248 THE LIMITS OF ILLUSTRATION. no almost all the others in the same book. | Shelley's in a real woman would have Except where the poem is so namby-pamby | been a mistake in any artist. And this that anything decently drawn to look at, is particular artist only makes the concepa relief from the poem, the illustrations tion of the "Power in this sweet place spoil the poems. And in the opposite case, ridiculous, by embodying a delicate and the poems spoil the illustrations. a book now before us, a newly illustrated nine form. But worst of all is the illusOr take poetical abstraction in a substantial femiedition of Shelley. We turn to the won-tration of Prometheus on the rocks of derful lines (perhaps the most overwhelm- Caucasus, saying,-"No change, ing, in the pathos of their profound de- pause, no hope, yet I endure." The figjection, which Shelley ever wrote), the ure would not be a bad illustration of "Lines written in Dejection at Naples," Dickens's Captain Cuttle, if he had ever and find opposite them a picture of Na- been chained to the Caucasus; but as an ples and its dancing waves, with Vesuvius illustration of the "awful sufferer," the sending up a cloud of smoke at a distance," and a good many boats on the shore. ages crowd," who "closes his tearless mighty Titan" on whose mind "past Well, there is no harm in the picture, ex-eyes," yet tells the tyrant who torments cept the harm of a most impertinent bit him, "I see more clear thy work within of interruption. It no more assists or my woe-illumined mind," the picture is supplements the poem, than it would help more than an absurdity,―a gross offence. you to understand “A Midsummer Night's The illustrations do not illustrate, but Dream" to have pictures interpolated of darken the poems; they are intrusions, a doll-fairy and an ass's head. Indeed and irritating intrusions, on them. Probpublishers have no judgment in these ably Flaxman might have illustrated things. They think that if something is "Prometheus Unbound" mentioned in a poem, it should necessari- Blake would have given us something fairly; even ly be agreeable to the reader of that poem mysterious and striking; but not one to have a picture of that something pre-painter in a thousand could do anything sented to him. It is just like Mr. Micaw- but spoil Shelley. As a rule, then, exber's idea, when his friends proposed to cept in a few very rare cases, we can him to carry coals on the Medway, that imagine some of Turner's illustrations the first step to take was "to run down lending a new meaning to some of Wordsand have a look at the Medway." It worth's meditative poems on nature, would be just as wise, and no wiser, to illustrations of poems are blunders, and illustrate Mr. Jevons or Mr. Bonamy Price irritating blunders, too, to any one who on money by a picture of a pound sterling cares for the poetry; and the appending and a five-pound note, or Mr. Tyndall on of poems to pictures is a blunder, and an heat by a picture of a ton of coals. But irritating blunder to those who care chiefly this is not even the worst illustration in for the drawings. the edition of Shelley now before us. There is an illustration to Shelley's "Sen- to fiction, though here, too, most illustraIt is different, however, when we come sitive Plant" which is still more distress-tions are disfigurements. The old illusing. Shelley had a dream of a garden trations of Scott's novels, for instance,inhabited by a lady "whose form was up-does any one recollect the pictures of Di borne by a lovely mind," and who had Vernon and Rebecca, which used to "no companion of mortal race." course, like all Shelley's visions, the details ful illustrations of Miss Austen's novels, Of adorn the old editions, and those wonderconcerning the lady are not to be partic- in which Elizabeth Bennett, in "Pride ularized. She is a feminine essence and Prejudice," is made so astonishingly rather than a real woman. flowers, and we are told thatShe tends the artificial, and Fanny Price, in “ Park," in a hideously big bonnet and veil, Mansfield Wherever her airy footstep trod with short sleeves and a scarf, is trying Her trailing hair from the grassy sod on a necklace, Miss Crawford standing Erased its slight vestige with shadowy sweep, Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. they show us the old-fashioned costumes by?are amusing to us now, only because no more illustrate anything than Millais's which now appear so very funny. They picture of the good wife helping her husband on with his coat to go away from home illustrates the Scotch song, "There is nae luck about the house," celebrating the husband's return home, to which it is But here you have an illustration of a fashionably-dressed young woman, whose sweeping gown certainly would make a great deal more impression on the grass than her trailing hair could ever efface. To try and embody such a conception as fortunate enough to find it. Mr. Trollope's delineations of common life are too true to reality to admit of being so drawn as to tell you more, or even as much, about them as he tells in his dialogues. There are very few real men whose characters are so written in their face, that you could tell nearly as much by seeing their outward forms as you could learn by hearing them converse. appended. And, indeed, it is only rarely | woods, the Mr. Kantwises and Mr. Mouldthat even in fiction true illustrations are ers, the Mr. Slopes and Mrs. Proudies possible. Cruikshank's illustrations of admit of lively illustrations, and some of Pickwick" and "Oliver Twist" are, in- them have found it; but his best characdeed, part and parcel of the genius of those ters, and his most truly humorous sketchwonderful books. We should hardly es, his Dean Arabins, Archdeacon Grantknow "the Artful Dodger" without lys, Mr. Hardings, and Phineas Phinns, Cruikshank's help in realizing Dickens's do not very well lend themselves to illus wonderful study. We