Happy England

11. THE CLOTHES-LINE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Miss James.
Painted 1879.

How considerable and rapid an advance now took place in Mrs. Allingham’s powers may be seen from the two drawings which are dated two years later, namely, in 1879. In figure draftsmanship there is no comparison between the timid and haltingly painted children of “The Sand-Martins’ Haunt” and the seated baby in “The Clothes-Line.” In the first the capacity to draw was no doubt present, but the power to express it through the medium of water-colour was as yet unacquired. But after two years’ study, knowledge is present in its fulness, and from now onwards the only changes in Mrs. Allingham’s work are a greater precision, breadth, facility of handling, and harmony of colour. The figure of the woman still smacks somewhat too much of the studio, and she is a lady-like model,7 certainly not the type one would expect to see hanging out the washing of such a clearly limited and humble wardrobe as in this case. The figure again detaches itself too much from the rest of the picture, and Mrs. Allingham, we are sure, would now never introduce such a jarring note as the scarlet and primrose handkerchief, to which Mr. Ruskin objected at the time it was painted. The blanket, clothes-line, clothes-basket, and other accessories are painted with a minuteness which was an admirable prelude to the breadth that was to follow; but are singularly constrained in comparison with the yellow gorse bushes, most difficult of any shrubs to limn, but which here are noteworthy for unusual easiness of touch. Even with these qualifications the picture is a delightful one, replete with grace and beauty, and complete in its portrayal of the little incident of the baby, a less robust little body than Mrs. Allingham would now paint, capturing as many of the clothes-pegs that her mother needs as her small fingers and arms can embrace.

12. THE CONVALESCENT
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. R. S. Budgett.
Painted 1879.

This, like “The Young Customers,” was founded on previous work, namely, a black-and-white drawing made for the Graphic, as an illustration to Mrs. Oliphant’s Innocent. But in the story the patient dies from an over-dose administered in mistake by Innocent, who is nursing her. Some years afterwards the poisoning comes to light, and Innocent is tried and acquitted. Mrs. Allingham would never have voluntarily repeated such a subject as this, and her temperament is shown in her having utilised the material for one in which refreshing sleep promises a speedy recovery.

13. THE GOAT CARRIAGE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Sir F. Wigan.
Painted 1880.

Painted at Broadstairs, and containing portraits of Mrs. Allingham’s children. Noticeable as being one of a few drawings where the artist has introduced animals of any size into her compositions, but showing that, had she minded, she might have animated her landscapes with them with as conspicuous success as she has with her human figures. Perhaps an incident which happened whilst this picture was being painted deterred her. Billy being tied up so as to keep him in somewhat the same position, managed to gnaw through his rope, and, irate at his detention, he made for the lady to whom he thought his captivity was due, and nearly upset her, paintbox, and picture. The exhibition of this and kindred portraits of her children under such titles as “The Young Artist” and “The Donkey Ride,” led to strangers wishing for portraits of their offspring under similar winsome conditions. But Mrs. Allingham never cared for the restraint imposed by portrait painting, and the few that she did in this manner were undertaken more from friendship than from pleasure.

14. THE CLOTHES-BASKET
From the Water-colour the property of Mr. C. P. Johnson.
Painted 1880.

It is very seldom that Mrs. Allingham has treated her public to drawings with low horizons or sunsets, perhaps for the reason that little of her life has been spent away in the flatter counties, where the latter are so noticeable and full of charm and beauty. This water-colour, the first large landscape that the artist exhibited, was painted from studies made in the Isle of Thanet, whilst staying at Broadstairs.

15. IN THE HAYLOFT
From the Water-colour the property of Miss Bell.
Painted 1880.

This is practically the last of the water-colours which were the outcome of earlier pictures executed in black and white for the illustration of books.

The story is from Deborah’s Drawer, by Eleanor Grace O’Reilly, for which, as Helen Paterson, our artist had made nine drawings in 1870, at a time when she was so inexperienced in drawing on the wood that in more than one instance her monogram appears turned the wrong way. Mr. Bell, the publisher of the book, subsequently commissioned her to make a companion water-colour to “The Young Customers,” and suggested one of the illustrations called “Ralph’s Girls” as the basis for a subject.

