and the chief purpose of the artist produced :-the successful ridicule of all that is vain, affected, pompous, and outre in manner or physical conformation. There is a proper limit to caricature. It must not trespass on the tragical or solemn, nor on the constitutionally serious and grave. There are thousands of things in human conduct and demeanour which will not bear to be laughed at, nor subjected to lightness and humour. The graphic pencil of the humorist must never presume to reprehend those crimes, or to excite those passions about which the moralist or divine or tragic poet are exclusively conversant. He must confine his operations to the sense of shame, which deters men from performing what may render them contemptible or foolish in the eyes of the world. By exposing only singularities, or the lighter vices or fallacies of mankind, he is almost certain of reforming them to a certain extent. He is occasionally privileged to assail positive crimes, when they are of such a nature that ridicule can be successfully brought to bear upon them, either by the peculiar oddity of their nature, or some whimsical circumstances attending their perpetration. But this license requires the most delicate artistic management. Whatever produces seriousness of emotion is, more or less, destructive of real caricatural effect. The main task of all caricature, or comic designs, consists in the natural representation of manners and characters not of the most perfect kind. The talent of the comic draughtsman aims at whatever requires humour; the subjects on which it is employed are the foibles, the caprices, and the violent and variable passions of men. Caricature flourishes where there is a plentiful crop of eccentricities and follies, and where all the various vanities and whimsicalities of human nature are left freely to expand themselves, and blossom without control. All caricatural achievements require a variety of character; and whatever overwhelms the caprices and eccentric movements of men, is unfavourable to it. Caricature is a versatile and multiform thing. It appears in many shapes, many attitudes, many garbs, and is so variously apprehended that it is difficult for the eyes and the judgment to settle upon a definite notion of it. It is as difficult to define as the portrait of Proteus, or the figure of the fleeting air. Its force lies sometimes in telling a story, sometimes in an apt and seasonable application of a trivial incident or saying, or in an imaginary tale. Sometimes it riots in whimsical outlines and figures, or is wrapped up in a humorous dress, which greatly tickles the fancy without communicating anything very decided or tangible. We have caricature sometimes taking a bold stand; sometimes it is seen lurking under an odd similitude or ambiguouslydrawn figure. Sometimes it expresses irony, sometimes it is all hyperbole; now it is startling, then quizzical and droll. Its influence upon the mass of mankind is unaccountable and inexplicable, being varied by the infinite rovings of the fancy, and the intricate windings and embodiments of whimsical and grotesque associations. It is at all times and seasons fertile in amusing the fancy, in stirring up the faculty of curiosity, and in imparting a highly pleasureable state of mind. It is the result of quickness of parts, remote conceits, briskness of humour, and sportive flashes of imagination. A FEW WORDS ON PIKE. SOME writers have maintained that the Greeks were unacquainted with the pike. It is certain it is seldom mentioned; but there is one Greek dramatist, Solades, who, in one of his comedies, says:— "After this I bought a splendid pike, To boil in pickle with all sorts of herbs." Whether the fish figures in early Roman history is likewise a matter of doubt. The first distinct mention we have of it is from the pages of Ausonius, who flourished about the second century of our era. From this period, however, we find the pike often noticed; and during some portions of the middle ages, it was both an object of keen piscatory sport and superstitious veneration. The pike is found in great quantities in most of the fresh-water lakes and still-running rivers in Europe, and indeed in almost every quarter of the globe. It often attains a considerable size. We have ourselves seen one in the London market sixty-nine and a-half pounds' weight, which had been caught in the Rhine. From thirty to forty pounds is by no means an uncommon weight of a fish in English ponds and rivers. Eleazer Block gives an account of a pike caught in 1497, near Mannheim, in Germany, which was nineteen feet in length, and weighed three hundred and fifty pounds. His skeleton was preserved in the university museum of this town, and, if we are not misinformed, is still there. This fish carried round its neck a ring of gilded brass, which could enlarge itself by springs, and which had been placed round it by Frederick Barbarossa, two hundred and sixty-seven years before. Pike breed in the months of March, April, and May, in most countries in Europe, and they then seek out some deep and quiet haunts, where they may deposit their spawn. They are then said to be very lazy, and may often be captured by the hand. September and October are the two best months for taking them; but there are pike in excellent condition caught in France, in November, December, and January. They are said to change their colour very much, according to the complexion of the water which they inhabit. When taken in clear and rapid-running rivers, they are uniformly of a brighter and more brilliant hue than when found in deep and dark-coloured lakes and ponds. The river and running-water fish are likewise decidedly finer in flavour than those caught in still and deep lakes. The voracity of the pike is one of its striking characteristics. Many singular stories have been told about its habits in this respect. Johiannes de Mediolanus, who wrote his Regimen Sanatus Salerni, in 1099, mentions the fish thus: "Among our fish the pike is king of all, A French author, in giving an account of a curious dream which one of the early French kings had about fish, there is a description, in verse, of many of the fish he thought he saw; and of the pike he says:: "Yet, sooth to say, I scarce could brook, The pike's intense and greedy look." At the siege of Silistria the pike of the Danube were observed to feed voraciously on the putrid bodies of the Turks and Russians that were cast into that river. A singular instance of the rapaciousness of this fish occurred in France a few years ago. In one of the large lakes near Arras, in the Pas de Calais, a horse in a pasture field ventured to take a drink at the edge of water, when he was seized by the lip by a huge pike, which fixed its teeth so firmly in the flesh of the animal, that, after a few desperate struggles, he succeeded in throwing it, by a toss of his head, on the land; but it was many hours after before the horse was discovered by some countrymen, when they found the fish dead, but still hanging at the mouth of the poor animal, which appeared to be in great agony. The fish weighed thirty-nine pounds. On the various modes of capturing the pike, our ordinary fishing-books give a pretty full account. We shall not refer to any of these, but content ourselves with noticing one or two methods not generally known. An ancient writer of the sixth century tells us that it was customary in some of the large lakes or lagoons in Italy, and other countries in the south of Europe, to fish for the pike in the following manner :-The fisher fixes upon a spot favourable for his purpose, at the bend of some headland of a lake, and lets down where he stands on the |