William Kenrick (writer)
Encyclopedia
William Kenrick was an English
novelist, playwright
, translator and satirist, who spent much of his career libelling and lampooning
his fellow writers.
, Hertfordshire
, son of a stay
-maker. He apparently obtained a doctorate at Leiden University
(although other sources maintain he went to a Scottish university) and appeared for the first time as a pamphletist in 1751 where he wrote, under the name of Ontologos, The Grand Question debated; or an Essay to prove that the Soul of Man is not, neither can it be Immortal. In typical fashion, Kenrick forthwith provided an answer to this question proving the reverse, a tactic he often used in order to publicize his productions.
One of his first targets was the vulnerable Christopher Smart
whose poem Night Piece he attacked in the London monthly journal The Kapelion; or Poetical Ordinary, consisting of Great Variety of Dishes in Prose and Verse, recommended to all who have a Good Taste or Keen Appetite in 1750 under the nom de plume
Whimsey Banter.
In 1752 Kenrick publicly mocked Henry Fielding
and Tobias Smollett
in his entertainment Fun: a Parodi-tragi-comical Satire, a parody of Macbeth
in which the weird sisters circle about their cauldron, throwing in contemporary novels, periodicals and pamphlets. The play was banned by the Lord Mayor however as it was to have been perform’d at the Castle-Tavern, Pater-noster-Row, on Thursday, February 13, 1752, but Suppressed, by a Special Order from the Lord-Mayor and Court of Aldermen. (see the Paper War of 1752-1753
).
James Boswell
records a meeting with Kenrick on Friday, 3 April, 1772:
published in 1753 under the title The Whole Duty of a Woman; or, A Guide to the Female Sex, from the Age of Sixteen to Sixty, &c., but the author was simply listed as “A Lady.” Kenrick here assumed the persona
of a fallen woman, now reformed, who wants to persuade other women to live a life of virtue. The irony of Kenrick's presuming to improve the moral tone of feminine England has not gone unnoticed: he has been described as one of London’s most despised, drunken, and morally degenerate hack writers in the later eighteenth century.
In 1758 appeared his versified Epistles, Philosophical and Moral, an avowed defence of infidelity which afford the best specimens of his poetry.
In November 1759, Kenrick (the "superlative scoundrel") succeeded Oliver Goldsmith
as editor of The Monthly Review
. He signalled his advent by writing an outrageous attack upon Goldsmith's "Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe". His vilification was so unjustified that Ralph Griffiths
(the publisher) made an indirect apology for his successor by a favourable though brief review (in June, 1762) of "The Citizen of the World".
James Boswell
reported that:
Kenrick complained:
Indeed, Kenrick wrote revealingly of himself:
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
novelist, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, translator and satirist, who spent much of his career libelling and lampooning
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
his fellow writers.
Life and career
Kenrick was born at WatfordWatford
Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District.Watford was created as an urban...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, son of a stay
Bone (corsetry)
In corsetry, a bone is one of the rigid parts of a corset that forms its frame and gives it rigidity.-Purpose, history and materials:The purpose of the boning in a corset varies slightly from era to era....
-maker. He apparently obtained a doctorate at Leiden University
Leiden University
Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
(although other sources maintain he went to a Scottish university) and appeared for the first time as a pamphletist in 1751 where he wrote, under the name of Ontologos, The Grand Question debated; or an Essay to prove that the Soul of Man is not, neither can it be Immortal. In typical fashion, Kenrick forthwith provided an answer to this question proving the reverse, a tactic he often used in order to publicize his productions.
One of his first targets was the vulnerable Christopher Smart
Christopher Smart
Christopher Smart , also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout...
whose poem Night Piece he attacked in the London monthly journal The Kapelion; or Poetical Ordinary, consisting of Great Variety of Dishes in Prose and Verse, recommended to all who have a Good Taste or Keen Appetite in 1750 under the nom de plume
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Whimsey Banter.
In 1752 Kenrick publicly mocked Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
and Tobias Smollett
Tobias Smollett
Tobias George Smollett was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , which influenced later novelists such as Charles Dickens.-Life:Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton,...
in his entertainment Fun: a Parodi-tragi-comical Satire, a parody of Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
in which the weird sisters circle about their cauldron, throwing in contemporary novels, periodicals and pamphlets. The play was banned by the Lord Mayor however as it was to have been perform’d at the Castle-Tavern, Pater-noster-Row, on Thursday, February 13, 1752, but Suppressed, by a Special Order from the Lord-Mayor and Court of Aldermen. (see the Paper War of 1752-1753
Paper War of 1752-1753
In 1752, Henry Fielding started a "paper war", a long term dispute with constant publication of pamphlets attacking other writers, between the various authors on London's Grub Street...
