A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) Part 5

_Thus Dear **** from all that has occur'd, you must conclude me a _Tory_ in every Thing, but my Principle, which is yet as unmoved, as, that I am,_

Yours, _&c._

This Letter, his Tale of a Tub, and in a Word, all his Invectives against Enthusiasm and Priestcraft, plainly prove him to be no _Tory_; and if his Intimacy, not only with Sir **** himself, but most of the prime Men in the Ministry, cannot prove him a _Whig_, I have no more to say.

_FINIS._

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_Advertis.e.m.e.nt to the _Curious_._

The Author is Night and Day at Work (in order to get published before the _Spaniards_ have raised the Siege of _Gibraltar_) a Treatise, ent.i.tuled, _Truth brought to light, _or_ D--n _S----t_'s _Wilsden_ Prophecy unfolded_; being a full Explanation of a Prophetical Poem, called _Namby Pamby_, which, by most People, is taken for a Banter on an eminent Poet, now in _Ireland_; when in Fact, it is a true Narrative of the Siege of _Gibraltar_, the Defeat of the _Spaniards_, and Success of the _British_ Arms. The Author doubts not in this Attempt to give manifest Proof of his Abilities, and make it apparent to all Mankind, that he can see as clearly through a Milstone, as any other Person can through the best Optic _Martial_ or _Scarlet_ ever made; and that there is more in many Things, not taken Notice of, than the Generality of People are aware of.

NOTES TO _DUMPLING_

Pp. [ii].2-[iii].25. The information on Brand, Braund, and Marsh is confirmed by records in the Willesdon Public Library and by Lyson's _County of Middles.e.x_.

P.2.30-31. Carey also attacks the Freemasons and Gormogons in _Poems_, ed. Wood, p. 118.

P.5.3. Old Mr. Lawrence is mentioned several times (see particularly _Key_, pp. 16-17). There was a farmer Lawrence of 70 in Willesdon at the time, but I have found no direct connection with an antiquary, with Swift's Namby Pamby talk (see _OED_ under _Namby Pamby_) and his _Wilsden Prophecy_; nor with Jonathan Richardson (see note to _Key_, p. 17). On another level, the laziness attributed to Swift (_Key_, p. viii) and the gridiron here connected with the Kit Cat club are both commonly a.s.sociated with Saint Lawrence.

P.6.11-12. "Bull and Mouth" refers to a tavern known as the Boulogne Mouth (John Timbs, _Clubs and Club Life in London_ [London, 1872], p. 529).

Pp.6.13-9.6. Knight of the Gridiron: Walpole was a member of the Kit Cat club, which originally met at the pie shop of Christopher Cat in s.h.i.+re Lane. The "Second Edition" probably refers to the fact that the Order of the Bath was reintroduced for Walpole's benefit in June 1724.

(See also _Key_, p. 19.) There is intentional confusion with Estcourt, who as providore of the Beefsteak club wore about his neck a small gridiron of silver and was made a Knight of Saint Lawrence. The Knights of the Toast were an a.s.sociated group. The gridiron is a symbol both of gormandizing and of the roasting of Saint Lawrence.

P.9.9. J[acob] T[onson], the publisher, founded the Kit Cat club which also met at Tonson's home in Barns Elms, and in Hampstead (which was only a few miles northeast of Willesdon).

P.11.15-18. King John is reputed either to have been poisoned or to have died from overeating at Swineshead Abbey (18-19 October 1216).

Pp.14.15-16.24. See also _Key_, pp. 25-26. King Harry, at this point, would appear to be George I, with either Walpole or Marlborough as Sir John Pudding. Nevertheless, there are carefully interpolated overtones regarding Falstaff and Hal. "One knows not where to have him" (_Key_, p. 25) is one of several apt Shakespearian allusions in the work.

Pp.17.25-18.26. In _Dumpling_, pp. 17-18, and _Key_, pp. 26-27, the references are to the writers Sir R[ichard] B[lackmore] and C[harles]

J[ohnso]n; opera in the hands of Nicolino, Senesino, Handel, Buononcini and Attilio; the high-church idol, Sacheverel (d. 1724); the _Craftsman_ (founded to attack Walpole) and the _Occasional Writer_ (Bolingbroke's 4 pamphlets of Jan/Feb. 1727); and finally the discredited music printer, Cluer. Carey's relations.h.i.+p to opera was ambivalent, but in _Mocking is Catching_ he strongly attacked Senesino.

P.24.5-29. Matt. Prior (d. 1721), despite his aristocratic pretensions, had been earlier a.s.sociated with the Rummer Tavern. He was a member of the Kit Cat club until he became a Tory for Dumpling.

