Controlled Revelation #9: The Humourist as Cynic

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Cynic. B. n. 2.  A person disposed to rail or find fault; now usually: One who shows a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions, and is wont to express this by sneers and sarcasms; a sneering fault-finder. (As defined in The Oxford English Dictionary)

As we re-examine The Humourist’s essay of February 5, 1754, it would be tempting for me—ever so tempting— to maintain that which is obvious: The Humourist is a lover of literature, especially poetry and drama.

He uses as the headnote to his February 5, 1754, essay a quote from Samuel Garth’s The Dispensary: A Poem in Six Cantos (1699), a satire on apothecaries and physicians:

He hates Realities and hugs the Cheat,
And still the Pleasure lies in the Deceit. (Canto III, Lines 23-24)

He ends the essay with a quote from John Milton’s Paradise Lost:

For neither Man nor Angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only Evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone. (Book III, line 682)

Betwixt and between, he sprinkles dramatic references.  He begins the essay with “The World is compared to the Theatre”—no doubt an allusion to Jacque’s lines in Shakespeare:  “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players” (As You Like It 2.7 139-40)). In the second paragraph, he observes that Flavio, has “run thro’ the several Stages with amazing Spirit and Vivacity”—again an allusion to Shakespeare’s Jacque:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. (As You Like It 2.7 139-43)

Further along in this essay he shows his interest in and knowledge of a literary genre relatively new on the British scene—the novel.  No doubt, his Miss Grave-Airs crying out, “Lord!  Mr. Sly-boots, I am all Amazement, that a Gentleman of your good natural Endowments, should devote yourself so entirely to the Art of Teasing” is an allusion to the character and sentiment of Miss Grave-Airs in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, or The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams (1742)

Sly-boots, on the other hand, is a little more difficult to nail.  As the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes, it is a colloquial word meaning “A sly, cunning, or crafty person; one who does things on the sly.”  The word’s early usage, however, is most interesting.  According to the OED, it first appeared in B. E.’s A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew  (1699).  What the OED does not disclose is that this was the first English dictionary of the jargon of thieves and robbers!  (For those who are interested, this dictionary was re-issued by The Bodleian Library in 2010 under the title The First English Dictionary of Slang, 1699 with an introduction by John Simpson, chief editor of the OED. And, for those who are really interested, you might enjoy reading Angie Mlinko’s review of this re-issued version: “The Canting Crew: A New Edition of The First English Dictionary of Slang is a Saucy Survey of the Rogue Jargon of the Late Seventeenth Century.”)

And, even though I might be venturing out to the outer edge of the proverbial limb where I often like to go and where I am often found, it is possible—just possible—that the allusion to Mr. Sly-boots is to Colley Cibber’s 1701 play Love Makes a Man: or, The Fop’s Fortune, a Comedy:

Look, look!—look o’ Sly-boots! What she knows nothing of the matter! (ii. 15)

Be that as it may, one thing is clear—and I think we can agree on it:  The Humourist is a lover of literature.  So, for the moment, let us put that point aside as an established fact.  But another thing is clear as well—and I think we can agree on it, too:  I’ll continue to explore The Humourist’s literary loves as I continue to share with you more and more Controlled Revelations.

For now, however, I want to focus on what caught my attention as I explored—still one more time—The Humourist’s February 5, 1754, essay, the topic of today’s post.

What struck me smack dab in the middle of my sensibilities was how cynical The Humourist is in this essay.  In fact, the essay is so imbued with cynicism that I am surprised I let the essay’s dazzling prose so deceive me up to this point in my research.

How could I have missed the cynicism that get’s us started with this essay—the quote from Samuel Garth’s The Dispensary: A Poem in Six Cantos—a satire on apothecaries and physicians:

He hates Realities and hugs the Cheat,
And still the Pleasure lies in the Deceit. (Canto III, Lines 23-24)

How haunting:  “the Pleasure lies in the Deceit.”

How haunting—disturbingly so—that The Humourist would choose such a quote. (Writers are well aware of the important choices they make when they decide what to put in and what to leave out.)

Of all the quotes that he could have chosen, he chose:  “The Pleasure lies in the Deceit.”  And, indeed, deceit—elevated to a level of near celebration—is the topic of this entire essay which captures the mindset of a cynic at his best.

The OED gives several definitions for the noun cynic.  However, it is the second usage of the noun that best fits my take on how this essay reveals one aspect of The Humourist’s personality:

Cynic. B. n. 2.  A person disposed to rail or find fault; now usually: One who shows a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions, and is wont to express this by sneers and sarcasms; a sneering fault-finder.

Disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions.

Precisely!  That is precisely what we find throughout The Humourist’s February 5, 1754, essay—from start to finish.

From this point forward—and I would hope that we can agree on this point, too—The Humourist has shown himself to be a cynic.

Let us explore the ways.

He disparages mankind:

Human Life in some Degree resembles a Masquerade, wherein consists a Medley of incoherent Characters, rudely pressing upon each other, and acting Parts unequal to their several Abilities.  I have taken the Liberty to enlarge the Comparison, and I hope that it is a legal Licence, as it comes nearer to the Purpose of this Essay, and will assist me in proving, that Mankind plays the Cheat, and that Fallacy and Disguise attend the minutest Actions of our Lives. [emphasis supplied]

He belittles the individual:

Flavio (born to make all Mankind happy but himself) is a Gentleman of Birth and Education; he has run thro’ the several Stages with amazing Spirit and Vivacity; all his Possessions now center in his Name, indeed he still enjoys a certain Gaiety, and such a Correctness of Freedom, as adds Dignity to his Deportment and an easy Negligence to his Address.

His chief Happiness has ever been to deceive himself:  In the worst Emergency of Affairs, he has never felt much Remorse at the Loss of Company, his fertile Genius always supplying him with Prospects of imaginary Happiness. [emphasis supplied]

He makes jabs at women:

Tom Easy, who is a jocose Fellow, protests, that one strong Motive for our Devotion to the softer Sex is, because they are possessed of a most incomparable Method of cheating us, and that with wonderful Dexterity. [emphasis supplied]

He condemns Patriots and those who would seek Liberty:

The Patriot, bellowing with Iron Lungs against Men in Power, hazards his Fame upon a mere Contingency, and forfeits his Reputation by deceiving himself into a Place:  As formerly he sung of Liberty, he now makes Music of his Chains. [emphasis supplied]

He undermines those who hold office and those who hold wealth:

In one Place, I can observe an impious great Man, seemingly depressed with the Weight of Office, improving, tho’ not observing, Learning or Religion. [emphasis supplied]

In another Place, a wealthy Monster sacrificing a numerous Family by Donations to Hospitals, thinking to procure a good Name, by Munificence abroad and Poverty at home. [emphasis supplied]

He erodes confidence in the munificence of the clergy:

I can observe a wealthy Pluralist, battening in the Sun-shine of Prosperity, and exulting in the Pomp of cathedral Glory, busied in Subscriptions for the Widows of poor deceased Clergymen, when his Abilities point out a quicker Remedy; deceiving at once, Mankind by the Imposition, and himself, by playing with his Conscience.

