Chapter IV: Part 4

There are some conflicting statements about dates. Madden says, in one place, “In 1841 he [Ainsworth] became the editor of ‘Bentley’s Miscellany’,” and on the next page, “In the spring of 1839 he replaced Dickens in the editorship of ‘Bentley’s Miscellany,’ and continued as editor till 1841.”[11] He also says that in 1839 the novel, to be called “Thames Darrell,” was advertised to appear periodically in the _Miscellany_, then edited by Charles Dickens.[12] Robert Harrison in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ (title Bentley) says that Dickens retired from the post of editor in January, 1839. Mr. Axon tells us in the _Dictionary_ that Ainsworth became the editor in March, 1840, but in the “Memoir” he assigns the event to the year 1838. Forster puts the date 1839, which seems to be correct, and the discrepancies are no doubt susceptible of explanation. The first number of “Jack Sheppard” appeared in the number for January, 1839.

The success of “Rookwood” and _Oliver Twist_ led to the new essay in the series which the sanctimonious Allibone says might be very appropriately published under the title of the “Tyburn Plutarch”—not a very sane or witty remark in my opinion. Ainsworth cast over the scamp Jack Sheppard the mantle of romance, and made him “a dashing young blood of illicitly noble descent, who dressed sumptuously and lived luxuriously”—whose escapes from Newgate and other adventures were described with a charm and vigor which took the public captive. The sale exceeded even that of _Oliver Twist_, and no fewer than eight versions were produced upon the London stage. Mr. Keeley achieved great notoriety as the hero, and Paul Bedford first made his mark in the character of Blueskin.

It was not until these dramatic productions appeared that the sedate and fastidious began the outcry against the so-called criminal school of romance; an outcry perpetuated in Chambers’ _Encyclopædia_ and in Allibone’s _Dictionary_. The author and the novel were bitterly attacked. The main ground of denunciation seems to have been the belief that the lower orders might be aroused to emulate the brilliant robber, all of which is sheer nonsense. I am tempted to quote at length from a letter of Miss Mitford, the personification of an old maid, because it contains an epitome of the adverse criticism as well as a little biographical note which I have not encountered elsewhere.

“I have been reading ‘Jack Sheppard,’” she writes to Miss Barrett,[13]
“and have been struck by the great danger in these times, of
representing authorities so constantly and fearfully in the wrong; so
tyrannous, so devilish, as the author has been pleased to portray it
in ‘Jack Sheppard,’ for he does not seem so much a man or even an
incarnate fiend, as a representation of power—government or law, call
it as you may—the ruling power. Of course, Mr. Ainsworth had no such
design, but such is the effect; and as the millions who see it
represented at the minor theatres will not distinguish between now and
a hundred years back, all the Chartists in the land are less dangerous
than this nightmare of a book, and I, Radical as I am, lament any
additional temptations to outbreak, with all its train of horrors.
Seriously, what things these are—the Jack Sheppards, and Squeers’s,
and Oliver Twists, and Michael Armstrongs—all the worse for the power
which except the last, the others contain! Grievously the worse! My
friend, Mr. Hughes, speaks well of Mr. Ainsworth. His father was a
collector of these old robber stories, and used to repeat the local
ballads upon Turpin, etc., to his son as he sat upon his knee; and
this has perhaps been at the bottom of the matter. A good antiquarian
I believe him to be, but what a use to make of the picturesque old
knowledge! Well, one comfort is that it will wear itself out; and then
it will be cast aside like an old fashion.”

The latter part of the prophecy has come very near to fulfillment; but we have no proof that the awful novel caused any marked increase of crime. The real utility and value of stories like “Jack Sheppard” may well be questioned, for they surely do not belong to the highest and best in literature, but that any one became a thief or a highway robber because of them is yet to be demonstrated.

It was said, and Ainsworth believed it, that the fact that “Jack Sheppard” had a better sale than _Oliver Twist_ was the cause of some falling-off in the friendship which had existed between him and John Forster, who adored Dickens; and it is true that the _Examiner_, of which paper Forster was the chief literary critic, made an attack on the book. It is odd that Forster should have met Dickens for the first time at Ainsworth’s house.[14] There was some sort of friction among the three friends about the time when “Jack Sheppard” was in the full tide of favor and Dickens was closing the troublesome negotiations with Bentley about the copyright of the unpublished _Barnaby Rudge_. A letter of Dickens to Ainsworth in my collection throws some light upon the matter. As it has never been printed, to the best of my knowledge, and as it cannot fail to be of interest to Dickens-lovers, I may be pardoned for giving it in full:

“Doughty Street,
Tuesday morning, March 26th, 1839.

My dear Ainsworth:

If the subject of this letter or anything contained in it, should
eventually become the occasion of any disagreement between you and me,
it would cause me very deep and sincere regret. But with this
contingency—even this—before me, I feel that I must speak out without
reserve and that every manly, honest and just consideration compels me
to do so.

By some means—by what means in the first instance I scarcely know—the
late negotiations between yourself, myself and Mr. Bentley have placed
a mutual friend of ours in a false position and one in which he has no
right to stand; and exposed him to an accusation—very rife and current
indeed just now—equally untrue and undeserved, namely that he, who a
short time before had pledged himself to Mr. Bentley (in the presence
of Mr. Follett) to see my last agreement with that person executed and
carried out, counselled me to break it and in fact entangled and
entrapped the innocent and unsuspecting bookseller—who being all
honesty himself had a child-like confidence in others—into taking such
steps as led to that result.

