English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century Part 12

The so-called _Oppidans'[63] Museum_ is composed of the signs stolen by Eton scapegraces from the local tradesmen; a mock court is in progress, at which the injured parties attend and either claim or receive compensation for their stolen property. The tradesmen in the plate before us look anything but injured persons, and as a matter of fact the award is sufficiently ample to make amends for all damage. The two persons officiating as a.s.sessors and apportioning compensation to the various claimants, are Westmacott and "Robert Transit" (the artist himself). The ill.u.s.tration is full of life and character. Among the groups may be noticed a young fellow holding a bull-terrier suspended by its teeth from a handkerchief; a bet depends on the dog's patience and strength of jaw, and an interested companion watches the result, chronometer in hand. _The King at Home_, represents a scene which is said to have actually taken place when Mathews was giving his entertainment at Carlton House. The performer was imitating Kemble, when the king started up, and to the surprise of every one, particularly of Mathews, interrupted the performance by a personal and very clever imitation of the actor, who, by the way, had taught him elocution.

This, indeed, was one of George's strong points, who, if not a good king, was at least an admirable mimic. Says old Dr. Burney (writing to his daughter on the 12th of July, 1805), "He is a most excellent mimic of well-known characters; had we been in the dark, any one would have sworn that Dr. Parr and _Kemble_ were in the room."[64] In this plate we find likenesses not only of the king and of Mathews, but also of the Princess Augusta and the too celebrated Marchioness of Conyngham.

Thomas Rowlandson's single pictorial contribution to the "English Spy,"

_R---- A----ys of Genius Reflecting on the True Line of Beauty at the Life Academy_, is described by Mr. Grego under date of 1825. This is not the only time in which the artist was a.s.sociated in work with Rowlandson. There is a rare work (one of an annual series)--"The Spirit of the Public Journals," for the year 1824, with explanatory notes by C.

M. Westmacott, a collection of whimsical extracts from the press, which appeared in print in the previous season, which has ill.u.s.trations on wood by four distinguished coadjutors: Thomas Rowlandson, George Cruikshank, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, and Theodore Lane.

"FITZALLEYNE OF BERKELEY."

The Foote _v._ Hayne affair mentioned in our last chapter afforded grist for the kind of mill driven by literary blacklegs of the cla.s.s of "Bernard Blackmantle." The black-mail system was tried at first, and when that failed he produced the now rare _FitzAlleyne of Berkeley: a Romance of the Present Times_, a pair of libellous volumes, the _dramatis personae_ of which comprise the persons whose names were mentioned in connection with the case. "Maria Pous" was of course Maria Foote; Samuel Pous, her father; Lord A----y, Alvanley; Major H----r, Major George Hanger, afterwards Lord Coleraine; Optimus, Mr. Tom Best (who shot Lord Camelford in a duel); the Pea-green Count and FitzAlleyne of Berkeley speak for themselves; while "Mary Carbon" is the butcher's daughter of Gloucester, mother of the Colonel, and afterwards Countess of Berkeley. Such a character as Molloy, otherwise Westmacott, was bound to get sometimes into trouble (in these days he would probably receive his reward for "endeavouring to extort money by threats"); and if he did not get exactly what he deserved, he did get, on the tenth of October, 1830, a tremendous thrashing from Charles Kemble. References to the memorandum books of this Ishmaelite of the press, in which he entered (for future use) some of the scandalous chronicles of his time, and which were offered for sale at his death in 1868, will be found in Mr. Bates's interesting book, from which we have already quoted.

"POINTS OF HUMOUR."

