"Epping Hunt;" for though our artist does not draw horses very
scientifically,--to use a phrase of the atelier,--he FEELS them very
keenly; and his queer animals, after one is used to them, answer quite
as well as better. Neither is he very happy in trees, and such rustical
produce; or, rather, we should say, he is very original, his trees being
decidedly of his own make and composition, not imitated from any master.
But what then? Can a man be supposed to imitate everything? We know what
the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. Cruikshank has confined
himself. That postilion with the people in the broken-down chaise
roaring after him is as deaf as the post by which he passes. Suppose
all the accessories were away, could not one swear that the man was
stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet? What is the peculiar character
in a deaf man's physiognomy?--can any person define it satisfactorily in
words?--not in pages; and Mr. Cruikshank has expressed it on a piece
of paper not so big as the tenth part of your thumb-nail. The horses
of John Gilpin are much more of the equestrian order; and as here the
artist has only his favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is
to be said against his design. The inn and old buildings are charmingly
designed, and nothing can be more prettily or playfully touched.
"At Edmonton his loving wife
From the balcony spied
Her tender husband, wond'ring much
To see how he did ride.
"'Stop, stop, John Gilpin! Here's the house!'
They all at once did cry;
'The dinner waits, and we are tired--'
Said Gilpin--'So am I!'
"Six gentlemen upon the road
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,
With post-boy scamp'ring in the rear,
They raised the hue and cry:--
"'Stop thief! stop thief!--a highwayman!'
Not one of them was mute;
And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit.
"And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space;
The toll-men thinking, as before,
That Gilpin rode a race."
The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellently depicted by the
artist; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing
animals, must here make a special exception in favor of the hens and
chickens; each has a different action, and is curiously natural.
Happy are children of all ages who have such a ballad and such pictures
as this in store for them! It is a comfort to think that woodcuts never
wear out, and that the book still may be had for a shilling, for those
who can command that sum of money.
In the "Epping Hunt," which we owe to the facetious pen of Mr. Hood, our
artist has not been so successful. There is here too much horsemanship
and not enough incident for him; but the portrait of Roundings the
huntsman is an excellent sketch, and a couple of the designs contain
great humor. The first represents the Cockney hero, who, "like a bird,
was singing out while sitting on a tree."
And in the second the natural order is reversed. The stag having
taken heart, is hunting the huntsman, and the Cheapside Nimrod is most
ignominiously running away.
The Easter Hunt, we are told, is no more; and as the Quarterly Review
recommends the British public to purchase Mr. Catlin's pictures, as they
form the only record of an interesting race now rapidly passing away,
in like manner we should exhort all our friends to purchase Mr.
Cruikshank's designs of ANOTHER interesting race, that is run already
and for the last time.
Besides these, we must mention, in the line of our duty, the notable
tragedies of "Tom Thumb" and "Bombastes Furioso," both of which have
appeared with many illustrations by Mr. Cruikshank. The "brave army" of
Bombastes exhibits a terrific display of brutal force, which must shock
the sensibilities of an English radical. And we can well understand the
caution of the general, who bids this soldatesque effrenee to begone,
and not to kick up a row.
Such a troop of lawless ruffians let loose upon a populous city would
play sad havoc in it; and we fancy the massacres of Birmingham renewed,
or at least of Badajoz, which, though not quite so dreadful, if we
may believe his Grace the Duke of Wellington, as the former scenes of
slaughter, were nevertheless severe enough: but we must not venture upon
any ill-timed pleasantries in presence of the disturbed King Arthur and
the awful ghost of Gaffer Thumb.
We are thus carried at once into the supernatural, and here we find
Cruikshank reigning supreme. He has invented in his time a little comic
pandemonium, peopled with the most droll, good-natured fiends possible.
We have before us Chamisso's "Peter Schlemihl," with Cruikshank's
designs translated into German, and gaining nothing by the change.
The "Kinder und Hans-Maerchen" of Grimm are likewise ornamented with a
frontispiece copied from that one which appeared to the amusing version
of the English work. The books on Phrenology and Time have been imitated
by the same nation; and even in France, whither reputation travels
slower than to any country except China, we have seen copies of the
works of George Cruikshank.
