make himself understood. The consequence is,
that he ordinarily chooses those situations which
are the tamest and least dramatic, because they
fetter him less, and lend themselves more readily
to his purpose of producing a complete and
agreeable picture, than those more stirring situations
which both the author and the public would
have liked to see illustrated.

A large proportion of the drawings with which
such works are embellished represent scenes
wholly devoid of action or stir. Two or three
people seated round a table, partaking of a
meal; a couple of young fellows chatting over
their wine; a lady showing a picture-book to
her little girl; lovers in pairs, without end;
single figures, also without end; young ladies
reading love-letters, or overwhelmed with some
piece of ill news just received.

It must be acknowledged, at starting, that
the execution of such drawings as are here
spoken of is, in many cases, well-nigh faultless.
The figures are evidently drawn elaborately from
nature. They are well placed, both as to attitude
and as to their relative positions with regard to
each other. Nor are the accessories neglected.
If the scene represented take place in a room,
the objects about the room are well copied; if
a landscape be introduced, this also is well
studied, and is often a pretty picture in itself.
Yet, admitting all this, at times one gets weary
of these well-executed nothings; these well-
written tales without story; these harmonious
symphonies destitute of tune.

The designs of Gustave Doré exhibit qualities
widely different from those which are chiefly
conspicuous in the ordinary book-illustrations
of our day. They give scope to the wildest
flights of the imagination, and make larger
demands on the fancy of the artist than on
his realistic powers. It is indeed in dreaming
of what is fanciful, rather than in representing
what is real, that Gustave Doré excels.
Selecting the illustrated edition of Don Quixote
as the particular specimen of his powers to
be here considered, it is impossible not to be
struck by the marked general inferiority of
those designs in which the artist has sought to
represent facts, to those in which he has dealt
with fancies. When occupied with these, he
seems to be free and at his ease. He works
unfettered and achieves always something, and
occasionally a great deal; while, whenever it
becomes a question of realities, his numerous
inaccuracies, and — for a Frenchman — his remarkable
defects in drawing, are painfully
conspicuous. Some of these fact-illustrations are
relieved by a touch of humour which redeems
them a little; but many are simply bad, and
common-place to an extent which, considering
the striking originality by which the more
fanciful designs of the artist are often
characterised, is really curious.

There are some specimens in the Don Quixote
which are worthy of special notice. The large
woodcut, representing the knight and squire
riding along among the hill-tops in the early
morning, is one of these. That most tender light
of sunrise has been caught here with wonderful
success; you never doubt about it as you look.
The idea of such freshness and coolness is
conveyed to your senses, and the light is at once
so brilliant and so faint, that, although the
shadows are as long as afternoon shadows
are, and the sun is low behind the far-off
mountains, yet no one could mistake this for a
sunset scene, or suppose that the day was
ending instead of beginning. The exhilaration
of the time of day is, indeed, so great, that even
Rozinante is getting over the ground at a good
pace, while Sancho, with his face turned up
towards his master, and at the same time towards
the rising sun, listens to the glowing promises
of the knight, with the most rapturous credulity,
revelling mentally in the prospect of an island
to govern, and corporeally in the warmth of the
morning sunbeams. This picture is roughly and
even coarsely executed; the mechanical
contrivances of the engraver are everywhere
conspicuous; yet there is a sentiment about the
whole which makes one ready to forgive
anything, and to accept the ruled lines by which
the mountain mists are rendered, for the opal
tints of earliest dawn.

Somewhat akin to this design is another
illustrating one of those high-flown descriptions
of the joys of knight-errantry with
which it was the practice of Don Quixote to
enlighten his audience whenever he could get
one. The knight whose imaginary career
the Don pleases himself by describing, has
passed through a lake of boiling pitch into
the Elysian fields, and rides by the side of
a bubbling brook towards a castle, wherein,
doubtless, the lady of his affections is languishing
in the power of some wicked giant or
malignant dwarf. The scenery through which
the knight is riding is "mystic, wonderful."
The flowers in the meadows stand out like
sparks of light from the grass. The sun has
risen, but has failed, as yet, to disperse the
morning mists, and the leaves of the young
trees — some in masses, some single and detached
— just catch the golden light upon their edges,
and sparkle in relief against distant hill-sides
lost in mist, and crowned with the towers of
some enchanted palace.

To be classed with these two studies is
another representing the Great Hunt, got up by
the Duke and Duchess, while Don Quixote is
enjoying their doubtful hospitality. This also
is an early morning scene, and the effect, when
the drawing is seen from a distance, is
extraordinarily true. There is still another of these
dawn effects, in which the artist shows Don
Quixote at the head of a little cavalcade coming
towards us on the edge of a hill, with his train
of followers. The knight seems to stand erect
in his stirrups, his lance is pointed towards the
sky, and there is a look of mounting upward
about him which gives him so strangely aspiring
an aspect, that he seems to be tilting against
the very heavens. He and his retinue have
ascended already above the clouds in their journey
"towards the kingdom of Micomicon," but there