Caricature and Other Comic Art Part 10

"_'Tis G.o.dfrey's Ghost I wish all things be well that we may have our Pope of Rome in h.e.l.l._"

A BISHOP.

"_Let us depart and Shun their cruell fate, and all repent before it is to late._"

CARDINAL.

"_Come let us flie with all the Speed we may, Ye Devil els will take us all away._"

Below the picture are the verses subjoined:

NUNCIO.

"Horrors and Death! what _dismal Sights_ Invade His Nightly Slumbers, who in _Blood_ does Trade.

The Ghostly Apparitions of the Dead; The _Bless'd_ by Angels; _d.a.m.n'd_ by _Demons Lead_; 'Tis sure, _Romes_ Conclave _must_ Amazed stand, When _Souls_ Complaining, thus against _them_ band; Who _All_ but _One_ to please Ambitious ROME, Have Gain'd _d.a.m.nation_ for Their Final DOOM.

Hear how _They Curse Him_ all, but _He_ who fell.

Great _Brittains Sacrifice_ by Imps of h.e.l.l; Who shew'd _Their b.l.o.o.d.y Vengeance_ in the _Strife_, To Murther _Him_, who Business had for _Life_."

POPE.

"_How do_ my Eye-b.a.l.l.s _Roul_, and Blood _run back_, _What Tortures at this sight my Conscience Rack_; _Oh!_ Mountains _now fall on me, some Deep Cave_ Pitty me once, _and prove my speedy Grave_.

_Involv'd_ in Darkness, _from the Seated_ Light, _Let Me abscond_ in _Everlasting Night_.

Torment _me not_; _you Shades, before my time_, _I do confess_, your Downfalls _was_ my Crime; To _Satiate my_ Ambition _and_ Revenge, _I push'd you on to this Immortal Change_.

_But Ah! fresh Horrors, Ah! my Power's grown weak_, What art thou Fiend? _from whence? or where? O Speak_; _That in this Frightful Form, a_ Dragon's _hew Presents_ One _Sainted, to_ my _Trembling View?"_

FIEND.

"By h.e.l.ls Grim KING'S Command, on _whom_ I wait, I've brought your Saint his Story to relate; Who from the black _Tartarian_-Fire below, So long beg'd Absence as to let you know His Torments, and the Horrid Cheat condole, You fix'd on him to Rob him of his Soul."

POPE.

"_O! spare my Ears, I'll no such Horrors hear;_"

COLEMAN.

"You must, and know your _own_ d.a.m.nation's near: You must ere long be _Plung'd_ in Grizly Flame, Which I shall laugh to see, tho, rack'd with pain Thou _Grand Deceiver_ of the _Nations_ All, Contriver of my _Wretched Fate_ and _Fall_: Thou who didst push me on to Murther _Kings_ Persuading me for it on _Angels Wings_ I should _Transcend_ the Clouds, be _ever Blest_, ) And be of _Al_ that Heav'n cou'd yield, _possest_, ) But these I mist, got _Torment_ without _Rest_: ) For whilst on _Earth_ I stand, a _h.e.l.l_ within Distracts my Conscience, pale with horrid Sin: Instead of _Mortals_ Pardon, _One_ on High, I must your Everlasting Martyr Fry; Whilst Name of _Saint_ I bear on Earth, _below_ It _stirs_ the _flames_, and much Augments _my Woe_."

POPE.

"_Horrors! 'tis Dismal, I can hear no more, O! h.e.l.l and Furies, how I have lost my Pow'r._"

SIR E. G.o.dFREY.

"See Sir this Crimson Stain, this baleful Wound See Murther'd me, with _Joys Eternal_ Crown'd; Though by the _Darkest Deed_ of Night I fell, Which _shook Three Kingdoms_, and _Astonish'd h.e.l.l_: Yet rap'd _above_ the Skyes to Mansion bright, There to Converse with Everlasting Light; Thence got I leave to View thy _Wretched Face_, And find my Death thy h.e.l.l-born PLOTS did race, And next to the _Almighty Arm_ did _Save_ Great _Albion's_ Glory from its yawning Grave; From _Sacred Bliss_ my Swift-_Wing'd Soul_ did glide, Conducted _Hither_ by my _Angel-Guide_, To let thee know thy Sands were almost run, And that thy Thread of _Life_ is well-nigh Spun; _Repent_ you then, Wash off the _b.l.o.o.d.y Stain_, Or _You'll_ be Doom'd to _Everlasting Pain_."

