Mr. Cadwallader shouting “murder” out of the window at the studio of Mr. Pimpernel, the portrait-painter; the Pimpernels restraining him, and the scandaliser of the artistic neighbourhood seizing hold of the curtains, and the united strength of the family hanging on to his coat-tails; the curtains give way, and the poste of people are sent sprawling.—From “More Mornings at Bow Street.”
Gardens—all put forth before the year 1810—are interesting, not for any remarkable artistic merit in them, but as indicating the active intelligence and alert life of the boy. Directly afterwards we have distinct evidence of the latent whim, humour, and fancy which were to carry young Cruikshank to a place in the art history of his country, equal at least to that of the poor demented genius who was wearing out his remnant of life in old Mrs. Humphrey’s shop, and who was about to make his final appearance, dishevelled and unclad before his wondering customers, on the eve of his death. Colonel Pattypan and Sir John Sugarstick (1808 or 1809), Metropolitan Grievances (1811-12), Double Bass, Proposals for Practical Duets, adapted to any instrument (1811); Matthews the Comedian, singing a song in a piece called “The Beehive” (1812); Sir Francis Burdett taken from his house; Bonaparte, being an illustration to a song sung at the Surrey Theatre by Mr. Elliston (1811), will reward examination by the student of Cruikshank’s genius, as affording distinct germs of the various powers of his mind at a later time. Colonel Pattypan and Sir John Sugarstick are essentially Cruikshankian in their humour.
Between 1811 and 1816 we have to note rapid strides in strength, in range of experience, and development of sympathy with the progress of the world. Feeling and sentiment underlie nearly all Cruikshank’s creations. Within this interval Cruikshank broke ground, and made a stand as a political caricaturist. He began to make his mark as a satirical illustrator in the Meteor (1813). For this “Monthly Censor” George Cruikshank drew the cover. The allegorical design represents a meteor personified by a humorous little fellow, bearing a lantern, and flying through space. Beneath him Satire holds up a mirror to Folly; and a champion shielded by a “free press,” armed with Truth and Justice, protects himself against Licentiousness, Fraud, and Hypocrisy. The projectors of the Meteor, it will be seen, meant well. National Frenzy, or John Bull and his Doctors, preparing John Bull for General Congress; Tabitha Grunt on the Walking Hospital; Napoleon’s Trip from Elba to Paris, and from Paris to St. Helena, “A Swarm of Bees hiving in the Imperial Carriage! who would have thought it?” and, finally, the coloured etching of the Battle of Waterloo,—are coarsely executed in the style of Isaac and Robert Cruikshank, and of Rowlandson; but they are remarkable for that power of telling a story, and of concentrating every figure and detail of a picture upon the effect or emotion to be produced, for which Cruikshank in his prime was unrivalled. The progress is continuous to 1820; and the work thrown off becomes prodigious. Besides illustrations of the O. P. Riots at Covent Garden Theatre (1819), fashionable portraits, and other haphazard work, he produced “The Humourist (1820)—his first remarkable separate work—‘in which the special and peculiar humorous powers of the artist are developed in forty subjects, drawn from the living present” in London.
Very early in his career George Cruikshank came in contact with Hone. Of this connection, Dr. K. Shelton Mackenzie has given an account which is stamped with the authority of the artist, since, in “The Artist and the Author,” he cites the doctor as armed with information given by himself.
“In the year 1819, while Cruikshank was a mere youth; Mr. William Hone observed his peculiar ability, and determined to exercise it At that time the political condition of this country was about as unpleasant and unsatisfactory as it could be. The people clamoured for reform, which the Government steadily and sturdily resisted.
Then came the straggle between Right and Might; and, by means of what was called the strong arm of the law,’ the right was baffled for the time, albeit not beaten. To add strength to ‘the strong arm’ in question, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and six Acts were passed. These were enactments avowedly framed to prevent the expression of public opinion, whether at public meetings or by the medium of the press. The anti-press ordinances of July 1830, which were the means of hurling the Bourbons from the throne of France, were scarcely more tyrannic than the gagging Acts in question. They drove Cobbett to America. We believe that they were especially levelled against him and his plain-speaking ‘Register.’ They nearly drove the multitude into insurrection. They did resist, but the resistance was in vain; for the Government, believing that ‘strong measures’ were necessary, did not hesitate to take them. The manner in which the expression of public opinion was sternly and ruthlessly ‘put down’ at Manchester on the too famous 16th of August, 1819, showed that the Government would have quiet at any cost.
