* “In etchings of this class Cruikshank carries one great virtue of the art to perfection--its simple frankness. He is so direct and unaffected, that only those who know the difficulties of etching can appreciate the power that lies behind his unpretending skill; there is never, in his most admirable plates, the trace of a vain effort.”--_Etching and Etchers_. [Illustration: 318] _Omnibus_ etchings are the last by the artist upon copper. Then follows Cruikshank’s portrait by Frank Stone, with his own very whimsical reply to Maginns sketch of him in “Portraits of Public Characters.” To the story, “Frank Hartwell; or, Fifty Years Ago,” that ran through the twelve numbers of which the Omnibus consists, Cruikshank contributed some of his finest etched dramatic scenes: for example, “Frank and Sambo attacked by Ruffians in the Hold of the Tender,” “Richard Brothers, the Prophet, at Mrs. Hartwells,” * and “Hartwell seizing Brady.” Here too, is his “Love has Legs” (a girl clipping Cupid’s wings while he dozes by the fire), and “Love’s Masquerade,” for instance. Like Kenny Meadows, Cruikshank could draw the prettiest Cupids in the world. * “And in the talk about the Omnibus, at our first interview, he claimed, as his own suggestion and planning, its serial story, ‘Frank Hartwell; or, Fifty Years Ago’, by Bowman Tiller, which he illustrated with powerful etchings. He said that the introduction, in that story, of Richard Brothers, the Prophet, was entirely due to him; and he told me much concerning its eccentric author, and his custom of roaming through the streets during the stillest hours of the night, as he thereby fancied that he could more quietly and effectually turn over in his brain the thoughts that he afterwards committed to paper. He told me many things concerning ‘Bowman Tiller,’ which, however, had better not be repeated here; especially as the author’s name would appear to have been lost in obscurity, and is not even mentioned among the literary pseudonyms in Olphar Hamst’s ‘Handbook of Fictitious Names.’”--Cuthbert Bede. Not even his “What is Taxes, Thomas?” is surpassed as a study by his “Two of a Trade”--the butcher boy and his dog, which is in the Omnibus. “Oh! marvellous boy, what marvel when I met thy dog and thee, I marvelled if to dogs or men You traced your ancestry! If changed from what you once were known, As sorrow turns to joy, The boy more like the dog had grown, The dog more like the boy. It would a prophet’s eyesight baulk, To see through time’s dark fog, If on four legs the boy will walk, Or if on two the dog.”