exact face that is writhing under the thhnblerigged hero's hat? Like
Timanthes of old, our artist expresses great passions without the aid
of the human countenance. There is another specimen--a street row of
inebriated bottles. Is there any need of having a face after this? "Come
on!" says Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat on one
ear--"Come on! has any man a mind to tap me?" Claret-bottle is a little
screwed (as one may see by his legs), but full of gayety and courage;
not so that stout, apoplectic Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against
the wall, and has his hand upon his liver: the fellow hurts himself
with smoking, that is clear, and is as sick as sick can be. See, Port
is making away from the storm, and Double X is as flat as ditch-water.
Against these, awful in their white robes, the sober watchmen come.

Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite clearly, as
in the thimblerig group; or he can do without faces altogether; or he
can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of any
given object--a beautiful Irish physiognomy being moulded upon a keg of
whiskey; and a jolly English countenance frothing out of a pot of ale
(the spirit of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay);
while in a fungus may be recognized the physiognomy of a mushroom peer.
Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living head, body, and legs
out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case of the vivacious pair of
spectacles that are jockeying the nose of Caddy Cuddle.

Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel
engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have been, that
his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only be produced
by hundreds before. He has made many a bookseller's and author's fortune
(we trust that in so doing he may not have neglected his own). Twelve
admirable plates, furnished yearly to that facetious little publication,