prelude to his
advancement in the arts. Talent is not often hereditary (or at least in
succession); but the facility of Transit's pencil is astonishing: with
the rapidity of a Fuseli he sketches the human figure in all its various
attitudes, and produces in his hasty drawings so much force of effect
and truth of character, that the subject can never be mistaken. His
humour is irresistible, and is strongly characterized by all the
eccentricity and wit of a Gilhay, turning the most trifling incidents
into laughable burlesque. Between him and Horace Eglantine there exists
a sort of copartnership in the sister arts of poetry and painting:
Horace rhymes, and Bob illustrates; and very few in the school of any
note have at one time or other escaped this combination of epigram
and caricature. Bob has an eye to real life, and is formed for all the
bustle of the varied scene. Facetious, witty, and quaint, with all
the singularity of genius in his composition, these juvenile _jeux
d'esprits_ of his pencil may be regarded as the rays of promise, which
streak with golden tints the blushing horizon of the morn of youth.

As Bob is not over studious, or attached to the Latin and Greek
languages, he generally manages to get any difficult lesson construed by
an agreement with some more learned and assiduous associate; the _quid
pro quo_ on these occasions being always punctually paid on his part by
a humorous sketch of the head master calling first absence, taken from
a snug, oblique view in the school-yard, or a burlesque on some of the
fellows or inhabitants of Eton. In this way Bob contrives to pass
school muster, although these specimens of talent have, on more than one
occasion, brought him to the block. It must however
~41~~
be admitted, that in all these flights of fancy his pencil is never
disgraced by any malignancy of motive, or the slightest exhibition of
personal spleen. Good humour is his motto; pleasure his pursuit: and if
he should not prove a Porson or an Elmsley, he gives every promise of
being equally eminent with a Bunbury, Gillray, or a Rowlandson.

Varied groups are disposed around the room, and make up the back ground
of my picture. Many of these are yet too young to particularize, and
others have nothing sufficiently characteristic to deserve it; some who
have not yet committed their first fault, and many who are continually
in error; others who pursue the straight beaten track to scholastic
knowledge, and trudg