THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT.*
"The dinner was served up in the first style of elegance; every rarity of the season was provided in the utmost abundance; the fruits were the most choice, and the wines admirable." Penny-a-Line Reports.
Tins is an extraordinary performance. Such a union of the painter, the poet; and the novelist in one person, is unexampled. A tithe of the talent that goes to the making of the stories, would set up a dozen of Annual-writers ; and a tithe of the inventive genius that is dis- played in the illustrations would furnish a gallery of the colour-mixers that figure in Suffolk Street and the Strand. The author of the Three Courses is the most grasping monopolist that has passed under our critical censure during our brief and brilliant career; and we hesitate not to say, he ought to be 'put down by an act of Par- nassus, for the sake of five trade in intellectual manufactures.
• Were the thousand-and-one gentlemen and ladies who lisp in num- bers to ransack the heaven and earth of their fancies for words to describe a deluge of rain, could they ever hope to rival the picture of a pour so terrible as to compel even a duck to use an umbrella ? Is there a description of St. Ssvithin, from the wra of his martyrdom, that portrays his weeping energies so pathetically ? HOMER made horses speak, but what was a prophesying stallion or a soothsaying mare to a sentimental mushroom, a philosophizing lemon, or a logical plum-pudding? There are thousands of spirits, MILTON tells us, continually hovering round our walks—unseen, he adds—and there was a reason why they should be so by 'him; but our author has a pair of eyes that, saving his reverence, Satan himself' could not hope to escape. Let a spirit lurk in the wrinkled bark of an old oak, creep into an oyster-shell, mingle in the froth of a tankard, or slip away in the guise of an ill-shaped fish—be it wicked or charitable, the airy nothing must show its shapes at his bidding. How poor are the best doings of the graver brothers of the brush, compared with these exquisite sketches ! How tame and irrational do the " sma' drooped rumpled cattle" of STUBBS, with their vivid eyes, distended nostrils, and proudly arched necks appear, compared with the animals that live in the sketches before us! The imaginations of the thoughts of their hearts are mani- festly quadrupedal; their wit smacks of the manger ; their humour is redolent of old hay! What indeed is the Doncaster Course, or the New- • Three Courses ands Dessert. The Decorations by George Cruikshank. London, IWO. market Course, or the Ascot Course, or any other three courses in Eng- land, compared with VIZETELLY'S Three Courses ? What are their studs to his, the meanest of whose hackneys has understanding and gravity sufficient to qualify him for a privy councillor? People talk of LANDSEER'S dogs, but there is nothing hi them—their minds are as puppyish as their figures : compared to the canine creations of our author, it is the Lord Chancellor to the Lord Chancellor's wig. And apropos of wigs—who but our author ever dreamt of giving un- derstanding and sentiment, not, to that venerable apology forwisclom, but to the proverbial dulness of its supporter ? Who but he ever at- tempted the more than Promethean task of infusing soul into a bar- ber's block? Among the aspirations of genius from the Creation downward, is there one so bold as this ? And, to sum up all praise ill one word, what is to be said of the artist to W110ITI CRUIRSHANE.
self—great GEORGE, GEORGE the Fifth of that thrice illustrious name —is content to play second ? the tracings of whose crow-quill he condescends to follow and finish with the strokes of his inimitable pencil,—pleasing himself for once with 'acting as the decorator of an- other's designs ; though in every instance, doubtless, heightening the spirit of the original with a smack of his fine quality ! Of the stories that constitute the dishes, some, "The Braintrees, ' for instance, display great power of serious description ; while in others, as " Caddy Cuddle," the laughing propensities of the writer run rioting at such a rate that it is difficult for a sober reader to keep up with him. The number of tales and sketches, prose and poetic, is no less than thirty-three ; of which seven are appropriated to the first corn-se, thirteen to the second, three to the third, and ten to the dessert. The substantials are mostly in the first ; but there are two good solid dishes in the third, " The Mathematician," and " The Little Black Porter," intended for such guests as may from want of punctuality be too late for the others. The larger plates are four— three ludicrous, and one serious; the head and tail pieces are about four dozen—all finished off in the most exquisite style or wood-cut- ting.
To conclude ; if there be a man or woman in the kingdom who does notrelish this glorious dinner of" Three Courses and a Dessert," or who is not the better of feasting on it, we boldly pronounee that the taste of such a one is unsound, and the digestion in grievous want of ABERNETHY.
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