Returning to his friend and coadjutor, Robert Cruikshank, the best of the artist's coloured ill.u.s.trations to the "English Spy" are contained in the first volume; in the second he falls into those habits of carelessness which, with all his ability and artistic talent, were a besetting weakness. Robert lacked the genius, the fine fancy, the careful, delicate handling of George. Up to the publication of the "Life," the brothers as we have seen had worked together frequently, but after this period they separated. George had already achieved one of his earliest triumphs in book ill.u.s.tration--"The Points of Humour," which provoked the universal admiration of the critics, and proclaimed him one of the most original geniuses of the time. The "Life," however, had made both brothers famous, and the general public had scarcely yet learnt to distinguish between the pencils of George and Robert. This confusion was taken advantage of by unscrupulous publishers (a practice at which Robert himself seems to have connived) to trade upon the popularity of the Cruikshank name. We frequently find, for instance, in literary advertis.e.m.e.nts of the time, that a forthcoming book is ill.u.s.trated by "Cruikshank," and the work we have just named is a case in point. No sooner had the "Points of Humour" appeared and made their mark, than they were followed by an announcement by Sherwood, Jones & Co., of the "Points of Misery," the letterpress by Charles Molloy Westmacott, and the designs by "Cruikshank," that is to say--Robert. Although this publication is marred by the slovenliness of execution which characterised the artist in his careless moods, a few of the designs are excellent, and the tailpieces--_A Six Inside_, at page 36; _Cleaned Out_, at page 88; and the _p.a.w.n Shop_, at page 87--suffice to show of how much better work Robert Cruikshank was capable. George, as was usual with him on these occasions, was horribly annoyed, and loudly and (as it seems to us) unnecessarily proclaimed to the world that he had no connection with the work. Probably this manifesto did no good to a book little calculated either by its literary or pictorial merits to command success; and as the copy before us remained uncut from the date of the publication until the present, the inference is that the speculation of Messrs. Sherwood, Jones & Co., proved scarcely a remunerative one.

Among the forgotten books of half a century ago, we meet with one whose t.i.tle reminds us of the "Life in London." It is called, "Doings in London; or, Day and Night Scenes of the Frauds, Frolics, Manners, and Depravities of the Metropolis." It came out in threepenny numbers, in 1828, and its professed object (in the queer language of George Smeeton, its compiler and publisher) was to "show vice and deception in all their real deformity, and not by painting in glowing colours the fascinating allurements, the mischievous frolics and vicious habits of the profligate, the heedless, and the debauchee, tempt youth to commit those irregularities which often lead to dangerous consequences, not only to themselves but also to the public." This shot of course was aimed at Pierce Egan, who, engaged at that time in bringing out the "Finish," not unnaturally considered these "Doings" an attempt to derive profit by an indirect infringement of his own t.i.tle. The t.i.tle in fact _was_ a misleading one, and the book a specimen of a cla.s.s of useless literature of the time, by which paste-and-scissors information compiled from books, newspapers, and statistics by some one at best imperfectly acquainted with his subject, was attempted to be conveyed by means of questions and answers, supplemented by dreary and unnecessary remarks of a moralizing tendency. The persons in whose company Smeeton would send us round, in order that we may form a just conception of the "vice and deception in all their real deformity," of which he speaks, are a couple of idiots, one Peregrine Wilson, and an attendant mentor, whom we drop at the earliest convenient opportunity. Information combined with morality is all very well. The "History of Sandford and Merton" may have been, as Lord Houghton a.s.sures us it was, "the delight of the youth of the first generation of the present century." As one of the youth of the generation referred to, we refuse to admit it, and we are perfectly certain that the youth of the present generation would have nothing whatever to do with it. We resign ourselves preferentially to the guidance of Isaac Robert and George Cruikshank, sensible that they at least, while conversant with the scenes they so graphically describe, will not bore us with unnecessary moral reflections. We prefer, if the truth must be told, to "sport a toe among the Corinthians at Almack's"

with hooked-nosed Tom and rosy-cheeked Jerry; to visit with these merry and by no means strait-laced persons, Mr. O'Shaunessy's rooms in the Haymarket; the back parlour of the respected Thomas Cribb, ex-champion of England; to take wine with them "in the wood" at the London Docks; to enjoy with them, if they will, "the humours of a masquerade supper at the opera house." The work which Smeeton designed with such indifferent success was subsequently carried out in a far more efficient manner by Mr. James Grant, in his "Sketches in London,"[65] and at a later date by Mr. Mayhew, in his well-known "London Labour and the London Poor."

