In the ‘Satirist’ of May 1, 1814, is a picture by G. Cruikshank, called ‘Otium cum dignitate, or a view of Elba.’ It is not a good one. Napoleon, ragged and stockingless, smoking a short clay pipe, is blowing up the fire with a pair of bellows. Bertrand is kissing a female, probably Pauline, on the sly, and Jerome Bonaparte is mending nets.
‘Boney’s Elbowa Chair, a new Throne for a new Emperor; or an old sinner brought to the stool of repentance. A dialogue between one of his admirers & John Bull, on his being laid up with a cutaneous or skin disorder’ (G. Cruikshank, May 5, 1814). Boney is in his rocky home raggedly dressed, with a fool’s cap on his head, and sitting on a close stool. He is surrounded with medicine-bottles and pots of brimstone and itch salve, and he is scratching himself violently. John Bull says:—
‘So! your poor friend Nap Boney is kick’d from a throne,
And must sit on a stool close at Elba alone.’
‘He is not poor,’ said Nic, ‘he has got fat and grown flabby.’
‘He has also,’ said John, ‘got the Itch, or grown scabby.
For not even his wife will consent to go nigh him;
And all his old Mamelukes flout and defy him;
Perhaps thou, in pity, will lift up his latch,
And rub him with Brimstone or help him to scratch.
Pray go, and take with thee the birds of thy feather,
And all catch the Itch, or grow scabby together.’
WHAT I WAS. A CRUEL TYRANT.
WHAT I AM. A SNIVELLING WRETCH.
WHAT I OUGHT TO BE. HUNG FOR A FOOL.
These three pictures are all on one plate, and are by Rowlandson, published May 1, 1814.
‘Needs must when Wellington Drives, or Louis’s Return!!’ (May 1814) is a very badly drawn picture by Marks. Louis the Eighteenth, unable to walk, by reason of the gout, is being drawn along in a sort of Bath chair by Napoleon, and attended on either side by Blücher and Wellington. The latter is punishing poor Napoleon with a birch-rod, saying meanwhile, ‘I desire, you will sing God save the King.’ Boney, with his handkerchief to his eyes, says, ‘I’ll be d—d if I do.’ Blücher is of opinion, ‘You’l be d—d whether you do or not.’