In this essay, I outline how an interdisciplinary approach might be used to illuminate a series of popular prints having to do with the South Sea Bubble. Entitled "The Bubbler's Medley, or a Sketch of the Times..." the series contains at least two known prints, both apparently produced in the shop of Thomas Bowles. The major theoretical concepts of my approach are drawn from the fields of art history and social psychology; specifically, these include collage and apperception and crowd behavior or what is technically called "deindividuation." While my focus is on the visual impact of these prints, literary factors are also involved since poems and other textual items constitute many of the visual elements. Usually a text item is accompanied by an image (or vice versa) to make a single element, and because several of these elements are based on other pieces of popular art having to do with the financial crisis, there is a intense intertextuality about the series. My argument is that Bowles' "Medley" series constitutes an innovative work in how it imitates, perhaps even mimicks, the phenomenon that historians have referred to as "the South Sea Bubble," and further that a full appreciation of the work and the events upon which it is based require an interdisciplinary approach.
To date, the popular art surrounding the Bubble has attracted little critical attention. While Pat Rogers identifies the image of an out-of-control "crowd," or the "sense of an habitual control lost [as] a peculiarly potent image" in the arts "immediately after the Bubble, when memories were still fresh concerning the brief social convulsions of 1720," little systematic analysis has been made of the art of 1720-21 itself.(1) Even the Bubble itself, arguably one of the most important events of the century, has not been the subject of an extended social examination since Charles Mackay's 1841 work, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.(2) Notice, however, should be taken of Larry Neal's study of the relation between information networks and the international capital markets during the Bubble.(3) Neal also concludes, as does Peter Garber, that the Bubble was "rational," which means to say that its inflationary nature was not out-of-the-ordinary.(4) It is problematic to label behavior that may be perfectly rational in its own context as "unsound" or "mad" with the advantage of hindsight. Historians have tended to focus on the financial history surrounding the Bubble or the role of important individuals who figured prominently in it rather than on the collective behavior of the people at large.(5)
As we shall see, what first impresses one about the "Medley" series is how several items are made to appear as if they overlap each other. In a recent article, Mark Hallet examines this sub-genre of "Medley" prints from the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-centuries, and although he does not mention the "Bubblers" works of Bowles, his general conclusions are relevant:
The medley print … was a pictorial genre that meshed together a variety of material circulating in graphic culture in order to produce a modern, hybrid art form…. The visual oscillations and disruptions generated by such images were not, after all, mere tics of the eye; rather, they expressed , in miniature, the wider narratives and tensions of graphic culture in early eighteenth-century London.(6)
It may be useful to adapt some of the terminology of collage criticism before attempting to
articulate exactly what these "wider narratives and tensions" might be. Collage itself has been
traced back to the latter part of the nineteenth century, and these "Medley" prints might be said to
qualify as one of the "many ancestors" that Diane Waldman identifies.(7) Their collage-like effect
conveys a sense of chaos and crowding and generates three levels of meaning: first, there is the
individual meaning of each item or fragment; second, there is the new meaning that item takes on
as a consequence of its association with the others; and third, there is "the meaning it acquires as
the result of its metamorphosis into a new [collective] entity."(8) Drawing on the aesthetic theories
of Alois Riegl, Claude Gandelman has emphasized two basic activities on the part of the viewer or
reader: the opitcal, which refers to the surface scanning of objects according to their outlines
(linearity and angularity); and the haptical, which refers to surface penetration and involves a
sense of depth or touch.(9) If one thinks of eye movement, as traced by researchers like A. L.
Yarbus, then the "saccades" or straight lines in eye movement roughly correspond to the optical
vision, while the areas of concentration reflect haptic activity. Eye movement research involving
stable visual images (substantially less complex than those considered in this essay) generally
points to the complexity and subjective nature of how pictures are viewed.(10)
Still, according to
Waldman and Gandelman, the collage represents the juxtaposition of order/disorder that is central
to twentieth-century art, and that can be identified as integral to the "Medley" series.(11) There are three distinguishable concepts in social psychology having to do with individual
and group behavior that are similar to the three levels of meaning in collage: the individual will,
the will of a crowd (into which the first may be absorded), and finally, a transformed self or
social-identity that comes from the group. However, these concepts have been the subject of
considerable debate, especially on the relation between the individual and the group. A brief review of the development of theories of the crowd is itself revealing for how the
individual-group dynamic operates in critical discourse. The first accepted authority in the general
area of crowd psychology is Gustave Le Bon whose Psychologie des foules [trans. The Crowd]
(1895) might still be mined for some useful ideas, despite some outrageous sexist and racist
comments.(12) The section on the credulity of crowds is particularly applicable to the Bubble, but
only with some qualification.(13) However, it was not so much the content of Le Bon's theories but
their reputation for originality that drew Freud's remark that they had already been anticipated by
a host of other thinkers.(14) Ironically, this slight at Le Bon's originality might be taken as an
endorsement of his theory insofar as critical consensus is needed to validate a unique hypothesis.
