The Life of George Cruikshank in Two Epochs, Vol. 1. (of 2)

llustrating a biography of the knight, written in Robert Brough's happiest manner. Cruikshank's twenty Falstaff etchings are a

Messrs. Longman

ient gloomy market-place as well as Mr. Front or Mr. Nash. What could be more picturesque, or daintier in the play of light, or happier in the variety of the architecture, than the backgrounds of the scenes where Sir John is arrested at the suit of Mrs. Quickly, or when the knight not only persuades Mrs. Q

y Sir John Gilbert (who, by the way, in his youth delighted in copying Cruikshank's etchings and drawings on wood); but it i

owell's "Biglow Papers" (1859), Dudley Costello's "Holiday with Hobgoblins" (1861), "The Bee and the Wasp; a Fable in Verse" (1861), "A Discovery concerning Ghosts" (1863), Robert Hunt's "Popular Romances of the West of England" (1865), the "Savage Club Papers" (1867), "The Oak," a magazine, edited by his friend the Rev. Charles Rogers (1868), "Coila's Whispers," by the Knight of Morar (1869), "The Brownies," and other tales, by Juliana Horatia Ewing (1870), "The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil,"

rge Cruikshank publish

hown, all supported by the army, the navy, and the volunteers, and surmounted by the crown, the royal standard, and the union jack. This was a protest against further Parliamentary Reform; for, as it has been observed, Cruikshank was something

of the church was a fool's cap and bells, with the Pope for weathercock. The porch was a bull's head, with a procession of Ritualist fools entering by the nostrils. The last, dated July 1869, is a satire upon Mis

ittle waifs and strays of our streets "gutter childre

nious design could have been furnished to a collector than this of 'Fairy Connoisseurs examining Mrs. Locker's treasures of Durer, Rembrandt, etc.' For Mr. Ruskin, too, in 1866, there had been designed the 'Piper of Hamelin,' leading the children mountain wards with the spell of his wonderful music. And in 1870 a a frontispiece representing the fertile Mr. Barham, surrounded by the creatures of his brain. And yet more recent plates, the property of Mr. Bell, the publisher-one of t

own Book; or, Th

story as well as t

nk, for

im, to all who knew Cruiksh

man knocking down a drunken woman, in Oxford Street" on a Sunday afternoon; and another of "a drunken ruffian knocking down a woman who carries a child," in Farringdon Street. He illustrated the "Autobiography of a Thirsty Soul" in the Weekly Record; and for the same paper he drew a publican's quart measure, with a death's head in lieu of ale froth, two drunkards babbling of the strengthening properties of beer by a "Noted Stout House." In the Band of Hope Review he illustrated a series, a parody on "The House that Jack Built," called "the Gin Shop." He threw off fly-leaves for Mr. Tweedie, as "A Man a Thing," "The House in Shadow," "The Loaf Lecture," "There is Poison in the Pot," "The Red Dragon," and "The Smokeless Chim

Aquarium Company; Cruikshank receiving in December, ￡2500-the price put upon it being what artist himself h

the design, * and that the statue modelled by Mr. Currie was originated by him-the contrary being, according to the committee, the fact. Cruikshank, in co-operation with Mr. Adams-Acton, produced a model; that is, Cruikshank made a design, and then himself stood in the attitude of it as Mr. Adams-Acton's model-the result bei

the Times (Decemb

the artist who was

make a design for a

uce, I was very mu

es of the 26th ult

uce statue at Stirl

as to my being the

t

and as addressed to the Scottish people in his eighty-fourth year,

le, by George Cruikshank, with respect to the pr

ng a fund by subscription, for the purpose of having a statue of King Robert the Bruce placed on "the field of Bannockburn," i

ime to attend the meetings; but, as 'The Bruce' was one of my great heroes, I promised to give them all the assistance I could, and suggested the atti

riend of mine, a brother artist, who is a sculptor, chanced to see my design, and was so pleased with it, that he volunteered to

en, gentlemen, and friends who attended. All highly approved of the design and the model, and the gentlemen gave most flattering reports, for which I most since

o execute a bronze statue of 'The Bruce,' ten or twelve feet in height, to be placed on a rocky grey granite pedestal twenty-two feet high; and all seemed to be going on well, and the work was about to be commenced, when suddenly the s

almost at a standstill; but I am happy to say that a military officer has joined our ranks, and who now takes the lead, and seems determined, if possible, to conquer and

nded to have applied for permission to place the statue; that being the site where the Scottish standard was fixed on the day of the battle. This bit of ground being occupied, it was then thought that the best place to have

the my sword.' But now that the site is quite different to what was originally intended, it is necessary that the position of the figure should be altered; and, as will be seen by the accompanying rough sketch, the he

er of willow, emblems of victory and sorrow for the slain. Then is stated, 'Erected by public subscription in the reign of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Between the words Victoria and Queen is a circular wreath formed of t

tatue, 'to make assurance doubly sure,' I got my friend Mr. Bond, keeper of the Ancient Manuscripts at the British Museum, to let me look over the MSS. of the time of Bruce, and then found that I had got the correct costume.

e example in this respect; and I trust that all the descendants of those 'Scots whom Bruce had often led' will rally round the Major-General and his committee corps, and assist

associated with any national work of art that might be placed in the land of my forefathers, and I should consider it one of the greatest honours tha

e Crui

oad, London,

e treasurer, John A. Murrie, Esq., the manager of the branch of the National Bank of Scotland at Stirling; and at London. And I am given to understand tha

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r, of Westerton, in handing over the work to the Provost and Corporation of Stirling, said, that as they could not get a bronze st

es Alexander, and all concerned in it, with having behaved in "a most dishonourable and disgraceful manner." These were ho

ouches on the shabby respectability of Camden Town-but he travelled much in London, and may well have been beheld handing his card to a stranger with whom he had talked casually in a Metropolitan Railway carriage, or announcing his personality to a privileged few who were invited to see in him the convincing proof of the advantages of a uni

but, like many other interesting people, he did not talk about what would have been most worth hearing. The last time I saw

h 26th

eed that Cruikshan

," author and artis

ghly convivial day

fast friends, and

Amwell Street-th

spirits being a de

se form lay a seriou

er h

m at this breakfast: "On the morning in question (I think it must have been the 14th of December last, 1877), Mr. Cruikshank came in; and I, who had not seen him more than once or twice in my life, was only too eager to ask him all sorts of q

receive the congratulations of so many friends was a task which would have fatigued and excited many a younger man than Mr. Cruikshank; but he preserved his self-possession through it well, having a ready jest and a smile for each and all; whilst Mrs. Cruikshank, who was fairly hedged in on every side with bouquets, looked far too young to be

man, who had worked on untiringly almost to the end, even to within three weeks of his death, when I, one of those privileged to claim his

hic, Februa

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