As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affair

Produced by Donald Lainson

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK

By William Makepeace Thackeray

* Reprinted from the Westminster Review for June, 1840. (No 66.)

Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, are made

against every inhabitant of this wicked world, and the fact is, that a

man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and turmoil, borne hither

and thither upon the fierce waves of the crowd, bustling, shifting,

struggling to keep himself somewhat above water--fighting for

reputation, or more likely for bread, and ceaselessly occupied to-day

with plans for appeasing the eternal appetite of inevitable hunger

to-morrow--a man in such straits has hardly time to think of anything

but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the

boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety. In the midst of such

a combat as this, the "ingenious arts, which prevent the ferocity of

the manners, and act upon them as an emollient" (as the philosophic bard

remarks in the Latin Grammar) are likely to be jostled to death, and

then forgotten. The world will allow no such compromises between it and

that which does not belong to it--no two gods must we serve; but (as one

has seen in some old portraits) the horrible glazed eyes of Necessity

are always fixed upon you; fly away as you will, black Care sits behind

you, and with his ceaseless gloomy croaking drowns the voice of all more

cheerful companions. Happy he whose fortune has placed him where there

is calm and plenty, and who has the wisdom not to give up his quiet in

quest of visionary gain.

Here is, no doubt, the reason why a man, after the period of his

boyhood, or first youth, makes so few friends. Want and ambition (new

acquaintances which are introduced to him along with his beard) thrust

away all other society from him. Some old friends remain, it is true,

but these are become as a habit--a part of your selfishness; and,

for new ones, they are selfish as you are. Neither member of the new

partnership has the capital of affection and kindly feeling, or can even

afford the time that is requisite for the establishment of the new firm.

Damp and chill the shades of the prison-house begin to close round

us, and that "vision splendid" which has accompanied our steps in our

journey daily farther from the east, fades away and dies into the light

of common day.

And what a common day! what a foggy, dull, shivering apology for light

is this kind of muddy twilight through which we are about to tramp and

flounder for the rest of our existence, wandering farther and farther

from the beauty and freshness and from the kindly gushing springs of

clear gladness that made all around us green in our youth! One wanders

and gropes in a slough of stock-jobbing, one sinks or rises in a storm

of politics, and in either case it is as good to fall as to rise--to

mount a bubble on the crest of the wave, as to sink a stone to the

bottom.

The reader who has seen the name affixed to the head of this article

scarcely expected to be entertained with a declamation upon ingratitude,

youth, and the vanity of human pursuits, which may seem at first sight

to have little to do with the subject in hand. But (although we reserve

the privilege of discoursing upon whatever subject shall suit us, and by

no means admit the public has any right to ask in our sentences for any

meaning, or any connection whatever) it happens that, in this particular

instance, there is an undoubted connection. In Susan's case, as recorded

by Wordsworth, what connection had the corner of Wood Street with a

mountain ascending, a vision of trees, and a nest by the Dove? Why

should the song of a thrush cause bright volumes of vapor to glide

through Lothbury, and a river to flow on through the vale of Cheapside?

As she stood at that corner of Wood Street, a mop and a pail in her hand

most likely, she heard the bird singing, and straight-way began pining

and yearning for the days of her youth, forgetting the proper business

of the pail and mop. Even so we are moved by the sight of some of Mr.

Cruikshank's works--the "Busen fuhlt sich jugendlich erschuttert," the

"schwankende Gestalten" of youth flit before one again,--Cruikshank's

thrush begins to pipe and carol, as in the days of boyhood; hence misty

moralities, reflections, and sad and pleasant remembrances arise. He

is the friend of the young especially. Have we not read, all the

story-books that his wonderful pencil has illustrated? Did we not

forego tarts, in order to buy his "Breaking-up," or his "Fashionable

Monstrosities" of the year eighteen hundred and something? Have we

not before us, at this very moment, a print,--one of the admirable

"Illustrations of Phrenology"--which entire work was purchased by

a joint-stock company of boys, each drawing lots afterwards for the

separate prints, and taking his choice in rotation? The writer of this,

too, had the honor of drawing the first lot, and seized immediately

upon "Philoprogenitiveness"--a marvellous print (our copy is not at

all improved by being colored, which operation we performed on it

ourselves)--a marvellous print, indeed,--full of ingenuity and fine

jovial humor. A father, possessor of an enormous nose and family, is

surrounded by the latter, who are, some of them, embracing the former.

The composition writhes and twists about like the Kermes of Rubens. No

less than seven little men and women in nightcaps, in frocks, in bibs,

in breeches, are clambering about the head, knees, and arms of the man

with the nose; their noses, too, are preternaturally developed--the

twins in the cradle have noses of the most considerable kind. The second

daughter, who is watching them; the youngest but two, who sits squalling

in a certain wicker chair; the eldest son, who is yawning; the eldest

daughter, who is preparing with the gravy of two mutton-chops a savory

dish of Yorkshire pudding for eighteen persons; the youths who are

examining her operations (one a literary gentleman, in a remarkably neat

nightcap and pinafore, who has just had his finger in the pudding);

the genius who is at work on the slate, and the two honest lads who are

hugging the good-humored washerwoman, their mother,--all, all, save,

this worthy woman, have noses of the largest size. Not handsome

certainly are they, and yet everybody must be charmed with the picture.

