Rare Pamphlet legal 1690 | Copye authentijck van de liquidatie van reeckeningen tusschen den heer Jacob Boreel, hooft-officier der stadt Amsterdam, Michiel Bocx, notaris en clerck van gemelde hoofd-officier, en mr. Niclaes Muys van Holy (…) omkoopen getuygen tegen Romeyn de Hooghe, zedert 2-2 en 4-6 1690, 7 pp. o

Pamphlet about the so-called Pamphlet War of 1690, the primary vehicle for much of the criticism of De Hooghe’s satires. In twelve scathing pamphlets published against Romeyn de Hooghe in the first several months of 1690, witnesses alleged his blasphemy, atheism, and sexual perversion, and embroiled him in a fevered exchange of pamphlets with representatives of Amsterdam. While such rhetoric employed against the printmaker in pamphlet literature vividly described his manifold immorality, Hollands hollende koe (Holland’s running cow), an anti-Williamite satire produced by the printmaker’s enemies in his distinctive etching style, provided material ‘evidence’ of his lack of integrity. With this print, De Hooghe was accused of working for both sides of the political divide—producing Orangist satires for William III and anti-Williamite satires for the Amsterdam regents. The potency of Hollands hollende koe depends fundamentally upon the assumption of integrity between satirist and satire, the notion that he or she believes in the positions and ideologies espoused in his or her satires. It will be argued that the conflation of satirist and satire and the attendant expectation of moral conviction on the part of the satirist are not only associated with the genre of political satire, they are engendered by it and feature prominently throughout its history.