Finally he holds out no hope whatsoever—not one iota—for even one honest man, free of deceit:

By such specious Pretences, and other insidious Means, Mankind deceive each other; and if there happens to fall in the Way one honest Man, free from Deceit, free from Imposition, his want of Judgment or Discernment renders him a Victim to the multiplied Attacks of fraudulent Conspiracies. [emphasis supplied]

What does all of this suggest about The Humourist’s world view?  Wait!  Don’t answer yet!  You must consider one more example of his cynicism, and it is revealing.  As I noted earlier, he ends his essay with a quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost:

For neither Man nor Angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only Evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone. (Book III, line 682).

It is so easy to be lulled into believing those lines.  But don’t be deceived.  Hypocrisy is not invisible.  Hypocrisy is not known to God alone.  Hypocrisy is visible to other hypocrites!  Hypocrisy is known to other hypocrites.

I am reminded of the conflict that presents itself in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famed short story, “Young Goodman Brown.”  Whenever I teach this story, students get caught up in trying to determine whether Young Goodman Brown dreamt that he lost his Faith or whether he had a real forest encounter with the Devil and thereby lost his Faith.

They lose sight of the fact that the answer does not matter.  What matters—whether the result of a dream or the result of a real encounter—is the fact that Young Goodman Brown came to see sin in the lives of all those around him:  his grandfather, Goody Cloyse, the Minister, Deacon Gookin, his wife Faith—indeed, all the Godly people of Salem.

Ironically, he could see sin in others, but he could not see the sin in his own sinful soul.  As a result, he became:

A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man … On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.

Young Goodman Brown met his gloom because of his own spiritual smugness.  His was a holier-than-thou life wherein all around him—save for him—were sinners.

Isn’t that the case with cynics?  Smugness, spiritual and otherwise?  Isn’t that the case with cynics?  A holier-than-thou life?  Might not that have been the case with The Humourist?  We shall see, eventually.  For now, we can see this much clearly:  The Humourist is masterful at being a cynic.

Controlled Revelation #8: Glimpses into The Humourist’s Demeanor

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A Relaxation of Behaviour is not amiss upon some Occasions; where it is call’d in to enliven Conversation, or when so used as neither to discompose the Mind of the Hearer or injure the Speaker; where it neither derogates from Sense or infringes on the Laws of decency; for untim’d Mirth is Ill-Nature, and Humour void of a Moral is an Argument of Weakness. —The Humourist

Today we are exploring The Humourist’s essay of January 29, 1754.  It’s one of my favorite essays because it discusses a serious topic—professional behavior.  “Our actions ought to be suited to the Nature of our Professions, and be so tempered, as that Mankind may have it in their Power to say, that we discover Courtesy at the same Time that we preserve Respect.”

Here’s what I said, in part, when I published that essay on January 29, 2013:  “the Humourist shows us the personal essay at its best. In response to an earlier post, someone speculated that the Humourist was Benjamin Franklin. Although he is not Ben Franklin, this essay is on a par with Franklin’s essays, and, it is filled with pithy observations that could pass for Franklin aphorisms.”

I stand by that assessment, and I urge you to reread the essay for the pure joy of savoring every sentence.

I also said that the essay was chock full of clues, especially as the Humourist reveals his own demeanor.

Indeed it is!

Note, for example, the comment:  “In the small Concerns of Life wherein I have been engaged I always found that a certain Degree of Gravity was the surest Step towards distinguishing Eminence of Station.”  As you will come to discover—as we work our way through these Controlled Revelations—The Humourist held many professional positions during his life: some big; others, small.  In all of them, however, those who spoke of him spoke of his gravity, his seriousness.  This will serve as substantial corroborating authorial evidence.

Further in the essay, The Humourist writes:  “Many a Man passes in the Crowd of Life for a Philosopher, because he looks one”.  So, too, The Humourist took on many professional roles in his life—and, generally, he succeeded at them—because he looked the part and played the part well.  Again, this will serve as substantial corroborating authorial evidence.

What intrigues me, though, as I write this Controlled Revelation post is the seeming casual beginning of the essay:  “Sir William Temple somewhere says, that he knew a Statesman, that had rather have said a smart Thing than done a wise one, and whose Bent of Inclination rather prompted him to set the Company in a Horse-Laugh, than the Nation rejoice.”

It is as if The Humourist knew that his readers would know that Sir William Temple (1628-1699) was a Restoration diplomat, statesman, and essayist.  It is as if The Humourist knew that his readers might even know the “somewhere” behind the paraphrase.

And, on reflection, his Charlestonian readers most likely would have been that learned and that well read.  In Building Charleston, Emma Hart observes that:

Charleston held its own in the polite discourse that filled the pages of the Gentleman’s Magazine, with men like Charles Lining receiving praise for their learned contributions to science and the arts, and engravings devoted to the fashionable architecture in the town.  […] In one such article, Charleston remained the only city whose inhabitants were described as “very genteel and polite,” a character said to stem from sophisticated urban institutions such as public libraries.  Maryland and Virginia, on the other hand, were dismissed in a few brief sentences precisely because of their lack of any significant towns. (140-41)

It’s important to keep The Humourist’s readers in mind as we examine his essays:  Charlestonians were cosmopolitan and learned.  Little wonder, then, that he ends this essay with an indirect reference to Pittacus (c. 640-568 BC), one of the Seven Sages of Greece, and a native of Mytilene:  “The Paradox of the wise Man of Mitilene, that the half is better than the whole, may bear this Application, that one half of our Abilities properly husbanded, and the other half discovered, is of more real Importance, than the whole profusely squandered.”

