George Cruikshank

“ We say this in no spirit of exaggeration, but with a profound conviction that no hand could have produced such works as those of George Cruikshank, which was now the index of the organ of a heart deeply imbued with the finest sympathies of humanity, and an intellect highly endowed with power of the keenest perception and the subtlest analysis. ”

“ I conclude this chapter with a reproduction of a painting by George Cruikshank in the South Kensington Museum. The lady is yellow-haired and has a good complexion. It appears to be a portrait of Mrs George Cruikshank (née Widdison) , his second wife, whose prenomen was Eliza. She could draw, for there is a vapid but well-finished female head by her in the South Kensington collection of her husband's work (No. 10,038-4) . She is not, of course, to be confounded with Cruikshank's sister Eliza, who designed the caricature of the Four Prues. ”

“ The rooting of the animal among the roses would in itself have awakened in us nothing but indignation; our pain arises from his being violently driven in by a man of genius, our own beloved friend, Mr. George Cruikshank. That incomparable artist is, of all men, the last who should lay his exquisite hand on fairy text. In his own art he understands it so perfectly, and illustrates it so beautifully, so humorously, so wisely, that he should never lay down his etching-needle to ‘edit’ the Ogre, to whom with that little instrument he can render such extraordinary justice. ”

“ People who knew and judged of George Cruikshank (as the majority of his contemporaries necessarily did) by his work alone, formed altogether an erroneous judgment of the character and disposition of the man. Because his later designs showed or seemed to show a love of little children, a liking for home and homely subjects, a delight in fairy lore and legend, it seems there- fore to have been assumed that the artist was almost child-like in simplicity, innocence, and guilelessness of heart. ”

“ The children’s lottery pictures, drawn and etched about his twelfth year (“the first,” he says, “that George Cruikshank was ever employed to do and paid for”) ; the etchings of horse-racing and donkey-racing, executed about his thirteenth year, are the original work of a sharp observer. Coal-heavers, Lord Nelson’s funeral car, Scavengers reposing, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street (the boy-artist, as we have noted, lived about this time in Dorset Street) ; the fashions about the year 1804-5, rude illustrations to popular songs, the Town at Kingsgate, Margate, and Temple. ”

“ Of George Cruikshank the history is short. He stands too often and too well before the eyes of the public to render it necessary that we should say much about him; and we confess that of his earlier annals we know little or nothing.... The first of Cruikshank’s works known to us are his caricatures of George IV. and his friends. Tories as we were and are, and as we trust we still shall be, these comic picturings haunt our imagination. The poor old king in every attitude of ludicrous distress (the ‘Fat in the Fire’ was perfection) ”

“ Why, there are not half a dozen names that could bear being mentioned at all; and certainly there is not one, the pretensions of which will endure sifting more securely and more triumphantly than that of George Cruikshank.”
He is venerated as “a total despiser of that venerable humbug” which was “the prime god of the idolatry” of his contemporaries. The lecturer proceeds:—
“I am of opinion that George Cruikshank is one of the many young gentlemen whose education (like that of the English opium-eater) has been neglected. But there is no time lost ”

“ Cruikshank’s next important public appearance,” says Mr. Thackeray, “was with his ‘Points of Humour’ * (1822 and 1824) , after ‘Life in London and Paris’—some twenty copper-plates selected from Various works.”
* In a note to his essay on George Cruikshank in Blackwood, Professor Wilson says:—“The ‘Points of Humour’ are to appear in occasional numbers. No. I. contains about a dozen etchings, and fifty pages of very well written letterpress. The work is published by C. Baldwyn, Newgate Street, London, and the price per number is only eight shillings, which is dog-cheap, as things go.” ”

“ CHAPTER X. THE OMNIBUS. It was in 1841 that George Cruikshank, when at variance with Mr. Bentley, started a periodical on his own account His friend Laman Blanchard, who was then one of the most popular essayists and political writers of the day, undertook the editorship.
The magazine opened in a thoroughly Cruikshankian style. There was a wondrously etched microcosm of the globe, which is accepted not only as one of the artist’s technical triumphs, but as one of his happiest conceptions. The human race is epitomised within this circle, not much wider than a billiard ball. ”

