The tale occupies less than thirty pages, and may be read whilst smoking a cigar. It is all quaint fun, whim, humour, and frolic, and one of those merry morsels which amuse us more than the whole leaven of utilitarianism; and if to laugh and learn be your maxim, why read the "Epping Hunt." After this, hold your sides, and look at the cuts, designed by George Cruikshank, and engraved by Branston, Bonner, Slader, and T. Williams. Old Tom Rounding is the frontispiece, in a cosy chair, and glass in hand—framed with foxes', and Towler and Jowler's heads, antlers, &c. The rich twinkle of Tom's eye, and the benevolent rotundity of his form, are admirable. Huggins hitched on a tree is the next—then comes "the beast charging in Tom's rear;" his perturbed look and the saucy waggery of a round headed wight who has climbed into an adjoining tree are a good contrast; Huggins "sitting on a thorn" is another ludicrous picture of perturbation; the cit on the grass, with "cattle grazed here" on a tree, is the fifth; and Huggins being cleared of clay by two of Tom Roundhead's helpers, with mop and broom, completes the cuts and catastrophes of the Epping Hunt.
The engravings, one and all, are exceedingly clever, and proof impressions, (which we observe are advertised,) will soon find their way into scores of scrapbooks.
The Sketch-Book.
THE SPIRIT OF THE STORM.
(For the Mirror.)
When the unfortunate Cedric (who had imbued his hands in the blood of another,) was endeavouring by flight to a distant land to evade the arm of justice, there existed a belief in a supernatural being, whose exclusive office was,
To guide the whirlwind and direct the storm.
It was imagined that he circumnavigated the globe in a chariot of fire that was wafted on the wings of the wind through the illimitable fields of aether, but that he ever kept within the bounds of our atmosphere. His course was preceded by thunder and lightning—and storm and tempest followed him wherever he went. He visited every climate in succession, and had a vast concourse of inferior spirits at his command. He never paused in his terrible career, but to witness the shipwreck of a felon, and then only was he visible to mortal view. He was The Spirit of the Storm!
The recollection of this personage occurred to the mind of Cedric, accompanied with no very pleasing associations, just as the Levantine cleared the mouth of the harbour, and was bearing a full sail before a propitious northern gale for India.