Early Eighteenth-century London Research Articles

Bodies in the belfry: gender, sociability and urban space in early eighteenth-century London

Abstract Bells were central to eighteenth-century politics, culture and community, and yet we have little understanding of those that set them ringing. This article uses a manuscript compiled by the London bell-ringer and horologist William Laughton to trace how ringing offered men the opportunity to materialize civil manners, efface cultures of insult and work out forms of patriarchal fraternity through repetitive, ritual embodiment. Ringers imagined bells as women’s tongues to be set right and the belfry, sociable spaces and the household as layered transparencies that, when seen through each other, gave meaning to their urban associational culture.

Anne Dawson Her Book (1716) ed. by Jon Baxendale, and: Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord by William Babell ed. by Andrew Woolley

Reviewed by: Anne Dawson Her Book (1716) ed. by Jon Baxendale, and: Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord by William Babell ed. by Andrew Woolley Graydon Beeks Anne Dawson Her Book (1716). Edited by Jon Baxendale. Tynset: Lyrebird Music, 2021. [302 p. ISMN 979-0-796670-14-0. €58.99] Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord. By William Babell, edited by Andrew Woolley. Tynset: Lyrebird Music, 2021. [302 p. ISMN 979-0-706670-16-4. €48.99] Lyrebird Music, the project of harpsichordist and musicologist Jon Baxendale, began publishing in 2020 and has already produced a remarkable body of work—at least twenty-two editions to date. It is not related to Editions L'Oiseau-Lyre, but like that series, is committed to making available practical editions of keyboard music that take advantage of the latest and best scholarship. Repertoire is heavily weighted toward French music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both familiar and little-known, but there are also volumes of works by Georg Muffat (Apparatus musicoorganisticus) and J. S. Bach (Die Kunst der Fuge), together with a projected edition of the complete organ works of César Franck. All volumes have a detailed critical apparatus with an emphasis on providing supporting information for the performer. The two volumes under review here contain music composed or circulated in England during the first two decades of the eighteenth century. They complement new editions of The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and My Lady Nevells Book, which contain English music from the previous century. The first to be considered is Anne Dawson Her Book (1716), an edition of manuscript BRM 710.5 CR 71 in the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester that Baxendale, the editor of the volume, has studied for some twenty years. The contents include keyboard transcriptions of instrumental works, idiomatic keyboard pieces, and songs with basso continuo accompaniment, most with obbligato instrumental lines. It has not been possible to identify the original owner of the book, but the editor suggests that she was likely a young 'cultured gentlewoman' and that it was prepared as part of her musical education, presumably at the behest of an unidentified music master who could possibly have also been the primary scribe. The bulk of the transcriptions are of concertos by Italian composers, primarily Antonio Vivaldi, but also Domenico Alberti and Francesco Manfredini. The overture to Bononcini's popular opera Camilla is included, as are sonatas by Arcangelo Corelli and Johann [End Page 348] Christoph Pepusch, who was active in London at the time, and Jean Baptiste Lully's famous 'Choeur de Cybèle' from his opera Atys. Of the five keyboard toccatas, at least one is by William Babell, while another is attributed to 'Sr. Hendel'. The final toccata is attributed elsewhere to Henry Purcell, Michelangelo Rossi, and J. S. Bach, but Baxendale suggests it is more likely to be by a North German composer, perhaps someone in the circle of Dietrich Buxtehude. Among the shorter pieces by French and German composers, John Weldon's three-movement Suite in F Major is the only piece definitely written by a native English composer. The transcribed arias, some of which have been transposed, are all apt for a soprano or tenor voice and are largely taken from Italian operas that were performed in London in the years preceding 1716. Because the continuo bass is so extensively figured, Baxendale suggests that these transcriptions may have been used to teach Ms. Dawson how to accompany at the keyboard. The second volume, Andrew Woolley's edition of Toccatas, Suites and Preludes for Harpsichord by the harpsichordist, organist, and composer William Babell (1688–1723), connects us with the life of a busy professional musician in early eighteenth-century London. Born in Germany into a family of French musicians, both he and his father acquired positions at the English Court, and both joined the orchestra of the newly established Italian opera in 1707. William presumably continued playing with that orchestra until 1717, but he became better known for his activities in public concerts. He also made keyboard arrangements of opera arias that were published by John Walsh. In later years, he became increasingly active as a church organist and...

