as they swept through the mazy quadrille, with all the noblemen standing round in their stars and uniforms! You may still, doubtless, see the pictures at the British Museum, or find the volumes in the corner of some old country-house library. You are led to suppose that the English aristocracy of 1820 did dance and caper in that way, and box and drink at Tom Cribb's, and knock down watchmen; and the children of to-day, turning to their elders, may say, "Grandmamma, did you wear such a dress as that when you danced at Almack's? There was very little of it, grandmamma. Did grandpapa kill many watchmen when he was a young man, and frequent thieves' gin-shops, cock-fights, and the ring, before you married him? Did he use to talk the extraordinary slang and jargon which is printed in this book? He is very much changed. He seems a gentlemanly old boy enough now."

In the above-named consulate, when we had grandfathers alive, there would be in the old gentleman's library in the country two or three old mottled portfolios, or great swollen scrap-books of blue paper, full of the comic prints of grandpapa's time, ere Plancus ever had the fasces borne before him. These prints were signed Gilray, Bunbury, Rowlandson, Woodward, and some actually George Cruikshank for George is a veteran now, and he took the etching needle in hand as a child. He caricatured " He caricatured "Boney," borrowing not a little from Gilray in his first puerile efforts. He drew Louis XVIII. trying on Boney's boots. Before the century was actually in its teens we believe that George Cruikshank was amusing the public.

In those great coloured prints in our grandfathers' portfolios in the library, and in some other apartments of the house, where the caricatures used to be pasted in those days, we found things quite beyond our com

prehension. Boney was represented as a fierce dwarf, with goggle eyes, a huge laced hat and tricoloured plume, a crooked sabre, reeking with blood: a little demon revelling in lust, murder, massacre. John Bull was shown kicking him a good deal: indeed he was prodigiously kicked all through that series of pictures; by Sidney Smith and our brave allies the gallant Turks; by the excellent and patriotic Spaniards; by the amiable and indignant Russians, all nations had boots at the service of poor Master Boney. How Pitt used to defy him! How good old George, King of Brobdingnag, laughed at Gulliver-Boney, sailing about in his tank to make sport for their Majesties! This little fiend, this beggar's brat, cowardly, murderous, and atheistic as he was (we remember, in those old portfolios, pictures representing Boney and his family in rags, gnawing raw bones in a Corsican hut; Boney murdering the sick at Jaffa; Boney with a hookah and a large turban, having adopted the Turkish religion, &c.)—this Corsican monster, nevertheless, had some devoted friends in England, according to the Gilray chronicle, a set of villains who loved atheism, tyranny, plunder, and wickedness in general, like their French friend. In the pictures these men were all represented as dwarfs, like their ally. The miscreants got into power at one time, and, if we remember right, were called the Broad-backed Administration. One with shaggy eyebrows and a bristly beard, the hirsute ringleader of the rascals, was, it appears, called Charles James Fox; another miscreant, with a blotched countenance, was a certain Sheridan; other imps were hight Erskine, Norfolk (Jockey of), Moira, Henry Petty. As in our childish innocence we used to look at these demons, now sprawling and tipsy in their cups; now scaling heaven, from which the angelic Pitt hurled them down; now cursing the light (their atro

cious ringleader Fox was represented with hairy cloven feet, and a tail and horns); now kissing Boney's boot, but inevitably discomfited by Pitt and the other good angels: we hated these vicious wretches, as good children should; we were on the side of Virtue and Pitt and Grandpapa. But if our sisters wanted to look at the portfolios, the good old grandfather used to hesitate. There were some prints among them very odd indeed; some that girls could not understand; some that boys, indeed, had best not see. We swiftly turn over those prohibited pages. How many of them were in the wild, coarse, reckless, ribald, generous book of old English humour!

