THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS. NEW SERIES. The long-continued and steady demand for the Biographies of Great Artists which have already appeared, and the frequent applications that have been made for additional volumes, have induced the Publishers to decide upon the preparation of a New Series of these much-appreciated books. This Series will contain Lives of Eminent Artists, both British and Foreign, who— for reasons which no longer exist— were not included in the first issue, but who have an undoubted right to be comprised in any work specially devoted to painters. Treatises on various groups of painters, such as the early Flemish School, the Dutch Landscape School, the Early Venetian School, and others, will be included. , , t>- u The Memoirs will be written by authors who have made Art-Biography a special study, and will be illustrated with wood engravings and plates by the new photo-gravure process so much in fashion, and with these plates great pains will be taken to produce the best results. , ^ j The price of this series will be the same as before, 3^. 6d. per volume, bound in decorated cloth. The Painters of Barbizon. I. Memoirs of Jean Francois Millet, Theodore Rousseau, and Narcisse Diaz. By J. W. MoLLETT, B.A. Twenty Engravings. The Painters of Barbizon. II. Memoirs of Jean Baptiste CoROT, Charles Francois Daubigny, and Jules Dupri5. By J. W. MoLLETT, B.A. twenty Engravings. The two volumes in one, bound in half-morocco, Roxburgh style. Price 7s. 6d. William Mulready, Memorials of. Collected by Frederic G. Stephens. Illustrated with copies of the Life Studies in the South Kensington Museum, and other Works. Twenty Engravings. David Cox and Peter de Wint: Memoirs of their Lives and Works. With Catalogues of their Exhibited Works. By Gilbert R. Redgrave. Twenty Engravings. George Cruikshank, His Life and Works. Including a Memoir by Frederic G. Stephens, and an Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank by W. M. Thackeray. Forty-four En- gravings. With list of books illustrated by Cruikshank. The Landscape Painters of Holland : Ruisdael and Hobbema, CuYP and Potter, and others. By Frank Cundall. Twenty Engravings. With catalogues of their paintings. Van Eyck, Memlinc, Matsys, and other Painters of the Early Flemish School. " Gavarni," Memoirs of By Frank Marzials. With many Illustrations. LONDON : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON., Ltd. " The whole world without Art would be one great wilderness ^ A MEMOIR OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK BY FREDERIC G._STEPHENS AND AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY LONDON? SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON {Limited.) . St. JBunistan's ^ouse Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.G. 1891 {All rights reserved.) Richard Clay ^ Sons, Limited, London % Bungay. » PAUL GETTT MUSEUM LIBRARY T4L Z Q EDITOR^S PREFACE. \ LTHOUGH the most ardent admirers of George Ckuik- SHANK cannot claim for him the honour of being one of the Great Artists in the same sense in which we speak of Raphael or Eubens, or Sir Joshua Reynolds, yet no one will object to the name of the most popular humourist that ever graced the world of Art, being found among the celebrities of this Series. And one of the principal reasons for including him is that it enables me to reprint the famous Essay on the Genius OP George Cruikshank, which Mr. Thackeray wrote in 'The Westminster Review,' in June 1840, and which I remember was received with immense applause by all the critics of the day. The sympathy that existed in the mind of that writer with the choice and delicious humour of the designer, is in this Essay most beautifully shown, and was thoroughly appreciated by the artist and his many friends. I have to acknowledge the kindness of the Trustees of the British Museum who granted me permission to copy some of the fine proofs of Cruikshank's etchings in the Print Room ; and my Vlll EDITORS PREFACE. thanks are due to Messrs. G. Bell & Sons for permission to use the wood-engravings first issued in ' Three Courses and a Dessert,' and 'Gammer Grethel,' as well as the portrait of Cruikshank, by Frank Stone, which appeared in ' The Omnibus ' ; and for allowing me to quote from Mr. George Reid's nearly exhaustive catalogue of the five thousand two hundred and sixty-five designs which the great ' George ' made during the course of his long artistic life. J. C. Wallington, Decemler 1890. CONTENTS. Editorial Preface List of Illustrations CHAPTER I. The Cruikshank family of 1790 — Birth of George — Satirical artists — Hogarth to Cruikshank — Cruiksliank not a caricaturist — Isaac and Isaac Robert Cruikshank — George's first attempts — Facing the Enemy — Satires on Napoleon, the Regent, and the Duke of York — The, Political House that Jack luilt — The Bank Restriction Note — Hone's funeral CHAPTER II. Political satires — Illustrations to * Tom'and Jerry ' — ' Peter Schlemihl ' — Grimm's 'Popular Stories '—Lord Byron's works — 'Mornings at Bow Street ' — ' Three Courses and a Dessert ' — ' Punch and Judy ' — 'Robinson Crusoe' — 'My Sketch Book' — 'The Comic Almanack' — ' Oliver Twist ' — ' Lord Bateman ' — ' Jack Shephard ' — * Tower of London ' — * The Omnibus,' and other books The Fairy Library — Illustrations of Dibdin's Songs— Maxwell's * History of the Irish Rebellion '—Brough's 'Life of Sir John FalstaiT'— TAc Bottle — The JForship of Bacchus — Private life — Death . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I PAGE 1. George Cruikshank, from the portrait by Frank Stone, R.A. FrontisiHccG 2. The Elfin Grove Gammer Grethel ... 1 3. Facing the Enemy ... Political Satire— 18Qd 9 4. Paradise Regained ... . Political Satire — 1811 17 5. The Theatrical Atlas Political Satire — 1814 23 6. Hans in Luck German Popular Stories ... 33 7. The Goose-girl Gammer Grethel ... 34 8. The Elves and the Cobbler German Popular Stories . . . 38 9. Breaking-up Mching— 1825 41 10. Three Smiling Heads Three Courses and a Dessert 43 11. The Proud Young Porter Lord Bateman — 1839 46 12. Looking for Lodgings ComAc Almanack — 1851 ... 49 13. Jack's Fidelity Dibdin's Songs 51 14. Death of Sir John ... Life of Falstaff 59 15. Brave Toby Philpot Three Courses and a Dessert 68 16. Caddy Cuddle's Nose Three Courses and a Dessert 72 17. An Irish Row Mornings at Bow Street ... 84 18. The Choice Three Coxirses and a Dessert 87 19. The Smiling Oyster Three Courses and a Dessert 88 20. Seizing upon a Subject Three Courses and a Dessert 89 21. Professional Dustmen Mornings at Bow Street ... 90 22. Genii of the Sack and Shovel Mornings ctt Bow Street ... 91 23. Miserable Sinners ! Sunday in London 94 24. British Grenadiers Sionday in London 95 25. Irish Militiaman Tales of Irish Life 96 26. An Irish Election ... Three Courses and a Dessert 97 27. The Witch's Stick Three Courses and a Dessert 98 28. An Irish Dance Tales of Irish Life 99 29. The Deaf Post-boy Three Cotirses and a Dessert 100 30. John Gilpin's Race John Gilpin 101 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE 31. The Cheapside Ninirod ... The Epping Hunt 102 32. Begone, Brave Army ! Bomhastes Furioso ... 103 33. Ghost of Gammer Thumb Tom Thumb 104 34. An Irish Chapel Tales of Irish Life 109 35. The Blatta Beetles £ate7n(tn's Ovchidctcece 1 1 n 1 J-U 36. A Somersetshire Chawbacon Mornings at Sow Street . . . 111 37. Spirits of Wine Three Courses and a Dessert 112 38. An Irish Portrait Three Courses and a Dessert 113 39. A Mushroom Peer Three Courses and a Dessert 114 40. Blarneyhum Astrologicum Comic A Imanack ... 115 41. Hard to Part Three Courses and a Dessert 116 42. Comfortably Asleep Three Courses and a Dessert 116 43 Master Stubbs Comic Almanacic ... 119 44. Bill Sykes and his Dog ... Oliver Twist 129 THE ELFIN GROVE. [Gammer Grethel.) GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. I. THAT he was born on the 27th of September, 1792, or practically a hundred years ago, and as long ago as 1799 * came into what— considering the reputation of his father as a humorous designer— was aptly called his inheritance in satiric draughtsmanship, has not affected the fame of the artist whom Thackeray, that true master of sardonic wit, delighted to honour. In no respect has Time diminished the reputation of George Cruikshank. Thackeray's essay, which follows the necessarily incomplete notice I have had the honour to write, attests in its finish, its research, and its acumen, the care that sympathizing critic bestowed on a task he loved; innumerable dissertations * This is the earliest date on a drawing of his. B 2 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. have been issued during the last eighty years in honour of "George," and pens almost as famous as Thackeray's have been exercised in his praise. More than three generations of men have joined the majority since Cruikshank was born, and there is no failure in the attractiveness of that wonderful artillery of designs with which he not only shot Folly as she flew, but— in this being the true heir of Hogarth— recorded his sympathy with some who had erred, many who were oppressed, and not a few who suffered for righteousness' sake. The amount of our indebtedness to Hogarth, because he was the first artist of this country who pleaded for mercy, if not for tenderness, to the inferior animals, is immensely increased by the fact that in this respect, as in many others, his influence upon Cruikshank was at once manifest, powerful and profound. Writing in a well-known literary journal I summed up a portion, at least, of Cruikshank's claims on ourselves and posterity, by saying that at his death a long line of English pictorial satirists came to an end. That line was, so to say, created by Hogarth, who was the first to impart to his designs not only genuine wit without that excess of grossness which the customs of his day more than tolerated, and the original interpreter of a noble purpose beyond the immediate occasion of his art. Until Hogarth's advent satiric design was generally unscrupulous, insolent, directed against persons rather than in aid of principles, and as venal as it was vile. Some of George the Second's ministers of State, to say nothing of those of Queen Anne and earlier monarchs, imitated their forerunners in France, and were wont to bribe draughtsmen to assail their enemies. "The Heaven-born Wilkes," upon whom Hogarth conferred a painful immortality, was glad to revenge himself upon a political opponent by describing the painter of A Harlot's Progress as one who had accepted ofiice as a bribe from Lord Bute, the Tory minister, hated of mankind. The scandal was refuted by a hundred facts, and fell back upon its author, who, having EARLY SATIRIC ART IN ENGLAND. 3 offered himself to be bribed, did not get bis price until long after his submission was made, and, in saying that he had written a good deal too much " against the monarch he descended to flatter, was mean enough to apologize to the king he had not unjustly assailed. Some of the successors of Hogarth were partisans rather than moralists and patriots ; but that master's example showed them how to turn aside from bribes. In this respect Cruikshank was immaculate. With Hogarth begun, and with Cruikshank ended, what may be called the second period of English satiric art. During the interval between the death of Hogarth and that of " George " the satiric traditions of the former were, to a certain extent, inferiorly sustained by Paul Sandby and others of his time, who are much less known than he. The careers of some of these, that of Sandby, among them, overlapped Hogarth's, and the succeeding draughtsmen filled the space until Cruikshank was born twenty-eight years later, or nearly a generation after Hogarth's death in 1764. In this epoch the ruling satirists were the first Marquis Townshend * and some minor powers. But most of all in merit were Rowlandson, Gillray, Kay and Bunbury. Their weaker and more vulgar followers do not count for much. Isaac Cruikshank took his place along with the later of these sarcastic prophets, and he led up to the far more prolific exercises of his greater son, whose doings we have to study. Of the third period of satiric art in England this is the right place to speak, although of course it is chronologically out of order. We must remember that . Cruikshank belonged to the second period, but that, while his years of activity and * A Field-Marshal, Wolfe's successor at Quebec, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and a man of importance in his day. For notes on what may be called his satiric career see the ' Introduction to the Fourth Volume of the Catalogue of Satirical Prints in the British Museum,' published by order of the Trustees, 1883, p. xix. 4 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. enthusiasm far overlapped the beginning of the third epoch, he did not materially change, and certainly did not advance much after he had attained middle life, and a number of satirists were, so to say, already overlapping him. They were men of an entirely different stamp from his, and, doubtless, as well suited to the times as he, even in his most vigorous phase, had ever been. There was not much vigour in the comparatively mild humour of " H. B. " (the elder Doyle), and yet he was a popular con- temporary of Cruikshank when the latter was at his best. John Leech and his numerous entourage were designers of genre and illustrators of manners and temporary moods as much as they were satirists proper. Doyle the younger had a gentle genius we could never rank with the rougher spirits of Hogarth and Cruikshank, whose resources were incomparably greater than his. Of the living John Tenniel this is not the place to write at large. Like Leech, he has produced masterpieces of sarcastic and sardonic wit, but they differ, as the times extending from Hoearth to Cruikshank differ from our own, and they gave to satire a direction very different from that Hogarth imparted, and which spent its force in the old age of " George " himself. Turning now to our subject proper, let me say that it is a misuse of terms to call Cruikshank a caricaturist, in the sense in which many satirists, from Leonardo da Yinci, Diirer and others, down to our own day are called so. Cruikshank's curious, and to some extent perverse, choice of types of men and women, their costumes and their manners, verged upon what seems caricature, but his designs never descended to this vice, that is to say, to grotesque exaggerations of the truth. As well say that Holbein caricatured Death's doings in the wonderful Danse Macabre, as that Cruikshank went beyond nature even in that much over-praised and under-esteemed series of designs called The Bottle, of which he was, erroneously no doubt, excessively proud. Truly of " George " it may be said that his deeds HIS BIRTHPLACE. 5 live after him, and that he and he alone was worthy to be glassed with Hogarth, because they were the Alpha and Omega of English pictorial satirists of the moral enforcing and sardonic class, consummate artists withal, each a master of design in his way, and prophets to mankind. That Hogarth and Cruikshank were both Cockneys may be said to have been predicated by the nature of their common mission, which was to illustrate what Jacobean writers were accustomed to call the " humours " of metropolitan men and women. We know Hogarth was born within sight and hearing of Bow Bells. There seems no certain knowledge of Cruikshank's birthplace, but as in 1792, "George's" natal year, his father Isaac, when exhibiting at the Royal Academy, gave his address at " No. 203, High Holborn," the greater artist was probably born where those glory-conferring bells could, after the hubbub of the day had ceased, easily be heard. Isaac, in painting if not in manners, was, in his way, a moralist, and in 1792 the spirit moved him to illustrate at Somerset House " the distresses and triumph of Virtue," in regard to that now long-forgotten piece of goodiness and domestic novel, ' The Curate of Elmwood.' Mr, Bates, of Birmingham, who has given the world many details concerning the Cruikshank family,* tells us that Isaac the father was born that author thought, in Edinburgh, and was the son of an im poverished Scotsman, a Jacobite, and a loser by the "'45." Taking to art for a livelihood, Isaac went to London and did the best he could there with powers which were very far indeed from being great. Thei'e is, nevertheless, in the works of Cruikshank joeVe, a faint adumbration of the genius of his world-renowned son. He brought southwards some skill in water-colour painting, and happily, so far as his future and that of his sons were concerned, a special knack of etching and otherwise engraving satires upon the men of his time and their "humours," and the freaks of * ' George Cruikshank : the Artist, the Humorist, and the man,' Second Edition, London, 1879. 6 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. society of the inferior middle class, with whom he associated, and who were destined to become his best paymasters. This artist's father, the Jacobite, was, like many others of his day, especially when it became quite safe so to boast, accustomed to aver that he had not only suffered by taking the losing side in 1745, but, having been a combatant at Culloden, deserved to suffer for a hopeless cause. We are not told how much, or what, he had to lose, or how it happened that he gave up a post in the Custom House at Leith. There is a little uncertainty about his appointment, but there is no doubt that the Jacobite Isaac Cruikshank's father married the daughter of a sailor, a naval officer, Dr. Mackay told us, of Inverary. Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, a good authority when he repeated what George Cruikshank told him, suggested on his own account that there were many persons of the name in Aberdeenshire, but he gave no evidence to show what our Cruikshanks had to do with them. It seems to have been about 1788 that Isaac of that name reached London. Not long after this he married Mary Macnaughten, erst of Perth, who was said to be a protegee of the Countess of Orkney, and the possessor of a small sum of money. It is certain that she possessed an energetic temper and strong will, and was thrifty enough to save a thousand pounds, careful to bring up her children, and pious after the graver manner of her people, as well as a regular attendant of the Scotch Church in Crown Court, Drury Lane. Surviving her husband, she lived to be ninety years of age, and to see her son an old man. Her husband was rightly described by Mr. B. Jerrold as of " a quiet, meditative temper " ; other friends were accustomed to call him " easy-going." The pair seem to have taken up their quarters in Duke Street, Bloomsbury, where both their sons, if not likewise their daughter Eliza, were born.* The elder son was born in 1789, named Isaac * On one of his works Isaac Cruiksliank gave his address in this year, at No. 7, St. Martin's Court. This was probably the place where some of his prints were sold. The Court had long been notorious for the display of such HIS SCHOOLDAYS. 7 Robert, and became an artist of some reputation, in more than one sense the " double " of his father. George was born, as I have stated above, three years later. Isaac Robert may be said to have continued in the line of which John Collett was the original, if not the most eminent, professor. George from the first struck out in a new line, and, although the difference between his work and that of either of his seniors was not, primarily, very strongly marked, it was always great enough to enable experts to select the productions of the youngest man from those of his father and brother. A new vein appears in them from the earliest time. While quite young George moved with his family to No. 117, Dorset Street, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, where the parents let part of the house to lodgers. Here, according to our subject himself, Isaac Cruikshank worked on his plates while his wife coloured them by hand, and soon obtained help from her sons. The boys went to school at Edgeware, but, as Mr. Jerrold was told, not for long. In the meantime George scrambled for what served him as an education of the scholastic sort, so that, in fact, he owed little to what school-masters have taught the world to accept as the only possible education. Whatever might have been the value of more learning of the pedagogic kind than fortune allowed to him, there can be no doubt that for the cultivation of his incomparable powers of observation, for the development of those deep sympathies of his, and for the improvement of that rare sense of fun which made him what he was, George Cruikshank spent his youth in the college of colleges, matriculated and took the highest of all degrees in that university of manners he had to master, delineate, and with all his might avail himself of. Isaac Robert Cruikshank went to sea for three years, was sup- posed to be lost, and mourned as dead. He suddenly appeared things. It is worth remembering that Mrs. Hogarth, mother of the painter, died of fright occasioned by the burning of fourteen houses in Cecil's Court, close by. This was in June, 1755, while her son was living in Leicester Fields. 8 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. at home, was welcomed with joy, and resumed engraving for a livelihood. In this way he illustrated Cumberland's ' British Theatre,' and other works. In this occupation we may leave him in order to follow the fortunes of his abler brother.* Before doing the latter let us say that Isaac Cruikshank, the father, besides a great number of sketches, coloured etchings, engravings, and designs reproduced in various modes, etched theatrical portraits and scenes, and became much interested in the stage, its managers, actors, and patrons at large, including Koach, a publisher of Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane, who employed him a good deal, and Edmund Kean, who, Mr, Jerrold said, was then an obscure player, not, however, quite so little known as this authority would have us think. Several writers have led the world to believe that Isaac Cruikshank died, and left his sons while they were little more than boys. As he joined the majority in 1811, this is hardly correct; the elder son was then twenty-two years of age, the younger nineteen ; they were then well advanced in their profession, and assured of ample employment. This was especially the case with George who, before the end of 1811, had published— so says that excellent authority, Mr. Eeid's Catalogue— one hundred and fifty-two etchings, the dates of which are known. Apart from this, which is given in anticipation of time, there is no doubt that our subject began to draw when he was still n mere infant. The earliest dated achievements of his are draw- ings now in the great collection at the Westminster Aquarium, and inscribed 1799. They comprise quaint sketches of coal- heavers at the wharf near the Adelphi known as "The Fox under the Hill," a company and a place famous for pugilist encounters, strong beer, and rough play of many kinds. These drawings are called " First Attempts," and belong to a group the dates of which extend to 1801. That is, they were produced between the seventh and tenth years of the draughtsman. But, * Robert Isaac Cruikshank, died March 13, 1856. 