“At this crisis the late Mr. William Hone, who felt warmly in politics, and had a particular antipathy to Castlereagh, Canning, Sidmouth, and Wellington, determined to try what might be done by bringing the Fine Arts against the Ministry. At that time Canning was chiefly known as a flashy, clever speech-maker, who, after having fought a duel with Castlereagh, had finally returned to the Government, and held a place under him, whose want of capacity he had formerly denounced. Castlereagh himself, with an unhappy notoriety as one who had used unscrupulous means to effect the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland, was the most unpopular man in the kingdom, not only on that account, but because, scorning the people, he had never concealed his feelings towards them, and had denounced their ‘ignorant impatience of taxation.’ Lord Sidmouth, to whom Canning had given the ‘sobriquet’ of ‘The Doctor’ (from his father, Dr. Addington), was peculiarly hated, as Home Secretary, and the ostensible person on whom devolved the ungracious task of employing ‘the strong arm of the law’ against the multitude; and ‘The Duke,’ though only Master-General of the Ordnance, and (if we remember rightly) not in the Cabinet, was disliked at that time, from a general belief that he had recommended that all disaffection should be summarily dealt with, as he had dealt with the French, by cannon-ball and bayonet. The four thus named were the principal members of Lord Liverpool’s Cabinet. The Premier himself was a nobody. His fitness for the high and responsible office may be judged from the fact that, some time before he was seized with paralysis, which ended in utter prostration of mind and body, he mentioned to a friend that ‘for years he had not opened an official despatch without apprehension and alarm.’
“At such a crisis, and against such a Ministry, William Hone had the boldness to enter the lists. He commenced the publication of cheap pamphlets, in which the literature was below par, and the main reliance was upon the telling points of the woodcuts. The first was ‘The Political House that Jack Built,’ with thirteen cuts after designs by George Cruikshank. This was a parody upon the old nursery rhyme. It took amazingly.
Upwards of 100,000 copies sold. George Cruikshank was too young at the time to have any very decided politics, but there is no doubt that then, as now, his sympathies were with the people. At any rate, he did his work well. Every one laughed at what Hone had issued; and though it did the Ministry a thousand times the actual damage which even Cobbett’s ‘Register’ could have done, they could not prosecute it. The Attorney-General would have been laughed out of Court, had he attempted anything of the kind. The light arrows of ridicule went through the armour which a heavier weapon could not enter. All the world laughed; Canning, Castlereagh, and Company enjoying the joke, no doubt, as well as the rest of the people.” * But George Cruikshank was working for William Hone, according to his own showing, in 1817 or 1818, when he produced his “Bank Note not to be Imitated”—a modest work to which he was wont to revert to the end of his life with infinite satisfaction, because he attributed to it the withdrawal of Bank of England one-pound notes, and consequently to “the punishment of death” for such offence. In a letter to Whitaker, dated from the Hampstead Road, in 1875, he said, entitling his account “How I put a stop to Hanging”:—
“Dear Whitaker,—About the year 1817 or 1818 there were one-pound Bank of England notes in circulation, and, unfortunately, there were forged one-pound bank notes in circulation also; and the punishment for passing these forged notes was in some cases transportation for life, and in others death.
“At that time I resided in Dorset Street, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, and had occasion to go early one morning to a house near the Bank of England; and in returning home between eight and nine o’clock, down Ludgate Hill, and seeing a number of persons looking up the Old Bailey, I looked that way myself, and saw several human beings hanging on the gibbet opposite Newgate prison, and, to my horror, two of these were women; and, upon inquiring what these women had been hung for, was informed that it was for passing forged one-pound notes. The fact that a poor woman could be put to death for such a minor offence had a great effect upon me—and I at that moment determined, if possible, to put a stop to this shocking destruction of life for merely obtaining a few shillings by fraud; and well knowing the habits of the low class of society in London, I felt quite sure that in very many cases the rascals who forged the notes induced these poor ignorant women to go into the gin-shops to ‘get something to drink,’ and thus pass the notes, and hand them the change.
“My residence was a short distance from Ludgate Hill (Dorset Street); and after witnessing this tragic scene I went home, and in ten minutes designed and made a sketch of this ‘Bank-note not to be imitated.’ About half an hour after this was done, William Hone came into my room, and saw the sketch lying upon my table; he was much struck with it, and said, ‘What are you going to do with this, George?’
