In the pages of this admirable magazine were given many continuous contributions of a valuable and interesting character, the contents being as diversified as the description of the undertaking. Among the serials were numerous essays of merit, which, in the projector's opinion, were entitled to the distinction of separate publication, and, at intervals, the discriminating proprietor of the Repository selected various series of articles by his best qualified and most respected colleagues in the work, and re-issued their contributions, with the enhanced attraction of fresh pictorial embellishments, as separate publications. In this manner a succession of Letters from Italy, which had appeared in the Repository, between 1809 and 1813, furnished by Lewis Engelbach (who supplied reviews of music; it has been said his criticisms may be usefully studied by the most successful living contributors to the press), were republished in 1815 in one volume, royal octavo, as Letters from Naples and the Campana Felice, with seventeen illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson.

Another deserving work, published by R. Ackermann, in the same finished style, with coloured engravings in aquatint, delicately completed by hand to resemble water-colour drawings, as were the major part of the illustrations to this series, appeared under the title of Poetical Sketches of Scarborough, with twenty-one illustrations by J. Green; etched by Thomas Rowlandson, 1813.

In 1815 was published The Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome, with fifteen illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson, royal octavo, printed for Patrick Martin, 198 Oxford Street. This work is written in Hudibrastic metre, by 'An Officer' in imitation of the flowing lines supplied by Coombe to the Tours of Doctor Syntax. Another volume (1815 and 1816) was published by Thomas Tegg, Cheapside, also composed after the model of the same easy versification, under the description of The Grand Master, or Adventures of Qui Hi in Hindostan, a Hudibrastic poem in eight cantos, by Quiz, illustrated with twenty-eight engravings by Thomas Rowlandson.

The principal triumph of our artist's later years appeared in 1815 and 1816, Rowlandson inventing the subjects, and Coombe supplying the descriptive versification, as was their usual method of proceeding in the entire succession of publications, undertaken under this artistic and literary co-partnership, and issued by R. Ackermann.

We refer to the Dance of Death, which had first been offered the public in monthly parts under the old and highly successful system, between 1814 and 1816. This production, which repays the most careful consideration, received a flattering reception, and, in spite of the grim nature of the subject, enjoyed surprising popularity, and added considerably to the reputation of those concerned in its appearance. We have no hesitation in recording our impression that the ingenuity and invention displayed in the seventy-two plates illustrative of the Dance of Death are considerably in advance, in point of invention, of the pictures supplied to its more genial and popular rival Doctor Syntax. Both artist and author had arrived at a period of mature experience, which qualified and disposed them to bring their finest faculties to the treatment of this melodramatic theme, in which they must have discovered morbid fascinations; since it has enabled them to rise above their average efforts. As we have noticed, although the conception is monumental, not to say sepulchral, in its characteristics, and on occasions, ghastly in its humour, the result is a masterpiece to the memories of Rowlandson and Coombe; the fires of their early inspirations were rekindled from their decline; and the Dance of Death has always impressed us as the last flicker of expiring genius; a fitting memorial of the vast and almost forgotten faculties of the projectors.

A fuller account of this impressive and truly remarkable work, will be found under the year 1810, where we have endeavoured to do justice to the exceptional qualities of a performance which, in our modest conviction, surpasses any previous treatment of the same subject.

In 1816 Rowlandson commenced a series of charming little pictures designed in outline, avowedly intended as an assistance to landscape-artists in the direction of suggesting, and supplying animated groups of figures, suitable for introduction into drawings. The etchings were executed with exceptional neatness, ease, and spirit, and the entire collection is highly interesting; it appeared under the title of The World in Miniature, figure subjects for Landscapes, Groups, and Views, and was published by Mr. Ackermann at 'The Repository.' A series of a similar description was commenced under the same designation by Rowlandson in 1821, and finished by W. H. Pyne in 1826; the set was somewhat diffusive, if it extended to 637 parts, as we are told.

Our artist's illustrations to the Beauties of Tom Brown belong to 1809.

Rowlandson also contributed a frontispiece to another of Tegg's publications in 1816, The Relics of a Saint, by Ferdinand Farquhar.