Low life: William Hogarth, visual culture and sociologies of art.

This paper is an effort to understand Hogarth's unique position in early eighteenth century London, so as to grasp the rich complexity of his work. It begins by tracing two rival competing positions in the sociology of art, derived from Becker and Bourdieu, before taking a closer look at how Hogarth's work conjures up a new vision of the world, providing shape and meaning to the nation's changing understandings of morality, society, and the city. A fundamental transformation in the field of representation appears halfway through the eighteenth century and the interweaving of art theory, national identity, and systems of patronage are at the centre of this dynamic period. It is no accident that in Hogarth's world the main targets are those who seek to transgress their stations in life and cross class barriers. By combining two different sociological approaches to art the study builds a more nuanced picture of the artist and his work.

From Royalty to Riots: Nation and Class in the Reception of French Musical Theater in London

From Royalty to Riots:Nation and Class in the Reception of French Musical Theater in London Erica Levenson (bio) Of the many foreigners to thrive on the early eighteenth-century London stage, George Frideric Handel has most consistently garnered the attention of scholars.1 Yet alongside Handel's now canonic opere serie, more ephemeral, light-hearted entertainments flourished in the margins of high culture. When French acting troupes from Paris arrived in London in 1718, they quickly became showstoppers. Their repertoire had been shaped predominantly in Paris's fairground theaters, but also in the city's official theatrical institutions—the Comédie-Italienne and the Comédie-Française. Their performances blended music with dance and acrobatics with spoken comedy and often revolved around the stock characters from commedia dell'arte. Over the next two decades, French acting troupes, consisting of up to seventy members, performed nearly two hundred distinct musical comedies in London.2 While French dancers and commedia dell'arte actors had been employed on London stages for afterpieces in decades prior, the troupes that performed between 1718 and 1738 became more than addons to the main theatrical attraction and could command the stage for an entire evening.3 Offering an average of four different programs of theatrical entertainments per week, theirs was a fast-changing, ephemeral repertoire that was performed entirely in French. The troupes did not regularly perform [End Page 141] at the London equivalent of the Paris fair theaters, but rather at the official theaters used for serious dramas and operas, including Lincoln's Inn Fields and the King's Theatre. As a result, the royal family and London's aristocratic elite were often in attendance at their performances. Given Britain's ongoing tense political relationship with France throughout the eighteenth century, one might assume that Londoners' predominant attitude towards the French performers was one of antagonism, especially since Britain and France had recently emerged from a twenty-five-year period of war.4 However, the troupes' reception in London was not so clear-cut. It is true that they were condemned, belittled, and often parodied by many members of the "middling sort," a wide-ranging group that included "yeomen, financially independent trades, and knowledge-based professions."5 However, the French performers found great appeal among London's elite and even gained patronage from the British royalty. Their twenty years of successful trips to London were in large part due to this royal support. This article examines the reactions to the French troupes within the context of the rapid social changes of early eighteenth-century England. Chief among these transformations was a growing concern with social hierarchy, which developed during the 1720s and 30s in response to an increasingly unified ruling elite and the growth of the middling orders.6 These changes eventually led to a heightened awareness of "social class" as a principle for describing the hierarchical nature of British society.7 Although England had long been divided along lines of rank and aristocratic privilege, many eighteenth-century commentators began to see "class" as something that could be gained or lost; it thus could be performed, emulated, or even bought, resulting in new anxieties surrounding status.8 In response to these changing social norms, French musical comedies were interpreted as both high- and low-style entertainment once they were imported to England, depending largely on who was watching. For elites, attendance at the French plays could signal prestige and demonstrate their nuanced grasp of foreign culture. But among the middling orders the craze for French theater was indicative of widespread trends for consuming foreign luxuries that they believed would destabilize native English culture. Thanks to this divergent reception across social strata, the French performances became divorced from their earlier position at the lower end of the hierarchy of Parisian theatrical institutions.9 Through this process of reinterpretation, the French performances helped to enact a mutable sense of class identity in ways that both negated and reinforced ideas of what France could represent in the transnational imagination. [End Page 142] The Royal Treatment The widespread success of the French performers in the years 1718–38 depended, at least in part, on the support of the...

