"... Whose pictur'd morals charm the mind,And through the eye correct the heart.If genius fire thee, reader, stay;If nature touch thee, drop a tear;If neither move thee, turn away,For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here."
In the work of Henry William Bunbury we strike an entirely different note to that of the artist we have just studied. The contrast is, in its way, refreshing as well as instructive. Just as Hogarth appears (b. 1698) at almost the first years of the eighteenth century, so Bunbury dates (b. 1750) from exactly its dividing year; therefore he belongs no longer to those days of Swift and Bolingbroke and Walpole, of Jacobite intrigue and Hanoverian power, but to the period of the American war, and those ominous thunderclouds preceding the French Revolution.
Again, just as William Hogarth belongs entirely to the people, and shares profoundly both their best and worst qualities, so the artist we are now considering belongs no less definitely to the aristocraticclass—is a member of a Suffolk family which dated its English origin to the Conquest, which had gained its knighthood from Queen Elizabeth, and its baronetcy from the Merry Monarch; and had himself in his younger days made the "grand tour" of France and Italy, and later held a commission in his Majesty's Militia, and the post of equerry to the Duke of York.
"Something of the amateur"—I have written elsewhere[4]—"remains through all the work of Bunbury, who left politics practically out of his field of subjects, and whose social qualities were one of his greatest charms. He married Catherine Horneck, whose sister Mary had been painted—and, it is said, proposed to—by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had elsewhere painted these two pretty women together; and when he settled in the country with his young wife, his circle of friends came to include Oliver Goldsmith, the actor Garrick, Hoppner, and Sir Joshua—the latter being godfather to his second son, Henry, and painting his eldest as Master Bunbury in 1781—and last, but not least, Dr. Samuel Johnson." The great Doctor had in factpresented to the young couple their family Bible—a fact which is recorded upon the fly-leaf in our artist's own handwriting. Of the two sons that were born to Henry and Catherine Bunbury, their special hopes seem to have centred on the eldest, Charles John, the lovely child for whom Sir Joshua himself had improvised fairy tales to keep him amused while busy on his portrait; but those hopes were not fulfilled, for his manhood did not bear out the promise of his schooldays, and he died comparatively early.
Bunbury's caricatures commence as early as his foreign tour, though some of the best refer to his later military life in England; especially to the time when he was in camp at Coxheath, during the troubled days of the American War. For we have now left far behind the days of Swift and Bolingbroke and Oxford, of Marlborough's battles, and of the great political settlement which marked the Hanoverian succession. Dettingen and Fontenoy are now old soldiers' tales, and the invasion of England by Charles Stuart, the younger Pretender—in which connection we may remember Hogarth's print of the march of the Guards to Finchley—lies equally behind us: we have passed through the longMinistry of Walpole and that of the elder Pitt, we have seen the war with France, and been stirred by Wolfe's victory and heroic death upon the Heights of Abraham. In a word, we have turned the corner with the year of our artist's birth, and are going downwards into the latter half of the eighteenth century.
George III. has now taken his father's place upon the throne of England: the Tories have returned again to be a power in political life as in the days of Bolingbroke, and against the "King's friends," the party subservient to Court influence, there appears in the nation a very strong democratic movement with John Wilkes as its leader and idol. Meanwhile the fatal policy of Grenville had led to the alienation of the great American colonies, and the passing of the Stamp Act in 1765 brought a complete rupture. But this phase of politics enters but little into our present subject. It is of more interest to inquire, apart from this complex turbulent world of home or foreign politics, what were the people themselves in their home life, their outdoor life, their tastes, aspirations, sympathies, social surroundings? I think we shall get an answer to some of these questions—an answer none the lessvaluable because it comes to us indirectly—from the study of Henry William Bunbury's social caricatures. These appear to commence with (or are in some special cases even earlier than) his Grand Tour. The delightful "Courier François"—published by Bretherton at 134 New Bond St.—belongs surely to this period; and Thomas Wright, in his valuable "History of Caricature,"[5] seems to bear this out when he says of Bunbury that his earlier prints were etched and sold by James Bretherton, who published also the works of James Sayer—an artist whom we shall meet in our next chapter. In this print the "Courier" cracks a long whip as he covers the ground, mounted upon a steed almost as long, as tough and wiry-looking as himself. A short sword is at his side, and he wears enormous jack-boots. In the distance rise peaked mountains, perhaps those of Southern France or Savoy; and the inn to which he seems bound bears the legend,Poste Royale, with the threefleur-de-lys. Our Courier belongs evidently to theancien règime, and might indeed have stepped—or galloped—to us out of Sterne's "Sentimental Journey." The drawing ofthese prints is clumsy and coarse in technique, though full of character; and, in fact, Bunbury, who seems to have begun to publish as early as 1771,[6] when he was only twenty-one years of age, had little knowledge or skill in engraving, and seems, after some preliminary efforts which were not very successful, to have entrusted the most of his work to be engraved by other hands. Thus James Bretherton, who was an engraver as well as a publisher, was engaged on Bunbury's prints from 1772 onwards; though later we shall find Rowlandson working as an engraver on Bunbury's humorous sketches, and necessarily, from his strong individuality, imparting to them much of his own character.