Rowlandson found a congenial exercise for his skill, taste, and mirth-imparting qualities in the illustration of Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, in 1817, when the famous tale re-appeared, embellished with twenty-four designs by the artist. Mr. Ackermann was induced to republish this delightful story as a vehicle for the display of the delicate humoristic, and more refined qualifications of the caricaturist (who, by the way, had almost ceased to deserve this epithet). Nothing could be more artless than the pathos of this fiction, its simple humour is ever fresh, and Rowlandson has executed his portion of the undertaking in a congenial spirit, indeed the happy impulses of the author seem spontaneously embodied in the picturesque designs.

The success of the Dance of Death was so considerable that the publisher endeavoured to share its popularity with a successor. The two volumes constituting the first work were, however, executed in a superior manner; and more pains were taken to bring the plates to the utmost perfection, as reproductions of the original drawings, than was the case with later publications. The Dance of Life, illustrated with twenty-eight coloured engravings by Thomas Rowlandson, published by R. Ackermann, royal octavo, appeared in 1817, and although fairly executed, neither the conceptions of Rowlandson, nor the verses of Coombe, rose above the commonplace; it is evident that the sentiment which had inspired their gifted faculties in the former subject found no revival in the present volume, which is somewhat disappointing after the talent which is manifested in its predecessor.

A pendant to the Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome was issued in 1818 as The Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the Navy, a poem in four cantos, with sixteen plates by Rowlandson from the author's designs, by Alfred Burton, published by Simpkin and Marshall, Stationers' Hall Court, Ludgate Hill. More attention was paid to the artistic preparation of the succeeding portion of The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of Consolation, with twenty-four illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson, royal octavo, which Mr. Ackermann introduced to the public in a collected form as the companion to the popular first volume in 1820.

Rowlandson also furnished illustrations to certain pamphlets or chapbooks in 1819; we may particularise one under the title of Who killed Cock Robin?—a tract on the Manchester Massacre, published by John Cahnac. We have also to notice his contribution to a chapbook which appeared the same year, as, Female Intrepidity, or the Heroic Maiden.

The same year appeared Rowlandson's Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders; intended as a Companion to the New Picture of London containing fifty-four coloured plates, printed by S. Leigh, 18 Strand, 1820.

Another contribution, A Tour in the South of France, drawn from the excellent serial publication, 'Ackermann's Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashion, and Manufactures,' originally supplied to its pages in instalments between the years 1817 and 1820, was republished in a completed form in 1821, with additional attractions, in the way of fresh embellishments, by the unflagging hand of our artist, under the title of A Journal of Sentimental Travels in the Southern Provinces of France, illustrated with eighteen coloured engravings from designs by Thomas Rowlandson, royal octavo, published by R. Ackermann, 101 Strand.

A French version of 'Doctor Syntax's Tour in Search of the Picturesque,' Le Don Quichotte Romantique, ou Voyage du Docteur Syntaxe à la Recherche du Pittoresque et du Romantique, also appeared in Paris this year, with twenty-eight illustrations, drawn on stone, after the original designs of Rowlandson, by Malapeau, lithographed by G. Engelmann.

The final complement of 'The Tours,' prepared under the same auspices as the earlier peregrinations, reached completion as an additional volume in 1822, and the monthly instalments were then reissued in a collected form to join the two predecessors as The Third Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of a Wife, with twenty-five illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson, royal octavo, published by R. Ackermann.

A further instance of the universal popularity enjoyed by The First Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque was afforded, in 1822, by the appearance of an edition translated into German and freely adapted as Die Reise des Doktor Syntax um das Malerische au Frusuchen with Rowlandson's famous illustrations imitated on stone and lithographed by F. E. Rademacher, Berlin.

The interest which it was found, on experience, still surrounded the grotesque prototype Dr. Syntax, induced the energetic projectors—publisher, artist, and author—under their old, well-defined relations, to venture on a farther extension of the familiar framework, and a fresh volume, which had, like the preceding publications, found its way to the public in monthly instalments, was inaugurated in 1822 under the description of The History of Johnny Quæ Genus: The Little Foundling of the late Doctor Syntax—a poem by the author of The Three Tours (William Coombe)—embellished with twenty-four coloured engravings by Thomas Rowlandson.

