ODD VOLUME; OR, BOOK OF VARIETY By Various Illustrated By Robert Seymour and Robert Cruikshank The Engravings by Samuel Slader 1835 PREFACE. Emboldened by the popularity of the late entertainment, entitled “Cruikshank at Home,” an Odd Candidate for fame now enters the lists. The greatest care having been taken to render the subjects which have been selected as interesting as possible, this Volume may safely be pronounced even _more_ attractive than either of its predecessors; and the publisher has the additional pleasure of announcing that the Engravings are the joint production of _two_ clever artists--the one, Mr. Cruikshank, a long-established favorite *--the other, Mr. Seymour, a gentleman of far superior talent, but hitherto not quite, perhaps, so extensively known, in consequence of his short residence in London. * These designs were originally intended for a fourth volume of “Cruikshank at Home,” but, in consequence of the late disagreement between the two brothers Cruikshank (in reference to the question, “Which is the real Simon Pure?”) the projected title has been changed, and the work, by the assistance of Mr. Seymour, metamorphosed into an “Odd” Volume. [Illustration: 013] As Mr. Seymour will have the entire management of all _future_ volumes--so far, at least, as relates to the Illustrations--this notice is considered necessary for his formal introduction--it being a far better channel than an ordinary Advertisement, and entirely superseding the necessity for employing a BILL-STICKER. THE ODD VOLUME LEGEND OF THE LARGE MOUTH. “Here’s a large mouth indeed!” Shakspeare--King John. Arriving one evening at an inn in Glasgow, I was shewn into a room which already contained a promiscuous assemblage of travellers. Amongst the rest, there was one whose features struck me as being the most horrible I ever beheld. He was a large, pursy old man, with a head “villainous low,” hair like bell-ropes, eyes that were the smallest and most porkish of all possible eyes, and a nose which shewed no more prominence _en profile_, than that of the moon as exhibited in her first quarter upon a freemason’s apron; but all these monstrosities were as beauties--as lovelinesses--as absolute perfections, compared with the mouth--the enormous mouth, which, grinning beneath, formed a sort of rustic basement to the whole superstructure of his facial horrors. This mouth--if mouth it might be called, which had so little resemblance to the mouths of mankind--turned full upon me as I entered; and, happening at the moment to be employed in a yawn, actually seemed as if it would have willingly received me into its prodigious crater, mumbled me to a mummy, and then bolted me, spurs and all!