14 NOVEMBER 1885, Page 21

ILLUSTRATED NEWS.*

Tins is a unique, as well as a most interesting and amusing, volume. It gives an account, with copious illustrations, of the various forms of illustrated literature which have made their appearance from the earliest times to the present day. It is full of the results of research among rare pamphlets and curious broadsheets. It reproduces not only the cuts, which from the beginning of the art of illustration to its culmination in the elaborate pictures of the illustrated London News and its imitators and rivals, have been used to bring home to the public in general the actual scenes of great and startling events, but also amusing specimens of the letterpress descriptions which accompanied them. It must be admitted that, however great the difference in the style of illustration, there is very little difference in the kind of subject specially selected for illus- tration. In 1587, as in 1885, under Elizabeth as under Victoria, the topics which attracted the artists were battles and sieges, murders and horrors. In the latest outburst of illustrated journalism, in an evening contemporary, even the style of the illustration is not very different from that of the worst of the earliest examples produced by Mr. Jackson. It is noticeable, too, that in those days, as in these, news from distant quarters of the globe was concocted with admirable atten- tion to detail in Fleet Street, and the same pictures were, with meritorious versatility, used to represent quite different scenes and events ; just as, in times not long gone by, the picture of the fast sailing clipper 'Albatross' used to bear a curiously exact resemblance to the fast-sailing clipper Penguin,' which was launched a year or two afterwards. There is one very marked example of this use of the same illustration over and over again for different subjects—to which, by the way, Mr. Jackson does not refer, as he confines himself almost entirely to English illustrations—in the Nuremberg Chronicle, where the same city does duty as London and Constantinople, or Paris and Babylon, in regular rotation. Thus a woodcut of a naval battle in 1647 "between the Parliament ships and the Qneene of Sweathlands," which Mr. Jackson gives, is used in- differently in other pamphlets to represent battles between any naval combatants. A striking portrait of "Captain Vaul, that cruel tyrant," a nickname for a bloodthirsty Cavalier of 1642, appears also as that of "Mr. Holt, chief agent in the uproar" of a riot at York, and it had previously figured in an account of a "Bloody Conspiracy at Edinburgh." In fact, many of the early illustrations appear to have been used as a kind of common form applicable equally to any event or person of the same genus. The publisher no doubt considered that a flood in Somersetshire would be very like a flood in Wales ; and a ghost in London would, no doubt, bear a strong family resemblance to a ghost at Norwich.

The earliest illustration which Mr. Jackson gives is from a pamphlet on Sir Francis Drake's expedition against Spain in 1587, in which his ship is represented in full sail. In 1613 divers floods and tempests are shown in the most appalling manner. But the first genuine piece of illustrated news is the picture of the murder of the Rev. Mr. Storre, in the same year, when the murderer is represented with a huge sword hacking at the reverend gentleman's head, while a leg already severed lies on the ground, and blood gushes from the thigh. The most striking characteristic of this print is the absolutely impossible countenance of the murderer, who has the gentle simper of a man sitting for his portrait, while the victim only suggests that his situation is unpleasant by a certain air of depression about his nose. The pictorial press, like the newspaper press in general, had but a languishing existence till the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640. The rebellion in Ireland, the execution of Strafford, the raising of Charles's standard at Nottingham, afford excellent pabulum, and during the whole period of the Civil War there is a perfect flood of illustra- tions, tragical and comical. The latter are naturally * The Pictorial Press ; its 0 tisi'n and Progress. By Mason Jackson. London : Hurst and Blaokett. the best, as the rudeness of execution which was apt to divest a battle or execution of its tragedy, only gave additional point to a satire or caricature. The caricaturists were so savage that they even followed their victims beyond the grave. Thus a cut is given of Strafford after his execution being rowed across the Styx by Charon, with William Noy, the late Attorney- General, waiting on the bank to receive them, Charon and all being clad in the steeple-crowned hat and, doublet of the period. From the specimens given, it would appear that the Round- heads beat the Cavaliers with the pencil as well as with the sword, unless it be that Mr. Jackson, in his selection, takes care to give the Whig dogs the best of it. There is an excellent portrait of Pennington, Lord Mayor in 1643, which is superior to the portraits of Lord Mayors and dignitaries that sometimes adorn our weekly papers. This, however, is taken from a special pamphlet. The portraits and caricatures from the Mercurius Civicus, the City "weekly," are very creditable speci- mens of engraving. Nor did they always take very long in preparation. Cheapside Cross was pulled down as a symbol of idolatry "with a great deal of judgment and discretion, and four companies of the Traine Bands of the City to guard and defend those that are about the worke, and to keep others from domineering, and so I leave it to be made levell with the ground this 2nd day of May, 1643." The next day appeared a tract giving an account of the demolition, and the reasons for it, with a spirited woodcut representing the pulling down which would do credit to the Illustrated or the Graphic. But it must be allowed that most of the specimens of this date given by Mr. Jackson are very rough and extremely comic, being distinguished by an entire absence of any notion of perspective. There is a woodcut taken from a tract of 1644 illustrating the cruelties of the Cavaliers, in which a baby is represented as being banged on the head against a stone by a gentleman, who would be a creditable pantaloon ; while in front kneels a doll, with its hands up in prayer, intended to represent the mother ; and behind stands a cavalier, three times the size of every one else in the picture, to represent the commanding officer. But per- haps the most comic one of all was a picture which appeared in divers tracts of the King in prison at Carisbrooke, looking out of a window, with a head and crown about the same size as the castle. A picture of Charles's execution is in similar style, in which the King looks as if he had knelt down for Bishop Juxon to play leap-frog over him.

