to engage in a foreign campaign. Although he is happy to escape (having fathered an illegitimate child at home), “scarce has he landed at the place of his destination, when he is led Into action, and falling, severely wounded, at the first onset, is left on the field by his companions to enjoy that honour and glory, so much
descanted upon by his friend the recruiting sergeant.” The Norttiem Looking Glass, No. 1 2 ,12th December
1825, p.45.
38 A direct reversal of the development of McLean’s Looking Glass, as discussed below. The later series
page was subsequently printed from standard letterpress type ( f ig .97). This change, significantly, incurred a rise in the cover price to 1 s6d (Common) or two shillings (Best), and the abbreviation of the title to The Northern Looking Glass.
This number also saw the beginning of sequential page-numbering from issue to issue, again following a standard convention of periodical literature.
Like other periodicals. The Northern Looking Glass also offered its readers the opportunity to ‘redefine’ the fortnightly parts into a more lasting format. With the seventh issue (September 3rd 1825) it was announced that, “a neat cover, in which the successive numbers may be inserted as published”, was available from Watson and other booksellers, in no less than three different versions; a “Common” edition for 1 s6d, a “Superior” edition at four shillings and a “Best” edition (printed on India paper) at five shillings. The best impressions were, again, reserved for
s u b s c rib e rs .3 9 Furthermore, in the tenth number, it was stated that the first eight parts were now available in coloured impressions, at six shillings each. This kind of connoisseurial approach to collecting and preserving the paper is indicative of the status which both Watson and Heath hoped the new format might achieve, and again implies that this format was not intended as fodder for the scrapbook. Even after the paper had ceased publication it was still being redefined in the minds of its creator and publisher who had the remaining stock bound in boards and reissued
as Heath’s Comic Looking Glass; Or, Mirror of Mirth: Exhibiting an Entertaining
Series of Nearly Four Hundred Humourous Caricatures and Burlesque Sketches, a
title which refocussed the regional emphasis of the original title onto its creator - Heath himself - and thus transformed it from a largely anonymous fortnightly periodical into a book with an identifiable author. As with the wrappers, this volume was issued in different versions; a standard edition at twenty-five shillings and a fine edition, “On Large Paper with Extra Plates, Elegantly bound in Cloth with Gilt Leaves,” at two guineas - a considerable sum.
39 The advertisement says “earliest" impressions, but this can Ije read as a mere convention. The lithographic process - unlike etching - generally Involves no deterioration of the printing surface through the course of an edition. The varying quality of lithographic prints is instead dependent upon the proper preparation of the stone and adequate inking prior to each impression Ijeing run through the press. The allusion to “earliest" impressions, then, is a concession to the ‘connoisseurial’ sector of Heath’s intended audience, for whom the term might still connote ‘best’. Nevertheless, the early years of lithographic printing witnessed much experimentation, and a considerable number of technical problems had to be overcome. Tom Gretton has brought my attention to a number of early examples of lithographic prints which d/d experience some deterioration in image quality due to the then-imperfect technology of fixing the inked image onto the stone. Whether this was a problem for Watson and Heath is difficult to determine without a close comparative study of several examples of tfieir series.
The paper itself ceased publication in March 1826, with its seventeenth issue. This contained a farewell address in which Heath drew attention to the unique format he had established:
“The Editor of The Northern Looking Glass regrets the necessity of announcing to his Friends and the Public, the discontinuance of his paper: and can only console himself that this circumstance cannot fail at adding to its novelty, at least one other attraction - that of wit: - For, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes - it has been b rie f.”40
Its end can most likely be regarded as the result of Heath and Watson’s precarious finances, as that same issue announced the sale “by private contract" of “the whole of the stock, consisting of Copper Plates, Impressions &c.,” adding that,” it is presumed it will be found well deserving of the attention of Booksellers, Printsellers etc.”41 Although a novel format, it had proved short-lived. But the memory of its format remained, and would be considered worthy of revival in the following decade.
Ill
The Looking Glass and the Relationship
Between Artist and Publisher
Heath himself returned to London, where within a month he was producing theatrical portraits for West End print d e a le rs . 42 it was, presumably, shortly after
this that he became acquainted with McLean, who by the late 1820s was beginning to establish himself as a prominent dealer in satirical prints. By 1828, certainly, he had become Heath’s principal publisher, issuing all of his ‘Paul Pry’ plates in the final years of the decade. It is more than likely that McLean knew of Heath’s work
on The Northern Looking Glass via its circulation in London through the shops of
Ackermann and Humphrey. Indeed, McLean had recently purchased a large