66 In 1835 Mr. Cruikshank was struck beadle, the prototype of the immortal frequently adverted to. A fat, over-fed Bumble, pushes his elbow in the face footman, who picks his teeth with a of a too curious gazer; the footman nonchalant air, inquires of a butler, opens the carriage door, the coachman "What is taxes, Thomas?" The reply holds in two restive horses. The bishop shows the happy condition of the class, will no doubt be paid for preaching, "I'm sure I don't know." for the subscription of the cut reads,"Thou shalt do no manner of work-by a happy idea of publishing a Comic thou, nor thy cattle." The second quota- Memorandum Book, which, intending tion is, "The servant within our gates," at once to-carry out, he took to the late the cut representing the kitchen of a Mr. Tilt, to consult about publishing. nobleman who is evidently about to en- Tilt at once jumped at the idea, and tertain his guests magnificently: there in the course of a conversation, peris a perfect plethora of cooks; one fat suaded the artist to change the name fellow carries a roasted joint; another, to the "Comic Almanac," verbally a Frenchman, tastes with the air of a agreeing, at the same time, to bear connoisseur, something from a stewpan, part of the expenses and to share in which is intended for an entremét. The the profits of the work. But by a Sunday "Soirée Musicale," the "Parks stroke of publishers' strategy, assisted on a Sunday," the "Gin Temple turn- by the fact that the name of the Comic out at Church time," and a plate called Almanac was Mr. Tilt's copyright, the the Cordial workings of the Spirit," originator had not, from the very first wherein drunkards, male and female, issue, any participation in the profits maddened in their intoxication, are of the work, which were very great fighting with a demoniacal hatred, are indeed, but became merely the artist all deeply moral satires which leave sad- engaged to illustrate the production. dening, but improving, reflections in In this work, which has been carried our minds. We must not omit two cuts, on without cessation for eighteen years, the one a view of Primrose Hill, with are many of Cruikshank's happiest a crowd of pedestrian holiday makers, hits. Though not so carefully finished and another a pew in a very fashionable as his more elaborate productions, church, full of highly dressed and ex- there are here also some very refreshing ceedingly well-fed people, the fat renter plates, when, launching out from the thereof having his be-ringed hand dan- comic, the artist has given us some gling conspicuously over the door; the homely country scene. Such is "Mayprint is entitled "miserable sinners." In- Day in the olden time." In an elabodeed the whole work is fruitful in pain-rate review in one of the quarterlies, ful but moral suggestions, and gives written by our greatest living author, rise to feelings which are sometimes Mr Thackeray, (then indeed not so "too deep for tears." much known,) great praise is very Cruikshank next worked upon Field-justly attributed to the designs in the ing's and Smollett's novels, some also by Defoe and Goldsmith; supplied illustrations for the forty-eight volume edition of the "Waverly Novels," and twelve plates for Scott's "Demonology." Thomas Hood had about this period written a comic poem called " The Epping Hunt," and Cruikshank was called upon to illustrate it, finding, however, that puns would not make plates, the artist gave illustrations of his own to which Hood wrote additional verses which were then dovetailed into the poem. Next came 'My Sketch When "Bentley" was first started Book" with two hundred groups, with Dickens as editor, Cruikshank was coloured; "Scraps and Sketches," com- engaged as illustrator, and furnished menced in 1828; "Illustrations of plates for "Oliver Twist." Some of Phrenology" and "Illustrations of these he has never surpassed. Fagin Time." One of the caricatures therein in the Condemned Cell," "Bill Sykes was very popular, and is even now and his Dog," and "The Death of 66 Almanac. As we have mentioned Mr. Thackeray's review we may as well tell a curious anecdote connected with it. The reviewer had declared Cruikshank to be so intensely national that he was a decided enemy to the French, and never let slip an opportunity to ridicule them. This paragraph being seen by a friend of the artist, who was a native of that country, and who was collecting Cruikshank's works, he took an early opportunity of withdrawing his amity from "le perfide" caricaturist. own, a Mrs. Toddles, a little woman, who is never in time for the "Omnibus," but who just rushes in as it is full and about to drive off, which has a great deal of fun in it; and a wood-cut of deeper import, called a "Monument to Napoleon," wherein that Corsican is standing on a pyramid of human skulls, himself a skeleton, distinguished by his cocked hat, jack-boots, and sword. 