The internal condition of the country this year (1819) gave cause for much anxiety. Pecuniary distress, owing to the depression in trade, was almost universal. This state of things, as might have been expected, was taken advantage of by the popular agitators for their own purposes; and the people, under their encouragement, as in the two previous years, continued to give audible expression to their dissatisfaction at meetings, and through the medium of publications more or less of a seditious character. The miserable outlook gave rise (among others) to a pair of caricatures, published by Fores on the 9th of January, _John Bull in Clover_, and (by way of contrast), _John Bull Done Over_. In the first, fat John is enjoying himself with his pipe and his glass; the sleek condition of his dog shows that it shares in the comforts of its master's prosperity. John, in fact, has what our Transatlantic cousins call "a good time;" scattered over the floor lie invoices of goods despatched by him to customers in Spain, in Russia, in America. Beneath a portrait of "Good Queen Bess," John has pinned several of his favourite ballads: "The Land we live in," "Oh, the Roast Beef of Old England!" "May we all live the days of our life." In _John Bull Done Over_, a very different picture is presented to our notice. The whole of John's fat is gone; he sits, a lean, starving, tattered, shoeless object in a bottomless chair, the embodiment of human misery. In place of his invoices lie the _Gazette_, which announces his bankruptcy, and a number of tradesmen's bills; on the back of his chair is coiled a rope, and on the table before him a razor lies on a treatise on suicide,--John in fact is debating by what mode he shall put an end to his existence. An onion and some water in a broken jug are the only articles of sustenance he has to depend on. The tax gatherer, who has made a number of fruitless calls, looks through the broken panes to ascertain if John is really "at home." On the wall, in place of the picture of "Good Queen Bess," hangs a portrait of John Bellingham, the assassin of Spencer Perceval; and in lieu of his once joyous ballads, such doleful ditties as "Oh, dear, what can the matter be!" "There's nae luck about the house," and so on. The poor dog, grown like his master a lean and pitiable object, vainly appeals to him for food.