to
congratulate oneself about in the condition of English caricature. There
are few causes for pride; probably the greatest cause for pride is Mr.
F. C. Gould. But Mr. F. C. Gould, forbidden by modesty to adduce this
excellent ground for optimism, fell back upon saying a thing which is
said by numbers of other people, but has not perhaps been said lately
with the full authority of an eminent cartoonist. He said that he
thought "that they might congratulate themselves that the style of
caricature which found acceptation nowadays was very different from the
lampoon of the old days." Continuing, he said, according to the
newspaper report, "On looking back to the political lampoons of
Rowlandson's and Gilray's time they would find them coarse and brutal.
In some countries abroad still, 'even in America,' the method of
political caricature was of the bludgeon kind. The fact was we had
passed the bludgeon stage. If they were brutal in attacking a man, even
for political reasons, they roused sympathy for the man who was
attacked. What they had to do was to rub in the point they wanted to
emphasise as gently as they could." (Laughter and applause.)

Anybody reading these words, and anybody who heard them, will certainly
feel that there is in them a great deal of truth, as well as a great
deal of geniality. But along with that truth and with that geniality
there is a streak of that erroneous type of optimism which is founded on
the fallacy of which I have spoken above. Before we congratulate
ourselves upon the absence of certain faults from our nation or society,
we ought to ask ourselves why it is that these faults are absent. Are we
without the fault because we have the opposite virtue? Or are we without
the fault because we have the opposite fault? It is a good thing
assuredly, to be innocent of any excess; but let us be sure that we are
not innocent of excess merely by being guilty of defect. Is it really
true that our English political satire is so moderate because it is so
magnanimous, so forgiving, so saintly? Is it penetrated through and
through with a mystical charity, with a psychological tenderness? Do we
spare the feelings of the Cabinet Minister because we pierce through all
his apparent crimes and follies down to the dark virtues of which his
own soul is unaware? Do we temper the wind to the Leader of the
Opposition because in our all-embracing heart we pity and cherish the
struggling spirit of the Leader of the O