"Mr. Lambkin sallies forth in all the pride of power" — Cruikshank's second illustration for Cruikshank's own <span class="book">Mr. Lambkin (Gent.) in the Pursuit of Pleasure and Amusement</span> (1844)

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Mr. Lambkin sallies forth in all the pride of power

George Cruikshank

1844

Steel-engraving

10 cm high by 8.6 cm wide, framed

Illustration for George Cruikshank's The Bachelor’s Own Book; Or, The Progress Of Mr. Lambkin (Gent.), in the Pursuit Of Pleasure And Amusement, p. 3.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated

Mr. Lambkin sallies forth in all the pride of power, with the secret and amiable intention of killing a certain Lady. Some envious rival makes known this deadly purpose, by means of a placard. [page 3]

Commentary: Lambkin's Progress through the Metropolis, and through Courtship

Whereas the original Swiss cartoons communicate with intensity and immediacy, focussing on the central character, the Cruikshank illustrations reward a second and third observation because the artist utilizes significant details, signs, and embedded pictures. Moreover, following Cruikshank's lack-lustre hero from frame to frame, we encounter characteristic London settings, not merely a tailor's fitting-room, Kensington Gardens and the Epsom Races, but also backstage at the ballet and the opera, a bachelor's apartments, the streets of the West End, police magistrate's court, a gaming establishment, a financier's counting-house, a sporting-club, a physician's office, a venerable men's club, a lady's boudoir, and a banquet hall. Thus, in twenty-four frames Cruikshank shows us not only Lambkin in various moods and conditions, but also the London haunts of the urban middle class. Details are not merely embellishments in Cruikshank's illustrations; rather, they are narrative devices that flesh out the scene and comment satirically upon the situation. The placard on Lambkin's back, for example, telegraphs that he will initially fail to fulfill the essential elements of the courtship narrative, and that he will consistently be ridiculed, put upon, deceived, and cheated. But, recovering his health, he will make one final, supreme effort — and (improbably) succeed.

Only minutes after trying on his new suit, Lambkin in the companion plate to Mr. Lambkin, having come into his property begins his courtship campaign. However, a clever wag has undermined the effect of the new suit upon bystanders by placing surreptitiously on Lambkin's back the placard "Going a Courting." In a scene reminiscent of the London street scenes in Dickens's Sketches by Boz (1833-36) several boys (including the fiesty butcher's boy) jeer at the unwitting Lambkin.

Reference

Cruikshank, George. The Bachelor’s Own Book; Or, The Progress Of Mr. Lambkin, In The Pursuit Of Pleasure And Amusement. Glasgow: David Bryce, 1844, rpt. 1880.

Vogler, Richard A. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. Dover Pictorial Archive Series. New York: Dover, 1979.

Last modified 15 May 2018