In this volume there is, I believe, a greater variety of pictures of a comic and satirical cast than was ever before presented at one view. Many nations, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, are represented in it, as well as most of the names identified with art of this nature. The extraordinary liberality of the publishers, and the skill of their corps of engravers, have seconded my own industrious researches, and the result is a volume unique, at least, in the character of its illustrations. A large portion of its contents appeared in Harper's Monthly Magazine during the year 1875; but many of the most curious and interesting of the pictures are given here for the first time; notably, those exhibiting the present or recent caricature of Germany, Spain, Italy, China, and Japan, several of which did not arrive in time for use in the periodical.

Generally speaking, articles contributed to a Magazine may as well be left in their natural tomb of "back numbers," or "bound volumes;" for the better they serve a temporary purpose, the less adapted they are for permanent utility. Among the exceptions are such series as the present, which had no reference whatever to the passing months, and in the preparation of which a great expenditure was directed to a single class of objects of special interest. I am, indeed, amazed at the cost of producing such articles as these. So very great is the expense, that many subjects could not be adequately treated, with all desirable illustration, unless the publishers could offer the work to the public in portions.

There is not much to be said upon the subject treated in this volume. When I was invited by the learned and urbane editor of Harper's Monthly to furnish a number of articles upon caricature, I supposed that the work proposed would be a relief after labors too arduous, too long continued, and of a more serious character. On the contrary, no subject that I ever attempted presented such baffling difficulties. After ransacking the world for specimens, and collecting them by the hundred, I found that, usually, a caricature is a thing of a moment, and that, dying as soon as its moment has passed, it loses all power to interest, instantly and forever. I found, too, that our respectable ancestors had not the least notion of what we call decency. When, therefore, I had laid aside from the mass the obsolete and the improper, there were not so very many left, and most of those told their own story so plainly that no elucidation was necessary. Instead of wearying the reader with a mere descriptive catalogue, I have preferred to accompany the pictures with allusions to contemporary satire other than pictorial.

The great living authorities upon this branch of art are two in number—one English, and one French—to both of whom I am greatly indebted. The English author is Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A., etc., whose "History of Caricature and the Grotesque" is well known among us, as well as his more recent volume upon the incomparable caricaturist of the last generation, James Gillray. The French writer is M. Jules Champfleury, author of a valuable series of volumes reviewing satiric art from ancient times to our own day, with countless illustrations. No one has treated so fully or so well as he the caricature of the Greeks and Romans. Many years ago, M. Champfleury began to illustrate this part of his subject in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, and his contributions to that important periodical were the basis of his subsequent volumes. He is one of the few writers on comic matters who have avoided the lapse into catalogue, and contrived to be interesting.

It has been agreeable to me to observe that Americans are not without natural aptitude in this kind of art. Our generous Franklin, the friend of Hogarth, to whom the dying artist wrote his last letter, replying to the last letter he ever received, was a capital caricaturist, and used his skill in this way, as he did all his other gifts and powers, in behalf of his country and his kind. At the present time, every week's issue of the illustrated periodicals exhibits evidence of the skill, as well as the patriotism and right feeling, of the humorous artists of the United States. For some years past, caricature has been a power in the land, and a power generally on the right side. There are also humorous artists of another and gentler kind, some even of the gentler sex, who present to us scenes which surprise us all into smiles and good temper without having in them any lurking sting of reproof. These domestic humorists, I trust, will continue to amuse and soften us, while the avenging satirist with dreadful pencil makes mad the guilty, and appalls the free. There must be something precious in caricature, else the enemies of truth and freedom would not hate it as they do. Some of the worst excesses and perversions of satiric art are due to that very hatred. Persecuted and repressed, caricature becomes malign and perverse; or, being excluded from legitimate subjects, it seems as if it were compelled to ally itself to vice. We have only to turn from a heap of French albums to volumes of English caricature to have a striking evidence of the truth, that the repressive system represses good and develops evil. It is the "Censure" that debauches the comic pencil; it is freedom that makes it the ally of good conduct and sound politics. In free countries alone it has scope enough, without wandering into paths which the eternal proprieties forbid. I am sometimes sanguine enough to think that the pencil of the satirist will at last render war impossible, by bringing vividly home to all genial minds the ludicrous absurdity of such a method of arriving at truth. Fancy two armies "in presence." By some process yet to be developed, the Nast of the next generation, if not the admirable Nast of this, projects upon the sky, in the sight of the belligerent forces, a picture exhibiting the enormous comicality of their attitude and purpose. They all see the point, and both armies break up in laughter, and come together roaring over the joke.

In the hope that this volume may contribute something to the amusement of the happy at festive seasons, and to the instruction of the curious at all times, it is presented to the consideration of the public.