At Ware he commenced his prelection, We were rumbling o'er Trumpington stones.' This is admirable pleasantry, and as laughable now as the day it was penned. It would be absurd to comment gravely upon such humorous extravagance, or in any way to make an historical sketch of Political Satires the vehicle for instilling political principles. Wherever the pepper has not lost its pungency by keeping, we have not cared to consider whether it was of the black kind or the white. The portion which has retained its savour is little enough. The man of the most catholic taste will not discover many squibs that he thinks worthy to be reproduced, and he who is most fastidious in his transcriptions must sometimes expect 'To tell the jest without the smile.' The satire of the present generation has been purified from most of the faults which had begun to render it unendurable. We have now the comic paper'—an institution not unknown to our ancestors, but one which never existed before under such advantages; and the best of that kind of political wit which once glittered in such things as the 'Rolliad' is now embodied in the political novel.' Here are new developments of the tendency which will be studied a century hence by our descendants, and which we must admit they will have a right to regard as exponents of our life. One or two remarkable and obvious characteristics distinguish 'Punch' from the kind of works we have examined. Its wit is neither Whig nor Tory; and though it had at one time a pretty strong political bias-which, if weaker, is by no means extinct at present-still the largest part of its fun has always been social. It is rather a combination of scattered excellences than anything essentially new; for, not to mention that it was preceded by 'Figaro,' a satirical journal of much cleverness, edited, and indeed for the most part written, by the late Mr. A'Beckett, and that it bears the second title of Charivari,' it is certain that all the forms of wit and humour employed in it can be traced in the political satire of old times. But what the world never had before was a specially comic journal of so much merit, combining social and political matter, and combining also the satire of the pen with the satire of the pencil. The talent of Gilray and the talent of Hook are found in it together. But it would be unjust to limit its merit to the light shafts which are shot at folly as it flies, for the 'Snob Papers' belong to another sphere, and would not have disgraced T disgraced the 'Tatler;' and the domestic sketches of Mr. Leech are charming little works of art, which it would be libellous to class with caricatures' at all.* The fanciful wit again which flavours the writings of Mr. Jerrold carries us back to Fuller or Cowley, and is of a far rarer growth than the men of past times would have expected in a paper professedly comic and polemic. In the bright sallies of conversational wit he has no surviving equal. The decorum which distinguishes Punch' from the best effusions of the class in olden days belongs as much to the age as to the periodical. At the worst of times our facetious friend is innocent; and though our progenitors seem to have thought that all wit required great licence, the student finds that they were often licentious and dull too, sacrificing decency and getting nothing in exchange. The greatest proof of 'Punch's' success is the number of its imitators,-the Pasquins,' Pucks,'' Puppet-Shows,' 'Squibs, Sparks,' 'Great Guns,' 'Journals for Laughter,'' Joe Millers, Mephistopheleses,' Diogeneses,' Judys,' 'Tobys,' 'Falstaffs,' and 'Punchinellos ;'-all those loose bantlings of the wit of the great city, now no more! 'Quos dulcis vitæ exsortes et ab ubere raptos, Long may Punch' survive these short-lived off-shoots from the parent stem! That political wit' will ever cease, any more than eloquence, to be part of politics, we no more believe than we believe that the earth will cease to bear prickly roses, or white nettle-flowers. There may be an occasional lull, but the wind of party excitement will continue to blow, and, like certain winds in the south which bring locusts, it bears wit and satire on its wings. * The second series of 'Pictures of Life and Character,' from the collection of Mr. Punch, by this delightful artist, is in nothing inferior to the first These volumes are equally amusing to seniors and juniors, and, from their enduring power of pleasing, have really added to the happiness of the children who are fortanate enough to possess them. The range of Mr. Leech is surprising. Horses and horsemen, good riders and bad, exquisite dandies and vulgar suobs, citizens and country bumpkins, old-fashioned English gentlemen and upstart boys, footmen and maid-servants, blooming young ladies and elderly matrons, are all depicted with equal fidelity and spirit. The beauty, gracefuluess, and nature of his women have never been approached in any similar productions. Sailors, policemen, cab-drivers, street-boys, every variety of person and calling, are represented with an individuality which might lead us to imagine that there were as many artists as characters. He even draws Frenchmen as we should have supposed they could have been drawn by none but Frenchmen. ART. ART. V.-1. History and Practice of Photogenic Drawing, on the true principles of the Daguerreotype, with the New Method of Dioramic Painting. Secrets purchased by the French Government, and by their command published for the benefit of the Arts and Manufactures. By the Inventor, L. J. M. Daguerre, Officer of the Legion of Honour, and Member of various Academies. Translated from the original by J. S. Memes, LL.D. London, 1839. 2. A Practical Manual of Photography, containing a concise History of the Science and its connection with Optics, together with simple and practical details for the Production of Pictures by the Action of Light upon prepared Surfaces of Paper, Glass, and Silvered Plates, by the Processes known as the Daguerreotype, Calotype, Collodion, Albumen, &c. By a Practical Photographer. London. 3. On the Practice of the Calotype Process of Photography. By George S. Cundell, Esq. Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxiv., No. 160. May, 1844. 4. Researches on the Theory of the Principal Phenomena of Photography in the Daguerreotype Process. By A. Claudet. Read before the British Association at Birmingham, Sept. 14, 1849. 5. Researches on Light, an Examination of all the Phenomena connected with the Chemical and Molecular Changes produced by the influence of the Solar Rays, embracing all the known Photographic Processes and new Discoveries in the Art. By Robert Hunt, Secretary to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. London, 1844. A 6. Progress of Photography-Collodion-the Stereoscope. Lecture by Joseph Ellis. Read at the Literary and Scientific Institution of Brighton, Nov. 13, 1855. 