Thomas Rowlandson, the artist, at one time in his career
devoted himself to book illustration, in a series of plates on
Goldsmith, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne and other humorists of
his day. It was this that led William Combe, then in a debtors’
prison, and who had never met the artist, to write his humorous
poem, “Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque.”
Ought not every Dr. Syntax of the pulpit or platform go in search of
the picturesque? (Text.)
2372)