A rotund doctor, holding a cane under his arm and wearing a wig, looks at his watch as he takes the pulse of very thin man in a dressing gown and night cap who jumps on one leg and wears a look of pain on his face. Above the doctor's head: "You are bespoke!!"
Description:
Title from caption below image., Date from ms. notation below image., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., and Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires.
Title etched in open letters below image., Description based on imperfect impression; sheet trimmed within plate mark with loss of first letters in title. Missing letters supplied in contemporary hand., Dated from the ms. note on impression at The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University., Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires., Mounted on verso of a partially trimmed map: Operations of the siege of the citadel of Antwerp showing the 1st and 2nd parallels and the commencement of the works of the 3rd. London : Published by M. Colnaghi, Decr. 1832., and Mounted to 22 x 28 cm.
Print with twelve panels relating to the affair of Mary Toft, "the rabbit breeder": from top left, she is held aloft by two men and a Harlequin or Merry Andrew, she has a rabbit in either hand; she pursues a rabbit while working in a field; she dreams of being impregnated by rabbit, Cupid is shown on a cloud beside her bed holding a rabbit in either hand; she is seated in a chair attended by two women while the two men and Harlequin discuss the monstrous birth; Harlequin demonstrates that he can express milk from her breast; Harlequin feels "the rabbets leapin in her belly" while two men look on; she sits on the edge of a bed and Harlequin kneels to seize a rabbit that emerges from her skirts while a doctor raises his hands in surprise, wishing to anatomize the animal; Harlequin stands behind a table holding a balance in which he weighs dung removed from the rabbit explaining to two men that this will allow him to judge whether the animal had "breath'd in air"; doctors and midwives discuss the phenomenon around a table and Harlequin enters claiming that the birth must be "praeternatural"; a crowd of gentlemen are welcomed to the bagnio in Leicester Square where Toft is housed; two men spy from the door to Toft's room as another hands her a dead rabbit; Toft, weeping, is led away to Bridewell by two constables while Harlequin "sits upon Repenting stool, Cursing his fate in being made a Fool. See British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
New whim wham from Guildford
Description:
Title etched above images. and Trimmed within plate mark.
Publisher:
publisher not identified
Subject (Name):
Toft, Mary, 1703-1763
Subject (Topic):
Christianity, Superstition, Demonology, Births, Brothels, Cupids, Fools & jesters, Fraud, Law enforcement, Physicians, Pregnant women, and Rabbits
Satire against corruption with an image of a huge automaton representing the new London University (later University College, London) tramples over greedy clerics, doctors, lawyers and the crown. Five lines of text below image: "I saw a vision, a giant form appeard, it's eys where [sic] burning lights even of Gas, and on its learned head it bore A Crown of many towers, It's Body was an Engine yea of steam it's arms where [corn?] and the legs with which it stode like unto presses that men called printers use, from whence felt ever and anon small Books that fed the little people of the Earth, It rose and in it's hand it tool a Broom to sweep the rubish [sic] from the face of the land, the Special pleaders & thier [sic] wigs also & the Quack Doctors also and the ghosts & those tha twhear Horns & the Crowns of those kigns that set themselv's above the laws & the Delays in Chancery it utterly destroy'd, likewiase it sweept from the Clergy every Plurality, Nevertheless the Lawyers & the Parsons & divers others kick't up a great dust!!!"
Description:
Title from text above image., Shortshanks is the pseudonym of Robert Seymour., Date from online British Museum catalogue., and Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires.