Of Some Faults in "Paradise Lost"

October 23, 1754

My Dear Mr. Avenger,

In my last I took an Opportunity of imparting some of my Thoughts upon the Topick of Vice as it hath been delineated by means of Verse; call this Theme the Poetry of Vice, if you will. I now wish to give you some of my Reflections upon a quite different Theme, one I wou’d call the Vices of Poetry. I wish to do this, by means of Illustrations drawn from one of your favourite Poets and mine — I refer to Mr. MILTON.

Of late, in this declining Season, I have been spending an Hour or two each Day with a Friend, a Gentleman in my Neighbourhood, who shares my high Regard for Paradise Lost. As I know from an ingenious little Piece writ by you some time ago, on SPENSER’s  “Art of Sinking” as you call’d it, you are an admirer of this inimitable effort in the epick Kind, I mean Paradise Lost. Shou’d you have the Patience, I wou’d therefore trouble you with a few Words, the Fruits of the pleasurable Labours of my Neighbour and I, presuming therefore upon our Friendship that you will do me the Honour of reading them.

‘Tis the mark of your minute Criticks to pride themselves on discovering Flaws in an Author. Each little Blemish or Slip discover’d, no matter how slight, adds a supposed Merit to the Critick’s Skill in the Eyes of an unthinking Audience; a Merit inflated in Proportion as the Stature of the Author is greater. These Giant-Killers make a Name for themselves by slaying over again great Authors long dead.

In truth, no work is without its Faults,

          “Whoever thinks a faultless Piece to see,
          Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.”
[Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711), ll. 253-254 — Ed.]

Indeed, if one were to be strictly critical, one must notice that even these two Lines of Mr. POPE’s are not without Fault, the second being an Heroick done all in tedious monosyllables, a violation of the Author’s own Precepts.

Since therefore ‘tis no such great Atchievement to find such a Failing in a single Couplet by one in the very first Rank of Poets, how numerous must be the Opportunities, then, for erecting a critical Character for oneself upon the Foundations of Works of much greater Length? HORACE once chided those Criticks who wou’d praise to the Skies a Poet of such mediocre Worth as his Choerilus for stumbling upon a Line or two worth remembering, whilst convicting honest HOMER without Mercy for the odd Line worth forgetting:
 
          sic mihi, qui multum cessat, fit Choerilus ille,
          quem bis terque bonum cum risu miror; et idem
          indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus;
          verum operi longo fas est obrepere somnum.

          “So, if strange Chance a Choerilus inspire
          With some good Lines, I laugh, while I admire;
          Yet hold it for a Fault I can't excuse,
          If honest Homer slumber o'er his Muse;
          Although, perhaps, a kind indulgent Sleep
          O’er Works of length allowably may creep.”
[Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 357-360, Philip Francis, trans. — Ed.]

But what mere Mortal can be always at his best in a Work the length of an Iliad or an Odyssey? Let a Choerilus write such an Epick Piece, and then we may compare the two Talents upon an even Ground. Indeed, Mr. Pope wou’d be more generous still, and have us first question ourselves before we question the Judgment or Skill of an Homer:
 
          “Those oft are Stratagems which Errors seem,
          Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.”
[Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711), ll. 179-180]

Pope was that rare Bird of Paradise who is both a great Critick, and a great Poet. And yet, small Critick that I am (and certainly no Poet), I must differ with him on this Score: Homer does slumber occasionally; it is not always the Critick who errs, nor are the Errors always Strategies. Nevertheless, the real Value of an Author’s Work – or lack of it – lies not in a single Entry in the Ledger, but in the Sum of all the Entries, in the final casting of Accounts, as it were:

          Verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis
          offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,
          aut humana parum cauit natura.

          “But when the Beauties more in Numbers shine,
          I am not angry when a casual Line
          (That with some trivial Faults unequal flows)
          A careless Hand, or human Frailty shows.”
[Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 351-353, Francis, trans. — Ed.]

It is with these Reflections in Mind that I wish to draw your Attention to what I take to be some Flaws or Examples of Sinking in Paradise Lost. These fall into three Kinds, the first of which you remark’d upon in your Thoughts on Spenser’s Art of Sinking, namely, Heroicks composed of naught but monosyllabic Words. Unfortunately, there are many of these in Paradise Lost, too many to set down all of them in a Letter such as this. Here is a characteristical one:

          “Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death,”
          (II.621)

Indeed, Milton’s fondness for little Lists of such Features (Rocks, Bogs, etc.) seems limitless:

          “Ore bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,” (II.948)

          “Rocks, Dens, and Caves; but I am none of these” (IX.118)
 
