h a trade" as PICARD-GUERIN,
_Imprimeur en taille-douce et Fabricant d'Images_," who lives in the _Rue
des Teinturiers,_ no.175. I paid him more than one visit; as, from, his
"fabrication," issue the thousands and tens of thousands of broadsides,
chap-books, &c. &c. which inundate Lower Normandy. You give from _one_ to
_three_ sous, according as the subject be simple or compound, upon wood or
upon copper:--Saints, martyrs, and scriptural subjects; or heroes,
chieftains, and monarchs, including the Duke of Wellington and Louis XVIII.
le Desire--are among the taille-douces specified in the imprints. Madame
did me the honour of shewing me some of her choicest treasures, as her
husband was from home. Up stairs was a parcel of mirthful boys and girls,
with painting brushes in their hands, and saucers of various colours before
them. Upon enquiry, I found that they received four sous per dozen, for
colouring; but I will not take upon me to say that they were over or under
paid--of so _equivocal_ a character were their performances. Only I hoped
to be excused if I preferred the plain to the coloured. In a foreign
country, our notice is attracted towards things perhaps the most mean and
minute. With this feeling, I examined carefully what was put before me, and
made a selection sufficient to shew that it was the produce of French soil.
Among the serious subjects were _two_ to which I paid particular attention.
The one was a metrical cantique of the _Prodigal Son,_ with six wood cuts
above the text, exhibiting the leading points of the Gospel-narrative. I
will cut out and send you the _second_ of these six: in which you will
clearly perceive the military turn which seems to prevail throughout France
in things the most minute. The Prodigal is about to mount his horse and
leave his father's house, in the cloke and cock'd hat of a French officer.

[Illustration]

The _fourth_ of these cuts is droll enough. It is entitled, "_L'Enfant
Prodigue est chasse par ses maitresses."_ The expulsion consists in the
women driving him out of doors with besoms and hair-brooms. It is very
probable, however, that all this character of absurdity attaches to some of
our own representations of the same subject; if, instead of examining (as
in Pope's time)

... the walls of Bedlam and Soho,

we take a survey of the graphic broadsides which dangle from strings upon
the wall at Hyde Park Corner.

Another subject of a serious character, which I am ab