James Bramston

“ 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. ”

“ Where's Troy, and where's the May-Pole [xii] in the Strand? ”

“ 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 shielding many of the perpetrators of the South Sea Bubble in 1720. (I have not been able to discover the passage of Addison that Bramston had in mind.) ”

“ 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 Africanus Major (236-184/3) was one of the most illustrious Roman heroes, consul during the Second Punic War and an outstanding military tactician. Scipio Africanus 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. ”

“ 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. [P]
All this is fun, but it is quite inoffensive. ”

“ 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 [Pg ii] 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 ”

“ Sir Robert Fagg was better known for horse-racing and wenching than for politics; he appears in Hogarth's painting of The Beggar's Opera admiring Lavinia Fenton and in the ballad cited in my note to p. 20, line 8. Running for Parliament in the borough of Steyning, Sussex, in 1722, he came in third in a five-man race with nineteen votes. He also ran third in 1727; the vote is not recorded, unless Bramston's "two Voices" is to be taken literally. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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, [Pg iv] 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ 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. [M] As for George II, it depends on whose hearts you consult. An anonymous journalist:
What an Assurance has the Kingdom already given of an unfeigned Affection to their Majesties Persons and Government? How do the People shew that none [Pg vii] are acceptable to them, but those that are so to their Majesties? ”

“ Horace Walpole's copy of Dodsley's Collection, with a few rather uninformative manuscript 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. ”

“ What is Bramston trying to do in this passage? 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Acts of Parliament avoid Sublime,
Nor e'er Address his Majesty in Rhime;
An Act of Parliament's a serious thing,
Begins with Year of Lord and Year of King;
Keeps close to Form, in every word is strict,
When it would Pains and Penalties inflict.
Soft Words suit best Petitioners intent;
Soft Words, O ye Petitioners of Kent! [xviii]
[Pg 11] [10] Who e'er harangues before he gives his Vote,
Should send sweet Language from a tuneful Throat.
Pultney [xix] the coldest Breast with Zeal can fire,
And Roman Thoughts by Attick Stile inspire ”

“ Bramston may have been following an independent tradition or merely exercising poetic license. The lion is, of course, James, Duke of York, the Roman Catholic heir to the throne.
[xxv] Lane: Sir Richard Lane (c. 1667-1756) , MP for Worcester 1727-34. He was a merchant, sugar baker, and salt trader, and a consistent supporter of the administration. For examples of his indecorous use of biblical allusions see Sedgwick, 2, 197-98 (the "bantering speech" mentioned there used the Book of Revelation to prove that merchants were the best people on earth) ”

“ 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 crasser incentives appear in the poem, of course, but they are clearly the result of declining standards. ”

“ 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 [Pg iii] impetuous style brought in an unwonted diction" (217) —constitutes 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) . ”

“ P. 12, line 4. the Rod: that is, the rod of the Serjeant-at-Arms, the officer responsible for keeping order in the House of Commons.
[xxi] line 6. the Bar: The Bar marked the outer limit of the House, and, as the lines imply, was where offenders stood to be reprimanded.
[xxii] lines 11-12. The "one cause" is presumably Walpole's patronage. The Cornish constituencies were notoriously corrupt even by eighteenth-century standards, and Walpole cultivated the Scots assiduously. A Scottish "laird" is a landowner, not a "lord" in the English sense. ”

“ Sir James: Sir James Thornhill (c. 1675-1734) . As MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (1722-34) and Serjeant Painter to the King (1720-32) , he embodies the [Pg ix] parallel between art and politics that underlies Bramston's poem. His best-known works were the dome of St. Paul's and the paintings in Greenwich Hospital. Hogarth married his daughter in 1729.
[ii] P. 2, line 4. Cf. Hervey's comment on Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, who "affected to conciliate in himself both characters of Whig and Tory, declaring himself always a Whig in the State and a Tory in the Church" (pp. 90-91) . ”

“ But Titus said, with his uncommon Sense,
When the Exclusion-Bill was in suspense,
I hear a Lyon in the Lobby roar;
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door
And keep him there, or shall we let him in
To try if we can turn him out again? ”

“ 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 Sussex 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. ”

“ The facsimile of The Art of Politicks (1729) is reproduced by permission from a copy of the first edition (Shelf Mark: *PR3326/B287A8; Foxon B383) in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. The total type-page (p. 19) measures 152 x 93 mm.
— RISUM TENEATIS AMICI ?
THE
ART of POLITICKS,
In Imitation of
HORACE's
ART of POETRY.
LONDON : Printed for Lawton Gilliver,
at Homer's Head against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-Street. ”

“ He never succeeded in paying his fine of £100 (Pope, Poems (Twickenham Edition, genl. ed. John Butt; London: Methuen, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939-69) , 5, 459) . Hereafter referred to as TE.
Methuen's resignation is erroneously dated in 1730 in DNB and in Romney Sedgwick, The House of Commons 1715-1754 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) , 2, 254. See Abel Boyer, The Political State of Great Britain, 37 (May 1729) , 523, and John, Lord Hervey. Some Materials towards Memoirs of the Reign of King George II, ed. Romney Sedgwick (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1931) , pp. ”

“ The Chairman's angry, and th' Election void.
[26] Those who would captivate the well-bred throng,
Should not too often speak, nor speak too long:
Church, nor Church Matters ever turn to Sport,
Nor make St. ”