Bird-Batting and Bat-Fowling

In a post back in November on English editions of Lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, I had a few things to say about the emblematic engravings that Shaftesbury designed to illustrate his work. In 1974 Felix Paknadel wrote what still remains the most detailed account of the symbolism encapsulated in these engravings. Although anyone interested in the subject must ever be grateful for Paknadel’s effort, a new attempt at interpretation is long overdue. I would like to give an idea of what I mean.

Paknadel was particularly puzzled by the decorative headpiece in Volume III of Characteristicks, illustrating Shaftesbury’s “Miscellaneous Reflections” (pictured above). Paknadel wrote that “The emblems on each side have little to do with the texts of reference. Nor have we found in the treatise any metaphor of which they would be the graphic representation.”

The texts of reference inscribed on the plate are to pages 1, 3, 5, 95, and 132. Of these, pages 1, 95, and 132 refer simply to the first pages of three of the five "Miscellaneous Reflections", which contain little more than titles and descriptive lists of contents. So in a sense Paknadel was correct, in that there are no specific reference texts for the page references. The page references seem not to lead the reader to anything specific. However, I submit that Paknadel was being too literal in looking for specific passages corresponding to the headpiece design. Although Shaftesbury often did refer to specific passages, here I believe he simply intended the headpiece to illustrate general themes treated of in the “Miscellaneous Reflections”. After all, the latter were consciously meant not to be systematically organized, so why should we expect the headpiece illustrating them to be so? Indeed, I will attempt to show that just one small panel of this headpiece has multiple allusions and significations. Examine, if you will, the left panel of the triptych comprising the headpiece:

There is a net strung across some trees, full of ensnared birds, as well as various other traps. This seems to bear some relation to the following passage in Butler’s Hudibras, II.iii.1-10:

    "DOUBTLESS, The pleasure is as great,
     Of being cheated, as to cheat.
     As lookers-on feel most delight,
     That least perceive a Juglers slight;
     And still the less they understand,
     The more th’ admire his slight of hand.

     Some with a noyse, and greasy light,
     Are snapt, as men catch Larks by night;
     Ensnar’d and hamper’d by the Soul,
     As noozes by the Legs catch Foul."

A similar reference occurs in John Webster’s The Dutchesse of Malfy (1623), III.v.98-101:

    "Is that terrible? I would have you tell me
     Whether is that note worse, that frights the silly birds
     Out of the corne or that which doth allure them
         To the nets? You have hearkned to the last too much."

The Butler passage seems the more important, in that a major theme Shaftesbury is illustrating here is superstition and its duperies, a major theme in the “Miscellaneous Reflections”.

Further light is shed (pardon the pun) on the practice depicted in this image in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742), Bk. II, ch. 10, p. 230: “These People who now approached were no other, Reader, than a Set of young Fellows, who came to these Bushes in pursuit of a Diversion which they call Bird-batting. This, if thou art ignorant of it (as perhaps if thou hast never travelled beyond Kensington, Islington, Hackney, or the Borough, thou mayst be) I will inform thee, is performed by holding an large Clap-Net before a Lanthorn, and at the same time, beating the Bushes: for the Birds, when they are disturbed from their Places of Rest, or Roost, immediately make to the Light, and so are enticed within the Net.”

The first French edition of Joseph Andrews (London, 1743) calls it éclairer l’oiseau. Interestingly, some modern editions, including the most recent Oxford World Classics edition, replace “Bird-batting” with “Bird-baiting”. This is a mistake. First of all, it is not a typographical error. The separate first Dublin edition also has “bird-batting”, as does the “revised and corrected” second London edition. Second, more detailed accounts of the practice describe it as consisting of beating the bushes, and then using a lantern to see where to hold the net. In other words, the person who beat the bushes could be characterized as the “pitcher”, and the person or persons holding the lantern and net would be the “batters”. In fact, the sense was even more literal: instead of a net, a bat was commonly used to stun or kill the startled birds. Furthermore, an alternative name for the practice is “bat-fowling”, an obvious play on words for that other winged creature that flies at night. Reverse the order of the words in “bird-batting” and you get “bat-birding” or “bat-fowling”.

Bat-fowling appears in Shakespeare, The Tempest, II.i.188: “We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.” Indeed, the very passage in which it occurs is likely what Shaftesbury had in mind for his illustration (supplemented by the interpretation inspired by the passage from Hudibras, above):

    "GONZALO. I do well believe your highness; and
          did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen,
          who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that
          they always use to laugh at nothing.
     ANTONIO. ‘Twas you we laughed at.
     GONZALO. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing
          to you: so you may continue and laugh at
          nothing still.
     ANTONIO. What a blow was there given!
     SEBASTIAN. An it had not fallen flat-long.
     GONZALO. You are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift
          the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue
          in it five weeks without changing.

     [Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music]

     SEBASTIAN. We would so, and then go a bat-fowling.
     ANTONIO. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.
     GONZALO. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure
          my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh
          me asleep, for I am very heavy?"

