File:Wise as serpents (BM 1868,0808.4582).jpg

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Wise as serpents   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Title
Wise as serpents
Description
English: A large serpent, holding a bird in its mouth, encircles a number of objects indicating various phases of religious imposture (so called). The serpent, which represents Wesley, is inscribed "The subtlest beast of the field (a)". This is annotated below the design: "(a) NB some Hyper-Critics say it was not originally written Field but Moorfields". Within the space enclosed by the serpent are (l.) a sealed letter inscribed "Aldeberts Letter", and a Gridiron, inscribed "Mahomet's Gridiron"; beneath a scroll inscribed "Old Light at Mecca" is an open book, "Koran". Above a scroll inscribed "New Light in Moorfields" are three books: "Bedlam Hymns"; "Druid Hymns"; "Ignat"; "Loyola Monita Secreta", and a bottle inscribed "Gin" in whose neck is a lighted candle. Dividing the Koran from these objects is a short curved sword of the pattern worn by macaronies c. 1771-3 (see BMSat 5030) inscribed, "Calm Address of Both". Beneath the serpent is a scroll inscribed "Wise as Serpents". Below the design is engraved:



"Thus modern Arts on Ancient Plans improve,
A Bedlam-Serpent swallows Mecca's Dove." 1778


Etching
Depicted people Representation of: John Wesley
Date 1778
date QS:P571,+1778-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium paper
Dimensions
Height: 199 millimetres
Width: 127 millimetres
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Prints and Drawings
Accession number
1868,0808.4582
Notes

(Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', V, 1935) Frontispiece from 'The Temple of Imposture', 1778, one of a number of scurrilous pamphlets in verse attacking John Wesley by the same author, see BMSat 5493, 5494, 5496, 5576. In the list (p. 31) Wesley is denounced as "Of all Impostors since the Flood the worst". The Foundry, Moorfields, was from 1740 to 1778 Wesley's chief place of preaching and the head-quarters of Methodism in London. Its proximity to Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam), combined with the hysteria which sometimes attacked his converts, was a common occasion of raillery.

For similar, though less scurrilous, attacks on Wesley see BMSat 1785, 2425, by Hogarth (1762).
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-4582
Permission
(Reusing this file)		 © The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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current18:38, 9 May 2020Thumbnail for version as of 18:38, 9 May 20201,150 × 1,600 (443 KB)Copyfraud (talk | contribs)British Museum public domain uploads (Copyfraud/BM) Satirical prints in the British Museum 1778 #3,338/12,043

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