'S. W. Fores dwelt first at No 3, Piccadilly, but afterwards establishe 1 himself at No. 50, the corner of Sackville Street, where the name still remains. Fores seems to have been most fertile in ingenious expedients for the extension of his business. He formed a sort of library of caricatures, and other prints, and charged for ad mission to look at them; and he afterwards adopted a system of lending them out in portfolios for evening parties, at which these portfolios of caricatures became a very fashionable amusement in the latter part of the last century. At times some remarkable curiosity was employed to add to the attractions of his shop. Thus, on caricatures published in 1790, we find the statement that In Fores Caricature Museum is the completest collection in the kingdom. Also the Head and Hand of Count Struenzee. Admittance, one shilling." Caricatures against the French revolutionists, published in 1793, bear imprints stating that they were "published by S. W. Fores, No. 3, Piccadilly, where may be seen a Complete Model of the Guillotine. Admittance, one shilling.' In some this model is said to be six feet high.'

were, for the wandering Cockney, on his ter of the gentleman. As a delineator of peregrinations between East and West; and figures, we cannot esteem him very successwith this Mr. Wright has accordingly fur-ful. They run too much into the long and nished us. Perhaps the most celebrated lanky; portions of the outline, the extremities were Humphreys, of New Bond-street and in particular, are often almost effeminate in Piccadilly (whom, however, Mr. Wright their refinement: when he attempts a really does not mention), and Fores. broad, bluff personage, he is apt to produce the effect of a fine gentleman masquerading as a Falstaff. But it was in the likeness of his portraits, and their expression, that his chief and singular merit consisted. And in these, again, his success was extremely various. His fortune, in a professional sense, may be said to have been made by three faces those of the Duke of Wellington, King William IV., and Lord Brougham. The provoking, sly no-meaning, establishing itself on the iron mask of the first; the goodhumoured, embarrassed expression of the second; the infinite variety of grotesque fancies conveyed in the contorted features of the third; these were reproduced, week after week, for years, with a variety and In other fertility perfectly astonishing. cases he never could succeed in hitting off even a tolerable likeness: of his hundred or so representations of the late Sir Robert Peel, we do not recollect one which conveys to us any real remembrance of the original. The Peel of caricaturists in general, not only of H.B., was a conventional personage; as is, though in a less marked degree, the Gladstone of our present popular artists. Still more remarkable was the failure of H.B., in common with his predecessors, in catching the likeness of George IV. In all the countless burlesque representations of that personage, from the handsome youth of 1780 to the puffy veteran of 1827, there are scarcely any which present a tolerable resemblance. The courtly Lawrence succeed in portraying him well enough; the caricaturists, usually so happy, never. H. B.'s published sketches amount to some nine hundred, and afford a capital key to the cabinet and parliamentary history of England, from the Ministry of Wellington to the end of Lord Melbourne's. While numbers of them do credit to the artist's political sagacity as well as his skill, we cannot forbear to notice one which, to our present notions, illustrates the nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futuræ produced when the Tories, to whom H B. appertain

Mr. Wright closes his list with George Cruikshank, as the last representative of the great school of caricaturists formed in the reign of George III. But there is another, still living among us, whose experience as an artist goes very nearly back to that reign, and who may be in the most literal sense called the last of the political caricaturists as he is considered by many the best Mr. Doyle, the world-famous H.B. of the past generation. Those who belonged to it can well remember the height of popularity which his lithographed sketches achieved, the little blockades before the shop-windows in St. James's-street and the Haymarket whenever a new one appeared, and the convenient topic of conversation which it was sure to afford to men of the clubs, when meeting each other on the pavement. For it was to critics of this class that H.B. particularly addressed himself. His productions wanted the popular vigour of those of Gillray and his school. But it is to Mr. Dəyle's high honoured with all his heart, anticipated the trithat they were also entirely free from the scandalous coarseness of his predecessors, and that he showed the English public how the purposes of political satire could be fully secured without departing a hand's breadth irom the dignity of the artist or the charac

umphs of French over English diplomacy under the conduct of our then Foreign Secretary: it is No. 171 in the series, The Lame leading the Blind:' Lord Palmerston, guided into a ditch by Talleyrand.