).
James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
records a meeting with Kenrick on Friday, 3 April, 1772:
In the evening came a company of literati invited for me: Dr. Jeffries, Dr. Gilbert Stuart, a Mr. Leeson, and Kenrick, now Dr. Kenrick, who once wrote an 18d. pamphlet against me, but principally against Mr. Johnson, though it was entitled A Letter to James Boswell, Esq. Kenrick was quite a different man from what I expected to see. His Epistles, Philosophical and Moral promised seriousness or rather profound gravity; and many of his other writings promised acrimony to a high degree. But I found him a bluff, hearty little man, full of spirits and cheerfulness. He said devotion was not natural; that is to say, the devotion of the heart; that fear made people use ceremonies but did not inspire true devotion. He said he had a pronouncing dictionary almost ready, by which he hoped to fix a standard, as the varieties of pronunciation among people in genteel life were very few. He said he taught a man from Aberdeen to speak good English in six weeks. He said his great difficulty was to get him to speak at all. He told him, "Sir, you don't speak at all. You sing."
Success
Kenrick's most successful work, reprinted in over 20 editions, was a courtesy bookEtiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
published in 1753 under the title The Whole Duty of a Woman; or, A Guide to the Female Sex, from the Age of Sixteen to Sixty, &c., but the author was simply listed as “A Lady.” Kenrick here assumed the persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
of a fallen woman, now reformed, who wants to persuade other women to live a life of virtue. The irony of Kenrick's presuming to improve the moral tone of feminine England has not gone unnoticed: he has been described as one of London’s most despised, drunken, and morally degenerate hack writers in the later eighteenth century.
In 1758 appeared his versified Epistles, Philosophical and Moral, an avowed defence of infidelity which afford the best specimens of his poetry.
In November 1759, Kenrick (the "superlative scoundrel") succeeded Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
as editor of The Monthly Review
Monthly Review (London)
The Monthly Review was an English periodical founded by Ralph Griffiths, a Nonconformist bookseller. The first periodical in England to offer reviews, it featured the novelist and poet Oliver Goldsmith as an early contributor. William Kenrick, the "superlative scoundrel", was editor from 1759 to...
. He signalled his advent by writing an outrageous attack upon Goldsmith's "Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe". His vilification was so unjustified that Ralph Griffiths
Ralph Griffiths
Ralph Griffiths was a journal editor and publisher of Welsh extraction...
(the publisher) made an indirect apology for his successor by a favourable though brief review (in June, 1762) of "The Citizen of the World".
Publications and works
- Kenrick published his translation of Jean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
's Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse in 1761. In spite of the fact that he substituted throughout the name of Eloisa for that of Julie (a matter of no importance to the reader, as he wrote), the work was a success and enjoyed six reprintings up to 1776.
- In 1765 Kenrick published A Review of Dr Johnson's new edition of ShakspeareThe Plays of William ShakespeareThe Plays of William Shakespeare was an 18th-century edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, edited by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. Johnson announced his intention to edit Shakespeare's plays in his Miscellaneous Observations on Macbeth , and a full Proposal for the edition was...
: in which the Ignorance, or Inattention, of that Editor is exposed, and the Poet defended from the Persecution of his Commentators.
James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
reported that:
Johnson was virulently attacked by Mr. William Kenrick, who obtained the degree of LL.D. from a Scotch University, and wrote for the booksellers in a great variety of branches. Though he certainly was not without considerable merit, he wrote with so little regard to decency and principles, and decorum, and in so hasty a manner, that his reputation was neither extensive nor lasting. I remember one evening, when some of his works were mentioned, Dr. Goldsmith said, he had never heard of them; upon which Dr. Johnson observed, "Sir, he is one of the many who have made themselves publick, without making themselves known." .
- Falstaff’s Wedding, a comic sequel to Henry IV, Part 2Henry IV, Part 2Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V.-Sources:...
) written in imitation of Shakespeare was written in 1760. The play only staged once, in 1766, and was revived infrequently.
