Two or three portraits of the caricaturist are traceable, besides numerous burlesque transfers of his own effigy to his imaginary personages. In common with Cruikshank, Thackeray, and many other humorists of the brush and etching-needle, he was prone to introduce the presentment of his own lineaments in whimsical juxtapositions. The most generally recognised likeness, from which a separate plate has been published by Mr. Parker, occurs in a clever eccentric drawing, exhibited by the artist at the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1787, under the title of Countrymen and Sharpers (No. 555).
This subject was subsequently engraved by J. K. Sherwin, whose portrait also figures therein, in the person of the pigeon, while Rowlandson has chosen to represent himself as the leading sharper, he who, with blustering front, is fleecing the simple youth at cards, in defiance of his well-accepted reputation for rigid integrity; for although the gaming table long held the caricaturist an enslaved votary, ready to make the most reckless sacrifices to tempt the fickle favours of the gambler's fortune, it is recorded by those of his acquaintances who have mentioned this disastrous failing (which by the way he shared with all the wealthy, distinguished, and witty celebrities of his day), and deplored the havoc it made with his means, and professional pursuits, that his sense of honour was ever of the keenest, his word was always regarded as sufficient security, and he possessed a delicacy of feeling, and a sense of independence, which would not allow him to remain under a debt or an obligation.
At the time Rowlandson sent his drawing of Countrymen and Sharpers[7] for exhibition, he was 31 years of age, and according to the portrait, looks manhood personified, with a fine comely figure, and a face that imprints itself on the recollection, his hair in a profusion of wavy tresses, worn long, and 'clubbed' as was the fashion of the period. His bold and piercing eyes set under massive and somewhat prominent brows.
The next attributed portrait belongs to 1799, when Rowlandson was 43 years of age. In the design, An Artist travelling in Wales, the result of a journey he made with his friend, the convivial Henry Wigstead, he has represented himself, with a due allowance for burlesque, looking older than his years; the long hair is still there, but its curls are thinned, time and a struggle with seasons less rosy than his youth of many fortunes, are telling on the outward man, but the brows, eyes, mouth and chin have diminished nothing of their resolute characteristics—indeed, they are more marked—and the strong nervous figure is beginning to look gaunt.
The Chamber of Genius appeared in 1812 with the appropriate quotation:—
Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool; And genius in rags is turned to ridicule.—Juv. Sat.
The head of the caricaturist is strongly defined on the shoulders of the gifted occupant of a garret, and the likeness is just what might be supposed from the countenance, as given in 1787, viewed through the intervening quarter of a century of struggles, and disenchantments, when cares of the hour, and incidental anxieties, touching provision for the future, had commenced to take the place of the artist's original careless hardihood.
The last portrait to which we shall at present refer is by another hand; and was sketched when the health of the caricaturist was a grave source of apprehension, since we learn that during the last two years of his life he was a severe sufferer. It represents the figure of a large and powerful-looking old gentleman, of impressive presence; the main characteristics, and the marked profile have gathered force with increasing years, the brows are even firmer, and the features more defined; this croquis of the veteran was drawn by his old friend, and erst fellow-pupil, John Thomas Smith, the keeper of the drawings and prints in the British Museum, and the study was taken while the caricaturist was looking over some prints, on one of his visits to the treasures in his friend's department. The sketcher, who has written the circumstances under which it was taken, below the portrait, has given Rowlandson's age at seventy,—within a year, in fact, of his death. The caricaturist's flowing locks are considerably shorn by the hand of the inevitable mower, and his penetrating eyes do not disdain the assistance afforded by a pair of huge tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, in which they are framed; but as far as the visible flight of time goes, regarding the outward man, he might be assumed to possess powers of vitality sufficient to carry him over another score years.
If our memory does not deceive us, a sketch of the caricaturist's figure, from the life, and drawn in chalks, was exhibited some time ago at Bethnal Green, in the Loan Collection, formed under the auspices of the Science and Art Department.