For several years prior to 1811, the established clergy had 1811. manifested considerable uneasiness on account of the rapid spread of Methodism. The readiness with which licenses for preaching could be obtained according to the usual interpretation of the Toleration Act, had tended to the multiplication of a class of preachers whose manners and language peculiarly fitted them for acquiring influence over the inferior ranks of the people; and by this means a great diminution had taken place in the congregations of parish churches. It is affirmed—with what truth we know not—that Lord Sidmouth in the measure (presently to be noticed) was encouraged to proceed in his design by letters from persons of high position in the Church.
On the 9th of May, 1811, Lord Sidmouth moved in the House Lord Sidmouth’s Motion. of Lords for leave to bring in a bill for amending and explaining the Acts of William and Mary and 17th George III., so far as applied to dissenting ministers. According to the statement of his lordship, at most of the quarter sessions, when the oaths were taken and the declarations made requisite for enabling a person to officiate in a chapel or meeting-house, any person, however ignorant or profligate, was able to obtain a certificate which authorized him to preach. His lordship proposed that, in order to entitle any person to a qualification as a preacher, he should have the recommendation of at least six respectable householders of the congregation to which he belonged. Lord Holland, in opposing the bill, observed that he held it to be the inalienable right of every man who thought himself able to instruct others to do so, provided his doctrines were not incompatible with the peace of society.
When the nature and provisions of the proposed measure were made known to the public, an alarm was excited among all those whom it was likely to affect. The Nonconformists generally regarded it as intended, not so much to add to the respectability of the dissenting ministers, as to contract the limits of toleration, and subject the licensing of preachers to the control of the magistracy. When therefore, on the 21st of May, the bill was to be read a second time, such a deluge of petitions was poured in against it, that the mover was left totally unsupported. The Archbishop of Canterbury said with truth, that the Dissenters were the best judges of their own concerns; and as it appeared from the great number of petitions against it, that they were hostile to the bill, he thought it unwise to press the measure against their manifest wishes. Under these circumstances the bill was, we need not say, thrown out.
This would appear to be the subject which produced George Cruikshank’s graphic satire of the Interior View of the House of God, in the first volume of “The Scourge.” The pulpit is occupied by two fanatics, one of whom rants, while the other snuffs the candles; the devil, in the gallery above, ridicules the proceedings by rasping, à la fiddle, the bars of a gridiron with a poker; among the numerous congregation present we notice some attentive and interested listeners, whilst others evidently attend from mere motives of curiosity. Above the composition appears the quotation, “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” The satire, The Examination of a Young Surgeon, which appears in the same volume, is aimed at the medical profession. One of the examiners is deaf, another has the gout, a third is asleep, while two others (unmistakable Scotchmen) discuss the merits of their respective snuff-mulls. The deaf man calls upon the frightened candidate to “describe the organs of hearing.” The table is garnished with “The Cow Pox Chronicle,” and a skull and bones, while the walls are decorated with pictures depicting a fight between death and a pugilist, the Hottentot Venus, a group of various nations worshipping the golden calf, and the lady without arms or legs. The hand of the clock points to the hour of eleven. Judging by the pile of money-bags lying at the foot of the president’s chair, and the two members of the court who are busily engaged in counting coin, George would seem to insinuate that the fellows of the college of his time were a decidedly mercenary set.
Of character akin to “The Scourge” (the ten volumes of which “The Satirist.” were published between 1811 and 1815 inclusive); is “The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor,” the thirteen volumes of which made their appearance between the years 1808 and 1813. Both publications, which now command prices very far beyond what they are intrinsically worth, contain a number of satires, of more or less merit (generally less), by various satirists, including George Cruikshank; so far as “The Satirist” is concerned, the designs of the latter are confined to the thirteenth and last volume, and his caricature contributions are of a vastly superior order of merit to any of those by which they are preceded. Besides those in “The Scourge” and “The Satirist,” may be mentioned George Cruikshank’s comic designs in “Fashion,” printed for J. J. Stockdale, of Pall Mall, in 1818; and his very admirable series of untinted etchings in “The Loyalist Magazine; or, Anti-Radical,” a publication exclusively devoted to the ministerial side of the Carolinian scandal, and published by James Wright, of Fleet Street, in 1820.
