Two Oxford dons manhandling a woman representing Religion, trying to pull her towards or away from the requirement that Oxford University should have to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Etching by Athanasius Credo, 1773.

Dorothy George in the British Museum catalogue, loc. cit., describes it thus: "Religion, a veiled woman holding a cross, is being roughly handled by two men wearing academic cap and gown with clerical bands. In the background is a half-ruined church (left). 'The Louse', who is small and slight, has seized Religion by the hair, his right hand grasps an upright post, his foot is on her gown and he is preventing her from being dragged away by her assailant. The other, 'the Bear', a large burly man, has seized her hood with his right hand, with his left he pulls at her draperies, leaving her shoulders and breast partly bare; his right foot is on an open book. A small dog barks at them. Beneath the title is etched, 'A surly Bear in College bred, / Determin'd to attack Religion; / A Louse who crawl'd from head to head / Defended her - as hawk does pigeon. / Bruin, subscription discommended, / The Louse determin'd to support it, / But . . . Desunt multa . . .' 22 May 1773. Etching. A satire on the petition to Parliament for relief from subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles rejected in 1772 and again in 1773, see BMSat 4944, 5107. The print is described by Cole in a letter to H[orace] Walpole: "Dr Hallifax the present Law Professor, commonly called Louse Hallifax from his affectation of getting among the Heads of Colleges and consorting with them. He wrote and preached excellently in defence of Subscription to Articles and against the Clerical Petitioners, than whom none was more violent and vehement than Mr Barker, a fat fellow of Queens' College, and warm Republican. The figures represent them very well: Barker particularly. The insignificant mean figure of Dr Hallifax is very well hit off." [British Library] Add. MSS. 5824, fo. 84b. Samuel Hallifax, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, was Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge from 1770 to 1782. Some letters signed "Erasmus" in 1772 in favour of subscription to Articles were generally attributed to him. See 'D.N.B.' John Barker, D.D., became Master of Queens' College in 1780. 'Royal Kalendar', 1781, p. 236.