Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/266

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knowledged reputation as a caricaturist; but after 1825 his activity in this direction seems to have declined in favour of book illustration. It would be impossible to enumerate his performances in this way, but much detailed information upon the subject is to be found in Bates's ‘George Cruikshank,’ 1879, and Everitt's ‘English Caricaturists,’ 1886. ‘Lessons of Thrift,’ 1820, Hibbert's ‘Tales of the Cordelier Metamorphosed,’ 1821, Westmacott's ‘Points of Misery’ (a pendant to his brother's ‘Points of Humour’), 1823, ‘Don Quixote,’ 1824, Westmacott's ‘English Spy,’ 1825, ‘Facetiæ; or, Cruikshank's Comic Album,’ are some of the books to which he furnished embellishments. At times he worked in collaboration with his brother George. Nightingale's ‘Memoirs of Queen Caroline,’ 1820, ‘Life in London,’ 1821, ‘London Characters,’ 1827, the ‘Universal Songster; or, Museum of Mirth,’ 1828, are among the works in this category; and he also joined with Robert Seymour in the illustrations to the ‘Odd Volume; or, Book of Variety;’ with R. W. Buss and Kenny Meadows; and, in Daniel's ‘Merrie England in the Olden Time,’ 1841, even with Leech. Perhaps the ‘Life in London,’ or, to quote the title more at length, ‘The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis,’ 1821, is the most notable of the foregoing list—at all events, if popularity is to be the test of merit. The greater part of the illustrations—two-thirds, it is said—were by Robert Cruikshank; and his son (according to Blanchard Jerrold, Life of George Cruikshank, 1883, pp. 82–3) claimed the original idea for his father, who, he says, ‘conceived the notion, and planned the designs, while showing a brother-in-law, just returned from China, some of the “life” which was going on in London at the time. He designed the characters of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, from himself, his brother-in-law, and Pierce Egan, keeping to the likenesses of each model.’ Pierce Egan, here mentioned, was the editor of ‘Boxiana,’ and the purveyor of much of the ‘fast’ and sporting literature of the time. He supplied the text, which was ‘dedicated to His Most Gracious Majesty George the Fourth,’ not, it is reported, an unfamiliar assistant at some of the saturnalia in which Tom and Jerry took part. The success of ‘Life in London’ was remarkable, and wholly unexpected by its publishers, Messrs. Sherwood, Neely, & Jones. Its characters became as popular as those of the ‘Beggar's Opera,’ and Tom and Jerry, Dusty Bob and Corinthian Kate, were transferred to handkerchiefs and teatrays as freely as Macheath and Polly had been to fanmounts and snuffboxes. It was several times successfully dramatised; and it seems, like Gay's ‘Newgate Pastoral,’ to have been more reasonably, but quite as ineffectually, assailed by contemporary moralists. Some years later Egan and Cruikshank endeavoured to revive the interest in the three heroes of ‘Life in London’ by a sequel entitled ‘The Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic in their Pursuits through Life in and out of London,’ 1828; but the effort, the initiation of which was wholly due to the artist, was not attended with any special success. Between the appearance of the ‘Life’ and its sequel Cruikshank had been employed upon another book purporting to give pictures of life, which is really more important. This was the ‘English Spy’ (1825) of Charles Molloy Westmacott, a book which contains many curious representations of society in the metropolis and other fashionable centres, and, reproducing many well-known characters, ranges easily from Brighton and Carlton House to Billingsgate and the Argyle Rooms. Rowlandson did one of the illustrations; but the other seventy-one are by Cruikshank, to whom Westmacott, masquerading himself as ‘Bernard Blackmantle,’ gave the nom de guerre of ‘Robert Transit.’ Among other books on which Cruikshank was engaged are ‘Doings in London,’ 1828, with illustrations on wood engraved by Bonner; ‘Crithannah's Original Fables,’ 1834; ‘Colburn's Kalendar of Amusements,’ 1840; and ‘The Orphan’ (a translation of the ‘Mathilde’ of Eugène Sue). He died on 13 March 1856, in his sixty-seventh year. It is possible that his reputation may have suffered to some extent from the superior popularity of his brother George. But it is certain that with many happy qualities as a draughtsman and pictorial satirist, he had neither the individuality, the fancy, nor the originality of his junior. As a man he was a pleasant and lively companion, but too easily seduced by the pleasures of the table. It is further recorded that he was an exceedingly skilful archer.

[Everitt's English Caricaturists, 1886, pp. 89–124; Jerrold's Life of George Cruikshank, 2nd edit. 1883; Redgrave; Bates's George Cruikshank, 2nd edit. 1879, pp. 57–69.]

A. D.

CRUIKSHANK, WILLIAM CUMBERLAND (1745–1800), anatomist, was born in Edinburgh in 1745, his father having been an excise officer. He was educated at Edinburgh and Glasgow universities, and graduated M.A. at the latter in 1767. Besides