Williams (Charles)

satirising the easy and popular target of the law, depicting a elderly lawyer sitting up in bed. He addresses a young man whose case he has exploited for his own enrichment at great cost to his client, warning him to stay clear of the law unless he can be depend on, amongst other things, the rightness of his cause, his access to funds, the honesty of his counsel, and the goodness of the judge and jury. The young man replies that he has been practically deterred from further action by being so reduced to poverty. Meanwhile the old man’s housekeeper looks over her shoulder in alarm at the smell of brimstone rising to meet the lawyer’s death,

original hand-coloured etching, 235 x 330 mm. (9 1/4 x 13 in), trimmed to the outer border line, but well outside the image and title, mounted at corners onto a support sheet, [BM Satires 11149],