10 GEORGE CUUIKSHANK. juvenile though they are, it is obvious that the least developed is not really a " first attempt." He must have drawn often and, for a child, very carefully, before he did so well, Cruikshank himself was responsible for these dates, which are quoted from the list of works which were collected in Exeter Hall and catalogued with his aid and authority for exhibition during the later months of 1862. The next group comprises ten sketches disposed under 1801-3. A third group gives "The Fashions," treated in a whimsical way of satire "about the year 1804 or 1805." "George's first playthings," says Mr. Bates, "were the needle and the dabber ; but play insensibly merged into work as he began to assist his hard-worked father. The earliest job in the way of etching for which he was employed and received payment was a child's lottery picture; this was in 1804, when he was about twelve years of age. In 1805 he made a sketch of Nelson's funeral car, and a whimsical etching of the ' fashions ' of the day. His earliest signed work is dated, I believe, two years later, and represents the demagogue Cobbett going to St. James's. His father's early death threw the lad on his own resources, and he quickly found that he must fight for a place in the world, as Fuseli told him he would have to do for a seat in the Academy. Anything that offered was acceptable — headings for songs and halfpenny ballads, illustrations for chap-books, designs for nursery tales, sheets of prints for children — a dozen on the sheet and a penny the lot — vignettes for lottery-tickets, rude cuts for broad- sides, political squibs — ' trivial fond records,' now of the utmost rarity and value." This passage gives the gist of the truth in a spirited mode, but it is not quite the truth as to those details which are dear to Cruikshankians; thus Mr. Reid's catalogue,* to which everybody * 'A Descriptive Catalogue of the Works of George Cruikshanlc,' etc. By George William Keid, Keeper of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. Illustrated. Three Volumes. Bell and Daldy, London, 1871. EARLY ETCHINGS. 11 must turn for exhaustive knowledge of the subject, and to which, by the great kindness of the proprietor, I am deeply indebted, begins the enumeration of Cruikshank's works with the year 1803, and makes No. 1 A Children's Picture, of four marine pieces on one sheet, with the publication line, " Printed and sold by W. Belch, Newington Butts, London." Belch seems to have sold N"o. 2, — sixteen small lottery prints, representing on one sheet so many trades and made for children, which he published in the first instance, — to one Langham, whose name, and his address at " 3, Red Lion Street, Holborn,'' was afterwards placed upon the sheet. It is a very interesting example because — according to Mr. Keid, who had the fact from Cruikshank — in the lower left corner of the sheet, the artist represented himself taking the copper plate from which No. 2 was printed to the shop of a " Bookseller," i. e. to W. Belch, whose name is inscribed on the facia of the " establishment." This portrait was intro- duced by desire of the lad's patron, who seems to have foreseen that the incident would "fetch" juvenile buyers of the sheet, and thus promote an active sale.* The "lottery prints" were little cuts, divided from a sheet and placed among the leaves of a book, between which, at so many pricks a penny, youthful gamblers tried their fortunes with pins or knife-blades. I believe this practice is still in vogue in certain quarters, and especially so among pauper children in Board Schools and workhouses. The portrait of the artist approaching the shop of his patron is doubtless the earliest upon record, and ought to be treasured by all Cruikshankians. Mr. Reid's No. 7 is called The Wonder- ful Mill; it represents " a scene where old people are being ground young," and is dated by that connoisseur 1803. My readers may remember this design in vogue not many years ago. The * Among the earliest exercises of Mulready were similar instances designed for the juvenile market, and sold for very small sums. This artist illustrated cMldi-eu's story-books while he was yet a youth. 12 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. first of Cruikshank's etched works with a date on it is Mr, Eeid's Xo. 13, ''The Soldiers Farewell. Woodward del. I. Ck. Published at Ackermann's Gallery, 101 Strand, Augt. 13, 1803." That is to say, it is a design of the father, engraved by the son while the latter was still in his eleventh year. This illustrates and confirms the description of Mr. Bates which I have quoted above. When he was little more than a boy our artist had, like many other lively lads, a strong inclination for the stage, which, although always fond of the theatre, he soon got over. No doubt he painted some scenes at Drury Lane. But it is manifest he was only trying his hand in these directions before settling down to art. It has been said that, while still very young, George Cruik- shank became, as Gillray before him had done, a student in the Royal Academy ; but the fact is, he was never admitted to that institution, nor, even in art, enjoyed the benefits of a " regular " training. There seems no reason to doubt that, with a view to becoming an Academy Student, Cruikshank took specimens of his drawing to Fuseli, who was then Keeper ; but, except that this ofiicial told him " he would have to fight for his place," no record of the application exists, Faseli's speech has been reported as if it referred to an opportunity to be given to Cruikshank for listening to the lectures delivered by that R.A. in his capacity as Professor of Painting. To secure this would be quite easy, and would not require the production of drawings of any kind. It is evident " George " wished to become an Academy Student, and secure the advantages of artistic training. His education, so far as art went, was very irregular, and there can be no need to conceal the fact that, when he became old enough to have wild oats for the sowing, he actually did dispose in the customary manner of a considerable quantity of that interesting crop, during which process his strict Scotch mother was much exercised. I have not heard, however, that, although she deplored the backsliding of both her sons, "George " was guilty HIS STUDIES OF MANKIND. 13 of anything of the wicked sort ; but it cannot be denied that, in a Falstaffian sense, he was rather wild. In time, Isaac Robert, having taken to himself a wife, the whole family migrated to King Street, Holborn. Not long after this the mother, sister, and younger brother took a house in Clai^emont Square, Pentonville, then a clean, half-countrified, bright, and very " respectable " part of the world. At a much later date, and on becoming a married man, George Cruikshank removed to No, 22 (and afterwards to No. 23), Amwell Street, where he remained not less than thirty years. He was success- ively at 23, Myddleton Terrace, Pentonville (1836), at Hythe (1849), and occasionally in the country. Later, he lived at No. 48, Mornington Place, in the Hampstead Road, close to Clarkson Stanfield. This was from 1850 till about 1870, when he moved to 263, Hampstead Road, where he died February 1, 1878. I am not sure if the local busybodies who delight in abolishing the history and renown of the streets with which they have to do — but who really blunder in sheer ignorance — have not changed the numbers of these houses, and thus rendered it difficult to identify historic places and buildings which should never be undiscoverable. It was in these now much altered regions Cruikshank studied the human race. Naturally, therefore, he was nothing if not a Londoner, and very suspicious of "foreigners." Beyond the narrow seas George Cruikshank, — who satirized the French as if they were his natural enemies, and while delineating them adopted with Hogarthian passiou a sort of Hogarthian type, — never set his foot, except on one occasion, when he got so far as Boulogne, in which amphibious, half-English place he stayed one day. Hogarth's knowledge of the "frog-eaters" could hardly have been less extensive and exact. Next to this outing Cruikshank's most distant excursion was, till he got so far as Brighton, to Margate in one of those hoys of which Lamb, Leigh Hunt and Thomas Hood drew such wonderfully vivid pictures. Cruikshank was a Cockney to the core, and,— apart from his 14 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. suburban landscape-backgrounds, some of which, as in the ever- memorable scene where Bill Sykes proposes to drown his dog, are masterpieces of veracity, — cared little and knew less about what went on, or was to be seen and heard of, beyond the sound of Bow Bells. Dr. Johnson did not love Fleet Street and its purlieus, the Mecca and Medina of his career, with more ardour than Cruikshank. Of one social stratum of London's inhabitants, the highest, wealthiest, and most educated, " George " knew but very little, and — although this class included those intellectual princes who delighted in everything he did — he seemed never to have sought knowledge of them. The lower classes, workmen, small trades- men, rascalry of all sorts, the drinkers, and comedians of the in- ferior theatres were for him mankind made to be satirized for their own good. Thackeray averred with truth that Cruikshank had produced a perfect gallery of dustmen ; he made a dustman of Cupid himself, and did wonders with the domesticities of that anomalous stratum, the lowest middle class, which Dickens delighted to describe. He preserved for posterity the lineaments, manners, customs, and costumes of a social grade which is already vanishing from the earth, and he drew its members with so much exactness and sympathy, and with such inexhaustible vivacity, that they live before us, and will never be forgotten. Jewish scoundrels may cease in the land, but Fagin will live for ever ; brutalized and hideous Irish ruflS.ans may be relegated to some law- respecting country, but the savages of Maxwell's ' Irish Rebellion,' as Cruikshank drew them, will never be unknown ; there may be no more " charity boys," and the workhouse may become a retreat of honour as well as of luxury, but in Cruik- shank's portraits the inmates of the "Unions" are immortal. Mr. B. Jerrold was not wrong when he pointed out that George Cruikshank created ladies of the Sairy Gamp order and added, that " Many of the comic London characters of to-day are only his figures re-dressed." HIS PICTURES OF THE LOWER CLASSES. 15 When Thackeray praised the "drolleries" of the sister-island, as Cruikshank had depicted them, he omitted the frightful barbarians who, with circumstances nearly as inhuman as at- tended the cowardly slaughter of Lord Mountmorres (which inaugurated the still current system of patriotic murders), although it does not appear that they danced in the gore of the dead man, killed Lord Kilwarden in cold blood, and in 1798 burned alive or piked unresisting men, women and children. And yet no one drew these devilries with so great force and abhorrence as Cruikshank had done. For all Thackeray had to say about these atrocities — compared with which those alleged of Bulgaria and the " unspeakable Turk " were as naught — they might as well have been transactions of 1641, when 40,000 English were adeliberately massacred in Ireland, mostly in cold blood and by pre-concert, a villainy a hundred times more wicked than that of St. Bartholomew. No account of Cruikshank approaches completeness which does not take note of the terrible indictment embodied in his illustrations to Maxwell's book. In these, as in respect to that passion for " Total Abstinence " which marked the artist's later years, he was neither more nor less than a fierce partisan, a man of one idea, earnest and eager in all he did, inspired by a generous fury, and, although nearly always on the right side, seldom a wise, and never a temperate advocate. Fancy such an artist as this being employed to illus- trate ' Paradise Lost,' to say nothing of Byron ! And yet it was his misfortune to be called upon to give his impressions of both. He would have taken it upon himself to illustrate Spenser or Tennyson, or even Shelley. Of course he could not be expected to see the absurdity of such attempts. The blame lies with those who, unconscious of humour, and ignorant of the fitness of things, employed him in ways so foreign to his nature. Eeturning to the early works of the artist, let us note that in 1803 we find him etching a sketch by his father, which was a satire on those Volunteers who so often gave occasion for 16 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. the exercise of his wit. It was called Facing the Enemy (see p. 9), and showed a portly, amateur soldier, beef-fed to repletion, and attended by the national bull-dog, looking with supercilious commiseration at a half-starved and ragged Frenchman, whom he remarks that it would be charitable to feed before fighting him. This is not an unapt example of Isaac Cruikshank's style in wit, and it proves inferior to that of George. It is noteworthy as the first plate with which the latter had to do, and Ackermann published at No. 101, in the Strand, the " Repository of the Arts," from which thenceforth so many of " George's " satires came forth. The first dated Cruikshank is, according to Mr. Reid, who recognized the hand of the son over the signature of Isaac his father, TJie Soldier s Farewell, published by Ackermann, August 13, 1803, i. e. when our artist was not yet eleven years old. In 1805 Mr. S. W. Fores, of the firm which was then, as it is now, established at the corner of Sackville Street, Piccadilly, gave to the world the first of a numerous category of Cruikshank's prints, which are likewise the first of an astonishing array of attacks on Napoleon Bonaparte, in producing which the artist outdid himself in vigour, bitterness, and John BuUism. It was called Bonei/ beating Mach—and Nelson giving him a Whack, and, as from two barrels of the satiric gun, illustrated the battle of Trafalgar with Nelson presenting to Britannia the ships he had captured at Trafalgar, and Napoleon addressing the Austrian General Mack, from whom, on October 20, 1805, he had captured Ulm. The print is dated November 19, 1805. George Cruikshank's first book illustration proper, the leader of an immense host, comprising some of his most admirable pieces, to which we shall come presently, is the frontispiece to a tract called 'The Impostor Unmasked.' It is the prime instance of the designer's desire to mingle in the turmoil of home politics of the electioneering sort. While indulging this proclivity he was by no means always to be found on the same side ; according as 18 GEORGE CRUIKSHAJsK. he found occasion he sometimes served the king ; on other days he was so far from bigotry that "Royal George" was the strongly-marked butt of his satiric arrows. The like impartiality, independence, or whatever it might have been, was manifested by Hogarth, Gillray, and Rowlandson. "The Impostor" was E. Brinsley Sheridan, who ia October, 1806, had addressed a mob of the electors of Westminster, and professed to maintain the Bill of Bights ; his audience emphatically remind him that many of his own bills remained unpaid, while his " checks " were worthless. According to Mr. Reid's catalogue above-mentioned, the first etching bearing the name of " G. Cruili shank, del." is No. 30 in the series it describes, and is the first which has to do with William Cobbett, another frequent subject of satire chosen by this artist. It is called Cobbett at Court, was published October 16, 1807, and belongs to No. III. of that not over-refined or moderate serial, * The Censor,' and shows how the democrat was supposed to appear at St. James's Palace with, under his arm, an address to be presented to the king. The humour of the piece is very distinctly Cruikshankian, and excels in the astonished expression of a Bow Street runner at the appearance of Cobbett, to whom his attention had, till then, been called in a very different manner. "The Guards at St. James's were all drawn out, And the drums rolled ' row de row,' " is part of the rhymed motto of this noteworthy specimen of the powers of an artist then in his fifteenth year. ' The Censor ' is not to be confounded with ' The Meteor,' or ' Monthly Censor,' a publi- cation of 1813 and 1814, with which Cruikshank had much to do. Baiting the Russian Bear, an indolent magistrate, over-fastidious lackies, who will not wear flannel, Bonaparte again, old maids and a tom-cat, the alleged greediness of the royal family in demanding their allowances while the people were distressed for bread, the conduct of General Whitelock at Buenos Ayres, the POLITICAL SATIRE. 19 war in Spain, Napoleon as Apollyon, the catastrophe at Wal- cheren, and, above all, the case of Mrs. Clarke against the Duke of York, occupied Cruikshank until the end of 1809. How fervid was popular agitation at this time, 18C9-10, the reader may guess, who remembers that on the 30th of January of the latter year. Colonel S. W. Wardle, a member of Parlia- ment, actually received the thanks of the City of London, and its freedom to boot, because he had been conspicuous in bringing the gravest charges of corruption in his high office against the Commander-in-Chief, who was the king's brother and Duke of York. No wonder satirical draughtsmen with strong democratic proclivities were busily employed, while the public ci^owded to buy the designs of Cruikshank and his fellows. His Grace, and his graceless, laughing, impudent, and victorious mistress, who had turned against him, could not but be fair game to such a pencil as that wielded by the juvenile satirist who, largely by this means, grew rapidly in reputation, employment, and credit. His etchings were to be seen in every print-shop in London, and in a thousand homes were heartily enjoyed as soon as Fores sent them forth. Fairburn of the Minories, another publisher of renown, took him in hand at this period, and made a good deal of money by his means. Kemble and the O. P. (Old Prices) riots at Covent Garden, 1809, with Sir William Curtis and John Bull, did not escape. 1810 brought Sir F. Burdett to the fore, and found Cruikshank his vigorous advocate; in 1811 Napoleon made a new entrance on the satiric stage, and appeared there in the act of nursing the infant King of Eome ; nor because he had been re-installed as Commander-in-Chief, did the Duke of York escape, when Cruikshank eagerly took up the etching-needle against him in a now-forgotten serial called 'The Scourge.' A Kick from Yarmouth to Wales was the unusually happy title of a design in which the Regent is assaulted by the Earl of Yarmouth, and his countess looks on, not much disturbed because her royal patron is effectually thrashed. In Princely Agility the well-beaten 20 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. prince lies in bed with a sprained ankle, and is very anxious about his wig and whiskers, which are brought to him, while the Marchioness of Hertford is feeding her royal admirer. This was in 1812. The etcher continued to work for 'The Scourge,' 'The Satirist,' 'Town Talk,' and similar publications. The shooting of Mr. Percival, the Regent, his mistresses, Bonaparte, Whitebread the brewer, Tom Cribb the pugilist, Grimaldi the clown, the " sainted " Queen Caroline, the French in Russia, Charles Kean as Richard III. (" sketched from y'' hfe " and a capital portrait), the Duke of Cumberland's liaison with Lady Grosvenor, and a score more events of the day occupied him till 1814, and Admiral Cochrane, the making of Blucher into an LL.D. at Oxford, and, with amazing zest and energy, the domestic troubles of Carlton House, the flight of the Princess Charlotte from home could not but attract Cruikshank, one of whose last designs of the period is named The E 1 kicking up a Row, because it depicts the Regent in a violent passion, holding a birch rod in one hand, and furiously driving Miss Knight from her post in the palace, where she was in attendance on the princess ; the young lady, whom the artist always made at least as exuberant as in nature, is seen running away because she dreads a whip- ping from her exasperated father. In the background the Bishop of Salisbury, in episcopal robes, is seen exclaiming in terror, " Dash my wig, here's a iwetUj kick up ! " By this time, 1814-15, the ^reputation of the artist was so firmly established that to omit his name from below a design was about the last thing to be thought of by the owner and his publishers, some of whom were thriving abundantly with his help. Tegg, Fores, Mrs. Humphrey (the employer of Gillray), S. Knight of Sweeting's Alley, Hodgson & Co., and one or two more published all Cruikshank did at this time. The first * It may be needless to say that Miss Knight, in her published history of the flight of the princess, gave very different accounts of the conduct of the Eegent and her own position. SATIRES ON NAPOLEON. 21 numerous series of designs made by him appeared in this period. Dr. Syntax's 'Life of Napoleon,' consisted of thirty designs illustrating events, from the youthful Napoleon dreaming in the Military College, to The Landing in Elba. The case of "The Earl of Rosebery v. Sir H. Mildmay," which occupied "society" in 1814-15, was the subject of two clever satires, which were followed by a comical skit upon Joanna Southcote, published in December of the former year. The next absorbing theme was the escape of Bonaparte from Elba, and this demanded from our artist about twenty swiftly appearing plates, none of which are very good. The connection of Cruikshank with one Wooler, often mentioned as " The Black Dwarf," a scurrilous patriot and printer of Hounsditch (Mr. Reid often called him " Woolner"), is signalized in two prints of 1815. Far more im- portant and interesting is the advent on the Cruikshankian stage of William Hone, the Radical publisher of Eleet Street. This occurred by means of The King's Statue in Guildhall, which came forth in June, 1815,* and represented the unveiling of an efBgy of George III. in Guildhall, when Sir W. Curtis, Lord Ellen- borough, Sir W. Scott (Lord Eldon), and others were present. The circumstance created an enormous sensation, and to have taken a share in the ceremony was considered a sure test of loyalty. The print illustrated the author's power of telling a story in what may be called an " all round manner," and so that it is not only we who see the circumstances represented by him, but the persons concerned seem to take part in them, and to be conscious of each other, while not one is merely, as in commonplace designs, conscious of himself and of us looking on. The people live, in fact, not like inferior actors, each of * Dr. K. S. Mackenzie, as quoted by Mr. B. Jerrold, said that it was in the year 1819, "while Cruikshank was a mere youth, that Hone first noticed the genius " of the satirist. This is not quite correct. Four years previously Hone had dealings, as above indicated, with the artist, who was then more than twenty-three years of age. 22 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. whom "struts his little hour upon the stage," but in the way of persons absorbed in what is passing before them, and each with more or less concern in that event according to the degree in which it affects him. There are many noble instances of Cruik- shank's powers in this particular respect, and, had the statement of Dr. Mackenzie been correct, that Hone — whose influence on the artifct and his fortunes was of the most momentous order, as well as immediate and long lasting — discovered that genius in 1819, it would have been worth noting. As it ip, the first publication in which the compiler of ' The Year Book,' ' Every Day Book,' and numerous works by which — his political brochures being now nearly forgotten — -he is remembered, and Cruikshank came together in 1815, marks one of the best instances of the artist's ability. It fully justified the enterprising Hone in em- ploying him to satirize kings, lords, and commons, from Louis XYIII, as an old woman at a washing-tub trying to wash the red and blue from the French flag, and make it all white, while Napoleon at St. Helena derides the laborious dame, and cries, " They are all tri-coloured in grain." He then assailed the Allies who were supposed to be dividing France, appropriating her property, and abolishing her liberties. The first-named print is entitled, Louis XVIII. climbing the Mat de Cocagne, the second, Patience on a Monument smiling at Grief, the third, The After- piece to the Tragedy of Waterloo. We shall shortly see how the intimacy between Hone and the artist developed. It was in i816 that Cruikshank published one of the most trenchant and comprehensive of his many satires on that un- fortunate wight, the Regent. It was called The Court at Brighton, a la Chinese. The scene is the reception-room in the Pavilion, which is adorned with statues, placed vis a- vis, of the Hottentot Yenus and the British "Adonis of sixty," as Leigh Hunt styled him in that famous article in the Examiner which landed the writer at Horsemonger Lane Jail. The statues are equally obese and laughably alike. The Regent himself, in a (Published in 1803.) 