_GEORGE CRUIKSHANK_ (_Continued_).
_THE SLEEP OF THIRTY YEARS._
The artistic career of George Cruikshank presents probably one of the
most singular problems to be met with in the history of satirical art.
It may be divided into three portions, two of which we have already
considered: the first represents that section wherein we have seen him
described by Lockhart as "one of the most careless creatures alive,"
having "no plan, almost no ambition," doing "just what was suggested or
thrown in his way," "quite contented to dine off the proceeds of a
'George the Fourth' to day, and those of a 'Hone' or a 'Cobbett' to
morrow!" the second may be said to be embraced between the years 1822
and 1848, during which period we find this man without plan, ambition,
or industry (to complete the charge of Lockhart), busily engaged in
building up the reputation which the critic had so confidently and so
truly predicted of him; the third and last section, the strangest surely
of all, shows us this man of genius--in the full enjoyment of an assured
and well-merited reputation, in the midst of his artistic vigour, at the
height of a success altogether unexampled--deliberately throwing away
his opportunities, and consigning himself to a slumber of thirty years,
which might almost justify us in terming him the "Rip Van Winkle" of
British art. The causes of this strange decadence, this singular mental
inactivity, which seem to us to have been hitherto very little or at
best very imperfectly understood, we now propose to consider.
PROFESSOR BATES' THEORY.
Professor Bates, one of the ablest of the essayists who have written on
George Cruikshank since the time when Thackeray penned his famous
article, would have us believe that the causes which led up to his
retirement from active life whilst yet in the enjoyment of his vigorous
intellect, are due partly to the change which has befallen "the
literature of fiction during the last thirty years," but principally to
the fact of his embracing the temperance movement with more zeal than
discretion. As a matter of fact, however, long before this step had been
taken, there had been causes equally potent at work which seem to have
escaped Mr. Bates' attention, and these causes, which appear to us the
leading factors in the unfortunate final result, lay, as we shall
endeavour to explain, in an entirely different direction.
People who knew and judged of George Cruikshank (as the majority of his
contemporaries necessarily did) by his work alone, formed altogether an
erroneous judgment of the character and disposition of the man. Because
his later designs showed or seemed to show a love of little children, a
liking for home and homely subjects, a delight in fairy lore and legend,
it seems therefore to have been assumed that the artist was almost
child-like in simplicity, innocence, and guilelessness of heart. Some
even of those who have written upon him, acting apparently upon this
impression, have given us to understand that "he never raised a laugh at
the expense of decency"; that "satire _never_, in his hands, descended
into scurrility"; that "a moral purpose ever underlaid his humour"; that
"he sought to instruct and improve whenever he amused." The absurdity of
this statement we have already exposed. In reference to a supposed
singleness of heart and honesty of purpose, some writers have termed him
"honest George." All this was very well. We all know, of course, that he
"never pandered to sensuality" or "glorified vice"; but in spite of
these facts, "honest George" himself, so far at least as we personally
know, never assumed or set up, or even aimed at assuming, that he was
one whit better than his neighbours.
In order that the reader may grasp the causes of his sudden decadence,
it is important that he should understand the position and the
peculiarities of the artist. As an illustrator of books he was
dependent on a _clientele_ composed exclusively of authors and
publishers. "Honest George," however, laboured under a disadvantage
common perhaps more or less to all men possessed of true genius. Hasty
and hot-tempered, particularly in matters connected with his artistic
labours, he was more than usually prone and ready to take offence.
Almost invariably at war with some one or another of his employers, the
story of George Cruikshank's skirmishes and quarrels with the authors
and publishers with whom he was thrown in contact forms a most curious
and interesting chapter in the history of artistic and literary
squabbles.
At the time when Charles Dickens began to write, George Cruikshank had
already achieved his reputation; and so well assured was this
reputation, that the young novelist in his preface to his "Sketches by
Boz," speaks of the nervousness he should have experienced in venturing
_alone_ before the public, and of his delight in securing the
co-operation of an artist so distinguished as George Cruikshank. In
1838, however, the author like the artist had made his mark: "Pickwick"
and "Nicholas Nickleby," and "Oliver Twist" had been written; and every
vestige of the nervousness of which he speaks in the preface to his
"Sketches" had disappeared for ever.
