- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12269
- Title
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Object: Vol. 1. - No. 1. Glasgow Looking Glass. | Prospectus.
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Object: Fashions for Iune. | Trongate. 3 o'clock
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Object: Poetry.
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Object: Politics. | Internal state of Spain
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Object: Fac-similes.
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Object: Scientific society. | Numpskulls and bumpskulls.
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Object: Projected improvement..
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Object: New music. ! In the key of A. Major.
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Object: Musical tuition. | Illustrated with an appropriate example.
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Object: Advertisements.
- Description
-
Lithographic caricature magazine of four folio pages, the last blank (in later numbers covered with lithographed or letterpress text), in the form of a (fortnightly) newspaper; illustrations as follows. 11 June 1825
Page 1.
PROSPECTUS (14777)
A confused medley of figures varying in scale illustrates the topics of the day. At the summit is a chest, containing a steam-packet floating on water which pours from the chest and a dandy driving a gig, the horse leaping from the box. A mail-coach is driven catastrophically downwards, and tiny men and women are falling off. A tailor rides a goose. On a much larger scale are four figures immediately below the chest: the legs and posterior of George IV as in No. 13744 project from behind it. A fat bishop towers above a dustman, who rings his bell and shouts, and above Brougham who holds up a brief-bag and gesticulates. A Highlander falls head first. Between these four is a big watch, the time 12.20.
Below is the central group : the autocratic sovereigns of Europe upon the North Pole of a terrestrial globe. The King of Prussia sits upon shackles ; the Emperor of Austria looks over his shoulder ; beside him is Charles X in coronation robes: Alexander stands, looking to the r., his arm linked with that of Ferdinand VII (see No. 14497, &c). The last has the head of a mule, crowned, and holds out a frilled petticoat (as allegedly made by him, see No. 12508). Behind the sovereigns are bristling bayonets (1.); the Devil peers from behind the globe, holding his trident towards Ferdinand. The sovereigns, the Bourbons excepted, are in uniform; four crowns are falling ; and a tiny king and queen fall head first towards clouds encircling the equator. Britannia is poised below, her spear directed towards the autocratic sovereigns. She is held up by a fat John Bull with empty pockets, a ragged Irish peasant with a sickle, and a Scot in Highland dress. Behind them are ships with furled sails.At the base of the design are cats escaping from a bag, an artisan pushing a laden wheelbarrow, a fat parson holding a tithe-pig and a book, a grave-digger, and arrows transfixing a fool's head on an easel. Little figures form a lateral border to the main design. Two doctors inspect a dead man seated in a chair; a grinning undertaker takes the arm of a skeleton (Death). A chemist sits over a retort; an author at a table lacks inspiration. Below are playing-cards, a mace, a caged bird, and a prison. On the r. a sinister head with snaky locks ( ? Discord) looks from clouds. Heads gaze up at a preacher ranting from a tub. Below him is a set of stocks.
FASHIONS FOR IUNE. | Trongate. 3 o'clock (15017)
A promenade. Ladies with enormous Leghorn hats (cf. No. 15183) and sweeping skirts held up in front to display the leg. Dandies with wide-brimmed hats, the crown like a truncated cone.
POETRY (15018)
Heading to verses, a mummy-case, with a handsome Egyptian head, side by side with the case open to reveal a leering mummy: College Museum Glasgow. Tail-piece (p. 2): a ghost springs from a mummy-case, terrifying a traveller; below, a view of Sphinx and Pyramids.
Page 2.
