The School of Eloquence and Grace vide Page 2

Samuel De Wilde pseud ‘Thomaso Scrutiny’

The School of Eloquence and Grace vide Page 2

London, S Tipper, Leadenhall Street for The Satirist. March 1st 1808

Engraving (Coloured Impression)

Repairs to old folds and margins

190 x 345mm

£160

A miscellaneous satire, with trite allusions to the fall of Grenville’s Ministry and to the quarrel between Burdett and Paull. A small stage fills a recess in a large room, on the wall of the stage is a placard: Grown Gentlemen instructed in Eloquence and Grace by Professor Tellwell little boys by Mrs Tellw(ell). The Professor, Tellwell, standing on the stage, rams a sponge on a pole into the mouth of a man kneeling on the floor below him. on the floor below him. The words Och, Och, Och issue from the mouth of the pupil. In the pupil’s pocket ia a paper Bony a Bull for Pip Ponsy. He is an Irish barrister, who wished to become a leading political orator, being cured of his brogue. (Ponsonby leader of the Opposition in the Commons). On the ground, on the extreme left, Burdett lies on his back, his head resting on the lap of Paull, who sits cross-legged, cutting Burdetts tongue with his tailors shears. Behind stands Horne Tooke, protesting at the outrage; he wears clerical bands and a bonnet rouge. Behind this group on the left of the stage are three donkeys, a placard on the wall says Students for the Cabinet from Litchfield. On the stage is a wicker coop containing geese and inscribed Probationary Dramatic Critics for Examiner, Beau Monde Etc. An enormous woman, Mrs Thelwall, stands in the centre of the stage with a birch-rod, holding little Lord Henry Petty and making him place his foot on a wooden frame for teaching beginners the five positions of dancing. On the right corner of the stage kneels a barrister (Perceval) using a large knife inscribed Catholic Bill, to carve off the bulky posterior of Grenville as ‘inconsistent with grace’ . Grenville submits since his nephew Temple proffers a plaster of gold leaf inscribed Pension Plaister. Temple kneels to apply it; he wears a tall cap of Foolscap and pens. A spectacled monk from the ‘monastery of Stow (Buckingham)’, holds out to him a bottle of Extreme Unction. Beside him stands Grey, a ‘grey friar’ in a monkish dressing gown. On the right is a group surrounding a tub inscribed Whitbread Entire. On this stands a tall orator holding a paper inscribed Cop…hag (Copenhagen). He is a ‘Political Methodist’ (Windham). Some of the staves of the cask have been removed to show ‘the orators clerk’ (Whitbread) crouching within. Beside the cask sits Erskine, in chancellors wig and gown, covering with his gown a courtesan seated on his knee. Thus absorbed he fails to see a bust of Demosthenes that is about to fall on his head from a wall bracket. The Duke of Norfolk and Lord Derby gaze at the tub-orator. A red nosed, drunken looking rogue, kneeling behind Norfolk, extracts a trussed turkey from his pocket which, with a Norfolk Dumplin, he passes furtively to a man who holds a paper inscribed Management. Others gaze intently at the orator; of these only Lauderdale (behind Erskine) and Moira (in uniform) can be identified. On the wall behind the group is the inscription; The Elect New Birth Grace Faith. On the ground are two books, Westley’s Hyms W, and Rochesters Poems, and two papers: Practical Exercises on Grace and Shapes mended Broad Bottoms neatly pared and Talents improved. On the wall are brackets supporting busts; those above ths tage are ‘three great modern actors’. The heads of two are cut off by the upper margin. The third is Kemble; on his chin sits a bird. BM 10969