Poets Laureate in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1668-1813

287 Pages·2022·4.842 MB·English

by  Leo Shipp

The Poets Laureate of
the Long Eighteenth
Century, 1668–1813
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New Historical Perspectives Editorial Board
Professor Charlotte Alston Northumbria University
Professor David Andress University of Portsmouth
Dr Christopher Bahl Durham University
Dr Milinda Banerjee University of St Andrews
Dr Robert Barnes York St John University
Dr Karin Bowie University of Glasgow
Professor Catherine Clarke Institute of Historical Research,
University of London
Professor Neil Fleming University of Worcester
Professor Ian Forrest University of Oxford
Dr Emma Gallon University of London Press
Professor Leigh Gardner London School of Economics
Dr Sarah Longhair University of Lincoln
Dr Charlotte Wildman University of Manchester
Dr Nick Witham University College London
The Poets Laureate of
the Long Eighteenth
Century, 1668–1813
Courting the Public
Leo Shipp
LONDON
ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY
INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS
Published by
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY
INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY
© Leo Shipp 2022
The author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-
NC-ND 4.0) licence. More information regarding CC licences
is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses.
Available to download free or to purchase the hard copy
edition at https://www.sas.ac.uk/publications.
ISBNs
978-1-914477-30-0 (paperback edition)
978-1-914477-29-4 (hardback edition)
978-1-914477-33-1 (.epub edition)
978-1-914477-32-4 (.pdf edition)
DOI 10.14296/sner2422
Cover image: A Writer Cutting His Pen, Jan Ekels (II), 1784. Object
number: SK-A-690. Jonkheer J.S.H. van de Poll Bequest, Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum. Public domain.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Quotations, dates and abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1. Patronage asserted: The formation of the laureateship, 1668–1715 33
2. Loyalty marketed: The works of the early Hanoverian laureates,
1700–30 69
3. Merit rewarded: The Hanoverian appointments, 1715–1813 105
4. Parnassus reported: The public laureate, 1757–1813 149
5. ‘But odes of S—— almost choakt the way’:
Laureate writings of the long eighteenth century 189
Conclusion 235
Bibliography 245
Index 269
v

