print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1867,0112.34
- Title
- Object: Triumphal procession of the hog in armour.
- Description
-
Pl. from the 'Satirist', iii. 1; illustration to 'A Letter to Sir Richard Phillips Knt', pp. 1-4. A hog with the head of Phillips and wearing an alderman's furred gown is carried in procession on a platform formed of a large book, 'Stranger in Ireland'. This is carried on the shoulders of Phillips's hack authors: one (well-dressed) holds 'M.S.S. Travels by the [?] Author' (probably Sir John Carr), another (in tatters) 'M.S.S. Stories for the Rising Generation' (? Tabart). Stockings and birch-rods are held up on poles, as is a (celestial) globe and a placard headed 'ABC'. A woman carries on her head a basket of 'Provisions for the Hog's Feast' heaped with turnips, carrots, &c. In the foreground two dirty and ragged boys, printer's devils or apprentices (r.), flourish huge ink-balls (as in BMSat 11359). A ragged boy sells a ballad: 'The Hog Benighted A new Song'. The procession is accompanied by men flourishing bludgeons and followed by a handsome coach, the coachman and two footmen wearing cocked hats with cockades. In a street in the background (evidently Little Bridge Street, Blackfriars), at r. angles to the procession, is a shop, partly concealed by a large placard: '[Month]ly Magazine [Richard Phil]lips'.
1 August 1808
Etching and aquatint
- Production date
- 1808
- Dimensions
-
Height: 197 millimetres
-
Width: 345 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
The 'Satirist' published a series of attacks on Phillips, who was in the public eye as a recently knighted Sheriff of London, and for the action for damages by Sir John Carr against the publishers of a book ridiculing his 'Stranger in Ireland'. At this trial (July 1808) Phillips, who had published the book, see BMSat 11084, gave evidence which was much ridiculed by the Attorney-General. The caricature frontispiece, not the text, was the occasion of the plea for damages. Phillips is ridiculed in the print as the employer of hack writers for his publications. Benjamin Tabart wrote 'Nursery Tales', published by Phillips, which were attacked by the 'Satirist' as injurious to children; he brought an action for damages and was awarded a shilling. The birch-rods are emblems of his early career as a schoolmaster; he had also been a hosier in Leicester, hence the stockings. The ABC indicates his many educational publications. The globe illustrates an allegation in the 'Satirist' that Phillips had been an astrologer. He was a vegetarian, hence the vegetables. The coach is that in which he went to Court when he was knighted. Phillips owned and published the 'Monthly Magazine'. See the 'Satirist', ii. 463-74, iii. 1-4; 'Pol. Reg.', 30 July, 6 Aug., 3 Sept. 1808. Borrow's sufferings as a hack-writer for Phillips are related in 'Lavengro'. See also BMSat 11359.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1867
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1867,0112.34
