Oratory Chappel
image after a forgery, supposedly etched by Joseph Sympson II after William Hogarth
ca. 1794
British Museum 1978,U.3484
Inscription above the image:
It is written my house shall be called ye house of prayer but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Inscription below the image:
Heaven with Butchers plac'd thy Priestley stall. Poor humble Faith to mangle hack & maul.
The Reverend John (Orator) Henley preaches in the pulpit at the left, underneath a platform on which a dog in Scots plaid holds a sign reading "Politicks & Divinity." Members of the congregation brandish fists and clubs at one another; others appear to be heeding the sermon, while others below share in a congenial conversation or read the paper. A pew on the right, its occupants wearing Scotch plaid, is labeled
Pews for ye Doctors Friends &c
Butcher Frenchman
Scot and Tory
Join to rob Britain
of its Glory
A coat of arms above the pew is inscribed with the mottos
"Bray" and "No Faith No King No Law"
Bulletins below read:
Repaired and Beautifyd by O—t— H—y [Orator Henley]
and
Subjects to night ye. Battle of Dettengen & ye. Bishops
© The Trustees of the British Museum in the UK
This image is provided courtesy of the British Museum under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. In certain other jurisdictions it is considered to be in the public domain.