in 
Literature 
and Art. 
493 
have worked jointly with their father before they engraved on their own 
account. I have in my own poffeffion two of his earlieii: works of this 
clafs, publifhecl by Fores, of Piccadilly, and dated refpectively the 3rd and 
the 19th of March, 1815. George was then under twenty-one years of 
age. The firit of thefe prints is a caricature on the reilriftions laid upon 
the trade in corn, and is entitled " The Blefiings of Peace, or, the Curfe ct 
the Corn Bill." A foreign boat has arrived, laden with corn at a low 
price-one of the foreign traders holds out a fample and fays, " Here is  
de heft for 50s." A group of bloated ariiiocrats and landholders Itand 
on the fhore, with a clofed Ptorehonfe, tilled with corn behind them; the 
foremoll, warning the boat away with his hand, replies to the merchant, 
" We won't have it at any price_we are determined to keep up our own 
to 803., and if the poor can't buy at that price, why they mutt ftarvc. 
We love money too well to lower our rents again; the income tax is 
taken off." One of his companions exclaims, " No, no, we Won't have it 
at all." A third adds, "Ay, ay, let 'em ftarve, and be d- to  
Upon this another of the foreign merchants cries, " By gar, if they will 
not have it at all, we mutt throw it overboard!" and a failor is carrying 
this alternative into execution by emptying a fack into the fea. Another 
group Hands near the clofed {lorehoufe-it confifts of a poor Eugliihman, 
his wife with an infant in the arms, and two ragged children, a boy and 
a girl. The father is made to fay, " No, no, matters, I'll not Ptarve; but 
quit my native country, where the poor are cruihed by thqfe they labour 
to fupport, and retire to one more hofpitable, and where the arts of the 
rich do not interpofe to defeat the providence of God." The corn bill 
was paifed in the fpring of 1815, and was the caufe of much popular 
agitation and rioting. The fecond of thefe caricatures, on the fame 
1'ubje6t, is entitled, "The Scale of Juftice reverfed," and reprefents the 
rich exulting over the difappearance of the tax on property, while the 
poor are cruihed under the weight of taxes which bore only upon them. 
The-fe two caricatures prefeut unmittakable traces of the peculiarities of 
ityle of George Cruikihank, but not as yet fully developed. 
George Cruikihank rofe into great celebrity and popularity as a 
political caricaturiit by  iililttizih-_ation's to the pamphlets of William Hone, 
 fuch