Mr. Sala has somewhere happily remarked that Charles Dickens wanted
rather a scene painter for his novels than a mere illustrator of books,
and the very last person to answer his requirements was George
Cruikshank; for, while ready and willing to execute designs illustrative
of Mr. Dickens's writings, he made it an implied condition of his
retainer, that he should be free to design them in his own way and after
his own fashion. It was an _essential_ condition of George Cruikshank's
success as a draughtsman, not only that he should feel a sympathy for
any subject he was called upon to design, but also that his genius
should be left unfettered and untrammelled in his method of treatment.
Hence it was that he found it impossible to co-operate with so exacting
an employer of artistic labour as Charles Dickens. The latter argued,
with some show of reason, that knowing what he intended to describe, he
was the fittest and most competent person to explain how his meaning
should be pictorially carried out. This sort of arrangement, however,
did not suit the independent and somewhat impracticable spirit of the
artist, and the result was almost a foregone conclusion. These two men
of genius inevitably clashed; and the connection between Charles Dickens
and Cruikshank was abruptly severed.
A singular memorial of the quarrel between Dickens and Cruikshank will
be found in the last illustration to the author's novel of "Oliver
Twist," one of the worst that the artist ever executed. Although Mr.
Forster does not say so--and possibly would not admit it,--Charles
Dickens is directly responsible for this result, as the reader will
agree when he learns the whole of the facts, which are only partly given
in Forster's "Life," and in every other work which professes to tell the
story.
The reader will not require to be told that "Oliver Twist" made its
appearance in the pages of "Bentley's Miscellany." The story of course
had been written in anticipation of the magazine; and according to Mr.
Forster, Cruikshank's designs for the portion which forms the third
volume "having to be executed 'in a lump,' were necessarily done
somewhat hastily." How far this statement is correct, the reader will be
enabled to judge when we tell him that these so-called "hastily"
prepared illustrations include the famous designs of _Sikes and his Dog_
and _Fagin in the Condemned Cell_. "None of these illustrations," Mr.
Forster goes on to tell us, "Dickens had seen until he saw them in the
book on the eve of its publication [we assume in the three-volume form],
when he so strongly objected to one of them that it had to be
cancelled." "My dear Cruikshank," he at once wrote off to the artist, "I
returned suddenly to town yesterday afternoon [October, 1838] to look at
the latter pages of 'Oliver Twist' before it was delivered to the
booksellers, when I saw the majority of the plates for the first time.
With reference to the last one, _Rose Maylie and Oliver_, without
entering into the question of great haste or any other cause which may
have led to its being what it is, I am quite sure there can be little
difference of opinion between us with respect to the result. May I ask
you whether you will object to designing this plate afresh, and doing so
_at once_, in order that as few impressions as possible of the present
one may go forth. I feel confident you know me too well to feel hurt by
this inquiry, and with equal confidence in you, I have lost no time in
preferring it." At this point Mr. Forster leaves the story.
THE QUARREL WITH DICKENS.
Probably very few of our readers have seen this despised and rejected
plate of _Rose Maylie and Oliver_, for it is not the one which bears
that title among the ordinary illustrations to the novel of "Oliver
Twist." It is very rare, and we wish we could reproduce it here. If not
one of the very best of the series, it is entirely in keeping with the
rest; and so far from displaying "great haste," is in every respect a
carefully finished book etching. Four figures are represented in it as
sitting round the fire, among them the well known form of Oliver, with
his turn-down collar and elaborately brushed hair. On the mantle-shelf,
with other ornaments, are two hyacinths in glasses, thus fixing January
as the date of the scene depicted. It would have been better for the
book if Charles Dickens had left it alone. The artist did as he was
requested, with anger at his heart; and as a consequence, Rose Maylie
will go down to posterity as the ugliest of George Cruikshank's very
ugly women, in an outrageous bonnet, with her hand resting on the
shoulder of a youth wearing the singular coatee or boy's jacket of forty
years ago. Differing altogether from the admirable designs which
preceded it, there is an incongruity about the etching which cannot fail
to impress the observer. The unfortunate letter and still more
unfortunate result occasioned a coolness between the men which was never
wholly removed. From that time forth George Cruikshank executed no more
designs for Charles Dickens, and the illustrations to the long series of
novels which afterwards followed from the pen of the talented but
distinctly autocratic author were entrusted to other hands. However much
this result must be deplored so far as the artist himself is concerned,
the coolness between Charles Dickens and George Cruikshank is scarcely
to be viewed in the light of a misfortune for English illustrative art.
