The political opinions of the writer of this book are of no consequence to himself or anybody else. It would perhaps be pretty near the truth if he were to admit that he had no political opinions worth speaking of. To those, however, who were interested in the struggle for Free Trade, which in the year 1846 raged with great fury, the question was, and still is, one of vital interest. The landed interest, headed by most of the aristocracy on the one side, and the manufacturing interest, championed by Cobden and Bright, on the other, raised a storm in which language the reverse of parliamentary was tossed from side to side. Peel was Prime Minister, and his ultimate conversion to the principles of Free Trade, and consequent advocacy of the repeal of the Corn Laws, horrified his supporters--by whom, notably by Disraeli, he became the object of envenomed attack--but led to a settlement of the question, and gave Leech an opportunity for the production of drawings of the victor and the vanquished, entitled, Cobden's "Bee's Wing" and Richmond's "Black Draught," two of the most successful of the political cartoons. "The Brook Green Volunteer" gave Leech the opportunity for many illustrations which, to my mind, are nearer approaching caricature than most of his work; nor have they, as a rule, the beauty or human interest that so many of his drawings show. I fear I must charge the volunteer himself with being in possession of an impossible face and a no less impossible figure; his action also is exaggerated. In compensation we have a delightful family group. The mother with that naked baby perambulating her person is beyond all praise. Women do strange things, but I deny the possibility of such a woman as Leech has drawn ever finding it in her heart to marry that volunteer. The little thing standing on tip-toe to dabble in baby's basin for the benefit of her doll, the delighted lookers-on, not forgetting the warrior riding his umbrella into action, are invested with the charm that Leech, and Leech only, could give them. The year 1846 gave birth to the first fruit from a field in which Leech found such a bountiful harvest. The racecourse gave opportunities for the exhibition of life and character of which the great artist took advantage in numberless delightful examples. Pen and pencil record adventures by road and rail. Whether the excursionist is going to the Derby or returning from it, whether he is high or low, a Duke or a costermonger, that unerring hand is ready to note his follies or his excesses, always with a kindly touch, or to point a moral if a graver opportunity presents itself.