Tiddy-Doll, the Great French Gingerbread Baker, drawing out a New Batch of Kings. His Man, Hopping Talley, mixing up the Dough. (Gillray, 1806.)
Born in 1757, when Hogarth had still seven years to live, the son of a valiant English soldier who left an arm in Flanders, James Gillray belongs more to the old school of caricaturists than to the new. Many of his works could not now be exhibited; nor was Gillray superior in moral feeling to the time in which he lived. He flattered the pride and the prejudices of John Bull. In a deep-drinking age, his own habits were excessively convivial; were such as to shorten his life, after having impaired his reason. He was, nevertheless, for a period of twenty years the favorite caricaturist of his country, and a very large number of his works are in all respects admirable. The reader will remark that Gillray, like most of his countrymen, was not acquainted with the countenance of Napoleon, and could, therefore, only give the popularly accepted portrait. His likenesses generally are excellent.
Among the crowds of laughing English boys who hailed every new picture issued by Gillray during the last ten years of his career was one named George Cruikshank, still living and honored among his countrymen in 1877. Him we may justly style the founder of the new school—the virtuous school—of comic art, which accords so agreeably with the humaner civilization which has been stealing over the world of late years, and particularly since the suppression of Bonaparte in 1815. On page 270 is a picture of his executed in his eightieth year, a proof of the steadiness of hand and alertness of mind which reward a temperate and honorable life even in extreme old age. This picture was both drawn and engraved by his own hand to please one of his oldest American friends, Mr. J. W. Bouton, of New York, long concerned in collecting and distributing his works among us. Here, then, is a living artist whose first handling of the etching-tool dates back almost three-quarters of a century. Mr. Reid, the keeper of prints and drawings in the British Museum, has been at the pains to make a catalogue of the works of George Cruikshank. The number of entries in this catalogue is five thousand two hundred and sixty-five, many of which comprise extensive series of drawings, so that the total number of his pictures probably exceeds twenty thousand—about one picture for every working-day during the productive part of his career.
The Threatened Invasion of England, 1804. (Gillray.)
(The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver. Scene—Gulliver manœuvring with his little boat in the cistern.—Vide Swift's "Gulliver.")
"I often used to row for my own diversion, as well as that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well entertained with my skill and agility. Sometimes I would put up my sail and show my art by steering starboard and larboard. However, my attempts produced nothing else besides a loud laughter, which all the respect due to his majesty from those about him could not make them contain. This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him."