WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH

Reviewers, critics and students of literature are inclined to resent the assertion with respect to a writer once eminent, that he is substantially forgotten. But it is safe to say that if we regard the millions of readers in this country whose literary nutriment is made up chiefly of works of fiction or of biography of the lighter sort, as “the reading public of America”, the name of William Harrison Ainsworth is by no means familiar in the United States. There are many book-owners who keep his “Works” upon their shelves, and know the backs of the volumes, and some of the omnivorous have doubtless read “Jack Sheppard”, “Crichton”, “The Tower of London”, and perhaps “Rookwood”; yet thousands who are well acquainted with their Scott, their Dickens and their Thackeray would be sorely puzzled if they were asked to tell us who Ainsworth was, and exactly when he lived, or to give a synopsis of the plot of a single one of his numerous stories; and he has been dead not quite thirty years.

Allibone gives him but fourteen lines of biography, mostly bitter censure, with a few words of qualified praise for such historical tales as “St. Paul’s” and “The Tower”. The indifference to him is not limited to general readers or to America. Chamber’sEncyclopædia of English Literaturebegrudges him twenty-nine lines of depreciative comment, conceding to him dramatic art and power, but denying to him “originalityor felicity of humor or character”. He is not even mentioned in Mr. Edmund Gosse’sModern English Literature, and Taine does not condescend to give his name. In theHistoryof Nicoll and Seccombe no reference to him can be found. In the pretentious volumes of theHistory of English Literatureedited by Garnett and Gosse a portrait of him is given with a rough draft of a Cruikshank drawing; and this is what is said of him: “A very popular exponent of the grotesque and the sensational in historical romance was William Harrison Ainsworth (1805–1882), a Manchester solicitor, who wroteRookwood, 1834,Jack Sheppard, 1839, andThe Tower of London, 1840. He was a sort of Cruikshank of the pen, delighting in violent and lurid scenes, crowded with animated figures”. This is rather an absurd mess of misinformation. One would scarcely believe that there was a time when he was esteemed to be a worthy rival of Charles Dickens, and when in the eyes of the critics and of the public he far outshone Edward Lytton Bulwer.

In a note to the sketch in theDictionary of National Biography, Mr. W. E. A. Axon says that “no biography of Ainsworth has appeared or is likely to be published.” The fact is correctly stated, but the prediction may not be fulfilled. In 1902, Mr. Axon himself expanded theDictionaryarticle and made it into an excellent memoir of forty-three pages, but only a few copies were printed. It contains five portraits. A devoted admirer of Ainsworth has been for some years engaged in the preparation of an extended biography. I do not give his name, for he probably prefers to make the announcement at his own time and in his own way. A few years ago I became the possessor of a considerable number of autographic relics of Ainsworth, includinga memorandum book and a manuscript volume containing an account of his travels in Italy in 1830, dedicated to his wife, with a poem; some letters to him from Cruikshank; thirty-six pages of the draft of “Jack Sheppard”, and more than two hundred of his own letters. It is gratifying to know that my friend who is at work on the “Life” has been aided by this little collection.

The only published records of Ainsworth’s life, other than those to which I have referred, are, as far as I have been able to discover, a brief memoir by Laman Blanchard which appeared in theMirrorin 1842 and was reproduced in later editions of “Rookwood”; a chapter in Madden’sLife of Lady Blessington; a sketch by James Crossley contributed to the Routledge edition of theBalladsin 1855; and an account of him by William Bates, accompanying a semi-caricature portrait in theMaclise Portrait Gallery.