          “To Boggs and Mires, & oft through Pond or Poole,” (IX.641)

As you so justly pointed out, these long Strings of low Words cause the Wheels of a Line to “grind together”, if you will pardon my Expression. This Example in particular tripp’d up my poor reading Companion:

          “From whom I have that thus I move and live,” (VIII.281)

And finally, there is this one, which I defy the honest Reader to read aloud to himself without stumbling:

          “His full wrauth whose thou feelst as yet less part,” (X.951)

The second Kind of Sinking in Milton is that which Mr. ADDISON in one of his Spectators characterized as an affected Jingle in his Words [Joseph Addison, Spectator No. 297 (9 February 1712) — Ed.]. He gave, as an Example, Book IX, line 11:

          “That brought into the World a World of woe”

Sadly, there are to be found too many other conceited Phrases of this Nature:

          “Thy face, and Morn return’d, for I this Night,
          Such night till this I never pass’d, have dream’d,
          If dream’d, not as I oft am wont, of thee,” (V.30-32)

This Repetition of “Night” and “dream’d” imports nothing to the Thought but an unnecessary Ponderousness.  Such repetition is the small change of literature, making a loud Jingling and weighing down one’s Pockets, while purchasing little of Value. This Kind of affected Cleverness give the very opposite Impression from what it intends.

A similar Effect in another Passage is wrought by the Repetition of “givers/gifts” and “large/bestow”:

                                                  “well we may afford
          Our givers thir own gifts, and large bestow
          From large bestowd, where Nature multiplies” (V.316-318)

However, worst of all, in my Opinion, is this wretched Piece of broadside Doggerel, utterly unworthy of a Poet of Milton’s Abilities:

          “So he with difficulty and labour hard
          Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour hee;” (II.1021-1022)

These Lines have both too much and too many: too much Repetition (“difficulty/labour”), and too many Syllables, each being compos’d of eleven instead of the requisite ten. One lacks a Word to describe such low Stuff; sinking does not convey adequately the Depths to which the Poet has plumbed here. Plummeting methinks is the better Verb. Another Example of too many Syllables in a Line appears at Book IX, l. 570:

          “What thou commandst and right though shouldst be obeyd”

The third and final Kind of Sinking in Milton that I wish to remark upon is that Sin of the Age in which Milton liv’d, I mean Punning. As my Lord SHAFTESBURY noted of the British Muses in earlier Times, they “lisp’d as in their Cradles: and their stammering Tongues, which nothing besides their Youth and Rawness can excuse, have hitherto spoken in wretched Pun and Quibble. Our Dramatick SHAKESPEAR, our FLETCHER, JOHNSON, and our Epick MILTON preserve this Style” [Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), Vol. I, p. 217 — Ed.]. Thankfully, this false Taste is in its Declination. However, it is all too common in Paradise Lost. Take, as an example of this false sort of Wit, the following, which equivocates between two Senses of “light”:

          “On mee as on thir natural center light
          Heavie, though in thir place.” (X. 740-741)

The next Example is doubly Faulty, first by mere Virtue of its being a Pun, but more, using such a Pun as an Occasion of scoring Points against a theological Adversary, in this Instance the Romish Church. Sin and Death build a bridge between Earth and Hell:

          “Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art
          Pontifical, a ridge of pendent Rock” (X.312-313)

Here Milton equivocates between the Latin pontis (“Bridge”) and “Pontiff”, implying that Popery is the surest way to Hell. However, in speaking of a Time before there was any such Thing as a Reform’d or a Roman Catholick Church, such a Reference is anachronistick, breaking the Spell which has hitherto transported the Reader from the sublime Beginning of the World and our first Progenitors, to the present fallen World of unseemly religious Polemick. Even worse, as if afraid the Pun had passed by the Reader insufficiently admir’d, he has another try at the same Piece of low Raillery a mere few Lines on, where he again equivocates between pontis and pontifex:

          “And at the brink of Chaos, neer the foot
          Of this new wondrous Pontifice…” (X.348)

But perhaps I am being too nice, too finical in my Criticism, since for even all these Blemishes are in the Balance found as nothing when compar’d to the innumerable lofty and sublime Thoughts and Sentiments express’d in Paradise Lost. If there be any excuse for my presuming to point out this great Poet’s little Vices, it is that Mr. Addison in his Spectators hath already done admirably in instructing us as to his many great Virtues.

I am, Sir,
              Ever your Friend and Admirer,
                                                  Jos. Darlington, Esq.