66 About this time, he furnished plates for a work, which contains some of his happiest efforts in a serious style We allude to the "History of the Irish Rebellion," by Maxwell. The Battle of Ross," with an insane rebel rushing forward and thrusting his wig into the mouth of the cannon of the military, and shouting to his fellows, "Come on, boys, her mouth's stopped; "the "Camp on Vinegar Hill," the "Defeat of the Rebels," and one or two other plates, he has never, in our opinion, surpassed. Sykes," are wonderful in their dramatic remarkable plate, containing a view of effect and vividly personify the author's the world, with a multitude of people on writings. From his own face, in a it. There was also a creation of his mirror, charged with feelings which he imagined might be those of a condemned criminal, the artist drew the plate of Fagin. Its truth was at once seen, and it has, besides, the popularity which it gave to the magazine (for who could look at the plates without a desire to read the text?) the honour of giving a sobriquet to the greatest living soldier. From his hook-nose, his fierce eye, and his general resemblance to the print, Sir Charles Napier is universally called, by his Indian officers, "Old Fagin." A determination on the part of Mr. Bentley, which bore slightly upon the quality of liberality-a quality not lacked by publishers-made Mr. Dickens relinquish the conduct of a magazine which he, in conjunction with Cruikshank, had raised to a large circulation For some time the publisher had probably no reason to repent the step he had taken, for Mr. Ainsworth, who then became editor, wrote his novel of "Jack Sheppard," a work After the completion of the "Omniwhich Cruikshank illustrated, con amore, bus," there appeared, in 1845, a similar and which the reading public so far magazine, the "Table Book," edited by appreciated that it raised the magazine G. A. a'Becket, which had some very seven hundred copies in circulation fine plates in it, of a larger size, and above the number it had attained with perhaps more carefully finished than in Mr. Dickens. One may well doubt the the "Omnibus." One was called, "A morality of the novel, but not the excel- Reverie," wherein the artist, with a dog lence of the accompanying plates, they in his lap, is portrayed as sitting before are full of spirit, and wonderfully at the fire with subjects floating around tractive. Some them, such as "Sir him. The portrait was, at the time, Rowland Trenchard in the Well," you striking. Another was called, the cannot easily forget. The smaller illus-"Folly of Crime;" and a third bore trations of "Jack's Progress to Tyburn," heavily upon the insane railway specuand his execution, with their multitude lations of the year. of figures, will bear comparison with the etchings of Jacques Callot. Another determination on the part of Mr. Bentley, led Messrs. Cruikshank and Ainsworth to set up a periodical for themselves; and "Ainsworth's Magazine" was started, which contained in succession, the "Tower of London," "Windsor Castle," and the "Miser's Daughter." Cruikshank illustrated all these; and the effects of light and shade, and the fine pointing in some of the plates, remind us of Rembrandt. He still continued to work for Bentley, his name being printed on the wrapper of that magazine; on ceasing to do so, the artist started a periodical of his own, called the "Omnibus," which was edited by the late Laman Blanchard. The title page, " "De Omnibus rebus," is a The next important work which Cruikshank produced, by some deemed the most important of his life, was brought out in 1847. It was intended to set, in the strongest possible light, the folly of an addiction to what teetotallers emphatically term, 66 strong drink." It consisted of a series of eight large plates, produced by glyphography, and published at the remarkable price of one shilling! If the effect were equal to the sale, it must have been immense. We do not doubt the capability of the work in deterring sober people from drinking, but we doubt reformed drunkards; but there can be no doubt as to the excellence of the plates, or of their perfect suitability to the class to which they were addressed. From the first, wherein the decent young mechanic brings out the bottle, and persuades his tion and the Royal Academy; many of these pictures possessed much humour, among which may be mentioned "Disturbing a Congregation," "Dressing for the Day," "A New Servant and a Ďeaf Mistress," &c. The great success which has attended the career of the artist we have been considering, is to be attributed not only to his genius, which in the particular branch of art to which he addressed himself, is undoubtedly great, nor to a playful fancy and an imagination of almost exhaustless fertility, but in a great measure to an industry which never tired, and a determined punctu industry would be testified even by the incomplete list of works which we have given, but a perfect list is probably unattainable, and a complete collection equally so. One which is far from perfect, and was advertised for sale some time ago, filled a good sized cart, when taken to its destination; the artist himself has not prints of the whole of his works, which certainly might have been expected. Another great source of success is the dramatic effect and arrangement of Cruikshank's productions; he himself, we believe, attributes a great deal of popularity to this quality, in fact, he seems personally to have a great deal of dramatic art, and when Mr. Dickens and other littérateurs, for purposes mentioned in the life of that gentleman (Biog. Mag., vol. 2) organized a corps of actors, Mr. Cruikshank