1825. Bernard Blackmantle. The Spirit of the Public Journals for the Year 1824. With Explanatory Notes by C. M. Westmacott. With illustrations on wood by T. Rowlandson, R. and G. Cruikshank, Lane, and Findlay. London: Published by Sherwood, Jones, & Co., Paternoster Row.

Advertisement.—In the preliminary notice the editor, Mr. Westmacott, specially alludes to the assistance given by our artist: 'It is with some degree of pride the editor requests his reader's examination of the illustrations to this volume, combining as they do specimens of the first graphic humour of the time; not the least admirable of which are eleven original designs by the veteran Rowlandson, whose facetious pencil appears to acquire additional richness with his lengthened years. For these the editor is more indebted to personal friendship than motives of interest, and they are therefore in his estimation doubly valuable.'

Designs by T. Rowlandson.

Vignette to title.—A group of little Cupids, harnessed, and drawing a car of classic shape, loaded with contributions from the newspapers—

Mrs. Ramsbottom in the Packet. ('Mrs. Ramsbottom's Tour,' John Bull.)

Ill-requited Love, or Miss Hannah Maria Juliana Shum. ('Sketches at Bow Street,' Herald.)

Two at a Time, or Irish Accidents. ('Sketches at Bow Street,' Bell's Life in London.)

The Petticoat Whip, or a Lift for Love. ('Sketches at Bow Street,' Bell's Life in London.)

The Charley's Mistake, or Royalty Doubly Endangered. (Bell's Life in London.)

Teddy the Tailor, or a Troublesome Customer. ('Sketches at Bow Street,' Bell's Life in London.)

The Man-of-War's Man, or Sketches of Society. ('Greenwich Hospital,' Literary Gazette.)

The Mayor of Portsmouth and the Horse Witness.

The Bold Dragoon, or the Adventure of my Grandfather. ('Tales of a Traveller,' News of Literature and Fashion.)

Sporting Extraordinary, or Cockney Comicalities. By Charley Eastup. (Annals of Sporting and Fashion.)

1825. Bernard Blackmantle (Charles Molloy Westmacott). The English Spy. The illustrations designed by Robert Cruikshank. In two volumes. London, 8vo. Plate 32. R.—A.—ys of Genius Reflecting on the True Line of Beauty at the Life Academy, Somerset House. By Thomas Rowlandson.—This plate, which is dated June 1, 1824 (published by Sherwood & Jones), was not, we fancy, designed expressly for the English Spy, as we cannot fail to recognise it as an adaptation of a very spirited caricature by the artist belonging to a considerably earlier period, and described as Drawing from the Nude. In the original the students are dressed in the costume of some forty years anterior to 1824; their quainter persons are delineated with more grotesque spirit and boldness of treatment. Be this as it may, whether Rowlandson has obliged his friend Westmacott by adding new figures, or whether the original design has been otherwise supplemented with later portraits, the female model remains much as she is found in the larger drawing. The artists, who are working from the life in this more modern version, are chiefly Royal Academicians, as far as the privileged circle is concerned, and the portraits are studied with care. M. A. Shee is seated on the ground; one of the Landseers is above him; the person of Benjamin West, arrayed in decorous black, with his knee-breeches, silk stockings, and laced frill, bears a resemblance to a Court physician; Westmacott, Jones, Chantrey, and half a dozen other artists, evident likenesses, are portrayed with a certain attention to securing resemblance. In the right-hand corner, standing at an easel, is the figure of B. R. Haydon; and seated between this unfortunate artist and the fair model is another student, on whose drawing-board are the initials 'C. W.,' which may be intended as a complimentary introduction of the person of Charles Westmacott, the author of the publication in question. This plate, which is a highly interesting addition to Blackmantle's English Spy, is the only full-page illustration due to the caricaturist; and Mr. William Bates, B.A., commenting on this contribution in an interesting sketch of Rowlandson's works, pronounces it decisively 'the best plate in the work.' The first volume contains numerous vignettes on wood, which the index describes as being 'from original designs by Cruikshank, Rowlandson, Gillray, and Finlay, engraved by Bonner and Hughes.' These engravings are neither signed nor ascribed to the respective designers mentioned in the index; but, as far as we can trace, very little is offered of Rowlandson's beyond the advertisement of his name.