Part 12 (1/2)
The so-called _Oppidans'[63] Museum_ is composed of the signs stolen by Eton scapegraces from the local tradesmen; a mock court is in progress, at which the injured parties attend and either claim or receive compensation for their stolen property. The tradesmen in the plate before us look anything but injured persons, and as a matter of fact the award is sufficiently ample to make amends for all damage. The two persons officiating as a.s.sessors and apportioning compensation to the various claimants, are Westmacott and ”Robert Transit” (the artist himself). The ill.u.s.tration is full of life and character. Among the groups may be noticed a young fellow holding a bull-terrier suspended by its teeth from a handkerchief; a bet depends on the dog's patience and strength of jaw, and an interested companion watches the result, chronometer in hand. _The King at Home_, represents a scene which is said to have actually taken place when Mathews was giving his entertainment at Carlton House. The performer was imitating Kemble, when the king started up, and to the surprise of every one, particularly of Mathews, interrupted the performance by a personal and very clever imitation of the actor, who, by the way, had taught him elocution.
This, indeed, was one of George's strong points, who, if not a good king, was at least an admirable mimic. Says old Dr. Burney (writing to his daughter on the 12th of July, 1805), ”He is a most excellent mimic of well-known characters; had we been in the dark, any one would have sworn that Dr. Parr and _Kemble_ were in the room.”[64] In this plate we find likenesses not only of the king and of Mathews, but also of the Princess Augusta and the too celebrated Marchioness of Conyngham.
Thomas Rowlandson's single pictorial contribution to the ”English Spy,”
_R---- A----ys of Genius Reflecting on the True Line of Beauty at the Life Academy_, is described by Mr. Grego under date of 1825. This is not the only time in which the artist was a.s.sociated in work with Rowlandson. There is a rare work (one of an annual series)--”The Spirit of the Public Journals,” for the year 1824, with explanatory notes by C.
M. Westmacott, a collection of whimsical extracts from the press, which appeared in print in the previous season, which has ill.u.s.trations on wood by four distinguished coadjutors: Thomas Rowlandson, George Cruikshank, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, and Theodore Lane.
”FITZALLEYNE OF BERKELEY.”
The Foote _v._ Hayne affair mentioned in our last chapter afforded grist for the kind of mill driven by literary blacklegs of the cla.s.s of ”Bernard Blackmantle.” The black-mail system was tried at first, and when that failed he produced the now rare _FitzAlleyne of Berkeley: a Romance of the Present Times_, a pair of libellous volumes, the _dramatis personae_ of which comprise the persons whose names were mentioned in connection with the case. ”Maria Pous” was of course Maria Foote; Samuel Pous, her father; Lord A----y, Alvanley; Major H----r, Major George Hanger, afterwards Lord Coleraine; Optimus, Mr. Tom Best (who shot Lord Camelford in a duel); the Pea-green Count and FitzAlleyne of Berkeley speak for themselves; while ”Mary Carbon” is the butcher's daughter of Gloucester, mother of the Colonel, and afterwards Countess of Berkeley. Such a character as Molloy, otherwise Westmacott, was bound to get sometimes into trouble (in these days he would probably receive his reward for ”endeavouring to extort money by threats”); and if he did not get exactly what he deserved, he did get, on the tenth of October, 1830, a tremendous thras.h.i.+ng from Charles Kemble. References to the memorandum books of this Ishmaelite of the press, in which he entered (for future use) some of the scandalous chronicles of his time, and which were offered for sale at his death in 1868, will be found in Mr. Bates's interesting book, from which we have already quoted.
”POINTS OF HUMOUR.”
Returning to his friend and coadjutor, Robert Cruikshank, the best of the artist's coloured ill.u.s.trations to the ”English Spy” are contained in the first volume; in the second he falls into those habits of carelessness which, with all his ability and artistic talent, were a besetting weakness. Robert lacked the genius, the fine fancy, the careful, delicate handling of George. Up to the publication of the ”Life,” the brothers as we have seen had worked together frequently, but after this period they separated. George had already achieved one of his earliest triumphs in book ill.u.s.tration--”The Points of Humour,” which provoked the universal admiration of the critics, and proclaimed him one of the most original geniuses of the time. The ”Life,” however, had made both brothers famous, and the general public had scarcely yet learnt to distinguish between the pencils of George and Robert. This confusion was taken advantage of by unscrupulous publishers (a practice at which Robert himself seems to have connived) to trade upon the popularity of the Cruikshank name. We frequently find, for instance, in literary advertis.e.m.e.nts of the time, that a forthcoming book is ill.u.s.trated by ”Cruikshank,” and the work we have just named is a case in point. No sooner had the ”Points of Humour” appeared and made their mark, than they were followed by an announcement by Sherwood, Jones & Co., of the ”Points of Misery,” the letterpress by Charles Molloy Westmacott, and the designs by ”Cruikshank,” that is to say--Robert. Although this publication is marred by the slovenliness of execution which characterised the artist in his careless moods, a few of the designs are excellent, and the tailpieces--_A Six Inside_, at page 36; _Cleaned Out_, at page 88; and the _p.a.w.n Shop_, at page 87--suffice to show of how much better work Robert Cruikshank was capable. George, as was usual with him on these occasions, was horribly annoyed, and loudly and (as it seems to us) unnecessarily proclaimed to the world that he had no connection with the work. Probably this manifesto did no good to a book little calculated either by its literary or pictorial merits to command success; and as the copy before us remained uncut from the date of the publication until the present, the inference is that the speculation of Messrs. Sherwood, Jones & Co., proved scarcely a remunerative one.
