There is an English song written in the 1820s in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, bemoaning the poverty that has struck down the mechanics, farmers, actors and poor people generally while the nobility and gentry ride about in splendour.

Without any records of the artists’ intentions, “what if” has become a necessary exercise when making interpretations. Allowing no flash of an idea to pass without consideration, I came across the men in wigs in the illustrations for a Popish Plot.

The judge probably represents British justice, or injustice, depending on which side of the world or court room one was sitting. He is similar to Hogarth’s men of the higher court immortalised in his illustration for his essay on portrait, caricature and grotesque, The Bench.