POLITICAL CARICATURES.
H. B. delights the Conservatives this week with an idea after their own heart and out of their own head—the King as " Mazeppa," bound on the wild horse of " Reform," which is o'erleaping the torn-up trunk of "vested interests" into the "revolutionary torrent" below. It is a capital parody of HORACE VERNET'S famous ..picture. The King is dressed as a sailor, in a Guernsey frock and white trousers' and looks askance at the tribe of Opposition wolves who are gazing at him. The Wellington physiognomy peers out with its raised eye-brows, beak-like nose, and whistling mouth, like 'a startled " owl in an ivy bush." The horse is drawn with great spirit, and the effect is quite pictorial. H. B. also avails himself of the circumstance of Lord Holland's presening an informal petition the other night (in the conversation on which occasion, it was mentioned that one with a caricature affixed to it had actually been received by the House), to introduce the noble Lord as presenting a graphic petition from H. B. himself. (which his Lord- ship is made to say is drawn in rather a novel way), praying their Lord- ships to take into consideration the petitioner's plan of recording the proceedings of the House: Their Lordships cannot do better. We threw out the hint to the Commons some time ago. H. B. should sit in wig and domino as lithographic registrar—usher of the black crayon —short-hand sketcher,—or by whatever title our lawmakers may chobse.to dignify the novel office. Let H. B. have any salary that he may ask, but no retiring pension : we can't afford to lose his services, .though he is of Conservative politics.
A very clever imitator of H. B. has put forth an amusing sketch illustrative of the "Bug Question." Lord Brougham, in the character of an entomologist, has been drawing, through the microscopic medium, a magnified representation of the Bug, upon such a scale as enables him to show the head and features of the individual insect ; which is a good likeness, two-tailed wig and all. Other drawings scat- tered about—such as the mitred-locust, the horned-peer, the sinecure- caterpillar, the.la.wyer-dragon- fly—attest the industry of the man of science.
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