ificent hall after a voluptuous
meal, and using a great steel fork in the guise of a toothpick. Fancy
the first young gentleman living employing such a weapon in such a
way! The most elegant Prince of Europe engaged with a two-pronged iron
fork--the heir of Britannia with a BIDENT! The man of genius who drew
that picture saw little of the society which he satirized and amused.
Gilray watched public characters as they walked by the shop in St.
James's Street, or passed through the lobby of the House of Commons.
His studio was a garret, or little better; his place of amusement a
tavern-parlor, where his club held its nightly sittings over their pipes
and sanded floor. You could not have society represented by men to whom
it was not familiar. When Gavarni came to England a few years since--one
of the wittiest of men, one of the most brilliant and dexterous of
draughtsmen--he published a book of "Les Anglais," and his Anglais
were all Frenchmen. The eye, so keen and so long practised to observe
Parisian life, could not perceive English character. A social painter
must be of the world which he depicts, and native to the manners which
he portrays.

Now, any one who looks over Mr. Leech's portfolio must see that the
social pictures which he gives us are authentic. What comfortable little
drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, what snug libraries we enter; what fine
young-gentlemanly wags they are, those beautiful little dandies who wake
up gouty old grandpapa to ring the bell; who decline aunt's pudding and
custards, saying that they will reserve themselves for an anchovy
toast with the claret; who talk together in ball-room doors, where Fred
whispers Charley--pointing to a dear little partner seven years old--"My
dear Charley, she has very much gone off; you should have seen that girl
last season!" Look well at everything appertaining to the economy of
the famous Mr. Briggs: how snug, quiet, appropriate all the appointments
are! What a comfortable, neat, clean, middle-class house Briggs's is (in
the Bayswater suburb of London, we should guess from the sketches of the
surrounding scenery)! What a good stable he has, with a loose box for
those celebrated hunters which he rides! How pleasant, clean, and
warm his breakfast-table looks! What a trim little maid brings in
the top-boots which horrify Mrs. B! What a snug dressing-room he has,
complete in all its appointments, and in which he appears trying on the
delightful hunting-cap which