SONGS OF SPECULATION: MUSIC AND THE RISE OF FINANCE DURING THE 1720 SOUTH SEA BUBBLE A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Morton Wan December 2024 © 2024 Morton Wan SONGS OF SPECULATION: MUSIC AND THE RISE OF FINANCE DURING THE 1720 SOUTH SEA BUBBLE Morton Wan, Ph.D. Cornell University 2024 This dissertation explores how the opulent musical milieu of early eighteenth-century Britain— characterized by the soaring arias, proliferating ballads, fledgling opera ventures, an expanding music printing industry, and entrepreneurial musicians and patrons—can prompt us to think anew about the South Sea Bubble. Far from merely a dramatic episode in our economic past, this early modern financial crisis, viewed through the interplay of music and money, reveals itself as a momentous chapter in the history of modern culture. Drawing on recent insights from Economic Humanities, financial anthropology, and the cultural turn in studies of the British Financial Revolution, this dissertation investigates music’s active yet often neglected role in shaping and reflecting the English political economy during the 1720 crisis. By expanding the archival ambit of eighteenth-century music scholarship— contextualizing musical sources alongside records of government, accounting, corporate management, and stock trading—this musical history of the South Sea Bubble lays bare the deep intersections of cultural production and nascent financial capitalism, illuminating a pre- disciplinary era when arts and politics, music and money, aesthetics and economics freely informed one another along a shared discursive continuum. Two distinct musical genres closely intertwined with the 1720 crisis are examined in detail: 1) the Italian operas staged by the Royal Academy of Music, a chartered joint-stock company born out of English entrepreneurial zeal; and 2) the English ballads that erupted from London’s Exchange Alley, functioning as both market reportage and musical entertainment in the throes of the South Sea frenzy. On the one hand, an institutional analysis of the Royal Academy’s incorporation reveals how the joint-stock opera model reoriented English musical practice towards financial capital and markets, while also demonstrating the latter’s capacity to entrench itself within cultural production and shape the construction of musical meaning. On the other hand, a media-material study of the bubble ballads brings music to bear on the recent historiographic turn towards a behavioral understanding of the nature of the South Sea crisis, seen as a public mania conditioned by the contemporaneous mediascape and the contagious spread of evolving economic narratives and sentiments. This dissertation argues that music, by rendering the early modern bubble economy audible, allows us to recover the enduring lessons of the 1720 financial crisis as historical, sensorial experiences. Music echoes with the visceral impacts of the monetarist fantasy of infinite growth, the conflicting notions of economic liberty, and the epistemic fragility of derivatives finance. By tuning into these resonances, music reveals that modern financial capitalism, from its inception, has not just rested on data and metrics but also on cultural experiences and imaginations. This study of the historical entanglement between music and money challenges the functionalist tendencies of economic history writing—a reminder that the market has always been a matter of feeling as much as fact. v for my parents vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research for this dissertation was generously supported by fellowships and grants from the Huntington Library, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies at UCLA, as well as the Graduate School, the Music Department, the Institute for European Studies, and the Center for Historical Keyboards at Cornell University. I extend my deepest gratitude to my principal advisor, David Yearsley, and the members of my dissertation committee, Annette Richards, Roger Moseley, and Rebecca Spang. Their thoughtful guidance, constructive criticism, unflagging support, and steadfast patience have been invaluable, not only in the course this project but also throughout my graduate career at Cornell. As extraordinary writers, scholars, and teachers, they taught me most profoundly through the quiet eloquence of their example, setting a standard both daunting and inspiring—one I aspire to meet, both in this dissertation and beyond. This dissertation, and the years of study that shaped it, owes its completion to the many mentors, friends, family, and colleagues who have supported, encouraged, and, at times, endured me. Their influence—perhaps in ways they may not even realize—runs through these pages. At its core, this dissertation explores the historical entanglement of humanistic and economic understandings of money. In writing it, I often returned to the nature of debt—not merely as a numerical construct but as something rooted in personal trust, a deeply human connection that eludes zero-sum accounting. Over the course of this project, I have accrued countless immeasurable debts of this kind. The list of names that follows, though inevitably incomplete, serves as an imperfect ledger of gratitude—a modest reckoning of thanks to those named here and to the many others, unnamed, who made this work possible. To all of you, I remain forever in debt. Giorgio Biancorosso, Malcolm Bilson, Jen-yen Chen, Daniel Chua, Caryl Clark, Bill Cowdery, Thomas Cressy, Michelle Crow, Nina Dubin, Paul-Gustav Feller, Dietmar Friesenegger, Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden, Fanny Gribenski, Matthew Hall, Stephan Hammel, Amanda Hsieh, Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Samantha Heinle, Andrew Hicks, Shin Hwang, Samantha Jones, Youn Kim, Hank Knox, Colette Larkin, Erica Levenson, Shane Levesque, Howard Lu, Charity Lofthouse, Ralph Locke, Addi Liu, Baixi Li-Stein, Elizabeth Lyon, Alejandro Madrid, Meredith vii Martin, Theodora Martin, Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, Ben Norton, Frederick Nowell, Kirsten Paige, Benjamin Piekut, Mackenzie Pierce, Ilya Poletaev, Steve Pond, Neil Saccamano, Anna- Lise Santella, Anna Steppler, Craig Talmage, Rafael Torralvo, Daniel Walden, Katherine Walker, Ding Xiang Warner, Reva Wolf, Grace Yang, Sarah Yu, Neal Zaslaw, Thari Zweers. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Abbreviations and Short Titles x List of Illustrations xi List of Music Examples xiv Introduction 1 Cultural History, Critical Theory, and Economics 11 The South Sea Bubble as Cultural History 14 A Musical History of the 1720 Crisis 21 Chapter Overviews 34 Chapter 1. Market Music 38 Rising Pitch, Rousing Market 41 The Financial Imaginary of the South Sea Scheme 54 Handel’s Financial Sublime 62 The Perils of the Sublime 77 Echoes of Euphoria 84 Part I Opera Incorporated Chapter 2. The Boom 97 Opera in the Projecting Age 97 Musical Gentrification 105 “Opera Granted to a Body Politic” 114 Private Capital, Public Good; Or, Corporate Monopoly, Universal Taste 130 Opera(ting) Capital 140 Speculative Luxury 148 Chapter 3. The Bust 163 “Becoming a Kind of South Sea Company” 163 Opera in Crisis 172 The “Bailout Opera” 178 ix The Sound of Liberty: Passion and Pathos 187 Virtue and Economy 202 Theatrics and Economics at the Opera 223 Part II Ballad Economics Chapter 4. Bubble Ballads 237 “A Great Deal of Noise” 237 Sound and Paper Economy 247 Transmissibility 261 Mutability 272 Noise or Music? 290 Chapter 5. Bubble Plays 299 Fungible Music 299 Economic Uncertainty as Hermeneutic Indeterminacy 304 From Bubble Ballad to Bubble Play 317 Stock Market and Stock Character 330 Pastoral Mocked 337 Play and Profit 358 Bibliography 376 x ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES BL The British Library BM The British Museum NA The National Archives (UK) FM The Foundling Museum CL Chetham’s Library WC Wellcome Collection LMA London Metropolitan Archives UNott University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collection NLS National Library of Scotland SBzB Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz BNdF Bibliothèque nationale de France YBL Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library YWL Yale Lewis Walpole Library HBL Harvard University Baker Library CUL Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library NYPL New York Public Library HL The Huntington Library NL The Newberry Library HCD Handel Collected Documents OMO Oxford Music Online xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1.1 Screenshot from “Market Music” (2014), Edlundart, CNN Money. Captured by the author. Source: Edlundart, “Market Music: Listen to How the S&P Performed throughout 2013,” CNN Money, January 1, 2014, https://money.cnn.com/interactive/markets/market-music/. 1.2 Extract from the Daily Courant, April 7, 1720, juxtaposing opera and stock market news. 1.3 The Inside of St Paul’s Cathedral from the West End to the Choir (1749) printed by Bowles and Carver. Source: BM, G,11.78. 1.4 A Representation of the Royal Fire-work on the River of Thames before Whitehall (1713) by Bernard Lens II. Source: BM, 1880,1113.1357. 1.5 The River Thames with St. Paul’s Cathedral on Lord Mayor’s Day (c. 1746) by Canaletto. Source: Lobkowicz Collections, Lobkowicz Palace, Prague. 1.6 Capriccio: St Paul’s and a Venetian Canal (c. 1795) by William Marlow. Source: Tate Britain, London. 1.7 Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme (1721) by William Hogarth. Source: NYPL, 316231. 1.8 “Geld” and “Seltenes Glück” from Georg Philipp Telemann, Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbass-Übungen (Hamburg, 1733–1734). Source: SBzB, Mus. O. 12035. 1.9 “Toback” (Air) and “Toback” (Recitative) from Georg Philipp Telemann, Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbass-Übungen (Hamburg, 1733–1734). Source: SBzB, Mus. O. 12035. 1.10 A 1721 Exchequer receipt documenting English MP Lord William Powlett’s payment to the South Sea Company for goods, including over £900 worth of imported tobacco. Source: HBL, Foxwell MS 195A. 1.11 Excerpts from Georg Philipp Telemann’s manuscript for his La Bourse suite, TWV 55: B11, published in the 1730s. The left shows the original fugal design crossed out by the composer; the right shows the beginning of the final version of the fugue. Blue annotations are by the author. Source: Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden, Mus.2392-O-34. Accessible online at https://digital.slub- dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/15378/1/. 2.1 Satirical print by Thomas and Carrington Bowles, The Bubblers Mirrour; or England’s Folly (1720). Source: BM, 1935,0522.1.4. https://money.cnn.com/interactive/markets/market-music/ https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/15378/1/ https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/15378/1/ xii 2.2 “A List of Subscribers to the Building of a New Theatre in the Haymarket.” Source: UNott, Pw 2/571. 2.3 Title page of Numitore wordbook (1720). Source: National Library, V 4609 .56 v. 1. 2.4 Ballad, “The Ladies’ Lamentation for the Loss of Senesino.” Source: BM, 1868,0808.3506. 3.1 Title page of Muzio Scevola, libretto published by Thomas Wood (London, 1721), featuring excerpted verses from Joseph Addison’s Cato. 4.1 Wenceslaus Hollar’s print Gresham’s Royal Exchange (1644): a) Full view of the print; b) Highlighted detail of a ballad hawker. Source: BM, 1868,0822.351. 4.2 Handel’s Demand to Withdraw Dividend Note from 1716. Source: FM, Gerald Coke Handel Collection, 800. 4.3 “Exchequer Bill of £100 (No. 322)” (1720), A South Sea Exchequer Bill associated with James Brydges, the Duke of Chandos. Source: British Museum, CIB.54397. 4.4 Examples of financial documents serving as key transactional or informational mediums between investors and the market through brokers or agents during the South Sea Bubble: a) South Sea Script owned by Henry Bentinck, the Duke of Portland. Source: University of Nottingham, Pl F2/6/1 11; b) Memo notes by Pheasant Crisp for the Duke of Portland. Source: University of Nottingham, Pw B 10. All extant correspondence from Crisp to Portland is cataloged in Pw B 8–21. 4.5 A pair of bubble commemoration prints, The Bubblers Medley. Printed and sold by Thomas and Carington Bowles (c. 1720). Source: British Museum, 1935,0522.1.5 and 1880,1113.3953. 4.6 Citations of Bubble Ballads in Bowles’s The Bubblers Medley: a) Edward Ward, “A South-Sea Ballad,” source: HBL, Kress Library, S.2961; 2) Anne Finch, “The Stock Jobbing Ladies,” source: HBL, Kress Library, 3321. 4.7 Edward Ward’s “The Prophetick Ballad” appearing in three different print iterations: a) blackletter print, source: BL, 74/1876 f.1.88; b) engraved song sheet, source: CL, H.P.1448; c) hand-scribed copy as a commonplacing memo, source: UNott, Me X 5/4. 4.8 Anne Finch, “The Stock Jobbing Ladies” (1720). Source: HBL, Kress Library, 5898.79. 4.9 Examples of pre-printed financial instruments from the South Sea market mania. Left: Power of attorney note appointing a broker. Right: Receipts documenting transfers of South Sea shares, collected by Walter Hawkins in the South Sea Company’s Vouchers. Source: British Library, Add MS 27871 (2503D). xiii 4.10 Edward Ward, “A South Sea Ballad,” Dublin reprint (c. 1720). Source: HBL, Houghton Library, HBL, ESTC N23885. 4.11 Frontispiece of Edward Ward’s late 1720/early 1721 publication The Compleat Vintner, or Delight of the Bottle. Source: Yale Beinecke Library, BEIN Poems 73. 4.12 A pair of ballads reportedly set by a female musician: a) “The South Sea Ballad, Set by a Lady.” Source: British Library, G307, f. 26. b) “The South Sea Ballad, Set by a Lady Part II.” Source: British Library, G313, f. 38. 5.1 Ballad “The Sailor’s Complaint / The Debtor’s Welcome to Their Brother.” Source: BL, G307, f. 34. 5.2 Thomas D’Urfey’s The Hubble Bubbles presented in two different print iterations: a) Engraved song sheet. Source: HBL, Kress Library, 3199; b) Black-letter broadsheet. Source: British Library, 74/1876.f.1. 5.3 “A New South Sea Ballad Made and Sung by Mr. Anthony Aston in the Magician or Harlequin Director.” Source: BL, G316.g, f. 35. 5.4 Ballad “The Raree Show Ballad, or the English Mississippi.” Source: BL, G305, p. 212. 5.5 Scene One of “The Necromancer or Harlequin Dr. Faustus”, anonymous drawing, circa 1724. Source: BM, 1972, U.517. 5.6 Title page of The Shepherd’s Garland, Compos’d of Four New Songs (1720). Source: British Library, 12330 I.6.8. 5.7 Thomas and Carington Bowles, The Beggar’s Opera Playing Card (c. 1730). Sources: CUL, Albert Field Collection of Playing Cards, GB0121 and YWL, The Beggar’s Opera, 55 G25 S770. 5.8 Examples of South Sea Bubble-themed playing cards popular after the 1720 crisis: a) April Cards, anonymous. Source: Christie’s Live Auction 17037 (Closed June 12, 2019); b) Thomas and Carington Bowles, Bubble Cards, Set 1. Source: Christie’s Live Auction 17037 (Closed June 12, 2019); c) Thomas and Carington Bowles, Bubble Cards, Set 2. Source: HBL, 8001624443. 5.9 Examples of music-themed playing cards from the eighteenth century: a) Deck of playing cards featuring several lines of music, verse, and flute accompaniment. Source: Yale Beinecke Library, Cary ENG122; b) Playing cards with French suits: A complete pack where the suit-marks occupy the upper half of each card, with the lower half filled with music. Source: BM, 1896,0501.430. xiv LIST OF MUSIC EXAMPLES 1.1 Aria “Quel piacer” sung by Benedetto Baldassari from Giovanni Porta’s Numitor (1720), published by John Walsh (1730). Source: BnF, Musique, RES VS-1284. 1.2 Opening measures of Handel’s Te Deum, HWV 278 (1713) 1.3 Beginning of the penultimate movement of Handel’s Jubilate, HWV 278 (1713) 3.1 “Fugga il timor, dal sen” from Muzio Scevola, Act II, Scene 4. Musical excerpts cited in this chapter are based on the manuscript sources: BL, 16-108, and SBzB, Am.B 439b. 3.2 Recitative “Mio Cor” from Muzio Scevola, Act III, Scene 4. 3.3 Aria “Dimmi, crudele amore” from Muzio Scevola, Act III. 3.4 Duet “Dov’è il dolor, dov’è” from Muzio Scevola, Act II. 3.5 Muzio’s pre-cadential intervention in “Dov’è il dolor,” disrupting the imitative sequence that threatens to derail the tonal center. This allows the primo uomo to reestablish formal agency in the duet, guiding the music back to its final closing passage in the home key. 4.1 Ballad tune “London is a Fine Town.” 4.2 Richard Leveridge, “The Tippling Philosopher,” appearing in John Watts’s 1720 installment of Musical Miscellany, Vol. 1. 4.3 Ballad, “The Satyr’s Advice to a Stock-Jobber, The Music by Mr. Handel,” anthologized in John Watts’s The Musical Miscellany, 1731 installment. 5.1 Thomas D’Urfey, “Jockey’s Lamentation,” from Wit and Mirth: Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 (1706). 5.2 Air XVI, “Over the Hills and Far Away” from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act I, Scene 1. Published by John Watts, 1728. 5.3 Air XLI, “South-Sea Ballad” from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act III, Scene 1. Published by John Watts, 1728. 5.4 Air XXXV, “Irish Trot” from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act II, Scene 2. Published by John Watts, 1728. 5.5 Air XVII, “Lumps of Pudding”from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act III, Scene xv 17. Published by John Watts, 1728. 5.6 Duet, “Happy, Happy We,” from Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Act I. Published by John Walsh, c. 1743. 5.7 Glory be to the Father (Overture) and As it was in the Beginning (Fugue) movements— both duplications of the finales from the Utrecht Jubilate—from Chandos Anthem No. 1 in D Major (also known as Chandos Jubilate), HWV 246. 5.8 Air, “Shepherd, What Art Thou Pursuing?” from Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Act I. Published by John Walsh, c. 1743. 1 INTRODUCTION “There is such a demand that [opera] tickets are already being sold at 2 or 3 guineas which are normally half a guinea; so that they are making it like a Mississippi or a South Sea [Company]”1 “Mrs Barbier, the famous Singer at the New Play-House, having gain’d above £5,000 by South Sea Stock, has sung her last Farewell to the Stage.”2 “Our Trade in the South-Seas will bring us in Gain, / Most pleasing unto the Nation; / And what still add Glory to th' auspicious Reign, / better our Navigation.”3 “Hear me weep and wail, / Listen to my dolefull ditty; / Mind my wretched State and Pitty: / While the Stocks were rising, / my Fortunes were surprising, / But now they fail, / My Garments at sale, / And a Pox on all disguising, / Once I dreamt on leisure, Treasure, / Cut out Joy & Pleasure, / My hopes beguil’d, / My Remnants spoil’d, / And I’m ruin’d out of measure.”4 During the South Sea Bubble—a market meltdown seen as one of the world’s first financial crises—music became intricately linked to the fervor of financial speculation, as reflected in the quotes above. Opera tickets soared like speculative assets, hyped by the Royal Academy of Music, a newly formed joint-stock opera company, in a manner reminiscent of how South Sea Company’s shares were inflated. Well-known musicians, too, joined the mania; lucky ones such as Mrs. Barbier amassed fortunes in the stock market scheme that far eclipsed their earnings on the stage. As illustrated by the two excerpts from ballads circulating from London’s Exchange Alley—the epicenter of the investment mania—to the far corners of the British Isles and beyond, music served as audible economic reportage at the time. These two examples, one 1 Jan 15, 1723, letter from Friedrich Ernst von Fabrice to Count von Flemming, cited in HCD, Vol. 1, 616. 2 Aug 6, 1720, Applebee’s Original Weekly Journal, cited in HCD Vol. 1, 499. 3 Annon, “Oxford and Mortimer’s Vindication, Or, Another New Song, In Answer to Credit Restored, sung to the tune, Come Prithee, Hold up The Head” (1711). NLS, Crawford EB.885. 4 William Rufus Chetwood, “The Broken South Sea Taylor’s Ditty, sung by Mr. Platt at Sadlers Wells” (c. 1720). BL, 813g, p. 209. 2 capturing the market’s jubilant ascent and the other its precipitous collapse, disseminated news, propaganda, and sentiment, capturing and conveying the hopes and anxieties of a nation collectively swept up in a perilous gamble. As South Sea stocks surged and plummeted, music gave voice to the market’s intangibles—its assets, but more importantly, the ambitions, fears, and panic driving their prices—lending a visceral, sensorial dimension to the abstract mechanics of finance and echoing its swings from euphoria to despair. It rendered the exuberant economic exchange palpable, embedding the emotional and cultural currents of the crisis within the soundscape of the age. But in what ways can we tease out the entanglements between music and the market to show that music, as a cultural phenomenon, can indeed offer valuable insights into the early modern financial upheaval? What can music reveal about the dynamics of finance and economics during the South Sea Bubble—a crisis that helped shape the trajectory of modern financial markets? This dissertation explores these questions by thinking about the Bubble as an audible past through a diverse selection of musical works, institutions, mediums, and musicians from around 1720—primarily in England, but extending also to Germany and France. It investigates how the economic convulsions of the early eighteenth century informed, impacted, and inspired contemporaneous musical practices and expressions. In turn, it examines how music—whether inspired by, co-opted by, incidentally accompanying, or otherwise connected to the South Sea Bubble—can compel us to rethink the financial meltdown not merely as a dramatic episode in our economic past but as a momentous chapter in the history of modern culture. The South Sea Bubble, fueled by the eponymous company’s stock price surge and subsequent crash, serves as a sobering account of the dangers of unchecked financial hubris and of the relationship between money, politics, and society. Chartered by the English government to alleviate its national debt, the South Sea Company exploited exclusive trading rights in the South American slave trade to promote its shares, enticing investors with the promise of 3 converting their public debt into potentially lucrative company stock. This fueled a frenzy of subscription and investment, culminating in the infamous panic in the late summer of 1720. The resulting widespread financial ruin and social discontent intensified political divisions across English society. The resolution of this crisis—a bailout of the culpable corporation and the implementation of interventionist government policies championed by an ascendent political faction of moneyed interests—marked a pivotal shift in the British economic and political landscape. The South Sea Bubble’s significance extends far beyond its immediate economic impact. On an institutional level, it tells an origin story of the modern financial system, shaped by the interplay of global trade, political intervention, and market entrepreneurialism, while highlighting the inherent risks and instabilities of such arrangements. On a social level, the Bubble reveals the reciprocal relationship between financial markets and collective behavior—a dynamic laid bare by the South Sea crisis, which has inspired a longstanding tradition of intellectual fascination with the event. Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds famously used the Bubble as a case study in human folly, offering one of the earliest studies of irrationality, groupthink, and public delusion.5 Later works, such as John Carswell’s The South Sea Bubble and Lewis Melville’s publication of the same title, brought the crisis vividly to life through detailed micro-historical accounts.6 Their retellings turned the popular market mania into captivating tales, drawing a diverse readership of historians, scholars, economic professionals, and curious lay readers interested in the world of finance. These earlier histories helped cement the South Sea Bubble’s status as a cautionary tale that offers enduring lessons on corporate governance, securities markets, financial regulation, and the fragility of market systems.7 5 Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Barnes & Noble Publishing, 2004 [1841]). 6 John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (Stanford University Press, 1960); Lewis Melville, The South Sea Bubble (B. Franklin, 1968). 7 See Richard Dale, The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble (Princeton University Press, 4 Recent scholarship on the South Sea Bubble has refined the discourse surrounding the crisis by adopting systemic and interdisciplinary perspectives on early eighteenth century English political economy. These studies have focused on the Bubble’s connections to England’s expanding credit markets, its increasingly financialized approach to politics, and its growing overseas trade networks. Carl Wennerlind’s Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 situates the Bubble within the broader British Financial Revolution, inquiring into its intellectual origins and systemic implications.8 Helen Paul’s The South Sea Bubble: An Economic History of Its Origins and Consequences bridges history and economics, analyzing the crisis through a modern economic framework.9 William Deringer’s Calculated Values: Finance, Politics, and the Quantitative Age examines the Bubble as an “epistemic event,” demonstrating how it solidified numerical reasoning as a dominant mode of public evidence in Britain.10 Similarly, Thomas Levenson’s Money for Nothing explores the financial revolution as a pivotal moment when the public imagination of value shifted toward increasing abstraction. This transformation, Levenson argues, was facilitated by concurrent technological innovations, particularly in coinage, which made such abstract concepts of value both conceivable and operational.11 And Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman’s Invisible Hands: Self-Organization and the Eighteenth Century features extensive discussion of the South Sea Bubble, showing how divine, political, mathematical, and cognitive retrospectives on the crisis converged on eighteenth-century ideas of self-ordering systems, paving the way for the naturalization of the market’s inner workings and its supposed autonomy.12 Finally, Trevor 2004); William Quinn and John D. Turner, Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles (Cambridge University Press, 2020). 8 Carl Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011). 9 Helen Paul, The South Sea Bubble: An Economic History of Its Origins and Consequences (Routledge, 2010). 10 William Deringer, Calculated Values: Finance, Politics, and the Quantitative Age (Harvard University Press, 2018). 11 Thomas Levenson, Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich (Random House, 2020). 12 Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman, Invisible Hands: Self-Organization and the Eighteenth 5 Jackson’s Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690-1830 expands the geographic scope of the crisis to examine the Bubble’s global ramifications. Jackson reveals how English political, legal, and market structures produced both economic growth and systemic inequality, embedding racial and economic privilege into financial capitalism while fostering ambivalence toward regulation.13 In these recent studies of the South Sea Bubble, phrases such as “economic regulation,” “free market,” “quantitative modeling,” “deleveraged growth,” and “racial capitalism” crop up so often that they may at first feel jarringly modern, as if culled from today’s news headlines rather than the archives concerning the 1720 crisis.14 And why not? The enduring relevance of this early modern English financial fiasco is precisely the point. As financial historian Edward Chancellor observes, “progress is cumulative in science but cyclical in finance,” highlighting how financial history reflects persistent human behaviors rather than linear advancements.15 The cyclical nature of financial history thus lays bare the perennial questions that demand reexamination: What is money? What is wealth? What is value? And why do we repeatedly succumb to the same financial illusions in our relentless pursuit of those? Early stock markets, like modern ones, were driven by this familiar combination of hope and fear—emotions so potent they have led investment manias into recognizable patterns across centuries. The South Sea Bubble is a showcase of ambition and greed, control and negligence, rationality and fantasy, conceit and cruelty—human elements that have been baked into the financial system from its beginning. It is a mirror held up to our own vanities and vulnerabilities. To study the 1720 crisis is to probe the roots of financial capitalism—the messy, contradictory human condition that sustains it. Century (University of Chicago Press, 2015). 13 Trevor Jackson, Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690–1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2022). 14 See, for example, Deringer, Calculated Values, x & 25; Levenson, Money for Nothing, 190; Sheehan and Wahrman, Invisible Hands, 307; Jackson, Impunity and Capitalism, 271. 15 Grant James Grant, Minding Mr. Market: Ten Years on Wall Street with Grant's Interest Rate Observer (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1993), 7, cited in Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (Plume, 2000), 41. 6 This is where music enters the conversation. And this dissertation shows music can provide a fresh lens to explore the human condition during the 1720 crisis. Serving as an audible archive, it brings us closer to this historical episode, infusing our inquiries with experiential immediacy. In so doing, it reveals previously unvarnished truths about the crisis— not through historical economic data or information, but as expressions of human thoughts and feelings. While previous musicological literature has not explicitly linked music to the South Sea Bubble in the way this study proposes, the entanglement of music with the financial world of the early eighteenth century has been acknowledged. The dramatic rise and fall of the market provided fertile ground for composers and musical satirists alike.16 Beyond inspiring new musical content, the South Sea Bubble helped the development of two of early eighteenth- century England’s musical genres. On the one hand, the Royal Academy of Music, Britain’s first joint-stock opera company, capitalized on the investment frenzy and easy access to credit during the Bubble to establish Italian opera in England, attempting to transform it into a sustainable and dominant form of musical theatrical entertainment in London. While its ambition earned political support, the Academy also became emblematic of the era’s financial excess, attracting sharp criticism for its perceived extravagance.17 On the other hand, ballad opera, England’s home-grown musical theatrical genre incorporating vernacular songs, emerged as a counterpoint to imported and elitist Italian opera. Its best-known example, The Beggar’s Opera, deployed street music to deliver a biting satire of the political economy shaped by the South Sea 16 References to the South Sea Bubble in musicological literature initially emerged in Handel studies, a topic that will be explored in greater depth later. More recent scholarship on eighteenth-century music and Europe’s increasingly commercialized society has also begun to address the 1720 crisis, situating it within broader cultural and economic contexts. See, for example, David Hunter’s “Benefits: Cui Bono?” in Music and the Benefit Performance in Eighteenth-Century Britain, eds. Matthew Gardner and Alison DeSimone (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 242–264. For a brief discussion of the financial crisis alongside the concurrent Mississippi Bubble of 1720, see Steven Zohn, Music for a Mixed Taste: Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann’s Instrumental Works (Oxford University Press, 2015), 106. 17 See, among others, John Merrill Knapp, “Handel, the Royal Academy of Music, and Its First Opera Season in London,” The Musical Quarterly XLV, 2 (April 1959): 145–67. 7 crisis and the growing dominance of moneyed interest in English politics.18 It is clear that Italian opera and English ballads, often perceived as stylistic opposites in eighteenth-century English musical life, were simultaneously shaped by the financial upheaval of the South Sea Bubble, while interfacing the market forces and cultural shifts of the time. Despite so, the later Romantic ideal of music as an autonomous art form has fostered a sanitized reception of eighteenth-century music, especially as musical works from the time became part of the “classical music” canon. This perspective willfully overlooks musicians’ roles as economic actors and the political economy underpinning music’s production.19 Platitudes about music’s alleged transcendence over economy’s supposed mundanity obscure the reality of music’s and musicians’ embeddedness in economic systems of production and exchange, while also dismissing their potential to illuminate the socio-economic structures with which it was deeply entangled.20 Amid the turbulence of the South Sea Bubble, George Frideric Handel emerged as a prime example of how musicians were, and remain, deeply embedded in economic systems. His active engagement in both financial and musical spheres during and after the Bubble challenges the Romantic ideal of the artist as untouched by material concerns. Handel’s management of his personal wealth, including investments in South Sea stock and other assets, exemplifies the intersection of artistic creativity and financial acumen in the early 18th century—a connection 18 See, for example, Steve Newman, “The Value of ‘Nothing’: Ballads in ‘The Beggar’s Opera,’” The Eighteenth Century 45/3 (2004): 265–83. 19 The elevation of art through discourse and the separation of cultural production from economic production is a long-standing development of the nineteenth century, extensively studied within the sociological tradition. Notable works include Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Meridian, 1996) and Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide (Indiana University Press, 1987). 20 For a recent discussion of how Romantic developments turned music aesthetics and economics into antagonistic discourses, see Nicholas Mathew, The Haydn Economy: Music, Aesthetics, and Commerce in the Late Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2022), 2–4. For analyses of Romantic tendencies in interpreting composers’ lives and works, as well as historicist approaches that counter these narratives, see Daniel Chua, “Myth: Mozart, Money, Music,” in Mozart Studies, ed. Simon P. Keefe, 193– 213 (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Neal Zaslaw, “Mozart as a Working Stiff,” in On Mozart, ed. James Morris, 102–12 (Cambridge University Press, 1994). 8 that has fascinated biographers for over a century.21 Recent scholarship has shed new light on Handel’s financial activities, enriching the biographic portrayal of the celebrated composer as acutely attuned to pecuniary matters. Ellen Harris’s rigorous archival research into Handel’s financial accounts at the Bank of England reveals his connections to the South Sea Company during the 1720 boom and his subsequent investments in South Sea annuities after the crash.22 These records establish an undisputed link between Handel’s financial decisions and his professional activities, including the acquisition of materials for compositions and the funding of theatrical ventures. David Hunter expands on Harris’s analysis, connecting Handel’s South Sea investments to other financial enterprises, including the Royal African Company.23 Unlike Harris’s descriptive and largely positive approach, Hunter adopts a normative rhetoric, inviting ethical reflection on Handel’s ties to the colonial enterprises and the slave trade—an angle that seeks to align Handel scholarship with today’s decolonial sensibility.24 Indeed, Handel’s dual identity as both composer and investor complicates his legacy. Celebrated as a canonical figure of high Baroque music and venerated as one of the greatest classical musicians, Handel has long been recognized for embodying the emerging interplay between artistic innovation and 21 For Handel biographers’ treatment of Handel’s known financial dealings, see Edward J. Dent, Handel (1934), Chapter 2; Paul Henry Lang, George Frideric Handel (W. W. Norton & Company, 1966), 183-88; Christopher Hogwood, Handel (Thames and Hudson, 2007), 120-28; and, more recently, Jane Glover, Handel in London: The Making of A Genius (Macmillan, 2018), 96-105. For Handel’s investment practices as interpreted in popular imagination today, see Richard Evans, “How to Invest Like Handel,” The Telegraph, May 23, 2016. 22 Despite the destruction of the South Sea Company’s ledgers, Ellen Harris, having recently connected extant records from before and after the Bubble burst, deduced that Handel must have held on to his investment throughout that year of spectacular boom and bust. See Ellen T. Harris, “‘Master of the Orchester with a Sallary’: Handel at the Bank of England,” Music and Letters 101, no. 1 (2020): 1–29. For Harris’s work over the years in recovering Handel’s financial records and attempt at piecing together the composer’s investment history, see also Harris, “Courting Gentility: Handel at the Bank of England,” Music & Letters 91, no. 3 (2010): 357–75; and “Handel the Investor,” Music & Letters 85, no. 4 (2004): 521–75. 23 For the archival discovery concerning Handel’s holdings of Royal African Company equity, which was used as payment for his work at the Royal Academy of Music, see, among others, Hunter, “Music and the Use of the Profits of the Anglo-American Slave Economy (ca. 1610–c. 1810)” in The Oxford Handbook of Economic Ethnomusicology (2021 digital release/forthcoming). 24 Most recently, a debate on whether one could gain definitive knowledge of Handel’s intentions behind his equity holdings in these eighteenth-century joint-stock trading companies and its potential ethical implications transpired between Ellen Harris and David Hunter. See Hunter and Harris, “Critical Exchanges: Handel and Slave-Trading Companies,” Music and Letters 103/3, 2022. 9 commercial enterprise. As Richard Taruskin aptly observes, Handel was the first “musical entrepreneur” in the modern sense, deftly navigating the intertwined realms of music and money, becoming “a role model to free market composers ever since.”25 A similar narrative about Handel as a figure of the music business appears in economist F. M. Scherer’s boldly cross-disciplinary work Quarter Notes and Bank Notes. Scherer portrays Handel’s career as an entrepreneurial Bildungsroman set against the backdrop of the marketization of musical patronage, positioning Handel not merely as “a freelance composer” but as “a risk-taking entrepreneur” navigating the emerging market economy of his time.26 Yet, given the early eighteenth century English commerce’s reliance on the economically turbulent and morally troubling financial markets, Handel’s legacy grows increasingly ambivalent, posing as many questions as it answers about the intersections of art, commerce, and ethics. Handel was also far from unique in this regard. If we step back from the blithely accepted centrality of Handel in eighteenth-century English music history, we see him not as an outlier but as one among many figures influenced by the emerging commercialization of music and musical profession, empowered by nascent financial markets and the new wealth therein.27 Rethinking the intersections of music, musicians, and these new market developments thus calls for a reciprocal reassessment of the South Sea Bubble in light of the musical culture and practices of the era. While the Bubble’s presence in musicological literature has been longstanding, its significance is often treated as a peripheral context out of antiquarian curiosity. Discussions of opera financing, for example, typically reference the Bubble as a mere backdrop to speculate on the Royal Academy of Music’s financial struggles, while interpretations of works 25 Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, Vol. 2 (Oxford University Press, 2010), 239. 26 F. M. Scherer, Quarter Notes and Bank Notes: The Economics of Music Composition in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Princeton University Press, 2018), 4. 27 Various micro-historical accounts of eighteenth-century musicians show that they were not only cultural producers but also, often out of necessity, creative entrepreneurs. See, for example, John Baptist Grano, Handel’s Trumpeter: The Diary of John Grano (Pendragon Press, 1998); Barbara M. Reul, “‘Forgive Us Our Debts’: Viewing the Life and Career of Johann Friedrich Fasch through Finance,” Eighteenth-Century Music 8/2 (September 2011): 261–86. 10 like The Beggar’s Opera acknowledge the investment mania and its political economy without engaging deeply with the complexities of the parliamentary politics surrounding Britain’s bourgeoning financial system the ballad opera critiques.28 Similarly, Handel’s financial investments are often acknowledged but rarely analyzed for their deeper implications—his music, for example, is frequently absent from these discussions, leaving the interplay between art and his economics unexplored.29 This dissertation redresses this musicological lacuna by making explicit the various connections between the financial market and musical life during the South Sea Bubble. It explores how financial markets opened new avenues for monetizing musical creation and how music, in turn, responded to and translated market dynamics into audible forms. By tracing these relationships through discursive and personal networks that bridged finance and music, I show how these two realms mutually influenced and co-constituted each other. To do so, I place music within the broader field of cultural and intellectual history, building on the work of historians who have long recognized the fluid interplay of discourses in economic, political, and artistic domains in the eighteenth century, where themes such as property and credit, statecraft and trade, and pleasure and taste flowed freely across diverse genres of writing and artistic expression.30 Rooted in this historicist impulse, the dissertation seeks to recover the connections between music and economics that emerged in this pre-disciplinary era, when musical practices 28 For existing scholarship that treats the South Sea Bubble as a contextual element for the musical repertoire of the time, see Thomas McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), and Dianne Dugaw, “Deep Play”: John Gay and the Invention of Modernity (University of Delaware Press, 2001). 29 For instance, the only reference to music in Ellen Harris’s research appears in footnote 43 of her article, “Courting Gentility: Handel at the Bank of England,” Music & Letters 91, no. 3 (2010): 357–75, where she briefly mentions Handel’s song “Satyr’s Advice to a Stock-Jobber,” For a more in-depth discussion of this song, see Chapter 4 of this dissertation. 30 My approach to music during the South Sea Bubble engages with literary studies that have explored the imaginative influence of the urban commercial world on the burgeoning print culture of the eighteenth century. These studies demonstrate how print materials—ranging from novels and tracts on political economy to reportage, essays on moral philosophy, and even the legal inscriptions on paper money— existed within a complex, interwoven network of genres. They defied the rigid generic distinctions that emerged later in the nineteenth century, as well as the subsequent separation of the arts and economics into distinct disciplines. See, for example, Howard Caygill, Art of Judgement (Blackwell, 1989); John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon (Chicago University Press, 2023). 11 and discourses freely intersected with economic and political realms, and aesthetic and economic values may be said to have shared a common origin. By tracing these discursive links—where musical experiences and market events mutually informed one another—the study reconstructs an economically inflected mode of musical experience, reflecting how eighteenth- century audiences engaged with and interpreted such works. In doing so, it legitimizes music as a scholarly lens for understanding economic events and thought, challenging later disciplinary divisions that have often framed music’s aesthetic value as exogenous to market logic. CULTURAL HISTORY, CRITICAL THEORY, AND ECONOMICS My mode of inquiry, which emphasizes the discursive continuities between cultural and economic realms, builds on an established methodology in critical theory that examines the interplay between cultural production and economic systems, particularly in the early modern period. Rooted in the theoretical framework of New Economic Criticism (NEC), this study takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding eighteenth-century music by uncovering the economic logic immanent in its practices and productions. Even prior to the emergence of NEC, scholars such as Jean-Joseph Goux had already conceptualized modern money as a semiotic system that simultaneously creates value and generates meaning.31 This foundational idea laid the groundwork for NEC, which emerged in the 1990s to refine earlier cultural theories by identifying structural parallels between systems of writing and economic processes. NEC 31 Goux has conceptualized money—particularly modern money—as a writing system that generates not only new value but also new meaning. The construction of meaning through paper money, Goux argues, can be analyzed alongside the literary production of the time, revealing a symbolic continuum between the monetary economy and cultural output. Similarly, Marc Shell, another early economic literary critic, explores structural parallels between the logic of money and “the logical or semiological workings of language.” This methodology of considering economic and cultural systems as symbolic analogues has its roots in earlier foundational works such as Walter Benn Michaels’s The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism (University of California Press, 1987), Jacques Derrida’s Given Time I: Counterfeit Money (University of Chicago Press, 2017 [1992]), Jean-Joseph Goux’s The Coiners of Language, trans. Jennifer Curtiss Gage (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), and Marc Shell, Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophic Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era (University of California Press, 1982). 12 enabled literary scholars to explore how notions of money resonate in the cultural and literary production of their time, addressing themes such as the fictionality of financial forms, public perceptions of risk, innovation, and the ethics of debt. Key works in literary studies that can be loosely categorized under the framework of NEC include Martha Woodmansee’s The Author, Art, and the Market, Catherine Ingrassia’s Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England, Mary Poovey’s Genres of the Credit Economy, and more recently, John O’Brien’s Literature Incorporated.32 These studies illuminate how eighteenth-century literature reflects the symbolic and material transformations driven by the rise of market economy and financial capitalism.33 This dissertation extends these critical perspectives to the realm of music, drawing on the work of these scholars to demonstrate how formal analysis of cultural objects can uncover the underlying economic logic of their time. By applying methods such as the hermeneutics of musical texts from an economically informed perspective, this dissertation rethinks how music and its surrounding economic currents symbolically co- constituted one another. While the symbolic homology between the economic and the cultural remains a significant intellectual contribution of NEC, its primarily literary-theoretical approach, centered on formal textual analysis, has faced criticism and is often not taken seriously by economic historians.34 Scholars have questioned NEC’s tendency to interpret eighteenth-century economic 32 See Martha Woodmansee, The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics (Columbia University Press, 1996); Martha Woodmansee and Mark Osteen, eds., The New Economic Criticism: Studies at the Intersection of Literature and Economics (Routledge, 1999); Mary Poovey, “Aesthetics and Political Economy in the Eighteenth Century,” in Aesthetics and Ideology, ed. George Levine (Rutgers University Press, 1994); Mary Poovey, Genres of the Credit Economy: Mediating Value in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain (University of Chicago Press, 2008); Catherine Ingrassia, Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit (Cambridge University Press, 1998); John O’Brien, Literature Incorporated: The Cultural Unconscious of the Business Corporation, 1650-1850 (University of Chicago Press, 2015). 33 NEC was far from a unified field, encompassing diverse perspectives and themes. Its contributors were particularly forward-looking in exploring topics such as the fictionality of financial forms, cultural interpretations of risk and innovation, “critical economics,” “economics of the irrational,” and the “ethics of debt and bondage.” These themes remain vibrant and highly relevant to contemporary scholarly inquiry. 34 For critiques of the limitations of NEC as a primarily literary theoretical endeavor—highlighting its overly narrow field of study and detachment from the critical objectives of economics and economic 13 history through the lens of literary texts and abstract concepts, arguing that this method risks oversimplifying complex economic realities.35 Critics have also pointed out NEC’s reliance on Marxist frameworks of production, arguing that these frameworks may inadequately capture the complexities of early modern economies, particularly in explaining the dynamics of money markets.36 Specifically, NEC’s emphasis on the symbolic dimensions of money and the paper- versus-bullion debate has been criticized for reducing cultural and economic experiences to overly hermetic forms, overlooking the vernacular impact of economic events on early capitalist societies.37 In response to these critiques, Paul Crosthwaite, Peter Knight, and Nicky Marsh have sought to build on NEC’s intellectual contributions by broadening its core focus to encompass a wider range of historical materials beyond literary texts while aligning its methodologies more closely with the evidentiary rigor of contemporary economic historiography. Their efforts have advanced a new interdisciplinary framework known as Economic Humanities (EH), which broadens the scope of inquiry and deepens the impact of cultural scholarship on the study of the economic past. EH emphasizes the historicization of economic concepts, embedding them within their specific cultural and institutional contexts to clarify their development and history, see Paul Crosthwaite, Peter Knight, and Nicky Marsh, “The Economic Humanities and the History of Financial Advice,” American Literary History 31, no. 4 (November 2019): 662–64. 35 See Peter Knight, “Economic Humanities: Literature, Culture and Capitalism,” in The Fictions of American Capitalism: Working Fictions and the Economic Novel, ed. Jacques-Henri Coste and Vincent Dussol (Springer, 2020), 665; and Elizabeth Hewitt, Speculative Fictions: Explaining the Economy in the Early United States (Oxford University Press, 2020). For a caution against oversimplifying economic realities to fit semantic analysis into pre-existing economic models, see Margaret Schabas, The Natural Origins of Economics (University of Chicago Press, 2006), 67, through her study of David Hume’s economic writings. 36 See, for example, Rebecca L. Spang, Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2017), 14-15, 272-274. Spang critiques a theoretical tendency in economic history writing (sometimes mirrored in NEC scholarship), to prioritize discourse analysis centered on relationships of production—a focus heavily influenced by Marxian theory. In particular, she argues that this approach fails to develop a robust theory of money beyond abstract formalism, imposing such abstractions onto historical realities while overlooking the tangible relationships of exchange that give money its value in specific historical contexts. 37 See Anna Kornbluh, Realizing Capital: Financial and Psychic Economies in Victorian Form (Fordham University Press, 2013), where she critiques NEC for its predominant focus on high literature, which often centers the experiences of the bourgeoisie, thereby sidelining broader social and economic dynamics. 14 operation. Unlike NEC’s focus on literary texts and abstract theoretical frameworks, EH adopts a more expansive methodological approach, incorporating historical social sciences and diverse sources, including material culture, institutional practices, and ideological systems. While still valuing “cultural texts” central to NEC’s analyses, this approach encourages a dialogical relationship between these texts and other archival materials, such as institutional records and economic data. By examining how economic knowledge is shaped by institutions, political interventions, and the dissemination of financial information, EH seeks to bridge the contemporary disciplinary gap between the humanities and economics.38 This dissertation acknowledges its debt to NEC while also aiming to move beyond its limitations, particularly its focus on symbolic readings that reduce cultural production and products to formal analogues of systemic economic logic. Embracing the ethos of EH— particularly its emphasis on economic specificity and the integration of modern economic scholarship—this study situates the interplay of music and capitalism within the specific historical and material context of the 1720 crisis, while engaging with emerging economic thought surrounding the financial innovations of the period. On one hand, I use music to recuperate the experiential aspects of the investment mania across the English social strata, resisting its reduction to abstract forms. On the other, where hermeneutic analysis of musical works is warranted, I ground these interpretations in historical evidence—demonstrating not only how certain musical works were understood but also how they aligned with the economic thinking that was conceivable for contemporaries at the time. Through an expanded scope of archival research, I connect these readings to the operational realities of the bourgeoning financial markets, emphasizing the material and media conditions that allowed a mutual semiotic imagination of economic and musical meaning to emerge during this transformative 38 Paul Crosthwaite, Peter Knight, and Nicky Marsh, eds., “The Economic Humanities and the History of Financial Advice,” American Literary History 31, no. 4 (November 2019): 661–86. See also, Paul Crosthwaite et al., Invested: How Three Centuries of Stock Market Advice Reshaped Our Money, Markets, and Minds (University of Chicago Press, 2023). 15 period. THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE AS CULTURAL HISTORY Rightly so, this discursive continuum between the musical and economic realms during the South Sea Bubble was not merely a retrospective intellectual construct but a tangible historical reality of individuals who crossed between these two realms—domains often considered antagonistic today. Historical actors wielding capital, political power, and social influence shaped the intertwined landscapes of music and finance. Beyond Handel’s well- documented investments, there were the likes of the Duke of Newcastle and the Duke of Chandos—landed gentry with a taste for Italian opera and a desire of remaking English musical culture in its image. Their passion was tangled up with the fever of the South Sea scheme, driven by political ambition and financial greed. They rode the speculative wave, funneling their winnings—or at least their hopes—into underwriting Europe’s first chartered joint-stock opera company. High-profile stakeholders in the fledgling opera company, such as State Secretary James Craggs and East India Company director Matthew Decker, similarly found themselves involved in a network of financial and political maneuvering—an interplay that propped up the high-risk, high-reward financial and operatic ventures. Others approached the entwined worlds of music and finance with keen observation, documenting the various events through an epistolary network. Augusto Stefani, a musician-diplomat with ties to London’s Italian circles, personified in his diplomatic communiqués the nexus of foreign intelligence, financial speculation, and musical culture at the time. Meanwhile, literary wits including John Gay and Alexander Pope, deeply embroiled in the South Sea pamphlet war and themselves speculators in South Sea stock, undertook creative collaboration within Chandos’s elite circle, where cultural patronage, financial speculation, and partisan media converged. Beyond these prominent figures, countless printers, impresarios, lesser-known musicians, and lay audiences—from opera theaters to street corners—became the purveyors, performers, and patrons of music during the 16 Bubble, throwing themselves into a market of sizzling riches refracted through arias, ballads, and other sonic media. Recent cultural history writings on the South Sea Bubble and the concurrent Mississippi Bubble in France exemplify the interdisciplinary ethos and evidentiary rigor of Economic Humanities. By engaging with cultural materials, these studies take seriously the financial upheaval as a full-blown media phenomenon, exploring how media conditions shaped public psyches, influenced market behavior, and informed political decisions. Drawing on a multitude of early-eighteenth-century sources—from multilingual news translations to satirical cartoons— these recent works bring to light the vivid cultural experience of financial economics in its formative years. The ambitious project, The Great Mirror of Folly, co-edited by William Goetzmann, Catherine Labio, K. Geert Rouwnhorst, and Timothy Young, bridges humanities and economics through a Dutch collection of bubble prints. By analyzing artistic responses to financial turmoil and tracing enduring visual and literary motifs across the cross-border iterations of print media, the scholars essays accompanying this edited collection uncover the interplay between financial crises and cultural narratives, thereby calling for a re-evaluation of archival approaches to financial history by emphasizing the significance of ephemera.39 In addition, a special issue of Eighteenth-Century Studies, marking the 300th anniversary of the 1720 crises, examines the Bubbles from economic, ethical, artistic, and literary perspectives. It positions the crises as transformative moments that reshaped societal understandings of value, risk, and financial ethics, foregrounding critiques of emerging capitalist structures, including racial capitalism.40 Lastly, the essay collection Boom, Bust, and Beyond situates the crises within a pan-European social, cultural, and economic framework, emphasizing their international impact. By focusing on the multilingual circulation of media artifacts, it challenges 39 William N. Goetzmann et. al. eds., The Great Mirror of Folly: Finance, Culture, and the Crash of 1720 (Yale University Press, 2013). 40 Sean Moore, ed., The South Sea Bubble, Mississippi Bubble, and Financial Revolution [Eighteenth- Century Studies, 54, no. 1] (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020). 17 traditional single-sited interpretations, revealing the far-reaching significance of these seismic events and the varying culturally specific attitudes toward the financial innovations introduced by the bubbles.41 These recent cultural historical studies of the 1720 financial crises are particularly notable for their efforts to bring historical investigation closer into dialogue with modern economic thought in an attempt to foster scholarly collaboration between cultural history and mainstream economics. Traditionally, economic analyses of the South Sea Bubble have centered on time series data of stock prices and debates about market rationality, often shaped by or aligned with the orthodox framework of the efficient market hypothesis.42 However, the rise of behavioral finance, which integrates human psychology into market analysis, has opened new avenues for interpreting historical bubbles. Nobel laureate Robert Shiller, a key proponent in behavioral finance and a contributor to The Great Mirror of Folly, emphasized the significance of historical media artifacts from the 1720 bubble for understanding financial markets. Shiller has emphasized the centrality of the media environment in shaping market sentiment and investor behavior, aligning the eighteenth-century investment mania with contemporary insights into the psychological and social dimensions of economic decision-making.43 The media artifacts examined in The Great Mirror of Folly thus serve as crucial resources for reimagining the historical experience that can help explain the behaviors leading to the crash.44 41 Stefano Condorelli, ed., Boom, Bust, and Beyond: New Perspectives on the 1720 Stock Market Bubble (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019). 42 See, for example, Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Riding the South Sea Bubble,” The American Economic Review 94, no. 5 (2004): 1654–68; Richard S. Dale, Johnnie E. V. Johnson, and Leilei Tang, “Financial Markets Can Go Mad: Evidence of Irrational Behaviour during the South Sea Bubble,” The Economic History Review 58, no. 2 (2005): 233–71. 43 Robert J. Shiller, “Foreword,” in The Great Mirror of Folly (2013), vii-viii. See also Robert J. Shiller, Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events (Princeton University Press, 2019). 44 In The Great Mirror of Folly, literary historians analyze how playing cards symbolized investor attitudes toward risk and reward, while theater historians examine the theatricality of both stage performances and market behavior. These interpretations, validated by Shiller’s perspective on the media’s role in shaping market behavior, demonstrate how the widespread dissemination of cultural materials placed beliefs and desires at the very center of financial market dynamics. Far from being peripheral, these cultural artifacts actively shaped the operational realities of the market. For a more detailed discussion, see Chapter 5 of this dissertation. 18 The integration of cultural history into economic discourse is increasingly recognized by interdisciplinary scholars and even economists. This trend can be observed in the growing field of financial anthropology, which seeks to understand financial markets not as isolated economic systems, but as cultural fields shaped by beliefs, values, and practices.45 Within a growing subset of the economic discipline, such scholarly inquiry is increasingly welcomed. Economists such as Deirdre McCloskey and Robert Skidelsky have been championing broader, interdisciplinary approaches to the study of economics. McCloskey’s “humanomics” underscores the cultural underpinnings of capitalism and the symbolic nature of economic beliefs, while Skidelsky draws on history, philosophy, and the social sciences to challenge entrenched assumptions about the human condition that have long been treated as truisms within the discipline.46 This reconceptualization of culture as endogenous to economic models also aligns with the “new cultural turn” in sociology, which recognizes culture as a “web of significance” that shapes political and economic actions.47 In financial economics, more specifically, qualitative dimensions of the human condition are increasingly acknowledged as essential to understanding both the performative aspects of collective behavior and the material practices that embody cultural meanings—dimensions that quantitative analysis alone cannot fully capture.48 45 For example, Hirokazu Miyazaki’s Arbitraging Japan: Dreams of Capitalism at the End of Finance (University of California Press, 2013) exemplifies a cultural-economic approach by examining how Japanese traders view arbitrage not merely as an economic strategy but as an epistemological practice shaped by cultural and philosophical influences. Similarly, Arjun Appadurai’s Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance (University of Chicago Press, 2015) explores how symbolic forms, such as language and digital communication, shape modern financial practices like derivatives trading. Appadurai argues that these symbols influence the desires and beliefs of market participants, creating systemic vulnerabilities. Together, these works underscore the importance of integrating cultural dimensions into the analysis of financial markets and practices. 46 Deirdre McCloskey, Bettering Humanomics: A New, and Old, Approach to Economic Science (University of Chicago Press, 2021); Robert Skidelsky, What’s Wrong with Economics? A Primer for the Perplexed (Yale University Press, 2020). For a take on the humanities in economics from an eighteenth- century perspective, see Vernon L. Smith and Bart J. Wilson, Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2019). 47 Mabel Berezin, Emily Sandusky, and Thomas Davidson. “Culture in Politics and Politics in Culture: Institutions, Practices, and Boundaries,” in The New Handbook of Political Sociology, eds. Thomas Janoski, Cedric de Leon, Joya Misra, and Isaac William Martin (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 204. 48 Donald Mackenzie, “Is Economics Performative? Option Theory and the Construction of Derivatives Markets,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 28, no. 1 (March 2006): 29–55. 19 While the recent “cultural turn” in economics has encouraged heterodox approaches in economic history, many economic historians remain cautious, often viewing cultural historians’ methods—or perceived lack thereof—as prone to over-interpretation. For example, Carl Wennerlind’s latest work on South Sea Bubble print media insists on a functionalist approach, stressing the need to interpret news sources concerning the investment mania exclusively through their informational value while dismissing the hyperbolic content as irrelevant. Wennerlind argues that uncovering the truth of the crisis requires one to “[drown] out the clamor” rather than engage with these sensational soundbites.49 This perspective devalues the critical role cultural production played in shaping public sentiments and emotions—forces that directly influenced financial behavior. The performative rhetoric of pamphleteers and cultural commentators offers valuable insights into the emotional and psychological dimensions of this highly mediatized financial event. The contemporaneous dissemination and reception of the experiential contents of these sources—irreducible to mere information or data—potently rival the explanatory power of quantitative and functionalist analyses distilled from them.50 Understanding the impact of cultural production on economic phenomena requires moving beyond the orthodox focus on rationalizing markets to examining how exaggerated sentiments and false narratives were created, circulated, and interpreted and how they, in turn, exerting inflationary and deflationary pressures on the market. Embracing the truism in contemporary financial journalism that no one understands market movements but only pretends to, my study confronts, rather than dismisses, the primary sources—including musical works—that reflect 49 Carl Wennerlind, “‘The British Lions Crouched to a Nest of Owls’: The South Sea Bubble through the Lens of the London Press,” History of Political Economy 55, no. 1 (December 2023): 20. 50 For a seminal critique of economic history’s reliance on data and its tendency to write against orthodox economics while ultimately pursuing the same ends through interpretative objectives grounded in modern economic reasoning, see Francesco Boldizzoni, The Poverty of Clio: Resurrecting Economic History (Princeton University Press, 2011). Boldizzoni advocates for a more creative and imaginative approach to history writing as a means of understanding the economic past. Similarly, for a discussion on the failures of the so-called New Economic History movement—which sought to blend quantitative models and qualitative explanation—see also David Cannadine, The Pleasures of the Past (Norton & Company, 1991), 147–158. 20 even the most hyperbolic and fantastical beliefs of historical actors during the South Sea Bubble.51 Far from quirk historicism, the musical analyses in this study, which indeed amplify, rather than silence, the clamor of the South Sea market, challenge the conventional, data-driven approaches of economic history. By shifting the focus from merely chronicling the events of the Bubble to examining how the crisis was experienced and mediated, this dissertation offers a richer understanding of the interplay between emotions, beliefs, and market dynamics. Indeed, art and music are forms of knowledge, as vital as economic data in understanding the 1720 crisis. Nina Dubin and Meredith Martin’s Meltdown: Picturing the World’s First Financial Crisis exemplifies this methodological conviction, demonstrating how artistic representations of the South Sea Bubble capture the societal and emotional dimensions of speculative behavior—desires, fears, and motivations that functionalist economic analyses of historical sources often overlook. This approach, which Dubin and Martin term “art as knowledge,” reveals how cultural artifacts mediate the public’s collective psyche and shape market events, challenging simplistic attributions of the Bubble to folly or miscalculation.52 In a similar vein, the edited collection Sublime Economy, curated by Jack Amariglio, Joseph Childers, and Stephen Cullenberg, brings together scholars from economics and the arts to explore the intersection of economic and aesthetic practices. Focusing on how artists, writers, and cultural critics construct concepts of economic value, the volume examines the aesthetics of “everyday objects”—from urban statues to movie posters—unpacking how these culturally embedded notions of value both mirror and contest the norms and effects of orthodox economic 51 Financial journalist Noah Smith’s self-professed “Three Rules for Writing About the Stock Market,” offers a refreshingly candid take: 1) Nobody really knows why stocks go up or down, even though everyone pretends to know; 2) By the time you write about a stock price movement, whatever happened is already fully priced in. Stocks are just as likely to bounce back as they are to keep moving in the same direction; 3) Stocks go up and down a lot, so you should zoom out to gauge the significance of any price movement. This pragmatic lens challenges the illusion of deterministic market analysis, emphasizing the unpredictable and often performative nature of market commentary. See Noah Smith, “The U.S. Economy Is Not Crashing,” accessed August 10, 2024, https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-us-economy-is-not- crashing. 52 Meredith Martin and Nina Dubin, Meltdown! Picturing the World’s First Bubble Economy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020). https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-us-economy-is-not-crashing https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-us-economy-is-not-crashing 21 frameworks.53 My dissertation extends this methodological framework to music, positioning it as an acoustic mode of knowing that translates the sensorial and affective dimensions of the crisis. These dimensions were filtered, refracted, and ultimately served up as the economic information that shaped institutions, individual choices, and collective behavior. But the messy, charged process of mediation itself is as revelatory as these outcomes. A MUSICAL HISTORY OF THE 1720 CRISIS To locate music's place in the South Sea Bubble is to recast the speculative crisis as an audible and aesthetic phenomenon–sensorial, affective, reliant on the imaginative and symbolic. This approach shifts our attention from the quantitative data, abundant in archives, to the previously unexplored psychic and behavioral patterns of the early modern speculating public. By bringing into relief the affective dimensions of the stock market in 1720 and their effects on British life, I reframe the Bubble’s boom-to-bust trajectory as a chronicle of shifting economic sentiments, attitudes, and imaginations: commencing with the hubris of the politicians and financiers as they envisaged infinite monetary expansion, traversing the anxious exuberance characterizing stock trading within and beyond London’s Exchange Alley, and concluding in the righteous indignation, sentimental distress, and cynical resignation that permeated English society in the aftermath of the crash. Music, a dynamic vehicle of these social emotions, not only rendered audible the fluctuating market and its shifting sentiments, but it helped supercharge the transmission of such market narratives in theaters, streets, and households. Featuring both renowned works and hitherto unknown ones from archival sources, my selection of music in the book ranges from Handel’s anthem Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate, enthusiastically heard by parliamentarians on the brink of an anticipated upsurge in South Sea trade, through various Jacobite-inflected ballads, prepensely purveyed by the Grub Street wits and nervously consumed 53 Jack Amariglio, Joseph W. Childers, and Stephen E. Cullenberg, eds., Sublime Economy: On the Intersection of Art and Economics (Routledge, 2009). 22 by the Exchange Alley stockjobbers in South Sea heat, to the collaborative opera Muzio Scevola, hastily assembled in response to the Whig political clamor for a market bailout following the crash. Relating this musical selection to contemporaneous economic vicissitudes, I detail how the imperatives of Britain’s nascent financial apparatus obliged contemporaries to rely on figurative language and metaphorical references in articulating the new financial order, thereby laying bare its inherently imaginative and sensorial aspects. Offering us immediate access to these aspects as spectacle and simulacra at once, music not only renders audible the early modern financial milieu as a space of power, exuberance, risk, and turmoil, but it exposes the cultural symbolic bedrock on which the English financial system came to rest. This dissertation thus offers a cultural perspective on the British Financial Revolution by viewing it as a way of modeling the world that is more like music than the modern disciplines of economics and finance are willing to allow. This musical history of the South Sea Bubble also extends beyond the mere retelling of the sensational—and indeed sensationalized—aspects of the early modern financial milieu. Captivating as they are, the lessons drawn from this crisis reach far beyond the spectacle of a runaway market. The Bubble, in essence, launched the modern financial infrastructure as we recognize it today, and the aftermath of the crisis, in turn, served as a blueprint for its enduring features and cyclical woes. Notably, the financial crisis saw the formalization of joint-stock companies, the widespread adoption of negotiable paper, the transmission of market information through mass media, and the political consolidation of state authority over and through the credit market. I suggest that the music that was embedded in these various facets of the early modern financial infrastructure offers a vital framework for understanding them. To do so, this dissertation’s focus is directed towards two types of music that were prominently entwined with the Bubble. On one front, the lavish Italian operas presented by the Royal Academy of Music, underwritten as a chartered joint-stock in the English speculative and entrepreneurial fervor, and, on the other front, the viral English ballads, bursting forth in and 23 around Exchange Alley, were filled with commentary on stock market events and circulated widely throughout the British Isles. I posit that the joint-stock opera and bubble ballads engaged with the bubble economy's pivotal infrastructural elements: joint-stock incorporation, proliferating as the primary institutional arrangement for South Sea-derived capital and embodying the era’s entrepreneurial spirit; and mass print media, the principal conduit of market contagions fueling the speculative mania. Despite the seemingly disparate affective registers of, and critical distances between, these genres, framing the musical history of the South Sea Bubble through Italian opera and English ballads provides a unified critical perspective. Both genres converge to reveal the infrastructural backbone of the British Financial Revolution, exposing the operational mechanism of emerging institutions that propelled the new financial capital and the rapidly expanding mass print mediascape that shaped the public’s speculative valuation of newfound forms of wealth. This perspective draws on the recent “infrastructural turn” in the humanities, which bridges humanistic inquiry and the social sciences by treating infrastructure as a common object of studies for examining cultural and economic issues in tandem. The value of examining infrastructures lies in their capacity to reveal how disparate systems—such as capitalist markets, parliamentary politics, and urban planning—intersected and coalesced into concrete, tangible entities.54 From an economic-analytical perspective, framing the South Sea Bubble through 54 Recent scholarship on modern finance has increasingly emphasized the role of infrastructure in shaping market dynamics. From the HVAC systems at the New York Stock Exchange to regulatory frameworks, digital servers, and the invention of stock tickers, these physical and organizational structures critically influence market practices and behaviors. Caitlin Zaloom’s Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London (University of Chicago Press, 2010), for instance, highlights how material systems reveal market desires and priorities, underscoring the pivotal role of intermediation in shaping values. This perspective also applies to the early eighteenth-century stock market during the South Sea Bubble, where infrastructure took the form of bureaucratic incorporation processes, joint-stock company operations, and the dissemination of printed materials and ballads. Similarly, recent music and sound studies have explored the infrastructural dimensions of auditory culture, from data servers and recording technologies to the sonic elements of urban design and commerce. Works like Kyle Devine and Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, eds., Audible Infrastructures: Music, Sound, Media (Oxford University Press, 2021) foreground how such systems mediate political and social meanings, revealing also the hidden aspirations and desires through their aesthetic dimensions. Building on these developments in sonic and financial research, this dissertation examines the “audible stock market” of the South Sea Bubble. By analyzing how infrastructure shaped the market’s sonic landscape and information circulation, 24 these two musical genres offers complementary perspectives. The “top-down” view, exemplified by opera, examines the political and institutional workings of the South Sea Company, highlighting the joint-stock company as a site of state-market collaboration shaped by moneyed elites and political power. The “bottom-up” view, reflected in ballads, explores the psychosocial dimensions of market behavior, tracing how the English mass print media circulated market sentiments that influenced the thoughts, behaviors, and investment patterns of the broader demographic participating in the crisis.55 Furthermore, infrastructure studies can also be made to transcend a purely functionalist analysis, thereby capturing the dynamic interplay between the abstract and the material that often culminates in an aesthetic experience of economic and political systems. Brian Larkin’s concept of the “poetics of infrastructure” legitimates a scholarly focus on the sensory and experiential dimensions of infrastructure, challenging reductive functionalist readings and inviting richer cultural and interpretive exploration.56 Extending these ideas to early eighteenth-century financial markets, I thus use music to reveal the overlooked aesthetic and sensory dimensions of an emerging financial system. Part I: Opera Incorporated Established during the entrepreneurial fervor of the 1720 South Sea Bubble—driven by loose credit and a newfound enthusiasm for equity funding and incorporation—the Royal Academy of Music became the first chartered joint-stock opera company and one of the earliest such ventures in English theater history. While its founding was catalyzed by the market frenzy, it uncovers the material and aesthetic dimensions of early financial systems, offering a historical perspective on the modern market’s evolution and its broader societal implications. 55 See also Paula McDowell, “Media and Mediation in the Eighteenth Century,” in Oxford Handbook Topics in Literature, ed. Oxford Handbooks Editorial Board (Oxford University Press, 2013). McDowell explores eighteenth-century understandings of media and mediation, examining how these notions intersected with contemporary concepts. She highlights how emerging communications media—such as print, voice, and script—contributed to the creation of new communication infrastructures and their protocols. 56 Brian Larkin, “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure,” Annual Review of Anthropology 42, no. 1 (2013): 327–43. 25 the Academy’s deeper entanglements with the South Sea Company remain under-explored in scholarship. Investigating these connections—encompassing shareholders, managerial structures, and capital strategies—offers a case study at the intersection of commerce and the performing arts. In so doing, my analysis is aimed to shed light not only on historical opera financing but also on the broader evolution of joint-stock companies and the political economy of “free” enterprise in the early eighteenth century. Musicological literature on the founding and finances of the Royal Academy of Music, primarily emerging in the late 1980s, represents one of the discipline’s early forays into contextual historical music studies. Theater historians Robert D. Hume and Judith Milhous have examined the Academy’s financial structure and capital budgeting within the broader context of English theater financing.57 Elizabeth Gibson has provided invaluable biographical details relating to the English gentry and elite who were instrumental in the Academy’s founding.58 Later, opera scholars such as Suzanne Aspen and Michael Burden have offered economic readings of the music itself, with Aspen analyzing the castrato’s persona as emblematic of a commercial society’s focus on self-interest, and Burden framing opera as a discourse on luxury.59 Thomas McGeary has extensively examined Italian opera’s capacity of “do[ing] political work,” particularly its role in the ascension of Robert Walpole’s Whig faction and the dynamics of the Hanoverian court. His research also touches upon the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble and its influence on Walpole’s consolidation of power.60 However, these 57 Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, “The Charter for the Royal Academy of Music,” Music & Letters 67, no. 1 (1986): 50–58; Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, “New Light on Handel and the Royal Academy of Music in 1720,” Theatre Journal XXXV (1983): 149–67; and Judith Milhous, “Opera Finances in London, 1674-1738,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 37, no. 3 (1984): 567– 92. 58 Elizabeth Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music, 1719-1728: The Institution and Its Directors (Garland, 1989). 59 Suzanne Aspden, The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Suzanne Aspden, “‘An Infinity of Factions’: Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain and the Undoing of Society,” Cambridge Opera Journal 9, no. 1 (1997): 1–19; Michael Burden, “Opera, Excess, and the Discourse of Luxury in Eighteenth-Century England,” XVII-XVIII. Revue de La Société d’études Anglo-Américaines Des XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles, no. 71 (December 31, 2014): 232–48. 60 Thomas McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2013). 26 studies rarely delve into the South Sea Bubble’s specific influence on the Royal Academy of Music, treating music more as a byproduct of eighteenth century’s broad commercialization than as an embedded participant that can illuminate the unique economic features of the time. While they converge on the opera’s political economy around 1720, they often stop short of fully exploring how the Bubble shaped the Academy’s creation and operations. This gap leaves an opportunity to reconsider the role of music not just as a reflection of commercial society but as an active agent within it. Scholarship in eighteenth-century studies has increasingly viewed cultural production as inseparable from the era’s economic activity, examining how commerce and literary or theatrical culture collided, collaborated, and shaped one another—moving away from the pretense that cultural production was an exceptional form of economic activity. For example, Mattie Burkert’s Speculative Enterprise offers an in-depth examination of the corporate practices and market- oriented financing that shaped London’s early eighteenth-century theater scene.61 Building on Burkert’s insights into the financialization of London’s theaters, this dissertation narrows its focus to Italian opera, examining the founding of the Royal Academy of Music as a watershed event in European opera patronage. It signaled a transformative shift from feudal, court-based models of music financing to a capitalist marketplace approach, catalyzed by the South Sea Bubble, and its far-reaching repercussions. My study situates the Royal Academy of Music within the early rise of the institution of the joint-stock company, positioning the opera company as a case study in the development of the corporate form. Economic historians have long regarded the joint-stock company as a cornerstone of modern capitalism. In The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge emphasize that the company was not merely a market innovation but a political-economic one, with the South Sea Company central to this 61 Mattie Burkert, Speculative Enterprise: Public Theaters and Financial Markets in London, 1688–1763 (University of Virginia Press, 2021). 27 narrative.62 Similarly, my analysis of the Royal Academy of Music argues that early joint-stock companies reflect the inherent intertwining of politics and economics, with music providing a unique framework for exploring this relationship. Karl Polanyi’s renowned argument that the “free market” is a myth—requiring various implied forms of state protectionism or interventionism to function—resonates with the entanglements exposed during the South Sea Bubble.63 Emma Rothschild has deftly shown how the South Sea Company blurred the line between the state and the market, foreshadowing even contemporary dynamics of corporate power and its “too big to fail” narrative.64 These perspectives also resonate with the academic studies of eighteenth-century political economy, particularly within the tradition of the Cambridge School of Political Thought, where Isaac Kramnick and J. G. A. Pocock have examined how the commercializing English society redefined civic humanist ideals, particularly amid Whig-Tory divisions between moneyed and landed interests intensified by the Bubble.65 Recent scholarship by Anne Murphy and Adam Lebovitz further illustrates how the crisis reshaped political and economic ideologies, exposing the integration of market structures and state power.66 Drawing on these insights, my study uses new archival evidence to compare the Royal Academy of Music and the South Sea Company, thereby examining opera’s dual economic and cultural significance during the Bubble. It reveals that the story of the English opera company is as much about liberal entrepreneurialism as it is about financial feudalism, thereby 62 John Micklethwait and Adrian Woodridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library, 2005). 63 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Beacon Press, 2001). 64 Emma Rothschild, “The South Sea Bubble After 300 Years’ by Emma Rothschild,” The South Sea Bubble at Harvard’s Baker Library, October 15, 2020, https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea- bubble/about/essay-the-south-sea-bubble-after-300-years-by-emma-rothschild. See also, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves (Penguin Books, 2010). 65 Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cornell University Press, 1992); J. G. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1985). 66 Anne L. Murphy, The Origins of English Financial Markets: Investment and Speculation before the South Sea Bubble (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Adam Lebovits, “An Economy of Violence: Financial Crisis and Whig Constitutional Thought, 1720-1721,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 29, no. 2 (2018): 165-238. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/about/essay-the-south-sea-bubble-after-300-years-by-emma-rothschild https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/about/essay-the-south-sea-bubble-after-300-years-by-emma-rothschild 28 enriching our understanding of the complex political and economic interrelationships of the South Sea Bubble crisis and its aftermath. My study focuses on operatic productions premiered during the South Sea Bubble, with particular attention to Muzio Scevola, a previously underexplored pastiche opera which debuted after the market crash as an attempt to “bail out” the opera company. This work exposes fissures in both the financial market and its underlying infrastructure. I argue that this “bailout opera” not only aimed to salvage the company amid a broader crisis but also reflected the political ideologies and corporate mechanisms of its time. Through contextual analysis of musical works, I explore how market and state intertwined. Inspired by studies like John O’Brien’s Literature Incorporated, which examines how emerging corporate logics transformed literary forms and practices, I use Muzio Scevola as a lens to investigate these themes within music.67 For instance, the opera company’s persistent struggles with managerial discord—rooted in its joint-stock structure—underscore a central issue of financial capitalism: the principal-agent dilemma. This challenge, identified in contemporary finance theory by Mihir Desai (and recognized in classical economics by Adam Smith) as such, brings forth the inherent tensions in aligning the interests of managers and shareholders within corporate structures.68 Through the opera, this economic problem found both a creative expression and an audible form. Ultimately, my music-economic analysis of the Royal Academy reveals how creative and financial practices both converged and clashed, demonstrating how emerging financial methods not only enabled the Academy’s founding but also sparked new artistic expressions that rendered the workings of the financial market and its underlying tensions audible. Part II: Ballad Economics 67 John O’Brien, Literature Incorporated: The Cultural Unconscious of the Business Corporation, 1650- 1850 (University of Chicago Press, 2015). 