The Places (being a Sequel to the Posts) a Political Pasquinade (BM 1868,0808.4321)

Satire on alleged political corruption during the premiership of Lord Bute in six compartments each with a title, presumably reduced versions of ten larger prints (none which are in the British Museum collection): "Places of Honour"; "Places of Profit" (sub-divided into four scenes, "A Treasury Board", "A Pay Office", "An Admiralty Board", and "Gentlemen of his Majestys Band of Pensioners"); "A Safe Place"; "A Snug Place"; "A Miserable Cold Place"; "A Warm Place - Hell". At top left, a group of disabled soldiers stand beside a road, another sits in the stocks labelled "A reward for past services", watched by a parish beadle, while a procession of carts with flags signifying British victories in the Seven Years War carries prisoners towards a gallows; a gentleman in a long wig presides over the Treasury board consisting of five Scots seated at a table covered with empty money bags, an empty chest liying on the floor; two sailors are turned away at the Pay Office while Henry Fox converses with venal politicians; Lord Sandwich, holding his cricket bat, presides over the Admiralty board whose members are asleep in their chairs; seven recipients of government pensions present themselves, among them 'M.', Arthur Murphy (?), 'Orator S', Tobias Smollett, 'H', William Hogarth at his easel wearing a fool's cap, his dog at his feet, 'P.W.', Paul Whitehead, deputy wardrobe keeper to the king, standing beside a coat on a stand; Wilkes is in a cell at the Tower of London ("A Safe Place") holding a whip and the cap of liberty lettered "Habeas Corpus", guarded by a yeoman warder as he is attacked by four dogs and a lion chained to a pillar lettered "Magna Charta"; a couple (Bute and Princess Augusta) are engaged in sexual intercourse in a curtained bed in a grand chamber ("A Snug Place"), their clothes littering the room and a dog sniffing at Bute's breeches; a thin cook and two scullions in a miserably bare kitchen appeal to the niggardly Lord Talbot, Lord Steward of the Household, the north wind blows on them and a desperate clergyman prays while a dog begs from a Scotsman who is eating from a bowl and rats attack Talbot; the devil drives Bute, Fox, Mansfield and three other men into the gaping jaws of Hell.

Etching and engraving