Opening the text

English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.Everitt, Graham

History

English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.

Name: English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.
Author: Everitt, Graham

Everitt, Graham

Caricature -- Great Britain; Illustration of books -- Great Britain -- 19th century

This same book contains, too, the celebrated etching of _Jack
o'Lantern_, probably the best illustration of the supernatural which we
owe to the pencil and weird imagination of the artist. "Talk of Fuseli
and his wind-bag, there is real vivid imagination enough in this to make
a whole academy of Fuselis. It is just an Egyptian darkness, with
breaking through it, above a bog-hole, some black bulrushes, and above
them a bending, leathery goblin exulting over some drowned traveller,
the meteor lamp he carries casting a downward flicker on the dark water.
Such darkness, such wicked speed, such bad, Puck-like malice, such
devilry, Hoffman and Poe together could not have better devised. Many a
May exhibition has not half the genius in all its pictures that focuses
in that gem of jet." The description is admirable; but Walter Thornbury
has altogether misconceived the artist's idea. _Jack o'Lantern_ is
simply misguiding a belated traveller into a bog, and the elfin grin
which pervades his countenance testifies to the delight he takes in his
mischievous employment. The words of the song in Dryden's _King Arthur_
convey the best possible description of this wondrous conception:--

  "Hither this way, this way bend,
   Trust not that malicious fiend;
   Those are false, deluding lights,
   Wafted far and near by sprights;
   Trust 'em not, for they'll deceive ye,
   And in bog and marshes leave ye,
   If you step no danger thinking,
   Down you fall, a furlong sinking;
   'Tis a fiend who has annoyed ye,
   Name but Heav'n, and he'll avoid ye."

By way of contrast to all these, I would turn to the celebrated and
much-too-often-described _Triumph of Cupid_, of the "Table Book"; but as
the praises of this remarkable composition may already be counted by the
ream, I have no intention whatever of contributing a further addition.

[Illustration:
  GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. _From "The Universal Songster."_

  "THE OLD COMMODORE."]

[Illustration:
  GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. _From "The Universal Songster._"

    "A tall figure her sight engross'd,
     And it cried, 'I beez Giles Scroggin's Ghost.'"

  _Face p. 182._]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.Everitt, Graham

History

English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.

Everitt, Graham

Caricature -- Great Britain; Illustration of books -- Great Britain -- 19th century

This same book contains, too, the celebrated etching of _Jack
o'Lantern_, probably the best illustration of the supernatural which we
owe to the pencil and weird imagination of the artist. "Talk of Fuseli
and his wind-bag, there is real vivid imagination enough in this to make
a whole academy of Fuselis. It is just an Egyptian darkness, with
breaking through it, above a bog-hole, some black bulrushes, and above
them a bending, leathery goblin exulting over some drowned traveller,
the meteor lamp he carries casting a downward flicker on the dark water.
Such darkness, such wicked speed, such bad, Puck-like malice, such
devilry, Hoffman and Poe together could not have better devised. Many a
May exhibition has not half the genius in all its pictures that focuses
in that gem of jet." The description is admirable; but Walter Thornbury
has altogether misconceived the artist's idea. _Jack o'Lantern_ is
simply misguiding a belated traveller into a bog, and the elfin grin
which pervades his countenance testifies to the delight he takes in his
mischievous employment. The words of the song in Dryden's _King Arthur_
convey the best possible description of this wondrous conception:--

  "Hither this way, this way bend,
   Trust not that malicious fiend;
   Those are false, deluding lights,
   Wafted far and near by sprights;
   Trust 'em not, for they'll deceive ye,
   And in bog and marshes leave ye,
   If you step no danger thinking,
   Down you fall, a furlong sinking;
   'Tis a fiend who has annoyed ye,
   Name but Heav'n, and he'll avoid ye."

By way of contrast to all these, I would turn to the celebrated and
much-too-often-described _Triumph of Cupid_, of the "Table Book"; but as
the praises of this remarkable composition may already be counted by the
ream, I have no intention whatever of contributing a further addition.

[Illustration:
  GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. _From "The Universal Songster."_

  "THE OLD COMMODORE."]

[Illustration:
  GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. _From "The Universal Songster._"

    "A tall figure her sight engross'd,
     And it cried, 'I beez Giles Scroggin's Ghost.'"

  _Face p. 182._]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.

English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.

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