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Prophecy and Popular Literature in Eighteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Deborah M. Valenze
Deborah M. Valenze
Affiliation:
Brandeis University
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Extract

Until recently, chapbooks lay in the domain of Victorian antiquarians and bibliographers. Few persons have ever taken them seriously. Not even their original owners could mention them without showing embarrassment and adding that they had abandoned the pamphlets for more respectable reading. A half-century later, Victorian collectors called them ‘quaint’ and ‘peculiar’. Successive generations of historians failed in trying to date them and determine patterns of production and distribution. Present-day scholars no longer apologise for neglecting them. Despite this abuse, chapbooks stubbornly survive, their bad bindings preserved by poor cataloguing.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 1978 , pp. 75 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 The best studies of chapbooks to date are Neuburg, Victor E., Chapbooks: a guide to reference material on English, Scottish and American chapbook literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, London 1972Google Scholar and Weiss, Harry B., A Book About Chapbooks, Trenton, N. J. 1942Google Scholar. Neuburg's study of the major chapbook publishing firm, ‘The Diceys and the Chapbook Trade’, The Library, xxiv (1969), 219–31Google Scholar, sheds light on the question of the increase in the number of chapbooks throughout the century. William Lovett was but one such shameful reader of chapbooks: Life and Struggles, London 1876, 21Google Scholar. For others, see Neuberg's extensive list of autobiographies and memoirs in Chapbooks. Other works, largely descriptive and of less relevance to the approach of this paper, are indley, Charles H., A History of the Catnach Press, London 1886Google Scholar; Hptten, John Camden, ‘The Popular Literature of the Olden Time’ (unpublished MS., London, ca. 1870Google Scholar, now at the Bodleian Library, Oxford); Ashton, John, Chap Books of the Eighteenth Century, London 1969Google Scholar ed., by far the most useful anthology; Shepard, Leslie, The History of Street Literature, London 1973Google Scholar and John Pitts: Ballad Printer of Seven Dials, London 1765–1844, London 1969Google Scholar; Collison, Robert, The Story of Street Literature, London 1973Google Scholar. Sommerville, C. John, ‘Religious Typologies and Popular Religion in Restoration England’, Church History, 45 (1976), 32–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, introduces a useful quantitative approach to more serious publications of an earlier period.

For France, see Nisard, Charles, Histoire des livres populaires, Paris 1854Google Scholar and Mandrou, Robert, De la culture populaire aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles. La Bibliotheque bleue de Troyes, Paris 1964Google Scholar. Mandrou's research shows a similar body of literature, dominated by religious works, circulating at the same time in France. Though works on the supernatural and magic mixed with sacred histories and biographies as in England, French literature paid more attention to details of religious practice and church services.

An earlier version of this paper was presented to Professor Eric J. Hobsbawm's seminar on social history at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. The author is indebted to Prof. Hobsbawm and to Dr. John Walsh and Mr. Victor Neuburg for their many useful comments and suggestions.

2 Plumb, J. H., The Commercialisation of Leisure, University of Reading 1973Google Scholar; Neuburg, V. E., Popular Education in Eighteenth Century England, London 1971Google Scholar, ch. iv; Brewer, John, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of Georgy III, Cambridge 1976, 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 R. Collison, op. cit., 9, 13. The word ‘chap’ is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘ceap’, or ‘cheap’, referring to wares of the pedlar (pins, needles, toys, etc.). The chapbook usually was sold as a large sheet, printed so that it could be folded, stitched, and then cut t o achieve the correct page sequence. Most were eight, sixteen, or twenty-four pages long: L. Shepard, History, 26.

4 L. Shepard, op. cit., 48–50; L. Shepard, John Pitts, 32.

5 V. E. Neuburg, ‘The Diceys’, 224.

6 V. E. Neuburg (Chapbooks) gives a full list of printers and publishers in London and the Provinces during the eighteenth century.

7 R. Mandrou, op. cit., ‘Introduction’.

8 The list was published by Dicey and Marshall, Aldermary Church Yard, and is reproduced in Gerring, Charles, Notes on Printers and Booksellers with a chapter on Chapbooks, London 1900Google Scholar and V. E. Neuburg, Chapbooks. Although difficult to characterise, these three categories can be distinguished from chapbook legends and romances. Their titles, however, often bear little relation to their contents, so I have had to do some guesswork. Of the 150 chapbooks listed, 33 refer explicitly to religious concerns, and another 15 have t o do with prophecy and unorthodox ‘religious’ practices. For the relative popularity of religious works, see Altick, Richard D., The English Common Reader, Chicago 1957, 108Google Scholar.