Now I wish to remind you—for a purpose which I will tell you
presently—that even by me no agreement whatever was broken; that I
demanded a postponement of my agreement for the term of six
months—that Forster (to whom I have been alluding of course) expressly
and positively said when you pressed upon me the hardship of my
relations with that noblest work of God, in New Burlington Street,
that he could not and would not be any party to a new disruption
between us—_that he was bound to see the old agreement performed_—that
he wrote to Mr. Bentley warning him of my dissatisfaction—that he saw
Mr. Bentley for a full hour, in his own rooms (a man must be in
earnest to do that)—read to him a letter of mine in which I had
expressed my feelings on the subject, and strongly urged upon him the
necessity and propriety of some concession—that Mr. Bentley went away
thanking him and appointing to call again—that he never called
again—that he wrote me an insulting letter dictated by his
lawyers—that Forster then washed his hands of any further interference
between us—that Mr. Bentley then went out to you at Kensal Green—and
that you and he, between you, and without any previous consultation or
advising with Forster settled upon certain terms and conditions which
were afterwards proposed to me through you, and communicated to
Forster, for the first time and to his unbounded astonishment, by both
of us.

I remind you of all this because Mr. Bentley is going about town
stating in every quarter what may or may not be his real impression of
Forster’s course—because Mr. Bentley does not appeal as an authority
to you—because you do countenance Mr. Bentley in these proceedings by
hearing him express his opinion of Forster and not contradicting
him—and have aggravated him, indeed, by such thoughtless acts as first
procuring an unfavorable notice of the Miscellany in the Examiner (by
dint of urgent solicitations) and then shewing it to him with assumed
vexation and displeasure. I remind you of all this, because Forster
must and shall be set right—not with Mr. Bentley but with the men to
whom these stories are carried and his friends as well as foes—because
there are but two persons who can set him right—and because I wish to
know distinctly from you who shall do so, _without the delay of an
instant_—you or I.

There is another reason which renders this absolutely necessary.
Forster, acting for Mr. Savage Landor, arranged with Mr. Bentley for
the publication of two tragedies by that gentleman, which were
proceeding rapidly through the press when these matters occurred, and
have since been taken from the printers by Mr. Bentley—not published,
though the time agreed upon is long past; not advertised, though they
should have been long ago—their existence not recognized in anyway—and
all this as a means of annoyance and revenge against Forster who is
placed in the most painful situation with regard to Mr. Landor that it
is possible to conceive. Mr. Landor who holds such men as Mr. Bentley
in as little consideration as the mud of the streets, and who is
violent and reckless when exasperated, is as certain by some public
act to punish the bookseller for this treatment (if he be not
prevented by an immediate atonement) as the sun is to rise to-morrow.
This would entail upon me the immediate necessity, in explanation of
the circumstances which led to it, of laying a full history of these
proceedings before the public, and the consequence would be that we
and our private affairs would be dragged into newspaper notoriety and
involved in controversy and discussion, for the pain of which nothing
could ever compensate.

But however painful it will be to me to put myself in communication
once again with Mr. Bentley, and openly appeal to you to confirm what
I shall tell him, I have no alternative unless you will frankly and
openly and for the sake of _your_ old friend as well as my intimate
and valued one, avow to Mr. Bentley yourself that he is not to blame,
that you heard him again and again refuse to interfere although deeply
impressed with the hardship of my case—and that you proposed
concessions which he—feeling the position in which he stood—could not
have suggested. Believe me, Ainsworth, that for your sake no less than
on Forster’s account, this should be done. You do not see it I know,
you do not mean it I am persuaded, but he is impressed with the idea,
and nine men out of ten would be (if these matters were stated by
anybody but you) that to enable yourself to gain your object and stand
in your present relations towards Mr. Bentley, you have used him as an
instrument by suppressing that which would have shewn his conduct in
the best and truest light, and have shrunk from the friendly and manly
avowal of feeling which your own impulses and freer and less worldly
considerations so generously prompted.

Once more let me say that I do not mean to hurt or offend you by
anything I have said, and that I should be truly grieved to find I
have done so. But I must speak strongly because I feel strongly, and
because I have a misgiving that even now I have been silent too long.

My dear Ainsworth, I am
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens.

William Ainsworth Esquire.”

The little quarrel, if it was a quarrel, must have been composed amicably, for Forster in his _Life of Dickens_ refers several times to Ainsworth in a kind and appreciative way.

In 1840 Ainsworth and George Cruikshank brought out the “Tower of London” in monthly numbers, and were equal partners in the enterprise. It has always been regarded as a work of merit. In 1841 the author received £1000 from the _Sunday Times_ for “Old St. Paul’s”, and it was later one of Cruikshank’s grievances that he was not associated in this production, the idea of which he insisted was his own. Among my letters is one written by Cruikshank to Ainsworth on the subject, which has not, as far as I know, been published, and I give it because it reveals the relations of the two men quite distinctly.

“Amwell St., March 4, 1841.

MY DEAR AINSWORTH:—

Mr. Pettigrew called here yesterday and stated your proposition. Had
that proposal been made any time between last December up to about a
fortnight back I should have been happy, _most_ happy, to have
accepted the offer—but now I am sorry to say, but I cannot—no, I have
so far committed myself with various parties that if I were to
withdraw my projected publication I am sure that I should be a
laughing stock to some and what is worse—I fear that with others I
should lose all title to honor or integrity. I do assure you, my dear
Ainsworth, I sincerely regret—that I cannot join you in this work, but
what was I to think—what conclusion was I to come to but that you had
_cut_ me. At the latter end of last year you announced that _we_ were
preparing a “new work!” in the early part of December last. I saw by
an advertisement that your “new work” was to be published in the
“Sunday Times.” You do not come to me or send for me nor send me any
explanations. I meet you at Dickens’s on “New Year’s Eve.” You tell me
then that you will see me in a few days and explain everything to my
satisfaction. I hear nothing from you. In your various notes about the
“Guy Fawkes” you do not even advert to the subject. I purposely keep
myself disengaged refusing many advantageous offers of work—still I
hear nothing from you. At lenth (_sic_) you announce a New Work as a
_companion to the “Tower”!_ without my name. I then conclude that you
do not intend to join _me_ in _any_ “New Work” and therefore determine
to do something for myself—_indeed I could hold out no longer_—to show
that others besides myself considered that you had left me, I was
applied to by Chapman & Hall to join with them and Mr. Dickens in a
speculation which indeed I promised to do should the one with Mr. Felt
be abandoned. However I have still to hope that when you are
disengaged from Mr. Bentley that some arrangements may be made which
may tend to our material benefit.