Of Libertines

September 9, 1754

My Dear Mr. Avenger,

I thank you very much for the lyrical Works you pass’d along to me, by that inimitable poetical Duo of Mr. GUNNS and Mr. ROSES. I admit I do not much care for their Work, and yet, there was one of their Songs in particular that caus’d me to give over some little Time to Reflection. You know the one to which I refer, for it is that inimitable Ode “to Mr. BROWNSTONE,” which runs,

          I get up around seven,
          I Get out of Bed around nine,
          And I don't worry about nothing, no,
          ‘Cause worrying’s a waste of my time.

          The Show usually starts around seven,
          We go on Stage around nine,
          Get on the Bus about eleven
          Sipping a Drink and feeling fine.

The Verses delineate in very evocative Fashion the Regimen (if it may be so-called) of one given over to a Life of Debauchery, who makes it his Habit to turn Day into Night, and Night into Day. It puts me in Mind of a very obscene Performance by my Lord ROCHESTER. I blush to reproduce it, but since we are become free with each other, you will of course forgive me:

          I Rise at Eleven, I Dine about Two,
          I get drunk before Seven, and the next thing I do;
          I send for my Whore, when for fear of a Clap,
          I Spend in her hand, and I spew in her Lap;
          There we quarrel, and scold, till I fall asleep,
          When the Bitch, growing bold, to my Pocket does creep;
          Then slyly she leaves me, and to revenge th’affront,
          At once she bereaves me of Money and C—nt.
          If by chance then I wake, hot-headed and drunk
          What a coyle do I make for the loss of my Punk?
          I storm, and I roar, and I fall in a rage,
          And missing my Whore, I bugger my Page:
          Then crop-sick, all Morning, I rail at my Men,
          And in Bed I lye Yawning till Eleven again.

[Poems on Several Occasions By the Right Honourable, The E of R (1680) pp. 59-60 — Ed.]

This sort of Life, or rather waking Death, I observ’d in my Youth amongst some Sparks or young Bucks I knew at the Inns of Court, Gentlemen of an independent Fortune, who, needing not to follow the Law as a Profession, nor indeed to earn any kind of Living, it having been earned already for them by their more virtuous Progenitors, gave themselves over to an Education of their own devising, which consisted, so far as I cou’d tell, of Dicing, Wenching, Drinking, and Roaring — with a liberal helping of Free-thinking scraped together from the Dregs of the Coffee-Houses and the worst Sort of Books.

Some few of these my Acquaintances eventually escapt without coming to a bad End, either through the good Offices of a wise Father who refus’d to further Finance such Studies, or through the natural cooling of the Spirits that is often the natural Concomitant of Age and Responsibility.

The remainder of these Fellows of whom I speak, at one Time or other, died Martyrs to Vice. Such Men, while trudging along the Stations of their Cross, make of themselves Markers or Way-signs for the rest of us. This is almost the only Utility these dubious Heroes had to offer their Country in the Sacrifice of their miserable Lives.

The Libertine does not dwell in his House, but rather haunts it. Like an evil Spirit, he walks all Night to disturb his Family, but is never seen by Day. Thro’ his frequent resort to the Company of unwholesome Women, he finds himself struck by the outward Signs of his Sin, and what he loses by Venus, he wou'd recover by Mercury, a Medicine oft worse than that which it is meant to cure. [Mercury was the standard medical treatment for venereal disease — Ed.]

As the Years pass by him insensibly and mark'd by naught but his increasing Excesses, the Libertine’s Pleasures become Things rather to be endured than enjoy’d; yet endure them he does, tho' with less Grace and Fortitude than others endure their Pains. In short, he is like that Natta, whom PERSIUS describ’d thus:

          non pudet ad morem discincti vivere Nattae?
          sed stupet hie vitio et fibris increvit opimum
          pingue, caret culpa, nescit quid perdat, et alto
          demersus summa rursus non bullit in unda.

[“Are you not ashamed to live after the fashion of the abandoned Natta? A man deadened by vice, whose heart is overlaid with callouses, who has no sense of sin, no knowledge of what he is losing, and is sunk so deep that he sends up no bubble to the surface?” Persius, Satires, III.30-34 — Ed.]

          See him in Sin’s Abyss insensate drop;
          He sinks, and sends no Bubble to the Top.

I am, as always,
     Your obed’nt & most humble serv’t,
          Jos. Darlington, Esq.
               Darlington Close,
               Horton-cum-Studley, Oxf.

A Tale of a Tub

The ingenious Martin Powell

The Greenland vessels, and indeed the South Sea vessels, are sometimes (especially after stormy weather) so surrounded with whales, that the situation of the crew becomes dangerous. When this is the case, it is usual to throw out a tub in order to divert their attention; when the marine monsters amuse themselves in tossing this singular sort of a plaything into the air, to and fro, as children do a shuttlecock. Their attention being drawn, every sail is hoisted, and the vessel pursues its course to its destination. Hence came the saying, “Throwing a Tub to the Whale!”

          — William Pulleyn, Etymological Companion (1853)

 
Puppets and Prophets

In 1706 a sect of expatriate French Protestant holy rollers arrived in London. Called “Camisards”, they were more familiarly known as the “French Prophets”. Their preaching, prophesying, and speaking in tongues to assembled crowds caused quite a stir, and they were viewed by the government as a threat to public order, or at least as a public nuisance.

In 1708, Lord Shaftesbury published his anonymous pamphlet, A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, though it was actually written in late 1707. The pamphlet used the Prophets as a jumping off point for a lengthy discussion of religious toleration, free expression, and the importance of using gentle ridicule to deflate religious fanaticism. In the Letter, Shaftesbury writes:

“I am told, for certain, that they [the Camisards] are at this very time the Subject of a choice Droll or Puppet-Show at Bart’lemy-Fair. There, doubtless, their strange Voices and involuntary Agitations are admirably well acted, by the Motion of Wires, and Inspiration of Pipes. For the Bodys of the Prophets, in their State of Prophecy, being not in their own power, but (as they say themselves) mere passive Organs, actuated by an exterior Force, have nothing natural, or resembling real Life, in any of their Sounds or Motions: so that how aukardly soever a Puppet-Show may imitate other Actions, it must needs represent this Passion to the Life. And whilst Bart’lemy-Fair is in possession of this Privilege, I dare stand Security to our National Church, that no Sect of Enthusiasts, no new Venders of Prophecy or Miracles, shall ever get the start, or put her to the trouble of trying her Strength with ’em, in any Case.”
 
Puppet shows were a standard attraction at Bartholomew Fair, held in Smithfield. Samuel Butler mentions them in Hudibras (1662), I.i.559-574:
    
     Not that of Past-board which men shew
     For Groats at Fair of Bartholmew;
     But its great Grandsire, first o’th’ name,
     Whence that and Reformation came:
     Both Cousin-germans, and right able
     T’inveigle and draw in the Rabble.
     But Reformation was, some say,
     O’th’ younger house to Puppet-play.

Indeed, a response to Shaftesbury’s Letter, written by Mary Astell (more on her later), was entitled Bart’lemy Fair: or an Enquiry after Wit (1709). Much later, Anthony Collins, a freethinker and acquaintance of Shaftesbury’s, alluded to the whole incident of the Prophets and the puppet shows in his A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) when he wrote: “I don’t know whether you would be willing even to restrain Barthlomew Fair, where the Sect of the New Prophets was the Subject of a Droll or Puppet-Show” (p. 29). 

Puritans and Pipes

In the passage from Shaftesbury quoted above, the puppets have “strange Voices” animated by pipes. It is tempting, by connecting this to Shaftesbury’s subsequent mention of “passive organs”, to assume he is making some kind of lame pun on the musical instrument. I do not believe this is the case. Rather, I think he had in mind bagpipes rather than a pipe organ. One commonly finds in the 17th and 18th centuries references to a peculiar nasal intonation — supposedly a kind of droning sound — made by Puritan preachers (often disparagingly referred to as “fanatics” or “Saints”). This tone was often compared to bagpipes.

For example, in Hudibras (1662), I.i.509-511, Samuel Butler describes it thus: “This Light inspires, and playes upon / The nose of Saint, like Bag-pipe-drone, / And speaks through hollow empty soul”. In John Dryden’s The Medall: A Satyre against Sedition (1682), lines 32-35, we find Shaftesbury’s grandfather, the first Earl, being attacked for his former cooperation with Cromwell’s Puritan regime in these words:

     Bart’ring his venal wit for sums of gold
     He cast himself into the Saint-like mould;
     Groan’d, sigh’d and pray’d, while Godliness was gain;
     The lowdest Bagpipe of the squeaking Train.

Similarly, in Jonathan Swift’s A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit (1704), Section II, appended to A Tale of Tub (1710 ed.), Jonathan Swift writes: “By this Method, the Twang of the Nose, becomes perfectly to resemble the Snuffle of a Bag-pipe, and is found to be equally attractive of British Ears; whereof the Saint had sudden Experience, by practicing this new Faculty with wonderful Success in the Operation of the Spirit” (p. 333).

Historian David Hackett Fischer, in his Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989), referred to this sound as being a characteristic speech pattern of the New England settlers. He, like Swift, also refers to it as a nasal “twang”. Fischer’s explanation is that the New England settlers were, as we know, Puritans, and that a disproportionate number of them came from the Puritan hotbed of East Anglia, where this linguistic quirk was indigenous. I don’t know if it still is; I have spent time in places like Suffolk and haven’t really noticed it. Whether or not it still exists, it was doubtless a real thing in the early 18th century, judging by the frequency with which it was remarked upon. To be honest, I can’t quite get an image of this peculiar sound in my imagination, a sound that was at once a “twang”, a “drone”, a “snuffling”, and a “squeaking”.

Enough about bagpipes. Let’s return for a moment to Swift.

Shaftesbury and Swift (or Shaftesbury as Swift)

As mentioned, Swift wrote A Discourse concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit. In it, and in his Tale of a Tub more generally, he writes of the French Prophets, and of such other fanatics as were under the influence of what was then typically called religious “enthusiasm”. Their gestures, motions, and voices while thus influenced were odd, as if they were not entirely in control of themselves. Hence, the comparisons to puppets, to machines, or to musical instruments being played upon by extraneous forces. These same comparisons are to be found in Shaftesbury’s Letter concerning Enthusiasm, and expressed in a quite similar style.

These similarities were not lost on Swift. In the “Apology” prefacing the 1710 edition of A Tale of a Tub, he writes: “Yet several have gone a farther Step, and pronounced another Book to have been the Work of the same Hand with this; which the Author directly affirms to be a thorough mistake; he having yet never so much as read that Discourse, a plain Instance how little Truth, there often is in general Surmises, or in Conjectures drawn from a Similitude of Style, or way of thinking.” In the margin, Swift identifies this other book as the “Letter of Enthusiasm”— Shaftesbury’s book.

Swift’s claim not to have read Shaftesbury’s Letter should not be taken at face value. In a letter to Ambrose Philips of 14 September 1708, Swift writes: “Here has been an Essay of Enthusiasm, lately publisht that has run mightily, and is very well writt, All my Friends will have me to be the Author, sed ego non credulous illis. By the free Whiggish thinking I should rather take it to be yours: But mine it is not.”

Both Swift’s Tale and Shaftesbury’s Letter were dedicated to the Whig grandee John, Lord Somers, a circumstance that might have contributed to a confounding of the two writers in the minds of readers.

Their identification in some minds is perhaps exemplified by the case of Mary Astell. In 1704 Swift wrote The Battle of the Books, a satire on the then-raging controversy between those who defended the ancient writers as superior to the moderns, and those who sided with the moderns over the ancients. In it, scholar William Wotton was satirized — along with others — for his pedantry, Wotton having defended the moderns against Swift’s old patron, Sir William Temple, champion of the ancients. In 1709 there appeared a response to Shaftesbury’s Letter concerning Enthusiasm, entitled Bart’lemy Fair: or an Enquiry after Wit. This work bears Wotton’s name on the title page, but it was actually written by Astell. Hiding behind Wotton’s name was an indication that Astell thought the Letter concerning Enthusiasm was by Swift. She also takes an opportunity on page 97 of Bart’lemy Fair to attack A Tale of a Tub, which would seem out of place if she thought the author of the Letter were anyone other than Swift. Finally, there is the matter of Bart’lemy Fair’s subtitle, which in the original 1709 edition is “in which due Respect is had to a Letter concerning Enthusiasm to My Lord ***. By Mr. Wotton.” A second edition of the work was published in 1722, for which the subtitle had been changed to “Wherein the Trifling Arguing and Impious Raillery of the Late Earl of Shaftsbury, in his Letter concerning Enthusiasm, and other Profane Writers, Are fully Answer’d and justly Exposed.” In 1709 there would be no reason to expect Astell to know that Shaftesbury wrote the Letter. Swift himself doesn’t seem to have known. However, by 1711 she would have discovered its authorship, once it was included in the first edition of Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, the authorship of which was well-known. Hence, on the title page of the 1722 edition of Bart’lemy Fair Shaftesbury is named.

It must have rankled Shaftesbury to be confused with Swift. I do not know if the two men ever met personally; although it’s not impossible, I haven’t come across any evidence for it. However, if they didn’t meet, one wonders where the former developed his visceral and very intimate-sounding dislike of the latter. According to a letter to Lord Somers, Shaftesbury had read A Tale of a Tub as early as October 1705. He was not a fan, for later, in 1712, he writes to Pierre Coste: “Witness the prevalency and first success of that detestable writing of that most detestable author of the Tale of a Tub, whose manners, life, and prostitute pen and tongue are indeed exactly answerable to the irregularity, obscenity, profaneness, and fulsomeness of his false wit and scurrilous style and humour.” Did Shaftesbury hate the man, or did he hate that he had been confused with an author who in the intervening years had turned Tory?

