The burthens of plenty

Darly, M

Hand-coloured etching from a composite album of 97 folios (147 prints) of comic illustrations under the title Darly's Comic Prints of Characters, Caricatures, Macaronies &c., published by Mary and Matthew Darly in London in 1777. A burthen can refer to the tonnage of a ship based on the number of tons of wine that it could carry, and here probably referring to the capacity of the rich man’s belly to hold liquor. It is also an archaic spelling of burden: the rich man’s burden is his own obesity, the poor man’s, the rich man’s plenty.