“A scene in the House of Commons, showing the Ministerial benches, with the Speaker’s Chair and the Table partly cut off by the right margin. The Speaker (Manners Sutton) and one of the Clerks are just within the design. Castlereagh is speaking; he stands in profile to the right, hat in hand, with the Pope on his shoulders. The Pope holds crosier and keys, and wears an odd tiara. A demon crouches on his shoulders dressed as an acolyte, but displaying a cloven hoof; a mask with bland features (a device deriving from Gillray, cf. British Museum Satires No. 11384) is tied in front of his black horned head; he holds up a lighted candle, and clutches the Pope’s hair. Castlereagh, with a blandly disingenuous smile: “I have the authority of the Head of the Catholic Church, for saying that there is no solidity in the objection taken on the other side: thus I am legislating with the Pope at my back!!!” The benches behind Castlereagh are crowded; the members listening intently; all wear hats, except Peel who sits immediately behind Castlereagh’s empty seat, on the corner of which he has put a hat, inscribed ‘Peel’. He looks up to say: “I hope that when the noble Lord observed that [he was legislating with the Pope at his back] he had no allusion to me, even if the noble Lord were willing to put the Popedom in Commission, I should not be willing to accept the office of one of the Commissioners.” Men look down from the gallery. On the floor is a paper: ‘St Steevens March 28 1821’.”–British Museum online catalogue
- Title: “What ever is, is right. Pope! A weighty argument in favour of the Catholic Emancipation
- Creator: Cruikshank, Robert, 1789-1856, printmaker
- Published: London, April 1821
821.04.00.03+
Acquired October 2024
A copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 2 of A harlot’s progress: Mary Hackabout (left), now a harlot and mistress of a wealthy London Jew, exposes her breast and kicks over a tea table to divert his attention from the presence of her younger lover who hides behind the door of the room with her maid servant. A monkey and young black servant boy in a feathered turban look on the scene with frighten expressions. The mask and mirror in the lower left corner and the paintings of scenes from the Old Testament (Jonah IV.8 and 2 Samuel VI.1-5) hanging on the wall further amplify the artist’s moral message.