“I duly apologized for my forgetfulness; and the incident naturally led Cruikshank to dilate on that important theme, in furtherance of which he so steadily devoted his great powers to the very end of his career, with a persistent courage and devoted zeal that won for him the genuine respect and admiration of those even who could not wholly agree with him in details. I was one of those. I could travel with him, very willingly, up to a certain point, after which our paths parted, and we ‘agreed to differ.’ I could accompany him to temperance, but not to total abstinence. During the remainder of the time that we occupied over dinner, we scarce spoke on any other subject than that which gave ism, and that I was sitting at the table of the artist rise to the scenes of ‘The Bottle,’ ‘The Drunkard’s Children,’ ‘The Gin Trap,’ ‘The Gin Juggernaut’--and, at a later period, his large oil-painting, ‘The Worship of Bacchus.’ “Our discussion on the subject was preserved with perfect good humour; so much so, that I ventured to remind him that only a year or so before he had been converted to teetotalism he had caricatured Father Mathew, in an etching for the _Comic Almanac_ for 1844, representing him as an old pump. I reminded my host that these were his sentiments for more than fifty years of his life, and that he had never during that period objected to the moderate use of alcoholic liquors, although he had always vigorously lashed their gross abuse; and I pleaded that I had not lived for half those years that I had named, and that I might be pardoned for my forgetfulness in asking his servant for beer and wine. “Then he told me how the crying sin of the age had sunk deep down into his heart, especially when he had seen it flourishing, like an upas tree, in all its foul deformity, in those courts and alleys into which he was so often led in search of subjects for his pencil; and how the design for ‘The Bottle’ had gradually grown upon him, and the necessity for practising what he preached, which he found he could do only by cutting himself adrift from all alcoholic drinks. He also explained how his plans to disseminate the scenes of his ‘Drunkard’s Progress,’ in such a form and at such a low price that they should reach those masses for whom he specially designed them, were hampered and well-nigh frustrated, chiefly by the cost of engraving such large drawings on wood; and how the new art of glyphography had come to his assistance, and enabled him to draw the eight designs, and to sell them (with Dr. Charles Mackay’s explanatory poem) for a shilling--which in the year 1847 was an extraordinarily low price for such a production. ‘You will remember,’ he said, ‘how Maclise represented me seated on a beer-barrel, getting my inspiration from pothouse scenes, and pencilling them on the crown of my hat?’ ‘Yes, I remember: it was in the _Fraser_ gallery of portraits.