Published by T. Tegg (10).--The intention of this burlesque is a
pun on _dram-atic_; the theatrical demireps being very ungallantly
displayed in the Hundreds of Drury, inhabiting an attic, and indulging
in matutinal potations of gin. The surroundings do not give a very
cultivated idea of the actresses or their belongings. _The Chapter of
Accidents_ seems to be the piece in rehearsal. The toilettes of the
fair performers are shockingly neglected. Over the mantelpiece are
various professional announcements 'for the benefit of the Theatrical
Fund,' &c. By the side of an '_À la mode_ beef jug' is a melon marked
'Ripe--rotten,' and other ironical allusions to current scandals and
personages then well recognised are posted on the walls, as sketches
for portraits: _Peg and the Duke_, _Bald as a Coote_, _Little Darby O!
Ever Craving_, and _Old Q._, and various innuendoes hardly flattering
to the originals indicated.
_October 5, 1810._ _Sports of a Country Fair._ Part the First.
Published by T. Tegg.--The bustling picture of a country fair in full
operation. In the rear are swings, booths, and theatrical shows. In the
foreground is shown a cart overset; a man is holding on to the head of
the horse, which in rearing has snapped his girths and tilted the cart
on end, while the late occupants are thrown down in motley confusion,
sprawling on the turf, pommelling, kicking, shrieking, and throwing up
their limbs, while eager groups of spectators are hurrying up to enjoy
the disaster.
_October 5, 1810._ _Sports of a Country Fair._ Part the Second.--A
nearer view of the same fair: the thick of the crowd; stick-throwing
for snuffboxes, oyster-opening, pocket-picking, and a round-about
swing; one of the boats is giving way, and a fair swinger and her swain
are falling through. There is an inn where cordials are supplied,
through the windows of which various scenes of love-making are visible.
In the distance may be seen Polito's stage-booths, horse-racing, and
other diversions.
_October, 1810._ _Sports of a Country Fair._ Part the Third.
Published by T. Tegg.--The interior of another booth-theatre; the
play is interrupted; the only performer on the stage is thrown into
consternation, and the whole of the audience are dispersing in terror
at an unexpected intruder. A royal Bengal tiger has made his escape
from an adjoining show, and is bounding through the canvas walls of
the theatrical booth, threatening to descend plump into the auditorium.
The effect on the frightened playgoers may be well imagined. Some are
prostrate with terror; one man is down on his knees and cannot move
for fright; ladies are fainting; husbands are manfully endeavouring
to carry off their wives out of the way of the terrible visitor, and
everything is turned topsy-turvy.
1810. _Sports of a Country Fair._--The sport in this case is
accidental, and the amusement verges on peril of a terrible character.
A temporary theatre, _Cockburn's Company_, is on fire, and the
spectators are escaping as best they may. The entrance is from a
balcony reached by a flight of steps, and the frightened spectators are
pouring out of the building, which is burning furiously, and throwing
themselves pellmell down the steps, at the bottom of which they are
sprawling, kicking, and plunging in fright and confusion. Certain buxom
damsels are climbing over the balustrade and dropping from the balcony,
with the musicians, into the arms of those below. A bill on the booth
announces the _Last Night, Pizarro_ and _Don Juan, A Shower of Real
Fire_, and _A View of the Infernal Regions_. Crowds are scudding
away in the distance, and the other attractions of the fair are at a
standstill.
_October 25, 1810._ _An Old Ewe Drest Lamb Fashion._ Published by T.
Tegg. A deceptive old tabby, clad in a juvenile style, is dashing
along in a high poke-bonnet; three or four Don Juans of eccentric
exterior are hurrying after her to tender their attentions, an act of
gallantry they are likely to regret on closer inspection. The quotation
offered as _A Misery of Human Life_ runs thus: 'Walking fast and far to
overtake a woman from whose shape and air as viewed _en derrière_ you
have decided that her face is angelic, till, on eagerly turning round
as you pass her, you are petrified by a Gorgon.'
[Illustration: SPITFIRES.]
_October 25, 1810._ _Spitfires._ Published by T. Tegg (44).
_October 25, 1810._ _Dropsy Courting Consumption._ Published by T. Tegg
(45).--Outside a building marked _Mausoleum_--a dwarf rotunda beside a
slender column--kneels a round ball of a suitor, who, it would seem, is
destined never to recover his perpendicular; he is suing at the feet of
an attenuated nymph, of straight and bony proportions, who it appears
is in the last stage of wasting away. In the grounds a corpulent lady
and a declining-looking gentleman of the Laurence Sterne type are
contemplating a statue of Hercules.
