Lot 297: HOFFMAN, FRANCIS.

The World. The Stool of Repentance Exonerating Bad Parsons Lawyers & Physicians...who do not do as they w[ou]ld be done by. [n.p.], [early eighteenth century]

a long broadsheet (c.20 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches), printed in black and blue ink, incorporating a woodcut vignette portrait of Oliver Cromwell in oval surround lettered "Cut in Wood by F: Hoffman Aged 63", the central portion lettered "F: H: Being Wrong'd of a Good Estate in Berks & Forced by Tripple Fraud To live By his Witts Hopes all tolerable Honest & Pious Cushion-Thumpers Law:^rs & Phisickers will Buy this Print. For Joy to See", the text in the lower portion inveighing against his bêtes noires, namely parsons (the Dragons), lawyers (the False Prophets) and physicians (the Beasts), with astronomical motifs and Hebrew lettering, minor dust-staining, spotting and fraying

Not in ESTC, but cf. ESTC T56406, T56407, N50944, N46917 and N275; cf. Foxon H266-273

an apparently unique copy of an unrecorded broadsheet (not in ESTC). It was evidently produced by the Francis Hoffman who published a series of equally eccentric prints and broadsheets between 1714 and 1725. Characteristic prints by him include his "testimony" attacking types of pride, his "creed...dedicated to the almighty Georgos", a "demolishing edict...in favour of his own works", an "inventory" of possessions of one of the directors of the South-Sea Company, attacks on Whigs, Tories and Papists, and an account "of the great eclipse of the Moon...1725".