Academy as a student, was made a few weeks ago, by the indefatigable artist, who mindful of the time of life at which Cicero acquired Greek, seeks for admission to the schools of the Academy for the purpose of studying from the life. Cruikshank was soon after this well known, and he with the enthusiasm of youth was bitterly satirizing the then ministry, whom he believed in his ardent attachment to liberty to be some of the worst men under heaven, whilst the demagogues of the day were the best, when he applied to Fuseli. The Orders in Council, Lord Castlereagh, and Mr. Perceval were objects of his artistic ire, but above them all, the giant of his hate, towered Buonaparte. For some years, the artist has himself told the writer, he lived upon that great usurper Buonaparte; one feat in which he at the time particularly delighted, was that he buried the Corsican in snow, this was on the outset of the Russian expedition. The prophecy was a shrewd Not so successful, however, was one wherein he had left the emperor dead with cold, and about to one. Fatten all the region kites. He also made caricatures for a satirical publication called "The Scourge;" and before he had attained his twentieth year published, in conjunction with a literary friend of the name of Earle, a half-crown publication called "The Meteor." The negligent habits of his literary friend, habits which on account of the uncertainty of the profession are too often acquired by the littérateur, led to the failure of this work after an existence of some few months. The main characteristics of his etchings at this time Cruikshank has retained; they were distinguished by boldness and power, free drawing, and an excellent knowledge of the use of the etching point. His works were very popular, and he supplied in himself the place of H. B. and Punch; consequently when Mr. Hone, the publisher, approached George Cruikshank, he did it with the respect which publishers know how to use towards a successful artist, either of the pencil or pen. Hone was decidedly an original, a man of talent, and moreover somewhat eccentric, and our hero and himself soon became friends. Hone, at the time, was not very rich, and being a thorough liberal, which embraced at that time the worst qualities of the present free-thinker, he determined to make a short road to fortune, by publishing what he thought would be extensively popular; namely, parodies on the liturgy of the Church of England. No churchman himself, (his father was a presbyterian,) but yet having that respect for the religious opinions of every sect which every sensible and deep thinking man has, Cruikshank was hurt and alarmed at this proceeding, and remonstrated with the publisher. "Take my word for it," said he to Hone, "you will be prosecuted for this, withdraw it." "I do not care," was the reply, "the children must have bread to eat," and the remonstrance failed, and the book appeared. It was soon seen how truly Cruikshank had spoken. A notice came from the attorney-general, for Hone to prepare for his arraignment for blasphemy, and the bookseller repented bitterly of his rejection of his friend's advice. He consulted Cruikshank, who dictated a letter to the attorney-general, begging him not to commence proceedings, which he sent by one of his little children to his private house. The boy found that crown officer but just arisen from bed, and was admitted to him whilst he was shaving. He opened and read the letter, and said, "Tell your father, my boy, that I'm very sorry for him, but the action must go on." The The action proceeded. Cruikshank did not desert his friend; in his studio he rehearsed Hone's trial, and the two together concocted the defence. government were astonished to find that they had prosecuted a man who was deeply read in all that related to the particular subject in hand. Hone appeared to be deeply shocked at the bare accusation of being blasphemous; and his defence, full of curious reading and learning, was listened to with deep attention. The result of three separate trials was that he was acquitted; no jury would convict him, and by a chance, that which should have crushed the bookseller, brought him the notice of the whig opposition, and made him, from an unknown man, one of the most popular in England. No sane man can now applaud Hone's conduct, or that of his partizans, and as a proof of how much the taste of our countrymen has changed, we are happy to point to the fact, that the once popular" Three Trials of William Hone for Blasphemy," has fallen into the hands of one of those booksellers who prey on garbage, a man who has dealt so largely in the indecent and immoral that his name has become pollution, and the very street in which he lives a synomym for every thing degrading. 