Early British Caricature

EARLY BRITISH CARICATURE 17th and Early 18th Century.—The catalogue of satirical prints in the British Museum, compiled by F. G. Stephens, is un fortunately only carried down to the year 177o. Its contents, numbering over 4,00o items, with copious notes, are an indispensa ble commentary on the history of the period they cover, and a veritable museum of literary and social curiosities. In his preface to the second volume Stephens emphasizes the importance at tached to political satire in the time of William III., when Romeyn de Hooghe and his school were producing print after print directed against Louis XIV. One of the most famous of these was "The Reported Death of William III.," occasioned by the public rejoicings in Paris over the false news of Wil liam having been shot in 169o. Of this there were four editions, two of them made in Paris, in order to show the "folies extrava gantes" of those who produced the original; and in a later print, "Pantagruel agonisant," one of the most elaborate and inter esting satires connected with the history of England, the "Re ported Death" is introduced as an accessory to the mortifica tion of the French king. These prints continued into the next reign, another effective piece being "Vacarme au Trianon," occa sioned by the battle of Ramillies.

British royalties had, up to this time, escaped personal attack in prints, but with the advent of the house of Hanover any restraint in that direction soon melted away. As Stephens observed in commenting on a print entitled "Aeneas in a Storm," not only is George I. hinted at without much respect, but the personal habits of his successor are vividly described, and his peculiar practice of kicking hats, if not larger and living objects, is laughed at. "The Festival of the Golden Rump" deals vigor ously with this subject, and has wider bearings of very great importance, social as well as political and personal ; it shows that royalty had become an object of stage satire, and indicates the parliamentary origin of the restraints on theatrical representa tions which were then newly imposed, and have been maintained.

Hogarth, whose period of activity coincides almost exactly with the reigns of the first two Georges, stands alone in the history of caricature. Champfleury calls him "le premier roi" and "le veritable pere de la caricature," while Fielding, as we shall see, distinguishes his "comic painting" from caricature, as, save for a few notable examples, he was quite right in doing. Hogarth rarely availed himself of personalities in his satires, and the iden tification of any of his characters with actual people must be taken with the greatest reserve. Nor did he, as a rule, take any partic ular event as a subject, looking much more widely over the whole range of human frailties, and selecting and staging them like a theatrical manager. Hogarth's great serial works were "not of an age, but for all time," whereas the satirical prints of the 18th century are merely squibs which light up some ephemeral extrava gance or political brawl, brightly enough, but without any perma nent illumination of the world's stage.

By the time George III. had ascended the throne the issue of satirical prints had become a regular institution. As already men tioned, a new species now first appeared, invented by George Townshend; they were caricatures on cards. The original one, which had an amazing success, was of Newcastle and Fox looking at each other, and crying, with Peachum in The Beggar's Opera, "Brother, brother, we are both in the wrong." Another of Town shend's masterpieces, published in 1762, was "The Scotch Hurdy Gurdy or The Musical Boot," signed "D. Rhezzio inv., G. Oh! Garth scratchavit." Further activities against Bute are reflected in another advertisement of a Political and Satirical History.

Stephens claims rather too much for Townshend in saying that he may fairly be styled the inventor of the most modern form of artistic satire, but it may be allowed that he raised the tone of it, and that his skill, though often mercilessly employed and subject to political passion, was not disgraced by the unscru pulous frankness and licence of some of his predecessors or successors.

Later 18th Century Caricature.

In his fourth volume, which deals with the years 1761-7o, Stephens writes that a very striking attestation of the growing importance of artistic satire which, by this time, was partly personal, partly political, is afforded by the fact that many magazines, illustrated by satirical prints, were published during this period. Previous to this date such work could hardly be said to exist. These publications were essentially arsenals of satirical weapons of which the cuts enrich ing them were the most efficient. The London Museum was one of the more prominent. The Political Register supplied a consid erable number of satirical prints, notably one of Bute as Colossus with Pitt between his feet (1767). The Oxford Magazine was enriched by a series of very cleverly designed prints such as "The Siege of Warwick Castle," a satire on physicians (1768) and "The Rape of the Petti-coat." Even the decorous Gentlemen's Magazine, which in 1746 had published a version of Hogarth's portrait of Lord Lovat, issued among its few illustrations with figures the satirical print of "John Wilkes Esq. before the Court of King's Bench." The Universal Museum printed "The Present State of Surgery or Modern Practice" (1769). The Town and Country Magazine, the most prolific of satire-bearing works, had numerous illustrations, many of which were directed against men of note, and women of ill-fame. The former were nearly all politicians opposed to the popular leaders, and these prints may fairly be called the arrows of their party directed against the king and his court. These weapons showed that the dignified and honourable modes of English political warfare had given place to a coarser and meaner system of attack; the Town and Country Magazine spared neither the public nor the private lives of the courtiers, and their wives and daughters, living and dead, chaste or unchaste, had no more mercy at the hands of the satirists than was vouchsafed to their mistresses or the harlotry of the stage and opera. The common object of attack in these cases was that order of society which hung like a fringe about the court, and of which the most extravagant front comprised those "maca ronies" whose vagaries occupied the Universal Magazine and other publications.

If Stephens could say as much as this of social satire down to 177o, one wonders how he would have expressed himself had he continued till the end of the century, the last quarter of which was enriched by a steadily growing production of caricatures of every sort, and not always of the nicest. But the establishment of the Royal Academy had certainly raised both the quantity and the standard of artistic work in Great Britain, and until the Regency there is much more in the comic part of it to be praised than blamed. Gillray and Rowlandson, in the work of their early prime, had no rival but each other, though the field was a large one, and included such men as Henry William Bunbury, Paul Sandby, P. J. de Loutherbourg, James Sayer, John Raphael Smith, James Hamilton Mortimer and others less known but hardly less worthy. The demand for caricatures continued to increase, and on some of the prints issued by S. W. Fores—the founder of the still extant firm in Piccadilly—it was advertised that folios of carica tures were lent out for the evening, and that his gallery might be inspected for one shilling. The range of subjects also increased, and while politics continued to take first place, social subjects became much more numerous and more absurd. Rowlandson drew every class of society, in every sort of occupation, and as there was little or no "mixture" of the social classes in his time, his variety is enormous.

Disappearance of the 18th Century School.

By the end of the i 8th century the rose had become somewhat overblown, and during the first quarter of the 19th, caricature sank into ex ceeding coarseness. The artistic reputation of its two gifted ex ponents, Rowlandson and Gillray, has suffered irreparable dam age from the atrocious and often revolting quality both of their subjects and their interpretation of them; it is only in recent years that the former has been recognized from his immense output of beautiful drawings as one of our finest artists, while the latter, surviving only in his caricature prints, has still to wait for a recognition of his true powers which were so grossly employed in disgusting satire. Isaac Cruikshank, who with his still more gifted son, George, forms a link between the older order and what was to come, was never offensively coarse, though like Newton, Heath and one or two more, he was too fond of being funny to have much regard to artistic excellence. The extrava gances of this school may be excused to some extent by the op portunities offered them in the ridiculous fashions, both sartorial and social, of their time, and they may very possibly be more ap preciated in time to come than they are at the moment.