It is full of grotesque beauty. The artist has at the back of his own

skull, we are certain, a huge bump of philoprogenitiveness. He loves

children in his heart; every one of those he has drawn is perfectly

happy, and jovial, and affectionate, and innocent as possible. He makes

them with large noses, but he loves them, and you always find something

kind in the midst of his humor, and the ugliness redeemed by a sly

touch of beauty. The smiling mother reconciles one with all the hideous

family: they have all something of the mother in them--something kind,

and generous, and tender.

Knight's, in Sweeting's Alley; Fairburn's, in a court off Ludgate

Hill; Hone's, in Fleet Street--bright, enchanted palaces, which George

Cruikshank used to people with grinning, fantastical imps, and merry,

harmless sprites,--where are they? Fairburn's shop knows him no more;

not only has Knight disappeared from Sweeting's Alley, but, as we are

given to understand, Sweetings Alley has disappeared from the face of

the globe. Slop, the atrocious Castlereagh, the sainted Caroline (in

a tight pelisse, with feathers in her head), the "Dandy of sixty," who

used to glance at us from Hone's friendly windows--where are they? Mr.

Cruikshank may have drawn a thousand better things since the days when

these were; but they are to us a thousand times more pleasing than

anything else he has done. How we used to believe in them! to stray

miles out of the way on holidays, in order to ponder for an hour before

that delightful window in Sweeting's Alley! in walks through Fleet

Street, to vanish abruptly down Fairburn's passage, and there make one

at his "charming gratis" exhibition. There used to be a crowd round the

window in those days, of grinning, good-natured mechanics, who spelt

the songs, and spoke them out for the benefit of the company, and who

received the points of humor with a general sympathizing roar. Where are

these people now? You never hear any laughing at HB.; his pictures are a

great deal too genteel for that--polite points of wit, which strike one

as exceedingly clever and pretty, and cause one to smile in a quiet,

gentleman-like kind of way.

There must be no smiling with Cruikshank. A man who does not laugh

outright is a dullard, and has no heart; even the old dandy of sixty

must have laughed at his own wondrous grotesque image, as they say Louis

Philippe did, who saw all the caricatures that were made of himself. And

there are some of Cruikshank's designs which have the blessed faculty of

creating laughter as often as you see them. As Diggory says in the play,

who is bidden by his master not to laugh while waiting at table--"Don't

tell the story of Grouse in the Gun-room, master, or I can't help

laughing." Repeat that history ever so often, and at the proper moment,

honest Diggory is sure to explode. Every man, no doubt, who loves

Cruikshank has his "Grouse in the Gun-room." There is a fellow in the

"Points of Humor" who is offering to eat up a certain little general,

that has made us happy any time these sixteen years: his huge mouth is a

perpetual well of laughter--buckets full of fun can be drawn from it. We

have formed no such friendships as that boyish one of the man with the

mouth. But though, in our eyes, Mr. Cruikshank reached his apogee some

eighteen years since, it must not be imagined that such is really the

case. Eighteen sets of children have since then learned to love and

admire him, and may many more of their successors be brought up in the

same delightful faith. It is not the artist who fails, but the men who

grow cold--the men, from whom the illusions (why illusions? realities)

of youth disappear one by one; who have no leisure to be happy, no

blessed holidays, but only fresh cares at Midsummer and Christmas, being

the inevitable seasons which bring us bills instead of pleasures. Tom,

who comes bounding home from school, has the doctor's account in his

trunk, and his father goes to sleep at the pantomime to which he takes

him. Pater infelix, you too have laughed at clown, and the magic wand of

spangled harlequin; what delightful enchantment did it wave around you,

in the golden days "when George the Third was king!" But our clown lies

in his grave; and our harlequin, Ellar, prince of how many enchanted

islands, was he not at Bow Street the other day,* in his dirty,

tattered, faded motley--seized as a law-breaker, for acting at a penny

theatre, after having wellnigh starved in the streets, where nobody

would listen to his old guitar? No one gave a shilling to bless him: not

one of us who owe him so much.

* This was written in 1840.

We know not if Mr. Cruikshank will be very well pleased at finding his

name in such company as that of Clown and Harlequin; but he, like them,

is certainly the children's friend. His drawings abound in feeling for

these little ones, and hideous as in the course of his duty he is from

time to time compelled to design them, he never sketches one without

a certain pity for it, and imparting to the figure a certain grotesque

grace. In happy schoolboys he revels; plum-pudding and holidays his

needle has engraved over and over again; there is a design in one of the

comic almanacs of some young gentlemen who are employed in administering

to a schoolfellow the correction of the pump, which is as graceful

and elegant as a drawing of Stothard. Dull books about children George

Cruikshank makes bright with illustrations--there is one published by

the ingenious and opulent Mr. Tegg. It is entitled "Mirth and Morality,"

the mirth being, for the most part, on the side of the designer--the

morality, unexceptionable certainly, the author's capital. Here are

then, to these moralities, a smiling train of mirths supplied by George

Cruikshank. See yonder little fellows butterfly-hunting across a common!