68 Mihir A. Desai, The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return (Harper Business, 2017), 11. 29 The collapse of the 1720 bubble economy unleashed a flood of paper artifacts—stock certificates, credit notes, newspapers, pamphlets, and, most prominently, broadside ballads. These ballads, doubling as entertainment and reportage, filled London’s streets with viral songs that chronicled the trading frenzy. Amplifying the din of Exchange Alley, these mass-produced ballads, circulated through Britain’s burgeoning print media, became vehicles for both information and disinformation about the stock market, offering a rare glimpse into the speculative practices of the time. These “bubble ballads” occupied a liminal space where economic valuation merged with cultural interpretation, blurring boundaries between music, literature, and finance. By capturing the volatile zeitgeist and the collective effort to understand the market’s elusive values, these ballads reveal how cultural forms shaped public perception of the radical uncertainty that defined the English market and society. Despite their omnipresence during the 1720 crisis, bubble ballads have never been systematically studied as a distinct subgenre of balladry, and their significance has only been noted in passing by scholars in both music and literary studies.69 Prevailing musicological views often dismiss these ballads as lowbrow, ephemeral creations—mere trifles of slipshod musical consumption. In literary studies, Dianne Dugaw stands among the few scholars to take bubble ballads seriously, offering pioneering textual interpretations of these works. However, her approach primarily treats these pecuniary-themed ballads as reflections of the emergent capitalist system, stopping short of examining their active role and embeddedness within the South Sea Bubble itself, as well as their broader significance in shaping the cultural history of financial markets.70 Drawing inspiration from recent scholarship on English broadside ballads that position them as potent and topical sources for cultural history, such as Una McIlvenna’s work on execution ballads, I argue for a reassessment of bubble ballads as significant early 69 See, for example, Alison DeSimone, The Power of Pastiche: Musical Miscellany and the Cultural Identity in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Liverpool University Press, 2021). 70 Dianne Dugaw, “‘High Change in 'Change Alley’: Popular Ballads and Emergent Capitalism in the Eighteenth Century,” Eighteenth-Century Life 22, no. 2 (1998): 43–58. 30 modern media artifacts whose influence far exceeded their modest form.71 My analysis is twofold: first, I examine the ballads as a material medium (song sheets and mass print), and second, I explore their sensory content (text, music, and their performative and sonic dimensions). Together, these aspects uncover insights into the South Sea crisis and the public behaviors it spurred during periods of market volatility. By applying a combined hermeneutic and media-material analysis to selected bubble ballads, I bring music to bear on the historiographic shift toward understanding the South Sea crisis as a behavioral phenomenon, shaped by shifting economic narratives, sentiments, and their contagious spread. As vectors of market narratives, these ballads did more than chronicle economic events—they likely played an active role in the Bubble’s inflation, endurance, and eventual collapse. From a media perspective, this study examines bubble ballads alongside contemporary financial documents, focusing on their shared medium—paper. This approach draws on recent art historical scholarship that highlights the convergence of economic information and artistic production within England’s thriving mass print culture, emphasizing the material conditions that enabled such connections.72 Building on Lisa Gitelman’s concept of “paper knowledge,” which underscores the active role of financial documents in shaping market value rather than merely conveying economic information, I explore how the materiality of paper mediated the interplay between musical imagination and financial value.73 This mediation, oscillating between permanence and change, further reflects the speculative mechanisms underlying the South Sea stock scheme. Simultaneously, I draw inspiration from Patricia Fumerton’s work on English broadside ballads as a media phenomenon, particularly her focus on the combinatorial processes that allowed fungible, reusable textual and musical materials to generate new 71 Una McIlvenna, Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900 (Oxford University Press, 2022). 72 See, for example, Thea Goldring, “The Greater Fool: Paper, Illusion, and Time in Representations of the South Sea Bubble,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 54, no. 1 (2020): 53–75. 73 Lisa Gitelman, Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents (Duke University Press, 2014). 31 meanings.74 By examining the iterative production of bubble ballads, I argue that these artifacts mirrored the logic of derivatives finance that the South Sea Company actively promoted while exposing the epistemic fragility at the heart of the market maelstrom. As economic historians like Gary Shea and Richard Dale have demonstrated, the South Sea market’s boom and bust relied heavily on intermediation—a dynamic these bubble ballads render both materially tangible and audibly experienceable.75 My study of bubble ballads then shifts focus from the ephemeral medium of bubble ballads to their sensory and informational impact, placing them—often dismissed as vexing contributors to London’s escalating noise—within the discourse on the economic implications of the urban soundscape. As revealed by recent scholarship, the interplay of noise and music within London’s urban soundscape in the eighteenth century raises important questions about political regulation and economic sensibility. Nicholas Mathew, in Haydn Economy: Music, Aesthetics, and Commerce in the Late Eighteenth Century, explores the extractive agenda of urban listening practices, arguing that eighteenth-century writers often conceptualize the boundary between music and noise through economically incentivized frameworks.76 Similarly, Emily Cockayne’s Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England 1600-1770 draws on extensive documentation of London’s sensory urban life, complicating noise’s role as both a disruption to polite commerce and a hallmark of industrial progress.77 As my dissertation further shows, economically inflected discussions of noise, like those explored in these two works, were also pervasive in the financial discourse of the period, linking noise to economic value and interpreting the noisy soundscape as an analogy of economic valuation. While Chen-Pang Yang’s 74 Patricia Fumerton, The Broadside Ballad in Early Modern England: Moving Media, Tactical Publics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). 75 Gary S. Shea, “Understanding Financial Derivatives During the South Sea Bubble: The Case of the South Sea Subscription Shares,” Oxford Economic Papers 59 (2007); Richard Dale, The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble (Princeton University Press, 2004). 76 Nicholas Mathew, The Haydn Economy: Music, Aesthetics, and Commerce in the Late Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2022). 77 Emily Cockayne, Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England, 1600-1770 (Yale University Press, 2021). 32 Transforming Noise: A History of Science and Technology from Disturbing Sounds to Informational Errors, 1900-1955 traces the evolution of noise from a sensory phenomenon to an informational concept within modern engineering, science, and financial theory, he locates this semantic shift at the turn of the twentieth century.78 I argue, however, that this dual understanding of noise—as both sensory and informational—was already present in eighteenth- century England during the South Sea Bubble, as evidenced through its pamphlets, news reports, and self-help guides on stock investment. In these writings, noise functioned not merely as a sensory disturbance but as an economic barometer and informational signal. This duality, intuited by eighteenth-century commentators, foreshadowed modern financial theories of “market noise.” Maria Semi’s recent exploration of eighteenth-century ballad listening practices highlight the enduring ontological ambiguity of ballads, which oscillated between being dismissed as mere noise or trivial expressions of the “vulgar” and being valued as significant cultural expressions. Semi observes how select ballads shifted from the former to the latter due to the specific agendas of listeners and collector, informed by their evolving social, political, and nationalist interests.79 Building on this framework, I examine how a similarly extractive mode of listening, driven by economic interest, shaped engagements with bubble ballads during the South Sea mania. In this context, the interplay between music and noise not only reflected but also shaped market dynamics, as economic interests and the aesthetics surrounding the ballads actively interfaced and influenced one another. Furthermore, these interpretive patterns surrounding bubble ballads parallel recent behavioral insights into how eighteenth-century individuals navigated markets with bounded rationality. This perspective is exemplified by the 78 Chen-Pang Yeang, Transforming Noise: A History of Its Science and Technology from Disturbing Sounds to Informational Errors, 1900-1955 (Oxford University Press, 2024). 79 Maria Semi, “Collecting Ballads, Historicizing Sounds,” in Sound and Sense in British Romanticism, eds. James Grande and Carmel Raz (Cambridge University Press, 2023), 39-53. For the British nationalistic impulse behind the aestheticization of ballads through collecting, see also Suzanne Aspden, “Ballads and Britons: Imagined Community and the Continuity of ‘English’ Opera,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 122, no. 1 (1997): 24–51. 33 works of William Deringer and Koji Yamamoto, who investigate the role of social groupthink in shaping economic decisions and the emerging strategies devised to counter the stochastic nature of market processes during the South Sea Bubble.80 The ballads illuminate nascent systemic understandings of the financial market alongside the psychological and economic tools adopted by eighteenth-century speculators, rendering early modern market uncertainty—and the coping mechanisms it inspired—a distinctly audible historical experience. Through its study of opera and ballads during the South Sea Bubble, this dissertation seeks to expand the musicological toolkit by incorporating economic concepts, issues, and histories into the writing of music history. It also challenges the dominant focus on 20th- and 21st-century music in scholarship addressing economics and capitalism, which often oversimplifies or neglects the economic dimensions of pre- and early-modern music.81 By writing a musical history of the South Sea Bubble, this dissertation demonstrates early music’s profound relevance to understanding modern economic systems. More broadly, the dissertation proposes a new framework for exploring economic issues through music and cultural historical studies. By dismantling the binary between “the economic” and “the musical,” it focuses on their dynamic interrelationship. Additionally, this study seeks to pull music off its plinth as an exceptional economic object and musical practice as an exceptional economic activity—an enduring stance within the Marxian tradition of cultural criticism. In doing so, it also challenges the orthodox economic view that relegates cultural production to the periphery, treating it as 80 William Deringer, “For What It’s Worth: Historical Financial Bubbles and the Boundaries of Economic Rationality,” Isis 106, no. 3 (September 2015): 646–56; Koji Yamamoto, “Beyond Rational vs Irrational Bubbles: James Brydges the First Duke of Chandos During the South Sea Bubble,” in Le Crisi Finanziarie: Gestione, Implicazioni Sociali e Conseguenze Nell’Età Preindustriale, ed. Giampiero Nigro (Firenze University Press, 2016), 327–57. 81 For a critique of contemporary musicology’s tendency to privilege modern and popular repertories as the primary vehicles for addressing presentist concerns, while overlooking the capacity of historical music and practices to engage with such issues, see Holly Watkins’s discussion. Watkins critiques posthumanist writers for their predominant focus on modern composers and popular genres, as if only contemporary music were suitable for applying contemporary theoretical frameworks. Holly Watkins, Musical Vitalities: Ventures in a Biotic Aesthetics of Music (The University of Chicago Press, 2018), 5. 34 exogenous to market mechanisms.82 CHAPTER OVERVIEWS Chapter 1, “Market Music,” serves a dual purpose: first, to provide an overview of the South Sea Bubble by explaining the company's origins and its stock scheme; second, to highlight a central premise of this dissertation—the interconnectedness of the economics of the South Sea Bubble and the aesthetics of contemporary music. Drawing on recent work on “deep” economic history during the European Enlightenment, I trace the intellectual roots of the South Sea Company's formation to late seventeenth-century Hartlibian thinkers, who introduced the economic imaginary of infinite growth, linked to the expansion of paper credit. The South Sea Company materialized this Hartlibian vision by swapping sovereign debt for corporate equity, backed by global trade. The vision gained its decisive momentum in 1713, when the Treaty of Utrecht granted the South Sea Company a monopoly in the Atlantic trade, igniting the initial stock boom. I suggest that Handel's choral anthem, The Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate, composed for this occasion, encapsulated this vision of infinite growth by aestheticizing Britain's emerging financial system and future prospects. Handel’s sublime style, as I argue, projected an auspicious hyper-reality that masked the fragility of Britain’s contemporary trade infrastructure. Akin to offloading speculative risk from the state to the public and offshore economy, the masking effect of the sublime further sheds light on the fiscal-military and colonial-mercantile state propaganda surrounding the South Sea scheme, which portrayed speculative wealth as a purely psychological experience while underplaying its connections to the human capital and material resources that produced such wealth in the first place. Chapter 2, “Opera Incorporated I: The Boom,” offers a new assessment of the Royal 82 For a critique of art’s economic exceptionalism in both mainstream and Marxist theories of art’s economics, see Dave Beech, Art and Value: Art’s Economic Exceptionalism in Classical, Neoclassical, and Marxist Economics (Brill, 2015). 35 Academy of Music's origins and operations by examining them side-by-side with the South Sea Company. This reevaluation challenges previous interpretations of the Academy, which have rashly characterized it as either a naive business endeavor or a noble pursuit of art. Instead, I take seriously the legal status of the Academy as a public-private institution, which signifies the transformation of aristocratic musical patronage into market-driven corporate ventures. Rooted in Britain's “projecting age,” marked by equity-based entrepreneurship, the Royal Academy maintained visible organizational ties with the South Sea Company. These connections encompassed shared directors and subscribers, as well as capitalization strategies. This intertwined history of the two companies also redresses the conventional tendency of associating Italian opera in early eighteenth-century England with the Tory gentry, by highlighting how the joint-stock opera venture was inherently Whiggish in nature, stemming from the political faction’s affinity with moneyed interest, coupled with the court Whigs' ambition to wield authority over London's theaters through government-sanctioned monopoly. Chapter 3, “Opera Incorporated II: The Bust,” explores Muzio Scevola, the Academy's 1721 season opener, against the backdrop of the South Sea Company's bailout controversies. Despite criticisms of the opera’s pastiche nature, I argue that its musical and dramaturgical inconsistencies mirror social fractures on three fronts: the Academy’s internal rivalries among board members and musicians, factional divisions within the Whig party, and contrasting discourses on English liberty. In Muzio Scevola, Paolo Rolli, the opera’s librettist, adapted the Roman legend to resonate with London's politically charged theater and its audience, using the opera, co-authored by the Academy’s three salaried composers, as a commentary on the recent financial crisis, perceived as a threat to English liberty. Concurrently, divergent notions of liberty divided Whigs into “ministerial” and “radical” factions, driven by the incipient policy imperatives of proto-monetarism and possessive individualism, respectively. These factions employed distinct rhetorical tactics, evident in their sentimental oratory and sensational prose, either advocating or opposing the bailout. The conflicting ideologies and their attendant political 36 tactics, as I suggest, find reflection in the opera’s music and character portrayals, through which the opera can be understood to thematize a dialectic between virtue and commerce, a theme that became central to English political discourse following the South Sea Bubble. Chapter 4, “Ballad Economics I: Bubble Ballads,” uncovers through Exchange Alley ballads epistemic aspects of the English media practice that may be said to have bound music and finance in early eighteenth-century banking and stock trading. Taking both printed ballads and contemporaneous financial documents as media artifacts of the speculative market, I trace the patterns of transmissibility and mutability woven through them. On one hand, the bubble ballads were disseminated in various media forms—from blackletter broadsides, through engraved song sheets, to transcribed copies in commonplace books. As they spread stories about market happenings across boundaries of social classes, they simultaneously registered a convergence of pecuniary and aesthetic interests across English society vis-a-vis the informational demand of market speculation. On the other hand, the ballads’ mutability, enabled by the technology of mass printing, mirrored the financial documents’ capacity to generate speculative value through their proliferation. Chapter 5, “Ballad Economics II: Bubble Plays,” explores the theatrical afterlife of bubble ballads, examining their continued circulation and adaptation on London’s stages between 1718 and 1728. During this period, at least two dozen plays inspired by the financial crisis incorporated tunes from the bubble ballads or crafted imitations of their style. This chapter focuses on one such work, The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay and Johannes Pepusch, to examine the enduring significance of the ballads originating in Exchange Alley. I argue that the incorporation of these ballads unequivocally situates The Beggar’s Opera within the realm of contemporaneous economic satire, addressing the social chaos, political upheaval, and moral decay attributed to the South Sea Bubble. To deepen this analysis, I draw a parallel between The Beggar’s Opera, a mock-pastoral, and Acis and Galatea, a pastoral masque co-created by Gay and Handel a decade earlier. By subverting pastoral conventions, The Beggar’s Opera engages 37 with similar musical and thematic resonances found in Acis and Galatea, highlighting an economic subtext shaped not only by the 1720 crisis but also by the personal financial experiences of those involved in their production. After tracing the continued circulation of these fungible ballads in the aftermath of the South Sea crisis, I consider how their hermeneutic indeterminacy can illuminate the speculative economics of the time. This indeterminacy, I argue, mirrors the interpretive challenges of the nascent financial market, where the intrinsic value of assets—much like the meaning of the ballads—was rendered elusive through constant circulation. These ballads, therefore, reveal financial speculation as an inherently interpretive activity, driven as much by uncertainty as by imagination. 38 1. MARKET MUSIC What does the stock market sound like? In 2014, CNN Money sought to answer this question by converting the previous year’s stock market performance into music, translating the daily Standard & Poor’s 500 figures into musical notes.1 The resulting piece of data art (see Figure 1.1), created by the news outlet’s in-house art director, Bård Edlund, features a synthesized melody that takes its pitches from the index’s closing value at the end of each trading day. To accommodate the chromatic gamut of the synthesizer, the range of the year’s S&P figures is then divided into ten-point increments. Beneath this melody lies a simple ostinato alternating between two chords: a higher-pitched chord for trading days ending with market gains and a lower-pitched one for days concluding with losses. Further punctuated and flavored by a reggae beat,2 the final composition, aptly named “Market Music,” renders the US financial market of 2013 audible as a spirited song with an ever-rising melody. As the year progresses, the melody culminates in a euphoric finale as the soaring stock earnings push the musical notes ever higher, registering the remarkable 29% gain on the part of the S&P 500 during that triumphant year. For a year marking a decisive departure from the stock market’s protracted slump following the 2008 global financial meltdown, this groovy musical celebration perfectly encapsulated investors’ buoyant mood at the time.3 While admittedly crude, mapping stock prices onto musical notes nevertheless exposes an affective dimension seemingly inherent in the financial world, otherwise generally perceived as impersonal. Indeed, “Market Music” echoes the pioneering efforts of Alex Edmans and his 1 Edlundart, “Market Music: Listen to How the S&P Performed throughout 2013,” CNN Money, January 1, 2014, https://money.cnn.com/interactive/markets/market-music/. 2 More specifically, a “rocker” rhythm: a moderately paced steady one drop rhythm with a steady bass drum on every eighth note. 3 Caroline Valetkevitch, “Key dates and milestones in the S&P 500’s History,” Reuters, May 6, 2013, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-sp-timeline/key-dates-and-milestones-in-the-sp-500s- history. https://money.cnn.com/interactive/markets/market-music/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-sp-timeline/key-dates-and-milestones-in-the-sp-500s-history https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-sp-timeline/key-dates-and-milestones-in-the-sp-500s-history 39 research group, who have recently explored how society’s musical preferences resonate with tangible stock market outcomes, underscoring the relationships between musical sentiment, investment strategies, and market performance.4 This research also mirrors the broader transformation currently underway in economics—a shift toward cultural and behavioral perspectives. Scholars from diverse subfields in economics are now seeking fresh insights into concepts such as investor decision-making and market efficiency, shedding the constraints of the overbearing theories of market rationality that once stifled discussions of social and cultural factors.5 Figure 1.1 Screenshot from Market Music (2014), Edlundart, CNN Money. Captured by the author. Source: Edlundart, “Market Music: Listen to How the S&P Performed throughout 2013,” CNN Money, January 1, 2014, https://money.cnn.com/interactive/markets/market-music/. However, the affective and behavioral interdependence between music and the financial 4 Alex Edmans et. al., “Music Sentiment and Stock Returns around the World,” Journal of Financial Economics 145 (2022): 234-254. 5 For representative literature marking the “cultural and behavioral turn” in economics and its gradual influence on orthodox, or mainstream, economic scholarship, see Pierre Bourdieu, The Social Structures of the Economy (Polity, 2005 [2000]); Fredric Jameson, “Culture and Finance Capital,” Critical Inquiry 24.1 (1997): 246-265; Frederick Wherry, The Culture of Markets (Polity, 2012); Robert Shiller, Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events (Princeton University Press, 2019); and Robert Skidelsky, What’s Wrong with Economics? (Yale University Press, 2021). https://money.cnn.com/interactive/markets/market-music/ 40 market is by no means a modern-day phenomenon. During the 1720 South Sea Bubble, music played just as vital a role in articulating public sentiments about England’s burgeoning stock market and the proliferation of entrepreneurial endeavors. This chapter spotlights a key premise of the dissertation—the interconnectedness of the economics of the South Sea crisis and the aesthetics of the music of the time. Meanwhile, it offers an overview of the South Sea Company, encompassing its cultural and intellectual origins, as well as the financial structure of its stock scheme. I begin the chapter in the opera theater, where English commentators pilloried the extravagant vocal style of the newly introduced castrato singers, drawing parallels between their hyper-virtuosity and the fantastical nature of the South Sea Company’s stock scheme. I then move on to London’s coffee houses and street corners, where the South Sea Company employed broadside ballads as a promotional tool in its political propaganda machinery to bolster public trust in the Company’s financial prospects. While subsequent chapters will delve much deeper into both Italian opera and English balladry, this chapter serves to gloss the embeddedness of these two genres in the political economy surrounding the South Sea Company’s inception. It sets the stage for the dissertation’s central task of recasting the contemporary financial mania as a phenomenon driven by human emotions and affect, with music serving as audible traces of these dynamics. As such, music reveals the experiential reality of finance as shaped by a cultural-symbolic logic, thereby allowing us to reconceptualize the early modern financial crisis as contingent on economic sentiments, attitudes, and other imaginative constructions. After the brief accounts of operas and ballads in the bubble economy, the chapter will shift its focus to the choral anthem, Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate (1713), by George Frideric Handel, the central figure who has introduced musicologists to the economic turmoil of the South Sea Bubble in the first place.6 Rather than exploring Handel’s personal investments, as prior musicologists have 6 For Handel biographers’ treatment of Handel’s known financial dealings, see Edward J. Dent, Handel (1934), Chapter 2; Paul Henry Lang, George Frideric Handel (W. W. Norton & Company, 1966), 183-88; Christopher Hogwood, Handel (Thames and Hudson, 2007), 120-28; and, more recently, Jane Glover, Handel in London: The Making of A Genius (Macmillan, 2018), 96-105. For Handel’s investment through the lens of latter-day public fascination, see Richard Evans, “How to Invest like Handel,” The Telegraph, 41 predominantly focused on, I investigate instead how his music intersected with the English political economy during the South Sea boom.7 Specifically, I explore how the sublime style of Handel’s choral anthem can be understood as an attempt to aestheticize the financial imaginary of infinite monetary growth—the very imaginative bedrock of the South Sea Company’s stock scheme—and how, in doing so, Handel’s music may be said to have reflected the collective English psyche in response to the monetary fantasies propagated by the South Sea Company. To conclude the chapter, I turn to the broader European repercussions of the 1720 financial meltdown. By analyzing music that directly or indirectly comments on the economic catastrophe, I illustrate further how music serves as a rich field for exploring the cultural implications of finance, as new understandings of wealth and commerce that emerged from the market spectacle found their musical expression in the French and German repertoire of the time. RISING PITCH, ROUSING MARKET The year 1720 marks a transformative moment in the histories of both finance and music for Britain. It was a year that saw the meteoric boom and spectacular bust of the South Sea Bubble—a market-wide investment mania stoked by the eponymous joint-stock company that lured, thrilled, and ultimately ruined scores of investors across British society. In that same year, another newly founded chartered joint-stock—the Royal Academy of Music—aroused a mix of curiosity and censure among the English public with its inaugural season of Italian operas. In February that year, Richard Steele, English playwright, satirist, and co-founder of The Spectator, made a pointed reference to a rehearsal at the opera joint-stock in a satirical vignette, May 23, 2016. 7 For examples showing Handel’s South Sea-related transactions up to 1725, see Donald Burrows, Helen Coffey, John Greenacombe, and Anthony Hicks, eds., George Frideric Handel: Collected Documents. Vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 334-5, 339, 650, 656, 662, 687, 782. A complete documentary list of receipts, ledgers, and miscellaneous financial documents concerning Handel’s financial dealings will appear in George Frideric Handel: Collected Documents Vol. 5 (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 42 where Steele employed the very same price-pitch analogy that CNN would draw on nearly three centuries later. “At the Rehearsal on Friday last,” wrote Steele, “Signor Nihilini Beneditti rose half a Note above his Pitch formerly known. Opera Stock [surged] from 83 and a half [pounds], when he began; [reaching] 90 when he ended.”8 Steele’s apparent jest at the expense of the fledgling joint-stock opera company aside, the real target of his sendup was the South Sea Company. As Steele published his opera-inspired market critique, the trading frenzy was hurtling toward its zenith. In a mere matter of months, the value of a share of South Sea Company’s stock catapulted from a modest £120 to a staggering £1,000.9 This irrational exuberance also manifested in the form of the proliferation of countless so-called “Bubble Companies” when enthusiastic “projectors”—the eighteenth-century term for entrepreneurs— rapidly set up joint-stock ventures to capitalize on the credit and equity boom.10 It was amid the entrepreneurial heat of this so-called “projecting age,” a term famously coined by Daniel Defoe to describe England’s nascent atmosphere of free enterprise, that the Royal Academy took its place.11 Underwritten by Italian opera aficionados who were also enthusiastic South Sea Company investors, the Royal Academy introduced a novel model of opera patronage, where capital was raised through a joint stock and business decisions were overseen by subscribers based on their financial stake in the company. The opera joint-stock was initially made up of a group of 62 subscribers, most of them no strangers to the South Sea Company and its operations.12 To name but a few of the opera investors who also held South 8 Richard Steele, The Theatre (G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1791), 149. See also HCD vol. 1, 473. 9 Several scholars have diligently tracked the historical stock prices of the South Sea Company. See, for example, Julian Hoppit, “The Myths of the South Sea Bubble,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002): 141–65. 10 Several such companies are documented in William Robert Scott, The Constitutions and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720, Vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press): 404- 410. 11 For discussion of the “projecting age,” see William Goetzmann, “A Projecting Age,” in Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible (Princeton University Press, 2016), 320-347. 12 For micro-biographies of the opera joint-stock’s founders and major shareholders, including their capital connections to the South Sea Company and various other joint-stock ventures at the time, see Elizabeth Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music, 1719-1728: The Institution and Its Directors (Garland, 1989). 43 Sea stock or were otherwise involved in the Company’s scheme: The Duke of Newcastle (Thomas Pelham-Holles), notorious for financial mismanagement throughout his life, secured shares through his friend and eventually lost a total of £4,000 worth of investment, a sizable loss that only deepened his already substantial debt.13 A more involved investor, the Duke of Chandos (James Brydges), who was also a key early English patron of Handel, relied on his network of financially inclined peers and rode the Bubble with frequent trading and hedging, but still suffered a loss that left him unable to complete his real estate projects in London.14 Also subscribing to the opera company were several parliamentarians and ministers who openly backed the South Sea scheme and were later implicated during the trial of the South Sea Company’s directors for bribery; amongst these were the Earl of Sunderland (Charles Spencer) and James Craggs the Younger.15 The radically new form of opera patronage, funded through private equity with a distributed governance, marked an overwhelming sense of exuberance shared by the English over fashionable music and lucrative investment. The shared excitement was palpable in London’s flourishing print mediascape, brimming with newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides where news about the opera and the stock market mingled. These print media found their most intensive circulation at Jonathan’s, Garraway’s, and Lloyd’s—a triad of Exchange Alley coffee houses that would become remembered as the birthplace of modern stock brokerage. The epicenter of London’s financial and social life, it was in these coffeehouses where market information became a commodity as citizens gathered to discuss and debate politics, consume and disseminate news, and buy and sell their stocks and insurance.16 An illustrative example can 13 See Ray Kelch, Newcastle, A Duke without Money: Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1693-1768 (University of California Press, 1974). 14 See Susan Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron: The Patronage and Collecting of James Bridges, First Duke of Chandos, 1674-1744 (Routledge, 2007). 15 See W. A. Speck and Matthew Kilburn, “Promoters of the South Sea Bubble,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 25 (Oxford University Press, 2006). 16 For discussion of eighteenth-century coffee houses and the emergence of London’s stock market, see Richard Dale, The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble (Princeton University Press, 2004), 1- 19. 44 be found in a page from the Daily Courant printed on April 7, 1720 (Figure 1.2), which featured stock price reports for major trading companies side by side with an advertisement promoting the Royal Academy of Music’s inaugural opera, Numitore, by Giovanni Porta. This newspaper page exemplifies the medley of information routinely consumed by the caffeinated patrons at these Exchange Alley coffee houses, where opera and financial news vied for the readers’ attention. As Dwight Codr has recently suggested, eighteenth-century English newspaper advertisements were often strategically placed, demonstrating that editorial and advertorial content were not adversarial but rather collaboratively intertwined.17 This strategic collaboration indicates that newspapers of the period used advertisements to complement and enhance their editorial narratives, creating a cohesive and mutually beneficial relationship between news and commercial interests—and, in the case of the Daily Courant page about the new opera, that between cultural and investment interests. Figure 1.2 Extract from the Daily Courant, April 7, 1720, juxtaposing opera and stock market news. 17 Dwight Codr, “The Politics of Sickness: Cato’s Letters and Advertising in The London Journal,” paper presented at the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (April 2024), Toronto, ON. On the ways London’s newspapers editorialized about events surrounding the South Sea Bubble, see also Carl Wennerlind, “‘The British Lions Crouched to a Nest of Owls’: The South Sea Bubble through the Lens of the London Press,” History of Political Economy 55, no. S1 (December 2023): 19–53, esp. 20-21. 45 The daily routine of reporting stock prices—a new media practice that originated with pamphlets circulated in coffee houses, beginning with the financial newspaper Course of the Exchange founded in 1714 by broker John Castaing—was precisely what Steele chose to parody in his satire.18 Drawing attention to the interworkings of financial and operatic economies, Steele’s parody arose from his converging distrust towards both Italian opera and the South Sea Company’s stock scheme. During the months preceding the 1720 market meltdown, Steele penned a series of essays in The Theatre, dissecting the inherent risks associated with the fictitious capital of the South Sea scheme by using analogies to the music of the Italian opera. Across the first few essays, Steele repeatedly cautioned his readers about the pitfalls of relying on the paper economy championed by the scheme. Through this series of polemical analyses, Steele highlights the artificial market value of South Sea stock, lacking substantial business backing.19 He scrutinizes the South Sea Company’s fraudulent practices, such as paying dividends with borrowed money and inflating stock values to create a false sense of stability.20 Steele predicts that the scheme, while it might enrich a select few, particularly bankers, will ultimately lead to national ruin by draining resources and leaving most investors in financial despair.21 He argues that the under-securitized equity issued by the South Sea Company to deleverage the English treasury would permeate all government branches, ultimately devaluing circulating money and eroding national wealth.22 He concluded that the widespread speculation represented a collective miscalculation and an irrational pursuit.23 In the later essays, he 18 The earliest published stock prices included broker John Freke’s The Prices of the Several Stocks, Annuities, and Other Publick Securities, first sold at Jonathan’s in 1715, and John Castaing’s Course of the Exchange, published every Tuesday and Friday since 1714 listing the prices of stocks and commodities at exchanges across Britain and Europe. 19 Steele, The Theatre, March 8, 1720. 20 Steele, The Theatre, April 2, 1720. 21 Steele, The Theatre, April 2, 1720. 22 For discussion of these essays, see Charles Knight, A Political Biography of Richard Steele (Routledge, 2016), 231-236. 23 For the Theatre as an extended critique of early-eighteenth-century mass culture, especially its displayed irrationality with regard to both the financial and theatrical markets, or “the dark side of the public sphere,” see Mattie Burkert, Speculative Enterprise: Public Theaters and Financial Markets in London, 1688–1763 (University of Virginia Press, 2021), 126-130. 46 returned to the voice of a professional theater manager and drew analogies between an “orderly, regular, and well-governed” theater and a well-managed economy, contrasting these starkly with the frenetic atmosphere of London’s speculative market, where “avarice is the one and entire Passion of the City.”24 In Steele’s view, the economically implausible and politically reckless South Sea scheme, coupled with its strategy of inflating stock value through manipulating public sentiment, found a particular musical expression. Steele coined the absurd pseudonym “Signor Nihilini Benedetti,” with the first name clearly serving as a satirical play on Nicolini, the stage name of Nicolò Francesco Leonardo Grimaldi. Grimaldi, one of the first celebrated castrati on London’s stage, had performed the title role in Handel’s 1711 Rinaldo, earning acclaim for his virtuosity while also becoming a target of satire, such as Charles Ancillon’s 1718 critique of castrati in Eunuchism Display’d, which reflected growing backlash against the practice.25 The last name of Steele’s invented pseudonym was explicitly designed to mock Benedetto Baldassari, a recently arrived castrato who had just begun performing with the Royal Academy. The rehearsal attended by Steele would have taken place during the Royal Academy’s preparations for the opening of its inaugural season, featuring the presentations of two operas: Porta’s Numitore and Handel’s Radamisto.26 The music Steele alluded to as a market stimulant found its embodiment in the aria “Quel Piacre,” from Numitore (Example 1.1). This aria, a quintessential castrato showpiece, teems with vocal acrobatics that promises to send any listener’s heart racing. Its chiseled melodic contour, characterized by rapid ascents and descents, as well as chromatic tumbles, testifies to the singer’s impeccable breath control, range, nuance, and color. The riskiest moment comes in m. 34, where a six-measure melisma requires the singer to navigate rapidly and repeatedly his passaggio. During the Academy’s season premiere, one can readily envision 24 Steele, The Theatre, 161. 25 See Julian Marshall, “Nicolini,” in A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. 2, ed. George Grove (Macmillan, 1900), 453, and Charles Ancillon, Eunuchism display’d (E. Curll, 1718). 26 Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel’s Operas, 1704-1726 (Boydell Press, 1995), 324-367. 47 Baldassari’s voice permeating the theater with a palpable sense of excitement and euphoria. These sentiments echoed those felt by numerous South Sea speculators and Royal Academy patrons, whose relentless pursuit of greater returns during the day at the Exchange would have transitioned into an appetite for virtuosic arias during their evening visits to the opera. Example 1.1 Aria “Quel piacer” sung by Benedetto Baldassari from Giovanni Porta’s Numitore (1720), published by John Walsh (1730). Source: BnF, Musique, RES VS-1284. Among these enthusiasts was the esteemed physician and antiquarian, William Stukeley, who routinely chronicled in his diary his foray into South Sea stock acquisition, alongside his interest in opera. Notably, his entries included an exchange with Sir Isaac Newton—an equally renowned 48 South Sea speculator—regarding Handel’s upcoming opera set to surpass Porta’s in April 1720.27 As the South Sea stocks continued their ascent, the operatic fervor at the Royal Academy climbed in tandem. Steele’s satire captured this dynamic, framing the castrato’s voice— embodying both the market’s excitement and its volatility—as the most audible trace of the bubble, foregrounding the entwinement of music and money within the psychology of imagination. At the time of Steele’s writing, castrato singing was still a novelty for the English, and Charles Burney would later characterize their initial reaction of English audiences as marked by incredulity, akin to a profound cognitive dissonance, as the English audience grappled with the contrast between “the natural formation of [the castrato’s] lungs” and the “artificial economy of [his] breath” evidenced during his singing.28 The pecuniary metaphor for castrato singing, though perhaps fortuitous for Burney, proved revelatory for Steele and his contemporaries. By 1720, there had already emerged a notable public distrust regarding credit instruments and stock equity, seen as a novel manifestation of wealth derived through their sheer artifice. Shortly after the South Sea Company’s incorporation, Jonathan Swift depicted the increasing financialization of the English economy as the consolidation of what he termed “a sort of artificial Wealth of Funds and Stocks in the hands of those who […] had been plundering the Public.”29 In the same vein as Swift’s critique of the growing paper economy across Britain, 27 See William Stukeley, The Family Memoirs of the Rev. William Stukeley, M.D., and the Antiquarian and Other Correspondence of William Stukeley etc. (William Blackwood and Sons, 1882), 57. The relevant diary entries read: “Apr. 11. I bought South Sea Stock with Mr. Wood” and “Apr. 18. At the Lincolnshr’ Feast, Ship Tavern, Temple Barr. Press. Sir Is. Newton. Upon my mentioning to him the rehearsal of the Opera to night (Rhadamisto) he said he never was at more than one Opera. The first Act he heard with pleasure, the 2d stretch’d his patience, at the 3d he ran away.” For Newton’s investment in the South Sea Bubble, see Andrew Odlyzko, “Newton’s Financial Misadventures in the South Sea Bubble,” Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 72, no. 1 (2019): 29-59. 28 Charles Burney, A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, Vol. 4 (Payne & Son, 1789), 790. Full quote: “There was none of all Farinelli’s excellencies by which he so far surpassed all other singers, and astonished the public, as his … swell; which, by the natural formation of his lungs, and the artificial economy of breath, he was able to protract to such a length as to excite incredulity even in those who heard him; who, though unable to detect the artifice, imagine him to have had the latent help of some instrument by which the tone was continued, while he renewed his powers by respiration.” 29 Cited in Colin Nicholson, Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth 49 Steele’s concern was also rooted in the erosion of financial speculation upon the true wealth of the nation’s real economy. As such, his satire illuminated the dialectic of the tangible and the imaginary, commonly shared between financial machination and castrato singing, thereby connecting the stock market and the Italian aria. The seemingly infinite breath required for a melisma in a castrato aria thus became the musical embodiment of the exponential but fantastical growth of South Sea capital. Above all, Steele expressed unease at the public’s readiness to embrace and invest in the “artificial economy” propagated by the South Sea Company, akin to their precipitate enthusiasm for the castrati performing at the Royal Academy of Music. It was no coincidence that Steele’s discernment of the fantastical nature of the South Sea stock scheme resonated specifically in the incredible virtuosity of the castrato’s voice. In his 1720 pamphlet, The Crisis of Property, Steele vigorously contended that the government’s dubious practice of transferring its debt to a private company amounted to political corruption, compelling individual annuity holders to partake in a scheme that was ultimately averse to their interests. Steele furthermore argued that the South Sea Company’s financial machinations would have serious political and moral repercussions, sparking an unsettling disruption of the delicate balance between a debtor Parliament and creditor citizens.30 To Steele, the political corruption and moral decay engendered by the South Sea Company’s financial maneuvering mirrored the disagreeable essence he perceived in the foreign castrati and their singing. As the leading stars of Italian opera, the castrati stood as the linchpin of the Royal Academy’s commercial viability and financial assurance at the time. While captivating the interest of those enamored with fashionable entertainment imported from abroad, these foreign stars also drew the ire of critics repulsed by their perceived flamboyance, foreignness, and effeminacy.31 Among these critics was Richard Steele, who had been a Century (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 52. 30 Richard Steele, The Crisis of Property (W. Chetwood, 1720). 31 For a classic example of critical views of Italian opera in London, see Joseph Addison, “From The Spectator, Tuesday, March 6, 1711,” cited in Oliver Strunk, ed., Source Readings in Music History (W. W. Norton, 1950), 511-517. 50 vehement opponent of Italian opera since the musical form’s first arrival on English shores. One of his most splenetic verses published in The Spectator, which he co-founded with Joseph Addison, reads: No more th’ Italian squalling tribe admit, In tongues unknown; ‘tis popery in wit. The songs (theirselves confess) from Rome they bring, And ‘tis high mass, for ought you know, they sing. Husbands take care, the danger may come nigher, The women say their eunuch is a friar. 32 Under Steele’s pen, two of his aversions—Italian opera and castrato singing—merged into a musical analogy for the runaway bubble economy. As such, Steele’s deployment of the pitch- price analogy in his satirical endeavor constituted not merely an economic critique but also a political and moral indictment of the South Sea Company’s stock scheme and the market frenzy it stoked. Indeed, the enthusiastic reception of the newly introduced operatic entertainment bore a fitting resemblance to the frenzied atmosphere enveloping South Sea stock trading. As recounted by Charles Burney, the triumph of Handel’s Radamisto, surpassing the earlier season opener by Porta, resonated as “more solid, ingenious, and full of fire than any drama which had yet been produced.”33 The overwhelming success of the performance, recounted by Handel’s biographer John Mainwaring, plunged the theater into chaotic disarray, devoid of “any appearance of order or regularity, politeness or decency,” owing to the overwhelming demand for tickets that surpassed the venue’s capacity: Many who had forc’d their way into the house with an impetuosity but ill suited to their rank and sex, actually fainted through the excessive heat and closeness of it. [...] Several gentlemen were turned back, who had offered forty shillings for a seat in the gallery, after having despaired of 32 Steele produced numerous essays objecting to this importation of musical entertainment from abroad. See Richard Steele, The Complete Plays of Richard Steele, ed. George Atherton Aitken (T. Fisher Unwin, 1900), 263. 33 Charles Burney, A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, Vol. 4 (Payne & Son, 1789), 259. 51 getting any in the pit or boxes.34 This pandemonium induced by the box office bidding wars, as described by Mainwaring, mirrored closely Jonathan Swift’s depiction of the scene in Exchange Alley during the height of the South Sea speculative heat: Subscribers here by thousands foot, And jostle one another down, Each paddling in his leaky boat, And here they fish for gold, and drown.35 The unprecedented popularity of Handel’s opera clearly bolstered the Academy’s shareholders’ optimism in the opera joint-stock’s financial prospects. A subsequent rerun of Radamisto was scheduled later that year in anticipation of Senesino’s arrival, leading to a notable increase in the budget allocated for engaging Senesino, soaring from the initial £1,600 in December 1719 to an agreement for £3,000 in 1720.36 Handel, in his revised rendition of Radamisto, composed new arias tailored to suit the newly arrived superstar. For the opera patrons, castrati and their arias continued to fuel fervent enthusiasm, ensuring the sustenance of London’s operatic ventures and the lavish compensation of these musical luminaries. The symbiosis between opera and financial speculation also turned the arias sung by the castrati into markers of wealth, as they came to be viewed as the most luxurious commodity in musical form in the continuing discourse about opera even beyond the South Sea crisis.37 More than a decade later, Farinelli’s arrival in London to join Nicola Porpora’s new opera company proved immensely lucrative. He amassed a fortune from his three-year English 34 John Mainwaring, Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel (R. and J. Dodsley, 1760), 99-100. 35 Jonathan Swift, The Works of Jonathan Swift (Henry G. Bohn, 1850), 631. 36 HCD vol. 1, 400, 455, & 470. For Senesino’s negotiation with the Academy, see also Melania Bucciarelli, “Senesino’s Negotiation with the Royal Academy of Music: Further Insight into the Riva-Bernardi Correspondence and the Role of Singers in the Practice of Eighteenth-Century Opera,” Cambridge Opera Journal 27, no. 3 (2015): 189-213. 37 See Suzanne Aspden, “‘An Infinity of Factions’: Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain and the Undoing of Society,” Cambridge Opera Journal 11, no. 1 (1997): 1-19. 52 residency, yielding an annual income exceeding £5,000, not to mention the lavish gifts bestowed upon him by his affluent benefactors. Upon his return to Italy, Farinelli reportedly allocated a fraction of his London fortune to erect an opulent residence, dubbing it “English Folly.”38 This appellation not only nodded to the English architectural influence but also unmistakably evoked the memory of 1720, as the word “folly” emerged as a keyword permeating European retrospection on the Bubble, resonating continuously as a central theme in subsequent contemplations of the collective madness.39 In his 1776 A General History of Music, Burney chronicles the longstanding feud between domestically produced theater and imported entertainment that had persisted since the early eighteenth century, singling out Steele and insinuating that his critiques of Italian opera were motivated more by self-interest than reasoned judgment. “[T]he pleasantry of Addison and Steele upon opera absurdities is often extremely risible and amusing,” writes Burney, “but their serious reasoning on the subject unjust, and generally under the guidance of self-interest and national prejudices.”40 However, Burney’s analysis overlooked the context of the South Sea 38 See “Farinelli,” in The Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, vol. 1, ed. John Alexander Fuller Maitland (Macmillan, 1904-1910), 263. 39 Following the 1720 crash, “folly” instantly became the word that dominated British social discourse. Propagated through caustic pamphlets, topical novels, and satirical plays, the idea that the market failure was caused by the foolish pursuits of the masses—especially those who should not have entered the market in the first place—took hold. Speculators in the once-alluring South Sea scheme were now collectively lambasted as avaricious investors who were unscrupulous, untutored, and above all, irrational. The Bubble, as the political critics John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon commented in its wake, “shews the little power that reason and truth have over the passions of men.” This allegation that investors had chosen passion over reason became the central theme of a remarkable compilation of ballads, cartoons, and broadsides produced by Dutch printmakers to chronicle and memorialize that annus horribilis. Fittingly, they furnished the compilation with the title Het Groote TafereelDer Dwaasheid—“the great mirror of folly.” Folly also became a thematic fixture in later reflections on the Bubble, and through Charles Mackay’s seminal Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Madness of Crowds, published in 1841, the South Sea Bubble would be most commonly remembered as one of the first archetypes of market irrationality in modern economic history. See William Goetzmann, Catherine Labior, K. Geert Rouwenhorst and Timothy Young, eds., The Great Mirror of Folly: Finance, Culture, and the Crash of 1720 (Yale University Press, 2013). For a detailed discussion of these cultural responses to the South Sea Bubble and their potential connections to modern behavioral finance interpretations of the Bubble’s history, see Chapter 5. 40 Burney, A General History of Music, vol 4., 229. “I am as ready to allow the force of Mr. Addisons and Sir Richard Steeles humorous papers on the opera, and to laugh at them as heartily as any one; but as theatrical praise and censure are always suspicious, we should not forget who were the authors of the Tatlers and Spectators, nor how they were circumstanced. Sir Richard Steele had not only an interest in 53 Bubble, failing to recognize how Steele’s musical critiques were deeply entwined with his opposition to the South Sea affair. During the South Sea mania, the political and economic uncertainties surrounding Steele’s English theater intensified, culminating in a dispute between Steele and the Duke of Newcastle, an advocate of the South Sea Company and a patron of the Royal Academy of Music, regarding governance rights over Drury Lane Theatre.41 It was within this context that Steele’s denunciation of operatic extravagance and his skepticism towards the comparably dubious South Sea scheme converged. Steele’s understanding of financial hysteria as the consequence of public reason succumbing to unchecked emotions gained significant traction after the market crash. With the benefit of hindsight, Alexander Pope likewise attributed the “[m]adness” of the crowd to the dominance of society’s “ruling passion” over reason.42 As the misjudgments inherent in the South Sea scheme aligned with the perceived moral laxity of Italian opera, the Royal Academy’s support for Italian opera, in Steele’s pre-crash essays, began to epitomize the very “ruling passion" described by Pope. For Steele, the Academy’s opera became an audible embodiment of the precariousness of South Sea stock—an “artificial economy” sustained by the illusion of a financial system built on the value of paper- based instruments. Read in this light, Steele’s invention of the mock name “Nihillini” for the castrato appeared to serve as a premonition, warning his readers of the frothy nothingness that the South Sea stock might, and indeed, did become when the market inevitably crashed later that year. Furthermore, Steele’s pithy and sardonic journalistic jab at the financial enterprise of the South Sea Company and the opera joint-stock of the Royal Academy of Music reveals a quintessential feature of eighteenth-century discourse, in which authors often flickered between one of the English theatre, but had let his concert room, in York-Buildings, to Clayton, Dicupart, and Haym, who losing their power and importance at the opera on the arrival of Handel, solicited subscriptions for a concert at York-buildings, and were abetted and patronized by the Spectators.” Despite recounting the pecuniary interests and interpersonal conflicts that may have clouded Steele’s judgment on opera, Burney curiously overlooked the connections between Steele’s critique of Italian opera and his broadsides against the South Sea Company. 41 See Charles Knight, A Political Biography of Richard Steele (Routledge, 2016), 171-204. 42 Alexander Pope, “Epistle to Allen Lord Bathurst [“Of the Use of Riches”]” in Epistles to Several Persons, vol. 2, ed. Frederick Wilse Bateson (Methuen, 1961), 79-120. 54 themes of aesthetics and economics. This convergence of culture and the market during the eighteenth century has long been acknowledged by historians and literary scholars, who maintain that, despite their seemingly antithetical nature, aesthetics and economics share a common origin.43 In Steele’s case, musical affects and market ethos became thinkable as mutually constitutive imaginaries in the South Sea heat, thus highlighting the imaginative dimension of the modern world’s first bubble economy. THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY AND ITS FINANCIAL IMAGINARY Imagination played a pivotal role in the boom-and-bust saga of the South Sea Bubble.44 As Daniel Defoe wrote in his famous Essays Upon Projects, published in 1679, this financially supercharged entrepreneurial age was also an age of the imagination going into overdrive. Defoe detailed how the new financial prospects “raised the fancies of credulous people” and encouraged them to engage in previously unthinkable activities, to “form companies, buy shares” merely “on the shadow of expectation.”45 The fact that finance is an invention of the human imagination had everything to do with the intellectual origin of the British Financial Revolution, which predated the bubble itself. As scholars of economic history have long recognized, the South Sea Company’s audacious plan to manipulate money owed an intellectual 43 See Deidre Lynch, The Economy of Character (University of Chicago Press, 1988); Catherine Gallagher, The Body Economic (Princeton University Press, 2005); Mary Poovey, Genres of the Credit Economy (University of Chicago Press, 2008); Martha Woodmansee, The Author, Art, and the Market (Columbia University Press, 1996); and the essays gathered in Mark Osteen and Martha Woodmansee, eds., The New Economic Criticism (Routledge, 1999). For an example of applying the insights of New Economic Criticism to eighteenth-century music, see Nicholas Mathew, The Haydn Economy (University of Chicago Press, 2022). 44 The South Sea Bubble marked not only a dramatic episode in the British Financial Revolution, but it saw the rise of new institutions of a modern financial system in England, ranging from public credit through joint-stock companies to the stock market, as well as its various jargon that we have since inherited such as margin and option, put and call, bull and bear, and so on. An important primary source in which these past-present connections are palpable is the stock market tutor by Thomas Mortimer, Every Man His Own Broker: Or, a Guide to Exchange-Alley. In Which the Nature of the Several Funds, Vulgarly Called the Stocks, Is Clearly Explained (S. Hooper, at Caesar’s Head, 1762). 45 Daniel Defoe, An Essay Upon Projects (Thomas Cockerill, 1697). 55 debt to a seventeenth-century reformist group known as the Hartlib Circle.46 Embracing the optimistic mood after the Glorious Revolution, the progressive Hartlibian thinkers rejected the prevailing belief in static societies and boundaries, envisioning a world ripe for perpetual improvement. As historian Carl Wennerlind recently highlighted, the Hartlibian political economy was as much a product of Enlightenment science as cultural imagination.47 At the heart of the Hartlib Circle’s forward-looking worldview lay money or, rather, a new concept of money. They redefined money not as gold or silver coins but as paper credit, asserting that it was the circulation of money, not its intrinsic value, that endowed it with worth. Instead of actuarial accounting, it was from alchemical dreams of transmuting metals to a cosmology of boundless expansion that the Hartlibian thinkers transformed money—a paper-based financial instrument—into a powerful catalyst, unlocking the latent potential of infinite growth in nature and society.48 William Potter, a financial expert within the Hartlib Circle, championed credit expansion in his economic work entitled The Key of Wealth. The “key” symbolized this newly conceptualized self-generating currency, one endowed with almost magical properties. Potter argued that credit currency had the capacity to multiply the nation’s wealth infinitely, comparing it to the philosopher’s stone.49 This seventeenth-century vision promoted a modern concept of self-valorizing financial capital, blending mysticism and science through the power of imagination. The generative power of credit was gradually realized in the widespread expansion of paper currency, negotiable instruments, and equity stocks that would come to define Britain’s 46 The cluster of thinkers was named after its central figure, the German polymath Samuel Hartlib. For their influence on early modern English political economy, see James Jacob, “The Political Economy of Science in Seventeenth-Century England,” in The Politics of Western Science, 1640–1990, ed. Margaret C. Jacob (Humanities Press, 1994), 19-46; and, more recently, Carl Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011), 10-11, 61-79. 47 Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 3-7. 48 Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 44-60. 49 William Potter, The key of wealth: or, a new way, for improving of trade: lawfull, easie, safe and effectuall: shewing how a few tradesmen agreeing together, may (borrow wherewith to) double their stocks, and the increase thereof (1650), 38. 56 new financial landscape after 1688. However, it was the South Sea Company that accelerated the Hartlibian paper economy into becoming a reality. The Hartlibian political economy deeply influenced Robert Harley, the Tory Lord Treasurer, who proposed the South Sea Company in 1711.50 Early modern chartered joint-stock companies such as the South Sea Company were not exactly private enterprises in today’s sense but operated more like quasi-public entities, providing various commercial and financial benefits to the sovereign state and simultaneously receiving support, such as naval protection or tariff relief, in return. Although nominally an overseas trading company, the South Sea Company’s principal objective and core domestic undertaking revolved around the restructuring of the colossal British government debt, which had escalated to a staggering £50 million at the time of the company’s incorporation, with half of this debt incurred during the protracted War of the Spanish Succession.51 Backed by his Tory allies, Harley devised a plan that entailed seeking the government’s consent to absorb this financial burden by converting the debt into company stock shares. This approach not only infused capital into the trading company but also enabled the government to curtail its deficit.52 Unlike non-transferable government annuities and bonds, South Sea shares could be traded on secondary markets, thereby also augmenting the public credit in circulation. As such, this new form of asset would garner greater appeal for its increased liquidity and the 50 The direct link between the South Sea Company’s scheme and the Hartlib Circle can be traced through the Scottish financier John Law. He harnessed the Hartlibian idea of limitless credit growth by establishing the Banque Générale, a private note-issuing institution, to liberate France from the constraints of coinage and instigate a comprehensive reform of the country’s fiscal and financial systems. For Law’s financial thought, see John Law, Money and Trade Considered with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money (1705); for discussion of Law’s connection to Hartlibian economics, see Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit, 230-233. For Robert Harley’s emulation of Law’s scheme through the South Sea Company, see Herman Melville, The South Sea Bubble (B. Franklin, 1968), 32-54. 51 At that time, the British government issued approximately £50 million in national debt. Of this amount, £18.3 million was held by the two largest companies in Britain: £3.2 million by the Bank of England, £11.7 million by the East India Company, and £16.5 million by the South Sea Company. Privately held redeemable government bonds amounted to £16.5 million. These bonds could be quickly called in by the government. Within this debt, £15 million were fixed-term redeemable annuities, which included long- term annuities maturing between 72 and 87 years, and short-term annuities maturing in 22 years. See Peter M. Garber, Famous First Bubbles: The Fundamentals of Early Manias (The MIT Press, 2001). 52 For details of the South Sea Company’s financial engineering, a lucid explication can be found in William Deringer, Calculated Values: Finance, Politics, and the Quantitative Age (Harvard University Press, 2018), 190-195. 57 potential for value appreciation commensurate with the company’s trade in the American colonies. Harley envisaged that government bond holders—ranging from naval contractors paid through government annuities to private citizens who had previously invested in lottery bonds— would be inclined to swap out their holdings for shares in the chartered trading company. At its core, the South Sea scheme postulated that a financial mechanism, in the form of private equity through joint-stock ownership, possessed boundless potential to address a temporary fiscal shortfall, specifically the British national debt crisis. Harley’s vision thus offered the promise of limitless monetary growth domestically and boundless profits derived from overseas ventures, transforming the South Sea Company into a realization of the Hartlibian economic imaginary of infinite growth. In modern finance, the South Sea Company’s scheme would be understood as a series of debt-to-equity swaps. Whereas debt is a binding promise, equity is only a hope. Envisioning the success of his South Sea scheme, Harley understood the paramount importance of managing expectations and nurturing imagination to keep public credit afloat and sustain investor enthusiasm. After all, the South Sea scheme was as much about re-financing England’s war debt as it was about revolutionizing the perception of government deficits, prompting the public to view deficits not merely as past bills but as investments in the nation’s future concerns. Harley, through deliberate rhetoric, aimed to persuade the English populace that the foremost priority should be the West Indies trade—centered on the cultivation and transportation of colonial commodities, sustained by the forced displacement and labor of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. An older term for the Pacific Ocean, the South Sea, in Harley’s scheme, symbolized the distant reaches of British colonial economic interest, emerging as an inexhaustible reservoir from which the nation’s future money could be readily found. Harley thus assembled an impressive propaganda team, tasked with disseminating an alluring and prosperous vision of 58 the South Sea trade and its stock scheme.53 The propaganda materials took the form of broadsides and pamphlets. They were as much about helping prop up a fledgling credit-based market culture as incentivizing the public to swap their government bonds for South Sea stocks. Ballads were a mainstay throughout the South Sea saga, their presence spanning from the company’s inception through the frenzied mania and the subsequent pandemonium. Taking market events as their subject matter, these ballads revolved around opinions about new financial instruments and schemes, news of various investment ventures, and the personalities connected to the South Sea scheme. The origins of this fusion between balladry and the South Sea Bubble can be traced back even before the company’s establishment in 1711. A year prior to the Company’s formal incorporation, a ballad entitled “The New Scheme Set to an Old Tune” surfaced, unmistakably reflecting the influence of Harley’s propaganda apparatus. The ballad served as a laudatory ode to the Tory minister, extolling his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer—a critical moment that marked Harley’s ascension to power and paved the way for his proposal to establish the new joint-stock company for the privatization of the national debt. The ballad even attributed divine qualities (“Holy Life”) to Harley for his ability to employ financial engineering to eradicate the national deficit. Laden with exaggerated praise, the celebratory ballad exalted Harley’s political triumph over his adversaries as a righteous act serving the greater public good: Blest Brittains rejoice, with Heart & with Voice. Now Robin the Trickster wise Somersett employs; Harley Harley Arguile Harley Rivers Harcourt Powlett, This Dukes own Dear Wife by her Holy Life.54 It gained further resonance through the familiar “Old Tune” it used, named “Lillybullero” on the song sheet, a marching anthem often attributed to Henry Purcell. Having emerged during the 53 J. A. Downie, Robert Harley and the Press: Propaganda and Public Opinion in the Age of Swift and Defoe (Cambridge University Press, 1979). 54 UNott PwV 1225. 59 Restoration era, the tune had become an iconic English melody, widely recognized and cherished throughout the country.55 As Richard Steele once remarked, it was “one of the darling songs of the common people” and “the delight of most Englishmen in some part of their age.”56 When heard in the context of Harley’s political victory, “Lillybullero” not only amplified the boisterous celebration of the new Chancellor’s supporters but also conveyed a nationalist message concerning the impending approval of the South Sea Company. The new ballad reflects how the South Sea Company, even before it began issuing public stock subscriptions, attempted to control market information by employing salaried messengers to disseminate daily updates through newspaper advertisements, propaganda pamphlets, and broadside notices.57 Ballads were an integral part of the South Sea Company’s information campaign, which would have not only been heard in the streets but also posted on the walls of Exchange Alley’s coffee houses and the doors of South Sea House, the Company’s headquarters. The mastermind behind the campaign was the chief architect of the Company’s operations, John Blunt. In the 1726 Secret History of the South Sea Company, Blunt was described as a man of charismatic confidence and marketing ingenuity, a combination perfectly suited for stoking up a hype economy like the South Sea Bubble.58 Indeed, when there was hardly anything concrete for its purported profit to rely upon, managing public expectations was the key. “The greatest thing in the world is referred to you,” as Blunt said at one point referring to his company’s get-rich- quick scheme, “All the money in Europe will center amongst you. All the nations of the earth will bring you tribute.”59 Through Blunt’s information campaign, ballads quickly became a vehicle in 55 Eric Blom, ed., Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians 5th Edition, Vol. V (St. Martin’s Press, 1966), 273. For comments on the music, see also Claude M. Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music (Rutgers University Press), 445-9. 56 The Spectator, June 7, 1711. 57 See Richard Dale, The First Crash: Lessons from the South Sea Bubble (Princeton University Press, 2004): 34-35; Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit, 206-207. 58 John Toland, Secret History of the South Sea Company (1723), 443. (published under the name John Toland, but presumed to have been written by an anonymous South Sea director). 59 Quoted in Peter Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England (Routledge, 2016 [1967]): 118. See also p. 94 for a fascinating discussion of Blunt’s Neo-Biblical oratory (linking his Baptist heritage to his marketing canniness). 60 the Company’s propaganda machinery for promoting its debt-equity swap scheme, first to the parliamentarians, then to the gentry, and ultimately to the public, and effectively, they became advertising jingles for the Company’s stock shares. At the same time, counterpropaganda from opponents of the scheme launched similar balladic attacks, contributing in equal measure to a partisan mediascape—and soundscape— during the South Sea Bubble. One of the earliest, An Excellent New Song, call’d, An End to our Sorrows, circulated as the Company lobbied Parliament to approve its proposal to privatize the national debt. The ballad satirizes the fantastical nature of Harley’s touted strategy for resolving the national debt quandary, mocking those who praised him for supposedly settling a substantial debt down to the last penny—all without the use of physical currency (“Having paid a vast Debt to a Farthing / Without Money, for which we adore him”). This reflects the exaggerated acclaim Harley received from supporters of the South Sea scheme, who lionized him as a national hero, a model for politicians and financiers, and a source of inspiration for merchants and investors. The satirical ballad even suggests that the scheme’s success would not only resolve the national debt but also quell the increasingly acrimonious Tory-Whig divide in Parliament: Hell Silver in Plenty bring home By the Trade fixt in the South Sea; Which, if it to any thing Come, No doubt it will something be. Our Credit was once at a stand, But now tis Restord again; Since Nine or Ten does Command What with Six was endeavourd in vain. Then sing to the Praise and Glory Of Her who sits on the Throne. Let every Whig and Tory Be thankful for this when done.60 60 BL Roxburgh C.20 f.9.646, “An Excellent New Song, call’d, An End to our Sorrows.” 61 In part, these propagandist ballads reflect the intense competition among companies vying to become the nation’s leading financier. Just when the South Sea Company thought it had secured its position, the Bank of England intervened. Compared to the South Sea Company, the Bank of England had a longer-standing reputation and held significant influence among some Members of Parliament, who also represented the Bank’s interests. Arguing that its contributions to Britain merited precedence over the fledgling South Sea Company, the Bank proposed to acquire all redeemable government bonds and fixed-term bonds, offering the government an additional £600,000—surpassing the South Sea Company’s £500,000. In response, the South Sea Company panicked and revised its proposal, increasing the unconditional payment to £4 million and allowing the government to potentially receive up to £6 million. They also shortened the debt redemption period from seven to four years. Not to be outdone, the Bank of England submitted a more favorable counterproposal, showing the fierce rivalry between these financial giants.61 After Parliament approved the South Sea Company’s debt-equity swap, a new wave of ballads appeared, likely commissioned or even written by Blunt himself. While these new ballads, similar to “The New Scheme,” still praised the patriotic virtue of the South Sea Company’s stock scheme and its financial masterminds and political allies, they began to convey a fresh narrative emphasizing the profitability associated with investing in South Sea stock. One such ballad, “Oxford and Mortimer’s Vindication,”62 celebrates Robert Harley and paints a picture of the various tangible benefits that the South Sea scheme would bring to the nation 61 King George, keen to enhance Britain’s trade, initiated a series of strategic political maneuvers. In his 1717 address to Parliament, he emphasized the urgency of reducing the national debt. This set the stage for a significant financial transaction involving the Bank of England and the South Sea Company. On May 20th, both entities presented proposals that were subsequently accepted by Parliament. The South Sea Company, in a strategic move, agreed to reduce its interest rate to 5% per annum in exchange for the opportunity to expand its capital through subscription, reaching an impressive £12 million. Additionally, by 1717, the company had taken on an additional £2 million of government debt, further solidifying its position in the financial landscape. See William Cobbett, Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. 62 Harley at the time held the title of the Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. 62 through new exploration and trade: Our Trade in the South-Seas will bring us in Gain, Most pleasing unto the Nation; And what still add Glory to th’ auspicious Reign, better our Navigation.63 The South Sea Company cranked up its propaganda campaign with “An Excellent New Song,” boasting that subscribing to its stock would be the only sensible choice: Next open to All a Subscription Book stood, In which if some Fools would not enter, The Statesmen not only proposed what was Good, But they likewise compelled them to venture.64 The bubble ballads, through their triumphal tone, actively constructed and disseminated the image of the South Sea Company’s stock as an innovative and investable asset, underwritten by state support and corporate leadership, thereby promising guaranteed profitability. This spirited economic narrative was successful in launching the stock into the market with great fanfare and hype, the telltale signs of an expanding bubble. HANDEL’S FINANCIAL SUBLIME Although the ballads exuded hope, the South Sea Company’s prospects only truly soared in 1713 with the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession. When the South Sea Company first became incorporated, Spain still held the lucrative monopoly of the slave trade between West Africa and colonies in the Americas, known as the asiento de negros.65 With Britain having no official access to the most profitable trade opportunity in the Atlantic economy, the financial 63 NLS Crawford EB.885m “Oxford and Mortimer’s Vindication.” 64 WC M28.5, “An Excellent new Song called, Credit Restored.” 65 For details of the asiento contract and the South Sea Company’s slaving activities, see Helen Paul, “The South Sea Company’s Slaving Activities.” Discussion Papers of the School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, 2009, http://www.southampton.ac.uk/socsci/economics/research/papers, accessed July 15, 2022. Sciences Economics Division, University of Southampton, 2009. http://www.southampton.ac.uk/socsci/economics/research/papers 63 future of the South Sea Company, along with its ambitious plan of absorbing the sovereign debt, remained but an empty promise. In 1713, with the Treaty of Utrecht ending the War of the Spanish Succession, Spain handed over the asiento to the British monarch. The Crown subsequently granted the coveted monopoly contract to the South Sea Company, anticipating that the company would persuade the public to convert a minimum of £10 million in outstanding government annuities. As an incentive, the government offered a 6% annuity to the Company on the £10 million, but these interest payments would come from the tariffs the government charged the Company on the goods it imported. The South Sea Company’s acquisition of the asiento, combined with an expectation of lasting peace, boosted Britons’ confidence in their commercial future and rekindled their national imagination as a global trading power. Characterized by historian Linda Colley as a “cult of trade and commerce,” this national imaginary at the time was created, framed, and consolidated through continuing political propaganda that placed commerce at the center of national interest as a source of sovereign stability, patriotic sentiment, and even Protestant piety.66 In an agitprop pamphlet, Handel’s one-time collaborator John Gay trumpeted a panegyric on trade for Britons: “be commerce thy sole design, [...] keep that, and all the world is thine.”67 In Gay’s rhetoric, the state and the market are blurred, and this would have served as free propaganda for the South Sea Company, whose partnership with the government in the debt-for-equity scheme made it a key agent of the nation’s imagined economic future. The South Sea scheme was a joint venture between the private enterprise and the state with the ultimate objective of shifting the nation’s debt burden from the sovereign to the market. But with the Treaty of Utrecht heralding a prosperous future intertwined with translating commerce for the South Sea Company, the market was seen as an unfailing place that promised sustained capital for Britain spanning years, generations, and even centuries. With the impending peace marking 66 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (Yale University Press, 1992), 56. 67 Cited in Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 60. 64 the real chance for the South Sea scheme to materialize, Britons’ mass pursuit of perpetual growth and infinite wealth was launched. On July 7, 1713, London witnessed a public celebration of the Treaty of Utrecht. Full of ceremonial pomp and pageantry, the day’s festivities featured a grand procession from the Houses of Parliament to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the Royal Chaplain and Bishop of Bath and Wells George Hooper delivered a spirited thanksgiving sermon. Following the sermon, St. Paul’s was filled with Handel’s music, and the Thames was lit up with spectacular fireworks. Mobilized as an instrument of top-down communication from the Crown to the public, this day of pageantry presented a triumvirate of musical, oratorical, and pyrotechnical spectacles, all designed to bolster the nation’s spirits and instill confidence in its institutions—monarchy, church, and market.68 George Hooper’s sermon underscored the political subtext of the peace celebration, placing the Treaty of Utrecht in a nationalist framework to affirm both the spiritual and the material benefits brought by the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. On the one hand, the sermon served to affirm the political authority of Queen Anne and her Protestant piety by celebrating her role in the international peace negotiation.69 On the other hand, undergirding this maintenance of national unity was a distinctively material dimension of the peace, brought by restored commerce and trade. Hooper initiated his sermon by evoking the financial losses incurred during the war, reminding his congregation of the economic cost of wars and the mercantile nature of the British nation. “We were a nation depending upon commerce,” he preached, “and we ought to consider our balance, with merchants reflecting on the 68 For a detailed account of the day’s festivities, see Julie Farguson, “Promoting the Peace: Queen Anne and the Public Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral,” in Performances of Peace: Utrecht 1713, eds., Renger E. de Bruine et. al. (Brill, 2015), 207-222. 69 For a domestic audience, this spiritual celebration was also a message intended to quell insurgent Jacobitism at home. In extending the message of the Utrecht Peace from its international context to a domestic one, the sermon functioned as a political effort to reinforce national unity and to thwart potential threats from the Jacobites. 65 consequences of prolonged profit loss.”70 Hooper then outlined a prosperous future for Britain as a united nation under the consolidated political authority of a Protestant queen, before turning to the lasting gains expected from the restoration of trade, supercharged by public credit. The sermon began to resonate with Hartlibian monetary thought as Hooper depicted the nation’s wealth as an endless circulation of public funds. “Peace,” Hooper declared, “is the inexhaustible Fund of Funds.”71 This phrase, later adopted by modern portfolio theorists to describe a collective investment strategy, focused, in Hooper’s sermon, on the concept of self- perpetuating gains in the financial market—an essential element of the new financial order envisioned by the seventeenth-century reformists and soon to be realized by the South Sea Company.72 The South Sea scheme’s affinity with the Hartlibian financial vision of boundless monetary expansion is most apparent in Hooper’s manipulation of the term “fund,” which signifies the interconnection of social and economic structures. Daniel Defoe, in an anti-calico pamphlet years later, echoed the same phrase, highlighting how Parliament, as the source of public credit and its fiat, serves as the “inexhaustible Fund of Funds,” drawing a parallel between political stability and a continuous flow of currency.73 Hooper’s commentary not only underscores the Treaty of Utrecht’s facilitation of favorable trading conditions but also suggests that a nation’s wealth serves as a marker and sustainer of its societal equilibrium. As Hooper’s sermon elucidates, the impending peace assured enduring profits manifested in the perpetual 70 George Hooper, A Sermon Preach’d before Both Houses of Parliament (Bishop’s Head, 1713), 7. 71 Hooper, A Sermon, 16. 72 While there is no known evidence the term “fund of funds” in modern finance was directly derived from the eighteenth-century phrase, the meaning of the modern term—a special tyle of mutual fund that consists of portfolios of other funds for maximum diversification—still shares a kindred spirit with Hooper’s and Defoe’s word play on “fund” as both “foundation” and “capital” and their thematization of the connection between financial liquidity and political stability. See “fund” 3b. 5, and P5 in Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.com. For the South Sea Company and early modern thought concerning monetary self-generation and market self-organization, even self-correction, see Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman, Invisible Hands: Self-Organization and the Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2015), 102-133. 73 Daniel Defoe, A Brief State of the Question between the Printed and Painted Callicoes (W. Boreham, 1719). https://www.oed.com/ 66 circulation of public funds. The notion that society and its economy could operate independently, generating profits autonomously and indefinitely, corresponds to a novel perception of the financial economy as a self-regulating system, encapsulated in Daniel Defoe’s renowned adage “money begets money.”74 In the market, the South Sea Bubble appeared to yield self-sustaining gains, prompting Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman to assert that it triggered the first identifiable cultural emergence of self-organization.75 Within this emerging culture of the market’s self-organization and capital’s self-perpetuation, Hooper’s pledge of boundless profits, bolstered by theological persuasion, would have sounded not just plausible but compelling to his audience, including both Houses of Parliament, in the optimistic atmosphere of 1713. Following the sermon, Handel’s Te Deum and Jubilate echoed through the cathedral. If Hooper’s rhetorical flair had not fully persuaded his congregation, Handel’s music reinforced its entanglement of political, economic, and religious sentiments, translating Hooper’s intricate themes into a maximalist choral anthem of undeniable aesthetic power. Chosen by Queen Anne to compose music for the occasion, Handel unleashed such enormous sonic powers in the anthem that they would define a new standard for English political ceremonial music. Frequently compared to the 1697 Te Deum and Jubilate by Purcell, the previous benchmark for British religio-political music, Handel’s Utrecht music was on a completely different scale in terms of both composition and performance.76 While Handel has been commemorated regularly in London and beyond since his centennial celebration in 1784, the Te Deum and Jubilate marked the first time Britain heard the quintessential Handelian sound, which quickly became the embodiment of powers—national, royal, religious, and communal—and became inextricably linked to the eighteenth-century aesthetics of the sublime as its sonic manifestation.77 74 Quoted in Sheehan and Wahrman, Invisible Hands, 106. 