We have spoken of the admirable way in which Mr. Cruikshank has depicted Irish character and Cockney character; English country character is quite as faithfully delineated in the person of the stout porteress and her children, and of the “Chawbacon” with the shovel, on whose face is written “Zummerzetsheer.”  Chawbacon appears in another plate, or else Chawbacon’s brother.  He has come up to Lunnan, and is looking about him at raaces.

How distinct are these rustics from those whom we have just been examining!  They hang about the purlieus of the metropolis:  Brook Green, Epsom, Greenwich, Ascot, Goodwood, are their haunts.  They visit London professionally once a year, and that is at the time of Bartholomew fair.  How one may speculate upon the different degrees of rascality, as exhibited in each face of the thimblerigging trio, and form little histories for these worthies, charming Newgate romances, such as have been of late the fashion!  Is any man so blind that he cannot see the exact face that is writhing under the thhnblerigged hero’s hat?  Like Timanthes of old, our artist expresses great passions without the aid of the human countenance.  There is another specimen—­a street row of inebriated bottles.  Is there any need of having a face after this?  “Come on!” says Claret-bottle, a dashing, genteel fellow, with his hat on one ear—­“Come on! has any man a mind to tap me?” Claret-bottle is a little screwed (as one may see by his legs), but full of gayety and courage; not so that stout, apoplectic Bottle-of-rum, who has staggered against the wall, and has his hand upon his liver:  the fellow hurts himself with smoking, that is clear, and is as sick as sick can be.  See, Port is making away from the storm, and Double X is as flat as ditch-water.  Against these, awful in their white robes, the sober watchmen come.

Our artist then can cover up faces, and yet show them quite clearly, as in the thimblerig group; or he can do without faces altogether; or he can, at a pinch, provide a countenance for a gentleman out of any given object—­a beautiful Irish physiognomy being moulded upon a keg of whiskey; and a jolly English countenance frothing out of a pot of ale (the spirit of brave Toby Philpot come back to reanimate his clay); while in a fungus may be recognized the physiognomy of a mushroom peer.  Finally, if he is at a loss, he can make a living head, body, and legs out of steel or tortoise-shell, as in the case of the vivacious pair of spectacles that are jockeying the nose of Caddy Cuddle.

Of late years Mr. Cruikshank has busied himself very much with steel engraving, and the consequences of that lucky invention have been, that his plates are now sold by thousands, where they could only be produced by hundreds before.  He has made many a bookseller’s and author’s fortune (we trust that in so doing he may not have neglected his own).  Twelve admirable plates, furnished yearly to that facetious little publication, the Comic Almanac, have gained for it a sale, as we hear, of nearly twenty thousand copies.  The idea of the work was novel; there was, in the first number especially, a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank’s designs were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a vast favorite with the public, and has so remained ever since.