_January 1, 1784._ _The Pit of Acheron, or the Birth of the Plagues of England._--This plate bears the initials _F. N._, 1784, in the right-hand corner, but there is no doubt, judging from the evidence of the style of execution, that the chief merit is due to Rowlandson. During the progress of the struggle, in 1784, plates innumerable were published anonymously, or with varying initials. Collectors who have devoted time and observation to the subject, and such well-qualified writers as the compiler of _The History of Caricature and Grotesque in Art, The Caricature History of the Georges, &c._, seem agreed upon the proportion of prints which are due to the skill of our artist, whose handiwork is very prominent amongst the series of electioneering and political satires which appeared on the occasion of Fox's renowned campaign at the Westminster hustings, when the _Champion of the People_ contended successfully against the second Ministerial candidate, Sir Cecil Wray, although the latter received all the assistance which Pitt, with the influence of the King as well, unscrupulously exercised as it was, could bring into play, legitimately or otherwise, to defeat the popular Whig chief, and to inflict the mortification of a lost election upon 'the party' and on their leader, who was at that time the pet aversion of George the Third and idol of the people.
It will be remembered that Rowlandson was by no means a party satirist; unlike Sayer, who was notoriously in the Ministerial pay, he lavished his satire on both sides alternately, utterly regardless of partisanship, and, often at the expense of consistency, we find his cartoons alternately espousing and ridiculing the same section, Whig or Tory, Ministerialist or Opposition, in plates of whimsically opposite tendencies, which not infrequently bear the same date.
_The Pit of Acheron_, if we may trust the satirist, is not situated at any considerable distance from Westminster; the precincts of that city appear through the smoke of the incantations which are carried on in the Pit. Three weird sisters, like the Witches in 'Macbeth,' are working the famous charm; a monstrous cauldron is supported by death's-heads and harpies; the ingredients of the broth are various; a crucifix, a rosary, _Deceit_, _Loans_, _Lotteries_, and _Pride_, together with a fox's head, cards, dice, daggers, and an executioner's axe, &c., form portions of the accessories employed in these uncanny rites. Three heads are rising from the flames--the good-natured face of Lord North, the spectacled and incisive outline of Burke, and Fox's 'gunpowder jowl,' which is drifting Westminster-wards. One hag, who is dropping _Rebellion_ into the brew, is demanding, 'Well, sister, what hast thou got for the ingredients of our charm'd pot?' To this her fellow-witch, who is turning out certain mischievous ingredients which she has collected in her bag, is responding, 'A beast from Scotland called an Erskine, famous for duplicity, low art, and cunning; the other a monster who'd spurn even at Charter's Rights.' Erskine is shot out of the bag, crying, 'I am like a Proteus, can turn to any shape, from a sailor to a lawyer, and always lean to the strongest side!' The other member, whose tail is that of a serpent, is singing, 'Over the water and over the lee, thro' hell I would follow my Charlie.'