WAVERLEY NOVELS ILLUSTRATIONS.
Spa,—Are you clear that you have yet stated the real evils in these sad "Illustrations" of _stupidity and bad taste ?
In my opinion the fault lies in adopting illustrations of the wrong sort. If the novel-writer is worth any thing, he preduces in the mind of his reader (supposing also that reader to have taste or feeling) an image as to his characters, which it is not at all likely that a designer should reach, but which it is very likely indeed that he will fall infinitely short of. We want very different artists from our "lay figure" sign-daubers, if such characters as Sir WALTER SCOTT'S are to be hit off with the least pretension to identity. In former days the plan was pursued of orna. menting tales with prints representing incidents in thestbry. They were; to be sure, worse done than they now are ; and there was little or no attempt to dress the personages, for instance, in a way not to become ridi- culous by the next .change of fashions. But much as the artists may try to guard against this, there is a manner in every age which gives the dress a particular character, fated in a little while to attach a grotesque.. ness to the personage represented, quite different from what the author would ever mean to give it.
I know nothing which can with any safety be done in this way, (in England at least,) unless perhaps the hitting off a ridiculous incident in CautssuArrE's way; and then it is the incident, not the persons, we look at.
But a real benefit is conferred on the reader, and all mischief of damp.
ing his enthusiasm is avoided, by giving, as ornaments, well-executed representations of the scenes of the story where they are local and his- toric, as Sir W. SCOT T. sane. This is particularly valuable do far as an- cient buildings are concerned, both from their picturesque beauty in many cases, their use to the reader (who then gets something snore instead of less than the story gives him), and the service they render in perpetu- ating perishable beauties. For this reason I prefer the little ornaments which adorned as vignettes the former pocket editions of the Scotch Novels.
I should add too, that the size and shape, both of frontispiece and title, are against all taste, and out of all symmetry and keeping with the size and shape of the letterpress. An engraving in a book should never ex- ceed the size of the printed page ; and should always, where it is smaller, preserve an exact proportion to it in height and breadth.
For my part, I tear out the present frontispieces as the volumes COMO in, as libels on the characters they represent. They are like the sticks which do Hamlet, Juliet, Falstaff, &c. on a country stage. I have not yet determined what to substitute. The Landscape Illustrations are bet- ter ; but they are not well suited in size and I hope yet to see neat and shapely ornaments of the sort above alluded to.
In reply to the query with which our correspondent commences Ifs letter, we answer, Yes. There are two modes of graphically illustrating a story,—the one by delineating the incidents through the medium of the characters; the other through the medium of the scenes where the incidents described takeplace. . The first is the department of the his- torical, the list of the landscape painter. To the former our artists have hitherto proved themselves incompetent, as we have shown. In the latter they excel, as every one will acknowledge' but the views selected for publication not having been painted expressly for the purpose to which they are applied, only imperfectly illustrate the novels, being delinea- tions of the scenes described without the appropriate incidents being in- troduced. This is the defect to which our correspondent alludes ; and which we have pointed out M a notice of one of the numbers of the work. It certainly requires remedying, which may be easily accom- plished. The Landscape Illustrations of the Waverley Novels also are too exclusively picturesque ; they should be rendered local and antiqua- rian, and represent interiors and individual. buildings as well as scenery.
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