TRIAL BY BATTLE. "Ay, leave lawyers to wrangle amongst each other--a practice which of late years has become so much a legal fashion, that some of our Westminster Hall heroes, forgetting their clients' quarrels in their own, suddenly convert themselves into a new plaintiff and defendant, and brawl forth such home coarse vituperations----" "True;--formerly they used to brow-beat witnesses, now they brow-beat one another, and so defyingly, that ere long, who knows but the _four_ courts may resemble, as punsters would say, the _five_ courts?" [Illustration] * * * * * KICKING THE WORLD. Every one has heard of kicking the world before them, though, comparatively, so few succeed in the task. The wights in the cut are in an enviable condition. [Illustration] * * * * * A sketch of one of those inveterate story tellers which are the standing dishes of a _table d'hôte_, introduces one of the best of the cuts, Mr. Blase Bronzely, _loquitur_: "Well, gentlemen, as I was saying, when I saw at Stratford-upon-Avon the Shakspearean procession pass in the street, it rained so violently that Caliban and Hamlet's Ghost carried umbrellas, whilst Ophelia----" "Obvious, my dear Blase; or, as a late premier used to say, 'It can't be missed,' 'Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia:' and, besides, your wet ghost is a mere crib from yourself; for whenever you go hunting in cloudy weather, don't you regularly ride with a smart silver parasol over your dear little head?" [Illustration] * * * * * Soon growing tired of lounging in the library, loitering on the pier, and of all the rest of the usual dull sea-side routine, he literally knew so little what to do with himself, that, to kill an hour or two before dinner, he would frequently be seen seated on a tombstone in the churchyard, yawning; staring at the church clock, and comparing it with his own watch;--in short, in some degree resembling "Patience on a monument." [Illustration: A SEA-SIDE TIME-KILLER--(_Dover._)] * * * * * The reader will conclude by these specimens that fun and frolic are the characteristics of the _Dramatic Annual_; and we have given him a spice of its best humour. These Cuts, by the way, are in a style which all illustrators would do well to cultivate. We have seen much labour expended on illustrations of works of humour, such as fine etchy work, and points wrought up with extreme delicacy. The effect, however, is any but humorous: you think of painstaking and trouble, whereas a few lines vividly dashed off, by their unstudied style, will ensure a laugh, where more elaborate productions only remind us of effort. Hood's pen-and-ink cuts are excellent in their way--as bits of fun, but not of art. Now, Brooke's designs are both works of fun and art. * * * * * THE FAMILY CABINET ATLAS