Of course the threatened invasion of England finds its echo in Gillray's prints. "French Invasion, or Buonaparte Landing," ["Armed Heroes"] (of which I give here a reproduction), and the "King of Brobindnag and Gulliver" all belong to this theme of the nation's peril; as does that interesting print, which I also reproduce, of ["Britannia between Death and the Doctor,"] where the sick lady is threatened on the one side by Buonaparte as Death, the while Pitt, as chief physician, executes a war dance at the expense of his professional rivals, planting his heel very neatly in the mouth of the prostrate Charles James Fox. Napoleon's European victories find comment in the "Surrender of Ulm," and in another of my plates, "Tiddy Doll, the Great French Gingerbread Maker, drawing out a New Batch of Kings," where Talleyrand seems, very appropriately, to be the figure in the background kneading the dough (note, too, the rubbish heap). But the worst danger was past already at the time (as we know now) of that fine plate that commemorates the "Death of Admiral Lord Nelson in the Moment of Victory," published by Humphrey of St. James Street, on December 23, 1805.
Gillray, after trying various publishers—Kent, Brown, Holland of Oxford Street, Fores of Piccadilly—seems to have settled down with Humphrey, first in the Strand, then in Bond Street, and later St. James Street, whose shop-windows became famed for his prints. Joseph Grego, a known authority on our artist, relates that Fox and Burke once walked into the shop together, alarming the worthy proprietress by this sudden invasion of Gillray's favourite subjects. But Burke reassured her with a smile: "Were I to prosecute you it would be the making of your fortune; and that favour, excuse me, Mrs. Humphrey, you do not entirely merit at my hands."
We may terminate our study or Gillray's Napoleonic caricatures very appropriately with the "Spanish Bullfight," in which Buonaparte is tossed by the Spanish bull (Peninsular War of 1808) before the assembled Powers of Europe (dated July 11, 1808); and the fine print of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" (September 24, 1808), in which the prediction of an earlier print ("The Handwriting on the Wall") seems near its fulfilment, and the Powers of Europe in grim demonic shapes surround the terrified ruler, the British lion charging him full in front, while the Russian bear takes an ugly snatch from behind at his legs.
By James Gillray
BUONAPARTE AS KING-MAKER
(With Talleyrand to help)
James Gillray's political caricatures are so interesting and so important, they form such a priceless commentary on the history of the time, that I have given them the priority of space over his amusing social satires, which scourge without mercy the follies of dress and fashion. "A Lady putting on her Cap" (1795), "Lady Godiva's Rout" (1796), "High Change in Bond Street" (1796), "A Modern Belle at Bath" (1796), and "A Fashionable Mamma" come into this class, as well as "Following the Fashion," "Characters in High Life," and many others. It was the epoch when English ladies' waists seem to have risen nearly to their arm-pits, and when their hair towered up correspondingly into a forest of feathers; and all the above prints—as well as the series of "Faro's Daughters," directed at the gambling craze, "The Graces in a High Wind (as seen from Nature in Kensington Gardens)," and the still more risky series of "Three Stages of a Lady's Toilet,"—depict these extreme fashions.
"Tales of Wonder," "Advantages of Wearing Muslin Dresses, dedicated to the Fashionable Ladies of Great Britain," "A Broad Hint of not Meaning to Dance," "A Company shocked at a Lady getting up to Ring the Bell," belong to a slightly later period of costume, say 1802-04.
"Dido in Despair" is evidently a satire on the beautiful Lady Hamilton, who is however represented in this print as enormously fat.[[10]] Gillray has evidently no sympathy or mercy for the frail and famous beauty; for here she is tumbling out of bed in nightcap and nightdress, from which a huge foot protrudes, while she waves her fat arms in despair. A flask of Maraschino is on the dressing-table near the rouge pot; on the floor lie broken antiques; and a work on Studies of Academic Attitudes, with scarcely academic illustrations, lies near the window, through which is seen a line of British battleships standing out to sea.
"Ah where and oh where is my gallant sailor gone?
He's gone to fight the Frenchmen for George upon the throne,"—
is the motto of this print, which was published by Humphrey on February 6 of 1801. "The Bulstrode Siren" (Mrs. Billington), where she is seen warbling to the Duke of Portland, fares little better than Emma herself; and Sir William Hamilton appears, in another of Gillray's satires, as "A Conoscenti contemplating ye beauties of ye Antique." Among these last objets d'art a battered "Lais" and a "Bacchante" who has lost her head seem as full of cryptic allusion as the dancing figures on a Greek vase and the Cupid with a bent arrow; while quite in Hogarth's best vein is the "Mark Antony" framed upon the wall, in a cocked hat and admiral's uniform, the "Cleopatra" with a gin bottle, and a view of Vesuvius in full eruption.