Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/14



been called on to write a Preface to a popular edition of this book, I seize the opportunity which is now afforded me of correcting an error which occurred in the original edition. By some unaccountable accident the printer omitted my sub-title; and it was not unnatural that some of my reviewers should inquire why, in a work dealing with English Caricaturists of the Nineteenth Century, no mention should be made of the graphic humourists who succeeded John Leech. This question is answered by the restoration of the original title, from which it will be seen that the work is simply "a contribution to the history of caricature from the time of the first Napoleon down to the death of John Leech, in 1864." To take in the later humourists, would be to carry the work beyond the limits which I had originally assigned to it.

One word more, and I have done. My intention in writing this book was to show how the caricaturist "illustrated" his time,—in other words, how he "interpreted" the social and political events of his day, according to his own bias, or the views he was retained to serve. While exhibiting him in the light of an historian—which he most undoubtedly is—I had no idea (as some of my too favourable critics seem to have imagined) of writing a history of caricature itself. For this task, indeed, I am not qualified, nor does it in the slightest degree enlist my sympathy. 11th August, 1893.