To the editor of Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 11 July 1793

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.

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

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement ◽

10.1017/s1358246120000132 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 88 ◽

pp. 143-169

Author(s):

Kate Davison

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Dublin Journal ◽

Human Society ◽

Philosophical Debate ◽

Francis Hutcheson ◽

Early Eighteenth Century ◽

Incongruity Theory ◽

Eighteenth Century Britain ◽

The City

AbstractThis 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.

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