Two Burlesques of Lord Chesterfield's Letters Part 1

Two Burlesques of Lord Chesterfield's Letters.

by Anonymous.

INTRODUCTION

Even though the disasters which overtook John Stubbs and William Prynne in the days of Elizabeth and Charles I no longer faced the pamphleteer, the eighteenth century saw many an anonymous publication, for while hands and ears were less in jeopardy, author and publisher might well suffer imprisonment, as William Cooley and the printer of the Daily Post learned in the winter of 1740-41, and John Wilkes in the 1760's. One can understand why, despite the absence of personal danger, a public figure like Lord Chesterfield should yet conceal his connection with a piece on the Hanoverian troops, or why Horace Walpole might often not put his name to an item listed in his Short Notes of his life or young Boswell to his communications to the press. Indeed, many an innocuous writing appeared anonymously, for the bashful author, protected against the miseries of conspicuous failure, could always shyly acknowledge a successful production. Later, perchance, it could appear in his collected works.

The two pieces here reprinted, typical verse pamphlets of the 1770's, ill.u.s.trate both a type of writing and an age. The subject of both is contemporary--the best-selling _Letters to his Son_ of Lord Chesterfield. The method falls between burlesque and caricature; the aim is amus.e.m.e.nt; the substance is negligible. Neither poem made more than a ripple on publication, neither initiated a critical fas.h.i.+on, and neither survived in its own right, yet each has merit enough to justify inclusion today in such a series as the Augustan reprints.

Chesterfield's _Letters to his Son_, the subject of these two burlesques, were announced as published on April 7, 1774, scarcely a year after his death; that they became an immediate best seller, every schoolboy knows. Reaction to the letters took several modes of expression. These included comments in conversation by Dr. Johnson and by George III, as reported by Boswell and by f.a.n.n.y Burney; in letters, from Walpole, Mrs. Delaney, Voltaire, and Mrs. Montagu; and in diaries, such as those of f.a.n.n.y Burney and John Wesley. Reviewers sprang to words if not into action. Entire books came to the defence of morality. A sermon announced "The Unalterable Nature of Vice and Virtue" (a second edition placed Virtue before Vice); the _Monthly Review_ for December 1775 praised it: "This sensible and well written discourse is chiefly directed against the letters of the late Lord Chesterfield, though his Lords.h.i.+p is not mentioned." All of these approached the subject directly. Indirect reactions included an ironic _Apology for Mrs.

Stanhope_ (the son's widow, who had sold the letters to James Dodsley the publisher for 1575 and was represented as the editor), two novels showing the pernicious effects of the Chesterfieldean "system"--_The Pupil of Pleasure_, by Courtney Melmoth (Samuel Jackson Pratt), and _The Two Mentors_, by Clara Reeve--and a parody by Horace Walpole of the first three letters (published years later in his _Works_). The _Westminster Magazine_ carried a "Pet.i.tion of the Women of Pleasure" and the _London Chronicle_ a farcical skit on Lord Chesterfield's refined manners.[1] In a play called _The Cozeners_, Samuel Foote took advantage of current interest in Chesterfield to ridicule the graces. Not the least interesting examples of the indirect reaction to the _Letters_ are the two verse caricatures or burlesques here reprinted.

The earlier of the two poems, _The Graces_, bears the date 1774 on the t.i.tle page. A second edition of 1775 at first glance appears to be a reissue with new t.i.tle page, but minor changes and the straightedge test are evidence of resetting. The authors.h.i.+p was soon known: _The London Chronicle_ for February 16-18, quoting 88 lines of the total 170 and working from the first edition, mentioned that the piece was written by Mr. Woty, but so far as bibliography was concerned this attribution remained hidden until recently, for Woty's obituary in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for March 1791 omitted mention of _The Graces_, as did the _DNB_ and its additional sources, John Nichols' _Leicesters.h.i.+re_ and David Erskine Baker's _Biographia Dramatica_ (1812 ed.).[2] That Woty did indeed write _The Graces_ one may a.s.sume from his including it in 1780, with minor changes, in _Poems on Several Occasions_. He too used the first edition.

Of William Woty's life little need be said; the _DNB_, relying essentially on the _Gentleman's Magazine_, gives the salient events: after preparing to enter the law, he became companion and a kind of legal secretary to Was.h.i.+ngton, Earl Ferrers, who prior to his death in 1778 made Woty independent by establis.h.i.+ng an annuity of 150 for him.

