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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2648-h.zip b/2648-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..77f0f69 --- /dev/null +++ b/2648-h.zip diff --git a/2648-h/2648-h.htm b/2648-h/2648-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6964827 --- /dev/null +++ b/2648-h/2648-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2075 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + George Cruikshank, by William Makepeace Thackeray + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's George Cruikshank, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: George Cruikshank + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 21, 2006 [EBook #2648] +Last Updated: December 17, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE CRUIKSHANK *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + GEORGE CRUIKSHANK + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By William Makepeace Thackeray + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + * Reprinted from the Westminster Review for June, 1840. (No 66.) + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations 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 somewhat 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 "ingenious 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 which 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 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. Neither member of the new partnership 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. + </p> + <p> + 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, wandering 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. + </p> + <p> + The reader who has seen the name affixed to the head of this article + scarcely expected 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 + 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 vapor 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 straight-way 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 works—the "Busen fuhlt sich jugendlich erschuttert," + 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 wonderful pencil has illustrated? 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 "Illustrations 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 honor of drawing the first lot, + and seized immediately upon "Philoprogenitiveness"—a marvellous + print (our copy is not at all improved by being colored, which operation + we performed on it ourselves)—a marvellous print, indeed,—full + of ingenuity and fine jovial humor. 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 nightcaps, in + frocks, in bibs, in breeches, are clambering about the head, knees, and + arms of the man with the nose; their noses, too, are preternaturally + developed—the twins in the cradle have noses of the most + considerable 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 savory dish of Yorkshire pudding for eighteen persons; the + youths who are examining her operations (one a literary gentleman, in a + remarkably neat nightcap and pinafore, who has just had his finger in the + pudding); the genius who is at work on the slate, and the two honest lads + who are hugging the good-humored 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 heart; every one of those he has drawn is perfectly happy, and jovial, + and affectionate, and innocent as possible. He makes them with large + noses, but he loves them, and you always find something kind in the midst + of his humor, 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. + </p> + <p> + 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, Sweetings 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 windows—where are they? 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! 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 humor with a general sympathizing roar. Where are these people now? You + never hear any laughing at HB.; 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. + </p> + <p> + There must be no smiling with Cruikshank. A man who does not laugh + outright is a dullard, and has no heart; even the 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 Humor" 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 up 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 + infelix, 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,* in his dirty, tattered, faded motley—seized + as a law-breaker, for acting at a penny theatre, after having wellnigh + starved in the streets, where nobody would listen to his old guitar? No + one gave a shilling to bless him: not one of us who owe him so much. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * This was written in 1840. +</pre> + <p> + We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased at finding his + name in such company as that of Clown and Harlequin; but he, like them, is + certainly the children's friend. His drawings abound in feeling 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 schoolboys 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. 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 butterfly-hunting across a common! + Such a light, brisk, airy, gentleman-like drawing was never made upon such + a theme. Who, cries the author— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Who has not chased the butterfly, + And crushed its slender legs and wings, + And heaved a moralizing sigh: + Alas! how frail are human things!" +</pre> + <p> + A very unexceptionable morality truly; but it would have puzzled another + than George Cruikshank to make mirth out of it as he 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 farmhouses, 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 lifelike 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,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "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." +</pre> + <p> + 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 endeavoring 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 in 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 morality + is, that the uncle one day in the morning of life vowed that he would + catch his two nephews and tie them together, 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." + </p> + <p> + Does it not seem impossible to make a picture out of this? And yet George + Cruikshank has produced a charming design, in which the uncles 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 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. + </p> + <p> + It is folly to say that this or that kind of humor is too good for the + public, that only a chosen few can relish it. The best humor 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 humor 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 + humor 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 + populaire (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 favor, + where a man of three times his acquirements will only find indifference + 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 Gilray would have been + far more successful and more powerful but for that unhappy bribe, which + turned the whole course of his humor into an unnatural channel. Cruikshank + 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 spotless, 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 would not stand by and see a woman ill-used, and so + struck in for her rescue, he and the people belaboring 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. + </p> + <p> + To be sure we have never heard so much from Mr. Cruikshank'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, + Sidmouth, 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 disloyalty; 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 regular John Bull style, + with the Gilray 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 XVIII. 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. + </p> + <p> + It must be confessed that for that great nation Mr. Cruikshank 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 invariably thin, with ludicrous spindle-shanks, pigtails, + outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and queer hair and mustachios. 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 Boulingrog" and "Lady + Crockmilove." 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. + </p> + <p> + A curious book, called "Life in Paris," published in 1822, contains a + number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style; and though we believe + he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great deal of life + in them, and pass muster very well. A villanous 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 colored, 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. + </p> + <p> + As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs and the + evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British Museum and no + less than five circulating libraries in quest of the book, and "Life in + London," alas, is not to be found at any one of them. We can only, + therefore, speak of the work from recollection, but have still a very + clear remembrance of the leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green + spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom. They were the + 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 watchman at Temple Bar; Tom and Jerry dancing at Almack's; or + flirting in the saloon at the theatre; at the night-houses, after the + play; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver cup then in the possession of + that champion; at the chambers of Bob Logic, who, seated at a cabinet + piano, plays a waltz to which Corinthian Tom and Kate are dancing; 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 without 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 Humor." 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 labored + as some of his later productions, are none the worse, in our opinion, for + their comparative want of finish. All the effects are perfectly given, and + the expression is 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 parts, 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 Honor," illustrates the old story of the officer who, on being accused + of cowardice for refusing to fight a duel, came among his brother officers + and flung a lighted grenade down upon the floor, before which his comrades + fled ignominiously. This design is capital, and the outward rush of + heroes, walking, trampling, twisting, scuffling 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 gutter, were, by a charitable though misguided gentleman, + 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 temporary union was followed by one more + lasting and sentimental, and that these two worthy persons were married, + and lived happily ever after. + </p> + <p> + 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 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? By + heavens, it is the squire of the parish. What business has he there? 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 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 banknotes, although he was + so mighty scrupulous in endeavoring to find an owner for the corduroy + portfolio in which he had found them. + </p> + <p> + Passing from this painful subject, we come, we regret to state, 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. Sheppard, who has at the lamented demise of her husband + adopted the very same consolation. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "My curse upon them every one, + They've hanged my braw John Highlandman; + + . . . . + + And now a widow I must mourn + Departed joys that ne'er return; + No comfort but a hearty can + When I think on John Highlandman." +</pre> + <p> + Sweet "raucle carlin," she has none of the sentimentality of the English + highwayman's lady; but being wooed by a tinker and + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "A pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle + Wha us'd to trystes and fairs to driddle," +</pre> + <p> + prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker sings with a + noble candor, worthy of a fellow of his strength of body and station in + life— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "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." +</pre> + <p> + It was his ruling passion. What was military glory to him, forsooth? He + had the greatest contempt for it, and loved freedom 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-scraper" by the beard,—drawing his "roosty rapier," and + swearing to "speet him like a pliver" unless he would relinquish the + bonnie lassie for ever— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Wi' ghastly ee, poor tweedle-dee + Upon his hunkers bended, + An' pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face, + An' so the quarrel ended." +</pre> + <p> + 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:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Despise that shrimp, that withered imp, + Wi' a' his noise and caperin'; + And take a share with those that bear + The budget and 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." +</pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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 + 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. + </p> + <p> + The late Mr. Clark's excellent work, "Three Courses and a Dessert," was + published at a time when the rage for comic stories was not so great as it + since has been, and 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 contains 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 that wonderful oyster? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, beadles, + policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, 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 Sheppard," and the + immortal Fagin of "Oliver Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in these + persons and things? Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite a + charity boy? Why should a tall life-guardsman have something in him + essentially absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long? What + is there particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a long nose + always provoke the beholder to laughter? These points may be + metaphysically elucidated by those who list. It is probable that Mr. + 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. + </p> + <p> + He has made a complete little gallery of dustmen. There 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 presume, by the right owner, from whom he flies as fast as his + crooked shanks will carry him. + </p> + <p> + 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 belabors the 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 creative power of the man who has arranged this + little tale of low life. How logically it is conducted, how cleverly each + one of the accessories is made to contribute to the effect of the whole. + What a deal of thought and humor 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 dustmen we pass to those purely poetical. + There are three of them who rise on clouds of their own raising, the very + genii of the sack and shovel. + </p> + <p> + Is there no one to write a sonnet to these?—and yet a whole poem was + written about Peter Bell the wagoner, a character by no means so poetic. + </p> + <p> + And lastly, we have the dustman in love: the honest fellow having seen a + young beauty stepping out of a gin-shop on a Sunday morning, is pressing + eagerly his suit. + </p> + <p> + Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Cruikshank, who labors in his own + sound and hearty way to teach his countrymen 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 looming through the darkness whereof you + see an agreeable prospect of gibbets with men dangling, burnt houses, + &c. The vast cloud comes sweeping on in the wake of this horrible + body-crusher; and you see, by way of contrast, a distant, smiling, + sunshiny tract of old English country, where gin as yet is not known. The + allegory is as good, as earnest, and as fanciful as one of John Bunyan's, + and we have often fancied there was a similarity between the men. + </p> + <p> + The render will examine the work called "My Sketch-Book" with not a little + amusement, and may gather from it, as we fancy, a good deal of information + regarding the character of the individual man, George Cruikshank: what + points strike his eye as a painter; what move his anger or admiration as a + moralist; what classes he seems most especially disposed to observe, and + what to ridicule. There are quacks of all kinds, to whom he has a mortal + hatred; quack dandies, who assume under his pencil, perhaps in his eye, + the most grotesque appearance possible—their hats grow larger, their + legs infinitely more crooked and lean; the tassels of their canes swell + out to a most preposterous size; the tails of their coats dwindle away, + and finish where coat-tails generally begin. Let us lay a wager that + Cruikshank, a man of the people if ever there was one, heartily hates and + despises these supercilious, swaggering young gentlemen; and his contempt + is not a whit the less laudable because there may be tant soit peu of + prejudice in it. It is right and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson + said it was to hate Frenchmen; in which sentiment (as we have before said) + George Cruikshank undoubtedly shares. In the "Sunday in London,"* Monsieur + the Chef is instructing a kitchen-maid how to compound some rascally + French kickshaw or the other—a pretty scoundrel truly! with what an + air he wears that nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and + chatters, and ogles, and grins: they are all the same, these mounseers; + there are other two fellows—morbleu! one is putting his dirty + fingers into the saucepan; there are frogs cooking in it, no doubt; and + just over some other dish of abomination, another dirty rascal is taking + snuff! Never mind, the sauce won't be hurt by a few ingredients more or + less. Three such fellows as these are not worth one Englishman, that's + clear. There is one in the very midst of them, the great burly fellow with + the beef: he could beat all three in five minutes. We cannot be certain + that such was the process going on in Mr. Cruikshank's mind when he made + the design; but some feelings of the sort were no doubt entertained by + him. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * The following lines—ever fresh—by the author of + "Headlong Hall," published years ago in the Globe and + Traveller, are an excellent comment on several of the cuts + from the "Sunday in London:"— + + I. + + "The poor man's sins are glaring; + In the face of ghostly warning + He is caught in the fact + Of an overt act, + Buying greens on Sunday morning. + + II. + + "The rich man's sins are hidden + In the pomp of wealth and station, + And escape the sight + Of the children of light, + Who are wise in their generation. + + III. + + "The rich man has a kitchen, + And cooks to dress his dinner; + The poor who would roast, + To the baker's must post, + And thus becomes a sinner. + + IV. + + "The rich man's painted windows + Hide the concerts of the quality; + The poor can but share + A crack'd fiddle in the air, + Which offends all sound morality. + + V. + + "The rich man has a cellar, + And a ready butler by him; + The poor must steer + For his pint of beer + Where the saint can't choose but spy him. + + VI. + + "This rich man is invisible + In the crowd of his gay society; + But the poor man's delight + Is a sore in the sight + And a stench in the nose of piety." +</pre> + <p> + Against dandy footmen he is particularly severe. He hates idlers, + pretenders, boasters, and punishes these fellows as best he may. Who does + not recollect the famous picture, "What IS taxes, Thomas?" What is taxes + indeed; well may that vast, over-fed, lounging flunky ask the question of + his associate Thomas: and yet not well, for all that Thomas says in reply + is, "I DON'T KNOW." "O beati PLUSHICOLAE," what a charming state of + ignorance is yours! In the "Sketch-Book" many footmen make their + appearance: one is a huge fat Hercules of a Portman Square porter, who + calmly surveys another poor fellow, a porter likewise, but out of livery, + who comes staggering forward with a box that Hercules might lift with his + little finger. Will Hercules do so? not he. The giant can carry nothing + heavier than a cocked-hat note on a silver tray, and his labors are to + walk from his sentry-box to the door, and from the door back to his + sentry-box, and to read the Sunday paper, and to poke the hall fire twice + or thrice, and to make five meals a day. Such a fellow does Cruikshank + hate and scorn worse even than a Frenchman. + </p> + <p> + The man's master, too, comes in for no small share of our artist's wrath. + There is a company of them at church, who humbly designate themselves + "miserable sinners!" Miserable sinners indeed! Oh, what floods of + turtle-soup, what tons of turbot and lobster-sauce must have been + sacrificed to make those sinners properly miserable. My lady with the + ermine tippet and draggling feather, can we not see that she lives in + Portland Place, and is the wife of an East India Director? She has been to + the Opera over-night (indeed her husband, on her right, with his fat hand + dangling over the pew-door, is at this minute thinking of Mademoiselle + Leocadie, whom he saw behind the scenes)—she has been at the Opera + over-night, which with a trifle of supper afterwards—a + white-and-brown soup, a lobster-salad, some woodcocks, and a little + champagne—sent her to bed quite comfortable. At half-past eight her + maid brings her chocolate in bed, at ten she has fresh eggs and muffins, + with, perhaps, a half-hundred of prawns for breakfast, and so can get over + the day and the sermon till lunch-time pretty well. What an odor of musk + and bergamot exhales from the pew!—how it is wadded, and stuffed, + and spangled over with brass nails! what hassocks are there for those who + are not too fat to kneel! what a flustering and flapping of gilt + prayer-books; and what a pious whirring of bible leaves one hears all over + the church, as the doctor blandly gives out the text! To be miserable at + this rate you must, at the very least, have four thousand a year: and many + persons are there so enamored of grief and sin, that they would willingly + take the risk of the misery to have a life-interest in the consols that + accompany it, quite careless about consequences, and sceptical as to the + notion that a day is at hand when you must fulfil YOUR SHARE OF THE + BARGAIN. + </p> + <p> + Our artist loves to joke at a soldier; in whose livery there appears to + him to be something almost as ridiculous as in the uniform of the + gentleman of the shoulder-knot. Tall life-guardsmen and fierce grenadiers + figure in many of his designs, and almost always in a ridiculous way. Here + again we have the honest popular English feeling which jeers at pomp or + pretension of all kinds, and is especially jealous of all display of + military authority. "Raw Recruit," "ditto dressed," ditto "served up," as + we see them in the "Sketch-Book," are so many satires upon the army: Hodge + with his ribbons flaunting in his hat, or with red coat and musket, + drilled stiff and pompous, or at last, minus leg and arm, tottering about + on crutches, does not fill our English artist with the enthusiasm that + follows the soldier in every other part of Europe. Jeanjean, the conscript + in France, is laughed at to be sure, but then it is because he is a bad + soldier: when he comes to have a huge pair of mustachios and the + croix-d'honneur to briller on his poitrine cicatrisee, Jeanjean becomes a + member of a class that is more respected than any other in the French + nation. The veteran soldier inspires our people with no such awe—we + hold that democratic weapon the fist in much more honor than the sabre and + bayonet, and laugh at a man tricked out in scarlet and pipe-clay. + </p> + <p> + That regiment of heroes is "marching to divine service," to the tune of + the "British Grenadiers." There they march in state, and a pretty contempt + our artist shows for all their gimcracks and trumpery. He has drawn a + perfectly English scene—the little blackguard boys are playing + pranks round about the men, and shouting, "Heads up, soldier," "Eyes + right, lobster," as little British urchins will do. Did one ever hear the + like sentiments expressed in France? Shade of Napoleon, we insult you by + asking the question. In England, however, see how different the case is: + and designedly or undesignedly, the artist has opened to us a piece of his + mind. In the crowd the only person who admires the soldiers is the poor + idiot, whose pocket a rogue is picking. There is another picture, in which + the sentiment is much the same, only, as in the former drawing we see + Englishmen laughing at the troops of the line, here are Irishmen giggling + at the militia. + </p> + <p> + We have said that our artist has a great love for the drolleries of the + Green Island. Would any one doubt what was the country of the merry + fellows depicted in his group of Paddies? + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Place me amid O'Rourkes, O'Tooles, + The ragged royal race of Tara; + Or place me where Dick Martin rules + The pathless wilds of Connemara." +</pre> + <p> + We know not if Mr. Cruikshank has ever had any such good luck as to see + the Irish in Ireland itself, but he certainly has obtained a knowledge of + their looks, as if the country had been all his life familiar to him. + Could Mr. O'Connell himself desire anything more national than the scene + of a drunken row, or could Father Mathew have a better text to preach + upon? There is not a broken nose in the room that is not thoroughly Irish. + </p> + <p> + We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as + characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the comical look of + poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by the witch's stick, in + order to point out also the singular neatness of the workmanship, and the + pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape that the artist has + introduced in the background. Mr. Cruikshank has a fine eye for such + homely landscapes, and renders them with great delicacy and taste. Old + villages, farm-yards, groups of stacks, queer chimneys, churches, + gable-ended cottages, Elizabethan mansion-houses, and other old English + scenes, he depicts with evident enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + Famous books in their day were Cruikshank's "John Gilpin" and "Epping + Hunt;" for though our artist does not draw horses very scientifically,—to + use a phrase of the atelier,—he FEELS them very keenly; and his + queer animals, after one is used to them, answer quite as well as better. + Neither is he very happy in trees, and such rustical produce; or, rather, + we should say, he is very original, his trees being decidedly of his own + make and composition, not imitated from any master. + </p> + <p> + But what then? Can a man be supposed to imitate everything? We know what + the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. Cruikshank has confined + himself. That postilion with the people in the broken-down chaise roaring + after him is as deaf as the post by which he passes. Suppose all the + accessories were away, could not one swear that the man was stone-deaf, + beyond the reach of trumpet? What is the peculiar character in a deaf + man's physiognomy?