Gillray on Sheridan

*King Henry IVth The Last Scene. November 29th 1788 (BMC 7380) In the summer of 1788, George III fell seriously ill, and when, in November, his derangement grew considerably worse, a constitutional crisis was sparked. William Pitt, the Prime Minister, and his Tory government faced a growing campaign from the Foxite Whigs to appoint the Prince of Wales as Regent - thus empowering him to act on his incapacitated father's behalf. The prince had long associated himself with Charles James Fox and the Opposition saw the Regency Crisis as an opportunity to grasp government of the country. When the political storm broke in the autumn, Fox was in Bologna, and Sheridan, becoming the prince's closest advisor, took a leading role in negotiations. Gillray here uses Shakespeare's Henry IV* as a satirical allegory for the events unfolding around the Prince and his political associates. Such depictions were common in prints of this time, as the similarities between the bard's drama and the political climate of the 1780s were indeed striking: the future George IV, like Hal in Shakespeare's two-part history play, was known for his rakish and epicurean antics, and (as many in the establishment viewed it) for the unsavoury company he kept. Here Fox, as always, is shown as the portly and ever-merry John Falstaff; beside him stands another prominent Whig, the Duke of Norfolk, as Shallow; to the right, the soldier George Hanger, a close friend of the prince's, is Pistol; while Sheridan, his face bloated, is represented as Bardolph. Sheridan reprised the role of Bardolph in a number of caricatures of the 1780s and '90s: in comparing him to Shakespeare's drunken, clownish follower of Falstaff, satirists found a succinct means of commenting on his alcoholism, social class, and theatrical connections.
*Sheridan.* June 29th 1789 (BMC 7541) Sheridan was a key prosecution speaker at the trial of Warren Hastings, the former governor general of the East India Company, which opened in Westminster Hall in February 1788. In June of that year crowds flocked - and paid up to 50 guineas - to hear Sheridan speak on the charge of the Begums of Oude (see Speeches). Proceedings of the impeachment would last until 1795, when Hastings was acquitted, and by 1789 Sheridan had little to do with the trial (which was managed by Burke), but Gillray, parodying fellow caricaturist James Sayers (hence the JS signature in the bottom right), depicts a determined-looking Sheridan clutching a paper inscribed 'Charges against Hastings.
*The Impeachment - or - "The Father of the Gang turned Kings Evidence."* May 1791 (BMC 7861) In February 1790 Edmund Burke, former champion of American Independence, shook the foundations of the Whig party that he had so long represented when he spoke with vitriol in the House of Commons against the French Revolution. In May 1791, now completely separated from the party and having published his famous Reflections, Burke spoke again in parliament and openly accused the Whigs of infighting and political deception. Gillray depicts Burke standing the over the sobbing and penitent figures of Sheridan and Charles Fox (leader of the Whigs in the Commons) whom he calls 'the abettors of Revolutions'. 'I will prove unequivocally,' Burke exclaims, 'that there exists at the present moment, a junto of Miscreant Jacobites, who are aiming at the Over throw of the British Constitution.'
*The Hopes of the Party, prior to July 14th - "From such Crown & Anchor Wicked Dreams, Good Lord Deliver Us."* July 19th 1791 (BMC 7892) On a stage in the strand outside the Crown & Anchor tavern (a well-known radicalist haunt), an oblivious George III is about to be executed. The radical John Horne Tooke holds the king's legs while Fox, hesitant and muttering 'what if I should miss my aim', wields the axe. An impatient Sheridan holds the king's head in place and looks to Fox saying, 'Zounds! I wish I had hold of the hatchet.' The bodies of William Pitt, then Prime Minister, and Queen Charlotte, hang outside the tavern; their contortions, like the position of the king, are clearly and grotesquely sexual. Gillray's portrayal of regicide would not have been possible eighteen months later when, in January 1793, Louis XVI was sent to the guillotine.
