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diff --git a/2648.txt b/2648.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7242ed --- /dev/null +++ b/2648.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1935 @@ +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] + +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. A fine +rough English diamond is this about which we have been writing. + + + + + +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.txt or 2648.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 + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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