ANTISEJANUS; Drink deep, or taste not the Portereal Spring: P.14852-R

Current Location: In storage

Titles

ANTISEJANUS; Drink deep, or taste not the Portereal Spring

Maker(s)

Printmaker: Unknown

Entities

Satirical print

Description

Etching on laid paper. Satirical print. A portrait of Dr. W. Scott of Trinity College, Cambridge, later Rector of Simonburn, Northumberland. Within an etched border. A male figure, full-length, stands in a landscape, in three-quarter profile to the right. He holds a manuscript titled 'The Perils / of / Poetry'. The stocking on his left leg is falling down and his slippers are untied. A tankard is on the ground in the left foreground and a barrel labelled 'Trin. Coll' empties out into a stream on the right. An owl sits on the barrel and a flying donkey above. Etched at lower left within the border: 'Drink deep, or taste not the Portereal Spring'. Etched on the plate at lower centre outside the border: 'A Parson in Politics is like a Monkey in a Toyshop - / He may do much Mischief, but cannot possibly do / any Good. / Witness (being first duly STAMPT)'. A handwritten inscription in graphite on the verso is transcribed in pen and ink on the artist's board onto which the print is laid down: 'REV. SCOTT, RECTOR OF SIMONBOURNE, NORTHUMBERLAND. A LIVING GIVEN TO HIM BY THE EARL OF SANDWICH WHEN FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY AS A REWARD FOR WRITING IN HIS FAVOUR UNDER THE TITLE OF ANTISEJANUS.'. An impression which has been trimmed to the image border is in the collection of the British Museum: 1868,0808.4396.