Note 267 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 2)

Captain Edward Topham (1751-1820), after a brilliant regimental career in the Horse Guards, gave himself up to fashion and drama. He produced several plays, and in 1787 founded the World, a scurrilous daily paper, which brought him into the law courts. In Rowlandson’s well-known Vauxhall, the foremost figure in the crowd is an elderly beau, standing bolt upright, and defying through his glass the stare of a gaudy female of mature years who has found another cavalier. This is Captain, afterwards Major, Topham. He wrote the life of Elwes, the miser.