in England in
1815. His Wednesday evening conversazione at the Repository of Arts, 101
Strand, became quite a feature in the literary and artistic world after
1813, while he played the part of protector and adviser to the more
unpractical of the authors and illustrators who were employed upon his
various undertakings.

Turning to Ackermann's numerous and valuable art-publications, we find
that very early in his business career he was one of the chief employers
of Rowlandson, the caricaturist, to whom he eventually became a kind of
"foster-publisher," just as Humphrey was the foster-publisher of
Gillray.

THOMAS ROWLANDSON

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) had received his artistic training partly
in the Academy schools, and partly, thanks to French connections, in
Parisian studios, where, in addition to a brilliant technique, he
acquired a taste for gaming and all kinds of dissipation. A brief
attempt to succeed as a portrait-painter was abandoned for caricature,
as soon as he perceived the success that had been won in that field by
his contemporaries Gillray and Bunbury, to say nothing of the easy
triumphs of such minor workers in the grotesque as Collings and
Woodward. The exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1784-87 of such
admirable studies in social comedy as _Vauxhall Gardens_, _The
Serpentine_, _French Barracks_, _An Italian Family_, and _Grog on
Board_, speedily established his reputation, and his future seemed
secure. But his temperament made havoc of his career. He threw away, not
only his earnings, but more than one substantial legacy, over the dice,
remaining at the tables sometimes for a day and a night together. Though
he had a horror of debt, and his I.O.U. was reckoned as good as sterling
coin, his losses troubled him but little. "I have played the fool," he
was accustomed to say when he came home with empty pockets, "but,"
holding up his famous reed-pen, "here is my resource." And for many
years his faith in his own powers was abundantly justified. But as time
passed on, his amazing rapidity of production began to spoil his market;
while his facile but not profound imagination showed signs of wearying.
The print-shops were flooded with his hasty sketches, and though his
admirers were numerous and his patrons liberal, the demand failed to
keep pace with the supply.

At this juncture it became apparent to the keen eye of Rudolf Ackermann
that some effort must be made to turn this fine talent into new