wo members. Among the towns
proposed to be benefited were such important centres as Macclesfield,
Stockport, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Brighton, Whitehaven, Wolverhampton,
Sunderland, Manchester, Bury, Bolton, Dudley, Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield,
North and South Shields; while it was stated that the same principle
would apply to extend the representation to cities of such importance as
Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Belfast. All the resolutions, however
(comprising a third which we have considered it unnecessary to refer
to), were negatived by the amazing majority of 213 to 117. The fact that
this was a much larger majority than that which had thrown out the
previous and more limited proposal for extending the franchise to three
only of the manufacturing towns, will suffice to show the spirit in
which the unreformed parliament of 1830 was accustomed to receive any
suggestion of improvement and reform, reasonable or otherwise.

It may perhaps seem strange that at this stirring period there was an
absolute dearth of political caricaturists, but the fact we have already
attempted to account for. George Cruikshank, the finest caricaturist of
his day, as well as his brother Robert, neither of whom can be described
as purely political satirists, had now practically retired from the
practice of the art, and were employed on work of a totally different
character. Political caricature languished; indeed, if we perhaps except
William Heath, oftentimes better known by his artistic pseudonym of
"Paul Pry," there was not a political caricaturist of any note in
1829-30.

At this juncture there arose a graphic satirist--if indeed we are
justified in so terming him--of genuine originality. Before 1829, he had
been known only as a miniature painter of some celebrity; but he
possessed a taste for satiric art, and had essayed several subjects of
political character which he treated in a style and manner differing
altogether from the mode in which satirical pictures had hitherto been
treated. These he showed to Maclean, one of the great caricature
publishers of the day, who had sufficient discernment and prescience to
recognise in them the work of a man of unquestionable original ability.
He prevailed on the artist to publish these specimens, and their
success was so genuine and unmistakable that both publisher and artist
decided to continue them. Thus commenced a series of political pictures
which ultimately numbered almost a thousand, and ran an u