*A Birmingham Toast, as given on the 14th, by the ------ Revolution Society.* July 23rd 1791 (BMC 7894) Another of Gillray’s increasingly anti-Jacobin portrayals of prominent Whigs and radicals, this print depicts the meeting of the Birmingham ‘Constitutional Society’ on July 14th 1791, which welcomed ‘any friend of freedom’ to join in its dinner celebrating the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. However, the event sparked riots in Birmingham, in the course of which the home of Joseph Priestley was attacked, and his library and scientific equipment destroyed. Gillray captures the popular view of the meeting in his cartoon and portrays the dinner as a gross parody of the Last Supper with Priestley (in a visual pun on his name) holding the eucharistic chalice and calling for the King’s head upon a salver. This toast is met with rapturous approval by Fox, in the centre, and Horne Tooke to his left. On the right, members of the society implore God to 'preserve us from Kings & Whores of Babylon!', and to 'Put enmity between us & the ungodly and bring down the Heads of all Tyrants & usurpers.' Sheridan can be seen on the far left, surrounded by empty bottles of Sherry and broken glasses, and clearly more concerned with drink than the sentiments of the toast. He proclaims: 'Damy my eyes! But I’ll pledge you that Toast tho Hell gapes for me.' Neither he, Fox, nor Tooke actually attended the meeting.
*Sans-Cullottes Feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty.* January 12th 1793 (BMC 8290) In each corner of the print, French sansculottes are shown despoiling an area of Europe: Holland, Savoy, Germany & Prussia, and Italy. In the centre, Gillray depicts Sheridan (left) and Fox (right) forcibly cramming small loaves of bread marked 'Liberty', which are attached to the points of their daggers, into the mouth of John Bull. Both men are shown as ragged sansculottes - bare-legged and wearing bonnets rouges - and they pick the pockets of Bull while they feed him. Gillray is here responding to the French-Revolutionary regime's publicly stated intention of inciting revolution throughout Europe.
*Britannia between Scylla and Charybdis. or - The Vessel of the Constitution steered clear of the Rock of Democracy, and the Whirlpool of Arbitrary-Power.* April 8th 1793 (BMC 8320) Pitt steers a boat bearing Britannia called 'The Constitution' between the 'Rock of Democracy' and the 'Whirlpool of Arbitrary Power'. He heads towards a castle with flying a flag inscribed 'Haven of Public Happiness', while Sheridan, Fox, and Joseph Priestly (the 'Sharks' or 'Dogs of Scylla') pursue the boat. The animosity between the Whigs and Tory regime became increasingly bitter as Britain entered into a war with France and Pitt's domestic policies became steadily more oppressive. The depiction of Sheridan and his colleagues here is characteristic of Gillray's insistent demonizing of the Whigs in the early 1790s (particularly from 1793 onwards), whom he associated with the dangerous radicalism of the French Revolution.
*Patriotic Regeneration, viz. Parliament reform'd, a la Francoise, that is honest men (i.e. Opposition) in the seat of justice.* March 2nd 1795 (BMC 8624) Gillray imagines a darkly lit, ‘republican’ House of Commons in which Prime Minister Pitt is being tried for a variety of crimes against a reformed British constitution. The piece probably recalls Pitt’s remark, following the fall of the Bastille, about the reformist lobby: ‘It’s not reform they want but revolution!’ Pitt stands in the dock, barely clothed and with a noose around his neck, as Charles Stanhope, his brother-in-law, reads out the charges being brought against him: 'For opposing the Right of Subjects to dethrone their King ... the Right of Sansculottes to Equalize Property & to annihilate Nobility ... the Right of Free Man to extirpate the farce of Religion. In the bottom right of the cartoon radicals burn the Magna Charta and the Holy Bible in a stove, while in the centre, Lord Lansdowne tips the scales of justice in favour of ‘Libertas’ and in the foreground a discarded mace (symbol of the House’s authority) and a pile of ‘Forfeited estates’ are clearly visible. Fox sits on in Speaker’s throne, and below him Thomas Erskine, the lawyer known for defending Thomas Paine, demands the guillotine for Pitt. To the side of Erskine, Sheridan, also dressed as a sansculotte, acts as a scribe for the proceedings, though he seems to be more concerned with the confiscated goods lying in bags on the floor of the House, and takes note of the ‘Value of Garde-Marble.’ Greed is often the chief character note of Gillray’s Sheridan.
