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all their real deformity," of which he speaks, are a couple of idiots, one Peregrine Wilson, and an attendant mentor, whom we drop at the earliest convenient opportunity. Information combined with morality is all very well. The "History of Sandford and Merton" may have been, as Lord Houghton assures us it was, “the delight of the youth of the first generation of the present century." As one of the youth of the generation referred to, we refuse to admit it, and we are perfectly certain that the youth of the present generation would have nothing whatever to do with it. We resign ourselves preferentially to the guidance of Isaac Robert and George Cruikshank, sensible that they at least, while conversant with the scenes they so graphically describe, will not bore us with unnecessary moral reflections. We prefer, if the truth must be told, to "sport a toe among the Corinthians at Almack's" with hookednosed Tom and rosy-cheeked Jerry; to visit with these merry and by no means strait-laced persons, Mr. O'Shaunessy's rooms in the Haymarket; the back parlour of the respected Thomas Cribb, ex-champion of England; to take wine with them "in the wood" at the London Docks; to enjoy with them, if they will," the humours of a masquerade supper at the opera house." The work which Smeeton designed with such indifferent success was subsequently carried out in a far more efficient manner by Mr. James Grant, in his "Sketches in London,"* and at a later date by Mr. Mayhew, in his well-known "London Labour and the London Poor."

The "Doings in London" owe whatever value they possess to the thirty-nine curious designs on wood of Isaac Robert Cruikshank, engraved by W. C. Bonner, which, on the whole fair examples of his workmanship in this style, strongly remind us of the smaller woodcuts in Hone's "Every-Day Book."

The best specimens, however, of Robert's designs on wood are those which will be found in two small volumes, known indifferently as "Facetic" and "Cruikshank's Comic Album," which contain a

• W. S. Orr & Co., 1838.

series of jeux d'esprits, published between the years 1830 and 1832, and comprising Old Bootey's Ghost and The Man of Intellect, by W. F. Moncrieff; The High-mettled Racer and Monsieur Nong tongpaw, by Charles Dibdin; Margate, and Brighton; The Devil's Visit; Steamers and Stages; Monsieur Touson; Monsieur Mallet, by H. W. Montague; Mathew's Comic Annual (a miserable mélange by our friend Pierce Egan); the famous Devil's Walk, by Coleridge and Southey, etc., etc. These little volumes, which are now rare, contain nearly one hundred excellent examples of Robert Cruikshank's workmanship, the woodcuts being executed after the artist's designs by W. C. Bonner and other wood engravers of eminence. We can stay only to describe one, which illustrates one of the many experiences of John Bull in his memorable visit to France. Struck with the appearance of a French lady, "young and gay," the stanza tells us—

"Struck by her charms. he ask'd her name

Of the first man he saw ;

From whom, with shrugs, no answer came

But, 'Je vous n'entends pas.'

Three other books (two of them exceedingly rare) must suffice to complete our survey of Robert's merits as a designer and book illustrator. These are "Colburn's Kalendar of Amusements" (1840), 1833 "Job Crithannah's Original Fables" (1834), and Eugene Sue's

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Orphan." There is an Irishman sitting on a barrel in one of the woodcuts to the "Kalendar," who quite equals any of the Hiber-. nians of George. The eighty-four designs to the "Fables" are admirable specimens of the artist's best manner, and George himself rarely executed better illustrations than those of the Farmer and the Pointer, at page 110, The Cow and the Farmer, at page 163, and The Old Woman and her Cat, at page 219. This rare and choice book abounds with admirable tailpieces; one of which exhibits a sufferer down in the agonies of gout, the treatment of which subject may even be compared with the more elaborate and admirable design by the brother described by Thackeray. Sue's "Orphan "

ROBERT'S BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS.

