SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

MISCIMLANE01:111 LITERATI:7BL

England under the House of Hanover ; its History and Condition during the Reigns of the Three Georges, illustrated from the Caricatures and Satires of the Day. By Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.E.A., Rc. With numerous Dlustrations, executed by F. W. Falrholt, ir.s.s. In two volumes Bentley. Farmer, Gowrle; or the King's Plot. By G. P.R. James, Esq. Simpkin and Marshall.

WRIGHT'S ENGLAND UNDER THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.

WHEN the advance of the arts favours the use of caricatures, they form one of the best materials for the history of public feeling and opinion; since nothing else is so wide and general in its subjects or popular appeal. The drama is limited in most countries by the power of the state ; and always by its own nature, which forbids the bodily exhibition of many things that may be drawn. Satire is confined by the necessity of having a cer- tain extent of bad eminence in its persons, before it will expatiate upon them, or even notice them at all: some dignity of subject too is required before the satirist will touch it- " Nor shall the rascal rabble here have place,

Whom kings no title gave and God no grace."

The higher class of public w and public speakers are restrained by convention ; the lower speak from individual passion very often. Public documents, like medals, may be " faithful to their charge of fame," but are not always so trustworthy in themselves. All these classes of records, and some others, want the range of caricatures, which handle " earth's wide extremes," from the monarch on his throne to the player on the boards. In countries imperfectly free, a caricature is more effective than the press : its innuendos speak more readily to the eye than those of the writer to the mind ; and they are safer—can better escape the law, although they cannot defy absolute power. They have a further interest in presenting a likeness, though distorted, to the eye; and they preserve in many cases the costume of the times, as well as any foppery or singularity in that of the persons. England under the House of Hanover is based upon the caricatures of the time assisted by the satires; so that Mr. Wright contrives to illustrate- the principal public events of a century by the pencil and the verse-writer's pen. Both classes of these materials are fugitive: much seems to have perished when the occasion that gave rise to them has passed, the title alone remaining to show that they have been. Mr. Wright states in his preface, that "no public collections of caricatures or of political tracts and papers exist. The poverty of our great national establishment, the British Museum, in works of this class, is deplorable." Mr. Wright, however, has procured access to several private collections of caricatures and medals—an old English mode of commemorating party events ; some of the best caricatures relating to particular questions have been republished as a series ; and the innate merit of the two greatest caricaturists under the three Georges, Hogarth and Gilray, has pre- served collections of their works. After all, perhaps, it is rather detail or imitations that have perished, than anything of consequence for the merit of the design or the importance of the subject. Probably the same may be said of the fugitive verses ; at least if we form a judgment from some of the specimens Mr. Wright has printed. From the profusion of illustrations with which the work abounds, an inspection would lead to the idea that it was a history of caricature : but England under the House of Hanover is rather a sort of history il- lustrated by means of caricature and popular satire. Of course the his- tory is not of the usual kind, where events and persons are exhibited in regular succession upon a fixed scale. Mr. Wright greatly depends upon his matter ; and where the lampoon or the caricaturist are quiescent, he is silent, except so far as may be necessary to connect his narrative. This limitation, however, is more nominal than real. Few public events escaped the caricaturist when art had become sufficiently popularized in this country to supply the article ; for at first we imported our humour— from Holland of all places, the Dutch wit being used like French farces now, and "adapted." Sacheverell's trial gave rise to a few English en- gravings of the caricature class but Mr. Wright considers that the. South Sea scheme first popularized caricatures in this country. "The period of the South Sea bubble is that in which political caricatures began to be common in England; for they had before been published at rare in- tervals, and partook so much of the character of emblems, that they are not al- ways very easy to be understood. Read's Wee/4 Journal of November 1, 1718, gives a caricature against the Tories, engraved on wood, which is called 'an hiero- glyphic,'--so little was the real nature of a caricature then appreciated. Another fault under which these earlier caricatures labour, is that of -being extremely ela- borate. The earliest English caricature on the South Sea Company is advertised. in the Post Boy of June 21, 1720, under the the title of 'The Babblers Bubbled; . or the Devil Take the Hindmost.' It no doubt related to the great rush which was made to subscribe to the numerous companies afloat in that month. I have not met with a copy of it, but in the advertisement it is stated to be represented 'by a great number offigures: In the advertisement of another caricature, on the 29th of February in this year called The World in Masquerade,' it is set forth as one of its great recommendations, that it was 'represented in nigh eighty figures.' In France and in Holland, (where the bubble-mania had thrown every- thing into the greatest confusion,) the number of caricatures published dunng the year 1720 was very considerable. In the latter country, a large number of these caricatures, as well as many satirical plays and songs, were collected to- gether and published in a folio volume, which is still not uncommon, under the title 'Het groote Tafereel der Divaasheid,' (The Great Picture of Folly.) The greater portion of these foreign caricatures relate to Law and his Mississippi scheme. In one of these, a number of persons of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions in society, are represented acting the part of Atlas, each supporting is globe on his shoulders. Law, the Atlas who supported the world of paper- l'Atlas adieux de papier, as he is termed in the French description of the plate— bears his globe but unsteadily, and is obliged to call in Hercules to his aid. • * "So little point is there often in these caricatures, and so great appears to have been the call for them in Holland, that people seem to have looked up old engrav- ings, designed originally for a totally different purpose, and, adding new inscrip- tions and new explanations, they were published as caricatures on the bubbles. These betray themselves sometimes by the costume."