75 Sheehan and Wahrman, Invisible Hands, 127-128. 76 See Donald Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal (Oxford University Press, 2008), 83-94. 77 Claudia L. Johnson, “‘Giant Handel’ and the Musical Sublime,” in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002): 141-165. 67 In his midcentury tract on the aesthetics of the beautiful and the sublime, Edmund Burke described the sublime as the embodiment of aestheticized power.78 The concept encapsulates a psychological process in which insurmountable force overwhelms the mind and stretches human imagination to its limits, thereby collapsing the gap between imagination and sensation. At its core, the sublime hinges on the notion of “infinity,” a concept that, according to Burke, engenders a “delightful horror,” serving as “the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime.”79 In Burke’s formulation, infinity also implies boundaries in representation, arising from the liminal space between the sensible and the imaginable. It exists as something that cannot be perceived at once but is still made palpable and, thus, believable through the excitement of experience. In other words, the sublime triggers a suspension of incredulity.80 At the commencement of the Te Deum (Example 1.2), Handel created what might be called an audible infinity in the Burkean vein with six sparingly scored tutti chords, each punctuated by a brief rest. These pregnant pauses were not just rhetorical pauses, as would later become characteristic of Handel’s style.81 Instead, they would have been heard as protracted decays, reverberating amid the manifold acoustic subspaces of St. Paul’s Cathedral, a marvel of architecture designed by Sir Christopher Wren (see Figure 1.3), with its arches, columns, and cornices contributing to the Cathedral’s uniquely resonant interior.82 This amalgamation of music and architecture amplified the reverberations, producing an auditory infinity that 78 An account of this psychic re-calibration can be found in Samuel Monk, The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in 18th-entury England (University of Michigan Press, 1960): 63-83. 79 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed., Paul Guyer, (Oxford University Press, 2015 [1757]), 60. 80 The Burkean sublime operates by engaging the mind’s own confusion and sense of overwhelm, to the point that, as Nicholas Mathew observes in his analysis of the Handelian aesthetic, it “collapse[s] medium and message,” thereby forging complex metaphorical relationships. See Nicholas Mathew, “Beethoven’s Political Music, the Handelian Sublime, and the Aesthetics of Prostration,” 19th-Century Music 34, no. 2 (2009): 110-150. 81 See Ellen Harris, “Silence as Sound: Handel’s Sublime Pauses,” The Journal of Musicology 22, no. 4 (2005), 521-558. 82 For studies in the acoustics of St. Paul’s, see J. S. Anderson and M. Bratos-Anderson, “Acoustic Coupling Effects in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London,” Journal of Sound and Vibration 236, no. 2 (2000): 209-225. 68 instantly captured the listeners’ imaginations, transporting them into a Handelian sound-world of portentous grandeur. The Te Deum and Jubilates text combined two sets of liturgical verses: the Ambrosian “Te Deum, We praise thee, O God,” and a setting of Psalm 100, “O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands,” a customary chant of the Anglican Morning Prayer. Across Europe, this textual fusion was widely recognized as the ideal canticle for national celebration, whether prompted by military triumphs, diplomatic victories, or the birth of a royal heir.83 Yet, it was the invocation of the biblical jubilee within the Psalm verses that struck a particular chord with the English audience during the 1713 celebration. These verses, expressing gratitude for God’s periodic, unconditional cancellation of debt for the Israelites, resonated deeply, as the cheerful psalmody became both a hymn of praise for divine intervention and an expression of hope for economic liberty for generations to come. Amid the English audience’s jubilation over the Utrecht peace, it was Queen Anne’s exemplary piety, elucidated by Hooper’s sermon, that seemed to embody a faith modeled on the divine benevolence celebrated during the biblical jubilee. Regarding the economic mechanism of debt forgiveness, on the other hand, it was none other than the South Sea Company that operated as a stand-in for the divine intervention, with its overseas trade and domestic financial engineering poised to alleviate Britons of their long-accumulated debt through the fiscal-military nation’s deficit financing.84 Thus, the boundless reverberation of Handel’s music, interlaced with the scripture depicting the ancient jubilee, conveyed an imagined exuberant spirit of the Israelites from the past to the contemporary ebullience of the Britons, thereby acquiring its political-economic significance by echoing the immeasurable profitability anticipated for Britain’s future, as articulated by Hooper prior to the musical performance. In substituting sonic grandeur for the vastness, greatness, and infinitude of 83 Donald Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal (Oxford University Press, 2008), 84. 84 For modern implications of the biblical jubilee on the cancelation or forgiveness of sovereign and private debt, see David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Melville House, 2011), 81-87. See also Raymond Westbrook, “Jubilee Laws,” Israel Law Review 6 (1971): 209-26. 69 financial multiplication, Handel’s sublime, by collapsing the medium and the message, makes a new political economic order not only audible but also believable. In the concluding movement of the Jubilate, “As it was in the beginning,” Handel showcases, according to Burney, “his grandest and most magnificent style,” by deploying a double fugue.85 Its second subject, initially spliced together with the first in a call-and-response exposition, later roams the polyphonic tapestry as a countersubject forming an invertible counterpoint at the octave with the subject. As Handel progressively reduces the time interval of imitation between entries, creating a textural crescendo across this fugal movement, the movement culminates in an explosive stretto, as if the voices were multiplying themselves ad infinitum. This gives rise to the illusion of musical self-generation, rendering audible what Burke termed “artificial infinity,” characterized by succession and uniformity.86 Handel’s creation of this infinite counterpoint, enhanced by a choir of over one hundred members, would have undoubtedly astonished his audience.87 The acoustics of the interior of St. Paul’s would have further amplified Handel’s contrapuntal conceits, as each pair of dux and comes, together with their multiply refracted echoes, filled the Cathedral with a brand new kind of national music, its exuberant sound and communal expression sending listeners into a state of ecstasy. 85 Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon in Commemoration of Handel (T. Payne, 1785), 35. 86 Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry, 64. Burke once lamented that the magnificent is hard to come by in works of art, because the splendid disorder also requires “an appearance of infinity” to be “truly magnificent.” By creating the illusion of sonic self-generation with a clever set of contrapuntal combinations, Handel’s fugal finale may certainly be said to exemplify the kind of “artificial infinity” characterized by succession and uniformity, which Burke discusses in relation to the sublime in manmade objects. 87 Employing an eight-voice choir, five solo singers, and an orchestra augmented with timpani and trumpets, the 1713 performance forces of the Te Deum and Jubilate were also unprecedented. With the combined powers of the Chapel Royal choir and the Royal musicians numbering more than a hundred, Handel, as Donald Burrows has conjectured, could very well have fit as many additional performers as the St. Paul’s organ gallery would accommodate. See Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal, 117. 70 Example 1.2 Opening measures of Handel’s Te Deum, HWV 278 (1713) Figure 1.3 The Inside of St Paul’s Cathedral from the West End to the Choir (1749) printed by Bowles and Carver. Source: BM, G,11.78. 71 Preceding the fugue, Handel introduced a brief prelude, “Glory be to the Father,” characterized by what can only be described as musical pyrotechnics (Example 1.3), as the triple repetition of the word “glory” amounts to a musical metaphor for fireworks blasting off with an incandescent boom. Commencing with a spirited introduction carried by the upper strings, the composition swiftly escalates to its full vigor: an eight-voiced choir accompanied by orchestra tutti, unleashing the word “glory” on a bright D-major chord, akin to the inaugural burst illuminating London’s evening skyline. After the blast-off, the strings persist with their rapid eighth notes, seemingly tracing the fiery trails of the fireworks, before the music gradually subsides to a pianissimo, resembling the gradual dissipation of the initial fiery bloom into the enigmatic nocturnal expanse, shrouded in a veil of smoky intrigue. This musical pyrotechnic spectacle perfectly presaged the actual fireworks that marked the culmination of the July 7 festivities in London. The fireworks, set ablaze over the Thames in front of Whitehall, were crafted and choreographed by the celebrated pyrotechnic duo, Borgard and Hopkey. Engraver Bernard Lens II captured this event in a detailed print (Figure 1.4), commemorating the captivating display in meticulous detail. Firework displays, witnessed not only in London but also in Amsterdam and the Hague, had become a ubiquitous hallmark of public events across England and the Netherlands during their celebration of the Treaty of Utrecht.88 Besides depicting the fireworks of the peace celebration, Lens’s print also illustrates how the sublime aesthetic can also do political work. In his printerly imagination, Lens transforms a Thames watergate into a resplendent temple with eight columns, each crowned by a goddess representing a cardinal virtue. At the center, Queen Anne’s insignia and Britain’s Union flag shine, glistening with luxurious reflections of the fireworks. Burke specifically used fireworks to illustrate a species of the sublime that he calls “the magnificent,” which is 88 Kevin Salatino, Incendiary Art: The Representation of Fireworks in Early Modern Europe (Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1997), 32-36. 72 characterized by “a great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable.”89 How the fireworks likewise elevated London’s mundane waterscape into an aesthetic reality was made articulate in Lens’s print. The image, featuring a surfeit of visual symbols, captures the essence of Burke’s “splendid confusion,” which not only calls to mind but aestheticizes the rhetorical conflation of sovereignty, commerce, and piety in Hooper’s sermon on the Treaty of Utrecht.90 Example 1.3 Beginning of the penultimate movement of Handel’s Jubilate, HWV 278 (1713) 89 Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry, 63. 90 Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry, 63. 73 Figure 1.4 A Representation of the Royal Fire-work on the River of Thames before Whitehall (1713) by Bernard Lens II. Source: BM, 1880,1113.1357. The fireworks bursting over the River Thames were not just a celebration—they were a declaration, a reminder of the river’s enduring role as the artery of British commercial and colonial power. The symbolic and imaginary elements of this trade boom are vividly depicted in the era’s paintings of waterways. Canaletto, renowned for his idealized portrayals of Venetian waterways, achieved great success among British patrons. Notably, the Duke of Bedford, a Whig politician, designed a room at Woburn Abbey around his collection of two dozen Canaletto paintings. Canaletto’s scenes, featuring bustling harbors, colorful buildings, well-dressed citizens, and turquoise lagoons, resonated with commercially minded Britons, who saw in them a reflection of their aspirations. These paintings conveyed political messages that both flattered and reinforced the British “cult of trade,” a term coined by Linda Colley to describe the eighteenth-century British collective imagination.91 In his paintings of British waterways, including a 1746 depiction of the Thames (Figure 1.5), Canaletto imbued the scenes with a Venetian aura through his use of color and social energy. This added a dimension of luxury that 91 See Colley, Britons, 1707-1837. 74 fueled British commercial fantasies, allowing the public to envision Britain as an ever-expanding overseas trading empire—a modern reincarnation of the Renaissance Italian trading empire. This visually induced fantasy is further articulated in William Marlow’s architectural painting, Capriccio: St Paul’s and a Venetian Canal (Figure 1.6). Figure 1.5 The River Thames with St. Paul’s Cathedral on Lord Mayor’s Day (c. 1746) by Canaletto. Source: Lobkowicz Collections, Lobkowicz Palace, Prague. Figure 1.6 Capriccio: St Paul’s and a Venetian Canal (c. 1795) by William Marlow. Source: Tate Britain, London. 75 By fantastically blending London’s skyline with Venice’s waterways, Marlow underscores these British aspirational parallels between Renaissance Venice and eighteenth-century London, suggesting London as the ultimate modern commercial capital. The dual depths in the painting—one for Venice and one for London—enhance its fantastical nature, making St. Paul’s appear more imposing even in the background — signifying the glorious future. Much like Lens’s propagandist print, Canaletto’s exuberant aquatic imagination, and Marlow’s fantastical juxtaposition, Handel’s music, reverberating within the hallowed halls of St. Paul’s before both Houses of Parliament, served a parallel political purpose: to propagate the very same social imagination of Britain’s destiny through musical artifices and sonic power. As the sublime conflates medium and subject through its sheer power and splendid confusion, the sonorous infinity of Handel’s music and the infinite commonweal promised by the South Sea scheme would have converged in the imaginations of the listeners present at the proceedings of the peace celebration. Handel’s sublime choral anthem, along with Hooper’s rhetorical flourish and Borgard and Hopkey’s pyrotechnic extravaganza, aestheticized the political economy of a new social order promised by the Treaty of Utrecht and powered by financial machination. The anthem gave musical expression to Britain’s magnificence, as projected by its parliamentarians and financiers, who had leveraged the nation’s future on the imagery of infinite monetary expansion. In that very year, Parliament passed a pivotal bill allowing the South Sea Company to expand its capitalization to a staggering £12 million.92 This move paved the way for subsequent rounds of public subscriptions of South Sea stock in 1717 and 1720, during which the company absorbed an astounding 95% of the national debt.93 This, in turn, ignited a speculative frenzy as annuity holders from all corners of Britain travelled to Exchange Alley, eager to convert their holdings. 92 Dale, The First Crash, 74-76. 93 Halen Paul, The South Sea Bubble: An Economic History of Its Origins and Consequences (Routledge, 2010): 43-45. 76 By seemingly translating the financial vision of boundless growth into an audible presence and invigorating collective imagination into thrilling market actions, Handel’s music can be viewed as the official prelude to the South Sea Bubble. Through inducing a splendid confusion where the unthinkable became plausible, the overwhelming forces of Handel’s music suspended disbelief. In this way, this Handelian sublime undertook its political task during the ascent of a burgeoning bubble economy, participating in a culture of economic propaganda that bolstered the British commercial mentality and its credit system by fostering collective confidence in the nation’s speculative prospects. As the majestic displays of the 1713 celebration of the Treaty of Utrecht fueled the fervor of speculation within the emerging bubble economy, it becomes apparent that Britain’s nascent financial system bore an affinity with aesthetics, as evidenced in its reliance on imaginative interpretations of the world and its economic reality. For Robert Harley and his allies, this shared economic imagination played a crucial role in restoring the public credit of a debt-laden nation, thereby securing the continuity of the British Financial Revolution. In this context, Handel’s glorious music served to ignite the communal financial imagination. The historical connection between the aesthetics of the sublime and emerging economic thought is far from tenuous. Jack Amariglio, Joseph W. Childers, and Stephen E. Cullenberg have observed how Adam Smith frequently invoked the concept of “wonder,” often associated with novel and striking natural objects, to describe social phenomena—a concept that resonates with Burke’s sublime, as both evoke disorienting yet profound states that momentarily suspend reason. As they further argue, Smith’s naturalistic depiction of the capitalist economy—efficient markets and a harmonious division of labor, resembling a wondrous chain of order—parallels the sublime’s ability to naturalize complexity and abstraction.94 In this way, as the sublime 94 See Jack Amariglio, Joseph W. Childers, and Stephen E. Cullenberg, “Sublime Economy: On the Intersection of Art and Economics,” in Sublime Economy: On the Intersection of Art and Economics (Routledge, 2009), 3. 77 transitioned from the natural to the social, it played a crucial role in aestheticizing and legitimizing economic systems, framing the capitalist economy as a self-regulating, transcendent phenomenon. Similarly, in The Specter of Capital, Joseph Vogl examines the history of economic thought, modern finance, and contemporary literature to uncover a recurring economic strategy: rendering economic realities into conceptual forms he describes as powerful apparitions of an “economic sublime.”95 This economic sublime, manifesting without material form, inevitably precipitates social and political crises. In 1720, such an apparition emerged— the abstract economic realities of transatlantic trade were reimagined as a sublime experience through Handel’s music, lending a sense of tangible reality to an otherwise illusory economy. This process ultimately propped up an economy of nothingness, leading to the South Sea Bubble and its eventual collapse. THE PERILS OF THE SUBLIME However, concealed within the aesthetics of the sublime, the South Sea scheme’s financial imagination bore grim repercussions. The aesthetic proximity between the Handelian sublime and Britain’s growing bubble economy implies that an exploration of the sublime might offer insights into the nature of the Bubble itself. In Handel’s Te Deum and Jubilate, the magnificence and potency of the music captivated the British populace, fostering a propagandist conflation of nationalist fervor, religious piety, and mercantile prospects, instilling in the public a belief in the boundless profitability of a paper economy, while simultaneously disregarding the repercussions of such relentless ambition. Meanwhile, emanating an illusion of boundless growth, the fantastical South Sea scheme assumed an almost mythical guise, necessitating a suspension of disbelief that blurred the boundaries between irrational speculation and prudent calculation, all the while obscuring the demarcation between sovereign authority and 95 Joseph Vogl, The Specter of Capital, trans. Joachim Redner and Robert Savage (Stanford University Press, 2015), 8. 78 enterprising greed. In essence, the spectacles of the 1713 celebration fueled the speculative fervor of an economy metamorphosing into a spectacle in its own right—a spectacle of the market buttressed by sovereign power, gradually becoming indistinct from it. In 1769, it was Burke himself who articulated the fraught juxtaposition of public finance and private enterprise, contending that the unrestrained influence of trading companies had a corrupting effect on the political order, imperiling the very essence of sovereignty. In his capacity as a member of parliament, Burke penned the following with characteristic eloquence: In Great Britain, some of our establishments are apt for the support of credit. They stand therefore upon a principle of their own, distinct from, and in some respects contrary to, the relation between prince and subject. It is a new species of contract superinduced upon the old contract of the state. The idea of power must as much as possible be banished from it; for power and credit are things adverse, incompatible; Non bene conveniunt, nee in una sede morantur. [(They) do not consort well together, nor do they dwell in the same abode.] Such establishments are our great moneyed companies.96 While Burke’s scrutiny of the joint-stock (“moneyed”) company serves as a testament to the enduring impact of the South Sea crisis on eighteenth-century English politics, his exploration of the aesthetics of the sublime is equally relevant in offering a cautionary tale that may be said to shed light on the dangers inherent in the financial imagination propagated by the South Sea scheme. Indeed, Burke’s theory of the sublime was as much about the aesthetics of power as it was about the perils of imagination. It is vital to note that for Burke, the sublime was not confined solely to the infinite, the magnificent, and the splendid—and the pleasures they evoked. Instead, he cautioned that the powerful forces giving rise to sublime emotions were never subservient to human thought and sentiment. Instead, these spectacular phenomena often harbored danger and could cause “rapine and destruction.”97 The South Sea Bubble would indeed prove to be such a destructive spectacle. A bubble-busting contrarian of the time 96 Edmund Burke, Observations on a Late State of the Nation (J. Dodsley, 1769), 94. 97 Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry, 60. 79 articulated a demystified version of the South Sea scheme. “The rise of this stock above the true capital,” as the anonymous writer attempted to puncture the bubble, “will be only imaginary; one added to one, by any rules of vulgar arithmetic, will never make three and a half; all the fictitious value must be a loss to some persons or other.”98 If the monetary imagination fueling the South Sea scheme can indeed be considered analogous to the aesthetic logic of the sublime, then Samuel Johnson’s cautionary words about approaching such objects are particularly relevant. He advocated appreciating the sublime “without haughtiness,” a moral sharpening of the aesthetic category that highlights the potential dangers of overconfidence inherent in the sublime experience.99 The South Sea scheme, with its sublime monetary imagination, exemplified this collective hubris, ultimately leading English society and its market to ruin. To borrow from anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, modern finance, which the South Sea Bubble helped launch,100 fundamentally revolves around the extraction of value from risk.101 Through its aestheticization and subsequent neutralization of destructive forces, the sublime serves as a form of psychological risk management. Whereas the sublime allows individuals to revel in the thrill of unchecked risk-taking without bearing the consequences, when aesthetic contemplation translates into market action, one is no longer shielded from real-world repercussions. When the South Sea financial capital was eventually demystified as the bubble burst in late 1720, the sublime, as depicted in William Hogarth’s famous print (Figure 1.7), reverted to its more archaic forms: it became the terror of divine vengeance and the stain of human wickedness. In other words, the sublime became the grotesque.102 Effectively illustrating 98 Cited in Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (Plume, 1999), 69. 99 Samuel Johnson, “The History of a Man of Learning,” in Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (R. & J. Dosley, 1759). 100 See Sean Moore, “Exorcising the Ghosts of Racial Capitalism from the South Sea Bubble: Pent-up Racist Liquidity and the Recent Four-Year Stock Surge,” Eighteenth Century Studies 54, no. 1 (2020): 10- 11. 101 Arjun Appadurai, Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance (University of Chicago Press, 2016), 1-2. 102 The arguably most famous connection between the sublime and the grotesque was one made by Victor Hugo, who wrote in 1872, “it is of the fruitful union of the grotesque and the sublime types that modern 80 the perils of the sublime, the South Sea Bubble also highlights an aesthetic lesson: that eighteenth-century aesthetic categories are far from being fixed and immutable concepts. The true perils of the bubble, however, did not even play out within the confines of the British Isles but in the treacherous expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Between the 1713 peace celebration and the 1720 market crash, at least 49 vessels owned by the South Sea Company sailed from London to various ports on the West African coast and then onto the European colonies in the Caribbean.103 Take the ship St. Mark captained by a Peter Solgard for example. On November 5, 1713, less than four months after the British festivities in celebration of the Treaty of Utrecht, the ship left London; it arrived at Cape Coast Castle on January 8, 1714, and left Africa with 280 enslaved people on board, 91 of them women and 30 children. The infamous Middle Passage, where many of the human cargo, at least 19, died, took this ship 73 days to complete before it reached Kingston, Jamaica with 261 left to disembark and be trans-shipped onto the Spanish-held colonies.104 In the absence of post-Bubble hindsight, the South Sea Company, between Handel’s monumental anthem, Blunt’s market jingles, and Baldassari’s invigorating aria, persistently capitalized on its unbridled ambitions, shielded by state- sanctioned immunity. It engineered a paper economy on a national scale, a marketplace not merely facilitated by money but constituted by it, wherein intangible imaginings supplanted tangible assets as the chief wellspring of value. Neglecting to account for the real origin and toll of profits, this paper economy obscured the relationship between monetary wealth and the human and material capital that conferred on it value. genius is born.” For a less romantic account of the parallels and paradoxes between the sublime and the grotesque, see John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Vol. 3 (Cosimo Classics, 2007). 103 David Eltis et. al., The Atlantic Slave Trade Database. Take the ship St. Mark captained by a Peter Solgard for example. On November 5, 1713, four months after the Utrecht Peace celebration, the ship left London; it arrived at Cape Coast Castle on January 8, 1714, and left Africa with 280 enslaved people on board, 91 of them women and 30 children. The infamous Middle Passage, where many slaves on this ship would have died, took this ship 73 days to complete before it reached Kingston, Jamaica with only 261 left to disembark and be trans-shipped on to the Spanish-held colonies.⁠ See Eltis, et al., voyage #20634, available at https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/database. 104 David Eltis et. al., voyage #20634, available at https://www.slavcvoyages.org/voyage/database, accessed July 2022. https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/database https://www.slavcvoyages.org/voyage/database 81 Figure 1.7 Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme (1721) by William Hogarth. Source: NYPL, 316231. Indeed, the appalling realities of the trans-Atlantic voyages, riddled with mutiny, illness, and the tragic specter of suicide, conspicuously eluded the discourse concerning South Sea stock articulated by the likes of Steele, Swift, and Defoe. This omission, noted by historians, may be attributed to the propaganda machinery of the South Sea Company and the broader discourse surrounding commerce at the time.105 It seems, as Wennerlind has observed, that propaganda was intended to harness “the English fascination with the Atlantic world” through an imaginary that focused on financial profitability while “downplaying risks, challenges, and obstacles.”106 105 See, for example, Helen Paul, “The South Sea Bubble and the Erasure of Slavery and Impressment,” English Studies 102/7 (2021): 888-900. 106 Wennerlind, Casualties, 198, 224; see also 226-229 for individuated accounts of the African captives 82 This disconnect in discourse between the transatlantic voyages of South Sea Company ships and the banter in London’s coffee houses has led historians, for generations, to mistakenly label the South Sea Company a “shipless wonder.”107 On the one hand, the conspicuous absence of acknowledgment of the brutality of the Atlantic voyages in public discourse serves as an illustration of how the paper economy engineered by the South Sea scheme divorced abstract notions of value from the harsh social realities these notions concealed. In other words, by systematically abstracting risk and fervently encouraging risk-taking, the sublime vision of the South Sea scheme unmoored the financial market from the tangible economy, veiling the connection between monetary wealth and its fundamental value. On the other hand, this financial imaginary, molded by public discourse and the underlying endorsement of the pursuit of pecuniary interests, reflects what Albert O. Hirschman has famously identified as the emergence of a new eighteenth-century social psyche. In this psyche, the pursuit of wealth through commerce was not only encouraged but deemed innocuous.108 Samuel Johnson’s observation later in the century that “[t]here are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money” encapsulates this sentiment somewhat ironically.109 This tension between appearance and reality is nowhere more explicitly and ironically demonstrated than in Rule, Britannia!—the British patriotic anthem originating from James Thomson’s 1740 poem, set to music by Thomas Arne the same year. Its rousing refrain, “Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never will be slaves,” celebrates a vision of civil liberty increasingly intertwined with English national identity and, as Chapter 3 explores, grounded in early free-market principles of economic proprietorship and exchange. However, this celebrated liberty, enjoyed by the English, rested on the exploitation and enslavement of onboard the South Sea ships and one rare 1714 discussion of slave rebellion. 107 Even Simon Schama’s erudite A History of Britain is not immune to this long-standing bias. See Simon Schama, A History of Britain: The British Wars 1603-1776 (Penguin, 2009), 302. 108 See Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton University Press, 2013). 109 Cited in Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests, 58. 83 others across the Atlantic. The concept of “polite commerce” during the South Sea Bubble provided a discursive shield, obscuring these illiberal foundations and disconnecting the brutal realities of colonial production from the era’s public and political discourse. Even in the aftermath of the 1720 crisis, it was the grievances of affluent individuals regarding their losses that drowned out the voices of the enslaved.110 The aesthetics of the sublime, when considered alongside the events of the South Sea Bubble, reveal a shared logic between Handel’s musical sublime and the sublime worldview underpinning the British Financial Revolution—a logic evident not so much in their imagined specifics as in how they were specifically imagined. Analogous to the use of “Market Music” for the US stock market in 2013, Handel’s 1713 Utrecht music can be understood as a soundtrack to the early inflation of the South Sea Bubble. Examining the music alongside the economic developments reveals their shared reliance on the imaginative strategies of the sublime— expressed through concepts of boundless infinity, abstracted risk, and mystifying subjects. These concepts offer a framework for understanding the collective psyche that propelled the emergence of modern finance and its political-economic transformations. And this framework suggests that the ethos of modern finance draws more heavily from cultural factors than purely economic ones. From the Hartlibians through Harley to Hooper, the imperatives of early modern capitalism spawned by the South Sea scheme obliged contemporaries to rely on figurative language and metaphorical references to describe economic phenomena. Handel’s music can be said to offer more immediate access to these imaginaries. As such, its sublime aesthetic exposes the symbolic and metaphorical bedrock on which the eighteenth-century English financial system came to rest. This chapter thus offers a perspective on the British Financial Revolution by viewing it as a way of modeling the world that is more like music than the modern disciplines of economics and finance are customarily willing to allow.111 The 110 See Paul, “The South Sea Bubble and the Erasure of Slavery and Impressment,” 892. 111 Here I draw on Deirdre McCloskey’s critique of economics, especially its mathematization, which she 84 conventional image of eighteenth-century European economy and society often leans toward peaceful mercantilism and harmonious civility.112 However, Handel’s sublime music hints at an alternative view of this era, one characterized by the overwhelming forces of maximalist music, extravagant royal pageantry, and aggressive political-economic propaganda. It was not a period of sober and serene doux commerce but, rather, an age marked by power, risk, confusion, and turmoil, all fueled by the bravado of financiers and their political allies. In other words, the sublime financial imagination of the South Sea Bubble did not tame the “passions” with the “interests,” as Hirschman would have us believe; rather, it animated moneyed interests with the passions of a most formidable and calamitous kind. ECHOES OF EUPHORIA The 1720 South Sea Bubble, along with the concurrent Mississippi Bubble in France, had a profound and lasting impact throughout Europe. The resulting market crashes triggered a wave of musical responses across the continent, further demonstrating music’s capacity to not only reflect on the social and political consequences of these financial crises but also to illuminate their symbolic and imaginary dimensions. As the South Sea Bubble neared its collapse in England, the Mississippi Bubble— engineered by the exiled Scottish financier John Law—was simultaneously unraveling in France. Law had founded the Mississippi Company in 1717 with the ambitious goal of revolutionizing French finance by shifting from a gold and silver standard to a paper currency system. Building on the success of his Banque Royale’s paper money, he aimed to establish Paris as a major European financial center and embarked on an even bolder plan. This involved promoting the characterizes as an epistemic rift between cultural studies and modern orthodox economics. Whereas economists treat economic concepts with mathematical certainty, cultural scholars, writes McCloskey, “take economic concepts to be in the first instance imaginative constructs, figures of speech that lend themselves to the same kinds of analysis as all other modes of discourse.” See Deirdre N. McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 89. 112 Referring to Albert Hirschman’s famous formulation, the taming of the pre-modern “passions” by the modern, moneyed “interests.” See Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests, esp. 42-48. 85 Mississippi Company to stimulate French trade in the Louisiana colony and inflate the company’s stock, which at its peak exceeded eighty times the value of France’s entire gold and silver reserves.113 However, like the South Sea Company, Law’s stock and credit scheme eventually triggered a catastrophic bank run. Creditors, investors, and brokers panicked, causing a deadly stampede on rue Quincampoix, the location of the Mississippi Company’s headquarters, as they desperately tried to redeem their rapidly devaluing shares in the crashing market. The hubris behind Law’s scheme, initially celebrated as a grand national endeavor, became the subject of grotesque, sentimental, and retrospective satires in the wake of the market crash. As the boom turned to bust, the market crisis inspired a wave of musical depictions in France and Germany. Both capturing and caricaturing the devastating experience of financial speculators during this run, Francois Couperin wrote a five-voice canon entitled “Les agioteurs au désespoir.” In the surviving copy of the unpublished canon, all five voices are notated in tenor clefs, indicating that it was intended to be sung by five male voices, likely portraying stockjobbing men lamenting their lost fortunes.114 The text begins with “pleurez, pleurez, mes tristes yeux,” an opening gambit for lament frequently found in French verse of the time.115 Pleurez, pleurez, mes tristes yeux, mes tristes yeux: fortune hélas! tu me flattois: mais, pour me mieux trahir fautil rentrer dans le néant de mes aveux; quel sort fatal! ah, quel supplice; oh, Dieux! trop justes Dieux! que mes accents et que mes plaintes pénètrent jusqu’aux Cieux! [Weep, weep, my sorrowful eyes, my sorrowful eyes: 113 Larry Neal, The Rise of Financial Capitalism: International Capital Markets in the Age of Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 62-80. 114 Greer Garden, “Un canon à cinq inédit de Couperin,” Bulletin de l’Atelier d’études sur la musique française des XVIIe & XVIIIe siècles 10 (February 2001): 16–17. 115 Graham Sadler, “A Philosophy Lesson with Francois Couperin? Notes on a Newly Discovered Canon,” Early Music 32. no. 4 (2004), 541–547. 86 fortune, alas! you flattered me, only to betray me more deeply. Must I return to the void of my confessions? What cruel fate! Ah, what torment! Oh, gods! All-too-righteous gods! May my cries and lamentations reach the heavens above!]116 While the stockjobbers’ sorrow, anger, and despondency culminate in a blasphemous moan in this elegiac text, Couperin’s musical setting was not without a hint of satire. It was written in a vernacular style found in a multi-authored collection of airs à boire, or drinking songs, including another one of his salaciously entitled “L’épouse entre deux draps” (The Wife between Two Sheets).117 Mixing genres and registers, the “agioteurs” canon thus provides both a musical portrayal of the volatile experience of frantic stockjobbers and a lighthearted jab at the folly of stockjobbery. With this canon Couperin, not only revealing a largely hidden side of himself as a humorist, joins the chroniclers, ballad writers, and printmakers of his time in preserving a collective memory of the speculative mania. By 1720, speculative fervor and news of both bubbles had spread widely, conceivably reaching Frankfurt. There, the Börse, whose name originally denoted the Frankfurt meeting place for merchants and traders, now signifying “stock exchange” in modern German, housed booming trading businesses. Since 1695, this assembly had occupied the ground floor of Haus Braunfels on Liebfrauenberg. The Braunfels house itself was owned by the Frauenstein association, an influential local parlor society comprising wealthy merchants and university graduates, including members of the Börse. Living in an upper corner of the Braunfels house was composer Georg Philipp Telemann, who not only resided there but also served as the administrator and treasurer of several Frauenstein-associated charities and frequently 116 "Words like "aveux" (confession) and "néant" (nothingness) evoke the burden of sin, echoing the intertwined relationship between theology and finance explored by Charly Coleman, The Spirit of French Capitalism: Economic Theology in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, 2021). 117 Green, “Un Canon,” 16. 87 organized social events for the society. An orchestral suite (TWV55: B11 in B-flat major) composed by Telemann during the heady days of 1720 is believed to have been commissioned by members of the Frauenstein Society and the Börse. Several twentieth-century Telemann scholars have drawn speculative connections between the suite and the unfolding financial crisis in Paris. Adolf Hoffman, for instance, titled the suite “La bourse” and assigned programmatic titles to its movements: “Le repos interrompu” (Interrupted Rest), “La guerre en la paix” (War in Peacetime), “Les vainquers vaincus” (Victors Vanquished), “”La solitude associée” (Communal Solitude), and the finale, “L’espérance de Mississippi” (Hope for the Mississippi).118 These witty, sometimes oxymoronic titles imbue the suite with a narrative arc that transforms the 1720 bubble into an audible chronicle, reflecting the social, political, and psychological experiences of boom and bust. They invite listeners to experience Telemann’s suite as a sonic encapsulation of the entrepreneurial spirit and speculative fervor of the era. Unlike Couperin’s canon, Telemann did not title his suite or explicitly refer to contemporary market events. However, he was neither immune to the allure of money as a musical subject nor to the appeal of the moneyed class in society. While residing in the Braunfels house, he organized a “tobacco collegium,” mingling with stockjobbers and aristocrats, familiarizing himself with the fashionable pleasure of tobacco smoking. He was keenly aware of the appeal of incorporating money as a musical theme. A decade later, Telemann published a weekly music column in the Hamburg press, each installment featuring an aria and recitative with continuo accompaniment and instructional advice on keyboard thoroughbass playing. These pieces, later compiled into Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbass- Übungen, were musical offerings for the rising moneyed class in the Hanseatic port eager to 118 Alfred Hoffmann, Die Orchestersuiten Georg Philipp Telemanns: TWV55 (Möseler, 1969), 17. Besides Hoffmann, see also Michael Philipp, Läppische Schildereyen? Untersuchungen zur Konzeption von Programmusik im 18. Jahrhundert (Peter Lang, 1998); Steven Zohn, Music for a Mixed Taste: Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann’s Instrumental Works (Oxford University Press, 2008), 105-108. 88 participate in domestic music-making.119 Advertised in 1733 as both “delightful and instructive,” they were intended for anyone wishing to sing or play the harpsichord, as well as those learning thoroughbass accompaniment.120 In keeping with their pedagogical purpose, the arias are simple enough for even the musically inexperienced to sing without instrumental accompaniment. Telemann provided instructional notes on performing the continuo part with each song, and even wrote out the right-hand part in chordal notation for those less fluent in figured bass. This pragmatism made the songs easily adaptable for private entertainment, reflecting Telemann’s intention to both instruct and delight his readers. The pedagogical aspect often extends beyond the music itself, with the songs featuring not only inventive melodies but also witty and humorous poems. Some of these poems take on a moralizing or didactic tone, offering a lively musical portrait of the bourgeois society in which Telemann lived and reflecting its growing economic and ethical concerns. For the commercially minded middle-class readership of his musical column, money naturally emerged as a recurring theme—one that also appeared repeatedly in Telemann’s musical offerings. The second song in the collection, “Geld” ("Money, Figure 1.8a), captures “the art of moneymaking” in a restless, nimble gigue.121 The fourth song, “Seltenes Glück” (Rare Luck, Figure 1.8b), exposes the transience and futility of paper wealth, among other things, and highlights concepts like risk, uncertainty, and volatility, which were particularly salient while lessons from the financial bubbles were still fresh in memory: Ein Stand, der ohn Gefahr ist, ein guter Ruhm, der wahr ist, ein Capital, das baar ist, ein Essen, das fein gahr ist, ein Trunck, der frisch und klar ist, 119 Georg Philipp Telemann, Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbassübungen (1733-1734). 120 Hamburgische Berichte von neuen gelehrten Sachen 2, 88 (November 3, 1733). See also the discussion of the rising subscription price and commercial success of Telemann’s Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbassübungen in Brian Douglas Stewart, Georg Philipp Telemann in Hamburg: Social and Cultural Background and Its Musical Expression (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1985), 127-128. 121 Die grösste kunst ist geld zu machen, / aufs geld kommt endlich alles an. / Wer dieses handwerk nicht verstehet, / und mit der weisheit betteln gehet, / der ist wahrhaftig schlimm daran. 89 ein Weib, das guter Haar ist. und unter zwanzig jahr ist, wenn diß zusammen dar ist, das heist ein Glück, dar rar ist. [A standing that is without threat, a good reputation that is true, a capital that is ready money, a meal that is well made, a drink that is fresh and clear, a woman with a good head of hair, and under twenty years of age: when all of these are combined, it adds up to luck that is rare.] Figure 1.8 “Geld” and “Seltenes Glück” from Georg Philipp Telemann, Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbass-Übungen (Hamburg, 1733–1734). Source: SBzB, Mus. O. 12035. If “Geld” and “Seltenes Glück” show how contemporaries grappled with wealth in the wake of the 1720 financial market bubbles, then another song in the collection offers even more nuanced 90 and deeper insights into the cultural elements infused with commercial practices and the various prejudices prevalent in this new money economy. Familiar with tobacco’s associations with status and wealth, Telemann composed music that embraced this fashionable vice as its theme. In Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbassübungen, a pair of recitative and aria, “Toback,” Nos. 39 and 40 in the collection (Figure 1.9), offer what might be considered an intoxicated tribute to tobacco. The aria opens as an encomium to tobacco’s euphoria-inducing properties, praising its ability to bring about a pleasant diversion for the smoker. The recitative, somewhat disconcertingly, transitions into a tongue-in-cheek rumination on the exclusively masculine practice of puffing away at “der Toback”: In allen Lexicis in allen Wörterbüchern, ist doch kein schöner Wort, als der Toback. Diss wort erquicket mein Gemüte, diss Wort verkürzet mir, durch seine lange Güte, so manche liebe Nacht, wie manchen lieben Tag. Ihr deutschen Herrn grammatici! ihr zehlet den Toback mit Rechte zu den Nominibus von männlichem Geschlechte; denn der Toback gehört nicht vor das Vieh, das generis neutrus ist; auch vor die Weiber nicht, die in dem foeminino stehen; denn wenn wir auf das Genus gehen, so pflegt er, wie man billig schliesst, den männern nur allein mit Rechte zuzukommen: wiedoch die Weiber ausgenommen, die generis communis sein. [In all lexicons, in all dictionaries, there is no more beautiful word than tobacco. This word refreshes my mind, this word allows me to while away, through its lasting generosity, so many a lovely night, and so many a delightful day. Oh, ye German grammarians! How rightly you place tobacco among the nouns of the masculine gender! For tobacco does not belong to cattle, which are neutral, nor to women, who take the feminine. When it comes to gender, as one may reasonably conclude, tobacco belongs rightly to men alone; women are excepted for they are the common kind.] 91 Figure 1.9 “Toback” (Air) and “Toback” (Recitative) from Georg Philipp Telemann, Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbass-Übungen (Hamburg, 1733–1734). Source: SBzB, Mus. O. 12035. Emblematic of overseas trade, tobacco also served as a status symbol for those navigating the emerging financial market. At the Frankfurt Börse, gatherings often entertained by Telemann’s orchestral suites were even called “tobacco colloquiums.” The financial aspirations of companies like the South Sea Company likewise relied heavily on visions of exotic wealth, accessible through their exclusive rights to trans-Atlantic trade routes. From the late seventeenth century, intercontinental trade by European nations was often managed through nationally chartered companies. For the South Sea Company, tobacco was a significant source of income, its exotic appeal symbolizing the imagined wealth of distant lands. At the South Sea Company’s incorporation, Parliament passed a bill imposing tariffs on specific “East India goods,” including tobacco. These tariffs, however, were largely a financial maneuver 92 devised by the Exchequer in collusion with the South Sea Company. Once the Company converted sovereign debt into stock shares, the tariffs that would otherwise have been collected by the government were effectively repurposed as the interest paid to the Company under the debt-to-equity agreement. Through these financial strategies, tobacco, along with items like wines and whale fins explicitly named in the legislation, entered the European market via the South Sea Company’s trade operations. Figure 1.10 A 1721 Exchequer receipt documenting English MP Lord William Powlett’s payment to the South Sea Company for goods, including over £900 worth of imported tobacco. Source: HBL, Foxwell MS 195A. Though intended as a keyboard and singing exercise, Telemann’s “Toback” was not a typical figured-bass drill. The recitative’s lexicographic reflection on tobacco as an exclusively male pastime may initially appear ironically facetious, but its moralizing tone becomes evident when viewed in conjunction with other poems in the collection, such as “Seltenes Glück.” By 93 Telemann’s time, tobacco smoking was no longer a sign of idleness provoking moral condemnation as it had been in the seventeenth century. Instead, it was a legitimate recreation and a symbol of status and wealth.122 However, as Telemann’s poet Daniel Stoppe noted, this prerogative to hold a pipe should be reserved for men only. Given tobacco’s symbolism, this moral advice can also be read as an indictment of women’s association with lavish spending. A particular strand of thought following the financial bubbles blamed women, or the perceived hysteria associated with the gender, for society’s impulsive consumption and speculative mania.123 In Daniel Defoe’s writing, for example, marketplace and stock exchange activities were often linked to “female” qualities of passion, symbolized by goddesses of disorder like Luxury, Credit, and Fortune.124 The simultaneous commercialization and feminization of literature, as Catherine Ingrassia argues, produced a bourgeois revolution—or rather, revelation—of culture, highlighting the growing affinities between the cultural construction of women and the new economic subject.125 Undoubtedly, Telemann would have witnessed firsthand the growth and eventual burst of the South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles while living in Frankfurt. In the early 1730s, when the trauma was likely still fresh, some might have conflated femininity with irrational exuberance, articulating the moral imperative of re-instilling a masculine order as a corrective. Keeping tobacco exclusive to men could be interpreted as keeping women away from the sensory and 122 For a discussion of music and tobacco in eighteenth-century North Germany in relation to the Bach family, see David Yearsley, Sex, Death, and Minuets: Anna Magdalena Bach and Her Musical Notebooks (University of Chicago Press, 2019). 123 See Catherine Ingrassia, Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England: A Culture of Paper Credit (Cambridge University Press, 1998); Laura Mandell, Misogynous Economies: The Business of Literature in Eighteenth-Century Britain (University Press of Kentucky, 1999); Laura Brown, Fables of Modernity (Cornell University Press, 2001). 124 Defoe, for instance, portrays Lady Credit as a figure of moral ambiguity, whose instability introduces a destabilizing element into society: “If she covers her most scandalous behavior, it passes for virtue; the spouse deceived by her takes a prostitute, and swears she was a virgin; demonstration will hardly convince against her evidence; and a whole life of virtue won’t repair the injury she does…,” cited in Daniel Defoe, The Best of Defoe’s Review: An Anthology, ed. William L. Payne (Columbia University Press, 1951), 119. Seventeenth-century English civic humanism often viewed honesty, independence and martiality as masculine virtues while often portraying luxury, credit and fortune as feminine vices. See Emma J. Clery, The Feminization Debate in Eighteenth-Century England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). 125 Ingrassia, Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England, 2-4. 94 discursive domain of financial speculation, thus reaffirming the “männliches Geschlechte” (masculine lineage) of the economic man. While his readers entertained themselves at the keyboard with the song and pondered tobacco’s gendered protocol, Telemann also provided them with strict rules about continuo playing: never re-strike the left-hand bass note during a dissonant figure and always cadence appropriately according to the correct style—“in opera, final cadences are struck as soon as the singer pronounces the final syllables, whereas in cantatas, they are usually delayed until after the singer has finished.”126 It is as if the harpsichordist’s attention to textural propriety mirrored the social decorum of the tobacco collegium. Through this tobacco-inspired exercise, Telemann imparted the rules of performing secco recitative: only impeccably timed punctuations were permitted, with no room for whimsical runs or fanciful embellishments. One cannot help but wonder if such restraints were also a commentary on market wisdom— as Telemann’s readers perused this exercise, they might have even wished that such discipline and restraint had extended to the market itself, perhaps averting the fateful crash. Given Telemann’s various forays into market-themed music and his close ties to stock- trading neighbors in the tobacco collegium, it is little surprise that scholars like Adolf Hoffmann have been drawn to label his B-flat suite with the evocative title “La bourse,” as previously noted. Hoffmann even extended this programmatic interpretation by suggesting that the opening movement of the suite symbolizes “the pride and certainty of the stockholders.”127 Perhaps, one might take this programmatic imagination even further.128 While the regal French overture sections that frame the movement certainly lend a character of "pride and certainty," it is the 126 “Wann ein dissonirender eintrit, so schlägetnur die rechte, nicht aber zugleich die linke hand an; löset aber solcher sich in consonanziren, so schlagen beyde hände an. … Die schlüsse warden in Opern sofort angeschlagen, wann der Sänger die letzten Sylben spricht, in Cantaten aber pfleget mansie nachzuschlagen.” 127 Hoffmann, Die Orchestersuiten, 17. 128 For a fuller market-inspired interpretation of Telemann’s suite and the Mississippi Bubble, see David Yearsley, “Market Music,” Counterpunch (February 23, 2018), https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/23/market-music/. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/23/market-music/ 95 middle fugal section that seems to depict the dangerous exuberance of market speculation. Its contrasting musical textures, daring harmonic shifts, and inventive orchestration create a sense of restless energy. Examining the manuscript reveals that Telemann’s original fugue subject was more measured and deliberate—a jagged subject made of long notes (mostly quarters) moving in a deliberate and unhurried pace. (Figure 1.11) Figure 1.11 Excerpts from Georg Philipp Telemann’s manuscript for his La Bourse suite, TWV55: B11, published in the 1730s. The left shows the original fugal design crossed out by the composer; the right shows the beginning of the final version of the fugue. Blue annotations are by the author. Source: Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden, Mus.2392-O-34. Accessible online at https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/15378/1/. However, he quickly replaced it with a high-spirited, fast-paced version. This new subject (mostly in eighth notes) is further enlivened by a countersubject moving twice as fast, their combination replicated seamlessly in alternative permutations of voices. This design evokes a sense of restlessness, like an automaton churning out counterpoint with its whirling cogs and gears. If one interprets the proliferating counterpoint in the fugal exposition as the bustling activity of stockjobbers trading and bidding, then the modulating sequence in the middle of the fugue, with its unpredictable harmonic path, could be seen as mirroring the precarious nature of quick money. Equal parts exciting and nervous, this music could well have resonated with https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/15378/1/ 96 Telemann’s financially inclined neighbors when performed at his soirées.129 In giving the stock exchange a musical shape—a creative impulse that foreshadows CNN’s “Market Music” nearly 300 years later—Telemann’s “La Bourse” suite lays bare the symbolic, imaginative, and affective dimensions upon which money, credit, and the new financial order of the eighteenth-century economy relied, illuminating simultaneously how they were both understood and experienced. This suggests that the discourse and practice of the early modern financial market were as much about economic concerns as they were about cultural expression, even a musical one. More than a mere aesthetic counterpoint to the market frenzy, music during the 1720 bubbles—exemplified by not only Telemann’s suite, but also Handel’s rousing anthem, the English opera company’s contentious castrato arias, and the proliferating strains of ballads enticing the public into stock speculation—served as a social adhesive. It bound the public to the bubble economy, creating a shared pecuniary interest that intertwined cultural and financial participation. It had an imaginative impact on the burgeoning financial market and its participants by creating a sensuous shape that both fueled the fantasies of speculators and aroused the suspicions of their detractors. This eighteenth-century market music demonstrates that monetary and aesthetic interests—their distinctions routinely invoked in today’s political and scholarly spheres—were mutually generative in those early days of financial capitalism. This interconnectedness is the central focus of the following chapters. 129 For a technical account of stock-jobbery in the eighteenth-century, see Thomas Mortimer, Every man his own broker; or, A guide to Exchange-Alley (1769); for analysis of trading activities in the coffee houses, see Edward Stringham, “The Emergence of the London Stock Exchange as a Self-Policing Club.” Journal of Private Enterprise 17, 2 (2002), 1–19. 97 2. THE BOOM OPERA IN THE PROJECTING AGE On December 7, 1719, George Sewell, physician, poet, and Tory propagandist, premiered The Tragedy of Sir Walter Raleigh at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre. The play dramatizes the life of the titular character, a favorite courtier of Queen Elizabeth’s who was executed by James II after the dynastic change. Sewell portrays Raleigh as a colonial adventurer who journeys to the West Indies and fights the Spanish colonial competitors, before returning home not to a hero’s welcome but to mortal betrayal by his family. Towards the end of the play, Sewell describes Raleigh’s life as a “most unhappy voyage,” both at sea and in the court of James II. Raleigh’s audacious yet ill-starred expedition became an ominous reminder of the fatal perils that shadowed maritime adventure and commerce in the roiling South Sea. By then, those waters had come to embody, in the imagination of the English elites, a confluence of opulence, corruption, brutality, and the ever-present specter of death. Sewell reinforced this message in the play’s epilogue, shifting his audience’s focus from the Elizabethan golden age to their own Georgian era—and the swelling investment frenzy surrounding the South Sea venture of their time: Of all Invasions in the present Age, None have proved worse than those upon the Stage… Shall doux, dear Harlequin, from France return, And in low Farce for Paint and Ruffles burn No, hark! Another Foreign Note I hear, Italian Nonsense trickles thro’ my Ear! Behold un-number’d Beaus and Ladies flock! Subscribe, as if to Mississippi-Stock. Go on, and make your English Maim known, Bubbles to every Country but your own.1 Sewell’s invective was but one voice among a chorus of detractors decrying the inflating 1 Published in The Weekly Medley, December 5, 1719. 98 market bubble. Suggesting that the financial hysteria’s contagious spread could be observed through the cultural shift on London’s stages, Sewell also became the first known writer to link the South Sea mania with the Royal Academy of Music.2 Just as he had penned his play soon after the announcement of the opera company’s incorporation, Sewell now saw the enthusiastic founding of the Academy, the widespread subscription to opera shares, and the growing popularity of Italian opera in London as symptomatic of the financial hysteria sweeping the nation. The Tragedy of Sir Walter Raleigh premiered just a month before the South Sea Company launched its most ambitious lobbying effort yet, seeking parliamentary approval for a large-scale public subscription to its stock—a plan that would ultimately ignite the company’s meteoric stock price surge in 1720. However, while the South Sea Bubble had yet to inflate, a similar frenzy was already captivating European traders: the Mississippi Company. By 1719, the French Mississippi Company’s stock had become a coveted asset among both domestic and international investors, driven by John Law’s promotional prowess and Louis XV’s staunch support for French banking reform. Speculators and their capital flocked to France, lured by the soaring valuation of Mississippi stock, which reached an astonishing 2,000 livre. This era gave rise to the term “millionaire,” a concept so novel and bewildering in its magnitude that the Duchess of Orleans famously remarked, “Everybody speaks in millions. I don’t understand it at all, but it’s evident that Mammon reigns as an absolute monarch in Paris.”3 The investors were gripped by a complex mix of emotions: trepidation and excitement, buoyancy and confusion, and above all, a profound fear of missing out.4 By late 1719, the Mississippi Company had 2 See editors’ commentary in HCD vol. I, 456. 3 Quoted in P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit in England 1688–1756 (Gregg Revivals, 1993), 84. 4 The allure of cross-border trade was particularly pronounced among the aristocracy and government officials, who, privy to privileged information, found ways to engage with the French market. For example, in September 1719, the Duke of Chandos invested £40,000 into Drummond’s Bank, the delegated broker of French Mississippi stock in England, and sought to invest directly under John Law’s guidance. Law’s rapid success with the Banque Royale and the Mississippi scheme sparked anxiety among investors both domestically and internationally, fearing they would miss out on lucrative opportunities. This fear drove 99 already sparked intense investment interest among the Britain’s wealthy elites. In this topical epilogue, Sewell compared this speculative frenzy surrounding the “Mississippi-Stock” in Paris to the institutional emergence of the Royal Academy of Music, attributing both to the public delusion that fueled the South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles. He saw the Royal Academy’s founding as another gamble of irrational exuberance, equating the cultural investment in Italian opera with the artificially inflated stock prices. Sewell’s satire might suggest that he viewed the growing speculative fever as a foreign contagion, much like the allure of Italian opera, portraying the English public’s eagerness to engage in foreign ventures as a fashionable folly that led them to “bubble to every country but your own.” However, his satire may have obscured a deeper truth about his countrymen’s own desire to replicate the financial success of the French. Indeed, emboldened by the Mississippi Company’s hype, the South Sea Company presented its most ambitious debt-to-equity conversion scheme to Parliament in late 1719. The company proposed assuming nearly half the outstanding national debt, a staggering £30,981,712, offering a modest 5% interest rate, with an option for early redemption. This proposal, accessible to all, proved immensely attractive and quickly garnered parliamentary backing. On January 21, 1720, a detailed plan for implementation was presented to Parliament, receiving approval, and the first subscription opened in the spring of 1720.5 While the enthusiasm surrounding the South Sea Company’s public subscription was monumental, the 1720 mania was characterized by a far broader appetite for investment opportunities extending beyond the Mississippi and South Sea Company shares. At the time, a them to continuously swap their holdings for newer investments tied to the Mississippi scheme. For instance, the Duke of Chandos exchanged his South Sea shares for Mississippi stock upon receiving insider news about the merger of the Banque Nationale and the Mississippi Company. This example illustrates how speculators, driven by the allure of greater profits, perpetually gambled on what they perceived as more advantageous options. See Trevor Jackson, Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690–1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 70-72. 5 Carl Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011), 234. 100 full-fledged equity boom also swept the markets, with a proliferation of smaller companies emulating the financial mechanisms of larger enterprises like the South Sea Company. This entrepreneurial boom, as stockbroker-turned-author Thomas Mortimer would later describe, saw London’s artisans, merchants, and industrialists, along with a wave of newcomers to the market, plunging into speculative financial ventures. Mortimer aptly coined the term “domestic bubbling” to capture this phenomenon.6 Indeed, the term “South Sea Bubble,” retrospectively describing this dramatic episode in the history of finance, is somewhat misleading. Contemporaries more frequently referred to it in the plural as the “Exchange Alley Bubbles,” reflecting a broader market upheaval not limited to the infamous company but characterized by a proliferation of joint-stock ventures, each trading feverishly on their inflated, notional capital. By 1660, England had fewer than fifteen joint-stock companies including mostly such notable large joint-stocks as the East India Company, whose shares were held by a small group of upper-class individuals and traded infrequently. The rise of these large joint-stock companies signaled to many merchants that the corporate structure was a powerful method for business expansion. It enabled merchants and entrepreneurs to pool resources and share both risks and profits, facilitating ventures that would have been too costly or risky for individuals to undertake alone. The joint-stock model also introduced the concept of limited liability, shielding shareholders from company liabilities beyond the value of their individual investments. This crucial feature, as John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge have put it, made the joint-stock company one of the most significant innovations in the organization of early modern commerce.7 As such, by 1700 the landscape had changed dramatically: the number of such 6 Cited in David Hancock, “‘Domestic bubbling’: eighteenth-century London merchants and individual investment in the Funds,” Economic History Review 47, no. 4 (1994): 679-702. 7 The financial structuring of early-modern joint-stock companies differed little from that of their modern equivalents. Essentially a large-scale merchant partnership, joint-stock companies allowed numerous investors to participate in ventures by exchanging capital for shares. Profits were pooled and distributed, capital stock was issued, and the company was operated for profit. Successful ventures increased share value, providing investors with the opportunity to sell at a gain. This model, emerging in late fourteenth- century Europe, provided merchants with an efficient means to maximize resources, streamline production, manage trade, mitigate risk, and outmaneuver competitors. See John Micklethwait and 101 companies had increased to over 150, boasting a market capitalization of approximately £4.3 million—a fourfold increase since 1685.8 The shareholder base also broadened significantly, incorporating small merchants and even lay investors.9 Additionally, the business focus of these companies expanded from primarily overseas trade to include domestic productions such as manufacturing and mining, and, most crucially, various forms of financial management, including insurance and banking.10 During the South Sea Bubble, speculative capital fueled a dramatic surge in company capitalization. This was exemplified by two rival insurance companies, each seeking a fantastical £3 million in capital through subscription drives launched on consecutive days.11 This culture of “projecting,” a term coined by Daniel Defoe in his 1697 Essay upon Projects, captured the fervent spirit of incorporation during the era. Entrepreneurs, or “projectors,” eagerly embraced the financial boom fueled by expanding paper credit, equity funding, and the corporate form.12 This projecting age, as economist Werner Sombart describes it, marked the birth of modern entrepreneurial capitalism, where self-made individuals gained recognition by transforming widely available capital into dynamic social resources.13 However, Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library, 2005), 11- 12, 15, 33. 8 Between 1660 and 1700, England experienced a dramatic surge in joint-stock patent grants, with 236 issued in that period alone. This number represents a nearly twentyfold increase compared to the previous decades of the century. Remarkably, over a quarter of these patents were concentrated in just three years, from 1691 to 1693. This data indicates a significant acceleration in private company incorporation during the early stages of the financial revolution in England. See John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (Stanford University Press, 1960), 15. 9 Carswell, The South Sea Bubble. Notable examples of small, specialized craftsmen, manufacturers, and brokers leveraging the joint-stock model to expand their businesses include the Lustrings Company, which focused on producing the luxurious French fabric known as lustrings, and the White Paper Company, which operated under a new joint-stock patent for manufacturing white paper. 10 Ranald Michie, The London Stock Exchange: A History (Oxford University Press, 2001), 15. 11 Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (1960), 102. 12 In his well-known 1697 Essay upon Projects, Daniel Defoe attempted to make a positive case for the “projectors and projects,” the eighteenth-century buzzwords for entrepreneurs and enterprises, by outlining the social changes that could be brought about by joint-stock projects in Britain’s new capital market. For a discussion of Defoe’s essay, see Jon Klancher, “From the Age of Projects to the Age of Institutions,” in Transfiguring the Arts and Sciences: Knowledge and Cultural Institutions in the Romantic Age (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 30-33. 13 For instance, Werner Sombart’s analysis of entrepreneurial capitalism, mirrored in Defoe’s essay, highlights readily available money capital as the primary resource leveraged by early modern 102 eighteenth-century projectors were driven not solely by structural factors like equity and credit markets, but also by a pervasive commercial optimism—what one anonymous pamphleteer has called the “extravagant humour of stock-jobbing.”14 This unrestrained “humour” also imbued the term projector with a pejorative connotation. While projecting could suggest industry and innovation, it also implied the creation of something from nothing. This latter meaning extended to dishonest enterprises, established under false pretenses to exploit the burgeoning capital boom. As Defoe warned, the new financial prospects had also “raised the fancies of credulous people,” compelling them to engage in previously unimaginable activities such as “forming committees, establishing companies, and buying shares” based merely on the “shadow of expectation.”15 Offering a broader perspective on the South Sea Bubble, William Goetzmann has situated the 1720 crisis within the context of Defoe’s “projecting age.” Goetzmann argues that easy access to credit and equity funding during this period was as crucial to the Bubble’s formation as the missteps of the South Sea Company itself.16 This environment enabled the Company to launch increasingly ambitious subscription schemes, further fueling the hysteria that swept through the market.17 This interpretation finds resonance in post-crash reflections on the bubble, such as the satirical print, The Bubblers Mirrour: or England’s Folly, produced by the renowned Bowles family of London printmakers (Figure 2.1). It humorously depicts the entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs transformed this widespread capital into mobilized social resources through their "projects." This eighteenth-century projecting culture, Sombart argues, reveals a hallmark of modern capitalism: a growing awareness of the interconnectedness of money, social mobility, and societal change. See Werner Sombart, The Quintessence of Capitalism: A Study of the History and Psychology of the Modern Business Man, trans. Bryan S. Turner (Taylor & Francis, 1998), 160-8. 14 Anonymous, “A Proposal for putting some stop to the extravagant humour of stock jobbing” (London, 1697). 15 Daniel Defoe, An Essay Upon Projects (Tho. Cockerill, 1697). 16 William N. Goetzmann, Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible (Princeton University Press, 2017), 320-346. 17 As John Shovlin has pointed out, the South Sea Company cannot be solely blamed for promoting joint- stock ventures and financial speculation. Instead, it was the broader zealous environment of the “projecting age” that set the stage for such enterprises. Shovlin emphasizes that this era’s speculative culture was crucial in creating the conditions necessary for the South Sea Company’s dramatic rise and influence. See John Shovlin. “Jealousy of Credit: John Law’s ‘System’ and the Geopolitics of Financial Revolution,” The Journal of Modern History 88, no. 2 (2016): 275–305. 103 South Sea Company as a central hub for speculative capital, listing “bubble companies”—newly established ventures designed to rapidly attract funds by emulating the joint-stock equity structure of the South Sea Company. Though these ventures ultimately collapsed with the bursting of the bubble, they nonetheless cemented the corporate model’s prominence, ushering in an era characterized by the rapid transformation of ideas into enterprises, powered by the expanding possibilities of financial instruments and the seemingly inexhaustible resources of financial capital. Figure 2.1 Satirical print by Thomas and Carrington Bowles, The Bubblers Mirrour; or England’s Folly (1720). Source: BM, 1935,0522.1.4. 104 Amid this zeal for investment and surging capital, the Royal Academy of Music was incorporated. It is hardly surprising that enthusiasts and practitioners of opera in England were among the first in the cultural and entertainment sectors to adopt the newly popular joint-stock company model. For the past decade, English opera ventures, first led by John Vanbrugh in 1708 and then by John James Heidegger from 1716 to 1718, had struggled to sustain themselves, ultimately ending in bankruptcy.18 The era’s enthusiasm for innovative financial strategies naturally extended to the music business, injecting hope into the notoriously costly and risky venture of staging opera. The incorporation of opera, with its joint-stock mechanisms for risk- hedging, capital pooling, and collective ownership, appeared to be capacious in countering the many setbacks faced by previous English operatic ventures. Despite English critics routinely mobilizing xenophobic tropes against Italian opera, the Academy’s entrepreneurial founders remained committed to what Sewell derisively termed “foreign nonsense” on the English stage. This interplay between Sewell’s satire and the South Sea Bubble underscored a deeper social truth exemplified by the founding of the Royal Academy of Music: the emerging link between speculative investment and cultural enterprises. Indeed, this “projecting age” witnessed the hyper-commercialization of theatrical entertainment. In Speculative Enterprise, theater historian Mattie Burkert identifies this phenomenon as the “theater-finance nexus,” a concept that highlights the interplay between the rise of financial capitalism and public theater.19 For Burkert, this nexus provides a vital lens for examining London’s shifting public sphere in tandem with the nascent practices of financial speculation. While Burkert focuses broadly on English theater culture in the eighteenth century, it only briefly acknowledges the Royal Academy of Music as an example of the convergence of art and finance. Building on Burkert’s insights, this chapter explores early modern London’s 18 See Judith Milhous, “Opera Finances in London, 1674-1738,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 37, no. 3 (1984): 571-582. 19 Mattie Burkert, Speculative Enterprise: Public Theaters and Financial Markets in London, 1688–1763 (University of Virginia Press, 2021), 1-14. 105 intertwining of theater and finance through Italian opera in greater detail. Building on Burkert’s insights, I aim to explore how opera—an imported musical entertainment increasingly integrated into London’s native theater culture—became a vibrant arena for speculative enterprise and conspicuous consumption, while simultaneously provoking and sustaining critiques of these practices. This phenomenon reflects the hyper-commercialism of London’s urban culture and the rising tide of financialization, exposing striking connections between the Royal Academy of Music in the city’s West End and the bustling Exchange Alley in the heart of the city. MUSICAL GENTRIFICATION It has commonly been believed that the idea of establishing the Royal Academy of Music originated in early 1719 among a group of wealthy aristocratic men, their enthusiasm for music, particularly Italian opera, fueled by experiences from their grand tours of the continent and peer influence back home.20 However, a previously overlooked document in the Duke of Portland Papers offers a new perspective on these initial discussions. This document, unexamined by musicologists and historians of the eighteenth-century London theater until now, suggests that the project was as much about music as it was about finance—and the document reveals that the Royal Academy of Music, in its original conception, was more ambitious and capital-intensive than how it eventually materialized. This document is a memorandum from the Portland (Welbeck) Collection, relating to the Dukes of Portland family, including Henry Bentinck, a founding subscriber to the Royal Academy of Music.21 It outlines an ambitious building project— a new theater in London specifically designed for opera, established through a joint stock 20 Elizabeth Gibson, analyzing a letter from the Duke of Newcastle, has deduced that a group referred to as “Several Gentlemen” initiated discussions regarding a new commercial venture “for the Encouragement of Musick” as early as 1719. While seemingly unaware of the subsequent opera theater project, Gibson concludes that the specifics of these early discussions remain elusive. See Elizabeth Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music, 1719-1728: The Institution and Its Directors (Garland, 1989), 108. 21 UNott Pw 2/571. 106 offering (Figure 2.2). This document reveals that the Academy was initially envisioned not merely as an opera management company but also as a physical venue for performing “Plays and Operas.”22 Figure 2.2 “A List of Subscribers to the Building of a New Theatre in the Haymarket.” Source: UNott, Pw 2/571. Given its handwritten nature, and the fact that it was in the possession of the Duke of Portland, this memorandum likely functioned as an informal prospectus aimed at attracting additional 22 “List of Subscribers to the Building of a New Theatre in the Haymarket”: This memorandum contains a list of subscribers who each promised to make four separate payments of 100 guineas to fund the construction of a new theatre in or near the Haymarket. The document lists subscribers by title or name. The total funds raised amounted to £10,000. The subscriptions were structured in installments corresponding to different construction stages. First installment: Upon signing the lease for the ground; Second installment: When the walls reach twenty feet high; Third installment: For the roof; Fourth installment: Once the building is covered. Once the project was completed, every subscriber would be entitled to plays and operas “delivered to him by the undertakers” at the new theater. 107 subscribers. Leading the initiative were several prominent members of the landed gentry, including the Dukes of Newcastle (Thomas Pelham-Holles), Kent (Henry Grey), Grafton (Charles Fitzroy), Manchester (Charles Montagu), Earl of Halifax (George Montagu) and, presumably Portland too, who undoubtedly found the project a worthwhile investment. Notably, many of these individuals were also listed as founding subscribers in the Royal Academy of Music’s May 1719 charter, indicating their leadership roles in the Academy’s eventual incorporation. This continuity suggests that the earlier theater project served as a precursor to the Royal Academy of Music. The involvement of these men in financing the opera theater extended beyond their passion for music. Alongside their shared enthusiasm for Italian culture, several of them were drawn to the nascent stock market. These five peers, all active in seeking investment opportunities and known for their significant South Sea Company holdings, likely saw the opera theater as another promising venture in the thriving financial economy. In as early as 1717, even before the Parliamentary approval of the South Sea Company’s incorporation, Chandos had already nominated himself as a director of the South Sea Company when the idea was newly proposed by Robert Harley in 1711; and over the ensuing decade, he would maintain considerable holdings in the company stock.23 In 1720, the Duke of Newcastle reached out to South Sea director Charles Stanhope and his ally in Parliament, the Duke of Sunderland (Charles Spencer), to inquire about a new subscription round.24 Eager to be at the forefront of such a promising opportunity, Newcastle saw this investment as a means to clear his substantial 23 Charles Henry Collins Baker and Muriel I. Baker, The Life and Circumstances of James Brydges: First Duke of Chandos, Patron of the Liberal Arts (Clarendon Press, 1949). Chandos was not only enthusiastic about the South Sea investment, but actively sought to participate in its management. In 1711, he wrote to Robert Harley, offering himself as a director for the South Sea Company. He touted his experience as paymaster for Lord Marlborough during the War of Spanish Succession, positioning himself as the ideal candidate for the role. To further demonstrate his confidence in Harley’s project, Chandos revealed that he and his associates had already invested a considerable sum of £50,000 in the company. See also Matthew David Mitchell, “‘Legitimate Commerce’ in the Eighteenth Century: The Royal African Company of England Under the Duke of Chandos, 1720-1726,” Enterprise & Society 14, no. 3 (2013): 544-78. 24 Carswell, 168-9. 108 debts, accrued from his extravagant lifestyle.25 The document in Figure 2.2 specifies that subscribers each committed to four installments of £100, totaling £400 per subscriber, to fund the land lease, materials, and labor for the opera theater’s construction. With 25 subscribers listed, the estimated cost of the theater was £10,000.26 In return for their investment, the document states that each subscriber was entitled to “see all Plays and Operas delivered to him by the undertaker.” This arrangement suggests that the nobles were initially less interested in managing the opera business itself and more interested in treating it as a real estate investment, anticipating profits from both the new building and the entertainment it would house. It was hardly surprising that the Royal Academy’s original subscribers held motivations beyond the purely musical. While some, like the Duke of Manchester, who had previously supported Vanbrugh’s opera venture, possessed experience in opera financing and a passion for Italian music, others, like the Earl of Chesterfield, harbored deep skepticism. Chesterfield, albeit serving as a director of the Academy for several seasons, expressed disdain for Italian opera, criticizing its “dissipation of masquerades, ridotti, and operas” as frivolous “singing, fiddling, and piping” that contradicted proper English gentlemanly conduct.27 Regardless of their musical predilections, these English elites, having witnessed the transformative economic potential of equity investments through the South Sea Company, recognized the financial and commercial advantages of applying the joint-stock model to opera. That the Royal Academy of Music was initially poised to be a real estate project was no 25 Newcastle, notorious for his financial mismanagement, inherited £25,000 but died with a mere £9,000, having amassed over £300,000 in debt during his lifetime. Lured by the prospect of erasing his debts through the South Sea Company’s stock, Newcastle sought to acquire shares. In a letter to Charles Stanhope, Secretary of the Treasury, he lauded the Whig-backed project as a morally justifiable route to financial freedom. Despite his efforts, correspondence reveals that he ultimately lost £4,000 on the investment. See Ray A. Kelch, Newcastle; a Duke Without Money: Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1693-1768 (University of California Press, 1974). 26 The list of English noblemen in the document include Somerset, Devonshire, Richmond, Newcastle, Lindsey, Bolton, Carlisle, Kent, Cholmondeley, Bedford, Hall, Essex, P. Bentinck, Manchester, Coke, Kingston, Grafton, Cornwall, Hervey, Hartington, Conway, Ormond, Woodstock, Denton. 27 Cited in Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music, 1719-1728, 46. 109 coincidence. Its timing aligned with a period of rapid urban development in London, driven by the rise of paper credit. The financial boom facilitated access to urban property leases, mortgage financing, and building investments, making land speculation both more accessible and profitable. During this real estate boom, the York Buildings Company emerged as one of the most infamous bubble companies.28 Originally incorporated as a joint-stock company to develop the city’s water utilities, it quickly became entangled in the market frenzy, exploiting its existing joint-stock patent, a coveted commodity amidst the incorporating zeal,29 to transition from water management to real estate speculation and insurance. This shift allowed the company to raise substantial equity, fueling its diverse and supposedly profitable ventures. Among the York Buildings Company’s ventures was the construction of an opulent building near Villiers Street, home to the York Buildings Room. Despite its modest size, this lavishly decorated venue, featuring a ceiling by Antonio Verrio, quickly became a sought-after space where renowned musicians hosted benefit concerts and private salons.30 The castrato Benedetto Baldassari, who headlined the Academy’s inaugural opera, hosted one of the popular concerts held in the York Buildings Room in January 1721, hosted one of the popular concerts in the York Buildings Room in January 1721, as the venue was cementing its status as a cultural hotspot in early eighteenth- century London.31 Aristocrats, energized by the surge of financial capital from the South Sea boom, swiftly 28 See A. J. G. Cummings, “The York Buildings Company: A Case in Eighteenth-Century Corporation Mismanagement” (PhD thesis, University of Strathcyde, 1980) and William Robert Scott, The Constitutions and Finance of English, Scottish and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720 (Cambridge University Press, 1912), 426-36. 29 As the value of joint-stock charters and warrants soared in the 1690s, companies began actively trading these instruments, using them to finance operations and fueling a speculative frenzy in Exchange Alley. Meanwhile, patents–crucial for establishing a company’s legitimacy–became scarce commodities as a flood of new business proposals emerged. This surge in patent activity mirrored the broader wave of entrepreneurial enthusiasm that had swept through English society since the Glorious Revolution. See Carswell, The South Sea Bubble, 15-16 & 167 and C. MacLeod, “The 1690s Patent Boom: Invention or Stock-jobbing?” The Economic History Review 39 (1986), 549-71. 30 See Robert Elkin, Old Concert Rooms of London (Edward Arnold, 1955), 29 and John Harley, Music in Purcell’s London (Dennis Dobson, 1968), 148. 