Transcriber’s Note
Illustrations have been placed approximately where they appeared in theoriginal. Two illustrations, on pp. 199 and 204, were labelled No. 127.To resolve this, the second of them, and references to it, was changedto No. 127a.
Footnotes have been gathered at the end of the text, and linkedto their anchors for convenient reference.
Incidental punctuation, especially of abbreviated words and in captions,which is missing from the printed original have been silently restored.
Please consult the notes at the end of this text fordetails regarding the resolution of any other textual issues.
A HISTORY
OF
CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.
A HISTORY
OF
CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE
In Literature and Art.
By THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A.
THE ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY
F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A.
London:
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
1875.
LONDON:
SAVILL, EDWARDS, AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
PREFACE.
I have felt some difficulty in selecting a title for the contents ofthe following pages, in which it was, in fact, my design to give, asfar as may be done within such moderate limits, and in as popular amanner as such information can easily be imparted, a general view ofthe History of Comic Literature and Art. Yet the word comic seems tome hardly to express all the parts of the subject which I have soughtto bring together in my book. Moreover, the field of this history isvery large, and, though I have only taken as my theme one part of it,it was necessary to circumscribe even that, in some degree; and myplan, therefore, is to follow it chiefly through those branches whichhave contributed most towards the formation of modern comic and satiricliterature and art in our own island.
Thus, as the comic literature of the middle ages to a very greatextent, and comic art in a considerable degree also, were foundedupon, or rather arose out of, those of the Romans which had precededthem, it seemed desirable to give a comprehensive history of thisbranch of literature and art as it was cultivated among the peoples ofantiquity. Literature and art in the middle ages presented a certainunity of general character, arising, probably, from the uniformity ofthe influence of the Roman element of society, modified only by itslower degree of intensity at a greater distance from the centre, andby secondary causes attendant upon it. To understand the literatureof any one country in Western Europe, especially during what we mayterm the feudal period—and the remark applies to art