print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12014
- Title
-
Object: The corn doctors!
-
Series: Political Sketches
- Description
-
No. 684. On a wooden platform in front of a building, a man standing at centre (Lord Melbourne), holding a piece of paper lettered with an advertisement for 'Corn Plaister 1841.' in his left hand, and scissors in his right hand, addressing a crowd standing below at right (Daniel O'Connell, Stephen Lushington, Sir Robert Peel, Duke of Wellington, and others); a man standing next to him at left, holding up sugar sticks (Lord Russell); a man standing on wooden steps at far left, blowing a trumpet (Lord Morpeth); a man dressed as a woman watching from a window behind. 15 May 1841
Lithograph
- Production date
- 1841
- Dimensions
-
Height: 283 millimetres (approximately; top section obscured by binding)
-
Width: 379 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from 'An Illustrative Key to the Political Sketches of H.B.', London 1844:
As the public in general, even those who usually supported Ministers, expressed the opinion, that the attack on the Corn Laws was a coup d'etat, to which recourse would not have been had, but for the impossibility of the Ministers carrying on the Government with the existing House of Commons, there was no harm in H.B's sporting with the same idea, even though so solemnly denied by Lord John Russell.
Lord Melbourne appears as a Quack Doctor advertising his New Corn Plaister, and if the reader has ever seen Donizetti's Opera buffa L'Elisir d'Amore, he will be struck with the resemblance of the Premier to the renowned Doctor Dulcamara, as personated by Torri or La Blache, On the same stage, and acting as a partner in the quack business, is Lord John Russell, dressed a la Chinois, or perhaps more like a planter in the Brazils, endeavouring to vend his foreign sugar sticks. Lord Morpeth looking out of a window is the Merry Andrew of the concern.
The mob below is very promiscuous. Mr. O'Connell, impelled, as it would seemed by the force of example, and the influence of company, is shouting "No Gammon." Dr. Lushington (who was the foremost to express his dissent from that portion of the ministerial budget, which related to the admission of Slave-grown sugar,) is objecting to the material of which the foreign sugar sticks are composed. Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington are seen in the foreground; the latter exclaiming "No go my friend;" of which significant phrase the reader will find an elaborate exposition at No. CXL page 88. Lord Stanley denounces the affair as "Humbug" - and Lord Howick, in the right hand looks as if he thought it so too.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12014
