Two Burlesques of Lord Chesterfield's Letters:The Graces (1774), the Fine Gentleman's Etiquette
The Graces (1774), the Fine Gentleman's Etiquette
Anonymous
9781465514387
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The two pieces here reprinted, typical verse pamphlets of the 1770’s, illustrate both a type of writing and an age. The subject of both is contemporary—the best-selling Letters to his Son of Lord Chesterfield. The method falls between burlesque and caricature; the aim is amusement; the substance is negligible. Neither poem made more than a ripple on publication, neither initiated a critical fashion, and neither survived in its own right, yet each has merit enough to justify inclusion today in such a series as the Augustan reprints. Chesterfield’s Letters to his Son, the subject of these two burlesques, were announced as published on April 7, 1774, scarcely a year after his death; that they became an immediate best seller, every schoolboy knows. Reaction to the letters took several modes of expression. These included comments in conversation by Dr. Johnson and by George III, as reported by Boswell and by Fanny Burney; in letters, from Walpole, Mrs. Delaney, Voltaire, and Mrs. Montagu; and in diaries, such as those of Fanny Burney and John Wesley. Reviewers sprang to words if not into action. Entire books came to the defence of morality. A sermon announced The Unalterable Nature of Vice and Virtue (a second edition placed Virtue before Vice); the Monthly Review for December 1775 praised it: This sensible and well written discourse is chiefly directed against the letters of the late Lord Chesterfield, though his Lordship is not mentioned. All of these approached the subject directly. Indirect reactions included an ironic Apology for Mrs. Stanhope (the son’s widow, who had sold the letters to James Dodsley the publisher for £1575 and was represented as the editor), two novels showing the pernicious effects of the Chesterfieldean system—The Pupil of Pleasure, by Courtney Melmoth (Samuel Jackson Pratt), and The Two Mentors, by Clara Reeve—and a parody by Horace Walpole of the first three letters (published years later in his Works). The Westminster Magazine carried a Petition of the Women of Pleasure and the London Chronicle a farcical skit on Lord Chesterfield’s refined manners.[1] In a play called The Cozeners, Samuel Foote took advantage of current interest in Chesterfield to ridicule the graces. Not the least interesting examples of the indirect reaction to the Letters are the two verse caricatures or burlesques here reprinted. The earlier of the two poems, The Graces, bears the date 1774 on the title page. A second edition of 1775 at first glance appears to be a reissue with new title page, but minor changes and the straightedge test are evidence of resetting. The authorship was soon known: The London Chronicle for February 16-18, quoting 88 lines of the total 170 and working from the first edition, mentioned that the piece was written by Mr. Woty, but so far as bibliography was concerned this attribution remained hidden until recently, for Woty’s obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine for March 1791 omitted mention of The Graces, as did the DNB and its additional sources, John Nichols' Leicestershire and David Erskine Baker’s Biographia Dramatica (1812 ed.).[2] That Woty did indeed write The Graces one may assume from his including it in 1780, with minor changes, in Poems on Several Occasions. He too used the first edition. Of William Woty’s life little need be said; the DNB, relying essentially on the Gentleman’s Magazine, gives the salient events: after preparing to enter the law, he became companion and a kind of legal secretary to Washington, Earl Ferrers, who prior to his death in 1778 made Woty independent by establishing an annuity of £150 for him. His first book of verse was The Sporting Club, 1758; the next, The Shrubs of Parnassus, by James Copywell, he published in 1760. Two Others, which he acknowledged, followed in the next three years; then in 1763 he joined Francis Fawkes in editing The Poetical Calendar, in 12 volumes, to which Samuel Johnson contributed a character sketch of William Collins (Boswell’s Life, ed. Hill-Powell, I, 382). In 1770, Woty issued a two-volume Poetical Works. The Gentleman’s Magazine, mentioning four Other publications from 1770 to 1775, adds, and some Other miscellaneous pieces since that time. These, possibly unnamed because published outside of London, included Poems on Several Occasions, Derby, 1780 (in which, as noted above, he reprinted The Graces), Fugitive and Original Poems, Derby, 1786, and Poetical Amusements, Nottingham, 1789. Mr. W. was a true bon vivant, the notice continues, but by a too great indulgence of his passion for conviviality and society he unfortunately injured his constitution. He died in March 1791, aged about 60
