The History of the Nineteenth Century in Caricature

PART I. THE NAPOLEONIC ERA

The Beginning of Political Caricature 1

Hogarth and his Times 12

James Gillray 19

Bonaparte As First Consul 28

The Emperor at his Apogee 35

Napoleon's Waning Power 44

PART II. FROM WATERLOO THROUGH THE CRIMEAN WAR

After the Downfall 57

The "Poire" 65

The Baiting of Louis-Phillipe 73

Mayeux and Robert Macaire 90

From Cruikshank to Leech 97

The Beginning of Punch 101

Retrospective 111

'48 and the Coup d'état 119

The Struggle in the Crimea 128

PART III. THE CIVIL AND FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WARS

The Mexican War and Slavery 143

Neglected Opportunities 159

The South Secedes 166

The Four Years' Struggle 175

Nations and Men in Caricature 188

The Outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War 197

The Débacle 206

PART IV. THE END OF THE CENTURY

The Evolution of American Caricature 231

The Third French Republic 236

General European Affairs 245

Thomas Nast 255

The American Political Campaigns of 1880 and 1884 269

The Influence of Journalism 278

Years of Turbulence 289

American Parties and Platforms 309

The Spanish-American War 330

The Boer War and the Dreyfus Case 342

The Men of To-day 355

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

What It Is and What Is It? Frontispiece

French Invasion of England 3

Nelson at the Battle of the Nile (Gillray) 5

Bonaparte after Landing (Gillray) 6

John Bull Taking a Luncheon (Gillray) 8

French Consular Triumvirate (Gillray) 11

Capture of the Danish Ships (Gillray) 14

The Broad-Bottom Administration (Gillray) 16

Pacific Overtures (Gillray) 19

The Great Coronation Procession (Gillray) 21

Napoleon and Pitt (Gillray) 23

Armed Heroes (Gillray) 25

The Handwriting on the Wall (Gillray) 27

The Double-Faced Napoleon (German cartoon) 29

The Two Kings of Terror (Rowlandson) 31

The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver (Gillray) 33

Napoleon's Burden (German cartoon) 36

The French Gingerbread Baker (Gillray) 38

The Devil and Napoleon (French cartoon) 39

The Consultation (French cartoon) 41

The Corsican Top in Full Flight 45

Napoleon in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Gillray) 47

The Spider's Web (Volk) 48

The Partition of the Map 49

Napoleon's Plight (French cartoon) 50

The Signature of Abdication (Cruikshank) 52

The Allies' Oven (French cartoon) 54

The New Robinson Crusoe (German cartoon) 55

Napoleon Caged (French cartoon) 56

Restitution 58

Adjusting the Balance 60

John Bull's New Batch of Ships (Charles) 62

Russia as Mediator (Charles) 63

The Cossack Bite (Charles) 63

John Bull and the Alexandrians (Charles) 64

John Bull's Troubles (Charles) 64

The Order of the Extinguishers (French cartoon) 67

Proudhon 68

Digging the Grave 69

Le Poire (Philipon) 70

The Pious Monarch 74

The Great Nut-Cracker 75

Enfoncé Lafayette (Daumier) 77

The Ship of State in Peril 79

The Pit of Taxation (Grandville) 81

The Question of Divorce (Daumier) 83

The Resuscitation (Grandville) 84

Louis Philippe as Bluebeard (Grandville) 85

Barbarism and Cholera Invading 89

The Raid 89

Mayeux (Traviès) 91

Robert Macaire (Daumier) 93

Extinguished! 94

Louis Philippe as Cain 95

Laughing John-Crying John 96

The Wellington Boot 99

The Land of Liberty 103

England's Admonition (Leech) 104

The Napoleon of Peace 105

The Sea-Serpent of 1848 107

Europe in 1830 109

Honoré Daumier (Benjamin) 112

The Evolution of John Bull 115

Joseph Prudhomme (Daumier) 116

The Only Authorised Lamps (Vernier) 120

Italian Cartoon of '48 121

Napoleon le Petit (Vernier) 122

The New Siamese Twins 123

Louis Napoleon and Madame France 124

The Proclamation (Gill) 125

Split Crow in the Crimea 126

Bursting of the Russian Bubble 130

General Février Turned Traitor (Leech) 131

Rochefort and His Lantern 133

Brothers in Arms 134

An American Cartoon on the Crimean War 136

Theatrical Programme 138

The British Lion's Vengeance (Tenniel) 139

The French Porcupine (Leech) 141

Bank-Oh's Ghost, 1837 144

Balaam and Balaam's Ass 144

New Map of the United States 145

