A Story of Infanticide | Antique Box with Scene from Parnell’s The Hermit
A Story of Infanticide | Antique Box with Scene from Parnell’s The Hermit
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In all my years of collecting 19th century boxes I think this wins the prize for strangest: It dates to the early 1800s and depicts a scene from Thomas Parnell’s 18th century poem “The Hermit.” It’s a religious allegory about misfortunes and God’s plan: The titular hermit meets a young man on the road who commits 4 seemingly awful and immoral acts. At the end of the poem, the youth reveals himself to be an angel and explains how each act was part of God’s plan. This box depicts the worst act in the poem: The youth breaks the neck of their host’s baby in its cradle.
This is the full stanza from which the line printed on the box was taken:
Before the Pilgrimspart, the Younger crept,
Near the clos'd cradle where an Infant slept,
And writh'd his Neck: the Landlord's little Pride,
O strange Return! grew black, and gasp'd and dy'd.
Horrour of Horrours! what! his only Son!
How look'd our Hermit when the Fact was done?
Not Hell, tho' Hell's black jaws in sunderpart,
And breathe blue fire, could more assault his Heart
The explanation for this horrific killing of the baby was that its father was in danger of doting on him to the point of idolatry and the baby was taken to spare him from sin.
The box is made of colored paper with a handwritten pencil inscription on the back. A previous owner in the 19th century had kept receipts in it, evidently. Certainly the most morbid antique box you are likely to find!
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