Although it is cast in the form of an ironic dialogue, Citt and Bumpkin has much in common with a dramatic skit. L'Estrange sketches the setting, develops the characterization, provides realistic conversation, and builds dramatic tension to a climax (or turning point in the action), which is followed by a falling off of tension or dénouement. As if to make the reading of parts easier, the speeches of the characters are set in different type faces. L'Estrange even provides stage directions and indicates action in the speeches of the characters. Like many dramas, Citt and Bumpkin begins in medias res and draws the reader immediately into the action. In a very natural fashion, the subject of the conversation is defined and the scene is set within the first four lines. The sense of setting is never destroyed, for L'Estrange unobtrusively sustains it by occasional specific but natural references to it in the course of the conversation.
The dialogue between Citt and Bumpkin takes place during a casual encounter in a tavern, where the two fall to discussing religion and politics over a cup of ale. As their names suggest, Citt and Bumpkin represent a sophisticated London citizen and a naive country bumpkin. While they are not fully realized dramatic characters, neither are they mere bloodless stick figures. During the course of their conversation, they reveal information about their personalities, their social and economic status, their political affiliations, their religious sympathies, their moral values, and their occupations. One learns from Citt that he is an ex-felon who is employed as a party agent by a political organization plotting to overthrow the government and undermine the Church of England. Motivated only by ambition and avarice, Citt is a completely immoral man who openly endorses a policy of expediency, and who condones any act—no matter how evil—because he believes that the end always justifies the means. As befits a partner in crime, Bumpkin is Citt's Doppelgänger in many ways. The essential differences are those of experience and intelligence. Bumpkin is only slightly less immoral and unscrupulous than Citt, but he is just as hypocritical, lawless, and untruthful. As the two discuss how they promoted petitions in the city and the country, Citt and Bumpkin admit to all sorts of treacherous and Fraudulent practices. In addition, they reveal the goals, the methods, the leaders, the strength, and the immorality of the Protestant Plot. Ironically, they unintentionally expose themselves and the Plot to the reader's censure; for, although the characters seem to be oblivious to the immorality of their behavior, the reader is not so insensitive. The reader contrasts their ethics and conduct with ideal values, rejects their code as immoral, and carries his judgment of the characters over into the real world to condemn the petitioners as republican plotters.
To reinforce this ironic self-indictment by Citt and Bumpkin, L'Estrange introduces a third character, Trueman, who enters like a deus ex machina to represent the abstract forces of truth, justice, and morality—albeit with a Tory bias. Because he functions as an abstract symbol in contrast with Citt and Bumpkin, who are very much of this world, Trueman has a personality uncomplicated by any psychological subtleties or idiosyncrasies which would emphasize his humanity. The entrance of Trueman may well be regarded as the climax of this little drama, for the plot unfolds gradually and dramatic tension builds to the point of his intrusion, when the course of action is interrupted and diverted in another direction by his arguments. Taking up the topics previously discussed by Citt and Bumpkin while he was concealed in a nearby closet, Trueman confronts them with their confessed treachery, denounces their chicanery and folly, and refutes their political views with Tory arguments. The fact that Trueman symbolizes extrahuman moral forces lends authority to his defense of absolute monarchy and the established Church.
Couched in an authentic colloquial style, the dialogue between Citt and Bumpkin progresses in an entirely natural, credible manner. Their conversation is animated, colorful, humorous, informative, and purposeful. The direction of the conversation is logically dictated by its substance; there is nothing artificial, contrived, or foreordained about it. The interaction of personality is reflected in the verbal exchange. As in a play, the development of the action depends upon each character's immediate and genuine response to the statements made by the other dramatis personae. Again, as in the theater, dramatic tension is created as the plot unfolds and the reader waits to see what will happen next. Except for one passage of extended quotation (pp. 32-33), the dramatic realism is sustained effortlessly.
Although Citt and Bumpkin was the first of L'Estrange's Popish Plot pamphlets written in dialogue, he was thoroughly familiar with the form and had often employed it in his polemic skirmishes during the Civil War. In fact, L'Estrange found the genre so congenial that he chose to write his famous newspaper The Observator (1681-87) in dialogue. This literary device, employed by hack writers, controversialists, and eminent littérateurs, was extremely popular in England between 1660 and 1700 and was used to conspicuous advantage for discussing issues of momentary importance as well as serious philosophical questions. According to Eugene R. Purpus in his study of the "Dialogue in English Literature, 1660-1725," few other literary forms had such universal and continual appeal.[4] In an age when the drama was the reigning literary fashion, the dialogue naturally enough had a concomitant vogue. Its popularity is attested to by the large number of dialoguists as well as by the bulk of their writing. As Purpus notes, party writers quickly discovered that this genre was an excellent vehicle for presenting highly controversial ideas and forceful arguments.
