Cockney Sportsmen Shooting Flying
This is the second plate of a series, Cockney Sportsmen, etched by Gillray and devoted to satirizing the hunting skills of its two cockney protagonists. The series consists of four plates and includes:
- Cockney Sportsmen Marking Game
- Cockney-Sportsmen Shooting Flying
- Cockney-Sportsmen Re-Charging
- Cockney-Sportsmen Finding a Hare
For more information about the series in general and its place in Gillray's work, see my commentary on the first plate, Marking Game.
© Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
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As we know from the first plate, the cockney sportsmen are hunting in Hornsey Wood, a refuge for City dwellers about six miles from St Paul's. Gillray's print may be intended to show or recall the Hornsey Wood House, which was famous in its time.
About a mile nearer to London than Hornsey," observes the Ambulator, in 1774, "is a coppice of young trees called Hornsey Wood, at the entrance of which is a public-house, to which great numbers of persons resort from the City."
"Hornsey Wood House," for such was the name of this place of entertainment, stood on the summit of some rising ground on the eastern side of the parish. It was originally a small roadside public-house, with two or three wide-spreading oaks before it, beneath the shade of which the weary wayfarer could rest and refresh himself.
But whether public house or farm, the birds are flocking to or emerging from a large bird house on the premises. That may suggest that the birds are being raised for food or sale. In either case, the depredation of the flock by our intrepid hunters would not be appreciated. Fortunately, the unthinking enthusiasm of the young cockney sportsman, leaping over the fence in his excitement, is not matched by his aim. He misses the birds entirely.
As so often in comic caricature, the dogs in the series are reflections of their masters.
NEXT: Cockney-Sportsmen Re-Charging
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on Cockney Sportsmen Shooting Flying.
- "Cockney," Wikipedia
- "Hornsey," British History Online
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray#493
- Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times, p. 272
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