The 1708 Letter concerning Enthusiasm was not the last time the two authors would cross paths (or swords) in the public sphere. By 1711, when Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks appeared, he and Swift found themselves on opposite sides in Britain’s increasingly polarized political climate. Shaftesbury was a Whig, and hence supported war with France. Speaking of the gradual rise and improvement of the arts in Britain, Shaftesbury  wrote, “‘Tis with us at present, as with the Roman People in those early Days, when they wanted only repose from Arms to apply themselves to the Improvement of Arts and Studys” (Characteristicks, Vol. I, p. 223).

The following year, Swift, now a confirmed Tory, took an opportunity of attacking Shaftesbury for these words in his Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712). The work was dedicated to Tory grandee Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, who was Queen Anne’s chief minister. Swift writes, “I was glad to find Your LORDSHIP’s Answer in so different a Style, from what hath been commonly made use of on the like Occasions, for some Years past, that all such Thoughts must be deferred to a Time of Peace: A Topick which some have carried so far, that they would not have us, by any means, think of preserving our Civil or Religious Constitution, because we were engaged in a War abroad” (pp. 6-7). In other words, it is the Tories, under Harley, who can be counted on to nurture the arts and belles lettres in England, not warmongering Whigs like Shaftesbury.

“Powell the Puppet-Show-Man”

Back to the puppet shows.

In Tatler No. 50 (4 August 1709), there is a letter from Bath by someone subscribing himself as “Mr. Powell”. The letter was likely written by Benjamin Hoadly (1676-1761), the latitudinarian Bishop of Bangor. It is a satirical attack on Ofspring Blackall, the high flying Tory Bishop of Exeter. Blackall is made to speak through the voice of Mr. Powell. In it, Powell/Blackall writes,

“You are for sowing the seeds of sedition and disobedience among my puppets, and your zeal for the (good old) cause would make you persuade Punch to pull the string from his chops, and not move his jaw when I have a mind he should harangue. Now I appeal to all men, if this is not contrary to that uncontrollable, unaccountable dominion, which by the laws of nature I exercise over them; for all sorts of wood and wire were made for the use and benefit of man… my puppets are my property, and therefore my slaves… I am myself but a great puppet, and can therefore have but a co-ordinate jurisdiction with them. I suppose I have now sufficiently made it appear, that I have a paternal right to keep a puppet-show, and this right I will maintain in my prologues upon all occasions.”
 
I have no desire to bore you with the details of the particular church controversy (the “Bangorian controversy”) that gave rise to the letter. For my purposes, the letter is interesting for two things.

First, although this Tatler postdates Shaftesbury’s Letter concerning Enthusiasm by a year, it shows that the puppet metaphor could be used against the High Flying Tories as well as against the Dissenting fanatics such as the French Prophets.

Second, it introduces us to a curious character in the backwaters of English culture in the Augustan period — Martin Powell, puppet master extraordinaire.

According to the editor of the 1797 edition of the Tatler, “a deformed cripple of the name of Powel was the master of a popular puppet-show at this time, and made Punch utter many things, that would not have been endured in any other way of communication.”

In 1709 he was based in Bath and his show toured the provinces, but obviously he had become well-known enough that his name was familiar to London audiences. With an eye on the main chance, in 1710 he made the move to London and set up “Punch’s Theatre” in St. Martin’s Lane. A year later the theatre moved to Covent Garden. It was here that the visionary Mr. Powell decided that puppets could be much more than mere instruments of low comedy, and so he began to stage puppet versions of the highbrow plays and Italian operas patronized by the beau monde. Muscling in on this market made him the object of ridicule in “up market” papers like the Spectator (see, for example No. 14, 16 March 1711), but nevertheless, audiences flocked to him. His sets and puppets were elaborate mechanical contrivances, so much so that references to “the ingenious Mr. Powell” were much more common than references to “Mr. Powell the deformed cripple puppeteer”. For example, in 1714 there appeared an anonymous book entitled A Second Tale of a Tub: or, the History of Robert Powel the Puppet-Show-Man, written by Sir Thomas Burnet. In it, Burnet writes, “have not even the Orcades, the utmost limits of CAESAR’s Conquest, been filled with the Fame of Mr. POWEL’s mechanical achievements?” (p. xxiv).

Burnet’s book is a rather lame attempt at political satire, trading on the fame of Powell but changing his first name from Martin to Robert, to make him represent Robert, Lord Harley, whom we have already encountered in relation to Swift, above. The hamfisted conceit of the book is that Harley is a sort of political puppet master, “the Celebrated Mr. POWEL, the Puppet-Show Man, who has worthily acquired the Reputation of one of the most dextrous Managers of human Mechanism” (p. xxvi).

