The heir-apparent is shown as the virtuous prince we read of in fairy tales, endowed with all the graces both of mind and person. The Prince is supported, at the foot of the throne, by such protection as Liberty and Justice are placing at his disposal; his foot is on the first step, the Voice of the People; the other steps are Public Safety, Patriotism, and Virtue; the crown remains suspended over his head, his right hand is on his heart, and Britannia is leading him to his place, while she is waving back the party which opposed his assumption of an ad interim Regency. The symbolical Ruler of the Waves is declaring: 'I have long been deceived by hypocrisy, but have at last discovered an intention of sacrificing the rights of my people to satisfy a private ambition.' The Queen and her German friends, Madame Schwellenberg and others, are represented as disconcerted Furies, waving hissing snakes, and begirt with Falsehood, Envy, &c.
Queen Charlotte combined with Pitt to oppose, by every stratagem within their power, the assumption of the Regency by her eldest son. The Queen is brandishing the torch of Rebellion; Pitt is thrown into despair, and he is 'bidding a long farewell to all his greatness,' before his retirement from public life, as reasonably might have been his case, if the Prince's party had come into power. Commerce, allegorically represented as a fair female, is applauding the elevation of the Prince to the vacant throne, and a deputation from the Corporation of the City is expressing these encouraging sentiments through the Lord Mayor:—'Whilst we mourn the occasion, we must feel ourselves happy in reflecting that we are blessed by a prince whose wisdom will protect our liberties, whose virtues will afford stability to our empire.'
1784.
POLITICAL CARICATURES.
A few examples of the caricatures published by Rowlandson during the famous contested election for Westminster in 1784 were included by the present writer in his account of the works of James Gillray the Caricaturist, as certain prints issued on this occasion were doubtless due to a combination on the part of the two caricaturists; however, those plates which bear special indications of Rowlandson's style were set down to their proper author.
January 1, 1784. The Pit of Acheron, or the Birth of the Plagues of England.—This plate bears the initials F. N., 1784, in the right-hand corner, but there is no doubt, judging from the evidence of the style of execution, that the chief merit is due to Rowlandson. During the progress of the struggle, in 1784, plates innumerable were published anonymously, or with varying initials. Collectors who have devoted time and observation to the subject, and such well-qualified writers as the compiler of The History of Caricature and Grotesque in Art, The Caricature History of the Georges, &c., seem agreed upon the proportion of prints which are due to the skill of our artist, whose handiwork is very prominent amongst the series of electioneering and political satires which appeared on the occasion of Fox's renowned campaign at the Westminster hustings, when the Champion of the People contended successfully against the second Ministerial candidate, Sir Cecil Wray, although the latter received all the assistance which Pitt, with the influence of the King as well, unscrupulously exercised as it was, could bring into play, legitimately or otherwise, to defeat the popular Whig chief, and to inflict the mortification of a lost election upon 'the party' and on their leader, who was at that time the pet aversion of George the Third and idol of the people.
It will be remembered that Rowlandson was by no means a party satirist; unlike Sayer, who was notoriously in the Ministerial pay, he lavished his satire on both sides alternately, utterly regardless of partisanship, and, often at the expense of consistency, we find his cartoons alternately espousing and ridiculing the same section, Whig or Tory, Ministerialist or Opposition, in plates of whimsically opposite tendencies, which not infrequently bear the same date.
The Pit of Acheron, if we may trust the satirist, is not situated at any considerable distance from Westminster; the precincts of that city appear through the smoke of the incantations which are carried on in the Pit. Three weird sisters, like the Witches in 'Macbeth,' are working the famous charm; a monstrous cauldron is supported by death's-heads and harpies; the ingredients of the broth are various; a crucifix, a rosary, Deceit, Loans, Lotteries, and Pride, together with a fox's head, cards, dice, daggers, and an executioner's axe, &c., form portions of the accessories employed in these uncanny rites. Three heads are rising from the flames—the good-natured face of Lord North, the spectacled and incisive outline of Burke, and Fox's 'gunpowder jowl,' which is drifting Westminster-wards. One hag, who is dropping Rebellion into the brew, is demanding, 'Well, sister, what hast thou got for the ingredients of our charm'd pot?' To this her fellow-witch, who is turning out certain mischievous ingredients which she has collected in her bag, is responding, 'A beast from Scotland called an Erskine, famous for duplicity, low art, and cunning; the other a monster who'd spurn even at Charter's Rights.' Erskine is shot out of the bag, crying, 'I am like a Proteus, can turn to any shape, from a sailor to a lawyer, and always lean to the strongest side!' The other member, whose tail is that of a serpent, is singing, 'Over the water and over the lee, thro' hell I would follow my Charlie.'