fought (in every sense of the word) so lustily for Fox, and a
procession of London maidservants, armed with mops and brooms.

In my account of this series of prints (which all fall within the dates
of April and May of 1784) I shall note briefly one remaining print, "For
the Benefit of the Champion," in which Fox and Lord North, in female
attire, and the Duchess in her large picture hat, but _decollettee_, and
with bare arms, are busy singing a dirge on the defeated opponent.
Georgina, a figure of delicious sprightliness and beauty, points to
the tombstone marked "Here lies poor Cecil Ray," while the spectacled
profile of Burke peeps into the door. And here I may remark again how
astonishingly to my own experience a study of these prints makes history
real, vivid, and living. These dry bones of bygone politics become
clothed with flesh; and names which we had studied with colder interest
become friends, and almost intimates. Ere we leave the theme of
politics, it may be noted that in the great French War Rowlandson does
not come behind Gillray in his patriotic enthusiasm. A whole series of
prints, from July to September 1808, was directed against Napoleon;
while Nelson appears in a print of which, by the kindness of its
possessor, Mr. Newman, a great collector of Nelson relics, I am able to
give a plate--"Admiral Nelson recruiting with his brave tars after the
glorious Battle of the Nile" (published by Ackermann, October 20, 1798);
and both contemporary figures are alluded to in "Napoleon Buonaparte in
a Fever on Receiving the Astounding Gazette of Nelson's Victory over the
Combined Fleets" (Ackermann, November 13, 1805).

=_By Thomas Rowlandson_ NELSON RECRUITING WITH HIS BRAVE TARS AFTER THE
BATTLE OF THE NILE=

But it is time for us to betake ourselves to Rowlandson's social
caricatures, which after all represent the best of his life work; and I
am tempted to quote--in seeking illustration of that wonderful sense of
life which seems to stream upon us from his pencil--some words of my own
in an earlier work, in which I had occasion to treat of this artist.
"These creatures of his scenes of comedy--drawn boldly in outline with
the reed pen dipped in Indian ink and vermillion, with the shadows then
washed in, and the whole slightly tinted in colour--seem full-blooded,
vigorous, overflowing with animal life and energy. His women above all
are delicious. Rather voluptuous, perhaps, and full in form, but yet
indescrib