"Two adjacent designs: on the left Sheridan drink-sodden and blear-eyed, stoops obsequiously, right hand on heart, hat held low, directed to the right. He says, slyly, "Gentlemen, it is with the most unfeigned submission I present myself to Your Notice, most Humbly requesting your kind suffrages to return me (although unworthy) one of Your representatives for the great City of Westminster, and when I consider whom I succeed, I cannot but sincerly [sic] deplore his loss, but much more so my inadequacy to fill his place, and can only most solemnly promise to exert the utmost of my poor abilities to keep my place." On the right Sheridan with legs astride, hands thrust in his breeches pocket, hat on his head, still drink-sodden and sly, but more alert, says, looking to the left: "Electors, I feel a satisfaction in my own bosom (which I cannot refrain from expressing,) that my transcendant Merit fully entitle me to be chosen your representative, and that you have barely done yourselves justice in returnig [sic] me, why you must have been cursed fools if you had not, & as to that Mr Paul & Mr Cobbett, their speeches are so ungentlemanlike that I do not think it worth my while to answer them, why the fellows say I get drunk one half the day, & lie in bed the other, I dont chuse to answer that, they say I don't pay my Debts Fools! what did I want to get into Parliament for, they say I have never signed those measures since I have been in administration which I so strongly declared necessary while out of Office, this shews their Ignorance! why should I propose reform now when all my Friends have got to be served.""--British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
Canvassing candidate
Description:
Title etched below image., Attributed to Charles Williams in the British Museum catalogue., Sheet trimmed to plate mark on top edge., Window mounted to 36 x 51 cm., and Mounted opposite page 621 (leaf numbered '58' in pencil) in volume 4 of an extra-illustrated copy of: Moore, T. Memoirs of the life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
Publisher:
Pubd. Decr. 1806 by S.W. Fores, No. 50 Piccadilly
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain.
Subject (Name):
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816, Cobbett, William, 1763-1835., Paull, James, 1770-1808., and Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816.
Half-length portrait of English dramatist and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, facing left and "Portrait after Reynolds (Mannings 1612); half-length directed to and facing the left, looking slightly to the front, his coat fastened by two buttons; curtain behind."--British Museum online catalogue, description of a variant state
Description:
Title etched below image., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., Window mounted to 51 x 36 cm., and Mounted as frontispiece (opposite title page) in volume 4 of an extra-illustrated copy of: Moore, T. Memoirs of the life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
Publisher:
Published July 1, 1825, by Messrs. Longman & Co., Paternoster Row
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain.
Subject (Name):
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816, and Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816.