THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
ANTHONY COLLINS
A DISCOURSE
CONCERNING
Ridicule and Irony
IN WRITING
(1729)
_Introduction by_
EDWARD A. BLOOM AND LILLIAN D. BLOOM
PUBLICATION NUMBER 142
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
1970
GENERAL EDITORS
William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
David S. Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_
ADVISORY EDITORS
Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_
James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_
Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_
Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_
Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_
Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_
Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
James Sutherland, _University College, London_
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_
Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Roberta Medford, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
INTRODUCTION
Between 1710 and 1729 Anthony Collins was lampooned, satirized, and
gravely denounced from pulpit and press as England's most insidious
defiler of church and state. Yet within a year of his death he became the
model of a proper country gentleman,
... he had an opulent Fortune, descended to him from his Ancestors,
which he left behind him unimpair'd: He lived on his own Estate in
the Country, where his Tenants paid him moderate Rents, which he
never enhanced on their making any Improvements; he always oblig'd
his Family to a constant attendance on Publick Worship; as he was
himself a Man of the strictest Morality, for he never suffer'd any
Body about him who was deficient in that Point; he exercised a
universal Charity to all Sorts of People, without any Regard either
to Sect or Party; being in the Commission of the Peace, he
administered Justice with such Impartiality and Incorruptness, that
the most distant Part of the County flock'd to his Decisions; but the
chief Use he made of his Authority was in accommodating
Differences;...[1]
In a comparison which likens him to Sir Roger de Coverley, there is less
truth than fiction. What they did share was a love of the countryside and
a "universal Charity" towards its inhabitants. For the most part, however,
we can approximate Collins's personality by reversing many of Sir Roger's
traits. Often at war with his world, as the spectatorial character was
not, he managed to maintain an intellectual rapport with it and even with
those who sought his humiliation. He never--as an instance--disguised his
philosophical distrust of Samuel Clarke; yet during any debate he planned
"most certainly [to] outdo him in civility and good manners."[2] This
decorum in no way compromised his pursuit of what he considered objective
truth or his denunciation of all "methods" or impositions of spiritual
tyranny. Thus, during the virulent, uneven battle which followed upon the
publication of the _Discourse of Free-Thinking_, he ignored his own wounds
in order to applaud a critic's
_suspicions that there is a sophism_ in what he calls my
_hypothesis_. That is a temper that ought to go thro' all our
Inquirys, and especially before we have an opportunity of examining
things to the bottom. It is safest at all times, and we are least
likely to be mistaken, if we constantly suspect our selves to be
under mistakes.... I have no system to defend or that I would seem to
defend, and am unconcerned for the consequence that may be drawn from
my opinion; and therefore stand clear of all difficultys wch others
either by their opinion or caution are involved in.[3]
This is the statement of a man whose intellectual and religious commitment
makes him see that his own fallibility is symptomatic of a human tendency
to error. For himself, hence, he tries to avoid all manner of hard-voiced
enthusiasm. Paradoxically, however, Collins searched with a zealot's
avidity for any controversy which would either assert his faith or test
his disbelief. When once he found his engagement, he revelled in it,
whether as the aggressor or the harassed defendant. For example, in the
"Preface" to the _Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered_ he boastfully
enumerated all the works--some twenty-nine--which had repudiated his
earlier _Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion_.
And in malicious fact he held up the publication of the _Scheme_ for
almost a year that he might add a "Postscript to the Preface" in which he
identified six more pieces hostile to the _Grounds and Reasons_.[4]
By May of 1727 and with no visible sign of fatigue he took on a new
contender; this time it was John Rogers, canon in ordinary to the Prince
of Wales. At the height of their debate, in late summer, Collins made
practical enquiries about methods to prolong and intensify its
give-and-take. Thus, in a note to his friend Pierre Des Maizeaux, he said:
"But I would be particularly informed of the success and sale of the
Letter to Dr Rogers; because, if it could be, I would add to a new
edition thereof two or three as sheets; which also might be sold
separately to those who have already that Letter." For all his militant
polemic, he asked only that his "Adversaries" observe with him a single
rule of fair play; namely, that they refrain from name-calling and petty
sniping. "Personal matters," he asserted, "tho they may some times afford
useful remarks, are little regarded by Readers, who are very seldom
mistaken in judging that the most impertinent subject a man can talk of is
himself," particularly when he inveighs against another.[5]
If Collins had been made to look back over the years 1676-1729, he
probably would have summarized the last twenty with a paraphrase of the
Popean line, "This long controversy, my life." For several years and in
such works as _Priestcraft in Perfection_ (1710) and _A Discourse of
Free-Thinking_ (1713), he was a flailing polemicist against the entire
Anglican hierarchy. Not until 1724 did he become a polished debater, when
he initiated a controversy which for the next five years made a "very
great noise" and which ended only with his death. The loudest shot in the
persistent barrage was sounded by the _Grounds and Reasons_, and its last
fusillade by the _Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing_.[6]
During those five years Collins concentrated upon a single opponent in
each work and made it a rhetorical practice to change his "Adversary" in
successive essays. He created in this way a composite victim whose
strength was lessened by deindividualization; in this way too he ran no
risk of being labelled a hobbyhorse rider or, more seriously, a
persecutor. Throughout the _Grounds and Reasons_ he laughed at, reasoned
against, and satirized William Whiston's assumption that messianic
prophecies in the Old Testament were literally fulfilled in the figure and
mission of Jesus. Within two years and in a new work, he substituted
Edward Chandler, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, for the mathematician.