66 of these pamphlets was equal to their In the year 1821, the artist contemplated a work which should shew the evils which result from that process which young men call " seeing life." In this undertaking he was assisted by his brother Robert, the story being told in a series of plates, in the same manner as the "Progresses," &c. of Hogarth. To these a story was written by Pierce Egan, but the author entirely lost sight of the moral aim of the artist, and before the work was completed George They Cruikshank had retired from it in disgust. It was called "Life in London; or, the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., Corinthian Tom, and Bob Logic, in their rambles through the metropolis." The plates illustrating it were coloured, and the work had an amazing popularity. How it could have gained this we may well wonder now; the letter-press was silly, vapid, and vicious, yet people actually scrambled for the book at the booksellers' shops, the theatres dramatized it, and it was pirated in America, where it had an extraordinary sale. It was followed by another entirely facetious work, called From Hone himself, now the companion and gossip of Sir Francis Burdett and the reformers, Cruikshank did not, however, separate. Dining one day with him in the Dog chop-house in Holywell-street, Cruikshank proposed to Hone to publish a sort of comic newspaper interspersed with caricatures, and consisting of all sorts of curious and eccentric paragraphs. The idea was a happy one, and was acted upon at once. The paper appeared entitled, "A Slap at Slop," and sold enormously. About two years before this Hone had published a series of political squibs, which did much injury to the government, but which were beyond the pale of prosecution. Exhibited in the windows of Hone on Ludgate Hill, they drew crowds of admirers and purchasers. bore the titles of The Political House that Jack Built," The Matrimonial Ladder," in allusion to Queen Caroline's unhappy union, The Man in the Moon," "The Political Showman at Home," and "Non mi ricordo." These were published during the years 181920. For the thirteen cuts which graced the "House that Jack Built," Cruikshank was paid half-a-guinea each, and as above one hundred thousand copies of the work were sold, it is to be presumed that the publisher pocketed by the transaction nearly three hundred pounds. "Non mi ricordo" was founded on the convenient memory of Theodore Majocci, one of the principal witnesses against the Queen, who, when crossexamined touching some actions of the King, which bore very much against his majesty, pleaded that he "did not remember.' The satire conveyed in allusions and questions in this tract are of the bitterest kind; the towering false hair of the king, the whiskers, the padded garments, and the enormous bulk, were rendered ridiculously real by the cuts. The affectation of youth by the dandy of sixty who bows with a grace,” were obvious, ludicrously obvious, to the meanest capacity, and the popularity 66 66 Life in Paris," but this latter had not a tythe of the popularity of its prototype, which, as a literary composition, it far exceeds. Next comes "Illustrations of Italian Tales of humour and romance," and "Tales of Irish Life," drawn to illustrate a volume by Mr. Whitty, at present editor of a provincial newspaper. This was published in 1824, and in the same year appeared a work called "Points of Humour," which is one of the most meritorious of the artist's works. The illustrations contained in that volume to Burns's Merry Beggars, are excellent. In 1824 also Cruikshank published his illustrations to Peter Schemilbl a German story of one who sold his shadow to the Prince of Darkness. One illustration wherein the Evil One detaches and wraps up the shadow which he has purchased, is full of excellence; the chuckle upon the face of the fiend seems at the same time to denote the worthlessness of the purchase, and yet the inconceivable misery which the want of the shadow would occasion to his victim. 66 which it illustrates is told simply and is of itself deeply pathetic. Illustrations to "Hans of Iceland," a wild story by Victor Hugo, and some few plates to the Dublin Magazine, an extinct periodical, formed the occupation of Cruikshank during 1825. In the next year he illustrated a book called " Greenwich Hospital," a collection of sea stories, by Lieut. Barker. In 1830, he produced the plates of a work which has survived to this day, and which is worthy of more reputation than it has. This was "Three Courses and a Dessert." The three Courses consisted of west country, Irish and legal stories, and a mélange of prose and verse by way of Dessert. The book was written by a Mr. William Clark, a solitor, which would account for his excellent legal stories. He came from the west of England, and we should presume from the excellence of the Irish stories had spent some years in that country. It is high praise to the illustrations and the text to say that they were worthy of each other. The cuts, in number more than fifty, exhibit a lightness of fancy and imagination which have never been excelled; the head and tail pieces are especially to be commended. In 1825 Cruikshank illustrated" Popular German Stories,” and a book called Mornings at Bow Street." The latter was in some sort the offspring of "Life in London." The young men of the day had taken it into their very empty heads that to imitate the actions of Corinthian Tom and Bob Logic was very great and glorious, and to carry out this ideal they began assaulting the watchmen, in their slang, the Charleys, at a very great rate. A Mr. Wight, who had been, we believe, a merchant at Liverpool, was at that time the reporter to the Morning Chronicle, and used to head his reports of these assaults with the words MORE" LIFE." It says, perhaps, little for the taste of the age, that these were read eagerly, and that by them the circulation of the Chronicle was raised from 600 to more than 7000. Mr. In quick succession after this book Wight obtained the editorship of the Cruikshank illustrated "Tales of Other paper, and a promise of a partnership Days," from the pen of a Mr. Akerman; from Mr. Thwaites, which the latter and "the Gentleman in Black," a novel gentleman did not