(Critical discourse vacillates between the ideal of originality and the need for endorsement or
verification, which may be respectively characterized in the negative as oddball eccentricity and
mindless conformity.) In any case, Freud's most important contribution to the subject is his
emphasis on the close and complex inter-relation between the individual and the group. Since Freud a host of theorists have addressed crowd psychology, and "deindividuation"
has emerged as a leading, albeit controversial, theory.(15) The controversy involves those who still
see some usefulness in isolating individual and group processes, and those who, ridiculing Le
Bon's negative depiction of crowd behavior as a "pastiche," harken to a more complex and social
view of the individual along the lines of Clifford Geertz's concept of man.(16) This latter group
opposes the implied dichotomous view of the individual and an objectified, social environment, a
view which has been linked to the basic model for modern capitalism and for Western theories of
mind.(17) The active divergence of opinion on this subject is a sign of healthy debate, since it is fair
to say that critical discourse often follows a thin line between the critical consensus that is arrived
at with scholarly respectability and one that is the product of group or peer pressure. While one of the leading proponents of deindividuation, E. Diener, has emphasized that
the condition is neutral--that is it can give rise to behavior that might be deemed positive (e.g.,
"people" power, joining a dance), applications of the theory tend to involve behaviors that are
usually seen as negative (e.g., a riot, lynching). This tendency to the negative has probably
provoked the backlash of the non-dichotomous adherents. In any case, it is worthwhile to identify
the basic and arguably neutral principles of deindividuation that may operate in mass speculation.
It is believed that when individuals find themselves in a group or crowd their capacity for self-regulation and planning is diminished, while their responsiveness to immediate stimuli increases.(18)
This responsiveness often takes the form of imitation, liking rock-throwing or joining a dance.
However, as Le Bon makes clear, the group may be defined as a mental collective; it does not
have to be a physical entity.(19) For example, several people may share an urge to speculate in
stock prices who are not in the same physical area, although the visual image of the crowded and
frantic trading area--be it a modern stock or futures exchange or Exchange Alley in 1720--persists
in Western culture. In any case, the individual/crowd distinction helps explain the phenomenon of unchecked
speculation. Viewed as a whole, the speculative rise in stock prices is sheer folly, but the whole
does not make decisions as a unit. The whole is merely a collection of individuals, and viewed
from the individual's perspective, the general mood of prosperity is an opportune moment that he
or she may find difficult to resist. This line of argument supports the view of Neal and Garber
that investors in 1720 were acting soundly based on their information. We might take note that
economic behaviorists on more recent stock marhet events have spoken about a "herd behavior"
that is very similar to deindividuation. David Scharfstein and Jeremy Stein concluded that "under
certain circumstances, managers simply mimic the investment decisions of other managers,
ignoring substantive private information."(20) Speaking of "disinhibition"--a term that is very close
in meaning to deindividuation--Peter Eachus refers to "[t]he crucial factor" as "the presence of
other people, particularly if these people are perceived as being of similar or higher status."(21) In the early eighteenth century, crowd behavior was definitely seen as negative. The word
"mob," deriving from mobile vulgus (moving crowd), clearly reveals the pejorative association
between groups and fickleness. Contemporary accounts of the events of 1720 often use the
disease metaphor to account for the heighten activity in stock speculation. In his memoirs, Dr.
Houghston describes the mania as "a contagious, pestilential Distemper ... a golden Phrenzy: This
Contagion first broke out in France, and so contaminated the Air, that it wafted itself over into
Britain, and even returned back and infected the Dutch."(22) The plague metaphor operating in this
description is all the more appropriate since bubonic plague did actually break out in a number of
French ports in 1720, and there was a general fear that it would cross the channel to Britain.(23)
Crowding is often an aspect of epidemic disease, but what is noteworthy here is that the Bubble
was part of an international financial crisis. John Law's Mississippi Scheme in France, the South
Sea Company in England and the insurance frauds in Holland and Hamburg were connected
events. The popular art dealing with the events of 1720 reflects this international dimension. First, it should be noted that many of the English bubble prints are imitations of Dutch or
French originals. This fact has led critics like Herbert Atherton to maintain that one must look
ahead to Walpole's opposition to find the real beginnings of a distinctively English graphic satire.(24)
"The Bubbler's Kingdom, in the Aireal-World" is a good Dutch example. It is a copy of a print
that was included in the famous compilation Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (The Great
Mirror of Folly), itself an emporium of popular art: 74 different satiric prints, 27 literary pieces,
and a page of uncut playing cards each with its unique bubble scene or image and text.(25) There is
little that is originally English about this print; for the most part, it merely translates the Dutch and
introduces a few English bubbles to go along with the most notorious continental example, Law's
Mississippi scheme. Unlike the characteristic mob scenes in the emblematic prints of Picart and Hogarth (see
below), "The Bubbler's Kingdom" is not crammed with bodies in a frenzy of activity. Rather,
there are about seven centers of self-contained action. As the second part of the title suggests
("Aireal-World"), wind is emphasized here as the central metaphor for the inflated stocks (in fact,
low bodily imagery is very prominent in the Dutch prints). Hence, on the left we have a jester
flying a kite, a man farting out stock certificates, and in the bottom left a donkey or ass also
farting. If you look closely here you will also see another man working a bellows in a monkey's
mouth and turds falling out which the prone man attempts to catch in his mouth (the text here
reads, confusingly, "All Wind"). In the center is a man who claims to have finished with bubbles
and is now content to play with wind and water. Behind him is the key image of the windmill.
