Selwyn Brinton

“ 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. ”

“ And from Hogarth through Sandby and Sayer and Woodward to Henry William Bunbury, and onwards to that giant of political satire, James Gillray, and his vigorous contemporary Thomas Rowlandson, what a feast of material is spread before us; what an insight we may gain, not only into costume, manners, social life, but into the detailed political development of a fertile and fascinating period of history. ”

“ None like Hogarth has characterised "the lowest types of modern humanity, has better depicted the drunken habits of the dregs of the people, the follies of life, and the horrors of vice." And it is just here, as I have hinted, that Hogarth connects himself with the later caricaturists.
It were quite possible to treat a purely moral story, such as that of "The Industrious and the Idle Apprentice," in a purely moral sentiment; but this is just what our artist cannot bring himself to do. He must have that touch of nature, and of humour, which makes the whole world kin. ”

“ For just as when, in years to come, men think on that stirring epoch, the two words England and Liberty will leap unbidden to their thought; so, too, in the record of the greatest epoch of our country's art, a place must be found for the English Caricaturists of the Eighteenth Century. ”

“ To attempt within the limits of this little volume to exhaust a subject so rich in magnificent material would be obviously impossible. All that is permitted me here by imperative limits of space is a sketch, where my matter tempts me sorely to a comprehensive study. Yet even the sketch may claim for itself a place beside the finished work of art, if—while omitting the detail which it was unable to include—it has yet secured for us the main outlines, the swing of the figure, the balance of light and shadow, the sweep and spacing of the horizon ”

“ The eighteenth century, which was to witness the magnificent and, in its own way, unequalled achievement of English art in the paintings of Reynolds, Romney, Gainsborough, Hoppner; in the engravings of Bartolozzi, Dalton, John Raphael Smith, and William Henry Ryland; in the caricatures, which we have just noted, of Bunbury, Rowlandson, and Gillray, was to open, not inappropriately, with the appearance and speedy recognition of a very individual and very characteristic genius—with the pictured comedies of William Hogarth. ”

“ 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. An artist of extraordinary genius, we have it on record that two successive Presidents of the Academy in his day, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Benjamin West, in expressing their admiration of his drawings, added their opinion that, had he chosen a higher branch of art, he might have stood in the forefront of English contemporary painting. ”

“ 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 [Pg 76] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To Hogarth these are the incidents, not the inspiration, of his art. Lavater, that keen [Pg 11] observer, aimed near to the mark when he wrote: "Il ne faut pas attendre beaucoup de noblesse de Hogarth. Le vrai beau n'étoit guère à la portée de ce peintre." It is, indeed, one of the unconscious ironies of art history that the artist, whose work shows least of its influence or attraction, should have devoted the one offspring of his pen to an Analysis of Beauty.
But it is when we turn to the humour of life, even in its most sordid tragedies, that his real strength appears. ”

“ Then we watched Gillray tower aloft in political satire, and Rowlandson's pencil touch every side of life.
If we noticed at the same time a certain coarseness of fibre come to the surface in much of their work, finding expression often both in subject, and still more in treatment and in type, we must remember that this quality belongs not to the men alone, but to the age. The more sensitive modern may feel himself at first repelled rather than attracted, and [Pg 96] many a print of Rowlandson or Gillray find a place in his Index Expurgatorius ”

“ It was at this very time that Hogarth created his first work of individual genius in that superb series of plates to which he gave the name of "The Harlot's Progress"; and it is said that Lady Thornhill designedly placed one of the plates in her husband's way, only to elicit the grudging praise of: "The man who can produce these can also maintain a wife without a portion." ”

“ The satirist could here find expression and appreciation. The birth of the pictorial satirist who is the subject of my first chapter coincides pretty closely with the creation of that Tale of a Tub, of which Dean Swift, in all the ripeness of his later talent, exclaimed: "Good God! what genius I had when I wrote that book"; and no print from the artist's graver—even his "Stages of Cruelty," or his "Players dressing in a Barn"—could excel in coarseness of fibre the great satirist's Strephon and Chloe. ”

“ They are snapshots caught—not with a camera, but with an eye and pencil which were almost as quick—of the life of [Pg 36] that 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. ”

“ 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 outside [Pg 52] of 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 ”

“ Have we yet reached, or shall we ever reach, an age in which ineptitude, insolence, idleness, fail to work out their inevitable resultant? Or is it less true for us than for those earlier ages—the message which the writer of that magnificent thirty-eighth Psalm reiterates, as though he would drive deep into our souls its lasting verity. "Put thou thy trust in the Lord and be doing good; dwell in the land and verily thou shall be fed. ”

“ In "The Rake's Progress" the second plate introduces us to a side of Hogarth's [Pg 19] talent which he was to develop later on more fully in his "Marriage à la Mode"—namely, his satire of eighteenth-century life of fashion.
The awkward youth who in the plate before had come into his fortune is now in the full of its enjoyment: become a fine gentleman, he holds his morning levée of those numerous parasites who minister to his vanity or pleasure. ”

“ 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 long [Pg 32] Ministry 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 less [Pg 33] valuable because it comes to us indirectly—from the study of Henry William Bunbury's social caricatures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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" ”

“ But it is time for us to betake ourselves to [Pg 83] Rowlandson's social caricatures, which after all represent the best of his life work; and I am tempted to quote—in seeking illustration 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 75] especially in his magnificent series of contemporary political cartoons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That is in the character of the man—sound, honest, sincere even where he is mistaken or narrow—just as we see [Pg 24] him in his self-portrait of the London Gallery, with his faithful "Trump" sitting in front, as who should say, "This is my master, Hogarth—and let me just see the dog who will dare bark at him." And so when his critics barked or railed he held but the more stubbornly to his opinion; he rated the more mercilessly those "black masters," whose faults or whose supreme genius it needed a deeper study than he had given them to understand ”

“ LORD 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 the mise-en-scène for this print was the same as that of the "Long Minuet." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But to multiply examples of Hogarth's humour [Pg 13] would come very near to cataloguing his every work. Let us turn now from that work to the man himself, and study something of those conditions of life of which his genius gives us our most vivid impress.
William Hogarth was born in 1697 or 1698, in London, but of a Westmorland family (Hoggard would seem to have been the earlier spelling) , one member of which, the artist's father, after working as a schoolmaster in Westmorland, had settled in London as corrector of the Press. ”