George Cruikshank eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 59 pages of information about George Cruikshank.

George Cruikshank eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 59 pages of information about George Cruikshank.
hats grow larger, their legs infinitely more crooked and lean; the tassels of their canes swell out to a most preposterous size; the tails of their coats dwindle away, and finish where coat-tails generally begin.  Let us lay a wager that Cruikshank, a man of the people if ever there was one, heartily hates and despises these supercilious, swaggering young gentlemen; and his contempt is not a whit the less laudable because there may be tant soit peu of prejudice in it.  It is right and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson said it was to hate Frenchmen; in which sentiment (as we have before said) George Cruikshank undoubtedly shares.  In the “Sunday in London,"* Monsieur the Chef is instructing a kitchen-maid how to compound some rascally French kickshaw or the other—­a pretty scoundrel truly! with what an air he wears that nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and chatters, and ogles, and grins:  they are all the same, these mounseers; there are other two fellows—­morbleu! one is putting his dirty fingers into the saucepan; there are frogs cooking in it, no doubt; and just over some other dish of abomination, another dirty rascal is taking snuff!  Never mind, the sauce won’t be hurt by a few ingredients more or less.  Three such fellows as these are not worth one Englishman, that’s clear.  There is one in the very midst of them, the great burly fellow with the beef:  he could beat all three in five minutes.  We cannot be certain that such was the process going on in Mr. Cruikshank’s mind when he made the design; but some feelings of the sort were no doubt entertained by him.

* The following lines—­ever fresh—­by the author of “Headlong Hall,” published years ago in the Globe and Traveller, are an excellent comment on several of the cuts from the “Sunday in London:”—­

I.

“The poor man’s sins are glaring;
In the face of ghostly warning
He is caught in the fact
Of an overt act,
Buying greens on Sunday morning.

II.

“The rich man’s sins are hidden
In the pomp of wealth and station,
And escape the sight
Of the children of light,
Who are wise in their generation.

III.

“The rich man has a kitchen,
And cooks to dress his dinner;
The poor who would roast,
To the baker’s must post,
And thus becomes a sinner.

IV.

“The rich man’s painted windows
Hide the concerts of the quality;
The poor can but share
A crack’d fiddle in the air,
Which offends all sound morality.

V.

“The rich man has a cellar,
And a ready butler by him;
The poor must steer
For his pint of beer
Where the saint can’t choose but spy him.

VI.

“This rich man is invisible
In the crowd of his gay society;
But the poor man’s delight
Is a sore in the sight
And a stench in the nose of piety.”

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George Cruikshank from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.