_November 1, 1810._ _Doctor Gallipot placing his Fortune at the feet of
his Mistress._ 'Throw physic to the dogs.' Republished. (See 1808.)
_November 1, 1810._ _Kitchen Stuff._ Published by T. Tegg (43).--A
scene of low life below stairs. A fire is roaring up the kitchen
grate, and a fat old cook, slumbering in an armchair drawn up to the
kitchen table, has her feet resting on the chimneypiece, and a glass
of 'cherry bounce' held in her chubby hand, to refresh her after
the exertions of the day. A younger and proportionately comely and
comfortable-looking kitchen-maid is also stealing 'forty winks,' with
her head resting against the chimneypiece; while a fat black footman,
who completes this evidently easy-going household, is indulging in the
luxury of repose and pillowing his slumbering woolly pate on the ample
shoulders of his shapely neighbour.
[Illustration: A HIT AT BACKGAMMON.]
_November 19, 1810._ _A Hit at Backgammon._ Published by T. Tegg (No.
46).
_November 20, 1810._ _Medical Despatch, or Doctor Doubledose Killing
Two Birds with One Stone._ Published by T. Tegg (47).--Reclining back
in an armchair is an old invalid lady, evidently at the last gasp; her
end is made still more certain by opium and composing draughts placed
ready to her hand. On the armchair of the ghastly sufferer leans a
pretty buxom girl in the flush of womanhood, who is wavering between
grief and rapture--tears for her departing relative and regard for
the caresses of the practitioner, who is dismissing his patient and
courting a bride at the same moment. While one hand of the perfidious
Doctor is carelessly holding the pulse of the sinking woman his arm
is thrown round the neck of the blooming maiden, his fat features are
expressive of maudlin tenderness, and his eyes are turned upwards in
awkward admiration.
_November 20, 1810._ _Bath Races._ Published by T. Tegg (49).--The race
appropriately starts from 'Cripple's Corner;' the halt, the maimed, and
the lame are the competitors; it is, in fact, a race of Bath chairs and
crutches, all tearing and tumbling down hill and blowing in the wind;
the gouty hangers behind being urged forward, pushed, whipped, and
cheered on by the delighted spectators. The city of Bath is slightly
indicated in the rear.
_November 30, 1810._ _Doctor Drainbarrel conveyed Home in a
Wheelbarrow, in order to take his Trial for Neglect of Family Duty._
Published by T. Tegg (23).
[Illustration: DR. DRAINBARREL CONVEYED HOME IN A WHEELBARROW.]
_November 30, 1810._ _After Sweet Meat comes Sour Sauce, or Corporal
Cazey got into the Wrong Box._ Rowlandson del. Published by T. Tegg
(24).--The Corporal has incautiously been paying a secret visit to a
fine, plump and well-favoured damsel, on whose affections, it would
seem, the man of war has no legitimate claim. The lady is snugly
disposing her lover in a strong-box, with iron clamps, probably the
sea-chest of the lawful proprietor of the chamber. Before closing
the lid on the captive swain the buxom maid, at whose waist hangs
the key of the chest, is favouring the suitor with a parting kiss.
An old 'salt,' his few remaining hairs bristling with indignation
and resentment, is looking in at the window and surveying the entire
transaction before making his entrance on the scene. That the Corporal
has fairly got into the 'wrong box' is further hinted by a trap at his
side, in which an unfortunate rat is securely imprisoned.
1810. _The Harmonic Society. 'The Assemblies of women are too
frequently marked by malice to each other, and slander of the absent;
the meetings of men by noise, inebriety, and wrangling.'_--A companion
scene to _The Breaking up of a Blue Stocking Club_ (March 1, 1815).
The direst disorder, according to the plate, is proceeding around on
all sides: the conflict of fists, aided by such aggressive articles
as bottles, the fireirons, and any offensive weapon that may come to
hand, is raging free and furious. The president of this _harmonic
meeting_ is very naturally employing his hammer to bring the turbulent
to order, by using it as an instrument to knock down his opponents.
Wigs are sent flying 'through space,' chairs are wrecked; decanters,
spirit-bottles, punchbowls, and such frail objects as tumblers,
rummers, and wine-glasses, are involved in universal destruction.
One elated youthful hero has jumped on the table in a tipsy frolic;
he is promoting the further confusion which darkness will entail by
deliberately smashing up the candles, and battering the sconces of the
chandelier with the assistance of a punch-ladle.
