control, and might have been avoided
by the exercise of qualities which (it seems to me) he did not
possess,--forethought, tact, and judgment. During the rest of his long
life, the place which George Cruikshank deliberately ceded to others he
never once regained; when he dropped behind, he became as completely
forgotten as if he had ceased any longer to exist; men whose childhood
he had delighted with his quaint imaginings, his own friends and
contemporaries, died off; and so it came to pass, that before he knew
it, for time moves quickly after youth is over, the old man was left
standing alone amongst the ranks of a generation that did not know him.
So little was he known or regarded, that when his works were _first_
exhibited, no one took the trouble to see them; and when a small circle
of admirers, with the great English critic, John Ruskin, at their head,
started a subscription for the forgotten artist, "the attempt was a
failure--hundreds being received when thousands were expected." It will
be remembered that in his best days the artist had executed a memorable
etching, _Born a Genius and Born a Dwarf_: I wonder whether, in the
bitterness of his spirit and the righteousness of his anger, George
Cruikshank ever thought of that etching?

FOOTNOTES:

[94] Mr. Blanchard Jerrold.

[95] "And gentle dulness ever loves a joke."--_Dunciad._

[96] "The Maclise Portrait Gallery," 1883, p. 195.

CHAPTER X.

_ROBERT SEYMOUR._

Decidedly next in order of merit to George Cruikshank, amongst his own
contemporaries, if we except only Theodore Lane, comes Robert Seymour.
With a style and manner peculiar to himself, and a power of invention
and realization which amounted almost to genius, Seymour was superior in
every respect to Robert Cruikshank, with whom we find him not
unfrequently associated in comic design. This style and manner were
clearly founded on those of George Cruikshank; and when he selected (as
he not unfrequently did) subjects which had been treated by the latter,
the work of this most able draughtsman will bear even favourable
comparison with that of the great original whom he chose as his master.
That he drew his inspiration from and sought even to emulate Cruikshank,
is shown by the fact that to some of his earlier caricatures he affixed
the name of "Shortshanks," a practice which he discontinued on receiving
a remonstrance from the irritable George.

Robert Seymour was born in 1798. He