A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) Part 1

A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726).

by Anonymous.

INTRODUCTION

_A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling_ and its _Key_ (_Pudding and Dumpling Burnt to Pot_) are typical satiric pamphlets which grew out of the political in-fighting of the first half of the eighteenth century.

The pamphlets are distinguished by the fact that the author's level of imagination and writing makes them delightful reading even today. In _Dumpling_ the author displays a considerable knowledge of cooks and cookery in London; by insinuating that to love dumpling is to love corruption, he effectively and amusingly achieves satiric indirection against a number of political and social targets, including Walpole. The _Key_ is in many ways a separate pamphlet in which Swift is the central figure under attack after his two secret visits to Walpole during 1726.

_Dumpling_ had a long life for an eighteenth-century pamphlet and was published as late as 1770. Dr. F. T. Wood has even suggested that it may have influenced Lamb's _Dissertation on Roast Pig_;[1] readers might wish to test this for themselves.

_Dumpling_ and its _Key_ were first claimed for Henry Carey by Dr. Wood (pp. 442-447). Carey (1687-1743) is generally thought to have been an illegitimate scion of the powerful Savile family,[2] with whose name he christened three of his sons. He was perhaps best known as a writer of songs. "Sally in our Alley" is a cla.s.sic, and he has even a tenuous claim to the authors.h.i.+p of the English national anthem. Carey's _Dramatic Works_ appeared in 1743, the year in which he met his death, almost certainly by his own hand. Several of the plays were successful and particular reference should be made to the burlesques _Chrononhotonthologos_ (1734) and _The Dragon of Wantley_ (1737). The latter even outran the performances of _The Beggar's Opera_ in its first year. Not only do these plays show Carey's satiric bent, but so also do a considerable number of his poems. In 1713, 1720, and 1729 Carey published three different collections of his poetry, each ent.i.tled _Poems on Several Occasions_. Although a few of the poems were repeated, almost always revised, each edition is very much a different collection.

An edition was brought out in this century by Dr. Wood.[3]

I am strongly inclined to support Carey's claim to the authors.h.i.+p of _Dumpling_ and its _Key_ despite Dr. E. L. Oldfield's more recent attempt to invalidate it.[4] There were at least ten editions of _Dumpling_ in the eighteenth century. The first seven (1726-27) appeared during Carey's life, and these (I have seen all but the third) contain the _Namby Pamby_ verses which later appeared under Carey's own name in his enlarged _Poems on Several Occasions_ (1729). There was also a "sixth edition" of _Dumpling_ (really the eighth extant edition) in Carey's own name published "for T. Read, in Dogwell-Court, White-Friars, Fleet-Street, MDCCXLIV." Though _Namby Pamby_ was not added to the first edition of the _Key_, it appears in the second edition. Both editions were published by Mrs. Dodd, of whom Dr. Oldfield says: she "seems to have been a neighbour, and known to Carey" (p. 375). Dr. Wood indicates that "at the foot of a folio sheet containing Carey's song _Mocking is Catching_, published in 1726, the sixth edition of _A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling_ is advertised as having been lately published"

(p. 442). Dr. Wood adds in a footnote that this song "appeared in _The Musical Century_ (1740) under the t.i.tle _A Sorrowful Lamentation for the Loss of a Man and No Man_." Even more striking would seem to be the fact that although there are ninety-one entries in his _Poems_ (1729), Carey has placed the _Sorrowful Lamentation_ directly adjacent to _Namby Pamby_.

Dr. Wood maintains of _Dumpling_ that "the general style bears a close resemblance to that of the prefaces to Carey's plays and collections of poetry" (p. 443). I should like strongly to support his statement.

Dr. Oldfield says that an inviolable regard for decency "is nowhere contradicted in Carey's works . . . . Yet the pamphlets, besides being palpably Whiggish, are larded _pa.s.sim_ with vulgarity of the 'Close-Stool' and 'Clyster' variety" (p. 376). The reader need look no further than _Namby Pamby_ to see that Carey satisfies Northrop Frye's very proper observation: "Genius seems to have led practically every great satirist to become what the world calls obscene."

