* The author of “Three Courses and a Dessert.” “This incident, I may be permitted to say, led me to study the characters of that particular class of society, and laid the foundation of scenes afterwards published. The locality and the characters were different, the spirit was the same. Was I, therefore, what the statement I have quoted would lead anybody to infer I was, the companion of dustmen, hodmen, coal-heavers, and scavengers? I leave out the ‘and so forth’ as superfluous. It would be just as fair to assume that Morland was the companion of pigs, that Liston was the associate of louts and footmen, or that Fielding lived in fraternal intimacy with Jonathan Wild.” Further on he protests that he was not in the habit, as charged, with sitting at his window on Sundays, to observe the patrons of the “Vite Condick Ouse” on the way to that popular place of entertainment. In 1870 he wrote the following account of himself and his family to Mr. Reid, while this gentleman was preparing the great collection of his work, which was published in three volumes by Messrs. Bell and Daldy: “In the compiling of such a list as this, it is not at all surprising that there should be errors, particularly when we look at the fact of there being three in one family (a father and two sons), all working in similar styles, and upon the same sort of subjects. My father, Isaac Cruikshank, was a designer and etcher, and engraver, and a first-rate water-colour draughtsman. My brother, Isaac Robert, was a very clever miniature and portrait painter, and was also a designer and etcher, and your humble servant likewise a designer and etcher. “When I was a mere boy, my dear father kindly allowed me to _play at etching_ on some of his copper plates, little bits of shadows, or little figures in the background, and to assist him a _little_ as I grew older, and he used to assist _me_ in putting in hands and faces. And when my dear brother Robert (who in his latter days omitted the Isaac) left off portrait painting, and took almost entirely to designing and etching, I assisted him at first to a great extent in some of his drawings on wood and his etchings; and all this mixture of head and hand work has led to a considerable amount of confusion, so that dealers or printsellers and collectors have been puzzled to decide which were the productions of the ‘I. CK.’ the ‘I. R. CK.’ (or ‘R. CK.’), and the ‘G. CK’; and this will not create much surprise when I tell you that I have myself, in some cases, had a difficulty in deciding in respect to early _handwork_, done some sixty odd years back, particularly when my drawings, made on wood-blocks for common purposes, were hastily executed (according to price) by the engraver. Many of my first productions, such as halfpenny lottery pictures and books for little children, can never be known or seen, having, of course, been destroyed long ago by the dear little ones who had them to play with.” [Illustration: 090]