The verses at the top begin and end with explicit references to the Dutch: Here you may see the Dutch, like us Grow wondrous Rich in Nubibus . . . However we are pleas'd to see The Dutch ensnar'd as well as we. The international nature of the folly is supposed to be an uplifting consolation--an expression of
the adage that misery loves company. This kinship in folly--social identity, if you will--can be
seen as a reversal of the deindividuated stigma insofar as the notion of a group, admittedly here a
group of only two, is cited to relieve a single nation (the English) of a full load of guilt. The printmaker is identified at the bottom as "Tho: Bowles Print and Map Seller next the
Chapter House in St. Paul's Church Yard"; the line even includes an advertisement for two other
Bubble series produced by Bowles: "Where may be had the Bubblers Medley, or Europe's
Memorial for [the] Year 1720 & the Bubblers Mirour [sic], or England's Folly." It is somewhat
uncanny how most of the Bubble prints that are extant were produced by Thomas Bowles. His
personal fortunes do not seem to have been affected by the momentous events of 1720; in fact, his
print shop ranks as one of most stable operations of its kind in the eighteenth century. It first
opened in 1712 and operated with the Bowles name until 1832.(26) There were several other print
shops situated closer to the Exchange, including that of Thomas' brother John, located first on
Cheapside and then Cornhill. The "Mirrour" series, referred to below, follows a common format
for the period in combining image and text. However, the "Medley" series resembles what a
twentieth-century viewer would describe as collage, and although eighteenth-century prints and
anthologies frequently use the term "medley," I do not know of any others that deal with the
Bubble or follow the collage-like technique demonstrated here. Before we turn to these two series, however, some mention should be made of the
emblematic prints. Bernard Picart's scene with the market represented in the form of a monument
or chariot being pulled through a horde of traders was reproduced by both the Dutch (in the Het
Groote compilation) and English. The latter version, also the work of Thomas Bowles, is entitled
"A Monument of Folly, dedicated to Posterity in commemoration of the incredible Folly
transacted in the year 1720" (British Museum No. 1629). Paris' trading center, the rue
Quincampoix, is replaced by Exchange Alley, which is packed with people; dominating the scene
is the chariot being pulled by the major bubble companies. In the background on the left you can
see Jonathan's Coffeehouse, located at one end of the alley. In the right background you can see
three doors: one leads to the House of Fools, the second to the madhouse and the third to the
House of Beggars. They suggestively indicate the three possible exits from the mania of
speculation. The emblematic style of this work is followed by Hogarth in of his South Sea print,
arguably the first major work to come off his press. As Pat Rogers notes, the crowd again
dominates the scene but rather than "a single milling throng," there seem to be three specific focal
points for the crowd's energy.(27) The first consists of a swarm of women moving into a building on
the right to purchase raffle tickets for a husband who has made a fortune in the lottery. A second
gathers around the merry-go-round in the centre; and a third pushes in front of the stage on the
right to get pieces of the figure Fortune who is being butchered by the devil. Hogarth generalizes
and multiplies to include other examples of obsessive speculation: the lottery and gambling (i.e.,
the three clergmen playing craps in the lower right corner), and this rhetoric of amplificatio is
consistent with the spirit of the crowd. He also sensationalizes and specifies the moral didacticism
with an alphabetical legend--e.g., "Self-Interest" (G) beats "Honesty" (D) on the wheel. The
violence of his vision seems darker than Picart's, and grotesque spectacles of mutilation and
torture replace the low-bodily imagery of the Dutch prints. These emblematic prints are distinguished by their optical explicitness. First there is the
representation of the crowds' energy, so characteristic of Hogarth throughout his career in prints
like "Southwark Fair" and "The March to Fichley"; it calls to mind Alvin Kernan's comments on
the plot of satire and the out-of-control mob.(28)
What might be called deindividuated behavior is
also explicitly depicted in negative terms in the extensive allegorical content. Lastly, there is the
image of the monument, a chariot in Picart and an imitation of the London Fire Monument in
Hogarth, which might be interpreted as a self-conscious statement on the posterior function of art.
These scenes are meant to serve as reminders of and commentaries on a specific historical
episode, and in this respect they resemble the "Medley" prints, which carry the subtitle, "Europes
[sic] Memorial for the Year 1720." Overwhelming numbers, allegorical narrative and art-as-monument are important parts of
both Bubble series produced by Bowles, but here visual explicitness gives way to compositional
factors, the opitcal to the haptic. "The Bubblers Mirrour" series of two (one depicting "Grief,"
the other "Joy") shows an emphasis on textual, or language, elements in the framing of one central
image, rather than numerous visual figures or dramatic scenes packed into one overall picture.
The one entitled "Grief" (BM No. 1621, McMaster University copy - partly colored) clearly
reflects the angularity and symmetry of these textual blocks, which "read" more like a list of prices
than a picture. The central image features a color picture of a tearful man holding an empty purse
in the central frame (the companion "Joy" print, BM No. 1620 shows a joyful man holding up a
full moneybag). Taken together the pair represents a balanced view of the making or breaking of
fortunes. The left and right borders consist of columns of blocks, each block devoted to an
individual joint-stock company, and each itemizing subscription and peak share prices followed by
a few "Satyrical Eppigrams [sic] ... by the author of the S. Sea Ballad." Many of the latter begin
with "Come all ye ..." entreaties to some gullible group. A panoramic scene of stock folly
reminiscent of the "Bubbler's-Kingdom" print and the title sit atop the main frame. Underneath,
there are a mock coat-of-arms, a verse commentary on the tearful man and two more smaller
columns for smaller bubble companies. The panoramic scene, the central frame and the coat-of-arms are distinguished by their color, which seems only to emphasize an enumerative ennui about
the lists. As we shall see, the coloring and other factors date this particular example to the late
eighteenth century. The stock prices are meant to "mirror" tangible measures of value, but the only tangible
factor in stock speculation is current market price. Hence, the maxima prices listed can only serve
as reminders of past inflation. Still, the desire to find meaning in the trading expresses itself in
mathematical calculation of the kind done by Archibald Hutcheson, who was preoccupied with
determining intrinsic values for South Sea stock--not par- or market-value but what the stock was
actually worth based on the company's trading potential and the current financial climate. Of
course, a difference in estimation of future intrinsic value is the usual reason for trading to occur.
