Two Burlesques of Lord Chesterfield's Letters

Two Burlesques of Lord Chesterfield's Letters. - The Graces (1774), The Fine Gentleman's Etiquette (1776)

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, illustrate both a type of writing and an age. The subject of both is contemporarythe best-selling Letters to his Son of Lord Chesterfield. The method falls between burlesque and caricature; the aim is amusement; the substance is negligible. Neither poem made more than a ripple on publication, neither initiated a critical fashion, 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 Fanny Burney; in letters, from Walpole, Mrs. Delaney, Voltaire, and Mrs. Montagu; and in diaries, such as those of Fanny 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[Pg ii] December 1775 praised it: "This sensible and well written discourse is chiefly directed against the letters of the late Lord Chesterfield, though his Lordship 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 Reeveand a parody by Horace Walpole of the first three letters (published years later in his Works). The Westminster Magazine carried a "Petition 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. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 38149
Author: Woty, William
Release Date: Nov 27, 2011
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Gulick, Sidney L. (Sidney Lewis), 1902-1988