the country by the stage coaches in October; Guy Fawkes in November; and the Christmas pudding, with a laughing company welcoming it, in December. As pictures of the humorous side of London life upwards of forty years ago, these spirited etchings, which teem with life, are invaluable.

The fun of Mr. Rigdum Funnidos was of a kind that has found many imitators. In the "proceedings of learned societies" we find that the fossil remains of an antediluvian pawnbroker had been dug up within a mile of Hog's Norton; that a successful method of converting stones into bread has been transmitted to the New Poor Law Commissioners, and a three-and-sixpenny medal presented to the ingenious discoverer thereof; then that a laborious investigator has reckoned that there are exactly nine millions, one hundred and sixty-four thousand, five hundred and thirty-three hairs on a tom-cat's tail, which he defies all the zoologists of Europe to disprove. Later on (1839) Thackeray contributed "Stubbs' Diary" and "Barber Cox, or the Cutting of his Comb," to the pages of Funnidos. From the first, Cruikshank hit hard at quacks and shams. The first almanac has an "advertisement extraordinary" of the "British Humbug College of Health," and some amusing testimonials from Gudgeon and Gosling, who have been cured by "Morising Pills." The moral at the close of the almanac is, "While we venerate what is deserving of veneration, let us not forget that quackery, knavery, bigotry, and superstition always merit exposure and castigation."

The versatility and the perennial vigour and vivacity of Cruikshank's genius is nowhere more strikingly displayed than in the variety with which he has treated of the seasons in the Comic Almanac. One year March is illustrated by a meeting of workmen going to work, and roysterers returning home, day and night being nearly equal. Next March the cook is tossing pancakes. April is now shown upon the famous hill in Greenwich Park, and now in a wet return from the races. One November we have Lord Mayor's Day, with one of Cruikshank's dense crowds, and the next year we are treated to a delicious bit of humour.

Guys in council over the gunpowder plot May now famishes the artist with one of his happiest bits of suburban scenery, "all a-growing,"—a housewife exchanging old garments for spring flowers; and now such a crowd of lean-shanked charity boys, with such a beadle as only the "inimitable George" could draw before Leech's time, are beating the bounds. July furnishes a whimsical scene of the dog-days—with London dogs fighting, drawing carts, playing Toby in a Punch and Judy show, running under a truck, and an aristocratic dog looking haughtily down from a first-floor window. (Landseer took more than one hint from Cruikshank's animals.) June "down at Beulah," a December dance; May "settling for the Derby"—a wonderful assemblage of broad and long faces; July at the seaside, with cockneys donkey-riding—"long days and long ears;" a November fog; December—"a swallow at Christmas," a procession of the many substantial items of Christmas cheer, making a procession into the prodigious maw of John Bull. The fountain of humour is inexhaustible. The satirical contrasts also, are capital. Premium, a smart gentleman, with the ladies smiling upon him; Discount, in the dumps, and shabby, with the ladies' backs resolutely turned towards him. The Parlour and the Cellar, each getting drunk after its fashion. The "Shop and the Shay," two delightful bits of London life. Then there is the British Museum in 2043, with a gibbet, the pillory, a stage coachman, a Whig, a Tory, and a tax-gatherer's book among the curiosities.

In 1844, Cruikshank began a series of large folded drawings, with a most humorous etching of the probable effects of over-female emigration. An importation of the fair sex from the savage islands has been effected, "in consequence of exporting all our own to Australia;" and the dark ladies are making eyes at a crowd of anxious men, who are advancing towards them, while in the distance would-be husbands are running to the scene. The faces of the imported squaws on shore, as well as those in the boats, being landed from the big ship, are the creations of a most searching humorous observer. Cruikshank's cartoon of Guy Fawkes treated classically is wonderfully funny. The artist explained it himself in his own rough fantastic way.

"Having been advised," he said, "by my friends to publish a sketch of my cartoon" (the great cartoon competition for the Houses of Parliament was going on in 1844) "intended for exhibition at Westminster Hall, I think the public, upon seeing it, will require some explanation of it. The subject has often been treated, and sometimes rather ill-treated, by preceding artists. Being forcibly struck by the grand classical style, I have aimed at it, and I trust I have succeeded in hitting it. At all events, if I have not quite come up to the mark, I have had a good bold fling at it. The first thing I thought it necessary to think of (though, by-the-bye, it is generally the last thing thought of in historical painting) was to get a faithful portrait of the principal character. For that purpose I determined to study nature, and strolled about London and the suburbs on the 5th of November, in search of a likeness of Fawkes, caring little under what Guys it might be presented to me. Unfortunately, some had long noses and some had short; so, putting this and that together, the long and the short of it is, that I determined on adopting a living prototype, who has been blowing up both Houses of Parliament for several years, and if not a Guy Fawkes in other respects, is at least famous for encouraging forking out on the part of others. Having got over the preliminary difficulty,

"I set to work upon my cartoon; and being resolved to make it a greater work than had ever before been known, I forgot the prescribed size, for my head was far above the consideration of mere fact, and I did not reflect, that where Parliament had given an inch, I was taking an ell as the very lowest estimate.

Original Size -- Medium-Size

"Having strolled towards Westminster Hall to survey the scene of my future triumphs, it struck me that I had carried the grand classical to such a height as to preclude all chance of my cartoon being got in through the doorway; and I therefore, with the promptitude of a Richard the Third, determined to 'off with his head' by taking a slice off the top of the canvas. This necessary piece of execution rather spoiled the design, but it enabled me to throw a heaviness into the brows of my principal figure, which, if it marred the resemblance to Fawkes, gave him an additional look of the Guy at all events. It then occurred to me that I might diminish the dimensions by taking a couple of feet off the legs; and this happy idea enabled me to carry out the historical notion that Fawkes was the mere tool of others, in which case, to cramp him in the understanding must be considered a nice blending of the false in art with the true in nature. The Guy's feet were accordingly foreshortened, till I left him as he appeared when trying to defend himself at his trial, with hardly a leg to stand upon. Besides, I knew I could fresco out his calves in fine style, when once I got permission to turn the fruit of my labours into wall fruit on the inside of the Houses of Parliament.

"It will now be naturally asked why my cartoon was not exhibited with others, some of which were equally monstrous, in the Hall of Westminster. The fact is, if the truth must out, the cartoon would not go in. Though I had cramped my genius already to suit the views of the Commissioners and the size of the door, I found I must have stooped much lower if