the outcome and natural result of that which

prevails now. It is necessary, therefore, to study the present, and to draw a comparison between it and the past. This proposition has been laid down previously, and the reasons in support of it will be sufficiently apparent from what has already been said.

D

CHAPTER III.

THE MODERN BOOK-HUNTER.

F late years the number of illustrated books has increased with marvellous rapidity.

The Bewicks were the first to rescue the art of engraving from the degraded position into which it had fallen in this country, and no sooner was their genius recognised than collectors began to look around for any works which might contain their woodcuts. Thomas Bewick, the more talented artist of the two, adopted a method of exciting the cupidity of his admirers by publishing his works in limited editions and on paper of various sizes, and of course at various prices. This system stimulated the sale and amounted to a practical recognition of the collector as a being distinct from the ordinary man of letters. From the days of Bewick until now, collectors have been eager to secure illustrated works which for any reason would be likely to increase in

value as time went on, and it is only fair to say that authors and publishers have done their best to keep pace with the demand.

Putting aside the visionary William Blake, who worked from conscientious motives, and Bartolozzi, who will be referred to subsequently, we recognise in Rowlandson, the apostle of the new cult-a partner, in fact, with William Combe and a number of other literary hacks, whose sole object it was to minister to a taste which a few years before would have been looked upon as depraved, but which nevertheless was all but universal at the time. The "Pleasures of Human Life," by "Hilaris Benevolus and Co.," "Advice to Sportsmen," by "Marmaduke Markwell, Esq.," "Adventures of Qui Hi in Hindostan," and a number of other publications of a similar kind, the titles of which proclaim their frivolous nature, took the place of sober treatises, and educated the public for the advent of Pierce Egan and his school, who went still further in the same direction. These books were bought with avidity, partly on account of the lightness of the text, which afforded an agreeable relief to the style which had hitherto been prevalent, but. chiefly for the sake of the illustrations, more often than not coloured by hand, and always grotesque or bizarre.

The revival of pugilism-originating, in the

opinion of a learned divine of the age, "in a ferocious disposition and a contemptuous opinion of man"—and the prevalence of such sports as bear-baiting, badger-drawing, and cock-fighting, afforded a rare field of enterprise, and during the first quarter of the present century numerous works with coloured plates were published for the amusement of those who took a delight in pastimes of the kind. "Life in London" and "Life in Paris" furnish good examples of the kind of literature which was in circulation about the year 1820, and which afforded ample scope for the rising genius of Cruikshank.

Some ten or a dozen years after the completion of the second decade a visible reaction set in, and drawing-room tables all over the country were soon littered with a new phase of art. At this epoch fine steel-plates became the fashion, and many excellent artists, such as Finden, Harding, and Prout, contributed, though not for long, to exalt the popular taste.

The public, however, soon got tired of Fisher's "Drawing Room Scrap Book," and the host of elegant miscellanies which were served up for their delectation, and returned to their old love under the guidance of Cruikshank and Leech, Ohwhyn, "Phiz," Seymour, Alken, Doyle, and other artists of the same racy school. Not that all these artists can fairly be classed either to

gether or with Rowlandson and his followers; on the contrary, they differed widely both in style and excellence, and the intervening period of moral depression had unmistakably qualified the tendency to vulgarity which had been so conspicuous in the earlier part of the century.

Of all the books sought after by the collector of average means, the productions of the old sporting, gambling school yet remain pre-eminent, or at any rate rank equally with those illustrated by Cruikshank, "Phiz," and the other masters whose merit lies not so much in fidelity to nature as in the strangeness of their compositions. All these

books, and many more of the same class, passed through many hands before they became scarce; and the contrast between the value of a clean and sound copy and one which bears the thumb-marks of a generation of readers, is often exceedingly wide. Still, whether dirty or tattered or the reverse, perfect or imperfect, in the original binding or in the best style of Rivière or Bedford, these books never fail to sell at a price which seems to be increasing every day.

This result might indeed have been anticipated a hundred years ago, for at that time, or a little later, the plates of Bartolozzi, Gillray, and Rowlandson, though widely different in every respect, clearly pointed to the success which would be attained by any future artist who should be so