opularity and for the
ridicule which kills.

We all know the effect of Gillray's, Rowlandson's, and George
Cruikshank's etching-needles upon their victims--how these latter would
writhe under a stab that was often virulent in its brutality, merciless,
scurrilous, and cruel. We know how money passed--at least, in their
earlier years--to influence the political opinions of the caricaturists,
less in the hope of damaging "the other side" than with the view to
diluting with a little milk of human kindness their etchers' aquafortis;
and we know how Cruikshank's sudden abandonment of political caricature
has been generally attributed (without drawing forth any denial) to a
very special communication of a remunerative sort from Windsor Castle.
That, however, was owing rather to his remorseless gibbeting of the
follies and scandals of the Court than to political attack or personal
persecution; but other circumstances of a more serious, because of an
international, character have now and again attended the publication of
a caricature. For example, like the Hi-Talleyrand episode, Leech's
famous cartoon of "Cock-a-doodle-do!" (February 13th, 1858) promised at
one time--less directly, it is true--to bring unpleasant consequences in
its train. In the spirit of the Prince de Joinville, whose bombastic
language towards England in 1848 had set an example not to be resisted,
were the fire-eating words of a few French officers, who offered to
"unsheathe their swords and place them at their sovereign's disposal,"
and so forth. Leech replied with a cartoon of a Gallic cock, capped and
spurred, flapping its epaulettes and crowing its loudest, while Napoleon
the Third curses the "Crowing Colonel" under his breath. "_Diable!_" he
says, "the noisy bird will awake my neighbour;" and the point is
emphasised by a quotation from the _Moniteur_. The hit, if not quite
original (for Doyle had made a precisely similar sketch of "Le Coq
Gaulois" twelve years before in "The Almanac of the Month") was, at any
rate, a fair one. But some unscrupulous British patriot so took the
matter into his own scurvy hands that the following advertisement was
published in "The Times" of March 10th:--

"_Fifty Pounds Reward._--It having come to the knowledge of the
Committee of the Army and Navy Club that a caricature, with most
coarse and vulgar language appended thereto, was sent to an officer
in command of a French regiment, accompanied with a fo