as good, as earnest, and as fanciful
as one of John Bunyan's, and we have often fancied there was a
similarity between the men.

The render will examine the work called "My Sketch-Book" with not a
little amusement, and may gather from it, as we fancy, a good deal
of information regarding the character of the individual man, George
Cruikshank: what points strike his eye as a painter; what move his
anger or admiration as a moralist; what classes he seems most especially
disposed to observe, and what to ridicule. There are quacks of all
kinds, to whom he has a mortal hatred; quack dandies, who assume
under his pencil, perhaps in his eye, the most grotesque appearance
possible--their hats grow larger, their legs infinitely more crooked and
lean; the tassels of their canes swell out to a most preposterous size;
the tails of their coats dwindle away, and finish where coat-tails
generally begin. Let us lay a wager that Cruikshank, a man of the people
if ever there was one, heartily hates and despises these supercilious,
swaggering young gentlemen; and his contempt is not a whit the less
laudable because there may be tant soit peu of prejudice in it. It is
right and wholesome to scorn dandies, as Nelson said it was to hate
Frenchmen; in which sentiment (as we have before said) George Cruikshank
undoubtedly shares. In the "Sunday in London,"* Monsieur the Chef is
instructing a kitchen-maid how to compound some rascally French kickshaw
or the other--a pretty scoundrel truly! with what an air he wears that
nightcap of his, and shrugs his lank shoulders, and chatters, and ogles,
and grins: they are all the same, these mounseers; there are other two
fellows--morbleu! one is putting his dirty fingers into the saucepan;
there are frogs cooking in it, no doubt; and just over some other dish
of abomination, another dirty rascal is taking snuff! Never mind,
the sauce won't be hurt by a few ingredients more or less. Three such
fellows as these are not worth one Englishman, that's clear. There is
one in the very midst of them, the great burly fellow with the beef: he
could beat all three in five minutes. We cannot be certain that such was
the process going on in Mr. Cruikshank's mind when he made the design;
but some feelings of the sort were no doubt entertained by him.

* The following lines--ever fresh--by the author of
"Headlong Hall," published years ago in the Globe and
Traveller, are an excellent comment on several o