A COMIC History of England would be an exceedingly curious, and even a valuable work. We do not mean a caricatured history, with great men turned into ridicule, and important events burlesqued; such absurdities may provoke pity, but they will hardly extort a smile from any whose suffrage is worth courting. We have had a vast deal of comic literature in this country during the last dozen years; quite a torrent of facetiæ, a surfeit of slang and puns. One or two popular humourists gave the impetus, and set a host of imitators sliding and wriggling down the inclined plane leading from wit and humour to buffoonery and bad taste. The majority reached in an instant the bottom of the slope, and have ever since remained there. The truth is, the funny style has been overdone; the supply of jokers has exceeded the demand for jokes, until the very word "comic" resounds unpleasantly upon the public tympanum. It were a change to revert for a while to the wit of our forefathers, at least as good, we suspect, as much of more modern manufacture. And therefore, we repeat, a comic English history, whose claims to the quality should be founded on its illustration by the songs, satires, and caricatures of its respective periods, would be interesting and precious in many ways; particularly as giving an insight into popular feelings and characteristics, and often as throwing additional light upon the causes of important revolutions and political changes. It would certainly be a very difficult book to compile. Instead of beginning at the usual starting-post of Roman invasion, it could hardly be carried back to the first William. The Saxons may possibly have revenged themselves on their conquerors by satirical ditties, and by rude and grotesque delineations; but it may be doubted whether any authenticated

specimens of either their poetry or painting are in existence at the present day. It would not surprise us if King John's courtiers had curried favour with their master by lampooning the absent Coeur-de-Lion; and doubtless when there were men sufficiently sacrilegious to slay a churchman at the altar, others may have ventured to satirize in rude doggrel the pride and presumption of Thomas à Becket. But have their graceless effusions survived? Can they be traced in black letter, or deciphered on the blocks of wood and stone referred to in Mr. Wright's preface? We fear not; and we believe that, up to the date of the invention of printing, the history suggested would be very meagre, and the task of writing it most ungrateful. For some time after that date the humorous illustrations would be written, and not pictorial; songs and lampoons, perhaps, but of caricatures few or none. For although caricature, in one variety or other, is ancient as the Pyramids, its introduction is recent into the country where, of all others, it seems most at home. Fostered by political liberty, it has naturalized itself kindly on English soil, but its foreign origin remains undeniable. Already, in the sixteenth century, Italy had her Caracci, and France her Callot; whilst in England we vainly seek, until the appearance of Hogarth, a caricaturist whose name abides in our memories, or whose works grace our museums.

It is evident, then, that the easiest way to write a history of the kind we have spoken of, is to begin at the end and write backwards. At any rate the historian avoids discouragement, at the very commencement, from the paucity of materials. And that is the plan Mr. Wright has adopted. Breaking new ground, he naturally selected the spot most likely to reward his toil, and pitched upon the reigns of the first three Georges. He could

The contents of Mr. Wright's book would sort into two comprehensive classes the social and the political; the former the least voluminous, but the most entertaining. Political satires and caricatures, under the first two Georges, possess but a moderate attraction at the present day; and it is not till the period of the American war-we might almost say not until that of the French revolution-that they excite interest, and move to mirth. The hits at the follies of society at large have a more general and enduring interest than those levelled at individuals and intrigues long since passed away. The first ten years of the accession of the House of Hanover were poor both in the number and quality of caricatures; and the remoteness of the period has enhanced the difficulty of finding them. Written satires and pasquinades were abundant, but, to judge from those preserved, few were worth preserving. Of these ephemeral publications there exists no important collection, either public or private. Of caricatures, more are to be got at, although, strange to say, the British Museum contains very few. There was far less of humour and spirit in those that appeared during the early part of the eighteenth century than in those produced during its latter portion. In fact, until the reign of George II., the art could hardly be said to be cultivated. In the first hundred pages of the book before us, which comprise nearly the whole reign of George I., we find only fourteen cuts-a small proportion of the three hundred scattered through the two volumes. And scarcely one of the fourteen has the qualities essential to a genuine caricature. They aim at telling a story, or conveying an insinuation, rather than at burlesquing persons. Sometimes the prints or medals (the latter were a favourite vehicle for the circulation of satire) were simple allegories, and as such are incorrectly designated by the word caricature, which, as derived

