ppendix_.

The name of Robert Cruikshank has slipped out of the place it once
occupied in public estimation; and his good work and his poor work being
equally scarce, his name and his claims to rank high among the number of
English caricaturists and comic artists have been forgotten even by the
survivors of the generation to which he himself belonged. In bringing to
the remembrance of those who do know, and to the knowledge of those who
do not know, some of the work which entitled him in our judgment to
occupy a leading place amongst the number of those of whom we write, we
have endeavoured to brush away the dust of oblivion which for so many
years has obscured the name and reputation of an artist, who, in spite
of much slovenliness and carelessness of execution, was both an able
caricaturist and a skilful draughtsman. George writes of his dead
brother in terms of affection, and describes him as "a very clever
miniature and portrait painter, and also a designer and etcher;" his
friend and coadjutor, the late George Daniel, gives him credit for
genius, of which however (in the sense in which we use and understand
the word) he did not possess a particle. He tells us that "he was apt to
conceive and prompt to execute; he had a quick eye and a ready hand;
with all his extravagant drollery, his drawing is anatomically correct;
his details are minute, expressive, and of careful finish, and his
colouring is bright and delicate." In the early part of his career, as
we have seen, the two brothers had been so closely associated in life
and in art, that the history of Robert is, to some extent, the history
of George; but when they separated, when each was left to his own
individual resources, George then struck into a path which neither
Robert nor any of his contemporaries might hope to follow. By the time
Robert had realized this fact, HB had appeared, and the art of
caricaturing, as theretofore practised, received a blow from which it
will never rally. Besides being an able water colour artist, he had at
one time achieved some reputation as a portrait painter; but the latter
pursuit he had long practically abandoned, while success in the former
required a closer application and the exercise of a greater amount of
patience than a man of his age and temperament could afford to bestow.
He was, in fact, too old to commence life afresh; and so it came
inevitably to pass that, as his brother did in after life (but from
causes, as we s