This is not to be wondered at; for in whatever light we view it, to whatever test we bring it, whether we read it backwards or forwards, from left to right, or from right to left; or whether we make it a transparency to prove its substantial genuineness and worth, who can deny that the Bank Note is a most valuable work?—a publication, in short, without which no gentleman’s pocket can be complete? Few can rise from a critical examination of the literary contents of this narrow sheet, without being forcibly struck with the power, combined with the exquisite fineness of the writing. It strikes conviction at once. It dispels all doubts, and relieves all objections. There is a pithy terseness in the construction of the sentences; a downright, direct, straightforward, coming to the point, which would be wisely imitated in much of the contemporaneous literature that constantly obtains currency (though not as much). Here we have no circumlocution, no discursive pedantry, no smell of the lamp; the figures, though wholly derived from the East (being Arabic numerals), are distinct and full of purpose; and if the writing abounds in flourishes, which it does, these are not rhetorical, but boldly graphic: struck with a nervous decision of style, which, instead of obscuring the text and meaning, convinces the reader that he who traced them when promising to pay the sum of five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, or a thousand pounds, means honestly and instantly to keep his word: that he _will_ pay it to bearer on demand, without one moment’s hesitation. Strictly adapted for utility, yet the dulcet is not wholly overlooked; for, besides figures and flourishes, the graces of art are shed over this much-prized publication. The figure of Britannia is no slavish reproduction of any particular school whatever. She sits upon her scroll of state utterly inimitable and alone. She is hung up in one corner of the page, the sole representative of the P. R. F. P., or pre-reissue-of-the-fourpenny-piece, school. Neither, if judged by the golden rule of our greatest bard, is the work wholly deficient in another charm. As we have just explained, its words are few: brevity is the soul of wit. And we fearlessly put it to the keenest appreciator of good things, whether a Bank Note (say for a hundred) is not the best joke conceivable—except, indeed, a Bank Note for a thousand. A critical analysis of a work of this importance cannot be complete without going deeply into the subject. Reviewing is, alas, too often mere surface-work; for seldom do we find the critic going below the superficies, or extending his scrutiny beyond the letter-press. We shall, however, set a bright example of profundity, and having discharged our duty to the face of the Bank Note, shall proceed to penetrate below it: having analysed the print, we shall now speak of the paper.