The Pictorial Press: Its Origin and ProgressJackson, Mason
History
The Pictorial Press: Its Origin and Progress
Jackson, Mason
Illustration of books; Newspapers -- Illustrations
From the 'perambulations' of a Ritualistic clergyman we come to a
nunnery, in a pamphlet published in 1641, entitled, '_The Arminian
Nunnery, or a briefe description and relation of the late erected
Monasticall Place, called the Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding, in
Huntingdonshire_.' The writer of this pamphlet gives a minute and by no
means 'brief' description of the institution, which he evidently
believes to be Roman Catholic, or a stepping-stone to it, though the
'Deacon' who attended him on his visit assured him to the contrary. He,
however, sets down all the tapers and crosses, the bowings and
prostrations, as so many proofs of idolatry, and marvels that, in a
settled Church government, the Bishops should suffer any such
institutions to exist; particularly that Archbishop Laud, professing to
be such an 'Anti-Papist and enemy to superstition and idolatry, should
permit this innovation and connive at such canting betwixt the barke and
the tree in matter of Religion.' While censuring the prelates for their
criminal slothfulness, the writer gave his countrymen the benefit of his
own acuteness and energy, and published his description, illustrated
with an engraving representing one of the nuns, with a portion of the
nunnery in the background.
[Illustration: NUNNERY AT LITTLE GIDDING, HUNTINGDONSHIRE, 1641.]
The next illustrated pamphlet we come to is a curious attempt on the
part of its author to satirise his literary contemporaries for the
falsehoods contained in their writings, and he burlesques their
productions by relating many things as lies which, however, he means to
be understood as truths. It is called '_The Liar, or a contradiction to
those who in the titles of their Books affirmed them to be true, when
they were false; although mine are all true yet I term them lyes.
Veritas Veritatis_.'
'There was an Englishman which travelled to the Swedish Army, and began
to relate very strange passages which he had seen here in England,
thinking that travellers might lye by authority; for said he in the
County of Berke, at a place called Abingdon, when the Earle of Strafford
lost his head, was such thundering and lightning, and earthquakes, that
it is almost incredible. Surely I think it is incredible indeed, for I
know 'tis no such matter.
'He told too that the very same day that my Lord Archbishop of
Canterbury was committed to the Tower, there was a child born in the
County of Somerset with a Mitre on its head, a marke on his breast like
a Crucifix, and many other strange things which were there seene.'
Having invented the travelling Englishman for a mouth-piece and selected
the Swedish army for an audience, the writer goes on to relate many
other strange things, which, though told as lies, are evidently intended
to be taken as truths.
[Illustration: THE LIAR ON THE RACK, 1641.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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