It need not have been the Bishop; any one of thirty-four others could have
qualified for the role of opponent, among them people like Clarke, and
Sykes, and Sherwood, and even the ubiquitous Whiston. Collins rejected
them, however, to debate in the _Scheme_ with Bishop Chandler, the author
of _A Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of the old Testament_,
with one who was, in short, the least controversial and yet the most
orthodox of his many assailants.
Early in 1727 the Anglican establishment came to the abrupt realization
that the subject of the continuing debate--the reliability of the argument
from prophecy--was inconclusive, that it could lead only to pedantic
wrangling and hair-splitting with each side vainly clutching victory.
Certainly the devotion of many clergymen to biblical criticism was
secondary to their interest in orthodoxy as a functional adjunct of
government, both civil and canonical. It was against this interest, as it
was enunciated in Rogers's _Eight Sermons concerning the Necessity of
Revelation_ (1727) and particularly in its vindictive preface, that
Collins chose to fight.[7] The debate had now taken a happy turn for him.
As he saw it, the central issue devolved upon man's natural right to
religious liberty. At least he made this the theme of his _Letter to Dr.
Rogers_. In writing to Des Maizeaux about the success of this work, he
obviously enjoyed his own profane irony:
I have had particular compliments made me by the BP of Salisbury,
and by Dr Clark, who among other things sayd, that the Archbp of
Canterbury might have writ all that related to Toleration in it: to
say nothing of what I hear from others. Dr Rogers himself has
acknowledg[ed] to his Bookseller who sent it to him into the Country,
that he has receivd it; but says that he is so engaged in other
affairs, that he has no thought at present of answering it; tho he
may perhaps in time do so.[8]
In time Rogers did. He counterattacked on 2 February 1728 with a
_Vindication of the Civil Establishment of Religion_.[9] For Collins this
work was a dogged repetition of what had gone before, and so it could be
ignored except for one of its appendices, _A Letter from the Rev. Dr.
Marshall jun. To the Rev. Dr. Rogers, upon Occasion of his Preface to his
Eight Sermons_. Its inclusion seemed an afterthought; yet it altered the
dimensions of the debate by narrowing and particularizing the areas of
grievance which separated the debaters. Collins, therefore, rebutted it
some fourteen months later in _A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony
in Writing_. He had great hopes for this pamphlet, preparing carefully for
its reception. He encouraged the republication of his three preceding
works, which find their inevitable conclusion, even their exoneration, in
this last performance, and he probably persuaded his bookseller to
undertake an elaborate promotional campaign. For the new editions were
advertised on seven different days between 10 January and 27 February 1729
in the _Daily Post_. He wanted no one to miss the relationship between the
_Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony_ and these earlier pieces or to
overlook its presence when it finally appeared in the pamphlet shops on 17
March.
Collins was animated by his many debates. Indeed, "he sought the storms."
Otherwise he would not, could not, have participated in these many verbal
contests. Throughout them all, his basic strategy--that of
provocation--was determined by the very real fact that he had many more
enemies than allies, among them, for instance, such formidable antagonists
as Swift and Richard Bentley.[10] To survive he had to acquire a tough
resilience, a skill in fending off attacks or turning them to his own
advantage. Nevertheless, he remained a ready target all his life.
Understandably so: his radicalism was stubborn and his opinions
predictable. Such firmness may of course indicate his aversion to
trimming. Or it may reveal a lack of intellectual growth; what he believed
as a young man, he perpetuated as a mature adult. Whether our answer is
drawn from either possibility or, more realistically, from both, the fact
remains that he never camouflaged the two principles by which he lived and
fought:
1. That universal liberty be established in respect to opinions and
practises not prejudicial to the peace and welfare of society: by
which establishment, truth must needs have the advantages over
_error_ and _falsehood_, the _law_ of _God_ over the _will_ of _man_,
and _true Christianity tolerated_; private _judgment_ would be really
exercised; and men would be allowed to have suffered to follow their
consciences, over which God only is supreme:...
2. Secondly, that nothing but the _law of nature_, (the observance
whereof is absolutely necessary to society) and what can be built
thereon, should be enforced by the civil sanctions of the
magistrate:...[11]
II
There is very little in this statement to offend modern readers. Yet the
orthodox in Collins's own time had reason to be angry with him: his
arguments were inflammatory and his rhetoric was devious, cheeky, and
effective. Those contesting him underscored his negativism, imaging him as
a destroyer of Christianity eager "to proselyte men, from the Christian to
no religion at all."[12] Certainly it is true that he aimed to disprove a
Christian revelation which he judged fraudulent and conspiratorial. In
place of ecclesiastical authority he offered the rule of conscience. For
orthodoxy he substituted "a Religion antecedent to Revelation, which is
necessary to be known in order to _ascertain Revelation_; and by that
Religion [he meant] _Natural Religion_, which is presupposed to
Revelation, and is a Test by which Reveal'd Religion is to be tried, is a
Bottom on which it must stand, and is a Rule to understand it by."[13]
Categorical in tone, the statement frustrated the Anglican clergy by its
very slipperiness; its generalities left little opportunity for decisive
rebuttal. It provided no definition of natural religion beyond the
predication of a body of unnamed moral law which is rational and original,
the archetype of what is valid in the world's religions.
