This, or worse, is the general tenor of the work, interspersed with burlesque passages, such as Mr. Thackeray pretty well satiated the public with in "Rebecca and Rowena." In that, however, there was the point of a specific parody, which is here wanting. Children will read this, as they will any thing that is not insufferably prosy; but we apprehend that those whose tastes are not already a good deal injured will better like better things, and we are not without a hope that to most of them it will appear dull. Persons of sense, however, will not, we think, give their children the opportunity of pronouncing an opinion upon it. Mr. Thackeray mistakes the bent of his genius very much when he undertakes to write for children. His is no food for young rosy lips, but stimulative diet for jaded appetites. Of course even the present work is not without his peculiar cleverness, but all who are familiar with his vein will understand that his humour is not of a kind to be very readily appreciated by those for whom it professes to be written. The joke of the book consists in attributing to the Royal Families of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary the slang language and slang habits of modern society, and representing them with the foibles and habits of that portion of the middle class which the author loves best to caricature. This is interspersed with passages of pantomime bombast, the aim apparently being to sound the depths of absurdity. But utter absurdity must be very nicely managed not to degenerate into trash. Mr. Lear has written and illustrated a "Book of Nonsense" which every one knows and every child delights in. It has not a grain of sense either in the letter-press or the illustrations from cover to cover, yet it has good taste, good fun, and pleasant humour. If Mr. Lear's success shows that it is possible to dispense with the assistance of sense, Mr. Thackeray's attempt is a warning, on the other hand, that it is a dangerous experiment to make. 510 CHILDREN'S FAIRY-TALES, AND GEORGE [Reprinted from The Inquirer.] ENGRAVING is a limited field, but these limited fields of art often afford scope for the display of a special genius which would nowhere else have found opportunity for its development. Where the engraver occupies himself merely in reproducing the original works of others, however exquisite may be his mechanical skill, and however nice and accurate his perceptions, he is certainly on quite another level than the painter or the sculptor. Where, however, the engraver, using the word in its widest sense, chooses to make his graver the instrument for developing his own conceptions, he is truly an artist, and may find in his peculiar mode of execution an expression peculiarly suited to his genius. Two names will occur to every mind, of men who have found their fittest field in this peculiar corner of art. Bewick and Cruikshank, both men of true genius, felt that Nature meant them neither to draw nor to paint, but to engrave. Those vignettes to the "Birds" or to "Esop's Fables" could never have been painted. Colour could have added nothing to those quaint little touches of the grotesque and humorous; it would have ruined them. Think of the one where that intent kitchen-maid is pegging up her clothes on the drying-line; she is wrapt up in the occupation of the moment, but has unfortunately left the garden-gate open, and the denizens of the farmyard are deliberately tres * George Cruikshank's Fairy Library. Hop-o'-my-Thumb and the Seven-League Boots. don, David Bogue. 1854. Jack and the Bean-stalk. Lon passing on the clean linen spread on the grass. The air with which a contemplative and self-absorbed sow is walking over the white sheets, the haste with which her numerous family are rushing to join her, the triumph of a cock who has contributed his little quotum of damage, the pleasure the inspector of the cut has in the sense of being so much behind the scenes, his feeling of the nearness of the dénouement, make the whole thing exquisitely ludicrous. But fancy it in oils, on canvas four feet square -it would be a palpable absurdity, like putting a pinch of snuff in a carved oak chest. Cruikshank is inferior to Bewick in the amount of his originality. He is content to illustrate the ideas of other people, but he does it as only a man himself possessed of the nicest and most genial sense of humour could do. The oldest jokes, under the touch of his pencil, come back to us with fresher and profounder suggestions of the ludicrous a new and complete edition of "Joe Miller,” illustrated by George Cruikshank, would be at once one of the most original and entertaining books ever seen. Yet what a peculiar world he moves in. Even when most serious, these are not exactly men and women that he draws; they are a creation of his own-George Cruikshank's men and women. The heroine, the young lady with the red hair (you know it is red hair), the long but good nose, the red and white complexion, the small waist and very stiff stays; the hero, with the long fair locks, those good legs, and the sweet tempered, feeling, intelligent face, with such healthy animal spirits,-who ever saw such people? Yet who but has felt the perfection with which they illustrate Fielding and Smollett. He was never meant to portray nicety of character-Sophy Western and Amelia are beyond him-but this is Jones, and Booth, and Peregrine Pickle to perfection. These are his Adam and Eve, an ideal of his own, based on a real germ of the Londoner of the beginning of this century; but standing for hero and heroine of all ages, from Hans in Luck down to Oliver Twist, to our everlasting contentment. And how these two figures in their sameness set off the eternal variety in the humorous images that surround them! Humphrey Clinker shocking the delicate Miss Bramble; the doctor and the painter in the hands of Peregrine; the imperturbable face of the deaf postillion, jogging away with pole and splinter bar from the broken-down chaise, while the wretched lovers scream in vain from either window,-how could he hold his graver steady while he drew all these things and a thousand more? But apart from caricature, a field we will not touch on, it is in the illustration of fairy-stories that George Cruikshank specially shines. The pictures to the original edition of "Grimm's German Stories" are very wonderful efforts; the most matured mind may derive pleasure from them, and children take a deeper impression from them than those about them have much idea of. Ask any man of thirty who read the book at ten, whether he remembers the pictures-ask him if he remembers the stories they illustrated-see, then, if he remembers the stories which were not illustrated. What boldness there is in these little cuts, what reliance on the simple faith of those who are to scrutinise them!-who else would have dared to make a man ride on a fox as he does, sitting firmly on the outstretched tail? It is the only way, when you come to consider it, a man could ride a fox. "And away they went over stock and stone You see it in that little bit of a cut two inches square; you see in the man's face that the wind is blown down his throat, and he can hardly catch his breath: what a fearful pace the old fox is going at; and yet there is no sense of insecurity-his rider sits there as steady as a rock, only holding rather anxiously on to his cap, whose feather, like his hair, is whistling in the wind. How old is George Cruikshank? He amused us as children, and now he comes forward again with a Fairy Library to amuse our children! Might he be as immortal as his works will be! But, alas, the first touch of age is on him-you see it in these works. There is no weakness, no infirmity; but with a softened and far more finished execution, there is a want of the vigour and vivid character of his earlier productions. The prints are many of them strikingly beautiful, but the giants and ogres, still wonderful, are not quite what they once would have been; the difference is scarcely perceptible-it is a gray hair in a brown head; still there are signs that propriateness and delicacy of finish have begun to encroach a little too far on vividness of conception: but the old fire is still bright, the dwarf under the table in "Jack and the Bean-stalk" could have been portrayed by no other hand; and there is enough in all the pictures to make them a treasure-house of delight for children. ар But there is a serious point in which George Cruikshank has departed from that good sense which must, one would think, be inherent in the man who can draw as he does. He has undertaken to write the stories as well as illustrate them, to re-write the tales of our childhood, and to make "Hop-o'-my-Thumb," "Jack and the Beanstalk," and the rest, subservient not only to sound morality, but to political economy, abolition of capital punishment, temperance, peace, and the sanitary movement. He informs us that the story of "Puss in Boots" "is but a succession of successful falsehoods, -a clever lesson in lying,—a system of imposture rewarded by the greatest worldly advantages! A useful lesson, truly, to be impressed upon the minds of children." With equal severity he convicts Hop-o'-my-Thumb of the murder of the ogre's children, stamps him in italics as an ипfeeling artful liar and a thief," and has scarcely words or signs of exclamation enough to stigmatise his parents as receivers of stolen goods. "A father and a mother, of L L 66 |