408
0f Caricature
Grotefgue
and
of its caricaturiiis. The iirll of thefe events belongs almoft entirely to
Romain de Hooghe. Very little is known of the perfonal hiftory of this
remarkable artiit, but he is believed to have been born towards the middle
of the feventeenth century, and to have died in the earlier years of the
eighteenth century. The older French writers on art, who were pre-
judiced againfi Romain de Hooghe for his bitter hottility to Louis XIV.,
inform us that in his youth he employed his graver on obfcene fubjects,
and led a life fo openly licentious, that he was banifhed from his native
town of Amtterdam, and went to live at Haerlem. He gained celebrity
by the feries of plates, executed in 1672, which reprefented the horrible
atrocities committed in Holland by the French troops, and which raifed
againft Louis XIV. the indignation of all Europe. It is faid that the
prince of Orange (William III. of England), appreciating the value of
his fatire as a political weapon, fecured it in his own interefts by liberally
patronifing the caricaturitt; and we owe to Romain de Hooghe a fuccef-
iion of large prints in which the king of France, his protege James IL,
and the adherents of the latter, are covered with ridicule. One, publifhed
in I688, and entitled " Les Monarches Tombants," commemorates the
flight of the royal family from England. Another, which appeared at the
fame date, is entitled, in French, "Arlequin fur Fhypogryphe a la croifade
Loiolifte," and in Dutch, "Armee van de Heylige League voor der
Jefuiten Monarchy" " the army of the holy league for eftablilhing the
monarchy of the Jefuits Louis XIV. and James II. were reprefented
under the characters of Arlequin and Panurge, who are feated on the
animal here called a " hypogryphe," but which is really a wild ais. The
two kings have their heads joined together under one .Tefuit's cap.
Other figures, forming part of this army of Jefuitifm, are diftributed over
the field, the molt grotefque of which is that given in our cut No. 187.
Two perfonages introduced in fome ridiculous pofition or other, in molt
of thefe caricatures, are father Petre, the Jefuit, and the infant prince of
Wales, afterwards the old Pretender. It was pretended that this infant
was in fact the child of a miller, fecretly introduced into the queen's bed
concealed in a warming-pan; and that this ingenious plot was contrived
by father Petre. Hence the boy was popularly called Peterkin, or
Perkin,