Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
James Gillray,
The Eruption of
the Mountain; or, the
Horrors of the 'Bocca
del Inferno', with the
Head of the Protector
Saint Januaris Carried
in Procession by Cardinal
Archeveque of the
Lazaroni
, 1794,
hand-coloured
etching and aquatint.
Image not available - no digital rights
Gillray's
A Cognoscenti Contemplating ye Beauties of ye Antique
was published in 1801, the year after Sir William Hamilton
came home, and presented a sad, reclusive image of a decrepit old
man who had been cruelly cuckolded by Nelson and lost a beau-
tiful wife. Here he is, bent and disappointed, looking through
reversed spectacles at a marble bust of 'Lais', the very image of
his wife with a broken nose and mouth. A bacchante holds one
of Lady Hamilton's 'Attitudes' nearby, and behind is an Egyptian
bull, a Cupid with a broken bow and arrow, a hare (the symbol
of lechery), and various other broken antiquarian bits and pieces.
On the wall are pictures of Cleopatra (Lady Hamilton with
naked breast and a bottle of gin), Mark Anthony (Nelson),
Claudius (Sir William Hamilton, miserably looking the other
way) and, erupting in a great red spurt, Vesuvius.4² Another
satirical print, by Frederick George Byron, shows Edmund Burke,
with volcanic words spewing from his mouth, fulminating
against Fox and Sheridan: 'Black as ten furies! Jacobite mis-
creants . . . Terrible as Hell! Infernal spawn! . . . Pimps, Panders,
Parasites, Devils'. The current event that prompted the cartoon