Ainsworth was born in his father’s house on King Street, Manchester, February 4, 1805. His family was “respectable” in the English sense, for his grandfather on his mother’s side was a Unitarian minister, and his father a prosperous solicitor. It was from the mother that he inherited in 1842 some “landed property” to use another distinctively English phrase, and it is amusing to observe the pride of Madden when he boasts that Ainsworth’s name appears inBurke’s Landed Gentry. He attended the Free Grammar School in Manchester, where it is said that he was proficient in Latin and Greek, and as he was expected to succeed to his father’s practice, he became an articled clerk in the office of Mr. Alexander Kay, at the age of sixteen. He was a handsome boy, full of ambition, but his ambition did not lead him in the dull and dusty paths which solicitors tread. He had already written a drama, forprivate production, which was printed inArliss’s Magazine, and a number of sketches, translations and minor papers for a serial calledThe Manchester Iris, and he subsequently conducted a periodical styledThe Boeotian, which had a short existence of six months. Before he was nineteen, he was a regular contributor to theLondon Magazineand theEdinburgh Magazine. Some of these youthful efforts were collected in “December Tales” (1823), which also contained sketches by James Crossley and John Partington Aston. In 1822 he issued a pamphlet of “Poems, by Cheviot Tichborn”, which as Mr. Axon informs us, is quite distinct from another pamphlet called “The Works of Cheviot Tichborn”, printed in 1825, apparently for private circulation.

The Tichborn book of verses was dedicated to Charles Lamb. The author was a devoted admirer of Elia, and as early as 1822 Lamb had lent him a copy of Cyril Tourneur’s play or plays. On May 7, 1822, Lamb wrote to him a letter, (printed inThe Lambs, by William Carew Hazlitt, 1897) referring to the book and saying, among other things, “I have read your poetry with pleasure. The tales are pretty and prettily told. It is only sometimes a little careless, I mean as to redundancy.” The letter mentions the proposed dedication deprecatingly and modestly.

Talfourd, Canon Ainger and Fitzgerald in their collections give two other letters, written respectively on December 9 and December 29, 1823, one thanking Ainsworth for “books and compliments,” and the other giving Lamb-like excuses for not leaving beloved London to pay a visit to Manchester.[6]It was something of an honor for a lad of seventeen to receive the praiseof Charles Lamb, who appears to have discovered one of his young correspondent’s besetting sins—redundancy. But it may not have meant much, for in those days they exchanged compliments more profusely than is customary at the present time.

All these excursions in the field of authorship were fatal to the grave study of the law, for which he had no taste, and although when his father died in 1824 he went to London to finish his term with Mr. Jacob Phillips of the Inner Temple, it was a foregone conclusion that, whatever his career might be, it would not be that of a solicitor. About 1826, one John Ebers, a publisher in Bond Street, and also manager of the Opera House, brought out a novel called “Sir John Chiverton,” which received the favor of Sir Walter Scott, who said of it in his diary (October 17, 1826), that he had read it with interest, and that it was “a clever book,” at the same time asserting that he himself was the originator of the style in which it was written. For many years it was supposed that Ainsworth was its sole author, but it was claimed in 1877 by Mr. John Partington Aston, a lawyer, who had been a fellow-clerk of Ainsworth’s in Mr. Kay’s office, and the book was probably the result of collaboration. The dedicatory verses are supposed to have been addressed to Anne Frances Ebers, John Ebers’ daughter, whom Ainsworth married on October 11, 1826. Soon afterwards he seems to have been occupied in editing one of those absurd “Annuals” so common in those days, for we find Tom Moore recording in his journal in 1827, that he had been asked to edit theForget-Me-Notto begin with the second number, “as the present editor is Mr. Ainsworth (I think), the son-in-law of Ebers.” The compensation offered to Moore was £500, which indicates that such work waspaid for liberally, but it is not likely that Ainsworth received as much. A year or so after the marriage—within a year in fact—he followed his father-in-law’s advice and became himself a publisher and a bookseller; but at the end of eighteen months he decided to abandon the business.

If we may judge by one of the letters in my collection, it is not surprising that he was not overwhelmingly successful. He writes to Thomas Hill for a notice in theChronicleof a book the copyright of which he had recently purchased, adding, “the work is really a most scientific one—indeed the only distinct treatise on Confectionery extant.” Perhaps this was the work of Ude, the cook, whose publisher he was; but he also “brought out” Caroline Norton as an author, of whom he writes to Charles Ollier, in his graceful, rather lady-like chirography:

“Is it not possible [to] get me a short notice of the enclosed into the new Monthly? By so doing you will infinitely oblige one of the most beautiful women in the world—the Hon. Mrs. Norton, the granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.”