Our taste for humour, our freedom of speech, and practical character, soon stripped the caricature of its complexity and allegory, and endowed it with directness and point. In less than five years from the above date, (1718,) Hogarth had begun his career ; and henceforth few events of pub- lic interest, whether relating to politics or society, but seem to have given rise to some pictorial commentary, often accompanied by verse. The Excise Act, the Gin Act, the alleged Spanish aggressions that Walpole was accused of submitting to, the motion for an address to the Crown to remove Walpole, the events of the war, and Sir Robert's final fall, fur- nished subjects for the pen and pencil : the political contest and loss of character that ensued among Walpole's successors, the expedition of the Pretender in 1745-6, Byng's incapacity, Pitt's triumph—in short, the leading political events that occurred in the closing years of George the Second and the reign and regency of his successor.

Literature and manners also are exhibited in this way. The Dunciad is analyzed, and orator Henley presented in various-forma; after which, there is Pope as " poet pug," with similar complimentary shapes and titles.

Wilkes, Churchill, Hogarth, and their quarrels, are illustrated in like manner, with the national enmities consequent upon Bute's advancement and the patronage of Scotchmen, as well as the tales of scandal connected with the favourite and the Princess of Wales. The extreme fashions towards the close of the last century are presented to the eye in more than all their shapelessness. The gambling immoralities of the age, and various other traits of social follies, arc also noticed.

