print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.8957
- Title
- Object: The widows lament,
- Description
-
Lord Eldon, dressed as a widow in a close-fitting white cap, plain and voluminous black dress with deep white cuffs, rests her left elbow on a coffin (right), holding her handkerchief towards her streaming eyes. The coffin stands on trestles and is inscribed 'The Body Of Constitution Basely Murdered [By] A set Of Villians Burke Hare Pope and C°.' He wails: ' Alas! Alas! that I should live to see this day, to witness the fall of all that was honest, faithful, and truly British in the cold blooded murder of my poor husband, the villians they will find out their error, when the Smithfield fires burn, when the punishment they deserve shall fall upon them, then they will lament the day they committed the crime, and find the want of a faithful servant, Alas! Alas! to admit a crowd of hungry papists into the division of the loaves and fishes, places, pensions, we used to keep to reward our fellow servants, it is too bad, I a poor lone Old woman have nothing left but lie me down and die.' Behind is a placard partly torn from the wall: 'Old Womans Petition against Concession 100 000 000 signed by Mrs Baggs Mrs Fubbs . . .'. The design has the black border of a broadside elegy, cf. BM Satires No. 6512. c. April 1829
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1829
- Dimensions
-
Height: 361 millimetres
-
Width: 261 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', XI, 1954)
The 'Burking' of the Constitution, see No. 15707, &c, and the petitions against Emancipation, see No. 15661, &c, are ridiculed, as in No. 15711. For Eldon as Old Bags cf. No. 12883. His wealth and supposed penuriousness are satirized, cf. No. 15396.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.8957