One of the earliest caricatures I have met with by George is entitled, Apollyon [i.e., Napoleon], the Devil’s Generalissimo, Addressing his Legions; it is signed (contrary to his usual custom), “Cruikshank del.,” and was executed (if I am right in assigning it to him) when he was sixteen years of age.
The attention of the public in 1813 was, as we have seen, 1813.
Discovery of the remains of Charles I. attracted by the Regent’s treatment of his miserable wife; and in April the sympathy of the Livery and Corporation of London, and other public bodies, found expression in an address which was presented to Her Royal Highness. On the 28th of March of that year, the remains of Charles the First had been discovered in the vault of Henry the Eighth, at Windsor, a circumstance which suggested to George Cruikshank his admirable satire entitled, Meditations amongst the Tombs. It shows us His Royal Highness gazing at the recovered bodies, and regretting that while Henry had managed to dispose of many wives, he found it impossible to get rid of one. A figure behind him points to the headless corpse, and significantly remarks, “How rum King Charley looks without his head!” The Battle of Vitoria (fought this year) forms the subject of a pair of roughly executed caricatures, entitled respectively, The Battle of Vitoria, and A Scene after the Battle, or More Trophies for Whitehall. Other satires of the year, are Double Bass, and A Venomous Viper Poisoning the R—l Mind, the latter as coarsely and indelicately handled a subject as any caricaturist of the old school might possibly desire.
Little Boney gone to Pot (Thomas Tegg, May 12th, 1814), is one of 1814. the artist’s contributions to the series of caricatures which followed the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Here the satirist has seated the emperor (a lean, ragged, forlorn, miserable, diseased object) on a huge article of bedroom furniture, labelled, “Imperial Throne.” He is in a forlorn condition, suffering from itch, with large excrescences growing on his toes. He is all alone in his island prison (Elba), and tempted by a fiend, who tenders him a pistol—“If you have one spark of courage left,” it says, “take this.” “Perhaps I may,” replies Napoleon, “if you’ll take the flint out.” By his side we find a pot of brimstone, numerous medicine bottles, and “a treatise on the itch, by Dr. Scratch.”[70] One of the imperial boots, mounted on a tiny carriage, forms a dummy cannon. His back leans against a tree, to which is nailed the “Imperial Crow,” while from the branches depends a ragged pair of breeches and stockings. It was a sorry libel on the unfortunate emperor, whose courage was undoubted, and who, at this time, instead of being the scarecrow the artist has represented him, had grown extremely corpulent. Snuffing out Boney follows up the same subject, and represents a cossack snuffing out Napoleon, who figures as a candle; another caricature on the great subject of the year bears the title of Broken Gingerbread (Napoleon selling images).
| George Cruikshank.] [Published July 11th, 1814, by S. W. Fores, Piccadilly. RUSSIAN CONDESCENSION, OR THE BLESSINGS OF UNIVERSAL PEACE. [Face page 133. |
On the 8th of June, 1814, the Emperor of Russia, with his sister Visit of the Allied Sovereigns. the Duchess Oldenburg, the King of Prussia, and his two sons, with Prince Metternich, Marshal Blucher, General Barclay de Tolly, the Hetman Platoff, and other persons of distinction, arrived in London. The strangers were splendidly entertained by the merchants and bankers of London at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, and by the Corporation of London at Guildhall. On the 20th there was a grand review of regulars and metropolitan volunteers in Hyde Park; the ceremony of announcing to the inhabitants of the metropolis the conclusion of the definitive treaty of peace with France took place with all its ancient and accustomed solemnities. On the 25th of July a grand naval review was held at Portsmouth, and on the 27th the illustrious visitors embarked at Dover for the Continent. The handsome Russian emperor and his handsome sister acquired great popularity by the condescension and affability they displayed during their short visit. This is commemorated by George Cruikshank in a satire published by Fores on the 11th of July, entitled, Russian Condescension, or the Blessings of Peace, in which a coarse woman is represented as kissing the emperor, who is habited in English military uniform. “There, Sal,” says she to her companion, “I can boast of what none of the ——s at Billingsgate can, having kissed the king’s emperor of all the Russian bears, and he is the sweetest, modestest, mildest gentleman I ever kissed in all my life.” On the other side a huge country gawky shakes hands with the duchess, whose vast bonnet is a study. “Dang it,” he says, “when I goes back and tells the folks in our village of this, law! how they will envy I!” In the distance we see another female in pursuit of the frightened Hetman Platoff.