The Spectacled Avenger's Reading List, 2021

Well, it’s that time again, when I post the list of books I’ve read over the previous year and try to find patterns in it all.

First off, I read about 20 more books in 2021 than I had in 2020. I attribute this to a somewhat more normal lifestyle, without strict COVID lockdowns. I personally felt a bit bewildered in 2020 and I had a difficult time concentrating. I read less, and when I did read, it seemed to go more slowly. Plus, under normal circumstances I would get much of my reading done on the subway commute to work; I didn’t have that commute for most of 2020. (The commute returned in late September 2021, which resulted in a late surge on the reading list below. But I am back in lockdown now, so we shall see how it all pans out…)

However, upon reflection, I think I have to admit that my reading was not as enjoyable in 2021 as it has been in previous years. As usual, I bold the books that I particularly enjoyed, and there is not nearly as much bolding on the list below.

As for patterns, let me see…. One that jumps out is the number of books from or about the Scottish Enlightenment (Beattie, Carlyle, Hume, Hutcheson, Kames, Raphael, Smith), to which one might add a sprinkling of French authors (Rousseau, Voltaire). I read three books about Richard III  or his age (Drewett and Redhead, Gross, Mancini). Also, there was the usual legal history theme (Boyer, Coke, Finch, Holdsworth, Horne, Kent, Plucknett).

Otherwise, rather than patterns in terms of subject matter, there is a heavy preponderance of works by certain authors: I read four volumes of Burnet’s History of His Own Time, all three books in Robertson Davies’ “Deptford Trilogy”, and three books by Adam Smith.

There are two additional things not reflected on the list below, but which might show up on next year’s list: I have been reading some literature by the Cambridge Platonists. Two works are on this list (Cudworth, Whichcote), but Cudworth’s True Intellectual System of the Universe – a long work – is in progress. Also in progress, and related to the Scottish Enlightenment theme, I am working my way through some historical literature on Scots law: Sir Thomas Hope’s Major Practicks (in two volumes), Lord Stair’s Institutions of the Law of Scotland, and Lord Bankton’s An Institute of the Laws of Scotland (in three volumes). These are long and dense works and will take considerable time to get through.

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AXELROD. Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation (revised edition). Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2006.

BEATTIE, James. An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth; in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and J. Bell, 1770.

BLOOM, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Touchstone Books, 1988.

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

BOYER, Allen D. (ed.). Law, Liberty, and Parliament: Selected Essays on the Writings of Sir Edward Coke. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2004.

BREADY, J. Wesley. Lord Shaftesbury and Social-Industrial Progress. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1928.

BROWN, John. Essays on the Characteristics of the Earl of Shaftesbury. London: C. Davis, 1751.

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

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

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

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

BYNKERSHOEK, Cornelius van. De Dominio Maris Dissertatio. James Brown Scott (trans.). New York: Oceana Publications, 1964.

CARLYLE, Alexander. Anecdotes and Characters of the Times. James Kinsley (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1973.

COKE, Sir Edward. The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, Knt. in Thirteen Parts (Vol. II: Parts III-IV). London: Joseph Butterworth and Son, 1826.

CUDWORTH, Ralph. A Sermon Preached before the Honourable House of Commons at Westminster, March 31, 1647. Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1647 (facsimile, New York: Facsimile Text Society, 1930).

DAVIES, Robertson. Fifth Business. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2005.

DAVIES, Robertson. The Manticore. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2005.

DAVIES, Robertson. World of Wonders. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 2005.

DREWETT, Richard and Mark REDHEAD. The Trial of Richard III. Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton,1987.

FINCH, Sir Henry. Law, or, a Discourse thereof. Danby Pickering (trans.). London: Henry Lintot, 1759 (facsimile, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969).

FITZGERALD, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Classics, 1992.

GRANT, George. Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (40^th anniversary edition). Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.

GROSS, Anthony. The Dissolution of the Lancastrian Kingship: Sir John Fortescue and the Crisis of the Monarchy in Fifteenth-Century England. Stamford, UK: Paul Watkins, 1996.

HAMILTON, Alexander and James MADISON. The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 1793-1794. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007.

HAYEK, Friedrich. Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.

HEINECCIUS, Johann Gottlieb. A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations. George Turnbull (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2008.

HOLDSWORTH, William S. Charles Dickens as a Legal Historian. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1929.

HORNE, Andrew. The Mirrour of Justices. Washington, DC: John Byrne and Company, 1903.

HUME, David. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Tom L. Beauchamp (ed.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001.

