Richmond Hill [graphic]

"Holiday-seekers driving and walking along a high-road with a margin of grass, evidently the Sunday crowd of 'cits' so often described in contemporary satire. The chief group is a high phaeton of fashionable shape, but attached to two miserable hacks, who refuse to move, though they are being dragged at the head by a man with a long whip. The driver, who wears a looped hat and top-boots, kneels in the phaeton leaning forward over the horses and raising his (broken) whip with an expression of fury. His companions are two ladies of pleasure who sit one on each side of him. The one on his right holds up the top of the broken whip, its lash streaming behind her. The other, smiling, holds his left arm as if to prevent his falling from the carriage in his excitement. On the panel of the phaeton are the initials "ON". This carriage-full has just been passed on the right by a fashionably dressed man driving (right to left) a high-stepping horse in one of the new high two-wheeled gigs, see British Museum Satires Nos. 5933, 6146. He looks round at them laughing. Behind (right) is a hackney coach (number 251) driving from left to right, the horse being cut off by the margin of the print. A woman seated on the box holds the rein. Through the window over the door (it has no side windows) is seen a man seated with his back to the horse. A man sits on the roof looking through a telescope. Riding in the same direction (left to right) on the off-side of the hackney coach are an elderly man on a long-tailed cob or pony and a pretty young lady on a white horse. A spaniel runs behind them. In the foreground are pedestrians. A man stands in back view, legs apart, gazing at the stationary phaeton. On the extreme left a dejected-looking man and his wife walk wearily along. He wears a handkerchief tied round his head, under his hat, she holds his wig in her left hand, her right hand rests on the small of his back. He is carrying his stick in one hand, in the other a large bouquet of flowers in a paper sheath. Two dogs approach each other. Behind the two pedestrians, a man on horseback is in difficulties, his reins are slack and he holds the mane of the horse, which appears to be about to advance across the road in front of the advancing gig. In the background is a park-paling with trees showing above it."--British Museum online catalogue