Antonio and Sebastian are having a go at the serious Gonzalo. He is soothed by Ariel’s music, and no more takes offense at the ridicule he is receiving. The allusion is to Shaftesbury’s doctrine that there is nothing wrong with injecting a little humour into a serious debate. Such levity, if well-placed and tasteful, will contribute to civility of discourse where gravity might lead parties to come to blows. On a more general level, the advice is to not take ourselves too seriously. Which brings us to the next allusion in the piece…

As if allusions to Hudibras and The Tempest were not already enough to pack into this little section of a headpiece, I submit that the panel would also have summoned in readers’ minds La Rochefoucauld’s Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales (1st ed. 1665), a work whose 17th-century editions contained a frontispiece that would have been familiar to Shaftesbury’s audience:

In Rochefoucauld’s frontispiece, a laughing cherub (rather than Shaftesbury’s satyr) points to a bust of Seneca, the pedestal of which contains the Latin inscription “QUID VETAT”. This is a reference to Horace, Satires, 1.1.24-25: “ridentem dicere verum / quid vetat?” (“what is to prevent one from telling the truth as he laughs?”). The same quotation became the motto on the title page of Shaftesbury’s “Letter concerning Enthusiasm” upon its re-publication in Characteristicks. Why was Seneca the target of ridicule for Rochefoucauld? For one thing, as a Stoic, Seneca had what the cynical Frenchman would consider to be an over-inflated opinion of the nobility of human nature. For another, Seneca took himself very seriously (and unlike Horace, wrote tragedies rather than satires). Also, Seneca, the high-ranking courtier and politician under the emperor Nero, would have been anathema to the politically embittered and cynical Rochefoucauld, living under the absolutist regime of Louis XIV. There is no indication of whom, if anyone, the busts in Shaftesbury’s design are intended to represent. In his instructions to Gribelin, he merely refers to them as “a Set of Vizzard-Masks of several Kinds”. However, they bear severe — even angry — expressions, as did the bust of Seneca. In the Rochefoucauld frontispiece, beneath the feet of the cherub, is inscribed “L’ amour de la verite” (“Love of truth”). The general idea being offered by both Rochefoucauld and Shaftesbury in these designs is that humour may be used to speak truth to power, whether those powers happen to be self-important politicians, or the Church.

It is also worth noting that English editions of Rochefoucauld’s work tended to be titled Moral Maxims and Reflections, more than a little reminiscent of Shaftesbury’s title for the contents of Volume III of Characteristicks, “Miscellaneous Reflections”.

The Janus-faced nature of the bust being pointed to and laughed at by the satyr may also allude to the following passage of Characteristicks, Vol. I, p. 66: “But at present there is nothing so ridiculous as this JANUS-Face of Writers, who with one Countenance force a smile, and with another show nothing but Rage and Fury.” The quote is from Shaftesbury's treatise in Vol. I, "Sensus Communis", where raillery is recommended for such hypocrites, symbolized by the satyr.

All this rich texture of allusions, packed into one little section of this symbolically overstuffed headpiece, went largely unnoticed by Paknadel. Hence I think it is time for a new study.

The Spectacled Avenger's Reading List, 2015

At the beginning of every year, it has been my habit to post a list of the books that I read the previous year, sometimes with a few remarks thereon. Below you will find the list for 2015.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. My total was 65 volumes read, which compares somewhat unfavourably to the 2014 total of 76. In my defense, I would note a few things. First, I was simply busier this year, personally and professionally, and these activities ate somewhat into my reading time. I had to do research for a paper, and I was also involved in an intensive reading of Milton with a friend (sessions spent reading him aloud and then discussing), which took considerable time. In light of this, I consider 65 to be a pretty good number. Second, my 2015 reading tended towards multi-volume works (e.g. Kent and Richardson, below), which tend to be harder slogs. Third, although I don’t publish here the corresponding list of academic papers that I’ve read in the past year (maybe I should?), I did read a few more of these than I do in a typical year —37 in 2015. In part, this was connected to the professional pressures I alluded to.

Aside from the quantity, in terms of content, I can say that in continuation of a trend begun in 2014, I continued to read more novels than I typically do (Dickens, Goldsmith, Fielding, and Richardson), few as these may seem to most readers. In 2015 I read fewer classical authors than I used to (only Cicero and Xenophon this year), and, shocking to me, 53 of the 65 titles I read were written before the 20th century. Of course this last fact is partially counterbalanced by the academic papers I read, almost all of which were written after 1900.

As with the list in other years, books I particularly enjoyed are in bold.

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ADAMS, John. The Portable John Adams. John Patrick Diggins (ed.). New York: Penguin Books, 2004.

ADAMS, John. Discourses on Davila: A Series of Papers on Political History. Boston: Russell and Cutler, 1805 (facsimile, New York: Da Capo, 1973).

ADDISON, Joseph and Richard Steele. The Spectator (Vol.VII). Dublin: George Grierson, 1728.

BEER, Anna. Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, Prophet. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

BERKELEY, George. Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher (Works, Vol. III). A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (eds.). London: Nelson, 1967.