The same year our artist issued another distinct volume of landscape subjects of his execution under the title of Rowlandson's Sketches from Nature; a collection of seventeen plates, drawn and etched by the artist and aquatinted by Stradler. Crimes of the Clergy, an octavo volume, with two plates by our artist, also appeared in 1822.

As a further proof that the numerous editions in royal octavo of the illustrious schoolmaster's wanderings were insufficient to satisfy the requirements of his patrons, Mr. Ackermann offered the public a fresh copy, in three volumes 16mo. of The Three Tours of Dr. Syntax, Pocket Edition, with all Rowlandson's plates, executed on a smaller scale to suit the convenience of enthusiasts, who might require to carry the volumes about with them ready for immediate reference, or for perusal on their travels and at odd moments, if such an opportunity should be in request.

In 1825 Charles Molloy Westmacott, an intimate friend of the caricaturist, in whose company we learn he visited Paris, thought proper to edit a publication under his pseudonym of 'Bernard Blackmantle,' a collection of whimsical extracts from the press, which had appeared in print in the previous season. The description of his production is as follows: The Spirit of the Public Journals for the year 1824, with Explanatory Notes. Illustrations on wood by T. Rowlandson, R. and G. Cruikshank, Lane, and Findlay. London; published by Sherwood, Jones, and Co., Paternoster Row, 1825. Our artist contributed eleven highly humorous cuts to this publication, his drawings being engraved on wood—a novel process as far as the designs usually supplied by Rowlandson are concerned.

A notable plate was furnished by the caricaturist in 1825 to The English Spy, a work also produced under the auspices of 'Bernard Blackmantle,' after the description of the better-known Life in London. The major part of the plates are due to the hand of Robert Cruikshank. Rowlandson's name is given on the title-page as having contributed a portion of the illustrations on wood, but the only example of his skill we have been able to identify is an adaptation of his drawing (now the property of Mr. Capron), The Life School at the Royal Academy, which he originally presented to his old friend John Thomas Smith, of the British Museum. Plate 32.—R. A—ys of Genius Reflecting on the True Line of Beauty at the Life Academy, Somerset House, by Thomas Rowlandson; and this illustration is undeniably the most interesting to be found in the entire contents of the two octavo volumes of which Mr. Westmacott's English Spy is composed; further particulars of this subject are given under the year 1825.

After the caricaturist's death in 1827 the admirable publications, of which his coloured plates formed the principal attractions, were discontinued; the taste of the public had changed. Wood blocks and steel plates came into fashion. Cheap annuals illustrated with woodcuts came into favour for a season, until the appearance of the more elaborately prepared 'Gift Books,' with fine steel engravings, 'Keepsakes,' 'Gems,' &c., subsequently took their place. The folios of Mr. Ackermann were still sufficiently rich in studies by Rowlandson to furnish the framework for a fresh publication. A choice was made from the large collection of original drawings, published and unpublished, which still remained, after the artist's decease, in the possession of the indefatigable proprietor of the 'Repository'; and these sketches, which of necessity, for the most part, are assignable to Rowlandson's declining period, when his drawings became looser in execution and less picturesque in point of subject, were selected as the materials for a new venture, with a departure from the old popular style of reproduction in facsimile of the artist's pictures coloured by hand.

The subjects culled from Mr. Ackermann's portfolios were redrawn on a reduced scale, either as a whole, or striking portions of caricatures, and prominent figures or groups were adapted, transferred to wood-blocks, and put into the hands of an engraver. In cutting the designs a considerable amount of the original spirit, with the individuality of execution peculiar to the master, have unfortunately been sacrificed; the engravings are heavy and poor; however, they offer a rough idea of the nature of the studies which happened to remain in the hands of the publisher, and some interest attaches to this circumstance, as the major part of these designs have never been issued on copper.

Mr. W. H. Harrison was engaged to write up to the pictorial sketches, and he has constructed various small fictions founded on the suggestions offered by the engravings; but the entire work is somewhat clumsy in contrivance, both as respects the illustrations and the literary setting intended to assist their interest in the eyes of the public; the editor's inventions are neither original nor brilliant. The title of the annual produced on this compound principle was The Humourist, a Companion for the Christmas Fireside, embellished with fifty engravings, exclusive of numerous vignettes after designs by the late Thomas Rowlandson: published by R. Ackermann, 96 Strand, and sold by R. Ackermann, junior, 191 Regent Street, 1831. The Humourist contained sixty-seven illustrations in all; the titles of these, and a brief description of the various subjects, will be found at the close of the present volume, under the year 1831.