His dismissal of revelation and his reduction of Christianity to what he
called its "natural" and hence incontrovertible basis carried with it a
corollary, that of man's absolute right to religious enquiry and
profession. Here he became specific, borrowing from Lockean empiricism his
conditions of intellectual assent. "Evidence," he said, "ought to be the
sole ground of Assent, and Examination is the way to arrive at Evidence;
and therefore rather than I wou'd have Examination, Arguing and Objecting
laid aside, I wou'd chuse to say, That no Opinions whatever can be
dangerous to a Man that impartially examines into the Truth of
Things."[14] The church leadership saw in this statement and others like
it not an epistemological premise but a deliberate subterfuge, an
insidious blind to vindicate his attacks upon an organized priesthood. We
can recognize now that his opponents oversimplified his intention, that
they blackened it to make his villainy at once definitive and vulnerable.
At the same time we must admit that he often equated the ideas of
repression and clerical authority, even as he coupled those of freedom and
the guide of private conscience.
The Anglican church was infuriated by these correlations, angered as much
by their manner of expression as by their substance. For the faithful were
frequently thrown off balance by a strategy of ironical indirection.
Sometimes this took the form of omission or the presentation of an
argument in so fragmentary or slanted a fashion that Collins's "Enemies"
could debate neither his implications nor his conclusions. At other times
he used this artful circumlocution to create his favorite mask, that of
the pious Christian devoted to scripture or of the moralist perplexed by
the divisions among the orthodox clergy. Finally, his rhetoric was shaped
by deistic predecessors who used sarcasm and satire to mock the gravity of
church authority. So much was their wit a trademark that as early as 1702
one commentator had noted, "when you expect an argument, they make a
jest."[15] Collins himself resorted to this practice with both instinctive
skill and deliberate contrivance.
All these methods, though underhanded, he silently justified on the
assumption that he was dealing with a conspiracy of priests: hence, he
professed that he had to fight fraud and deception with their like, and
that such craftiness, suitable "to his particular genius and temper," was
"serviceable to his cause." For these reasons even William Warburton, who
had vainly struggled to be judicious, described him as "a Writer, whose
dexterity in the arts of Controversy was so remarkably contrasted by his
abilities in reasoning and literature, as to be ever putting one in mind
of what travellers tell us of the genius of the proper Indians, who,
although the veriest bunglers in all the fine arts of manual operation,
yet excel everybody in slight of hand and the delusive feats of
activity."[16] Whatever may be said of Collins and his achievement, one
fact remains constant. He was a brilliant and persistent trickster whose
cunning in the techniques of polemic often silenced an opponent with every
substantive right to win the debate.
He seized any opportunity to expose the diversity of ethical and
theological opinion which set one Anglican divine against another, "to
observe"--as Jenkin put it--"how the gladiators in dispute murder the
cause between them, while they so fiercely cut and wound one another." For
Collins such observation was more than oratorical artifice; it was one of
the dogmas of his near-nihilism. He commented once to Des Maizeaux upon
the flurry of critics who replied to his statement of necessitarianism in
the _Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty_:
I was extreamly pleasd with BP Hoadley, ... as it was upon the true
and only point worth disputing with ye Preists, viz whether we the
laity are the Calves and Sheep of the Preist. And I am not less
pleasd to see them manage this controversy with ye same vile arts
against one another, as they always use towards the laity. It must
open the eyes of a few and convince them, that the Preists mean
nothing but wealth and power, and have not the least ... of those
qualitys for wch the superstitious world admires them.[17]
He applied this principle of divisive attack in _A Discourse of
Free-Thinking_. There in fifty-three pages he transparently ridiculed
contradictions which hedged three areas of fundamental religious belief:
_"The Nature and Attributes of the Eternal Being or God, ... the Authority
of Scriptures, and ... the Sense of Scripture."_ In accordance with one of
his favorite tricks--the massing of eminent authority--his exposition
rings with hallowed Anglican names: South, Bull, Taylor, Wallis, Carlton,
Davenant, Edwards, More, Tillotson, Fowler, Sherlock, Stillingfleet,
Sacheverell, Beveridge, Grabe, Hickes, Lesley.[18] What united these men,
he insinuated, was not a Christian commitment but a talent to disagree
with one another and even to repudiate themselves--as in the case of
Stillingfleet. In effect, the entire _Discourse_ bubbles with a carelessly
suppressed snicker.
The clergy could not readily reply to this kind of incriminating exposure
or deny its reality. They therefore overreacted to other judgments that
Collins made, particularly to his attacks upon Christian revelation. These
they denigrated as misleading, guileful, sinister, contrived, deceitful,
insidious, shuffling, covert, subversive. What they objected to was,
first, the way in which he reduced the demonstration of Christian
revelation to only the "puzzling and perplexing" argument from prophecy,
the casual ease with which he ignored or dismissed those other "clear"
proofs derived from the miracles of Jesus and the resurrection itself.[19]
But even more the orthodox resented the masked point of view from which
Collins presented his disbelief.