7. The Journal of the Photographic Society. Edited by the Rev. J. R. Major, M.A., F.S.A., King's College, London. IT is now more than fifteen years ago that specimens of a new and mysterious art were first exhibited to our wondering gaze. They consisted of a few heads of elderly gentlemen executed in a bistre-like colour upon paper. The heads were not above an inch long, they were little more than patches of broad light and shade, they showed no attempt to idealise or soften the harshnesses and accidents of a rather rugged style of physiognomyon the contrary, the eyes were decidedly contracted, the mouths expanded, and the lines and wrinkles intensified. Nevertheless we examined them with the keenest admiration, and felt that the spirit of Rembrandt had revived. Before that time little was the the existence of a power, availing itself of the eye of the sun both to discern and to execute, suspected by the world-still less that it had long lain the unclaimed and unnamed legacy of our own Sir Humphry Davy. Since then photography has become a household word and a household want; is used alike by art and science, by love, business, and justice; is found in the most sumptuous saloon, and in the dingiest attic-in the solitude of the Highland cottage, and in the glare of the London gin-palacein the pocket of the detective, in the cell of the convict, in the folio of the painter and architect, among the papers and patterns of the millowner and manufacturer, and on the cold brave breast on the battle-field. In The annals of photography, as gathered from the London Directory, though so recent, are curious. As early as 1842 one individual, of the name of Beard, assumed the calling of a daguerreotype artist. In 1843 he set up establishments in four different quarters of London, reaching even to Wharf Road, City Road, and thus alone supplied the metropolis until 1847. 1848 Claudet and a few more appear on the scene, but, owing to then existing impediments, their numbers even in 1852 did not amount to more than seven. In 1855 the expiration of the patent and the influence of the Photographic Society swelled them to sixty-six-in 1857 photographers have a heading to themselves and stand at 147. These are the higher representatives of the art. But who can number the legion of petty dabblers, who display their trays of specimens along every great thoroughfare in London, executing for our lowest servants, for one shilling, that which no money could have commanded for the Rothschild bride of twenty years ago? Not that photographers flock especially to the metropolis; they are wanted everywhere and found everywhere. The large provincial cities abound with the sun's votaries, the smallest town is not without them; and if there be a village so poor and remote as not to maintain a regular establishment, a visit from a photographic travelling van gives it the advantages which the rest of the world are enjoying. Thus, where not half a generaago the existence of such a vocation was not dreamt of, tens of thousands (especially if we reckon the purveyors of photographic materials) are now following a new business, practising a new pleasure, speaking a new language, and bound together by a new sympathy. tion For it is one of the pleasant characteristics of this pursuit that it unites men of the most diverse lives, habits, and stations, so that whoever enters its ranks finds himself in a kind of republic, where it needs apparently but to be a photographer to be a brother. The world was believed to have grown sober and matter-of-fact, matter-of-fact, but the light of photography has revealed an unsuspected source of enthusiasm. An instinct of our nature, scarcely so worthily employed before, seems to have been kindled, which finds something of the gambler's excitement in the frequent disappointments and possible prizes of the photographer's luck. When before did any motive short of the stimulus of chance or the greed of gain unite in one uncertain and laborious quest the nobleman, the tradesman, the prince of blood royal, the innkeeper, the artist, the manservant, the general officer, the private soldier, the hard-worked member of every learned profession, the gentleman of leisure, the Cambridge wrangler, the man who bears some of the weightiest responsibilities of this country on his shoulder, and, though last, not least, the fair woman whom nothing but her own choice obliges to be more than the fine lady? The records of the Photographic Society, established in 1853, are curiously illustrative of these incongruities. Its first chairman, in order to give the newly instituted body the support and recognition which art was supposed to owe it, was chosen expressly from the realms of art. Sir Charles Eastlake therefore occupied the chair for two years; at the end of which the society selected a successor quite as interested and efficient from a sphere of life only so far connected with art or science as being. their very antipodes, namely, Sir Frederick Pollock, the Chief Baron of England. The next chairman may be a General fresh from the happy land where they photograph the year round; the fourth, for aught that can be urged to the contrary, the Archbishop of Canterbury. A clergyman of the Established Church has already been the editor to the journal of the society. The very talk of these photographic members is unlike that of any other men, either of business or pleasure. Their style is made up of the driest facts, the longest words, and the most high-flown rhapsodies. Slight improvements in processes, and slight varieties in conclusions, are discussed as if they involved the welfare of mankind. They seek each other's sympathy, and they resent each other's interference, with an ardour of expression at variance with all the sobrieties of business, and the habits of reserve; and old-fashioned English mauvaise honte is extinguished in the excitement, not so much of a new occupation as of a new state. In one respect, however, we can hardly accuse them of the language of exaggeration. The photographic body can no longer be considered only a society, it is becoming one of the institutions of the country.' Branches from the parent tree are flourishing all over the United Kingdom. Liverpool assists Norwich, Norwich congratulates Dublin, Dublin fraternises with the Birmingham and Midland Institute, London sympathises with each, and all are looking with impatience to Manchester. Each of these societies |