“ Paget, in his admirable article on Cruikshank’s genius, already quoted, becomes eloquent on the prodigious effect upon his time which the pictorial moralist achieved, and especially by his illustrations to “Oliver Twist”:—
“More than forty years have passed since the appear-of these works; * and if we were asked who, through that period, has been the most faithful chronicler of the ways, customs, and habits of the middle and lower classes of England, we should answer, George Cruikshank. In his pictures of society there is no depth which he has not sounded. ”

“ BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK was born in London on the 27th of September, 1792. His parents were of Scotch nationality. The father, namely, Isaac Cruikshank, was an artist by profession, having considerable skill in water-colour painting and etching. The mother was a Miss Macnaughten, of Perth, a protégé of the Countess of Perth, and the possessor of a small sum of money. She was a person of energetic temper and strong will, and so thrifty that by saving she added considerably to her original pecuniary possession. ”

“ Peach removed his hat and wig, and the patch from his eye. "I knew I was right," said he: "Brady, do you know me now?"
"Well, well," returned the lawyer quietly, "this is kind of you, too—more than I expected—but how did you find me out—come, come, friend Shaft, sit down; we will not heed yon spectre," his aberration took another turn. "Ha," he shouted, "it is you who have betrayed me, old man; traitor! monster! it is you who have denounced your friend. Acteon Shaft, I defy you to the very teeth." ”

“ The writer in Blackwood remarks that Cruikshank in his own department is as far superior to Gillray as he falls short of him in the walk of art “in which no man before or since has ever approached the great Master of Political Caricature. In another, requiring more refined, more subtle, more intellectual qualities of mind, George Cruikshank stands pre-eminent, not only above Gillray, but above all other artists. He is the most perfect master of individual expression that ever handled a pencil or an etching-needle. This talent is equally shown in his earliest as in his latest works. ”

“ Other men, of lesser genius, had arisen and taken his place. He had been voted old-fashioned. His figures were of a time gone by. His women were the grandmothers of the living generation in their youth. He had passed from the shop-windows, where laughing crowds used to greet him, to the portfolios of collectors. How great Cruikshank’s popularity once was—that is, his popularity with the masses of his countrymen—a few of our older readers may recollect. ”

“ We find a quality akin to this in the burlesque work of George Cruikshank. He is inclined always to moralize with his etching-needle. He dignifies some of his most fantastic and even repulsive scenes with a lofty purpose. Of gentler disposition, and a less ardent politician than Gillray, Cruikshank’s political caricatures are tame when compared with those of the “Georgian Juvenal”; but he had walks and powers which Gillray never approached. Gillray is the rougher, sterner, more audacious genius, reflecting in these qualities the spirit of his times. ”

“ The Triumph of Cupid in "George Cruikshank's Table Book" (1845) is as perfect an example as I can cite. Cruikshank is seated by a fire with his "little pet dog Lilla" on his lap. From the pipe he is smoking ascends and curls around him a world of symbolic life. The car of the boy-god is drawn by lions and tigers. Another cupid stands menacingly on a pleading Turk; a third cupid is the tyrant over a negro under Cruikshank's chair; a fourth cupid, sitting on [Pg 224] Cruikshank's left foot, toasts a heart at the "fire office" ”

“ It is worthy of remark that George Cruikshank's devils simple-minded, weak creatures, more mischievous than really wicked, in all their contests with the saints (Saint Anthony excepted) invariably come off second best. In estimating his merits, the genius of George Cruikshank may not inaptly be compared to a diamond. One facet often emits more brilliant coruscations than any other ”

“ Howsomever, up I gets, and, says I to my box-companion, you won't mind if I goes a little fast, will you? 'Mind!' said he, 'why, you can't go too fast for me.' He was one of the right sort, d'ye see, and enjoyed the fun as much as me. 'All right?' says I; 'All right,' says Bill, and away we goes. I got the start, for in those days 'the Exquisite' was sure to load like a waggon. Away I went, with such a pair! they stepped as if they hadn't got but four legs between 'em; and, up to Gloucester, Mr. Exquisite's four tits couldn't touch 'em. ”

