Chapter II: Part 2

His military connection, which had led to his appointment as A.D.C. to the Duke of York, was too important to be neglected even under these conditions.

Hence it is that in 1788 we find the Bunburys settled in London at Whitehall. Our artist was now, from his Court position and his own tastes, thrown into the midst of London social life; and this new life in all its features begins to reproduce itself in his caricatures. "Hyde Park," "The Coffee House Patriots," "The Chop House," "Richmond Hill," "Bethnal Green," and the large print of a "Fête at Carlton House" (at which no doubt he was present in attendance on the Duke), belong to this period of his life.

Bath he no doubt knew well already from his visits to the West of England, where it was at this time the great rendezvous for fashionable society; he must have himself moved in this society, and enjoyed the study of its follies and foibles, its airs and graces, which the dramatists of the time love to reproduce. For here certainly it was that he gained his inspiration for the "Long Minuet," as danced at Bath, with its line of stately dancers and its classical inscription--

"Longa Tysonum minuit
Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors."

This is one of Bunbury's most famous prints; and justly so, for nothing could be truer to life, especially to eighteenth-century life, and probably to Bath of the period, than these bowing and pirouetting figures.

In his "Lumps of Pudding" we have the same theme, but treated with a coarser note; and yet some of the figures are excellent--notably the stout gentleman in the corner, who has removed his wig to mop his heated brow--the enthusiast near him who is "setting" before a dame with a three-decker and its anchor in her hair, and the group of four who are next the lady dancing with her pet dog. The "Long Minuet" and this last belong to that class of caricatures in which the figures form a continued story--a line of humour which the Germans have developed in _Fliegende Blätter_, which Caran d'Ache has used with success in France, and which _Pick-Me-Up_, when it was under the able direction of Mr. Leslie Willson, scored many a good point with.

=_By H. W. Bunbury_ A FASHIONABLE SALUTATION=

To this class, too, belongs Bunbury's famous "Propagation of a Lie," published in 1787. Male figures only appear in this wonderful series; though (alas!) many of us have learnt from experience that the fair sex, with all its charm, is not always averse to "_broder_" the simple truth, especially when a prospect of scandal is concerned. Bath, we may feel sure, would have offered in those days every facility of this nature, if required; and it may be fairly assumed that the _mise-en-scène_ for this print was the same as that of the "Long Minuet." From "Dear me! You don't say so!" we proceed through the stages of "Heigh ho!" "O fye!" "Indeed!" "There now!" to that lively dandy who exclaims "Ha! Ha!" and that irascible old gentleman who is shaking his fist at him with the reply, "God's zounds! hold your tongue!" To the same line of social satire belong the "Front, side, and back view of a modern Gentleman," "Sunday Evening," "Morning, or the Man of Taste," and "Evening, or the Man of Feeling" (engraved by J. R. Smith in 1781), and a "Fashionable Salute," called "Salutation Tavern," of which I give a plate from the print in my own collection. The same engraver, J. R. Smith, produced Bunbury's sketch of "Lord Derby on Horseback," following the coach of the lovely Miss Farren,[8] which has the motto:

"When I followed a lass that was froward and shy."

But the "lass" in question became less shy later, and complied to his request to become Countess of Derby.

=LORD DERBY=

"Patience in a Punt," one of our artist's best-known prints, was engraved by Rowlandson, and has acquired a good deal of his characteristic drawing in the process; and I may mention briefly here some prints dealing with Cambridge life--"The Hope of the Family," "Admission at the University," and "Pot Fair, Cambridge" (dated 1777), as well as a series of very interesting original etchings by our artist in the British Museum collection. Professor Colvin tells me that a recently acquired collection there of Italian prints included several by Bunbury; and among these may have been "John Jehu--L'Inghilterra," 1772, and "The Dog-Barber--La Francia," 1772 (a theme which we have noted in his print of the "Pont Neuf"), as they by their titles seem to be evidently intended for the Italian market. By far the most interesting, in one way, of these etchings by our artist--which date from the beginning of his career and are often very weak in drawing--is one which shows two boys, or men, one of whom is riding a pig; and which belongs to the time when Bunbury was a boy at Westminster School, being thus, as I believe, his earliest existing caricature. The British Museum is, in fact, very rich in Bunbury's prints; and his series there of the "Arabian Nights" (in colour, engraved by Ryder) may be noted here (the print of "Morgiana's Dance" being especially charming), ere we turn back to our artist's life story. In 1797 the Bunburys had taken a small house at Oatlands, near Weybridge, to be near the Duke and Duchess of York, who were then residing at Oatlands Park; and it was here that in 1798 Henry Bunbury had a terrible blow, in the loss of his wife at the early age of forty-five years. The beautiful face and figure of Catherine Horneck had often appeared in our artist's fancy subjects; their life together seems to have been a very happy one, and we may believe that he never entirely recovered from this loss, for the next thirteen years of his life after her decease were spent by him in comparative retirement. He left Oatlands, and probably also, then or later, his official post at Court, and came to live in the Lake Country, where he had Robert Southey as his friend; it was at Keswick that he died, in 1811, and lies buried there far away from the grave of his wife in Weybridge Church.

His prints form a link in our knowledge of eighteenth-century social life in England which we could ill afford to lose. Not always very strong in drawing, his humour is genuine, wholesome, spontaneous; his sense of beauty, in subjects outside of pure caricature, often very fascinating and refined; while in both classes of subject he remains happily free from that coarseness which disfigures to some extent the great caricaturists whom I shall treat of in my next two chapters. A charming personality--all his work seems to tell us--and a lovable man; English to the core, in the best sense, fond of his home, fond of outdoor life, fond of his joke, but a joke whose laughter has no bitterness or malice, and leaves no bad taste behind.

