Don Dismallo running the literary gantlet

published by William Holland
1790

British Museum 1868,0808.5976

Edmund Burke, shackled, wearing a fool's cap and fool's trousers, is flogged and threatened by authors who had written against his Reflections. On the left holding and brandishing scourges are: "Miss H. M. W-----s" (Helen Maria Williams) saying, "Though I decline shivering lances in this glorious cause I think I made him feel the full force of a Cat-o-nine tails!"; "Dr P------e" (Price), whose sermon had moved Burke to write his book, saying, "Cut the Jesuitical Monster in pieces! cut him to the bone! Oh, what a glorious Sacrifice to true religion and the rights of Humanity"; and "Mrs B------d" (Barbauld) who answers, "Let me alone, Doctor for exertion in this business; the most incorrigible Urchin in my School never felt from my hands what this Assassin of Liberty shall now feel!"

Burke says to Sheridan on the right, "For God's sake Sherry be merciful". "S------n" (Sheridan), also holding a scourge, replies, "I'll give you a receipt in full by and by, old Loyola." To his right is Justice, holding her sword and scales. To her right is Liberty, walking with an aged man carrying a flag depicting the taking of the Bastille. On the far right, holding scourges, are "H-----e T------ke" (Horne Tooke) and "Mrs M------y G------m" (Macaulay Graham), saying, "Tickle may do as he pleases with the pen, but I am determined to tickle to some tune with this instrument in my hands! The hypocrisy of Cromwell was nothing to this turn a bout!" Tooke replies, "Cromwell, madam, was a Saint, when compared with this Literary Lucifer."

An anonymous 'Letter to . . . Burke. By a Member of the Revolution Society', 1790 is perhaps here attributed to Horne Tooke. Walpole writes, 20 Dec. 1790, Burke's 'foes show how deeply they are wounded by their abusive pamphlets. Their Amazonian allies, headed by Kate Macaulay and the virago Barbauld, whom Mr. Burke calls our poissardes, spit their rage at eighteenpence a head . . .'. 'Letters', xiv. 345. Mrs. Barbauld's pamphlet does not appear in her 'Works' or in the B.M.L. Catalogue under her name. Burke was also answered by Mrs. Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication of the Rights of Man. 1790'.

—M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum VI, 1938