The Tree of Corruption ,-with John Bull hard at work.

Thos Humphrey aged 13 Years [ James Gillray]

The Tree of Corruption ,-with John Bull hard at work.

London, H Humphrey June 22^nd 1796

Etching

Original hand colouring

355 x 250 mm

Trimmed within platemark

£750

A rare, early Gillray.

A very fat John Bull (right), in profile to the left, tugs hard at a rope which is round the fork of a tree, trying hard to pull it down, his left foot planted on the trunk. In the branches are the heads of Dundas (left) and Pitt (centre) in profile to the right, and of (?) Loughborough looking towards Pitt and wearing a collar inscribed ‘To be Killed off’. Dundas, wearing a tartan neckcloth, is plethoric, Pitt drink-blotched and smiling. Near the heads are three money-bags: ‘Sinecures’, ‘Treasury Pickings’, ‘Secret Service Money’, and a scroll, ‘Pensions’. Against the trunk (left) lies a headsman’s axe. Beneath the title: “Yes, honest John! by your Pulling, you have Shaken it! – pull again & it will Totter, pull once more, & it will fall” – Vide Horne Tooke Speech Answer to Horne Tooke
” You may pluck up a Hazel & pull up a Pea,
But there ne’er was a Man, that could pull down a Tree
And so Honest John if you’d pluck off the Fruit,
Leave pulling alone, lay the Ax to the Root!’