George Cruikshank | Page 8

politician. Some early manifestoes
against Napoleon we find, it is true, done in the regular John Bull style,
with the Gilray model for the little upstart Corsican: but as soon as the
Emperor had yielded to stern fortune our artist's heart relented (as
Beranger's did on the other side of the water), and many of our readers
will doubtless recollect a fine drawing of "Louis XVIII. trying on
Napoleon's boots," which did not certainly fit the gouty son of Saint
Louis. Such satirical hits as these, however, must not be considered as
political, or as anything more than the expression of the artist's national
British idea of Frenchmen.
It must be confessed that for that great nation Mr. Cruikshank

entertains a considerable contempt. Let the reader examine the "Life in
Paris," or the five hundred designs in which Frenchmen are introduced,
and he will find them almost invariably thin, with ludicrous
spindle-shanks, pigtails, outstretched hands, shrugging shoulders, and
queer hair and mustachios. He has the British idea of a Frenchman; and
if he does not believe that the inhabitants of France are for the most
part dancing-masters and barbers, yet takes care to depict such in
preference, and would not speak too well of them. It is curious how
these traditions endure. In France, at the present moment, the
Englishman on the stage is the caricatured Englishman at the time of
the war, with a shock red head, a long white coat, and invariable gaiters.
Those who wish to study this subject should peruse Monsieur Paul de
Kock's histories of "Lord Boulingrog" and "Lady Crockmilove." On the
other hand, the old emigre has taken his station amongst us, and we
doubt if a good British gallery would understand that such and such a
character WAS a Frenchman unless he appeared in the ancient
traditional costume.
A curious book, called "Life in Paris," published in 1822, contains a
number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style; and though we believe
he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great deal of life in
them, and pass muster very well. A villanous race of
shoulder-shrugging mortals are his Frenchmen indeed. And the heroes
of the tale, a certain Mr. Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain
O'Shuffleton, are made to show the true British superiority on every
occasion when Britons and French are brought together. This book was
one among the many that the designer's genius has caused to be popular;
the plates are not carefully executed, but, being colored, have a pleasant,
lively look. The same style was adopted in the once famous book called
"Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," which must have a word of notice
here, for, although by no means Mr. Cruikshank's best work, his
reputation was extraordinarily raised by it. Tom and Jerry were as
popular twenty years since as Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller now are;
and often have we wished, while reading the biographies of the latter
celebrated personages, that they had been described as well by Mr.
Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. Dickens's pen.
As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs and the
evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British Museum

and no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the book, and "Life
in London," alas, is not to be found at any one of them. We can only,
therefore, speak of the work from recollection, but have still a very
clear remembrance of the leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green
spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom. They
were the schoolboy's delight; and in the days when the work appeared
we firmly believed the three heroes above named to be types of the
most elegant, fashionable young fellows the town afforded, and thought
their occupations and amusements were those of all high-bred English
gentlemen. Tom knocking down the watchman at Temple Bar; Tom
and Jerry dancing at Almack's; or flirting in the saloon at the theatre; at
the night- houses, after the play; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver
cup then in the possession of that champion; at the chambers of Bob
Logic, who, seated at a cabinet piano, plays a waltz to which
Corinthian Tom and Kate are dancing; ambling gallantly in Rotten Row;
or examining the poor fellow at Newgate who was having his chains
knocked off before hanging: all these scenes remain indelibly engraved
upon the mind, and so far we are independent of all the circulating
libraries in London.
As to the literary contents of the book, they have passed sheer away. It
was, most likely, not particularly refined; nay, the chances are that it
was absolutely vulgar. But it must have had some merit of its own, that
is clear; it