The Spectacled Avenger's Reading List, 2020

Assuming there is anyone left who still reads this blog, what can I say but that I’m sorry. I’m sorry because it has now been a year since I last posted anything here. I’ve gone through periods of infrequent posting before, but nothing like this. What can I say? As with many others, 2020 threw me a curveball. A couple of them actually.

The first of them was COVID. With having to suddenly bug out of the office, getting used to working from home, the strains of isolation, lack of the day-to-day stimulus of social living that often gives me the inspiration to write, all of this wreaked havoc on my powers of concentration.

And then, what little mental power I had left has been spent on work. Back in March, literally the week before life turned upside down, I was in discussions about a career change, or rather, a professional development opportunity. I would be seconded to another unit within the university where I work, to take on a position that would definitely have been a challenge at the best of times. It proved doubly so during COVID, and to further complicate matters, for various reasons I can’t go into here, for much if not most of the year I was doing both jobs — yes, two full-time jobs. So perhaps understandably this blog rapidly slipped below the horizon of my cares.

However, I have decided that 2021 will be different. Fresh start and all that. Due to my work situation, things will remain complicated until sometime in April, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get my feet wet here.

I am starting off unambitiously, by returning to a Spectacled Avenger tradition: The annual January report on my previous year’s reading. One noticeable thing about my 2020 reading list is that it is somewhat shorter than average (for the reasons outlined above).

Otherwise, in terms of reading patterns in 2020, you’ll see quite a bit on the following:

• English legal and administrative history (Baker, Coke, Blackstone, Elsyng, FitzNigel, Smith, the Parliamentary Register, the Debate at Large on James II’s abdication)
• Public choice and libertarian political economy (Brennan & Buchanan, Hayek)
• History of witchcraft and magic (Boguet, Evans-Pritchard, Gow, Guazzo, Hartlieb & Molitoris, Kieckheffer, Kramer & Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum, and Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft)

 The witchcraft literature is most uncharacteristic of me, but it was research for a paper I had committed to writing. The paper is finished and has been presented. Although writing that paper is another reason for my lack of blogging, I hope to share the fruits of that labour with you here in the near future.

 

Without more ado, my reading list is below. As in previous years, entries in bold are books I particularly enjoyed for one reason or another.

*          *          *          *          *

 

ADDISON, Joseph and Richard STEELE. The Spectator (Vol. I). London: J. and R. Tonson, 1739.

ADDISON, Joseph and Richard STEELE. The Spectator (Vol. II). London: J. and R. Tonson, 1739.

AINSLIE, George. Picoeconomics: The Strategic Interaction of Successive Motivational States within the Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

ANONYMOUS. The Debate at Large, between the House of Lords and the House of Commons…Relating to the Word, Abdicated, and the Vacancy of the Throne. London: J. Wickins, 1695 (facsimile, Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972).

ANONYMOUS. The Parliamentary Register; or History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons (Vol. XVI). London: J. Debrett, 1784.

AUGUSTINE, ST. The Confessions. Henry Chadwick (trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

BAKER, Sir John. Sources of English Legal History: Private Law to 1750 (2^nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. I). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. II). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1766 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. III). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1768 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

BLACKSTONE, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. IV). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1769 (facsimile, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

BOGUET, Henry. An Examen of Witches. E. Allen Ashwin (trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2009.

BORKOWSKI, Andrew and Paul du PLESSIS. Textbook on Roman Law (3^rd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

BRENNAN, Geoffrey and James M. BUCHANAN. The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution (Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 9). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000.

BRENNAN, Geoffrey and James M. BUCHANAN. The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy (Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 10). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000.

BREUER, Joseph. Introduction to the Theory of Sets. Howard F. Fehr (trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006.

BURKE, Edmund. Letters on a Regicide Peace (Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. 3). Francis Canavan (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1999.

BURKE, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: J. Dodsley, 1790 (facsimile, New York: Classics of Liberty Library, 1992).

BURLAMAQUI, Jean-Jacques. The Principles of Natural and Politic Law. Thomas Nugent (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2006.

