STORY OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.
A passing sigh of regret has noted the recent demise, at the good old age of eighty-six, of one of the most remarkable men of our time. Seldom has it been our lot to record in the pages of this Journal the story of one whose genius was of so wild and fantastic a character as that of this veteran artist, who won his maiden fame in the days of George III., and has passed away in the latter part of the reign of Queen Victoria.
George Cruikshank, who was of Scotch parentage, was born in London on September 27, 1792. His father was an artist of the caricature order, contemporary with Gilray; and his elder brother Robert was a draughtsman who, though of no great ability, had a strong Cruikshankian manner about him. George began to sketch at a very early age; and at the commencement of the present century he got a living by making etchings for the booksellers. His father had originally intended to train up his son for the stage; but perceiving that his inclinations lay in quite another direction, he allowed him to cultivate those artistic talents which were afterwards to be a source of delight to himself and to the public. In 1805 the lad sketched Lord Nelson’s funeral car; and his illustrations of the ‘O. P.’ riots at Covent Garden Theatre in 1809 attracted considerable attention at the time. Some of his earliest sketches depict characters who were the centre of interest at that period, but whose names have now quite an ancient ring about them.
Before the reign of George III. was over, the young artist had made a conspicuous name as a caricaturist and comic designer. His first designs were in connection with cheap songs and children’s books; and after that he furnished political caricatures to the Scourge and other satirical publications, besides doing a good deal of work for Mr Hone’s books and periodicals during several years. Indeed this famous publisher was the first to perceive the talents of the artist, and to introduce his rather eccentric sketches to the public. It is related of the young Cruikshank that, having a desire to follow art in the higher department, he endeavoured on one occasion to study at the Academy. The schools at that period were restricted in space and much crowded. On sending up to Fuseli his figure in plaster, the Professor returned the characteristic but discouraging answer: ‘He may come, but he will have to fight for a seat.’ Cruikshank never repeated his attempt to enter the Academy, although he afterwards became an exhibitor. His pencil was ever enlisted on the side of suffering and against oppression, and it is therefore not surprising to find that the cause of the ill-used Queen Caroline was greatly benefited by its scathing satire. Some special hits were made by the artist on this occasion, for it was a subject on which the public mind was very much excited, and one design which was entitled ‘The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder’ ran through fifty editions.
In 1830, when the government had determined to suppress the agitation for parliamentary reform, Cruikshank, at the request of his old patron Hone, produced some political illustrations, which are said to have convulsed with laughter the ministry at whom they were directed, and to whom they did incalculable damage. One of these, called ‘The Political House that Jack Built,’ was particularly good, and within a very short time one hundred thousand copies of it were sold. A few years later George abandoned political caricature and gave himself up to the illustration of works of humour and fancy, to the exposure of passing follies in dress and social manners, and to grave and often tragic moralising on the vices of mankind.
In the year 1821 he illustrated—and indeed originated—the celebrated ‘Life in London’ of Pierce Egan, a work better known by the title of ‘Tom and Jerry.’ The book was published in sheets and enjoyed an enormous success, establishing the name of George Cruikshank as the first comic artist of the day. The plates for this work were in aquatint, and though not in Cruikshank’s best manner, they exhibited that variety of observation and marvellous fullness of detail for which the designer was always remarkable. The letterpress of the work was, however, written in too free a manner for the moral intention with which the plates were drawn; and offended at the gross use to which his illustrations were applied, the great artist retired from the engagement before the work was completed.
It was related to the writer of this article by Cruikshank himself that, when a very young man, he was one day engaged in hastily sketching a work of rather questionable character. While he was doing it, his mother and another lady entered the room, and he quickly hid the sketch away. The act, however, so disturbed him that he resolved never to allow his pencil to produce any work in the future at which a virtuous woman could not look without a blush. The pure moral tone of all his works attests how well he kept so noble a resolve.
From 1823 down to many years later, George Cruikshank was the most highly esteemed of English book illustrators. Work poured in upon him at a prodigious rate; but being a man of singular energy and tireless industry, he was always equal to the demand. His designs for ‘Italian Tales,’ ‘Grimm’s German Stories,’ the ‘Wild Legend of Peter Schlemihl the Shadowless Man,’ ‘Baron Munchausen,’ and Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Demonology and Witchcraft,’ are amongst his best and highest works. He also illustrated some of Washington Irving’s works of fiction, Fielding and Smollett’s books, beside Maxwell’s graphic history of the ‘Irish Rebellion.’ It would, however, be impossible, in this brief notice of his life, to mention one tithe of the works that have emanated from the untiring pencil of this remarkable man. But the generation which is passing away cannot fail to remember his celebrated ‘Mornings at Bow Street,’ a series of sketches which depicted and ruthlessly exposed the dark and savage side of London life.
The genius of Charles Dickens, as we formerly had occasion to remark, received invaluable assistance from Cruikshank’s pencil, which illustrated the first writings of the young author, and thus paved the way for him to a larger audience than he might otherwise have had. In the first month of 1837 appeared the opening number of ‘Bentley’s Miscellany,’ edited by ‘Boz’ (Charles Dickens), then in the flush of his ‘Pickwick’ success, and illustrated by Cruikshank. In the second number of the ‘Miscellany,’ Dickens commenced ‘Oliver Twist,’ a work not only illustrated by Cruikshank, but for which the latter it appears had himself supplied, unwittingly, some of the characters.
