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.