For example, the _Grounds and Reasons_ is the deist's first extended
attack upon revelation. Ostensibly it is, as we have seen, an answer to
Whiston's _Essay Towards Restoring the True Text of the Old Testament; and
for Vindicating the Citations Made Thence in the New Testament_ (1722). In
it the mathematician argued that the Hebraic prophecies relating to the
messiah had been literally fulfilled in Jesus. But this truth, he
admitted, had been obscured "in the latter Ages," only because of those
"Difficulties" which "have [almost wholly] arisen from the Corruptions,
the unbelieving _Jews_ introduc'd into the Hebrew and Greek copies of the
Old Testament, [soon after] the Beginning of the Second Century." These
conspiratorial corruptions he single-handedly planned to remove, returning
the Old Testament to a state of textual purity with emendations drawn from
sources as varied as the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Greek Psalms, the
Antiquities of Josephus, the Chaldee Paraphrases, the books of Philo. His
pragmatic purpose was to nullify the biblical criticism of historical
minded scholars as reputable as Grotius, to render useless the allegorical
interpretation of messianic prophecies. That is, he saw in the latter a
"pernicious" absence of fact, a "weak and enthusiastical" whimsy,
unchristian adjustments to the exigencies of the moment.[20]
Collins fought not to destroy Whiston's position, which was all too easily
destructible, but to undermine the structure, the very "grounds and
reasons" with which orthodoxy supported the mysteries of its faith. To do
so, he spun a gigantic web of irony controlled by a persona whose complex
purpose was concealed by a mien of hyper-righteousness. Here then was one
motivated by a fair-mindedness which allowed him to defend his opponent's
right of scriptural exegesis even while disagreeing with its approach and
its conclusions. Here too was a conservative Christian different from
Whiston "and many other great divines; who seem to pay little deference to
the books of the New Testament, the text whereof they are perpetually
mending in their sermons, commentaries, and writings, to serve purposes;
who pretend _we should have more of the true text by being less tenacious
of the printed one_, and in consequence thereof, presume to correct by
critical _emendations_, serve _capital places_ in the _sacred writers_;
and who ... do virtually set aside the authority of the scripture, and
place those compositions in its stead." Finally, here was one who,
obedient to the spirit of God's revealed word, rejected the fallacy that
messianic prophecy had been fulfilled in Christ in any "literal, obvious
and primary sense."[21]
But though the persona could not accept Whiston's program, he was not a
mere negativist. With growing excitement he argued for allegorical
interpretation. At this point the reader discerns that he has been duped,
that nowhere has there been a denial of Whiston's charge that the reading
of messianic prophecy in a typical or allegorical or secondary sense is
"weak and enthusiastical." On the contrary, the reader finds only the
damning innuendo that the two methods--the allegorical and the
literal--differ from one another not in kind but in degree of absurdity.
After being protected for a long time by all the twists and turns of his
creator's irony, the persona finally reveals himself for what he is, a man
totally insolent and totally without remorse. Never for one moment did he
wish to defend the scheme of allegorical prophecy but to attack it. His
argument, stripped of its convolutions and pseudo-piety, moves inexorably
to a single, negative conclusion. "Christianity pretends to derive itself
from Judaism. JESUS appeals to the religious books of the Jews as
prophesying of his Mission. None of these Prophecies can be understood of
him but in a _typical allegoric_ sense. Now that sense is absurd, and
contrary to all scholastic rules of interpretation. Christianity,
therefore, not being really predicted in the Jewish Writings, is
consequently false."[22]
Collins continued his attack upon Christian revelation in the _Scheme_. In
the two years which separated this work from the earlier _Grounds and
Reasons_, there occurred no change in the author's argument. What does
occur, however, is a perceptive if snide elaboration upon the mask. This
is in many ways the same persona who barely suppressed his guffaws in the
earlier work. Now he is given an added dimension; he is made more
decisively rational than his predecessor and therefore more insightful in
his knowledge of rhetorical method. As a disciple of certain Protestant
polemicists and particularly of Grotius, whose "integrity," "honor," and
biblical criticism he supports, he is the empirical-minded Christian who
knows exactly why the literalists have failed to persuade the
free-thinkers or even to have damaged their arguments. "For if you begin
with Infidels by denying to them, what is evident and agreeable to common
sense, I think there can be no reasonable hopes of converting or
convincing them."[23] The irony is abrasive simply because it unanswerably
singles out the great rhetorical failure of orthodoxy, its inability to
argue from a set of principles as acceptable to the deists as to
themselves.
Many of the clergy chafed against Collins's manipulation of this
tongue-in-cheek persona. They resented his irreverent wit which projected,
for example, the image of an Anglican God who "talks to all mankind from
corners" and who shows his back parts to Moses. They were irritated by his
jesting parables, as in "The Case of Free-Seeing," and by the impertinence
of labelling Archbishop Tillotson as the man "whom all _English
Free-Thinkers_ own as their Head."[24]
But most of all they gagged upon Collins's use of satire in religious
controversy. As we have already seen, there were complex reasons for his
choice of technique. He was a naturally witty man who, sometimes out of
fear and sometimes out of malice, expressed himself best through
circuitous irony. In 1724, when he himself considered his oratorical
practice, he argued that his matter determined his style, that the targets
of his belittling wit were the "saint-errants." We can only imagine the
exasperation of Collins's Anglican enemies when they found their orthodoxy
thus slyly lumped with the eccentricities of Samuel Butler's "true blew"
Presbyterians. It would be hard to live down the associations of those
facetious lines which made the Augustan divines, like their unwelcome
forebear Hudibras, members
Of that stubborn Crew
Of Errant Saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant.