Of 'Rage of Party' and the Coming of Civility

Of 'Rage of Party' and the Coming of Civility

“Equally Charming, Equally Too Great”: Female Rivalry, Politics, and Opera in Early Eighteenth-Century London

“Equally Charming, Equally Too Great”: Female Rivalry, Politics, and Opera in Early Eighteenth-Century London

Review: The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel's Operatic Stage, by Suzanne Aspden

Book Review| April 01 2016 Review: The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel's Operatic Stage, by Suzanne Aspden The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel's Operatic Stage, by Suzanne Aspden. Cambridge Studies in Opera. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. xv, 291 pp. Nathan Link Nathan Link NATHAN LINK is NEH Associate Professor of Music at Centre College. His research explores opera's unique methods of storytelling, and his monograph on Handel's operas is nearing completion. He coedited the collection Word, Image, and Song (University of Rochester Press, 2013), and his writings have appeared in Opera Quarterly, the Journal of the American Library Association, and the Göttinger Händel Beiträge. In 2015 he received the Governor's Award for the top arts educator in Kentucky. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (2016) 69 (1): 241–247. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2016.69.1.241 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Nathan Link; Review: The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel's Operatic Stage, by Suzanne Aspden. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 April 2016; 69 (1): 241–247. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2016.69.1.241 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel's Operatic Stage is an ambitious investigation into the construction of opera singers’ public and private personae in early eighteenth-century London. Suzanne Aspden explores the well-known but often misunderstood rivalry between sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni during their time together at the Royal Academy of Music, investigating the complex mechanism by which performers influenced the processes of operatic composition, production, and reception. In the course of the book's five chapters she offers provocative interpretations of each of Handel's five operas composed for the two singers—Alessandro (1726), Admeto (1727), Riccardo primo (1727), Siroe (1728), and Tolomeo (1728). At the same time, she analyzes the ways in which perceptions of the singers, both on and off the stage, were affected by circumstances ranging from practical exigencies, to the social construction of gender, to emerging philosophies of human subjectivity. At the heart of the... You do not currently have access to this content.

Medicine, metals and empire: the survival of a chymical projector in early eighteenth-century London.

It is well known that Newtonian philosophers such as Johan T. Desaguliers defined their authority in contradistinction to the 'projector', a promoter of allegedly impractical and fraudulent schemes. Partly due to the lack of evidence, however, we know relatively little about these eighteenth-century projectors, especially those operating outside learned networks without claims to gentility, disinterest or theoretical sophistication. This paper begins to remedy this lacuna through the case of a 'chymical' projector, Moses Stringer (fl. 1693-1714). Instead of aspiring to respectability, this London chymist survived by vigorously promoting new projects, thereby accelerating, rather than attenuating, the course of action that rendered him dubious in the first place. The article follows his (often abortive) exploitation of medicine, metals and empire, and thereby illuminates the shady end of the enlightened world of public science.