George used to say that he had drawn the figures of ‘Fagin,’ ‘Bill Sikes and his Dog,’ ‘Nancy,’ the ‘Artful Dodger,’ and ‘Charley Bates’ before ‘Oliver Twist’ was written; and that Dickens seeing the sketches one day shortly after the commencement of the story, determined to change his plot, and instead of keeping Oliver in the country, resolved to bring him to town, and throw him (with entire innocence) into the company of thieves. ‘Fagin’ was sketched from a rascally old Jew whom Cruikshank had observed in the neighbourhood of Saffron Hill, and whom he watched and ‘studied’ for several weeks. The artist had also conceived the terrible face of ‘Fagin in the Condemned Cell’ as he sits gnawing his nails, in the curious accidental way we lately narrated to our readers. He had been working at the subject for some days without satisfying himself; when sitting up in bed one morning with his hands on his chin and his fingers in his mouth, he saw his face in the glass, and at once exclaimed: ‘That’s it! that’s the face I want!’
Nobody who has seen the sketches to ‘Oliver Twist’ can ever forget them, and two at least of the series are perfect chefs-d’œuvre of genius, namely the death of Sikes on the roof of the old house at the river-side, and the despair of Fagin in his cell. In fact some of Cruikshank’s best work in the delineation of low and depraved life and the squalid picturesqueness of criminal haunts, appeared in the above-named book. His illustrations to Harrison Ainsworth’s works were also for the most part charming specimens of what may be appropriately termed the ‘Cruikshankian’ art. At the same time he sketched the designs for some of the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ as they appeared from time to time in the ‘Miscellany.’ In 1841 he set up on his own account a monthly periodical called the ‘Omnibus,’ of which Laman Blanchard was the editor; and subsequently joined Mr Ainsworth in the magazine which that gentleman had started in his own name; the great artist, in a series of splendid plates of the highest conception, illustrating the ‘Miser’s Daughter’ and other works from the pen of the proprietor. For several years Cruikshank had been publishing a ‘Comic Almanac,’ which was a great favourite with the public, and was always brimming full of fun and prodigal invention. In 1863 a ‘Cruikshank Gallery’ was opened at Exeter Hall, in which were exhibited a great number of his works, extending over a period of sixty years. The exhibition originated from a desire on the artist’s part to shew the public that they were all done by the same hand, and that he was not, in fact, his own grandfather; some people having asserted that the author of his later works was the grandson of the man who had sketched the earliest ones.
He will perhaps be remembered most affectionately by the great industrial portion of the people as the apostle as well as the artist of temperance. Perceiving drunkenness to be the national vice, he depicted its horrors from the studio, and denounced its woes from the platform. It was about the year 1845 that he joined the teetotalers; and in 1847 he brought out a set of plates called ‘The Bottle,’ a kind of ‘Drunkard’s Progress,’ in eight designs, executed in glyphography with remarkable power and tragic intensity, not unlike some of the works of Hogarth. The success of these extraordinary engravings was enormous. Dramas were founded on the story at the minor theatres, and the several tableaux were reproduced on the stage. He soon published a sequel to ‘The Bottle,’ and did a great deal of work for the temperance societies; but it was observed that his style suffered somewhat by the contraction of his ideas and sympathies, and his reputation declined amongst the general public in proportion to the increase of his popularity amongst the teetotalers. He remained, however, the staunch friend and ally of the temperance leaders up to the day of his death; and he used to say that for years before he became a total abstainer he was the enemy of drunkenness with his pencil, but that later experience had taught him that precept without example was of little avail. There is no doubt that, though the good he was able to do by persuading others to whom drink was a positive injury, brought great satisfaction to his mind, it alienated from him to a great extent the friendship, to their loss, of his former companions. But to know his duty was for George Cruikshank to do it, and nobly did he stand by the cause which he had espoused. His advocacy of temperance is also said to have been a great pecuniary loss to him; and the writer of this article remembers having heard him say, a few years since, that he had lost a commission to paint the portrait of a nobleman, because somebody had told the latter that since George Cruikshank had become a teetotaler he had lost all his talent! The hearty laugh which accompanied the recital of the story rings in the writer’s ears still.
Perhaps his greatest work in the cause of temperance, as it is certainly his most extraordinary one, is the large oil-painting called ‘The Worship of Bacchus,’ which now hangs in the National Gallery. It represents the various phases of our national drinking system, from the child in its cradle to the man’s descent to the grave. There are many hundreds of figures depicted on the canvas, engaged in all the different customs of so-called civilised life; and the sad lesson it reads is well deserving the attention of all who love their country, and would prefer to witness its increased prosperity rather than its decline. Cruikshank had the honour of describing the picture to Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor in 1863; and since then it has been exhibited in all the principal towns and cities of the United Kingdom. Finally, it was presented by the teetotalers to the nation, having been purchased from the artist by means of a subscription. The time spent in the preparation of this work must have been very great, indeed it might well have been the study of an ordinary lifetime. An engraving of the picture was published some time ago, in which all the figures were outlined by the painter and finished by Mr Mottram.