And have I told you—I think not—that unlike The Humourist’s Charleston readers, I have still not found where Sir William Temple says that he knew a statesman who would have rather said a smart thing than done a wise one!   I remain clueless, at the moment, but as I continue to explore Temple’s works, I am certain I will find the primary source.  I want to know precisely what he said.  I want Temple’s words.

Why do I need to find the source?  For no reason whatsoever other than to satisfy my own intellectual curiosity.  Isn’t that the essence of research?  Isn’t that the essence of lifelong learning?  I think so.

And, therein, the challenges, discoveries, and joys—of research!

Controlled Revelation #7: Vindicated (Perhaps)

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“‘I declare, Mrs. Rand, I cried myself into a snit.’ ‘A snit?’ ‘I do deplore it, but when I’m in a snit I’m prone to bull the object of my wrath plumb in the tummy.’” —C. Boothe,  Kiss Boys Good-Bye  ii. i. 105  (1939).  [Oxford English Dictionary, first use of the word snit.]

This week we examine The Humourist’s essay of January 22, 1754.  As always, I encourage you to follow the link and re-read that essay so that you can get back into the spirit of our analysis.

I just re-read the essay, and I remain pleased with my lines that introduced it:

Today, the Humourist explores connections between what a writer eats and what a writer writes!

Pay close attention: he continues to provide us with clues as he shows his ongoing knowledge of and interest in the ancients, in drama, and in painting.

Indeed, The Humourist does focus a lot on drama!  That’s a major clue, and I picked up on it early on in my reading of his essays.  At the same time, I believe that I could have shed more light initially on this essay than I did, so I am glad to have a chance to give it another close reading in hopes of finding more.  That’s the beauty of this approach:  finding more—always and in all ways.

In exploring the connections between what a “writer eats and what a writer writes,” The Humourist notes that “Mr. Bayes, in the Rehearsal, acquaints us, that he always took stewed Prunes whenever he proposed to write.”

My original explanatory note, I confess, was lame at best:

George Villiers’ 1671 satirical play concerning a revolutionary playwright Bayes who was attempting to stage a play.

Rest assured:  the note is an accurate note.  But, upon further investigation, I found out that the “play” Bayes was attempting to stage consisted, largely, of excerpts from other heroic dramas, and, interestingly enough, without giving any authorial credit.

How intriguing.  1671.  The Rehearsal.  One writer lifts language from other writers and no one screamed, “Plagiarism!”  1754—one hundred and three years later.  The Humourist Essays.  The Humourist lifts language from another writer, and no one (as far as I can determine) screamed “Plagiarism.”

2013—two hundred and fifty-nine years later.  I screamed!  I levied plagiarism charges against The Humourist in my Controlled Revelation #3 and my Controlled Revelation #4.

Since those two posts, I have been—as one of my good friends and fellow writers would say—”in a snit”  with my esteemed Humourist.  How could he!  How dare he!

I don’t like being “in a snit.”  Actually, I’m not even certain that I like the phrase “in a snit.” Count on it, then:  I will not stay in one.  So, when I came to understand that Bayes in The Rehearsal had lifted language from other playwrights without anyone charging plagiarism, I started pondering the word plagiarism.  (Yes:  as I noted in my Controlled Revelation #6, words matter—even odious words like plagiarism.)

I started pondering:

  • “When was the word first used?”
  • “Has plagiarism always been viewed with such disdain as it is viewed today?”

Once again, the Oxford English Dictionary saved the day—saved my day.   The word was first used in 1621:  “Were you afraid to bee challenged for plagiarisme?” (Richard Montagu, Diatribæ upon the First Part of the Late History of Tthes).

Its second appearance was in 1716:  “A good Plea to any Charge of Plagiarism or Satyrism” (Myles Davies, Athenæ Britannicæ; or, a Critical History of the Oxford and Cambridge Writers and Writings).

Its third notable use was in 1753:  “Nothing..can be more unjust than to charge an author with plagiarism merely because he…makes his personages act as others in like circumstances have done” (Samuel Johnson, Joseph Warton, and John Hawkesworth, The Adventurer).

Up to that point in its usage, the word plagiarism does not seem to have been as negative as we see it today.

As I continued to follow the Oxford English Dictionary, it appeared that it was not until 1820 that the word came to have its modern meaning.  In his Lectures Chiefly on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, William Hazlitt notes, “If an author is once detected in borrowing, he will be suspected of plagiarism ever after.”

Ah!  If it was not until around 1820 that plagiarism came to have its modern meaning, then perhaps—just perhaps—The Humourist was not guilty of plagiarism since his essays predated the loathsome and abhorrent use of the word by about seventy years! 

Clearly, I needed to do some more research.  So, I Googled—Yes, in case you are wondering:  the words Google and Googled have made it to the Oxford English Dictionary!—I Googled “First Documented Case of Plagiarism”.

Voila!  I had some immediate results, and my first hit looked promising:  Jonathan Bailey’s “The World’s First Plagiarism Case.”  It’s an interesting read, and I recommend that you read it.  Although Bailey traces plagiarism all the way back to Roman poet Martial (40AD-102/104AD), he notes that “the rise of importance in the word ‘plagiarism’ stemmed from the Age of Enlightenment, which put a much higher value on originality in creative works” and that “Like nearly all words, the word ‘plagiarism’ has come to change in meaning.”

So, there!  While I’ll not let The Humourist off the hook, it is possible that his “language lifting” was seen differently in his own time.  For now, that’s enough to get me out of “my snit” and to allow me to move on to one or two other interesting things that I found when I re-examined The Humourist’s January 22, 1754, essay.

In the first part of the essay, The Humourist discusses various foods that help writers write upon certain subjects.  In the second half of his essay, he shifts his focus and discusses foods “which are absolutely destructive to the Intellect, and ought to be avoided.”

First on his list is custard.  He notes that it “is a most barbarous Thing:  Trajan got his Death by it at Antioch.”  Confession:  that stumped me.  Try as I would, I could find nothing confirming that Trajan died from eating custard.  So, in my original note—another lame one, I again confess—I simply identified Trajan as “Marcus Ulpius Traianus, Roman emperor (AD 53-117).”  That was the best that I could do…then.

Now, upon this close reading, I can do better!  I have discovered The Humourist’s source for that statement.  I would have discovered it sooner, I think, but after The Humourist speaks of Trajan’s death from eating custard, he goes on to say that eating custard clouds the memory and understanding:  “Tom Brown gives you its Degrees.”   Tom Brown.  I assumed, ever so erroneously, that Tom Brown was just as fictitious as Trajan’s death by eating custard!

