'A long list might be formed by enumerating the literary, musical, and scientific men of more or less eminence, who appeared as his coadjutors, and who enjoyed his intimacy. Several of them owed to him a helping hand, either in their first efforts or in their declining fortunes. To the end of his days he retained a strongly-marked German pronunciation of the English language, which gave additional flavour to the banters and jests uttered in his fine bass voice; but he wrote in English with great purity on matters of affection and business long before middle life.
'From early in 1813, every Wednesday evening in March and April was given to a reception, half a conversazione and half a family party, in his large room, which then, as at other times, served as an exhibition of English and foreign books, maps, prints, woodcuts, lithographs, drawings, paintings, and other works of art and ornament, besides the leading Continental periodicals. There on those evenings, by annual invitation,[20] amateurs, artists, and authors were sure to find people whom they knew, or wanted to know. Many an introduction grew to an acquaintance; and the value of such evenings to foreigners was often gratefully acknowledged by travellers, who, with any distinction in art or literature, were welcome without any other introduction.
'His active assiduity and his spirited enterprise were suspended by a weakness of sight, commencing from his charitable exertions in 1814, which made his repose at Camberwell, and afterwards at Ivy Lodge in the Fulham Road, first a matter of prudence, and later on of necessity. In the spring of 1830 he experienced an attack of paralysis, and never recovered sufficiently to exert his intelligence in business. He removed for a change of air to Finchley, but a second stroke produced a gradual decline of strength in the honourable old man; and March 30, 1834, saw an end put to the hearty kindness, constant hospitality, and warm beneficence which had been inseparable from his unquestioned integrity. He was interred on April 9 in the family grave, in the burial-ground of St. Clement Danes.'[21]
The little that remains to be recorded of the Caricaturist is best expressed by the kindly writer, a friend of nearly half a century's standing, who contributed an obituary notice of the artist to the Gentleman's Magazine (June 1827).
It is not generally known that, although a considerable proportion of Rowlandson's humorous political and social etchings are in many instances strongly tinctured by an absence of refinement in taste, and are roughly executed—the means simply of tiding over some pressing necessity, or providing funds for further relaxations—his early works were characterised by painstaking and conscientious application; and his studies from the human figure at the Royal Academy were scarcely inferior to the productions of Mortimer, then the most admired and proficient among the Academic professors.
From the versatility of his talent, the fecundity of his imagination, his command of composition, in which he equalled the greatest masters, the grace and elegance with which he could design his groups, added to the almost miraculous despatch with which he supplied his patrons with perfectly original compositions upon every subject, it was a theme of regret at his decease, that he had not sufficiently valued his reputation, to which it has been suspected he was thoroughly indifferent. It was universally admitted in his own days that, had he pursued the course of art steadily, he might have become one of the foremost and most celebrated historical painters of the English school. His style, which was purely his own, was unquestionably original. His bold, fluent, and spiritedly turned outlines were thrown off with easy dexterity, with his famous reed-pen, in a tint composed of vermilion and Indian-ink, the general effect was rapidly washed in, so as to produce an effective chiaro-oscuro, and the whole was coloured in tender tints with a most harmonious arrangement of colour.
His manner, though slight in almost every instance, is highly effective; and it is known on indubitable authority that the presidents of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Benjamin West, whose manners were most foreign to those of the Caricaturist, individually asserted their conviction that many of his drawings would have done honour to Rubens, or to the most esteemed masters of design of the old schools.
For many years he was too indolent to seek new employment, and his kind friend, and it may be added with justice, his best adviser, Mr. Ackermann, the respected and leading publisher of Rowlandson's period, supplied him with ample subjects for the exercise of his talent. The many works which his pencil illustrated are existing evidence of this, and books containing impressions from Rowlandson's etchings continue to fetch high prices, and are industriously sought after. Many suggestions for plates to enliven new editions of The Travels of Dr. Syntax, The Dance of Death, The Dance of Life, and other well-known productions of the pen of the prolific Coombe, the Defoe of the eighteenth century, will remain esteemed and lasting mementoes of his graphic humour.
It should be repeated that his reputation had never reached its full maturity in the life-time of Mr. Ackermann, his friend, patron, and publisher. The inimitable water-colour drawings of Rowlandson, of which he had a large collection, were justly appreciated by connoisseurs, and his folios have often been viewed with admiration and delight by the many professional artists and amateurs who frequented Mr. Ackermann's conversazioni at his library at the old house in the Strand. No artist of the past or present school, perhaps, ever expressed so much as Rowlandson, with so little effort, or with so evident an appearance of the absence of labour.