HUTCHESON, Francis. Thoughts on Laughter and Observations on the Fable of the Bees. Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1758 (facsimile, Bristol, UK: Thoemmes, 1989).

HUTCHINSON, Lucy. Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson. James Sutherland (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1973.

JAMES, William. Pragmatism. New York: Dover Publications, 1995.

KAMES, Henry Home, Lord. Sketches of the History of Man (Vol. I). James A. Harris (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. I). New York: O. Halsted, 1826.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. II). New York: O. Halsted, 1827.

KLEIN, Lawrence E. Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

KLEMPERER, Victor. The Language of the Third Reich – LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii. Martin Brady (trans.). London: The Athlone Press, 2000.

KYD, Thomas. The Spanish Tragedy. J. R. Mulryne (ed.). New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

LUCIAN. Works (Vol. II). A. M. Harmon (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.

MANCINI, Dominic. The Usurpation of Richard III. C. A. J. Armstrong (trans.). Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton, 1989.

McINERNY, Ralph. Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982.

McKENZIE, Richard B. and Gordon TULLOCK. The New World of Economics (6^th edition). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2012.

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil / The Genealogy of Morality (Complete Works, Vol. 8). Adrian Del Caro (trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014.

NOZICK. Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.

PEPYS, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Vol. VII: 1666). Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

PLATIAS, Athanassios G. and Constantinos KOLIOPOULOS. Thucydides on Strategy: Grand Strategies in the Peloponnesian War and their Relevance Today. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

PLUCKNETT, Theodore F. T. A Concise History of the Common Law (5^th edition). Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1956.

PLUTARCH. Lives (Vol. I). John Dryden (trans.). London: Folio Society, 2010.

PULTENEY. William and Henry St. John, Viscount BOLINGBROKE. The Craftsman (Vol. IV). London: R. Francklin.

PULTENEY. William and Henry St. John, Viscount BOLINGBROKE. The Craftsman (Vol. V). London: R. Francklin.

RAPHAEL, D. D. The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. Clarissa (Vol. II). London: Dent, 1968.

ROSS, Sir David. Kant’s Ethical Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954.

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Emilius; or, An Essay on Education (Vol. I). Thomas Nugent (trans.). London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1763 (facsimile, Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press, 1995).

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Emilius; or, An Essay on Education (Vol. II). Thomas Nugent (trans.). London: J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1763 (facsimile, Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press, 1995).

SALISBURY, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3^rd Marquess of. Lord Salisbury on Politics: A selection from his articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860-1883. Paul Smith (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

SHAKESPEARE, William. Antony and Cleopatra. John Munro (ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958.

SHAKESPEARE, William. Coriolanus. John Munro (ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958.

SHAW, William and Hester Lynch PIOZZI. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Arthur Sherbo (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1974.

SMITH, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

SMITH, Adam. Lectures on Jurisprudence. R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael, and P. G. Stein (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

SMITH, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Vol. I). R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.

SMITH, Patti. Just Kids. New York: Ecco, 2010.

STEPHEN, James Fitzjames. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. R. J. White (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

STORY, Joseph. A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States. New York: American Book Company, 1840 (facsimile, New York: Legal Classics Library, 1992).

SWIFT, Jonathan. The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift (Vol. I: 1690-1713). Harold Williams (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.

TAYLOR, Charles. Radical Tories: The Conservative Tradition in Canada. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2006. 

TULLOCK, Gordon. The Rent-Seeking Society (Selected Works of Gordon Tullock, Vol. 5). Charles K. Rowley (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005.

VOLTAIRE. Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. I). Peter Gay (trans.). New York: Basic Books, 1962.

VOLTAIRE. Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. II). Peter Gay (trans.). New York: Basic Books, 1962. 

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

WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. On Certainty. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (eds.). Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

WODEHOUSE, P. G. Right Ho, Jeeves. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1975.

 

Notes & Queries: Amicable Collisions

Occasionally, upon reading a work of literature, one comes across a phrase, a sentence, or a thought that is particularly well-expressed, and gets echoed down the years in the works of other authors with whom it resonates. Sometimes it’s just that – an echo, so faint it might have come from somewhere else. Sometimes it’s clear as a bell, though even then the writer might not be fully conscious of its origin.

And sometimes, because the thought behind the phrase is commonplace – though perhaps never so well-turned – one is apt to wonder whether it was the original invention of that author, or whether he had cribbed it from someone else (again, perhaps unconsciously).

There is a line in Lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), which struck me the first time (of many) that I read it:

“All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision” (Vol. I, p. 64).

