Summary: | Lettered with title 'A Nights Guard at Kilmainham, County of Dublin' and underneath this within plate mark "'Somnid que mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris de' and "Those Dreams that on the silent night intrude, And when false flitting shades our mind delude" [a quotation from Jonathan Swift, after Petronius, Satyricon, Poemata 31 which roughly translated from Latin is: 'It is not the shrines of the gods, nor the powers of the air, that send the dreams which mock the mind with flitting shadows; each man makes dreams for himself']. Publication line ''Pub. by McCleary 39 Nassau Street Dublin'. The caricature depicts a soldier lying on a bed, in his spartan quarters in Kilmainham Gaol, dreaming of hunting, dancing and horse riding. He holds in his hand a card with the word 'Ennui' (a reference to his boredom) on it; it appears as though a small pig, one of two beside his bed, is about to eat the piece of card. Through a window can be seen a gallows with three bodies hanging from it. On the chimneypiece over the fireplace in his room, two toy soldiers are depicted with the words "Officers Duty" written on the wall in the space between them.
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