Then exposed to the drip of some case-hardening spring His carcase let stalactite cover, And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring When he is encrusted all over; There, 'mid mammoths and crocodiles, high on a shelf, Let him stand as a monument raised to himself." [Illustration] _ECCENTRIC ARTISTS._ Gilray and his Caricatures The name of James Gilray stands pre-eminent in the annals of graphic satire. In his hands, caricature became an art, and one that exercised no unimportant influence on the kingdom of Great Britain. Previous to this time, there is little challenging admiration in his department of art. The satire for the most part was brutal where it had point, and clumsy even in invention and execution. Hogarth, Gay, Fielding, Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot all aided the progress of satire. France was satirized by Hogarth as a lean personage, all frill and wristbands, with no shirt, dieting constantly on frogs, and wearing wooden shoes. If to this we add Goldsmith's hatred of the French, because they were slaves and wore wooden shoes, we have the amount of the materials lying ready for the caricaturists' use. The hatred towards our Scotch brethren, so strongly manifested under the Bute administration, supplied the caricaturists with hackneyed and profitless jokes. The satirical points of the wits and humorists we have just named, and a few obscure caricaturists, were selected, arranged, and adapted by the genius of Gilray to illustrate, by the etching-needle, a series of political events, as important as those of any country of modern times; and in Gilray's works is preserved a pictorial record of the History of England during the greater part of the reign of George III. An artist to excel in caricature must possess abilities of a superior order, not only as a designer and an etcher, but must have a deep knowledge of life, and be conversant with the progress of public business; he must be a good and a ready reasoner upon nearly all questions; his love of truth and justice should enable him to detect the fallacies of argument, and the injustice consequent upon false or injudicious public acts. A keen sense of the ridiculous should direct his pencil; and then, by a few touches, the true caricaturist, in the most striking manner, mercilessly exposes the follies and the consequences of such acts. In Gilray, of all men before him, was found the union of these requisites.