As for the pamphlets being "palpably Whiggish," the reader will not look far into the allegory before he realizes that one of the central attacks is against those well-known Whigs Walpole and Marlborough and their appet.i.te for Dumpling (i.e., bribery and perquisites). Furthermore, the attack on Swift, which is central to the _Key_, is based on the very real fear that the Dean's two recent private interviews with Walpole might presage a return to that leader's Whig party in exchange for Dumpling. The last pages of the _Key_ (pp. 28-30) deal with the possibility of an accommodation between Swift and Walpole which is, I feel sure, the main target of attack. In his poems (_Poems_, ed. Wood, pp. 83, 86, 88, and _pa.s.sim_) Carey claims to stand between Whig and Tory, just as he does in the pamphlets (_Dumpling_, p. 1, and _Key_, p. 15 and _pa.s.sim_).

Dr. Wood perceptively points to two parallels between _Dumpling_ and the satiric _Of Stage Tyrants_ (1735) which Carey openly addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield. _Dumpling's_ "O Braund, my Patron! my Pleasure!

my Pride" (p. [ii]) becomes: "O Chesterfield, my patron and my pride"

(_Poems_, ed. Wood, p. 104). The pa.s.sage which follows, dealing with "all the Monkey-Tricks of Rival Harlequins" (_Dumpling_, p. [ii]), becomes:

Prefer pure nature and the simple scene To all the monkey tricks of Harlequin

(_Poems_, ed. Wood, p. 106).

Even more striking is a pa.s.sage in the _Key_: "Mr. B[ooth] had spoken to Mr. W[ilks] to speak to Mr. C[ibber] . . ." (p. 111). This is similar to the following lines in _Stage Tyrants_:

Booth ever shew'd me friends.h.i.+p and respect, And Wilks would rather forward than reject.

Ev'n Cibber, terror to the scribbling crew, Would oft solicit me for something new

(_Poems_, ed. Wood, p. 104).

What is particularly impressive is that Carey not only refers to the three managers of Drury Lane but mentions them in the same order and as bearing the same relations.h.i.+p to himself. Several highly topical theatrical allusions in the pamphlets, by which the works can be dated, accord closely to the life, views, and writings of Carey. All three managers of Drury Lane were subscribers to Carey's _Poems on Several Occasions_ (1729), which was dedicated to the Countess of Burlington, who (like the Earl of Chesterfield) was closely related to Carey's putative family. In the _Poems_ these people and many others (including Pope) would have seen _Namby Pamby_ under Carey's name and drawn the obvious conclusion that _Namby Pamby_, _Dumpling_ and the _Key_ were by the same author.

We have already seen how closely _Dumpling_ and _Stage Tyrants_ can be tied together; the reader can compare for himself that part of _Namby Pamby_ containing "So the Nurses get by Heart / Namby Pamby's Little Rhymes," with the pa.s.sage from the _Key_: "It was here the D[ean] . . .

got together all his Namby Pamby . . . from the old Nurses thereabouts"

(_Key_, pp. 16-17).

There exists in the Bodleian an early copy of _Namby Pamby_ (1725?) "By Capt. Gordon, Author of the Apology for Parson Alberony and the Humorist." The joke here is surely in not only letting the Whig Gordon attack the Whig Ambrose Phillips but then, also by a.s.sociation, connecting Gordon's name with the attack on Walpole and Marlborough.

There is a parallel to this: Carey's "Lilliputian Ode on Their Majesties Succession" appeared in _Poems_ (1729), separated from the pieces previously mentioned by only one short patriotic stanza. Yet in the Huntington Library there is an almost identical version (1727) which was ostensibly published by Swift.

The first six editions of _Dumpling_ appeared in 1726 and both editions of the _Key_ are dated 1727. Apart from the dates on the t.i.tle page, this can be verified externally by the initial entries in Wilford's _Monthly Catalogue_ (1723-30) of February 1726 and April 1727 respectively. Swift's first return visit to England (in March 1726 after twelve years) was subsequent to the publication of _Dumpling_; his second visit was in the same month as the publication of the _Key_, which a.s.signs him _ex post facto_ the authors.h.i.+p "from Page 1. to Page 25." of _Dumpling_ (_Key_, p. ix).

