The history of the nineteenth century in caricature . like the malignant spawn of someforgotten circle of the lower inferno. It would be idle to dispute the far-reaching power ofGillrays genius, perverted though it was. Throughout the;Napoleonic wars, caricature and the name of Gillray are con-vertible terms; for, even after he was forced to lay down hispencil, his brilliant contemporaries and successors, Rowland-son and Cruikshank, found themselves unable to throw of]the fetters of his influence. No history of Napoleon is quit(jcomplete which fails to recognize Gillray as a potent factor iijc
The history of the nineteenth century in caricature . like the malignant spawn of someforgotten circle of the lower inferno. It would be idle to dispute the far-reaching power ofGillrays genius, perverted though it was. Throughout the;Napoleonic wars, caricature and the name of Gillray are con-vertible terms; for, even after he was forced to lay down hispencil, his brilliant contemporaries and successors, Rowland-son and Cruikshank, found themselves unable to throw of]the fetters of his influence. No history of Napoleon is quit(jcomplete which fails to recognize Gillray as a potent factor iijcrystallizing public opinion in England. His long series ocartoons aimed at little Boney are the culminating worlof his life. Their power lay, not in intellectual subtlety obrilliant scintillation of wit, but in the bitterness of theijinvective, the appeal they make to elemental passions. TheJspoke a language which the roughest of London mobs couhunderstand—the language of the gutter. They were, manof them, masterpieces of pictorial Billingsgate. 1. 24 CENTURY IN CARICATURE There is rancor, there is venom, there is the inevitableinheritance of the warfare of centuries, in these caricatures ofGillray, but above all there is fear—fear of Napoleon, of hisgenius, of his star. It has been very easy for Englishmen oflater days to say that the French never could have crossedthe Channel, that there was never any reason for disquiet;it was another matter in the days when troops were actuallymassing by thousands on the hills behind Boulogne. Youcan find this fear voiced everywhere in Gillray, in the discord-ance between the drawings and the text. John Bull is the ox,Bonaparte the contemptible frog; but it is usually the ox whois bellowing out defiance, daring the other to come on,flinging down insult at the diminutive foe. Let em come,damme! shouts the bold Briton in the pictures of the time. Damme! where are the French bugaboos? Single-handedIll beat forty of em, damme! Every means w
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecthistorymodern, bookye
