1-192-388 - © London Museum/Heritage-Images

'Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism. A Medley', 18th century. (Originally called Enthusiasm Delineated). The scene depicts a Methodist meeting at Whitefield's Tabernacle on Tottenham Court Road, London. At the top a fanatical preacher preaches from a text I Speak as a Fool, and uses puppets of a witch and a devil to scare his congregation. In the right corner John Wesley's book of sermons sits upon a book about witches. Below the main pulpit a clergyman is embraces a woman while tucking a statute of the Virgin Mary down the front of her dress. In the foreground, Mary Tofts gives birth to rabbits in an illustration of the famous hoax she pulled off in 1726; many believed that it was actually true.