Now, upon this close reading, I have discovered that Tom Brown was not fictitious.  Here’s how I made that discovery.  This time I took The Humourist literally.  Okay.  So I can’t find Tom Brown.  What about Thomas Brown, as a variant form of the name?

Google:  Thomas Brown Trajan Custard.

Voila!  My first hit turned out to be:  The Second Volume of the Works of Mr. Tho. Brown Containing Letters from the Dead to the Living and from the Living to the Dead (London, 1719). And there, on page 368, is the underlying passage that my Humourist—our Humourist—quotes in his essay AND gives credit to Tom Brown!  Let me note, here, that Thomas Brown (1662-1704) was an English translator and political satirist, generally forgotten today except for his famous nursery rhyme, “I Do Not Like Thee Doctor Fell”:

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

(Read more about it at Nursery Rhyme Lyrics, Origins and History.)

Here’s what The Humourist writes:

Custard is a most barbarous Thing; Trajan got his Death by it at Antioch, and many a good Alderman has experienced the bad Qualities accruing from too intimate a Connection with it; I do firmly believe, that it obnubilates the Understanding and hurts the Memory:  Tom Brown gives you its Degrees, “eating of Custard first gives a Cachexy, instantly turns to a Dolor Alvi, that to a Peripneumonia in the Diaphram, to to an Epyena in the Glandula Pinealis.”

And here’s what Thomas Brown writes in his Letters from the Dead:

Trajan got his death by nothing but eating of Custard at Antioch and mention’d two or three other eminent Persons that had, their Heels tript up by that pernicious Food. Dioscorides added farther, that Custard was destructive of the Intellect, and conjur’d me that the next time I writ to any of my Acquaintance in London I would desire them to present his most humble Service to my Lord May0r and Court of Aldermen and advise ’em as from him to refrain from Custard, because it obnubilated the Understanding, and was deterimental .to the Memory. So much by way of digression, but now, Sir, to proceed in the History of my Illness: This eating of Custard first of all gave me a Cachexy, and ’twas my-Misfortune that there was no Brandy to be had in the House,- for in all probability a Cogue of true Orthodox Nantz, would have corrected the Crudity of the Custard. This Cachexy in twelve Hours turned to a Dolor alvi, that to a Peripneumonia in the Diaphram, to to an Epyena in the Glandula Pinealis.

In his use of Thomas Brown’s work, The Humourist is clearly paraphrasing rather than quoting, but he has the decency, integrity, and honor to credit the author.

Perhaps, in view of the above discussion, The Humourist is vindicated—somewhat.  If not, I (at least) have worked my way out of my snit.  More important, though, I have shed light on the essay in a far more meaningful way than I did initially. Thus, perhaps, I, too, am vindicated!

Controlled Revelation #6: Words Matter

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“The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.”
—Samuel Butler

I confess that I love words.  Every word choice is fraught with possibilities. Whenever I teach a literature class—or, for that matter, whenever I teach any English class—I encourage my students to pay attention to a writer’s word choice.  I encourage my students to ask themselves, “Why did the writer choose that word instead of another one?  What are the consequences of that particular word choice?  What impact does that word choice have on the meaning?  What words does the writer use frequently?   Why?”

I think that you get my point:  words matter.  Pay close attention to them.

Samuel Butler makes the point ever so poignantly in the headnote to today’s post.  Can you imagine Samuel Taylor Coleridge giving his “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the title “The Old Sailor”?  Of course, not!  It would be preposterous!  It would be a different poem entirely. (So, we have Ancient instead of Old, and we have Mariner instead of Sailor.  And, while we’re pondering over the poem’s title, we also have Rime instead of Rhyme.  Selecting Rime goes far, far beyond mere metrics.)

But I digress.  What led me to ruminate so was my close reading of The Humourist’s essay of January 15, 1754.  As  I read and read and re-read that essay—just as I read and read and re-read—each of his essays, I had an epiphany of sorts.  I realized that I was mulling over—savoring, if you will—each and every word.

Some of those words captured my fancy more than others.  The single, solitary word from that essay that gained possession of me with greatest satisfaction was the word Records.   In context, the word appears “Records of Drama.”

Records.  “Anything preserving information and constituting a piece of evidence about past events; esp. an account kept in writing or some other permanent form; (also) a document, monument, etc., on which such an account is inscribed” (Oxford English Dictionary, the 4th definition of the noun).

I’m not sure why, but the phrase Records of Drama struck me as unusual, and it still does.  I started asking myself the same questions that I advise my students to ask:   “Why did the writer choose that word instead of another one?  What are the consequences of that particular word choice?  What impact does that word choice have on the meaning?  What words does the writer use frequently?   Why?”

It was in the answering of those questions that my minor epiphany came:  The Humourist uses the word Records (as a noun) with some frequency.  I could recall—though I knew not where—that he had used it in several of his essays.

So, I set about the task of re-reading—well, actually, skimming and scanning—all of the essays to see if my recollection served me well.

Indeed it did.

In his December 10, 1753, essay The Humourist comments:  “Search the records of old time.”  (Note, too, that he follows that with “and look into the annals of the present.”  Records.  Annals.  How similar,  I need to ferret out Annals as well.)

Then in his January 1, 1754, essay we find, “These Gifts create a most happy Emulation amongst the juvenile part of Mankind, and are so many Records of Friendship for the Fathers and the Grandfathers to transmit to Posterity.”

And, as we have seen already, he uses the phrase “Records of drama”  in the essay that we are exploring today.

While I am reluctant to ascribe too great a significance to one mere word, it strikes me that The Humourist’s use of the noun Records strengthens the appellation that I gave him in my Controlled Revelation # 1.  The Humourist is a Historian.

My goodness!  One word has led me—and you—all over the place.  Note, however, that it is exactly this kind of close reading that fosters and enables greater understanding and greater appreciation of any passage.

What else did I discover as I gave The Humourist’s January 15, 1754, essay a close reading?  Aside from confirming my notion that The Humourist is a historian, it confirms as well that The Humourist is well versed in drama.   Indeed this essay stands as perhaps the earliest essay in American Literature to exalt positive impact that tragedy has on mankind.

Thus we have still another confirmation of an earlier claim:  The Humourist is a lover of literature with a preference for drama.

Finally, this essay confirms The Humourist’s interest in and knowledge of painting:  “nothing discovering that close Connexion between Poets and Painters more graphically, than the different Peinture they excel in, the one in the outward Lineaments of the Face and Body, the other in the inward Temperament of the Mind.”