Such a light, brisk, airy, gentleman-like drawing was never made upon

such a theme. Who, cries the author--

"Who has not chased the butterfly,

And crushed its slender legs and wings,

And heaved a moralizing sigh:

Alas! how frail are human things!"

A very unexceptionable morality truly; but it would have puzzled another

than George Cruikshank to make mirth out of it as he has done. Away,

surely not on the wings of these verses, Cruikshank's imagination begins

to soar; and he makes us three darling little men on a green common,

backed by old farmhouses, somewhere about May. A great mixture of blue

and clouds in the air, a strong fresh breeze stirring, Tom's jacket

flapping in the same, in order to bring down the insect queen or king

of spring that is fluttering above him,--he renders all this with a few

strokes on a little block of wood not two inches square, upon which one

may gaze for hours, so merry and lifelike a scene does it present. What

a charming creative power is this, what a privilege--to be a god, and

create little worlds upon paper, and whole generations of smiling,

jovial men, women, and children half inch high, whose portraits are

carried abroad, and have the faculty of making us monsters of six feet

curious and happy in our turn. Now, who would imagine that an artist

could make anything of such a subject as this? The writer begins by

stating,--

"I love to go back to the days of my youth,

And to reckon my joys to the letter,

And to count o'er the friends that I have in the world,

Ay, and those who are gone to a better."

This brings him to the consideration of his uncle. "Of all the men

I have ever known," says he, "my uncle united the greatest degree of

cheerfulness with the sobriety of manhood. Though a man when I was a

boy, he was yet one of the most agreeable companions I ever possessed.

. . . He embarked for America, and nearly twenty years passed by before

he came back again; . . . but oh, how altered!--he was in every sense

of the word an old man, his body and mind were enfeebled, and second

childishness had come upon him. How often have I bent over him, vainly

endeavoring to recall to his memory the scenes we had shared together:

and how frequently, with an aching heart, have I gazed on his vacant and

lustreless eye, while he has amused himself in clapping his hands and

singing with a quavering voice a verse of a psalm." Alas! such are

the consequences of long residences in America, and of old age even in

uncles! Well, the point of this morality is, that the uncle one day in

the morning of life vowed that he would catch his two nephews and tie

them together, ay, and actually did so, for all the efforts the rogues

made to run away from him; but he was so fatigued that he declared

he never would make the attempt again, whereupon the nephew

remarks,--"Often since then, when engaged in enterprises beyond my

strength, have I called to mind the determination of my uncle."

Does it not seem impossible to make a picture out of this? And yet

George Cruikshank has produced a charming design, in which the uncles

and nephews are so prettily portrayed that one is reconciled to their

existence, with all their moralities. Many more of the mirths in

this little book are excellent, especially a great figure of a

parson entering church on horseback,--an enormous parson truly, calm,

unconscious, unwieldy. As Zeuxis had a bevy of virgins in order to make

his famous picture--his express virgin--a clerical host must have passed

under Cruikshank's eyes before he sketched this little, enormous parson

of parsons.

Being on the subject of children's books, how shall we enough praise the

delightful German nursery-tales, and Cruikshank's illustrations of

them? We coupled his name with pantomime awhile since, and sure never

pantomimes were more charming than these. Of all the artists that ever

drew, from Michael Angelo upwards and downwards, Cruikshank was the man

to illustrate these tales, and give them just the proper admixture of

the grotesque, the wonderful, and the graceful. May all Mother Bunch's

collection be similarly indebted to him; may "Jack the Giant Killer,"

may "Tom Thumb," may "Puss in Boots," be one day revivified by his

pencil. Is not Whittington sitting yet on Highgate hill, and poor

Cinderella (in that sweetest of all fairy stories) still pining in her

lonely chimney-nook? A man who has a true affection for these delightful

companions of his youth is bound to be grateful to them if he can, and

we pray Mr. Cruikshank to remember them.

It is folly to say that this or that kind of humor is too good for the

public, that only a chosen few can relish it. The best humor that

we know of has been as eagerly received by the public as by the most

delicate connoisseur. There is hardly a man in England who can read but

will laugh at Falstaff and the humor of Joseph Andrews; and honest Mr.

Pickwick's story can be felt and loved by any person above the age of

six. Some may have a keener enjoyment of it than others, but all the

world can be merry over it, and is always ready to welcome it. The best

criterion of good humor is success, and what a share of this has Mr.

Cruikshank had! how many millions of mortals has he made happy! We have

heard very profound persons talk philosophically of the marvellous

and mysterious manner in which he has suited himself to the time--fait

vibrer la fibre populaire (as Napoleon boasted of himself), supplied a

peculiar want felt at a peculiar period, the simple secret of which

is, as we take it, that he, living amongst the public, has with them

a general wide-hearted sympathy, that he laughs at what they laugh at,

that he has a kindly spirit of enjoyment, with not a morsel of mysticism

in his composition; that he pities and loves the poor, and jokes at the

follies of the great, and that he addresses all in a perfectly sincere

and manly way. To be greatly successful as a professional humorist,

as in any other calling, a man must be quite honest, and show that his

heart is in his work. A bad preacher will get admiration and a

hearing with this point in his favor, where a man of three times his

acquirements will only find indifference and coldness. Is any man more

remarkable than our artist for telling the truth after his own manner?