The pendant to the print just described is the "Courrier Anglois," and this was in fact both engraved and published by Bretherton in 1774 (it bears the inscription,H. W. Bunbury, delineavit; J. Bretherton, fecit). In fine contrast to the hurry of the lean Frenchman his English counterpart amblesleisurely along, as if time were for him a matter of entire indifference; his horse is loaded with a heavy pack, against which the rider comfortably leans, while he puts a long horn to his lips. He has no sword, or any weapon of defence; but the two grisly figures by the roadside dangling on a gibbet, and his own inimitable expression of contented ease, seem to imply that travelling is secure for him, and Justice prompt and keen-eyed.
To this period of the Grand Tour belong also, in my judgment, the "Tour to Foreign Parts" (drawn by Bunbury, engraved by Bretherton, published in 1799 by J. Harris of Cornhill), the "Cuisine de la Poste," or "The Kitchen of a French Post House" (H. Bunbury, invt., published 1771 by Harris), "The Englishman at Paris," 1767, the earliest in date of these (Mr. Bunbury, del.; Js. Bretherton, fecit, published 1799 by J. Harris), and lastly the "View on the Pont Neuf at Paris" (H. W. Bunbury, invt.The engraver's name, in my example, is cut). These prints are as precious in their detailed evidence of costume and methods of life as they are amusing. They are snapshots caught—not with a camera, but with an eye and pencil which were almost as quick—of the life ofthat old monarchic France as it was seen by the English traveller, posting along the great high-roads, or taking his walk through the town. Soon, very soon, all that life was to be swept away in the hurricane of political passion, never in any of its quainter features to return; that is why these jottings of our artist are to the student of this period so inestimably precious.
Our travellers, three in number, and evidently portrayed from the life, have just descended ("A Tour in Foreign Parts") from the two-horse chaise, which the postilion is driving into the yard. The smallest of the three Englishmen, with "Chesterfield's Letters" under his arm, approaches the obsequious host of the "Poste Royale" with a conciliatory smile; the while the landlady is engaged in an assault upon her hen-roost, and the servant-girl seems to aim at a similar result with the domestic cats.
And now ("La Cuisine de la Poste") we are introduced to the interior. Thepot-au-feuhangs in the great chimney over the blazing logs; the village gossips are there—the postilion in his clumsy jack-boots, the housewife, and the curé with a friend sipping his glass of red wine—and on the wallsLouis le bien-aimé, with baton and perruque, is balanced bySanctus Paulus, with a sword much bigger than himself, or by the "Ordonnances de Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul, Grand Maître des Postes et Relais de France." Or, again, our travellers have arrived at last in the great city ("Englishman at Paris"), and take their walk in the streets ofLa Ville Lumiére. A fat monk and a thin peasant seem both to regard our tourist with astonishment; a dandy of the period is driving his chariot with a lackey hanging on behind, and the indispensableperruquieris hurrying to an appointment. Or—in its way most curious of all—we see the Pont Neuf of those old days, with the costumes and characters which then thronged its thoroughfare. Huge muffs seem to have been then the fashion, often combined in use with umbrellas, such as we now should call Japanese sunshades; theperruquierhere, too, must have his muff, though both hands are filled with the shaving-pot and curling tongs; the trim abbé in his short cassock, even the truculent-looking postilion are all provided. In the corner a poodle is being clipped, just as we may see to-day beside the Seine, and is loudly vociferating his complaints; and, above all, we see the quaint ensignof the trade, which combined the shoeblack's lower art with that of the dog-barber.
Aux Quarante LionsSt. LouisDécrotte à l'Anglaiseet Tond des ChiensProprementAllons, Messeigneurs, Allons.
