Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/382

 1808), he is either the sole or the conspicuous figure. The dusky muzzle of Charles James Fox is nearly as often under Gillray's needle, e.g. in ‘Spouting’ (14 May 1792), ‘The Slough of Despond’ (2 Jan. 1793), ‘Blue and Buff Charity’ (12 June 1793), and ‘The Worn-out Patriot’ (13 Oct. 1800). Sheridan's mottled and once handsome face is also often reproduced, and Burke's (to cite but one example) in the famous ‘Dagger Scene’ (30 Dec. 1792), which includes all the other notabilities above named. ‘A Smoking Club’ (13 Feb. 1793) also contains portraits of Pitt, Fox, and Sheridan. The last two appear again in a remarkable work entitled ‘Doublures of Characters, or Striking Resemblances in Physiognomy,’ executed in November 1798 for the ‘Anti-Jacobin Magazine,’ and comprising portraits of Sir Francis Burdett, Horne Tooke, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Bedford. The exploits of Nelson and Napoleon, the Broad Bottom administration, and the French revolution naturally prompt many plates. But the catalogue of the strictly political caricatures would be endless. The more important are ‘Market Day’ (2 May 1788); ‘Fatigues of the [Duke of York's] Campaign in Flanders’ (20 May 1793); ‘The Loyal Toast,’ i.e. the Duke of Norfolk's ‘Majesty of the People’ (3 Feb. 1798); ‘The Apotheosis of Hoche’ (11 Dec. 1798); ‘The Union Club’ (21 Jan. 1801); ‘Confederated Coalition’ (1 May 1804); ‘L'Assemblée Nationale’ (18 June 1804); ‘More Pigs than Teats’ (5 March 1806); its supplement, ‘The Pigs Possessed’ (18 April 1807); and ‘The Great Balloon’ (8 Aug. 1810), a satire upon the installation of Lord Grenville as lord chancellor of Oxford, which is also the last political engraving bearing the artist's name.

Many of Gillray's social, or rather non-political, subjects are still popular. ‘The March to the Bank’ (22 Aug. 1787), ‘The Bengal Levee’ (9 Nov. 1792), ‘Heroes Recruiting at Kelseys,’ the fruiterer in St. James's Street (9 June 1797), the burlesque on inoculation, called ‘The Cow Pock’ (12 June 1802), ‘A Broad Hint of not meaning to Dance,’ and ‘Company shocked at a Lady getting up to Ring the Bell’ (20 Nov. 1804), ‘Harmony before Matrimony’ and ‘Matrimonial Harmonics’ (25 Oct. 1805), are all favourite examples in this kind. Of satires aimed more directly at individuals, may be cited the prints called ‘Sandwich Carrots’ (3 Dec. 1796), with its attractive barrow-woman; ‘Push Pin’ (17 April 1797) as played by ‘Old Q.’ and Miss Vanneck; ‘A Peep at Christie's’ (24 Sept. 1796); ‘The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche’ (3 May 1797), showing the dumpy Lord Derby with his second wife, the tall Miss Farren; and ‘The Bulstrode Siren’ (14 April 1803), Mrs. Billington and the Duke of Portland. To this class of non-political caricature belongs also Gillray's last work, ‘Interior of a Barber's Shop in Assize Time,’ engraved from a design by H. W. Bunbury [q. v.] It is dated 9 Jan. 1811, but during the eclipse of the artist's powers had long been painfully ‘in hand.’ It was published 15 May 1818.

Among Gillray's miscellaneous works is a series of stippled plates in red, entitled ‘Hollandia Regenerata,’ which was published in Holland with Dutch inscriptions, and was intended ‘to ridicule the republican costumes and appointments.’ Occasionally he made excursions into serious art. In June 1784 he designed and engraved two oval subjects from Goldsmith's ‘Deserted Village,’ which in style are said to resemble Stothard. He also executed three or four marine subjects, a likeness of Dr. Arne in profile after Bartolozzi (1782), ‘Colonel Gardiner's last Interview with his Wife and Daughters before the Battle of Preston Pans’ (1786), and two portraits of Pitt. Besides these he is known to have etched several plates bearing fictitious names. In a design called ‘A Domestic Musical Party’ (1804) he essayed lithography, and he cut or drew a few subjects on wood, now so rare that of one of them, ‘A Beggar at a Door,’ only a solitary impression is known to exist. Another was a medallion portrait of Pitt which appears as the title-page vignette in Bohn's collection of Gillray's works.

Gillray's most enduring work, however, was done as a caricaturist, and as a caricaturist pure and simple he holds a foremost place in that division of English graphic art. Much of the intensity, the almost ferocious energy, of his satire is scarcely conceivable in these milder days, but, that admission made, it is impossible not to admire his inexhaustible fertility of fancy, the frequent grandeur of his conception, the reckless audacity of his attack, and his skill in selecting the vulnerable side of his victims. His executive facility was unexampled. Often, equipped only with a few slight outlines of his characters on tiny cards (some of which are still preserved by collectors), he would, without further preliminary study, rapidly cover a copper plate with intricate groups of figures, composed and contrasted with consummate skill. George Cruikshank, who knew him towards the close of his career, describes his enthusiasm over his work as extraordinary and even as painful to witness, since it seemed in its hurrying excitement like a premonition of insanity. There are, indeed,