University of Virginia Library

I. "The Norfolk Lanthorn" (July 1728)

On Saturday, 20 July 1728, The Craftsman published a rousing little ballad contributed by an anonymous correspondent who, having just returned to town from a visit to Houghton, Sir Robert Walpole's country house in Norfolk, was moved to commemorate in song one of the most conspicuous of the many sumptuous furnishings with which the minister had adorned his "great Palace." The object that he so particularly admired was a large copper-gilt lantern for eighteen candles which hung in the hall.[1] "The Norfolk Lanthorn," as the poet called it, seemed a fit emblem for the minister's peculiar way of letting his light shine before men, as it were—declaring

in its hugeness and opulence both the poverty of his taste and the riches he was amassing at the expense of his country.

As slight and playful a thing as it was, the ballad nevertheless struck a nerve. Angry replies appeared at once in the ministerial press. "Veritas" in the Daily Journal (24 July) protested that, in comparing Houghton with Hampton Court and Whitehall, the poet said the thing that was not: it is not a large house, he insisted, and in its excellent construction and design "has the Air of Magnificence of the great Minister, join'd with the Moderation of a very wise one . . . ." On the following Saturday (27 July) the London Journal published "A New BALLAD" in "Answer to the Ballad in last Saturday's Craftsman, call'd, the Norfolk Lanthorn . . . ." And in a leader in the British Journal of the same date "Roger Manley" used the occasion to denounce the Opposition for abusing the liberty of the press in personal libels against the minster: "Men must be treated as being what they are; and we cannot but despise the little paultry Jingles of a certain Writer on a certain Lanthorn . . . ." That Fielding at about this time had "libelled" Walpole "personally in a Satyr" was also, we will recall, the charge of the author of An Historical View.

Indeed, the satiric verses in The Craftsman caught the public fancy to such an extent that a half-century later Horace Walpole, remarking in his copy of Chesterfield's Miscellaneous Works on a reference to Houghton, could declare with some annoyance:

However unfairly the Opposition writers may have represented the lantern's size, it continued to epitomize (depending on one's political point of view) the Patriots' case against the Minister, or the Minister's case against the Patriots' abuse of the press. In 1729, for example, when Richard Savage sought to typify the hireling scribblers of the Opposition, he had "Iscariot Hackney" freely confess to writing "the History of the Norfolk Dumpling, the Verses on the Norfolk Lanthorn, and many other popular Libels on Persons who least deserv'd them . . . ."[3] Three years later the lantern appears as item 11 in the ironic catalogue of Opposition grievances ridiculed in the Daily Courant (27 October 1732); and in a similar satiric vein it is part of the "catalogue of wares" Thomas Newcomb offers for sale to the Opposition, in order to assist them in spreading lies about Walpole.[4]

Clearly, "The Norfolk Lanthorn" had an impact on the political wars of the Walpole era far out of proportion to its weight. But why should we accept it as Fielding's work?

For several reasons. In the first place, of the four works we are considering "The Norfolk Lanthorn" is the only one that has actually been attributed to Fielding—not (so far as can be known) by a contemporary of his, but nevertheless by a scholar whose claims should not be lightly dismissed: namely, the eminent antiquarian and bibliographer, H. B. Wheatley. In his classic work, London Past and Present (1891), Wheatley makes the following declaration while describing Chesterfield House in Mayfair: "The lantern of copper-gilt for eighteen candles, bought by the Earl of Chesterfield at the sale of Houghton, the seat of Sir Robert Walpole, is celebrated in a once famous ballad by Fielding, in the Craftsman, called 'The Norfolk Lanthorn, a New Ballad'" (I. 388). Typical of the scholars of his generation, Wheatley disdains to document this surprising assertion—which, in due course, was reiterated by W. H. Craig in his Life of Lord Chesterfield (1907) and by the distinguished historian George Rudé.[5] What can have prompted Wheatley to make the attribution? Had he seen an annotated copy of the original number of The Craftsman or of the later versions of the ballad included either in the reprint of that paper (14 vols., 1731-37) or in "Caleb D'Anvers," A Collection of Poems on Several Occasions; Publish'd in the Craftsman (1731)? Or had he come across some contemporary comment on Chesterfield's purchase of the lantern in 1749? Perhaps it is significant that—except for the crucial references to Fielding and to the title of the ballad—all the information Wheatley supplies about the lantern can be found in Horace Walpole's Ædes Walpolianœ, including the facts that it was "for Eighteen Candles" and was "of Copper gilt," that it was ridiculed in The Craftsman in particular, and that it was "sold to the Earl of Chesterfield." Had Wheatley seen a copy of that work in which this passage had been glossed by some knowledgable contemporary?[6] Certainly, Wheatley, an assiduous antiquarian

researcher and cataloguer of libraries, had enviable opportunities for making such a discovery. Indeed, it is hard to imagine why, without some such piece of evidence likely to inspire confidence, Wheatley would have thought to attribute this obscure set of verses to Fielding, who in the years before, say, 1734 had no reputation as a political writer and who has never been suspected of contributing to The Craftsman.