should have noth-tration, and certainly have seldom been ing like a true conception of Noah Claypole's cunning, cowardice, and selfishness without Mr. Cruikshank's aid; and as for the wicked Fagin and his terrible horror of death, even the genius of Dickens acting alone would never have impressed it upon us as Cruikshank has impressed it. But then, Dickens's genius, with its stronglymarked physical features, its emphasis on all the superficial gesture and dress of life, and its leaning to caricature, is ex- We believe, then, that almost all illuspressly calculated for illustration and espe- trations to poems are worse than superflucially for the illustration of such a man as ous; that they injure the poems to which Cruikshank, who may be said to have been they are offered, except in the very rare born to complete Dickens and make cases in which the painter and the poet the marvels of German fairy-tales visible have a common element of genius, though to the eyes of children. Directly you expressed through different media; that turn from Cruikshank to the illustrations novels are quite as often injured as helped by Phiz, you see how imperfectly the lat-by illustration, and always injured unless ter has grasped many of Dickens's concep- the novelist lived chiefly in his eyes as tions, though one or two, Mr. Pecksniff, the American rowdies, Bailey Junior, and Mrs. Gamp, are admirably portrayed. Mr. Moddle, for instance, "the youngest gentleman in company" (who entreats Miss Pecksniff to "become the bride of a ducal coronet, and forget me. I will not reproach, for I have wronged you; may the furniture make some amends "), is a complete failure; and the grim avarice and murderous vindictiveness of Jonas Chuzzlewit are never conceived by Phiz at all. Still, Dickens was one of the most eminently illustratable of our novelists. His sharp, over-outlined conceptions lend themselves to the artist, especially if he has a good spice of the caricaturist in him; and Dickens hardly ever attempts to describe what is not in some way plainly written in lines upon the face or the gestures. Thackeray, again, was not only a satirist, but in his illustrations of his own tales became the satirist of his own satire, and showed you the snob beneath the gentleman and the selfish adventurer beneath the flatterer far more plainly than most men would have found them in the literary delineations themselves. But Trollope, again, has never really lent himself to illustration, except in the fragments of vulgar life which are to be found in most of his writings. The Mr. Cheesmans and Mrs. Green Dickens did, or has a good talent for ca- From The Saturday Review. CONSIDERATION OF OTHERS. CONSIDERATION in its social use is a new word. In books of the last century we find it employed only with reference to grave subjects and the weighing of important questions. To have it or to want it is not attributed as a feature of character. When Cowper assures a confiding friend that he divulges nothing but what might appear in the magazine, and this only after great consideration, he has in his mind the austere virtues of secrecy and discre tion. Now we use the word not only to open carriage, the inconsiderate man will express serious deliberation, but a habit, hint at the uncertain temper of the horse, grown into an instinct, of deferring to throw doubtful glances over the harness, the feelings and convenience of others in or suspect a screw loose in the carriage little things. Consideration does not come which may make things awkward at the before us as an angel whose office it is to descent of the next steep hill, where more whip the offending Adam, but as an easy than one accident has happened within companion making the wheels of life run his knowledge. And whatever he is on smooth. In fact, we hardly attribute it as land, he is worse on the water, where the a quality till we miss it. There are peo- terrors of timidity reach their climaxple whose whole course of proceedings in terrors which it seems his deliberate obminor matters is a misfit: no action of ject to enhance by every word and action, theirs adjusts itself to our expectations or only that we know how blindness to the plans; their comings and goings upset ar- feelings of others gives an aptitude in rangements; their sayings, doings, move- the art of infusing uneasiness not to be ments, as far as they affect us, seem matched by design. A satirist of the old guided by fate rather than intelligence. French court observes on this point:Nothing is convenient to them that suits "It would seem on first thoughts that the general convenience; they are com- part of the pleasure of princes was to inpelled by necessity to disturb and put out. convenience other people; but it is not so. We say of such a one-of the man who, Princes are like other men; they think of when he comes, habitually knocks the themselves, follow their taste, their pashousehold up at two in the morning or sions, their convenience." It needs no keeps us painfully watching and waiting malice of intention to bring about consefor him, and can find no better time for quences that might have malice for their starting when he goes than five o'clock contriver. It is said that Queen Charon a winter's morning that he has no lotte used to let Mrs. Siddons stand consideration; he perhaps says and thinks reading to her till she was ready to drop. that he cannot help it, but we learn to She did not know what it was to stand recognize, not a necessity outside himself, when she preferred sitting down. Conbut a characteristic. It is only by con- sideration needs to be cultivated, and pertrast that we find out that the friend who sonal experience of the inconvenience to never puts out our plans, who comes which others are subject is the great when we expect him, who respects the teacher on this point. Hence it is that dinner-hour, never interferes with an ar-rich people are often very