Early Eighteenth-century England Research Articles

Black, J., Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

Black, J., Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England

Preface Part I. Turning Criminals to Account: Three Case Histories and Two Myths of Crime: 1. The highwayman: power, grace, and money at command 2. Familiar murder: sin, death, damnation, repentance, God's grace, and salvation Part II. Enucleating the Truth: The Criminal as Sinner Turned Saint: 3. In the absence of adequate causes: efforts at an etiology of crime 4. Heaven seized by sincerity and zeal: justifying God, vindicating man 5. Love makes all things easy: recementing the social bond Part III. Palliating His Crimes: The Thief as Various Rogues: 6. Smiles, serious thoughts, and things beyond imagining: a provisional typology of thieves in action 7. Barbarous levities: fear, guilt, and the value of confusion 8. Everyone left to his own reflections: the oddity of the highwayman as hero and social critic Postscript Appendices Notes Selected bibliography Index.

The Politics and the Financial Costs of an Episcopal Appointment in the Early Eighteenth Century: The Promotion of William Wake to the Bishopric of Lincoln in 1705

The relationship of politics and religion in early eighteenth-century England was such that the heated political conflicts of the age of party were reflected in the Church of England, particularly in the appointments to the twenty-six English and Welsh bishoprics. After all, the bishops formed an important group in the House of Lords and their political stance was of considerable significance to the administration in power. Thus during the reign of Queen Anne their appointment was often the occasion for intense political activity amongst the clergy and the leaders of the Whig and Tory parties. The first major conflict over an episcopal appointment in Anne's reign came in 1705 with the elevation of William Wake to the bishopric of Lincoln. As Dean of Exeter, Wake was in a crucial position in the southwest of England, an area politically important for the Tories. With a general election in the offing, his replacement as dean might significantly affect the outcome in Devon and Cornwall. The political importance of Wake's promotion was first clearly understood by the historian Norman Sykes.' Thirty-two years later G.V. Bennett, with the advantage of the many personal archives which had come into the public domain, retold the story of Wake's appointment in the buildup to the important bishoprics crisis of 1707 when several ecclesiastical promotions were at the center of a min-

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access LINCOLN B. FULLER, Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-century England, Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-521-32672-9. £30. RUTH HARRIS RUTH HARRIS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 29, Issue 1, Spring 1990, Pages 154–155, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/29.1.154 Published: 01 March 1990

Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain.

Locke and the Scriblerians: Identity and Consciousness in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain.

The last hiccup of the old demographic regime: population stagnation and decline in late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century south-east England

L'époque entre le milieu du dix-septième siècle et le milieu du dix-huitième siècle s'affiche comme une période de stagnation et déclin de la population. Cette étude examine la scission de la population au niveau régional, un niveau qui a peu retenu l'attention des historiens démographes. Cette analyse régionale est axée sur trois comtés du sud-est de l'Angleterre notamment Essex, Kent et Sussex. Elle démontre que de nombreux types différents de paroisse et environs sont tous plongés dans une spirale démographique descendante. Des déclins de population pour de nombreuses paroisses du sud-est de l'Angleterre vont de pair avec des hausses de mortalité. L'auteur suggère que les mouvements de population à travers la campagne, de et vers la métropole et au delà des mers ouvraient des voies pour la propagation d'éléments pathogènes, des porteurs de maladie et leurs victimes. Le changement du cycle épidémiologique sera une des influences importantes sur les tendances démographiques de l'époque.

Liberty, Manners, and Politeness in Early Eighteenth-Century England

In the early eighteenth century, the language of politeness became a major fixture of English discourse. Centring on the term ‘politeness’ and consisting of a vocabulary of key words (such as ‘refinement’, ‘manners’, ‘character’, ‘breeding’, and ‘civility’) and a range of qualifying attributes (‘free’, ‘easy’, ‘natural’, ‘graceful’, and many others), the language was used to make a wide range of objects intelligible. Though the word ‘polite’ had been in the English language from at least the fifteenth century, denoting the state of being polished or neat in quite literal and concrete ways, the term entered on its significant career only in the mid-seventeenth century, when it began to convey the meanings of studied social behaviour of the sort inspired by and associated with princely courts. However, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, ‘politeness’ grew to cover a range of meanings, considerably freed from the initial association with courts. Several broad categories of usage of the term ‘polite’ are indicative: as a behavioural and moral standard for members of an elite (e.g. ‘polite gentlemen’, ‘polite ladies’, ‘polite society’, ‘polite conversation’); as an aesthetic standard for many kinds of human artifacts and products (e.g. ‘polite arts’, ‘polite towns’, ‘polite learning’, ‘polite buildings’); and as a way of generalizing about and characterizing society and culture (‘polite age’, ‘polite nation’, ‘polite people’). In the latter usage, ‘politeness’ was frequently deployed retrospectively as an attribute of classical civilizations. ‘Politeness’ helped recast the renaissance model of history, in which modernity was separated from its true ancestor, the ancient world, by the vast dark gulf of the middle ages: the ‘politest’ nations were ancient Greece and ancient Rome; the ‘politest’ ages, the spells of Hellenic and Roman creativity.

Locke and the Scriblerians: identity and consciousness in early eighteenth-century Britain

Through a wide-ranging study of primary sources, Christopher Fox identifies and details a decisive moment in the history of the concept of the self. A key figure here is John Locke; the crucial document, his chapter on Identity and Diversity added to the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1694). Locke s new concept of identity of consciousness was hotly debated for the next half century in philosophical, theological, and literary circles, and Fox makes a significant contribution in drawing attention to this controversy. By situating The Memoirs of Scriblerus in the debates, Fox also brings needed attention to a Scriblerian performance that deserves to be better known today. Fox s book is necessary reading for anyone interested in the eighteenth century, in Locke and the Scriblerians, and in the larger history of the concepts of self and consciousness.