9 For a discussion of this kind of prophecy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Thomas, Keidi, Religion and the Decline of Magic, London 1973Google Scholar, ch. xiii. Much of the bibliographical information regarding Shipton and other chapbooks in this paper is derived from die British Library Catalogue. For a respectful biographical sketch of Mother Shipton, see Harrison, William H., Mother Shipton Investigated, London 1881Google Scholar; The History of Mother Shipton, printed and sold in Aldermary Church-Yard, London n.d.; Mother Shipton and Nixon's Prophecies. Wonders.!!! Past, Present, and to Come! … compiled from the original scarce editions, and corrected by S. Baker, O. F., London 1797, 4–5Google Scholar; Yorkshire Folk-Lore Journal, i (1888), 32–8Google Scholar. The Mother Shipton pub in Hampstead stands as a present-day memorial of this prophetess. (I owe thanks to Prof. Hobsbawm for bringing this to my attention.)

10 Hulbert, Charles, Memoirs, London 1852, 43–6Google Scholar; Axon, W. E. A., Nixon's Cheshire Prophecies, Manchester 1873, 4Google Scholar, in an introduction signed ‘J. Oldmixon’.

11 Nixon's Cheshire Prophecy at Large, printed and sold in London. (British Library Catalogue 1770?); another edition, printed and sold in the Aldermary Church-Yard, Bow-Lane, London (n.d.); another edition: The Original Predictions of Robert Nixon Commonly Called the Cheshire Prophet, Chester, n.d., probably ca. 1795Google Scholar.

12 The History of Mother Bunch of the West, containing Many Rarities out of her Golden Closet of Curiosities, printed and sold in the Aldermary Church-Yard, Bow Church Yard, London, 1780; another edition, ed. Gomme, G. L., , F.S.A.Google Scholar, London, printed for the Villon Society, 1885.

13 The Wandering Jew, or the Shoemaker of Jerusalem. Who lived when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was Crucified. And by him appointed to Wander until He comes again. With his Travels, Method of Living, and a Discourse with some Clergymen about the End of the World; printed and sold in Aldermary Church-Yard, Bow Lane, London 1769Google Scholar. John Camden Hotten noted that the publication of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in cheap editions gave even further credence to the legend of the Wandering Jew: Hotten, op. cit., 67. Also, cf. chapbook catechisms, discussed below, 16–7.

14 N.p., n.d.; B. L. Cat. 1780? This same text appeared under a second title, Wonderful Prophecies, printed for and sold by J. Pitts, No. 14, Great Andrew Street, Seven Dials. Jennings, Water Lane, Fleet Street. (Probably after 1800).

15 Glasgow, printed in the year, M.DCC.LXXVI, 7–8; the later edition imprinted ‘printed and sold by J. Evans, No. 41, Long-Lane, West-Smithfied, London’ (n.d., probably ca. 1800). It is interesting to note die similarities between the views expressed in this chapbook and those of the labour sects discussed by Eric Hobsbawm in Primitive Rebels, New York 1959Google Scholar, ch. viii. ‘Politically the sectarian normally got only two things out ol his religion’, writes Hobsbawm, ‘patience and a sort of etherealized revenge …’ (133).

16 Commenting on popular literature in France, Natalie Z. Davis argues that the written word strengthened early modern popular culture because common readers, like modern audiences studied by Richard Hoggart, were ‘active users and interpreters of the printed books they heard and read’: ‘Printing and the People’, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, London 1975, 225Google Scholar.

17 A Gold Chain was imprinted ‘London: Printed by J(oseph) Hinson, at the Sun and Bible in Gilspur Street near Pye-Corner’, (B. L. Cat. 1750?). Though Christ in the Clouds appeared on Dicey's trade list and, therefore, must have been fairly common, I have not been able to trace an eighteenth-century copy of the book. It is likely, however, that the later editions followed the seventeenth-century edition quite closely. One dated 1635 survives in the British Library. Perkins's Chaine appeared in 1597. For an excellent discussion of seventeenth-century visionaries and prophets, see Hill, C., The World Turned Upside Down, London, Penguin Books, 1975Google Scholar, especially chs. 6–10.

18 Quoted in Wearmouth, Robert, Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth Century, London 1945, 158Google Scholar, from The Daily Advertiser, 9 September 1772, and The Gazetteer & New Daily Advertiser, 10 September 1772.

