The blue devils!! [graphic]

"A melancholy man wearing night-cap and slippers sits facing an empty grate (right), his feet on the fender, supporting his head on his hand. He is beset by demons, figments of the mind, who are mostly miniature human beings. One stands on the back of his neck holding up a noose which is attached to a projection from the solitary candle on the chimneypiece, which is burnt to the socket. Another, swinging himself from the chimneypiece, offers an open razor. One standing beside the grate commits suicide, a pistol to each ear, glaring at his victim. A little gnome crouches behind the bars of the grate, to which is attached a begging-box with the notice Pray Remember the Poor Debtors [cf. British Museums Satires No. 13287]. In the fireplace is a placard: Mr--Dr to T Coke Coal Mert To 5 Chalds Wallsend . . To Do Chalds Wallsend To 3 Ch . . . £73. On the arm of the chair stands a top-booted bailiff tapping his victim's shoulder and proffering a writ. On the floor a procession walks (left to right) towards the victim, headed by a fat and pompous parish beadle with a tall staff. He is followed by three pregnant women, cloaked and bonneted (cf. British Museums Satires No. 14613, 15495). A lean old-fashioned doctor with a skull-like face hurries up behind them. Last runs a ghoulish creature with a coffin strapped to his back, holding a hammer. A monster with fanged mouth (gout) extends claws towards the victim's feet. On the floor at his side is an open book: Ennui. On a table (left) a mannikin sits on the foot of a reversed wine-glass, gleefully holding up an empty bottle and his hat. Beside him are papers: Bill for Payment Lies due at no . . . Two books on a wall-bracket form a platform for a similar creature who is gleefully painting at one of two pictures on the wall. His brush is a firebrand, a conflagration is depicted. The other picture is of a shipwreck. The books are: Miseries of Human Life [cf. British Museums Satires No. 10815, &c] (Folio) Vol. 2222 and Bucanns [Buchan's] Domestic Medicine. A third picture above the victim's head is of himself assaulted by a screaming virago with a pair of bellows."--British Museum online catalogue