—can any person define it satisfactorily in words?—not + in pages; and Mr. Cruikshank has expressed it on a piece of paper not so + big as the tenth part of your thumb-nail. The horses of John Gilpin are + much more of the equestrian order; and as here the artist has only his + favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is to be said against his + design. The inn and old buildings are charmingly designed, and nothing can + be more prettily or playfully touched. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "At Edmonton his loving wife + From the balcony spied + Her tender husband, wond'ring much + To see how he did ride. + + "'Stop, stop, John Gilpin! Here's the house!' + They all at once did cry; + 'The dinner waits, and we are tired—' + Said Gilpin—'So am I!' + + "Six gentlemen upon the road + Thus seeing Gilpin fly, + With post-boy scamp'ring in the rear, + They raised the hue and cry:— + + "'Stop thief! stop thief!—a highwayman!' + Not one of them was mute; + And all and each that passed that way + Did join in the pursuit. + + "And now the turnpike gates again + Flew open in short space; + The toll-men thinking, as before, + That Gilpin rode a race." +</pre> + <p> + The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellently depicted by the + artist; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing animals, + must here make a special exception in favor of the hens and chickens; each + has a different action, and is curiously natural. + </p> + <p> + Happy are children of all ages who have such a ballad and such pictures as + this in store for them! It is a comfort to think that woodcuts never wear + out, and that the book still may be had for a shilling, for those who can + command that sum of money. + </p> + <p> + In the "Epping Hunt," which we owe to the facetious pen of Mr. Hood, our + artist has not been so successful. There is here too much horsemanship and + not enough incident for him; but the portrait of Roundings the huntsman is + an excellent sketch, and a couple of the designs contain great humor. The + first represents the Cockney hero, who, "like a bird, was singing out + while sitting on a tree." + </p> + <p> + And in the second the natural order is reversed. The stag having taken + heart, is hunting the huntsman, and the Cheapside Nimrod is most + ignominiously running away. + </p> + <p> + The Easter Hunt, we are told, is no more; and as the Quarterly Review + recommends the British public to purchase Mr. Catlin's pictures, as they + form the only record of an interesting race now rapidly passing away, in + like manner we should exhort all our friends to purchase Mr. Cruikshank's + designs of ANOTHER interesting race, that is run already and for the last + time. + </p> + <p> + Besides these, we must mention, in the line of our duty, the notable + tragedies of "Tom Thumb" and "Bombastes Furioso," both of which have + appeared with many illustrations by Mr. Cruikshank. The "brave army" of + Bombastes exhibits a terrific display of brutal force, which must shock + the sensibilities of an English radical. And we can well understand the + caution of the general, who bids this soldatesque effrenee to begone, and + not to kick up a row. + </p> + <p> + Such a troop of lawless ruffians let loose upon a populous city would play + sad havoc in it; and we fancy the massacres of Birmingham renewed, or at + least of Badajoz, which, though not quite so dreadful, if we may believe + his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the former scenes of slaughter, were + nevertheless severe enough: but we must not venture upon any ill-timed + pleasantries in presence of the disturbed King Arthur and the awful ghost + of Gaffer Thumb. + </p> + <p> + We are thus carried at once into the supernatural, and here we find + Cruikshank reigning supreme. He has invented in his time a little comic + pandemonium, peopled with the most droll, good-natured fiends possible. We + have before us Chamisso's "Peter Schlemihl," with Cruikshank's designs + translated into German, and gaining nothing by the change. The "Kinder und + Hans-Maerchen" of Grimm are likewise ornamented with a frontispiece copied + from that one which appeared to the amusing version of the English work. + The books on Phrenology and Time have been imitated by the same nation; + and even in France, whither reputation travels slower than to any country + except China, we have seen copies of the works of George Cruikshank. + </p> + <p> + He in return has complimented the French by illustrating a couple of Lives + of Napoleon, and the "Life in Paris" before mentioned. He has also made + designs for Victor Hugo's "Hans of Iceland." Strange, wild etchings were + those, on a strange, mad subject; not so good in our notion as the designs + for the German books, the peculiar humor of which latter seemed to suit + the artist exactly. There is a mixture of the awful and the ridiculous in + these, which perpetually excites and keeps awake the reader's attention; + the German writer and the English artist seem to have an entire faith in + their subject. The reader, no doubt, remembers the awful passage in "Peter + Schlemihl," where the little gentleman purchases the shadow of that hero—"Have + the kindness, noble sir, to examine and try this bag." "He put his hand + into his pocket, and drew thence a tolerably large bag of Cordovan + leather, to which a couple of thongs were fixed. I took it from him, and + immediately counted out ten gold pieces, and ten more, and ten more, and + still other ten, whereupon I held out my hand to him. Done, said I, it is + a bargain; you shall have my shadow for your bag. The bargain was + concluded; he knelt down before me, and I saw him with a wonderful + neatness take my shadow from head to foot, lightly lift it up from the + grass, roll and fold it up neatly, and at last pocket it. He then rose up, + bowed to me once more, and walked away again, disappearing behind the rose + bushes. I don't know, but I thought I heard him laughing a little. I, + however, kept fast hold of the bag. Everything around me was bright in the + sun, and as yet I gave no thought to what I had done." + </p> + <p> + This marvellous event, narrated by Peter with such a faithful, + circumstantial detail, is painted by Cruikshank in the most wonderful + poetic way, with that happy mixture of the real and supernatural that + makes the narrative so curious, and like truth. The sun is shining with + the utmost brilliancy in a great quiet park or garden; there is a palace + in the background, and a statue basking in the sun quite lonely and + melancholy; there is a sun-dial, on which is a deep shadow, and in the + front stands Peter Schlemihl, bag in hand: the old gentleman is down on + his knees to him, and has just lifted off the ground the SHADOW OF ONE + LEG; he is going to fold it back neatly, as one does the tails of a coat, + and will stow it, without any creases or crumples, along with the other + black garments that lie in that immense pocket of his. Cruikshank has + designed all this as if he had a very serious belief in the story; he + laughs, to be sure, but one fancies that he is a little frightened in his + heart, in spite of all his fun and joking. + </p> + <p> + The German tales we have mentioned before. "The Prince riding on the Fox," + "Hans in Luck," "The Fiddler and his Goose," "Heads off," are all drawings + which, albeit not before us now, nor seen for ten years, remain indelibly + fixed on the memory. "Heisst du etwa Rumpelstilzchen?" There sits the + Queen on her throne, surrounded by grinning beef-eaters, and little + Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot through the floor in the excess of his + tremendous despair. In one of these German tales, if we remember rightly, + there is an account of a little orphan who is carried away by a pitying + fairy for a term of seven years, and passing that period of sweet + apprenticeship among the imps and sprites of fairy-land. Has our artist + been among the same company, and brought back their portraits in his + sketch-book? He is the only designer fairy-land has had. Callot's imps, + for all their strangeness, are only of the earth earthy. Fuseli's fairies + belong to the infernal regions; they are monstrous, lurid, and hideously + melancholy. Mr. Cruikshank alone has had a true insight into the character + of the "little people." They are something like men and women, and yet not + flesh and blood; they are laughing and mischievous, but why we know not. + Mr. Cruikshank, however, has had some dream or the other, or else a + natural mysterious instinct (as the Seherinn of Prevorst had for beholding + ghosts), or else some preternatural fairy revelation, which has made him + acquainted with the looks and ways of the fantastical subjects of Oberon + and Titania. + </p> + <p> + We have, unfortunately, no fairy portraits; but, on the other hand, can + descend lower than fairy-land, and have seen some fine specimens of + devils. One has already been raised, and the reader has seen him tempting + a fat Dutch burgomaster, in an ancient gloomy market-place, such as George + Cruikshank can draw as well as Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash, or any man living. + There is our friend once more; our friend the burgomaster, in a highly + excited state, and running as hard as his great legs will carry him, with + our mutual enemy at his tail. + </p> + <p> + What are the bets; will that long-legged bondholder of a devil come up + with the honest Dutchman? It serves him right: why did he put his name to + stamped paper? And yet we should not wonder if some lucky chance should + turn up in the burgomaster's favor, and his infernal creditor lose his + labor; for one so proverbially cunning as yonder tall individual with the + saucer eyes, it must be confessed that he has been very often outwitted. + </p> + <p> + There is, for instance, the case of "The Gentleman in Black," which has + been illustrated by our artist. A young French gentleman, by name M. + Desonge, who, having expended his patrimony in a variety of taverns and + gaming-houses, was one day pondering upon the exhausted state of his + finances, and utterly at a loss to think how he should provide means for + future support, exclaimed, very naturally, "What the devil shall I do?" He + had no sooner spoken than a GENTLEMAN IN BLACK made his appearance, whose + authentic portrait Mr. Cruikshank has had the honor to paint. This + gentleman produced a black-edged book out of a black bag, some black-edged + papers tied up with black crape, and sitting down familiarly opposite M. + Desonge, began conversing with him on the state of his affairs. + </p> + <p> + It is needless to state what was the result of the interview. M. Desonge + was induced by the gentleman to sign his name to one of the black-edged + papers, and found himself at the close of the conversation to be possessed + of an unlimited command of capital. This arrangement completed, the + Gentleman in Black posted (in an extraordinarily rapid manner) from Paris + to London, there found a young English merchant in exactly the same + situation in which M. Desonge had been, and concluded a bargain with the + Briton of exactly the same nature. + </p> + <p> + The book goes on to relate how these young men spent the money so + miraculously handed over to them, and how both, when the period drew near + that was to witness the performance of THEIR part of the bargain, grew + melancholy, wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonorable as to seek for every + means of breaking through their agreement. The Englishman living in a + country where the lawyers are more astute than any other lawyers in the + world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn; whose name, as we + cannot find it in the "Law List," we presume to be fictitious. Who could + it be that was a match for the devil? Lord —— very likely; we + shall not give his name, but let every reader of this Review fill up the + blank according to his own fancy, and on comparing it with the copy + purchased by his neighbors, he will find that fifteen out of twenty have + written down the same honored name. + </p> + <p> + Well, the Gentleman in Black was anxious for the fulfilment of his bond. + The parties met at Mr. Bagsby's chambers to consult, the Black Gentleman + foolishly thinking that he could act as his own counsel, and fearing no + attorney alive. But mark the superiority of British law, and see how the + black pettifogger was defeated. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into Chancery, and + his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, refused to move a step + farther in the matter. + </p> + <p> + And now the French gentleman, M. Desonge, hearing of his friend's escape, + became anxious to be free from his own rash engagements. He employed the + same counsel who had been successful in the former instance, but the + Gentleman in Black was a great deal wiser by this time, and whether M. + Desonge escaped, or whether he is now in that extensive place which is + paved with good intentions, we shall not say. Those who are anxious to + know had better purchase the book wherein all these interesting matters + are duly set down. There is one more diabolical picture in our budget, + engraved by Mr. Thompson, the same dexterous artist who has rendered the + former diableries so well. + </p> + <p> + We may mention Mr. Thompson's name as among the first of the engravers to + whom Cruikshank's designs have been entrusted; and next to him (if we may + be allowed to make such arbitrary distinctions) we may place Mr. Williams; + and the reader is not possibly aware of the immense difficulties to be + overcome in the rendering of these little sketches, which, traced by the + designer in a few hours, require weeks' labor from the engraver. Mr. + Cruikshank has not been educated in the regular schools of drawing (very + luckily for him, as we think), and consequently has had to make a manner + for himself, which is quite unlike that of any other draftsman. There is + nothing in the least mechanical about it; to produce his particular + effects he uses his own particular lines, which are queer, free, + fantastical, and must be followed in all their infinite twists and + vagaries by the careful tool of the engraver. Those three lovely heads, + for instance, imagined out of the rinds of lemons, are worth examining, + not so much for the jovial humor and wonderful variety of feature + exhibited in these darling countenances as for the engraver's part of the + work. See the infinite delicate cross-lines and hatchings which he is + obliged to render; let him go, not a hair's breadth, but the hundredth + part of a hair's breadth, beyond the given line, and the FEELING of it is + ruined. He receives these little dots and specks, and fantastical quirks + of the pencil, and cuts away with a little knife round each, not too much + nor too little. Antonio's pound of flesh did not puzzle the Jew so much; + and so well does the engraver succeed at last, that we never remember to + have met with a single artist who did not vow that the wood-cutter had + utterly ruined his design. + </p> + <p> + Of Messrs. Thompson and Williams we have spoken as the first engravers in + point of rank; however, the regulations of professional precedence are + certainly very difficult, and the rest of their brethren we shall not + endeavor to class. Why should the artists who executed the cuts of the + admirable "Three Courses" yield the pas to any one? + </p> + <p> + There, for instance, is an engraving by Mr. Landells, nearly as good in + our opinion as the very best woodcut that ever was made after Cruikshank, + and curiously happy in rendering the artist's peculiar manner: this cut + does not come from the facetious publications which we have consulted; but + is a contribution by Mr. Cruikshank to an elaborate and splendid botanical + work upon the Orchidaceae of Mexico, by Mr. Bateman. Mr. Bateman + despatched some extremely choice roots of this valuable plant to a friend + in England, who, on the arrival of the case, consigned it to his gardener + to unpack. A great deal of anxiety with regard to the contents was + manifested by all concerned, but on the lid of the box being removed, + there issued from it three or four fine specimens of the enormous Blatta + beetle that had been preying upon the plants during the voyage; against + these the gardeners, the grooms, the porters, and the porters' children, + issued forth in arms, and this scene the artist has immortalized. + </p> + <p> + We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruikshank has depicted + Irish character and Cockney character; English country character is quite + as faithfully delineated in the person of the stout porteress and her + children, and of the "Chawbacon" with the shovel, on whose face is written + "Zummerzetsheer." Chawbacon appears in another plate, or else Chawbacon's + brother. He has come up to Lunnan, and is looking about him at raaces. + </p> + <p> + How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have just been + examining! They hang about the purlieus of the metropolis: Brook Green, + Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Goodwood, are their haunts. They visit London + professionally once a year, and that is at the time of Bartholomew fair. + How one may speculate upon the different degrees of rascality, as + exhibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, and form little + histories for these worthies, charming Newgate romances, such as have been + of late the fashion! Is any man so blind that he cannot see the exact face + that is writhing under the thhnblerigged hero's hat? Like Timanthes of + old, our artist expresses great passions without the aid of the human + countenance. There is another specimen—a street row of inebriated + bottles. Is there any need of having a face after this? "Come on!" says + Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat on one ear—"Come + on! has any man a mind to tap me?" Claret-bottle is a little screwed (as + one may see by his legs), but full of gayety and courage; not so that + stout, apoplectic Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against the wall, and + has his hand upon his liver: the fellow hurts himself with smoking, that + is clear, and is as sick as sick can be. See, Port is making away from the + storm, and Double X is as flat as ditch-water. Against these, awful in + their white robes, the sober watchmen come. + </p> + <p> + Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite clearly, as in + the thimblerig group; or he can do without faces altogether; or he can, at + a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of any given object—a + beautiful Irish physiognomy being moulded upon a keg of whiskey; and a + jolly English countenance frothing out of a pot of ale (the spirit of + brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay); while in a fungus may + be recognized the physiognomy of a mushroom peer. Finally, if he is at a + loss, he can make a living head, body, and legs out of steel or + tortoise-shell, as in the case of the vivacious pair of spectacles that + are jockeying the nose of Caddy Cuddle. + </p> + <p> + Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel + engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have been, that + his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only be produced by + hundreds before. He has made many a bookseller's and author's fortune (we + trust that in so doing he may not have neglected his own). Twelve + admirable plates, furnished yearly to that facetious little publication, + the Comic Almanac, have gained for it a sale, as we hear, of nearly twenty + thousand copies. The idea of the work was novel; there was, in the first + number especially, a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank's designs + were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a vast favorite with the + public, and has so remained ever since. + </p> + <p> + Besides the twelve plates, this almanac contains a prophetic woodcut, + accompanying an awful Blarneyhum Astrologicum that appears in this and + other almanacs. There is one that hints in pretty clear terms that with + the Reform of Municipal Corporations the ruin of the great Lord Mayor of + London is at hand. His lordship is meekly going to dine at an eightpenny + ordinary, his giants in pawn, his men in armor dwindled to "one poor + knight," his carriage to be sold, his stalwart aldermen vanished, his + sheriffs, alas! and alas! in gaol! Another design shows that Rigdum, if a + true, is also a moral and instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or + rather in a vision; the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousand + bright bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a knave + has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe round + his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all; the rats + are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare); his + faithful dog is bolting his leg-of-mutton—nay, a thief has gotten + hold of his very candle, and there, by way of moral, is his ale-pot, which + looks and winks in his face, and seems to say, O Bull, all this is froth, + and a cruel satirical picture of a certain rustic who had a goose that + laid certain golden eggs, which goose the rustic slew in expectation of + finding all the eggs at once. This is goose and sage too, to borrow the + pun of "learned Doctor Gill;" but we shrewdly suspect that Mr. Cruikshank + is becoming a little conservative in his notions. + </p> + <p> + We love these pictures so that it is hard to part us, and we still fondly + endeavor to hold on, but this wild word, farewell, must be spoken by the + best friends at last, and so good-by, brave woodcuts: we feel quite a + sadness in coming to the last of our collection. + </p> + <p> + In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almanac all the manners and customs of + Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted down; and if during + the last two years the mysterious personage who, under the title of + "Rigdum Funnidos," compiles this ephemeris, has been compelled to resort + to romantic tales, we must suppose that he did so because the great + metropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary to discover new worlds in + the cloud-land of fancy. The character of Mr. Stubbs, who made his + appearance in the Almanac for 1839, had, we think, great merit, although + his adventures were somewhat of too tragical a description to provoke pure + laughter. + </p> + <p> + We should be glad to devote a few pages to the "Illustrations of Time," + the "Scraps and Sketches," and the "Illustrations of Phrenology," which + are among the most famous of our artist's publications; but it is very + difficult to find new terms of praise, as find them one must, when + reviewing Mr. Cruikshank's publications, and more difficult still (as the + reader of this notice will no doubt have perceived for himself long since) + to translate his design into words, and go to the printer's box for a + description of all that fun and humor which the artist can produce by a + few skilful turns of his needle. A famous article upon the "Illustrations + of Time" appeared some dozen years since in Blackwood's Magazine, of which + the conductors have always been great admirers of our artist, as became + men of honor and genius. To these grand qualities do not let it be + supposed that we are laying claim, but, thank heaven, Cruikshank's humor + is so good and benevolent that any man must love it, and on this score we + may speak as well as another. + </p> + <p> + Then there are the "Greenwich Hospital" designs, which must not be passed + over. "Greenwich Hospital" is a hearty, good-natured book, in the Tom + Dibdin school, treating of the virtues of British tars, in approved + nautical language. They maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, they go out in brigs + and take frigates, they relieve women in distress, and are yard-arm and + yard-arming, athwart-hawsing, marlinspiking, binnacling, and + helm's-a-leeing, as honest seamen invariably do, in novels, on the stage, + and doubtless on board ship. This we cannot take upon us to say, but the + artist, like a true Englishman, as he is, loves dearly these brave + guardians of Old England, and chronicles their rare or fanciful exploits + with the greatest good-will. Let any one look at the noble head of Nelson + in the "Family Library," and they will, we are sure, think with us that + the designer must have felt and loved what he drew. There are to this + abridgment of Southey's admirable book many more cuts after Cruikshank; + and about a dozen pieces by the same hand will be found in a work equally + popular, Lockhart's excellent "Life of Napoleon." Among these the retreat + from Moscow is very fine; the Mamlouks most vigorous, furious, and + barbarous, as they should be. At the end of these three volumes Mr. + Cruikshank's contributions to the "Family Library" seem suddenly to have + ceased. + </p> + <p> + We are not at all disposed to undervalue the works and genius of Mr. + Dickens, and we are sure that he would admit as readily as any man the + wonderful assistance that he has derived from the artist who has given us + the portraits of his ideal personages, and made them familiar to all the + world. Once seen, these figures remain impressed on the memory, which + otherwise would have had no hold upon them, and the heroes and heroines of + Boz become personal acquaintances with each of us. Oh, that Hogarth could + have illustrated Fielding in the same way! and fixed down on paper those + grand figures of Parson Adams, and Squire Allworthy, and the great + Jonathan Wild. + </p> + <p> + With regard to the modern romance of "Jack Sheppard," in which the latter + personage makes a second appearance, it seems to us that Mr. Cruikshank + really created the tale, and that Mr. Ainsworth, as it were, only put + words to it. Let any reader of the novel think over it for a while, now + that it is some months since he has perused and laid it down—let him + think, and tell us what he remembers of the tale? George Cruikshank's + pictures—always George Cruikshank's pictures. The storm in the + Thames, for instance: all the author's labored description of that event + has passed clean away—we have only before the mind's eye the fine + plates of Cruikshank: the poor wretch cowering under the bridge arch, as + the waves come rushing in, and the boats are whirling away in the drift of + the great swollen black waters. And let any man look at that second plate + of the murder on the Thames, and he must acknowledge how much more + brilliant the artist's description is than the writer's, and what a real + genius for the terrible as well as for the ridiculous the former has; how + awful is the gloom of the old bridge, a few lights glimmering from the + houses here and there, but not so as to be reflected on the water at all, + which is too turbid and raging: a great heavy rack of clouds goes sweeping + over the bridge, and men with flaring torches, the murderers, are borne + away with the stream. + </p> + <p> + The author requires many pages to describe the fury of the storm, which + Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, he has to prepare you with + the something inexpressibly melancholy in sailing on a dark night upon the + Thames: "the ripple of the water," "the darkling current," "the + indistinctively seen craft," "the solemn shadows" and other phenomena + visible on rivers at night are detailed (with not unskilful rhetoric) in + order to bring the reader into a proper frame of mind for the deeper gloom + and horror which is to ensue. Then follow pages of description. "As + Rowland sprang to the helm, and gave the signal for pursuit, a war like a + volley of ordnance was heard aloft, and the wind again burst its bondage. + A moment before the surface of the stream was as black as ink. It was now + whitening, hissing, and seething, like an enormous caldron. The blast once + more swept over the agitated river, whirled off the sheets of foam, + scattered them far and wide in rain-drops, and left the raging torrent + blacker than before. Destruction everywhere marked the course of the gale. + Steeples toppled and towers reeled beneath its fury. All was darkness, + horror, confusion, ruin. Men fled from their tottering habitations and + returned to them, scared by greater danger. The end of the world seemed at + hand. . . . The hurricane had now reached its climax. The blast shrieked, + as if exulting in its wrathful mission. Stunning and continuous, the din + seemed almost to take away the power of hearing. He who had faced the gale + WOULD HAVE BEEN INSTANTLY STIFLED," &c. &c. See with what a + tremendous war of words (and good loud words too; Mr. Ainsworth's + description is a good and spirited one) the author is obliged to pour in + upon the reader before he can effect his purpose upon the latter, and + inspire him with a proper terror. The painter does it at a glance, and old + Wood's dilemma in the midst of that tremendous storm, with the little + infant at his bosom, is remembered afterwards, not from the words, but + from the visible image of them that the artist has left us. + </p> + <p> + It would not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the whole of the + "Jack Sheppard" plates, which are among the most finished and the most + successful of Mr. Cruikshank's performances, and say a word or two + concerning them. Let us begin with finding fault with No. 1, "Mr. Wood + offers to adopt little Jack Sheppard." A poor print, on a poor subject; + the figure of the woman not as carefully designed as it might be, and the + expression of the eyes (not an uncommon fault with our artist) much + caricatured. The print is cut up, to use the artist's phrase, by the + number of accessories which the engraver has thought proper, after the + author's elaborate description, elaborately to reproduce. The plate of + "Wild discovering Darrell in the loft" is admirable—ghastly, + terrible, and the treatment of it extraordinarily skilful, minute, and + bold. The intricacies of the tile-work, and the mysterious twinkling of + light among the beams, are excellently felt and rendered; and one sees + here, as in the two next plates of the storm and murder, what a fine eye + the artist has, what a skilful hand, and what a sympathy for the wild and + dreadful. As a mere imitation of nature, the clouds and the bridge in the + murder picture may be examined by painters who make far higher pretensions + than Mr. Cruikshank. In point of workmanship they are equally good, the + manner quite unaffected, the effect produced without any violent contrast, + the whole scene evidently well and philosophically arranged in the + artist's brain, before he began to put it upon copper. + </p> + <p> + The famous drawing of "Jack carving the name on the beam," which has been + transferred to half the play-bills in town, is overloaded with + accessories, as the first plate; but they are much better arranged than in + the last-named engraving, and do not injure the effect of the principal + figure. Remark, too, the conscientiousness of the artist, and that shrewd + pervading idea of FORM which is one of his principal characteristics. Jack + is surrounded by all sorts of implements of his profession; he stands on a + regular carpenter's table: away in the shadow under it lie shavings and a + couple of carpenter's hampers. The glue-pot, the mallet, the + chisel-handle, the planes, the saws, the hone with its cover, and the + other paraphernalia are all represented with extraordinary accuracy and + forethought. The man's mind has retained the exact DRAWING of all these + minute objects (unconsciously perhaps to himself), but we can see with + what keen eyes he must go through the world, and what a fund of facts (as + such a knowledge of the shape of objects is in his profession) this keen + student of nature has stored away in his brain. In the next plate, where + Jack is escaping from his mistress, the figure of that lady, one of the + deepest of the [Greek text omitted], strikes us as disagreeable and + unrefined; that of Winifred is, on the contrary, very pretty and graceful; + and Jack's puzzled, slinking look must not be forgotten. All the + accessories are good, and the apartment has a snug, cosy air; which is not + remarkable, except that it shows how faithfully the designer has performed + his work, and how curiously he has entered into all the particulars of the + subject. + </p> + <p> + Master Thames Darrell, the handsome young man of the book, is, in Mr. + Cruikshank's portraits of him, no favorite of ours. The lad seems to wish + to make up for the natural insignificance of his face by frowning on all + occasions most portentously. This figure, borrowed from the compositor's + desk, will give a notion of what we mean. Wild's face is too violent for + the great man of history (if we may call Fielding history), but this is in + consonance with the ranting, frowning, braggadocio character that Mr. + Ainsworth has given him. + </p> + <p> + The "Interior of Willesden Church" is excellent as a composition, and a + piece of artistical workmanship; the groups are well arranged; and the + figure of Mrs. Sheppard looking round alarmed, as her son is robbing the + dandy Kneebone, is charming, simple, and unaffected. Not so "Mrs. Sheppard + ill in bed," whose face is screwed up to an expression vastly too tragic. + The little glimpse of the church seen through the open door of the room is + very beautiful and poetical: it is in such small hints that an artist + especially excels; they are the morals which he loves to append to his + stories, and are always appropriate and welcome. The boozing ken is not to + our liking; Mrs. Sheppard is there with her horrified eyebrows again. Why + this exaggeration—is it necessary for the public? We think not, or + if they require such excitement, let our artist, like a true painter as he + is, teach them better things.* + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * A gentleman (whose wit is so celebrated that one should be + very cautious in repeating his stories) gave the writer a + good illustration of the philosophy of exaggeration. Mr. — + — was once behind the scenes at the Opera when the scene- + shifters were preparing for the ballet. Flora was to sleep + under a bush, whereon were growing a number of roses, and + amidst which was fluttering a gay covey of butterflies. In + size the roses exceeded the most expansive sunflowers, and + the butterflies were as large as cocked hats;—the scene + -shifter explained to Mr. ——, who asked the reason why + everything was so magnified, that the galleries could never + see the objects unless they were enormously exaggerated. + How many of our writers and designers work for the + galleries? + + The "Escape from Willesden Cage" is excellent; the "Burglary + in Wood's house" has not less merit; "Mrs. Sheppard in + Bedlam," a ghastly picture indeed, is finely conceived, but + not, as we fancy, so carefully executed; it would be better + for a little more careful drawing in the female figure. + + "Jack sitting for his picture" is a very pleasing group, and + savors of the manner of Hogarth, who is introduced in the + company. The "Murder of Trenchard" must be noticed too as + remarkable for the effect and terrible vigor which the + artist has given to the scene. The "Willesden Churchyard" + has great merit too, but the gems of the book are the little + vignettes illustrating the escape from Newgate. Here, too, + much anatomical care of drawing is not required; the figures + are so small that the outline and attitude need only to be + indicated, and the designer has produced a series of figures + quite remarkable for reality and poetry too. There are no + less than ten of Jack's feats so described by Mr. + Cruikshank. (Let us say a word here in praise of the + excellent manner in which the author has carried us through + the adventure.) Here is Jack clattering up the chimney, now + peering into the lonely red room, now opening "the door + between the red room and the chapel." What a wild, fierce, + scared look he has, the young ruffian, as cautiously he + steps in, holding light his bar of iron. You can see by his + face how his heart is beating! If any one were there! but + no! And this is a very fine characteristic of the prints, + the extreme LONELINESS of them all. Not a soul is there to + disturb him—woe to him who should—and Jack drives in the + chapel gate, and shatters down the passage door, and there + you have him on the leads. Up he goes! it is but a spring + of a few feet from the blanket, and he is gone—abiit, + evasit, erupit! Mr. Wild must catch him again if he can. + + We must not forget to mention "Oliver Twist," and Mr. + Cruikshank's famous designs to that work.* The sausage + scene at Fagin's, Nancy seizing the boy; that capital piece + of humor, Mr. Bumble's courtship, which is even better in + Cruikshank's version than in Boz's exquisite account of the + interview; Sykes's farewell to the dog; and the Jew,—the + dreadful Jew—that Cruikshank drew! What a fine touching + picture of melancholy desolation is that of Sykes and the + dog! The poor cur is not too well drawn, the landscape is + stiff and formal; but in this case the faults, if faults + they be, of execution rather add to than diminish the effect + of the picture: it has a strange, wild, dreary, broken + -hearted look; we fancy we see the landscape as it must have + appeared to Sykes, when ghastly and with bloodshot eyes he + looked at it. As for the Jew in the dungeon, let us say + nothing of it—what can we say to describe it? What a fine + homely poet is the man who can produce this little world of + mirth or woe for us! Does he elaborate his effects by slow + process of thought, or do they come to him by instinct? + Does the painter ever arrange in his brain an image so + complete, that he afterwards can copy it exactly on the + canvas, or does the hand work in spite of him? +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Or his new work, "The Tower of London," which promises + even to surpass Mr. Cruikshank's former productions. +</pre> + <p> + A great deal of this random work of course every artist has done in his + time; many men produce effects of which they never dreamed, and strike off + excellences, haphazard, which gain for them reputation; but a fine quality + in Mr. Cruikshank, the quality of his success, as we have said before, is + the extraordinary earnestness and good faith with which he executes all he + attempts—the ludicrous, the polite, the low, the terrible. In the + second of these he often, in our fancy, fails, his figures lacking + elegance and descending to caricature; but there is something fine in this + too: it is good that he SHOULD fail, that he should have these honest + naive notions regarding the beau monde, the characteristics of which a + namby-pamby tea-party painter could hit off far better than he. He is a + great deal too downright and manly to appreciate the flimsy delicacies of + small society—you cannot expect a lion to roar you like any sucking + dove, or frisk about a drawing-room like a lady's little spaniel. + </p> + <p> + If then, in the course of his life and business, he has been occasionally + obliged to imitate the ways of such small animals, he has done so, let us + say it at once, clumsily, and like as a lion should. Many artists, we + hear, hold his works rather cheap; they prate about bad drawing, want of + scientific knowledge:—they would have something vastly more neat, + regular, anatomical. + </p> + <p> + Not one of the whole band most likely but can paint an Academy figure + better than himself; nay, or a portrait of an alderman's lady and family + of children. But look down the list of the painters and tell us who are + they? How many among these men are POETS (makers), possessing the faculty + to create, the greatest among the gifts with which Providence has endowed + the mind of man? Say how many there are, count up what they have done, and + see what in the course of some nine-and-twenty years has been done by this + indefatigable man. + </p> + <p> + What amazing energetic fecundity do we find in him! As a boy he began to + fight for bread, has been hungry (twice a day we trust) ever since, and + has been obliged to sell his wit for his bread week by week. And his wit, + sterling gold as it is, will find no such purchasers as the fashionable + painter's thin pinchbeck, who can live comfortably for six weeks, when + paid for and painting a portrait, and fancies his mind prodigiously + occupied all the while. There was an artist in Paris, an artist + hairdresser, who used to be fatigued and take restoratives after inventing + a new coiffure. By no such gentle operation of head-dressing has + Cruikshank lived: time was (we are told so in print) when for a picture + with thirty heads in it he was paid three guineas—a poor week's + pittance truly, and a dire week's labor. We make no doubt that the same + labor would at present bring him twenty times the sum; but whether it be + ill paid or well, what labor has Mr. Cruikshank's been! Week by week, for + thirty years, to produce something new; some smiling offspring of painful + labor, quite independent and distinct from its ten thousand jovial + brethren; in what hours of sorrow and ill-health to be told by the world, + "Make us laugh or you starve—Give us fresh fun; we have eaten up the + old and are hungry." And all this has he been obliged to do—to wring + laughter day by day, sometimes, perhaps, out of want, often certainly from + ill-health or depression—to keep the fire of his brain perpetually + alight: for the greedy public will give it no leisure to cool. This he has + done and done well. He has told a thousand truths in as many strange and + fascinating ways; he has given a thousand new and pleasant thoughts to + millions of people; he has never used his wit dishonestly; he has never, + in all the exuberance of his frolicsome humor, caused a single painful or + guilty blush: how little do we think of the extraordinary power of this + man, and how ungrateful we are to him! + </p> + <p> + Here, as we are come round to the charge of ingratitude, the starting-post + from which we set out, perhaps we had better conclude. The reader will + perhaps wonder at the high-flown tone in which we speak of the services + and merits of an individual, whom he considers a humble scraper on steel, + that is wonderfully popular already. But none of us remember all the + benefits we owe him; they have come one by one, one driving out the memory + of the other: it is only when we come to examine them all together, as the + writer has done, who has a pile of books on the table before him—a + heap of personal kindnesses from George Cruikshank (not presents, if you + please, for we bought, borrowed, or stole every one of them)—that we + feel what we owe him. Look at one of Mr. Cruikshank's works, and we + pronounce him an excellent humorist. Look at all: his reputation is + increased by a kind of geometrical progression; as a whole diamond is a + hundred times more valuable than the hundred splinters into which it might + be broken would be. A fine rough English diamond is this about which we + have been writing. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's George Cruikshank, by William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE CRUIKSHANK *** + +***** This file should be named 2648-h.htm or 2648-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/4/2648/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: George Cruikshank + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 21, 2006 [EBook #2648] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE CRUIKSHANK *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +GEORGE CRUIKSHANK + + +By William Makepeace Thackeray + + + +* Reprinted from the Westminster Review for June, 1840. (No 66.) + + +Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations 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 somewhat 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 "ingenious 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 which 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 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. Neither member of the new +partnership 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, wandering 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 +scarcely expected 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 +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 vapor 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 straight-way 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 works--the "Busen fuhlt sich jugendlich erschuttert," 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 wonderful pencil has illustrated? 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 +"Illustrations 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 honor of drawing the first lot, and seized immediately +upon "Philoprogenitiveness"--a marvellous print (our copy is not at +all improved by being colored, which operation we performed on it +ourselves)--a marvellous print, indeed,--full of ingenuity and fine +jovial humor. 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 nightcaps, in frocks, in bibs, +in breeches, are clambering about the head, knees, and arms of the man +with the nose; their noses, too, are preternaturally developed--the +twins in the cradle have noses of the most considerable 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 savory +dish of Yorkshire pudding for eighteen persons; the youths who are +examining her operations (one a literary gentleman, in a remarkably neat +nightcap and pinafore, who has just had his finger in the pudding); +the genius who is at work on the slate, and the two honest lads who are +hugging the good-humored 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 heart; every one of those he has drawn is perfectly +happy, and jovial, and affectionate, and innocent as possible. He makes +them with large noses, but he loves them, and you always find something +kind in the midst of his humor, 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, Sweetings 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 windows--where are they? 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! 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 humor with a general sympathizing roar. Where are +these people now? You never hear any laughing at HB.; 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 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 Humor" 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 up 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 infelix, 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,* in his dirty, +tattered, faded motley--seized as a law-breaker, for acting at a penny +theatre, after having wellnigh starved in the streets, where nobody +would listen to his old guitar? No one gave a shilling to bless him: not +one of us who owe him so much. + + * This was written in 1840. + +We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased at finding his +name in such company as that of Clown and Harlequin; but he, like them, +is certainly the children's friend. His drawings abound in feeling 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 schoolboys 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. 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 butterfly-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 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 farmhouses, 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 lifelike 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 +endeavoring 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 in 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 morality is, that the uncle one day in +the morning of life vowed that he would catch his two nephews and tie +them together, 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 uncles +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 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 humor is too good for the +public, that only a chosen few can relish it. The best humor 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 humor 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 humor 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 populaire (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 favor, where a man of three times his +acquirements will only find indifference 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 Gilray would have been far more successful and more +powerful but for that unhappy bribe, which turned the whole course of +his humor into an unnatural channel. Cruikshank 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 +spotless, 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 would not stand by and see a woman +ill-used, and so struck in for her rescue, he and the people belaboring +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. Cruikshank'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, Sidmouth, 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 disloyalty; 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 regular John Bull +style, with the Gilray 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 XVIII. +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. Cruikshank +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 invariably thin, with ludicrous +spindle-shanks, pigtails, outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and +queer hair and mustachios. 