Images of the Outcast: The Urban Poor in the Cries of London by Sean Shesgreen

Abstract

158 Amhurst’s career follows. The chapter also supplies a brief overview of political journalism from the seventeenth century, leading up to the founding of the Craftsman . In the second chapter, Mr. Varey traces changes in the Craftsman’s size, format, title, and publication schedule during its first few years. Also, to give some sense of the periodical’s influence in 1731 and consequently the rationale for Arnall’s response, he speculates on the journal’s circulation, employing Francklin’s accounts through 1729 and other later evidence. In all, by 1731, the Craftsman was comprised of four pages, contained one or two essays per issue, appeared weekly on Mondays, and enjoyed a circulation of probably 10,000 copies. The heart of this volume, the facsimile edition of Arnall’s The Case of Opposition Stated, is a point by point, ministerial response to the Craftsman of December 4, 1731: namely, to Amhurst’s five-year review of his patriotic efforts to defend ‘‘Truth’’ and ‘‘Liberty’’ and to combat ‘‘publick Corruption.’’ Arnall denounces the pretended virtue and sincerity of the Craftsman’s writers, and he indicts their ‘‘boasted patriotic Writings’’ as damaging to their country because theygenerate dissension at home, and, abroad,theycreate the impression of a weak, divided nation . Arnall insists that, contrary to the Craftsman’s claims, no citizen questions England’s current happiness, liberty, and world power except selfish men whose envy of wealth and authority drives them to incite the passions of the people. Just how much impact these charges and countercharges in the partisan press had on the popular consciousness is difficult to judge; perhaps only the lastpublication out of the press enjoyed a temporary advantage . In Mr.Varey’sopinion,thepaper wars became subdued in 1732, not as a result of the demolishing effects of Arnall ’s Case: the impact upon the Opposition press of Francklin’s arrest was the actual cause. James E. Tierney University of Missouri-St. Louis SEAN SHESGREEN.ImagesoftheOutcast: The Urban Poor in the Cries of London. New Brunswick: Rutgers, 2002. Pp. 320. $65; $30 (paper). ‘‘Cries’’ are images of urban street denizens—milkmaids, tinkers, beggars, criminals, and merchants—depicted in broadsides, ensembles, and books. Mr. Shesgreen has visited this world before in The Criers and Hawkers of London (1996), and here he retrieves the ‘‘Cries’’ from scholarly obscurity, presenting them as compelling cultural documents. Although ‘‘the legal status of itinerant peddlers was never high,’’the book’s title misleads; many were simply poor and excluded from society for economic rather than moral or legal reasons. Mr. Shesgreen asserts, ‘‘history exists inside as well as outside of pictures,’’yet aesthetic, cultural, and social concerns are a vast territory for a small volume. Adapted from Continental models, the first ‘‘Cries’’ appeared in London in the 1590s as multi-figure broadside prints, and were displaced a century later by ensembles, collections of single-sheet prints, each sheet portraying a single figure and sold as a set. Two Europeanartists created ensembles for the voracious English print market: Marcellus Laroon, a hack illustrator whose utilitarian series eventually included seventy-four images, and the aristocratic Jacob Amigoni, who offered only four highly personalizedfigures . Mr. Shesgreen elucidates the artists’ backgrounds and identifies possible influences of the marketplace; for instance, 159 the canny publisher Pierce Tempest commissioned and culled Laroon’s series for two tiers of wealthy buyers, while Amigoni ’s‘‘Cries’’beganasoilpaintings,two of which were given to his countryman, the famous castrato Farinelli (who is unflatteringly pictured in plate three of Hogarth ’s Marriage à la Mode.) Mr. Shesgreen instructively parallels the work of the two artists: Laroon focuses on ‘‘the sellers’attitudes, ‘actions’, costumes, and identities,’’whileAmigoni emphasizes the ‘‘hawkers’ personalities, declared in their faces’’ and their urban settings. Laroon created a visual encyclopedia of street types; Amigoni depicted an apple-seller, shoeblack, lamplighter , and chimney sweeper; all his hawker-children were ‘‘agents of sentimental refinement.’’ Yet Mr. Shesgreen’s contrasts between the two artists weaken his comparisons. Both produced popular art, but they could not have been more different in style, productivity, intent—a modern parallel might be in low-budget and art films. J. S. Müller imitated Amigoni’s pictorial approach, and further personalized...