Doubtless the war passion that raged throughout Christendom in Gillray's day had much to do with the warmth of applause which his works called forth. But, in truth, the vulgar portion of mankind appear to have a certain relish of an effective thrust, no matter who may writhe.
was seldom severer than in his picture called "Handwriting on the Wall," in which "Silly Billy" (as William IV. was familiarly styled) is seen reading a placard headed "Reform Bill," and muttering, "Reform Bill? Can that mean me?" Most of his pieces turn upon incidents or phases of politics which would require many words to recall, and then scarcely interest a reader of to-day. A caricature, as before remarked, is made to be seen; it is a thing of the moment, and for the moment, and when that moment is passed, it must be of exceptional quality to bear revival in words.
Seeing caricatures from childhood has induced a habit in many persons of surveying life in the spirit of caricature, and has developed some tolerable private wielders of the satiric pencil. Mrs. Trollope was, perhaps, a case in point. Her volumes upon the "Domestic Manners of the Americans," the literary sensation of 1832, were illustrated by a dozen or more of very amusing caricatures, some of which were fair hits, and were of actual service in improving popular manners. There are persons still alive who remember hearing the cry of "Trollope! Trollope!" raised in our theatres when a man ventured to take off his coat on a hot night, or sat with his feet too high in the air.[39] Her whole work, pictures and all, was a purposed political caricature, as she frankly confesses in her preface, where she says that her chief object was to warn her countrymen of "the jarring tumult and universal degradation which invariably follow the wild scheme of placing all the power of the State in the hands of the populace." She was, besides, exceedingly uncomfortable during her three years' residence in the United States, except when she was so happy as to be served by slaves. "On entering a slave State," she remarks, "I was immediately comfortable and at my ease, and felt that the intercourse between me and those who served me was profitable to both parties and painful to neither."
Besides the specimen of her caricaturing powers given in this chapter, there are several others which have, at least, some interest as curiosities of insular judgment. Mrs. Trollope, the daughter of a clergyman of the English Church, and the wife of an English lawyer of aristocratic family, entered the United States, in 1827, by the Mississippi, and spent a year or two in its newly settled valley. She saw the Western people engaged in a life-and-death struggle with untamed nature—the forest, wild men and beasts, the swamp, the flood, the fever, a trying climate, and interminable distances. A partial conquest had been won. Some fair towns had risen. A few counties were subdued. The log school-house was a familiar object. To a mind of continental compass, although Western life was still rough, rude, and haggard, the prospect was hopeful; it was evident that civilization was winning the day, and was destined, in the course of a century or two, to make the victory complete. The worst that a person of liberal mind could say, or can now say, of such a scene, would be this: "See what it costs to transplant human families from the parish to the wilderness!"
Even cabbage plants wither when only transferred from the hot-bed to the garden; but the transplanting of families from the organized society of an old country to a wild new land is a process under which all sicken, many degenerate, and many die.
Seymour's Conception of Mr. Winkle before that Hunter appeared in "Pickwick." (Seymour's Sketches, 1834.)
"Vot, eighteen shillings for that ere little pig? Vy, I could buy it in town for seven any day!"