CHAPTER X. THE OMNIBUS.
It was in 1841 that George Cruikshank, when at variance with Mr. Bentley, started a periodical on his own account His friend Laman Blanchard, who was then one of the most popular essayists and political writers of the day, undertook the editorship.
The magazine opened in a thoroughly Cruikshankian style. There was a wondrously etched microcosm of the globe, which is accepted not only as one of the artist’s technical triumphs, but as one of his happiest conceptions. The human race is epitomised within this circle, not much wider than a billiard ball. The sphere teems with many-sided life, etched with the “simple frankness” which Mr. P. G. Hamerton has described as the perfection of the art * Let me here note that the famous Jack O’Lantern. His light and humorous wood drawings scattered through the volume are full of fancy and wit. He drew dainty bits to Blanchard’s graceful lyrics—“Love Seeking a Lodging,”
* “In etchings of this class Cruikshank carries one great
virtue of the art to perfection—its simple frankness. He is
so direct and unaffected, that only those who know the
difficulties of etching can appreciate the power that lies
behind his unpretending skill; there is never, in his most
admirable plates, the trace of a vain effort.”—Etching and
Etchers.