Among the forgotten books of half a century ago, we meet with one whose t.i.tle reminds us of the ”Life in London.” It is called, ”Doings in London; or, Day and Night Scenes of the Frauds, Frolics, Manners, and Depravities of the Metropolis.” It came out in threepenny numbers, in 1828, and its professed object (in the queer language of George Smeeton, its compiler and publisher) was to ”show vice and deception in all their real deformity, and not by painting in glowing colours the fascinating allurements, the mischievous frolics and vicious habits of the profligate, the heedless, and the debauchee, tempt youth to commit those irregularities which often lead to dangerous consequences, not only to themselves but also to the public.” This shot of course was aimed at Pierce Egan, who, engaged at that time in bringing out the ”Finish,” not unnaturally considered these ”Doings” an attempt to derive profit by an indirect infringement of his own t.i.tle. The t.i.tle in fact _was_ a misleading one, and the book a specimen of a cla.s.s of useless literature of the time, by which paste-and-scissors information compiled from books, newspapers, and statistics by some one at best imperfectly acquainted with his subject, was attempted to be conveyed by means of questions and answers, supplemented by dreary and unnecessary remarks of a moralizing tendency. The persons in whose company Smeeton would send us round, in order that we may form a just conception of the ”vice and deception in all their real deformity,” of which he speaks, are a couple of idiots, one Peregrine Wilson, and an attendant mentor, whom we drop at the earliest convenient opportunity. Information combined with morality is all very well. The ”History of Sandford and Merton” may have been, as Lord Houghton a.s.sures us it was, ”the delight of the youth of the first generation of the present century.” As one of the youth of the generation referred to, we refuse to admit it, and we are perfectly certain that the youth of the present generation would have nothing whatever to do with it. We resign ourselves preferentially to the guidance of Isaac Robert and George Cruikshank, sensible that they at least, while conversant with the scenes they so graphically describe, will not bore us with unnecessary moral reflections. We prefer, if the truth must be told, to ”sport a toe among the Corinthians at Almack's”
with hooked-nosed Tom and rosy-cheeked Jerry; to visit with these merry and by no means strait-laced persons, Mr. O'Shaunessy's rooms in the Haymarket; the back parlour of the respected Thomas Cribb, ex-champion of England; to take wine with them ”in the wood” at the London Docks; to enjoy with them, if they will, ”the humours of a masquerade supper at the opera house.” The work which Smeeton designed with such indifferent success was subsequently carried out in a far more efficient manner by Mr. James Grant, in his ”Sketches in London,”[65] and at a later date by Mr. Mayhew, in his well-known ”London Labour and the London Poor.”
The ”Doings in London” owe whatever value they possess to the thirty-nine curious designs on wood of Isaac Robert Cruikshank, engraved by W. C. Bonner, which, on the whole fair examples of his workmans.h.i.+p in this style, strongly remind us of the smaller woodcuts in Hone's ”Every-Day Book.”
