still unsettled. Closely examined, their early solution appears not only feasible, but pressing. The task would be worthy the daring genius of Lord Beaconsfield, and the clear intellect which has won the bâton for Sir Stafford Northcote, were they to adorn their careers with the full and lasting enfranchisement of this universal roadway.

ART. VI.-1. A Collection of Prints from Pictures painted for the purpose of Illustrating the Dramatical Works of Shakespeare by the Artists of Great Britain. Boydell. London, 1803. 2. The Boydell Gallery: a Collection of Engravings illustrating the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare by the Artists of Great Britain, reproduced from the originals in Permanent Woodbury Type. London, 1874.

3. Illustrations of Shakespeare. By Moritz Retzsch. 1828-1845. 4. The Works of Shakespeare edited by Howard Staunton. The Illustrations by John Gilbert. London, 1864.

No

O painter has ever translated a play of Shakespeare into the language of the pencil as Mendelssohn has translated the Midsummer Night's Dream' into the language of music. We may account for this superficially by saying that no painter who has arisen since Shakespeare has possessed a genius at all approaching that of the poet in sublimity and comprehensiveness. But a truer explanation of the phenomenon will be discovered in the fact that we rarely find one genius in exact harmony with another. Sympathetic appreciation may exist in a high degree, but yet 'deep' may not answer to deep.' Each artist must body out his own conceptions. Originality will make a way for itself, and create forms. It cannot be diverted into channels hollowed out by another. It was well said of Hogarth that he could think like a great genius, but not after Here we have the primary explanation of the inadequacy of illustrations to Shakespeare; and until a painter shall be found possessing the sympathy with the poet which Mendelssohn proved himself to possess when he composed the 'Overture' and the Wedding March,' we may despair of a satisfactory result. Thus it will be seen we think it best to admit at the outset that the works of Shakespeare, though they undoubtedly present to the mind's eye of the reader an endless variety of glowing and beautiful images, have not hitherto proved so deep and sparkling a fountain of inspiration to the painters as we should have at first expected. But though this article must go to show that the

one.

translation

translation of his scenes into the language of the pencil has been at best only moderately successful, still the attempts to illustrate the plays have been sufficiently numerous and important to lead us to think that a notice of them may be of some service. The review may at least show the salient errors of past attempts, and point out the richness of the mine that lies waiting to be worked. Of course, in spite of all that may be alleged, a certain class of critics will continue to say that the adequate illustration of the bard is a hopeless task; that to do justice to the Shakespeare of the pen, whose existence is almost a miracle, we must call into being a Shakespeare of the pencil, whose creation would be a miracle scarcely less astonishing. In a certain sense this is undoubtedly true; and Horace Walpole's remarks on the project of the Boydell Gallery are sure to be echoed if any attempt at a complete illustration of the dramas should be made: Mercy on us!' says Horace, writing to the Countess of Ossory, our painters to design from Shakespeare! His commentators have not been more inadequate. Pray, who is to give an idea of Falstaff now Quin is dead? And then Bartolozzi, who is only fit to engrave for the "Pastor Fido," will be to give a pretty enamelled fan-mount of Macbeth! Salvator Rosa might; and Piranesi might dash out Duncan's castle; but Lord help Alderman Boydell and the Royal Academy!'

The state of art in England at the time when the 'commercial Mæcenas,' as it was the fashion to call him, started his scheme was unquestionably low; but we have learned much since, and it will not be difficult to show that, though we must count fifty failures to one success in every volume or gallery of Shakespeare pictures, there are grounds of better hope. We cannot fail to gain information by an examination, however cursory, of what has been already done; and therefore, without further preface, we may begin our rapid survey of the principal attempts to illustrate Shakespeare made during the last ninety years. Suggestions towards a more thorough accomplishment of the task will come in best when we have seen the various methods of treatment adopted by eminent artists, compared their representations of the more prominent scenes, and observed the advantages accruing to the painter from the ever-increasing insight into the poet's meaning which the labours of critics and students have afforded and are now affording.

The most ambitious and costly attempt at Shakespearian illustration was undoubtedly that of John Boydell. Though the result was far from satisfactory, we must not forget the debt

* Letters of Horace Walpole,' ed. Bohn, vol. ix. p. 83.

which English art owes to the labours of the enterprising printseller. From the time of his arrival in London, in 1739, to his death in 1804, he exerted himself to forward three objects:1. To improve the English school of engraving; 2. To create an English school of historical painting; 3. And to make both subserve to the adequate illustration of the great poet. His services to the art of engraving are unquestionable. When Boydell began business there were no English engravers of eminence, and the cabinets of collectors were chiefly furnished by the artists of France. He lived to see the condition of his trade reversed; the importation of prints was almost entirely discontinued, and the productions of English engravers were eagerly purchased in Holland, Flanders, and Germany. Encouraged by his success in his own department of art, he attempted the far bolder and more difficult task of founding a school of historical painting; and in order to give a definite shape to his design, he resolved to set all the eminent painters of the day at work upon his Shakespeare. The pictures were collected and exhibited in a gallery, built upon the site of Mr. Dodsley's house in Pall Mall,' and engravings of them were issued in a magnificent folio. Thirty painters, two sculptors, and thirty-three engravers were employed in the work, and an outlay of one hundred thousand pounds attested the liberality of the projector. A clear conviction of the ruinous cost of the undertaking may have prevented the cautious Garrick, to whom the scheme was first broached, from giving it the sanction of his authority. For though it was suggested amidst the fervours of the celebrated Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford, the proposal was not received with enthusiasm, and it was not until several years after that it was seriously discussed. The conversation that led to the present undertaking,' says the preface to the original edition, was entirely accidental. It happened at the table of Mr. Josiah Boydell, at West-end, Hampstead, in November, 1781. The company consisted of Mr. West, Mr. Romney, Mr. P. Sandby, Mr. Hayley, Mr. Hoole, Mr. Braithwaite, Alderman Boydell, and our host. In such company, it is needless to say that every proposal to celebrate genius or to cultivate the fine arts would be favourably received. It is more true, but less flattering, to say that from such a company nothing but artistic mediocrity was to be expected. The presence of the Quaker Academician was unfavourable to originality. West's style, correct, but cold, seems to have exerted a

