1748+B

My Dearest Cousin Mary, Though I have only spent a few months in the city of London, I already feel totally enraptured by the comings and goings of this most imperial city. As you have spent all your life in the country, I will attempt to elaborate what I have hereto discovered about the Londoner. Firstly, never have I seen a people so enraptured by the arts and the written word! The streets are littered with performances both new and old, and everywhere one can find newspapers and pamphlets of such varying quality! There is one newspaper in particular that I have studied during my time in London, and I would think extrapolating it for you would prove most illuminating as to the nature of the people of this capitol. It is a daily paper known as //The London Gazette// that has been the object of my attention, though do not allow the name to fool you as to its contents. Though this paper is named for the city of London, one would think it would just as well be titled //The Hague Gazette// or //The Naples Gazette// or any such continental metropolis for that matter. For you see, a large portion of most issues is dedicated to explicating the minutia of foreign politics, trade, and war, all gathered from correspondents spanning the globe as far as Constantinople! Oh, what an exciting life it must be to travel the world and glean the wherewithal of extravagant foreign courts. Though for the people of London, I cannot be certain why //they// are concerned with matters so distant. The issues of //The London Gazette// go into great detail about the treaty signed at Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the war began by Maria Theresa’s ascension (The Gazette, May 10). They talk of troop movements in France during the siege of Maastricht. One issue announces Russia’s occupation of Cracow, while another announces Great Britain’s capture of Port Louis Harbor from the French in the West Indies (May 3). And even outside such military news, //The Gazette// will be sure to tell you what trips the King of Denmark has embarked on, and that a polish princess had suffered a miscarriage (June 7). The paper offers unending news about minute foreign affairs, so much so that I would not be surprised if Londoners might know more about the Dutch provinces than they do their own kingdom! And I can assure you this paper is quite popular, being in continuous publication since 1665, so surely the native Londoner must enjoy this sort of information, regardless of its distance from the British Isles. It forces me to wonder whether Mr. Addison’s comments in //The Spectator//, about the foolish upholsterer addicted to news, might have some truth to them after all. Outside of foreign news, //The Gazette// seems in many ways to be an extension of the government of His Majesty King George the Second. Oftentimes, in the front of the paper you will find some new royal proclamation being printed and reprinted, or occasionally some advertisement for a government program. Recently, there has been much talk of the treaty at Aix-la-Chapelle mentioned earlier, and explications of His Majesty’s new diplomatic relations with warring nations. Some of the information I found quite useful to the average citizen. In one issue, I found advertised a program for compensating the widows lost in the British navy (May 7). In several copies, those who might benefit from an act absolving some debtors of their imprisonment were outlined in astonishing detail (May 24). I find it quite admirable, that a daily newspaper can keep people informed about the workings of a government that should be working toward their protection and benefit, and so here //The London Gazette// fulfills its purpose in providing people with such practical knowledge. I only wish that it could have some commentary on the arts of London, as such matters are surely as important to any civilized society as matters of diplomacy. In a similar fashion, it naturally lacks the sort of wit afforded to publications like //The Tatler// or //The Spectator// which are not so imprisoned by the official opinion of the government. In any sense, I suppose this concludes this correspondence with you, dearest cousin. I still feel dreadfully unacquainted with the city’s lively theatre scene, so here’s to the hopes that I might have something to write to you about in a few months’ time. With love, Horatio My Dearest Cousin Mary, In my last letter, I hinted that I might try a view of the dramas appearing on the stages, and I can say with confidence that the theatres of London are just as active as I could imagine. Something near 400 performances were put on in this year alone, and that is with one of the more popular establishments, Drury Lane, being in new management under a man named Garrick. Drury Lane and Covent Garden are certainly the most popular stages in this fair city, and both offer a multitude of comedies, tragedies, and operas, both old and new. One of the most popular performances I had the privilege of viewing was a play called //Jane Shore//, a heartbreaking historical tragedy about one of Edward the Fourth’s mistresses, composed by Mr. Rowe. In a similar vein, another popular play was the tragedy by the same author, //The Fair Penitent//. This play was most melancholy, and surrounded scandalous affairs between lovers, a murder, and a father and daughter’s shame. What is more peculiar is that both //Jane Shore// and //The Fair Penitent// first opened over thirty years ago. For whatever reason, these solemn “she-tragedies” seem to be quite popular with the general public, though that is not to say that //only// tragedies dominated the theatres of London, as that is not the case in the slightest. Love in all its forms, whether it be tragic or elevated, is a common subject for all sorts of dramas in this fine year of 1748. A great many productions of Mr. Gay’s //The Beggar’s Opera// could be found playing throughout the year. Not a man in the audience in which I attended could resist a figure as charming as that play’s character, Polly. And I might also add, its happy ending was most agreeable. Despite the opera’s scandalous content, going as far as to compare lawyers and statesman to common thieves, I have seldom seen a performance receive such gay applause as widely as this one! And //Beggar’s Opera// wasn’t the only drama with a comedic and scandalous portrayal of love that was popular this year. I remember seeing a performance of //The Provoked Wife//, a comedy that goes back as far as 1697! This performance joined the company of other such plays by Thomas Moore like //The Foundling//, or