I would not go out of my way to argue that the thought is original to Shaftesbury. But one finds it in many later writers, expressed in words so similar, that there can be no mistaking the provenance. Here are a few examples:

“I like the description of your pic-nic, where I take it for granted, that your cards are only to break the formality of a circle, and your Symposion intended more to promote conversation than drinking. Such an amicable collision, as Lord Shaftesbury very prettily calls it, rubs off and smooths those rough corners, which mere nature has given to the smoothest of us.” Lord Chesterfield, letter to his son (29 October 1748).

(No mistaking that one; it’s a direct citation.)

“The genius of a people where nothing but the monarchy is salique, having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the women – by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicable collisions, they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles…” Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768), p. 54.

“It was those Meetings in particular [i.e. of the Select Society], That Rub’d off all Corners as we call it, by Collison [sic.], and made the Literati of Edin^r. Less Captious and Pedantick than they were Elsewhere.” Alexander Carlyle (1722-1805), Anecdotes and Characters of the Times, p. 150n.

From the above fairly obvious allusions, we descend to the less obvious. Here, they tend to fall into two classes: a) they either borrow Shaftesbury’s idea and express it in different words, or b) they borrow Shaftesbury’s imagery to express a thought somewhat different. The next example is Samuel Johnson’s verbose but elegant expansion of (what I believe to be) his source in Shaftesbury:

“In cities, and yet more in courts, the minute discriminations which distinguish one from another are for the most part effaced, the peculiarities of temper and opinion are gradually worn away by promiscuous converse, as angular bodies and uneven surfaces lose their point and asperities by frequent attrition against one another, and approach by degrees to uniform rotundity.” Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 138 (13 July 1751).

Although the wording is quite different from Shaftesbury’s, the thought is very similar. Except that here, Johnson puts his own typically pessimistic spin on it: Yes, liberty enables us to rub off our rough corners in a sort of amicable collision, but we get polished down to a sameness in the process; there is a loss of individuality and variety. Politeness leaves little room for eccentricity.

In the next example, from Herder (1744-1803), Shaftesbury’s idea is extended from individuals to polities:

“[S]o many edges had first to be worn down with force before that round, smooth, well-behaved thing which we are could appear!… Behold how these great state-bodies, within which mankind is no doubt best cared for, are now rubbing against one another without destroying each other, and cannot ever destroy each other!” Johann Gottfried Herder, Another Philosophy of History for the Education of Mankind (1774), §2

The next two examples are of interest for their authors’ genealogical proximity to Shaftesbury. In a very Shaftesburean philosophical dialogue, his nephew James Harris (1709-1780) offered up this line:

“My Reproaches produced a sort of amicable Controversy.” Three Treatises (1744), in The Works of James Harris, Esq. (1801), Vol. I, pp. 25-26:

One cannot help but think that Shaftesbury’s more famous descendent, the 7^th Earl, had this passage of his ancestor’s in mind when, in the preface to his a collection of his speeches, speaking of the mental life of the agricultural labourer, as contrasted with the urban industrial labourer, he wrote:

“He has not, of course, the acquirements and acuteness of the urban operative; his labour is passed in comparative solitude, and he returns to his home at night, in a remote cottage or a small village, without the resource of clubs, mechanics’ institutes, and the friction of his fellow-men” [italics added]. Speeches… upon Subjects Having Relation Chiefly to the Claims and Interests of the Labouring Class, (1868), p. viii.

I assuming throughout here that the third Earl’s phrasing was original (corners and rough sides, amicable collision, etc.), if not the idea itself.

QUERY: Was it? Is there a predecessor whom Shaftesbury was imitating, much like the above authors imitated him?

Though not identical, here is a candidate:

“Moreover, thanks to the prizes which a republic offers, an orator’s intellectual gifts are whetted by practice, burnished, so to speak, by friction, and share, as is only natural, the light of freedom which illuminates the state.” Longinus, On the Sublime, 44.3.

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Bibliography

CHESTERFIELD, Philip Dormer, 4^th Earl of. Selected Letters of Lord Chesterfield. London: Oxford University Press, 1929.

HARRIS, James. The Works of James Harris, Esq. (2 vols.). London: F. Wingrave, 1801 (facsimile, Bristol: Thoemmes, 2003).

HERDER, Johann Gottfried. Another Philosophy of History for the Education of Mankind. Ioannis D. Evrigenis and Daniel Pellerin (trans.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2004.

JOHNSON, Samuel. Works (12 vols.). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al., 1823.

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

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7^th 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. 

STERNE, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick, to which are added The Journal to Eliza and A Political Romance. Ian Jack (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1968.