April 16, 1806. The Political Hydra. (Wigstead.) Originally published December 26, 1788. See description ([1788]). Reissued with fresh date.
April 18, 1806. Falstaff and his Followers Vindicating the Property Tax. Published by T. Rowlandson, 1 James Street, Adelphi. Fox is travestied under the portly figure of Falstaff; Sheridan, Petty, and other Ministers do duty as his followers. The unwieldy knight is standing in the presence of John Bull, and pointing to a huge pack, 'Ten per cent, on John Bull's property,' which is to be fitted to the national back. 'Mercy on us, how you must be all changed in your way of thinking! When Billy proposed the same thing, one of you said it was a most flagrant instance of injustice and inequality; another that it was abominable in principle and in its operation, not only cruel but intolerable; and another went so far as to say that if I sanctioned it I was not a person for any honest man to be acquainted with. What have you to say for yourselves?'
Falstaff has a plausible explanation at the service of his employer: 'You cannot blame us, Master Bull, we did not make it, or steal it; it lay in our way, and we found it!'
May 1, 1806. A Maiden Aunt smelling Fire. Published by T. Rowlandson, 1 James Street, Adelphi.
Old Maids are doomed to lead Apes in Hell.
An old Tabitha, who is appropriately surrounded by her feline friends, has been disturbed from her slumbers by various suspicious nocturnal sounds, and has appeared, candle in hand, and in a very incomplete toilette, to fathom the mystery, of the source of which she has evidently some shrewd suspicion; since she is hastening to the first floor to her niece's apartment. Above the balustrade stands the guilty damsel, who has had sufficient warning, as her lover, carrying his garments in his hand, for expedition, is making his way from the niece's room under the cover of an ambuscade; while the lady is leaning over the staircase railings, with an air of startled innocence assumed to carry off the contretemps.
May, 1806. Recruiting on a Broad-Bottom'd Principle. Published by T. Blacklock, 92 Royal Exchange.—Grenville, Fox, and their colleagues, are out on a recruiting expedition, to enlist volunteers for their new service. Lord Grenville, as the recruiting sergeant, is haranguing the bystanders; his followers are rather of the tatterdemalion order: they wear the red caps of Liberty, and the revolutionary cockades, they are out-at-elbows and shoeless. Sheridan is waving the colours inscribed 'God save the King! No Jacobins!' Fox is drummer, Lord Derby is fifer; 'Now my brave fellows, now is the time to make your fortunes and show your loyalty, all on a Broad-Bottom'd principle: we don't value candle-ends and cheese-parings, not we! All lives, and fortune-soldiers to a man. We'll make our enemies tremble; we are the boys to wind 'em; now is your time, my lads; the bed of Honour is a bed of Down.' A dog, the Member for Barkshire according to his collar, is bow-wowing the sergeant's address; one of the audience, with a paper, Bed of Roses (to which the ministerial condition had been likened by Lord Castlereagh), in his pocket, is half decided to join their standard: 'I don't like a bed of Down, I would rather it was a Bed of Roses: however I have a great mind to enter notwithstanding, there is nothing like having two strings to one's bow.'
George the Third is peeping through his spyglass; he is not very clear as to the actual motives of the party: 'What, what! my sergeant and drummer beating up for volunteers; that's right, that's right, get as many as you can!'
May 4, 1806. Daniel Lambert, the wonderful great Pumpkin of Little Britain. Published by R. Ackermann, 101 Strand.—The famous Leicester giant, or rather fat man, Daniel Lambert, was the object of fashionable curiosity at this date. The worthy and good-natured-looking monster's figure is set forth at full, and justice is done to his corpulence. A tailor and his journeyman are between them vainly trying to stretch their measuring tape round the colossal girth; a fairly conditioned man-cook has just brought in a noble rib of beef for the regalement of the giant. Three modishly dressed persons of quality, who have come to admire the huge proportions of Daniel Lambert, are contrasting their own meagre condition of genteel slimness with his excessive plumpness. A notice sets forth, 'Agricultural society for the improvement of fat cattle. Leicestershire Ram'; and a placard advertises, 'The powers of Roast Beef, or the Leicestershire Apollo, now in full bloom; no blemish whatever on any part of his body. Thirty-six years of age. Weighs upwards of 50 stone, 14 lbs. to the stone, or 700 lbs. Measures 3 yds. 4 inches round the body, and 1 yard 1 inch round the leg; is five feet eleven inches in height. Admission only one shilling. Laugh and grow fat.'[5]
May 31, 1806. A Diving Machine on a New Construction. Published by T. Rowlandson, 1 James Street, Adelphi.—The unpopular increase of Taxation, levied under the Broad-bottom'd auspices, was severely dealt with by the satirists. In the present version, the Ministers are represented as the crew of a diving-barge, The Experiment. Fox is the diver, and a noble wreck, the 'Constitution cutter, John Bull commander,' has gone down to the bottom of the 'Ocean of Taxation.' Her commander is done for; amidst the spoils of the shipwreck, the Diver (Fox) is securing certain weighty additions to his treasury: pig-iron, Beer Tax, and heavy chests, '10 per cent.' are among the spoils. A rope is secured to the ponderous Property Tax; Fox is giving the word to 'Haul up;' Petty, Sheridan and others are hauling away at the ropes; their lighter is nearly filled with the precious wreckage they have been able to secure.