Exit Devil: enter Satan. About 1827 Cruikshank drew him on wood, in the act of calling on his followers as related by Milton in "Paradise Lost," Book I., Il. 314-332. Cruikshank described the drawing referred to, which was engraved by an unconfident hand, as "the best drawing that I ever did in my life." A solitary print of the engraving made of it sold at Sotheby's for £3, 6s. On a towering rock, Satan calls up an army which looks like living ribbon wound up out of the bottomless pit to the ceiling of the air. His personality is felt by the effect of his command, not by his individual appearance. Michelangelo might have favourably considered this book-illustration as a bare sketch of a muster of the damned; for as one looks at it he is tempted to give it to half a dozen painters and "put it in hand." [Illustration: SHOEING THE DEVIL. From Edward G. Flight's "The True Legend of St Dunstan and the Devil," 1848.] [Illustration: THE DEVIL SIGNING. From Edward G Flight's "The True Legend of St Dunstan and the Devil," 1848.] The naïve evangelicism of "The Pilgrim's Progress" was productive of more of Cruikshank's serious monsters. 1827 is the date of seven woodcuts by him for this work (Reid 3555-61) which do not impress Mr Spielmann; they are, however, very neatly executed, and the drawing of _Christian arriving at the Gate_ is quite unwarrantably pleasant in its suggestion of conflict and weariness ending in the bosom of hospitality. In 1838 Cruikshank contributed _Vanity Fair_--an elaborate etching--to a "Pilgrim's Progress" containing plates by H. Melville. _Vanity Fair_ is a skilful catalogue marred by the misnaming of Britain Row. He produced another _Vanity Fair, circa 1854_, a vehement and uninteresting design which, with companion drawings by him of the same date, appears in Mr Henry Frowde's edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1903). These drawings (only recently engraved) annoyed Mr G. S. Layard, and me they amuse and touch. They show that Cruikshank could draw the face of a man whose _métier_ is goodness, ... and that Apollyon--a veritable creature of tinker-craft in Bunyan's text--was utterly beyond Cruikshank's power to shape according to the crooked splendour of his name. One must not forget that a pious convention of absurdity is a trap for the critic and the humorist alike. I feel that Cruikshank almost loved Bunyan. Witness the large coloured print inscribed in his last decade, "Geo. Cruikshank 1871," where Christian--a Galahad of knightliness--passes through the snake-afflicted valley of the Shadow of Death. [Illustration: PETER SCHLEMIHL WATCHING THE CLOCK From "Peter Schlemihl," 1823. Copies of the book dated 1824 are also accepted as of the first edition.]