BURNET, Gilbert. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time (Vol. I). Martin Joseph Routh (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833.

CLEVELAND, John. The Poems of John Cleveland. Brian Morris and Eleanor Withington (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.

COKE, Sir Edward. The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England; concerning the Jurisdiction of Courts. London: W. Clarke and Sons,1817 (facsimile, Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, 2015).

CUDWORTH, Ralph. The True Intellectual System of the Universe (Vol. I). London: Thomas Tegg, 1845.

DODINGTON, George Bubb. The Political Journal of George Bubb Dodington. John Carswell and Lewis Arnold Dralle (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

ELSYNG, Henry. Judicature in Parlement. Elizabeth Read Foster (ed.). London: Hambledon Press, 1991.

EVANS-PRITCHARD, E. E. Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

FERGUSON, Adam. Principles of Moral and Political Science (Vol. I). Edinburgh: A. Strahan and T. Creech, 1792 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1975).

FERGUSON, Adam. Principles of Moral and Political Science (Vol. II). Edinburgh: A. Strahan and T. Creech, 1792 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1975).

FIELDING, Henry. The Jacobite’s Journal and Related Writings. W. B. Coley (ed.). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1975.

FITZNIGEL, Richard. Dialogus de Scaccario (The Dialogue of the Exchequer) and Constitutio Domus Regis (The Disposition of the King’s Household). Emilie Amt and S. D. Church (trans.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.

FRONTO, Marcus Cornelius. Correspondence (Vol. I). C. R. Haines (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928.

GAIRDNER, James (ed.). The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422-1509 (Vol. I). London: Chatto and Windus, 1904.

GOW, Andrew Colin et al. (eds. and trans.). The Arras Witch Treatises. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016.

GUAZZO, Francesco Maria. Compendium Maleficarum. E. A. Ashwin (trans.). New York: Dover Publications, 1988.

HARTLIEB, Johannes and Ulrich MOLITORIS. Hazards of the Dark Arts: Advice for Medieval Princes on Witchcraft and Magic. Richard Kieckhefer (trans.). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017.

HAYEK, F. A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. I: Rules and Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.

HAYEK, F. A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. II: The Mirage of Social Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.

HAYEK, F. A. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. III: The Political Order of a Free People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

IRVING, Washington. History, Tales and Sketches. New York: Library of America, 1983.

KELLY, John. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

KIECKHEFER, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.

KRAMER, Heinrich and James SPRENGER. Malleus Maleficarum. Montague Summers (trans.). New York: Dover Publications, 1971.

LUCIAN. Works (Vol. I). A. M. Harmon (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

MALORY, Sir Thomas. Caxton’s Malory: Le Morte Darthur. James Spisak and William Matthews (eds.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983.

McINERNEY, Jay. Bright Lights, Big City. New York: Vintage, 1984.

MONTESQUIEU, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de. The Persian Letters. George R. Healy (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999.

PALEY, William. The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2002.

PEPYS, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Vol. VI: 1665). Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

PIERCE, John R. An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise. New York: Dover Publications, 1980.

POPE, Alexander. An Essay on Man (Twickenham Edition, Vol .III-i). Maynard Mack (ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964.

RACKHAM, Oliver. The History of the Countryside. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. Clarissa (Vol. I). London: Dent, 1967.

ROBERT, Henry M. Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised (11^th edition). New York: Da Capo Press, 2011.

RUBENHOLD, Hallie (ed.). Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies: Sex in the City in Georgian Britain. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus, 2005.

SANDARS, N.K. (trans.). The Epic of Gilgamesh. London: Penguin Books, 1972.

SCOT, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. New York: Dover Publications, 1972.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3^rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Vol. II). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2001.

SMITH, Sir Thomas. De Republica Anglorum. The maner of Governement or policie of the Realme of England. London: Henrie Midleton, 1583 (facsimile, New York: Da Capo Press, 1970).

VOLTAIRE. Candide and Other Stories. Roger Pearson (trans.). New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992.

WHICHCOTE, Benjamin. The Works of the Learned Benjamin Whichcote (Vol. II). Aberdeen: Alexander Thomson, 1751 (facsimile, New York: Garland, 1977).