A Second Tale of a Tub has a frontispiece with a representation of Martin Powell (shown above). In it, his physical deformity is evident. However, I am inclined to think that the face is not that of Powell but rather of Lord Harley. But I could be wrong. We have no other portraits of Powell with which to compare faces, and the engraving is not particularly detailed or well-executed, so any vague resemblance to Harley’s portraits may be purely accidental.

There is one thing about Powell’s story that puzzles me. According to his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, “When the fanatics called French prophets were creating disturbances in Moorfields, the ministry ordered Powell to make Punch turn prophet, which he did so well that it soon put an end to the prophets and their prophecies.” As far as I can tell, this story seems to derive ultimately from an anecdote told by Lord Chesterfield, who would have been a child at the time of the event.

So supposedly, rather than violently suppressing the French Prophets, the government hired Powell to mock them with his puppets. Is this what Shaftesbury was referring to in his Letter when, as we saw, he wrote “I am told, for certain, that they [the Camisards] are at this very time the Subject of a choice Droll or Puppet-Show at Bart’lemy-Fair”? There are two things that tell against this hypothesis:

First, Shaftesbury was writing in 1707, but most sources place the event in question in 1710, or in Lord Chesterfield’s words, “about the end of Queen Anne’s reign”. Second, in 1707 Powell was supposedly still in the provinces, only coming to London in 1710.

Accepting these as facts, we are left, I think, with two possibilities. Either

(i) Shaftesbury simply made up the story and the government took up his idea a few years later, thereby providing us with the irony of a Tory ministry putting into practice the tolerant prescriptions of a Whig enemy, or

(ii) the incident was real but the puppets were not Powell’s.

On the other hand, I suppose it is also just possible that the incident was real, that the puppets were Powell’s, and that it took place in 1707. After all, none of the sources for Powell’s life say he never went to London before he moved there permanently in 1710. Indeed, it would be strange for him not to have gone there, at least to take advantage of Bartholomew Fair. Maybe that's how he made an advance name for himself in the city. And in any case, there is little reason we should trust Chesterfield’s memory for the details of an event that supposedly occurred when he was but a child. Finally, by 1710, the fuss over the Prophets had waned, thereby obviating the need for the ministry’s measure. These circumstances make it less nonsensical to assign the event to 1707.

I hope I’ve managed to toss you enough tubs for your diversion.

Slumlords and Deadbeats

Chancellor James Kent (1763-1847)

I was recently reading volume three of James Kent’s Commentaries on American Law (1826-1830, 4 volumes) — don’t ask — when I came across his chapter on rent. Engrossing stuff. No, seriously. Kent often does not say much on a given topic that is particularly original, but he has a nice, perspicuous way of laying things out. In this case he treated two particular aspects of rent that I’d probably read about in Blackstone and Coke and other places, but for some reason Kent made me pause and think about them more than I did previously.

First, Kent discussed the once-vexed question of whether a tenant must still pay rent if some misfortune befalls him that is no fault of his, but which prevents him from enjoying the use of the property he rents. He cites the case of Paradine v. Jane (1647). During the Civil War, Jane, the tenant, has his lands occupied by Prince Rupert’s forces for three years, during which time it was plundered. His landlord, Paradine, sued for non-payment of rent. Part of the court felt that Jane shouldn’t have to pay for something he didn’t receive, namely the use of Paradine’s land. However, Justice Rolle’s opinion prevailed, which was that Jane was still liable, since he had undertaken to pay the rent, and his misfortune was not the fault of his landlord.

The fact of the matter is, there has been loss. The question was, at whose feet should that loss be placed? Rolle placed it with the tenant, on the grounds that in agreeing to the lease, he was ipso facto assuming the risk that something might prevent him from enjoying the land.

But by the same reasoning, it could have been placed with the landlord, since he too is a party to the lease; it could just as easily be argued that the landlord thereby ipso facto assumes the risk that misfortune might prevent his tenant from paying his rent. This, in conjunction with the fact that the tenant ultimately has not gotten what he bargained for would seem in my mind to tip the balance in favour of the tenant being relieved and placing the loss with the landlord.

