print;
satirical print;
book-illustration
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.9765
- Title
- Object: Samson pulling down the Pillars
- Description
-
Satire on the alleged continuing influence of Lord Bute and its destructive effect, an illustration to the Political Register for August 1767. Bute, as Samson naked except for a tartan loin cloth and Scotch bonnet, pulls down four pillars which support the temple of the state; one falls in pieces, the others, about to fall are inscribed: 'Accession of the House of Brunswick / Revolution 1688 / Magna Charta'. The pediment falls in fragments, from it falls a figure of Liberty, with with her staff and cap, Westminster Hall, a number of judges, a dome resembling that of St Paul's, the cross on the summit of which is held by a bishop. Other figures are falling headlong ('Lords, Counsellors, or Priests'): on the left, Lord Chatham with his crutches, the Marquis of Granby with a sword, and Admiral with a trident; on the right, the king, his crown having fallen from his head, the queen and the two young princes, two other crowns are falling as well as a mitre. The lowest objects, those which were the first to be hurled down, are Britannia, the Irish harp, and a broken anchor. Clouds and lightning form a background. Beneath the design are engraved the eighteen lines from Samson Agonistes ending 'Samson with these immixed, inevitably / Pull'd down the same destruction on himself'.
Etching and engraving
- Production date
- 1767
- Dimensions
-
Height: 133 millimetres (image)
-
Height: 192 millimetres (trimmed?)
-
Width: 110 millimetres (image)
-
Width: 125 millimetres (trimmed?)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Frederick Augustus, Duke of York (1763-1827) was created Bishop of Osnabruck in 1764.
The plate was later altered in 1773, replacing Bute with Lord North, for the Oxford Magazine X 217 (see BM Sat.5126).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.9765