1810. _The Sign of the Four Alls._--The four personages who constitute
this famous view of the relative estates of the realm stand under
niches; the head of the State is the first represented; and next, of
course, is the Church; then the powers militant; and lastly, as a sort
of necessary evil, the commonalty--perhaps better kept out of sight
altogether, since the presence of the representative of this portion
of the empire is not acknowledged by the other three, his pastors
and masters. Number one, George the Third; the King in this case is
represented strutting in awful but somewhat awkward majesty. To quote a
national but lowly authority, Giles Grinagain:--
What! he the King? Why, that chap there?
Why, I saw a king at Bartholomew Fair
More like a king than that chap there!
The Bishop, a snug ecclesiastic, a remnant possibly of the bad old
school of the Clarke preferments, all wig, lawn sleeves, mitre, and
crozier, is raising his fat hands with sanctimonious import--'I pray
for all.' As to the soldier, the military officer drawn by Rowlandson
rather reminds one of Colonel Wardle, whose person the caricaturist had
made a little too familiar--'I fight for all;' and lastly comes John
Bull, under his agricultural aspect, a simple farmer, with his smock,
hay-fork, and dog, and, what is more to the purpose, his bag of 'hard
earnings' in his hand, on the strength of which he is admitted to join
the quartette--on sufferance, it is palpable--'I pay for all!'[22]
1810 (?). _The Rabbit Merchant._ Published by T. Tegg (25).--The view
of a country street; a rabbit seller, with a selection of his stock
on his pole, is offering a choice to an old dame, who is somewhat
hypercritical, and is employing a test which the rabbit merchant
considers excessive and uncalled for; he is represented as offering
'the retort courteous' in justification of his goods.
1810 (?). _A Sale of English Beauties in the East Indies._--Although,
as we have noticed, Rowlandson's work was stamped by the strongest
originality, he, like other etchers of caricatures, often executed
the ideas or worked out the first impressions of less experienced
draughtsmen; however, unlike most engravers, he has left, in his
numerous plates after Wigstead, Woodward, Bunbury, Nixon, Newton,
&c. (in all cases the name of the originator is given), but slight
traces of the defects and shortcomings of the amateur artists whose
sketches he has put into circulation, the major part of the engravings
bearing unmistakable and easily recognised evidence of Rowlandson's
individuality. In the case of the present caricature he has, in some
degree, departed from this practice, probably at the desire of the
publisher of the print, and has gone to Gillray's large and spirited
plate entitled _A Sale of English Beauties in the East Indies_ for
the materials of his version of the same subject. It is noticeable,
however, that while he has, in a free-handed manner, preserved the
chief points and indeed most of the figures of the original (published
March 16, 1786), he has forborne to put his own name to the copy.
It is probable that the original version was, at the date of the
smaller copy, in demand and difficult to purchase, and, to satisfy the
requirements of both publishers and public, Rowlandson has etched this
second edition of his friend's plate, Gillray having unhappily lost his
reason at the date of the republication.
The scene is supposed to be drawn from one of the landing-places in the
East Indies. A merchantman has arrived with a cargo which has proved
a source of excitement and attraction to residents of all classes.
The fair sex being in great apparent request, a shipload of English
beauties on arriving in the East would naturally produce commotion and
competition among natives and foreigners alike. A dapper auctioneer
is mounted on a bale of books lately arrived, a similar package forms
his desk, and he is knocking down a very attractive article, which
seems likely to bring a handsome figure. A fine tall beauty is under
the scrutiny of a rich Nabob; a young officer is trying to win her
ear, and an envoy from the Government, with instructions in his pocket
from the Governor-General, is calculating the lady's height with his
walking-stick held as a measure. Similar incidents are represented
around; the Rajahs are inspecting the latest importations with true
merchant-like caution; sundry bargains have already been secured,
and in the scales is shown a method of approximating valuations; a
well-favoured arrival of the florid and fully developed type is set
against a corresponding weight of 'lacs of rupees.' In the background
is pictured a large warehouse for 'unsaleable goods from Europe--to be
returned by the next ship'--and several damsels are in great distress
at being forced to take refuge within this unpopular establishment.
1810. _A Parody on Milton._ Published by T. Tegg.
On she came--such as I saw her in my dream.
Grace was in all her steps--heaven in her eye;
In every gesture dignity and love.--MILTON.