Only consider for one moment what might have followed had the artist
executed the designs to the rest of Dickens's novels! Dick Swiveller
would have suited him, and so would Quilp, or Sampson Brass, the
Yorkshire schoolmaster, Newman Noggs, Lord Frederick Verisopht, Captain
Bunsby, or even Mr. Pecksniff himself; but only fancy, on the other
hand, the _horrors_ which would have been made of Dolly Varden, of Edith
Dombey, of "Little Em'ly," of dear, gentle, loving little Nell! Happily
for the fame of George Cruikshank, his imagination was not called into
requisition for any one of these creations, and like the
"annunciations," the "beatifications," and the "apotheoses" of Lockhart,
they remain (we are thankful to say it) still unrealized!
THE FEUD WITH BENTLEY.
The quarrel with Dickens was followed by a very bitter and very singular
feud between the artist and Bentley. Into the causes of that quarrel we
need not enter; suffice it to say that to the misunderstanding we owe
some of the very worst etchings which Cruikshank ever designed, the
series of illustrations to Harrison Ainsworth's novel of "Guy Fawkes."
The worst of all is the _Vision of Guy Fawkes at Saint Winifred's Well_,
and a very singular "vision" it is. The saint has all the appearance,
with all the grace, expression, and symmetry of a Dutch doll arrayed in
a pocket handkerchief; the sky is "machine ruled;" the pillars and
tracery of the ruined chapel are architectural impossibilities; while at
the very first snort, the slumbering figure of Guy Fawkes must roll
inevitably into the well towards the brink of which he lies in dangerous
propinquity. These illustrations provoked the ire of the publisher and
the remonstrances of the author, both of which were disregarded with
strict impartiality. In 1842, Harrison Ainsworth retired from the
conduct of the "Miscellany," and set up a rival magazine of somewhat
similar plan and conception, which he christened after his own surname.
This opposition venture appears to have been the result of a
misunderstanding between the editor and publisher, the most serious
outcome of which was, that when Ainsworth left he carried with him
George Cruikshank.
The secession of George caused Mr. Bentley the greatest possible
inconvenience. The straits to which he was reduced may be imagined by
the fact that A. Hervieu (an artist of considerable ability), and the
clever, well-known amateur, Alfred Crowquill (Alfred Henry Forrester),
had to be pressed into the service, and contributed leading etchings.
Meanwhile, the cover of the "Miscellany" showed that George Cruikshank
was nominally retained on the pictorial staff; and before the quality of
his illustrations became so villainously bad that the object he had in
view--that of _forcing_ Bentley to cancel his engagement--had been
attained, a draughtsman of unusual graphic power and versatility had
come to the assistance of the magazine. This was a young man who had
already executed many comic designs of a somewhat novel and original
character, and was already forcing his way to the front: his
name--familiar afterwards "in our mouths as household words"--was John
Leech.
The "Guy Fawkes" illustrations were the outcome of the first campaign
between Bentley and Cruikshank; and as the history of the quarrel
between the publisher and his unmanageable artist is a somewhat amusing
one, we may be pardoned for describing it at length. The engagement from
which he sought to free himself, and which he stigmatized as "a
one-sided one," obliged Cruikshank to supply Mr. Bentley with at least
one etching every month; and as Bentley continued to advertise him as
the illustrator of the "Miscellany," George commenced the second
campaign by issuing in the opening pages of the opposition venture the
following characteristic manifesto:--"Mr. Bentley, the publisher," says
the indignant George, "evidently wishes to create the supposition that
_I_ illustrate his 'Miscellany.' On the contrary, I wish the public to
understand that I do no such thing. It is true that, according to a
one-sided agreement (of which more may be heard hereafter), I supply a
single etching per month. But I supply _only that single etching_. And
even that can hardly be called my design, since _the subject of it_ is
regularly furnished to me by Mr. Bentley, and I have never even read a
page of any of the stories thus '_illustrated_.'
"Yet Mr. Bentley not only advertises me as the illustrator of his
'Miscellany,' but he has lately shaped his advertisement thus, in the
papers as well as on the wrapper of his magazine: 'Illustrated by Geo.
