- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12279
- Title
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Object: Fashions for November.
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Object: Rival lectures.
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Object: Glasgow civic honors.
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Object: New music.
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Object: Glasgow Bridewell.
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Object: Pious jaw breakers.
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Object: Life of an actress. | Auspicium meliores aevi
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Object: Cambridge sporting intelligence.
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Object: North Polar expedition. | Jack Frost; and the fury.
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Object: Life of a soldier. | to be continued.
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Series: Vol. 1. No. X. Northern Looking Glass.
- Description
-
Caricature magazine of four folio pages, the last covered in letterpress text, in the form of a (fortnightly) newspaper. 14 November 1825
Etchings as follows:
Page 1.
FASHIONS FOR NOVEMBER. (15079)
A promenade. Wasp-waisted ladies wear pelisses with balloon sleeves, and full-skirts much trimmed. Some have huge muffs. Hats have wide contorted brims, with ribbon streamers. Men wear long tight-waisted greatcoats and hats of Petersham type, see No. 13029. Below:
'What's this a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon, 'What ups and downs, carv'd like an apple tart; 'Here's snip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and slash-'
Shakespeare. ['Taming of the Shrew', iv. iii.]
RIVAL LECTURES. (15080)
Two designs. [1] 'Mechanics Institution'. The lecturer stands full-face behind his counter, lit by two single gas-jets, and with chemical apparatus, addressing an audience of working men. Behind him is a T.Q.L. portrait. [2] 'Anderson's Institute'. The lecturer, behind a similar counter, with similar appliances, lit by two double gas-jets, addresses a fashionably dressed audience of both sexes. Anderson's Institution, Glasgow, was incorporated in 1797, its nucleus being a bequest of apparatus and library by James Anderson (1726-96). One of its activities was a Mechanics' Class, established by Birkbeck in 1800. In 1823 this became the Glasgow Mechanics' Institute.
GLASGOW CIVIC HONORS. (15081)
Two designs. [1] 'Council Chambers'. Six Glasgow bailies wearing cocked hats sit or sprawl on a round table strewn with flowers or leafage, and covered by a canopy. Other men sit round it, or sprawl below. [2] 'Trades Hall'. In a magnificent room with a cut-glass chandelier a man in a cocked hat, the Deacon Convener, sits in a chair of state, presiding over two rows of artisans who face each other on benches. One, a butcher, makes a speech.
Text: The late Deacon Convener, recently presented a City State Bed (cf. No. 14693) to the Lord Provost and Bailies.
Page 2.
NEW MUSIC. (15082)
Two lines of music, the notes formed of little men. At the head of the bass clef is a Cupid, weeping. Between the lines are two lovers walking together, the man pointing to a church spire. Below:
'Young Willie loed my pounds and asked me for his bride,
'For saving his Crown, he had naething else beside,
'To mak my Pounds his ain, his Dutchess I'm to be,
'But the Crown as weel's the pounds are baith for me.'
A satire on Mrs. Courts and the Duke of St. Albans, see No. 15462. The music is a typical Scots air, appropriate to the words.
GLASGOW BRIDEWELL. (15083)
Two designs: 'N° 1. Dandy Loom'. A sailor works a hand-loom in a bare cell. (This loom, invented by William Radcliffe, though patented in 1805, was new in 1823. Mechanics' Magazine, i. 45, 1823.). 'N° 2. Pious Curiosity'. A lady visitor, sitting on a chair, addresses an unresponsive girl seated by a spinning-wheel; a slatternly woman stands behind, contemptuously putting a finger to her eye. There is a truckle bed in the bare room. The door is ajar: an inquisitive profile projects into the room.
PIOUS JAW BREAKERS. (15084)
Scene in a church or chapel. In the foreground the congregation sing with mouths wide to the point of distortion. Text: in a recent lecture Dr. Blundell instanced a Wesleyan hymn-singer who dislocated his jaw.
