Note 1 — Chapter I

“Nor London singly can his porter boast, Alike ’tis famed on every foreign coast; For this the Frenchman leaves his Bordeaux wine, And pours libations at our Thames’s shrine; Afric retails it ‘mongst her swarthy sons, And haughty Spain procures it for her Dons. Wherever Britain’s powerful flag has flown, there London’s celebrated porter’s known.”

—The Art of Living in London (6th edition 1805).

2 One quotation shall suffice. Mr. William Bates tells us in his admirable “Maclise Portrait Gallery”:—“He never transgressed the narrow line that separates wit from buffoonery, pandered to sensuality, glorified vice or raised a laugh at the expense of decency. Satire never in his hands degenerated into savagery or scurrility. A moral purpose ever underlaid his humour; he sought to instruct or improve when he amused.” Mr. Bates will, we hope, pardon us if we say that this is not quite the fact. George Cruikshank in truth was no better or worse than his satirical brothers, and his tone necessarily improved from the moment he took to illustrating books.

3 Since the above was written, strange to say, caricature appears to be showing symptoms of revival.

4 “The Fine Arts,” by William Hazlett, p. 29.

5 “Critical and Historical Essays,” vol. iii., p. 574.

6 We can scarcely call the wonderful series of historical cartoons which he executed at sixteen caricatures, even in the modern sense of the word. Whatever humour they possess is neutralized by the grim irony which, even at this early period, characterized his work.

7 “Etching and Etchers,” by Philip Gilbert Hamerton, third edition, p. 246.

8 Thomas Hood’s “Etching Moralized,” in New Monthly Magazine, 1843, vol. lxvii. p. 4, and seq.