Jun 07, 2018 - Sale 2481

Sale 2481 - Lot 325

Price Realized: $ 812
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
(SATIRE.) Huddesford, George. The Scum Uppermost When the Middlesex Porridge-Pot Boils Over!! An Heroic Election Ballad with Explanatory Notes; Accompanied with An Admonitory Nod to a Blind Horse. Wood engraved additional title, 2 engraved plates, 19 pages. Plates on heavy wove stock, the first bearing a partial "JWhatman 1801" watermark; text leaves on wove paper, leaf 9/10 bearing a "TH S 1800" watermark. 4to, 11x8 1/2 inches, uncut leaves in modern covers; light soiling and spotting. London, 1802.

Additional Details

Very scarce original printing of this take-down, in full verse, of idealist and advocate of popular rights Sir Francis Burdett's campaign during the Parliamentary elections for the constituency of Middlesex in 1802. The Devil, as seen creeping into two of the illustrated scenes, chiefly narrates the story which primarily focuses on Burdett's main political platform, prison reform (No Bastille). Overcome and retreating at the end of the controversial campaign, the Devil closes the poem: "Brave B_D__TT, adieu! You've blown up a fine flame; / 'Tis so hot, I'll return to the place whence I came, / And tell my grim Quorum / With how much decorum / Your rag-tags of Middlesex drive all before 'em. / 'Twill be long ere my Black-birds attain such perfection, / What's Hell when compar'd with your Brentford Election!" BM Satires 9883.