thing overcharged or exaggerated in its proportions. As an instance of these allegories, we may cite a Jacobite medal, where Britannia is seen weeping, whilst the horse of Hanover tramples on the lion and unicorn. The English nation was at that period usually personified by Britannia and her lion, until Gillray, much latertaking the idea, it is said, from Dr. Arbuthnot's satire-hit off the humourous figure of John Bull, which has been preserved, with more or less modification, by all subsequent caricaturists. Hogarth, who first attracted notice in 1723-4, by his attacks upon the degeneracy of the stage-then abandoned to opera, masquerade, and pantomimebrought up a broader style of caricature than his predecessors, but still he was too emblematical. Then, for a time, caricature got into the hands of amateur artists-female as well as male. Thus a humorous drawing of the Italian singers, Cuzzoni and Farinelli, and of Heidegger the ugly manager, is attributed to the Countess of Burlington. Then, after an interregnum, during which caricature languished, Gillray arose-Gillray, who, coarse and often indecent as he was (in which respects, however, he did but conform to the tone and manners of his day), was unquestionably the ablest of his tribe, the most thoroughly English, and the most irresistibly humorous caricaturist we have had. The refined might tax him with grossness, but his delineations went home to the multitude; and to the multitude the caricaturist must address himself, if he would produce effect, and enjoy influence. while, during the war with France, Gillray's active pencil was a power in the state. In his turn he was surpassed in coarseness and vulgarity, but not in wit, by his contemporary Rowlandson.

For a

The sketches before us, of the history of England under the house of Hanover, are not to be considered as dependent on the satires and caricatures used to illustrate them. They form a general narrative of the most prominent events of a very important century, with which are interwoven, when opportunity offers, the most remarkable pen and pencil pasquinades of the day. The latter, however, have

not always been obtainable, or are not worth recording. As we have already mentioned, they are scarce at the commencement of the book, which opens at the death of Queen Anne in 1714. When Jacobite plots were rife, and party feeling ran so high as to produce frequent bloody struggles in London streets, between the Whigs or Hanoverians and the "Jacks," as the adherents of the Pretender were styled by their opponents, there appear to have existed no draughtsmen of much talent for caricature; whilst the poetical satires, judging from the specimens furnished by Mr. Wright, are very middling in merit, although exceedingly numerous. If there was little wit, there was much violence and abuse on both sides. On the part of the Jacobites, agitation was the order of the day; and the mob, both in London and the provinces, were incited to many excesses-such as attacking houses, robbing passengers, pulling down Dissenting chapels, and drinking James the Third's health in the open streets. In Manchester, in June, 1715, the population were for several days masters of the town. The results were the passing of the Riot Act, and the quartering of cavalry in the places most disaffected. The Whigs, on their part, were not idle, but carried on a brisk war of words, and raked up all the old stories about the Pretender-that he was no king's son, but a miller's offspring, conveyed into the Queen's bed in a warmingpan by the Jesuit Father Petre. Of course such tales as these gave a fine handle to squib and lampoon; and, in reference to the Jesuit's name, the Whigs designated the Pretender as Peterkin or Perkin-an appellation offering a convenient coincidence with that of a previous impudent aspirant to the English crown. To sneers of this kind the Jacobite minstrels manfully and spiritedly replied; and although the muse was less propitions in England than in Scotland, there is no doubt these effusions had a considerable effect upon the people. But the suppression of the rebellion damped their spirits, and with it their poetic fire; whilst the exulting Whigs triumphantly flapped their wings, and crowed a yet louder strain. Perkin and the warming-pan were the burden

of every lay, and a peal of parodies celebrated the flight of the Stuart.

