Going Down to the 'House' Lord Russell. 'Well, Bright, What Do You Want?'

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Going Down to the 'House' Lord Russell. 'Well, Bright, What Do You Want?'

Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914)

SIGNED WITH MONOGRAM AND DATED 1866
INSCRIBED WITH TITLE AND PUBLICATION DETAILS ON ORIGINAL MOUNT
PENCIL
8 1/4 X 6 1/4 INCHES
PROVENANCE: MARY GREEN (NEE TENNIEL). THE ARTIST'S SISTER,
AND THENCE BY FAMILY DESCENT
ILLUSTRATED: PUNCH, 10 FEBRUARY 1866, PAGE 56
EXHIBITED: 'THE ILLUSTRATORS. THE BRITISH ART OF ILLUSTRATION 1837-2012',
NOVEMBER 2012 - JANUARY 2013, NO 117

Going Down to the ‘House’
Here Tenniel depicts John Bright as a crossing sweeper asking Lord Russell and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), for immediate relief, that is for Parliament to proceed with the question of reform. However, before it could do so, it had to deal with ‘two subjects of pressing importance ... the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland and the Cattle Plague’ (George Barnett Smith, The Life and Speeches of the Right Hon John Bright MP, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1881, page 81).
The same issue of Punch contained an unsigned poem entitled ‘Going Down to the House’, which ended with the following verse:

For thee, my stout EARL RUSSELL,
Who prepar’st to face the storm,
And re-test thine ancient muscle
’Gainst the hard knot of Reform.
Thy least considerable place,
On JOHN BRIGHT’s smile or frown,
Let’s hope that thine will prove a case
Of going up, not ‘down’.