COL. TOPHAM ENDEAVOURING WITH HIS SQUIRT TO EXTINGUISH THE GENIUS OF HOLMAN.
The macaroni Col. Topham, held in leading strings by Henderson and Mrs. Wells, is vainly trying, armed with a critical squirt, to suppress the rising celebrity of Holman, the actor, and writer for the stage. Holman, it will be remembered (see life of Rowlandson), was one of the caricaturist's schoolfellows.
October 5, 1785. Captain Epilogue. Republished March 7, 1786, by E. Jackson, 14 Marylebone Street, Golden Square.—The figure of Captain Topham, (afterwards Colonel) of the World newspaper, of which he was proprietor, editor, critic, and scandalmonger—the fashionable intelligencer, arbiter elegantiarum, and man of fashion and gallantry. We find the macaroni soldier and journalist a prominent personage in the satirical effusions of his time; we recognise him among Gillray's caricatures as the Thunderer (August 20, 1782), and later as the Windmill, standing forth advocating the interests of Mrs. Robinson, the Perdita who, deserted by the Prince of Wales, found, it was hinted, refuge in the championship of Captain Epilogue. In another cartoon Major Topham is bringing his lengthy accounts to Pitt's pay-table, 'for puffs and squibs,' the literary services which he had placed at the Ministerial disposal, and directed against the Whig candidate, Lord John Townshend, during the Westminster Election (August 14, 1788), which occurred when Lord Hood was appointed to the Treasury Board. We find the gallant quill attacking merit where it crossed his partialities, and the present caricature seems designed to expose the Captain's tendresse for the actress of his choice. Epilogue is dressed, as he is always represented, in the height of the latest French fashion, his coat, his stockings, his pumps, his frill and ruffles, and his wig and queue being the very latest importations from Paris; a finger-post is pointing to the Wells, and the somewhat suggestive and highly modish figure of the lady is drawn below it.
1785. A Cully Pillaged. (Same date as Comfort in Gout.)—A stalwart-looking bully has suddenly burst into an apartment; he has seized and is securely holding an alarmed individual, whose hat is thrown off and his wig is knocked awry; his pigtail is rigid with terror; he is standing on tiptoe, his limbs paralysed with fear, while a very picturesque-looking Cyprian, with hair and dress in somewhat dishevelled condition, is deliberately exploring the pockets of the victim.
1785. Copper-plate Printers at Work.—This sketch, which is vastly interesting, is probably drawn from the room in which the caricaturist's etchings were pulled, an apartment evidently near the sky. A couple of stalwart printers are hard at work rubbing ink into the copper-plates. A sturdy workman is turning the press, while a little oddity of a printer is drawing an impression from the copper lately under pressure. A connoisseur, in spectacles, of the old-fashioned type, is holding up a print at arm's length with a deeply critical expression on his sharp features. Numerous prints are hung up to dry on lines stretched across the chamber.
About 1785. A Bed-warmer.—Another print, which was published about this date, bears the name of H. Wigstead as delt. et fecit; but, by a strange anomaly, although a few strokes of the outline here and there belong to Wigstead's hand, which, from its untutored, straggling style, is easy of recognition, the figures and filling in are unmistakably by Rowlandson, who has paid his friend the compliment of ascribing the entire credit of the composition to his name. The subject represents a bedchamber; clothes, &c., are scattered about the room; a venerable libertine, whose bed has evidently been recently warmed, is endeavouring to retain by her skirt a remarkably handsome and sprightly-looking chambermaid, whose figure is gracefully expressed in Rowlandson's most felicitous manner, both as regards ease and action. The offended nymph is making off with the chamber candle and the warming-pan, the latter a formidable weapon for the defence of assaulted virtue.
1785. Temptation.—A companion plate was executed under the same auspices, but the name of H. Wigstead in this instance appears as designer only. It represents a scene of temptation. A decrepit and, as far as years go, venerable libertine is offering certain proposals to a pretty and finely-shaped maiden, who is weighing a purse with an air of indecision, while the vicious dotard is pressing her disengaged hand and leaning on her shoulder. The chamber is evidently the workroom of a cobbler; his bench and a pile of shoes in the foreground have been thrown over by the gambols of a dog and cat. In this case it is easy to see that if the maiden does not retire from the struggle with unstained hands, the elderly reprobate, whose crutch is under his arm, will not come off unscathed, for behind the curtains of the bed, in the shadow of the apartment, which seems to serve as workroom, kitchen, parlour, and bedroom in one, appears the half-concealed and brawny person of the cobbler himself, who is evidently enjoying the prospect of the vengeance which he is about to let fall on the head of the old sinner.
1785. [Grog on Board]. (See Jan. 1794.) Published by S. W. Fores, 3 Piccadilly.
1786. [Tea on Shore]. (See June 1794.) Published by S. W. Fores, 3 Piccadilly.