London_, illustrated by Robert Cruikshank. In this curious book an attempt is made to propitiate the Nonconformist conscience of that day by bringing the majority of the characters to a bad end. Corinthian Tom breaks his neck in a steeplechase, Corinthian Kate dies in misery, Bob Logic is also killed off, and Splendid Jem becomes a convict; but Jerry Hawthorn reforms, marries Mary Rosebud, a virtuous country maiden, and settles down at Hawthorn Hall as a Justice of the Peace and model landlord. [Illustration: TOM AND JERRY, IN THE SALOON AT COVENT GARDEN] PIERCE EGAN AND THEODORE LANE In 1824, Egan had started a weekly newspaper called _Pierce Egan's Life in London_, which, being sold to a Mr. Bell, enjoyed a long period of popularity as _Bell's Life in London_. In the same year Pierce published his _Life of an Actor_, dedicated to Edmund Kean, and illustrated by Theodore Lane. Lane, who was born at Isleworth in 1800, was the son of a drawing-master in poor circumstances. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to John Barrow, an artist and colourer of prints, who was living in St. Pancras. Thanks to the encouragement of his master, Lane early came into notice as a miniaturist and painter in water-colours, and he exhibited works of that class at the Academy between 1819 and 1826. But his real talent lay in the direction of the quaint and the humorous. In 1825 he made a series of thirty-six designs representing scenes in the life of an actor, which he took to Egan and begged that popular author to write the letterpress. After some hesitation, Egan undertook the task, chiefly, as he says, with the idea of introducing a meritorious young artist to the public. For his designs Lane received £150 from the publisher, and the book really proved a stepping-stone, not to fortune, but to regular employment. His work was praised by the two Cruikshanks, and a writer in _The Monthly Critical Gazette_ declared that his designs would not discredit the pencil of Hogarth. Lane illustrated Egan's _Anecdotes Original and Selected of the Turf, the Chase, the Ring, and the Stage_ in 1827, and also published two or series of humorous designs. In 1825 the young artist, though left-handed, took up oil-painting with success, and attracted favourable notice by his pictures _The Christmas Presents_ and _Disturbed by Nightmare_, which were exhibited at the Academy in 1827 and 1828. His best work, however, was _The Enthusiast_--a gouty angler fishing in a tub of water--which is now in the National Gallery. On 21st May 1828 poor Lane's promising career was cut short in most tragical fashion. While waiting for a friend at the Horse Repository in the Gray's Inn Road, he stepped upon a skylight, and, falling through, his brains were dashed out upon the pavement below. He left a widow and two children, for whose benefit Egan published a little work in verse called _The Show Folks_, with illustrations by Lane, as well as a short memoir of the unfortunate artist.