="LUMPS OF DELIGHT" BY H. W. BUNBURY=

="LUMPS OF PUDDING" BY H. W. BUNBURY=

IV

THE COMEDY OF POLITICS

In treating here of English eighteenth-century caricature, I find that the conditions of space at my command in this work compel me, in order to do my subject any justice at all, to focus my reader's interest on certain central figures, who typify, each in themselves, one side or other of their art; and to pass by more slightly some of the lesser men, whose interest is either divided or secondary.

Such a towering personality in caricature as James Gillray comes necessarily into the first of these categories; such draughtsmen as Woodward or Sayer into the second.

Woodward comes near to Bunbury in style and subject, and like him seems to have preferred social satire, though occasionally--as in his "General Complaint," of 1796--he touches political topics of the time. Sayer, belonging to the period of Gillray, is, like him, essentially a political caricaturist. James Sayer was the son of a merchant captain, and had been put to the profession of attorney: but caricature attracted him more than law, and, having gained the notice and interest of the younger Pitt, he attached himself to his service with such industry and success that Charles James Fox is said to have remarked that Sayers' caricatures had cost him more votes than all the speeches in the House of Commons.

In fact, just as certain modern English politicians,--Lord Palmerston in earlier days, and, in later, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain--seem to have been singled out (a compliment this to the public interest in their personality) as especial targets for the caricaturist's shaft, so Fox was throughout the object of Sayer's constant devotion. His first effort was directed against the Rockingham Ministry of 1782; but far happier was his "Paradise Lost," published on the fall of that Administration, which shows the once happy pair, Fox and Burke, turned away from their previous Paradise, the Treasury, over whose gate appears the menacing head of Lord Shelburne--who succeeded them at the head of the Cabinet, Pitt being Chancellor of the Exchequer--with others of his Ministerial colleagues above ...

... "the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

James Gillray made his entry into English political caricature almost at the same date as Sayer--namely in 1782--with his caricatures on the subject of Rodney's naval victory. His father was of Scotch descent, and having been wounded as a soldier at the battle of Fontenoy--where he lost his arm--he became in later life an out-pensioner of Chelsea Hospital; so that it was in Chelsea that James, his son, was born. Like William Hogarth he too was put in his early years to letter engraving; but, becoming tired of this rather dull employment, he ran away and joined a company of strolling players, sharing in the hardships and adventures of their roving life, perhaps taking part in such scenes as Hogarth had depicted in his famous print, where the company have successfully "stormed" their barn and are getting ready--dressing-rooms being at a discount--for the next performance.

But Gillray's bent towards the plastic arts must have been too strong to let him remain long in the theatre: when he returned to London he became a student of the Royal Academy, and seems to have worked hard at improving his drawing. He also studied under the engraver Bartolozzi; and the result of his training begins to show itself in his engravings of "The Deserted Village" and "The Village Train," published in 1784 to illustrate Goldsmith's poem, and in his imitations of drawings by Lavinia, Countess Spencer. But, though successful as an engraver, and even as a painter, it was as a caricaturist that he was destined to win his lasting fame. Here his individuality came at once to the front; though even when a professional caricaturist he continued the practice of engraving and painting, as his portraits of William Pitt and numerous engravings bear witness.

The political history of England was then approaching a most dramatic epoch, and this--even apart from Gillray's marvellous natural aptitude in this direction--might well have tempted him to choose politics as his special subject. The French and American wars had scarcely yet left men's memories; a King was on the throne who had joined to no great political sagacity or insight a stubborn determination to govern; and the clash of political issues, the struggle of the two great traditional English parties, was intensified and rendered more brilliant by the figures of famous statesmen or orators--such as Pitt, Fox, Burke, and Sheridan, and, but in a lesser degree, Thurlow and Shelburne.

But yet further, before this very generation the tremendous and (as we shall see it to have been) world-absorbing spectacle of the French Revolution was to unrol itself, touching every individual in his most intimate interests and convictions, awaking everywhere feelings of passionate enthusiasm, or of corresponding hatred; and then, gradually, out of that sea of blood which we know in history as the Terror, the sinister form of Buonaparte, General, Consul, Dictator, Emperor, came to detach itself, to blot out all lesser figures, to become a menace to the world. All this had passed before the eyes of Gillray and his fellow-countrymen. He saw the thundercloud arise that was to darken the horizon. He saw the energy and genius of Pitt create one Coalition after another, only to find them melt away before the victorious armies of France. He saw at length--and his trumpet-call at that crisis gave no uncertain sound--England stand alone, and find in herself the forces that were to bring her safely through the storm.

We have noted already Sayers' caricature of the triumph of the Shelburne Ministry in 1782; a print which had been followed by his still more clever satire--called "Carlo Khan's Triumphant Entry into Leadenhall Street"--on Fox's India Bill of 1783. In that same year Shelburne's Ministry had been overthrown, and Fox and Burke came back into office with Lord North. Against these statesmen, whether in or out of office, Gillray's pencil became largely employed, though he was never a hired caricaturist or kept in fee like Sayer, and all sides of politics (including the Court and even the King himself) felt the edge of his satire; while Lord Thurlow, the great Lord Chancellor, was in no way neglected. Thus we find a "New Way to pay the National Debt" (1786), "Ancient Music" (1787), "Monstrous Craws" (1787), "Frying Sprats" (1791) and "Anti-Saccharites, or John Bull and his Family leaving off the use of Sugar" (1792), are all directed against the reigning House, and allude frequently to the parsimonious habits of George III. and his Queen. The story goes that this monarch, having remarked of Gillray's drawings, "I don't understand these caricatures," the artist drew him ("A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper," 1792) studying minutely with a glass the miniature of Oliver Cromwell, remarking at the time: "I wonder if the Royal Connoisseur will understand this?"

