His fourscore and six years of life have been years of unintermitting labour, that was yet, always, labour of love. There never was a purer, simpler, more straightforward, or altogether more blameless man. His nature had something childlike in its transparency. You saw through him completely. There was neither wish nor effort to disguise his self-complacency, his high appreciation of himself, his delight in the appreciation of others, any more than there was to make himself out better, or cleverer, or more unselfish than his neighbours. In him England has lost one who was, in every sense, as true a man as he was a rare and original genius, and a pioneer in the arts of illustration. [Illustration: A LOVE-AGONY. Design by Maudle (_With verses by Jellaby Postlethwaite, who is also said to have sat for the Picture._)] _Punch's_ estimate accords with that of the friend who knew Cruikshank well and described him as "in every word and deed a God-fearing, Queen-honouring, truth-loving, honest man," and it is all the more significant in view of Cruikshank's vehement and even fanatical espousal of the cause of temperance. Another great illustrator, though of a very different type, emerged in the following year in Randolph Caldecott. His genial and graceful commentaries on Nursery Rhymes were entirely after _Punch's_ heart. He was speedily enlisted as an occasional contributor up to 1886, the year of his premature death, when _Punch_ faithfully summed up the gifts of a true benefactor of all ages:-- We loved the limner whose gay fun Was ever loyal to the Graces; Who mixed the mirth of _Gilpin's_ run With willowy forms and winsome faces; Who made old nursery lyrics live With frolic force rejuvenated, And yet the sweetest girls could give That ever pencil-point created. From _Bracebridge Hall_ to _Banbury Cross_ His fancy flew with fine facility. Orchards all apple-bloom and moss, Child sport, bucolical senility, The field full cry, snug fireside ease, Horse-fun, dog-joke his pencil covers, With Alderman and hawthorn trees, Parsons and Squires, and rustic lovers. But in these years _Punch_ had little time to spare for praise; he was so busy belabouring Burne-Jones and Rossetti, the Grosvenor Gallery, the Kyrle Society, or new fashions in house decorations and furniture, in which he saw nothing but gloom and discomfort. The protest in 1879 of the three Slade Professors--Sidney Colvin, W. B. Richmond and Legros--against the critics who denied Burne-Jones genius and greatness on the strength of defective anatomical details, left _Punch_ impenitent. He mocked at their "triune testimonial" as an unconvincing attempt to convert the callous and captious critics who, Persisted in belabouring B.-J. with tongue and pen Whilst Philistia looked on and laughed at those Three Mighty Men. [Sidenote: _Prigs and Philistines_]