I remain, my dear Ainsworth, yours very truly,
GEO. CRUIKSHANK.”

In 1841, Ainsworth published the “Guy Fawkes” mentioned in Cruikshank’s letter. About this time he seems to have become involved in disagreements with Bentley. On June 22, 1841, he wrote to Ollier:

“I am scarcely surprised to learn from you that Mr. Bentley states that I promised Mr. Barham to write two separate stories for the November and December numbers of the Miscellany, because it is only one of those misstatements to which that gentleman, in all the negotiations I have had with him, has invariably had recourse. Nothing of the sort was either expressed or implied, and I cannot believe Mr. Barham made any such statement, because it is entirely foreign to the spirit of the whole arrangement. I will thank you however to give Mr. Bentley distinctly to understand that I will not write any such story or stories, and that if he does not think fit to enter into the proposed arrangement, I shall adhere to the original agreement and finish Guy Fawkes in February next. I beg you will also give him to understand that I will not allow Mr. Leech or any other artist than Mr. Cruikshank to illustrate any portion of the work; and that I insist upon a clause to that effect being inserted in the mem. of agreement.”

The remark about Cruikshank is significant when read in connection with the artist’s letter of three months before, and with his subsequent conduct. For although it is clear that the trouble about the publication of “St. Paul’s” had been healed, through the efforts of Mr. Pettigrew, he rehashed the old grievance thirty years later.

A rupture with Bentley was imminent and it came very soon. Ainsworth left the _Miscellany_ in 1841, and in February, 1842, the first number of “Ainsworth’s Magazine” made its appearance. At first he was both editor and proprietor, and later he sold the magazine to his publishers—another of Cruikshank’s grievances; but he afterwards bought it back, and he continued it until 1854 when he purchased _Bentley’s Miscellany_ and merged both magazines into one. In 1845 he had bought for £2,500 Colburn’s _New Monthly Magazine_, of which serial he had been an editor for a short time in 1836. In a few months he discontinued the consolidated magazine and sold the _New Monthly_ to his cousin, Dr. W. F. Ainsworth, closing his editorial career. For “Ainsworth’s Magazine” he wrote “The Miser’s Daughter”, a work of considerable power, which was long years afterward dramatized by Andrew Halliday and produced at the Adelphi Theatre. In 1843 followed “Windsor Castle”, an historical romance with the scene laid in the reign of Henry VIII; and in 1844 his active pen busied itself with another story of the same class, “St. James’s or the Court of Queen Anne”.

During the period between 1836 and 1844, Ainsworth as we have seen, was closely associated with Cruikshank, who was destined to become a thorn in his side. The second issue of “Rookwood” was illustrated by Cruikshank, who furnished also the designs for “Jack Sheppard,” “The Tower of London,” “Guy Fawkes,” “The Miser’s Daughter,” “Windsor Castle” (in part), and “St. James’s.”

Whatever may be said of Cruikshank as an artist, he was beyond question a vain, self-centred and disagreeable person. “He had a tendency,” says Blanchard Jerrold, “to quarrel with all persons with whom he had business relations, and when he did quarrel, his words knew no bounds.”[15] He came to that stage of boundless conceit when he regarded himself as the creator of all the works for which he supplied the illustrations and reduced the writer to the level of an ordinary amanuensis.

All the world knows his absurd pretensions to the origination of _Oliver Twist_. He also asserted his claim to everything that was good in “Jack Sheppard,” “The Miser’s Daughter,” and “The Tower of London.” But he claimed Egan’s _Life in London_ and even a poem of Laman Blanchard’s which he had illustrated for the _Omnibus_—as well as the pattern of the hat worn by Russian soldiers! Blanchard Jerrold says in the _Life_ that the controversies about Dickens and Ainsworth “arose from Cruikshank’s habit of exaggeration in all things,” which is a biographer’s euphemism, signifying in plain English that the man was an unmitigated liar.

If any one is curious about the history of the controversies, he will find a full, fair and dispassionate account in Chapters VIII and IX of Jerrold’s book. The biographer prints in full Ainsworth’s dignified rejoinder to Cruikshank’s assault, and justly ridicules the utterances of the eccentric designer. Austin Dobson, a competent and impartial judge, has recently added his condemnation of Cruikshank’s arrogance.[16] “He was not exempt” says Mr. Dobson “from a certain ‘Roman infirmity’ of exaggerating the importance of his own performances—an infirmity which did not decrease with years. Whatever the amount of assistance he gave to Dickens and to Ainsworth, it is clear that it was not rated by them at the value he placed upon it. That he did make suggestions, relevant or irrelevant, can hardly be doubted, for it was part of his inventive and ever projecting habit of mind. It must also be conceded that he most signally seconded the text by his graphic interpretations; but that this aid or these suggestions were of such a nature as to transfer the credit of the ‘Miser’s Daughter’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ from the authors to himself is more than can reasonably be allowed.”

