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Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/171

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COLONEL BERKELEY.
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on his conduct In one of the numbers of his paper an article appeared, in which some satirical observations were made with reference to the annual "Berkeley Hunt" ball. On the afternoon of that day Colonel Berkeley accompanied, by two of his friends, called at Mr. Judge's residence, and being invited to walk in, the colonel asked Mr. Judge if he would name the author of the papers which had appeared in the Journal. Mr. Judge said he did not know whom he had the honour of addressing, and on learning who he was, proposed that he should call at the office of the paper, "where he would give him every satisfaction." Colonel Berkeley replied, "No, sir! Now, sir! Now, sir!" and without further notice commenced a cowardly attack on the unarmed man by beating him over the head and face with the butt-end of a heavy hunting whip. To make the dastardly affair more dastardly if possible, one of the two fellows with him stood at the door, and the other near the fire place, so as to prevent Judge from seizing any weapon or calling any one to his assistance. For this ruffianly assault, which placed poor Judge for some time in considerable danger of his life, he subsequently recovered substantial damages against his cowardly antagonist. The Colonel got a far worse dressing from Robert Cruikshank who, in a severe contemporary skit, named (in allusion to the colonel's notorious illegitimacy) Colonel Fitz Bastard, depicted him and his friends in the act of assaulting the editor of the Cheltenham Journal.

Edmund Kean.The artist's tastes and sympathies threw him much in the society of actors. The following year his thoroughly Bohemian friend, Edmund Kean, was mulcted in £800 damages, in consequence of a disgraceful liaison with the wife of Alderman Cox; and while audiences thronged the one theatre to testify their sympathy for a favourite and popular actress, they crowded the other to howl and hiss at the thoroughly disreputable and disgraced .tragedian. The episode is referred to by the artist in three of his contemporary caricatures, labelled respectively, Wolves Triumphant, or a Fig for Public Opinion; A Scene from the Pantomime of Cock-a-DoodleDoo, lately performed at Drury Lane with unbounded applause; and