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. 639. Hotten.

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, cell"
prising within it all the waifs and strays, the jet-,
som and flotsom of colloquial English—." The Slang
Dictionary." And, now, in a book more 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,
Banbury, and Cruikshank. Outside the adinelY,
thickish, green, gilt-emblazoned book, we have (oil
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 ta
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 ! "311
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 On
relation, and the answers I have with much pans
wriuged and extorted from you, I cannot but eea-
elude you to be one of the most pernicious little
odious reptiles that nature ever suffered to craw'
upon the surface of the earth." Somehow the relative
disproportion of the sizes, so to speak, of the Of°
personages here depicted in this famous caricature
of Gilray's tells nowdays so entirely the other Way
that the cut originally directed against Napo'
Leon I. flies back like a boomerang hitting old
George 111. right upon the nose, straight between
the eyes, causing him to appear (by any such colliPa,
rison as this) supremely ridiculous. Besides tlit'
extravagant frontispiece, the book comprises at
its embellishments a dozen full-page engraving,:
(conspicuous in the midst of them " Carlo Khan
friumphal Entry," by Sayer), and very nearly fear
hundred whimsical woodcut illustrations as we'
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
Regency, before old "Fen the Fourth," that
"Adonis of Sixty," was rouged, and wigged, a°a
padded, and, generally speaking, got up in ever!,
way, quite regardless of expense, for the splendid
farce of his Coronation. Sacheverell, prompted by
the Devil—Law, as Atlas sustaining the wer.'
on his shoulders—Orator Henley on his
it
rub as a Fox in neck-bands—Alexander Pope
r,
de-
picted, now as Poet Pug, now as a Clumsy Daubed
low as in the act of flaggelating Curll with 1i.,13e
Letters—Lord Hervey, otherwise Pope's Lord Fanny
(absurdly misprinted, here, p. 130, Lord Rall°lo
drawn (in two senses) on a child's toy hobby-bw
with this nonsensical triplet underneath—

" Dat painted butterfly so prim:-a,
On wooden Pegasus so trim-a,
Is something—nothing—'tis a whim-a."--
Newcastle, Fox, and Hardwicke as a Luse -s
—Lord Littleton most drolly caricatured as Cassia
—Bardana Hill as Le Malade Imaginaire—Handel
as that Charming Brute an over-fed hog
0
--
ing on an organ—a Maccaroni of 1712, that i
before perform'

"Yankee doodle came to town

Upon a little poney"— lot/
[logarth, one while as an Unfortunate Ana-.
another as Painter Pug—Dr. Johnson as an Owl
Lord Sandwich, otherwise Jemmy Twitcblteir'
lragging Justice to Execution by a baej;
to- cries, sufficiently insignificant, of " Tviitcat
her, Jemmy, twitch her !"—Pitt the ,gr„:3,,t•
Commoner, and afterwards the great Earl of t1"-;;
ham, pourtrayed as a gouty Colossus, lording -a
aver London and Westminster on stilts are%
crutches—such are among the fantastic caricatt:
scattered abundantly on these exhilarating Pages' .-111
realising vividly to us, far more vividly 020 he
more serious disquisition possibly could de, the
fluctuating political incidents and characters e` t A
years as they rolled on. We understand thi/kocl
companion volume, carrying forward the sareeitiree
of narrative to our own time, is projected--a Q° for-
for which certainly abundant materials havebeea
nished by such pencils as those of George Cruiksha
El. 8., Alfred Crowquill, John Leech, Richard "
pf
John Tenniel, Charles Keene, and a nunibehr AO
other various gifted, some among them (aueli.
Cruikshank, and Leech, and Tenniel) ranro of
gifted caricaturists, and shooters (with a orgy the
an etching needle) of folly as it flies ! F°r ,e ja
Goods the Gods [of Laughter] havegiven us ",'here i 4
e
this delightful tome, such Dii Majores, as G
and Hogarth, and Sayer, and Bunbury, war ie
of
it kis) thoroughly grateful. The exarnies'irs- of
a book like this is the very opposite to a comb and
Banting if the old-fashioned axiom of Laud
Grow Fat have a particle of truth in it.

BONNETS A? THE 711EA7

TO THE EDITOR OF THE sus. fress
SIR,—As I fully share the opinion of the
emit
on Mr. E. T. Smith's happy idea, will Yetl!reeijoii
me to say that for the future bonnets a
will be permitted to be worn in the dress eire— 3ieS
stalls of Sadler's-wells Theatre. kligli6l3 the
have found the convenience of this system St°ll
ruye
continent, where it is universal, and I t
tUe
patrons in Islington and elsewhere will app
change.—Yours, &c.

Sadler's-wells Theatre, Sept. 14j.. lIAZLI:Wf°°P‘
dictionTl V
leB altr:e authorised in
C°llrlittett;
existing
CO---
to
distinctly
state,
professional for the A.delpeh
The six navvies between
naimu
rruwmobur.s, that the only engogfoi
fhulev
si,aeurdanodiyilailsi:intirltieaadtoroi:S:st'v"/
N:DIARY FIRES IN NORTIJOIEII-• ~,r,
taken into' custoily by the, Igor-- Ts,o'
land county constabulary were brought bJfore tile wit!).
mouth magistrates yesterday, charged on suspiciLlot ia
sthetetivnigualgree
of
EV:tires
Itohnreleasstsa;ekek-y,baurdts:i:ltilii.:h wore 1)01,10'4
polio policed
proveiol a case against them they were discharged' bier
of , engineer, a respectable young man, son oft the l'g9roct
the colliery the7e, was remanded for a wa, el3it-IL
withfro-
the serious offence of having sot fire to stacics,-i 6
don- moor Farm, by throwing a bottle of parafan a gtil- 13
them on the 10th inst.

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pt. 14.
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ked and

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left the
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Thomas
One vol.,

we have
from the

a Leech's
Hotta
-cry
now
He did
:,es about
entitled
it, again/

As, COM"
, the jet-
'he Slang
amusing

into one,

, indeed,
Wright,
Is of the
!, Broad-
I Picto-

r words,
;7 embel-
drawiuge
k, Sayer'
adtnely,
have (ou
.1, ()a-
1-type of
—though
Richard
,e to the
I sheaf
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tispieoe
F 1101100
ging W
holding
order Out
ore care"
let coat,

3 peCria
)f Brob-
the 11 85
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r but
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between
h c00k133-
3ides this
es aln°4

liraYingg
to li.ho
early four
as web.

to sixteen
Ai a most
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splendid
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worlu
his
Pope de-
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with I'L5
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)by-hoe

s Natur°
s Cassius
Handel
perform"
perforra:
, that t$

the Press
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