1732

//__The Theatre of 1732: The audience responds. __//

 The successes of certain stage performances in the early 1730’s show that the tastes of the London audience were undergoing a major shift towards neoclassicism. The popularity of the wit and manners of Restoration drama was waning in favor of more grounded, middle-class subject matter. (Lipking, 870) While some comedies based in the landscape of high manners, such as Wycherly’s //The Country Wife// and Congreve’s //The Way of the World//, were still played for their merits, most were succeeded by tales of heroism and tragic struggle. This turn to preference of neoclassical ideals is yet alloyed by content that, while sometimes deemed low, resonated with the everyday people of London, as ultimately it was their approval on which dramatic success rested.

 Indeed, some of the most popular plays of 1732 were revivals of Shakespearean tragedies; //Hamlet//, //Othello//, //Julius// //Caesar//, //King// //Lear//, //Corolianus// and //Macbeth// each made multiple appearances, mostly requested by persons of influence. (The London Stage, 220-230) Lillo’s //The London Merchant//, Gay’s //The Beggars Opera// and Behn’s //Oronooko// each found great success during the seasons of 1732 as well. (The London Stage). The success of these plays speaks not only to a change in public taste, but also to a change in the goals of dramas in the period. Authors aimed not to show wittiness, but to stir the “sentimental” emotions of the audience. (Lipking, 872). These “sentimental” plays found acclaim because most revealed that, “goodness triumphs over vice, but also because [they] deal[t] in high moral sentiments rather than witty dialogue and because the embarrassments of its heroines and heroes move[d] the audience not to laughter but to tears” (872). These more contemplative topics arguably brought about more forceful reactions in the audience, as compared to the witty satires of previous seasons. And it might also be said that the embrace of a play by the public was also stronger because of the plays weighty themes. This is evidenced by establishments such as Drury Lane and The Haymarket Theatre running sentimental plays such as The London Merchant and Henry Fielding’s The Old Debauchees for several consecutive weeks, especially throughout the summer of 1732, when Drury Lane uncharacteristically stayed open for the public. (The London Stage, 220-230).

 As in theater seasons prior, the successes of dramas on the stage relied on both the literary quality of the work, and its treatment in the press. Reviews of the stages ran daily in the many newspapers and journals, with the audience reaction and the player’s performances reported first-hand. (Lipking, 862-5) In the papers, the public voice was heard more clearly than ever before because of dialogues between the individuals of the public and the editors of the papers. Widely sourced critical inquiry, from letters to the editors to guest commentaries, indicates that the public at large was intimately concerned with the stage. Indeed, it was a place of immense social influence – in the years following Henry Fielding’s attacks on Horace Walpole and the Whigs through his plays such as //The Covent Garden Tragedy// and //Thom Thumb//, the Licensing Act of 1737 was passed, which censored the stage and put control of dramatic production in the hands of policy makers. (Lipking, 883) While this later development concretely illustrates the deep connection between literary production, public opinion and policy influence, the plays and criticism of 1732 show that the increasingly literate middle class, by their vocal and financial support, influenced a sea change of dramatic content in a democratic way.

__//Introduction to The Grub-Street Journal: Dunces beware. //__

 At a time when newspapers and periodicals interacted with the public so openly, it is surprising that the men behind the most widely read weekly of the early 1730’s maintained relative anonymity. The hidden identities of Mr. Bavius and Mr. Mavius, the most outspoken writers of The Grub-Street Journal, along with their associates Mr. Quidnunc, Mr. Poppy and Mr. Miles Blunderbuss, were only part of what made The Grub-Street Journal a lightning rod in the print culture of London.

 In its infancy, //The Journal// continued Alexander Pope’s attack on the hackneyed state of London’s literary culture set forth in //The Dunciad// - featuring pieces by Pope and members of his circle often in its first three years. (Hillhouse, 4) And throughout its run, from 1730 to 1737, the paper jumped to publicly lampoon politicians, writers, booksellers, and its competitors on topics ranging from policy, literary sensationalism to price-setting and impropriety. (15-30)

 An inheritor of the literary approach set forth by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in //The Tattler// and //The Spectator//, //The Grub-Street Journal// came to offer a wide range of content. Morally-focused editorials and essays, character sketches and satires of the stage, manners, and high society became common as the publication gained a wider readership. (Hillhouse, 8-9) Ever-present, of course, were weekly domestic and international news items. But, most importantly, as evident in its earliest editions, //The Journal// set out to broker literary merit.

