Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/188

 the actor, who, by the way, had taught him elocution. This, indeed, was one of George's strong points, who, if not a good king, was at least an admirable mimic. Says old Dr. Burney (writing to his daughter on the 12th of July, 1805), "He is a most excellent mimic of well-known characters; had we been in the dark, any one would have sworn that Dr. Parr and Kemble were in the room." In this plate we find likenesses not only of the king and of Mathews, but also of the Princess Augusta and the too celebrated Marchioness of Conyngham.

Thomas Rowlandson's single pictorial contribution to the "English Spy," R——— A———ys of Genius Reflecting on the True Line of Beauty at the Life Academy, is described by Mr. Grego under date of 1825. This is not the only time in which the artist was associated in work with Rowlandson. There is a rare work (one of an annual series)— "The Spirit of the Public Journals," for the year 1824, with explanatory notes by C. M. Westmacott, a collection of whimsical extracts from the press, which appeared in print in the previous season, which has illustrations on wood by four distinguished coadjutors : Thomas Rowlandson, George Cruikshank, Isaac Robert Cruikshank, and Theodore Lane. The Foote v. Hayne affair mentioned in our last chapter afforded grist for the kind of mill driven by literary blacklegs of the class of "Bernard Blackmantle." The black-mail system was tried at first, and when that failed he produced the now rare FitzAlleyne of Berkeley : a Romance of the Present Times, a pair of libellous volumes, the dramatis personæ of which comprise the persons whose names were mentioned in connection with the case. "Maria Pous" was of course Maria Foote ; Samuel Pous, her father ; Lord A——y, Alvanley; Major H——r, Major George Hanger, afterwards Lord Coleraine; Optimus, Mr. Tom Best (who shot Lord Camelford in a duel); the Pea-green Count and FitzAlleyne of Berkeley speak for themselves; while "Mary Carbon" is the butcher's daughter of Gloucester, mother of the Colonel, and afterwards Countess of