Nevertheless, Rolle’s position became the settled law on the matter. Kent agrees with him, but perhaps sensing the inadequacy of the rationale, offers a different reason of his own, a public policy argument based on the concept of what we now call “moral hazard”. He writes,

“The loss of the rent must fall either on the lessor or lessee, and there is no more equity that the landlord must bear the loss of the property destroyed. The calamity is mutual; and there is much weight in the observation… that these losses… may often proceed from the carelessness of tenants; and if they can escape from the rent, which they may deem inconvenient, by leaving the property carelessly exposed, it might very much lessen the inducements to a reasonable and necessary vigilance on their part.” (pp. 373-374)

In other words, even though Jane was not responsible for the waste to the land, tenants too often are responsible for waste, and holding all tenants strictly liable for rent will ensure that they take care of the properties they rent.

This reasoning is specious. For one thing, it relies on an empirical claim that is by no means obvious — that “punishing” a non-negligent tenant with strict liability will somehow discipline negligent tenants into being more conscientious. If anything, it’s just as likely to make the conscientious tenant more negligent, since the law seemingly punishes both conscientiousness and negligence indiscriminately. For another thing, a non-negligent tenant like Jane could rightly question why he must, through no fault of his own, be made a sacrifice to public policy. Let negligent tenants be punished for their negligence; do not punish the tenant who is reasonably conscientious but merely unfortunate.

Given that, as Kent puts it, “the calamity is mutual”, and that the risks and burdens of loss could equally be placed with either the landlord or the tenant, it is somewhat surprising that a third possible doctrine did not do better against these alternatives, namely a division or apportionment of the loss between the two parties. Apportionment makes considerable sense, since neither of the parties can be said to be at fault, and since equally there is no clear rationale for making either party bear the whole loss. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that strict liability beat out apportionment, and that the common law is once again found to favour the propertied.

Kent eventually moves from the subject of strict liability to that of distraint (or “distress”), the landlord’s right to seize a tenant’s moveable chattels for non-payment of rent. Here he notes something unusual about the remedy that I’d never stopped to consider before. Think of the typical remedies the law offers to any other kind of contractual breach. Let’s say I agree to deliver a shipment of widgets to Bob, and Bob in turn agrees to pay me on an agreed day after shipment. The agreed day passes, and Bob does not pay up. Can I enter Bob’s property and help myself to whatever articles I find therein to make up my loss? No, in common law that would be trespass and theft. And yet this is more or less what the common law allowed landlords to do when they didn’t get their rent. (Of course, in modern times the severity of this common law remedy has been fenced around and altered unrecognizably by various local statutory regimes, such as landlord-tenant tribunals, etc.).

Kent believed that the anomalous nature of the remedy of distraint was a relic of feudalism:

“The exorbitant authority and importance of the feudal aristocracy, and the extreme dependence, and even vassalage of the tenants, was the occasion of introducing the law of distresses, and which summary remedy is applicable to no other contracts for the payment of money, than those between landlord and tenant.” (p. 378)

Recognizing its severity, Kent notes that the law gradually developed limitations on the landlord’s right of distraint. For example, he could not take the tenant’s tools and implements of work or trade, nor could he seize his beasts of burden if other movables were available, as these would effectively disable the tenant from ever paying his debt. He could not remove distrained goods from out of the tenant’s county or jurisdiction, nor could he seize goods whose value was more than the unpaid rent, etc.

Kent sees these limitations as a softening of feudal law in favour of equality, and to some extent this is probably true. However, some of the “limitations” on distraint aided the landlord as much as the deadbeat tenant. For example, the statute De Districtione Saccarrii [51 Hen. III] allowed a landlord to impound a tenant’s cattle or other animals, but allowed the tenant access to feed them. Was this for the tenant’s sake, or the landlord’s? I suspect the latter. It relieved the landlord of a financial burden. He could not let the beasts starve, since, for the time being at least, they weren’t his to destroy. And if he was ultimately unable to extract the unpaid rent, he’d have to sell off the animals to recoup his losses, which he would have difficulty doing with dead or starving animals. In the meantime, feeding them could be an expensive proposition. Best to download this responsibility onto the already indebted tenant.

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If you ever get the urge to read Kent, I should warn you of the following:

1. Healthy people do not typically get urges to read such things. You should consider seeking help.
    
2. If you are reading the original 1826-1830 edition (or a facsimile thereof), be prepared for at least one typo per page. It was wretchedly put together by blind typesetters. I mean, we’re talking not just about the odd random misspelling. but about upside down types, misnumbered or unnumbered footnotes, mistitled chapters in the table of contents, and a maddening tendency to spell “statute” as “statue”. However, there is a marked improvement in the fourth volume, the result it seems of a change of printers.
    
3. He devotes an inordinate amount of space to maritime law, marine insurance, marine loans, and the like. Given that the author was from New York, which at the time was (and still is) America’s centre of commerce, his interest is understandable. But I find such topics boring.