endeavours to defend himself. "Don't," says A Beckett, as he falls
prostrate amid a heap of "spoilt paper," among which we recognise,
"Figaro," "The Thief," "The Wag," and other periodicals with which his
name was associated. "Don't cut at me 'our own inimitable, our
illustrious, our talented;' pray don't give me any more cuts; think how
many I have had and not paid you for already:" a hand indicates the way
"to the Insolvent Court."

"Figaro," after the retirement of A Beckett, passed into the editorial
hands of Mr. H. Mayhew, and conscious of the injury which the defection
of Seymour had done to the undertaking, he lost no time in opening
negotiations with a view to his return. In this he experienced little
difficulty, for Seymour was glad to avail himself of the opportunity of
giving to the public the most convincing proof which could have been
adduced of the falsity of the libels which had been published by the
retiring and discomfited editor. The fourth volume commenced 3rd of
January, and from that time until his death (in 1836) he continued to
illustrate the paper. Mayhew announces his return after the following
curious fashion: "The generous Seymour, with a patriotic ardour
unequalled since the days of Curtius, has abandoned all selfish
considerations, and yielded to our request for his country's sake. Again
he wields the satiric pencil, and corruption trembles to its very base.
His first peace-offering to 'Figaro in London,' is the rich etching
[woodcut] our readers now gaze upon with laughing eyes." Constant
references of a laudatory kind are made to him in succeeding numbers.

The woodcuts after Seymour's designs, which appear in "Figaro in
London," are too small and unimportant to justify the title which the
editor gives them of "caricatures;" and relating to political matters
which at that time were far more efficiently chronicled by the pencil of
H. B., they have lost any interest which they once might have commanded.
The most interesting illustrations which Seymour contributed to
"Figaro," are the brief series of theatrical portraits, which are not
only clever but evidently excellent likenesses.

It was not only in the case of "Figaro in London" that the slanders of A
Beckett recoiled upon his own head. That gentleman in 1832 had started a
sort of rival to Hood's "Comic Annual," under the title of the "Comic
Magazine." It was cheaper in price than the former publication, and
contained an amazing number