Enlightenment and Dissent0 No. 23 2004-07 CONTENTS Page vii Editorial Articles 1 ‘Aspers’d and Blacken’d’: Pierre Coste’s Critique of Locke’s Moral Theory James Dybikowski 24 RichardPriceandFrancisHutcheson–Does a Moral Sense Theory Make Ethics Arbitrary? Nicholas Hunt-Bull 45 JohnBalguyand the sense of beauty. A rational realistin the age of sentiment Peter Kivy 71 Did Paine abridge his Rights of Man? Textual scholarship and controversial context Iain Hampsher-Monk 85 ‘Probably the most indefatigable prince that ever existed’: A Rational Dissenting perspective on Frederick the Great Anthony Page 131 Ethics and aesthetics in the British Moralists D D Raphael Documents 148 ‘A Register of Vexations and Persecutions’: Some Letters of Thomas Fyshe Palmer from Botany Bay during the 1790s Michael T Davis Review Articles 167 JennyGraham, The Nation, the Law and the King. Reform Politics in England, 1789-1799 Emma Vincent Macleod 174 Editing Mary Shelley Michael Rossington Reviews 182 Paula R Backscheider and Catherine Ingrassia eds., A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture Gillian Skinner 187 Michael T Davis, Iain McCalman and Christina Parolin, eds., Newgate in Revolution: An Anthology of Radical Prison Literature in the Age of Revolution H T Dickinson 190 MalcolmDicked., Joseph Priestley and Birmingham Anthony Page 191 GavinEdwards, Narrative Order, 1789-1819: Life and Story in an Age of Revolution Mary-Ann Constantine 195 Amanda Goodrich, Debating England’s Aristocracy in the 1790s: Pamphlets, Polemics and Political Ideas Martyn Powell 197 Geraint H Jenkins ed., A Rattleskull Genius: The Many Faces of Iolo Morganwg Colin Kidd 202 Judith Jennings Gender, Religion and Radicalism in the Long Eighteenth Century: The ‘Ingenious Quaker’ and Her Connections Linda Wilson 204 PaulKeened., The Popular Radical Press in Britain 1817- 1821 PaulPickering 207 FArantMaginnes, Thomas Abthorpe Cooper: father of the American stage, 1775-1849 David O’Shaughnessy 211 JonathanSheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: translation, scholarship,culture MartinMulsow 216 Mark G Spencer, David Hume and Eighteenth-Century America PeterJones 219 Books received vi EDITORIAL As readers will be aware, over the years there has been a slippage in the production of the journal, eventually reaching proportions where it was not possible to bring the journal up to date by producing an issue for each of the late years. The solution is this number which covers the years 2004 to 2007. With this, we bring ourselves up to date and that is where we aim to stay. Of course, we cannot do that without the support of scholars in the field and a regular flow of submissions, but we are pleased to say that the prospects for the next few years are good and we have planned for 2009 a special issue devoted to Isaac Newton and his legacy to be edited by Stephen Snobelen. The papers will examine the historical, philosophical, theological and literary aspects of Newton and his relation to eighteenth-century thought and the enlightenment. Over the years, too, we have also lost valuable members of the editorial advisory board, which came to be in need of strengthening. The first step we took was to appoint Anthony Page of the University of Tasmania as Reviews Editor. He has brought new energy to the reviews section as can already be seen in this number. Then, we invited a number of distinguished scholars to join our editorial advisory board, and as a result are pleased to welcome the following new members to the board. They are: Michael T Davis, Faculty of Arts Director of Studies, University of Tasmania Harry T Dickinson, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh Grayson Ditchfield, Professor of History, University of Kent at Canterbury Knud Haakonssen, Professor of Intellectual History, University of Sussex Emma Vincent Macleod, Lecturer in History, University of Stirling Stephen Snobelen, Assistant Professor, History of Science and Technology Programme, University of King’s College. We very much look forward to receiving their advice and assistance. MHF JD ‘ASPERS’D AND BLACKEN’D’: PIERRE COSTE’S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE’S MORAL THEORY James Dybikowski When the Huguenot journalist and editor, Pierre Des Maizeaux (1672/3-1745), published A Collection of several pieces of Mr. John Locke in 1720, he included a translated elegy of Locke originally published in French shortly after Locke’s death by his Huguenot translator, Pierre Coste (1668-1747). Des Maizeaux prefaced the translated version with an anonymous letter purportedly written on behalf of the friends of Locke.1 With reason, these friends have been taken to be Des Maizeaux himself and Anthony Collins whose assistance made the collection possible.2 According to the letter, the elegy was intended to be a ‘proper Vindication’ of Locke against its author who, since writing it, ‘in several Writings, and in his common Conversation throughout France, Holland, and England has aspers’d and blacken’d the Memory of Mr. Locke’. In her book Impolite learning, Anne Goldgar aptly observes: ‘This letter is mysterious.’3 Indeed, it is. It refers to conversations and offers no details about how Locke’s memory had been blackened. It puzzled contemporaries as it has more recent scholars.4 Is there any foundation for its condemnation of Coste, 1 A Collection of several pieces of Mr. John Locke (London, 1720), i- iii. 2 In the second edition, printed in 1739, Des Maizeaux acknowledges his debt to Collins. The collection is there said to be ‘Publish'd by Mr. Des Maizeaux, under the Direction of ANTHONY COLLINS Esq.’ See Anne Goldgar, Impolite learning: conduct and community in the Republic of Letters, 1680-1750 (New Haven, 1995), 124, for a discussion of the evidence for attributing responsibility for the anonymous letter to Collins, Des Maizeaux or both. 3 Goldgar, Impolite learning, 124. 4 Contemporaries who expressed skepticism that the attack on Coste could be justified included the reviewer for Bibliothèque angloise, 7 (1720), 285-343. For more recent expressions of puzzlement, see Pierre Coste’s critique of Locke’s moral theory whatever one might think of the propriety of the way in which it is made? The general verdict has been that there is no evidence to warrant this attack. Coste himself maintained a discreet silence, and the friends of Locke never felt compelled to explain themselves. Some have argued that there is no evidence even to support the view that Coste, at this stage, intended to criticize Locke. Goldgar, on the other hand, concedes that Coste criticizes him in notes to his 1715 edition of Le Christianisme raisonnable.5 She argues, however, that the intent of the notes was not to refute Locke, but merely to advance the discussion of issues in his text.6 She adds that the friends of Locke demonstrated themselves unable to distinguish legitimate criticism from personal attack. For Goldgar, the real basis for their charge against Coste is the notion that ‘editions of famous authors’ works which included corrections, textual alterations, and additions, were apparently an attempt to build a reputation, a connection with, and even a triumph over, the late philosophers. Not only were they critical, but they were not modest and humble in their criticism.’7 In short, Coste exceeded his station in daring to assert ‘his intellectual independence’.8 My aim is to offer a different solution by adding to the relevant evidence and using it to reinterpret the evidence Goldgar cites. The key to the solution is Coste’s friendship with the Earl of Margaret Rumbold, Traducteur Huguenot: Pierre Coste (New York, 1991), 19-23; Charles Bastide, ‘Pierre Coste d’après quelques lettres inédites’, Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français 57 (1907), 529-30. La Motte wrote to Des Maizeaux that he had not encountered anyone who approved of the letter’s publication (British Library (BL), Add. Ms. 4286/248, La Motte to Des Maizeaux, 7 September 1723 n.s. 5 Le Christianisme raisonnable, tel qu’il nous est representé dans l’Ecriture Sainte, Traduit de l’Anglois de Mr. Locke. Seconde edition, revue, corrigée; & augmentée d'une Dissertation où l'on établit le vrai & l'unique moyen de réunir tous les Chrétiens malgré la difference de leurs sentimens. On a joint à cette edition la Religion des dames (2nd. edn., 2 vols, Amsterdam, 1715). The notes are at I: 320-22 and 326-27. 6 Goldgar, Impolite learning, 128, 143. 7 Goldgar, Impolite learning, 169. 8 Goldgar, Impolite learning, 124. 2 James Dybikowski Shaftesbury. From Shaftesbury and his philosophy, Coste acquired a foundation for a critique of Locke’s moral theory he had not previously possessed. Under Shaftesbury’s tutelage, he came to believe that Locke’s philosophy of mind, his rejection of innate ideas in particular, robbed him of any objective basis for morals and made him a dangerous ally of Hobbes. He also came to believe that Locke’s belief in the need for a future state of rewards and punishments in order to motivate moral conduct not only undermined the conditions required for acting morally, but also constituted a scandalous satire on it. Coste’s intellectual debt to Shaftesbury, however, cannot be properly understood, except in light of the distant, sometimes badgering, even hostile personal relation between him and Locke, which contrasts markedly with the supportive friendship he enjoyed with Shaftesbury, especially before the latter’s departure to Italy in 1711. His correspondence with Shaftesbury reveals an animus against Locke that provided the friends of Locke with a foundation for their charge. Coste’s friendship with Charles de La Motte Pierre Coste, now best known for his translations of Locke, was born in the south of France and sent to Geneva in 1684, shortly before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, to be educated for the Protestant ministry.