Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
History
Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880
Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
Boston (Mass.) -- Description and travel; Boston (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Another broadside sheet, some seven by twelve, is entitled as above, and
divided into paragraphs, numbered from one to twenty, in prose. It is a
sort of sermon in which the Christian is compared to the Bee, or perhaps
placed in competition with the industrious and self-supporting insect. Its
positions, omitting most of the applications, are these: The bee is a
laborious, diligent creature; so is the Christian. The bee is a provident
creature; so is the Christian. The bee feeds on the sweetest and choicest
foods; so does the Christian. The bee puts all into the common stock; so
is the Christian of a generous, communicative temper. The bee is always
armed; so is the Christian with respect to his spiritual armor. Bees are a
sort of commonwealth; so Christians are likened to a city that is
compacted together. The bee, as it always has a bag of honey, has also a
bag of rank poison; so has the Christian, with the grace of God, a body of
sin and corruption, &c. Lastly, the bee lies dormant all winter; so the
Christian sometimes slumbers, &c. "Yet the hour is coming when all that
are in the graves shall awake and come forth, they that have done good,
unto the resurrection of life; but alas, they that have done evil, unto
the resurrection of damnation!" Sold by Kneeland & Green, in Queen Street.
Illustrated with a small fanciful engraving of a bee-hive, surrounded with
horns of plenty and decorative carving.
PROPOSED POPISH INVASION.
Every thing which occurred in England, or elsewhere, in fact, having any
reference to Popery, however remote, was sure to interest the Puritans,
and demand their attention; and, it would seem, was sometimes provocative
of poetry. So when the "happy discovery of a cursed plot against the
church of God, Great Britain and her King," was announced by the King, on
the 15th of February, 1743 (i.e., 1744), a large hand-bill was issued from
the Boston press, to which the printer did not put his name, headed, "Good
news from London, to the rejoicing of every christian heart." This was the
discovery of the plot "for bringing in a young Popish pretender." The news
was received by an arrival at Portsmouth, N.H., in twenty-six days from
England, and included the message of the King to Parliament. The hand-bill
contained the message in which the King declares that "having received
undoubted intelligence that the eldest son of the pretender to his crown
is arrived in France, and that preparations are making there to invade
this kingdom, in concert with disaffected persons here," &c., his Majesty
acquaints the House of the matter in order that measures may be taken, &c.
This is followed by a long anonymous poem, beginning,--
"Behold the French and Spaniards rage,
And people with accord
Combine, to take away the life
Of George, our sovereign lord.
* * * * *
"When George the first came to the throne,
Their rage began to burn,
And now they fain would execute
The same upon his son.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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