3-017-331 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Autolycus", by C.R. Leslie, from the National Collection in the South Kensington Museum, 1865. Engraving of a painting, scene '...from "The Winter's Tale," act iv. scene 3..."Here's another ballad, Of a fish, that appeared upon the coast, on 'Wednesday, the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad about the hard hearts of maids". The passage at once gives the clue to the audacious humour of the ballad-singer and the credulous folly of the rustics...There is perhaps none of Shakspeare's minor characters more admirably and laughably individualised than the professional pedler and incurable "rogue" Autolycus, and surely nothing could more aptly realise the poet's conception than the painter's representation of the character before us - with his pack of cheap and tawdry, but to the simple and vain irresistibly tempting wares slung before him; with his rakishly slouched hat and draggled feather, his loose mantle, so convenient for a "snapper-up of unconsidered trifles," and now vociferating his lying ballads with such an air of entire good faith and unctuous enthusiasm'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.