“‘To publish it,’ I replied. Then he said, ‘Will you let me have it?’ To his request I consented, made an etching of it, and it was published. Mr. Hone then resided on Ludgate Hill, not many yards from the spot where I had seen the people hanging on the gibbet; and when it appeared in his shop windows, it created a great sensation, and the people gathered round his house in such numbers that the Lord Mayor had to send the City police (of that day) to disperse the crowd. The Bank directors held a meeting immediately upon the subject, and after that they issued no more one-pound notes, and so there was no more hanging for passing forged one-pound notes; not only that, but ultimately no hanging, even for forgery. After this Sir Robert Peel got a Bill passed in Parliament for the ‘Resumption of cash payments.’ After this he revised the Penal Code, and after that there was not any more hanging or punishment of death for minor offences.
“In a work that I am preparing for publication I intend to give a copy of ‘The Bank Note,’ as I consider it the most important design and etching that I ever made in my life; for it has saved the lives of thousands of my fellow-creatures; and for having been able to do this Christian act I am indeed most sincerely thankful, and am, dear friend, yours truly,
“George Cruikshank.
“263, Hampstead Road,
“December 12th, 1875.”
Here it will be seen Cruikshank assumed much. In the catalogue of his collected works, printed by the Executive Committee for securing the collection to the nation, he went further, saying, “So the final effect of my note was to stop hanging for all minor offences.” The labours of the famous writers and speakers who advocated a milder code went, then, for nothing! It was in connection with William Hone that George Cruikshank suddenly rose to supreme popularity—out rivalling his compeers, including Rowlandson, then poor and dissipated like Gillray, and near his end. Cruikshank’s own father’s latest political caricature had appeared in 1810.
The work which Cruikshank did for Hone, as “The Political House that Jack Built,” “The Political Showman at Home,” and, lastly, a “Slap at Slop,” produced at the time of Queen Caroline’s trial, enjoyed an extraordinary popularity, and commanded an immense circualation.
“The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder” * was a great success. The drawings, “all by Mr. George Cruikshank,” as Mr. Hone advertised, were severely satirical throughout from the first, where the royal husband drunk, with a broken wine-glass in his hand, the garter falling from his leg, cards and dice and bottles scattered at his feet, and the candles guttering in the sockets, maunders alone to where the fat Adonis is being borne away in a barrow to the “English cry” of “Cats’ meat.” “Non mi Ricordo” was another squib of this year.
In the “Political Showman at Home,” with twenty-four cuts by Cruikshank, the satire is biting, and the ideas are plentiful. The showman, by way of introduction, addresses his readers: “Ladies and gentlemen, walk up! walk up! and see the curiosities and creatures—all alive! alive O! Walk up! now’s your time! Only a shilling. Please to walk up!
“Here is the strangest and most wonderful artificial cabinet in Europe!—made of nothing—but lackerd brass, turnery, and papier mâchée—all fret work and varnish, held together by steel points! Very crazy, but very curious!
“Please to walk in, ladies and gentlemen—it’s well worth seeing! Here are the most wonderful of all wonderful living animals. Take care! Don’t go within their reach—they mind nobody but me! A short time ago they got loose, and, with some other vermin that came from their holes and corners, desperately attacked a lady of quality; but, as luck would have it, I and my ‘four-and-twenty men’ happened to come in at the very moment: we pull’d away, and prevented ‘em from doing her a serious mischief. Though they look tame, their vicious dispositions are unchanged. If anything was to happen to me, they’d soon break out again, and show their natural ferocity. I’m in continual danger from ‘em myself; for if I didn’t watch’em closely, they’d destroy me. As the clown says, ‘there never was such times,’—so there’s no telling what tricks they may play yet.
“Ladies and gentlemen,—these animals have been exhibited at Court before the king and all the royal family! Indeed, His Majesty is so fond of ‘em, that he often sees’em in private, and feeds ‘em; and he is so diverted by’em, that he has been pleased to express his gracious approbation of all their motions. But they’re as cunning as the old one himself! Bless you, he does not know a thousandth part of their tricks. You, ladies and gentlemen, may see’em just as they are!—the Beasts and Reptiles—all alive! alive O! and the Big Booby—all a-light! a light O!
“Walk in, ladies and gentlemen! walk in! just a-going to begin. Stir ‘em up! stir ‘em up there with the long pole.
“Before I describe the animals, please to look at the show-cloth opposite—”
The show-cloth is a drawing of the transparency “exhibited by William Hone during the illumination commencing on the 11th and ending on the 15th of November, 1820, in celebration of the victory obtained by the press for the liberties of the people, which had been assailed in the person of the Queen; the words, ‘Triumph of the Press,’ being displayed in variegated lamps as a motto above it On the 29th, when the Queen went to St. Paul’s, it was again exhibited, with Lord Bacon’s immortal words, ‘Knowledge is power,’ displayed in like manner. The transparency was painted by Mr. George Cruikshank.”
