The Cato Street conspirators gave Cruikshank hand-to-mouth work. He drew the prisoners in the dock. Trifling incidents that hit the public mind brought work to his nimble needle. Mrs. Geoffrey Gubbins became famous, in death, by being buried in an iron coffin which the authorities of St. Andrew’s parish declined to deposit in their graveyard. Cruikshank showed churchwarden and beadle astride the open grave. In the midst of all this he drew a frontispiece--to-day for the “Memoirs of Captain Huddart”--on the morrow, for the second volume of Thornton’s “Pastorals of Virgil”; and the next day he designed one of those little domestic scenes which he always loved. A little girl is seated under a spreading tree at a cottage door. The village church is in the distance, and a feeble old woman is shambling along the road. The scene of peace is called “The Adventures of a Bible.” From this bit of sentiment the artist could turn swiftly to illustrations called “The Right Divine of Kings to Govern Wrong.” What a monster of despotism has the artist conceived! The figure has a huge bomb for a body, cannon for legs. It is armed with fire and sword. Swinging to and fro in chains, it tramples upon and mutilates the mob upon the ground. It wears a crown, and a glory of daggers is the nimbus about its head! The same hand that drew this monster, turned away to “The White Cat,” in which Caroline and her friends are outrageously treated. The vignette is enough. The crown of England is shown in a cage guarded by the sword of Justice against a black cat, the cat being the Queen. In the series we have the old stage properties of the political caricature--the block, the headsman’s axe, the gibbet, the guillotine, a coffin, etc. Let us pass on--without even glancing at “The Miraculous Host,” and other similar pencillings. This was all very sad pot-boiling; and we respect the artist for the regret with which he looked back upon it. It was redeemed and put in the shade by better work. Let us glance by way of relief at “Fairy Experience arriving to solemnize the Baptism of Bright Star,” and “Prince Iris entertained at a Banquet by Zephyrina and her Nymphs;” * or “The courageous young Girl Rosa plunging into the Water to save her young Mistress, Pulchra, from the Jaws of the Shark,” or “The Little Deformed Old Man destroying the huge Serpent which has coiled its folds about his body.” Here we discover indications of Cruikshank’s fancy in its more gracious moods: we come upon him at home for the first time in fairy-land. * Cruikshank’s illustrations to Gardener’s “Original Tales of my Landlord’s School,” 1822. Ditto to Gardener s “Royal Present,” 1822. [Illustration: 212]