GILLRAY TEXT

 

 

A companion print to BMSat 8656. Grenville stands on a hearth-rug, his back to a blazing fire (right), holding up to his face an open book inscribed: 'Fundamental Principles of Government for 1795', at which he looks sideways and near-sightedly. He raises his coat-tails to warm his bulky posteriors, his left hand in his breeches pocket. On the chimney-piece lie two books: 'Court Cookery' and 'Locke on Human Understanding'. Hanging above it is a 'Map of British Victories on the Continent' on which confused scrawls are depicted. On the back wall (left) is a bracket supporting a bowl of gold-fish, above which is a picture of the 'Treasury Bench': three Ministers seated as if in Parliament, in back view with their coats drawn aside to show their bulky posteriors; the wall of the Treasury forms a background. Beneath the title is etched in two columns: '"Lord-Pogy boasts no common share of head; "What plenteous stores of knowledge may contain "The spacious tenement of Pogy's brain! "Nature in all her dispensations wise, "Who form'd his head-piece of so vast a size, Hath not, 'tis true, neglected to bestow Its due proportion on the part below; And hence we reason, that to serve the state His top & bottom, may have equal weight."' 13 June 1795 Hand-coloured etching