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Commentator: Maximillian E. Novak

Contributor: James Roberts

The Augustan Reprint Society

THE MERRY-THOUGHT:

or, the Glass-Window and Bog-House MISCELLANY.

Parts 2, 3, and 4

Publication Number 221-222 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY University of California, Los Angeles 1983

GENERAL EDITOR

EDITORS

ADVISORY EDITORS

PUBLICATIONS MANAGER

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

INTRODUCTION

In an address to the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies at the 1983 annual meeting, Roger Lonsdale suggested that our knowledge of eighteenth-century poetry has depended heavily on what our anthologies have decided to print. For the most part modern anthologies have, in turn, drawn on collections put together at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the next, when the ideal for inclusion was essentially that of "polite taste." The obscene, the feminine, and the political were by general cultural agreement usually omitted. Lonsdale is not the only scholar questioning the basis of the canon; indeed, revisionism is fast becoming one of the more ingenious--and useful--parlor games among academics. Modern readers are no longer so squeamish about obscenity nor so uncomfortable with the purely personal lyric as were the editors at the end of the eighteenth century. And we are hardly likely to find poetry written by women objectionable on that score alone. In short, the anthologies we depend upon are out of date.

Indeed, one of the more interesting aspects of graffiti is that in an impermanent form it testifies to the continuance over the centuries of certain human concerns. Recent studies of graffiti have often focused on particular modern conflicts between races or nations, on drug problems, and on specific political commentary. But such local matters aside, the content of modern graffiti is surprisingly like that of earlier periods: scatological observations, laments of lovers, accusations against women for their sexual promiscuity, the repetition of "trite" poems and sayings, and messages attributed to various men and women suggesting their sexual availability and proficiency. And if the political targets have changed over the years, many of the political attitudes have remained consistent. Graffiti is an irreverent form, with strong popular and anti-establishment elements. As actions common to all classes, eating, drinking, defecation, and fornication find their lowly record in graffiti-like form.

On the most basic level, a writer will observe that the excrement of the rich differs in no way from that of the poor. Thus one poem, taken supposedly from a "Person of Quality's Boghouse," has the following sentiment:

Good Lord! who could think, That such fine Folks should stink?

There is nothing very polite about such observations, and no pretension to art. These verses belong strictly to folklore and the sociology of literature, but they suggest some continuing rumbles of discontent against the class system, the existence among the lower orders of some of the egalitarian attitudes that survived the passing of the Lollards and the Levellers. Who were the writers of these pieces? Were they indeed laborers? Or were they from the lower part of what was called the "middle orders"? Is there some evidence to be found in the very fact that they could write?

Graffiti may, indeed, tell us something about degrees of literacy. One wit remarked that whatever the ability to read or write may have been at the time, almost everyone seemed to have been literate when presented with a bog-house wall: "Since all who come to Bog-house write" . The traditional connection between defecation and writing was another comparison apparent to the commentators. One wrote:

There's Nothing foul that we commit, But what we write, and what we sh - - t.

And the lack of some paper or material to clean the rear end provoked the following sentiment in the form of a litany:

Other types of graffiti, however, vary from the very earnest expression of affection to the nonexcrementally satiric. One of the more unusual is a poem in praise of a faithful and loving wife:

We will never know why she was unable to marry the man she truly loved; but her bitterness may have been short-lived. Just after this inscription comes a cynical comment identifying the lady as a member of the Walker family. And the writer insists that like all women she was inconstant, since he kissed her the next night.

Prevailingly, women are depicted as sexually insatiable, as in a piece written by a man who takes a month's vacation from sex to recoup his strength . And the related image of the female with a sexual organ capable of absorbing a man plays a variation on the vagina dentata theme . A drawing of a man hanging himself for love raises a considerable debate on whether such a thing can indeed occur . In a more realistic vein, though equally cynical, is the poem on the woman who complained of her husband making her pregnant so often:

S. M. is clearly unsympathetic to the plight of married women in an age with only the most primitive forms of birth control. The picture of her as a long-suffering person is undercut by the casual male assumption that giving birth was not really dangerous and that women make too much of the pain and difficulty. That women were often forced to go through thirteen or fourteen deliveries when little thought had yet been given to creating an antiseptic environment for childbirth is apparently of little concern to S. M., who finds in the apparent willingness of the woman to have sexual intercourse one more time sufficient reason for contempt.

I must confess, kind Sir, that though this Glass, Can't prove me brittle, it proves you an Ass.

Then Lightning from the Nostrils flies. Swift Thunder-bolts from Anus, and the Mouth will break, With Sounds to pierce the Skies, and make the Earth to quake.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The

MERRY-THOUGHT:

or, the

Glass-Window and Bog-House

MISCELLANY.

Taken from

Bethleham-Wall, Moor-Fields.

The SECOND EDITION.

THE

MERRY-THOUGHT.

INTRODUCTION.

You will pardon the Editor that he does not put Things better in Order; but he is so engaged in reading the Letters sent him in from the two Universities, after the Publication of the First Part, that he believes the Preface is in the Middle of the Book; but I dare swear you'll find it somewhere or other, and so read on.

A Prude for my Money, by G - - d.

T. S. 1711.

Thou pretty little fluttering Thing, That mak'st this gaudy Shew; Thou senseless Mimick of a Man, Thou Being, call'd a Beau.

Like me thou art an empty Form, Like me alone, thou'rt made; Like me delusive seem'st a Man, But only art a Shade.

Say happy Maid that can detain Old hoary Time in fetter'd Chain, What wouldst thou have to set him free, And give thy captive Liberty?

LEARNING.

+ Bishop.

What fly from her Eyes, and the Place whither I Must soon be convey'd to, unless she comply, Is the Name of the Beauty for whom I could die.

What opens a Door, and a Word of Offence, Tell the Name of a Nymph of Wit, Beauty, and Sense.

This Dance foretells that Couple's Life, Who mean to dance as Man and Wife; As here, they'll first with Vigour set, Give Hands, and turn whene'er they meet; But soon will quit their former Track, Cast off and end in Back to Back.

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