ain skill in grouping and faculty of
grotesque suggestiveness that made his point a most useful weapon to
William of Orange during the long struggle with Louis XIV.

The 18th century, however, may be called emphatically the age of
caricature. The spirit is evident in letters as in art; in the fierce
grotesques of Swift, in the coarser _charges_ of Smollett, in the keen
ironies of Henry Fielding, in the Aristophanic tendency of Foote's
farces, no less than in the masterly moralities of Hogarth and the
truculent satires of Gillray. The first event that called forth
caricatures in any number was the prosecution (1710) of Dr Sacheverell;
most of these, however, were importations from Holland, and only in the
excitement attendant on the South Sea Bubble, some ten years later, can
the English school be said to have begun. Starting into active being
with the ministry of Walpole (1721), it flourished under that statesman
for some twenty years,--the "hieroglyphics," as its prints were named,
graphically enough, often circulating on fans. It continued to increase
in importance and audacity till the reign of Pitt (1757-1761), when its
activity was somewhat abated. It rose, however, to a greater height than
ever during the rule of Bute (1761-1763), and since that time its
influence has extended without a check. The artists whose combinations
amused the public during this earlier period are, with few exceptions,
but little known and not greatly esteemed. Among them were two amateurs,
Dorothy, wife of Richard Boyle, 3rd earl of Burlington, and General
George Townshend (afterwards 1st Marquess Townshend); Goupy, Boitard and
Liotard were Frenchmen; Vandergucht and Vanderbank were Dutchmen. This
period witnessed also the rise of William Hogarth (1697-1764). As a
political caricaturist Hogarth was not successful, save in a few
isolated examples, as in the portraits of Wilkes and Churchill; but as a
moralist and social satirist he has not yet been equalled. The
publication, in 1732, of his _Modern Midnight Conversation_ may be said
to mark an epoch in the history of caricature. Mention must also be made
of Paul Sandby (1725-1809), who was not a professional caricaturist,
though he joined in the pictorial hue-and-cry against Hogarth and Lord
Bute, and who is best remembered as the founder of the English school of
water-colour; and of John Collet (1723-1788), said to have been a pupil
of Hogarth, a kindly and industrious humorist, rarely ven