Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/276

 pictorially carried out. This sort of arrangement, however, did not suit the independent and somewhat impracticable spirit of the artist, and the result was almost a foregone conclusion. These two men of genius inevitably clashed; and the connection between Charles Dickens and Cruikshank was abruptly severed.

A singular memorial of the quarrel between Dickens and Cruikshank will be found in the last illustration to the author's novel of "Oliver Twist," one of the worst that the artist ever executed. Although Mr. Forster does not say so—and possibly would not admit it,—Charles Dickens is directly responsible for this result, as the reader will agree when he learns the whole of the facts, which are only partly given in Forster's "Life," and in every other work which professes to tell the story.

The reader will not require to be told that "Oliver Twist" made its appearance in the pages of "Bentley's Miscellany." The story of course had been written in anticipation of the magazine; and according to Mr. Forster, Cruikshank's designs for the portion which forms the third volume "having to be executed 'in a lump,' were necessarily done somewhat hastily." How far this statement is correct, the reader will be enabled to judge when we tell him that these so-called "hastily" prepared illustrations include the famous designs of Sikes and his Dog and Fagin in the Condemned Cell. "None of these illustrations," Mr. Forster goes on to tell us, "Dickens had seen until he saw them in the book on the eve of its publication [we assume in the three-volume form], when he so strongly objected to one of them that it had to be cancelled." "My dear Cruikshank," he at once wrote off to the artist, "I returned suddenly to town yesterday afternoon [October, 1838] to look at the latter pages of 'Oliver Twist' before it was delivered to the booksellers, when I saw the majority of the plates for the first time. With reference to the last one, Rose Maylie and Oliver, without entering into the question of great haste or any other cause which may have led to its being what it is, I am quite sure there can be little difference of opinion between us with respect to the result. May I ask you whether you will object to designing this plate afresh, and doing so at once, in