The Steeplechase for 1844 147

Uncle Sam's Taylorifics 150

The Mexican Commander 151

Defense of the California Bank 153

The Presidential Foot Race 153

Presidential Campaign of '56 154

No Higher Law 155

The Fugitive Slave Law 157

The Great Disunion Serpent 158

Rough and Ready Locomotive Against the Field 160

Sauce for Goose and Gander 162

Peace (Nast) 164

Virginia Pausing 166

Civil War Envelopes 167

Long Abe 168

The Promissory Note 169

The Great Tight Rope Feat 170

At the Throttle 171

The Expert Bartender 172

The Southern Confederacy a Fact 173

The Brighter Prospect 174

"Why Don't you Take It?" 175

The Old Bull Dog on the Right Track 176

Little Mac in his Great Act 178

The Grave of the Union 180

The Abolition Catastrophe 181

The Blockade 182

Miscegenation 183

The Confederacy in Petticoats 184

Uncle Sam's Menagerie 185

Protecting Free Ballot 186

The Nation at Lincoln's Bier (Tenniel) 187

Figures from a Triumph 189

The Diagnosis (Cham) 190

The Egerean Nymph (Daumier) 191

Paul and Virginia (Gill) 192

The First Conscript of France (Gill) 193

The Situation (Gill) 195

Louis Blanc (Gill) 197

Rival Arbiters (Tenniel) 198

The Man Who Laughs (Gill) 199

The Man Who Thinks (Gill) 200

"To Be or Not to Be" (Gill) 201

Achilles in Retreat (Gill) 202

The President of Rhodes (Daumier) 203

A Tempest in a Glass of Water (Gill) 204

A Duel to the Death (Tenniel) 205

September 4th, 1870 206

Her Baptism of Fire (Tenniel) 207

André Gill 208

The Marquis de Galliffet (Willette) 209

The History of a Reign (Daumier) 210

"This has Killed That" (Daumier) 211

The Mousetrap and its Victims (Daumier) 211

Prussia Annexes Alsace (Cham) 213

Britannia's Sympathy (Cham) 214

Adieu (Cham) 215

Souvenirs and Regrets (Aranda) 216

The Napoleon Mountebanks (Hadol) 217

Prussia Introducing the New Assembly (Daumier) 219

"Let us Eat the Prussian" (Gill) 220

Design for a New Handbell (Daumier) 222

Germany's Farewell 223

Bismarck the First 224

Trochu-1870 225

Marshal Bazaine (Faustin) 226

Rochefort 227

The German Emperor Enters Paris (Régamey) 228

Caran D'Ache 232

Gulliver Crispi 233

Changing the Map (Gill) 234

Poor France! (Daumier) 237

The Warning (Daumier) 238

The New Year (Daumier) 239

The Root of all Evil 240

The Napoleonic Drama 241

The French Political Situation (Régamey) 243

New Crowns for Old 245

Tightening the Grip 246

Aeolus 247

"L'état, C'est Moi" 248

The Hidden Hand 249

The Irish Frankenstein 250

The Daring Duckling 251

Settling the Alabama Claims 252

Gordon Waiting at Khartoum 253

The Gratz Brown Tag to Greeley's Coat (Nast) 256

Thomas Nast 257

Labour Cap and Dinner Pail (Nast) 259

The Rag Baby (Nast) 260

The Inflation Donkey (Nast) 261

The Brains of Tammany (Nast) 262

A Popular Verdict 263

The Tattooed Columbia (Keppler) 264

Splitting the Party 265

The Headless Candidates 266

On the Down Grade 267

Forbidding the Banns (Keppler) 270

The Wake (Keppler) 272

A Common Sorrow 273

Why They Dislike Him 274

The First Tattooed Man (Gillam) 275

A German Idea of Irish Home Rule 279

The New National Sexton 280

Horatius Cleveland 281

Bernard Gillam 282

Joseph Keppler 283

The John Bull Octopus 285

The Hand of Anarchy 286

The Triple Alliance 287

A Present-Day Lesson 290

Gordon in Khartoum 291

The Spurious Parnell Letters 291

Dropping the Pilot (Tenniel) 292

L'Enfant Terrible 293

William Bluebeard 294

Chinese Native Cartoon 295

Japan in Corea 296

Business at the Deathbed 297

The Start for the China Cup 297

End of the Chinese-Japanese War 298

The Chinese Exclusion Act 299

The Great Republican Circus (Opper) 300

To the Rescue 301

A Pilgrim's Progress 302

General Boulanger 303

The Hague Peace Conference 303

A Fixture 304

Group of Modern French Caricaturists 305

The Anglo-French War Barometer 307

Rip Van Winkle Awakes 310

They're Off 311

Where am I at? (Gillam) 312

The Political Columbus (Gillam) 314

Cleveland's Map of the United States (Gillam) 315

Return of the Southern Flags (Gillam) 317

The Champion Masher (Gillam) 319

The Harrison Platform (Keppler) 320

The Chilian Affair 322

