The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-15 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Caricature History of the Georges. By Thomas
Wright, F.S.A. Profusely illustrated. One vol.,

pp. 630. "'often.

The merriest book, surely-, this is that we have
anywhere seen published since the issuing from the
press of the third and last series of John Leech's
" Sketches of Life and Character." Mr. Hotten
has the trick somehow of producing every now
and then a work perfectly sui generi. He did
this in his quaint repertory of anecdotes about
old English Taverns and Hostelries, entitled
" The History of Signboards." He did it, again,
in that other and quainter repertory of his, com-
prising within it all the waifs and strays, the jet-
soul and flotsom of colloquial English—" The Slang
Dictionary." And, now, in a book mare amusing
than both of those popular tomes rolled into one,
he here—under the editorship, or rather, indeed,
under the direct authorship of Mr. Thomas Wright,
F.S.A.—supplies us with Authentic Annals of the
house of Hanover, compiled from the Squibs, Broad-
sides, Window Pictures, Lampoons, and Picto-
rial Caricatures of the time : in other words,
with a Caricature History of the Georges, embel-
lished with facsimiles from the comical drawings
(among others) of Gilray, Rowlandson, Sayer,
Bunbury, and Cruikshank. Outside the comely,
thickish, green, gilt-emblazoned book, we have (on
the cover) " Farmer George and his Wife." Out-
side, too (on the back), we have as arch-type Of
" A Brandy Drinker," the vera effigies—though
blotched-cheeked and pimple-nosed—of Richard
Brinsley Sheridan. Inside —as a vignette to the
title page—the latter limning of poor Old Sherry
is repeated. Inside, again, George 111. re-appears
upon the brilliantly-coloured frontispiece
though in another guise than that of honest
Farmer George and his wife trudging to
market. As the King of Brobdingnag, holding
Gulliver forth on the palm of his hand in order that
he may examine the homunculus a little more care-
fully—George 111., arrayed in his scarlet coat,
crossed by the blue ribbon of the Garter, is peering
through a microscope at -- Bonaparte! "Pll
little friend Grildrig," quoth the King of Brob-
dingnag [here as usual misprinted without the n• as
Brobdignag], you have made a most admirable
panegyric upon yourself and 'country, but
from what I can gather from your own
relation, and the auswers I have with much paws
wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but Nu'
elude you to be one of the most pernicious little
odious reptiles that nature ever suffered to crawl
upon the surface of the earth." Somehow the relative
disproportion of the sizes, so to speak, of the two
personages here depicted in this famous caricature
of Gilray's tells nowdays so entirely the other way
that the cut originally directed against NaP°.;
leon I. flies back like a boomerang hitting 01'
George 111. right upon the nose, straight between
the eyes, causing him to appear (by any such compa-
rison as this) supremely ridiculous. Besides this
extravagant frontispiece, the book comprises among
its embellishments a dozen full-page engravings
(conspicuous in the midst of them " Carlo Khan
Triumphal Entry," by Sayer), and very nearly four
hundred whimsical woodcut illustrations as well'
The explanatory letterpress portioned out into sixteen
chapters, supplies the reader indirectly with a roost
entertaining anecdotal resume of the reigns of the
Four Georges, down at any rate to the close of the
t
Regency, before old " Fun' the Fourth," th,
"Adonis of Sixty," was rouged, and wigged, and
padded, and, generally speaking, got up in eire.r.lci
way, quite regardless of expense, for the splenntly
farce of his Coronation. Sacheverell, prompted id
the Devil—Law, as Atlas sustaining the w°l..,
on his shoulders--Orator Henley ou Gilt
Tub as a Fox in neck-bands —Alexander Pepebelipr,
[Acted, now as Poet Pug, now as a Clumsy Dau
now as in the act of flaggelating Curll with
Letters—Lord Hervey, otherwise Pope's Lord Fa:')
(absurdly misprinted, here, p. 130, Lord Itali,
drawn (in two senses) on a child's toy hobby-11°'
with this nonsensical triplet underneath—
" Dat painted butterfly so prim-a,

On wooden Pegasus so trim-a,

Is something—nothing—'tis a whim-a."-
1003
Newcastle, Fox, and Hardwicke as a Lusus Nat ;,is
—Lord Littleton most drolly caricatured as Cliss'ciel
—Bardana Hill as Le Malade lmaginaire--garira,
as that Charming Brute an over-fed hog perf°: jo
ing on an organ—a Maccaroni of 1772, that
before—

"Yankee doodle came to town

Upon a little poney"— niv t
Hogarth, one while as an Unfortunate
another as Painter Pug—Dr. Johnson as an tr)vii:r,
Lord Sandwich, otherwise Jemmy Twitei"t-r,
dragging Justice to Execution by a ,b14,,,1ec1:
to cries, sufficiently insignificant, of " 1%-te3t
her, Jemmy, twitch her !"—Pitt the gat,
Commoner, Commoner, and afterwards the great Earl of c- io
ham, pourtrayed as a gouty Colossus, lordingoa
over London and Westminster on stilts °reo
crutches—such are among the fantastic caries° tia
scattered abundantly on these exhilarating pages' 9.0 y
realising vividly to us, far more vividly 010 the
more serious disquisition possibly could clol, the
fluctuating political incidents and characters 01 t a
years as they rolled on. We understand tbio
companion volume, carrying forward the sarae,'tiloo
of narrative to our own time, is projected--a ce'ctir,
for which certainly abundant materials have been
nished by such pencils as those of George Cruikohavnie,
H. 8., Alfred Crowquill, John Leech, Richard D: of
John Tenniel, Charles Keene, and a number
0,1
other various gifted, some among them (stl" of.
Cruikshank, and Leech, and Tenniel) very rare, or
gifted caricaturists, and shooters (with 3 orvalC; the
an etching needle) of folly as it flies j'hoe-re la
Goods the Gods [of Laughter] havegiven 1.15"(--orsit
this delightful tome, such Dii Majores, fie Oa
and Hogarth, and Sayer, and Bunbury, we oof
it thoroughly grateful. The examiaa
a book like this is the very opposite to a OihrsWe
of
and
Banting if the old-fashioned axiom of Lallg
Grow Fat have a particle of truth in it.