An election entertainment at Brentford [graphic].

"Satire on the ministerial party's attempts at bribery to influence the poll at Brentford during the Middlesex By-election in December 1768. A drunken feast is taking place in a tavern with voters and others sitting round a table on which is a large joint of meat. John Horne, in clerical dress, sits behind the table with a small glass in his hand. A man crowns him with a tankard while waving his hat and shouting “Huzza for the Rector of old Brentford Huzza”. Also seated round the table are respectably dressed voters and a woman tossing back a glass of wine. At the front of the table, on the left, a large man picks at a bone, one hand reaching behind him to receive a purse from a man in court dress. In handing the purse he upsets a bottle and bowl of punch on to a dog, another dog gnaws a bone at the large man’s foot. Behind them a woman carries aloft another joint of meat towards the table splashing liquid on to a document being read by two men standing conspiratorially in a corner. On the right at the front a prosperous butcher sits at his ease turning his head towards a man offering him a handful of coins saying “Your Money & you be d[a]md here’s a bumper to Glyn!”At the same time a ragged boy picks the briber’s pocket. Behind him a unkempt drunken man flings up his arms, waving his hat with an election cockade he declares “Huzza for the Freemen of Middlesex Glyn for ever, Huzza!” while spilling the contents of a tankard on the boy. A barmaid on the right is filling a tankard from a large half-barrel while pushing away a man who tries to molest her. A cat sits upright on a chair toying with a mouse on the edge of the half-barrel."--British Museum online catalogue