The little black-robed girls were twins, whose mother had recently died, and who had been placed under the care of a grandmother, who forgot their youth and spirits. They were imaginative children, and indulged in delightfully original games. One (that of personating a sportsman named Jenkins and a dog called Tubbs, who together went partridge-shooting through a big field of cabbages laden with dew) they had just been taking part in. Tired out with it, they decided to be themselves again, and to mount to the hayloft and play another favourite game, that of “remembering.” This meant taking them back over their short lives, which ended up with their most recent remembrance, their mother’s death. Whilst talking over this they are summoned from their retreat, and have to appear with their black dresses soaked with the dew from the cabbages, and with hay adhering everywhere to their deep crape trimmings. Hence much penance!

16. THE RABBIT HUTCH
From the Drawing the property of Mr. C. P. Johnson.
Painted 1880.

Painted in London, but from sketches made near Broadstairs, the house seen over the wall being one of those that are to be found along the east coast, which bear a decided evidence of Dutch influence in their architecture. Here again we have evidence that Mrs. Allingham might, had she been so minded, have succeeded with animals as well as she has with human figures and landscape. A little play is being enacted; the dog, evidently a rival of the inhabitants of the hutch, has to be kept at a distance while their feeding is going on, lest his jealousy might find an outlet in an onslaught upon them.

17. THE DONKEY RIDE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Sir James Kitson, Bart., M.P.
Painted 1880.

This drawing was executed just at the turning of the ways, when London was to be exchanged for country life, and studio for out-of-door painting. What an increased power came about through the change will be seen by a comparison between this “Donkey Ride” and the “Children’s Tea” (Plate 23). Only two years separate them in date; but whilst in the one we have timidity and hesitancy, in the other the end is practically assured. In “The Donkey Ride” we have evidences of experiments, especially in the direction of finicking stippling (all over the sea and sky) and of the use of body-colour (in the baby’s bonnet and the flowers), which were abandoned later on, to the artist’s exceeding great benefit. What we expect to find, and do find, is the pure sentiment, and the dainty freshness, which is never absent from the earliest efforts onwards.

The scene is the cliffs near Broadstairs, Mrs. Allingham’s two eldest children occupying the panniers.

CHAPTER IV
THE ARTIST’S SURREY HOME

There are few fairer counties in England than Surrey, and of Surrey the fairest portion is admittedly the extreme south-western edge which skirts Sussex to the south and Hampshire to the west. Travellers from London to Portsmouth by the London and South-Western Railway on leaving Guildford pass through the middle of the right angle which this corner makes, and cut the corner two miles beyond Haslemere almost exactly at the point where the three counties meet. As the steep rise of nearly 300 feet which has to be surmounted in the six miles which divide Witley from Haslemere is being negotiated by the train, the most unobservant passenger must be struck by the singularly beautiful wooded character of the country on either side, and by the far-extended view which is unfolded as the eye looks southward over the Weald of Sussex.

It was to Sandhills, near Witley, that Mrs. Allingham came to live in 1881 with her growing family, and it was in this corner of Surrey that she found ample material for almost all her work during the next few years; and it is there that she has returned at intervals for the majority of those cottage subjects which the public has called for, ever since her first portrayal of them shortly after her commencement of landscape painting in these parts.

Witley consists of groups of irregularly-dotted-about houses, which hardly constitute a village, and would perhaps be better designated by the proper name—Witley Street. A few years ago every one of the houses counted their ages by centuries, and were fitting companions of the ancient oaks and elms that shaded them. Some few are left, but the majority are gone, many so long before the term of their natural existence had run that it was a troublesome piece of work to destroy them. There is also an old “Domesday Book” Church. Drawings of almost all of the cottages, from the hand of Mrs. Allingham, are in existence somewhere or other, but she never seems to have painted this or other churches, having apparently little liking for them, as had Birket Foster. In the present case the omission to do so arose from the fact that in painting it she would have formed one of the occupants of half-a-dozen outspread white umbrellas, all taking a stiffly-composed subject from the same point of view.

