CHAPTER VI.
ROBERT CRUIKSHANK (Continued).
“LIFE IN LONDON” AND OTHER BOOK WORK.
In perusing various articles on George Cruikshank in which reference is made to the “Life in London,” we have been struck with the almost utter absence of Robert Cruikshank’s name; further than this, it seems to have been the almost universal impression that it was his association with George on this memorable book which secured such reputation as Robert himself enjoyed. So far, however, was this from being the case, that not only was Robert, in 1821, a caricaturist and satirist of acknowledged reputation, but he was believed at this very time by the general public to be the cleverer artist of the two. Robert, indeed, has been treated with curious injustice in relation to this famous book, which owes its very existence (as we shall presently see) to him alone. While according to George (as in effect they do) the whole merit of the performance, many of the writers of the articles referred to acknowledge that they find it impossible to assign to him his share of the illustrations; and that difficulty will be largely increased to any one who has studied Robert Cruikshank’s caricature work. The fact is that few of these famous plates will bear comparison with the best of Robert’s pictorial satires; while the kindred book of the “English Spy,” which was illustrated (with the exception of one plate) by Robert alone, contains designs quite equal to those which adorn the “Life in London.” When it is admitted that Robert executed three parts of these illustrations, while those who have written upon him say that they are unable to identify George’s share of the work,[57] it seems unjust (to say the least of it) that the credit of the whole performance should be assigned to him alone. Let us be just to Robert, even though his merit as a draughtsman has been lost sight of in the fame which the younger brother achieved by virtue of his greater genius.
The reader need not be told—and we are not going to tell him Popularity of “Life in London.” what he knows already—that the “Life” was dramatized by four writers for different theatrical houses. The most successful version was the one produced at the Adelphi, previously known as the Sans Pareil theatre. The first season of this house, which Messrs Jones and Rodwell had recently purchased for £25,000, was only moderately successful; but the fortune of the second was made by “Tom and Jerry.” Night after night immediately after the opening of the doors, the theatre was crowded to the very ceiling; the rush was tremendous. By three o’clock in the afternoon of every day the pavement of the Strand had become impassable, and the dense mass which occupied it had extended by six o’clock far across the roadway. Peers and provincials, dukes and dustmen, all grades and classes of people swelled the tide which night after night rolled its wave up the passage of the Adelphi. It was a compact wedge; on it moved, slowly, laboriously, amid the shouts and shrieks, the justling and jostling of the crowd which composed it, leavened by the intermixture of numbers of the swell mob, who plied their vocation with indefatigable industry and impunity. Nevertheless, the reader will be surprised to learn (and it is probably little known) that in spite of this amazing popularity, the first night of “Tom and Jerry” met with such unexpected opposition that Mr. Rodwell declared it should never be played again. Luckily for himself and his partner he was induced to reconsider this decision. The tide was taken at the flood, and it led—as the poet assures us that it will lead when so taken—to an assured fortune.
| Robert Cruikshank.] [From “The Universal Songster.” “By this take a warning, for noon, night, or morning, The devil’s in search of attorneys.” |
| Robert Cruikshank.] [From “The Universal Songster.” “With her flames and darts, and apple tarts, her ices, trifles, cherry-brandy, O, she knew not which to choose, for she thought them both the Dandy.” [Face p. 110. |
One night a stranger entered the private box of the Duke of York at the Adelphi, and seated himself immediately behind his Royal Highness, who took but little notice of the intruder. The mysterious stranger had been brought in and was fetched by a plain green chariot; and the few that saw him said that he was a portly gentleman, wrapped in a long great coat and muffled up to the eyes. Keeping himself well behind his Royal Highness, the portly stranger took a deep but unostentatious interest in the performance. In his Haroun al-Raschid character he had been present, with his friend Lord Coleraine (then Major George Hanger), at some of the actual scenes represented; and in particular, by virtue of the fact of his wearing “a clean shirt,” had been called upon by the ragged chairman at a convivial meeting of the “Cadgers” to favour them with a song, which had been sung for him by his friend and proxy the Major. The mysterious stranger in fact, as the reader has already guessed, was his gracious Majesty King George the Fourth, and his visit incognito having been made by previous notice and arrangement, the passages were kept as clear of the general public as possible.
The scenery of the Adelphi version was superintended by Robert Cruikshank himself. “Tom and Jerry” brought a strange mixture of visitors to attend the rehearsals. Corinthians (men of fashion)—members of the turf and the prize ring, who found a common medium of conversation in the sporting slang which Mr. Egan has made so familiar to us. Naturally there was a mixture. Tom Cribb, whom the Cruikshanks had temporarily elevated into the position of a hero, was indispensable; and the silver cup which figures in Robert’s sketch was every night made use of in the scene depicting the champion’s pot-house sanctum. Among the frequenters at these rehearsals was a quiet man of unusually unobtrusive deportment and conversation,—this man was Thurtell, the cold-blooded murderer of Mr. Weare.
Since the days of the “Beggars’ Opera,” a success equal to that which attended the “Life in London,” and its several dramatized versions by Barrymore, Charles Dibdin, Moncrieff, and Pierce Egan, had been unknown. The exhausted exchequers of four or five theatres were replenished; and as in the days of the “Beggars’ Opera” the favourite songs of that piece were transferred to the ladies’ fans, and highwaymen and abandoned women became the heroes and heroines of the hour, so, in like manner, the Cruikshanks’ designs were now transferred to tea-trays, snuff-boxes, pocket-handkerchiefs, screens, and ladies’ fans, and the popular favourites of 1821 and 1822 were “Corinthian Tom,” “Jerry Hawthorn,” “Bob Logic,” “Bob the dustman,” and “Corinthian Kate.”
The success of “Life in London” was not regarded with equal satisfaction by all classes of the community; the serious world was horribly scandalized. Zealous, honest, fervid, and terribly in earnest, these good folks, in their ignorance of the world and of human nature, only added to the mischief which it was their honest wish to abate. They proclaimed the immorality of the drama; denounced “Tom and Jerry” from the pulpit; and besieged the doors of the play houses with a perfect army of tract droppers. Anything more injudicious, anything less calculated to achieve the end which these good people had in view, I can scarcely imagine; for it is a well-known fact that the best method of making a book or a play a “commercial success,” in England, is to throw doubts on its moral tendency.[58] The more respectable portion of the press did better service to their cause by showing that, in spite of their popularity, “Tom and Jerry” were doing mischief, and that the theatres lent their aid to disseminate the evil, by nightly regaling the female part of society “with vivid representations of the blackest sinks of iniquity to be found in the metropolis.” Called on to defend his drama, Moncrieff, strange to say, proved himself no wiser than his assailants. All he could allege in its behalf was that “the obnoxious scenes of life were only shown that they might be avoided; the danger of mixing in them was strikingly exemplified; and every incident tended to prove”—what? why,—“that happiness was only to be found in the domestic circle”! This was special pleading with a vengeance! Of course all that the theatres really cared to do was to fill their exhausted exchequers; while as for Bohemian Robert and his friend Egan, the idea of making the “Life in London” a moral lesson never once entered their heads. The artist however was shrewd enough to take note of the observation for future use; and seven years later on, when he and Egan produced their “Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic in their Pursuits through Life in and out of London,” endeavoured to profit by the storm which had been raised by the good people of 1821, by tagging a clumsy moral to the sequel.