["Recruits,"] of which I give an illustration, may be included among these, as well as the "Militia Meeting" and "The Deserter," while "A Visit to the Camp" and "A Camp Scene" belong to the same class of subject. The characterisation of ["Recruits"] is excellent, from the smart young officer to the rustic awkwardness of the two recruits, and the more dangerous self-approval of the third; behind we see a chawbacon grinning at the scene, beneath the portentous sign of "The Old Fortune," with its painting of a wooden-legged and armless veteran. "A Visit to the Camp" gives just such a scene—save that the characters are in eighteenth-century costume—as might be witnessed even to-day, when parents, aunts and cousins visit their young hopeful amid the martial surroundings of his volunteer camp; and here, too, may be mentioned a series of single figures in military costume—a "Life-guardsman," "Light Infantryman," "Light-horseman" and a "Foot-soldier." These were all published by Macklin. The foot-soldier's uniform appears in ["Recruits"]; the handsome uniform of the Light-horseman, with its plumed helmet and high boots, in "A Visit to the Camp," and again in "The Deserter."
While Bunbury was thus occupied with his military career his wife, whom he had left in lodgings in Pall Mall, gave him their second son, to whom Sir Joshua Reynolds stood godfather. Is it too much to suggest that this latter is the artist caricatured in that delightful "Family Piece," of which I also hope to give an illustration; and which may have been suggested to our artist by the scene in his friend Oliver Goldsmith's masterpiece, "The Vicar of Wakefield"?
To the next period of Bunbury's life—when war's alarms were over and the camp at Coxheath broken up—belong many of his best prints of English country life. He was living now in Suffolk, and his print of the "Country Club" is said to have depicted to the life an institution of that nature in quiet old Bury St. Edmunds; while "Conversazione" and the "Sulky Club" display the social efforts of the period, and his famous "Barber's Shop," which Knight engraved in 1783, comes into this part of his career.
By H. W. Bunbury
THE FAMILY PIECE
To his visits to the West of England and North Wales about this time we owe some charming sketches—the two "Wynnstay Theatre Tickets," for instance, dating from some visit to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn when theatricals were in the air at Wynnstay, and that lovely print of "The Modern Graces," drawn, it is said, from the three beautiful Misses Shakespere during the stay of our artist at Aston; while those two prints of "Peasants from the Vale of Llangollen" hint at some pleasant ramble in the Welsh hills. Bunbury excelled, in fact, in a class of subject which does not strictly fall within our notice, since we are treating him here as a caricaturist, but which must by no means be neglected by those who appreciate his work.
These are what may be characterised as fancy sketches, which are often, in his hand, singularly graceful and charming in treatment and conception. "The Song," "The Dance," and "Morning Employments" may be mentioned especially among these, all these three having been entrusted to the graver of the famous Bartolozzi. Indeed, in writing of Bartolozzi,[[7]] I found it impossible to leave Bunbury out of my subject, and said of this artist: "He supplied the engraver with some charming drawings, mostly of English girls in simple country dress—such as the 'Sophia and Olivia,' drawn for Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' where one of the girls touches a guitar and the other holds a roll of music; or, again, that very lovely print, a copy of which is in the Victoria and Albert collection, where three young girls dance hand in hand to the strain which a country lad seated near them is piping. 'The Song,'" I added, "a pendant to this, is no less charming."
"Love and Honour" is another of Bartolozzi's prints from Bunbury, representing a Light-Cavalry soldier taking leave of a pretty country girl, and bearing the legend:
"Hark! the drum commands
Honour! I attend thee!
Love, I kiss thy hands!"
"Lucy of Leinster" and "Bothwell's Lament," it may be noted, are by the same engraver. Apart from its own beauty the engraving of "The Dance" is of especial interest, since the three figures dancing are said to be taken from those famous beauties of the time, the Misses Gunning; and in his "Love and Hope," "Love and Jealousy," and a "Tale of Love," which Bartolozzi's pupil, J. K. Sherwin, engraved for him, he follows with success the same class of subject. It is the sentimental charm, which streams from the fair Angelica Kauffman's pencil and kept busy the best engravers of the time, notably Bartolozzi, Ryland, Sherwin, and Tomkins, which here attracts the soldier and caricaturist, who was also the devoted lover and husband; and in these prints, though the initiative and conception is certainly our artist's, it is difficult to know how much we may not owe to the practised hand of such an engraver as Francesco Bartolozzi.