ction--might well have tempted him to choose politics as his
special subject. The French and American wars had scarcely yet left
men's memories; a King was on the throne who had joined to no great
political sagacity or insight a stubborn determination to govern; and
the clash of political issues, the struggle of the two great traditional
English parties, was intensified and rendered more brilliant by the
figures of famous statesmen or orators--such as Pitt, Fox, Burke, and
Sheridan, and, but in a lesser degree, Thurlow and Shelburne.

But yet further, before this very generation the tremendous and (as we
shall see it to have been) world-absorbing spectacle of the French
Revolution was to unrol itself, touching every individual in his most
intimate interests and convictions, awaking everywhere feelings of
passionate enthusiasm, or of corresponding hatred; and then, gradually,
out of that sea of blood which we know in history as the Terror, the
sinister form of Buonaparte, General, Consul, Dictator, Emperor, came to
detach itself, to blot out all lesser figures, to become a menace to the
world. All this had passed before the eyes of Gillray and his
fellow-countrymen. He saw the thundercloud arise that was to darken the
horizon. He saw the energy and genius of Pitt create one Coalition
after another, only to find them melt away before the victorious armies
of France. He saw at length--and his trumpet-call at that crisis gave no
uncertain sound--England stand alone, and find in herself the forces
that were to bring her safely through the storm.

We have noted already Sayers' caricature of the triumph of the Shelburne
Ministry in 1782; a print which had been followed by his still more
clever satire--called "Carlo Khan's Triumphant Entry into Leadenhall
Street"--on Fox's India Bill of 1783. In that same year Shelburne's
Ministry had been overthrown, and Fox and Burke came back into office
with Lord North. Against these statesmen, whether in or out of office,
Gillray's pencil became largely employed, though he was never a hired
caricaturist or kept in fee like Sayer, and all sides of politics
(including the Court and even the King himself) felt the edge of his
satire; while Lord Thurlow, the great Lord Chancellor, was in no way
neglected. Thus we find a "New Way to pay the National Debt" (1786),
"Ancient Music" (1787), "Monstrous Craws" (1787), "Frying Sprats" (1791)
and "Anti-Saccharites, or John Bull and his Family leaving o