was recognised as one of the most capable and most successful. The work made a very great sensation, and was so successful that in the following year the artist produced a sequel, in which the career of the son and daughter of the drunkard was followed up. One plate therein was re-ality which never failed. His immense markably appalling, the suicide of the unfortunate girl, who in a fit of despair plunges from Waterloo Bridge. In studying for these works, the scenes he witnessed, together with the arguments of some of the leading tee-total advocates, amongst whom he was thrown, produced in the artist's mind a conviction that a total abstinence from intoxicating drinks, is the sole effectual plan for producing a reformation in the lower classes of society. He therefore joined that cause, and has since become the leading and most noticeable advocate of the Tee-totalers. He is at present engaged in producing a pamphlet, called "The Glass," the vignette on the title of which, a skeleton hand holding a glass, frothing with serpents, in allusion to the Scriptural motto underneath, is very appropriate and striking. The determination which led the artist to this step, must not, however, be deemed sudden; for in his earlier works a vein It has been the habit of the artist to of moral reproof against the evils of relieve the lassitude occasioned by indrunkenness is traceable, in his "Sunday cessant application to his art by various in London," "The Gin Shop," "The athletic exercises, fencing, rowing, and Upas Tree," and "The Gin Juggernaut." even boxing. He used at one time to Since the appearance of the "Bottle," make little of rowing up to Richmond and its Sequel, Cruikshank has illus- and back, and is generally skilful in trated several works-"The Greatest those exercises which he wisely indulgPlague in Life," "How to Marry," and ed in to keep in health. His appeara work bearing on the crowded state of ance is somewhat remarkable: of the London, during the Exhibition, called, middle height, and very broad shoulder"The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. ed, a piercing eye, and a kind of fixed Sandboys," which was unsuccessful. He look, a fine forehead, and a face surhas lately furnished illustrations to an edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," published by Mr. John Cassel, which, however, cannot be classed amongst his happiest efforts. He has latterly turned his attention to oil painting, and has contributed to the Exhibitions of the British Institu rounded with whiskers somewhat of the wildest, give him "a presence which is not to be put by." Mr. Cruikshank has been twice married, but has no children. Although by no means a young man, the energy and determination of the artist, kept up no doubt by his excellent constitution and abstemious habits, have scarcely abated. He seeks he should offend none personally. He admission as a student to the Royal Academy, and determines, we believe, ardent as Cicero, when at sixty he learnt Greek, to turn his talents to a new field. The talent which he possesses has certainly never been abused. Whilst he was making the people laugh, he was generally teaching them. He has carefully avoided anything which could even by implication sanction vice. He has assailed sin in the palace equally as in the cottage, and it is great praise to say that although in his younger days he caricatured those in power, he has since refused a great price for work which would cost him little labour because attacked the vice and not the men. He is no mere caricaturist, he is that and something more; he has the higher qualities of an originator and of an inventor, and moreover is a moral teacher, which Gilray or Rowlandson seldom or never attained to. His greatest praise is that he seems ever to have worked with the knowledge that he must someday give an account for the use of the power granted him; he has therefore attained position, fame, and independence by the use, not abuse of his genius, and long may he live to enjoy that which he has acquired. JAS. H. F. SIR ASTLEY COOPER. To all who feel a curiosity about eminent men of their own country and time, in whatever department they may have attained their celebrity, the present brief outline of the history of one, who has left behind him a reputation as a successful practical surgeon, surpassed by none who has been reckoned, and not unjustly, one of the most instructive surgical teachers the world has ever seen, cannot, there is abundant reason to believe, fail to be acceptable. The subject, however, which occupies the few following pages, has been selected, in preference to others,--which probably on strictly professional grounds, may have superior claims upon our attention, not, because it can be af firmed with any degree of correctness, that Sir Astley Cooper was a man of genius, or even, in a high sense of the term, a man of science, or worthy of being classed with the great luminaries of his own branch of the medical profession; but simply for the reason that his career affords, probably, one of the most striking instances on record of what indefatigable industry, coupled with merely a more than ordinary amount of professional skill and intelligence, can sometimes accomplish for its possessor, in the shape