Talk:The Covent-Garden Journal

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The more I read of Claude Rawson on Fielding, the less I like. He wants to say that people responding to Fielding's defense of Amelia prevented HF from writing another novel? Is he aware that HF only had 3 more years to live, that he was in horrible health? Has he read Battestin's biography? Battestin has a very different view. Painting Fielding as a blushing flower (when he had been in a huge battle with Samuel Foote at the same time) is peculiar. Utgard Loki (talk) 14:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rawson in general is a little peculiar. You should see some of the stuff that he wrote about Christopher Smart. The Freudian fantasizing is rather strange. I contacted AD and offered some more sources - I have 8 major ones that deal with this topic, so it would provide a more neutralizing force to some of the more strange POVs found in works like Rawson. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've got the Battestin biography, but it has its own limitations. Nevertheless, a clever person knows how to use a source and not repeat its interpretations. It's in the Battestin biography that I read about the battle with Foote conducted in the pages of the CGJ. If he's using it to fight, as he certainly was, as he certainly had in The Champion, as prior authors certainly had with The Guardian, then the idea that self-promotion and self-defense are exceptional is absolutely unimaginable. I can't believe anyone who accused him of it was sincere or that he could have taken the charge seriously, much less that it could have kept him from writing another novel. It's somewhat more likely that he didn't have a topic during the years that he was devoting 100% of his time to the Bow Street Runners, 100% of his fortune to John Fielding and compiling judicial reform, and while he was getting sicker and sicker. Rawson is... wrong. Utgard Loki (talk) 16:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as the new background section reveals, Fielding was writing the journal before Amelia was published. That shows that Fielding was returning to short parody, journalism, and the rest for a while. He died shortly after, so no one can legitimately claim where he would have gone next. His death was very unfortunate for someone like Christopher Smart (who probably could have used Fielding's help, in terms of journalism and other problems). But to be more direct - no one knows what could have happened if he would have lived. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Utgard Loki has a point about Fielding's reasons for not writing another novel; the statement in the article pertaining to that may need an additional ref, or perhaps we should say something like "Rawson (2007) contends that..." if it is a fringe view. It'll be interesting to see what sources Ottava comes up with and what they have to say. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 10:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The spelling ("humor" and not "humour") is per Battestin and Battestin p. 492. I haven't found the quote in any other source. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Pagliaro, Harold. Henry Fielding: A Literary Life. New York: St Martin's Press, 1998.

30 James Harris (1709-1780) - "Harris and Fielding were close for the rest of Fielding's life. He contributed to Fielding's Covent-Garden Journal and True Patriot [...]"

45 "The years between 1750 and his voyage to Lisbon in June 1754 were full. Despite increasing problems of health, Fielding was intensely busy with the magistracy; a business venture with his half-brother John [...] the publication of The Covent-Garden Journal, a twice-weekly paper which, although intended to solicit customers for the brokerage business, took on a life of its own; the completion of his last novel, Amelia; and other matters."

189 Discussion on the Universal Register Office - "a commercial go-between by listing, for a fee, buyers and sellers, servants in need of work and prospective employers, tutors and pupils, and numerous others in need of information that would enable business transactions." By-product of it was the Journal - "a periodical that had a run of 72 issues from 4 January until 25 November 1752, being published on Tuesdays and Saturdays until 4 July, and from that time on Saturday only until the end of the run." - used to advertise the Universal Register Office. Allowed Fielding "to speak in a moral voice on social and moral issues [...] The voice is typically witty and learned, and though it generally steers clear of politics, is highly topical, 'strikingly rooted in the everyday life of mid-century London and unusually reflective of the most circumstantial details of the contemporary scene'." (internal quote from pp. xxxii-xxxiii B. A. Goldgar (ed.) The Covent-Garden Journal and A Plan of the Universal Register Office. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan UP, 1988)

189-190 1/4 of the issues "include a section entitled 'Proceedings at the Court of Censorial Enquiry' - Fielding uses this in his 9th issue to defend Amelia and "promises to write no more novels" (189). The section and events are "comically treated" (190).

190 The journal "registers the deep sense of something profoundly wrong with the taste of the age, which for Fielding signified that something was profoundly wrong with the morality of the age, with its faulted perception of the human condition, and its wasteful use of life. Despite its Scriblerian manner - its irony and humour - the Journal, like his late work generally, reveals Fielding's deep concern with the ways of the world."

Will add more from other sources soon. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:00, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Nokes, David. "Jonathan Wild" in Henry Fielding ed Harold Bloom, 205-220. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.