LIFE OF AN ACTRESS. | AUSPICIUM MELIORES AEVl (15085)
The life of Mrs. Courts depicted in an ascending series of prints, each resting on the rung of a rustic ladder, which broadens as it ascends. [1] At the base, where mushrooms are growing, is a print of a dishevelled barelegged girl kneeling to scour pots (tankards). [2] Harriot rants on a makeshift stage in a dilapidated barn. [3] Harriot performs behind the footlights, while an elderly admirer (Courts) watches from a stage-box. [4] Courts and Harriot sit together; he points to a large bag of gold. On the wall is a picture of Danae receiving the golden shower (as in No. 15458). [5] Dressed as a widow she stands among countless masses of coin and big money-bags. [6] Dressed as a widow she stands between two kneeling suitors, the Duke of York and the Marquis of Worcester (cf. No. 14424); signposts point 'To York' and to 'Worcester'. Behind the print are crossed brooms, surmounted respectively by a ducal and a marquess's coronet. [6] In evening dress she sups tête-à-tête with George IV. Behind is the motto: 'Honi Soit. . . Pence [altered to] Pense'. [7] A tiny duke stands beside the massive lady, pointing to a signpost 'To St Albans'; behind Mrs. Coutts is her banking-house inscribed 'Strand'. She holds a cord, the end of which extends above the print to a large coronet which rests on the top rung of the ladder and is flanked by empty purses. The lower rungs of the ladder are dilapidated, and backed by heavy cloud. The upper rungs are wreathed with roses and elegantly decorated, but antlers project from the ends of the topmost rung.
Page 3.
CAMBRIDGE SPORTING INTELLIGENCE. (15086)
Two designs. [1] An elderly don, of Dr. Syntax type, falls from the shoulders of a countryman who is already prone. An amused yokel stands over them; in the background undergraduates rush forward.
[2] He is carried forward triumphantly on the shoulders of a countryman, surrounded by a cheering crowd of undergraduates and others.
NORTH POLAR EXPEDITION. | JACK FROST; AND THE FURY (15087)
Jack Frost (r.), a monster with a huge head surrounded by icicles (cf. Nos. 11474, 11918), squats on the shore swallowing a ship, the 'Fury'. In his r. hand he clutches a pole rising from the sea: 'North Pole'. A second ship, 'Hecla', sails off to the 1eft; astonished sailors on deck gaze at the fate of the sister ship. The 'Hecla' is surrounded by towering ice pinnacles, ice-floes, on which are seals, and a bear. A whale spouts.
LIFE OF A SOLDIER. | to be continued. (15088)
'N° 2'. A sergeant drills four men in undress uniform in a barrack-square.
'N° 3'. On sentry duty he presents arms to an officer. See No. 15072, &c.
- Production date
- 1825
- Dimensions
-
Height: 404 millimetres (approx. page size)
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Width: 277 millimetres (approx. page size)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', X, 1952)
Notes on 'Life of an actress...' (15085):
Harriot Mellon first appeared as a child-performer in the strolling company where her mother was money-taker. For other stages of her career here depicted see Nos. 11628, 11940, 13389, and Index. She was the subject of scurrilous fictitious biographies (cf. No. 15458), in one of which, ‘Mr Percy Wyndham's strictures on an impostor…’, she was 'formerly Bet the pot girl.. .'. Cf. the 'Map' of Miss Farren's career in Gillray's ‘Contemplations upon a Coronet’, No. 9074.
'Cambridge sporting intelligence' (15086):
Text: ‘A bet was offered to any member of Peterhouse, that the said member cannot induce Dr.------to ride from St. Mary's Church eight miles along the London road in two hours, on man-back—a fresh man every half mile. The undergraduate easily induced the doctor to make the attempt, and he reached the goal with half a minute to spare, after only one accident (on 5 Nov.)’.
'North polar expedition' (15087):
A satire on the return of Captain Parry in the ‘Hecla’ from the third North-West Passage expedition, 1824-5. Both ships were forced ashore, 30 July 1825, in Prince Regent's Inlet, and he had to abandon the ‘Fury’ (for which he was court-martialled). Ann. Reg., pp. 148-50, 25i*-3*. Text: '. . . we shall have some doubts as to the intellects of our naval rulers should any further attempts be made in so hopeless a project.'
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12279
