A more ambitious book in the same genre was _The English Spy; an Original Work, Characteristic, Satirical, and Humorous, comprising Scenes and Sketches in every Rank of Society, being Portraits of the Illustrious, Eminent, Eccentric, and Notorious_. The author, Charles Molloy Westmacott, _alias_ Bernard Blackmantle, editor of _The Age_, has been described as a typical editor of the rowdy school of journalism. He claimed to be the son of Sir Richard Westmacott, the Royal Academician, by a certain Widow Molloy, who kept the King's Arms at Kensington. The system of journalistic blackmail was brought to a higher degree of perfection by Westmacott than by any other free lance of the time. For the _pièces justificatives_ relating to a certain scandalous intrigue in which various exalted personages were implicated, Westmacott is said to have received nearly £5000. With his ill-gotten gains he fitted up a villa near Richmond, where for a time he lived in luxury, though not, it would appear, in security. In 1830 he was soundly horsewhipped by Charles Kemble for an insulting allusion to his daughter Fanny in _The Age_, and he was threatened with the same punishment by Bulwer Lytton. In his portrait by Daniel Maclise he is represented with a heavy dog-whip, probably a necessary weapon of defence. In his later days Westmacott took refuge in Paris, where he died in 1868. In 1823, Westmacott published his _Points of Misery_, illustrated by George Cruikshank, and in 1825 he brought out a _roman à clef_ called _Fitzalleyne of Berkeley_, in which various scandals relating to the Berkeley family were introduced. The book was eagerly bought and read, and Westmacott, who had vainly tried to extort money for its suppression, must have made a handsome sum by its publication. _The English Spy_ was brought out in two volumes, and contained seventy-two large coloured plates as well as numerous vignettes on wood, the majority being from the designs of Robert Cruikshank, who figures in the book under the pseudonym of "Robert Transit." Two of the coloured plates were contributed by Thomas Rowlandson, notably a sketch of the Life Academy at Somerset House, with the R.A.'s of the period busily engaged in drawing from a female model. Most of the social celebrities of the time are introduced into the book, Beau Brummell, Colonel Berkeley, Pierce Egan, Charles Matthews, "Pea-green" Hayne, and "Golden" Ball; while life at the University, in sporting and fashionable London, and at the popular watering-places, is vividly described. On the last page is an interesting little vignette representing the author and artist in the act of handing the second volume of their work to an eagerly expectant bookseller. The success of this book, and of many other imitations of _Life in London_, induced Egan to compose a sequel to his work, which appeared in 1828 under the title of _The Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, in their Pursuits through Life in and out of