[ 'Promise to pay to Ignorance, Hypocrisy & Fanaticism, Methodist Preachers'. ] Satirical engraving of a bank note, undertaking to pay five farthings 'when Methodism shall have been done away'.

Author: 
John Luffman, London printseller [ Georgian methodism ]
Publication details: 
'Sold by Luffman, 377, Strand'.. Dated from London, 1 September 1810.
£120.00
SKU: 20768

Printed in black ink on a 9 x 16.5 cm. piece of paper. A scarce piece of ephemera. Grubby, aged and worn. Laid down on part of a page from an album. A pastiche of a Georgian banknote, the main body of the text reading: 'No. 24 . . . . | Promise to pay to Ignorance, Hypocrisy & Fanaticism, Methodist Preachers, or Bearer FIVE Farthings, when Methodism shall have been done away with by the Pious exertions of the established Clergy, and when Iohn Bull's Family shall be no longer scared by the tale of the Devil let loose. | London the 1st. day of Septr 1810. | For Self, Be-just & Fear-not | Moral Rectitude.' In the margin to the left is a vignette of a methodist minister preaching, in circular border with words: 'I give ye this consolation – You'll all be Damn'd'. Beneath the vignette are Luffman's details. Above the engraving is a four-line arrangement of a couplet by Pope: 'For modes of Faith | Let fiery Zealots fight, | He can't be wrong, |whose life is in the right.' Beneath the vignette are the following four lines: 'Mind not one word | Such stupid fellows say. | Fear the true GOD | and mend your sinful way.' Part of a series by Luffman. The British Museum has (from the collection of Edwared Hawkins) a copy of No.16, promising to pay 'to Spouter, Swearlie & Promptspeech, Affidavit Makers, or Bearer, Two Pence, when Coughing, Sneezing or the Bowel-easing Flatus', dated from London, 5 December 1809. Dorothy George has, as No. 11780 in her 'Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum', a reissue of this item by S. W. Fores of Piccadilly, but does not have a copy of this original.