Cruikshank, etc.' Are his other artists worthy only of being merged in
an etc.? This is, indeed, paying them but a poor compliment; and one
which I should hardly think they would submit to. In certain other
announcements I observe mentioned, in addition to my own name, a
'Cruikshank the Younger.' Who is he? The only Cruikshank the Younger I
ever heard of as a designer, is myself. Would it not be supposed that
there must be a third Cruikshank, etching, drawing, and 'illustrating,'
as his two predecessors have done? Yet there is no such person! There is
indeed a nephew of mine, who, as a _wood-engraver_, and a wood-engraver
_only_, has been employed by Mr. Bentley to engrave 'Crowquill's
designs;' just as in my 'Omnibus' he engraved my own drawings upon wood,
and still does engrave them in 'Ainsworth's Magazine.' Now, can any one
imagine it possible for any respectable publisher, especially 'Her
Majesty's Publisher in Ordinary,' to be guilty of so miserable a trick,
so wretched an expedient, as that of putting off the _engraver_ of a few
of the drawings as the designer himself--as one of the 'illustrators' of
the 'Miscellany'? Let Mr. Bentley but produce a single design for the
'Miscellany,' by 'Cruikshank the Younger' (by him so-called), and I will
retract this indignant disclaimer and apologise. If Mr. Bentley cannot
do this, he stands self-convicted of an attempt to impose upon the
public by a mystification, for purposes as apparent as the trick
itself."
What this strange declaration of war proposed to effect is not
altogether manifest; if its author imagined it would produce the result
of releasing him from his engagement, he was signally mistaken, for Mr.
Bentley, as might have been expected, held him all the tighter to the
_letter_ of his bond. What the artist thought and what he did are told
us in the plainest language by the etchings which followed this singular
manifesto. They tell us as plainly as could be expressed in words, that
George reasoned after the following fashion:--"It is clear that under
the terms of my engagement I am bound to supply 'Bentley's Miscellany'
with one etching a month; but our agreement says nothing as to the
_quality_ of the etchings, nor am I bound to see that they shall be
strictly relevant to the subjects which I am called upon to illustrate."
From that time, so long as he continued to design for the "Miscellany,"
George tried to do his worst, and it must be admitted that he succeeded
to admiration. Anything more outrageous than these wretched
drawings--taking into account the talent, power, and skill of the
artist, and the quality of the work which he was at this very time
executing for Harrison Ainsworth--can scarcely be conceived. They are so
ashamed of themselves, that his signature--usually so distinct, so
characteristic, and so clear on other occasions--is illegible, in many
cases wholly wanting. At length, in vol. xiii. (1843) appeared a story
called "The Exile of Louisiana," "with an illustration by George
Cruikshank" (for Bentley, probably by way of retaliation, was determined
the public should know that these performances were due to the hand
which had produced the famous etchings to "Oliver Twist," "Jack
Sheppard," and the contemporaneous story of the "Miser's Daughter"). We
should like to have seen the face of the author when this extraordinary
conception dawned upon him. The tale (a serious and pathetic one) was
burlesqued with one of the most grotesque caricatures the mind of comic
artist ever conceived. It represents Marshal Saxe recognising the widow
of a late Czaaravitch in the gardens of the Tuileries. The marshal, a
most extraordinary personage, would make in actual life the fortune of
any enterprising showman. He possesses a nose of Slawkenbergian
proportions; his pig-tail reaches below his waist; and his sword,
sticking out at right angles, gives him the appearance of a fly with a
pin through its middle. Near him stands a courtier, with ankles of such
fearful and wonderful construction that his legs will snap the moment he
attempts to use them. As for the distinguished relict of the
Czaaravitch, she is one of the most wonderful of the many wonderful
people who figure in the sketch. Her figure is an anatomical
impossibility; while her mouth reaches from ear to ear (the letterpress,
by the way, informs us that her deceased husband had married her for her
beauty!). The statue of Mercury, posed like a scaramouch at a
masquerade, is matched by that of Neptune, who whirls his trident round
his head in a state of the wildest hilarity, cutting at the same time a
caper over the body of an attendant dolphin, who is so overcome with
the whimsicality of the proceeding that he is making the most violent
efforts to restrain his laughter. This last shot probably hit the mark,
for only three etchings appear in vol. xiv., and not one afterwards.