The animals, the beasts and reptiles, are political figures. The crocodile wears the Lord Chancellor’s wig, the black rats are lawyers, the scorpion has the Duke’s nose and cocked hat.
Cruikshank’s illustrations to “Slap at Slop” include ideas enough to enrich half a dozen comic papers of our day. The hitting is hard, but it is never indecent, and it is always on the right side. The author of “The Political House that Jack Built” describes Dr. Slop in downright English: “A minion of ministers, a parasite to despotism throughout the world; public virtue is the object of his unprincipled hate and unsparing abuse Hence there is not a ‘public principle that his mendacity has not perverted’; not a man of disinterested public conduct that he has not vilified; not a measure of advantage to the country, emanating from such men, that he has not derided; not a measure of ministerial profligacy that he has not promoted; not a public job that he has not bolstered; not a public knave that he has not shielded; not an inroad upon the Constitution that he has not widened; not a treason against the people’s liberties that he has not advocated; not a sore upon the people’s hearts that he has not enlarged.” *
Dr. Mackenzie, who saw all these squibs when they first appeared, and remembered the effect they immediately made, bears testimony to their popularity and to their value as political agents:—
“During the excitement of the period, when the sympathy of the multitude was unquestionably in favour of Queen Caroline, and even most of the non-political portion of society thought that, under existing circumstances, her husband should not have proceeded against her as he did, Hone sent out several other brochures with illustrations by Greorge Cruikshank. That was about six-and-twenty years ago—we saw them at the time, and we have not seen them since—but we have a vivid recollection of every one of them. There was the ‘Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder,’ described as a National Toy, with fourteen step-scenes, and illustrations in verse, and eighteen other cuts. There was ‘Non Mi Ricordo,’ founded on the convenient forgetfulness of Theodore Majocci, the principal witness against the Queen.
There was the ‘Political Showman.’ There were others which also told well on the public mind, and there is no doubt very greatly influenced it in favour of the Queen and against the King and his ministers. It was impossible for any one to avoid laughing heartily at these publications. There was no mistaking any one character introduced. There was Canning, recognized by his bald head and his peculiar attitude. There was Sidmouth, with an enema-bag in his hand, and thus, if the likeness were not striking, showed that he was indeed ‘The Doctor.* There was Wellington, spare in figure, with his Roman nose and keen, cold eye. There was Castlereagh, duly ticketed as ‘Derry-down-triangle,’ in memory of the tortures which he allowed to be inflicted in Ireland during the rebellion of 1798. But chief of all was the King. Never before nor since was royalty made so ridiculous. The towering wig, the false whiskers, the padded garments, the enormous bulk, the affectation of juvenility by ‘the dandy of sixty’ were all inimitable, and not to be mistaken. Lawrence himself might have painted more powerful portraits of the Sovereign, but none half so characteristic as these. We remember one which gave us a back view of ‘big Greorge,’ with the proportions of his sitting part ludicrously exaggerated, and a star or two stuck upon the narrow tails of the coat, which did not cover the sitting part, as aforesaid. It was impossible to avoid laughing at these—the likeness so good, the figure so correct, the attitude so irresistibly funny. Then the doggrel letter-press, to explain what wanted no explanation. Fancy such a figure stuck in the centre of the page, with such a running commentary beneath as the following:—
“The present generation, examining these things, might wonder at the effect they had upon the public mind; but we can tell them that thousands and ten thousands recollect that the effect was extraordinary. There was a rush and a crush to get them. Edition after edition went off like wildfire. Of some, as many as a quarter of a million copies were sold. Some ran into the thirtieth edition. In 1822, Mr. Hone brought out ‘A Slap at Slop and the Bridge Street Gang,’ a very cleverly written broadsheet, newspaper size, with fictitious advertisements and intelligence, every line of which had a direct political or personal aim. This had also the advantage of George Cruikshank’s illustrations; and with this concluded his essays in the political line. The system of government improved hereafter, and the artist thought, no doubt, that a wider and better field was before him for the exercise of his talents. Henceforth, then, no one could say of George Cruikshank that he
Having said that he believed Cruikshank’s attacks upon the Prince Regent to have been his only effort as a party politician, * and referred to his “regular John Bull style of treating the Corsican officer, Boney, as he was pleased always to call Napoleon I.,” Thackeray points out how soon the caricaturist’s heart relented when the Emperor had yielded to stern fortune. The fine drawing of Louis XVI. trying Napoleon’s boots on his gouty feet, is cited in evidence,** But Cruikshank could never master his bull-dog contempt for Frenchmen, This is clear in all his drawings where they appear: in those published in “Life in Paris,” as well as the series first issued between 1817 and 1820, and reissued by Mr. McLean, of the Haymarket, in 1835. The Cruikshank Frenchmen are “almost invariably thin, with ludicrous spindle-shanks, pig-tails, outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and queer hair and moustachios.”
