- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12285
- Title
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Object: Vol. 1. No. XVI. Northern Looking Glass.
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Object: Radical race.
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Object: British field sports.
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Object: Rowland Hill, and his organist, or pious discords.
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Object: The unknown known.
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Object: Life of a soldier.
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Object: The cat concerts.
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Object: The arrival.
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Object: Pictorial dictionary. | Ad. [continued from BM Satires 15109]
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Object: Life of a sailor.
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Object: All in the dumps, or long faces on Change.
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Object: Sign of bad times.
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Object: St. John's Church, Glasgow.
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Object: The pig's foot.
- Description
-
Caricature magazine of four folio pages with etched illustrations on the first three, the last letterpress only. 20 February 1826
Etchings as follows:
Page 1
RADICAL RACE (15318)
Hunt's son, fashionably dressed as an amateur whip, [He wore 'a white upper tog and cord kickseys, ... a regular four-in-hand tile, and had all the air of a swell dragsman of the first water' (p. 4)] drives (1. to r.) his father's blacking van with four galloping horses across the frozen Serpentine. Two men in livery in the dickey blow trumpets. There is a crowd of admiring spectators. The van is inscribed 'Hunt's Radical [replacing 'Matchless'] Blacking' [see No. 15150].
The exploit was for a bet of 100 guineas with 'a noble lord'; Hunt helped his son by pointing out the best route. There is a lithograph of this subject (Crace Coll., 'Frost Fairs'). A drawing of one of Hunt's vans or carts is in the Scharf Coll., vol. ii.)
BRITISH FIELD SPORTS (15139)
'5'. Smock race: women race for a chemise, displayed on a pole, outside an
inn: the Goose and Gridiron.
'6' Grinning through a horse-collar: two yokels, one bandy-legged and fat, the
other knock-kneed and thin, perform on a small platform. A man holds a hat
(? the prize) on a pole. Cf. No. 9473.
ROWLAND HILL, AND HIS ORGANIST, OR PIOUS DISCORDS (15320)
Rowland Hill, in gown and bands, kicks a man with a box-organ strapped to his back; he holds up a paper : '40 Gs Pr An'. Behind him is his chapel. Across the road, in front of a church (St. John's, Waterloo Road), stands a fat and jovial parson, displaying a paper: '70 Pr An'.
A satire on the 'saintly cant' revealed in a pamphlet by Benjamin Jacob, late organist at the Surrey Chapel, at 40 guineas a year. He was tempted to leave Hill's chapel for the new church by a salary of 70 guineas with permission to play once a Sunday at the chapel. Jacob (1778-1829), a fine executant, was thereupon expelled by Hill who attacked him in the pulpit. See Jacob, 'A Statement of Facts relating to the Expulsion of Mr. Jacob from the Organ of the Surrey Chapel…', 1825 and D.N.B.
THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (15321)
The (puzzled) head and arm of Scott emerges from a heap of books, from which emerge also four pairs of legs, and a hand holding a constable's staff, the shoes, trousers, &c, perhaps indicating different aspects of Scott: the lawyer, the author, the publisher (with Constable), and the laird. An obese John Bull, on tiptoe, gapes in amazement. The beams of a rising (or setting) sun radiate from behind the pile. Book titles: 'Tales of my Landlord'; '[Mid] Lothian'; 'Crusader'; 'Ivanhoe'; 'Guy Mannering'; 'Redgauntlet'; 'Rob Roy' [in reversed characters]; 'Kenilworth' [twice]; 'Waverley'; 'St Ronans Well'; 'Mr [or Mrs] Gran [sic]'; Prentice Essay [? 'Malachi. . .', see No. 15417]; 'Nigel'. See No. 14825.
Page 2
LIFE OF A SOLDIER (15322)
'11'. As an ensign, see No. 15312, carrying a standard, he leads a storming party into the cannon's mouth, and against French bayonets.
'12'. Promoted Adjutant, he inspects a platoon.
THE CAT CONCERTS (15323)
Two cat-headed (male) vocalists stand together, performing at an evening party, guests in the background. Perhaps a satire on Velluti, see No. 14879.
THE ARRIVAL (15324)
A disgruntled John Bull, his dress disarranged, stands beside his baggage, hands in his breeches pockets. Below: 'You never ketches me aboard a Steam boat no more - that ere birth's almost been the death on me. - '. See No. 15051.
PICTORIAL DICTIONARY. | AD (15325).
(continued from No. 15109) [1] The first of six designs in two columns: 'Advantage | Superiority gained by stratagem'. A stout woman belabours a much smaller man whose hands are tied behind his back. [the remaining designs illustrate the words, 'Add', 'Adult', 'Adventure', 'Adopt', 'Adorn']
Page 3
LIFE OF A SAILOR (15326)
'N° 1'. An old Greenwich pensioner with a wooden leg sits at an inn-door watching his little boy sail toy ships in a pond (a British ship with a French prize in tow). The inn is the 'Lord Nelson'; sign a H.L. portrait, with pipes, tankard, &c. On the wall is a careful drawing of the 'Victory'.
'N° 2'. The pensioner presents the boy, who wears nautical jacket and trousers, to his former commander, a burly officer on the deck of his ship. See No. 15335.
ALL IN THE DUMPS, OR LONG FACES ON CHANGE (15116)
Five stockbrokers with large heads and elongated features, one a bearded Jew in a gabardine, stand in a semicircle, registering dismay.
(For the financial crisis see No. 14814, &c. Apparently based on No. 10604, by Woodward.)
SIGN OF BAD TIMES (15117)
Two men face each other across a bowl of punch and decanter of spirits. One (left), reading a newspaper: 'So they are going to pull down Carlton House. What can that be for?' The other: 'Hout man! they're wanting stanes for the new hoose, and havena' the siller to sed for Scotland for 'em.'
While Buckingham House was being transformed into Buckingham Palace, Carlton House was being pulled down, partly so that the site could procure funds for the new palace. Parl. Deb. , N.S. xiii. 1122; Summerson, 'John Nash', 1935, p. 242 f.
ST JOHN'S CHURCH GLASGOW (15327)
A neo-Gothic church with a square tower has a weathercock on which a minister in gown and bands is transfixed. Holding out his hat he looks down at a bird on the branch of a withered tree (r.). On the 1. is a placard: 'Theatre Royal - Know your own Mind'. Inscription : 'A little bird sang from a Spray \ He that will not when he may | When he will - he shall have Nay'.
Text: Mr. Russel of Muthil, recently accepted from the Glasgow magistrates an appointment to the parish of St. John's - then refused, then expressed regret at the refusal, and a second time refused. See 'Sermons of John Russel, Minister of Muthil', with biographical sketch by T. Chalmers.
THE PIG'S FOOT (15328)
A bearded Jew sits in a chair, held there by a fat landlady, while a man puts a pig's foot into his mouth. Five amused men, one in private's uniform, look on.
The perpetrator, one John Shepheard, keeper of a billiard-table, was successfully prosecuted for assault by Abraham Jacobs, a hawker of pencils (despite evidence denying the assault and putting the blame on Jacobs).
- Production date
- 1826
- Dimensions
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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)
William Heath's fortnightly 'Glasgow [soon 'Northern'] Looking Glass ran from June 1825 to April 1826 and was a prelude to the better-known monthly 'Looking Glass' published by McLean from 1830 (George, p. xix)
George's explanations of individual etchings follow their descriptions.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12285