But if the economy of the King was a subject for his satire, the opposite qualities in the Prince of Wales met with as little mercy. "The Voluptuary under the Horrors of Digestion" (1792) gives a very clever treatment of this latter theme; and in a "Morning after Marriage, or a Scene upon the Continent," we seem to find the same distinguished person, with a lady who may be the charming Mrs. Fitzherbert.

About this period, too, Lord Thurlow, in a "Westminster Hunt" (1788) and "Market Day" (also 1788, where the motto, "Every man his price," seems aimed at the fat kine of the House of Commons), is not forgotten; while in "Dido Forsaken," where the Queen of France stands deserted and desperate on her own shores, and Fox and his friends in a row-boat are steering for Dover Castle with the remark, "I never saw her in my life!" ("No! never in his life, damme!" adds Fox at the rudder), we seem to be already getting drawn into the mäelstrom of the French Revolution. Perhaps to the average student the period of Gillray's work which we are here approaching will be of most interest, because a fairly exact knowledge of English party politics is necessary to follow with enjoyment his earlier prints on home affairs. Gillray had treated a French subject with success in his amusing "Landing of Sir John Bull and his Family at Boulogne-sur-Mer," which recalls Bunbury to our thought both in its humour and treatment. This latter artist had thoroughly appreciated James Gillray's genius, and said of his great contemporary that "he was a living folio, every page of which abounded with wit."

Following the order of time, which is perhaps our safest guide, "The Bengal Levée" is a large print, full of clever portraits, "made on the spot by an Amateur"; and "The Dagger Scene, or the Plot discovered," is a political print which must not be omitted. But now we find ourselves suddenly launched into the midst of the French Revolution in "French Liberty and British Slavery" (showing a starving Jacobin praising his own Government, and a fat John Bull at dinner abusing his); and "Sansculottes feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty," this latter a most inimitably clever print, whose centre is formed by John Bull, with Fox and a sympathiser administering the Bread of Liberty on the dagger's point, while Germany, Holland, and Italy are at the corners.[9] Gillray had already, as we see here, taken a strongly anti-French attitude, which he never altered, and which, no doubt, faithfully reflected the mass of English public opinion, horrified at the excesses with which Paris had in those days sullied the pure name of Liberty. I say advisedly the mass, for Charles James Fox next appears in "Dumourier dining in State at St. James's" (1793), serving up to the French General the head of Pitt upon a dish, with the British crown thrown in as an _entremet_. A very striking print of the same year shows the heroic "Charlotte Corday upon her Trial" (July 17, 1793), and a figure very like Gillray's usual rendering of Talleyrand, with two other judges, upon the bench beneath the cap of Liberty. "The Blessings of Peace and the Curses of War," with its inscription--"Such Britain was, such Flanders, Spain and Holland now is (_sic_); from such a sad reverse, O Gracious God, preserve our country!"--is an eloquent, if slightly ungrammatical, appeal (Jan. 17, 1795) to his fellow-countrymen, an appeal to which our artist must have been stirred by the horrible carnage and misery which the French armies were then inflicting upon the continent of Europe; while "John Bull ground down" (June 1, 1795) shows the guineas being extracted from that long-suffering person, despite his cries of "Murder"; and in "Blind-man's Buff, or Too Many for John Bull" (June 12, 1795) he is being handed over, with Pitt's assistance, to the kicks and plunder of the Powers of Europe.

We reach the full horrors of the Terror in Paris, and trace its effect on outside opinion, in a very clever print in my own possession entitled "Promised Horrors of the French Invasion, or Forcible Reasons for Neglecting a Regicide Peace." The print is so full of masterly detail that it almost defies description. In the centre a figure (? that of Pitt) is being flogged by Fox beneath the Tree of Liberty, planted at the Piccadilly end of St. James's Street, with three human thigh-bones at its base; beside it the French troops march up St. James's Street, leaving the Palace in smoke and flames, and invade White's Club on their right, pitching its ill-fated members on to the bayonets in the street, but are received by the members of Brookes's Club on their left with cries of welcome, and a set of heads neatly arranged upon a plate, with the motto, "Killed for the Public Good!" October 20, 1796, is the date of this magnificent cartoon of our artist, which must have found an echo in public opinion: but ships, troops, and subsidies mean taxation, and Pitt's continued demands on the Treasury are satirised in "The Nuptial Bower" (February 15, 1797) and "Political Ravishment, or The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street in Danger" (May 22, 1797).

=THE JACOBIN DRUMMER=

=_By James Gillray_ BRITANNIA BETWEEN DEATH AND THE DOCTORS=

In the year following (1798) the form of Nelson makes its appearance in the print of "The British Hero cleansing ye Mouth of ye Nile," and in "John Bull Taking a Luncheon"--off a captured French three-decker.

For now, too (November 21, 1799), the figure of Buonaparte, which was to occupy so fully Gillray's pencil, makes his entry into these caricatures in the cartoon of "Exit Liberté, a la Francois (_sic_) or, Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité at S. Cloud, near Paris, November 16, 1799."

Another print, however, touching the Directorate period is too important to be entirely omitted from our list. It is called "Ci-devant Occupations, or Madame Tallien and the Empress Josephine dancing naked before Barras in the Winter or 1797--a Fact." The dancers can be traced behind a veil of gauze, while Barras sits at table, very drunk, beneath an infant Bacchus wearing the Cap of Liberty, and Buonaparte watches the scene from the side in front of a pile of skulls. "Madame Tallien," we are here informed, "is a beautiful woman, tall and elegant: Josephine is smaller and thin, with bad teeth"; in which case she must be the figure nearest Buonaparte, and must have gone up in weight--in Gillray's view--before she appears in his "Handwriting on the Wall."