We have merely glanced at the early caricatures of this indefatigable observer and worker. “Long before he was out of jackets,” says Mr. Sala, who knew him well in his later years, and understood every facet of his brilliant genius, “he had learned to draw with facility, symmetry, and precision; and if we recollect right, the collected edition of his original drawings, shown at Exeter Hall some years since, comprised some comic sketches in pencil of ‘Coalies’ at the old ‘Fox under the Hill,’ executed in the year 1899....
“The earliest bread-winning engagement of young George appears to have been in connection with a satirical periodical called the Scourge, and another light, the Meteor, which latter he published conjointly with a man of letters named Earle. In the time of the Russian campaign of 1812 he was very busy with aquatint tableaux of the disaster and shameful flight of Napoleon I., whom he always heartily hated; and in the Waterloo year he ‘illustrated’ a comic song, sung ‘every night with tremendous applause’ at the old Surrey Theatre, in which the final downfall of the Corsican usurper and tyrant was narrated in a style which would have delighted M. Lanfray. But it was in 1820 that George first made a decided hit.” This, as illustrator of the Hone publications, the literary portion of which was worthless. Of “that strange, wayward man, William Hone,” first bookseller and writer of lampoons and parodies of the Litany and Church catechism, and in the end antiquary and mild collector of folk-lore, Cruikshank said, in the fragment of his autobiography which opens his “Omnibus,” in reply to a remark that he had once been on terms, not only of intimacy, “but of warm friendship,” with “the most noted infidel of his day.”
The proprietor, Earl, was an unprincipled man, who persuaded George Cruikshank to put his name to a bill. When it fell due, the drawer was in the Fleet prison. The acceptor’s mother was not a lady to take such a deception lightly. She repaired to the Fleet, but obtained no satisfaction from the debtor. The editor of the Scourge, “Jack,” or “Mad” Mitford, was worthy of the proprietor. He had been an officer in the navy, but fell through infamous conduct to be the rhymester of running patterers. His principal work, “Johnny Newcome in the Navy,” was written in the gravel-pits near Bayswater, where he had hidden, and whither his publisher sent him a shilling daily, to buy gin and cheese, in return for “copy.” He died in St. Giles’s workhouse.
“What Mr. Hone’s religious creed may have been at that time, I am far from being able to decide; I was too young to know more than that he seemed deeply read in theological questions, and, although unsettled in his opinions, always professed to be a Christian. I knew also that his conduct was regulated by the strictest morality. He had been brought up to detest the Church of Rome, and to look upon the ‘Church of England’ service as little better than popish ceremonies; and with this feeling he parodied some portions of the Church service for purposes of political satire. But with these publications I had nothing whatever to do; and the instant I heard of their appearance, I entreated him to withdraw them. That I was his friend is true; and it is true, also, that among his friends were many persons, not more admired for their literary genius, than esteemed for their zeal in behalf of religion and morals.”
This manly vindication of his friend was characteristic of George Cruikshank. “When Hone was arraigned for blasphemy, Cruikshank,” says a writer on him in the London Review (December 28th, 1867), who knew him, “was consulted, and he dictated a letter, begging the Attorney-General not to take proceedings. This letter, one of Hone’s little children took to that Crown officer’s private house. But in vain. The action went on, and the ill-paid artist stood nobly by his friend. It is even said that the trial was rehearsed in Cruikshank’s studio, and that he and Hone concocted the defence together.”
When Hone died, Cruikshank insisted upon going to the funeral of his friend. Dickens used to describe a serio-comic scene with Mrs. Cruikshank at the time, who implored him to intercede, not only because she feared George might be indiscreet and get into trouble, but because she could not bear “those horrid Miss Hones.” Hone, on his side, bore handsome testimony to the genius of the artist.