Mr. Frith, a friend of Cruikshank, says in his Autobiography:[17] “Cruikshank labored under a strange delusion regarding the works of Dickens and Ainsworth. I heard him announce to a large company assembled at dinner at Glasgow that he was the writer of ‘Oliver Twist.’*** He also wrote the ‘Tower of London,’ erroneously credited to Ainsworth, as well as other works commonly understood to have been written by that author. My intimacy with Cruikshank enables me to declare that I do not believe he would be guilty of the least deviation from truth, and to this day I can see no way of accounting for what was a most absurd delusion.” In fact, there is only one way, if we concede truthfulness to the deluded person; he was not of sound mind.

That Cruikshank was pertinaciously suggestive may be readily admitted. “He was excessively troublesome and obtrusive in his suggestions” says Ainsworth. “Mr. Dickens declared to me that he could not stand it and should send him printed matter in future.” He adds, in a kindly spirit which must appeal to every reader, considering the grossness of the unjustifiable attack upon him, “It would be unjust, however, to deny that there was not (_sic_) wonderful cleverness and quickness about Cruikshank, and I am indebted to him for many valuable hints and suggestions.” Ainsworth’s appreciation is further shown by an unpublished letter in my possession, written on December 23, 1838, to Mr. Jones.

“Bentley” he says “will forward you the introductory chapters and
illustrations of Jack Sheppard with this note. As it is of the utmost
consequence to me to produce a favourable impression upon the public
by this work, I venture to hope that you will lend me a helping hand
at starting.*** Cruikshank’s illustrations are, in my opinion,
astonishingly fine. The scene in the loft throws into shade all his
former efforts in this line.”

This letter also reveals what appears abundantly in the pages of my collection,—that Ainsworth was given to calling on all his friends of journalistic and magazine associations to praise his books. He was not at all backward in urging them to puff the new works; and when Mr. Ebers was the manager of the opera, he artfully threw in suggestions of “free tickets,” which was perhaps justifiable but scarcely consistent with dignity.

As an example of the way in which Cruikshank took pains to inflict upon his author the details of his designs, it may not be amiss to quote a letter which is also among my possessions, and which has not been published, to the best of my knowledge. It is addressed to Ainsworth and is dated “Saturday evening, 5 o’clock.

“Jonathan Wild has hold of Jack’s left arm with _his_ left hand, and
grasps the collar with his right. The Jew has both his arms round
Jack’s right arm and Quilt Arnold has hold of the right side of Jack’s
coat. This fellow in making his spring at Sheppard may upset the
gravedigger who nearly falls into the grave. I should advise the
approach of the attacking party to be thus. The Jew and some other
fellow go round the _north_ of the church and lurk there and Qt.
Arnold in that road at the N. W. corner—Wild himself to come along the
_south_ side so as to take Jack in the rear. Darrell is about to draw
his sword. In the other subject I have given Jonathan a _stout_
walking stick. I have only time to add that I am yours very truly. The
cheque all safe, many thanks.”

Cruikshank first put forth his claim publicly in 1872, by means of a pamphlet called _The Artist and the Author_, just after the publication of the first volume of Forster’s _Dickens_. It is likely that he was encouraged in his folly by the flattery of foolish friends. Jerrold lays much blame on Thackeray, from whom he quotes a long passage exalting the artist far beyond the author. “With regard to the modern romance of ‘Jack Sheppard’,” remarks Thackeray, “it seems to us that Mr. Cruikshank really created the tale, and that Mr. Ainsworth, as it were, only put words to it. Let any reader of the novel think over it for awhile, now that it is some months since he had perused and laid it down—let him think, and tell us what he remembers of the tale. George Cruikshank’s pictures—always George Cruikshank’s pictures.” But Thackeray had such a poor opinion of the book that it is strange he should have ascribed any merit to Cruikshank for having “created it”. He called it “a book quite absurd and unreal, and infinitely more immoral than anything Fielding even wrote,” if, as is generally supposed Thackeray was the author of the article on Fielding in the _Times_ of September 2, 1840, reprinted in “Stray Papers” of Thackeray, edited by Lewis Melville and published in 1901. Thackeray wrote to his mother: “I read your views about ‘Jack Sheppard’, and, such is the difference of taste, thought it poor stuff and much below the mark.”[18] Mr. Jerrold expresses the opinion that Thackeray was always unjust to Ainsworth. “He caricatured him unmercifully in _Punch_, and never lost an opportunity of being amusing at his expense.” I am not inclined to agree with Mr. Jerrold’s views. The long and cordial intimacy of the two men is evidence against the truth of the theory. I find no record of any resentment on Ainsworth’s part against the author of _Vanity Fair_, and Ainsworth was by no means timid in self-defense or averse to a sturdy combat with those who assailed him. Thackeray—who never got over the conviction that he himself was an “artist”—a picture maker—naturally gave to the illustrator an undue meed of praise; and at the risk of denunciation by all the scribblers who succumb to the “disease of admiration” and find it easy to glorify a famous man as if he were perfect and infallible, I venture to say that in grotesqueness and faulty drawing, the great Snob and the great Cruikshank were not very dissimilar. Yet Thackeray’s comments were wisdom itself when compared with the silly utterance of Mr. Walter Thornbury, who thus delivers himself: “Even Dickens had his fine gold jewelled by Cruikshank. Ainsworth’s tawdry rubbish—now all but forgotten, and soon to sink deep in the mud-pool of oblivion,—was illuminated with a false splendor by the great humorist,”[19] A critical person might be disposed to inquire why the “great humorist” should lower himself by illuminating anything with a “false splendor.” It is not complimentary to the great humorist, but Mr. Thornbury unconsciously told the truth; his hero was falseness personified.

