A lovely caricature from Thomas Tegg’s “Caricature magazine, or Hudibrastic mirror”, drawn by George Woodward and engraved by Thomas Rowlandson. It was entitled ‘The Mother’s Hope’ and appeared on various occasions – this one, from 1808, appears on the Lewis Walpole Library site.
The explanation is as follows:
A little boy (looking more like a girl) in a frock and cross-gartered shoes, with short, untidy hair, stands aggressively, one foot raised to kick, fists clenched. At his feet are a battledore and shuttlecock and a doll; above his head hangs a canary in a cage.
He shouts: ‘I don’t like Dolls! – I don’t like Canary Birds – I hate Battledore and Shuttlecock, I like Drums, and Trumpets – I won’t go to school – I will stay at home – I will have my own way in every thing!!’
The mother, an ugly middle-aged woman (right), in an old-fashioned dress, with a cap and apron, stoops towards him, saying, ‘Bless the Baby–what an aspiring spirit–if he goes on in this way–he will be a second Buonaparte!’
Behind her (right) stands a pretty nursemaid holding a younger child who screams and waves a rattle.”
It is a useful reminder that there is nothing new about over-bearing, brattish, behaviour from young children – nothing has changed for several hundred years!
Plus ca change as you say..! The apron suggests it’s the spinster nursemaid speaking watched by the young mum clasping her youngest, perhaps?
I think that you are right. I was amused to see the boy wearing a dress – a reminder that my own ancestor was not ‘breeched’ ie put into breeches until he was three and a half year’s old.
I would think that the boy’s outfit would be normal for the time? Is that not the case? Even my own father, born in 1924 here in Canada, wore dresses when he was young. I have a picture of him in a dress at about the age of 3.
Yes, I am sure it was standard for many years.