31 Daily Courant, Sep. 1, 1721, “Benefit for Benedetti Baldassari Servant to the Elector Palatine held at 18.00 at York Buildings, Villiers Street.” 110 came to capitalize on real estate opportunities in London. One prominent example is the Duke of Chandos, who became the governor of the York Buildings Company. By 1717, Chandos had amassed substantial estates across England, yielding an annual rental income of over £8,000, and was keen to further expand his real estate portfolio.32 His fortune, largely derived from his role as paymaster-general during the War of the Spanish Succession, fueled his heavy involvement in stock trading during the 1710s.33 Using his early profits, Chandos began constructing his opulent residence at Cannons in Stanmore, north of London, around 1713. There, he funded an extravagant musical establishment, employing renowned musicians including George Frideric Handel and Johann Christoph Pepusch. The concerts at Cannons, known for their grandeur, featured newly composed music and became a hallmark of Chandos’s support for the arts.34 In 1715, he also transformed the local parish church, St Lawrence Whitchurch, into a venue resembling a theater more than a place of worship, complete with a large transept and a sanctuary designed as a theater box for himself and his guests.35 Following the completion of the Cannons theater in 1717, Chandos looked to extend his architectural ventures into central London.36 Chandos’s decision to helm the York Buildings Company was strategic, aiming to use the company’s infrastructural expertise to construct a reservoir supplying water to Cavendish Square, a planned residential estate in the rising area of West London designed to match the grandeur of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.37 The largest real estate project Chandos undertook, Cavendish Square was initiated by a group of wealthy elites, led by Robert Harley. Harley envisioned 32 P. G. M Dickson and J. V. Beckett, “The Finances of the Dukes of Chandos,” Huntington Library Quarterly 64 (2001), 315, 35. 33 See Aaron Graham, Corruption, Party, and Government in Britain, 1702-1713 (Oxford University Press, 2015), 95-227. 34 Susan Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron: The Patronage and Collecting of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (Routledge, 2007), 166-171. 35 Chandos sought input from Vanbrugh, considering the renovation of St. Lawrence Whitchurch into a dual-purpose venue for theater performances and worship. For more details, see Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron, 34-47. 36 Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron (2007), 48-51. 37 Ibid., 100. 111 Cavendish Square as a hub for the upper echelons to consolidate their networks and share their lucrative real-estate profits, attracting pooled interests and funds from peers involved in the project. Notable founding subscribers of the Royal Academy of Music, such as Chandos, Grosvenor, Portland, and Bedford, were involved in the project.38 They commissioned architects to construct a series of rent-paying lodging houses in what was conceived both as a piece of speculative town planning and as an investment to capitalize on rising property prices.39 The Cavendish Square project was emblematic of a broader trend among English aristocrats participating in urbanization, which, as Jan de Vries has noted, was driven by the financial boom.40 Properties like the Cavendish Square project were also intended to serve as luxurious London residences for these members of the gentry. Both Portland and Chandos secured long leases in the planned Cavendish buildings, reflecting their increasing desire to be near the center of London’s burgeoning wealth. For the landed classes, accustomed to gaining income from estate rents, the higher returns from stock investments presented a compelling alternative. As a peer remarked in 1707, country land as an investment could rarely match the yields of its moneyed counterparts.41 Even Chandos, despite his enthusiasm for real estate investments, still recognized the more lucrative and liquid opportunities in the money market, even after the South Sea crash. In 1724, Chandos confessed, “I have laid out so much money in 38 For a more detailed account of the Cavendish Square project, see Jenkins, 102-105. 39 For insights into eighteenth-century speculative urban planning, see Desmond Fitz-Gibbon’s Marketable Values: Inventing the Property Market in Modern Britain (University of Chicago Press, 2018), 18-20, and Jerry White’s A Great and Monstrous Thing: London in the Eighteenth Century (Harvard University Press, 2013), 68-76. Additionally, H. J. Dyas, “The Speculative Builders and Developers of Victorian London,” Victorian Studies 11 (1968): 641-90, explores the blurred boundaries between speculative investment and planned urban development. 40 Jan de Vries, European Urbanization, 1500-1800 (Routledge, 2013). See also Ann M. Carlos, and Larry Neal, “Amsterdam and London as Financial Centers in the Eighteenth Century,” Financial History Review 18, no. 1 (April 2011): 21–46. 41 “How much better money yields than land, which after taxes and repairs allowed never answers above three percent,” wrote John Hervey, cited in Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (Yale University Press, 2002), 282. For the idea that residential estate management became a significant economic interest for country gentlemen with the rise in value of their residential properties, see Donald J. Olsen, Town Planning in London, the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Yale University, 1964). 112 land, and wish I had kept my money in the funds.”42 Consequently, increasing number of gentry found themselves spending extended periods in the city, drawn by the attractive financial opportunities of the urban market.43 As the South Sea Bubble transformed London into a bustling financial hub, the city also drew a diverse mix of people from across the social spectrum. While the well-documented influx of lower classes and those involved in agrarian trade into the city to engage in stock trading forms one part of the story, the growing allure of London also captivated the upper echelons. A 1711 pamphlet titled “A Letter from an Exchange Broker to a Country Gentleman concerning Peace and South-Sea Stock” illustrates this trend, with the broker persuading a gentleman to invest £2,000 in South Sea stock, promising wealth with the War of the Spanish Succession’s impending end.44 During this time, younger members of aristocratic families, especially those without inheritance, flocked to the city seeking new routes to wealth. Ned Ward, in “The Picture of a Coffee-House,” vividly depicts these newcomers immersing themselves in the financial hustle. He describes coffee houses transformed into “receptacles of all sorts of men” where “passions moved every way,” frequented by a diverse clientele including “knights, baronets, squires, gentlemen, and drapers,” who would “mortgages his House and Lands” to barter “East- India and Bank-Stock.”45 The necessity of being near the city’s financial markets became evident, as successful speculative investment depended on timely access to information. Lady Frances Hastings, an heiress of the Earl of Huntingdon and an eager investor during the Bubble, expressed her frustration during the 1720 market downturn, lamenting, “’tis impossible at this distance to guess the reason of it.”46 42 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities (2002), 283. 43 As historian Keith Wrightson has shown, members of landed gentry increasingly extended their stays in the city, particularly during the winter season, due to their new role in urban “estate stewardship.” This shift reflects their growing engagement with city life and its economic opportunities. For more details, see Wrightson, 278-279. 44 HBL Goldsmiths-Kress no. 04703. 45 Edward Ward, The picture of a coffee-house, or, The humour of the stock-jobbers (1700). 46 Anne Laurence, “Women investors, ‘that nasty south sea affair’ and the rage to speculate in early eighteenth-century England,” Accounting, Business & Financial History 16, no. 2 (2006): 255. 113 The aristocracy’s growing interest in London’s real estate market, spurred by the South Sea Bubble, carried cultural implications. Their increasing urban presence fueled a demand for both social prestige and economic advancements. Historian Keith Wrightson describes this new demand as a continuation of the gentry’s entrenched “ritual of paternalism.”47 This mentality extended to their efforts to enhance urban culture, revealing their ambition to shape London’s cultural landscape to reflect their values and aspirations. In early eighteenth-century London, the prevailing entertainment forms were fairs, festivals, and feasts, featuring rough amusements such as animal baiting and pugilism and frequented mostly by the urban underclass. In describing these activities, E. P. Thompson has reminded latter-day readers that this period’s London cultural scene was, in many ways, more precisely described as “rural” than what we would now consider “urban.”48 Such rustic forms of entertainment sharply contrasted with the sophisticated diversions preferred by the wealthy, who were accustomed to more refined entertainment in their country estates. With the influx of new capital and the presence of the upper classes in the city, London’s urban culture was poised for a transformation. This shift also facilitated the introduction of more sophisticated musical offerings to accommodate the refined tastes of London’s new demographic. Mita Choudhury has noted that Italian opera projects in London, beginning in the early eighteenth century, were integral to the city’s cultural urbanization, with artistic refinement playing a key role in urban development.49 The initial draft of the Royal Academy of Music’s charter foregrounded this mission. The draft charter articulated its goal of giving “Encouragement and Support to an Art cherished by all Polite Nations,” while highlighting the paradox of a prosperous city like London struggling to sustain such cultural grandeur. This emphasized the urgent need to improve the city’s cultural environment and enhance the nation’s image compared to other European capitals with thriving 47 See Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 282-288. 48 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Vintage, 1966), 404. 49 See Mita Choudhury, Nation-Space in Enlightenment Britain: An Archaeology of Empire (Routledge, 2019), 233-239. 114 opera scenes.50 The founding ethos of the Royal Academy of Music thus embodies what Choudhry describes as “a broader ideology of urban improvement and national pride,” an ideology that was already evident in earlier, short-lived, and ultimately ill-fated operatic ventures preceding the Academy.51 For instance, the presentation of Handel’s Rinaldo (1711), the opera that marked his London debut, reflected the very same ethos later championed by the founding directors of the Royal Academy of Music. In the preface to his libretto, Aaron Hill explicitly framed the opera as a means to distinguish Britain as “the best of nations” through its support of music. Hill described Rinaldo as “a Trial” to establish opera as a “noble entertainment” that could flourish in London—a city he called “most capable of Europe” to “relish and support” such a cultural venture.52 While the plan for a new theater found in the Portland Papers never materialized, as the existing Haymarket theater, rented by the opera company, served as the venue for its productions, this 1719 memorandum nevertheless reveals the original ambition of the Royal Academy of Music. Unique in scale and timing, it saw aristocratic patrons evolve from passive investors to active “projectors.” This blend of aristocratic investment, land speculation, and capital surge underscores the intricate interplay between cultural and financial interests. Opera, in this context, became a vehicle for musical gentrification, driven by early modern financialization. The infusion of capital and investing zeal into the opera project not only demonstrated a novel way to sustain the art form but also mirrored the broader economic transformations of the period. “OPERA GRANTED TO A BODY POLITIC” In the recently edited Handel Collected Documents, vol. 1, Richard Steele’s satirical 50 HCD vol. 1, 421-423. See also Choudhury, Nation-Space in Enlightenment Britain, 236. 51 Choudhury, Nation-Space in Enlightenment Britain, 237. 52 HCD vol. 1, 199. 115 comparison of the opera company’s rising stock to a castrato’s virtuosity (discussed in Chapter 1) is featured and accompanied by commentary. The editors point out that, while structured as a joint-stock company, the Royal Academy of Music’s shares were restricted to subscribers and not publicly traded.53 This clarification, while illuminating Steele’s satire, subtly distinguishes the Academy from other contemporary business ventures—a distinction that may reflect a scholarly hesitation to draw direct parallels between opera and the infamous South Sea Company. However, this distinction warrants closer examination. The boundaries between private and public companies in early eighteenth-century London were often ambiguous. Steele’s satirical use of the phrase “no transfer” highlights this complexity. In their attempt to downplay the interplay of music and finance within these emerging corporate frameworks, the editors’ caution instead prompts a deeper reconsideration of the cultural implications of the era’s broader commercial dynamics. As Mattie Burkert has noted, Steele’s “no transfer” comment, while seemingly satirical, highlighted the prevalent practice of stock share transfers at the time. Although technically accurate—one could not publicly exchange shares between the Royal Academy of Music and other companies such as the South Sea Company, the seemingly superfluous phrase “no transfer” emphasized the very possibility it denied, prompting Steele’s readers to consider the behind-the-scenes transactions and interconnected capital that transformed joint-stock companies into unprecedentedly powerful entities.54 Steele’s satire thus targeted the deceptive practices that allowed these companies to manipulate financial capital and reshape social relations, making them both formidable forces and controversial forms of mercantile organization. The concept of transferable shares was central to this transformation, as it enabled joint-stock companies to amass significant public capital and influence, thus blurring the lines between private and public interests. 53 HCD vol. 1, 472. 54 Burkert, Speculative Enterprise, 137-138. 116 It is true that the four major English chartered companies of the era—the South Sea Company, the East India Company, the Royal African Company, and the Bank of England—were not exactly “public companies” in the modern sense.55 This was primarily due to the absence of a centralized exchange. Initially, these companies issued shares either at their headquarters or through their affiliated merchant banks. These shares were then traded, often in person or via brokers, in the coffee houses near Exchange Alley, which functioned as the epicenter for secondary market activities.56 Daily stock prices for these large chartered joint-stock shares, as reported in newspapers and pamphlets, did not reflect an official rate. Instead, they were compiled by publishers—typically brokers—who culled data from various market participants such as merchants, traders, and other brokers.57 Essentially, the Exchange Alley coffee houses and financial publications of the time established a de facto centralized exchange. By consolidating and disseminating market information, they created a financial infrastructure that effectively compensated for the absence of a formal exchange. This ensured that equity joint- stock companies’ stock offerings and transactions remained accessible to the public, subject to both growth potential and market fluctuations. With the number of joint-stock companies skyrocketing by 1700, the transferability of shares became commonplace.58 Despite the lack of a 55 In modern joint-stock companies, ownership is clearly delineated by the number of shares held, with these shares freely traded on public exchanges. This structure facilitates capital-raising through public issuance of shares and debentures. In the eighteenth century, however, joint-stock companies operated somewhat differently, especially in their early stages. Their power derived from the active collaboration, rather than the passive cash injection of profit-seeking stakeholders, where the lines between public and private equity were blurred. Unlike the clear demarcations of today, companies like the South Sea Company initially conducted stock transactions within exclusive circles, with significant public subscription phases emerging only later. These smaller, private dealings reflected attitudes toward financial equity as both an asset and a form of social and political capital. By granting directors and their associates privileged access to shares, these transactions served not only profit motives but also as investments in relationships and political influence, intertwining financial and social networks. 56 See Michie, The London Stock Exchange, 15-36 and Ron Harris, “A New Understanding of the History of Limited Liability: An Invitation for Theoretical Reframing,” Journal of Institutional Economics 16, no. 5 (October 2020): 643–64. 57 These brokers would assess and negotiate prices based on their understanding of the current market conditions and ongoing transactions. See Natasha Glaisyer, “Calculating Credibility: Print Culture, Trust and Economic Figures in Early Eighteenth-Century England,” Economic History Review 60, no. 4 (2007): 685-711. 58 Stuart Banner, Anglo-American Securities Regulation: Cultural and Political Roots, 1690-1860 (Cambridge University Press, 2002), 24. 117 centralized exchange, shares in joint-stock companies were still actively traded. To transfer shares, both buyer and seller had to physically visit the company’s office to register the transaction. This process ensured identity verification by company staff, and the transaction was formalized through a legal deed of transfer, recorded in company-maintained stock journals. These journals, which detailed share divisions and changes in shareholder status, highlighted the dynamic nature of share ownership, linking social mobility with financial liquidity.59 During these transfers, share prices likely fluctuated, a common practice at the time, contrary to the Handel Collected Documents editors’ suggestion that the Royal Academy of Music’s equity pool was static. A clause in the Academy’s charter, ensuring the transferability of shareholders’ powers to successors and assigns, indirectly confirms the liquidity of its assets and personnel.60 Regular updates to the Academy’s subscriber lists in contemporary news sources further indicate active share transfers, with existing shareholders selling their shares to new investors, likely contributing to price variability.61 The absence of Royal Academy of Music stock prices in newspapers and pamphlets therefore does not necessarily imply that the shares were non- transferable but likely only reflects a lack of public demand for such data. The Royal Academy of Music’s revolving door of shareholders, facilitated by transferable shares and a continuous subscription book, highlights a key aspect of joint-stock companies: their enduring nature as entities, independent of individual shareholder changes. Share 59 Banner, Anglo-American Securities Regulation, 81-82 (security transfers), 105-106 (Barnard’s Act). 60 HCD vol. 1, 439. “All their powers be transferable to their Successors and Assigns.” 61 See Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music, 1719-1728, 46. In the eighteenth century, shares were typically measured in units of £100-nominal stock, meaning a company with £1 million in equity ownership would have 10,000 £100-nominal shares. While these shares did not always exist as physical certificates or scrips, they were the units recorded in company stock ledgers. However, the market transfer value of these shares could differ significantly from their nominal size, a factor exploited in the speculative practices that inflated the South Sea Bubble. Pricing patterns suggest that a basic understanding of dividend discount cash flow influenced equity valuation. Thus, transferring Royal Academy of Music shares likely involved structuring the transfer as a compound call option, with the price influenced by factors like regular dividends (which the Royal Academy did promise to shareholders) and discounts. Shareholder rights transfers also entailed evaluating market worth through dividend discount pricing. Even without a strictly defined “market price,” share transfers, especially those involving paid calls, entailed complex calculations. See Paul Harrison, “Rational Equity Valuation at the Time of the South Sea Bubble,” History of Political Economy 33, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 269–281. 118 transferability distinguishes joint-stock companies as unique legal entities in the early-modern business world. Unlike temporary ventures, they functioned as permanent organizations with flexible ownership and collective management, often described as a “Trade granted to a Body Politick.” Share transferability can be seen as a key factor in how the Academy’s corporate structure revolutionized opera patronage. Previously controlled by a single patron, such as an aristocrat or sovereign, opera houses now became open to shareholders, creating a distributed patronage system with capital as the sole barrier to entry. However, this new form of patronage was not without its challenges. At its founding, the Royal Academy of Music’s “open call” for subscription, requiring nothing more than a £200 pledge for shareholding status, suggested the opera company’s initial openness to all potential investors.62 Yet, exclusivity was later reintroduced beyond the mere financial threshold, requiring personal recommendations and director approval for prospective shareholders.63 This shift reflects anxieties about capital- induced social mixing. Similarly, the South Sea Company’s open call attracted a diverse group of founders, satirized in Arthur Maynwaring’s “The South Sea Whim,” which depicted the venture as undertaken by a motley crew of sailors, soldiers, and merchants with no business experience, essentially a group of “debtors old and new.”64 Both the Royal Academy of Music and the South Sea Company represent the transformative nature of public entities defined by shared capital. 62 HCD vol. 1, 438-9. “Subscriptions from any person or persons who shall tender themselves and be willing to become members of the said corporation any sum or sums of money, so long as the same is not less than the sum of two hundred pounds for each person. Every person so subscribing and paying in the same or as much thereof as shall be required by the said corporation into the capital stock of the said corporation shall thereupon be admitted to be a member of the said corporation and shall be capable of voting and acting as such in the manner herein declared. We declare that all sums of money which shall be subscribed in pursuance of these our letters patents, together with all bounties which from time to time by any person whatsoever shall be given or granted to the use or benefit of the said corporation, shall be the joint stock of the said corporation for the purposes hereby intended. Further, we do for us our heirs and successors give and grant unto the said corporation hereby constituted and their successors.” 63 Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, “The Charter for the Royal Academy of Music,” Music & Letters 67, no. 1 (1986): 57. 64 WC ESTC N23884. “We are a wretched motley crew, / More various than the weather, / Made up of debtors old and new, / Jumbled and rocked together; / Tars, soldiers, merchants, transport, tallies, / Chained in a row like slaves in galleys. / We furnished beer, / We guns and balls, / We ships or money lent, / With hemp enough to serve them all; / O may it so be spent. / And since his payments are so few, / Give Caesar what is Caesar’s due.” 119 Simultaneously they also underscore public anxieties about this new form of distributed patronage and shareholding, as these ventures drew in underwriters with little experience in the relevant trades and individuals not traditionally part of polite company. The South Sea Company’s diverse leadership, while potentially contributing to its eventual downfall due to extended oversight, was strategically assembled. This club of men, though motley, shared ambition and a range of expertise seen as essential to the company’s success. The diversity of its inaugural court of directors, rather than a uniform background, was key. Robert Harley, a governor with varied experience, led the company, while John Blunt, a merchant, served as his strategist. Samuel Ongley, a respected associate of Blunt, was deputy governor, and his protégés, Robert Knight and John Grigsby, managed the company’s day-to- day financial transactions. Political figures like Robert Benson (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Francis Stratford (former Bank of England director) added influence. The directors also included merchants, financiers, and the Sword Blade group, the company’s merchant bankers.65 This distributed governance, enabled through the pooling of capital, ensured a range of skills to see to the success of the project, but potentially might compromise oversight. A post-crash parliamentary inquiry revealed that South Sea directors granted themselves and allies early access to shares before public offerings in order to boost profits and secure loyalty.66 For Robert Harley, these insider favors were a calculated power play, designed to consolidate political and economic influence through the South Sea Company. Rivaling the Bank of England and the East India Company, the South Sea Company, a “Body Politick” formed through “common stock,” thus became a breeding ground for a new financial and political elite. The Academy’s founding members resembled the South Sea Company’s diverse makeup: a mix of Whigs and Tories, gentry and bureaucrats, theater managers and literati, including both 65 Carswell, 57-9. 66 Thomas Levenson, Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich (Random House, 2020), 182. 120 opera enthusiasts and those primarily interested in financial gain or social capital.67 The Royal Academy of Music, much like the South Sea Company, sought influence through strategic shareholding, thereby leveraging its diverse subscriber base to exert sway over English culture. At the opera company’s inception, the minimum required investment of £200 granted one vote on the company board, with additional votes awarded for larger subscriptions. A closer examination of these voting subscribers reveals how certain members were likely chosen deliberately to play crucial roles in shaping the Academy with the aim of both profit and influence. Similar to Robert Harley in the South Sea Company, the Royal Academy of Music had its own influential figurehead: the Duke of Newcastle. As Lord Chamberlain under George I, Newcastle championed the opera project and became its first director. As a member of the Privy Council, Newcastle oversaw key cultural matters, including the regulation of London theaters and the granting of royal patents to theater companies—both practices that set crucial precedents for the Academy’s incorporation. His royal connections and political influence were precisely what the Academy needed. The Academy’s founding was likely inspired by the South Sea Company’s success. Newcastle’s own involvement with the South Sea Company evinces his interest in such ventures. He profited heavily and actively promoted the scheme, even persuading friends to invest. Like many elite investors, Newcastle saw company stocks not only as fashionable and profitable, but also as a way to expand influence, gain favor, and solidify his political standing.68 One can reasonably infer that Newcastle used similar tactics to encourage 67 Elizabeth Gibson details the diverse nature of the Royal Academy’s founding subscribers, a mix of Whigs and Tories, representing both country and commonwealth ideologies. Among them were established Tories like Chandos and Burlington and new Whigs like Newcastle, a protégé of Robert Walpole. This eclectic group reflects the broad appeal and diverse support base of the Royal Academy at its inception. See Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music, 1719-1728, 108-118, 319-320 (including the list of subscribers). 68 In urging his friends to invest in the South Sea Company, Newcastle expressed his belief that it would not only improve his own financial standing but also enable him to better serve his friends and the “good Old Cause,” a phrase often associated with Whig political ideals. This quote, referenced in Kelch’s biography of Newcastle, highlights the intersection of personal financial gain and political aspirations during the South Sea Bubble era. Newcastle’s words suggest that financial success was not merely a 121 investment in both the South Sea Company and the projected opera company, generating enthusiasm within his social network.69 His tactics appear to have borne fruit. The list of prestigious subscribers for the Academy grew from 50 to 62 between April and June 1719, eventually reaching 200 during its eight-year run.70 Much like Robert Harley’s strategic recruitment of influential figures to establish and promote the South Sea Company, the Royal Academy of Music’s founding board reflected Newcastle’s equally calculated approach. He appears to have strategically targeted individuals with political clout, bureaucratic influence, and managerial expertise, using the Academy’s social prestige and financial appeal to secure their backing. The presence of Vanbrugh and Heidegger on the Academy’s board was proof of this strategic approach. As seasoned theater directors and impresarios, they brought operational knowledge to a board otherwise comprised of gentlemen who appreciated opera as patrons rather than managers. Notably, Vanbrugh and Heidegger served in an advisory capacity without voting rights or ownership shares.71 The Academy also deliberately enlisted those wielding cultural influence, particularly Tory literati, to enhance Italian opera’s cultural prestige. For instance, John Arbuthnot, Queen Anne’s physician and a musical collaborator of Handel during his time under Chandos, proposed involving Alexander Pope to design the Academy’s motto and insignia.72 Furthermore, Matthew Decker, a former director of the South Sea Company and governor of the East India Company, listed among the original Royal Academy subscribers, exemplifies the interconnectedness of these joint-stock ventures. His subscription, likely facilitated through his connections with Vanbrugh and Chandos, indicates these overlapping networks. Besides shared personnel, the fungibility of personal goal but a means to further his political agenda and support his allies. See Kelch, Newcastle, A Duke Without Money: Thomas Pelham-Holles (1974), 1693-1768. 69 Hume and Milhous rightly observed that the Royal Academy’s backers weren’t mere investors or patrons. Their deep involvement, evident from Newcastle’s extensive correspondence, stretched from the company’s inception to its daily operations, reflecting a genuine financial and cultural stake in its success. See Milhous and Hume, “New Light on Handel and the Royal Academy of Music in 1720.” 70 HCD vol. 1, 425-426, 427-429. 71 Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, “The Charter for the Royal Academy of Music,” 57. 72 HCD vol. 1, 454. 122 capital across these joint-stock companies also implies the intertwined financial dealings among these joint-stock companies. For instance, the Royal Academy of Music’s initial payment to Handel, hired as “master of the orchestra,” in Royal African Company stock attests to these companies’ interlaced subscription books and the fluid movement of capital between ventures.73 These entanglements of personnel and finances thus firmly situate the Academy within the context of the South Sea Bubble. Founding an opera company demanded more than just cultural expertise and financial capital; it required adept navigation of the legal and bureaucratic landscape as well. Business incorporation during this period was a complex and often murky process, as common-law offices and feudal courts coexisted and sometimes competed, leading to inconsistencies and uncertainties.74 It appears that Newcastle availed himself to both of these avenues to secure and expedite the incorporation process. Among the founding subscribers, James Craggs stood out for his experience in this area of incorporation. As Secretary of State at the time, he also controlled the patents office, which granted and regulated the highly sought-after patents for joint-stock companies.75 Craggs’s involvement would have conceivably expedited the Academy’s incorporation. An infamous practitioner of corporate cronyism, Craggs had exploited his political position to cultivate close ties with the companies under his purview. He supplied arms to the East India Company, leaked confidential documents to the Royal African Company, and accepted bribes from the South Sea Company directors while pushing their debt-for-equity scheme in Parliament.76 Given Craggs’s influence and connections with powerful companies, his shareholding in the Royal Academy of Music—likely encouraged by Newcastle—is hardly surprising, for he held the key to the coveted joint-stock patent the Academy needed. 73 See Ellen T. Harris, “‘Master of the Orchester with a Sallary”: Handel at the Bank of England’, Music & Letters, 101 (2020): 1–29. 74 Taisu Zhang and John D. Morley, “The Modern State and the Rise of the Business Corporation,” Yale Law Journal 132, no. 7 (May 2023): 2027-2031. 75 See Sean Bottomley, “Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1852,” Explorations in Economic History 54 (2014), 48-63. 76 Lewis Melville, The South Sea Bubble (B. Franklin, 1968), 217. 123 While a patent from Craggs’s office granted the legal right to operate, it offered limited protection. It did not necessarily guarantee crucial aspects like capital lock-in, asset partitioning, trade protection, or orderly share transfers. These operational issues, if they arose, could create major headaches for entrepreneurs. For ordinary joint-stock companies, enforcing complex agreements among stakeholders often relied on local courts, which were not always reliable. As Taisu Zhang and John D. Morley note, weak judicial institutions and the lack of centralized state support made it difficult for these early modern companies to protect themselves.77 To secure state support, a corporation essentially needed to become a partner with the state. The most secure form of joint-stock company was thus one established by a royal or parliamentary charter, a privilege reserved for only the most powerful entities such as the Bank of England and the Royal African Company. These chartered joint-stock companies, precursors to the modern limited liability company, possessed a unique legal identity, combining juridical personality with financial autonomy. This resulted in a form of legal corporate personhood, endowing private assets with artificial personal rights. This powerful entity transcended any individual shareholder or patron and was designed to endure indefinitely.78 Unlike ordinary merchants, who were limited in their incorporation options to patents office, Newcastle, as Lord Chamberlain, held a unique advantage. His authority over London’s theaters, exercised through his prerogative to grant royal licenses, combined with his position on the Privy Council, allowed him to swiftly secure a royal charter for the opera company, elevating it to the status of a chartered enterprise.79 Seeking legitimacy for this unprecedented 77 See Zhang and Morley, “The Modern State and the Rise of the Business Corporation,” 2027-28. 78 The corporate structure granted the company legal rights similar to those of a human being, but without the constraints of mortality. This allowed it to exist indefinitely, perpetuating itself beyond the lifespan of its individual members. This concept mirrored the medieval notion of “bodies corporate” such as towns and universities, which were recognized as entities that transcended the individuals who comprised them. For the rise of legal corporate personhood, see Henry S. Turner, “Corporations: Humanism and Elizabethan Political Economy,” in Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire, eds. Philip Stern and Carl Wennerlind (Oxford University Press, 2014), 159. 79 Newcastle’s prerogative as Lord Chamberlain included the authority to issue theater patents “at pleasure.” See Judith Milhous “Company Management” in The London Theatre World, 1660-1800, ed. Robert D. Hume (Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 1-34, 2-6. 124 approach—a joint-stock company with a Royal Charter granted through the Privy Council, traditionally responsible for theater licensing—Newcastle consulted Attorney General Nicholas Lechmere in February 1719. Committed to clearing the legal hurdle for Newcastle, Lechmere, in a persuasive letter to the King, championed the need for “a Legal & United Body” to ensure the opera company’s efficient operation and grand scale. This corporate structure, he argued, was vital in order to “bring opera to England in a manner surpassing all previous spectacles, both here and abroad.”80 Lechmere concluded the letter by reassuring the King that his “Royal Prerogative” remained supreme, symbolized by a letter patent that name the King as a figurehead of the new opera company, even though private investors and nobility would manage it. The king quickly gave his assent. A “Head of Charter,” a concise draft of the incorporation document, emerged in March, followed by a more elaborate version in April, which may have served as a prospectus for subscribers.81 With the King’s approval came a yearly “bounty” of £1,000 for the Royal Academy of Music, similar to trade subsidies granted to other chartered companies, which also received Parliamentary approval in the form of a warrant signed by Sunderland.82 Newcastle then tasked Lechmere with drafting a bill to formally 80 NA LC 7/3/19 & 29, “Report of the Attorney General about the Royal Academy oof Music (Feb 27, 1719).” For reference to Lechmere’s consultation, see also “The Subscribers’ Prospectus for the Royal Academy,” LC 7/3, ff. 46-47. 81 NA LC 7/3/28 & NA LC 7/3. “Heads of a Charter for Incorporating… a Royal Academy of Musick.” Plans for the management of the Royal Academy of Music are detailed in this “Heads of a Charter.” 82 NA LC 7/3/24 “Warrant for a £1,000 subsidy for the Royal Academy of Music (May 8, 1719).” A copy of a warrant signed by Sunderland, Lord of the Treasury, and countersigned by auditors recording the subsidy for the Royal Academy. It is perhaps unsurprising that England, with its state-sanctioned market- oriented culture, became the birthplace of this ambitious operatic venture. While joint-stock companies existed elsewhere, England’s were uniquely privatized. Unlike other monarchs, the English Crown refrained from taking a leading role in the operations of its chartered joint-stock companies, from fundraising through exploration to even fending off foreign enemies. This approach is evident in the Academy’s operations. The King, like shareholders in the South Sea and East India Companies, held a minor stake (£1,000 annually, or 3% of the total) and little control. In Charles Burney’s description of the Royal Academy’s incorporation, “his Majesty King George the First was pleased to subscribe one thousand pounds,” indicating that the King was merely a shareholder in his “Royal” Academy. Linda Colley has observed that the English crown typically did not directly spearhead empire building or overseas ventures. Instead, it outsourced these endeavors to chartered companies, relying on merchants to execute them. The same can be said for the opera company. See Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (Yale University Press, 1992); Charles Burney, A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the 125 establish the Academy.83 The official letter patent, authorizing incorporation, was published in July, thus establishing the Royal Academy of Music as a self-governing entity, granting it the coveted status of “a Body Politick and Corporate.”84 By December, the general board convened, laying the groundwork for the Academy’s inaugural season in spring 1720.85 By combining the Privy Council’s discretionary power with the joint-stock finance model, the Royal Academy of Music’s charter surpassed the limitations of a typical eighteenth-century theater license. Modeled after the South Sea Company’s charter, itself inspired by the Bank of England’s, it in no uncertain ways identified the Academy as a serious business enterprise that had taken on the status of a chartered joint-stock.86 As with the South Sea and Bank of England charters, the Royal Academy of Music’s charter also followed the same formula by outlining key identification and operational details of the company: the corporation’s name, founding members, lifespan (typically 21 years, following the East India Company’s precedent), business scope, capital rules (subscriptions, dividends, transfers), and management structure (court of directors, governor and director appointments, elections, and terms).87 One of the charter’s most significant aspects was its stipulation of perpetual ownership. Unlike London’s previous haphazard operatic ventures, routinely on the brink of bankruptcy, the Academy aspired to permanence. It granted “heirs and successors” of its shareholders “full power and authority” to produce and perform operas, ensuring the continuation of the art form beyond the lifespan of any individual patron.88 The Royal Academy Present Period, Vol. 4 (Payne & Son, 1789). 83 NA LC 7/3/27 “Order to prepare a bill establishing the Royal Academy of Music (May 9, 1719).” 84 NA C66/3531 no. 3. 85 NA LC 7/3/30. 86 At the time, company chartered, often modeled after the Bank of England’s, followed a formulaic structure. Notably, the South Sea Company’s charter was drafted by John Blunt, who used the Bank of England as his template and received a substantial fee of 58 guineas for his work. See Carswell, 59. Vanbrugh has been identified as the person who drafted the Royal Academy of Music’s charter, likely using the South Sea Company charter as a model. See Choudhury, Nation-Space in Enlightenment Britain: An Archaeology of Empire (2019), 236. 87 For complete text of the charter, see HCD vol. 1, 435-440. 88 HCD vol. 1, 437. 126 of Music’s corporate permanence was further embodied by its governance structure. While the Lord Chamberlain held an honorary position as Governor, acknowledging opera’s traditional ties to court life, management positions were elected by shareholders based on their investment level, with up to twenty directors possible.89 This hybrid model fused traditional royal operatic support with a novel distributed form of patronage, enabled by the mechanisms of the emerging financial market. Armed with the legal power of corporate personhood in perpetuity, the Academy allowed opera to achieve, ideally, a form of corporate immortality, thereby establishing the imported musical entertainment as a permanent fixture in London’s cultural life. Freed from the fickle largesse of a sole wealthy patron, or the mortality of a sovereign, the Academy also rose to become a de facto national opera, its power in the realm of English music and theater rivaled only by chartered giants like the East India and South Sea Companies. This rise of this sort of corporate power was not lost on contemporaries. One seventeenth-century commentator had voiced concerns about the unchecked power of joint-stock companies, likening their virtual personhood beyond biological limitation to a superpower beyond reproach, for “they cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed or excommunicated, for they have no souls.”90 Later, Thomas Mortimer would recapitulate these concerns. He viewed these “quasi-public” companies as almost extensions of the government, their financial offerings deemed more reliable than even those of the state annuities.91 Both these concerns recognized the emergence of a new power structure with the rise of chartered joint-stock companies, operating with state-delegated 89 The regulations for the Royal Academy of Music’s management stipulated “a Governor, a Deputy Governor, and at least fifteen but not exceeding twenty Directors.” The Lord Chamberlain would serve as Governor, with the Deputy Governor and Directors elected by members through voting. The term of office was set from November 22 every fiscal year for one year. The charter also allowed anyone to join: “Every person subscribing and paying into the Capital Stock of the said Corporation shall be admitted as a member and be capable of voting and acting as declared.” 90 Cited in Anthony Sampson, Company Man: The Rise and Fall of Corporate Life (Times Business, 1995), 17. 91 Thomas Mortimer, Every Man His Own Broker: or, a Guide to Exchange-Alley. In Which the Nature of the Several Funds, Vulgarly Called the Stocks, Is Clearly Explained. Etc. (S. Hooper, 1762), 34. 127 authority and filling a gap the state itself could not. Tapping into this power structure, the Royal Academy of Music signaled a new age where finance and commerce, not royalty, dictated the terms of opera financing. Its unprecedented autonomy and scale allowed it to produce opera seria distinct from those commissioned by courts. Unlike court productions, designed to celebrate specific events or glorify monarchs, sometimes to invited guests only, the Academy presented full seasons accessible to a wider public. This shift in patronage—from a single monarch to a distributed network of shareholders—was part of the changing power dynamics. The Academy’s inaugural opera, Numitore, exemplifies this change. The wordbook’s frontispiece (Figure 2.3) explicitly identifies the Academy as both sponsor and dedicatee of the performance, the performance serving as an homage to its noble shareholders and valued directors, their names listed in full at the end of the dedication.92 Further emphasizing this change, the title-page epigram references Rome’s founding, the opera’s subject, with a line hinting that the Academy, representing the British people instead of the royal family, embodies Britain’s growing power as a people: “But when a conquering race began to extend its domain, and a greater wall embraced its cities ... then both rhythms and melodies were allowed greater freedom.”93 Beyond the symbolic praise in the libretto’s frontispiece, the opera’s resounding finale, “Voglia tuoi figli guardo pietoso,” further emphasized this new power dynamic within the opera by allegorizing the capital force that funded it. Instead of a conventional tribute to an on-stage king symbolizing the real-world crown, the final chorus celebrated the collective efforts of the opera’s ordinary characters in rebuilding Rome. It called for divine protection with the words, “should such an undertaking fall into peril, may your power defend me.”94 As if echoing the aspirations of the Royal Academy’s subscribers, the finale directed its flourish squarely at the theater boxes filled with the 92 “Alli Nobilissimi Signori Li Sig.i Directtori della Reale Accademia di Musica,” cited in Thomas McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 66. 93 Cited in McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (2013), 65. The opera recounts the story of Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus and Remus, and his restoration to the throne. 94 “Se nei perigli di tanta impresa ne fu dife fa il tuo poter.” 128 company’s shareholders. This was not an opera for a sovereign; it was a production by and for the new moneyed elite—the very men who lined the Academy’s coffers.95 Figure 2.3 Title page of Numitore wordbook (1720). Source: National Library, V 4609 .56 v. 1. In characterizing the political function of opera seria in the eighteenth century, Reinhard Strohm identifies “princes and rulers, political and military power, states and nations” as central themes in Italian opera seria.96 However, in the case of the Royal Academy of Music, a different kind of power is addressed: that of the market. Of course, opera’s increasing reliance on the “market”—a distributed, anonymous, collective mode of funding—has deeper roots predating the Royal Academy of Music. Teatro San Cassiano in Venice (1637) and Oper am Gänsemarkt in 95 This market-focused arrangement also created a condition for the unique phenomenon of English Court entertainment being divided into two factions: those who supported the King and those who supported the Prince. This division is discussed in McGeary’s The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain. 96 Reinhard Strohm, Dramma per Musica: Italian Opera Seria of the Eighteenth Century (Yale University Press, 1997), 270. 129 Hamburg (1678) predated London’s ventures, with Venice particularly pioneering a model of public opera that fused cultural production with commercial enterprise. As early as 1652, the Jesuit author Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli described opera’s new economics with blunt disapproval, branding it “mercenaria”—a mercenary activity. While acknowledging that Venetian public opera was “by no means inferior to that practiced in various places by the magnificence of princes,” Ottonelli emphasized a key distinction: whereas princely patronage offered cultural enjoyment through a ruler’s generosity, “opera in Venice has become business.”97 Despite Ottonelli’s wariness of the market’s potential to dilute opera’s aesthetic value, it was in London, with the Royal Academy, that this “business” took its most modern form. No longer a patchwork of ad hoc projects, London opera aspired a level of sustainability and scale that could rival the prior generosity of princely patronage. It did so by transforming its business model into an enduring corporate institution, thereby harnessing the market’s capital power to cement its status as a mighty tastemaker. Indeed, from its transferable shares to the distributed patronage, the Royal Academy of Music as a modern business empowered by the financial market was a creature of its time, a testament to the English elite’s infatuation as much with the sweet strains of the imported musical entertainment as with the intoxicating fervor of the South Sea boom. While the editors of Handel Collected Documents might caution against drawing direct comparisons between the Academy and the South Sea Company, the opera company’s incorporation was undeniably a calculated economic wager—a fusion of commerce and culture that belongs as much to the history of commerce as to the history of music. Endowed with significant financial power, the Academy—born of collective ambition and avarice—was poised to wield huge influence, positioning itself as the arbiter of taste in English musical life. 97 See Book 4, No. 3 of Ottonelli’s treatise Delle commedie cantate a nostro tempo, e di quante sorti, e di che qualità si rappresentino (1652). Cited in Ellen Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre (University of California Press, 1991), 11. 130 PRIVATE CAPITAL, PUBLIC GOOD; OR, CORPORATE MONOPOLY, UNIVERSAL TASTE Given the Royal Academy’s origin in the new age of finance and its embodiment of the moneyed gentry’s financial power, the “royal” epithet in its name might seem incongruous. In part, this was a nod to the traditional link of opera seria. The French Académie Royale de Musique, a court-funded monopoly under Louis XIV, could have served as inspiration for the Royal Academy’s appellation. Although the English Royal Academy wasn’t exclusively for King George I, it may have adopted the prestigious title to evoke legitimacy and grandeur. Another potential influence is the Italian “Accademia degli Arcadi,” a literary society focused on reviving classical Roman literature. This Italianate connection is reinforced by the association of key Academy figures such as Rolli, Handel, and Bononcini with the Arcadian movement.98 But the “Royal” in the Academy’s title signifies more than cultural homage. It reveals a pivotal power dynamic in early eighteenth-century joint-stock companies, where courtly authority, parliamentary prerogative, and market forces intertwined. While the Academy’s innovative, market-driven approach to creating a distributed form of music patronage was significant, it is equally crucial to acknowledge the role of centralized power in its incorporation. The Academy strategically leveraged the symbolic prestige of the Crown and the legislative convenience offered by the Privy Council. “Royal” thus acknowledges both the sovereign’s assent that chartered the incorporation and the Lord Chamberlain’s permanent position on the board, solidifying the court’s oversight of the Academy’s operations.99 This hybrid nature, a public- private partnership, was unique. Milhous and Hume have described the Academy as “an odd 98 L’Accademia Reale di Musica, which suggests an equally likely but Italian origin for the opera company: which appeared in the printed wordbook of its inaugural opera Numitore. 99 The directors of the Royal Academy of Music were required to pledge their loyalty to the King, as noted by Ellen Harris. Swearing an oath to the King and the Country further politicized this private company, reflecting the hybrid nature of the enterprise as both a public and private entity. This requirement underscored the intertwining of political allegiance and commercial ventures, highlighting the Academy’s hybrid role in promoting cultural, market, and national interests. See Ellen T. Harris, “Taking the Oaths: The Directors of the Royal Academy of Music Swear Allegiance to King and Country,” Eighteenth-Century Music 12, no. 2 (2015): 197–210. 131 amalgam of royal household entertainment and publicly held joint-stock company.”100 However, considering the broader context of English business history, this arrangement may not have been so unusual. The Royal Academy of Music’s corporate structure, though perhaps unique for a cultural enterprise, reflects a broader pattern in English business history. Historically, joint-stock companies were large-scale state-backed ventures for overseas exploration, trade, and colonization. Royal charters granted monopolies to independent merchants in specific foreign markets, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the Crown and these corporations.101 The Crown supported these ventures for several reasons. Mercantilist policies motivated the Crown to promote companies that contributed to national development and tax revenue through expanded trade. These ventures also enriched the Crown and its officials through personal investments. This created a form of market-state coordination, where the power of chartered joint-stock companies stemmed from both the market’s economic capital and the state’s political support. The South Sea Company exemplifies this power dynamic. It embodied, as described by John Carswell, a “marvelous synthesis of finance, commerce, and foreign policy.”102 The company wielded a double-edged monopoly: acting as the national financier domestically and holding the exclusive asiento contract for importing slaves into Spanish America. This demonstrated the essence of chartered joint-stock companies: privatizing state functions for mutual benefit. In return for its services, the South Sea Company received preferential treatment from the Crown and Parliament, including overt benefits like trade 100 Milhous and Hume, “The Charter for the Royal Academy of Music,” 57. 101 Economists have long emphasized the pivotal role of institutions like joint-stock companies in propelling the economic dominance of the Western world since the early modern era. These companies thrived under state-sanctioned market monopolies granted through charters, allowing them exclusive rights to specific business activities and enabling them to capture substantial surplus revenue. This institutional framework, fostering innovation and capital accumulation, is considered a key factor in the West’s economic ascent. See, for example, Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas. The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (Cambridge University Press, 1976) and Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell, How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of The Industrial World (Basic Books, 1987). 102 Carswell, 53. 132 subsidies and covert advantages like insider trading opportunities. This favored position, combined with the company’s size and perceived importance, fostered a dangerous sense of invincibility. The South Sea directors, believing they were too big to fail, took on massive debt, a gamble that ultimately proved disastrous.103 Despite the South Sea directors’ missteps, the privileges and power granted to chartered joint-stock companies made them overwhelmingly favored by English entrepreneurs during this age of projects—a model that combined private economic resources with state-sanctioned monopolies, offering a mix of financial potential and political protection. While the South Sea Company held a monopoly on colonial trade and national finance, the Royal Academy of Music sought a cultural monopoly. Its charter explicitly declared the company’s exclusive right to “exercise and act operas and exhibit other entertainments of music of all sorts peaceably and quietly without the impeachment or impediment of any person or persons whatsoever.”104 This granted the Royal Academy of Music sole legal authority over operatic productions in England. The state’s endorsement of this monopoly was evident in the king’s financial stake in the company. He pledged an annual “bounty” of £1,000 to the Academy upon its incorporation. These bounties, traditionally granted to chartered joint-stock companies as trade subsidies, also functioned as a tax break for the Academy. In 1722, when the Academy’s directors applied for the bounty, they received an additional £200 to “defray the taxes and other expenses attending the receipt of the £1,000.”105 Comparable to the bounty that underscored the court’s interest in overseas exploration and exploitation through the South Sea Company,106 the Royal Academy of Music’s bounty signaled a new form of state-sanctioned import—Italian opera. 103 See Richard A. Kleer, “Riding a wave: The Company’s role in the South Sea Bubble,” Economic History Review, 68 (2015): 264-85. 104 HCD vol. 1, 437. 105 NA PRO T 1/246 “Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1720-28,” the payment was ordered on June 26, 1722. 106 The South Sea Company received an £8,000 annual subsidy from Queen Anne to cover managerial expenditure.⁠ 133 The rise of powerful joint-stock companies attracted both criticism and support. Critics viewed these new monopolies, such as the chartered giants, as vehicles for greed and corruption, stifling competition and exploiting the masses. The South Sea Bubble further tarnished their reputation, equating joint-stock ventures with deceptive stock-jobbing schemes. However, there were also defenders of these state-sanctioned monopolies. Daniel Defoe argued for their legitimacy in his Essay Upon Projects. He viewed them as useful institutional arrangements that could harness private capital for the public good, driving economic growth and societal progress. Defoe outlined various hypothetical joint-stock projects, including a national pension fund, an academy for women, a merchant court, and a mutual fund for merchant seamen, illustrating the potential of financial capital to create employment, foster innovation, and improve society. For Defoe, the litmus test for a legitimate joint-stock company deserving state-sanctioned monopoly was its ability to achieve “both the Essential Ends of a Project in it—Public Good and Private Advantage.”107 Defoe’s vision of private capital serving the public good was even echoed by the South Sea Company. Their charter, replete with self-serving proclamations about “zeal” and “earnest desire” to serve the public, exemplifies the corporate mentality of turning the ethically laudable concept of aligning private interests with public benefit into gesture politics.108 The charter framed the Company’s core purpose—managing national debt for private profit—by emphasizing its role in reducing the debt burden, justifying its monopoly as Britain’s national financier.109 This notion of “public good” was a convenient narrative for both the Company and 107 Daniel Defoe, An Essay Upon Projects (1697). For a discussion on projecting and improvement, see Koji Yamamoto, Taming Capitalism before Its Triumph: Public Service, Distrust, and “Projecting” in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2018), 2. 108 See Abstract of the Charter of the Governour and Company of Merchants of Great Britain, Trading to the South-Seas, and Other Parts of America, and for Encouraging the Fishery (1711). For eighteenth- century ambivalence arising from the increasingly pervasive call for improvement through projecting, see Yamamoto, Taming Capitalism before Its Triumph, 3. 109 “This corporation therefore further to manifest their Zeal and Earnest desire to Contribute their utmost to the reducing and paying off the Public Debt … A Motive which Induced them to make the first Propositions of this Publics and beneficial Nature. … They do Humbly submit these Explanations and Amendments to this Honorable House, flattering themselves that that Readiness and Cheerfulness that 134 the government.110 For the Company, reducing the sovereign’s debt meant higher profits. For the state, burdened by war expenses, the South Sea Company provided a way to manage its deficit through a single entity.111 Even after the 1720 crash, John Blunt, the man behind the South Sea Charter, maintained the company’s original “public good” intentions, defending its pioneering role in consolidating “all the [national] Funds into one Corporation.”112 Much like the South Sea Company, the Royal Academy employed the rhetoric of private interest serving the public good to justify its establishment as a chartered joint-stock company. Their draft proposal, released in April 1719, while transparent about the profit motive, noting that operas across Europe’s wealthy cities “are carried on with great Magnificence and produce very great Gain to the Undertakers,” ultimately framed the proposed opera company as a means to elevate England’s national musical taste. This lofty language was deliberately aimed at courtiers, parliamentarians, and potential investors. It argued that opera’s sustained introduction to England through the Academy would cultivate a “more universal” appreciation for music, exceeding even the “Greater Perfection” achieved in France and Italy: Opera’s [sic] are the most harmless of all publick Diversions. They are an Encouragement and Support to an Art that has been cherished by all Polite Nations. They carry along with them some Marks of Publick Magnificence and are the great Entertainment which Strangers share in. Therefore it seems very strange that this great and opulent City hath not been able to support Publick Spectacles of this sort for any considerable Engaged them so much earlier than any other Society, to endeavor to reduce that great Debt under which this Nation is Oppressed.” 110 The South Sea Company’s 1717 Proposal for its second round of debt-for-equity subscription was phrased as follows: “Whereas this Company is very Sensible, that the Prosperity of the Nation doth greatly depend upon the discharging the Public Debts, … They do Humbly submit these Explanations and Amendments to this Honorable House, flattering themselves that that Readiness and Cheerfulness that Engaged them so much earlier than any other Society, to endeavor to reduce that great Debt under which this Nation is Oppressed, will Entitle them to the favor and preference of this House, since they are willing and do hereby declare they are ready to undertake the great work upon whatever Terms may be offered by any other Company.” 111 Despite the Company’s eventual collapse and investor losses, it did contribute to a more stable financial system. The government could negotiate with one entity instead of numerous creditors, ultimately reducing interest payments and streamlining public finances. 112 John Blunt, A True State of the South-Sea-Scheme, as It Was First Form’d, &c. With the Several Alterations Made in It before the Act of Parliament Pass’d. And an Examination of the Conduct of the Directors in the Execution of That Act, Etc (J. Peele, 1732). 135 time which Inconveniency for the future it is proposed To Remedy.113 Hume and Milhous dismissed the nationalistic rhetoric in the draft proposal as mere formulaic artifice.114 However, this seemingly superficial language echoed the entrepreneurial self- justification of the English Financial Revolution, which centered on mobilizing private interests for public benefit through new means in finance. While the South Sea Company exploited this ethos to become Britain’s national financier, the Royal Academy did so to become the national champion for music. In so doing, it politicized aesthetics in the names of national progress and private gains. John Vanbrugh, the likely author of the draft proposal intended this passage as a persuasive argument for establishing opera as a permanent fixture in London. His claims served as a marketing strategy for a metropolitan institution promising to promote the public good through cultural production. Just as trading companies framed their monopolies on commodities like fur or linen as contributions to the common good, the Academy thus marketed its commodity, opera, as essential to cultural advancement, promising a shared—and even universally desirable—aesthetic experience.115 Beneath the veneer of “private interest for public good” that cloaked the establishment of the Royal Academy of Music lay a more calculated political agenda. Over forty of the sixty-five founding members were politically active Whigs, a broader faction than the traditional Tory patrons associated with opera. These affluent Whigs saw the Academy as a tool to extend their influence over London’s theaters. According to Paul Monod, the Whigs championed opera not solely for its artistic value but as a vehicle for establishing new standards in public art. They envisioned the Academy as a well-funded institution that could champion moral improvement and solidify political control.116 At the center of this effort was the Duke of Newcastle, a 113 HCD vol. 1, 421-3. 114 Milhous and Hume, “The Charter for the Royal Academy of Music,” 50–58. 115 For example, the 1669 Charter of Incorporation for the Hudson’s Bay Company employed similar language to justify monopoly trade as serving the public good: “We, being Desirous to Promote all Endeavors tending to the Publick good of our people and to Encourage the said undertaking.” 116 Paul Monod, “The Politics of Handel’s Early London Operas, 1711-1718,” The Journal of 136 prominent “court Whig.”117 Newcastle’s personal motives for establishing the Academy became evident when, as Lord Chamberlain, he revoked Richard Steele’s license to manage Drury Lane Theatre following a prolonged dispute.118 The revocation capped a series of efforts by Newcastle to rein in London’s theaters, which he viewed as plagued by “disorderly managers and employees.”119 The establishment of the Royal Academy of Music can be understood as an aggressive attempt to prevent future ambiguities and conflicts over theater management by introducing a new, more controlled model with an “honorable board” endowed with the unprecedented combination of private capital and state privilege.120 The Royal Academy of Music was clearly designed to consolidate control over opera, as evidenced by not only its formalized monopoly on opera productions but its extensive operational authority. The Academy was empowered to manage all aspects of production, from musician compensation and hiring to repertoire selection and subscriptions. This comprehensive control addressed the instability that plagued earlier, less organized opera ventures.121 Italian opera, the institution’s chosen form of theatrical entertainment, came to embody Interdisciplinary History 36, no. 3 (2006): 445–72. 117 Court Whigs were those who found alignment with the Crown by prioritizing maintaining a strong monarchy and working collaboratively with the ruling sovereign. They favored political pragmatism over doctrinal Whig ideology, focusing instead on practical politics and maintaining their influence within the government. Often coming from the aristocracy or holding positions of power within the government, court Whigs were keenly aware of their social status. See Reed Browning, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (Louisiana State University Press, 1982). 118 For a succinct account of the dispute, see Burkert, Speculative Enterprise, 129-130. 119 NA LC 7/3/22. 120 NA LC7/3/3. “The Undertakers and Manager of the Opera shall not be permitted to represent any Entertainment upon the Stage under his direction but such as shall be set to Musick. The Undertakers and Managers of the Comedy shall not be permitted to represent any Musicall Entertainment or to have any Dancing perform’d but by the Actors. The Managers of the Opera and Comedy are permitted to perform as often and on what days they think fitt[,] Wednesdays and Frydays in Lent only excepted.” The document indicates that as early as 1700-1704, there were proposals to establish company bylaws for regulating theater management, ensuring it was overseen by a “board” of “honorable directors.” This concept was later formalized in the regulatory language of the Royal Academy of Music’s charter. 121 For example, the short-lived opera performances organized by Owen Swiney were plagued by jealousy over the high salaries paid to Italian singers. Swiney’s venture ended disastrously in 1713, leaving behind debts and unpaid performers. The first documented involvement of the Lord Chamberlain in opera occurred during Heidegger’s attempt at London’s opera venture from 1713 to 1717, under Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury. Heidegger’s failure to pay bills and salaries on time led him to rely on private contributions from the gentry and nobility, highlighting the need for a sustainable business model. 137 the vision of stability and prosperity championed by the Royal Academy of Music. The Academy also openly promoted the notion of opera’s aesthetic universality, used to justify its monopolistic dominance over the English theater scene. Shortly after their inaugural season, a theoretical treatise titled A Treatise on Musick, Speculative, Practical & Historical was published.122 Penned by Scottish teacher and author Alexander Malcolm, the treatise presented a dense, technical exploration of music both ancient and contemporary, combining mathematical explanations of harmony with philosophical musings to construct a rational theory of musical beauty.123 Central to Malcolm’s musical aesthetics, articulated throughout his treatise, is the idea that the beauty of musical harmony stems from precise mathematical ratios. He considered these ratios as immutable “Nature’s Laws,” accessible only to those with a “refined ear” and hidden from vulgar Eyes.”124 Malcolm equated refinement with taste, requiring cultivation in both auditory sense and sensibility.125 Despite asserting that musical taste was governed by abstract mathematical principles, his treatise also suggested a specific ideal of polite musical art that embodied the refined taste of his time: Italian opera. Dedicated to and funded by the Royal Academy of Music’s shareholders, Malcolm’s treatise stands as an homage to the institution.126 Its frontispiece features an ode by Joseph Mitchell, celebrating “the Power of Musick.” This ode begins by extolling music’s transformative power, echoing Malcolm’s view of music as a harmonizer of reason and emotion, and evolves into an encomium to the Royal Academy of Music. Mitchell’s poem asserts the Academy’s mission to “Spread his Country’s Glory” by promoting “Musick’s Treasures,” lauding especially the Academy’s composers Handel and Bononcini. Their music, as Mitchell claims, represented 122 HCD vol. 1, 564-5. 123 For detailed accounts of the theoretical content of the treatise, see Louis Chenette, “Music Theory in the British Isles during the Enlightenment” (PhD dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1967), and Rebecca Herissone, Music Theory in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford University Press, 2000). 124 Alexander Malcolm, A Treatise of Musick, Speculative, Practical and Historical (1721), ix. See also Jamie Croy Kassler, The Science of Music in Britain, 1714-1830: A Catalogue of Writings, Lectures and Inventions (Garland, 1979), 732–8. 125 Malcolm, A Treatise of Musick, Speculative, Practical and Historical (1721), 219. 126 HCD vol. 1, 564. 138 both high culture and significant financial opportunity for the Academy. Mitchell’s ode framed Malcolm’s musical theory and aesthetics to seem as if they were paying lip service to the opera company, reinforcing the Academy’s assertions of opera’s universality and its potential to refine national taste. Malcolm’s treatise likely was used by the opera company’s directors to bolster the Academy’s influence, depicting opera as an art form that seamlessly integrated the rational and the sensory to elevate cultural standards. Besides Mitchell’s philosophical defenses of opera, English aristocrats also seem to have taken to opera. In a 1720 letter, Bishop Rundle of Derry praised opera’s preferential treatment, suggesting it catered to “gentlemen of this new taste” who disdained traditional theater.127 Even before opera’s official launch, a series of elaborate masked balls were introduced in the Haymarket theater, likely to boost revenue and to serve as warm-up acts to the official launch of the first opera.128 Later in the century, Charles Burney lauded the Royal Academy of Music for producing refined operas, particularly those by Handel.129 He believed these refined works served the public good by elevating national taste. Burney’s praise echoed the Academy’s long- held rhetoric of cultural improvement, reinforcing the narrative that opera played a crucial role in enhancing the cultural standards of the nation. Scholars of opera and theater are divided on how to evaluate the Royal Academy of Music’s historical significance. Milhous and Hume, after extensive study of the company’s finances, ultimately deemed the opera joint-stock model “naïve,” attributing its financial instability to the gentry’s speculative fervor fueled by the South Sea Bubble.130 In contrast, Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp have forcefully argued that the Academy was neither 127 Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music (1989), 130. 128 Their frequent name changes ("balls," "masquerades," or "risottos") suggest a strategy to evade potential bans. 129 Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon, In Commemoration of Handel (T. Payne and G. Robinson, 1785). 130 Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, “New Light on Handel and the Royal Academy of Music in 1720,” Theatre Journal 35 (1983): 155. See also Robert D. Hume, “Handel and Opera Management in London in the 1730s,” Music and Letters 67, no. 4 (October 1986), 347. 139 naive nor extravagant, emphasizing its foundation on a profound love of high-quality opera rather than mere financial speculation. They go so far as to consider it “the most ambitious effort to establish high-quality opera in London before the Arts Council.”131 Both perspectives offer rather extreme viewpoints, perhaps oversimplifying the complex relationship between music, money, and the sociopolitical power dynamics that underpinned the incorporation of the Royal Academy of Music: Milhous and Hume reduce the South Sea Bubble to mere financial folly, while Dean and Knapp overlook the political and economic intricacies of the Academy’s operations. The reality of the joint-stock opera’s incorporation was far more complex. Understanding the Royal Academy of Music requires recognizing its embeddedness in the English Financial Revolution. It emerged from the English elites’ dual motives: a paternalistic drive for cultural improvement and speculative profit-seeking. And its promotion of Italian opera as a refined art was grounded in the era’s entrepreneurial narrative, presenting companies as commendable institutions where private and public interests converged.132 131 Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel’s Operas, 1704–1726 (Oxford University Press, 1987), 298. 132 The opera company’s corporate form—the chartered joint-stock company—brought together new financial elites, established court patronage, and state-sanctioned monopolies, blurring the lines between private and public spheres. This fusion mirrored the dynamics of the South Sea Company, whose power stemmed from the ambiguity between state and market roles. Emma Rothschild has characterized this ambiguity as “frightening in its indistinctness.” Eighteenth-century critics, cognizant of this concentrated power, also voiced concerns about the balance between the state and these chartered giants. Edmund Burke even suggested that “new species of [social] contract” was necessary to redefine the power dynamics, implying an exchange of governmental power for credit and a share of sovereignty. It was this new corporate sovereign—arising from a new order of financial feudalism—that came to define the power behind the Royal Academy of Music. Its influence, surpassing even that of feudal patronage, propelled opera to unprecedented levels of extravagance as the market eagerly harnessed and colluded with existing power structures. See Emma Rothschild, “Essay: ‘The South Sea Bubble After 300 Years” (October 2020) https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/about/essay-the-south-sea-bubble-after-300-years- by-emma-rothschild; Edmund Burke, “Observations on a Late State of the Nation,” in The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, eds. Paul Langford and William B. Todd (Oxford University Press, 1981– 2000), 175–176. For opera seria’s conventional feudal mode of performing political work by embodying the sovereign power that supported and presented it, see Martha Feldman, Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2007). Feldman’s work takes the political dimension of opera seria as her primary focus. While acknowledging the genre’s well- known extolment of absolutist virtues, she explores how its formal elements, social practices, sensory media, and performative act contributed to a nuanced interplay of power dynamics, thereby uncovering ways in which opera seria both challenged and reinforced the very despotic regimes that supported it. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/about/essay-the-south-sea-bubble-after-300-years-by-emma-rothschild https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/about/essay-the-south-sea-bubble-after-300-years-by-emma-rothschild 140 OPERA(TING) CAPITAL Alexander Malcolm was not only a music theorist but also a teacher of mathematics and commercial accounting. He is particularly renowned for popularizing double-entry bookkeeping in British commercial practice with his widely circulated 1731 A Treatise of Book-Keeping. While his writings on accounting may lack the imaginative philosophizing found in his music theory, they nevertheless share a common epistemological thread. For Malcolm, the stakes of good bookkeeping were high, as it not only ensured fair business conduct but also symbolized a commitment to sensible measures as manifestations of natural laws and rules.133 Maria Semi has identified an epistemological foundation in Malcolm’s music theoretical writings rooted in Lockean principles.134 This adherence to Lockean laws and rules extended across various domains of knowledge, permeating his diverse publishing endeavors—from music to accounting. At the core of Malcolm’s music theory lies “harmonical arithmetic,” a concept referring to the interval ratios as mathematical principles that govern sound and its affects. By treating harmony as an audible expression of these principles, Malcolm underscores the mathematical foundation of musical harmony, linking auditory experience to the immutable laws of numbers. Similarly, in teaching double-entry bookkeeping, he elevated the balance of debt and credit to the level of natural law, justifying transactions by the inherent definition and use of accounts. This deep intellectual commitment to enlightened reason underpinned both Malcolm’s 133 In concluding his introduction to double-entry accounting, Malcolm remarks that the fundamental principle of resolving transactions into debits and credits is based on natural law. This method, he argues, is sensible, clear, and orderly, providing an effective defense against arbitrary rules and fraud. By adhering to these natural definitions, bookkeeping ensures accurate and distinct answers to inquiries, thereby achieving its ultimate purpose. This approach promotes transparency and reliability, making it a robust system for maintaining financial records. “When any transaction is resolved into its debtors and creditors, the reason is that by the definition of these accounts, they ought to contain such things on the Debtor and Creditor-Side. The purpose of bookkeeping is perfectly achieved by these accounts; it provides clear answers to any inquiry and brings no false charges on any person. A learner can verify the accuracy of a transaction by comparing it with the defined uses of these accounts. If the definitions agree with the circumstances, then the method is correct. This approach also helps in creating arbitrary schemes, ensuring that the end goal of bookkeeping is met clearly and distinctly.” See Alexander Malcolm, A Treatise of Book-Keeping: Or Merchants Accounts; in the Italian Method of Debtor and Creditor (1731). 134 Maria Semi, Music as a Science of Mankind in Eighteenth-Century Britain, trans. Timothy Keats (Ashgate, 2012). 141 approach to financial accountability and his theory of musical refinement. It is this nexus that convinced him that reason and the senses are not in conflict—a belief further demonstrated by the overlapping content between his treatises on mathematics and music theory. In 1718, Malcolm published A New Treatise of Arithmetick and Book-keeping, a precursor of his 1731 treatise. This publication targeted aspiring merchants, financiers, and amateur investors caught up in the South Sea Bubble.135 The opening chapter on basic arithmetic in this commercial accounting manual is nearly identical to the chapter on calculating harmonic interval ratios in Malcolm’s A Treatise on Musick.136 Both serve as mathematical primers for their respective readers, highlighting the epistemological connection between Malcolm’s pedagogical philosophy for both finance and music. For Malcolm, mathematical literacy was just as essential for commercial success as it was for understanding and appreciating the pleasure music elicits in listeners. The publication of A New Treatise following the South Sea crisis was likely no coincidence. The principles of double-entry bookkeeping—accurate asset recording and diligent matching of current and future assets—were especially pertinent after a crisis that exposed the intangible nature of new wealth, reducing money to mere symbols on ledgers. Critics argued that the South Sea scheme’s failure was due to poor accounting oversight, making Malcolm’s guidance on bookkeeping particularly relevant and timely. Malcolm consistently emphasized the 135 Alexander Malcolm, A New Treatise of Arithmetick and Book-Keeping ...: The Whole Illustrated with Two Set of Books Filled with Examples of Fictitious Trade, Such as May, and Does Most Ordinarly (J. Mosman and W. Brown, 1718). For the proliferation of accounting and mathematics manuals during the South Sea Bubble, see also Harvard Kress Collection, “Marketing, Financial Transactions, and 18th- century Print Culture,” https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial- transactions-and-18th-century-print-culture. The sections “The Rule of Loss and Gain, of Barter of Goods, of Tare and Treat, of Exchange” and “Of Interest and Annuities,” with explanations on such techniques as discounted cash flow, in Malcolm’s treatise likely reflect the speculative zeal that swept through the market—and the popular demand for financial literacy--at the time of its publication. 136 Compare, for example, Chapter 4 of Malcolm’s 1721 music treatise, which discusses “harmonical arithmetic” and explains arithmetical, geometrical, and harmonical proportions, with rules for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing ratios and intervals, to Chapter 1 of his 1718 treatise. Both chapters serve as primers on mathematical literacy for a lay audience, showing Malcolm’s effort to make complex mathematical concepts accessible and relevant to both music theory and commercial accounting. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th-century-print-culture https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th-century-print-culture 142 importance of this balance across his various writings, as it accurately represented assets and loans, profits and losses, and prevented fraud and financial missteps. One section in Malcolm’s treatise that specifically addresses equity financing reflects his application of diligent accounting principles to capital budgeting for joint-stock enterprises. In this section, Malcolm proposes that companies establish additional “particular accounts,” separate from the company (debit) and merchant (credit) accounts, to track capital raised through equity funding. This new account would effectively record both the merchants’ paid-in capital (actual cash contributions) and the actual share capital (the total promised investment by shareholders).137 One wonders if the South Sea Bubble could have been mitigated had investors and company directors adhered to the disciplined accounting practices advocated by Malcolm. From a bookkeeping perspective, the 1720 bubble was marked by voluminous, under-regulated subscription books with inflated values unsupported by credible due diligence. Shareholders financed their subscriptions through various credit instruments, with the South Sea Company offering loans and installment plans for fractional shares. This allowed a limited amount of actual money to control a large, inflated number of imaginary equities. In fact, this conflation of paid-in capital and actual share equity, which Malcolm advised merchants to keep separate, was actively promoted by the South Sea Company’s directors. This conflation facilitated a dramatic inflation of subscription numbers, artificially boosting public enthusiasm for the scheme. This same conflation of paid-in capital and share equity fueled the Royal Academy of Music founders’ confidence in their fundraising ability, reflected in their draft proposal and inaugural season’s capital budgeting. The Academy’s draft proposal overtly touted its financial model, lauded as “the nicest calculation of People of Practice and Experience in these matters.”138 The “People of Practice” here likely refer to Vanbrugh and Heidegger, who, with their earlier experiences in funding operas for the London audience, saw the joint-stock model 137 Malcolm, A Treatise of Book-Keeping (1731), 75. 138 HCD vol. 1, 422. 143 as a way to reduce the fixed costs of operatic production—a persistent obstacle to opera’s scalability and sustainability. In the charter, Vanbrugh analyzed the failures of previous London opera ventures, describing them as “carried on upon a narrow bottom by temporary contributions extremely burdensome to the people of quality and entirely unproportioned to the beauty, regularity, and duration of any great design.”139 This critique targeted earlier operatic ventures in London, where inconsistent aristocratic patronage hindered long-term financial viability. Vanbrugh proposed incorporating the new opera company as a joint-stock entity to centralize resources, negotiate contracts, and maintain a consistent cast and orchestra, thereby reducing costs. He argued that the company’s “credit,” like the Royal Academy of Music, would enhance the “certainty and duration” of employment, allowing it to attract talented musicians at more favorable rates.140 Additionally, tangible assets like stage sets, costumes, and potentially even a dedicated theater could be purchased rather than rented, which will “considerably reduce the extravagant charges of operas which have hitherto oppressed the undertakers.”141 By strategically reducing the high fixed costs associated with opera production, Vanbrugh envisioned the Royal Academy of Music as a long-lasting venture in London’s West End. His financial justification for incorporation aligned with a fundamental objective of joint-stock companies recognized by economists: to minimize transaction costs by bringing all people and materials in-house, reducing the need for multiple contracts and negotiations.142 In essence, Vanbrugh saw incorporation as an economic strategy to ensure sustainable and scalable opera productions. By maintaining a stable workforce through this structure, he believed they could ultimately lower ticket prices, making opera more accessible to a wider audience. 139 HCD vol. 1, 423. 140 HCD vol. 1, 423 141 For details of the Royal Academy of Music’s tactic of centralizing resources, refer to the official charter, HCD vol. 1, 435-440. 142 For example, Ronald Coase articulated this concept in his “The Nature of the Firm,” explaining that companies exist primarily to minimize the transaction costs involved in coordinating economic activities, encapsulating the Academy’s strategy to "bring all the people in-house" and reduce the need for negotiating multiple contracts. Ronald H. Coase, “The Nature of the Firm.” Economica 4, no. 16 (1937): 386–405. 