public, appeared between the years 1834 and 1836. They were first published at threepence each by Richard Carlisle, of Fleet Street, who is said to have paid the artist fifteen shillings for each drawing on the stone. Carlisle falling into difficulties shortly before Seymour's death, sold the copyright and lithographic stones to Henry Wallis, who in turn parted with the latter to Mr. Tregear, of Cheapside, but retaining his property in the copyright, transferred the drawings to steel, and published them in 1838, with letterpress by Alfred Crowquill. Mr. Henry G. Bohn issued an edition in 1842, and another some twenty-three years later, with plates so sadly worn, and blurred by over use that the best part of this last edition (issued by the Routledges in 1878) is the binding.
The "Humorous Sketches" (we refer, of course, only to the early impressions), although affording fair examples of the artist's comic style and manner, are in truth of very unequal merit. They comprise some eighty subjects, which, owing to the frequent republications, are so well known that it would be superfluous to attempt a detailed description of them here. The best is unquestionably the one numbered XXV., "This is a werry lonely spot, Sir; I wonder you arn't afeard of being rob'd." The inevitable sequel is amusingly related by Crowquill:—
"Poor Timmins trembled as he gazed
Upon the stranger's face;
For cut-purse! robber! all too plain,
His eye could therein trace.
'Them's werry handsome boots o' yourn,'
The ruffian smiling cried;
'Jist draw your trotters out, my pal,
And we'll swop tiles beside.
That coat, too, is a pretty fit,—
Don't tremble so—for I
Vont rob you of a single fish,
I've other fish to fry.'"