BRETT, R. L. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Literary Theory. London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1951.

BROWNE, Sir Thomas. Religio Medici. London: Andrew Crooke, 1643 (facsimile, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).

BURKE, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2nd edition). London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1759 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1972).

BURTON, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy (Vol. I). London: Everyman Library, 1932.

CHANDLER, Richard. The History and Proceedings of the House of Commons (Vol. VII). London: Richard Chandler, 1742.

CHAPMAN, Matthew. The Snail and the Ginger Beer: The Singular Case of Donoghue v Stevenson. London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 2010.

CHARLES I. Eikon Basilike: The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings (with selections from Eikonoklastes, John Milton). Jim Daems and Holly Faith Nelson (eds.). Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2006.

CICERO, Marcus Tullius. De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione. William Armistead Falconer (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

DAVIS, Jefferson. Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings. William J. Cooper, Jr. (ed.). New York, Modern Library, 2004.

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

DICKENS, Charles. Bleak House. London: Penguin, 2003.

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Nature, Addresses and Lectures. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.

ERSKINE, Thomas, 1st Baron. The Speeches of the Hon. Thomas Erskine (now Lord Erskine) when at the Bar, on Subjects Connected with the Liberty of the Press, and against Constructive Treasons (Vol. I). London: J. Ridgway, 1810.

ERSKINE, Thomas, 1st Baron. The Speeches of the Hon. Thomas Erskine (now Lord Erskine) when at the Bar, on Subjects Connected with the Liberty of the Press, and against Constructive Treasons (Vol. II). London: J. Ridgway, 1810.

FIELDING, Henry. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Martin Battestin and Fredson Bowers (eds.). Middletoen, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1975.

FRANKLIN, Benjamin. The Autobiography. New York: Library of America, 2011.

GIFFORD, William (ed.). The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner (Vol. I). London: J. Wright, 1799 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970).

GIFFORD, William (ed.). The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner (Vol. II). London: J. Wright, 1799 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970).

GOLDSMITH, Oliver. The Vicar of Wakefield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

GRANT, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (Vol. I). New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885.

GRANT, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (Vol. II). New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1886.

GRAY, Thomas. The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray. H. W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.

HALE, Sir Matthew. Historia Placitorum Coronæ: The History of the Pleas of the Crown (Vol. I). Sollom Emlyn (ed.). London: E. and R. Nutt and R. Gosling, 1736.

HALE, Sir Matthew. Historia Placitorum Coronæ: The History of the Pleas of the Crown (Vol. II). Sollom Emlyn (ed.). Philadelphia: Robert H. Small, 1847.

HALEY, K. H. D. The First Earl of Shaftesbury. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

HOWE, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

HUME, David. The History of England (Vol. II). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983.

JAMES, William. Psychology: Briefer Course. Boston: H. Holt and Co., 1892.

JAMES, William. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Longmans Green and Co., 1907.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson (Vol. I). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al., 1823.

JOYCE, Richard. The Evolution of Morality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

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.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. III). New York: O. Halsted, 1828.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. IV). New York: O. Halsted, 1830.

MARSHALL, Alfred. Principles of Economics (8th edition). London: Macmillan, 1959.

MARVELL, Andrew. The Complete Poems. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1993.

McPHERSON, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

MENCKEN, H. L. The Days Trilogy: Happy Days, Newspaper Days, Heathen Days (expanded edition). New York: Library of America, 2014.

MILTON, John. Paradise Lost. London: Peter Parker, 1667 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1973).

MILTON, John. Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes. London: John Starkey, 1671 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1973).

PUFENDORF, Samuel. The Whole Duty of Man, According to the Law of Nature. Andrew Tooke (trans.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003.

RESCHER, Nicholas. Nature and Understanding: The Metaphysics and Method of Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. The History of Sir Charles Grandison (Vol. I). London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. The History of Sir Charles Grandison (Vol. II). London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. The History of Sir Charles Grandison (Vol. III). London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

ROCHEFOUCAULD, François, Duc de La. Moral Maxims: By the Duke de la Roche Foucault. London: A. Millar, 1749 (reprint, Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2003).

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of. Letters of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Author of the Characteristicks, Collected into One Volume. [Glasgow?]: n. p., 1746.

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

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

SMITH, Captain John. Writings, with Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America. New York: Library of America, 2007.

STORY, Joseph. A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States. New York: American Book Company, 1840.

TAYLOR, Jeremy. Discourses on Various Subjects (Vol. II). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807.

TAYLOR, John (“of Caroline”). An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.

TUFTE, Edward R. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1990.

VOITLE, Robert. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671-1713. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1984.

WARREN, Mercy Otis. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (Vol. I). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1994.

WARREN, Mercy Otis. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (Vol. II). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1994.

WIDMER, Ted (ed.). American Speeches: Political Oratory from the Revolution to the Civil War. New York: Library of America, 2006.

XENOPHON. Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apology. E. C. Marchant and O. J. Todd (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.