It would be impossible within the limits of this series to give a detailed list of all the superb series of Gillray's satires on the Napoleonic struggle. I have been fortunate enough to obtain for this work reproductions of three among the best ones; but my account may do well to commence with that delightful print (another hit at Charles James Fox) of the "Introduction of Citizen Volpone and his Suite at Paris"; might note further "The Vexation of Little Boney"; and strike a higher note in "The Handwriting upon the Wall," where, in the hour of his triumph, Buonaparte, seated at table beside an enormously stout Josephine, with gigantic and savage-looking Guards and very _décolletées_ and ringleted maids-of-honour waiting in service on them, sees with dilated eyes on the wall the warning of his doom.

=_By James Gillray_ ARMED HEROES (WILLIAM PITT AND BUONAPARTE)=

Of course the threatened invasion of England finds its echo in Gillray's prints. "French Invasion, or Buonaparte Landing," "Armed Heroes" (of which I give here a reproduction), and the "King of Brobindnag and Gulliver" all belong to this theme of the nation's peril; as does that interesting print, which I also reproduce, of "Britannia between Death and the Doctor," where the sick lady is threatened on the one side by Buonaparte as Death, the while Pitt, as chief physician, executes a war dance at the expense of his professional rivals, planting his heel very neatly in the mouth of the prostrate Charles James Fox. Napoleon's European victories find comment in the "Surrender of Ulm," and in another of my plates, "Tiddy Doll, the Great French Gingerbread Maker, drawing out a New Batch of Kings," where Talleyrand seems, very appropriately, to be the figure in the background kneading the dough (note, too, the rubbish heap). But the worst danger was past already at the time (as we know now) of that fine plate that commemorates the "Death of Admiral Lord Nelson in the Moment of Victory," published by Humphrey of St. James Street, on December 23, 1805.

Gillray, after trying various publishers--Kent, Brown, Holland of Oxford Street, Fores of Piccadilly--seems to have settled down with Humphrey, first in the Strand, then in Bond Street, and later St. James Street, whose shop-windows became famed for his prints. Joseph Grego, a known authority on our artist, relates that Fox and Burke once walked into the shop together, alarming the worthy proprietress by this sudden invasion of Gillray's favourite subjects. But Burke reassured her with a smile: "Were I to prosecute you it would be the making of your fortune; and that favour, excuse me, Mrs. Humphrey, you do not entirely merit at my hands."

We may terminate our study or Gillray's Napoleonic caricatures very appropriately with the "Spanish Bullfight," in which Buonaparte is tossed by the Spanish bull (Peninsular War of 1808) before the assembled Powers of Europe (dated July 11, 1808); and the fine print of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" (September 24, 1808), in which the prediction of an earlier print ("The Handwriting on the Wall") seems near its fulfilment, and the Powers of Europe in grim demonic shapes surround the terrified ruler, the British lion charging him full in front, while the Russian bear takes an ugly snatch from behind at his legs.

=_By James Gillray_ BUONAPARTE AS KING-MAKER (WITH TALLEYRAND TO HELP)=

James Gillray's political caricatures are so interesting and so important, they form such a priceless commentary on the history of the time, that I have given them the priority of space over his amusing social satires, which scourge without mercy the follies of dress and fashion. "A Lady putting on her Cap" (1795), "Lady Godiva's Rout" (1796), "High Change in Bond Street" (1796), "A Modern Belle at Bath" (1796), and "A Fashionable Mamma" come into this class, as well as "Following the Fashion," "Characters in High Life," and many others. It was the epoch when English ladies' waists seem to have risen nearly to their arm-pits, and when their hair towered up correspondingly into a forest of feathers; and all the above prints--as well as the series of "Faro's Daughters," directed at the gambling craze, "The Graces in a High Wind (as seen from Nature in Kensington Gardens)," and the still more risky series of "Three Stages of a Lady's Toilet,"--depict these extreme fashions.

"Tales of Wonder," "Advantages of Wearing Muslin Dresses, dedicated to the Fashionable Ladies of Great Britain," "A Broad Hint of not Meaning to Dance," "A Company shocked at a Lady getting up to Ring the Bell," belong to a slightly later period of costume, say 1802-04.

"Dido in Despair" is evidently a satire on the beautiful Lady Hamilton, who is however represented in this print as enormously fat.[10] Gillray has evidently no sympathy or mercy for the frail and famous beauty; for here she is tumbling out of bed in nightcap and nightdress, from which a huge foot protrudes, while she waves her fat arms in despair. A flask of Maraschino is on the dressing-table near the rouge pot; on the floor lie broken antiques; and a work on _Studies of Academic Attitudes_, with scarcely academic illustrations, lies near the window, through which is seen a line of British battleships standing out to sea.

"Ah where and oh where is my gallant sailor gone?
He's gone to fight the Frenchmen for George upon the throne,"--

is the motto of this print, which was published by Humphrey on February 6 of 1801. "The Bulstrode Siren" (Mrs. Billington), where she is seen warbling to the Duke of Portland, fares little better than Emma herself; and Sir William Hamilton appears, in another of Gillray's satires, as "A Conoscenti contemplating ye beauties of ye Antique." Among these last _objets d'art_ a battered "Lais" and a "Bacchante" who has lost her head seem as full of cryptic allusion as the dancing figures on a Greek vase and the Cupid with a bent arrow; while quite in Hogarth's best vein is the "Mark Antony" framed upon the wall, in a cocked hat and admiral's uniform, the "Cleopatra" with a gin bottle, and a view of Vesuvius in full eruption.