A Political Tam O'Shanter (Gillam) 324

Don Quixote Bryan and the Windmill (Victor Gillam) 325

Outing of the Anarchists 326

To the Death 327

The Great Weyler Ape 328

We are the People 329

Be Careful! It's Loaded (Victor Gillam) 331

The Safety Valve 333

The Latest War Bulletin (Hamilton) 334

Spanish Cartoons of the Spanish-American War 335

The Spanish Brute (Hamilton) 337

Spanish Cartoons of the Spanish-American War 339

The Rhodes Colossus (Sambourne) 342

The Situation in South Africa (Gillam) 343

Bloody Cartography 344

Lady Macbeth 345

The Flying Dutchman 346

Oom Paul's Favorite Pastime 347

Up against the Breastworks 348

The Napoleon of South Africa 349

Fire! 350

The Last Phase of the Dreyfus Case 350

Toward Freedom 351

The French General's Staff 352

Between Scylla and Charybdis 353

Devil's Island 354

While the impulse to satirize public men in picture is probably as old as satiric verse, if not older, the political cartoon, as an effective agent in molding public opinion, is essentially a product of modern conditions and methods. As with the campaign song, its success depends upon its timeliness, upon the ability to seize upon a critical moment, a burning question of the hour, and anticipate the outcome while public excitement is still at a white heat. But unlike satiric verse, it is dependent upon ink and paper. It cannot be transmitted orally.

The doggerel verses of the Roman legions passed from camp to camp with the mysterious swiftness of an epidemic, and found their way even into the sober history of Suetonius. The topical songs and parodies of the Middle Ages migrated from town to town with the strolling minstrels, as readily as did the cycles of heroic poetry. But with caricature the case was very different. It may be that the man of the Stone Age, whom Mr. Opper has lately utilized so cleverly in a series of caricatures, was the first to draw rude and distorted likenesses of some unpopular chieftain, just as the Roman soldier of 79 A. D. scratched on the wall of his barracks in Pompeii an unflattering portrait of some martinet centurion which the ashes of Vesuvius have preserved until to-day. It is certain that the Greeks and Romans appreciated the power of ridicule latent in satiric pictures; but until the era of the printing press, the caricaturist was as one crying in a wilderness. And it is only with the modern co-operation of printing and photography that caricature has come into its full inheritance. The best and most telling cartoons are those which do not merely reflect current public opinion, but guide it. In looking back over a century of caricature, we are apt to overlook this distinction. A cartoon which cleverly illustrates some important historical event, and throws light upon the contemporary attitude of the public, is equally interesting to-day, whether it anticipated the event or was published a month afterward. But in order to influence public opinion, caricature must contain a certain element of prophecy. It must suggest a danger or point an interrogation. As an example, we may compare two famous cartoons by the English artist Gillray, "A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper" and the "King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver." In the latter, George III., in the guise of a giant, is curiously examining through his magnifying glass a Lilliputian Napoleon. There is no element of prophecy about the cartoon. It simply reflects the contemptuous attitude of the time toward Napoleon, and underestimates the danger. The other cartoon, which appeared several years earlier, shows the King anxiously examining the features of Cooper's well-known miniature of Cromwell, the great overthrower of kings. Public sentiment at that time suggested the imminence of another revolution, and the cartoon suggests a momentous question: "Will the fate of Charles I. be repeated?" In the light of history, the Gulliver cartoon is to-day undoubtedly the more interesting, but at the time of its appearance it could not have produced anything approaching the sensation of that of "a Connoisseur."

