The Life of George Cruikshank in Two Epochs, Vol. 1. (of 2)

“On the production at the Adelphi Theatre of the late Mr. Andrew Halliday’s drama, founded on the ‘Miser’s Daughter,’ George. Cruikshank sent a letter to the Times, loudly complaining of the omission of his name from the playbill, and asserting that he had suggested the title and general plan of the story.

“A more preposterous assertion was never made. Had there been any truth whatever in the claim thus impudently advanced, why was it not made long before? The story was written thirty years previously—namely, in 1842—and after that long interval the old artist sets up this absurd pretension.

“I believed him to be in his dotage, and was confirmed in the opinion when I found he laboured under a similar delusion in regard to ‘Oliver Twist.’

“For myself, I desire to state emphatically, that not a single line—not a word—in any of my novels was written by their illustrator, Cruikshank. In no instance did he even see a proof. The subjects were arranged with him early in the month, and about the fifteenth he used to send me tracings of the plates. That was all.

“As explanatory of the original design of the ‘Miser’s Daughter,’ as well as to dispose of Cruikshank’s unwarrantable assertion that he had furnished the original scheme of the story, I will now cite the preface to the cheap edition of the work, published in 1850, by Chapman and Hall. If Cruikshank had any claim to the authorship of the tale, why did he not make it then?

“To expose the folly and wickedness of accumulating wealth for no other purpose than to hoard it up, and to exhibit the utter misery of a being who should thus voluntarily surrender himself to the dominion of Mammon, is the chief object of these pages. And I believe they will be found to convey a useful lesson, and one not wholly inapplicable to the times; for though the Miser may now be a rarer character than heretofore, the greed of gain was never more generally indulged in, nor the worship of the golden calf more widely spread and less reproved than at present. I have shown that all high and generous feelings, all good principles, and even natural affection itself, will become blunted, and in the end completely destroyed, by the inordinate and all-engrossing passion for gain: and I have shown the truth,—a truth borne out by the history of every such wretched votary of wealth. The sin carries its own punishment with it; and is made the means of chastising the sinner. Dead to every feeling except that of adding to his store, the miser becomes incapable of enjoyment except such as is afforded by the contemplation of his useless treasure, and at last he is deprived even of this selfish and unhallowed gratification, for dread of losing his gold far outweighs delight in its possession. Distrust of all around him darkens his declining days; those who should be dearest to him appear his worst enemies; he becomes a prey to the designer, until at length, while haunted by vague terrors, and despairingly clinging to his hoards, they are snatched from his grasp by the ruthless hand of death. ‘So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.’

“Other and lighter portions of the tale refer to the adventures of a young man on his first introduction to town-life about the middle of the last century, when Ranelagh was in its zenith, and Vauxhall and Marylebone. Gardens in vogue; when the Thames boasted its Folly, and when coffee-houses filled the places of clubs. The descriptions I believe to be tolerably accurate, and they are at all events carefully done, with the view of giving a correct idea of the manners, habits, and pursuits of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Temptations to pleasurable excess were no doubt sufficiently abundant then, but not more abundant than nowadays, when casinos and other places of licentious resort are tolerated; and our modern youth have as much to fear from the allurement of vice as their predecessors. Apart, indeed, from a certain grossness in conversation, our forefathers were to the full as decorous as ourselves, and quite as moral, though they did not cloak their faults so carefully. Consequently, vice in those days was less dangerous, because less specious and more easily shunned than at a time when its ugliness is better concealed.

“It was part of my original scheme to describe the secret proceedings of the Jacobites in Lancashire and Cheshire, prior to the Rebellion of Forty-five, with Prince Charles’s entrance into Manchester in that memorable year, and the subsequent march to Derby. * But I found these details incompatible with my main plan, and was therefore obliged to relinquish them; contenting myself with a slight sketch of a conspiracy in London, hatched by certain adherents of the young Chevalier. Cord well Firebras is no fictitious personage.

“The incident of the payment of the mortgage-money is founded on fact. A similar occurrence took place about the period in question, and the paymaster was a proud Welsh baronet, as described, with a pedigree as old as the hills. The particulars were related to me by my excellent friend Mrs. Hughes, to whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions. It is, perhaps, needless to say, that in consequence of the alteration of the law respecting the foreclosure of mortgages, such a circumstance could not take place now.

“Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Had Cruikshank been capable of constructing a story, why did he not exercise his talent when he had no connection with Mr. Dickens or myself? But I never heard of such a tale being published.

“I have been connected with many distinguished artists—with Sir John Gilbert, with Tony Johannot, with Hablot K. Browne, John Franklin, and others, and never heard that any one of them claimed a share in the authorship of the works he illustrated.

“But overweening vanity formed a strong part of Cruikshank’s character. He boasted so much of the assistance he had rendered authors, that at last he believed he had written their works. Had he been connected with Fielding, he would no doubt have asserted that he wrote a great portion of ‘Tom Jones.’ Moreover, he was excessively troublesome and obtrusive in his suggestions. Mr. Dickens declared to me that he could not stand it, and should send him printed matter in future.

“It would be unjust, however, to deny that there was not wonderful cleverness and quickness about Cruikshank, and I am indebted to him for many valuable hints and suggestions.

“While writing the ‘Tower of London,’ which first appeared in monthly numbers, I used always to spend a day with the artist at the beginning of each month in the Tower itself; and since every facility was afforded us by the authorities, we left no part of the old fortress unexplored. To these visits I look back with the greatest pleasure, and feel that I could not have had a more agreeable companion than the then genial George Cruikshank.

“As an illustration of another part of the artist’s character, I may relate this little incident. On the completion of the ‘Tower,’ I gave a dinner at the Sussex Hotel, Bouverie Street, (where a good deal of the work had been written, the hotel being near the printing offices of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans), to about sixty of my friends, including the Fort Major and Acting Governor of the Tower, the Keeper of the Regalia, Mr. Justice Talfourd, Dickens, Maclise, Barham, Forster, Laman Blanchard, James Crossley of Manchester, Grainger, John Hughes, and many others. George Cruikshank occupied the vice-chair. As the guests were dispersing, several of them adjourned to the coffee-room, and of these Cruikshank took charge, saying to me as I was about to drive home to the Harrow Road,—

“‘Now understand—this part of the entertainment is to be mine!’

“‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘So be it.’

“But he must have forgotten the proposition, since if I recollect aright, I had a considerable sum to pay next morning for ‘coffee and cigars.’

“On the completion of the ‘Tower,’ I did not go on with Cruikshank, but contributed ‘Old Saint Paul’s’ to a weekly paper. This story—one of the most popular I have ever written—was republished in three volumes, with some admirable illustrations by John Franklin.

“Cruikshank’s illustrations to ‘Guy Fawkes,’ which appeared in the Miscellany, simultaneously with the ‘Tower,’ were very inferior to those furnished by him for the latter story, and excited the ire of Mr. Bentley, with whom the artist had quarrelled. But the publisher’s complaints were unheeded, as were my own remonstrances.

“On my retirement from the Miscellany, at the close of the year 1841, I resolved to bring out a magazine of my own, and with that view went to Paris to secure the famous Tony Johannot as illustrator of ‘Windsor Castle,’ a romance which I intended should form the principal feature of the proposed magazine.

“I found M. Tony Johannot a most charming person, as he had been described to me, and passed several pleasant days in his society. He agreed to send me four plates, the subjects of which I gave him, together with designs for the cover of the magazine, and the title-page of story, and performed his promise to my entire satisfaction.

“On my return I was induced by my friend Mr. Pettigrew to engage George Cruikshank as the illustrator of the magazine, on terms infinitely more advantageous to the artist than those he had received from Mr. Bentley for his illustrations to ‘Jack Sheppard’ and ‘Guy Fawkes.’

“Now commenced the ‘Miser’s Daughter,’ to which I have already adverted. This was succeeded by ‘Windsor Castle,’—four of the illustrations being furnished, as already mentioned, by Tony Johannot, and the remainder by Cruikshank. The numerous woodcuts were executed by Alfred Delamotte.

“The last story of mine, illustrated by Cruikshank, was ‘Saint James’s, or the Court of Queen Anne,’ published in 1844. Since that date I saw very little of the artist.