Sheridan is a frequent figure in Gillray's political caricatures; but perhaps he was never more happily treated than when he enters as Harlequin, armed with a goose quill, and assisted by John Kemble and the famous Mrs. Siddons, in "Blowing up the Pic Nics." To the same class and subject of satire belongs the "Pic Nic Orchestra" and "Dilettante Theatre"--this last a Green-room scene which seems reminiscent of Hogarth's print of a similar subject. "Two-penny Whist" and "Push-pin" are filled with contemporary portraits;[11] and the two series of "Cockney Sportsmen" (4 plates, 1800) and "Elements of Skating" (4 plates, 1805) must not be overlooked any more than such weirdly hideous creations as "Comfort to the Corns," as "Begone dull Care, I prithee," and "The Gout."

Interesting, however, though much of Gillray's social satire certainly is, it scarcely reaches the same level as his political work. He was a magnificent engraver, and was able in his best time to build up his cartoon with the smallest possible scaffolding, a few lines pencilled upon a card being enough to enable him to commence at once upon the copper; while the freedom and facility of his design is witnessed amply by all his prints--those prints which we have now studied in some measure together, though anything in the nature of a comprehensive catalogue is denied me by the space at my command. His influence, too, upon Isaac Cruikshank is to be marked, as a link in the evolution of English caricature.

In his later years James Gillray resided almost entirely with his kindly publisher, Mrs. Humphrey, of whom, as I have noted, he has left a whimsical portrait, with her faithful maid "giggling Betty," in his print of "Two-penny Whist." Mrs. Humphrey appreciated her client's genius, and at one time their mutual understanding got so far on the road to matrimony that they had already reached the door of the church (their parish church of S. James, Piccadilly) when this eccentric bridegroom remarked, "This is a foolish affair, Mrs. Humphrey. We live very comfortably together--better let well alone!"--and walked home to work on his copper plate. But even if this legend of blighted hopes be correct, the good spinster in any case devoted herself no less to the artist's comfort and welfare; and the tragedy of his later years was due to himself alone. Intemperance weakened his powers; and in the last years of his life he lapsed, from this cause probably, into a condition of mental imbecility, which contrasts sadly with those busy and successful years of his life, from 1777 to close on 1810.

He died upon the 1st of June, 1815, and was buried near the rectory of S. James, Piccadilly; within reach of the busy roar of that London whose complex multitudinous life he had lived amongst and loved and studied, and which still surges around his last resting-place in changed and ever-changing forms.

V

THE COMEDY OF LIFE

Thomas Rowlandson, the last and in some ways the greatest of the caricaturists whose work illustrates the eighteenth century, was born in London in 1756, being thus just six years younger than Bunbury, and one year older than Gillray; so that all these artists cover very much the same period, although their work has elements of the greatest diversity.

In Bunbury we have seen the really gifted amateur, who entrusted his clever sketches to other hands to be engraved, who kept in touch with social life in London and county society, and pursued his career in the army and at Court, while throughout devoting himself to art as his greatest hobby. Again, later, we have traced briefly Gillray's supreme talent, both as engraver and draughtsman, more especially in his magnificent series of contemporary political cartoons. But in Rowlandson we touch a genius as fertile, but of a different order, and, I incline to think, of a considerably wider grasp; and if I call this chapter, which I am devoting especially to his work, the "Comedy of Life"--in contrast to pictorial morals, to society or politics--it is because life in all its exuberance, all its variety and fertility, seems to stream on us from the gifted artist's pencil.

But Life contains--thanks be--not only coarse, distorted types of humanity, exaggerations of foolish fashion, and political antagonisms, but grace and beauty, even with the changing form of the time-spirit; and it is just here that Rowlandson infinitely surpasses those contemporaries whom we studied in our last chapter. His female figures have often that rich English beauty which we find in Reynolds, Hoppner, or sometimes in Morland; and his landscape has qualities of very exceptional merit. He might, we are frequently tempted to think, have been a painter worthy to take a front rank even in that magnificent English eighteenth-century school, which included Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Hoppner, among its glories; but as we come to study his life we shall find in the _insouciance_ of his character, in the very facility of his genius, the causes which made him--not, indeed, entirely to our loss--only the greatest caricaturist of his time.

As a boy already, at Dr. Barrow's academy in Soho, he had attracted notice by his humorous sketches of his fellow pupils; and in his sixteenth year he went to Paris at the invitation of his aunt, a Mlle. Chatelier, with the object of pursuing art study in that city. He had already been admitted as a student in the Royal Academy; and his life studies in Paris are said to have possessed great merit. Paris itself at this time (about 1772-4), with Louis XV. still on the throne, must have been very fascinating to the young English lad, living with a relative who treated him with affection and generosity, in the first consciousness too of his genius, in the midst of a most brilliant capital, and with every prospect of fortune waiting for him. These years left, without doubt, an indelible impression on his mind. Mr. Grego, an authority on this artist as well as Gillray, expresses this[12] very happily when he says: "It was the more romantic Paris of Sterne that Rowlandson first viewed, and he seems to have recognised and noted down the characteristics of the same typical personages described by 'Yorick'; their two satirical points of view were identical. It was indeed the ideal artistic centre: Fragonard, Lavrience, Eisen, St. Aubin, and the school of followers of Boucher and Lancret--elegant triflers in their way, but unequalled for dash and brilliancy--were the leading spirits as Rowlandson imbibed his first inspiration from these attractive fonts. His two years' residence in the midst of these appetising surroundings must have been the happiest of Rowlandson's career; the seeds sown amid these gayer scenes blossomed forth in later years, and influenced the artist in gradually devoting his gifts from the dull routine of portrait-painting to the indulgence of his fruitful imagination."

