[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> George Cruikshank —> The Miser's Daughter —> Next]
Mr. Cripps detected
George Cruikshank
September 1842
Steel-engraving
13.2 cm high by 10.2 cm wide, framed
Seventeenth illustration for the volume edition of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter: A Tale, Book Three, Chapter 10, facing page 262 (initial plate for the ninth instalment, September 1842, in Ainsworth's Magazine), encompassing Book III, Chapters 6-10.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Just as Dr. Gaynam had opened his book, and uttered a preliminary cough, a noise was heard at the door, and Mr. Cripps, turning to see what was the matter, beheld it open, and admit his master!
The valet's alarm was communicated to the whole assemblage. Antoine, who had retreated behind Rathbone, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted up his hands in affright. The two Africans exchanged glances, and all eyes were directed towards the beau, who, with angry looks, and grasping his clouded cane, marched towards the valet. He was followed by Lady Brabazon, Sir Bulkeley Price, and Trussell Beechcroft. Lady Brabazon was attended by her black page, leading her dog by a ribband, and this arrival excited the anger of one of the spaniels, whose furious barking set the macaw screaming.
Mr. Cripps presented a very chop-fallen appearance. All his assurance deserted him. His hands dropped to his side, and he scarcely dared to meet his master's angry gaze.
"Rascal!" exclaimed Villiers, "I have at last fairly detected you. I'll teach you to put on my clothes—to assume my name —"
"What!" screamed Mrs. Nettleship, dropping a bottle of salts, which she had placed to her nose—"isn't it really himself—isn't it Mr. Willars."
"No, madam," replied the beau—"I am Mr. Villiers; and this rascal is only my valet, Crackenthorpe Cripps."[Book III. — "Abel Beechcroft," Chapter X, "How Mr. Cripps's Marriage with the Widow Was Interrupted," pp. 261-62]
Cruikshank's complex group study provides comic relief that focusses on the Cripps subplot (in which the servant impersonates the master) rather than on the Crew-Scarve romantic main plot. Ainsworth owes the range of characters, including the faithful family retainer (Jacob Post), the tricky servant (Crackenthorpe Cripps), the romantic rival (Philip Frewin), and the myrmidons of the villain, directly to Sir Walter Scott's Waverly Novels.
The chaotic scene in which Beau Villiers, interrupting the marriage ceremony, unmasks Crackenthorpe Cripps as an impostor and fortune-hunter does not lend itself to a compact design. Cruikshank's busy stage teems with Ainsworth's tertiary characters, but has the comedic impostor and his irate master as its focus. The African servants, dressed in exotic Eastern garb, are crammed into the upper-right corner as the fashionably dressed Beau Villiers, cane in hand, approaches the doppelgänger bridegroom, Cripps, who is standing beside the officiating minister, his Book of Common Prayer open at the marriage service. Lady Brabazon, attended by her black page, who is leading her dog by a ribband, is down right. In other words, Ainsworth's description of the disposition of the characters precisely coincides to their juxtapositions in the Cruikshank illustration of the scene at Beau Villiers' house. However, Cruikshank has not imbued the comic unmasking with his usual comic verve, and seems to have been more concerned with cramming all the characters into the frame rather than realizing the farcical moment of Cripps's comeuppance.
The key figure in the illustration, despite its title, however, is the widow worth fifty-thousand pounds to the over-reaching Cripps. With his master and Sir Bulkley Price away from town, attending the races at Newmarket, Cripps nearly wins the prize: “Mrs. Nettleship, who had bestowed more than ordinary pains upon her person, wore a yellow satin sack, embroidered with little dots of gold. She had large pearl ear-rings, a garnet necklace, and a diamond solitaire. Her complexion, which was naturally rather high had been corrected by white French powder, and was further set off by abundance of little patches on her cheeks, neck, and shoulders. She carried a beautiful Indian fan, the handle of which was ornamented with precious stones” (III, 10: page 261)
In Cruikshank's illustration she occupies a prominent position in the left-hand register, as she denounces her erstwhile bridegroom as a "villain!" "base deceiver!" and "impostor!" But her denunciation is visually far less interesting than the cavorting animals at the front of the stage: the monkey struggles against the spaniel (left), the page pulls at the leash of another spaniel (right), and another "page was on the floor keeping the dogs quiet, who were quarrelling with the monkey, and biting its tail" (III, 10: page 261). Cruikshank's problem, ultimately not resolved, is establishing a clear focus on the groom in the marriage ceremony interrupted.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Miser's Daughter: A Tale. With 20 illustrations by George Cruikshank. First published in 3 volumes by Cunningham and Mortimer, London, 1842. London, Glasgow, and New York: George Routledge, 1892.
Vann, J. Don. "The Miser's Daughter in Ainsworth's Magazine January-October 1842." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1988. Pp. 22-23.
Last modified 1 July 2018