George was victorious; but there are victories and victories, and a
triumph won at the cost of an artistic reputation is as disastrous as a
defeat.
THE MISUNDERSTANDING WITH AINSWORTH.
Harrison Ainsworth's long connection with the artist had taught him that
he was one who would be neither driven nor led, and he was wise enough
to accommodate himself to circumstances. The admirable woodcut design at
the head of that division of the magazine which was known as "Our
Library Table," shows us the artist and the handsome editor in
consultation, and the attitude of the two men is indicative of the fact
that Ainsworth is attentively listening to the advice or suggestions of
his coadjutor, a fact to which Cruikshank himself has been particular to
draw our attention. To the free and unfettered conditions under which
Cruikshank co-operated with Ainsworth we owe a series of the most justly
celebrated and valuable of his designs. In matters, however, connected
with art, Cruikshank was, as we have seen, a difficult man to get on
with, and it was fairly safe to predict that a quarrel between the
author and artist was a mere question of time. The artist remained on
the staff of "Ainsworth's Magazine" for three years, enriching its pages
with some of the choicest efforts of his pencil. At the end of that
period came the unfortunate but almost unavoidable misunderstanding; and
George Cruikshank, as he had done with Bentley, withdrew from the
concern. Unlike Bentley, however, Ainsworth appears not only to have
foreseen, but to have made preparations for the inevitable; and
accordingly, when George Cruikshank retired, his place was immediately
taken by an artist of talent, destined to win for himself a considerable
position among the ranks of designers and etchers: this was Hablot
Knight Browne, then and now known to us under his monosyllabic
_nom-de-guerre_ of _Phiz_.
It seems to us fitting in this place to say a few words on the subject
of George's pretension to be the originator of two of Ainsworth's
stories, because the truth of his assertion has been questioned by a
late commentator.[94] George's statements simply amount to this: that so
far as the illustrations to the "Miser's Daughter" and "The Tower of
London" are concerned, the author wrote up to _his_ designs. We have
considered Ainsworth's answers to this statement, and find that although
he fences with, he does not deny it. It was one essential condition of
Cruikshank's success that his fancy should be free and untrammelled, and
the truth of his statement appears to us to be proved by the
illustrations to these works, which are certainly the finest which he
ever designed; that he was therefore (as he stated) the originator of
these tales in the sense in which he used the word, we can entertain no
manner of doubt.
Most of the Cruikshank commentators, whilst writing on the subject of
the Harrison Ainsworth etchings, have thought fit to decry the author's
share of the performance; but the fact that the pictures are so much
better than the letterpress should not prevent us from dealing fairly
with the veteran author, who, like the distinguished artist with whom he
so long co-operated, has now gone to his rest. Even Mr. Ainsworth's
detractors will, we think, admit that without him we should have lost
the admirable illustrations to "Windsor Castle," "Jack Sheppard," and
"St. James's"; it may even be doubted whether without him we should have
had the still better series of etchings which adorn the "Tower of
London" and the "Miser's Daughter." If this be the fact, it seems to us
we owe a lasting debt of gratitude to this venerable writer, who
experienced the vicissitudes which inevitably befall mere talent when
allied with genius. He was a writer of the George Payne Ransford James
school, dispensing, however, with the inevitable setting sun and two
travellers, and received a price for his productions which many a better
author might well envy. For his novel of "Old St. Paul's" (1841) he was
paid by the proprietors of the _Sunday Times_ one thousand pounds; "The
Miser's Daughter" attained an extraordinary success; and the same remark
applies to "Windsor Castle." For "The Lancashire Witches" he received
from the proprietors of the _Sunday Times_ one thousand pounds. Several
of the works named had not the benefit of Cruikshank's illustrations;
but in 1850-1, cheap editions of all such of Mr. Ainsworth's romances
and tales as had appeared up to that period, were published by Messrs.
Chapman and Hall without any illustrations at all. "Windsor Castle" was
the first of the series, and upwards of thirty thousand copies were
disposed of in a short time; while all the other works enjoyed a very
large sale, and popular favour was so far from being exhausted, that
another edition of his novels was called for in 1864-1868. He was a
veritable literary rolling stone. In 1845 he disposed of his magazine to
the publishers, and purchased the "New Monthly," previously edited by
Theodore Hook and (after his death) by Thomas Hood; in 1854 he bought
the far-famed "Miscellany" itself, becoming its proprietor and editor;
in that year he seems also to have re-purchased "Ainsworth's Magazine,"
which as a separate and rival publication thenceforth ceased to exist.
