Part 9 (2/2)

[32] Letter from the queen to the Princess of Wales of 23rd May, 1814.--”Annual Register,” 1814, p. 349.

[33] So called because he carried home with him, in sundry bags, the cases pending his judgments.

[34] Wade's, ”British History,” p. 765.

[35] See ”Greville Memoirs,” vol. i. p. 24 (February 24th).

[36] ”Annual Register,” 1820, p. 135.

[37] _Ibid._, pp. 131, 132.

[38] ”Greville Memoirs,” vol. i. p. 28.

[39] ”Fifty Years of my Life,” by George Thomas, Earl of Albemarle, vol. ii. p. 123.

[40] ”Annual Register,” 1820, p. 986.

[41] See caricatures of Robert Cruikshank, 1820.

[42] ”Annual Register,” 1820, p. 1149; see also the impartial opinion of the Duke of Portland, ”Greville Memoirs,” vol. i. p. 56.

[43] See ”Annual Register,” 1820, p. 1139 _et seq._

[44] This of course may not be the case. The Duke of Kent, we know, was dead at the time, and Wood, we believe, was not Lord Mayor. He had been Lord Mayor some time before, and the satire may possibly allude to some order made at that time. At the same time, I find the caricature amongst those a.s.signed (in the large but badly arranged collection to which I have present access) to this particular period.

[45] ”Annual Register,” 1820 [190].

[46] There is a custom in the Manor of Torre Devon, that when a copyhold tenant dies, his widow has her free-bench in his land, but forfeits her estate on committing the offence with which the queen was charged; on her coming however into court riding backward on a black ram, and repeating the formula mentioned in the design, the steward is bound to reinstate her. Without this explanation the meaning of this telling satire would not be understood. For the formula (which cannot be repeated here) I must refer the reader to Jacob's Law Dictionary, ed. 1756, t.i.tle, ”Free Bench.”

[47] ”Greville Memoirs,” vol. i. p. 27.

[48] _Ibid._, p. 43.

[49] Unlike George Cruikshank, Rowlandson seldom dropped caricature in his book ill.u.s.tration. When he does so, as in his designs to ”Naples and the Compagna Felice,” he shows (as in his water colour drawings) his wonderful graphic powers. His ill.u.s.trated books are rare, and command good prices. William Coombe's English ”Dance of Death” and ”Dance of Life” (I refer of course to first editions) can only now be purchased at 14.

CHAPTER V.

_THE CARICATURES OF ISAAC ROBERT CRUIKSHANK._

THE BROTHERS CRUIKSHANK.

It was the misfortune of the brothers Cruikshank that they outlived their popularity: in the case of the younger brother, this result (as we shall presently see) must be attributed in a certain measure to his own fault; but as regards Robert, his efforts as a caricaturist were destined to be eclipsed by the greater novelty and attractions of HB, whilst a tendency to carelessness, and the absence of actual genius, prevented him from attaining lasting celebrity in the line of book ill.u.s.tration which George made so peculiarly his own. The final result, however, was the same in both cases; and the brothers might have said with truth, that, in suffering both to die poor and neglected, the British public treated both with the strictest impartiality. Here, however, the impartiality ended; for whilst over two hundred articles have been penned in praise of the brilliant man of genius, poor Robert Transit[50] (a name strictly appropriate to his memory) reposes in his nameless grave still unregarded and still forgotten. Few writers indeed have wasted pen and ink about Robert Cruikshank or his work: Robert William Buss, in his book on ”English Graphic Satire” (a work published for private circulation only), devotes exactly a line and a half to his memory; his friend, George Daniel, gives him a few kindly words _in memoriam_; Professor Bates's essay on his brother George contains several pages of valuable information in relation to some of his book ill.u.s.trations; whilst Mr. Hamilton presents us with a dozen specimens of work of this kind which are nothing less than libels on his graphic powers. To the general public of to-day the name of Robert Cruikshank is so little known, that comparatively few are cognizant of the fact that he was one of the most popular and successful graphic satirists of his time. It is the misfortune of the caricaturist that his wares attain only a transitory popularity, whilst it is their peculiarity that after he is dead their value is increased fourfold. It is by no means uncommon for five and even seven s.h.i.+llings to be demanded and obtained for one of the impressions of Robert's plates, which in his lifetime could have been purchased at the cost of a s.h.i.+lling. It is the design of this chapter to rescue the memory of a clever artist from undeserved oblivion, and restore him to that place in comic art which he once occupied, and which it seems to us he deserved to fill not only on account of his own merits, but by reason of being a.s.sociated in ill.u.s.trations of a different character with such men as his brother George, Robert Seymour, Thomas Rowlandson, John Leech, and other artists of genius and reputation.

Isaac Robert, or rather Robert Cruikshank (as he usually styled himself), was born in 1790. He had as a boy acquired the groundwork of his technical education as an artist and etcher under the direction of old Isaac his father; but we personally have met with little of his work prior to 1816, which is accounted for by the fact that he followed for a short time a sea life in the service of the East India Company, and after having thrown this up in favour of a calling more congenial to his tastes, he devoted himself for some years almost exclusively to miniature and portrait painting, by which he earned not only a fair livelihood, but a certain amount of fas.h.i.+onable patronage. Gradually, however (George tells us), he abandoned this occupation, and took almost exclusively to designing and etching. He occasionally alternated his work with water-colour drawing, in which he is said to have greatly excelled. His works in this line are extremely rare, for Robert had neither the means nor the patience to wait for the tardy patronage to be commanded by a higher walk in art; there was a demand for caricatures and comic etching in his day, which afforded a present means of livelihood, and Robert's water colours were executed more by way of relaxation than in the way of actual artistic pursuit. Among his early caricatures we may mention a rough and coa.r.s.ely coloured affair engraved by him after the design of an amateur, published by Fores on the 28th of April, 1816, ent.i.tled, _The Mother's Girl Plucking a Crow, or German Flesh and English Spirit_. The Princess Charlotte, as we have seen, had an undoubted will of her own, and could, as we have also seen, a.s.sert it when occasion demanded. Here she is presented to us at the moment when a hideous German duenna, catching her in the act of writing to her mother abroad, orders her at once to desist. The princess, however, in plain terms, enforced with a clenched fist, gives her clearly to understand that she fully intends to have her own way. Another caricature, published by T. Sidebotham, in 1817, bearing the t.i.tle of _The Horse Marine and his Trumpeter in a Squall_, is dedicated to the United Service Club.

STRANGE FRENCH FAs.h.i.+ONS.

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