Whether indeed all the influence which the critic here mentions was entirely for good, is, I think myself, open to question. It is quite possible that our artist acquired at this time the taste for gambling which led him to the brink of ruin more than once in later life; and I have suggested already that had he kept to painting he might have achieved in that medium a fame far above even that which he now possesses. For on his return to London he resumed his studies at the Royal Academy Schools, and in 1775 exhibited at the Academy "Samson visited by Delilah," which he followed up by the portraits on which he was busy now in Wardour Street from 1778 to 1781. His work must have shown considerable power to be hung beside the canvases of Reynolds, Romney, and Hoppner; but at the later date of 1784 his exhibited drawings--"Vauxhall Gardens," "The Serpentine," and "An Italian Family"--show already a tendency to the lighter side of art, and between the above date and 1787 the direction of his art has changed in favour of caricature.

His imagination was as fertile as his pencil was facile. The market was easy--Fores (for whom Gillray also worked), Ackermann,[13] and others offering a ready sale for his satires; and, since we are treating of him here as a caricaturist, it is at this point that we must take his work in detail. The purely humorous prints commence as early as 1781 ("The Village Doctor," published in June of that year by Humphrey), and are followed up (November 27, same year and publisher) by "Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins," and that unpleasing subject (published by Fores, 1783) of "The Amputation"; but it is in his political cartoons of 1784--such as "Britannia roused, or the Coalition Monster destroyed"--that we begin to recognise the distinctive touch of Thomas Rowlandson. This vigorous print shows a half-draped female figure catching Charles James Fox by the ankle and Lord North by the throat; in this print he takes the same political attitude as his contemporary Gillray, whom he resembles, though far less virulently, in his anti-French prints, while he shows less marked hostility to the reigning house.

The famous Westminster election of the same year (1784) brought Rowlandson still further into political satire, in which Charles James Fox and the beautiful Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, are leading figures. In "The Devonshire, or the most approved manner of securing votes," the lovely duchess is bestowing a warm embrace on a voter, in the shape of a fat butcher, while another lady, perhaps the Duchess of Gordon, looks on approvingly with the words "Huzza! Fox for ever!" In the "Lords of the Bedchamber," Georgina, seated in her _boudoir_ beneath Reynolds' portrait of her duke, is entertaining to tea two privileged visitors, Fox and his leading supporter, Sam House--"brave, bald-headed Sam" as he was then called. The enthusiastic support which her Grace gave to Fox's candidature gave an opening which was used--often too freely--by the caricaturists. In "Wit's last stake, or the Cobbler's vote," she is seated upon Fox's knee, the while a cobbler puts a stitch into her shoe, so that she may have the excuse of pouring a handful of guineas into his wife's hand. In another print she appears neglecting the infant heir of the Cavendishes for a fox, dressed up in baby clothes; and upon Fox's triumphant return is made by the artist to carry him pick-a-back, and to stop at Mungo's Hotel for a drop of gin.

It is but fair to our Caricaturist to say that the fair Pittite champion, Lady Buckingham, is treated no less mercilessly; and that, even while he was aiming the most outrageous shafts of ridicule and innuendo at the Duchess, his pencil did justice to her extraordinary beauty and charm, both in the prints above mentioned, and in a "Procession to the Hustings after a successful Canvass," in which she leads the way in a big picture hat, and carrying a perfectly indescribable ensign with "The Man of the People" as its legend. Finally, "The Westminster Mendicant" and the "Westminster Deserter drummed out" complete this really brilliant series of election caricatures, of which I have only detailed the most interesting. In the last-named print it is "brave baldheaded" Sam House who beats the drum, while on his left is the triumphant candidate, Charles James Fox, who addresses the crowd with the time-hallowed words, "Friends and fellow citizens, I cannot find words to express my feelings, etc.," and on his right the defeated Sir Cecil Wray; while behind are the Irish chairmen who had fought (in every sense of the word) so lustily for Fox, and a procession of London maidservants, armed with mops and brooms.

In my account of this series of prints (which all fall within the dates of April and May of 1784) I shall note briefly one remaining print, "For the Benefit of the Champion," in which Fox and Lord North, in female attire, and the Duchess in her large picture hat, but _décollettée_, and with bare arms, are busy singing a dirge on the defeated opponent. Georgina, a figure of delicious sprightliness and beauty, points to the tombstone marked "Here lies poor Cecil Ray," while the spectacled profile of Burke peeps into the door. And here I may remark again how astonishingly to my own experience a study of these prints makes history real, vivid, and living. These dry bones of bygone politics become clothed with flesh; and names which we had studied with colder interest become friends, and almost intimates. Ere we leave the theme of politics, it may be noted that in the great French War Rowlandson does not come behind Gillray in his patriotic enthusiasm. A whole series of prints, from July to September 1808, was directed against Napoleon; while Nelson appears in a print of which, by the kindness of its possessor, Mr. Newman, a great collector of Nelson relics, I am able to give a plate--"Admiral Nelson recruiting with his brave tars after the glorious Battle of the Nile" (published by Ackermann, October 20, 1798); and both contemporary figures are alluded to in "Napoleon Buonaparte in a Fever on Receiving the Astounding Gazette of Nelson's Victory over the Combined Fleets" (Ackermann, November 13, 1805).