One party sells because the price offered is considered to be more than the stock is worth or likely
to be worth; likewise another party buys because the price is considered to be less than what the
stock is worth or likely to be worth. The dynamics of trading depend upon the essentially
individual nature of those in the market, and market trends obviously result from the tendency for
individuals to merge into collective entities. With a Grecian symmetry, therefore, the "Bubblers
Mirrour" reflects this joint individual-collective essence of the market in the respective images of
the block and the column. The bulk of detail in the "Bubblers Mirrour" intimidates the viewer while serving as a
reminder that there were several "bubble" scams. These smaller bubbles, spawned by the success
of the South Sea, were bad for the speculative climate, but their existence would be assured until
the natural demand for investment opportunity was exhausted. It was largely through the
pressure of the South Sea directors that the "Bubble Act" was passed on June 11, 1720 requiring
all joint-stock companies to have a royal charter. For a moment the confidence of the people was
given an extra boost, and South Sea stock peaks at the end of June at over £1000 (the four-digit
figure marking an important psychological barrier). The angular blocks and dominant textual elements of the "Mirrour" series do not invite
optical scanning so much as haptic reading, but Yarbus argues that detail alone will not attract the
eye--the detail must give "essential" information.(29) Here the blocks all express the same
information in the same textual and pictorial lines. If one assumes the desirability of a certain
amount of optic and haptic activity, then it might be said that a sense of optic restlessness sets in
as the eye has little to scan (even the stock nature of the central picture lacks interest) and that
there is not so much haptic engagement as exhaustion. The overall impression produced by the
lists is of an ordered, factual world, obsessed with its own encyclopedic fictions. What one notices first about "The Bubblers Medley" series is how their composition is
made to represent the seemingly random overlay or collage of several different prints and
publications. The sense of depth and fragmentation that this apparent overlay produces combined
with the random and off-centre distribution--at the bottom of No. 22 we see only the bottom
(obviously upside-down) of a broadside by Buckley--accentuate the haptic complexity involved in
the viewing process even beyond that encountered in the "Mirrour" series. Furthermore, all the
frames contain both a visual image and text. The numbers 22, and 23 beg the question whether
there were 21 other prints in the series.(30) Considering the eclectic composition of these two, one
can easily imagine several different combinations of a set number of frames. Each frame, of
course, is done to appear as a self-contained unit, and the engraver's skill at verisimilitude is truly
accomplished (see especially the representation of the print on the front page of The London
Gazette). If one looks closely enough, to the left and right of the "Quinquempoix" [sic] scene in No.
22 and to the margins in No. 23 about three-quarters of the way up the print (i.e., to the
immediate right of "The Stockjobbing Ladies" and the immediate left of the man and the ass), one
notices that the last or bottom scene is a maritime one and that, while barely recognizable because
of how much is blocked out by the overlaid items, these scenes are clearly meant to extend to the
extreme end of the margin. Speculation being resistless under the circumstances, I will suggest
that the artist wished to convey a sense of what the excitement was ultimately about and what had
been lost in the frenzy of rising prices. The South Sea Company did have a monopoly of trade to
the South Sea (that term generally referred to the oceans of the southern hemisphere). And
although there was a complete suspension of that trade, which had not been all that active since
the company's origin in 1711, because of the 1720 state of war with Spain, the prospect of
potential wealth could still be manufactured. Haptic concentration raises questions about why a certain element was included in
addition to the element itself. In No. 22 there is an excerpt from Swift's poem "The Bubble"
bottom left, at least the stanzas (in order nos. 35-39, 17, 42, 26, 28 and 55) that deal with
"'Change Alley" where "thousands fell" and then on the directors.(31) By using natural images of
consumption (e.g., the big fish swallowing up the small), Swift at once derides the mania for
speculation and the greed of the directors. The latter group is warned not to fatten themselves
overmuch lest they beach themselves and fall prey to the hungry mobs on land. The crowded
alley itself appears to be the subject of the illustration to Swift's poem. Underneath and
positioned more towards the centre is the front page of The London Gazette, August 16, 1720--with its lead story on the issue of the scire facias writs suspending the charters of four companies
for their contravention of charter limits. While this was an important event in the Bubble year, for
many it would merely remind them of their personal bankruptcies or that of their friends and
acquaintances listed in the final section of the Gazette, which swelled to its largest size in mid-August. Moving optically upwards we notice a playing card (a one-eyed Jack of Hearts) and top
left a short poem "The Dutch Bubblers," which accuses the Dutch of copying the folly of the
English who first copied that of the French. In the top right is a scene in the Mint Coffeehouse
with balloon speech indicating just how much the South Sea denominated conversation. (The
Mint Coffehouse, according to George was on the southside; Garraway's and Jonathan's, located
at either end of Exchange Alley, which ran opposite to the Royal Exchange, were the
coffeehouses where the intense trading occurred.) The use of balloon speech is particularly
appropriate for the Bubble, but nobody in this scene is puffing his own success (just the opposite).
Moving down towards the centre is the well-known French print depicting the "chaos in the rue
Quincampoix, the Exchange Alley of Paris." Any aspersions about Law's bubbles have now
deflected back, leaving nothing but collective folly: "Grieve not my friends 'tis but a merry farce /
To hear [the] Kettle call [the] Pot black Arse." Further down on the right is an advertisement for
a set of playing cards commemorating the "Humours of Change Alley"; it balances the Jack of
Hearts on the left and underscores the affinity between stockjobbing and games of chance.
Finally, in the bottom right corner is a cherub blowing bubbles. This same optic/haptic activity is experienced by viewers of the other "Medley" print.