In his “Few Words about George Cruikshank,” Ainsworth said: “For myself, I desire to state emphatically that not a single line—not a word—in any of my novels was written by their illustrator, Cruikshank. In no instance did he even see a proof. The subjects were arranged with him early in the month, and about the fifteenth he used to send me tracings of the plates. That was all.” He adds: “_Ne sutor ultra crepidam._ Had Cruikshank been capable of constructing a story, why did he not exercise his talent when he had no connection with Mr. Dickens or myself? But I never heard of such a tale being published.” Of course, it may be said that Cruikshank did not pretend that he had written the books—only that he had furnished the leading ideas; that is an easy thing to assert, a hard thing to disprove, and an impossible thing to demonstrate.

It is fairly manifest that if there had been any real foundation for the claims of Cruikshank, he would not have waited for thirty years before setting up his title. He sought to account for the delay by asseverating that he had frequently _in private_ asserted his claim, which anybody possessed of ordinary intelligence will see in a moment was a puerile make-shift; no sufficient reason or explanation. As nobody whose opinion is worth accepting has ever given credence to the tale of the old artist, it may be a waste of time to give it further attention; but it may be permitted to show that Cruikshank needed a good deal of instruction himself.

The fact is shown by the letter of Dickens, produced in facsimile by Forster,[20] and it is confirmed by several of Ainsworth’s letters now lying before me. In March, 1836, while Cruikshank was engaged on the designs for the second edition of “Rookwood,” Ainsworth wrote to Macrone, the publisher, “I _have_ seen some of George Cruikshank’s designs, and it was because I thought them so _sketchy_ that I write to you. They are anything but _full_ subjects and appear to be chosen as much as possible for light work. He shirked the inauguration scene, for instance, because it was too crowded. I quite agree with you that a few good designs are better than many meagre sketches, and all I want is that you should make George understand this. He has evidently two styles—and one can scarcely recognize in some of his ‘Bozzes’ the hand of the designer of the Comic Almanack.*** _Do_, I pray of you, see George Cruikshank, and don’t let him put us off so badly.” Again, in writing to Macrone in 1836, he makes several recommendations for designs, and adds: “Another suggestion—and this refers to George. In addition to the figures I suggested, I wish him to introduce as entering my old gentleman’s chamber, Thomas Hill, Esq. (in propria persona), or as I shall call him, Tom Vale. If George has not seen him, you can get the sketch from Frazer’s Mag. but introduced he must be, as I mean to carry him throughout and to make him play the part of Mr. Weller in my story; I wish George therefore to give the portrait, easily done, as exact as possible.” In a later letter to Cruikshank himself, while they were at work together on “The Tower,” he writes: “Pray, when you are at the Tower, sketch the gateway of the Bloody Tower from the south; the chamber where the princes were murdered; the basement chamber at the right of the gateway of the Bloody Tower, near the Round Tower.” All this furnishes competent testimony that Cruikshank was a mere illustrator, directed and controlled by the author.

From the time of “Jack Sheppard” until 1881, a period of over forty years, Ainsworth was a busy man, producing book after book at regular intervals and until 1855 closely occupied with editorial labors. After “St. James’s” he began “Auriol,” which was by no means successful. It dealt with a London alchemist of the sixteenth century, but the plot was defective and it was not published in book form until near the close of the author’s life. In 1848 he wrote “Lancashire Witches” for the _Sunday Times_, receiving £1,000. It was dedicated to his old friend James Crossley, President of the Chetham Society, which published many volumes, including Potts’s _Discovery of Witches_ and the _Journals_ of Nicolas Assheton, both furnishing much of the material for the story. In 1854, “Star Chamber” and “The Flitch of Bacon, or the Custom of Dunmow” appeared. The “Flitch” treated of the ancient Essex custom of giving a “Gamon of Bacon” to a married pair “who had taken an oath, pursuant to the ancient ‘Custom of Confession,’ if ever—

“—You either married man or wife
By household brawles or contentious strife,
Or otherwise, in bed or at board,
Did offend each other in deed or word,
Or, since the Parish _clerk_ said _Amen_,
You wish’t yourselves unmarried agen,
Or in a twelve months time and a day,
Repented not in thought, any way;
But continued true and just in desire
As when you joyn’d hands in the holy quire.”

In 1851 “the lord of the manor declined to give the flitch, but the claimants obtained one from a public subscription, and a concourse of some three thousand people assembled in Easton Park in their honour.”[21] In 1855 Ainsworth himself offered to give the flitch. The candidates were Mr. James Barlow and his wife, of Chipping Ongar, and the Chevalier de Chatelain and his wife, the last named being well known in literary circles. They were old friends of Ainsworth. I have thirteen letters from Ainsworth to the Chevalier and his wife, of the most intimate character, dating from 1845 to 1880. In one of them, written at Brighton on October 22, 1854, he says:

“My dear Chevalier: Thanks for your charming little volume, full of
graceful translations. You have done me the favor I find to include
the ‘Custom of Dunmow’ in your collection. Within the last few days I
have received another version in French of the same ballad by Jacques
Desrosiers. The Tale has been translated under the title of ‘_Un An et
un Jour_’, and published at Bruxelles. You will be glad to hear that a
worthy personage has announced his intention of bequeathing a sum
sufficient for the perpetual maintenance of the good old custom.”

On January 5, 1855, he writes to Madame de Chatelain:

“I need scarcely say, I hope, that I shall be most happy to entertain your claim for the Flitch—and though I believe a prior claim has been made, I will gladly give a second prize rather than you should experience any disappointment.” On July 19, 1855, she received the flitch of bacon in the Windmill Field, Dunmore.

