rooms of this society that he established his fame as an artist. Commencing as an architectural draughtsman, but with a mind well stored with history and archæological detail, his imagination soon began to fill with their ancient life the buildings which he drew, and his art was naturally inspired with that romantic spirit which, long felt in literature, had culminated in the novels of Sir Walter Scott. The great romantic movement among the artists of France was simultaneous with the appearance of Cattermole, who may be considered as the ally of Delacroix and Bonington, and as the greatest representative, if not the founder, in England of the art that sought its motives in the restoration of bygone times, with their manners and customs, their architecture and costumes, their chivalrous and religious sentiment, complete. To perform this part he brought a spirit naturally ardent, controlled by a fine and somewhat severe artistic taste, which, without destroying the energy and freedom of his design, permitted neither extravagance nor affectation. He had a gift of colour, a felicity and directness of touch, and a command of his materials, which have never been excelled in his line of art. He treated landscape and architecture with almost equal skill, and though his figures were on a small scale, and often shared but even honours with the scenes in which they were placed, they were always designed with spirit, living in gesture, and right in expression. Among the more important of the drawings exhibited at the Water-colour Society were: ‘After the Sortie,’ 1834; ‘Sir Walter Raleigh witnessing the Execution of the Earl of Essex in the Tower,’ 1839; ‘Wanderers entertained,’ 1839 (engraved by Egan under the title of ‘Old English Hospitality’); ‘The Castle Chapel,’ 1840; ‘Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh preparing to shoot the Regent Murray in 1570,’ 1843; ‘After the second Battle of Newbury,’ 1843; ‘Benvenuto Cellini defending the Castle of St. Angelo,’ 1845; ‘The Unwelcome Return,’ 1846. The last has been said to be ‘perhaps the most extraordinary display of Cattermole's powers in landscape.’ It is of such works as these that Professor Ruskin wrote in the first volume of ‘Modern Painters:’ ‘There are signs in George Cattermole's works of very peculiar gifts, and perhaps also of powerful genius … The antiquarian feeling of C. is pure, earnest, and natural, and I think his imagination originally vigorous; certainly his fancy, his grasp of momentary passion, considerable; his sense of action in the human body, vivid and ready.’ Cattermole withdrew from the Water-colour Society in 1850. Two reasons have been assigned for this step, which was taken in opposition to the wishes of his brother members. One of these was his desire to devote himself to painting in oils, and the other his sensitive organisation, which ‘always made the conditions of exhibition in planning his work peculiarly irksome to him.’ The latter reason may also have induced him to refuse the presidency of this society, which was offered to him about the date of his retirement, and to resist the repeated requests of the members to return to their ranks.
During these years Cattermole was much employed in illustrations for books. In 1830 he travelled in Scotland to make sketches of the buildings and scenery introduced by Scott into his novels, to be used some years afterwards in a finely illustrated volume called ‘Scott and Scotland.’ In 1834 appeared ‘The Calendar of Nature,’ a little book with woodcuts, principally landscape; in 1836 came Thomas Roscoe's ‘Wanderings and Excursions in North Wales;’ in 1840–1 Cattermole's well-known illustrations to ‘Master Humphrey's Clock;’ and here it may be mentioned that the picturesque design of the Maypole Inn in ‘Barnaby Rudge’ was entirely the invention of the artist, instead of being drawn from an existing inn at Chigwell as has been supposed. In 1841 appeared the first, and in 1845 the second, volume of ‘Cattermole's Historical Annual—the Great Civil War of Charles I and the Parliament,’ which contained twenty-eight steel engravings by the best engravers of the day after drawings by Cattermole, and was produced under the superintendence of Charles Heath, who published the second volume as ‘Heath's Picturesque Annual’ for 1845. The literary part was written by his brother, the Rev. Richard Cattermole [q. v.] In 1846 was published another volume, beautifully illustrated in the same manner, called ‘Evenings at Haddon Hall,’ with letterpress written to the drawings by the Baroness de Calabrella.
Among other works to which he contributed illustrations were J. P. Lawson's ‘Scotland delineated’ (1847–54), and S. C. Hall's ‘Baronial Halls of England’ (1848). He also published a work in two parts called ‘Cattermole's Portfolio of Original Drawings,’ in which Mr. Hullmandel's process of lithotint (brought to perfection by Cattermole and J. D. Harding) was employed, each part containing ten plates.
Cattermole was naturally of a lively disposition, and full of spirit. As a young man, he was an excellent whip, and fond of driving stage-coaches. In his bachelor days he was a frequent visitor at Gore House, and mixed with the fashionable world of art and literature which gathered round the Countess of
