said to have been born there, during the Renaissance. The Reformation gave it its first great impulse, under the hand of Lucas Cranach. From Germany it travelled to France, thence to Holland, and from Holland to England. The famous caricaturists, however, are not many. Cranach, Peter Breughel, Jacques Callot—but particularly the latter—may be noted as caricaturists who made the way for our Hogarth, for the Spaniard Goya (a caricaturist of infinite humour), and so for Gillray, Rowlandson, Daumier, the Cruikshanks, Leech, and the elder Doyle. Our earliest caricaturists came over to us from the French and Dutch schools; and they flourished (albeit their names are forgotten now) until the genius of Hogarth rose, and founded a British school of caricature, racy of the soil. The names of John Collet, Paul Sandby, Bunbury, and Woodward, were famous in their day; but they were destined to be eclipsed by the glory of James Gillray and the lesser light of Rowlandson; and these two, with Goya in Spain, and the renowned Daumier in France, represent the power which caricature exercised in the political world at the close of the last and in the early days of the present century.

A writer in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"* has remarked of the rise of George Cruikshank, "The satirical grotesque of the eighteenth century had been characterised by a sort of grandiose brutality, by a certain vigorous obscenity, by a violence of expression and intuition, that appear monstrous in these days of reserve and restraint, but that doubtless suited well enough with the strong party feelings and fierce political passions of the age. After the downfall of Napoleon (1815), however, when strife was over, and men were weary and satisfied, a change in matter and manner came over the caricature of the period. In connection with this change, the name of George Cruikshank, an artist who stretches hands on the one side towards Hogarth and Gillray, and on the other towards Leech and Teniiel, deserves honourable mention. Cruikshank's political caricatures, some of which were designed for the squibs of William Hone, are, comparatively speaking, uninteresting; his ambition was that of Hogarth—the production of moral comedies."

In an admirable article on the work and career of George Cruikshank, by Mr. John Paget, published in Blackwood (August 1863), an interesting passage occurs, showing how the link of historical caricature passed unbroken from the hands of Gillray to those of George Cruikshank.

"The political series of his (Gillray's) caricatures commences in the year 1782, shortly before the coalition between Fox and Lord North, and continues until 1810. It comprises not less than four hundred plates, giving an average of about fourteen for each year. When it is remembered that this period commences with the recognition of the independence of the United States; that it extends over the whole of the French Revolution, and a considerable portion of the Empire; that it comprises the careers of Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Wyndham, Erskine, and Lord Thurlow, and comes down to the times of Castlereagh, Canning, Lord Grey, and Sir Francis Burdett, and that the aspect of every actor who played any conspicuous part during that period is faithfully preserved 'in his habit, as he lived,' his gesture and demeanour, his gait, his mode of sitting and walking, his action in speaking—all, except the tone of his voice, presented to us as if we gazed through a glass at the men of former times—we shall feel that we owe no small debt to the memory of James Gillray.

"Nor is this all. He has given to us with equal fidelity the portraits of those actors who fill up the scene, who sustain the underplot of the comedy of life, but have only a secondary share, if any, in the main action of the drama. Nor was he simply a caricaturist That he possessed the higher qualities of genius—imagination, fancy, and considerable tragic power—is abundantly shown by many of his larger and more important etchings, whilst a small figure of the unhappy Duchess of York, published in 1792, under the feigned signature of Charlotte Zethin, gives proof that he was not wanting in tenderness or grace.

"Of those who appear in the etchings of Gillray the last has passed away from amongst us within a year of the present time. The figure of an old man, somewhat below the middle height, the most remarkable feature in whose face consisted of his dark overhanging eyebrows, habited in a loose blue coat with metal buttons, grey trousers, white stockings, and a thick pair of boots, walking leisurely along Pall Mall or St. James's Street, was familiar to many of our readers. The Marquess of Lansdowne (then Lord Henry Petty) appears for the first time in Gillray's prints in the year 1805; and it is not difficult to trace a resemblance between the youthful Chancellor of the Exchequer of more than half a century ago, and the Nestor of the Whigs, who survived more than three generations of politicians. The personal history of Gillray was a melancholy one. In 1809 his pencil showed no want of vigour, but his intellect shortly afterwards gave way under the effect of intemperate habits. The last of his works was 'A Barber's Shop in Assize-time,' etched from a drawing by Harry Bunting in 1811. In four years more—years of misery and madness—he slept in the churchyard of St. James's, Piccadilly. A flat stone marks the resting-place, and records the genius, of 'Mr. James Gillray, the caricaturist, who departed this life June 1st, 1815, aged 58 years.'

"At the time of the death of Gillray, George Cruikshank was a young man of about five-and-twenty years of age. Sir Francis Burdett was a prominent figure in many of Gillray's latest caricatures in the year 1809. One of the earliest of George Cruikshank's represents the arrest of the Baronet under the warrant of the Speaker in 1810. The series is thus taken up without the omission of even a single link." The same writer distinguishes justly between the two political caricaturists. In his early work Cruikshank often so closely resembles Gillray, that it is difficult to say in what minor points he is dissimilar; but a study of the political work of the two will show that Gillray was the more vigorous of the pair, also the more audacious and unscrupulous. The writer in Blackwood remarks that Cruikshank in his own department is as far superior to Gillray as he falls short of him in the walk of art "in which no man before or since has ever approached the great Master of Political Caricature. In another, requiring more refined, more subtle, more intellectual qualities of mind, George Cruikshank stands pre-eminent, not only above Gillray, but above all other artists. He is the most perfect master of individual expression that ever handled a pencil or an etching-needle. This talent is equally shown in his earliest as in his latest works. Of the former, one of the finest examples is the first cut of the 'Queen's Matrimonial Ladder,' entitled 'Qualification,' The attitude was probably suggested by Gillray's plate of the same illustrious personage, as 'A Voluptuary suffering from the Horrors of Indigestion,' But here the superiority of Cruikshank over Gillray in this particular quality is at once apparent. Gillray's is a finished copper-plate engraving, Cruikshank's a light woodcut, but there is not a line that does not tell its story. Down to the very tips of his fingers the unhappy debauchee is 'fuddled.' The exact stage of drunkenness is marked and noted down in the corners of the mouth and eyes, and the impotent elevation of the eyebrow."

Cruikshank was a very young man when Gillray gave way to drunkenness, and sank under it. His last work appeared in 1811.*