'And upon me honour and conshience,' says he, 'now I'm dthressed, but I look intirely ginteel.'
In the last cut which has reached us we see the exterior of Sir Hinry's noble mansion, in Red Lion Square. The dandy Doctor, dressed in Pelham's coat, hat, boots, and pantaloons, stock, and spurs, is mistaken for the Baronet himself by Hodge, his groom, who leads round Pelham's horse, and, holding the stirrup, respectfully invites Dionysius to mount; and Diddler is shown in the picture generously dropping a coin into the cap of the groom, who with his disengaged hand is scratching his shock-head with astonishment. His face is a study of comical surprise, his knees are shaking with fright; and as the Doctor rides away, like the dashing blade he evidently considers himself, fear seizes upon the soul of Hodge. Says he, 'That gemman cannot be my master, for, as he rode away, he gave me sixpence, and my dear master never gives me nothen.'
Another capital plate introducing Bulwer and Lardner appeared in the collection of 'Comic Tales,' already mentioned in this volume, and published by Cunningham (1841), for which the author draws a fresh series of illustrations.
The caricature in question accompanies Mr. Yellowplush's 'Ajew,' the opening of which is extremely droll and clever. The two 'eminent gents' have just got out of their fly and are making their entrance at the house of Sir John, who, as a Whig Baronet, receives 'littery pipple;' poor Yellowplush is holding the door for these 'fust of English writers,' and very much amazed he looks. Although the etching is small, the likenesses are carefully worked out; the figure of Bulwer in the 'Whitey-brown Papers' has all the characteristics, slightly heightened, already given, except that he wears a suit of evening dress—'a gilt velvet waistcoat,' with his wristbands turned over the cuffs of his coat, and very tight gloves. The little Doctor has thrust his arm under the wing of his friend, who struts very affectedly in his close-fitting clothes, to exhibit to advantage his small waist and falling shoulders. Lardner's wig is perhaps richer in curls, his spectacles more beaming, his simper more satisfied; he is adjusting the collar of his older-fashioned square-tailed coat over a striped silk vest, which wrinkles over his rounded paunch; his queer-shaped little legs are displayed in somewhat ill-fitting tights, strapped over silk stockings and pumps tied with ribands.
It may be remembered that the announcement of the arrival of these 'genlmn' created some confusion. The Doctor was indignant that any one should fail to recognise so famous a celebrity, when Mr. Yellowplush mildly asked for his name.
'Name!—a! now you thief o' the wurrrld,' says he, 'do you pretind not to know me? Say it's the Cabinet Cyclop——; no, I mane the Litherary Chran——; psha!—bluthanouns! say it's Docthor Dioclesian Larner——I think he'll know me now—ay, Nid?' But Nid had slipped out of the way, being a little nervous about the good-breeding of his friend, it is presumed.
The second footman passed up the name as 'Doctor Athansius Larnder! and by the time he got to the groom of the chambers, who made some pretensions to scholarship, the little man was announced as 'Doctor Ignatius Loyola!'
The other gentleman, when requested to give his name (it was at the time people were talking about the eminent novelist's chances of being made a baronet), said in 'a thick, gobbling kind of voice':
'Sawedwadgeorgeearllittnbulwig;'