The only work which Cruikshank illustrated for Charles Lever was "Arthur
O'Leary," and the reason of this has been explained by himself in a
letter which he wrote to Mr. Fitzpatrick, the author of Charles Lever's
life: "I had the honour and the pleasure," he says, "of being personally
acquainted with the late Charles Lever, and I regret that I was only
able to illustrate one of his works, 'Arthur O'Leary,' my engagements on
'Jack Sheppard,' etc., at that time prevented me from illustrating his
other works, which he wished me to have done, but I do not remember ever
having any written correspondence with him, as the MS. or printed matter
was placed in my hands for illustration; and then I had entirely to deal
with the publisher. Mr. Charles Lever was an author whom I held in high
estimation." Lever himself was highly gratified with these
illustrations.
THE FINAL LEAP IN THE DARK.
By 1845, that is to say, at least two years before he had taken his
final leap in the dark, Cruikshank had contrived to pick quarrels with
the very class of men whom it was his special interest to conciliate,
and had been driven to set up an opposition serial of his own--the
celebrated "Table Book"--which, notwithstanding the superlative
excellence of his own illustrations and the talent of his literary
contributors, comprising such names as John Oxenford, Horace Mayhew,
Shirley Brooks, Mark Lemon, W. M. Thackeray, and others, could not
manage to prolong its existence beyond its first volume. In matters
connected with his own interests he was not only impracticable, but
seems to have been remarkably destitute of tact and even of discernment.
It cannot be doubted that the estrangement from Bentley was unwise and
impolitic, for as one of the greatest publishers of fiction of the day,
his influence was both far-reaching and comprehensive. In quarrelling
with Dickens, Ainsworth, and Bentley, three of the great artistic
employers of labour of his time, and in face of the growing popularity
of John Leech and Hablot Knight Browne, he was literally quarrelling
with his bread and butter, and few men, even of genius, may afford to do
that. He was essentially impulsive, and frequently acted under the
influence of first impressions. Although fond of his pipe and his glass,
as his famous _Reverie_,--_The Triumph of Cupid_, in the "Table Book,"
will show, he had always evinced a horror of drink, and had, as we have
seen, done his best at various times to expose its insidious and baneful
influences. At last, in 1847, came a sudden and extraordinary impulse of
enthusiasm, under the influence of which he not only produced his
_Bottle_, but laid aside for ever his pipe and his bowl. To do any real
good, he said he must practise what he preached: he joined the
"teetotallers," and not being one of those who did things by halves,
entered heart and soul into the crusade against drink by becoming a
temperance advocate. This last was the one step needed to fill up the
measure of the artist's folly, and to secure for him the reputation of
being an incurably eccentric, self-willed man.
Those who would charge the author with blaming George Cruikshank for
joining the ranks of the teetotallers will do him grave injustice.
Although very much of the opinion of Robert Burton, author of the
"Anatomy of Melancholy," that, "No verses can please men or live long
that are written by water-drinkers," and disposed to undervalue the tact
and discretion of some of the advocates of total abstinence, for its
abstract principles he can say and think nothing but what is good. But
he is writing, be it remembered, of a great artist--one whose mission
was that of an artist, not that of a _temperance orator_,--of one who
had served the righteous and good cause of temperance _best_ when he
remembered that genius had made him an artist and not a temperance
orator,--of one who had rendered that cause yeoman's service long before
he joined the total abstainers, in designing _The Gin Juggernaut_, _The
Gin Trap_, and work of a kindred nature. The cause, too, so far as mere
verbal advocacy was concerned, was better served by men of vastly
inferior mark and ability. Before this fatal plunge was taken his genius
had roamed in an absolutely uncontrolled range of freedom. He had
travelled into the land of chivalry and romance, into the realms of
fairy fancy, magic, and diablery; he had brought back with him pictures
of the wondrous people, lands, and scenes which his fancy had visited.