of worldly fame, wealth and honours. If, therefore, there is but little to be found in the career of this remarkable man to command the admiration, and still less to enlist the sympathies of the general reader, there is much in our opinion to be educed therefrom in the way of instruction. Sir Astley Cooper was born at Yelverton, in the county of Norfolk, on the 23rd of August 1768. The gentleman, who has furnished the reading world with his "Life," in a couple of somewhat formidable looking volumes, gravely assures us, that Astley's father, the Rev. Samuel Cooper, D.D., was wont to drive to the parish church of Yelverton aforesaid, of which he was the incumbent, every Sunday morning, in a coach drawn by "four powerful, long-tailed, black horses?" This equestrian display was no doubt excessively magnificent in its way, and must have hebdomadally impressed the Yelvertonians with a ponderously solemn sense of the official dignity and ecclesiastical importance of their parson-but it is highly questionable that their piety was very much improved by the exhibition. As described, however, the Rev. Doctor's weekly cavalcade and appurtenances thereto attached, partakes so largely in its character of the style and taste of the modern undertaker, that it is perhaps worthy of a passing notice, if only to show that "there is nothing new under the sun." Most of our readers doubtless, like ourselves, will be still more surprised to learn, on the same authority, that the mother of Sir Astley Cooper was the veritable authoress of several novels, friend and companion, is ascribed the selection of Sir Astley's walk in the business of life. From Sir Astley himself, however, we have it, that at Norwich, two or three years later, he chanced to visit the hospital, where he saw a Mr. Donee successfully perform the difficult operation of lithotomy; "and it was this," he says, "which inspired me with a strong impression of the utility of surgery, and led me to embark in it as my profession." An opportunity soon presented itself for his so doing. smitten with the freedom and gaieties of a metropolitan life, than with the charms and attractions of anatomical science. which are reported to have enjoyed no small reputation in her own time, and -it might perhaps have been addedamongst her own friends. Be that as it may, we fear it is beyond dispute now, that, as far as the ungrateful world is concerned, all memory of her works, however meritorious they might have been, has been cruelly suffered to perish long ago. We believe her, however, to have been both an amiable and accomplished lady; but whatever literary talent she may have possessed, Sir Astley, when a boy, seems to have in- In 1784, his uncle, Mr. William Cooherited not a particle of the maternal per, an eminent London surgeon, and love for letters. He was, like a good lecturer in Guy's Hospital, paid his many other boys, who have afterwards annual visit at Dr. Cooper's parsonage, turned out clever men, much fonder and a proposal that the nephew should of bird's-nesting than book-reading. be articled to himself, and accompany Blessed with an abundant flow of ani- him to town, was unanimously approved mal spirits, he was celebrated amongst of by the family party. To London, his village compeers, only for the greater Astley, now in his seventeenth year, acvariety of puerile tricks, scrapes, and cordingly travelled, where, we gather, feats, in which he alternately played the that, during several months, there was part either of hero or delinquent-and a pretty constant succession of squabis said to have found favour with no bling in the uncle's establishment, in teacher, except a poor dancing French-consequence of the nephew being more man who included the vicarage in his weekly journey. It is not necessary to our present purpose to inquire what proportion of the success of great men in after-life, is to be attributed to im- At this period, indeed, the youth appulses or predilections which grow up in pears to have been quite of the "Bob their boyhood, suffice it to say merely, Sawyer" order of students, and his that it is customary in modern biography pranks were sufficiently numerous and to assert, that most of those who have indecorous, to have entitled him to the become distinguished, either in litera-highest honours of that particular school. ture, science, or art, have in early life given strong and unmistakeable indications of their destiny; and that Mr. Bransby Cooper, in strict accordance with this stereotyped theory, traces in his "Life of Sir Astley Cooper," his uncle's choice of calling to the following incident. When Astley was but thirteen years of age, he happened one evening to call at his foster-mother's cottage, just after her son, the playfellow of his childhood, had met with a bad accident in the reaping field. The femoral artery had been cut; the poor people knew not how to arrest the hæmorrhage; life was ebbing fast away, when young Astley took a silk handkerchief from his neck, and bound it so adroitly round the limb that the flow of blood was stopped until a medical man reached the spot. To the praise which this presence of mind and cleverness of hand brought him, and still more to the pleasure he felt in saving his humble With a staid, business man, like the |