Sir John Pudding and his Dumpling are manipulated throughout these pamphlets to carry a multiplicity of meaning which brings them almost as close to symbolism as they are to the allegory that Carey claims to be writing (_Key_, pp. 18, 24 and 29). Collation of _Dumpling_ with its _Key_ clearly reveals (with due allowance for satiric arabesque) a series of allegories moving backwards and forwards through history. At various stages, Sir John Pudding (ostensibly Brawn [or John Brand], the famous cook of the Rummer in Queen Street who appears in Dr. King's _Art of Cookery_ [1708]), becomes identifiable with King John, Sir John Falstaff, Walpole, Marlborough, and even Queen Anne (for the change in s.e.xes see _Key_, p. 18). All of these enjoyed Dumpling, and their tastes are ostensibly approved while at the same time being heavily undercut with satiric indirection. Naturally enough, Walpole (although a Dumpling Eater) is treated with considerable circ.u.mspection. Carey has warned us that he is a bad chronologist (_Key_, p. 21), and the Sir John Pudding (be he Walpole or Marlborough [d. 1722]), who at the end of _Dumpling_ is referred to as "the Hero of this DUMPLEID," is for good reason spoken of in the past tense.

The fable of Dumpling, in the true spirit of _lanx satura_, allows Carey to attack by indirection a complete spectrum of traditional eighteenth-century targets. Like the musician and the satirist that he is, he builds up to a magnificent crescendo (pp. 19-24 of his "Dumpleid") which results in one of the finest displays of sustained virtuosity in early eighteenth-century pamphlet writing.

The notes which follow the texts point to a number of the contemporary allusions, but the reader will surely wish to recognize some of the references and the more delicate ironies for himself. As the author puts it on page 17 of _Dumpling_:

O wou'd to Heav'n this little Attempt of Mine may stir up some _Pudding-headed Antiquary_ to dig his Way through all the mouldy Records of Antiquity, and bring to Light the n.o.ble Actions of Sir _John_!

What scholar could refuse?

University of Victoria

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1. "An Eighteenth-Century Original for Lamb," _RES_, V (1929), 447.

2. An exception is Henry J. Dane who denies the relations.h.i.+p in "The Life and Works of Henry Carey," unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 1967), pp. xxix-x.x.x, and _pa.s.sim_.

3. _Poems_, ed. F. T. Wood (London, 1930).

4. "Henry Carey (1687-1743) and Some Troublesome Attributions," _BNYPL_, LXII (1968), 372-377.

TO Mr. BRAUND.

SIR,

Let Mercenary _Authors_ flatter the Great, and subject their Principle to Interest and Ambition, I scorn such sordid Views; You only are Eminent in my Eyes: On You I look as the most Useful Member in a Body-Politic, and your Art far superior to all others: Therefore,

_Tu mihi Mecaenas Eris!_

O BRAUND, my Patron! my Pleasure! my Pride! disdain not to grace my Labours with a kind Perusal. Suspend a-while your more momentous Cares, and condescend to taste this little _Frica.s.see_ of Mine.

I write not this, to Bite you by the Ear, (_i.e._) flatter you out of a Brace or two of Guinea's: No; as I am a true _Dumpling Eater_, my Views are purely _Epicurean_, and my utmost Hopes center'd in partaking of some elegant _Quelque Chose_ tost up by your judicious Hand. I regard Money but as a Ticket which admits me to your Delicate Entertainments; to me much more Agreeable than all the Monkey-Tricks of Rival _Harlequins_, or _Puppet-Show_ Finery of Contending _Theatres_.

The Plague and fatigue of Dependance and Attendance, which call me so often to the Court-end of the Town, were insupportable, but for the Relief I find at AUSTIN's, your Ingenious and Grateful Disciple, who has adorn'd _New Bond-street_ with your Graceful _Effigies_. Nor can he fail of Custom who has hung out a Sign so Alluring to all true _Dumpling-Eaters_. Many a time and oft have I gaz'd with Pleasure on your Features, and trac'd in them the exact Lineaments of your glorious Ancestor Sir JOHN BRAND, vulgarly call'd Sir JOHN PUDDING.

Tho' the Corruption of our _English_ Orthography indulges some appearance of Distinction between BRAND and BRAUND, yet in Effect they are one and the same thing. The ancient Manor of BRAND's, alias BRAUND's, near Kilburn in _Middles.e.x_, was the very Manor-House of Sir JOHN BRAND, and is call'd BRAND's to this Day, altho' at present it be in the Possession of the Family of MARSH.

What Honours are therefore due to One who is in a Direct Male Line, an Immediate Descendant from the Loins of that Great Man! Let this teach You to value your Self; this remind the World, how much they owe to the Family of the BRAUNDS; more particularly to YOU, who inherit not only the Name, but the Virtues of your Ill.u.s.trious Ancestor. I am,

SIR,

With all imaginable Esteem and Grat.i.tude, Your very most Obedient Servant, _&c._

Page 5. line 15, _&c._ for _Barnes_ read _Brand_.