Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/283

 Ainsworth's stories, because the truth of his assertion has been questioned by a late commentator. George's statements simply amount to this: that so far as the illustrations to the "Miser's Daughter" and "The Tower of London" are concerned, the author wrote up to his designs. We have considered Ainsworth's answers to this statement, and find that although he fences with, he does not deny it. It was one essential condition of Cruikshank's success that his fancy should be free and untrammelled, and the truth of his statement appears to us to be proved by the illustrations to these works, which are certainly the finest which he ever designed; that he was therefore (as he stated) the originator of these tales in the sense in which he used the word, we can entertain no manner of doubt.

Most of the Cruikshank commentators, whilst writing on the subject of the Harrison Ainsworth etchings, have thought fit to decry the author's share of the performance; but the fact that the pictures are so much better than the letterpress should not prevent us from dealing fairly with the veteran author, who, like the distinguished artist with whom he so long co-operated, has now gone to his rest. Even Mr. Ainsworth's detractors will, we think, admit that without him we should have lost the admirable illustrations to "Windsor Castle," "Jack Sheppard," and "St. James's"; it may even be doubted whether without him we should have had the still better series of etchings which adorn the "Tower of London" and the "Miser's Daughter." If this be the fact, it seems to us we owe a lasting debt of gratitude to this venerable writer, who experienced the vicissitudes which inevitably befall mere talent when allied with genius. He was a writer of the George Payne Ransford James school, dispensing, however, with the inevitable setting sun and two travellers, and received a price for his productions which many a better author might well envy. For his novel of "Old St. Paul's" (1841) he was paid by the proprietors of the Sunday Times one thousand pounds; "The Miser's Daughter" attained an extraordinary success; and the same remark applies to "Windsor Castle." For