WODEHOUSE, P. G. The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology. New York: Everyman’s Library, 2007.

 

The Spectacled Avenger’s Reading List, 2019

At the beginning of every year, I post the list of books read during the previous year. The fact that I got most of the way through January without having done so is rather emblematic of the kind of year 2019 was for me. I spent half of it working two full-time and demanding jobs. Between that and a couple of personal crises, I was left with little time or mental energy to keep up this blog. I hope to be a better blogger in 2020, but I don’t feel I can securely guarantee that.

Interestingly, despite the foregoing, I still managed to read 75 books in 2019, which is around the average. So I somehow found time to read, but not to blog. And I notice that last year, I didn’t publish my reading list until February 8. So I suppose I shouldn’t feel too bad…

Looking back on patterns in the reading, two in particular stand out: English legal history (Fleta, Glanvill, Fortescue, Coke, Hale, Simpson), and Parliamentary law and history (Hatsell, Elsynge, Jefferson). Otherwise, the only other pattern is the usual one: lots of 17th- and 18th-century English literature.

As with every other year, books I particularly enjoy are in bold. If a book appears twice, it’s because I read it twice.

*               *               *               *               *

ALLESTREE, Richard [?]. The Government of the Tongue. Oxford, 1675.

ANONYMOUS. Fleta (Vol. II: Prologue, Book I and Book II). H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles (eds.). London: Selden Society, 1955.

ANONYMOUS. Fleta (Vol. III: Book III and Book IV). H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles (trans.). London: Selden Society, 1972.

ANONYMOUS. Fleta (Vol. IV: Book V and Book VI). G. O. Sayles (ed.). London: Selden Society, 1983.

BACON, Francis. The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh. Jerry Weinberger (ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

BALDWIN, James Fosdick. The King’s Council. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, Viscount. The Works (Vol. I). David Mallet (ed.). London, 1754 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968).

BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, Viscount. The Works (Vol. II). David Mallet (ed.). London, 1754 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968).

BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, Viscount. The Works (Vol. III). David Mallet (ed.). London, 1754 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968).

BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson (Vol. I). Rodney Shewan (ed.). London: Folio Society, 1993.

BOSWELL, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson (Vol. II). Rodney Shewan (ed.). London: Folio Society, 1993.

BRONTË, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

BROWN, John. An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times and Other Writings. David Womersley (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2019.

BUCKINGHAM, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of. The Rehearsal. D. E. L. Crane (ed.). Durham, UK: University of Durham Press, 1976.

CAMDEN, William. Remains concerning Britain. Thomas Moule (ed.). London: John Russell Smith, 1870.

CHRIMES, S. B. An Introduction to the Administrative History of Mediaeval England. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952.

CLAUSEWITZ, Carl von. On War. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (eds.). New York: Everyman’s Library, 1993.

COKE, Sir Edward. The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England. London: W. Clarke and Sons, 1817 (facsimile, Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, 2012).

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria (Vol. I). London: Rest Fenner, 1817 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1971).

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria (Vol. II). London: Rest Fenner, 1817 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1971).

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor. Poems. John Beer (ed.). New York: Everyman’s Library, 1999.

CONFUCIUS. The Analects. Arthur Waley (trans.). New York: Everyman’s Library, 2000.

CONGREVE, William. The Comedies of William Congreve. Anthony G. Henderson (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

COWLEY, Abraham. The Mistress with Other Select Poems of Abraham Cowley 1618-1667. John Sparrow (ed.). London: The Nonesuch Press, 1926.

DICEY, A. V. Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century (2nd edition). London: Macmillan and Co., 1914.

DONNE, John. Essays in Divinity. Evelyn M. Simpson (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.

ELSYNGE, Henry. The Manner of Holding Parliaments in England. London: Thomas Payne, 1768 (facsimile, Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1971).

FARTHING, John. Freedom Wears a Crown. Toronto: Kingswood House, 1957.

