Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/381

 retire into private life. The memory of Albert Smith is deservedly cherished by the inhabitants of the distant Savoyard valley, for he made the ascent of the "Monarch of Mountains" popular among his countrymen, and thereby sowed the seed of a succession of golden harvests, of which the primitive but thoroughly wide-awake peasantry were by no means slow to profit. Dissimilar in many respects, Albert Smith and John Leech had this bond of sympathy between them, that both were old friends, and both had nominally studied for the medical profession; and whilst Leech attained at St. Bartholomew's that practical knowledge of anatomical drawing which did him such good service in his artistic career, Albert Smith at Middlesex Hospital and the Hotel Dieu appears to have picked up that intimate acquaintance with London and Parisian student life which he displays in the "Adventures of Mr. Ledbury."

The "New Monthly" for 1844 contains two etchings by Leech to "The Lord of Thoulouse" and "The Wedding Day," which seem to call for notice, because they are not to be found in the collected edition of the "Ingoldsby Legends." In the collected edition he shows us little Jack Ingoldsby before he entered the fatal cellar, while in the "New Monthly" we see him lying dead at the feet of the weird buccaneer, who points with grim irony at the little corpse by way of caveat to those who would broach his wine. From the "New Monthly" etching George Cruikshank borrowed the idea for his illustration of the same subject in the 1864 edition. There is a difference, of course, but the fact will become ridiculously patent to any one who has an opportunity of comparing the two designs. This, by the way, is not the only instance in the '64 edition in which Cruikshank borrowed his idea from John Leech, which at one time he would have scorned to do, a fact which affords the strongest possible evidence of the decadence of George's once unrivalled powers of invention, imagination, and fancy.