Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/129

 his peculiarly energetic speech by again denying, in the most positive terms, the truth of the imputation which had been cast upon the commissioners.

The inquiry of 1813 set the pencils of the caricaturists in motion, and among the satires it occasioned, I find a series of eight pictures on one sheet, representing the witnesses, the commissioners, Mr. Whitbread, and other persons connected with that and the previous investigation of 1806. It is called A Key to the Investigation, or Iago Distanced by Odds; and the most amusing of the series is the seventh, which represents the furious Lord Ellenborough, attired in his official robes of Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The following doggerel clearly identifies it with the speech from which we have already quoted:—

The eighth of the series is "the spring that set all in motion," the satirist's meaning being indicated by a throne, on which lies a cocked hat adorned with the Prince of Wales' feathers, and beneath it, as is usual in a large proportion of the satires which allude to the prince-regent, a number of empty bottles.

The Regent seems never to have lost an opportunity of insulting his uncongenial and unfortunate wife. In anticipation of the expected visit of the allied sovereigns in June, 1814, the prince