=_By Thomas Rowlandson_ NELSON RECRUITING WITH HIS BRAVE TARS AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE NILE=

But it is time for us to betake ourselves to Rowlandson's social caricatures, which after all represent the best of his life work; and I am tempted to quote--in seeking illustration of that wonderful sense of life which seems to stream upon us from his pencil--some words of my own in an earlier work, in which I had occasion to treat of this artist. "These creatures of his scenes of comedy--drawn boldly in outline with the reed pen dipped in Indian ink and vermillion, with the shadows then washed in, and the whole slightly tinted in colour--seem full-blooded, vigorous, overflowing with animal life and energy. His women above all are delicious. Rather voluptuous, perhaps, and full in form, but yet indescribably charming in their mob caps, or those big 'picture' hats that George Morland loved, in the tight sleeves and high-waisted gowns falling in long folds about their limbs--their eyes sparkling with roguery, and their whole being breathing the charm of sex."[14]

We may commence our study of his social satires here, in following to some extent the sequence of time, with "A Sketch from Nature"--published by J. R. Smith in January of 1784, and engraved by him in stipple with great beauty and finish. The subject here recalls a very similar scene in Hogarth's "Rake's Progress," for here, as there, a merry company of both sexes is engaged in riotous revel; and the wine and punch flowing freely has got into the heads, and found expression in the behaviour, of the nymphs and their attendant swains. "Money-lenders," "Councillor and Client," and "Bookseller and Author" (all 1784) are excellent character-studies of male figures: the eighteenth century evidently needed the presence of Sir Walter Besant, for the bookseller is fat, prosperous, and overbearing, the author terribly thin, poorly dressed, and looking overworked. In "The Golden Apple or the Modern Paris" (1785) the fair Georgina again appears before us with her rival beauties, the Duchesses of Rutland and Gordon:

"Here Juno Devon, all sublime,
Minerva Gordon's wit and eyes,
Sweet Rutland, Venus in her prime."

The three ladies appear before the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Fourth--the "Modern Paris" who has the difficult task of awarding the apple. The Prince re-appears in Rowlandson's famous print of "Vauxhall Gardens" (published by J. R. Smith in 1785) with a star upon his breast, where he is paying much attention to Mrs. Robinson--the lovely "Perdita," whose portrait now hangs in the Wallace Collection. The Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, Lady Duncannon, are well in the centre of the picture; Captain Topham takes in the gay scene through his glass; Doctor Johnson, in a supper box, seems deeply engaged upon his meal, though Mrs. Thrale is on his right and "Bozzy" and Goldsmith are of the party. Captain (later Colonel) Topham, the _macaroni_, man of taste and editor of _The World_, appears in another plate of 1785--as "Captain Epilogue," and as "Colonel Topham endeavouring to extinguish the Genius of Holman" (the actor); and to the same date belong "Grog on Board" and "Tea on Shore," as well as the print in colour chosen for illustration to this chapter.

"Filial Affection," as this is called, depicting a runaway trip to Gretna Green, speaks so fully for itself that it needs no further description from my pen; but I may mention here its companion print (also published by Mr. Hinton on December 15 of 1785), and called "The Reconciliation, or The Return from Scotland," in which the pair of fugitives--whom we have just seen presenting their horse pistols at the parental _poursuivant_--have now returned, all penitence and submission, and have won their forgiveness. A very curious and somewhat grisly adaptation of "Filial Affection" is reproduced by Messrs. Bell, to illustrate the article upon Rowlandson in their new and valuable edition of _Bryan's Dictionary_. It is a plate from _The Dance of Death_, an illustrated volume published by Ackermann in 1815, and resembles the earlier print--save that the figure behind the angry parent is a skeleton rider mounted on a skeleton steed. At this point, in touching these two periods (of 1785 and 1815) we may note how far fresher and more spontaneous is the figure-work in that rich period from 1785 onwards. Rowlandson had gained, perhaps, in what we may call his "Dr. Syntax period," in the treatment of landscape perspective or the massing of crowds, but had become more of the caricaturist, had lost the rich organic beauty which really irradiates some of his earlier prints.

=FILIAL AFFECTION. By Thomas Rowlandson.=

A print in colour from my own collection, published by Fores only sixteen days earlier (November 30, 1785) than "Filial Affection," may help here to illustrate my meaning. "Intrusion on Study" or "The Painter Disturbed," shows a very charming model, attired in nothing but the prettiest of mob caps, posing for some goddess on the canvas of the artist, who turns to wave his palette and brushes--a most effective weapon of defence--in the faces of two unwelcome visitors of his own sex, who have just broken in open-mouthed upon his study. The details of the studio, the expressive faces of the artist and his visitors (especially the second), are in Rowlandson's best mood; but what is more interesting, because more exceptional, is the exquisite feeling of line, as subtle as anything Beardsley has recorded, in the girl's recumbent figure--in the flow of the shoulder into the right arm, and in the sweep of the right hip, and faultless drawing of the right hand--which touches a note of purely plastic beauty entirely beyond the reach of either Hogarth or Gillray.

Joseph Grego says of our artist very justly: "Rowlandson's sense of feminine loveliness, of irresistible graces of face expression and attitude, was unequalled in its way; several of his female portraits have been mistaken for sketches by Gainsborough or Morland, and as such, it is possible, since the caricaturist is so little known in this branch, that many continue to pass current."[15] An engraving which came into my own hands, some years ago, of three young girls by Rowlandson, might be an exact illustration of these words, and as the above writer says, be a portrait group by Gainsborough or Hoppner--so refined and yet so masterly was the treatment. I alluded to this print with others, when speaking of Rowlandson as what might be here called a "feminist" in my study of Bartolozzi and his contemporaries, and found illustration there of this peculiarly charming type of his women in "Luxury" (typified, for this artist, by breakfast in bed), "House Breakers," "The Inn Yard on Fire" (where the ladies are making a very impromptu exit), in the lovely model of "The Artist Disturbed," and (for women of fashion) in the series (twelve prints in all) of the "Comforts of Bath."