Although Rowlandson was so well known as an artist, no fitting memorials of his career are extant; and while, as we have related, the task of discovering a collection of works by the artist, worthy of illustrating his exceptional abilities, is surrounded by unforeseen difficulties, the operation of culling personal traits, or records of the life and adventures of the caricaturist, demands even greater extensions of patience. Nothing short of sincere appreciation for the vast talents of the man, and of a lasting conviction of the original qualities of his works, could have encouraged the writer to prolong his researches, the chances in this case of alighting on any discoveries of note being so problematical.

The person of Rowlandson was familiarly recognised amongst his contemporaries from his youth, when he was first admitted as a student at the schools of the Royal Academy (about 1770), through his diversified fortunes, till his death, which occurred on April 22, 1827.

His figure, we learn, was large, well set-up, muscular, and above the average height—in fact, his person was a noticeable one; his features were regular and defined, his eye remarkably full and fearless, his glance being described as penetrating, and suggestive of command; his mouth and chin expressed firmness and resolution; the general impression conveyed to a stranger by his countenance, which was undeniably fine and striking in its characteristics, was that of the inflexibility of the owner.

At the time Rowlandson sent his drawing of Countrymen and Sharpers[7] for exhibition, he was 31 years of age, and according to the portrait, looks manhood personified, with a fine comely figure, and a face that imprints itself on the recollection, his hair in a profusion of wavy tresses, worn long, and 'clubbed' as was the fashion of the period. His bold and piercing eyes set under massive and somewhat prominent brows.

The next attributed portrait belongs to 1799, when Rowlandson was 43 years of age. In the design, An Artist travelling in Wales, the result of a journey he made with his friend, the convivial Henry Wigstead, he has represented himself, with a due allowance for burlesque, looking older than his years; the long hair is still there, but its curls are thinned, time and a struggle with seasons less rosy than his youth of many fortunes, are telling on the outward man, but the brows, eyes, mouth and chin have diminished nothing of their resolute characteristics—indeed, they are more marked—and the strong nervous figure is beginning to look gaunt.

The Chamber of Genius appeared in 1812 with the appropriate quotation:—

The head of the caricaturist is strongly defined on the shoulders of the gifted occupant of a garret, and the likeness is just what might be supposed from the countenance, as given in 1787, viewed through the intervening quarter of a century of struggles, and disenchantments, when cares of the hour, and incidental anxieties, touching provision for the future, had commenced to take the place of the artist's original careless hardihood.

The last portrait to which we shall at present refer is by another hand; and was sketched when the health of the caricaturist was a grave source of apprehension, since we learn that during the last two years of his life he was a severe sufferer. It represents the figure of a large and powerful-looking old gentleman, of impressive presence; the main characteristics, and the marked profile have gathered force with increasing years, the brows are even firmer, and the features more defined; this croquis of the veteran was drawn by his old friend, and erst fellow-pupil, John Thomas Smith, the keeper of the drawings and prints in the British Museum, and the study was taken while the caricaturist was looking over some prints, on one of his visits to the treasures in his friend's department. The sketcher, who has written the circumstances under which it was taken, below the portrait, has given Rowlandson's age at seventy,—within a year, in fact, of his death. The caricaturist's flowing locks are considerably shorn by the hand of the inevitable mower, and his penetrating eyes do not disdain the assistance afforded by a pair of huge tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, in which they are framed; but as far as the visible flight of time goes, regarding the outward man, he might be assumed to possess powers of vitality sufficient to carry him over another score years.

If our memory does not deceive us, a sketch of the caricaturist's figure, from the life, and drawn in chalks, was exhibited some time ago at Bethnal Green, in the Loan Collection, formed under the auspices of the Science and Art Department.

