January 1, 1786. The Supplemental Magazine. Published January 1, 1786, by S. W. Fores, 3 Piccadilly.

January 1, 1786. Private Amusement. (See October 28, 1781), E. O. or the Fashionable Vowels.

January 5, 1786. Box-Lobby Loungers. Designed by H. Wigstead; etched by Rowlandson; published January 5, 1786, by J. R. Smith, 83 Oxford Street.—The diversities of character introduced into this drawing, which is one of Rowlandson's larger productions, entitle it to a prominent place in a collection of the artist's works. Glimpses of the theatre are seen through the open doors. In the coloured editions of this plate, which is scarce and valuable, the most conspicuous figure is that of a military hero, the adventurous Colonel George Hanger (afterwards Lord Coleraine), companion and instigator of the Prince of Wales's early frolics; well known to the satirists, and in short one of the notorieties of his generation. This inveterate 'man about town' is shown with his invariable companion, christened by the eccentric Colonel, who rejoiced in a vocabulary of his own, his 'Supple-Jack,' a thick stick carried under his arm; the gallant lounger, who has left the world a volume of eccentric Memoirs, with his Advice to Lovely Ciprians by way of Appendix, is lost in admiration of two highly attractive nymphs, possible members of the 'Sisterhood;' while Georgey Hanger's truant eyes are engaged in the contemplation of the personal charms of these butterflies of fashion, the hand of a pickpocket is equally ready to carry off the Colonel's seals from his fob, as a souvenir of the rencontre. On the right of the ubiquitous hero another pair of lovely damsels, displaying the follies of the mode in their attire, are attracting the somewhat marked attentions of a circle of elderly admirers. A dwarfed and deformed beau, elaborately dressed in the French fashion, probably designed for the figure of Sir Lumley Skeffington, who was the authority, among the bucks and 'fashionables' of his day, on theatrical matters, is getting into trouble by the awkwardness into which his near sight and his gallantry are combining to betray him; the train of an antiquated belle is coming to grief through the clumsiness of The Skeffington. The lady, whose native charms, in their decay, are considerably heightened by art, has evidently availed herself of her fortune to secure a handsome dandified young cavalier; two sturdy old retired sea captains are contemplating the 'Skittish Skeffy,' and his monkey-like escapades with expressions of profound contempt. A superannuated man of quality, a venerable beau of scarecrow aspect, is foppishly cultivating the good graces of a dashing 'girl of the period;' while two extraordinary Don Juans, who, judging from their exteriors, would not be suspected of engaging themselves in amorous intrigues, are enlisting the friendly offices of a comfortable old body, who unites the twin occupations of selling oranges and play-bills, with the manipulation of delicate negociations, a recognised and experienced ambassadress, in fact, to the court of Cytherea, duly credentialised, and, as far as appearances can be relied on, a thoroughly discreet and capable person in her profession. A play-bill, adhering to the green-baize-covered walls of the Lobby, is intended to apply to the situation of the frivolous habituÉs who are haunting the crowded lounge—'The Way of the World,' and 'Who's the Dupe?' Beyond the main groups we have particularised, there are numerous individuals scattered about, probably well-known characters in their generation, whose persons and portraits were doubtless familiarly recognised at the date Rowlandson favoured his contemporaries with this suggestive view of their private amusements in the Box Lobbies.

January 13, 1786. Love and Learning, or the Oxford Scholar. Drawn by Rowlandson. Engraved and published by B. Smith, 10 Pleasant Row, Battle Bridge.—A print engraved in somewhat peculiar style as an attempted facsimile after the original drawing. The subject is an undergraduate, who is leading a tall and graceful female tastefully dressed in white, through a wood; the cavalier is pointing out the beauties of the scene; the face of a forsaken lady, wearing a malignant expression, appears from the concealment afforded by the forest shade.

