Burke (left), pen in hand, sits on an uprooted oak-tree, leaning against his son's tomb. He looks angrily towards a large dolphin-like creature with the handsome cropped head of the duke of bedford, which swims in water inscribed 'ocean of royal bounty', and spouts cascades to left and right which reach burke. These streams are inscribed 'cromwellism', 'envy' (three times), 'leveling', 'orleanism', 'revolutions', 'egalité', 'democracy'. Under his neck are two (?) bladders, inscribed 'pillage of monasteries churches & religious houses' and 'confiscation of estates buckingham. '
burke holds an open book: 'my feeble efforts for my country s good'. Above his head: 'ah wretch! why attack a defenceless old man? whose seclusion from all public concerns & whose irreparable loss of an only & beloved child should have sheltered his declining head from the malicious attacks of a monster wallowing in luxury & wealth oh orleans oh bedford!!!' the tomb (on the extreme left) is inscribed: 'sacred to the memory of an only son whose manly virtues & well informed mind was the only enjoyment the parent knew in his declining years but alass - the loss of a finished man is not easily supplied. ' beneath the title: 'the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. - he tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolicks in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is and whilst "he lies floating many a rood", he is still a creature, his ribs his fins, whalebone, his blubber the very spirales through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, and covers me all over with the spray - every thing of him, and about him is [f]rom the throne. - is it for him to question the dispensation of the royal favor? vide burke's letter to a noble lord page 37-38' 8 march 1796
hand-coloured etching. Date: 1796. Dimensions: Height: 282 mm; Width: 394 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford. Collection: British Museum. The modern Leviathan!! (BM 1868,0808.6507)
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