144 While the idea of addressing high operating costs may be a sensible aspect of the Academy’s financial planning, another, more hubristic aspect reflected the lack of accounting oversight—and the speculative excess characteristic of the South Sea Bubble era. The other “Person of Experience” mentioned in the proposal likely referred to a South Sea investor rather than an opera expert. This individual was the Duke of Portland, who functioned as the opera company’s de facto chief financial strategist, as evidenced by several capital budgeting documents he authored.143 In late 1719, Portland prepared a detailed cost and profit estimate, aiming to launch the opera by March 1, 1720, with a thirty-performance season. His budget included salaries for performers and musicians, capital costs for theater rent and scenery, and miscellaneous expenses. Singer salaries were the largest expense, totaling £1,850. On the revenue side, Portland projected box office earnings based on three seating tiers with “moderate” ticket prices at 8 shillings for boxes and 5 shillings for pit. He anticipated a maximum attendance of just over 360, with an additional £20 from around 120 gallery attendees. This setup was expected to generate a nightly income of £164, resulting in total revenue of £4,920 for the partial season, falling £480 short of his cost estimates.144 While the Royal Academy’s first-year budget clearly projected a deficit, this draft proposal boasted a whopping 25% annual dividend to shareholders.145 The 25% dividend is indeed outlandish, as even the South Sea stock—issued through the third and fourth subscription in 1720 at the heights of speculative frenzy—only offered a promised dividend of 10 143 Milhous and Hume, “New Light on Handel and the Royal Academy of Music in 1720,” 157-165. 144 Milhous and Hume have suggested that the £480 deficit was underestimated, as subsequent negotiations with performers and staff would lead to compensation levels exceeding Portland’s budget. However, this figure cannot be used to estimate average singer salaries in London, as the Academy had not yet secured any renowned castrati like Senesino. Portland’s estimate was based on minor singers already in town, not the desired headliners. Even without celebrity singers, Portland’s total estimated cost of £5,400 underestimated the actual daily expenses for London opera houses at the time. While the Academy might have broken even, Dean and Knapp, even with their rosier estimates, highlighted that other potential revenue streams were unlikely to deliver the promised 25% dividends. See Dean and Knapp, Handel’s Operas, 1704-1726 (1995), 30. 145 The proposal promises that “the Undertakers will be Gainers at least Five and twenty per Cent upon Twenty per Cent of their Stock Disburst.” 145 per cent.146 This disconnect from the economic reality of opera economy stemmed partly from the founders’ inflated expectations amid the overall market exuberance, but also from a lax accounting practice within the joint-stock company—the failure to differentiate between paid-in capital and equity capital, as advocated by Alexander Malcolm. The Royal Academy of Music’s Charter exemplifies this laxity. It allowed subscribers to pledge a minimum of £200 with only a 5% initial payment. This meant a £200 share required just £10 upfront, with an expectation of a 25% annual dividend. While 62 backers pledged shares totaling £12,400, they only had to contribute 5% of their minimum pledge to secure the promised dividend.147 While the 62 backers pledged shares totaling over £12,400, their initial cash payment was likely only around £620. This discrepancy between pledged and paid-in capital, a conflation of share equity with actual funds, led Portland to believe the Academy could afford extravagant new operas with top European talent, new scenes and costumes, and even a new theater. This accounting oversight, prevalent during the South Sea Bubble, contributed to the proliferation of “fictitious capital,” as diligent accounting was sacrificed on the altar of aggressive profiteering. In this climate, stock shares issued through joint-stock company subscription schemes resembled collateral-free call options rather than genuine shares. For example, the South Sea Company launched its first public subscription with compound call options to attract less wealthy investors and even provided loans for purchasing its stock.148 Amid this frenzy, opportunistic merchants launched numerous joint-stock ventures without solid business plans and minimal cash injections, famously advertised as companies for “carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.149 Even legitimate companies focused on capitalizing on the public’s 146 YBL GEN MSS Vol. 677 147 HCD vol. 1, 439. According to the Charter, a prospective subscriber would have to pledge a minimum of £200 but only have to pay “five per cent upon each subscription” in anticipation of “at Least Five and twenty per Cent upon Twenty per Cent of their Stock.” 148 Gary S. Shea, “Understanding Financial Derivatives During the South Sea Bubble: The Case of the South Sea Subscription Shares,” Oxford Economic Papers 59 (2007): i73. 149 Cited in William Quinn and John D. Turner, Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 34. 146 investment enthusiasm rather than establishing sustainable revenue streams. Similar to the share structures of the South Sea Company and the Royal Academy of Music, these companies encouraged speculation by “marketing stock on very deferred terms,” allowing investors to obtain scrip for a large quantity of stock with only a small down payment, hoping the stock’s value would rise before they had to pay in full—and before they ever saw the scrip.150 Essentially, the South Sea Bubble saw a proliferation of “blank check” companies. One such company raised over £2,000 on its first day from a mere £2 deposit per share, despite claiming a total nominal capital of £500,000.151 Unlike the South Sea subscription plan that offered a compound call with a payment schedule that asked the investor to contribute funds on a predetermined schedule, the Royal Academy of Music simply reserved its right to call on subscribers to contribute cash over the share they owned without a fixed schedule.152 As the company’s operations began in late 1719, it became clear that the Academy needed more capital than initially planned. In late 1719, the first capital call of 5% was made, shortly after Portland’s budget. An additional 5% call followed in April 1720, three days after the Academy’s inaugural season opened. Both calls likely indicate that actual operating expenses were surpassing initial estimates.153 This financial strain led the Academy to charge shareholders for tickets to enhance revenue, despite earlier promises of free admission to its subscribers.154 However, these piecemeal capital calls and resorting to reliance 150 Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England (1993), 145. 151 The promoter promised that in one month the full details of how the company would make money would be revealed. The next morning at nine o’clock the promoter opened his office in Cornhill to crowds of people at his door. By the time he closed at three o’clock in the afternoon, he had more than 1,000 subscribers, having collected over £2,000 in 5 hours, close to $600,000 in today’s money. He was philosophical enough to be content with that amount and set off for continental Europe that evening, never to be heard from again. See Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (2004), 701-2. 152 It stipulated in its charter the authority to call upon subscribers for additional funds as needed. If subscribers failed to meet these calls within the designated timeframe, they would forfeit their shares and membership in the corporation. 153 The London Gazette, December 8, 1719 (HCD vol. 1, 406) and Apr 5, 1720 (HCD vol. 1, 478). 154 The Daily Courant, November 25, 1721. “Application having been made to the Royal Academy of Musick, for Tickets entitling the Bearers to the Liberty of the House for this Season; the Academy agree to give out Tickets to such as shall Subscribe on the Conditions following, viz. That each Subscriber on the Delivery of his Ticket pay 10 Guineas.” 147 on box office revenue did not dampen the optimism surrounding the Royal Academy of Music. Wealthy investors, buoyed by gains in their South Sea investments, continued to support the opera venture. Vanbrugh, reflecting this optimism in a February 1720 letter, predicted that despite the high costs, the initial £20,000 fund would sustain the opera until it could become self-sufficient, stating, “They have engaged the best Singers in Italy, at a great Price. I believe this will bring the Expenses to about twice as much as the Receipts. But the fund Subscribed, being about £20,000, may probably support it, till Music takes such root, as to subsist with less aid.”155 This overconfidence, driven by the growing speculative fervor and lax financial practices, led to a flood of paper money and unbacked equity being funneled into the opera company. For the directors of the Royal Academy of Music, this financial equity structure seemed sufficient to offset their growing expenses. However, this inflated equity was largely illusory, revealing a gap between the Academy’s perceived financial strength and its actual working capital. This deviation from sound accounting principles contributed to the perception of financial excess in the operatic world. The confusion between cash capital and equity capital was prevalent among eighteenth-century contemporaries and was a strategic feature of the capitalization boost during the South Sea Bubble. This confusion is evident in historical accounts, which often overstated the Royal Academy’s financial situation. Suggesting that the Royal Academy of Music became “instantly oversubscribed” on incorporation, Handel’s biographer John Mainwaring gave £40,000 as the amount subscribed, whereas John Hawkins and Charles Burney inflated this figure to £50,000.156 In reality, the Academy had a working capital of just over £1,000 for the 1720 season. The inflated equity emboldened the directors to propose large salaries for star singers like Senesino, who was offered £1,000 for a season.157 This discrepancy highlights how 155 Cited in Dean and Knapp, Handel’s Operas, 299. 156 John Mainwaring, Memoirs of the life of...George Frederic Handel (1760), 97; John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, Vol. 2 (1963 [1776]), 860; Charles Burney, A General History of Music, Vol. 4 (1789), 258. 157 “In spite of this, the opera house is always full at half a guinea a ticket, that is to say at twice the normal 148 the Academy did not adhere to sound accounting principles, a situation exacerbated by a lack of financial literacy among contemporary writers. When the market was buoyant, the consequences of these practices were not immediately apparent. It is little wonder that Richard Steele detected an inflationary trend in the castrato aria, reflecting a time in which music and money became entwined, with aesthetic expectations and financial ambitions converging in the corporate strategies of the Royal Academy of Music. SPECULATIVE LUXURY From the Duke of Portland’s budget sheet for the Academy’s inaugural season to Richard Steele’s satirical quip, it becomes clear: the highest bill that needed footing—thereby the source of the opera business’s monetary hemorrhage—was for the castrato singers. The celebrity castrato Senesino’s decade-long career on the English stage bookended all but perfectly the rise and fall of the Royal Academy of Music’s opera venture.158 Following Senesino’s departure from London, a broadside ballad entitled “The Ladies Lamentation for ye Loss of Senesino” began circulating (see Figure 2.4).159 In the center of its engraved headpiece, Senesino is shown standing on a quayside flanked by two weeping ladies.160 To the left, three male members of the aristocracy bow and scrape before the towering castrato; to the right, two servants, one of them Senesino’s black servant, carry a stretcher laden with a chest and several bulging purses full of cost. They have given 12 performances of the beautiful opera by Bononcini, and this evening one by Handel will be staged for the first time. I heard the general rehearsal, and oh! What a difference for one who loves music that touches the heart. Bononcini is preparing another, and intends to make it even better.” 158 Senesino made his London debut during the first complete season of the Royal Academy of Music in 1721 and left for Italy in 1728, not long before the Royal Academy of Music broke up. He was later re- engaged by Handel and Heidegger during the so-called “Second Academy,” an attempt by the composer and the librettist to re-launch the collapsed joint-stock operatic business. 159 George Bickham The Musical Entertainer, August 2, 1737. It has been suggested that this is a copy in reverse of an earlier engraving, likely published around the time of Senesino’s departure in 1726. BM satire no. 1694. 160 These figures are possible portrayals of Cuzzoni and Faustina, the two rival sopranos who both played Senesino’s on-stage romantic interests and whose on- and off-stage strife had become a focal point of public attention concerning the Italian opera. 149 coins. Mocking this scene of melodramatic sendoff, the song printed underneath the illustration lampoons the overblown infatuation of the English with, and their obsequious veneration of, a leave-taking foreign opera singer. Figure 2.4 Ballad, “The Ladies’ Lamentation for the Loss of Senesino.” Source: BM, 1868,0808.3506. 150 The song, a mockingly jolly triple dance, was prescribed to be sung Lento, as noted in Henry Carey’s 1737 anthology of English ballads.161 This juxtaposition of a lively dance with a slow tempo heightened the satire at the mawkish deference which the English elite afforded the castrato. As the song concludes, these verbal and musical assaults at opera take on a self- congratulatory tone, echoing the sentiments of English wits who likely viewed the end of Senesino’s tenure as the decline of English infatuation with this foreign spectacle—what Samuel Johnson once called “exotic and irrational entertainment.”162 The poem ends with a gleefully sardonic farewell to this cultural fad and its adherents: “Adieu to the Opera, adieu to the Ball / My darling is gone, and a fig for them all”—a final snub to the foreign entertainment and its supporters. The familiar critiques of castrato singing in England, from its perceived effeminacy to its supposed detrimental effect on proper theatrical diction, took on an economic dimension in the song sheet’s illustration. The inscription “Ready Money” on the treasure chest carried by Senesino’s servants in one broadside highlighted the substantial wealth leaving the country with his departure. English critics had long denounced the importation of Italian opera as a prodigal pursuit. John Dennis, in a diatribe, questioned why English opera enthusiasts would favor “Italian Sound to British Sense,” and choose to emulate “the Luxury, and Effeminacy of the most profligate Portion of the Globe rather than uphold British Virtue.”163 Through satirical verse, Dennis argued that Italian opera’s perceived effeminacy and excess were corrupting British values. This sentiment persisted throughout the eighteenth century, with opera becoming synonymous with luxury—an association often viewed negatively. Frequent descriptions of “luxury at the opera” and “luxurious sounds” in contemporary writings underscored the genre’s 161 Henry Carey, The musical century: in one hundred English ballads on various subjects and occasions: adapted to several characters and incidents in human life and calculated for innocent conversation, mirth, and instruction (1737-1740). 162 Cited in Charles Burney, A General History, vol. 4, 221. 163 John Dennis, An Essay on the Opera’s After the Italian Manner, Which are About to be Establish’d on the English Stage: With Some Reflections on the Damage Which They May Bring to the Publick (John Nutt, 1706). 151 reputation for wasteful extravagance.164 Underlying the critique of Italian opera’s association with luxury was the prevailing moral trope in English discourse: frugality as virtue, prodigality as vice. In Dennis’s critique, opera epitomized luxury through its popularity, lavish sets, dramatic costumes, exorbitant singer salaries, and the performers’ scandalous conduct. Dennis argued that this “reigning luxury” signified a moral and religious decline in modern Italy compared to its idealized Roman ancestors. In essays, pamphlets, and personal letters, denunciations of luxury intertwined with an idealized vision of gentlemanly life that valued saving, frugality, and self-restraint over perceived excesses.165 These ideals served both as a critique of the corrosive effects of unrestrained commercial pursuits and as a means of elevating the moral standing of gentlemen above that of tradesmen. Lavish spending on Italian opera was thus seen as antithetical not only to moral virtues but also to national economic principles that favored accumulation and savings over expenditure. Dennis and his contemporaries were not mistaken: Italian opera was, from a financial perspective, exorbitantly expensive. The “Ready Money” displayed on Senesino’s coffer symbolized the tangible outflow of liquid assets from the country, effectively funneled through the Royal Academy of Music. This directly contradicted the prevailing economic orthodoxy of mercantilism, which championed maximizing exports over imports and viewed trade deficits as detrimental to national wealth.166 It is also unsurprising that Senesino was singled out as a figure 164 Daily Post, Oct 12, 1738; Alexander Pope, The New Dunciad (1742). 165 For example, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, argued that virtue was paramount over commerce, frugality superior to luxury. He believed society needed a widespread dispersion of virtue and that one of its goals should be to encourage gentlemanly conduct rather than endlessly promoting trade. “In nature, all is managed for the best with perfect frugality and just reserve, profuse to none, but bountiful to all; never employing on one thing more than enough, but with exact economy retrenching the superfluous, and adding force to what is principal in everything.” Anthony Ashley Cooper, Characteristics of Man, Manner, Opinions, and Times, ed., Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge University Press, 1714), 282. 166 Mercantilism, the dominant economic ideology of early-eighteenth-century Britain, deemed overseas trade desirable only when exports surpassed imports. Thomas Mun, in England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade, famously stated, “We must ever observe this rule: to sell more to strangers yearly than wee consume of theirs in value.” The subtitle of his influential 1628 tract, reprinted well into the eighteenth century, succinctly outlined the mercantilist position: “The Ballance of our Forraign Trade Is the Rule of 152 whose artistic career in England clashed with mercantilist principles. After the Academy disbanded in 1728, he reportedly used his earnings to buy a grand house in Siena, humorously stating that “the folly of the English had laid the foundation of it.”167 Moreover, a 1719 Academy board meeting minute reveals that Senesino’s acceptance of the contract was contingent upon being paid in “Sterling & not Guineas.”168 This seemingly minor proviso had financial implications for the international celebrity. The deliberate distinction between currency denominations in Senesino’s negotiation likely reflects his preference for payment in a specific type of metal—sterling indicating silver and guineas representing gold. At the time, English sterling could purchase more gold on the continent than the equivalent gold content in an English guinea, creating an arbitrage opportunity.169 A traveling musician like Senesino would have been aware of such discrepancies in gold values across different bimetallic systems. By 1737, Senesino had amassed a fortune of approximately £15,000 from his London career. This substantial sum likely resulted not only from his performance fees but also from astute financial dealings, potentially including this type of cross-channel arbitrage.170 our Treasure.” Critics of the Royal Academy of Music, seemingly adopting this line of argument, emphasized the importance of national trade surpluses for a nation’s prosperity, measured in bullion- denominated wealth. When trade deficits prevailed, as Richard Haines puts it, “impoverishment seems unavoidable, for then our Ready Money must go out to even the Ballance.” See Thomas Munn, England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade (1664) and Richard Haines, The Prevention of Poverty, or, New Proposals Humbly Offered, For Enriching the Nation (1674). 167 OMO, “Senesino.” 168 HCD vol. 1, 449-450. 169 In 1696, Parliament approved a re-coinage that required new coins to adhere to previous standards. Under these rules, the new sterling coins contained more silver, measured by their gold purchasing power abroad, than their value when exchanged for gold guineas in London. Isaac Newton argued for aligning the value of gold and silver both domestically and internationally to eliminate the price disparities exploited by bullion smugglers. However, his proposal was not initially adopted. This discrepancy allowed English silver currency to purchase more gold in continental clearinghouses like Amsterdam or Frankfurt than it could domestically. From the late seventeenth century onward, many capitalized on this arbitrage opportunity, amassing fortunes by exploiting the price differences between financial centers. See Thomas Levenson, Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich (Random House, 2020), 73-74. 170 OMO, “Signior Senesino, the celebrated Italian Singer who lately set out for his own Country, after about five Years Attendance upon our Operas, during which, ‘tis said, he got about £15000 has sent a Letter to his Agent here, which as we are inform’d, imports, That his Banker at Venice to whom he had remitted 30000 Roman Crowns for the Purchase of a Signiory or Lordship in that Country, is become Bankrupt; which if true, tis likely that Signior will not need so much Intreaty as before, to come back again next Year to England.” 153 From the perspective of those critical of the opera on economic grounds, Senesino not only epitomized the genre’s perceived extravagance but also highlighted the more insidious problem of English capital flight; in short, the opera venture could be seen as a significant drain on English bullion and a contributor to the trade deficit. Mapping this capital outflow onto Italian opera, the genre’s foreignness and extravagant displays were conflated into a form of economic folly, with lavish expenditures perceived as detrimental to national finances. As Michael Burden puts it, for these eighteenth-century writers, opera, a foreign import, “will always have a negative balance in trading, and clearly falls into the category of superfluous goods.”171 By framing the Royal Academy of Music as a purveyor of luxury, English critics therefore merged a longstanding moral critique with economic mercantilism, casting the institution as both a moral and economic threat to the nation. While Italian opera in England was often viewed as a luxurious indulgence, the Royal Academy of Music did little to challenge this perception. Burden has noted that despite facing criticism for prodigality, both the Academy and the broader circle of Italian opera supporters largely remained silent, failing to construct a counter-narrative to the moralistic critiques levied on the genre.172 Intriguingly, Burden suggests that this silence may have paradoxically contributed to opera’s rise in England, arguing that the association of opera with luxury, even when framed negatively, enhanced its status and allure as an exotic form of entertainment. He cites the late eighteenth-century inclusion of foreign dances in operatic productions as evidence that opera houses in London deliberately promoted an image of lavish extravagance, unapologetically presenting themselves as purveyors of imported opulence.173 I shall expand on Michael Burden’s hypothesis by examining the underlying transformation in the English perception of luxury—from a morally dubious indulgence to an 171 Michael Burden, “Opera, Excess, and the Discourse of Luxury in Eighteenth-Century England.” XVII- XVIII. Revue de La Société d’études Anglo-Américaines Des XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles, no. 71 (December 2014): 236. 172 Burden, “Opera, Excess, and the Discourse of Luxury,” 244. 173 Burden, “Opera, Excess, and the Discourse of Luxury,” 244-5. 154 economically attractive commodity in the eighteenth century. I propose linking this shift to the financial practices of the Royal Academy of Music and its ties to the South Sea Bubble. This exploration might illuminate how opera’s portrayal as a luxurious yet controversial form was both negatively constructed in discourse and positively enacted in practice, deeply intertwined with the speculative financial practices of the period and the operational strategies of the opera company. While writers like Dennis condemned luxury as a moral failing opposed to the virtue of frugality, associating it with idleness and corruption, this view was not universally held in the eighteenth century. As English society grew more commercialized, public attitudes had to reconcile the economic realities of commercial expansion with a moral framework that traditionally centered on frugality. This recalibration in attitudes saw the unconditional advocacy for frugality gradually wane, giving way to a more liberal view of luxury as a potential stimulus for economic production and a symbol of industry. For instance, Charles Davenant, initially a staunch mercantilist who declared that “all trade is imaginative” and advocated for halting English overseas trades, came to recognize its practical necessity, describing “trade, […] which introduces Luxury” has “become with us a necessary evil.”174 While Davenant may still harbor nostalgia for the lost virtue of frugality, Daniel Defoe was more receptive to the changes, declaring “frugality is not the national virtue of England.” He argued that it was precisely the absence of frugality that allowed the English to “work hard,” “spend much,” and eventually “eat the fat, drink the sweet,” and “live better” than the “working poor of any other nation in Europe.”175 For Defoe, luxury was not just permissible but beneficial, serving as a powerful economic driver that enhanced the nation’s commonweal. Bernard Mandeville took Defoe’s utilitarian arguments to a new level, pushing back 174 Cited in J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton University Press, 2016), 443. 175 Daniel Defoe, “Of the Luxury and Extravagancies of the Age becoming Virtues in Commerce, and how they propagate the Trade and Manufactures of the whole Nation” in The English Tradesman (1726). 155 against the monkish moralists’ anti-trade stance with even greater cynicism. His famous The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits offered a cutting critique of old-world morals, advocating for a radical reevaluation of luxury and representing a distinctly modern approach to the topic. Mandeville argued that regardless of theoretical arguments, the world had already embraced luxury: “handsome Apparel is a main Point, fine Feathers make fine Birds ... People ... are generally honour’d according to their Clothes ... from the richness of them we judge of their Wealth.”176 This outward display of riches, he suggested, served as a powerful social incentive, particularly in large cities where anonymity allows individuals to project a desired image. Mandeville’s pamphlet was more than a rebuttal to Dennis’s anti-commercial stance and moral conservatism; it redefined luxury, shifting it from a moral to an economic domain. Gordon Vichert has noted that Mandeville’s arguments closely resemble Thorstein Veblen’s theories on conspicuous consumption from the early twentieth century.177 Both thinkers, as Vichert points out, described human nature rather than prescribing moral standards for consumption.178 Their theories posit that consumption not only fuels commerce but also directs it by stimulating specific demands, with “conspicuous consumption” serving as a social signal of economic status. Similar to Veblen’s emphasis on price as a social signal, Mandeville portrayed luxury commodities as embodying both production costs and significant social and cultural value. This encourages imitative behaviors, spurred by the “pleasure… to be esteemed by others,” which in turn stimulates industry and commerce, contributing to overall economic improvement.179 In other words, the shift in perception of luxury from a moral subject to an economic object mirrors a transformation in the understanding of commodities, from their 176 Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1714). 177 Gordon Vichert, “The Theory of Conspicuous Consumption in the Eighteenth Century,” in The Varied Pattern: Studies in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Peter Hughes and David Williams (A. M. Hakkert, 1971), 253–67. See also See M. Revolti, “‘Remarks Upon that Wonderful Chapter’: The Controversy on Luxury Between Mandeville and Dennis.,” in Bernard de Mandeville’s Tropology of Paradoxes, eds., E. Pires and J. Braga (Springer, 2011). 178 Vichert, “The Theory of Conspicuous Consumption,” 261. 179 Mandeville, The Fable of The Bees,” cited in Vichert, “The Theory of Conspicuous Consumption,” 254. 156 material existence to their function as encoded social signals. This psychic reorientation concerning commodities also seems to parallel a broader reevaluation of wealth through a new monetary imagination. David Hume, familiar with Mandeville’s polemics and also ambivalent about luxury, noted, “the bounds between the virtue and the vice cannot here be exactly fixed, more than in other moral subjects.”180 More overtly endorsing this newfound utility of luxury, and echoing the concept of conspicuous consumption, Hume suggested that certain displays of luxury could signify “industry and arts,” by ”increas[ing] the demands for their products, and thereby encourages their exertions.”181 Hume’s positive argument for luxury parallels his examination of money, specifically its psychic effects, an aspect he uniquely highlighted. Hume contended that the circulation and quantity of money were crucial for stimulating industry.182 He went so far as to suggest that maintaining a “gradual and universal increase in the denomination of money,” effectively a deliberate currency inflation, would “preserve the illusion” of growth in the real economy.183 Hume’s formulation prefigured the endogenous theory of money, which views money supply as a response to economic activity and credit demand, inherently flexible and originating within the economic system.184 This theory hinges on understanding money’s psychic function. While nineteenth- century economist William Stanley Jevons famously codified money’s primary functions as store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account, Hume anticipated another crucial aspect: its 180 David Hume, “Of the Refinement in the Arts,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed., Eugene F. Miller (Liberty Classics, 1987 [1741-77]). 181 Hume, “Of the Refinement in the Arts” (1741-77). 182 “The increase of money, if not too sudden, naturally increase people and industry, and by that means may retain itself.” See David Hume, The Letters of David Hume, ed., J. Y. T. Greig. (Oxford University Press, 1932 [1727-65]), 143. 183 Whether Hume’s ostensibly inflationist argument contradicts his otherwise known advocacy for a quantity theory of money, it is a subject of debate. For a detailed discussion about Hume’s “monetary illusion,” see Carl Wennerlind, “David Hume’s Monetary Theory Revisited: Was He Really a Quantity Theorist and an Inflationist?” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 1 (2005): 223–37, esp. 234-35. 184 See Maria Pia Paganelli, “Hume and Endogenous Money,” Eastern Economic Journal 32, no. 3: 533-47 and Carl Wennerlind, “David Hume’s Monetary Theory Revisited: Was He Really a Quantity Theorist and an Inflationist?” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 1 (2005): 223–37. 157 catalytic effect on the economy.185 This concept, often associated with the “commodity theory of money,” emphasizes how money emerges alongside the pricing function of commodities, thereby acquiring its own unique psychological effects. This idea was later further developed by economists including Ludwig von Mises.186 Articulating a positive relationship between monetary circulation and industry, and highlighting the shared stimulating effect of monetary illusion and conspicuous consumption, these moments in Hume’s economic writings demonstrate how the rise of finance in the eighteenth century intertwined the psychological and economic aspects of consumption, driven by an increasingly prevalent understanding of money as a product of the mind. Indeed, since the Financial Revolution, the English financial market’s reliance on credit, stocks, and other market instruments fostered a shift in the perception of money, linking conspicuous consumption and financial speculation. On the one hand, the financial markets facilitated unprecedented social mobility, enabling the bourgeoisie to challenge the nobility’s status. An observer of the era noted that a merchant who once would have considered himself fortunate to amass a thousand pounds over decades could now achieve this in a fraction of the time, emulating the nobility through his lavish lifestyle, evident in his home, dining, furnishings, and carriages.187 On the other hand, the value logic in speculative financial markets prioritized the signaling of wealth over its actual possession. Speculators treated these signals as crucial economic information, comparing the purchase of luxury goods to stock trading—not for their intrinsic value but for their potential to surge in price due to market hype. This notion is reflected in an aristocratic piece of investment advice: “Perhaps what would be spent this way would be spent on gaming or on luxury... most that go into the matter are well aware it will not 185 William Stanley Jevons, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange (D. Appleton and Co. 1876). 186 See Andrew B. Trigg, “Marx, Say’s Law and Commodity Money,” Contributions to Political Economy, 39, no. 1 (June 2020): 23–41; Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (Skyhorse, 2013). 187 Cited in H. V. Bowen, “‘The Pests of Human Society’: Stockbrokers, Jobbers and Speculators in Mid- Eighteenth-Century Britain,” History 78, no. 252 (1993): 49. 158 [succeed], but hope to sell before the price falls.”188 This convergence of investment and luxury consumption transformed both into not just ends—accumulating wealth—but also means to that end, serving as tools to display and amplify wealth. This dynamic reflects the era’s evolving perception of wealth as part of a self-reinforcing cycle within the nascent financial market. There, speculative activities and conspicuous consumption, therefore, operated on a shared value logic: wealth was not solely about asset ownership but also about leveraging those assets as social signals to enhance their value through market dynamics. Exchange Alley’s stockjobbers and joint-stock financiers, more than anyone, understood the catalytic functions of luxury. Reliant on conspicuous consumption to sustain the capital schemes they benefited from, these figures became emblematic of speculative wealth. Defoe criticized such displays, depicting travel in gold-plated carriages as a symbol of excess. Similarly, Thomas Mortimer, author of the stock trading tutor Everyone His Own Broker and The Elements of Commerce, Politics and Finance vividly described these stock traders, particularly those of Exchange Alley who amassed fortunes swiftly, as residing in “magnificent villas on the outskirts of the city, devoid of the refined pleasures their wealth should afford.” He painted a picture of lives centered around “lavish tables, heavy with expensive provisions, and extensive wine collections,” marked by "sullenness, reserve, suspicion, and a disdain for those less fortunate," yet devoid of fulfillment, “indifferent to the beauties of nature and art that surrounded them.”189 Mortimer’s critique brings to light a deeper issue: the very logic of their possession was merely a signal of wealth and social status aimed at acquiring more of both.190 Conspicuous consumption effectively bypasses the actual enjoyment of consumed items, tapping instead into the insatiable aspiration for perpetual monetary growth. This realization brings us to a pivotal understanding: promoting luxury commodities and lifestyles is fundamentally a 188 Cited in Yamamoto, Taming Capitalism before its Triumph (2020), 238. 189 Thomas Mortimer, The Elements of Commerce, Politics and Finance in Three Treatises on Those Important Subjects (1780), 408-9. 190 See also Bowen, “‘The Pests of Human Society’: Stockbrokers, Jobbers and Speculators,” 41. 159 strategy for the growth of speculative capital. Such consumer behaviors, spurred by luxury goods, also serve as indicators of the very market schemes that support them, embedding luxury deeply within the speculative practices of the era. Of course, the directors of the South Sea Company epitomized these financial aspirations for perpetual growth and were adept at conspicuous consumption. Their lavish displays of luxury were most apparent during the peak of the South Sea Bubble, serving as a strategic signal of the scheme’s purported profitability. Historians have noted that these displays were not merely for personal gratification but also to bolster public confidence and attract investors by showcasing the success and credibility of the company’s leadership.191 During the 1719-1720 boom, directors like John Blunt and Charles Stanhope made significant investments in London real estate, a key status symbol among English elites. As argued by historian Helen Paul, these acquisitions were public displays of wealth, status, and financial savvy, intended to enhance the credibility of the South Sea scheme.192 This pattern of conspicuous consumption extended beyond real estate to extravagant expenditures on luxury goods, including lavish clothing and gilded carriages. John Grigsby, an accountant for the company, famously boasted about feeding his horses on gold, further illustrating the extent of the ostentation. This indulgence in luxury was a calculated effort to maintain investor interest and confidence in the face of speculative market dynamics.193 During the South Sea Bubble, the Royal Academy of Music’s pricing strategies mirrored the conspicuous consumption tactics employed by South Sea directors. Both exploited the 191 Luxury or status goods are often known as Veblen goods to economists. This phenomenon is not restricted to the stock market. It could be used for any profession where there is asymmetry of information and where a successful individual would be rich. 192 See Helen Paul, The South Sea Bubble: An Economic History of Its Origins and Consequences (Routledge, 2010), 72-73. As Paul has argued, the directors’ investments in land served as a public demonstration of their commitment to the scheme, effectively preventing them from absconding with their gains. Even those directors deemed most culpable had substantial land holdings. This suggests that, regardless of their other activities, a bandwagon strategy of selling out and fleeing was unlikely in their cases. Even if they could discreetly divest their shares, their significant land investments would have hindered any escape with their profits. 193 Carswell, 257. 160 perception of opulence—whether through lavish spending or consistently high ticket prices—to enhance their commercial appeal and financial standing. Instead of countering criticisms of opera’s extravagance, the Academy’s directors seem to have embraced and amplified this image, positioning luxury as a central feature of their musical offering. A key element of their approach was an aggressive pricing structure. In 1720, the Academy set ticket prices significantly above those of other theaters, a practice they maintained even amidst the market crash and economic hardship.194 This strategic pricing not only differentiated their premium offerings from English theater but also reinforced opera’s luxurious image. By the late 1720s, the price for a pit ticket had risen substantially, a move that may seem intended to boost profits during the post-bubble credit crunch.195 However, there is no evidence of a corresponding increase in attendance to justify this as purely profit-driven. Instead, opera at the Academy operated as a quintessential Veblen good—a luxury whose desirability and demand grew in tandem with its cost, its exclusivity reinforced not despite its economics, but because of them.196 Moreover, a comparison of the Academy’s ticket prices with the wages of its musicians and the average London musical worker’s wage reveals that salaries were not the primary determinant of price.197 This marks a shift in how prices, especially for luxury goods like opera, began to signal economic activity rather than merely compensating for productivity. In essence, the Academy’s pricing strategy not only served to solidify opera’s elite status but also functioned as a market signal. This was likely intended to sustain the hype, profitability, and exclusivity of the Academy’s musical endeavors, emblematic of a strategy to exploit the speculative era’s evolving conception of wealth. 194 Under Portland’s budget, the Academy set ticket prices at 8s for boxes, 5s for the pit, and 3s 6d for the gallery—rates markedly above the usual 5s, 3s, and 1s charged by other theaters. See Milhous, “Opera Finances in London, 1674-1738.” 72. 195 HCD vol. 1, 538. 196 Luxury or status goods are often referred to as Veblen goods to economists, after Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (Macmillan, 1899). A Veblen good is a type of product for which demand increases as its price rises. It occurs because the good’s high price itself becomes a feature of its desirability, often tied to its status as a luxury or prestige item. 197 Hume and Milhous, “New Light on Handel and the Royal Academy of Music in 1720,” 157-163. 161 In addition to strategic pricing, the Academy manufactured an aura of exclusivity around opera through intentional advertising. They frequently reminded patrons of the limited number of tickets available, particularly emphasizing that only the costly box seats could be reserved ahead of time by sending a servant to hold the spot.198 This approach not only heightened demand through induced social competition but also elicited psychological responses among audiences, as evidenced by reports like one in the Daily Courant, which noted patrons being turned away from a packed performance by Bononcini due to the venue reaching capacity.199 Moreover, the opera company used newspapers to amplify the bustling spectacle surrounding the opera house, where gilded carriages caught in traffic jams became symbols of the opulence associated with attending the opera.200 This conspicuous display did not enhance the artistic function of opera but rather advertised the social and financial prestige of its patrons. In this environment, where speculative capital was fueled by investment frenzy, opera thrived not just as a cultural phenomenon but as an economic object, actively participating in the self- perpetuating circulation of financial capital. As speculative capital fueled the South Sea Bubble, opera, through its newly established status as a luxury good, managed to sustain itself economically by harnessing the very logic of speculative capital. The signaling effect of luxury, aligned with the emerging catalytic function of money, explains opera’s peculiar combination of high costs and low profit margins. Indeed, its purpose transcended mere profit maximization; it sought the perpetual conversion of cultural capital into economic capital through the psychological mechanisms associated with money. The Academy’s close ties to the South Sea Company seem to further support this interpretation. The 198 The Daily Courant, May 28, 1720. 199 The Daily Courant, November 21, 1720. See also Gibson, 142. Additionally, John Mainwaring described a similar situation at the revival of Handel’s Radamisto earlier that year: “In so splendid and fashionable an assembly of ladies (to the excellence of their taste we must impute it) there was no shadow of form, or ceremony, scarce indeed any appearance of order or regularity, politeness or decency. Many who had forc’d their way into the house with an impetuosity but ill-suited to their rank and sex, actually fainted through the excessive heat and closeness of it. Several gentlemen were turned back, who had offered forty shillings for a seat in the gallery, after having despaired of getting any in the pit or boxes.” 200 The Daily Courant, Apr 5, 1720. 162 opera project may even have served as a signal of the stock scheme’s profitability, with the company’s investors viewing the Royal Academy and its lavish productions as tangible displays of their wealth and success. The Academy’s emergence can thus be seen as the appropriation of surplus financial capital through cultural production. This process fostered a model of cultural consumption centered on musical luxury, using the display of wealth as a signal to mobilize capital for financial market growth. It reveals the complex and evolving relationships between cultural production, financial speculation, and the construction of wealth and status during this period. However, as the boom turned to bust, the opera’s very ties to the financial world placed it in jeopardy. As the exuberance of the South Sea boom gave way to crisis, the future of opera became increasingly precarious, a topic to be explored in the next chapter. 163 3. THE BUST “BECOMING A KIND OF SOUTH SEA COMPANY” The relentless rhythm of stock markets dictates that what goes up must come down.1 The South Sea Bubble turned out to be no exception to this seemingly immutable rule. When the South Sea stock price reached its dizzying height, nervousness displaced exuberance, as conviction began spreading across the market that the stock’s rise was unsustainable.2 By September 1720, key investors, either believing the bubble had peaked or rattled by the South Sea Company directors’ ill-judged actions during the summer months, precipitated the eventual market crash by divesting themselves of South Sea shares.3 As these panicked divestments triggered a cascading withdrawal across the broader market, the bursting bubble devastated Exchange Alley, eradicating company values and obliterating individual wealth. The Royal Academy of Music was among the enterprises that feared becoming collateral damage in the crash. “Affairs here deteriorate further,” Giuseppe Riva, a diplomat from Modena serving at King George I’s court, observed in his correspondence with composer and diplomat Agostino Steffani4 amidst the market crash. “The Royal Academy of Music has,” remarked Riva sarcastically, “succeeded in becoming a kind of South Sea Company.”5 Riva’s comment reflects the decisive shift in public attitude from unchecked market optimism to pervasive pessimism. 1 For orthodox theory on market cycle, see Milton Friedman and Anna Schwarz, “Money and Business Cycle,” in Money in Historical Perspective (The University of Chicago Press, 1987 [1963]), 24-77. 2 See John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (Stanford University Press, 1960), 174-190. 3 Carswell, The South Sea Bubble. In a precautionary measure to avert the potential of being ensnared by plummeting values, some individuals in the later summer of 1720 initiated the process of selling their South Sea Company stocks to gain liquidity and to secure their unrealized gains. The panic selling also induced a sense of unease among select British nobility and members of the royal household. 4 Steffani had previously served in the Hanoverian court. At this time he served as vicar apostolic of Upper and Lower Saxony, a new Catholic jurisdiction in Lower Saxony. Being a composer and a diplomat and Papal official on the continental, Steffani naturally took interests in both musical and political matters in London and kept up his correspondence with Riva. See Lowell Lindgren and Colin Timms, “The Correspondence of Agostino Steffani and Giuseppe Riva, 1720-1728,” Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 36/1 (2003): 1-173. 5 HCD vol. 1, 1721/06. 164 While stressing the Royal Academy of Music’s precarious position after the crash, Riva’s comparison also illuminates the deep entanglement between the opera company’s operational realities and the financial underpinnings and those of the South Sea Company. Once a beneficiary of the speculative excess, the opera joint-stock was now positioned on the verge of becoming yet another casualty of the financial turmoil. This apprehension about the Royal Academy of Music amid the turmoil following the South Sea debacle came as no surprise. The previous chapter has shown the complex entanglement of personnel and finances linking the South Sea Company with the Royal Academy of Music, a union that catalyzed the opera company’s fledgling triumphs against the backdrop of the market boom. In the fateful summer of 1720, as the South Sea Company initiated its third and most ambitious public subscription, it stirred up an unprecedented surge of speculative frenzy in Exchange Alley. During this period, the Royal Academy of Music premiered three original operas over 22 performances in just five months of its inaugural season.6 This feat not only marked a significant departure from the modest productions of London’s last entrepreneurial attempts at opera led by John James Heidegger but also surpassed them in scope and ambition. Where Heidegger’s operatic ventures between 1713-1717, stretching over eight months annually, predominantly featured pasticcios, the Royal Academy ambitiously presented original compositions, achieving a level of audience attendance and financial viability that Heidegger’s ventures, reliant on benefit concerts and other auxiliary sources for financial support, could not sustain.7 But it appeared that all this success of the Royal Academy of Music would soon end. In December 1720, Sir Thomas Dereham in Florence replied to a letter from Giovanni Zamboni, a Modenese merchant in London, in which the latter had clearly relayed an unfavorable report about the Academy: “I am sorry for the decay of 6 HCD vol. 1, 435. 7 Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, “Heidegger and the Management of the Haymarket Opera, 1713- 17,” Early Music 271 (1999): 65–84. 165 Opera’s, for if such performers have no luck, what can others expect?”8 By the year’s end, it was widely believed that the Royal Academy of Music would follow in the steps of the South Sea Company and meet its own demise. Riva’s insights into the Royal Academy of Music and the South Sea Company were drawn from his exchanges with Paolo Rolli, a librettist, translator, impresario, the “Italian secretary” and de facto creative director to the Royal Academy of Music. Both Riva and Rolli were prominent figures within London’s growing “Italian circle,” a network that comprised literary, diplomatic, and musical luminaries, including the star musicians Bononcini and Senesino.9 Through Rolli’s detailed letters, Riva gained a first-hand perspective on the unfolding economic disaster’s dire impact on those within the opera business, who also saw their personal fortunes dwindle. During this period, Riva was accompanying King George on an extended visit to Hanover, and he relied on Rolli’s correspondence to stay informed about the escalating South Sea crisis and its repercussions on the musical venture. In September 1720, Rolli conveyed to Riva the tumultuous conditions of the English market during the summer and a nascent recovery of stock values “from its most ruinous fall.”10 The volatility of the English market over the summer was shaped in part by the introduction of the Bubble Act. Promoted by the South Sea Company to curb the emergence of rival joint-stock companies, the Act inadvertently stoked public fear, undermining confidence in the South Sea Company itself and accelerating the decline of its shares.11 After peaking at £1,050 in June, the stock witnessed a sharp downturn post-Bubble Act, plummeting to £820 by August 22, 1720.12 The financial turbulence even swayed King George I, who dramatically reduced his stake in the 8 Lindgren and Timms, “The Correspondence,” 39. 9 See George Dorris, Paolo Rolli and the Italian Circle in London, 1715–1744 (De Gruyter, 2014). 10 HCD vol. 1, 1720/09. 11 Niall Ferguson, The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000 (Basic Books, 2002), 118. 12 South Sea Company stock price data based on English market price data, see “South Sea Bubble 1720 Data,” South Sea Bubble 1720 Project, International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management. https://som.yale.edu/centers/international-center-for-finance/data/historical-financial-research- data/south-seas-bubble-1720. https://som.yale.edu/centers/international-center-for-finance/data/historical-financial-research-data/south-seas-bubble-1720 https://som.yale.edu/centers/international-center-for-finance/data/historical-financial-research-data/south-seas-bubble-1720 166 company by 85% (from £66,000 to £10,000).13 Amid this sell-off, the company’s directors attempted to stabilize the stock price by increasing dividends and by buying shares through their proxies, a stabilizing move Rolli briefly reported.14 Then he continued to speculate on the market’s ripple effect on the Royal Academy of Music and his personal fortune. “Our subscription did not reach 30 per cent in cash,” continued Rolli, “I hope that the spirit of rising value will return, and by God, I want to profit from it,”15 revealing the dual concern that he shared with those in the Italian circle: the potential difficulty for the Royal Academy of Music in raising funds amid market contraction, and by extension, their professional futures in England, as well as his personal investment in the fluctuating fortunes of the South Sea stock. Yet, Rolli’s hope for a recovery only proved illusory. Neither the legislative measures of the Bubble Act nor the South Sea directors’ attempts at bolstering the market could stave off the impending collapse.16 When the South Sea Company attempted to recall its stocks in a desperate bid for liquidity in late September, it inadvertently sparked widespread panic. This led to a mass sell-off, sending the stock into a downward spiral; by October 1, its value had plummeted to a yearly low of 134, a nearly 90% drop.17 However, the crisis extended beyond the South Sea Company, engulfing those chartered joint-stocks often considered too big to fail: East India Company shares fell 60% and Bank of England shares decreased by 45%.18 London found itself in the throes of a desperate credit crunch. As Rolli reported, the Royal Academy of Music found itself among the victims of the credit crunch, struggling to gather expected funds from a 30% call on its subscribers’ 13 Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (1960), 205. 14 Lewis Melville, The South Sea Bubble (B. Franklin, 1968), 114-117. 15 HCD vol. 1, 1720/09. 16 In the fall 1720, when the Company called on a £34,000 rescue subscription in an attempt to save the effect of the Bubble Act’s implementation, panic selling widened, and South Sea shares immediately sank to 134 pounds. The call turned out to be an economic signal for the questionable profitability of the company. See Melville, The South Sea Bubble, 120. 17 Yale School of Management, “South Sea Bubble 1720 Data.” 18 Ibid. In October, East India Company share fell to 170 from its yearly high of 420 and the Bank of England to 140 from 250. 167 shareholdings. This call, which would have secured more than £4,500, was vital not just for meeting the ordinary overheads as calculated by the Duke of Portland but was necessary to afford the salaries of newly engaged castrato stars like Senesino, who had been guaranteed an annual salary of at least £1,000.19 This financial shortfall represented an even grimmer prospect for Rolli and the Academy, especially since Rolli had been “anxiously” awaiting Senesino’s arrival, pinning his hopes on the castrato’s star power to rescue the Academy from its fiscal woe. This was epitomized by his wishful thinking: “It is hoped that the Man will put a good face on a bad game,” showing his faith in the allure of Senesino’s virtuosity as a beacon of financial hopes for the Academy in those bleak times.20 Two weeks after his previous message, Rolli wrote to Riva again, this time with all lingering hopes for a market recovery extinguished. He painted a grim picture of England’s slide into economic collapse, remarking “What disasters these of the South Sea [Company] bring upon us, leading us all towards an abyss: everywhere, one sees only despondency, we see nothing but unhappy faces, big bankers are ruined; large stockholders are disappearing: one does not know an acquaintance or a friend who [does not] face total ruin.”21 He also commented on the crisis’s impacts on social order, fearing “a tragic outcome.”22 The crisis had significantly 19 Calculating the initial investment based on the 62 original subscribers of the 1719 Charter and their pledged amounts reveals a total of just under £4,500. As each subscriber’s financial commitment became increasingly precarious, the possibility of securing additional funds to compensate the newly arrived celebrity singers appeared increasingly bleak. The credit crunch retrospectively highlighted the promotional strategies employed by both the South Sea Company and the Royal Academy of Music, as discussed in Chapter 1. These included offering share subscriptions as compound call options and margin trading. While these investment options lowered the entry barrier by requiring minimal upfront cash to attract more investors, they simultaneously heightened the risk of default. This dynamic created the perfect storm for a financial crisis within the joint-stock structure itself, ultimately forcing the Royal Academy to call on subscriptions they had never anticipated needing to enforce. See also Melania Bucciarelli, “Senesino’s Negotiations with the Royal Academy of Music: Further Insight into the Riva– Bernardi Correspondence and the Role of Singers in the Practice of Eighteenth-Century Opera,” Cambridge Opera Journal 27, no. 3 (2015): 189–213. 20 HCD vol 1, 1720/10. 21 Rolli also briefly mentioned in the letter the financial woes experienced by Durastanti’s husband, Casimiro Avelloni, who had borrowed from Riva for his South Sea investment. “The good Casimiro has security only in you, and without your consent his right to the £1,000 cannot be removed.” 22 A letter from an MP at the time read, “All is plunged into a state of chaos. As for matters of finance concerning the Exchange and the South Sea Company, I find myself at a loss for words. The confusion persists, and I realize that I must remain in silence for an extended period. If I stay still, I know how to 168 undermined the credibility of the administration at the time, led by Sunderland and Stanhope, both key proponents of the South Sea Company and among the founding subscribers of the Royal Academy of Music. Amid this chaos, a political shift was underway, with Robert Walpole and Charles Townsend stepping up as new stewards to navigate the crisis.23 Echoing the public’s outcry for King George I’s return to restore stability, Rolli concluded his letter, “Soon tis will be time for you to return with the dear and much adored King George, and you will be a spectator of it all.”24 By the time Rolli’s letter arrived, Riva had already returned to London with George I only to discover a nation devastated. In a letter to Steffani, Riva recounted his journey back across the English Channel amidst the chaos spawned by the South Sea Company’s debacle: “Here [in England] we found the other sea, that of the South, in terrible turmoil… What a difference between the London of five or six months ago and that of today!”25 Riva later depicted an England beleaguered by the crisis: “Internal affairs here are in a bad state with regard to the interest, commerce and credit of the nation; bankruptcies continue, credit is unobtainable at the Exchange, and this terrible situation has caused overwhelming confusion and losses for honorable men.”26 Many of these alleged “honorable men” were conceivably among his and Rolli’s circles. In a moment of shared indignation directed at those behind the South Sea Company, Rolli also had confided to Riva about the extent of the damage, writing, “Those responsible for the South Sea Company have brought ruin upon my friends, and I fear, by extension, the Academy itself.” Exasperated, Rolli vented his disdain with a vehement curse, address this matter. Everything is adrift, descending. The directors of the South Sea Company are now cursed by the populace. The pinnacle of speculation has been shattered.” Cited in Melville, The South Sea Bubble (1968), 137. 23 For further detail on the Whig schism of 1717-1720, the Walpole-Townsend succession to the Sunderland-Stanhope administration, and the political reshuffling amid the South Sea crisis, see Julian Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England 1689-1727 (Oxford University Press, 2000), 151-161, 397-413. 24 HCD vol. 1, 1720/10. 25 HCD vol. 1, 1720/11. 26 HCD vol. 1, 1720/11. 169 “May the South Sea Directors be impaled. God damn ’em.”27 Indeed, many people connected with the Royal Academy of music—especially its affluent subscribers—were hard hit by the catastrophe, suffering a visceral blow from the market downturn. For example, one of the top subscribers to the opera shares, the Duke of Chandos’s finances suffered a severe hit, leaving many of his building projects incomplete.28 Following the market crash, Chandos wrote to his friend: “I have seen great variety of Fortune but in all my life I never saw so universal a scene of Misery as I did last week, the distress mankind was in was inconceivable & a general Bankruptcy was apprehended… in my Fortune I assure you I have lost within this month above five Hundred thousand pounds.”29 Another individual who suffered greatly—and indeed fatally—was James Craggs, whose involvement with the Royal Academy likely owed to his ties to opera-loving aristocrats and his knowledge of the South Sea scheme. Following the collapse of the South Sea Company, Craggs found both himself and his father implicated by a parliamentary act that seized all their properties gained since the South Sea scheme’s launch. The younger Craggs passed away less than a year later, and his father took his own life shortly after his son’s death.30 Even the inaugural governor of the opera company, the Duke of Newcastle, was not spared from the downfall. Long before the South Sea Bubble burst, Newcastle was already notorious for his financial mismanagement.31 Ensnared in personal debts, Newcastle viewed the South Sea scheme not merely as an investment but as a desperate 27 HCD vol. 1, 1720/10. Rolli concluded this with a curse: “God damn ’em—Bolognese trick!” (Ma rido che sospetta di me, e non si fida della mia civilissima apparenza al suo maestoso Caprino aspetto. Ma sian’inpalati i Direttori del Southsee ch’an rovinato tutti li miei amici, e temo molto, che avran per consequenza rovinato T’Accademia, God damem [?.. .] ta Bolognese!). 28 See P. G. Dickson and J. V. Beckett. “The Finances of the Dukes of Chandos: Aristocratic Inheritance, Marriage, and Debt in Eighteenth-Century England,” The Huntington Library Quarterly 64, nos. 3–4 (2001): 319-320. See also Susan Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron: The Patronage and Collecting of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (Routledge, 2007). 29 HL Stowe Manuscripts, ST 57 Vol. 17, f. 206, “A letter to Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke, dated 5 October 1720.” 30 Carswell, 243-4. 31 Newcastle was infamous for being a wealth aristocrat who inherited an income of £25,000 at birth and died with only £9,000 while throughout his life running up debts of over £300,000. See Ray Kelch, Newcastle, A Duke Without Money: Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1693-1768 (University of California Press, 1974). 170 gambit to salvage his sinking fortunes. Yet, his foray into this speculative gamble led to even greater losses—thousands of pounds lost on his South Sea investment, a small amount compared to his peers but a substantial sum he could ill afford.32 The financial and reputational fallout from the South Sea fiasco prompted his departure from both the privy council and directorship of the Royal Academy of Music.33 Lastly, the Duke of Portland, initially instrumental in the Academy’s management with his lavish capital projections for the opera company’s launch season, also found himself among the numerous casualties of the South Sea debacle. This financial catastrophe, compounded by a contentious legal dispute with several of his creditors, prompted his departure from England. In 1721, he set sail for Jamaica to assume the governorship—a journey that was as much a strategic exile as it was a foray into irony.34 His new role brought him face-to-face with the brutal realities of plantation economies and enslaved labor—economic realities he directly profited from, owning over 300 enslaved individuals. This exploitative system formed the very foundation of the speculative wealth he had pursued, albeit unsuccessfully, through the South Sea venture. This hasty escape did not, however, diminish his ardor for Italian music. Bringing several “Italian masters” with him on his voyage to the real South Sea, his arrival in Jamaica likely introduced European music to the English colonies in the West Indies for the first time.35 While these performances must have paled in comparison to the grandeur of the Royal Academy of Music, they nevertheless amounted to a striking instance of how the English gentry’s privilege was strategically preserved through colonial expansion. In this adventitious act of cultural propagation, opera became a prism, refracting the broader convergence of power and 32 Kelch, Newcastle, A Duke Without Money (1974). 33 Newcastle’s name ceased to appear in the Academy’s board meeting minutes. In fact, none of the five peers who were original directors of the Academy continued in the new season after the crash. 34 See “Biography of Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland” https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/collectionsindepth/family/portland/bi ographies/biographyof[william]henrybentinck,1stdukeofportland(1682-1726).aspx 35 On his arrival in Kingston in February 1723, a report appeared in London’s newspapers, “there was a fine Consort of Musick… which was perform’d by the Italian Masters that arrived there along with his Grace.” Weekly Journal; or, Saturday’s Post, April 20, 1723. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/collectionsindepth/family/portland/biographies/biographyof%5Bwilliam%5Dhenrybentinck,1stdukeofportland(1682-1726).aspx https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/collectionsindepth/family/portland/biographies/biographyof%5Bwilliam%5Dhenrybentinck,1stdukeofportland(1682-1726).aspx 171 performance, empire and economics. While the Duke of Portland may have continued to enjoy his “fine consort of music” afar from home,36 London’s opera scene, deeply impacted by the financial crisis for months after the South Sea Company’s collapse, experienced a protracted decline in enthusiasm. Around the end of 1720, Anne Lennox, Duchess of Richmond, relayed these concerns to her son Lord March, the incoming deputy-governor of the opera company, writing, “Every body complains of the dullness of London for operas, […] Lady Chetwinds, Bristols, or Lady Stratford’s cannot [even] get enough to pay for the candles, people are more dispirited at present and seem more sensible of their losses in the South Sea than last year, there being no redress to be hop’d for the Parlement.”37 Public sentiment towards Italian opera also deteriorated further as pamphleteers, already critical of the opera as a speculative endeavor, sharpened their satire further. Thomas D’Urfey, in a satirical broadside, humorously listed fictitious “bubble companies” to mock their real counterparts, including the Royal Academy of Music under the nickname “the fiddle project.” A notable verse goes, “Italian Songsters come away / Our Gentry will the Piper pay / Come hasten here for before ‘tis long / Opera Stock will be sold for a song.”38 This illustrates that both the South Sea Scheme and the Royal Academy of Music were perceived as ventures marked by fiscal recklessness, and, for the opera company specifically, this financial mismanagement was further linked to the controversial musical genre it imported. The negative perception of opera worsened after the South Sea Bubble burst. The crashing market fueled accusations of opera being a cultural conspirator in the South Sea scheme’s chicanery. In a ballad called “The Broken South Sea Taylor’s Ditty,” this theme is evident: “Cheats compleat Fictious banters / Stock Jobbing Rogue-ish Cantors,” prompting the public to channel its anger about the financial crisis towards Italian opera and its singers.39 Amid a tarnished public image and shrinking 36 Ibid. 37 Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, A Duke and his Friends (Hutchinson & Co., 1911), 54. 38 Thomas D’Urfey, “The Hubble Bubbles; a ballad to the tune of O’er the hills and far away” (1720). 39 BL H.1601, f. 209. 172 private investment, the Royal Academy continued to face challenges in securing additional funds through its subscription calls, ultimately resorting to public announcements that relied on social stigma associated with defaulters at the time to encourage further capitalization.40 Despite these efforts, which included warnings of expulsion, legal consequences, and public disgrace for those in default, these tactics seemingly failed to yield the desired results. With many subscribers either deceased, absconded, or bankrupt, and in the face of dwindling enthusiasm, and depleted finances, the opera company was truly in a crisis. OPERA IN CRISIS In his letter to Steffani, Riva’s assertion that the Royal Academy had “[become] another South Sea Company” highlights the similarities between the two entities, and these similarities extended beyond their financial tribulations to their managerial shortcomings and internal discord, as further elucidated in his correspondence: Affairs here go from bad to worse. Here is the arithmetical proof the shares of the South Sea Company are at 110. … The fondness for factions, which is characteristic of this nation, and the gossiping of the singers… an original sin of the profession, have brought things to a state of collapse.41 The Royal Academy of Music has turned out to be a kind of South Sea Company. Everything went marvelously well at the beginning, but as it progressed the devil entered and sowed discord among the singers, and among the Subscribers and Directors.42 Riva’s letter, offering a perspective on the South Sea Bubble through the experiences of the Royal Academy of Music, mirrored a broader shift in English public discourse from initial 40 London Gazette, July 8, 1721. The notice outlined the Academy’s call for additional contributions from its subscribers, based on their shareholdings. By the end of summer 1721, the directors took a firmer approach, warning those in arrears of expulsion, legal action, and the embarrassment of having their names publicly disclosed. The announcement stated, “There are to give further Notice to every such Defaulter, That unless he pays the said Calls on or before the 22nd of November next, his Name shall be printed, and he shall be proceeded against with the utmost Rigour of the Law.” 41 HCD vol. 1, 1721/03. 42 HCD vol. 1, 1721/04. 173 reactions of panic to a more considered reflection and critique of the crash. His letter, accompanied by “arithmetical proof” valuing South Sea Company shares at a stark £110, likely drew insights from Archibald Hutcheson, the Bubble’s most actuarially savvy critic.43 In addition to the quantitative analysis that underscored the Bubble’s predictable collapse Riva also ventured deeper, examining the structural and managerial deficiencies plaguing the South Sea Company. It is within this broader critique of corporate governance that the remark about the Royal Academy of Music’s internal strife emerged, illustrating how similar issues of managerial dysfunction were seen as plaguing both institutions. In England’s post-Bubble mediascape, pamphlets performing postmortem examinations on the South Sea Company’s collapse began to reveal the joint-stock company’s chaotic managerial dynamics. One of them, titled The Secret History of the South Sea Scheme, penned by an initially anonymous author later identified as John Toland, a clerk within the company, exposed the deep-set division within its management.44 The board was split between an influential inner circle led by John Blunt, who routinely courted politicians for deals of further government debt absorption, and a marginalized outer circle, led by Theodore Janssen, who possessed a longer-term outlook about the company’s trade that could have lent the company more sustainable credibility and respectability. The latter, however, was routinely excluded from crucial decision-making processes by Blunt’s inner circle.45 This revelation through the popular 43 See Helen Paul, “Archibald Hutcheson’s Reputation as an Economic Thinker: His Pamphlets, the National Debt and the South Sea Bubble,” in Essays in Economic and Business History (Bucknell University Press, 2012). 44 Anon, “‘The Secret History of the South Sea Scheme’,” in J. Toland, A collection of several pieces of Mr. John Toland, now first publish’d from his original manuscripts: with some memoirs of his life and writing (1726). 45 Ibid. The anonymous author contends that John Blunt and his associates on the South Sea Company’s board deceived Sub-Governor Fellowes, who was largely uninformed about the complex operations, effectively sidelining the Committee of Treasury and monopolizing key decisions without the knowledge of other directors. The account reveals that figures like Janssens were systematically excluded from Blunt’s inner circle. Additionally, Janssen, unlike Blunt, failed to liquidate his holdings prior to the market crash, indicating a possible lack of insider knowledge. This scenario implies that if investors were unable to discern the existence of distinct inner and outer circles within the company’s leadership, then the ostensibly responsible actions of some directors could have inadvertently masked the malevolent schemes of others. See also Peter Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England (Macmillan, 1967), 112- 113. 174 pamphlet underlined the public’s increasing awareness of the detrimental impact that such managerial divisions had on the company’s operation. Commentators quickly escalated this issue into a structural flaw of the South Sea Company. According to the commentators, the issue was indicative of a governance structure that failed to align the corporate interests of its directors with the financial interests of its investors, marking what critics deemed the intrinsic failing of the joint-stock company model and the sustainability of its profit. John Meres, a wealthy merchant and one of the Duke of Portland’s creditors, expressed this critique in a letter to Portland just before the latter departed for Jamaica.46 He offered a systemic critique of this convoluted corporate structure, highlighting the failure of the South Sea Company’s chartered joint-stock model to bring the interests of its directors and managers in line with those of its shareholders, thereby creating moral hazards and inefficiencies. Meres suggested that only in the rare case of the appointment of “fit and able persons” to oversee the directors could a joint-stock company foster “prudent management” and ensure a “fair and just distribution of the proceeds from the company’s funds.”47 For the South Sea Company, this was not to be the case. According to this retrospective analysis, the South Sea directors’ myriad mishaps—scandals, lies, mismanagement—began to be seen not as aberrations but as inherent features of the joint-stock enterprise. The examination of the South Sea Company’s corporate dynamics after the 1720 crash foreshadowed the critical insights of Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, where he used the 46 UNott PwB 47-65. John Meres, a merchant from Leicestershire and a director of several companies, was one of the creditors of Portland, who had borrowed money from him and vanished in early 1721. Presumably, to diminish his exposure and visibility, Portland also resigned from the Royal Academy of Music’s board. The correspondence Meres sent to Portland, demanding the repayment of funds, escalated in hostility over the course of 1721. 47 UNott PwB 47/1. “…number of fit and able persons as they should think proper to be Directors and Managers for the Public as a Check upon the Directors of the Company; and how these Directors for the Public should act and manage, is expressly mentioned in the act, that they might be a protection to the subscribers as purchasers from the Company, and also to take case that right were done between the Company and the Government in the fair and just Distribution of the Product of the Funds and that the Public might receive no Detriment by hurting too far to the management of the Company” This elucidation of the agent-principal problem preceded Adam Smith’s systematic summary by five decades. 175 South Sea Company as a prime example of the inherent conflicts within the joint-stock model, a concept now recognized as the “agent-principal problem.”48 Rather than dwelling on the Company’s notorious stock manipulation, Smith’s discussion of the South Sea Company in The Wealth of Nations focused on its fundamental structural inefficiency. Echoing the concerns of earlier critics like Meres, Smith pinpointed the misalignment of incentives due to the widespread distribution of capital among numerous shareholders.49 This dispersion further created a gap between the company’s directors—whom Smith described as “stewards of rich men”—and its shareholders. Smith contended that the inherent organizational flaws of joint- stock entities such as the South Sea Company naturally predisposed them to “extraordinary waste,” characterized by mismanagement, negligence, and corruption.50 As the crisis unearthed the managerial disarray within the South Sea Company, Riva noted comparable strife within the Royal Academy of Music, where a divisive spirit of factionalism among its managers and creatives similarly afflicted the opera joint-stock. “The malignant spirit of parties,” wrote Riva, “has also found its way into the Royal Academy of Music, with the result that at present things are going wrong, and there is everything but harmony.”51 Read in light of his earlier commentary on the interpersonal tensions among singers, which he derisively termed the profession’s “original sin,” it was implied that the 48 In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith articulated a concept that would later become known in economic literature as the “agent-principal problem,” emphasizing the inherent conflict of interest between “principals” (company owners) and their “agents” (company managers). He argued that this misalignment of interests was a systemic flaw undermining the efficiency and integrity of the joint-stock company model, casting skepticism on its suitability as a cornerstone for liberal market systems. 49 “Immense capital” dispersed among “immense number of proprietors.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Modern Library,1937 [1776]), 700. 50 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 700. Smith viewed joint-stock companies as incompatible with classical liberalism. He argued that company directors, managing “other people’s money,” lacked the “anxious vigilance” of partners in a private company. This inherent disconnect, Smith believed, fostered “fraud and abuse,” leading to “extraordinary waste.” He concluded that such “folly, negligence, and profusion” were inevitable in the management of joint-stock companies. For Smith, the South Sea Company’s downfall was not an anomaly, but a symptom of the model itself. The joint-stock structure, in his view, failed to align individual interests with collective success, a key tenet of free market theories. This misalignment, he contended, ultimately undermined the public good that competition and entrepreneurship were meant to foster. 51 HCD vol. 1, 1721/02. 176 repercussions of such factionalism could perhaps be even more severe in the Academy than those observed within the South Sea Company.52 Members of the increasingly hostile factions within the Royal Academy that Riva referred to included the librettists-managers Paolo Rolli and John James Heidegger, composers George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Bononcini, and singers Margherita Durastanti and Senesino (Francesco Bernardi). On one side, Handel, Heidegger, and Durastanti shared a longstanding collaboration. Durastanti had worked with Handel during his Venetian debut opera Agrippina and later sung at the court of the Elector of Saxony, who would become King George I. This trio’s creative partnership was rooted in shared experiences and familiarity within Protestant court circles. Heidegger, as Handel’s initial contact in the English theater scene, would later co-found an opera company with Handel in 1729, further solidifying their partnership. On the other side, the Italian contingent within the Academy, led by Rolli, formed a tightly knit circle with a strong national identity and connections to both Italian diplomats in England and English Tory aristocrats. The arrival of Italian singers, including the eminent Senesino, along with the half-Italian Anastasia Robinson, saw them naturally align with Rolli and Bononcini, fostering a robust professional and personal network. These factions were not merely artistic or cultural divisions but were deeply entwined with the political leanings and affiliations of the era, reflecting the broader tensions between Tory and Whig, Italian and British, Catholic and Protestant within the microcosm of the Royal Academy of Music. Whereas Rolli’s Italian faction enjoyed support from the Duke of Marlborough and other country Tories, Heidegger, Handel, and their cohort maintained allegiance to their Protestant backgrounds and the Hanoverian monarchy, with Handel receiving particular support from the Prince of Wales and his circle.53 52 HCD vol. 1, 1720/12. 53 See Suzanne Aspden, “‘An Infinity of Factions’: Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain and the Undoing of Society,” Cambridge Opera Journal 9, no. 1 (1997): 1–19. It has often been understood that the Bononcini/Rolli and Handel/Heidegger factions can also loosely be thought of as the “Whig-Hanoverian faction” and the “Tory-Italian faction.” But Thomas McGeary was right to suggest that such mapping was 177 Throughout the Royal Academy of Music’s history, Rolli’s Italian circle emerged as a dominant faction within the management, showing a marked hostility towards external figures such as Handel and Durastanti. From Durastanti’s arrival in London, Rolli displayed overt hostility, criticizing her selection for lead roles in the 1720 season as “a poor choice for England.” The arrival of Senesino in 1720 saw him immediately supplanting Durastanti in the lead role for the revival of Radamisto. Rolli’s grievances extended to operational matters, notably Durastanti’s absences from rehearsals. Senesino, aligned with Rolli’s inner circle, shared this antagonism towards Durastanti, mockingly commenting on her contract renewal as potentially underhanded, suggesting it bypassed formal board approval.54 These rivalries escalated beyond professional disagreements to personal attacks. He pejoratively referred to Durastanti as “an elephant” and Heidegger as “an Alpine faun,” which exemplifies the deeply entrenched divisions that marred the Academy’s cohesion and the toxic environment fostered by internal factions. After the South Sea crisis, this factional bitterness became so severe that it threatened to implode the Academy. “It is not yet known whether Senesino will stay,” reported Riva, “Berselli is ill in the country. Durastante has given birth; Bononcini either laughs or gets angry when he sees how absurdly things are arranged, and thus these affairs are in total disarray, like everything else.”55 Riva’s observations of the Royal Academy of Music’s internal chaos illuminate how vulnerable creative collaborations can be to managerial discord, underscoring the newly more of a historiographic heuristic and was never absolute. See also Thomas McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 57-93. 54 HCD vol. 1, 1720/02. “I will come straight to the point concerning the details of the last letter, and I have the honour to tell you that in view of the generous offer of 3000 guineas in cash made to me by the said Royal Academy, I have no difficulty in accepting the engagement, and arriving in England at the time required. For this purpose I include herewith a kind of power of attorney, which I consider to be couched in sufficiently comprehensive terms, so that you may do me the kindness of drawing up the contract and undertaking those guarantees about which you wrote to me, while I leave it to you to deal with them in whatever place you consider most suitable. It is clear to me that since the Academy reserves the right to cancel the above contract after the first season, I cannot do less than insist on a similar right for myself, and you will have much less difficulty in obtaining it, since the same condition was granted to Signora Durastante, although privately, without the Academy having the right to decide on it.” 55 HCD vol. 1, 1721/03. 178 recognized complexities arising from the intersection of joint-stock arrangements and artistic practices. The divisive factions within the Academy, pitting managers and creatives against one another, posed a significant threat to the opera company’s survival, especially considering how the destructive internal conflicts doomed the South Sea Company. This tension was alarmingly evident in a 1721 letter from Rolli himself, shortly before the start of the opera season, where he ominously noted, “If people with a little common sense have not found a solution by Wednesday, we may see the final curtain fall”—a pointed comment reflecting the acute awareness of the potentially catastrophic consequences of unresolved managerial disputes on the Royal Academy’s future.56 THE “BAILOUT OPERA” The timing of the market crash proved particularly inopportune for the Royal Academy of Music. Following its initial success in the early part of 1720 with a partial opera season, the Academy looked forward to the 1721 full season as a grander debut of its musical venture. This season was expected to present to the English audience the talents of its full roster of star performers—Senesino, Durastanti, Salvai, Robinson, Galerati, Berselli, and Boschi—who, despite most of their absence in the initial season, had all arrived in London. Friedrich Ernst von Fabrice, a Hanoverian diplomat who had accompanied George I to England, took the helm of the Royal Academy of Music amid the South Sea financial turmoil and the Academy’s factional strife.57 Faced with the Academy’s precarious situation, von Fabrice had every intention of 56 HCD vol. 1, 1721/04. Riva’s letter suggests that there had been a disruptive incident at the performance of Muzio Scevola on April 19. The meetings of the Academy’s General Court on April 18 and May 2 may have exacerbated current problems. “[E]ven worse things could happen in the presence of his Majesty and the Prince of Wales who were at the opera.”⁠ Riva goes on to say, once again invoking the chaos of the South sea Company, “Now it seems as if they wish to remedy the harm already done, but it is difficult to return a river to its first bed when its course has been interrupted. Oh dear and adored English! What a capricious and fickle nation.” 57 A trusted diplomat in the court of George I, von Fabrice had managed political business for the king in his regency government in Hanover, serving as the link between the king’s English and German courts. During this tumultuous period, he joined the Academy as a new director, presumably owing to his role as de facto Lord Chamberlain to the king. He is known to have regularly arranged musical evenings for 179 turning the crisis into an opportunity for the opera company’s survival. Envisioning a collaborative project von Fabrice sought to leverage the opera stage as a vehicle to demonstrate the Academy’s solidarity and creative harmony, dispelling doubts about the opera company’s financial and managerial stability in turbulent times. “I decided that we should have an opera in which each act would be composed by one composer,” as von Fabrice detailed his strategic decision in his memoir, “to put end to this taking of sides, and to prevent our inevitable ruin.”58 Von Fabrice’s strategy materialized in the 1721 season opener, Muzio Scevola. This collaborative opera featured contributions from the Academy’s trio of composers, each responsible for a different act. Filippo Amadei took on the opening act, followed by Bononcini and Handel, who composed the middle and final acts, respectively.59 Amadei’s contribution, relatively minor, served mostly as a warm-up act to the subsequent acts, setting the stage for the supposed reconciliation between his more renowned colleagues. This arrangement was supposed to bridge the divide between the previously discussed “Italian” inner circle and the “Hanoverian” outer circle within the Academy, encompassing managers, librettists, and singers alike, who rallied behind Bononcini and Handel. Yet, in hindsight, von Fabrice’s vision for Muzio Scevola appears to have been more than a mere collaborative showcase among composers intended to signal unity. Besides serving as a vehicle for the Royal Academy of Music to steer through its financial and reputational downturn, Muzio Scevola also attempted to engage with the immediate political landscape shaped by the South Sea crisis—especially the broader discourse on political and economic solutions to the courtiers and their wives. His directorship at the Academy would continue until the joint-stock’s cessation. In his memoir, he spent lengthy paragraphs accounting his experience. See Friedrich Ernst von Fabrice, Anecdotes Du Sejour Du Roi de Suede a Bender, Ou, Lettres de Mr. Le Baron de Fabrice Pour Servir d’eclaircissement a l’histoire de Charles XII (Chez Chretien Herold, 1761) 58 HCD vol. 2, 251-254. 