24 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Chinese dress, is seated on an ottoman, wearing, in allusion to Ms matrimonial difficulties, a pair of gilt horns, and bidding Lord Amherst — who was then about to start on his embassy to the Flowery Land — bring from that country new decorations for the marine palace. The Princess Charlotte, who was soon to wed Prince Leopold, asks her father for a Chinese husband, instead of being compelled to marry one of her German cousins. Leopold is amazed at this request of his bride. The Marchioness of Hert- ford lies on a couch and, with her fingers, suggests the indignity she was said to have inflicted on her husband ; while, his official staS being surmounted with a pair of horns, he looks on. Queen Chai-lotte is pouring her savings into the Regent's purse, which is held open by Colonel MacMahon; Lords Eldon and Ellen- borough are behind. The satire of this and hosts of similar prints in which Lords Eldon, EUenborough, Castlereagh, Elgin and Cochrane, the Regent, the Emperor Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, the Princess Charlotte, her mother, Bergami (the alleged lover of the Queen), Prince Leopold, Robert Owen the Socialist, and many more persons are concerned, is never very delicate, sometimes is such as public opinion would not, nowadays, tolerate. Cruikshank was, probably, justified by the state of popular taste at that time, a state which his designs illl^strate energetically, and certainly did not create. Such works, how- ever, rebuke while they refute the assertions of injudicious en- thusiasts, who would have us believe that the artist never produced and never published what ho regretted to have drawn. It is the more to his honour that, while most of his contemporaries were greater offenders, he led the way in refining, and, after the heat of youth had subsided, offended no more. With the conspicuous assaults on the Regent and his entourage, which reached their climax in 1816, much fun was made of the marriage of Single Gloster," or the Duke of Gloucester and the Princess Mary, his cousin. Tegg published a characteristic etching in June of this year, entitled Farmer George's daughter, Polly, SATIRES ON THE REGENT. 25 longing for a Slice of single Gloucester, in which the scene is a dairy. In the next year Cruikshank illustrated 'The British Stage ' with a series of capital but somewhat exaggerated portraits in character of famous actors, such as Young, Listen, Oxberry, Miss Booth, Braham, C. Kemble, Macready, Kean, Terry, Miss Brunton and Farren. They are invaluable in their way. Then came " Orator^^ Hunt, declaiming to a crowd of ragamuffins ; that worthy is made to demand " no Taxes, no Monarchy, no Laws, no Religion^ In the next year, besides many social satires on costumes, dandies, and Louis XVIII. as A French Elephant, seen from behind, stooping, and as Mr. Eeid said, ingeniously made "to take the form of the ungainly animal," we had a laughter-provoking caricature which has often been copied, and is still to be met in collections. It was published by Fores of Piccadilly, and one of the most popular examples of the period. At this time he illustrated 'The Wit's Magazine,' Kerr's 'Ancient Legends,' 'The Humorist,' and Caulfield's 'Remarkable Persons,' with series of designs (all showing how book- publishers had discovered his merits), and made also a considerable number of single plates, most of the themes of which were social weaknesses and follies, not personal or political incidents. In 1819 he with a vengeance returned to lash the Regent, his flatterers and concubines, and held them up to universal scorn and laughter. The books here mentioned may be said to have opened that series of still more energetic and successful instances " adorned with cuts " in wood, which brought Cruikshank into the foremost rank of satirists. After the appearance of The Political House that JacJc built, which bore the imprimatur of the audacious and unconquerable Hone, a seal was, so to say, set upon their relations with each other. With this work the public was so much pleased that, it is said, not fewer than 100,000 copies of it were sold. The text was a feeble version of the well-known nursery ballad ; the thirteen cuts were " George's," and they irretrievably damaged the ministry of that day. Dr. Mackenzie 26 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. was right in saying that that book injured the Cabinet far more than the famous ' Register ' of Cobbett, acrid, pitilessly logical and fiercely sarcastic as this publication was. The person first assailed was the Duke of Wellington, whose intention was, it was said, to set the sword against the "pen," or the Press. It is now averred by the well informed, that this was a popular error, and that although the Duke intended to suppress license without mercy (as Napoleon, with the immortal " whiff of grape- shot" which for many a day gave peace to Paris, had done), he was no foe to Liberty. "These are the Vermin, a Race obscene," refers to a courtier, parson, tax-gatherer, lawyer, and soldiers. Attorney-General Sir T. Erskine is called "the Public Informer," and George lY. sarcastically shown as " the Man " attired as a general officer and covered with military insignia. With this renowned publication may be ranked The Man in the Moon, ^071 mi Ricordo, a satire on the supposed appearance of a witness at the trial of Queen Caroline, The Political Showman at Home, The Political "A," Apple Pie, which con- tained twenty-three cuts, each referring to a letter in the alphabet : " B," satirizing the bishops as greedy pigs ; " D," the Duke of York as keeper of the king's (George III.) person, and getting rich in the office ; " E," Erskine as a birch-broom seller ; " F," C. J. Fox's widow (Mrs. Armitage) eating eleemosynary plum pudding ; " M," the Countess of Mansfield as Deputy Ranger of Richmond Park, riding off with £1600 a year, &c.* Of this numerous group of works none attracted more attention and has become scarcer than the once renowned Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, printed on cardboard in two columns and representing a ladder, on the rungs of which were inscribed sarcastic references to the career of Queen Caroline in England and her husband's conduct towards her; between each of the rungs * The lady was the beautiful Louisa, daughter of Lord Cathcart, sister of the Honourable Mary, who married Mr. Graham, afterwards Lord Lyndoch. Romney painted the former in one of his masterpieces, Gainsborough the latter with even more brilliant charms. THE TKIAL OF QUEEN CAEOLINE. 27 was a design, eighteen in all, including Qualification, where the Kegent is in vile company and tipsy behind a screen, according to the admonition of Solomon, " Give not thy strength unto wovien, nor thy ivays to that which destroyeth kings " ; and Degradation, where the same prince is doing penance in a sheet, with the motto, "So let him stand." Great numbers of this pro- duction were sold ; it went through at least fifteen editions. Most of these works were illustrated with wood- cuts. Although we need not accept Cruikshank's estimate of the prodigious effect on public policy of his very famous Bank Restriction Note, which I have now to consider, there can be no doubt that this very original publication did a great deal in accentuating and giving force to the popular doubts of the efficacy of hanging as a punishment for offences of the minor order. For coining, forgery of all kinds, and sheep and horse- stealing, men, women, and even children were hung without the least question of the fitness of the proceeding. In the metropolis on a Monday morning nothing was commoner than the hanging of two, three, or four persons ; and, as we know from the anecdotes of George Selwyn and other worthies, it was usual to secure seats in the houses opposite Newgate for parties of gentlemen to " make a night of it," and sit up joUily drinking and feasting that they might be ready when eight o'clock arrived, and culprits wei-e launched into eternity from the platform above that street in which the rents of taverns were " fabulous," because they gave " coigns of vantage " to spectators.* Cruikshank's own account of his celebrated print is, * Dickens described one of these scenes with horrible force and veracity ; a once popiilar ballad on the same subject was hardly less graphic, and I think it was Selwyn, or one of his companions, who said of the demeanom" of a certain boy, when brought out to be hanged at Newgate, that, " in all my life I never saw a boy cry so ! " These executions were, of courae, quite apart from the very frequent catastrophies at Tyburn, one of which, so long before as 1747, Hogarth — always in the van of the merciful — delineated with intensit}' of sardonic satire in Industry and Idleness, Plate XL, which shows that, for 28 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. as might be expected, by far the best, and may be copied here from Mr. B. Jerrold's book ; but, so far as I know, not originally published there. It was given in a letter to a friend, thus — " Dear Whitaker, "About the year 1817 or 1818 [G. W. Reid grouped this work with others of 1820, and I believe this is correct. The artist's memory, never very accurate in such details, may have erred in this respect] 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, in others Death. At that time I resided in Dorset Street, S ilisbury 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 inquiry what these women had been hung for, was informed that it was for passing 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 such a shocking destruction of life for merely obtaining a few shillings by fraud ; the convenience of spectators, a lofty sort of grand-stand was maintained en permanence near the " triple tree." Here ladies and even children, as well as gentlemen, paid for their seats, and thence it was customary to dispatch carrier pigeons to announce the completion of the sentences. A hundred curious incidents are shown in this wonderful design, including the way in which, pending the arrival of the culprit, Jack Ketch lounged on one of the cross-posts of the fatal triangle and smoked a short pipe, and how the Ordinary of Newgate, officially hound to attend on such occasions, rode apart in advance of his charge in a stately mourning coach, and left the condemned Thomas Idle to approach the gallows in an open cart with his own coffin and a Wesleyan minister, who passionately implored that unfortunate mortal to repent and trust in the Heaven to which his uplifted forefinger is directed. THE BANK RESTRICTION NOTE. 29 and well knowing the habits of the low class of society in London, I felt sure that in 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 iu ten minutes designed and made a sketch of This Bank Note not to he 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 \tV To this 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 people gathered about 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 on 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 for the ' Resumption of Cash Payments.' After this he revised the Penal Code, and after that tltere was not any more hanging or punishment of Death /or mi7ior offences. In a work 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 I ever made in my life ; for it saved the lives of thousands of my fellow-creatures, and for having been able to do this Christian act I am indeed most truly thankful, and am, dear friend, " Yours truly, "George Cruikshank." " 263, Hampstead Road, December 12, 1875." 30 geouge cruikshank. Hone, seeing that he had lived in the Old Bailey for some time, must have been vei'y familiar with the annals of the gallows in Newgate, The sardonic " bank-note " could not have been issued at the period mentioned in the artist's letter, because in 1817 and 1818 Hone's address was in that street, as appeared by the publication line of Cruikshank's Funeral Procession of Her Royal Highness, Princess Charlotte, which Hone put forth, while the publication line of Bank Restriction Note itself is, " Published by William Hone, Ludgate Hill," in this agreeing with Cruik- shank's letter to Mr, Whitaker, There is much that is amusing in the simplicity with which "George" gives credit to himself as the efficient human in- strument of Divine Providence in abolishing one-pound notes, in mitigating punishment for passing the same when forged, in putting a stop to hanging for forgery, in promoting the re- sumption of cash payments, and procuring the amelioration of the Penal Code. That he had satirized one-pound notes out of existence and influenced the Directors of the Bank of Eugland, was a notion which must have been extremely comforting to so sincere and ardent a philanthropist. The fact is that the influence of the gallows, always, during a certain phase of society, most beneficent as an educating apparatus, and, like that of the whipping-post in certain districts, invaluable as a civilizing agent, was, at this period exhausted. But, of course, it did not follow that it had never been of the greatest service to society in removing injurious elements, and checking potential ruffians and rascals ; giving, in fact, to not a few of them, strength to resist their inclinations to do evil. The time had come for the employment of other means of training scoundreldom and for chas- tising those who, without working, desired to appropriate to their own use what they were pleased to regard as the " unearned increment" of other folks' industry and self-denial. That one- pound notes had anything to do with the matter is a characteristic notion of the generous muddle-headedness of the writer of the hone's publications. 31 letter. One-pound notes still circulate in Scotland, but it is no longer necessary to hang the knaves of that country who forge them, still less need we inflict capital punishment on the fools who put them into circulation, and thus do their worst to rob honest and industrious persons of the price of their labour and the reward of their self-control. The Bank Restriction Note is, as a piece of wit and invention, a very poor thing indeed ; as a plea for mercy it is of the shallowest ; but on that account it is, of course, as a popular appeal, by no means unapt. It is a sort of loose plagiary of a one-pound note, with the figures of three women and eight men hanging by the neck, a row of manacles in one part, twelve heads of culprits in another, and the noosed rope elsewhere ; the autograph of "J. Ketch" is in the place of that of "Abraham Newland." In Cruikshank's notes to the catalogue of his exhibition in Exeter Hall, 1862, it is stated by him that "the Directors of the Bank of England were exceedingly wroth [with the publi- cation of the Restriction Note'], and these notes were in such demand that they could not be printed fast enough, and I had to sit up all night to etch and send plates. Mr. Hone realized above £700, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that no man or woman was ever hung after this for passing one-jwund forged Bank of England notes."* Elsewhere Cruikshank averred it • This puts one in mind of the fact that when Hogarth pubh'shed his wonderful etching of that "old fox," Lord Lovat, 'counting the Clans on his fingers, "the rolling -press could not go fast enough to supply impressions of the plate." It was at work night and day for a long period, and although deeply bitten, so worn that it was more than once re bitten. If Hone realized anything like £700 on this occasion, it was a proof that patriotism is some- times more than its own reward. In this case, as in that of Lord Lovat, the price of an impression was one shilling. It is observable that, not in 1820, or later, but on the first of October, 1817, cash payments for notes dated before the previous first of January were resumed by the Bank of England. It was in March, 1819, Sir James Mackintosh's motion for a committee of the House of Commons to consider the criminal law, as relating to capital punish- ment, was carried. From this inquiry abundant remissions accrued. An Act 32 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. was by this means " he had put a stop to hanging." With the NoU was published The Bank Restriction Barometer, showing a graduated scale " of the Effects on Society of the Bank Note System, and Payments in Gold," which proved, according to its author, that the Millennium would be near when there was no more hanging for forgery. The Note and the Barometer were sold for a shilling. The former is now scarce ; the latter very scarce indeed. Fac-similes of the Note are in Mr. B. Jerrold's 'Life of G. Cruikshank,' 1882, and Mr. Bates's 'George Cruik- shank,' 1879. The latter is the better, and accompanied by Tlte Barometer. It was characteristic of Cruikshank that he, notwithstanding the odium incurred by Hone on account of publications which were said to be blasphemous, rebellious, disloyal, and subversive of religion, good manners, and true morals, stuck to him, and, while disclaiming concern or sympathy in the works, never denied his warm personal friendship for the man who had boen sponsor for many a satire, tract and broadside in which he was concerned. Hone died in 1843, and, consistent to the last, George Cruikshank in company with Dickens attended the funeral of his friend. The clergyman who performed the last office for the dead took it upon himself to make some apolo- getic and condemnatory remarks on the character and career of Hone. Deeply moved by this, "George" turned to Dickens and, suh voce, said, " If he wasn't a clergyman, and this wasn't a funeral, Td punch his head!" Cruikshank persuaded himself that to his Fiends' Frying-Pan was due the suppression of Bartholomew Fair, always an occa- sion of debauchery, gluttony, uproar, robbery and fraud. In a for the further Prevention of the Forging of Bank-notes was passed in 1820, and in the same year, various Acts authorizing capital punishment for certain offences were repealed. On May 8, 1821, the Bank of England began to pay its notes in cash. After this it is clear Cruikshank's inliuence was less than he imagined. ODD FISH. 33 note to the group of designs called Odd Fish, and shown at the Westminster exhibition of his works, he led the reader to infer that he had, by means of this print, " brought the Mayor and Aldermen to look at it [the Fair] in the same light as myself, and, at last, put an end to that which was a disgrace to the City." HANS IN LUCK. {German Popular Stories.) i) THE GOOSE-GIRL. (Gammer Greihcl.) II. The Regent and his entourage, male and female of all grades, had not escaped the searching etching-needle of our artist when- ever an occasion, which was almost incessantly, presented itself for satire. On January 29, 1820, George III., of whom the wits had taken no notice for many a year, was removed from this world, and George IV. took his place on that throne which, as a sort of locum tenens, he had long occupied. In his relations with his wife, the foolish, if not criminal. Queen Caroline, the new monarch attracted the attention of the artist, and within a month or two, G. Humphrey, of St. James's Street, whose shop had been the home of Gillray till his last hour, put forth one of Cruikshank's most amusing cuts. It was called The Royal POLITICAL SATIRES. 85 Rushlight, and showed how his Majesty and his ministers tried to put down the queen, whose head has the form of the flame of a rushlight which is upset, while Brougham endeavours to sup- port her, and Lord Eldon as an old woman. Lord Liverpool, the Duke of Wellington, and Wooler ("the Black Dwarf"), are in attendance, and blowing their hardest to extinguish the flame. Although Cruikshank assailed the king on account of his deal- ings with the unhappy queen, he by no means backed her Majesty without discrimination. The Radical Ladder, where she appears on a ladder, wearing a fool's cap, and holding a torch to destroy the crown, is one of those counterblasts which showed the impartiality of the designer and the willingness of his employers, the print publishers, to please either side by attacking its adversary. In this example, Moh Government, Cato Street, " Orator " Bunt, Hunt's Procession, Smithfield, and Spa Fields, all and severally indicate the dangers of yielding to a turbulent and unscrupulous democracy. In The Funeral Pile the mob destroy the Bible, laws, and religion, and we have Cobbett, Wooler, Alderman Wood and other partisans of the queen, who is seen blinded by a fool's cap, like a Cap of Liberty. In the year 1821 appeared, besides many amusing and vigorous studies, a certain number of works which serve to show how often Cruikshank etched the satirical designs of other persons, adding, no doubt, much verve and "go" of all sorts to them. This curious practice is illustrated by the publication lines of eight etchings, explaining the inconveniences of con- tinental travel, published by Mrs. Humphrey, and inscribed, " Drawn hy W. P. Etched ly G. Ck." * Mr. McLean of the * Many instances of this curious partnersliip in wit might be cited from the catalogue of Cruikshank's works, wliere they occiu- during a long period. This artist was not the first to act as sponsor for the designs of others. G. Darley, one of the best known and ablest of the forerunners of "George," published hundreds of his own satires, and often advertised his willingness to etch and otherwise prepare for issue the ideas of would-be wits, i.e. "to make ready gentlemen's own drawings, and engrave the same," as he phrased 36 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Haymarket, republished these examples in 1835. They are not without vitality, and in some respects they remind us of Row- landson's immortal designs of similar themes. Of course it is hardly necessary to say that Rowlandson and Cruikshank, having a function in common, often assailed the same persons, satirized the same abuses, frauds and crimes, and held up to public censure similar conduct. The Regent, Napoleon and his brothers, the so-called "delicate investigation" (of the conduct of the Duke of York and Mrs. Clarke), the English royal dukes, the trial of Queen Caroline, her efforts to be crowned with her husband, the democratic leaders, the French republicans, pugilists, and what not, each and all attracted the arrows of the brilliant humorists in design. In this way they may be said to have worked together until, on the 27th of April, 1827, Rowlandson's long career of seventy years was terminated by death, at his apartments in the Adelphi. Like Cruikshank and Darley, Row- landson was accustomed to " prepare for publication " the designs of other wits. Many of the subjects which engaged the above- named masters of satire were dealt with by Gillray, the man who, much more than Hogarth, his greater forerunner, led the satiric forces against what these artists considered the political crimes and abuses of their times.* Of the designs enriching the well-known 'Tom and Jerry' text I refrain from saying more than that they appeared in numbers from August 1820, to July 1821. Of the twenty-three examples pertaining to Pierce Egan's ' Life in London,' which are known by the former title, Thackeray has, Avith inimitable zest, it. Even the once famous Three Courses and a Dessert comprised Cruik- shank's carrying out, not his own, but the designs of Mr. W. Clarke, the author of that brilliant invention. * The chronological relationship of these worthies of the graver and etching- needle may be given thus : Hogarth was born in 1698, and died in 1764 ; Rowlandson was born in 1756, and died in 1827 ; Gillray was born iu 1757, and died in 1815 ; Cruikshank was born in 1792, and died in 1878. PETER SCHLEMIHL. 