In 1856 “Spendthrift” appeared, and in 1857 “Merwyn Clitheroe” which he had begun in 1851 but had abandoned after a few weekly numbers. In 1860 he published “Ovingdean Grange, a Tale of the South Downs.” The two books last mentioned were partly autobiographical.

It is unnecessary to do more than to enumerate his later productions, for although they showed the scrupulous care which he exercised in respect to details and the pains he took to be accurate in historical references, they were never as popular as his earlier works. The list is quite imposing: “Constable of the Tower,” 1861; “The Lord Mayor of London,” 1862; “Cardinal Pole,” 1863; “John Law, the Projector,” 1864; “The Spanish Match, or Charles Stuart in Madrid,” 1865; “Myddleton Pomfret,” 1865; “The Constable de Bourbon,” 1866; “Old Court,” 1867; “The South Sea Bubble,” 1868; “Hilary St. Ives,” 1869; “Talbot Harland,” 1870; “Tower Hill,” 1871; “Boscobel,” 1872; “The Manchester Rebels, or the Fatal ’45.” 1873; “Merry England,” 1874; “The Goldsmith’s Wife,” 1874; “Preston Fight, or the Insurrection of 1715,” 1875; “Chetwynd Calverley,” 1876; “The Leaguer of Lathom, a Tale of the Civil War in Lancashire,” 1876; “The Fall of Somerset,” 1877; “Beatrice Tyldesley,” 1878; “Beau Nash,” 1879; “Auriol and other tales,” 1880; and “Stanley Brereton,” 1881. Not a single one of this long catalogue is now remembered. Percy Fitzgerald in an article in _Belgravia_ (November, 1881), said that the description of Ainsworth’s books in the Catalogue of the British Museum filled no fewer than forty pages. Mr. Axon reduces the number of pages to twenty-three, but that is very extensive. In addition to the prose works whose titles are given above, he published in 1855 “Ballads, Romantic, Fantastical and Humorous,” which was illustrated by Sir John Gilbert and which contains some spirited and picturesque verses; and in 1859 “The Combat of the Thirty,” a translation of a Breton lay of the middle ages, which was included in the later editions of the “Ballads.”

In 1881 Ainsworth was nearly seventy-seven, and approaching the end of his career. On September 15 in that year, the Mayor of Manchester, Sir Thomas Baker, gave a banquet in his honor at the town hall. In proposing the health of the guest, the Mayor said that in the Manchester public free libraries there were two hundred and fifty volumes of his works. “During the last twelve months”, said the Mayor, “those volumes have been read seven thousand six hundred and sixty times, mostly by the artisan class of readers. And this means that twenty volumes of his works are being perused in Manchester by readers of the free libraries every day all the year through.”

A report of this banquet is given as an introduction to “Stanley Brereton”, which was dedicated to the Mayor. I have a copy of the “official” report, a pamphlet of twenty-nine pages, whereof forty copies were printed “for private circulation only”. The speeches are characteristic of English dinners, and some of them are funny without any intention on the part of the speakers. The Mayor rather astonishes us by saying that the six of the most popular works, in the order in which they were most read, were “The Tower of London”, “The Lancashire Witches”, “Old St. Paul’s”, “Windsor Castle”, “The Miser’s Daughter”, and “The Manchester Rebels”. But this was in Manchester. Ainsworth’s response was modest and graceful, and he dwelt upon his delight in being styled “the Lancashire novelist”. His old friend Crossley and Edmund Yates were among the orators of the occasion, the latter responding to the toast of “The Press”, and saying of “after-dinner Manchester” that “even in the midst of enjoyment he would hazard the friendly criticism that though it was eloquent it was not concise.” The account ends with these significant words: “This concluded the list of toasts, and the company shortly afterwards broke up.” One who reads the story of the feast is not surprised at this, for the speeches were enough to break up any company; but the tribute to Ainsworth was well-meant and sincere.

My English friend, the prospective biographer of Ainsworth, takes issue with me on my assertion that his favorite is an author who has fallen into oblivion and whose books are not read by the present generation. He refers of course to English readers, and assures me that the stories are still popular in England. “Routledge”, he says, “issues a vast number of cheap editions of his works, and in addition many other publishing firms have recently issued editions of the better known novels. This has been done by Methuen, Newnes, Gibbings, Mudie, Treherne, and Grant Richards, to mention a few that I recollect at the minute.” It is doubtless true that there is a demand for the tales among the less cultivated English readers, but it can not, I think, be maintained successfully that the author has a permanent and enduring literary fame. Perhaps I am influenced in my opinion by the American lack of acquaintance with Ainsworth and his works.

Contemporaneous memoirs and records are full of testimony to the personal popularity of Ainsworth in the social life of the day. He entertained freely, and was a favorite guest. Dickens and Thackeray were both fond of him, although Blanchard Jerrold, as we have seen, doubted Thackeray’s friendship. Forster says in his _Dickens_, referring to the period _circa_ 1838, “A friend now especially welcome, too, was the novelist, Mr. Ainsworth, who shared with us incessantly for the three following years in the companionship which began at his house; with whom we visited, during two of these years, friends of arts and letters in his native Manchester, from among whom Dickens brought away his Brothers Cheeryble, and to whose sympathy in tastes and pursuits, accomplishments in literature, open-hearted, generous ways, and cordial hospitality, many of the pleasures of later years are due.” I have a little note of his, addressed to Dickens, saying: “Don’t forget your engagement to dine with me on Tuesday next. I shall send a refresher to Forster the unpunctual.” There is also this letter from Dickens—strangely enough in black ink and not the blue which he employed in later days.