During the Restoration, there were no rigid conventions governing the genre, and any work passed as a dialogue which represented a conversation between two or more persons or which was organized in a question-and-answer manner.[5] Frequently, dialogues resembled an interrogation or a catechism rather than natural discourse between real human beings. Often writers of such artificial dialogues abandoned any attempt at characterization or conversational verisimilitude, merely substituting "Q." and "A." to indicate a series of queries and responses. Sometimes authors identified the speakers with proper names but made no effort at actual characterization. Concern for dramatic realism varied from writer to writer; and all too often, improbable puppet-like creatures were represented in illogical, unbelievable, and contrived conversations. The artistic integrity of a successful dialogue, however, lies in the dramatic exchange of differing points of view or the interplay of opposing arguments in realistic conversation between credible characters with clearly differentiated personalities.
The stilted, artificial quality of some dialogues is in part attributable to the fact that many writers turned to the genre as a facile means of expressing a particular point of view.[6] As Purpus observes, the inherent dramatic quality of the form is lost if: 1) the writer substitutes invective, prejudice, and railing for realistic conversation, and/or 2) the author obviously contrives the dialogue merely to reflect his particular bias on a given question. On the other hand, although some writers used the form as a convenient frame on which to display their opinions, other writers erred by including too much dramatic machinery. Dialogues of this sort almost became short dramas.
No matter what the content or objective purpose of dialogues, however, they were uniformly written in what became known after the Restoration as the "plain, easy, and familiar" style.[7] Sentences were more conveniently broken up than heretofore, and there was increased lightness of tone. Though there was still a great deal of invective, Hugh Macdonald notes in "Banter in English Controversial Prose after the Restoration," that banter became prominent in the literature of disputation after 1660. On the other hand, "No one would expect to find a clear-cut division between banter, satire, sarcasm, burlesque, and abuse in every passage of a book written in the seventeenth century."[8] As Mr. Macdonald states, it is largely a question of emphasis. Employing a great deal of banter, Marvell reintroduced a tradition forgotten since the Marprelate tracts—that of treating a grave subject lightly yet with serious intention of reinforcing the argument. Restoration polemicists, with L'Estrange in the vanguard, quickly realized the advantages of this technique and claimed it as their own.
Citt and Bumpkin survives close scrutiny according to the critical criteria for evaluating dialogues suggested by Purpus and Macdonald. Although L'Estrange does use the genre for a specific controversial end, he does not lapse into a barren question-and-answer type of organization nor into that of an artificial didactic catechism. While he sketches a setting, develops characterization, and creates believable conversation, L'Estrange does not err in the direction of over-dramatization either. He provides all the requisite machinery to support the dramatic realism necessary in a successful dialogue, but he goes no further. Throughout Citt and Bumpkin, L'Estrange maintains the appropriate "plain, easy and familiar" style. The sentence structure is simple, and clauses are well punctuated. Abounding with colloquial expressions, contractions, and slang, the vocabulary is common and especially suited to the low characters. A bantering tone predominates, accompanied by passages employing irony, satire, and invective. There is not enough invective, however, to destroy the mood. If L'Estrange's Tory bias is perfectly evident, it is not aggressive enough to prevent the accomplishment of his polemic objectives. Although the republican political theories of the Whigs are attacked satirically in the first part of Citt and Bumpkin, they are stated and refuted in proper controversial style in the final pages of the pamphlet. On the whole, Citt and Bumpkin conforms to the conventions of a successful dialogue; where it does not, the infringements are not great enough to destroy its artistic integrity.
Citt and Bumpkin's popularity was indisputable. Of all the pamphlets about petitioning, it was by far the most widely read. It went into four editions by June 1680 and a fifth in 1681. Although there were no substantive changes in the various editions, the type was reset each time, so implying a continuing demand for the pamphlet. Indeed, the contemporary response was so overwhelming that within six weeks L'Estrange wrote a sequel entitled, Citt and Bumpkin, The Second Part; Or, A Learned Discourse upon Swearing and Lying. In addition, there were many references in the Whig press denigrating L'Estrange and his pamphlet; derogatory remarks appeared in newspapers, ballads, and poems. In particular, three pamphlets were issued, replying directly to Citt and Bumpkin and attacking L'Estrange personally. The first and most considerable of these rejoinders appeared on 16 March, a month after the publication of Citt and Bumpkin, when its effect was being fully realized and the need felt to combat it.