184%,

214

LIFE OF COBDEN.

[OHAP.

apon the head of him that selleth it.” On the front page of
each number was a woodcut, as rude as a schoolboy’s draw”
ing, but fall of spirit and cleverness, whether satirizing the
Government, or contrasting swollen landlords with faminestricken
 operatives, or painting some homely idyll of the
industrious poor, to point the greatest of political morals;
that * domestic comfort is the object of all reforms.”
Cobden had, at the beginning of the movement, been very
near to securing the services, in the way of pictorial illustration,
 of a man who afterwards became very famous. This was
Thackeray, then only known to a small public as the author
of the Hoggarty Diamond. * Some inventor of a new mode
of engraving,” Mr. Henry Cole wrote to Cobden, told Mr.
Thackeray that it was applicable to the designs for the Corn
Laws. Three drawings of your Anglo-Polish Allegory have
been made and have failed. So Thackeray has given up the
invention, and wood engraving must be used. This wil
materially alter the expense. . . . . I hope you will think
a8 well of the accompanying sketch—very rough, of course—
a8 all I have shown it to, do. It was the work of only &
few minutes, and I think, with its corpses, gibbet, and flying
 carrion crow, is as suggestive as you can wish. We
both thought that a common soldier would be better understood
 than any more allegorical figure. It is only in part
an adaptation of your idea, but I think a successful one
Figures representing eagerness of exchange, a half-clothed
Pole offering bread, and a weaver manufactures, would be
idea enough for a design alone. Of course, there may be
any changes you please in this present design. I think for
the multitude it would be well to have the ideas very simple
and intelligible to all. The artist is a genius, both with his
pencil and his pen. His vocation is literary. He is fall of
humour and feeling. Hitherto he has not had occasion t0
think much on the subject of Corn Laws, and therefore