The Hydra

Method Copper engraving
Artist [Anonymous]
Published Design'd & Engrav'd for the Political Register [London, 1770]
Dimensions Image and Sheet 185 x 112 mm
Notes A political satire on the alliance of Chatham, Temple, and Rockingham in the final days of the Grafton Ministry in January 1770, published for the Political Register of that month. The scene makes use of the classical fable of Hercules and the Hydra, a beast whose heads when cut off would grow back in duplicate. The beast in the scene stands over a stricken Britannia, its claws grappling for its fallen prey, as the Lady's shield lies discarded beside her. Four of the Hydra's heads are identifiable. At top, with a long pointed beak and judge's wig, is William Murray, Lord Mansfield, whose barbed tongue snakes forth towards his arch-rival William Pitt the Elder, Lord Chatham, who brandishes his crutch above his head, preparing to smite the leering head of the Earl of Bute, who, like Mansfield, wears a Scotch bonnet. Behind Bute, the howling face of Henry Fox, Lord Holland, is appropriately a fox in a periwig. The final identifiable head is that of the Duke of Grafton, leader of the outgoing Grafton Ministry, who wears the horns of a cuckold due to his wife's well publicised affair with the Earl of Upper Ossory, to whom she was pregnant when their divorce became public. Grafton and Mansfield in particular had been singled out by the invectives known as the Junius Letters, a major factor in stirring up the public mood against the Government and bringing about the fall of the Grafton Ministry. In addition to Pitt and his crutch, the well-known emblem of his gout, the other two defenders of the ailing Britannia are Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquess of Rockingham, at front, and behind him and Pitt, Richard Grenville-Temple. Both men hold their rapiers ready for the fight. Forks of lightning split the sky, threatening to strike the beast, while in the distance, the rays of sunshine augur a potentially brighter future for the nation.

BM Satires 4370

Condition: Trimmed to within plate and laid to old album page. Minor discolouration and chips to edge of sheet.
Framing unmounted
Price £100.00
Stock ID 52962

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