Lubber's Hole, alias the Crack'd Jordan

Not surprisingly, this was one of Gillray's prints that was deemed unacceptable by Victorians, and in the 1851 Bohn edition of The Works of James Gillray relegated, along with prints like Fashionable Contrasts and National Conveniences to a second volune with limited circulation.*

The print features Prince William, the Duke of Clarence, with his sailor's trousers barely covering his ample rump, thusting himself head first into the vagina-like crack (lover's hole) of a large anthropomorphized chamber pot (aka jordan)—a clear reference to the popular actress Mrs. Jordan.

In the weeks preceding this print, the Prince and the actress had been the subject of considerable comment and titillation as their affair progressed. Gillray had already portrayed Mrs. Jordan and the Prince in bed together in the print, The Devil to Pay. The Wife Metamorphos'd, or Neptune Reposing after Fording the Jordan inspired by the play The Devil to Pay, or The Wives Metamorphos'd in which Mrs. Jordan played the poor spinner Nell Jobson who unexpectedly finds herself translated to the bed of Lord Loverule.

But, as chance would have it, Mrs Jordan was also arousing unintended laughter while reprising another one of her signature roles as the trickster Little Pickle, in a production of The Spoilt Child usually attributed to Isaac Bickerstaff. In that play, dressed as a sailor boy, Little Pickle, played by Mrs. Jordan, sings the naval ditty "I am a brisk and sprightly lad" which contains the lines:

What girl but loves the merry tar
We o'er the ocean rome sir,
In every clime we find a port,
In every port a home,sir
Yeo, yeo, yeo, yeo, yeo, yeo.

As the Morning Post and Daily Advertiser for October 21st noted:

Mrs. Jordan excited again last night some unwelcome merriment in the audience. The line in the Song of Yeo, yeo—"What girl but loves the merry tar" was too apposite to her present situation, to fail of the most whimsical effect."

In Gillray's version, of course, the Prince is the merry tar who finds a port and a welcome home in the recesses of the Jordan with a yeo, yeo, yeo, yeo.

* NOTE: In a previous iteration of this commentary, I mistakenly suggested that this print was not even included in that second volume later designated as the "Suppressed Plates." Thanks to John Staral for alerting me to my error.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on Lubber's Hole, alias the Crack'd Jordan
• "Dorothea Jordan," Wikipedia
• "William IV of the United Kingdom," Wikipedia
• The Spoilt Child

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