Rowlandson the Caricaturist; a Selection from His Works. Vol. 1 — Text and Context

Catalog Subjects vs. Actual Content

The Project Gutenberg record classifies this work under 'English wit and humor, Pictorial' and 'Historical, Psychological & Social Fiction,' but the excerpts reveal a different emphasis. Grego's text is not fiction but a biographical and critical survey, dense with historical references—parliamentary debates, royal visits, and figures like the Polish dwarf Count Boruwloski. The 'Psychological' tag is misleading; Grego offers no interior analysis of Rowlandson, focusing instead on the prints' satirical targets and the circumstances of their publication. Readers expecting a novel will find instead a Victorian art-historical compilation, complete with footnotes and a preface defending the artist's propriety.

Rowlandson's Satirical Techniques in the 1786 Prints

The excerpts describe several prints from March and April 1786, revealing Rowlandson's methods. In Luxury — Misery, he contrasts a breakfast in bed with shipwreck victims, using stark juxtaposition. The Morning Dram targets a lady's drinking habit, with a French hairdresser as a detail. The Polish Dwarf plays on scale, placing the two-foot-four-inch Count Boruwloski before oversized harem beauties and guards. Grego notes that this print was 'studied from the life,' indicating Rowlandson's observational practice. The descriptions emphasize the artist's ability to condense social commentary into single scenes, often with a theatrical sense of contrast.

The Role of the Publisher and Political Context

Each print entry includes the publisher and address—E. Jackson, J. Phillips, H. Brookes—suggesting a network of London print sellers. Grego also embeds political context: the 'leathern ordnance' scheme by the Duke of Richmond, mocked in one print, is explained with reference to parliamentary 'vexed discussion' and 'political apostasy.' This shows that Rowlandson's satire was not timeless but tied to specific controversies. Grego's commentary thus functions as a historical gloss, decoding references that would have been immediate to 1780s viewers but obscure to later readers. The volume becomes as much a record of late Georgian public life as of the artist himself.

Grego's volume rewards readers who approach it as a period piece—a Victorian editor's attempt to canonize a Georgian satirist. The descriptions are more valuable for the historical details they preserve than for aesthetic judgment. Readers interested in Rowlandson's technique should compare Grego's verbal accounts with the actual prints, many of which are available through the Internet Archive source cited in the text.

Sometimes, turning the heavy pages of Grego's Rowlandson, I felt the artist's sharp eye lingering on ordinary, slightly absurd human moments. It reminded me of a quieter, more patient voice I once found in Mr. Scraggs — Reading Companion, where the humor breathes rather than laughs. Both seem to notice the same small follies, but with different temperatures—one boiling, one warm to the touch.