English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. Graham Everitt

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СКАЧАТЬ a caricature published by Walker in 1808, we see Joseph Bonaparte (one of these Imperial ginger-bread monarchs) driven from Madrid by Spanish flies; the satire is entitled Spanish Flies, or Boney taking an Immoderate Dose, and has reference to the results of the Battle of Baylen, in Andalusia, one of the very few victories Battle of Baylen. ever obtained by the Spaniards against the French, where a division of 14,000 men surrendered to Castanos. This was on the 20th of July, and nine days afterwards Joseph retreated to Burgos with the crown jewels. The wretched Spaniards, however, were incapable of improving their victory; and General Castanos instead of following up the retreating enemy, went to Seville to fulfil a vow he had made of dedicating his unexpected victory to St. Ferdinand, on whose tomb he deposited the crown of laurel presented to him by his grateful countrymen. Of the Bonaparte caricatures of this year, no less than nineteen are due to the pencil of Thomas Rowlandson, and will be found fully described in Mr. Joseph Grego’s exhaustive work13 upon that artist and his works.

THE KING OF BROBDINGNAG AND GULLIVER.
TALLEYRAND, KING-AT-ARMS, BEARING HIS MASTER’S GENEALOGICAL TREE, SPRINGING FROM BUONE, BUTCHER.	NAPOLEON IN HIS CORONATION ROBES.
FIGURES FROM GILLRAY’S NAPOLEONIC CARICATURES. [Face p. 20.

      The year 1809 witnessed the divorce from Josephine, and the marriage of the emperor to Marie Louise. The purposes for which this matrimonial alliance was effected were made no secret of by the emperor, and were indicated of course in the plainest possible terms by the English contemporary caricaturists, who were certainly not troubled with any unnecessary scruples of prudery or delicacy. One of these satires, published by Tegg, on the 16th of August, 1810, is entitled Boney and his New Wife, or a Quarrel about Nothing, and indicates in the plainest possible terms that the purposes for which the divorce had been effected were as distant as ever. The result of this union, however, was the birth of the young king of Rome on the 20th of March, 1810, an event which set the pencils of our pictorial satirists once more in motion, and the young heir and his father were complimented by Rowlandson in a rough caricature, published by Tegg on the 9th of April, 1811, as Boney the Second, the little Babboon [sic] created to devour French Monkies.

      In March, 1811, was fought the battle of Barossa; while the Battle of Barossa. same month Massena, finding it difficult to maintain his army in a devastated country, instead of fulfilling his vain-glorious boast of driving “the English into their native element,” began his own retreat from Santarem, abandoning part of his baggage and heavy artillery. Marching in a solid mass, his rear protected by one or two divisions, he retired towards the Mondego, preserving his army from any great serious disaster, though watchfully and vigorously pursued by Lord Wellington. The skilful generalship of the French marshal elicited of course no encomiums from the English caricaturists. On the contrary, we see (in “The Scourge” of 1st May, 1811) Wellington in the act of basting a French goose before a huge fire, a British bayonet forming the spit. While basting the goose with one hand, the English general holds over the fire in the other a frying-pan filled with French generals, some of whom—to escape the overpowering heat—are leaping into the fire; another British officer (probably intended for General Graham) blows the flames with a pair of bellows labelled “British bravery.” Napoleon appears in a stew-pan over an adjoining boiler, while we find Marshal Massena himself in a pickle-jar below. This satire is entitled, British Cookery, or Out of the Frying-pan into the Fire.

      

      The star of Napoleon was beginning to wane in 1812. The snow Napoleon’s Star begins to wane. made its first appearance in Russia on the 13th of October of that year, and the French emperor already commenced his preparations for retreat. This is referred to in a very clever caricature published by Tegg on the 1st of December, 1812, wherein we find General Frost shaving Boney with a razor marked “Russian steel.” Napoleon stands up to his knees in snow, and out of the nostrils of the snow fiend [General Frost] issue blasts labelled “North,” “East,” “Snow,” and “Sleet.” Seven days later on, we meet with a roughly-executed cartoon, Polish Diet with French Dessert, wherein we see Napoleon basted by General Benningsen, the spit being turned by a Russian bear. This caricature, no doubt, has reference to the disastrous defeat by Benningsen of the French advanced guard, thirty thousand strong, under Murat, on the 18th of October, 1812, when fifteen hundred prisoners, thirty-eight cannon, and the whole of the baggage of the corps, besides other trophies, fell into the victors’ hands.

      The retreat from Moscow is referred to in a satire published by Thomas Tegg on the 7th of March, 1813, labelled, The Corsican Bloodhound beset by the Bears of Russia; wherein Napoleon is represented as a mongrel bloodhound with a tin kettle tied to his tail, closely pursued by Russian bears. Various papers are flying out of the kettle, labelled “Oppression,” “Famine,” “Frost,” “Destruction,” “Death,” “Horror,” “Mortality,” “Annihilation.” “Push on, my lads,” says one of the pursuers. “No grumbling; keep scent of him; no sucking of paws this winter, here is food for the bears in all the Russias.” The emperor, in truth, had the narrowest escape from being made a prisoner by the Cossacks, a fact alluded to in another caricature published by Tegg in June, 1813, entitled, Nap nearly Nab’d, or a Retreating Jump just in time. Here, the emperor and one of his marshals are depicted leaping out of window, at the very moment when a Cossack with his lance appears outside the palings. “Vite,” says the marshal, in the peculiar patois adopted by the English caricaturists of the early part of the century, “Courez, mon Empereur, ce Diable de Cossack, dey spoil our dinner!!!”

      

      Napoleon collected his marshals around him at Smorgoni, on the The Bulletin. 5th of December, 1812, and dictated a bulletin which developed the horrors of the retreat, and explained to them his reasons for returning to Paris. “I quit you,” he said, “but go to seek three hundred thousand men.” He then proceeded to lay the blame on the King of Westphalia, and his trusted and tried friend the Duc d’Abrantes; alleged that English torches had turned Moscow into a heap of ashes; and added (with greater truthfulness) that the cold had done the rest of the mischief. He entrusted the command to Murat, and bidding them farewell set out, accompanied only by Generals Coulaincourt, Duroc, and Mouton, the Mameluke Rustan, a captain of the Polish lancers, and an escort of Neapolitan horsemen. This event is referred to in a caricature, published by S. W. Fores on the 1st of January, 1813, entitled, Boney returning from Russia covered with Glory, leaving his army in comfortable winter quarters. Napoleon and Coulaincourt are seated in a sleigh driven by another general in jack boots, with a tremendous cocked hat on his head, a huge sword by his side, and a formidable whip in his hand. Coulaincourt inquires, “Will your Majesty write the bulletin?” “No,” replies Napoleon; “you write it. Tell them we left the army all well, quite gay; in excellent quarters; plenty of provisions; that we travelled in great style; received everywhere with congratulations; and that I had almost completed the repose of Europe” (a favourite expression of his). By way of contrast to these grandiloquent phrases, the eye is attracted to the surroundings. The ground is thickly coated with snow; in the foreground, two famished wretches cut and devour raw flesh from a dead horse. On all sides lie dead and dying men and animals, while in the distance we behold the flying and demoralized troops chased by a cloud of Cossacks. The English caricaturists follow the emperor into the sanctity of his private life; they depict in their own homely but forcible fashion the СКАЧАТЬ