inconsiderate rangement, and naturally conforms to the in money matters. They put people to scene of which he finds himself a part, expense without realizing the embarassdoes so by no accidental felicity, but ment they cause. They know that they through a delicate though perhaps uncon- themselves are careless of money, which scious subservience of his will to ours; and seems to them liberality, but it bores them we instal consideration into a virtue. to have to remember that this open-handThere are people, kind and even self-edness is not within the compass of limdenying in great things, who constantly ited means; they cannot entertain the spoil pleasure or disturb the tranquillity of idea that to some people a small sum is our serener hours through the defect of like their life-blood. People long incainconsiderateness. They will, to save the pacitated from active exertion by illness trouble of a letter, address a telegram an- or infirmity are often inconsiderate towards nouncing the merest trifle about them those they employ. It is not easy for selves to some household which they them to realize that those who can walk at know to be hanging on the tenter-hooks all can walk too much, or that healthy of suspense on a question of the deepest powers can be overstrained. How often personal concern, careless that the mes-indeed is health sacrificed to the inconsidsage will be received with trembling hands crateness of sickness and decay, though as the tidings of death or ruin. If there this is a branch of our subject too grave happens at a picnic to be a girl particu- to be dwelt upon here. larly afraid of lightning, the inconsiderate man of the party draws the attention of the company to every black cloud, is sure that it is coming their way and means mischief. Timidity attracts this quality like a magnet. When a nervous elderly lady trusts herself to the dangers of an Servants have so much the upper hand nowadays that we have rather to plead for consideration from them than to give it, and perhaps it is only in lodging-houses that we see them still victims. Here, for the season, they think it worth while to endure trials of temper and unreasonable Want of tact is so like inconsiderateness in its effects that it may be regarded demands on their physical strength which | tion dispenses with it, as being a quality must be educating them for communists so innate that nothing can weaken it. And when their time comes. The notion that no doubt it does pull through some very they have a right to consideration used to rough encounters; but nothing can in the be regarded as an impertinence. Steele long run stand disregard or forgetfulness in his day represents the fine lady dis- of the idiosyncrasies which constitute self. gusted with the dawn of such pretensions. The families that hold on to one another "The English are so saucy with their through life have always considered one liberty, I'll have all my lower servants another in small things as well as great. French; there cannot be a good footman born out of an absolute monarchy." The modern way of showing inconsiderate- as a branch of our subject. We cannot, ness to this class is by ignoring their for example, say whether it is want of tact presence in the choice of subjects of con- or want of consideration that sometimes versation. A sense of immeasurable dis- stumbles in the way of the most critical tance between themselves and their attend- occasions of life- those touch-and-go ants can alone account for the carelessness states of feeling between man and woman with which some people utter sentiments which must be caught at the crisis; when, and repeat gossip before them. It would if a proposal is interrupted, a declaration surprise as much as it would disgust them strangled in the opening sentence, no afto find their paradoxical opinions and ran- ter opportunity is of any avail. To judge dom comments repeated verbatim an hour from novels and from some actual expeafter in the servants' hall; they have riences, blunderers of our present type spoken under the impression that the top-have a great deal to answer for. Many a ics of the master and his guests are altogether above menial intelligence. en blighted life owes its sorrows to an inopportune intrusion or blindness to the obviBut of course choice of topics is at all ous duty of keeping out of the way, or to times one of the great tests of this qual a joke mistimed, or some other obtuseity. Most people can be quickened into ness of the moral sense. There is this considerateness by self-interest. To be difference to be observed between want of treated with consideration is the privilege consideration and want of tact, that the of wealth and greatness, while it is the one can be cured by care, watchfulness, lot of some never to have their existence regard for personal interest, or an recognized by regard for their feelings, larged benevolence, but the other never. preferences, dislikes. It does not do to Want of tact is an incurable infirmity; complain, as some do, of people riding nothing can mend it, nothing can prevent rough-shod over their sensibilities, but the its unseasonable exhibition. It is a sense thing sometimes happens through mere wanting, whereas inconsiderateness is only preoccupation with the principal figures in a sense dulled from want of practice. a group. The considerate temper ever In the one case it is mere want of thought, bears in mind not only the prominent in the other it is innocent persistency in members of a company but the supernu- wrong saying and doing. The topics meraries. Nobody is insignificant enough which want of tact will think suitable, the to be left out of the reckoning. This de- memories it will rake up, the services it liberation and suspended action of thought will obtrude, the times and seasons it will , and tongue is, it must be granted, much violate, are in the very genius of pervereasier to some persons than to