Never has a single figure enacted by mortal artist been so talked and written about as Fagin. * How and when he was conceived, where the artist found his model, what share Dickens had, and what part belonged to Cruikshank of “the awful Jew,” are points of controversy which have been kept alive in society as much by Cruikshank’s own acting of his idea, and his many accounts of his conception, as by the deep impression made by that dreadful wretch glaring in the condemned cell. The writer of the obituary notice of Cruikshank in the Daily News himself heard Cruikshank relate that Fagin was sketched from a rascally old Jew whom he observed in the neighbourhood of Saffron Hill;” and, he added, “I watched him for weeks, studying him.” Fagin possessed Cruikshank’s mind to the end of his life. He was always ready to talk about him, and to act him.

“Sitting down,” says Cuthbert Bede, describing one of his visits to the artist in the Hampstead Road, “and crouching in the huddled posture of ‘the Jew—the dreadful Jew—that Cruikshank drew’—to quote Thackeray’s words—fiercely gnawing at his finger-nails, tossing his hair loosely about his head, and calling up a look of wild horror into his eyes, the artist, with the great histrionic powers that he possessed, seemed to have really transformed himself into the character of the Jew whom he so forcibly depicted. His features somewhat helped him in this impersonation, though those of Sir Charles Napier required no distortion of art, but were so exceedingly like to those of Cruikshank’s Jew, that he was popularly called in the army by the name of ‘Old Fagin.’”

Cruikshank told Horace Mayhew how he hit upon the figure of Fagin in the condemned cell. He had been thinking it over many days, and could not satisfy himself. “At length, beginning to think the task was almost hopeless, he was sitting up in bed one morning, with his hand covering his chin, and the tips of his fingers between his lips, the whole attitude expressive of disappointment and despair, when he saw his face in a cheval glass, which stood on the floor opposite to him. ‘That’s it,’ he involuntarily exclaimed, ‘that’s just the expression I want!’ and by this accidental process the picture was formed in his mind.”

* Memories of my Time.” By George Hodder, author of
“Sketches of Life and Character.” Tinsley Brothers. 1870.

He was never tired of talking on the subject. Fagin possessed him, just as Dickens lived in his characters, and made them talk in his letters and speeches. Mr. Austin Dobson, who met Cruikshank at breakfast at Mr. Frederick Lockers house on the 14th of December (1877), writes to me, “He told us many particulars respecting his work, and especially his visits to prisons and criminals in connection with ‘Oliver Twist.’ Finally, I asked him if the popular story of the conception of Fagin’s wonderful attitude in the condemned cell was correct. He replied rather energetically, ‘False!’ You will remember that in that version the drawing was the result of accident. The artist was biting his nails in desperation, when suddenly he caught the reflection of his perplexed face in a cheval glass—hence Fagin. Cruikshank’s account was different. He had never been perplexed in the matter, or had any doubt as to his design. He attributed the story to the fact that not being satisfied whether the knuckles should be raised or depressed, he had made studies of his own hand in a glass, to the astonishment of a child-relative looking on, who could not conceive what he was doing. He illustrated his account by putting his hand to his mouth, looking, with his hooked nose, wonderfully like the character he was speaking of,—so much so, that for a few minutes afterwards Mr. Locker playfully addressed him as ‘Mr. Fagin.’ I did not see at the time why he was so tenacious. But, of course, what he wished to impress upon us was that the drawing of Fagin in the cell, which shares with Sikes attempting to destroy his dog the post of honour in ‘Oliver Twist,’ was the result, not of a happy accident, but his own persistent and minute habit of realization; and though there appears to be a modern disposition to doubt that a man can know anything about his own past, I for one shall always prefer Mr. Cruikshank’s story to the others.”

There is, no doubt, truth in all these stories. Cruikshank studied often in Petticoat Lane, to begin with, and probably fixed his model of Fagin there. That he himself told Horace Mayhew, many years ago, how he caught sight of his own image as he sat up in bed, and adopted it for Fagin in the condemned cell, I know. And finally, that he studied his hands in his glass, with that careful observation of details by which he reached such intensity in the expression of an emotion, or a dramatic incident, by all who knew him will be accepted as an ordinary illustration of his “habit of realization.”

On Cruikshank’s illustrations to “Oliver Twist,” how many critics have dwelt; and by them, how many writers have pointed their moral. Ruskin, in his chapter on Vulgarity, * turns for his illustration to Landseer and Cruikshank.

* “Modern Painters.”

“Cunning,” he remarks, “signifies especially a habit or gift of over-reaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. Its essential connection with vulgarity may be at once exemplified by the expression of the butcher’s dog in Landseer’s ‘Low Life.’ Cruikshank’s ‘Noah Claypole,’ in the illustrations to ‘Oliver Twist,’ in the interview with the Jew, is, however, still more characteristic. It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity absolute and utter with which I am acquainted.”

Mr. 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”:—