Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

Pilgrim, still pleased the generality of spectators when modernised and revived for an Augustan
audience. To the educated elite, however, and to an actor who took part, such scenes appeared
unelevating and inhumane, a 'Diminution...of human Nature', in contrast with the 'humane
Madness' of Lear 216 . Even a staunch Christian moralist like Jeremy Collirs, who defended the
virtues of Jacobean drama (1698), and denounced the 'Frensy' of Opheha as 'Lewd' and the
'Silly and Mad' scenes on which 'the Modern Stage seems to depend' as rnmodest, did so on
similar grounds 217. 'To laugh without reason, is the Pleasure of Fools', pronounced Collier,
pure 'Diversion' is a 'Disease', and 'Instruction is the principal Design d1 both [Tragedy and
Comedy}' 218 . Indeed, considerable efforts were taken to emphasise the need for 'a distinction
between Mirth, and Madness', by stressing how close was uncontrollable aughter to 'Frensy',
and to 'di qwadc' polite society from 'publick shews' and spectacles 219 . Steele and others amongst
a new crop of moral essayists compared the chuckling of the 'Pit' to the noise of 'Animals' and
'Savages', and castigated the 'ignorant laughter' of the 'crowd' as a sign of their 'Insensibility
to virtuous Sentiment'220.
Although for much of the period under examination tile elite shared the culture of the
masses, they generally 'despised the common people' 221 . The intermingling of the polite with
the vulgar at public places was a volatile brew, and inevitable class tensions occasionally, and
particularly during the crowded holiday seasons, produced riotous scenes. According to henry
Saville, on the 'young L[or]d Gerard of Bromley going with his mother to see Bedlam', within
on affairs of Stale. Asgssian satirical verse, 1660-1714 (New Haven & London, Yale 1Jniversity Preas, 1975),
593-610.
216 The Pilgrim was revised by Vanbrugh (1700) and restaged at Drury Lane (1707). See Spectator, No. 22,
26 March 1711, 94-5.
217 Collier, .4 Short View of the Jmmoralitg and Profaneness oJ the English Slage (London, 1698), modem
edn. (Merston, Scolar Press, 1971), 10-11.
218 mi, 150-7, 160-4 & 204-5.
219 Ibid. 161-2, 252-5 & 262-5.
220 See Spectator, No. 502, 6 October 1712, 280-3; Guardian, Nos 19 & 29, 2 & 14 April 1713, 76-9 & 110-15.
In Spectator, no. 22, 26 March 1711, 92-6, Steele echoed Collier even more closely: 'Unserstan&ng is dismissed
from our Entertainments. Our Mirth is the Laughter of Fools, and our Admiration the Wonder of Idiots'. See,
also, Daniel Burgess, Against Foolish talking and Jesting (London, 1694); Corbyn Morris, An Es:. p on Wi,
Standards of Ih,nour, Raillerp, Satire and Ridicule (London, 1744).
221 Burke, Popular & Elite Culture, 286 & passim.
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