strongholds of English illustration. He came at a fortunate moment.
After a few hesitating and tentative attempts upon the newspapers, he
obtained an introduction to Mr. Comyns Carr, then engaged in
establishing the _English Illustrated Magazine_ for Messrs. Macmillan.
His recommendation was a scrap-book of minutely elaborated designs for
_Vanity Fair_, which he had done (like Reynolds) "out of pure idleness."
Mr. Carr, then, as always, a discriminating critic, with a keen eye to
possibilities, was not slow to detect, among much artistic recollection,
something more than uncertain promise; and although he had already
Randolph Caldecott and Mr. Harry Furniss on his staff, he at once gave
Mr. Thomson a commission for the magazine. The earliest picture from his
hand which appeared was a fancy representation of the Parade at Bath for
a paper in June, 1884, by the late H. D. Traill; and he also illustrated
(in part) papers on Drawing Room Dances, on Cricket (by Mr. Andrew
Lang), and on Covent Garden. But graphic and vividly naturalistic as
were his pictures of modern life, his native bias towards imaginary
eighteenth century subjects (perhaps prompted by boyish studies of
Hogarth in the old Dublin _Penny Magazine_), was already abundantly
manifest. He promptly drifted into what was eventually to become his
first illustrated book, a series of compositions from the _Spectator_.
These were published in 1886 as a little quarto, entitled _Days with Sir
Roger de Coverley_.

It was a "temerarious" task to attempt to revive the types which, from
the days of Harrison's _Essayists_, had occupied so many of the earlier
illustrators. But the attempt was fully justified by its success. One
has but to glance at the head-piece to the first paper, where Sir Roger
and "Mr. Spectator" have alighted from the jolting, springless,
heavy-wheeled old coach as the tired horses toil uphill, to recognise at
once that here is an artist _en pays de connaissance_, who may fairly be