his ‘pert fairies’ and ‘dapper elves,’ nothing more engaging than his picturesque backgrounds and fanciful accessories. After these, engraved chiefly on wood, come ‘Mornings at Bow Street,’ 1824, followed later by ‘More Mornings at Bow Street,’ 1827, the text in both cases being by John Wight of the ‘Morning Herald.’ Many examples from these volumes are reproduced in Jerrold's ‘Life of Cruikshank,’ 1883. Hugo's ‘Hans of Iceland,’ 1825, and ‘The Universal Songster,’ 1825–6, come next in the list of more notable works, preceding two capital and genuinely Cruikshankian efforts, the famous ‘Phrenological Illustrations,’ a series of six etched plates, each containing several subjects, and ‘Greenwich Hospital,’ by the ‘Old Sailor’ [see Barker, Matthew Henry], a book in which the artist gave full vent to his faculty for portraying the slack-trousered and pig-tailed tar of the period. Both of these were published in 1826. To 1827 belongs another sequence of detached plates, the ‘Illustrations of Time’ and the little volumes entitled ‘Philosophy in Sport made Science in Earnest.’ In 1828 Cruikshank executed for Prowett, the Pall Mall publisher, a number of scenes from ‘Punch and Judy,’ carefully studied from that popular exhibition itself, and remarkable, as Mr. Jerrold says neatly, for the power shown by the artist in ‘informing a puppet with life and keeping it wooden still.’ It would be impossible to chronicle here the work of Cruikshank for the next ten years. In many of his designs at this time wood-engraving was substituted for etching, and Branston, Bonner, the Williamses (T. and S.), Landells, and John Thompson vied with each other in reproducing the always significant quirks and twists of the artist's indefatigable pencil. Cowper's ‘John Gilpin,’ 1828; Hood's ‘Epping Hunt,’ 1829; Kane O'Hara's ‘Tom Thumb,’ 1830; Rhodes's ‘Bombastes Furioso,’ 1830; Clarke's ‘Three Courses and a Dessert,’ 1830 (which contains the inimitable deaf postilion); ‘The Gentleman in Black,’ 1831; ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ 1831; ‘Sunday in London,’ 1833; and ‘Rejected Addresses,’ 1833, are all illustrated by the graver. Among works wholly of the needle, or combined with woodcuts, come Anstey's ‘New Bath Guide,’ 1830; Scott's ‘Demonology and Witchcraft,’ 1830; and Roscoe's ‘Novelists' Library’ (which includes etchings to Smollett, Goldsmith, Fielding, Sterne, Le Sage, and Cervantes); ‘The Bee and the Wasp,’ 1832; ‘Lucien Greville,’ 1833; Bowring's ‘Minor Morals,’ 1834–9; Mogridge's ‘Mirth and Morality,’ 1835; and Defoe's ‘Journal of the Plague Year,’ 1835. In 1835 was also issued by McLean, under the title of ‘Cruikshankiana,’ a handsome folio containing some sixty-six plates by George Cruikshank and half a dozen by his brother Robert.
At first Cruikshank after his father's death had kept on the paternal house in Dorset Street, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, where the brothers had a queer studio-of-all-work, much encumbered by the various ‘properties’ of two lively young men who, in addition to practising a good deal of miscellaneous art, also managed to see a good deal of miscellaneous life. After Robert's marriage and subsequent establishment in St. James's Place, George moved with his mother and his sister Eliza, herself no mean designer, to Claremont Square, Pentonville, in which neighbourhood he continued to reside after his own marriage. In 1836 the ‘Comic Alphabet’ was published from 23 Myddelton Terrace, Pentonville, to which he had removed from No. 22. At this time he was in the fulness of his powers. In 1835 he issued the first number of the ‘Comic Almanack,’ with a dozen ‘righte merrie’ cuts (etchings) ‘pertaining to the months’ by himself, and a few minor embellishments. Sometimes the letterpress was supplied by distinguished contributors. To the issue for 1839 Thackeray contributed ‘Stubbs's Calendar, or the Fatal Boots,’ to be followed in 1840 by ‘Barber Cox, and the Cutting of his Comb,’ afterwards called ‘Cox's Diary.’ The ‘Almanack’ continued until 1847 with unabated vigour. Then, in 1848, it changed its form, and was placed under the editorship of Horace Mayhew. In 1850 the old form was resumed, and retained until 1853, after which year the publication ceased to appear, being practically superseded by ‘Punch's Almanac.’ But 1853, when its epitaph was written, is long in advance of 1835, when it began. Another work, which belongs to the early days of its career, was Fisher's edition of the ‘Waverley Novels,’ 1836–9. ‘Sir Frizzle Pumpkin,’ ‘Nights at Mess,’ &c. (1836), and the ‘Land and Sea Tales’ of the ‘Old Sailor,’ belong also to 1836; while with ‘Rookwood’ (1836) begins his long connection with Harrison Ainsworth, and with the two series of ‘Sketches by Boz’ (1836 and 1837) his connection with Charles Dickens.
In 1837 Richard Bentley published the first number of his once famous ‘Miscellany,’ for which Cruikshank designed a cover, and supplied, as time went on, some 126 plates. Twenty-four of these were to Dickens's ‘Oliver Twist,’ afterwards issued in separate form in 1838, and twenty-seven to Ainsworth's ‘Jack Sheppard,’ 1839. Both of these books are highly prized by collectors; and ‘Fagin in the Condemned Cell,’ that wonder-