The readable merits are greater than might have been supposed from a work whose first object is an exposition of pictorial sketches, or an account of caricatures not engraved. England under the House of Hanover is a continuous, amusing, gossipy narrative of politics, literature, and fashions, frequently illustrated by the pencil. The read- ableness, however, is gained at the expense of completeness and fulness. Some topics seem to us slighted that were likely to have called forth the caricaturists,—as the "family jars" of the house of Brunswick under George the Second, and the popular fear and fury on the alteration of the calendar. They who are acquainted with the caricatures of the Regency will see that Mr. Wright has closed his history with the virtual de- cease of George the Third. He may plead, indeed, as he does for omis- sions in the earlier period, that many of those caricatures are not now presentable in a book : still, many are passable enough. The illustra- tions are numerous, and, when caricatures cease to have value as rarities, are well selected either for the illustration or as specimens of art. Those, however, who know how very rich England is in caricatures, at least from the time of Gilray's earliest efforts, will think there might have been more illustration. Perhaps the expense prevented. The miscellaneous character of the book may be a further cause. Mr. Wright enters more into literature and manners, perhaps into politics, than was necessary for his avowed object. There is a tolerable analysis of the Duncia.d, with specimens ; but Mr. Wright does not seem fully to appreciate the point of the particular attacks, or the comprehensiveness of the general satire ; perhaps the extracts might have been spared from a book BO readily accessible, unless when distinctly applicable to the picture, as " Henley's gilt tub." On the other hand, a freer use might have been made of the temporary political satires ; Mr. Wright not being very strong on this ground. He may argue, that to have entered with elabo- rate fulness into the subject both of satires and caricatures, would have required a larger space than he had restricted himself to, and that pro- fundity would have been gained at the expense of popularity. But the miscellaneous chapters, though unconnected with aaricature, are not the least informing portions of the book. The following rapid survey of the periodical literature of this country for nearly a century is an instance. "Literature continued to experience the neglect of the Court through the whole of the reign of George IL, and it had been entirely excluded from the Palace after the death of Queen Caroline. Some countenance was, it is true, shown to literary men in the opposition court of Leicester House; but it was rather a parade of pa- tronage than an efficient or judicious encouragement, and produced little more than a few panegyrical odes. At the same time, the literary taste of the day was gradually improving, and it was spreading and strengthening itself in new classes of publications. The newspapers had long been in the habit of devoting a por- tion of their space to literature, in a form somewhat resembling the French fenille- tons of the present day, but which was most frequently filled with burlesque, ill- natured criticism, or half-concealed scandal; or when such productions were harmless, they were of so dull and flimsy a character, as to give us a very low estimate of the taste of the readers who could receive any satisfaction from their perusal. The Gentleman's Magazine, the first attempt at a monthly repository of this kind, was began by Cave, in 1731; its main object at first being to give a summary of the better literary essays which had appeared in the more perishable form of the daily and weekly press, although this part of the plan was soon made subservient to the publication of original papers. This magazine was looked upon as belonging politically to the Whig party, then in the plenitude of power under Sir Robert Walpole; and the London Magazine was immediately set up in oppo- sition to it. The success of these two publications led in the course of a few years to a number of imitations; and in 1750 we count no less than eight periodicals of this description, issued monthly, under the titles of the Gentleman's Magazine, the London Magazine, the British Magazine, the Universal Magazine, the Tra- vellers' Magazine, the Ladies' Magazine, the Theological Magazine, and the Ma- gazine of Magazines. The latter was an attempt, by giving the pith of its monthly contemporaries, to do the same by them as the Gentleman's Magazine had first done by the newspapers. "With these periodicals there gradually grew up a new class of writers, known as the critics. The magazines had from the first given monthly lists of new books; and these lists were subsequently accompanied by short notices of the con- tents and merits of the principal new publications, while longer notices and ab- stracts of remarkable works were given as separate articles. This was the origin of the reviews, in the modern sense of the title, which were becoming fashionable in the middle of the last century. In the year 1752 there were three professed reviews,—the Literary Review, the Monthly Review, and the Critical Review, the latter by the celebrated Smollett. The critics formed a self-constituted tribunal, which the authors long regarded with feelings of undisguised hostility; and an unpalatable review was often the source of bitter quarrels and desperate paper wars. Their design was looked upon as an unfair attempt to control the public taste. There can be little doubt, however, that the establishment of reviews had an influence in improving the literature of the country. "About the same time that the reviews began to be in vogue, the periodical

essayists came again into fashion; and a multitude of that class of publicatio;s, represented in its better features by the Adventurers, Connoisseurs, Ramblers &c., that have outlived the popularity of the day, were launched into the world: most of them combining political partisanship with a somewhat pungent censor- ship of the foibles and vices of the age. This class of periodicals became most numerous soon after the accession of George III. Besides the personal abuse with which many of them abounded, they published a large mass of private scan.. dal, which was perfectly well understood, in spite of the fictitious names under which it was issued, and which formed probably the most marketable portion of the literature of the day. Even in the highest class of the romances of that age-- those of Smollett and Fielding—as well as in a multitude of memoirs and novels of a lower description the greatest charm for the reader consisted in the facility with which he recognized the pictures of well-known individuals, whose private weak- nesses were there cruelly brought to light in false or exaggerated colours..

