6 JANUARY 1872, Page 11

Mr. George Cruikshank, the great caricaturist, claims to have originated

the leading characters of Oliver Twist, and from what he says it seems not improbable that he did put Mr. Dickens on the track of the London life necessary for that great work, and also sketch most of his admirable figures without seeing Mr. Dickens's MS. But as to his literary invention, let one trait suffice, — he wanted to call the hero Frank Foundling or Frank Steadfast, i. e., to make him one of the little prigs of our great-grandmothers' days, one of the Jacky Goodmans and Tommy Trueloves, instead of the little modern urchin of to-day. Mr. Cruikshank did not even discern that Dickens's genius was essentially and exclusively modern.