Hone’s “Ancient Mysteries Described,” fcap. 8vo, 1823, contains two illustrations by George Cruikshank; viz., “The Giants in Guildhall,” and “Fools’ Morris Dance.” In an allusion to the giants, Mr. Hone observed: “In order to perpetuate their appearance they are drawn and etched by Mr. George Cruikshank, whose extraordinary talents have been happily exercised on my more original fancies. As this may be the last time that I shall ever write Mr. Cruikshank’s name for the press, I cannot but express my astonishment that a pencil which commands the admiration of any individual qualified to appreciate art, should be disregarded by that, class whose omission to secure it in their service is a remarkable instance of disregard to their own interests as the midwives of literature.”
And yet it is no trifle to be a good caricaturist,” exclaimed Professor Wilson, writing an article on Cruikshank, in Blackwood, in July 1823. “Forbid the thought, ye shades of Bunbury and Gillray! forbid it, even thou, if thou be still in the land of the living, good Dighton! forbid it, charming, laughter-moving Rowlandson! Bunbury was a great genius, and would have been a great caricaturist, had he been possessed of art at all in proportion to his imagination. But he could not draw—not he. As far as faces went, he was at home, and admirable; and even as to the figure, provided he was allowed the benefit of loose breeches and capacious coats, and grizzly wigs, and tobacco smoke, he could get on well enough. But this is not the thing. The caricaturist should be able to represent everything; and then he can represent what he chooses in a very different style from that of a man whose ignorance, not his choice, limits the sphere of his representation. Rowlandson, again, is a considerable dab at drawing; but, somehow or other, his vein is ultra, his field is not comedy, but farce—buffoonery—and this will not do with the English temperament, except for merely temporary purposes. The Rev. Brownlow North (worthy of bearing that illustrious name, O Christopher!) is another capital caricaturist.... Gillray was in himself a host. He is the first name on the list of Political Caricaturists, strictly so called. George III. (honest man!), and Boney, and Fox, and Sheridan, and Pitt, and Windham, and Melville, and Grenville, are his peculiar property. His fame will repose for ever on their broad bottoms. Cruikshank may, if he pleases, be a second Gillray; but, once more, this should not be his ambition. He is fitted for a higher walk. Let him play Gillray, if he will, at leisure hours—let him even pick up his pocket-money by Gillrayizing; but let him give his days and his nights to labour that Gillray’s shoulders were not meant for, and rear (for he may) a reputation such as Gillray was too sensible a fellow to dream of aspiring after.”
This article was provoked by the success of “Life in London,” illustrated by the brothers Robert and George Cruikshank, followed by that revelation of George’s genius, his “Points of Humour,” and not by the scores of political caricatures he was throwing off for Humphrey, Fores, and others. He had not yet broken away from the uncongenial political ground to the social; but he had opened that vast gallery of London scenes which he had been accumulating during twenty years of hard toil in the metropolis. Wilson gives us a peep behind the curtain of Cruikshank’s life at this time, as he had heard it described over a glass with Egan and other roystering friends. He even ventures to lecture his protégé:—
“It is high time that the public should think more than they have hitherto done of George Cruikshank; and it is also high time that George Cruikshank should begin to think more than he seems to have done hitherto of himself. Generally speaking, people consider him as a clever, sharp caricaturist, and nothing more—a freehanded, comical young fellow, who will do anything he is paid for, and who is quite contented to dine off the proceeds of a ‘George IV.’ to-day, and those of a ‘Hone’ or a ‘Cobbett’ to-morrow. He himself, indeed, appears to be the most careless creature alive, as touching his reputation. He seems to have no plan—almost no ambition—and, I apprehend, not much industry. He does just what is suggested or thrown in his way, pockets the cash, orders his beef-steak and bowl, and chaunts, like one of his own heroes,—
Now, for a year or two, to begin with, this is just as it should be. Cruikshank was resolved to see life; and his sketches show that he has seen it, in some of its walks, to purpose. But life is short, and art is long; and our gay friend must pull up.” Then the Professor remarks that perhaps he is not aware of the fact himself, but a fact it undoubtedly is, that he possesses genius—genius in its truest sense—strong, original, English genius. “Look round the world of Art,” says the Professor, and ask, how many are there of whom anything like this can be said? Why, there are not half a dozen names that could bear being mentioned at all; and certainly there is not one, the pretensions of which will endure sifting more securely and more triumphantly than that of George Cruikshank.”
