English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.Everitt, Graham
History
English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century.: How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times.
Everitt, Graham
Caricature -- Great Britain; Illustration of books -- Great Britain -- 19th century
The measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of which we have
attempted the foregoing explanation, appears to have suggested to John
Doyle his sketch of _The Rival Newsmongers_, in which the leading men of
all parties are represented in the act of endeavouring to force the sale
of their own journals. The scene is supposed to be enacted in front of
the Elephant and Castle, where we find the "Union Coach" waiting to take
up passengers,--the three who occupy the roof being a Scotchman,
indicated by his bonnet and plaid, Paddy by his shocking bad hat, while
in the portly, jolly-looking party next him we have no difficulty
whatever in recognising honest John Bull. The three are listening to the
appeals of O'Connell, close to whom is Mr. Roebuck, and behind him again
Mr. Hume. Sir Roger Gresley addresses himself to the insides, and the
person holding up his paper to the special notice of John Bull is the
Marquis of Londonderry. The driver of the coach is Lord Melbourne, and
the ostler little Lord John Russell.
LORD BROUGHAM.
The public man who perhaps of all others earned and deserved his place
in the pictorial satires of the nineteenth century was emphatically
Brougham. The verdict of posterity on this restless but unquestionably
brilliant man of genius must of necessity be a somewhat disappointing
one; he aimed at being nothing less than an Admirable Crichton, and such
a character in the nineteenth century, when every public man must be
more or less talented, more or less brilliant, would be an impossibility
even to a genius. A rival lawyer and political opponent, Sir Charles
Wetherell is reported to have said of him that he knew a little of
everything but law; and although this statement was spiteful and untrue,
there is no doubt of the truth of Mr. Greville's remarks, that his duty
as Chancellor was confined to appeals which _must_ come before him,
lunacy and other matters over which he had sole jurisdiction, and that
"nobody ever thought of bringing an original cause into his court."[115]
We think we may even go farther than this, and say that no lawyer of the
present day would dream of relying on Lord Brougham's decisions.
O'Connell said of him, "I pay very little attention to anything Lord
Brougham says. He makes a greater number of foolish speeches than any
other man of the present generation. There may be more nonsense in some
one speech of another person, but in the number, the multitude of
foolish speeches, Lord Brougham has it hollow. I would start him ten to
one--ay, fifty to one--in talking nonsense against any prattler now
living."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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