Gillray's Conception of the French Invasion of England.

The necessity of getting a caricature swiftly before the public has always been felt, and has given rise to some curious devices and makeshifts. In the example which we have noted as having come down from Roman times, a patriotic citizen of Pompeii could find no better medium for giving his cartoon of an important local event to the world than by scratching it upon the wall of his dwelling-house after the fashion of the modern advertisement. There was a time in the seventeenth century when packs of political playing-cards enjoyed an extended vogue. The fashion of printing cartoons upon ladies' fans and other articles of similarly intimate character was a transitory fad in England a century ago. Mr. Ackermann, a famous printer of his generation, and publisher of the greater part of Rowlandson's cartoons, adopted as an expedient for spreading political news a small balloon with an attached mechanism, which, when liberated, would drop news bulletins at intervals as it passed over field and village. In this country many people of the older generation will still remember the widespread popularity of the patriotic caricature-envelopes that were circulated during the Civil War. To-day we are so used to the daily newspaper cartoon that we do not stop to think how seriously handicapped the cartoonists of a century ago found themselves. The more important cartoons of Gillray and Rowlandson appeared either in monthly periodicals, such as the Westminster Magazine and the Oxford Magazine, or in separate sheets that sold at the prohibitive price of several shillings. In times of great public excitement, as during the later years of the Napoleonic wars, such cartoons were bought up greedily, the City vying with the aristocratic West End in their patriotic demand for them. But such times were exceptional, and the older caricaturists were obliged to let pass many interesting crises because the situations would have become already stale before the day of publication of the monthly magazines came round. With the advent of the illustrated weeklies the situation was improved, but it is only in recent times that the ideal condition has been reached, when the cabled news of yesterday is interpreted in the cartoon of to-day.

Nelson at the Battle of the Nile.

There is another and less specific reason why caricature had to await the advent of printing and the wider dissemination of knowledge which resulted. The successful political cartoon presupposes a certain average degree of intelligence in a nation, an awakened civic conscience, a sense of responsibility for the nation's welfare. The cleverest cartoonist would waste his time appealing to a nation of feudal vassals; he could not expect to influence a people to whom the ballot box was closed. Caricature flourishes best in an atmosphere of democracy; there is an eternal incompatibility between its audacious irreverence and the doctrine of the divine right of kings.

Bonaparte 48 Hours after Landing.

