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Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/291

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FORGOTTEN!
207

amongst the ranks of a generation that did not know him. So little was he known or regarded, that when his works were first exhibited, no one took the trouble to see them; and when a small circle of admirers, with the great English critic, John Ruskin, at their head, started a subscription for the forgotten artist, "the attempt was a failure—hundreds being received when thousands were expected." It will be remembered that in his best days the artist had executed a memorable etching, Born a Genius and Born a Dwarf: I wonder whether, in the bitterness of his spirit and the righteousness of his anger, George Cruikshank ever thought of that etching?