A slipshod and tailorlike-looking old scarecrow, with spectacles on
nose, and wearing a scarlet nightcap, is viewing with idiotic rapture
the advent of a fat, inebriated, and dishevelled bacchante of mature
charms, who, with a decanter in one hand and a glass in the other, is
staggering into the chamber, to the amusement of a pretty servant-maid
outside. The ancient dotard is making a parody on the quotation: 'On
she came--such as I saw her in my dream. _Grease_ was in all her
steps--Geneva in her hand; and every gesture reeling ripe for fun!'
_Circa 1810._ _Cries of London._ Thirty plates.
1810. S. Butler. _Hudibras._ With illustrations after W. Hogarth,
engraved by Thomas Rowlandson. Republished. T. Tegg. (See 1809.)
FOOTNOTE:
[22] The satirical humours of this sign, which dates back from a
recondite period, find a place in Larwood's valuable _History of
Signboards_, who gives us further particulars from his own exhaustive
researches. 'In Holland, in the seventeenth century, it was used, but
the king was left out, and a lawyer added. Each person said exactly the
same as our signboards, but the farmer answered:--
You may fight, you may pray, you may plead,
But I am the farmer who lays the eggs--
_i.e._ finds the money.
'This enumeration of the various performances coupled with the word
_all_ has been used in numerous different epigrams; an address to James
the First, in the Ashmolean MSS., No. 1730, has:-
_The Lords_ craveth all,
_The Queene_ granteth all,
_The Ladies_ of honour ruleth all,
_The Lord-Keeper_ sealed all,
_The Intelligencer_ marred all,
_The Parliament_ pass'd all,
_He that is gone_ opposed himself to all,
_The Bishops_ soothed all,
_The Judges_ pardoned all,
_The Lords_ buy, Rome spoil'd all,
Now, _Good King_, mend all,
Or else _The Devil_ will have all.
'This again seems to have been imitated from a similar description of
the state of Spain in Greene's _Spanish Masquerade_, 1589:--
_The Cardinals_ solicit all,
_The King_ grauntes all,
_The Nobles_ confirm all,
_The Pope_ determines all,
_The Clergie_ disposeth all,
_The Duke of Medina_ hopes for all,
_Alonzo_ receives all,
_The Indians_ minister all,
_The Soldiers_ eat all,
_The People_ paie all,
_The Monks and Friars_ consume all,
And _the Devil_ at length will carry away all.'
1811.
_January 18, 1811._ _College Pranks, or Crabbed Fellows Taught to
Caper on the Slack Rope._ Published by T. Tegg (53).--Two portly,
and highly respectable Fellows of the University, proceeding along
their quadrangle, are assailed with a rough practical joke by a party
of unruly young undergraduates; a rope is being suddenly lifted up
with a hearty good-will by a riotous mob at either end, and the
astonished 'dons' are tripped up and turned over like turtles on a
memorial-stone--'Here lies the body of _Bishop Bleareyes_.' Squibs,
squirts, and whips, in the hands of these disorderly students, are
further contributing to the annoyance of the capsized magnates.
_February, 1811._ _A Sleepy Congregation._ Rowlandson fecit. Published
by T. Tegg (54).--The interior of a parish church. Of the occupants of
a family-pew in the foreground the elders are sleeping, while a fair
young worshipper's thoughts are evidently wandering; the attentions of
one or two buckish youths, seated in the vicinity, seem to be centred
on the lady; the clerk is snoring at his desk, regardless of the podgy
and somewhat excited preacher over his head, who is quite absorbed in
his sermon, which does not seem to interest anyone but the deliverer.
_February 12, 1811._ _A Midwife going to a Labour._ Tegg's Caricatures
(55).--The stout old nurse, a body of balloon-like expansiveness, is
hurrying off, summoned to her duties, at an unearthly hour of the
morning. Her head-gear is flowing about in the wind, her hood and cape
are caught by the gale; a lantern is held in one hand, a brandy-bottle
and a bundle, containing her luggage, are cuddled up in the other, and
she is mounted on pattens. The night-watchman is dozing in his box, and
a shivering chimney-sweeping lad is crouching along to his early toil,
with brushes and bags.
_February 16, 1811._ _The Gig-Shop, or Kicking up a Breeze at Nell
Hamilton's Hop._ Published by T. Tegg.--According to the picture of
this place of 'fast' resort, dancing has given way to much rougher
diversions, and, although the musicians are in their gallery,
playing away as if the scene below was the regular thing, the place
appropriated for the dance is given up to a _mill_ conducted on
strikingly professional principles; one of the combatants has 'peeled'
in recognised style, and his opponent has stripped to his shirt;
the backers and seconders of the fisticuffing bucks (who are freely
besprinkled with the ruby fluid) are members of the fair sex; in fact,
ladies seem in the ascendant at this entertainment. A ring of delighted
spectators are enjoying the fight and the fun from the benches, while
other gentlemen are prudently engaged in restraining their fair
partners from getting mixed up in the squabble which is raging fast
and furious, thick and general, behind the two 'milling' gentlemen;
ladies using their fists manfully, kicking, tearing hair, and throwing
themselves into desperate warfare with terrific confusion and effect.
