‘The Wolf and the Lamb’, by Charles Bennett

The Wolf and the Lamb

Charles Bennett

1857

Hand-coloured wood engraving by Joseph Swain.

11 x 9 inches.

Charles Bennett, The Fables of Aesop, p.13.

The moral of the story is: ‘If you have made up your mind to hang your dog, any rope will do’ (p.12). The illustration shows the wolf, who will eat the lamb whatever the victim says; violence is the only end and purpose. [continued below].

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Wolves eat lambs and so, Bennett shows, the blackguard will always prey on the respectable; the inherited behaviour is programmed. As usual, Bennett applies an abstract moralising to a specific contemporary situation, here demonstrating the anxiety of the middle-classes, who are apparently lambs surrounded by a vast underclass of wolves. This sentiment represents the worst sort of contempt and fear that informs many Victorian representations of the proletariat, and seems at odds with the artist’s more sympathetic approach in a range of other images. Having risen to the middle-classes, he may have set out to distance himself from his humble origins – perhaps as a shoe-maker, or perhaps as a shopkeeper.

References

Bennett, Charles. The Fables of Aesop. London: Bradbury & Evans [1857].

Last modified 25 March 2014