Sandhills, where our artist lived, is on the Haslemere side of Witley, on a sloping common of heather and gorse, topped with fir trees. From thence the view, looking southwards, extends far and wide over the Weald of Surrey and Sussex, Hindhead, a mountain-like hill rising behind, and Blackdown, a spur stretching out on to the Sussex Valley to the right. In the distance are to be seen the rising grounds near Midhurst and Petworth, Chanctonbury Ring with its tuft of trees, called locally “The Squire’s Hunting Cap,” and on a clear day the downs as far as Brighton and Lewes.

It is indeed a healthy and bracing spot, and one calculated to induce a painter to energetic work, and a delight in doing it. Subjects lay close at hand, the Sandhills garden furnishing many a one. “Master Hardy’s,” a charming cottage tenanted by a charming old man, was within a stone’s throw, and received attention inside and out. Of the Hindhead Road, which passes south-west, a single Exhibition, that of 1886, contained six subjects, all of them wayside cottages, but no one of which, when the Exhibition opened, was as depicted, having in that short time been “done up” by local builders at the bidding of Philistine owners.

The neighbourhood round is, or perhaps we should say was, also prolific in subjects—Haslemere, four miles south-west, with its pleasant wide old streets, and with fields tilted up at the end of it, furnished its Fish-Shop, and other thoroughly English village scenes.

Some two miles south of Haslemere was Aldworth, Lord Tennyson’s house, a mile over the Sussex border, although always spoken of as his “Surrey” residence. To Mrs. Allingham’s work there we shall have occasion to refer later on.

The varied summits of Hindhead (painted a century earlier by Turner and Rowlandson, and at that time adorned with a gibbet for the benefit of the highwaymen who infested the Portsmouth Road, which passes over it), in one place bare moor, in another crested with fir trees, lay some distance northward of Haslemere; but our artist did not often depict them, although they presented themselves under many a charming aspect, and never more glorious than at sunset in their robes of violet and gold. A thoroughly characteristic view of them is however given in the Lord Chief Justice’s drawing (Plate 19).

To the southward of Sandhills stretches, as we have said, the Weald. To this district Mrs. Allingham made frequent excursions, not only for cottages, which she found at Hambledon, Chiddingfold, and Wisborough, but for spring and autumn subjects in the oak woods and copses which to this day probably bear much the same aspect as did the ancient Forest of Anderida (whose site they occupy) in the time of the Heptarchy.

Oak is the tree of the wealden clay on the lower levels, but elms grow to a grand size on the higher ground, where ashes are also numerous. Spanish chestnuts “encamp in state” on certain slopes, and many of the hills are “fringed and pillared” with pines. The interminable hazel copses are interspersed with long labyrinthine paths, the intricacies of which are only known to the countryside folk. Not so long ago the cutting down at intervals of the young wood for the purposes of hop poles, hurdles, and kindling, brought in a handsome revenue to the owners; but of late years wire has taken the place of wood for the two first of these objects, and the labourers prefer dear coal to wood, even as a gift, for it does not entail cutting up. As railway rates to bring it to the metropolis are prohibitive, it is hard to say what the consequences will be in a few years, but the probabilities actually point to a return to the primitive conditions which existed in the Saxon times to which we have referred.

In the spring the country round is decked with primroses, bluebells, and cowslips in the woods, hedgerows, and fields, being fortunately outside the range of the marauders from London; and it is indeed pleasurable to ramble from copse to field, and back again. But in autumn and winter the deep clay soil makes it heavy travelling in the deep-cut roads and lanes, cumbered with the redolent decay of the leafage from the trees.

The cottars were, when the majority of these drawings were made, rural and old-fashioned, and many had lived hereabouts through numerous generations. A quiet, taciturn folk, contented with moderate comforts, on good terms with their wealthier neighbours, not often feeling the pinch of poverty.

