‘Plainly of Considerable Moment in Human Society’: Francis Hutcheson and Polite Laughter in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland

This article focuses on Francis Hutcheson's Reflections Upon Laughter, which was originally published in 1725 as a series of three letters to The Dublin Journal during his time in the city. Although rarely considered a significant example of Hutcheson's published work, Reflections Upon Laughter has long been recognised in the philosophy of laughter as a foundational contribution to the ‘incongruity theory’ – one of the ‘big three’ theories of laughter, and that which is still considered the most credible by modern theorists. The article gives an account of Hutcheson's text but, rather than evaluating it solely as an explanation of laughter, the approach taken is an historical one: it emphasises the need to reconnect the theory to the cultural and intellectual contexts in which it was published and to identify the significance of Hutcheson's arguments in time and place. Through this, the article argues that Hutcheson's theory of laughter is indicative of the perceived significance of human risibility in early eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland and, more broadly, that it contributed both to moral philosophical debate and polite conduct guidance.

British Agents of the Irish Adamesque

In the Dublin Journal of 4 April 1769, Thomas Weston, recently arrived from London and ‘versed in the Stucco Art’, announced his proficiency in the ‘Antique Taste’, having worked ‘some Years under the Designs of Mess. Adams, Chambers and Stewart [sic]’. His timing was far from coincidental: less than a month earlier the premium for the design of the Royal Exchange in Dublin, awarded to the English architect Thomas Cooley, had been announced; the competition had generated no less than thirty-three British submissions (or 60% of the total number of competitors). Just as enlightened Irish architectural critics had deemed the employment of an English architect for this particular project as ‘too obvious to be insisted upon’, so it would appear that Weston had identified an opportunity to establish himself in Ireland as an unrivalled exponent of the Neoclassical style. Some weeks later, on 27 April, Weston amended his original advertisement to record that he had ‘served his Apprenticeship to Mr. Rose of London’.

O'Connell and the Irish press 1800-42

During the lord lieutenancy of Camden the executive had taken action against newspapers friendly to, or suspected of leanings towards, the United Irishmen, and by the time of the '98 rising all newspapers which it had been unable to purchase had been suppressed. Although a few newspaper owners roused themselves to oppose the union, they reverted to sycophancy, or at best extreme circumspection, in 1803 and for some years afterwards. That O'Connell should have grown up with a distrust of the power of the press, seeing it daily perverted to the Castle's purposes, goes some way to explain his attitude towards it in later years. During the time when he was beginning to make his name at the Bar and in catholic counsels, no Dublin newspaper could be relied upon to present, let alone to advocate, the causes with which he was concerned. Of the old established newspapers Giffard's Dublin Journal showed the most independence of the government—but it was bigotedly anti-catholic and tory. The Freeman's Journal had not recovered from the Sham Squire's ownership—Higgins lived on until 1802 : and Saunders's News-Letter avoided trouble by printing no home news at all of a controversial character.