ROBERT WILLIAM BUSS, wliose etchings will be found in Mrs. Trollope's "Widow Married" (a sequel to her "Widow Barnaby "), which made its appearance in the "New Monthly Magazine " of 1839, and whose hand will also be found in Marryat's "Peter Simple," "Jacob Faithful," Harrison Ainsworth's "Court of King James II.," etc.. Although his designs lack the genius, the artistic power, the finish and the comic invention of Leech or Cruikshank, they show nevertheless that as an etcher and designer he was possessed of exceptional talent and ability. The first experience, however, of this able artist as an etcher was peculiarly unfortunate and vexatious.

When poor Seymour shot himself in 1836, the draughtsman first called in to supply his place was Robert William Buss. He had been recommended to Messrs. Chapman and Hall by John Jackson, the wood-engraver, but does not seem at that time to have had any practical experience of etching, as he himself explained to the member of the firm who called upon him. Mr. Buss, in fact, was decidedly indisposed to undertake the work, being then engaged on a picture he was preparing for exhibition, and he undertook it only after considerable pressure. He immediately began to practise the various operations of etching and biting in, and produced a plate with which the publishers expressed themselves satisfied. Two subjects were then selected for illustration, The Cricket Match, and The Fat Boy Watching Mr. Tupman and Miss Wardle. When, however, Mr. Buss began to etch them on the plate, he found, having had little or no experience in laying his ground, that it holed up under the etching point; and as time was precious, he placed the plates in the hands of an experienced engraver to be etched and bitten in. Had opportunity been given him, his son (from whom we take this account) tells us he would have cancelled these plates and issued fresh ones of his own etching. Designs were prepared by him for the following number, when he received an intimation that the work of illustrating the "Pickwick Papers" had been placed in other hands. The illustrations referred to were suppressed, and the collectors who are so anxious to secure an edition with the two "Buss plates," will be pleased to learn that,

although the design was his, not one line of the etchings which bear his name are due to the artist's point.*

The father of Robert William was an engraver and enameller, and under his directions he acquired a knowledge of this technical branch of art; but evincing a taste and preference for drawing and painting, he became a pupil of George Clint, A.R.A., under whose direction he studied subject and portrait painting. He painted fifteen theatrical portraits for Mr. Cumberland in illustration of his "British Drama," and a collection of these works was afterwards exhibited at that melancholy monument to past exhibitions, the Colosseum in the Regent's Park. He was employed by Charles Knight in the illustrations to his "Shakespeare," "London," "Old England," "Chaucer," and the now forgotten "Penny Magazine," for all of which publications he executed many designs on wood.

It must not be supposed because Robert William Buss was not considered the right man to illustrate "Pickwick," that he was therefore an indifferent draughtsman. His finest book etchings are probably those which he executed for Harrison Ainsworth's novel of "The Court of James II."; but in a higher and far more ambitious walk in art he was not only more successful, but achieved in his time a considerable reputation. Among his pictures may be mentioned one of Christmas in the Olden Time, which, apart from its merits as a painting, showed that he possessed considerable antiquarian knowledge. Other works of his are, The Frosty Morning, purchased by Lord Charles Townshend; The Stingy Traveller, bought by the Duchess of St. Albans; The Wooden Walls of Old England, the property of Lord Coventry; Soliciting a Vote, and Chairing the Member; The Musical Bore; The Frosty Reception; Master's Out; Time and Tide Wait for no Man; Shirking the Plate The First of September; The Introduction of Tobacco; The Biter Bit; The Romance; and Satisfaction. For Mr. Hogarth, of the Haymarket, he painted four small subjects illustrative of Christmas, entitled, The Waits; Bringing in the Boar's Head; The Yule Log,

* See Mr. Alfred G. Buss, in "Notes and Queries," April 24th, 1875.

and The Wassail Bowl; all afterwards engraved. For Mr. James Haywood, M.P., he executed a series of drawings illustrative of student life at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, London, and Paris; while two vast subjects, The Origin of Music and The Triumph of Music (each twenty feet wide by nine feet high), were painted for the Earl of Hardwick, and are, or lately were, in the music saloon at Wimpole, in Cambridgeshire. His pictures were seventy-one in number, twenty-five of which were engraved. On the whole, therefore, Robert William Buss might afford to bear the refusal of Charles Dickens's patronage with equanimity.