Maybe all are not so good-looking as Mrs. Allingham has depicted them, but they vary much, some being flaxen Saxons, others as dark complexioned as gipsies.

As will be seen, they have a taste and enjoyment for colour, if not for change, in the gardens with which their cottages are fairly well supplied. These are bright at one or other season of the year with snowdrop, crocus, and daffodil, lilac, sweetwilliam, and pink, sunflower, Michaelmas daisy, and chrysanthemum.

The following drawings have been selected as illustrating the neighbourhood of Mrs. Allingham’s home at Sandhills:—

18. A WITLEY LANE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. H. W. Birks.
Painted 1887.

It is very seldom that we encounter a drawing of Mrs. Allingham that deals with Nature in winter’s garb. In this respect she differs from Birket Foster, who rightly considered that trees were oftentimes as beautiful in their nude as in their clothed array. Especially did he delight in the towering framework of the elm, which he regarded as the most typical of English trees.

Nor is it often that we see Mrs. Allingham afield so early in the spring as in this lane scene, where the elms are clothed only in their “ruddy hearted blossom flakes.”8 Perhaps this absence is due to prudential reasons, to avoid the rheumatism which appears to be the only ailment which the landscapist runs against in his healthy outdoor profession.

Those who have seen the woods of Surrey and Sussex at this time of year know what a lovely colour they assume in the budding stage, a colour that makes the view over the Weald from such a vantage-ground as Blackdown a sea of ravishing violet hues, almost equalling that of the oak forests as seen in February from the Terrace at Pau, which stretch away to the snow-clad range of the Pyrenees—perhaps the most delicately perfect view in Europe. But the day selected for this sketch was evidently a warm one for the time of year, or we should not see that unusual occurrence, an open bedroom window in a labourer’s cottage.

The flowering whin is no index to the season, for we know the old adage—

But the catkins on the hazel, and the primroses on the banks, must place it round that elastic date, Eastertide.

These wayside primroses remind one of a strongly expressed opinion of Mrs. Allingham’s, that wayside flowers should never be gathered, but left for the enjoyment of the passers-by—a liberal one, which was first instilled into her by her husband, who wrote verses upon it, from which I cull the following lines:—

19. HINDHEAD FROM WITLEY COMMON
From the Water-colour in the possession of the Lord Chief Justice of England.
Painted 1888.

When this drawing appeared in the Exhibition of 1889 there were some who called in question the truthfulness of the colour of distant Hindhead, affirming that it was too blue. But when the air comes up in August from the southward, laden with a salty moisture, and the shadows are cast by hurrying clouds over the distance, it is altogether and exactly of the hue set down here. Had the effect been incorrect it would hardly have been acquired by so critical a collector as Lord Alverstone, nor would it have been hung in his Surrey home, where it invites daily comparison with Nature under similar aspects. The drawing was painted on the spot, from just behind the artist’s house, and is one of the few instances where she has added to the charm of her work by a sky of some intricacy. In her cottage and other drawings, where buildings or other landscape objects are of primary importance, she has felt that the simpler the treatment of the sky the better, and with good reason. Here, where a large expanse calls for interesting forms to cover it, she has shown her complete ability to introduce them.

Mrs. Allingham’s house at Sandhills was below the foreground slope, to the right of the cottages whose roofs rise from the ling. The highest point of Hindhead seen here is Hurt Hill, some nine hundred feet above sea-level, a name which Mr. Allingham always held to be a corruption of Whort Hill, from the whortleberries with which its slopes are covered, and which in these, as in other parts are called “wurts.”

20. IN WITLEY VILLAGE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. Charles Churchill.
Painted 1884.

This drawing was in The Fine Art Society’s Exhibition in 1886, the catalogue stating that the cottage had disappeared in the spring of 1885. It was pulled down by its owner to be replaced by buildings whose monotonous symmetry, to his eye no doubt, appeared in better taste. The cottage was still far from the natural term of its existence, as evidenced by the troublesome piece of work it was to dislocate the sound, firm old oaken beams of which its framework was built up. Mr. Birket Foster, who equally with Mrs. Allingham mourned its disappearance, regretted that he could not rebuild it in his own grounds.