The Chinese Dream

In the December 5-11, 2015 issue of The Economist (p. 44), there appeared a little article entitled “That’s entertainment”, about the Chinese Communist Party’s enforcement of morality in the state-run entertainment industry. In part, this is not new. The Party has always enforced moral standards over what can be portrayed in film and music, to make sure they conform to moral standards. In addition,

“A new ‘Joint Pledge of Self-Discipline in Professional Ethics’ for the press, publishing, broadcasting and film industries has recently been signed by 50 official media and entertainment organisations. They, in turn, are expected to enforce the pledge among performers and other employees. Works must refrain from vulgar words or images, instead promoting ‘healthy’ and ‘advanced’ aesthetics, whatever they are.”

Leave aside for now the contestability of the meanings of such terms as “healthy” and “advanced”. Leave aside too the question of whether the Chinese Communist Party is the best arbiter of them. Yet, given the moral filth and degenerate aesthetics I am daily exposed to by the North American entertainment industry (no matter how hard I try to keep myself unpolluted by it), I can’t help but sympathize with the intention of the Chinese authorities.

If you have read this blog long enough, you will know that I am not a liberal in the classical sense: I believe there is a place for the legal enforcement of morals, and that, as a matter of fact, we do so whether we like to admit it or not. Indeed the only way we can make sense of many (if not all) of our liberal social policies is in moral terms. The very appeal to liberty is in fact itself a moral appeal, at least where it is not, for example an economic one (though even here, as I have argued before, I believe economic arguments are almost always reducible to moral ones). In this regard I am a conservative, or perhaps a liberal in the style of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen. I further believe that liberty is not a trump card. Liberty ought to be the first word in any argument over the bounds of legislation. But it is not the last word. “Liberty”, much like “God” or “Jesus” or “religious faith” is not a magic talisman with the power to ward off all scrutiny or criticism.

Returning to the Economist article, as I said, the Communist Party has been overseeing the moral content of the end products of the Chinese entertainment industry for some time. What’s new is that it is now extending this role to the industry’s off-screen activities. Movie and pop stars will now have to live up to a certain (admittedly fairly minimal) level of moral good conduct:

“Also out is behaviour that 'violates morals or public order'. Pornography, drugs and gambling are spelled out. Even before the pledge, libertines have paid a price. Last year one big-budget film was in the last stages of editing when its star got arrested in Beijing for smoking weed. The film had to be reshot with a new leading man. Organisations that have signed the pledge are now bound to blacklist violators for up to three years.”

The tone of the article seems to more than imply that this is somehow onerous or overly intrusive, or at best quixotic. And yet, how many of us are subject to just such restrictions in our own employment relationships? Is it really asking too much? The only real difference here is that the enforcement is coming from the government rather than from the industry’s or employer’s own self-regulation.

I think that in conveying the view that the Chinese government’s initiative is somehow ridiculous, The Economist is implicitly depending that we will compare this moral regulation of employment not to ourselves, but to the North American entertainment industry. “Look,” the magazine seems to be saying, in a self-congratulatory way, “at how much more virtuous we are in the West, because we’re an open society that allows its entertainment industry to purvey whatever morally corrosive and degenerate filth the public desires. Is liberty not a grand thing?” I am less sanguine about the virtues of such liberty.

There are some who might say that what a Hollywood star does in her private life is her own business, and that we should separate the role on screen from the private life lived off it. It would be nice if the public and private spheres were that easily separable, even in our own lives, let alone Hollywood.

This relation between the public and the private is the major point of contention between, say, a John Stuart Mill and a James Fitzjames Stephen: The former says that whatever happens in the private sphere, not negatively affecting others, ought not to be the subject of government legislation. The latter says, that (i) there is effectively no such thing as an exclusively private sphere, (ii) that morality is not only other-regarding, but is also self-regarding, in that one’s behavior towards oneself is a valid subject of moral regard, and (iii) that legislation is not the only, or even the main way morals are enforced.

To be fair, I’m not sure that Fitzjames Stephen would agree with (ii), since he is in the end a liberal, just a different kind of liberal than Mill. But as a conservative, I believe that it is a legitimate object of government to try to legislate, insofar as it is practical or feasible, for the better moral health of the citizenry (I use the term moral “health” because I can’t think of a better concept to apply here). Indeed, I believe government has a duty to do so, one of its few legitimate duties in my view.

The connection between entertainment and people’s behavior is real, though it is not nearly as simple and direct as the purveyors of various moral panics would have us believe. Still, nobody disputes that Hollywood can get people to buy things, so in that sense we know they can influence behavior. Therefore, it seems Hollywood is worthy of moral scrutiny, and indeed, worthy of governmental moral scrutiny, given Hollywood’s reach and potential influence.

I say this with obvious important caveats: The first caveat is that I am assuming that there are certain shared core values that we, upon rational reflection can all agree on. This is a huge assumption. I believe it’s a warranted one, but I haven’t the space to argue that here (though I have elsewhere on this blog). For now, all I’m saying is that there are certain behaviours which, even if done completely in private and which affected nobody but the person(s) willingly engaging in them, we could still agree in saying that all things considered, a world without these behaviours is, in some morally significant sense, a better world than one with them. For example, imagine it were the case that prostitution involved no occupational hazards such as violence or disease, and that it was engaged in as a voluntary activity, free of coercion, economic or otherwise. Imagine an alternative world in which there was no such activity as buying or selling sexual favours. Which is the better world? I leave you to consider that question yourself, and to apply it to other behaviours, such as drug use, pornography, and self-mutilation (which is notably a private sphere matter in the liberal view of things).

Second, as Fitzjames Stephen recognized, government legislation is not always the appropriate, efficient, or effective vehicle for enforcing such values. Often, the most effective moral sanctions are societal ones. Many people would do things to avoid paying taxes to the government, but would blush with shame at the thought of being discovered doing so by their friends and neighbours.

I largely agree with The Economist’s implication that government is likely the wrong agent to effect moral reform in the entertainment industry. Government is often heavy-handed, too blunt an instrument to accomplish such a delicate task — especially a government that is unrepresentative and indistinguishable from a mere political party, as is the case with China’s. (I was tempted to mention corruption, but I’m not convinced that Western governments are much better in that regard, just more discreet).

However, interestingly, what The Economist seems to forget is that for several decades Hollywood conducted its own experiment in moral codification, the Motion Picture Production Code (or so-called “Hays” Code), in operation from 1930 to 1968. This was an industry-imposed measure intended to obviate the need for a government-imposed one. It was in response not only to a perceived moral decline in the content of films, but also to a perceived moral decline in the quality of Hollywood stars themselves, particularly in the wake of the Fatty Arbuckle affair.

Was the Hays Code a failure? Was it quixotic? Did it kill the motion picture industry? Did it lead to dull movies? The answer to these questions seems to be a resounding “no”. In fact, according to Jon Elster, in his book Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints (Cambridge University Press, 2000), it arguably led to better movies. It is no coincidence that the Hays Code was in place during the so-called “Golden Age of Hollywood”. Elster argued that working within constraints (moral codes, for example) can actually enhance rather than stifle creativity. For instance, many movies made during this period still managed to include risqué and even subversive content, but such content had to be presented in indirect, roundabout ways. For example, the constraints meant that methods had to be found to suggestively leave things to the imaginations of viewers. Such suggestion was more likely to induce thought rather than mere titillation, thereby preserving both good art and good morals.

There is another bothersome thing about this Economist article worth mentioning. The author writes:

“China’s top official in charge of ideology and propaganda, Liu Yunshan, held a gathering with leading figures in art and literature with the aim of promoting the ‘prosperous development’ of those fields. Mr Liu wanted to encourage works embodying the ‘Chinese dream’ and ‘positive energy’. These terms come straight from the dogma factory of Xi Jinping, China’s president. He has spoken often — if vaguely — of the Chinese dream as an organising principle for the country’s development.”

Again, as with much else in this article, one can sense the author’s sneering tone, as if an appeal to the “Chinese dream” is something laughable. In truth, is the “Chinese dream” any more vague or dishonest or vacuous than the “American dream”? And is the American political establishment any less a “dogma factory” on this score than the Chinese one? The “American dream” is a term that The Economist employs regularly in its publication without the least sense of irony. Why is the double standard?

I’m sorry to point out that to uncritically invoke the “American Dream” puts one in the same dubious company as Mr. Donald Trump, entertainer par excellence:

"'The American Dream is dead,' said Trump near the end of his remarks. 'But we’re going to make it bigger and better and stronger than ever before.'"

Are the Chinese not allowed to do the same?

English Editions of Shaftesbury's "Characteristicks"

Over the years this blog has served many purposes for me, one of which has been as a space to play the curmudgeon and gripe about current events and how the world (or just my city) is going to hell in a handcart. Given late events in Paris, I have felt a very strong compulsion to use The Spectacled Avenger for just this purpose. However, I have refrained from this, until such time as I can do so without intemperate language, and without expressing a view I will come to regret.

Another purpose of this blog is to act as a repository for those trivial little scraps of learning I come across in my scholarly pursuits that lack other outlets, a sort of waste book, if you like. It is here that The Spectacled Avenger is most open to the charge of boring the reader, for I am often the only person who could possibly find these things interesting.

I am afraid that this post shall be an example of this. So, you have been duly warned. Please feel free to spend your time more productively somewhere else. This post, Dear Reader, is mainly for Yours Truly.

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I recently re-read William E. Alderman’s paper, “English Editions of Shaftesbury’s Characteristics” (Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 16.4 (1967), 315-334.). It’s just what its title would lead you to believe: a bibliographic tally of all editions of Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, which repeat readers of this blog will know is one of my favourite works of all time. For we few happy souls with an interest in Lord Shaftesbury, Alderman’s paper is an old classic. However, even making allowances for its age — it requires some updating — there are a few things that need revision. But before I do so, I first need to give some context for Characteristicks, since I presume most readers will be unfamiliar with it.