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 Boulingrog" and "Lady Crockmilove." 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, contains +a number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style; and though we +believe he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great +deal of life in them, and pass muster very well. A villanous 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 colored, have a pleasant, +lively look. The same style was adopted in the once famous book called +"Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," which must have a word of notice +here, for, although by no means Mr. Cruikshank's best work, his +reputation was extraordinarily raised by it. Tom and Jerry were as +popular twenty years since as Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller now are; +and often have we wished, while reading the biographies of the latter +celebrated personages, that they had been described as well by Mr. +Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. Dickens's pen. + +As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs and the +evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British Museum and +no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the book, and "Life +in London," alas, is not to be found at any one of them. We can only, +therefore, speak of the work from recollection, but have still a very +clear remembrance of the leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green +spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom. They were +the 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 watchman at Temple Bar; Tom and Jerry +dancing at Almack's; or flirting in the saloon at the theatre; at the +night-houses, after the play; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver cup +then in the possession of that champion; at the chambers of Bob Logic, +who, seated at a cabinet piano, plays a waltz to which Corinthian Tom +and Kate are dancing; 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 +without 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 Humor." 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 labored as some of his later productions, are none the +worse, in our opinion, for their comparative want of finish. All the +effects are perfectly given, and the expression is 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 parts, 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 Honor," illustrates the +old story of the officer who, on being accused of cowardice for refusing +to fight a duel, came among his brother officers and flung a +lighted grenade down upon the floor, before which his comrades fled +ignominiously. This design is capital, and the outward rush of heroes, +walking, trampling, twisting, scuffling 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 gutter, were, by a charitable though misguided gentleman, +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 temporary 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 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? By heavens, it is the squire of the parish. What business has he +there? 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 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 banknotes, +although he was so mighty scrupulous in endeavoring 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, 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. Sheppard, 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 mourn + 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 fairs to driddle," + +prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker sings with a +noble candor, 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? +He had the greatest contempt for it, and loved freedom 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-scraper" by the beard,--drawing his "roosty 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 withered imp, + Wi' a' his noise and caperin'; + And take a share with those that bear + The budget and 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 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 late Mr. Clark's excellent work, "Three Courses and a Dessert," was +published at a time when the rage for comic stories was not so great +as it since has been, and 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 contains 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 that wonderful 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. + +For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, beadles, +policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, 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 Sheppard," and +the immortal Fagin of "Oliver Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in +these persons and things? Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite +a charity boy? Why should a tall life-guardsman have something in him +essentially absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long? +What is there particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a +long nose always provoke the beholder to laughter? These points may be +metaphysically elucidated by those who list. It is probable that Mr. +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. + +He has made a complete little gallery of dustmen. There 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 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 +belabors the 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 creative power of the man who has arranged this little tale +of low life. How logically it is conducted, how cleverly each one of +the accessories is made to contribute to the effect of the whole. What +a deal of thought and humor 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 dustmen we pass to those purely poetical. There +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?--and yet a whole poem was +written about Peter Bell the wagoner, a character by no means so poetic. + +And lastly, we have the dustman in love: the honest fellow having seen a +young beauty stepping out of a gin-shop on a Sunday morning, is pressing +eagerly his suit. + +Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Cruikshank, who labors in his own +sound and hearty way to teach his countrymen 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 looming through the +darkness whereof you see an agreeable prospect of gibbets with men +dangling, burnt houses, &c. The vast cloud comes sweeping on in the +wake of this horrible body-crusher; and you see, by way of contrast, a +distant, smiling, sunshiny tract of old English country, where gin as +yet is not known. The allegory is as good, as earnest, and as fanciful +as one of John Bunyan's, and we have often fancied there was a +similarity between the men. + +The render will examine the work called "My Sketch-Book" with not a +little amusement, and may gather from it, as we fancy, a good deal +of information regarding the character of the individual man, George +Cruikshank: what points strike his eye as a painter; what move his +anger or admiration as a moralist; what classes he seems most especially +disposed to observe, and what to ridicule. There are quacks of all +kinds, to whom he has a mortal hatred; quack dandies, who assume +under his pencil, perhaps in his eye, the most grotesque appearance +possible--their hats grow larger, their legs infinitely more crooked and +lean; the tassels of their canes swell out to a most preposterous size; +the tails of their coats dwindle away, and finish where coat-tails +generally begin. Let us lay a wager that Cruikshank, a man of the people +if ever there was one, heartily hates and despises these supercilious, +swaggering young gentlemen; and his contempt is not a whit the less +laudable because there may be tant soit peu of prejudice in it. It is +right and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson said it was to hate +Frenchmen; in which sentiment (as we have before said) George Cruikshank +undoubtedly shares. In the "Sunday in London,"* Monsieur the Chef is +instructing a kitchen-maid how to compound some rascally French kickshaw +or the other--a pretty scoundrel truly! with what an air he wears that +nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and chatters, and ogles, +and grins: they are all the same, these mounseers; there are other two +fellows--morbleu! one is putting his dirty fingers into the saucepan; +there are frogs cooking in it, no doubt; and just over some other dish +of abomination, another dirty rascal is taking snuff! Never mind, +the sauce won't be hurt by a few ingredients more or less. Three such +fellows as these are not worth one Englishman, that's clear. There is +one in the very midst of them, the great burly fellow with the beef: he +could beat all three in five minutes. We cannot be certain that such was +the process going on in Mr. Cruikshank's mind when he made the design; +but some feelings of the sort were no doubt entertained by him. + + * The following lines--ever fresh--by the author of + "Headlong Hall," published years ago in the Globe and + Traveller, are an excellent comment on several of the cuts + from the "Sunday in London:"-- + + I. + + "The poor man's sins are glaring; + In the face of ghostly warning + He is caught in the fact + Of an overt act, + Buying greens on Sunday morning. + + II. + + "The rich man's sins are hidden + In the pomp of wealth and station, + And escape the sight + Of the children of light, + Who are wise in their generation. + + III. + + "The rich man has a kitchen, + And cooks to dress his dinner; + The poor who would roast, + To the baker's must post, + And thus becomes a sinner. + + IV. + + "The rich man's painted windows + Hide the concerts of the quality; + The poor can but share + A crack'd fiddle in the air, + Which offends all sound morality. + + V. + + "The rich man has a cellar, + And a ready butler by him; + The poor must steer + For his pint of beer + Where the saint can't choose but spy him. + + VI. + + "This rich man is invisible + In the crowd of his gay society; + But the poor man's delight + Is a sore in the sight + And a stench in the nose of piety." + +Against dandy footmen he is particularly severe. He hates idlers, +pretenders, boasters, and punishes these fellows as best he may. Who +does not recollect the famous picture, "What IS taxes, Thomas?" What +is taxes indeed; well may that vast, over-fed, lounging flunky ask the +question of his associate Thomas: and yet not well, for all that Thomas +says in reply is, "I DON'T KNOW." "O beati PLUSHICOLAE," what a charming +state of ignorance is yours! In the "Sketch-Book" many footmen make +their appearance: one is a huge fat Hercules of a Portman Square porter, +who calmly surveys another poor fellow, a porter likewise, but out of +livery, who comes staggering forward with a box that Hercules might lift +with his little finger. Will Hercules do so? not he. The giant can carry +nothing heavier than a cocked-hat note on a silver tray, and his labors +are to walk from his sentry-box to the door, and from the door back to +his sentry-box, and to read the Sunday paper, and to poke the hall +fire twice or thrice, and to make five meals a day. Such a fellow does +Cruikshank hate and scorn worse even than a Frenchman. + +The man's master, too, comes in for no small share of our artist's +wrath. There is a company of them at church, who humbly designate +themselves "miserable sinners!" Miserable sinners indeed! Oh, what +floods of turtle-soup, what tons of turbot and lobster-sauce must have +been sacrificed to make those sinners properly miserable. My lady with +the ermine tippet and draggling feather, can we not see that she lives +in Portland Place, and is the wife of an East India Director? She has +been to the Opera over-night (indeed her husband, on her right, with +his fat hand dangling over the pew-door, is at this minute thinking of +Mademoiselle Leocadie, whom he saw behind the scenes)--she has been +at the Opera over-night, which with a trifle of supper afterwards--a +white-and-brown soup, a lobster-salad, some woodcocks, and a little +champagne--sent her to bed quite comfortable. At half-past eight her +maid brings her chocolate in bed, at ten she has fresh eggs and muffins, +with, perhaps, a half-hundred of prawns for breakfast, and so can get +over the day and the sermon till lunch-time pretty well. What an odor of +musk and bergamot exhales from the pew!--how it is wadded, and stuffed, +and spangled over with brass nails! what hassocks are there for those +who are not too fat to kneel! what a flustering and flapping of gilt +prayer-books; and what a pious whirring of bible leaves one hears +all over the church, as the doctor blandly gives out the text! To be +miserable at this rate you must, at the very least, have four thousand a +year: and many persons are there so enamored of grief and sin, that they +would willingly take the risk of the misery to have a life-interest in +the consols that accompany it, quite careless about consequences, and +sceptical as to the notion that a day is at hand when you must fulfil +YOUR SHARE OF THE BARGAIN. + +Our artist loves to joke at a soldier; in whose livery there appears +to him to be something almost as ridiculous as in the uniform of +the gentleman of the shoulder-knot. Tall life-guardsmen and fierce +grenadiers figure in many of his designs, and almost always in a +ridiculous way. Here again we have the honest popular English feeling +which jeers at pomp or pretension of all kinds, and is especially +jealous of all display of military authority. "Raw Recruit," "ditto +dressed," ditto "served up," as we see them in the "Sketch-Book," are so +many satires upon the army: Hodge with his ribbons flaunting in his +hat, or with red coat and musket, drilled stiff and pompous, or at +last, minus leg and arm, tottering about on crutches, does not fill our +English artist with the enthusiasm that follows the soldier in every +other part of Europe. Jeanjean, the conscript in France, is laughed at +to be sure, but then it is because he is a bad soldier: when he comes to +have a huge pair of mustachios and the croix-d'honneur to briller on his +poitrine cicatrisee, Jeanjean becomes a member of a class that is more +respected than any other in the French nation. The veteran soldier +inspires our people with no such awe--we hold that democratic weapon the +fist in much more honor than the sabre and bayonet, and laugh at a man +tricked out in scarlet and pipe-clay. + +That regiment of heroes is "marching to divine service," to the tune +of the "British Grenadiers." There they march in state, and a pretty +contempt our artist shows for all their gimcracks and trumpery. He has +drawn a perfectly English scene--the little blackguard boys are playing +pranks round about the men, and shouting, "Heads up, soldier," "Eyes +right, lobster," as little British urchins will do. Did one ever hear +the like sentiments expressed in France? Shade of Napoleon, we insult +you by asking the question. In England, however, see how different the +case is: and designedly or undesignedly, the artist has opened to us a +piece of his mind. In the crowd the only person who admires the soldiers +is the poor idiot, whose pocket a rogue is picking. There is another +picture, in which the sentiment is much the same, only, as in the former +drawing we see Englishmen laughing at the troops of the line, here are +Irishmen giggling at the militia. + +We have said that our artist has a great love for the drolleries of +the Green Island. Would any one doubt what was the country of the merry +fellows depicted in his group of Paddies? + + "Place me amid O'Rourkes, O'Tooles, + The ragged royal race of Tara; + Or place me where Dick Martin rules + The pathless wilds of Connemara." + +We know not if Mr. Cruikshank has ever had any such good luck as to see +the Irish in Ireland itself, but he certainly has obtained a knowledge +of their looks, as if the country had been all his life familiar to him. +Could Mr. O'Connell himself desire anything more national than the scene +of a drunken row, or could Father Mathew have a better text to preach +upon? There is not a broken nose in the room that is not thoroughly +Irish. + +We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as +characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the comical look +of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by the witch's stick, +in order to point out also the singular neatness of the workmanship, +and the pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape that the artist +has introduced in the background. Mr. Cruikshank has a fine eye for such +homely landscapes, and renders them with great delicacy and taste. +Old villages, farm-yards, groups of stacks, queer chimneys, churches, +gable-ended cottages, Elizabethan mansion-houses, and other old English +scenes, he depicts with evident enthusiasm. + +Famous books in their day were Cruikshank's "John Gilpin" and +"Epping Hunt;" for though our artist does not draw horses very +scientifically,--to use a phrase of the atelier,--he FEELS them very +keenly; and his queer animals, after one is used to them, answer quite +as well as better. Neither is he very happy in trees, and such rustical +produce; or, rather, we should say, he is very original, his trees being +decidedly of his own make and composition, not imitated from any master. + +But what then? Can a man be supposed to imitate everything? We know what +the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. Cruikshank has confined +himself. That postilion with the people in the broken-down chaise +roaring after him is as deaf as the post by which he passes. Suppose +all the accessories were away, could not one swear that the man was +stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet? What is the peculiar character +in a deaf man's physiognomy?--can any person define it satisfactorily in +words?--not in pages; and Mr. Cruikshank has expressed it on a piece +of paper not so big as the tenth part of your thumb-nail. The horses +of John Gilpin are much more of the equestrian order; and as here the +artist has only his favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is +to be said against his design. The inn and old buildings are charmingly +designed, and nothing can be more prettily or playfully touched. + + "At Edmonton his loving wife + From the balcony spied + Her tender husband, wond'ring much + To see how he did ride. + + "'Stop, stop, John Gilpin! Here's the house!' + They all at once did cry; + 'The dinner waits, and we are tired--' + Said Gilpin--'So am I!' + + "Six gentlemen upon the road + Thus seeing Gilpin fly, + With post-boy scamp'ring in the rear, + They raised the hue and cry:-- + + "'Stop thief! stop thief!--a highwayman!' + Not one of them was mute; + And all and each that passed that way + Did join in the pursuit. + + "And now the turnpike gates again + Flew open in short space; + The toll-men thinking, as before, + That Gilpin rode a race." + +The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellently depicted by the +artist; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing +animals, must here make a special exception in favor of the hens and +chickens; each has a different action, and is curiously natural. + +Happy are children of all ages who have such a ballad and such pictures +as this in store for them! It is a comfort to think that woodcuts never +wear out, and that the book still may be had for a shilling, for those +who can command that sum of money. + +In the "Epping Hunt," which we owe to the facetious pen of Mr. Hood, our +artist has not been so successful. There is here too much horsemanship +and not enough incident for him; but the portrait of Roundings the +huntsman is an excellent sketch, and a couple of the designs contain +great humor. The first represents the Cockney hero, who, "like a bird, +was singing out while sitting on a tree." + +And in the second the natural order is reversed. The stag having +taken heart, is hunting the huntsman, and the Cheapside Nimrod is most +ignominiously running away. + +The Easter Hunt, we are told, is no more; and as the Quarterly Review +recommends the British public to purchase Mr. Catlin's pictures, as they +form the only record of an interesting race now rapidly passing away, +in like manner we should exhort all our friends to purchase Mr. +Cruikshank's designs of ANOTHER interesting race, that is run already +and for the last time. + +Besides these, we must mention, in the line of our duty, the notable +tragedies of "Tom Thumb" and "Bombastes Furioso," both of which have +appeared with many illustrations by Mr. Cruikshank. The "brave army" of +Bombastes exhibits a terrific display of brutal force, which must shock +the sensibilities of an English radical. And we can well understand the +caution of the general, who bids this soldatesque effrenee to begone, +and not to kick up a row. + +Such a troop of lawless ruffians let loose upon a populous city would +play sad havoc in it; and we fancy the massacres of Birmingham renewed, +or at least of Badajoz, which, though not quite so dreadful, if we +may believe his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the former scenes of +slaughter, were nevertheless severe enough: but we must not venture upon +any ill-timed pleasantries in presence of the disturbed King Arthur and +the awful ghost of Gaffer Thumb. + +We are thus carried at once into the supernatural, and here we find +Cruikshank reigning supreme. He has invented in his time a little comic +pandemonium, peopled with the most droll, good-natured fiends possible. +We have before us Chamisso's "Peter Schlemihl," with Cruikshank's +designs translated into German, and gaining nothing by the change. +The "Kinder und Hans-Maerchen" of Grimm are likewise ornamented with a +frontispiece copied from that one which appeared to the amusing version +of the English work. The books on Phrenology and Time have been imitated +by the same nation; and even in France, whither reputation travels +slower than to any country except China, we have seen copies of the +works of George Cruikshank. + +He in return has complimented the French by illustrating a couple of +Lives of Napoleon, and the "Life in Paris" before mentioned. He has also +made designs for Victor Hugo's "Hans of Iceland." Strange, wild etchings +were those, on a strange, mad subject; not so good in our notion as the +designs for the German books, the peculiar humor of which latter seemed +to suit the artist exactly. There is a mixture of the awful and the +ridiculous in these, which perpetually excites and keeps awake the +reader's attention; the German writer and the English artist seem to +have an entire faith in their subject. The reader, no doubt, remembers +the awful passage in "Peter Schlemihl," where the little gentleman +purchases the shadow of that hero--"Have the kindness, noble sir, to +examine and try this bag." "He put his hand into his pocket, and drew +thence a tolerably large bag of Cordovan leather, to which a couple of +thongs were fixed. I took it from him, and immediately counted out ten +gold pieces, and ten more, and ten more, and still other ten, whereupon +I held out my hand to him. Done, said I, it is a bargain; you shall have +my shadow for your bag. The bargain was concluded; he knelt down before +me, and I saw him with a wonderful neatness take my shadow from head to +foot, lightly lift it up from the grass, roll and fold it up neatly, and +at last pocket it. He then rose up, bowed to me once more, and walked +away again, disappearing behind the rose bushes. I don't know, but I +thought I heard him laughing a little. I, however, kept fast hold of the +bag. Everything around me was bright in the sun, and as yet I gave no +thought to what I had done." + +This marvellous event, narrated by Peter with such a faithful, +circumstantial detail, is painted by Cruikshank in the most wonderful +poetic way, with that happy mixture of the real and supernatural that +makes the narrative so curious, and like truth. The sun is shining with +the utmost brilliancy in a great quiet park or garden; there is a palace +in the background, and a statue basking in the sun quite lonely and +melancholy; there is a sun-dial, on which is a deep shadow, and in the +front stands Peter Schlemihl, bag in hand: the old gentleman is down on +his knees to him, and has just lifted off the ground the SHADOW OF ONE +LEG; he is going to fold