"Twas when the seas were roaring With blasts of northern wind, Young Perkin lay deploring,

On warming-pan reclined:
Wide o'er the roaring billows
He cast a dismal look,
And shiver'd like the willows

That tren.ble o'er the brook."

One would think the "Oxford scholars," accounted such fervent Jacobites, might have replied victoriously to such tepid couplets as this. But their hearts were down at their King's repulse. And poor as the verses were, no doubt they took wonderfully at the time,-so much, in such things, depends upon the apropos. And now a large section of the Tories, previously favourable to the Jacobites, broke away from them in their misfortune, made their peace with the ruling powers, and took the oath of allegiance. But long after fighting was over in the North-to be revived only in '45 by the chivalrou Charles Edward-the Jacobite mob kept London in hot water, and, thanks to the inefficiency of the police, might have done serious mischief, but for the Muggite societies formed at that period. These were simply Whig clubs, meeting at certain public-houses (the Magpie and Stump, in Newgate Street, was one), and sallying out upon occasion to fight the Jacobites. The latter had also taverns of rendezvous, but these were few, and it was chiefly the lowest mob that in London still sported the White Rose, and cursed the Hanoverian. In most of the many conflicts that then occurred, the "Jacks" got the worst of it. If they assembled to break windows on an illumination night, or to burn William or George in effigy, they were soon assailed by the Loyal Society, or some other Whig association, who, acting as special constables without having taken the oath, drubbed them with cudgels, and extinguished their bonfires. would appear that the Jacks did not often venture to impede the Whig mob in the performance of analogous ceremonies; since we read of a certain Fifth of November, when caricature effigies of the Pretender and his chief adherents and supporters were car

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ried in triumph through the streets. "First, two men bearing each a warming-pan, with a representation of the infant Pretender-a nurse attending him with a sucking bottle, and another playing with him by beating the warming-pan. These were followed by three trumpeters, playing Lillibulero and other Whig tunes. Then came a cart with Ormond and Marr, appropriately dressed. This was followed by another cart, containing the Pope and Pretender seated together, and Bolingbroke as the secretary of the latter. They were all drawn backwards, with hal

ters round their necks." The sole opposition made by the Jacobites to this outrageous demonstration, was by the somewhat paltry proceeding of stealing the fagots collected for the Whig bonfire. Four months after this, the Jacobites attempted a procession, and a great fight ensued, in which the Whigs were victorious, after having "made rare work for the surgeons." The government of the day showed little mercy to the rioters. Seditious ballad-singers, and persons holding disloyal discourse, were flogged and pilloried; and at last, the hanging of several of the disaffected for storming a Mug-house, put an end to the disturbances. That the Whigs did not bear their triumph very meekly appears from the following paragraph, extracted from Read's Weekly Journal of June 15, 1717.

"Last Monday being supposed to be the birthday of the Sovereign of the White Rose, in respect to the anniversary an honest whig went from the Roebuck to St. James's, with a jackdaw finely dressed in white roses, and set on a warming-pan dedeckt with the same sweet-scented commodity, which caused abundance of laughter all the way, to the great mortification of the Knights Companions of that order, and all the other Jacks, to see their sovereign so maltreated in the person of his representative."

The poor crushed Jacobites were fain to grin and bear it.

The suppression of political riots was followed by a great prevalence of highway robberies, in and around the metropolis. The streets of London were not safe, even in the daytime; and ladies went out in their chairs guarded by servants with loaded

Sunday 24. At eight o'clock in the evening, two highwaymen attacked a gentleman in a coach on the South side of St. Paul's churchyard, and robbed him."

Sunday 31 A gentleman robbed and murdered in Bishopsgate street."

"Monday, February 1. The Duke of Chandos, coming from Canons, had another encounter with highwaymen, whom he captured

"Tuesday 2. The postboy was attacked by three highwaymen in Tyburn road, but the Duke of Chandos, happening to pass that way, came to his rescue."