Reading, Constraint, and Freedom

Let me make my position on Stephen Marcus and Sharon Best's introduction their special issue of Representations clear: I believe these critics argue about way we read, but even importantly about way we should read, without being appropriately self-reflexive or critical about their agendas (this is of course what they claim is problem with critics of whom they are suspicious!). They want us disavow our hermeneutics of suspicion because such a hermeneutics claims legitimacy by acting in name of a critical freedom read artwork against its own protocols, and sometimes do so in name of larger cultural or historical truths obscured or supplanted by glossy seductions of art. They would rather have us attend artwork with critical Perhaps I should, in interest of reading, repeat their words: they exhort us perform work that attends as much complexities of critic's position as those of artwork, but seeks occupy a paradoxical space of minimal critical agency.3 So critics should spend time attending complexities in their own positions-I thought this is what theoretical turn in literary studies was all about-while also minimizing their critical agency. OK-so what should we do differently?They offer two options: first, turn computers and other forms of machine intelligence, they will allow us critical subjectivity and produce more accurate knowledge about texts. Computational methods will allow us become potent describers, anatomizers, taxonomists, and thus bypass selectivity and evaluative energy that have been considered hallmarks of good criticism, in order attain what has almost become taboo in literary studies: objectivity, validity, truth.4 Second, be like Anne-Lise Francois (who I'm afraid I have not read) and think of literary criticism as an act of bearing witness capacity of artwork bear witness constraints of existence.5 I have long thought that elucidation of such witnessing was sine qua non of a critical hermeneutics, and that convincing criticism must adequately describe concerns, textures, and form of artwork it reads. But then they hint at why they think their protocols of surface reading are different from such full description: we mustn't read literature for models of how overcome constraint, they write, or to register difference between our critical freedom and limits placed on others.6Reading this, I tried hard think of any text that does not contain within itself inklings, or in some cases coruscating visions, of a future different from present it describes-that is, even texts whose primary business it is detail, slowly and attentively, how constraints of daily existence always make available their own sense of how those constraints might be lightened. This might seem a risible example, but it should make my point: in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728), when Lockit welcomes Macheath Newgate, he sells him a lighter pair of fetters than standard-issue ones, and recommends these constraints in following terms: Do but examine them, sir. Never was better work. How genteelly they are made! They will fit as easy as a glove, and nicest man in England might not be ashamed wear them. If I had best gentleman in land in my custody, I could not equip him handsomely. 7 We can linger on Lockit's salesmanly celebration of these fetters, but do we then not note that Lockit's language is a fine satire of class pretension, as well as a pitch-perfect reminder that money can lighten weight of law and of incarceration in early eighteenth-century London (or indeed today)? Even if we knew nothing of sociology of London hanged at this point, or of overlaps between criminality and proletarian poverty, language, characters, and plot events of The Beggar's Opera would make visible us not only the agency of act of bearing witness given (which is what Marcus and Best want us linger over) but also agency of those who kick against pricks. …

Jolly Jades, Lewd Ladies and Moral Muses

This article argues that the range of female participation in the associational culture of fraternalism in early eighteenth-century Britain—in terms of class background, social setting and moral philosophy—was surprisingly rich and varied. In effect, such a claim complements the body of work written in the past two decades, by historians such as Steve Pincus, Brian Cowan, Markham Ellis and Helen Berry, vis-à-vis the place of women in the public sphere of the coffeehouse in post-Restoration and Augustan England. This hypothesis will be developed by outlining the active involvement of women in three distinct spheres of fraternal culture in early eighteenth-century Britain. First, I will explore the manner in which women participated in or mimicked the culture of alehouse clubbing in early eighteenth-century London. Second, I will emphasize the prominent role of aristocratic ladies in mixed bacchanalian and masquerade societies, including the Order of the Horn, The Hell-Fire Club and the Gallant Schemers, that met in several notable town houses or country retreats of the English and Scottish gentry. Lastly, a study will be made of the all-female Fair Intellectual Club, which was established in May 1717 in Edinburgh.

Selling Science in the Age of Newton. Advertising and the Commoditization of Knowledge. By JEFFREY R. WIGELSWORTH.

