Punch's estimate accords with that of the friend who knew Cruikshank well and described him as "in every word and deed a God-fearing, Queen-honouring, truth-loving, honest man," and it is all the more significant in view of Cruikshank's vehement and even fanatical espousal of the cause of temperance. Another great illustrator, though of a very different type, emerged in the following year in Randolph Caldecott. His genial and graceful commentaries on Nursery Rhymes were entirely after Punch's heart. He was speedily enlisted as an occasional contributor up to 1886, the year of his premature death, when Punch faithfully summed up the gifts of a true benefactor of all ages:—
We loved the limner whose gay fun
Was ever loyal to the Graces;
Who mixed the mirth of Gilpin's run
With willowy forms and winsome faces;
Who made old nursery lyrics live
With frolic force rejuvenated,
And yet the sweetest girls could give
That ever pencil-point created.
From Bracebridge Hall to Banbury Cross