The blackening elms, and the ripe bracken carried home by the cottar, show that the time when this picturesque dwelling was painted was late summer, probably that of 1884. Mrs. Allingham was clearly then not of Ruskin’s opinion concerning the wrongness of painting trees in full leaf, for she found the blue-black of the trees a harmonious background to her red and russet roof.

The work throughout shows a loving fidelity to Nature, as if the artist had felt that she was looking upon the likeness of an old friend for the last time, and wished to perpetuate every lineament and feature.

21. BLACKDOWN FROM WITLEY COMMON
From the Water-colour in the possession of Lord Davey.
Painted 1886.

This view is taken from the same bridle-path as is seen in Lord Alverstone’s “Hindhead,” but at a lower elevation, and looking some points more to the south; also at a later time of year, probably in early October, to judge by the browning hazels. The bracken-covered elevation in the distance is Grays Wood Common, which lies to the south of the railway, and the spur of blue hill seen in the distance is Blackdown. Aldworth, Lord Tennyson’s seat, lies just this side of where the hill falls away. The drawing is one of three only in the whole collection where Mrs. Allingham has introduced a draught animal.

22. THE FISH-SHOP, HASLEMERE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. A. E. Cumberbatch.
Painted 1887.

One can well understand the local builder in his daily round past this picturesque little tenement casting longing eyes upon its uneven roof, its diamond-paned lattices, its projecting shop front, and its spoutless eaves, which allowed the damp to rise up from the foundations and the green lichen to grow upon its walls, and that he rested not until he had set hands upon it, and taken one more old-world feature from the main thoroughfare at Haslemere. Such was actually the case here, for the shop has long ago disappeared, but it was not until, much to its owner’s regret, interference was necessary. Were it not that it indeed was the fish-shop of Haslemere, it might well have served for the toyshop in which the scene of “The Young Customers” was laid. In the days when this was painted the accommodation provided was probably sufficient for the intermittent supply of an inland village, for Haslemere was not, until the last few years, a country resort for those who seek fine air and beautiful scenery, and can afford to pay a high price for it.

CHAPTER V
THE INFLUENCE OF WITLEY

It will be readily understood that such a beneficial change in her life surroundings as that from Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, to Sandhills, Witley, was not without its effect upon Mrs. Allingham’s Art. Hitherto her work had, by the exigencies of fortune, lain almost wholly and entirely in the direction of the figure. It was studio work, done for the most part under pressure of time, the selection of subject being none of hers, and therefore oftentimes altogether unsympathetic. Finding herself now in the presence of Nature of a kind that appealed to her, and which she could appreciate untrammelled by any conditions, it is not surprising that—unwittingly, no doubt, at first—the preference was given to that side of Art which presented itself under so much more favourable conditions.

The delight of painting en plein air had first been tasted at Shere in the spring and summer of 1878, where she was passionately happy in watching the changes and developments of the seasons, being in the fields, lanes, and copses all day and every day.9 Almost as full a feast had followed at Haslemere in 1880. When these were succeeded by a permanent residence in front of Nature, studio work became more and more trying and unsatisfactory.

To most people of an artistic temperament the abandonment of the figure for landscape would never have been the subject of a moment’s consideration, for it would have appeared to them the desertion of a higher for a lower grade of Art. But from the time of her arrival in the country there seems to have never been any doubt in Mrs. Allingham’s mind as to the direction which her Art should take. The pleasure to which we have referred of sitting down in the open air before Nature, whose aspects and moods she could select at her own will, and at her own time, was infinitely preferable to the toil and trouble of either illustrating the ideas of others, or building up scenes, oftentimes improbable ones, of her own creation. From this time onwards, then, we find her drifting away from the figure, but not altogether, or at once, for as her family grew up, scenes in her house life passed across her view which she enjoyed to place on record, and for which the world thanks her: scenes of infant life in the nursery, such as “Pat-a-cake” and “The Children’s Tea”; in the schoolroom, such as “Lessons”; and out of school hours, such as “Bubbles” and “The Children’s Maypole.” In one and all of these it is her own family who are the chief actors.

