Skip to main content

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
Cancel
×
×
Home
  • Home
Article
  • Cited by 1
  • Cited by
    Crossref Citations
    Crossref logo
    This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by CrossRef.
    Selinger, William 2014. Patronage and Revolution: Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and His Theory of Legislative Corruption. The Review of Politics, Vol. 76, Issue. 01, p. 43.
    ×
  • Get access
    Add to cart USD25.00
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    Log in Register Recommend to librarian

Swift and Bolingbroke on Faction

  • Pat Rogers
Extract

The text for this essay comes from Sir Lewis Namier. “One has to steep oneself in the political life of a period,” so the decree reads, “before one can safely speak, or be sure of understanding, its language.” This article is an attempt to supply, not a complete grammar of Augustan politics, but a minor lexicographical entry. Historians sometimes talk as though the most urgent need were for an advanced glossary. The assumption behind this essay is that a more elementary gradus is required. The two key words under review, “party” and “faction,” have always occupied neighbouring berths in the British synonymy. Unfortunately, in the eighteenth-century vocabulary of politics, they became overlapping concepts. Or rather — this is the trouble — they sometimes merged, partially or completely; sometimes they did not; and sometimes they were even employed as antonymous terms. Examples of all these contrary applications are found in the work of Swift and Bolingbroke. As with other lexicographical enquiries, then, usage and abusage must be considered, as well as the simple dictionary definition of these terms.

I

Edmund Burke is still, in some quarters, valued more highly as a prophet than as a political thinker. His forecasts of the likely course of the Revolution have brought him a reputation for the occult among those who hold his moral views in little esteem, even though he may be regarded, most unfairly, as a sorcerer's apprentice who was engulfed by his own charmed vision.

Copyright
COPYRIGHT: © North American Conference of British Studies 1970
References
Hide All

1. SirNamier, Lewis, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd ed.; London, 1957), p. xi; see also Butterfield, Herbert, George III and the Historians (London, 1957), p. 201.

2. In some respects this essay might be regarded as a minor appendix to Boulton, J. T., The Language of Politics in the Age of Wilkes and Burke (London, 1963). I have, however, confined my attention to a number of verbal clues which illuminate certain political categories; I have not considered wider habits of language as an index of literary or rhetorical intention, as Boulton does.

3. See, e.g., Foord, A. S., His Majesty's Opposition 1714–1830 (Oxford, 1964), esp. pp. 113–216; Kluxen, Kurt, Das Problem der Politischen Opposition (Freiburg, 1956), passim; Butterfield, Herbert, The Statecraft of Machiavelli (London, 1940), pp. 135–65; Hart, Jeffrey, Viscount Bolingbroke, Tory Humanist (London, 1965), passim; Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr., Statesmanship and Party Government (Chicago, 1965), passim; Pope, Alexander, An Essay on Man, ed. Mack, Maynard (London, 1950), pp. xxvi–xxxi. A more recent work is Kramnick, Isaac, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cambridge, Mass., 1968). This reached me too late to be used in this article.

4. For a modern distinction between older “factions” and emergent “parties,” see Plumb, J. H., The First Four Georges (London, 1956), p. 78.

5. For a relevant survey, which needs some correction in the light of more recent knowledge, see Realey, C. B., The Early Opposition to Sir Robert Walpole 1720-1727 (Lawrence, Kan., 1931), ch. ii, “Parties and Factions in 1721.”

6. The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (London, 1852), III, 141.

7. Mansfield, , Statesmanship, p. 11. I am indebted to my colleague, Derek Beales, for drawing my attention to this work, as well as for the loan of his personal copy.

8. Mallet, David (ed.), The Works of the Late Right Honourable Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke (London, 1754), III, 37.

9. Ibid., III, 81.

10. Cicero, , De Re Publica, De Legibus, tr. Keyes, Clinton W. (London, 1951), pp. 154–220.

11. Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times ([London], 1714), pp. 113–14.

12. Murphy, Arthur (ed.), The Works of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D. (London, 1824), VIII, 147.

13. Toland, John, The Art of Governing by Partys (London, 1701), pp. 9, 41, 44, 116 ff., 141.

14. Mallet, , Works of Bolingbroke, III, 11, 18–21, 29–31. It is worth recalling that the phrase “His Majesty's Opposition” dates from as late as 1826 and that Johnson records no political sense of the word “opposition” in his dictionary. Carswell, John, The Old Cause (London, 1954), p. 20. See also Bolingbroke's remarks on an earlier “Factions Cabal” in his Letter to the Examiner (1710).

15. Mallet, , Works of Bolingbroke, III, 82–100.

16. Ibid., III, 92, 101, 134-37.

17. Swift's well-known confession that he was thoroughly disenchanted by the squabbles between the Earl of Oxford and Bolingbroke occurs in his poem, “The Author upon Himself.” See Williams, Harold (ed.), The Poems of Jonathan Swift (Oxford, 1937), I, 191–96.

18. Bagehot, Walter, Biographical Studies (London, 1902), ch. v, “Bolingbroke as a Statesman,” p. 185.

19. It would be illuminating to compare Bolingbroke's exploitation of recognized clichés with that of, for example, Samuel Johnson. See Wimsatt, W. K., “Scientific Imagery in The Rambler,” in Samuel Johnson: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Greene, D. J. (Englewood Cliffs, 1965), p. 145; Mallet, , Works of Bolingbroke, II, 29, 165, 251.

