I respectfully beg leave to assure all to whom "My Portrait" shall come, that I am not now moved to its publication, for the first time, by any one of the ten thousand considerations that ordinarily influence modest men in presenting their "counterfeit presentments" to the public gaze. Mine would possibly never have appeared at all, but for the opportunity thus afforded me of clearing up any mistakes that may have been originated by a pen-and-ink sketch which recently appeared in a publication entitled "Portraits of Public Characters."
The writer of that sketch was evidently animated by a spirit of kindness, and to kindness I am always sensitively alive; but he has been misinformed—he has represented me "as I am not," instead of "as I am;" and although it is by no means necessary that I should offer "some account of myself" in print, it is desirable that I should, without fatiguing anybody, correct some half-dozen of the errors into which my biographer has fallen.
A few words of extract, and a few more of comment, and my object, as the moralist declares when he seeks to lure back one sinner to the paths of virtue, will be fully attained.
The sketch, which professes to be "my portrait," opens thus:—
(1.) "I believe Geo. Cruikshank dislikes the name of artist, as being too common-place."
I have my dislikes; but it happens that they always extend to things, and never settle upon mere names. He must be a simpleton indeed who dislikes the name of artist when he is not ashamed of his art. It is possible that I may once in my life, when "very young," have said that I would rather carry a portmanteau than a portfolio through the streets; and this, perhaps from a recollection of once bearing a copper-plate, not sufficiently concealed from the eyes of an observant public, under my arm, and provoking a salutation from a little ragged urchin, shouting at the top of his voice, hand to mouth—"There goes a copper plate en-gra-ver!" It is true, that as I walked on I experienced a sense of the uncomfortableness of that species of publicity, and felt that the eyes of Europe were very inconveniently directed to me; but I did not, even in that moment of mortification, feel ashamed of my calling: I did not "dislike the name of artist."
(2.) "When a very young man, it was doubtful whether the weakness of his eyes would not prove a barrier to his success as an artist."
When a very young man, I was rather short-sighted, in more senses than one; but weak eyes I never had. The blessing of a strong and healthy vision has been mine from birth; and at any period of time since that event took place, I have been able, even with one eye, to see very clearly through a millstone, upon merely applying the single optic, right or left, to the centrical orifice perforated therein. But for the imputation of weakness in that particular, I never should have boasted of my capital eye; especially (as an aged punster suggests) when I am compelled to use the capital I so often in this article.
(3.) "The gallery in which George first studied his art, was, if the statement of the author of 'Three Courses and a Dessert' may be depended on, the tap-room of a low public-house, in the dark, dirty, narrow lanes which branch off from one of the great thoroughfares towards the Thames. And where could he have found a more fitting place? where could he have met with more appropriate characters?—for the house was frequented, to the exclusion of everybody else, by Irish coal-heavers, hodmen, dustmen, scavengers, and so forth!"
