The countryman's dream of coalescing virtue and vice / W.D.

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William Dent
active 1783-1793
The countryman's dream of coalescing virtue and vice / W.D.
Peel 3258
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. as the Act directs, by J. Ridgway, Piccadilly, March 20th 1784.
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Title from item.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.

Summary: 

Thomas Powys, sleeping in a chair on the left, and Charles Marsham, with a tankard, two of the country gentlemen urging the union between Fox and Pitt, preside over a maypole dance in front of the "St. Albans" tavern, their meeting place. The maypole is decorated with a sleeping head of George III. Dancers include members of the Coalition cabinet, pictured with devil's horns: Charles Fox, with a fox's body, Burke, dressed as a Jesuit, and the Duke of Portland, and members of the preceding cabinet, pictured with haloes: Lord Thurlow, in a judge's robe, a smiling Lord Shelburne, and the Duke of Richmond. They are watched on the left by the "nurse North," with horns, holding baby Pitt, with a halo, behind North (left) is the door of the inn, over which is inscribed "Messrs Powass and Mash em [i.e. Powys and Marsham] Dealers in British Spirits", and on the right, by the Prince of Wales, dancing to his own tune he is playing on a pipe and a drum.

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