others. sity. While these escapades pass for inThe more pronounced the character the considerateness they irritate the immedimore is consideration of this subtle kind ate sufferer, but in time they accumulate difficult, and a thing requiring a conscious into a treasury of anecdote, and constieffort; it is a mild virtue, meritorious in tute a character. The people, however, proportion to the wit and fine impulse it who really suffer under a man who fla has to contend with. By reformers and grantly wants tact are not his immediate ascetics it is discarded along with the victims so much as those closely belongother minor domestic virtues. It is their ing to him, who sit by and listen and wonbusiness to disturb every comfortable state der with tingling ears and flushed cheeks; of things. Every founder of a rule en- and, in fact, he often becomes rather a forces his rule upon all constitutions and favourite with society. Deficiency of pertempers alike; consideration would be ception, joined with good nature, is always weakness. But also it is the too common making demands for indulgence, and puts fault of family life to fail in considerate- the pardoner in a superior position. We ness. It is supposed that natural affec-are always telling good stories of such people behind their backs: their sayings | grateful are we to our benefactors that the and awkwardnesses are a stock subject in their own circle, and so promote talk and good neighbourhood. publication of the diary did an immense injury to its writer's reputation. Previ ously he was known as a staid, trustworthy and conscientious man of business, as a patron of science and literature, and as a president of the Royal Society. Jeremy Collier says he was "a philosopher of the severest morality." Since 1825 we have been too apt to forget the excellence of his official life, and to think of him only as a busybody and a quidnunc. Lord Braybrooke, who first introduced the book to the public, had no very accurate notion of the duties of an editor, and he treated his MS. in a very unsatisfactory manner. Large portions were omitted without explanation, and apparently without reason, and although much was added to succeeding editions, still the reader might well say That cruel something unpossessed Sydney Smith has given many of the traits which describe consideration and its opposite in his definitions of "a nice person," and "hardness of character." "A nice person," he says, "makes no difficulties, is never misplaced, is willing to sit bodkin, and is never foolishly affronted. A nice person helps you well at dinner, and understands you. A nice person respects all men's rights, never stops the bottle, is never long, and never wrong; always knows the day of the month, the name of everybody at table, and never gives pain to any human being. All the joys of life are communicated to nice people; the hand of the dying man is always held out to a nice person." And now for the reverse picture. "A hard person thinks he has done enough if he does not speak ill of your relations, your children, your country; and then, with the greatest good- The third edition, published in 1848, conhumour and volubility, and with a total tained a large mass of restored passages, inattention to your individual state and amounting it is said to not less than oneposition, gallops over a thousand fine feel- fourth of the entire work. Some fresh ings, and leaves in every step the mark of notes were added to the fourth edition, his hoofs upon your heart. The hard per-published in 1854, but no alteration of the son crushes little sensibilities, violates lit-text was made beyond "the correction of tle proprieties, and overlooks little dis- a few verbal errors and corrupt passages criminations, all from wanting that fine vision which heeds little things, that delicate touch which handles them, and that fine sympathy which superior moral organization always bestows." In all this he describes men as he finds them; we have touched on the causes which make one person "nice" to those about him, and the other "hard" and apt to annoy or wound. From The Academy. DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE diary which Samuel Pepys kept with praiseworthy diligence for ten years of his life has thrown such a flood of light upon the history and manners of his time that one is apt to forget the fact that before the year 1825 the world knew nothing of this mass of gossip. Yet so un • Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Esq., F.R.S., from his MS. Cypher in the Pepysian Library, with a Life and Notes by Richard Lord Braybrooke; deciphered with additional Notes, by the Rev. Mynors Bright, M.A. Vol. I. (London: Bickers & Son, 1875-) Corrodes and leavens all the rest. hitherto overlooked." Subsequent edi tions have been mere reprints of these. Still there was much omitted which cannot be included in Lord Braybrooke's description of entries "devoid of the slightest interest," and we therefore welcome Mr. Mynors Bright's entirely new transcript, as it gives us "the whole of the diary" with about one-third of matter never yet published." There is a passage, however, in the preface which is unsatisfactory, as we gather from it that those parts which the editor "thought would be tedious to the reader, or that are unfit for publication," have been left uncopied. Mr. Bright, as Sir Walter Scott said of the first editor, "hangs out no lights," or, in other words, has printed no stars to show where the passages to which he refers are omitted. We very much doubt the power of the editor of such a book as this to judge what will or will not be tedious to readers, and, although we do not say that the objectionable passages ought to have been printed, we think that some sign should have been given wherever any portion has been omitted. The first volume occupies the period from January, 1659-60, to June 30, 1662, and contains one hundred more pages than |