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Note the careful detailing in this illustration — for example, Farfrae's elegant white trousers with "inset straps" — very much in vogue in the early 1840s, as Vanda Foster indicates in her discussion of an 1842 portrait in A Visual History of Costume.

Barnes excelled at juvenile figures, as is evident in his rendering of Elizabeth-Jane: scarce eighteen, she is very fetching in both face and figure, as one might expect from reading Hardy's novel, although her head seems to suggest little of the intellectual striving with which Hardy invests her. Even if Barnes plates for The Mayor of Casterbridge do reveal a certain absence of imagination, his women here are natural and do not possess the massive form of Nance Mockridge in "Did you do it, or didn't you? Where was it?" (27 February 1886), a type for which Forrest Reid has criticized Barnes. The illustrations generally reveal that Barnes was very much at home in the rural, working-class idiom, as in this scene Farfrae and Elizabeth are surrounded by those local characters that appear in the backgrounds elsewhere in his illustrated programme for the novel, as throughout Hardy's text.

Commentary: Detailed Examination

Let us now examine the illustration in relation to Hardy's text. The moment that Barnes realises is significant because Farfrae's popularity as the active and innovative young foreigner who has cleaned up Henchard's grain and provided an ingeniously hung pavilion tent for a dance to celebrate "a national event" (perhaps Queen Victoria's wedding in February 1840) prompts Henchard to give him notice just afterward. In the romantic aspect of the novel's plot, the scene connects Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane in the public mind. Henchard's entertainments — involving agricultural feats of skill, a free public tea and dance (le thé dansant was introduced in 1845) — have failed because of six hours of unexpected rain. Mr. and Mrs. Henchard and their daughter wander over to the West Walk to investigate Farfrae's alternative, "undercover" entertainment.

First, in Hardy's text we see the young Scot in the character of a nimble-footed, kilted dancer of the Highland Fling, a performance suggestive of mating rituals in the animal kingdom. Since Farfrae has developed the persona of a "usually sedate," sober businessman, we like the crowd and Henchard (whose perspective the plate gives us) are surprised to witness him "flinging himself about and spinning to the tune." While Henchard is prompted to laugh at the alteration that the music has effected in his manager, the female spectators are lost in "immense admiration." Now a new dance, presumably a figure in which the crowd can join, is proposed; "Donald . . . disappear[s] for a time to return in his natural garments. . . ." although he has his choice of partners, by the time we spot Farfrae again he is

footing a quaint little dance with Elizabeth-Jane — an old country thing, the only one she knew, and though he considerably toned down his movements to suit her demurer gait, the pattern of the shining nails in the soles of his boots became familiar to the eyes of ever bystander. The tune had enticed her into it; being a tune of a busy, vaulting, leaping sort — some low notes on the silver string of each fiddle, then a skipping on the small, like running up and down ladders — "Miss M'Leod of Ayr" was its name, so Mr. Farfrae had said, and that it was very popular in his own country. [Chapter XVI, in serial 190; in volume, 128]

Henchard discharges Farfrae in a fit of pique occasioned by by-standers' remarks about how the manager has bested the master; then Henchard feels remorse, and finally concern that Farfrae has taken this notice seriously — this is the same emotional pattern we witnessed years before in the furmity vendor's tent at Weydon-Priors. At the suggestion of "a nodding acquaintance" Elizabeth-Jane misinterprets Henchard's anger as originating in her dancing in public: "As the Mayor's step-daughter, she learnt, she had not been quite in her place in treading a measure amid such a mixed throng as filled the dancing pavilion." The aftermath of the dance scene, then, marks a change in the relationships between Elizabeth-Jane and Farfrae, and between Farfrae and Henchard; publicly, Elizabeth-Jane and Farfrae are seen in a new light — she as a young socialite, he as an enterprising and dashing figure out of the romances of Sir Walter Scott. How well does Barnes convey the significance of the moment he has so astutely chosen to illustrate?

Although the illumination provided by the gas-jet seems a little fanciful, the pavement beneath the dancers' feet and the canvas tarpaulins draped a few feet above their heads show that the artist has attempted to realize the text's word-picture. Acting as a chorus, a row of bonneted women (many of them eying Farfrae enviously) flanks Elizabeth-Jane. Since the woman at the top (right) is holding her skirt in preparation for taking her turn, we can assume that Barnes has stationed us on the male side of the country dance known as "Miss McLeod's Reel," which was usually footed to the tune of the same name. Hardy designates the tune "Miss M'Leod of Ayr," perhaps to imply that the tune and dance originated in Ayreshire, the home of Scotland's national poet, Robbie Burns. In The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, Florence Emily Hardy records that this old dance tune was one of her husband's favourites when he was a child, fixing the date for the action of the novel to the 1840s. She describes it as "an old Scotch tune to which Burns may have danced" (18). Thus, since this choice of music is presumably Farfrae's, it further establishes his Romantic nature and Scottish origins.

Top hats and workmen's caps behind Farfrae imply that there is a line of male dancers going off the frame. Presumably, Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane have already come down centre, and are now in the process of turning as a couple on four beats before dividing and yielding the top to another set of partners. The dark dresses, buxom figures, and full faces of the female chorus are in sharp contrast to Elizabeth-Jane's white, diaphanous dress (connecting her visually to Farfrae in his immaculate white trousers); Barnes heightens the contrast by making her thin-necked and long-faced, and by giving her no bonnet. The details of Farfrae's formal dress — swallow-tail, cut-away coat, vest, top hat, and stirrup-pants — are all perfectly consistent with the period evoked by the novel. While Farfrae seems careful and controlled in the precision of his movements, Elizabeth-Jane seems abstracted or withdrawn, almost dancing within herself. Thus, while the caption, Farfrae was footing a quaint little dance with Elizabeth Jane, focuses on her partner (as is the case in the printed text), the illustrator is focussing on the novel's heroine, who possesses a pensive visage which contrasts her elegant period dress and complementary Indian shawl, an imported commodity indicative of the wearer's social standing. Although, like Margery, Hardy's protagonist in The Romantic Adventures of A Milkmaid (1883) in Harper's Weekly, Elizabeth-Jane is a new-comer to such fashion, she carries herself easily and without embarrassment, but lets Farfrae take the initiative in the country-dance.

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "A Consideration of Robert Barnes' Illustrations for Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge as Serialised in the London Graphic: 2 January-15 May, 1886." Victorian Periodicals Review 28, 1 (Spring 1995): pp. 27-39

Chase, Mary Ellen. Thomas Hardy from Serial to Novel. New York: Russell & Russell, 1964.

Foster, Vanda. A Visual History of Costume: The Nineteenth Century. London: B. J. Batsford, 1984.

Hardy, Florence Emily. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1928.

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Graphic 33 (13 February 1886): Chapters XV (continued) — XVII (pp. 189-191).

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character. London: Osgood McIlvaine, 1895.

Hardy, Thomas. The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid. Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart. Harper's Weekly (14 July 1883) and The Graphic 23 (Summer, 25 June 1883).

Jackson, Arlene. "The Mayor of Casterbridge: Realism and Metaphor."Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981. Pp. 96-104.

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