The name of John O'Neill is intimately associated with that of George Cruickshank in the work of temperance reform; for not only did Cruickshank prove himself a friend to the poor shoemaker and poet by illustrating his little poem entitled "The Blessings of Temperance," but it is with good reason declared that these illustrations and the scenes depicted in the poem itself suggested to the artist the leading ideas worked out in his series of plates entitled "The Bottle." Some of these sketches, as, for example, "The Upas Tree" and "The Raving Maniac and the Drivelling Fool," derive their titles from O'Neill's language in the poem itself. So closely, indeed, do the graphic sketches of the artist and the poet correspond, that O'Neill in the later editions of his little work surnamed it "A Companion to Cruickshank's 'Bottle.'"[154] On its first appearance the poem was entitled "The Drunkard," and received favorable notice in the pages of the _Athenæum_ and the _Spectator_, besides other journals and papers of less literary merit. "The Drunkard" was not his first work, but it was his best, and the one by which his name became known and honored among teetotallers. As early as 1821 he had published a drama entitled "Alva." "The Sorrows of Memory" and a number of Irish melodies belonging to different periods in his life were issued a little later. His friend the Rev. Isaac Doxsey, in a sketch prefixed to "The Blessings of Temperance," speaks of O'Neill as the author of seven dramatic pieces, a collection of poems, and a novel called "Mary of Avonmore, or the Foundling of the Beach," and of numerous contributions to various periodicals. [154] "The Blessings of Temperance, Illustrated in the Life and Reformation of the Drunkard: a Poem by John O'Neill, etc., forming a Companion to Cruickshank's 'Bottle,' with etchings from his pencil." London: W. Tweedie. 1851. Fourth edition.