Turning from Hogarth to a modern artist, in spite of his faults of most marvellous genius and inventive faculty, I frequently find critics of approved knowledge and sagacity describing the late Gustave Dore as a caricaturist. It may seem strange at first sight to introduce the name of Dore into a work dealing exclusively with English caricature art, and I do so, not by reason of the fact that his works are as familiar to us in England as in France, not because he has pictorially interpreted some of the finest thoughts in English literature, but because I find his name so constantly mentioned in comparison with English caricaturists and comic artists, and more especially with our George Cruikshank. Now Gustave Dore is, if possible, still less a caricaturist than our English Hogarth. I have seen the ghastly illustrations to the licentious "Contes Drolatiques" of Balzac cited in proof of his claims to be considered a caricaturist. I will not deny that Dore did try his hand once upon a time at caricature, and if we are to judge him by these attempts, we should pronounce him the worst French caricaturist the world ever saw, which would be saying a great deal; for a worse school than that of the modern French caricaturists (and I do not except even Gavarni, Cham, or Daumier), does not anywhere exist. That this man of marvellous genius had humour I do not for one moment deny; but it was the grim humour of an inquisitor or torturer of the middle ages--of one that revels in a perfect nightmare of terror.[6] Genius is said to be nearly allied to madness; and if one studies some of his weird creations--such, for instance, as _The Judgment Day_ in the legend of "The Wandering Jew"--the thought involuntarily suggests itself that a brain teeming with such marvellous and often morbid conceptions, might have been pushed off its balance at any moment. Gustave Dore delights in lofty, mediaeval-gabled buildings, with bartizans and antique galleries; in steep streets, dominated by gloomy turrets; in narrow entries, terminating in dark vistas; in gloomy forests, crowded with rocky pinnacles; in masses of struggling, mutilated men and horses; in monstrous forms of creeping, crawling, slimy, ghastly horror. By the side of the conceptions of Gustave Dore--_teste_ for instance the weird pictures of "The Wandering Jew" already mentioned--George Cruikshank sinks at times into insignificance; and yet side by side with George Cruikshank, as a purely comic artist or caricaturist, Dore is beneath mediocrity. [Illustration: GUSTAVE DORE. _From "Contes Drolatiques."_ "SERGEANT-OF-THE-JUSTICE TAUPIN."] [Illustration: GUSTAVE DORE. _From "Contes Drolatiques."_ "THE ABBOT OF MARMOUSTIERS." _Back to p. 8._] [Illustration: GUSTAVE DORE. _From "Contes Drolatiques."_ "THE LANDLORD OF THE THREE BARBELS."] [Illustration: GUSTAVE DORE. _From "Contes Drolatiques."_ MONSEIGNEUR HUGON. _Back to p. 9._] MR. HAMERTON'S OBSERVATIONS ON CARICATURE.