A man sits at a table in his library leaning his head on his hand as he contemplates the sheets of paper before him. An owl sits on the table with a ink well suspended from his mouth and a quill resting in the well. A demon behind the reader holds in his left hand a staff with a jester's head (personification of folly?) and in his right a very large feather. On the scholar's feet a strewn books with words on their spines: Borrow; Boyle; Newton; Radclife; Friend; Mead, etc. Temporary local subject terms: The pictures on the wall are portraits labelled 'Cromwell' and 'Mortimer' but depict Olver Cromwell and Mortimer, Earl of March
Description:
Title and publication date from British Museum catalogue., Two lines of verse above image: Here folly, ignorance and pride combine, to prove him of the true Duncean line., Six lines of quotation below image: Studious he sate, with all his books around, sinking from thought to thought a vast profound ..., Truman's notes about the print are shelved as: LWL Mss Group 1 File 8., and Mounted to 32 x 39 cm.
Publisher:
publisher not identified
Subject (Name):
Mortimer, Cromwell, -1752 and Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744.
Subject (Topic):
Libraries (Rooms & spaces), Owls, Quacks, and Demons