Now, I going to take up the task of perusing The Humourist’s essays for the word Annals!  (As I searched for Records, I discovered something that I had not quite noticed before:  nearly every essay touches upon poetry and drama.)

I’ll share my results with you next week.  In the meantime, remember:  words matter. Pay attention to them.

Controlled Revelation #5: A Man Who Knows Humor, Who Lives Near a Church, and Who Knows Children’s Books

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“Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length.”
——Robert Frost

The magic and serendipity that I witnessed last week on my research trip to Charleston, South Carolina, was of such joyful intensity that I am reminded of a Robert Frost poem, “Happiness Makes Up in Height What It Lacks in Length”:

O stormy, stormy world,
 The days you were not swirled
Around with mist and cloud,
Or wrapped as in a shroud,
And the sun’s brilliant ball
Was not in part or all
Obscured from mortal view—
Were days so very few
I can but wonder whence
I get the lasting sense
Of so much warmth and light.
If my mistrust is right
It may be altogether
From one day’s perfect weather,
When starting clear at dawn
The day swept clearly on
To finish clear at eve.
I verily believe
My fair impression may
Be all from that one day
No shadow crossed but ours
As through its blazing flowers
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.

I daresay that the intensity will not come my way again for some while, and, perhaps that’s a good thing:  I’m wired enough already!

This week we’ll apply our close-reading strategy to The Humourist’s essay of January 8, 1754.   You might want to click on the link and take a moment to revisit the essay.

Actually, this is one of my favorite “essays” from the collection, if, indeed you can call letters to yourself essays.  Yet, for the first time, The Humourist shows that he can be humorous.  Consider, if you will, the fact that he has disguised his identity under the pseudonym “The Humourist.”  And then he dares come forth with a letter beginning, “The HUMOURIST to himself, Greeting:”, followed by two more letters written to himself, though signed as “TOM SPRIGHTLY” and “IGNOTUS.”

To say that he’s stretching pseudonymity is an understatement, yet I find it amusing.

I find equally entertaining—albeit rather dated for us moderns—the story that he shares about his grandfather who was “reading the Latin Motto of a Book the other Day, and with great Vehemence and Extasy cried out, Oh! ’tis a noble Thing to be well versed in Greek!”

He’s clever as well in wordplay, as one of his correspondents writes about some Trials at the Old Bailey and notes “Yesterday the above Malefactors were hang’d at ‘Tyburn.'” The Humourist then questions, “Whether the Prisoners being made up of Men and Women, the latter can, by any reasonable Arguments, be proved to be Male-factors.”

To be certain, the humor in this essay is subtle, but it’s there, nonetheless, and we have not seen it before.

I am intrigued as well by the statement at the beginning of the essay that “you are a Man of Penetration, and can, with surprising Discernment, see a Church by Day-Light.”  Until last week’s research trip, I didn’t know what to do with that comment.  Now, however, having had access to the Last Will and Testament of the person I have identified as the Humourist, I understand.  He owned property and had a home on what is now Meeting Street, and, indeed, he would have been able to see St. Michael’s Church at the corner of Meeting Street and Broad Street.

St. Michael's Church

St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, S.C.
(Image from Art.com)

This strikes me as a rather significant clue.

Finally, a new Humourist dimension emerges in this essay.  I noted in an earlier Controlled Revelation that The Humourist was a bibliophile.  I find it interesting in this essay that he shows his knowledge of children’s literature.  He mentions “Jack the Giant-Killer,” an English fairy tale from the early eighteenth century.  Also, he mentions The Circle of the Sciences, a series of “instructional books for young boys and girls. The books were edited/published between 1744-1748 by John Newbery, considered to be the “Father of Children’s Literature.”  He was so important to the creation and marketing of children’s books that the American Library Association awards the Newbery Medal annually for the most important children’s book published in the previous year.

This week, then, we can see that The Humourist does have a sense of humor.  We can see that he lives close enough to St. Michael’s that he can see it by daylight.  And we can see that he has some knowledge of children books, including contemporary ones.

Week by week, The Humourist.’s profile (like his Aerial Mansion) is becoming “fitted up,” and before the end of summer it will be complete!

Celebrating Scholars and Poets and Librarians!

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“Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspect they differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.”

—from Robert Frost’s “The Figure a Poem Makes” 

I love Robert Frost, and I especially love his essay “The Figure a Poem Makes.”  I’ve been thinking about that essay a lot today, because I am here in Charleston, South Carolina, on a scholarly research trip.  And I have conducted my work, as Frost said scholars conduct their work, “with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic”.

Projected lines of logic.  Ah!  Yes!  As those of you who have been following my blog know, I have maintained for some time that I am 99% confident that I know the identity of The Humourist.  Trust me:  I do!  And, as you also know, I have been giving The Humourist essays a close reading, noting the clues that allow me to explore my authorial speculations along projected lines of logic.  Indeed those projected lines of logic have guided me throughout this research trip:  projected lines of logic. 

My hope was that if I could find the Last Will and Testament of the person whom I believe to be The Humourist it might contain specific bequests that would in one way or another connect to the esoteric content of The Humourist essays.  I have reviewed the Last Will and Testament, and, indeed, it contains bequests that parallel certain specifics mentioned in the essays:  specifics dealing with art and with history.  It is not possible that two people living in Charleston, South Carolina, during this same timeframe could have had the very same, identical, specialized interests. I realize that “art” and “history” are not specialized.  Yet, for both of these fields, The Humourist has identified specialized angles.  I have revealed some of them to you already.

I will reveal no more, at this point, except to say that I now have the clincher that I’ve been looking for!  Mind you:  I will continue giving The Humourist essays the close reading that they warrant.  And when I am done with the deed, I will reveal all. For now, I have enough to move me from 99% to 100% certainty.

More, I have found clinchers others than those in his Last Will and Testament.  Today, as I read issues of The South Carolina Gazette housed in the South Carolina Library Society, I found notices of property for sale—property owned by The Humourist.  The location of the property aligns perfectly with references that he makes in two of his essays! Yes!  Yes!

So, as this day ends, I believe that I meet with Frost’s approbation in terms of my scholarly work:  I like to think so, at least.  I know that I have followed with “conscientious thoroughness […] projected lines of logic.”  

