“Carried” — “Fun” (1866)

Carried. A New Version of Pizarro

WW, artist

Dalziel, engraver

Engraving

Fun 4 (27 July 1867): 209

Below the main caption appears Rolla — Mr. D*is**li. Cora. Mr. Br*ght.

Disraeli carries a child “Reform Bill,” who has the face of Bright, across a log labeled “Third Reading,” the final stage in passing legislation, in this case the second reform Bill.

Source: Hathi Digital Library Trust web version of a copy in the University of Minnesota library.

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The cartoonist alludes to the German play Pizarro in Peru, or the Death of Rolla (1799) by Augustus von Kotzebue, which Richard Brinsley Sheridan translated into English. In the cartoon Cora, queen of the Incas, watches Rolla rescue her child. In the play cruel Pizarro plans to kill the young boy in order to crush the morale of his father, the Inca king. Rolla, who had earlier saved Pizarro’s life, first pleads with Pizarro, then seizes the child, and runs from the Spanish camp. Rolla “crosses the wooden bridge over the cataract, pursued by the soldiers,” who shoot the hero but not before he destroys the bridge and rescues “the child unhurt” (57-58). Learning that the heroic Rolla has died, Pizarro exclaims, “Shot! — Brave man — worthy of a nobler death! — I might have won thy friendship — yes, by heaven I admire him — yet I am his murderer! away!— give me a thousand men like him, and I will conquer the world!” (60). Obviously, the artist makes use only of the moment of rescue and not other parts of the narrative. — George P. Landow

Related material

Bibliography

Kotzebue. Augustus von. Pizarro; or The Spaniards in Peru. A tragedy in five acts. Trans. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. New-York: Printed for Charles Smith, and Stephen Stephens., 1800. Web version at University of Michigan’s Evans Early American Print Collection. 8 February 2016.

Last modified 8 February 2016