The first cartoon hero?

In 1809 the writer William Combe and the artist Thomas Rowlandson created a character called Dr Syntax who is believed to be the world’s first cartoon character.

William Combe (1742-1823) was a British writer and traveller who aspired to the life of a gentleman but spent much of his life as a debtor in the King’s Bench Prison. As a writer, Coombe was prolific and his output included poetry, novels, historical non-fiction about England, and (spurious) edited letters – particularly those of the ‘wicked’ Lord Lyttelton. Much of his work was satirical and lampooned his contemporaries.

Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was an English artist and caricaturist who was most noted for his social observations and political satire. Although he studied art at both the Royal Academy in London, and later in Paris for many years, and was described as a ‘promising student’, a life of dissipation ended a serious art career and he turned to caricature to make a living. Rowland’s satirical output was prodigious, and he produced a wide variety of illustrations for novels, joke books, topographical works, and erotica. His caricatures included people in power such as the Duchess of Devonshire, William Pitt and Napoleon Bonaparte.

The inspiration for Dr Syntax came from two sources. Reverend William Gilpin was an English artist, Anglican cleric, schoolmaster and author. In his early twenties, he wrote his first book on aesthetics in which he described the ‘Gardens at Stowe in Buckinghamshire’ (1748).  An avid sketcher, Gilpin was famous for travelling around the countryside in summer, painting watercolours, and making notes about the scenes he depicted. Gilpin was obsessed with the notion of the ‘picturesque’ – ‘that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture’. According to Gilpin, nature was good at producing textures and colours, but rarely capable of creating the perfect composition. Gilpin felt the need to give ‘nature a helping hand’ and he would often omit or include objects in his art to exemplify his thoughts. Gilpin wrote voluminously about art and travelling around the countryside, and was satirised by many contemporary writers including Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey. He made the perfect model for the ideas of Dr Syntax.

The other source – the Reverend Ralph Baron, vicar at St Breward’s Church in Cornwall – delivered tedious and ponderous sermons. Baron was a pale, gaunt individual with a jutting chin and prominent nose – described by Rowlandson as a ‘thin, old, shrivelled up walking corpse … [whose] profile would be a crescent moon’. The combination of Gilpin and Baron fashioned as a journeying ‘know all’ became the image that Rowlandson and Combe developed.

The name ‘syntax’ comes from the way in which linguistic elements are structured to form clauses, phrases or sentences. Taught in ‘grammar schools’, as part of Latin and Greek, it was a decidedly unpopular subject and only enjoyed by pedants. Calling the doctor by this name reinforced his narrow ponderous world view.

Dr Syntax is a schoolmaster and cleric who has a series of misadventures on his straggly mare, Grizzle. He sets out in search of the ideal picturesque landscape in order to publish a book on his travels that will provide enough money so that he can ‘put our Grizzle to [use as] a chair’ a thoughtful (?!) and useful end for the horse. As he says at the outset (referring to Gilpin):

Oblivious to the realities of the world around him, he is continually thwarted by bathetic and farcical inconveniences – he is chased by a bull, gets stuck in a cellar, and is held up by thieves. The episodes appeared fortnightly or monthly with Rowlandson making a drawing which Combe would then compose a poetic commentary for – usually while incarcerated. These would then be published in The Poetical Magazine.

In his quest to seek out the picturesque, Dr Syntax says:

Dr Syntax undertakes three tours which were eventually collected in book form. The first is ‘The Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque’ (1812); this was followed by ‘The Second Tour in Search of Consolation’ (1820) and the ‘Third Tour in Search of a Wife’ (1821).

Previously, comic figures had featured in political satires but the fictional Dr Syntax, and his trials and tribulations, captured the imagination of Georgian London with his amusing adventures. The Syntax cartoons had three qualities which were new to the London audience. Syntax was a ‘recognisable contemporary identity’, he was fictional, and he was part of an ongoing series. Coming at a time when England was caught up in war, and life was experienced as precarious, his appeal was enormous.

In fact, he was so popular, there was a huge market for Dr Syntax merchandise – including figurines, snuffboxes, dinnerware, walking sticks and even chamber pots. Sadly, the books are no longer in print but copies can be found in antiquarian bookshops.

It will now be hard to look at a picturesque view without wondering what the good doctor would think!