[ROWLANDSON, Thomas.]

English manners and French prudence or French dragoons brought to a check by a Belvoir leap. A scene after nature near Ciudad Rodrigo September 1811. Obstupuere omnes!

London, H. Humphrey, 25 November 1811. 250 x 365 mm, coloured engraving. An English hussar officer,Lord Robert Manners, ‘holding his sabre against his shoulder, takes a flying leap across a stream, looking composedly over his left shoulder at French mounted soldiers, whose horses have checked at the stream. He says “Adieu Messieurs”. The foremost Frenchman cries “Sacrebleu!!!”, the others “Mais comment?”; “Quel diable d’anglois”; and “Est il possible” ’ (BM).It commorates a celebrated incident in the 1811 Ciudad Rodrigo campaign in which Manners, surprised by a French cavalry picket, was pursued to a brook. This he successfully cleared, taking off his hat and saying ‘Adieu Messieurs’. Southey, in his History of the Peninsular War, recalls the event, stating that Manners ‘might probably have been taken, if his horse, being English, and accustomed to such feats, had not cleared a high wall [in fact a stream, as in the engraving], and so borne him off’ (Southey, III p. 321).Manners, a talented horseman, ‘was an extra Aid-de-Camp and an intimate friend of the Duke of Wellington, under whom he served throughout the whole Peninsular War. His Lordship received a severe wound at Waterloo, which he concealed until the close of that “glorious and well-fought field” . . . . He attained the rank of Colonel in 1821, and that of Major-General in 1830’ (‘Obituary’ in Gentleman’s Magazine, January 1836, p. 89). He later followed a political career as MP for Cambridgeshire.BM, Catalogue of political and personal satires 11743. Not in Ogilby.

• GBP 425.00 > Andere Währungen
• Bestellnummer: T2919

• Antiquariat: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)