Those dignified Anglican exteriors were further punctured by Collins's
irreverent attack upon their cry of religious uniformity, a cry which was
"ridiculous, romantick, and impossible to succeed." He saw himself, in
short, as an emancipated Butler or even Cervantes; and like his famous
predecessors he too would laugh quite out of countenance the fool and the
hypocrite, the pretender and the enthusiast, the knave and the persecuter,
all those who would create a god in their own sour and puny image.
III
By 1727 several of the orthodox felt that they could take no more of
Collins's laughter, his sneering invectives against the clergy, or his
designs to make religion "a Matter purely personal; and the Knowledge of
it to be obtain'd by personal Consideration, _independently of any Guides,
Teachers, or Authority_." In the forefront of this group was John Rogers,
whose hostility to the deist was articulate and compulsive. At least it
drove him into a position seemingly at odds with the spirit if not the law
of English toleration. He urged, for example, that those like Collins be
prosecuted in a civil court for a persuasion "which is manifestly
subversive of all Order and Polity, and can no more consist with civil,
than with religious, Society."[25]
Thereupon followed charge and countercharge. New gladiators, as different
from each other as the nonconformist divine Samuel Chandler and the deist
Thomas Chubb, entered the arena on behalf of Collins. For all the dogmatic
volubility of Rogers, orthodoxy appeared beleaguered. The moderate clergy,
who witnessed this exchange, became alarmed; they feared that in the melee
the very heart of English toleration would be threatened by the
contenders, all of whom spoke as its champion. Representative of such
moderation was Nathanael Marshall, who wished if not to end the debate,
then at least to contain its ardor. As canon of Windsor, he supported the
condition of a state religion protected by the magistrate but he worried
over the extent of the latter's prerogative and power. Certainly he was
more liberal than Rogers in his willingness to entertain professions of
religious diversity. Yet he straitjacketed his liberalism when he denied
responsible men the right to attack laws, both civil and canonical, with
"ludicrous Insult" or "with Buffoonery and Banter, Ridicule or Sarcastick
Irony."[26]
Once again Collins met the challenge. In _A Discourse concerning Ridicule
and Irony_ he devoted himself to undermining the moral, the intellectual,
and practical foundations of that one restraint which Marshall would
impose upon the conduct of any religious quarrel. He had little difficulty
in achieving his objective. His adversary's stand was visibly vulnerable
and for several reasons. It was too conscious of the tug-of-war between
the deist and Rogers, too arbitrary in its choice of prohibition. It was,
in truth, strained by a choice between offending the establishment and yet
rejecting clerical extremism.[27] Moreover, Collins had this time an
invisible partner, a superior thinker against whom he could test his own
ideas and from whom he could borrow others. For the _Discourse concerning
Ridicule and Irony_ is largely a particularization, a crude but powerful
reworking of Shaftesbury's _Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of
Wit and Humour_.
Supported by Shaftesbury's urbane generalization, Collins laughed openly
at the egocentricity and blindness of Marshall's timid zealotry. Indeed,
he wryly found his orthodox opponent guilty of the very crime with which
he, as a subversive, was charged. It seemed to him, he said,
a most prodigious Banter upon [mankind], for Men to talk in general
of the _Immorality_ of _Ridicule_ and _Irony_, and of _punishing_ Men
for those Matters, when their own Practice is _universal Irony_ and
_Ridicule_ of all those who go not with them, and _universal
Applause_ and _Encouragement_ for such _Ridicule_ and _Irony_, and
distinguishing by all the honourable ways imaginable such _drolling_
Authors for their Drollery; and when Punishment for _Drollery_ is
never call'd for, but when _Drollery_ is used or employ'd against
them!
(p. 29)
Collins's technique continued its ironic ambiguity, reversal, and
obliquity. Under a tone of seeming innocence and good will, he credited
his adversaries with an enviable capacity for satiric argument. In
comradely fashion, he found precedent for his own rhetorical practice
through a variety of historical and biblical analogies. But even more
important for a contemporary audience, he again resorted to the device of
invoking the authority provided by some of the most respected names in the
Anglican Establishment. The use of satire in religious topics, hence, was
manifest in "the Writings of our most eminent Divines," especially those
of Stillingfleet, "our greatest controversial Writer" (pp. 4-5).
With all the outrageous assurance of a self-invited guest, the deist had
seated himself at the table of his vainly protesting Christian hosts (whom
he insisted on identifying as brethren). "In a word," he said so as to
obviate debate, "the Opinions and Practices of Men in all Matters, and
especially in Matters of Religion, are generally so absurd and ridiculous
that it is impossible for them not to be the Subjects of Ridicule" (p.
19). Thus adopting Juvenal's concept of satiric necessity ("difficile est
saturam non scribere"), Collins here set forth the thesis and rationale of
his enemy. There was a kind of impudent virtuosity in his "proofs," in his
manner of drawing a large, impressive cluster of names into his ironic net
and making all of them appear to be credible witnesses in his defense.