“My first acquaintance with George Cruikshank occurred in 1835, when he made some capital illustrations to an edition of ‘Rookwood’ brought out by Mr. John Macrone, of St. James’s Square—a young and spirited publisher, whose premature death was much to be lamented.

“Next came ‘Jack Sheppard,’ which succeeded ‘Oliver Twist’ in Bentley’s Miscellany, and obtained an extraordinary success.

“From their Hogarthian character, and careful attention to detail, I consider these by far the best of Cruikshank’s designs. They raised him to a point he had never before attained.

“I think it proper to mention that more than a third of the work was written before Cruikshank began to illustrate it.

“Of Cruikshank as a teetotaler I can say nothing, because I saw nothing of him. When I knew him, he was extremely convivial, and used to sing a capital comic song, and dance the sailor’s hornpipe, almost as well as the great T. P. Cooke. Perhaps he may have rather exceeded the bounds of discretion, but if he took a little too much, he was hearty and good-humoured, and would never have boasted as he afterwards did of writing portions of ‘Oliver Twist’ and the ‘Miser’s Daughter.’

“W. H. A.”

Before parting finally with this most unpleasant part of my task, I must quote Cruikshank’s summing-up of his pretensions in regard to Dickens and Ainsworth, to say nothing of “other men”:—

“I now feel it necessary to inform the public that the usual or ordinary way of producing illustrated novels or romances is, for an author either to write out, from his own ideas, the whole of the tale, or in parts; the manuscript or letterpress of which is then handed to an artist to read and select subjects from for his illustrations, or sometimes for the author to suggest to the artist such subjects, scenes, or parts, as he might wish to be illustrated. And I, being known generally only as an artist, or illustrator, it would therefore very naturally be supposed that, in all cases, I have merely worked out other men’s ideas. But, if I have the opportunity, I shall be able to show that other men have sometimes worked out my ideas—but this will be for another occasion. And I will now explain that ‘Oliver Twist,’ ‘The Tower of London,’ ‘The Miser’s Daughter,’ etc., were produced in an entirely different manner from what would be considered as the usual course; for I, the artist, suggested to the authors of these works the original idea, or subject, for them to write out—furnishing, at the same time, the principal characters and the scenes. And then, as the tale had to be produced in monthly parts, the writer, or author, and the artist, had every month to arrange and settle what scenes, or subjects, and characters were to be introduced; and the author had to weave in such scenes as I wished to represent, and sometimes I had to work out his suggestions.

“And as to Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth’s ‘singular delusion’ of an artist claiming to be the originator of works which he had merely illustrated, no more absurd or contemptible and rubbishing nonsense could ever be conceived; for no artist could possibly be in his right mind who would make such a claim, and it becomes a serious question as to whether any one who brings forth such nonsense can be in his right mind; and if this author has really lost his memory, and as an invalid is suffering under ‘singular delusions,’ he has my pity and commiseration.

“I lay no claim to anything that has originated from the mind of Mr. Ainsworth, or any other man; but where the original idea has emanated from my own mind, that I feel I have a right to claim, and by that right I will stand firm; and I trust that at no distant date I may be able to publish what I have already stated, to show the world how these ideas originated in my mind, and why I wished to place them before the public.” Cruikshank added that many friends, already passed ‘away,’ would have vouched for the accuracy of the foregoing. He cited two, however, on whose testimony in his favour I know he would not have relied; namely, Douglas Jerrold and Laman Blanchard. These had never heard of Cruikhsank’s claim as originator of “Oliver Twist,” or any of Ainsworth’s novels, for the good reason that they had died before he put it forth. Blanchard, indeed, had experience akin to that of Ainsworth. An old friend of his and mine, returned lately from a twenty years’ sojourn at the antipodes. I asked him if he remembered any incidents of the time when Laman Blanchard was editing the Omnibus. At first he could recall nothing, but after a long pause he said:

“All I remember is something very like a quarrel, one night, when Cruikshank was spending the evening at Blanchard’s house. A friend praised a little poem that had appeared in the last number. Whereupon Cruikshank remarked that it was his idea as well as his illustration.