Hogarth's honesty of purpose was as conspicuous in an earlier time,

and we fancy that Gilray would have been far more successful and more

powerful but for that unhappy bribe, which turned the whole course of

his humor into an unnatural channel. Cruikshank would not for any

bribe say what he did not think, or lend his aid to sneer down anything

meritorious, or to praise any thing or person that deserved censure.

When he levelled his wit against the Regent, and did his very prettiest

for the Princess, he most certainly believed, along with the great

body of the people whom he represents, that the Princess was the most

spotless, pure-mannered darling of a Princess that ever married a

heartless debauchee of a Prince Royal. Did not millions believe

with him, and noble and learned lords take their oaths to her Royal

Highness's innocence? Cruikshank would not stand by and see a woman

ill-used, and so struck in for her rescue, he and the people belaboring

with all their might the party who were making the attack, and

determining, from pure sympathy and indignation, that the woman must be

innocent because her husband treated her so foully.

To be sure we have never heard so much from Mr. Cruikshank's own lips,

but any man who will examine these odd drawings, which first made him

famous, will see what an honest hearty hatred the champion of woman has

for all who abuse her, and will admire the energy with which he flings

his wood-blocks at all who side against her. Canning, Castlereagh,

Bexley, Sidmouth, he is at them, one and all; and as for the Prince, up

to what a whipping-post of ridicule did he tie that unfortunate old man!

And do not let squeamish Tories cry out about disloyalty; if the crown

does wrong, the crown must be corrected by the nation, out of respect,

of course, for the crown. In those days, and by those people who so

bitterly attacked the son, no word was ever breathed against the father,

simply because he was a good husband, and a sober, thrifty, pious,

orderly man.

This attack upon the Prince Regent we believe to have been Mr.

Cruikshank's only effort as a party politician. Some early manifestoes

against Napoleon we find, it is true, done in the regular John Bull

style, with the Gilray model for the little upstart Corsican: but as

soon as the Emperor had yielded to stern fortune our artist's heart

relented (as Beranger's did on the other side of the water), and many

of our readers will doubtless recollect a fine drawing of "Louis XVIII.

trying on Napoleon's boots," which did not certainly fit the gouty

son of Saint Louis. Such satirical hits as these, however, must not be

considered as political, or as anything more than the expression of the

artist's national British idea of Frenchmen.

It must be confessed that for that great nation Mr. Cruikshank

entertains a considerable contempt. Let the reader examine the "Life in

Paris," or the five hundred designs in which Frenchmen are introduced,

and he will find them almost invariably thin, with ludicrous

spindle-shanks, pigtails, outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and

queer hair and mustachios. He has the British idea of a Frenchman; and

if he does not believe that the inhabitants of France are for the most

part dancing-masters and barbers, yet takes care to depict such in

preference, and would not speak too well of them. It is curious

how these traditions endure. In France, at the present moment, the

Englishman on the stage is the caricatured Englishman at the time of the

war, with a shock red head, a long white coat, and invariable gaiters.

Those who wish to study this subject should peruse Monsieur Paul de

Kock's histories of "Lord Boulingrog" and "Lady Crockmilove." On the

other hand, the old emigre has taken his station amongst us, and we

doubt if a good British gallery would understand that such and such a

character WAS a Frenchman unless he appeared in the ancient traditional

costume.

A curious book, called "Life in Paris," published in 1822, contains

a number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style; and though we

believe he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great

deal of life in them, and pass muster very well. A villanous race of

shoulder-shrugging mortals are his Frenchmen indeed. And the heroes

of the tale, a certain Mr. Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain

O'Shuffleton, are made to show the true British superiority on every

occasion when Britons and French are brought together. This book was one

among the many that the designer's genius has caused to be popular; the

plates are not carefully executed, but, being colored, have a pleasant,

lively look. The same style was adopted in the once famous book called

"Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," which must have a word of notice

here, for, although by no means Mr. Cruikshank's best work, his

reputation was extraordinarily raised by it. Tom and Jerry were as

popular twenty years since as Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller now are;

and often have we wished, while reading the biographies of the latter

celebrated personages, that they had been described as well by Mr.

Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. Dickens's pen.

As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs and the

evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British Museum and

no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the book, and "Life

in London," alas, is not to be found at any one of them. We can only,

therefore, speak of the work from recollection, but have still a very

clear remembrance of the leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green

spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom. They were

the schoolboy's delight; and in the days when the work appeared we

firmly believed the three heroes above named to be types of the most

elegant, fashionable young fellows the town afforded, and thought

their occupations and amusements were those of all high-bred English

gentlemen. Tom knocking down the watchman at Temple Bar; Tom and Jerry

dancing at Almack's; or flirting in the saloon at the theatre; at the

night-houses, after the play; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver cup

then in the possession of that champion; at the chambers of Bob Logic,

who, seated at a cabinet piano, plays a waltz to which Corinthian Tom

and Kate are dancing; ambling gallantly in Rotten Row; or examining

the poor fellow at Newgate who was having his chains knocked off before

hanging: all these scenes remain indelibly engraved upon the mind, and

so far we are independent of all the circulating libraries in London.

