Grub Street Journal

The Grub-Street Journal, published from 8 January 1730 to 1738, ^{[1] [2] [3]} was a London weekly satirizing popular journalism and hack-writing in Grub Street. ^[4] Largely edited by the nonjuror Richard Russel and the botanist John Martyn, it counted Alexander Pope among its contributors (though he disclaimed involvement), continuing the satirical project begun with The Dunciad ; contemporary observers described the paper as inspired—and probably funded—by Pope in its first year. ^{[2] [3] [5]} One of its targets was The Weekly Register , answered in a series of letters by the architect Batty Langley under the pseudonym “Hiram,” which defended Gothic architecture and praised Nicholas Hawksmoor. ^{[6] [7]}

After its end, The Literary Courier of Gruber Street succeeded it for a few months. ^[1]

Debate with The Weekly Register (1734–1735)

From mid-1734 into early 1735 the Journal ran near-weekly replies to James Ralph's architectural and art criticism in The Weekly Register , publishing Langley’s freemasonic “Hiram” letters as a counter-series. ^[8] These columns defended Gothic forms and Hawksmoor’s churches—hailing St Anne’s, Limehouse as “a most surprising beautiful structure”—and lampooned the Register’s phrasing (its call for an “octangular square” became a running joke). ^[9]

Editorially, the Journal framed the quarrel as liberty versus authority, arguing that “taste” was a matter of preference and that London’s heterogeneous streetscape reflected English gentlemen’s freedom to spend as they pleased; to extend the debate it also reprinted Captain Valentine Knight’s 1666 rebuilding proposal on 8 May 1735. ^{[10] [11]}

The paper’s personae and satire echoed Pope’s orbit. Contributors riffed on a couplet from the 1729 Dunciad Variorum (“Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, / And makes Night hideous—answer him, ye owls.”) ^[12] and adopted taunting masks such as “Timon the Owl-Hater”; the editorial persona “Bavius” told a Register critic (James Ralph, a notorious Freethinker) to “read the Bible” after misidentifying scriptural scenes in Jacopo Amigoni’s murals. ^{[13] [14]}

References

1. Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury (1908). The text of Shakespeare: its history from the publication of the quartos and folios down to and including the publication of the editions of Pope and Theobald. C. Scribner's sons. p. 383.
2. Alexander Pope; John Wilson Croker; Whitwell Elwin; William John Courthope (1882). The works of Alexander Pope. Vol. 4. J. Murray. p.  441 – via Internet Archive.
3. Alexander Pope; John Dennis (1891). The poetical works of Alexander Pope. Vol. 3. G. Bell. p. 3.
4. Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury (1908). The text of Shakespeare: its history from the publication of the quartos and folios down to and including the publication of the editions of Pope and Theobald. C. Scribner's sons. p. 390.
5. Mari, William Thomas (2015). "Writer by Trade: James Ralph's Claims to Authorship". Authorship. 4 (2): 5. doi: 10.21825/aj.v4i2.1439 .
6. Shipley, John B. (1968). "Ralph, Ellys, Hogarth, and Fielding: The Cabal Against Jacopo Amigoni". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 1 (4): 319–338.
7. Jenner, Mark S. R. (2017). "Print Culture and the Rebuilding of London after the Fire: The Presumptuous Proposals of Valentine Knight". Journal of British Studies. 56 (1): 189–213. doi:10.1017/jbr.2016.115. JSTOR   26598969.
8. Shipley, John B. (1968). "Ralph, Ellys, Hogarth, and Fielding: The Cabal Against Jacopo Amigoni". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 1 (4): 319–338.
9. Jenner, Mark S. R. (2017). "Print Culture and the Rebuilding of London after the Fire: The Presumptuous Proposals of Valentine Knight". Journal of British Studies. 56 (1): 189–213. doi:10.1017/jbr.2016.115. JSTOR   26598969.
10. Craske, Matthew (2004). "From Burlington Gate to Billingsgate: James Ralph's attempt to impose Burlingtonian classicism as a canon of public taste". In Arciszewska, Barbara; McKellar, Elizabeth (eds.). Articulating British Classicism: New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 97–118.
11. Jenner, Mark S. R. (2017). "Print Culture and the Rebuilding of London after the Fire: The Presumptuous Proposals of Valentine Knight". Journal of British Studies. 56 (1): 189–213. doi:10.1017/jbr.2016.115. JSTOR   26598969.
12. Pope, Alexander (1729). The Dunciad. With Notes Variorum. London.
13. Craske, Matthew (2004). "From Burlington Gate to Billingsgate: James Ralph's attempt to impose Burlingtonian classicism as a canon of public taste". In Arciszewska, Barbara; McKellar, Elizabeth (eds.). Articulating British Classicism: New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 97–118.
14. Coley, W. B.; Shipley, John B. (Spring 1969). "Fielding and the "Cabal" Against Amigoni: A Rebuttal". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 2 (3): 303–311. JSTOR   2737692.

Bibliography

• Goldgar, Bertrand A., ed. (2002). The Grub-Street Journal, 1730-33. London: Pickering & Chatto. ISBN   1851967443. Facsimile reprint in 4 volumes.
• Hillhouse, James T. (1967) [First published 1928]. The Grub-Street Journal (Reissued. Illustrated ed.). New York: Benjamin Blom – via Internet Archive.

External links

• Grub Street: The Literary and the Literatory in Eighteenth-Century Britain
• Grub Street Journal, first four volumes, at Hathi Trust