With the renowned H. B. the line of regu

lar British caricaturists closes. The taste of The general subject can be nowhere so the nation has sought another direction. But well studied in a summary way as in the two do not let us be misunderstood. The spir- volumes of M. Jaime (Musée de la Caricait of the art survives, and will do so as long ture'), with very fairly executed illustraas England is a free country and Englishmen tions, to which we can only apply the anretain a sense of the ludicrous; but its form cient reproach, tantamne rem tam negli is so completely changed, by the substitu- genter;' for M. Jaime has but treated the tion of the cheap illustrated newspaper for matter in a perfunctory way, as if afraid the comparatively expensive broad-sheet of of dwelling too much on it. It has not, the last century, that a more convenient however, the interest which attaches either moment could not be found, for closing the to the coarser but bolder style of art inaugold chapter in artistic history and beginning urated by the Germans in the sixteenth cena new one, than that in which Doyle ceas- tury, or to that which prevailed in the great ed his labours and the Punch' school of English age of political caricature. Callot satirists began theirs. The very distinct was indeed a Frenchman, by race at least, mode of treatment which the small size of though born in Lorraine, then independthe modern comic newspaper, compared ent; but his associations were more with with the old sheet, necessarily requires, the school of the Netherlands than that of combines with other causes of difference to France. Nor had he any followers of note render this new school something quite apart in the latter country. The jealous wakefrom the old one. Its success must needs be fulness of French government, and the cold obtained more through skill in the delinea- and measured style which French art detion of individual faces, and compactness of rived from a close addiction to supposed wit in the 'motive' of the composition, than classical models, were both alike unfavourathrough breadth of treatment, or (generally ble to the development of the artistic empire speaking) through talent for grouping. In of Laughter, holding both his sides.' the delineation of faces, however, and es. French artists of the eighteenth century for pecially in portrait, which is the specialty the most part touched ludicrous subjects in of political caricature, the designers with a decorous and timid way, as if ashamed of whom we are now dealing have an immense them. As the literature of the country is advantage over those of former times, in said to abound in wit, while it is poor in hubeing able to use the results of the art of mour, so its pictorial talent found vent rathphotography. Photographs of faces and fig- er in the neat and effective tableau de ures, always at hand, are a very superior genre' than in the irregularity of the groclass of auxiliaries to those hasty drawings tesque; or, to employ another simile, French on bits of card' with which Gillray was wont comic art was to English as the genteel to content himself. The popularity which comedy to the screaming farce. And the our present favourites have earned is prob- same was the case (to treat the subject ably more real, certainly much more exten- briefly) with that of other nations over sive, than that gained by their most success- which France exercised predominant influful predecessors, from. Hogarth to Cruik- ence. Chodowiecki was the popular Gershank with whose names that of Leech, so man engraver of domestic scenes in the last lately lost to us, and of his living associates century, and his copper-plates have great and rivals, of whom we need only name delicacy of execution and considerable powDoyle the younger and John Tenniel as er of expression. He was in high vogue specimens, will assuredly find their places for the purpose of illustrating with cuts the in the future annals of art. But, arrived at novels and the poetry of the great age of this turning point, we must take farewell of German literature, and his productions are our subject, devoting only a few pages more extraordinarily numerous. But he habituto the cotemporary history of modern ally shrank from the grotesque. His adFrench caricature, on which Mr. Wright mirers styled him the German Hogarth - a (to our regret) does not enter. We had comparison which he, we are told, rejected hoped to derive considerable assistance with some indignation, and which IIogarth, for this purpose from a new publication could he have known it, would certainly of our friend M. Champfleury, entitled have rejected likewise; for Chodowiecki, 'Histoire de la Caricature Moderne,' which with all his other merits, very seldom aphas just fallen into our hands; but although proaches the ludicrous, and never soars to the title is thus comprehensive, the contents the height or descends to the depth of carireduce themselves to a few lively pages of panegyric on two or three recent artists, which seem to be dictated in great measure by personal feelings.

cature.