In 1827 he published for Thomas Hood two volumes of “National Tales,” which are said to be the poorest books written by Hood. Christopher North said of them: “I am glad to see that they are published by Mr. Ainsworth to whom I wish all success in his new profession. He is himself a young gentleman of talents, and his Sir John Chiverton is a spirited and romantic performance.”[7]

It was for an annual issued by him that Sir Walter Scott wrote the “Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee,” and thestory is told by Mr. Axon that Sir Walter received twenty guineas for it, but laughingly handed them over to the little daughter of Lockhart, at whose house he and Ainsworth met. He wrote some fragmentary and miscellaneous prose and verse, not of much importance; and in 1828 he travelled through Belgium and up the Rhine, going to Switzerland and Italy in 1830. The manuscript note-books which lie before me, the paper foxed and the ink faded, comprise a diary of the Italian part of the journey. I have toiled over the one hundred and sixty-eight pages, not always easily decipherable, but have found little which exceeds in value the ordinary guide-book of our own time. It was, we must remember, written only for his wife—whom he considerately left at home—and the dedicatory poem to her, consisting of fifty-eight unrhymed lines, written in Venice in September, 1830, is quite as commonplace as might be expected from a man of twenty-five, with little poetic inspiration but endowed with much verbal fluency, who was not writing for publication.

Soon after his return from the Continent, Ainsworth began the work from which he was to derive his chief title to fame—the composing of novels. It has been said that he was inspired by Mrs. Radcliffe, whose gloomy mysteries, weird scenes, and supernatural machinery once made her a favorite with fiction-lovers, and that he sought to adapt old legends to English soil. Others have ascribed his impulse to the influence of the French dramatic romancers, Eugène Sue, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas. I question whether he owed his inspiration to any particular source, although all these writers may have affected his temperament. Perhaps he unconsciously divined the needs of the reading public, of which his editorial experience may have taught himmuch. The inane, fashionable novel had become tiresome. Moreover, it was a time, in the early thirties, when the nation of England was absorbed in the growth of her material prosperity, and when a country is engrossed in commerce and manufactures, in the production of wealth, tales of adventure seem necessary to stimulate flagging imagination. We have seen the evidence of it in our own land during the past ten years, when casting aside the metaphysical, the psychological, the long drawn-out analyses of character, the public eagerly devoured story after story of fights and wars, and daring deeds, whose lucky authors bore off rewards of fabulous amount and grew rich upon the royalties earned by their hundreds of thousands of copies.

We are told by Mr. Axon that “the inspiration came to him when on a visit to Chesterfield in 1831”. He had visited Cuckfield Place, thought by Shelley to be “like bits of Mrs. Radcliffe”, and it occurred to Ainsworth that he might make something of an English story constructed upon similar lines. Begun in 1831, his “Rookwood” was published in 1834. It has generally been considered by critics to be a powerful but uneven story, and it leaped at once into popularity, carrying with it the youthful author. “The Romany Chant” and “Dick Turpin’s Ride to York” were the chief features; but the Ride was the thing, like the chariot race inBen-Hur. It was actually dashed off in the glow of enthusiasm, the white heat of imagination. It was, says George Augustus Sala, “a piece of word painting rarely if ever surpassed in the prose of the Victorian Era,”[8]and he said this sixty years after thenovel appeared. Ainsworth has told us the circumstances. “I wrote it” he said “in twenty-four hours of continuous work. I had previously arranged the meeting at Kilburn Wells, and the death of Tom King—a work of some little time—but from the moment I got Turpin on the high road, I wrote on and on till I landed him at York. I performed this literary feat, as you are pleased to call it, without the slightest sense of effort. I began in the morning, wrote all day, and as night wore on, my subject had completely mastered me, and I had no power to leave Turpin on the high road. I was swept away by the curious excitement and novelty of the situation; and being personally a good horseman, passionately fond of horses, and possessed moreover of accurate knowledge of a great part of the country, I was thoroughly at home with my work, and galloped on with my pet highwayman merrily enough. I must, however, confess that when my work was in proof, I went over the ground between London and York to verify the distances and localities, and was not a little surprised at my accuracy.” Thistour de force—the composition of a hundred novel pages in so short a time, was performed at “The Elms,” a house at Kilburn where he was then living. It brings to mind the familiar story of Beckford, writingVathekin French, in a single sitting of three days and two nights, which is more or less apocryphal.

