“With regard to the modern romance of ‘Jack Sheppard,’” Thackeray remarks, “in which the latter personage (Jonathan Wild) makes a second appearance, 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 a while, now that it is some months since he has 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. The storm in the Thames, for instance; all the author’s laboured description of that event has passed clean away--we have before our mind’s eye the fine plates of Cruikshank. The poor wretch cowering under the bridge arch, as the waves come rushing in, and the boats are whirling away in the drift of the great swollen black waters; and let any man look at that second plate of the murder on the Thames, and he must acknowledge how much more brilliant the artist’s description is than the writer’s, and what a real genius for the terrible as well as for the ridiculous the former has; how awful is the gloom of the old bridge, a few lights glimmering from the houses here and there, but not so as to be reflected on the water at all, which is too turbid and raging; a great heavy rack of clouds goes sweeping over the bridge, and men with flaring torches--the murderers--are borne away with the stream. “The author requires many pages to describe the fury of the storm, which Mr. Cruikshank has represented in one. First, he has to prepare you with the something inexpressibly melancholy in sailing on a dark night upon the Thames; ‘the ripple of the water,’ ‘the darkling current,’ ‘the indistinctly seen craft,’ the solemn shadows,’ and other phenomena visible on rivers at night, are detailed (with not unskilful rhetoric) in order to bring the reader into a proper state of mind for the deeper gloom and horror which is to ensue. Then follow pages of description.... See what a tremendous war of words (and good loud words too; Mr. Ainsworth’s description is a good and spirited one) the author is obliged to pour in upon the reader before he can effect his purpose upon the latter, and inspire him with a proper terror. The painter does it at a glance, and old Wood’s dilemma in the midst of that tremendous storm, with the little infant at his bosom, is remembered afterwards, not from the words, but from the visible image of them that the artist has left us.” Thackeray rates these “Jack Sheppard” plates among the most finished and the most successful of Cruikshank’s performances; dwelling lovingly on the conscientiousness of the artist, and that shrewd pervading idea of _form_ which is one of his principal characteristics. They bear witness to the minuteness as well as to the fidelity of the artist’s observation. Not the smallest object, nor its proper place in his design, escapes his eye. He has stored up in the camera of his brain