“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. From the murderer’s cell to the pauper’s deathbed there is no phase of crime and misery which has not served him to point a moral. But his sympathies are never perverted, or his sense of right and wrong dimmed by the atmosphere in which he moves. He is a stern though kindly moralist. In his hands vice is vice—a foe with whom no terms are to be kept. Yet, with what true feeling, what consummate skill, does he discriminate the shades of character, the ranks and degrees of crime, the extent and limits of moral corruption! In none of his works is this so apparent as in what we are inclined to rank as the most refined and complete of all, namely, the illustrations to “Oliver Twist.” Charles Dickens and George Cruikshank worked cordially hand in hand in the production of this admirable work, and neither will grudge to the other his share in the fame which has justly attended their joint labours. The characters are not more skilfully developed, as the story unfolds itself, by the pen of Dickens, than by the pencil of his colleague. Every time we turn over this wonderful series, we are more and more impressed with the genius that created, and the close observation of human nature which developed, the characteristics of Oliver through every varying phase of his career, from the memorable day when he ‘asked for more’;—of Sikes, the housebreaker (compare his face in the frontispiece of the first column, where he has just brought Oliver back to the Jew, with that at page 216 of the third volume, where he is attempting to destroy his dog); of Fagin—from the ‘merry old gentleman’ frying sausages, to the ghastly picture of abject terror which he presents in the condemned cell; of Noah Claypole,—mark him as he lies cowering under the dresser in Mrs. Sowerberry’s kitchen, with little Oliver standing triumphant over him with flashing eye and dilated nostril, and again behold him lolling in the armchair, whilst Charlotte feeds his gluttonous appetite with oysters; of Charlotte herself; of Mrs. Corney; of the workhouse master; the paupers; the boy-thieves; of Messrs. Blathers and Duff, the police officers; and the immortal Mrs. Bumble—a character which has furnished new terms to our vocabulary, and the glory of producing which may be fairly divided between the author and the artist Nor is the portraiture of Mrs. Bedwin, the housekeeper, who only appears once—but by that single appearance makes us familiar with her whole history and character—less admirably conceived and executed. The same may be said of Mr. Brownlow and Mr. Los-borne. Nor is this perfection the result of a lucky hit or happy accident, by which a far inferior artist may sometimes succeed in producing what is acknowledged by the eye as the impersonation of the impression produced on the mind by the art of the novelist or the poet. It is the result of deep study and profound sympathy, with all the varied action of the human heart. It is genius, the twin-brother of that which inspired Garrick and Kean, and which, in its rarest and most refined developments, brings before our eyes even now new beauties latent in the characters of Hamlet and of Rosalind. 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.”
* “The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder,” etc.
Mr. Sala has described the “rough but superb” etchings to the “Sketches by Boz,” which prepared the world for the finer and profounder work in “Oliver Twist,” and he instances “The Streets—Morning”—-an exquisite bit of observation. But can anything surpass, as a picture of close and various study of life, the “Parish Engine”—from the superb beadle at the door, to the urchins rejoicing over the excitement? As pictures of manners, dress, and the habits of the people some forty years ago, they have the value of historical records. Those times live again, under our wondering eyes, by the help of the artist’s genius; and none can deny the immense value they are in helping the younger generation to understand the fresh and racy humour of the text.
Mr. Sala very properly questions whether Cruikshank would have succeeded even with “Pickwick.” “While,” he adds, “to illustrate such works as ‘Martin Chuzzlewit,’ and the later novels of Dickens, he would have been manifestly out of place,” he might have “been in his element” with “Nicholas Nickleby.” Thackeray, however, once pointed out that Cruikshank would never have managed to draw Sir Mulberry Hawk’s cabriolet horse. But he was never more at home than in his illustrations to the life of his old Islington friend and boon companion, Joe Grimaldi, which Dickens unwillingly consented to edit for Mr. Bentley.
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Dickens put the manuscript in order, and strung it together—dictating connecting bits to his father, whom Mr. Forster describes as revelling in the work. John Dickens revelled in work as well as play; in a bowl of gin punch, which it was his delight to mix at the Rainbow, in Fleet Street, and over which I have heard him tell many a capital story, not more than in his work as first manager of the Parliamentary staff of the Daily News.
Dickens described the manuscript of the life of the celebrated clown as twaddle, and was astonished at its success. “Seventeen hundred Grimaldis have been already sold,” he wrote to Forster, “and the demand increases daily!” Perhaps he did not rate at their full value George Cruikshank’s etchings, which had a habit, in those days, of making “twaddle” palatable to the public very often. Over Grimaldi, Dickens and Cruikshank parted as author and artist; but they continued fast friends for many years after.