It’s time to go deep into Grub Street, into the late 1720s. Pope has released his first version of The Dunciad anonymously and is collecting the praises and attacks in his next version. He’s hired a Grub Street hack with dubious, noble parentage who has recently been pardoned off a death sentence for murder, to dig up the dirt on his victims, that man is Richard Savage.
In 1729, Pope published the official Dunciad, with many of the notes influenced by Savage’s muckraking and Savage himself released his own work against the dunces, An Author to be Lett in which he played the part of Iscariot Hackney, the epitome of all base practices and pride of Grub Street.
Born among ill omens, Iscariot quickly grew up to be the tattletale of the class, setting boys against each other and masters against boys. He also developed a love of pulling wings off flies, legs of insects and harming stray dogs. This, he says, set him up to be a wit, as “to be a great wit is to take a Pleasure in giving everybody great pain.” He also developed a skill for pilfering, which would help him become a great plagiarist later on.
Set with a “propensity to sneer at all Mankind”, he is set on his way to be a writer. Of course his first publisher is Edmund Curll. He manages to cheat Curll of some money but is easily counter-cheated and put into servitude in translating things from the French “they never wrote” and other literary chores.
He was once pleased that some of works were passed off by a Lord as his own in private, a joy that was stolen when the Lord then published them. He has a reputations as, “a great Joker, and deal in Clenches, Puns, quibbles, jibes, conundrums and carry a good whichits.” He also attacks authors who publish under their own names but writes under other authors pen-names to aid his sales. He also writes technical works he knows nothing about by misusing indexes and dictionaries and creates pretend dialogues from Henley’s Oratory.
He’s developed a skill at all kinds of ephemeral poetry, especially those praising flash-in-the-pan successes. He dedicates works to people who would never appreciate them and is a ghost writer for a member of parliament, a man so low even Iscariot treats with contempt. When parliament is in session he makes a living writing for either party, when it’s not, he makes do by writing prophecies and tales of ‘wonders’. He often hears these stories being praised and hates the public for taking to them.
He’s tried his hand at theatre but not hit the big times and offered himself as a government spy but was rebuffed. As he says, he’s tried “all Means (but wha Fools call Honest ones) to make a Livelihood. His latest wheeze is as a tutor to boys on the grand tour. He can crib any academic knowledge he needs from the same Grub Street anthologies he writes and knows the really important things to know t be successful in the task is where the comfortable beds and good food are. If he’s really good, he’ll know where the free young women are as well and set them up with his charge. By doing this, he boasts, he’ll have saved up enough money to retire to Switzerland or Wales.
He ends by imagining how famous he should be considering he is “a Perfect town Author.” He hates anyone who hates him and looks down on anyone who helps him, as helping him shows how pathetic they must be. He’s sold hundreds of copies of his works, mainly because he retitles them and releases them as new, something he’s learned from Curll.
Finally, he says where he can be found for hiring. A number of gin-shops, nightly rent rooms and other low-down places. There, from Hockley-in-the-Hole (a well known Highwayman hangout) he’ll be happy to make any deal with any possible client.
In this work, Savage succinctly and colourfully lays out every attack on Grub Street. The venality of it, the lack of morals or gratitude, the bare attempts at wit and learning, the bile. It’s a Dunciad stripped of its poetry, it’s heroic trappings and its creative flourish. It’s plain dealing, no-holds-barred invective.
It’s also something of an accurate self-portrait. Savage was turned down as a spy, he did deal in invective and muckraking, he did betray or belittle everyone who ever tried to patronise him. He even tried to retire to Wales but got bored and died in a debtor’s jail in Bristol. Yet, Savage was greatly appealing to the young(ish) Samuel Johnson who befriended him soon after and turned the story of his life into the prototypical tale of the artist too elevated for this harsh world.
Were there writers like Iscariot Hackney in Grub Street. Probably. But there were many other stories, tales of people accomplishing great things or simply being able to live based on their writing. These Grub Street writers created modern newspapers, dictionaries, close-reading, literary criticism, advertising, agony-aunt, lifestyle pieces, cookbooks - and so many other things. It’s hard to remember when reading works by Pope and his group, but they were the losing side of the early eighteenth century culture war. Their ideal of gentleman writers using time-established classical forms and modes was on it’s way out. The hacks won, Iscariot Hackney was triumphant - and the new age of social media is busily sweeping away the world they built. Who knows what the next will be?
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