ide to Banbury
Cross with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes."[86] His
peculiarities notwithstanding, George himself was in no wise conscious
of them, and never hesitated to introduce "the fiery untamed" into any
scene--battle or otherwise--in which the services of the eccentric
animal might be turned to account. We find him assisting Washington in
his triumphal journey to the capitol; astonishing the French squares in
the character of a Mameluke charger at the Battle of the Pyramids; and
leaping into the lake along with "Herne the Hunter," that peculiar
creation of the late Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, on which supernatural
occasion he comes out, as might have been expected, with peculiar force
and vigour.

Thackeray, moreover, says of his trees, that they were decidedly
original, "being decidedly of his own make and composition, not imitated
from any master;" another and a minor difficulty with the artist was a
boot, which he invariably drew half a foot too long. George lived in the
days of straps, and being strictly conservative in principle, when he
met with a pair of trousers, his idea of the "fitness of things" was not
satisfied until he pinned them to the wearer's feet with a pair of these
most uncomfortable appendages.

Against these shortcomings, which are a sufficient answer to those who
would give him credit for possessing the faculty of designing
"Annunciations, Beatifications, Apotheoses," and the like, we must set
his excellencies, the power and brilliancy of his imaginative faculties,
his extraordinary talents of conception and realization, the delicacy of
his manipulation and execution: in a word, the strong original "genius"
with which Lockhart credited him from the moment he had seen his "Points
of Humour." Examples of this "genius" might be cited by the thousand.
Look only at the famous "Sketch Book;" its recent republication has
placed it within the reach of every one of our readers. Look at the
_Sprig of Shelalegh_, the rollicking, whiskey drinking, fighting,
devil-may-care _expression_ he has thrown into that _piece of wood_;
turn to the sheet wherein he has recorded his _Recollections of the
Court of Common Pleas_, and study the group of lawyers' and witnesses'
faces therein contained. There is "genius" for you, if you will. If you
are overworked, turn to them; they will do you good, for they will not
only make you merry, but force upon you the conviction that the
conception which created the