In its first incarnation, in 1711, Characteristicks comprised three volumes containing mostly works that had been published separately on previous occasions, referred to somewhat misleadingly as “treatises”. Hence, it was intended to be a kind of “collected works” of the author, though with many additions and revisions. There were three treatises in the first volume and two in the second. The third volume consisted of one treatise that was entirely new. Called “Miscellaneous Reflections”, it was written in the voice of a purported third person commenting on the foregoing two volumes. It was meant to give unity to the whole, and in this sense Characteristicks was something more than just a “collected works”. The voice in “Miscellaneous Reflections” is often ironic, playful, and quite subversive, there being many treasures of controversy buried in its footnotes.

The second edition, published posthumously in 1714, was important. Besides revisions that Shaftesbury raced to complete before his death, and the inclusion of a frontispiece portrait of the author (and not authorized by him), he designed and commissioned a set of fascinating emblematic engravings done by Simon Gribelin to be included in the work (Gribelin had also done the medallion emblem on the title page of the initial 1711 edition). Here's an example of one of the smaller headpieces beginning a treatise:

These were not mere ornament. They explicitly referred to certain pages of the text, to illustrate them. This of course meant that the pagination of subsequent editions had to more or less remain the same in order to preserve the pleasurable pastime of interpreting the engravings through the text, and vice versa. Most of the editions in the first third of the 18th century did so. But at some point, publishers sacrificed the engravings, partly due to expense, partly due to changing format (a shift from octavo to cheaper duodecimo editions meant the pagination changed), and partly due to the fact that people — or publishers at least — had ceased to attribute any deeper meaning to the engravings.

I should note that the 1714 edition had on its title page a round emblematic “medallion” engraving by Gribelin that had also appeared in the 1711 edition. Not including this, the portrait frontispiece, and a headpiece for the Preface featuring the Shaftesbury coat of arms, there were, altogether, nine engravings: one larger plate for the title pages of each of the three volumes, plus a smaller headpiece for each of the six treatises.

Also worth mentioning is that later editions of Characteristicks added two posthumous treatises of Shaftesbury’s to the third volume: “The Judgment of Hercules” and “A Letter concerning Design”. The former also was accompanied by an engraving by Gribelin after the painting by Paolo de Mattheis.

So, there you have a brief overview of the published form of the work as it appeared in the early 18th century. Much more could be said, but that’s enough for present purposes.

Now back to Alderman. I mentioned that his paper required updating in light of subsequent events. He counted 17 editions: 1711, 1714, 1723, 1727, 1732, 1733, 1737, 1743-45, 1749, 1757, 1758, 1773, 1790, 1870*, 1900, 1963, and 1964. So far as I can tell, this accounting is complete. I have asterisked the 1870 edition because it is not whole; only one volume was published before the editor’s premature death. A few of them I have never seen first hand, though I have no reason to doubt their existence, since they appear in various library catalogues (although, as Alderman narrates from his own experience, library catalogues are not always trustworthy).

Many of these editions were in Alderman’s own possession at the time he wrote, and we are indebted to him for knowledge of the 1757 edition, which did not appear in any bibliographies, but which serendipitously came into his own possession through a generous colleague. He also offers the tantalizing prospect that somewhere there may be a copy of a pirated 1743 Dublin edition mentioned at one time in the catalogue of a London bookseller but now untraceable. Like the Loch Ness monster, we must consider it fabulous until a copy turns up. Hence it does not make Alderman’s official list.

I personally own the 1773, 1743-45, and 1964 editions — along with several editions that came out after Alderman’s list. To brag a bit, I am also the proud owner of the extremely rare first edition of Shaftesbury’s Letter concerning Enthusiasm (1708), which forms the first treatise of volume I of Characteristicks.

Now, since Alderman wrote, new editions have been published. They are:

1. Farnborough, UK: Gregg International, 1968. Three volumes (this is a facsimile reprint of 1714 edition).
2. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1978. Three volumes (a facsimile reprint of 1711 edition).
3. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Two volumes, edited by Philip J. Ayres.
4. Cambridge University Press, 2000. One volume, edited by Lawrence E. Klein. 
5. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Three volumes, edited by Douglas Den Uyl.

I possess all of these editions except the Gregg one, so if you’re thinking of getting me a Christmas present…. As I said, I’m obsessive about this book. All of these modern editions have their strengths and weaknesses, but my personal preference in terms of fidelity, usability, and price, is the Liberty Fund edition. It includes the engravings in high-quality reproductions, it preserves the pagination of the early editions in the margins (keyed to references in the engravings), the text hasn’t been modernized (a big thing for me), and it is affordable. It also contains "The Judgment of Hercules" and the "Letter concerning Design", which do not appear in the Georg Olms, Cambridge, or Clarendon editions.

