The good nature of the parody was remarked by all who spoke of it. Certainly the pleasantest circumstance of the whole episode is the fact that some of the victims of Tickell’s mimicry enjoyed the humor of it; though we learn from Walpole that Welbore Ellis, “another justly and humourously drawn, proved how justly. He said, ‘It is well written, but I perceive the author takes me for a dull man.’”[24]
According to a tradition that is not implausible, North and his friends took copies of Anticipation into the House on the opening day and dispensed them gratis.[25] An apparent consequence of this was Tickell’s luckiest satirical stroke, by virtue of which Anticipation lived on in the memory of anecdotists. Walpole, who was on the spot, reported that Col. Isaac Barré, an Opposition stalwart, “not having seen this pamphlet, the first day of the Session cited a foreign Governor with whom he was acquainted, exactly in the manner here ridiculed, and he also translated a French expression.”[26] This episode grew appreciably in the telling. In 1823 Joseph Jekyll told Tom Moore (who wrote down everything he heard) of the
laughable effect on the House of Col. Barré’s speech; he being the only one (having just arrived from the country) ignorant of the pamphlet, and falling exactly into the same peculiarities which the pamphlet quizzed, particularly that of quoting French words and then translating them. At every new instance of this kind in his speech there was a roar of laughter from the House, which Barré, of course, could not understand.[27]
But this was not the last refinement. The progress of the story, from contemporary witnesses to Jekyll and Moore and finally to “Senex” writing his recollections in Blackwood’s in 1826, is an illustration and a warning of the ways of anecdotists. The humorous success of Anticipation, wrote “Senex,”
I well remember.... The style of the speeches was so well imitated, and the matter in many cases so happily forestalled, that, like Vulcan among Homer’s gods, it caused inextinguishable laughter. What gave much zest to the joke was the ignorance of most of the usual speaking members that any such pamphlet existed. Their great surprise at the loud mirth excited by speeches intended to make a very different impression, and the frequent cries of “Spoke, Spoke!” the meaning of which they could not possibly comprehend, may be easily conceived. One of its effects was to shorten the debate, for, as the joke soon spread, many were afraid to address the House for fear of involving themselves in the predicament of those who had been so humorously anticipated.[28]
5
Anticipation had a great run. Such was the popular demand that a “Fourth Edition” was advertised by Becket within a week of first publication. Five more London editions and a Dublin reprint appeared before the end of the year. As soon as copies reached America, Anticipation was reprinted at both the British headquarters in New York and the American headquarters in Philadelphia. In announcing his New York reprint, James Rivington stated, with what degree of exaggeration the reader is free to guess, that “such was the reception given to this novel and immensely admired piece, that more than Forty Thousand copies were disposed of in a few days.”[29] In London a rash of imitations broke out at once. Altercation, Deliberation, Anticipation Continued, Anticipation for the Year MDCCLXXIX, The Exhibition, or a Second Anticipation—all these appeared within a year. As late as 1812 appeared Anticipation: or, The Prize Address; which will be delivered at the Opening of the New Drury Lane Theatre, a squib inspired by the same circumstances that gave rise to the celebrated Rejected Addresses of James and Horace Smith. And there were others. But, as Dr. Johnson remarked of The Splendid Shilling, “the merit of such performances begins and ends with the first author.”[30]
There was another result of the publication of the satire that, to Tickell, was perhaps the most gratifying of all. The author was right, observed The London Magazine in its review, in predicting a majority for Administration in his mimic debate; “and we verily believe he might have added by way of note at the end—‘This will get me a place or a pension.’”[31] This impertinence was justified by the event. On the 6th of December Richard Rigby, Paymaster and general factotum in North’s cabinet, wrote David Garrick a short but meaningful note: “I have had a meeting with Anticipation, and like him very much; I wish to have some further discourse with you upon that subject. Could you call here to-morrow morning about eleven?”[32] The subject was unquestionably a ministerial reward for services rendered. About this time Tickell was granted a pension of 200l. per annum.[33] Soon afterward an anonymous poet of the Batheaston circle returned good for evil in praising Tickell while attempting to recall him to virtue:
Some writers be of an amphibious race,
And prose and verse their elemental place.