the 1707 work, //The Stratagem//, by Mr. Farquhar. So to conclude, the London theater scene boasts a wide range of tragedies and comedies, with many of them focusing on endangered love or other like domestic conflicts. And those dramas do not even include the near weekly performances of the classic tragedies and comedies of none other than the Bard himself! Surely, a man who wished to experience the joys of English culture could do worse than the theatres at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. I do hope this majestic spectacle remains an enduring fixture in the life of the common Londoner, as I’m sure reading nothing but the goings on of foreign royalty would grow most tiresome! Oh, I wish you could join me in experiencing all that proper English drama has to offer, dearest Cousin. One final note, I have begun a reading a most profound work of Spencerian imitation called //The Castle of Indolence//. I would like to relate its contents to you by the time of my next correspondence, as it may prove to be shockingly relevant to my year-long experience as a proper citizen of London. Until I write again in a few weeks. With Love, Horatio My Dearest Cousin Mary,  It is nearing Christmas Day, but I must admit, outside of our Lord’s birth, my thoughts have been completely enraptured by this work written by the Scot, Mr. James Thompson. Do you recall my reading //The Castle of Indolence//, as indicated by my last letter to you? I really must deliver you a copy, as it is a most enamoring yet thought awakening work of art. It is a long poem, written in two Cantos of 77 and 81 stanzas respectively. The poet is very open about the meter being an imitation of Edmund Spenser’s verse, and I must say he does a rather good job of it. This is all the more surprising since such a meter might be considered quite primitive in this day and age. The poem describes a fantastical world, a world full of a kind of pure bliss. There’s no better way to describe it than to use the language of the poem itself. As Mr. Thompson writes, “A pleasing land of drowsy-hed it was, / Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye / And of gay castles in the clouds that pass / Forever flushing round a summer sky” (Canto I, VI). However, what is most amusing is that this seeming paradise is cast into a grossly negative light. The poem explains how, charmingly enough, a wizard, referred to as Indolence, uses his magic to entice people to come to his castle where they can live forever in a land of debauchery and vice. And these vices are not confined to the carnal variety, but also include the sins associated with warring nations and hypocritical clergy. Speaking on war, the poem states, “Of this sad work when Each begins to tire, / They sit down just where they were before, / Till for new Scenes of Woe Peace shall their Force restore” (Canto I, LV). This notion, that wars accomplish nothing and that their horrors inevitably return after a short peace-time seems especially melancholy, though perhaps relevant to our country’s recent withdrawal from the war over the Austrian Succession, as was mentioned in //The London Gazette//. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">The poem ultimately concludes that a life of ease and vice will only lead to a sort of degradation of the spirit, and does not lead to the cultivation of a refined civilization. It appears that for Mr. Thompson, one should be wary of the easy life. As he says of the Wizard, Indolence, “He led, I wot, the softest Way to Death. / And taught withouten Pain and Strife to yield the Breath” (Canto I, LXXIV). The second canto of the poem is devoted to explicating the opposing figure to the evil wizard, Indolence, that being the “Knight of Art and Industry.” Mr. Thompson asserts that excessive art without any tie to virtue spells the ruin of once great civilizations like Greece and Rome, and that to maintain a truly great society, one must balance the material gains of industry with the preservation of honest and virtuous art. He even goes as far as to say, “Toil, and be glad! Let Industry inspire” (Canto II, LIV). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">Dearest Cousin, this man’s poem has made me think as to what role this surplus of art will play in our Imperial society, and caused me to reminisce on how Mr. Pope said something to similar effect in his //Dunciad//. I think that what //The Castle of Indolence// is trying to say is that art can make one forget the value of good and honest hard work. But the answer is not to be like the upright puritans who exiled themselves from our country some years ago. Instead, one must keep a balance of pleasure and work in one’s life, and one must also recognize that these two staples need not be mutually exclusive. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">This may very well be my last letter before I return to you in the country, so I thought I might relate my final conclusions as to the character of the Londoner here before I might talk with you at greater length. I find that the citizen of London is very much an international fellow, one that seeks to enamor himself in the events of the world. They are also one that feels very closely tied to the fate His Majesties government, so it is only natural that even useless pleasures would come under scrutiny as to their effect on English supremacy. Finally, they are a consumer of a great many plays, and ones of such diversity too, that they express the fullest range of human joy and suffering. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">Until We Meet Again <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">Horatio **<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">Work Cited ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;"> “The London Gazette.” London, May 1, 1748-July 30, 1748 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">“The London Stage, 1660-1800: a Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces, Together With Casts, Box-receipts And Contemporary Comment.” [1st ed.] Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">Thomson, James. __The castle of indolence. An allegorical poem. Written in imitation of Spenser. By James Thompson.__ The second edition. London, MDCCXLVIII. [1748]. __Eighteenth Century Collections Online__. Gale. University of Maryland College Park. 12 Apr. 2015
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">July 28 1748 **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">November 23 1748 **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">December 23 1748 **