19 Methodist Archives Pamphlet Collection: J. Pawson, A Short Account of the Gracious Dealings with J. Pawson, Minister of the Gospel, 9.

20 Barratt, G., Recollections of Methodism and the Methodists in Lincoln, Lincoln 1886, 19Google Scholar. Rejection of doctrines of election and damnation played an important part in millennial beliefs throughout the seventeenth century. The assumption underlying this rejection, the belief in universal salvation, emerged gradually during the eighteenth century as part of radical orthodox doctrine. See Walker, D. P., The Decline of Hell, London 1964Google Scholar. For popular opposition to Mediodism and its doctrines, see Walsh, John, ‘Methodism and the Mob in the Eighteenth Century’, Studies in Church History, 8, ed. By Cuming, G. J. and Baker, Derek, Cambridge 1972, 213–14Google Scholar. I am very grateful to Dr. Walsh for discussing these and other aspects of popular religion with me.

21 Quoted in Walsh, art. cit., 222, from Barratt, op. cit., 18.

22 The earlier edition was imprinted ‘Printed by L. How, in Petticoat-Lane’. (B. L. Cat., 1750?)Google Scholar. The later, ‘Entered according to Order’. (B. L. Cat., 1770)Google Scholar. Other differences in the texts suggest a possible confusion between heaven and hell, a popular misconception found in antinomian belief in the seventeenth century, and later in Southcottian millennial belief in the nineteenth century. I owe thanks to Michael J. Williams for allowing me to read his unpublished paper, ‘Antichrist in the Nineteenth Century: Infidelism and Millenarianism’, from which I gained useful and comparative information.

23 See Lewis, I. M., Ecstatic Religion, London, Penguin Books, 1975Google Scholar. In a fascinating comparative study of possession in different cultures, Lewis suggests that many women's cults are ‘thinly disguised protest movements directed against the dominant sex’ (31), as seen, for example, in the Somali Republic. The Nayars of Malabar, in another instance, demonstrate the same system of attack in relations between master and servant (ibid., 114–5). For a startlingly accurate description of possession in a more familiar setting, see Henry James, The Bostonians, (1886). It is no accident that his heroine is named Verena Tarrant, a play on the term used to describe the medieval ‘dancing mania’, ‘tarantism’. (The affliction is more commonly known as St. Vitus's Dance.) See Lewis, 41–43.

24 In the ‘polite’ forms of religious literature at this time, writers tried to convey a new image of God as ‘the Father, not the Tyrant, of the Creation’. See Humphreys, A. R., ‘Literature and Religion in Eighteenth-Century England’, in this JOURNAL, iii (1952), 159–190Google Scholar. This fact highlights even more the contrast between popular and serious religious literature.

25 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 798.

26 C. Hill, ‘“Reason” and “reasonableness” in 1 7th-Century England’, British Journal of Sociology, xx. 248–9. Hill is perhaps harsh in his treatment of ‘Sir Isaac's twisted, buttoned-up personality’, but his point that Newton had ‘secret, irrational thoughts which he dared not publish’ suggests that the same was true for common people: C. Hill, World, 384–5.

27 See, for example, Methodist Archives MSS Diary of John Bennet, 24 January 1798.

28 Licensed and Entered according to Order, n.d., probably ca. 1770. Another chapbook confirms this view: The Athiest's Reward: or, a Call from Heaven, On July the'24th, 1786. Shewing, How a profane young ‘Squire was struck dead by Thunder and Lightning, for Blasphemy against God …, printed in the year 1788.

29 C. Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, 149. It is possible that chapbooks themselves were responsible for affirming a collective morality; that is, by circulating codes of behaviour in printed form, chapbooks might have encouraged common acceptance of rules which thus became ‘collective’. See Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., ‘The Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought : a Preliminary Report’, Journal of Modern History, 40 (1968), 39–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on how this might have been true for Elizabethan England.

30 Licensed and Entered according to Order, London, printed in Pye-Corner (B. L. Cat. 1750?). Almost all orthodox pamphlet catechisms, aimed at an audience of children, began with ‘Who made you?’: see The First Catechism, by Isaac Watts, London 1792; cf. A Little Catechism, by John Mason, London 1692.

