"LUMPS OF PUDDING" BY H. W. BUNBURY
IV
THE COMEDY OF POLITICS
In treating here of English eighteenth-century caricature, I find that the conditions of space at my command in this work compel me, in order to do my subject any justice at all, to focus my reader's interest on certain central figures, who typify, each in themselves, one side or other of their art; and to pass by more slightly some of the lesser men, whose interest is either divided or secondary.
Such a towering personality in caricature as James Gillray comes necessarily into the first of these categories; such draughtsmen as Woodward or Sayer into the second.
Woodward comes near to Bunbury in style and subject, and like him seems to have preferred social satire, though occasionally—as in his "General Complaint," of 1796—he touches political topics of the time. Sayer, belonging to the period of Gillray, is, like him, essentially a political caricaturist. James Sayer was the son of a merchant captain, and had been put to the profession of attorney: but caricature attracted him more than law, and, having gained the notice and interest of the younger Pitt, he attached himself to his service with such industry and success that Charles James Fox is said to have remarked that Sayers' caricatures had cost him more votes than all the speeches in the House of Commons.