print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.9185
- Title
- Object: The Richmond patent [altered to] paton singing bird in Covent Garden.
- Description
-
A scene on the cobbles of Covent Garden, a corner of the Piazzas (left) and a market shed (right), forming the background. Miss Paton (Lady William Lennox) and Lord William Lennox walk arm-in-arm (left), right to left and diagonally forward, preceded by a little chimneysweep, who cries Soot-o—No Suit. He carries a small pair of (ringless) pattens; she looks towards him, saying, my Patten my Dr Lord is as bad as thine they both lack Rings. He walks along, singing: In Lincoln they say I'm not single Will! | In London I swear I'm a Batchelor still. Near them, and in the centre of the design, walks a fat bare-armed market woman, one of a group of market people (right), who says: Lord Willie vat does you ax for them Pattens wt Rings. A man in a long smock says to her: Pattens by my Sweet Judy (and faith honey that isn't my wife) he'll soon find them out to be Clogs. A second man says: Clogs! now Paddy & what should they want of Clogs now doesn't she keep the Common Garden Patin Stage? A black man with a wooden leg and crutch (? Billy Waters), holding up his hat says: Ah dat is goot, dat is true, & she does frank my Lord the inside place too. On the arcade are many bills: [1] (torn) Sunday Times Ld W. Lennox & . . . ton were seen crossing Covt Garden Markett!!! [2] A new Song by Bishop [see BM Satires 14709] intituled "I Flourish in the Rose" also a solemn Dirge called The Rosebud both dedicated wt permission to Lord W. Lennox ['Je fleuris dans la rose' is the Lennox motto]. [3] Covent Garden The Managers beg to inform the Nobility & Gentry that the Fair Penitent is in course of rehearsal Miss Paton principal Character. [4] Drury Lane this Evens False Vows. [5] Foote v Hayne £3000 full true & minute account of the Trial [see BM Satires 14711, &c.]. [6] lohn Bull next Sunday interesting particulars of a dinner at wch Lady Lennox health was drank. [7] Drury Lane this Eveng False Vows. 1825?
Hand-coloured lithograph
- Production date
- 1825
- Dimensions
-
Height: 278 millimetres
-
Width: 326 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', X, 1952)
Mary Ann Paton (1802-64), opera-singer at Covent Garden, married, 7 May 1824, Lord William Pitt Lennox, but continued to sing under her maiden name, causing speculations as to the validity of the marriage, which was quasi-secret. John Bull made repeated allusions to the marriage, trying to elicit an explanation, e.g. 18 Aug. 1824, in order that 'if it be incorrect, it may be corrected by authority'; 21 Aug. 1825: 'the Lady William Lennox of private life continues to be called Miss Paton on the stage . . . because, it is apprehended that the proper announcement of her marriage would destroy the interest now felt for her'. The Times, 20 May 1826: 'If Miss Paton is married, what must that husband be who lives on a profession which it is evident she must loathe: why does he not acknowledge her and take her from the stage.' The puns on Paton, patten, and patent, include allusions to Covent Garden as a patent theatre, to the Lennox family as descendants of Charles II and to the Richmond patent, or shilling: the grant to Louise de Quérouaille and her descendants of a tax on coals entering the Port of London (damaging to the Duke of Richmond politically in 1780 and 1788-9, see Nos. 5650, 7393, &c). Lady W. Lennox was again caricatured on her elopement in 1830. See also No. 14873.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.9185
