The Merry Thought: or the Glass Window and Bog House Miscellany. Part 1
S >>
Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo] >> The Merry Thought: or the Glass Window and Bog House Miscellany. Part 1
[Transcriber's Note:
The texts cited use a variety of long and short dashes, generally with
no relationship to the number of letters omitted. For this e-text,
short dashes are shown as separated hyphens, while longer dashes are
shown as connected hyphens:
D - - - n _Molley H----ns_ for her Pride.
Groups of three vertical braces } represent a single brace
encompassing three rhymed line.]
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
The Augustan Reprint Society
THE
MERRY-THOUGHT:
or, the
Glass-Window and Bog-House
MISCELLANY.
Part I
(_1731_)
_Introduction by_
GEORGE R. GUFFEY
Publication Number _216_
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
_1982_
GENERAL EDITOR
David Stuart Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_
EDITORS
Charles L. Batten, _University of California, Los Angeles_
George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Thomas Wright, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
ADVISORY EDITORS
Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_
William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_
Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_
Earl Miner, _Princeton University_
Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_
James Sutherland, _University College, London_
Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Beverly J. Onley, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Frances M. Reed, _University of California, Los Angeles_
INTRODUCTION
For modern readers, one of the most intriguing scenes in Daniel Defoe's
_Moll Flanders_ (1722) occurs during the courtship of Moll by the man
who is to become her third husband. Aware that the eligible men of her
day have little interest in prospective wives with small or nonexistent
fortunes, Moll slyly devises a plan to keep her relative poverty a
secret from the charming and (as she has every reason to believe)
wealthy plantation owner who has fallen in love with her. To divert
attention from her own financial condition, she repeatedly suggests that
he has been courting her only for her money. Again and again he protests
his love. Over and over she pretends to doubt his sincerity.
After a series of exhausting confrontations, Moll's lover begins what is
to us a novel kind of dialogue:
One morning he pulls off his diamond ring and writes upon the glass
of the sash in my chamber this line:
You I love and you alone.
I read it and asked him to lend me the ring, with which I wrote under
it thus:
And so in love says every one.
He takes his ring again and writes another line thus:
Virtue alone is an estate.
I borrowed it again, and I wrote under it:
But money's virtue, gold is fate.[1]
After a number of additional thrusts and counterthrusts of this sort,
Moll and her lover come to terms and are married.
[Footnote 1: Daniel Defoe, _Moll Flanders_ (New York: New American
Library, 1964), pp. 71-72.]
The latter half of the twentieth century has seen a steady growth of
serious scholarly interest in graffiti. Sociologists, psychologists, and
historians have increasingly turned to the impromptu "scratchings" of
both the educated and the uneducated as indicators of the general mental
health and political stability of specific populations.[2] Although most
of us are familiar with at least a few of these studies and all of us
have observed numerous examples of this species of writing on the walls
of our cities and the rocks of our national parks, we are not likely,
before encountering this scene in _Moll Flanders_, to have ever before
come into contact with graffiti produced with such an elegant writing
implement.
[Footnote 2: For example, E. A. Humphrey Fenn, "The Writing on the
Wall," _History Today_, 19 (1969), 419-423, and "Graffiti,"
_Contemporary Review_, 215 (1969), 156-160; Terrance L. Stocker,
Linda W. Dutcher, Stephen M. Hargrove, and Edwin A. Cook, "Social
Analysis of Graffiti," _Journal of American Folklore_, 85 (1972),
356-366; Sylvia Spann, "The Handwriting on the Wall," _English
Journal_, 62 (1973), 1163-1165; Robert Reisner and Lorraine
Wechsler, _Encyclopedia of Graffiti_ (New York: Macmillan, 1974);
"Graffiti Helps Mental Patients," _Science Digest_, April, 1974,
pp. 47-48; Henry Solomon and Howard Yager, "Authoritarianism and
Graffiti," _Journal of Social Psychology_, 97 (1975), 149-150;
Carl A. Bonuso, "Graffiti," _Today's Education_, 65 (1976), 90-91;
Elizabeth Wales and Barbara Brewer, "Graffiti in the 1970's,"
_Journal of Social Psychology_, 99 (1976), 115-123; Ernest L. Abel
and Barbara E. Buckley, _The Handwriting on the Wall: Toward a
Sociology and Psychology of Graffiti_ (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press, 1977); and Marina N. Haan and Richard B. Hammerstrom,
_Graffiti in the Ivy League_ (New York: Warner Books, 1981).]