it back neatly, as one does the tails of a +coat, and will stow it, without any creases or crumples, along with the +other black garments that lie in that immense pocket of his. Cruikshank +has designed all this as if he had a very serious belief in the story; +he laughs, to be sure, but one fancies that he is a little frightened in +his heart, in spite of all his fun and joking. + +The German tales we have mentioned before. "The Prince riding on the +Fox," "Hans in Luck," "The Fiddler and his Goose," "Heads off," are all +drawings which, albeit not before us now, nor seen for ten years, remain +indelibly fixed on the memory. "Heisst du etwa Rumpelstilzchen?" There +sits the Queen on her throne, surrounded by grinning beef-eaters, and +little Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot through the floor in the excess +of his tremendous despair. In one of these German tales, if we remember +rightly, there is an account of a little orphan who is carried away by +a pitying fairy for a term of seven years, and passing that period of +sweet apprenticeship among the imps and sprites of fairy-land. Has our +artist been among the same company, and brought back their portraits in +his sketch-book? He is the only designer fairy-land has had. Callot's +imps, for all their strangeness, are only of the earth earthy. Fuseli's +fairies belong to the infernal regions; they are monstrous, lurid, and +hideously melancholy. Mr. Cruikshank alone has had a true insight into +the character of the "little people." They are something like men and +women, and yet not flesh and blood; they are laughing and mischievous, +but why we know not. Mr. Cruikshank, however, has had some dream or +the other, or else a natural mysterious instinct (as the Seherinn of +Prevorst had for beholding ghosts), or else some preternatural fairy +revelation, which has made him acquainted with the looks and ways of the +fantastical subjects of Oberon and Titania. + +We have, unfortunately, no fairy portraits; but, on the other hand, +can descend lower than fairy-land, and have seen some fine specimens +of devils. One has already been raised, and the reader has seen him +tempting a fat Dutch burgomaster, in an ancient gloomy market-place, +such as George Cruikshank can draw as well as Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash, +or any man living. There is our friend once more; our friend the +burgomaster, in a highly excited state, and running as hard as his great +legs will carry him, with our mutual enemy at his tail. + +What are the bets; will that long-legged bondholder of a devil come up +with the honest Dutchman? It serves him right: why did he put his name +to stamped paper? And yet we should not wonder if some lucky chance +should turn up in the burgomaster's favor, and his infernal creditor +lose his labor; for one so proverbially cunning as yonder tall +individual with the saucer eyes, it must be confessed that he has been +very often outwitted. + +There is, for instance, the case of "The Gentleman in Black," which has +been illustrated by our artist. A young French gentleman, by name M. +Desonge, who, having expended his patrimony in a variety of taverns and +gaming-houses, was one day pondering upon the exhausted state of his +finances, and utterly at a loss to think how he should provide means for +future support, exclaimed, very naturally, "What the devil shall I do?" +He had no sooner spoken than a GENTLEMAN IN BLACK made his appearance, +whose authentic portrait Mr. Cruikshank has had the honor to paint. +This gentleman produced a black-edged book out of a black bag, some +black-edged papers tied up with black crape, and sitting down familiarly +opposite M. Desonge, began conversing with him on the state of his +affairs. + +It is needless to state what was the result of the interview. M. Desonge +was induced by the gentleman to sign his name to one of the black-edged +papers, and found himself at the close of the conversation to be +possessed of an unlimited command of capital. This arrangement +completed, the Gentleman in Black posted (in an extraordinarily rapid +manner) from Paris to London, there found a young English merchant in +exactly the same situation in which M. Desonge had been, and concluded a +bargain with the Briton of exactly the same nature. + +The book goes on to relate how these young men spent the money so +miraculously handed over to them, and how both, when the period drew +near that was to witness the performance of THEIR part of the bargain, +grew melancholy, wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonorable as to seek +for every means of breaking through their agreement. The Englishman +living in a country where the lawyers are more astute than any other +lawyers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn; +whose name, as we cannot find it in the "Law List," we presume to be +fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the devil? Lord ---- +very likely; we shall not give his name, but let every reader of this +Review fill up the blank according to his own fancy, and on comparing it +with the copy purchased by his neighbors, he will find that fifteen out +of twenty have written down the same honored name. + +Well, the Gentleman in Black was anxious for the fulfilment of his bond. +The parties met at Mr. Bagsby's chambers to consult, the Black Gentleman +foolishly thinking that he could act as his own counsel, and fearing no +attorney alive. But mark the superiority of British law, and see how the +black pettifogger was defeated. + +Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into Chancery, and +his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, refused to move a step +farther in the matter. + +And now the French gentleman, M. Desonge, hearing of his friend's +escape, became anxious to be free from his own rash engagements. +He employed the same counsel who had been successful in the former +instance, but the Gentleman in Black was a great deal wiser by this +time, and whether M. Desonge escaped, or whether he is now in that +extensive place which is paved with good intentions, we shall not say. +Those who are anxious to know had better purchase the book wherein +all these interesting matters are duly set down. There is one more +diabolical picture in our budget, engraved by Mr. Thompson, the same +dexterous artist who has rendered the former diableries so well. + +We may mention Mr. Thompson's name as among the first of the engravers +to whom Cruikshank's designs have been entrusted; and next to him (if +we may be allowed to make such arbitrary distinctions) we may place +Mr. Williams; and the reader is not possibly aware of the immense +difficulties to be overcome in the rendering of these little sketches, +which, traced by the designer in a few hours, require weeks' labor +from the engraver. Mr. Cruikshank has not been educated in the regular +schools of drawing (very luckily for him, as we think), and consequently +has had to make a manner for himself, which is quite unlike that of any +other draftsman. There is nothing in the least mechanical about it; to +produce his particular effects he uses his own particular lines, which +are queer, free, fantastical, and must be followed in all their infinite +twists and vagaries by the careful tool of the engraver. Those three +lovely heads, for instance, imagined out of the rinds of lemons, are +worth examining, not so much for the jovial humor and wonderful variety +of feature exhibited in these darling countenances as for the engraver's +part of the work. See the infinite delicate cross-lines and hatchings +which he is obliged to render; let him go, not a hair's breadth, but +the hundredth part of a hair's breadth, beyond the given line, and the +FEELING of it is ruined. He receives these little dots and specks, and +fantastical quirks of the pencil, and cuts away with a little knife +round each, not too much nor too little. Antonio's pound of flesh did +not puzzle the Jew so much; and so well does the engraver succeed at +last, that we never remember to have met with a single artist who did +not vow that the wood-cutter had utterly ruined his design. + +Of Messrs. Thompson and Williams we have spoken as the first engravers +in point of rank; however, the regulations of professional precedence +are certainly very difficult, and the rest of their brethren we shall +not endeavor to class. Why should the artists who executed the cuts of +the admirable "Three Courses" yield the pas to any one? + +There, for instance, is an engraving by Mr. Landells, nearly as good +in our opinion as the very best woodcut that ever was made after +Cruikshank, and curiously happy in rendering the artist's peculiar +manner: this cut does not come from the facetious publications which we +have consulted; but is a contribution by Mr. Cruikshank to an elaborate +and splendid botanical work upon the Orchidaceae of Mexico, by Mr. +Bateman. Mr. Bateman despatched some extremely choice roots of this +valuable plant to a friend in England, who, on the arrival of the case, +consigned it to his gardener to unpack. A great deal of anxiety with +regard to the contents was manifested by all concerned, but on the +lid of the box being removed, there issued from it three or four fine +specimens of the enormous Blatta beetle that had been preying upon the +plants during the voyage; against these the gardeners, the grooms, the +porters, and the porters' children, issued forth in arms, and this scene +the artist has immortalized. + +We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruikshank has depicted +Irish character and Cockney character; English country character is +quite as faithfully delineated in the person of the stout porteress and +her children, and of the "Chawbacon" with the shovel, on whose face is +written "Zummerzetsheer." Chawbacon appears in another plate, or else +Chawbacon's brother. He has come up to Lunnan, and is looking about him +at raaces. + +How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have just been +examining! They hang about the purlieus of the metropolis: Brook Green, +Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Goodwood, are their haunts. They visit London +professionally once a year, and that is at the time of Bartholomew +fair. How one may speculate upon the different degrees of rascality, +as exhibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, and form little +histories for these worthies, charming Newgate romances, such as have +been of late the fashion! Is any man so blind that he cannot see the +exact face that is writhing under the thhnblerigged hero's hat? Like +Timanthes of old, our artist expresses great passions without the aid +of the human countenance. There is another specimen--a street row of +inebriated bottles. Is there any need of having a face after this? "Come +on!" says Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat on one +ear--"Come on! has any man a mind to tap me?" Claret-bottle is a little +screwed (as one may see by his legs), but full of gayety and courage; +not so that stout, apoplectic Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against +the wall, and has his hand upon his liver: the fellow hurts himself +with smoking, that is clear, and is as sick as sick can be. See, Port +is making away from the storm, and Double X is as flat as ditch-water. +Against these, awful in their white robes, the sober watchmen come. + +Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite clearly, as +in the thimblerig group; or he can do without faces altogether; or he +can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of any +given object--a beautiful Irish physiognomy being moulded upon a keg of +whiskey; and a jolly English countenance frothing out of a pot of ale +(the spirit of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay); +while in a fungus may be recognized the physiognomy of a mushroom peer. +Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living head, body, and legs +out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case of the vivacious pair of +spectacles that are jockeying the nose of Caddy Cuddle. + +Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel +engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have been, that +his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only be produced +by hundreds before. He has made many a bookseller's and author's fortune +(we trust that in so doing he may not have neglected his own). Twelve +admirable plates, furnished yearly to that facetious little publication, +the Comic Almanac, have gained for it a sale, as we hear, of nearly +twenty thousand copies. The idea of the work was novel; there was, +in the first number especially, a great deal of comic power, and +Cruikshank's designs were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a +vast favorite with the public, and has so remained ever since. + +Besides the twelve plates, this almanac contains a prophetic woodcut, +accompanying an awful Blarneyhum Astrologicum that appears in this and +other almanacs. There is one that hints in pretty clear terms that with +the Reform of Municipal Corporations the ruin of the great Lord Mayor of +London is at hand. His lordship is meekly going to dine at an eightpenny +ordinary, his giants in pawn, his men in armor dwindled to "one poor +knight," his carriage to be sold, his stalwart aldermen vanished, his +sheriffs, alas! and alas! in gaol! Another design shows that Rigdum, if +a true, is also a moral and instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or +rather in a vision; the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousand +bright bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a +knave has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe +round his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all; +the rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare); +his faithful dog is bolting his leg-of-mutton--nay, a thief has gotten +hold of his very candle, and there, by way of moral, is his ale-pot, +which looks and winks in his face, and seems to say, O Bull, all this is +froth, and a cruel satirical picture of a certain rustic who had a +goose that laid certain golden eggs, which goose the rustic slew in +expectation of finding all the eggs at once. This is goose and sage too, +to borrow the pun of "learned Doctor Gill;" but we shrewdly suspect that +Mr. Cruikshank is becoming a little conservative in his notions. + +We love these pictures so that it is hard to part us, and we still +fondly endeavor to hold on, but this wild word, farewell, must be spoken +by the best friends at last, and so good-by, brave woodcuts: we feel +quite a sadness in coming to the last of our collection. + +In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almanac all the manners and customs +of Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted down; and if +during the last two years the mysterious personage who, under the title +of "Rigdum Funnidos," compiles this ephemeris, has been compelled to +resort to romantic tales, we must suppose that he did so because the +great metropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary to discover new +worlds in the cloud-land of fancy. The character of Mr. Stubbs, who +made his appearance in the Almanac for 1839, had, we think, great merit, +although his adventures were somewhat of too tragical a description to +provoke pure laughter. + +We should be glad to devote a few pages to the "Illustrations of Time," +the "Scraps and Sketches," and the "Illustrations of Phrenology," which +are among the most famous of our artist's publications; but it is very +difficult to find new terms of praise, as find them one must, when +reviewing Mr. Cruikshank's publications, and more difficult still (as +the reader of this notice will no doubt have perceived for himself long +since) to translate his design into words, and go to the printer's box +for a description of all that fun and humor which the artist can +produce by a few skilful turns of his needle. A famous article upon the +"Illustrations of Time" appeared some dozen years since in Blackwood's +Magazine, of which the conductors have always been great admirers of our +artist, as became men of honor and genius. To these grand qualities +do not let it be supposed that we are laying claim, but, thank heaven, +Cruikshank's humor is so good and benevolent that any man must love it, +and on this score we may speak as well as another. + +Then there are the "Greenwich Hospital" designs, which must not be +passed over. "Greenwich Hospital" is a hearty, good-natured book, in the +Tom Dibdin school, treating of the virtues of British tars, in approved +nautical language. They maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, they go out +in brigs and take frigates, they relieve women in distress, and are +yard-arm and yard-arming, athwart-hawsing, marlinspiking, binnacling, +and helm's-a-leeing, as honest seamen invariably do, in novels, on the +stage, and doubtless on board ship. This we cannot take upon us to say, +but the artist, like a true Englishman, as he is, loves dearly these +brave guardians of Old England, and chronicles their rare or fanciful +exploits with the greatest good-will. Let any one look at the noble head +of Nelson in the "Family Library," and they will, we are sure, think +with us that the designer must have felt and loved what he drew. There +are to this abridgment of Southey's admirable book many more cuts after +Cruikshank; and about a dozen pieces by the same hand will be found in +a work equally popular, Lockhart's excellent "Life of Napoleon." Among +these the retreat from Moscow is very fine; the Mamlouks most vigorous, +furious, and barbarous, as they should be. At the end of these three +volumes Mr. Cruikshank's contributions to the "Family Library" seem +suddenly to have ceased. + +We are not at all disposed to undervalue the works and genius of Mr. +Dickens, and we are sure that he would admit as readily as any man the +wonderful assistance that he has derived from the artist who has given +us the portraits of his ideal personages, and made them familiar to +all the world. Once seen, these figures remain impressed on the memory, +which otherwise would have had no hold upon them, and the heroes and +heroines of Boz become personal acquaintances with each of us. Oh, that +Hogarth could have illustrated Fielding in the same way! and fixed down +on paper those grand figures of Parson Adams, and Squire Allworthy, and +the great Jonathan Wild. + +With regard to the modern romance of "Jack Sheppard," in which the +latter personage makes a second appearance, it seems to us that Mr. +Cruikshank really created the tale, and that Mr. Ainsworth, as it were, +only put words to it. Let any reader of the novel think over it for +a while, now that it is some months since he has perused and laid it +down--let him think, and tell us what he remembers of the tale? George +Cruikshank's pictures--always George Cruikshank's pictures. The storm in +the Thames, for instance: all the author's labored description of that +event has passed clean away--we have only before the mind's eye the fine +plates of Cruikshank: the poor wretch cowering under the bridge arch, as +the waves come rushing in, and the boats are whirling away in the drift +of the great swollen black waters. And let any man look at that second +plate of the murder on the Thames, and he must acknowledge how much more +brilliant the artist's description is than the writer's, and what a real +genius for the terrible as well as for the ridiculous the former has; +how awful is the gloom of the old bridge, a few lights glimmering from +the houses here and there, but not so as to be reflected on the water at +all, which is too turbid and raging: a great heavy rack of clouds goes +sweeping over the bridge, and men with flaring torches, the murderers, +are borne away with the stream. + +The author requires many pages to describe the fury of the storm, which +Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, he has to prepare you with +the something inexpressibly melancholy in sailing on a dark night upon +the Thames: "the ripple of the water," "the darkling current," "the +indistinctively seen craft," "the solemn shadows" and other phenomena +visible on rivers at night are detailed (with not unskilful rhetoric) +in order to bring the reader into a proper frame of mind for the deeper +gloom and horror which is to ensue. Then follow pages of description. +"As Rowland sprang to the helm, and gave the signal for pursuit, a war +like a volley of ordnance was heard aloft, and the wind again burst its +bondage. A moment before the surface of the stream was as black as ink. +It was now whitening, hissing, and seething, like an enormous caldron. +The blast once more swept over the agitated river, whirled off the +sheets of foam, scattered them far and wide in rain-drops, and left the +raging torrent blacker than before. Destruction everywhere marked the +course of the gale. Steeples toppled and towers reeled beneath its fury. +All was darkness, horror, confusion, ruin. Men fled from their tottering +habitations and returned to them, scared by greater danger. The end +of the world seemed at hand. . . . The hurricane had now reached its +climax. The blast shrieked, as if exulting in its wrathful mission. +Stunning and continuous, the din seemed almost to take away the power of +hearing. He who had faced the gale WOULD HAVE BEEN INSTANTLY STIFLED," +&c. &c. See with what a tremendous war of words (and good loud words +too; Mr. Ainsworth's description is a good and spirited one) the author +is obliged to pour in upon the reader before he can effect his purpose +upon the latter, and inspire him with a proper terror. The painter does +it at a glance, and old Wood's dilemma in the midst of that tremendous +storm, with the little infant at his bosom, is remembered afterwards, +not from the words, but from the visible image of them that the artist +has left us. + +It would not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the whole of +the "Jack Sheppard" plates, which are among the most finished and the +most successful of Mr. Cruikshank's performances, and say a word or two +concerning them. Let us begin with finding fault with No. 1, "Mr. Wood +offers to adopt little Jack Sheppard." A poor print, on a poor subject; +the figure of the woman not as carefully designed as it might be, and +the expression of the eyes (not an uncommon fault with our artist) much +caricatured. The print is cut up, to use the artist's phrase, by the +number of accessories which the engraver has thought proper, after the +author's elaborate description, elaborately to reproduce. The plate of +"Wild discovering Darrell in the loft" is admirable--ghastly, terrible, +and the treatment of it extraordinarily skilful, minute, and bold. The +intricacies of the tile-work, and the mysterious twinkling of light +among the beams, are excellently felt and rendered; and one sees here, +as in the two next plates of the storm and murder, what a fine eye the +artist has, what a skilful hand, and what a sympathy for the wild and +dreadful. As a mere imitation of nature, the clouds and the bridge +in the murder picture may be examined by painters who make far higher +pretensions than Mr. Cruikshank. In point of workmanship they are +equally good, the manner quite unaffected, the effect produced without +any violent contrast, the whole scene evidently well and philosophically +arranged in the artist's brain, before he began to put it upon copper. + +The famous drawing of "Jack carving the name on the beam," which has +been transferred to half the play-bills in town, is overloaded with +accessories, as the first plate; but they are much better arranged +than in the last-named engraving, and do not injure the effect of the +principal figure. Remark, too, the conscientiousness of the artist, +and that shrewd pervading idea of FORM which is one of his principal +characteristics. Jack is surrounded by all sorts of implements of his +profession; he stands on a regular carpenter's table: away in the shadow +under it lie shavings and a couple of carpenter's hampers. The glue-pot, +the mallet, the chisel-handle, the planes, the saws, the hone with +its cover, and the other paraphernalia are all represented with +extraordinary accuracy and forethought. The man's mind has retained +the exact DRAWING of all these minute objects (unconsciously perhaps +to himself), but we can see with what keen eyes he must go through the +world, and what a fund of facts (as such a knowledge of the shape of +objects is in his profession) this keen student of nature has stored +away in his brain. In the next plate, where Jack is escaping from his +mistress, the figure of that lady, one of the deepest of the [Greek text +omitted], strikes us as disagreeable and unrefined; that of Winifred is, +on the contrary, very pretty and graceful; and Jack's puzzled, slinking +look must not be forgotten. All the accessories are good, and the +apartment has a snug, cosy air; which is not remarkable, except that +it shows how faithfully the designer has performed his work, and how +curiously he has entered into all the particulars of the subject. + +Master Thames Darrell, the handsome young man of the book, is, in Mr. +Cruikshank's portraits of him, no favorite of ours. The lad seems to +wish to make up for the natural insignificance of his face by frowning +on all occasions most portentously. This figure, borrowed from the +compositor's desk, will give a notion of what we mean. Wild's face +is too violent for the great man of history (if we may call Fielding +history), but this is in consonance with the ranting, frowning, +braggadocio character that Mr. Ainsworth has given him. + +The "Interior of Willesden Church" is excellent as a composition, and a +piece of artistical workmanship; the groups are well arranged; and the +figure of Mrs. Sheppard looking round alarmed, as her son is robbing +the dandy Kneebone, is charming, simple, and unaffected. Not so "Mrs. +Sheppard ill in bed," whose face is screwed up to an expression vastly +too tragic. The little glimpse of the church seen through the open door +of the room is very beautiful and poetical: it is in such small hints +that an artist especially excels; they are the morals which he loves +to append to his stories, and are always appropriate and welcome. +The boozing ken is not to our liking; Mrs. Sheppard is there with her +horrified eyebrows again. Why this exaggeration--is it necessary for +the public? We think not, or if they require such excitement, let our +artist, like a true painter as he is, teach them better things.