“As an illustration of another part of the artist’s character, I may relate this little incident. On the completion of the ‘Tower,’ I gave a dinner at the Sussex Hotel, Bouverie Street, (where a good deal of the work had been written, the hotel being near the printing offices of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans), to about sixty of my friends, including the Fort Major and Acting Governor of the Tower, the Keeper of the Regalia, Mr. Justice Talfourd, Dickens, Maclise, Barham, Forster, Laman Blanchard, James Crossley of Manchester, Grainger, John Hughes, and many others. George Cruikshank occupied the vice-chair. As the guests were dispersing, several of them adjourned to the coffee-room, and of these Cruikshank took charge, saying to me as I was about to drive home to the Harrow Road,-- “‘Now understand--this part of the entertainment is to be mine!’ “‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘So be it.’ “But he must have forgotten the proposition, since if I recollect aright, I had a considerable sum to pay next morning for ‘coffee and cigars.’ “On the completion of the ‘Tower,’ I did not go on with Cruikshank, but contributed ‘Old Saint Paul’s’ to a weekly paper. This story--one of the most popular I have ever written--was republished in three volumes, with some admirable illustrations by John Franklin. “Cruikshank’s illustrations to ‘Guy Fawkes,’ which appeared in the _Miscellany_, simultaneously with the ‘Tower,’ were very inferior to those furnished by him for the latter story, and excited the ire of Mr. Bentley, with whom the artist had quarrelled. But the publisher’s complaints were unheeded, as were my own remonstrances. “On my retirement from the _Miscellany_, at the close of the year 1841, I resolved to bring out a magazine of my own, and with that view went to Paris to secure the famous Tony Johannot as illustrator of ‘Windsor Castle,’ a romance which I intended should form the principal feature of the proposed magazine. “I found M. Tony Johannot a most charming person, as he had been described to me, and passed several pleasant days in his society. He agreed to send me four plates, the subjects of which I gave him, together with designs for the cover of the magazine, and the title-page of story, and performed his promise to my entire satisfaction. “On my return I was induced by my friend Mr. Pettigrew to engage George Cruikshank as the illustrator of the magazine, on terms infinitely more advantageous to the artist than those he had received from Mr. Bentley for his illustrations to ‘Jack Sheppard’ and ‘Guy Fawkes.’ “Now commenced the ‘Miser’s Daughter,’ to which I have already adverted. This was succeeded by ‘Windsor Castle,’--four of the illustrations being furnished, as already mentioned, by Tony Johannot, and the remainder by Cruikshank. The numerous woodcuts were executed by Alfred Delamotte.