Early eighteenth-century London was awash with newspapers supported by the sale of advertising. By 1709 a total of 44,000 copies of eighteen different daily newspapers were printed each week. Coffeehouses subscribed for multiple copies and actual readership numbers are thought to have been at least ten times the circulation figures. Many of the advertisements these newspapers carried were for science: advertising books, anatomical demonstrations, experimental lecture series, and instruments. In these notices the promoters could engage with potential audiences and create markets at the same time establishing authorial credibility and asserting the veracity of scientific facts. The rise of newspaper advertising coincided with the increasing public participation in scientific discourse and the large body of text in printed advertisements forms an important but under used primary source for historians of science in this period. How advertising made science into a commercial product in the period up to Newton's death in 1727 is the subject of this book.

‘The Darling of the Temple-Coffee-House Club’: Science, Sociability and Satire in Early Eighteenth-Century London

This article explores the relationship between metropolitan sociability and the production of natural knowledge in early eighteenth-century London. It considers three discursive sites where the intellectual and sociable worlds converged: manuscript correspondence, the coffee-house club and published research. Focusing on the Temple Coffee-House Club's habits of scholarship and sociability, the argument examines the club's ongoing historical reception and its satirical depiction in William King's The Transactioneer. In the process this article re-evaluates recent critical, methodological and historiographical debates concerning the changing institutional agenda of the Royal Society, natural philosophy and epistemological credit, and the archaeology of coffee-house sociability.

‘Ah Famous Citie’: Women, Writing, and Early Modern London

This article explores aspects of the textual relationship between women and early modern London by examining three verbal ‘snapshots’ of the city in works either written by women or focusing on women in their urban environment. The first text, Isabella Whitney's ‘Wyll and Testament’ (1573), addresses London from a rural perspective, treating the city as a fickle male to whom she wants to hand back all his treasures. The poem constructs a vivid and ironic social topography, giving a glimpse of the roles of men and women in the Tudor city. The second text is by Mary Carleton, the roguish Restoration figure who defended her apparently ‘counterfeit’ life in the prose of The Case of Madam Mary Carleton (1663). Carleton's London is a place of unwanted seduction and sexual intimidation, highlighting a gendered moral geography even while the memoir itself titillates the reader with the account of her bizarre experiences. Finally, in a coda to the discussions of Whitney and Carleton, early eighteenth-century London is viewed through Jonathan Swift's satirical mock-pastorals of squalid urban life, in which female identity, like the city itself, is a site of violence, disgust and deception. Together, these textual representations of women and early modern London indicate the complex interactions of gender, literature and the early modern city. The analysis of the texts also suggests the significance of the ironic voice as a quintessentially urban literary mode, the prevalence of the idea of woman as a commodified topographical site, and the function of metaphors of courtship or marriage as indicators of the paradoxical attractions of the city.

Self-preservation in Early Eighteenth-Century London

The idea of self-preservation has long been examined in intellectual histories of the early modern period. This article relates the history of the idea to the history of London in the early eighteenth century. It traces the formation of a language of self-preservation within three bodies of urban texts: the Ordinary's accounts of criminals condemned to death at Tyburn, discussions of maidservants, and descriptions of the masquerades. In each of these literatures, a worldly discourse of self-preservation posed a challenge to prevailing moralities. Hence, notions of suspicion, avoidance, self-advancement, reinvention and verbal sophistication created tension in a society invested in charity, trust, obedience, submissiveness, and modesty. By tracing this development, this article identifies a culture of enlightenment emerging from the intellectually productive milieu of urban modernity.

John Lawson's A new voyage to Carolina: notes on the publication history of the London (1709) edition

John Lawson's "A New Voyage to Carolina," an important source document for American colonial natural history, was first printed in 1709 in "A New Collection of Voyages and Travels," a two-volume set that also contained travel books translated by John Stevens. Lawson's publishers were leaders in the book trade of early eighteenth century London, and the "New Voyage" is typical of the resurgent popular interest in foreign travel narratives and exotic flora and fauna that began in the late 1600s. The "New Collection" was among the earliest examples of books published in serial instalments or fascicles, a marketing strategy adopted by London booksellers to broaden the audience and increase sales. Analysis of London issues of the "New Voyage" indicates that the 1709, 1711, 1714, and 1718 versions are simply bindings of the original, unsold sheets from the 1709 "New Collection" edition, differing only by new title-pages, front matter, and random stop-press corrections of type-set errors. Lawson's "New Voyage" illustrates important aspects of the British book trade during the hand press period of the early eighteenth century.

