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I should like to acknowledge the helpful advice given me by Keith Maslen after reading an early draft of my argument and especially to thank Professor Martin Battestin and the other readers of this article for their invaluable criticism.
Keith Maslen, “Samuel Richardson as Printer: Expanding the Canon,” Order and Connexion: Studies in Bibliography and Book History, ed. R. C. Alston (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 1-16. Maslen has completed a book identifying more than five hundred printer's ornaments from Richardson's press and has greatly expanded the number of books printed by Richardson that Sale had found.
Alan Dugald McKillop, Introduction to [Samuel Richardson] The Apprentice's Vade Mecum, Augustan Reprint Society, nos. 169-170 (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1975), p. i.
The full column of the Gentleman's Magazine, 6 (January 1736), 51, is worth quoting in its entirety to allow us to contemplate Richardson's congenial relationship with his fellow printers and also to leave open the possibility that some of the anonymous poetry found in the newspapers printed by Richardson, not to mention in his novels, might have been his:
It being our Printer's turn to invite his Brethren to a Society Feast, for want of Opportunity he delegated that Office to a Facetious Brother, who, either to banter our December CHRONICLE, or for some other innocent Amusement, printed the Summons in Rhime. viz.
You're desir'd on Monday next to meet
At Salutation tavern, Newgate-Street.
Supper will be on table just at eight.
Stewards,
One of St John's, [William Bowyer, Junior] the other St John's-Gate [Edward Cave]....
Our Readers we hope will excuse our taking the foregoing into our Repository for the sake of the Humourous Answer it produced from one of the Members, as follows:
To steward St John, steward St John's Gate,
Who meet to sup on monday night at eight.
Dear sons of Phœbus, darlings of the nine,
Henceforth, thro' you, how will the printers shine,
Who ne'er, without the muse, shall meet to sup or dine!
Blessings, say I, attend your rhyming pen,
No king John's, sure, e'er equal'd saint John's men!
But, tell me, friends, nor blush, nor be afraid
To own the truth—had you no third man's aid?
Speak out, like men—to make the verse run sweeter,
Did not some mild-beer Bellman tag the metre?
If so, I pray, invite the honest fellow,
Let him partake the praise, and make him mellow.
Perpetual stewards, may you voted be;
No less such verse deserves—perpetual poet he!
For me, I'm much concern'd I cannot meet
“At salutation-tavern, Newgate-street.”
Your notice, like your verse (so sweet and short!)
If longer, I'd sincerely thank'd you for't.
Howe'er, receive my wishes, sons of verse!
May every man who meets, your praise rehearse!
May mirth, as plenty, crown your chearful board,
And ev'ry one part happy—as a lord!
That when at home, (by such sweet verses fir'd)
Your families may think you all inspir'd!
So wishes he, who, pre-ingag'd, can't know
The pleasures that wou'd from your meeting flow.
S. R.
Concerning this Gentleman, the Company observ'd, that tho' the Publick is often agreeably entertain'd with Elegant Disquisitions in Prose, not one imagin'd that his extensive Business would allow him the least Leisure to invoke the Muses....
It needs to be emphasized here, I believe, that Cave attests to the frequency of these “Elegant Disquisitions in Prose.” It is also worth noting that Richardson actually signed this poem for once with his proper initials, “S.R.” Obviously Richardson had written more than the two pamphlets first identified by McKillop concerning apprentices and the rise of illegal theaters in the City. As Peter Sabor observed to me privately, to judge by this instance, it may well be that Richardson wrote one or two of the poems included in his novels.
The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, ed. Anna Lætitia Barbauld, 6 vols. (London, 1804), 6:lxxiii-lxxiv.
The Richardson-Stinstra Correspondence and Stinstra's Prefaces to Clarissa, ed. William C. Slattery (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1969), p. 28.
