Unhappily their germs lie too deeply hidden in the human heart to be uprooted by the painter's pencil. But when the mirror was held up in which they saw how deformed, how monstrous, how ridiculous they appeared to others' eyes, they fled the light of open day, and concealed themselves in dens and corners, where to be vile was not to be remarked. Yet it can not be denied that, as a moralist, Hogarth is-so to speak --somewhat too didactic. Perhaps all moralists must be so. He crams his lesson down our throats a little too remorselessly. Hæc fabula docet appears too plainly on all that he does. His industrious apprentice going to church to court his rich master's daughter-thus with prudent economy of means killing two birds with one stone, and finally becoming Lord Mayor of London-bores us a little. We should be glad to see him somewhat less precise and priggish, and having a jolly good time occasionally. And in those series of plates on which his popular fame chiefly rests, Hogarth is not properly a caricaturist. Neither in "Industry and Idleness," "Marriage à la Mode," "The Rake's Progress," "The Harlot's Progress," "The Stages of Cruelty," nor in the single compositions which are akin to them, is the effect attained, or sought, by humorous exaggeration. His prints are filled with laughable representations of the vile and the vulgar; but they are laughable because they are essentially ridiculous. Their effect is produced by the subject, not by the artist. The credit due to him is that he perceived the ludicrous in the scenes which passed before him, and perceiving it, fixed it upon his cartoon forever. In fact, one of his critics (Malcolm) has confessed that, "in delineating the faces of the vulgar as he found them in the streets of London, he has merely given us the expression and very character of the people, without the least caricature." But although Hogarth was more characterist❘ than caricaturist, he has left us many fine examples of genuine caricature. Among them is the "Perspective" before noticed, in which all the rules of the art are reversed with most ludi crous effect. The water runs up hill; a woman leaning from the window of an inn gives light to the pipe of a man on a knoll half a mile off, the trees on which partly conceal the sign of the house in which she is; of a straggling flock of sheep those farthest off are the largest; and a sportsman in a boat fires at a swan upon the water, although the piers of a bridge are between him and his game. Two dancing figures in one of his plates to the "Analysis of Beauty" are fine specimens of caricature. The tall, angular, awkward man who has his back toward us looks like a dancing-jack in a tie-wig and a laced coat, while the stout gentleman would be the very man, if he could now be found, to figure in a hippopotamus polka. It seems as if his ponderous feet would go through the floor. In Hogarth's print called "Evening" is a fine touch of caricature, although it is not produced by exaggeration. A London tradesman has been out with his wife and children "pleasuring." As they return in the early twilight, his buxom wife bears his hat and gloves, in return for which he carries her infant, upon his claim to the paternity of which the painter has adroitly cast a doubt by so composing his picture that the horns of a cow in the back-ground seem to stand out from the unsuspicious citizen's head. This is a fine example of what may be called the caricature of circumstance. Perhaps the purest specimen of caricature left us by Hogarth is his representation of Farinelli. Hogarth was one of the stoutest opposers of the introduction of the Italian opera into England, and he used the weapon of ridicule against it in presenting this absurd portrait of the great male soprano of the day, who was the petted favorite of ladies of rank and fashion, although he was one of those poor mutilated creatures, "By their smooth chins and simple simper known." It should be remarked that Hogarth did not own the authorship of the print in which this caricature appears. Its style, however, shows it unmistakably to be his. ROYAL EXPECTATIONS.-BY GILLRAY. the marriage being that unfortunate one of the Prince of Wales with Caroline of Brunswick. The Princess, who sits upon the bed drawing on her stocking, reproachfully points the Prince to his soon deserted pillow. Her attitude, her face, and her limbs are lovely. In spite of the office in which she is engaged, her figure lacks neither dignity nor grace, and the drawing is admirable throughout. The figure of the Prince, too-then a handsome fellow, and not yet "your fat friend"-sitting completely dressed upon the edge of a table, is also unexceptionable in drawing. Some of Gillray's early serious works after his own designs, and some of those which he produced as an engraver-to which art he at first devoted himself-are remarkable for their correctness of outline and careful finish. In fact he was in this respect superior to all of his successors. But it must be confessed that soon But it was not until the appearance of