"The Tinsel of the Times": Smollett's Argument against Conspicuous Consumption in Humphry Clinker

Abstract

"The Tinsel of the Times": Smollett's Argument against Conspicuous Consumption in Humphry ClinkerSusan L. Jacobsen In The Wealth ofNations, Adam Smith maintains that "consumption is the sole end purpose of all production and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer."1 For many in the eighteenth century, including Smith, consumption defined a modern, prosperous, economic society, and the growth of trade and commerce seemed unstoppable;2 but, for Tobias Smollett, conspicuous consumption revealed a world that was becoming increasingly corrupt, chaotic, and immoral. Writing on the effects of the cessation of war in 1748, the same year he published 7"Ae Adventures ofRoderick Random, Smollett observed that Commerce and manufacture flourished ... to such a degree of encrease as had never been known in the island: but this advantage was attended widi an irresistible tide of luxury and excess, which flowed through all degrees of the people, breaking down all the mounds of civil polity, and opening a way for licence and immorality. The highways were infested with rapine and assassination; the cities teemed with the brutal votaries of lewdness, intemperance, and profli1 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes ofthe Wealth ofNations, ed. R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 2:660. 2 According to T.S. Ashton, during the eighteenth century, the consumption and concomitant production of goods increased dramatically: exports rose from 6.5 to 40.8 million pounds of goods and imports from 6.0 to 28.4 million pounds. See An Economic History ofEngland: The Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1955), p. 252. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 9, Number 1, October 1996 72 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION gacy. The whole island was overspread with a succession of tumult, riot, and insurrection.3 Smollett feared that economic self-interest on every level threatened not just a traditional patriarchal, land-based social structure, but also the political and economic future of Britain. The lower orders, especially, who had prospered from trade and commerce , pose such a hazard, Smollett believed, primarily in their attempt to rival the luxury and magnificence of their superior; but being destitute of sentiment and taste, to conduct them in their new career, diey ran into the most absurd and illiberal extravangancies. They layed aside all decorum; became lewd, insolent, intemperate, and riotous. Their example was caught by die vulgar. All principles, and even decency was gradually banished; talent lay uncultivated, the land was deluged with a tide of ignorance and profligacy.4 In 1718, William Wood, better known for his patent for copper coinage, anticipated Smollett's fear: "where riot and luxuries are not discountenanc 'd, the inferior rank of men become presently infected, and grow lazy, effeminate, impatient of labour, and expensive."5 Smollett, too, often depicts economic self-interest of all classes as a disease "infecting" the nation. The fear that commerce would produce a weak, effeminate nation (i.e., weak, self-indulgent, vain, and silly) vulnerable to both domestic and foreign exploitation was common throughout the century. For Smollett, a plethora of political, social, religious, and moral corruptions accompanied this new economic prosperity. Smollett's concern with the consequences of this "flow of wealth" is most evident in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. Some critics have suggested that Smollett is, at last, "freed from his career-long obsession with satire ... and is not determined to convey some specific truth about Bath, London and other places."6 Quite the contrary, Smollett 's concern with what he called in the Continuation of the History ofEngland "the frivolous pursuits of the people, the rage for novelty, their admiration for show and pageantry, their ridiculous extravagance, 3 Tobias Smollett, Continuation ofthe Complete History ofEngland (London, 1760-65), 1:56. 4 Tobias Smollett, The Complete History of England (London, 1757-58), 4:93. As David Hume noted, "the chief difference in expence betwixt [the previous] age and the present consists in the imaginary wants of men, which have since extremely multiplied." See David Hume, The History ofGreat Britain, ed. Duncan Forbes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), pp. 234-35. 5 William Wood, A Survey...