Sales catalogue 574: Maggs Bros

Date:
1932
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/118
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 574: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A favourite subject for pictorial representation was the Dance of Death, who was usually depicted as a skeleton in the act of leading all ranks and conditions of men to the grave. Disraeli writes that “the origin of this extraordinary invention is supposed to be a favourite pageant, or religious mummery, invented by the clergy, who always found it necessary to amuse, as well as to frighten the populace. The greater part of these subjects of Death are ludicrous in the extreme, and it may be a question whether the spectators of these Dances of Death did not find their mirth excited more than their religious emotions. Ignorant and terrified as the people were at the view of the skeleton, even the grossest simplicity could not fail to laugh at some of those domestic scenes and familiar persons drawn from among them- selves.’ For some remarkable “Dance of Death”’ items, see Nos. 12, 65, 378, 397, 407 ahd 433. An entertaining and very curious religious work is the legendary Lives of the Saints by Voragine, known as the Golden Legend (see No. 43). It has been said that many of the miracles and portents to be found in this work were collected out of Ovid, Livy and other pagan poets and historians and accommodated to the Christian saints. The people received these pious fictions with all imaginable simplicity, and as they are adorned by a number of pictures, the miracles were perfectly intelligible to their eyes. Another curious work is A Concent of Scripture (Nos. 85 and 85a) by Hugh Broughton, a writer of controversial books in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He shows us in this discussion on Scripture chronology that Rahab was a harlot at ten years of age; and enters into many grave arguments concerning the colour of Aaron’s ephod and the language which Eve first spoke. Broughton is ridiculed in Ben Jonson’s Comedies. The struggles for Religious Supremacy have occasioned many curious books, notably Fox’s Acts and Monuments (see No. 105) which is the martyrology of the Protestants, and where the “ tender mercies” of the Catholics are “cut in wood” for those who might not otherwise be enabled to read or spell them. Fox made more than one generation shudder by his gruesome recitals. Dodd opposed Fox with his Church History of England (see No. 399a), exhibiting a most abundant martyrology of the Catholics inflicted at the hands of the Protestants. Dodd grieves over the iil
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