We must turn now to our artist's later prints of English eighteenth-century social life, which are as full of humorous observation, even though they have not the special interest of these notes on old France. For, like Collet and Sandby, his predecessors in English caricature, Bunbury gave but little attention to political caricature. Sandby belongs almost (b. 1725) to the later years of Hogarth's ascendency; and, though not a professional caricaturist, being perhaps annoyed at that artist's depreciation of other painters, many of his caricatures are directed against Hogarth himself. But Sandby's best claim to our interest lies outside our present subject; for his landscape work in steel engraving, in aquatint and oil-colour, had led him up to the discovery of the beauty and interest ofwater-colour painting, in which art he may claim to be a pioneer. He outlived John Collet, who had been born in the same year (1725) as himself, and is said to have been a pupil of Hogarth, though Lambert, a landscape-painter, is mentioned as giving him his first instructions. Certainly there is something which recalls Hogarth in his drawings, which deal, as I have said, with social satire rather than politics. "A Disaster" treats of a lady who has lost both hat and wig together by the same gust of wind; her footman behind has caught one of these in each hand, and the rustics, who have preserved nature's covering, laugh at her plight. Collet's picture of "Father Paul in his Cups, or The Private Devotions of a Convent," was one of a series by our artist intended to illustrate Sheridan's comedy of "The Duenna," produced in 1775. This was close upon the period of Lord Gordon's riots (1780), and the "No Popery" feeling which then prevailed finds illustration in this work of Collet's. Like Sandby, he worked also in water-colour, and two of his sketches in this medium are mentioned by Bryan as in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
We have now returned with Bunbury from his "grand tour" abroad, and have to study him at hisbest in his sketches of English social life in town and country. He was probably himself a good horseman, and at any rate understood, as thoroughly as even Caran d'Ache himself, the humorous side of the equestrian art. A whole series of his smaller prints deal with the rider and his steed. "How to pass a carriage," "How to lose your way," "How to travel on two legs in a frost," are among the best of these. Another clever print shows the rider of a pulling animal with a mouth of cast-iron just clearing an old woman's barrow; while among the larger prints we have "Richmond Hill," "Hyde Park," "Coxheath Ho," and "Warley Ho," and his inimitable print of a "Riding House," published by Bretherton in 1780.
Bunbury's caricatures of military subjects naturally connect themselves with the period when he was actively connected with the Suffolk County Militia, more especially when, in 1778, he was in camp at Coxheath at the time of the war in America.
"Recruits,"of which I give an illustration, may be included among these, as well as the "Militia Meeting" and "The Deserter," while "A Visit to the Camp" and "A Camp Scene" belong to thesame class of subject. The characterisation of"Recruits"is excellent, from the smart young officer to the rustic awkwardness of the two recruits, and the more dangerous self-approval of the third; behind we see a chawbacon grinning at the scene, beneath the portentous sign of "The Old Fortune," with its painting of a wooden-legged and armless veteran. "A Visit to the Camp" gives just such a scene—save that the characters are in eighteenth-century costume—as might be witnessed even to-day, when parents, aunts and cousins visit their young hopeful amid the martial surroundings of his volunteer camp; and here, too, may be mentioned a series of single figures in military costume—a "Life-guardsman," "Light Infantryman," "Light-horseman" and a "Foot-soldier." These were all published by Macklin. The foot-soldier's uniform appears in"Recruits"; the handsome uniform of the Light-horseman, with its plumed helmet and high boots, in "A Visit to the Camp," and again in "The Deserter."
While Bunbury was thus occupied with his military career his wife, whom he had left in lodgings in Pall Mall, gave him their second son, to whom Sir Joshua Reynolds stood godfather. Is ittoo much to suggest that this latter is the artist caricatured in that delightful "Family Piece," of which I also hope to give an illustration; and which may have been suggested to our artist by the scene in his friend Oliver Goldsmith's masterpiece, "The Vicar of Wakefield"?
To the next period of Bunbury's life—when war's alarms were over and the camp at Coxheath broken up—belong many of his best prints of English country life. He was living now in Suffolk, and his print of the "Country Club" is said to have depicted to the life an institution of that nature in quiet old Bury St. Edmunds; while "Conversazione" and the "Sulky Club" display the social efforts of the period, and his famous "Barber's Shop," which Knight engraved in 1783, comes into this part of his career.
The Family PieceBy H. W. BunburyTHE FAMILY PIECE
To his visits to the West of England and North Wales about this time we owe some charming sketches—the two "Wynnstay Theatre Tickets," for instance, dating from some visit to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn when theatricals were in the air at Wynnstay, and that lovely print of "The Modern Graces," drawn, it is said, from the three beautiful Misses Shakespere during the stay of our artist atAston; while those two prints of "Peasants from the Vale of Llangollen" hint at some pleasant ramble in the Welsh hills. Bunbury excelled, in fact, in a class of subject which does not strictly fall within our notice, since we are treating him here as a caricaturist, but which must by no means be neglected by those who appreciate his work.
