istic manifesto:--"Mr. Bentley, the publisher," says
the indignant George, "evidently wishes to create the supposition that
_I_ illustrate his 'Miscellany.' On the contrary, I wish the public to
understand that I do no such thing. It is true that, according to a
one-sided agreement (of which more may be heard hereafter), I supply a
single etching per month. But I supply _only that single etching_. And
even that can hardly be called my design, since _the subject of it_ is
regularly furnished to me by Mr. Bentley, and I have never even read a
page of any of the stories thus '_illustrated_.'

"Yet Mr. Bentley not only advertises me as the illustrator of his
'Miscellany,' but he has lately shaped his advertisement thus, in the
papers as well as on the wrapper of his magazine: 'Illustrated by Geo.
Cruikshank, etc.' Are his other artists worthy only of being merged in
an etc.? This is, indeed, paying them but a poor compliment; and one
which I should hardly think they would submit to. In certain other
announcements I observe mentioned, in addition to my own name, a
'Cruikshank the Younger.' Who is he? The only Cruikshank the Younger I
ever heard of as a designer, is myself. Would it not be supposed that
there must be a third Cruikshank, etching, drawing, and 'illustrating,'
as his two predecessors have done? Yet there is no such person! There is
indeed a nephew of mine, who, as a _wood-engraver_, and a wood-engraver
_only_, has been employed by Mr. Bentley to engrave 'Crowquill's
designs;' just as in my 'Omnibus' he engraved my own drawings upon wood,
and still does engrave them in 'Ainsworth's Magazine.' Now, can any one
imagine it possible for any respectable publisher, especially 'Her
Majesty's Publisher in Ordinary,' to be guilty of so miserable a trick,
so wretched an expedient, as that of putting off the _engraver_ of a few
of the drawings as the designer himself--as one of the 'illustrators' of
the 'Miscellany'? Let Mr. Bentley but produce a single design for the
'Miscellany,' by 'Cruikshank the Younger' (by him so-called), and I will
retract this indignant disclaimer and apologise. If Mr. Bentley cannot
do this, he stands self-convicted of an attempt to impose upon the
public by a mystification, for purposes as apparent as the trick
itself."

What this strange declaration of war proposed to effect is not
altogether manifest; if its author imagined it would produce the result
of releasing him from his engagement, he w