And yet the best type of caricature should not require a high degree of intelligence. Many clever cartoonists over-reach themselves by an excess of cleverness, appealing at best to a limited audience. Of this type are the cartoons whose point lies in parodying some famous painting or a masterpiece of literature, which, as a result, necessarily remains caviare to the general. There is a type of portrait caricature so cultured and subtle that it often produces likenesses truer to the man we know in real life than a photograph would be. A good example of this type is the familiar work of William Nicholson, whose portrait of the late Queen of England is said to have been recognized by her as one of the most characteristic pictures she had ever had taken. What appeals to the public, however, is a coarser type, a gross exaggeration of prominent features, a willful distortion, resulting in ridicule or glorification. Oftentimes the caricature degenerates into a mere symbol. We have outgrown the puerility of the pictorial pun which flourished in England at the close of the seventeenth century, when cartoonists of Gillray's rank were content to represent Lord Bute as a pair of boots, Lord North as Boreas, the north wind, and the elder Fox with the head and tail of the animal suggested by his name. Yet personification of one kind and another, and notably the personification of the nations in the shape of John Bull and Uncle Sam and the Russian Bear, forms the very alphabet of political caricature of the present day. Some of the most memorable series that have ever appeared were founded upon a chance resemblance of the subject of them to some natural object. Notable instances are Daumier's famous series of Louis Philippe represented as a pear, and Nast's equally clever, but more local, caricatures of Tweed as a money-bag. It would be interesting, if the material were accessible, to trace the development of the different personifications of England, France, and Russia, and the rest, from their first appearance in caricature, but unfortunately their earlier development cannot be fully traced. The underlying idea of representing the different nations as individuals, and depicting the great international crises in a series of allegories or parables or animal stories-a sort of pictorial ?sop's fables-dates back to the very beginning of caricature. In one of the earliest cartoons that have been preserved, England, France, and a number of minor principalities which have since disappeared from the map of Europe, are represented as playing a game of cards with some disputed island possessions as the stakes. In this case the several nations are indicated merely by heraldic emblems. The conception of John Bull was not to be evolved until a couple of centuries later. This cartoon, like the others of that time, originated in France under Louis XII. The further development of the art was decisively checked under the despotic reign of Louis XIV., and the few caricaturists of that time who had the courage to use their pencil against the king were driven to the expedient of publishing their works in Holland.

John Bull taking a Luncheon.

An impressive illustration of the advantage which the satirical poet has over the cartoonist lies in the fact that some of the cleverest political satire ever written, as well as the best examples of the application of the animal fable to politics, were produced in France at this very time in the fables of La Fontaine.

The French Consular Triumvirate.

From Holland caricature migrated to Great Britain in the closing years of the seventeenth century-a natural result of the attention which Dutch cartoonists had bestowed upon the revolution of 1688-and there it found a fertile and congenial soil. The English had not had time to forget that they had once put the divine right of kings to the test of the executioner's block, and what little reverence still survived was not likely to afford protection for a race of imported monarchs.

Moreover, as it happened, the development of English caricature was destined to be guided by the giant genius of two men, Hogarth and Gillray; and however far apart these two men were in their moral and artistic standards, they had one thing in common, a perennial scorn for the House of Hanover. Hogarth's contemptuous satire of George II. was more than echoed in Gillray's merciless attacks upon George III. The well-known cartoons of "Farmer George," and "George the Button-Maker," were but two of the countless ways in which he avenged himself upon the dull-witted king who had once acknowledged that he could not see the point of Gillray's caricatures.

Although Hogarth antedates the period covered by the present articles by fully half a century, he is much too commanding a figure in the history of comic art to be summarily dismissed. The year 1720 marks the era of the so-called "bubble mania," the era of unprecedented inflation, of the South Sea Company in London, and the equally notorious Mississippi schemes of John Law in France. Popular excitement found vent in a veritable deluge of cartoons, many of which originated in Amsterdam and were reprinted in London, often with the addition of explanatory satiric verses in English. In one, Fortune is represented riding in a car driven by Folly, and drawn by personifications of the different companies responsible for the disastrous epidemic of speculation: the Mississippi, limping along on a wooden leg; the South Sea, with its foot in splints, etc. In another, we have an imaginary map of the Southern seas, representing "the very famous island of Madhead, situated in Share Sea, and inhabited by all kinds of people, to which is given the general name of Shareholders." John Law came in for a major share of the caricaturist's attention. In one picture he is represented as assisting Atlas to bear up immense globes of wind; in another, he is a "wind-monopolist," declaring, "The wind is my treasure, cushion, and foundation. Master of the wind, I am master of life, and my wind monopoly becomes straightway the object of idolatry." The windy character of the share-business is the dominant note in the cartoons of the period. Bubbles, windmills, flying kites, play a prominent part in the detail with which the background of the typical Dutch caricature was always crowded. These cartoons, displayed conspicuously in London shop windows, were not only seen by Hogarth, but influenced him vitally. His earliest known essay in political caricature is an adaptation of one of these Dutch prints, representing the wheel of Fortune, bearing the luckless and infatuated speculators high aloft. His latest work still shows the influence of Holland in the endless wealth of minute detail, the painstaking elaboration of his backgrounds, in which the most patient examination is ever finding something new. With Hogarth, the overcharged method of the Dutch school became a medium for irrepressible genius. At the hands of his followers and imitators, it became a source of obscurity and confusion.