I have not included any print-on-demand facsimile versions that may be available out there. Nor have I included the Standard Edition of Shaftesbury’s works (Stuttgart: frommann-holzboog Verlag, 1991- ), on the grounds that it separates the various treatises into different volumes — it’s all there, but it’s not Characteristicks as the reader was meant to experience it. As I see it, what Lord Shaftesbury hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

That brings Alderman’s list up to date. Now I’d like to explore some areas where he requires correction, addition, or qualification.

My first observation concerns the first edition of 1711. No printer is identified for it. Alderman surmises that it was John Darby, Jr., who produced the second edition. No doubt he is correct. Scholarly consensus has since settled this. My quibble is rather with his reasoning than with his conclusion. In the preface, Shaftesbury refers to “his Honest Printer”. Since this reference is preserved in the second edition, for which we know Darby was the printer, we can therefore assume, says Alderman, that he also printed the first edition.

Now, there would be little wrong with this reasoning, if it had been left as it is. But for some reason, Alderman also felt compelled to make the case that Darby was indeed honest, or was viewed as such by Shaftesbury. For example, he notes that Darby was generous, donating three guineas to a fund to support a fellow printer fallen on hard times. Be this as it may, it made no impression on Shaftesbury, who repeatedly mentions Darby in most unflattering terms in his correspondence. To give a taste, at one point he is referred to as that “niggard and insensible Wretch” (letter to Thomas Micklethwaite, 19 January 1712). The consistent picture of Darby offered therein is one of a person who must be watched like a hawk, else he’ll cut corners on materials; he has no conception of the value of the work he is printing, nor of its aesthetics. In other words, in keeping with much of Shaftesbury’s literary posing, the reference to his “honest printer” is meant to be ironic. In fact, I would go so far as to call it a practical joke: He insulted his own printer and had him print the insult.

Alderman did not get the joke. Instead, in explaining why Darby’s name does not appear on the first edition, besides the mention of Darby’s generosity, he goes into a rather convoluted and unnecessary digression on the antagonistic political relationship between Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, and how the latter had recently had Darby arrested for libel: “He [Shaftesbury] may have felt also that it was more favorable to the promulgation of his ideas to shun direct mention of the printer who had recently offended the regime.”
 
Alderman also claims that the reference to his “honest printer” was intended as a rebuke to Bolingbroke (p. 321). I am unconvinced by this latter claim. After all, what better way to rebuke the regime than to proudly print your work with the honest printer’s name on it, if that’s what you're aiming at? In any case, the supposed rebuke seems so esoteric that it is difficult to imagine readers getting it. And how exactly was the rebuke supposed to work if the reader had no way of knowing that the book’s printer was Darby? It just seems far-fetched.

I frankly don’t know why Darby’s name is not on the first edition. If I were forced to guess, I might say it had to do with shielding the printer from risk of prosecution for the book’s contents — and with shielding the author. After all, Shaftesbury’s name did not appear in the first edition either. By the time of the second edition, Shaftesbury’s agent and the printer knew that there was no risk of prosecution, so both names appear on it, with a picture of the author, who by that time was dead and hence beyond the threat of prosecution.

I have already mentioned one more bit of circumstantial evidence favouring Darby as the printer of the 1711 edition, though oddly it goes unremarked by Alderman. I mean the circular “medallion” engraving by Gribelin, which appeared on the title page of both the 1711 and 1714 editions (and subsequent ones). Of course, this on its own is no proof, since it could be that Shaftesbury paid for it and could therefore hand it over to whichever printer he chose to print his works. But it creates a presumption in favour of a continuity of printers.

I should like to say a few more things about this curious medallion engraving that weren’t mentioned by Alderman. First, it was either redone or retouched for the second edition. In its 1711 state, in the outer area containing the scrollwork, the background was composed of horizontal lines only. In the 1714 version, cross-hatching lines have been added over the horizontal ones. I don’t believe this has been noted by anyone before.

Second, in 1711, only the engraver’s name was inscribed, at the bottom: “Sim: Gribelin  sculps:”. In 1714, in the corners, page references have been added (“Vid. Inf. Vol. III P. 198, 199.”), as it appears here:

Was the 1714 version of the medallion entirely redone, or is it the same plate retouched? Although I’m not expert enough to say for sure, I’m inclined to believe it’s a retouch, for the simple fact that in all other respects the 1714 plate is so faithful to the original that, if it is a copy, it’s a damn near perfect one. It’s easier for me to believe it’s the same plate than that it is such a perfect facsimile of the original.
 
I only have two things to add about the 1714 second edition. One is to note that in discussing the commission of Gribelin’s engravings, Alderman mentions the treatise headpieces but not the larger volume plates. The other is that he mentions an obscure advertisement in another 1716 publication, listing books sold by Darby, including Characteristicks, “Adorn’d with variety of Hieroglyphical Sculptures, all design’d by his Lordship, and engraved by Mr. Gribelin.” This is useful and interesting, at least for me, because it tells against something I have contended elsewhere, namely that 18th-century readers were unlikely to be aware of Shaftesburys’ role in the design of the plates, unless they happened to read the biographical entry on Shaftesbury in Thomas Birch’s A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical (Vol. IX, 1739). After all, Shaftesbury was dead when they appeared, and in any case it was not typical for an author to design plates, which were normally commissioned and owned by the publisher. Despite this interesting advertisement, I still contend that, as a matter of fact, most readers did not know of Shaftesbury’s design role, but it does show that the knowledge was theoretically available.

