The Art of Politicks Part 1

The Art of Politicks.

by James Bramston.

INTRODUCTION

The meagre information known about James Bramston's life has been ably summarized by F. P. Lock in his introduction to _The Man of Taste_ (ARS 171). For our present purposes, we need only add that Bramston seems to have been acquainted with Pope, who saw _The Art of Politicks_ before it was printed and thought it "pretty".[A] Bramston quite likely met Pope through John Caryll, whose Suss.e.x estate, Lady-Holt, was in the neighborhood of Bramston's parishes.

_The Art of Politicks_, Bramston's first English poem, was published anonymously in 1729 and advertised in the Monthly Chronicle of 8 December. Several reimpressions followed, as did another London edition, one from Edinburgh, and two from Dublin, all dated 1729, and a London edition of 1731.[B] It was reprinted in Robert Dodsley's _Collection of Poems, by Several Hands_ (1748), where it was attributed to Bramston, and in John Bell's _Cla.s.sical Arrangement of Fugitive Poetry_, Volume 5 (1789), with a few notes.[C] Horace Walpole's copy of Dodsley's _Collection_, with a few rather uninformative ma.n.u.script notes, is now in the British Library (C.117.aa.16).

It seems likely that the poem was completed in the summer of 1729. The most recent events that Bramston alludes to are Thomas Woolston's trial for blasphemy of 4 March (p. 27) and Sir Paul Methuen's resignation as Treasurer of the King's Household, which was reported in May (p.

13).[D]

Horace's _Ars Poetica_ was one of the most fertile sources for eighteenth-century imitations and adaptations. Some were completely serious attempts to marry one art to another or to show that all arts share the same fundamental principles; an example of this type is John Gwynn's _Art of Architecture_ (1742; ARS 144). Others, like William King's _Art of Cookery_ (1708) are downright burlesques.

Bramston's usual method falls somewhere between these extremes. He often uses the dignity of poetry to show up the indignity of politics or political writing, as on pp. 5-6 where Horace's advice on choice of subject is transformed into advice to "_Weekly Writers_ of seditious _News_," or on page 7, where the rise and fall of South Sea stock fills the place of Horace's famous comparison of archaic and new-coined words to the leaves of the forest. But Bramston's poem more often aspires to the same level as its model; in this respect it resembles _Absalom and Achitophel_ more than _Mac Flecknoe_.

Several factors help to bring _Ars Poetica_ and _The Art of Politicks_ together. Perhaps most important, Bramston conceives of politics primarily as a verbal art, the use of speech to persuade others to a course of action. Bribes and other cra.s.ser incentives appear in the poem, of course, but they are clearly the result of declining standards. For Bramston, rhetoric should govern politics; the House of Commons is a reincarnation of a Roman senate or courtroom. Bramston's inclusion of political writing as well as politics itself in his poem also helps to keep him in Horace's...o...b..t. On Horace's side, his conception of poetry is basically rhetorical and persuasive; it should instruct and delight, move to laughter or tears. Horace's readiness to digress into literary history gives Bramston many opportunities to bring in political history. The _Ars Poetica_ is very much concerned with the world of men; poets are seen in their social roles, and Horace's standards of literary decorum are usually based on social norms: young men in plays should behave the way young men are observed to behave in real life. The _Ars Poetica_ also contains several sharp satiric darts; Horace's contrast between the eloquence of ancient Greece and the commercial arithmetic of modern Rome slides easily into a contrast between Elizabethan learning and Hanoverian place-hunting (pp.32-33). Finally, Horace's urbane and chatty style is as suitable for other subjects as it is for poetry. To appreciate Horace's adaptability, one need only imagine the difficulty of writing an art of politics in imitation of Archibald MacLeish's "Ars Poetica" or Aristotle's _Poetics_.

Though he does not pretend to Pope's image of himself as a new Horace bringing the whole weight of Roman tradition to bear on contemporary society, Bramston is very clever on the local level at transposing Horace for his own purposes. Horace recounts the increasing complexity and sophistication of theatrical music, Bramston the increasingly elaborated musical celebrations of victorious candidates (pp. 22-23), and Horace's implication that the sophistication of taste is really a decline--"an impetuous style brought in an unwonted diction"

(217)--const.i.tutes an unspoken comment on Bramston's subject.[E]

Bramston's page 27 corresponds to Horace's brief history of the theatre, from Thespis's tragedies that he staged on wagons to the silencing of the excessively outspoken chorus of Old Comedy (275-84).