*Presages of the Millennium.* June 4th 1795 (BMC 8655) Sheridan, sporting the bonnet rouge of a Jacobin, is crushed beneath the hoofs of the Hanoverian horse, ridden by Pitt in the persona of Death. Pitt wields Destruction (the fiery sword) and Famine (the serpent), while an imp-like Prince of Wales kisses his bottom. William Wilberforce, who carries a paper entitled ‘Motion for a Peace’, and also Fox, are also scattered by the galloping horse. The pigs over which the horse tramples are the general populous which Edmund Burke had infamously called ‘the swinish multitude’ in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Sheridan and the Whigs, here characterized as those ‘maintaining the word of Truth’, had continued to press the government for an end to the war against France throughout 1795, though in 1798 Sheridan dropped his opposition to the conflict and patriotically backed action against an increasingly powerful Napoleon. This cartoon is a rare instance of Gillray portraying the Opposition sympathetically.
The Republican-Attack November 1st 1795 (BMC 8681) In late October 1795, Sheridan staged Thomas Otway’s tragedy Venice Preserv’d (1682) at Drury Lane. Not surprisingly, Sheridan was accused of inciting rebellion by the press; with Britain at war and the Tory government increasingly repressive in its domestic policy, the action of Otway’s play – taking a traitor as its hero and with a plot involving political terrorism, state corruption, a treason trial and execution – was too close to home for some commentators. On October 29 1795, the day of the production’s third performance, a mob attacked the George III carriage on its way to open Parliament, breaking a window of the royal coach by throwing stones and dirt. As a result Venice Preserv’d had its licence withdrawn the following day, and was subsequently banned for seven years. The political repercussions were equally severe, with the Seditious Meetings and Treasonable Practices Acts (the infamous ‘Gagging Acts’ rushed through parliament) soon following. In this piece Gillray gives us his own take on the attack, with the Royal coach assaulted by three ragamuffin Whigs: Lord Lansdowne, who aims a blunderbuss at the King, James Charles Fox and Sheridan. Fox and Sheridan are armed with clubs, and Sheridan wields his own with particular aggression. Fleeing the angry mob (one of whom has thrown a cat) the carriage, driven by Pitt, crushes Britannia in its attempted escape; the King, meanwhile, is comically oblivious to the peril. In this cartoon Gillray is alert to dangers of both civil unrest and the administration’s knee-jerk response.
*The Tree of Liberty Must be Planted Immediately!—* February 16th 1797 (BMC 8986) In one of his most disturbing and grimly ironic images, Gillray responds to a toast given at the meeting of the Whig Club on February 14th (which forms the full title of the print): 'The Tree of Liberty Must be Planted Immediately!—Something which must be done and that quickly too! to save the country from destruction.' Gillray transforms the tree of liberty, which in the political iconography of the 1790s was often figured as a pole topped by a bonnet-rouge, into a pike on which the bleeding, severed head of Fox has been placed, his eyes covered by a large cap inscribed 'Libertas'. At the base of the pole the heads of six of his followers have been heaped: these include the radical writer and orator John Thelwall (whose head sits on a copy of his Lectures), and Sheridan, whose head rests in the centre against that of the lawyer Thomas Erskine. In 1797 Gillray accepted a pension from Pitt's government, and the propagandist message of this print - that the reformist sentiments expressed by the Whigs were not only misplaced but prefaced death and destruction - is clear.
*Evidence to Character; - Being a Portrait of a Traitor, by his Friends & by Himself.* October 1st 1798 (BMC 9245) The leading Irish radical Arthur O'Connor was put on trial in May 1798 in Maidstone, having been arrested in February while attempting to leave England for France. Though O'Connor played little part in the 1798 rebellion of the United Irishmen, he had been instrumental in negotiating French military support for an independent Irish republic in 1796: negotiations which resulted in the abortive landing of General Hoche's fleet at Bantry Bay in December of that year. At his trial for treason, a number of leading Foxites stood as character witnesses. It proved to be a fatal political gamble, for the exonerated O'Connor made a public confession of his revolutionary activities in August. Gillray shows the courtroom, with O'Connor (who is not caricatured) standing at the bar in leg-irons and with a noose around his neck. His speech bubble contains a condensed version of his published confession, which is juxtaposed with the testimonies issuing from the mouths of the witnesses: (from l. to r.) the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Erskine, Sheridan and Fox. Sheridan, who holds a book entitled 'Four Evangelists', proclaims: 'I know him intimately; I treated him, & he treated me, with Confidence! - & I Swear, that, I never met with any man so determined against encouraging French assistance.'