Even Swift, amusingly compromised as "one of the greatest _Droles_ that
ever appear'd upon the Stage of the World" (p. 39), was brought to the
witness box as evidence of the privileged status to which satiric writing
was entitled. Collins enforced erudition with cool intelligence so that
contemptuous amusement is present on every page of his _Discourse_.
Beneath his jeers and his laughter there was a serious denunciation of any
kind of intellectual restraint, however mild-seeming; beneath his verbal
pin-pricking there was conversely an exoneration of man's right to
inquire, to profess, and to persuade. Beneath his jests and sarcasms there
was further a firm philosophical commitment that informed the rhetoric of
all his earlier work. Ridicule, he asserted in 1729, "is both a proper and
necessary Method of Discourse in many Cases, and especially in the Case of
_Gravity_, when that is attended with Hypocrisy or Imposture, or with
Ignorance, or with soureness of Temper and Persecution: all which ought to
draw after them the _Ridicule_ and _Contempt_ of the Society, which has no
other effectual Remedy against such Methods of Imposition" (p. 22).
For the modern reader the _Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony_ is the
most satisfactory of Collins's many pamphlets and books. It lacks the
pretentiousness of the _Scheme_, the snide convolutions of the _Grounds
and Reasons_, the argument by half-truths of the _Discourse of
Free-Thinking_. His last work is free of the curious ambivalence which
marked so many of his earlier pieces, a visible uncertainty which made him
fear repression and yet court it. On the contrary, his last work is in
fact a justification of his rhetorical mode and religious beliefs; it is
an _apologia pro vita sua_ written with all the intensity and decisiveness
that such a justification demands. To be sure, it takes passing shots at
old enemies like Swift, but never with rancor. And while its language is
frequently ironical, its thinking makes an earnest defense of wit as a
weapon of truth. The essay sets forth its author as an _animal ridens_, a
creature that through laughter and affable cynicism worships a universal
God and respects a rational mankind.
Brown University
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
[1] _Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal_, No. 98 (22 August 1730).
[2] To Des Maizeaux (5 May 1717): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, ff. 129-130.
[3] To Des Maizeaux (9 February 1716): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 123.
[4] The title page of the _Scheme_ is dated 1726. It was not advertised in
the newspapers or journals of that year--a strange silence for any of
Collins's work. Its first notice appeared in the _Monthly Catalogue: Being
a General Register of Books, Sermons, Plays, Poetry, Pamphlets, &c.
Printed and Publish'd in London, or the Universities, during the Month of
May, 1727_ (see No. 49). Yet we know that the _Scheme_ had been remarked
upon as early as March when on the 10th of that month Samuel Chandler
published his _Reflections on the Conduct of the Modern Deists in their
late Writings against Christianity_. (For the dating of Chandler's work,
see the _Daily Courant_ [10 March 1727].) We know also that the _Scheme_
went to a second edition late in 1727 and was frequently advertised in the
_Daily Post_ between 2 January and 20 January 1728.
[5] For the statement about the _Letter to Dr. Rogers_, see B. M. Sloane
MSS. 4282, f. 220 (15 August 1727). For that on the use of "personal
matters" in controversy, see B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 170 (27 December
1719); cf. _The Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered_ (London, 1726), pp.
422-438.
[6] _The Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion_ was published in
London within the first four days of January 1724; see the advertisement
in the _Daily Post_ (4 January 1724). _A Discourse concerning Ridicule and
Irony in Writing_ was published on or close to 17 March 1729; see the
advertisement in the _Daily Journal_ for that date.
[7] We can generally fix the date of Rogers's _Eight Sermons_ within the
first two months of 1727 because it was answered early by Samuel
Chandler's _Reflections on the Conduct of the Modern Deists_. (See note
4.) For the dating of Collins's rebuttal, see the _Monthly Catalogue_, No.
49 (May 1727).
[8] To Des Maizeaux (24 June 1727): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, ff. 218-219.
[9] For the dating of this work, see the _Daily Post_ (31 January 1728).
[10] For Swift's satire, see _Mr. C---ns's Discourse of Free-Thinking, Put
into plain English, by way of Abstract, for the Use of the Poor_. For
Bentley's devastating probe of Collins's scholarly inadequacies, see his
_Remarks on the Discourse of Free-Thinking. By Phileleutherus Lipsiensis_.
Both works appeared in 1713.
[11] _Scheme_, pp. 432-433.
[12] Edward Chandler, _A Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of
the Old Testament_ (London, 1725), p. ii.
[13] _A Letter to Dr. Rogers_, p. 89.
[14] _A Vindication of the Divine Attributes_ (London, 1710), p. 24.
[15] Robert Jenkin, _A Brief Confutation of the Pretences against Natural
and Revealed Religion_ (London, 1702), p. 40.
[16] For Collins on his own rhetorical skills, see _Scheme_, p. 402;
William Warburton, _Divine Legation of Moses, Demonstrated_ (London,
1846), III, 199.
[17] Jenkin, _Brief Confutation_, p. 51; for the letter (1 July 1717), see
B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 137.
[18] Pp. 46-99.