The portrayal of her children in heads of a larger size than her usual work was at this time seen by friends and others, who pressed upon her commissions for effigies of their own little ones, a branch of work which promptly drew down upon her the disapproval of Ruskin, who wrote: “I am indeed sorrowfully compelled to express my regret that she should have spent unavailing pains in finishing single heads, which are at the best uninteresting miniatures, instead of fulfilling her true gift, and doing what the Lord made her for in representing the gesture, character, and humour of charming children in country landscapes.”

But this change naturally did not pass over her work all at once, or even in a single year. Mrs. Allingham’s presentations of the countryside commenced in earnest shortly after her settling down at Witley in 1881; but as will be seen by the dates of the pictures which illustrate this chapter, the figure as the dominant feature continues for another six years; in fact, during the whole of her seven and a half years at Witley we find it now and again, and do not part with it as such until 1890. Since then hardly a single example has come from her brush. Mrs. Allingham gives as her reason for the change that she came to the conclusion that she could put as much interest into a figure two or three inches high as in one three times as large, and that she could paint it better; for in painting large figures out of doors it was always a difficulty in making them look anything else than they were, namely, “posing models.”

But if the figure ceases to occupy the foremost position, it is still there, and is always present to add a charming vitality to all that she does. To people a landscape with figures, of captivating mien, each taking its proper position, and each adding to the interest of the whole, is a gift which is the property of but few landscapists. It is indeed a gift, for we have before us the example of the greatest landscapist of all, who the more he strove the more he failed. But it is a gift which we believe many more might obtain by strenuous endeavour. It is always a matter of surprise to the ignorant public how it comes to pass that an artist who can draw nature admirably should never attempt to learn the draftsmanship of the human figure, by the omission of which from his work he deprives it of half its interest and value. He often goes a step further, and shows not his inability but his indolence by producing picture after picture, upon the face of which no single instance occurs of the introduction of man, beast, or bird, save and except a single unpretentious creature of the lowest grade of the feathered creation; this, however, he will draw sufficiently well to prove that he could, an he would, double the interest in his landscapes. To the outsider this appears incomprehensible in the person of those who apparently are thorough artists, ardent in their profession. One meets such an one at table, and even between the courses he cannot refrain from taking out his pencil and covering the menu with his scribblings; but the same man appears before Nature without a note-book, in which he might be storing so many jottings, which would be of untold value to his work.

Mrs. Allingham’s case has been the entire contrary to this; she has, I will not say toiled, for the garnering must be a pleasure, but stored, many a time and oft, for future use, a mass of valuable material, so that she is never at a loss for the right adjunct to fit the right place. Her so doing was, in the first instance, due entirely to her husband. He said, truly, that the introduction of animals and birds, in fact, any form of life, gave scale and interest to a picture, and he urged her to begin making studies from the first. There is not the slightest doubt that she owed very much to him that habit of thinking out fitting figures, as she has always tried, and with exceptional success, as accessories to every landscape.

Her sketch-books, consequently, are full not only of men, women, and children, and their immediate belongings, but of most of the animal life which follows in their train. I say “most,” because for some reason, which I have not elicited from her, she has preferences. Horses, cattle, and sheep she will have but little of, only occasionally introducing them in distant hay or harvest fields. The only instances of anything akin to either in this book are the animals in “The Goat Carriage,” and “The Donkey Ride.” Nor will she have much to say to dogs, but for cats she has a great fondness, and they animate a large number of her scenes. Fowls, pigeons, and the like she paints to the life, and she apparently is thoroughly acquainted with their habits; but other winged creatures, save an occasional robin, she avoids. Rabbits, wild and tame, she often introduces.

Her pictures being always typical of repose, she avoids much motion in her figures. Her children even, seldom indulge in violent action, unlike those of Birket Foster, who run races down hill, use the skipping-rope, fly kites, and urge the horses in the lane out of their accustomed foots-pace.

