the honour to serve.

As soon as she enters the capital the romance disappears, and the poor girl's sufferings and privations luckily vanish with it. Beatrice has got now warm gowns, and stout shoes, and plenty of good food. She has had her little brother from Picardy; clothed, fed, and educated him: that young gentleman is now a carpenter, and an honour to his profession. Madame Merger is in easy circumstances, and receives, yearly, fifty francs from her daughter. To crown all, Mademoiselle Beatrice herself is a funded proprietor, and consulted the writer of this biography as to the best method of laying out a capital of two hundred francs, which is the present amount of her fortune.

God bless her! she is richer than his Grace the Duke of Devonshire; and, I dare to say, has, in her humble walk, been more virtuous and more happy than all the dukes in the realm.

It is, indeed, for the benefit of dukes and such great people (who, I make no doubt, have long since ordered copies of these Sketches) that poor little Beatrice's story has been indited. Certain it is, that the young woman would never have been immortalised in this way, but for the good which her betters may derive from her example. If your Ladyship will but reflect a little, after boasting of the sums which you spend in charity; the beef and blankets which you dole out at Christmas; the poonah-painting which you execute for fancy fairs; the long long sermons which you listen to at St. George's, the whole year through;-your Ladyship, I say, will allow that, although perfectly meritorious in your line, as a patroness of the Church of England, of Almack's, and of the Lying-in Asylum, yours is but a paltry sphere of virtue, a pitiful attempt at benevolence, and that this honest servant-girl puts you to shame! And you, my Lord Bishop: do you, out of your six sous a day, give away five to support your flock and family? Would you drop a single coach-horse (I do not say a dinner, for such a notion is monstrous in one of your Lordship's degree) to feed any one of the starving children of your Lordship's mother-the Church?

I pause for a reply. His Lordship took too much turtle and cold punch for dinner yesterday, and cannot speak just

now; but we have, by this ingenious question, silenced him altogether let the world wag as it will, and poor Christians and curates starve as they may, my Lord's footmen must have their new liveries, and his horses their four feeds a day.

When we recollect his speech about the Catholics—when we remember his last charity sermon,-but I say nothing. Here is a poor benighted superstitious creature, worshipping images, without a rag to her tail, who has as much faith, and humility, and charity, as all the reverend bench.

*

This angel is without a place; and for this reason (besides the pleasure of composing the above slap at episcopacy)-I have indited her history. If the Bishop is going to Paris, and wants a good honest maid-of-all-work, he can have her, I have no doubt; or if he chooses to give a few pounds to her mother, they can be sent to Mr. Titmarsh, at the publisher's.

Here is Miss Merger's last letter and autograph. The note was evidently composed by an écrivain public:

"Madame,

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'Ayant apris par ce Monsieur, que vous vous portiez bien, ainsi que Monsieur, ayant su aussi que vous parliez de moi dans votre lettre cette nouvelle m'a fait bien plaisir Je profite de l'occasion pour vous faire passer ce petit billet où Je voudrais pouvoir m'enveloper pour aller vous voir et pour vous dire que Je suis encore sans place Je m'ennuye tojours de ne pas vous voir ainsi que Minette [Minette is a cat] qui semble m'interroger tour a tour et demander où vous êtes. Je vous envoye aussi la note du linge a blanchirah, Madame! Je vais cesser de vous écrire mais non de vous regretter."

beatrice merger

171

CARICATURES AND LITHOGRAPHY IN

PARIS.

IFTY years ago there lived at Munich a poor fellow, by name Aloys Senefelder, who was in so little repute as an author and artist, that printers and engravers refused to publish his works at their own charges, and so set him upon some plan for doing without their aid. In the first place, Aloys invented a certain kind of ink, which would resist the action of the acid that is usually employed by engravers, and with

this he made his experiments upon copper plates, as long as he could afford to purchase them. He found that to write upon the plates backwards, after the manner of engravers, required much skill and many trials; and he thought that, were he to practise upon any other polished surface-a smooth stone, for instance, the least costly article imaginable-he might spare the expense of the copper until he had sufficient skill to use it.

