Journey.'_ Designed by H. Bunbury, etched by T. Rowlandson.
1811 (?). _Exhibition 'Stare' Case, Somerset House._--The staircase
of the handsome buildings erected for Somerset House originally set
apart for the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, is ridiculed as a scene
of unequivocal confusion. Whether the dangers of the somewhat steep
ascent were actually as hazardous as the artist has depicted is open
to question. It will be remembered that Sir William Chambers, the
architect, whose masterpiece was decidedly Somerset House, was a member
of the Royal Academy, and held the office of Treasurer to that body.
It was somewhat the fashion of the wits to laugh at the architect,
who, as a foreigner, had received an amount of royal patronage which
created certain jealousies in the minds of his English rivals, who
were less favoured with the smiles of princes. Chambers' extravagant
conceptions, the various novel designs he published, and particularly
his marked taste for so-called Oriental gardening and the introduction
of buildings after the Chinese fashion, exposed the project to an
ordeal of the severest criticism and sarcasm. George the Third employed
Sir William Chambers to lay out and adorn the Royal gardens at Kew,
when the eminent Swede took advantage of the occasion to carry out the
taste he had acquired in China[24]--an indulgence which subjected the
architect to numerous well-merited satires. The famous 'Heroic Epistle
to Sir William Chambers' was provoked on this occasion.
Peter Pindar, according to his custom, found various faults with the
new pile of buildings in the Strand, and their shortcomings were
pointed out with his habitual archness.
The scene of disaster and tumultuous medley which Rowlandson has
ventured to introduce as attendant incidents of the Royal Academy
staircase must have assisted, in some degree, to make this portion of
the building a laughing-stock with the more frivolous portion of the
frequenters.
[Illustration: EXHIBITION 'STARE' CASE.]
The Editor acknowledges the situation is treated with a licence
which, perhaps, may be held to verge on the inadmissible. It has been
sufficiently difficult, in selecting these illustrations, to keep
within the restrictions marked out by modern decorum, too chaste
to endorse the broad jocularity which passed current half a century
back. The mirth imported into _Somerset House_ is not, however, of a
licentious description; if the subject is treated with more freedom
than is desirable, according to the juster ideas of our generation, at
least its humours are innoxious and, we trust, guiltless of offence.
[Illustration: THE MANAGER'S LAST KICK.]
It is obvious that, in an instance like the present, the task becomes
one of extreme delicacy; it is impossible to translate the caprices
of the artist by any method short of the etching-needle; the mixed
description of the spectacle and the spirit of the _contretemps_ defy
a mere verbal rendering; and the caricature is too excellent in other
respects to be passed over in the present collection, which professes
to give a general view of the artist's cleverest and most familiarly
known examples. While avoiding instances the morality of which is
absolutely questionable, it is evident that it would be impossible
to treat of the actual history, let alone the novels and caricatures
of our forefathers, or to venture on the merest enquiry into their
familiar life, abroad or at home, unless we put prudery a little on one
side.