The "Doings in London" owe whatever value they possess to the thirty-nine curious designs on wood of Isaac Robert Cruikshank, engraved by W. C. Bonner, which, on the whole fair examples of his workmanship in this style, strongly remind us of the smaller woodcuts in Hone's "Every-Day Book."

The best specimens, however, of Robert's designs on wood are those which will be found in two small volumes, known indifferently as "Facetiae" and "Cruikshank's Comic Alb.u.m," which contain a series of _jeux d'esprits_, published between the years 1830 and 1832, and comprising _Old Bootey's Ghost_ and _The Man of Intellect_, by W. F. Moncrieff; _The High-mettled Racer_ and _Monsieur Nongtongpaw_, by Charles Dibdin; _Margate and Brighton_; _The Devil's Visit_; _Steamers and Stages_; _Monsieur Touson_; _Monsieur Mallet_, by H. W. Montague; _Mathew's Comic Annual_ (a miserable _melange_ by our friend Pierce Egan); the famous _Devil's Walk_, by Coleridge and Southey, etc., etc. These little volumes, which are now rare, contain nearly one hundred excellent examples of Robert Cruikshank's workmanship, the woodcuts being executed after the artist's designs by W. C. Bonner and other wood engravers of eminence. We can stay only to describe one, which ill.u.s.trates one of the many experiences of John Bull in his memorable visit to France. Struck with the appearance of a French lady, "young and gay," the stanza tells us--

"Struck by her charms he ask'd her name Of the first man he saw; From whom, with shrugs, no answer came But, '_Je vous n'entends pas._'"

Three other books (two of them exceedingly rare) must suffice to complete our survey of Robert's merits as a designer and book ill.u.s.trator. These are "Colburn's Kalendar of Amus.e.m.e.nts" (1840), "Job Crithannah's Original Fables" (1834), and Eugene Sue's "Orphan." There is an Irishman sitting on a barrel in one of the woodcuts to the "Kalendar," who quite equals any of the Hibernians of George. The eighty-four designs to the "Fables" are admirable specimens of the artist's best manner, and George himself rarely executed better ill.u.s.trations than those of the _Farmer and the Pointer_, at page 110, _The Cow and the Farmer_, at page 163, and _The Old Woman and her Cat_, at page 219. This rare and choice book abounds with admirable tailpieces; one of which exhibits a sufferer down in the agonies of gout, the treatment of which subject may even be compared with the more elaborate and admirable design by the brother described by Thackeray.

Sue's "Orphan" has numerous carefully executed etchings by the artist, after the style and manner of his brother; in the very signature, "Robert Cruikshank," we trace a distinct copy of George's peculiar trademark or sign-manual. Mr. Walter Hamilton, in his essay on the brother, presents us with a dozen copies of Robert's designs, eight of which, although unacknowledged, are taken from Crithannah's "Fables,"

and will bear as much comparison with the original and beautiful woodcuts as the work of a common sign-painter with a finished painting by Landseer. A detailed but probably imperfect list of the artist's book work will be found in the _appendix_.