As typical examples of the drawings made in the early days at Witley, and whilst the figure was the main object, we have selected the following:—

23. THE CHILDREN’S TEA
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. W. Hollins.
Painted 1882.

This is the most important, and, to my mind, the most delightful of any of Mrs. Allingham’s creations; quite individual, and quite unlike the work of any one else. Not only is the subject a charming one, but the actors in it all hold one’s attention. It is certainly destined in the future to hold a high place among the examples of English water-colour art.

The scene is laid in Mrs. Allingham’s dining-room at Sandhills, Witley, and contains portraits of her children. The incidents are slight but original. The mother is handing a cup of tea, but no one notices it, for the eldest girl’s attention is taken up with the old cat lapping its milk, her younger sister, with her back to the window, is occupied in feeding her doll, propped up against a cup, from a large bowl of bread and milk, and the two other children are attracted to a sulphur butterfly which has just alighted on a glass of lilies of the valley. The etceteras are painted as beautifully as the bigger objects; note, for instance, the bowl of daffodils on the old oak cupboard, the china on the table, and even the buns and the preserves. The whole is suffused with the warmth of a spring afternoon, the season being ascertainable by the budding trees outside, and the spring flowers inside. Exception may be taken to the faces not being more in shadow from a light which, although reflected from the tablecloth, is apparently behind them, and to the tablecloth being whiter than the sky, which it would not be. The fact, as regards the former, is that the faces were also lit from a window behind the spectator, whilst the latter is a permissible licence.

24. THE STILE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. Alfred Shuttleworth.
Painted 1883.

The effort of negotiating a country stile, such as the one here depicted, which has no aids in the way of subsidiary steps, always induces a desire to rest by the way. Especially is this the case when a well-worn top affords a substantial seat. Time is evidently of little importance to the two sisters, for they have lingered in the hazel copse gathering hyacinths and primroses. Besides, the little one has asserted her right to a meal, and that would of itself be a sufficient excuse for lingering on the journey. The dog seems of the same way of thinking, and is evidently eagerly weighing the chances as to how much of the slice of bread and butter will fall to its share.

The drawing is a rich piece of colouring, but the hedgerow bank, with its profusion and variety of flowers, shows just that lack of a restraining hand which is so evident in Mrs. Allingham’s fully-matured work. It was painted entirely in the open air, close to Sandhills, and the model who sat for the little child is now the artist’s housemaid.

25. “PAT-A-CAKE”
From the Water-colour in the possession of Sir F. Wigan, Bt.
Painted 1884.

This drawing, although painted later than “The Children’s Tea,” would seem to be the prelude to a set in which practically the same figures take a part.

The motive here, as in all Mrs. Allingham’s subjects, is of the simplest kind. The young girl reads from nursery rhymes that time-honoured one of “Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake, Baker’s Man.” It is apparently her younger brother’s first introduction to the bye-play of patting, which should accompany its recitation, for the child regards the performance with some doubt, and has to be trained by the nurse as to how its hands should be manœuvred.

The drawing is full of details, such as the workbox, scissors, thimble, primroses, and anemones in the bowl, the china in the cupboard, and the coloured engraving on the wall, which, as we have seen in the case of other painters who have practised it, opens up in fuller maturity a power of painting which is never possible to those who have neglected such an education.

26. LESSONS
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. C. P. Johnson.
Painted 1885.

The relations between the teacher and the taught appear to be somewhat strained this summer morning, for the little girl in pink is evidently at fault with her lessons, and the boy, while presumably figuring up a sum on his slate, has his eyes and ears open for a break in the silence which fills the room for the moment. However, in a short time it will be halcyon weather for all the actors, for the sun is streaming in at the window, the roses show that it is high summer, and a day on which the sternest teacher could not condemn the most intractable child to lengthy indoor imprisonment.

This drawing is of the same importance as regards size as “The Children’s Tea,” and is full of charm in every part.

