nto Charles Lever's Jack Hinton or Harry Lorrequer, according
to the exigencies of the costume. The strange part of it is that this
peculiarity is shown almost exclusively in the delineation of heroes of
fiction. The imagination of the artist is evidently impressed by marked
and clearly defined characters such as Squeers, Pecksniff, Gamp, Dombey,
Macstinger, Quilp, or Carker, and their identity as a rule is admirably
preserved. If pressed for an explanation, it is possible that Browne
might have pleaded that heroes of romance present for the most part,
with a few notable exceptions, a strong family likeness, being little
better than dummies, introduced by their authors for the purpose of
setting off personages possessed of greater force of character and
decision of purpose. Be this as it may, the singular failing we refer to
is certainly no mere fancy of our own. Charles Lever himself complained
that in the supper scene of his second number, Lorrequer bore so
striking a resemblance to his contemporary, Nicholas Nickleby; while his
biographer, Mr. Fitzpatrick, observes that the identity of Harry
Lorrequer is never maintained throughout the novel, that mercurial hero
being alternately represented old, young, good-looking, and ugly. So
much indeed was Lever impressed with the fact, that he actually besought
the artist to represent O'Malley the _same person throughout the book_.
A knowledge of Irish physiognomy was essential to any illustrator of
Lever's novels, and Hablot Knight Browne was so innocent of this
knowledge that the author begged him to go down to the House of Commons
and study the faces of the Irish members there, as the only accessible
method of obtaining the necessary insight in England.

Hypercriticism, happily, would be out of place in a work dealing with
caricaturists and graphic humourists of the nineteenth century. Faults
such as those the author has ventured to indicate appear to him faults
indeed of a grave character; but, while conscious of defects which
cannot fail to be patent to the most ordinary observer, he is conscious
at the same time of the great abilities of the artist, who like those of
whom he has already treated, has passed over to the ranks of "the great
majority." If the scenery and properties are sometimes poor,--if there
is no genius, and oftentimes a lack of decision and reality, there is on
the other hand no lack of talent; and there are many designs of Hablot
Knight Browne which pla