. . . .

     And now a widow I must mourn
     Departed joys that ne’er return;
     No comfort but a hearty can
     When I think on John Highlandman.”

Sweet “raucle carlin,” she has none of the sentimentality of the English highwayman’s lady; but being wooed by a tinker and

“A pigmy scraper wi’ his fiddle
Wha us’d to trystes and fairs to driddle,”

prefers the practical to the merely musical man.  The tinker sings with a noble candor, worthy of a fellow of his strength of body and station in life—­

“My bonnie lass, I work in brass,
A tinker is my station;
I’ve travell’d round all Christian ground
In this my occupation. 
I’ve ta’en the gold, I’ve been enroll’d
In many a noble squadron;
But vain they search’d when off I march’d
To go an’ clout the caudron.”

It was his ruling passion.  What was military glory to him, forsooth?  He had the greatest contempt for it, and loved freedom and his copper kettle a thousand times better—­a kind of hardware Diogenes.  Of fiddling he has no better opinion.  The picture represents the “sturdy caird” taking “poor gut-scraper” by the beard,—­drawing his “roosty rapier,” and swearing to “speet him like a pliver” unless he would relinquish the bonnie lassie for ever—­

“Wi’ ghastly ee, poor tweedle-dee
Upon his hunkers bended,
An’ pray’d for grace wi’ ruefu’ face,
An’ so the quarrel ended.”

Hark how the tinker apostrophizes the violinist, stating to the widow at the same time the advantages which she might expect from an alliance with himself:—­

“Despise that shrimp, that withered imp,
Wi’ a’ his noise and caperin’;
And take a share with those that bear
The budget and the apron!

“And by that stowp, my faith an’ houpe,
An’ by that dear Kilbaigie! 
If e’er ye want, or meet wi’ scant,
May I ne’er weet my craigie.”

Cruikshank’s caird is a noble creature; his face and figure show him to be fully capable of doing and saying all that is above written of him.

In the second part, the old tale of “The Three Hunchbacked Fiddlers” is illustrated with equal felicity.  The famous classical dinners and duel in “Peregrine Pickle” are also excellent in their way; and the connoisseur of prints and etchings may see in the latter plate, and in another in this volume, how great the artist’s mechanical skill is as an etcher.  The distant view of the city in the duel, and of a market-place in “The Quack Doctor,” are delightful specimens of the artist’s skill in depicting buildings and backgrounds.  They are touched with a grace, truth, and dexterity of workmanship that leave nothing to desire.  We have before mentioned the man with the mouth, which appears in this number emblematical of gout and indigestion, in which the artist has shown all the fancy of Callot.  Little demons, with long saws for noses, are making dreadful incisions into the toes of the unhappy sufferer; some are bringing pans of hot coals to keep the wounded member warm; a huge, solemn nightmare sits on the invalid’s chest, staring solemnly into his eyes; a monster, with a pair of drumsticks, is banging a devil’s tattoo on his forehead; and a pair of imps are nailing great tenpenny nails into his hands to make his happiness complete.