Acknowledgements
I first started work on the poets laureate as a BA student, when I wrote my
dissertation on Robert Southey’s appointment to the post. Back then, I considered
Southey a laughably obscure poet; my original idea had been to write something
on Wordsworth’s 1807 Poems, in Two Volumes, due to how much I had enjoyed
studying Lyrical Ballads in A-Level English. I must therefore thank the teachers
and schoolmates at Ravenscroft who steered me towards history and literature
in the first place. In particular, my English teacher Ms Button was the one who
introduced me to classic novels, poetry and the Romantics; and it was one of my
oldest friends, Meqdad Jawid, whose homework on Alfred the Great made me
realize that I ought to be taking an A-Level in History, rather than the Advanced
GNVQs in Applied Science and Business Studies that I had signed up for. If I
had not been enticed by the warm crackle of burning buns over that of Bunsen
burners, things would have panned out very differently.
Over the course of my university career, many people have supported my work
on the poets laureate. Jonathan Conlin agreed to supervise my BA dissertation at
Southampton, accommodated my hopes of writing something interdisciplinary,
and made the suggestion that I find a more neglected subject than Wordsworth.
His supervision and subsequent advice over the years have been immeasurably
helpful; without them, that dissertation’s mutation into a journal article would
never have been possible, and that focus on the laureateship would never have
developed into a PhD thesis and monograph. Alex Barber then supervised my
MA dissertation on the later Stuart poets laureate at Durham, and his generous
references helped me into a funded PhD place at Exeter. I am also thankful
to my upgrade examiners, Hester Schadee and Richard Ward, and my PhD
examiners, Tony Claydon and Henry Power, for their constructive feedback.
Tony encouraged me to develop my own definitions of the court and the public
rather than following other scholars’ definitions, and I hope he will not be too
disappointed in the results.
Particularly effusive thanks must go to my doctoral supervisors. Martha
Vandrei, my History supervisor, was my initial contact at Exeter, and her
help was essential in securing me a funded PhD place; she was a friendly and
fiercely ambitious supervisor thereafter. Since the completion of my PhD, she
has provided the support, advice and encouragement essential for navigating
postdoctoral academic life. It was Martha who recommended that I submit
my work for publication in the New Historical Perspectives series, and read my
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application draft. Without her, this book would not exist and I probably would
not have been able to find any postdoctoral job at all.
I was equally fortunate in my English Literature supervisors. Nick Groom
was a source of endless information, suggestions and insights, and first brought
my attention to many of the works referenced in the following pages. Stephen
Bygrave’s suggestions regarding my work’s overall structure and concepts have
been highly important, both to the doctoral thesis and to the monograph that
followed on from it. Nick and Stephen each read my thesis at various stages of its
composition and gave far-reaching feedback, constantly guiding and challenging
my work, and have continued to support my work since the completion of my
PhD. The fact that my time at Exeter was possible, and that such an excellent
team of supervisors (spanning disciplines and universities) was assembled, was
due to the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership and the Arts and
Humanities Research Council, for whose funding and help I am hugely grateful.
While working on the poets laureate, I have been lucky to make a number of
academic friends whose companionship has made difficult times bearable and
good times good. If I started naming friends from Exeter, the list would either
be overly long or unfairly selective, so I will have to confine myself to thanking
anyone who ever shared a walk, board game session, football match, pub night
or trip to the beach with me. Beyond Exeter, it has always been a great pleasure to
meet up with the ‘Merry Gang’ of Clara, Hannah and David at conferences and
elsewhere. Edward Taylor has been particularly liberal with his help and advice.
With his expertise on politics, periodicals and Neo-Latin in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century Britain, and his Georgian geniality, his friendship has always
fulfilled the ancient dictum of mixing the utile and the dulci.
I am likewise lucky to have been given such a warm reception by everyone at
the Royal Historical Society and University of London Press, and especially by
Philip Carter, Elizabeth Hurren, Jane Winters, Emma Gallon, Jamie Bowman
and Lauren De’ath. They have made the publication process easy, and have aided
me in making the book as good as it can be. So too has Stephen Conway, who
read and discussed the first draft, providing me with both specific and general
points that have been very helpful. And the diligence of Robert Davies and
Karen Francis ensured that the copyediting stage was smooth and productive.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family. Mum, Dad, Grandma and Owen
have all, in their different ways, provided a constant bedrock of support and
motivation, without which none of this would have been possible. If they take
any pride or pleasure in seeing this project come to fruition, then it will have
been worthwhile.
Leo Shipp
Exeter
November 2021
viii
Quotations, dates and abbreviations
In quotations, the original spelling and punctuation is retained, and the
term ‘sic’ is not used. Dates given before the introduction of the Gregorian
calendar in 1752 are given in the old style, but the beginning of the year is
dated to 1 January throughout.
For all publications dating to the period of study, the place of publication
is London, unless otherwise stated. The names of the biannual odes produced
by the laureates for New Year’s Day and for the reigning monarch’s birthday
are abbreviated in the footnotes to the year of performance and ‘NY’ (for
New Year’s Day) or ‘BD’ (for royal birthday). Further details as to where
each ode might be found are given in the Bibliography. For periodicals,
naming and differentiation conventions follow those of the Burney
Collection online database, except for those periodicals that do not appear
on that database.
For those correspondence editions in which each letter is numbered, those
numbers (as well as page numbers) have been included in citations. They are
designated by ‘lt.’ (‘ltt.’ for plural) to avoid confusion with page numbers.
URLs for works cited in the footnotes can be found in the Bibliography.
In addition, the following abbreviations are used in the footnotes:
Add. MS.: Additional Manuscript
BL: The British Library, London
Bod: The Bodleian Library, Oxford
CTB: Calendar of Treasury Books: 1660–1718, 32 vols
(London: PRO, 1904–1958)
CR: The Critical Review
Dryden, Works: John Dryden, The Works of John Dryden,
ed. H. T. Swedenberg et al. (20 vols, Berkeley, Calif., 1956–2002)
Gray Correspondence: Thomas Gray, Correspondence of Thomas Gray,
ed. P. Toynbee and L. Whibley, 1st edn reprinted with corrections and
additions by H. W. Starr (3 vols, Oxford, 1971). Volume I for pp. 1–453,
II for pp. 455–909, III for pp. 911–1194
HO: Home Office
LC: Lord Chamberlain’s Department
MR: The Monthly Review
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