Number 23 is subtitled, Si populus vult Decipi Decipiatur, "If the people wish to be deceived then
they will be deceived," which also served as a title to the individual Mint Coffeehouse frame in
No. 22--just another example of intertextuality. The print features the lyrics from the "South Sea
Ballad" front center and bottom; a visual image of a crowd, including some balloon speech, is at
the top of the lyric sheet. Several other prints, combining image and text, are represented around
the ballad, which dominates optically. However, the frame that first draws the eye is probably
that of the imprisoned man begging an alms. The figure is top center and substantially larger than
any other individual figure in any Bubble print. One should also note that both the ballad and the
imprisoned man draw special attention by virtue of the fact that they sit center and on a perfect
right angle to the border (only the "Mint Coffeehouse" scene in No. 22 occupies a similar right-angle position). Every other element, with the exception of the Jack of Spades, is situated at
some off angle. "The South-Sea Ballad; or, Merry Remarks upon Exchange Alley Bubbles" was popular
enough for John Gay to use the melody in The Beggar's Opera eight years later, and, after losing
an estimated £20,000, Gay had every reason to want to forget the South Sea. A haptic attention
to the lyrics reveals that they concentrate on images of the crowd and the indiscriminate mix of
high and low figures. What binds this indiscriminate crowd is its avarice: "Where merry crowds
for riches toil, \ And Wisdom stoops to Folly. \ Here sad and joyful, high and low, \ Court Fortune
for her graces."(32) Hence, "lords" and "the rabble," "great ladies" and "Young harlots" are
brought together at Exchange Alley, and the nouveau riche actions of the latter group are
ridiculed: "While homely drabs in coaches ride" (201). This coach image shows how mobile
property is so much more important than immobile property (i.e., one's house) when one wants to
show off wealth--the owner simply drives by whomever he or she means to impress. (In France
the coach image had another significance and that was as a vehicle of escape for high ranking
public figures, like John Law, who often had to resort to disguised coaches and armed escorts to
get away from angry mobs.(33)) Although the ballad was only printed in September of 1720
(apparently it was hawked right in Exchange Alley much to the chagrin of the jobbers), it had
apparently been popular since June. The item at the lower left is another advertisement for the deck of "Bubble Cards." As we have
seen, a page of uncut bubble cards made up part of the Het Groote compilation, and it is easy to
see the appropriateness of playing cards in the iconography of speculation. The scene depicted is
of a tree growing in the middle of a tiny island in the ocean (south sea?). A number of men who
have tried to climb to the top of the tree are falling "Head Long" into the sea. Other men wade
slowly into the water; these are known as the "Long Heads." The text clarifies the significance of
the two groups: the precipitous "Head Longs" fall to their ruin, while the careful "Long Heads"
remain safe (the fourth verse of the ballad reinforces this view). This repeated intertextuality between the print and the deck of cards begs some haptic
comment on the latter. Each card in Bowles' deck features a different graphic scene and rhyme on
the folly of speculation (naturally these appear on the same side as the suit and number).(34) The
two of Spades, for instance, depicts a group of stock-jobbers with the following conversation
represented in balloon speech: First: "Let's give out that K. G____ is assassinated in Germany." Second: "'twill certainly do the Business." Third: "That will be £300 in each of our Pockets if well manag'd." Devil: "I find you want none of my Dictates." The verse reads: "A Set of Jobbers rather Knaves than Fools, / Meet and contrive to Cheat their
Principals, / Says one in e'ery Trade there's some Deceit, / To Bite the Biter is not Fraud but
Wit."(35)
Fifty-two different variations on South-Sea folly or knavery are represented in the deck,
and the idea of speculation neatly links card-playing with stock-jobbing. But this knowledge is
only haptically implied unless one is looking at an uncut page of the entire deck, as in the Het
Groote compilation. Otherwise, the view offered by a single card, or even hand, resembles the
fragmented appearance of the overlay-format itself--one can only see a small part of a much
greater whole. There is in the Bubble popular art an attitude that reverses the positive view of the careful
Long-Head and the reckless Head-Long. The anonymous All for the better; or, the World turn'd
upside down. Being the History of the Head-Longs and the Long Heads (1720), a prose work of
eighty-odd pages, depicts the successful speculator as a "Head-Long," somebody who dares to
invest before the market moves up. To delay entering the market until after it has peaked, or to
be a "Long-Head," is seen as the ruin of the ponderous chicken-hearted. Here again one
understands the desire to trade as based on perceived differences in individual and group behavior.
