Thackeray, let it be said, was always unjust to Harrison Ainsworth. He caricatured him unmercifully in Punch, and never lost an opportunity of being amusing at his expense. His reasoning in regard to “Jack Sheppard” is manifestly unjust and unsound. “Jack Sheppard” was the natural sequence to “Rook-wood,” which, in popular parlance, had taken the town by storm, and had suddenly made the young author famous. “Dick Turpin’s Ride to York” became the talk of all England. Colnaghi published a separate set of illustrations, by Hall, of the principal scenes described by Mr. Ainsworth. Cruikshank was called in only to furnish some illustrations to the second edition.
The success of “Rookwood” directed the mind of Bulwer to “Paul Clifford,” and probably suggested to Dickens his “Oliver Twist.” Even Cruikshank himself admits that “Jack Sheppard” was “originated” by the author. A fashion for highwaymen and burglars as heroes of romance had been set by Ainsworth; and Bulwer and Dickens dived into the haunts of thieves to get at their argot, or “patter flash,” * and their ways of thinking and acting. Both made great hits. “Paul Clifford” and “Oliver Twist” were the two books of the day. Mr. Ainsworth, irritated at the unceremonious manner in which his ground had been invaded, put forth “Jack Sheppard” (1839), on assuming the editorship of Bentley’s Miscellany. It was as natural a step from “Rookwood,” especially after “Paul Clifford” and “Oliver Twist,” as chapter two is from chapter one, Mr. Ainsworth had his revenge upon the trespassers, for “Jack” threw “Oliver,” for the moment, into the background. This gave umbrage to Mr. John Forster. Mr. Ainsworth says:—“I am sorry to think that the success of ‘Jack Sheppard’ should have led him (Forster) to regard me as a momentary rival to his idol, but he assuredly treated me as one. My little burglar was certainly the lion of the day. The story was dramatised and played simultaneously at half a dozen theatres. Every street-boy yelled ‘Nix my dolly’ and ‘Jolly nose.’ and large profits were made by managers. My own share of theatrical plunder was only twenty pounds, sent me by Davidge, of the Coburg Theatre. For the Adelphi version, made by Buckstone, I never made a single sixpence, although it filled the house to overflowing, and people said that every errand-boy looked forward to the day when he should develop into a full-blown burglar.”
* “I got my slang in a much easier way,” said Mr. Ainsworth;
“I picked up the memoirs of one Vaux—James Hardy Vaux—a
returned transport. The book was full of adventures, and had
at the end a kind of slang dictionary. Out of this I got all
my ‘patter.’ Having read it thoroughly, and mastered it, I
could use it with perfect facility.”
It would be doing Cruikshank shameful injustice to deny the attraction of his marvellous etchings, full of life, keen observation, and that happy dramatic power he had, which led him to feel and to embody the conception an author whom he illustrated; but, at the same time, it would be folly to accept him at his own estimate of his share in the “Jack Sheppard” success. Mrs. Keeley has quite as strong a right to some of the common glory as George. It is surprising that he never laid claim to Paul Bedford’s “Jolly Nose.” * While the excitement lasted, Cruikshank made no claim to any share in the story, and he enjoyed to the full the immense success of his etchings.
On the completion of “Jack Sheppard” and the “Tower of London,” Cruikshank quarrelled with Mr. Bentley, ** He had a tendency, as one of his best friends has remarked, to quarrel with all persons with whom he had business relations; and when he did quarrel, his words knew no bounds. In his “Popgun” he has drawn himself holding a publisher by the nose with a pair of tongs. *** His temporary separation from Mr. Bentley led him to start a magazine of his own, the Omnibus, and to turn from Mr. Ainsworth to Laman Blanchard as literary co-operator. Of this presently.
* G. Cruikshank lithographed an illustration to the “Jack
Sheppard” quadrilles, “from Rodwel’s celebrated romance,” in
which he represented Paul Bedford as Blueskin, Mrs. Keeley
as Jack Sheppard, etc., dancing and singing in chorus, “Nix
my dolly, pals.” Mrs. Keeley remembers Cruikshank going
behind the scenes to sketch her and Paul Bedford “in
character,” and she remarks that this was the only time she
ever saw him.
