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Swift, William Wood, and the Factual Basis of Satire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

J. M. Treadwell
J. M. Treadwell*
Affiliation:
Trent University, Ontario
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Extract

In satire, as in lapidary inscriptions, a man is not upon oath. Shadwell is a better playwright overall than Dryden, and Theobald a far better Shakespearean than Pope; and if Colley Cibber is a more appropriate stand-in for Dullness, few would regard Pope's treatment of him as wholly without bias. With Swift the case is even more clear. The butts of his satire were often men of the first importance, national or even international figures whose reputations were not to be shaped by satire alone. While Pope may have succeeded in imposing his version of Lord Hervey upon history, Swift's Wharton, and even more his Marlborough, now exist only in the rhetorical world of Augustan humanism.

This somewhat tenuous relation between factual accuracy and artistic success, in satiric as in other portraiture, has long been appreciated, and critics now scarcely pause to defend the ground of literal truth before retiring to their prepared positions of literary tradition and rhetorical form. In general such strategy is sound, but occasionally it does the satirist less than justice. This is decidedly the case with one of the greatest of Swift's satiric portraits, that of William Wood, the unhappy victim of the Drapier's Letters.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Spring 1976 , pp. 76 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1976

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References

1. Almost every general study of Swift or of the history of the period contains references to the Drapier's Letters. The best specialist account from the historical side is Goodwin, A., “Wood's Halfpence,” English Historical Review, LI (1936), 647–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The best account of Swift's part in the affair is in the introduction and notes to Herbert Davis's edition of the Drapier's Letters (Oxford, 1935)Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as ‘Davis.” All quotations from Swift are taken from this edition.

2. Davis, pp. xiv-xvi, xxxvii. For Wood's family and early life, see Mander, G. P., A History of Wolverhampton to the Early Nineteenth Century (Wolverhampton, 1960), pp. 116–17Google Scholar, and The Wolverhampton Antiquary, I (1933), 178-79, 194, 231,Google Scholar and II (1934), 28-29.

3. Ward, W. R., The English Land Tax in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1953), p. 51Google Scholar.

4. PRO, T 1/196/29. For the Newports, see Sedgwick, R., The House of Commom 1715-1754 (London, 1970), I, 308Google Scholar; II, 294.

5. Ward, , Land Tax, pp. 10-11, 49-50, 101–3Google Scholar.

6. Healey, G. H. (ed.), The Letters of Daniel Defoe (Oxford, 1955), p. 104Google Scholar.

7. Davis, p. 37. Davis was himself unable to explain this reference, ibid., p. 229.

8. Ward, , Land Tax, pp. 42-44, 108–9Google Scholar.

9. PRO, T 22/2/178, 198, 251, 265, 282; T 29/24/271.

10. Davis, p. 37.

11. Chamberlayne, J., Magna Britannia Notitia (26th ed., 1723), p. 540Google Scholar.

12. BM, Add. MS 22675, fob. 31-33 is a legal opinion containing a description of an anonymous iron partnership which details show to be Wood's. BM, Add. Chs. 70568-72, share certificates in Wood's revised copartnership, provide the names of the partners and some financial details.

13. Calendar of Treasury Books, XXXII (1718), ii, 17Google Scholar; Hist. MSS. Comm., Eighth Report, Appendix, Part I, pp. 76-79.

14. Anderson, A., The Origins of Commerce (London, 1764), II, 295Google Scholar.

15. BM, Add. MS 22675, fol. 31. In this and other quotations from manuscript sources capitalization, spelling, and punctuation have been modernized.

16. Dubois, A. B., The English Business Company after the Bubble Act 1720-1800 (New York, 1938), pp. 1–12Google Scholar.

17. See Applebee's Weekly Journal, 11 June 1720: “Above 60 new Bubbles have been set up this Week, and the Projectors, to evade the Act of Parliament, call themselves Copartners.”

18. Daily Courant, 10 Jan. 1720.

19. Daily Post, 7 Oct. 1730.

20. Davis, p. 229.

21. Ibid., pp. 68, 22.

22. Ibid., p. 46.

23. Ibid., p. 5.

24. Ibid., p. 192.

25. Ibid., p. 25.

26. Ibid., pp. 126-27.

27. PRO, SP 35/25/3.

28. Healey, , Letters of Defoe, p. 450Google Scholar and notes.

29. PRO, SP 44/253/223-26 records a further instance of ministerial and even diplomatic pressure being exerted on Wood's behalf in 1723.

30. Cholmondeley (Houghton) MS. 54/9/2-3.

31. See the article on Wood in the Dictionary of National Biography.

32. Papers in the case of Wood r. Meure are in PRO, E 112/1045/64, E 112/1281/20, and E 133/139/25-26.

33. For Vincent, see Sedgwick, , House of Commons 1713-54, II, 500–1Google Scholar.

34. PRO, E 133/139/25/12; E 112/1045/64/18.

35. The date of Wood's arrest is not recorded, but it is possible that it was early enough to have inspired the press rumors of his imprisonment, cautiously echoed by Swift in the fifth letter: “Mr. Wood … walks about in Triumph (unless it be true that he is in Jayl for Debt).” Davis, p. 111 and note.

36. PRO, E 133/139/25/12.

37. Cf. Davis, p. 57: “If there should be any Person already receiving a Monstrous Pension out of this Kingdom, who was Instrumental in Procuring this Patent, they have either not well consulted their own Interests, or Wood must put more Dross into his Copper and still diminish its Weight.”

38. For a detailed account of this final project see Treadwell, J. M., “William Wood and the Company of Ironmasters of Great Britain,” Business History, XVI (1974), 97–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39. Davis, p. 30.

40. Plumb, J. H., Sir Robert Walpole: The King's Minister (London, 1960), p. 68Google Scholar. Plumb also errs in points of fact: Wood was not from Birmingham, nor were the coins struck there (ibid., pp. 67-68). He was from Wolverhampton, and the coins were struck at Bristol.