Tom Cogglesby's arrival at Beckley Court

Charles Keene

1860

Wood engraving by Joseph Swain

Hammerton, facing p. 204

Keene is "in his element," says J. A. Hammertom, "when he is showing us old Tom Cogglesby's arrival at Beckley Court in his donkey-cart" (376). In this characterful illustration for George Meredith’s Evan Harrington (first published in Once a Week, February-October 1860), servants of the grand house run out to admonish the new arrival in his lowly form of transport, presuming him to be an intruder. The portly man on the little cart, the patiently waiting blinkered donkey, the affronted servant in his top-hat, are all brilliantly realised in this comic scene.