Generation, ,311 

Roberts, David, 38, 115, 237, 347, 348, 

351. 
Robinson, H. Cnbb, . .166 

Roffe,— , 68 

Ross,F., a88 

Rottinger, H., . .3 

Rouse, J., 147 

Rowlandson, T., 89, 90^ 100-3, i'2, 

ia6, 149, 156-8. *59-76. ^77. 188. 

192, 195, 198, 207, 301, 315-18. 
Rowlandson the Caricaturist, . 159 
Royal Residences, 91, 304 

Rudiments for Drawing tie Horse, 178 

of Landscape, .118 

Ruined Abb^s of JBritain, . . 288 
Run with the StagHounds, . . 319 
Rural Residences, . 113, 139, 313 

Rusher, J. G. 362 

Ruskin, J., 86, 120, 193, 303, 306, 372, 

279, 385. 

Russia 114. 115 

Russian Cries, • 153 

Ryland, W. W., . 15, 46, 54, 61, 66 



Sala, G. a., 
Samuel, G., 
Sand and Canvas, 
Sandby, P., 
Saandera, E. 
Sauvan, — , 



iSi, 190 

■ >43 



INDEX 



Sav^, W., 35-33, 38, 46, 258, 384 
SuHtfy, Costumes, anJArMttOttre 



94. "5. 



173, 196 

I30, 316 



. of India, 
Schuf, G., . 
SehatOthalttr, Der, 
SctauiTonetti, — , . 

L., . 

Schoeffer, P., 
Scboiq>er, . 
Schuetz, — , 
Seotek Sktkhes, . 
Scotland DeHneattd, 
Scott, — , . 

J.. . . 

Sir W., 

Scourge, 7^, 

Scraping out of high l^hts, 9 : 

Scraps and Sketches, . 

from the Shetck Book, 

Screens, used in tbree-coloui pio- 

ceis, 
Sdiven, E.. 
Sea, The, 

Search (tfter the Comfortabie, 
Seasons, Tie, 
S^t of War in the East, 
Seccombe, Lieut.-CoL, 
Seghers, H., 
Seka SieUhes in Brighte 

Views in India, . 

' ■ of London, . 

Selection of J^SimiJes of Water 

Colour Drawings, . 

of. . . German Waltzes, 

of fiews in Egypt, PaUsHne, 



65 
64.66 



6S.71 
54 



etc,. 



Sekciiom of the Ancient Costumes 
of Great Britain, 



. Fivnce,i\2, 



Senefelder, A. 

Senfel, 

SenOmental Journey, 

- — Trcmels in 
318. 

Smts of Easy Lessons in Land- 
scape Drawing, 

of Lessons on the Drawing 

of Fruit and Flowers, 

ofPictunsque Views i^ Noble 

metis . . . Seats, 



Series of Portraits of the Emperors 
ofTurk^, . 69, 311 

of Progressive Lessons in 

Water Colours, .119 

Seymour, R., . . 158, 301 

Skaktspear^s Seven Ages of Man, 184, 

319- 
Shaw, H., . . 358-63, 364 

Shells and their Inmates, . . 308 
Shepherd, G., . .104 

Sherwood, Mrs., .... 309 
Shields, F. J., . . 41 

Shipley, W., . .97 

Shobert F., ... 113-14 
Short, F., . vii, 95, 119, 399 

Sights in all Seasons, . . 309 

Simpson, W., . 354, »55 

Sims, J., 13 

Sing a Song of Sixpence, . . a8i 

Singer, H. W. ?iii 

SirSomkook, .... 364 

Six Birds, 133 

Sixteen Scenes taken from the 

miseries of Human Life, . . 156 

years in Malta and Greece, . 309 

Skttck-Book ofR. Caldwtfs, . aSo 
Sketches in Oil, Leech's, . . 307 

Sketches, 179 

and Drawings of the Alkasn- 

bra 346 

and Hints of Landscape 

Gardening, .137 

-~^ at Home and Abroad, . . 346 

at Shotl^ Bridp Spa, . 248 

in Belgium and Germany, . 348 

in Italy, Switteriand, etc., . 347 

of Cattle, . .178 

^Portuguese Ufi, etc., . 145 

of Russia, . ■ 31 1 

of Spain and Spanish Ckar- 

actert, 347 

OH tke Danube, . . 347 

on the Moselle, etc., . 347 

Skippe, J., . . . as, 37 

SlaUandpenalmnia, . . 375 

Sleeping Beauty 374 

Slei^, J., 353 

Smith, Catterson, . 347 

Elder and Co 115 

Hamilton, .... 154 

337 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



PAOB 

Smith. ]., 145 

John,. ... lo 

J-R.,. 45. S7-9.89 

Joseph, -19 

Smyth, C, 346 

Swwfialut 319 

Social Taks for tkt Young, . . 309 
Soft-ground etchings, coloured by 

haad, iiS, laa, 131, 134, 136, 153, 

181-4. 