Glass being fragile and diamonds being relatively rare, it is not
surprising that few examples of graffiti produced by the method employed
by Moll and her lover are known to us today. Interestingly enough, we
do, however, have available to us a variety of Renaissance and
eighteenth-century written materials suggesting that the practice of
using a diamond to write ephemeral statements on window glass was far
less rare in those periods than we might expect. Holinshed, for example,
tells us that in 1558 when Elizabeth was released from imprisonment at
Woodstock, she taunted her enemies by writing
these verses with hir diamond in a glasse window verie legiblie as
here followeth:
Much suspected by me,
Nothing prooued can be:
Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.[3]
[Footnote 3: _Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and
Ireland_ (London, 1808), IV, 133.]
And in John Donne's "A Valediction: of my Name in the Window," we find
two lovers in a situation reminiscent of that of the scene I previously
quoted from _Moll Flanders_. Using a diamond, the poet, before beginning
an extended journey, scratches his name on a window pane in the house of
his mistress. Here is the first stanza of the poem:
My name engrav'd herein,
Doth contribute my firmnesse to this glasse,
Which, ever since that charme, hath beene
As hard, as that which grav'd it, was;
Thine eyes will give it price enough, to mock
The diamonds of either rock.[4]
While he is absent, the characters he has cut in the glass will, the
poet hopes, magically defend his mistress against the seductive
entreaties of his rivals.
[Footnote 4: John Donne, _The Elegies and the Songs and Sonnets_,
ed. Helen Gardner (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 64.]
In 1711 in a satiric letter to _The Spectator_, John Hughes poked fun at
a number of aspiring poets who had recently attempted to create works of
art by utilizing what Hughes called "Contractions or Expedients for
Wit." One Virtuoso (a mathematician) had, for example, "thrown the Art
of Poetry into a short Problem, and contrived Tables by which any one
without knowing a Word of Grammar or Sense, may to his great Comfort, be
able to compose or rather erect _Latin_ Verses." Equally ridiculous to
Hughes, and more relevant to the concerns of this introduction, was the
practice of another poet of his acquaintance: "I have known a Gentleman
of another Turn of Humour, who, despising the Name of an Author, never
printed his Works, but contracted his Talent, and by the help of a very
fine Diamond which he wore on his little Finger, was a considerable Poet
upon Glass. He had a very good Epigrammatick Wit; and there was not a
Parlour or Tavern Window where he visited or dined ... which did not
receive some Sketches or Memorials of it. It was his Misfortune at last
to lose his Genius and his Ring to a Sharper at Play; and he has not
attempted to make a Verse since."[5]
[Footnote 5: _The Spectator_, No. 220, November 12, 1711.]
But "Epigrammatick Wits" of this sort were not universally despised in
the eighteenth century. In 1727 in a "critical dissertation prefix'd" to
_A Collection of Epigrams_, the anonymous editor of the work argued that
the epigram itself "is a species of Poetry, perhaps, as old as any other
whatsoever: it has receiv'd the approbation of almost all ages and
nations...." In the book proper, he found room for a number of epigrams
which he evidently copied from London window panes. Here is an example:
CLX.
_To a Lady, on seeing some Verses in Praise of her, on a Pane of
Glass._
Let others, brittle beauties of a year,
See their frail names, and lovers vows writ here;
Who sings thy solid worth and spotless fame,
On purest adamant should cut thy name:
Then would thy fame be from oblivion sav'd;
On thy own heart my vows must be engrav'd.
One of the epigrams in this collection suggests that, unlike Moll's
lover and Hughes's poet, some affluent authors had even acquired
instruments specifically designed to facilitate the practice of writing
poetry on glass:
_Written on a Glass by a Gentleman, who borrow'd the Earl of
_CHESTERFIELD_'s Diamond Pencil._
Accept a miracle, instead of _wit_;
See two dull lines by _Stanhope's_ pencil writ.[6]
[Footnote 6: No. CCCLXXXII, in _A Collection of Epigrams. To Which
Is Prefix'd, a Critical Dissertation on This Species of Poetry_
(London, 1727).]
As the title of this epigram also suggests, window panes were not the
only surfaces considered appropriate for such writing. A favorite
alternate surface was that of the toasting glass. The practice of
toasting the beauty of young ladies had originated at the town of Bath
during the reign of Charles II. By the beginning of the eighteenth
century, the members of some social clubs had developed complex toasting
rituals which involved the inscription of the name of the lady to be
honored on a drinking glass suitable for that purpose. In 1709 an issue
of _The Tatler_ described the process in some detail:
that happy virgin, who is received and drunk to at their meetings,
has no more to do in this life but to judge and accept of the first
good offer. The manner of her inauguration is much like that of the
choice of a doge in Venice: it is performed by balloting; and when
she is so chosen, she reigns indisputably for that ensuing year; but
must be elected a-new to prolong her empire a moment beyond it. When
she is regularly chosen, her name is written with a diamond on a
drinking-glass.[7]
[Footnote 7: _The Tatler_, No. 24, June 4, 1709.]
