when George II. was King, it was known as a "hieroglyphic;" and then
onwards, through the caustic and venomous days of the mighty Gillray and
Rowlandson, and even of George Cruikshank, and their contemporaries,
"caricature" was the term applied to the separate copper-plate
broadsides that were issued, crudely coloured, from the famous shops of
Mrs. Humphreys, of Ackermann, of Fores, and of McLean, and displayed in
their windows to the delight and savage applause of a laughing crowd.
Then "HB" had followed, Dicky Doyle's clever father, whose political
lithographs had begun to appear in 1830, and continued until
1851--ceased, that is to say, when _Punch_ was ten years old. The wonder
about them was that, even before the days of photography, the likenesses
of his subjects were so admirable, and his thrusts so happy, while his
art, criticised strictly, was so very poor and amateurish. But as
exaggeration found no trace in his designs, and his compositions aimed
at raising little more than a suspicion of a smile in the beholder (save
in the subjects of them), the word "cartoon" was more applicable to them
than to any that preceded or have followed them. Mr. Austin Dobson, it
is true, speaks of them as "caricatures;" but their publisher more
correctly defined them as "Political Sketches."

Then, after the little wood-cut "caricatures" by Robert Seymour, came
_Punch_ with his full-page designs. Announced also as "caricatures," for
a long while they were known as "pencillings;" but it was some time
before they became an invariable feature of the paper. For several
consecutive weeks, indeed, in 1843 there was no full-page cut at all,
until John Leech recommenced them with a series of "Social Miseries,"
the first of which represented "Thoughts during Pastorale." But the most
successful and the best remembered was "The Pleasures of Folding Doors"
when "The Battle of Prague" is being thumped out relentlessly on the
other side.

Now in July of 1843 the first great exhibition of cartoons for the
Houses of Parliament was held. These gigantic designs handled the
loftiest subjects, executed in the most elevated spirit of the highest
art, with a view to ultimate execution in fresco on the walls of the
palace of Westminster. It was not in nature for _Punch_ to allow so
excellent an opportunity to pass by without taking sarcastic advantage
of it. He--conformably with his role of Sir Oracle, omniscient and
omnifarious--must have his "cart