His first book of verse was _The Sporting Club_, 1758; the next, _The Shrubs of Parna.s.sus_, by "James Copywell," he published in 1760. Two others, which he acknowledged, followed in the next three years; then in 1763 he joined Francis Fawkes in editing _The Poetical Calendar_, in 12 volumes, to which Samuel Johnson contributed a character sketch of William Collins (Boswell's _Life_, ed. Hill-Powell, I, 382). In 1770, Woty issued a two-volume _Poetical Works_. The _Gentleman's Magazine_, mentioning four other publications from 1770 to 1775, adds, "and some other miscellaneous pieces since that time." These, possibly unnamed because published outside of London, included _Poems on Several Occasions_, Derby, 1780 (in which, as noted above, he reprinted _The Graces_), _Fugitive and Original Poems_, Derby, 1786, and _Poetical Amus.e.m.e.nts_, Nottingham, 1789. "Mr. W. was a true _bon vivant_," the notice continues, "but by a too great indulgence of his pa.s.sion for conviviality and society he unfortunately injured his const.i.tution." He died in March 1791, "aged about 60."

Woty seems to have been on the periphery of Samuel Johnson's list of acquaintances. Under what circ.u.mstances Johnson agreed to write the sketch of Collins for the _Poetical Calendar_, Boswell does not specify--whether for Woty or for Fawkes or for J. Coote, the publisher--but write it he did. The index to the Hill-Powell Boswell lists Woty (and Fawkes) only in this connection, but someone had sufficient interest with the lexicographer to induce him to subscribe to Woty's anonymous _Shrubs of Parna.s.sus_, 1760; the subscription list of some 500 names includes not only Samuel Johnson, A.M., but David Garrick, Mr. William Mason, Dr. Smollett, Mr. Strahan, and Mr. Newbery, of St. Paul's Church Yard, who bought 6 books--not unnaturally, for he was the publisher. A decade later, the subscribers to _The Poetical Works of William Woty_ included James Boswell, Esq., George Colman, Esq., Mr. Garrick, Dr. Johnson, and this time for but one set, Mr.

Newbery. After still another decade, when Woty published in Derby his _Poems on Several Occasions_, the list of subscribers included none of these names, even though this collection included _The Graces_, with its dozen lines on Samuel Johnson (now omitting from page 11 the couplet on Bute) which reveal no degree of intimacy, but do show respect and admiration for him.

_The Fine Gentleman's Etiquette; or, Lord Chesterfield's Advice to his Son, versified, By a Lady_, is both longer and later than _The Graces_; unlike that poem, it remains anonymous. The lady versifier, though somewhat repet.i.tious in her matter (her defence would of course be that she followed her source), cannot be accused of incompetence in her prosody. Of the 366 lines, she has precious few which scan roughly or rhyme inaccurately; those few come within legitimate poetic license--on the whole, a slightly smoother versification than in Goldsmith's then popular "Retaliation," dashed off in response to a jest at The Club but not published until shortly after his death in 1774. Alike in verse form, the two poems differ significantly in ideas and style; there the discrepancy justifies the different fates of the two. In the poem here reprinted, the only pa.s.sage deserving individual comment is the anecdote of Philip and the blanc mange (see pages 13 and 14). Lord Charlemont, in the course of answering a query from Lord Bruce about young Stanhope's character, recounts the incident, having had it from an eyewitness: the food was baked gooseberries and whipped cream, and the Earl's comment, "John, why do you not fetch the strop and the razors? you see your master is going to shave himself" (_Charlemont MSS_., I, 327-328).

The reviewers did little for _The Fine Gentleman's Etiquette_; most ignored the pamphlet. _The Monthly Miscellany_ for June 1776 provided a few kindly lines: "This didactic rhapsody, the precepts contained in which are founded upon pa.s.sages referred to in his Lords.h.i.+p's letters, is written in hendecasyllable measure, and is not dest.i.tute of humour."

The _Monthly Review_ for the same month had less to say: "We should be miserably deficient in the fine Gentleman's Etiquette, were we to criticise a lady for employing her time as she pleases."

In one sense, both burlesquers. .h.i.t the weak spot in Chesterfield's _Letters_. Since his purpose is to entertain through exaggeration, a parodist is not required to be fair or to distinguish between an editor without judgment and the writer of intimate letters; so long as something can be made ludicrous, 'twill suffice. Yet essentially the burlesquers and many a critic then and since have missed what Chesterfield was writing in his letters and living in his long life.

