Two of many satires on William Pitt and the Regency crisis.
Titles etched below images.
Two rectangular designs (167 x 231 mm and 153 x 233 mm) printed on a single sheet and executed on a single plate.
Although the "H" in "H Holland" has been clearly etched over a capital initial "W" in the imprint of the lower print, the script is identifiable as that of William Holland who published satirical and other prints at 50 Oxford Street from 1786 to 1802.
Evidently one of six prints by Rowlandson printed on three sheets, two designs to a sheet, and issued in blue printed wrapper as number 1 of: The political mirror / by Christopher Scourge Esq. [London] : Pub. by W. Holland Oxford Street, Feby 7, 1789 (see the copy of the "Political mirror", no. 1, described in the catalog of the Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 810327)
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
Upper print shows William Pitt vomiting up "Pensions", "Titles", "Fees", "Contract places", and riches into a receptacle labeled "Treasure pot"; a stout woman holds Pitts head for him while a man on his hands and knees behind him prepares to wipe his buttocks with a copy of the Times; two men (Grafton and Richmond) on all fours greedily eat from the pot and a donkey brays in the background at right. Lower print shows Dr. Francis Willis standing on a stool at a table at right beside William Pitt; they face a committee of the House of Commons who are seated at left, Edmund Burke calls out from the rear of the assembly at far left, "How do you cure Insanity", to which the doctor replies "I does it all by my eye", as Pitt exclaims "Don't hesitate to serve the Cause, that W-rr-n is too honest we must kick him out" (a reference to Dr. Richard Warren who had expressed doubts that King George III would recover from his insanity).