[19] See, for example, the statement of John Conybeare, Bishop of Bristol,
in Joseph Spence, _Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and
Men_, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, sect. 992.
[20] _Essay_, pp. 329-333 (for Whiston's statement of sources); pp.
334-335 (for his defense of literal interpretation). The bracketed
material indicates Whiston's manuscript emendations of his own printed
text; see the British Museum's copy of the _Essay_ (873. 1. 10) which
originally belonged to the mathematician. See Collins, _Grounds and
Reasons_, pp. 98-99, for the summary of Whiston's attack upon allegorical
interpretation.
[21] _Grounds and Reasons_, pp. 20, 48-50.
[22] This terse summary of the persona's argument was correctly made by
Warburton, III, 232.
[23] _Scheme_, p. 391.
[24] _Discourse of Free-Thinking_, pp. 15-17, 38, 171.
[25] _Eight Sermons_, pp. 1, lxi.
[26] Marshall, pp. 301, 337. For Samuel Chandler's contribution, see his
_Reflections on the Conduct of the Modern Deists_ (London, 1727); for
Chubb's contribution see _Some Short Reflections on the Grounds and Extent
of Authority and Liberty, With respect to the Civil Government_ (London,
1728).
[27] Marshall's reluctance to support Rogers's extremism is seen in the
funeral sermon he preached at the latter's death (_A Sermon Delivered in
the Parish Church of St. Giles Cripplegate, May 18, 1729. Upon Occasion of
the Much Lamented Death of the Revd. John Rogers_ [London, 1729]). He
made only the most casual and indifferent reference to Rogers's work. So
obvious was this slight that it called for a rebuttal; see Philalethes (A.
A. Sykes [?]), _Some Remarks Upon the Reverend Dr. Marshall's Sermon on
Occasion of the Death of the Revd Dr Rogers_ (London, 1729).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
This facsimile of _A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing_
(1729) is reproduced from a copy in the William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library.
A
DISCOURSE
CONCERNING
Ridicule and Irony
IN
WRITING,
IN A
LETTER
To the Reverend
Dr. NATHANAEL MARSHALL.
-------- _Ridiculum acri
Fortius & melius magnas plerumq; secat res._
-------- _Ridentem dicere verum
Quid vetat?_
_LONDON:_
Printed for J. BROTHERTON in _Cornhill_ and sold
by T. WARNER in _Pater-noster-Row_, and
A. DODD without _Temple-Bar_. 1729.
A
DISCOURSE
CONCERNING
_Ridicule_ and _Irony_, &c.
REVEREND SIR,
In your _Letter_ to Dr. _Rogers_, which he has publish'd at the End of his
_Vindication of the Civil Establishment of Religion_, I find a Notion
advanc'd by you: which as it is a common and plausible Topick for
Persecution, and a Topick by which you, and many others, urge the
Magistrate to punish [or, as you phrase it, _to pinch_] [28] Men for
controversial Writings, is particularly proper at this time to be fully
consider'd; and I hope to treat it in such manner as to make you your
self, and every fair Reader, sensible of the Weakness thereof.
You profess to "vindicate [29] a sober, serious, and modest Inquiry into
the Reasons of any Establishment."
And you add, that you "have not ordinarily found it judg'd inconsistent
with the Duty of a _private Subject_, to propose his Doubts or his Reasons
to the Publick in a _modest_ way, concerning the _Repeal_ of any Law which
he may think of ill Consequence by its Continuance. If he be a Man of
Ability, and well vers'd in the Argument, he will deserve some Attention;
but if he mistakes his Talent, and will be busy with what he very little
understands, Contempt and Odium will be his unavoidable and just
Allotment." And you say, that "Religion is more a personal Affair, in
which every Man has a peculiar Right and Interest, and a Concern that he
be not mistaken, than in any other Case or Instance which can fall under
the Cognizance of the Magistrate; and that greater Allowances seem due to
each private Person for Examination and Inquiry in this, than in any other
Example."
And herein I must do you the Justice to acknowledge, that you speak like a
Christian, like a Protestant, like an _Englishman_, and a reasonable Man;
like a Man concerned for Truth, like a Man of Conscience; like a Man
concern'd for the Consciences of others; like a Man concern'd to have some
Sense, Learning, and Virtue in the World; and, in a word, like a Man who
is not for abandoning all the valuable Things in Life to the Tyranny,
Ambition, and Covetousness of Magistrates and Ecclesiasticks.
But you observe, that "municipal Laws[30], how trivial soever in their
intrinsick Value, are never to be _insulted_; never to be treated with
_Buffoonery_ and _Banter_, _Ridicule_ and _Sarcastick Irony_. So that Dr.
_Rogers_'s grand Adversary will have from you no measure of Encouragement
to his manner of Writing." Again, you "never [31] desire to see the
Magistrate fencing in the publick Religion with so thick a Hedge as shall
exclude all Light, and shall tear out the Eyes of all such as endeavour to
see thro' it. _Sober arguing_ you never fear: _Mockery_ and _bitter
Railing_, if you could help it, you would never bear, either _for the
Truth or against it_."
Upon which I offer these following Considerations.