He is venerated as “a total despiser of that venerable humbug” which was “the prime god of the idolatry” of his contemporaries. The lecturer proceeds:—
“I am of opinion that George Cruikshank is one of the many young gentlemen whose education (like that of the English opium-eater) has been neglected. But there is no time lost; he has, I hope, a long life and a merry one before him yet; and he may depend upon it, his life will be neither the shorter nor the duller for his making it something of a studious one. He should read—read—read. He should be indefatigable in reading. He should rise at six in the morning. If he can’t work till he has had something to settle his stomach (my own case), he can have a little coffee-pot placed on the hob over-night, and take a cup of that and a single crust of toast, and he will find himself quite able for anything. What a breakfast he will be able to devour about nine or half-past nine, after having enriched his mind with several hours of conversation with the greatest and the wisest of his species! He may rely upon it, this hint is worth taking. Then let him draw, etch, and paint, until about two o’clock p.m., then take a lounge through the streets, to see if anything is stirring—step into Westminster Hall, the fives court, the Rev. Edward Irving’s chapel (if it be Sunday), or any other public place, jotting down à la Hogarth all the absurd faces he falls in with upon his finger-nails. A slight dinner and a single bottle will carry him on till it is time to go to the play, or the Castle Tavern, or the House of Commons, or the evening preaching, or the Surrey lecture, or the like. At first sight it may appear that I am cutting short the hours of professional exertion too much, but this I am convinced is mere humbug. Does the author of Waverley eat, or drink, or ride, or talk, or laugh, a whit the less because he writes an octavo every month? No such thing. Does Jeffrey plead his causes a bit the worse because he is the editor of the Edinburgh Review? Does Wordsworth write worse poems, for collecting the taxes of Cumberland; or Lamb, worse Elias, for being clerk to the India House? The artists are all of them too diligent—that is the very fault I want to cure them of. Their pallets are never off their thumbs—their sticks are eternally in their fingers.”
He goes on to say that the advantage of a little proper reading may be illustrated by the history of George Cruikshank, “as well as by that of any other individual I have the pleasure of not being personally acquainted with.” He commends Cruikshank’s early caricatures as “in their several ways excellent things.”
“But,” he exclaims, “what a start did he make when his genius had received a truer and diviner impulse from the splendid imagination of an Egan! How completely, how toto colo did he out-Cruikshank himself, when he was called upon to embody the conceptions of that remarkable man in the designs of Tom and Jerry! The world felt this—and he himself felt it.
“Again, no disparagement to my friend Pierce Egan (who is one of the pleasantest as well as one of the greatest men now extant, and with whom, last time I was in town, I did not hesitate to crack a bottle of Belcher’s best), Cruikshank made another, and a still more striking stride, when he stepped from Egan to Burns, and sought his inspiration from the very best of all Burns’s glorious works, ‘The Jolly Beggars.’ It is of this work (the ‘Points of Humour’) that I am now to speak. It was for the purpose of puffing it and its author, and of calling upon all who have eyes to water and sides to ache to buy it, that I began this leading lecture. It is, without doubt, the first thing that has appeared since the death of Hogarth. Yes, Britain possesses once more an artist capable of seizing and immortalizing the traits of that which I consider as by far the most remarkable of our national characteristics—the Humour of the People. Ex pede Herculem: the man who drew these things is fit for anything. Let him but do himself justice, and he must take his place inter lumina Anglorum.”
Of “Life in London,” and “Life in Paris,” which followed it, Thackeray, writing seventeen years after Wilson, utters the opinion which is likely to be the final one on the literary and artistic merits of these works:—“A curious book, called ‘Life in Paris,’ published in 1822, contains a number of the artist’s plates in the aquatint style; and though we believe he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great deal of life in them, and pass muster very well. A villainous race of shoulder-shrugging mortals are his Frenchmen indeed. And the heroes of the tale, a certain Mr. Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain O’Shuffleton, are made to show the true British superiority on every occasion when Britons and French are brought together. This book was one among the many that the designer’s genius has caused to be popular; the plates are not carefully executed, but, being coloured, have a pleasant, lively look. The same style was adopted in the once famous book called ‘Tom and Jerry, or Life in London,’ which must have a word of notice here; for, although by no means Mr. Cruikshank’s best work, his reputation was extraordinarily raised by it. Tom and Jerry were as popular twenty years since as Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller now are; and often have we wished, while reading the biographies of the latter celebrated personages, that they had been described as well by Mr. Cruikshank’s pencil as by Mr. Dickens’s pen.