In the foreground a fair nymph of interesting but dishevelled
appearance, probably the _friend_ of one of the combatants, is falling
into a fainting fit, from which the attentions of those who surround
her seem inadequate to restore her to consciousness.
[Illustration: PIGEON-HOLE.]
_February 20, 1811._ _Pigeon Hole, a Covent Garden Contrivance to Coop
the Gods._ Published by T. Tegg (57).--The miseries consequent on heat
and crowding in a restricted space, as displayed in the Pigeon Hole
Galleries of John Kemble's newly-constructed Drury Lane Theatre, gave
rise to the present caricature, which is further explained under the
head of _This is the House that Jack Built_ (Sept. 27, 1809), and _The
Boxes_ (Dec. 12, 1809). General dissatisfaction was expressed by all
but the privileged subscribers; the lessee's treatment of the humble
supporters of the drama, the frequenters of the gallery, gave special
offence; and the illiberality of the management which provided such
disgraceful accommodation for its patrons was resented by the unruly
proceedings known as the _O. P. Riots_, which marked the public sense
of the transaction.
_February 26, 1811._ _A French Dentist Showing a Specimen of his
Artificial Teeth and False Palates._ Published by T. Tegg (58).--It
is not easy to determine whether this caricature was intended solely
as a satire or as an advertisement for some dental professor who was
established here at the time. In Rowlandson's day, however, false
teeth were sufficient novelties to be welcome subjects for ridicule.
An overgrown and exuberantly corpulent female is serving as a sample
of the Frenchman's skill; her widely distended mouth is liberally
displaying a wonderful set of masticators. The professor is the typical
foreigner of the period, wearing hair-powder, a bag-wig, and earrings.
An old beau, looking through a quizzing-glass, is admiring the prospect
of securing a decent set of teeth, his own gums exhibiting a very
ragged and defective regiment. An advertisement in the rear sets forth:
'_Mineral Teeth._--Monsieur De Charmant, from Paris, engages to affix
from one tooth to a whole set, without pain. Monsieur D. can also affix
an artificial palate or a glass eye in a manner peculiar to himself; he
also distils, &c., &c.'
_March, 1811._ _Bacon-faced Fellows of Brazen-Nose Broke Loose._
Published by T. Tegg (59).--The persons of learned members of the
Universities were not treated with a sparing hand by the satirist.
Rowlandson has introduced various incidents of college life into his
caricatures; but, throughout the series, the waggishly-inclined artist
does not, we are afraid, exhibit any particular respect for _Alma
Mater_. The Fellows of Brasenose are drawn, with unusual unction,
issuing from their Hall and through the archways of the Colleges,
dressed in their academic guise, and pouring forth like a sable stream
of erudition. The various expressions and attitudes of the 'big-wigs'
are vastly well hit off; their diversified peculiarities of face or
motion are full of comicality. These grave sons of the Church are
not free from gallant considerations--a buxom wench, with a basket
of fruit slung round her shapely neck, is the centre of attraction;
the 'Bacon-faced Fellows' are crowded around, bargaining for her ware
and leering at the seller with undisguised and clumsy admiration. A
reflection is cast on the _Vice_-Chancellor, who is vainly endeavouring
to steal into his apartments without being detected by the rest of the
sly grinning Fellows, with a weighty folio under his arm, and followed
by an engaging young fruiteress, a lump of rustic innocence, bearing
her baskets, for better selection from the contents, to the seclusion
of the Vice's study.
_March 10, 1811._ _She Stoops to Conquer._ Published by T. Tegg
(61).--The central room of a prison. Various strong doors and
iron-grated windows open on the chamber. Bolts, padlocks, and strings
of fetters indicate the nature of the security. Behind a grating is
seen a prisoner, on whose behalf a buxom damsel is supposed to 'stoop
to conquer,' since by dint of a plentiful repast, renewed strong
potations, and those tender cajoleries which are believed to be the
special weapons of the fair, the lady is evidently endeavouring to
gain possession of the precious keys which will enable her to set her
imprisoned swain at liberty.