POLITICAL CARICATURES.
H B's last batch is a very amusing one. " The triumph of Forensic Eloquence," is one of his happiest sketches, both in the idea and its execution. Sir CHARLES WETHERELL, in a triumphal chariot, ac- companied by his colleague Mr. KNIGHT, is leading the Duke of WELLINGTON captive in the chains of his eloquence. Sir CHARLES'S costume displays that hiatus between the upper and nether garments that is the peculiar characteristic of his lax habits; and his wig is crowned with bays. The Duke, with downcast eyes and fettered hands, follows, meekly bending with submissive admiration. Mr. KNIGHT eyes the captive through his glass ; but Sir CHARLES scarcely deigns to throw a leer of recognition, and holds his countenance with Roman self-command. The very horses (which are admirably drawn, by the way) have a lordly air; and a close inspection of the heads will satisfy the curious of their individual resemblances. Fame, blowing two trumpets (the Tory Press), precedes the conquerors. " The Derby Dilly taken in tow by the Patent Safety," is a capital hit at the isolated position of those two trimmers PEEL and STANLEY. The Derby Dilly, empty and shabby, has been deserted by its coachman and cad ; and is dragged along by PEEL'S Patent Safety, with one poor miserable hack, just as we see the mail.coaches, of a morning, being taken to be repaired. The Patent Safety is passenger- less ; except that the driver of the Dilly has got on the roof to keep company with his brother in misfortune, its coachman PEEL; and the Derby cad has taken his seat on the dickey,—intimating, we may sup- pose, that it's "all dickey," as the slang phrase runs, with poor Sir. JAMES.
H B's graphic illustration of the nature of " Normal Schools " is droll enough. JOSEPH HUME is receiving an initiatory lesson in the study of the graces, from a spider-limbed cutter of capers : but though JOSEPH has caught up his coat-tails to give an air of lightness and ele- gance to his movements, his head seems busied with other figures than those of the dance. Another still more ungainly pupil, in the back- ground, exhibits in his attempts at saltatory grace that attitude most common to those paper figures whose movements are regulated by a. string between the legs. Lord BROUGHAM, seated at the side of the performance, by his applauses encourages the students : but in this de- partment the efforts of the schoolmaster seem likely to prove abortive.
O'CONNELL,—who, since our last notice of HB's sketches, has figured as a Roe bearing off in his claws Lord JOHN RUSSELL,—now blazes forth as the approaching Comet, with a•tail whose luminousness hardly allows us a sight of its component parts. Ireland is in flames, and England too has caught fire from a whisk of the celestial agitator.
Previous page
