[81] Lockhart’s “Life of Scott,” vol. v. p. 203.
[82] “E. O.” was another name for roulette, and forms the subject of one of Rowlandson’s early and best caricatures.
[83] The following are the words of the original inscription: “To Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms, this statue of Achilles, cast from cannon taken in the battles of Salamanca, Vitoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo, is inscribed by their countrywomen.”
[84] See Chapter IV.
CHAPTER VIII.
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK AT HIS PRIME.
Those who have studied the work of George Cruikshank from its Alterations in Cruikshank’s Style. commencement to its close (and those only can be said to have done so who are familiar with the satires described in the previous chapter), cannot fail to be struck with the alterations which took place in his style at different periods of the career we have already been considering. George Cruikshank’s peculiar style and manner, which enable us to recognise his work at a glance, was the outcome of a very slow and gradual process of development. In the first instance he closely copied Gillray, but soon acquired a manner of his own, blending the two styles after a fashion which is both interesting and amusing to follow. Soon, however, the style of the master was discontinued, and gradually the artist began to discover that the bent of his genius lay in altogether another direction. Unlike Thomas Rowlandson, the moment Cruikshank became an illustrator of books, he realized the fact that the style adapted to graphic satire was unsuitable for the purposes of this branch of art, and thenceforth he adopted a style differing from anything which had gone before. The revolution thus accomplished (a singular proof of the genius of the man) was effected without effort, and is strikingly manifest in an early book illustration representing the execution of Madame Tiquet and her accomplice, in 1699. The design to which we refer, which we believe is rare and little known, was engraved by H. R. Cook, from a design by the artist for the frontispiece to a collection of narratives by Cecil, “printed for Hone,” in 1819, and stands by virtue of its force and character apart from most of the book illustrations of the period. From the moment that the new style was adopted, the artist’s services were brought into requisition for the purposes of book illustration; and from the time work of this kind began to come in, he relaxed and afterwards discontinued the practice of caricature. It is as an etcher and designer of book illustrations we shall henceforth have to consider him, and in this character one of his famous illustrations to “Greenwich Hospital” will be found superior to the whole series of Rowlandson’s careless overdrawn designs to the three “Tours” of Syntax put together.
This alteration in the man’s style after he took to book illustration is known only to those familiar with his early caricatures. If you take, for instance, the etching of St. Swithin’s Chapel, of the “Sketch Book,” or The Gin Shop in the “Scraps and Sketches”[85] (we are speaking of course of the early coloured impressions), and show them together with any two of the caricatures we have named to a person who had never before seen either, we will venture to say that he would pronounce them without hesitation to be executed by entirely different hands.