Volume 1

Microcosm of London / [Anon].

Date:
[1808-1811]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Microcosm of London / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/248 page 23
    all the spectators. To this have been added divers horsemanships, the twelve wonderful voltigers, &c. The annexed print, which is- A VIEW OF THE AMPHITHEATRE AT WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, gives a very good idea of the scene. Mr. Rowlandson’s figures are here, as * indeed they invariably are, exact delineations of the sort of company who fre- quent public spectacles of this description; they are eminently characteristic, and descriptive of the eager attention with which this sort of spectators con- template the business going forward. Small as the figures are, we can in a degree pronounce upon their rank in life, from the general air and manner with which they are marked. Mr. Pugin is entitled to equal praise, from the taste which he has displayed in the perspective and general effect of the whole, which renders it altogether an extremely pleasing and interesting little print. With respect to teaching horses to perform country dances, how far thus accomplishing this animal, renders him either a more happy or a more valuable member of the horse community, is a question which I leave to be discussed by those sapient philosophers, who have so learnedly and so long debated this important business, with respect to man. The school of Jean Jaques Rousseau, who insist upon it, that man, by his civilization, has been so far from adding to his happiness, that he has increased and multiplied his miseries* will of course insist upon it, that a horse in his natural state must be infinitely happier, than he can be with any improvements
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