As to the literary contents of the book, they have passed sheer away. It

was, most likely, not particularly refined; nay, the chances are that it

was absolutely vulgar. But it must have had some merit of its own, that

is clear; it must have given striking descriptions of life in some part

or other of London, for all London read it, and went to see it in its

dramatic shape. The artist, it is said, wished to close the career

of the three heroes by bringing them all to ruin, but the writer, or

publishers, would not allow any such melancholy subjects to dash the

merriment of the public, and we believe Tom, Jerry, and Logic, were

married off at the end of the tale, as if they had been the most moral

personages in the world. There is some goodness in this pity, which

authors and the public are disposed to show towards certain agreeable,

disreputable characters of romance. Who would mar the prospects of

honest Roderick Random, or Charles Surface, or Tom Jones? only a very

stern moralist indeed. And in regard of Jerry Hawthorn and that hero

without a surname, Corinthian Tom, Mr. Cruikshank, we make little doubt,

was glad in his heart that he was not allowed to have his own way.

Soon after the "Tom and Jerry" and the "Life in Paris," Mr. Cruikshank

produced a much more elaborate set of prints, in a work which was called

"Points of Humor." These "Points" were selected from various comic

works, and did not, we believe, extend beyond a couple of numbers,

containing about a score of copper-plates. The collector of humorous

designs cannot fail to have them in his portfolio, for they contain

some of the very best efforts of Mr. Cruikshank's genius, and though not

quite so highly labored as some of his later productions, are none the

worse, in our opinion, for their comparative want of finish. All the

effects are perfectly given, and the expression is as good as it could

be in the most delicate engraving upon steel. The artist's style, too,

was then completely formed; and, for our parts, we should say that we

preferred his manner of 1825 to any other which he has adopted since.

The first picture, which is called "The Point of Honor," illustrates the

old story of the officer who, on being accused of cowardice for refusing

to fight a duel, came among his brother officers and flung a

lighted grenade down upon the floor, before which his comrades fled

ignominiously. This design is capital, and the outward rush of heroes,

walking, trampling, twisting, scuffling at the door, is in the best

style of the grotesque. You see but the back of most of these gentlemen;

into which, nevertheless, the artist has managed to throw an expression

of ludicrous agony that one could scarcely have expected to find in

such a part of the human figure. The next plate is not less good. It

represents a couple who, having been found one night tipsy, and lying

in the same gutter, were, by a charitable though misguided gentleman,

supposed to be man and wife, and put comfortably to bed together. The

morning came; fancy the surprise of this interesting pair when they

awoke and discovered their situation. Fancy the manner, too, in which

Cruikshank has depicted them, to which words cannot do justice. It is

needless to state that this fortuitous and temporary union was followed

by one more lasting and sentimental, and that these two worthy persons

were married, and lived happily ever after.

We should like to go through every one of these prints. There is the

jolly miller, who, returning home at night, calls upon his wife to

get him a supper, and falls to upon rashers of bacon and ale. How he

gormandizes, that jolly miller! rasher after rasher, how they pass away

frizzling and, smoking from the gridiron down that immense grinning gulf

of a mouth. Poor wife! how she pines and frets, at that untimely hour of

midnight to be obliged to fry, fry, fry perpetually, and minister to the

monster's appetite. And yonder in the clock: what agonized face is that

we see? By heavens, it is the squire of the parish. What business has he

there? Let us not ask. Suffice it to say, that he has, in the hurry of

the moment, left up stairs his br----; his--psha! a part of his dress,

in short, with a number of bank-notes in the pockets. Look in the next

page, and you will see the ferocious, bacon-devouring ruffian of a

miller is actually causing this garment to be carried through the

village and cried by the town-crier. And we blush to be obliged to

say that the demoralized miller never offered to return the banknotes,

although he was so mighty scrupulous in endeavoring to find an owner for

the corduroy portfolio in which he had found them.

Passing from this painful subject, we come, we regret to state, to a

series of prints representing personages not a whit more moral. Burns's

famous "Jolly Beggars" have all had their portraits drawn by Cruikshank.

There is the lovely "hempen widow," quite as interesting and romantic as

the famous Mrs. Sheppard, who has at the lamented demise of her husband

adopted the very same consolation.

"My curse upon them every one,

They've hanged my braw John Highlandman;

. . . .

And now a widow I must mourn

Departed joys that ne'er return;

No comfort but a hearty can

When I think on John Highlandman."

Sweet "raucle carlin," she has none of the sentimentality of the English

highwayman's lady; but being wooed by a tinker and

"A pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle

Wha us'd to trystes and fairs to driddle,"

prefers the practical to the merely musical man. The tinker sings with a

noble candor, worthy of a fellow of his strength of body and station in

life--

"My bonnie lass, I work in brass,

A tinker is my station;

I've travell'd round all Christian ground

In this my occupation.

