"The interior of a well-furnished room with an open door (right) through which a dove-cote and trees are visible. By the fire (left) in an arm-chair is a gouty magistrate, tipsily somnolent, with twisted features. In his left hand is a glass spilling its contents, in his right a smoking tobacco-pipe; his right foot is supported on a cushioned stool. Beside him (right) is a table with books and writing-materials behind which sits his clerk, pen in mouth, spectacles on forehead, scrutinizing a group of three: a constable with a long staff between a fashionably dressed and drunken reveller and a young woman, whose dress hangs from just below her bare breasts. The constable, looking at the clerk, points to the woman. In the doorway a dog looks out and a sow looks in. On the wall over the clerk's head is a picture of an ass kicking over a statue of Justice (a 'Justass', cf. British Museum satire no. 8187); in the background St. Paul's and the Monument with other buildings indicate London. On the table by the justice a punch-bowl stands on 'Burn's Justice'. The chimney-piece is supported by two carved satyrs. Above it is a framed (?) almanack. A cat sleeps by the fire. A patterned carpet completes the design."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title from caption below image., Three lines of text below title: Custos. Nemo. Comes. Testis. Sus. Bosque. Canisque. rules for the Gender of Nouns. Custos. the Constable. Nemo. [cf. BMSat 5570] alluding to the Lady having no Waist [cf. BMSat 8569]. Comes, her Companion. Sus. a Sow Worried by a Dog. Testis, described by the Constable as Witness against the two Delinquents. Bosque, the Magistrate half Drunk or Bosky. Canisque, the Dog, referring to the Guardian of the Night in the Act of making a Seizure., Sheet trimmed within plate mark on three edges., and Watermark: J. Whatman 1805.