37 forestalled any comments by a weaker hand than his. I doubt extremely if this once renowned publication had a favourable effect on the manners and morals of men who were already "fast," foolish, and vulgar. It has always been my opinion that George Cruikshank's peculiar genius in a melodramatic vein reached its acme in 1822, when the famous illustrations to ' Peter Schlemihl,' eight in number, were published with almost universal applause. Thackeray, with characteristic acuteness and rare sympathy with the wit of the thing, admired the brilliant ideality employed by the designer when he made the Tempter — who had just acquired the shadow of Peter by purchase — stooping to the ground, and, beginning with one leg, carefully folding it up, much as a tailor might fold up a pair of breeches. With pro- digious spirit the artist gave the horror of Peter's mistress, walking with him in that paradise of a garden, when, in the fullness of the moon's lustre, she noticed that no shadow followed him, although her own shadow was manifest, and every tree, shrub, and cloud was similarly attended ! Nor is the next design of the series less sympathetic. In it the victim of that monstrous bargain which thrills our feelings and stills our blood, sits alone in his bed-chamber while the fateful hour of midnight is about to be recorded by the table clock, and — with trembling fingers at his lips, concentrated upon himself, ghastly and full of terror — glares at the dial. Except himself everything in the room is distinctly shadowed on the floor and walls. Admirable is the design in which the Tempter, attended by two shadows — his own and the purchased one — appears to Peter in broad sunlight, and with a diabolic grin holds out to him the terrible contract, which is drawn up thus : "I hereby/ promise to deliver over my soul to the hearer after its natural space of — " &c. Peter shudders and trembles in every fibre ere he takes the pen to part with himself for ever. One of the best of these designs shows how, at a later time, again encountering the Evil One, Peter is presented to the shadowy form held out to him, which, flaccid, flat, and 38 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. semi-diaphanous, a mere shaving of a man, so to say, affords him anything but comfort. And the darkest of dark pits yawns at the feet of the pair ! In a similar vein were wrought Cruikshank's illustrations to Grimm's ' Popular Stories,' that wonderful treasure of the wildest fun, quaintest humour, and boldest invention. They were published in the same year with ' Peter Schlemihl,' and like that THE KLVKS AND THE COBBLER. (Gi'imm's Populav Storics.) work, attained the extremely rare distinction of being re-pub- lished in Germany with the original text. Such an honour had been vouchsafed in Germany to Hogarth, several of whose designs were re-engraved for the Fatherland, where the originals found ready markets. But these illustrated their own themes, and stood or failed according to their proper merits. To please Germans by means of illustrations to a German text — especially MORNINGS AT BOW STREET. 39 one so truly national as ' Peter Schlemihl,' or Grimm's * Stories,' was a distinction of the rarest for a foreigner to attain. Not to be out of the way when " good advice " was rife, Cruikshank contracted with Mr. R. Farney to illustrate Watt's * Divine and Moral Songs,' with seven very "moral" etchings. Ireland's ' Life of Napoleon ' appeared in 1823, with twenty-seven etchings by Cruikshank after C. Vernet and others. * Points of Humour,' Part I., was put forth in 1822 ; the second part, a much superior series of ten designs, was published in the next year, and sustained, if it did not add to, the artist's fame. It was about this time, the exact period does not matter, although the testimony is in itself very honourable to our satirist, that the clumsy, half tipsy, or quite tipsy exercises of Prof. "Wilson, in what he was pleased to call ' Noctes Ambrosianse ' (the popularity of which is one of the wonders of literary history), gave him occasion to praise George Cruikshank. In the execution of his task Wilson bungled so outrageously as to aver that his friend could paint "Annunciations," which is exactly what he could never have done and never cared to attempt ; and then, with a fine disregard of common sense and relevancy, this lumbering impostor of an admirer bawled to the artist — so great in himself — to " think of Hogarth ! " Cruikshank did many things artistic he had better not have attempted, and as we have seen, anent one-pound notes and hanging, he was not slow to feel the importance of his mission. But he never attempted to paint an Annunciation, He was unwisely employed to illustrate Byron, noteworthily in ' An Incident in the Siege of Ismail,' where Don Juan rescues the child from the savage Cossacks, which was published in 1824, a year to which we now come. He illustrated ' The Corsair,' and, in 1824-5 took in hand Clinton's 'Life of Byron,' with the poet's ' Giaour,' ' Don Juan,' ' Lara,' ' Prisoner of Chillon,' 'Mazeppa,' 'Beppo,' 'Cain,' and other instances — forty etchings ill all. One shudders to think of Cruikshank's version of 40 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, * Manfred,' but even in the best of these poems there is a fine melodramatic element not foreign to the genius of our subject, although of whatever was " transpontiae " and theatrical in Byron's muse Cruikshank's art was a very Nemesis. He was always at home in the fine comedy and, sometimes, happy in the tragedy of Shakespeare and Scott ; he was happiest in Mornings at Bov) Street, three series of various dates, and London Characters, of 1829 (surely no one ever more truly delineated the butcher's boy, or the parish beadle of this series) ; he was terribly in earnest ia Maxwell's ' History of the Irish Rebellion,' to which I have already referred ; he showed inexhaustible imagination in illus- trating fairy tales of all sorts, bat he came to grief, as might be expected, in treating Milton ! In laughing at the " youog ladies," whom he understood, he gave us a foretaste of what he could have done with the so-called " Girton Girl " of our own time. Great was he with Dickens (e. g. ' Oliver Twist '), greater with W. Harrison Ainsworth, and in ludicrous and sardonic portraiture he never failed. After doing so much it is truly Avonderful that any one should have conceived Cruikshank painting an Annunciation ! What * Peter Schlemihl ' was in one respect, such, in another way, was Mornings at Bow Street, in regard to Cruikshank's renown. This series of twenty-one designs appeared in 1825, and made all London laugh as it never laughed again till Three Courses and a Dessert was set forth for its delectation. It was in 1825 that Cruikshank's association with Hone, to which attention has been already invoked, was again manifest in eleven wood-cuts made for the extremely popular ' Every Day Book ' of that energetic compiler, radical reformer, and publisher. Among the illustrations to Mr. Reid's great catalogue is a set of facsimiles of the Punch and Judy series of 1827 and 1828, which, when the drama is no longer played, and archfeological dictionaries have to be consulted as to who were Codlin and Short, will, with intense spirit and veracity, preserve the 42 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, memories of the venerable performance of which these worthies were renowned supporters. Till Cruikshank's time no one seems to have thought of illustrating the great peripatetic epic. Since then I know of no one who has got near him in delineating its incidents and enforcing its moral lessons. No one but he approached Punch and Judy with so much gravity — thus taking the legend seriously is very witty — with equal resources, with anything like so much energy and with so little exaggeration. It is quite possible to overrate the terrors of the piece, an excess our artist avoided when, with amazing zest, he depicted the career of the tyrant. The vigour and ligneous aspect of the monster, and the sufferings of the heroine were never so faithfully or with so much humour shown as in the twenty-four designs in question. Scott's ' Demonology and Witchcraft ' afforded to Cruikshank the earliest opportunity he enjoyed of dealing with a sequence of subjects in which the grotesque and passionate aspects of super- stition were made manifest in designs, the quaintest, most spirited, and picturesquely wild. Elfish as some of these works are, they surpassed the quaint illustrations to Grimm's ' German Stories,' in being more weird and fantastic. They were published in November, 1830, and to this day retain high places as Cruik- shanks. 'The New Bath Guide' of Anstey, 'Roderic Random,' Goldsmith, Washington Irving, ' Humphrey Clinker,' and such like instances one and all showed how eager the publishers were to secure the aid of so resourceful an inventor and sympathetic illustrator of humorous and witty texts. The Knacker s Yard, or horses' last home, abounds in grim pathos of the sort Bewick expressed in the fine vignette of an old horse turned out to starve slowly, and die in a snow-clad waste, where, trembling with age, cold and hunger, the poor creature turns his long and ragged tail to the blast which shakes his mane, and seems to freeze him as he stands. The Yard is one of the most painful, and yet perhaps the most pity-evoking of art's pleas for our THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT. 43 faithful fellow- servants of God. It was published by Msbet of Berners Street, in 1831. In this year Three Courses and a Dessert, which has been already mentioned, was published. In fifty-one designs, it contains some of the finest touches of Cruik- shank, not a few of which enchanted Thackeray, and are so warmly praised in another portion of this volume that I had better leave them to him, although it is true that no part of the subject offers greater temptation for an admirer of the artist to hold forth upon, * Robinson Crusoe,' which he illustrated in 1831 with thirty- Froin Three Courses and a Dessert. seven capital designs, not engraved by his own hand, offered many good themes to Cruikshank, and enlarged the field of his art; 1832 found him at work on Scraps and Sketches, Part IV., which is second to few of his exercises. To ' Gil Bias ' he, in 1833, contributed fifteen etchings of great spirit, freedom and variety. Then came ' Don Quixote,' ' My Sketch Book,' in many parts, * The Comic Almanack,' 1835 ; and, in the next year, thirty -five admirable and very funny plates to Scott's ' Novels.' In the long list of Cruikshank's works, the first series of etchings to illustrate the ' Sketches by Boz ' will be ever memorable. 44 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. It consisted of twenty-eight examples of the highest class in the Cruikshankian world of invention, humour, sardonic and sarcastic satire, and appeared in 1836. It was the first category of illus- trations to Dickens's works, and on this account alone can never be overlooked by us. The next group of the same kind comprises the incomparable twenty-five etchings to ' Oliver Twist,' in pro- ducing which the artist gave solidity to the creations of his author, and brought to life Fagin the Jew, that immortal scamp, "the Artful Dodger;" that beadle of beadles, Mr. Bumble, whose very name has given a word to our language, and sur- vives to designate a variety of our species. In Bill Sykes he outdid himself, and produced a portrait so vigorous, true and original, that, as it seems to me, all the world agrees to accept it as decidedly Cruikshank's master-work. A large proportion of his admirers think Syhes attemj^ting to destroy his Dog the best of his designs (see p. 129). Not seldom I find myself of this opinion, and I never convince myself there is a better. It is most instructive to find, in Cruikshank's letter to the ' Times ' on this subject, that, whereas Dickens desired to make the portrait of Oliver Twist himself "rather a queer kind of chap," the artist, struck by the pathos of an inquiry anent the deaths of some workhouse children belonging to the parish of St. James's, Westminster (who had been "farmed out"), called Dickens's attention to the subject, and suggested that " if he took up this matter, his doing so might help to save many a poor child from injury and death, and I earnestly begged him to let me make Oliver a nice, pretty little boy j and, if he so represented him, the public — particularly the ladies — would be sure to take a greater interest in him, and the work would then be a certain success. Mr. Dickens agreed to that request, and I need not say here that my prophecy was fulfilled ; and if any one will take the trouble to look at my representations of ' Oliver,' they will see that the appearance of the boy is altered after the first two illustrations." This is very well, so far as it OLIVER TWIST. 45 goes ; but in honour of Dickens it is right to say that the intense sympathies of his illustrious illustrator undoubtedly so far mit-led him, as they were apt to do in other cases (see what I have said anent the one-pound bank-notes, and the hanging of forgers and others), that he actually claimed the origination of benevolent ideas which were really the property — I was going to write the inheritance — of most intelligent and merciful men, and were very far indeed from being his monopoly, or of his origin- ating. The history of this matter, which I have not space to treat of, is to be found in Forster's 'Life of Dickens.' That author led us to infer that the claims of Cruikshank to be the originator of some of the finest elements in ' Oliver Twist,' had been pounced upon, and made much of on the other side of the Atlantic, where, at that time, there existed among the vulgar representatives of the viler " Press," of that country much spite against Dickens, who had blessed the future of " Spread Eagleism," its bragging, grabbing and swaggering, with incisive portraits of such wretches as Mr. Jefferson Brick, and his like in scoundreldom. In time, when Dickens's satire had worked its good will in the States, juster thoughts of that great genius obtained there. Apart from this. Justice calls upon me to warn readers of Cruikshank's history that his enthusiasm for the right, and his absorption in himself (his horizon was not very extensive), more than once led him to claim as his own, ideas which had been attained before he had to do with them, by the men whose works he illustrated. Thus he vexed the souls of Dickens, Harrison Ainsworth, and Pierce Egan, with claims most injurious to them as the authors of books he was employed to illustrate. However this may be, it must be admitted that, although Cruikshank did not invent the typical personages whose likeness to " the life " we all recognize, he undoubtedly gave form and character to those types, verifying them, so to say, to our eyes, and enabled our ideas to crystallize about them in a manner which is next to creation. It cannot be denied that 46 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. the immortality of Dickens has been secured by the artist having made concrete those wonderful ideals. Many illustrations to ' Bentley's Miscellany ' were designed cJorcl BatcTTvaus slate- dpUrtnueTvt and etched at this period ; they included ' The Ingoldsby Legends.' Then, 1839, came the second set of 'Sketches by Boz,' forty in all, and an amazing group embracing the Election for a Beadle, THE LOVING BALLAD OF LORD BATEMAN. 47 Seven Dials (a fight of women), the Hogarthian Gin Shops, cabs, coaches. Jemima Evans, and The Bloomshury Christen- ing. It was in this year also that he produced his well-known illustrations of The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman, one of the most successful and most popular of all his works. The notes at the end by Dickens are in his most humorous vein. The ballad was dramatized as a burlesque at the Strand Theatre, and copies of Cruikshank's designs did duty as scene-paintings. In ' Bentley's Miscellany' for 1839 are to be found those most dramatic etchings to * Jack Shephard,' in which the odd figure of the spurious hero is a conspicuous example of what the artist could invent with the subtlest knowledge and the ripest sympathy with his work. Ainsworth's ' Tower of London ' occupied him in 1840, and was only a little too melodramatic ; which is a defect of the text rather than the artist. In forty-one designs the novel was immortalized. It is well, while we have Thackeray and Cruikshank in co-relationship, to remember that the former never forgave Ainsworth and Bulwer for writing novels of which scoundrels and harlots were the heroes and heroines. * The Tower of London,' and * Eugene Aram ' (to say nothing of ' Jack Shephard,' in mentioning which he lost all patience) were his peculiar abhorrence, and we know that, in 1840, immediately after 'The Tower' was published in suc- cession to 'Jack Shephard,' Thackeray put forth in 'Fraser' the brilliant melodrama, 'Catherine; A Story,' which was intended to counteract the charms of that Old Bailey literature he detested so vehemently. The Omnibus, 1841, marked a memorable epoch in Cruik- shank's career, and although it contained some capital instances of his skill, did not add to pecuniary resources, which a long course of joviality and some improvidence had reduced. I have already mentioned 'The Comic Almanack' among the exercises of our subject. The volume for 1843 contained some of his best satires, including the capital JVew St. Giles, 48 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Morals for the Million, in which the wonderful effects of " educating the masses " to a knowledge of the power thrust upon them through the effeteness of that middle class which made England, is manifest, and two ex-pickpockets have taken a gentleman to the station-house and charged him with stealing a handkerchief. The horror of the constable on duty is very humorously shown, ' The Comic Almanack,' in nineteen volumes, with nearly two hundred and fifty illustrations by Cruikshank, a sequence unique of its kind, was continued from 1835 to 1853, and became a good annuity to the artist. Sentimental altruism, as distinct from real benevolence and noble charity, often found a sarcastic foe, and sometimes a sardonic commentator in George Cruikshank, whose sympathies with honest and valiant poverty were beyond question, while his wrathful contempt for cant was not seldom shown. His contributions to ' Bentley's Miscellany ' were extended through fourteen volumes, and comprised many portraits of noteworthy persons, besides the artistic dramas, ' Oliver Twist,' ' Nights at Sea,' ' The Ingoldsby Legends,' ' Jack Shephard,' ' Guy Fawkes,' and ' Stanley Thorn,' one hundred and thirty-nine etchings in all. Cockney parochialism and vulgar domineering, with red-tape and meddling grandmotherly legis- lation, frequently occupied the satirist about this time, vide the very funny Commentaries on the New Police Act, according to which "nobody was allowed to do anything." In them petty tyranny of almost Prussian quality was assumed to be impending over a generation unsuspicious of County Councils and trains of officials, and extortionate rates for the benefit of those who vote but do not pay. For several years after this Cruikshank was almost incessantly employed in giving life to minor publications and ephemerae of merit so insignificant that even his ability hardly gave them value. It is needless to attempt to load the reader's memory with the names only of the majoi'ity of these things. Descriptions are out of the question when the designs exist solely in cabinets of collectors and have their single record in E 50 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. G. W. Reid's astonishing catalogue, which, all told, describes, how- ever briefly, five thousand two hundred and sixty-five examples. Although it may be true that among this host a certain number of instances are not by George Cruikshank, nor even by any one of his name, yet it is averred that, in no inconsiderable way, this stupendous list is incomplete. The greatest work of 1845 was, beyond question, the score of etchings made for the already mentioned ' History of the Irish Rebellion,' that terrible indictment which delineates savagery gone so far mad in its lust for blood that it almost forgot its cowardice. It may, or may not, be a picture fair to both sides, but it is loyal to the evidence of the time. I consider that, although not, on the whole, his greatest work, it marks the highest point of Cruikshank's invention. To conclude rapidly the list of the eminent groups of designs made by him, I enumerate 'Songs of the late Charles Dibdin ' with twelve etchings, 1841, 'The Table Book' of 1845, 'The Fairy Library,' a fascinating body of eighteen etchings illustrating Hop o my Thumb, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella, and published 1854. To 'The Life of Sir John Falstalf,' which as a true biography was produced for Messrs. Longmans in 1857, I shall refer in a few pages. One of its supreme designs, The Last Scene in the Life of Sir John Fal- staff, is reproduced to illustrate this text. 'The Fairy Library ' was continued in 1864. So far I have spoken of etchings. It is now proper to name some instances of that nature which were reproduced in glypho- graphy, the most remarkable of which is the world-famous group of eight works called The Bottle, a fierce satire, but nevertheless, and despite its inevitable coarseness and vulgarity, full of pitiful elements and sardonic wit. At a very low price it had an enor- mous sale, and was extensively circulated by temperance societies. Cruikshank himself, moved no doubt by considerations proper to its subject rather than his treatment thereof, often declared The Bjttle, with its inferior seque\ The Drunkard's Children, to jack's fidelity. From ' Songs of tlie late Cliarles Dibdin.' 52 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. be his cliefs d'ceuvre. Many persons are inclined to agree with him, but the majoiity of students reject the idea. The Bottle was'published in 1847. A certain number of lithographs deserve mention here, because they include the funny Bmux 0/ 1818, Belles of 1818, and several music titles of unusual merit. Mr. Reid catalogued seventeen hundred wood-cuts, which we owe to Cruikshank. They extend from the before-mentioned ' Meteor, or Monthly Censor' of 1813, and include 'Lottery Puffs' or ' Handbills,' which attest that, in his early life, the artist did not take himself so seriously as at that later time when the fit of fanatical " Temperance " (or rather total abstinence from spirituous liquors and beer) made him the most uncompromising advocate of teetotalism. Of course The Bottle owed its exist- ence to this inspiration. The Political House that Jack built, a trenchant group of satires, is named in the catalogue of cuts • so likewise is The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, and some others which have been mentioned above, as The Man in the Moon, the illustrations of Pierce Egan's Life in London, A Slap at Slop, ' Tales of Irish Life,' Points of Humour, ' The Life of Byron,' ' Mornings at Bow Street,' Tom Thumb, ' Three Courses and a Dessert,' ' Eobinson Crusoe,' Sunday in London, a Hogarthian series of fourteen cuts ; Cruikshank's Table Book, one hundred and twenty-seven examples, some of which are of rare merit. Cruikshank— besides that terribly unpicturelike picture and huge unwieldy jumble of discordant elements, the so-called Worship of Bacchus, which was exhibited at Exeter Hall in 1862, and is villainously executed as a whole and outrageously ridicu- lous in parts— painted certain works in oil; among them is Cinderella, which was at the Academy in 1854 ; A Runaway Knock, British Institution, 1855, both of which were engraved ; with Disturbing the Congregation, the interior of a church— which Prince Albert bought. In addition we had. Fitting out Moses for the Fair, E. A., 1830 ; ^Tam 0' Shanter, R. A., 1852 ; A Scene from 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' R. A., 1853; On LECTURE ON CRUIKSHANK's WORK. 53 Guard, R. A., 1853; a second Cinderella, R. A., 1859 ; and Shakespeare on the Stage at the Globe Theatre, 1564, R. A., 1867. He exhibited, besides the above, fourteen pictures at the British Institution. From a lecture which was delivered some years ago I extract a &ort of running comment on what seem to me some of the leading elements of Cruikshank's career and character, not pre- viously alluded to, and yet such as the reader may be willing to accept. " The astounding fecundity of his genius, and, during the greater part of his life, his prodigious energy and industry variously em- ployed, cannot but strike the reader of the least exhaustive biographies of Cruikshank. I find innumerable proofs of his wealth of inventive power even in those juvenile efforts which have been already alluded to. I am sure Hogarth did not approach him in this respect, for the productions of the latter may be reckoned by hundreds only, whereas we have seen to what thousands the enumeration of G. W. Reid amounted. I find this superabundance of illustrative elements to be essential and radical in the mind of the designer ; e. g. in illustrating at eleven years old, a subject called Horse Eacing, he was not con- tent with giving the straining steeds and commonplace accom- paniments of the subject, but there is among the bystanders a coachman whipping a boy from the back of his vehicle, and a great hubbub created by a plunging horse. I find the same in the attitudes and expressions of the folks who have been 'ground young again ' in The Wonderful Mill (1803); here these figures are the magic elements of the design, yet in their extraordinary variety of expressions and attitudes, the marvellously novel con- ception of the details and the spirit of the idea are rendered by the simplest means, and for nothing more ambitious than the use of children. The same exuberance of invention is to be seen in every design which has followed these. It is in the quaint notion of turning upside down the globe in The Humorist, so that north 54< GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. has been made south, and in adding boys standing on their heads and grinning, as if at the amazement of the Yankee who beheld an Irishman stand on his head to read an inverted public-house sign. It is distinct in that exquisite bit of landscape which accompanies Sykes attemjJting to destroy his Bog, 1870, a land- scape which seems to have escaped notice, but is highly deserving of study. I say nothing here of Bill Sykes himself, nor of that too-faithful beast his dog, the attitude of which is one of the most subtle conceptions of my subject (see p. 129) ; this wealth pre- sents itself by means of the same dog as he cowers under the table in Mr. Fagin and his pupil recovering Nance. " It would be difficult to find a stronger instance of his pos- session of the intense feeling enabling an artist to enter into and fully act with the spirit of his subject than is afforded by a series of illustrations to Maxwell's ' History of the Irish Ee- bellion' in twenty water-colour drawings.