We learn that our artist, who is perhaps the most popularly recognised practitioner of the caricature branch, was born in the Old Jewry, in July 1756, that is to say, just a year before his remarkable compeer James Gillray. The members of the Rowlandson family, according to the little we can trace of their personal history, seem to have been highly respectable people of the middle class in life. The name is not of common occurrence. There is a tract relating certain misfortunes which attended two bearers of this cognomen; a pious and worthy couple who in the seventeenth century went evangelising to New England, where they suffered incredible persecutions, and escaped all sorts of dismal tortures amongst the aboriginal Indians, in whose hands they had the mischance to fall; the succession of hardships which they encountered, and their final miraculous deliverance, are duly recorded for the encouragement of the faithful. The narrative, which is simple and circumstantial, forms an item of 'improving reading' not without its interest in the present age. There is nothing to prove the relationship of this faithful and much-enduring pair to our caricaturist, beyond the circumstance of the similarity of name. Rowlandson the elder was assuredly at one time a man of fair substance, as we are informed—'some say a city merchant,' but his disposition, like that of his son, seems to have been tinctured with recklessness. Mention is made of an uncle Thomas Rowlandson, who was godfather to the subject of our notice; also, as far as we can discover, connected with mercantile pursuits. This relationship was destined to serve the caricaturist in good stead, if he had only exercised the commonest prudence in husbanding the resources which he derived from this connection. We discover that, before Rowlandson had arrived at man's estate, his chances of inheriting a provision to help him on his way, together with the prospect of any future support, so far as the paternal resources were concerned, had melted away; the elder Rowlandson's 'speculative turn' had taken a sinister bent, considerable sums had been sunk, and still more portentous liabilities had been incurred, 'by experimenting on various branches of manufacture,' which were attempted on too extensive a scale for the means at his command; and, his resources becoming exhausted, before the fruition of his schemes, pecuniary embarrassments involved his career, and he failed to realise the considerable fortune which his sanguine temperament had anticipated. The natural talents of the son, and the professional training which had cultivated his gifts, were the only contributions he received, on attaining manhood, towards his future maintenance, as far as the help he could derive from his father was concerned. Other adventitious aids came to the artist's assistance, indeed, in spite of the untoward direction which the previous prosperity of the elder had taken, Rowlandson was to a large degree the spoiled child of fortune throughout his early career.

We are not informed whether the paternal estate was restored to solvency. Among the various 'valuable legacies' which, it is related, fell to the caricaturist's share (only to be scattered broadcast), it is very possible that, in some sort, an inheritance from his father formed part of these unexpected 'good gifts.' It seems, although we have no direct records of the remaining relatives, that Rowlandson had a sister, since we learn that his brother-in-law was Howitt, famous as an artist for his delineation of animals, for his spirited hunting subjects, being eminent as a sportsman, rider, and angler; and, like the caricaturist, somewhat of a spoiled child—a wayward genius—of a congenial soul, and vivacious impulses, a trifle too given to yield to careless convivial company, or the allurements which the hour might hold forth, oblivious of sober consequences to follow.

Thomas Rowlandson, the uncle, had married a certain Mademoiselle Chattelier, who was, it is evident, a lady with some command of wealth; and from the partiality and indulgence of this aunt, our artist, we are told, 'derived that assistance which his father's reverse of fortune had withheld.'

Another reference to the family name further occurs amongst the announcements of marriages for September 1800 (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 70, p. 898), where we find that Thomas Rowlandson, Esq., of Watling Street, espoused Miss Stuart, daughter of George Stuart, Esq., of the Grove, Camberwell, Surrey. It is obvious that Rowlandson senior intended to give his son a sound training. As a school-boy, the future celebrity wandered into the precincts of that Soho district to which he afterwards clung in his varying fortunes with the persistence developed by habit.