These are what may be characterised as fancy sketches, which are often, in his hand, singularly graceful and charming in treatment and conception. "The Song," "The Dance," and "Morning Employments" may be mentioned especially among these, all these three having been entrusted to the graver of the famous Bartolozzi. Indeed, in writing of Bartolozzi,[7] I found it impossible to leave Bunbury out of my subject, and said of this artist: "He supplied the engraver with some charming drawings, mostly of English girls in simple country dress—such as the 'Sophia and Olivia,' drawn for Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' where one of the girls touches a guitar and the other holds a roll of music; or, again, that very lovely print, a copy of which is in the Victoria and Albert collection, where three young girls dancehand in hand to the strain which a country lad seated near them is piping. 'The Song,'" I added, "a pendant to this, is no less charming."
"Love and Honour" is another of Bartolozzi's prints from Bunbury, representing a Light-Cavalry soldier taking leave of a pretty country girl, and bearing the legend:
"Hark! the drum commandsHonour! I attend thee!Love, I kiss thy hands!"
"Lucy of Leinster" and "Bothwell's Lament," it may be noted, are by the same engraver. Apart from its own beauty the engraving of "The Dance" is of especial interest, since the three figures dancing are said to be taken from those famous beauties of the time, the Misses Gunning; and in his "Love and Hope," "Love and Jealousy," and a "Tale of Love," which Bartolozzi's pupil, J. K. Sherwin, engraved for him, he follows with success the same class of subject. It is the sentimental charm, which streams from the fair Angelica Kauffman's pencil and kept busy the best engravers of the time, notably Bartolozzi, Ryland, Sherwin, and Tomkins, which here attracts the soldier andcaricaturist, who was also the devoted lover and husband; and in these prints, though the initiative and conception is certainly our artist's, it is difficult to know how much we may not owe to the practised hand of such an engraver as Francesco Bartolozzi.
But certainly this side of art was treated by Henry Bunbury freely, and with marked success, and the list would be a long one if we were to attempt to chronicle all. "Edwin and Ethelinda," "Black-eyed Susan," "Auld Robin Gray" (a charming colour-print, also engraved by Bartolozzi), "Adelaide in the Garden" (by the same engraver), the charming "Songstress," "Charlotte and Werther's meeting," "Margaret's Tomb," "The Girl of Snowdon," "The Girl of Modena," "Marianna," "Cicely," and that sweet "Country Maid" engraved by J. R. Smith in 1782, and whose legend tells us:
"No care but Love can discompose her breast,Love of all cares the sweetest and the best."
His illustrations to Macklin's Shakespeare come nearer to our subject proper, and here we have the whole Falstaff episode very fully and very humourously illustrated; while Launce and his dog, whomhe "would have to behave as a dog at all things," may be compared in our artist's treatment of canine life with his "Black George," the Suffolk gamekeeper.
Was it, we may here ask, in returning to the story of our artist's life, that fatal quality, the artistic temperament, or was it his charming social qualities, his frequent visits to great houses and corresponding expenses, which had brought Henry Bunbury at this time into financial difficulties?
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 minuitQuid 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 inFliegende Blätter, which Caran d'Ache has used with success in France, and whichPick-Me-Up, when it was under the able direction of Mr. Leslie Willson, scored many a good point with.
A Fashionable SalutationBy H. W. BunburyA FASHIONABLE SALUTATION
Lord DerbyLORD DERBYTo 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 themise-en-scènefor 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!" Tothe 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.
"Patience in a Punt," one of our artist's best-known prints, was engraved by Rowlandson, andhas 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 outsideof 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"LUMPS OF DELIGHT"BY H. W. BUNBURY
Lumps of Pudding"LUMPS OF PUDDING"BY H. W. BUNBURY
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 ofthe 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 succeededthem at the head of the Cabinet, Pitt being Chancellor of the Exchequer—with others of his Ministerial colleagues above ...
... "the gateWith dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;The world was all before them, where to chooseTheir 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" theirbarn 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 Frenchand 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 oneCoalition 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 ofSugar" (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 desertedand 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 suddenlylaunched 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 crownthrown in as anentremet. 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.
The Jacobin DrummerTHE JACOBIN DRUMMERWe 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 ForcibleReasons 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).
Britannia between Death and the DoctorsBy James GillrayBRITANNIA BETWEEN DEATH AND THE DOCTORS
In the year following (1798) the form of Nelsonmakes 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 verydécolletéesand ringleted maids-of-honour waiting in service on them, sees with dilated eyes on the wall the warning of his doom.