Alecto, a fantastic hag (as in bmsat 7721), stands outside the crown and anchor tavern between a diminutive sheridan (left), playing a fife, and fox (right), a burly drummer, both wearing regimentals. She towers above them, holding a long pike surmounted by a cap of 'liberty' and holding out to john bull, a yokel (as in bmsat 8141), a handful of 'assignats'. Hissing serpents form her hair and serpents suck at the pendent breasts which her ragged garments do not cover. She has webbed wings, and wears a french cocked hat with a tricolour cockade inscribed 'liberty'. She says: "come on my brave lad, take this bounty-money, & enter into my company of gentlemen volunteers enlisted in the cause of liberty - i'll find you present pay and free quarters, & i'll lead you where you shall fill your knapsack with plunder; - nay man, never talk about your old master the farmer, i'll find you hundreds of masters as good as he; zounds i'll make you one of the masters of england yourself: - come on, i say, here's riches for you, - come on; the glorious 14th of july is approaching, when monarchs are to be crush'd like maggots, & brave men like yourself are to be put in their places - here hold your hand, enter boldly in the cause of freedom, & cry huzza - vive la nation! huzza". John bull stands on the left, scratching his head with a puzzled grin; he wears a smock and very wrinkled gaiters; his hat and a pitchfork are in his left hand. He answers: "wounds, measter sarjeant, an i should enter into your sarvice, what'll varmer-george say to i, for leaving of 'en without warning? - and yet i is half in love with the sound of your drum; & wishes to leave off ploughing & dunging, & wear one of your vine cockades, & be a french gentleman; - & yet, dangs it, it goes against ones heart to leave the varmer; - ah varmer george has been a rare good measter to i! - but, am i to have all them fine paper moneys - but to leave my old measter! ah me! i dozes'nt know what to do, not i!"
sheridan stands between alecto and john bull; from his fife issues a label inscribed:
tho' i am but a very silly lad
yet as piping men cannot be had,
for want of a better i may do,
to give you a tune with my too, too, too,
my too-too too &c &c. '
fox is much larger than sheridan, both wear french grenadier's caps. On his drum is the head of a medusa (discord) with snaky locks. He smiles, watching john bull with a stare of eager calculation, saying:
"then come, my lad, our glory share,
let your honest heart, british valour crown,
at freedom's call to our standard repair,
and follow the beat of my tow, row, row -
my row, row, row - &c &c. "
behind him and on the extreme right. Stanhope runs off to the right, stooping as if to conceal himself; in his right hand is a letter: 'to lord stanhop[e] from w. Pitt. ' he says: "ah this damn'd threat'ning caution from my brother in law billy, has put me into a terrible funk; - i must be off & leave the black-sarjeant to muster up recruits without me: - well if the recruits should grow riotous, & do any mischief i cannot be blamed: - thank heav'n i have scratched my name out of his muster book: but however it is best to be off, before the review - oh zounds! i'm in a terrible funk - a damn'd funk indeed. "
the door of the crown & anchor tavern is immediately behind fox and alecto. From it issue flames and smoke in which imps and demons are flying. 4 july 1791
hand-coloured etching. Date: 1791. Dimensions: Height: 398 mm; Width: 453 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Charles James Fox. Collection: British Museum. Alecto and her train, at the gate of Pandaemonium-or-The recruiting sarjeant enlisting John-Bull, into the Revolution Service. (BM 1851,0901.535)
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