FILMER, Robert. Patriarcha and Other Writings. Johann P. Sommerville (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

FORTESCUE, Sir John. A Learned Commendation of the Politique Lawes of England. Robert Mulcaster (trans.). London: Richard Tottel, 1567 (facsimile, Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1969).

FORTESCUE, Sir John. The Governance of England. Charles Plummer (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926.

GAY, John. Fables (Vol. I, 5th edition). London: J. and R. Tonson and J. Watts, 1737.

GAY, John. Fables (Vol. II, 3rd edition). London: J. and P. Knapton and T. Cox, 1747.

GLANVILL, Ranulf de [?]. The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England Commonly Called Glanvill. G. D. G. Hall (trans.). London: Nelson, 1965.

GODWIN, William. Enquiry concerning Political Justice (Vol. II). London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1798 (facsimile, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969).

HALE, Sir Matthew. The Prerogatives of the King. D. E. C. Yale (ed.). London: Selden Society, 1976.

HAMILTON, Alexander, James MADISON, and John JAY. The Federalist, or The New Constitution. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1979.

HATSELL, John. Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons (Vol. I). London: Luke Hansard, 1818 (facsimile, Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1971).

HATSELL, John. Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons (Vol. II). London: Luke Hansard, 1818 (facsimile, Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1971).

HATSELL, John. Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons (Vol. III). London: Luke Hansard, 1818 (facsimile, Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1971).

HATSELL, John. Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons (Vol. IV). London: Luke Hansard, 1818 (facsimile, Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1971).

HOBBES, Thomas. Behemoth. Paul Seaward (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2010.

HOCHSCHILD, Adam. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Boston: Mariner Books, 2006.

HODGSON, Robert. The Life of the Right Reverend Beilby Porteus, D.D. Late Bishop of London. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1811.

HORACE. A Poetical Translation of the Works of Horace (Vol. III). Philip Francis (trans.). London: W. Strahan, J. Rivington, et al., 1778.

JEFFERSON, Thomas. Jefferson’s Parliamentary Writings (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series). Wilbur Samuel Howell (ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.

KAMES, Henry Home, Lord. Historical Law-Tracts. James A. Harris (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2019.

KRAUT, Richard. What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.

MANTHORPE, Jonathan. Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada. Toronto, ON: Cormorant Books, 2019.

McKAY, Richard A. Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

MILL, John Stuart. Collected Works (Vol. XIX: Essays on Politics and Society). J. M. Robson (ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.

MILTON, John. Paradise Lost. Barbara K. Lewalski (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

MOSSMAN, Mary Jane and Philip GIRARD. Property Law: Cases and Commentary (3rd edition). Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2014.

MURPHY, Arthur. The Life of David Garrick, Esq. (Vol. I). London: J. Wright, 1801.

MURPHY, Arthur. The Life of David Garrick, Esq. (Vol. II). London: J. Wright, 1801.

NAGEL, Ernest and James R. NEWMAN. Gödel’s Proof. New York: New York University Press, 1986.

NEAVE, Edwin H. Financial Systems: Principles and Organisation. London: Routledge, 1998.

NEDHAM, Marchamont. The Excellencie of a Free-State. Blair Worden (ed.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011.

PEPYS, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Vol. IV: 1663). Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds.). London: G. Bell and Sons, 1971.

PLATT, Colin. King Death: The Black Death and its Aftermath in Late-Medieval England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. Selected Letters of Samuel Richardson. John Carroll (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.

SAINT-ÉVREMOND, Charles de. The Works of Monsieur de Mr. St. Evremond (Vol. I). Pierre des Maizeaux (trans.). London: J. and J. Knapton, J. Darby, et al., 1728.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of. Soliloquy: or, Advice to an Author. London: J. Morphew, 1710.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of. An Inquiry concerning Virtue, in Two Discourses. London: A. Bell et al., 1699 (facsimile, Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1991).

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of. A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules. London: A. Baldwin, 1713.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7rd Earl of. Speeches of the Earl of Shaftesbury, K. G., upon Subjects Having Relation Chiefly to the Claims and Interests of the Labouring Class. London: Chapman and Hall, 1868 (facsimile, Shannon: Irish University Press, 1971).

