the plates. Yet this doggerel and this burlesque upon humorous art were popular and profitable, at the very time when Scott, Moore, Campbell, Southey, Wordsworth, and Byron, were enjoying the fulness of fame in England.

Thomas Rowlandson, with his vulgar burlesque and buffoonery, is not worthy of being named on the same day with George Cruikshank. The difference between them is like that between low farce and pure comedy. Not groundlessly did Christopher North say, in the immortal Noctes, George Cruikshank is far more than the prince of caricaturists; a man who regards the outgoings of life with the eye of genius; and he has a clear insight through the exterior of manners into the passions of the heart. He has wit as well as humour-feeling as well as fancy-and his original vein appears to be inexhaustible. It is as difficult, sometimes, to ascertain the age of an artist as it proverbially is to fix that of a-woman. That of Cruikshank has usually been set down rather loosely, as "he was born about the year 1796." If so, he must have been an illustrator of Magazines at the precocious age of twelve, for we have on our table a copy of The Scourge (a scurrilous London magazine, of which more anon), published in 1808, a large engraving, etched by himself on copper, bold and free in the drawing, and very much in Gilray's broadest manner. The subject is the Prince of Wales; and with a freedom that would not be tolerated now, he introduced no less a personage than Lady Yarmouth, afterwards Marchioness of Hertford, the favourite sultana at that time, who gets many sharp hits in Moore's earlier satirical poems, particularly "The Twopenny Postbag." The obese figure of the Prince (afterwards Byron's "Leviathan of Royalty," as George the Fourth), and his enormous whiskers, elaborate fictions, were literally hit off to a hair" in this early caricature.

In that useful hand-book, "Men of the Time," for 1867, Cruikshank is set down as having been born in London on September 27, 1792. This makes him now in his seventysixth year, and the veteran, notwithstanding his age, is the active colonel of a volunteer corps in London. His father, a clever water-colour draughtsman, who sometimes drew tolerable caricatures, put a pencil into his hands at an unusually early age, perceiving that he had a strong natural talent for drawing. He lost his father while yet a child, and was brought up by his elder brother, the late Robert Isaac Cruikshank, whose inferior productions

have sometimes been mistaken for his. Even while yet a schoolboy, George Cruikshank was employed to illustrate popular songs and children's books. His ambition led him to study in the Royal Academy, and he was admitted by Mr. Fuseli, Professor of Painting in that institution from 1799 to 1804, but received so little encouragement that he attended only once as a student, though he became an exhibitor at a much later date. He was the regular illustrator, from about 1806 until they perished from want of subscribers, of two monthlies, The Scourge and The Meteor, edited with abundant scurrility, and chiefly relying on the clever caricatures supplied by Cruikshank. After these magazines were discontinued, Cruikshank lived from hand to mouth," for some years, principally by making political caricatures for publishers, without caring which party he raised the laugh against. One of these, certainly equal to any thing ever done by Gilray, appeared in 1815, after the Restoration of the Bourbons, and represented Lous XVIII. trying to pull on Bonaparte's boots, a sharp hit at a brief attempt to govern the monarchy by the measures which had created the Empire.

At last came the accession of George the Fourth, followed by the persecution and prosecution of Caroline of Brunswick, the thoughtless and imprudent wife whom he had deserted even in their honeymoon, twenty-five years before. William Hone, who, in December, had narrowly escaped conviction in three distinct trials on charges of blasphemy, for having published parodies on parts of the Book of Common Prayer, had manfully defended himself, and, being acquitted, proved that every man who is his own lawyer does not, necessarily, have "a fool for his client." His Report of these three trials ran through nineteen editions in the next twelve months, and to the money thus gained was added a large sum raised by subscription among the ultra-liberals of that day, usually called Radicals, because they contended for "Radical Reform in Church and State.' Hone, who had repeatedly failed in business as a bookseller (he never succeeded in any undertaking, except book-making, and even that brought him more fame than profit), went into the business again, and, taking advantage of the popular furore in favour of Queen Caroline, published a number of political and social satires in favour of her Majesty and against the King and his Ministers, the designs of which were supplied by Cruikshank, who took to his work with great spirit and

success.

His name was well known among "the trade," for the London publishers of caricatures,-chiefly Humphrey of St. James's Street, Sidebotham of the Strand, Johnson of Cheapside, and Fores of Piccadilly,-had been almost exclusively supplied by him for some years. Among the most popular of the Cruikshank-Hone political satires were "The House that Jack Built," "The Political Showman at Home," "The Man in the Moon," "Poor Mr. Brendo," and "The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, "-one hundred thousand copies of each of these being sold. Cruikshank rose with the occasion, and showed himself a great artist. The letter-press of these brochures was mostly written by Hone, whose "EveryDay Book" and "Table Book" now belong to the standard literature of England, and usually consisted of rattlingrhymes, easily retained in the memory. The greatest production of this class, however, was a "Slap at Slop," representing a newspaper, the size of the then 'broad sheet of The Times, in which Dr., afterwards Sir John, Stoddard, then editing "The Thunderer," was soundly ridiculed and berated, in company with the Prince Regent, Southey, the Constitutional Association, George Canning, Lords Sidmouth, Eldon, and Liverpool, and, more especially, the duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh, the last nicknamed "Derrydown Triangle," to indicate at once his birthplace and the cruel whippings which he permitted, if he did not order, to be inflicted upon merely suspected persons in Ireland during the Rebellion of Ninety-eight. The whole was a parody upon a daily newspaper of the time; advertisements, articles of intelligence, leading articles, police reports, reviews of books, poetry, and miscellaneous paragraphs being cleverly burlesqued, with numerous illustrations, from Cruikshank's drawings interspersed through the whole. Even the

