[Illustration: SUBSCRIPTION ROOM AT BROOKS]
In the early years of the nineteenth century, when Gillray was fast drinking himself into imbecility, and Rowlandson had turned his attention to book-illustration, English caricature, that once vigorous plant, showed signs of premature decay. In the opinion of all lovers of pictorial satire, the promise displayed in the as yet immature designs of a couple of youthful brothers, Robert and George Cruikshank, held out the best hopes for the future. The two boys were the sons of a Lowland Scotchman, Isaac Cruikshank (_c._ 1756-_c._ 1811), who came to London with his Highland wife some time in the "eighties," and made a modest mark as a water-colour painter and caricaturist. He produced a large number of political caricatures in the style of Gillray, which were coloured by his wife and later by his two boys, who enjoyed but little schooling, and only so much artistic training as he could give them. It was owing, probably, to Isaac's passion for Scotch whisky, which is said to have hastened his end, that the little household in Duke Street, Holborn, had a hard struggle to make both ends meet, and George (1792-1878), while yet a child himself, was set to illustrate children's books for the trade. Before he was out of his teens he was producing coloured caricatures, of which the arrest of Sir Francis Burdett is the earliest important example, and contributing etchings to _The Scourge_ (1811-16), a scurrilous publication, edited by "Mad Mitford." The principal subjects of his somewhat crude satire were the Regent, Buonaparte, and a certain number of too notorious personages in "high life." In 1814, George illustrated a _Life of Napoleon_ in Hudibrastic verse, by Dr. Syntax, not our friend Combe, but some anonymous admirer of his hero. Young Cruikshank's talent attracted the attention of William Hone of _Table-Book_ fame, who employed him to illustrate a series of radical squibs, including _The Political House that Jack built_, _The Political Alphabet_, and _The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder_. It was for Hone that George designed his famous Bank-note "_not_ to be imitated," which, he fondly believed, put a stop to hanging for the forgery of one pound notes. Hone seems to have been a very poor paymaster, but his custom brought the young artist great notoriety, and by 1820 "the ingenious Mr. Cruikshank" was firmly established as a popular favourite.