*Doublures of Characters; - or - striking resemblances in phisiognomy.* November 1st 1798 (BMC 9261) Deploying the theory, popularized by Johann Caspar Lavater, that moral character is manifest in physical appearance, Gillray presents a number of Opposition leaders along with their doubles. Sheridan’s greed and prodigality are, in Gillray’s cartoons, his defining features and thus here the ‘Friend to his Country’ is portrayed as ‘Judas selling his Master’, a shadowy, avaricious figure who clutches his bag of silver. Fox, meanwhile, is depicted as ‘the Arch Fiend’ (Satan); the Duke of Norfolk as a drunken, Bacchus-like figure; George Tierney as 'The lowest Spirit of Hell'; the radical Francis Burdett as 'Sixteen-string Jack', a famous highwayman; Lord Derby as a 'baboon' in a bonnet rouge; and the Duke of Bedford, who had a passion for horse racing, as a jockey.
*Pizarro Contemplating over the Product of his new Peruvian Mine.* June 4th 1799 (BMC 9396) Sheridan's tragedy Pizarro premiered on 24th May 1799 (see Plays), and despite opening so late in the season it became an immediate box-office smash. Gillray depicts Sheridan standing on stage in the costume of his own protagonist, gloating over the guineas - the theatre's profits - that fill his helmet. At the bottom of the print, below the title is written: 'Honor? Reputation? a mere Bubble! - will the praises of posterity charm my bones in the Grave? - 'psha! - my present purpose is all! O Gold! Gold! for thee I would sell my native Spain, as freely as I would plunder Peru.' Gillray thus uses the success of play to reinscribe his portrait of Sheridan as an avaricious political opportunist (the play's popularity was largely due to the patriotic sentiments it expressed - sentiments seen by some as representing the anti-war Sheridan's political apostasy).
*Integrity Retiring from Office!* February 24th 1801 (BMC 9710) After a lack of support for the proposed Catholic Emancipation that he believed would strengthen the Anglo-Irish Union (which RBS bitterly opposed), William Pitt resigned in March 1801. Here he emerges from an arch marked 'Treasury' holding in his hand a paper entitled 'Justice of emancipating Catholics'. Sheridan, shown as a butcher clutching a meat cleaver, leads an angry mob of Whigs intent not so much on harming Pitt as forcibly entering the building he has vacated; only a grenadier prevents them, exclaiming: 'Your turn - no no! Whoever goes out, you'll not come in.' Gillray contrasts the violence and chaos of the Whigs with the dignity of Pitt and his orderly procession.
*Physical Aid, - or - Britain recover'd from a Trance; also the patriotic courage of Sherry Andrew; & a peep thro' ye fog* March 14th 1803 (BMC 9972) In 1798 Sheridan finally backed the war against France and is here satirized, not as a mischievous Jacobin, but as a zealous, if not entirely sincere, patriot. Sheridan, dressed as a harlequin, carries a shield emblazoned with an image of a gorgon and waves a wooden sword inscribed 'Dramatic Loyalty' - a mocking reference to the ostentatious nature of his nationalism and the theatricality of his politics. In March 1803 the king had recommended that the House bolster England’s defences in light of a possible French invasion. Sheridan, though, asserted in Commons that Britain was more than well enough equipped to deal with Napoleon's threat. Gillray thus shows him, in the face of an approaching Napoleonic armada, protecting a traumatised, disheveled Britannia and proclaiming 'Let em come! dam'me!'. Henry Addington, who had replaced Pitt as Prime Minister, waves smelling salts, or rather gunpowder, under her nose, and behind Addington stands the weary but obedient Lord Hawkesbury , the Foreign Secretary. In May 1803 the conflict (which had been suspended following the Peace of Amiens in March 1802) would indeed be re-ignited.
