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The Authorship of “Apollo's Edict”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Oliver W. Ferguson
Oliver W. Ferguson*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Columbus
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Extract

“Apollo's Edict” has long been cited as a typical example of Swift's attitude towards poetic cant and outworn cliché. Set down as coming from Apollo himself, the poem illustrates a number of empty conventions and extravagant similes and forbids their use by any who would be of the true school of the god; and to aid his would-be followers in their poetic efforts, Apollo has appointed Swift as his Vicegerent on earth.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , June 1955 , pp. 433 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955

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References

1 Swift's Poems (Oxford, 1937), i, 260. Hereafter cited as Poems.

2 Poems, i, 271,1. 43 n.

3 For the possibility of these 12 lines' having been published separately as a tribute to the Countess of Donegal, see Sir Harold Williams' note in Poems, i, 272.

4 For a discussion of this volume and its importance, see Poems, i, xxxvii-xxxviii.

5 For Swift's part in the 1735 ed., see Poems, i, xxix-xxxvi, and esp. pp. xxxiii-xxxiv for the possibility of Swift's having written the prefaces to the 1735 ed. himself.

6 The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. F. E. Ball (London, 1910–14), v, 322, 332. Hereafter cited as Correspondence.

7 For the minor variations among these 4 versions of “Apollo's Edict,” see Poems, i, 269–272.

8 Since Sir Harold Williams used the quarto pamphlet as his text, I shall compare the Barber version with it. The first of the 3 triplets is printed in Poems without the bracket. I presume it was thus in the quarto. Nichols prints it with the bracket in his Supplement.

9 A note in Poems on Several Occasions identifies “Kelly” as “Mrs. Frances-Arabella Kelly.” She was a friend of Swift and Mrs. Barber, as the Correspondence shows. It is interesting to note that the “Milky Way,” which forms the triplet at line 22 of the quarto, ap-pears here in the Barber version.

10 Identified in Poems on Several Occasions as “Mrs. Elizabeth Penifeather” [sic]. Elizabeth Pennefather was the daughter of Colonel Matthew Pennefather, Auditor of the Irish Revenue and M.P. for Cashel from 1716 until his death in 1733. She married Alexander, 5th Earl of Antrim in 1735. For Swift's relations with the family, see Correspondence, Index, s.v. “Pennefather.”

11 Rochford“ (sic) is unidentified, but Deborah Staunton is probably intended. She married John Rochfort on 19 Jan. 1722/3. Lady Betty, wife of George Rochfort, is a possible candidate, but she was considerably older than Deborah, the person to whom Swift addressed A Letter to a young Lady, etc. See Katharine Hornbeak's article in HLQ, vii, ii (Feb. 1944), 183–186.

12 Witness her poem, describing an actual occurrence, “On Sending my Son, as a Present, to Dr. Swift … on his Birthday” (dated 30 Nov. 1726). The piece is in Poems on Several Occasions.

13 Despite the fact that Mary Barber acknowledged those poems in her volume written by other persons, there is one poem purporting to be hers about which there is some question. “Stella and Flavia” has been attributed to 3 different persons: Nichols stated, on Deane Swift's authority, that Letitia Pilkington was the author {Supplement, 1779, p. 612). Mary Granville wrote on 13 Aug. 1732, “The verses on Stella and Flavia positively are Mrs. Barber's” (The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany, ed. Lady Llanover, I, 372). I. A. Williams, in The London Mercury for March 1922 (v, xxix, 519–520), discounts Mrs. Barber and Letitia Pilkington and argues for another claimant, Jabez Earle. Williams found the poem in A New Miscellany (1725), with the title, “On the Dut — s of Q — andher Sister.” “Stella,” it would appear, is therefore not Swift's Stella, but the Duchess of Queensberry; and “Flavia” would then be her sister, the Countess of Essex. In any event, the authorship of this poem was a matter of some controversy among 18th-century readers (a controversy of which Mary Barber was aware. See her poem, “To a Lady, who commanded me to send her an Account in Verse, how I succeeded in my Subscription.” Here she describes a carping female critic as saying, “Stella and Flavia's well enough; / What else I saw, was stupid stuff”). Mrs. Barber's implicit claim to the authorship of “Apollo's Edict” was apparently unchallenged by her contemporaries.

14 Memoirs of Mrs. Letitia Pilkington, ed. J. Isaacs (London, 1928), p. 373.

15 AU the persons praised in the poem (except Elizabeth Pennefather) were among the subscribers to Mrs. Barber's Poems: the Countess Dowager of Donegal, the Countess of Donegal, the Earl and Countess of Granard, the Earl of Orrery, John Rochfort, Arabella Kelly, and (to reintroduce “Stella and Flavia”) the Duchess of Queensberry and the Earl of Essex. Also, Mrs. Barber had an obligation to Tickell, himself a subscriber, which may have been reflected in the reference to his elegy on Addison. Pie was helpful in bringing to Lord Carteret's attention a petition in verse by her (see the article on Mary Barber in DNB, and see her preface to Poems on Several Occasions).

16 Before writing this article, I had the pleasure of discussing my findings and surmises with Sir Harold Williams. He tentatively accepts my re-dating of “Apollo's Edict” and agrees with me that the version in Poems on Several Occasions is probably a revision of that of the quarto. He still feels, however, that the poem was written by Swift.