GILLRAY TEXT
Six men, seated and standing behind a table on which are decanters, punch-bowl, &c, drink a treasonous toast. This is given by Priestley (left) who stands in profile to the right, holding up an empty Communion dish and a brimming chalice, saying, "The------ [King's] Head, here!" Fox sits in the centre, raising his glass, his right hand on his heart; he looks up ecstatically, saying, "My Soul & Body, both, upon this Toast!!!" On his right. sits Sir Cecil Wray, saying, "O Heav'ns! why I would empty a Chelsea Pensioners small-beer barrel in such a cause!!" [see BMSat 7892]. On the extreme left Sheridan bends forward, avidly filling his glass from a decanter of Sherry; he says, "Damn my Eyes! but I'll pledge you that Toast tho Hell gapes for me." On Fox's left sits Horne Tooke, saying, "I have not drank so glorious a Toast since I was Parson of Brentford, & kept it up with Balf & McQuirk!" (He had tried to secure the execution of these two 'bludgeon men' for murder at the Middlesex Election of 1768; though convicted they were pardoned, see BMSats 4223-4226.) He grasps a decanter of 'Holland[s]' (perhaps indicating attachment to Fox, after previous hostility, cf. BMSat 7652). On the extreme right sits Dr. Lindsey, with (like Sheridan) a drink-blotched face; he drinks, saying, "Amen! Amen!" Before him are two decanters of 'Brandy'. Behind Horne Tooke and Lindsey stands a group of sanctimonious dissenters, with lank hair, much caricatured; three say respectively: "Hear our Prayers: & preserve us from Kings & Whores of Babylon!!!"; "Put enmity between us & the ungodly and bring down the Heads of all Tyrants & usurpers quickly good Lord - Hear us good Lord". and "O! grant the Wishes of thine inheritance". On the wall above Foxs head is a picture of St. Paul's Cathedral; from the façade emerge the heads of three pigs feeding from a trough. This is 'A Pig's-Stye \ a View from Hackney' (an allusion to Priestley's congregation at the Gravel Pit chapel. Hackney, where he had succeeded Price). 23 July 1791 Hand-coloured etching |