And, though I am no poet, I like to think that I would have met with Frost’s approval of my “poetic” way of seeking knowledge, too.  Whenever I am doing research, I approach what I am doing rather “cavalierly.” I approach “nothing deliberately.”  I let what knowledge will “stick” to me “like burrs where [I] walk in the fields.”  The discoveries are remarkable.

Thus—and as is my custom—when I finished my formal scholarly research today, I was reluctant to put aside The South Carolina Gazette without taking a purely “just for fun” walk through its fields.

For some reason, I did as I often saw my mother do when I was a child and she was in search of a “special  message” of some sort:  she closed her eyes, opened the Bible, and let her finger drop to a line of Scripture. (Now that I reflect upon it, I know the reason fully well why I used my mother’s “special message” technique:  had she lived, my mother would have been one hundred and one years old today!  Today is her birthday! Subconsciously, I must have had her birthday on my mind, leading me—her way—to my way of knowledge.)

So, without then knowing why—yet, now, with full understanding, and in like fashion—today I closed my eyes, opened The South Carolina Gazette, and let my finger drop wherever it might drop.

To my great joy, my finger fell on a poetic tribute to Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744).  The poem appeared in The South Carolina Gazette, on June 17, 1745, as follows:

Mr. Timothy, —- Sir,

I’ve sent you a Copy of VERSES, written extemporare by a Native of this Place, on the Death of the great and celebrated ALEXANDER POPE, Esq; Please to favour them with a Place in your next Gazette, and you’ll oblige, Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

PHILAGATHUS.

AND is POPE gone? – Then mourn ye Britons! Mourn —
Your Pride and Boast!  Apollo’s darling Son.
The Muses weep for Thee, immortal Bard!
Thou’rt gone! And with Thee all their Glory’s fled.

His Soul in Rapture mounts th’ ewtherial Road ——
Enraptur’d Seraphs win him to his God;
Pleas’d, the Angelick Bands with Speed give Way,
And hail him onward to eternal Day;
The Bard begins divine Seraphick Lays,
And glads all Heaven, with his rapt’rous Praise!

Now weep, ye chosen Few! Who Pleasure take
In harmonious Numbers, sublimely great;
Now mourn for him, who had the Art to fire
The Soul to Virtue!  and the Heart inspire:
Who writ, for future Blessings to Mankind,
To mend the Heart, and to inform the Mind.
Who dar’d defend the righteous Laws of God,
And boldly in the bright Paths of Virtue trod.
His dreadful Satyr! That strange piercing Dart,
Well levell’d slew, —— and slung the guilty Heart.

Who next in Genius! able to sustain
The Poetick Fire? The heavenly Flame!
Like POPE! unfold great Nature’s moral Laws,
Like him, in flaming Zeal, and pious Rage,
Scourge the base Follies of a guilty Age?
A sacred Flame! Does thro’ thy Numbers flow,
Informs the Mind, and makes the Heart to glow.
Tho; thou art gone, —— thy Works shall brightest shine,
With Men of Genius, to the End of Time.
Thy Ethics shine, with much superior Rays, ——
Like thy bright Soul! ne more immortal Blaze!

But stay my Muse! Thy languid Flame’s too faint
The dazzling Beauties of great POPE to paint!
And O great Shade! Forgive my humble Lays,
Who only shew my Weakness, when I’d praise!
No Pen, so well, can speak thy rising Fame ——
As thy own Works:  That brighten into Flame.

Who can, O POPE! Thy Sacred Laurel wear?
Who can, alas, the dazzling Lustre bear!
Who can, like Thee! Lift up the Sacred Rod?
The Power’s not of Man —— ‘tis the Gift of GOD.
THIS is thy Praise, due from every Pen,
The GREATEST POET and the BEST OF MEN.

Is this not incredibly wonderful?  Just think:  someone in Colonial America—someone in Charleston, South Carolina—penned such a poetic tribute to Alexander Pope on the occasion of his death! 

How wonderful that the poetic tribute still exists in a newspaper that has survived against all odds for all these years.  Now that’s life everlasting not only for Pope but also for Philagathus!  It’s also life everlasting for librarians—the unsung keepers of our vast storehouses of treasured knowledge, whether scholarly or poetic.

Discoveries.  Joys.  Research.

It doesn’t get any better than this!

Serendipity on Sullivan’s Island

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My Humourist post for today noted my location:  Sullivan’s Island.  It noted as well that Edgar Allan Poe was at Fort Moultrie on the western end of Sullivan’s Island for thirteen months and while there gained the inspiration for his story “The Gold Bug”—a story about a beetle that leads to a buried treasure!

Great!  So, that’s how I started my day.  Afterwards I went to the Charleston County Public Library to research wills and plats.  More on my findings tomorrow or the next day.  Let me tell you, though, that I have but one word to describe what I found:  PHENOM!  Stay tuned.  You will be as stunned as I was/am!

After my research, I returned to Sullivan’s Island.  Allen and I thought that it would be fun to bike around the island.  We’re staying at a marvelous historic home, located on Station 28.  So, off we went, biking.  We had nowhere special in mind, mind you.  We just wanted to bike, mindlessly.  We just wanted to explore, mindlessly.

And so we did.  We biked.  Mindless.  Mindlessly.

Toward the end of our trip, and, indeed, just a stone’s throw from our “home away from home,”  we spotted the most spectacular tree that either of us had ever seen in our lives.  We nearly fell off our bikes at the same time!  We stopped, drop dead.  And, just as we were gawking, a woman walked down the driveway that led to the house behind the tree.

“What a spectacular tree,” I exclaimed.  (Of course:  she knew that already!)

“Yes.  It’s on the Historical Register.”

“Yes, yes.  Of course. As well it should be.  It’s phenomenal.”

“It’s the Gold Bug tree, you know.”

I didn’t know. To me, it was just a drop-dead, spectacular tree.

“The Gold Bug Tree?”  I questioned.  “The Gold Bug Tree?  You mean Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Gold Bug’ tree?”

“Yes,” she said.  “This is the Gold Bug Tree.  But It wasn’t quite this big when Poe wrote his story.  It’s grown a lot.”  She smiled—a big wide Southern smile, full of pride. The Gold Bug Tree, right there in her yard. Right there, in front of her home. Right there, in front of me.  Right there in front of me—a tree that I had read about but not a tree that I had ever in my wildest imaginations expected to see!  I had no idea that such a tree ever, ever, ever existed!  And here I stood, drop dead in front of it, admiring it without even knowing its literary significance.