"No class of literature was undergoing a greater change during the middle part of the reign of George III. than the periodical press which was especially

affected by the revolutions in political and moral feelings which characterized the age preceding, as well as that which followed the bursting out of the French Re- volution. The newspapers, which had varied but little in appearance from the beginning of the century to the earlier part of George's reign, now appear with new titles, and present themselves in a much enlarged and altered form. From an estimate given in the European Magazine for October 1794, we learn that, while in 1724 only three daily, six weekly, and ten evening papers three times a week, were published in England, 10 1792 there were published in London thirteen daily, twenty evening, and nine weekly papers, besides seventy country papers, and fourteen in Scotland. Among these we recognize the names of the principal daily papers of the present day. The Morning Chronicle was established in the year 1770, the Morning Post in 1772, and the Morning Herald in 1780; and they were followed by the Times in 1788. They began, in accordance with the depraved taste as well as manners of that age, with courting popularity by de- tailing largely the most indelicate private scandal, and with coarse libels on pub- lie as well as private characters; things for which the Post enjoyed a special eels.. brity. The Chronicle was from the first the organ of the Whigs: the Post was at first a violent organ of Toryism; it subsequently became revolutionary in its principles, and then returned to its original politics: the Herald also has not been uniform in politics from its commencement. Of seven new magazines which were started from 1769 to 1771—the Town and Country Magazine, the Covent Gar- den Magazine, the Matrimonial Magazine, the Macaroni Magazine, the ,Senti- mental Magazine, the Westminster Magazine, and the Oxford Magazine—two at least were obscene publications; and the feeling of the time allowed the titles of the licentious plates which illustrated them and of the articles they contained to be advertised monthly in the most respectable newspapers, in words which left no doubt of their character. The others gave insertion to a mass of scandal that ought to have been offensive to public morality. After a few years, society seems to have resented the outrage: the newspapers became less libellous, and the offen- sive magazines disappeared.

"The literary character of the magazines, which may always be taken to a certain degree as an index of public taste, remained long very low. They con- sisted of extracts from common books and reprints of articles which had appeared before, of crude essays by unpaid correspondents who were ambitious of seeing themselves in print, and of reviews of new publications, which constituted the most original part of the mixture. The reviews continued for a long time to be short and flippant, and in many cases the writer seems to have read or seen only the title of the book he reviews.

"Thus, in the Westminster Magazine for May 1774, Jacob Bryant's well- known New System of Ancient Mythology,' in two large quarto volumes, is re- viewed in four words= Learned, critical, and ingenious'; and another quarto volume, Science Improved,' by Thomas Harrington, is condemned with similar brevity—' Crude, obscure, and bombastic.' In the same magazine for September 1774, that important work, Striae' Regal Antiquities,' is dismissed with the observation= Curious, useful, and pleasing.' The triad of epithets, which recurs perpetually, is amusing: it is an authoritative style of givingjudgmeut that seems to come from the Johnsonian school. Some of the most remarkable examples are found in the Town and Country Magazine- which in March 1771 expresses its critical judgment in the following elegant terms- ' The Exhibition in Hein; or Moloch turned Painter.' Soo. Price la.

A hellish bad painter, and a d—d bad writer ! '

A few years later, the critical notices in the magazines became somewhat more diffuse: the reviews endeavoured to give their readers a little more information relating to the contents of new publications; and sometimes, as in the European Magazine, they added a chapter at the end under the title of 'Anecdotes of the Author,' in which they stated all they knew of his private history. Towards the close of the century, professed reviews, in contradistinction from magazines, be- gan to be more common."

The palmy days of English caricature of the old school range from the time of "Wilkes and Liberty" till towards the death of George the Third. In delicacy and sobriety they were inferior to those of the new school; which, beginning, we think, with the series of "The Man vot drives the Sovereign,' at the time of Catholic Emancipation, havc steadily improved under H. B. and Punch. In breadth, directness, and a grotesque vi- gour of action appropriate to caricature, the old school probably sur• passed the new; though their merits were alloyed by much coarseness, and a gaturnalian licence, from which the milder character of the present age would shrink. Some of these points may be seen in Mr. Wright's illustrations ; but the faults would be more distinctly visible in a col- lection of the caricatures themselves. In the absence of cuts, the follow- ing example from the trial of Warren Hastings will furnish a good idea of Wright's manner, and the style of political warfare sixty years since.