ANGEL.

"Come Worthy _of Seraphick Joys Above_, Worthy _Our_ Converse, and _Our Sacred_ Love; Who hast Implor'd the Great _Jehove_ for One ) Who _Shed_ thy Blood, to _s.n.a.t.c.h_ thy Princes _Throne_ ) In this thy _Saviour's_ Great Examples shown: ) Come let _Vs_ hence, and leave _Him_ to his Fate, When _Divine Vengeance_ shall the Business State."

POPE.

"_Chill Horror seizes me, I cannot flye; Oh Ghastly! yet more Apparitions nigh?_"

WHITEBREAD.

"Thus wandering through the _Gloomy Shades_, at last I've found _Thee_, Traytor, that _my Joys_ did Blast, Whose _Dam'd Injunctions_, _Dire d.a.m.nation_ Seal'd, And _Torments_ that were never yet Reveal'd: Mirrihords of _Plagues_, _Chains_, _Racks_, Tempestuous _Fire_, Sulpherian _Lakes_ that Burn and ner Expire, Deformed _Demons_, Uglier far than h.e.l.l, The Half what _We Endure_, no Tongue can _Tell_; This for a _Bishop.r.i.c.k_ I Undergo, But _Now_ would give Earth's _Empire_ wer't _not so_."

POPE.

"_Retire, Good Ghosts, or I shall Dye with Fear._"

HARCOURT.

"Nay stay Sir, first You must _my Story_ Hear: How could you thus _Delude_ your _Bosome-Friend_?

Your _Foes_ to _Heaven_, and _Vs_ to _h.e.l.l_ thus send; _d.a.m.nation_ seize You for't; ere long You'll be Plung'd _Headlong_ into vast _Eternity_; _There_ for to Howl, whilst _We_ some _Comfort_ gain, ) To see You welter in an endless Pain, ) And without _Pitty_, justly there Complain." )

POPE.

"_Ho!_ Cardinals and Bishops, _haste with speed_, Bell, Book, _and_ Candle _fetch_, _let me be free'd_: _Ah! 'tis too late_, by Fear Intranc'd _I lye_."

BISHOP.

"Heard you that Groan? with speed _from hence_ let's flye."

CARDINAL.

"The _Fiend_ has got _Him_, doubtless, lets away, And in _this_ Ghastly place no longer stay."

BISHOP.

"Dread Horrors seize me, _Fly_, for _Mercy_ call, Least _Divine Vengeance_ over-whelm _Vs all_."

It was in this crude and lucid way that the forerunners of Gillray, Nast, Tenniel, and Leech satirized the murderous follies of their age. A volume larger than this would not contain the verse and prose that covered the broadsheets in the same style which appeared in London during the reign of Charles II. This specimen, however, suffices for any reader who is not making a special study of the period. To students and historians the collection of these prints in the British Museum is beyond price; for they show "the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." Perhaps no other single source of information respecting that period is more valuable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: French Caricature of Corpulent General Galas, who defeated a French Convoy, 1635.]

From the accession of William and Mary we notice a change in the subjects treated by caricaturists. If religion continued for a time to be the princ.i.p.al theme, there was more variety in its treatment. Sects became more distinct; the Quakers arose; the divergence between the doctrines of Luther and Calvin was more marked, and gave rise to much discussion; High Church and Low Church renewed their endless contest; the Baptists became an important denomination; deism began to be the whispered, and became soon the vaunted faith of men of the world; even the voice of the Jew was occasionally heard, timidly asking for a small share of his natural rights. It is interesting to note in the popular broadsheets and satirical pictures how quickly the human mind began to exert its powers when an overshadowing and immediate fear of pope and king in league against liberty had been removed by the flight of James II. and the happy accession of William III.

