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INTRODUCTION.
[PUNCH.
ought not in fairness to be concealed, that, towards us, the object and subject of the appended inquiry has preserved an obstinate silence which, in any other individual, we should say amounted to incivility. Even when informed that his portrait was to be drawn by Mr. George Cruikshank, it did not at all change his deportment. This circumstance is certainly to be regretted; but we flatter ourselves that our unaided resources have furnished much curious and interesting information: and if, by its publication, we give offence, we must "aby the event," knowing that, as Mr. Punch was deaf to our request, he will not listen to our apology.
Another remark may not here be out of its place: Poetry is unquestionably out of fashion; and because it was not "set by," as perhaps it ought to have been, the greatest (in every sense of the word) author of the day turned his attention to a different and more popular mode of writing. His astonishing success induced others to follow his example: they, too, tried their hands at historical novels; but, wanting the genius of their original, they endeavoured to keep up the interest of their narratives by the introduction of biographical matter. Still they found they were not read, and their next step was to make the dead the means of satirising and censuring the living; until, in a short time, this thin disguise was thrown aside, and novels became the vehicles of private anecdotes and malicious disclosures. Such is now the characteristic of our literature, excepting in as far as it was corrected by the "Colossus" aforesaid; and we appeal to all the puffs in all the papers for the proof, that fashionable slander, and the exposure of secret intrigues of persons in
