"Johnny Wilkes, Johnny Wilkes,
Thou greatest of bilks,
How changed are the notes you now sing;
Your famed Forty-five
Is Prerogative,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King.'"
Sheridan.
Edmund Burke always appears with long-pointed nose and spectacles. In one large print by Gilray, he is discharging a blunderbuss at Hastings, who is defending himself with the "shield of honour." The thin, meagre figure of Pitt, "with his d—d iron face," was fruitful for jest as that of his fat, slovenly opponent, Fox. An equivocal phrase of the Prime Minister gave rise to Gilray's caricature of "The Bottomless Pitt;" or it may have been the financial profundity of the Minister, or the wit of his celebrated housekeeper niece:—
"William Pitt, 'tis known by many people,
Was thin as a lath, and tall as a steeple;
And so spare his behind, he was called (with some wit),
By famed Lady Hester, 'the bottomless pit.'"
Gilray, often as he struck at a minister or satirized a courtier, he yet more often returned to the battle which he loved to wage—that against Bonaparte. With him the Corsican was a murderer, a fanatic, a tyrant; an invader with death's head and dripping sword; a ghoul who loved to feast on human flesh; an incarnate fiend, a demon. Single-handed, Gilray fed and nursed the flame of hatred which burnt so steadily and so long in these islands against that potentate, whether as general, first consul, or emperor. Napoleon himself perceived it, and complained of it. His empress and generals came in for a share of Gilray's pictorial wrath. Ministers, who at the time of the trial of Peltier were not unwilling to conciliate the master of a hundred legions, in vain attempted to stop Gilray. The shop-windows still displayed the bright colours of the newest print, wherein, as incendiary or demon, the chief person was still Napoleon Bonaparte. If, according to the dictum of the latter, one newspaper editor were worse than five corps d'armée acting against him, surely Gilray, with his enormous effect on the British mind, then hardly swayed or taught by leading articles, was worse than five editors. And if we of the volunteer corps wish to realise the intense hatred, the indignation, the burning passion with which most of our fathers regarded the first Napoleon, we have only to turn over some old caricatures. How the old times rise before us, summoned by the tricksy Ariel of art, as we look over them.—See a clever paper in the London Review.
One of Gilray's late prints was Dr. Burgess, of Mortimer Street, "from Warwick Lane." The doctor was one of the last men who wore a cocked hat and deep ruffles. What rendered his appearance more remarkable, he walked on tiptoe.
The commercial history of the caricatures is curious. At the period of the artist's death, the copper-plates from which they were struck were estimated to be worth 7,000l. Upon the demise of the printseller, his widow pledged the plates for 1,000l.; but in the process of time, a better tone of political feeling having supervened, and likewise an improved public taste as regards art, this property, upon being put to sale by auction, was bought in for 500l. Subsequently the widow offered them to Mr. Henry Bohn, the eminent publisher, for that sum; but the process of change adverted to still continuing, the offer was declined. Upon her death her executors, unable to sell them as engravings, sold them as old copper for as many pence as they were originally worth pounds, and Mr. Bohn became the purchaser.
The early political caricatures of Gilray were generally directed against the Government party. These he was hired to sketch, and generally at a small price, according to the will of his employers. He used to smoke his pipe with his early employers, and exert his faculties more to win a bowl of punch than to gain ten pounds. For years he occasionally smoked his pipe at the Bell, the Coal Hole, or the Coach and Horses; and although the convives whom he met at such dingy rendezvous knew that he was Gilray who fabricated those comical prints, yet he never sought to act the coxcomb, nor become the king of the company. In truth, with his neighbouring shopkeepers and master manufacturers, he passed for no greater wit than his associates. Rowlandson, his ingenious compeer, and he sometimes met. They would, perhaps, exchange half-a-dozen questions and answers upon the affairs of etching, copper, and nitric acid, swear that the world was one vast masquerade, and then enter into the common chat of the room, light their cigars, drink their punch, and sometimes early, sometimes late, shake hands at the door and depart, one for the Adelphi, the other to St. James's Street, each to his bachelor's bed.
The facility with which Gilray composed his subjects, and the rapidity with which he etched them, astonished those who were eye-witnesses of his powers. Many years ago, he had an apartment in a court in Holborn. A commercial agent for a printseller had received a commission to get a satirical design etched by Gilray, but he had repeatedly called in his absence. He lived at the west end of the town, and on his way to the city waited on him again, when he happened to be at home.
"You have lost a good job and a useful patron, Gilray," said he; "but you are always out."