The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-13 00:00:00

GEORGE CRIIIKSHANK'S GALLERY,

Everybody who knows anything at all about if
b?irg there "On View" aas already, as a matter of
course, been to this wonderful gallery of George
Cruikshank's ! We ourselves have looked in there
time and again—each visit enhancing our admira-
tion not less of the industry than of the genius of
that Prince of Caricaturists. On Saturday afternoon
we sere tempted in there, however,yet once more
by reason of our receiving an invitation for that
day, especially, from that dear and honoured old
friend of us all : of all those who hate a wrong, who
love innocent and wholesome laughter, who loathe
a vice, and scorn a meanness, and delight in
the freaks of a quaint and apparently inex-
haustible imagination. The invitation had about it
something peculiarly alluring. It set forth that, on
Saturday afternoon, at three of the clock, George
Cruikshank would himself " Lecture " upon his
own very large and curious collection of draw-
ings, etchings, water-colour sketches, and oil paint-
ings—works of art and marvels of fun—produced
by him during more than the last past half-cen-
tury. " Lecture," as it happened (very pleasantly),
turned out to be not by any means the right word.
For there, at a few minutes after the appointed
time, we had the gratification of finding— the Lec-
turer, can we possibly call him ?—the great Artist-
Humourist just' eginning to loiter round the room
with his hat on,pointing, every now and then, with
the ferule of his walking stick to one or another of the
comical pictures hung upon the walls of the gallery.
Accompanied, as he s'owly, almost imperceptibly
moved round the room, by a "Laughing Audience"
—this time not Hogarth's, but Cruikshank's !
Cruikshank talking, as he went " through" his col-
lection, now in regard to this picture, now in regard
to that—telling us at ane moment an anecdote, and
at another some strange little fragment culled from
his own autobiographic recollections. Answering
any chance question that might be asked
him by a bystander. Always in " merry
pin," as Cowper oddly phrases it always
in good humour, perfectly self-possessed, and
purely conversational. Working as he has done,
and that too 80 assiduously—" Serape ! scrape !
scrape !" as he said, for hours and hours, during
days upon days,:year,after year; the little varnished
copperplate before him, the etching-needle in his
hand, the magnifying glass at his eye, " Serape !
scrape ! scrape !" said he, serio comically, " like a
squirrel in a cage"--working hard like this for the
better part of sixty years, George Cruikshank
scarcely bears the mark of sixty years at the very
outside, upon his ever-delightful and characteristic
lineaments. Yet there, around him on Satur-
day, was much of the right good work
begun full sixty years ago—his own personal
appearance (apparently in denial of the fact) to
the contrary, neverthless notwithstanding ! At the
least a hundred oil paintings, water colour drawings,
and original;sketches! M a moderate calculation a
thousand proof etchings from some of his most famous
productions! To say nothing of his huge and highly
elaborated allegorical oil painting in the cause of
Temperance—" The Worship of Bacchus." Begin-
ning his good work when a little child of no more
than eight or nine years of age, George Cruikshank
is still " at it," as keenly observant, as droll in
fancy, as large of heart, as noble in purpose as
when he first had his sense of the ludicrous awak-
ened by seeing through a taproom window the
plaster bust of Shakspere with the clay pipe in its
month. Long yet may he flourish amongst us, this
merry reformer of his age, this kindly satirist !