A satire of a Gretna Green marriage, taking place in front of smithy's shop. Erskine, disguised in woman's dress with a huge feathered bonnet over a barrister's wig, holds the right hand of a demure-looking woman, modishly dressed and apparently pregnant. He holds a paper: 'Breach of Promise'. With them are three young children. The smith wears Highland dress; he holds a red-hot bar on the anvil and raises his hammer, saying, "I shall make a good thing of this Piece at last." Erskine says: "I have bother'd the Courts in London many times, I'll now try my hand at the Scotch Bar--as to Miss C-- she may do her worst since I have got my Letters back." The woman says: "Now who dare say, Blacks the White of my Eye." In the background (right) a young woman rushes down a slope towards the smithy, shouting, "Oh Stop Stop Stop, false Man, I will yet seek redress tho you have got back your letters--" Beside her is a sign-post pointing 'To Gretna Green'. A little boy with Erskine's features, wearing tartan trousers, stands on tip-toe to watch the smith; on the ground beside him is a toy (or emblem), a cock on a pair of breeches. A little girl stands by her mother nursing a doll fashionably dressed as a woman, but with Erskine's profile. Another boy with a toy horse on a string stands in back view watching 'Miss C'. Behind the smith is the furnace; on the wall hang many rings: 'Rings to fit all Hands.'
Alternative Title:
More legitimates
Description:
Title etched below image. and Printed on paper watermarked "1818".
Publisher:
Pubd. Feby. 4th, 1819, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly & 312 Oxford Street
Subject (Geographic):
Scotland, Gretna Green, Gretna Green (Scotland), and Gretna Green.
Subject (Name):
Erskine, Thomas Erskine, Baron, 1750-1823, Erskine, Sarah Buck, Baroness, -1825, and Erskine, Thomas Erskine, Baron, 1750-1823.
Subject (Topic):
Elopement, Breach of promise, Elopements, Ethnic stereotypes, Forge shops, Metalworking, Furnaces, Anvils, and Hammers
"Kean, in the costume of Sir Giles Overreach, stands on the stage, indicated by a boarded floor surrounded by flame and smoke from the jaws of a semicircle of ferocious monsters, serpentine, scaly, and fanged, and with glaring eyeballs. The largest and most menacing is the Old Times, emitting Gall, Spite Venon [sic] Hypocricy. Towards this Kean directs his levelled rapier, saying, By the powers of Shakspeare, I defy ye all. He holds above his head a large open book: Shakspeare, which is irradiated. Almost as large as the 'Times' is the pendant to it: New Times, vomiting Hypocricy. The other monsters are not specified, they spit flames inscribed respectively: Spleen; Cant; Malignity; Slander; Spite; Envy; Malice; Nonsence; Oblique."--British Museum catalogue and A comment on the backlash in the press regarding the Cox vs. Kean trial, in which Kean was accused of adultery with Robert Albion Cox's wife, Charlotte Cox. Kean gave a speech at Drury Lane, Jan. 28 1825, in which he offered himself up to the audience: "If it [the backlash] is done by a hostile Press, I shall endeavour to withstand it -- if it is your verdict, I shall bow to your decision, remember with gratitude your former favours, and leave you" (quotation from the British Museum catalogue).
Alternative Title:
Shakspeare in danger and Shakespeare in danger
Description:
Title etched below image., George Cruikshank might have collaborated with Robert Cruikshank in the production of this print; see British Museum catalogue., Quoted text following title: "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow - thou shalt not escape calumny" - Hamlet., and Matted to 37 x 49 cm.
Publisher:
Pubd. Feby. 1825 by J. Fairburn, Broadway, Ludgate Hill
Subject (Name):
Kean, Edmund, 1787-1833,, Kean, Edmund, 1787-1833, and Kean, Edmund, 1787-1833.
Subject (Topic):
Performances, Actors, British, Stages (Platforms), and Monsters