Blinded by the trivia inevitable in hundreds of letters carrying anxious parental advice, the critics have too often ignored or misinterpreted Chesterfield's pa.s.sion for helping. He lavished countless hours, during the busiest part of his life, writing to his son in an effort to round out his education where it was distressingly deficient--not in strengthening it where it was strong. The pattern of trying to help is repeated: Chesterfield did his level best with his G.o.dson; he gave what was seemly to his young friend Huntingdon and likewise to Solomon Dayrolles. Five unpublished letters at Yale, to a Mr. Clements of Dublin, repeat the formula on a minor scale, the fifty-five-year-old earl laying out a plan of education for the family hopeful.

Chesterfield's interest to do good shows at its best in his too little known letter to the Duke of Bedford condemning the brutal treatment of French prisoners (Dobree, VI, 2960). These all reveal something more praiseworthy in the man than the common interpretation of him.

Refres.h.i.+ng, sophisticatedly unsophisticated, yet genuinely revealing of Lord Chesterfield's character, are a half dozen unknown couplets which almost summarize his philosophy of manners. Since his sense of humor can be questioned only by those themselves blind and deaf to humor, his dislike here for laughter should be taken for what he intends--disgust at vacuous guffaws. The society he praises has fun without attendant headaches or regrets. Surely, one could do worse than to be, with him, "innocently gay." The verses appeared in the _London Chronicle_ for May 28-30, 1776; an autograph copy, said to be dated 1761 and forming part of the Alfred Morrison collection, was sold at auction in 1918.[3]

Let social mirth with gentle manners join, Unstunned by laughter--uninflamed by wine; Let Reason unimpaired exert its powers, But let gay Fancy strew its way with flowers.

Far hence the Wag's and Witling's scurril jest, Whose noise and nonsense shock the decent guest; True Wit and Humour such low helps decline, Nor will the Graces owe their charms to wine.

Fools fly to drink (in native dullness sunk) In vain; they're ten times greater fools when drunk.-- Thus, free from riot, innocently gay, We'll neither wish, nor fear our final day.

Sidney L. Gulick San Diego State College

NOTES

Except for the t.i.tle page of _The Fine Gentleman's Etiquette_, which comes from the University of North Carolina.

[1] See my _Chesterfield Bibliography to 1800_, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, XXIX (1935), 68-70 and 82-89.

[2] Mr. Cecil Price, of Aberystwyth University, called the _London Chronicle_ item to my attention several years ago, pointing out that Professor James L. Clifford had identified this reference at note 160 in his edition of _Dr. Campbell's Diary_ (Cambridge, 1947). The _CBEL_ lists _The Graces_ as by Woty, but without stating its authority.

[3] The sale catalogue authenticates the poem here given by printing a short pa.s.sage from it (page 238, lot 1405; sold by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, & Hodge; 18 April 1918).

NOTES TO _THE GRACES_

Full annotation is not intended, but identification of a few allusions in this poem may be helpful.

p. 4 Sir Fletcher Norton (1716-89), currently Speaker of the House of Commons.

Edward Thurlow (1731-1806), recently notable for successfully opposing perpetual copyright.

John Dunning (1731-83), lawyer and member of Parliament, Mrs.

Eugenia Stanhope's legal counsel when Chesterfield's executors wished to stop publication of the letters. See my article, "The Publication of Chesterfield's _Letters to his Son_," PMLA, LI (March 1936), 171.

p. 5 William Blackstone (1723-80), already a judge and the author of the famous _Commentaries_.

Schomberg (probably Isaac, 1714-80, rather than his twin brother Raphael, 1714-92), Sir John Pringle (1707-82), and William Bromfield (1712-92) were physicians, respectively, to Garrick, King George III, and his Queen.

p. 6 The current Bishop of Peterborough was Dr. John Hinchliffe (1731-94).

Hans Stanley (1720?-80), M.P., political and diplomatic figure.

Great Tallboy--apparently Charles Talbot, twelfth Earl and only Duke of Shrewsbury (1660-1718), "A man of great personal attractions, ... called by Swift 'the favourite of the nation'"

(_Concise DNB_).

Haslang--Joseph Xaver (ca 1700-83), Freiherr (later Graf) von Haszlang, Bavarian minister to England 1741-83 (Yale _Walpole_, IX, 185, n. 25).

p. 9 Spranger Barry (1719-77), famous tragic actor, or possibly his wife, Ann Spranger Barry (1734-1801).

p. 12 John Hill (1716?-75), prolific compiler of works on varied subjects; about a year previously he had been made knight of the Swedish order of Vasa.

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