“I believed him to be in his dotage, and was confirmed in the opinion when I found he laboured under a similar delusion in regard to ‘Oliver Twist.’
“For myself, I desire to state emphatically, that not a single line—not a word—in any of my novels was written by their illustrator, Cruikshank. In no instance did he even see a proof. The subjects were arranged with him early in the month, and about the fifteenth he used to send me tracings of the plates. That was all.
“As explanatory of the original design of the ‘Miser’s Daughter,’ as well as to dispose of Cruikshank’s unwarrantable assertion that he had furnished the original scheme of the story, I will now cite the preface to the cheap edition of the work, published in 1850, by Chapman and Hall. If Cruikshank had any claim to the authorship of the tale, why did he not make it then?
“To expose the folly and wickedness of accumulating wealth for no other purpose than to hoard it up, and to exhibit the utter misery of a being who should thus voluntarily surrender himself to the dominion of Mammon, is the chief object of these pages. And I believe they will be found to convey a useful lesson, and one not wholly inapplicable to the times; for though the Miser may now be a rarer character than heretofore, the greed of gain was never more generally indulged in, nor the worship of the golden calf more widely spread and less reproved than at present. I have shown that all high and generous feelings, all good principles, and even natural affection itself, will become blunted, and in the end completely destroyed, by the inordinate and all-engrossing passion for gain: and I have shown the truth,—a truth borne out by the history of every such wretched votary of wealth. The sin carries its own punishment with it; and is made the means of chastising the sinner. Dead to every feeling except that of adding to his store, the miser becomes incapable of enjoyment except such as is afforded by the contemplation of his useless treasure, and at last he is deprived even of this selfish and unhallowed gratification, for dread of losing his gold far outweighs delight in its possession. Distrust of all around him darkens his declining days; those who should be dearest to him appear his worst enemies; he becomes a prey to the designer, until at length, while haunted by vague terrors, and despairingly clinging to his hoards, they are snatched from his grasp by the ruthless hand of death. ‘So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.’
“Other and lighter portions of the tale refer to the adventures of a young man on his first introduction to town-life about the middle of the last century, when Ranelagh was in its zenith, and Vauxhall and Marylebone. Gardens in vogue; when the Thames boasted its Folly, and when coffee-houses filled the places of clubs. The descriptions I believe to be tolerably accurate, and they are at all events carefully done, with the view of giving a correct idea of the manners, habits, and pursuits of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Temptations to pleasurable excess were no doubt sufficiently abundant then, but not more abundant than nowadays, when casinos and other places of licentious resort are tolerated; and our modern youth have as much to fear from the allurement of vice as their predecessors. Apart, indeed, from a certain grossness in conversation, our forefathers were to the full as decorous as ourselves, and quite as moral, though they did not cloak their faults so carefully. Consequently, vice in those days was less dangerous, because less specious and more easily shunned than at a time when its ugliness is better concealed.
“It was part of my original scheme to describe the secret proceedings of the Jacobites in Lancashire and Cheshire, prior to the Rebellion of Forty-five, with Prince Charles’s entrance into Manchester in that memorable year, and the subsequent march to Derby. * But I found these details incompatible with my main plan, and was therefore obliged to relinquish them; contenting myself with a slight sketch of a conspiracy in London, hatched by certain adherents of the young Chevalier. Cord well Firebras is no fictitious personage.
* This has since been done in the ‘Manchester Rebels,’
published in 1873.
“The incident of the payment of the mortgage-money is founded on fact. A similar occurrence took place about the period in question, and the paymaster was a proud Welsh baronet, as described, with a pedigree as old as the hills. The particulars were related to me by my excellent friend Mrs. Hughes, to whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions. It is, perhaps, needless to say, that in consequence of the alteration of the law respecting the foreclosure of mortgages, such a circumstance could not take place now.
“Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Had Cruikshank been capable of constructing a story, why did he not exercise his talent when he had no connection with Mr. Dickens or myself? But I never heard of such a tale being published.
“I have been connected with many distinguished artists—with Sir John Gilbert, with Tony Johannot, with Hablot K. Browne, John Franklin, and others, and never heard that any one of them claimed a share in the authorship of the works he illustrated.