"The return of the Ex-Governor's wife had preceded his own; and Mrs. HastiS's was received at Court with much favour by Qaeen Charlotte, who was generally believed to be of a very avaricious disposition, and was popularly charged witll having sold her favour for Indian presents. The supposed patronage of the Court, and the manner in which it was said to have been obtained, went much further in rendering Hastings an object of popular odium than all the charges alleged against him by Burke; and they were accordingly made the most of by that class of political agitators who am more immediately employed in influencing the mob. At the very moment when the impeachment was pending, a circum- stance occurred which seemed to give strength, or at least was made to give strength, to the popular suspicions. The Nizam of the Deccan, anxious at this moment to conciliate the friendship of England, had seat King George a valuable diamond of unusual dimensions-' and, ignorant of what was going on in the English Parliament, had selected Hastings as the channel through which to trans- mit it. This peace-offering arrived in England on the 2d of June, while the first charge against Hastings was pending in the House; and on the 14th of June, the day after the second charge had been decided on by the Commons, the dia- mond, with a rich bulse or purse, containing the Nizam s letter, were presented. by Lord Sydney at a levee, at which Hastings was present. When the story a the diamond got wind, it was tortured into a thousand shapes, and was even spoken of as a serious matter in the House of Commons; and Major Scott, the intimate friend and zealous champion of Hastings in the House, was obliged to

make an explanation in his defence. It was believed that the King had received not one diamond, but a large quantity, and that they were to be the purchase- money of Hastings's acquittal. Caricatures on the subject were to be seen in the window of every print-shop. In one of these, Hastings was represented wheeling

away in a barrow the King with his crown and sceptre, observing, What a man

buys, he may sell'; and in another, the King was exhibited on his knees with his math wide open, and Warren Hastings pitching diamonds into it. Many other

prints, some of them bearing evidence of the style of the best caricaturists of

the day, kept up the agitation on this subject. It happened that there was a quack in the town who pretended to eat stones, and bills of his exhibition were placarded on the walls, headed in large letters The great atone-eater!' The caricaturists took the hint, and drew the King with a diamond between his teeth, and a heap of others before him, with the inscription, 'The greatest stone-eater!' Songs and epigrams on the diamond were passed about in all societies; and others of a less refined character were sung about the streets, or sold to the populace by

itinerant ballad-dealers. One of these, now before me, printed on a slip of coarse paper, with the title, 'A fall and true Account of the wonderful Diamond,

presented to the King's Majesty, by Warren Hastings, Esq., on Wednesday the lath of June 1786, being an excellent new song. to the tune of Derry down,' deserves to be reprinted, (with a slight necessary alteration,) as a good example of the class of literary productions to which it belongs. "I'll sing you a song of a diamond so fine, That soon in the crown of our Monarch will shine; Of its size and its value the whole country rings, By Hastings bestow'd on the best of all kings.

Derry down, &c.

"From India this jewel was lately brought o'er; Though sunk in the sea, it was found on the shore; And just in the nick to St. James's it got, Convey'd in a bag by the brave Major Scott. Derry down, &c.

"Lord Sydney stepp'd forth, when the tidings were known—

It's his office to carry such news to the Throne: Though quite out of breath, to the closet he ran, And stammer'd with joy ere his tale he began. Derry down, &c.

"‘ Here's a jewel, my liege, there's none such in the land; Major Scott, with three bows, put it into my hand; And he swore, when he gave it, the wise ones were bit, For it never was shown to Dundas or to Pitt.'

Derry down, &c.

"'For Dandas' cried our Sovereign, unpolish'd and rough, Give him a gcotch pebble, it's more than enough; And jewels to Pitt Hastings justly refuses, For he has already more gifts than he uses.'

Derry down, &c.

"'But run, Jenky, run!' adds the King, in delight, Bring the Queen and the Princesses here for a sight: They never would pardon the negligence shown, If we kept from their knowledge so glorious a stone. Derry down, &c.

" ' But guard the door, Jenky—no credit we'll win If the Prince in a frolic should chance to step in: The boy to such secrets of state we'll ne'er call;

Let him wait till he gets our crown, income' and all.'

Derry down, &c.

" In the Princesses run, and, surprised, cry 'O la! 'Tis as big as the egg of a pigeon, papa!' And a pigeon of plumage worth plucking is he,' Replies our old Monarch, who sent it to me.'

Derry down, &c.

"Madam Schwellenberg peeped through the door at a chink, And tipp'd on the diamond a sly German wink; As much as to say, Can we ever be cruel To him who has sent us so glorious a jewel?' Derry down, &c.

"Now, God save the Queen! while the pep* I teach, How the King may grow rich, while the Commons impeach; Then let nabobs go plunder and rob as they will, And throw in their diamonds as grist to his mill. Derry down, &c."