This illustration appears in Tim Parks' NYRB blog post "Reading It Wrong" (accessed 10 May 2013), and the author credits it to "Grandville," presumably to the eminent 19th century French illustrator, caricaturist, and political cartoonist "J. J. Grandville" (the pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville).

Grandville produced illustrations for many famous texts including Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, and Robinson Crusoe, but I've been unable to fully source this particular illustration, which shows an 18th century man -- perhaps Lemuel Gulliver or Jonathan Swift -- thumbing through asemic manuscript pages.