He in return has complimented the French by illustrating a couple of
Lives of Napoleon, and the "Life in Paris" before mentioned. He has also
made designs for Victor Hugo's "Hans of Iceland." Strange, wild etchings
were those, on a strange, mad subject; not so good in our notion as the
designs for the German books, the peculiar humor of which latter seemed
to suit the artist exactly. There is a mixture of the awful and the
ridiculous in these, which perpetually excites and keeps awake the
reader's attention; the German writer and the English artist seem to
have an entire faith in their subject. The reader, no doubt, remembers
the awful passage in "Peter Schlemihl," where the little gentleman
purchases the shadow of that hero--"Have the kindness, noble sir, to
examine and try this bag." "He put his hand into his pocket, and drew
thence a tolerably large bag of Cordovan leather, to which a couple of
thongs were fixed. I took it from him, and immediately counted out ten
gold pieces, and ten more, and ten more, and still other ten, whereupon
I held out my hand to him. Done, said I, it is a bargain; you shall have
my shadow for your bag. The bargain was concluded; he knelt down before
me, and I saw him with a wonderful neatness take my shadow from head to
foot, lightly lift it up from the grass, roll and fold it up neatly, and
at last pocket it. He then rose up, bowed to me once more, and walked
away again, disappearing behind the rose bushes. I don't know, but I
thought I heard him laughing a little. I, however, kept fast hold of the
bag. Everything around me was bright in the sun, and as yet I gave no
thought to what I had done."
This marvellous event, narrated by Peter with such a faithful,
circumstantial detail, is painted by Cruikshank in the most wonderful
poetic way, with that happy mixture of the real and supernatural that
makes the narrative so curious, and like truth. The sun is shining with
the utmost brilliancy in a great quiet park or garden; there is a palace
in the background, and a statue basking in the sun quite lonely and
melancholy; there is a sun-dial, on which is a deep shadow, and in the
front stands Peter Schlemihl, bag in hand: the old gentleman is down on
his knees to him, and has just lifted off the ground the SHADOW OF ONE
LEG; he is going to fold it back neatly, as one does the tails of a
coat, and will stow it, without any creases or crumples, along with the
other black garments that lie in that immense pocket of his. Cruikshank
has designed all this as if he had a very serious belief in the story;
he laughs, to be sure, but one fancies that he is a little frightened in
his heart, in spite of all his fun and joking.
The German tales we have mentioned before. "The Prince riding on the
Fox," "Hans in Luck," "The Fiddler and his Goose," "Heads off," are all
drawings which, albeit not before us now, nor seen for ten years, remain
indelibly fixed on the memory. "Heisst du etwa Rumpelstilzchen?" There
sits the Queen on her throne, surrounded by grinning beef-eaters, and
little Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot through the floor in the excess
of his tremendous despair. In one of these German tales, if we remember
rightly, there is an account of a little orphan who is carried away by
a pitying fairy for a term of seven years, and passing that period of
sweet apprenticeship among the imps and sprites of fairy-land. Has our
artist been among the same company, and brought back their portraits in
his sketch-book? He is the only designer fairy-land has had. Callot's
imps, for all their strangeness, are only of the earth earthy. Fuseli's
fairies belong to the infernal regions; they are monstrous, lurid, and
hideously melancholy. Mr. Cruikshank alone has had a true insight into
the character of the "little people." They are something like men and
women, and yet not flesh and blood; they are laughing and mischievous,
but why we know not. Mr. Cruikshank, however, has had some dream or
the other, or else a natural mysterious instinct (as the Seherinn of
Prevorst had for beholding ghosts), or else some preternatural fairy
revelation, which has made him acquainted with the looks and ways of the
fantastical subjects of Oberon and Titania.
We have, unfortunately, no fairy portraits; but, on the other hand,
can descend lower than fairy-land, and have seen some fine specimens
of devils. One has already been raised, and the reader has seen him
tempting a fat Dutch burgomaster, in an ancient gloomy market-place,
such as George Cruikshank can draw as well as Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash,
or any man living. There is our friend once more; our friend the
burgomaster, in a highly excited state, and running as hard as his great
legs will carry him, with our mutual enemy at his tail.
What are the bets; will that long-legged bondholder of a devil come up
with the honest Dutchman? It serves him right: why did he put his name
to stamped paper? And yet we should not wonder if some lucky chance
should turn up in the burgomaster's favor, and his infernal creditor
lose his labor; for one so proverbially cunning as yonder tall
individual with the saucer eyes, it must be confessed that he has been
very often outwitted.
There is, for instance, the case of "The Gentleman in Black," which has
been illustrated by our artist. A young French gentleman, by name M.
Desonge, who, having expended his patrimony in a variety of taverns and
gaming-houses, was one day pondering upon the exhausted state of his
finances, and utterly at a loss to think how he should provide means for
future support, exclaimed, very naturally, "What the devil shall I do?"
He had no sooner spoken than a GENTLEMAN IN BLACK made his appearance,
whose authentic portrait Mr. Cruikshank has had the honor to paint.
This gentleman produced a black-edged book out of a black bag, some
black-edged papers tied up with black crape, and sitting down familiarly
opposite M. Desonge, began conversing with him on the state of his
affairs.