February 10, 1786. Sketch of politics in Europe January 24, 1786. Birthday of the King of Prussia. Toasts upon the occasion. 'King of Prussia,' 'King of Great Britain,' 'The Berlin Union,' 'Confusion to the Bavarian Project,' 'The Wooden Walls of Old England,' 'The Illustrious House of Brunswick and Wolfenbuttel,' 'Destruction to the French Interest in Holland, and prosperity to the House of Orange,' 'May the British Lion and the Prussian Eagle remain united for times everlasting,' 'May the United strength of the British Lion and the Prussian Eagle preserve the Ancient Constitution of the German Empire, and the Protestant interest,' 'May Universal Monarchy, the bane of Human Nature, for ever remain a baseless vision!' This general view of the political prospects of Europe is pictorially set forth in the fashion of an escutcheon, representing the two Protestant monarchs under a pavilion, and seated side by side on one throne—a Prussian grenadier behind the Great Frederick, and a British sailor behind George the Third. Frederick is holding the double-headed eagle of Austria in golden fetters, with his feet on the motto Universal Monarchy. The names of the various German States, Hanover, Brunswick, Hesse, Saxony, Deuxpont, and Mayence, are on two shields at the sides of the pavilion. The reigning Duke of Brunswick, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, are standing on either side of the monarchs in the centre, as supporters, with their hands on their swords; both are declaring to 'the twin Protestant heroes,' 'When you agree, I am ready.' The neighbouring States are variously symbolised. The Prince of Orange is praying for protection; Holland is figured as a milch cow, of which France is monopolising the produce; and above, a monkey, with the Crown and Insignia of France, has perched on the globe, and is pointing his claw to Holland. Busts of the reigning monarchs are ranged around. Denmark 'lays by' for the present; Sweden is 'in the pay of France;' Portugal is crying, 'Oh! buy my wine;' Spain wants 'the Rock;' Sardinia is declaring, 'You shall not settle without me!' The Polish Bear, who is announcing that he 'is not muzzled,' is standing between Russia and the Sultan of Turkey; the latter is hurling defiances at Catherine, 'By the great prophet thou art but a woman!' Russia, as a crowned beast of prey, is 'tortured by ambition, and backed by Brother Joseph.'

March 6, 1786. La NÉgligÉ. Designed by 'Simplex Mundities.' Published by S. W. Fores.

March 7, 1786. Captain Epilogue, published by E. Jackson, 14 Marylebone Street.—The macaroni editor's portrait, as described in the previous print (October 25, 1785), with the addition of a notice-board, introduced above the post which points To the Wells,—A Prospectus for the 'World and Fashionable Advertiser.'

March 7, 1786. An Ordnance Dream, or Planning of Fortifications, published by S. W. Fores, 3 Piccadilly.—The Duke of Richmond—who, perhaps in some degree on account of his partial French extraction, and his left-handed Stuart descent, did not enjoy unmixed popularity, was constantly brought into ridicule, with which the satirists met his abortive fortification schemes, and a certain gun, of his own construction, reputed of leather, which it is said he was anxious to introduce.

The caricaturist has represented the distinguished Master-General of Ordnance, an insipid edition of Uncle Toby, as the Duke was frequently nick-named. The Duke is in his study, fast asleep in his arm-chair, surrounded by his novel experiments. His foot is resting on the 'Trial of Colonel Debbeig.' A case of fresh ammunition, in the form of tobacco pipes, is lying by his side, and a number of rolled up plans of the projected fortifications are thrown about the place. On the walls are a pair of views on the subject of the proposed fortifications; one picture represents the bare ground, with labourers and wheel-barrows, and the skeletons of a projected fleet; the second view gives the fortifications under the state of their imaginary completion, furnished with guns and ammunition, and duly manned, with a bulwark of our wooden walls beyond. The solid and assuring conditions of the preparations on paper are badly sustained in practice. A pile of card-houses, disposed round the study-table, do duty for fortresses; broken pipe-bowls and stems take the place of stoneworks and guns. An empty decanter accounts for the Duke's faith in this imaginary system of protection. A cat is clawing at the table-cloth, and threatening the total destruction of the projected defences at one swoop; she is mounted on the muzzle of a sample gun of the problematical leathern ordnance, of which, rumour asserted, the Duke of Richmond had ordered a snuff-box maker to supply him patterns. In the struggles in Parliament, where the Duke's plans were the subject of vexed discussion, more stress was laid on his political apostasy than upon the inefficiency of his propositions, patriotism in the senate being subordinated at all times to the workings of party, and the intrigues for political power.

