Folio lithograph in original hand-color [43.3 x 29.7 cm], (1) sheet. Unframed. With the original blind stamp of McLean, original label of the Edinburgh printseller Adolphe Lesage on verso, minor paper toning, minor marginal staining, colors still remarkably fresh and vibrant.

Rare lithograph – here in fine original hand-color – by the Dublin cartoonist John Doyle (1797-1868), known by the pen name ‘H. B.’, in which he invokes a scene from Hamlet to refer to debates surrounding the Irish Municipal Corporation Bill of 1836, an indication that no event, however minor it may seem, can entirely escape the gravity of Shakespeare’s masterpiece. The moment depicted here comes from Act 1, Scene 4, where Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus encounter the Ghost, who tempts Hamlet to follow him. Hamlet is played by William Lamb (Viscount Melbourne) (1778-1848), who is tempted by a Bill of Repeal offered up by the Ghost, the Irish political leader Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847); Hamlet’s/Melbourne’s companions are John Copley, 1^st Baron Lyndhurst (1772-1863) and Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington (of Waterloo fame; 1769-1852); they admonish him in Shakespearian quotations not to follow the apparition (see McLean, pp. 295-6 for a fuller description of the cartoon’s meaning).

While (uncolored) lithographs by Doyle (some 917 cartoons in total) were released in bound volumes by his publisher Thomas McLean between 1830 and 1851, individually issued cartoons in original hand-color are rather rare today. The present example is one of these original examples, carrying the blind stamp of McLean’s London shop and conforming in coloration to the Oxford Bodleian copy (J. Johnson Collection). Fascinatingly, on the verso of the print is preserved the label of the 19^th-century Edinburgh stationer Adolphe Lesage, whose reputation as a primary dealer in Doyle’s prints was apparently well known: “Next door, three doors from Rose Street, was the shop of Mr. Le Sage, printseller, who every week stuck up on the railings in front of his shop one of the famous H. B. caricatures. Around these attractive lithographs a crowd was always to be seen getting a gratis view of these amusing prints” (J. Thin, Reminiscences of Booksellers and Bookselling in Edinburgh in the time of William IV, p. 34).

 * T. MacLean, An Illustrative Key to the Political Sketches of H. B., pp. 295-6.

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