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XX PHILIP
George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Mrs. Gaskell, Charles Reade,
Wilkie Collins, George Macdonald, and my father himself. Even
the pretty cover, which holds its own amongst the vaporous landscapes,
the inarticulate nymphs, and fashion blocks of to-day, was
the spirited outcome of a new school of art which had lately grown
up in South Kensington, under the protection of the Prince Consort.
Sir H. Cole advised my father to apply to the school for a design
for the cover, and one of the pupils, a young man called Godfrey
Sykes, sent in a drawing, which was immediately accepted. " What
a fine engraving ! What a beautiful drawing !" my father writes.
" There has been nothing so ornamentally good done anywhere that
I know of."
Some old letters which I have been looking over give a vivid
impression of the mark made by the advent of the Cornhill. Here
are two characteristic notes, one from Lord Houghton and another
from Carlyle:
"BROADLANDS, December 27, 1859.
"MY DEAR T.,—Obliged for and pleased with No. 1. It is
almost too good, both for the public it is written for and the money
it has to earn. How you, the contributors and the publishers, are
to be paid out of it is economically inconceivable ! I send you
some verses as you desired ; I should like to see a proof at No. 16
U. B. Street, W., whenever you think fit to use them.
" I like the Leigh Hunt very particularly. I heartily wish you
would employ Macdonald,* the author of ' Phantastes' and ' Within
and Without.' He is a man of very fine fancy, high education, and
good taste. He would write you some poetical prose that would be
sure to be good. The old Premier here looks so hearty, I believe
he would write you an article if you asked him. He sat five hours
at the farmers' dinner at Romsey, and then they said ' looked quite
disappointed to have to go.'—I am yours ever,
"R. M. MILNES."
"October 20,1859.
"DEAR THACKERAY,—Right gladly I would if only I could,
but I can yet bethink me of nothing in the least likely. Indeed
* Mr. Macdonald wrote "The Portent" in numbers 5, 6, and 7 of the
Cornhill.