P.[32].28. E[dmund] C[url] of the "ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT" was a publisher notorious for stealing material. Carey complained frequently of his writings having been "fathered" by others.

NOTES TO THE _KEY_

t.i.tle Page. "J. W.": Dr. Wood suggests this is the fict.i.tious John Walton of the "Proposals" at the end of _Dumpling_. My own preference is for Dr. John Woodward, the famous antiquarian and physician. As late as Fielding's "Dedication" to _Shamela_, Woodward was being mocked for suggesting that the "Gluttony [which] is owing to the great Multiplication of Pastry-Cooks in the City" has "Led to the Subversion of Government...." (See Woodward's _The State of Physick and of Diseases_ [London, 1718], pp. 194-196 and 200-201. Compare this with _Dumpling_, pp. 22-23, on the _Dumpling-Eaters Downfall_, also pp. 9 and 16, and _Key_, p. 17.) Swift deals with "repletion" in _Gulliver's Travels_ (ed. Herbert Davis [Oxford, 1941], pp. 253-254 and 262).

P.iii.1-22. L[intot] was Pope's publisher. B[ooth], W[ilks], and C[ibber] were the managers of Drury Lane. _The London Stage, Part 2: 1700-1729_, ed. Emmett L. Avery (Carbondale, Ill., 1960), shows that J. M. Smythe's _Rival Modes_ was first played 27 January 1727 at Drury Lane; John Thurmond's pantomime _The Miser: Or Wagner and Aberic.o.c.k_ was first played 30 December 1726 at Drury Lane; and Lun's pantomimes _Harlequin a Sorcerer: With The Loves of Pluto and Proserpine_ and _The Rape of Proserpine_ were first played at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre 21 January 1725 and 13 February 1727 respectively.

P.iv.16-25. The preface ends on a similar note to Carey's _Of Stage Tyrants_ (p. 108).

P.[v].3-4. To "it never wants a Father," compare _Of Stage Tyrants_ (p. 107).

P.vi.1-9. Swift's "old Bookseller" had been T[ooke] (though there may be overtones here regarding Tonson). His new publisher was [Benjamin]

M[otte].

Pp.viii.24-ix.14. The "Hackney Writer out of _Temple Lane_" could very well be Carey. (See Carey's _Records of Love_ [London, 1710], pp. 175, 93, and 104.)

P.13.6-9. Carey's poem "The Plague of Dependence" cautions: "You may dance out your shoes in attendance;/ [while you] .... wait for a court dependence" (p. 90).

Pp.14.7-15.2. Here Carey cleverly ties in Swift's surgeon Gulliver, through the "Pancake of Rabbets" (_Dumpling_, p. 17), with the topical and notorious case of Mary Tofts, who in November 1726 was "delivered"

of fifteen rabbits. All the people mentioned were connected with this case. Nathaniel St. Andre was the surgeon and anatomist to the King, and Cyriacus Ahlers the King's private surgeon; John Howard was the apothecary. The imposture was finally brought to light before Sir Richard Manningham (the famous man-midwife who probably influenced Sterne) and Dr. James Douglas. Among the many contemporary pamphlets on this subject is one by Thomas Braithwaite.

Pp.16.14-17.13. The following is a very revealing quotation from records in the Willesdon Public Library under F. A. Wood [not Dr. F. T.

Wood], _Willesdon_ I, 99: "These nurse children must have been sent from workhouses round Willesdon ... the parish must have become a baby farm.... The large number of deaths between 1702 and 1727 ought to have caused some official enquiry, which probably did take place, as after 1727 they soon ceased altogether."

P.17.14-22. See Jonathan Richardson, _Works_, Strawberry Hill Press (London, 1792), pp. 198-199: "...had the honour of a letter ... the term _Connoisance_ was used.... I must not conceal the name it was Mr.

Prior." Richardson, a frequent visitor to Hampstead, painted both Prior and Pope. His essay on "The Connoisseur" was frequently published.

P.18.6-22. See also p. 24 and _pa.s.sim_. Robert Walpole was born and died at Houghton in Norfolk; he was helped up by Marlborough but lost power with him under the Tories. Walpole went to the Tower for five months in 1712 before going to his home county, where Defoe calls him "King Walpole in Norfolk."

P.24.19-20. The "Fable of the _Court Pudding_" (see also _Dumpling_, pp. 13-14) ties together both meanings of the scatological Latin-English pun on the t.i.tle page of _Dumpling_.

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