Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/479

 thanks from the great apostle of temperance, Father Mathew himself. Other works were The Ups and Downs of Life, the well-known President and Vice President (both engraved), and many others. A clever artist in "black and white," two of his pen-and-ink sketches—The Huntsman's Rest and The Solitary—were honoured with a place among the drawings at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1846. His talents did not end here; most of the Christmas pantomimes of his time were indebted to him for clever designs, devices, and effects. The kindly, genial, gifted man died in 1872, .in his sixty-eighth year.

Some of our readers may possibly remember seeing in one of the comic publications published concurrently with or shortly after the appearance of Mr. Charles Darwin's work, a series of comical designs ridiculing the theory of the "origin of species" in a manner which must have astonished as well as amused the learned philosopher. The origin of the genus footman, and of the dish he carries to his master's table, is traced out as follows: The dish carries a bone, which eventually finds its way into the jaws of a mongrel cur with a peculiarly short tail. The process then goes merrily onwards; the dog gradually develops; his skin turns into a suit of livery with buttons, the dog-collar gradually assumes the form of a footman's tie, until the process is ended and the species complete. In like manner, a cat develops into a spinster aunt; a monkey into a mischievous urchin; a pig into a gourmand; a sheep into a country bumpkin; a weasel into a lawyer; a dancing bear into a garrotter; a shark into a money-lender; a snail into the schoolboy to which Shakespeare likens him; a fish into a toper, and so on. These "developments" (twenty in number), which were dedicated to Mr. Darwin, are signed "C. H. B," and these are the initials of, one of the gentlest, most promising; and withal most original graphic humourists of the century.

Amongst the earliest of the serials which he illustrated was, we believe, Diogenes, a sort of rival of Punch, which made its appearance and ran a brief course in 1853-4. Associated with him in the