20. Ibid., II, 54, 89, 114. Pope, too, refers to “a tide of malice and party” in a letter to Thomas Parnell of 1717. Sherburn, George (ed.), The Correspondence of Alexander Pope (Oxford, 1956), I, 395. Burke similarly speaks of the favourite principle of disunion as “a distrust, a disconnexion, a mutability by principle.” See Boulton, , Language of Politics, p. 55.

21. Mallet, , Works of Bolingbroke, II, 167, 70.

22. Ibid., II, 14, 72.

23. Ibid., II, 33, 52, 68, 91, 108.

24. Ibid., II, 78, 68-69, 145.

25. Hart, , Bolingbroke, p. 148.

26. The Works of Sir William Temple Bt. (London, 1750), I, 256.

27. Waldegrave, Earl, Memoirs from 1754 to 1758 (London, 1821), p. 20. Cf. the comments of Brooke, John, “Party in the Eighteenth Century,” in Silver Renascence, ed. Natan, Alex (London, 1961), p. 27.

28. Davis, Herbert (ed.), The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift (Oxford, 1939–1968), III, 69; Burke, , Works, III, 132. Cf. Burke's mention to Lord Rockingham of “the Bedfords, the Grenvilles, and other knots, who are combined for no publick purpose; but only as a means of furthering with joint strength, their private and individual advantage.” Sutherland, Lucy (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke (Cambridge and Chicago, 1960), II, 101.

29. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, II, 11.

30. Ibid., III, 167-68; Hurd, Richard (ed.), The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison (London, 1811), VI, 123–26.

31. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, III, 97–98, 13–18.

32. Ibid., III, 122. The importance of two images utilized here — clothes and “fabric” — in eighteenth-century writing has been brought out by Fussell, Paul, The Rhetorical World of Augustan Humanism (Oxford, 1965).

33. Sutherland, , Correspondence of Burke, II, 101.

34. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, III, 123–24.

35. Ibid., III, 102-03. The idea of a mythological genealogy of faction was not new. See the opening of [Sackville Tufton], The History of Faction (London, 1705), where Rebellion and Self-Interest are the parents. Similarly, William Shippen's “Faction Displayed” refers to “Faction, a restless and repining Fiend … offspring to Chaos, Enemy to Form.” See A New Collection of Poems (London, 1705), p. 570. In John Bull, by Dr. Arbuthnot, Discordia is the daughter of Mrs. Bull (Parliament).

36. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, III, 104.

37. To take a single instance, the Whig author, John Oldmixon, makes scathing reference to Robert Harley's apostacy from the sound principles of his ancestors; in addition, Oldmixon presents Harley as socially ambitious and a pretender to taste. See the following works by Oldmixon, John: Memoirs of Wharton (London, 1715), pp. 10–11; Memoirs of North Britain (London, 1715), p. 25; False Steps of the Ministry (London, 1714), p. 25; The History of England (London, 1735), pp. 34, 122, 208, 219, 461; The Secret History of Europe (London, 1715), IV, 71. On Sir Richard Steele's exploitation of the same line of attack, see Winton, Calhoun, Captain Steele (Baltimore, 1964), p. 193.

38. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, III, 92.

39. de Thoyras, Paul Rapin, The History of England, tr. Tindal, N. (2nd ed.; London, 1733), II, 805.

40. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, III, 75.

41. For an examination of the mutual relationship of the two journals, see Rogers, Pat, “The Whig Controversialist as Dunce” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1967).

42. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, III, 158–59, 160.

43. Williams, Harold (ed.), The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift (Oxford, 1963–1965), IV, 230.

44. Sherburn, , Correspondence of Pope, I, 220. To rail against party was, of course, a universal sport at this epoch, as it has been in every age. Daniel Defoe, who was scarcely a Tory humanist, was anxious to absolve himself from the charge of writing for party in the Mercator. See Novak, Maximilian E., Economics and the Fiction of Daniel Defoe (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962), p. 28. Gay was another writer who professed to care not “one Farthing” for a man's politics. Burgess, C. F. (ed.), The Letters of John Gay (Oxford, 1966), p. xvi.

45. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, III, 64–65; Wright, H. B. and Spears, M. K. (eds.), The Literary Works of Matthew Prior (Oxford, 1959), I, 597; Hurd, , Works of Addison, VI, 32–37.

46. Davis, , Prose Works of Swift, VIII, 77; Williams, , Correspondence of Swift, II, 369.

47. Sherburn, , Correspondence of Pope, IV, 144.

48. Hume, David, Essays Moral, Political and Literary (London, 1904), p. 57; Price, Martin, Swift's Rhetorical Art (New Haven, 1953), p. 1. It is worthy of notice that Lord Cowper, on the other hand, stressed the reality of the ideological cleavage. See his “Impartial History of Parties” in Campbell, John Lord, Lives of the Lord Chancellors (London, 1846), IV, 427. Cowper wrote ca. 1714.

49. Douglas, David, English Scholars 1660–1730 (2nd ed.; London, 1951), p. 14; Feiling, Keith, The Second Tory Party 1714–1832 (London, 1938), p. 2.

50. Hughes, John, Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1735), II, 343–45.

Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

Journal of British Studies
  • ISSN: 0021-9371
  • EISSN: 1545-6986
  • URL: /core/journals/journal-of-british-studies
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *

CAPTCHA *

Skip to the audio challenge
×

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 7 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 76 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 12th June 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Cancel
Confirm
×