A number of the caricatures of 1825 (and among them many by Robert) are singularly illustrative of the morals of the time. About this year had been published a work professing to contain the memoirs of an apt disciple of Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, which was made the vehicle of extorting money. The modus operandi appears to have been as follows. In the month of March, 1825, a well-known M.P. of that day received a letter from this creature in the following terms:—
“No. 111, Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré,
à Paris.
Sir,—People are buying themselves so fast out of my book, ...[55] that I have no time to attend to them; should be sorry not to give each a chance, if they chuse to be out. You are quizzed most unmercifully. Two noble dukes have lately taken my word, and I have never named them. I am sure —— would say you might trust me never to publish, or cause to be published, aught about you, if you like to forward £200 directly to me, else it will be too late, as the last volume, in which you shine, will be the property of the editor, and in his hands. Lord —— says he will answer for aught I agree to; so will my husband. Do just as you like—consult only yourself. I get as much by a small book as you will give me for taking you out, or more. I attack no poor men, because they cannot help themselves.
“Adieu. Mind, I have no time to write again, as what with writing books, and then altering them for those who buy out, I am done up—frappé en mort.
“Don’t trust to bag[56] with your answer.”
That this extraordinary communication was no idle threat was proved by the fact that a respectable statuary, carrying on business in Piccadilly, who had refused to pay black-mail, brought an action for libel in the King’s Bench on the 1st of July against a man named Stockdale, publisher of the infamous production referred to, and recovered £300 damages. The same year Popple, the printer, brought his action against this fellow; but Mr. Justice Best directed him to be nonsuited, on the ground that he was not entitled to remuneration for printing a work of such a character.
The Catholic Relief Bill, which was thrown out this year, is the subject of several of Robert’s satires, bearing the titles of John Bull versus Pope Bull; Defenders of the Faith; The Hare Presumptuous, or a Catholic Game Trap; A Political Shaver, or the Crown in Danger. The Catholic Association, or Paddy Coming it too Strong, has reference to Mr. Goulburn’s motion to suppress the Catholic Association of Ireland, which was carried by 278 to 123, and the third reading by a majority of 130. The language used by Mr. O’Connell on the occasion was so strong that an indictment was subsequently preferred against him, which, however, was thrown out by the grand jury. Matheworama for 1825 depicts that celebrated impersonator in thirteen of his characters. Duelling deserves particular mention by reason of the admirably designed landscape and figures. It represents one of the principals (who looks very far from comfortable) waiting, with his second and a doctor, the advent of the other parties. The Bubble Burst, or the Ghost of an old Act of Parliament, has reference to the speculation mania of 1825. Others of his satires for the year are labelled respectively, Frank and Free, or Clerical Characters in 1825; A Beau Clerk for a Banking Concern; The Flat Catcher and the Rat Catcher; and A Pair of Spectacles, or the London Stage in 1824-5, which, although unsigned and bearing no initials, I have no hesitation in assigning to Robert Cruikshank.
I am unable to indicate the dates of the following: Football, very clever, and probably earlier than any of those already mentioned; Waltzing, “dedicated with propriety to the lord chamberlain,” a very coarse and severe satire upon the immoralities of the Prince Regent. Besides those we have already mentioned, we have others with which the volume miscalled “Cruikshankiana” (so often republished) has made the general public probably more familiar, such as the Monstrosities of 1827; A Dandy Fainting, or an Exquisite in Fits; The Broom Sold (Lord Brougham); Household Troops (a skit on domestic servants); and A Tea-party, or English Manners and French Politeness, all of which may be dismissed with the remark that they are the worst specimens of Robert’s work which could probably have been selected.
With the year 1825, our record of Isaac Robert Cruikshank’s Scarcity of Robert’s Satires. caricature work somewhat abruptly terminates. We cannot assert that after that date it wholly ceased, but, inasmuch as we have selected those we have named from a mass of some of the rarest pictorial satires published between the years 1800 and 1830, I think we are fairly justified in assuming that after this period his contributions to this branch of comic art became fewer. If this be the fact, it confirms the conclusion at which we have arrived, that at this time caricature had begun its somewhat hasty decline. Those I have named comprise over seventy examples; and their value, which is great on account of their scarcity, will be increased by the possibility that in the conception and execution of some of them the mind and hand of Robert might have been assisted by those of the more celebrated brother. “When my dear brother Robert,” says George in writing to the compiler of the famous catalogue of his own works, “when my dear brother Robert (who in his latter days omitted the Isaac) left off portrait painting, and took almost entirely to designing and etching, I assisted him at first to a great extent in some of his drawings on wood and his etchings.” If this be the case, it is at least possible that he lent the assistance of his cunning hand and original fancy to the preparation of some of these contributions to pictorial satire. It appears to us, therefore, that a just idea of George’s own work as an artist can scarcely be arrived at (especially his share of the famous “Life in London”) until we have first considered the early work of himself and his brother Robert as graphic satirists and caricaturists. They were closely associated in artistic work during their early career; and it was not until both had given up social and political satire, and devoted themselves to the then comparatively new field of book illustration and etching on copper, that the superiority, originality, and genius of the younger brother became so manifest and incontrovertible.