John after he began to caricature he boldly defied Gillray that English caricature assumed the nature and probability in his style, and too often foremost place which it has since held. Gill- seemed bent upon justifying Hogarth's dictum ray was born just as Hogarth was passing off the that "the name of caricatura ought to be divested stage of life, and his earliest known caricature of every stroke that hath a tendency to good is dated 1779. Between the death of Hogarth, drawing." He erred, however, like a great man, 1764, and that period at which Gillray was ac- and always with a purpose which he attained. knowledged as his worthy successor, twenty years Whether he might not have attained his end and had elapsed, during which caricature had be- at the same time presented some of his subjects come more free and daring than ever before. with more of the semblance of human beings, is But although it engaged the attention of many another question. He probably might have done artists, both professional and amateur, some of so, had he had a modern British or American the latter being of the highest rank, and al- public to which to address himself. But we though hardly a magazine appeared without its must remember that his object was to please and caricature, no one caricaturist had appeared who to impress the general public; and that in the might be justly called a master. But in Gill- last century the tastes and habits of the massray satire, humor, invention, and technical skill es in England were coarse and low, almost to were so combined that he at once assumed a brutality. In his time, too, judging by the por commanding position, which he held until his ir- traits of the day, there was a grossness of figure regular habits of life brought on insanity-a peri- among his countrymen which had not existed to od of thirty-two years. Of the other humorous so great a degree before, and which has been artists of that period Bunbury and Rowlandson somewhat mitigated since. So that his elewere the most eminent; and the latter was phantine men and women were not either amiss doubtless a great draughtsman and a keen and to the taste or opposed to the observation of the humorous satirist, as the illustrations to "Dr. public to please whom they were drawn. In Syntax's Tour" and "Drunken Barnaby's Jour- this respect he was not peculiar. The caricaney" sufficiently attest. But neither of them turists who immediately preceded him, as well had either the force or the fertility of Gillray; as his contemporaries, drew the same gross, and to the caricaturist who makes his impres- clumsy figures. But to him, however, is due sion and retains his hold upon the public mind the credit of creating the figure of John Bull. by the use to which he puts the topic of the day, It was Gillray who first presented the ideal Enthese qualities are of the first importance. Gill-glishman as a great, beefy, over-fed, broad-faced ray's caricatures are so extravagant, the charac-animal-a compound of thick-headed honesty, teristic traits of his figures, whether real or ideal, are so exceedingly exaggerated, that many persons believe he was unable to design correctly. This opinion is altogether unfounded, as any careful student of all his works will see. There is a caricature of his, for instance, called "A March to the Bank," in which, by the steady advance of a detachment of soldiers, many people are thrown down headlong in confusion. Among them are a fat fish-woman and a pretty millinergirl, both of whose figures, owing to their positions and the loose costume of the time, are much exposed, and both are beautifully drawn. So in the print called "The Morning after Marriage," stolid selfishness, and surly obstinacy, which was accepted by his countrymen, and has been since retained by them as their type. Think of thus portraying the representative Englishman of the days of Sidney and Raleigh, of Hampden and Milton! We can not seriously entertain the notion for a moment. But we should remember that one reason of our inability to do so is, that the sort of Englishman who may be thus most fitly represented, if any may be, did not appear in English political life, was not a power in the state or in society until toward the end of the last century. Yet this being granted, it is not a sufficient reason for the marked change in the English type of person and countenance | the knee, toasting muffins for his own breakfast; which took place between 1650 and 1775, of while in the other, Queen Charlotte, decorated which there was some cause which has yet to be with a mobcap and apron, but with her pocket discovered. overflowing with guineas, is frying sprats for hers. Their son, the Duke of York, was married in 1791 to the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia, who brought with her a very considerable dowry. This event was made the subject of a caricature by Gillray, entitled "Expectation," in which he represented the Duke presenting his wife, with her apron full of money, to his royal parents, whose attention is concentrated, with the most ludicrous avidity, not upon their new daughter-in-law, but upon the treasure that she brings. The Queen holds out her apron eagerly for her expected share, and the King kicks up his feet like a four-year-old urchin who is promised tarts and candies. The faces of both King and Queen are caricatured to the verge of actual monstrosity, which is made the more severe by the preservation of a strong likeness. Gillray lived and "flourished" at a happy time for a caricaturist. Then all England was divided by sharp lines into the opposite factions of Whigs and Tories, who hated each other quite as heartily as if they were at actual civil warfare. Party-spirit was venomous and proscriptive to a degree of which we, in these times, happily know nothing. An intermarriage between a Tory family and a Whig family, among people of "quality" and political influence, was almost as dreadful an event, to all but the parties most interested, as that between the Montagues and Capulets. These people, as they did not fight with swords, turned against each other all the power of satire and ridicule, and lampooned and caricatured each other within an inch of their lives. Their attacks of this kind were coarse, virulent, cruel, almost brutal, and very often indecent to a degree hardly credible except upon actual knowledge. No eminence of rank or character secured immunity. The King himself, nay, the Queen, who had no more political position or influence than any other lady in the land, was constantly attacked in the coarsest manner, and upon points with which the public had little or no concern. Thus, both their Majesties being frugal as to their personal expenditure, this virtue, which rarely wears a crown or coronet, was caricatured in them without mercy. Gillray was foremost in this attack. In a pair of prints he represented George III. in a night-cap and ⚫ dressing-gown, with his breeches unbuttoned at In Gillray's time caricature had a much greater influence than it has had since. But this was not on account of the superiority of the caricatures. It was the result of the strength of party feeling, combined with power and ignorance in the people who were addressed. Thus, one of the most famous caricatures of the time was "Carlo Khan's Triumphal Entry into Leadenhall Street," by James Sayer, an elder contemporary of Gillray. It was directed at Fox, who had brought a bill into Parliament for the suppression of the monstrous injustice and rapacity by which the British East India Company amassed enormous fortunes for various members of the John Bull family. It was opposed, of course, by all the wealth and influence of that great corporation, and Fox was accused of desiring to destroy their vested rights and usurp power over them, and was christened Carlo Khan. Sayer's print represented him in Eastern costume as Carlo Khan, borne to the door of the India House on the back of an elephant, to which was given the face of the premier, Lord North, and which was led by Burke as imperial trumpeter, he having been the strongest supporter of the bill in the House. The reader can see that there is very little humor in this conception, and that little is certainly not heightened in the execution. A similar caricature now would be brushed aside at once as stupid. And yet Fox is said to have acknowledged that his India Bill received its severest blow in public estimation from this caricature. The reason was, that it suited the taste and just fitted the calibre of the people to whom it was addressed. So true is it that "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Gillray was fortunate, too, in having the events of the French Revolution and the intrigues of its sympathizers and opponents in Great Britain to work upon. Indeed, the personal characters and French sympathies of Fox and Sheridan were a good part of his stock in trade. The swarthy, Hebrew-looking face of the former, the mottled, dissipated countenance of the latter, and the sharp, up-turned nose and slender figure of Pitt appear continually in any extensive collection of his works. In one of them we find all of this immortal trio, and with them the no less immortal, and then new-born, John Bull. The print is not only noticeable as containing the three real personages who engaged so much of Gillray's attention, and the ideal which he created, but as being a marked example of the peculiarities of his style. It appeared in 1797, when a French invasion was feared, and when, Pitt being Chancellor of the Exchequer, an Order in Council was issued prohibiting the Bank of England from paying its notes in cash. This suspension of specie payments created a great sensation, but did not seriously shake public confidence. So Gillray, in a plate underlined "Bank Notes-Paper Money-French Alarmists-Oh, the Devil, the Devil-Ah! poor John Bull!" shows Pitt as a bank clerk paying out "rags and lampblack" to John Bull, who is the perfection of grossness, clownish rusticity, and anatomical monstrosity. On one side, Fox, wearing an enormous cocked hat with a tricolored