Even now I have but glanced at the more important subjects on the list. How infinitely various is the humour! how wide and searching, I must repeat, is the observation! Could anything be better than these “Four Specimens of the Reading Public”? Here is Romancing Molly, a servant-girl, asking for “rum-ances in five wollums;” at her elbow is Sir Harry Luscious, a feeble old sinner, inquiring for the first volume of “Harriette Wilson” (to which, by the way, Cruikshank furnished some etchings after Dighton’s caricatures); next to Sir Harry comes, of course, Cruikshank’s favourite figure, the Dustman, his dirty hand thrust into his pocket for the price of a “Cobbett”; and the fourth reader is “Frank à la Mode,’ a scented fop, with his poodle, who wants to know whether “Waverley’s new novel is out.” After Punch, in quick succession came illustrations to Hood’s “Epping Hunt,” and to Cowper’s Mr. “John Gilpin,” wherein Cruikshank, as a pure humourist, is at his best. [Illustration: 219] “Famous books in their day were Cruikshank’s ‘John Gilpin’ and ‘Epping Hunt,” says Thackeray; “for though our artist does not draw horses very scientifically,--to use a phrase of the _atelier_, he _feels_ them very keenly; and his queer animals, after one is used to them, answer quite as well as better. [Illustration: 221] Neither is he very happy in trees, and such rustical produce; or rather, we should say, he is very original, his trees being decidedly of his own make and composition, not imitated from any master.... The horses of John Gilpin are much more of the equestrian order; and, as here, the artist has only his favourite suburban buildings to draw; not a word is to be said against his design.... The rush, and shouting, and clatter are here excellently depicted by the artist; and we, who have been scoffing at his manner of designing animals, must here make a special exception in favour of the hens and chickens; each has a different action, and is curiously natural. Happy are children of all ages who have such a ballad and such pictures as this in store for them!” [Illustration: 223] The miscellaneous activities of the decade over which while a curious crowd gloats over the body of the murderer. A lady, who has obtained a front place, exclaims, “Oh, how delightfully horrible!” In another corner the sheriff takes the murderer’s pistols from the gaoler, saying he would not part with them for a hundred guineas. We find ladies with opera-glasses in “front places” still, at “sensational” trials for murder. [Illustration: 224] [Illustration: 225] CHAPTER VII. THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT