it is
simple justice to say that his designs are characterized by an utter
absence of comic power. The true comic inspiration possessed in so
wonderful a degree by Cruikshank, by John Leech, and even by Robert
Seymour, he never indeed possessed. Some fifteen years before his death
he suffered from incipient paralysis, and furthermore injured his thumb,
which obliged him to hold his pencil between his middle and
fore-fingers. Gradually this great and graceful artist dropped so far
behind in the race of life that he yielded latterly to proposals to
illustrate boys' literature of a very inferior class.

In addition to an absence of comic inspiration, the _creative_ faculty
of Cruikshank and Leech was wanting to Hablot Knight Browne. In order to
carry out an idea, it was necessary that it should be put into his head;
for leave him to himself, and he could do absolutely nothing.[175]
George Cruikshank and John Leech after receiving instructions would
proceed to realize them in their own way and after their own fashion;
but this was not the case with Hablot Knight Browne. While he could
realize the idea of another with peculiar success when the subject took
his fancy, he could neither enlarge nor improve upon it, and in this
lies the difference between _genius_ and mere ability. Lacking an
inherent sense of humour, he copied Cruikshank, and hence his
exaggerations and failures as a _comic_ designer; but he was _ultimus
Romanorum_,--the last representative of the famous men whose art was
fostered and encouraged by Charles Dickens, by Charles Lever, by
Harrison Ainsworth, and by Richard Bentley. The services which these
eminent men rendered to the novelists who like them are dead and gone
can scarcely be appreciated; for we presume few will deny that their
labours lent a charm, a beauty, and an interest to their works, which
largely tended to promote their sale. The fortunes of "Jack Sheppard,"
of "The Miser's Daughter," of "The Tower of London,"--the success
obtained by nearly all the stories of Ainsworth which obtained any
success at all, was mainly due to the pencil of Cruikshank. The
reputation of "Oliver Twist"--a morbid novel--was made in a great
measure by _him_; but for John Leech, neither "Mr. Ledbury," "The
Scattergood Family," "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers," or "Richard
Savage," would have survived to our day. To him the novels of Mr. R. W.
Surtees owe their entire popularity; while his genius has conferred
vital