The name of Robert Cruikshank has slipped out of the place it once occupied in public estimation; and his good work and his poor work being equally scarce, his name and his claims to rank high among the number of English caricaturists and comic artists have been forgotten even by the survivors of the generation to which he himself belonged. In bringing to the remembrance of those who do know, and to the knowledge of those who do not know, some of the work which ent.i.tled him in our judgment to occupy a leading place amongst the number of those of whom we write, we have endeavoured to brush away the dust of oblivion which for so many years has obscured the name and reputation of an artist, who, in spite of much slovenliness and carelessness of execution, was both an able caricaturist and a skilful draughtsman. George writes of his dead brother in terms of affection, and describes him as "a very clever miniature and portrait painter, and also a designer and etcher;" his friend and coadjutor, the late George Daniel, gives him credit for genius, of which however (in the sense in which we use and understand the word) he did not possess a particle. He tells us that "he was apt to conceive and prompt to execute; he had a quick eye and a ready hand; with all his extravagant drollery, his drawing is anatomically correct; his details are minute, expressive, and of careful finish, and his colouring is bright and delicate." In the early part of his career, as we have seen, the two brothers had been so closely a.s.sociated in life and in art, that the history of Robert is, to some extent, the history of George; but when they separated, when each was left to his own individual resources, George then struck into a path which neither Robert nor any of his contemporaries might hope to follow. By the time Robert had realized this fact, HB had appeared, and the art of caricaturing, as theretofore practised, received a blow from which it will never rally. Besides being an able water colour artist, he had at one time achieved some reputation as a portrait painter; but the latter pursuit he had long practically abandoned, while success in the former required a closer application and the exercise of a greater amount of patience than a man of his age and temperament could afford to bestow.

He was, in fact, too old to commence life afresh; and so it came inevitably to pa.s.s that, as his brother did in after life (but from causes, as we shall see, widely different), Robert gradually dropped behind and was forgotten. He had not the genius or pride in his art of his brother, and looked rather to that art as a means of present livelihood than of acquiring a permanent and enduring reputation. If George--with all his pride in his art, with all his genius, with all his rare gifts of imagination and fancy--was destined to be left behind in the race of life, what could poor Robert hope for? It is sad to think that in later life, poor easy-going, thriftless, careless, Bohemian Robert sank into neglect and consequent poverty. He died (of bronchitis) on the 13th of March, 1856, in his sixty-sixth year.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] In this I cannot agree. George designed about a third of the plates, and those who know his workmanship thoroughly will not fail to identify it.

[58] A fact which testifies to the curiosity and _not_ the immorality of our people.

[59] I have known as much as 10 asked for a copy; but _a first edition_ (a rarity) may be purchased sometimes of a respectable bookseller for 8.

[60] "Fair Play! Robt. Cruikshank, invt. et fect., original suggestor and artist of the 2 vols. Adieu!"

[61] A list of his works will be found in Dr. Brewer's "Handbook."

[62] "The Maclise Portrait Gallery," by William Bates (ed. 1883), p.

236.

[63] The name given to the students of Eton School who board in the town.

[64] Diary of Madam d'Arblay.

[65] W. S. Orr & Co., 1838.

CHAPTER VII.

_THE CARICATURES OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK._

SIXTY YEARS AGO.

Just sixty years ago, a writer in _Blackwood_ spoke of the subject of the present chapter (then a young man who had already acquired an artistic reputation) in the following terms:--

"It is high time that the public should think more than they have hitherto done of George Cruikshank; and it is also high time that George Cruikshank should begin to think more than he seems to have done hitherto of himself. Generally speaking, people consider him as a clever, sharp _caricaturist_, and nothing more; a free-handed, comical young fellow, who will do anything he is paid for, and who is quite contented to dine off the proceeds of a 'George IV.' to-day, and those of a 'Hone,' or a 'Cobbett' to-morrow. He himself, indeed, appears to be the most careless creature alive, as touching his reputation. He seems to have no plan--almost no ambition--and, I apprehend, not much industry. He does just what is suggested or thrown in his way, pockets the cash, orders his beef-steak and bowl, and chaunts, like one of his own heroes,--

'Life is all a variorium, We regard not how it goes.'

Now, for a year or two to begin with, this is just what it should be.

Cruikshank was resolved to see _Life_,[66] and his sketches show that he has seen it, in some of its walks, to purpose. But life is short, and art is long; and our gay friend must pull up.

"Perhaps he is not aware of the fact himself--but a fact it undoubtedly is--that he possesses genius--genius in its truest sense--strong, original, English genius. Look round the world of art, and ask, How many are there of whom anything like this can be said? Why, there are not half a dozen names that could bear being mentioned at all; and certainly there is not one, the pretensions of which will endure sifting, more securely and more triumphantly than that of George Cruikshank. In the first place, he is--what no living _caricaturist_ but himself has the least pretensions to be, and what, indeed, scarcely one of their predecessors was--he is a thoroughbred _artist_.[67] He draws with the ease and freedom and fearlessness of a master; he understands the figure completely; and appears, so far as one can guess from the trifling sort of things he has done, to have a capital notion of the principles of grouping. Now these things are valuable in themselves, but they are doubly, trebly valuable as possessed by a person of real comic humour; and a total despiser of that Venerable Humbug which almost all the artists of our day seem, in one shape or other, to revere as the prime G.o.d of their idolatry. n.o.body, that has the least of an eye for art, can doubt that Cruikshank, if he chose, might design as many annunciations, beatifications, apotheoses, metamorphoses, and so forth, as would cover York cathedral from end to end. It is still more impossible to doubt that he might be a famous portrait painter. Now, these are fine lines both of them, and yet it is precisely the chief merit of Cruikshank that he cuts them both; that he will have nothing to do with them; that he has chosen a walk of his own, and that he has made his own walk popular.

Here lies genius; but let him do himself justice; let him persevere and _rise_ in his own path, and then, ladies and gentlemen, _then_ the day will come when his name will be a name indeed, not a name puffed and paraded in the newspapers, but a living, a substantial, perhaps even an ill.u.s.trious, English name. Let him, in one word, proceed, and, as he proceeds, let him think of Hogarth."[68]

Now, although amused (and surely he cannot fail to be amused) at the curious incapacity of an art critic so strangely ignorant of his subject as to conceive _George Cruikshank_ an artist capable of designing _annunciations_, _beatifications_, _apotheoses_, and subjects so completely out of the range of his sympathies and abilities, the reader will, at the same time, be struck with the prescience of the intelligent writer who discerned in him the possession of true genius, and predicted for him, even at this early period of his career, the reputation--"living, substantial," and "ill.u.s.trious"--which he afterwards so justly achieved for himself.

In everything save the power to realize an annunciation, a beatification, or an apotheosis, George Cruikshank was, at the time this article was penned, exactly what Mr. Lockhart describes him. The most able and accomplished of the caricaturists of his time, he was nevertheless willing to etch the works of an amateur or of an artist inferior to himself, to whose work he has frequently imparted a vitality of which it would have been dest.i.tute but for the interposition of his hand. He was ready, moreover, to execute woodcuts for a song-book or the political skits of any scribbler of his time, whether on the ministerial or the popular side mattered little to him. It was therefore not unnatural that doing "just what was suggested or thrown in his way,"

Lockhart should come to the erroneous conclusion that the artist had "no plan," "no ambition," and "not much industry." The a.s.sertion that he had "no ambition" has been amply disproved by his subsequent life, whilst so far from having "no plan," the sequel shows that all this time, unsuspected by the critic, he had been gradually developing the style of ill.u.s.tration by which he made his mark and reputation,--a style first displayed in the celebrated "Points of Humour," the publication of which served as the occasion for Lockhart's criticism.

