3-020-989 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"I Cannot Sing the Old Songs", by Miss A. Claxton, in the Suffolk-Street Exhibition, 1868. Engraving of a water-colour drawing, '...one of the least pretentious of the myriad, or thereabout, of "works of art" which grace, or too commonly disgrace, the walls of the Suffolk-street Galleries. But, at least...its sentiment is unaffected, its treatment modest, and not discreditable to the accomplished female artist whose clever ghost-subjects in recent exhibitions have attracted much attention. The simple pathos of the drawing may be transmitted with slight loss through the medium of engraving; for the original consists of little more than black and white. A fair girl, just passing into womanhood, in deepest mourning for one near and dear - it may be even for the life-mate of hope and love - checked by choking emotion in the first essay after bereavement to recall the melodies of happy hours gracefully spent, and turning away from the thrilling chords of the familiar accompaniment with a sigh, the burden of which is conveyed in the title - itself the refrain of an old song of wailing memories - is a subject which our Engraving will, in more appropriate silence, address to the sympathies of the reader'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.