* These are executed with unwonted spirit and force, and are exceedingly intense in feeling, showing that earnest participation in the events pour- trayed which has rendered so many chronicles vital now, and redeemed from oblivion so many petty events. This intensity of sensibility is so great as to give the impression that the artist must have lived among the scenes he depicts, although he was still in the practice of his profession amongst us. Although these drawings were executed many years after the Rebellion, yet Mr. Cruikshank might well remember to have walked, let us cay, over the still-hot embers of the hideously savage business in question. His feelings about the subject is anything but that of an ' United Irishman ' ; indeed, these pictures represent the natives as so utterly brutalized and revoltingly savage in aspect * Whii-li were afterwards etched and' published with that searching indict- ment of ruthless and wanton crnelty, infamous beyond Dahomey sacrifices, and sure to incur chastisement without stint ; the etchings were republished in the noble volumes of plates accompanying G. W. Reid's ca'alogue to which I have often referred, as issued by Messrs. Bell & Daldy, 1871. LECTURE ON CliUIKSHANK's WORK. 55 and act, that we wonder some irate Celt has not, more Hiber- nico, settled the question with the artist by knocking out his brains with a bludgeon, or furtively shooting him from behind a hedge. The representatives of such horrible countenances as he gives the Irish are hardly to be found even amongst the reapers one sees at work during the English harvest, which is saying a great deal.* He makes their cowardice equal to their brutality ; showing, for instance, in one plate how a High- lander, single-handed, and with his bayonet only, keeps his post against a score of them. In another place, a dozen fellows are kept at fault by the inmates of a little country house, and, while some drag off their men, wounded by shots from a window, others of the gang set fire to the doors of the house, with, on their countenances, such hideous zest in. the villainy a,s is not only marvellous as art, in its expressive rendering, but deeply sig- nificant of the designer's thorough entering into his subject. Again, here is a party of savages trying to burn alive in a thatched hut some over-mastered and besieged fugitives, who have taken refuge from their devilish fury; some of the rebels set fire to the thatch, some throw torches into the windows, while others, with all their strength, hold closed the doors that the roasting may go on well within. Again, an unarmed man has been stabbed, and before his wife's eyes lies dead upon the earth ; * Eeaders not yet past middle life may remember to have encountered such semi-savages at the times in view here, and known them for ruffians of the vilest sort, the terror of the countryside, the curse of police-courts, and infamous for their conduct, violence, and drunkenness. Owing to the ex- tended use of machinery in farm operations these men are seldom seen now- adays in England. It is believed that with the " Biddies," or rough female house-servants to whom the once common advertisements used to refer with "Xo Irish need apply," these males have carried to the United States their turbulence, their savage ways, and too often beastly conduct. Such faces and figures as Cruikshank drew are to be seen in the early drawings of Leech and other satirists of the time ; when occasion calls Mr.Teniiiel still delineates their baboon-like faces with muzzles and the eyes of sullen beasts of prey, and thus both these artists are witnesses to the veracity of Cruikshank. 56 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. she, bending over his body, curses the butchers who slew him, and who now look on as if they would kill her likewise, as they have killed the dog who lies at the side of his murdered master. Completely expressing the feeling of abhorrence above noted is the last example I shall select from this series ; the murdering of a drummer-boy by six big Celts, who, without a moment's ruth, stick their pikes into his young body. This drawing, like the rest, contains some characteristic incidents, giving that grim comicality we call sardonic wit which Mr. Cruikshank delights in, and which is often mistaken for that wise because more thoughtful element, designated humour. The drummer has got his leg entangled in his stoven drum, and so stands helplessly trammelled ; * he cannot fly, neither can he fight against six f idl- grown Celts. The intensity of feeling that lent zest to this design has, however, been kept so strongly within the bounds of probability that it is impossible to deny that such faces as these might belong to Irishmen, if for no other reason than that we still find them upon human forms. Such acts as the artist has shown give to his veracity a more terrible force, and cause the picture to create a horror ten times as hateful as that felt at sight of gorillas. Thus earnestly does Cruikshank throw himself into every question he touched. " There is a vigorous though rude poetry about the intensity of feeling which made Mr. Cruikshank so earnest a champion in anything he undertook. This cast him body and soul into the ' total abstinence ' scheme of reformation for drunkards. (See The Worship of Bacchus, and likewise a far better work, the well-known series called The Bottle, and its inferior sequel. The Drunkard's Children, in which last a good thing was run to * The fact is — for the incident thus represented was a real one — the boy, finding himself a captive, and knowing what had been the fate of men, women, and children at the liands of the I rishry— crying that no rebel should beat his drum, jumped into and burst the head of it. He was incontinently stalibed by six patriots armed with pikes and enlisted under the "Green Flag of the Brave" as "Sons of Holy Erin." LECTURE ON CRUIKSHANK's WORK. 57 death.) But^ as was shown in the Irish Rebellion series, all that is expressed may be true— indeed much of it must be so — yet we feel that this is not all. At the best, stern vigour of repro- duction, mere fidelity of expression and aptitude of illustration, even when directed to the most beneficent purposes of morality, as in The Bottle, or against merciless cowardice and beast-like cruelty, as in the pictures of Celtic gorillas, are not alone only partially true, and so far inefficient in bringing about the desired result ; but they do not attest humour in the best sense of the term — and his possession or non-possession of that faculty has to be decided before we can fix the position that appears to us to be held by Cruikshank as an artist and a teacher, "To say, as I have already said, that he takes his place as a teacher conscientiously in earnest, is to state what we could aver of few, either of this or any other day. In these vigorous, tragic, and poetic works of his, there is the grimmest truth in his pour- trayal of vile character, perfectly sustained dramatic incident, and unusually good technical art ; yet, withal, little of that un- comic and thoughtful humour which is suggested to an educated audience by the mirror-like fidelity of Hogarth. They express so undisguisedly the crude facts, with such intensity of zest in the veracity of the representation, as representation, that the mind sickens and i*evolts at them. " Of course, the observer's mind is stirred to anger against the savages, and the cry for justice may thus be made to hasten the coming of vengeance. The published narratives of the atrocities committed in 1871 by the Commune in Paris, had a like effect, and gave force to the call for that stern vengeance which was meted out to those rats of civilization and, for a time, stamped into the earth the villainy they represented. " It may be urged that the appeal in the latter case was intended for an audience to whom sad familiarity had made such details and such expressions not hideous ; while, as to the Irish shamble scenes, the ground must have been still hot, when those 58 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. designs were made, with the five that had been trampled out so swiftly and so well. " lu addition to the great earnestness of feeling which has been pointed out, there is another kind of poeti-y in many of Mr. Cruikshank's works : a kind not seen in the examples above referred to. It is useless disguising the fact that most of ns have more than a regard for Sir John Falstaff, and hold "that man low who does not sincerely grieve at the death of Mrs. Quickly's patron. There is a representation of that event amongst Mr. Cruikshank's. designs, which more than any other of his works gives him a title to be called a humorous artist. There is a tearful sorb of pathos in the jest of that man's career (repi-ehensible character that he was), for the pourtrayal of which we Englishmen owe Shakespeare more than we shall ever pay by erecting statues, or sentimentally styling him a Swan. Falstaff's death is one of the wisest, as it is one of the tenderest, things man has conceived, or Shakespeare written. That Mr. Cruikshank, feeling all this, should have repre- sented this scene, and not in that miserable manner which makes men of feeling turn from a book illustrated in the modern fashion, but with all his art, heartily, is a fact not to be over- looked in weighing his merits as a designer. There is the old man in the bed, his scant, unhonoured hairs strewing the pillow, his face, not wholly in pain or hori'or, or a stolid blank, bub turned to the light, as he ' babbled o' green fields.' One arm is over the sheets, the feet are stretched down. Mrs. Quickly, that fat, vain, but kindly woman, attests his death in the manner that we know. The face is admirably given. Besb of all is the figure of Bai-dolph, who stands with his arms folded and shoulders up, labouring as with a sigh he was ashamed to own. Something of the rufiling strut is upon him yet, though over all his air, and evidently filling his besodden soul, are thoughts of what has gone before ; clearly the heart-stricken speculation of a novel and intense impression. There, too, is Nyrn's anxious way ; 60 GEORGE CRCTIKSHANK. the boy is looking on ; upon the wall hangs a portrait of the Prince. I quote this as an example of the thoughtful poetry often to be seen in Mr. Cruikshank's works. Of gentler and simpler domestic sentiment there is a good deal which need not be pointed out. "Mr. Cruikshank's feeling for the outrageous spirit of fun that overruns everything, and his comicality halting between caricature and humour, is nowhere better seen than in a wonderful design called The Ghost Story—as we read it, the story of a man who has seated himself in some long-haunted room, and receives —while his fire crackles on the hearth, for many a year disused —a visit from some of the chamber's old inhabitants : a ghastly crew! One, a lean, acrimonious, easily-irate ghost, squats, with arms a-kimbo, upon his once accustomed chair, and relates to the living inmate a tale of horror such as makes his very queue stand erect between his shoulders, his hands drop the pistol they had held, and himself sit rigid but for trembling under the eye of his grim tormentor. What a strange company that of men and women, the grisly folk who stand behind the story-teller ! — what bones they show !— what a mere spinal column is the waist of that long-faded virgin who appears with her lean hands folded so grimly before her waist ! There is likewise an awful spectre of a cat, just substantial enough for the light not to shine through her, but so fearfully emaciated— having no ghosts of mice to feed on — that, as she squats, the very bones of her tail coil upon the floor like a knotted stick. Note, too, the ghastly white fire that lies so deep in those dreadful eyes she turns upon the horror- f.tricken dog, who, all a-heap, trembles from nose to tail as he is rooted by his master's feet. "Jack o' Lantern is one of the artist's best designs of the gro- tesque sort— a gaunt and leathery goblin, solidly black in the darkness that his white light makes visible, hovering over a pool as he slides, mysterious as terrible, between its long bulrushes, and turning his face, grins a funless grin at us. Overhead it is PRIVATE LIFE. 61 starless black f'niglit down to the faintly-lighted horizon that closes in so near the desolate place of the furtive goblin. In looking at this astonishing piece of imagination it is impossible not to regret that Cruikshank has not given light and life to some of the Scandinavian legends of Nixies, Ysetter, Noks, Elf- Folk, and, what wovild probably suit him better, some of the Netherlandish legends of Kaboutermannekens, or the Devil of the wild heaths, Kludde." "With regard to the private life, adventures, and ups and downs of fortune of our subject, it is not within my province to deal, except in the briefest way and, as before, incidentally as concerned his art and genius. Of his early life I have written enough. We know that while quite a boy he worked hard for his father ; that he was ill-paid goes without saying ; but, except through his own extravagance and recklessness of economy, he was never really what people call in " poverty," or deeply impecunious, until he had far passed middle life, when work went to younger hands than his; the taste of the day had then changed thoroughly, aud Cruikshank's market was forestalled. Then indeed, and not once but several times, appeals Avere made in his behalf, and, on many sides frequently as well as liberally responded to. His hot and impatient nature, outspoken ways, and an over-sensitive temper brought him into predicaments which a more cautious man would have avoided with ease. He was in hot water with Dickens, Ainsworth, and others with whom it was his interest as it must have been his pleasure to work harmoniously. He fell out with publishers, some of whom he suspected of attempts to overreach him or undervalue his art. "With Bentley he was at one time at daggers drawn, and Cvithbert Bede has told us that " the secession of Cruikshank from the ' Miscellany ' made room for John Leech." Notwithstanding all this, it was on one of these occasions, when friends' help was asked for the then aged artist, calculated G2 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. that from his earnings alone, his income had, during a long series of years, been very good indeed for a man whose domestic ways were not more ambitious than his origin demanded. His quarrel with Ainsworth and Mr. B, Jerrold showed a lamentable misfortune brought on by the artist, and pursued with vehemence and wild statements which could not be justified. "Temper" was the cause of all these explosions. With the commercial failure of The O/miibus in 1842 the tide of Cruikshank's fortunes begin to ebb, but if it did not stop, the falling stream moved slowly, and it was long before the shoals beneath the surface became visible. It is said that, displeased by some personalities in * Punch,' then in its palmy days, and being mindful of the error which had alienated " Dickey " Doyle, and thus deprived the publication of his support, by no means likely to exceed in that respect, Cruikshank, although pressed by its able original editor to draw for what was then called " our facetious contemporary," strenuously refused, even on his own terms, to do so. Mark Lemon said to him, " We shall have you yet." George shouted in reply, striking one of his theatrical attitudes, " Nkver ! " A more generous, rashly benevolent man than our subject never existed ; rather than not help a friend, or even an acquaintance he esteemed, the artist, if he had no money of his own, would borrow in order to lend. Dickens told a capital, heart-warming story of Cruikshank's attempt to obtain from him. a loan to be lent again. Dickens's description of an imaginary interview of " George " and Mrs. Gamp at a railway-station when that illustrious female was going to Manchester, is one of the funniest things of the kind. One of the best likenesses of him is by Maclise, and shows him when still young seated on a beer-barrel, and furtively sketching a " character." 'No better or truer portrait of him exists than that of the Triumph of Cupid, which was made for 'The Table Book,' and represents the artist seated smoking fEIVATE LIFE, 63 and musing before his own fire, while scores of quaint and fanciful figures "thick as motes in a sunbeam" floating about his head indicate the nature of his fancies, and show the sprites of his imagination. His custom of making sketches on his thumbnail of faces, figures, and incidents intended for future use was well known, and is often alluded to in accounts of his ways and doings. Hogarth did the like. When he abandoned the use of spirits, wine, and beer, which was in 1842, not long before The Bottle was designed, he threw away his pipe and smoked no more. After this, with the super- abundant zeal of a convert^ he denounced everybody who either drank or smoked ; he lectured on "total abstinence," and with undeviating courage and persistency urged the cause of " Temper- ance" both in and out of season. His passion for " Temperance " was of course intemperate. It found expression in hundreds of etchings, cuts, drawings, and pictures ; in urgent discourses and appeals to every one he could get to listen. His "Temperance " friends honoured him accordingly, and admitted his name to the foremost roll of their prophets. He lost much employment be- cause of this fanaticism, but this neither mitigated his ardour nor moderated his speech. He — having been a boon companion of a very uproarious and entirely reckless kind, devoted to the "glass," or rather to the tumbler — suddenly, and with character- istic energy, became an entire teetotaler and violent opponent of practices which he had till then been devoted to. In his eighty-third year he boasted that for twenty-seven years he had drank no alcoholic liquors. To this he attributed his long life and the excellent health which gave him happiness and left him energy during many years when ordinary constitutions have succumbed to the assaults of time ; he could hold in his steady outstretched palm a brimful glass of water and spill not a drop ; he was seen to dance a hornpipe when more than eighty years of age; and until quite late in life he walked like a man still young. 64 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. It is an amazing fact that in 1853, when he Avas sixty years old, he entered as a Probationer in the Eoyal Academy Antique School, and actually, in order to improve his draughts- manship, drew there for a time ; but he never passed into the Life School of that institution. He was among the earliest recipients of one of the pensions of £50 a year, from the Turner Annuity Fund, which is administered by the Eoyal Academy. One of the great events of his life was the opening of the Cruikshank Exhibition at Exeter Hall, in November 1862, of which the catalogue, a page in 'The Weekly Record,' lies before me, and mentions one hundred and forty-seven groups cf works and single examples, besides The Worship of Bacchvs. In 1875 a committee of his friends, in order to provide funds for the benefit of the artist, formed a much larger collection of pictures of all kinds ; the eleven hundred specimens were offered at £3000. Ultimately they passed to the Westminster Aquarium Company. Scarcely anybody went to see the gathering in Exeter Hall, so completely had the ardent reformer and brilliant satirist passed out of the public view, and gone beyond the popular care or heed. In 1867 a testimonial was got up for his benefit, and about a thousand pounds procured for him. I'he Triumjjh of Bacchus was bought on another occasion for £400, and more (I do not know how much), and deposited at South Kensington. The Civil List furnished a pension to the artist of £95 a year. In 1876 the purchase of the Cruikshank Collection was completed by the Aquarium Company, and the owner received £2500 with a sur- vivorship life-annuity of £35 for himself and his wife. The closing period of his long and invaluable career was marked by impecu- niosity rather than direct poverty ; in fact, many kindly efforts such as those above-named prevented him from experiencing the woi-st troubles of indigence. He died, where he had long lived, HIS DEATH AND BURIAL. 65 at his house in the Hampstead Road, on the 1st of February, 1878, and in the following November his remains were finally and very fittingly deposited in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, There let him rest in peace. r. G. Stephens. "VVe extract the following notice of Cruikshank's Death and Funeral from the excellent biography, ' The Life of George Ckuikshank,' by Blanchard Jerrold, published by Messrs. Chatto & Windus. George Crnikshank fell ill in the first month of 1878, and was attended by his sympathetic and distinguished friend, Dr. B. W. Eichardson. He died at his house in the Hampstead Road, on the 1st of February. He was buried temporarily — tlie Crypt of St. Paul's being under repair — at Kensal Green. The only member of the Royal Academy who attended his funeral was Charles Landseer, E.A., who was almost as old as Cruikshank. But Messrs. Tenniel and Du Maurier were there, with poor W. Brunton, a clever caricaturist, who was to fall in his youth. Cruikshank's friend, George Augustus Sala, and Lord Houghton, were among his pall-beai ers ; and in tlie group about the coffin were Edmund Yates, S. C. Hall, General M'Murdo, and John Sheehan, the "Irish Whiskey-drinker." On the 29th of the following November, a hearsa, followed by a mourning- coach containing Mrs. George Cruikshank, conveyed the mortal part of the illustrious artist to St. Paul's, and four sergeants of the volunteer corps which F 66 GEORGE CEUIKSHANK, he had commanded brought up the procession. The coffin was silently lowered to its final resting place immediately after the afternoon service. The following is the inscription over the grave : GEORGE CRUIK SHANK, Artist, Designer, Etcher, Painter. Born at No. — Duke Street, St. George's, Bloomsbury, London, on September 27th, 1792. Died at 263, Hampstead Road, St. Pancras, London, on February 1st, 1878, Aged 86 Years. In memory of his Genius and liis Ai-t. His matchless Industry and worthy Work For all liis fellow-men ; This monument Is humbly placed within this sacred Fane, By her who loved him best, his widowed wife. Eliza Cruikshank. Fch. m, 1880. [Mrs. Cruikshanh died Dec. 13, 1890.] ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY RE FEINTED FROM THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW OF JUNE 1840 BRAVE TOBY PHlLrOT. From Three Courses and a Dessert. ON THE GENIUS OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. ACCUSATIONS of ingratitude, and just accvisations no doubt, are made against every inhabitant of this wicked world, and the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the fierce waves of the crowd, bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself some- what above water — fighting for reputation, or more likely for bread, and ceaselessly occupied to-day with plans for appeasing the eternal appetite of inevitable hunger to-morrow — a man in such straits has hardly time to think of anything . but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety. In the midst of such a combat as this, the " ingenuous arts, which prevent the ferocity of the manners, and act upon them as an emollient " (as the philosophic bard remarks in the Latin Grammar), are likely to be jostled to death, and then forgotten. The world will allow no such compromises between it and that Avhich does not belong to it — no two gods must we serve ; but (as one has seen in some old portraits) the horrible glazed eyes of Necessity are always fixed upon you ; fly away as you will, black Care sits behind you, and with his ceaseless gloomy croaking drowns the voice 70 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF of all more cheerful companions. Happy he whose fortune has placed him where there is calm and plenty, and who has the wisdom not to give up his quiet in quest of visionary gain. Here is, no doubt, the reason why a man, after the period of his boyhood, or first youth, makes so few friends. Want and ambition (new acquaintances which are introduced to him along with his beard) thrust away all other society from him. Some old friends remain, it is true, but these are become as a habit — a part of your selfishness— and, for new ones, they are selfish as you are j neither member of the new partnei-ship has the capital of affection and kindly feeling, or can even afford the time that is requisite for the establishment of the new firm. Damp and chill the shades of the prison-house begin to close round us, and that "vision splendid" which has accompanied our steps in our journey daily farther from the east, fades away and dies into the light of common day. And what a common day ! what a foggy, dull, shivering apology for light is this kind of muddy twilight through which we are about to tramp and flounder for the rest of our existence, wan- dering farther and farther from the beauty and freshness and from the kindly gushing springs of clear gladness that made all around us green in our youth ! One wanders and gropes in a slough of stock-jobbing, one sinks or rises in a storm of politics, and in either case it is as good to fall as to rise — to mount a bubble on the crest of the wave, as to sink a stone to the bottom. The reader who has seen the name affixed to the head of this article did scarcely expect to be entertained with a declamation upon ingratitude, youth, and the vanity of human pursuits, which may seem at first sight to have little to do with the subject in hand. But (although we reserve the privilege of discoursing upon whatever subject shall suit us, and by no means admit the public has any right to ask in our sentences for any meaning, or any connection whatever) it happens that, in this particular GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 71 instance, there is an undoubted connection. In Susan's case, as recorded by Wordsworth, what connection had the corner of Wood Street with a mountain ascending, a vision of trees, and a nest by the Dove ? Why should the song of a thrush cause bright volumes of vapour to glide through Lothbury, and a river to flow on through the vale of Cheapside ] As she stood at that corner of Wood Street, a mop and a pail in her hand most likely, she heard the bird singing, and straightway began pining and yearning for the days of her youth, forgetting the proper business of the pail and mop. Even so we are moved by the sight of some of Mr. Cruikshank's woi-ks — the "busen fiihlt sich jiigendlich erschiittert," the " schwankende gestalten " of youth flit before one again, — Cruikshank's thrush begins to pipe and carol, as in the days of boyhood ; hence misty moralities, reflections, and sad and pleasant remembrances arise. He is the friend of the young especially. Have we not read all the story-books that his won- derful pencil has illustrated 1 Did we not forego tarts, in order to buy his Breaking-up, or his Fashionable Monstrosities of the year eighteen hundred and something ] Have we not before us, at this very moment, a print, — one of the admirable Illustra- tions of Phrenology, — which entire work was purchased by a joint-stock company of boys, each drawing lots afterwards for the separate prints, and taking his choice in rotation ? The writer of this, too, had the honour of drawing the first lot, and seized immediately upon Philoprogenitiveness — a marvellous print (our copy is not at all improved by being coloured, which operation we performed on it ourselves) — a marvellous print, indeed, — full of ingenuity and fine jovial humour. A father, possessor of an enormous nose and family, is surrounded by the latter who are, some of them, embracing the former. The composition writhes and twists about like the Kermes of Rubens. No less than seven little men and women in night-caps, in frocks, in bibs, in breeches, are clambering about the head, knees, and arms of the man with the nose ; their noses, too, are preter naturally Y2 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF developed — the twins in the cradle have noses of the most con- siderable kind ; the second daughter, who is watching them ; the youngest but two, who sits squalling in a certain wicker chair ; the eldest son, who is yawning; the eldest daughter, who is preparing with the gravy of two mutton chops a savoury dish of Yorkshire pudding for eighteen persons ; the youths who are examining her operations (one a literary gentleman, in a re- markably neat night-cap and pinafore, who has just had his CADDY cuddle's NOSE. finger in the pudding) ; the genius who is at work on the slate, and the two honest lads who are hugging the good-humoured washerwoman, their mother, — all, all save this worthy woman, have noses of the largest size. Not handsome certainly are they, and yet everybody must be charmed with the picture. It is full of grotesque beauty. The artist has at the back of his own skull, we are certain, a huge bump of philoprogenitiveness. He loves children in his heai-t ; every one of those he has drawn is perfectly happy and jovial, and affectionate, and innocent as GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 73 possible. He makes them with large noses, but he loves them, and you always find something kind in the midst of his humour, and the ugliness redeemed by a sly touch of beauty. The smiling mother reconciles one with all the hideous family ; they have all something of the mother in them — something kind, and generous, and tender. Knight's, in Sweeting's Alley ; Fairburn's, in a court off Ludgate Hill; Hone's, in Fleet Street — bright, enchanted palaces, which George Cruikshank used to people with grinning, fantastical imps, and merry, harmless sprites, — where are they ? Fairburn's shop knows him no more; not only has Knight disappeared from Sweeting's Alley, but, as we are given to understand. Sweeting's Alley has disappeared from the face of the globe — Slop, the atrocious Castlereagh, the sainted Caroline (in a tight pelisse, with feathers in her head), the " Dandy of sixty," who used to glance at us from Hone's friendly windoAvs — where are they 1 Mr. Cruikshank may have drawn a thousand better things, since the days when these were ; but they are to us a thousand times more pleasing than anything else he has done. How we used to believe in them 1 to stray miles out of the way on holidays, in order to ponder for an hour before that delightful window in Sweeting's Alley ! in walks through Fleet Street, to vanish abruptly down Fairburn's passage, and there make one at his charming "gratis" exhibition. There used to be. a crowd round the window in those days of grinning good-natured mechanics, who spelt the songs, and spoke them out for the benefit of the company, and who received the points of humour with a general sympathizing roar. Where are these people now ] You never hear any laughing at H. B. ; his pictures are a great deal too genteel for that — polite points of wit, which strike one as exceedingly clever and pretty, and cause one to smile in a quiet, gentleman-like kind of way. There must be no smiling with Cruikshank. A man who does not laugh outright is a dullard, and has no heart ; even the 74 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF old Dandy of sixty must have laughed at his own wondrous grotesque image, as they say Louis Philippe did, who saw all the caricatures that were made of himself. And there are some of Cruikshank's designs, which have the blessed faculty of creating laughter as often as you see them. As Diggory says in the play, who is bidden by his master not to laugh while waiting at table — " Don't tell the story of Grouse in the Gun-room, master, or I can't help laughing." Repeat that history ever so often, and at the proper moment, honest Diggory is sure to explode. Every man, no doubt, who loves Cruikshank has his Grouse in the Gun-room. There is a fellow in the ' Points of Humour ' who is offering to eat up a certain little general, that has made us happy any time these sixteen years ; his huge mouth is a perpetual well of laughter — buckets full of fun can be drawn from it. We have formed no such friendships as that boyish one of the man with the mouth. But though, in our eyes, Mr. Cruikshank reached his apogee some eighteen years since, it must not be imagined that such is really the case. Eighteen sets of children have since then learned to love and admire him, and may many more of their successors be brought vip in the same delightful faith. It is not the artist who fails, but the men who grow cold — the men, from whom the illusions (why illusions ? realities) of. youth disappear one by one ; who have no leisure to be happy, no blessed holidays, but only fresh cares at Midsummer and Christmas, being the inevitable seasons which bring us bills instead of pleasures. Tom, who comes bounding home from school, has the doctor's account in his trunk, and his father goes to sleep at the pantomime to which he takes him. Pater infe'.ix, you too have laughed at clown, and the magic wand of spangled harlequin ; what delightful enchantment did it wave around you, in the golden days " when George the Third was king ! " But our clown lies in his grave ; and our harlequin, Ellar, prince of how many enchanted islands, was he not at Bow Street the other day, at Bow Street, in his dirty, tattered, faded motley — seized GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 75 as a law-breaker, for acting at a penny theatre, after having well-nigh starved in the streets, where nobody would listen to his old guitar 1 No one gave a shilling to bless him ; not one of us who owe him so much. We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased at finding his name in such company as that of Clown and Harle- quin ; but he, like them, is certainly the children's friend. His drawings abound in feehng for these little ones, and hideous, as in the course of his duty, he is from time to time compelled to design them, he never sketches one without a certain pity for it, and imparting to the figure a certain grotesque grace. In happy school-boys he revels; plum-pudding and holidays his needle has engraved over and over again ; — there is a design in one of the comic almanacs of some young gentlemen who are employed in administering to a schoolfellow the correction of the pump, which is as graceful and elegant as a drawing of Stothard. Dull books about children George Cruikshank makes bright with illustrations — there is one published by the ingenious and opulent Mr. Tegg, of Cheapside, from which we should have been charmed to steal a few wood-cuts. It is entitled 'Mirth and Morality,' the mirth being, for the most part, on the side of the designer — the morality, unexceptionable certainly, the author's capital. Here are then, to these moralities, a smiling train of mirths supplied by George Cruikshank— see yonder little fellows butter- fly-hunting across a common ! Such a light, brisk, airy, gentleman-like drawing was never made upon such a theme. Who, cries the author — "Who has not chased the butterfly, And crushed its slender legs and wings, And heaved a moralizing sigh ; Alas ! how frail are human things ? " A very unexceptionable morality truly ; but it would have puzzled another than George Cruikshank to make mirth out of it as he 76 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF has done. Away, surely not on the wings of these verses, Cruikshank's imagination begins to soar ; and he makes us three darling little men on a green common, backed by old farm- houses, somewhere about May. A great mixture of blue and clouds in the air, a strong fresh breeze stirring, Tom's jacket flapping in the same, in order to bring down the insect queen or king of spring that is fluttering above him, — he renders all this with a few strokes on a little block of wood not two inches square, upon which one may gaze for hours, so merry and life-like a scene does it present. What a charming creative power is this, what a privilege — to be a god, and create little worlds upon paper, and whole generations of smiling, jovial men, women, and children half-inch high, whose portraits are carried abroad, and have the faculty of making us monsters of six feet curious and happy in our turn. Now, who would imagine that an artist could make anything of such a subject as this*? The writer begins by stating — ' " I love to go back to the days of my youth, And to reckon my joys to the letter, And to count o'er the friends that I have in the world, Ay, and those who are gone to a better." This brings him to the consideration of his uncle. " Of all the men I have ever known," says he, " my uncle united the greatest degree of cheerfulness with the sobriety of manhood. Though a man when I was a boy, he was yet one of the most agreeable companions I ever possessed. ... He embarked for America, and nearly twenty years passed by before he came back again , . . . but oh, how altered ! — he was in every sense of the word an old man, his body and mind were enfeebled, and second childishness had come upon him. How often have I bent over him, vainly endeavouring to recall to his memory the scenes we had shared together, and how frequently, with an aching heart, have I gazed on his vacant and lustreless eye while he has amused himself iu GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 77 clapping his hands, and singing with a quavering voice a verse of a psalm." Alas ! such are the consequences of long residences in America, and of old age even in uncles ! Well, the point of this moi-ality is, that the uncle one day in the morning of life vowed that he would catch his two nephews and tie them to- gether, ay, and actually did so, for all the efforts the rogues made to run away from him ; but he was so fatigued that he declared he never would make the attempt again, whereupon the nephew remarks, — " Often since then, when engaged in enterprises beyond my strength, have I called to mind the determination of my uncle." Does it not seem impossible to make a picture out of this ? And yet George Cruikshank has produced a charming design, in which the uncle and nephews are so prettily portrayed that one is reconciled- to their existence, with all their moralities. Many more of the mirths in this little book are excellent, especially a great figure of a parson entering church on horseback — an enormous parson truly, calm, unconscious, unwieldy. As Zeuxis had a bevy of virgins in order to make his famous picture — his express virgin, a clerical host, must have passed under Cruikshank's eyes before he sketched this little, enormous parson of parsons. Being on the subject of children's books, how shall we enough praise the delightful German nursery- tales, and Cruikshank's illustrations of them"? We coupled his name with pantomime awhile since, and sure never pantomimes were more charming than these. Of all the artists that ever drew, from Michael Angelo upwards and downwards, Cruikshank was the man to illustrate these tales, and give them just the proper admixture of the grotesque, the wonderful, and the graceful. May all Mother Bunch's collection be similarly indebted to him ; may ' Jack the Giant Killer,' may 'Tom Thumb,' may 'Puss in Boots,' be one day revivified by his pencil. Is not Whittington sitting yet on Highgate Hill, and poor Cinderella (in that sweetest of 78 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF all fairy stories) still pining in her lonely chimney nook? A man who has a true affection for these delightful companions of his youth is bound to be grateful to them if he can, and we pray Mr. Cruikshank to remember them. It is folly to say that this or that kind of humour is too good for the public, that only a chosen few can relish it. The best humour that we know of has been as eagerly received by the public as by the most delicate connoisseur. There is hardly a man in England who can read but will laugh at Falstaff and the humour of Joseph Andrews ; and honest Mr. Pickwick's story can be felt and loved by any person above the age of six. Some may have a keener enjoyment of it than others, but all the world can be merry over it, and is always ready to welcome it. The best criterion of good humour is success, and what a share of this has Mr. Cruikshank had ! how many millions of mortals has he made happy ! We have -heard very profound persons talk philosophically of the marvellous and mysterious manner in which he has suited himself to the time— fait vibrer la fibre poindaire (as Napoleon boasted of himself), supplied a peculiar want felt at a peculiar period, the simple secret of which is, as we take it, that he, living amongst the public, has with them a general wide-hearted sympathy, that he laughs at what they laugh at, that he has a kindly spirit of enjoyment, with not a morsel of mysticism in his composition ; that he pities and loves the poor, and jokes at the follies of the great, and that he addresses all in a perfectly sincere and manly way. To be greatly successful as a professional humorist, as in any other calling, a man must be quite honest, and show that his heart is in his work. A bad preacher will get admiration and a hearing with this point in his favour, where a man of three times his acquirements will only find in- difference and coldness. Is any man more remarkable than our artist for telling the truth after his own manner % Hogarth's honesty of purpose was as conspicuous in an earlier time, and we fancy that Gillray would have been far more successful and GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 79 more powerful but for that unhappy bribe, which turned the whole course of his humour into an unnatural channel. Cruik- shank would not for any bribe say what he did not think, or lend his aid to sneer down anything meritorious, or to praise any thing or person that deserved censure. When he levelled his wit against the Regent, and did his very prettiest for the Princess, he most certainly believed, along with the great body of the people whom he represents, that the Princess was the most spot- less, pure-mannered darling of a princess that ever married a heartless debauchee of a Prince Royal. Did not millions believe with him, and noble and learned lords take their oaths to her Royal Highness's innocence? Cruikshank could not stand by and see a woman ill-used, and so struck in for her rescue, he and the people belabouring with all their might the party who were making the attack, and determining, from pure sympathy and indignation, that the woman must be innocent because her husband treated her so foully. To be sure we have never heard so much from Mr. Cruik- shank's own lips, but any man who will examine these odd drawings, which first made him famous, will see what an honest, hearty hatred the champion of woman has for all who abuse her, and will admire the energy with which he flings his wood- blocks at all who side against her. Canning, Castlereagh, Bexley, Sidaaouth, he is at them, one and all ; and as for the Prince, up to what a whipping-post of ridicule did he tie that unfortunate old man ! And do not let squeamish Tories cry out about dis- loyalty ; if the crown does wrong, the crown must be corrected by the nation, out of respect, of course, for the crown. In those days, and by those people who so bitterly attacked the son, no word was ever breathed against the father, simply because he was a good husband, and a sober, thrifty, pious, orderly man. This attack upon the Prince Regent we believe to have been Mr. Cruikshank's only effort as a party politician. Some early manifestoes against Napoleon we find, it is true, done in the 80 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF regular John Bull style, with the Gillray model for the little upstart Corsican ; but as soon as the- Emperor had yielded to stern fortune our artist's heart relented (as Beranger's did on the other side of the water), and many of our readers will doubtless recollect a fine drawing of Louis XVI. trying on Napoleon's Boots, which did not certainly fit the gouty son of Saint Louis. Such satirical hits as these, however, must not be considered as political, or as anything more than the expression of the artist's national British idea of Frenchmen. It must be confessed that for that great nation Mr. Cruik- shank entertains a considerable contempt. Let the reader examine the ' Life in Paris,' or the five hundred designs in which Frenchmen are introduced, and he will find them almost invari- ably thin, with ludicrous spindle-shanks, pigtails, outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and queer hair and moustachios. He has the British idea of a Frenchman ; and if he does not believe that the inhabitants of France are for the most part dancing-masters and barbers, yet takes care to depict such in preference, and would not speak too well of them. It is curious how these traditions endure. In France, at the present moment, the Englishman on the stage is the caricatured Englishman at the time of the war, with a shock red head, a long white coat, and invariable gaiters. Those who wish to study this subject should peruse Monsieur Paul de Kock's histories of Lord Boulingroj and Lady Crochnilove. On the other hand the old emigre has taken his station amongst us, and we doubt if a good British Gallery would understand that such and such a character was a Frenchman unless he appeared in the ancient traditional costume. A curious book called ' Life in Paris,' published in 1822, con- tains 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. We had thoughts of giving a few copies of French heads from this book and others, which would amply show Mr. Cruikshank's GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 81 anti-Gallican spirit. 