Note 73 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED. (continued 2)
Reading edition
This sign has a very whimsical appearance: it represents our merry monarch in a great tree, enveloped in a black wig, decorated with a point lace cravat, and environed with three crowns. Two Parliamentary troopers, riding beneath the branches, do not perceive that this faithless "Defender of the Faith," and so forth, is immediately above them. This curious delineation is evidently copied from some country sign, and gives a very exact representation of one I remember to have seen in a village in Shropshire, with the following poetical inscription:—
"This oak, the glory of the wood, may well be called a royal thing, For once upon its branches there perched a great king; And while the king was perched upon the branches so high, The Roundhead rebels under him they all passed by."