** “The mention of his illustrations to ‘Oliver Twist’ led
to some other talk concerning his connection with Bentley’s
Miscellany, and he expressed his interest when I told him
that my first appearances in print were in the pages of that
magazine, when I was yet in my ‘teens,’ my various
contributions being in verse. But this was after he had
ceased to illustrate it, and when the chief etchings for its
pages were supplied by John Leech. He told me of his
misunderstandings with Mr. Bentley, and he has referred to
them, in a paper in his Omnibus, as follows: ‘To “Oliver
Twist” and “Jack Sheppard” I devoted my best exertions; but,
so far from effecting a monopoly of my labours, the
publisher in question (Mr. Bentley) has not, for a
twelvemonth past, had from me more than a single plate for
his monthly Miscellany, nor will he ever have more than
that single plate per month, nor shall I ever illustrate any
other work that he may publish.’ These single plates that he
here mentions are the poorest that ever proceeded from his
etching-needle, and would appear to have been wilfully and
defiantly badly drawn, under the compulsion of an agreement
that the artist was bound to carry out. He lived, however,
to execute other and better work for Mr. Bentley, notably
some additional illustrations to the evergreen ‘Ingoldsby
Legends.’ Cruikshank used to place his watch upon the table
and run his etching point over his design at the utmost
speed. The outline made, he turned the plate over to his
brother Robert, who finished it. Sands bit it up, and then
it was forwarded to Bentley. The results fell so far short
of George Cruikshank working con amore, that at last Mr.
Bentley was content to set the unmanageable artist free. The
secession of Cruikshank from the Miscellany made room for
John Leech.”—Cuthbert Bede.
*** The publisher threatened the artist with an action, and
compelled him to withdraw the pamphlet from circulation.
On the retirement of Ainsworth from Bentley’s Miscellany, business relations were resumed between himself and the artist; and Cruikshank was advertised as illustrator of Ainsworth’s Magazine. And at this point Cruikshank passed from his humorous to his more ambitious and higher phase.
“The Tower of London” appears to have made a strong effect on Cruikshank’s mind. In the Omnibus he drew some curious bits of observation of the wreck of that part of the Tower which the fire had attacked, and in his illustrations to Ainsworth’s story he manifested a desire to express the historical power as an artist that was in him. He composed pictures free from exaggeration, and grand and impressive both in conception and treatment. Having substituted steel plates for copper, he felt that he was upon more lasting work, and he laboured hard to produce pictures of the highest finish. He was right: some of the finest work he has left lies between Ainsworth’s pages, and indicates a range of power in the artist which he was never destined to prove fully. The fates had been against him in early life; and he was, although even much later he could not bring his eager and intrepid mind to admit it, too old to take his seat in an academy, and get through the drudgery, without which not even the most bountifully gifted artist can do himself justice. In these Rembrandt-like scenes in the Tower, he taught the world that his idea that he was a great historical painter who had lost his way, was no wild and vain fancy.
The new arrangement was one of the most lucrative Cruikshank ever enjoyed, receiving forty pounds monthly for his plates. It opened a connection, during which Cruikshank executed, as he rightly believed, “a hundred and forty-four of the very best designs and etchings” he ever produced. It is a pity that such a connection should have ended in an unworthy quarrel in which Cruikshank, with his usual vehemence and wildness in statement, made charges against his author which it was utterly impossible for him to justify. He has described their relations in this way:—
“I must here first state that, as large sums of money had been realized from my ideas and suggestions for the work of ‘Oliver Twist,’ it occurred to me one day that I would try and get a little of the same material from the same source; and as Mr. Ainsworth and I were at the time upon the most friendly—I may say brotherly—terms, I suggested to him that we should jointly produce a work on our own account, and publish it in monthly numbers, and get Mr. Bentley to join us as the publisher. Mr. Ainsworth was delighted with the idea of such a partnership, and at once acceded to the proposition; and when I told him I had a capital subject for the first work, he inquired what it was; and upon my telling him it was the Tower of London, with some incidents in the life of Lady Jane Grey, he was still more delighted, and then I told him that I had long since seen the room in the Tower where that beautiful and accomplished dear lady was imprisoned, and other parts of that fortress, to which the public were not admitted; and if he would then go with me to the Tower, I would show these places to him. He at once accepted my offer, and off we went to Hungerford Stairs, now the site of the Charing Cross Railway Station; and whilst waiting on the beach for a boat to go to London Bridge, we there met my dear friend, the late W. Jerdan, the well-known editor and part proprietor of the Literary Gazette, who inquired where we were going to. My reply was, that I was taking Mr. Ainsworth a prisoner to the Tower. With this joke we parted. I then took Mr. Ainsworth to the royal prison, and when we arrived there, I introduced him to my friend Mr. Stacey, the storekeeper, in whose department were these ‘Chambers of Horrors’; and then and there did Mr. Ainsworth, for the first time, see the apartment in which the dear Lady Jane was placed until the day she was beheaded, or, in other words, the day on which she was murdered! and which place I had long before made sketches of, for the purpose of introducing them in a ‘Life of Lady Jane Grey,’ and which for many years I had intended to place before the public. I have now most distinctly to state that Mr. Ainsworth wrote up to most of my suggestions and designs, although some of the subjects we jointly arranged, to introduce into the work; and I used every month to send him the tracings or outlines of the sketches or drawings from which I was making the etchings to illustrate the work, in order that he might write up to them, and that they should be accurately described.” Cruikshank goes on to assert that the plates were printed before the manuscript was printed, and sometimes before the manuscript was written.