“Oh, my!” I stammered, stuttered.  “How strange.”  I continued stammering, stuttering. “I write a blog, and my post for today mentioned that I was staying here on Sullivan’s Island where Poe gained his inspiration for writing ‘The Gold Bug.’  Wow! I’m so glad that you were here as we biked by!  The Gold Bug Tree.  I’m stunned. Just stunned! The Gold Bug tree!  If you hadn’t been here, I woudn’t have known.  I would have just thought that this was such a spectacular tree.”

“Yes.  This is the tree!  The Gold Bug Tree.  Enjoy the rest of your day.” 

She walked back up the driveway leading to her home behind the famous tree.  

We biked back to our less famous rental home on Station 28, and then we returned to The Gold Bug Tree at Station 27.  Without a doubt:  we had to take pictures. 

Two photos follow: one of the tree; the other, the corner marker where the tree reigns with commanding magnificence!  

IMG_1080

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I have but one word:  Serendipity!

WOW!

And, of course, let me tease you with the passage from Poe’s “The Gold Bug”:

“Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for us a path to the foot of an enormously tall tulip-tree, which stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far surpassed them all, and all other trees which I had then ever seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in the general majesty of its appearance.”

Now, go:  read the story and find the tree!  “The Gold Bug.”

Share with me my serendipitous day! 

Research! 

Joy!

Controlled Revelation #4: Live from Charleston, South Carolina

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This week I’m here in Charleston, South Carolina, where I am continuing my research work on The Humourist.  For this trip, however, I decided to stay off the beaten path:  I’m out on Sullivan’s Island, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor.  Edgar Allan Poe spent thirteen months here at Fort Moultrie, beginning November 18, 1827, and it was here on Sullivan’s Island that he wrote his famous short story, “The Gold Bug.”

Later this morning, I’ll be visiting the South Carolina History Room, Charleston County Public Library. I want to examine some land plats from the 1750s when the Humourist was publishing his essays in the South Carolina Gazette, and I want to examine some wills from the period.  Obviously, I’m looking for the will of the person I believe to be The Humourist.  I want to see whether the will contains any information that might confirm that he is actually the writer!

I realize, of course, that it’s a long shot, but who knows!  Last week, I was chatting with one of my colleague’s about my research, and I mentioned to him that I was 99% certain who wrote the essays, but I still hoped to find a direct statement somewhere that “Mr. X” was The Humourist.  My colleague looked at me and wisely replied, “You’ll never find it because it probably doesn’t exist.”  He’s probably right, and I know that I won’t find such a statement in The Humourist’s will.  However, I might find such a statement in someone’s diary, someone’s journal, or someone’s letters.  And who knows:  I might just find it on this research trip.

I keep reminding myself, however, that identifying the author of these essays is only part of my project.  The larger and more important part is making the Humourist essays available to students, scholars, and the world at large.  I am well on my way to doing just that by making the essays available here in this blog.

You will recall that last week’s Controlled Revelation #3 left me reeling because I discovered multiple passages in the Humourist essays that were identical to passages that had appeared in a series of “Castle Building” essays that had been published in The Student under the name of Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis.  I offered up two possibilities, as follows:

“The Humourist is a plagiarist, and I have just unwittingly disclosed what may well be the first documented case of academic dishonesty in Colonial America.

“Or, shifting to a more optimistic possibility, is it possible that Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis and The Humourist are one and the same?  If that’s the case, the parallel passages are all fine and well because a writer may certainly borrow from his own work and use it in multiple publications!  More, though, if that’s the case—if Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis and The Humourist are one and the same—I have just expanded significantly what I believed to be The Humourist’s literary canon.”

Since last week, I have discovered that Chimaericus Cantabrigiensis was a pseudonym used by English poet Christopher Smart (1722-1771).  Smart, not The Humourist, is the author of the “Castle Building” essays that appeared in The Student.

Therefore, I must report that Continue reading →

Controlled Revelation #3: Numerous Confirmations and a New Research Discovery/Challenge that Has Me Reeling!

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“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;”
—Shakespeare

 Thus far we have seen the Humourist playing many parts:

  • Classicist
  • Bibliophile
  • Historian
  • Lover of Literature
  • Painter
  • Science Aficionado

This week, as we give his essay of December 24, 1753, a close reading, we will discover numerous confirmations that he played those parts well, but we will also discover a new research challenge that, quite frankly, has me reeling on my own research stage!

Let’s start with the confirmations that I have discovered this week.  We’ll save the new discovery/challenge for the end of this post, thereby allowing it to become the grand finale.

We have major confirmations, of course, that the Humourist is a lover of literature.  Interestingly enough, however, his literary selections and references begin to show a genre preference:  drama.  This week, for example, we find him quoting from Shakespeare’s “Prologue” to Henry the V: “Into a thousand parts divide one man, / And make imaginary puissance.”  Further, he makes reference to the “Abel Drugger”—a character in Ben Jonson’s comedy The Alchemist, first performed in 1610.

Equally important, notice his theatrical language:  “no man considers himself as ordained to act a part only; we are all universal players”.   It continues—with some significance that may point us in the direction of the Humourist’s general age—when he writes:  “after having run thro’ the several stages of life, am happy enough to find my finances in tolerable order.”

“Having run thro’ the several stages of life.” Candidly I have read this essay many, many times, and it was not until yesterday when I re-read it once more that those words caught my attention.  Several stages of life.  Of course!  Coming as it does in an essay with a Shakespearean quote as the headnote, the Humourist is referring to Shakespeare’s seven stages of life proclaimed by Jacques in As You Like It (2. 7. 139-167):

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Again, what we have is a confirmation that the Humourist is knowledgeable of drama.  More, though, we have a means of determining, with some accuracy, the Humourist’s age.  He says that he has run through the several stages of life and that he is happy to find his finances in tolerable order.  Clearly, he is past the fourth stage of life—the soldier stage—focused on seeking the “bubble reputation.”  The Humourist has achieved that already.  He seems to be in the fifth stage of life—the justice stage—focused on comfort and wise sayings and playing the part well.  This is the stage of life generally achieved in our fifties.  I feel fairly confident in saying that the Humourist is in his mid- to late fifties.

As might be expected, this week’s essay confirms that the Humourist was a lover of poetry:  “The pleasure is as great / In being cheated, as to cheat.” The quote is from Hudibras, Part II, Canto III by English satirical poet Samuel Butler (1612-1680). The full quotation reads: “Doubtless the pleasure is as great / Of being cheated as to cheat; / As lookers-on feel most delight, / That least perceive a jugler’s slight; / And still the less they understand, / The more th’ admire his slight of hand.”