"The Capture of the Danish Ships."

While Hogarth is rightly recognized as the father of English caricature, it must be remembered that his best work was done on the social rather than on the political side. Even his most famous political series, that of "The Elections," is broadly generalized. It is not in any sense campaign literature, but an exposition of contemporary manners. And this was always Hogarth's aim. He was by instinct a realist, endowed with a keen sense of humor-a quality in which many a modern realist is deficient. He satirized life as he saw it, the good and the bad together, with a frankness which at times was somewhat brutal, like the frankness of Fielding and of Smollett the frankness of the age they lived in. It was essentially an outspoken age, robust and rather gross; a red-blooded age, nurtured on English beef and beer; a jovial age that shook its sides over many a broad jest, and saw no shame in open allusion to the obvious and elemental facts of physical life. Judged by the standards of his day, there is little offense in Hogarth's work; even when measured by our own, he is not deliberately licentious. On the contrary, he set an example of moderation which his successors would have done well to imitate. He realized, as the later caricaturists of his century did not, that the great strength of pictorial satire lies in ridicule rather than in invective; that the subtlest irony often lies in a close adherence to truth, where riotous and unrestrained exaggeration defeats its own end. Just as in the case of "Joseph Andrews," Fielding's creative instinct got the upper hand of the parodist, so in much of Hogarth's work one feels that the caricaturist is forced to yield place to the realistic artist, the student of human life, carried away by the interest of the story he has to tell. His chief gift to caricature is his unprecedented development of the narrative quality in pictorial art. He pointed a road along which his imitators could follow him only at a distance.

"Bonaparte and his English Friends-The Broad Bottom Administration."

With the second half of the eighteenth century there began an era of great license in the political press, an era of bitter vituperation and vile personal abuse. Hogarth was one of the chief sufferers. After holding aloof from partisan politics for nearly half a century, he published, in 1762, his well-known cartoon attacking the ex-minister, Pitt. All Europe is represented in flames, which are spreading to Great Britain in spite of the efforts of Lord Bute, aided by his Highlanders, to extinguish them. Pitt is blowing upon the flames, which are being fed by the Duke of Newcastle from a barrow full of Monitors and North Britons, two scurrilous papers of the day. The bitterness with which Hogarth was attacked in retaliation and the persistence of his persecutors resulted, as was generally believed at the time, in a broken heart and his death in 1764.

An amazing increase in the number of caricatures followed the entry of Lord Bute's ministry into power. They were distinguished chiefly by their poor execution and gross indecency. As early as 1762, the Gentleman's Magazine, itself none too immaculate, complains that "Many of the representations that have lately appeared in the shops are not only reproachful to the government, but offensive to common-sense; they discover a tendency to inflame, without a spark of fire to light their own combustion." The state of society in England was at this time notoriously immoral and licentious. It was a period of hard living and hard drinking. The well-known habits of such public figures as Sheridan and Fox are eminent examples. The spirit of gambling had become a mania, and women had caught the contagion as well as men. Nowhere was the profligacy of the times more clearly shown than in the looseness of public social functions, such as the notorious masquerade balls, which a contemporary journal, the Westminster Magazine, seriously decried as "subversive of virtue and every noble and domestic point of honor." The low standards of morals and want of delicacy are revealed in the extravagance of women's dress, the looseness of their speech. It was an age when women of rank, such as Lady Buckingham and Lady Archer, were publicly threatened by an eminent judge with exposure on the pillory for having systematically enticed young men and robbed them at their faro tables, and afterward found themselves exposed in the pillory of popular opinion in scurrilous cartoons from shop windows all over London.

Pacific Overtures.