- Museum number
- 1867,0112.15
- Title
- Object: The patriotic triad, or tried patriots.
- Description
-
Plate from the Satirist, v. 209; explanatory text, pp. 209-18. An attack on Cobbett, Wardle, and Sir R. Phillips. Truth (right), partly draped, holds up a curtain extending across the design and inscribed The Veil of Dark-ness; she also holds out a flaming torch. Behind her (right) is a ruffianly fellow (Jack Ketch) with three nooses over his arm, and holding three papers: Wright versus Wardle; Burgess ver Cobbett; Park versus [Phi]llips. From his coat pocket hangs a paper: Last Dying Speech & Confession of the 3 Tried Patriots. Three scenes are revealed by Truth. On the left is the doorway of a prison cell; a naked boy hangs by an ankle from spiked iron bars fixed (like a portcullis) across its upper part while Cobbett draws a curry-comb of porcupine quills down his body. An old woman kneels before the boy, trying to protect him, but is kicked by Cobbett, while an older boy lies on his back beside her, bound by ropes. In the centre is a witches' cauldron, inscribed Malice, presided over by Wardle, who wears goats' skins (as a Welshman) with a live serpent knotted round his waist and smaller ones in his hair. He holds a staff and a book: The Book of Lies, while 'a half-naked Hibernian', Peter Finnerty, stirs the brew. A young woman (Miss Taylor, see No. 11229) adds an ingredient, while the taller Mrs. Clarke draws Wardle's attention to happenings on the right. Reptilian monsters hover over Wardle's head, while toads and lizards crawl round the cauldron. The fire under the cauldron rises from burning papers: Morning Chronicle, Political Register, Hogan's Appeal, and Courier [the last a Ministerial paper]. In the third group, Sir Richard Phillips and a plainly dressed man face each other in animated conversation, while Phillips slyly draws from the coat-pocket of his companion a book inscribed Park's Chemistry. Phillips wears grotesquely large spurs on his buckled shoes, emblem of his recent knighthood, see No. 11081. A ragged printer's-boy capers behind him, holding a huge ink-ball (for inking type), as in No. 11081.
1 September 1809
Etching and aquatint
- Production date
- 1809
- Dimensions
-
Height: 205 millimetres
-
Width: 376 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
A satire on three recent trials: the action against Cobbett for assault (grossly misrepresented), see No. 11352, &c.; Wright v. Wardle, see No. 11341, &c.; and a Chancery case on 4 July: Samuel Parkes's book, A Chemical Catechism, printed for the author in 1806, and sold at 12s., was very popular. Phillips published a spurious version in 1809 with the title A Grammar of Chemistry, by a (non-existent) 'David Blair', sold at 3s. An injunction was issued to restrain Phillips from printing and selling the book. Ann. Reg., 1809, p. 363; D.N.B., s.v. Parkes. Hogan's pamphlet (nine editions in 1808), alleged to be by Peter Finnerty, started the concerted attack on the Duke of York, see No. 11211. Truth reveals the character of these professing patriots.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1867
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1867,0112.15
