The English regency

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Hannah Humphrey
The English regency
etching, touched with color
sheet: 349 x 263 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 1672
Published: 
London : Publish'd Jany 19th 1789, by Miss Humphries, New Bond Street, [19 January 1789]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Inscription: 

With "H Wigstead invt." written in pencil at bottom left.

Notes: 

With 8 lines of verse flanking caption title: Can free born Britons Tamely Sit, / And see the Brunswick line disgrac'd / As if to govern found unfit, / Or that the Crown had been misplac'd. / Forbear rash Youth in time retire, / Nor further Vengeance dare, /The Scene may Change while you aspire; / And doom you! The Lord knows where.
Library's copy has been closely trimmed and cropped, with loss of imprint.

Summary: 

Print shows the Prince of Wales stands, looking down dejectedly, his hands tied behind him by a rope held by Pitt, who is seated in the Coronation Chair raised on a dais of three steps. The Prince's coronet and feathers lie on the ground beside him; Pitt wears a crown poised sideways on his head and holds a sceptre; he says "This Crown sits so heavy on me that I fear it will fall and pull my Head down with it." A Spanish don (? Charles IV) and a foppish Frenchman (Louis XVI) kick the Prince. The former (left) says, "You, a Regent, there! take that for your Regency you have nothing but the name". The other, who is much caricatured, wearing a crown and star, takes a pinch of snuff; he says, "By Gar Monsieur Anglois, now is de time to give you von kick of the Bum". Beneath the design is engraved: 'Can free born Britons Tamely Sit, And see the Brunswick line disgrac'd As if to govern found unfit, Or that the Crown had been misplac'd. Forbear rash Youth in time retire, Nor further Vengeance dare, The Scene may Change while you aspire; And doom you! The Lord knows where.' Cf. BM Satires.

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