* + + * A gentleman (whose wit is so celebrated that one should be + very cautious in repeating his stories) gave the writer a + good illustration of the philosophy of exaggeration. Mr. -- + -- was once behind the scenes at the Opera when the scene- + shifters were preparing for the ballet. Flora was to sleep + under a bush, whereon were growing a number of roses, and + amidst which was fluttering a gay covey of butterflies. In + size the roses exceeded the most expansive sunflowers, and + the butterflies were as large as cocked hats;--the scene + -shifter explained to Mr. ----, who asked the reason why + everything was so magnified, that the galleries could never + see the objects unless they were enormously exaggerated. + How many of our writers and designers work for the + galleries? + + The "Escape from Willesden Cage" is excellent; the "Burglary + in Wood's house" has not less merit; "Mrs. Sheppard in + Bedlam," a ghastly picture indeed, is finely conceived, but + not, as we fancy, so carefully executed; it would be better + for a little more careful drawing in the female figure. + + "Jack sitting for his picture" is a very pleasing group, and + savors of the manner of Hogarth, who is introduced in the + company. The "Murder of Trenchard" must be noticed too as + remarkable for the effect and terrible vigor which the + artist has given to the scene. The "Willesden Churchyard" + has great merit too, but the gems of the book are the little + vignettes illustrating the escape from Newgate. Here, too, + much anatomical care of drawing is not required; the figures + are so small that the outline and attitude need only to be + indicated, and the designer has produced a series of figures + quite remarkable for reality and poetry too. There are no + less than ten of Jack's feats so described by Mr. + Cruikshank. (Let us say a word here in praise of the + excellent manner in which the author has carried us through + the adventure.) Here is Jack clattering up the chimney, now + peering into the lonely red room, now opening "the door + between the red room and the chapel." What a wild, fierce, + scared look he has, the young ruffian, as cautiously he + steps in, holding light his bar of iron. You can see by his + face how his heart is beating! If any one were there! but + no! And this is a very fine characteristic of the prints, + the extreme LONELINESS of them all. Not a soul is there to + disturb him--woe to him who should--and Jack drives in the + chapel gate, and shatters down the passage door, and there + you have him on the leads. Up he goes! it is but a spring + of a few feet from the blanket, and he is gone--abiit, + evasit, erupit! Mr. Wild must catch him again if he can. + + We must not forget to mention "Oliver Twist," and Mr. + Cruikshank's famous designs to that work.* The sausage + scene at Fagin's, Nancy seizing the boy; that capital piece + of humor, Mr. Bumble's courtship, which is even better in + Cruikshank's version than in Boz's exquisite account of the + interview; Sykes's farewell to the dog; and the Jew,--the + dreadful Jew--that Cruikshank drew! What a fine touching + picture of melancholy desolation is that of Sykes and the + dog! The poor cur is not too well drawn, the landscape is + stiff and formal; but in this case the faults, if faults + they be, of execution rather add to than diminish the effect + of the picture: it has a strange, wild, dreary, broken + -hearted look; we fancy we see the landscape as it must have + appeared to Sykes, when ghastly and with bloodshot eyes he + looked at it. As for the Jew in the dungeon, let us say + nothing of it--what can we say to describe it? What a fine + homely poet is the man who can produce this little world of + mirth or woe for us! Does he elaborate his effects by slow + process of thought, or do they come to him by instinct? + Does the painter ever arrange in his brain an image so + complete, that he afterwards can copy it exactly on the + canvas, or does the hand work in spite of him? + + + * Or his new work, "The Tower of London," which promises + even to surpass Mr. Cruikshank's former productions. + +A great deal of this random work of course every artist has done in his +time; many men produce effects of which they never dreamed, and strike +off excellences, haphazard, which gain for them reputation; but a fine +quality in Mr. Cruikshank, the quality of his success, as we have said +before, is the extraordinary earnestness and good faith with which +he executes all he attempts--the ludicrous, the polite, the low, the +terrible. In the second of these he often, in our fancy, fails, his +figures lacking elegance and descending to caricature; but there is +something fine in this too: it is good that he SHOULD fail, that he +should have these honest naive notions regarding the beau monde, the +characteristics of which a namby-pamby tea-party painter could hit +off far better than he. He is a great deal too downright and manly to +appreciate the flimsy delicacies of small society--you cannot expect a +lion to roar you like any sucking dove, or frisk about a drawing-room +like a lady's little spaniel. + +If then, in the course of his life and business, he has been +occasionally obliged to imitate the ways of such small animals, he has +done so, let us say it at once, clumsily, and like as a lion should. +Many artists, we hear, hold his works rather cheap; they prate about bad +drawing, want of scientific knowledge:--they would have something vastly +more neat, regular, anatomical. + +Not one of the whole band most likely but can paint an Academy figure +better than himself; nay, or a portrait of an alderman's lady and family +of children. But look down the list of the painters and tell us who +are they? How many among these men are POETS (makers), possessing the +faculty to create, the greatest among the gifts with which Providence +has endowed the mind of man? Say how many there are, count up what they +have done, and see what in the course of some nine-and-twenty years has +been done by this indefatigable man. + +What amazing energetic fecundity do we find in him! As a boy he began to +fight for bread, has been hungry (twice a day we trust) ever since, and +has been obliged to sell his wit for his bread week by week. And +his wit, sterling gold as it is, will find no such purchasers as the +fashionable painter's thin pinchbeck, who can live comfortably for +six weeks, when paid for and painting a portrait, and fancies his mind +prodigiously occupied all the while. There was an artist in Paris, an +artist hairdresser, who used to be fatigued and take restoratives after +inventing a new coiffure. By no such gentle operation of head-dressing +has Cruikshank lived: time was (we are told so in print) when for a +picture with thirty heads in it he was paid three guineas--a poor week's +pittance truly, and a dire week's labor. We make no doubt that the same +labor would at present bring him twenty times the sum; but whether it +be ill paid or well, what labor has Mr. Cruikshank's been! Week by week, +for thirty years, to produce something new; some smiling offspring of +painful labor, quite independent and distinct from its ten thousand +jovial brethren; in what hours of sorrow and ill-health to be told by +the world, "Make us laugh or you starve--Give us fresh fun; we have +eaten up the old and are hungry." And all this has he been obliged to +do--to wring laughter day by day, sometimes, perhaps, out of want, often +certainly from ill-health or depression--to keep the fire of his brain +perpetually alight: for the greedy public will give it no leisure to +cool. This he has done and done well. He has told a thousand truths in +as many strange and fascinating ways; he has given a thousand new and +pleasant thoughts to millions of people; he has never used his wit +dishonestly; he has never, in all the exuberance of his frolicsome +humor, caused a single painful or guilty blush: how little do we think +of the extraordinary power of this man, and how ungrateful we are to +him! + +Here, as we are come round to the charge of ingratitude, the +starting-post from which we set out, perhaps we had better conclude. The +reader will perhaps wonder at the high-flown tone in which we speak of +the services and merits of an individual, whom he considers a humble +scraper on steel, that is wonderfully popular already. But none of us +remember all the benefits we owe him; they have come one by one, one +driving out the memory of the other: it is only when we come to examine +them all together, as the writer has done, who has a pile of books +on the table before him--a heap of personal kindnesses from George +Cruikshank (not presents, if you please, for we bought, borrowed, or +stole every one of them)--that we feel what we owe him. Look at one of +Mr. Cruikshank's works, and we pronounce him an excellent humorist. +Look at all: his reputation is increased by a kind of geometrical +progression; as a whole diamond is a hundred times more valuable than +the hundred splinters into which it might be broken would be. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +George Cruikshank + +by William Makepeace Thackeray + + + + +* Reprinted from the Westminster Review for June, 1840. (No 66.) + + +Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations 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 somewhat 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 "ingenious 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 which 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 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. Neither member of +the new partnership 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, wandering 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 +scarcely expected 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 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 vapor 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 straight-way 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 works--the "Busen fuhlt sich jugendlich +erschuttert," 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 +wonderful pencil has illustrated? 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 "Illustrations 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 honor of drawing the first lot, and seized immediately upon +"Philoprogenitiveness"--a marvellous print (our copy is not at all +improved by being colored, which operation we performed on it +ourselves)--a marvellous print, indeed,--full of ingenuity and fine +jovial humor. 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 nightcaps, in +frocks, in bibs, in breeches, are clambering about the head, +knees, and arms of the man with the nose; their noses, too, are +preternaturally developed--the twins in the cradle have noses of the +most considerable 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 savory dish of +Yorkshire pudding for eighteen persons; the youths who are examining +her operations (one a literary gentleman, in a remarkably neat +nightcap and pinafore, who has just had his finger in the pudding); +the genius who is at work on the slate, and the two honest lads who +are hugging the good-humored 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 heart; every one of +those he has drawn is perfectly happy, and jovial, and affectionate, +and innocent as possible. He makes them with large noses, but he +loves them, and you always find something kind in the midst of his +humor, 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, Sweetings 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 +windows--where are they? 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! 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 humor with a general sympathizing roar. Where are these +people now? You never hear any laughing at HB.; 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 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 Humor" 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 up +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 infelix, 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,* in his dirty, +tattered, faded motley--seized as a law-breaker, for acting at a +penny theatre, after having wellnigh starved in the streets, where +nobody would listen to his old guitar? No one gave a shilling to +bless him: not one of us who owe him so much. + + +* This was written in 1840. + + +We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased at finding +his name in such company as that of Clown and Harlequin; but he, +like them, is certainly the children's friend. His drawings abound +in feeling 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 schoolboys 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. 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 +butterfly-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 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 farmhouses, 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 +lifelike 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 endeavoring 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 in 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 morality is, that the uncle one day in the morning of +life vowed that he would catch his two nephews and tie them +together, 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 +uncles 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 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 humor is too good for +the public, that only a chosen few can relish it. The best humor +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 humor 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 humor 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 populaire (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 favor, where a man +of three times his acquirements will only find indifference 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 Gilray would have +been far more successful and more powerful but for that unhappy +bribe, which turned the whole course of his humor into an unnatural +channel. Cruikshank 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 +spotless, 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 would not stand by and see a woman +ill-used, and so struck in for her rescue, he and the people +belaboring 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. Cruikshank'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, Sidmouth, 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 disloyalty; 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 +regular John Bull style, with the Gilray 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 XVIII. 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. Cruikshank +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 invariably thin, with +ludicrous spindle-shanks, pigtails, outstretched hands, shrugging +shoulders, and queer hair and mustachios. 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 +Boulingrog" and "Lady Crockmilove." 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, contains +a number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style; and though we +believe he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great +deal of life in them, and pass muster very well. A villanous 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 colored, have a pleasant, lively look. The same style was +adopted in the once famous book called "Tom and Jerry, or Life in +London," which must have a word of notice here, for, although by no +means Mr. Cruikshank's best work, his reputation was extraordinarily +raised by it. Tom and Jerry were as popular twenty years since as +Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller now are; and often have we wished, while +reading the biographies of the latter celebrated personages, that +they had been described as well by Mr. Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. +Dickens's pen. + +As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs and +the evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British +Museum and no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the +book, and "Life in London," alas, is not to be found at any one of +them. We can only, therefore, speak of the work from recollection, +but have still a very clear remembrance of the leather gaiters of +Jerry Hawthorn, the green spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose +of Corinthian Tom. They were the 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 watchman at Temple Bar; Tom and Jerry dancing at +Almack's; or flirting in the saloon at the theatre; at the night- +houses, after the play; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver cup +then in the possession of that champion; at the chambers of Bob +Logic, who, seated at a cabinet piano, plays a waltz to which +Corinthian Tom and Kate are dancing; 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 +without 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 Humor." 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 labored as some +of his later productions, are none the worse, in our opinion, for +their comparative want of finish. All the effects are perfectly +given, and the expression is 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 parts, 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 Honor," +illustrates the old story of the officer who, on being accused of +cowardice for refusing to fight a duel, came among his brother +officers and flung a lighted grenade down upon the floor, before +which his comrades fled ignominiously. This design is capital, and +the outward rush of heroes, walking, trampling, twisting, scuffling +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 +gutter, were, by a charitable though misguided gentleman, 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 temporary +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 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? By heavens, it is the +squire of the parish. What business has he there? 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 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 banknotes, although +he was so mighty scrupulous in endeavoring 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, 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. Sheppard, 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 mourn + 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 fairs to driddle," + + +prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker sings +with a noble candor, 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? He had the greatest contempt for it, and loved freedom +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-scraper" by the +beard,--drawing his "roosty 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 withered imp, + Wi' a' his noise and caperin'; + And take a share with those that bear + The budget and 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 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 late Mr. Clark's excellent work, "Three Courses and a Dessert," +was published at a time when the rage for comic stories was not so +great as it since has been, and 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 contains 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 that wonderful 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. + +For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, beadles, +policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, +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 Sheppard," and the immortal Fagin of "Oliver +Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in these persons and things? +Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite a charity boy? Why +should a tall life-guardsman have something in him essentially +absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long? What is +there particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a long +nose always provoke the beholder to laughter? These points may be +metaphysically elucidated by those who list. It is probable that +Mr. 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. + +He has made a complete little gallery of dustmen. There 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 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 belabors the 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 creative power of the man +who has arranged this little tale of low life. How logically it is +conducted, how cleverly each one of the accessories is made to +contribute to the effect of the whole. What a deal of thought and +humor 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 dustmen we pass to those purely poetical. +There 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?--and yet a whole poem +was written about Peter Bell the wagoner, a character by no means so +poetic. + +And lastly, we have the dustman in love: the honest fellow having +seen a young beauty stepping out of a gin-shop on a Sunday morning, +is pressing eagerly his suit. + +Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Cruikshank, who labors in his +own sound and hearty way to teach his countrymen 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 +looming through the darkness whereof you see an agreeable prospect +of gibbets with men dangling, burnt houses, &c. The vast cloud +comes sweeping on in the wake of this horrible body-crusher; and you +see, by way of contrast, a distant, smiling, sunshiny tract of old +English country, where gin as yet is not known. The allegory is as +good, as earnest, and as fanciful as one of John Bunyan's, and we +have often fancied there was a similarity between the men. + +The render will examine the work called "My Sketch-Book" with not a +little amusement, and may gather from it, as we fancy, a good deal +of information regarding the character of the individual man, George +Cruikshank: what points strike his eye as a painter; what move his +anger or admiration as a moralist; what classes he seems most +especially disposed to observe, and what to ridicule. There are +quacks of all kinds, to whom he has a mortal hatred; quack dandies, +who assume under his pencil, perhaps in his eye, the most grotesque +appearance possible--their hats grow larger, their legs infinitely +more crooked and lean; the tassels of their canes swell out to a +most preposterous size; the tails of their coats dwindle away, and +finish where coat-tails generally begin. Let us lay a wager that +Cruikshank, a man of the people if ever there was one, heartily +hates and despises these supercilious, swaggering young gentlemen; +and his contempt is not a whit the less laudable because there may +be tant soit peu of prejudice in it. It is right and wholesome to +scorn dandies, as Nelson said it was to hate Frenchmen; in which +sentiment (as we have before said) George Cruikshank undoubtedly +shares. In the "Sunday in London,"* Monsieur the Chef is instructing +a kitchen-maid how to compound some rascally French kickshaw or the +other--a pretty scoundrel truly! with what an air he wears that +nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and chatters, and +ogles, and grins: they are all the same, these mounseers; there are +other two fellows--morbleu! one is putting his dirty fingers into +the saucepan; there are frogs cooking in it, no doubt; and just over +some other dish of abomination, another dirty rascal is taking +snuff! Never mind, the sauce won't be hurt by a few ingredients +more or less. Three such fellows as these are not worth one +Englishman, that's clear. There is one in the very midst of them, +the great burly fellow with the beef: he could beat all three in +five minutes. We cannot be certain that such was the process going +on in Mr. Cruikshank's mind when he made the design; but some +feelings of the sort were no doubt entertained by him. + + +* The following lines--ever fresh--by the author of "Headlong Hall," +published years ago in the Globe and Traveller, are an excellent +comment on several of the cuts from the "Sunday in London:"-- + + I. + + "The poor man's sins are glaring; + In the face of ghostly warning + He is caught in the fact + Of an overt act, + Buying greens on Sunday morning. + + II. + + "The rich man's sins are hidden + In the pomp of wealth and station, + And escape the sight + Of the children of light, + Who are wise in their generation. + + III. + + "The rich man has a kitchen, + And cooks to dress his dinner; + The poor who would roast, + To the baker's must post, + And thus becomes a sinner. + + IV. + + "The rich man's painted windows + Hide the concerts of the quality; + The poor can but share + A crack'd fiddle in the air, + Which offends all sound morality. + + V. + + "The rich man has a cellar, + And a ready butler by him; + The poor must steer + For his pint of beer + Where the saint can't choose but spy him. + + VI. + + "This rich man is invisible + In the crowd of his gay society; + But the poor man's delight + Is a sore in the sight + And a stench in the nose of piety." + + +Against dandy footmen he is particularly severe. He hates idlers, +pretenders, boasters, and punishes these fellows as best he may. +Who does not recollect the famous picture, "What IS taxes, Thomas?" +What is taxes indeed; well may that vast, over-fed, lounging flunky +ask the question of his associate Thomas: and yet not well, for all +that Thomas says in reply is, "I DON'T KNOW." "O beati PLUSHICOLAE," +what a charming state of ignorance is yours! In the "Sketch-Book" +many footmen make their appearance: one is a huge fat Hercules of a +Portman Square porter, who calmly surveys another poor fellow, a +porter likewise, but out of livery, who comes staggering forward +with a box that Hercules might lift with his little finger. Will +Hercules do so? not he. The giant can carry nothing heavier than a +cocked-hat note on a silver tray, and his labors are to walk from +his sentry-box to the door, and from the door back to his sentry-box, +and to read the Sunday paper, and to poke the hall fire twice or +thrice, and to make five meals a day. Such a fellow does Cruikshank +hate and scorn worse even than a Frenchman. + +The man's master, too, comes in for no small share of our artist's +wrath. There is a company of them at church, who humbly designate +themselves "miserable sinners!" Miserable sinners indeed! Oh, what +floods of turtle-soup, what tons of turbot and lobster-sauce must +have been sacrificed to make those sinners properly miserable. My +lady with the ermine tippet and draggling feather, can we not see +that she lives in Portland Place, and is the wife of an East India +Director? She has been to the Opera over-night (indeed her husband, +on her right, with his fat hand dangling over the pew-door, is at +this minute thinking of Mademoiselle Leocadie, whom he saw behind +the scenes)--she has been at the Opera over-night, which with a +trifle of supper afterwards--a white-and-brown soup, a lobster- +salad, some woodcocks, and a little champagne--sent her to bed quite +comfortable. At half-past eight her maid brings her chocolate in +bed, at ten she has fresh eggs and muffins, with, perhaps, a half- +hundred of prawns for breakfast, and so can get over the day and the +sermon till lunch-time pretty well. What an odor of musk and +bergamot exhales from the pew!