- The Widowed WifeThe Widowed WifeThe Widowed Wife is a 1767 comic play by William Kenrick. It premiered at Drury Lane Theatre on 5 December 1767. It closely resembled the plot of Memoirs of a Magdalen a novel by Hugh Kelly. The play enjoyed a fairly successful run.-Bibliography:...
(1767) was better received: it staged for 14 nights and resumed the next season.
- In 1770 and 1771 Kenrick published two pieces on perpetual motionPerpetual motionPerpetual motion describes hypothetical machines that operate or produce useful work indefinitely and, more generally, hypothetical machines that produce more work or energy than they consume, whether they might operate indefinitely or not....
: An account of the Automaton, or Perpetual Motion of Orffyreus and A Lecture on the Perpetual Motion.
Kenrick complained:
"One species of our predecessor's merit, however, I presume myself at least entitled to, that of perserverance; it being now fifteen years since I first engaged in this undertaking, which I have since pursued with almost unremitted assiduity, and that not only at considerable waste of time and expense, but under the constant mortification of hearing it equally ridiculed by those who do know, and by those who do not know, anything of the matter."
- In 1772, he published Love in the Suds, a town eclogue : being the lamentation of Roscius for the loss of his Nyky, a direct and scurrilous attack on David GarrickDavid GarrickDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
, making explicit charges of homosexualityHomosexualityHomosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
with Isaac BickerstaffeIsaac BickerstaffeIsaac Bickerstaffe or Bickerstaff was an Irish playwright and Librettist.-Early life:Isaac John Bickerstaff was born in Dublin, on 26 September 1733, where his father John Bickerstaff held a government position overseeing the construction and management of sports fields including bowls and tennis...
against the great actor. Garrick immediately took legal action against Kenrick who was forced to publish a somewhat ambivalent apology.
- In 1773 he published a A New Dictionary of the English Language, the first to indicate pronunciation with diacriticDiacriticA diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
al marks and to divide words according to their syllableSyllableA syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s.
- In the same year, on 20 November 1773 his comedy The Duellist was launched at Covent GardenRoyal Opera HouseThe Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, but lasted only one night.
- In 1775 Kenrick founded the book review digest The London Review of English and Foreign Literature which ran from 1775 to 1780, a monthly reviewReviewA review is an evaluation of a publication, a product or a service, such as a movie , video game, musical composition , book ; a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show...
of 80 pages which attacked most of the contemporary writers and their works, and gave habitual bad reviews to Covent Garden and Drury LaneTheatre Royal, Drury LaneThe Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
theatres. The magazine was continued for a year after his death by his son William Shakespeare Kenrick.
- 1778 saw the production of two more Kenrick plays: The Lady of the Manor, a comic operaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
with music by James HookJames HookJames Hook may refer to:* Captain Hook, the villain of J. M. Barrie's play and novel Peter Pan.* James Hook * James Hook * Jamie Hook, filmmaker...
was the most successful of Kenrick's such works; and The Spendthrift; or, The Christmas Gambol, a farceFarceIn theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
based on Charles JohnsonCharles Johnson (writer)Charles Johnson was an English playwright, tavern keeper, and enemy of Alexander Pope's. He was a dedicated Whig who allied himself with the Duke of Marlborough, Colley Cibber, and those who rose in opposition to Queen Anne's Tory ministry of 1710 - 1714.Johnson claimed to be trained in the law,...
's The Country Lasses which was taken off after only two nights.
- From 1778-1779 he directed a translation of VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's works in 8 volumes.
Ending career
The General Biographical Dictionary of 1815 describes Kenrick's end and sums up his career:In his latter days, his constitution was so much injured by inebriety, that he generally wrote with a bottle of brandy by his elbow, which at length terminated his career June 10, 1779, less lamented than perhaps any person known in the literary world, yet possessed of talents which, under a steady and virtuous direction, might have procured him an honourable place among the authors of his time.
Indeed, Kenrick wrote revealingly of himself:
- The Wits, who drink water and suck sugar-candy,
- Impute the strong spirit of Kenrick to brandy.
- They are not so much out: the matter, in short, is---
- He sips aqua vitae, and spits aqua fortis.
External links
- by William Kenrick from Google Book Search:
- A Review of Doctor Johnson's New Edition of Shakespeare
- The Poetical Works of Robert Lloyd, A.M.
- Falstaff's Wedding by William Kenrick, William Shakespeare
- The widow'd wife
- London review of English and foreign literature
- Translations by Kenrick
- Eloisa by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Kenrick, Friedrich August Clemens Werthes