The acquital

"Satire on the ineffectual opposition at the time of the parliamentary motion to remove Robert Walpole from office suggesting that they are motivated by self-interest. Walpole stands in a landscape assailed by arrows labelled "Ambition", "Want of Place", "Disappointment", "Self Interest", "Sham Patriotism", "affected Zeal", "Resentment", "Malice", "Prejudice", "Revenge", "Disaffection", "Want of Pension", and "Pique"; none of the arrows hit their mark. On the left opposition politicians with their bows stand or run away. They are identified in the verses beneath: Carteret, Argyll, the Bishop of Lichfield fallen to the ground saying "The D[evi]l owed me a Spite", Sandys crying "all mismanaged", Doddington, Lyttelton, Pulteney saying, "Z[ound]s I've mist him"; in the foreground, the tory William Shippen kneels laying down his bow and saying "I'll e'en not meddle"; a group of tories rushing away to left cry, "Let us make hast out"; the devil flies above them in the form of a winged pig, crying "yah! yah! yah!". In the background three men labour in vain to push a millstone up a hill twoards where another waits to receive it. On the right a group of Walpole's supporters mock the opposition, noting particularly the collapse of the Bishop Smalbroke, "Split Devil is down". Fifteen explanatory stanzas below, each ending with the chorus, "Doodle, &c."--British Museum online catalogue