4
and
Hgylory of Caricature
Gr0tq[Que
them, and the faded flower, which is ready to drop from their heated
hands, is intended to be charaeteriftic of their own fenfations." One
group, a lady Whofe excefs has been carried too far, and her fervant who
comes to her afiiftance, is reprefented in our cut No. 1. Sir Gardner
obferves that "many fimilar inltances of a talent for caricature are
obfervable in the competitions of the Egyptian artifts, who executed the
paintings of the tombs" at Thebes, which belong to a very early period
of the Egyptian annals. Nor is the application of this talent reftricted
always to fecular fubjeets, but we fee it at times intruding into the molt
facred rnyfteries of their religion. I give as a curious example, taken from
one of Sir Gardner Wilkinf0n's engravings, a fcene in the reprefentation
of a funeral proceflion crofling the Lake of the Dead (No. 2), that
appears in one of thefe earlx paintings at Thebes, in which " the love of
caricature common to the Egyptians is fhown to have been indulged
even in this ferious fubjeet; and the retrograde movement of the large
boat, which has grounded and is puthed oH' the bank, ilriking the frnaller
one with its rudder, has overturned a large table loaded with cakes and
other things, upon the rowers feated below, in fpite of all the efforts of
the prowman, and the earneft vociferations of the alarmed Iieerfman."
The accident which thus overthrows and fcatters the proviflons intended
for the funeral feaft, and the confufion attendant upon it, form a ludicrous
fcene