215-215 "His works are full of examples of characters making euphemistic use of such terms to convert them from moral absolutes to social conveniences. In his Covent Garden Journal he provided a "Modern Glossary" of the new meanings that such words had acquired in fashionable society: 'honour' = duelling; 'learning' = pedantry; 'a patriot' = 'a candidate for a place at court,' and 'politics' = 'the art of getting such a place,' 'worth' amounts to no more than 'power, rank, wealth,' and 'wisdom,' correspondingly, 'the art of acquiring all three.' The irony here follows the Scriblerian axioms of The Art of Sinking in Poetry, which it is stated that 'every man is honourable, who is so by law, custom or title.' In other words, members of the House of Commons [...] are most honourable."

• Guest, Harriet. Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750-1810. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

25 "Henry Fielding, for example, in The Covent-Garden Journal, mocks the attempts of the fashionable 'to preserve their circle safe and inviolate ... against any intrusion of those who they are pleased to call the vulgar.' He suggests that they are obliged to continue to favor the hoop petticoat because it has been 'found impossible ... to slide with it behind a counter.' But the point of his satire is to emphasize the permeability of distinctions of station within the middle classes, and between them and a nobility distinguished by no more than the absurdities of fashionable excess."

• Mace, Nancy. Henry Fielding's Novels and the Classical Tradition Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996.

43 "In the Covent-Garden Journal he also gave English renditions of virtually all the mottoes and frequently translated the lengthy anecdotes from historians that he used in his periodicals. Merely by their number, these translations suggest that Fielding was actively involved in making classical authors available to English audiences, thus demonstrating his skill in ancient languages, his reading in classics, and his efforts to be numbered among the more learned of his fellow authors."

"he variously classifies his English translations of the mottoes in the Covent-Garden Journal as 'paraphrases' or 'modernizations.' For example, Tom Telltruth quotes a passage from Horace, which, he tells Drawncansir, he will render in English 'after your paraphrastical Manner.' These 'paraphrases' reveal how well Fielding understood his originals, because they require a more thorough understanding of the author's essential meaning than is necessitated by a more literal translation."

45 "While discussing the origins of slander, he says, 'This is that malignant Temper which Horace attributes to the Vulgar, when he says he despises them (Covent-Garden Journal, no. 14 [18 February 1752]: 101). In no. 33 he renders the phrase 'I hate profane Rascals,' in introducing a description of a young tradesman in the country who acts like a buffoon. Finally, in n. 49 the phrase, now become 'I hate the Mob,' leads off an essay on the power of crowds in London. In each instance Fielding has changed the emphasis to suit his purpose but has remained partly faithful to the Latin original, thereby demonstrating that he knew his Latin well enough to exploit it skillfully."

• Wright, Lynn and Newman, Donald. Fair Philosopher. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2006.

47 "'The Covent-Garden Journal casts the widest net of the group but still insists on its own structural integrity, repeatedly allowing the personal of 'Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain' to demonstrate the breadth of his interest as well as the force of his wit. More aggressively than he had done in his earlier periodicals, Fielding here makes wit (or liveliness, or urbanity) a distinguishing, thus unfifying, aspect of the publication. He declares his hostility to 'dullness' - wit-pummeling miscellaneousness as well as dry-as-dust pendantry?- in the inagural number. 'I do promise, as far as in me lies,' he writes, 'to avoid with the utmost Care all Kind of Encroachment on that spacious Fielding, in which my ... Contemporaries have such large and undoubted Possessions; and which, from Time immemorial, hath been called the Land of DULLNESS.' Fielding doesn't catalog the inhabitants of 'the Land of DULLNESS,' but it would not be strange to find Philo-Naturae and his caterpillars among them."

• Full works to look at -
• Arthur Murphy's edition of the Journal
• Edition of the Journal
• Edition of the Journal
• Cross's commentary on the Journal
• Lawrence's commentary on the Journal
• Keightly's commentary on the Journal
• Henley's commentary on the Journal

I got the Kensington Press reprint (no apparatus, just PD reprints) and have been typing it into WikiSource. Issue #1 is up now: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Covent-Garden_Journal

