ravitch, she is one of the most wonderful of the many wonderful
people who figure in the sketch. Her figure is an anatomical
impossibility; while her mouth reaches from ear to ear (the letterpress,
by the way, informs us that her deceased husband had married her for her
beauty!). The statue of Mercury, posed like a scaramouch at a
masquerade, is matched by that of Neptune, who whirls his trident round
his head in a state of the wildest hilarity, cutting at the same time a
caper over the body of an attendant dolphin, who is so overcome with
the whimsicality of the proceeding that he is making the most violent
efforts to restrain his laughter. This last shot probably hit the mark,
for only three etchings appear in vol. xiv., and not one afterwards.
George was victorious; but there are victories and victories, and a
triumph won at the cost of an artistic reputation is as disastrous as a
defeat.

THE MISUNDERSTANDING WITH AINSWORTH.

Harrison Ainsworth's long connection with the artist had taught him that
he was one who would be neither driven nor led, and he was wise enough
to accommodate himself to circumstances. The admirable woodcut design at
the head of that division of the magazine which was known as "Our
Library Table," shows us the artist and the handsome editor in
consultation, and the attitude of the two men is indicative of the fact
that Ainsworth is attentively listening to the advice or suggestions of
his coadjutor, a fact to which Cruikshank himself has been particular to
draw our attention. To the free and unfettered conditions under which
Cruikshank co-operated with Ainsworth we owe a series of the most justly
celebrated and valuable of his designs. In matters, however, connected
with art, Cruikshank was, as we have seen, a difficult man to get on
with, and it was fairly safe to predict that a quarrel between the
author and artist was a mere question of time. The artist remained on
the staff of "Ainsworth's Magazine" for three years, enriching its pages
with some of the choicest efforts of his pencil. At the end of that
period came the unfortunate but almost unavoidable misunderstanding; and
George Cruikshank, as he had done with Bentley, withdrew from the
concern. Unlike Bentley, however, Ainsworth appears not only to have
foreseen, but to have made preparations for the inevitable; and
accordingly, when George Cruikshank retired, his place was immediately
taken by an artist of talent, destined to win f