The West Country puffing family

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The West Country puffing family
etching & stipple engraving
image: 78 x 305 mm; plate mark: 87 x 312 mm; sheet: 227 x 330 mm
Peel 2649
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

With a song printed in letterpress in eight numbered stanzas on the sheet below the etching. The comic verses relate the efforts of all to rekindle a candle with a glowing wick by blowing or "puffing" at it; first line: A Family lived in the West, ...
Below caption title above the song text: To be sung in character, to the Tune of an "Old Woman cloathed in Grey."
Three lines of text below the song: This Song is dedicated to those 'Princes of Puffs', who exist at their 'Wholesale Puff' a de 'Puff Warehouses', the Sign of the 'Devil' and 'Black Cat', Piccadilly; the 'Temple of Health, Pall Mall'; the 'Brazen Head, St Stephen's Chapel' [the House of Commons]; and those numourous Tribe of 'Puffs' whose Names are on the Back Door, with Lamps in the Passage, &c. &c. [signed] By their most humble servant Livy Puff Junr.
"A satire on the advertisements so lavishly circulated in handbills, placards, and the newspapers by Katerfelto, who professed to receive advice from a black cat, and Dr. Graham at Schomberg House, Pall Mall."--Curator's comments, British Museum online catalog.
The address indicated as the place of sale in the imprint was that of printseller and publisher, Hannah Humphrey, suggesting that the print was sold at her establishment.

Summary: 

Five heads, grotesquely caricatured, arranged in two pairs, facing each other, in profile, the centre head being full-face and superimposed upon the two heads which are back to back. On the left, in profile to the right, is 'honest old Coward' who faces 'Squire Richard'. On the right 'Dick Howard', in profile to the right, faces 'Miss Bridget'. In the centre is an old woman wearing spectacles, 'Goody Gobble Cock'. Cf. British Museum online catalog.

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