Between 1811 and 1816 we have to note rapid strides in strength, in range of experience, and development of sympathy with the progress of the world. Feeling and sentiment underlie nearly all Cruikshank’s creations. Within this interval Cruikshank broke ground, and made a stand as a political caricaturist. He began to make his mark as a satirical illustrator in the _Meteor_ (1813). For this “Monthly Censor” George Cruikshank drew the cover. The allegorical design represents a meteor personified by a humorous little fellow, bearing a lantern, and flying through space. Beneath him Satire holds up a mirror to Folly; and a champion shielded by a “free press,” armed with Truth and Justice, protects himself against Licentiousness, Fraud, and Hypocrisy. The projectors of the _Meteor_, it will be seen, meant well. National Frenzy, or John Bull and his Doctors, preparing John Bull for General Congress; Tabitha Grunt on the Walking Hospital; Napoleon’s Trip from Elba to Paris, and from Paris to St. Helena, “A Swarm of Bees hiving in the Imperial Carriage! who would have thought it?” and, finally, the coloured etching of the Battle of Waterloo,--are coarsely executed in the style of Isaac and Robert Cruikshank, and of Rowlandson; but they are remarkable for that power of telling a story, and of concentrating every figure and detail of a picture upon the effect or emotion to be produced, for which Cruikshank in his prime was unrivalled. The progress is continuous to 1820; and the work thrown off becomes prodigious. Besides illustrations of the O. P. Riots at Covent Garden Theatre (1819), fashionable portraits, and other haphazard work, he produced “The Humourist (1820)--his first remarkable separate work--‘in which the special and peculiar humorous powers of the artist are developed in forty subjects, drawn from the living present” in London. Very early in his career George Cruikshank came in contact with Hone. Of this connection, Dr. K. Shelton Mackenzie has given an account which is stamped with the authority of the artist, since, in “The Artist and the Author,” he cites the doctor as armed with information given by himself. “In the year 1819, while Cruikshank was a mere youth; Mr. William Hone observed his peculiar ability, and determined to exercise it At that time the political condition of this country was about as unpleasant and unsatisfactory as it could be. The people clamoured for reform, which the Government steadily and sturdily resisted. [Illustration: 112]