4^ 



REVIEWS OF PRINTS AND ILLUSTRATED WORKS. 



" The Comic Almanack for 1835 ; with twelve Illustrations of the Months^ by 

 George Cruikshatik." London, C. Tilt, Fleet Street. 



That the Press caters as assiduously for the mental appetite of the million, at the 

 good old season of mirth and festivity, as the confectioner does for their gastronomic 

 indulgence, is obvious from the profusion of elegant, fanciful, and humorous publi- 

 cations brought forward as tributary to the period. We have literary cadeaux of all 

 descriptions, from the aristocratic annual gleaming in gold and amethyst, hot- 

 pressed, embossed, and splendidly illustrated, to the humble pocket-book in scarlet 

 morocco, embellished with a n eat little head of " H. R. H. tlie Princess Victoria," 

 twelve vignette views of gentlemen's country seats, and a scene from a popular 

 novel ; and among other attractions containing some half-dozen conundrums, and 

 the " «etf" music of an obsolete quadrille. Fancy is exerted to the utmost 

 in the production of these fascinating gifts, and the fairy volume issues to the 

 public a perfect specimen of combined talent. There is the sentimental Annual for 

 the pensive and love-stricken, the Romeos and Juliets who are as yet wandering in 

 a world of their own creation ; there is the comic ditto for the rattle-brained, and 

 the good, fat, elderly lovers of dinners and broad grins, who have danced out of the 

 flowery illusions of boyhood, and become too stout and mellow-looking for sighs and 

 serenades : tlien there is the sacred annual for the devout, and the commercial one 

 for the man of business, whose very pleasures must bear an allusion to " trade." 

 And as there is matter for all minds, so tliere is " price" for all pockets ; to wit the 

 five-guinea " large paper" copy with " India proofs before letters ; " and the quiet 

 little offering at " one shilling and sixpence, bound in cloth." 



Our remarks have been elicited by the appearance of the " Comic Almanack for 

 1835," a risible production from the inimitable needle of George Cruikshank. The 

 idea of this pleasant bagatelle is clever and original : the duty on almanacks was 

 removed by the wisdom of the national legislature ; the incubus fell oiF ; monopoly 

 died in convulsions ; the privilege of the Stationer's Company became a dream and a 

 dead letter, and lo l the metropolis was inundated with a whole herring-shoal of 

 almanacks, rusliing forward under every shape, size, tint and authority, and put 

 forth at prices so astoundingly low that the sober, old, square-toed, brown-coated 

 citizen who annually paid down Is. 6rf. for his " Vox Stellarum^* stood still, took 

 off his spectacles, wiped them, re-saddled his nose, and stared mute with amazement. 

 From " one penny" to " six-pence" there is the " Hat Almanack^ the " Paragon 

 AlrAanachi'' the " National Almanack," the " Sunday Almanack" and the " Red 

 and Black Almanack" and, for aught we know, as many more as there are sands 

 in the sea, or whims in the lieart. 



The Comic Almanack, whose pages lie temptingly before us, is " adorned with a 

 dozen ' right merrie' cuts, etched and sketched by George Cruikshank, and divers 

 humourous cuts by other liands :" the envelope is grotesquely enlivened with witty 

 conceits typical of the signs of the Zodiac ; these are, veritably, choice Uttle bits of 

 *' fun," and might be effectively placed on the back of that rare old print of the 

 months with a fac-simile of which Strutt has favoured the curious in his " Dictiona- 

 ry of Engravers." The jolly young " Waterman ;" the descendant of Cadwallader 

 with his leek and his goat ; the artilleryman raw-ming down cartridge ; the gouty 

 John Bull ; the Siamese iwi7is ; the fair fisherwoman with her balance ; the pen- 

 sioners swilling Wke fishes ; the unlucky wight caught by the crab ; Leo the triple- 

 crowned pontiff; the evergreen virgin wilh her tabby, her poodle and parrot; the 

 scorpion, like shrew flying tooth and nail at her easy poor sot of a husband ; and 

 the elegant archer, full " fat, fair, and forty," taking aim at the bull's eye, are, each 

 and every, sparkling and spirited incentives to laughter. The illustrations of the 

 ** seasons" are equal in humour ; spring appears in the seducing guise of a market- 

 woman bawling " radishes 1 who'll buy my young radishes ;" summer, a feminine 

 mountain of flesh, with gypsey-hat, fan, and French cambric, seated sighing away 

 the sultry hours beneath a "green tree;" autunm is a cockney sportsman — a 

 genuine Sammy Simple— in r^ular costume, tremblingly taking aim at an invisible 



