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“Having strolled towards Westminster Hall to survey the scene of my future triumphs, it struck me that I had carried the grand classical to such a height as to preclude all chance of my cartoon being got in through the doorway; and I therefore, with the promptitude of a Richard the Third, determined to ‘off with his head’ by taking a slice off the top of the canvas. This necessary piece of execution rather spoiled the design, but it enabled me to throw a heaviness into the brows of my principal figure, which, if it marred the resemblance to Fawkes, gave him an additional look of the Guy at all events. It then occurred to me that I might diminish the dimensions by taking a couple of feet off the legs; and this happy idea enabled me to carry out the historical notion that Fawkes was the mere tool of others, in which case, to cramp him in the understanding must be considered a nice blending of the false in art with the true in nature. The Guy’s feet were accordingly foreshortened, till I left him as he appeared when trying to defend himself at his trial, with hardly a leg to stand upon. Besides, I knew I could fresco out his calves in fine style, when once I got permission to turn the fruit of my labours into wall fruit on the inside of the Houses of Parliament.
“It will now be naturally asked why my cartoon was not exhibited with others, some of which were equally monstrous, in the Hall of Westminster. The fact is, if the truth must out, the cartoon would not go in. Though I had cramped my genius already to suit the views of the Commissioners and the size of the door, I found I must have stooped much lower if I had resolved on finding admittance for my work. I wrote at once to the Woods and Forests, calling upon them to widen the door for genius, by taking down a portion of the wall: but it will hardly be believed, that though there were, at the time, plenty of workmen about the building, no answer was returned to my request. Alas! it is all very well to sing, as they do in Der Freischutz, ‘Through the Woods and through the Forests,’ but towards me the Woods and Forests proved themselves utterly impenetrable.
“It will be seen that the arch-conspirator—for so I must continue to call him, though he could not be got into the archway—has placed his hat upon the ground, a little point in which I have blended imagination with history, and both with convenience. The imagination suggests that such a villain ought not to wear his hat; history does not say that he did, which is as much as to hint that he didn’t; while convenience, coming to the aid of both, renders it necessary for his hat to lie upon the ground; for if I had tried to place it on his head, there would have been no room for it There was one gratifying circumstance connected with this cartoon, which, in spite of my being charged with vanity, I must repeat. As it was carried through the streets, it seemed to be generally understood and appreciated; every one, even children, exclaiming as it passed, ‘Oh! there’s a Guy!’
“George Cruikshank.”
There was some bitterness in this jesting; for Cruikshank felt conscious of the latent power to execute a cartoon about which there should have been no buffoonery. Alas! his lines had been cast in humble places. He had lived to earn his bread from day to day in the grotesque market; and the solemn and poetic side of his genius had been left unworked, or had been only partially and fitfully developed as he became an illustrator of books.
In the Almanac which included the Guy Fawkes cartoon appeared Cruikshank’s Father Mathew, a nice man for a small party. Father Mathew appears in the shape of a pump or filter to a convivial domestic circle, and holds parley with them. The animated pump, with the extended handle for a warning arm, and the spout for a nose, is an old Cruikshankian figure. “Touch not—taste not,” says the preacher-pump: “if you must take anything, take the Pledge.”
Paterfamilias, with a severe frown and aggressive attitude, has turned upon the intruder. “Dost thou think,” he says, “because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?” Pater’s friend is more insinuating, and has an excuse. “Why, you see, old gent,” he remarks, “the case is this—the ladies insist upon my singing a comic song, and I should like to know how I am to manage that over a glass of pump-water.” The grandfather pleads: “Won’t you allow an old gentleman a little warm elder wine this cold night?” And the buxom lady of the house is coaxing: “Pray take a chair, sir, and taste my home-made wine, or a glass of our home-brewed ale.” These suggested compromises expressed very faithfully the mood of the artist’s mind at the time. His sympathies inclined him towards the Apostle of Temperance; but he was not yet prepared to go over, body and soul, to the cause. The picture is accompanied by an “Ode to Father Mathew,” conceived in a spirit of hearty opposition, that only goes towards proving that Cruikshank was at the half-way house of elder and home-made wines and home-brewed beer, between the punch bowl and the pump. The ode is in the fine old style:—