Rowlandson the Caricaturist; a Selection from His Works. Vol. 1

by Joseph Grego

Henry William Bunbury, the caricaturist, was born in 1750. He was educated at Westminster, whence he was removed to St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge. On leaving the university he devoted himself, with some enthusiasm, to the fine arts. He was passionately fond of out-door sports, and, as in the instance of Leech in our own days, the saddle held out attractions superior even to the pleasure of exercising his fancy. His contemporaries were much given to deplore that he preferred the excitement of risking his neck in the hunting field to the cultivation of the profession his skill should have adorned. His taste and invention were admired not only by the most gifted and elevated persons of his time, but artists and critics alike lavished their encomiums on the favoured designer. Horace Walpole coveted the sketches which Bunbury exhibited on the walls of the Academy, while Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Benjamin West combined to pay their finest compliments to the artist, and to publish abroad their flattering sense of his merits. Bunbury appears to have spent the greater part of his time on the estates belonging to his family, varied by trips to the Continent and visits to his patrons the Duke and Duchess of York, at Richmond and other residences, with occasional sojourns in Wales, the scenery of which had considerable attractions for his sense of the picturesque. He was a frequent guest of Sir W. W. Wynne, and his pencil has celebrated the theatrical gatherings at Wynnstay. We also meet him in town, surrounded by illustrious friends, and we find Goldsmith, Garrick, and other notabilities corresponding with the kindly and generous caricaturist during his sojourns at his country seat.

Henry Bunbury was married, August 26, 1771, to Catherine, daughter of Kane William Horneck, Esq., lieutenant-colonel of the army of Sicily. This lady bore him two sons, and one of them, Sir Henry Bunbury, we believe, represented the county of Suffolk in Parliament, after the decease of his uncle Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, who had previously enjoyed the distinction. Bunbury, the artist, was elected lieutenant-colonel of the West Suffolk regiment of militia. His manners were most popular, and it was remarked that he carried his cheerful and vivacious spirit into every society he frequented. He died at Keswick, in Cumberland, where he had settled towards the close of his life, and his sketches of the mountain scenery in his vicinity are said to have displayed the hand of a master, and to have gained universal appreciation for their effect and truthfulness.

As a delineator of character, it is stated 'that his sketches approached nearest to Hogarth of any painter of his period, in the representation of life and manners; his pencil never transgresses the limits of good taste and delicacy, and had he been under the necessity of pursuing art for profit, instead of amusement and pleasure only, he would probably have made a great fortune by the produce of his genius, which the print-sellers have found a lucrative source of gain, engravings and etchings after his works having always been eagerly demanded.'

The high estimation in which the caricaturist was personally held is confirmed by the obituary notice which appeared on his decease in the Gentleman's Magazine; the praise seems to be spontaneous, and its object, from all we can gather, richly merited the friendly testimony.

'May 7, 1811.—At Keswick, Henry William Bunbury, Esq., second son of the Rev. Sir William Bunbury, Bart., of Mildenhall, and of Great Barton, in the county of Suffolk, and brother to the present Sir Thomas Bunbury, Bart. He was distinguished at a very early age by a most extraordinary degree of taste and knowledge in the fine arts. The productions of his own pencil have, from his childhood, been the admiration and delight of the public. The exquisite humour of some of his drawings, and the grace and elegance of the rest, were unrivalled; and he is, perhaps, the only instance in which excellences of such various and almost opposite character have been united in the same subject in an equal degree. But though he possessed in this respect a peculiar genius, he neglected no branch of polite literature. He was a good classical scholar, and "endowed with the love of sacred song." The Muses were to him dulces ante omnia. He was an excellent judge of poetry; and the specimens remaining of his own composition put it beyond a doubt that he would have been as eminent with his pen as with his pencil, if his natural modesty, underrating his own powers, had not prevented him from pursuing it with more application. These accomplishments were conspicuous, and obtained for him universal esteem. His social and moral qualities, while any of those remain who shared his friendship, will continue the objects of fond admiration and regret. No ribaldry, no profaneness, no ill-natured censure, ever flowed from his lips, but his conversation abounded in humour and pleasantry; it was charming to persons of all descriptions. No one was ever in his company without being pleased with him; none ever knew him without loving him. His feelings were the most benevolent, his affections the most delicate, his heart the most sincere. He was void of all affectation, alive to praise, but not obtrusively courting it. Conscious, but not ostentatious of merit; of unblemished honour; full of that piety and liberal-handed charity which influences the heart, and seeks the witness, not of the world, but of his Maker.'

The writer of the obituary notice expressed a conviction, confirmed, as he stated, by an intimacy of fifty years' standing:—

'All who had,' concludes the memorial, 'the slightest acquaintance with him, will bear witness to the extraordinary tenderness of his disposition, to his kind and active friendship, to his universal benevolence, practically displayed through his entire career.'

The name of Woodward occurs so frequently in caricatures to which Rowlandson sculpsit is added, that our readers will probably not consider the following sketch of this eccentric gifted celebrity either out of place, or entirely superfluous.

Recapitulating his recollections of humorous artists, Angelo informs us that—'The inventive genius of one burlesque designer was exhaustless—George Moutard Woodward, commonly designated by his merry associates, Mustard George. This original genius was the son of the steward of a certain wealthy landholder, and resided with his father in a provincial town, where nothing was less known than everything pertaining to the arts. He was, as his neighbours said, a "nateral geni;" for he drew all the comical gaffers and gammers of the country round; and having, to use his own words, "taken off the bench of justices, wigs and all, shown up the mayor and corporation, dumb-foundered the parson of the parish, silenced the clerk, and made the sexton laugh at his own grave occupation," he thought it expedient to beat up for new game in the metropolitan city.