THE DECAY OF POLITICAL CARICATURE.
THE death of Carlo Pellegrini, one of our ablest _L, caricaturists, who twenty years ago was at the head of the caricaturists of this country, and who probably made the fortune of Vanity Fair, has given rise to various lamentations over the gradual disappearance of subjects for political caricature. Is it not rather the decay of the power to see subjects for political caricature than the dis- appearance of those subjects, which ought to be lamented ? What was there in the faces of Lord. Palmerston, and Lord John Russell, and Lord Clarendon, and Mr. Roe- buck, that rendered them fitter for caricature than the faces of Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Goschen, and Sir William Harcourt, and Lord Hartington, and Mr. Chamberlain, and Sir George Trevelyan, and Lord Randolph Churchill, and Mr. John Morley ? One or two figures which lent themselves notably to caricature, like Lord Beaconsfield's, have no doubt disappeared, nor can the latter's place ever be filled up for the caricaturist. There was something at once in his coolness and his assumption of reverence, in his readiness to protest that he was on the side of the angels, and his equal readiness to show that he was on the side of the great battalions, which lent itself especially to the humours of caricature. The cool effrontery of the practised coquette was so deeply mixed in Mr. Disraeli's nature with the intellectual steel of a practised political swordsman, that it was not easy for the caricaturist to exhaust the effective expressions which swept across his face, most of which were strongly and ludicrously con- trasted with other expressions equally characteristic, of which it was easy for the caricaturist to preserve the trace. But with the exception of Mr. Disraeli, we should say that the politicians of the present day lend themselves quite as effectively to caricature as the politicians of twenty years ago. Lord John cowering under his hat, and with his feet endeavouring in vain to reach the ground, was not a bit better subject for caricature than Mr. Balfour's threadpaper figure, combining the expres- sion of fastidious scorn with the intellectual pertinacity of the Scotch ; and certainly Lord Palmerston's jaunty self-confidence did not lend itself half as well to carica- ture as Mr. Gladstone's annihilating glance of over- earnest wrath. Indeed, the difference between this age and that lies chiefly, we think, in the tendency of states- men in our own day to overdo earnestness, while the states- men of that day perhaps overdid frigidity. Even Mr. Brad- laugh, whose creed would not seem to tend in the direction of over-earnestness, overdoes his passion for democratic justice, if he makes any mistake at all ; and Mr. John Morley, whose natural role it is to preach a rather incisive and refrigerating warning against easy answers to difficult questions, is so anxious to convince the democracy that he is in earnest, that he now frequently winds himself up into passion with an almost plainly artificial ring. Now, surely nothing can be more caricaturable than this hypertrophy of the moral emotions, especially in an age of diffused scepticism and profound. perplexity. If ever there were a face, except Mr. Disraeli's, which lent itself to caricature, it is, we think, fora this very reason, Sir William Harcourt's; and yet the caricaturists of the day have not made any, brilliant success of their caricatures of the chief of Mi.. Gladstone's staff: They allow the natural recklessness of the politician, to run riot in their caricatures, and do not show the conflict between the eagerness to produce an effect and the com- plete indifference reigning in his mind as to what effect it is that shall be produced, so long as it is favourable. Democracyhasinjur.ed politics chiefly by making men strive overmuch to exaggerate their own interest in popular wants, and to disguise their own want of interest in much that their constituents might perhaps wish them to care for, though in nine instances out of ten, perfect candour would serve their purpose far better than artificial earnestness. In men like Mr. Morley, this leads to a great exaggeration of the confidence which he feels in his own conclusions ; and in men like Mr. Gladstone, to an almost absurdly prophetic indignation. against the political " old man " whom he has so very recently put off. But in men like Sir William Harcourt, the effect is singular in the extreme, for he always seems in danger of over-running himself in his complete indif- ference as to what the popular cause is, so long as it is popular ; and he sometimes recollects only just in time that what he has to persuade the people of, is not his eagerness to support their views# whatever they are, but his independent conviction that those views are popular only because they are right, and not right because they are popular. The bluster of his sympathy with the stream of tendency that makes for righteousness, so long at least and only so long as it is a stream of popular tendency too, gives to his whole air and manner an effect of braggadocio earnestness that the caricaturists have never caught. Mr. Morley's earnestness is the earnestness of a revolutionary priest lashing himself into severe sacerdotal judgments ; Sir William Harcourt's earnestness is the earnestness of a blatant purpose which is full of wind. They are contrasts as remarkable and suitable to the pur- pose of the caricaturists as any contrast could be.