It is a proof of the merit and of the success of this chapter that, like many other successful literary efforts, it was “claimed” by some one else. Mr. Bates refers rather indignantly to an assertion of R. Shelton Mackenzie, made upon the authority of Dr. Kenealy, and contained in the fifth volume of an American edition of theNoctes Ambrosianæ, that Doctor William Maginn,of convivial fame, wrote the “Ride” as well as all the slang songs in “Rookwood.” But Maginn was seldom sober and doubtless he bragged in his cups. Kenealy believed in Arthur Orton, the Tichborne “claimant,” and was capable of believing in any claimant, particularly if he was an Irishman; while Mackenzie was not celebrated for acumen or accuracy. Sala says of the absurd tale: “As to the truth or falsehood of this allegation I am wholly incompetent to pronounce; but looking at Ainsworth’s striking and powerful pictures of the Plague and the Fire in his ‘Old St. Paul’s,’ and the numerous studies of Tudor life in his ‘Tower of London,’ I should say that ‘Turpin’s Ride to York’ was a performance altogether within the compass of his capacity.”

In the light of later years, it is interesting to observe the comparisons made between Bulwer and Ainsworth. InFraser’s Magazinefor June, 1834, there is a review of “Rookwood” in which the author is praised far beyond the writer ofEugene AramandPaul Clifford. Bulwer, according to Sala, was fated “to be beaten on his own ground by another writer of fiction very much his inferior in genius; but who was nevertheless endowed with a considerable amount of melodramatic power, and who had acquired a conspicuous facility for dramatic description.” It may be that the defeat drove Bulwer to those other fields in which he won the reputation which has preserved his name while that of his conqueror of seventy years ago has faded sadly.

It was erroneously believed by many that Ainsworth must have had some personal acquaintance with low life in London because of the ease with which he dealt with the thieves’ jargon, but his knowledge of it was butsecond-hand for he obtained it from the autobiography of James Hardy Vaux.[9]A second edition of “Rookwood” illustrated by George Cruikshank, appeared in 1836.

Ainsworth was now a conspicuous man, and his celebrity as an author, combined with his personal attractions, made him a welcome guest at many houses, notably at Gore House, where Lady Blessington so long held sway—“jolly old girl”, he calls her in one of my letters, written in 1836. The beauty at forty-seven was as fascinating as ever. “Everybody goes to Lady Blessington’s”, says Haydon in hisDiary. The effervescent Sala tells of meeting Ainsworth there in a later time. “I think”, he says, “that on the evening in question there were present, among others, Daniel Maclise, the painter, and Ainsworth, the novelist. The author of “Jack Sheppard” was then a young man of about thirty, very handsome, but somewhat of the curled and oiled and glossy-whiskered D’Orsay type”. The D’Orsay type was by no means distasteful to my lady. Sala relates at second-hand the anecdote about Lady Blessington placing herself between D’Orsay and Ainsworth, and saying that she had for supporters the two handsomest men in London.

He was a favorite contributor toFraser’s Magazine, and his portrait appears among “The Fraserians”, indeed a goodly company, for there are Coleridge, Southey, James Hogg, Lockhart, D’Orsay, Thackeray, Carlyle, Washington Irving, Sir David Brewster, and Theodore Hook, with many others. In the letter-press which accompanied the portrait,—supposed to havebeen written by Maginn—the Magazine says: “May he turn out many novels better, none worse, than ‘Rookwood’; may he, as far as is consistent with the frailty of humanity, penetrate puffery, and avoid the three insatiables of Solomon, King of Israel.”