The best specimens, however, of Robert's designs on wood are those which will be found in two small volumes, known indifferently as ”Facetiae” and ”Cruikshank's Comic Alb.u.m,” which contain a series of _jeux d'esprits_, published between the years 1830 and 1832, and comprising _Old Bootey's Ghost_ and _The Man of Intellect_, by W. F. Moncrieff; _The High-mettled Racer_ and _Monsieur Nongtongpaw_, by Charles Dibdin; _Margate and Brighton_; _The Devil's Visit_; _Steamers and Stages_; _Monsieur Touson_; _Monsieur Mallet_, by H. W. Montague; _Mathew's Comic Annual_ (a miserable _melange_ by our friend Pierce Egan); the famous _Devil's Walk_, by Coleridge and Southey, etc., etc. These little volumes, which are now rare, contain nearly one hundred excellent examples of Robert Cruikshank's workmans.h.i.+p, the woodcuts being executed after the artist's designs by W. C. Bonner and other wood engravers of eminence. We can stay only to describe one, which ill.u.s.trates one of the many experiences of John Bull in his memorable visit to France. Struck with the appearance of a French lady, ”young and gay,” the stanza tells us--
”Struck by her charms he ask'd her name Of the first man he saw; From whom, with shrugs, no answer came But, '_Je vous n'entends pas._'”
Three other books (two of them exceedingly rare) must suffice to complete our survey of Robert's merits as a designer and book ill.u.s.trator. These are ”Colburn's Kalendar of Amus.e.m.e.nts” (1840), ”Job Crithannah's Original Fables” (1834), and Eugene Sue's ”Orphan.” There is an Irishman sitting on a barrel in one of the woodcuts to the ”Kalendar,” who quite equals any of the Hibernians of George. The eighty-four designs to the ”Fables” are admirable specimens of the artist's best manner, and George himself rarely executed better ill.u.s.trations than those of the _Farmer and the Pointer_, at page 110, _The Cow and the Farmer_, at page 163, and _The Old Woman and her Cat_, at page 219. This rare and choice book abounds with admirable tailpieces; one of which exhibits a sufferer down in the agonies of gout, the treatment of which subject may even be compared with the more elaborate and admirable design by the brother described by Thackeray.
Sue's ”Orphan” has numerous carefully executed etchings by the artist, after the style and manner of his brother; in the very signature, ”Robert Cruikshank,” we trace a distinct copy of George's peculiar trademark or sign-manual. Mr. Walter Hamilton, in his essay on the brother, presents us with a dozen copies of Robert's designs, eight of which, although unacknowledged, are taken from Crithannah's ”Fables,”
and will bear as much comparison with the original and beautiful woodcuts as the work of a common sign-painter with a finished painting by Landseer. A detailed but probably imperfect list of the artist's book work will be found in the _appendix_.
The name of Robert Cruikshank has slipped out of the place it once occupied in public estimation; and his good work and his poor work being equally scarce, his name and his claims to rank high among the number of English caricaturists and comic artists have been forgotten even by the survivors of the generation to which he himself belonged. In bringing to the remembrance of those who do know, and to the knowledge of those who do not know, some of the work which ent.i.tled him in our judgment to occupy a leading place amongst the number of those of whom we write, we have endeavoured to brush away the dust of oblivion which for so many years has obscured the name and reputation of an artist, who, in spite of much slovenliness and carelessness of execution, was both an able caricaturist and a skilful draughtsman. George writes of his dead brother in terms of affection, and describes him as ”a very clever miniature and portrait painter, and also a designer and etcher;” his friend and coadjutor, the late George Daniel, gives him credit for genius, of which however (in the sense in which we use and understand the word) he did not possess a particle. He tells us that ”he was apt to conceive and prompt to execute; he had a quick eye and a ready hand; with all his extravagant drollery, his drawing is anatomically correct; his details are minute, expressive, and of careful finish, and his colouring is bright and delicate.” In the early part of his career, as we have seen, the two brothers had been so closely a.s.sociated in life and in art, that the history of Robert is, to some extent, the history of George; but when they separated, when each was left to his own individual resources, George then struck into a path which neither Robert nor any of his contemporaries might hope to follow. By the time Robert had realized this fact, HB had appeared, and the art of caricaturing, as theretofore practised, received a blow from which it will never rally. Besides being an able water colour artist, he had at one time achieved some reputation as a portrait painter; but the latter pursuit he had long practically abandoned, while success in the former required a closer application and the exercise of a greater amount of patience than a man of his age and temperament could afford to bestow.
He was, in fact, too old to commence life afresh; and so it came inevitably to pa.s.s that, as his brother did in after life (but from causes, as we shall see, widely different), Robert gradually dropped behind and was forgotten. He had not the genius or pride in his art of his brother, and looked rather to that art as a means of present livelihood than of acquiring a permanent and enduring reputation. If George--with all his pride in his art, with all his genius, with all his rare gifts of imagination and fancy--was destined to be left behind in the race of life, what could poor Robert hope for? It is sad to think that in later life, poor easy-going, thriftless, careless, Bohemian Robert sank into neglect and consequent poverty. He died (of bronchitis) on the 13th of March, 1856, in his sixty-sixth year.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] In this I cannot agree. George designed about a third of the plates, and those who know his workmans.h.i.+p thoroughly will not fail to identify it.
[58] A fact which testifies to the curiosity and _not_ the immorality of our people.
[59] I have known as much as 10 asked for a copy; but _a first edition_ (a rarity) may be purchased sometimes of a respectable bookseller for 8.
[60] ”Fair Play! Robt. Cruikshank, invt. et fect., original suggestor and artist of the 2 vols. Adieu!”
[61] A list of his works will be found in Dr. Brewer's ”Handbook.”
[62] ”The Maclise Portrait Gallery,” by William Bates (ed. 1883), p.