Chapter 9

The Sleep of Thirty Years.--Causes of George Cruikshank's Decadence Insufficiently Understood.--Professor Bates' Theory.--Charles Dickens's Nervousness (?).--Why Cruikshank was Unfitted to Illustrate his Novels.--The Rejected Illustration to Oliver Twist.--Quarrel with Bentley.--Guy Fawkes Illustrations.--"Ainsworth's Magazine."--Progress of the Cruikshank _versus_ Bentley Campaign.--Cruikshank's Declaration of War.--His Tactics.--"Our Library Table."--Quarrel with Harrison Ainsworth.--Cruikshank's Claim to be Originator of Two of his Stories Considered.--A word for Harrison Ainsworth.--Popularity and Success of his Novels.--Charles Lever's "Arthur O'Leary."--Cruikshank's final Leap in the Dark.--Its Fatal Consequences.--Crusade against Drink.--"Worship of Bacchus."--His Work Falls away.--Thirty Years of Artistic Sterility.--Fairy Stories turned into Temperance Tracts.--Forgotten!

_pp._ 189-207.