TOM AND JERRY, IN THE SALOON AT COVENT GARDEN
In 1823, Westmacott published his Points of Misery, illustrated by George Cruikshank, and in 1825 he brought out a roman à clef called Fitzalleyne of Berkeley, in which various scandals relating to the Berkeley family were introduced. The book was eagerly bought and read, and Westmacott, who had vainly tried to extort money for its suppression, must have made a handsome sum by its publication. The English Spy was brought out in two volumes, and contained seventy-two large coloured plates as well as numerous vignettes on wood, the majority being from the designs of Robert Cruikshank, who figures in the book under the pseudonym of "Robert Transit." Two of the coloured plates were contributed by Thomas Rowlandson, notably a sketch of the Life Academy at Somerset House, with the R.A.'s of the period busily engaged in drawing from a female model. Most of the social celebrities of the time are introduced into the book, Beau Brummell, Colonel Berkeley, Pierce Egan, Charles Matthews, "Pea-green" Hayne, and "Golden" Ball; while life at the University, in sporting and fashionable London, and at the popular watering-places, is vividly described. On the last page is an interesting little vignette representing the author and artist in the act of handing the second volume of their work to an eagerly expectant bookseller. The success of this book, and of many other imitations of Life in London, induced Egan to compose a sequel to his work, which appeared in 1828 under the title of The Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, in their Pursuits through Life in and out of London, illustrated by Robert Cruikshank. In this curious book an attempt is made to propitiate the Nonconformist conscience of that day by bringing the majority of the characters to a bad end. Corinthian Tom breaks his neck in a steeplechase, Corinthian Kate dies in misery, Bob Logic is also killed off, and Splendid Jem becomes a convict; but Jerry Hawthorn reforms, marries Mary Rosebud, a virtuous country maiden, and settles down at Hawthorn Hall as a Justice of the Peace and model landlord.
In 1824, Egan had started a weekly newspaper called Pierce Egan's Life in London, which, being sold to a Mr. Bell, enjoyed a long period of popularity as Bell's Life in London. In the same year Pierce published his Life of an Actor, dedicated to Edmund Kean, and illustrated by Theodore Lane. Lane, who was born at Isleworth in 1800, was the son of a drawing-master in poor circumstances. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to John Barrow, an artist and colourer of prints, who was living in St. Pancras. Thanks to the encouragement of his master, Lane early came into notice as a miniaturist and painter in water-colours, and he exhibited works of that class at the Academy between 1819 and 1826. But his real talent lay in the direction of the quaint and the humorous. In 1825 he made a series of thirty-six designs representing scenes in the life of an actor, which he took to Egan and begged that popular author to write the letterpress. After some hesitation, Egan undertook the task, chiefly, as he says, with the idea of introducing a meritorious young artist to the public. For his designs Lane received £150 from the publisher, and the book really proved a stepping-stone, not to fortune, but to regular employment. His work was praised by the two Cruikshanks, and a writer in The Monthly Critical Gazette declared that his designs would not discredit the pencil of Hogarth. Lane illustrated Egan's Anecdotes Original and Selected of the Turf, the Chase, the Ring, and the Stage in 1827, and also published two or series of humorous designs. In 1825 the young artist, though left-handed, took up oil-painting with success, and attracted favourable notice by his pictures The Christmas Presents and Disturbed by Nightmare, which were exhibited at the Academy in 1827 and 1828. His best work, however, was The Enthusiast—a gouty angler fishing in a tub of water—which is now in the National Gallery. On 21st May 1828 poor Lane's promising career was cut short in most tragical fashion. While waiting for a friend at the Horse Repository in the Gray's Inn Road, he stepped upon a skylight, and, falling through, his brains were dashed out upon the pavement below. He left a widow and two children, for whose benefit Egan published a little work in verse called The Show Folks, with illustrations by Lane, as well as a short memoir of the unfortunate artist. Of Egan's numerous other works it is only necessary to mention his Book of Sports and Mirror of Life (1832), and The Pilgrims of the Thames in Search of the National (1838), illustrated by his son, and dedicated by express permission to the young Queen Victoria. "The Fancy's darling child," as he has been aptly named, died at his house in Pentonville in 1849, "respected by all who knew him"—vide Bell's Life.
To return to George Cruikshank, who was now in the full tide of success and overwhelmed with commissions. It would be impossible here to give a complete list of his productions, but mention may be made of his illustrations to Peter Schlemihl, the Man without a Shadow, and to Grimm's Popular Stories (1824), which were so much admired by Ruskin; of his Illustrations of Phrenology (1826), which marks his first appearance as an independent author; the famous Mornings at Bow Street (1815); the Comic Almanac, which began in 1835; the series of etchings for the Sketches by Boz (1836), and those for Oliver Twist in Bentley's Miscellany (1839), which led to his claim that he had originated the story—a claim that naturally put an end to his connection with Dickens. In 1839 began a long series of illustrations for the novels of Harrison Ainsworth (1805-82), the editor of Bentley's Miscellany. Ainsworth was born at Manchester, and bred up to "the law," but on coming to London to finish his legal studies, he neglected his law books for literature. He attained his first success with Rookwood in 1834, and in 1839 became editor of Bentley's Miscellany, in which his novel Jack Sheppard, with illustrations by Cruikshank, first appeared. In 1842 he started Ainsworth's Magazine, and engaged Cruikshank, who had quarrelled with Bentley, as illustrator-in-chief, at a salary of £40 a month. The engagement proved a fortunate one, resulting in the excellent designs to The Tower of London, The Miser's Daughter, Windsor Castle, and other novels, which Cruikshank himself described as "a hundred and forty-four of the very best designs and etchings I ever produced." The connection came to an end with the usual quarrel, Cruikshank claiming to have suggested the plot and characters of both The Miser's Daughter and The Tower of London.
