English Illustration 'The Sixties': 1855-70: With Numerous Illustrations by Ford Madox Brown: A. Boyd Houghton: Arthur Hughes: Charles Keene: M. J. Lawless: Lord Leighton, P.R.A.: Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A.: G. Du Maurier: J. W. North, R.A.: G. J. Pinwell: Dante Gabriel Rossetti: W. Small: Frederick Sandys: J. Mcneill Whistler: Frederick Walker, A.R.A.: and Others
Dante Alighieri · en
A most delightful children's magazine, which began as a sixpenny
monthly under the editorship of Dr. Norman Macleod in 1869, bids
fair to become one of those books peculiarly dear (in all senses) to
collectors. There are many reasons why it deserves to be treasured.
Its literature includes several books for children that in volume-form
afterwards became classics; its illustrations, especially those by
Arthur Hughes, appeal forcibly to the student of that art, which is
called pre-Raphaelite, Æsthetic, or Decorative, according to the
mood of the hour. Like all books intended for children, a large
proportion of its edition found speedy oblivion in the nursery; and
those that survive are apt to show examples of the amateur artist
in his most infantile experiments with a penny paint-box. From the
very first it surrounded itself with that atmosphere of distinction,
which is well-nigh as fatal to a magazine's longevity as saintliness
of disposition to a Sunday-school hero. After a career that may be
called truthfully--brilliant, it suddenly changed to a periodical of
no importance, illustrated chiefly by foreign _clichés_. How long it
lingered in this state does not concern us. Indeed, it is only by a
liberal interpretation of the title of this book that a magazine which
was not started until 1869 can be included in _the sixties_ at all; but
it seems to have continued the tradition of the sixties, and until the
first half of 1874, although it changed its editor and its title (to
_Good Things_), it kept the spirit of the first volume unimpaired; but
after that date it joined the majority of uninteresting periodicals for
children, and did not survive its recantation for many years.