ADVENTURES IN A WHISKEY PARLOUR
In 1847, Cruikshank was converted to teetotalism, and thenceforward laboured in the cause with almost fanatic zeal. It was in this year that he executed his famous group of eight designs called The Bottle, which was reproduced in glyphography, and circulated at a cheap price by temperance societies. In 1850 he was employed to illustrate the second edition of Smedley's successful novel Frank Fairlegh. Frank Smedley was born at Great Marlow in 1818, and, being crippled by a malformation of the feet, he was educated at a private tutor's instead of at a public school. He contributed his first story, The Life of a Private Pupil, to Sharpe's Magazine in 1846-48, and a couple of years later it was published under the title of Frank Fairlegh. The book, in which Smedley's love of open-air life and sympathy with outdoor sports are strongly manifested, made a decided hit, and was followed during the next few years by Lewis Arundel and Harry Coverdale's Courtship. Smedley has left an amusing account of his first interview with George Cruikshank, who, on seeing a cripple in a wheeled chair, could not conceal his wonder, but kept exclaiming, "Good God! I thought you could gallop about on horses." Smedley, who died of apoplexy in 1864, was editor of the ill-fated Cruikshank's Magazine, started in 1853, which only reached its second number.
George Cruikshank's last years were taken up in great measure with his work in the cause of temperance reform, and though he still occupied himself in book-illustration, it became increasingly evident that he had outlived his public. His large oil-painting, The Triumph of Bacchus, did not attract the multitude when exhibited at Exeter Hall in 1863, though he had devoted three years to its execution. Thanks to the kindness of his friends, and the grant of two small pensions, actual poverty was kept from his door, and he lived to a green old age, bright-eyed and alert, the best of good company over his glass of cold water, dancing a hornpipe at past eighty, or dressing up and singing The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman, which he had illustrated in 1839. He was taken ill early in 1878, and died on 1st February, finding his final resting-place in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.
George Cruikshank, his biographer Blanchard Jerrold tells us, always worked with great care and deliberation, thinking out his subject thoroughly before beginning to realise his conception. "He made, to begin with, a careful design upon paper, trying doubtful points upon the margin. The design was heightened by vigorous touches of colour. Then a careful tracing was made, and laid, pencil side down, upon the steel plate. This was carried to the printer, who, having placed it between damp paper and passed it through the press, returned it, the black-lead outline distinctly appearing on the etching ground. And then the work was straightforward to the artist's firm hand."
III
The books illustrated in colour at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century may be classed under certain well-defined headings—narrative, topography, costume, and sport, the last being by no means the least important. Although neither Gillray nor Rowlandson ignored the sport of kings, it was Bunbury who, drawing upon his own personal experiences, set the fashion for hunting and "horsey" books, which were most commonly conceived in a vein of broad humour. Of such was Bunbury's Geoffry Gambado, or the Academy for Grown Horsemen, of which several editions appeared between 1788 and 1808. The most distinguished of Bunbury's immediate successors was Henry Alken, an artist whose origin seems wrapped in mystery. It has been rumoured that he began his career as stud-groom or trainer to the Duke of Beaufort in the opening years of the nineteenth century. His early drawings were produced under the pseudonym of "Ben Tallyho," and the first work to which he signed his own name seems to have been The Beauties and Defects in the Figure of the Horse, comparatively Delineated, which appeared in 1816. This was followed by some sets of humorous etchings in frank imitation of Bunbury, such as Specimens of Riding, Symptoms of being Amazed, A Touch at the Fine Arts, and, in 1821, by a folio volume, The National Sports of Great Britain. In 1824 we find a most complimentary allusion to Alken's work in an article on the fine arts in Blackwood's Magazine, probably written by Christopher North. The writer, after observing that George Cruikshank failed in one subject only—the gentlemen of England—proceeds: "Where Cruikshank fails, there, happily for England and for art, Henry Alken shines, and shines like a star of the first magnitude. He has filled up the great blank that was left by the disappearance of Bunbury. He is a gentleman—he has lived with gentlemen—he understands their nature both in its strength and its weakness.... In this work [A Touch at the Fine Arts] there is a freedom of handling that is really delightful. Yet I am not sure but I give the preference to my older favourite, The Symptoms. The shooting parties—the driving parties—the overturning parties—the flirting parties—the fighting parties in that series are all and each of them nearly divine. Positively you must buy a set of Alken's works—they are splendid things—no drawing-room is complete without them." Alken, it will be seen, had already made his mark, but it was his connection with Mr. Apperley, alias "Nimrod," that was to bring him his largest meed of fame.
RACE HORSE