live to fulfil. Of the by one of the writers in Blackwood's reports themselves we must in justice Magazine. The illustrations of both say that they were often humorous and these are very good. The tales are of seldom vulgar, but readers of the pre-diablerie, and of wild German faney, sent day, accustomed to a more refined and polished wit, will find in them little to amuse or even to repay perusal. The sale of the paper being so effectually improved, Mr. Wight naturally presumed that the reports published separately and illustrated by the first artist of the day, would be no bad speculation, a selection was made, and published under the title of " Mornings at Bow Street," and the sale of the book answered the expectations of the proprietors. The illustrations of the work are excellent, and some of them were the best that Cruikshank had at that time done. Those bearing the titles of "A Cool Contrivance," "Jonas Tunks," “Bundling up," and "a Dun at Dinner Time," are perhaps the best. There is one also of a very pathetic nature called "A Distressed Father." The report and the cuts which illustrated them of a very different calibre to the later works of the same artist. Next came illustrations to Fielding's "Tom Thumb," so excellent that they should never be separated from that work, and as a pendant to them, the like number of cuts to the Burlesque of "Bombastes Furioso." The artist was then engaged upon "Sunday in London," a fine work which with one or two plates re-drawn, for the fashions have somewhat altered in more than twenty years, would do good service if reprinted now. The parts of the decalogue therein illustrated are turned to bitter satire: a bishop just alighted from his coach (the mitre glitters on the hammer-cloth), is about to enter a fashionable church, to preach no doubt a charity sermon; the inferior clergy wait at the porch to bow him in, and a 66 In 1835 Mr. Cruikshank was struck beadle, the prototype of the immortal frequently adverted to. A fat, over-fed Bumble, pushes his elbow in the face footman, who picks his teeth with a of a too curious gazer; the footman nonchalant air, inquires of a butler, opens the carriage door, the coachman "What is taxes, Thomas?" The reply holds in two restive horses. The bishop shows the happy condition of the class, will no doubt be paid for preaching, "I'm sure I don't know." for the subscription of the cut reads,Thou shalt do no manner of work-by a happy idea of publishing a Comic thou, nor thy cattle." The second quota- Memorandum Book, which, intending tion is, "The servant within our gates," at once to carry out, he took to the late the cut representing the kitchen of a Mr. Tilt, to consult about publishing. nobleman who is evidently about to en- Tilt at once jumped at the idea, and tertain his guests magnificently: there in the course of a conversation, peris a perfect plethora of cooks; one fat suaded the artist to change the name fellow carries a roasted joint; another, to the "Comic Almanac," verbally a Frenchman, tastes with the air of a agreeing, at the same time, to bear connoisseur, something from a stewpan, part of the expenses and to share in which is intended for an entremét. The the profits of the work. But by a Sunday "Soirée Musicale," the "Parks stroke of publishers' strategy, assisted on a Sunday," the "Gin Temple turn- by the fact that the name of the Comic out at Church time," and a plate called Almanac was Mr. Tilt's copyright, the the "Cordial workings of the Spirit," originator had not, from the very first wherein drunkards, male and female, issue, any participation in the profits maddened in their intoxication, are of the work, which were very great fighting with a demoniacal hatred, are indeed, but became merely the artist all deeply moral satires which leave sad- engaged to illustrate the production. dening, but improving, reflections in In this work, which has been carried our minds. We must not omit two cuts, on without cessation for eighteen years, the one a view of Primrose Hill, with are many of Cruikshank's happiest a crowd of pedestrian holiday makers, hits. Though not so carefully finished and another a pew in a very fashionable as his more elaborate productions, church, full of highly dressed and ex- there are here also some very refreshing ceedingly well-fed people, the fat renter plates, when, launching out from the thereof having his be-ringed hand dan- comic, the artist has given us some gling conspicuously over the door; the homely country scene. Such is "Mayprint is entitled "miserable sinners." In- Day in the olden time." In an elabodeed the whole work is fruitful in pain-rate review in one of the quarterlies, ful but moral suggestions, and gives written by our greatest living author, rise to feelings which are sometimes Mr Thackeray, (then indeed not so "too deep for tears." much known,) great praise is very 66 Cruikshank next worked upon Field-justly attributed to the designs in the ing's and Smollett's novels, some also Almanac. As we have mentioned Mr. by Defoe and Goldsmith; supplied Thackeray's review we may as well tell illustrations for the forty-eight volume a curious anecdote connected with it. edition of the "Waverly Novels," and The reviewer had declared Cruikshank twelve plates for Scott's "Demonology." to be so intensely national that he was Thomas Hood had about this period a decided enemy to the French, and written a comic poem called The never let slip an opportunity to ridicule Epping Hunt," and Cruikshank was them. This