A suspicion crosses our mind that, in too many cases, the incentive was to gratify the hatred of the Corsican, rather than any remarkable inherent merit that could be discovered in the satires; the best of which were but feeble vehicles for the exhibition of the jovial abilities of the designers; who, we dare venture to hint, found themselves a little out of their element, plunged, as it were, in the 'blood and iron' theory, striking out with their etching points with the most approved pantomimic vengeance! Very few of these mock-heroic sallies imprint themselves on the recollection by the sheer force of their own brilliancy, as was the case in the single instance of James Gillray, in the past, and as happened--an undeniable test of the veritable fire of genius--frequently with the cartoons of John Tenniel within our own experience, when the magnitude of the occasion has conjured up the inspiration, and rekindled the latent flame.
Our reflections upon the bellicose creations of Rowlandson and Cruikshank, while their hostile vapourings continue irresistibly droll, never stir the more passionate emotions or reach impulses which lie below the surface; being risible, it is true, but the reverse of inspired; and although many a hearty laugh may be enjoyed over the ludicrous turn the twain caricaturists have, in spite of themselves, given to situations of an avowedly tragic tendency, their very fury seems an unctuous jest, their simulated earnestness takes a farcical turn, and the result of a careful review, as the writer has made quite recently, of their prolific slaughterous sallies, is the conviction that, often unconsciously to themselves, they have chiefly succeeded, from the inevitable bent of their innate humoristic impulses, in burlesquing the fiery feeling abroad, which the public were contented to gratify in pictorial guise.
It is certain that those discriminating critics best qualified to appreciate the talents of Rowlandson and Cruikshank, who worked up the anti-Corsican crusade contemporaneously, are continually disposed to regret that the wondrous inventive abilities of these fertile designers were not exercised in a more congenial field.
Our caricaturist worked away, fierce and implacable, following every turn of Boney's fortunes with a show of savage ardour, until the idol fell in 1815. Rowlandson, in addition to the immense mass of caricatures which he fabricated with unflagging energy, came out brilliantly with several large transparencies, painted for public exhibition, outside Ackermann's Repository, on the occasion of the general illuminations, which fittingly signalised the successes of the allied armies after Leipsig, the final downfall of the Emperor after Waterloo, and the subsequent peace rejoicings.