MOXON'S ILLUSTRATED " ENDYMION."*
IN general we do not look with much favour on the practice lately introduced of reprinting the whole text of poems in an inconvenient form, to accompany illustrations which might as well have been published alone with mere references to the proper passages of the poem, and would have been .so published before the industry of gift-books meant to lie about and not to be read was developed. No doubt a book may be too large and too magnificent to be read, and yet be justified by its magnificence. The printing and other external apparatus of literature may be treated in an artistic way for their own sake, and an edition de luxe has its meaning as a homage and a monument, though it departs from the natural office of a book. One of the best modern instances is the edition of Schiller produced for the celebration of his jubilee, a volume exquisitely printed and illustrated with photographs, far too large for reading purposes, but distinctly an addition to the beautiful things in the world.
Now Keats is a poet who is certainly not too much known, and we should regard any fitting celebration of him as a good deed ; and we do not know of any English artist to whom we would rather see the execution of the pictorial part given than to Mr. Poynter. But such a thing ought to be done completely and well. The printing, the engraving or whatever other means are used to render the painter's designs, and the whole finish of the book, ought to be the best that can be had. Pro- bably such a production would be expensive, though photography which can now be made imperishable by the carbon process, might materially reduce the cost as compared with that of en- graving. But in such a matter cheapness is the last thing to be thought of. Mediocrity has no more right to exist in the sur- roundings of a printed poem than in the poem itself, when the surroundings have become the objects of an mithetic luxury of their own. But even as the booksellers, Horace's dictum notwith- standing, have since his time granted existence to middling poets without number, so they have been equally unscrupulous in issuing
middling, and worse than middling, ornamental editions of them. We have before us Messrs. Moxon's reprint of Keats's Endymion, with engravings after Mr. Poynter. We have said that we should
heartily approve of such a work if it were really well done. As it is, we can only say that the publishers have issued under the names of Keats and Mr.•Poynter a thing which does no manner of justice to either of them. For, in one word, Keats' poetry is very ill printed, and Mr. Poynter's pictures far from well engraved. The book professes to be a work of art, and it ought not to have been sent forth without the most elaborate care for its perfection at all points. Instead of this it bears the marks of hasty and per- functory supervision, if indeed there has been any supervision.
The first circumstance which strikes us as odd ie that all four books of the poem are reprinted-, but the six engravings all belong to the first book. It is impossible to believe that this was originally meant to be so, and we can only suppose that there has been some change of plan or a break. down of some arrangement at the last moment, for we will not bring ourselves to accuse the publishers
of such a wanton and inexcusable piece of book-making as it would be to reprint with deliberate purpose three parts of a poem in an unreadable shape under cover of illustrations to the fourth part.
• Endymion. By John Keats. Illustrated with Engravings on Stec by F Joubert from Paintings by E. J. Poynter, A.B.A. London : Moxon. 1873. The next thing we observe is that the paper and binding are of a poor quality, and the printing is downright bad. In a book of this sort there ought to be no misprints at all. But in this edition of Endymion there are many, and of a worse than ordinary kind. In one place two half-lines have been dropped out so as to make nonsense of a beautiful passage. Nothing but extreme haste or carelessness can account for such a fault being allowed to pass un- corrected : and in this case there could be no possible reason for haste, and still less can any indulgence be claimed for careless handling of a work which should be perfectly executed if it is to be worth anything.
As to Mr. Poynter's designs, we can perceive dimly that they have great merit, and we should very much like to see the originals exhibited. But the engravings are not worthy of the painter. All engraving is of course conventional to some extent ; but these belong to a school of exaggerated and clumsy convention, and are not the best possible specimens of that. There is no delicacy or gradation in rendering the sur- faces ; flesh and drapery alike appear as if covered with coarse net. The finer touches of the drawing are loit, and there are even positive faults which we cannot believe to correspond to anything Mr. Poynter drew. The neck and face of the sleeping figure of Endymion, in the fourth plate, have no more shape or relief than if they were cut out of a fiat board ; it is true that they are in shade, but a shade in which form ought to be discernible ; and the painfully hard edge of the shadow heightens the disagreeable effect. But there is not much to be surprised at, after all, for the fashion of getting up cheap and gaudy books to sell at Christmas is not compatible with securing good work. Any one of Mr. Poynter's illustrations, if engraved as it ought to be, would be fairly worth more than the price now put on the whole book. But it is quite possible, considering the matter merely from a tradesman's point of view, that an extended circulation of cheap and inferior plates amongst people who are content with such may pay better than a limited circulation of really valuable ones amongst those who understand their value. As for the duty of not obstructing artistic education by keeping the market supplied with bad work to answer the crude demands of nascent msthetic faculties, that of course does not enter into publishers' calculations.
Knowing Mr. Poynter to be a true artist, we presume that he has had nothing to do with this misconoeived execution of his designs, and is not in any way answerable for it. We repeat that his ideas, so far as we can judge of them, deserve a much better interpretation. The composition of the frontispiece, and the study of sky and clouds in the fifth plate, are especially good. But we cannot but regret the appearance of any work of his in this manner and form. It may no doubt be better for the class of persons who buy illustrated gift-books to have good pictures badly engraved than to have bad pictures badly engraved. And it is possible that even the worst reprint of Endymion may induce some people to read the poem who otherwise might not have read it. There is therefore no reason to suppose that Messrs. Moxon's production will do any positive harm. But that does not absolve us from the duty of speaking our mind plainly of a piece of work which by its very nature challenges strict criticism, and yet falls below the standard of even ordinary diligence. The way in which this edition has been brought out does no justice to the memory of Keats, to the living reputation of Mr. Poynter, nor'
or to the discernment of the public.
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