George used to say that he had drawn the figures of ‘Fagin,’ ‘Bill Sikes and his Dog,’ ‘Nancy,’ the ‘Artful Dodger,’ and ‘Charley Bates’ before ‘Oliver Twist’ was written; and that Dickens seeing the sketches one day shortly after the commencement of the story, determined to change his plot, and instead of keeping Oliver in the country, resolved to bring him to town, and throw him (with entire innocence) into the company of thieves. ‘Fagin’ was sketched from a rascally old Jew whom Cruikshank had observed in the neighbourhood of Saffron Hill, and whom he watched and ‘studied’ for several weeks. The artist had also conceived the terrible face of ‘Fagin in the Condemned Cell’ as he sits gnawing his nails, in the curious accidental way we lately narrated to our readers. He had been working at the subject for some days without satisfying himself; when sitting up in bed one morning with his hands on his chin and his fingers in his mouth, he saw his face in the glass, and at once exclaimed: ‘That’s it! that’s the face I want!’

Nobody who has seen the sketches to ‘Oliver Twist’ can ever forget them, and two at least of the series are perfect chefs-d’œuvre of genius, namely the death of Sikes on the roof of the old house at the river-side, and the despair of Fagin in his cell. In fact some of Cruikshank’s best work in the delineation of low and depraved life and the squalid picturesqueness of criminal haunts, appeared in the above-named book. His illustrations to Harrison Ainsworth’s works were also for the most part charming specimens of what may be appropriately termed the ‘Cruikshankian’ art. At the same time he sketched the designs for some of the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ as they appeared from time to time in the ‘Miscellany.’ In 1841 he set up on his own account a monthly periodical called the ‘Omnibus,’ of which Laman Blanchard was the editor; and subsequently joined Mr Ainsworth in the magazine which that gentleman had started in his own name; the great artist, in a series of splendid plates of the highest conception, illustrating the ‘Miser’s Daughter’ and other works from the pen of the proprietor. For several years Cruikshank had been publishing a ‘Comic Almanac,’ which was a great favourite with the public, and was always brimming full of fun and prodigal invention. In 1863 a ‘Cruikshank Gallery’ was opened at Exeter Hall, in which were exhibited a great number of his works, extending over a period of sixty years. The exhibition originated from a desire on the artist’s part to shew the public that they were all done by the same hand, and that he was not, in fact, his own grandfather; some people having asserted that the author of his later works was the grandson of the man who had sketched the earliest ones.

He will perhaps be remembered most affectionately by the great industrial portion of the people as the apostle as well as the artist of temperance. Perceiving drunkenness to be the national vice, he depicted its horrors from the studio, and denounced its woes from the platform. It was about the year 1845 that he joined the teetotalers; and in 1847 he brought out a set of plates called ‘The Bottle,’ a kind of ‘Drunkard’s Progress,’ in eight designs, executed in glyphography with remarkable power and tragic intensity, not unlike some of the works of Hogarth. The success of these extraordinary engravings was enormous. Dramas were founded on the story at the minor theatres, and the several tableaux were reproduced on the stage. He soon published a sequel to ‘The Bottle,’ and did a great deal of work for the temperance societies; but it was observed that his style suffered somewhat by the contraction of his ideas and sympathies, and his reputation declined amongst the general public in proportion to the increase of his popularity amongst the teetotalers. He remained, however, the staunch friend and ally of the temperance leaders up to the day of his death; and he used to say that for years before he became a total abstainer he was the enemy of drunkenness with his pencil, but that later experience had taught him that precept without example was of little avail. There is no doubt that, though the good he was able to do by persuading others to whom drink was a positive injury, brought great satisfaction to his mind, it alienated from him to a great extent the friendship, to their loss, of his former companions. But to know his duty was for George Cruikshank to do it, and nobly did he stand by the cause which he had espoused. His advocacy of temperance is also said to have been a great pecuniary loss to him; and the writer of this article remembers having heard him say, a few years since, that he had lost a commission to paint the portrait of a nobleman, because somebody had told the latter that since George Cruikshank had become a teetotaler he had lost all his talent! The hearty laugh which accompanied the recital of the story rings in the writer’s ears still.

Perhaps his greatest work in the cause of temperance, as it is certainly his most extraordinary one, is the large oil-painting called ‘The Worship of Bacchus,’ which now hangs in the National Gallery. It represents the various phases of our national drinking system, from the child in its cradle to the man’s descent to the grave. There are many hundreds of figures depicted on the canvas, engaged in all the different customs of so-called civilised life; and the sad lesson it reads is well deserving the attention of all who love their country, and would prefer to witness its increased prosperity rather than its decline. Cruikshank had the honour of describing the picture to Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor in 1863; and since then it has been exhibited in all the principal towns and cities of the United Kingdom. Finally, it was presented by the teetotalers to the nation, having been purchased from the artist by means of a subscription. The time spent in the preparation of this work must have been very great, indeed it might well have been the study of an ordinary lifetime. An engraving of the picture was published some time ago, in which all the figures were outlined by the painter and finished by Mr Mottram.

In his own way, George Cruikshank was a philanthropist, and to the end of his life it was his proud boast that he put a stop to hanging for forging bank-notes. The story, as told by himself, is so interesting, that we need not apologise for placing it before our readers. He lived in Salisbury Square, Fleet Street; and on his returning from the Bank of England one morning he was horrified at seeing several persons, two of whom were women, hanging on the gibbet in front of Newgate. On his making inquiries as to the nature of their crime, he was told that they had been put to death for forging one-pound Bank of England notes. The fact that a poor woman could be put to death for such a minor offence had such an effect upon him, that he hurried home, determined, if possible, to put a stop to such wholesale destruction of life.

Cruikshank was well acquainted with the habits of the low class of society in London at that time, as it had been necessary for him to study them in the furtherance of his art, and he knew well that it was most likely that the poor women in question were simply the unconscious instruments of the miscreants who forged the notes, and had been induced by them to tender the false money to some publican or other. In a few minutes after his arrival at his residence he had designed and sketched a ‘Bank-note not to be Imitated.’ Shortly afterwards, William Hone the publisher called on him, and seeing the sketch lying on the table, he was much struck with it.

‘What are you going to do with this, George?’ he asked.

‘To publish it,’ replied the artist.

‘Will you let me have it?’ inquired Hone.

‘Willingly,’ said Cruikshank; and making an etching of it there and then, he gave it to Hone, and it was published; the result being, that ‘I had the satisfaction of knowing that no man or woman was ever hanged afterwards for passing forged one-pound Bank of England notes.’