31 The Lost and Undone Son of Perdition, lOR (sic), the Life and Death of Judas Iscariot. Sold by J. Bence, in Wotton-Underedge. (B. L. Cat., 1790?). The life of Judas was a favourite subject of ballads as well as chapbooks. One, for example, was entitled ‘The dream of Judas's Mother fulfilled’.

32 Ralston, W. R. S., ‘Notes on Folk-Tales’, Folk-Lore Record, i (1878), 76–78Google Scholar, on a classification made in 1864 by J. G. von Hahn.

33 Yorkshire Chap-books, ed. Federer, Charles A., London 1889, 7–8Google Scholar. Federer pointed out that this class of heroes did not include the parvenu, ‘the individual who quits the fellowship of those who were once his equals’, nor the character of simple ‘goodness’, such as in Pamela.

34 Napier, James, ‘Old Ballad Folk-Lore’, Folk-Lore Record, ii (1869), 123Google Scholar. Dreadful News from Taunton-Dean. God's Judgments against Jealous Persons. Being The Whole Account of the most Horrid Murder committed by Sir William Watts, Who most cruelly murdered his Lady, and two small Children, n.p., n.d., probably ca. 1795. Cf. God's just Judgment, against Jealous Persons. Licensed and Enter'd according to Order. (B. L. Cat., Bristol? 1780?) Appended to each chapbook was a sermon preached by a local minister.

35 Mrs. Latham, Charlotte, ‘Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868’, Folk-Lore Record, i (1878), 24Google Scholar, 47.

36 Gomme, G. L., Folk-Lore Relics of Early Village Life, London 1883, 175Google Scholar.

37 J. H. Plumb, op. cic.

38 John Brewer, op. cit., ch. ix.

39 Laqueur, Thomas W., Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class 1780–1850, New Haven 1976, 113–119Google Scholar, 28–30. Laqueur's discussion of Sunday School textbooks shows the extensiveness of religious teaching steadily increasing in a variety of forms.

40 Correspondence of Henry Brooke: Walton MS. 1. i. 43, Dr. Williams's Library, London. Extract from (Ralph) Mather to Henry Brooke (n.d.), 82; Ralph Mather to Henry Brooke (1770), 120–1.

41 Garrett, Clarke, Respectable Folly, Baltimore 1975Google Scholar.

42 Also of Another, seen by Four Colliers, on the 24th of June, 1796, with the Prophecy of Humphrey Tindal, Vicar of Wellinger, shewing the downfall of the Clergy, and the woeful and miserable condition of this kingdom. As printed by I. M., 1642. Reprinted for G. Riebau, No. 439, Strand, 1798. (Riebau was also Brothers's publisher and a member of mystic circles.

43 There were several different editions of Joanna's prophecies besides those which she herself published: for example, The Signs of the Times for 1810, Being a Full Explanation of the Prophecies of Joanna Southcoat (sic), London, printed and sold by J. Pitts, No. 14, Street, Great St. Andrew, Dials, Seven; The life and Death of Joanna Southcott, London, printed and sold by J. Evans and Son, 42 Long-Lane, West Smithfield, n.d., after 1814Google Scholar. Cf. longer works, usually of about thirty pages, such as The Prophecies of Joanna Southcott, Relating to the Dreadful Judgments That willfall on this Nation in the Present Year, 1810, When the Sword, Plague and Famine will go through the Land …, London, published by R. Walker, 90 High Holborn, and sold by all booksellers in town and country, printed by J. Lowe, 46 Grays-Inn-Lane, London.

44 Valenze, D., ‘Millenarianism in Britain 1794–1814: the Movements of Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott’. (Harvard College senior honors thesis, 1975)Google Scholar. One feature of Southcott's movement, a law requiring every sealed member to own at least one copy of her writings, marks a transition of prophetic movements from oral to written traditions and practices. For the implications of this, see Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian, ‘The Consequences of Literacy’, Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody, Jack, Cambridge 1968, 27–68Google Scholar.

45 Wedgwood, Henry Allen, People of the Potteries (Documents of Social History series, 1970; 1st ed. 1877-1881), 104–109Google Scholar. Bourne's motto, if we can believe Wedgwood, was ‘Fervent in spirit and diligent in business’. For Crawfoot, see also Albert A. Birchenough, ‘Our First Travelling Preacher’, Aldengate Primitive Methodist Magazine, i. (N.S. 190s), 921; Kendall, H. B., The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church, London 1906, 150Google Scholar; George Herod, Biographical Sketches of some of those preachers of the Primitive Methodist Connexion, London n.d., 241–72.

46 C. Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, 371.