etchings printed in colour, . 71 

Solvyns, B^ .... 133 

Song tff Los, . 76, 80, 85 

of^xfetta, .373 

Sonp, Mairigait, and Sonntts, . 364 

^£j^erieMee, . . 79, 83-5 

o/Innocena, . 74, 77. 79. H-l 

■ '■- Parodies, etc., inlroAutd into 
. . Tom and Jerry, . . aoo 

Sorrows 0/ Werthtr, . . t66 

South Sea Isiands, . 115 

Spain and Portugal, ■ "5 

^^imtns of Ancitnt Fumiiurt, . 359 

of Pofyautogrt^hy, , - 99 

(f Riding near Lon^m, 179, 181, 

319- 
^eculum, or Art of Drawing in 

Water Colours, . lai 

SpiUbuiy, F. B. 131 

Sport, coloured books on, . 135-7 
Sporting Anecdotes, . 191, 330 

Scrap £ooi, . 179,184 

Stadler, J. C, 68, 90, 100, 103, 105, 

106, 114, 136, 138, 131, 133, 143, 

170. 
Stanfield, C, - 115. 247, M 

Stephanoir, F. P., 64, 71, 143, 148 
St^hen, Sir LesUe, . - "5 

St^ne, U 167 

Stevens, G. A., . . 315 

Stevenson, R. L., 93, 175 

Stipple, colour-iUustiations in, 54-71, 

114, 133, '3'. >3a. 134. i5>-3- 
—^—colour-printing in; tech- 
nique, . 10, 39, 44, 64-6 
Stockdale, J. J., ■ ■ 14a 
Stothaid, T., . . . 147, 148 

Strang, W., viii 

Strange, E. F., . vii, a, 114 

Strawbeny Hill, wall-hangings at, 33 

338 



PACE 

348 

'S8 

348 
336 

263 



316 



Studies for Old English Jfamions, 

from the Stage, . 

of Landscapes, 

of Ornamental Design, 

Stuiges, — , 
Summerly, F., . 
Surprising Adventures of 

Baron Munchausen, 
SuTtees, R. S., . 186, aia, 313, 331 
Sutherland, T., 103, 104, 105, 107-9, 

119,138, 143. 144. i4<- 

Swains J., 153 

Swinburne, A. C, . 73, 78 

Syme, P., laa 

Symptoms of Being Amused, 179, 183, 

3»9- 
Syntax in Paris, . r68, 317 



Tales far B^s, .... 309 
from Sptncer's Fame Queene, 364 



. 159, 166, : 

. OpusTypoehro- 



'Tallyho, Ben,' . . .178 

Tegg.T., 

Teilleri/.B 

matiaun, •47 

Tmfile of Flora, . 67, 68, 91 

TfuOi/e Fairies of India, . 355 

Text, illustrations in, . .370 

Teyler,J., 47 

Thackeray, W. M., 93, 177, 198, 300, 

aoi, 303, 304, 308, 314-18, 364. 
Tluatrical Characters, . .158 

T%eory and PracHu of Landscape 

Gardenif^, . .139 
and Practia of Painting in 

Water-Colours, . 134 

TTiere is no Naimral Religion, 83 

Thomas, G., . . . . 383 
Thompson, John, . 104, 359 

J-, 30 

Thornton, J. R., 67, 68, 91 

Three-colour process, 48, 51, 53 

390-9. 
Three Jovial Huntsmen, . 366, 381 



Thurston, John, 

C, . 

Tibet,. 

Tilt and Bogue 

Titsbgh, I., 

7ta» and Jerry in France, 



359, a6o 



30 



INDEX 



Tomkiiu, P. W^ 64, 65, 71 

T., loa 

Tommy 7Mp and his 4*g Jwikr, . 363 
Tompson, A. E., . vii 

Total, R., 9 

ToucA at the JFiH4 ArU, . 183.319 
T^mr ef Dr. Prosody . . 168,317 
of Dr. Syntax thrcugh Lorn- 

don, 168 

tfthtlsUtfW^kt, . . Ill 

Hurt of Dr. ^mtax, 113, 159, 162, 

167. 169. 174. 175. '9^ 3". 3". 

316,317. 
TowDKiid, J. H., . . . 264 
Town Talk, or Limmg MOMturs, . 196 
Traiti it la Gravurt, . 1 7i 34 

li^Hsactions of the SriUsA and 

Fortign InsHtuU, . 309 

Travels in South Africa, .146 

in tht Hofy Land, . 267 

• — - throng . . . tit Russian 

Empire, 141 

TVtatise on Zandttttpt Paintit^, 91, 118 
TreshuD, H., . . 65 

7>ip to Margatt, .158 

7)^umfhs of Temper, . .66 

Titr^, 114 

Turner, J. M. W., 13, 89, 144 

TmtbH Vkws in Aguatinia, . 88 

■ Viaos . . . in tht Kingdom 

ofMysort, .... 131 
Tmenty-fimr Views in Hindostan, 131, 

13*- 
Two Hundrtd MtdKftyDrawa^ 

deseriptioe of the . . . Hindoos, . 139 
Tymms, W. R. 254 



Under tht Window, . 266, 277, 281 
Upham, E., . 1 16 

Uwins, T., . ■ 71, 104, 105, 107 



Vahf^a-^, tht Fujetan Prineess, 41, 

309- 
Varlqr, J., . .81, iii 
Vernier, P. B., . . 179, 180 
Very prefer jyiatise, wherein is 
Me/fy sett fortht the Arte of 
Limming, etc. 9 



