ekly newspaper called _Pierce Egan's Life
in London_, which, being sold to a Mr. Bell, enjoyed a long period of
popularity as _Bell's Life in London_. In the same year Pierce published
his _Life of an Actor_, dedicated to Edmund Kean, and illustrated by
Theodore Lane. Lane, who was born at Isleworth in 1800, was the son of a
drawing-master in poor circumstances. At the age of fourteen he was
apprenticed to John Barrow, an artist and colourer of prints, who was
living in St. Pancras. Thanks to the encouragement of his master, Lane
early came into notice as a miniaturist and painter in water-colours,
and he exhibited works of that class at the Academy between 1819 and
1826. But his real talent lay in the direction of the quaint and the
humorous. In 1825 he made a series of thirty-six designs representing
scenes in the life of an actor, which he took to Egan and begged that
popular author to write the letterpress. After some hesitation, Egan
undertook the task, chiefly, as he says, with the idea of introducing a
meritorious young artist to the public. For his designs Lane received
L150 from the publisher, and the book really proved a stepping-stone,
not to fortune, but to regular employment. His work was praised by the
two Cruikshanks, and a writer in _The Monthly Critical Gazette_ declared
that his designs would not discredit the pencil of Hogarth. Lane
illustrated Egan's _Anecdotes Original and Selected of the Turf, the
Chase, the Ring, and the Stage_ in 1827, and also published two or
series of humorous designs. In 1825 the young artist, though
left-handed, took up oil-painting with success, and attracted favourable
notice by his pictures _The Christmas Presents_ and _Disturbed by
Nightmare_, which were exhibited at the Academy in 1827 and 1828. His
best work, however, was _The Enthusiast_--a gouty angler fishing in a
tub of water--which is now in the National Gallery. On 21st May 1828
poor Lane's promising career was cut short in most tragical fashion.
While waiting for a friend at the Horse Repository in the Gray's Inn
Road, he stepped upon a skylight, and, falling through, his brains were
dashed out upon the pavement below. He left a widow and two children,
for whose benefit Egan published a little work in verse called _The Show
Folks_, with illustrations by Lane, as well as a short memoir of the
unfortunate artist. Of Egan's numerous other works it is only necessary
to mention his _Book of Sports and Mirror of Life_ (