d at the point when he dropped caricature and became an
illustrator of books. Book illustration was scarcely an art until George
Cruikshank made it so; and the most interesting period of his artistic
career appears to us to be the one in which he pursued the path
indicated by James Gillray, until his career of caricaturist merged into
his later employment of a designer and etcher of book illustration, by
which no doubt he achieved his reputation. In answer to those who tell
us that he never produced a drawing which could call a blush into the
cheek of modesty, and never raised a laugh at the expense of decency, we
will only say that we can produce at least a score of instances to the
contrary. To go no further than "The Scourge," we will refer them to
three: his _Dinner of the Four-in-Hand Club at Salthill_, in vol. i.;
his _Return to Office_ (1st July, 1811), in vol. ii.; and his
_Coronation of the Empress of the Nares_ (1st September, 1812), in vol.
iv.

REVOLUTION EFFECTED BY H. B.

As the century passed out of its infancy and attained the maturer age of
thirty years, a gradual and almost imperceptible change came over the
spirit of English graphic satire. The coarseness and suggestiveness of
the old caricaturists gradually disappeared, until at length, in 1830,
an artist arose who was destined to work a complete revolution in the
style and manner of English caricature. This artist was John Doyle,--the
celebrated H. B. He it was that discovered that pictures might be made
mildly diverting without actual coarseness or exaggeration; and when
this fact was accepted, the art of caricaturing underwent a complete
transition, and assumed a new form. The "Sketches" of H. B. owe their
chief attraction to the excellence of their designer as a portrait
painter; his successors, with less power in this direction but with
better general artistic abilities, rapidly improved upon his idea, and
thus was founded the modern school of graphic satirists represented by
Richard Doyle, John Leech, and John Tenniel. So completely was the style
of comic art changed under the auspices of these clever men, that the
very name of "caricature" disappeared, and the modern word "cartoon"
assumed its place. With the exception indeed of Carlo Pellegrini (the
"Ape" of _Vanity Fair_), and his successors, we have now no caricaturist
in the old and true acceptation of the term, and original and clever as
their productions are, their compositions are