common when Pope wrote, nor were they for some time afterwards
either very numerous or very noteworthy. There are Hogarth's
engravings to "Hudibras" and "Don Quixote;" there are the designs of
his crony Frank Hayman to Theobald's "Shakespeare," to Milton, to
Pope, to Cervantes; there are Pine's "Horace" and Sturt's "Prayer-
Book" (in both of which text and ornament were alike engraved);
there are the historical and topographical drawings of Sandby, Wale,
and others; and yet--notwithstanding all these--it is with Bewick's
cuts to Gay's "Fables" in 1779, and Stothard's plates to Harrison's
"Novelist's Magazine" in 1780, that book-illustration by imaginative
compositions really begins to flourish in England. Those little
masterpieces of the Newcastle artist brought about a revival of
wood-engraving which continues to this day; but engraving upon
metal, as a means of decorating books, practically came to an end
with the "Annuals" of thirty years ago. It will therefore be well
to speak first of illustrations upon copper and steel.


Stothard, Blake, and Flaxman are the names that come freshest to
memory in this connection. For a period of fifty years Stothard
stands pre-eminent in illustrated literature. Measuring time by
poets, he may be said to have lent something of his fancy and
amenity to most of the writers from Cowper to Rogers. As a
draughtsman he is undoubtedly weak: his figures are often limp and
invertebrate, and his type of beauty insipid. Still, regarded as
groups, the majority of his designs are exquisite, and he possessed
one all-pervading and un-English quality--the quality of grace.
This is his dominant note. Nothing can be more seductive than the
suave flow of his line, his feeling for costume, his gentle and
chastened humour. Many of his women and children are models of