The Satirist and the Libeller: Peter Finnerty and the Satirist Magazine

Abstract

Satire and libel have always been closely linked, but in the anxious political climate of the Romantic period, the relationship came under new pressure. This article examines the fraught connection between satire and libel through a case study: a quarrel between the Irish radical Peter Finnerty and George Manners, editor of the loyalist Satirist, or Monthly Meteor. In February 1809, Finnerty brought an action for libel against the magazine, known for its scurrilous articles. Surprisingly he won his case, but received a pittance in damages. The dispute points to the fluidity between the law courts and the press in this period; indeed, Manners considered satire a necessary supplement to legislative authority in correcting social deviance. With Manners’ scurrilous magazine an embarrassment to more respectable Tories, the two men’s argument sheds light on the uncomfortably close proximity of the figures of the ‘satirist’ and the ‘libeller’ in the early nineteenth century.