Also, the essay establishes the Humourist to be a Poet, as evidenced by his “Song,” the first of several original poetic flights that he would take.

The Humourist continues to bring the art of Painting and Drawing into his essays:  “If a sign-painter can imagine himself possessed of the finger of a Raphael, that his portraits are surprising, his pencil bold and animating, and that his figures swell on the canvas and quicken into life, permit him to hug the blest idea.”

Further, in his “Advertisement” promising to publish the anatomy of human heads, he indicates that the work will be “illustrated with near a million of worthy personages, as engrav’d by the best masters.”  This new angle—engraving—intrigues me and will be set aside for further rumination.

Thus have I shared “gleanings” from my close reading of the Humourist’s December 24, 1753, essay—gleanings that confirm that which we knew already and at the same time sharpen the focus of what we know about the Humourist:  he’s a lover of literature, yes, but he is knowledgeable of the theater, and he is a poet.  He’s a painter, perhaps, but he knows how to draw and he may be familiar with engraving.  Finally, he shares with us the fact that he has run through the several stages of life and has his finances in order, thereby establishing (with some accuracy, I believe) that the Humourist is in his mid- to late fifties.

I have yet to share, however, the new research discovery/challenge that has me reeling! Continue reading →

Controlled Revelation #2: Science Aficianado.

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“I’m really impressed with your ‘close reading’ of The Humourist so far.  […] You’ve always talked about ‘close reading’ in class, but I didn’t know you could get as close as you have to The Humourist, even to the point of checking how closely his quotations matched the original!  I never would have thought of doing that.”   −Emails from a Faithful Student

Absolutely:  when you give a literary text a close reading, you get closer and closer to the author, but in order to do so, you must pay attention to every word, to every detail.

My own love affair with “close reading” began when I was a graduate student at the University of South Carolina during the 1970s.  I was part of an editorial team working on a critical edition of the works of American writer Frank Norris.  As literary works are printed and reprinted, numerous errors−sometimes substantive, sometimes accidental−are introduced into the text.  When establishing a critical edition, the goal is to reconstruct the text that is closest to the author’s approved version.  Doing so is not an easy process.

It requires comparing multiple editions of the same work and tracking all the variants.  We used a device called The Hinman Collator:

Shakespear scholar Charlton Hinman developed the Hinman Collator, a mechanical device for the visual comparison of different copies of the same printed text. By 1978, when the last machine was manufactured, around fifty-nine had been acquired by libraries, academic departments, research institutes, government agencies, and a handful of pharmaceutical companies. Though built for the study of printed texts and used primarily for the creation of critical editions of literary authors, the Hinman Collator was also employed in other projects where the close comparison of apparently identical images is required: from the study of illustrations to the examination of watermarks to the detection of forged banknotes. 

I remember spending hour after hour examining various editions of Frank Norris’ novels and dutifully recording the details of the variants that I discovered.  I was about to say that sadly enough I do not remember any of the variants at all.  And I do not.

However, no sadness surrounds my lack of recall.  Instead I am surrounded by great joy because it was during those countless hours of mechanically collating multiple Frank Norris texts that I  came to realize that every word matters.  Every word matters.  Every word.

It was during those countless hours of mechanically collating multiple texts that I fell in love with close reading.  Fell in love.  Close reading.

My hope is that my Faithful Student will continue to be impressed as I continue to share my close reading of The Humourist.

You will recall that my close reading of the Humourist’s November 26, 1753, essay led me to characterize him as a Classicist, Bibliophile, Historian, Lover of Literature, and Painter.

This week I will focus on his essay of December 10, 1753, to see what my close reading discloses.

He continues to show that he is a Lover of Literature by using a quote from James Thompson as his headnote.  Born in 1700, Thompson was an English poet and author of The Seasons.  In addition, the Humourist quotes Edward Young (1683-1765), British poet and dramatist, known especially for his The Revenge: A Tragedy in Five Acts (1721).  Once again, The Humourist quotes these writers verbatim all the way down to the correct poetic line endings.  Clearly, he is not quoting from memory:  he has the literary texts in front of him.  In addition to Thompson and Young, he continues to quote from his old friend Horace, and he quotes from Daniel Heinsius (1580-1655), a Dutch scholar and poet.

Also, the Humourist shows his familiarity with classic rhetoricians and literary critics.  He mentions Longinus, a Greek rhetorician and literary critic whose “On the Sublime” is a treatise on aesthetics and literary criticism and is generally considered to rank second in importance to Aristotle’s Poetics.  Also, he cites Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35 – c. 100), a Roman rhetorician known for his 12-volume Institutio Oratoria (Institutes of Oratory). 

It seems clear that whoever wrote the Humourist essays was a Classicist and a Lover of Literature.  As we move ahead, we will look for more clues to strengthen that assertion.

But what about the Humourist as Historian?  Indeed, in this essay he mentions “the tower of Babel” and he refers to “the ancients.”  Note as well that the Humourist uses the language−uses the words−that historians use:  “Search the records of old time”, “look into the annals of the present”, and “materials from […] ruins”.  When combined with last week’s clues, they provide additional evidence that the Humourist is an Historian.

Along similar lines−using language that is appropriate to a specific occupational field−you will recall from last week that he promised to provide a “Picture.”  Although he does not fulfill his promise, this week he expands the vocabulary:  “Copy of my countenance”, “painter”, and “sketch”.  I am especially intrigued by “sketch.”  I have known artists who could paint but not draw, and I have known artists who could draw but not paint.  The Humourist’s language suggests that he could paint and draw.  I am intrigued.

And how interesting that the Humourist says of himself:  “As to my private character, that falls more immediately within the sphere of the historian than the painter.”

I am intrigued even more, though, by a new clue that emerges this week.  The Humourist seems to have an interest in science.  Indirectly, he references Isaac Newton (English physicist and mathematician) when he writes “a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.”  Later in the essay, he shows an even more interest in science when he mentions efforts to “find out the quadrature of a circle, and the creeks and sounds of the north east and north west passages.”  Finally, in the advertisement that follows the essay, he refers to “the occult sciences”, “palmistry and physiognomy”, and “the twelve signs in the zodiac”.

Classicist, Bibliophile, Historian, Lover of Literature, and Painter.  All those have been confirmed and strengthened by this week’s close reading.

Now, we can add:  Science aficionado.