I've ta'en the gold, I've been enroll'd

In many a noble squadron;

But vain they search'd when off I march'd

To go an' clout the caudron."

It was his ruling passion. What was military glory to him, forsooth?

He had the greatest contempt for it, and loved freedom and his copper

kettle a thousand times better--a kind of hardware Diogenes. Of fiddling

he has no better opinion. The picture represents the "sturdy caird"

taking "poor gut-scraper" by the beard,--drawing his "roosty rapier,"

and swearing to "speet him like a pliver" unless he would relinquish the

bonnie lassie for ever--

"Wi' ghastly ee, poor tweedle-dee

Upon his hunkers bended,

An' pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face,

An' so the quarrel ended."

Hark how the tinker apostrophizes the violinist, stating to the widow

at the same time the advantages which she might expect from an alliance

with himself:--

"Despise that shrimp, that withered imp,

Wi' a' his noise and caperin';

And take a share with those that bear

The budget and the apron!

"And by that stowp, my faith an' houpe,

An' by that dear Kilbaigie!

If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant,

May I ne'er weet my craigie."

Cruikshank's caird is a noble creature; his face and figure show him to

be fully capable of doing and saying all that is above written of him.

In the second part, the old tale of "The Three Hunchbacked Fiddlers" is

illustrated with equal felicity. The famous classical dinners and

duel in "Peregrine Pickle" are also excellent in their way; and the

connoisseur of prints and etchings may see in the latter plate, and in

another in this volume, how great the artist's mechanical skill is as an

etcher. The distant view of the city in the duel, and of a market-place

in "The Quack Doctor," are delightful specimens of the artist's skill

in depicting buildings and backgrounds. They are touched with a grace,

truth, and dexterity of workmanship that leave nothing to desire. We

have before mentioned the man with the mouth, which appears in this

number emblematical of gout and indigestion, in which the artist has

shown all the fancy of Callot. Little demons, with long saws for noses,

are making dreadful incisions into the toes of the unhappy sufferer;

some are bringing pans of hot coals to keep the wounded member warm;

a huge, solemn nightmare sits on the invalid's chest, staring solemnly

into his eyes; a monster, with a pair of drumsticks, is banging a

devil's tattoo on his forehead; and a pair of imps are nailing great

tenpenny nails into his hands to make his happiness complete.

The late Mr. Clark's excellent work, "Three Courses and a Dessert," was

published at a time when the rage for comic stories was not so great

as it since has been, and Messrs. Clark and Cruikshank only sold their

hundreds where Messrs. Dickens and Phiz dispose of their thousands.

But if our recommendation can in any way influence the reader, we would

enjoin him to have a copy of the "Three Courses," that contains some of

the best designs of our artist, and some of the most amusing tales in

our language. The invention of the pictures, for which Mr. Clark takes

credit to himself, says a great deal for his wit and fancy. Can we, for

instance, praise too highly the man who invented that wonderful oyster?

Examine him well; his beard, his pearl, his little round stomach, and

his sweet smile. Only oysters know how to smile in this way; cool,

gentle, waggish, and yet inexpressibly innocent and winning. Dando

himself must have allowed such an artless native to go free, and

consigned him to the glassy, cool, translucent wave again.

In writing upon such subjects as these with which we have been

furnished, it can hardly be expected that we should follow any fixed

plan and order--we must therefore take such advantage as we may, and

seize upon our subject when and wherever we can lay hold of him.

For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, beadles,

policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, very

short pantaloons, dandies in spectacles, and ladies with aquiline noses,

remarkably taper waists, and wonderfully long ringlets, Mr. Cruikshank

has a special predilection. The tribe of Israelites he has studied with

amazing gusto; witness the Jew in Mr. Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," and

the immortal Fagin of "Oliver Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in

these persons and things? Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite

a charity boy? Why should a tall life-guardsman have something in him

essentially absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long?

What is there particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a

long nose always provoke the beholder to laughter? These points may be

metaphysically elucidated by those who list. It is probable that Mr.

Cruikshank could not give an accurate definition of that which is

ridiculous in these objects, but his instinct has told him that

fun lurks in them, and cold must be the heart that can pass by the

pantaloons of his charity boys, the Hessian boots of his dandies, and

the fan-tail hats of his dustmen, without respectful wonder.

He has made a complete little gallery of dustmen. There is, in the

first place, the professional dustman, who, having in the enthusiastic

exercise of his delightful trade, laid hands upon property not strictly

his own, is pursued, we presume, by the right owner, from whom he flies

as fast as his crooked shanks will carry him.

What a curious picture it is--the horrid rickety houses in some dingy

suburb of London, the grinning cobbler, the smothered butcher, the very

trees which are covered with dust--it is fine to look at the different

expressions of the two interesting fugitives. The fiery charioteer who

belabors the poor donkey has still a glance for his brother on foot, on

whom punishment is about to descend. And not a little curious is it to

think of the creative power of the man who has arranged this little tale

of low life. How logically it is conducted, how cleverly each one of

the accessories is made to contribute to the effect of the whole. What

a deal of thought and humor has the artist expended on this little block

of wood; a large picture might have been painted out of the very same

materials, which Mr. Cruikshank, out of his wondrous fund of merriment

and observation, can afford to throw away upon a drawing not two inches

long. From the practical dustmen we pass to those purely poetical. There

are three of them who rise on clouds of their own raising, the very

genii of the sack and shovel.