 An increasingly literate middle class and relaxed copyright and licensing laws in the early 18th century had led to what //The Journal// saw as a flooding of the literary marketplace with sub-par popular writing. Much of this writing was protected from falling into deserved obscurity by booksellers, who protected their investments in writers’ products by manufacturing support through domineering advertising and price-setting. (Lipking, 862-4) In such a milieu, Mr. Bavius and Mr. Mavius sought to reform literary tastes. James Hillhouse, in his definitive history of //The Journal//, describes their goals,

 “These gentlemen, it appears further, were interested in promoting the fortunes of good but unpopular books, in restoring to life those which had fallen into neglect, and in getting at the truth where authorities disagreed…Conversely, they were of course also interested in exposing the stupidity and viciousness of all sorts of bad books and of the newspapers” (8-9)

 But while they set out to reform literary taste in good faith, //The Journal// often went beyond run-of-the-mill editorializing. Hillhouse notes that Mr. Bavius and Mr. Mavious often ruthlessly edited letters to the paper, and reprints of other papers’ stories, especially when they attacked //The Journal//. (13) Further, these abridged letters and republications were often framed with slanted commentary in //The Journal//’s pages, in what Hillhouse deemed a process which both flaunted and undercut the editor’s own high-handedness. (13-15)  Furthermore, as the paper gained a wider readership, the literary criticism of //The Journal// often bent towards personal invective. It became commonplace for The Grub-Street Journal to extend public battles with authors, publishers and men of letters, of political leanings and styles to which they objected, over the course of many weeks and months.

 When not lampooning established institutions and authors, //The Journal//, in the second half of its life, fought to hold off the threat posed by magazines, which culled news, reviews, and commentaries from all the major papers. (Hillhouse 17-20) This aggressiveness led to major backlashes across the newspaper and journalistic scene. Eventually, Mr. Bavius and Mr. Mavius left the paper under pressure from new ownership as the paper was declining in the years following 1735, and the last run of //The Journal// occurred in 1737. (Hillhouse, 35-6) But despite its slow and painful downfall, the target of one of //The Grub-Street Journal//’s most vicious attacks, the newspaperman Eustace Budgell, spoke most appropriately of the paper when he said in the //Bee// that The Grub-Street Journal, “long subsisted very oddly, universally condemned and yet universally read” (Hillhouse, 11).

 Just to quickly note, in recent years scholarship has concluded on the identities of the editors of The Grub-Street Journal. Mr. Richard Russel, a writer, has been credited with most of the important editorial work, and Mr. John Martyn, a botanist, has been also credited as an editor. (Hillhouse, 40-2) As for the true extent to which Alexander Pope participated in funding, operating, or contributing to the paper, academics still debate, which makes The Grub-Street Journal a polarizing publication to this day. (Hilhouse, 39-41)

//__The Grub-Street Journal in 1732 and Henry Fielding’s The Covent-Garden Tragedy (1732): All is fair in matters of opinion. __//