Political caricature rapidly a.s.sumed prominence, though, as long as Louis XIV. remained on the throne of France, the chief aim of politics was to create safeguards against the possible return of the Catholic Stuarts. The accession of Queen Anne, the career of Bolingbroke and Harley, the splendid exploits of Marlborough, the early conflicts of Whig and Tory, the attempts of the Pretenders, the peaceful accession of George I.--all these are exhibited in broadsheets and satirical prints still preserved in more than one collection. Louis XIV., his pomps and his vanities, his misfortunes and his mistresses, furnished subjects for hundreds of caricatures both in England and Holland. It was on a Dutch caricature of 1695 that the famous retort occurs of the Duc de Luxembourg to an exclamation of the Prince of Orange. The prince impatiently said, after a defeat, "Shall I, then, never be able to beat that hunchback?" Luxembourg replied to the person reporting this, "How does he know that my back is hunched? He has never seen it."

Interspersed with political satires, we observe an increasing number upon social and literary subjects. The transactions of learned societies were now important enough to be caricatured, and the public was entertained with burlesque discourses, ill.u.s.trated, upon "The Invention of Samplers," "The Migration of Cuckoos," "The Eunuch's Child," "A New Method of teaching Learned Men how to write Unintelligibly." There was an essay, also, "proving by arguments philosophical that Millers, though falsely so reputed, yet in reality are not thieves, with an intervening argument that Taylors likewise are not so."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Quaker Meeting, 1710--Aminidel exhorting Friends to support Sacheverell.]

A strange episode in the conflict between Whig and Tory was the career of Sacheverell, a clergyman who preached such extreme doctrines concerning royal and ecclesiastical prerogative that he was formally censured by a Whig Parliament, and thus lifted into a preposterous importance. During his triumphal tour, which Dr. Johnson remembered as one of the events of his earliest childhood, he was escorted by voluntary guards that numbered from one thousand to four thousand mounted men, wearing the Tory badges of white knots edged with gold, and in their hats three leaves of gilt laurel. The picture of the Quaker meeting reflects upon the alliance alleged to have existed between the high Tories and the Quakers, both having an interest in the removal of disabilities, and hence making common cause. A curious relic of this brief delirium is a paragraph in the _Grub Street Journal_ of 1736, which records the death of Dame Box, a woman so zealous for the Church that when Sacheverell was relieved of censure she clothed herself in white, kept the clothes all her life, and was buried in them. As long as Dr. Sacheverell lived she went to London once a year, and carried a present of a dozen larks to that "high-flying priest."

The flight of the Huguenots from France, in 1685 and 1686, enriched Holland, England, and the American colonies with the _elite_ of the French people. Holland being nearest to France, and honored above all lands for nearly a century as the refuge of people persecuted for opinions' sake, received at first the greatest number, especially of the cla.s.s who could live by intellectual pursuits. The rarest of all rarities in the way of caricature, "the diamond of the pictorial library," is a series of burlesque portraits, produced in Holland in 1686, of the twenty-four persons most guilty of procuring the revocation of the wise edict of Henry IV., which secured to French Protestants the right to practice their religion. The work was ent.i.tled "La Procession Monacale conduite par Louis XIV. pour la Conversion des Protestans de son Royaume." The king, accordingly, leads the way, his face a sun in a monk's cowl, in allusion to his adoption of the sun as a device. Madame De Maintenon, his married mistress, hideously caricatured, follows. Pere la Chaise, and all the ecclesiastics near the court who were reputed to have urged on the ignorant old king to this superlative folly, had their place in the procession. Several of the faces are executed with a freedom and power not common in any age, but at that period only possible to a French hand. Two specimens are given on the following page.

Louis XIV., as the caricature collections alone would suffice to show, was the conspicuous man of that painful period. The caricaturists avenged human nature. No man of the time called forth so many efforts of the satiric pencil, nor was there ever a person better adapted to the satirist's purpose, for he furnished precisely those contrasts which satire can exhibit most effectively. He stood five feet four in his stockings, but his shoe-maker put four inches of leather under his heels, and his wig-maker six inches of other people's hair upon his head, which gave him an imposing alt.i.tude. The beginning of his reign was prosperous enough to give some slight excuse for the most richly developed arrogance seen in the world since Xerxes lashed the h.e.l.lespont, but the last third of his reign was a collapse that could easily be made to seem ludicrous. There were very obvious contrasts in those years between the splendors of his barbaric court and the disgraceful defeats of his armies, between the opinion he cherished of himself and the contempt in which he was held abroad, between the adulations of his courtiers and the execrations of France, between the ma.s.s-attending and the morals of the court.