THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.*
THERE are two classes of works for the young which may be fairly described as" Books for Children" and" Children's Books,". the difference between them being of little moment, except to the children themselves. In the first class may be placed nearly the whole of that somewhat trying series, whose authors endeavour to combine "amusement with instruction," whose words are almost ostentatiously short and simple, whose morals are unimpeachable, incidents unimportant, and whose gross result is dullness. Do not we all know them well ? Have not many of us wished, with Mark Twain, for a history of the "Bad little boy who did not come to grief," or of the "Good little boy with whom nothing went well ?" And in after-life, have we not felt something of a plea- surable surprise, at discovering that the course of affairs on this troublous earth does not proceed with the same dull uniformity of sequence to which our early story-books had accustomed us ? It may be—no doubt, it is—the case that a deeper knowledge and wider experience tend to restore to us our early faith, but the chief element of our dissatisfaction with it is by that time fully eliminated. We allude to the self-evident and accurate pro- portioning of misfortune to evil conduct, and of reward to merit However much we may shut our eyes on our road through life, we must gradually come to disbelieve in goodness being rewarded, and error punished, after the fashion of these early stories.
Again, books are for children, at least in name, of which the real raison d'être is the amusement of grown-up people. Such a one we noticed a fortnight ago, entitled the Baby's Bouquet. Now, no baby, no young child even, would care for a book of that de- scription, not because it is a poor or bad book, but that its merit is not such as a child can comprehend. What does " Georgey Porgey " know or care about decorative or conventional art—and yet no one who does not both know and care about such art could appreciate Mr. Walter Crane's excessively clever little work. But the books we have referred to as forming the second class of those which are meant for the young are the children's books,—the ones which the little ones themselves love and wonder at, whose matter is not a text for any sermon, no matter how slight, whose art does not soar too high for their comprehen- sion, whose pictures and stories are a happy blending of the humorous and the nonsensical Now, for a child to like a book, there are several indispensable qualifications. There must be a story, a thread of connected, intelligible interest, running right through it ; and the story must be told plainly and clearly, with a
• The House that Jack Built. By B. Caldecott. London: liontledge.
-superabundance of strictly defined incident, and a very slight amount of descriptive or illustrative matter. The same principle which in later life causes nine boys out of ten to skip the descrip- tions in Ivanhoe and Quentin Durward to get to the story, operates much earlier in life, to a much greater degree, and the small mind has rarely room for more than one or two details about each per- -son or thing which his story introduces. Lastly, we think that to the very young the story is decidedly more attractive if in rhyme, though here a very slight increase of age will change matters.
Considerations of this kind go far to explain, what so many wiseacres in the present day fail to see any reason for, namely, the preference of children for the coarsely illustrated, cheap, old story-books, which treat of such absurd subjects as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. It is a sad fact that,—
" The fairy-tales of Science, and the long result of Time,"
fail to interest our young people ; and the utmost genius of the nineteenth century, which has exhausted the secrets of nature and settled the destinies of man, has proved almost incompetent ; to invent a new nursery-rhyme. And so, when we found by chance amongst the Christmas books an almost perfect edition of , the old rhyme, The House that Jack Built, we thought we could do our readers no greater favour than strongly recommending it to their notice, as possessing in a peculiar degree all the character- istics which should make it a favourite with children, as well as some which will render it not unwelcome to the older members of the household.