His grace of Chandos seems to have been a sort of amateur thief-taker. Then we read of stage-coaches stopped and robbed between London and Stoke Newington, and of a certain day, when "all the stage-coaches coming from Surrey to London were robbed by highwaymen." At last a reward of one hundred pounds was offered for the apprehension of any highwayman within five miles of London.

Amongst those captured were several persons of good repute in their respective callings. They included a London tradesman, a Duke's valet, and the keeper of a boxing-school.

The speculative madness that prevailed in the year 1719-20, the "bubble mania," as it was called, offered a fertile field to the satirist. The contagion was caught from France, where, about that time, John Law projected his celebrated Mississippi Company, and by his wild financial manœuvres, first rendered money a mere drug, then plunged Paris and France into the profoundest misery. The outline of Law's history is familiar to most persons. It will be remembered how, having killed a man in a duel in his own country, he broke his prison and fled to France, met the young Duke of Orleans at the

house of a courtesan named Duclos, and, being handsome, accomplished, and graceful, contracted with him an intimacy that led eventually to the hatching of the notable Mississippi scheme. The delusion began to flourish towards the middle of 1718, and was at its apogee at the close of the following year. The market for the shares was in an insignificant street, still existing in Paris under the name of the Rue Quincampoix, where every house was soon subdivided into an infinity of little offices, and a dwelling whose usual rent was of six hundred livres yielded one hundred thousand; where a cobbler gained two hundred livres a-day, by hiring out his shed to ladies who came to share in and look on at the game; and a hunchback earned a handsome income by lending his shoulders as a writing-desk. The five-hundred-livre shares rose to twenty thousand livres-to a premium, that is to say, of four thousand per cent. Money was for the time so abundant, that goods rose immensely, and articles of luxury were all bought up. Cloth of gold, a French writer tells us, became exceeding rare, except in the streets, where it was seen draping the plebeian persons of the newly-enriched speculators. A nobleman and a Mississippian disputed a partridge in a cook's shop: the latter obtained it for two hundred livres, or more than eight pounds! Beranger has devoted a witty stanza to that year of mad

holders proved the exaggerated and fictitious value of the bonds, the mania for speculation had crossed the Channel, and raged in this country. The South-Sea bill passed through Parliament, and received the royal assent; and on a sudden stock-jobbing seemed to become the sole business of all classes. The Tory papers ridiculed the folly. Sir Robert Walpole published a warning pamphlet, a proclamation forbade the formation of unauthorized companies; but all in vain. Shares in the most absurd bubbles were eagerly caught at. 66 · A company was even announced, and its shares bought, which was merely advertised as for an undertaking which shall in due time be revealed.' Among other odd projects were companies for planting of mulberry trees, and breeding of silk-worms in Chelsea Park for importing a number of large jack-asses from Spain, in order to propagate a larger breed of mules in England;' for fattening of hogs.' In August, the stock of the various London companies was calculated to exceed the value of five hundred millions." About this time Law's credit balloon began to collapse, which was a hint to the English jobbers of what they might in their turn expect. It was nearly the end of the year when he was compelled to fly from Paris, and take refuge in Venice, where he died, an impoverished gambler, in May 1729, leaving for sole inheritance a diamond worth about 1500 pounds sterling, which he had been in the habit of pawning when hard pushed. Many weeks before his departure from France, however, the London companies were discredited and turned into ridicule by a host of songs and satirical pieces, one of the best of which was the celebrated South-Sea Ballad; or, Merry Remarks upon Exchange-Alley Bubbles.

"From the month of October to the end of the year, songs, and squibs, and pamphlets of all descriptions, on the misfortunes occasioned by the explosion of the bubble system, became exceedingly numerous. The general feeling against the directors was becoming so strong in the month of November, that we are told it had become a practice among the ladies, when in playing at cards they