27. BUBBLES
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. H. B. Beaumont.
Painted 1886.

Lessons are over, a stool has been brought from the schoolroom, the kitchen has been invaded, and the dish of soapsuds having been placed upon it the fun has begun. Who, that has enjoyed it, will forget the acrid taste of the long new churchwarden (where do the children of the present day find such pipes if they ever condescend to the fascinating game of bubble-blowing?) that one naturally sucked away at long before the watery compound was ready, the still more pungent taste of the household soap, the delight of seeing the first iridescent globe detach itself from the pipe and float upwards on the still air, or of raising a hundred globules by blowing directly into the basin, as the smocked youngster is doing here. Such joys countervailed the smarts which befell one’s eyes when the burst bubble scattered its fragments into them, or when the suds came to an end, not through their dissipation into air, but over one’s clothes.

28. ON THE SANDS—SANDOWN, ISLE OF WIGHT
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mrs. Francis Black.
Painted about 1886.

The family of young children that was now growing up round our artist naturally necessitated the summer holiday assuming a visit to the seaside, and much of Mrs. Allingham’s time was, no doubt, spent on the shore in their company. It is little matter for surprise that this pleasure was combined with that of welding them into pictures; and, if an excuse must be made for Mrs. Allingham oftentimes robing her little girls in pink, it is to be found in the fact that the models were almost invariably her own children, who were so attired. It certainly will not be one of the least agreeable incidents for those who saunter over the illustrations of this volume to distinguish them and trace their growth from the cradle onwards, until they pass out of the stage of child models.

This drawing was painted on the shore at Sandown, Isle of Wight, where the detritus of the Culver chalk cliffs afforded, in combination with the sand, splendid material for the early achievements in architecture and estate planning which used to yield so healthy an occupation to youngsters.

It was a hazardous task to attempt success with such a variety of tones of white as here presented themselves, but the result is entirely satisfactory. In fact the drawing shows how readily and with what success the painter took up another phase of outdoor work, not easy of accomplishment. In those collections which include these seashore subjects they single themselves out from all their neighbours by the aptitude with which figures and a limpid sea are painted in sunshine. This, again, is no doubt due to their having been entirely out-of-doors work.

29. DRYING CLOTHES
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. C. P. Johnson.
Painted 1886.

This important drawing, in which the figure is on a large scale, makes one regret that Mrs. Allingham abandoned her portraiture, for a more captivating life study it is hard to imagine. Flattery apart, one may say that Frederick Walker never drew a more ideal figure or conceived a more charming colour scheme. The only feature which would perhaps have been omitted from a later work is that of the foxgloves in the corner, which appears to be rather an artificial introduction. The note of the little child behind the gate is charming. It is evidently not allowed to wander in the field, although the well-worn path shows that here is the main road to the cottage, and it feels that a joy is denied it not to be allowed to participate in the ceremony of gathering in of the family washing, as it was in younger days when the clothes were hung out.

30. HER MAJESTY’S POST OFFICE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. H. B. Beaumont.
Painted 1887.

This, at the time it was painted, was the only Post Office of which Bowler’s Green, near Haslemere, boasted, and from its appearance it might well have served during the reigns of several of Her Majesty’s predecessors. It speaks much for the absence of ill-disposed persons in the neighbourhood that letters were for so long entrusted to its care, as it seems far removed from the days of the scarlet funnel which probably now replaces it. I opine that the young gentleman whom we saw a short while ago engaged in bubble-blowing has been entrusted here with the posting of a letter.

31. THE CHILDREN’S MAYPOLE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mrs. Dobson.
Painted 1886.

May Day still lingers in some parts of the country, for only last year in an out-of-the-way lane in Northamptonshire the writer encountered a band of children decked in flowers, and their best frocks and ribbons, singing an old May ditty. But lovers have long ago ceased to plant trees before their mistresses’ doors, and to dance with them afterwards round the maypole on the village green, which we too are old enough to remember in Leicestershire. The ceremony that Mrs. Allingham’s children are taking a part in was doubtless the recognition by a poet of his illustrious predecessor Spenser’s exhortation:—