In 1785 appeared some of John Raphael Smith's graceful publications after Rowlandson's more refined originals, notably _Vauxhall_, _Opera Boxes_, _Toying and Trifling_, _An Italian Family_, _A French Family_, _Grog on Board_, _Tea on Shore_; _Filial Affection, or a Trip to Gretna Green_; _Reconciliation_; _Intrusion on Study, or the Painter disturbed_; _Comfort in the Gout_; and several other excellent subjects in his most finished manner, besides an animated scene after Henry Wigstead, _John Gilpin's Return to London_.
Rowlandson sent five important and highly humorous drawings, displaying advanced qualities in the direction of execution, to the Royal Academy in 1786; those of the first consequence were _An English Review_, _A French Review_, the pair exhibited at the International Exhibition 1862; _Opera House Gallery_, under which designation, as we suspect, we recognise his _Box Lobby Loungers_, published the very same year; _A French Family_ (published the year previous); and _A Coffee House_, of which we can discover no further record.
Among the engraved works for the same year we must refer to the print of _Box Lobby Loungers_, already mentioned, and _Covent Garden Theatre_, as the most noticeable as to size, subject, and the numerous figures introduced.
Rowlandson sent four known works to the Royal Academy, the season following (1787). They were _French Barracks_, a superlative drawing, _Grog on Board a Ship_, _Countrymen and Sharpers_ (engraved by Sherwin as _Smithfield Sharpers_), and _The Morning Dram, or Huntsman rising_, engraved as _Four o'clock in the Country_, S. W. Fores (October 20, 1790). All Rowlandson's contributions for this year have been published; indeed, it is very possible, from the popularity of the caricaturist's novel exhibits, that all the pictures he sent to the Royal Academy were straightway issued on copper. There are two exceptions, _The Serpentine_ and _A Coffee House_, of which the writer has never succeeded in meeting impressions, but it by no means follows that sooner or later they may not come to light, and it does not seem unlikely that the first named, _The Serpentine River_, may be another version of _Cold Broth and Calamity_ (published in 1792).