Read the Restoration and 18th century introduction here
Read the following link summaries as your weekly texts as well as the Morning, Afternoon, and Evening letters below.
John Newton From Thoughts upon the Aftrican Slave Trade
William Cowper from The Negroes Complaint
From a contrary view, Journal of a Slave Trader
Development of Science
The Development of Astronomy
Voyages and Explorations
Morning
Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning
Classical descriptions of dawn had idealized the beauty of nature. Jonathan Swift was a writer who loved to mock romantic ideals, and this poem, first published in the Tatler in 1709, parodies the classical form by focusing on realistic and grubby details of morning in the city.
The Slipshod 'Prentice from his Master's Dore,
Had par'd the Dirt, and sprinkled round the Floor.
Now Moll had whirl'd her Mop with dext'rous Airs,
Prepar'd to scrub the Entry and the Stairs.
The Youth with Broomy Stumps began to trace
The Kennel Edge, where Wheels had worn the Place. >> note 1
The Smallcoal-Man was heard with Cadence deep,
Till drown'd in shriller Notes of Chimney-sweep.
Duns at his Lordship's Gate began to meet,
And Brickdust Moll had scream'd through half the Street. >> note 2
The Turn-key new his Flock returning sees,
Duly let out a'Nights to steal for Fees. >> note 3
The watchful Bayliffs take their silent Stands;
And School-boys lag with Satchels in their Hands.
Afternoon
Thomas Jordan, News from the Coffeehouse
The first London coffeehouse opened in 1652. Though Charles II later tried to suppress them as "places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers," the public flocked to them. By 1739 there were 551 coffeehouses in London, including meeting places for Tories and Whigs, people of fashion and haberdashers, wits and clergymen, merchants and lawyers, booksellers and authors, stockjobbers and artists, doctors and undertakers — and politicians of every kind. According to one French visitor, the Abbé Prévost, coffeehouses, "where you have the right to read all the papers for and against the government," were the "seats of English liberty."
Thomas Jordan (1612?–1685), an actor and poet, served as London city laureate from 1671 to 1685 and invented pageants for the annual lord mayor's shows.
You that delight in Wit and Mirth, and long to hear such News,
As comes from all parts of the Earth, Dutch, Danes, and Turks and Jews,
I'le send you a Rendezvous, where it is smoaking new:
Go hear it at a Coffee-house, — it cannot but be true — * * *
You shall know, there, what Fashions are; How Perrywiggs are curl'd;
And for a Penny you shall heare all Novells in the world;
Both Old and Young, and Great and Small, and Rich and Poore you'll see:
Therefore let's to the Coffee all, Come all away with me.
Evening: Pleasure Gardens
Tobias Smollett, Two Letters on Vauxhall, from Humphry Clinker
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), the last work of the famous Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett (1721–1771), takes the form of letters written by various members of a Welsh family as they travel around England and Scotland. The first letter here is written by Matthew Bramble, a curmudgeon with a heart of gold, who is anxious about his health as well as what he regards as the deteriorating state of the nation. The second letter is by his innocent niece Lydia, whose experience of the world has until recently been confined to boarding school.
The diversions of the times are not ill suited to the genius of this incongruous monster, called the public. Give it noise, confusion, glare, and glitter; it has no idea of elegance and propriety — * * * Vauxhall is a composition of baubles, overcharged with paltry ornaments, ill conceived, and poorly executed; without any unity of design, or propriety of disposition. It is an unnatural assembly of objects, fantastically illuminated in broken masses; seemingly contrived to dazzle the eyes and divert the imagination of the vulgar — Here a wooden lion, there a stone statue; in one place, a range of things like coffee-house boxes, covered a-top; in another, a parcel of ale-house benches; in a third, a puppet-shew representation of a tin cascade; in a fourth, a gloomy cave of a circular form, like a sepulchral vault half lighted; in a fifth, a scanty slip of grass-plat, that would not afford pasture sufficient for an ass's colt. The walks, which nature seems to have intended for solitude, shade, and silence, are filled with crowds of noisy people, sucking up the nocturnal rheums of an aguish climate; and through these gay scenes, a few lamps glimmer like so many farthing candles.
When I see a number of well-dressed people, of both sexes, sitting on the covered benches, exposed to the eyes of the mob; and, which is worse, to the cold, raw, night-air, devouring sliced beef, and swilling port, and punch, and cyder, I can't help compassionating their temerity, while I despise their want of taste and decorum; but, when they course along those damp and gloomy walks, or crowd together upon the wet gravel, without any other cover than the cope of Heaven, listening to a song, which one half of them cannot possibly hear, how can I help supposing they are actually possessed by a spirit, more absurd and pernicious than any thing we meet with in the precincts of Bedlam?
Matthew Bramble
I no sooner entered, than I was dazzled and confounded with the variety of beauties that rushed all at once upon my eye. Image to yourself, my dear Letty, a spacious garden, part laid out in delightful walks, bounded with high hedges and trees, and paved with gravel; part picturesque and striking objects, pavilions, lodges, groves, grottoes, lawns, temples, and cascades; porticoes, colonades, and rotundos; adorned with pillars, statues, and painting: the whole illuminated with an infinite number of lamps, disposed in different figures of suns, stars, and constellations; the place crowded with the gayest company, ranging through those blissful shades, or supping in different lodges on cold collations, enlivened with mirth, freedom, and good-humour, and by an excellent band of musick. Among the vocal performers I had the happiness to hear the celebrated Mrs. —, whose voice was so loud and so shrill, that it made my head ake through excess of pleasure.
In about half an hour after we arrived we were joined by my uncle, who did not seem to relish the place. People of experience and infirmity, my dear Letty, see with very different eyes from those that such as you and I make use of —
Lydia Melford
Once you finish the readings please take the multiple choice quiz 10 questions and send to me.
