Anonymous


On a Picture of Judas, Painted to Resemble Bishop Kennet


To say the picture does to him belong,
Kennet does Judas and the painter wrong.
False is the image, the resemblance faint;
Judas compar’d to Kennet was a saint.

[See Nichols’ Literary Anecdotes. Bishop Kennet (1660-1728), at that time Dean of Peter-bor¬ough, offended the Tory and Church party by the support he accorded to the Whigs, and one London clergyman actually had an altar-piece placed in his church in which Judas was so repre¬sented as greatly to resemble the unfortunate prelate. Besides the above, Bishop Atterbury is said to have written a Latin epi¬gram on the same subject, the English version of which runs: –

“Think not that here thou art represented;
Thou ’rt not like Judas, for he repented.”]






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