 //The Grub-Street Journal// was still sharpening its teeth in its second year of publication. Continued headings quoting from //The Dunciad// decried the paper’s satirical bent, such as January 27th’s No. 108 which began, quoting from Book 1, “Here studious I unlucky Moderns save, nor sleeps one error in its father’s grave” (Martyn and Russel). This passage, which continues in the poem, “Old puns restore, lost blunders nicely seek, And crucify old Skaespeare once a week,” alludes to the discerning stance the paper took in 1732. Instead of allowing the plethora of modern writers, and their rich and powerful backers, to praise each other into a pantheon of literary success while shunning the masters of the past, //The Journal// this year in particular set forth to square the literary scene with its criticism.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> One of the first commercially successful authors to come under attack by //The Journal// was the acclaimed scholar Richard Bentley for his edition of Milton’s //Paradise Lost// published in 1732. Initiated in January of 1732, the criticism of Bentley’s methods and critical approach to the masterwork was scathing, despite the academic’s renown. In pseudonymous letters to the editors, such as the one from “J.T.” in March 2nd’s No.113, the paper accused the academic of letting his “imagination” run wild, framing him as an “Editor, who altered, added to, and corrupted Milton’s text” (Martyn and Russel). This sustained attack, though giving voice to praise of Bentley’s work through other editorialized letters, lasted through July of 1732, until //The Journal// took Henry Fielding into their sights.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Long before his success as a picaresque novelist, the young Henry Fielding was just embarking on his career as a dramatist and writer in the early 1730’s. Over the course of the decade, and part of the next, he produced both some of the most successful and some of the most regrettable plays of his time. Of particular note is his dual premier the night of Thursday, June 1st 1732 at Drury Lane, of //The Old Debauchees// and //The Covent Garden Tragedy//. The first of which was to become one of the most successful plays of his career, second only to //Thom Thumb//, the second, a play stricken from the stage after only one showing.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> //The Covent Garden Tragedy// weaves a tale of prostitutes and Rake-like men trying to find a compromise between their licentious natures and occupations, and the ideal of meaningful love. The prostitutes Stormandra and Kissinda both have affection for Lovegirlo - they adore him as a man, and as a customer for his previous high payments. Spurned by Lovegirlo’s public affection for Kissinda, Stormandra convinces Captain Bilkum, one of her pursuers, to kill Lovegirlo. While Bilkum and Lovegirlo duel publicly, with word-of-mouth shortly confirming Lovegirlo’s demise at the blade of Bilkum, Stormandra follows through with her professed intention to commit suicide so as to die with Lovegirlo. In the final dramatic twist, however, the entire cast comes together – Lovegirlo having survived the battle, the sword only injuring his clothing, and Stormandra’s suicide misinterpreted by Bilkum for a dress hanging in her room. As dénouement, Stormandra and Kissinda swear off their rivalry for Lovegirlo, and bonds of love are forged between Kissinda and Lovegirlo, and Stormandra and Bilkum respectively.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Following the fact that //The Covent Garden Tragedy// was met with disapproval by the crowd at the theatre that evening, //The Grub-Street Journal// immediately took to expositing its many failures. In a letter to the editor published in June 14th’s No. 128, Dramaticus quickly shared his impressions upon seeing the play that night, calling it a “scene of infamous lewdness” (Martyn and Russel). Going further, he remarks that the managers would do better to just direct the audience to “some noted bawdy-house of Drury Lane…instead of acting this play again.” And while the criticism of the Drury Lane managers continues in June 29th’s No. 130, in a letter from Prosaicus, who had previously attacked the play itself in June 8th’s No.127, July 20th’s No.133 provided the most scathing attack on the play and the author to date.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> In his letter to Mr. Bavius, Publicus (a pseudonym, it seems, meant to convey the effect of speaking for the public) sets out to show why he feels The Covent Garden Tragedy is fit more for a stage in “Sodom and Gomorrah” whose welcoming audience deserve “the Hang-man’s flames” than for any stage in London (Martyn and Russel). He calls the play “smut” and its satire and comedy “toothless, tasteless, original nonsense,” continuing, “there never was any thing like it, and, I hope, never will be. Methinks the writer tho might as well have left seas of sulphur, and eternal fire, out of the mad joke, for fear he should meet with them in sober sadness” (Martyn and Russel). On the topic of Fielding, Publicus doesn’t stop with //The Covent Garden Tragedy//, or //The Old Debauchees//, which he also lampoons, declaring Moliere’s //Le Misanthrope// “execrably murdered” at the young author’s hands. Concluding in his post-script that he should hope any further works of any kind by Fielding, for the sake of all, steer clear of “such Debauchee-songs, and Covent-Garden Ribaldry” (Martyn and Russel).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Replies were made to //The Grub-Street Journal//’s attack in the //Post// and the //London Evening Post// throughout June and July. The latter featured a series of letters from one “Mr. Wm. Hint”, since accepted to likely be Fielding himself, charging //The Journal// with misplaced animosity. (Hillhouse, 175) Hint says this because //The Covent Garden Tragedy// featured the character Leathersides, who while not contributing to the plot of the play, does speak lines of great dullness and pretension meant to reinforce his title as writer for //The Grub-Street Journal//.

//__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Grinding the Axe and Sharpening the Public Taste. __//

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The episode between Henry Fielding and //The Grub-Street Journal// bespeaks many issues where literature, especially the stage, and the press intersect in 18th Century London. Cursorily, both Fielding and //The Journal// understood that their public reputations could rise and fall dramatically from day-to-day. Both are seen throwing their weight behind their respective literary productions – Fielding comes out to defend his plays, especially //The Covent Garden Tragedy//, in rival papers, and Mr. Bavius editorializes to sustain //The Journal//’s reformative agenda. But the action that prompted the public feud, the banishment of //The Covent Garden Tragedy// from the stage, is the most telling aspect of the situation.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center;"> That the audience’s reaction brought about the managers of Drury Lane to pull the play after only one night shows the most powerful voice in the arena of public voices was that of the paying audience. This is why Fielding defended his play, despite it being, even to most critics today, one of his worst literary outputs. (Hillhouse, 177) And this is why //The Journal// so steadily sought to reform taste, because the one tried and true path to social reform was through the swaying of the theatre audience.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center;">Works Cited

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Hillhouse, James T. //The Grub-Street Journal//. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1928. Print.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Lipking, Lawrence and Noggle, James. //The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle// <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//Ages Through the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century//. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. 853-924. Print.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Martyn, John and Russel, Richard. (1732) //The Grub-Street Journal//. Vols. 108, 113, 127, 128, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">130, 133.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//The London Stage, 1660-1800//: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces, Together <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">with Casts, Box-reciepts and Contemporary Comments. Carbondale, IL; Southern Illinois <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">University Press, 1960-8. 155-229. Print.