But what the good people of that day, and of many days after, liked better even than political scenes and bloodshed, was marvels. In 1616 we are presented with miraculous news from Munster, in Germany," depicting three skeletons rising from the grave "admonishing the people of judgment to come." In 1628 a fall of meteors in Berkshire, with a battle-royal going on in the clouds, is shown in a startling print. Even during the Civil War the Parliamentary Army has time to find a witch walking on a plank in the water up and down the river at Newbury, and she is duly drawn in a pamphlet ; while Lilly, the astrologer, publishes a tract with a picture of an extraordinary apparition which appeared in the sky on the King's birthday. In 1655 a horrible copperplate is given of a monster taken in the mountains in Spain, with seven human heads and arms and a goat's legs. In 1664 there is a very good etching of a contest of ships seen in the air at Gorre, and attested on oath before the Magistrates. In 1710 a comet appeared, which was described and drawn as a fiery apparition, with a man following the comet on a cloud, sword in hand, said to have been seen in London ; and even so late as 1765 the Si. James's Chronicle regaled its readers with a portrait of a "parlous" beast which appeared in France, and devoured upwards of seventy persons, until slain by M. Beauterme and a gamekeeper.

The progress of the illustrated press corresponded pretty exactly with that of the newspaper press in general. tinder the censorship of Cromwell and Charles II. both waned. Under Anne both took a great start. In 1724, Parker's London News published an elaborate representation of the various stages of an eclipse. In 1740 one of the earliest daily journals, the Daily Post, published a representation of the battle of Portobello, to illustrate the news of the battle, which had just arrived. But this was only a flash in the pan. Illustrated journalism really takes its rise only in the beginning of the present century. The Times, in 1806, with an account of Nelson's burial at St. Paul's, published woodcuts of the coffin and funeral car ; and hideous both subject and picture are. The Times from time to time broke out into illustrations. But it was reserved for the Observer to show what developments were possible in this way. In October, 1815, it published a large copper-plate of St. Helena, with letterpress. Three years later the portrait of Abraham Thornton, a murderer who claimed his right to defend himself by wager of battle, was published with immense success. In 1820 appeared woodcuts of the scene of the Cato-Street Conspiracy, and Queen Caroline's trial; and in next year, of the coronation of George IV. and his visit to Ireland. Bat the great sensation of all, which finally established the possibility of pictorial newspapers, was caused by the Observer's illustrations of the murder of Weare and the trial of his mur- derers, Thurtell and Hunt. The case was only heard of in the last days of October; but on November 10th the Observer ap- peared with elaborate woodcuts of the various places and things connected with the case. When the trial came on, further plates were published, not only in the Observer, but in the Morning Chronicle and the Englishman, the property of the same owner. Bat the outcry at the "want of taste" in the publications or the commercial depression—Mr. Jackson inclines to the latter view — prevented any more sensational illustrations for some years. Bell's Life, another paper of the same proprietor, however, took to sporting and dramatic pictures ; and in 1827 the Observer again took to illustrations. When the Duke of York died, a portrait of him on horseback, and views of his lying-in-state and of the Royal Mausoleum, first appeared. Canning's death followed soon afterwards, and his portrait was given. The opening of the Suspension Bridge at Hammer- smith (now being pulled down), alteration in St. James's Park, the battle of Navarino, and a new steam-coach, were all duly illustrated ; but again the great sensation was the portrait of a murderer and the scene of the murder, and thenceforward, to 1841, the Observer never failed to illustrate any particularly exciting event. In 1836 was started the Weekly Chronicle, which was the first paper which relied mainly on its illus- trations for its attractions. A celebrated murder made its fortune for a time, and brought up its sale, according to its own account, to 130,000 copies a week. In 1841 Punch, the first regular comic newspaper since the Mercurius Demo- critus of the Puritan Civil War, was born. On May 14th, 1842, appeared the Illustrated London News, with sixteen pages and thirty-two illustrations, the chief of them the fire of Hamburg, views of Cabal (the first Afghan war then going on), and a fancy ball given by the Queen, drawn by Sir John Gilbert. Twenty- six thousand copies of the first number were sold. By the end of the first year its sale was 60,000. The French Revolution of 1848 trebled its circulation. The Great Exhibition of 1851 raised it still more. In 1863, at the marriage of the Prince of Wales, 310,000 copies were printed. The blocks of the Christmas number of 1882 had 425,000 impressions taken from them. Mr. Jackson looks forward to further developments. The elaborate process of drawing, wood-engraving, electrotyping, and printing, he thinks, will give way to the substitution of surface-printing, through process blocks doing away with the intermediate process of engraving, and thus render possible "the daily pictorial press, the era of which is approaching."