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 J erry, 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 schoolboy's 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 watch- man 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, G 82 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF 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 dash 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 authors 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 Surface, or Tom Jones'? only a very stern moralist indeed. And in regard of Jerry Hawthorn and that hero with- out a surname, Corinthian Tom, Mr. Cruikshank, we make little doubt, was glad in his heart that he was not allowed to have his own way. Soon after the 'Tom and Jerry' and the 'Life in Paris,' Mr. Cruikshank produced a much more elaborate set of prints, in a work which was called ' Points of Humour.' These ' Points ' were selected from various comic works, and did not, we believe, extend beyond a couple of numbers, containing about a score of copper-plates. The collector of humorous designs cannot fail to have them in his portfolio, for they contain some of the very best efforts of Mr. Cruikshank's genius, and though not quite so highly laboured as some of his later productions, are none the GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 83 worse, in our opinioB, for their comparative want of finish. All the effects ai-e perfectly given, and the expression as good as it could be in the most delicate engraving upon steel. The artist's style, too, was then completely formed ; and, for our part, we should say that we preferred his manner of 1825 to any other which he has adopted since. The first picture, which is called The Point of Honour, illustrates the old story of the ofiicer who, on being accused of cowardice for refusing to fight a duel, came among his brother oflficers and flung a lighted grenade down upon the floor, before which his comrades fled ignomin- iously. This design is capital, and the outward rush of heroes, Avalking, trampling, twisting, scufiling at the door, is in the best style of the grotesque. You see but the back of most of these gentlemen, into which, nevertheless, the artist has managed to throw an expression of ludicrous agony that one could scarcely have expected to find in such a part of the human figure. The next plate is not less good. It represents a couple who, having been found one night tipsy, and lying in the same guttei", were, by a charitable though misguided gentlemau, supposed to be man and wife, and put comfortably to bed together. The morning came ; fancy the surprise of this interesting pair when they awoke and discovered their situation. Fancy the manner, too, in which Cruikshank has depicted them, to which words cannot do justice. It is needless to state that this fortuitous and tem- porary union was followed by one more lasting and sentimental, and that these two worthy persons were married, and lived happily ever after. We should like to go through every one of these prints. There is the jolly miller, who returning home at night, calls upon his wife to get him a supper, and falls to upon rashers of bacon and ale. How he gormandizes, that jolly miller ! rasher after rasher, how they pass away frizzling and smoking from the gridiron down that immense grinning gulf of a mouth. Poor wife ! how she pines and frets at that untimely hour of midnight 84 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF to be obliged to fry, fry, fry perpetually, and minister to the monster's appetite. And yonder in the clock, what agonized face is that we see 1 By heavens, it is the squire of the parish. What business has he there 1 Let us not ask. Suffice it to say, that he has, in the hurry of the moment, left up-stairs his br ; his — psha ! a part of his dress, in short, with a number of bank- notes in the pockets. Look in the next page, and you will see AN" IRISH ROW. the ferocious, bacon-devouring ruffian of a miller is actually causing this garment to be carried through the village and cried by the town-crier. And we blush to be obliged to say that the demoralized miller never offered to return the bank-notes, although he was so mighty scrupulous in endeavouring to find an owner for the corduroy portfolio in which he had found them. Passing from this painful subject, we come, we regret to state. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 85 to a series of prints representing personages not a whit more moral. Burns's famous ' Jolly Beggars ' have all had their portraits drawn by Cruikshank. There is the lovely " hempen widow," quite as interesting and romantic as the famous Mrs. Shephard, who has at the lamented demise of her husband adopted the very same consolation. ' ' My curse upon them every one, They've hanged my braw John Highlandman ; And now a widow, I must moui'n Departed joys that ne'er return ; No comfort but a hearty can When I think on John Highlandman," Sweet "raucle carlin," she has none of the sentimentality of the English highwayman's lady ; but being wooed by a tinker and ' ' A pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle, Wha us'd to trystes and faii-s to driddle," prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker sings with a noble candour, worthy of a fellow of his strength of body and station in life — "My bonnie lass, I work in brass, A tinker is my station ; I've travell'd round all Christian ground In this my occupation. I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd In many a noble squadron ; But vain they search'd when off I march'd To go an' clout the caudron. " It was his ruling passion. "What was military glory to him, forsooth 1 He had the greatest contempt for it, and loved free- dom and his copper kettle a thousand times better— a kind of hardware Diogenes. Of fiddling he has no better opinion. The picture represents the "sturdy caird " taking "poor gut- 86 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF scraper" by the beard, — drawing his "roosfcy rapier" and swearing to " speet him like a pliver " unless he would relinquish the bonnie lassie for ever. " Wi' ghastly ee, poor tweedle-dee Upon his hunkers bended, An' pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face, An' so the quarrel ended." Hark how the tinker apostrophizes the violinist, stating to the widow at the same time the advantages which she might expect from an alliance with himself — "Despise that shrimp, that wither'd imp, "Wi' a' his noise and caperin' ; And take a share with those that bear The budget an' the apron ! And by that stowp, my faith an' houpe, An' by that dear Kilbaigie ! If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, May I ne'er weet my craigie." Cruikshank's caird is a noble creature ; his face and figure show him to be fully capable of doing and saying all that is above written of him. In the second part, the old tale of ' The Three Hunchbacked Fiddlers ' is illustrated with equal felicity. The famous classical dinners and duel in 'Peregrine Pickle' are also excellent in their way ; and the connoisseur of prints and etchings may see in the latter plate, and in another in this volume, how great the artist's mechanical skill is as an etcher. The distant view of the city in the duel, and of a market-place in The Quack Doctor, are delightful specimens of the artist's skill in depicting buildings and backgrounds. They are touched with a grace, truth and dexterity of workmanship that leave nothing to desire. We have before mentioned the man with the mouth, which appears in this number, and should be glad to give a little vignette GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 87 emblematical of gout and indigestion, in which the artist has shown all the fancy of Callot. Little demons, with long saws for noses, are making dreadful incisions into the toes of the unhappy sufferer ; some are bringing pans of hot coals to keep the wounded member warm ; a huge, solemn nightmare sits on the invalid's chest, staring solemnly into his eyes ; a monster, with a pair of drumsticks, is banging a devil's tattoo on his forehead ; and a pair of imps are nailing great tenpenny nails into his hands to make his happiness complete. THE CHOICE. But though not able to seize upon all we wish, we have been able to provide a tolerably large Cruikshank gallery for the reader's amusement, and must hasten to show off our wares. Like the worthy who figures above, there is such a choice of pleasures here, that we are puzzled with which to begin. The Cruikshank collector will recognize this old friend as coming from the late Mr. Clark's excellent work, ' Three Courses and a Dessert,' The work was published at a time when the rage for comic stories was not so great as it since has been, and 88 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF Messrs. Clark and Cruikshank only sold their hundreds where Messrs. Dickens and Phiz dispose of their thousands. But if our recommendation can in any way influence the reader, we would enjoin him to have a copy of the ' Three Courses,' * that contain some of the best designs of our artist, and some of the most amusing tales in our language. The invention of the pictures, for which Mr. Clark takes credit to himself, says a great deal for his wit and fancy. Can we, for instance, praise too highly the man who invented this wonderful oyster 1 THE SMILING OYSTER. Examine him well ; his beard, his pearl, his little round stomach, and his sweet smile. Only oysters know how to smile in this way ; cool, gentle, waggish, and yet inexpressibly innocent and winning. Dando himself must have allowed such an artless native to go free, and consigned him to the glassy, cool, translucent wave again. In writing upon such subjects as these with which we have been furnished, it can hardly be expected that we should follow any fixed plan and order — we must therefore take such advantage as we may, and seize upon our subject when and wherever we can lay hold of him. * ' Three Courses and a Dessert ' is now published in Bohu's Library. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 89 For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, beadles, policemen, tall Life Guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dust- men, very short pantaloons, dandies in spectacles, and ladies with aquiline noses, remarkably taper waists, and wonderfully long ringlets, Mr. Cruikshank has a special predilection. The tribe of Israelites he has studied with amazing gusto ; witness the Jew in Mr. Ainsworth's ' Jack Shephard,' and the immortal SEIZING UPON A SUB-JECT. Fagin of * Oliver Twist.' Whereabouts lies the comic vis in these persons and things 1 Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite a charity boy 1 Why should a tall Life Guardsman have something in him essentially absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long 1 What is there particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a long nose always provoke the beholder to laughter 1 These points may be meta- physically elucidated by those who list. It is probable that Mr. 90 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF Cruikshank could not give an accurate definition of that which is ridiculous in these objects, but his instinct has told him that fun lurks in them, and cold must be the heart that can pass by the pantaloons of his charity boys, the Hessian boots of his dandies, and the fan-tail hats of his dustmen, without respectful wonder. We can submit to public notice a complete little gallery of dustmen. Here is, in the first place, the professional dustman, who, having in the enthusiastic exercise of his delightful trade laid hands upon property not strictly his own, is pursued, we THE PROFESSIONAL DUSTMA.N. presume, by the right owner, from whom he flies as fast as his crooked shanks will carry him. What a curious picture it is — the horrid rickety houses in some dingy suburb of London, the grinning cobbler, the smothered butcher, the very trees which are covered with dust — it is fine to look at the different expressions of the two interesting fugitives. The fiery charioteer who belabours yonder poor donkey has still a glance for his brother on foot, on whom punishment is about to descend. And not a little curious is it to think of the ci-eative power of the man who has arranged this GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 91 little tale of low life. How logically it is conducted, how cleverly each one of the accessories is made to contribute to the el?ect of the whole. "What a deal of thought and humour has the artist expended on this little block of wood ; a large picture might have been painted out of the very same materials, which Mr. Cruikshank, out of his wondrous fund of merriment and observation, can afford to throw away upon a drawing not two inches long. From the practical dustman we pass to those purely poetical. Here are three of them who rise on clouds of their own raising, the very genii of the sack and shovel. Is there no one to write a sonnet to these 1 — and yet a whole GENII OF THE SACK AND SHOVEL. poem was written about Peter Bell the Waggoner, a character by no means so poetic. Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Cruikshank, who labours in his own sound and hearty way to teach his country- men the dangers of that drink. In the 'Sketch-Book' is a plate upon the subject, remarkable for fancy and beauty of design; it is called the Gin Juggernaut, and represents a hideous moving palace, with a reeking still at the roof and vast gin- barrels for wheels, under which unhappy millions are crushed to death. An immense black cloud of desolation covers over the country through which the gin monster has passed, dimly 92 ESSAY ON THE GENIUS OF looming through the darkness whereof you see an agreeable prospect of gibbets with men dangling, burnt houses, 2Q. The Royal Wanderer Beguiled Abroad and Reclaimed at Home. Satirical plate. Wright, 1820. Memoirs of Queen Caroline. By J. Nightingale. Two volumes. Two engravings on copper. Eobins, 1820. The Radicals Unmasked and Outwitted ; or, The Thistle uprooted in Cato Field. Frontispiece, 1820. A Frown from the Crown ; or, The Hydra destroyed. Large woodcut. Fair- hurn, 1820. The Loyalist's Magazine. Containing the Principal Facts, Circumstances, Satyres, Jeux d'Esprits, Reviews, Biographical Contrasts and Political Retrospects published during the Rise, Reign, and Fall of the Caroline Contest. Ten copper plates and caricatures, coloured. Turner, 1820-21. The Spirit of Despotism. "Woodcut on title. Hone, 1821. The Progress of a Midshipman exemplified in the Career of Master Blockhead. Folio. Seven plates and a frontispiece. Humphrey, 1821. Kilts and Philibegs ! ! The Northern Excursion of Geordie, Emperor of Gotham, and Sir Willie Curtis, the Court Buffoon. Two coloured frontispieces. Fair- burn, 1822. The Miraculous Host Tortured by the Jew under the Reign of Philip THE Fair, in 1290. Ten cuts. Hone, 1822. Life in Paris ; comprising the Rambles, Sprees, and Amours of Dick Wildfire, of Corinthian celebrity, &c. By David Carey. Twenty-one coloured plates. Enriched also with twenty-two engravings on wood. Fairburn, 1822. The Magic Spell : The History and Adventures of Prince Lucillo and Princess Rayonette. Eight woodcuts, 1822. Christmas Stories. Containing 'John Wildgoose the Poacher,' 'The "Smuggler,' and 'Good Nature; or, Parish Matters.' Three etchings. Oxford : J. Parker, 1823. Ancient Mysteries Described, especially the English Miracle Plays, &c. By William Hone. Two coloured etchings of the "Giants in Guildhall," and "The Fools' Morris Dance." Hone, 1823. Points of Humour. Ten full-page etchings, and eight woodcuts. Baldwyn, 1823. Points of Humour. Ten full-page etchings, and twelve small etchings. Baldwyn, 1824. 134 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS [1823 Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. By W. H. Ireland. Four volumes. Twenty- three folding coloured plates by G. C, and others. Fairhtrn, 1823 to 1828. Peter Schlemihl. By Lamotte Fouque. Eight full-page etchings. Whittakcr, 1824. Der Freischutz Travestie. By Septimus Globus. Twelve etchings. Baldioyn, 1824. Tales of Irish Life. Two volumes. Six illustrations. Robins, 1824. Tales of Humour, Gallantry, and Romance. Sixteen drawings. Baldwyn, 1824. The Collective Wisdom ; or, Sights and Sketches in the Chapel of St. Stephen. With characters and cuts. Knight and Laccy, 1824. Forty Illustrations of Lord Byron. Thirty-six of these illustrations were designed by G. C. Robins and Co., 1824-5. The Spirit of the Public Journals. Three volumes. Two cuts, 1825. German Popular Stories. Collected by M. M. Grimm. Two volumes. 1824 to 1826. Vol. I., twelve etchings. C. Baldioyn, 1824. Yol. II., ten etchings. James Robins, 1826. Mornings at Bow Street. By J. Wight. Twenty-one woodcuts. Baldwijn, 1824. Hans of Iceland. Four etchings. Robins, 1825. ' Smiles for all Seasons. Frontispiece. Baldwin and Co., 1825. Catholic Miracles. Seven designs. KnigM and Lacey, 1825. The Universal Songster, or Museum of Mirth. Three volumes. Three etched frontispieces, and tv/enty-four song illustrations, 1825-6. Specimens of German Romance. Three volumes. Three etched frontispieces. Whittaker, 1826. Phrenological Illustrations ; or, An Artist's View of the Craniological System of Doctors Gall and Spurzheini. Woodcut on title, and six etched plates, containing thirty-two subjects. Robins and Co., 1826. Greenwich Hospital ; a series of Naval Sketches. By an Old Sailor. Twelve full-page coloured etchings, and humorous woodcut tail-pieces. Robins ayid Co., 1826. The Every- Day Book, or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements. By William Hone. Two volumes. Eleven woodcuts by G. C, 1826-7. Eccentric Tales from the German of W. F. von Kosewitz. Twenty full- page coloured illustrations, and one woodcut. Robins and Co., 1827. More Mornings a.t Bow Street. By John Wight. Twenty-four woodcuts. Robins, 1827. The Shilling Comic Annual. A Collection of Short Good Things, &c. Frontis- piece, 1827. Etery Night Book ; or. Life after Dark. Woodcut on title-page. Richardson, 1827. to 1830.] ILLUSTRATED BY CRUIKSHANK. 135 Illustrations of Time. Seven oblong folio plates. Published by the Artist, 1827. BiBLiOTHKrA SussEXiANA. A Descriptive Catalogue by Thomas Joseph Petti- grew, Librarian to the Duke of Sussex. Two volumes. Seven etchings and four woodcuts. Longman and Co., 1827. London Characters. Twenty-four coloured plates ; fifteen by George, and nine by Robert Cruikshank. Robins, 1827. A Fires DE Book ; or, the Account of a Christmas spent at Old Court. Frontis- piece. Smith, Elder and Co., 1827. Thilosophy in Srop.T made Science in Earnest. Three volumes. Twenty- two woodcuts. Longmans, 1827. The Table Book. By "William Hone. Two volumes. One woodcut, 1827-8. Catalogue Raisonn^; of the select Collection of Engravings cf an Amateur (Mr. Thomas Wilson). 4to. Five etchings, 1828. Punch and Judy. Twenty-four etchings and four woodcut vignettes. Prowelt, Pall Mall, 1828. The Diverting History of John Gilpin. Six illustrations. Engraved on wood. Tilt, 1828. Okiginal Jests. By John Harcourt. An unpublished Collection of Bon Mots, Jeux d'Esprit, &c. Frontispiece. Fairhirn, 1828. Tim Bobbin's Lancaphtre Dialect and Poems. Four full-page etchings by George and two by Robert Cruikshank. Hurst, Chance and Co., 1828. Scraps and Sketches. In four parts. Published by the Artist, 22, Myddleton- terrace, Pentonville, and Eohins and Co., 1828 to 1832. The Epping Hunt. By Thomas Hood. Six engravings on wood. Tilt, 1829. Talfs (F Other Days. By J. Y. A. Six full-page woodcuts. Effingham Wilson, 1830. The New Bath Guide. By Christopher Anstey. Frontispiece and vignette, and five full-page etchings. Hurst, Chance and Co., 1830. Tom Thumb : A Burletta, altered from Henry Fielding. By Kane O'Hara. Five full-page woodcuts, vignette on title and tailpiece. Thomas Rodd, 1830. Bombastes Furioso : A Burlesque Tragic Opera. By William Barnes Rhodes. Seven full-page woodcuts. Thomas Rodd, 1830. The " Greatest Happiness." Woodcut on title. Heward, 1830. Illustrations of Popular Works. Part I. only. Six etchings, Longman. 1830. Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft. Twelve i)lates. November 1830. TiTEEE CouRSFS AND A Dessert. By William Clarke, Fifty-one woodcuts, Vizetclly, 18S0. The Cream of the Jest, a Fund of Wit and Humour. Humorous coloured jjlate in four divisions. Derby : Mozley, i 830, ]36 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS [1831 The Gentlkman in Black. Five full-page woodcuts and tailpiece. William Kidd, ]831. Odds and Ends. In Verse and Prose. By William Henry Merle. Two designs by G. C. Longmans, 1831. The Cat's Tail. A tale (in verse) by the Baroness de Katzleben. Three full- page etchings. Edinburgh : Blackwood, 1831. The Life AND SuRPpasiNG Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Thirty-seven woodcuts. John Major, 1831. Hogarth Moralized. By the Rev. Dr. Trusler. Four groups. John Major, 1831. Ferdinand Frank; Autobiograx^hy of a Musical Student. Woodcuts. Acker- 7)1 ann, 1831. The Novelist's Library. Edited by Thomas Roscoe. London : Cochrane and Co., 1831-2 :— The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker. By Tobias Smollett, M.D. Portrait of the author, and four full-page etchings. 1831. The Adventures of Roderick Random. By Smollett. Five full-page etchings. 1831. The Adventures op Peregrine Pickle. By Smollett. Two volumes. Eight full-page etchings. 1831. The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves. By Smollett. Two full- page etchings. 1832. The Yicae of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith. Portrait of the author, and two full-page etchings. 1832. The Adventures of Joseph Andrews. By Henry Fielding. 1832. The History of Amelia. By Fielding. Two volumes. Eight full-page etchings. 1832. Tom Jones. By Fielding. In two volumes. Eight full-page etchings. 1832. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. By Laurence Sterne. To which is added the 'Sentimental Journey.' Two volumes. Portrait of the author, and eight full-page etchings. 1832. The History and Adventures of Don Quixote. From the Spanish of Cervantes. By Smollett. Three volumes. Fifteen etchings. Effing- ham Wilson, 1833. The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane. Translated from the French of Le Sage. By Smollett. Two volumes. Ten etchings. Effingham Wilson, 1833. The Bee and the Wasp. A Fable in Verse. With designs and etchings. Tilt, 1832. Sunday in London. Fourteen cuts. Effinjham Wilson, 1833. LuciEN Greville. By a Cornet in the East India Company's Service. With six etchings. Three volumes. Saunders and Otley, 1833. to 1836.] ILLUSTRATED BY CRUIKSHANK. 137 liEJECTED Addresses : or, The New Theatrum Poetarum. By James and Horace Smith. Six woodcuts. John Miirray, 1833. My Sketch Book. Nine parts, containing thirty-seven plates. Tilt, 1833 to 1836. Minor Morals for Young People. By John Bowring. One full-page etching. Whittaker, 1834. Minor Morals for Young People. Part II. By John Bowring. Five full- page etchings. Whittaker, 1835. Minor Morals for Young People. Part III. By Jolin Bowring. Six full- page etchings. Edinburgh : IVilliam Tait, 1839. The Stadium ; or, British National Arena for Manlj' and Defensive Exercises. By Baron Berenger. Archery Scenes. 1834. Mirth and Morality : A collection of Original Tales. By Carlton Bruce. Twenty beautiful cuts. Tcgg, 1834. Tough Yarns. A Series of Naval Tales and Sketches. By the Old Sailor. Eight etchings and nine woodcuts. Effingham Wilson, 1834. A History of Egyptian Mummies. By Thomas Joseph Pettigrew. Thirteen illustrations. Longmans, 1834. Journal of the Plague Year. By Daniel de Foe. Four illustrations. Nutt, Royal Exchange, 1835. Cruikshankiana : An Assemblage of the most celebrated Works of George Cruikshank. Sixty-six plates by George, and six by Robert. McLean, 1835. Journal of a Visit to Constantinople, By John Auldjo, F.G.S. Longmans, 1835. The Comic Almanack. An Ephemeris, in Jest and Earnest. With a dozen " righte merrie " cuts. Tilt, Fleet Street, 1835 to 1841. The Comic Almanack. Adorned with numerous humorous illustrations, and a dozen of " righte merrie " cuts. Tilt and Bogue, 1842 to 1845. The Comic Almanack. With numerous humorous illustrations. David Bogua, 1846 to 1853. Rookwood. By W. Harrison Ainsworth. Twelve etchings. Macro-iu, 1836. The Adventures of Sir Frizzle Pumpkin, Seven full-page etchings. Edinburgh : Blackwood, 1836. Land and Sea Tales. In two volumes. Full-page frontispiece, and engraved title to each volume. Effingham Wilson, 1836. A Comic Alphabet. Twenty-six humorous coloured etchings, 1836. A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. By Washington Irving. Illustrations. Tegg, 1835. Sketches by "Boz." Illustrative of Every-Day Life, and Every-Day People. By Charles Dickens. Two volumes. Sixteen full-page etchings. John Macrone, 1836. 