- Museum number
- 1851,0901.1203
- Title
- Object: Visiting the Sick.
- Description
-
Fox reclines in an armchair of Gothic shape, his vast swathed legs resting on a cushion, his head against a pillow. He wears a dressing-gown and night-cap. His friends and colleagues stand round him. On his right. is Mrs. Fitzherbert, a meretricious 'Abbess' (cf. BMSat 5181, &c), holding a rosary and placing her hand under his chin; her face and breasts are covered by a large veil of transparent black. On his left. stands a bishop in lawn sleeves and mitre, a rosary hanging from his waist; he puts one hand on Fox's arm, and raises the other in admonition, saying, "O Tempora, O Mores! - Charley! dear Charley! - remember your poor Soul! - & if you're spared this time give us Emancipation - or!!!" His head is concealed, but he is identified by Lord Holland as O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath, educated as a Catholic, and a Whig pamphleteer. Mrs. Fitzherbert says: "Do confess your Sins Charley! do take Advice from an Old Abbess [cf. BMSat 10404] & receive Absolution! - here is Bishop O'Bother, 'twill be quite snug among Friends you know!" Fox says: "I abhor all Communion which debars us the comfort of the Cup! - will no one give me a Cordial?" Facing Fox, and in back view, stands the Prince, holding a handkerchief to his face; he says: "Alas! poor Charley! - do give him a Brimmer of Sack, 'twill do him more good Abbess, than all the Bishop's nostrums!" In his left hand he holds his cocked hat; in a coat-tail pocket is a pamphlet: 'Letter from N. Jeffreys'. Sheridan on the extreme right., furtive and bloated, puts his hand on the bishop's shoulder, saying, "Emancipation! - fudge! - why Dr OBother I thought you knew better!" In his pocket is a paper: 'Scheme for a new Administra[tion]'. Behind him stands Howick, in the extremity of grief, throwing back his head, and holding his handkerchief to his face. Three men stand, on the Prince's l., looking towards Fox, all weeping with raised handkerchiefs. Their heads rise one above and behind the other from the short Petty who wears a laced coat and bag-wig and has a large roll under his arm: 'New Taxes for 1806'. He says "Ah poor me! - If my Dancing-Days are over!" Windham says: "O Lord! what side can I tack round to Now!" The tall Moira says: "I must get back to Ballynahinch! Och! Och." [The allusion is to Moira's Irish estate and to Canning's verses, 'Ballynahinch' in the 'Anti-Jacobin', 9 July 1798, cf. BMSat 9235.] The three '(Ministerial) Grenvilles stand in the doorway (l.) apart from the mourners. Lord Grenville turns to Sidmouth, who is just within the room, putting a hand on his arm, and saying, "Well Doctor, have you done his business? - shall we have the Coast clear, soon?" Sidmouth answers, with sly satisfaction, "We'll see!" He holds a bottle labelled 'Composing Draft' [cf. BMSat 9849]. The spectacled Marquis of Buckingham looks round to say "O! Such a Day as This! so renown'd so Victorious"; his son, Lord Temple, continues: "such a day as This! was never seen!" In the foreground (l.) the fat Mrs. Fox faints in a small ornate chair; under her chair is a square spirits-bottle of 'True Maidstone', with a broken glass beside it. Lord Derby, wearing top-boots, bends over her, holding a bottle to her nose. He says: "My dear old Flame Bet, dont despair! - if Charley is pop'd off - a'nt I left to Comfort you - ?" On a stool at Fox's r. hand is a urinal decorated with Britannia, standing on a scroll: 'Negotiations for Peace between Great Britain & France'. On the ground beside him are a broken dice-box and dice. Behind the back of Fox's chair heavy fringed curtains are festooned, giving an impression of ducal magnificence, the scene being the Duke of Bedford's house in Arlington Street (or Stable Yard, St. James's). 28 July 1806
Hand-coloured etching, slightly aquatinted
- Production date
- 1806
- Dimensions
-
Height: 260 millimetres
-
Width: 360 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
Published when Fox was dangerously, but, it was believed, not hopelessly ill. As Lord Holland, Fox's nephew, notes, it 'does but little credit to the author's feelings'. He also notes of Petty: 'whom the newspapers chose to represent (erroneously) as dancing at all the London balls, and then to censure as indulging in an amusement unbecoming a chancellor of the Exchequer'; of Windham, 'who had changed his party several times' (cf. BMSat 10221); of Derby, 'with whom Mrs Armstead once lived as his mistress'. The Prince of Wales frequently visited Fox during his illness. Trotter, 'Memoirs of the latter Years of. . . Fox', 1811, p. 117. The Prince had been attacked by Nathaniel Jefferys (a bankrupt jeweller who had suffered from his patronage) in 'A Review of the Conduct of. . . the Prince of Wales in his various transactions with Mr. J;. . . [with] many circumstances relative to . . . the Prince and Prince of Wales, Mrs Fitzherbert, etc.', which went through eight (so-called) editions in 1806, and evoked counter-pamphlets, see BMSat 10592. It was a 'no-Popery' tract blaming Mrs. Fitzherbert for the troubles of the Princess, cf. BMSat 10363. For Mrs. Fox's 'True Maidstone' see BMSat 10549, &c. The print suggests the diverse interests in the Ministry, so that only Foxites mourn, while Grenvilles and Sidmouth rejoice. Actually, only Fox could keep these fragments together, and so in office. For Catholic Emancipation see BMSat 10404, &c.; for the peace negotiations, BMSat 10549, &c. For Sheridan's attitude cf. BMSat 10727.
Grego, 'Gillray', pp. 334-6 (reproduction). Wright and Evans, No. 319. Reprinted, 'G.W.G.', 1830.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated names
-
Associated with: Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth
-
Associated with: George Nugent Temple Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham
-
Associated with: Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby
-
Associated with: Maria Anne Fitzherbert
-
Associated with: Charles James Fox
-
Associated with: Elizabeth Bridget Fox
-
Associated with: George IV, King of the United Kingdom
-
Associated with: William Wyndham Grenville, Baron Grenville
-
Associated with: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
-
Associated with: Nathaniel Jeffreys
-
Associated with: Francis Rawdon Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings and 2nd Earl of Moira
-
Associated with: Thomas Lewis O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath
-
Associated with: Arthur O'Connor
-
Associated with: Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne
-
Associated with: Richard Brinsley Sheridan
-
Associated with: William Windham
-
Associated with: Richard Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
- Acquisition date
- 1851
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1851,0901.1203