The Westminster Impostors: Impersonating Law Enforcement in Early Eighteenth-Century London

Between 1685 and 1720, twenty-nine men were caught impersonating law officers in Westminster. Though these cases may seem small in number, they represent the most common type of imposture in this period. This article argues that the impersonation of officials is an important window into the unique nature of identity and law enforcement in early eighteenth-century London. The metropolis had grown to the point where parish constables might not be recognized, and the low origins and reputed venery of many officials made this an appealing avenue for impostors. In an anonymous urban environment before photo identification, people looked at dress, demeanor, and symbols of office to determine identity, all of which worked to the advantage of these Westminster impostors.

Anatomists and entrepreneurs in early eighteenth-century London.

Anatomical demonstration in the eighteenth century took place in many formats. In this essay I discuss public anatomical demonstration as performed by entrepreneurial anatomists in London between 1700 and 1740. These anatomists offered courses, advertised in newspapers, to anyone who was willing to pay. In contrast to courses offered in official settings to prospective physicians and surgeons, these courses emphasized natural philosophy and natural theology rather than practical knowledge. Entrepreneurial lecturers also aimed to entertain. In this article I examine the lectures of James Douglas, William Cheselden, and Frank Nicholls, each of whom differed significantly from the others in style and content but were all anatomical entrepreneurs. All of them, moreover, employed not only human cadavers but also living and dead animals in their lessons. I examine the content of the lectures and the motivations of the lecturers' audiences. I also argue that the prevailing historiographical representation of eighteenth-century science as "polite" requires considerable revision to accommodate as impolite an activity as public anatomy.

:Imagining Early Modern London: Perceptions and Portrayals of the City from Stow to Strype 1598-1720

List of illustrations Notes on the contributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction: perceptions and portrayals of London, 1598-1720 J. F. Merritt Part I. Memorializing the City: 1. John Stow and nostalgic antiquarianism Patrick Collinson 2. The reshaping of Stow's Survey: Munday, Strype and the Protestant city J. F. Merritt 3. The arts and acts of memorialization in early modern London Ian W. Archer Part II. Space, Society and Urban Experience: 4. City, capital and metropolis: the changing shape of seventeenth-century London Vanessa Harding 5. Gendered spaces: patterns of mobility and perceptions of London's geography, 1660-1750 Robert B. Shoemaker 6. The publicity of poverty in early eighteenth-century London Tim Hitchcock 7. 'To recreate and refresh their dulled spirites in the sweet and wholesome ayre': green space and the growth of the city Laura Williams Part III. Inversion, Instability and the City: 8. From Troynouvant to Heliogabalus's Rome and back: 'order' and its others in the London of John Stow Peter Lake 9. Perceptions of the crowd in later Stuart London Tim Harris 10. 'Making fire': conflagration and religious controversy in seventeenth-century London Nigel Smith Index.

Gin and Gender in Early Eighteenth-century London

Gin and Gender in Early Eighteenth-century London

Profits at Drury Lane, 1713–1716

Surviving records of early eighteenth-century London theatres include a number of account books recording daily receipts, but fewer than we would like. ‘Rich's Register’ gives us daily totals at Lincoln's Inn Fields from 1714 to 1723, and we have accounts in one form or another for a good many seasons at that theatre thereafter. Drury Lane is a different matter. Not until 1741–2 do we possess day-by-day totals for a season there. In view of the comparative paucity of information about receipts at Drury Lane, neglect of one of the few sources of financial information available to us seems odd indeed. The MS at issue was quoted in print as early as 1939, and is cited inThe London Stage(under the wrong reference number) – but no one has ever printed or analysed more than a small sampling of the figures available.