print; satirical print

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Object Type: print; satirical print
Museum number: 1868,0808.12593
Title: Object: [The school of eloquence and grace.]
Description: Pl. from 'The Satirist', ii. 1. The explanation, from which the title is taken, is allusive, leaving some points obscure. A small stage fills a recess in a large room; on the wall of the stage is a placard: 'Grown Gentlemen instructed in Eloquence & Grace by Professor Tellwell little Boys by Mrs Tellw[ell]'. The Professor (Thelwall), standing on the stage, rams a sponge on a pole (as used for cannon), into the mouth of a man kneeling on the floor below him. The words "Och, Och, Och" issue from the mouth of the pupil, who is held by 'one of his Milesian friends ... a Newport smuggler' who 'had been exchequered' (Sir John Newport). In the pupil's pocket is a paper: 'Bony a Bull for Pip Ponsy'. He is an Irish barrister, who 'wished to become a leading political orator', being cured of his brogue. (Ponsonby leader of the Opposition in the Commons.) On the ground on the extreme left, Burdett lies on his back, his head resting on the lap of Paull, who sits cross-legged, cutting Burdett's tongue with his tailor's shears (see BMSat 10725, &c). Behind stands Horne Tooke, protesting at the outrage; he wears clerical bands and a bonnet rouge. Behind this group on the left of the stage are three donkeys, 'Students for the Cabinet from Litchfield' [placard on the wall]. On the stage is a wicker coop containing geese and inscribed 'Probationary Dramatic Critics for Examiner, Beau Monde, &c.' An enormous woman, Mrs. Thelwall, stands in the centre of the stage with a birch-rod, holding little Lord Henry Petty and making him place his foot on a wooden frame for teaching beginners the five positions in dancing (see BMSat 10589). On the right corner of the stage kneels a barrister (Perceval) using a large knife inscribed 'Catholic Bill', to carve off the bulky posterior of Grenville as 'inconsistent with grace'. Grenville submits since his nephew Temple proffers a plaster of gold leaf inscribed 'Pension Plaister'. Temple kneels to apply it; he wears a tall cap of 'Foolscap' and pens (see BMSat 10721, &c). A spectacled monk from the 'monastery of Stow' (Buckingham), holds out to him a bottle of 'Extreme Unction'. Beside him stands Grey, a 'grey friar' in a monkish dressing-gown. On the right is a group surrounding a tub inscribed 'Witbread Entire' [cf. BMSat 10421]. On this stands a tall orator holding a paper inscribed 'Cop . . hag' [Copenhagen]. He is 'a Political Methodist' (Windham). Some of the staves of the cask have been removed to show 'the orator's clerk' (Whitbread) crouching within. Beside the cask (left) sits Erskine, in Chancellor's wig and gown, covering with his gown a courtesan seated on his knee. Thus absorbed he fails to see a bust of Demosthenes that is about to fall on his head from a wall-bracket. The Duke of Norfolk and Lord Derby gaze at the tub-orator. A 'red-nosed drunken-looking rogue' (Sheridan), kneeling behind Norfolk, extracts a trussed turkey from his pocket which, with a 'Norfolk Dumplin', he passes furtively to a man who holds a paper inscribed 'Management'. Others (not described) gaze intently at the orator; of these only Lauderdale (behind Erskine) and Moira (in uniform) can be identified. On the wall behind the group is the inscription: 'The Elect New Birth Grace Faith'. On the ground are two books, 'Westley's Hyms W', and 'Rochesters Poems', and two papers: 'Practical Exercises on Grace' and 'Shapes mended Broad Bottoms neatly pared and Talents improved'. On the wall are brackets supporting busts; those above the stage are 'three great modern actors'. The heads of two are cut off by the upper margin. The third is Kemble; on his chin sits 'a black-bird' (actually white). 1 March 1808 Hand-coloured etching
Producer name: Print made by: Samuel De Wilde; Published by: S Tipper
School/style
Production date: 1808
Materials
Technique: etching; hand-coloured
Dimensions: Height: 194 millimetres; Width: 350 millimetres
$Inscriptions
Curator's comments: (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947) A miscellaneous satire, with trite allusions to the fall of Grenville's Ministry, see BMSat 10709, &c, and to the quarrel between Burdett and Paull, see BMSat 10725, &c. Thelwall (see vol. vii), a leading member of the defunct London Corresponding Society, had become a teacher of oratory, soon concentrating on the cure of defects of speech. His first wife, Susan Vellum, was 'his good angel'. See 'D.N.B.' Windham denounced the Copenhagen Expedition, see BMSat 10762, &c. ('Parl. Debates', x. 69-71, &c). The man for whom Sheridan is pilfering from the Duke of Norfolk may be William Taylor, Manager of the King's Theatre (Opera), who is said to have lent money to Sheridan, and to have been returned to Parliament by the Duke of Norfolk (Farington, 'Diary', i. 210), see BMSat 8010. Feeble dramatic criticism was a feature of the 'Satirist'. Leigh Hunt's 'Examiner' (cf. BMSat 11541) is attacked; its dramatic criticisms were to become famous. The allusion to 'Litchfield' is obscure, and can hardly refer to the two M.P.s for the city.
Bibliographic references
Location: Not on display
Subjects
Associated names: Associated with: George Nugent Temple Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham; Associated with: Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet; Associated with: Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby; Associated with: Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine; Associated with: William Wyndham Grenville, Baron Grenville; Associated with: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey; Associated with: John Kemble; Associated with: James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale; Associated with: Francis Rawdon Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings and 2nd Earl of Moira; Associated with: Sir John Newport; Associated with: Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk; Associated with: James Paull; Associated with: Right Hon Spencer Perceval; Associated with: Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne; Associated with: George Ponsonby; Associated with: John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester; Associated with: Richard Brinsley Sheridan; Associated with: William Taylor; Associated with: John Thelwall; Associated with: Susan Thelwall; Associated with: John Horne Tooke; Associated with: Charles Wesley; Associated with: Samuel Whitbread II; Associated with: William Windham; Associated with: Richard Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1868
Department: Prints and Drawings
Registration number: 1868,0808.12593

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