1740
(1740)
Introduction by
Ian Gordon
PUBLICATION NUMBER 153
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
1972
GENERAL EDITORS
William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles
ADVISORY EDITORS
Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles
Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
James Sutherland, University College, London
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Curt A. Zimansky, State University of Iowa
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Jean T. Shebanek, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
INTRODUCTION
The two pamphlets reproduced here belong to the fierce heightening inthe pamphlet campaign against Robert Walpole that took place at the endof 1740. They represent only two efforts within a brief but furiousencounter that gave rise to the publication of no fewer than nineseparate poems. On Thursday, 23 October 1740, Thomas Cooper, "one of themost prolific printers and publishers of the pamphlet literature of theeighteenth century," 1 published a savage denunciation of Walpolecalled Are these things so? 2 This pamphlet, which took the fictionalform of an open letter from Alexander Pope, "An Englishman in hisGrotto," to Robert Walpole, "A Great Man at Court," set off a round ofverse writing among the party hacks of the day that vividly illustratesthe close relationship between literature and politics in the first halfof the eighteenth century. Within the space of two months eight furtherpamphlets directly related to this pamphlet and to Walpole's position asFirst Minister were published. Such a spate of literary activity is onlyremarkable, however, when compared with other ages. While it isinconceivable that the publication of any poem in our own day, even by amajor writer, should arouse such a response, it is reasonably typical ofthe first half of the eighteenth century that the publication of anoccasional poem by a minor, indeed anonymous, writer should do so.