Perhaps the most famous institution practicing this kind of ceremony in
the eighteenth century was the Kit-Kat Club. In 1716 Jacob Tonson,
a member of that club, published "Verses Written for the
Toasting-Glasses of the Kit-Kat Club" in the fifth part of his
_Miscellany_. Space limitations will not permit extensive quotations
from this collection, but the toast for Lady Carlisle is alone
sufficient to prove that complete epigrams were at times engraved upon
the drinking glasses belonging to this club:
She o'er all Hearts and Toasts must reign,
Whose Eyes outsparkle bright Champaign;
Or (when she will vouchsafe to smile,)
The Brilliant that now writes _Carlisle_.[8]
Part I of _The Merry-Thought: or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House
Miscellany_ was almost certainly published for the first time in 1731.
Arthur E. Case (_Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies_,
1521-1750) notes that this pamphlet was listed in the register of books
in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for October 1731.[9] An instant success
with the reading public, second and third editions of the pamphlet, the
third "with very Large Additions and Alterations," were also published
in 1731.[10] Because, as its title-page declared, the third and last
edition was the fullest of the three, a copy of that edition has been
chosen for reproduction here.[11]
[Footnote 8: _The Fifth Part of Miscellany Poems_, ed. Jacob Tonson
(London, 1716), p. 63.]
[Footnote 9: _A Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies,
1521-1750_ (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 275.]
[Footnote 10: Case, p. 276, points out that the second edition was
advertised in the November 13, 1731, issue of _Fog's Weekly Journal_
and that the third edition was advertised in the December 11, 1731,
issue of the same journal. Three additional parts were also
published within a year or so, see Case, pp. 276-277.]
[Footnote 11: Although, as the title-page of the third edition
advertises, the third edition does contain materials not to be found
in the second edition, it does not indicate that the second edition
itself contained materials omitted from the third edition. Among the
materials not reprinted were the following verses:
_Red-Lyon_ at _Stains_.
My Dear _Nancy P---k---r_
I sigh for her, I wish for her,
I pray for her. Alas! it is a Plague
That _Cupid_ will impose, for my Neglect
Of his Almighty, Dreadful, Little Might.
Well, will I love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan
Ah! where shall I make my Moan!
_T. S._ 1709.
_John Crumb_, a Bailiff, as he was carrying to his Grave,
occasioned the following Piece to be written upon a Window in
_Fleet-Street_, _1706_.
Here passes the Body of _John Crumb_,
When living was a Baily-Bum
T'other Day he dy'd,
And the Devil he cry'd,
Come _Jack_, come, come.
In the _Tower_.
Though Guards surround me Day and Night,
Let _Celia_ be but in my Sight,
And then they need not fear my Flight.
L. N. & G. ]
The title-page of Part I of _The Merry-Thought_ states that the contents
of the pamphlet had been taken from "Original Manuscripts written in
_Diamond_ by Persons of the first Rank and Figure in _Great Britain_"
and that they had been "Faithfully Transcribed from the Drinking-Glasses
and Windows in the several noted _Taverns_, _Inns_, and other _Publick
Places_ in this Nation. Amongst which are intermixed the Lucubrations of
the polite Part of the World, written upon Walls in Bog-houses, _&c._"
These statements suggest one of the principal leveling strategies of the
pamphlet as a whole: the nobility and the rich, whatever their
advantages otherwise, must, like the lowest amongst us, make use of
privies; and, in the process, they are just as likely as their brethren
of the lower classes to leave their marks on the walls of those
conveniences.
A number of the verses included in the pamphlet continue the leveling
process. One in particular (p. 20) adopts the principal strategy
employed on the title-page:
_From the Temple Bog-House._
No Hero looks so fierce to Fight,
As does the Man who strains to sh-te.
Others suggest that sexual relations are essentially leveling
activities. Here (p. 24) is an example:
_Toy, at Hampton-Court_, 1708.
D---n _Molley H---ns_ for her Pride,
She'll suffer none but Lords to ride:
But why the Devil should I care,
Since I can find another Mare?
