ose head barely reaches the counter, the gin-drinking
charwoman to the left, and the quarrelsome gin-drinking Irish customers
at the back. Everything in this picture reeks of _gin_; the only persons
not imbibing it are the proprietor and his dowdy barmaids, whom I have
no manner of doubt the artist intended to look captivating.

"What a fine touching picture of melancholy desolation," remarks
Thackeray, "is that of 'Sikes and the dog.' The poor cur is not too well
drawn, the landscape is stiff and formal; but in this case the faults,
if faults they be, of execution rather add to than diminish the effect
of the picture: it has a strange, wild, dreary, broken-hearted look; we
fancy we see the landscape as it must have appeared to Sikes, when
ghastly and with bloodshot eyes he looked at it." The etching of
_Jonathan Wild Discovering Darrell in the Loft_ ["Jack Sheppard"]
reminds one, in its treatment, of Rembrandt, for the work of Cruikshank,
be it observed, distinctly shows in its results that he studied both
Hogarth and Rembrandt. The effect the artist has produced is wonderful;
the ray of light thrown through the gloom upon the figure of Darrell as
he stands against the wall, sword in hand, is capitally managed, "while
the intricacies of the tile-work, and the mysterious twinkling of light
among the beams are excellently felt and rendered."[87] _Simon Renard
and Winwike on the Roof of the White Tower_ ["Tower of London"] is
another admirable drawing. The scene is laid on the platform of one of
the antique guns which frown from the embrasures of the river face of
the fortress. The head of Renard is not well drawn. The character of
the ambassador gives one the idea of a Spanish Iago, a clever,
calculating knave, whom we should credit with the possession of a broad
and lofty forehead, indicative of deep and concentrated thought; in the
etching, however, before us, he has none at all, a deficiency
compensated by puffy cheeks and a preposterous beak. These
imperfections, which in another artist would mar the drawing, serve only
to throw its excellencies into prominent notice. The lights and shadows
are most effectively rendered, and the setting sun throws a broad light
upon the features of the warder, who has laid aside his arquebus while
conversing with the wily Spaniard. Of the many who have noticed the
well-known etching of _Born a Genius and Born a Dwarf_ ["Comic Almanack,
1847"], not one (so far at least as we know) has