Pillars of the Constitution
According to the watchman's cry in the subtitle of the print, it is 3:00 AM. Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Charles Howard, the Duke of Norfolk stagger out of their club (Brooks's) and into the cloudy morning air, rendered all the more cloudy (no doubt) by their thoroughly inebriated state. Both look old and bloated. Norfolk carrries a bottle of Port in his pocket. Sheridan carries a packet of "Motions to badger the Ministry," A sign post can just be seen beyond the side of the building pointing "To Parliament Street."
© Trustees of the British Museum
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Both Sheridan and Norfolk were long-time members of the Opposition, and Gillray had been caricaturing them for approximately 20 years. But at this point all they can manage are the same old gestures and slogans they had been using for years. Sheridan holds up a less than threatening fist, wishing to "have at the Ministry damme," and the tipsy Norfolk alludes to the toast ("Our Sovereign, the Majesty of the People!") that made him infamous to the Crown in 1798.
To compare this print with the first prints Gillray made of Sheridan and Norfolk is to realize how far both they and Gillray had come. They are of course younger and, especially in Sheridan's case, more fit. But the biggest difference is in the increased skill and sophistication of Gillray's art and his willingness to use them in portraying the sad decline of these two old pillars of republicanism who can now barely stand.
It was the next to the last time either of them would appear in a Gillray print.
© National Portrait Gallery
© Trustees of the British Museum
Sources and Reading
- Commentary from the British Museum on Pillars of the Constitution
- "Richard Brinsley Sheridan," Wikipedia
- "Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk," Wikipedia
- "Brooks's," Wikipedia
- Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #342
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