“Devonshire Terrace,
Fifth February, 1841.

MY DEAR AINSWORTH—

Will you tell me where that Punch is to be bought, what one is to ask
for, and what the cost is. It has made me very uneasy in my mind.

Mind—I deny the beer. It is very excellent; but that it surpasses that
meeker, and gentler, and brighter ale of mine (oh how bright it is!) I
never will admit. My gauntlet lies upon the earth.

Yours, in defiance,
CHARLES DICKENS.”

One of my Thackeray letters is addressed to Ainsworth, dated in 1844, inviting him to dine at the Garrick, with the characteristic remark, “I want to ask 3 or 4 of the littery purfession.” Tom Moore in his Journal (November 21, 1838) mentions a dinner at Bentley’s where the company was “all the very _haut ton_ of the literature of the day,” including himself (named first), Jerdan, Ainsworth, Lever, Dickens, Campbell, and Luttrell. We read in Mackay’s “Breakfasts with Rogers” of a breakfast where he met Sydney Smith, Daniel O’Connell, Sir Augustus D’Este and Ainsworth. These references might be multiplied almost indefinitely. According to Hazlitt, Ainsworth had one rule, as a host, which in these days of studied unpunctuality might be considered unduly vigorous; when he had friends to dinner he locked his outside gate at the stroke of the clock, and no late comer was admitted.

It is not to be denied that he had his foibles and that he also had his quarrels—few men of any force or strength of will and character can escape quarrels. That he fell out with Cruikshank and Bentley is not to be wondered at, for almost everybody did that, sooner or later. His passage at arms with Francis Mahony—the Father Prout of “Bells of Shandon” fame—is more to be regretted, but he was in no way to blame. He behaved very well under trying conditions. The trouble dated from Ainsworth’s secession from _Bentley’s Miscellany_—what Mr. Bates calls his “dis-Bentleyfication,” and, ignoring their past intimacy and cordial companionship, Mahony sneered at the man “who left the tale of Crichton half told, and had taken up with ‘Blueskin,’ ‘Jack Sheppard,’ ‘Flitches of Bacon,’ and ‘Lancashire Witches,’ and thought such things were ‘literature,’”—following it up with some rather poor and clumsy verse-libels, flat, stale and unprofitable—utterly unworthy of a moment’s time. Ainsworth replied most courteously in a parody of Prout, called “The Magpie of Marwood; an humble Ballade,” which none could condemn as either coarse or brutal. When Mahony came back at his former friend with quotations from private letters asking eulogistic notices and literary aid, and when he said “Has he forgotten that he was fed at the table of Lady Blessington? not merely for the sake of companionship, for a duller dog never sat at a convivial board,” he showed himself a despicable cad, a perfidious creature, well deserving the name of “Jesuit scribe,” which was about all the retort which Ainsworth thought fit to make.

The kindly and forgiving nature of Ainsworth is shown by a letter in my collection, written on February 24, 1880, to Charles Kent. He says: “I always regret the misunderstanding that occurred between myself and Mahony, but any offence that was given him on my part was unintentional, and I cannot help thinking he was incited to the attack he made upon me by Bentley. Be this as it may, I have long ceased to think about it, and now only dwell upon the agreeable parts of his character. He was an admirable scholar, a wit, a charming poet, and generally—not always—a very genial companion.” These pleasant remarks about the man who had grossly insulted him, are quite characteristic and demonstrate the sweet reasonableness with which he treated men like Cruikshank and Father Prout.

As Blanchard Jerrold says, _Punch_ was often quite severe on Ainsworth. Spielmann in his _History of Punch_ confirms the statement:

“Harrison Ainsworth, as much for his good looks and his literary vanity, as for his tendency to reprint his romances in such journals as came under his editorship, was the object of constant banter. An epigram put the case very neatly:

“Says Ainsworth to Colburn,
‘A plan in my pate is,
To give my romance as
A supplement, _gratis_.’
Says Colburn to Ainsworth,
‘Twill do very nicely,
For that will be charging
It’s value precisely.’

“Harrison Ainsworth could not have his portrait painted, nor write a novel of crime and sensation, without being regarded as a convenient peg for pleasantry.”

There seems to have been, unluckily, a shadow of a difference with William Jerdan, of the _Literary Gazette_, whose diffuse and often tedious _Autobiography_ was published in 1853. “Among incipient authors,” says Jerdan, “whom (to use a common phrase) it was in my power to ‘take by the hand’ and pull up the steep, few had heartier help than Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth, whose literary propensities were strong in youth, and who has since made so wide a noise in the world of fictitious and periodical literature. From some cause or another, which I cannot comprehend, he has given a notice to my publishers, to forbid the use of any of his correspondence in these Memoirs, though on looking over a number of his letters I can discover nothing discreditable to him, or aught of which he has reason to be ashamed.” I think it is not difficult to understand what Jerdan seemed unable to comprehend. Ainsworth did not care to have his confidential requests for good notices go out to the public. It was a weakness of his to beg for complimentary reviews and Father Prout had made the most of it; small wonder that he dreaded a repetition of the experience. Jerdan gives, however, a very kindly estimate of Ainsworth.[22]

In Mr. Axon’s memoir, he says that an engraving by W. C. Edwards of a portrait of Ainsworth by Maclise appeared on the frontispiece of Laman Blanchard’s biographical sketch in the first number of “Ainsworth’s Magazine”. A second portrait by the same artist, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844, was the frontispiece of the fifth volume of the magazine. A portrait by Count D’Orsay dated November 21, 1844, appeared in the seventh volume. To this period belong the full-length portrait by the elder Pickersgill, the property of Chetham’s Hospital, but now in the Manchester Reference Library, and a portrait by R. J. Lane. The good looks of Ainsworth have been referred to several times; they were the good looks of the days of William IV, but the Maclise and Pickersgill portraits as well as the later Fry photograph have a dandified appearance which in our modern eyes detracts from true dignity. The sketch in the _Maclise Gallery_ shows him at his best, in his Fraser days, a fine and gallant figure, without the hideous whiskers of the type beloved by Tittlebat Titmouse. “This delicately drawn portrait of the novelist” comments Mr. Bates, “just at the time that he had achieved his reputation,’—hair curled and oiled as that of an Assyrian bull, the gothic arch coat-collar, the high neckcloth, and the tightly strapped trousers—exhibits as fine an example as we could wish for, of the dandy of the D’Orsay type and pre-Victorian epoch.”

