from the beauty and freshness and
from the kindly gushing springs of clear gladness that made all
around us green in our youth! One wanders and gropes in a
slough of stock-jobbing, one sinks or rises in a storm of politics,
and in either case it is as good to fall as to rise -- to mount a
bubble on the crest of the wave, as to sink a stone to the bottom.
The reader who has seen the name affixed to the head of this
article did scarcely expect to be entertained with a declamation
upon ingratitude, youth, and the vanity of human pursuit*^, which
may seem at first sight to have little to do with the subject in
hand. But (although we reserve the privilege of discoursing
upon whatever subject shall suit us, and by no means the
public has any right to ask in our sentences for any meaning, or
any concision whatever) it happens that, in this particular in-
stance, there is an undoubted concision. In Susan's case, as
recorded by Wordsworth, what concision had the corner of
Wood street with a mountain ascending, a vision of trees, and a
nest by the Dove ? Why should the song of a thrush cause
bright volumes of vapour to glide through Lothbury, and a river
to flow on through the vale of Cheapside? As she stood at that
corner of Wood street, a mop and a pail in her hand most likely,
she heard the bird singing, and straightway began pining and
yearning for the days of her youth, forgetting the proper business
of the pail and mop. Even so we are moved by the sight of some
of Mr Cruikshank's works -- the " busen fiihlt sich jiigendlich
erschlittert," the " schwankende gestalten " of youth flit before
one again, -- Cruikshank's thrush begins to pipe and carol, as in
the days of boyhood; hence misty moralities, reflections, and sad
and pleasant remembrances arise. He is the friend of the young
especially. Have we not read all the story-books that his wonderful pencil has illustrated
? Did we not forego tarts, in order
to buy his ' Breaking-up,' or his ' Fashionable Monstrosities' of
the year eighteen hundred and something ? Have we not before
us, at this very moment, a print -- one of the admirable ' Illustrations of Phrenology' --
which entire work was purchased by a
joint stock company of boys, each drawing lots afterwards for the
separate prints, and taking his choice in rotation? The Writer
of this, too, had the honour of drawing the first lot, and seized
immediately upon " Philoprogenitiveness" -- a marvelous print
(our copy is not at all improved by being coloured, which ope-
ration we performed on it ourselves) -- a marvelous print, indeed,
-- full of ingenuity and fine jovial humour. A father, possessor of an enormous nose and
family, is surrounded by the
latter, who are, some of them, embracing the former. The
composition writhes and twists about like the Kermes of Rubens.
