a number of the artist's plates in the aquatint style; and though we
believe he had never been in that capital, the designs have a great
deal of life in them, and pass muster very well. A villanous race of
shoulder-shrugging mortals are his Frenchmen indeed. And the heroes
of the tale, a certain Mr. Dick Wildfire, Squire Jenkins, and Captain
O'Shuffleton, are made to show the true British superiority on every
occasion when Britons and French are brought together. This book was one
among the many that the designer's genius has caused to be popular; the
plates are not carefully executed, but, being colored, have a pleasant,
lively look. The same style was adopted in the once famous book called
"Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," which must have a word of notice
here, for, although by no means Mr. Cruikshank's best work, his
reputation was extraordinarily raised by it. Tom and Jerry were as
popular twenty years since as Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller now are;
and often have we wished, while reading the biographies of the latter
celebrated personages, that they had been described as well by Mr.
Cruikshank's pencil as by Mr. Dickens's pen.

As for Tom and Jerry, to show the mutability of human affairs and the
evanescent nature of reputation, we have been to the British Museum and
no less than five circulating libraries in quest of the book, and "Life
in London," alas, is not to be found at any one of them. We can only,
therefore, speak of the work from recollection, but have still a very
clear remembrance of the leather gaiters of Jerry Hawthorn, the green
spectacles of Logic, and the hooked nose of Corinthian Tom. They were
the schoolboy's delight; and in the days when the work appeared we
firmly believed the three heroes above named to be types of the most
elegant, fashionable young fellows the town afforded, and thought
their occupations and amusements were those of all high-bred English
gentlemen. Tom knocking down the watchman at Temple Bar; Tom and Jerry