print;
book-illustration;
title-page
- Museum number
- 1978,U.1889
- Description
-
Vignette with a couple standing in a churchyard, the woman thrusting her arm in the air as the man waves his stick towards a grave on the ground inscribed 'Alas poor Yorick', a boy leaning against a head stone beside smiling and pointing at the words, a weeping willow framing the image; after Isaac Cruikshank, cut from the title-page of a publication, 'Mercy Recommended, by Sterne' remains of the title above.
Etching and engraving
- Production date
- 1797-1810
- Dimensions
-
Height: 88 millimetres
-
Width: 82 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The publication is unknown, but 'Mercy Recommended' is the title often given in contemporary miscellanies and anthologies to a passage in Sterne's 'Tristram Shandy' in which Uncle Toby releases a fly through the sash window (vol. 2, ch. 12; see also vol. 3, ch. 4), including the 'Beauties of Sterne' illustrated by Rowlandson (1809). 'Alas, poor Yorick!' is the phrase borrowed by Sterne from 'Hamlet' to record Parson Yorick's death in vol. 1 ch. 12, but this may be a more generic scene linking Sterne as a sentimental author and the sentimental phrase 'Mercy Recommended'. (Information from Mary Newbould, via email, July 2013)
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Mercy Recommended
- Acquisition date
- 1891
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1978,U.1889
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 1891,1116.179