In 1837, “Crichton” was published, the hero being James Crichton, the “Admirable”, about whose name has grown so much that is fabulous, but who was nevertheless a real person. The story was illustrated by Hablôt K. Browne. It was fairly successful; some regard it as in many respects his best novel; but while it did not add materially to his fame, it did not diminish it. It was well done; the author spared no pains and as usual with him was careful in his researches. In the introductory essay and in the appendices, which Sidney Lee pronounces “very interesting”, he reprinted, with translations in verse, Crichton’s Elegy on Borromeo and the eulogy on Visconti. Madden intimates that D’Orsay occasionally figured as the model of the accomplished hero. The author received £350 for the book—more than for “Rookwood”. He had become a figure in the literary world and his name was something with which to conjure.

In January, 1837, Richard Bentley began the publication ofBentley’s Miscellanyunder the editorship of Charles Dickens. There is a familiar story that the name originally proposed was “The Wit’s Miscellany,” and that when the change was mentioned in the presence of “Ingoldsby” Barham (not Douglus Jerrold, as often supposed), he remarked “Why go to the other extreme?” In January, 1839, Dickens turned over the office of editor to Ainsworth, with “a familiar epistle from a parent to his child”.[10]Oliver Twisthad justbeen the feature of theMiscellany, and now Ainsworth made his second and most celebrated venture in what Sala calls “felonious fiction”—the immortal “Jack Sheppard.”

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 theMiscellany, then edited by Charles Dickens.[12]Robert Harrison in theDictionary of National Biography(title Bentley) says that Dickens retired from the post of editor in January, 1839. Mr. Axon tells us in theDictionarythat 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” andOliver Twistled 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 weredescribed with a charm and vigor which took the public captive. The sale exceeded even that ofOliver 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’Encyclopædiaand in Allibone’sDictionary. 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 nightmareof 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 thanOliver Twistwas 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 theExaminer, 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” wasin the full tide of favor and Dickens was closing the troublesome negotiations with Bentley about the copyright of the unpublishedBarnaby 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.

“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 ofyourold 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 thesematters 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 amFaithfully yours,Charles Dickens.

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 hisLife of Dickensrefers 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 theSunday Timesfor “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,mosthappy, 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 hadcutme. At the latter end of last year you announced thatwewere 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 acompanion to the “Tower”!without my name. I then conclude that you do not intend to joinmeinany“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 arrangementsmay be made which may tend to our material benefit.

I remain, my dear Ainsworth, yours very truly,Geo. Cruikshank.”

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 theMiscellanyin 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 purchasedBentley’s Miscellanyand merged both magazines into one. In 1845 he had bought for £2,500 Colburn’sNew 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 theNew Monthlyto 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 BlanchardJerrold, “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 ofOliver 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’sLife in Londonand even a poem of Laman Blanchard’s which he had illustrated for theOmnibus—as well as the pattern of the hat worn by Russian soldiers! Blanchard Jerrold says in theLifethat 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 toDickens 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 aboutCruikshank, 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 withhisleft 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 shouldadvise the approach of the attacking party to be thus. The Jew and some other fellow go round thenorthof the church and lurk there and Qt. Arnold in that road at the N. W. corner—Wild himself to come along thesouthside so as to take Jack in the rear. Darrell is about to draw his sword. In the other subject I have given Jonathan astoutwalking 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 calledThe Artist and the Author, just after the publication of the first volume of Forster’sDickens. 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 theTimesof 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 ‘JackSheppard’, 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 inPunch, 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 ofVanity 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 “falsesplendor.” 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 frequentlyin privateasserted 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 severalof 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, “Ihaveseen some of George Cruikshank’s designs, and it was because I thought them sosketchythat I write to you. They are anything butfullsubjects 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 testimonythat 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 theSunday Times, receiving £1,000. It was dedicated to his old friend James Crossley, President of the Chetham Society, which published many volumes, including Potts’sDiscovery of Witchesand theJournalsof 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—

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