parody of the Government red stamp was a political caricature in miniature. The Slap at Slop preceded the amusing publications which raised the public laugh against the Queen's opponents, had an enormous sale, at one shilling per copy. It has become so rare that George Cruikshank himself did not own a copy of it in 1850. Perhaps the only copy in the United States is that in our own possession. The Queen's death, in August, 1821, took away a profitable subject from Cruikshank, but there remained considerable fierceness and personality in British politics. Cruikshank, a liberal in grain, worked admirably for whoever paid him, at that

time, and hence his caricatures of Brougham, Grey, Mackintosh, Joseph Hume, Peter Moore, little Waddington, Sir Francis Burdett, Grey Bennet, and William Cobbett, were as amusing as those of their Tory rivals had previously been. But the hour of his deliverance from thus making bricks without straw was at hand.

There was a certain Pierce Egan in London half a century ago, who, being editor of a sporting paper, and the annalist of the prize-ring, had compiled several volumes, with portraits of noted pugilists, which he entitled "Boxiana." It had pleased Professor John Wilson, who was what Charles Kingsley calls "a muscular Christian," to write several articles in Blackwood's Magazine, highly eulogistic of these records of the Fancy, as well as of Sporting Anecdotes by the same author. These contributed to make Egan popular, and to him, therefore, Cruikshank applied to write a book illustrative of the mischievous, if pleasant, practices of seeing what was called "life" in the Modern Babylon. His original idea was to tell a story in a series of pictures,-without accompanying letter-press, if possible, which he accomplished in "The Bottle" five-and-twenty years later. Egan professed to enter into the artist's spirit, and began a serial tale, entitled "Life in London," which, as it proceeded, ran so entirely counter to the artist's purpose that he abandoned it in disgust, his brother Robert undertaking to finish the plates. This work, which was far more popular than even "Dr. Syntax" had been, was still more successful when dramatized, under the name of "Tom and Jerry." It is the nature of some authors to run a good idea into the earth. Therefore "Life in Paris" followed "Life in London," and there was a "Life in Ireland," redolent of poteen and resonant with the clangour of hostile shillalahs, which closed the series. But, though the other Cruikshank perpetrated the designs for these, George, who originated the plan, got the credit, which was not much. It made him better known, however, as a great deal more than a caricaturist. Publishers began to see that he was a winning card in their hands.

His first independent publication was "Points of Humour," the opening number of which appeared early in 1823, with a dozen etchings and fifty pages of well-written letter-press. Blackwood's Magazine, for July, 1823, gave an article of eight pages, praising this work, and thereby helped to establish its author's reputation. Henceforth, VOL. XVII.-NO. XXXIII. 8

he had as much employment as he could undertake, in illustrating books. Sometimes he etched his designs on copper, but generally drew them on wood for the engraver. He must have received a total of heavy payments from 1823 to 1868. Among the works which he illustrated literally with thousands of original designs, are Grimm's German Stories, Mornings in Bond-street, Tales of Irish Life, Hans of Iceland, the Epping Hunt, John Gilpin, Three Courses and a Dessert, Punch and Judy, the British Novelists, the Waverley Novels, numerous biographies, histories, and travels; poems and stories; many magazines; a number of Ainsworth's romances; Greenwich Hospital; Dickens's Sunday in London, Life of Grimaldi, Sketches by Boz, and Oliver Twist. His own publications proper, besides the Points of Humour, are Illustrations of Time, Illustrations of Phrenology, My Sketch-Book, Cruikshank's Omnibus (in conjunction with the late Laman Blanchard), and The Table Book. He also published Cruikshank's Comic Almanac, illustrated by himself, and the letter-press by the best writers of light literature, which appeared long before Punch was established, and flourished for some years after. In the last thirty years, Cruikshank has been the advocate, by precept, practice, and pencil, of the Temperance question. Latterly, he has painted a good deal in oils, successfully shown in the Royal Academy Exhibition, but his latest and largest oil-painting, which he took down to Windsor Castle in 1863, at the request of Queen Victoria, is "The Worship of Bacchus," from which an engraving has been made. Mr. Cruikshank is an effective public speaker, and was one of the best amateur performers in Charles Dickens's dramatic entertainments for the benefit of the Guild of Literature and Art. He has a small pension from the Crown. It is singular that, with his great powers as a pictorial satirist, George Cruikshank has not contributed to Punch. In his own Omnibus and Table Book are several satirical illustrations far superior in merit to most of those in the professedly comic periodicals.

There is now on the press, in London, a "Caricature History of the Georges; or, Annals of the House of Hanover: compiled from the Squibs, Broadsides, Window-Pictures, Lampoons, and Pictorial Caricatures of the Time;" from the pen of Mr. Thomas Wright, the translator into English of the Emperor Napoleon's "Vie de Jules César," and editor of the collection of Gilray's