print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- J,1.168
- Title
- Object: The Free-Masons Downfall; or, The Restoration of the Scald-Miserables
- Description
-
Satire on Freemasonry, showing the procession of the "Scald Miserable Masons" in the Strand on 27 April 1742, illustrating "The Westminster Journal; or, New Weekly Miscellany", No. 24, Saturday, 8 May 1742. The procession of men wearing masonic insignia winds across the Strand in front of Temple Bar headed by boys banging a saucepan, shaking a saltbox and blowing a horn; a man waving his hat and brandishing a cudgel, and two other riding on donkeys blowing horns; next comes an open carriage drawn by six horses in which sit four men one with the head of an ape, another with the head of an ass; a coach and six with four coronets holding two men, one of whom throws coins from the window; a group of rough music players follows, shaking rattles, waving a sword, bones and pans, marshalled by a man with a baton; a man in a fool's cap rides a braying donkey which seems to be reaching for the coins thrown from the coach; another rides on a donkey with butter-tubs that he plays like kettle-drums; two men carry masonic pillars lettered, "Boaz" and "Jachin"; men holding rods ride in a cart drawn by an ass; others follow bearing banners with masonic emblems and a portrait of a "Master Mason" with horns above; another cart contains a coffin lettered, "MB" (Macbenah, a reference to a figure in Masonic ritual); more rough musicians end the procession.1742
Etching
- Production date
- 1742
- Dimensions
-
Height: 139 millimetres
-
Width: 232 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The Scald Miserable Masons' procession was held outside the City of London boundary in order to ridicule the annual procession of Freeemasons in the City.
The Westminster Journal was an opposition newspaper published from 1742 onwards, edited from 1751 by Richard Rolt under the pseudonym Thomas Touchit.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1818
- Acquisition notes
- Inscribed om verso in pen and ink, by Gulston: "No.12816" and "2s.6".
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- J,1.168
