A very fat gentleman on the left paying court to an ugly old lady on the right; both are seated with the gentleman with a small dog beneath his chair and a cat near his feet; the lady is holding a fan and wearing the towering hairstyle of the period. Behind them draperies are pulled aside revealing shelves of books
Description:
Title etched below image., Place of publication follows publisher's street address., Numbered in lower left of plate: 382., Variant of George 4557, without verses below design, but with imprint date present., and Contemporary pencil ms. notation identifying subjects: Mr. Mason & Mrs. Montague.
Publisher:
Printed for & sold by Carington Bowles ... No. 69 in St. Pauls Church Yard
Subject (Geographic):
England
Subject (Name):
Montague, Elizabeth Robinson, 1720-1800. and Mason, William, 1725-1797.
Subject (Topic):
Clothing & dress, Hairstyles, Couples, Interiors, Bookcases, Dogs, and Cats
"The standing figure of a man whose head is that of a double-headed animal, to the left an ass, to the right a bear. With his left hand (which also holds a whip) he leads an elephant whose head and trunk appear from the right. His right hand rests on the pinnacle of a Chinese pagoda ornamented with dragons. Suspended round his neck is the figure of a bear showing that he has the Swedish order of the Polar Star. He wears tartan trousers."--British Museum online catalogue and "A satire on Sir William Chambers, illustrating in detail Mason's 'Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knight,...' which had just appeared, and opens 'Knight of the Polar Star'; it is both a political satire and an attack on Chambers' Dissertation on Oriental Gardening and on the Chinese pagoda which he had built at Kew for the Princess Dowager of Wales. Chambers is said to have been of Scottish descent, he was born in Sweden and was made Knight of the Polar Star by the king of Sweden."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched above image., Artist and printmaker names are unidentified pseudonyms., Initial letters of publisher's name in imprint form a monogram., Verse etched below image: From North to the South, I came forth right, by favor in duplici modo a Knight, in primis an Ass, secundus a Bear, the one is a Fact, the other is a Fair., and Plate from vol. VI: Characters, macaronies, & caricatures. [London] : Pub. by MDarly, 39 Strand, Novr. 1, 1773.
Publisher:
Pub'd by MDarly March 7, 1773, 39 Strand
Subject (Name):
Chambers, William, Sir, 1723-1796 and Mason, William, 1725-1797.
Manuscript, in a single hand, of a letter from Mason to Horace Walpole, in which Mason writes that he has read Walpole's tragedic play, The Mysterious Mother, several times and has provided a sketch of alterations he believes necessary to improve the denouement. The list of alterations accompanies the letter, which consist of dialogic emendations at specific page and line numbers. At the end of the letter, a note signed by Walpole states his reasons against adopting Mason's suggestions, "because they woud totally have destroyed my Object."
Description:
William Mason (1724-1797) was a poet, editor, and gardener. In 1747, his poem "Musaeus, a Monody on the Death of Mr. Pope" was published to acclaim and quickly went through several editions. In 1775, he published the Poems of Mr Gray, a friend who was a great influence on his own work. Ten years later, William Pitt nominated him for the post of Poet Laureate, but he turned it down. Among Mason's other works are the historical tragedies Elfrida (1752) and Caractacus (1759), as well as a long poem on gardening, The English Garden (1772-1782). Indeed, Mason was an influential garden designer, designing several flower gardens for his friends and patrons, especially for Richard Hurd, Lord Jersey, and Lord Harcourt. In 1797 he fell and injured his leg while entering his carriage, and died several days later at his rectory in Aston., In English., Typed transcript available in object file., and For further information, consult library staff.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain
Subject (Name):
Mason, William, 1725-1797. and Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797.
Subject (Topic):
English drama (Tragedy), Family, Incest, Religion, and Theater