paragraph being seen by called upon to illustrate it, finding, a friend of the artist, who was a native however, that puns would not make of that country, and who was collecting plates, the artist gave illustrations of Cruikshank's works, he took an early his own to which Hood wrote additional opportunity of withdrawing his amity verses which were then dovetailed into from "le perfide" caricaturist. the poem. Next came "My Sketch Book with two hundred groups, coloured; "Scraps and Sketches," commenced in 1828; Illustrations of Phrenology" and "Illustrations of these he has never surpassed. Time." One of the caricatures therein in the Condemned Cell," Bill Sykes was very popular, and is even now and his Dog," and "The Death of ,, When" Bentley was first started with Dickens as editor, Cruikshank was engaged as illustrator, and furnished plates for " Oliver Twist." Some of Fagin own, a Mrs. Toddles, a little woman, who is never in time for the "Omnibus," but who just rushes in as it is full and about to drive off, which has a great deal of fun in it; and a wood-cut of deeper import, called a "Monument to Napoleon," wherein that Corsican is standing on a pyramid of human skulls, himself a skeleton, distinguished by his cocked hat, jack-boots, and sword. About this time, he furnished plates for a work, which contains some of his happiest efforts in a serious style We allude to the "History of the Irish Re Sykes," are wonderful in their dramatic remarkable plate, containing a view of effect and vividly personify the author's the world, with a multitude of people on writings. From his own face, in a it. There was also a creation of his mirror, charged with feelings which he imagined might be those of a condemned criminal, the artist drew the plate of Fagin. Its truth was at once seen, and it has, besides, the popularity which it gave to the magazine (for who could look at the plates without a desire to read the text?) the honour of giving a sobriquet to the greatest living soldier. From his hook-nose, his fierce eye, and his general resemblance to the print, Sir Charles Napier is universally called, by his Indian officers, "Old Fagin." A determination on the part of Mr. Bentley, which bore slightly upon the quality of li-bellion," by Maxwell. "The Battle of berality-a quality not lacked by publishers-made Mr. Dickens relinquish the conduct of a magazine which he, in conjunction with Cruikshank, had raised to a large circulation For some time the publisher had probably no reason to repent the step he had taken, for Mr. Ainsworth, who then became editor, wrote his novel of "Jack Sheppard," a work After the completion of the "Omniwhich Cruikshank illustrated, con amore, bus," there appeared, in 1845, a similar and which the reading public so far magazine, the "Table Book," edited by appreciated that it raised the magazine G. A. a'Becket, which had some very seven hundred copies in circulation fine plates in it, of a larger size, and above the number it had attained with perhaps more carefully finished than in Mr. Dickens. One may well doubt the the "Omnibus." One was called, "A morality of the novel, but not the excel- Reverie," wherein the artist, with a dog lence of the accompanying plates, they in his lap, is portrayed as sitting before are full of spirit, and wonderfully at the fire with subjects floating around tractive. Some them, such as "Sir him. The portrait was, at the time, Rowland Trenchard in the Well," you striking. Another was called, the cannot easily forget. The smaller illus-"Folly of Crime;" and a third bore trations of "Jack's Progress to Tyburn," heavily upon the insane railway specuand his execution, with their multitude lations of the year. of figures, will bear comparison with the etchings of Jacques Callot. Another determination on the part of Mr. Bentley, led Messrs. Cruikshank and Ainsworth to set up a periodical for themselves; and "Ainsworth's Magazine" was started, which contained in succession, the "Tower of London," "Windsor Castle," and the "Miser's Daughter." Cruikshank illustrated all these; and the effects of light and shade, and the fine pointing in some of the plates, remind us of Rembrandt. He still continued to work for Bentley, his name being printed on the wrapper of that magazine; on ceasing to do so, the artist started a periodical of his own, called the "Omnibus," which was edited by the late Laman Blanchard. The title page, "De Omnibus rebus," is a Ross," with an insane rebel rushing forward and thrusting his wig into the mouth of the cannon of the military, and shouting to his fellows, "Come on, boys, her mouth's stopped; "the "Camp on Vinegar Hill," the "Defeat of the Rebels," and one or two other plates, he has never, in our opinion, surpassed. 66 The next important work which Cruikshank produced, by some deemed the most important of his life, was brought out in 1847. It was intended to set, in the strongest possible light, the folly of an addiction to what teetotallers emphatically term, strong drink.” It consisted of a series of eight large plates, produced by glyphography, and published at the remarkable price of one shilling! If the effect were equal to the sale, it must have been immense. We do not doubt the capability of the work in deterring sober people from drinking, but we doubt reformed drunkards; but there can be no doubt as to the excellence of the plates, or of their perfect suitability to the class to which they were addressed. From the first, wherein the decent young mechanic |