“_Shepherd._ That I hae,--he sent me the present as’ copy to Mount Benger; and I thocht me and the haill hoose wud hae fain distracted wi’ lauchin. O sirs, what a plate is yon Pheeloprogeniteeveness! It’s no possible to make out the preceese amount o’ the family, but there wad seem to be somewhere about a dizzen and a half--the legitimate produce o’ the Eerish couple’s ain fruitfu’ lines. A’ noses alike in their langness, wi’ sleight vareeities, dear to ilka pawrent’s heart! Then what kissing, and hugging, and rugging, and ridin on backs and legs, and rockin o’ craddles, and speelin o’ chairs, and washing o’ claes, and boilin o’ pirtawties! And ae wee bit spare rib o’ flesh twurlin afore the fire, to be sent roun’ lick and lick about, to gie to the tongues of the contented crew a meat flavour, alang wi’ the wershness o’ vegetable maitter! Sma’ wooden sodgers gaun through the manuel exercise on the floor--ae nine-pin stannin by himself amang prostrate comrades--a boat shaped wi’ a knife, by him that’s gaun to be a sailor, and on the wa’, emblematical o’ human Pheeloprogenitiveness (O bit that’s a kittle word!) a hen and chickens, ane o’ them perched atween her shouthers, and a countless cleckin aneath her outspread wings! What an observer o’ nature that chiel is! Only look at the back of the faither’s neck, and you’ll no wonner at his family, for is’t no like the back o’ the neck o’ a great bill?” Tickler declares that Language is almost as good, and North himself says: “Not a whit inferior Veneration.” Then Tickler observes: “George Cruikshank’s various and admirable works should be in the possession of all lovers of the Arts. He is far more than the Prince of Caricaturists,--a man who regards the ongoings of life with the eye of genius; and he has a clear insight through the exterior of manners into the passions of the heart. He has wit as well as humour--feeling as well as fancy--and his original vein appears to be inexhaustible. Here’s his health in a bumper.” The Cruikshank of twenty years later would have been inexpressibly shocked at the manner in which the Shepherd responded: “George Cruikshank! But stop a wee, my tumbler’s dune. Here’s to him in a caulker, and there’s no mony folk whose health I wad drink, during toddy, in pure speerit.” Thackeray bears witness to the popularity of the Phrenological Sketches as quaintly as Christopher North:--