References
Messrs. Methuen have added to their “Illustrated Pocket Library” miniature reprints of two books that achieved an amazing popularity in the year 1821. One is William Combe’s Third Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of a Wife (pp. 265, 3s. 6d.), with 25 coloured plate by Thomas Rowlandson; the other is Pierce Egan’s Life in London (pp. xiv. 297, 4s. 6d. net), with 36 coloured plates and many woodcuts by George Cruikshank and his brother. There is a striking contrast between the very mild but refined humour of “Dr. Syntax” and the coarse vulgarity of Egan posing as moralist and dedicating his scandalous chronicle to a worthy patron in George IV., and it is reflected in the illustrations. They convince us afresh that a recent French historian of English caricature was right in regarding Rowlandson as an artist of taste and genius, and ranking him far above Cruikshank, whose work, as M. Filon suggests, had little or no artistic charm, though it was full of rough humour. […] The little duo-decimos are very well printed, and the plates are successfully reproduced on a smaller scale than the originals.
– The Guardian, London, England, 10 Dec 1903
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