Congress Quadrille_, Louis
vainly essays to make himself agreeable to Miss Britannia (a good
example of the artist's handsome women)--"Voulez-vous danser,
Mad'moiselle?" says Louis. Britannia, however, having been his partner
on more than one memorable occasion, had had quite enough of him and his
peculiar style of dancing. "Thanks,--no!" she languidly replies,
thinking doubtless of her experiences of the Russian quadrille--of the
Chinese country dance, etc., etc. "I'm not sure of the figure--and _know
nothing of the Finale_."

Mr. Tenniel's art training before he joined the _Punch_ staff, combined
with his undoubted genius, renders him unquestionably one of the most
versatile of modern designers. His satire is something quite apart from
his caricature, and the former is characterized by a strong dramatic
element particularly noticeable in serious illustrations, such as his
designs to "The Pythagorean," in the second volume of "Once a Week." In
caricature he resumes in a measure the manner of the older
caricaturists, without retaining a trace of their vulgarity, and a good
example will be found in his cartoon of _What Nicholas heard in the
Shell_ (1854), in which the features and salient points of the figure
are intensely overdrawn. His caricature pure and simple seems to us
always inferior to his satirical power; as fine examples of the latter
we may mention: _The British Lion Smells a Rat_ (an angry lion sniffing
at a door, in allusion to the conference which followed the fall of
Sebastopol); _The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger_, which
chronicles the ghastly massacre of Cawnpore; _Bright the Peace Maker_
(1860), in which _Punch_ testifies his indignation at the manner in
which Mr. Bright endeavoured to create a popular feeling against the
House of Lords; _Poland's Chain Shot_ (1863), a stirring and powerful
composition, wherein Poland, gallantly struggling once more for freedom,
breaks her chains and fiercely rams them into a cannon; _Humble Pie at
the Foreign Office_ (1863), and _Teucer Assailed by Hector is Protected
by the Shield of Ajax_ (1864), in which Lord John Russell is the subject
of satire; and _The False Start_ and _Out of the Race_ (the same year),
in the first of which Palmerston endeavours to restrain the leaning of
Gladstone towards democracy, the last showing the result of his
inattention to the starter's warning. In all these and a host of other
admirable satires, the superior art trai