Abstract
For deep-rooted historical reasons (the long-standing alliance between England and Portugal), and in the light of a recent string of natural calamities that had afflicted the country in the 1750s, the 1755 Lisbon earthquake had a particularly deep resonance in Britain. This disaster of unprecedented proportion led to much soul-searching, as dozens of sermons poured from the pulpits before going into print. The standard interpretation (or “improvement”, in the language of the time) was that the Lisbon earthquake should be viewed as a divine visitation on the Portuguese, but also as a final warning of the Almighty against sinful Britain. Yet this interpretation did not triumph entirely unopposed; within the sermons themselves, the rival languages of natural philosophy and religion vied for supremacy, thereby revealing the existence of an intellectual fault line. The negotiation between those two types of language took various forms, as is shown in this study of three different sermons on the topic of the Lisbon earthquake.
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Notes
- 1.
This particular passage was quoted and commented on in all the sermons I looked into, and was often taken as the text itself, as is indeed the case with Thomas Alcock (see below).
- 2.
‘Our Lord tells us, in the Chapter in which he speaks of his second Coming, and answers the Disciples Enquiry about the Signs of his Coming, and the End of the World, that we should hear of Wars and Rumours of Wars’ (Gibbons 1755, 23). The references are to Matthew 24:6,7; Luke 21:25–27.
- 3.
‘Thus we have given the Reader an Abstract of the different Sentiments of those who have endeavoured to found the Theory of Earthquakes, upon the Principles of natural Philosophy, as they appeared from the abstracted Speculations of the Learned, and as confirmed by Chymical and other experimantal Proofs, on the one Hand, and of those, on the other Hand, who apprehend they can from the later, and more curious Discoveries of Electricity, assign Causes more suitable to the general Laws of Nature, and more adequate to the stupendous Effects of these astonishing Phaenomena’ (Hunter 1756, 14).
- 4.
‘And as from Speculation or Experience nothing has yet appeared to induce us to believe, that these Concussions are the orderly Produce of any Set of natural Causes, or that they have any Tendency to preserve the Consistence, Beauty, or Convenience of the mundane Frame; may we not rather think they are, by the great Author of Nature, order’d to be serviceable in the Government of the moral World, and to be Evidences of the immediate Agency of the Almighty, and the Interest he gives himself in the Kingdom of Providence, and for Instruments of Judgment against such Places as are guilty of the most aggravated Offences against, and Provocations of the most High? And especially as he hath been pleased, in the Revelation he hath made of his Will to Mankind, to declare this to be the Design and Intention of such uncommon and preternatural Events, in Order to preserve that lawful Regard of moral Agents, for the great Author, Founder and Governor of the Universe, which is of absolute Necessity to cultivate an universal Obedience to his Laws, and the Practice of that Virtue which is so visibly, essentially necessary to the Welfare and Happiness of intelligent Agents’ (Hunter 1756, 109–110).
- 5.
‘1 There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilæans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilæans were sinners above all the Galilæans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish’.
- 6.
‘All the world is subject to the same fate. If it has not yet suffered from earthquake, it may: perchance this spot on which you stand in full security will be rent this night, or even this day before night’ (1910, 224).
- 7.
To take a cue from the wisdom of Ian Fleming in Goldfinger: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.
- 8.
‘supposing Earthquakes to be divine Judgments, as oftentimes, no doubt, they are, Cities may be most visited, as being generally most wicked. For Cities abound most with Wealth, the Means of Luxury, Vice, and Corruption; and commonly most indulge in them. Beside that Cities are Places of Resort for all the Scum of the Land: The Idle, the Vagrant, the Pick-pocket, Thieves, Whores, and Beggars as naturally flocking to such Places, as Eagles do to a Carcass—’ (Hunter 1756, 18–19).
- 9.
‘But, I say, notwithstanding all the Evils that Earthquakes and Vulcanos are naturally productive of, they are preventive of greater. […] But if the explosive Matter of Earthquakes did not every now and then, at different Times, discharge itself in smaller Portions, by these local Eruptions, but were retained and collected in large Quantities at greater Depths, its Force would become so enormous and irresistible, that the whole Globe of the Earth, like a Shell or Bomb full of Powder, would be split to the Centre, would be burst and torn to Pieces, and all the Inhabitants perish in the bottomless Gulphs’ (Hunter 1756, 19–20).
- 10.
‘The pestilential Fever at Rouen in Normandy about two Years ago seemed justly supposed to be owing to a thick sulphureous Fog’ (Hunter 1756, 24).
- 11.
‘une éthique de la finitude’.
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Lurbe, P. (2023). ‘Improving This Terrible Visitation’: The Three Thomases and the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. In: Patel, S., Chiari, S. (eds) The Writing of Natural Disaster in Europe, 1500–1826. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12120-3_7
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