Mingling with the artsy drinkers at the Mortimer, Jenkins describes Maclintick, whose “calculatedly humdrum appearance, although shabby, seemed aimed at concealing bohemian affiliations. The minute circular lens of his gold-rimmed spectacles, set across the nose of a pug dog, made one think of caricatures of Thackery or President Thiers, imposing upon him the air of a bad-tempered doctor. ”  [CCR 22/14]

Caricature of William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens
Alfred Bryan (1852-1899)
Charcoal and colored chalks, on blue paper, now faded, mounted on cardboard.
21 3/4 x 14 13/16 in
The Morgan Library, New York

President Thiers
Newpaper cover
Fils du Père Duchêne Illustré, May 3, 1871
from Wikimedia Commons

Here Maclintick’s bohemianism is contrasted with two establishment figures. Adolphe Thiers ruled France as Prime Minister in 1836, 1840, and 1848 and then as Head of State during the Commune in 1871-3. In this caricature he is shown in an unflattering light, mounted on a snail on his way to Paris, a city in the midst of revolt. The caricature of the great novelists, Thackery and Dickens, contrasts Thackery wearing a top hat, befitting his public school and Cambridge education, to Dickens in a bowler, the hat of the common man.