Principal characters, in the new play of the road to royalty!

After William Heath

Principal characters, in the new play of the road to royalty!

London, T Rockliffe, 1829

Wood engraved broadside

Original hand colouring

450 x 350 mm

Loss at top right, missing part of title, repair in lower margin

£180

A rare broadside illustrating the characters from Heath’s series of The Man Wot…

Twelve reduced copies, crude and sometimes simplified  caricatures, arranged in three rows of four, each in a border, having an additional title above the design, the original title (except in No. 9) being below.

[1] No. 15732, reversed. Above: ”Tis all vel at Vindsor’. Inscription: ‘Does jarvey [Wellington] mean to start on his own account? Them leaders seem tohave it all their own way’.
[2] No. 15731, reversed. Above: ‘Achilles’ [cf. No. 14409]. Inscription: ‘Ready to start, your Honour’. Reproduced, Hindley, Life and Times of Catnach, p. 214.
[3] No. 15734, reversed and altered: Peel holds, not a cage, but a rat by the tail. Above: ‘Orange Pe—l’ [cf. No. 15390]. Inscription: ‘He made each felley turn his coat | And caught each rat by the tail’.
[4] No. 15733. Above: ‘The Cunning Hen’. The inscription is as the original, but continues, ‘or they’ll bolt with the coach’.
[5] No. 15749, reversed and with the same inscription. Above: ‘Paddy Whack!’
[6] No. 15736, reversed and altered. Above: ‘The Oeld ‘un’. His foot is on the Catholic [Bill]. Inscription: ‘I drove the Long Tail Blacks [cf. No. 15658] for fifty years. I drove your dad, your honour’.
[7] No. 15737, reversed and altered. Above: ‘A Kow-Cumber’. Inscription: ‘I say, Jemmy All-Weather [see 8], keep your eye on them fellies of the Sovereign—they’re arter no good: See they dont prig our luggage. That coach is their own, they think’.
[8] A copy of No. 15752, reversed. Above: ‘A Man of All-Weathers’. Inscription: ‘I was once a bright lad, | But now I’m a Cad’.
[9] A copy of No. 15703, reversed and altered; title: ‘The Man wot missed his mark’. Above: ‘Once in Batter sea | NoW-in-Chelsea’. His paper is headed ‘Anti-Catholicism’. On the rock are scrawled two duellists, aiming at each other. Inscription: ‘Death’s heads and marrow bones, are now my portion’.
[10] A copy of No. 15756, reversed and without the letter. Above: ‘A drive from Dublin’. Inscription: ‘One kick from the leader floor’d me’.
[11] ‘The Man wot owns the Vestminster’. Above: ‘Long Franky’. Burdett stands in profile to the left, knees flexed, regarding a small framed picture of a giraffe (see No. 15425). Inscription: ‘I used to go by the John Bull, now I goes by the Sovereign’. (The radical M.P. for Westminster as a supporter of the Ministry, cf. N0.16058.)
[12] ‘John Bull, broke down’. Above: ‘The Last Stage’. Probably based on No. 15743. J. B. stands in profile to the right, bowed under a bulky sack inscribed ‘Taxation’; he rests both hands on a stout stick, inscribed ‘Trade’, which breaks under his pressure. (See No. 15799.) Below the title: “All the World’s a Stage, and all the Men and Women merely players” [‘As You Like It”, 11. vii].