It is needless to state what was the result of the interview. M. Desonge
was induced by the gentleman to sign his name to one of the black-edged
papers, and found himself at the close of the conversation to be
possessed of an unlimited command of capital. This arrangement
completed, the Gentleman in Black posted (in an extraordinarily rapid
manner) from Paris to London, there found a young English merchant in
exactly the same situation in which M. Desonge had been, and concluded a
bargain with the Briton of exactly the same nature.
The book goes on to relate how these young men spent the money so
miraculously handed over to them, and how both, when the period drew
near that was to witness the performance of THEIR part of the bargain,
grew melancholy, wretched, nay, so absolutely dishonorable as to seek
for every means of breaking through their agreement. The Englishman
living in a country where the lawyers are more astute than any other
lawyers in the world, took the advice of a Mr. Bagsby, of Lyon's Inn;
whose name, as we cannot find it in the "Law List," we presume to be
fictitious. Who could it be that was a match for the devil? Lord ----
very likely; we shall not give his name, but let every reader of this
Review fill up the blank according to his own fancy, and on comparing it
with the copy purchased by his neighbors, he will find that fifteen out
of twenty have written down the same honored name.
Well, the Gentleman in Black was anxious for the fulfilment of his bond.
The parties met at Mr. Bagsby's chambers to consult, the Black Gentleman
foolishly thinking that he could act as his own counsel, and fearing no
attorney alive. But mark the superiority of British law, and see how the
black pettifogger was defeated.
Mr. Bagsby simply stated that he would take the case into Chancery, and
his antagonist, utterly humiliated and defeated, refused to move a step
farther in the matter.
And now the French gentleman, M. Desonge, hearing of his friend's
escape, became anxious to be free from his own rash engagements.
He employed the same counsel who had been successful in the former
instance, but the Gentleman in Black was a great deal wiser by this
time, and whether M. Desonge escaped, or whether he is now in that
extensive place which is paved with good intentions, we shall not say.
Those who are anxious to know had better purchase the book wherein
all these interesting matters are duly set down. There is one more
diabolical picture in our budget, engraved by Mr. Thompson, the same
dexterous artist who has rendered the former diableries so well.
We may mention Mr. Thompson's name as among the first of the engravers
to whom Cruikshank's designs have been entrusted; and next to him (if
we may be allowed to make such arbitrary distinctions) we may place
Mr. Williams; and the reader is not possibly aware of the immense
difficulties to be overcome in the rendering of these little sketches,
which, traced by the designer in a few hours, require weeks' labor
from the engraver. Mr. Cruikshank has not been educated in the regular
schools of drawing (very luckily for him, as we think), and consequently
has had to make a manner for himself, which is quite unlike that of any
other draftsman. There is nothing in the least mechanical about it; to
produce his particular effects he uses his own particular lines, which
are queer, free, fantastical, and must be followed in all their infinite
twists and vagaries by the careful tool of the engraver. Those three
lovely heads, for instance, imagined out of the rinds of lemons, are
worth examining, not so much for the jovial humor and wonderful variety
of feature exhibited in these darling countenances as for the engraver's
part of the work. See the infinite delicate cross-lines and hatchings
which he is obliged to render; let him go, not a hair's breadth, but
the hundredth part of a hair's breadth, beyond the given line, and the
FEELING of it is ruined. He receives these little dots and specks, and
fantastical quirks of the pencil, and cuts away with a little knife
round each, not too much nor too little. Antonio's pound of flesh did
not puzzle the Jew so much; and so well does the engraver succeed at
last, that we never remember to have met with a single artist who did
not vow that the wood-cutter had utterly ruined his design.
Of Messrs. Thompson and Williams we have spoken as the first engravers
in point of rank; however, the regulations of professional precedence
are certainly very difficult, and the rest of their brethren we shall
not endeavor to class. Why should the artists who executed the cuts of
the admirable "Three Courses" yield the pas to any one?
There, for instance, is an engraving by Mr. Landells, nearly as good
in our opinion as the very best woodcut that ever was made after
Cruikshank, and curiously happy in rendering the artist's peculiar
manner: this cut does not come from the facetious publications which we
have consulted; but is a contribution by Mr. Cruikshank to an elaborate
and splendid botanical work upon the Orchidaceae of Mexico, by Mr.
Bateman. Mr. Bateman despatched some extremely choice roots of this
valuable plant to a friend in England, who, on the arrival of the case,
consigned it to his gardener to unpack. A great deal of anxiety with
regard to the contents was manifested by all concerned, but on the
lid of the box being removed, there issued from it three or four fine
specimens of the enormous Blatta beetle that had been preying upon the
plants during the voyage; against these the gardeners, the grooms, the
porters, and the porters' children, issued forth in arms, and this scene
the artist has immortalized.
We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruikshank has depicted
Irish character and Cockney character; English country character is
quite as faithfully delineated in the person of the stout porteress and
her children, and of the "Chawbacon" with the shovel, on whose face is
written "Zummerzetsheer." Chawbacon appears in another plate, or else
Chawbacon's brother. He has come up to Lunnan, and is looking about him
at raaces.
