140 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 



sell, the latter said : " Well, you may go in, but you must fight for 

 a seat." George found it would be necessary to clo so, if he wished 

 to profit by the Keeper's gracious permission, for the students were 

 so numerous, that he could not approach near enough, even to 

 see the outlines of the principal figures his powers of vision being, at 

 that time, particularly weak. They have become keen enough since, 

 as witness his works. Not being inclined to distinguish himself in 

 the way indicated by Fuseli, he put his portfolio under his arm, and 

 went home ; nor did he subsequently return, except to attend the 

 lectures. 



His active mind soon found an equivalent for plaster and marble. 

 Debarred as he was from the study of " still life," he determined on 

 studying life itself, in a school which was neither destitute of energy, 

 expression, or character. His gallery was the tap-room of a low 

 public-house, situate in one of the lanes which branch off from the 

 great thoroughfares towards the Thames. Here, after sunset, there 

 was always a large quantity of miscellaneous material Irish coal- 

 whippers, Billingsgate Bellonas, Black Sals, Dusty Bobs, c., whose 

 frolics and features he was accustomed to study, night after night, 

 through a friendly hole in the shutter, which he had picked out for 

 the purpose with his graver. Hence his matchless delineations of 

 low life the perfect identity, so to speak, of his rows. His fights are 

 nothing like " effusions of fancy ;" they clo not resemble a scene that 

 might be, but one as the spectator feels that has been. The 

 sketch of Michael in Search of his Wife, in " More Mornings at 

 Bow-street," for instance, is a piece of self-evident truth ; it is a peep 

 through a hole in the shutter of The Black Boy, in Bone-alley. The 

 Gentleman in the Tin-potbut let the cut speak for itself here 

 it is : 



. 