SIMPSON, A. W. Brian. Leading Cases in the Common Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.

SWIFT, Jonathan. The Examiner (2nd edition). London: Francis Cogan, 1730 (facsimile, New York: AMS Press 1967).

SWIFT, Jonathan. Political Tracts 1713-1719 (Prose Works, Vol. VIII). Herbert Davis and Irvin Ehrenpreis (eds.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953.

TAYLOR, Jeremy. The Whole Works of… Jeremy Taylor (Vol. V). London: Longman, Orme, Brown, et al., 1839.

TEY, Josephine. The Daughter of Time. New York: Scribner, 1995.

TWAIN, Mark. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1991.

WILLIAMS, Graeme, QC. A Short Book of Bad Judges. London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 2013.

WODEHOUSE, P. G. The Code of the Woosters. New York: Everyman’s Library, 2000.

WODEHOUSE, P. G. Uncle Fred in the Springtime. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

Before Collier

William Congreve

In 1698, a clergyman named Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) published a pamphlet entitled A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage. It was one of those little works that, while almost completely unread now, had an outsize effect in its day, in this case on English theatre. In it, Collier denounced the English stage for its perceived propagation of every kind of vice: profanity, blasphemy, sexual license, irreligion, you name it. Theatre had become a threat to public morals.

It would be easy to write Collier off as yet another Puritan killjoy. However, he is worth taking seriously for a few reasons. For one thing, he was not a Puritan or dissenting “fanatic”; he was a High Church Tory. In other words, he was a representative of The Establishment, and therefore could not be written off so easily by the beau monde. Second, his work touched a nerve, even with the playwrights whose works he attacked. Collier marks a turning point.
For the English stage, and for English comedy in particular, the period up to 1698 “BC” (“Before Collier”), is broadly spoken of as the period of “Restoration Comedy”. It is marked by all the excesses one associates with the stereotyped culture of the Restoration, its debauchery, sexual license, and general indifference towards received moral and religious norms. The language of Restoration Comedy was bawdy and demotic. Its stock characters were the prostitute, the pimp or procurer, the young rake, the rich and horny widow, the young and horny wife (and her cuckolded husband). What is now rightly considered “sexual assault” was a very frequent plot device in the comedies (!) of the age. Bill Cosby could have plied women with drugs in one of these plays to great comic effect if he were living in London in the 1670s. All of which is to say that, rather than being just another dour crank, Collier had a point.“AC” or after Collier, the language of comedy becomes more subdued. The plots are less “rapey”. Attempted seduction or adultery is less often successful, and unhappily married couples are reconciled at the end. There are happy endings for the virtuous – or for the repentant – and vice comes to a bad end. In short, playwrights started writing plays differently, or like William Congreve (1670-1729), left off writing plays altogether.

Congreve is actually my reason for writing this. I had read The Way of the World (1700) many years ago and remembered little of it. In my mind, Congreve represented the polite, neoclassical – “after Collier” – generation of writers I associate with the likes of Addison and Pope. There is no real reason for this other than my general ignorance of his works, and the mental image I have of that Kit-Kat Club portrait of him by Sir Godfrey Kneller. I was disabused of this assumption after recently reading all his comedies and finding them to be firmly in the Restoration tradition.

Besides having all the louche elements of Restoration Comedy abovementioned, I was also very alert to a number of Rochesterian references in these plays. By “Rochesterian” I mean references to the writings of the naughty Earl of Rochester (1647-1680), a poet almost synonymous with the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of Restoration libertinism. And although Rochester died when Congreve was about 10 years old, there would have been a direct link between the two men through the person of Elizabeth Barry (1658-1713).

Barry was an actress who had roles in all four of Congreve’s comedies, though by this late stage of her career she was relegated to playing older parts. For our purposes, what matters is that Elizabeth had been the mistress of Rochester, to whom she bore a daughter. Tradition has it that Elizabeth’s inaugural appearance on the stage was a complete disaster, but that Rochester took her under his wing and coached her. She went on to become one of the most celebrated actresses of the age. She also dumped Rochester.

