I was the only person, or nearly the only person, in the room." Distinguished people, however, had been to look at the drawings, and among them the late Lord Beaconsfield.
The success of the artist produced, of course, a number of imitators. Their productions were of various degrees of merit; but like most imitations they generally accentuated the faults without reproducing the excellencies of the model. Some of them are entitled "Political Hits," "Royal Ramblings," "The Belgian Trip," "Parisian Trip," and so on; some are signed "Philo H. B.," "H. H.," "B. H.," while others have neither initials or signature. They comprise some eighty or a hundred plates at least, many of which were probably suppressed, whilst others no doubt served the useful purposes of the greengrocer, the bookbinder, or the trunkmaker; and if, as 'we are told—
"Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away;"
there can be nothing after all very dishonourable or very surprising in their ultimate destination.
The artist died in 1868.