And surely the Government and its supporters are not without figures that would lend themselves well to carica- ture. Lord Salisbury's inner vacillations and outward over-confidence, Mr. Goschen's strenuous caution and the non-committal eagerness of his penetrating scrutiny, Mr.
W. H. Smith's bland inaccessibility to importunity, Lord Hartington's stony indifference, Mr. Chamberlain's com- placent air of seeing round the corner, Mr. Matthews's bold familiarity of gaze, and the remarkably un-Oriental,—might we not say, provincially English ?—self-satisfaction with which Lord Cross deals with the knotty points of Indian policy,—all lend themselves to happy caricature ; while Lord Randolph Churchill, the " Bailey Junior " of polities, would yield a harvest in himself to any caricaturist with a genius.
We believe that caricature is declining, not for the want of subjects of caricature, but from a growing impression,— mostly false,—that very little now depends on the individual character of our political leaders, and almost everything on that flux and reflux of• the democratic tide which is caused rather by great collective attractions than by the minds and characters of statesmen. In the days when it was believed that Lord Palmerston was all-powerful abroad, men looked eagerly, often wonderingly, at every little trait of that jaunty and yet strong ambitious character. In days when it was thought that every- thing depended on the pluck of " Johnny," as he was fondly called, Lord John Russell's dry insouciance was studied as Mr. Stevenson's heroes would study a key to the secrets of Treasure Island. When Conservative policy was supposed to depend entirely on Mr. Disraeli's inscrutable will, his countenance was consulted as men attempted to unriddle the secret in the face of the Sphinx. But now, who believes that anything practically depends even on Mt. Gladstone's determination Has he not himself taught us to think that when eighty-five representatives from a single section of the United Kingdom came up pledged to a particular policy, the appeal has been made to Caesar,-- the popular will,—and that to Caesar it must go ? Did he not assure us that it surpassed the wit of man to discrimi- nate between Irish affairs and Imperial affairs so as to effect any working compromise on which a new order could be con- structed? And did he not at once undertake to devise what he had declared that it surpassed the wit of man to devise; directly he understood that the popular will insisted on the impossible ? If any one man is responsible for that disbelief in the political significance of individual character which has come over our people, it is the great leader whose policy has recently turned everything upside-down, and who has preached a sort of gospel of popular principle which virtually involves this,—that if a constituent element of a great people wish one thing, and the rest of them wish• another thing quite- inconsistent with it, both wishes must' and shall be gratified only because they are demanded by popular votes. No doubt this strange lesson has sunk deep into the hearts of the people, and year by year, as it seems to us, it is producing more and more fruit in the in- difference of men in general to the particular characters of their various leaders,—nay, in a growing indifference of the political spokesmen to their own characters,—a growing disposition in them to become mere interpreters of a tendency outside themselves of which they are not the causes, but at most close observers. This is why the by-elections are watched with such childish intensity of interest. We have ourselves always protested against this tendency, because we believe it to be utterly baseless. We do not believe that that huge leviathan called " the people " has an independent faith of its own. We hold that its faith is as variable and often as dependent on trivial causes, as that of the least steady politician we could name. Where these by-elections have gone in our favour, we have never felt elated ; and when they have gone against us, we have never felt unduly depressed ; for we wholly reject the doctrine that popular conviction follows laws of its own on which individual character does not greatly tell. We hold that what has happened within the last few years is this,—that, owing chiefly to the far greater difficulty of getting the ear of the vast multitudes who now determine our political action. individual character has lost faith,—lost faith unreasonably, in its own power to influence the people, and that the consequence has been the sort of fatalism which has lowered the tone of politicians much more than any such illusion ought to have lowered it. Political character is as important as ever, and it affects more people than it ever did ; but then, unfortunately, it does not score as much upon any barometer of popular opinion as it used to do, simply because a great effect produced, say, upon three thousand people now, has less result on the elections than the same effect produced on one thousand people would have had twenty-five years ago. Never was there so much need for strong political character, and never was there so little of it. Look at the enormous effect produced by Lord Hartington's and Mr. Chamberlain's personal action within the last three years, and then assert if you can, that it is no use attempting to stem the tide of political necessity. What we really need is stronger forms of political character, but yet of political character modest enough to be content with a limited local sphere. If we could get this, we might have a great resurrection of political life, and one of the first effects probably would be a number of new centres of keen local caricature. It would be a good sign of the times, but at present we look for it in vain. Political caricature has for the time lost its interest only because political character has for the time lost faith in its own influence. Directly the latter revives, the former will revive with it.
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