The British Periodical Press and the French Revolution, 1789–99

Includes bibliographical references and index. viii Preface This work is offered as a contribution to what Alfred Cobban called the 'Debate on the French Revolution'. Cobban's anthology was drawn from parliamentary speeches and contemporary books or pamphlets. My own study embraces not only a wider range of publications, but also records what the reviewers of the day had to say about them. More than 20 years ago, Derek Roper's Reviewing before the Edinburgh (1978) presented an overview of the London literary magazines, and encouraged us to take them more seriously than historians had generally done. Since then J.E. Cookson in The Friends of Peace (1982) has drawn on the pages of the provincial press, while Robert Dozier's For King, Constitution and Country (1983), James J. Sack's From Jacobite to Conservative (1993) and Marilyn Morris's The British Monarchy and the French Revolution (1998) demonstrate the extent of loyalist sentiment and the wealth of writing and preaching against the Revolution. Most recent historiography has favoured the Burkean analysis, though the alternative theses of Mark Philp and the late John Dunwiddy come close to my own independent conclusions. My debt to other authorities is made clear in the endnotes for each chapter. My basic materials have been those literary reviews of the 1790s which had a continuous existence throughout the decade: the Monthly, the Critical and the Analytical. I have paid much less attention to the English Review, absorbed by the Analytical Review in 1796, or to the Monthly Magazine, first established in that same year. All five of these monthly journals were edited by Dissenters. Excluded from public office, Dissenters expressed their opposition through the periodical press. The Anglican British Critic, founded in 1793 and partly funded by the government, was intended as a corrective. But the Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner, and its successor, the monthly Anti-Jacobin Review, are a surer measure of Pittite propaganda. Secure in its overwhelming parliamentary majority, Pitt's ministry was nevertheless losing the debate in the press; and part of my purpose is to contrast the shallow vituperation of the weekly and monthly Anti-Jacobin with the moderate, persuasive (though partisan) tone of the literary reviews. When in the late 1790s the battle of the reviews turned in the government's favour, the anti-Jacobin press was free from restraint, while editors and publishers of anti-ministerial publications faced imprisonment. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Bastille Euphoria....Pages 1-13 Burke Rebutted....Pages 14-27 Instant History: Burke, Godwin and the Annual Registers....Pages 28-41 War, Sedition and Censorship....Pages 42-55 Pitt the Apostate: Beddoes, Coleridge and The Watchman....Pages 56-68 Canning’s Counter-Attack: the Weekly Anti-Jacobin....Pages 69-82 ‘Jacobin Poetry’: Southey, Cottle and Lyrical Ballads....Pages 83-96 Smears and Subsidies: the Monthly Anti-Jacobin....Pages 97-110 ‘Jacobin Morality’: the Wollstonecraft Memoirs....Pages 111-123 ‘Jacobin Prints’: Courier and Star, Chronicle and Post....Pages 124-137 Reviewers Reviewed: Monthly and Critical....Pages 138-151 Murder by Ridicule: the End of the Analytical....Pages 152-165 Cromwell’s Ghosts: Republicans and Dissenters....Pages 166-178 Millennialism and Popery....Pages 179-191 Transatlantic Comparisons: American Porcupine....Pages 192-203 Jacobins and Anti-Jacobins....Pages 204-216 Back Matter....Pages 217-280 Cover 1 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 9 Preface 10 Acknowledgements 12 1 Bastille Euphoria 13 2 Burke Rebutted 26 3 Instant History: Burke, Godwin and the Annual Registers 40 4 War, Sedition and Censorship 54 5 Pitt the Apostate: Beddoes, Coleridge and The Watchman 68 6 Canning’s Counter-Attack: the Weekly Anti-Jacobin 81 7 ‘Jacobin Poetry’: Southey, Cottle and Lyrical Ballads 95 8 Smears and Subsidies: the Monthly Anti-Jacobin 109 9 ‘Jacobin Morality’: the Wollstonecraft Memoirs 123 10 ‘Jacobin Prints’: Courier and Star, Chronicle and Post 136 11 Reviewers Reviewed: Monthly and Critical 150 12 Murder by Ridicule: the End of the Analytical 164 13 Cromwell’s Ghosts: Republicans and Dissenters 178 14 Millennialism and Popery 191 15 Transatlantic Comparisons: American Porcupine 204 16 Jacobins and Anti-Jacobins 216 Appendix: Burke’s Jacobins 229 List of Abbreviations used in the Notes 233 Notes 234 Bibliography 272 Index 275 Annotation This study challenges the conventional polarities used to describe British politics of the 1790s; Pitt versus Fox, Burke versus Paine, Church versus Dissent, ruling class versus working class, Jacobin versus anti-Jacobin. Such polarities were sedulously promoted by Pitt's wartime government, which applied 'Jacobin' shamelessly to all its critics and opponents, and thus foreshadowed the McCarthyite tactic of guilt by association. The author seeks to make the less strident but more persuasive contemporary voices again audible. He takes seriously those who questioned the necessity for Burke's crusade to destroy the French republic, and who deplored Britain's alliance with the partitioners of Poland

This study challenges the conventional polarities used to describe British politics of the 1790s: Pitt versus Fox, Burke versus Paine, Church versus Dissent, ruling class versus working class, Jacobin versus anti-Jacobin. Such polarities were sedulously promoted by Pitt's wartime government, which applied "Jacobin" shamelessly to all its critics and opponents, and thus foreshadowed the McCarthyite tactic of guilt by association. The author seeks to make the less strident but more persuasive contemporary voices again audible. He takes seriously those who who deplored Britain's alliance with the partitioners of Poland.