one foot
on Drury Lane and the other on Covent Garden, with a toy whip in one
hand and a rattle in the other, while two full-grown actors of real
merit bemoan the decadence of public taste on the pavement below. Some
years later on the pair might have said with Byron,--

"Though now, thank Heaven! the Rosciomania's o'er,
And full-grown actors are endured once more."[16]

The leading home political incident of 1806 was the impeachment and
acquittal of Lord Melville, an event which is dealt with by Gillray, and
also by Rowlandson in his graphic satire of _The Acquittal, or Upsetting
the Porter Pot_, both artists alluding to Whitbread, the brewer, the
head of the advanced Liberals, and one of the principal movers of Lord
Melville's impeachment.

[Illustration:
T. ROWLANDSON. _October 25th, 1810._

"SPITFIRES."

_Back to p. 28._]

[Illustration:

T. ROWLANDSON. 1813.

"THE COBBLER'S CURE FOR A SCOLDING WIFE."

_Back to p. 29._]

INTRODUCTION OF GAS.

Gas, which now promises to be superseded in its turn by electricity, was
introduced into Boulton & Watts' foundry, at Birmingham, as early as the
year 1798, and the Lyceum Theatre was lit with gas (by way of
experiment) in 1803; it met however with much opposition from persons
interested in the conservation of the oil trade, and made no real
progress in London until 1807, when it was introduced into Golden Lane
on the 16th of August. Pall Mall, however, was not lighted with gas
until 1809, and it was really not finally and generally introduced into
London until the year 1820. We meet with an excellent satire published
by S. W. Fores, in 1807, wherein a harlequin is depicted sitting on a
rope suspended between a couple of lamp posts. The lamps and the hat of
the figure are garnished with lighted burners; the neighbours in the
windows of the adjoining houses, the people on the pavement below, the
fowls, the dogs, the cats on the roofs, are suffocated with the noxious
vapour. The figure holds in his hand a paper, whereon we read, "This is
the speculation to make money, L10,000 per cent. profit all in
_Air_-light air. 'Tis there, 'tis here, and 'tis gone for ever." This
caricature bears the title of _The Good Effects of Carbonic Gas_. A
caricature of Woodward, engraved by Rowlandson, and published by
Ackermann on the 23rd of December, 1809, gives us _A Peep at the Gas
Lights in Pall Mall_, the interest of which chiefly centres in the
eccentric