The caricaturist began to draw his first instalments from the fount of knowledge at the scholastic symposium of Doctor Barvis in Soho Square, 'at that time, and subsequently, an academy of some celebrity.' We are told this establishment was kept by Doctor Barrow when young Rowlandson was pursuing his studies. The respectability of the school, and its soundness as an educational institution, is satisfactorily demonstrated to our mind from the circumstance that the great Edmund Burke had elected to confide his beloved son, with whose training, it is well known, the philosopher took especial pains, to the charge of Doctor Barrow; and Richard Burke, the gentle gifted youth whose untimely death hastened the decease of his patriotic father, was a school-fellow of our artist. J. G. Holman, who was destined to acquire reputation as a dramatic writer and performer, was another school-fellow. It appears that, within the walls of this academy, Rowlandson made the acquaintance of John Bannister, whose inimitable talents were afterwards to delight the town, and whose name is a lasting ornament to the histrionic profession; it was, further, in Soho Square that young Rowlandson and young Angelo, the son of the well-known Henry Angelo (one of the best recognised and most respected foreigners domiciled in London of his day), fencing-master to the Royal Family, became fast and firm friends. The intimacy existing between this worthy trio, dating from these early days, continued steadfastly through life. All these lads were, in different degrees, enthusiasts of the graphic art; Angelo and Bannister had strong predilections for the arts, and both drew as amateurs in their subsequent careers, although, with Rowlandson, they originally meditated following up the artist's profession seriously. As to our friend Rolley, like all beginners gifted with the pictorial vein, he could make sketches intuitively before he had learnt to do anything else, as seems the rule with youths who possess the artistic faculty and an imaginative temperament; his powers of fancy directed his hand at a precociously juvenile age to the practice of exercising his abilities with pencil and pen. 'From the early period of his childhood,' it is recorded, 'Rowlandson gave presage of his future talent;' he could make sketches before he learned to write, and, according to the usual course, 'he drew humorous characters of his master and many of his scholars, before he was ten years old. The margins of his school-books were covered with these his handiworks.'

Rowlandson's genius was of the rapid order, his powers were matured before the average of students have sounded the direction of their inclinations. Young Henry Angelo left Doctor Barrow's and Soho Square, for Eton, while Bannister and Rowlandson quitted the seminary of polite learning to follow the arts at the Schools of the Royal Academy; here our artist made rapid strides, and gave convincing proofs of his ability, dexterity, and quickness of parts, during the short interval his name was entered as a probationer.

In his sixteenth year, somewhere about 1771, Rowlandson had the advantage of being sent to Paris to continue his education; we learn that he 'spoke French like a native.' It was his aunt, née Mademoiselle Chattelier, residing in the French metropolis, a widow with what would have then been considered, in that capital, a handsome fortune, who invited her hopeful nephew over to the very centre of gaiety, dissipation, and luxurious refinement—Paris in the latter days of Louis the Fifteenth's reign being a very Capua for a youth of light and picturesque disposition such as our artist possessed. The impulse for purposeless frivolities, so deleteriously nourished amidst the gaieties of Parisian life, seems to have been kept in tolerable subjection by his earnest intentions to work hard at his adopted profession, which certainly must have sustained Master Rolley during his earlier residence on the Continent, until the cup of pleasure was raised to his lips by an unexpected accession of means. The student did a wonderful deal of real solid work and thoroughly steadfast application, before, like Moreland, he allowed himself to be whirled into the eddy of fashionable distractions; in Paris he was inscribed as a student in one of the drawing-academies there, and his natural abilities, aided by the excellence of the methods practised around him, to which his gifts moulded themselves quite naturally, enabled the probationer to make rapid advances in the study of the human figure, and laid the foundation for his future excellences. During his first sojourn, which lasted for nearly two years, Rowlandson became a perfect French buck, with a decided leaning, however, towards the fine-art section of the condition, and a pride in his professional calling; he learned to draw with fidelity to nature, with the graceful ease, and abandon, and the sparkle of style which marks French pictorial art of the period immediately antecedent to the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, the very ideal of luxury and refinement. It is related that, during his abode in Paris, 'he occasionally permitted his satiric talents the indulgence of portraying the characteristics of that fantastic people, whose outré habits perhaps scarcely demanded the exaggerations of caricature.'

Rowlandson returned to London for a season; and, while still a youth in years, his studies at the Academy were resumed; his progress was now so marked that he was set up as a friendly rival to Mortimer, another talented student, who had won the admiration of professors and pupils alike, by his skilful drawings after the nude figure. Our artist seems to have been highly popular with the two sections of academicians and students; the former appreciated his masterly endowments, the latter were won by his whimsicalities, his spirit of mischief, and the marvellous gift he possessed of turning every situation to comical account in the production of exhaustless graphic satires, which seemed to flow from his pen of their own sweet wilfulness.

