print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.10355
- Title
- Object: Shades of opposition; or, more ghosts!!
- Description
-
Members of the Opposition wearing long white robes converse in Hades, a cave of irregular shape; its mouth is the Styx (left), on which Pitt as Charon ferries Burdett towards his companions. Burdett is in his ordinary dress, Pitt wears only a bag-wig and a loin-cloth. On the extreme left. Erskine sits (egotistically) apart, with folded hands, saying: "I sigh and lament me in vain" [cf. BMSat 9246]. Norfolk, a wine-glass in his hand, asks Tierney "How the deuce came I here, can you tell?" Tierney answers: "You may have forgot you were drunk when you died!" Behind him little Lord Derby looks through his eye-glass at Pitt and Burdett. Fox and Sheridan, on the extreme right, face each other in profile, much disconcerted. Sheridan asks "How goes on affairs in the political world, how did You leave the remainder of our friends". Fox answers, "All done up! the whole of Opposition are now dead and buried!" (Cf. BMSat 9258.) Bedford, in profile to the left, behind Fox, says, "O that I had staid quietly in Bedfordshire, instead of wandering about here a poor forlorn Ghost!" In front stand M. A. Taylor, a tiny creature, his handkerchief to his head, saying: "Now I sob and I sigh Oh what a lost chicken am I!" (See BMSat 6777.) Behind is a man resembling Nicholls, in profile to the left, with a closed eye. In the distance are two lank figures wearing bonnets-rouges, perhaps two United Irishmen (see BMSat 9228). 10 December 1798
Hand-coloured etching and aquatint
- Production date
- 1798
- Dimensions
-
Height: 338 millimetres
-
Width: 504 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VII, 1942)
One of many prints on the effect on the Opposition of Nelson's victory and Irish affairs; see BMSat 9248, &c.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.10355
