1777

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Library of Congress

The REVD. DR. SIMONY

Pub'd 21 May 1777 by W. Humphrey Gerrard Street Soho

A parson stands looking out in cassock with a stupid or surprised expression in a church antechamber. In his left hand, he holds an open volume with two texts:"Seek and you shall find" and "Knock & it shall be open'd unto you." From his right hand dangles a napkin. Tucked into his belt is long paper, labelled "Bill of Fare" and a clay pipe. From the belt on either side of them hang a corkscrew, knives in a pouch, and a sharpener. A bottle of claret sits at his feet, with a high-heeled lady's slipper off to each side. Behind him (l.) is a stone piller supporting arches and a door (r.) with an ornate plaque above reading "Appendices Sacerdotales." The verse below reads:

The figure here, you see exprest
May serve for each luxurious Priest,
The Cork-screw proves he loves a Glass,
The Slippers too a Buxom Lass,//
The Pipe--at night he loves to Smoke,
And o'er the Bottle crack a Joke.
While Knife of Steel, at once declare,
He loves good Eating,--more than Pray'r.

35.4 x 25 cm.
Library of Congress (PC3+1777)

Courtesy of the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library

THE BESEIG'D CONVENT

360
Printed for & Sold by Carington Bowles at his Map & Print Warehouse, No. 69 in St Pauls Church Yard, London. Publish'd as the Art directs 23 June 1777

A monk enters a cell in the convent and throws up his hand in amazement as he discovers a nun in the arms of an army officer. The officer looks up at him and the nun is wide-eyed at the monk's entry. She lifts her hand from the officer's shoulder but her leg still rests on his thigh. Her habit is open to reveal a decorously patterned shift. The officer's sword and cocked hat lie on the floor and three religious paintings adorn the walls. Two are of Christ or saints in prayer, the third may be a Palm Sunday scene of Christ riding the ass. The verse suggests the monk's alarm is less than virtue aroused:

The Amorous Captain full of fun,
Storms the rich Fortress of the Nun;
While Dominick by chance comes in,
And cries it is a horrid Sin.//
Without the holy Confirmation,
To kiss a Nun__is sure damnation;
Tis so with all the Priestly Elves,
Who keep tit bits to feed themselves.

32 x 26 cm.
Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Houghton Library of Harvard College Library (colour, HEW 13.8.3)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

MISS in her TEENS or a CHIP of the OLD BLOCK

Pubd 14 July 1777 by W. Humphrey, Gerrard Street, Soho.

A older woman, dressed in high fashion with a gigantic wig relative to a small feathered hat, points out her daughter to a maid. The daughter's gown is relatively plain as is her pleated muslim cap. If she is a chip of the old block to this gentlewoman it is not so much in dress as in the more sensual extravagances of the upper class. As the daughter stands by in apparent obedience to her mother, she receives behind her back a billet-doux dropped in her hand by the gentleman who stands behind her mother.

32 x 25 cm.
New York Public Library (Satyr p.28)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, New York Public Library

THE UNFORTUNATE DISCOVERY

263
From an Original Picture by John Collett in the Possession of the Proprietors Printed by Bowles & Carver No. 69 St. Paul's Church Yard, London. Publish'd as the Act directs (erased)

A short, stout gentlemen stretches to kiss a tall chambermaid who stands holding a broom as he clasps her shoulders. From his coat pocket protrudes a copy of John Wilkes' ribald "An Essay on Woman." To the left through an open door, his angry wife discovers his flirtation. This smaller mezzotint may be a take-off from an engraving,The Unlucky Discovery (BMC 4614). This impression is reduced from the posture mezzotint published by Carington Bowles "24th July 1777."

13.5 x 11 cm.
New York Public Library (BM4614A Satyr p.13)

Courtesy of the Print Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University

PLUNDERING THE TOWER

London. Printed for R. Sayer & J. Bennett, No.53 Fleet Street, as the Act directs Augt 14, 1777

A mob or crowd of well-dressed people walks away from the Tower of London having plundered its royal menagerie. The central figure is a tall gentleman carrying a sleeping lion and raising his hat victoriously. He is framed by a woman (l.) who bears an armful of lion cubs and another man (r.) who carries a lion on his shoulder. Behind him is a group of four, one of whom holds a leashed lion down with his foot and another who may help with his knee. Others are behind them, and to a left a watchman with a rifle lifts his arm either to restrain the mob or wave it on. In the background the Tower is shown smoking from the raid. Though the image is reversed so it appears the crowd is headed east, the portion of the Tower that makes up the background is the west facade. The Thames can be seen to the left.

This is an enigmatic print. Dr. Geoff Parnell, Keeper of Tower History, writes that no specific event from 1777 appears to have inspired this image and suggests a political reading, possibly "connected with the insurrection in the American colonies at this time. Possible contenders are the capture of Fort Ticonderoga or the raid by American Privateers on Glandowen in Cornwall in August 1777."

The docile lions, however, may point in another direction, also related to the policy toward the American colonists, though with a differing target: that is, the North ministry characterized in anti-government cartoons from the period as usurping royal authority in the pursuit of a disastrous policy. For instance, in this catalogue, The Wise Men of Gotham (1776) has as its background the painting of a sleeping lion as recognizable figures from the ministry kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, emblematic of the American colonies. The sleeping lion appears in other satiric engravings with a similar thrust. The plundering of the royal menagerie and its slumbering loot would be consistent with other satires directed against the ministry and its American policy that Sayer and Bennett produced during this period. The posture of the central figure could support this conjecture since the crossed feet and raised arm suggest a Scottish reel. This calls to mind cartoons in which Lord Bute figures as dancer or dancing master. For instance, in The Northern Dancing Master or Windsor Minuet 1762, published in Caretta (1990), p. 77, it is the position of the young king who dances to Bute's tune that is echoed by the central figure in Plundering the Tower. In Farmer G____e, Studying the Wind & Weather 1771, Carretta (1990) p. 92, the portrait of Bute in tartan takes on the same cross footed stance. Similarly in The Royal George's Cruise in the Year 1777, Carretta (1990), p. 248, published the same year as Plundering the Tower, Lord Bute is shown taking a stance that is virtually a reversal of that in the Sayer & Bennett print. Though Bute is often shown in tartan, this is not always the case. In The Thistle Reel, widely distributed through publication in the London Magazine, February 1775, Bute is dressed much like the figure in Plundering the Tower, reversing here as well the dancing stance suggested in the later print.

The Tower of London holds three copies of this impression. A recent acquisition by the Tower of London Museum is an undated drawing that is the likely original. Dr. Parnell writes that the drawing, unlike the mezzotint impression, is not reversed and is about the two-thirds its size. The image is attributed to the Swiss artist, Charles Brandoin(1733-1807), and the engraving to Richard Earlom (1743-1822).

24.1 x 35.2 cm.
Yale Center for British Art (B1970.3.761)