Of the 1732 edition, Alderman does not relate the lore that this edition was brought out by Shaftesbury’s son, the 4th Earl. I have come across this claim before, but presented without good authority, so I class it as spurious. The 4th Earl would have been 21 or so at the time. Therefore, Alderman is perhaps justified in leaving the story out.

Alderman describes the 1743-45 edition as “the most baffling of them all” and “the most careless and inconsistent” (p. 324). This is a fair assessment. For instance, volume I is dated 1744, volume, II is dated 1743, and volume III is dated 1745. It is a duodecimo edition with no city or publisher on the title page.

The only thing I have to add to Alderman’s very good account of it is that in my copy, volume I is bound with (and after) a 1746 edition of Shaftesbury’s letters, which looks like it was by the same printer. Alderman does not attempt to identify the printer, but Philip Gaskell, in his Bibliography of the Foulis Press (London, 1964), attributes it to that famous Glasgow firm, along with the 1746 Letters. If so, it is not one of their better efforts.

The 1773 Baskerville edition

I have more to say about Alderman’s account of the Baskerville edition (Birmingham, 1773). First, his account is based mainly on a description of his own copy, which is so idiosyncratic as to be almost useless for the purpose of a general description (though it’s very interesting in its own right). For instance, it sounds as if at some point the pages containing plates had been removed from his copy. To remedy this, a previous owner had pasted in ones he had found elsewhere, some of them from earlier editions. Some missing pages were even reprinted at the owner’s own expense, likely sometime in the early 19th century.

Usually one would expect quality from Baskerville’s press, and indeed in this edition one finds the best paper and ink was used. It is large, crisp, and elegant. But the proofreading could have been better. Thankfully, most of the problems are to be found in misnumbered pages and misspelled page headings rather than in Shaftesbury’s own text. But still, it mars an otherwise beautiful book. Alderman notes that about a quarter of the copies contain an “errata” sheet in either volume I or III. Mine does not.

Also not noted by Alderman: Shaftesbury’s marginal headings in volume II are not reproduced here, which to my mind is a drawback, since they offer clues to Shaftesbury’s thinking and organization. (For example, one looking for the famous but little used phrase “moral sense” in Shaftesbury’s writings will find it in a marginal header.)

Baskerville’s was the first edition since 1737 to reproduce all of Gribelin’s engravings. Alderman does not know whether Baskerville “had these redone at great expense, or whether by some arrangement the originals had come into his possession” (p. 326). I have examined and measured them and compared them in every way to the originals, and there is absolutely no difference. Everything is the same, right down to the “hollow capitals” in the textual references on the plates, which are barely distinguishable to the naked eye. I have no doubt they are original. This is not to say that Baskerville didn’t have them retouched, since it’s reasonable that they would have been “tired” from repeated use in various editions over the years.

If the plates were redone, then to have copied them so faithfully and in such detail would have been such a marvel as to make the anonymous artisan’s name worthy of appearing alongside Gribelin’s. It would have been typical for a new engraver to add his name to his plate, even in the case where it is a copy. For instance, Ravenet did so when he miniaturized the medallion and Shaftesbury coat of arms for the 1749 duodecimo edition. That Gribelin’s is the only name on them favours the view that the plates are originals. The real interesting question, then, is how Baskerville acquired them. I don’t have an answer to this.

Like most post-1714 editions, the Baskerville contains “The Judgment of Hercules” and the “Letter concerning Design”. In the case of the latter, my copy lacks the title page, the page numbering going from 391 of the preceding treatise to page 395 of the “Letter”. Another curiosity about the “Letter” in my copy is that it was printed on different — and clearly inferior — paper. In the photograph below, you may just be able to make out the browning of the paper in the “Letter” on the right, contrasted with the crisp whiteness of the preceding treatise on the left.

The little ornamental rule above the title in the photograph also differs from the ones throughout the rest of the edition, which are formed of little egg-shaped elements. My suspicion is that, for whatever reason, the “Letter” was not originally intended to be included. This suspicion is verified by fact that the title page of volume III, which lists the treatises contained therein, does not list the “Letter”. This decision being repented of, the “Letter” was hastily printed up as an afterthought, either before publication, or afterwards, so that customers who felt shortchanged could have it bound in with their copies. This might explain the inferior paper: if its production was not part of the publication budget, or if it was essentially being given out gratis to maintain customer goodwill, the cheaper stuff would have to do.

As I said, my copy lacks a title page for the “Letter”, while other copies have it. I don’t have an explanation for this. But it is notable that of copies I’ve examined, whether my own, or online, or through bibliographies and catalogues, copies lacking the title page also seem to lack the above-mentioned errata sheet. I would be curious to know if all of them have the “letter” printed on cheaper paper, something I cannot tell without examining them in hand.