“I don’t call to mind another occasion,” said the traveller, “when I saw Blanchard give way to a violent passion; but on this he did. The idea and the poem were one of his bright and graceful fancies; and he rose and denied that Cruikshank had had the least share in it with a fierceness that confounded him.”

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CHAPTER X. THE OMNIBUS.

It was in 1841 that George Cruikshank, when at variance with Mr. Bentley, started a periodical on his own account His friend Laman Blanchard, who was then one of the most popular essayists and political writers of the day, undertook the editorship.

The magazine opened in a thoroughly Cruikshankian style. There was a wondrously etched microcosm of the globe, which is accepted not only as one of the artist’s technical triumphs, but as one of his happiest conceptions. The human race is epitomised within this circle, not much wider than a billiard ball. The sphere teems with many-sided life, etched with the “simple frankness” which Mr. P. G. Hamerton has described as the perfection of the art * Let me here note that the famous Jack O’Lantern. His light and humorous wood drawings scattered through the volume are full of fancy and wit. He drew dainty bits to Blanchard’s graceful lyrics—“Love Seeking a Lodging,”

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Omnibus etchings are the last by the artist upon copper. Then follows Cruikshank’s portrait by Frank Stone, with his own very whimsical reply to Maginns sketch of him in “Portraits of Public Characters.” To the story, “Frank Hartwell; or, Fifty Years Ago,” that ran through the twelve numbers of which the Omnibus consists, Cruikshank contributed some of his finest etched dramatic scenes: for example, “Frank and Sambo attacked by Ruffians in the Hold of the Tender,” “Richard Brothers, the Prophet, at Mrs. Hartwells,” * and “Hartwell seizing Brady.” Here too, is his “Love has Legs” (a girl clipping Cupid’s wings while he dozes by the fire), and “Love’s Masquerade,” for instance. Like Kenny Meadows, Cruikshank could draw the prettiest Cupids in the world.

Not even his “What is Taxes, Thomas?” is surpassed as a study by his “Two of a Trade”—the butcher boy and his dog, which is in the Omnibus.

Thackeray and Captain Marryatt (who drew some small cuts which Cruikshank copied), and Edward Howard, the author of “Rattlin the Reefer,” were among the contributors. Michael Angelo Titmarsh sent one of his most famous ballads—viz., “The King of Brentford’s Testament” But the most sprightly and noteworthy feature of this first of the illustrated magazines was Mrs. Toddles, who is introduced with her feet in hot water, and with a glass of warm rum and water, with a bit of butter in it. She surely might have sat for Sairy Gramp, in Punch’s personification of the Morning Herald.

And here she is again, at Margate. She gets her feet wet; “but,” says her chronicler, “we dare say she would find a little drop of comfort, in the shape of smuggled Hollands at the lodgings.” Mrs. Toddles was no better, in her drinking, we fear, than Mrs. Gamp and her friend Betsey.

In the “Monument to Napoleon,” a famous Cruikshank idea, also in his Omnibus, we find the artist in his serious moralizing vein.

“On the removal of Napoleon’s remains,” he remarks, “I prepared this design for a monument; but it was not sent, because it was not wanted. There is this disadvantage about a design for his monument—it will suit nobody else. This could not, therefore, be converted into a tribute to the memory of the late distinguished philosopher, Muggeridge, head master of the Grammar-school at Birchley; nor into an embellishment for the mausoleum of the departed hero, Fitz Hogg of the Pipeclays. It very often happens, however, that when a monument to a great man turns out to be a misfit, it will, after a while, be found to suit some other great man as well as if his measure had been taken for it. Just add a few grains to the intellectual qualities, subtract a scruple or so from the moral attributes—let out the philanthropy a little, and take in the learning a bit—clip the public devotion, and throw an additional handful of virtues into the domestic scale—qualify the squint, in short, or turn the aquiline into a snub—these slight modifications observed, and any hero or philosopher may be fitted to a hair with a second-hand monumental design. The standing tribute, ‘We ne’er shall look upon his like again,’ is of course applicable in every case of greatness.”

With this monument Cruikshank took his leave of “Boney.”

