GEORGE CRUTILSHANK'S ETCHINGS.
IVInes as we like GEORGE CRUIKSHANK as an illustrator, we prefer him infinitely as an originator; when his rich humour gushes out spon- taneously, directed only by the channel of his thoughts, and overflowing with merriment and fun. He is a laughing moralist, who would cure mankind of their folly by merely showing them its own image in all its ludicrous varieties of form and feature,—a Yorick, whose graphic jests set hundreds of tables in a roar. He has spread before us another feast of fun in Part IV. of his Scraps and Sketches. " The Fiend's Frying-Pan," the Devil cooking a mess of mortals' in the shape of Bartholomew Fair, will be more effective to deter the thoughtless from the debauchery of those Smithfield saturnalia than the most terrible denunciations from the pulpit. This plate is con- ceived and executed with all the gusto of GILLRAY. Nothing can sur- pass the ecstatic delight of Satan gloating over his savoury dish of sin- ners, which he seems to be shaking up with one hand, while with the other he darts in a fork to pick out some scrap of mortality that is tho- roughly done. The accompaniment to this feast of the frying-pan is furnished by a demoniac band of serpents, who are playing from a score the staff of which is a gridiron, and the notes human figures ; and the moon peeps over a cloud, looking all grief and amazement at the scene. He who runs may read the moral of this capital scene at the tavern, with the bloated red-nosed president, and his besotted satellites; and the pendant picture of the home of the drunkard, whose wife is sitting up waiting his return, dozing over her sleeping infant, dreaming per- haps of distresses soon to be realized. But let us turn to the fun. The "Interior of a Cigar Divan". GEORGE has passed by the Club-houses. "A Pleasure-boat" at sea in a squall. Ladies in "Dress and Undress "—undress, muffled up from top to toe ; dress, covered only from waist to knee. ' "An Easy Place "—a Blowsidella of an Abigail, all flounce and furbelow, wants a situation where "the beds are put out to make." An exquisite taking a "Last fond Look" at himself, after having made his toilet for the evening; and another practising en avant before a cheval glass. A "Dish of Fish" is a very amusing plate. A duel between a couple of sword-fish. John Dorey the porter, letting in Miss Ann-Chovey and "the Maid." The Piscatorial Sailor and the " Salmon-leap " are original, as well as excessively droll. There are two plates of tail- pieces ; the gem of which is the marine complaining to his commanding. officer of one of the sailors having tied his pig-tail so tight that he can't shut his eyes ! The expression of both officer and man is irresistibly comical : all the features of the sufferer seem twisted and screwed up as in a vice by this tail, which sticks out perpendicularly with sheer tightness. The beau-pig complaining to his valet that his tail does not curl nicely, is very comical. So is the illustration of MATnews's fa- mous story of the keeper who put his head in the lion's mouth. But we shall never have done at this rate. We try in vain to convey any idea of the humour and fun contained in these plates. Our readers should have heard us laugh—our lungs have not had such play for a long time. GEORGE CRUIESHANK'S Scraps should be prescribed for• the spleen or the vapours, as the late Mr. ABERCROMBY prescribed a sight of LISTON to a hypochondriac patient.
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