Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/230

 ministry, the members of which stand on each side of the throne,, one of the number being habited as a jester. This exceedingly rare plate carries on it the following explanation: "King Henry VIII. being petitioned to dismiss his ministers and council by the citizens of London and many boroughs, to relieve his oppressed subjects, made the citizens this sagacious reply: 'We, with all our cabinet, think it strange that ye who be but brutes and inexpert folk,, should tell us who be and who be not fit for our council.'"

Another of George Cruikshank's rare and valuable contributions to the Queen Caroline series of pictorial satires is labelled The Royal Rushlight, which many people (among them the Chancellor and corpulent George) are vainly endeavouring to blow out. By way (it may be) of contrast, this excellent satire has appended to it the following miserable doggerel,—

With the year 1821 came the closing scene in the drama of Caroline's unhappy but singularly undignified career. On the occasion of the king's coronation she had applied to Lord Liverpool, desiring to be informed what arrangements had been made for her convenience, and who were appointed her attendants at the approaching ceremony. An answer was returned that, "it was a right of the Crown to give or withhold the order for her Majesty's coronation, and that his Majesty would be advised not to give any directions for her participation in the arrangements;" but with the obstinacy of purpose which was so fatal a blemish in her character, and which seems to have been the primary cause of all her misfortunes, she insisted on her right, and declared moreover her firm intention of attending the ceremony. A respectful but peremptory reply was returned, reasserting the legal prerogative of the Crown, and announcing that the former intimation must be understood as amounting to a prohibition of her attendance. She