Part 4 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: GILLRAY. _”Royal Affability,” Feb. 10th._

”Well, friend, where a' you going, hay? What's your name, hay? Where do you live, hay?--hay?”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GILLRAY. _Connoisseur examining a Cooper June 18th, 1792._

A CONNOISSEUR IN ART.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GILLRAY. _”A Lesson in Apple Dumplings.”_

”Hay? hay? apple dumplings?--how get the apples in?--how? Are they made without seams?”

_Face p. 24._]

By far the most biting, the most sarcastic, the most effective, and the most popular of the anti-Bonaparte caricatures are those by James Gillray, which commence before the close of the last century, and end in 1811, the year when the lurid genius of this greatest and most original of satirists was quenched in the darkness of mental imbecility. James Gillray, however, like his able friend and contemporary, Thomas Rowlandson, does not fall within our definition of a ”nineteenth century” satirist; and I am precluded from describing them. I have before me the admirable anti-Bonaparte satires of both artists; and inseparably linked as they are with the men who began work after 1800, the almost irresistible tendency is to describe some of them in elucidation of the events to which I have occasion to refer. To do so, however, although fascinating and easy, would be not only to wander from my purpose, but to invade the province of the late Thomas Wright and of Mr. Grego, which I am not called upon to do; to refer to them, however, for the purpose of this chapter, I have found not only necessary, but unavoidable.

INJUSTICE OF THE CARICATURISTS.

THEY MISTAKE THE CHARACTER OF BONAPARTE.

Caricature, like literary satire (as we all know from the days of the ”Dunciad” downwards), has little concern with justice; but we who look back after the lapse of the greater part of the century, and have moreover studied the history and the surroundings of Napoleon Bonaparte, may afford at least to do him justice. Gillray is a fair exponent of the intense hatred with which Bonaparte was regarded in this country, when not only the little ”Corsican,” but those about him, were held up to a ridicule which, oftentimes vulgar, partook not unfrequently of absolute brutality. Who would imagine, for instance, that the fat blousy female quaffing deep draughts of Maraschino from a goblet, in his famous satire of the _Handwriting on the Wall_, was intended for the refined and delicate Josephine? Occasionally, however, James Gillray descended to a lower depth, as in his _Ci Devant Occupations_ (of 20th February, 1805), in which we see this delicate woman, with the frail but lovely Spaniard, Theresa de Cabarrus (Madame Tallien), figuring in a manner to which the most infamous women of Drury Lane would have hesitated to descend.

Josephine de la Pagerie, as we all know, was anything but blameless; which indeed of _les Deesses de la Revolution_ could pa.s.s unscathed through the fiery furnace of the Terror?[14] But this miscalled satire of James Gillray, which he dubs ”a fact,” is nothing less than a poisonous libel. As for _le pet.i.t Caporal_ himself, everyone now knows, that while he viewed the carnage of the battlefield with the indifference of a conqueror, he shrank in horror from the murderers of the Swiss; from Danton and his satellites, the Septembrist ma.s.sacrists; from the mock trials and cold-blooded atrocities of the Terrorists.

Standing apart from these last by right of his unexampled genius, with Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Couthon, Carrier, Napoleon Bonaparte has nothing whatever in common. Looking back upon the ruins of his empire, the mistakes he had made, the faults he had committed, Napoleon, with reference at least to his own personal elevation, might say with truth: ”Nothing has been more simple than my elevation. It was not the result of intrigue or _crime_. It was owing to the peculiar circ.u.mstance of the times, and because I fought successfully against the enemies of my country. What is most extraordinary is, that I rose from being a private person to the astonis.h.i.+ng height of power I possessed, without having committed a single crime to obtain it. If I were on my death-bed I could make the same declaration.”[15]

To these facts, of course, James Gillray (if indeed he knew them) closed his eyes. In his sketch of the 12th of May, 1800, he shows us the young lieutenant at the head of tattered legions directing the destruction of the royal palaces. Blinded by the prejudice of his times, he seems apparently ignorant of the fact that Napoleon although a _spectator_ of the attack on the Tuileries, had no power; that if he had, he would (as he himself expressed it at the time) have swept the sanguinary _canaille_ into the gutters with his grape shot. Again, in his satires, he connects him repeatedly with the guillotine, to all appearance unconscious of the fact that between Napoleon and the guillotine no possible sympathy existed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES GILLRAY. _June 28th, 1791._

THE NATIONAL a.s.sEMBLY PETRIFIED, AND THE NATIONAL a.s.sEMBLY REVIVIFIED.