The first Rochesterian reference I came across in Congreve’s plays was actually not penned by Congreve himself. Rather, it was written by Thomas Southerne in some commendatory verses prefixed to Congreve’s The Old Batchelour (1693):

     She yields, she yields, surrenders all her Charms,
     Do you but force her gently to your arms
     (“To Mr. Congreve”, ll. 14-15)

Aside from its rapiness, it is also reminiscent of Rochester’s lines:

     Shee yields, she yields, Pale Envy said Amen
     The first of woemen to the Last of men.
     (“Sab: Lost”, ll. 1-2)

In the same play, Belinda admonishes Araminta (Act II, scene ii):

"Oh, you have raved, talked idly, and all in Commendation of that filthy, awkard, two leg’d Creature, Man."

In sentiment and phrasing it brings to mind the opening lines to Rochester’s “A Satire against Mankind”:
 
     Were I (who to my cost already am
     One of those strange prodigious Creatures Man)
     A Spirit free, to choose for my own Share,
     What Case of Flesh, and Blood, I pleas’d to weare,
     I’d be a Dog, a Monkey, or a Bear,
     Or any thing but that vain Animal,
     Who is so proud of being rational.

In Love for Love (1695), the free-speaking Scandal gives his opinion of women’s virtue (Act III, scene i):

"Yes, Faith. I believe some Women are Virtuous too; but ‘tis as I believe some Men are Valiant, thro’ fear."

The line illustrates a very prominent notion in Restoration libertinism, namely that it is our very vices that underpin and motivate our supposed “virtues”. It is the received depth psychology of Restoration moral cynicism, made popular and borrowed wholesale from Rochefoucauld. The idea that valor is at bottom sublimated cowardice appears several times in Rochefoucauld’s work, as in the following instance:

"Perfect Valour and perfect Cowardice are Extremes Men seldom arrive at…. Some are not at all Times equally exempt from Fear: Others give occasionally into general Panics: Others advance to the Charge because they dare not stay in their Posts."

However, when Congreve has Scandal say that some men are valiant through fear, he more likely has Rochester in mind, who in the same “Satire against Mankind” (ll. 158-159) famously wrote:

     For all Men, wou’d be Cowards if they durst:
     And honesty’s against all common Sense.

It was a well-known line, and also appears in Lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), Vol. I, p. 119:

"And all Men (says a witty Poet) wou’d be Cowards if they durst."

Congreve’s last and most well-known comedy, The Way of the World (1700), is the only one to appear after Jeremy Collier’s attack. Indeed there are a couple of half-hearted jabs at Collier and his ilk, to little effect. After this play, Congreve gave up writing plays. Although not strictly true, it is tempting to consider The Way of the World as the last Restoration comedy. In any case, at one point (Act IV, scene i), Millimant is walking around, distractedly reciting lines to herself from the Cavalier poet, Sir John Suckling. The scattered lines she repeats here and there, taken out of context, can clearly be given a sexual meaning:

     prithee spare me gentle Boy,
     Press me no more for that slight Toy.

and

     I swear it will not do its part,
     Though thou do’st thine, employ’st the Power and Art.

After these last two lines, Millimant interrupts herself:

     Natural, easy Suckling!

It is a paraphrase of a line from Rochester’s “Timon, A Satyr” (ll. 108-108):

     Falkland, she prais’d, and Sucklings, easie Pen
     And seem’d to taste their former parts again.

Here the sexual meaning is less subtle: “suckling” of “pens” and “tasting” of “parts”. It is typical of Rochester, whose mind dwelled in a universe almost metaphysically constituted by sex, where even the trees in St. James’ Park “fuck’d the very Skies”.

The metaphysics of the post-Collier theatrical universe would be structured more politely.


Bibliography

CONGREVE, William. The Comedies of William Congreve. Anthony G. Henderson (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

ROCHEFOUCAULD, François, Duc de La. Moral Maxims by the Duke de la Roche Foucault. Translated from the French. With Notes. London: A. Millar, 1749.

ROCHESTER, John Wilmot, Earl of. The Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Keith Walker (ed.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (3 vols.). Douglas Den Uyl (ed.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001.