rising generation, in
woodcuts; and the poetry of Byron engraver in their hearts, by means
of the graver. Not a boy in his teens has read a line of Don Quixote
or Gil Blas, though all have their adventures by heart; while
Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" has been committed to memory by our
daughters and wives, in a series of exquisite illustrations. Every
body has La Fontaine by heart, thanks to the pencil of Granville,
which requires neither grammar nor dictionary to aid its
interpretations; and even Defoe--even the unparalleled Robinson
Crusoe--is devoured by our ingenuous youth in cuts and come again.

At present, indeed, the new art of printing is in its infancy, but it
is progressing so rapidly, that the devils of the old will soon have a
cold birth of it! Views of the Holy Land are superseding even the Holy
Scriptures; and a pictorial Blackstone is teaching the ideas of the
sucking lawyers how to shoot. Nay, Buchan's "Domestic Medicine" has
(proh pudor!) its illustrated edition.

The time saved to an active public by all this, is beyond computation.
All the world is now instructed by symbols, as formerly the deaf and
dumb; and instead of having to peruse a tedious penny-a-line account
of the postilion of the King of the French misdriving his Majesty, and
his Majesty's august family, over a draw-bridge into a moat at
Treport, a single glance at a single woodcut places the whole disaster
graphically before us; leaving us nine minutes and a half of the time
we must otherwise have devoted to the study of the case, to dispose of
at our own will and pleasure; to start, for instance, for Chelsea, and
be back again by the steam-boat, before our mother knows we are out.

The application of the new art is of daily and hourly extension. The
scandalous Sunday newspapers have announced an intention of evading
Lord Campbell's act, by veiling their libels in caricature. Instead of
_writing_ slander and flat blasphemy, they propose to _draw_ it, and
not draw it mild. The daily prints will doubtless follow their
example. No more Jenkinsisms in the _Morning Post_, concerning
fashionable parties. A view of the duchess's ball-room, or of the
dining-table of the earl, will supersede all occasion for lengthy
fiddle-faddle. The opera of the night before will be described in a
vignette--the ballet in a tail-piece; and we shall know at a glance
whether Cerito and Elssler performed their _pas_ meritoriously, by the
number of bouquets depi