| This dissertation covers a period of some thirty years, from the Glorious Revolution to the collapse of the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles, from 1690 to 1720. The arrival of William III and Mary from the Netherlands to England in 1688 resulted in the reorganization of Britain's public financing. The appearance of National Debt, when parliament agreed to guarantee repayment of government loans in 1693, inaugurated an era in which public financing became a national obsession. This was the age of the financial speculator, the stock jobber, as well as of the libertine gambler.;Following this financial revolution in England Jonathan Swift created a system of Wit as complex as Law's famous system of finance in France. The Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books provide a blueprint from which it is possible to trace Swift's subsequent use of business metaphors. Swift's association with Robert Harley, Chancellor of Exchequer, from 1710-1715, increased his appreciation of public finance. Harley's position as founder of the South Sea Company in 1711, and his innovative conversions of National Debt, provided Swift and his friends the Scriblerians with the tools needed to lampoon 'Change Alley, the stock market, and all the commercial jargon to be found therein. The Scriblerus Club, including Swift, Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, Parnell and Robert Harley, forged a character, Martinus Scriblerus, who was to serve as the mocking stock for all modern projects and financial ventures.;The crash of the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Bubble ended this period of outlandish stock jobbing and outlandish Wit. Unfortunately, the battle Wit was fighting with the modern stock jobbers appeared in retrospect, as a collusion between the two. Dr. Johnson was particularly harsh on Swift's "trivial" business Wit. The unsound moral foundations of Wit, as of the libertine age itself, made Johnson shy away from an appreciation of the systematic Wit involved. Wit became suspect because it was perceived to be as excessive as the stock market of the time, as dangerous as the South Sea Bubble. |