Other evidence, admittedly circumstantial, tends to strengthen the case for Fielding's authorship of the ballad. At least once in the later works the lantern at Houghton figures explicitly in his satire of Walpole, who, as Mammon in The Vernoniad (1741), is thus discovered in his "Palace":

To these verses Fielding adds the following note:

A number of correspondences serve to link these passages with the ballad. Like the author of the ballad, the first thing Fielding satirizes about Walpole is his house and its furnishings, particularly the lantern, which serves as a symbol of the minister's conspicuous wealth and power. Both writers associate the lantern with the same descriptive qualities: in the preface to the ballad, the author speaks of the lantern as being "huge" and he invites us to contrast it to a certain "little, dark Lanthorn";[7] similarly, in his footnote Fielding stresses "the propriety of these two epithets, huge and dark, applied to the lantern . . . ." Both writers, moreover, refer to Houghton as a "Palace"; both place the lantern in the "Hall." And both, in order to multiply ocular proofs of Walpole's unseemly opulence, add to the symbol of the lantern itself the evidence of the minister's expensive collection of paintings—that "great Variety of fine Pictures," as the balladeer calls them; those "heaps of ill-got pictures," as The Vernoniad has it.

A further (and splendidly esoteric) instance of Fielding's use of the lantern

at Houghton as a symbol of Walpole's bad eminence occurs in that enigmatic farce, Tumble-Down Dick: or, Phaeton in the Suds (1736), performed originally at the Haymarket Theatre as an afterpiece to Pasquin— the play that inaugurated Fielding's final, brilliant campaign as a theatrical satirist, against Walpole in particular and against corrupt politicians in general. In Tumble-Down Dick Apollo, god of the sun, is represented as a watchman sitting in a great chair in the roundhouse, where he keeps a large lantern, the emblem of his power, and is attended by a band of followers. No one acquainted with contemporary political satire will need to be supplied with a key to this allegory. Apollo is of course Walpole. The roundhouse—which "Machine," the composer of the little drama, informs us is meant to represent "the Palace of the Sun" (XII. 16)—is Houghton. And the lantern, though representing Apollo's "chariot," as "Machine" assures us, is also meant to recall that other, larger lantern that hung in the hall at Houghton. This connection is enforced, for example, when, having disastrously scorched the country, "Phaeton falls" (according to the stage directions) "and the lanthorn hangs hovering in the air" (XII. 24). But those members of the audience with a keen memory might have made the connection sooner if, when Clymene advises Phaeton, "Go to the watch-house, where your father bright / That lanthorn keeps which gives the world its light . . ." (XII. 16), they had called to mind the prayer of the balladeer "That this Lanthorn may spread such an Illumination, / As may glare in the Eyes of the whole British Nation." And as Phaeton's eyes dazzle upon entering the roundhouse—"What do I see? What beams of candle-light / Break from that lanthorn and put out my sight?" (XII. 17)—those same members of the audience might have recalled the balladeer's own reaction upon visiting Houghton for the first time, who "was so much delighted with the Sight of an huge and sumptuous Lanthorn, which immediately struck my Eyes, upon entering the great Hall . . . ."

That Fielding, in Tumble-Down Dick and The Vernoniad, should thus apply the lantern at Houghton to the same satiric purpose as that evident in the ballad which first made it famous does not of course prove him to be the author of the ballad. But we can agree, I think, that this ludicrous manifestation of Walpole's greatness held a special fascination for him. (Indeed, the "Home News" column of The Champion for 15 July 1740 reduces Houghton, by metonymy, to merely "the Lanthorn-House in Norfolk.") But not only do Fielding and the author of the ballad share this common interest; the lantern evokes in their minds similar ideas and associations, which they express in similar turns of phrase. One of these in the ballad is quite distinctive, yet it occurs more than once in Fielding's known writings: thus, in the last line of Stanza VI, the author hopes that the lantern's illumination "may glare in the Eyes" of the British nation. Twice in Fielding's Miscellanies this same expression appears: in the "Essay on Nothing" ("this dignity . . . glares in the eyes of men" [XIV. 316]) and in Jonathan Wild ("the absurdity . . . glared in his eyes" [II. 125]).

For these reasons, then, Wheatley's attribution of "The Norfolk Lanthorn"

to Fielding seems well founded. The text follows; the notes appended to the text will serve to supplement the correspondences with Fielding's known writings already cited above.

To CALEB D'ANVERS, Esq; Ex Pede Herculem.[1]

Sir, I am just returned from a Journey into N[orfolk],[2] where I have at length satisfied my Curiosity in viewing a certain great Palace, which hath occasioned so much Discourse in Town, and by far exceeded the most sanguine of my Expectations. A particular Description of the Magnificence of the House, Gardens and Stables, as well as of the great Variety of fine Pictures, the vast Quantities of Massy Plate and other costly Furniture would require a Volume in Folio,[3] which I hope some Person, who hath more Opportunity and Leisure than my self, will undertake. But I was so much delighted with the Sight of an huge and most sumptuous Lanthorn, which immediately struck my Eyes, upon entering the great Hall, that I could not forbear celebrating it in a few Stanza's, which (as trifling as they may seem) will serve to fill up a little Vacancy in your Paper and may, perhaps, do well enough by way of Contraste to the Remarks on a little, dark Lanthorn, which we were lately desired to take Notice of in our Common Prayer Books.