Above image: New Dramatic Resource--"a Begging we will go!--a Scene from Covent Garden Theatre after the Conflagration; after the title: --"have Pity Upon all our Aches & Wantes!"
Satire on a the Duke of Northumberland's contribution of ten thousand punds to Kemble's subsciption fund for rebuilding Convent Garden following the theater's destruction by fire on Sept. 20, 1808.
Print shows Kemble, followed by his brother Charles, and his sister, Mrs. Siddons, holds out his hat, bowing, to the Duke of Northumberland who stands at the gate of Northumberland House in the Strand. The Duke is putting into Kemble's feathered hat a 'Draft for 10,000 Pounds [signed] Northumberland'. Kemble wears tattered theatrical dress, with cloak and vandyked collar and cuffs. A cross hangs from his neck on a chain of beads. In his right hand is a paper: 'Donations-Duke of Nord £10000-Marqs of Abern £1000-Lord Egotist [Erskine, see No. 9246] £1000- . . Mount[joy] 800'. Mrs. Siddons wears black draperies hanging from her hair; her white dress is voluminous and high-waisted. From her arm hangs a large reticule stuffed with papers and inscribed 'Humble Solicitations to the Humane & Benevolent'; letters project from it and fall to the ground, inscribed: 'the most Noble Marquiss of Abercorn', 'The Rt honb Lord Ego- Lord Mountjoy, Duke of -', 'The Right Honl Lord Castler[eagh]', 'His Roy[al Highness] the Prin[ce of Wales']'. Behind, the front of Northumberland House is partly obscured by thick clouds of smoke from the fire of Covent Garden Theatre. In front of the smoke, and in shadow, Harlequin postures, followed by a fool, or zany, both delighted at the success of the begging expedition.