In his own way, George Cruikshank was a philanthropist, and to the end of his life it was his proud boast that he put a stop to hanging for forging bank-notes. The story, as told by himself, is so interesting, that we need not apologise for placing it before our readers. He lived in Salisbury Square, Fleet Street; and on his returning from the Bank of England one morning he was horrified at seeing several persons, two of whom were women, hanging on the gibbet in front of Newgate. On his making inquiries as to the nature of their crime, he was told that they had been put to death for forging one-pound Bank of England notes. The fact that a poor woman could be put to death for such a minor offence had such an effect upon him, that he hurried home, determined, if possible, to put a stop to such wholesale destruction of life.
Cruikshank was well acquainted with the habits of the low class of society in London at that time, as it had been necessary for him to study them in the furtherance of his art, and he knew well that it was most likely that the poor women in question were simply the unconscious instruments of the miscreants who forged the notes, and had been induced by them to tender the false money to some publican or other. In a few minutes after his arrival at his residence he had designed and sketched a ‘Bank-note not to be Imitated.’ Shortly afterwards, William Hone the publisher called on him, and seeing the sketch lying on the table, he was much struck with it.
‘What are you going to do with this, George?’ he asked.
‘To publish it,’ replied the artist.
‘Will you let me have it?’ inquired Hone.
‘Willingly,’ said Cruikshank; and making an etching of it there and then, he gave it to Hone, and it was published; the result being, that ‘I had the satisfaction of knowing that no man or woman was ever hanged afterwards for passing forged one-pound Bank of England notes.’
In 1863 he published an amusing pamphlet against the belief in ghosts, illustrated by some weird fantastic sketches on wood. But his public appearances now became less frequent. During the later years of his life he gave considerable attention to oil-painting, and he used greatly to regret that he had not received a more artistic education, stating that when he first saw the cartoons of Raphael he felt overpowered by a sort of shame at his own comparative deficiencies. He has, however, left some good specimens of his power in oil in ‘Tam o’ Shanter,’ ‘A Runaway Knock,’ and ‘Disturbing the Congregation;’ the last-named having been bought by the late Prince Consort, and afterwards engraved. The design of the Bruce Memorial, which has been so much admired, was also from the pencil of George Cruikshank; and the last contribution from his pen to the public press was a letter on this subject.
His personal appearance was no less remarkable than his works. Rather below middle stature, and thick-set, with a rather sharp Roman nose, piercing eyes, a mouth full of lurking humour, and wild elf-locks flowing about his face, he at once attracted attention as a man of genius, energy, and character. He was always famous for great courage and spirit, which added to his muscular power, made him very capable of holding his own everywhere.
Though accustomed to depict life in its shadier phases, Cruikshank was of a naturally joyous disposition. In social life his humour was inimitable; and his readiness to add to the amusement of his host and his host’s guests was only equalled by the unique way in which he played the part of actor, singer, and dancer. The fact of his being a teetotaler in no way interfered with his honest natural merry nature; with old and young alike he was a deserved favourite. Young folks were especially fond of the dear old man. Dining with some other guests at the London house of a friend of the writer’s some five-and-twenty years ago, Mr Cruikshank, when asked to favour the company with a song, struck up the comic ditty of Billy Taylor, that brisk young fellow, and danced an accompaniment, much to the amusement of the good folks present. ‘Not so bad for one of your teetotalers,’ quoth the veteran as he returned to his seat.
In his earlier years he ventured alone into the worst dens of criminal London, and since he had grown old he actually captured a burglar in his own house and with his own hands. In many ways he contributed to the public amusement and the public good; and during the later years of his life he was in receipt of a government pension, for though he helped to make fortunes for others, he made very little money for himself. He was a Volunteer so far back as 1804; and in our own days he commanded a regiment of citizen soldiers of teetotal principles.
There is on view at the Westminster Aquarium at the present time a splendid collection of Cruikshank’s works, each of which is a study in itself, while the whole, consisting of about five hundred sketches, forms a unique monument to his skill and genius.
As an artist he will be certain of lasting fame, for he managed his lights and shades with a skill akin to Rembrandt, while his delineation of low life in its every phase was marvellous. His illustrations to fairy and goblin stories were also beyond praise, as they could not be surpassed in strangeness and elfin oddity; and in this respect he was popular with young and old. His sketches must be innumerable, for he was, like all true men of genius, a great worker, and he must have toiled unceasingly through at least seventy years of his long life. He was attacked with bronchitis a few weeks previous to his death, yet with great care he was actually enabled to recover from this disease; but alas! only to succumb to an older complaint from which he had been free for years. He died painlessly, on the evening of the first of February last, at his residence in Hampstead Road, London; and while to comparatively few was given the inestimable privilege of the great artist’s friendship, the grief of a nation for his loss attests the universality of his fame.