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

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СКАЧАТЬ Williams’s, published by Fores in June, 1818, and its doggerel explanation, the toys would appear even at this time to have been made and sold by every street boy. The satire is called, Caleidoscopes, or Paying for Peeping. In it, we see the pertinacious vendors pushing the sale of their wares upon the passengers in the streets—many of them women. A bishop resolves to buy one because the coloured glass reminds him of a painted window in his cathedral, another person has paid dearly for “peeping,” and discovers that while gratifying his curiosity, his “pocket-book has slipped off with two hundred pounds in it.” Williams was a satirist of the old school, and the allusions made by some of the vendors render this otherwise interesting satire wantonly coarse and indelicate. Attached to this rare and curious production is the following doggerel:—

“’Tis the favourite plaything of school-boy and sage, Of the baby in arms and the baby of age; Of the grandam whose sight is at best problematical, And of the soph who explains it by rule mathematical. Such indeed is the rage for them, chapel or church in, You see them about you, and each little urchin Finding a sixpence, with transport beside his hope, Runs to the tin-man and makes a caleidoscope!”

      Another invention made its appearance in 1819: this was the 1819.

       The Hobby. velocipede, or as it was then called “the hobby,” the grandfather of the bicycle and tricycle of our day. A tall gawky perched on the summit of a lofty bicycle, with an enormous wheel gyrating between a couple of spindle shanks capped with enormous crab-shells, is a sufficiently familiar and ridiculous object in our times; but the appearance presented by the people of 1819, who adopted the spider looking thing called a “hobby,” was so intensely comical that it gave rise to a perfect flood of caricatures. The best of these we have personally met with is one entitled, The Spirit Moving the Quakers upon Worldly Vanities, a skit upon the Society of Friends (published by J. T. Sidebotham). The scene is laid in front of a “Society of Friends Meeting House,” and numerous “Friends” of both sexes are busily engaged in exercising their hobbies. In the foreground, a broad-brimmed young “Friend” gives ardent and amorous chase to a lovely Quakeress, who, apparently disinclined to encourage his advances, urges her steed to its utmost speed, and makes frantic endeavours to get out of his way.

The internal condition of the country this year (1819) gave cause Depression in Trade. for much anxiety. Pecuniary distress, owing to the depression in trade, was almost universal. This state of things, as might have been expected, was taken advantage of by the popular agitators for their own purposes; and the people, under their encouragement, as in the two previous years, continued to give audible expression to their dissatisfaction at meetings, and through the medium of publications more or less of a seditious character. The miserable outlook gave rise (among others) to a pair of caricatures, published by Fores on the 9th of January, John Bull in Clover, and (by way of contrast), John Bull Done Over. In the first, fat John is enjoying himself with his pipe and his glass; the sleek condition of his dog shows that it shares in the comforts of its master’s prosperity. John, in fact, has what our Transatlantic cousins call “a good time;” scattered over the floor lie invoices of goods despatched by him to customers in Spain, in Russia, in America. Beneath a portrait of “Good Queen Bess,” John has pinned several of his favourite ballads: “The Land we live in,” “Oh, the Roast Beef of Old England!” “May we all live the days of our life.” In John Bull Done Over, a very different picture is presented to our notice. The whole of John’s fat is gone; he sits, a lean, starving, tattered, shoeless object in a bottomless chair, the embodiment of human misery. In place of his invoices lie the Gazette, which announces his bankruptcy, and a number of tradesmen’s bills; on the back of his chair is coiled a rope, and on the table before him a razor lies on a treatise on suicide,—John in fact is debating by what mode he shall put an end to his existence. An onion and some water in a broken jug are the only articles of sustenance he has to depend on. The tax gatherer, who has made a number of fruitless calls, looks through the broken panes to ascertain if John is really “at home.” On the wall, in place of the picture of “Good Queen Bess,” hangs a portrait of John Bellingham, the assassin of Spencer Perceval; and in lieu of his once joyous ballads, such doleful ditties as “Oh, dear, what can the matter be!” “There’s nae luck about the house,” and so on. The poor dog, grown like his master a lean and pitiable object, vainly appeals to him for food.

“England’s hope”21—the darling of the nation—the amiable and interesting Princess Charlotte, whose loss is still lamented after the lapse of more than half a century, died in childbirth on the 6th of November, 1817; but on the 24th of May, 1819, was born, at Kensington Palace, another amiable and august princess, whose life has been most happily spared to us—her present Majesty Queen Victoria. To show that the influence of the last century caricaturists had not yet left us, this auspicious event immediately gave rise to a coarse caricature,22 published by Fores, and labelled, A Scene in the New Farce called the Rivals, or a Visit to the Heir Presumptive, in which the scurrilous satirist depicts the supposed mortification and jealousy of other members of the royal family. Her Majesty’s father, the Duke of Kent, died nine months afterwards, on the 23rd of January, 1820.

18 The new Alhambra.

19 A caricature entitled Doctors Differ, according to Mr. Grego (published in 1785) is due to Rowlandson. It is possible, therefore, that the present one, although not in Rowlandson’s style, may be a reproduction.

20 This admirable satire appears to me very like the handiwork of George Cruikshank; but not being able positively to identify it, I have given it its place in this chapter.

21 See the caricatures of George Cruikshank, 1817.

22 Apparently by Williams.

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

      MISCELLANEOUS CARICATURES AND SUBJECTS OF CARICATURE, 1820-1830.

      As in 1809 a revengeful and unscrupulous woman had succeeded in Caroline of Brunswick. exposing the reputation of a member of the Royal family to public opprobrium, so, in like manner, in 1820, a woman, and no less a person in this instance than a titular queen of England, was the means of dragging the crown itself through the mire of a disreputable scandal. That Caroline of Brunswick was an uncongenial and unfitting consort; that she was an utterly unfit and improper person to occupy the exalted position of Queen of England, there can be no manner of doubt. But to the question whether it was wise, politic, or dignified to subject her conduct (however morally criminal) to the reproach of a public investigation, there can be but one answer.

      The marriage of Caroline, daughter of Charles, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, with George, Prince of Wales, was solemnized on the 8th of April, 1795. Exactly one year afterwards, and three months after the birth of their child, the Princess Charlotte, the pair separated. The separation was effected at the instance of the prince, and the reasons for his wishing to live apart from her are assigned in a letter which he sent her Royal Highness through Lord Cholmondeley: “Our inclinations,” he told her, “are not in our own power; nor should either be answerable to the other because nature has not made us suitable to each other. Tranquil and comfortable society is, however, in our power; let our intercourse therefore be restricted to that.”

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