Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution Moore, Sean D. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Moore, Sean D. Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution: Satire and Sovereignty in Colonial Ireland. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.475. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/475 [ Access provided at 28 Sep 2021 16:55 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution This page intentionally left blank Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution Satire and Sovereignty in Colonial Ireland Sean D. MooRe The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore © 2010 The Johns Hopkins University Press all rights reserved. Published 2010 Printed in the United States of america on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 north Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moore, Sean D. Swift, the book, and the Irish financial revolution : satire and sovereignty in Colonial Ireland / Sean Moore. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBn-13: 978-0-8018-9507-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBn-10: 0-8018-9507-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Swift, Jonathan, 1667–1745—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Satire, english—History and criticism. 3. english literature—Irish authors—History and criticism. 4. national characteristics, Irish. 5. Ireland—History—autonomy and independence movements. 6. Ireland—economic conditions. 7. Book industries and trade—Ireland—History. I. Title. PR3728.S2M66 2010 828′.509—dc22 2009052388 a catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected]. The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. all of our book papers are acid-free, and our jackets and covers are printed on paper with recycled content. In memory of my mother, Joanne M. Moore This page intentionally left blank contents acknowledgments ix note to Reader xiii Introduction Ireland, the Fiscal-Military State, and the Colonial Print Media 1 1 “God knows how we wretches came by that fashionable thing a national debt”: The Dublin Book Trade and the Irish Financial Revolution 26 2 Banking on Print: The Bank of Ireland, the South Sea Bubble, and the Bailout 59 3 Arachne’s Bowels: Scatology, enlightenment, and Swift’s Relations with the London Book Trade 90 4 “Money, the Great Divider of the World, has, by a strange Revolution, been the great Uniter of a Most divided People”: From Minting to Printing in The Drapier’s Letters 134 5 Devouring Posterity: A Modest Proposal, empire, and Ireland’s “Debt of the nation” 168 6 “a Mart of Literature”: The 1730s and the Rise of a Literary Public Sphere in Ireland 190 Epilogue a Brand Identity Crisis in a national Literature? 214 Notes 217 Bibliography 237 Index 259 This page intentionally left blank acknowledgments It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to a great many people and institutions who have helped me with this book directly or indirectly. The patience and dedication of Srinivas aravamudan, who supervised it as a dissertation, were crucial to its completion. neil DeMarchi, Michael Moses, Thomas Pfau, James Thompson, and Jennifer Thorn provided help with it when it was in its infancy. The comments of Janet aikins Yount, Sarah Sherman, and Katherine Gillen helped transform it into a book, and the members of the University of new Hampshire eighteenth- Century Interdisciplinary Seminar, especially nadine Bérenguier, Burt Feintuch, Jan Golinski, ed Larkin, Michael Ferber, and David Wat- ters, furnished a friendly forum in which to rehearse its argument. I am grateful to Brigitte Bailey, Jane Bellamy, Dennis Britton, Tom Carnicelli, Monica Chiu, Walter eggers, Burt Feintuch, Diane Freedman, Robin Hackett, Betty Hageman, Delia Konzett, James Krasner, Doug Lanier, Lisa MacFarlane, Courtney Marshall, Martin McKinsey, Petar Rama- danovic, Siobhán Senier, Sandhya Shetty, Rachel Trubowitz, Cord Whit- aker, Reginald Wilburn, and many other members of the UnH english literature faculty for their collegial support. I also received much encour- agement from my colleagues in creative writing, journalism, linguistics, and composition: Cristy Beemer, Mary Clark, Jessica enoch, John er- nest, Sue Hertz, Shelly Lieber, John Lofty, Paul and aya Matsuda, Me- keel McBride, andrew Merton, Lisa Miller, Thomas newkirk, Christina ortmeier-Hooper, alex Parsons, Thomas Payne, David Rivard, and Charles Simic. This book would not have been possible without the daily assistance of the staff of the UnH english