Rowlandson the Caricaturist; a Selection from His Works. Vol. 2 by Joseph Grego

Journey.'_ Designed by H. Bunbury, etched by T. Rowlandson. 1811 (?). _Exhibition 'Stare' Case, Somerset House._--The staircase of the handsome buildings erected for Somerset House originally set apart for the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, is ridiculed as a scene of unequivocal confusion. Whether the dangers of the somewhat steep ascent were actually as hazardous as the artist has depicted is open to question. It will be remembered that Sir William Chambers, the architect, whose masterpiece was decidedly Somerset House, was a member of the Royal Academy, and held the office of Treasurer to that body. It was somewhat the fashion of the wits to laugh at the architect, who, as a foreigner, had received an amount of royal patronage which created certain jealousies in the minds of his English rivals, who were less favoured with the smiles of princes. Chambers' extravagant conceptions, the various novel designs he published, and particularly his marked taste for so-called Oriental gardening and the introduction of buildings after the Chinese fashion, exposed the project to an ordeal of the severest criticism and sarcasm. George the Third employed Sir William Chambers to lay out and adorn the Royal gardens at Kew, when the eminent Swede took advantage of the occasion to carry out the taste he had acquired in China[24]--an indulgence which subjected the architect to numerous well-merited satires. The famous 'Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers' was provoked on this occasion. Peter Pindar, according to his custom, found various faults with the new pile of buildings in the Strand, and their shortcomings were pointed out with his habitual archness. The scene of disaster and tumultuous medley which Rowlandson has ventured to introduce as attendant incidents of the Royal Academy staircase must have assisted, in some degree, to make this portion of the building a laughing-stock with the more frivolous portion of the frequenters. [Illustration: EXHIBITION 'STARE' CASE.] The Editor acknowledges the situation is treated with a licence which, perhaps, may be held to verge on the inadmissible. It has been sufficiently difficult, in selecting these illustrations, to keep within the restrictions marked out by modern decorum, too chaste to endorse the broad jocularity which passed current half a century back. The mirth imported into _Somerset House_ is not, however, of a licentious description; if the subject is treated with more freedom than is desirable, according to the juster ideas of our generation, at least its humours are innoxious and, we trust, guiltless of offence. [Illustration: THE MANAGER'S LAST KICK.] It is obvious that, in an instance like the present, the task becomes one of extreme delicacy; it is impossible to translate the caprices of the artist by any method short of the etching-needle; the mixed description of the spectacle and the spirit of the _contretemps_ defy a mere verbal rendering; and the caricature is too excellent in other respects to be passed over in the present collection, which professes to give a general view of the artist's cleverest and most familiarly known examples. While avoiding instances the morality of which is absolutely questionable, it is evident that it would be impossible to treat of the actual history, let alone the novels and caricatures of our forefathers, or to venture on the merest enquiry into their familiar life, abroad or at home, unless we put prudery a little on one side.