Funcking the Corsican [graphic]

"Napoleon, surrounded by the Powers of Europe who puff smoke at him, dances, frantic with rage and fear, upon the head of a large cask of 'Real Hollands Geneva'. The cask-head tilts under his feet, the contents splash out, and he is on the point of disappearing inside it. On the cask are the words: 'The Fly that sips Treacle is lost in the sweet' [Gay, 'Beggar's Opera']. The most prominent smoker, nearest the cask on the left, is a fat Dutchman in bulky breeches, with a big orange cockade in his small hat. He sits on a small barrel inscribed 'Dutch Herrings' and 'Crimp Cod' and leans forward and to the right, puffing upwards a cloud of smoke. In his left hand he holds up his long pipe, his right is on the handle of a jug inscribed 'Success to his Serene Highness'. Beside him are a 'Dutch Cheese' [cf. British Museum Satires No. 9412], a 'Tobacco Pouch', three closely coiled twists of tobacco, and a jug of 'Dutch Drops' [a balsam or popular nostrum, prepared with oil of turpentine, nitric ether, &c. 'O.E.D.'; see British Museum Satires No. 12118]. Almost equally prominent is an obese John Bull, a 'cit' holding a pipe and a frothing tankard of 'Brown Stout', who stands close to the cask in profile to the left, looking up with amused satisfaction, a cloud of smoke rising from his mouth. Next him and on the right, a Prussian hussar sits on a cannon, holding a pipe with a long curved stem, and turning a grotesque profile toward Napoleon. Behind John Bull is a (?) Hanoverian wearing a helmet, puffing steadily. Above them and near the upper margin are four heads: one very close to Napoleon, emerging from cloud, is perhaps a Saxon. A man wearing a high fur-bordered cap is probably a Russian, and a profile smoking a pipe with an ornate bowl may be Swedish. The man on the extreme right smoking a German pipe may represent Bavaria. On the left, standing behind the Dutchman, the bulky King of Würtemberg is conspicuous. His antique dress, with a long flowered and gold-laced waistcoat, is reminiscent of the caricatures of his courtship and marriage, see British Museum Satires No. 9014, &c. He holds a bottle of 'Wirtemberg Drops', and smokes a large curved German pipe. Above him are the heads of two men, an Austrian and a Spanish don, probably the Emperor of Austria and Ferdinand of Spain. Napoleon stands among clouds of smoke, which also form a background to the heads. He storms: "Oh you base Traitors and Deserters. Eleven Hundred Thousand Lads of Paris [cf. British Museum Satires No. 12113, &c.] shall roast every one of you alive, as soon as they can catch you!"."--British Museum online catalogue