In December 1743 George Bickham produced a caricature, The Late P-m-r M-n-r showing the face of the recently departed premier contorted into a great monstrous yawn — a yawn seemingly stretched to the limits of human endurance. The caption begins with an adaptation of lines from The Dunciad, which come just after the Empress of Dullness has conferred powers on a prime minister to extend the realm of boredom: ‘More she had said, but yawn’d — All Nature nods:/ What Mortal can resist the Yawns of Gods?’
Waiting for a long-serving prime minister to go is rarely a merry business, and Robert Walpole’s enemies had to suffer 21 years. In the view of the wits who made such virulent attacks on Walpole, his stranglehold on government, his corrupt management of parliament, his control of the press by a mixture of bribes and censorship, and the financial values that he championed had drained the life from politics and deadened the creative spirit of the nation.
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