The individual who correctly anticipates the group can benefit; the one who lets the group act first
loses. All for the better contains six different tales emphasizing the moral justice of each loss
and/or gain in an amplificato rhetoric that is designed to persuade in a cumulative manner. As in a
sermon, the moral content is repeated to ensure that everybody gets the message.(36) It might well
be a piece of government propaganda insofar as the Bubble is attributable to the stock-jobbers and
"the giddy fluctuations of the People" (10) as opposed to the South Sea directors. Another
reason for suspecting the political motive behind the pamphlet is that it is the only work that
concentrates on what might be called the Head-Long moral myth, or a myth of the suddenly rich
giving their riches to charity. These fictions or popular mythologies, haptically present in the print, do have a basis in
fact. Thomas Guy, a shrewd bookseller from humble origins, earned a good business importing
and then printing bibles. He is reported to have made a fortune in the Bubble, and when he died
left an endowment of £219,499 for Guy's Hospital. Swift's printer John Barber is also supposed
to have gained himself a substantial sum, and, according to one account, planned to buy land in
Thames street and build a charity school.(37) To complete the optical scanning, three other elements occupy the left side. Two of these
present standard themes in popular art. The first is a traditional depiction of an inverted order--i.e., the beggars on horseback and the princes on foot--a usual chapbook element and particularly
relevant to the Bubble.(38) Another suggests that, considering the events in Exchange Alley,
humankind is not superior to the thistle-eating ass. Then there is the one-eyed Jack of Spades, the
complementary card to the one-eyed Jack of Hearts in Figure 3 and in approximately the same
position. Neither of these are the Bubble cards advertised elsewhere in each respective print; as
we have seen, the Bubble cards carry both a rhyme at the bottom, like their advertisements, and
an individual scene. The item at the top right, entitled "The Stock Jobbing Ladies," is actually the text of "A
Song on the South Sea" by Anne Finch.(39) Here we find the "fair" sex leaving off the game of
courtship to embrace that of speculation. Even if the final lines sound condemnatory, "The gayer
passions of the mind \ How avarice controls! \ Even love does now no longer find \ A place in
female souls," the love of the "fair" seems to consist--in the poem at least--of nothing but "Ombre
and basset" and "Bright jewels."(40) Hence the song ultimately sounds neutral--is there a difference
in gaming with stocks or cards? One historian has suggested that the English propensity for
gambling made them even wilder for speculation than their cousins on the continent.(41) While
gambling was generally restricted to card-playing in France and Germany, the English were
famous for betting on anything from cock fights to the date of the next rainfall. In any case,
Finch's lyrics along with the ballad characterize the musical theme of the print--song threatens
haptical to grab the viewer. The rest of the right side is a mystery. Below "The Stockjobbing Ladies" appears to be a
frame that represents Carrington Bowles's calling card or an address label (note the "To" at the
top). Squeezed in the narrow space between the ballad and the border is an illustration of some
instrument or insect resembling a grasshopper! Here one can only fall back on Yarbus who
maintains that "unfamiliar" or "incomprehensible" elements may well fix us as much as a source of
information.(42) Finally, there is the complicated matter of dating these prints. Both Figures 3 and 4 carry
the inscription, "Printed for Carrington Bowles"; Carrington was Thomas's nephew who
succeeded his uncle in the printshop at No. 69, St. Paul's Churchyard in 1764.(43) Therefore, it is
clear that the prints reproduced as Figures 3 and 4 were actually run-off sometime while
Carrington operated the business (1764-93)--almost half a century after the Bubble year. The
practice of updating the inscription line and reissuing old prints has been well documented.(44) The
example from the "Bubblers Mirrour" series (Figure 2) is inscribed "Bowles & Carver"--the name
under which the shop operated until 1832; hence, this print probably dates from this period (1793-1832), when the color print was in high demand.(45) The only example reproduced here that may
be a Thomas Bowles original is the "Bubbler's-Kingdom" print (Figure 1). That all these prints
and the deck of cards were sold in the actual Bubble year of 1720 is clear from the
advertisements--the "Bubbler's-Kingdom" advertises both the "Medley" and "Mirrour" series, and
the latter two advertise the deck of cards. To conclude, these popular artifacts did not just have
an ephemeral life in 1720 but were reissued as "memorials" to subsequent generations who could
appreciate the Bubble phenomenon at a distance. My argument is that the theories of crowd mentality or deindividuation, and those of
collage and eye movement may be profitably used to help understand Bowles's "Medley" on the
South Sea Bubble. The theories of deinidividuation and collage suggest three levels of meanings.
First, specific cultural items may be represented as incomplete but in such a way that their full
meaning within the context of the print is clear. Second, when one sees the layering and
fragmentation, one recognizes the complexity of how the items relate to each other. Finally, the
overall commemorative purpose of the print is what completes both the significance of each item
and how they are collected. Subtitled "Europes [sic] Memorial for the Year 1720," these
collage-like prints call attention to their international and historio/curio nature. In other words,
there is an order to the disorder or to the collection as curio-cabinet that is more understandable
when one realizes from the actual prints themselves were run-off sometime between 1763 and
1793 or when Carrington had the business.(46)
Moreover, haptic concentration on a number of the
frames opens up several paths that might be followed like a hypertext-prototype of popular art
about 1720. The poet-diplomat Matthew Prior, who supposedly lost an "uncomfortable" amount of money in
the crash, complained about being overwhelmed by the public inquiry, "I am tired with politics
and lost in the South Sea: the roaring of the Waves and the madness of the people were justly putt
together."(47)
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_____________________________ 1. Pat Rogers, Literature and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (Totowa, New Jersey:
Barnes & Noble, 1985), 63. See also his "Plunging in the Southern Waves: Swift's Poem on the
Bubble," Yearbook of English Studies 18 (1988): 41-50.
Aside from this article very little had been written on the popular
literature dealing directly with the SSB until the last few years. See
Colin Nicholson, Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of
the Early Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994), which
has Chapters on Swift, Pope and Gay; Catherine Ingrassia, "Paper Credit:
Grub Street, Exchange Alley and 'Feminization' in Early Eighteenth-Century
England," Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 24 (1995): 191-210;
and Sandra Sherman, Finance and Fictionality in the Early Eighteenth
Century (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, forthcoming 1996). There have been analyses of literature, not specifically on the Bubble
but in light of the financial crisis; for example, see Gary Hentzi, "'An
Itch of Gaming': The South Sea Bubble and the Novels of Daniel Defoe,"
Eighteenth-Century Life 17 (1993): 32-45; and Pat Rogers, "'This
Calamitous Year': A Journal of the Plague Year and the South Sea
Bubble," Chapter 10 of Eighteenth-Century Encounters: Studies in the
Literature and Society in the Age of Walpole (Totowa: Barnes &
Noble, 1985), 151-67. For passing reference to Law's Mississippi scheme
and French novels, see Thomas M. Kavanagh, Enlightenment and the
Shadows of Chance: The Novel and the Culture of Gambling in
Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993), Chapter
2. It should be noted that E. M. Symonds [pseud. George Paston] has a
brief survey of visual art having to do with the Bubble, including a
description of one of the "Medley" prints (#23), in Social Caricature
in the Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1905), 88-95. 2. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Delusions and the
Madness of Crowds (1841; rpt. New York: L. C. Page, 1932). 3. Larry Neal, The Rise of Financial Capitalism:
International Capital Markets in the Age of Reason (Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1990), Chapters 1 to 5. 4. Neal
80-88; and Peter M. Garber, "Famous First Bubbles," Journal of Economic
Perspectives 4, No. 2 (1990): 35-54; Garber argues that generally
speaking investors acted reasonably in light of their economic knowledge.