One day, it is said that Aloys was called upon to writerather a humble composition for an author and artist-a washing-bill. He had no paper at hand, and so he wrote out the bill with some of his newly-invented ink upon one of his Kelheim stones. Some time afterwards he thought he would

try and take an impression of his washing-bill: he did, and succeeded. Such is the story, which the reader most likely knows very well; and having alluded to the origin of the art, we shall not follow the stream through its windings and enlargement after it issued from the little parent rock, or fill our pages with the rest of the pedigree. Senefelder invented Lithography. His invention has not made so much noise and larum in the world as some others, which have an origin quite as humble and unromantic; but it is one to which we owe no small profit and a great deal of pleasure; and, as such, we are bound to speak of it with all gratitude and respect. The schoolmaster, who is now abroad, has taught us, in our youth, how the cultivation of art "emollit mores nec sinit esse'

(it is needless to finish the quotation); and Lithography has been, to our thinking, the very best ally that art ever had; the best friend of the artist, allowing him to produce rapidly multiplied and authentic copies of his own works (without trusting to the tedious and expensive assistance of the engraver); and the best friend to the people likewise, who have means of purchasing these cheap and beautiful productions, and thus having their ideas "mollified" and their manners "feros " no more.

With ourselves, among whom money is plenty, enterprise so great, and everything matter of commercial speculation, Lithography has not been so much practised as wood or steel engraving; which, by the aid of great original capital and spread of sale, are able more than to compete with the art of drawing on stone. The two former may be called art done by machinery. We confess to a prejudice in favour of the honest work of hand, in matters of art, and prefer the rough workmanship of the painter to the smooth copies of his performances which are produced, for the most part, on the wood-block or the steel-plate.

:

The theory will possibly be objected to by many of our readers the best proof in its favour, we think, is, that the state of art amongst the people in France and Germany, where publishers are not so wealthy or enterprising as with us,* and

These countries are, to be sure, inundated with the productions of our market, in the shape of Byron Beauties, reprints from the Keepsakes,"

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where Lithography is more practised, is infinitely higher than in England, and the appreciation more correct. As draughtsmen, the French and German painters are incomparably superior to our own; and with art, as with any other commodity, the demand will be found pretty equal to the supply: with us, the general demand is for neatness, prettiness, and what is called effect in pictures, and these can be rendered completely, nay, improved, by the engraver's conventional manner of copying the artist's performances. But to copy fine expression and fine drawing, the engraver himself must be a fine artist; and let anybody examine the host of picturebooks which appear every Christmas, and say whether, for the most part, painters or engravers possess any artistic merit? We boast, nevertheless, of some of the best engravers and painters in Europe. Here, again, the supply is accounted for by the demand; our higher class is richer than any other aristocracy, quite as well instructed, and can judge and pay for fine pictures and engravings. But these costly productions are for the few, and not for the many, who have not yet certainly arrived at properly appreciating fine art.

Take the standard "Album" for instance-that unfortunate collection of deformed Zuleikas and Medoras (from the "Byron Beauties"), the Flowers, Gems, Souvenirs, Caskets of Loveliness, Beauty, as they may be called; glaring caricatures of flowers, singly, in groups, in flower-pots, or with hideous deformed little Cupids sporting among them; of what are called "mezzotinto" pencil-drawings, "poonah-paintings," and what not. "The Album" is to be found invariably upon the round rosewood brass-inlaid drawing-room table of the middle classes, and with a couple of "Annuals" besides, which flank it on the same table, represents the art of the house; perhaps there is a portrait of the master of the house in the dining-room, grim-glancing from above the mantelpiece; and of the mistress over the piano upstairs; add to these some odious miniatures of the sons and daughters, on each side of the chimney-glass; and here, commonly (we appeal to the reader if this is an overcharged picture) the collection ends. "Books of Beauty," and such trash; but these are only of late years, and their original schools of art are still flourishing.