John Bannister, who, as we have seen, had evinced an equal predilection for the graphic art, with powers, however, of lesser brilliancy, was then studying in the antique school, their old friendship was renewed, and a fresh alliance for fun and frolic was straightway entered into.

These hopeful aspirants were a great acquisition to the mirth of the schools, but both these eccentric geniuses must have sorely tried the patience of their venerated pastors and masters. The nature of their drolleries, which were incessant, is exposed in an extract from the Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, who formed the third person of this waggish trio.

'At the period when Wilson held the appointment of Librarian to the Royal Academy, the students were accustomed to assemble in the library; Bannister and Rowlandson were students, and both being sprightly wights, Wilson kept a watchful eye upon their pranks. The one was apt to engage the attention of his fellow-disciples by caricaturing the surly librarian, never forgetting to exaggerate his mulberry nose; whilst the other, born to figure in the histrionic art, a mimic by nature, used to divert them, in his turn, by playing off the irritable 'Old Dick.' Michael Moser was keeper at Somerset House while Bannister and Rowlandson were students of the Royal Academy, at which period the drawing-school was held in a part of the old palace, Somerset House, just behind the site of the present institution. Moser, in virtue of his office as keeper, had apartments there, which included accommodations for a housekeeper, and other female domestics.

'Bannister and Rowlandson, as before observed, were prankish youths. The latter once gave great offence by carrying a pea-shooter into the life academy, and, whilst old Moser was adjusting the female model, and had just directed her contour, Rowlandson let fly a pea, which, making her start, she threw herself entirely out of position, and interrupted the gravity of the study for the whole evening. For this offence, Master Rowlandson went near getting himself expelled.

'Bannister, who at this time drew in the plaster academy, not having gained the step that admitted to the drawing from the life, used to amuse Moser with his mimicry, and he was, indeed, a pet of the worthy keeper.

'One evening, observing that the student had vacated his seat at his desk, the keeper went to seek him, and, hearing an unusual giggling and confusion in the basement storey he descended to learn the cause; when he discovered the young artist romping with the servant-maids.

'What are you doing, sir, hey?' inquired the keeper, taking him gently by the ear; 'why are you not at the cast? You are an idler, sir.' Bannister met his reproof with an arch smile, and whispered, 'No, kind sir, I only came down to study from the life!'

In dealing with this part of the subject, every scrap of information has its interest, the resources in this direction being unfortunately most restricted. The task of writing on Gillray, and that within the lifetime of the subject, was likened to the toil 'of bondsmen commanded to make bricks without straw,' a comparison with which we have a lively sympathy, as we have realised to the fullest extent the difficulties which surrounded that undertaking. The obstacles to be surmounted in the instance of the first caricaturist are found to be rather more vexatious in the case of the companion volume, taken up under similar auspices, to elucidate the works of Rowlandson, and to trace the artist's career as far as lies within the writer's capabilities. Sixty years ago it was declared while treating of the first-named genius, in reference to contemporaneous indifference: 'It is a scandal upon all the cold-hearted scribblers in the land to allow such a genius as Gillray to go to the grave unnoticed; and a burning shame that so many of his works should have become ambiguous for want of a commentator. The political squibs have lost half of their point for want of a glossary, and many of the humorous traits of private life, so characteristic of men and manners, are becoming oblivious to ninety-nine hundredths of those who perambulate the streets of this mighty town.' This remark, so appropriately applied to Gillray (before Thomas Wright, and successive elucidators, had contributed to render the reading of these pictorial fables fairly clear, and the solutions easy of access), is equally striking as respects its undoubted truth in its application to Rowlandson—in his instance the pioneering remained to be accomplished—although his works are less complex in themselves, a description of them has hitherto proved too perplexing an attempt, since, how were the subjects to be collected?

We feel a glow of gratitude to that worthiest old authority, The Gentleman's Magazine, which contained a capital obituary notice on the caricaturist's decease, April 22, 1827, written by 'one who had known him for more than forty years;' this article has been copied literally in all subsequent notices of Rowlandson.