I mention there, too, that delightful print of "Lady Hamilton at Home," where poor Sir William (whom the caricaturists never neglected) is suffering from an acute attack of gout, while "the lovely Emma, in very classic garb, is watering a flower-pot, and Miss Cornelia Knight, also dressed after the antique, touches the strings of a lyre, and warbles poems of her own composition." In treating, however, of Rowlandson's women, other prints, such as "Tastes Differ," "Opera Boxes," "Harmony," "A Nap in Town," and "In the Country," "Interruption, or Inconvenience of a Lodging House" (published April 1789), and "Damp Sheets" (August 1791), have a strong claim on our notice. Nor must I entirely neglect here Rowlandson's print called "Preparation for the Academy, or Old Joseph Nollekens and his Venus" (1800). It is perhaps the Miss Coleman here upon the model-stand who nearly caused a domestic breach between old Nollekens and his jealous spouse--the group on which he is at work being his "Venus Chiding Cupid," which was modelled for Lord Yarborough. _The Life of the Sculptor Nollekens_, by his pupil John Thomas Smith, contains some amusing contemporary gossip. He describes the sculptor much as we see him in this plate--his figure short, his head big, his shoulders narrow, his body too large. His worthy better half held strong opinions upon the sculptor's models--"abandoned hussies, with whom she had no patience"; and Miss Coleman having ventured to visit the scene of her early labours in a carriage and pair, the wrath of the virtuous Mrs. Nollekens became unbounded. Words indeed (perhaps a rare defect with the good lady) seem to have failed her at this crisis; in a later interview with Joseph they were not wanting.

=_By Thomas Rowlandson_ A BALL AT THE HACKNEY ASSEMBLY ROOMS (REMEMBER THE GRACES!)=

But here I would also point out that not only was our caricaturist an unequalled illustrator of lovely woman (and as such makes us often regret that the becoming mob cap has disappeared from use), but also a magnificent landscape artist. I came to notice this especially last year in a very interesting exhibition of Rowlandson's drawings at the Leicester Gallery in London. "A Country Fête," a "Village Scene with Bridge," and the "Promenade on Richmond Hill," were good examples of his delightful handling of English landscape. The last of these formed part of a very interesting set of the artist's original drawings, which were not exhibited, but which I was able to study by kind permission. "Greenwich Park" was among these drawings, with merrymakers racing and tumbling down the hill, and a delicious perspective of the park and hospital; a "Review of Guards in Hyde Park," where, upon the soldiers firing, two of the spectators' horses have bolted into the crowd; the charming drawing in pencil and colour work of two girls called "The Sirens;" rustic scenes such as "Eel Pie Island at Richmond," "Playing Quoits," and a "Rustic Maid Crossing a Stile," to her sweetheart's admiration; such echoes too of war as the crowd cheering the great battleships at Portsmouth, or the print of "Invaders Repulsed," where British troops are seen driving out the French invaders.

Drawn most delicately in pencil with a wash of pure colour, these drawings bring us nearer to the feeling of the artist than even his prints, and it was interesting to compare "Greenwich Hill" in the print and drawing, and to see how much the transcript had lost. Yet seen by themselves the prints were interesting and characteristic. "A Visit to the Uncle" and "to the Aunt," "Travelling in France, 1790"--a signed work showing a large clumsy diligence, which the artist is sketching--"Angelo's Fencing Room," full of contemporary portraits, "The Pleasure of the Country," where fine ladies struggling through the mud find a litter of piglets rushing in among their skirts, were among the best of these, while a print of "Girls Dressing for the Masquerade," and the "Dutch Academy," with a fat model posing before solid Dutchmen, were among those not infrequent prints of our artist whose satire comes near--if not over--the confines of good taste.

=_By Thomas Rowlandson_ A THEATRICAL CANDIDATE=

Some clever prints of Dr. Syntax himself were here--a subject this which, published by Ackermann under the title of a "Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of the Picturesque" in 1809, was republished in 1812, and occupied the artist in various developments during his later life. To the same period of Rowlandson's career belonged "The Microcosm of London" (1808), "A Mad Dog in a Coffee House" (1809), and "In a Dining Room" (1809), the print called "Exhibition Stare-case, Somerset House" (1811)--where the visitors of both sexes are tumbling headlong downstairs, the extraordinary cleverness of drawing scarcely compensating for the doubtful taste of the subject; and later followed "The World in Miniature" (1816), "Richardson's Show," "The English Dance of Death" (1814-16), and "Dance of Life" (1817), which leads on to the later "Tour of Dr. Syntax in search of Consolation" (1820), and (1821) "In search of a Wife." Although Fores of Piccadilly seems to have published many of our artist's prints during the last years of the eighteenth century, throughout his whole career Rudolph Ackermann remained his constant friend; to the suggestion of this latter was due the idea of a monthly publication, which gave Rowlandson regular employment in his later years, and resulted in the series of prints which I have just detailed, among which the quaint, angular form of Dr. Syntax, with his thin legs, black coat and breeches, and hooked nose, claims a prominent place.

These subjects lead us already into the early nineteenth century, and, as doing so, fall outside our present limit; but Rowlandson himself belongs in his art, as much as Bunbury or Gillray, to the earlier age. An artist of extraordinary genius, we have it on record that two successive Presidents of the Academy in his day, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Benjamin West, in expressing their admiration of his drawings, added their opinion that, had he chosen a higher branch of art, he might have stood in the forefront of English contemporary painting. Instead of this he preferred to devote his genius and his best years to caricature, and in doing so, has bequeathed to us a rich and most precious heritage.