WITH A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF THE PLATES AND A BIOGRAPHICAL HIS CONNEXION WITH THE PICKWICK PAPERS, BY HENRY G. BOHN LONDON T. MILES AND CO., 95, UPPER STREET, N. 1888 F2602.2.12 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIF OF DANIEL B. FEARING 30 JUNE 1915 NEW EDITION. THE CHRONICLES OF CRIME; OR, The New Newgate Calendar. BY CAMDEN PELHAM, ESQ., Barrister-at-Law. BEING A Series of Memoirs and Anecdotes of Notorious WITH 46 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY "PHIZ." 2 vols., Svo., cloth, price 15s. T. MILES & CO., 95, UPPER STREET, LONDON, N. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE BY HENRY G. BOHN. He was ROBERT SEYMOUR, a graphic humourist of the highest order, was born in or near London, about the year 1800. apprenticed at the usual age to Mr. Thomas Vaughan, an eminent pattern-drawer in Spitalfields, and his practice in that department of art appears to have given him the facility and accuracy of pencil for which he was afterwards so distinguished. Within a very short period of fulfilling his term of apprenticeship, he commenced, on his own account, as a painter in oils, and must have been tolerably expert at that early age, as already in the spring of 1822, we find him exhibiting a picture of some pretensions at the Royal Academy, which is thus described in the Catalogue. “The Christians deterred by the terrors of enchantment, from felling timber to construct their machines of annoyance." The boldest warriors, urged by thirst of praise, He executed various other oil-paintings about this period, including a large biblical subject of 100 figures, and an illustration of Don Quixote, besides portraits and miniatures; but the more pressing demand on his talents was for drawings on wood, a mode of book-illustration then in great vogue. The various illustrated books and periodicals published for the next ten or a twelve years bespeak his popularity and industry in that department. Among them may be mentioned the following: The History of Enfield, by Robinson, 2 vols. 8vo. 1823, containing woodcuts of a topographical character. Friendship's Offering, 1824-1836, first published by Lupton Relfe, and subsequently by Smith and Elder, in which some of the Sketches are by Seymour. Richardson's New Minor Drama, with Remarks biographical and critical by W. T. Moncrieff, 5 vols. 18mo. containing 36 Plays, published between 1827 and 1830, nearly all with woodcut frontispieces after Seymour's Drawings. The Odd Volume (a Sequel to Cruikshank at Home), Lond. Kidd, 1830, full of Seymour's designs, as are also several other of Mr. Kidd's comic publications of this date. The Comic Offering, edited by Miss Louisa Sheridan, and published by Smith and Elder, from 1831 to 1835, with numerous woodcuts after Seymour. The Comic Magazine, conducted by Gilbert A'Becket and the Brothers Mayhew, 1832 to 1834, 4 vols. 18mo. with upwards of 300 woodcuts after Seymour. The Penny Magazine, published by Mr. C. Knight in 1832 and after, under the patronage of the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge, some of the woodcuts by Seymour. Penn's Maxims and Hints on Angling, Shooting, and other matters, also Miseries of Fishing, 12mo. 1833, with woodcuts, some after Seymour. Figaro in London, edited and published by Gilbert A'Beckett, from December 1831 to 1836, (afterwards continued by others to 1838.) This series contains nearly 300 woodcuts after Seymour. They were also published separately as Seymour's Caricature Gallery;' and after his death were all re-published on six large sheets, each containing 20 subjects, as 'Seymour's Comic Scrap Sheets.' Although Seymour's hands were full of commissions for drawing on wood, and he was paid for them on his own terms, he was always desirous of practice in a more independent department of art, feeling that the engraver, however competent, failed to com |