Is there no one to write a sonnet to these?--and yet a whole poem was

written about Peter Bell the wagoner, a character by no means so poetic.

And lastly, we have the dustman in love: the honest fellow having seen a

young beauty stepping out of a gin-shop on a Sunday morning, is pressing

eagerly his suit.

Gin has furnished many subjects to Mr. Cruikshank, who labors in his own

sound and hearty way to teach his countrymen the dangers of that drink.

In the "Sketch-Book" is a plate upon the subject, remarkable for fancy

and beauty of design; it is called the "Gin Juggernaut," and represents

a hideous moving palace, with a reeking still at the roof and vast

gin-barrels for wheels, under which unhappy millions are crushed to

death. An immense black cloud of desolation covers over the country

through which the gin monster has passed, dimly looming through the

darkness whereof you see an agreeable prospect of gibbets with men

dangling, burnt houses, &c. The vast cloud comes sweeping on in the

wake of this horrible body-crusher; and you see, by way of contrast, a

distant, smiling, sunshiny tract of old English country, where gin as

yet is not known. The allegory is as good, as earnest, and as fanciful

as one of John Bunyan's, and we have often fancied there was a

similarity between the men.

The render will examine the work called "My Sketch-Book" with not a

little amusement, and may gather from it, as we fancy, a good deal

of information regarding the character of the individual man, George

Cruikshank: what points strike his eye as a painter; what move his

anger or admiration as a moralist; what classes he seems most especially

disposed to observe, and what to ridicule. There are quacks of all

kinds, to whom he has a mortal hatred; quack dandies, who assume

under his pencil, perhaps in his eye, the most grotesque appearance

possible--their hats grow larger, their legs infinitely more crooked and

lean; the tassels of their canes swell out to a most preposterous size;

the tails of their coats dwindle away, and finish where coat-tails

generally begin. Let us lay a wager that Cruikshank, a man of the people

if ever there was one, heartily hates and despises these supercilious,

swaggering young gentlemen; and his contempt is not a whit the less

laudable because there may be tant soit peu of prejudice in it. It is

right and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson said it was to hate

Frenchmen; in which sentiment (as we have before said) George Cruikshank

undoubtedly shares. In the "Sunday in London,"* Monsieur the Chef is

instructing a kitchen-maid how to compound some rascally French kickshaw

or the other--a pretty scoundrel truly! with what an air he wears that

nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and chatters, and ogles,

and grins: they are all the same, these mounseers; there are other two

fellows--morbleu! one is putting his dirty fingers into the saucepan;

there are frogs cooking in it, no doubt; and just over some other dish

of abomination, another dirty rascal is taking snuff! Never mind,

the sauce won't be hurt by a few ingredients more or less. Three such

fellows as these are not worth one Englishman, that's clear. There is

one in the very midst of them, the great burly fellow with the beef: he

could beat all three in five minutes. We cannot be certain that such was

the process going on in Mr. Cruikshank's mind when he made the design;

but some feelings of the sort were no doubt entertained by him.

* The following lines--ever fresh--by the author of

"Headlong Hall," published years ago in the Globe and

Traveller, are an excellent comment on several of the cuts

from the "Sunday in London:"--

I.

"The poor man's sins are glaring;

In the face of ghostly warning

He is caught in the fact

Of an overt act,

Buying greens on Sunday morning.

II.

"The rich man's sins are hidden

In the pomp of wealth and station,

And escape the sight

Of the children of light,

Who are wise in their generation.

III.

"The rich man has a kitchen,

And cooks to dress his dinner;

The poor who would roast,

To the baker's must post,

And thus becomes a sinner.

IV.

"The rich man's painted windows

Hide the concerts of the quality;

The poor can but share

A crack'd fiddle in the air,

Which offends all sound morality.

V.

"The rich man has a cellar,

And a ready butler by him;

The poor must steer

For his pint of beer

Where the saint can't choose but spy him.

VI.

"This rich man is invisible

In the crowd of his gay society;

But the poor man's delight

Is a sore in the sight

And a stench in the nose of piety."

Against dandy footmen he is particularly severe. He hates idlers,

pretenders, boasters, and punishes these fellows as best he may. Who

does not recollect the famous picture, "What IS taxes, Thomas?" What

is taxes indeed; well may that vast, over-fed, lounging flunky ask the

question of his associate Thomas: and yet not well, for all that Thomas

says in reply is, "I DON'T KNOW." "O beati PLUSHICOLAE," what a charming

state of ignorance is yours! In the "Sketch-Book" many footmen make

their appearance: one is a huge fat Hercules of a Portman Square porter,

who calmly surveys another poor fellow, a porter likewise, but out of

livery, who comes staggering forward with a box that Hercules might lift

with his little finger. Will Hercules do so? not he. The giant can carry

nothing heavier than a cocked-hat note on a silver tray, and his labors

are to walk from his sentry-box to the door, and from the door back to

his sentry-box, and to read the Sunday paper, and to poke the hall

fire twice or thrice, and to make five meals a day. Such a fellow does

Cruikshank hate and scorn worse even than a Frenchman.