Bramston replaces Thespis with Defoe, and the wagon-mounted stage with the cart and pillory. Instead of deploring the silencing of the chorus, Bramston applauds the silencing of Woolston. The contrast between Thespis and Defoe is clearly mock-heroic, but Bramston implies that Woolston's similarity to an ancient satyr is a decline from the character expected of a modern clergyman.

Sometimes the mere fact of changing from a poetic to a political context produces the satire or humour. What is praiseworthy in a poet--the ability to mingle fact and fiction skillfully (151)--becomes highly ironic when applied to a politician who

In Falsehood Probability imploys, Nor his old Lies with newer Lies destroys. (p. 16)

Horace's "ut pictura poesis" (361) produces this bland but destructive couplet:

Not unlike Paintings, Principles appear, Some best at distance, some when we are near. (p. 36)

More humourous than satirical is the relation between Horace's declaration that there's no place for a mediocre poet (372-73) and Bramston's

The Middle way the best we sometimes call.

But 'tis in Politicks no way at all.

There is no Medium: for the term in vogue On either side is, Honest Man, or Rogue. (pp. 37-38)

The conclusion of the poem involves a somewhat more complex transformation. Horace closes with a humourously self-deprecating description of the "poetic itch": the afflicted poet stumbles into ditches as he babbles his verses aloud; people flee from him, and with good reason; if he catches anyone, he hangs on like a leech and reads his victim to death. Bramston describes another "sort of itch,"

parliamenteering. Sir Harry Clodpole knows better than to make speeches to the electors; he solicits their votes by feasting them, and they run _towards_ him (or his table), not away. They, not he, are the leeches; "they never leave him while he's worth a groat" (p. 45).

Bramston--it seems an excessive refinement to speak of a persona or narrator--presents himself as a rather simple, naive political observer who yearns for clear-cut distinctions between parties; he wants to know where politicians stand on issues. The confusion, the blurring of old party lines, in present-day England is like the monster in the frontispiece. Though simple, he is also well informed. He seems to have a good knowledge of British history since the Restoration, referring casually to the Exclusion Crisis of 1680-81 (p. 15), the Kentish Pet.i.tion of 1701 (p. 10), and the South Sea Bubble of 1720 (p. 7). All these past events are used to reinforce present lessons. He is up-to-date, as shown by his reference to the recent events in the careers of Methuen and Woolston. He professes familiarity with the characters of the leading politicians and also knows something about what is going on in the const.i.tuencies. He knows, or claims to know, how different kinds of listeners will react to different kinds of speeches.

For a son of Christ Church, one of the most Tory Colleges of Tory Oxford, he seems remarkably non-partisan, though his Opposition biases do show through. When he says that "Addison's immortal Page" shows us how "to screen good Ministers from Publick rage" (p. 9), he is clearly aiming at Walpole, known as the "Screenmaster General" since his success in s.h.i.+elding many of the perpetrators of the South Sea Bubble in 1720. (I have not been able to discover the pa.s.sage of Addison that Bramston had in mind.) When the aspiring orator is urged not to "join with silver Tongue a brazen Face" (p. 24), Walpole is again present by innuendo, for "brazen-face" was another of his nicknames. On the other hand, Bramston also makes fun of the "everlasting Fame" that results from quibbling on Sir Robert's name (p. 6). Bramston perhaps has it both ways here; while ridiculing commonplace puns, he also invites us to remember that "Robin" does indeed sound very much like "robbing."

Sometimes he is more subtle and ironic. This subtlety caused difficulty for at least one contemporary reader, and may do the same for us.

Consider the following pa.s.sage, which parallels Horace's advice always to show Achilles wrathful, Orestes mourning, and the like:

To _Likelihood_ your _Characters_ confine; Don't turn _Sir Paul_ out, let _Sir Paul_ resign.

In _Walpole_'s Voice (if Factions Ill intend) Give the two _Universities_ a Friend; Give _Maidston_ Wit, and Elegance refin'd; To both the _Pelhams_ give the _Scipios_ Mind; To _Cart'ret_, Learning, Eloquence, and Parts; To _George_ the _Second_, give all _English_ Hearts. (p. 13)

One of Bramston's early readers found his poem very faulty, and many of his complaints were directed against the pa.s.sage just quoted.