cockade, exclaims, "Don't take his d-d paper, John! Insist upon having gold to make your peace with the French when they come." On the other side, Sheridan, in bonnet rougepoor, bankrupt, guinea-borrowing, bailiff-shirking Sherry-cries out, "Don't take his notes! Nobody takes notes now. They'll not even take mine!" But John, represented as firm in his confidence in Pitt-for, don't you see? Pitt was in power-sturdily, and, it must be confessed, sensibly, answers, "I wool take it! a may as well let my Measter Billy hold the gold to keep away the Frenchmen as save it to gee to you when ye come o'er wi' your domned invasion." The hit was a fair one, and hard enough, and the composition is very laughable; but how monstrous the figures! how coarse the humor! how utterly lacking the composition in that keenness and subtlety which are the weapons of more modern caricature! But Gillray was always coarse. We give place, as upon the whole admissible, to one of his caricatures of Pitt, which was inspired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's absorption of money, a peculiarity in his person, and his use of an equivocal phrase in one of his speeches. But nearly half of the great caricaturist's plates must be marked as not to be produced in mixed society. And this quite aside from that large number, the motive and central thought of which can not be named to ears polite. Those which were intended for general circulation, and actually did lie by hundreds upon the tables of the most elegant houses in London, have figures in them which would now not be allowed to enter any respectable parlor. THE BOTTOMLESS PITT.-BY GILLRAY. Fashion in dress was very extravagant in Gillray's time, and he did not spare it; but his caricatures of costume were comparatively few, and bear such an insignificant relation to the bulk of his works, that they hardly require to be mentioned in so brief an examination of his labors as this is. In caricature of the follies and social humors of the day his successor, George Cruikshank, was pre-eminent. Gillray's last print is dated 1811. Cruikshank, at that time seventeen years old, had already begun to practice his art publicly; and now, at the age of sixtyseven, still occasionally wields with unabated spirit the humorous pencil, the well-won and well-preserved fruits of which have long since placed him beyond the necessity of using it. Gillray, with all his genius and all his success, went to his grave a besotted, imbecile pauper; George Cruikshank, upon whom his mantle fell, is as temperate, as thrifty, as thoroughly respectable a man as if he were the stupidest and sourest prig that ever stifled mirth, and sought to gain happiness in the next life by making this | turing, and not very extravagantly, the fashions one gloomy. of dress from 1815 to 1825. Among these he, of course, did not leave untouched the very short skirts and low bodices of the women, and the long skirts and high collars of the men. About 1820 there was a most ridiculous fashion of dressing boys just as their papas were dressed; and in one of his "Monstrosities," published at a time when high bell-crowned hats, high shirt collars, enormous coat collars, small waists, and peg-top trowsers were in fashion, he has a most ridiculous group of a father and son dressed alike to a button, and the absurdity of which is heightened by that perfect similarity in physiognomy and figure between the two which is sometimes seen between man and boy, and which in itself has something of the ludicrous. Among these earlier works, which, by-the-way, he has never surpassed in humor, is one illustrating the inconveniences of a crowded drawing-room, the central group in which is a very fat woman and a very fat man trying to pass each other in a doorway. Both are in the agony of full dress, and as one attempts to slip in and the other to slip out the aperture, which is barely large enough for the comfortable passage of either with a lit Cruikshank has published comparatively few political caricatures. He fought in the cause of the Princess of Wales against her plausible, heartless, debauchee husband-his treatment of which subject first made him famous--and directed some of his earlier shafts against the Tory party in Great Britain. But abandoning this field about thirty years ago, his pencil has since been chiefly occupied in illustrating books or periodicals-such books as "Grimm's German Popular Stories," the novels of Fielding and Smollet, Dickens's "Sketches by Boz," and "Oliver Twist;" such periodicals as the "Comie Almanac," which was published five years (1835-1840), and "The Omnibus," in which he embarked with Laman Blanchard, and certain "semi-occasional" sketch-books of his own. He has thus been chiefly occupied in presenting the ridiculous side of the follies, the vanities, and the abuses of private life, and in presenting humorously exaggerated portraits of all the queer, peculiar people upon whom his quick, observant eye has rested. Among his earliest works was a series of plates called "Monstrosities," carica |