Engraving (coloured impression) by Gillray. A satire on the struggle between Pitt and Thurlow travestied as a scene from 'Paradise Lost'. Pitt (left) is Death, wearing the king's crown and using a long sceptre as a weapon. Thurlow (right) is Satan; he raises the (breaking) mace to smite and holds out an oval shield decorated with the bag of the Great Seal and a tiny woolsack. The Queen, as Sin, is naked, with snaky locks, and two writhing surpents for legs, interposes with outstretched arms, looking with terrified face at Thurlow in her desire to protect Pitt. She is a hideous hag with pendent breasts; from her snaky hair hangs a large key inscribed 'The Instrument of all our Woe', and evidently symbolising Secret Influence. Pitt's naked body is emaciated and corpse-like; from his shoulders hangs a long ermine-trimmed cloak; his sceptre radiates darts of lightning. His face expresses alarm and determination. Behind him, and guarding the gates of Hell which is indicated by a stone arch, is Cerberus, with the profile heads of Dundas, Grenville, and Richmond, looking up at Thurlow; their body terminates in a large serpent with a barbed tail. Thurlow has wings, and is naked except for a quasi-Roman kilt. He wears his Chancellor's wig, his profile and eyebrow are of a terrifying fierceness; serpents twine round his shield, and spit fire at Pitt and the Queen; a serpent entwined with Pitt's crown, and others in the Queen's snaky locks, retaliate. On the right are the flames of Hell in which demons are flying; smoke fills the background. Beneath the design is etched: 'NB: The above performance containing Portraits of the Devil & his Relatives, drawn from the Life, is recommended to Messrs Boydell, Fuzelli & the rest of the Proprietors of the Three Hundred & Sixty Five Editions of Milton now publishing, as necessary to be adopted, in their classick Embellishments'. The old allegations against Pitt of usurping the rotal authority and using the influence of the Queen, which had been current during the Regency crisis are revived. For the (Carlton House) tenet of a separate political interest between the King and Queen see 'Malmesbury Corr'. ii. 459, 460 (June 1792); 'Political Memoranda of the Duke of Leeds', ed. O. Browning, p. 177 (July 1792). For Thurlow's position cf. also Chauvelin's (i.e. Talley-rand's) dispatch of 23 May. Pallain, 'Mission de Talleyrand á Londres', 1888, pp. 293 ff. It seems probable that the incentive to this print was primarily exasperation at Johnson's scheme (1790) for an edition of Milton similar to Boydell's 'Shakespear', for which Fuseli was to paint a series of pictures; one of these was 'Satan, Sin and Death'. The print, with its outrageous representation of the Queen, is said to have given great offence at Court. Grego, 'Gillray', pp. 146-7 (reproduction). Wright and Evans, No. 86, Reprinted, G.W.G., 1830. Partial description from Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Vol. VI. 8105.