The wonderful history of the celebrated Friar Bacon : who studies the magic art, and saves a gentleman from the Devil, to whom he had sold his soul and body : he erects a wonderful brazen head, which was to enable him to secure all England from invasion, it speaks, but loses its virtue by his servant's folly : by his help France is conquered : he makes three wicked thieves, who tried to rob him, dance a hornpipe over hedges into ditches, against their wills : with many curious particulars
A London chapbook printed by W. Lewis for T. & J. Allman in 1829, retelling the legend of the medieval magician Friar Bacon for a popular readership. The single picture is a hand-coloured caricature of the brazen head burning and breaking apart over a fire, with a magician in a dark robe and a figure in striped hose. It suggests a lively, satirical comic-scene style that a designer could borrow for bold, hand-coloured narrative panels.