All this was at an end; this wonderful genius was now forced into a
narrow groove, where it could no longer have the freedom of action which
was essential to its very existence. From the moment that George
Cruikshank turned temperance _orator_, the world of English art lost one
of its brightest ornaments, and he himself both fame and fortune; for,
as Mr. Bates observes, "some of his earliest friends were alienated, and
remunerative work that might have been his was diverted, from sheer
prejudice, into other hands." His style, too, as Mr. Bates further
remarks, "suffered by the contraction of his ideas and sympathies, and
his art became associated with that vulgarity and want of aestheticism
which perhaps necessarily characterizes the movement." _The Bottle_ and
_The Drunkard's Children_, although successful in a pecuniary point of
view--compared with what had gone before,--can scarcely be called _art_
at all; in these too he unconsciously put himself in competition with
Hogarth, and as a matter of necessity failed.
He had been a king among designers and etchers; he had been and was
still an admirable water-colour artist, but knew comparatively little of
the manipulation or management of oils. A new crusade had however to be
preached, to be preached by means of an oil painting; and for this
purpose George was to be inspired off hand (so to speak) with a new art,
and to paint a picture in oils. We know the result--the lamentable
result--in that most preposterous _Worship of Bacchus_. His motive was
good, his ideas were vast, but the _genius_ which in his unregenerate
days had enabled him to design _The Gin Trap_ and the _The Gin
Juggernaut_, was no longer there. Unhappy Rip! There is more
poetry--more fancy--more romance--more art--fire--genius in one of the
little "bits," nine inches by six, executed in the days of his pipe and
his glass, than in any one part or portion of this most gigantic
failure.
The mere fact of his joining the ranks of the total abstainers would
have done him perhaps little professional mischief, had he been content
simply to join them, and aid their cause, as he had once so graphically
done by depicting the evils of gin drinking and intemperance; but it was
one of the failings as well as one of the virtues of this impulsive,
earnest man's character, that whatever his hand found to do, "he did it
with his might." Desiring to aid them to the best of his power, he
mistook the means by which that aid might best be applied, and forgot
that his talents lay not in the tongue but in his hand and his head. We
look upon George Cruikshank after 1849, no longer as an artist, but as a
very indifferent temperance lecturer. The reign of Fancy was over.
Thenceforth no "Reveries," no "Jack o' Lanterns," no "Gin Juggernauts,"
would come from that indefatigable hand, that fertile brain, that
wondrous and facile pencil. George Cruikshank took his _Worship of
Bacchus_, and went out into the world (heaven save the mark!) as a
temperance lecturer. His literary abilities were, however, small; he
lacked even that "gentle dulness"[95] which characterizes the leading
advocates of the movement, and kindles a certain amount of sympathetic
enthusiasm in kindred breasts. The dull people who went to hear him,
knew little about and cared less for art and genius than they did for
the abstract doctrines of total abstinence. The result, so far as he
personally was concerned, was curious, lamentable, and almost
instantaneous. The work which had hitherto crowded upon him fell away
like water from a leaking vessel; nay, on the authority of Mr. William
Bates, when work was offered him he refused to take it. "When pressed by
the late Mark Lemon to draw on his own terms for _Punch_," this man who
had designed some of the broadest, coarsest, most personal of the
satires of the nineteenth century, had grown so extremely particular
that "he definitely refused to have anything to do with it on account of
what he termed its personalities."[96] What could be done for such a man
as this? Authors and publishers wholly ceased to employ him; and he was
left without work in the very pride of his artistic career. He turned to
oil painting; was taken by the hand by the influential few who
appreciated, pitied, and loved him; but from the moment that he became a
temperance advocate, to the literary world and to the general public
this most singular and original genius was to all practical intents and
purposes--dead.
These observations, I repeat, are made in no spirit of hostility to the
sincere and earnest men who would seek to reduce the crime and misery
which owe their origin to the immoderate use of ardent spirits. So far
from this being the case, I hold their cause to be so righteous, so
sensible, that it seems to me as effectually advocated by a plain,
simple, earnest man as by a great artist and man of genius. I say
advisedly, that the cause of temperance had been better served had
Cruikshank stuck to his pencil and his etching needle, instead of
seeking the position of a temperance advocate, and stumping the
provinces with his absurd panorama of _The Worship of Bacchus_.