Utgard Loki (talk) 13:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've made some changes; but thanks for getting it started, it'll be very useful. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's important, I think, especially in light of the above, to see how consciously Fielding is echoing Pope's Dunciad and calling to mind Swift's Tale (the Mountebank at Leicester Fields) with what has to be only the second or third usage of "lucubrations" in the century. It's a very Scriblerian performance, and it's superbly rhetorical rather than specifically political. I'm not sure how the critics above read specific barbs into it except by having fevers. Utgard Loki (talk) 13:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You know, archive.org has djvu files that can be uploaded enmasse onto Wikisource and allow you to have your text next to images of the pages if you want. :) I think you may find this interesting as an example (it is a volume of his plays). :) Ottava Rima (talk) 15:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Issue #1 is now complete, and having completed it, I'm wondering just how far critics have been going in their reading of the J. I mean, the "paper war" is in issue #1! It's just a revival of Swift's Battle of the Books, which had been kept alive by Thomas Cooke (author) in his "Battel of the Poets," but all of which is a reiteration of William Temple's spat in Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning, which had been reply to Fontenelle's French pamphlet of 1692, and the battle trope is all from Le Lutrin, anyway. I.e. the only thing odd is that the dunces felt like self-identifying and fighting back, which is something we can see in James Ralph (Fielding's friend's) The Case of the Authors. It's a funny time. Utgard Loki (talk) 18:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Paper War page goes into that some, along with Hill's claim that Fielding set up the dispute just to promote his journal. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• That would have been silly, though. The pose of anti-Grub street was 1) not new, 2) not new to Fielding (Grub Street Journal, after all), 3) only a rhetorical flourish. It's cliche more than anything else, and the very figure of Alexander Drawcansir is rather like Captain Richard Steele mixed with All-Man-Sir (Almanzor). In other words, it's thoroughly backward looking. What might be remarkable, what might have provoked a war, what might be interesting, is if Fielding fell out with his City whig friends. This is a matter of contention. There is evidence all over his writings for it, but there is little evidence in letters, and biographers either take it on faith or deny it on faith. It is, though, absolutely peculiar that anyone would take a fellow seriously who says that he's going to fight Swift's 1696 battle or Pope's 1738 battle in 1752, especially if he doesn't have any names to go with that call. Now, had Number 1 actually named an enemy or party or faction... then we'd have a manufactured fight. Compared to the manufactured quarrels that people like Curll used to do, this just doesn't hold water. Utgard Loki (talk) 12:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh, I see that he picks on the coffee houses where certain people would hang out. Meh. That's old hat. Then, though, in #2, he goes after Smollett's novels pretty particularly. For that matter, though, Smollett was a regular pugilist. He had a famous war with Sterne, too. Smollett, being a journalist, had a war with nearly everyone who held a pen. Utgard Loki (talk) 11:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone know how to do interwiki links smoothly? For example, over at WikiSource, I've done #6. Well, in #6, he mentions a very, very little discussed individual, Anne Dodd. Wikipedia has an article on her (I checked) that says she's mentioned in CGJ #6. Wouldn't it be groovy to have a link, in the Wikipedia article, to the WikiSource issue where she's mentioned, but only if it doesn't mean doing one of those [ big long web address here ] things. Utgard Loki (talk) 13:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted the general ws link posting to the index of numbers. It's easy as pie to insert interwiki links. If you want to format it inline like an internal link, the general form is [[wikisource:FULLPAGENAME|display text]]; and if you want to generally link to a page, {{wikisource|FULLPAGENAME}} is the template. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I normally just do [[s:name|Name]]. You can see how this was used in the footnotes of Prometheus Unbound (Shelley). Ottava Rima (talk) 13:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

About a month ago

The journal ran multiple reviews and advertised many works. Among these is an advertisement and a favourable review of The Female Quixote, a novel by Fielding's friend Charlotte Lennox. He also promoted his friend Charles Macklin's two-act comic play The Covent Garden Theatre, or Paquin Turn'd Drawcansir, a work based on Fielding. The journal was devoted to promoting Fielding's views on morality through wit, and Fielding made his opinion known on many works, including an attack on the works of Rabelais and Aristophanes while praising Jonathan Swift, Cervantes, and Lucian as a "great Triumvirate". He viewed himself as the censor of public taste and sought to attack "Dullness", which resulted in a paper war started between various writers. Of other works that he praised and promoted including paintings by Hogarth, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, poetry by Edward Young, and others. In theatre, Fielding promoted plays involving the actors David Garrick, James Lacy, and others.^[1]

Within the journal, Fielding would sometimes criticize political figures while avoiding politics. In the 7 March 1752 issue, Fielding recalled an incident that occurred back on 20 April 1731 where he witnessed the last showing of The Highland-Fair, a comical opera created by Joseph Mitchell. To Fielding, Mitchell was a fawning follower of Walpole and writer in support of the British government, and his opera:^[2] "intended to display the comical Humours of the Highlanders; the Audience, who had for three Nights together sat staring at each other, scarce knowing what to make of their Entertainment, on the fourth joined in an unanimous exploding Laugh. This they had continued through an Act, whent he Author, who unhappily mistook the Peels of Laughter which he heard for Applause, went up to Mr. Wils, and, with an Air of Triumph, said — Deel o' my Sal, Sare, they begin to tauk the Humour at last".^[3]