Lincoln B. Faller. Turned to A ccount: The forms and functions of criminal biography in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-Century England, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987 xiii + 347 pp. $39.50 (cloth) (Reviewed by Richard Trahair)

Lincoln B. Faller. Turned to A ccount: The forms and functions of criminal biography in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-Century England, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987 xiii + 347 pp. $39.50 (cloth) (Reviewed by Richard Trahair)

Lincoln B. Faller. Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1987. Pp. xiii, 347. $34.50.

Lincoln B. Faller. Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1987. Pp. xiii, 347. $34.50. - Volume 21 Issue 1

"The Dangerous Goddess": Masculinity, Prestige, and the Aesthetic in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain

riticism of the visual arts in early eighteenth-century Britain was largely framed in the terms of the republican discourse we have come to describe as civic humanism.2 Its founding texts are a pair of essays written around 1710 by Shaftesbury: an account of his design for the painting of The Choice of Hercules by Paolo de Matthaeis and a brief letter on the function of the fine arts. In addition to these, he wrote an extensive draft of a major treatise on painting which he did not

Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England.

Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England.

Berkeley, Shaftesbury, and the Meaning of Politeness

the Meaning of Politeness LAWRENCE E. KLEIN As an object of inquiry, George Berkeley has been a property al­ most entirely of philosophers.1 The result of this attention has been that, while Berkeley's relations to certain aspects of the discourse of his era have been widely studied, his relations to other aspects of this dis­ course have been relatively neglected. One implication of this philo­ sophical focus has been that examination has concentrated largely on the early works in which Berkeley worked out the theory of vision and the ideas comprising his so-called immaterialism, while the later works have been neglected.2 One of Berkeley's later works which has received little attention from those interested in his philosophy is Alciphron, a dialogue (or really a set of dialogues among the same participants), first pub­ lished in 1732.3 The central concern of Alciphron is religion and belief. The dialogue is, in the concluding words of a rather long subtitle, "An Apology for the Christian Religion, against those who are called Free-Thinkers."4 Indeed, this dialogue is one between two free­ thinkers and two serious Christians.5 One possible and obvious ap­ proach to Alciphron is to consider it in the context of the continuing early eighteenth-century discussions about the nature of and relations among such topics as natural and revealed religion, reason and faith, matter and spirit, the Trinity, miracles, and so forth.6 Alciphron, however, is not a single-minded text:7 not only is it a dia­ logue between freethought and religion, but also it is a dialogue about "politeness." To show this, I will first define that key term in early 57 58 / KLEIN eighteenth-century English discourse, then show how Berkeley in­ serted it into the dialogues offering a critique of the notion, and, fi­ nally, indicate how Berkeley appropriated a redefined notion of po­ liteness for his own use. In so doing, I hope to broaden our understanding of the relation­ ship between George Berkeley and another eminent Augustan, An­ thony Ashley Cooper, the third earl of Shaftesbury. Berkeley's attitude toward Shaftesbury is usually seen as a mixture of genuine philo­ sophical complaint about Shaftesbury's moral thought and of rather scandalously ad hominem commentary on Shaftesbury's person.8 How­ ever, it will become clear here that Berkeley was taking on more than just Shaftesbury's moral thought and that there was a discursive justi­ fication for the entire range of Berkeley's criticisms of Shaftesbury. This justification was the fact that the sort of "politeness" to which Berkeley was objecting in Alciphron found its most elaborate, interest­ ing, and influential expression in the writings that comprise Shaftes­ bury's Characteristicks (first published in 1711). The word "politeness" was at the center of a discursive phenome­ non of considerable importance and complexity in late seventeenthand early eighteenth-century England.9 At that time, "politeness," with a distinctive set of related words, came to occupy a central place in English discourse. The vocabulary of "politeness" helped organize, characterize, and evaluate a diverse and extensive set of human in­ terests and activities. Because "politeness" found a home in texts of great diversity, it meant many things. However, for present pur­ poses, the word "politeness" can be understood to designate a cul­ tural ideal of urbane sociability, appropriate for a secular elite. In the early eighteenth century, the word "polite" ranged most typically over the personnel, the venues, and the characteristic activities, interests, styles, and cultural productions associated with that ideal of urbane sociability. In the first place, "politeness" was the way gentlemen and ladies were to deport themselves in each other's company. The "company" which it presupposed consisted of social interactions that were nei­ ther intimately private nor formally public, but rather semi-public and informal. Accordingly, its characteristic milieux were drawing rooms and salons, coffee-houses and chocolate-houses, parks and squares. It was recognizably urban in provenance, and it often did not hesitate to sneer at rural life and cultural provinciality. This urbane sociability was epitomized in polite conversation. On one hand, polite conversation was well informed. In substance, it dwelled on politics, history, the arts...

Locke and the Scriblerians: The Discussion of Identity in Early Eighteenth Century England

Locke and the Scriblerians: The Discussion of Identity in Early Eighteenth Century England

The Social Thought of Bernard Mandeville: Virtue and Commerce in Early Eighteenth-Century England.

The Social Thought of Bernard Mandeville: Virtue and Commerce in Early Eighteenth-Century England.

Popular Opposition to Turnpike Trusts in Early Eighteenth-Century England

Popular Opposition to Turnpike Trusts in Early Eighteenth-Century England

The Social Thought of Bernard Mandeville: Virtue and Commerce in Early Eighteenth Century England.

The Social Thought of Bernard Mandeville: Virtue and Commerce in Early Eighteenth Century England.