W. H. Pyne, the artist, who, under a pseudonym as Ephraim Hardcastle, conducted the earliest of English fine-art reviews, The Somerset House Gazette, 1824, was one of the intimates of the caricaturist, and he has left slight allusions to Rowlandson, both in his Gazette and in another publication of his enterprising, Wine and Walnuts, or After Dinner Chat, by Ephraim Hardcastle, 1823.

John Thomas Smith, as we have shown elsewhere, was on terms of personal friendship with Rowlandson throughout his life; but strangely enough, in his Nollekens and his Times, and his second volume, Memoirs of several Contemporary Artists from the time of Roubiliac, Hogarth and Reynolds, to that of Fuseli, Flaxman, and Blake, no mention is made of his much-esteemed associate. A passing allusion to his 'friend and fellow-pupil' Rowlandson, occurs in 'Antiquity' Smith's Book for a Rainy Day.

Henry Angelo, the early schoolfellow and constant comrade of our artist, a gentleman of varied accomplishments, obliged the reading public with his Reminiscences in 1830, a chatty, interesting, and in some respects highly valuable book, of which we wish there were more, since the two volumes are, as described by the title, filled with memoirs of his friends, including numerous original anecdotes and curious traits of the most celebrated characters that have flourished during the last eighty years. Unlike the author of Nollekens and his Times, Angelo has given due prominence to his recollections of the caricaturist's works and career, and his terms of familiar intimacy have supplied him with many entertaining details, trivial or unimportant in themselves perhaps, but very much to the purpose from a biographical point of view, as aids to the effort of reproducing the subject in his wonted aspect, as he struck the men amongst whom he passed his life. The spirit of Angelo's Reminiscences will not bear dilution, and so we think it better to offer his memoirs of the artist as they were published.

'Thomas Rowlandson, John Bannister, and myself, having early in life evinced a predilection for the study of drawing, we became acquainted whilst boys, and were inseparable companions.

'Everyone at all acquainted with the arts must well know the caricature works of that very eccentric genius, Rowlandson; the extent of his talent, however, as a draughtsman is not so generally known. His studies from the human figure at the Royal Academy were made in so masterly a style that he was set up as a rival to Mortimer, whom he certainly would have excelled, had his subsequent study kept pace with the fecundity of his invention. His powers, indeed, were so versatile, and his fancy so rich, that every species of composition flowed from his pen with equal facility. His misfortune, indeed, was, as I have been assured by capable authorities who noticed his juvenile progress, that of possessing too ready an invention; this rare faculty, strange as it may seem, however desirable to the poet, often proves the bane of the painter. "The poet," as Milton says, "can build the lofty rhyme," even with a dash of his pen. The painter, however easily he may conceive the structure of a mighty building—be it a temple, or be it a ship—must describe the subject perfectly with all its parts; he must set to work doggedly, as the great lexicographer, Johnson, said, and labour at the thing with the patience of the philosopher. Rowlandson was no philosopher, and so his uncontrollable spirit, sweeping over the prescribed pale, took its excursive flights and caught its thema on the wing. Hence I think it may safely be averred that he has sketched or executed more subjects of real scenes in his original rapid manner, than any ten artists his contemporaries, and etched more plates than any artist, ancient or modern.

'Few persons—judging from the careless style of drawing and etching which he so fatally indulged in, too soon, after acquiring the first rudiments of his art—would believe the possibility of his being the author of some of his earlier designs; for although all are too slight, yet there are certain subjects of his composition carried through with a compatibility of style so truly original, and so replete with painter-like feeling, that Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Benjamin West pronounced them wonders of art.'

On this same head we have the testimony of Ephraim Hardcastle in the Somerset House Gazette. A certain weight, beyond the mere evidence of partiality, is due to the opinions of such authorities as Henry Angelo and W. H. Pyne, who at least deserve the credit of understanding the subject; both were familiar with the best works of their day, and in the case of the latter we respect the opinion of an artist of wide experience and well-known repute.

'Thomas Rowlandson, the merry wag, he who has covered with his never-flagging pencil enough of charta pura to placard the whole walls of China, and etched as much copper as would sheathe the British navy. Of his graphic fun and frolic we have seen, Heaven knows, full many a ponderous folio.