How savage the satire was how fierce the assault - what garbage hurled at opponents —what foul blows were hit what language of Billingsgate flung! Fancy a party in a country-house now looking over Woodward's facetiæ or some of the Gilray comicalities, or the slatternly Saturnalia of Rowlandson! Whilst we live we must laugh, and have folks to make us laugh. We cannot afford to lose Satyr with his pipe and dances and gambols. But we have washed, combed, clothed, and taught the rogue good manners: or rather, let us say, he has learned them himself; for he is of nature. soft and kindly, and he has put aside his mad pranks and tipsy habits; and, frolicsome always, has become gentle and harmless, smitten into shame by the pure presence of our women and the sweet confiding smiles of our children. Among the veterans, the old pictorial satirists, we have mentioned the famous name of one humourous designer who is still alive and at work. Did we not see, by his own hand, his own portrait of his own famous face, and whiskers, in the Illustrated London News the other day? There was a print in that paper of an assemblage of Teetotallers in "Sadler's Wells

Theatre," and we straightway recognised the old Roman hand the old Roman's of the time of Plancus George Cruikshank's. There were the old bonnets and droll faces and shoes, and short trousers, and figures of 1820 sure enough. And there was George (who has taken to the water-doctrine, as all the world knows) handing some teetotalleresses over a plank to the table where the pledge was being administered. How often has George drawn that picture of Cruikshank! Where haven't we seen it? How fine it was, facing the effigy of Mr. Ainsworth in Ainsworth's Magazine when George illustrated that periodical! How grand and severe he stands in that design in G. C.'s "Omnibus," where he represents himself tonged like St. Dunstan, and tweaking a wretch of a publisher by the nose! The collectors of George's etchings- oh the charming etchings! oh the dear old "German Popular Tales!"- the capital "Points of Humour "- the delightful "Phrenology" and "Scrap-books," of the good time, our time — Plancus's in fact! the collectors of the Georgian etchings, we say, have at least a hundred pictures of the artist. Why, we remember him in his favourite Hessian boots in "Tom and Jerry" itself; and in woodcuts as far back as the Queen's trial. He has rather deserted satire and comedy of late years, having turned his attention to the serious, and warlike, and sublime. Having confessed our age and prejudices, we prefer the comic and fanciful to the historic, romantic, and at present didactic George. May respect, and length of days, and comfortable repose attend the brave, honest, kindly, pure-minded artist, humourist, moralist! It was he first who brought English pictorial humour and children acquainted. Our young people and their fathers and mothers owe him many a pleasant hour and harmless laugh. Is there no way in which the country could

acknowledge the long services and brave career of such a friend and benefactor?

Since George's time humour has been converted. Comus and his wicked satyrs and leering fauns have disappeared, and fled into the lowest haunts; and Comus's lady (if she had a taste for humour, which may be doubted) might take up our funny picturebooks without the slightest precautionary squeamishness. What can be purer than the charming fancies of Richard Doyle? In all Mr. Punch's huge galleries can't we walk as safely as through Miss Pinkerton's school-rooms? And as we look at Mr. Punch's pictures, at the Illustrated News pictures, at all the pictures in the book-shop windows at this Christmas season, as oldsters, we feel a certain pang of envy against the youngsters they are too well off. Why had n't we picture-books? Why were we flogged so? A plague on the lictors and their rods in the time of Plancus !

And now, after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject in hand- Mr. John Leech and his "Pictures of Life and Character," in the collection of Mr. Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at Christmas. It is an enduring plum-cake, which you may eat and which you may slice and deliver to your friends; and to which, having cut it, you may come again and welcome, from year's end to year's end. In the frontispiece you see Mr. Punch examining the pictures in his gallery — a portly, well-dressed, middle-aged, respectable gentleman, in a white neckcloth, and a polite evening costume - smiling in a very bland and agreeable manner upon one of his pleasant drawings, taken out of one of his handsome portfolios. Mr. Punch has very good reason to smile at the work and be satisfied with the artist. Mr. Leech, his chief contributor, and some kindred humourists, with pencil and pen have