The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature Part 3

(1796), and "A Fashionable Mamma" come into this cla.s.s, 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 Att.i.tudes_, with scarcely academic ill.u.s.trations, 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 c.o.c.ked 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 a.s.sisted by John Kemble and the famous Mrs. Siddons, in "Blowing up the Pic Nics." To the same cla.s.s 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 "c.o.c.kney 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 s.p.a.ce 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 mult.i.tudinous 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 surpa.s.ses 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 Mult.i.tude 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 att.i.tude 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, d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, are leading figures. In "The Devonshire, or the most approved manner of securing votes," the lovely d.u.c.h.ess is bestowing a warm embrace on a voter, in the shape of a fat butcher, while another lady, perhaps the d.u.c.h.ess 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 st.i.tch 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 Pitt.i.te 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 Canva.s.s," 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 l.u.s.tily 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 d.u.c.h.ess in her large picture hat, but _decollettee_, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 s.e.x."[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 s.e.xes 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 d.u.c.h.esses 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 d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire and her sister, Lady Duncannon, are well in the centre of the picture; Captain Topham takes in the gay scene through his gla.s.s; 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 Sh.o.r.e," as well as the print in colour chosen for ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.trate the article upon Rowlandson in their new and valuable edition of _Bryan's Dictionary_. It is a plate from _The Dance of Death_, an ill.u.s.trated 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 ma.s.sing 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 G.o.ddess 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 s.e.x, 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 rec.u.mbent 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 att.i.tude, 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 pa.s.s current."[15] An engraving which came into my own hands, some years ago, of three young girls by Rowlandson, might be an exact ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 cla.s.sic 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 a.s.sEMBLY ROOMS (REMEMBER THE GRACES!)=

But here I would also point out that not only was our caricaturist an unequalled ill.u.s.trator 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 Fete," 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 t.i.tle 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 s.e.xes 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.