59 While Muzio Scevola could be labeled a pastiche, this description applies only in the sense that it involved a collaborative division of labor among the Academy’s three composers. Each composer contributed music for a self-contained act, each preceded by a full-scale overture (a “French overture” followed by a fast section). Importantly, the latter two acts featured a comparable number of arias for each of the Academy’s star singers. 180 crisis. This deeper engagement with contemporaneous political and economic upheavals is embedded in its libretto. The story of Muzio Scevola draws from Livy’s account of the Etruscan King Lars Porsena’s vainglorious attempt to invade the Roman Republic and reinstate its ousted final monarch, Lucius Tarquinio. Livy’s rendition emphasizes the valiant opposition mounted by the Romans, highlighting the deeds of Muzio (Gaius Mucius Scaevola). Muzio’s cognomen, “Scevola,” or “left-handed,” alludes to a pivotal moment where, after failing in his assassination attempt on Porsena, he subjects his right hand to the fire as a self-inflicted punishment, an act that paradoxically secures Porsena’s admiration of Roman valor, leading to his withdrawal from Rome. By the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this tale had captured the imagination of opera librettists, who, in pursuit of the theatrical allure demanded by the opera stage, augmented Livy’s chronicles with their own inventive additions.60 These non-canonical renditions introduced layers of imagined romantic and dramatic complexities to enrich the story’s appeal for its operatic audience, as librettists tailored the story to be topical, incorporating elements that resonated with the opera patrons’ contemporary experiences and expectations.61 The librettist of London’s 1721 Muzio Scevola was Paolo Rolli. It became apparent, through its unusually long dedication spanning six full pages included in the published bilingual wordbook, that Muzio Scevola was no ordinary opera.62 This dedication, an eloquent tribute to Britain with a lavish commendation of King George I highlights the topical relevance of ancient 60 With texts written by Nicoli Minato (first set by Cavalli for Venice in 1665), before other musical settings by Stradella (1679), Reiser (1695), Mattheson (1702), and Lotti (1712), The story of Muzio Scevola became an opera seria subject in as early as the seventeenth century, and these various settings differed from one another in the fictional love tangles librettists chose to interweave with the main storyline. 61 For the social and political rituals surrounding opera seria and its dramatic and musical protocols in the eighteenth century, see Martha Feldman, Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth- Century Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2007), 11-35. 62 Paolo Rolli, Mutius Scevola, an Opera as it is perform’d at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket for the Royal Academy of Music (Thomas Wood, 1721). Reproduced in Ellen Harris, ed., The Librettos of Handel’s Operas: A Collection of Seventy-One Librettos Documenting Handel’s Operatic Career, Vol. 3 (Garland, 1989). 181 Roman tales adapted for the English stage. Rolli draws parallels between ancient Romans and contemporary Britons, positing both as defenders of liberty, a central theme of his libretto and its intended appeal to the English audience’s sense of identity and values as the nation experienced the aftershock from the South Sea crash: I dedicate to Your Majesty this drama of mine, whose subject I have thought about since I first had the honour to serve the Royal Academy, believing that I could provide for this illustrious nation a spectacle worthy of it, and that I could write a work which could at least by its title deserve to be dedicated to the King of Great Britain. It is about the birth of Roman liberty, of that liberty which, banished from its unfortunate homeland, strove to take refuge in almost all the remaining parts of the world; but which, restricted or oppressed by a few, or overcome and driven out by one man, would have for ever wandered lonely among woods and cottages, if it had not found at last a safe, great and glorious asylum in Your Majesty’s happy kingdoms: most happy kingdoms!63 Through this calculated encomium to Britain and its king, Rolli reasserts his host nation as the bastion of liberty’s advancement, drawing a parallel with the glories of Ancient Rome. This adept flattery delineates a stark contrast between a modern Italy perceived as bereft of freedom 63 SIRE, Consacro alia M[aesta].V[ostra]. questo mio Drama, al cui suggetto pensai fin da quando ebbi l’onore di servire alia Reale Accademia: stimando potersene dare spetta- colo di lei degno a quest’ Inclita Nazione, e scriversene Componimento che per lo Titolo almeno, meritasse d’esser consecrato al RE DELLA GRAN BRETAGNA. E’ il Nascimento della Romana Liberia; di quella Liberia che discacciata dalla sua sventurata gran Patria, tont6 [tento] ricovrarsi in tutte quasi le rimanenti Parti del Mondo: ma o rist[r]etta ed opres[s]a da Pochi, o vinta e profugata da un Solo; saria sempre andata raminga tra selve e capanne; se non avesse trovato al fine, sicuro grande e glorioso Asilo lie felici Regni della MAESTA’ VOSTRA: Felicissimi Regni! poiche d’affatto diversa Condizione da tutti gli altri; godono veramente la Romana Liberta: mentre i Popoli la possiedono, I Tribuni c’ invigilano, i Patrizij la difendono, il Sovrano la protegge. Leggansene le Istorie; e vi si rivedranno i BRUTI i MUZII i FURII CAMM1LLI i SCIPIONI. Paragonisi questo Regno alia Romana Repubblica; e si vedra in quante principali Parti sian simili: Si nella Gloria dell’ Armi, come nella Costituzione delle Legi, e nell’ Onor delle Lettere. Io veggoci ‘n vita i Vincitori delle Gallie: e ritornare i Luttazij Catuli trionfanti da Lilibeo per navali Vittorie: V’ascolto i Ciceroni e i Catoni: v’ammiro le Vite, e poco fa, vi compiansi la Morte de’ Fabrizij non corrotti dall’ Oro Sannitico: In tutto insomma che qui succede, se ne pud e se n’ ode far comparazioni con le famose Etadi Romane. Ma il maggiore Ornamento, e il piu bel Paragone che qui ammiro; e la MAESTA VOSTRA: mentre veggo in Voi, SIRE, un’ ALESSANDRO SEVERO: Meritevolmente fortunato nell’ Acclamazione all Impero; Zelante Stimator del Senato, Rigoroso nell’ Osservanza delle Legi, Odiatore dell’ Ingiustizia e dell’ Adulazione, Amatore di sobrie e private Mense e de’ Teatrali spettacoli degne Ricreazioni d’un Sovrano, Eguale nel Temperamento, Rguardevole per la Prudenza, Affabile & Umile nella Grandezza, Schietto ne’ Vestimenti, Assertore che nella Virtu e no nella Pompa sta rimpero, Ottimo Sceglitore d’lllustri Amici, e Costante nelle Amicizie, Degno in somma cui degni d’ubidire quest’ Inclito Popolo che tanto all’ Antico Romano Somiglia. Della S[erenissima]. R[eale]. M. V. L’Umilissimo e Fedelissimo Servo Paolo Antonio Rolli. 182 and an England depicted as a sanctuary for personal freedom and artistic enterprise—a modern- day reincarnation of Rome’s greatness.64 Such a portrayal not only aimed to ingratiate Rolli and his Italian cadre with their English patrons but also to underscore the Royal Academy of Music’s significance as a cultural institution deserving of royal backing—a message in line with von Fabrice’s vision for Muzio Scevola as a pivotal work intended to rally support for the Royal Academy of Music amid the South Sea crisis. Figure 3.1 Title page of Muzio Scevola, libretto published by Thomas Wood (London, 1721), featuring excerpted verses from Joseph Addison’s Cato. 64 Rolli came to the Hanoverian court as Italian tutor to the children of George I. Over the following thirty years in England, he established himself as a renowned librettist, poet, and translator. Alexander Pope featured Rolli in his 1726 satirical poem, The Dunciad, casting him as a consummate flatterer: “He wins this patron, who can tickle best. / He chinks his purse, and takes his seat of state: / With ready quills the dedicators wait; / Now at his head the dext’rous task commence, / And, instant, fancy feels the imputed sense; / Now gentle touches wanton o’er his face, / He struts Adonis, and affects grimace: /Rolli the feather to his ear conveys, /Then his nice taste directs our operas.” In this dedication, it appears that Rolli’s aims was not only to align himself and the Academy’s Italian contingent with England and the Hanoverian court but also to distance the Italian opera from its Catholic associations in favor of Protestant England’s patronage. 183 Besides appealing to the British king, who had just returned from abroad to oversee the South Sea crisis, Rolli’s strategically crafted flattery also foreground the opera’s potential to resonate with the day’s political currents surrounding the political fallout from the South Sea Bubble. As Rolli continues, Let us compare this kingdom with the Roman republic, and we shall see how similar they are in the most important respects: … Here I see the conquerors of Gaul and the Lutatius Catuluses returning in triumph from Lilybaeum with naval victories; here I listen to the Ciceros and the Catos, I admire their lives, and recently I mourned the death of the Fabriciuses uncorrupted by the Samnite gold.65 Operas and plays drawing upon Roman legends, aimed at highlighting the timeless virtues and resilience embodied within these stories, were a staple of British literary and theatrical culture at the time, when English elites and intellectuals, steeped in classical text, were eager to fashion a moral and civic culture that would emulate the values of the Roman republic.66 Yet, Rolli’s choice to center Muzio Scevola around the theme of liberty struck a particular chord in the wake 65 Rolli, Mutius Scevola (1721). 66 The dedication in Muzio Scevola’s libretto reflects Paolo Rolli’s keen awareness of the intellectual zeitgeist of his era, particularly the fascination of English cultural and political elites with Roman culture, ideals, and practices. This period saw Britons post-Glorious Revolution ardently embracing Roman concepts of liberty and civic virtue across various forms of cultural expression. The era’s literary and scholarly community shared a profound interest in the classics, with ancient Rome serving as a critical source of inspiration for political and philosophical thought. As J. G. A. Pocock notes, the widespread embrace of classicism during this century was marked by a focus on civic and patriotic values over leisurely and idyllic themes, reflecting a broader engagement with civic humanism. Roman-themed operas, in this light, provided a vibrant platform for reimagining historical narratives through the integration of elaborate musical compositions and inventive dramatizations. Thomas McGeary argues that such operas had a special resonance in eighteenth-century London, allowing audiences to engage with the Roman past in a manner that was both educational and entertaining. Not only did these performances recount tales from antiquity but they reinterpreted them within the context of contemporary English society, thereby contributing to a broader discourse on values such as republicanism, the role of rhetoric in public life, and the principles of governance. Through these artistic endeavors, early modern Britons sought to align their cultural and political identities with those of their esteemed Roman predecessors. See Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge University Press, 1996); Philip Ayres, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, 2009); J. G. A. Pocock, “Virtue, Rights, and Manners” in Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1985), 37-50; Thomas McGeary, “Virtue and Liberty: Italian Opera and Roman Self- Imaging in Britain, 1720-1742,” Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English- Speaking World V, no. 2 (2008): 36–60. 184 of the South Sea Bubble, echoing the collective contemplation and response of the English public and commentators to the crisis. This thematic linkage to the crisis was intimated by Rolli’s reference to Fabricius in his dedication—a name notably shared with the Royal Academy of Music’s new governor and the incumbent Lord Chamberlain. Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, celebrated as the austere and incorruptible Roman ambassador who spurned lavish gifts from the Samnites during the Roman-Samnite conflict, epitomizes the ideal of principled leadership over material wealth. This allusion, far from arbitrary, was a nod towards the public hopes for leaders capable of overcoming financial corruption and restoring public trust. The deeper connection of Muzio Scevola to the financial upheaval of the time is further highlighted by an epigraph from Joseph Addison’s Cato in the libretto (see Figure 3.1): Do thou, great Liberty, inspire our Souls, And make our Lives in thy Possession happy, Or our Deaths glorious in thy just Defence. - CATO, Act. III. Scene 567 This citation not only highlights the opera’s intended topical relevance but also aligns it with liberty as an ideal civic pursuit and political ideology through the figure of the uncompromising Roman senator in Addison’s play. The inclusion of any reference to English theater, particularly a play by a staunch critic of Italian opera like Addison, is notably unusual for Rolli and the Royal Academy of Music.68 Clearly, for the Italian librettist, the political significance of liberty—a defining theme of English politics during the South Sea crisis—outweighed any personal or genre-specific disputes. Addison’s Cato, lauded as a defining tragedy of English literature, saw a revival following the collapse of the South Sea Bubble, including a performance at the Drury 67 See Harris, ed., The Librettos of Handel’s Operas, Vol. 3 (1989), 81. 68 Addison had written routinely and disparagingly about the detrimental effects of importing Italian opera into England. See, for example, The Spectator, March 21, 1711: “This Paper to deliver down to Posterity a faithful Account of the Italian Opera, and of the gradual Progress which it has made upon the English Stage: For there is no Question but our great Grand-children will be very curious to know the Reason why their Fore-fathers used to sit together like an Audience of Foreigners in their own Country, and to hear whole Plays acted before them in a Tongue which they did not understand.” 185 Lane Theater just before Muzio Scevola’s premiere.69 This shared thematic allusion shows that the competition between the English and Italian theater in London extended beyond the realms of politics and finance, as they also vied for cultural relevance in reflecting—and even shaping— prevailing political currents.70 It was not solely Addison’s dramatization of Cato that reignited English interest in the Roman legend as a paragon of virtuous citizenship and steadfast liberty. Rather, it was the flurry of Whig-authored pamphlets, inspired by Addison’s Cato, that re-established Cato’s legacy in the wake of the South Sea crisis.71 These writings, particularly John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon’s series of “letters” published from November 1720 through December 1723, tackled issues of financial speculation and political corruption, using the South Sea Bubble as a backdrop for broader commentary on the state of English society and governance. Trenchard and Gordon, writing under Cato’s name, made frequent analogies between the events of their day and the historical narratives of Ancient Rome. By channeling the voice of the stoic Roman senator, they portrayed him—and, by extension, themselves—as defenders of a pure and uncompromised form of liberty, untouched by political manipulation or financial corruption. They argued that the South Sea Bubble was not merely a financial disaster but a political one, emphasizing how the Company’s stock scheme was a form of corporate political interference. This narrative suggested that ordinary citizens, duped by both politicians and company directors, experienced the crisis as a profound violation of their personal wealth, property rights, and by extension, their liberty.72 Amid public outcry over the threat posed by the South Sea 69 The London Stage Database, 1660-180. https://www.eighteenthcenturydrama.amdigital.co.uk/LondonStage/Database 70 The theme of liberty in Handel’s music was not unique to Muzio Scevola. It reappears prominently in Thomas Morell’s libretto for Handel’s 1747 oratorio Judas Maccabaeus. Early in the work, an Israelite, inspired by the title character’s call to arms for liberty and victory through faith, sings: “‘Tis liberty, dear liberty alone, / That gives fresh beauty to the sun; / That bids all nature look more gay, / And lovely life with pleasure steal away.” 71 For instance, Elis, The Sense of the People Concerning the Present State of Affairs with Remarks Upon Some Passages of Our Own and the Roman History. In a Letter to a Member of Parliament (J. Peele, 1721). 72 In November 1720, amidst the turmoil of market panic, publishers J. Peele and T. Warner offered an https://www.eighteenthcenturydrama.amdigital.co.uk/LondonStage/Database 186 crisis to English liberty, the Whig government led by Robert Walpole initiated parliamentary inquiries into the South Sea scheme—a move aimed to calm public outrage, stabilize the market, and serve as a critical test of the Whigs’ ability to restore English liberty by maintaining social and political order. Rolli’s decision to emphasize “liberty” as the central Roman virtue in the Royal Academy’s first opera after the South Sea crisis was a strategic move. It aimed to make the production resonate with the prevailing social theme in post-crisis England, where the scandal was widely seen as a threat to the hard-won liberty since the Glorious Revolution.73 This concern transcended political lines, uniting conservatives and progressives, from country Tories, court and ministerial Whigs, to radicals outside parliamentary and court circles.74 The universal appeal of Roman liberty thus became a central theme in the cultural discourse surrounding the South Sea crisis. Even conservative pamphleteers like George Sewell echoed the sentiments of progressive voices such as Trenchard and Gordon, embracing the neo-Roman ethos that came to dominate discussions around the South Sea crisis. “Of all Foreign Stories those of Greece and Rome are the most valuable,” wrote Sewell in his Observation on Cato, “because our common Liberty has given us Sentiments, in many things, common with them.”75 Within this context, editorial in one of the first compilations of Trenchard and Gordon’s Cato’s Letters that sharply critiqued the financial model of transferring public debt to private investors. This model, they argued, eroded the foundational liberty derived from property ownership—particularly land—exposing a disturbing trend within English society. See John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato’s Letters, vol. 1 (J. Peele and T. Warner, 1720). Throughout these letters, Trenchard and Gordon wove together the classical Roman valorization of liberty and the contemporary economic principle of property rights, asserting that liberty was not only a cherished ideal but also an essential precondition for securing personal property rights, the bedrock of a liberal society. To them, private property symbolized more than material wealth; it was a tangible representation of individual freedom within a justly governed state. The debacle of the South Sea scheme epitomized the dangers of a politicized economy, highlighting how financial manipulation and government complicity could subvert rational governance, erode societal unity, and, most critically, infringe upon the sanctity of individual liberty. See also H. T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Methune, 1979), 83-84; R. Hamowy, “Cato’s Letters, John Locke, and the Republican Paradigm,” History of Political Thought, 11, no. 2 (1990), 273–294. 73 As Joseph Addison stated, “‘Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia’s isle / And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.” 74 See Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cornell University Press, 1992). 75 George Sewell, Observation Upon Cato (1713). The universal appeal of Cato was also intended by Addison, who took trouble to ensure that his political play would be considered non-partisan and thus a 187 Rolli’s Muzio Scevola, with its libretto making apparent the opera’s relevance to pressing English concerns, was a deliberate move to recalibrate Italian opera’s—and by extension, the opera company’s—public image. By presenting a spectacle that would have the same universal appeal as Cato, Rolli appears to have intended to elevate Italian opera beyond mere entertainment, transforming it into an edifying vehicle for politically and socially respectable messages. This aimed to shift the perception of Italian opera from being seen as frivolous entertainment and fraught enterprise, akin to “another South Sea Company,” to being recognized as a positive contributor to contemporary debates and issues in English society. Thus, Muzio Scevola represented the opera company’s desire to vindicate itself and appeal to the diverse political allegiances of its shareholders and the broader public. THE SOUND OF LIBERTY: PASSION AND PATHOS Muzio Scevola accomplished this aspirational political engagement via allegorical means. In order to have three composers co-write the opera, Rolli arranged the three acts as three stand-alone stories, each showcasing a different protagonist furnished with a distinct “valorous action.” Rolli communicated his design to the Academy’s audience in the wordbook through a precis of the opera’s plot and its intended morals: In the vain Attempt of Porsena, King of Etruria, to Re-enthrone the expelled Lucius Tarquin, last King of the Romans; three valorous Actions, which following each other, signalized the Roman Bravery: The Resistance which Horatio made at the Sublician Bridge; the Undauntedness of Mutius in the burning of his own Right-Hand; And the Flight of Clelia and her Companions, (when Hostages to King Porsena,) by swimming over the Tyber, to return to their own Country. These Accidents, and their Circumstances, related by Titus Lives, in the second Book of his first Decad, with the intermix’d Amours, compose the Texture of the present Drama.76 universal expression of political idealism. Addison invited Alexander Pope, the Tory poet, to supply a prologue and Samuel Garth, a Whig poet, to write the epilogue by a Whig poet, symbolically bookending the play with interests represented by both factions. 76 Rolli, Mutius Scevola. 188 Despite, or perhaps because of, this unusual arrangement, throughout its reception history to date, Muzio Scevola has attracted scant attention and even less affection from scholars, historians, critics, and even the most devoted enthusiasts of Handel and opera seria. While such themes as virtue, valor and victory, aimed at casting the opera’s patrons in a favorable light or conveying nationalistic messages, were commonly expected of opera seria as a public spectacle across Europe at the time, latter-day critics had trouble finding coherence in how they were dramatized in this opera. Among these scholarly voices, Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp found Muzio Scevola’s storyline jarringly out of sync with the kind of heroic operas that had established Handel’s reputation. They described the opera as “an absurd gallimaufry that might have been designed as a parody of all that is windy and inconsequent in the convention of heroic opera seria.”77 In spite of such latter-day critiques, Muzio Scevola captivated English audiences at the time of its premiere. The opera prompted extensive discussion, leading to multiple performances throughout 1721 and revivals in subsequent seasons.78 Its popularity also spurred the sale of songbooks featuring music from the opera, demonstrating its broad and sustained appeal.79 Moreover, its acclaim reached beyond British shores, with Johannes Mattheson, a compatriot and former colleague of Handel, hailing it as the finest opera Europe had seen thus far.80 In the wake of the financial turmoil that threatened the Royal Academy of Music, the success of Muzio Scevola conceivably played a crucial role in stabilizing the company, contributing to its survival for an additional seven seasons. All this indicates that the opera resonated deeply with its contemporary audience. Naturally, this raises a question: What factors contributed to the popularity of Muzio Scevola, particularly among the partisan English audience and press of 1721, who were deeply engaged in extracting and debating the meanings found within theatrical spectacles?81 More 77 Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel’s Operas, 1704-1726 (Boydell Press, 1995), 369. 78 HCD vol. 1, 1721/4. 79 For example, John Walsh, The Favorite Songs in the Opera call’d Muzio Scaevola (Walsh, 1721). 80 HCD vol. 1, 1722/5. 81 For opera and political hermeneutics in Georgian London, see, for example, Ellen Harris, “With Eyes on 189 specifically, how did this audience find relevance and resonance with the opera’s narrative and characters, set against the contentious debate over the South Sea bailout? In this section, I will examine the music and libretto of Muzio Scevola to show how Rolli’s depiction of “the birth of liberty” through the opera mirrored the politically urgent debates surrounding the South Sea Company in the aftermath of the Bubble. My analysis will show how the opera’s perceived dramaturgical conflicts and contradictions, criticized by latter-day scholars, might have been interpreted in a wholly different light by eighteenth-century contemporaries. This analysis zeroes in on Muzio Scevola’s central theme as conceived by Rolli—liberty—and explores its multifaceted, even contradictory, musical and dramatic representations throughout the opera, despite the universal political appeal Rolli had intended. It examines how these varied portrayals of liberty nevertheless struck a chord with contemporary audiences, themselves deeply divided over their understanding of liberty in the context of the bailout debate. Liberty Sensationalized In Muzio Scevola, liberty crystallizes as the core theme during the opera’s most crucial scene in Act II. Here, the protagonist Muzio, disguised, infiltrates the Etruscan camp with a mission to assassinate King Porsena. Leading up to this moment, the opera showcases Muzio and his Roman compatriots as citizen-soldiers emboldened by a blend of fierce determination and republican idealism, rallying together to challenge tyranny. The word “liberty” occurs no fewer than 25 times across the three acts of the opera. It was first introduced early on, notably in Act I, Scene 2, with Orazio’s declaration of battle “for Liberty,” framing the conflict with Porsena as a republican struggle against feudal oppression. Muzio’s rallying cry to his troops, “they for slavery, we for liberty draw our swords,” underscores the fight as a crusade for freedom from the East and Ears in the West: Handel’s Orientalist Operas,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36/3 (2006): 419–43. For eighteenth-century debate as to opera’s edifying function, see a review of Handel’s Alcina in Universal Spectator, July 5, 1735. 190 despotic rule.82 This depiction evokes unequivocally the stoic courage of Cato, whose name graces the opera’s libretto epigraph, illustrating the Romans’ unwavering readiness to face death in defense of the republic’s liberty. In these early scenes of the opera, the cries for liberty may seem straightforward if not somewhat one-dimensional. However, the narrative deepens in the middle act, as it begins to explore the theme of Roman heroism in pursuit of liberty through the poignant interactions between Muzio and Clelia, the opera’s primo uomo and prima donna. Faced with a fateful decision, Muzio is torn between his love for Clelia and his duty to assassinate King Porsena. He confesses, “Valor summons me to a grand endeavor, yet love bids me stay.” Clelia, urging Muzio to place their nation and its freedom above their personal affection, responds, “Let our Country and Liberty be preferred to our Love and let not tender Affection retard your Valour.83” This exchange leads to Clelia’s recitative, culminating in the resolute declaration, “Proceed where honor and liberty beckon.”84 The recitative’s cadential declaration paves the way for an aria that embodies the Roman principle of sacrificing personal desires for a greater cause. The aria, “Fugga il timor, dal sen” (“Let Fear be banish’d from your Breast”) (Example 3.1), is notable for its dynamic tempo, a whirlwind of rapid scale patterns and daring interval leaps, demanding exceptional virtuosity from the singer.85 This piece encapsulates the essence of a rage aria but is, rather unusually, set in a major key. By eliminating the darker tones associated with the musical topic of storm and stress, the aria suggests that intense emotions are justified when aimed at an unassailable virtue. The aria is still about rage, but it is a righteous rage. Throughout the A 82 Act I, Scene 4, Muzio and soldiers: “Egli per Servitude, E noi per Libertà cingiamo la Spada.” 83 Act II, Scene 4, Clelia: “E Patria e Libertà Si preterisca al nostro’ amor, nè sia Tenero affettoo remora al valore.” 84 Act II, Scene 4, Cleclia: “Va dove Onore e Libertà t’ invita.” 85 Fugga il timor dal sen / Abbian dell’ alma il fren / La Gloria et il Valor / Ma t’ amo, o caro Ben / T’ amo ma son’ ancor / Son Romana al par di te / Mi dice un mio pensier / Amar’ e non temer / Non lo permette amor / Ahi che mi dice il ver / Ma figlio del timor / No, Roman pensier non è.” (Let Fear be banish’d from your Breast / Let Honor and Valor posses your Soul / I love you, my dearest dear, I love you / Yet still I am a Roman as much as you / It’s not allow’d to love without Fear / Ah, it’s not a Roman Thought / Since it proceeds from Fear.) 191 section of the aria, Bononcini also weaves together virtuosic segments with reflective largo interludes, illustrating deep contemplation of personal sacrifices for the greater good. Example 3.1 “Fugga il timor, dal sen” from Muzio Scevola, Act II, Scene 4. Musical excerpts cited in this chapter are based on the manuscript sources: BL, 16-108, and SBzB, Am.B 439b. This aria is as much a showcase for the prima donna’s virtuosity as it is a rousing declamation for the audience, transforming musical fervor into a compelling representation of unwavering commitment to liberty and republican ideal. The aria thus becomes a poignant accompaniment to the narrative of heroic determination woven throughout Rolli’s libretto. In it, it appears as an emotionally charged and cathartic performance, framing Muzio’s intended assassination not as 192 an act of reckless anger but as a powerful symbol of righteous indignation—a portrayal deeply embedded in the Roman republican ethos of liberty, where the eradication of tyranny is not only justified but also celebrated. Modern opera scholars have struggled to find a compelling historical interpretation of this regicidal plot in Muzio Scevola. Attempting to draw parallels between the political dynamics of the Hanoverian court and the opera’s dramatized classical narrative, Reinhard Strohm and Thomas McGeary have respectively attempted to either explain away or characterize the assassination plot as merely symbolically charged, albeit devoid of direct implications for the real world.86 Their readings have stemmed from a rightly cautious avoidance of drawing parallels between the opera’s villainous monarch, Porsena, and the reigning sovereign—a move that would have been seen as offensive or even career-ending for the artists of the Royal Academy. However, in sidestepping this plot point, Strohm’s and McGeary’s interpretations neglect to fully appreciate that the opera’s dramatic focus is on tyrannicide, not regicide. This distinction is crucial, as the theme of Roman tyrannicide was prominently mobilized by English commentators following the South Sea crisis. Through it commentators aimed to express that the South Sea scheme represented a corporate scandal emblematic of tyranny pervading English society, spawned by a blend of financial and political collusion. Trenchard and Gordon, in two of the longest installments of their Cato’s Letters, focused 86 Reinhard Strohm’s analysis posits that Muzio Scevola largely revolves around the transformation and reconciliation efforts of the Etruscan king, suggesting an allegorical representation of King George’s role as a fair and just king amidst the unstable political circumstances surrounding the newly installed Hanoverian court. Thomas McGeary counters this view, arguing that the opera’s regicidal plot precludes any direct analogy between the on-stage king and the real monarch, especially given the political sensitivities surrounding King George I’s reign and the volatile aftermath of the South Sea crisis. Such a depiction, he argues, would have been unthinkable for Rolli and the Royal Academy, risking professional and personal ruin. While Ellen Harris and other Handel scholars note that operatic monarchs do not always mirror their real-life counterparts, McGeary’s critique highlights a gap in understanding the 1721 opera’s political implications against the backdrop of the South Sea Bubble. Jane Glover, in her cursory analysis, ties the opera’s focus on “liberty” to a narrative glorifying the king as a restorer of order, yet such interpretations fail to grasp the complex interplay of financial crisis and political messaging. This reflects a broader challenge among modern commentators to decode the specific political nuances Rolli intended through Muzio Scevola. Reinhard Strohm, Essays on Handel and Italian Opera (Cambridge University Press, 2008); Thomas McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Jane Glover, Handel in London: The Making of a Genius (Pegasus Books, 2018). 193 on Julius Caesar’s assassination, portraying Caesar as a tyrant who subjugated his country and stripped its citizens of their liberty. They posited that the senate’s conspiracy to eliminate such a despot was not only defensible but commendable, framing this act as a classical precedent for exacting justice upon the South Sea Company’s directors.87 By likening Caesar’s dictatorship to the deceptive practices of the South Sea Company, and equating the Romans’ loss of freedom with the financial losses of English investors, Trenchard and Gordon described contemporary England’s liberal order as having been “abused by the dirty race of money-changers” and “a class of ravens.”88 In this light, the pamphleteers argued that the English people had every right to “take its full vengeance” during the South Sea inquiry by killing the South Sea plutocrats and inside traders. In March 1721, the inquiry unveiled the complicity of high-ranking officials both in Parliament and the court, extending beyond South Sea directors to include figures such as the Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This definitively exposed the financial cronyism that Trenchard and Gordon had vehemently condemned, sharply directing attention to those whose actions embodied economic tyranny they believed deserved retribution from the people.89 In the wake of the South Sea Bubble, the tyrannicidal narrative of Muzio Scevola conceivably struck a chord with the English public that was incensed by the financial scandal. In Rolli’s carefully crafted scene where Muzio details his plan to assassinate Porsena, an essential detail the librettist included concerns the Senate’s endorsement of Muzio’s mission.90 This endorsement symbolizes Republican principles and the democratic process, representing the Roman republic’s constitutional liberty which was revered by the English Whigs. This detail reframes the plot from mere rebellion to an act of justified retribution for the preservation of 87 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letter, Dec. 2, 1721; Dec. 9, 1721. 88 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letter, Nov. 12, 1721. 89 See Adam Lebovits, “An Economy of Violence: Financial Crisis and Whig Constitutional Thought, 1720- 1721,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 29, no. 2 (2018): 165-238, esp. 225-227. 90 Act II, Scene 3, Muzio: “I’ll before things come to an Extremity, attempt amongst the Enemies, a Roman Exploit, The Senate knows of my setting out, and now I am going.” 194 civil liberties. Trenchard and Gordon mirrored this exact sentiment, emphasizing that the resolution of the South Sea crisis represented a critical choice for the British public: either uphold the British constitution and safeguard the freedoms established since the 1688 Revolution by thoroughly purging the financial system of its corrupt elements, from complicit parliamentarians to deceptive directors and manipulative stockjobbers, or face the erosion of this hard-won “English liberty.” Trenchard and Gordon employed consistently sensational and unwavering language in their pamphlets, aiming to underscore the gravity of the crisis and its potential to threaten the nation’s core values. “Whether the directors and their masters shall be punished or no,” wrote Trenchard and Gordon, “is to me one and the same question, as to ask, whether you will preserve your constitution or no; or, whether you will have any constitution at all.”91 This call for vengeance, aimed at restoring liberty, underscored the need for drastic action. For the radical pamphleteers, the preservation of English liberty necessitated a comprehensive overhaul of the existing financial system—a process that not only entailed legal proceedings but also extreme measures, even extrajudicial actions.92 As with the sensational language in Cato’s Letters, the opera Muzio Scevola, through Rolli’s libretto and Bononcini’s music, dramatizes this absolute conception of liberty, turning the 91 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letter, March 25, 1721. During this period in Parliament, the “secret committee” overseeing the South Sea inquiry predominantly consisted of members aligned with the radical Whig faction, contrasted with the moderate Walpole and his ministerial faction. Led by Thomas Broderick, this group was deliberately chosen for their willingness to rigorously pursue both the South Sea Company and prominent individuals implicated in the scandal. It has been suggested that some government members anticipated, or even desired, that the committee’s actions would lead to the downfall of not only the company’s directors but also key members of the Stanhope-Sunderland ministry, the ministry which had governed since 1717 and played a pivotal role in legislating the South Sea Company’s largest public subscription schemes into existence in early 1720. See also Abigail Swingen, “The Bubble and the Bail-Out: The South Sea Company, Jacobitism, and Public Credit in Early Hanoverian Britain,” in Boom, Bust and Beyond (De Gruyter, 2019), 151. 92 See Lebovits, “An Economy of Violence,” 201. Furthermore, the concept of justified extra-judicial killing found metaphoric expression in the notion of the body politic as a physical body needing to purge corrupt elements. This metaphor, evident in the bloodletting imagery of Cato’s Letters from December 1720, intertwined with the era’s quackery medicine, as Dwight Codr’s recent research reveals. It formed a curious industrial-medicalized representation of liberty. In this vein, Muzio Scevola’s act of left-hand cutting symbolized the preservation of moral integrity through bodily harm—a purging of the bad physical elements. Dwight Codr, “The Politics of Sickness: Cato’s Letters and Advertising in The London Journal,” paper presented at the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (April 2024), Toronto, ON. 195 climactic moment of assassination into not only a morally justifiable act but the sole path forward for the Romans. As he imbued the libretto with an air of compelling heroism surrounding the apex of the narrative arc, Rolli took care to capture the collective indignation of the Romans, portraying Muzio’s assassination attempt or, as he termed it, “Roman exploit” not just as an act of individual bravery but as a manifestation of collective courage—and a form of heroic valor that is about the willingness to endure death for the cause of liberty, elevating the assassination plot beyond mere martial zeal to a shared commitment to higher values.93 Complemented by Bononcini’s dynamic arias, the second act of Muzio Scevola thus delivers a riveting dramatic moment that resonates with the fervor found in Trenchard and Gordon’s pamphlets. In a manner akin to Muzio Scevola’s democratic endorsement of tyrannicide as a form of collective righteous indignation, Trenchard and Gordon’s advocacy for such radical solutions underscored their belief in liberty as a principle that must be zealously guarded, regardless of the cost. Both Muzio Scevola and Cato’s Letters, therefore, may be said to have served as powerful messages that attempted to justify radical actions against tyrannical figures— Porsena in the opera and the South Sea Company’s directors in the reality. Both activating the power of righteous rage, one through music, the other through polemics, these two works sent the very same message—that such extreme measures are essential for the restoration of an unbridled form of liberty, or “negative liberty,” as Quentin Skinner puts it, referring to a civic virtue defined as the absence of tyranny and oppression.94 93 Act II, Scene 7. Upon his assassination being thwarted, Muzio announces to Porcine, “I am Caius Mutius, a Roman Citizen... This is Roman Courage, to perform the stoutest Action, and suffer as stoutly for it,” and then the later he reveals, “Three hundred young Noble Romans conspired... The first Attempt fell to my Lot, but the others with more Security wait your Death, and the publick revenge,” revealing a broader movement against tyranny rather than a singular act of regicide. 94 This “negative liberty,” as Quentin Skinner puts it, was a core aspect of classical conception of liberty. However, this conception, emphasizing individual duty, often results in unstable and precarious regimes, indicating that while necessary, negative liberty alone is insufficient for a fully realized free political life. See Quentin Skinner, “The idea of negative liberty,” in Visions of Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2002); Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2014), 68-99. 196 Liberty Sentimentalized Yet, the musical depiction of liberty in Muzio Scevola extends beyond the thematic confines of martial fervor and righteous indignation, as well as the tempestuous wrath typical of the virtuosic rage arias that dominate the opera’s first two acts. In Act III, Handel introduces a markedly different interpretation of liberty, employing a recitative for Muzio that stands out as one of his most emotionally charged moments of dissonant text-painting (Example 3.2). This recitative, nestled between Scenes 4 and 5, shifts the enunciation of liberty from a theme of heroic valor to one imbued with sentimental trepidation: [Mutius] Remember in the first place, my Heart, that you are Roman; comply with the Laws of Honor: perform first the Duty of a Citizen to your Country, and then return to Sighs, and languish again: Death will be your Happiness. Ah Honor! Ah my Country! Ah Peace! Ah Liberty!95 Example 3.2 Recitative “Mio Cor” from Muzio Scevola, Act III, Scene 4. Accompanying this, the recitative’s shifts toward increasingly distant harmonies, culminating in 95 Muzio: “Mio Cor prìa tì rìcorda D’ esser Romano; adempi Alle legi d’ Onor: prìa con la Patria Usa il dover di Cittadino, e poi Torna a sospiri tuoi, Torna a languir: Morte il tuo Ben sarà. Ah Onore! Ah Patria! A Pace! Ah Libertà!” 197 the final, emphatic sigh, “Ah libertà,” underscored by a striking #4 x2 chord on E. This transition in musical portrayal adds layers to Muzio’s character, seemingly suggesting his evolution into an antihero confronting the repercussions of his choices. The contrast between the assertive and hesitant renditions of “libertà,” underscored by feelings of uncertainty, pain, and deep sentimentality, offers a drastically different perspective on the opera’s central theme. The opening of Act III heralds a pivotal shift in the opera’s storyline, in which the titular character evolves from a straightforward martial hero to a character of psychological complexity. After his failed attempt to assassinate Porsena, the Etruscan king, impressed by Muzio’s courage and further influenced by the daring rescue attempt by Clelia and her female warriors, offers peace to Rome with certain stipulations, including the women serving as hostages. Moreover, Porsena, captivated by Clelia’s bravery and allure, proposes to spare Rome if Clelia becomes his. Initially taken aback, Muzio eventually takes Porsena’s proposal as a mark of magnanimity. In a moment of deep reflection, Muzio decides that the greater good of the Republic’s liberation outweighs his personal desires.96 Muzio’s internal conflict comes to a head in a soliloquy-like recitative, leading to the previously mentioned climactic moment of poignant dissonance on “libertà.” Handel’s masterful use of the pathetic dissonance signifies this shift in Muzio’s character, now wrestling with a profound sense of sentimental consternation. This moment not only transforms Muzio into a figure caught between desire and duty but it also complicates the opera’s thematic exploration, presenting liberty in a new light by bringing it to bear on the personal costs associated with it and the sentimental calculus between private interest and public good. The transformation of Muzio’s heroism in the opera signifies not just a shift in his psychological profile within the drama but also serves as a strategic theatrical gesture designed to garner the audience’s empathy. Here, Muzio evolves from a fiery warrior to a judicious 96 “Shall it be said, that Mutius, that a Roman, is outdone in Generosity? No, you my soft and tender Affections, that are the Soul of my Heart, I offer you all, as a generous Victim to Friendship and Honor.” 198 negotiator of peace, with his emotive musical soliloquy intended to bridge the audience’s understanding of his contentious decision: to trade his personal love for a truce with a despotic invader. In this evolved characterization, Muzio’s advocacy for liberty in Act III shifts away from the notion of an unconditional ideal, as seen in Act II, to become one of pragmatic considerations for the common good. Though not explicitly mentioned in Rolli’s libretto, Livy’s chronicle, the canonical version of the story that would have been well known to the English operatic audience at the time, details that Muzio ultimately becomes Porsena’s minister, charged with managing Roman affairs.97 When Rolli’s dramatization is considered alongside Livy’s canonical account, Muzio’s evolution from warrior to statesman mirrors the opera’s exploration of liberty’s dual nature: from its rousing, sensational invocation in the heat of battle to a more nuanced, sentimental articulation aiming to secure support for a vision of liberty that navigates the intricate interplay between individual desires and the commonweal. While Trenchard and Gordon epitomized the radical wing of the English Whigs, advocating for harsh punitive actions against the architects of the South Sea scheme, Robert Walpole and his ministerial cabinet charted a different path. Focused on the stabilization of the nation’s public credit, Walpole proposed bailing out the South Sea Company with capital support from the Bank of England, aiming to preserve the economic status quo rather than punish those implicated in the crisis. Despite their different approaches, both Walpole and the radical Whigs claimed to act in defense of English liberty. However, Walpole’s notion of liberty was predicated on financial stability and the prevention of economic collapse, a pragmatic view that contrasted sharply with the pamphleteers’ moralistic stance. Walpole argued that maintaining the new financial order initiated by the South Sea Company was paramount, as the system of privatized national debt was fundamentally “contracted in defense of our liberties.”98 97 Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 2.12-13. 98 “The national debt was contracted in defense of our liberties and properties and for the preservation of our most excellent constitution from popery and slavery.” This was written by John Barnard, one of Walpole’s pamphleteers. See John Barnard, Considerations Upon a Proposal for Lowering Interest of all Redeemable Debts to Three Percent (1737), 4. 199 In his Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in the Eighteenth Century, Philip Ayres highlights the common practice of identifying prominent British parliamentary orators with their Greek or Roman counterparts.99 If Muzio’s sentimental speeches in Act III are to be mapped onto a contemporary political figure, one could readily point to Walpole himself. Just as the opera stage serves as an embodiment of the theatrum mundi, the political drama that unfolded in Parliament, particularly during Walpole’s management of the South Sea crisis, mirrors the sentimental portrayals of liberty in the final act of Muzio Scevola. In contrast to the radical Whigs’ calls for harsh punishment against the South Sea directors, Walpole employed a more conciliatory oratorical strategy during the crisis debates, seeking to win over the House of Commons. His parliamentary speeches emphasized empathy for the investors caught up in the crisis, particularly the major merchants facing substantial financial losses. During the tense months of the South Sea inquiry, Parliament was flooded with petitions from citizens seeking compensation for the financial ruin wrought by the South Sea Bubble. These petitions served as vocal expressions of the emotional distress and hardship suffered by investors. A prominent petition from the City of London’s aldermen, while seeking a parliamentary bailout, also commended Parliament’s efforts to address the crisis, highlighting specifically sympathetic policy initiatives aimed at providing redress and financial compensation for the “unhappy sufferers” of the South Sea Bubble.100 Walpole, capitalizing on these petitions— 99 Philip Ayres, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 51. “In the British Senate the great Parliamentary orators of the age were commonly identified with their Greek or Roman prototypes.” 100 LMA CLC/B/227/MS03612. During the run of Muzio Scevola at the Academy, a significant petition from the City of London’s councilors coincided with the final stages of Walpole’s bailout plan. Submitted in the spring of 1721, this appeal articulated the financial distress of those deeply affected by the South Sea scheme. This petition was emblematic of numerous appeals that flooded Parliament, where investors laid bare their financial distress and sought government compensation. The plea for redress, particularly from the City Aldermen representing major merchants facing losses, stood in contrast to the retributive demands of radical Whigs like Trenchard and Gordon. The Court of Aldermen, an influential business oligarchy of twenty-five affluent citizens, reflected London’s financial elite’s consensus. Their appeal for compensation, aligning with Walpole’s approach to support the financial elite, underscored a preference for stabilizing the commercial system rather than pursuing punitive measures against those involved in the South Sea debacle. 200 especially those from the emerging class of financiers and merchants seen as potential allies— adeptly employed the public’s sentimental outcry to bolster his argument in Parliament for his bailout plan. His speech captured the growing public discontent and the pervasive anxiety affecting vast swathes of property, which, in turn, had dramatically impacted both public and private credit. Walpole argued, “The Discontents of the People daily increasing...and the uncertain and doubtful Events...creating such infinite Anxieties and Dissatisfaction...[thus] the Interposition of Parliament became unavoidable.”101 By appealing to a sense of collective hardship, Walpole reframed the South Sea crisis as a shared tragedy, steering clear of attributing blame and portraying all parties as victims. He even suggested the South Sea Company’s directors’ mishandling stemmed from naivety rather than malfeasance.102 Walpole’s sentimental oratory during the Parliamentary debates on the South Sea bailout underscored his commitment to political pragmatism, centering on the restoration of public credit with a strategy that prioritized the wider national interest above punitive actions. In his defense of the public credit and financial market against a call for a total ban on stockjobbing from John Barnard, Walpole described the bourgeoning English financial apparatus as the “darling child of liberty, so wisely and carefully nursed and cherished by this legislature.”103 This portrayal imbued the burgeoning English financial system with a sense of tender fragility, while simultaneously casting Walpole’s monetary legislation in a light of sentimental care. By associating both with the concept of a fragile liberty in need of intervention and protection, this narrative highlighted the perceived vulnerability of the financial system and the necessity for careful stewardship. Couched in this politics of sentiment, Walpole and his allies’ objective was ever clearer: to safeguard the 101 Journals of the House of Commons 19, 638–639. 102 The History and Proceedings of the House of Commons: Volume 6, 1714-1727: Anno7. Geo. 1. 1720. “That, for his own part, he had never approved the South-Sea scheme, and was sensible it had done a great deal of mischief. But, since it could not be undone, he thought it the duty of all GOOD MEN to give their helping hand towards retrieving it: And that, with this view, he had already bestowed some thoughts on a proposal to restore public credit, which, in a proper time, he would submit to the wisdom of the house.” 103 John Barnard, Considerations Upon a Proposal for Lowering Interest of all Redeemable Debts to Three Percent (1737), 4· 201 fledgling Whig financial system by preserving the existing financial order from the turmoil unleashed by the South Sea crisis. In the context of Walpole’s South Sea bailout debate, a fusion of sentimental politics, political pragmatism, and alignment with the interests of the moneyed classes and their financial interest emerged. Walpole skillfully navigated this entanglement by positioning himself not as a draconian figure out to punish the South Sea directors—as some radical Whig factions wished—but rather as a compassionate administrator addressing the crisis with systematic and empathetic strategies. By July 1721, his bailout proposal was enacted, a testament to his approach, which, while motivated by Walpole and his allies’ moneyed interest, was wrapped in sentimental oratory. This melding of rational calculation and emotional appeal acted as a balm to public discontent, steering the divided English society from indignation to a form of acquiescence. It thus recast the concept of liberty under a new guise: a fusion of rational political strategy and the affect of sentimental politics, turning Walpole’s bailout plan into a theatre of feelings aimed at preserving the financial establishment.104 As previously seen, Muzio Scevola’s central plot of tyrannicide stood as an allegory for the quest for justice against the perpetrators of the South Sea Bubble and their political cronies. Viewed in this light, Muzio’s eventual reconciliation with Porsena can be said to mirror Robert Walpole’s efforts to stabilize the financial system, reflecting a broader narrative of political accommodation and compromise. This shift, especially noted in Muzio’s redefinition of "libertà" in Act III, parallels Walpole’s strategy of tempering the public’s demand for retribution with a sentimental call for financial prudence and stability. It may thus be said that Muzio’s evolution 104 To connect the rise of sentimentalism in the eighteenth century with realms of parliamentary rhetoric, David Hume may be a nexus figure. Hume’s conceptualization of oratory as a dynamic interplay of emotional expression and audience response lays the groundwork for understanding the rise of sentimental oratory in Parliament. He posited that the orator’s passion is both ignited and amplified by the presence of an engaged audience, which, in turn, is moved by the orator’s fervor. This reciprocal emotional exchange between speaker and listener underpins the era’s embrace of sentimental oratory as a vital political force. For more on the intellectual and cultural conditions that allowed the politics of sentiment to flourish in eighteenth-century English political discourse, see Adam Potkay, The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume (Cornell University Press, 1994), 45-51. 202 from a staunch warrior to a peace broker who navigates the complexities of political and personal interests captures the post-Bubble era’s contested notions of liberty. As such, Muzio’s transformation becomes an allegory of the ministerial Whigs’ interpretation of liberty, all the while refracting a political landscape where financial stability became entangled with a new archetype of political leadership: a genteel administrator who blended polite ethos with the pragmatic rigor of economic calculus.105 VIRTUE AND ECONOMY Muzio Scevola, through its dramatic complexity, reflects the era’s ideological battles, placing the notion of liberty at the heart of England’s evolving financial and political identity. Though loosely based on the classical canon surrounding the Roman Republic’s inception, Rolli’s libretto boldly reinterpreted the central theme of liberty. Transforming it from a stoic civic humanistic ideal, Rolli infused the concept with psychological depth and complexity. Moving beyond the stoic valor typically associated with Roman figures on the London stage, the opera imbued its portrayal of liberty with passion and pathos. This served not only to entertain but also to resonate with the diverse public sentiments prevalent in English society as it grappled with the aftermath of the South Sea crisis. As Muzio Scevola unfolded on the London stage in the spring of 1721, the concept of liberty resonated beyond the theater walls. It assumed various forms in public discourse, reflecting the divided opinions within English society regarding the nation’s path following the financial crisis. The opera’s exploration of liberty thus signaled a pivotal shift in English political thought, transitioning from a classical civic humanist understanding to one increasingly shaped by economic considerations. Often cited as a catalyst for the Whig ascendancy, the South Sea inquiry paradoxically 105 On the shift in English leadership style along the eighteenth-century shift of power from landed gentry to urban gentlepersons through the lens of “ideology of manners,” see Pocock, “Virtue, Rights, and Manners,” esp. 130-131. 203 deepened an existing schism within Whig ranks.106 As the financial crisis fueled debates regarding the state’s relationship with finance and commerce, the ideological evolution within the Whig party highlighted a pivotal moment in English political thought. Economic considerations began to significantly shape the discourse on liberty and governance. During this period, the English political landscape was primarily characterized by three competing interest groups: the country, the court (and the ministerial), and the commonwealth. This classification, as detailed by Isaac Kramnick, illustrates the divergent interests and ideologies that shaped the nation’s governance and economic policies.107 The country faction, composed primarily of Tory gentry, staunchly upheld mercantilism and equated individual liberty with the ownership of tangible wealth, particularly land. The court faction, including both privy councilors and ministerial Whigs, increasingly aligned their interests with those of large merchants, advocating for the expansion of public credit, financial assets, and centralized control over the financial economy. The commonwealth faction, consisting of smaller merchants and members of the growing bourgeoisie, benefited from the financial market but lacked the political clout of major corporations like the South Sea Company. Infused with sentiment and sensation, the portrayal of liberty in Muzio Scevola mirrors the contrasting political strategies of radical and ministerial Whigs, each faction articulating its own vision for addressing the fallout from the South Sea Bubble. However, this theatrical representation of liberty goes beyond mere rhetoric or political maneuvering. It subtly mirrored the deeper economic ideologies that divided these groups, exposing the fundamental tension between differing conceptions of liberty and property in the wake of the financial crisis. On one flank of the Whig schism stood the Independent Whigs like Trenchard and Gordon, who were distinct from their ministerial counterparts. Through their scathing critiques in Cato’s Letters, they condemned the South Sea scheme as a grave violation of individual 106 See Swingen, “The Bubble and the Bail-out,” 151-153. 107 See Kramnick, Bolingbroke and His Circle (1992), 8-38. 204 liberty, akin to outright theft. They viewed it not as an isolated corporate misdeed, but as a symptom of a deeper systemic malaise—political interference on market rights based on individual possession of property—a conservative Tory conception of economic rights grounded in land and tangible goods. It may seem counterintuitive that radical Whig thinkers aligned themselves with Tory interests on property, particularly those of the landed gentry. However, as Kramnick elucidates, a shared economic ideology rooted in property ownership bridged the gap between the Commonwealth and Country factions, uniting them against Walpole’s financial policies. At the heart of their argument was a belief in what C. B. Macpherson termed “possessive individualism,” a vision of liberty deeply rooted in the protection and respect for individual ownership and rights.108 This partly pragmatic alliance perceived the close relationship between government and corporations as a corrupting influence, distorting English society and politics.109 Championing the interests of smaller merchants and the growing urban class, Trenchard and Gordon advocated for a vision of commerce free from government intervention, emphasizing a clear separation between political authority and market dynamics. Their call for accountability went beyond seeking punitive action against the architects of the South Sea debacle, including company directors, complicit Whig officials, and the notorious stockjobbers of Exchange Alley.110 It was a clarion call for safeguarding the national order from a descent into tyranny. While vehemently denouncing the “late execrable South-Sea conspiracy,” Gordon and Trenchard expressed their astonishment and condemnation of their fellow citizens who had not yet demanded the punishment of “all those who headed and abetted that destructive scheme, or endeavored to protect those who did.”111 The failure to hold accountable 108 C. B. Macpherson, “Penetration and Limits of Hobbes’s Political Theory,” “The Ambiguous Civil Society,” in The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (University of Oxford Press, 1962), 87-99, 247-250. See also Annie Mitchell, “A Liberal Republican ‘Cato’,” American Journal of Political Science 48, no. 3 (2004): 588–603. 109 Kramnick shows that Trenchard and Gordon exemplify the ambivalence of the Augustan Commonwealthmen, exhibiting both a radical Whiggism and a nostalgic conservatism that lashes out at the new economic and social order. See Kramnick, 234. 110 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letters, Dec 10, 1720. 111 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letters, March 1722. 205 those responsible for the financial turmoil, they argued, would represent a profound betrayal of Whig ideals of liberty. On the opposing side stood the ministerial Whigs, led by Robert Walpole, who viewed the South Sea inquiry as an opportunity to stabilize and strengthen England’s financial system. Walpole’s interpretation of Whig liberty centered on preserving the very financial system the South Sea Company was designed to achieve: market commerce through a stable credit system. Consequently, he prioritized salvaging the South Sea Company’s capital to prevent a complete credit freeze in the economy, all the while sidelining the pursuit of accountability for alleged corruption among the company’s directors. For Walpole and his ministerial Whig supporters, the South Sea scheme’s failure did not negate its foundational goal: establishing a public credit system operated by a privately held corporation under parliamentary oversight. The ministerial Whigs’ advocacy for a bailout of the South Sea Company by the Whig-supported Bank of England aimed to preserve this framework.112 They believed this arrangement was essential for a modern market society where political and economic powers are intertwined, defining liberty in terms of commercial viability. This ideological rift between ministerial and independent Whigs grew increasingly pronounced. Walpole and his establishment allies portrayed their critics as dangerous agitators who threatened societal stability. When faced with an opposition bill seeking to curtail all speculative trading, Walpole defeated it by arguing that restricting financial freedoms would not only undermine the credit system but also have adverse political consequences.113 Thus, Walpole’s stance can be interpreted as an early form of monetarism, advocating for government oversight of monetary policy as a cornerstone for economic growth, laying the groundwork for contemporary economic theories that prioritize monetary supply as 112 Walpole’s maneuver to have the South Sea Company’s debt, initially a Tory venture, bailed out through the Whig-supported Bank of England was, undeniably, a strategic power play. This action was aimed at ensuring the continuity of the South Sea scheme’s operational model, thereby solidifying his authority and eliminating any remaining Tory influence within the financial and political landscape. 113 Barnard, Considerations Upon a Proposal, 5-7. When Walpole faced Barnard’s Opposition Bill to curb stockjobbing, he argued that such restraints on the free liberty of the subject would not only impair credit, but would also have a deleterious political effect on the nation. 206 the engine of economic growth.114 The political struggle between the ministerial Whigs and their independent counterparts, each underpinned by their respective commonwealth and court interests and the economic principles of possessive individualism and proto-monetarism, exposed the evolving concept of English liberty amidst the South Sea inquiry. This period marked a critical juncture where emerging financial practices—public debt, speculative assets, and the rise of central banking— began to intertwine with the traditionally steadfast notion of liberty, transforming it from an immutable civic virtue into a concept deeply influenced by the realities of England’s financializing society. Rolli’s operatic interpretation of liberty, though aimed at universal resonance, inadvertently underscores this redefinition. The opera, therefore, can be seen as articulating the economic ideological schism within the Whig party by giving musical expression to the contesting factions’ political posturing. It frames this division as a clash between the politics of rage (radical Whigs) and the politics of sentiment (ministerial Whigs). Liberty, once a straightforward emblem of honor, citizenship, and republican commitment, becomes entangled with the complexities of the market. Thus, liberty transforms into a contested and elusive ideal within the intersecting ideologies of the time, each vying for dominance in England’s financial and political narrative. This transformation prefigures the emergence of liberalism as an economic doctrine, illuminating J. G. A. Pocock’s paradigmatic insight that the political discourse and social life of the eighteenth century were shaped by the “foundational dialectic between virtue and commerce.”115 114 The South Sea Bubble reveals how a financial crisis can result from the centralization of monetary power and the potential for bankers to become despots. However, it also highlights the difficulty of envisioning an autonomous monetary authority with a clear separation between the state and the market. For a detailed comparison of modern monetary thoughts and systems with the 1720 financial crisis, see Travor Jackson, “Between Independence and Impunity: The Theory of Proto-Central Banking after the Crisis of 1720,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 54, no. 1 (Fall 2020): 33-52, esp. 34-35. For a discussion about constitutional arrangements concerning the sovereign’s monetary prerogative in eighteenth-century English politics, see J. G. A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge University Press, 1957). 115 See Stephen Conrad, “Review of J. G. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History,” Law and History Review 5/1 (1987): 287; Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History, 113-115. 207 Despite their ideological divergences, the independent and ministerial Whigs shared a commonality in their strategic manipulation of classical virtue. Both factions redefined virtue in terms of their partisan economic interests while simultaneously cloaking their self-interest in the ostensibly immutable virtue of liberty. This tactical use of virtue allowed both factions to effectively deploy their respective rhetorics, whether in the politics of rage or sentiment. This illustrates Pocock’s concept of the English eighteenth-century historical dialectic as a more specific interplay between lofty ideals and pragmatic political maneuvering. This “economization of virtue,” as I argue, is also evident in Muzio Scevola. In Act III of Muzio Scevola, Clelia’s aria “Dimmi, crudele amore” (Example 3.3) bursts forth with fiery defiance. Its fragmented melody, punctuated by frequent rests, is energized by relentless syncopated rhythms, reflecting a striking transformation in Clelia’s character. From the righteously enraged heroine of Act II, she emerges in Act III as a deeply aggrieved figure, her emotional turmoil vividly expressed through the aria’s volatile musical language. Set to music by Handel, the final act unfolds with Porsena, unaware of Clelia’s engagement to Muzio, seeking Muzio’s help in winning her hand in exchange for his army’s withdrawal from Rome. Muzio, prioritizing Rome’s peace over his personal desires, reluctantly agrees. However, Clelia vehemently rejects Porsena’s proposal, feeling deeply betrayed by Muzio’s actions. Overcome with fury, she decides to lead her corps of captured female warriors in a daring escape from Porsena’s prison by leaping into the Tiber River. As Clelia plans her final act of defiance, she invokes the same lofty ideal of liberty’ that once justified Muzio’s sacrifice in the previous act. Her rallying cry, sung with unwavering resolve, proclaims in a recitative, “let an extreme Courage be immediately engaged towards our Escape, or else let an honorable Death crown our Exploits.”116 Rounding out this recitative with a surge of rekindled rage, Clelia cries out, “Abandoned Love! Betrayed Faith!” before transitioning into the seething aria “Dimmi, crudele 116 Act III, Scene 7, “O a nostro scampo, estremo ardir s’ adopre; O un’ onorato fin coroni l’Opre.” 208 amore,” where she puts her inner turmoil about her fated love and betrayal on full display. This piece is not simply a typical rage aria; it revisits the melody of her earlier aria, “Fugga il timor, dal sen,” which Clelia previously sang in a triumphant major key to embolden Muzio’s assassination attempt on Porsena. Now, transposed by Handel into a minor key, the aria turns inward, delving into Clelia’s personal turmoil and betrayal, intensified by dramatic pauses that underscore her doubt and vulnerability. As Muzio shifts from a fervent warrior to a dispassionate negotiator after his failed assassination, Clelia refuses to be reduced to a pawn in the political calculus Muzio undertook in his negotiation with Porsena. Her unwavering heroic spirits transforms her public indignation into a deeply personal outrage, expressing not only her pride in defending her freedom but also her profound sense of betrayal. This pivotal outburst challenges Clelia’s prior vocalization of Roman virtue, raising the question: Was her rhetoric of personal sacrifice for the public good, previously celebrated under Muzio’s heroism, merely a facade? The aria, with its haunting and explosive minor key, suggests that political dissent is often fueled by personal emotions and interests rather than detached calculations. Clelia’s aria reveals that self-interested passions, when frankly acknowledged, may wield a far greater emotional power than the self-sacrificing heroism she once championed. In Clelia’s renewed rage aria, the veneer of political actions and rhetoric are stripped away to reveal the raw vulnerability and personal stakes beneath. Clelia’s aria mirrors the deeply self-interested motives behind the righteous indignation found in the writings of Trenchard and Gordon, likewise exposing the personal passions that underpin their political critiques. In the beginning of Act III, Clelia’s indignant response to Porsena’s crass insinuation, asserting that “Fraud and Untruth are never used by Romans,” mirrors the moral outrage expressed by Trenchard and Gordon against the deceitful practices of the South Sea Company directors.117 Both Clelia and the pamphleteers fiercely defend their respective communities’ integrity, 117 After Clelia declines to answer a personal question, Porsena crassly banters, “is it true then, that every beautiful Woman loves to deceive?” 209 condemning dishonesty and upholding a commitment to truth and liberty. While Trenchard and Gordon’s outrage against the South Sea Company was rooted in a defense of liberty, they candidly acknowledged the personal interests fueling their indignation, particularly the losses suffered by ordinary investors in the South Sea Bubble. This mirrors Clelia’s open display of anger, suggesting that personal passion can be a legitimate motivator for political action. The authors of Cato’s Letters went further, arguing that all human actions, even seemingly virtuous ones, are ultimately driven by self-interest. They asserted that “disinterestedness, there is none,” and that even the “best actions” often arise from emotions like “fear, vanity, [or] shame.”118 This perspective aligns with their perception of the South Sea scheme as a theft not only of investor’s financial resources but also of individual agency. Trenchard and Gordon’s declaration that “every man has a right to every man’s assistance in the enjoyment and defense of his private property” underscores their belief in the importance of individual rights and the need for collective action to protect those economic rights. This principle thus connects economic concerns with political representation.119 Ultimately, Cato’s Letters transcended mere inflammatory rhetoric; they served as a powerful polemic advocating for expanded political rights for the marginalized independent Whigs. The pamphlets connected the ideology of possessive individualism, emphasizing personal property and individual agency, to the demand for greater political representation and influence. Clelia’s staunch defense of self-interest in Act III resonates with the philosophy espoused by Trenchard and Gordon in Cato’s Letters. Both the operatic heroine and the political pamphleteers reject the notion of sacrificing individual desires 118 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letters, No. 40. 119 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letters, No. 62. “It is a mistaken notion in government, that the interest of the majority is only to be consulted, since in society every man has a right to every man’s assistant in the enjoyment and defense of his private property; otherwise the greater number may sell the lesser, and divide their estates amongst themselves; and so, instead of a society, where all peaceable men are protected, become a conspiracy of the many against the minority. With as much equity may one man wantonly dispose of all, and violence may be sanctified by mere power.” The debate surrounding the South Sea Bailout fundamentally highlights the tension between government authority and individual liberty, questioning whether legislative power can or should override individual freedom. As Trenchard and Gordon have articulated, this tension is central to the understanding and exercise of liberty in the context of commerce and governance. 210 for a vaguely defined “public good.” They argue instead that liberty is not merely a lofty ideal but a practical tool that should be wielded to protect individual interests, particularly in economic and political matters often neglected by those in power. In this view, the virtue of liberty is not about selflessness or sacrifice, but rather about empowering individuals to pursue their own goals and protect their own interests. Example 3.3 Aria “Dimmi, crudele amore” from Muzio Scevola, Act III. 211 While Clelia’s character arc embodies a nascent sense of self-ownership, mirroring the emerging concept of selfhood in modern commerce, Muzio undergoes a parallel transformation into a somewhat Machiavellian figure who views societal interactions through a transactional lens. This is exemplified in his efforts to persuade Clelia to sacrifice their love for the sake of Rome’s stability, echoing Walpole’s approach during the South Sea crisis. Just as Muzio urges Clelia to relinquish their romance for the greater good, Walpole encouraged the public to accept financial austerity to maintain the existing economic order. This parallel highlights the tension between personal desires and public obligations, with both Muzio and Walpole prioritizing the latter. The confrontation between Muzio and Clelia in Act III further underscores this dynamic. Muzio, employing platitudes of “Honor, Virtue, and Reason,” pleads with Clelia to accept Porsena’s proposal, framing it as the only right choice to “intreat[ing] your whole Affection to Porsena … Thus, you serve both your country and do an honorable action.” His paternalistic tone, reminiscent of Walpole’s parliamentary speeches, positions him as a benevolent administrator with superior knowledge, urging Clelia to prioritize the collective good over her personal feelings.120 This interaction exposes a fundamental conflict between individual agency and societal demands in the face of crisis. Both Muzio and Walpole, embodying Machiavellian pragmatism, prioritize stability and order above personal desires and emotions, starkly contrasting with Clelia’s evolving sense of self-ownership. If Walpole skillfully intertwined virtue and economic pragmatism to advance his political agenda, then Muzio’s transformation from Act II to Act III mirrors this economic conception of virtue. Initially driven by a willingness to sacrifice himself for Roman freedom, Muzio evolves into a character who prioritizes strategic calculation and political expediency, weighing the costs and benefits of his actions. This shift is evident in his duet with Clelia, where sympathy is expressed through a lens of calculated pragmatism rather than pure emotional expression. 120 For characterization of Walpole’s paternalistic and benevolent political persona, see Mary Wortley Montagu, On Seeing A Portrait Of Sir Robert Walpole (1745?). 212 Bononcini’s end-of-act duet, “Dov’ è il dolor, don’ è,” subtly reveals the calculated pragmatism that begins to permeate Muzio’s once passionate character (Example 3.4). As Muzio and Clelia reunite after their separate battles, Clelia discovers his injured hand and expresses empathy for his pain. However, Muzio’s response emphasizes that her love and his sense of duty effectively alleviate any physical suffering. [Clelia] Dov’ è il dolor, dov’ è E’mio quèl tuo tormento: Dalla tua Destra il sento Ahi che mi passa al Cor Forse più forte. [Muzio] Fate un’ effete in me La Gloria e tu, mia Bella: A te vicino e a quella; Non so che sia dolor Cara è la Morte. [Clelia] Where is the Pain, where is it? All your Torment is mine; I feel that of your Hand Now piercing my Heart more fiercely. [Muzio] Honor and you my Fairest Produce the same effect in me: Whilst I am near you, I feel no Pain at all; Nay Death itself is pleasant. Example 3.4 Duet “Dov’è il dolor, dov’è” from Muzio Scevola, Act II. 213 This musical portrayal of sympathy in the duet may be said to reflect the growing interest in this psychological process within eighteenth-century English social and moral philosophy. Adam Smith, in his 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments explores this concept extensively. At the time, it was popularly believed that sympathy, which involves imagining oneself in another’s position and viewing things from their perspective, fostered interpersonal understanding through a “transfusion of emotions” and was therefore considered a social virtue.121 Musical harmony serves as a central metaphor in Smith’s explication of his theory of fellow feelings, describing sympathetic affections between individuals as forming a “concord” of feelings with another.122 In describing an sympathetic encounter between individuals as sharing a synchronized melody, Smith further remarks: “The sentiment is shared; it exists as a common experience; much like the beat of a chant or melody of a song, which “is neither mine, nor yours, but ours.”123 Bononcini’s duet “Dov’ è il dolor, don’ è” serves as a perfect musical echo of Smith’s conception of sympathy. Through mirrored melodies and shared pathos, the duet canonically weaves the interconnected emotions, effectively replicating feelings from one character to the other. Set in G minor with a slow, swaying 12/8, the music creates a sense of beauty and melancholy. It captures the deep affection between Clelia and Muzio while lamenting the sacrifices demanded by their Roman duty. The duet’s central theme, introduced by Clelia and echoed by Muzio a fourth lower, is filled with pathos. Large melodic leaps and chromatic notes 121 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, eds. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (Oxford University Press, 1976 [1759]), 12. This conceptualization of sympathy as specific emotions duplicated across individuals was one commonly held by Smith’s contemporaries. It was a central part of the affective turn in the English philosophical tradition, in which theories of emotion emerged from philosophical, ethical, and political discourses engaged by writers ranging from the Earl of Shaftesbury through Francis Hutcheson to David Hume. Eighteenth-century understanding of sympathy, as Adam Smith, puts it, is that sympathetic feelings among individuals is effected by a “transfusion of emotions” and their capacity to share “our fellow-feelings with any passion.” See also “Sympathy/Empathy-Based Theories,” in “Moral Sentimentalism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2020), https://plato.stanford.edu/archIves/sum2020/entries/moral-sentimentalism/. 122 Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), 22. 123 Smith, 30. https://plato.stanford.edu/archIves/sum2020/entries/moral-sentimentalism/#:~:text=Adam%20Smith%20noted%20that%20we,general%20rule%E2%80%9D%2C%20whose%20acceptance%20is 214 evoke an atmosphere of lament, uncertainty, and pain, further amplified by the modulations throughout the piece. These mirrored melodies intertwine the characters’ voices, creating a sense of unity and shared emotional experience. This musical enactment of sympathy aligns with the idea of sympathy as a “transfusion of emotions,” where feelings are not merely individual experiences but are shared and amplified through mutual understanding.124 While the duet initially appears to exemplify this pure, unadulterated expression of sympathetic resonance, a closer analysis reveals the nuances within Smith’s theory. Smith argued that sympathy goes beyond being an absolute social virtue; it also involves a calculated exchange shaped by reason and self-awareness. Smith’s notion of “moral sentiments” suggests a reciprocal exchange rather than mere emotional contagion. To clarify this point, he refines his musical metaphor, suggesting that sympathetic harmony between individuals “will never be unison” but rather a more desirable form of “concords.”125 This implies that both parties involved in the sympathetic exchange must actively participate and adjust their emotional responses to achieve a harmonious connection. Smith compares this process to both tuning instruments and126 theatrical performance. The person seeking sympathy (the “actor”) must modulate the intensity of their emotions to a lower level that the one granting it (the “spectator”) can genuinely share. This involves a self-interested negotiation, where the actor, desiring approval, tailors their emotional expression to the spectator’s capacity for empathy. In turn, the 124 The sympathetic resonance between Clelia and Muzio goes beyond mere shared emotion: it reveals a mutual understanding of each other’s motivations and sacrifices. Clelia empathizes not only with Muzio’s physical pain but also with the ideals driving his actions, positioning her as both a compassionate observer and a self-sacrificing heroine. Bononcini’s compositional choices further amplify this connection. After each character introduces the theme, he fragments it into discrete phrases, alternating between the singers. This interweaving of musical lines merges their individual expressions into a cohesive whole, culminating in a poignant diminished seventh chord on C#. A sequence follows, with a chromatically descending tetrachord in the bassline that unites Clelia’s exclamation “ahi” with Muzio’s final utterance, “cara” (heart), through a powerful cadential gesture. In this duet, Bononcini not only anticipates the essence of Adam Smith’s concept of sympathy but also demonstrates music’s unique capacity to evoke shared emotions and foster a profound sense of human connection. The duet becomes a collective experience for Clelia and Muzio, transcending their individual struggles to create a unified emotional landscape where their voices and feelings intertwine. 125 Smith, 22. 126 Smith, 337. 215 spectator assesses the situation and may withhold approval if the emotions seem excessive or insincere.127 These additional layers to Smith’s conception of sympathy shed light on the so-called “Adam Smith Problem,” the perceived contradiction between his emphasis on self-interest in The Wealth of Nations and his focus on empathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.128 Jean- Christophe Agnew’s analysis of Smith’s musical-theatrical metaphors provides a compelling resolution to this supposed problem. Agnew argues that Smith did not see a fundamental dichotomy between self-interest and empathy, but rather viewed them as complementary aspects of the rational mind. This is evident in Smith’s discussion of “unison” and “concord,” where the variance in emotional pitches between an “actor” seeking approval and a “spectator”” assessing the actor’s emotions leads to a harmonious adjustment of their emotional states. These social nuances surrounding a sympathetic exchange reveals that it is not simply an unrestrained emotional outpouring but a carefully calibrated exchange; both parties have a vested interest in achieving a balanced interaction, where emotions are acknowledged and validated but not excessively indulged.129 As such, sympathy is not solely a moral interaction but also carries economic implications. By aligning interpersonal interests through affective exchange, sympathy facilitates economic interactions in a commercial society. It illustrates the intertwined nature of moral values and economic calculation in an age that sought to balance reason and the senses.130 Bononcini’s duet for Clelia and Muzio in Act II of Muzio Scevola also reflects these 127 Smith, 22-23. 128 The debate on the “Adam Smith Problem” is briefly recapitulated in the editorial introduction to The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1976), 20—25. 129 Jean-Christophe Agnew, Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550-1750 (Cambridge University Press, 1986), 178-183. 130 Agnew, Worlds Apart (1986), 183. Agnew further explores this connection by using early eighteenth- century English theater as a metaphor. He argues that the theatrical aspect of the virtue became increasingly important alongside market development, as the theater served as a space for teaching and reinforcing these new social norms, where individuals learned to navigate the complex interplay of emotions and self-interest. 216 nuanced layers in Smith’s theory of sympathy. The duet animates Smith’s concept of sympathy as an intersubjective negotiation between self-interested individuals, echoing his metaphor of tuning instruments with uncanny precision. Senesino, portraying Muzio, performed in a consistently lower register than usual, allowing Durastanti’s Clelia, with her wider range and more powerful voice, to command the aria’s higher tessitura.131 This deliberate choice by Bononcini reflects Muzio’s character arc, marking his evolution from a fiery warrior to a pragmatic diplomat. In this aria, Muzio emerges as the voice of reason and moderation, not only demonstrating his ability to restrain his own passions but also consistently tempering Clelia’s escalating emotional intensity. Muzio’s melody, though restrained, plays a crucial role in maintaining the tonal coherence of the piece. As Clelia’s continually ascending pitches threaten to destabilize the duet’s return to the home key—driving the G minor aria toward a distant F minor in a seemingly endless, pathos-laden sequence—Muzio intervenes decisively at measure 24. Breaking the imitative pattern with a variation on the phrase, he sets up a secondary Neapolitan harmony E-flat, pivoting the music toward the dominant D7. This intervention shatters the cycle of echoing voices and firmly re-anchors the piece in its tonal center, ensuring its resolution in the home key during the coda and preventing the sympathetic exchange from succumbing to excessive indulgence (see Example 3.5). Whether by sheer coincidence or shared intuition, Bononcini’s musical characterization aligns with Smith’s depiction of the rational actor in the theater of sympathy. In this instance, Muzio takes on the role of a calculating “actor,” skillfully modulating his expression of suffering to evoke empathy from Clelia, a perhaps overeager “spectator.” This calculated portrayal reflects the increasingly recognized transactional nature of sympathy as described by Smith, where both parties engage in a carefully calibrated emotional exchange, guided as much by feelings as by reason and self-interest. 