THE SPIRIT OF CARICATURE.
[To THE EDITOR OF 'THE " SPECTATOR:1 Szn,—It was a shock to my feelings to see myself accused in last week's Spectator of a fondness for the assassin's dagger. But as I read on it became evident to me that the writer on "The Spirit of Caricature," who takes for his text, and ostensibly resumes, an article of mine in the September Nineteenth Century entitled " Wanted—a Gillray," had been so shaken in spirit by that potent name that only the title of the article had remained with him. I also dimly suspect that he is more at home when he speaks of Arnold and Swift than when he deals with " F. C. G." or Gillray, and it is precisely this dominance of the literary caste my article pleads against. It pleads for the cartoon, and scarcely touches caricature. The pencil makes a wider and more direct appeal than the pen, and in able hands is a tremendously powerful endorse- ment of the leading article. It is furthermore my contention that the draughtsman, like any other man, does his beet work when it expresses his convictions, and that there is no outlet to speak of for men who would, and could, express themselves in line on burning topics.
Such an outlet is afforded in France, for instance, by the .Assiette au Beurre, and I think I could convince your con- tributor, were I happy enough to have the opportunity, that it is not necessary " to justify cruelty and intolerance" and worse to make out a case even for such an unseemly organ as the Assiette. I could show him many a fine sentiment, just in conception, austere in execution, and errible in effect. Great artists are surely great men, and I find it a matter for regret that the field of workaday ethics should be left almost entirely to the essayist and the journalist. The attribution to me of confusion of thought in a passage quoted is partly due, perhaps, to an unfortunate note of interrogation—no fault of the Spectator's—but the belief it would express is that such fine work as that mentioned must be born of conviction, and is scarcely obtainable for hire. I am told that not a little of the work is done for the love of it, and indeed Paris is no Tom-Tiddler's-ground for artists. In this country their pay is higher, but they are paid to express, illustrate, and adorn the ideas of other men. The Spectator does not hire men with fluent pens to write on matters- indifferent to them. It looks for a man of talent whose beliefs jump with those of the journal. I want to see artists of talent provided with an organ of not inferior standing. But it must not be too afraid of the spirit of caricature.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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