Thirty years of quite sterling and admirable work were now to be
followed by thirty years of artistic sterility, for from this Rip Van
Winkle slumber of thirty years' duration his reputation never once
awoke. Out of the dreary desert of mental and artistic inactivity came
forth at long distant intervals specimens of his handiwork, which
served, it is true, to remind us of what he once was capable, but failed
to restore him to the place he had for ever lost in public estimation;
such were the illustrations to Angus Bethune Reach's "Clement Lorymer,"
to Robert Brough's "Life of Sir John Falstaff," to Smedley's "Frank
Fairleigh," to George Raymond's "Life and Enterprises of Elliston," to
his own _so-called_ "Fairy Library." Good and excellent as this work
was, it utterly failed to lend even a passing vitality to his departed
reputation, a fact sufficiently and vexatiously proved when he essayed
once more to start a magazine of his own, which met with such little
encouragement that _only two parts were issued_.
Nevertheless, the designs of the "Life of Falstaff" and his own "Fairy
Library" showed that, when the subject took hold of his fancy, the hand
of Cruikshank had not altogether lost the cunning which characterized it
in days of yore. To illustrate the so-called fairy stories, he had to
read them,--no longer, alas! with his former love of fairy lore and
legend,--no longer with the mind of a man free, vigorous, elastic, but
with a mind warped and prejudiced with the study of a theme which was
intellectually depressing and uninspiring. No one knows the origin of
these fairy stories, they come to us from our Danish and Saxon
ancestors, but are interwoven with the literature of every civilized
nation under the sun, and are altogether beyond the sphere of modern
criticism. Their primitive style is singularly adapted to enlist the
sympathies of the little folk to whom they specially address themselves:
their highest aim and object is not to instruct, but to amuse. All this
the artist, in the ardour of his new crusade, lost sight of, and so dead
had he become to the fairy fancies and reveries of his youth, that he
placed sacrilegious hands on these time-honoured and favourite legends
of our childhood, and converted them (with most indifferent literary
ability) into something little better than temperance _tracts_!
But happily not without protest. Charles Dickens, the champion of the
injured fairies, set his lance in rest, and speedily rolled hapless Van
Winkle in the dust. Into the details of this very absurd and very
unequal contest there is no necessity for us to enter. George was at
home with his pencil, his etching needle, or his tubes of water colour;
but put a pen in his hand, and he forthwith would cut the funniest of
capers. He argued (with every appearance of comical gravity and
earnestness), that because Shakespeare might alter an Italian story, or
Sir Walter Scott use history for the purposes of the drama, poetry, or
romance, therefore, "any one might take the liberty of altering a common
fairy story to suit his purpose and convey his opinions." Aye, and so he
might, honest Rip; but he would set about his task in a very different
fashion to Shakespeare or Sir Walter Scott, and I fear too that the
literary results and value would be vastly different. It never seemed to
occur to the mind of the honest but simple casuist that in putting "any
one" on a par with William Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, he was
writing simple nonsense.
It is clear, therefore, that the change which had come over the
literature of fiction during the past quarter of a century, and which
Professor Bates would assign as one of the principal causes of the
sterility which befell the genius of Cruikshank, had really very little
to do with it. This calamity--for a national calamity it undoubtedly
was--did not fall upon him, be it remembered, when he was old, but in
the very acme and pride of artistic success. His fall was distinctly due
to causes which were within his own control, and might have been avoided
by the exercise of qualities which (it seems to me) he did not
possess,--forethought, tact, and judgment. During the rest of his long
life, the place which George Cruikshank deliberately ceded to others he
never once regained; when he dropped behind, he became as completely
forgotten as if he had ceased any longer to exist; men whose childhood
he had delighted with his quaint imaginings, his own friends and
contemporaries, died off; and so it came to pass, that before he knew
it, for time moves quickly after youth is over, the old man was left
standing alone amongst the ranks of a generation that did not know him.
So little was he known or regarded, that when his works were _first_
exhibited, no one took the trouble to see them; and when a small circle
of admirers, with the great English critic, John Ruskin, at their head,
started a subscription for the forgotten artist, "the attempt was a
failure--hundreds being received when thousands were expected." It will
be remembered that in his best days the artist had executed a memorable
etching, _Born a Genius and Born a Dwarf_: I wonder whether, in the
bitterness of his spirit and the righteousness of his anger, George
Cruikshank ever thought of that etching?
FOOTNOTES:
[94] Mr. Blanchard Jerrold.
[95] "And gentle dulness ever loves a joke."--_Dunciad._
[96] "The Maclise Portrait Gallery," 1883, p. 195.