The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats

The stated purpose of this interesting and useful book is to provide cultural contexts for the literature of the period. It often quotes obscure texts or explains important, familiar texts in unusual, illuminating ways. For example, Ms. Ezell locates Defoe's The True-Born Englishman (1700) in an "energetic series" and teases out the radical ideas in his and others' reactions to King William's "foreignness." Each section begins with an introduction to a coherent set of years followed by one on laws regulating publications, speech, and performances. They show an alert, acute, and deeply informed mind at work. For example, part 2, "The Return of the King," begins with the death and funeral of Cromwell and argues that he "became an iconic figure." Her demonstration of the use of royal iconography is fascinating if contradictory, and, for a while, Cromwell certainly became a contested "site." Ms. Ezell's selection of incidents and confluences is judicious and telling. She brings together, for example, a group of important poets including Milton, Marvell, Waller, and Dryden, who "within a relatively short space of time" were supposed to lament Cromwell and celebrate King Charles II. She stages it as a competition with incidents such as Marvell's poem bounced from a collection of panegyrics to make room for Waller's Upon the late storme, and of the death of His Highnesse ensuing the same (1658). Ms. Ezell's breadth and depth of learning is often breathtaking. She follows this section on the poets with references to Moll Cutpurse, Dekker and Middleton's The Roaring Girl (1611), periodical coverage of Richard Cromwell's procession, John Aubrey's activities (settling debts and starting his natural history of Wiltshire), and George Fox's "pragmatic" urging that all of the laws of England during the time of mass arrests of Quakers be published in English.

Ms. Ezell uses her introductions and what might be called "touchstones" to unify the book. Part 3 begins by listing four notable deaths in 1674 and some responses to them. Part 4 begins, "In February 1685, Charles II died unexpectedly following a sudden apoplexy" (the usual word for a stroke), and as part 2 had moved to Richard Cromwell's elevation, this chapter quickly moves to James II's ascension to the throne and its impact on court lifestyle. Part 4 includes also the death of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the great patron of theater, and a crisp summary of the changes in the London theater at the end of the seventeenth century. These introductions are filled with lively and illuminating [End Page 89] anecdotes and pieces of information that are sharp indications of social movements and changing times. For instance, a section in part 5 on developing printing practices looks at compendium volumes and notes how they included old and new material and used "authors' sociability and epistolary skills" to please audiences.

Given that religious works were the most prolifically published category, Ms. Ezell's consistent attention to them is a corrective to the usual dispensation of print space to literary genres. There is steady attention to women and their participation in public and literary life, and she weaves them into genre discussions. Her treatment of religious and "spiritual" texts provides a good example: part 2 begins with an introduction to the amazing number of petitions, broadsides, and pamphlets pouring from even laboring-class writers, and a few pages later we learn of Quaker women and how Margaret Fell, the "so-called mother of Quakerism," was the first signature on a petition titled A Paper concerning such as are made Ministers by the will of man (1659).

Part 5 moves from the outpouring of mourning literature on the death of the young Duke of Gloucester to the hope for a successor to the throne, then to Jane Lead's publications of...