We now turn to the lighter side of his topical journalism. One of his
subjects was gas-lighting. _The Good Effects of Carbonic Gas_ (1807)
depicts one cat swooning and another cut off from the list of living
prime donne by the maleficence of Winzer's illuminant. In 1833
Cruikshank reported a ghost as saying to a fellow-shade, "Ah! brother,
we never has no fun now; this 'March of Intellect' and the Gaslights
have done us up."
Jenner had him for both partisan (1808) and opponent (1812). In the
former role he makes a Jennerite say, "Surely the disorder of the Cow is
preferable to that of the Ass," and the realism is nauseous that
accompanies the remark. As opponent he wittily follows Gillray, who in
1802 imagined an inoculated man as calving from his arms. Prominent in
Cruikshank's caricature (a bitter one) is a sarcophagus upon which lies
a cow whom Time is decapitating. "To the Memory of Vaccina who died
April the First," is the touching inscription.
I have already mentioned Cruikshank as a chronicler of fashion. Gillray
was his master in this form of art, though the statement does not rest
on the two examples here given. The thoughtful reader will not fail to
admire the incongruity between the children in the drawing of 1826 and
the great verities of Nature--cliff and sea--between which they strut.
The latter drawing is as grotesquely logical as a syllogism by Lewis
Carroll. Comparable with it in persuasiveness is Cruikshank's
short-skirted lady (December 1833) who is alarmed at her own shadow,
which naturally exaggerates the distance between her ankles and her
skirt. Thence one turns for contrast to the caricature of crinolines in
"The Comic Almanack" for 1850. It is called _A Splendid Spread_, and
represents gentlemen handing refreshments to ladies across wildernesses
of "dress-extenders" by means of long baker's peels. Such drawing
educates; it has the value of criticism.
[Illustration: JUVENILE MONSTROSITIES, published January 24, 1826.]
This praise is tributary to Cruikshank's second journalistic period. By
journalistic I mean topical, attendant on the passing hour. His first
journalistic period begins formally with his first properly signed
caricature, an etching praised by Mr F. G. Stephens, entitled _Cobbett
at Court, or St James's in a bustle_, and published by W. Deans, October
16, 1807. This period includes Cruikshank's contributions to "The
Satirist," "The Scourge," "Town Talk" and "The Meteor." It merges into
the second period in 1819, the year that saw the first three volumes of
"The Humourist." The principal journalistic works of this second
journalistic period are _Coriolanus addressing the Plebeians_ (1820),
"Scraps and Sketches" (1828-1832), "The Comic Almanack" (1835-1853),
"George Cruikshank's Omnibus" (1842), and "George Cruikshank's Table
Book" (1845).
_Coriolanus_ is less a caricature than a _tableau vivant_. It was
invented by J. S., whom Mr Layard says was Cruikshank's gifted servant
Joseph Sleap. The "Plebeians" are Thistlewood the conspirator, Cobbett
armed with Tom Paine's thigh bones, Wooler as a black dwarf, Hone,
George Cruikshank, etc. George IV., in his Shakespearean role abuses
them soundly. As regards the monarch, the work is un-Cruikshankian; its
laborious and minute technique is a foreshadowing of a happier
carefulness.
The journalism of "Scraps and Sketches" is immortal in _The Age of
Intellect_ (1828), which even Mrs Meynell, writing as Alice Thompson,
found "most laughable." Here a babe whose toy-basket is filled with the
works of Milton, Bentley, Gibbon, etc., learnedly explains the process
of sucking eggs to a gaping grandmother, who suspends her perusal of
"Who Killed Cock Robin?" while she declares that "they are making
improvements in everything!" To my mind the best topical plate in
"Scraps and Sketches" is _London going out of Town, or the March of
Bricks and Mortar_ (1829). No one who has seen a suburb grow inexorably
in field and orchard, obliterating gracious forms and sealing up the
live earth, can miss the pathos of this masterpiece. Yet it is not a
thing for tears, but that half smile which Andersen continually elicits
by his evocation of humanity from tree and bird and toy. For Cruikshank
gives lamenting and terrified humanity to hayricks pursued by filthy
smoke. He gives devilish energy to a figure, artfully composed of
builder's implements, which saws away at a dying branch; and he imparts
an abominable insolence to a similarly composed figure which holds up
the notice board of Mr Goth.
[Illustration: _Fatal effects of tight lacing & large Bonnets_