Preparing for the grand attack - or - a private rehearsal of "The ci-devant ministry in danger"

Gillray, James, 1756-1815 · December 4, 1801

Burdett (right) declaims a speech whose heads are inscribed on a gigantic scroll held out to him by Fox. Fox raises his arms high to hold the scroll, one end of which falls behind his head and shoulders. The other end, still rolled and blank, is held by Sheridan who stands on the extreme left behind a writing-table over which the scroll passes. Horne Tooke, seated full face behind the table, an inkpot in one hand, writes on the scroll with a sourly inscrutable expression. Burdett, with arms thrown wide, hat in right hand, stands with legs astride on a large tattered volume. Sheridan, the theatrical expert, leans forward. Fox, very corpulent and gouty, his gloomy face is shaded by the scroll. Under the scroll lie other papers. Against the wall and forming a background to Sheridan, Horne Tooke, and Fox is a high book-case, the books covered by a curtain, parted to reveal inscriptions. On the top, three busts are partly decapitated by the upper margin. Their positions imply that they are the 'doublures' respectively of Sheridan, Tooke, and Fox. On a small cabinet behind Burdett stands a model of a guillotine. Tooke wears a bonnet rouge with tricolour cockade, a dressing-gown with (torn) clerical bands (BM).