“ Fippence, then, please sir—two plates and two new'uns—fippence."
"You're a nice sample o' thievery for your age," says the dustman, contemplating the boy with one eye, and then counting out four penny pieces and four farthings with curious deliberation. "You're a nice article to cast a gen'l'm'n's bill. Do you happ'n to know a cove in London by the name o' Ketch—Jack Ketch?" "Yes, sir." "Vell then, the next time as you go his vay, have the goodness to leave your card, and say you was strongly recommended to him by me. ”

“ Robert had meantime lost ground as an artist, and had contracted bad habits. Isaac Cruikshank was at this time etching theatrical portraits and scenes for a publisher named Roach, who dwelt in Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane. This connection drew the two sons into an acquaintance with Edmund Kean, then an obscure player, and the three got up an amateur performance of “Blue Beard” in Roach’s kitchen, Kean taking the principal part, Robert and George Cruikshank playing the two brothers, and Miss Roach appearing as Fatima. The copper was the tyrant’s castle. ”

“ The charm of George Cruikshank’s talent lies in the fact that notwithstanding his defects in drawing, everything he took in hand is impressed with the stamp of a strong and original genius; it is like nothing we have seen before; every one of his designs is marked with distinctive features of beauty, quaintness, or originality peculiar to himself. ”

“ But in all these things it is indisputable that the great moral artist was firmly persuaded that he was acting in the cause of suffering humanity, and engaged upon some work for the amelioration of his fellow-creatures. And whatever was the act, and however small and trivial it might appear in the sight of the majority, Cruikshank threw himself into it heart and soul, and, like everything else he put his hand to, he did it with all his might. ”

“ A man incapable of rest, with a swift, glancing, steely eye, a mobile mouth, and a grotesquely fierce general aspect, aggravated by the hook-nose, which was awry; prodigal in the matters of whisker, shirt-collar, and wristband; old-fashioned enough, even in the year 1845, to strike boys. *
* George Cruikshank was very careful about any portrait of him that was drawn or painted. One in coloured chalks by his friend Mill, that hung in his Amwell Street studio, satisfied him entirely. The eyes were at their fiercest, and the whiskers were superb. ”

“ Cruikshank was not of those who needed the warning. He remained heart and soul in his creative work throughout a long career, content to live modestly, and to rest his claim to the respect of the world upon his labours. If his indefatigable industry failed to bring him the fortune which fashion now lavishes upon his inferiors, he was consoled by the fervid admiration of such critics as Thackeray and Ruskin, and other distinguished contemporaries, whose opinions on his genius I have freely given, as the best aids to a thorough estimate of him as an artist. ”

“ The following are given as Four Specimens of the Reading Public (Fairburn, 1826) : “Romancing Molly,” “Sir Lacey Luscious,” a “Political Dustman,” and “French à la Mode.” Two, in which he was assisted by George Cruikshank, entitled, Indigestion, and Jealousy, will be found in the volume published (and republished) under the name of “Cruikshankiana.” The latter shows on the face of it that, while Crowquill was responsible for the design, the etching and a large share of the invention are due to Cruikshank.
If not a genius, the man was talented and clever,—a universal favourite. ”

“ His rebel, obscenely jocose, impaling a child, might, though a detail in a crowded etching, have been drawn for Scotland Yard; so too might a woman squatting and smoking while a wretch writhes on four pikes which take his weight and give it him back in torture. England is to glow, Ireland is to blush as she looks at Cruikshank's people of '98. As clear on the memory as his Irish ruffianism is his portrait of the little drummer dying with his leg through his drum to protect its voice from dishonour. ”

“ There is a world of language in the human eye that carries with it its own translation; and when Mrs. Heartwell saw the bright orbs of the lawyer as he looked round the room, a strange thrill came over her bosom—an indefinable sensation that sickened her very heart: she had never, [46] to her recollection, seen Mr. Brady before that moment; yet the piercing keenness of his eyes was vividly pictured on her memory—they were familiar to the mind as having at some former period occasioned much distress, but where or when, or with what connexion, baffled remembrance was utterly at fault. ”