The unbounded licence of the first French Revolution, and the strange mixture of the burlesque with the terrible which attended

its progress, gave of course for some years is no French Gillray or Rowlandson. Here the most favourable opportunities possible and there, however, among a multitude of for the exercise of pictorial wit, so far as the inferior performances, the eye is struck by nation possessed it. There can be no great- one really remarkable as a work of a higher er treat to one who loves to tread the by- order than our English cotemporary series ways of history, often the shortest cuts to could furnish. Such is the famous Arrestatruth, than to turn over the series of those tion du Roi á Varennes,' 1791. The wellmagnificent volumes in the Imperial Libra- known features of the Royal party, seated ry of Paris, in which the whole pictorial an- at supper with lights, are brought out with nals of the last century or so in France are a force worthy of Rembrandt, and with preserved; everything arranged as nearly slight but marked caricature; while the as may be in order of date, and not of sub- fierce, excited patriotic figures, closing in on jects: portraits, festal shows and triumphs, them from every side, have a vigour which processions, battles, riots, great events, rep is really terrific. Another, in a different resented under every form down to the style, is the 'Intérieur d'un Comité Révolurough newspaper woodcut and street carica- tionnaire,' 1793. It is said, indeed, to have ture, unrolling in one vast phantasmagoria been designed by a first-rate artist, Fragobefore the eye. We have much that is val- nard, one who doubtless wrought with a will, uable and useful in our Museum, but noth- for he had prostituted his very considerable ing, in the matter of historical art, compara- talents to please the luxurious profligacy of ble to this collection. An inadequate idea the last days of the ancient règime, and the of it only can be formed from the miscella- stern Revolution had stopped his trade, anneous contents of the well-known three fo- nihilated his effeminate customers, and relio volumes of prints, entitled Tableaux de duced him to poverty. Fragonard's powers la Révolution Francaise.' The earlier part as a caricaturist are characterised by a wellof the caricatures of that age are the most known anecdote. He was employed in humourous and also the best executed. As painting Mademoiselle Guimard, the famous the tragedy deepened, fun became more dancer, as Terpsichore; but the lady quarand more out of place; and the satirists who relled with him, and engaged another to had seen its outbreak having most of them complete the work. The irritated painter got lost their heads or fled the country, the access to the picture, and with three or four business fell into the hands of more vulgar strokes of his brush turned the face of Terpworkmen. One of the first (1788) may be sichore into that of a fury. The print now mentioned, not so much for its execution, in question is a copper-plate, executed with which is tame enough, as because it is (as exceeding delicacy of touch. A dozen figfar as we know) the real original of a piece ures of men of the people, in revolutionary of wit which has since made its fortune in costume, are assembled round a long table in every language, and been falsely attributed a dilapidated hall of some public building. to many facetious celebrities. Calonne, as a A young ci-devant,' his wife and child, are monkey, has assembled his notables,' a flock introduced through an open door by an ushof barn-door fowl. Mes chers administrès, er armed with a pike. If the artist's intenje vous ai rassemblés pour savoir á quelle tion was to produce effect by the contrast of sauce vous voulez être mangès.' 'Mais nous these three graceful figures with the vulgar ne voulons pas être mangès du tout.' Vous types of the rest of the party, he has sucvous écartez de la question.' ceeded admirably. They are humbly presenting their papers for examination; but it is pretty clear that the estimable committeeman, to whom the noble is handing his passport, cannot read it. The cunning, quiet, lawyer-like secretary of the committee, pen in hand, is evidently doing all its work. At the opposite end of the table an excited member is addressing to the walls what must be an harangue of high eloquence; but no one is listening to him, and the two personages immediately behind him are evidently determined to hear no noise but their own. But our favourite figureand one well worthy of Hogarth is that of the sentinel off duty: he is seated beside a bottle, pike in hand, enjoying his long pipe,

But French art, as we have seen, refined and softened into effeminacy under the class civilization of the ancien règime, and rendered prudish also by its adherence to classical models, had its decorum soon shocked by too coarse intermixture of the grotesque. Indeed, the reason often given by Frenchmen of the last generation for the acknowledged inferiority of their caricatures to ours, was the superiority of French taste, which could not accommodate itself to 'ignoble' exaggeration. On the whole, therefore, those of the revolutionary series of which we have been speaking are more interesting historically, and also from the keen wit often developed in them, than from their execution. There

เ

and evidently, from the expression of his face, far advanced from the excited into the meditative stage of convivial patriotism. A placard on the door announces, somewhat contradictorily as well as ungrammatically, Ici on se tutoyent: fermez la porte s'il vous plait!' Altogether there is much more of the comic than the ferocious about the patriots; and one may hope that the trembling family, for whom it is impossible not to feel an interest, will this time be quittes pour la peur.'

