We have then a couple of compositions treated in a graver manner, as characteristic too as the other.  We call attention to the comical look of poor Teague, who has been pursued and beaten by the witch’s stick, in order to point out also the singular neatness of the workmanship, and the pretty, fanciful little glimpse of landscape that the artist has introduced in the background.  Mr. Cruikshank has a fine eye for such homely landscapes, and renders them with great delicacy and taste.  Old villages, farm-yards, groups of stacks, queer chimneys, churches, gable-ended cottages, Elizabethan mansion-houses, and other old English scenes, he depicts with evident enthusiasm.

Famous books in their day were Cruikshank’s “John Gilpin” and “Epping Hunt;” for though our artist does not draw horses very scientifically,—­to use a phrase of the atelier,—­he feels them very keenly; and his queer animals, after one is used to them, answer quite as well as better.  Neither is he very happy in trees, and such rustical produce; or, rather, we should say, he is very original, his trees being decidedly of his own make and composition, not imitated from any master.

But what then?  Can a man be supposed to imitate everything?  We know what the noblest study of mankind is, and to this Mr. Cruikshank has confined himself.  That postilion with the people in the broken-down chaise roaring after him is as deaf as the post by which he passes.  Suppose all the accessories were away, could not one swear that the man was stone-deaf, beyond the reach of trumpet?  What is the peculiar character in a deaf man’s physiognomy?—­can any person define it satisfactorily in words?—­not in pages; and Mr. Cruikshank has expressed it on a piece of paper not so big as the tenth part of your thumb-nail.  The horses of John Gilpin are much more of the equestrian order; and as here the artist has only his favorite suburban buildings to draw, not a word is to be said against his design.  The inn and old buildings are charmingly designed, and nothing can be more prettily or playfully touched.

“At Edmonton his loving wife
From the balcony spied
Her tender husband, wond’ring much
To see how he did ride.

“‘Stop, stop, John Gilpin!  Here’s the house!’
They all at once did cry;
‘The dinner waits, and we are tired—­’
Said Gilpin—­’So am I!’

“Six gentlemen upon the road
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,
With post-boy scamp’ring in the rear,
They raised the hue and cry:—­

“‘Stop thief! stop thief!—­a highwayman!’
Not one of them was mute;
And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit.

“And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space;
The toll-men thinking, as before,
That Gilpin rode a race.”

The rush, and shouting, and clatter are excellently depicted by the artist; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing animals, must here make a special exception in favor of the hens and chickens; each has a different action, and is curiously natural.