At lower right: He steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air That felt unusual weight,-Par, Lost, Lib: I. l, 225.
Satire on the installation of Grenville as chancellor of Oxford University.
Print shows Grenville, wearing a papal tiara, cross, and chancellor's gown, in a balloon above an applauding crowd at Oxford and scattering symbolical objects to the masses below, including: a Cardinal's hat, a rosary, a mitre set in a ducal coronet, and books entitledd 'Liber Regis ... Oxford ...'; 'Letter to the Earl of Fingal'; 'Irish Mass Book'; 'Liber Valorum'. The gas-bag of the balloon represents an inflated Lord Temple, with a flatulent cloud labelled 'Promisses' issueing from his posterior. Three bishops are in the foreground at left, seated on asses which crouch in obeisance towards Grenville. Behind them is part of the Radcliffe Camera, with a placard by the door: 'Order'd That No Doctor of Laws shall be admitted without Bag Wig'. Two men are leaving the building: Lord George Grenville, followed by (?) Thomas Grenville. The Marquis of Buckingham looks out from a window above; Lord Stafford leans from a smaller window below him. All four wear bag-wigs and gowns. Above the door stands a chicken with the head of M. A. Taylor. Spectacled and bewigged owls perch on the balustrade surrounding the dome. In the foreground on the right is a large group, many of whom wear doctor's gowns with black masks over their features, tied over bag-wigs that perch awkwardly on their heads. Three of them wave their mortar-board caps towards the balloon: Erskine, Tierney, and Lord Holland, Lord Grey, Sidmouth, Lord Cholmondeley, Lord Lansdowne capers, Sheridan (naked except for tattered Harlequin trousers), and Dr. Crowe, seated on the ground, leaning against a milestone; beside him are an overturned tankard inscribed 'Whitbread Entire', and papers, 'Oratio Croweiana', which a dog is befouling. The stone is inscribed [blank] 'Miles from Oxford to Rome'. In front of the crowd Sir W. W. Wynn and his two brothers sit together in a chaise drawn by three Welsh goats. A bishop (the Archbishop of York) drives through the crowd in an open barouche; he doffs his mitre; the coachman and three fat footmen standing behind wave their cocked hats. The crowd surrounds a wooden booth placarded: 'Wonder of the World the biggest Flying Elephant in the Whole Fair'. Inside it, tiny figures peer at the posterior of a vast elephant with little wings and the head of Grenville.