Policies of masterly inactivity

In December 1743 George Bickham produced a caricature, The Late P-m-r M-n-r showing the face of the recently departed premier contorted into a great monstrous yawn — a yawn seemingly stretched to the limits of human endurance. The caption begins with an adaptation of lines from The Dunciad, which come just after the Empress of Dullness has conferred powers on a prime minister to extend the realm of boredom: ‘More she had said, but yawn’d — All Nature nods:/ What Mortal can resist the Yawns of Gods?’