" A grave-digger (l.) resting on his spade holds out in his left hand a decayed skull towards a skeleton-like man wearing an old-fashioned tie-wig, who is sitting on a rectangular tomb while he leans his right. elbow on another tomb at right angles to his seat. This man holds a scythe in his left hand, a pen in his right. He uses the second tomb as a writing table; an ink-pot stands upon it. His hand rests on two papers inscribed "Marcus Aurelius Servius Tullius . . ." and "Addison - Dr. Swift". From the jaws of the skull held by the grave-digger issue the words,"Life is a jest & all things shew it I thought so once but now I know it." In the foreground are bones and a skull; in the background (l.) a rat scampers away."--British Museum catalogue
Description:
Title from item., Numbered '11' in upper right of plate., Evidently a caricature of Lord Lyttelton (1709-73), author of 'Dialogues of the Dead'. He was noted for his thin, lanky figure and awkward bearing, see 'The Motion', British Museum satire no. 2479. He died in August 1773., Eleventh plate in the series Nature display'd both serious and comic in 12 designs dedicated to S. Foot Esqr. Series title appears only on the first of twelve plates., Another state, with altered title, of no. 5122 in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 5., Quotation from My Own Epitaph by John Gay (1685-1732)., Watermark., and Letters preceding and following dashes in title erased from this impression.