Alan Dugald McKillop, Samuel Richardson, Printer and Novelist (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1936, reprinted, Shoe String Press, 1960), p. 286; William Merrett Sale, Jr., Samuel Richardson: Master Printer (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1950), p. 43; and T. C. Duncan Eaves and Ben D. Kimpel, Samuel Richardson, A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), p. 26. What Richardson “later wrote,” of course, begs the question. We need to find what Richardson probably wrote before 1740 before making such a judgment.
Richardson's letters to Lady Bradshaigh of 5 October 1753, and of 8 December 1753, regarding Johnson's rejection of her letter for the Rambler. R agrees with Lady B that J should not advertise for letters to the editor if he as a rule writes his own for the journal. Cf. Richardson's unpublished correspondence in the Forster Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, FM XI, (5 October 1753), ff. 29-32; FM XI, (8 December 1753), ff. 49-53.
Sale, p. 121. Sale also points out Richardson's tribute to Hutcheson in Clarissa, some twenty-six years later: Lovelace's uncle Lord M. offered him political counsel:
I remember (for I have it down) why my old friend Archibald Hutcheson said; and it was a very good Saying—(to Mr. Secretary Craggs, I think, itwas [sic]—`I look upon an Administration, as entitled to every Vote I can with good conscience give it; for a [p. 242] House of Commons should not needlessly put Drags upon the Wheels of Government: And, when I have not given it my Vote, it was with regret: And, for my Country's sake, I wished with all my heart, the measure had been such as I could have approved.'
And another Saying he had, which was this; `Neither can an Opposition, neither can a Ministry, be always wrong. To be a plumb man therefore with either, is an infallible mark, that that man must mean more and worse than he will own he does mean.'
Are these Sayings bad, Sir? Are they to be despised?—Well then, why should I be despised for remembering them, and quoting them, as I love to do?
(Clarissa, 3rd edn. [1751], 4:241-242)
It is worth pointing out that the non-partisan position adopted here from Hutcheson's sage advice is also evident in the symbolic game of whist in Pamela, where Mr. B sounds very much like this powerful critic of Walpole. See my article, “`Ciceronian Eloquence': The Politics of Virtue in Richardson's Pamela,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 12 (October 1999), 39-60, esp. 58- 60.
“I have always freely own'd such Papers as come from my Pen, as I did that sign'd Philo-Britannicus, published in the Freeholder of Wednesday the 7th of March, 1721. the very Day it first appear'd,” A Collection of Advertisements, Letters and Papers, and Some Other Facts, Relating to the Last Elections at Westminster and Hastings (1722), p. vii. See also p. 36. Cf. letter from Philo-Britannicus in The Daily Journal (14 March 1721/22) reporting the meeting of London Citizens, when the Aldermen Hoysham, Brocas, Child, and Richard Lockwood were chosen. The speech by Mr. Deputy Robinson concerned issues above partisan interests and stressed the advantage of frequent parliaments for trade, and other Huchesonian principles.
For instance, during the scrutiny after the Oxfordshire election of 1754, Richardson wrote to Thomas Edwards, objecting to the partisan labels of “Old Interest” [Tory] vs. “New Interest” [Whig]: “This abominable Oxford election! What time does it take up! Have you heard of the applause Mr. Pratt has met with from both sides, for his speech for summing up the particulars of the objections to voters for the new interest as it is called, absurdly enough; since it is surely the interest of the country?” (FM XII, l. f. 130; also, Barbauld 3:113).
J. H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press), 1956, 1:372-374. Among the more than dozen bills and pamphlets by Hutcheson that Richardson printed are A Collection of Calculations and Remarks relating the the South-Sea Scheme and Stock (1720); A Collection of Treatises relating to the Publick Debts, and the Discharge of the Same. Publish'd at several times [i.e., from 1714 to 1720] for the Service of the Members of the House of Commons (1720); and Four Treatises relating to the South-Sea Scheme and Stock (1721). Cf. Sale, pp. 180-181.
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