which one returns to again and again, and
always with renewed delight. The instances of
such sketches from this artist's hand are so
numerous that one hardly knows which to select.
Who has not roared at the "Appalling result of
taking too much soda"? Who can resist the
terrible humour of "Not yet"? Yet one might
almost count the touches which have produced
these effects.

The injured housebreaker apostrophising the
carelessness of the servant who has left the coal-
scuttle where he has broken his shins over it;
the reduced tradesman who, with a razor in one
hand and a bludgeon in the other, offers the
first for sale to a little gentleman who is crossing
Westminster-bridge at two o'clock on a foggy
morning; the pet child explaining that it cannot
be for the want of cleaning that papa's watch
will not go, as she and baby had been washing
it that very morning; the fancy portrait of the
individual who sends fifty pounds for income-tax
(unclaimed) to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
All these, and fifty more might be named at
random, are in the strongest sense of the word
humorous, and never fail to give one pleasure,
however often one may return to them.

Who is there, too, that is such a master of the
hopeless as Mr. Leech? Who is there that can
show such a scene that one actually feels
uncomfortable in looking at it? "Here's t'other
'bus a coming" howls the conductor to the little
fat old gentleman who is trotting along with an
immense flower-pot under each arm. He is
fat and elderly, he is loaded in the most
inconvenient manner; he is hurried; he has the
difficult task to perform of climbing to the roof
of an omnibus, and one sees that that roof is
crowded with passengers already. It is thus
that Mr. Leech piles up the fun when in this
pitiless mood. There is another drawing of an
attentive husband bringing a bottle of porter
which is very much "up," to his wife who is
travelling by rail, which is something of this
same kind. The bell is ringing, and everything
is escaping from the wretched man's hands. One
longs to help him.

It is one of the most remarkable features, too,
of all the scenes which Mr. Leech portrays, that
his performers have always the exact appearance
which fits them to play their parts. In the
drawing of the little man offering one of his
great-coats to a perfect Daniel Lambert of a
friend who is just going away in the rain, the
artist has discovered by an almost inconceivable
intuition that the little man must have a
particular kind of coiffure. And how certainly it
was part of that especial small personage that
his hair should stick up on the top of his head
no one can doubt who looks at him. There are
hundreds of other instances throughout his
works of the same fitness of the performer for
the part which this excellent manager assigns
to him.

Mr. Leech's oil sketches at the Egyptian
Hall afford the public the first opportunity of
being brought face to face with the actual work
of Mr. Leech's hand. The drawings, as he
executes them, are cut away as fast as they are
finished, and it is only through the medium of
the engraver's process and the printing press
that the designs are known to most of us. At
the Egyptian Hall, the actual work of the artist's
hand is seen, and this gives the exhibition an
especial interest.

In these sketches, too, some greater scope is
given for the development of that strong feeling
for the picturesque which those who have
summed up Mr. Leech's claim to the title of
artist must certainly (even from a study of
his small drawings) have put to his credit.
Though these oil sketches now exhibiting
are small, it is extraordinary how largely
they are drawn and how boldly composed.
The best of them always tell well, even at a
great distance, and seem expressly designed to
do so. In the picture of the poor little gent
affably greeting the great man on his reappearance
in the hunting-field, this is particularly
striking and observable. The shades in the
landscape show to advantage even half across the
exhibition room. This is so, again, in the admirable
sketch of the old sailor coming to the rescue of the
young lady who "carries too much sail" for a
windy day. The slate-coloured sky merged in
the horizon at one side is admirably broad in
its effect; and, though you naturally go close to
the picture to study the character-painting of
the old sailor—with his board-like trousers, and
his jolly, good-natured face—you will find, as you
look back covetously at this masterly sketch,
before you leave the room, that most of its
greater points—such as the truth and gracefulness
of the girl's figure leaning against the wind, the
firmness of the sailor, not wholly at the mercy
of the tempest, the hopeless immovability of
the terrier, with his hair blown almost off his
back—are as telling at a distance as they are
near. In the "Cupid at Sea," the "best
preventive against sea-sickness," and the "Bracing
Day," we still find this quality of broad and
powerful general effect, as also in the sketch of
the little boy on the white pony talking to the
ladies in Rotten Row.

How wonderful is that scene of desolation,
the "Cupid at Sea;" how excellently composed
with that bit of boat hanging from the davits,
and the wet sloppy deck! The desperate egotism
of sea-sickness is nobly given here, and there are
a pair of legs in one corner with sickness in
every line of them. The same subject is handled
again, with, a depth of feeling that speaks of
many rough passages endured by the artist, in
the other steam-boat scene mentioned above. The
expression of the mouth in the principal figure,
who is trying to counteract by his own
movements those of the lively steam-packet, is almost
too truthful. This scene is rendered additionally
painful by a back view of a sturdy wretch who
is not only not sick, but is actually so secure of
himself as to be able to smoke. Who that has
been troubled with the "mal de mer" does not
know the disgust with which one looks upon an
individual of this sort who may happen to be
one's travelling companion?