4 September 1764: Laurence Sterne, curate at Coxwold, is minded to sin at Scarborough
Mutual satirical portraits of the humourists and friends Thomas Bridges (left, a quack) and Lawrence Sterne (right, his harlequin assistant), combined in a later engraving (Smith 1838).
Laurence Sterne. 1788. The Works of Laurence Sterne in Ten Volumes Complete, Vol. 9/10. London: J. Rivington and Sons. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
Now, my dear, dear Anthony – I do not think a week or ten days playing the good fellow (at this very time) at Scarborough so abominable a thing – but if a man could get there cleverly, and every soul in his house in the mind to try what could be done in furtherance thereof, I have no one to consult in this affair – therefore as a man may do worse things, the English of all which is this, that I am going to leave a few poor sheep here in the wilderness for fourteen days – and from pride and naughtiness of heart to go see what is doing at Scarborough – steadfastly meaning afterwards to lead a new life and strengthen my faith.
Now some folk say there is much company there – and some say not – and I believe there is neither the one or the other – but will be both, if the world will have but a month’s patience or so.
[…]
There is no sitting, and cudgelling one’s brains whilst the sun shines bright – ‘t will be all over in six or seven weeks, and there are dismal months enow after to endure suffocation by a brimstone fireside. If you can get to Scarborough do. A man who makes six tons of alum a week, may do anything – Lord Granby is to be there – what a temptation!
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Anthony is J.H.S., who I haven’t identified.
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- Alum (4) W/G ·
- Church of England (94) W/G ·
- 📌Coxwold (6) W/G ·
- 📌Scarborough (21) W/G ·
- Sterne, Laurence (1713-68) (2), Anglican cleric (vicar of Coxwold, 1760-68) and author of novels including The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. W/G ·
- Thomas Bridges (dramatist and parodist) (1) W/G ·
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Anthony is J.H.S., who I haven’t identified.
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Similar
26 December 1570: Edmund Grindal, Puritan archbishop of York, orders the removal of rood-lofts (and their superstitious images), and the erection of pulpits
3 January 1638: On the eve of the civil war, Henry Slingsby witnesses Royalist cavalry exercising near Wetherby on Bramham Moor, scene of the defeat of the Percy Rebellion in 1408
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Via Roy Wiles (Wiles 1965).
Events
“Sunday last” is 25 August, but Fawcett managed to get in by 11 September:
On Wednesday last Mr. Fawcett for the first time performed Divine Service in the chapel of Holbeck, but was escorted to and from the chapel by a party of Dragoons, who kept guard at the doors during the service. Notwithstanding this precaution, some evil-disposed people found means to break the windows and throw a brickbat at Mr. Fawcett while he was in the reading- desk. The Sunday following he went through the service unmolested. And on Sunday last he preached a most excellent sermon, 46th verse of 13th chapter of Acts… The same night some prophane sacrilegious villains broke into the chapel and besmeared the seats with human excrements.
On 22 September he was able to conduct a reduced Sunday service in peace:
On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Fawcett was received and behav’d to by his congregation at Holbeck with great decency… One of Mr. F.’s friends admitted their favourite preacher to his pulpit in the town-by this means the tumultuous part of the people were mostly drawn away from Holbeck, and the curate left at liberty to perform his duty amongst the peaceable and well-disposed inhabitants of the chapelry.
However, on 22 October we read that
In the night between the 16th and 17th inst., the windows of the chapel of Holbeck were again broken. No wonder, when Holbeck contains such a nest of vermin whom neither the laws of God or man can confine within the bounds of decency, etc.
For which John Robinson, a “Houlbecker,” was in November sentenced to be whipped and to pay a fine of £5 (Griffith Wright 1895).
In the summer of the following year he published his first Sunday’s sermon and and his resignation letter. I think that in the following Fawcett is quoting things actually said to him:
A man might oftentimes, by due Care and Watchfulness, perhaps very safely defeat the Schemes, and discourage the Practices of the private Pilferer; and yet, whenever this is done, it is commonly suspected to be done rather for the Preservation of his own Property, than out of a pure Regard to the Public-good: But when he is attack’d in his house, or upon the road by open Plunderers, and requir’d to deliver, or suffer himself to be rifl’d of what he is possess’d of, with some one of these dreadful Alternatives, of having his Brains immediately blown out,” or their hands “wash’d in his hearts Blood,” or “having bis “Entrails pull’d out at his Mouth,” or “being “buried alive,” it will Then surely be accounted highly Romantic in him to reject their demands, out of a Pretence to prevent the bad Influence of their Example; and he will be generally suspected of giving a Proof of his Fool-hardiness or his Avarice, rather than of his public Spirit, by such a Refusal.
In the resignation letter he says that he
perform’d the Duty of the Curacy for near Three Months after he gain’d Admission into the Chapel, and this too, rather to prepare a Say for the peaceable Reception of any other Person whom the Patron shou’d think proper to nominate, that out of any Prospect of reconciling the People to himself.
Fawcett declines to attribute responsibility (“Who the Incendiaries were, the Sufferer neither Pretends to Know, nor Desires to be Inform’d”). He also explicitly excuses the lord of the manor, who at this juncture I take to be Lord Irwin (aka Henry Ingram, 7th Viscount of Irvine) rather than the Whiggish Scholey family, as well as other leading citizens (Fawcett 1755).
Was Fawcett a lousy preacher, or was the mob’s alternative, whoever he was, utterly adorable? Was there a Whiggish or Radical element at work? Was there some element of revenge for Samuel Kirshaw’s victory over James Scott in the struggle from 1745-51 for the vicarage of Leeds (Taylor 1865)? Perhaps you know.
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