POLITICS I INTERNAL STATE OF SPAIN. (14778)
Scene in church, before a life-size and life-like figure of a burlesqued and meretricious-looking Virgin, who stands between a big lighted candle and a flat candlestick and snuffers. On her skirt are the royal arms of Spain and the inscription 'Worked by his most Pious Majesty'. She gazes down in astonishment at Ferdinand VII, who has a mule's head and kneels, pointing to his wife, who stands, in an advanced state of pregnancy, and also to a heap of decollated heads beside a paper: 'Constitutional Offering', signed 'Ferdin[and]'. He wears a crown and slashed doublet and breeches; round his neck is a rope held by a fat friar who leers lasciviously at the Queen. On the King's shoulder stands a tiny demon-soldier who pricks him with his bayonet. Behind the Queen stands the Pope, holding a bunch of bags inscribed: 'Tenpennies; Catholic Rent [see No. 14766, &c]; Communications from Prelates; O'Connel'. A heavy sword hangs by a thread just above the King's head. A tiny Mercury, with caduceus and purse, dances behind the candle-flame. On a shelf behind the Pope are figures (? ex-votos) of birds and animals. From a Gothic arch in the background dangle four hanged men. Below: '"The Queen of Spain is in a state of Pregnancy; the King has been to the Statue at \ "Aranjuez, and made a vow, that if he is blessed with a son, he will offer up as a \ "Sacrifice all the Constitutionalists in his dominions." Madrid Gazette'.
FAC-SIMILES. (14779)
Whole-length portraits of Fox and Napoleon, talking together, and of George III addressing Pitt. The King wears hunting-dress and holds spy-glass and whip. Below are facsimile signatures of the four men.
SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. | Numpskulls and Bumpskulls. (15019)
Four phrenologists sit at a table, astonished at the wildly misshapen skulls they are inspecting. Cf. No. 15191.
Page 3.
PROJECTED IMPROVEMENT. (15020)
In the foreground is a market, a penthouse roof surrounding three sides of a rectangle. This is supported on vaults, containing coffins and very lively skeletons. Ghosts shoot up through the ground into the centre of the market, scattering the crowd of shoppers, &c. Behind is a large Gothic church.
NEW MUSIC | In the Key of A. Major. (15021)
A street musician using two sticks for fiddle and bow.
MUSICAL TUITION | Illustrated with an appropriate example. (15022)
An Irishman stands on the pavement playing a fiddle.
ADVERTISEMENTS. (15023)
Seven little scenes illustrate advertisements ; the sixth: To be let \ For Dung-steads, and all other nuisances Apply to the Proprietors, or at the Police Office. A view of George Square, the centre surrounded by broken railings with a battered statue of Sir John Moore in the foreground, which ragamuffins are pulling down ; washing hangs on a line, a carpet is being beaten, a pig routs in garbage. See Nos. 15071, 15339.
- Production date
- 1825
- Dimensions
-
Height: 404 millimetres (approx. page size)
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Width: 277 millimetres (approx. page size)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', X, 1952)
Notes to 'Prospectus' (14777):
A survey of the scope and character of Heath's paper, which contains political, topical, and social caricatures, with an occasional print (not described) illustrating without ridicule the news of the day. The make-up and contents of a newspaper are pictorially and punningly illustrated (cf. No. 14207). Nos. I-VII are lithographed. Each has a different vignette heading, always, with a looking-glass motif, and the motto 'Palmam qui meruit ferat' [Nelson's, punningly used]. The first is the head and shoulders of a jester looking from behind a dressing-table glass which he holds up. On the first five numbers of the Mitchell Library (Glasgow) copy is a red stamp in imitation of the newspaper stamp (see Nos. 13290, 14231) composed of a cluster of double heads (see vol. vi, p. xiii; vol. viii, p. xxxvii): a full face surrounded by six profile heads (twelve profiles). Inscription: 'Some of the Nobs. Absit Invidia. Premium 50 Per Cent'. (Photostat in Print Room.)
'Politics...' (14778):
A satire on the terrible vengeance taken by Ferdinand on the Liberales after his reinstatement (1 Oct. 1823), see No. 14497, &c. The Queen, his third wife, died in 1829, and he was childless until his fourth marriage. The friar is probably his confessor, Saez (dismissed owing to foreign protests), whom he placed at the head of the Ministry on his reinstatement. Cf. No. 13009.
'Projected improvement' (15020)
A satire on Mr. Cleland's project for converting the whole of the burying ground of St. David's into 'one grand vaulted cemetery, similar to the crypt of that church ; the spandrils ... of the grand arches to be paved, and the area . . . thus formed to be used for market purposes'. Strang, Glasgow and its Clubs, 1857, p. 514 n. Cf. No. 15339.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12269
