Potoooooooo
Contributor
http://alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=313937&page=189&highlight=cartoon
The “Ministry of all the Talents” was followed by an administration composed of an association of Pittites, led nominally by the Duke of Portland. The portrayal of George Canning, the new Foreign Secretary, appearing here as Phaeton, invites comparison with that of his mentor, William Pitt, as Apollo, in Gillray’s 1795 satire Light Expelling Darkness (#42, in the North Hall). In his chariot race across the heavens, pulled by horses with the faces of fellow cabinet ministers, Canning is attacked by the Opposition, who appear as constellations and signs of the zodiac. Particularly imaginative is Lord Grenville as Scorpio Broad-Bottom: his small claws bear the heads of Grenville’s nephew, Temple; Lord Spencer; the Duke of Bedford; Lord Moira; and Tierney, while his broad-bottom forms a glowing ring, containing a chalice with the Host, surrounded by the heads of assorted Whigs. Lord Howick, Canning’s most implacable enemy, is a fire-breathing python.
Gillray suggests that, like the importunate Phaeton cast down by Zeus, Canning is losing control of the chariot, whose fiery wheels crush the scales of justice. Gillray may also have hoped to subtly suggest to his patron, Canning, that his campaign against the Danish navy (the crushed scale is labeled “Copenhagen”) fuelled attacks by the Opposition and contributed to the devastation seen on the earth below, dominated by Napoleon riding a Russian bear. Fox appears as Pluto in the lower right corner, while in the lower left, the ghost of Pitt, again in the guise of Apollo, weeps as he sees his son Phaeton under attack. The print was accompanied by a broadside, which quotes Ovid’s Metamorphoses (brief excerpts are included in the print itself), with its tale of the terrors faced by Phaeton.
The “Ministry of all the Talents” was followed by an administration composed of an association of Pittites, led nominally by the Duke of Portland. The portrayal of George Canning, the new Foreign Secretary, appearing here as Phaeton, invites comparison with that of his mentor, William Pitt, as Apollo, in Gillray’s 1795 satire Light Expelling Darkness (#42, in the North Hall). In his chariot race across the heavens, pulled by horses with the faces of fellow cabinet ministers, Canning is attacked by the Opposition, who appear as constellations and signs of the zodiac. Particularly imaginative is Lord Grenville as Scorpio Broad-Bottom: his small claws bear the heads of Grenville’s nephew, Temple; Lord Spencer; the Duke of Bedford; Lord Moira; and Tierney, while his broad-bottom forms a glowing ring, containing a chalice with the Host, surrounded by the heads of assorted Whigs. Lord Howick, Canning’s most implacable enemy, is a fire-breathing python.
Gillray suggests that, like the importunate Phaeton cast down by Zeus, Canning is losing control of the chariot, whose fiery wheels crush the scales of justice. Gillray may also have hoped to subtly suggest to his patron, Canning, that his campaign against the Danish navy (the crushed scale is labeled “Copenhagen”) fuelled attacks by the Opposition and contributed to the devastation seen on the earth below, dominated by Napoleon riding a Russian bear. Fox appears as Pluto in the lower right corner, while in the lower left, the ghost of Pitt, again in the guise of Apollo, weeps as he sees his son Phaeton under attack. The print was accompanied by a broadside, which quotes Ovid’s Metamorphoses (brief excerpts are included in the print itself), with its tale of the terrors faced by Phaeton.