Fielding also used the criticism in the journal for personal reasons. In the ninth number of The Journal for 25 January 1752, Fielding used a section entitled "Proceedings at the Court of Censorial Enquiry" to respond criticism lodged against his novel Amelia. The article is used to place the critics on trial and Fielding argued against complaints about the novel being too moral, a lack of spirit within Amelia's character, and Amelia's lack of a nose, along with some other complaints.^[4] The character Counsellor Town, summed up the criticism as: "the whole Book is a Heap of sad Stuff, Dulness, and Nonsense; that it contains no Wit, Humour, Knowledge of human Nature, or of the World; indeed, that the Fable, moral Character, Manners, Sentiments, and Diction, are all alike bad and contemptible."^[5]

The trial continued until the next issue, 28 January 1752, with Fielding's defense of the work. ^[6] "If you, Mr. Censor, are yourself a Parent, you will view me with Compassion when I declare I am the Father of this poor Girl the Prisoner at the Bar; nay, when I go father, and avow, that of all my Offspring she is my favourite Child. I can truly say that I bestowed a more than ordinary Pains in her Education [...] I do not think my Child is entirely free from Faults. I know nothing human that is so; but surely she doth not deserve the Rancour with which she hath been treated by the Public."^[7] Eventually, he promised "to write no more novels".^[8] Fielding biographer Harold Pagliaro claims that sections such as these are to be "comically treated".^[9] However, Amelia was his last novel.^[10]

• Add reference Fielding, Henry. The Covent Garden Journal. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1915.

Proposed. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:16, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AD reckons that this overloads the article. I disagree, so I've added most of it back in (leaving out only the commentary on The Highland Fair which seemed a little weak as a demonstration of Fielding's witty approach to political commentary).

Yomangani^talk 15:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

I added some descriptives in order to try and clarify who the people are and hopefully solve any of the problems AD found. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AD - The quote could stand by removing the first section and stating that Fielding claimed the work as his child. Then, this could be followed with the quote minus the "If you, Mr. Censor, are yourself a Parent, you will view me with Compassion when I declare I am the Father of this poor Girl the Prisoner at the Bar". Also, why was Richardson's Clarissa removed from the praise? The journal does praise it. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 17:59, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose that's possible. I removed Clarissa because it was a category error: "Fielding praised the work of ... Richardson's Clarissa...". Plus, I'm sure Fielding praised many individual works; why is Clarissa notable? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you need to slash the quote; it certainly isn't a random selection, and it shows the depth of Fielding's attachment to his work. There is nothing wrong with letting Fielding speak for himself in the article. The "other works" sentence needs looking at; the inclusion of "Richardson's Clarissa" is not a category error, though eliding the sentence can make it seem as if it is, and, while it may still be correct, the information given in that sentence has departed from Ottava's original above. The original promotion is gone (the conclusion I draw now is that he both praised and promoted all the works listed), Hogarth's works have become Hogarth's "paintings", "poetry by Edward Young" (a subset) has become "the poetry of Edward Young" (his entire oeuvre). The final part of the sentence: "plays featuring David Garrick and James Lacy, among others" drops "promoted" and changes "involving" to "featuring" which may not be the case, as theatre-managers Garrick and Lacy may have been involved in other capacities; Ottava's original does say "actors" though, and while this is true for Garrick, as far as I recall Lacy was only ever a stage manager (though if somebody wants to knock out an article on him, I'm quite happy to be corrected).

Yomangani^talk 10:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

I'll agree with everything you've said, except for Clarissa. The listing was "the work of". An individual work is not compatible, and I'm not seeing the incentive to change the sentence so that we're mentioning individual works that were praised. As I say, a periodical that ran for almost a year would have reviewed (and, by extension, praised) a great number of works, so a mention of Clarissa is strange and unjustified (correct me if I'm wrong). The rest is minor but fair; I certainly had never considered the Young subset idea and the difference between "involving" and "featuring". —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the formulation "the work of Hogarth, Richardson's Clarissa...", "the work of" refers Hogarth's work, not the whole list, though I don't think we've ever had that formulation. The phrasing from which you dropped Clarissa was "Other works that Fielding praised and promoted includ[ed]", Clarissa there was just an example of a work (as was "poetry by Edward Young"). It may have been better phrased as "Richardson's Clarissa, the work of Hogarth, poetry by Edward Young...", but that would mean reintroducing Clarissa (which I don't think is such a bad thing - it is a work that is still well-known today, while I imagine that many of the reviewed works are now obscure). I see you swapped the sentence back and I agree with your edit summary: it is more awkward; ideally Ottava will be able to consult his sources to clarify and allow a more elegant rewording.

Yomangani^talk 13:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply

]

Clarissa was the greatest novel (at least in terms of length) at the time. It was also written by Fielding's rival. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've re-added it. How do we think this is looking? Almost ready for GAN? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Amelia image is on the left and formatting against a blockquote. The blockquote will have to be turned into a regular quote (as it is small enough) or Amelia will have to be moved up (to the paragraph above). The MoS doesn't like the blockquotes formatting against images, as it causes errors. Beyond that, I think it is fine. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]