The book consists of half-a-dozen full-page illustrations in colours, and of outline etchings in brown ink on each page of the minor incidents of the text,—if there can be said to be any minor incident in the whole wonderful narrative. Though the coloured illustrations are vigorous and clever, they do not (with two exceptions) reach a distinctly higher level than is com- mon in artistic story-books at the present day. The exceptions are the two illustrations, the "Cow with the crumpled horn," in the act of charging at the "Dog who -worried the cat," and the "Man all tattered and torn," crossing the field to kiss the "Maiden all forlorn." These are certainly exceptionally good, both in de- ; sign and colour, and when due allowance is made for the alteration for the worse which invariably takes place in colour-printing, there is a high degree of merit as a colourist to be allotted to Mr. Caldecott. But the chief merit of the compositions is neither in the drawing nor the colour, strictly speaking, but in the wonderful combination of insight, humour, and pathos, with which the artist has studied the story and endued his compositions. We will try to justify these assertions by a description of the manner in which Mr. Caldecott has interpreted the tale. In the first illustration referred to, we have the cow charging violently across the meadow towards the dog, who is sitting with his head on one side, watching intently the progress of the "Maiden all for- born," who, with her milking-stool under one arm and milk-pail in , the other, has just appeared out of the farm-gate ; in the dis- tance we see the farm and orchard, and, very slightly indicated, I an evening sky. Now, as all readers of The House that Jack! Built are aware, the whole notion of the story is that of retributive justice :— " The priest that slew the slayer, And shall himself be slain."
And, to our mind at least, one great point of interest in the book is the sudden change from the penalty by death in the cases of the rat, cat, and dog, to the penalty by marriage in the case of the "man all tattered and torn," who took the unwarrantable liberty of kissing unawares the maiden. To return for a moment to this first picture. If Mr. Caldecott had simply given us the coloured illustration, while praising the cleverness of his work, we should have thought that he had somewhat missed the point to be aimed at, inasmuch as it is not the unconsciousness of that dog which we want to keep in mind, but the fact that he is going to be punished for having worried the cat. Mr. Caldecott, however, has understood this perfectly, so perfectly that we doubt whether any child reading and looking at this book can help understand- ing it too, for he has put on the preceding page to the coloured illustration to which we are referring, an outline etching of the front view of the dog, as he appeared at the very moment the cow was charging at him. Here the dog is in the same attitude as in the coloured picture, the point of view of the spectator only being changed, and his face wears an expression of the most supreme canine self-satisfaction. If ever a dog mentally reviewed with satisfaction any past incident of his life, this dog is doing so, and chuckling internally over the way in which he has ' "worried the cat."
The two following pages are taken up with single-figure Bun G
etchings ; one is the proprietor of the dog, an old farm- servant, digging his grave, with a couple of big tears rolling down his cheeks ; and the other the homeward progress of the milk- ing maiden, who has lost all heart for her accustomed work, gathered her pail and stool into one hand, and with the apron in the other, is wiping her eyes. However, the milking has to be done, so in the next etching we find her with one arm laid upon the cow's crumpled horn, apparently remonstrating with her for her wicked conduct. In the next, the "man tattered and torn" makes his appearance ; and here the native humour of the artist has asserted itself most strongly, for instead of any con- ventional beggar, he has given us one of the moat rakish, dare-devil Irishmen possible to conceive, who has appar- ently just arrived from Donnybrook Fair, or some other place, where "whiskey, fighting, and diversion" abound. We are intro- duced to him as be catches sight of the maiden, and the gleam of fun is already lighting up his face ; but in the coloured illus- tration the vague jollity has resolved itself into a settled purpose ; he is stealing close up behind her, his eyes almost starting out of his bead with excitement, the corners of his mouth
twisting up with laughter, and his fingers outstretched in the most comical manner, in the endeavour to tread noiselessly; he has even dropped his umbrella, in his eagerness; the maid sits, leaning her head on her hand, still regretting the untimely fate of the dog; and the cow is watching from a distant corner of the field the Irishman's advent. What happens in another second or two is told and shown on the next few pages ; but we must leave it to our
readers' imagination or memory, merely remarking that when we take leave of our Ilibernian friend, a few pages later on, his appearance has altered very much for the better. In the words of Mr. Gilbert, let us hope that,—
" She will tend him, wash him, mend him, Darn his clothes, and dry hie tears. Bless the thoughtful Pates, that send him Such a guide to soothe his years."
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