How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have just been
examining! They hang about the purlieus of the metropolis: Brook Green,
Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Goodwood, are their haunts. They visit London
professionally once a year, and that is at the time of Bartholomew
fair. How one may speculate upon the different degrees of rascality,
as exhibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, and form little
histories for these worthies, charming Newgate romances, such as have
been of late the fashion! Is any man so blind that he cannot see the
exact face that is writhing under the thhnblerigged hero's hat? Like
Timanthes of old, our artist expresses great passions without the aid
of the human countenance. There is another specimen--a street row of
inebriated bottles. Is there any need of having a face after this? "Come
on!" says Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat on one
ear--"Come on! has any man a mind to tap me?" Claret-bottle is a little
screwed (as one may see by his legs), but full of gayety and courage;
not so that stout, apoplectic Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against
the wall, and has his hand upon his liver: the fellow hurts himself
with smoking, that is clear, and is as sick as sick can be. See, Port
is making away from the storm, and Double X is as flat as ditch-water.
Against these, awful in their white robes, the sober watchmen come.
Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite clearly, as
in the thimblerig group; or he can do without faces altogether; or he
can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of any
given object--a beautiful Irish physiognomy being moulded upon a keg of
whiskey; and a jolly English countenance frothing out of a pot of ale
(the spirit of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay);
while in a fungus may be recognized the physiognomy of a mushroom peer.
Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living head, body, and legs
out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case of the vivacious pair of
spectacles that are jockeying the nose of Caddy Cuddle.
Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel
engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have been, that
his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only be produced
by hundreds before. He has made many a bookseller's and author's fortune
(we trust that in so doing he may not have neglected his own). Twelve
admirable plates, furnished yearly to that facetious little publication,
the Comic Almanac, have gained for it a sale, as we hear, of nearly
twenty thousand copies. The idea of the work was novel; there was,
in the first number especially, a great deal of comic power, and
Cruikshank's designs were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a
vast favorite with the public, and has so remained ever since.
Besides the twelve plates, this almanac contains a prophetic woodcut,
accompanying an awful Blarneyhum Astrologicum that appears in this and
other almanacs. There is one that hints in pretty clear terms that with
the Reform of Municipal Corporations the ruin of the great Lord Mayor of
London is at hand. His lordship is meekly going to dine at an eightpenny
ordinary, his giants in pawn, his men in armor dwindled to "one poor
knight," his carriage to be sold, his stalwart aldermen vanished, his
sheriffs, alas! and alas! in gaol! Another design shows that Rigdum, if
a true, is also a moral and instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or
rather in a vision; the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousand
bright bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a
knave has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe
round his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all;
the rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare);
his faithful dog is bolting his leg-of-mutton--nay, a thief has gotten
hold of his very candle, and there, by way of moral, is his ale-pot,
which looks and winks in his face, and seems to say, O Bull, all this is
froth, and a cruel satirical picture of a certain rustic who had a
goose that laid certain golden eggs, which goose the rustic slew in
expectation of finding all the eggs at once. This is goose and sage too,
to borrow the pun of "learned Doctor Gill;" but we shrewdly suspect that
Mr. Cruikshank is becoming a little conservative in his notions.
We love these pictures so that it is hard to part us, and we still
fondly endeavor to hold on, but this wild word, farewell, must be spoken
by the best friends at last, and so good-by, brave woodcuts: we feel
quite a sadness in coming to the last of our collection.
In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almanac all the manners and customs
of Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted down; and if
during the last two years the mysterious personage who, under the title
of "Rigdum Funnidos," compiles this ephemeris, has been compelled to
resort to romantic tales, we must suppose that he did so because the
great metropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary to discover new
worlds in the cloud-land of fancy. The character of Mr. Stubbs, who
made his appearance in the Almanac for 1839, had, we think, great merit,
although his adventures were somewhat of too tragical a description to
provoke pure laughter.
We should be glad to devote a few pages to the "Illustrations of Time,"
the "Scraps and Sketches," and the "Illustrations of Phrenology," which
are among the most famous of our artist's publications; but it is very
difficult to find new terms of praise, as find them one must, when
reviewing Mr. Cruikshank's publications, and more difficult still (as
the reader of this notice will no doubt have perceived for himself long
since) to translate his design into words, and go to the printer's box
for a description of all that fun and humor which the artist can
produce by a few skilful turns of his needle. A famous article upon the
"Illustrations of Time" appeared some dozen years since in Blackwood's
Magazine, of which the conductors have always been great admirers of our
artist, as became men of honor and genius. To these grand qualities
do not let it be supposed that we are laying claim, but, thank heaven,
Cruikshank's humor is so good and benevolent that any man must love it,
and on this score we may speak as well as another.