I. _First_, If what you call _Insult_, _Buffoonery_, _Banter_, _Ridicule_
and _Irony_, _Mockery_ and _bitter Railing_, be Crimes in Disputation, you
will find none more deeply involv'd in it than our most famous Writers, in
their controversial Treatises about _serious_ Matters; as all Notions and
Practices in Religion, whether reasonable or absurd, may be equally and
justly deem'd: the Notions and Practices of Papists, Presbyterians,
Quakers, and all other Sects, being no less _serious_ to their respective
Sects than ridiculous to one another. Let any Man read the Writings of our
most eminent Divines against the _Papists_, _Puritans_, _Dissenters_, and
_Hereticks_, and against one another, and particularly the Writings of
_Alexander Cook_, _Hales_, _Chillingworth_, _Patrick_, _Tillotson_,
_Stillingfleet_, _Burnet_, _South_, _Hickes_, _Sherlock_ and _Edwards_,
and he will find them to abound with _Banter_, _Ridicule_, and _Irony_.
_Stillingfleet_ in particular, our greatest controversial Writer, who
passes for _grave_ and _solemn_, is so conscious of his use thereof, that
he confesses that Charge of the Papists against him, saying[32], "But I
forget my Adversary's grave admonition, that I _would treat these Matters
seriously, and lay aside Drollery_." And again, after a _Banter_ of near a
Page, he says[33], "But I forget I am so near my Adversary's Conclusion,
wherein he so _gravely_ advises me, that I _would be pleas'd for once to
write Controversy, and not Play-Books_." Nor did I ever hear the Divines
of the Church condemn the Doctor for his sarcastical Method of writing
Controversy. On the contrary, I remember at the University, that he used
to be applauded no less for his Wit than for his Learning. And to exalt
his Character as a Wit, his _Conferences between a_ Romish _Priest, a
Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of_ England, _&c._ were
spoken of as an excellent _Comedy_, and especially for that Part which the
_Fanatick Chaplain_ acts therein, who makes as comical and as ridiculous a
Figure as he does in any of the _Plays_ acted on the Stage. And in his
_Controversy_ with _Dryden_ about the _Royal Papers_, and those of the
_Duchess_ of _York_, he was deem'd to have out-done that famous _Satirist_
in tart Repartees and Reflections; and to have attack'd the Character of
the _Poet_ with more severity, than that _Poet_, who was so remarkable for
his satirical Reflections on the holy Order, did the Character of the
_Divine_: As for example, he says to _Dryden_[34], "Could nothing be said
by you of Bishop _Morley_, but that _Prelate of rich Memory_? Or had you a
mind to tell us he was no _Poet_? Or that he was out of the Temptation of
changing his Religion for Bread?" And many Citations us'd to be produc'd
out of his Writings, as Specimens of his ironical Talent; among which I
particularly remember his _Ridicule_ of his Adversary Mr. _Alsop_, a
famous Presbyterian Wit and Divine; whose Book, which was full of low
Raillery and Ridicule, he resembles [35] to _the Bird of_ Athens, as _made
up of Face and Feathers_. And the Doctor himself adds, in Justification of
the polite Method of Raillery in Controversy, that _there is a
pleasantness of Wit, which serves to entertain the Reader in the rough
and deep way of Controversy_. Nor did Mr. _Alsop_ want Approvers of his
Raillery in his own Party. Mr. _Gilbert Rule_[36], a great _Scotch_
Presbyterian Divine, who defended him against _Stillingfleet_, contends in
behalf of his Raillery, "That the Facetiousness of Mr. _Alsop_'s Strain
needed to have bred no Disgust, being as a Condiment to prevent _Tædium_
and Nauseousness." And he adds, "That he knows none that blame the
excellent Writings of Mr. _Fuller_, which have a Pleasantness not unlike
that of Mr. _Alsop_."
And this manner of writing is seldom complain'd of, as unfit to be
allow'd, by any but those who feel themselves hurt by it. For the solemn
and grave can bear a solemn and grave Attack: That gives them a sort of
Credit in the World, and makes them appear considerable to themselves, as
worthy of a serious Regard. But _Contempt_ is what they, who commonly are
the most contemptible and worthless of Men, cannot bear nor withstand, as
setting them in their true Light, and being the most effectual Method to
drive Imposture, the sole Foundation of their Credit, out of the World.
Hence _Stillingfleet_'s Popish Adversaries, more conscious perhaps of the
Ridiculousness of Popery than the common People among Protestants
themselves, fall upon him very furiously. One says[37], "That by the
Phrases, which are the chief Ornaments that set off the Doctor's Works, we
may easily guess in what Books he has spent his Time; and that he is well
vers'd in _Don Quixot_, the _Seven Champions_, and other _Romantick
Stories_. Sure the Doctor err'd in his Vocation: Had he quitted all
serious Matters, and dedicated himself wholly to Drollery and Romance,
with two or three Years under _Hudibras_, he might have been a Master in
that Faculty; the Stage might have been a Gainer by it, and the Church of
_England_ would have been no Loser."
Another of his Adversaries says, "[38]Peruse the Doctor Page after Page,
you will find the Man all along in peevish Humour, when you see his Book
brimfull of tart biting Ironies, Drolleries, comical Expressions,
impertinent Demands, and idle Stories, _&c._ as if the discharging a
little Gall were enough to disparage _the clearest Miracles_ God ever
wrought."