many a bookseller's and author's fortune (we trust that in sodoing he may not have neglected his own). Twelve admirableplates, furnished yearly to that facetious little publication, the* Comic Almanac,' have gained for it a sale, as we hear, of nearlytwenty thousand copies. The idea of the work was novel; therewas, in the first number especially, a great deal of comic power,and Cruikshank's designs were so admirable, that the ' Almanac 'at once became a vast favorite with the public, and has soremained ever since.
Besides the twelve plates, this Almanac contains a propheticwood-cut, accompanying an awful Blarneyhum Astrologicumthat appears in this and other Almanacs. Here is one that hintsin pretty clear terms that with the Reform of Municipal Corporations the ruin of the greatLord Mayor of London is at hand.
See his lordship here, he is meekly going to dine at an eight-penny ordinary, -- his giants in pawn, his men in armour, dwindled to " one poor knight,"his carriage to be sold, his stalwartaldermen vanished, his sheriffs, alas! and alas! in gaol! An-other design shows that Rigdum, if a true, is also a moral andinstructive prophet. Behold John Bull asleep, or rather in avision; the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousandbright bubbles about him.