131 For Senesino’s and Durastanti’s respective ranges and their implications for opera roles, see Steven C. LaRue, Handel and His Singers: The Creation of the Royal Academy Operas, 1720-1728 (Clarendon Press, 1999), 110. 217 Example 3.5 Muzio’s “pre-cadential intervention” in “Dov’è il dolor,” disrupting the imitative sequence that threatens to derail the tonal center. This allows the primo uomo to reestablish formal agency in the duet, guiding the music back to its final closing passage in the home key. Smith’s theater of sympathy also finds a striking parallel in Walpole’s political rhetoric during the South Sea crisis. As mentioned above, Walpole, faced with public outrage, strategically mobilized emotional rhetoric to shift the narrative from retribution to financial recovery through a bailout. Walpole deliberately portrayed the financial “daily suffering of the people” as a justification for his bailout plan, aiming to restore credit and stability rather than pursuing immediate punishment.132 Meanwhile, Walpole’s allies, particularly the larger merchants, strategically crafted narratives of their own financial losses to portray themselves as victims deserving of compensation.133 Their approach reflects the Smithian concept of calculated sympathy, where modulated expressions of suffering are deliberately deployed within the theater of parliamentary exchange to achieve desired political outcomes. For instance, the City 132 Journals of the House of Commons 19:638–639. 133 YBL “The Case of the Borrowers on the South-Sea Loans,” NZ 721c; “The Case of the Unahppy Purchaser of South Sea Stock,” NZ +720vb; “Case of the Sellers of the Third and Fourth money- subscriptions,” NZ + 712cd. 218 Aldermen, key stakeholders in London’s financial market, beneficiaries of a robust public credit system, and crucial to Walpole’s political power, strategically downplayed their own losses. Instead, they emphasized their rational concerns for the liberal order upheld by the flow of public credit, seeking to elicit sympathy and support from Parliament. “We understand the burden of public debt,” the Aldermen stated, adopting a measured tone to align their interests with those of Parliament, “yet [losing our money] casts a shadow over the South Sea Company, hindering public credit,” insinuating their eligibility for compensation instead of demanding it outright.134 This calculated performance of victimhood exemplifies Smith’s principle of tempering passion with reason in the theater of sympathy, here applied to maintain the financial system. The City Aldermen, by echoing Walpole’s argument that the bailout was essential to restore both civil liberties and economic stability, also maximized their financial recovery, ensuring their share in Walpole’s bailout plan. The strategic interplay of sympathy demonstrated by the City Aldermen and Walpole during the South Sea crisis indeed reveals a utilitarian aspect of Smith’s theories of sentiments. It shows the effective use of emotional appeals to shape public perception and advance specific economic agendas. By tapping into communal feelings of empathy and concern, Walpole and his allies positioned themselves as champions of the people’s interests, even as they pursued their own political and economic objectives. Thus, Muzio Scevola can be heard to resonate with the evolving English conception of virtue in the early eighteenth century, where traditional ideals of virtuous citizenship and 134 LMA CLC/B/227/MS03612. During the run of Muzio Scevola at the Academy, a significant petition from the City of London’s councilors coincided with the final stages of Walpole’s bailout plan. Submitted in the spring of 1721, this appeal articulated the financial distress of those deeply affected by the South Sea scheme. This petition was emblematic of numerous appeals that flooded Parliament, where investors laid bare their financial distress and sought government compensation. The plea for redress, particularly from the City Aldermen representing major merchants facing losses, stood in contrast to the retributive demands of radical Whigs like Trenchard and Gordon. The Court of Aldermen, an influential business oligarchy of twenty-five affluent citizens, reflected London’s financial elite’s consensus. Their appeal for compensation, aligning with Walpole’s approach to support the financial elite, underscored a preference for stabilizing the commercial system rather than pursuing punitive measures against those involved in the South Sea debacle. 219 governance were increasingly reframed through the lens of self-interest and economic imperatives. On the one hand, Clelia’s transformation from a champion of public duty to a figure driven by personal outrage mirrors the self-serving motivations underlying the rhetoric of negative liberty in Trenchard and Gordon’s Cato’s Letters. On the other hand, the calculated sympathy displayed in the duet between Muzio and Clelia evokes Adam Smith’s concept of self- interested sympathy: emotional expressions are not simply genuine feelings but strategic tools, carefully calibrated to align with personal interests. And this parallels the way Walpole and his allies activated emotional appeals to advance their bailout scheme. These operatic moments expose a fundamental tension between the older ideals of civic humanism, which emphasized selfless devotion to the common good, and the growing influence of economics on moral values. While the opera outwardly extols the virtues of civic duty, the characters’ underlying, intricate psychological processes, unveiled through their musical expressions, expose a far more complex reality. The characters, including Muzio himself, often mask their economic motivations beneath a veneer of virtuous rhetoric. This creates a palpable tension throughout the opera, highlighting the conflict between traditional moral values and the growing influence of economic considerations in society. J. G. A. Pocock’s observation of the central social dialectic between virtue and commerce in eighteenth-century British historiography is thus evident in both political discourse and artistic expression of the time. Muzio Scevola embodies this dialectic, portraying the conflict between civic virtue and economic self-interest in the context of the South Sea Bubble bailout. By weaving the economic ethos into the characters’ motivations and the music itself, the opera allows the audience to experience this clash. As the opera characters came to embody the tension between Trenchard and Gordon’s possessive individualism and Walpole’s proto-monetarism—evident in both their contrasting rhetorical styles and the differing self-interested calculations behind these styles, Muzio Scevola becomes a vivid reflection of the economic ideological clash within the Whig party following the South Sea crisis. This clash is most prominently expressed in the central conflict between Muzio 220 and Clelia. Their divergent perspectives on liberty and political priorities, which mirror the broader Whig divide, become increasingly apparent in Act III. The opera’s ultimate resolution of the Roman conflict, while politically expedient, fails to resolve the underlying romantic tension between Muzio and Clelia. This dissonance is further emphasized in the finale, as their priorities still diverge. Muzio champions duty and political stability, while Clelia steadfastly adheres to her personal values and integrity. The final duet, “Ma come amar / Torna ad amar,” intended as a moment of reconciliation, only underscores the enduring rift between them: [Clelia] Ma come Amar, E come mai fidar? La mia gra fedeltà A così poca Fe? [Muzio] Torna ad amar, Perchè non ti fidar? Fu sola fedeltà Il mio mancar di Fe. [Clelia] Sento che Amor Vuole alletarmi ancor: Ma l’Alma mia non sa Come fidarsi a te. [Muzio] Al suo gran cor Ceder sì bell’ onor; Non generosità Forza d’amor sol’ è. [Clelia] But how can I love, And how can I trust My great Constancy With one so unconstant? [Muzio] Return to your Love, Why should you mistrust? ’Twas only Fidelity Made me False to my Faith. [Clelia] I perceive that Love Is endeavoring to soothe me, Yet my Soul does not know How it can trust you. [Muzio] To yield so much Honour To his great Soul, Was not Generosity But Height of Love. In a departure from the typical dramatic resolutions found in the final scene of an opera seria, the duet between Muzio and Clelia leaves the audience without a definitive closure. Rolli’s libretto provides little hope for reconciliation, and Handel’s music further emphasizes this disconnect. The duet begins with Clelia and Muzio seemingly inhabiting separate emotional realms. Clelia’s melody descends in an expression of betrayal, while Muzio’s ascends in a plea for duty and patriotism. Their vocal lines rarely intersect, mirroring the emotional distance between 221 them. A brief semblance of unity emerges around m. 50, where Handel attempts to merge their melodies for a closing cadence. However, this feels more like a formulaic cadential gesture than a genuine emotional re-connection. The B section of the duet reinforces this disconnectedness, with Clelia expressing her lingering unease while Muzio reiterates the importance of civic duty. By the duet’s conclusion, it is clear that Muzio has not won back Clelia’s trust. The irreconcilable conflict between Muzio and Clelia on stage mirrors the parliamentary deadlock between the ministerial and independent Whigs over the South Sea bailout. This mirrored conflict would have deeply resonated with the Royal Academy of Music’s shareholders, the opera’s primary audience, who found themselves entangled in the same ideological battles. Among the founding subscribers were landed gentry like the Dukes of Halifax and Godolphin, who were aligned with the Independent Whigs’ cause.135 They fervently demanded the execution of South Sea directors, reflecting the opera’s theme of righteous indignation and punishment for those deemed responsible for the crisis.136 Conversely, Lord Chamberlain von Fabrice, representing Hanoverian and court Whig interests aligned with Walpole and Townshend,137 intended for Muzio Scevola to be a story of reconciliation. This perspective was likely shared by Walpole-leaning Whigs on the Academy’s subscription list, such as the Dukes of Grafton and Manchester, William Cadogan, Thomas Strafford, and William Pulteney. This divided audience highlights the opera’s reflection of the broader political landscape. The stark contrast between the opposing factions within the audience mirrors the onstage conflict between Muzio and Clelia, as well as the broader political struggle between the Independent and Ministerial Whigs. The opera, therefore, becomes a microcosm of the societal tensions and competing ideologies of 135 These Tory landed gentry exemplified the political alliance between landed interests and economic libertarianism championed by Trenchard and Gordon, as explored by Kramnick. Kramnick’s analysis highlights how seemingly disparate ideological extremes, such as staunch Tories and radical Whigs, found common ground in a commercialized Britain. This unlikely alliance was united by a shared belief in the sanctity of property rights and a deep-seated distrust of financiers, particularly in the wake of the South Sea Bubble crisis. 136 See Kramnick, Bolingbroke and His Circle (1968), 52. 137 See Jeremy Black, “Hanover and British Foreign Policy 1714-60,” The English Historical Review 120, no. 486 (2005): 303–39. 222 the time, offering a platform for both sides to witness their own struggles reflected in the dramatic narrative. While the independent Whigs appear to have been more vocally vehement in their critique of Walpole’s bailout plan, thanks in part to the enduring popularity of Cato’s Letters, their rhetoric—and their political demand for severe retribution—was in fact challenged fiercely by Walpole’s call for moderation. The ministerial Whigs leveraged print propaganda to contend that the radicals’ insistence on harsh punishment contradicted the true tenets of English liberty and civility. One pamphlet portrayed the independent Whigs’ approach as not only reckless but hypocritical, arguing that their claims to defend liberty were belied by their advocacy for actions that would undermine it.138 In another sharp pamphlet, Walpole’s advocates singled out Halifax and Godolphin and charged them of jeopardizing “this noble structure which they laboured so much to raise and establish”—namely, the very foundations of the liberal political-economic order established by the 1688 Glorious Revolution.139 Pamphlets circulated by Walpole’s allies and hired writers strategically framed the debate as one of moderation versus extremism. They argued that the radicals’ calls for swift, extrajudicial punishment threatened to undermine the very structures they claimed to protect. By positioning themselves as the voice of reason, sympathy, and due process, Walpole’s faction sought to portray their opponents as dangerous demagogues who exploited public anger at the expense of liberty. The opera Muzio Scevola, particularly its unresolved finale, echoes this political conflict. The dramatic tensions on stage reflect the deep ideological divides exposed by the South Sea crisis, highlighting the complex interplay between economic interests and political ideologies. The opera became a platform for 138 YBL NZ 720sn, “Scandal no argument: an Oxford annuitant’s letter to Sir Richard.” An “Oxford Annuitant” expressed this sentiment in a “Modest Apology,” fearing the manipulation of the Constitution for personal gain and vengeance, not the good of the nation. He compared the pamphleteers to rowdy spectators inciting violence rather than seeking justice. They argued that holding the directors accountable shouldn’t devolve into a repeat of the oppressive tactics used by the previous Whig government. An editorial in Applebee’s also echoed this sentiment, highlighting the hypocrisy of Whigs who once defended legal due process but now called for punishment based on personal resentment. See Applebee’s Original Weekly Journal, Dec. 16, 1721. 139 Some Considerations on Public Credit and the Nature of its Circulating in the Funds ... (1733), 21. 223 airing these contested views, with each faction seeing their own perspective represented in the characters and their struggles. The unresolved ending of the opera further emphasizes the lack of a clear resolution in the political sphere. Just as Muzio and Clelia remain at odds, so too did the opposing factions within the Whig party and the broader public. The opera’s ambiguous conclusion serves as a commentary on the ongoing struggle between competing visions of economic justice, liberty, stability. THEATRICS AND ECONOMICS AT THE OPERA Ironically, while von Fabrice initially envisioned Muzio Scevola as an opera focused on reconciliation, the piece culminated in both romantic discord and moral ambiguity. On one hand, as I have discussed, this thematic tension may have resonated allegorically with an ideologically divided body of Royal Academy’s shareholders, reflecting the contested interpretations of liberty championed by both ministerial and independent factions among the Whigs. On the other hand, beyond the allegorical, behind-the-scenes creative friction likely exacerbated the divisions portrayed on stage. Ultimately, it was Rolli’s libretto that enabled Muzio Scevola’s dramaturgical conflicts and allegorical depth, deviating from von Fabrice’s vision of a harmonious and reconciliatory opera to open the season amid the South Sea crisis. Rolli, entangled in the Academy’s internal strife, showed a clear partiality towards Italian artists, especially Bononcini, as evidenced in his distribution of the opera’s material. Despite von Fabrice’s recollection of a randomized assignment of acts, with Bononcini drawing the first act, Handel the second, and Amadei the third, the final arrangement was more deliberate.140 Amadei ultimately received the opening act, Bononcini the central, and Handel the finale. This reshuffling, particularly placing Bononcini in 140 Friedrich Ernst von Fabrice, Memoirs of Mr de Fabrice, Chamberlain to His Majesty the King of Great Britain, and formerly Envoy Extraordinary of his Highness the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein at the court ofH is Majesty the King of Sweden at Bendez … Writtenby himself in Celle (1732-33), 134-7. 224 the pivotal second act concerning the titular character’s heroism, may suggest Rolli’s favoritism. Furthermore, the choice of Muzio Scevola, a subject previously set to music by Bononcini multiple times, gave him an inherent advantage, though he did not reuse his earlier compositions.141 Rolli’s favoritism is also evident in his distribution of dramatic roles between Durastanti and Senesino. As the opera progresses, the male and female protagonists gradually drift apart mirroring the off-stage tensions between the singers. But this rift manifests prominently through Rolli’s depiction of Clelia, who is portrayed not as an independent heroine but rather as a foil to Muzio’s self-sacrificial valor. Furthermore, described in the libretto as an “Amazon,” Clelia is cast in an exotic, somewhat marginalized light, spotlighting the warrior queen type she inhabits with the implied foreignness and situating her outside the Roman moral code supposedly upheld in the opera.142 This depiction likely reflects Rolli’s biases, as Clelia’s impulsive actions and affective excess starkly contrast with Muzio’s evolution into a rational and measured strategist, and even Porsena’s calculated magnanimity. Such characterizations not only highlight dramatic contrasts but perhaps also suggest Rolli’s intent to flatter the Hanoverian court and support the Walpole administration—and their political pragmatism. By skewing Clelia towards a firebrand character that aligns her more closely with the radical politics of the Independent Whigs, like Trencherd and Gordon, Rolli positioned her as an outsider, akin to those on the periphery of the supposedly polite company of Whig political establishment. This characterization not only undermines Clelia’s moral authority but also subtly undercuts the onstage appeal of Durastanti, whom Rolli viewed as a member in the rival 141 Bononcini had previously composed two settings of Muzio Scevola for Rome (1695) and Vienna (1710), each time collaborating with different librettists and singers. However, as Lanzellotti has shown, the 1721 setting drew upon themes and metaphors emphasized in the librettos of Bononcini’s earlier versions. Federico Lanzellotti, “Giovanni Bononcini’s settings of Muzio Scevola (1695–1710) and their relationship to the London version of 1721,” paper presented at The Handel Institute Twelfth Triennial Conference, November 19-21, 2021, The Foundling Museum, London. 142 For Durastanti’s character as the warrior queen type in Muzio Scevola and her frequent association with the warrior queen type on English stage, see Ina Knoth, “Eine Kriegerin für die Londoner Opernbühne: Margherita Durastanti als Clelia in Muzio Scevola,” Händel-Jahrbuch 66 (2020): 197—214. 225 faction and a suboptimal choice for the Royal Academy. Despite the intention of the Academy’s governing board to use Muzio Scevola as a symbol of reconciliation, contemporary audiences primarily perceived tension, competition, and strife in the opera. According to Handel’s biographer, John Mainwaring, the opera was actually designed to settle disputes within the Royal Academy by having multiple composers “collaborate.” Never mind reconciliation, the opera, instead, was a staged competition, a musical cage fight even, intended to determine, through “general suffrage,” which composer would “give the best proofs of his abilities” and thus earn the right to keep his employment within the Academy.143 As others speculated further, this competitive approach was perhaps necessitated by budget constraints following the financial crash, leading to the Royal Academy’s considerations of retaining only one composer on permanent payroll.144 Von Fabrice, representing the interests of the joint-stock opera company and its stakeholders, naturally sought to portray the opera as a projection of corporate harmony. This perception would positively influence the financial viability and sustainability of the opera company. Indeed, a 1724 journalist reported “strange commotions” and “civil broil” at the Opera House, noting that the discord among musicians threatened to “turn all the harmony into discord.” The report further suggested that this internal strife could lead to a financial reevaluation of the company, stating, “if these dissensions do not cease, it is thought Opera Stock will fall.”145 This shows the perceived link between operational stability and profitability within the opera company. However, instead of improving public perception of the Academy’s affairs, Rolli’s choices exacerbated the inherent tensions, rendered all visible on stage, all the 143 “The succeeding winter [1720-21 brought this musical disorder to its crisis. In order to terminate all matters in controversy, it was agreed to put them on this fair issue. The several parties concerned were to be jointly employed in making an Opera, in which each of them was to take a distinct act. And he, who by the general suffrage, should be allowed to have given the best proofs of his abilities, was to be put into possession of the house.” John Mainwaring, Memoirs of the Life of the late George Frederic Handel (1760), 104-5. 144 Christopher Hogwood, Handel (Thames & Hudson, 2007). 145 Mist’s Weekly Journals, January 14, 1724. 226 while advancing his personal factional interests within the Academy. This misalignment of interests between the governor, effectively the figurehead of the joint-stock shareholders, and the librettist-manager within the opera company exemplifies the principal-agent problem identified by commentators amidst the perceived mismanagement of the South Sea Company after the Bubble. This issue, where managerial actions diverge from the owners’ interests, was a formal critique of joint-stock companies as an insufficient form of financial capital arrangement, lacking both ethical and economic viability. Critics like Adam Smith, and even contemporaries of the South Sea crash such as von Fabrice, voiced similar frustrations regarding this dynamic. In his 1732 memoir, von Fabrice lamented the Royal Academy of Music’s management board’s obsession with bureaucracy and endless factional conflicts. He noted that managerial interests often clashed with the company’s overall vision, resulting in stalemates that stymied progress. These stalemates, he observed, often “involved more intrigue than serious matters of great consequence,” exemplifying what he called “the party spirit of the English even in the most trivial of concerns.”146 In this context, Muzio Scevola emerges not merely as a theatrical reflection of the political upheavals following the South Sea Bubble, but also as a stark illustration of the entanglement between creative production and the structural constraints of the joint-stock model. This scenario, recognizable as managerial entrenchment, vividly demonstrates how corporate imperatives can shape and distort artistic endeavors, often amplifying and exacerbating, rather than channeling and harnessing, the inherent creative tensions and social frictions within artistic collaboration.147 The South Sea Bubble cast a long shadow over the English perception of joint-stock companies in their political economy. The perceived inherent flaw of the principal-agent problem within this model raised profound doubts about the ethical and commercial viability of 146 Von Fabrice, Memoirs of Mr de Fabrice, 136. 147 Managerial entrenchment is a concept where a leader at an organization makes company decisions that benefit their personal goals over the company or shareholder goals. See Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishnu, “Management Entrenchment: The Case of Manager-Specific Investments,” Journal of Financial Economics 25 (1989): 123039. 227 joint-stock companies as instruments for public good. This skepticism was, in part, codified in the Bubble Act of 1720. The Act tightened legislative oversight and restrictions over incorporation, reflecting a growing distrust of speculative ventures. While the Bubble Act may have dampened investor confidence and contributed to the bursting of the 1720 bubble, its restrictive measures remained in effect for over a century, until 1825. In the century following the Bubble, the English economy shifted away from its earlier incorporating exuberance. Family-owned enterprises and small partnerships gained prominence over the large-scale public joint-stock companies that had dominated the market during the early eighteenth century’s projecting fever.148 This skepticism towards joint-stock companies extended to the musical world as well. In the early 1840s, a proposal for a “national opera company” structured as a “Joint-Stock Company with Limited Liability” was met with swift criticism in the press. Many commentators, drawing on post-South Sea Bubble anxieties about corporate models, highlighted the potential for conflicting interests. One critic emphatically declared, “We have witnessed many theatrical commonwealths fail, and a Joint-Stock Opera-house seems particularly doomed to failure.” This sentiment clearly echoed past experiences, particularly the challenges faced by the Royal Academy of Music, England’s first and most notorious joint-stock opera company. The Victorian writer’s statement reads as a fusion of von Fabrice’s observations from his time on the Academy’s board with Adam Smith’s famous criticisms of the inherent inefficiencies of the joint- stock model. The commentator concluded that “the conflicting interests, jealousies, heart- burnings, and collisions among composers, performers, and music-publishers, inevitably generated from such a combination, would render successful cooperation next to impossible.”149 In the Victorian debate about opera financing, a chorus of critical op-eds echoed these 148 See John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of A Revolutionary Idea, 59-62. 149 The Spectator, June 29, 1861, 697. 228 concerns, raising additional points in their scathing assessments. These criticisms converged on a central theme: the commercial venture would hinder, not promote, the advancement of English music. One critic mocked the idea of a corporation producing “opera-tors” instead of operas. He argued that such entrepreneurial pursuits were antithetical to the artistic spirit: “A joint-stock company of artists managing theaters? Absolutely not! To excel in either management or composition requires one’s full attention.”150 Another critic took it further, blaming the perceived decline of British music since the beginning of the nineteenth century on the very notion of art mingling with corporate business. He argued that “The British Society overestimated the indulgence of its subscribers” and that public performances ended up “a libel on, rather than an indication of, the genius they professed to foster.”151 The cold calculations of commercial entrepreneurship, he further argued, failed to grasp the artistic temperament. These critiques reflected the burgeoning nineteenth-century Romantic philosophy, which championed artistic autonomy and conferring a “genius” status for musicians, free from the shackles of commerce. In their view, the pursuit of artistic merit and the pursuit of profit were fundamentally incompatible.152 Under these Romantic aesthetic expectations, which valorized the image of the solitary musical genius untainted by social influences, monetary considerations, or corporate strife, Muzio Scevola, with all its supposed creative compromises, would not have been considered an operatic masterpiece—and indeed, it was not. This mode of aesthetic judgment has influenced the opera’s historical reception. Even today, the Handelgesellschaft has not published a complete edition of Muzio Scevola, with Friedrich Chrysander’s 1858-1902 edition of Handel’s complete works including only Handel’s contribution to the third act. 150 The Musical World: A Magazine of Essays Critical and Practical and Weekly Record of Musical Science, Literature and Intelligence, June 11, 1840. 151 The Musical World, June 4, 1840. 152 See, for example, Mark Evan Bonds, Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven (Princeton University Press, 2006), which explores the emergence of the idea of the composer as a solitary genius in the context of Beethoven and symphonic music. 229 However, despite modern skepticism about its artistic merit, Muzio Scevola was undeniably a commercial success in the eighteenth century. Amid the turmoil of the South Sea crisis, the Royal Academy of Music—and, by extension, Italian opera in England—not only survived but thrived. The Royal Academy of Music’s market-oriented approach to opera financing garnered attention and admiration from continental observers. Among them was Johann Mattheson of Hamburg, at the time also deeply involved in translating English economic policy pamphlets and engaged in the city-state’s discussions of trade and finance.153 When Muzio Scevola was performed in Hamburg in 1723, Mattheson praised the quality of the music and attributed its success to the collaborative authorship model facilitated by the Academy’s unique funding structure. He remarked: All these masterpieces [from Muzio Scevola] were sent over to us from England …. If a musical aristocracy of this kind continues to take over our operas, it will be difficult at present for a monarch to rise first among the composers, still less for any one of them to take much trouble to invest well in this place the capital thereby accrued.154 For Mattheson, Muzio Scevola epitomized a successful blend of finance, commerce, and music, setting a precedent for the genre’s future across Europe. His praise was not merely a celebration of England’s achievement in merging opera with a strong capital base, but also a reflection of his desire to see this model implemented in Hamburg. Hamburg’s Opera am Gänsemarkt, an early 153 See Beekman C. Cannon, Johann Mattheson: Spectator in Music (Yale University Press, 1947). 154 HCD vol. 1, 622. “Sonst ist hier am 7den dieses Monaths abermahl eine neue Opera vorgestellet worden, welche den Titel: Muzio Scevola fiihret. Sie ist zwar an sich selbst ganz Italianisch gesungen; doch in eine feine prosam iibersetzet, und dazu mit einem Teutschen-Vorspiele gezieret worden. So viel Actus darin befindlich sind, eben so viel Componisten haben sich auch dabey signalisiret. Nehmlich drey. Die erste Handlung hat Buononcini gemacht; die andere Mattei (welcher unter dem Nahmen Pipo, i.e. Filippo, in dem Orchestre zu London den Violoncello spielet) und an der dritten Handlung hat Handel seine Kunst bewiesen. Alle diese Meister-Stiicke sind uns aus Engelland heruber gesandt worden; ausser dem Prologo, welcher von Kaiser ist. Sollte nun dergleichen musicalische Aristocratic ferner bey den Opern einreissen, so durffte wohlschwerlich vors erste, unter den Componisten, ein Monarch entstehen; vielweniger hiesiger Orten einer von ihnen sein, daher geflossenes, Capital wohl zu belegen, grosse Sorge tragen.” Mattheson notes that in the 1723 Hamburg performance of Muzio Scevola, Bononcini’s act was presented as the first act instead of Amadei’s. Additionally, a prologue composed by Keiser was added to this production. For further details, see HCD vol. 1 notes on pages 606 and 607. 230 pioneer in privatizing opera through its merchant-led, collectively owned civic enterprise, had been established before the Royal Academy of Music. Yet, it struggled to match the Academy’s funding and resources.155 As Mattheson observed the growing shift in opera funding from traditional top-down patronage to bottom-up entrepreneurialism, he recognized the importance of substantial capital for opera’s success. He saw the future of the genre as a simple equation: greater funding leads to better opera. Mattheson’s simple formula—bigger money translates into better art—raises an essential question: how does commerce become a conduit for producing higher-quality art? How might aesthetic and economic values be positively correlated? On this point, Mainwaring provides a more detailed economic explanation regarding the competitive nature of Muzio Scevola. Regarding Handel’s perceived triumph in the staged tri-composer contest of Muzio Scevola, and the nation’s gradual acceptance of the new de facto national composer, Mainwaring remarks:156 When disputes are carried on with any heat or violence, it is usually taken for granted, that both sides are in the wrong. But these qualities so disagreeable in their operation, are often salutary in their effects. Ill as things may seem to be managed with them, it is possible they might be managed worse without them. For these eager enquiries, and warm debates concerning what is fittest to be chosen and preferred, lead us to the knowledge of what is best and most perfect in the kind. By lighting up the flame of emulation in the breasts of contending artists, they contribute to the advancement of the art. Destroy these workings of passion, and there is an end of patriots, poets, and virtuosos.157 Mainwaring’s notion that competition among composers, even when driven by rivalry and factionalism, ultimately benefits the art form strikingly aligns with the laissez-faire market 155 See Ingo Rekatzy, “Bürger-Oper and Bourgeois Theatre: The Opera of Hamburg at the Gänsemarkt (1678–1738) as a Culmination of Theatrical Practices Between Courtly Representation and Popular Traditions,” Res Musica 12 (2020), 109-125. 156 “And those, on the other hand, might as reasonably join in opposing them, who were firmly convinced of Handel’s great superiority; and who thought it for the honor of the nation to enlist in its service the most eminent artists. The old ones, in their opinion, had no right to complain of any preference given to another, provided they were duly paid for the time they had been engaged.” 157 John Mainwaring, Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel (R. and J. Dodsley, 1760), 103-4. 231 ideology emerging during his time. This ideology, as we know it, asserts that an economy driven by individuals pursuing excellence through self-interest is inherently superior to centralized production. One of the earliest proponents of this argument was the polemicist Bernard Mandeville. As discussed previously regarding his stance on luxury, Mandeville argued that seemingly destructive vices like self-interest and greed could ultimately serve the greater good by fueling the economy.158 In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith expanded upon Mandeville’s ideas, asserting that self-interest is the fundamental driver of economic decision-making. He argued that in an ideal economy, “every man is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men.”159 Smith believed that the cumulative effect of individual choices creates a rivalrous process that leads to optimized resource allocation, as superior goods and services naturally outcompete inferior ones.160 Read alongside Smith and Mandeville, Mainwaring’s perspective on musical competition aligns with their economic thought. He viewed rivalry among musicians as essential for discerning artistic merit, much like Smith’s belief that competition optimizes the allocation of resources. For Mainwaring, the free competition of the artistic market and its rivalrous processes would naturally reveal the “fittest” musicians and establish “preferred” tastes. 158 As the famous lines from The Fable of the Bees would have us believe, “The root of evil, avarice, / That damned ill-natur’d baneful vice, / Was slave to prodigality, / That noble sin, whilst, luxury / Employ’d a million of the poor, / And odious pride a million more: / Envy itself and vanity / Were ministers of industry; / Their darling folly, fickleness / In diet, furniture, and dress, /That strange ridiculous vice, was made / The very wheel that turn’d the trade.” 159 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book 1, Chapter 8, para. 36. 160 This market mechanism described by Smith, animated by the eagerness of competition, would naturally steer the economy towards efficient equilibrium, negating the need for external regulatory intervention to maintain order. This idea became a cornerstone of orthodox economic thought. For example, George Stigler, drawing on Smith’s writing, championed the idea that competition acts as a mechanism to bring market prices to a sustainable equilibrium, eliminating both excessive profits and unmet demand. Such thinking emerged among a body of literature in the 1960s emerged emphasizing price determination through competition, replacing the ethically and politically oriented price administration that had previously dominated economic analysis. This became a driving force behind the orthodox codification of “economic liberalism.” Free market advocates argued that through open competition and the clash of interests, an aggregate order emerges, even if its purposes and mechanisms remain opaque. See George Stigler, Essays in the History of Economics (University of Chicago Press, 1965), esp. 234. 232 Setting aside the question of whether the intense rivalry surrounding Muzio Scevola definitively established Handel as the superior composer through a kind of “popular suffrage” among opera-goers, as Mainwaring suggests, it is clear that the contest sparked passionate public discussion. The factional conflict within the Royal Academy of Music was matched by the partisanship of its audience, dividing opera-goers into camps of Bononcini or Handel supporters. This schism fueled widespread debates over the composers’ merits, with audience members vocally championing their preferred artist. Elizabeth Legh, a staunch Handel supporter, praised the third act of Muzio Scevola as “incomparably fine,” while dismissing the first two as “excessively bad.”161 Domenico Scarlatti lauded Handel’s innovative tonal structure in his instrumental overtures and interludes, contrasting it with the more conservative style of the other two composers.162 Despite the prevailing narrative in reception history favoring Handel, Bononcini still retained a significant following at the time, particularly among the Italian circle. Prior to the performance, Riva extolled the emotional appeal of Bononcini’s music, challenging Handel’s proponents and celebrating the more compelling charm of Bononcini’s compositions.163 This admiration persisted, with Stefani later recommending that the Academy favor Bononcini.164 The following season further validated Bononcini’s enduring influence, with a large portion of the performances showcasing his work, highlighting his continued prominence within the Academy and among its patrons.165 Muzio Scevola encapsulated how the fractured management of the opera company, 161 HCD vol. 1, 544. 162 Cited in Donald Burrows, Handel (Oxford University Press, 2012), 139. 163 HCD vol. 1, 522-3. “Some [of those] who are transported by Handel would like to find something [negative] to say, but it is difficult to resist the torrent [of admiration for Bononcini].” 164 HCD, vol. 1, 741. “If I could bend the ear of the Academy, I would certainly advise it to resort to Bononcini.” 165 Printed song selections, such as Meares’s edition of The Most Favourite Songs in the Opera of Muzio Scevola Compos’d by Three Famous Masters, presented the overture to Act II, four songs by Bononcini, three by Handel, and one by Amadei. Bononcini, alongside Senesino and Riva, was invited to spend time at the Twickenham estate with prominent figures such as Lady Montagu. This connection proved fruitful in the following season, as Bononcini’s operas were featured in forty out of sixty-two performances, highlighting his continued influence within the Academy and among its patrons. See also Burrows, Handel, 130-171. 233 coupled with creative tensions among singers and composers, translated into a divided audience. Paradoxically, this equally fractured spectatorship sustained high public interest and kept the Academy in the spotlight for several years. As Chrysander noted, this opera marked the beginning of rivalry as a public spectacle, extending beyond Bononcini and Handel to include the singers themselves, their on- and off-stage rivalries becoming a central theme in eighteenth- century English opera discourse.166 Indeed, the seven-year tenure of the Royal Academy—and the subsequent “Second Academy” and rival opera companies in London—was marked, and equally fueled, by these rivalries—between Handel and Bononcini, Cuzzoni and Faustina, and Farinelli and Senesino.167 Suzanne Aspden’s thoughtful examination of eighteenth-century operatic rivalries in England positions them as crucial intersections where the art of opera intertwined with the prevailing commercial ethos. She notes how commentators observed parallels between on-stage rivalries and the fractured audience, linking these phenomena to the increasingly individualistic performances of opera singers. Aspden argues that social critiques directed at a commercial, individualistic society—fueled by relentless pursuit of personal gain— were reflected in the virtuosic and individualistic excesses on the operatic stage. These excesses blurred the lines between diegetic (on-stage) and non-diegetic (off-stage) frictions. Thus, operatic rivalries provided fertile ground for eighteenth-century moralists to critique opera as a manifestation of social decay, emblematic of a society increasingly obsessed with self-interest and luxury.168 166 Friedrich Chrysander, G.F. Händel (Breitkopf und Härtel, 1858), 62. “Sie war der Anfang, die Verwicklung, nicht die Lösung des musikalischen Streites. Diese Oper brachte also die Parteien nicht zum Schweigen, sondern rief sie ganz eigentlich erst hervor; erst mit der Aufführung des Muzio begannen die heftigen Verhandlungen über den Unterschied der Schreibarten von Bononcini und Händel.” Also see John Byrom’s satire of the Handel-Bononcini rivalry: “Some say, compar’d to Bononcini, / That Maynheer Handel’s but a Ninny; Others aver, that he to Handel / Is scarcely fit to hold a Candle: / Strange all this Difference should be, / ‘Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!” See The London Journal, June 5, 1725. As HCD editors suggest, John Byrom’s famous epigram about Handel and Bononcini circulated may have begun circulating privately much earlier. HCD, vol. 1, 773. 167 See Suzanne Aspden, The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Martha Feldman, The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds (University of California Press, 2015), 40-45. 168 Suzanne Aspden, “‘An Infinity of Factions’: Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain and the Undoing of 234 Just as the Royal Academy of Music remained silent on accusations of its fostering luxury and moral decay, it also refrained from addressing publicly the festering internal rivalries that purportedly undermined its operations. Von Fabrice’s attempt to present Muzio Scevola as a showcase of corporate harmony backfired, ironically highlighting the discord it sought to conceal. Yet, this conflict-laden opera—rife with managerial disputes, creative tensions, and allegorical debates over English liberty—seemed to capture the public’s attention and buoy the company during the crisis. Despite the doubled ticket price of half a guinea due to its unique three-composer format, Muzio Scevola attracted full houses for all fifteen performances.169 This commercial success translated into a significant increase in subscribers for the Royal Academy of Music, rising from 68 to over 200 by 1723, the year it paid out a seven percent dividend.170 While the Academy enjoyed a remarkable, albeit brief, rebound from the South Sea crisis, the ongoing social intrigue surrounding its artists and composers continued to captivate the public, fueling discussions and satire well after the crisis subsided. A satirical poem from 1725 humorously depicted a never-ending directors’ meetings at the Royal Academy, where they endlessly debated over composers and the inclusion of French dances, among other supposedly trivial matters. Figures from the Academy’s shareholder list, such as Turnnel, Coke, Rushout, Bing, Sutton, Manchester, and Hunter, were portrayed in the poem as giving lengthy speeches, capturing the tangled and prolonged discussions that characterized their meetings.171 Society” Cambridge Opera Journal 9, no. 1 (1997): 1–19. 169 HCD vol. 1, 421. 170 HCD vol. 1, 625. 171 HCD vol. 1, 689. “A full & true account of the proceedings of the Royal Academy of Musick anno 1723.” I’ll tell you a Story, a Story so sad / The Story is dismal, the Verses are bad: / The folks are all dismal, of whom I am treating, / And the verses so bad, they’re not worth repeating, / Derry Down, &c. // Old Musick could tame even Lions & Bears, / The new makes wild beasts of Tyrconnel & Stairs! / And now Master Bruce, pray judge, if you can, / Which Beast is the tamest, or Lion or Man? // The Directors they met, & the Council was sate, / And this Master Bruce, he began the Debate, / I have sent for Attilio directly from France, / Tho’ I wish’d for Prevost, to give you a Dance. // And thus he went on for an hour or twain, / And still had gone on in the same tone & strain / Had not Stairs stops him short (who rose from his chair) / Send to France for a Man? Bononcini is here. // His Musick, like Hendels, is not hurry hurry, / As I am inform’d both by Hervey and Murray; / And how can Atillio suit Queensberry’s palate? / Who never as yet has compos’d a Scotch Ballad? // Says Proby, your Ladies (my Lord) have fine Airs, / They have very fine Eyes, but I’m sure have no Ears: / And I’ll prove, my good Lord, that my Argument’s strong, / For I’ve seen ’em all languish at Robinson’s song. // Why not Robinson’s song? Quoth the brave 235 Why did such satirical depictions of the Royal Academy of Music’s internal dramas, rather than undermining the institution, arguably fuel public fascination and in turn sustain interest in the opera company for several more seasons? This phenomenon may be partly attributed to a broader cultural fascination with competition within English commercial society and emerging economic thought. As cultural historians of the eighteenth century have observed, competition, as a cultural trope, became not only prevalent but celebrated as the commercial spirit of the era.172 This ethos reinforced the growing belief in the effectiveness of market and commercial logic as a means of organizing social order. Adam Smith captured this competitive spirit by noting how the marketplace had become akin to a spectator sport, a gamification of societal interactions where competition was both an economic activity and a cultural spectacle. “In the race for wealth, and honours, and preferments,” Smith wrote, “he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors... at the indulgence of the spectator.”173 In the context of Smith’s classical economics, the factionalism within the Royal Academy of Music exemplifies the inefficiencies that plague joint-stock companies when attempting to align multilateral interests. Paradoxically, Smith’s very economic theory also underscores how the prioritization of these individual interests—if we consider the joint-stock company a microcosm of society—can become a crucial organizing force in the proverbial free market. The history of Muzio Scevola and its connection to the South Sea Bubble vividly illustrates this paradox. Contrary to von Fabrice’s fears, the Academy’s internal conflicts, rather than “lead[ing] Brigadier, / Dull Asses may value themselves on an Ear: / Oh! How Charming her tongue! tho’ too big for her mouth, / It touches my Soul, tho’ to you ‘its uncouth. // Wise Blaithwaite stood up in order to pin it, / Sure you’ll listen to me, who can play on a Spinette. / What Argument’s that? Quoth Chetwynde the Lord, / Here’s a Duke that can play upon the harpsichord. // Quoth the reasoning Duke, my skill is but small, / But if you suspect it, I’ll play to you all? / Fy, Fy, milord Doc, says Monsieur Fabricius, / That your Grace plays on Musick, I ne’er was suspicious. // Then at once spoke Tyrconnel, Coke, Rushout & Bang, / Sutton, Manchester, Hunter, all said the same thing, / Yet they cold not agree; when to peace much inclined, / Parliamentary Sand’s cry’d, you are all of a mind. 172 See, for example, Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman, Invisible Hands: Self-Organization and the Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2015), 80-92. 173 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Chapter 2, II, 2. 236 to ruin,” fueled public interest and helped the opera navigate the financial turmoil following the Bubble’s collapse. This seemingly contradictory outcome underscores the complex interplay between individual self-interest and collective success within a commercializing society and its evolving ethos. As a result, the opera company itself became as much of a spectacle as the performances it staged, captivating the audience perhaps even more than the on-stage drama. The lines between the economics of the opera company and its theatrical productions blurred, merging the financial dynamics of the theater with the theatricality of the opera itself, turning economic concerns into elements of public spectacle. In other words, in this new era of commercial society, cultural fascination obscured the distinction between the on-stage operatic presentation and the off-stage operational realities, effectively blurring the line between aesthetics (the Academy’s artistic endeavors) and economics (its corporate dynamics). This illustrates how music and aesthetics became intertwined with market dynamics. Thus, Muzio Scevola becomes a case study in how aesthetic judgments can be intrinsically linked to market mechanisms, contrary to the later Romantic ideal of art’s autonomy from economic considerations. Mainwaring’s account of the opera particularly exemplifies this perspective by interpreting the Academy’s competition as a natural-selection struggle, analogous to a laissez-faire market, to validate Handel’s artistic excellence. He argues that Handel’s music is superior precisely because it thrived in this competitive environment, presenting his praise as objective and suggesting that the market itself has validated Handel’s talent. This aligns musical excellence with market success and positions aesthetic value as a direct outcome of commercial triumph, challenging the notion that artistic merit can exist independently of market dynamic—or at least the public’s faith in those dynamics. It shows that the paradox of Muzio Scevola’s success, then, lies in the eighteenth-century negotiation of creative endeavors with money, market, and management, as well as the emerging ideologies surrounding these forces. 237 4. BUBBLE BALLADS "A GREAT DEAL OF NOISE” Since its opening in 1571, the Royal Exchange, the vibrant hub of early modern London’s commercial activities, had acted as the dynamic meeting point where merchants from various corners of the British Isles and beyond converged for financial transactions and trade. Accompanying these transactions, the Exchange also pulsated with the lively resonance of music and sound, as belting vendors, chattering jobbers, city criers, and ballad hawkers contributed to its bustling soundscape. A 1644 etching of the Exchange’s courtyard (Figure 4.1a), designed by Sir Thomas Gresham, captures the significance of sound in the sensory experience of English economic life. The etching prominently features a female ballad hawker (Figure 4.1b), her singing interwoven into the monumental tableau of trade and commerce. This foregrounds the noisiness of the commercial world, where sound—in the form of ballads—could be harnessed to disseminate information and mold public opinion within early modern London’s economic landscape. Among these noise makers and money-getters, stock traders were especially notorious for their boisterous behaviors and disorderly sounds. So rough and rowdy, in fact, that in 1660 the City ordered those traders of intangibles assets—stocks, bonds, and insurance—to relocate to the nearby alleyways, out of the earshot from the supposedly more polite forms of commerce taking place at the Royal Exchange.1 Abuzz with jobbers and brokers, Exchange Alley, as these 1 An anonymous author in 1684 wrote, “Writers complained about that the Royal Exchange of London was crowded with projects, wagers, fairy-companies of new manufactures and inventions, noisy stockjobbers, etc. So that very soon after this time, the transacting of this airy business of jobbing, was justly removed from off the Royal Exchange into the place called Exchange Alley, and since into a building created on purpose, and called the Stock Exchange, where it is now carried on.” Cited in C. F. Smith, “The Early History of the London Stock Exchange,” The American Economic Review 19, no. 2 (1929): 206-216. For a late seventeenth-century version of the debate regarding commodity mercantilism v. financial capitalism (or, in modern terms, “High Street v. Wall Street”), see Richard Janeway, A Dialogue between an Exchange and Exchange Alley (London, 1682). 238 alleyways later became known, was the birthplace of modern speculative commerce and its clamorous life. A 1694 poem, set against the backdrop of the Million Lottery’s debut—the first English debenture scheme—depicts the daily chaos unleashed in the Alley by an eager mass of subscriber.2 In particular, it underscores the audible fervor of the investors: ‘Twas here all Voices, Strong or Feeble, All Tongues, all Pipes from Base to Trebble; Roarers or Wheesers, Squeakers, Grunters Joyn’d in full cry for Fortune-Hunters.3 2 It was a national scheme that offered subscriptions to a loan-lottery hybrid type of interest-bearing bond. For detail, see The Case of the Adventurers in the Million lottery, humbly offer’d to the consideration of the honourable House of Commons (1697). 3 Randal Taylor, Diluvium Lachrymarum: a review of the fortunate & unfortunate adventurers: a satyr in burlesque, upon the famous lottery, set up in Freeman’s-yard in Corn-hill (1694): 3-4. 239 Figure 4.1 Wenceslaus Hollar’s print Gresham’s Royal Exchange (1644): a) Full view of the print; b) Highlighted detail of a ballad hawker. Source: BM, 1868,0822.351. A poem from two decades later, amid the turmoil of the South Sea Bubble, evokes a similar image of Exchange Alley, portraying it as a vibrant, multi-sensory site where Londoners congregated “to buy and sell” as well as “to see and hear”: Here [Exchange Alley], Stars and Garters do appear Among our lords the rabble; To buy and sell, to see and hear The Jews and Gentiles squabble. Here, crafty Courtiers are too wise For those who trust to fortune; They see the cheat with clearer eyes, Who peep behind the curtain.4 The soundscape of London served as a formidable source of inspiration for eighteenth- century English writers, visitors, and travelers. The city’s auditory and sensory abundance, as Boswell noted, “confused” its observers, albeit doing so “agreeably,” painting London as a 4 Edward Ward, A South Sea Ballad; Or, Merry Remarks upon Exchange-Alley Bubbles (1720). A more in-depth discussion of the ballad can be found in later sections of the present chapter. 240 captivating yet bewildering metropolis for both its inhabitants and guests.5 Recent scholarship on eighteenth-century London has increasingly focused on the commercial implications of its soundscape, highlighting how urban listeners’ selective attention—a form of psychic investment informed by underlying commercial interest—played a pivotal role in navigating the urban din. On one hand, Nicholas Mathew notes that eighteenth-century accounts of London’s soundscape went beyond mere documentation; they promoted a specific mode of auditory engagement.6 This listening practice posited the listener’s attention as a critical device to navigate and organize the dispersed urban auditory stimuli, distinguishing musical order from sonic chaos. As Mathew argues, this aesthetic impulse of eighteenth-century city listeners converged with a logic of commercial interest in their shared desire to harvest value from an urban environment through a calculated distribution of bounded attention.7 Conversely, as Emily Cockayne points out, for other writers on urban sounds, London’s noise signaled the industrious vitality of a productive metropolis rather than a mere nuisance that demanded filtering and disciplining. From this perspective, any regulatory efforts to curb noise could potentially hinder economic growth.8 Bernard Mandeville, for instance, famously contended that the minor annoyances accompanying prosperity were inevitable and that policies enforcing quietude might negatively affect domestic trade.9 Whether championing noise or music, London’s urban sound world provided a dual opportunity for aesthetic judgment and economic insight. Interpreting its 5 For example, James Boswell, in his London Journal (1762-63), famously reports how his arrival in London began by being met with a burst of song and spirited cheers, encapsulating sound as the chief component of the city’s vibrant allure. Depicting London as an epicenter of sensory overstimulation, Boswell, throughout his Journal, expresses his feelings of being in equal measure captivated and daunted by London’s cacophony. Boswell’s “urban sound writing” continued a literary trope that took hold earlier in the century, through works such as Joseph Addison’s essay “Ralph Crotchett, Comptroller General of the London Cries,” in The Spectator, December 18, 1711, which offered a satirical exploration of the city’s auditory experience and its implication for governance on trade and commerce. In visual art, Hogarth’s The Enraged Musician (1717), provides a complementary perspective; for a detailed discussion see see also Barlow, The Enraged Musician: Hogarth’s Musical Imagery (Routledge, 2005), 59-83. 6 Nicholas Mathew, “Interesting Haydn,” Journal of American Musicological Society 71, no. 3 (2018): 660-661. 7 Mathew, “Interesting Haydn,” 667. 8 Emily Cockayne, Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England, 1600-1770 (Yale University Press, 2021), 130 9 See Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices Publick Benefits (1714). 241 sounds promised to help tease out the complex economic and social underpinnings of English commercial life. Yet nowhere was the entanglement of sonic aesthetics and economic interests more profound and consequential than in Exchange Alley. Indeed, Exchange Alley was a place where the act of “seeing and hearing” translated more directly into stark economic realities for those daring to venture their fortunes. In 1761, Thomas Mortimer, a stockbroker turned author, published Every Man His Own Broker, a tutor meant to demystify stock trading for a lay audience keen to test their luck in Exchange Alley.10 Within its pages, Mortimer repeatedly advised his readers to grasp their financial basics firmly before venturing into stock trading. To get this point across, Mortimer drew attention to the sounds of trade, describing Exchange Alley as a hub of “confused voices” and “wild uproar,” where novice traders might find themselves overwhelmed and swayed by the cacophony, leading to rash investment decisions: Let it then be every man’s care, who has any property in the funds, to prevent the increase of the power, and influence, as well as of the number, of these invaders of their property, by boldly and manfully resolving to transact his own business. … when you have determined what fund to buy into, … go boldly to the office where the fund you have made choice of is transferred, and be not dismayed at the wild uproar, and confused noise which will at first strike your astonished senses.11 Mortimer’s sonic metaphors underscore the sensory dimension of stock trading, where aural discernment and monetary prudence become intricately linked in market speculation. Mortimer posits that the ability to navigate the tumultuous soundscapes of Exchange Alley is what separates the seasoned traders from the newly initiated: the former, undaunted by the chaos, 10 One of the earliest comprehensive guides to the stock market, this is the tract in which many terms used in modern investment such as “bull” and “bear,” “pull” and “call” were coined. Mortimer’s financial tutor distinguished itself from other pamphlets and manuals by its descriptive and accessible language catering to the stock market’s newly initiated. 11 Thomas Mortimer, Every Man His Own Broker: Or, A Guide to Exchange-alley (S. Hooper, 1761), 115. In a twist of irony, Mortimer, following the cited lines, adopts the very guise of a street hawker belting out promotional jingles for his goods, to promote his stock-trading tutor: “Do you want to buy? Examine first the funds and their prices in the daily papers, or if it suits yo better, search my list!” 242 detect value amid the discordant clamor of the stock market, while the latter are easily overwhelmed, prone to rash and ill-informed decisions. This notion—that financial acumen involves weathering Exchange Alley’s noise to make sound investment decisions—also reflects the era’s glut of dubious financial schemes, which demanded keen vigilance from investors.12 Within the Exchange Alley’s sonic multitude, ballads were a resounding presence. In Trivia, John Gay pressed home the economic significance of paying close attention to these ballads, advising readers to scrutinize the reliability of their content, as vigilance and discernment were crucial, especially when the ballads touched upon matters affecting one’s finances: Now Industry awakes her busy Sons, Full charg’d with News the breathless Hawker runs: Shops open, Coaches roll, Carts shake the Ground, And all the Streets with passing Cries resound. … Let not the Ballad-Singer’s shrilling Strain Amid the Swarm thy list’ning Ear detain: Guard well thy Pocket; for these Syrens stand, To aid the Labours of the diving Hand.13 Early modern English ballads, deeply embedded in the urban soundscape, occupied a liminal conceptual space: they straddled the line between music and noise, existing as both harmonious expressions and disruptive forces within the city’s auditory world. This duality is captured in contemporary writings as well as other cultural sources, such as William Hogarth’s 1717 well- known etching, The Enraged Musician. In Hogarth’s depiction, a professional musician is shown visibly irritated by a ballad hawker’s loud tunes outside his window.14 However, as Hogarth’s visual—and Boswell’s auditory—accounts of the London soundscape reveal, the annoyance they felt towards ballads was not merely a sensory complaint, but also a psychic 12 See Edward Stringham, “The Emergence of the London Stock Exchange as a Self-Policing Club,” Journal of Private Enterprise 17, no. 2 (2002): 1–19. 13 John Gay, Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London, vol. 2 (1716). 14 See Jeremy Barlow, The Enraged Musician: Hogarth’s Musical Imagery (Ashgate, 2005). 243 disturbance. This unease stemmed from a form of overstimulation caused by the excessive processing required to decipher the vast amount of information encoded within the ballads. While the ballads’ “shrilling strain” assaulted the ear with its high-decibel intensity, making it an inescapable event, beyond the cacophony, the ballad also functioned as a vessel of information, “detained” by the listener’s attentive ear. The ballad’s dual role as both auditory spectacle and conduit of information found vivid expression in the street music that accompanied the financial storms of 1720. As such, Gay’s and Mortimer’s description of the auditory excess of Exchange Alley in relation to the financial market’s volatility—whether metaphorically or literally, or indeed both—anticipated the concept of the “noise trader,” a term modern economists use for those who trade based on inaccurate information or emotions rather than market fundamentals.15 In modern finance, the word noise assumes its central place when it comes the analysis, description, and modeling of market information, even sparking a debate challenging the efficient market orthodoxy.16 Noise, in economist Fischer Black’s words, is what “makes observations imperfect,” “arbitrary element in expectations,” “causes markets to be somewhat inefficient,” and a “form of uncertainty about the future.”17 Black further suggests that, objectively, noise traders would be better off abstaining 15 In financial economics, noise has come to refer to market fluctuations caused by irrational investors, also known as noise traders. This challenges early models in the orthodoxy of Efficient Markets Hypothesis, which assumes all investors are rational and prices reflect all available information. Robert Schiller has used noise trader as an archetype in behavioral finance to explain that information dissemination is uneven, investment horizons vary, and human irrationality (cognitive biases) influence decision-making. Noise traders lead to mispricing, and while rational investors could theoretically correct these deviations, the concept of limited arbitrage in behavioral finance suggests this doesn’t always happen in reality. See Eugene F. Fama, “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work,” The Journal of Finance 25, no. 2 (1970): 383–417 and Robert J. Shiller, “From Efficient Markets Theory to Behavioral Finance,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 1 (2003): 83-104. 16 This debate centers on whether investors focused on “noise” (as opposed to fundamentals) cause market inefficiencies where stock prices deviate from a company’s true value. Using “noise” as a metaphor for a condition of informational excess, economists in behavioral finance have since debated the noise trading hypothesis versus efficient market hypothesis, debating whether the presence of the sort of traders who focus on noise in the market (as opposed to doing fundamental analysis) result in any deviation from efficient market where stock values are ideally tethered to economic fundamentals of the businesses. See Andrei Shleifer and Lawrence H. Summers, “The Noise Trader Approach to Finance,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 4, no. 2 (1990): 19-33. 17 See Fischer Black, “Noise,” The Journal of Finance, XLI, no. 3 (1986): 529-540. 244 from trading altogether. Nevertheless, they persist, either due to mistaking irrelevant information for valuable insights or simply because they find the act of trading inherently gratifying.18 In his recent book, Transforming Noise, Chen-Pang Yeang traces the semantic evolution of “noise” from its initial meaning as a sonic event to its broader interpretation as an informational phenomenon, highlighting its increasingly multifaceted conception across scientific and social disciplines.19 In this intellectual history of noise, Yeang identifies industrial modernity of the early twentieth century, marked by the proliferation of electricity and electronic devices, as the pivotal moment when the concept of noise broadened to signify disruptive interference in electronic communication. This interference, in turn, expanded the word’s application to informational discrepancies. Yeang shows how noise has since evolved into a concept adopted across diverse fields, from particle physics to behavioral finance, as these disciplines converged in their pursuit of understanding stochastic processes.20 While Yeang primarily situates this metaphorical leap within the narrative of industrial and post-industrial modernity, the ambiguity inherent in “noise”—the blurring of auditory and informational disturbances—had already taken root in the eighteenth century. As the economically inflected listening practices exemplified by Mortimer and Gay have shown, earwitness accounts of London’s Exchange Alley’s soundscape grappled with both the literal 18 Black, “Noise.” 534. 19 Chen-Pang Yeang, Transforming Noise: A History of Its Science and Technology from Disturbing Sounds to Informational Errors, 1900-1955 (Oxford University Press, 2024). For a review of Yeang’s work and its relevance to music history, see also Alex Ross, “What is Noise?”, The New Yorker, April 15, 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/22/what-is-noise. 20 The concept of stochastic noise, referring to random fluctuations or errors, has permeated various disciplines. In finance, Fischer Black’s “Noise” explores its role in stock market volatility. In psychology, Daniel Kahneman and others examine how informational noise contributes to biases in decision-making. Additionally, Nate Silver explores the impact of stochastic noise on political polling accuracy. As a potential solution to these issues, algorithms are frequently promoted, with proponents like Kahneman asserting that “noise-free” algorithms can surpass human judgment. Similarly, machine learning in artificial intelligence leverages stochastic processes, suggesting that human behavior—like the random fluctuations of particles—can be modeled and predicted probabilistically. See Yeang, Transforming Noise, 430, 206; Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (Little, Brown Spark, 2021); Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise (Penguin Books, 2015). See also Ross, “What is Noise.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/22/what-is-noise 245 cacophony, animated by the cries of balladeers, and its metaphorical counterpart, teeming with economic information and disinformation. Despite modern critiques of noise as distorting market values, its persistence throughout history as a sonic-economic metaphor speaks to the very nature of speculative trading—as an ongoing quest for intrinsic value within financial markets. This quest, as eighteenth-century discourse reveals, was intrinsically linked to the interplay between the agreeable harmony of economic order and the discordant cacophony of volatility—or, a dialectic of music and noise—connecting one’s aesthetic sensibilities with their financial well-being.21 The launch of the South Sea Scheme sparked a frenzy in Exchange Alley—and generated a lot of noise. While the South Sea Company’s shares initially held steady at £127 in early 1720, rumors of a public subscription ignited a speculative firestorm. A newspaper report of “a great deal of noise” about the company’s proposal, even without concrete details, sent ripples through the market.22 This news circulated amidst a cacophony of market rumors and seemingly unrelated events, like a Dutch East India ship lost at sea and a highway robbery. However, even such seemingly inconsequential noise had significant market consequences.23 Within a week, 21 As Mortimer has suggested, failing to differentiate between “noise traders” and fundamentally valuable investments can lead to financial miscalculation. He makes a more specific point connecting musical taste to stock trading. Seemingly uninterested in London’s musical scene, he equates indulging in the misleading signals of Exchange Alley with wasting money on questionable pleasures like theater and music (“nocturnal revels” filled with “confused noise”). He criticizes spending on such boisterous entertainment, which only benefits impresarios, actors, and singers and not the commonweal, as frivolous compared to pursuing sound capital growth. Mortimer positions this discernment as essential for navigating the financial markets successfully, advocating for informed and deliberate investment strategies over the allure of speculative noise or unworthy cultural diversions. Mortimer writes, “Many of you have supported more for your amusement, on the first night of a new play; and others, at the nocturnal revels of the choice spirits; and will you not now do it, to redeem the management of public property, from the hands of professed sharpers; and to rescue the best of government from a slavish dependence on these sons of rapine for every million extraordinary that it stands in need of, in time of war?” What is also highlighted by Mortimer in this passage is a connection of one’s aesthetic disposition to one’s economic decision within eighteenth-century London’s urban financial culture. It reveals a sensorial aspect of the stock market, as the act of listening simultaneously takes on a remunerative stake inasmuch as aural discernment and monetary prudence become mutually constitutive in the speculative practice of Exchange Alley. 22 The Weekly Journal, January 29, 1720. 23 Early reports about the scheme appeared alongside seemingly unrelated items that shrewd investors would scrutinize, such as the burning of East India Company Director William Astell’s house, demonstrating how even “noise” could become valuable information in the context of stock market 246 fueled purely by speculation on these rumors and the growing buzz, South Sea Company shares surged to £184, a staggering 35% increase.24 This shows how, from the very beginning, the South Sea stock was embedded in a noisy ecosystem of information, sensory stimuli, and speculative interests. A ballad from the peak of the stock market mania, echoing Gay’s warning about the ballad listener’s susceptibility to disinformation, describes Exchange Alley as filled with the alluring yet deceptive “Musick of their false deluding Tongues,” akin to the “soft and fatal songs of Sirens.”25 This, once again, highlights the seductive nature of information within the context of financial desire, as it can be both a harmonious melody leading to potential riches and a dissonant noise causing disastrous losses. Drawing upon the auditory culture of Exchange Alley as hinted at by Mortimer and Gay, this chapter delves into a selection of ballads that resonated through Exchange Alley amid the speculative tumult of 1720 and in its wake. Inspired by Yeang’s call to integrate sensory perception into the historiography of modern technoscience, this chapter recasts the eighteenth- century stock market during the South Sea Bubble as an audible past through its ballads. By treating these ballads as both sensory artifacts and informational vehicles, my analysis reimagines them through the prism of economic history, uncovering new insights into the South Sea Bubble. These songs, with their eclectic melodies and haphazard assemblages, echo the disorienting sonic chaos and capricious turns of fortune that defined the speculative frenzy of the era. In particular, I show that the ballads’ combinatorial logic of construction illuminates the entanglement of English speculative practices with the sonic culture of early eighteenth-century London, revealing how the mediascape of the investment mania shaped—and was shaped by— the era’s financial imagination. speculation. See Carl Wennerlind, “‘The British Lions Crouched to a Nest of Owls’: The South Sea Bubble through the Lens of the London Press,” History of Political Economy 55, no. S1 (December 2023): 27-30. 24 Cited in Wennerlind, “‘The British Lions Crouched to a Nest of Owls’,” 30. 25 YBL 2012 556. 247 SOUND AND PAPER ECONOMY Demonstrating the relevance of cultural analysis to understanding the functionality of financial exchanges, Caitlin Zaloom’s Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London, Zaloom highlights the role of material intermediation in modern finance, emphasizing how powerful actors in the financial world transformed urban spaces, technology, and trading floors into material sites of the market. These spaces and tools, she argues, bolster the often- hidden financial infrastructure that mediates and governs the creation and circulation of value.26 Similarly, Gary Shea and Andrew Mays have, in their work on historical derivatives trading during the South Sea Bubble, brought to the fore the highly intermediated nature of the early modern financial market, particularly the mediation through the material form of print and writing culture.27 This scholarship suggests that focusing on the material medium of paper and the dynamics of print culture may provide a compelling avenue for exploring the inner workings of the 1720 crisis. Indeed, the proliferation of printed materials—pamphlets, newspapers, and broadsides—played a critical role in shaping public perception, disseminating economic insights, and fueling speculation during the Bubble. These print materials not only conveyed information but also fostered a shared cultural experience, embedding the stock market within the everyday lives and imaginations of the public. As inventions of the human imagination, music and money—both straddling the tangible and ephemeral—necessitate intermediaries to solidify their presence in our material and social fabric, from which meaning and value arise. Amid the broadsheets, pamphlets, and financial records that variously chronicled the boom and bust, Exchange Alley’s ballads and stocks became linked within early modern England’s expanding mediascape. More specifically, it was through the shared medium of paper that the music and the asset associated with the Bubble 26 Caitlin Zaloom, Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London (University of Chicago Press, 2010), x, 153-154, 174-177. 27 Andrew Mays and Gary S. Shea, “A Social Network for Trade and Inventories of Stock during the South Sea Bubble,” March 2012. https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/4006. https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/4006 248 found expressions of their worth and significance. I have examined in Chapter 1 a collection of broadside ballads commissioned by the South Sea Company’s own propaganda machinery, designed to inflate public expectations about the profitability of the newfangled chartered joint- stock’s shares. With Parliament’s approval of the South Sea scheme in 1711, a fresh wave of musically inflected opinions about the stock scheme emerged, accompanied also by counter-narratives aiming to temper public enthusiasm. Amid this clamor, a ballad titled “An Excellent New Song, call’d Credit Restor’d,” penned by the Whig politician Arthur Maynwaring, stood out as a sardonic anti-anthem for the venture. Its verses mockingly praised the company’s pioneering spirit and unassailable profitability: And such fair Accounts the Subscribers will see, That surely there can be no loosing; For Shepherd and Blunt the Directors shall be, With More of her M…y’s choosing. Maynwaring’s satirical verses mimicked the South Sea Company’s promotional strains, framing investment in its stocks as not merely a prudent financial decision but as a patriotic obligation. It echoed the Company’s propogandist portrayal of stock subscription as a collective national endeavor, tying economic participation to loyalty and civic virtue. With parliamentary endorsement of the proposed debt-to-equity swap, the South Sea Company’s propaganda gained momentum, extolling its prospects and fueling public enthusiasm for what was presented as a fail-safe investment. “Next open to All a Subscription Book stood,” Maynwaring continued, “In which only some Fools would not enter.” These lines not only skewered the South Sea scheme’s grandiose promises but also anticipated the material consequences of speculative fervor: a nation’s prosperity reduced to entries in “subscription books.” No longer tied to land or goods, wealth was now defined by this newly exalted object—a paper ledger of patriotic zeal and financial ambition. 249 As highlighted in Maynwaring’s ballad, bookkeeping tools and financial documents such as the “subscription book” became the definitive symbols of the swelling bubble. These objects signify the broadening of a paper economy, a term vividly capturing the ascent of finance where the essence of value and ownership shifted predominantly towards paper assets, moving away from the realm of tangible goods and physical capital. Indeed, Maynwaring’s invocation of the South Sea Company’s progressively bulkier subscription books illuminates this key transformation of the very concept of money and wealth at the time. In this emerging paper economy, wealth, at its core, was nothing more than entries in a ledger, managed by the chartered joint-stock and centralized through its monopolistic prerogative.28 The conceptual shift of wealth from the tangible to the abstract went hand in hand with money’s new material expression, as paper-based financial instruments emerged as the new vectors of riches, foregrounding the paper in the paper economy in a material sense. Prominent figures, including many from the musical profession, actively participated in this paper economy, leaving behind market artifacts that illustrate the central role of paper- based financial instruments in Britain’s developing financial capitalism. Take for example a demand order from Handel to withdraw dividends on his South Sea stock dated March 13, 1716. (Figure 4.2) A clerk, likely one associated with the South Sea Company, prepared this manuscript. This document represents a form of paper credit common during the era, responding to the South Sea Bubble’s stimulation of a widespread need for negotiable paper to facilitate rapid and frequent financial transactions. From its initial “pray pay” directive to its signatory endorsement, the document illustrates the transformation of writing into formal promissory language, enabling the transferability of asset ownership. These financial instruments served dual purposes: evidencing asset possession and acting as financial 28 For the modern money as ledger, see, for example, see Lyn Alden, “Ledger as the Foundation of Money,” in Broken Money: Why Our Financial System Is Failing Us and How We Can Make It Better (Timestamp Press, 2023), 22-68. 250 intermediaries. This dividend order would have been treated as a type of promissory credit, a check of sorts, which could be used to expedite the transfer of funds in spot transactions to overcome the material and temporal burden of bullion and ledger.29 As such, they give evidence of how speculative wealth became normalized through quotidian commercial practice. In the case of Handel, he used such financial instruments both to make and receive payments. Figure 4.2 Handel’s Demand to Withdraw Dividend Note from 1716. Source: FM, Gerald Coke Handel Collection, 800.30 29 Credit notes like Handel’s dividend order were effectively proto-checks used by the payer of goods and services so that others—usually servants or brokers working for the account holder—were able to draw money at merchant banks on the account holder’s behalf. For more detailed discussion on paper financial instruments in England during the Financial Revolution and how paper credit, developed upon bank bills, allowed financial intermediaries to achieve full liquidity, see Matthew Rowlingson, “The Scotch Hate Gold: British Identity and Paper Money,” in Money and the Nation State: The Financial Revolution, Government, and the World Monetary System (Transaction Publishers, 1998), 47-67. 30 “The 13 March 1715[/16], Pray pay Mr. Phillip Cooke my Dividend being Fifteen pounds on Five Hundred pounds, which is all my Stock in the South Sea Company books 8c for half a Year due at Christmas last 8c this shall be Your Sufficcient Warraant from Sir Your very Humb[le] Serv[an]t, George Frideric Handel” Upfront, the phrase “pray pay” indicates the document as an order paper. The note was conceivably prepared by clerks of the Sword Blade Bank, where South Sea Company banked, as Handel’s signature appears to be the only thing in his own hand. The note indicates that Handel held £500 shares (or 5 fully paid-for shares at £100 par) in the South Sea Company. From the dividend amount, the dividend rate can be deduced at 3% per annum, which is in keeping with the shares the South Sea Company offered up until the late summer of 1720, when credit crunch prevented such high-yield shares from being sustainable. 251 Later in 1716, Handel prepared another dividend note, but this time, instead of withdrawing the funds, it was intended for a Mr. Carbonnel to be paid in the amount of the dividend earned through his South Sea holdings; and in the summer of 1720, he would open an account with the Royal African Company, in order to cash his company’s stock shares, which the Royal Academy of Music transferred to him as salary payment.31 In a paper economy, the value of assets is created in the very act of its circulation. The South Sea Company bolstered its scheme exactly by increasing the circulation of paper credit instruments across various asset classes. One such example is an Exchequer Bill bearing the company’s title, once held by Handel’s patron, the Duke of Chandos (Figure 4.3). 32 These elaborately printed bills were issued after the South Sea Company secured a deal with the nation’s treasury, the Exchequer, by acquiring one million pounds of government bonds.33 The launch of exchequer bills bearing the South Sea Company’s insignia was a strategic move to assert its aspirations to become a central financial institution within the nation. These bills were designed to convey a potent message: their value and reliability, endorsed by the South Sea Company, were on par with those backed by the government itself.34 Functioning as both sovereign currency and a promotional tool, the bill positioned the Company as the nation’s financier, blurring the lines between public credit and private assets. It symbolized the fusion of the Company’s fluid financial capital with the immutable authority of government fiat, 31 HCD vol. 1, 339. Three months later, Handel would issue another order, asking a Mr. Carbonnel be paid the dividend on his holdings. See also David Hunter, The Lives of George Frideric Handel (Boydell & Brewer, 2015), 201-5; Ellen Harris, “‘Master of the Orchester with a Sallary’: Handel at the Bank of England,” Music & Letters (2020): 8-13. 32 The Exchequer Bills were proposed and implemented by the Earl of Halifax, George Montagu, to issue these interest-bearing bonds as a form of government-controlled paper money, for more see Aaron Graham, “Credit, confidence and the circulation of Exchequer bills in the early financial revolution,” Financial History Review 26, no. 1 (2019): 63-80. 33 The Treasury contract with the South Sea Company was meant to keep the credit of Exchequer Bills liquid, improve the South Sea Company’s market exposure, and allow the Company to fulfill its debt- absorption obligation to the Treasury in the form of interest on the exchequer bills issued. For more, see Gary S. Shea, “Rational Pricing of Options during the South Sea Bubble,” MMF Working Papers (2004), 13-15. 34 More precisely, the government’s prerogative to tax. The English national debt system was the first kind of treasury bond securitized by the government’s land tax revenue. 252 projecting an illusion of infinite stability onto an inherently volatile equity asset.35 This self- valorizing circuit of financial capital, both the material trace and a fundamental logic of speculative markets, finds a compelling illustration in the Duke of Chandos’s engagement with this very exchequer bill. The final endorsement on the bill’s reverse side reveals that Chandos eventually transformed the paper credit into a fresh speculative opportunity: the Malt Lottery of 1722—an action that effectively maintained the speculative asset’s continuing circulation in the paper economy. Figure 4.3 “Exchequer Bill of £100 (No. 322)” (1720), A South Sea Exchequer Bill associated with James Brydges, the Duke of Chandos. Source: British Museum, CIB.54397. 35 The circulatory effectiveness of a paper asset hinges on its fungibility. The concept of a financial instruments’ interchangeability, or fungibility arose from a new understanding of monetary value introduced by the paper economy. The word “fungible” entered legal and financial circles in the seventeenth century for contracted goods that could be replaced by equivalents without breaking the contract, such as a quantity of grain that could be substituted with an equal amount of similar grain. The fungibility of a financial instrument increasingly became a hallmark of its viability as a medium of exchange. In a passage on the value of money, Anthony Ascham wrote, “Take away this fungible instrument from the service of our necessities, and how shall we exercise our Charity?” See Of Confusions & Revolution (1676), cited in OED. 253 Consider also the investment of the Duke of Portland, an aggressive South Sea speculator and prominent patron of Italian opera. Figure 4.4a depicts a stock scrip issued to Portland, indicating his ownership of £1,000 (10 shares) of company stock. However, the nominal value of the scrip bore little resemblance to the stock’s actual worth. Beyond the overall boom-and-bust cycle, South Sea stock experienced extreme volatility throughout 1720, with daily swings reaching up to 40%.36 This volatility stemmed from the design of the 1720 South Sea shares, as was discussed briefly in Chapter 2. To attract investors with limited capital, the Company introduced subscription rounds allowing share purchases through installments. These partly paid shares, freely traded in secondary markets, effectively transformed South Sea stock into compound call options, a type of modern financial derivative.37 These derivatives, as meta- assets, supercharged speculation by exposing and exploiting discrepancies between primary and secondary markets. This led to widening gaps between the stock’s real and nominal values, creating ample opportunities for leverage and arbitrage.38 Consequently, the price of South Sea stock became highly volatile. For investors, discerning the true value of their investments meant not only observing primary market prices, often available through newspapers and pamphlets, but also monitoring the more volatile secondary markets.39 More often than not, this was achieved through brokers, 36 The short-term volatility of South Sea stock may be attributed to multiple factors, ranging from the divergent arbitrage bounds created by the design of the 1720 subscription scheme to information asymmetry between “institutional” and “retail” investors, to the mixing of credit and securities through the Company’s loan program, and how the “buy now pay latter” scheme’s payment schedules were poorly communicated and understood. See Shea, “Understanding Financial Derivatives during the South Sea Bubble: The Case of the South Sea Subscription Shares,” Oxford Economic Papers 59 (2007): i73-i104, esp. i.96-i99. 