Thus Pleasure oft eludes our grasp,
Just when we think to grip her;
And hunting after Happiness,
We only hunt a slipper.
The tale occupies less than thirty pages, and may be read whilst smoking
a cigar. It is all quaint fun, whim, humour, and frolic, and one of
those merry morsels which amuse us more than the whole leaven of
utilitarianism; and if to laugh and learn be your maxim, why read the
"Epping Hunt." After this, hold your sides, and look at the _cuts_,
designed by George Cruikshank, and engraved by Branston, Bonner, Slader,
and T. Williams. Old Tom Rounding is the frontispiece, in a cosy chair,
and glass in hand--framed with foxes', and Towler and Jowler's heads,
antlers, &c. The rich twinkle of Tom's eye, and the benevolent rotundity
of his form, are admirable. Huggins hitched on a tree is the next--then
comes "the beast charging in Tom's rear;" his perturbed look and the
saucy waggery of a round headed wight who has climbed into an adjoining
tree are a good contrast; Huggins "sitting on a thorn" is another
ludicrous picture of perturbation; the cit on the grass, with "cattle
grazed here" on a tree, is the fifth; and Huggins being cleared of clay
by two of Tom Roundhead's helpers, with mop and broom, completes the
cuts and catastrophes of the Epping Hunt.
The engravings, one and all, are exceedingly clever, and _proof
impressions_, (which we observe are advertised,) will soon find their
way into scores of scrapbooks.
* * * * *
The Sketch-Book.