On this account, if for no other reason, the caricatures of George Cruikshank possess so remarkable an interest, that it is singular that this field of artistic labour has been left almost unexplored by the essayists, many of whom, with a somewhat imperfect knowledge of their subject, have essayed to give us information on the subject of this artist and his works. It is just this early period of his life, in which he first followed and then gradually emanc.i.p.ated himself from the artistic control and influence of Gillray, which seems to us to afford the most interesting study of the man's career. Nevertheless, nearly all the articles we have read on George Cruikshank would give us the idea that, with the exception of certain designs for woodcuts for Hone--such as the celebrated _Non Mi Ricordo_ and others--certain rough coloured engravings for "The Meteor," "The Scourge," and other periodicals of a kindred stamp, the artist executed but few caricatures properly so called. This at least is the impression which these articles have left on our own minds; and we can only account for the little notice taken of him as a caricaturist by the fact that, unlike the etchings which he produced when in the prime of his career, his caricatures are not only exceedingly scarce, but being in many cases unsigned, are capable only of being recognised by those intimately acquainted with his early handiwork.

The caricatures of George Cruikshank may be divided into three cla.s.ses: first, those which are wholly designed and etched by himself; secondly, those which he designed after the sketches or suggestions of his friends; and thirdly, those merely etched from the designs of other artists. We find the first, although frequently unsigned, more usually signed (on the left hand), "Geo. Cruik^k. fect." or "invt. & fect."; the second--"invt. G. Cruik^k. fect.;" while the third are indicated as merely _etched_ by him. Of the second cla.s.s it may be remarked that with the exception of the mere sketch or suggestion, the drawing and the workmanship are oftentimes unmistakably George's own. In the description of his caricatures which follow, we shall indicate the designs which belong to _this_ cla.s.s with an asterisk.

Publications such as "The Scourge," although containing many caricature designs by George Cruikshank, are scarcely among those to which the present chapter was intended to be devoted. There are, however, two satirical compositions of his in this scurrilous publication,[69] which appear to us so exceptionally good, that we feel justified in drawing special attention to them. As the publication itself affords little or no clue to the subject of the ill.u.s.trations, it seems necessary in order that the first may be understood, to explain the circ.u.mstances which appear to us to have led up to it.

1811.

For several years prior to 1811, the established clergy had manifested considerable uneasiness on account of the rapid spread of Methodism. The readiness with which licenses for preaching could be obtained according to the usual interpretation of the Toleration Act, had tended to the multiplication of a cla.s.s of preachers whose manners and language peculiarly fitted them for acquiring influence over the inferior ranks of the people; and by this means a great diminution had taken place in the congregations of parish churches. It is affirmed--with what truth we know not--that Lord Sidmouth in the measure (presently to be noticed) was encouraged to proceed in his design by letters from persons of high position in the Church.

LORD SIDMOUTH'S MOTION.

On the 9th of May, 1811, Lord Sidmouth moved in the House of Lords for leave to bring in a bill for amending and explaining the Acts of William and Mary and 17th George III., so far as applied to dissenting ministers. According to the statement of his lordship, at most of the quarter sessions, when the oaths were taken and the declarations made requisite for enabling a person to officiate in a chapel or meeting-house, any person, however ignorant or profligate, was able to obtain a certificate which authorized him to preach. His lordship proposed that, in order to ent.i.tle any person to a qualification as a preacher, he should have the recommendation of at least six respectable householders of the congregation to which he belonged. Lord Holland, in opposing the bill, observed that he held it to be the inalienable right of every man who thought himself able to instruct others to do so, provided his doctrines were not incompatible with the peace of society.

When the nature and provisions of the proposed measure were made known to the public, an alarm was excited among all those whom it was likely to affect. The Nonconformists generally regarded it as intended, not so much to add to the respectability of the dissenting ministers, as to contract the limits of toleration, and subject the licensing of preachers to the control of the magistracy. When therefore, on the 21st of May, the bill was to be read a second time, such a deluge of pet.i.tions was poured in against it, that the mover was left totally unsupported. The Archbishop of Canterbury said with truth, that the Dissenters were the best judges of their own concerns; and as it appeared from the great number of pet.i.tions against it, that they were hostile to the bill, he thought it unwise to press the measure against their manifest wishes. Under these circ.u.mstances the bill was, we need not say, thrown out.