Such artless art did ever mortal see, Or politicks so void of policy?

What bard but this could Pelham's train compare To Roman Scipio's thunder-bolts of war?

Did e'er their wars enrich their native isle, With foreign treasures and with Spanish spoil?

But hark! and stare with all your ears and eyes!

Walpole is friend to Universities!

Hail politician bard! we ask not whether A whig or tory; thou art both and neither.

Poultney and Walpole each adorn thy lays, Which one for love, and one for money praise.

Alike are mention'd, equally are sung Will. s.h.i.+ppen staunch, and slight Sir Wm. Young.

Bromley and Wyndham share the motley strain, With Cart'ret, Maidstone, and the Pelhams twain.[F]

This critic finds two main faults in the poem: misinformation and confusion about particular individuals and, more generally, an inability to distinguish Whigs from Tories and give each their due.

This last complaint of course mocks Bramston's lament at the beginning of the poem about the current lack of distinction between parties.

To what extent is this critique justified? What is Bramston trying to do in this pa.s.sage? There is no problem with the second line: Sir Paul Methuen did indeed resign his office, and one gets the impression from Hervey (pp. 101-2, 250) that he never let anyone forget that he resigned. Thus we have here the most conventional of truisms. Walpole is more difficult. He was certainly no friend of the universities, which were Tory hotbeds. On the other hand, he was reluctant to try to reduce their privileges or bring them more closely under government control, for fear of rousing them to keener opposition. Nowhere else did he follow so faithfully his policy of letting sleeping dogs lie.[G]

In a certain sense, then, he might be called a friend of the universities. I have been unable to determine whom Bramston means by "Maidston"--perhaps one of the Finches, the most prominent family in the area of Maidstone, Kent. Bramston's critic is certainly right about the Pelhams: they have nothing whatever in common with the Scipios.

Scipio Africa.n.u.s Major (236-184/3) was one of the most ill.u.s.trious Roman heroes, consul during the Second Punic War and an outstanding military tactician. Scipio Africa.n.u.s Minor (c. 185-129) was not only a consul and a military hero but a great patron of letters whom Cicero considered the greatest Roman of them all.[H] Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1693-1768), Walpole's chief election manager, was notoriously muddle-headed, nervous, embarra.s.sed, swamped in petty detail, suspicious, fretful, pompous, and indecisive.[I] His brother, Henry Pelham (1695?-1754), was much less well known; reserved and withdrawn, he preferred to work in the background, and his tactical and organizational abilities were not recognized until considerably later.[J] As far as their public image was concerned, then, no two men could be less like the Scipios. Most contemporaries agreed with Bramston's praise of John Carteret, Earl Granville (1690-1763), though many of them also mention other, less admirable traits.[K] As for George II, it depends on whose hearts you consult. An anonymous journalist:

What an a.s.surance has the Kingdom already given of an unfeigned Affection to their Majesties Persons and Government? How do the People shew that none are acceptable to them, but those that are so to their Majesties? How can Subjects give stronger Proofs of the high Esteem they have their Sovereign in, for Penetration and Wisdom, than those who entirely rely upon the Royal Discerning, and regulate their Conduct by the King's Direction?[L]

William Pultney:

The Queen is hated, the King despised, their son both the one and the other, and such a spirit of disaffection to the family and general discontent with the present Government is spread all over the Kingdom, that it is absolutely impossible for things to go on in the track they are now in.[M]

By now Bramston's method should be clear: he is praising everyone, but the praise fits the Opposition (such as Carteret) much better than it does the Government (the Pelhams). There is perhaps room for doubt about Walpole and George II, but Bramston's critic's failure to see the irony in the comparison of Pelhams to Scipios must be the result of sheer obtuseness. The rationale for Bramston's technique becomes clearer if we look again at Horace and recall that the basis of his advice is to follow conventional opinion. The conventional opinions that Bramston is by implication urging his pupil to follow are those of the politician's supporters and dependents. It just happens that Bramston has chosen his examples so that the Opposition conventions are closer to reality than the Government conventions.[N]

All this is fun, but it is quite inoffensive. There's no animus, no vehemence, no bite. Politics do not really engage any of Bramston's strong convictions. The self-portrait he offers us on pages 29-30 would be for many political satirists of the period a transparent facade of mock-innocence, but it seems to fit Bramston very accurately:

Alas Poor Me, you may my fortune guess: I write, and yet Humanity profess: