The Art of Politicks Part 2

P. 24, line 6. Mother Needham was a prominent bawd, notorious for her foul language. See TE, 4, 374-75, and 5, 293-94.

lines 7-8. "Oldfieldismus" and "Kibberismus" refer respectively to the styles of Anne Oldfield, a well-known actress, and Colley Cibber, playwright, stage manager, and hero of the _Dunciad_. Mrs. Oldfield was generally respected, but Pope, like Bramston, seems to have disliked her (TE, 4, 375).

line 11. Tallboy was a b.o.o.by young lover in Richard Brome's comedy _The Jovial Crew_ (1641), popular throughout the eighteenth century.

P. 26, line 12. Mist: Nathaniel Mist, Tory journalist. See TE, 5, 448.

Eusden: Laurence Eusden, Poet Laureate 1718-30, often ridiculed by Pope.

line 14. Cibber's opera is _Love in a Riddle_ (1729), designed to capitalize on the craze for ballad opera created by _The Beggar's Opera_.

P. 27, line 5. Censor: Sir Richard Steele as Isaac Bickerstaffe, the nominal author of _The Tatler_.

P. 29, line 6. Where Edmund Curll stood was in the pillory.

P. 31, line 3. Hugo Grotius's cla.s.sic of political science, _De jure belli ac pacis_, was published in 1625 and translated in 1654.

P. 32, line 1. Wickfort: Abraham de Wicquefort, _l'Amba.s.sadeur et ses fonctions_ (La Haye, 1680). It was summarized in _The Craftsman_ of 23 Sept. 1727.

line 4. John Banks was the author of _The Unhappy Favourite; or the Earl of Ess.e.x_ (1681) and of _The Island Queens, or the Death of Mary, Queen of Scotland_ (prohibited in 1684; a revision was produced in 1704). Bell says that although "written in the most contemptible language, yet they never fail to melt the audience into tears, merely by the force of judicious and well-arranged plots and incidents."

P. 33, line 1. Arch-Bishop: William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury since 1716. He was 72 in 1729. Master of the Rolls: Sir Joseph Jekyll, who had held the office since 1717, was about 66 in 1729.

line 12. Spence: Thomas Spence (d. 1737), Serjeant-at-Arms.

P. 34, line 3. Toft: In 1726 one Mary Toft claimed to have given birth to seventeen live rabbits, and some who should have known better believed her. See Pope's poem on her, _TE_, 6, 259, and Hogarth's engraving.

throws: i.e., throes, labor pains.

line 8: Bromley and Hanmer: William Bromley (?1663-1732), MP for Oxford 1701-32, Speaker 1710-13; Sir Thomas Hanmer (1677-1746), who represented several const.i.tuencies from 1701-27 and was Speaker 1714-15. They were Tory heroes, at least to Atterbury, for having refused the places offered them by George I in 1715 (Foord, p. 51).

P. 35, line 1. Tonson: Jacob Tonson, prominent bookseller.

line 9. Cler. Dom. Com.: "Clerk of the House of Commons."

P. 36, line 2. Die Martis is Tuesday; Thursday is Die Jovis.

line 6. Wyndham: Sir William Wyndham, MP for Somerset 1710-40, prominent opposition leader from the 1720s. See Sedgwick, 2, 562-64, for his reputation. Hervey believed that his high reputation was partly due to Walpole's henchmen, who inflated it in order to deflate Pultney's (p. 21).

P. 44, line 4. Sir Robert f.a.gg was better known for horse-racing and wenching than for politics; he appears in Hogarth's painting of _The Beggar's Opera_ admiring Lavinia Fenton and in the ballad cited in my note to p. 20, line 8. Running for Parliament in the borough of Steyning, Suss.e.x, in 1722, he came in third in a five-man race with nineteen votes. He also ran third in 1727; the vote is not recorded, unless Bramston's "two Voices" is to be taken literally.

Universite de Montreal

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[A] Letter to John Caryll, 6 Feb. 1731. _Correspondence_, ed. George Sherburn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), 3, 173. See also Antony Coleman's introduction to James Miller's _Harlequin-Horace_ (1731; ARS 178).

[B] D. F. Foxon, _English Verse 1701-1750_ (Cambridge: The University Press, 1975), 1, 77. I should also like to thank Mr. Foxon for generous personal help.

[C] I owe my knowledge of Bell's edition to Kent Mullikin of the University of North Carolina.

[D] Woolston was convicted on four counts of blasphemy on 4 March 1729.

His offending works were six _Discourses on the Miracles of our Saviour_ (1727-29). He never succeeded in paying his fine of 100 (Pope, _Poems_ (Twickenham Edition, genl. ed. John b.u.t.t; London: Methuen, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939-69), 5, 459). Hereafter referred to as _TE_.

Methuen's resignation is erroneously dated in 1730 in _DNB_ and in Romney Sedgwick, _The House of Commons 1715-1754_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 2, 254. See Abel Boyer, _The Political State of Great Britain, 37_ (May 1729), 523, and John, Lord Hervey. _Some Materials towards Memoirs of the Reign of King George II_, ed. Romney Sedgwick (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1931), pp. 101-02. According to Hervey, Methuen's ostensible reason for resigning was his dislike of the general conduct of the court, his real reason his failure to be appointed Secretary of State.

[E] Translations of Horace are taken from the Loeb Library edition, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, Ma.s.s., Harvard University Press, 1961). Line numbers of the Latin verse are in the text.

[F] "Verses on the Art of Politicks," _Additions to the Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. Together with Many Original Poems and Letters, of Contemporary Writers, Never Before Published_ (London, 1776). 1.

158-59. I have been unable to discover where the poem was first printed.

[G] J. H. Plumb. _Sir Robert Walpole_ (London: Cresset). Vol. I (1956).

pp. 249-50; Sir Edward Knatchbull, _Parliamentary Diary, 1722-30_, ed.

A. N. Newman (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1963), p. 42.

[H] Most of my information about the Scipios comes from the _Oxford Companion to Cla.s.sical Literature_.

[I] _DNB_; Ray A. Kelch, _Newcastle: A Duke without Money_ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 9-11; Reed Browning, _The Duke of Newcastle_ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975), pp. xi-xiii, 80-88.

[J] _DNB_; Browning, p. 18.

[K] Plumb, _Walpole, 2_ (1960), 52-53; Hervey, pp. 411-12; Browning, p.

113; Archibald S. Foord, _His Majesty's Opposition_, 1714-1830 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 142-45.

[L] _The British Journal_, 258 (2 Sept. 1727), p. 1.

[M] Reported by Hervey toward the end of 1729 (p. 105).

[N] For illuminating discussions of Opposition ideology and literary strategies, see Maynard Mack, _The Garden and the City: Retirement and Politics in the Later Poetry of Pope, 1731-1743_ (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1969); Isaac Kramnick, _Bolingbroke and his Circle: The Politicks of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968); and J.V. Guerinot and Rodney D. Jilg, eds., _The Beggar's Opera: Contexts_ (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1976), esp. pp. 69-95.

[O] Part of the research for this introduction was done while I held a Leave Fellowship from the Canada Council, whom I should like to thank for their support.

[P] _All_ Mr. Heydegger's _Letters come directed to him from abroad_, A Monsieur, Monsieur _Heydegger_, Surintendant des Plaisirs d'

Angleterre.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The facsimile of _The Art of Politicks_ (1729) is reproduced by permission from a copy of the first edition (Shelf Mark: *PR3326/B287A8; Foxon B383) in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The total type-page (p. 19) measures 152 x 93 mm.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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