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*

So says the preface to the original edition. Hayley ascribes the first thought of the undertaking to a conversation between the Alderman and Romney at the latter's house in Cavendish Square.-' Life of Romney,' p. 106.

chilling

chilling influence over most of the artists engaged, though, in his capacity of painter to the King, he was too busy at the time in Royal Commissions to contribute to the gallery more than two pictures: the Ophelia Strewing Flowers,' and the Lear in the Storm,' known from the print by William Sharp, which Leslie considered unequalled by any line-engraving ever produced.' On examining the illustrations carefully, we are conscious of a feeling of disappointment. The volume, on the whole, is a record of lost opportunities. Still it is interesting and valuable as a representation of the state of art in England at the time, and in one or two instances, where the painters broke away from the conventional shackles of an artificial age, we have satisfactory results. If we were asked to say which was the play best illustrated, we should find a difficulty in replying, but unquestionably the two artists who increased their reputation most decidedly by their contributions to Boydell were Fuseli and Northcote.

Henry Fuseli, painter, poet, naturalist, linguist, and wit, is one of the most remarkable figures to be met with in the art-life of the eighteenth century. His character was disfigured by eccentricity; and whether we think of him helping Cowper to translate Homer, showering sneers and curses on the noisy students of the Royal Academy, dilating with vivid eloquence on the masterpieces of Michael Angelo, or flirting Platonically with Mary Wolstoncraft to annoy his wife, we see the tendency to exaggerate and to startle constantly present. His pictures are full of the same faults that distorted his life. Grandeur of design is often thwarted by grotesque extravagance. He never outlived his Sturm und Drang' period. Yet everywhere in his works we see the hall-mark of genius; and above all we feel that in his illustrations to Shakespeare he displays a clearness of insight, and a glow of appreciation, to which his associates can make no possible pretence. Long before the scheme had been started at the Hampstead dinner-table, Fuseli had dreamed of a national commemoration of the poet. To his mind,' says Allan Cunningham, ' such a scheme had been long present; it dawned on his fancy in Rome, even as he lay on his back marvelling in the Sistine, and he saw in imagination a long and shadowy succession of pictures. He figured to himself a magnificent temple, and filled it as the illustrious artists of Italy did the Sistine with pictures from his favourite poet. All was arranged according to character. In the panels and accessories were the figures of the chief heroes and heroines; on the extensive walls were delineated the changes of many-coloured life -the ludicrous and the sad, the pathetic and the humorous, domestic

domestic happiness and heroic aspirations-while the dome which crowned the whole exhibited scenes of higher emotion, the joys of heaven, the agonies of hell, all that was supernatural and all that was terrible.'

These fantastic dreams were brought into practical shape by Boydell, and the result is to be found in his eight pictures. As might be expected, he preferred to choose scenes from the plays which introduce spiritual beings: The Tempest,' the Midsummer Night's Dream,' Hamlet,' and Macbeth.'

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His

Caliban,' his witches, and his fairies, have never been surpassed.. In his scene from 'The Tempest' we stand on the beach of the uninhabited island. The wild waters, put into a roar by the magic of Prospero, are still seething in foamy tumult. The wronged Duke and Miranda occupy the foreground, and have just summoned their slave, who crawls from his cave volleying curses. Ariel, dismissed by her master to summon Ferdinand, hovers in mid-air. Tiny elves lurk around the enchanter. The apes that moe and chatter' dangle from the trees, and the hedge-hogs are tumbling in the monster's barefoot way.' But the face of Caliban fixes the spectator. It is not that of a savage or a fiend, it is that of a man-beast. The hideous lineage and the degraded nature of the creature are printed on his features. It is the son of Sycorax his very self. In the realm of fairydom which owned the sway of Oberon and Titania, Fuseli was equally at home. In our own time, two accomplished painters, Sir Noel Paton and Sir Edwin Landseer, have attempted to depict the elfin sovereigns and their trains, and have achieved a certain success. But their fairies lack the inimitable frolicsomeness of the beings Shakespeare created. They are not the sprites who hang pearls in the ear of the cowslip, kill cankers in the muskrose buds, steal honey-bags from the humble-bees, and creep into acorn-cups when they wish to hide themselves. Fuseli makes his wood scene populous with antics to whom such sports and occupations are natural. They are the elves of the Gothic mythology etherealised by the exquisite grace of Grecian days. They belong to a world where Theseus and Robin Goodfellow, Hippolyta and Bottom the weaver, meet without apparent anachronism; the universal world of Shakespearian poetry where the lord of the heaven of invention' is king.* Fuseli's

·

* In Sir Edwin Landseer's picture of 'Titania' and ' Bottom,' the spectator is struck by the admirable painting of the Ass's Head. One is irresistibly reminded of a story of Fuseli and Northcote, related by Allan Cunningham. The latter had painted a picture of Balaam and his Ass,' and requested the former for an opinion of its merits. The temptation was too strong for the caustic Fuseli. My dear fellow,' he replied, 'your picture proves you are an angel at an ass, and an ass at an angel.'

'Ghost'