1. BARBER--”De King is escape! de King is escape!”

2. COOK.--”Aha! be gar, de King is retaken!! Aha! Monsieur Lewis is retaken, aha!!”

[_The French Revolution._]

_Face p. 26._]

ROBERT DIGHTON'S SKETCHES.

A good idea of the appearance and costume of ”the general” and notables of the early part of the century, is given by the sketches of the last century artist, Robert Dighton. His etchings are not caricatures, as may be supposed, but likenesses of the _oi polloi_--the university dons--the prize-fighters--the butchers--the singers--actors--actresses--the men about town (”Corinthians,” as they were termed in the slang of the Regency)--the ”upper ten”; and what amazingly queer folks were these last! The Duke of Grafton, with his tremendous beak, wig, and c.o.c.ked hat, his mahogany tops and spurs, his long coat with the flapped pockets and his star; the Marquis of Buckingham, with his red fat face and double chin, which told tales of nightly good cheer, his c.o.c.ked hat, military coatee, and terrific paunch, which resisted all attempts to confine it within reasonable military compa.s.s; John Bellingham--the murderer of Spencer Perceval,--with his retreating forehead, long pointed nose, drab cloth coat and exuberant s.h.i.+rt frill; ”What? What? What?”--Great George himself, as he appeared in 1810, in full military panoply--huge ill-fitting boots, huge blue military coat, collar, lappets, and star, a white-powdered bob surmounting a clean-shaved unintellectual face, the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics of which were a pair of protruding eyes surmounted by ponderous eyebrows.

A well-drawn caricature published by S. W. Fores on the 11th of May, 1801, gives us an admirable idea of the male and female costume of the period. It contains sixteen figures, and is ent.i.tled _Tea just Over, or the Game of Consequences begun_. ”Consequences” would appear to have been a fas.h.i.+onable game at this time; but the ”consequences” here alluded to are the immediate results of a pinch of snuff. The ”consequences” of one gentleman sneezing are the following: he jerks the arm of the lady next him, the result being that she pours her cup of scalding hot tea over the knees of her neighbour, a testy old gentleman, who in his fright and pain raises his arms, jerking off with his cane the wig of a person standing at the back of his chair, who in the attempt to save his wig upsets his own cup and saucer upon the pate of his antagonist Another guest, with his mouth full of tea, witnessing this absurd _contretemps_ is unable to restrain his laughter, the result of which is that he blows a stream of tea into the left ear of the man who has lost his wig, at the same time setting his own pigtail alight in the adjoining candle. All these disasters, pa.s.sing in rapid succession from left to right, are the direct ”consequences” of one unfortunate pinch of snuff.

MASTER BETTY.

The year 1804 witnessed the advent of a performer whose theatrical reputation, notwithstanding the wonderful sensation it created for a couple of seasons, was not destined to survive his childhood. The brief _furore_ he excited, enabled his friends to lay by for him a considerable fortune, which enabled him to regard the memory of his immature triumphs and subsequent failures with resignation. Master Betty, ”the Young Roscius,” was not quite thirteen years of age when he made his first appearance at Covent Garden on the 1st of December, 1804, as Achmet in _Barbarossa_. He played alternately at the two great houses; twenty-eight nights at Drury Lane brought 17,210 into the treasury, whilst the receipts at Covent Garden during the same period are supposed to have been equally large. A rough caricature of 1804, bearing the signature ”I. B.,” depicts the child standing with one foot on Drury Lane and the other on Covent Garden, with a toy whip in one hand and a rattle in the other, while two full-grown actors of real merit bemoan the decadence of public taste on the pavement below. Some years later on the pair might have said with Byron,--