“As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs, and the evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British Museum and no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the book, and ‘Life in London,’ alas, is not to be found at any one of them. We can only, therefore, speak of the work from recollection, but have still a very clear remembrance of the leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom. They were the schoolboys’ delight; and in the days when the work appeared, we firmly believed the three heroes above named to be types of the most elegant, fashionable young fellows the town afforded, and thought their occupations and amusements were those of all high-bred English gentlemen. Tom knocking down the watchman at Temple Bar; Tom and Jerry dancing at Almack’s; or flirting in the saloon at the theatre; at the night-houses, after the play; at Tom Cribb’s, examining the silver cup then in the possession of that champion; at Bob Logic’s chambers, where, if we mistake not, ‘Corinthian Kate’ was at a cabinet piano, singing a song; ambling gallantly in Rotten Row, or examining the poor fellow at Newgate who was having his chains knocked off before hanging; all these scenes remain indelibly engraved upon the mind, and so far we are independent of all the circulating libraries in London.
“As to the literary contents of the book, they have passed sheer away. It was, most likely, not particularly refined; nay, the chances are that it was absolutely vulgar. But it must have had some merit of its own, that is clear; it must have given striking descriptions of life in some part or other of London, for all London read it, and went to see it in its dramatic shape. The artist, it is said, wished to close the career of the three heroes by bringing them all to ruin; but the writer, or publishers, would not allow any such melancholy subjects to clash the merriment of the public, and we believe Tom, Jerry, and Logic were married off at the end of the tale, as if they had been the most moral personages in the world. There is some goodness in this pity which author and the public are disposed to show towards certain agreeable, disreputable characters of romance. Who would mar the prospects of honest Roderick Random, or Charles Luface, or Tom Jones? Only a very stern moralist indeed. And in regard of Jerry Hawthorn and that hero without a surname, Corinthian Tom, Mr. Cruikshank, we make little doubt; was glad in his heart that he was not allowed to have his way.”
According to Mr. Sala, only a few of the pictures in “Life in London” were the production of George Cruikshank. “We are not even quite certain,” he says, “as to whether the irresistibly ninth provoking group of ‘Dusty Bob and Black Sal’ can be claimed by him. Robert Cruikshank was the chief illustrator of Pierce Egan’s questionable magnum opus; and, oddly enough, until attention was drawn to George’s commanding talents by Professor Wilson and Blackwood, it was Robert or ‘Bob’ Cruikshank who was imagined, by a careless public, to be the genius of the family. His more gifted brother, nevertheless, was the sole illustrator in some forty admirable aquatint engravings of a kind of pendant to ‘Life in London,’ called ‘Life Paris.’ The letterpress of this production was not furnished by Pierce Egan; nor could George at the end of his life remember by whom it was written, although the man’s name, he was wont to say, ‘was always on the tip of his tongue.’”
George Cruikshank’s sketches of the Boulevards and the Palais Royal, elaborated from sketches furnished to him, were wonderfully spirited and true; albeit he had never been across the Channel Indeed, he never got beyond a French seaport in the course of his long life.
A day at Boulogne comprehended all his continental experiences. His contemporary, Bryan Waller Procter, had never seen the ocean when he wrote “The Sea”; again, neither Schiller nor Rossini had seen Switzerland when they wrote their “William Tell.” Cuthbert Bede asserts that Cruikshank originated “Life in London,” and “was greatly displeased and distressed at the way in which the author wrote up to his designs.” In those days the Cruikshanks were not in a position to command Pierce Egan. It is clear that the designs illustrate the written work. It is quite true that George lamented the coarseness and the plan of it; but the plates have, throughout, his signature in conjunction with his brother’s.
Mr. Percy R. Cruikshank, the son of Robert Isaac, had the following account of the origin of Tom and Jerry from his father: “The wonderfully successful Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, although ostensibly Pierce Egan’s idea, was universally given to George Cruikshank, whereas the original notion and very designs were mostly Robert’s. He conceived the notion, and planned the designs, while showing a brother-in-law, just returned from China, some of the “life” which was going on in London at the time. He designed the characters of Tom, Jerry, and Logic from himself, brother-in-law, and Pierce Egan, keeping to the likenesses of each model. Robert offered the work to Messrs. Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, of Paternoster Row, who saw nothing in it, but at length accepted the offer, and by doing so realized a large sum of money, the etchings taking immensely.... George Cruikshank, shortly before his death, said to his nephew Percy, “When your father proposed Tom and Jerry to me, I suggested that it should be carried out in a series of oil paintings, after the manner of Hogarth, but he objected, considering etching was safer, and more rapidly convertible into ready money.” *