6

The popular governments. ry and of the First Empire — easily tamed the spirit of caricature, as they did that of more dangerous enemies, and it only revived when France was replaced under the tyranny of legitimacy. There is a great deal of merit in those on the Bonapartist side, of 1814 and 1815; many of them appear to be executed by some one clever artist, to us unknown. We will only notice one of them, the 'Vou d'un Royaliste, ou la seconde entree triomphante.' Louis XVIII. is mounted behind a Cossack - the horse and man are admirably drawn-while the poor King's expression, between terror and a sense of the ludicrous of his position, is worthy of the best efforts of Gillray or Doyle.

tember. It had a brief and feverish revival under the Republic of 1848; some of its productions in that period are worth a moment's notice, both from their execution and good humour: we remember two of the class of general interest; the Apparition du Serpent de Mer,' a boat full of kings, startled by the appearance of the new Republic as the problematical monster of the deep; and the Ecole de Natation,' in which the various Kings and Emperors of Europe are floundering in a ludicrous variRevolutiona-ety of attitudes among the billows of revolution, while the female rulers of Britain, Spain, and Portugal are kept afloat by their crinolines. But under the decorous rule of the Empire, no such violation of the respect due to constituted authorities at home is any longer tolerated, while ridicule, even of foreign potentates, is permitted only under polite restrictions. Debarred from this mode of expressing itself, French gaiety finds one of its principal outlets, in the more innocent shape of social caricature, which was never so popular, or cultivated by artists of so much eminence, as within the last thirty years. And here we must notice a singular change in French workmanship, which appears to us to have been occasioned chiefly or wholly by the introduction of lithography. We have already observed how much difficulty its artists found in departing from the rules of classical outline and correct drawing, so long as the old-fashioned line engraving prevailed, and the consequent inferiority of French to English caricature in breadth, its superiority in correctness. The introduction and great popularity of lithography in France seems to have altogether changed the popular taste. Artists now dash off, rather than embody, their humorous conceptions in the sketchiest of all possible styles, and that which affords the greatest licence for grotesque distortions of figure and face. Boilly, a clever and fertile lithographer, was perhaps the first to bring this style of composition into vogue. But to such an extent has the revolution now gone, while we, on the other hand, have been pruning the luxuriance of the old genius of caricature, that the positions of the two countries seem to have become reversed, and England to be now the country of classic, France of grotesque art; in the comic line of which any reader may judge for himself, by comparing the style of the cuts in Punch,' for instance, with those in the Charivari.' We cannot say that we find the change on the other side of the Channel an improvement, or that we have

Caricature continued to be a keen party weapon in France through the period of the Restoration, and in the early years of Louis Philippe. The latter monarch's head especially, under the resemblance of a pear, which Nature had rendered appropriate, was popularised in a thousand ludicrous or ignominious representations; his Gillray was Honoré Daumier, a special friend and favourite of M. Champfleury, but in whom we are unable ourselves to recognize more than secondary merit. Entre tous, Daumier fut celui qui accommoda la poire aux sauces les plus diverses. Le roi avait une honnête physionomie, large et étouffée. La caricature, par l'exagération des lignes du masque, par les differents sentimens qu'elle prêta à l'homme au toupet, le rendit typique, et laissa un ineffaçable relief. Les adversaires sont utiles. En politique, un ennemi vaut souvent mieux qu'un ami.' The genius of Daumier had some analogy with that of the sculptor-caricaturist Dan

tan.

But the liberty of art, like that of the Tribune, degenerated into licence, and France has never been able in her long age of State tempests to maintain the line between the two. Political caricature was once more extinguished in the Orleans reign, with the applause of decent people in general, by the so-called laws of Sep