"The freeholder, a ragged Irish peasant, stands full-face, between a bloated priest (left) and a fashionably dressed young man; both tug at his coat-collar. The obese priest, who wears robes, with a large cross from neck to knee, holds up a print of the Devil smoking a pipe, in the bowl of which sits a tortured man; he says: Vote for your Priest or see this picture of your Soul in the next world. The other points behind him to an eviction scene, saying, Vote for your Landlord or see the real consequence in this World. In the background is a cluster of mud huts placarded Wanted Protestant Tenants for these Cabins. Men chase away a ragged family in one direction, and a pig in the other. Freeholder: Sure I'm bother'd [cf. BM Satires No. 8141] hadent I better be after voten for both your honors id would make the thing asier aney how. In one hand is his shillelagh, in the other his hat with a tobacco-pipe thrust in it."--British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
Forty shilling freeholders only expedient for the salvation of body and soul
Description:
Title from caption below image., Print signed using William Heath's device: A man with an umbrella., Imprint continues: ... where political & other caricatuers are daily published., Questionable date of publication from British Museum catalogue., Sheet trimmed to plate mark., and Numbered in ms. at top of sheet: 193.
Publisher:
Pub. by T. McLean 26 Haymarket ...
Subject (Geographic):
Ireland.
Subject (Topic):
Devil, Peasants, Pipes (Smoking), Poverty, Priests, and Staffs (Sticks)
Manuscript, in Jephson's hand, of a parody of Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Using florid language throughout, the author explains his satiety with Dublin and determines to explore the countryside. Traveling with Dean Marlay, Mrs Greville and Mrs Jephson, he complains about the unsightly mendicants who mar the scenery; sings, along with his companions, the Beggar's Opera to pass the time; and runs over "pigs and children who were lying together in the middle of the highway." At Celbridge, he praises the landscape, estate, and the appearance of its owner, Colonel Marlay. The essay concludes with a description of the narrator's fall into the Liffey, and his rescue by catching hold of a passing cow and Horace Walpole has filled in Johnson's name and added "By Richard Jephson, Esqre" underneath the title
Description:
Robert Jephson (1736-1803), playwright and parodist, was born in Dublin. His first play, Braganza, was performed in 1775, with an epilogue by Horace Walpole. His most commercially successful play, performed 37 times between 1781 and 1798, was The Count of Narbonne, based on Walpole's Castle of Otranto as well as Walpole's play, Mysterious Mother. In addition to other plays, Jephson also wrote numerous parodic pieces, including a series in the government newspaper The Mercury under the title "The Bachelor." He parodied the style of the printer George Faulkner and criticized Charles Townshend's enemies in An Epistle to Gorges Edmund Howard (1771); wrote Extempore Ludicrous Miltonic Verses(1788); and wrote a prose piece titled Confessions of James Baptiste Couteau (1794), a satirical parody of revolutionary politics., In English., Title from first page., and For further information, consult library staff.
Subject (Geographic):
Ireland., Celbridge (Ireland), and Great Britain
Subject (Name):
Gay, John, 1685-1732., Jephson, Robert, 1736-1803., Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784., Marlay, Richard, d. 1802., and Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797.
Subject (Topic):
English wit and humor, Parodies, English, Poverty, Travelers' writings, English, Description and travel, and Social life and customs
"Scene in a ramshackle attic, with a curtained bed on the right. A family sit at a table covered with a tattered cloth, on which are part of a loaf and four small potatoes. The ragged, lean, and elderly man (left) faces his still more haggard wife. A small boy stands by his mother, a youth and little girl sit opposite. All scowl with dismay at the meagre fare. A starving cat miaows. The man recites: "O! thou that blest the loaves and fishes, Look down upon these two poor dishes, And though the 'tatoes are but small, Oh make them large enough for all. For if they should our bellies fill 'Twill be a kind of Miricle!!!""--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title from item., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Plate numbered in upper right corner: N. 9., Printseller's announcement following imprint statement: Folios of caracatures [sic] lent., and Cf. No. 11469, Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 8 for description of later state with modified imprint statement.
Publisher:
Pubd. Janry., 1807 by T. Tegg, 111 Cheapside, London
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain and Ireland.
Subject (Topic):
Irish, Social conditions, Cats, Ethnic stereotypes, Families, Potatoes, Poverty, and Starvation
