s of canine
freedom; the scene, in fact, would be redolent of life and excitement,
which is wholly wanting to Browne's illustration. "Phiz," from boyhood,
had been accustomed to horses, and frequently hunted with the Surrey
hounds, and to this circumstance is due the facility with which he
usually delineated horses in the hunting field. In the delineation of
hunting scenes, however, he falls far behind John Leech, and this
inferiority is strikingly manifested in the illustration to which we are
now referring. If you compare the fragile men, horses, and hounds, with
those in Leech's last etching, you cannot fail to be struck with the
vigour and life-like reality of the latter drawing. Browne's women as a
rule are delicate, fragile, consumptive-looking creatures. The one in
the etching referred to is both physically weak and a bad horsewoman to
boot--sitting her horse with all the ungracefulness of a sack of flour.

Another weakness of Hablot Knight Browne is a tendency to reproduce. If
you look at any of his "interiors," it will be apparent to you that the
men and women--the furniture and fittings--the room itself, you have
seen any number of times before. Charles Chesterfield becomes Nicholas
Nickleby, and Nicholas Nickleby Harry Lorrequer; and with the slightest
possible rearrangement, the scenes in which these gentlemen figure from
time to time are so much alike, that we are reminded for all the world
of the set scenes and artificial backgrounds of a photographer's,
"studio." Take "Nicholas Nickleby," by way of example: the room in which
old Ralph Nickleby first finds his poor relations, does duty (with the
slightest possible rearrangement) for the Yorkshire schoolmaster's room
at the Saracen's Head; while a room in Kenwig's house becomes
successively an apartment in Mr. Mantalini's residence, a green-room,
Mr. Ralph Nickleby's office, Mr. Charles Cheeryble's room, a
hairdresser's shop, and so on. The illustrations to a novel may not
inaptly be compared to the scenery and characters of a drama, and a
theatre furnished with such a dearth of scenery and "properties," would
be a poor affair indeed. This tendency to reproduction becomes
strikingly apparent wherever a romantic hero puts in an appearance.
Thus, Mrs. Trollope's Charles Chesterfield in a frock coat, becomes in a
tailcoat Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby; in another frock coat,
Martin Chuzzlewit; while a military surtout converts him, with equal
facility, i