John Bull and the Alarmist September 1st 1803 (BMC 10088) A resolute John Bull is approached by the slouching Sheridan, shown as a ragged bill-sticker, and the wall behind him is pasted with a large number of bills, all of which prophesize imminent destruction at the hands of the French. He carries a bill-stickers pole, and under his arm are papers inscribed 'Loyal Bills distributed pro bono publico, Sherry Andrews Address'; 'Plays Bills' and a bonnet-rouge shaped like a fool's cap hang from his coat. Raising his right hand in warning, Sheridan says: 'The Corsican Thief has slip'd from his Quarters And coming to Ravish your Wives & your Daughters.' Bull, from whose coat hangs a 'List of Volunteer Corps; God save the King; Navy List; Rule Britannia', replies: 'Let him come and be D---n'd! - what cares John Bull!' On August 10th 1803, Sheridan spoke in the Commons of the need to suspend all political rivalries in the face of 'the greatest danger with which we were ever threatened'. Gillray, however, was always (and wrongly) suspicious of the patriot Sheridan. Here his rags are indicative of his insolvency, while the 'Address' he carries is the speech of Rolla's, taken from Pizarro, that was published as a handbill entitled Sheridan's Address to the People in 1803. William Cobbett wrote of the broadside: 'It has been and yet is, stuck up on every dead wall, rotten post and dirty corner of the metropolis.'
Uncorking Old Sherry. March 10th 1805 (BMC 10375) In March 1805 Sheridan made a rambling speech in which he attacked Pitt's motion to change the recruiting policy for the Army. Pitt, who had returned to power a year earlier, responded by taking Sheridan's rhetoric apart; he sarcastically complimented Sheridan on 'his extraordinary powers of imagination and of fancy' and then compared his oratory to 'a bottle just uncorked [which] bursts all at once into an explosion of froth and air. All that his own fancy can suggest or that he has collected from others; all that he can utter in the ebullition of the moment; all that he has slept on and studied are combined and produced for our entertainment...and out it comes altogether, whether or not it has any, even the smallest relation to the subject in debate.' Gillray depicts Pitt as a waiter pulling the cork from the Sheridan bottle which sprays out 'invectives, stolen jests, lame puns, dramatic ravings, fibs'. On the Opposition front bench are other politicians in bottles (from l. to r.): George Tierney, Fox, William Windham, and Charles Grey - each is corked by a bonnet rouge. Addington lies spilled, even dead, on the floor of the Commons behind Pitt. Sheridan is reported to have purchased six of these prints, so impressed and amused was he at Gillray's wit.
*Visiting the Sick.* July 28th 1806 (BMC 10589) In the summer of 1806 Fox became seriously ill. Gillray show him on his deathbed, his legs grotesquely swollen, surrounded by mourning friends, most notably the Prince of Wales, who we see from behind. To Fox's left, dressed as an abbess, Mrs Fitzherbert (the Prince's infamous Catholic wife) entreats Fox to confess, and to his right the Bishop of Meath offers stark condolences, pressing for Catholic Emancipation. To the far left Addington and William Wyndham Grenville, the Prime Minister following Pitt's death in February 1806, snigger at the demise of Fox which they whisper will leave the 'coast clear'. Sheridan hovers sinisterly at the far right, advising the bishop against Emancipation. In his pocket he carries a 'Scheme for a new Administration' and it is clear that he too foresees the political opportunities that Fox's death will bring. Gillray's print is startlingly prophetic - that September Fox did indeed die, and Sheridan gained his Westminster seat at the election which followed.
*Charon's Boat; or the Ghost's of 'all the Talents' taking their last Voyage.* July 16th 1807 (BMC 10748) Sheridan, suffering from sea-sickness, sits as a passenger on the boat carrying the 'Ministry of all the Talents' (the coalition government formed under Grenville after the death of Pitt) to the Underworld. The Ministry had resigned after its proposals for Catholic relief were roundly rejected by George III, and this failure is emblematized by the boat's sail, inscribed 'Catholic Emancipation', which has split. The vessel is almost capsized by the extraordinary weight of the passengers (the Ministry, as the name of the boat tells us, was nicknamed 'the Broad-Bottoms'). Awaiting them on the distant shore are the shades of Fox and other insubordinates - Robespierre (who is headless), Colonel Despard (executed for treason in 1803), and Oliver Cromwell. Sheridan had been in line for a higher position in the Ministry (he had been promised the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer), but Charles Grey - who Gillray here depicts as Charon - refused to agree to his appointment and Sheridan was consequently given an inferior Cabinet position as Treasurer of the Navy.