Note 91 — DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINTS, Etc.
Reading edition
Of the plate in its first state there are only two impressions, both of them in the possession of the Editor, who has published a correct copy of the same size, which may be had from him or from Messrs. Boydell.
On the margin of these two prints Hogarth has inserted slight pen-and-ink sketches of "A Monk as a Windmill," "the Hopper of a Mill," etc. These are copied in the annexed plate of reference, and in a degree elucidated by the following passage in Burnet's Travels through Switzerland, etc., p. 232:—
"Over a popish altar at Worms is a picture one would think invented to ridicule transubstantiation. There is a windmill, and the Virgin throws Christ into the hopper, and he comes out at the eye of the mill all in wafers, which some priest takes up to give to the people. This is so coarse an emblem, that one would think it was too gross even for Laplanders; but a man that can swallow transubstantiation will digest this likewise."
Of painters presuming to explain the Trinity by a triangle, Hogarth and Swift thought alike:
"If God should please to reveal unto us this great mystery of the Trinity, or some other mysteries in our holy religion, we should not be able to understand them unless He would bestow on us some new faculties of the mind."—Swift.