Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

QUEEN CAROLINE AND THE PRINT CULTURE OF REGENCY RADICALISM
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laughter. Th is fi ctional representation of the foibles of authority and of their
ceremonial was an effi cient instrument in strengthening anti-establishment
feelings.
Hone also exploited the satiric potential of advertising, oft en in association
with his satiric pamphlets. Advertisements Extraordinary (Hone, 1971:
206-7), a number of mock advertisements in handbill format, [23] were sold
together with Non Mi Ricordo. Th ey parodied all the protagonists at the
Queen’s trial: the King (‘Strayed and Missing’), the Government (‘Th e Old
Hakney, Liverpool’; ‘To Manglers – Just Leaving his Place’), and the Italian
witnesses (‘To Laundresses, Wants a Place’). On the page opposite to the
front-page of Non Mi Ricordo!, Hone advertised Th e Queen’s Matrimonial
Ladder, and a ‘Lost Memory’:
lost, at the Court martial, Signor my jockey’s memory, together with his
Government Victualling Bill; both a little damaged, and of no use but to the
owner. Whoever will bring them to the Publisher, in time to be restored to the
Signor’s disconsolate Mother, Mrs. Leech, shall be rewarded with a “Non mi
ricordo!” (Hone, 1971: 194)
Th e theme of the press as a counter-power reappears in 1821 in Th e
Political Showman – at Home! Exhibiting his Cabinet of Curiosities and Creatures
– All Alive! (Hone, 1971: 269-97) and the newspaper parody A Slap at
Slop and the Bridge-Street Gang (Hone, 1822).
Th e Political Showman was inspired in freak-show advertising, a tradition
featured in political propaganda since the Reformation. [24] Th e sevenheaded
monster on the frontispiece represents the Holy Alliance, which
together with the theory of the divine right of kings, was widely attacked
by the radicals. In contrast to the monster, the Showman of the title is a
humanised press, exhibiting ‘the most wonderful of all wonderful Living
Animals’ of the ‘strangest and most wonderful artifi cial Cabinet in Europe
[...] very crazy, but very curious’ (272).
Th e originality of this satire lies in the presentation of the press as a
human being, whereas politicians are ‘curiosities’ and aberrations. Hone
23 Mock advertisements were published in varied formats, from handbills to pamphlets and even
newspapers.
24 Hone must also have resorted to his substantial collection and knowledge of the propaganda
relating to elections, specifi cally to the 1784 Westminster campaign, whose ‘humours’ were
compiled in Th e Wit of the Day, or Th e Humours of Westminster (Anon., 1784), a collection of
advertisements, hand-bills, squibs, songs, ballads, etc. written and circulated during that election
(Wood, 1994: 163, 180).
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 175 05-01-2012 09:38:28