March 7, 1786. Luxury—Misery. Published by E. Jackson, 14 Marylebone Street, Golden Square.—The luxury of a breakfast in bed on downy pillows, surrounded by all the allurements of ease and other superfluities, is contrasted with the Misery of perishing of starvation and thirst on the wide ocean, with nothing but a mast between the frozen unfortunates and a watery grave, and no object of relief on the bare horizon to suggest a ray of hope to the solitary sufferers.

March 8, 1786. The Morning Dram. Published by J. Phillips, 164 Piccadilly.—The toilette of a lady whose tastes are, to say the least of them, slightly inclined to the social glass; while her French hair-dresser is attending to her luxuriant locks, the fair, free and easy divinity is not too ethereal to decline recruiting her spirits with a cordial.

March 1786. The Polish dwarf (Count Boruwloski) performing before the Grand Seigneur. Published by E. Jackson, 14, Marylebone Street.

The famous Count Boruwloski visited nearly all the courts of Europe, where he was made the most of on account of his remarkable diminutiveness, as at the age of twenty his height was but two feet four inches. This Polish miniature man differed from dwarfs in general, as his figure was well-proportioned, and he further possessed perfect breeding, was intellectual, good-natured, and accomplished, and, among other gifts, enjoyed a talent for music, which he had cultivated. His memoirs, written by himself, first appeared in 1788; he lived to the advanced age of ninety-eight, he was born at Chaliez, in Russian Poland, November 1739; he died at Banks' Cottage, near Durham (the gift, it is said, of some of the prebendaries of Durham Cathedral), September 13, 1837.

The artist, who had an opportunity of studying this duodecimo edition of humanity from the life, has represented Count Boruwloski in the act of favouring that mysterious potentate, the Grand Seigneur, with a tune on the violin, within the sacred and unapproachable precincts (as far as mankind is concerned) of the harem. The contrast presented between this perfect miniature and the full-blown and highly developed beauties of the seraglio, the overfed Grand Turk, and his gigantic guards, is ludicrously marked.

April 1, 1786. The Dying Patient, or the Doctor's Last Fee. Published by H. Brookes, Coventry Street.

1786. Brewer's Drays. Published by E. Jackson, 14, Marylebone Street, Golden Square.—An unusually careful sketch—for Rowlandson—of the interior of the premises of a certain great brewer, most probably those of the renowned Mr. Whitbread, in Chiswell Street, visited in state by their gracious Majesties about this period, when the Royal condescension was made the subject of the famous ode by Peter Pindar—

1786. Contrasts: Youth and Age.—An exceedingly witch-like looking elderly female is endeavouring to entertain a young beauty with some piece of news from a paper, to which the maiden, it appears, is most indolently indifferent.

1786 (?). Sailors Carousing.—A bacchanalian scene, picturing the diversions of salts on shore in the days when tars indulged in such jocularities as frying gold watches, and eating one-pound Bank Notes on bread and butter. The 'Pollies from Portsmouth' have evidently exceeded the bonds of strict moderation in their applications to the punch-bowl. A Dutch skipper is calmly smoking and drinking himself into philosophic stupidity, regardless of the uproar proceeding around him, of singing, shouting, and fiddling, in drunken discordance.

1786 (?). The Return from Sport.—A bold and well-executed etching, to which a further interest is added by Rowlandson's easy and flowing touch, of a rustic subject in Morland's manner. The results of the morning's sport are chiefly remarkable for their ludicrous insignificance.