_L. M. August._
Another target of the pamphlet was _The Spectator_ in general and
Addison in particular. In his dedication, J. Roberts first insists that
the graffiti in his collection are notable examples of wit.[12] He next
goes out of his way to associate the contents of _The Merry-Thought_
with _The Spectator_:
_But I may venture to say, That good Things are not always respected
as they ought to be: The People of the World will sometimes overlook
a Jewel, to avoid a T--d.... Nay, I have even found some of the
_Spectator's_ Works in a Bog-house, Companions with Pocky-Bills and
Fortune-telling Advertisements...._
[Footnote 12: Roberts was almost certainly the collector of the
graffiti printed in _The Merry-Thought_ as well as the author of the
dedication, but the dedication was itself signed with the name
"Hurlo Thrumbo." Similarly, the title-page listed Hurlo Thrumbo as
the publisher of the work. In 1729 _Hurlothrumbo: or, The
Super-Natural_, a play by a half-mad dancer and fiddler, Samuel
Johnson of Cheshire (1691-1773), had set all of London talking. The
irrational, amusing speeches and actions of Hurlothrumbo, the play's
title-character, gained instant fame, and two years later Roberts,
by attributing his collection to the labors of that celebrity, had
every reason to expect that the book would attract immediate
attention. For a detailed account of the relationship between
Johnson's play and _The Merry-Thought_, see George R. Guffey,
"Graffiti, Hurlo Thrumbo, and the Other Samuel Johnson," in _Forum:
A Journal of the Humanities and Fine Arts_ (University of Houston),
XVII (1979), 35-47.]
In a series of essays in _The Spectator_ (Nos. 58-61; May, 1711),
Addison had earlier, of course, been at pains to distinguish between
"true wit" and "false wit." Particularly abhorrent to him was the rebus.
The first part of _The Merry-Thought_ alone contains seven rebuses from
"_Drinking-Glasses, at a private Club of Gentlemen_" (pp. 12-13), as
well as several examples of other kinds of "wit" which Addison would
have disdained.
During the twenty-five years that followed the publication of the
_Merry-Thought_ series, a few additional pieces of graffiti were
published in England and America.[13] In 1761 _The New Boghouse
Miscellany_ appeared, but the contents of this book had little in common
with the _Merry-Thought_ pamphlets. Only the scatological humor of the
subtitle:
_A Companion for the Close-stool._ Consisting of Original Pieces in
Prose and Verse by several Modern Authors. Printed on an excellent
soft Paper; and absolutely necessary for all those, who read with a
View to Convenience, as well as Delight. Revised and corrected by
a Gentleman well skilled in the Fundamentals of Literature, near
Privy-Garden
and the generally anti-intellectual thrust of its preface were
reminiscent of the _Merry-Thought_ pamphlets. Not until the last half of
the twentieth century would the graffito in English receive the kind of
attention that had been paid it in England in the 1730s.
[Footnote 13: See, for example, _The Scarborough Miscellany_
(London, 1732), pp. 34, 35; _The Connoisseur_, April 11, 1754,
p. 87; _The New American Magazine_, No. 12, December, 1758.]
University of California
Los Angeles
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
_The Merry-Thought: or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany_
is reproduced from a copy of the third edition in the William
Andrews Clark Memorial Library. A typical type page (p. 20) measures
173 x 87 mm.
[Illustration:
{tavern surmounted by cherub carrying banner reading "ha! ha! ha!"}]
The
MERRY-THOUGHT:
or, the
Glass-Window and Bog-House
MISCELLANY.
Taken from
The Original Manuscripts written in _Diamond_
by Persons of the first Rank and Figure in _Great
Britain_; relating to Love, Matrimony, Drunkenness,
Sobriety, Ranting, Scandal, Politicks, Gaming,
and many other Subjects, _Serious_ and _Comical_.
Faithfully Transcribed from the Drinking-Glasses and
Windows in the several noted _Taverns_, _Inns_, and
other _Publick Places_ in this Nation. Amongst which
are intermixed the Lucubrations of the polite Part
of the World, written upon Walls in Bog-houses, _&c._
_Published by_ HURLO THRUMBO.
_Gameyorum, Wildum, Gorum,
Gameyorum a Gamy,
Flumarum a Flumarum,
A Rigdum Bollarum
A Rigdum, for a little Gamey._
Bethleham-Wall, Moor-Fields.
The Third Edition; with very Large Additions and Alterations.
_LONDON:_
Printed for J. ROBERTS in _Warwick-Lane_; and Sold by
the Booksellers in Town and Country. [Price 6 _d._]
_N. B._ Some Pieces having been inadvertently inserted in the Second
Part of this Miscellany, whoever it is that shall hereafter send any
Thing which reflects on the Character, &c. of any Person, whether it
be a Nobleman, or a Link-Boy, shall receive no Favour from our Hands.