123

has numerous carefully executed etchings by the artist, after the style and manner of his brother; in the very signature, "Robert Cruikshank," we trace a distinct copy of George's peculiar trademark or sign-manual. Mr. Walter Hamilton, in his essay on the brother, presents us with a dozen copies of Robert's designs, eight of which, although unacknowledged, are taken from Crithannah's "Fables," and will bear as much comparison with the original and beautiful woodcuts as the work of a common sign-painter with a finished painting by Landseer. A detailed but probably imperfect list of the artist's book work will be found in the appendix.

The name of Robert Cruikshank has slipped out of the place it once occupied in public estimation; and his good work and his poor work being equally scarce, his name and his claims to rank high among the number of English caricaturists and comic artists have been forgotten even by the survivors of the generation to which he himself belonged. In bringing to the remembrance of those who do know, and to the knowledge of those who do not know, some of the work which entitled him in our judgment to occupy a leading place amongst the number of those of whom we write, we have endeavoured to brush away the dust of oblivion which for so many years has obscured the name and reputation of an artist, who, in spite of much slovenliness and carelessness of execution, was both an able caricaturist and a skilful draughtsman. George writes of his dead brother in terms of affection, and describes him as "a very clever miniature and portrait painter, and also a designer and etcher;" his friend and coadjutor, the late George Daniel, gives him credit for genius, of which however (in the sense in which we use and understand the word) he did not possess a particle. He tells us that "he was apt to conceive and prompt to execute; he had a quick eye and a ready hand; with all his extravagant drollery, his drawing is anatomically correct; his details are minute, expressive, and of careful finish, and his colouring is bright and delicate." In the early part of his career, as we have seen, the two brothers had been so closely associated in life and in art, that the history of Robert is, to some extent, the history of George; but when they

separated, when each was left to his own individual resources, George then struck into a path which neither Robert nor any of his contemporaries might hope to follow. By the time Robert had realized this fact, H3 had appeared, and the art of caricaturing, as theretofore practised, received a blow from which it will never rally. Besides being an able water colour artist, he had at one time achieved some reputation as a portrait painter; but the latter pursuit he had long practically abandoned, while success in the former required a closer application and the exercise of a greater amount of patience than a man of his age and temperament could afford to bestow. He was, in fact, too old to commence life afresh ; and so it came inevitably to pass that, as his brother did in after life (but from causes, as we shall see, widely different), Robert gradually dropped behind and was forgotten. He had not the genius or pride in his art of his brother, and looked rather to that art as a means of present livelihood than of acquiring a permanent and enduring reputation. If George-with all his pride in his art, with all his genius, with all his rare gifts of imagination and fancy-was destined to be left behind in the race of life, what could poor Robert hope for? It is sad to think that in later life, poor easygoing, thriftless, careless, Bohemian Robert sank into neglect and consequent poverty. He died (of bronchitis) on the 13th of March, 1856, in his sixty-sixth year.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CARICATURES OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

JUST sixty years ago, a writer in Blackwood spoke of the subject of the present chapter (then a young man who had already acquired an artistic reputation) in the following terms :—

"It is high time that the public should think more than they have hitherto done of George Cruikshank; and it is also high time that George Cruikshank should begin to think more than he seems to have done hitherto of himself. Generally speaking, people consider him as a clever, sharp caricaturist, and nothing more; a free-handed, comical young fellow, who will do anything he is paid for, and who is quite contented to dine off the proceeds of a 'George IV.' to-day, and those of a 'Hone,' or a 'Cobbett' to-morrow. He himself, indeed, appears to be the most careless creature alive, as touching his reputation. He seems to have no plan-almost no ambition—and, I apprehend, not much industry. He does just what is suggested or thrown in his way, pockets the cash, orders his beef-steak and bowl, and chaunts, like one of his own heroes,

'Life is all a variorium,
We regard not how it goes.'

Now, for a year or two to begin with, this is just what it should be. Cruikshank was resolved to see Life,* and his sketches show that he has seen it, in some of its walks, to purpose.

art is long; and our gay friend must pull up.

But life is short, and

"Perhaps he is not aware of the fact himself-but a fact it

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SIXTY YEARS AGO

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