May, 1786. A Theatrical Chymist.—We have already seen the genius of Holman, who was, as we have noticed, at school with the Caricaturist, rising like the sun as represented by Rowlandson's pencil and graver: we now find the satirist giving his alliance to the other side, although the former print, Topham endeavouring with his squirt to extinguish the rising genius of Holman, was being reissued. Probably the success on one side induced the artist—who, we presume, sought only to exercise his art, and was not inconvenienced by party prejudices—to try and make as fair a counter-hit as we so often find him doing. The figure of Holman, a mean and by no means imposing-looking personage, is issuing from a still, together with a discharge of 'puffs,' &c. The Theatrical Chymist is a clerical-looking worthy, our old friend Parson Bate, who is employing a decayed military buck, in tattered regimentals, seated on a pile of paper, to fan the furnace Academy with the Morning Post bellows; the materials, from which the actor Holman is being distilled, are Ignorance, Impertinence, Coxcomity, Misconception, Raving, Ranting, Grinning, Snarling, Tortured Attitudes, Envy, Detraction.

1786. A Box-Lobby Hero. The Branded Bully, or the Ass stripp'd of the Lion's Skin.—The incident which forms the subject of this plate is now forgotten, but it appears some overgrown and swaggering personage had constituted himself the tyrant of the box lobbies. The old fable of the Ass in the Lion's skin is verified. Although a head and a half taller than any of those present, the Branded Bully is allowing a mere dwarf to pull his enormous pigtail, and kick him. The ladies are jeering at the discomfitted swaggerer, who, it seems, is in such abject fear that he is suffering all sorts of indignities without attempting to resent them.

May 6, 1786. More of Werter. The Separation. Charlotte preserved from destruction by Albert and Hymen, whilst Werter in the excess of frenzy puts an end to his existence. Designed by Collings, etched by Rowlandson, published by E. Jackson, Marylebone Street.—The last scene of Werter's tragedy is represented as taking place on the brink of a precipice. The adolescent divinity Hymen, in whose path flowers are strewn, is conducting Charlotte away from the fate which is hanging over her lover; Hymen's torch is interposed between them, and his hand is on the matrimonial chain by which Charlotte is bound to her faithful husband, about whose head is a vision of antlers. Charlotte is hurried off in despair. As to the hero of the story, he is writhing about in a passionate paroxysm, a serpent is stinging him, a death's head looms above his own, the suicide is grasping a pistol in each hand, and a devil with a scourge of snakes and a vial of poison, is pouring the fatal potion over his head like Macassar oil, of which his locks, like a Turk's head broom, standing bolt on end with excitement, do not appear to have any need.

July 20, 1786. Covent Garden Theatre. Published by H. Brookes, Coventry Street.—An interior of the old theatre filled on all sides with a diversified and appreciative audience. The etching is made with a bold free point, and from its ease and simplicity bears the closest resemblance possible to the artist's original outlines, drawn with his famous reed pen, in the facile exercise of which Rowlandson attained peculiar excellence.

September 1, 1786. OutrÉ Compliments.

October 1, 1786. The Jovial Crew. Published by S. W. Fores, 3, Piccadilly.—This print, which is somewhat suggestive of Rowlandson's manner, has evidently lost much in the engraving, which is due to another hand. The group consists of a brace of jolly mariners—probably intended for captain and mate—whose characteristics are somewhat of the Dutch skipper type, in company with a black sailor, who is holding a punch-bowl, and is seated on a coil of rope on the deck of the vessel.

1786. A Visit to the Uncle. Published by E. Jackson, Marylebone Street. (See 1794.)

A Visit to the Aunt. Published by E. Jackson, Marylebone Street. (See 1794.)

1786. The Wood Eater (Fox). (See December 20, 1788.)

Illustrations to poems by Peter Pindar, 1786–92. Printed for G. Kearsley at the Johnson's Head, 46, Fleet Street.