138 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS [1837 Sketches by "Boz." Illustrative of Every-Day Life, and Every-Day People. By Charles Dickens. Second Series. Twelve full -page etchings. Macronc, 1837. I o & The Waverley Novels. Forty-eight volumes. Thirty-five etchings. Fisher and Co., 1836 to 1839, Rambles in the Footsteps of Don Quixote. Six full-page etchings and two vignettes. Whittaker, 1837. Edward Lascelles. Four illustrations. Two volumes. Dublin: Cicrrii, 1837. Bentley's Miscellany. The first fourteen volumes were illustrated by Cruik- shank, with etchings on steel. A hundred and twenty-six of his plates : 24 to 'Oliver Twist,' 27 to 'Jack Sheppard,' 22 to 'Guy Fawkes,' 8 to the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' 7 to 'Nights at Sea,' 3 to 'Stanley Thorn,' and 35 to miscellaneous articles. Bcntley, 1837 to 1843. Oliver Tv^ist ; or, the Parish Boy's Progress. By Charles Dickens. Three volumes. Twenty-four illustrations. Bentley, 1838. Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Edited by "Boz." Two volumes. Twelve full-page etchings. Bentley, 1838. Lympsfield and its Environs : a series of views of that village ; and the 'Old Oak Chair.' Four woodcut illustrations. "Westerham : Henry George, 1838. Land Sharks and Ska Gulls. By Captain Glascock. Three volumes. Six etchings. Bentley, 1838. Topsail-Sheet Blocks ; or, The Naval Foundling. By the " Old Sailor." Three volumes. Etchings. Bentley, 1838. More Hints on Etiquette. Woodcuts. Tilt, 1838. Chemistry no Mystery. By an Old Philosopher. Two woodcuts. Harvey and Barton, 1839. Life of Maxsie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith. Eight illustrations on steel. Edinburgh : Blackwood, 1839. The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman, Notes by Charles Dickens. Twelve etchings. Tilt, 1839. Jack Sheppard. By W. Harrison Ainsworth. Three volumes. Twenty-seven full-page etchings and woodcut tailpiece. Bentley, 1839. Illustration to a Set of Quadrilles from Rodvs^ell's Celebrated Romance, Jack Sheppard. Portraits of Paul Bedford, Miss Campbell, Mrs. Keeley, Mrs. Naylor. D'Almaine, Soho Square, 1839. The Tower of London. By W. Harrison Ainsworth. Forty large etchings, and fifty-eight woodcuts. Bentley, 1840. The Ingoldsby Legends ; or. Mirth and Marvels. By T. Ingoldsby. (Second Series, 1842. Third Series, 1847.) Many illustrations. Bentley', \MQ. Guy Fawkes. By William Harrison Aijisworth. Three volumes. Twenty-two full-page etchings. Bentley, 1841. Songs op the late Charles Dibdin. With a Memoir, Twelve plates. Murray, 1841. to 1846.] ILLUSTEATED BY CRUIKSHANK. 139 The Pic-NIC Papers. Edited by Charles Dickens. Three volumes. Two etchings. Colhurn, 1841. Geoege Cruikshank's Omnibus. Edited by Laman Blanchard. One hundred engravings on steel and wood. Tilt and Bogue, 1841. Cakes and Ale. By Douglas Jerrold. Two volumes. Frontispieces and engraved titles. Hoio and Parsons, 1842. Ainsworth's Magazine. Edited by William Harrison Ainsworth. The first six volumes only were illustrated by Cruikshank. 'The Miser's Daughter,' 20 etchings, 3 woodcuts ; ' Windsor Castle,' 14 etchings ; ' Elliston Papers,' 3 etchings ; ' John Manesty, ' 6 etchings ; ' Modern Chivalry, ' 5 etchings, 1 woodcut ; ' St. James's ; or, the Court of Queen Anne,' 14 etchings. Cunning- ham and Mortimer, 1842 to 1844. The Miser's Daughter. By Harrison Ainsworth.. Three volumes. Twenty etchings. Cunningham and Mortimer, 1842. Windsor Castle. By Harrison Ainsworth. Fourteen etchings. Parry, 1847. The Drunkard. A Poem. By John O'Neill. Portrait of the author, and four full-page etchings. Tilt and Bogtte, 1842. Martin's Vagaries, a sequel to 'A Tale of a Tub.' Two full-page etchings, and one woodcut. A. H. Baily and Co., 1843. Modern Chivalry ; or, A New Orlando Furioso. Two volumes. Four full- page etchings, and woodcut vignette. Mortimer, \%4tZ. The Comic Blackstone. By Gilbert Abbott d Beckett. An etching and two woodcuts. Pionch Office, 1844. The Bachelor's Own Book; or, The Adventures of Mr. Lambkin (Gent.). Twenty-four plates, 1844. Memoirs of Robert William Elliston, Comedian. By George Raymond. Three full-page etchings. Mortimer, 1844. Arthur O'Leary :,His Wanderings and Ponderings in Many Lands. By Charles Lever. Three volumes. Portrait, and nine other full-page etchings. Colburn, 1844. George Cruikshank's Table-Book. Edited by Gilbert Abbott a Beckett. Twelve etchings, six glyphographs, and a hundred and twenty woodcuts. Picnch Office, 1845. History of the Irish Rebellion in 1788. By W. H. Maxwell. Twenty spirited etchings, and a woodcut design. Baily B?vthers, 1845. The Old Sailor's Jolly Boat, laden with Tales and Yarns to please all Hands ; pulled by Wit, Fun, Humour, and Pathos, and steered by Matthew Henry Barker. Seven of the twenty-four etchings are entirely or partly by George, and the rest by Robert Cruikshank. Willoughby, 1845. Prisons and Prisoners. By Joseph Adshead. Frontispiece. Longmans, 1845, Sketches from Life. By Laman Blanchard. Three volumes. Two woodcuts, Colburn, 1848. The Snow Storm. A Christmas Story. By Mrs. Gore, Four fuU-pago etchings. Fisher, 1846. 140 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS [1847 The Yule Locj for the Christmas Hearth. Four full-page etchings, etched title, and woodcut. Newhy, 1847. The Good Genius that turned Everything into Gold. A Christmas Faivy Tale. By the Brothers Mayhew. Boguc, 1847. The Greatest Plague of Life. Twelve full-page etchings. Bogue, 1847. Whom to Marry, and How to Get Married. Edited by the Brothers Mayhew. Twelve full-page etchings, and woodcut vignette. Bogue, 1847, The Bottle. Eight plates. Bogiie, 1847. The Drunkard's Children. A Sequel to " The Bottle. " Eight plates. Boguc, 1848. The Pentamerone. By Giambattista Basile. Translated by John Edward Taylor. Four etchings. Bogue, 1848. The Inundation. By Mrs. Gore. Four full-page etchings. Fisher, 1848. The Magic of Kindness. By the Brothers Mayhew. Four full-page etchings. Barton, 1849. Kit Bam's Adventures. By Mary Cowden Clarke. Four etchings and a woodcut. Grant and Griffith, 1849. Clement Lorimer. By Angus B. Reach. Twelve full-page illustrations. 1849. Frank Fairleigh ; or. Scenes from the Life of a Private Pupil. Thirty illustra- tions on steel. Hall, Virtue ami Co., 1850. Fairy Mythology. By Thomas Keightley. Etched frontispiece. Bohn, 1850. The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and Family. By Henry Mayhew and George Oruikshank. Ten etchings, and engraved woodcut title. Bogue, 1851. Stop Thief ! or, Hints to Housekeepers. By George Cruikshank. Fourteen woodcuts. Bradbury and Evar^s, 1851. The Betting Book. By George Cruikshank. With cuts. Cash, 1852. The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil. By Edward G. Flight. Seven illustrations. Bogue, 1852. Talpa ; or. The Chronicles of a Clay Farm. By Chandos Wren Hoskyns. Twenty-four woodcuts. Eeeve and Co., 1852. The Domestic Habits of the People. Six illustrations. Charles Gilpin, 1852. The Glass and the New Crystal Palace. By George Cruikshank. Twelve woodcuts. Cassell, 1853. Uncle Tom's Cabin. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Twenty-seven illustrations on wood. Cassell, 1853. George Cruikshank's Fairy Librart. — ' Hop 0' my Thumb,' and the ' . ' Seven-League Boots.' Six etchings. Bogtte, 185Z. The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk. Six etchings. Bogue, 1853. Cinderella, or. The Glass Slipper, Ten etchings. Bogue, 1853. Puss in Boots. Six full-page etchings. Bogue, 185i. to 18G9.] ILLUSTRATED BY CRUIKSHANK. 141 George Ckuikshank's MaCxAzine. Edited by Frank E. Smedley. Onhj two 2Mrts issued. Bogiie, 1854. Lady Arabella ; or, the Adventures of a DoU. By Miss Pardee. Four full- page illustrations. Kii^hy, 1856. London Lyrics. By Frederick Locker. With one etching. Chapman and Hall, 1857. The Life of Sir John Falstaff. By Robert B. Brough. Issued in ten monthly parts. Twenty full-page etchings. Longmans, 1857-8. Stenelaus and Amylda : A Christmas Legend. Three woodcuts. Griffith and Farran, 1858. LoBiMER Littlegood, Esq., a Young Gentleman who wished to see Society. By Alfred W. Cole. Twelve full-page etchings. Jamas Blackwood, 1858. Midnight Scenes and Social Photographs. Sketches of Life in the Streets. Frontispiece. Glasgow : Murray, 1858. The Biglow Papers. By James Russell Lowell. "VVifh frontispiece. Ilotten, 1859. Old Faces in New Masks. By Robert Blakey. Etched frontispiece and title- page. Kent and Co., 1859. A Por-GUN FiRFD OFF BY George Cruikshank in Defence of the British Volunteers of 1803. Eight woodcuts and two portraits. Kent and Co., 1860. Out and About : A Boy's Adventures. By Hain Friswell. Six woodcuts. Groombridge and Sons, 1860. Holidays with Hobgoblins, and Talk of Strange Things. By Dudley Costello. With illustrations. Hotten, 1861. Puck on Pegasus. By H. Cholmondeley Peunell. With frontispiece. Hotten, 1861. The Oyster. Frontispiece, and woodcut vignette on title-page. Truhner and Co., 1861. A DiscoA^ERY Concerning Ghosts. Mne engravings. Arnold, 1863. How Sam Adams' Pipe Became a Pig. By J. W. Kirton. Six woodcuts. Partridge, 1864. Popular Romances of the West of England. Collected and edited by Robert Hunt. First and second series, with frontispiece to each. Hotten, 1865. The Travels and Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Five woodcuts, and twenty-two full-page curious engravings. Tegg, 1867. The Savage Club Papers. Edited by Andrew Halliday. With etchings Tinslcy Brothers, li67-8. The Gin Palace. Twelve woodcuts. Partridge and Co., 1869. Buy your Own Goose. Woodcut on title-page. Partridge and Co., 1869. The Oak. A Magazine. Edited by the Rev. Charles Rogers. With frontispiece. Griffin and Co., 1869. 142 WORKS ILLUSTRATED BY CRUIKSHANK. [1870 to 1877. The Brownies, and other Tales. By Juliana Horatia Evving. Four illustrations. Bell and Daldxj, 1870. Remarks on Education. By George Cruikshank. Three woodcuts, 1870. The Artist and the Author. A Statement of Facts. By the Artist, George Cruikshank. Bell and Daldy, 1872. Lob Lie-by-the-Fire. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. Three illustrations. Ball and Sons, 1874. Peeps at Life and Studies in my Cell. By the London Hermit. Two illustrations, signed "George Cruikshank, age 83, 1875." Simpkin, 1875. The Rose and the Lily. A Fairy Tale. By Mrs. Octavian Blewitt. A frontispiece. This f rontispiece wcis designed and etched in 1875, in the artist's eighty-third year, and was probably the last book-illustration execiUed by him. Chatto and Windus, 1877. An exhaustive and well-annotated List of the Principal "Works illustrated by this artist, appears at the end of Mr. Elanchard Jerrold's 'Life of George Cruikshank.' INDEX. Aiistey's 'New Bath Guide,' 42 Bank Bcstridion Note, 27 Beaux and Belles of IS'lS, 52 Belch W., printseller, 11 ' Bentley's Miscellany,' 46, 48 Bill Sykes, 14, 128 ' Bomhastes Furioso,' 103 Bottle, The, 4, 50, 52, 56, 63 Bnnbiuy, 3 Byron, Lord, 40 Cohbett, William, 10, 26 CoUett, John, 7 'Comic Almanack,' The,' 43, 48, 114, 117 Commentaries on the New Police Act, 48 Court, The, at Brighton, 22 Cruikshank, George — Birth, 1 School, 7 Marriage, 6 Residences, 7, 13 First sketches, 8 Collections of his works, 8 Earliest etching, 10 Love of London, 13 Etched portrait of his father, 15 First book illustration, 10 Letter to Mr. Whitaker on the subject of the Banl- Restriction Note, 28 Employed to illustrate Byron, 40 Works in oils, 52 Relations with publishers, 61, 62 Financial position, 61, 62 Invited to join ' Punch,' 62 Becomes an ardent devotee of temper- ance principles, 63 Entered as a probationer of the Royal Academy, 64 Pension from the Civil List, 64 Death and Burial, 64, 65. Cruikshank, Isaac, 5, 6 ' Demonology and Witchcraft,' 42 Dickens, Charles, 32 ' Don Quixote,' 43 Doyle, Richard, 4 Dninkard's Children, The, 50, 56 'Epping Hunt,' 99, 102 Exeter Hall, 10 ' Fairy Library, ' The, 50 First Attempts, 8 Fores, S.AV., publisher, 16, 19 ' Fox under the Hill,' 8 Fuseli, 12 ' Gil Bias,' 43 Gillray, 3, 78 'Greemvich Hospital,' 121 Grimm's 'German Popular Stories,' 38, 104 " H. B.'s" Caricatures, 4 'History of the Irish Rebellion,' by Maxwell, 14, 41, 50 Hogarth, 2, 3, 5, 13 Hone, William, 29, 30, 32 ' Humourist,' The, 25 ' Hmnphrey Clinker,' 42 Humphrey, Mrs., publisher, 20, 35 ' Ingoldsby Legends,' 46 'Jack Sheppard,' 47, 123, 124 Jerrold, Blanchard, 6, 14, 28, 32 'John Gilpin,' 99 Kay, 3 144 INDEX. Kean, Edmund, 8 Kemble, John, 19 Leech, John, 4 ' Life of ISTapoleon,' 21 ' Life of Sir John Falstaff,' 50 'Life in London,' by Pierce Egan, 3S, 81 'Life in Paris,' 80, 105 Lottery Prints, 11 ' Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman,' 47 Macnaughten, Mary, 6 Miserable Sinners ! 93, 94 ' Mornings at Bow Street,' 41 Kapoleon, 19 ' New Bath Guide,' Anstey's, 42 Odd Full, 33 'Oliver Twist,' 44, 45 ' Omnibus, ' The, 47 0. P. Riots, 19 'Peter Schlemihl,' 37, 41, 104 ' Points of Humour,' 40, 74, 82 'Political House that Jack Built,' 25 Princess Charlotte, 24 ' Punch and Judy,' 41, 42 Reid's Catalogue, 8, 10 Roach, publisher, 8 'Robinson Crusoe,' 43 ' Roderick Random,' 42 Rowlandson, 3 ' Satirist,' The, 20 'Scourge,' The, 20 'Scraps and Sketches,' 43 'Sketches by Boz,' 43, 46 Sunday in London, 52 Syntax, Dr., 21 'Table-Book,' The, 50 Thackeray, W. M., 1, 2, 15 ' Three Courses and a Dessert, ' 41, 43 87 • 'Tom Thumb,' 103 ' Tower of London,' 47 Townshend, first Marquis, 3 'Town Talk,' 20 Triumph of Cupid, The, 62 Westminster Aquarium, 8 — 11 Wilson, Professor, 40 'Wit's Magazine,' The, 25 Wooler, a printer, 21 Worshi2} of Bacchus, The, 52, 56, 64 York, Duke of, 19 THE END. liichard Clay §■ Sons, Limited, London Jiv/agay. Ellustratet 23iograp{j{es of tje ffireat Artists. Each volu?ne contains many ilbtstrations, including; when possible, a Portrait qf the Master, and is strongly bound iti decorated cloth. Crown Svo, 6d. per ■volume, unless marked otherwise. ENGLISH PAINTERS. Sir Joshua Reynolds. By F. S. Pulling, M.A, From the most recent Authorities. Illustrated with Engravings of Penelope Boothby — The Strawberry Girl — Muscipula — Mrs. Siddons — The Duchess of Devonshire — Age of Innocence — Simplicity — and ten other Paintings. William Hogarth. By Austin Dobson. From Recent Researches. Illus- trated with Reproductions of Groups from the celebrated Engravings of the Rake's Progress — Southwark Fair — The Distressed Poet — the Enraged Musician — Marriage a-la-Mode — March ' to Finchley — and ten other subjects. Gainsborough and Constable. By G. Brock-Arnold, M.A. Illustrated with Engravings of the Blue Boy — Mrs. Graham — The Duchess of Devonshire— and five others by Gainsborough ; and A Lock on the Stour— Salisbury Cathedral — The Cornfield— The Valley Farm — and four other Pictures by Constable. Sir Thomas Iiawrence and George Romney. By Lord Ronald Gower, F.S.A. Illustrated with Engravings of the Duchess of Sutherland — Lady Peel — Master Lambton — and Nature, by Lawrence ; the Parson's Daughter — and other Pictures, by Romney. Price 2S. bd. Turner. By CosMO MoNKHOUSE. From Recent Investigations. Illustrated with Engravings of Norham Castle— The Devil's Bridge — The Golden Bough— the . Fighting Temeraire— Venice— The Shipwreck— Alps at Daybreak— and eleven other Paintings. Sir David Wilkie. By J. W. MoLLETT, B. A. Illustrated with Engravings of Groups from the Rent Day — The Village Politicians — The Penny Wedding — Blind Man's Buff — Duncan Grey — The Cut Finger — and four other Paintings. Sir Edwin Landseer. By F. G. Stephens. Illustrated with seventeen Fac- similes of Etchings after Landseer's designs ; among others. Low Life — A Shepherd's Dog — Four Irish Greyhounds — Return from Deerstalking — Mare and Foal — Sheep and Lambs — and Facsimiles of the Woburn Game-cards. David Cox and Peter de Wint. By Gilbert R. Redgrave. Illustrated with a Portrait of Cox, by Sir J. W. Gordon, R. A. — and reproductions of twenty Paintings and Drawings in the Birmingham Art Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, and the Collection of Mr. J. Orrock. ii ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS. William Mulready, Memorials of. Collected by F. G. Stephens, Illus- trated with Reproductions of Studies from the Life, and Sketches in the South Kensington Museum— The Mulready Envelope— Cuts in the Vicar of Wakefield— The Sonnet— Choosing the Wedding Gown — and other works. George Cruikshank, His Life and Works. Including a Memoir by F. G. Stephens, and an Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank by W. M. Thackeray. Illus- trated with reproductions of Etchings in Dibdin's Songs— Life of Sir John FalstafF— Oliver Twist, &c. — and thirty Wood-engravings from various works. ITALIAN PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS. Giotto. By Harry Quilter, M.A. From Recent investigations at Padua, Florence, and Assisi. Illustrated with Engravings of the Presentation in the Temple— The Entombment of Christ— Obedience, and other Frescoes— Bas-reliefs on the Campanile, Florence — and a Coloured Plate of the Madonna at Assisi. Pra Angelico and the Early Painters of Florence. By C. M. Phillimore. Illustrated with Engravings of the Resuscitation of the King's Son, by Masaccio— The Ador- ation of the Kings, by Fra Angelico— the Coronation of the Virgin, by Filippo Lippi— The Coronation of the Virgin, by Botticelli— and thirteen other Paintings. Fra Bartolommeo, Albertinelli, and Andrea del Sarto. By Leader Scott. Illustrated with the Enthronement of the Virgin— St. Mark— Salvator Mundi, by Fra Bartolommeo— the Virgin and Saints, by Albertinelli— The Madonna del Sacco, by Del Sarto — and ten other Paintings. Ghiberto and DonateUo. By Leader Scott. Illustrated with Engravings of the Marble Pulpit of Pisano— The Bronze Gate of the Baptistery at Florence, by Ghiberti (four pages) — The St. George of Donatello— and ten other examples of Sculptures. Price 21-, 6d. Delia Robbia, Cellini, and other Celebrated Sculptors of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. By Leader Scott. With Illustrations of the Singers and other Bas- reliefs, by Luca della Robbia— Perseus, by Cellini— Mercury, by Giovanni da Bologna— and many other Statues. Price 2s. 6d. Mantegna and Francia. By JULIA Cartwright. Illustrated with En- gravings of Lodovico Gonzago and his Son— Part of the Triumphs of Caesar— the Madonna della Vittoria, by Mantegna— The Virgin and Saints— The .Deposition— a Pieta, by Francia — and eight other Paintings. Iieonardo da Vinci. By Dr. J. Paul Richter. Illustrated with Engravings of the Last Supper— The Virgin and St. Anne— Mona Lisa— The Vierge aux Rochers— The Battle of Anghiari— Head of Christ— and nine other Paintings and Drawings. Michelangelo Buonarroti. By Charles Clement. Illustrated with En- gravings from the Frescoes of the Last Judgment— The Prophet Isaiah— The Creation of Man — Pisan Soldiers bathing in the Arno— and of the Statues of Moses— The Madonna of Bruges— The Tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano de" Medici— and ten other works in Painting and Sculpture. ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS, iii Raphael. By N. D'Anvers. Illustrated with Engravings of Lo Sposalizio — La Belle Jardiniere — The School of Athens — Madonna di Foligno — St. Cecilia — Madonna della Tenda— Madonna della Sedia — Battle of Constantine — The Transfiguration — and fourteen other Paintings. Titian. By R. F. HEATH, M.A. Illustrated with Engravings of La Bella di Tiziano — The Tribute Money — The Assumption of the Virgin— The Pesaro Altarpiece — St. Peter Martyr — Titian's Daughter— and eight other Paintings. Tintoretto. By W. R. Ostler. From Investigations at Venice. Illustrated with Engravings of the Miracle of the Slave — The Marriage at Cana — The Entombment — The Crucifixion — The Betrothal of St. Catherine, &c. Correggio. By M. Compton Heaton. Illustrated with Engravings of La Notte — II Giorno — ^Marriage of St. Catherine — St. John the Evangelist — The Madonna at Dresden — and five other Paintings. Price 2.s. td. SPANISH PAINTERS. Velazquez. By E. Stowe, M.A, Illustrated with Engravings of Isabel of Spain — The Duke of Olivarez — The Water-Carrier — The Topers — The Surrender of Breda — The Maids of Honour — View^ of the Villa Medici — and eight other Paintings. Murillo. By Ellen E. Minor. A Memoir derived from Recent Works. Illustrated with eight Engravings after the Master's celebrated Paintings, including the Immaculate Conception, in the Louvre — The Prodigal Son, at Stafford House — The Holy Family (with the scodella), at Madrid — A Portrait of the Artist — and other Works. Price is. 6d. GERMAN PAINTERS. Albrecht Diirer. By R. F. Heath, M.A. Illustrated with Engravings of the Conversion of St. Eustace — The Trinity — The Great White Horse — The Knight, Death, and the Devil— SS. John and Peter — SS. Paul and Mark — Christ taking leave of His Mother — and twelve other Paintings, Engravings, and Woodcuts. Little Masters of Germany. By W. B. ScoTT. Altdorfer, Hans Sebald Beham, Bartel Beham, Aldegrever, Pencz, Binck, and Brosamer. Illustrated with Engravings of the Emperor Charles V.,.by Bartel Beham — The Madonna of the Crescent Moon, by Aldegrever — Sophonisba, by Pencz — and several examples of Decorative Ornament, &c. Mans Holbein. By Joseph Cundall. Illustrated with Engravings of the Meyer Madonna — Archbishop Warham— The Family of Sir Thomas More — Hubert Morett — Henry VIII. — and Examples of the Woodcuts in the Praise of Folly — The Dance of Death — The Bible Cuts, &c. Overbeck. By J. Beavington Atkinson. Comprising his Early Years, in Lubeck, Studies at Vienna and Settlement at Rome. Illustrated with Engravings of Christ Blessing Little Children— Christ Bearing the Cross— The Entombment— The Holy Family with the Lamb, &c. ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISIS. FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTERS. Rembrandt. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. Illustrated with Engravings of the Lesson on Anatomy— the Descent from the Cross— Saskia— The Night Watch— Burgomaster Six — The Three Trees— and other celebrated Paintings and Etchings.! Rubens. By C. W. Kett, M.A. Illustrated with Engravings from Rubens and Isabella Brandt— The Descent from the Cross— Rubens' Two Sons— Henri IV. and Marie de M6dicis— The Chateau de Steen— The Chapeau de Poil— and ten other Paintings. Van Dyck and Hals. By P. R. Head, B.A. Illustrated with Engravings of the Syndic Meerstraten— Ecce Homo — Charles I. and the Marquis of Hamilton — Henrietta Maria, with Princes Charles and James, &c., by Van Dyck ; and Hals and Lisbeth Reyners— The Banquet of Arquebusiers— A Cavalier, &c., by Hals. Figure Painters of Holland. By Lord Ronald Gower, F. S.A. Illustrated with Engravings of Paternal Advice, by Terborch— The Hunchback Fiddler, by Adrian van Ostade— Inn Stable, by Wouwerman— Dancing Dog, by Steen— Vegetable Market, by Metzu —Dutch Family, by Ver Meer, &c. Landscape Painters of Holland. By Frank Cundall. With thirty Illus- trations of Works by Ruisdael, Hobbema, Cuijp, and Potter— and a Catalogue of their principal Paintings and Etchings. FRENCH PAINTERS. Watteau. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. Illustrated with Engravings of Fetes Galantes, Portraits, Studies from the Life, Pastoral Subjects, and Designs for Ornament. Price 2^. (id. Claude le Iiorrain. By O. J. Dullea. Illustrated with Engravings of Crossing the Ford— An Italian Harbour at Sunset— A Seaport— The Campo Vaccino— and many others from his celebrated " Liber Veritatis." Vernet and Delaroche. ' By J. RUUTZ Rees. Illustrated with Engravings of The Trumpeter's Horse— The Death of Poniatowski— The Battle of Fontenoy, and five others, by Vernet ; and Richelieu with Cinque Mars and De Thou— Death of the Due de Guise- Charles I. and Cromwell's Soldiers— and a large Engraving of the Hemicycle of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, by Delaroche. Meissonier. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. Illustrated with Engravings from The Chess Players— La Rixe— The Halt— The Reader— The Flemish Smoker— and examples of M. Meissonier's Book Illustrations. Price is. 6d. Painters Of Barbizon, I. Millet, Rousseau and Diaz. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. Illustrated with Engravings from The Gleaners, The Spinner, The Angelus, &c., by Millet— The Flood, The Pool in the Forest of Fontainebleau, by Rousseau— Forest Scene and The Bathers,!by Diaz— and by Portraits of the Artists. Painters of Barbizon.II. Corot,Daubigny and Dupr€. By J.W.Mollett, B.A. Illustrated with Engravings from a Storm on the Sandhills, The Pond at Ville d'Avray, The Banks of the Stream, and the Dance of the Nymphs, by Corot— Spring Time, a Land- scape, The Flock of Geese, by Daubigny— and the Setting Sun, the Pool, and the Punt, by Dupre. GETTY CENTER LIBRARY MAIN NC 242 C95 S83 BKS c 1 Stephens. Frederic G A memoir of George Crulkshank , 3 3125 00227 6034