THE DEATH WARRANT. From "The Tower of London," 1840.
Of the acrimonious discussion that Cruikshank started by claiming to have originated Ainsworth's romance, I shall say little. That Cruikshank was the senior partner there is no doubt. It was he who took Ainsworth to the Tower, and he asserted that he "hardly ever read a line" of the text, which must be considered to illustrate his designs. It may be said, however, that Ainsworth's text has been repeatedly devoured without the aid of Cruikshank's designs. He was a public idol. Smiled on once by Sir Walter Scott, he contrived to become the first horror-monger, viâ history, of an age whose favourite realism was the safe realism of torture and decent crime. In the September before his death, which occurred January 3, 1882, he was informed by the Mayor of Manchester that the last twelve months' record of the public free libraries of that town showed that "twenty volumes of his works" were "being perused in Manchester by readers of the free libraries every day all the year through."
That I may not write a decrescendo about the designs for "The Tower of London," I begin with their faults. Cruikshank's Simon Renard is too darkling a Spaniard even for a staged Spain, and even Lady Jane Grey's waist should have been made rather larger than her throat. "Mere skeletons in farthingales," quoth "The Athenæum" of Cruikshank's Queen Mary, Jane and Elizabeth. To what extent defective figure-drawing diminishes the proper force of Cruikshank's designs the reader may judge by the reproduction of The Death Warrant, which is presented as a frank example of his melodramatic invention. The masked assassin peers at the Spanish Ambassador through the window of the chamber of the Tower where the little princes were murdered, and where the pen that has just doomed Lady Jane Dudley hovers in Queen Mary's hand. Her hound is an incarnate presentiment and the gods of old Drury could have asked no more. There are, however, far finer plates in the book. In Underhill, the Hot Gospeller, burning at the stake, his finger nails riveted to his bare shoulders while he bawls his last agony, Cruikshank shows the longevity of the Marian crime—the crime of creating fears and loathings, for here we have absolutely a reflective shudder, a naked confidence from an abominable place which we thought was cleansed by merciful years. No other figure in the gallery of Cruikshank's "Tower" is so vital as this dying man, but he drew a handsome Wyat, an executioner as repulsive as a ghoul, and groups—for instance Elizabeth and her escort on the steps of Traitor's Gate—which a stage manager of melodrama might like to imitate.
Partly contemporaneous with "The Tower of London" was Ainsworth's "Guy Fawkes" (1840-1) with Cruikshankian etchings, which are as little serviceable to the dignity of a brave fanatic as the effigies exhibited by boys on the fifth of November. Cruikshank had drawn a typical effigy of Guy for "The Every-Day Book" of 1826; twelve years later came his ludicrous Guys in Council, but being required in 1840 to produce a serious Guy he only succeeded in being operatic. In one of his etchings the rigidity of Guy's cloak suggests that the garment is a "bath-cabinet" in occupation; in another a celestial visitor resembles a Dutch doll. Such failures are not to be explained by a desire to annoy the publisher of "Guy Fawkes," Richard Bentley, whom Cruikshank bitterly attacked in 1842. Cruikshank could and did produce etchings in a hurry for stories which he had not read, by way of expressing his dislike for a contract which survived his approval of it; but he could also be befooled by his own solemnity.
THE DUEL IN TOTHILL FIELDS ("The Miser's Daughter"). From "Ainsworth's Magazine," 1842.
Cruikshank's relations with Ainsworth continued in "Ainsworth's Magazine," of which the first number bears the date February 1842. Among the stories in this magazine which Cruikshank illustrated must now be mentioned "The Miser's Daughter" (1842), "Windsor Castle" (1842-3) and "St James's: or the Court of Queen Anne" (1844). The first of these stories is only incidentally historical, but it afforded Cruikshank an opportunity for quickening his hand with the spirit of place. He has told us that his drawing of Westminster Abbey Cloisters and Lambeth Church, etc., are "correct copies from nature" [sic], and it almost seems as we look at his etchings and water-colours for "The Miser's Daughter" that he copied not only stones but living scenes. His ball in the Rotunda at Ranelagh has the charm of lavish light and dainty gaiety; the humour and grace of his Masquerade in Ranelagh Gardens are too obvious for discovery, and his rendering of the pursuit of a Jacobite Club on the roofs of houses within view of Westminster Abbey is a striking nocturne.
In Cruikshank's designs for "Windsor Castle," Mr Julian Moore finds "the minimum of charm and freshness in the drawing, and maximum of achievement in technique." I am in disagreement with this verdict, but it is not unintelligent. Cruikshank's "machine-ruling" is tyrannous to his Ainsworthian work, and an artist serving the historic muse when she is very much in earnest can only pray to be academic when he is not inspired. But Cruikshank did admirable work for "Windsor Castle," and could hardly help wishing to outshine Tony Johannot, who was also employed in illustrating that romance. Since "the great George" is not present to assail me in a vehement script, I may say that I discern an influence of Johannot upon Cruikshank's design (spirited but not insufferably vigorous) entitled The Quarrel between Will Sommers and Patch, for there was something called artistic restraint to be learned from the French illustrator of Cervantes, and this quality is in the etching I have mentioned, and not negatively there but as a positive gift of touch. Of Cruikshank's Henry the Eighth, it need only be said that he is bluff King Hal; his Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour are mere females: his Herne is as impressive as a person can be who jeopardises the dignity of demonhood by wearing horns.
"St James's," the last important novel by Ainsworth which Cruikshank illustrated, gave the artist opportunities for drawing St James's Palace, London, and portraits of the Duke of Marlborough and other celebrities. He accepted these opportunities, but his most striking designs remind one of his illustrations for Smollett. He rejoices in the contrast between masculine lath and feminine tub, and in one plate afflicts us with a grinning face which exceeds in ugliness any of C. Delort's portraits of "l'Homme qui rit." The vigorous design here given touches the imagination on account of the absent presence of the dame in the picture hanging on the wall.