England's Looking Glass

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There are a number of works with England's Looking Glass in the title. During the 16th and 17th centuries looking glass, meaning mirror,[1] was frequently used in the titles of books.[2][3]

  • Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene, A Looking Glass for London and England (c.1590), an Elizabethan era stage play
  • Edmund Calamy the Elder, England's Looking Glass (1642)
  • William Mercer (poet), "Angliae speculum, or, England's Looking-Glasse" (1646)
  • Elizabeth Pool, The Bloudy Almanack, or England's Looking-Glass (1651). (Containing the Scots Prophesie to their King)
  • Rowlinson, "A Recollection of the Times, or England's Looking-Glass" (1680). It is a ballad that begins "0 Sinful World ! rouse up thy sleepy head ..."
  • Ethan Abbe, "England's Looking-Glass, Tales of the Human Condition" (1812)

See also[edit]

  • Richard Graham Preston, "Angliae Speculum Morale: The Moral State of England, with the Several Aspects it Beareth to Virtue and Vice" (1670)
  • Simon Patrick, "Angliæ speculum: a glass that flatters not" (1678)

Further reading[edit]

"I may truly call these nineteen sins, England's looking-glass, wherein we may see what are the clouds that eclipse God's countenance from shining upon us".

Notes and references[edit]

  1. ^ In the same way mirror is now used figuratively in the names of publications like The Daily Mirror
  2. ^ Oxford English Dictionary "Looking-glass" b. fig. (In the 16th and 17th cents. frequently used in the titles of books.) Now rare (= ‘mirror’).
  3. ^ Lily B. Campbell (2005) Shakespeare's Histories: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-35310-6, ISBN 978-0-415-35310-6. Chapter "poetical mirrors of history" p.107