* Mr. Forster printed a facsimile of the letter in his second volume.
Cruikshank was alive, and living within half an hour’s drive of Mr. Forster’s library, when he put the case in this roundabout, and, I must say, unwarrantably uncivil way. But let us see what this story was that came from across the Atlantic in the columns of the Round Table. It is Dr. Shelton Mackenzie who speaks.’ “In London I was intimate with the brothers Cruikshank, Robert and George, but more particularly the latter. Having called upon him one day at his house (it was then in Myddelton Terrace, Pentonville), I had to wait while he was finishing an etching, for which a printer’s boy was waiting. To while away the time, I glady complied with his suggestion that I should look over a portfolio crowded with etchings, proofs, and drawings, which lay upon the sofa. Among these, carelessly tied together in a wrap of brown paper, was a series of some twenty-five or thirty drawings, very carefully finished, through most of which were carried the well-known portraits of Fagin, Bill Sykes and his Dog, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, and Master Charles Bates—all well known to the readers of “Oliver Twist.” There was no mistake about it; and when Cruikshank turned round, his work finished, I said as much. He told me that it had long been in his mind to show the life of a London thief by a series of drawings engraved by himself, in which, without a single line of letterpress, the story would be strikingly and clearly told. ‘Dickens,’ he continued, ‘dropped in here one day, just as you have done, and, whilst waiting until I could speak with him, took up that identical portfolio, and ferreted out that bundle of drawings. When he came to that one which represents Fagin in the condemned cell, he studied it for half an hour, and told me that he was tempted to change the whole plot of his story, not to carry Oliver Twist through adventures in the country, but to take him up into the thieves’ den in London, show what their life was, and bring Oliver through it without sin or shame. I consented to let him write up to as many of the designs as he thought would suit his purpose, and that was the way in which Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy were created. My drawings suggested them, rather than individuality suggesting (sic) my drawings.’”
Mr. Forster adds,—“Since this was in type I have seen the Life of Dickens published in America (Philadelphia: Peterson Brothers) by Dr. Shelton Mackenzie, in which I regret to find this story literally repeated. The only differences from it as here quoted are that 1847 is given as the date of the visit; that besides the ‘portraits’ named, there are said to have been ‘many others who were not introduced;’ and that the final words run thus: ‘My drawings suggested them, rather than his strong individuality my drawings.’”
In 1872, George Cruikshank published his “Statement of Facts” on this subject, and on his subsequent controversy with Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. This is his final reply to Mr. Forster. I give it that the reader may draw his own conclusions.
“A question has been asked publicly” says the artist, “and which, I grant, is rather an important one in this case, and that is, Why have I not until lately claimed to be the originator of ]Oliver Twist’? To this I reply, that ever since these works were published, and even when they were in progress, I have in private society, when conversing upon such matters, always explain that the original ideas and characters of these emanated from me; and the reason why I publicly claimed to be the originator of ‘Oliver Twist’ was to defend Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, who was charged Mr. John Forster, in his ‘Life of Mr. Charles Dickens with publishing a falsehood * (or a word of ‘the letters,’ as he describes it), whereas the Doctor was only repeating what I had told him at the time ‘Oliver Twist’ was in progress. Mr. Forster designates Mackenzie’s statement as ‘a wonderful story,’ or marvellous fable and in a letter from the Doctor in the Philadelphia Press, December 19th, 1871, he says, the wonderful story was printed in an American periodical years before Mr. Dickens died;’ and then asks, did not Mr. Forster inquire into this matter at the time for surely he must have known it.’ And I presume Mr. Dickens must have heard of this ‘wonderful story the truth of which he did not deny—for this reason because he could not. And with respect to Mr. Ainsworth’s insinuation as to my ‘labouring under a delusion’ upon this point, as all my literary friends at that time knew that I was the originator of ‘Oliver Twist,’ and as Mr. Ainsworth and I were at that time upon such intimate terms, and both working together on Bentleys Miscellany, is it at all likely that I should have concealed such a fact from him? No, no! he knew this as well as I did, and therefore, in this matter at any rate, it is he who is ‘labouring under a delusion.’ And I will here refer to a part of my letter, which was published in the Times, December 30th, 1871, upon the origin of ‘Oliver Twist,’ wherein I state that Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Dickens came together one day to my house, upon which occasion it so happened that I then and there described and performed the character of ‘Fagin,’ for Mr. Dickens to introduce into the work as a ‘receiver of stolen goods,’ and that some time after this, upon seeing Mr. Ainsworth again, he said to me, ‘I was so much struck with your description of that Jew to Mr. Dickens, that I think you and I could do something together.’ Now I do not know whether Mr. Ainsworth has ever made any allusion to this,—perhaps he disdains to do so,—but perhaps he may give this also a ‘positive contradiction,’ and if he does, then all I have to say is, that his memory is gone.”
* Mr. Forster, in a side-note, puts it thus: “Falsity
ascribed to a distinguished artist.”
This controversy, and a subsequent one, arose from Cruikshank’s habit of exaggeration in all things.
One day, at an engraver’s, seeing a drawing of animated pumps (probably one of the series by his brother Robert) upon the table, he shouted, “My pumps!” seized the drawing, made for the door, and was with difficulty persuaded to give it up.
In his eagerness he had a habit of over-estimating the effect of his work, as well as his share in any enterprise in which he had a part. Thus he put down hanging for minor offences; he suppressed fairs, because he exposed the coarseness and vice of Bartholomew Fair;* and so in his later day he was ready, and with thorough conscientiousness, to attribute nearly all the advance of the temperance cause in society to his “Bottle,” “Drunkard’s Children,” and “Triumph of Bacchus.” It was this belief in himself that carried him forward, and kept him alert and vigorous in the cause long after he had completed his threescore years and ten. But it led him into injudicious statements, or over-statements, of which those in regard to his share in “Oliver Twist” was certainly the most unfortunate. His pretensions that he supplied not only subjects for his own plates, but skeletons of chapters to Dickens and Ainsworth, might be disposed of by fifty collateral testimonies to the contrary.
* In a note to the catalogue of his works, exhibited in the
Aquarium, London, Cruikshank put this note: “Bartholomew
Fair, held formerly in Smithfield, used to be opened by the
Lord Mayor of London, in his coach and six. In ancient times
this fair might have been a very decent affair; but as the
metropolis increased in size, the number of thieves and low
characters increased also, so that at length this fair, in
the evening part, became a scene of ruffianism. I had a peep
at it on one or two occasions, and then published this
‘Fiend’s Frying Pan,’ dedicating it to the Lord Mayor,
aldermen, etc., who, after a few years began to look at the
fair in the same light as myself, and at last put an end to
that which was a disgrace to the city.” Yet in his
illustrations to the ‘Sketches by Boz,’ he drew all the
humours of a dancing booth at Greenwich Fair, with riotous
men in dancing bonnets, and women equally dissipated,
“footing it” in men’s hats. Neither in the article nor the
drawing is there any moralising.