phrased by Charles Nodier, was accompanied by ten engravings on steel by William Finden after Tony Johannot, and a number of small woodcuts, entêtes and culs-de-lampe by Janet Lange, Charles Jacque, and C. Marville.1 As compositions, Johannot's contributions are effective, but highly theatrical, while his types are frankly French. Of the woodcuts it may be sufficient to note that when the Vicar and Mrs. Primrose discuss the prospects of the family in the privacy of their own chamber, they do so (in the picture) from two separate four-posters with twisted uprights, and a crucifix between them. The same eccentricities, though scarcely so naïvely ignorant, are not absent from the work of two much more modern artists, M. V. A. Poirson and M. Adolphe Lalauze. M. Poirson (Quantin, 1885) who, in his own domain, has extraordinary skill as a decorative artist, depicts 'Squire Thornhill as a gay young French chasseur with many-buttoned gaiters and a fusil en bandoulière, while the hero of the Elegy on a Mad Dog appears in those "wooden shoes" (with straw in them) which for so long were to English cobblers the chief terror of a French invasion. M. Lalauze again (Jouaust, 1888), for whose distinguished gifts (in their place) we have the keenest admiration, promotes the whole Wakefield family into the haute noblesse. An elegant Dr. Primrose blesses an elegant George with the air of a Rochefoucault, while Mrs. Primrose, in the background, with the Bible and cane, is a grande dame de par le monde. Under the same treatment, the scene 1 To the edition of 1843, which does not contain these woodcuts, is added one by Meissonier. in the hayfield becomes a fête galante after the fashion of Lancret or Watteau. Upon the whole, dismissing foreign artists for the reason given above, one is forced to the conclusion that Goldsmith has not hitherto found his fitting pictorial interpreter. Stothard and Mulready have accentuated his graver side; Cruikshank and Rowlandson have exaggerated his humour. But no single artist in the past, as far as we are aware, has, in any just proportion, combined them both. By the delicate quality of his art, by the alliance in his work of a grace and playfulness which has a kind of parallel in Goldsmith's literary style, the late Mr. Randolph Caldecott seemed always to suggest that he could, if he would, supply this want. But, apart from the captivating play-book of the Mad Dog and a frontispiece in the Parchment Library, Mr. Caldecott contributed nothing to the illustration of Goldsmith's novel. AUSTIN DOBSON. EALING, October 1890. CONTENTS 1. The description of the family of Wakefield, in which a kindred likeness prevails, as II. Family misfortunes. The loss of fortune only serves to increase the pride of the III. A migration. The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found at last to Iv. A proof that even the humblest fortune may grant happiness, which depends not on circumstances, but constitution...... v. A new and great acquaintance introduced. What we place most hopes upon, gen- XI. The family still resolve to hold up their heads XII. Fortune seems resolved to humble the fam- ily of Wakefield. Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities....... 82 XIII. Mr. Burchell is found to be an enemy, for XIV. Fresh mortifications, or a demonstration that seeming calamities may be real blessings 96 XXVII. The same subject continued.... XXVIII. Happiness and misery rather the result of prudence than of virtue in this life; tem- poral evils or felicities being regarded by Heaven as things merely in themselves trifling, and unworthy its care in the dis- tribution.... XXIX. The equal dealings of Providence demon- strated with regard to the happy and the miserable here below. That, from the nature of pleasure and pain, the wretched |