“As for me,” he said in a note to his design, “who have skeletonised him prematurely, paring down the prodigy even to his hat and boots, I have but ‘carried out’ a principle adopted almost in my boyhood, for I can scarcely remember the time when I did not take some patriotic pleasure in persecuting the great enemy of England. Had he been less than that, I should have felt compunction for my cruelties; having tracked him through snow and through fire, by flood and by field, insulting, degrading, and deriding him everywhere, and putting him to several humiliating deaths. All that time, however, he went on ‘overing’ the Pyramids and the Alps, as boys ‘over’ posts, and playing at leapfrog with the sovereigns of Europe, so as to kick a crown off at every spring he made—together with many crowns and sovereigns in my coffers. Deep, most deep, in a personal view of matters, are my obligations to the agitator—but what a debt the country owes to him!”

But the Omnibus did not pay—even with all the wit and humour, and pleasant story, and sport with folly as it flew, to be found in it Moreover, by the close of the year, Cruikshank had renewed his connection with Mr. Ainsworth; and Cruikshank has put on record that his Omnibus was begun in his disgust at the treatment he had received from Mr. Ainsworth, who had adopted his idea of a story on the Plague of London, and sold it to the proprietors of the Sunday Times for a thousand pounds. Then as to the stopping of the Omnibus, this is Cruikshank’s own story:—

“It will now be necessary to state that the late Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, who was surgeon to their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Kent and Sussex, was a dear and intimate friend of mine, and that I had introduced Mr. Ainsworth to him, and that after I had been going on with my Omnibus for something less than twelve months, to my utter astonishment, my friend Pettigrew called upon me one day with a message from Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth, to this effect, that he (Mr. Ainsworth) was extremely sorry that there had been any unpleasantness between us, and that if I would forgive him, and be friends, nothing of the kind should ever happen again; that he was about to start a monthly magazine, and that if I would join him, and drive my ‘Omnibus’ into his magazine, he would take all the risk and responsibility upon himself, and make such arrangements as would compensate me liberally. To this most unexpected proposition at first I would not listen; but as my friend Pettigrew kept on for some time urging me to be friends again with Mr. Ainsworth, and as I am (as my friends say) in some cases rather too goodnatured and forgiving, I did forgive Mr. Ainsworth, and ‘shake hands,’ and agree to work with him again. My Omnibus, in some respects, did merge into Ainsworth’s Magazine; but upon again joining with Mr. Ainsworth, I announced that the Omnibus would henceforth appear as an annual.”

In the last number of the Omnibus, Cruikshank announced that, having “resumed” an arrangement entered into “a twelvemonth ago with Mr. Harrison Ainsworth,” he could not continue his Fireside Miscellany—monthly. He ended with a pictorial joke. “If he and his literary associates,” he added, “should meet the reader as agreeably in an annual as in a monthly form,” he trusted it would be as long as it was short. The remark was illustrated by the square figure of a man.

The long and short of it, however, was, that the Omnibus never appeared again.

The following note will give the reader an idea of the activity of Cruikshank’s faculty of suggestion, which led him so often to advance unwarrantable claims as an originator. It is addressed to Laman Blanchard:—

“My dear Blanchard,—

“Barker does not mean anything by ‘Unity.’ ‘Unity Peacham’ is a real name somewhere in Westminster.

“That do not-wish-to-be-known young gentleman has sent me a paper entitled ‘The Alamode Beef Shop.’ I have sent for him to suggest a series of papers upon ‘Eating Houses,’ or something of that sort, and will get him to make two or three alterations in this first paper, and will then send it to you. I think it would be desirable to have it in the neighbourhood; that is, if you think as favourably of it as does

“Yours truly,

“G. Cruikshank.

“P.S.—Some one sent us a paper entitled ‘The Alamode Beef Shop.’ I think he ought to have a note stating that he has been anticipated, and that we do not allude to politics. I would keep that ‘Traveller’s Story’ * back. We can find some other trick to finish it with. You may use the ‘Hot Water’ in the ‘Chat’ if you like. I think also we had better omit those T-total cuts; they would come in well with the Confessions of a T-totaler?”

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END OF VOL. I.