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“The Folly of Pride,” Italian tales, in which there is a Jew, as in “The Merchant of Venice,” embarrassed on being told by Gianetto to “ take the pound of flesh from Ansaldo,” and “Tales of Irish Life” (1824), and his illustrations to Clinton’s “Life of Lord Byron” (1824-5), mark Cruikshank’s progress from political caricature to experience; four-and-twenty cuts to “The Universal Songster, or Museum of Mirth,”—coarse bits of street, pot-house, and play-house wit; sixteen illustrations of the humours of sailors’ life—the sailors being perfect salts; illustrations to Hone’s “Every-Day Book” (1852); twenty-five more wood-cuts to the “Log-Book” (1826-7), full of fun, spirit, and character; some curious bits of mountainous and other scenery in “The Pocket Magazine;” twenty-one cuts to “Philosophy in Sport” (1827)—to say nothing of diagrams; three quaint bits to Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painters;” twenty-four “More Mornings at Bow-Street;” a vignette, “Bolton reclining in the Fairies’ Bower;” a frontispiece to “Harcourt’s Jests;” etchings of many of A. Crowquill’s drawings; and “Punch and Judy” (1827-8). In these latter careful etchings the power of Cruikshank to inform a puppet with life, and keep it wooden still, is conspicuous. He has related how he studied his subject:—
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“Having been engaged by Mr. Prowett, the publisher, to give the various scenes represented in the cuts to the street performances of ‘Punch and Judy,’ I obtained the address of the proprietor and performer of that popular exhibition. He was an elderly Italian, of the name of Piccini, whom I remembered from boyhood, and he lived at a low public-house, the sign of The ‘King’s “Philosophy in Sport.”