The
DEDICATION
To The
Honourable and Worthy Authors
of the following Curious Pieces.
Gentlemen and Ladies,
_Would it not be great Pity, that the profound Learning and Wit of so
many illustrious Personages, who have favoured the Publick with their
Lucubrations in Diamond Characters upon _Drinking-Glasses_, on
_Windows_, on _Walls_, and in _Bog-houses_, should be left to the World?
Consider only, Gentlemen and Ladies, how many Accidents might rob us of
these sparkling Pieces, if the industrious Care of the Collector had not
taken this Way of preserving them, and handing them to Posterity. In the
first Place, some careless Drawer breaks the Drinking-Glasses inscribed
to the Beauties of our Age; a furious Mob at an Election breaks the
Windows of a contrary Party; and a cleanly Landlord must have, forsooth,
his Rooms new painted and white-wash'd every now and then, without
regarding in the least the Wit and Learning he is obliterating, or the
worthy Authors, any more than when he shall have their Company: But I
may venture to say, That good Things are not always respected as they
ought to be: The People of the World will sometimes overlook a Jewel, to
avoid a T--d, though the Proverb says, _Sh - tt - n Luck is good Luck_.
Nay, I have even found some of the _Spectator_'s Works in a Bog-house,
Companion with Pocky-Bills and Fortune-telling Advertisements; but now,
as Dr. _R----ff_ said, _You shall live_; and I dare venture to affirm,
no Body shall pretend to use any of your bright Compositions for
Bum-Fodder, but those who pay for them. I am not in this like many other
Publishers, who make the Works of other People their own, without
acknowledging the Piracy they are guilty of, or so much as paying the
least Complement to the Authors of their Wisdom: No, Gentlemen and
Ladies, I am not the Daw in the Fable, that would vaunt and strut in
your Plumes. And besides, I know very well you might have me upon the
Hank according to Law, and treat me as a Highwayman or Robber; for you
might safely swear upon your Honours, that I had stole the whole Book
from your recreative Minutes. But I am more generous; I am what you may
call Frank and Free; I acknowledge them to be _YOURS_, and now publish
them to perpetuate the Memory of your Honours Wit and Learning: But as
every one must have something of Self in him, I am violently flattered,
that my Character will shine like the Diamonds you wrote with, under
your exalted Protection, to the End of Time. I am not like your common
Dedicators, who fling out their Flourishes for the sake of a Purse of
Guineas on their Dedicatees; No, Gentlemen and Ladies, all I desire is,
that you will receive this kindly, though I have not put Cuts to it, and
communicate what sublime Thoughts you may chance to meet with to the
Publisher, _J. Roberts_, in _Warwick-Lane_, Post paid, for_
Your Most Humble,
Most Obedient,
Most Obsequious,
Most Devoted,
And Most Faithful Servant,
HURLO THRUMBO.
THE
MERRY-THOUGHT.
PART I.
_Madam Catherine Cadiere's Case opened, against Father Girard's powerful
Injunction. In a Window at Maidenhead._
My dearest _Kitty_, says the _Fryar_, }
Give me a holy Kiss, and I'll retire, }
Which Kiss set all his Heart on Fire. }
He had no Rest that Night, but often cry'd, }
Z - - - nds, my dear _Kitty_ shall be occupy'd; }
I'll lay aside my Rank, I will not be deny'd. }
To-morrow I'll try her,
Said the Fryar;
And so he went to her,
And did undoe her,
By making her cry out for Mercy;
And then he kiss'd her _Narsey-Parsey_.
_L. F._ 1731.
_Underwritten._
Dear _Kitty_ could never have suffered Disgrace, }
If whilst the old Fryar was kissing her A - - - se, }
She'd pull'd up her Spirits, and sh - - t in his Face. }
_From an hundred Windows._
That which frets a Woman most,
Is when her Expectation's crost.
_Sun behind the Exchange._
_To Mr. _D-----b_, on his being very hot upon Mrs. _N. S._ _1714_._
When the Devil would commit a Rape.
He took upon him _Cupid_'s Shape:
When he the Fair-One met, at least,
They kiss'd and hugg'd, or hugg'd and kiss'd;
But she in amorous Desire,
Thought she had _Cupid_'s Dart,
But got Hell Fire,
And found the Smart.
_N. B._ And then the Surgeon was sent for.
_From the White-Hart at Acton._
_Kitty_ the strangest Girl in Life,
For any one to make a Wife;
Her Constitution's cold, with warm Desire,
She kisses just like Ice and Fire.