If the first few essays testify to the author’s loving homage to Shakespeare, others in no uncertain voice proclaim his political radicalism, his detestation of war, and his sense of the truth that man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn. In _Recollections of Guy Fawkes_ the references to the Isle of Sheppy “some five and twenty years ago” are reminiscences of Jerrold’s boyhood at Sheerness. The pleasant little homily on human consistency, _The Manager’s Pig_, is said to have been founded in fact; the manager in question being Davidge of the Coburg Theatre, to whom Jerrold was for a time “household author” at a weekly salary. The series of _Cat-and-Fiddle Moralities_ so auspiciously begun with _The Tale of a Tiger_ was not pursued any further. _The Drill Sergeant_ and _The Greenwich Pensioner_ formed part of a series of _Full Lengths_, contributed to the _Monthly Magazine_ in 1826-7; there were at least six of them, but as I have not been able to consult a complete set of the magazine, I have only been able to trace three—the two given and one on _The Ship Clergyman_. In the closing item of this collection we have a satiric essay of a sort, which seems to have been in the air at the time; it was published originally in 1839 with illustrations by Phiz, at the same time that Thackeray by contributing his _Catherine_ to _Fraser’s_ was also seeking to discredit “the Newgate school” of fiction. Later, in _Punch_, Douglas Jerrold reverted to the “Newgate novel-mongers,” mentioning them as still a power, and showing that satire had not stopped the demand for their productions; and in one of the most popular of his comedies a character is made to say, “When I was young, girls used to read _Pilgrim’s Progress_, _Jeremy Taylor_, and such books of innocence; now, young ladies know the ways of Newgate as well as the turnkeys. Then, books gave girls hearty, healthy food; now, silly things, like larks in cages, they live upon hemp-seed.” W. J. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] SHAKESPEARE AT CHARLECOTE PARK