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1. A Birmingham toast as given on the 14th of July by the Revolution Society [art original].
- Published / Created:
- [approximately 1791]
- Call Number:
- Drawings G41 no. 2 Box D300
- Image Count:
- 1
- Resource Type:
- still image
- Abstract:
- "Six men, seated and standing behind a table on which are decanters, punch-bowl, &c, drink a treasonous toast. This is given by Priestley (left) who stands in profile to the right, holding up an empty Communion dish and a brimming chalice, saying, "The------ [King's] Head, here!" Fox sits in the centre, raising his glass, his right hand on his heart; he looks up ecstatically, saying, "My Soul & Body, both, upon this Toast!!!" On his right. sits Sir Cecil Wray, saying, "O Heav'ns! why I would empty a Chelsea Pensioners small-beer barrel in such a cause!!" On the extreme left Sheridan bends forward, avidly filling his glass from a decanter of Sherry; he says, "Damn my Eyes! but I'll pledge you that Toast tho Hell gapes for me." On Fox's left sits Horne Tooke, saying, "I have not drank so glorious a Toast since I was Parson of Brentford, & kept it up with Balf & McQuirk!" (He had tried to secure the execution of these two 'bludgeon men' for murder at the Middlesex Election of 1768; though convicted they were pardoned,) He grasps a decanter of 'Holland[s]' (perhaps indicating attachment to Fox, after previous hostility. On the extreme right sits Dr. Lindsey, with (like Sheridan) a drink-blotched face; he drinks, saying, "Amen! Amen!" Before him are two decanters of 'Brandy'. Behind Horne Tooke and Lindsey stands a group of sanctimonious dissenters, with lank hair, much caricatured; three say respectively: "Hear our Prayers: & preserve us from Kings & Whores of Babylon!!!"; "Put enmity between us & the ungodly and bring down the Heads of all Tyrants & usurpers quickly good Lord - Hear us good Lord". and "O! grant the Wishes of thine inheritance""--British Museum catalogue
- Description:
- Title inscribed in brown ink below image., Date based on published Gillray print., Description of published Gillray print in Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 6, no. 7894., Description of published Gillray print in Works of James Gillray, the caricaturist with the history of his life and times / edited by Thomas Wright. London : Chatto and Windus, [1873?], p. 130., Description of published Gillray print in Historical and descriptive account of the caricatures by James Gillray ... / by Thomas Wright, 1851, no. 58., and A 'counterprint' or transfer in brown ink from another print on verso: A Birmingham toast, as given on the 14th of July by the Revolution Society.
- Subject (Name):
- Tooke, John Horne, 1736-1812, Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804, George III, King of Great Britain, 1738-1820, Wray, Cecil, Sir, 1734-1805, Fox, Charles James, 1749-1806, Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816, Lindsey, Theophilus, 1723-1808, and Constitutional Society (London, England)
- Subject (Topic):
- Toasting, Chalices, and Eating & drinking
- Found in:
- Lewis Walpole Library > A Birmingham toast as given on the 14th of July by the Revolution Society [art original].
