Search of a Wife_, and _Johnny Quae Genus_, between 1820 and 1823. The
popularity of these works was doubtless mainly due to Rowlandson's
designs, in which British breadth of humour was combined with French
lightness of touch; but Combe's versified account of the adventures of
the long-suffering Doctor, though it has lost much of its savour for the
present age, seems to have been completely to the taste of his own
generation.

[Illustration: DR. SYNTAX IN THE GLASS HOUSE]

[Illustration: QUAE GENUS OFFICIATING AT A GAMING HOUSE]

WILLIAM COMBE

William Combe (1741-1823) was a literary "bravo" of a type that was
common enough in the eighteenth century. If he had not the truculence of
John Churchill or the coarseness of Peter Pindar, he was little less
unscrupulous in his use of the pen. The son of a Bristol merchant, he
was educated at Eton and Oxford, and after making the grand tour he was
called to the Bar. But "Duke" Combe, as his friends nicknamed him, was
too fine a gentleman to work at his profession. He set up an expensive
establishment, kept a retinue of servants and several horses, and,
thanks to his good looks and attractive manners, obtained an entrance
into the most "exclusive circles." At the end of two or three years,
having squandered a small fortune left him by his godfather, Combe
disappeared from his fashionable haunts, and, if tradition may be
believed, underwent strange vicissitudes of fate. He is said to have
enlisted as a private, first in the English and afterwards in the French
army, and to have figured as a teacher of elocution, a waiter in a
restaurant, and a cook at Douai College, where he made such excellent
soup that the monks tried to persuade him to join their order. In 1772
he returned to England, and was induced to marry the _chere amie_ of an
English nobleman by the promise of a handsome annuity. The annuity not
being forthcoming, he wrote a versified satire called _The Diaboliad_
(1776), dedicated to the Worst Man in His Majesty's dominions, who has
been variously identified as Lord Irnham and Lord Beauchamp. The satire
having a _succes de scandale_, was followed by _The Diablo-lady_, and
other lampoons in the same style. Combe now settled down to literary
work--of a kind--and produced the spurious _Letters of the late Lord
Lyttelton_ (which deceived many of the elect), and the equally spurious
_Letters of Sterne to Eliza_. He had made the acquaintance of Sterne
during his travels