department: Janine auger, Roxanne Brown, Carla Cannizzaro, Jennifer Dubé, Susan Dumais, Dawn Haines, Tory Poulin, and Joy Winston. For inspiring this project, I thank the conveners of two Folger Institute seminars on Irish political thought, Jane ohlmeyer and Sean Connolly, and the following seminar participants: Frank Boyle, Clare Carroll, Scott Cummings, Christopher Fox, edward Furgol, David Green, Jacqueline ix Hill, James Kelly, Patrick Kelly, Catriona Logan, Charles Ludington, Robert Mahony, Ian McBride, George o’Brien, Leigh Tillman Parting- ton, James Patterson, Linda Levy Peck, John Pocock, Lahney Preston, eileen Reilly, Jim Smyth, and Iain Valentine. Folger seminars convened by Bruce Smith, David Kastan, David armitage, and Luke Gibbons also helped develop this work. Carol Brobeck, Richard Kuhta, Kathleen Lynch, Barbara Mowat, Sarah Werner, and owen Williams of the Folger Institute facilitated my participation in these seminars. In Dublin, the University of notre Dame’s Keough Centre for Irish Studies provided offices, books, and contacts that enabled my primary documentary research. There, Seamus Deane, Luke Gibbons, Dáire Keogh, Katie Keogh, Helen o’Connell, and Kevin Whelan gave me in- valuable support. Máire Kennedy of the Dublin Corporation Library at Pearse Street and the staffs of the national Library of Ireland, the Royal Irish academy, the Marsh Library at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the Manuscripts Room and early Printed Books Room at Trinity College were very helpful in pointing me to items in their holdings. Louis Cullen and David Dickson gave me the opportunity to present my research at a seminar in Modern Irish History at Trinity College. Michael Brown, Charles Ivar McGrath, and many other Irish historians helped me track down eighteenth-century Irish primary sources. This project has also been shaped by several international seminars and colloquia. The Fifth Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, con- vened by Hermann Real of the University of Münster in 2006, provided me with the opportunity to present my work to leading Swift scholars too numerous to name here. Robert Mahony, who organizes the Dublin Symposium on Jonathan Swift at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, invited me to vet my work there in 2004. I am grateful to the organizers of the Money, Power, and Print colloquium series, Rick Kleer, Christopher Fauske, and Charles Ivar McGrath, for providing a forum for a discussion of the Brit- ish Financial Revolution. I also thank the participants in those collo- quia: John Bergin, arne Bialuschewski, Jill Bradbury, Michael Brown, Linda Bomstad, noel Chevalier, Dwight Codr, Chrysta Collins, Christine Desan, J. a. Downie, Catherine eagleton, Christopher Finlay, natasha Glaiyser, Joyce Goggin, Hugh Goodacre, Farley Grubb, neil Guthrie, James Hartley, Charles Larkin, anne Laurence, eoin Magennis, an- thony Malcomson, anne Murphy, Steven Pincus, Helen Julia Paul, Mar- x Acknowledgments tyn Powell, Stephen Timmons, Paul Tonks, Carl Wennerlind, and Patrick Walsh. The Duke University english Department and Graduate School of arts and Sciences underwrote this project from the outset, and I thank the staff and faculty for this critical contribution. The Fulbright Scholar- ship board awarded me a grant to perform my research in Ireland, and for that I am eternally grateful. For funding to attend scholarly meetings and otherwise complete this book, I thank the University of new Hamp- shire’s english Department, College of Liberal arts, Graduate School of arts and Sciences, Center for International education, Center for the Humanities, office of the Provost, and Cambridge Summer Program. I am also grateful for a fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University which provided me with the time and resources to write. Librarians Ted Widmer and Susan Danforth, as well as fellow- ships coordinator Valerie andrews, were especially helpful. The staff of Georgetown University’s Lauinger Library and the University of new Hampshire’s Dimond Library have unceasingly provided support for my research. In addition, I am grateful to the editorial boards of Eighteenth- Century Ireland, Atlantic Studies, and PMLA for publishing portions of Chapters 2, 4, and 5, respectively. I also thank Lynn Festa and Dan Carey for reading part of the third chapter. The members of C18-L, a listserve in eighteenth-century studies moderated by Kevin Berland, answered innumerable queries related to this project. I am most grateful to the Johns Hopkins University Press for under-