He lived at one time at the “Elms” at Kilburn, and later at Kensal Manor House on the Harrow Road. Afterwards he lived at Brighton and at Tunbridge Wells. When he grew old he resided with his oldest daughter, Fannie, at Hurstpierpoint. He had also a residence at St. Mary’s Road, Reigate, Surrey, and there he died, on Sunday, January 3d, 1882. On January 9th, he was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, with a quiet and simple ceremonial as he wished. His widow and three daughters by his first marriage survived him.

Ainsworth had no power to portray character or to analyze motives; his genius was purely descriptive. He had a strong literary bent, and he was a man of letters in the true sense. He did not possess the spark which gives immortality, but he toiled faithfully and his work was well done even if he did not reach the standard of the greatest of his contemporaries.

Perhaps his merits were characterized rather too ornately in the _Sun_ of August 2, 1852, where a reviewer said:

“His romances yield evidence, in a thousand particulars, that his temperament is exquisitely sensitive, not less of the horrible than of the beautiful. We have it in those landscapes variously coloured with the glow of Claude and the gloom of Salvator Rosa—in those lyrics grave as the songs of the Tyrol, or ghastly as the incantations of the Brocken; but still more in those creations, peopling the one and chaunting the other, namely, some of them as the models of Ostade, and others wild as the wildest dreams of Fuseli. Everywhere, however, in these romances a preference for the _grimlier_ moods of imagination renders itself apparent. The author’s purpose, so to speak, gravitates towards the preternatural. Had he been a painter instead of a romancist, he could have portrayed the agonies of Ugolino, as Da Vinci portrayed the ‘_rotello del fico_,’ in lines the most haggard and lines the most cadaverous. As a writer of fiction, his place among his contemporaries may, we conceive, be very readily indicated. He occupies the same position in the present that Radcliffe occupied in a former generation.”

Mr. Axon’s estimate is less gorgeous but more convincing. “The essence of his power was that same faculty by which the Eastern story-teller holds spellbound a crowd of hearers in the street of Cairo. It is this fascination which enables Ainsworth, at his best, to compel the reader’s attention, and hurries him forward from the first page to the last of some tale of ‘daring-do’, of crime, adventure, sorrow and love. The reader who has listened to the beginning does not willingly turn aside until the story is completed and he has seen all the puppets play their part with that skilful semblance of truth that seems more real than reality itself.”

It is to be hoped that the forthcoming biography will do ample justice to the memory of this charming literary personage, and may revive the fading interest in him and in his works.

GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD JAMES

In a vainglorious mood I said not long ago to a well-dressed and apparently intelligent gentleman whom I met in the house of an accomplished lawyer in Washington City, that I had just had the privilege of conversing with the extremely modern novelist, Mr. Henry James. He smiled amiably and remarked airily, “Oh, the two horsemen fellow”.

The remark was not without significance, because it betrayed the fact that my casual acquaintance, who might well be presumed to represent what is called “the average citizen” of this enlightened country; who was fairly well educated; who had read enough to know of the famous horsemen and of their habitual appearance in the opening chapter; who assuredly had skimmed the book-notices in our wonderful newspapers; was, after all, more distinctly impressed by the writer of sixty years ago than by the contemporaneous author whose volumes bid fair to rival in number those of his namesake—an author whose style defies definition and bewilders the simple-minded searcher after a good story.

I confess that I am puzzled by these subtle writers with their involved sentences, their clouds of verbiage, and their incomprehensible wanderings in speculative mysteries. There is a delight about the direct and there is often disappointment about the indirect. The true lover of fiction revels in the directness of Dumas and of Dickens, but he usually accepts the intricacies of the modern school because he is told that he ought to do so or because, alone and unaided, he can discover nothing better in the product of the day.

To my Washington friend I replied, with that offensive assumption of superiority which marks the man familiar with his encyclopædia, that the writer of whom he was thinking had closed his career and finished the last chapter of his life nearly half a century ago, when Henry James was only seventeen and had not yet dreamed of Daisy Miller or forecasted the genesis of the two closely printed volumes of _The Golden Bowl_. I discerned the truth, however, that the subject was not interesting and we changed the topic of conversation.

The earlier James has not been favored by the men who compile histories of English literature. Nicoll and Seccombe merely call him “the prolific James”, but devote large space to many inferior writers. Garnett and Gosse ignore him entirely. It seems to be a rule among self-constituted critics to speak of him with indifference; I think he deserves more respectful treatment. It may be that he has been a victim of that merciless propensity of men to throw stones at him who has been the subject of ridicule by those who have won popularity; when one cur barks, the whole pack joins vigorously. As Mr. Stapleton in _Jacob Faithful_ profoundly observes, it is “human natur”. When Macaulay damned poor Montgomery to lasting ignominy, he deliberately consigned the luckless poet to undeserved contempt; and Macaulay’s essay will live while but for its caustic condemnation Montgomery would be utterly forgotten.