t sensation at the time of its
appearance, though it is utterly forgotten now. Cooper and I were
members of an obscure club, in one of the Fleet Street courts, where he
used to declaim with great eloquence on the evil doings of the Tories and
the wrongs of the poor, while at the same time he had a true appreciation
of the utter worthlessness of some of the Chartist leaders. As he
advanced in years he gave up his infidel opinions and became an earnest
advocate of the faith he once laboured to destroy. The last time I saw
him was at his house in Lincoln shortly before he died. He seemed sound
in body, considering his years, but his mind was gone and he remembered
no one. At the same time I saw a good deal of Richard Lovett--a noble
character--who worked all his life for the mental and moral improvement
of the working man, of whom he was such an illustrious example. Cooper
and Vincent and Lovett did much between them to make the working man
respected as he had never been before.

One of the grandest old men I ever knew was George Cruikshank, the
artist, in his later years an ardent advocate of Temperance, but a real
Bohemian nevertheless, enjoying life and all its blessings to the last.
At a dinner-party or at a social gathering of any kind he was at his
best, full of anecdote, overflowing with wit and mimicry; as an orator
also he had great power, and generally managed to keep his audience in a
roar of laughter. While perfectly sober himself, he was very happy in
taking off the drunkard's eccentricities, and would sing "We are not
fou," or "Willie brewed a peck o' malt," as if he deemed a toper the
prince of good fellows. In his old age he had persuaded himself that to
him Dickens owed many of his happiest inspirations, a remark which the
author of "The Pickwick Papers" strongly resented. At his home I met on
one occasion Mrs. Dickens, a very pleasant, motherly lady, with whom one
would have thought any husband could have happily lived, although the
great novelist himself seemed to be of another way of thinking.
Cruikshank's wife seems to have been devoted to him. She was proud of
him, as well she might be. He had a good head of hair, and to the last
cherished a tremendous lock which adorned his forehead. He was rather
square-built, with an eye that at one time must have rivalled that of the
far-famed hawk. He lived comfortably in a good house just outside
Mornington Crescent, in the Hampstead Road; but he was