Whilst England was thus peacefully passing through the excitement of a succession to a vacant throne, France was convulsed with one of her ever-recurring revolutions. Charles the Tenth, driven from his throne, had been replaced by one who in his turn, some three and twenty years afterwards, was doomed to give place to the Bonaparte whose sun we ourselves have seen set in the defeat and disaster of Sedan. We find portraits in September, 1830, of Louis Philippe, king of the French, of the queen, General Lafayette, the ex-king Charles the Tenth, and the Duc d'Angouleme. Besides these, we meet with several clever illustrations by the artist, on stone, of the stirring events of the time, which are interesting and valuable specimens of his versatile powers. Some of our readers may remember a passage in Peter Pindar, where the merciless satirist ridicules George the Third's German band, telling us (in allusion to his Majesty's well-known penurious habits) that, although they displaced native talent and expected "to feast upon the Coldstream regiments fat," their experience was altogether of another character:-- "But ah, their knives no veal nor mutton carved! To feasts they went indeed, but went and starved!" The services of these foreign musical mercenaries had been retained by George the Fourth, but one of the very earliest acts of his successor was to dismiss them in favour of the guards' bands, "who," however, if we are to believe Mr. Greville, had no great reason to be thankful, but were on the contrary "ready to die of it," as they had to play every night without pay, and were moreover "prevented" from earning money elsewhere. This act of the new king is referred to in a sketch by Seymour, which shows us his Majesty in the act of "discharging the German band," who may be seen marching off headed by their ancient and crestfallen drum-major. ST. JOHN LONG. The month of October, 1830, witnessed the trial of the notorious impostor, John St. John Long (whose real name was O'Driscoll) for the manslaughter of Miss Cushin. The success of this ignorant and notorious quack, who managed for a series of years to extract a magnificent income of some L10,000 or L12,000 per annum by trading on the credulity of his fellow-creatures, forms a curious commentary on the weakness of contemporary "society." It is said that he commenced life as a house-painter, and afterwards acquired some slight knowledge of art in the humble capacity of colour grinder to Sir Thomas Lawrence, and while colouring (on his own account) some anatomical drawings for a medical London school, picked up a slight and imperfect knowledge of anatomy. This stimulated him to further superficial research; and after a few months' probation, his confidence enabled him to pretend that he possessed a cure for every disease under the sun--more especially consumption.[99] The origin and pretensions of this learned practitioner are thus referred to in one of the rhymes of the day:--