[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "ELLIOTT'S NURSERY RHYMES" BY H. STACY MARKS, R.A. (NOVELLO. 1870)]
If there is one opinion deeply rooted in the minds of the comparatively few Britons who care for art, it is a distrust of "The Cole Gang of South Kensington;" and yet if there be one fact which confronts any student of the present revival of the applied arts, it is that sooner or later you come to its first experiments inspired or actually undertaken by Sir Henry Cole. Under the pseudonym of "Felix Summerley" we find that the originator of a hundred revivals of the applied arts, projected and issued a series of children's books which even to-day are decidedly worth praise. It is the fashion to trace everything to Mr. William Morris, but in illustrations for children as in a hundred others "Felix Summerley" was setting the ball rolling when Morris and the members of the famous firm were schoolboys.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE WATER BABIES" BY SIR R. NOEL PATON (MACMILLAN AND CO. 1863)]
To quote from his own words: "During this period (_i.e._, about 1844), my young children becoming numerous, their wants induced me to publish a rather long series of books, which constituted 'Summerley's Home Treasury,' and I had the great pleasure of obtaining the welcome assistance of some of the first artists of the time in illustrating them--Mulready, R.A., Cope, R.A., Horsley, R.A., Redgrave, R.A., Webster, R.A., Linnell and his three sons, John, James, and William, H. J. Townsend, and others.... The preparation of these books gave me practical knowledge in the technicalities of the arts of type-printing, lithography, copper and steel-plate engraving and printing, and bookbinding in all its varieties in metal, wood, leather, &c."
Copies of the books in question appear to be very rare. It is doubtful if the omnivorous British Museum has swallowed a complete set; certainly at the Art Library of South Kensington Museum, where, if anywhere, we might expect to find Sir Henry Cole completely represented, many gaps occur.
How far Mr. Joseph Cundall, the publisher, should be awarded a share of the credit for the enterprise is not apparent, but his publications and writings, together with the books issued later by Cundall and Addey, are all marked with the new spirit, which so far as one can discover was working in many minds at this time, and manifested itself most conspicuously through the Pre-Raphaelites and their allies. This all took place, it must be remembered, long before 1851. We forget often that if that exhibition has any important place in the art history of Great Britain, it does but prove that much preliminary work had been already accomplished. You cannot exhibit what does not exist; you cannot even call into being "exhibition specimens" at a few months notice, if something of the same sort, worked for ordinary commerce, has not already been in progress for years previously.