The foregoing contains a list and description of some of George Cruikshank's graphic satires, many of which we have reason to believe will be entirely new to the great majority of our readers. They support the description given of him by Lockhart at the opening of our chapter: "People consider him as a clever, sharp caricaturist, and nothing more--a free-handed, comical young fellow, who will do anything he is paid for, and who is quite content to dine off the proceeds of a 'George IV.' to-day, and those of a 'Hone,' or a 'Cobbett,' to-morrow." It must be remembered that these represent but a branch of his work; and that while content to design a satire as elaborate and as admirable as any which owe their origin to the hand of Gillray, or to dash off a rough and carelessly executed caricature, he was equally ready to etch the work of an inferior artist, or even of an amateur; to execute a drawing on wood for a ballad, or for one of the numerous political hits of the day, whether on the loyal or the popular side mattered but little to him; to do anything, in fact (to use the words of Lockhart), that "was suggested or thrown in his way." It is barely possible that the very imperfect series we have given may astonish those who have hitherto regarded George Cruikshank only as an illustrator of books, and supposed that, with the exception of the woodcuts for Hone's various _jeux d'esprits_, and the rough work which appears in "The Satirist," "The Scourge," and publications of a similar character, he executed but few pictorial satires. A perfect set of impressions from his caricatures probably does not exist; if it did it would command a high price indeed. We have seen a set of about seventy plates advertised by one enterprising bookseller at the price of seventy pounds. The specimens we have cited (exclusive of two from "The Scourge") 128 in number, were published between the years 1808 and 1825, by G. and H. Humphrey, S. Fairburn, Thomas Tegg, Ackermann, M. Jones, J. Fairburn, J. Dolby, W. Hone, S. W. Fores, A. Bengo, J. Sidebotham, S. Knight, and J. Johnstone. If to the foregoing we add the plates in "Cruikshankiana"--twenty-six in number, thirty in "The Scourge," six in "Fashion," nine in "The Satirist," and eight in the "Loyalists' Magazine," we get seventy-nine more, making a sum total of over two hundred in all. How many more have escaped notice--how many have disappeared for ever from public notice without a chance of recovery or revival--it would be, perhaps, impossible to say; for even George himself was sometimes at fault, when the long-forgotten work of his early years was presented to him for recognition or acknowledgment. FOOTNOTES: [66] Alluding to the "Life in London." [67] This certainly was not true; both Gillray and Rowlandson were draughtsmen and artists of exceptionable ability.