Asset number
695106001
Description
Below the title: Labourers in the W[crossed out and replaced with 'V']ineyard. 'Church and State' are on a round platform standing on three dilapidated pillars, encircled with inscriptions on scrolls. The centre one is Public Opinion, about to collapse from Dry Rot. Wellington, in uniform, tries to support it by putting one cannon precariously on another, and also by a bayonet; beside him are more Patent Props: cannon and bayoneted muskets. The other pillars are (left) Church Ra[tes] Tythes &c &c and (right) Pains and Penalties, encircled with fetters and axe, and with a projecting gibbet. They are surrounded by a ramshackle hoarding; Brougham has pushed open a door inscribed No Strangers Admitted, which an angry and gouty college Fellow in cap and gown vainly tries to keep closed with a balk inscribed Obsolete Claims; he threatens the intruder with a mallet inscribed Ipse Dixit, but Brougham advances with his broom levelled at the 'Dry Rot' in the tottering pillar of 'Public Opinion'. The crowded and insecure platform is centred by an ecclesiastical cross, on one arm of which the King, in back view, sits jauntily, arms akimbo, hands on thighs, holding sceptre (topped by a cock) and sword. He is the apex of the design, and wears a crown with uniform and jack-boots. The cross rises from a phalanx of bishops, all wearing mitres in the form of decanters. In front stands or sits a much larger bishop (Canterbury), his person shaped like a Gothic window; under each arm is a tithe-pig, and he holds a crosier from which a money-bag dangles. He is surrounded by sheaves of corn, sacks of sovereigns, and two cannon: Ecclesia—stical Can—nons. Two flanking judges sit back to back: Tenterden, the Chief Justice (left), who manipulates the scales of Justice, and Lyndhurst (right) holding the mace and extending a greedy palm (cf. BM Satires No. 15705). In the sky are three cherubs, blowing trumpets, with portrait heads, one (right) being Eldon; the second wears a laurel-wreath, the third has a bottle-nose.; contained in a copy of "First Book for the Instruction of Students in the King's College", London 1828 Etching
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