ow from head to
foot, lightly lift it up from the grass, roll and fold it up neatly, and
at last pocket it. He then rose up, bowed to me once more, and walked
away again, disappearing behind the rose bushes. I don't know, but I
thought I heard him laughing a little. I, however, kept fast hold of the
bag. Everything around me was bright in the sun, and as yet I gave no
thought to what I had done."

This marvellous event, narrated by Peter with such a faithful,
circumstantial detail, is painted by Cruikshank in the most wonderful
poetic way, with that happy mixture of the real and supernatural that
makes the narrative so curious, and like truth. The sun is shining with
the utmost brilliancy in a great quiet park or garden; there is a palace
in the background, and a statue basking in the sun quite lonely and
melancholy; there is a sun-dial, on which is a deep shadow, and in the
front stands Peter Schlemihl, bag in hand: the old gentleman is down on
his knees to him, and has just lifted off the ground the SHADOW OF ONE
LEG; he is going to fold it back neatly, as one does the tails of a
coat, and will stow it, without any creases or crumples, along with the
other black garments that lie in that immense pocket of his. Cruikshank
has designed all this as if he had a very serious belief in the story;
he laughs, to be sure, but one fancies that he is a little frightened in
his heart, in spite of all his fun and joking.

The German tales we have mentioned before. "The Prince riding on the
Fox," "Hans in Luck," "The Fiddler and his Goose," "Heads off," are all
drawings which, albeit not before us now, nor seen for ten years, remain
indelibly fixed on the memory. "Heisst du etwa Rumpelstilzchen?" There
sits the Queen on her throne, surrounded by grinning beef-eaters, and
little Rumpelstiltskin stamps his foot through the floor in the excess
of his tremendous despair. In one of these German tales, if we remember
rightly, there is an account of a little orphan who is carried away by
a pitying fairy for a term of seven years, and passing that period of
sweet apprenticeship among the imps and sprites of fairy-land. Has our
artist been among the same company, and brought back their portraits in
his sketch-book? He is the only designer fairy-land has had. Callot's
imps, for all their strangeness, are only of the earth earthy. Fuseli's
fairies belong to the infernal regions; they are monstrous, lurid, and
hideously melancholy. Mr. Cruiks