BEEN INSTANTLY STIFLED,"
&c. &c. See with what a tremendous war of words (and good loud words
too; Mr. Ainsworth's description is a good and spirited one) the author
is obliged to pour in upon the reader before he can effect his purpose
upon the latter, and inspire him with a proper terror. The painter does
it at a glance, and old Wood's dilemma in the midst of that tremendous
storm, with the little infant at his bosom, is remembered afterwards,
not from the words, but from the visible image of them that the artist
has left us.

It would not, perhaps, be out of place to glance through the whole of
the "Jack Sheppard" plates, which are among the most finished and the
most successful of Mr. Cruikshank's performances, and say a word or two
concerning them. Let us begin with finding fault with No. 1, "Mr. Wood
offers to adopt little Jack Sheppard." A poor print, on a poor subject;
the figure of the woman not as carefully designed as it might be, and
the expression of the eyes (not an uncommon fault with our artist) much
caricatured. The print is cut up, to use the artist's phrase, by the
number of accessories which the engraver has thought proper, after the
author's elaborate description, elaborately to reproduce. The plate of
"Wild discovering Darrell in the loft" is admirable--ghastly, terrible,
and the treatment of it extraordinarily skilful, minute, and bold. The
intricacies of the tile-work, and the mysterious twinkling of light
among the beams, are excellently felt and rendered; and one sees here,
as in the two next plates of the storm and murder, what a fine eye the
artist has, what a skilful hand, and what a sympathy for the wild and
dreadful. As a mere imitation of nature, the clouds and the bridge
in the murder picture may be examined by painters who make far higher
pretensions than Mr. Cruikshank. In point of workmanship they are
equally good, the manner quite unaffected, the effect produced without
any violent contrast, the whole scene evidently well and philosophically
arranged in the artist's brain, before he began to put it upon copper.

The famous drawing of "Jack carving the name on the beam," which has
been transferred to half the play-bills in town, is overloaded with
accessories, as the first plate; but they are much better arranged
than in the last-named engraving, and do not injure the effect of the
principal figure. Remark, too, the conscientiousness of the artist,
and that shrewd pervading idea of