The man's master, too, comes in for no small share of our artist's

wrath. There is a company of them at church, who humbly designate

themselves "miserable sinners!" Miserable sinners indeed! Oh, what

floods of turtle-soup, what tons of turbot and lobster-sauce must have

been sacrificed to make those sinners properly miserable. My lady with

the ermine tippet and draggling feather, can we not see that she lives

in Portland Place, and is the wife of an East India Director? She has

been to the Opera over-night (indeed her husband, on her right, with

his fat hand dangling over the pew-door, is at this minute thinking of

Mademoiselle Leocadie, whom he saw behind the scenes)--she has been

at the Opera over-night, which with a trifle of supper afterwards--a

white-and-brown soup, a lobster-salad, some woodcocks, and a little

champagne--sent her to bed quite comfortable. At half-past eight her

maid brings her chocolate in bed, at ten she has fresh eggs and muffins,

with, perhaps, a half-hundred of prawns for breakfast, and so can get

over the day and the sermon till lunch-time pretty well. What an odor of

musk and bergamot exhales from the pew!--how it is wadded, and stuffed,

and spangled over with brass nails! what hassocks are there for those

who are not too fat to kneel! what a flustering and flapping of gilt

prayer-books; and what a pious whirring of bible leaves one hears

all over the church, as the doctor blandly gives out the text! To be

miserable at this rate you must, at the very least, have four thousand a

year: and many persons are there so enamored of grief and sin, that they

would willingly take the risk of the misery to have a life-interest in

the consols that accompany it, quite careless about consequences, and

sceptical as to the notion that a day is at hand when you must fulfil

YOUR SHARE OF THE BARGAIN.

Our artist loves to joke at a soldier; in whose livery there appears

to him to be something almost as ridiculous as in the uniform of

the gentleman of the shoulder-knot. Tall life-guardsmen and fierce

grenadiers figure in many of his designs, and almost always in a

ridiculous way. Here again we have the honest popular English feeling

which jeers at pomp or pretension of all kinds, and is especially

jealous of all display of military authority. "Raw Recruit," "ditto

dressed," ditto "served up," as we see them in the "Sketch-Book," are so

many satires upon the army: Hodge with his ribbons flaunting in his

hat, or with red coat and musket, drilled stiff and pompous, or at

last, minus leg and arm, tottering about on crutches, does not fill our

English artist with the enthusiasm that follows the soldier in every

other part of Europe. Jeanjean, the conscript in France, is laughed at

to be sure, but then it is because he is a bad soldier: when he comes to

have a huge pair of mustachios and the croix-d'honneur to briller on his

poitrine cicatrisee, Jeanjean becomes a member of a class that is more

respected than any other in the French nation. The veteran soldier

inspires our people with no such awe--we hold that democratic weapon the

fist in much more honor than the sabre and bayonet, and laugh at a man

tricked out in scarlet and pipe-clay.

That regiment of heroes is "marching to divine service," to the tune

of the "British Grenadiers." There they march in state, and a pretty

contempt our artist shows for all their gimcracks and trumpery. He has

drawn a perfectly English scene--the little blackguard boys are playing

pranks round about the men, and shouting, "Heads up, soldier," "Eyes

right, lobster," as little British urchins will do. Did one ever hear

the like sentiments expressed in France? Shade of Napoleon, we insult

you by asking the question. In England, however, see how different the

case is: and designedly or undesignedly, the artist has opened to us a

piece of his mind. In the crowd the only person who admires the soldiers

is the poor idiot, whose pocket a rogue is picking. There is another

picture, in which the sentiment is much the same, only, as in the former

drawing we see Englishmen laughing at the troops of the line, here are

Irishmen giggling at the militia.

We have said that our artist has a great love for the drolleries of

the Green Island. Would any one doubt what was the country of the merry

fellows depicted in his group of Paddies?

"Place me amid O'Rourkes, O'Tooles,

The ragged royal race of Tara;

Or place me where Dick Martin rules

The pathless wilds of Connemara."

We know not if Mr. Cruikshank has ever had any such good luck as to see

the Irish in Ireland itself, but he certainly has obtained a knowledge

of their looks, as if the country had been all his life familiar to him.

Could Mr. O'Connell himself desire anything more national than the scene

of a drunken row, or could Father Mathew have a better text to preach

upon? There is not a broken nose in the room that is not thoroughly

Irish.

We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as

characteristic too as the other. We call attention to the comical look

of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by the witch's stick,

in order to point out also the singular neatness of the workmanship,

and the pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape that the artist

has introduced in the background. Mr. Cruikshank has a fine eye for such

homely landscapes, and renders them with great delicacy and taste.

Old villages, farm-yards, groups of stacks, queer chimneys, churches,

gable-ended cottages, Elizabethan mansion-houses, and other old English

scenes, he depicts with evident enthusiasm.