Viear of iVak^eld, 159, 172,173, 313, 

318. 
Victoria md Albert MuMum: 

Nadonsl Art Libruy, 65, 67, 91, 94, 

i3». 13'. 139. 155. 169. '94. *39. 

'59> B79> 381, 387. 
Viefitries of the Duhe ef tVelUng^ 



Vidal, E. E., . 




Views in Boatan, 


■ »34 


in Egypt, . 


. r4i 


in Hindostan, . 




in the Holy Land, 




in the South Seas, 




of nature,. . 




of the Lake and . . 


VaJt 


ofKeswkh, . 




of the EiBtr Thames, 


■ 144 


Village Queen, . 


.284 


Villiers, H., 




Vincent, Mme, . 




Vintner, J. A., . 




Visions of the Daughters ofAlHon, 78, 


83-5- 




Visit to the Monastery of La 






Vivares, T., 131, 




Vizetelly, H. R., 


286, 287 


Veyt^ Round Great Britain, 133, 138, 


Vms Pittoresgues dt PEcosst 


> 345 n. 


Vyner, R. T., . 


• 3" 



Waddling Frog, .... 
Wageman, T., . . . . 
Walker, E., . . . . 

G.. . . . . . 

J-. 

W.C 

Watl-papera, printed in colour, 3 

45. 47- 
Walpole, Horace, 23, 53, 

Walter, H., . . . . 

Walton, J.. 

Ward, W., . . 28, 45, 57, 68, 
War Tmfrtssions, 
Warii^b J. B., . . 353, 

Warner, A., .... 

Warren, A, . 254, 357, 360, 



339 



ENGLISH COLOURED BOOKS 



Water-coloiu School, Bngliah, 
Waterfaouse, I., 
rnMrlHf, 
Watson, C, 
wua, J. D., 



Weale,J., . 

W. H. J, 

Webber, J., 
Webster, T., 
Weiditz, Haas, 
Welkenstein, — , 
West, B., . 
Westall, R., 
W., los, 



147. 148 
109, no, lis, 

143. MS- 
Westmacott, C. M., . . 175, 191 
WiitcJ., . 

W.J., 

Whitman, A., . . ni, 57 

Whittaker, J., 69-71,148 

Whjttiiigfaain, C, 357-^3t 364 

Whittock, N. 344 

Wld, C, . 
WOkes. B.. . 
Williams, C, 

Captain, 

J-. 308 

Willifunson, T., loa, 104, 131, 133, 

135. 136. 



Willii, G. P., 
WiUyami, C, 
Wilson, C. H., 
H. C, 

— s. s., . 



. 267 
. 146 
. 167 
■ 309 

3«8. 309 



Windtor, with its Surrounding 

Stentry, 347 

Wine emd Walnuts, . . 141,175 
Winttr Sketchts in Lapiandj . 136 

Wolf, J 255 

Wood, J. G., . . 369 
Wood-blocks, colour illustrations 
printed from, 1-5, 15-35, 96-33, 
33-43, 317, 319,357-89. 
«>lour-printing from ; tech- 
nique, 5, 16-31, 34-9, 359, 360, 367, 
368, 369, 373, 375, 384, 385, 387. 
Woodman, R., . .65 



Woodward, S. M., 
Wotde, Wynkyn de, . 
Workmatfs Guide to 
English Architecture, 
World in Afiniature, 

-JVftuns, . 

World's ChiUrtn, 
Woiring, — , 
Wright, — , 
Wratt, M. D., . 



. 167 

■ 4.5 

ou 
. 348 

114, 143, 313 

■ »9; 

■ »97 

333, 333, 337 

■ 65 

■ "53 



y»ATs, w. B., . 73, 78, 84 

'Yellow-back,' origin of the tena, 368 

Young, J 69 

Ymtt^ Artisfs Companion, . -119 
Young's Mg/U Thoughts, 80, 85 

Young Troublesome, or Master 
Jach^s Holidays, . 310 

Zaikbs, — , .... 6 
Zincc^raphf, .... 391 



PriDted b; T. and A. Const abu^ Prialers to Hi* Majesir 
at the Edinborgh UoiTcrsilr Pms 



9973 035 



-1 



ACME 

SEP ]4 1984 

100 CAMBRIDGE Si'REET 
CHARLESTOWW, MASS. 



3 2044 034 242 826