Dr. Busby Settling Accounts
This colorful and surprisingly graphic mass birching scene is from 1785, ostensibly featuring the notorious Dr. Busby, headmaster of Westminster School:
Dr. Busby’s notoriety stems from his enthusiastic and profligate deployment of the birch, tales of which echo down the centuries. From his Wikipedia entry:
As a headmaster, Busby was as famous for liberally administering corporal punishment as he was for his abilities as a teacher and mentor. Though it was said he once boasted of having birched sixteen of the bishops on the bench [in the House of Lords], many of his students would later speak affectionately of the role he played in their education. In the next century, however, Busby’s reputation as a disciplinarian had eclipsed that of his scholarship and pedagogy. Alexander Pope satirised Dr Busby in the 1743 edition of The Dunciad. The ghost of Busby comes forward, carrying a birch rod “dripping with Infants’ blood, and Mothers’ tears” and proclaims the virtues of rote memorisation for placing a “jingling padlock” on the mind.
But as with most satirical prints of the time, various clues that would have been obvious to contemporary audiences establish that the print in truth represents some portion of the famous parliamentary conflict between Charles Fox (as Busby, here) and William Pitt (the unfortunate “Billy” over his knee). I am not scholar enough to untangle that further, but here are some descriptive notes and transcriptions from the British Museum that will set you well along that road, if you are so moved and motivated:
Fox as Dr. Busby birches Pitt and his supporters in a lofty hall with stone walls. Fox (left) sits under a statue of Justice which is in an alcove above his head, a birch-rod in her right hand, in the left, her scales evenly balanced. Pitt lies across Fox’s knee, his posteriors scarred; he says, “O pardon me & I’ll promise you on my honor that I will Honestly & boldly endeavour a reform!” Fox, his birch-rod raised to smite, says, “That’s all Twaddle! – so here’s for your India Task! there! there! there! & there’s for blocking up the old Womens Windows & making them drink Tea in the dark! – there! there! & there’s for——O I’ve a a a hundred accounts to settle – there! there! there! there! there! there.” Those who have been already chastised are borne off (right), a sea of heads, on the backs of the Foxite party.
The last three only are characterized: Robinson is carried off on North’s back; he is identified by the rats which leap from his rolled-up coat, cf. BMSat 6427, &c. Sheridan (identified by the ‘School for Scandal’ which protrudes from his pocket) carries off Sir Richard Hill, identified by two papers projecting from his coat: ‘Bible Joke’ and ‘Rochester Sermon’ (see ‘The Rolliad’, No. III, ‘Probationary Odes’, No. IV). Next, Burke carries off Richard Atkinson (‘the minor Kinson’ of ‘The Rolliad’, No. VIII), from whose pocket projects ‘Rum Contr[act]’. Beneath the title is engraved:
“Illustrious Bums, might merit more regard;
Ah! Bums too tender for a stroke so hard”
‘Vide Rolliad’. See BMSat 6816.(A parody of the lines on the Treasury bench:
‘No sattin covering decks th’unsightly boards;
No velvet cushion holds the youthful Lords,
And claims illustrious Tails such small regard?
Ah! Tails too tender for a seat so hard.’With the gloss,
‘Alas! that flesh, so late by pedants scarr’d
Sore from the rod, should suffer seats so hard.’)
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