--how it is wadded, and stuffed, and +spangled over with brass nails! what hassocks are there for those +who are not too fat to kneel! what a flustering and flapping of gilt +prayer-books; and what a pious whirring of bible leaves one hears +all over the church, as the doctor blandly gives out the text! To +be miserable at this rate you must, at the very least, have four +thousand a year: and many persons are there so enamored of grief and +sin, that they would willingly take the risk of the misery to have a +life-interest in the consols that accompany it, quite careless about +consequences, and sceptical as to the notion that a day is at hand +when you must fulfil YOUR SHARE OF THE BARGAIN. + +Our artist loves to joke at a soldier; in whose livery there appears +to him to be something almost as ridiculous as in the uniform of the +gentleman of the shoulder-knot. Tall life-guardsmen and fierce +grenadiers figure in many of his designs, and almost always in a +ridiculous way. Here again we have the honest popular English +feeling which jeers at pomp or pretension of all kinds, and is +especially jealous of all display of military authority. "Raw +Recruit," "ditto dressed," ditto "served up," as we see them in the +"Sketch-Book," are so many satires upon the army: Hodge with his +ribbons flaunting in his hat, or with red coat and musket, drilled +stiff and pompous, or at last, minus leg and arm, tottering about on +crutches, does not fill our English artist with the enthusiasm that +follows the soldier in every other part of Europe. Jeanjean, the +conscript in France, is laughed at to be sure, but then it is +because he is a bad soldier: when he comes to have a huge pair of +mustachios and the croix-d'honneur to briller on his poitrine +cicatrisee, Jeanjean becomes a member of a class that is more +respected than any other in the French nation. The veteran soldier +inspires our people with no such awe--we hold that democratic weapon +the fist in much more honor than the sabre and bayonet, and laugh at +a man tricked out in scarlet and pipe-clay. + +That regiment of heroes is "marching to divine service," to the tune +of the "British Grenadiers." There they march in state, and a +pretty contempt our artist shows for all their gimcracks and +trumpery. He has drawn a perfectly English scene--the little +blackguard boys are playing pranks round about the men, and +shouting, "Heads up, soldier," "Eyes right, lobster," as little +British urchins will do. Did one ever hear the like sentiments +expressed in France? Shade of Napoleon, we insult you by asking the +question. In England, however, see how different the case is: and +designedly or undesignedly, the artist has opened to us a piece of +his mind. In the crowd the only person who admires the soldiers is +the poor idiot, whose pocket a rogue is picking. There is another +picture, in which the sentiment is much the same, only, as in the +former drawing we see Englishmen laughing at the troops of the line, +here are Irishmen giggling at the militia. + +We have said that our artist has a great love for the drolleries of +the Green Island. Would any one doubt what was the country of the +merry fellows depicted in his group of Paddies? + + + "Place me amid O'Rourkes, O'Tooles, + The ragged royal race of Tara; + Or place me where Dick Martin rules + The pathless wilds of Connemara." + + +We know not if Mr. Cruikshank has ever had any such good luck as to +see the Irish in Ireland itself, but he certainly has obtained a +knowledge of their looks, as if the country had been all his life +familiar to him. Could Mr. O'Connell himself desire anything more +national than the scene of a drunken row, or could Father Mathew +have a better text to preach upon? There is not a broken nose in +the room that is not thoroughly Irish. + +We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as +characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the comical +look of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by the witch's +stick, in order to point out also the singular neatness of the +workmanship, and the pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape +that the artist has introduced in the background. Mr. Cruikshank +has a fine eye for such homely landscapes, and renders them with +great delicacy and taste. Old villages, farm-yards, groups of +stacks, queer chimneys, churches, gable-ended cottages, Elizabethan +mansion-houses, and other old English scenes, he depicts with +evident enthusiasm. + +Famous books in their day were Cruikshank's "John Gilpin" and +"Epping Hunt;" for though our artist does not draw horses very +scientifically,--to use a phrase of the atelier,--he FEELS them very +keenly; and his queer animals, after one is used to them, answer +quite as well as better. Neither is he very happy in trees, and +such rustical produce; or, rather, we should say, he is very +original, his trees being decidedly of his own make and composition, +not imitated from any master. + +But what then? Can a man be supposed to imitate everything? We +know what the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. +Cruikshank has confined himself. That postilion with the people in +the broken-down chaise roaring after him is as deaf as the post by +which he passes. Suppose all the accessories were away, could not +one swear that the man was stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet? +What is the peculiar character in a deaf man's physiognomy?--can any +person define it satisfactorily in words?--not in pages; and Mr. +Cruikshank has expressed it on a piece of paper not so big as the +tenth part of your thumb-nail. The horses of John Gilpin are much +more of the equestrian order; and as here the artist has only his +favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is to be said +against his design. The inn and old buildings are charmingly +designed, and nothing can be more prettily or playfully touched. + + + "At Edmonton his loving wife + From the balcony spied + Her tender husband, wond'ring much + To see how he did ride. + + "'Stop, stop, John Gilpin! Here's the house!' + They all at once did cry; + 'The dinner waits, and we are tired--' + Said Gilpin--'So am I!' + + "Six gentlemen upon the road + Thus seeing Gilpin fly, + With post-boy scamp'ring in the rear, + They raised the hue and cry:-- + + "'Stop thief! stop thief!--a highwayman!' + Not one of them was mute; + And all and each that passed that way + Did join in the pursuit. + + "And now the turnpike gates again + Flew open in short space; + The toll-men thinking, as before, + That Gilpin rode a race." + + +The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellently depicted by the +artist; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing +animals, must here make a special exception in favor of the hens and +chickens; each has a different action, and is curiously natural. + +Happy are children of all ages who have such a ballad and such +pictures as this in store for them! It is a comfort to think that +woodcuts never wear out, and that the book still may be had for a +shilling, for those who can command that sum of money. + +In the "Epping Hunt," which we owe to the facetious pen of Mr. Hood, +our artist has not been so successful. There is here too much +horsemanship and not enough incident for him; but the portrait of +Roundings the huntsman is an excellent sketch, and a couple of the +designs contain great humor. The first represents the Cockney hero, +who, "like a bird, was singing out while sitting on a tree." + +And in the second the natural order is reversed. The stag having +taken heart, is hunting the huntsman, and the Cheapside Nimrod is +most ignominiously running away. + +The Easter Hunt, we are told, is no more; and as the Quarterly +Review recommends the British public to purchase Mr. Catlin's +pictures, as they form the only record of an interesting race now +rapidly passing away, in like manner we should exhort all our +friends to purchase Mr. Cruikshank's designs of ANOTHER interesting +race, that is run already and for the last time. + +Besides these, we must mention, in the line of our duty, the notable +tragedies of "Tom Thumb" and "Bombastes Furioso," both of which have +appeared with many illustrations by Mr. Cruikshank. The "brave +army" of Bombastes exhibits a terrific display of brutal force, +which must shock the sensibilities of an English radical. And we +can well understand the caution of the general, who bids this +soldatesque effrenee to begone, and not to kick up a row. + +Such a troop of lawless ruffians let loose upon a populous city +would play sad havoc in it; and we fancy the massacres of Birmingham +renewed, or at least of Badajoz, which, though not quite so +dreadful, if we may believe his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the +former scenes of slaughter, were nevertheless severe enough: but we +must not venture upon any ill-timed pleasantries in presence of the +disturbed King Arthur and the awful ghost of Gaffer Thumb. + +We are thus carried at once into the supernatural, and here we find +Cruikshank reigning supreme. He has invented in his time a little +comic pandemonium, peopled with the most droll, good-natured fiends +possible. We have before us Chamisso's "Peter Schlemihl," with +Cruikshank's designs translated into German, and gaining nothing by +the change. The "Kinder und Hans-Maerchen" of Grimm are likewise +ornamented with a frontispiece copied from that one which appeared +to the amusing version of the English work. The books on Phrenology +and Time have been imitated by the same nation; and even in France, +whither reputation travels slower than to any country except China, +we have seen copies of the works of George Cruikshank. + +He in return has complimented the French by illustrating a couple of +Lives of Napoleon, and the "Life in Paris" before mentioned. He has +also made designs for Victor Hugo's "Hans of Iceland." Strange, +wild etchings were those, on a strange, mad subject; not so good in +our notion as the designs for the German books, the peculiar humor +of which latter seemed to suit the artist exactly. There is a +mixture of the awful and the ridiculous in these, which perpetually +excites and keeps awake the reader's attention; the German writer +and the English artist seem to have an entire faith in their +subject. The reader, no doubt, remembers the awful passage in +"Peter Schlemihl," where the little gentleman purchases the shadow +of that hero--"Have the kindness, noble sir, to examine and try this +bag." "He put his hand into his pocket, and drew thence a tolerably +large bag of Cordovan leather, to which a couple of thongs were +fixed. I took it from him, and immediately counted out ten gold +pieces, and ten more, and ten more, and still other ten, whereupon I +held out my hand to him. Done, said I, it is a bargain; you shall +have my shadow for your bag. The bargain was concluded; he knelt +down before me, and I saw him with a wonderful neatness take my +shadow from head to foot, lightly lift it up from the grass, roll +and fold it up neatly, and at last pocket it. He then rose up, +bowed to me once more, and walked away again, disappearing behind +the rose bushes. I don't know, but I thought I heard him laughing a +little. I, however, kept fast hold of the bag. Everything around +me was bright in the sun, and as yet I gave no thought to what I had +done." + +This marvellous event, narrated by Peter with such a faithful, +circumstantial detail, is painted by Cruikshank in the most +wonderful poetic way, with that happy mixture of the real and +supernatural that makes the narrative so curious, and like truth. +The sun is shining with the utmost brilliancy in a great quiet park +or garden; there is a palace in the background, and a statue basking +in the sun quite lonely and melancholy; there is a sun-dial, on +which is a deep shadow, and in the front stands Peter Schlemihl, bag +in hand: the old gentleman is down on his knees to him, and has just +lifted off the ground the SHADOW OF ONE LEG; he is going to fold it +back neatly, as one does the tails of a coat, and will stow it, +without any creases or crumples, along with the other black garments +that lie in that immense pocket of his. Cruikshank has designed all +this as if he had a very serious belief in the story; he laughs, to +be sure, but one fancies that he is a little frightened in his +heart, in spite of all his fun and joking. + +The German tales we have mentioned before. "The Prince riding on +the Fox," "Hans in Luck," "The Fiddler and his Goose," "Heads off," +are all drawings which, albeit not before us now, nor seen for ten +years, remain indelibly fixed on the memory. "Heisst du etwa +Rumpelstilzchen?" There sits the Queen on her throne, surrounded by +grinning beef-eaters, and little Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot +through the floor in the excess of his tremendous despair. In one +of these German tales, if we remember rightly, there is an account +of a little orphan who is carried away by a pitying fairy for a term +of seven years, and passing that period of sweet apprenticeship +among the imps and sprites of fairy-land. Has our artist been among +the same company, and brought back their portraits in his sketch- +book? He is the only designer fairy-land has had. Callot's imps, +for all their strangeness, are only of the earth earthy. Fuseli's +fairies belong to the infernal regions; they are monstrous, lurid, +and hideously melancholy. Mr. Cruikshank alone has had a true +insight into the character of the "little people." They are +something like men and women, and yet not flesh and blood; they are +laughing and mischievous, but why we know not. Mr. Cruikshank, +however, has had some dream or the other, or else a natural +mysterious instinct (as the Seherinn of Prevorst had for beholding +ghosts), or else some preternatural fairy revelation, which has made +him acquainted with the looks and ways of the fantastical subjects +of Oberon and Titania. + +We have, unfortunately, no fairy portraits; but, on the other hand, +can descend lower than fairy-land, and have seen some fine specimens +of devils. One has already been raised, and the reader has seen him +tempting a fat Dutch burgomaster, in an ancient gloomy market-place, +such as George Cruikshank can draw as well as Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash, +or any man living. There is our friend once more; our friend the +burgomaster, in a highly excited state, and running as hard as his +great legs will carry him, with our mutual enemy at his tail. + +What are the bets; will that long-legged bondholder of a devil come +up with the honest Dutchman? It serves him right: why did he put +his name to stamped paper? And yet we should not wonder if some +lucky chance should turn up in the burgomaster's favor, and his +infernal creditor lose his labor; for one so proverbially cunning as +yonder tall individual with the saucer eyes, it must be confessed +that he has been very often outwitted. + +There is, for instance, the case of "The Gentleman in Black," which +has been illustrated by our artist. A young French gentleman, by +name M. Desonge, who, having expended his patrimony in a variety of +taverns and gaming-houses, was one day pondering upon the exhausted +state of his finances, and utterly at a loss to think how he should +provide means for future support, exclaimed, very naturally, "What +the devil shall I do?" He had no sooner spoken than a GENTLEMAN IN +BLACK made his appearance, whose authentic portrait Mr. Cruikshank +has had the honor to paint. This gentleman produced a black-edged +book out of a black bag, some black-edged papers tied up with black +crape, and sitting down familiarly opposite M. Desonge, began +conversing with him on the state of his affairs. + +It is needless to state what was the result of the interview. M. +Desonge was induced by the gentleman to sign his name to one of the +black-edged papers, and found himself at the close of the +conversation to be possessed of an unlimited command of capital. +This arrangement completed, the Gentleman in Black posted (in an +extraordinarily rapid manner) from Paris to London, there found a +young English merchant in exactly the same situation in which M. +Desonge had been, and concluded a bargain with the Briton of exactly +the same nature. + +The book goes on to relate how these young men spent the money so +miraculously handed over to them, and how both, when the period drew +near that was to witness the performance of THEIR part of the +bargain, grew melancholy, wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonorable +as to seek for every means of breaking through their agreement. The +Englishman living in a country where the lawyers are more astute +than any other lawyers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. +Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn; whose name, as we cannot find it in the "Law +List," we presume to be fictitious. Who could it be that was a +match for the devil? Lord ---- very likely; we shall not give his +name, but let every reader of this Review fill up the blank +according to his own fancy, and on comparing it with the copy +purchased by his neighbors, he will find that fifteen out of twenty +have written down the same honored name. + +Well, the Gentleman in Black was anxious for the fulfilment of his +bond. The parties met at Mr. Bagsby's chambers to consult, the +Black Gentleman foolishly thinking that he could act as his own +counsel, and fearing no attorney alive. But mark the superiority of +British law, and see how the black pettifogger was defeated. + +Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into Chancery, +and his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, refused to move +a step farther in the matter. + +And now the French gentleman, M. Desonge, hearing of his friend's +escape, became anxious to be free from his own rash engagements. He +employed the same counsel who had been successful in the former +instance, but the Gentleman in Black was a great deal wiser by this +time, and whether M. Desonge escaped, or whether he is now in that +extensive place which is paved with good intentions, we shall not +say. Those who are anxious to know had better purchase the book +wherein all these interesting matters are duly set down. There is +one more diabolical picture in our budget, engraved by Mr. Thompson, +the same dexterous artist who has rendered the former diableries so +well. + +We may mention Mr. Thompson's name as among the first of the +engravers to whom Cruikshank's designs have been entrusted; and next +to him (if we may be allowed to make such arbitrary distinctions) we +may place Mr. Williams; and the reader is not possibly aware of the +immense difficulties to be overcome in the rendering of these little +sketches, which, traced by the designer in a few hours, require +weeks' labor from the engraver. Mr. Cruikshank has not been +educated in the regular schools of drawing (very luckily for him, as +we think), and consequently has had to make a manner for himself, +which is quite unlike that of any other draftsman. There is nothing +in the least mechanical about it; to produce his particular effects +he uses his own particular lines, which are queer, free, fantastical, +and must be followed in all their infinite twists and vagaries by +the careful tool of the engraver. Those three lovely heads, for +instance, imagined out of the rinds of lemons, are worth examining, +not so much for the jovial humor and wonderful variety of feature +exhibited in these darling countenances as for the engraver's part +of the work. See the infinite delicate cross-lines and hatchings +which he is obliged to render; let him go, not a hair's breadth, but +the hundredth part of a hair's breadth, beyond the given line, and +the FEELING of it is ruined. He receives these little dots and +specks, and fantastical quirks of the pencil, and cuts away with a +little knife round each, not too much nor too little. Antonio's +pound of flesh did not puzzle the Jew so much; and so well does the +engraver succeed at last, that we never remember to have met with a +single artist who did not vow that the wood-cutter had utterly +ruined his design. + +Of Messrs. Thompson and Williams we have spoken as the first +engravers in point of rank; however, the regulations of professional +precedence are certainly very difficult, and the rest of their +brethren we shall not endeavor to class. Why should the artists who +executed the cuts of the admirable "Three Courses" yield the pas to +any one? + +There, for instance, is an engraving by Mr. Landells, nearly as good +in our opinion as the very best woodcut that ever was made after +Cruikshank, and curiously happy in rendering the artist's peculiar +manner: this cut does not come from the facetious publications which +we have consulted; but is a contribution by Mr. Cruikshank to an +elaborate and splendid botanical work upon the Orchidaceae of +Mexico, by Mr. Bateman. Mr. Bateman despatched some extremely +choice roots of this valuable plant to a friend in England, who, on +the arrival of the case, consigned it to his gardener to unpack. A +great deal of anxiety with regard to the contents was manifested by +all concerned, but on the lid of the box being removed, there issued +from it three or four fine specimens of the enormous Blatta beetle +that had been preying upon the plants during the voyage; against +these the gardeners, the grooms, the porters, and the porters' +children, issued forth in arms, and this scene the artist has +immortalized. + +We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruikshank has +depicted Irish character and Cockney character; English country +character is quite as faithfully delineated in the person of the +stout porteress and her children, and of the "Chawbacon" with the +shovel, on whose face is written "Zummerzetsheer." Chawbacon +appears in another plate, or else Chawbacon's brother. He has come +up to Lunnan, and is looking about him at raaces. + +How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have just been +examining! They hang about the purlieus of the metropolis: Brook +Green, Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Goodwood, are their haunts. They +visit London professionally once a year, and that is at the time of +Bartholomew fair. How one may speculate upon the different degrees +of rascality, as exhibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, +and form little histories for these worthies, charming Newgate +romances, such as have been of late the fashion! Is any man so +blind that he cannot see the exact face that is writhing under the +thhnblerigged hero's hat? Like Timanthes of old, our artist +expresses great passions without the aid of the human countenance. +There is another specimen--a street row of inebriated bottles. Is +there any need of having a face after this? "Come on!" says Claret- +bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat on one ear--"Come +on! has any man a mind to tap me?" Claret-bottle is a little +screwed (as one may see by his legs), but full of gayety and +courage; not so that stout, apoplectic Bottle-of-rum, who has +staggered against the wall, and has his hand upon his liver: the +fellow hurts himself with smoking, that is clear, and is as sick as +sick can be. See, Port is making away from the storm, and Double X +is as flat as ditch-water. Against these, awful in their white +robes, the sober watchmen come. + +Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite clearly, +as in the thimblerig group; or he can do without faces altogether; +or he can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of +any given object--a beautiful Irish physiognomy being moulded upon a +keg of whiskey; and a jolly English countenance frothing out of a +pot of ale (the spirit of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate +his clay); while in a fungus may be recognized the physiognomy of a +mushroom peer. Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living +head, body, and legs out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case +of the vivacious pair of spectacles that are jockeying the nose of +Caddy Cuddle. + +Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel +engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have been, +that his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only be +produced by hundreds before. He has made many a bookseller's and +author's fortune (we trust that in so doing he may not have +neglected his own). Twelve admirable plates, furnished yearly to +that facetious little publication, the Comic Almanac, have gained +for it a sale, as we hear, of nearly twenty thousand copies. The +idea of the work was novel; there was, in the first number +especially, a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank's designs +were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a vast favorite +with the public, and has so remained ever since. + +Besides the twelve plates, this almanac contains a prophetic +woodcut, accompanying an awful Blarneyhum Astrologicum that appears +in this and other almanacs. There is one that hints in pretty clear +terms that with the Reform of Municipal Corporations the ruin of the +great Lord Mayor of London is at hand. His lordship is meekly going +to dine at an eightpenny ordinary, his giants in pawn, his men in +armor dwindled to "one poor knight," his carriage to be sold, his +stalwart aldermen vanished, his sheriffs, alas! and alas! in gaol! +Another design shows that Rigdum, if a true, is also a moral and +instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or rather in a vision; +the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousand bright bubbles +about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a knave has cut +a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe round his +feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all; the +rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare); +his faithful dog is bolting his leg-of-mutton--nay, a thief has +gotten hold of his very candle, and there, by way of moral, is his +ale-pot, which looks and winks in his face, and seems to say, O +Bull, all this is froth, and a cruel satirical picture of a certain +rustic who had a goose that laid certain golden eggs, which goose +the rustic slew in expectation of finding all the eggs at once. +This is goose and sage too, to borrow the pun of "learned Doctor +Gill;" but we shrewdly suspect that Mr. Cruikshank is becoming a +little conservative in his notions. + +We love these pictures so that it is hard to part us, and we still +fondly endeavor to hold on, but this wild word, farewell, must be +spoken by the best friends at last, and so good-by, brave woodcuts: +we feel quite a sadness in coming to the last of our collection. + +In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almanac all the manners and +customs of Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted down; +and if during the last two years the mysterious personage who, under +the title of "Rigdum Funnidos," compiles this ephemeris, has been +compelled to resort to romantic tales, we must suppose that he did +so because the great metropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary +to discover new worlds in the cloud-land of fancy. The character of +Mr. Stubbs, who made his appearance in the Almanac for 1839, had, we +think, great merit, although his adventures were somewhat of too +tragical a description to provoke pure laughter. + +We should be glad to devote a few pages to the "Illustratons of +Time," the "Scraps and Sketches," and the "Illustrations of +Phrenology," which are among the most famous of our artist's +publications; but it is very difficult to find new terms of praise, +as find them one must, when reviewing Mr. Cruikshank's publications, +and more difficult still (as the reader of this notice will no doubt +have perceived for himself long since) to translate his design into +words, and go to the printer's box for a description of all that fun +and humor which the artist can produce by a few skilful turns of his +needle. A famous article upon the "Illustrations of Time" appeared +some dozen years since in Blackwood's Magazine, of which the +conductors have always been great admirers of our artist, as became +men of honor and genius. To these grand qualities do not let it be +supposed that we are laying claim, but, thank heaven, Cruikshank's +humor is so good and benevolent that any man must love it, and on +this score we may speak as well as another. + +Then there are the "Greenwich Hospital" designs, which must not be +passed over. "Greenwich Hospital" is a hearty, good-natured book, +in the Tom Dibdin school, treating of the virtues of British tars, +in approved nautical language. They maul Frenchmen and Spaniards, +they go out in brigs and take frigates, they relieve women in +distress, and are yard-arm and yard-arming, athwart-hawsing, +marlinspiking, binnacling, and helm's-a-leeing, as honest seamen +invariably do, in novels, on the stage, and doubtless on board ship. +This we cannot take upon us to say, but the artist, like a true +Englishman, as he is, loves dearly these brave guardians of Old +England, and chronicles their rare or fanciful exploits with the +greatest good-will. Let any one look at the noble head of Nelson in +the "Family Library," and they will, we are sure, think with us that +the designer must have felt and loved what he drew. There are to +this abridgment of Southey's admirable book many more cuts after +Cruikshank; and about a dozen pieces by the same hand will be found +in a work equally popular, Lockhart's excellent "Life of Napoleon." +Among these the retreat from Moscow is very fine; the Mamlouks most +vigorous, furious, and barbarous, as they should be. At the end of +these three volumes Mr. Cruikshank's contributions to the "Family +Library" seem suddenly to have ceased. + +We are not at all disposed to undervalue the works and genius of Mr. +Dickens, and we are sure that he would admit as readily as any man +the wonderful assistance that he has derived from the artist who has +given us the portraits of his ideal personages, and made them +familiar to all the world. Once seen, these figures remain +impressed on the memory, which otherwise would have had no hold +upon them, and the heroes and heroines of Boz become personal +acquaintances with each of us. Oh, that Hogarth could have +illustrated Fielding in the same way! and fixed down on paper those +grand figures of Parson Adams, and Squire Allworthy, and the great +Jonathan Wild. + +With regard to the modern romance of "Jack Sheppard," in which the +latter personage makes a second appearance, it seems to us that Mr. +Cruikshank really created the tale, and that Mr. Ainsworth, as it +were, only put words to it. Let any reader of the novel think over +it for a while, now that it is some months since he has perused and +laid it down--let him think, and tell us what he remembers of the +tale? George Cruikshank's pictures--always George Cruikshank's +pictures. The storm in the Thames, for instance: all the author's +labored description of that event has passed clean away--we have +only before the mind's eye the fine plates of Cruikshank: the poor +wretch cowering under the bridge arch, as the waves come rushing in, +and the boats are whirling away in the drift of the great swollen +black waters. And let any man look at that second plate of the +murder on the Thames, and he must acknowledge how much more +brilliant the artist's description is than the writer's, and what a +real genius for the terrible as well as for the ridiculous the +former has; how awful is the gloom of the old bridge, a few lights +glimmering from the houses here and there, but not so as to be +reflected on the water at all, which is too turbid and raging: a +great heavy rack of clouds goes sweeping over the bridge, and men +with flaring torches, the murderers, are borne away with the stream. + +The author requires many pages to describe the fury of the storm, +which Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, he has to +prepare you with the something inexpressibly melancholy in sailing +on a dark night upon the Thames: "the ripple of the water," "the +darkling current," "the indistinctively seen craft," "the solemn +shadows" and other phenomena visible on rivers at night are detailed +(with not unskilful rhetoric) in order to bring the reader into a +proper frame of mind for the deeper gloom and horror which is to +ensue. Then follow pages of description. "As Rowland sprang to the +helm, and gave the signal for pursuit, a war like a volley of +ordnance was heard aloft, and the wind again burst its bondage. A +moment before the surface of the stream was as black as ink. It was +now whitening, hissing, and seething, like an enormous caldron. The +blast once more swept over the agitated river, whirled off the +sheets of foam, scattered them far and wide in rain-drops, and left +the raging torrent blacker than before. Destruction everywhere +marked the course of the gale. Steeples toppled and towers reeled +beneath its fury. All was darkness, horror, confusion, ruin. Men +fled from their tottering habitations and returned to them, scared +by greater danger. The end of the world seemed at hand. . . . The +hurricane had now reached its climax. The blast shrieked, as if +exulting in its wrathful mission. Stunning and continuous, the din +seemed almost to take away the power of hearing. He who had faced +the gale WOULD HAVE BEEN INSTANTLY STIFLED," &c. &c. See with what +a tremendous war of words (and good loud words too; Mr. Ainsworth's +description is a good and spirited one) the author is obliged to +pour in upon the reader before he can effect his purpose upon the +latter, and inspire him with a proper terror. The painter does it +at a glance, and old Wood's dilemma in the midst of that tremendous +storm, with the little infant at his bosom, is remembered +afterwards, not from the words, but from the visible image of them +that the artist has left us. + +It would not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the whole +of the "Jack Sheppard" plates, which are among the most finished and +the most successful of Mr. Cruikshank's performances, and say a word +or two concerning them. Let us begin with finding fault with No. 1, +"Mr. Wood offers to adopt little Jack Sheppard." A poor print, on a +poor subject; the figure of the woman not as carefully designed as +it might be, and the expression of the eyes (not an uncommon fault +with our artist) much caricatured. The print is cut up, to use the +artist's phrase, by the number of accessories which the engraver has +thought proper, after the author's elaborate description, elaborately +to reproduce. The plate of "Wild discovering Darrell in the +loft" is admirable--ghastly, terrible, and the treatment of it +extraordinarily skilful, minute, and bold. The intricacies of the +tile-work, and the mysterious twinkling of light among the beams, +are excellently felt and rendered; and one sees here, as in the two +next plates of the storm and murder, what a fine eye the artist has, +what a skilful hand, and what a sympathy for the wild and dreadful. +As a mere imitation of nature, the clouds and the bridge in the +murder picture may be examined by painters who make far higher +pretensions than Mr. Cruikshank. In point of workmanship they are +equally good, the manner quite unaffected, the effect produced +without any violent contrast, the whole scene evidently well and +philosophically arranged in the artist's brain, before he began to +put it upon copper. + +The famous drawing of "Jack carving the name on the beam," which has +been transferred to half the play-bills in town, is overloaded with +accessories, as the first plate; but they are much better arranged +than in the last-named engraving, and do not injure the effect of +the principal figure. Remark, too, the conscientiousness of the +artist, and that shrewd pervading idea of FORM which is one of his +principal characteristics. Jack is surrounded by all sorts of +implements of his profession; he stands on a regular carpenter's +table: away in the shadow under it lie shavings and a couple of +carpenter's hampers. The glue-pot, the mallet, the chisel-handle, +the planes, the saws, the hone with its cover, and the other +paraphernalia are all represented with extraordinary accuracy and +forethought. The man's mind has retained the exact DRAWING of all +these minute objects (unconsciously perhaps to himself), but we can +see with what keen eyes he must go through the world, and what a +fund of facts (as such a knowledge of the shape of objects is in his +profession) this keen student of nature has stored away in his +brain. In the next plate, where Jack is escaping from his mistress, +the figure of that lady, one of the deepest of the [Greek text +omitted], strikes us as disagreeable and unrefined; that of Winifred +is, on the contrary, very pretty and graceful; and Jack's puzzled, +slinking look must not be forgotten. All the accessories are good, +and the apartment has a snug, cosy air; which is not remarkable, +except that it shows how faithfully the designer has performed his +work, and how curiously he has entered into all the particulars of +the subject. + +Master Thames Darrell, the handsome young man of the book, is, in +Mr. Cruikshank's portraits of him, no favorite of ours. The lad +seems to wish to make up for the natural insignificance of his face +by frowning on all occasions most portentously. This figure, +borrowed from the compositor's desk, will give a notion of what we +mean. Wild's face is too violent for the great man of history (if +we may call Fielding history), but this is in consonance with the +ranting, frowning, braggadocio character that Mr. Ainsworth has +given him. + +The "Interior of Willesden Church" is excellent as a composition, +and a piece of artistical workmanship; the groups are well arranged; +and the figure of Mrs. Sheppard looking round alarmed, as her son is +robbing the dandy Kneebone, is charming, simple, and unaffected. +Not so "Mrs. Sheppard ill in bed," whose face is screwed up to an +expression vastly too tragic. The little glimpse of the church seen +through the open door of the room is very beautiful and poetical: it +is in such small hints that an artist especially excels; they are +the morals which he loves to append to his stories, and are always +appropriate and welcome. The boozing ken is not to our liking; Mrs. +Sheppard is there with her horrified eyebrows again. Why this +exaggeration--is it necessary for the public? We think not, or if +they require such excitement, let our artist, like a true painter as +he is, teach them better things.* + + +* A gentleman (whose wit is so celebrated that one should be very +cautious in repeating his stories) gave the writer a good +illustration of the philosophy of exaggeration. Mr. ---- was once +behind the scenes at the Opera when the scene-shifters were +preparing for the ballet. Flora was to sleep under a bush, whereon +were growing a number of roses, and amidst which was fluttering a +gay covey of butterflies. In size the roses exceeded the most +expansive sunflowers, and the butterflies were as large as cocked +hats;--the scene-shifter explained to Mr. ----, who asked the reason +why everything was so magnified, that the galleries could never see +the objects unless they were enormously exaggerated. How many of +our writers and designers work for the galleries? + +The "Escape from Willesden Cage" is excellent; the "Burglary in +Wood's house" has not less merit; "Mrs. Sheppard in Bedlam," a +ghastly picture indeed, is finely conceived, but not, as we fancy, +so carefully executed; it would be better for a little more careful +drawing in the female figure. + +"Jack sitting for his picture" is a very pleasing group, and savors +of the manner of Hogarth, who is introduced in the company. The +"Murder of Trenchard" must be noticed too as remarkable for the +effect and terrible vigor which the artist has given to the scene. +The "Willesden Churchyard" has great merit too, but the gems of the +book are the little vignettes illustrating the escape from Newgate. +Here, too, much anatomical care of drawing is not required; the +figures are so small that the outline and attitude need only to be +indicated, and the designer has produced a series of figures quite +remarkable for reality and poetry too. There are no less than ten +of Jack's feats so described by Mr. Cruikshank. (Let us say a word +here in praise of the excellent manner in which the author has +carried us through the adventure.) Here is Jack clattering up the +chimney, now peering into the lonely red room, now opening "the door +between the red room and the chapel." What a wild, fierce, scared +look he has, the young ruffian, as cautiously he steps in, holding +light his bar of iron. You can see by his face how his heart is +beating! If any one were there! but no! And this is a very fine +characteristic of the prints, the extreme LONELINESS of them all. +Not a soul is there to disturb him--woe to him who should--and Jack +drives in the chapel gate, and shatters down the passage door, and +there you have him on the leads. Up he goes! it is but a spring of +a few feet from the blanket, and he is gone--abiit, evasit, erupit! +Mr. Wild must catch him again if he can. + +We must not forget to mention "Oliver Twist," and Mr. Cruikshank's +famous designs to that work.* The sausage scene at Fagin's, Nancy +seizing the boy; that capital piece of humor, Mr. Bumble's +courtship, which is even better in Cruikshank's version than in +Boz's exquisite account of the interview; Sykes's farewell to the +dog; and the Jew,--the dreadful Jew--that Cruikshank drew! What a +fine touching picture of melancholy desolation is that of Sykes and +the dog! The poor cur is not too well drawn, the landscape is stiff +and formal; but in this case the faults, if faults they be, of +execution rather add to than diminish the effect of the picture: it +has a strange, wild, dreary, broken-hearted look; we fancy we see +the landscape as it must have appeared to Sykes, when ghastly and +with bloodshot eyes he looked at it. As for the Jew in the dungeon, +let us say nothing of it--what can we say to describe it? What a +fine homely poet is the man who can produce this little world of +mirth or woe for us! Does he elaborate his effects by slow process +of thought, or do they come to him by instinct? Does the painter +ever arrange in his brain an image so complete, that he afterwards +can copy it exactly on the canvas, or does the hand work in spite of +him? + + +* Or his new work, "The Tower of London," which promises even to +surpass Mr. Cruikshank's former productions. + + +A great deal of this random work of course every artist has done in +his time; many men produce effects of which they never dreamed, and +strike off excellences, haphazard, which gain for them reputation; +but a fine quality in Mr. Cruikshank, the quality of his success, as +we have said before, is the extraordinary earnestness and good faith +with which he executes all he attempts--the ludicrous, the polite, +the low, the terrible. In the second of these he often, in our +fancy, fails, his figures lacking elegance and descending to +caricature; but there is something fine in this too: it is good that +he SHOULD fail, that he should have these honest naive notions +regarding the beau monde, the characteristics of which a namby-pamby +tea-party painter could hit off far better than he. He is a great +deal too downright and manly to appreciate the flimsy delicacies of +small society--you cannot expect a lion to roar you like any sucking +dove, or frisk about a drawing-room like a lady's little spaniel. + +If then, in the course of his life and business, he has been +occasionally obliged to imitate the ways of such small animals, he +has done so, let us say it at once, clumsily, and like as a lion +should. Many artists, we hear, hold his works rather cheap; they +prate about bad drawing, want of scientific knowledge:--they would +have something vastly more neat, regular, anatomical. + +Not one of the whole band most likely but can paint an Academy +figure better than himself; nay, or a portrait of an alderman's lady +and family of children. But look down the list of the painters and +tell us who are they? How many among these men are POETS (makers), +possessing the faculty to create, the greatest among the gifts with +which Providence has endowed the mind of man? Say how many there +are, count up what they have done, and see what in the course of +some nine-and-twenty years has been done by this indefatigable man. + +What amazing energetic fecundity do we find in him! As a boy he +began to fight for bread, has been hungry (twice a day we trust) +ever since, and has been obliged to sell his wit for his bread week +by week. And his wit, sterling gold as it is, will find no such +purchasers as the fashionable painter's thin pinchbeck, who can live +comfortably for six weeks, when paid for and painting a portrait, +and fancies his mind prodigiously occupied all the while. There was +an artist in Paris, an artist hairdresser, who used to be fatigued +and take restoratives after inventing a new coiffure. By no such +gentle operation of head-dressing has Cruikshank lived: time was (we +are told so in print) when for a picture with thirty heads in it he +was paid three guineas--a poor week's pittance truly, and a dire +week's labor. We make no doubt that the same labor would at present +bring him twenty times the sum; but whether it be ill paid or well, +what labor has Mr. Cruikshank's been! Week by week, for thirty +years, to produce something new; some smiling offspring of painful +labor, quite independent and distinct from its ten thousand jovial +brethren; in what hours of sorrow and ill-health to be told by the +world, "Make us laugh or you starve--Give us fresh fun; we have +eaten up the old and are hungry. And all this has he been obliged +to do--to wring laughter day by day, sometimes, perhaps, out of +want, often certainly from ill-health or depression--to keep the +fire of his brain perpetually alight: for the greedy public will +give it no leisure to cool. This he has done and done well. He has +told a thousand truths in as many strange and fascinating ways; he +has given a thousand new and pleasant thoughts to millions of +people; he has never used his wit dishonestly; he has never, in all +the exuberance of his frolicsome humor, caused a single painful or +guilty blush: how little do we think of the extraordinary power of +this man, and how ungrateful we are to him! + +Here, as we are come round to the charge of ingratitude, the +starting-post from which we set out, perhaps we had better conclude. +The reader will perhaps wonder at the high-flown tone in which we +speak of the services and merits of an individual, whom he considers +a humble scraper on steel, that is wonderfully popular already. But +none of us remember all the benefits we owe him; they have come one +by one, one driving out the memory of the other: it is only when we +come to examine them all together, as the writer has done, who has a +pile of books on the table before him--a heap of personal kindnesses +from George Cruikshank (not presents, if you please, for we bought, +borrowed, or stole every one of them)--that we feel what we owe him. +Look at one of Mr. Cruikshank's works, and we pronounce him an +excellent humorist. Look at all: his reputation is increased by a +kind of geometrical progression; as a whole diamond is a hundred +times more valuable than the hundred splinters into which it might +be broken would be. A fine rough English diamond is this about +which we have been writing. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of George Cruikshank, by Wm. 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