The paintings and etchings of Robert William Buss evince a strong leaning in the direction of comic art, a taste which prompted him, in 1853, to deliver at various towns in the United Kingdom a course of very successful and interesting lectures on caricature and graphic satire, illustrated by several hundred examples executed by himself. In 1874, the year before his death, he published for the amusement of his friends, and for private circulation only, the substance of these lectures, under the title of "English Graphic Satire and its Relation to Different Styles of Painting, Sculpture, and Engraving." The numerous illustrations to this work were those drawn for his lectures by the artist, and reproduced for his book by the process of photo-lithography. So far as comic art and caricaturists of the nineteenth century are concerned, the author has comparatively little to say; but the work is valuable as regards the subject generally, and might have been published with advantage to the public. The artist delivered also lectures on "The Beautiful and the Picturesque," as well as on "Fresco Painting."

Mr. Buss, if not very original as a comic designer, possessed nevertheless a keen sense of humour. One of his pictures (engraved by H. Rolls), entitled Time and Tide Wait for no Man, represents an artist, sketching by the sea-shore, so absorbed in the contemplation of nature that he remains unconscious of the fast inflowing tide, and deaf to the warnings of the fisherman who is seen hailing him from the beach.

The comic publications which either preceded or ran side by side with Punch had for the most part a somewhat short and unsatisfactory career. Perhaps the most successful of them was Figaro in London, 1831-36, which we have already noticed. The Wag, a long forgotten publication, enjoyed a very transient existence. Ir. 1832 appeared Punchinello, on the pages of which Isaac Robert Cruikshank was engaged. Punchinello, however, ceased running after its tenth number. Asmodeus in London, notwithstanding the support it derived from Seymour's pencil, was by no means a commercial success. The Devil in London was a little more fortunate. This periodical commenced running on the 29th of February, 1832, and the illustrations of Isaac Robert Cruikshank and Kenny Meadows enabled it to reach its thirty-seventh number. Tom Dibdin's Penny Trumpet ignominiously blew itself out after the fourth number. The Schoolmaster at Home, notwithstanding Seymour's graphic exertions, collapsed at its sixth number. The Whig Dresser, illustrated by Heath, enjoyed an existence exactly of twelve numbers. The Squib (1842) lasted for thirty weeks before it exploded and went out. Puck (1848), illustrated by W. Hine, Kenny Meadows, and Gilbert, died the twenty-fifth week after its first publication. Chat ran its course in 1850 and 1851. The Man in the Moon, under the literary guidance of Shirley Brooks, Albert Smith, G. A. Sala, and the Brothers Brough, enjoyed a comparatively glorious career of two years and a half. Diogenes (started in 1853, under the literary conduct of Watts Phillips, the Broughs, Halliday, and Angus Bethune Reach), notwithstanding the graphic help rendered by McConnell and Charles H. Bennett, gave up the ghost in 1854. Punchinello (second of the name) flickered and went out at the seventh number. Judy (the predecessor of the present paper) appeared 1st February, 1843, but soon died a natural death. Town Talk, edited by Halliday and illustrated by McConnell, lasted a very limited time. London, started by George Augustus Sala in rivalry of Punch, soon ceased running; while the

A very clever and promising artist, who died early, of consumption.

G G

Puppet Show, notwithstanding the ability of Mr. Procter, enjoyed but a very brief and transitory existence. The strong and healthy constitution of Punch enabled him not only to outlive all these, but even a publication superior in some important respects to himself. We allude to the Tomahawk, whose cartoons are certainly the most powerful and outspoken satires which have appeared since the days of Gillray.*

Among the draughtsmen whom Punch called in to help him in his early days was a useful and ingenious artist, inferior in many respects to Kenny Meadows, his name was ALFRED HENRY FORRESTER, better known to most of us under his nom de guerre of "Alfred Crowquill." The scribes of the "Catnach," or Seven Dials school, of literature are satirized by Forrester (in the second volume), wherein we see a "Literary Gentleman " hard at work at his vocation of a scribe of cheap and deleterious literature, consulting his authorities "The Annals of Crime," a "Last Dying Speech and Confession," and the " Newgate Calendar." In The Footman we have a gorgeous figure, adorned with epaulets, lace, and a cocked hat, reading (of all things in the world) the "Loves of the Angels," over a bottle of hock and soda-water! The Pursuit of Matrimony under Difficulties is a more ambitious performance. "Punch's Guide to the Watering Places" (vol. iii.) is illustrated with a number of coarsely executed cuts, wholly destitute of merit; the fourth volume contains a cartoon entitled Private Opinions. But the graphic humour of Alfred Crowquill, although amusing and sometimes bright and sparkling, was unsuited to the requirements of a periodical such as Punch. As better men came forward, he gradually dropped out of its pages, and we see nothing more of him after the fourth volume. Alfred Crowquill was a sort of "general utility" man, essaying the character of a littérateur as well as that of an artist, and achieving as a natural consequence no permanent success in either. In his literary capacity, Alfred Henry Forrester made his first appearance (we believe) in "The Hive," and "The Mirror," under the editorship As the Tomahawk appeared in 1867, it does not come within the scope of the present work.