5. For economic analyses, see P. G. M. Dickson
The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of
Public Credit 1688-1756 (London: Macmillan, 1967), 90-156; and Marvin
Rosen, "The Dictatorship of the Bourgeoise: England, 1688-1721,"
Science and Sociology 45, No. 1 (1981): 24-54. For commentaries
that focus on the role played by various individuals, see John Carswell,
The South Sea Bubble (London: Cresset Press, 1960); and J. D.
Alsop, "The Politics of Whig Economics: The National Debt on the Eve of
the South Sea Bubble," Durham University Journal 77, No. 2 (1985):
211-18. It is interesting to note that the history of the 1980s junk-bond
fraud and inside-trading, James B. Stewart, Den of Thieves (New
York: Simon & Shuster, 1991), follows an approach similar to
Carswell's in focusing on the detailed actions of a few key individuals as
opposed to the collective behavior of crowds. 6.
Mark Hallet, "The Medley Print in Early
Eighteenth-Century London," Art History: 20 (1997):
235-36. 7. Diane Waldman, Collage, Assemblage,
and the Found Object (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1992) 8. 8. Waldman 11. 9. Claude
Gandelman, Reading Pictures, Viewing Texts (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1990) 5-13. 10. Yarbus
published detailed tracking reports using I. E. Repin's "An Unexpected
Visitor"; see Alfred L. Yarbus, Eye Movements and Vision, trans.
Basil Haigh (New York: Plenum Press, 1967) 171-96. His chief conclusions about how pictures
are viewed are as follows: 1) that the points of fixation are in some way
sources of information; 2) that movement is not determined by detail but
by perceived information; 3) that attention might be paid the unusual,
unfamiliar or incomprehensible; 4) that movements usually follow a pattern
and do not necessarily exhaust the area detail; 5) that "foveal vision"
(the fovea centralis being that part of the retina with the highest
resolution power) is reserved "mainly for those elements containing
essential information" (196); and perhaps the most important, 6) that the
task or purpose of the viewer significantly affects the viewing
process. These basic principles have been endorsed
by more recent experiments as reported in Eye Movements and Visual
Cognition: Scene Perception and Reading, ed. Keith Rayner (New York,
Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1992) 46 and 451. For a review of eye-movement
research, see Robert M. Steinman and John Z. Levinson, "The Role of Eye
Movement in the Detection of Contrast and Spatial Detail," in Eye
Movements and Their Role in Visual and Cognitive Processes, editor
Eileen Kowler, Vol. 4 Reviews of Oculomotar Research (Amsterdan,
New York, Oxford: Elsevier, 1990), 115-212. 11. Waldane 8; and Gandelman 145. 12. See Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd (New York:
Ballantine, 1969) 31, 33, and 34 where Le Bon claims that crowds are as
fickle as women and as barbaric as Indians--statements that may be are
interesting more for what they say about nineteenth-century
institutionalized misogyny and racism than Gustave Le Bon. 13. Le Bon 34-43. The qualification would be
fundamental challenges to the pejorative characterization of "credulous"
behavior, along the lines of those who have attacked "deindividuation" for
having the same negative view of a social body (i.e., group). See the
ensuing discussion. 14. Sigmund Freud, Beyond
the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology, and Other Works, trans.
James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1955), 82. 15.
For a recent instance of this controversy one might consult the
archives for November 1993 of the electronic discussion group
"social-theory@mailbase.ac.uk." Those who are opposed to
"deindividuation" see the theory as a negative view of collective behavior
insofar as it is argued that "deindividuated" behavior is somehow less
than normal human behavior. They stress that individual and group
psychological processes are not dichotomous but inextricably combined.
Those who defend the theory argue that
one can isolate individual and group processes, and that deindividuation
is a neutral term. I would like to thank, collectively, the individuals of
that group for clarifying these issues. 16.
Clifford Geertz, "The Impact of Culture on the Concept of Man," The
Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 33-54. This
non-dichotomous view of the individual/society is outlined in the work of
S. D. Reicher; see "Crowd Behaviour as Social Action," in Rediscovering
the Social Group (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987). 17.
See Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979). 18. This summary
is a paraphrase of Ed Diener, "Deindividuation: The Absence of
Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation in Group Members," in Psychology of
Group Influence, ed. Paul B. Paulus (Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 1980), 208-42. 19. Le Bon uses the
term, "psychological crowd" (20-23). 20. David
Scharfstein and Jeremy Stein, "Herd Behavior and Investment," American
Economic Review 80 (1990): 466. 21. Peter
Eachus, "The Psychology of the Stock Market," The Psychologist 1,
No. 3 (1988): 100. I am indebted to Paul Webley for pointing me to this
and the Scharfstein/Stein articles. 22. The
Works of James Houghston, M.D. Containing Memoirs of his Life and Travels
... (London: 1753), 112. 23. Rogers argues
persuasively that Defoe's historical novel A Journal of the Plague
Year (1722) while nominally about the plague, actually reflected
concerns about the ranpant financial speculations of 1720. See Rogers,
"'This Calamitous Year': A Journal of the Plague Year and the South
Sea Bubble," 151-67. The plague certainly made for a
convenient story in the official government newspaper, The London
Gazette, because it pushes the South Sea scandal off the front page by
the fall of 1720 when the public uproar was at its peak. The Daily
Courant continued to list the daily stock prices, but it too opted to
feature foreign news like the plague at the height of the Bubble's
bursting. 24. George Paston argues that with the
"Bubble agitation ... the English artist-engraver was beginning to use his
own imagination and to produce original designs"; see George Paston
[pseud. of E. M. Symonds Social Caricature in the Eighteenth
Century (London: Methuen, 1905), 95. See Herbert M. Atherton, Political
Prints in the Age of Hogarth: A Study of the Ideographic Representation of
Politics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), 1, 31, 260. 25. Het Groote Tafereel Der Dwaasheid [The
Great Mirror of Folly] (Gedrukt tot Waarschouwinge: 1720). This is a
description of the copy in the rare collections department of the Library
of Congress. 26. For information on Thomas
Bowles' family print business, see Atherton 5-6; and Ian Maxted, The
London Book Trades: 1775-1800 (London: Unwin, 1977), 25-26; and Sarah
Tyacke, London Mapsellers: 1660-1720 (Tring, Hertfordshire: Map
Collector Publications Limited, 1978), xii, xv, 112-13. 27. Rogers 63. 28. See Chapter
1 of Alvin Kernan, The Cankered Muse: Satire of the English
Renaissance (New Haven: Yale UP, 1959). Herbert Atherton argues that "[t]he
techniques and limitations of graphic satire generally were not able (with
notable exceptions like Hogarth) to grapple easily with the mob as a
subject." While this may be an accurate statement with respect to the
eighteenth century as a whole, some qualification must be made for the
Bubble prints. 29. Yarbus 182.
30. According to Dorothy George, these numbers refer to a later
series of prints by Carington Bowles. See [Dorothy George],
British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings. Catalogue of
Political & Personal Satires Vol. 2 (2), 1689-1733 (London: np,
1873), 412, 419. This annotated catalogue remains the most useful
commentary on the Bubble prints, including many of those which
appear in the Dutch compilation Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid. Thomas Bowles left his business to his nephew Carington in
1767; the "Medley" prints reproduced here (with the Nos. 22 and 23
in the bottom left) were presumably produced after 1767 but from
the same plates that Thomas used for the originals, with some
alterations of course. Whether other prints in the Carington
Bowles series dealt with the Bubble is not known.
31. Harold Williams notes this printing; see The Poems of Jonathan
Swift, 2nd ed., 3 vols., ed. Harold Williams (Oxford: Clarendon,
1958), 249.
32. "A South-Sea Ballad; or, Merry Remarks upon Exchange Alley
Bubbles," in W. Walker Wilkins, Political Ballads of the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Longman, 1860) 2:199.
The reference in the opening line to a "famous Pile" is pile
as in grand building or the Royal Exchange. Quincampoix street in
Paris seems to have had its own "famous Pile"; see The "Quinquepoix
[sic] Street" frame in Figure 3.
33. See Mackay 34, 35-36, 39-40, 42.
34. The Folger Library has a replica deck of Bowles's 1720 Bubble
cards. A similar kind of deck was produced to commemorate English
victories in the War of the Spanish Succession.
35. "Two Spades," Bubble Cards. London: 1720. Published by Thomas
Bowles. Facsimile Published by Harry Margary, Lympne Castle, Kent,
1972. 36. [pseud. Philopatris], All for the better; or, the World turn'd
up-side down. Being the History of the Head-Longs and the Long-Heads, With Several Characters of both, in the following Six Novels
(London: 1720).
37. Anonymous Manuscript Newsletters (159) written in London
between June 25, 1719 and September 10, 1720. Sent to Francis
Thistlethwayte, Esq. in Winterslow, Wiltshire. [Mills Library,
McMaster University] See the entry for July 2, 1720.
38. See "The World Turned Upside Down; or, the Folly of Man
Exemplified in Twelve Comical Relations upon Uncommon Subjects,"
[illustrated] in John Ashton, ed. Chap-books of the Eighteenth-Century (London: Chatto and Windus, 1882), 265-72.
39. The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse, ed. Roger
Lonsdale (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), 108.
40. The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse, ed. Roger
Lonsdale (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), 73.
41. Ragnhild Hutton refers to the "English propensity for wagering
on all kinds of things not just card-playing as on the continent:
horse-racing, cock fights, date on which a besieged town would
surrender, on incidents in people's personal lives, as well as on
affairs of state"; see George I: Elector and King (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1978), 248.
42. Yarbus 191.
43. For information on the Bowles print and map-seller shop at No.
69, St. Paul's Churchyard, see Ian Maxted The London Book Trades:
1775-1800 (London: Urwin, 1977), 25-26; and Sarah Tyacke, London
Map-Sellers: 1660-1720 (Tring, Hertfordshire: Map Collector
Publications Limited, 1978), xii, xv, 112-13. When Thomas Bowles
retired in 1764 (he first opened the shop in 1712), his nephew
Carrington took over the business and managed it for the next
twenty-nine years. His son, Henry Carrington, took over in 1793,
and the shop remained in operation under the name "Bowles and
Carver" until 1832.
44. Carol Wax, The Mezzotint: History and Technique (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1990) 68-70.
45. Wax 50, 53. This one was probably hand-painted, the most
popular method of coloring in England at the time
46. For general distinctions between order and disorder see James
K. Feibleman, "Disorder," in The Concept of Order, ed. Paul G.
Kuntz (Seattle and London: U of Washington P., 1968) 3-13; for a
specific consideration of textual and visual representations of
order/disorder see Gandelman 141-49. 47. Charles Kenneth Eves, Matthew Prior: Poet and Diplomatist (New
York: Octagon, 1973), 379; and The Correspondence of Jonathan
Swift, ed. Harold Williams (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 2:378.