37 It means ownership of a fractional share combined with rights to additional fractions through future installment payments at a fixed price. For discussion of how the South Sea Company’s subscription scheme creates arbitrage opportunities with increasing spreads, see Shea, “Understanding Financial Derivatives,” i.73-i.75. 38 Arbitrage means the exploitation of price discrepancies across markets and market expectations. A central mechanism of modern financial capital’s systemic self-replication, or “money begets money.” For how the South Sea Company’s 1720 subscription plan produced ample arbitrage opportunities, see Gary S. Shea, i77-i79. 39 For the circulation of market data in print media during the South Sea Bubble, see Harvard Library, “Marketing, Financial Transactions, and 18th-Century Print Culture,” https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th- https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th-century-print-culture 254 who not only bought and sold securities for their wealthy clients but also provided detailed reports and advice on the daily fluctuations in Exchange Alley. This broker intermediation was facilitated by another type of financial papers, ranging from sales receipts and powers of attorney to transcripts of meetings and records of stock and option prices. Figure 4.4b illustrates how the Duke of Portland’s stock speculation was facilitated by a broker named Pheasant Crisp (whose name, amazingly, was an anagram for “scrip”).40 These paper items detail Crisp’s role in Portland’s purchase of 35 shares of South Sea stock at £1,000 per share. They also reveal Crisp’s provision of timely information on South Sea derivatives, his calculations of the stock’s real market value based on secondary market data, and other relevant information that could influence future price movements. These financial ephemera, transient documents such as receipts, notes, and price lists, served as a vital channel of communication and information exchange during stock transactions.41 Together, figures 4.4a and 4.4b depict the intermediation of value through interconnected financial paper instruments, where the nominal and real values of assets become intertwined in speculative practice. These broker notes, linking the real value of South Sea stock to the values of its various derivatives, can be considered a form of paratext for the value-bearing instruments. They form the informational foundation for market decision- making during the Bubble’s expansion, manifesting as an inter-referential chain of financial instruments with varying values—while simultaneously exposing the self-multiplication of financial capital and its underlying engine: speculation. century-print-culture. 40 For discussion of brokerage practice during the English Financial Revolution, see Mayers and Shea, “A Social Network for Trade and Inventories of Stock during the South Sea Bubble,” Working Papers of University of St Andrews Research (2012): 5-6. 41 As Shea notes, the “rational pricing” of South Sea derivatives relies heavily on the intermediation of an investor-brokerage-market informational network, and such a network is materially manifested as chains of financial ephemera with inter-referential data concerning prices and trading volumes across various markets, as well as news (and rumors) concerning corporate policies decisions. The Duke of Portland’s decision to make aggressive purchases of the first and second 1720 subscriptions was the result of such intermediation. See Shea, “Understanding Financial Derivatives,” pp. i85 & “Sir George Caswall vs. the Duke of Portland: Financial Contracts and Litigation in the wake of the South Sea Bubble” in The Origins and Development of Financial Markets and Institutions (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 132-138. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th-century-print-culture 255 Figure 4.4 Examples of financial documents serving as key transactional or informational mediums between investors and the market through brokers or agents during the South Sea Bubble: a) South Sea Script owned by Henry Bentinck, the Duke of Portland. Source: University of Nottingham, Pl F2/6/1 11; b) Memo notes by Pheasant Crisp for the Duke of Portland. Source: University of Nottingham, Pw B 10. All extant correspondence from Crisp to Portland is cataloged in Pw B 8–21. As these financial documents illustrate, paper instruments reveal more than just the transactions they record; they illuminate the features and logic of financial capital itself. They demonstrate the economic distinction between real and nominal value, highlighting the fact that in the stock market, appearances can be deceiving, thus creating a gap that requires interpretation to discern the true worth of an asset. They also underscore the indispensability of intermediation in the market, exposing the material infrastructure and social networks that underpin the creation and exchange of value. As both vehicles of financial intermediation and a genre of formalized writing, these documents highlight two key features of paper assets during the South Sea Bubble: transmissibility and mutability. Transmissibility refers to their wide 256 circulation and interconnectedness across asset classes, while mutability denotes the continuous fluctuation of their value through an interreferential symbolic network, these paper assets functioning as exchangeable tokens within the speculative market.42 These features of paper assets and their circulatory patterns during the South Sea Bubble illuminate the early-modern bubble as a self-valorizing cycle of financial capital. It is no surprise, then, that paper instruments and financial speculation have long been considered interdependent. Max Weber, an early voice on the subject, identified the financial economy as a system of value detached from the material-based “real” economy, arguing that this “de-tethering”—to use an anachronistic analogy, the separation of “Wall Street” from “High Street”—only became fully operational with the advent of negotiable paper instruments. As Weber aptly stated, “speculation reaches its full significance only from the moment property takes on the form of negotiable paper.”43 The infrastructures shaping modern life, as Brian Larkin has observed, often remain invisible until they fail in moments of crisis.44 The 1720 financial crash is no exception to this. The collapse exposed the fragility of the nascent financial infrastructure built on paper, as financial values born of this medium suddenly became worthless. Eighteenth-century contemporaries were quick to grasp this reality, starkly confronting both the growing power of intangible assets and the inherent fragility of a system built upon them. The catastrophic end of 42 The notion of the stock market as an interreferential symbolic network has gained traction in recent scholarship as a lens for understanding modern finance and financial systems from diverse disciplinary perspectives. Researchers in literary studies, social sciences, and anthropology have adopted this framework to unpack the intricate dynamics of financial markets. Examples of such terminology include anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s concepts of the “chain of retrospective validation” and “recursive chain of derivatives,” economic historian Christian Marazzi’s “overproduction of self-referentiality,” and literary theorist Alison Shonkwiler’s observation of the “nakedly self-referential quality…of money.” See Arjun Appadurai Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance (Chicago University Press, 2016), 1-6, 9, 99; Christian Marazzi Capital and Language: From the New Economy to the War Economy (Semiotexte, 2008), 35; Alison Shonkwiler, The Financial Imaginary: Economic Mystification and the Limits of Realist Fiction (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), 77-81. 43 Max Weber, General Economic History (Dover, 2003 [1927]), 278. 44 See Brian Larkin, “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure,” Annual Review of Anthropology 42, no. 1 (2013): 327–43. 257 the South Sea Bubble in late 1720 abruptly rendered its very medium, paper, worthless. Suddenly, this plethora of financial instruments, records, and prints—ranging from credit notes and annuity certificates to stock scrips, lottery tickets, and a deluge of newspapers and pamphlets—became a mere flurry of worthless paper, rendering these bearers of fortunes and aspirations into nothing more than relics of the speculative mania. Once integral to the financial portfolios of notables such as Handel and Chandos, these documents now become records of misfired financial imagination, all the while standing as reminders of paper’s simultaneously transformative and unstable role in the nascent English stock market. The dramatic collapse of the Bubble cast a new light on these quotidian financial intermediaries, turning these utilitarian objects into emblems of the era’s folly. This allure has driven collectors, aficionados, and scholars for generations to reconstruct the history of this economic debacle from its paper debris.45 As if reclaiming aesthetic value from these now worthless financial ephemera, printmaker and engraver Thomas Bowles, shortly following the market crash, created a pair of prints titled “The Bubblers Medley,” reproducing examples of these perishable records—a South Sea stock receipt, snippets from newspapers discussing the Bubble Act, various ballads and poems, as well as images capturing the fervor in Exchange Alley and playing cards that likened investing to gambling—in collage form (Figure 4.5). Using trompe l’oeil to arrange these recycled paper items, Bowles’s collages give these otherwise disparate and unrelated paper items a realistic feel, through which an archive affect arises around these documents as witnesses of the English stock market’s annus horribilis. Turning the stock market’s billow of paper into printed illusions, Bowles’s collage dramatizes the unfolding market events as layers of 45 BL MS 27871(2503D). For instance, Walter Hawkins, a retired shipbroker and antiquarian of the nineteenth century, amassed South Sea-related financial ephemera into a collection known as “South Sea Vouchers.” Collections like this is noteworthy, especially since the original ledger of the South Sea Company was lost. By assembling these impeccably preserved pieces of ephemera, Hawkins may have sought to gain insights into the South Sea Bubble. The financial documents contained in Hawkins’s collection included those recording transactions related the Duke of Portland (one transfer note) and Ned Ward (one dividend note). 258 overlapping papers, as if inviting the onlooker to leaf through these papers in order to uncover the truth behind the spectacular market catastrophe. The visual assemblage simultaneously points to the disjuncture of the market and its various elements, as well as figuring them together as a whole, imbuing a sense of cohesion into these ephemera.46 By doing so, Bowles’s prints underscore the significant role of paper as a medium both during the speculative mania— and in its aftermath, documenting and potentially unraveling the complexities behind this historical financial turmoil. In documenting and narrativizing the South Sea Bubble crisis, Bowles’s prints not only chronicle the financial turmoil but also immerse the viewer in a multi-sensory portrayal of the stock market meltdown. Sound plays a prominent role in the financial experiences depicted in Bowles’s prints. Among the cited paper ephemera are broadside ballad sheets and other auditory cues (Figure 4.6). They suggest an attempt to capture the soundscape of Exchange Alley, all the while highlighting the integral role these ballads played in English financial life during the 1720 mania. In the next sections, I will examine a range of such bubble ballads as financial ephemera, focusing on their diverse media forms and patterns of circulation, while connecting my analysis to the broader context of the English print culture. This exploration uncovers how these ballads, serving as both a medium and message of the financial market, can offer valuable insights into the mechanics of the South Sea Bubble. Specifically, I will focus on two key themes previously outlined, each shedding light on the logic and ethos of speculative assets and behaviors during the mania: 1) the transmission of economic narratives and sentiment—and, by extension, economic value—across market spaces; and 2) their mutability over time. 46 David McNeil’s observation on Bowles’s collages highlights the layered process by which meanings are constructed from the collections of paper items or fragments. Initially, each item carries its own individual significance. When combined with others, these items take on new meanings shaped by their relationships within the collection. Ultimately, their assembly transforms them into a collective entity with its own distinct identity. This evolution of meaning from the individual to the aggregate is particularly evident in the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble, where the collective entity often represented the irrational exuberance of the masses. See David McNeil, “Collage and Social Theories: An Examination of Bowles’s ‘Medley’ Prints of the 1720 South Sea Bubble,” A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry 20, no. 4 (2004): 283–98. 259 260 Figure 4.5 A pair of bubble commemoration prints, The Bubblers Medley. Printed and sold by Thomas and Carington Bowles (c. 1720). Source: British Museum, 1935,0522.1.5 and 1880,1113.3953. 261 Figure 4.6 Citations of Bubble Ballads in Bowles’s The Bubblers Medley: a) Edward Ward, “A South-Sea Ballad,” source: HBL, Kress Library, S.2961; 2) Anne Finch, “The Stock Jobbing Ladies,” source: HBL, Kress Library, 3321. TRANSMISSIBILITY At the heart of Bowles’s collage lies “The Prophetick Ballad on Exchange Alley,” authored by Edward “Ned” Ward, one of the most astute observers of, and satirical writers on, London’s urban life. The term “Prophetick” in the title suggests its creation predates the market crash in the autumn of 1720, implying that it was initially conceived and construed as a pointedly versed prognosis of the stock scheme’s eventual downfall. Ward’s ballad aimed to ridicule the mass hysteria prevalent in Exchange Alley, targeting what he referred to as “thriving fools, who only drink and think not”: Long Heads may thrive by sober rules, Because they think and drink not, But Headlongs are our thriving fools, Who only drink and think not. 262 Ward likens the paddlers of the stock scheme to “alchemists,” as they appear to be “turn[ing] nothing into all things.” Adding to the sarcasm, Ward brushes aside the scant profits generated from the South Sea Company’s overseas trade during the past years (“treasure in the clouds”), suggesting ironically that the staggering gains from domestic stock trading render the Company’s overseas trade all but irrelevant, and Britain shall remain “oddly rich” and “madly great” given the way the “Bubble came in fashion.” In the concluding stanza, Ward ominously predicts the utter collapse of wealth accumulated through South Sea speculation, attributing the impending disaster to the baseless nature of the stock market’s “airy millions.” These speculative assets, having no grounding in tangible goods or land and existing merely as “scraps of paper,” are doomed to swift obliteration. He foresees the catastrophic fall of this “South Sea Babel,” alongside the grim fates—either hanging or drowning—awaiting the speculators caught in its collapse. Through this foreboding forecast, Ward lampoons the precarious foundation of value within the South Sea scheme, concluding his somber prophecy with a powerful critique of speculative finance’s inherent volatility: Five hundred Millions, Notes and Bonds, Our Stocks are worth in Value, But neither lie in Goods or Lands, Or Money, let me tell ye. Yet tho’ our Foreign Trade is lost, Of mighty Wealth we Vapour, When all the Riches that we boast Consists in Scraps of Paper. Ward’s ballad, infused with a gleefully satirical take on the market, is perfectly complemented by its musical setting, “London is a Fine Town,” (Example 4.1) a tune with a rich history dating back to the early sixteenth century.47 This melody, first documented in the mid-seventeenth 47 See Claude M. Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music (Rutgers University Press, 1966), 460-466. 263 century and frequently anthologized in collections such as Thomas D’Urfey’s Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy, became a vessel for various parodies that lampooned aspects of society from urban life to political cronyism.48 The juxtaposition of the tune’s inherent optimism with the dark humor of the lyrics lent it a captivating quality that ensured its enduring appeal. According to Claude Simpson’s examination of the tune’s lineage, it served as a foundation for numerous satirical iterations, each offering a fresh critique wrapped in humor. This adaptability, coupled with its inclusion in prominent song anthologies, highlights the tune’s versatility and its capacity to serve as a vehicle for topical commentary. In “Prophetick Ballad,” Ward makes use of the tune’s original buoyant 4/4 rhythm and simple structure to amplify his satire, with the fast tempo echoing the frenetic energy of Exchange Alley amidst the South Sea Bubble’s tumult. The melody, consisting of a straightforward quarter-beat rhythm and concise eight-bar structure without a conventional finial cadence, encourages repetition and refrain, mirroring the cyclical and vertiginous nature of speculation within the economic bubble. This musical choice effectively conveys the dizzying experience of the making forays into the stock market, making the satire not just a lyrical, but also a visceral, critique of the blind exuberance felt by the investors of the time. Example 4.1 Ballad tune “London is a Fine Town.” In capturing the frenzied atmosphere of Exchange Alley during the height of the South Sea Bubble, Ward’s ballad also depicts a strikingly vivid cross-section of society drawn to the promised wealth: 48 These parodies featured new texts, such as “Now Cambridge is a merry Towne,” “O Dublin is a fine Town,” or “O Woman is a fine thing.” 264 Here, Stars and Garters do appear Among our lords the rabble; To buy and sell, to see and hear The Jews and Gentiles squabble. Here, crafty Courtiers are too wise For those who trust to fortune; They see the cheat with clearer eyes, Who peep behind the curtain. Our greatest Ladies hither come, And ply in Chariots daily. Oft pawn their Jewels for a Sum, To venture in the Alley. Young Harlots too, from Drury Lane, Approach the Change in Coaches, To fool away the Gold they gain By their obscene Debauches. From “lords” and “ladies,” through “harlots” and “courtiers,” to “Jews” and “gentiles,” this motley crowd encompassing all tiers of English society, flocked to Exchange Alley to “court fortune for her graces.” Ward’s depiction holds up a mirror to the mass participation in the South Sea stock subscription highlighting the universal appeal of this financial venture across existing cultural, social, and economic divides. These culturally, socially, and economically diverse investors are also reflected in the varied media forms in which Ward’s ballad came to be disseminated (see Figure 4.7). Figure 4.7a displays Ward’s ballad in its most affordable and widely circulated form: a blackletter broadside print. Named for the easily typeset Roman font they employed, these sheets were a common sight, distributed across a variety of public spaces, from streets and coffee houses to fairs and bookstalls. Typically adorned with woodcut illustrations to utilize blank spaces and omitting musical notation—since the melodies were usually well-known and often performed by street vendors—the sheets primarily served as a memory aide for its consumers. Though often associated with the lowly status of street entertainers, stockjobbers, and the coffeehouse crowd, these broadsheets nonetheless encapsulated the essence of popular music of the time. Given their inexpensive production and easy disposability, these fleeting 265 consumables often met humble ends, repurposed for mundane tasks like lining birdcages or even as makeshift toilet paper. 266 Figure 4.7 Edward Ward’s “The Prophetick Ballad” appearing in three different print iterations: a) blackletter print, source: BL, 74/1876 f.1.88; b) engraved song sheet, source: CL, H.P.1448; c) hand- scribed copy as a commonplacing memo, source: UNott, Me X 5/4. 267 The song sheet depicted in Figure 4.7b evolves from the often short-lived blackletter broadsides into a more robust commodity form, printed on higher-quality paper and in quarto size, intended for collection alongside books, and for placement on a music stand during performances. Unlike its predecessor, this engraved edition was designed for longevity, aimed at a wealthier audience with intentions of repeated use. The incorporation of additional musical features, including ornamentation and obligato accompaniment, to be played on keyboards, viols, or flutes, suggests its appeal to musically literate individuals of at least moderate means. This demographic was largely influenced by live performances in theaters, coffee houses, or on street corners, motivating the purchase of the song sheet for domestic music-making. Beyond its print circulation, Ward’s ballad also found a place in the commonplace books of notable members of the gentry. The hand-written copy of the ballad in Figure 4.7c was collected by the Duke of Portland.49 Inserted as a loose leaf in a pocket memorandum, the ballad served as a personal addition to Portland’s compilation of noteworthy miscellanea.50 This compilation also included memos prepared by the Duke’s stockbroker, detailing market values of his client’s South Sea holdings and providing investment recommendations.51 Portland relied on these memos for real-time market updates, shaping his investment decisions. While the memos highlight the role of financial intermediaries in the speculative practice at the time, the concurrent inclusion of the ballad in Portland’s memorandum can be seen as a comparable mode of musical mediation, transporting a fragment of Exchange Alley’s soundscape from the grubby coffeehouses to a learned commonplace book. 49 Other South Sea-themed ballads Portland collected include UNott PwV 161, “To the Honorable Robert Harley Esq” by John Blunt; PwV 218, “A Song on ye S. Sea” by Anne Finch; PwV 816, an untitled ballad beginning with “If Robert Knight on the South Sea Bubble”; PwV 1225, “The new Scheme”; and PwV 1323/4, Westminster School election epigram on the theme “Quid ad te pertinent, Ole?” Examples of South Sea-themed ballads or notes can also be found in the following commonplace books: YBL Osborn c258 & Osborn c176. 50 Other music-related commonplacing materials in the Duke of Portland Papers include UNott PwV 1843, “Three Musical Pieces”; and PwV 332, “Poem satirizing opera singer Francesca Cuzzoni.” 51 The ballad appears to have been collected alongside UNott Me X6/2 and MeX 6/3, including compilations of names of South Sea subscribers and calculation of stocks given. 268 The expanding demographic of stock traders in the early eighteenth century included a notable presence of women, a trend exemplified by another ballad cited in Bowles’s Bubblers’ Medley (Figure 4.6). Attributed to Anne Finch, an English courtier and poet, “The Stock- Jobbing Ladies” (Figure 4.8) offers a vivid portrayal of women’s experiences during the South Sea Bubble. It highlights their emerging economic autonomy as they engaged in stock trading, adeptly navigating a landscape of fluctuating assets. The ballad opens from a distinctly feminine perspective: Ombre and Basset laid aside, New Games employ the Fair: And Brokers all those Hours divide, Which lovers us’d to share.52 In this ballad, Finch describes how women were drawn away from traditional card games like “ombre” and “basset” towards the stock markets, lured by the prospect of financial gain. This transition from leisure and domestic duties to stock trading is metaphorically depicted as a new “game” of buying and selling stocks. Bowles likely included this ballad in his print to complement “The Bubbler’s Card”—a playing card depicting a scene from Exchange Alley— thereby linking women, gambling, and finance in the post-bubble cultural imagination.53 Finch further illustrates this shift by humorously suggesting that women traded their lovers for brokers in Exchange Alley. She cleverly uses finance-related puns like “divide” and “share,” underscoring the financial knowledge women were gaining. Finch’s bubble ballad reflects what Catherine Ingrassia identifies as the association of femininity with stock trading—a defining feature of eighteenth-century Britain’s “financialized culture” where a link between women’s cultural representation and the burgeoning paper economy emerged.54 52 HBL Kress Lib. 5898.79. 53 For discussion of playing cards and the South Sea Bubble, see Chapter 5. 54 Catherine Ingrassia, Authorship, Commerce, and Gender in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 26. 269 Figure 4.8 Anne Finch, “The Stock Jobbing Ladies” (1720). Source: HBL, Kress Library, 5898.79. 270 Economist Robert Shiller has attributed a central catalyst of the South Sea crisis to eighteenth-century print culture, deeming it vitally important in inflating, sustaining, and puncturing the bubble.55 Shiller argues that during a bubble economy, mass media converts abstract market data into compelling stories with contagious spread, arousing public interest and fostering speculative action.56 Similarly, historian Carl Wennerlind has noted how the cultural production of pamphlets was central in the economic debate around the South Sea scheme’s equity and credit systems, informing divergent attitudes towards financial assets and their value.57 From these perspectives, the wide circulation of Ward’s ballad and the topical focus of Finch’s ballad on a new demographic within the moneyed class demonstrate how ballads functioned as a cultural vector of economic information. While Finch’s ballad depicted the excitement and anxiety surrounding the increasing social diversity in the booming market, Ward’s ballad spread a more ominous narrative about an impending market downturn. Shiller’s eighteenth-century precursors would likely have agreed with his theory about the infectious nature of the various inflationary and deflationary narratives in the market. David Hume, for instance, understood the contagious effect of ideas, writing: “When any causes beget a particular inclination or passion... the multitude will certainly be seized by the common affection, and be governed by it in all their actions.”58 Hume’s concept of imitative transmission of ideas, describing how thoughts spread and trigger collective behavior, may have been inspired by contemporary responses to the projecting age’s growing bubbles. In his pamphlets, anti- Bubble Tory polemicist Archibald Hutcheson described the speculative market as an “extraordinary and epidemical frenzy.”59 These metaphors of contagion became widespread, 55 For Shiller’s remarks on the events of 1720, see William Goetzmann, Labio, Rouwenhorst, and Young eds., The Great Mirror of Folly (Yale University Press, 2013), vii-ix. 56 Robert Schiller, Narrative Economics (Princeton University Press, 2019), xii-xiv. 57 See also Carl Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011), 171-2, 206-9. 58 David Hume, Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences (1711), 3. 59 Archibald Hutcheson, A Collection of Calculations and Remarks relating to the South Sea Scheme & Stock (1720), 4. 271 especially as the year 1720 saw not only the burst of the South Sea Bubble but also the Great Plague of Marseille. Fearing the plague’s spread across the channel like the Mississippi Bubble, Britons began to believe that unscrupulous stockjobbers had brought divine punishment upon them. One cleric even preached that “Our merchant may import Diseases with their Wealth.”60 Political critics John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, in their Cato’s Letters, drew a similar comparison, claiming the South Sea Bubble was “a contagion of another sort, more universal, and less merciful.”61 The following year, Defoe published his historical fiction Journal of A Plague Year, ostensibly about the 1665 London plague but in reality a commentary on the public psyche during the South Sea Bubble.62 The contagion metaphor aptly portrays the mimetic behavior of the frenzied crowd. John Martin, a banker who lost everything in the bubble, later recounted, “where the rest of the world are mad, we must imitate them in some measure.”63 The South Sea Bubble, therefore, exemplifies Hume’s idea of how contagious ideas can manifest as imitative actions across the masses.64 This imitative behavior was, in part, mediated through thought contagions spread across print culture. Within this media environment, bubble ballads not only multiplied market narratives but also demonstrated the replication and propagation typical of such thought contagions—transmitted through familiar tropes, repeated metaphors, and shared sentiments. For instance, earlier bubble ballads consistently blended English patriotism, Tory triumphalism, and credit expansionism in their depictions of the South Sea Company’s initiatives. As the Bubble grew, dissenting voices increasingly emerged, contrasting the financial interests of financiers and merchants with a nostalgic yearning for traditional land-based wealth and social 60 WC ESTC T101205, Thomas Newlin, God’s Gracious Design in Inflicting National Judgment (1721), 11. 61 John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato’s Letters (1720), 6. 62 Cynthia Wall, “Introduction” in Daniel Defoe’s Journal of A Plague year (Penguin Classics, 2003) xxvii- xxix. 63 John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (Stanford University Press, 1960), 161. 64 The Victorian journalist Charles Mackay would later bring this pattern of crowd behavior during the 1720 crisis to a focus in his studies of herd mentality, attributing the “extraordinary popular delusions” of the South Sea Bubble to “popular imitativeness.” See Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Barnes & Noble Publishing, 2004), 88. 272 order. This ideological consistency across various ballads illustrates how narratives about the South Sea scheme permeated public consciousness, shifting notably in 1720 as perceptions of the company’s stock changed. Additionally, these ballads shared literary and musical motifs that reinforced their mimetic nature. They repeatedly employed metaphors of ephemeral wealth like “bubble,” “vapor,” and “sand,” engaged in mock-heroic parodies of political figures, depicted the diverse crowds of Exchange Alley, and played with stock characters and caricatures, as well as biblical and folk references. The viral spread of bubble ballads suggests that the South Sea Bubble was shaped not only by economic but also cultural forces. Jonathan Swift, in linking finance and print culture, once dubbed the Grub Street wits behind bubble ballads as “stockjobbers in the poet’s art,” implying that the Bubble was as much the work of financiers and politicians as pamphleteers and balladeers.65 The analysis of Ward’s bubble ballad across various media forms reveals its extensive commercial reach. Whether as street entertainment, drawing-room pastime, or commonplace memorandum, the ballad served as a musical vehicle to transmit market news and economic sentiments throughout English society across class lines. Analogous to the South Sea Company’s penetration across different asset classes and the Company’s tactic of sustaining fictitious value through the circulation of paper assets, Ward’s ballad, in its multiple media incarnations, reflects the diminishing divide among the urban underclass, the affluent middle class, and the landed gentry as their shared economic and aesthetic interests began to converge. MUTABILITY In early eighteenth-century London, the business of print and the financial market were closely intertwined both geographically and commercially. Print shops like Bowles’s, situated 65 Jonathan Swift, On Poetry, A Rhapsody (1733) As Swift continues, the interpenetration between the two worlds becomes more apparent: “readers wonder whom you meant / a public or a private robber /a statesman, or a South-Sea jobber.” See also Sean Moore, Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 204-5. 273 near St Paul’s Churchyard, were only a short distance from the bustling coffee houses of Exchange Alley, where stock trading thrived. These establishments churned out a variety of prints, ranging from the artistic to the utilitarian, catering to the city’s diverse societal interests and commercial needs, and in particular to those intrigued by novel financial instruments. This blend of the aesthetic and the practical, the imaginative and the mundane has prompted art historians to describe early-eighteenth-century London’s print market as a space of crossover between art and information.⁠66 The surge of paper financial instruments during the South Sea Bubble owed much to the adoption of standardized, pre-printed documents, which supplanted cumbersome handwritten contracts with easily reproducible templates that swiftly formalized speculative values. As the bubble gained momentum and transaction needs increased, London’s jobbing printers began producing pre-printed items such as stock scripts, cheques, receipts, powers of attorney, and promissory notes to aid trading activities (see Figure 4.9).67 Media historian Lisa Gitelman posits that paper-based documents play an active role in the construction of social and economic knowledge, a concept she calls “paper knowledge.” With it, Gitelman calls for a reframing of social and historical analysis to foreground the media conditions of various paper-based utilitarian documents, emphasizing paper as a tangible and even affective medium through which the generation of meaning and value can be parsed.68 On financial documents, Gitelman argues that such everyday items as ledgers and bills are more than just administrative tools; they are central to the underlying logic of value generation within their respective economic systems, 66 See M ark Hallett, The Spectacle of Difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth (Yale University Press, 1999); Maggie M. Cao, “Trompe L’oeil and Financial Risk in the Age of Paper,” Grey Room 78 (2020): 15. 67 On the production of pre-printed financial instruments in eighteenth-century Britain, see Timothy Clayton, The English Print: 1688–1802 (Yale University Press, 1997); Herbert Atherton, Political Prints in the Age of Hogarth (Oxford University Press, 1974); James Reven, “Why Ephemera Were Not Ephemeral: The Effectiveness of Innovative Print in the Eighteenth Century,” The Yearbook of English Studies 45 (2015): 56-73. 68 Lisa Gitleman, Paper Knowledge: Towards a Media History of Documents (Duke University Press, 2014), 5-6. 274 as they help to “shape and enable,” to “define and delimit,” the financial transactions in which they were deployed.69 Greater emphasis might thus be placed on the agency of the material forces that shaped the production of such documents. Behind the mediascape of the South Sea Bubble, it was the printing press that served as a critical mechanism for imbuing the speculative market with this paper knowledge, transforming speculative transactions and imaginary values into a tangible reality. By streamlining the efficient production, replication, and dissemination of financial documents, the press played an instrumental role in the South Sea Bubble, driving the proliferation of financial assets and intensifying the speculative fervor. Figure 4.9 Examples of pre-printed financial instruments from the South Sea market mania. Left: Power of attorney note appointing a broker. Right: Receipts documenting transfers of South Sea shares, collected by Walter Hawkins in the South Sea Company’s Vouchers. Source: British Library, Add MS 27871 (2503D). 69 Gitleman, Paper Knowledge (2014), 30. 275 Similarly, the circulation of ballads and their shifting meanings were materially conditioned and shaped by the printing press, which enabled their widespread dissemination and adaptability over time. Consider one more time the blackletter version of Ward’s “Prophetick Ballad” (Figure 4.7a). A closer examination of its layout reveals how the printing forme structured spaces on the song sheet for its customary components like the title, verses, and optional spaces for art or music. Most notably, reusable woodcut art is strategically deployed to reinforce, contradict, or establish narrative connections between various prints. This specific ballad sheet incorporates two such woodblock motifs—one portraying a clandestine exchange and the other depicting a woman counting coins, both aptly resonating with the pecuniary theme of Ward’s ballad. Similar to woodcut motifs, music also served as a stock material in ballads’ circulatory economy. Represented by the reusable woodcut, music in the production context of broadside ballads can be likewise understood as a type of movable media under the printing press: both a stock material of the ballad economy and a fungible component of the genre’s multimedia assemblage. These fungible tunes are continuously reused, modified, and adapted, providing ample opportunities for poetic-musical interplay as they enter new combinatorial relations with equally renewable illustrations and text. As the stock mania transitioned from frenzy to panic, Ward’s ballad gained added traction, its prophetic precision prompting its widespread reprints across the British Isles, from London to Edinburgh, Canterbury to Dublin.70 Coinciding with the market crash, the ballad’s title also evolved from “The Prophetick Ballad” to simply ”A South Sea Ballad,” marking a shift in its meaning from speculative prediction to a bona fide depiction of market reality. Its music also underwent changes, incorporating a “new tune” now called “The Grand Elixir, or the Philosopher’s Stone discover’d.”71 While this “new tune” is not documented 70 London (Chetham H.P.1448); Edinburgh (HBL Kress S.2962); Canterbury (WC ESTC T150124); Dublin (HBL Houghton ESTC N23885). 71 HBL Foxon W178, Edward Ward, “South-Sea ballad; or, Merry remarks upon Exchange-Alley bubbles: to a new tune, call’d The grand elixir, or The philosopher’s stone discover’d” (Edinburgh, 1720). 276 in known eighteenth-century song collections, a Dublin edition of the updated ballad featured an alternative melody from the original “Prophetick” version, using a pre-carved woodblock for the music (see figure 4.10).72 Figure 4.10 Edward Ward, “A South Sea Ballad,” Dublin reprint (c. 1720). Source: HBL, Houghton Library, HBL, ESTC N23885. 72 Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad, 187-188. 277 Despite integrating the reused woodcut music into the ballad’s printing forme, its misalignment with the iambic tetrameter in Ward’s poem raises doubts about its melodic suitability, and the final staff appears awkwardly cramped, as the printer seemingly floundered in accommodating extra words to the preset music. Although the Dublin printer’s chosen tune did not correspond to Ward’s verses and was unlikely to be used for singing the ballad, the selection of music was not arbitrary. Ward had previously employed the selected tune for another ballad titled “The Tippling Philosopher” (Example 4.2). Originally part of Ward’s 1710 collection, Wine and Wisdom: or, the Tippling Philosophers, A Lyrick Poem, the poem humorously portrays an imagined gathering of a group of intoxicated Greek philosophers, blurring wisdom and wit into inebriated flights of fancy.73 The English bass singer Richard Leveridge composed a song to the poem and popularized the ballad through his own performances: Diogenes, surly and proud, Who snarl’d at the Macedon youth, Delighted in wine that was good, Because in good wine there is truth; Till growing as poor as a Job, Unable to purchase a flask, He chose for his mansion a tub, And liv’d by the scent of the cask. The song, set in B minor or D minor, begins with a descending tetrachord, which is about all the similarity there is between Leveridge’s tune and the original song “London is a Fine Town” set to “The Prophetick Ballad.”74 Contrasting the jovial simplicity of “The Prophetick Ballad”‘s iambic tetrameter, “Tippling Philosopher” adopts a more complex meter: a modified dactylic octameter.75 The meter gives the lines a consistent lilt, which Leveridge adeptly set to the 73 “The Tippling Philosophers, set by Mr. Leveridge” in Musical Miscellany, Vol 1, collected and published by John Watts (1729). 74 The song appears in B minor in various broadside song sheets but is transposed to D minor in Watts’s anthology. 75 More precisely, dactylic trimeter (with anacrusis and double catalysis). 278 bourrée rhythm in his song. Spicing up a bourée’s typical affect of contentment, Leveridge injects his tune with a winding melodic contour and has it modulate twice within the short span of six phrases, heightening the poem’s whimsical image of ancient sages with their tankards. The song’s capricious energy culminates in a written-out cadenza in the penultimate line, where the constantly deployed dactyls erupt in a chain of dotted rhythms trotting along an ebullient scalar ascent, a passage that Leveridge undoubtedly intended to showcase his singing prowess when performing the ballad—and the very passage proved challenging for the Dublin printer to adapt to the words from “A South Sea Ballad.” Despite the metric disparities between Leveridge’s song and Ward’s “A South Sea Ballad,” the latter did not so much function as a performance aid; instead, it served to convey the evolving sentiments of the market, by abstracting musical affect from the ballad tune for the rhetorical effect of the revamped song sheet. In substituting the original song “London is a fine town,” emblematic of urban exuberance, with “The Tippling Philosophers,” portraying intoxicated scholars and their frivolous musings, the new musical backdrop appeared fitting for a deflating bubble and the accompanying cynical resignation it evoked. Indeed, as the booming market turned into a bust, jubilant investors became despondent drinkers, which Ward’s “Prophetick Ballad” anticipated (“those who drink and think not”). The new tune also echoes a growing satirical trope likening Exchange Alley to a congregation of inebriates. The May 2, 1720 issue of The Daily Post advertised The Committee, a new play about the ongoing South Sea Bubble to be presented at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, by singling out “a Comick Scene” by actor John Harper, “mimicking a drunken Man, in which he will perform the Song of Four and Twenty Stock-Jobbers.”76 76 The Daily Post, May 2, 1720. 279 Example 4.2 Richard Leveridge, “The Tippling Philosopher,” appearing in John Watts’s 1720 installment of Musical Miscellany, Vol. 1. The Dublin printer’s speculative use of the fungible ballad tune may also have been influenced by Ward’s own 1720 publication, The Delights of the Bottle, or the Compleat Vintner. (Figure 4.11) In this collection, Ward consistently employed the South Sea mania as an allegory for the intoxicated atmosphere in a tavern and to satirize the arrogance of those newly enriched through speculative gambles: When tired with intricate Affairs Or punish’d with invidious Cares; When Disappointment gives us trouble, In South-Sea, or some other Bubble. … Among this merry motly Race, The Bubble Upstarts claim a place, Grown Rich by fiction’s Stocks and Funds As Asses thrive on barren Grounds. 280 Figure 4.11 Frontispiece of Edward Ward’s late 1720/early 1721 publication The Compleat Vintner, or Delight of the Bottle. Source: Yale Beinecke Library, BEIN Poems 73. After the market’s collapse, Ward seized the opportunity to heighten the irony, incorporating his “Prophetick Ballad” into the Compleat Vintner collection. As the title page of the collection shows, the addition of his bubble ballad was a decision made under the wire, prompting the addition of a newly bordered block advertising the late inclusion: “To which is added, A South- Sea Song upon the latest Bubbles.” Moreover, the incorporation of the fictitious tune “The Grand Elixir, or, The Philosopher’s Stone discover’d” in Ward’s revitalized ballad suggests another parodic exaggeration, lifting language from a contemporary pamphlet condemning stockjobbery 281 titled “Discovery of the Philosophers Stone Lately Projected by Certain Dealers in the South- Sea.”77 Rather than viewing the rough typesetting and compromised scansion as flaws and dismissing this Dublin reprint, I suggest interpreting it as an illustration of the ballad as a dynamic artifact with a distinct format that gives rise to its generative quality. The creation of meaning within a ballad and its musical accompaniment is inseparable from the printing process, which formats these interchangeable tunes, texts, and art into ever renewable expressions, capitalizing on the infinite combinatorial possibilities from these stock materials. I borrow the word “generative” from Patricia Fumerton, whose work on early modern broadside ballads links up the plural meanings of ballads with the multivalent components on a broadside song sheet and how they were assembled in the skilled hands of jobbing printers.78 In her work, Fumerton draws our attention to the typographic components of a ballad sheet—text, music, illustrations—and their mobile nature. A key concept in Fumerton’s materialist study is assemblage, which she applies to the broadside ballad on both material and metaphorical levels. On one hand, the assemblage describes how the moving parts of a ballad sheet came together, as reusable letter types, woodcut illustrations, musical plates, and printing formes afforded printers nearly infinite combinatorial possibilities to create new ballads. On the other hand, these materially assembled moving parts allowed for dynamic and imaginative interactions among language, music, and illustration within a ballad sheet as well as across different ballads. In other words, rather than a fixed aesthetic object with predetermined meaning, the broadside ballad functions more like a form, or even format, that allows these various moving parts, which 77 YBL NZ+720DI, a pamphlet signed “Liberabvi Animam Meam.” It recapitulates the same trope of “financial alchemy” observed frequently in bubble ballads but also shares the same satiric strategy as in Ward’s ballad, forecasting the market downturn. “As dreading the Consequences, of my being in any respect whatsoever Guilty of such a Concealment. And therefore I cause these Hints to be Publish’d; least I should otherwise become, in some Measure, and Accessary; to the deluding the Unwary Part of the Dealers, in South-Sea Stock: The Deplorableness of Whole Condition, I do most heartily Commiserate: for when the Delusion shall be over; it may drive Numbers of the deluded, into Utmost Dispair.” 78 Patricia Fumerton, The Broadside Ballad in Early Modern England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). 282 are not innately related in fixed ways, to interact with one another. The ballads as multiply combinatorial assemblages can thus be described as generative, as their infinitely renewable meaning arises from new combinations and relations amongst their moving parts. As Fumerton puts it, “more than any cultural artifact of the early modern period,” the broadside ballad “can only understood as moving, in parts and in wholes.”79 From Ward’s late-breaking revision to the Dublin printer’s musical speculation, the interconnected versions of “The Prophetick Ballad” underscore the generative nature of ballad circulation in an ever-expanding inter-referential network of symbolic exchange, in which the ballad’s meaning evolved through its successive iterations. Mobilized by the agency of its multiple speculative purveyors and its moving media parts, the ballad’s evolving meaning, in turn, chronicled shifting sentiments about the stock market. The post-crash reworking of Ward’s South Sea ballad is not the only example demonstrating how the shifting economic sentiment surrounding the South Sea market was captured by balladeers through evolving music. A pair of ballads known as “South Sea Ballads Set by a Lady” similarly provide changing musical perspectives on the market’s happenings— this time through the eyes of either a real or imaginary female investor. The two parts of this pair were published sequentially, one likely written before the September crash (Figure 4.12a) and the other after (Figure 4.12b). The first ballad evidently appeared in the summer, as it details the impact of the Bubble Act on Exchange Alley speculators. Lines like “The Salts and The Fisheries are gone, All the Stocks of the Bubbles is Swallowed in One” point to how the new Act curbed the recent influx of joint-stocks into the bubbling market.80 The ballad also illustrates public understanding of the 79 Fumerton, The Broadside Ballad in Early Modern England (2020), 33. Or, as Colton Taylor puts it, “broadside ballad in action is no different than a printing press in operation.” See Colton Saylor, “Printing Outside the Lines: The Printing Press, Broadside Ballads, and Collapsing Binary Oppositions,” in The Making of A Broadside Ballad (2016). 80 The South Sea Company lobbied Parliament to pass the Bubble Act in order to shore up its monopolistic prerogative by limiting others to incorporate through the joint-stock form. For discussion of the Bubble Act, see Chapter 2. 283 interconnected nature of financial capital and investment programs, as they seemingly hinged on South Sea stock (“When we examine their true Pedigree, we trace their Original from the South Sea”). This ballad shares themes with Ward’s “Prophetick Ballad,” such as the intangible nature of South Sea capital (“The Gold sanded Ocean”), the hazardous mixing of people (“A comical sight to behold the deceit of all ranks of men met each other to cheat”), and the obscure terms of the subscription scheme (comparing Bubble to “Babel”). While Ward’s ballad may offer a glimpse into the satirist’s poorly concealed schadenfreude at the chaos in Exchange Alley, “South Sea Ballad Set By A Lady” presents a more earnest effort to report and understand the rapidly evolving events of the summer of 1720 that would culminate in the crash. The anonymous balladeer enriches her description of the tense atmosphere in Exchange Alley and its increasingly anxious traders through the music itself. By highlighting a change in the Exchange Alley soundscape, the author begins her ballad by alerting listeners that the market had started to sound “out of Tune”—that the stock price no longer aligned with financial expectations. This market dissonance becomes a song of panic, reflecting the growing unease and anxiety in the summer of 1720: For, since the Suppression of Bubbles in June, Those clamorous Catches are quite out of Tune. No more of the Hubbles nor Bubbles we see, But all the whole Nation attends the South Sea. The ballad opens with a haunting melody in C minor, capturing the desolate feel of a suddenly empty Exchange Alley as news of the Bubble Act has rattled speculators. The middle couplet abruptly shifts the mood to the relative major, as if evoking the optimism and hope that once buoyed the South Sea stock and crowded Exchange Alley. However, the speculative fervor quickly sours, the music descending an octave, perhaps mirroring the plummeting trading volume, and the melody returns to the minor key. The final couplet drives home the ballad’s cautionary message, highlighting the South Sea scheme’s grim prospects and the potential for 284 widespread collateral damage. 285 Figure 4.12 A pair of ballads reportedly set by a female musician: a) “The South Sea Ballad, Set by a Lady.” Source: British Library, G307, f. 26. b) “The South Sea Ballad, Set by a Lady Part II.” Source: British Library, G313, f. 38. 286 A text-painting device, the ballad’s tonal disorientation—vacillating key notes and frequent chromatic inflections—makes the “out of Tune” Exchange Alley truly audible, reflecting the distressed passions of the bubble economy’s panic phase. This musical portrayal also brings to mind Sarah Fielding’s description of the stock market as a world of intense passions fueled by money, where fleeting pleasure fails to mask the “anxiety, with a mixture of fear,” visible “on the faces of most men at the Change.81” After the market crash, the balladeer followed up with a second ballad. This time, Exchange Alley is portrayed as an utter ruin: What a terrible turn of a sudden is here The Hearts of the People distracted with fear Change Alley that set up such numbers of men To their Primitive Nothing has brought them a’gen And lastly by methods surprizing and new Has done what a hundred years war could not do. Instead of resorting to the moralizing or finger-pointing typical of post-bubble ballads, the second ballad offers a thoughtful reflection on the financial crisis. It displays both astute analysis and a remarkable sense of foresight. The author questions the long-term consequences of the Bubble on the British commercial spirit and reflects on the solution proposed by Walpole’s bailout plan, which involved the Bank of England. The author wonders if this solution is merely a temporary fix for a flawed financial order, one that could ultimately lead to another bubble. This anxiety is evident in the following lines: When shall we be sensible (though to our cost), That the old British Spirit is utterly lost? They laugh to have gotten so much and so fast, But England must sure pay the Piper at last. Was it not very near it when People look’d blank, Not only for South Sea, but also the Bank? 81 See Sarah Fielding, The Adventures of David Simple (1744). Description extracted from the protagonist’s visit to Exchange Alley. 287 In stark contrast to the anxiety-laden, dissonant harmonies of the first ballad, the second ballad exudes a rather carefree air. Its triple meter dance rhythm flows smoothly, unlike the stop-and- go feel of the previous one. The melodic line is also smoother, more singable than the tortured leaps of the first, suggesting perhaps that the market crash, despite its devastating losses, paradoxically offers a kind of certainty and relief. The reflective tone, set to music that dampens speculative fervor into quiet domesticity, allows for a bourgeois contemplation of money, following the pre-crash frenzy. This pair of “South Sea Ballads Set by a Lady” offers distinct yet interrelated perspectives on the Bubble, with the first capturing the agitated energy of the market panic and the second reflecting on the crisis in retrospect. They not only chronicle the progression from boom to bust but also share a sensitivity to text-painting and a continuation of earnest economic analysis. Reading and listening to them together reveals how the ongoing assessment of the South Sea Bubble was expressed through changing music and interconnected lyrics, providing a dynamic and timely portrayal of the 1720 crisis. Much like the bubble ballad, financial documents related to South Sea speculation were also extensively iterative and inter-referential, capturing the ongoing reassessment of South Sea stock and the reinterpretation of the Bubble’s trajectory. For instance, as previously seen, the Duke of Portland’s substantial speculative endeavors produced a paper trail of such interconnected trading contracts. Between April and August in 1720, he devised more than 24 forward contracts, acquiring an impressive 5,000 South Sea shares for his investment portfolio through margin credit actively promoted by the South Sea Company.82 These contracts, reflecting Portland’s increasingly bullish market outlook, show his contingent claims on South Sea stock, set at future values ranging from £300 to £1,000 per share. By leveraging on and ultimately overwriting the original stock scrip at £100 par value, these derivatives contracts 82 UNott Pw B 10. All extant correspondence from Crisp to Portland can be found from Pw B 8-21.See also Gary S. Shea, “Understanding Financial Derivatives During the South Sea Bubble: The Case of the South Sea Subscription Shares,” Oxford Economic Papers 59 (2007). 288 exemplify the speculative proliferation of South Sea asset values through an inter-referential chain of cross-leveraged paper instruments.83 Portland’s contracts bring to mind anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s critique of modern derivatives finance—that derivatives’ claim to value stems solely from their being part of an “inter-referential chain” through “relational leverages,” and they have “no status other than the credibility of their references.”84 Indeed, the South Sea Bubble could aptly be described as how the inter-referentially multiplied financial intermediaries led the market into the dangerous territory of a too-rapid expansion of money supply de-tethered from economic fundamentals. As historian Alice Marples has observed, the number of South Sea shares sold to investors far exceeded the actual available shares, effectively doubling the company’s equity. This allowed the South Sea Company to use funds from new shareholders to pay the promised high dividends to existing shareholders, a practice Marples likened to an early modern Ponzi scheme.85 This proliferation of imaginary value on the stock market also manifested in the physical paper instruments that represented this value. As the Duke of Portland’s derivative contracts proliferated, he grew increasingly anxious about delays in obtaining the elaborately produced, wax-sealed South Sea scrip (see Figure 4a) that certified his ownership. In fact, this broader delay in producing stock scrips significantly hindered derivatives trading throughout the early summer.86 83 UNott Pl F2/6/1 11. 84 See Arjun Appadurai, Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance, 1- 6, 9, 99. 85 Alice Marples, “The South Sea Bubble of 1720,” The National Archives “Records and Research” (Sep 2020) https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-south-sea-bubble-of-1720/ 86 See Shea, “Understanding Derivatives during the South Sea Bubble,” Oxford Economic Papers 59 (2007): i85. In his satirical poem “The South Sea Project,” Jonathan Swift employs the metaphor of a “waxed feather” to refer to the South Sea stock scrip, highlighting the precarious nature of the company stock’s supposed value. See Jonathan Swift, The South Sea Project (1721). Swift’s verse likens the stock’s ascent to Icarus’s ill-fated flight, where the wax melts and sends the boy plummeting. (“On paper wings he takes his flight, / With wax the father bound them fast;/ The wax is melted by the height, / And down the towering boy is cast.”) This metaphor illustrates Swift’s critique of the emerging financial economy, which prioritized rapid circulation and speculation over trust and stability. Swift’s satire also extends to other vivid material metaphors underscoring the unprecedented yet unsubstantiated rise of the South Sea stock, which he sarcastically compares to “magick.” As market frenzy intensified, the South Sea scheme transformed market wealth into a “liquid medium,” a concept that Swift captures in his imagery of https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-south-sea-bubble-of-1720/ 289 Appadurai’s insights on modern finance’s mechanisms of value creation, particularly its reliance on symbolic networks of self- and inter-referential tokens, underscores the tendency and capacity of financial instruments to derive value by reflecting on themselves and one another, rather than grounding their worth in underlying economic realities. This critique lies at the heart of Appadurai’s broader observation about modern finance’s risky penchant for abstraction and dematerialization—a phenomenon also recognized by contemporaries during and after the South Sea Bubble. Their reflections, particularly those noticing paper as a new bearer of wealth—and attributing the Bubble’s perilous transformation of wealth into intangible nothingness to this very medium—reveal an early awareness of how financial instruments could both facilitate and destabilize economic systems.87 For instance, Alexander Pope, reflecting on the financial crisis, warned his readers how the South Sea scheme’s transformation of property and wealth into insubstantial pieces of paper could contribute to political corruption and social disintegration: A single leaf shall waft an Army o’er, Or ship off Senates to a distant Shore; A leaf, like Sibyl’s, scatter to and fro Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow: Pregnant with thousands flits the Scrap unseen, And silent sells a King, or buys a Queen. Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly.88 Having explored bubble ballads and the South Sea Company’s speculative capital in "pond’rous metal" seemingly swimming and swelling to the top. This evokes the illusion of wealth creation, while also underscoring the ephemeral nature of value in a system driven by speculation. (“The Pond’rous Metal seems to swim / It rises both in Bulk and Height / Behold it mounting to the Top / The liquid Medium cheats your Sight / Behold it swelling like a Sop / In Stock Three Hundred Thousand Pounds.”) 87 Appadurai, Banking on Words (2015), 2, 44, 60. Appadurai argues that the derivative’s claim to value is essentially linguistic formalization and abstraction. The derivative is an asset whose value is based on that of another asset, which could itself be a derivative. It is a “proposition or a belief about another object that might itself be similarly derived from yet another similar object.” 88 Alexander Pope, Of the Use of Riches: An Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst (J. Wright, 1732). 290 tandem through their shared medium of paper, I suggest that the speculative imagination prevalent in both finance and balladry during the South Sea Bubble, evidenced by a simultaneous proliferation of asset value and musical meaning, owed itself in part to the all- encompassing material and media culture at the time. In a manner similar to Pope’s poetic scrutiny, Ward’s ballad, as a media artifact, addresses the financial crisis in musical terms. Perhaps, this is most aptly illustrated in the Dublin reprint, where the ultimately unsingable ballad reveals how the ballad’s fungible music, subjected to the transformative whims of the printer’s creative speculation, fails to vocalize the tumultuous market, as the tune loses its embodied expressions in a deracinated symbolic network of speculative prints. We might like to think that the ballad’s song sheet exerted as much power of abstraction onto the music as financial derivatives did on the tangible economy. Perhaps, more than Ward’s satirical virtuosity, it was the ensuing silence that resonated most poignantly, echoing the implosion of the South Sea Bubble into a swirl of worthless paper. NOISE OR MUSIC? The South Sea Bubble might have remained a footnote in music history if not for Handel’s documented forays into England’s burgeoning financial market. Recovered accounts and documents reveal that the composer received dividends from South Sea stock, maintained shares throughout the boom-and-bust cycle, invested in the reconstituted South Sea Annuities after the Bubble, and even converted his salaries paid in Royal African Company stock into cash.89 These financial activities underscore the interconnectedness of artists and commerce in 89 For examples of Handel’s South Sea-related transactions up to 1725, see HCD vol. 1, 334–35, 339, 650, 656, 662, 687, 782. A comprehensive list of receipts, ledgers, and miscellaneous financial documents related to Handel’s financial dealings is anticipated in HCD vol. 5. Despite the destruction of the South Sea Company’s ledgers, Ellen Harris, through an analysis of surviving records from before and after the Bubble burst, concluded that Handel likely retained his investment throughout the tumultuous year of boom and bust. For connections between Handel’s investments and slavery, see the ongoing scholarly debates, notably between Ellen Harris and David Hunter, which delve into the complexities of interpreting historical figures’ actions and motivations within their historical contexts. For citations and further discussion, see above in this chapter and in the Introduction. 291 the early eighteenth century, demonstrating how even prominent figures like Handel were not immune to the speculative fervor of the era. Indeed, Handel lived the life of a member of England’s newly empowered moneyed class. It was reported that the Bank of England would often keep a late window open for him on opera nights, allowing him to deposit his box-office takings into his South Sea Annuities account. These documented activities have captivated both the public and historians, fueling a scholarly desire to situate Handel within the context of the rising power of money and the launch of a modern financial system.90 However, little is known about Handel’s personal thoughts on the South Sea Bubble, except for what may be gleaned from a ballad found in the 1731 installment of John Watts’s The Musical Miscellany. The song, “The Satyr’s Advice to a Stock-Jobber” (HWV 228, Example 4.3), set to verses by Scottish poet Allan Ramsay, has been firmly attributed to Handel and canonized with an HWV number. Despite its minor status, the song remains a curious piece of music that potentially offers insights into Handel’s perspective on the speculative frenzy of the era.91 Ramsay’s text offers a tragicomic portrayal of a stockjobber devastated by the market crash, a classic trope in bubble ballads. The stockjobber, portrayed as an adventurer, is “beguil’d by bubbles,” “met with contrary wind,” and “lost at sea.” He is now left with nothing “in his Purse,” and after a few futile cries and complaints, is now contemplating ending his own life. Then enters Satyr, the Dionysian god, who dissuades the ill-fortuned financier from suicide with a darkly humorous yet practical suggestion: marry a wealthy older matchless woman (“hecatissa”) to escape debt.92 The ballad further compares the market to a young, alluring but fickle maiden, 90 Handel’s financial dealings have led to diverse interpretations of the composer’s character. Some contemporary writers view him as a shrewd investor, while others highlight his entrepreneurial spirit. For a literature review of recent scholarly perspectives on Handel’s investment, see fn. 21-29 in Introduction. 91 Despite rigorous research into Handel’s financial affairs, Ellen Harris has curiously forgone an in-depth analysis of the Handelian bubble ballad, a departure from her typically insightful and imaginative interpretations of Handel’s music, such as his Italian cantatas. The ballad receives only a passing mention in a footnote to her article on Handel and the Bank of England. See Ellen T. Harris, “Courting Gentility: Handel at the Bank of England,” Music & Letters 91, no. 3 (2010): 357–75 and Handel as Orpheus: Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas (Harvard University Press, 2004). 92 It may be possible that Handel was drawn to this plot device, as it would be a parody of his one-time colleague Johann Christoph Pepusch’s 1718 marriage to the then retired, 38-year-old soprano Margherita 292 her unpredictability mirroring the market’s downturn. This serves as a retrospective commentary on the importance of timing in speculative markets: “seize the time,” or face guaranteed losses. Ramsay concludes, “To catch the Occasion take care, when ‘tis gone, in vain you’ll essay,” emphasizing the fleeting nature of opportunity and the consequences of missing it. Example 4.3 Ballad, “The Satyr’s Advice to a Stock-Jobber, The Music by Mr. Handel,” anthologized in John Watts’s The Musical Miscellany, 1731 installment. de l’Epine, whose fortune enabled Pepusch to become financial independent and leave the patronage of the Duke of Chandos. See John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, vol. 5 (1776), 153-5. 293 Ramsay’s blunt, sarcastic, and downright ageist and sexist portrayal of the Bubble’s devastating impact on stock investors likely amused Handel. It may have even evoked personal memories of the speculative mania for the composer. In setting Ramsay’s text to music, Handel eschewed the learned or extravagant styles of his church and theater compositions, as might be expected for the popular genre, opting instead for the familiar style of English vernacular songs. The infectiously repetitive tune, with its catchy melody, symmetrical phrases, and regular cadences, complements the anapestic final feet of Ramsay’s lines. To add to the text’s satirical glee, Handel prolongs the last note of the penultimate phrase, creating a dramatic pause before delivering the final punchline of each verse. One such moment coincides with Satyr’s cynical and misogynistic advice: “Make free of the old Woman’s Coin / and purchase a sprightly young Whore,” underscoring Ramsay’s biting wit. While the ballad’s genteel presentation in Watts’s publication, with its finely engraved music and added flute obbligato, suggests a domestic setting, it is easy to imagine it also being sung by ballad hawkers in London’s streets or echoed by revelers in coffee houses and taverns. It is at least worth considering if this ballad imitated or was inspired by existing songs circulating in Exchange Alley. While Handel’s song did not appear in Watts’s publication until 1731, eleven years after the South Sea Bubble, the vernacular style of the music and the topicality of Ramsay’s text strongly suggest an earlier composition date. Watts typically selected songs with established popularity and enduring circulation for his Musical Miscellany, aiming to profit from well- known tunes by repackaging them for a well-to-do audience seeking home entertainment.93 Immediately after the bubble burst, Ramsay published several poems satirizing the South Sea Company, targeting the greed of Exchange Alley speculators and the disastrous consequences of speculation. These poems employed similar maritime and feminine metaphors to those found in 93 For the commercial and social incentives behind the emerging tradition of miscellany-style song books in early eighteenth-century Britain, see Alison Desimone, The Power of Pastiche: Musical Miscellany and the Creation of Cultural Identity in Early Eighteenth-Century London (2021). 294 “The Satyr’s Advice,” further supporting the idea that the song originated closer to the time of the financial crisis.94 Alongside Ramsay’s timely South Sea poems, financial speculation, the stock market, and corporate machinations became popular subjects for ballads. As we have seen, these bubble ballads, which set satirical verses like Ramsay’s to simple yet memorable tunes, circulated widely through performance and print media during the South Sea Bubble. While some have faded into obscurity, others continued to circulate. Reflecting the British public’s encounters with new financial innovations and institutions, these bubble ballads also belong to a broader category of economic ballads that predate the South Sea Bubble. For instance, Watts included a satirical song about the East India Company in his 1701 anthology, A Collection of the Choicest Songs & Dialogues. This song first appeared in the year the joint-stock company renewed its charter.95 While Handel’s canonical stature has elevated HWV 228 to the status of an “art song,” often considered one of his “English songs” alongside several solo chamber cantatas, its likely much humbler origins as a rowdy bubble ballad are worth remembering. However, this elevation of a South Sea ballad into the realm of art music repertoire is also a rare case. The study of eighteenth-century ballads has been divided between literary studies, focusing on textual analysis, and music studies, focusing on collecting ballad tunes as folk and folklore studies. While South Sea bubble ballads have attracted some attention in literary studies,96 few musicologists have taken them seriously. The music of these ballads has often been overlooked, perhaps due to the assumption that while a tune is necessary for a ballad, it is not necessarily original, interesting, or complex enough to warrant the same level of aesthetic scrutiny as original compositions intended for a more refined audience. 94 See Allan Ramsay, Poem on the south-sea / by Mr. Alexander Ramsay [i.e. Allan Ramsay]; to which is prefix’d, A familiar epistle to Anthony Hammond Esq., by a friend [i.e. G. Sewell] (1720). 95 “A Satyr or Ditty upon the Jarring of the Two East Indian C–––ys,” in Watts, A Collection of the Choicest Songs & Dialogues (1701), 136–37. See also Ian Barrow, The East India Company, 1600–1858: A Short History with Documents (Hackett, 2017), esp. 42–81. 96 For example, see Dianne Dugaw, “‘High Change in ‘Change Alley’: Popular Ballads and Emergent Capitalism in the Eighteenth Century” Eighteenth-Century Life 22, no. 2 (1998): 43–58. 295 Regarding South Sea bubble ballads specifically, Allison DeSimone, one of the few musicologists to acknowledge their presence in eighteenth-century musical life, echoes the common view of their aesthetic deficiency. She writes, “These bubble ballads are merely meant to convey information concerning contemporary crisis, rather than provide an aesthetic contribution to music.”97 This dismissal of these ballads as unworthy of musicological scrutiny aligns with an evolving eighteenth-century aesthetic regime. William Wordsworth, envisioning an improved urban soundscape, idealized a London experienced in silence, removed from the “babel din” and “roars” of street music, including especially “ballad singers.”98 This new aesthetic, emphasizing a sanitized urban sound culture, dismissed the ballad’s contribution to London’s eighteenth-century soundscape as lacking the refinement expected of art in polite society. Consequently, writers and literary elites continued to undervalue these ballads as noisy and trivial due to their association with lower-class public settings like alehouses and streets. This judgment reinforces the policing of the conceptual line between music and noise, famously dramatized in Hogarth’s “The Enraged Musician.” However, the song’s sonic aesthetic qualities—and how eighteenth-century contemporaries perceived them—were integral to the affective, symbolic, and imaginary experience of burgeoning financial capitalism in English society. To overlook an aesthetic analysis of these ballads would be to miss a crucial opportunity to explore the cultural dimensions of early financial capitalism’s impact on the English psyche. Despite DeSimone’s dismissal of these ballads as unworthy of further musicological analysis, her astute identification of them as vehicles of “information” prompts us to reconsider the eighteenth-century disdain for ballads as mere noise. In fact, it is precisely the “noisy” quality of these songs—understood not merely as a sensory disturbance but as a manifestation of informational excess and 97 DeSimone, The Power of Pastiche (2021), 126. 98 William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge September 3, 1802,” in The Poetical Works (Oxford University Press, 1959), 214. 296 randomness—that defines both their cultural perception and their productive process.99 This broadened sense of noise invites us to view the bubble ballads not only through the hawkers’ boisterous delivery, which amplified London’s soundscape, but also through their patchwork assemblage of recycled tunes and hastily printed song sheets. Their quick, wide, and mutable transmission—a process also marked by creative excess and randomness—rendered noise an experience associated with the ballads that was simultaneously physical, visual, and sonic. Thus, these “noisy” bubble ballads, mirroring the volatility of stock prices and the fluid intermingling of social classes, encapsulated the economic zeitgeist of speculative fervor—underscoring unpredictability and flux as hallmarks of the South Sea crisis as a historical experience. The study of bubble ballads not only reveals the fluid boundaries between noise and music but also challenges how we approach the South Sea crisis as a historical phenomenon. Literary scholarship has explored the connections between eighteenth-century print culture and the emerging financial economy, often identifying a symbolic continuum between literary forms and the logic of value in the emerging stock and credit markets. This has become the signature move of New Economic Criticism: identifying literature as a reflection of this continuum and discovering hidden themes ranging from narratives of uncertainty and symbolic trust to authorship as literary credit and editions as risk management.100 However, the duality of bubble ballads as both music and noise also highlights how their informational and sensorial aspects were intertwined, suggesting that understanding their full impact involves more than just decoding their textual content. The sonic aesthetics of the bubble ballads offer valuable insights into the experience of the 1720 financial crisis, as they not only conveyed information but also 99 For noise as randomness, see also Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, (Little, Brown Spark, 2021). 100 The concept of paper credit, which includes banknotes and bills of exchange, revolutionized the financial landscape of the eighteenth century. As Sandra Sherman argues, paper credit introduced new notions of trust and risk that were mirrored in the literary forms of the time. Authors like Daniel Defoe used the language and logic of credit to structure their narratives, creating stories that reflect the speculative nature of the financial market. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, for instance, can be read as an allegory of credit and economic self-fashioning. See Sandra Sherman, Finance and Fictionality in the Early Eighteenth Century: Accounting for Defoe (Cambridge University Press, 1996). 297 evoked emotional responses through their tunes. The shifting tunes of Ward’s “Prophetick Ballad,” set to the same words, exemplify this, indicating that the informational processing of these economic narratives was not just about decoding text, and that the financial market’s volatility was experienced as a sensorial phenomenon as well. Moreover, the aesthetics of the ballad extend beyond its music to its medium, a dimension often overlooked by semiotic interpretations. The paper medium itself reveals the unreliability of purely symbolic text. Just as a stock’s printed value rarely matches its market value, the ballad’s meaning also shifts with its changing media context. This divergence between nominal and real values underscores the instability of the financial market during the Bubble, where seeing was not always believing, and “intrinsick” value was displaced by “imagined” value, as Archibald Hutcheson described during the South Sea mania.101 In his popular pamphlets published during the speculative frenzy of early 1720, Hutcheson predicted the market’s fall. He described the market as gripped by “the Madness by which the imaginary Value of South-Sea stock has been raised to the present Height,” and demonstrated how the price of South Sea stock was backed by neither concrete evidence of trade nor honest calculation of the nation’s public credit. “I verily believe,” wrote Hutcheson, “there is no real Foundation for the present, much less for the further expected, high Price of South-Sea stock.”102 Hutcheson emphasized the destabilizing effect of paper instruments on the market, writing that “we may put what Value we please upon our Paper, and raise it; but we cannot hope always to make it pass with the Nations with whom we have trade and Commerce, for more than its intrinsick worth,” implying that financial value on paper is abstracted from the economic activities that generate it, and subject to both textual and numerical manipulation.103 101 Hutcheson’s early 1720 publications included Some Computations Relating to the Proposed Transferring of Eighteen Millions of the Fund of the South Sea Company, to the Bank, and East-India Company (1720); An abstract shewing the loss to the new subscribers to the South-Sea stock, at the several prices following (1720); much of the material in these pamphlets he would recapitulate in the compilation, A Collection of Calculations and Remarks relating to the South Sea Scheme & Stock (1720). 102 Hutcheson, A Collection, 8. 103 Hutcheson, A Collection, 63. 298 The disappearance of “intrinsick value” reveals the unreliability of the symbolic, highlighting finance’s power to abstract values from real economic activities and detach the market’s symbolic exchange from tangible economic realities. While symbolic value falls short of capturing the market’s essence, the affective resonance of ballad tunes and the tangible materiality of song sheets—conveyed through their wide circulation, topical flexibility, and noisy dissemination—become vital traces of the financial crisis. They simultaneously render the epistemic fragility of the crisis’s economic foundations into a tangible metaphor—one not only visible and palpable but also audible. This fragility, as Hutcheson recognized, foreshadows a threatening prospect: a new financial regime that disrupts the political and economic status quo—a threat to property, value, and commerce—leading to chaos and uncertainty. In the next chapter, I will shift focus from bubble ballads as a source of market noise to examining how this noise reflected and shaped economic behaviors—how individuals confronted informational excess and randomness. I will explore how contemporaries of the South Sea Bubble managed to navigate—or rather, auscultate—a market environment teeming with “noise,” aided and abetted by its musical accomplices. 299 5. BUBBLE PLAYS FUNGIBLE MUSIC The transformation of Ned Ward’s “Prophetick Ballad” from pre-crash prediction to post-crash satire exemplifies ballad-makers’ characteristic manipulation of the genre’s versatile elements to create new meanings and stimulate fresh interpretations. During the South Sea Bubble, Ward’s ballad, with its movable media and malleable meanings, proves to be an exceptional conduit for capturing market flux through the pairing of new melodies with old texts, thus re-calibrating its rhetorical effect to mirror shifting economic sentiment. However, this is but one aspect of the complex interplay between music and text in bubble ballads. Equally crucial was the balladeers’ ingenuity in combining existing tunes with new lyrics, exploiting the music’s established resonance to spark varied interpretations of its latest version, and by extension, of the South Sea market’s current state. The remarkable versatility of music within bubble ballads’ multimedia production is strikingly evident in this double-billed broadside, “The Sailor’s Complaint / The Debtor’s Welcome to Their Brother.” This rare example (Figure 5.1) showcases a ballad’s evolving meaning through an existing melody. The song sheet is designed to accommodate these two sets of lyrics, both intended to be sung to the same tune, which is notated at the top. “The Sailor’s Complaint,” located in the upper segment, narrates the lament of a sailor returning from sea to discover his lover’s betrayal. Below, “The Debtor’s Welcome to their Brother,” indicated as “Sung to the Same Tune,” voices a common hardship caused by the South Sea Bubble, where squandered fortunes led many into debt. The melody serves as a binding agent, merging the two distinct themes of seafaring melancholy and financial woes into a singular poetic expression simultaneously shaped by the shared song. 300 Figure 5.1 Ballad “The Sailor’s Complaint / The Debtor’s Welcome to Their Brother.” Source: BL, G307, f. 34. 301 Both texts, adhering to the rhythmic structure of 8-7 couplets, are matched by a regularly accentuated trochaic tune reminiscent of a stylized short-haul shanty.1 The melody, attributed to Handel, exemplifies the particular allure that nautical themes held for musicians of the time.2 The close connection between nautical exploration and the mercantile ambitions of British trading companies likely accounts for the popularity of sea shanties and nautical-themed songs as musical staples among bubble ballads. In this double-billed ballad, we see maritime grit and pecuniary whimsy paired as thematic counterparts. Another bubble ballad, “South Sea Whim” by Arthur Maynwaring, briefly discussed in Chapter 2, also serves as an example of how balladeers wove narratives that intertwined finance and maritime adventure. As a Whig critique of the nascent South Sea Company, the ballad employs the experiences of sailors aboard merchant ships—navigating both the literal storms of the sea and the figurative storms of social adversity—as a vivid metaphor for the precarious nature of the South Sea scheme. It opens by summoning the gullible stock traders to confront the harsh realities of maritime life, realities upon which their precarious investments were built yet remained obscured by the informational echo chambers of the Exchange Alley: To you fair Traders now a Shore, We South Sea Gullies write, Your kind Compassion to implore, This Ditty we indite; Pity your Brethren on the Main, Compell’d to change our Course in vain.3 1 The melody can be analyzed as beginning with two bars of the shantyman’s call, an improvisation centered on the tonic note, followed by a two-bar response from the crew. This response features a descending scale, mimicking the coordinated effort of hoisting sails, with rhythmic accents mirroring the sailors’ synchronized movements. This cadential pattern reflects the cyclical nature of muscle contraction and relaxation, effectively capturing the physicality of nautical tasks. Shanties are rhythmic work songs designed to increase productivity. They were used on merchant ships to coordinate labor. Meters such as 3/4 and 6/8 were common in shanties for tasks like hoisting sails, featuring two bars of a call from the shantyman followed by two bars of response from the crew, with two strong accents per chorus. Shanties often follow a call-and-response structure led by a shantyman, whose phrases guide the crew’s movements. This antiphonal practice, with a lead shantyman and a responsive crew, originated with Black Southern and Caribbean slaves, workers, and sailors. See William Saunders, “Sailor Songs and Songs of the Sea,” The Musical Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1928): 339–57 and Harold Whates, “The Background of Sea Shanties,” Music & Letters 18, no. 3 (1937): 259–64. 2 John Watts, The Musical Miscellany, vol. 4 (1730), 54. 3 Arthur Maynwaring, “The South Sea Whim” (1711). 302 As the ballad unfolds, Maynwaring describes the myriad challenges faced at sea: navigating treacherous waters, protecting cargo from harsh weather, seeking exotic goods, and battling scurvy. He paints a picture of a “motley crew” comprised of debtors, soldiers, and traders— individuals driven to the sea by dire circumstances. These individuals embark on perilous voyages, only to find themselves further ensnared in debt, necessitating even more arduous journeys to salvage their financial standing.4 Within this elaborate maritime analogy, Maynwaring subtly reveals that these characters are metaphorical projections of the speculators of Exchange Alley. He juxtaposes seafaring life with financial imagery, such as the “scurvy letters ‘R’ and ‘Q’” found in financial documents, to draw a parallel between the sailors’ affliction and the disease of corrupt accounts undermining the financial market’s integrity.5 Thus, the Exchange Alley “motley crew” comes to mirror their seafaring counterparts in vulnerability and uncertainty, navigating the treacherous waters of stock market, their futures precariously “bullied ashore.” Maynwaring’s ballad, set to the tune of “To you Fair Ladies now at Land,” intertwines a sailor’s longing for economic independence with a critique of the South Sea scheme. This thematic juxtaposition, akin to “The Sailor’s Complaint / The Debtor’s Welcome to Their Brother,” evokes a financially inflected imagination that invites listeners to reconsider England’s growing economic bubble. It poignantly connects the speculative fervor of Exchange Alley with the precarious endeavors of transatlantic trade, offering a new imaginary framework for understanding the risks and rewards associated with the South Sea scheme. In the double-billed ballad, the South Sea Scheme can be inferred both as a reckless venture that sends explorers out in flimsy ships and as a scheme that attempts to buoy the English credit economy on de- securitized debts. Instead of ironclad armadas guaranteeing trade profits, the music evokes the 4 "To fetch the Navy Pitch and Tar, / We past the Stormy Sound; / But now our Debts postpon’d so far, / We must take t’other Round.” 5 “Two Scurvy Letters R, and Q, / Did long the Sea infect, / Made some dispute and prove their Due, / But still they paid the rest.” 303 image of rickety merchant vessels adrift on the unpredictable South Sea; instead of sovereign gold, the lament conjures the uncertainty surrounding paper assets and their potential for financial ruin. While Mainwaring’s “South Sea Whim” hints at a symbolic critique of the stock market, Handel’s imitation shanty conjures the specter of bodily labor into the soundscape of Exchange Alley, which had been abstracted, erased, and forgotten, partly due to the South Sea Company’s deliberate campaign to isolate the speculative market discursively from the harsh realities of the Atlantic economy—in order, of course, to maintain market confidence.6 As the nautical tune transitioned from work songs to metaphors for financial speculation, this shift reflects the market’s abstraction of labor and risk into speculative fantasies—a detachment from the tangible dangers of sea voyages to the abstract calculus of risk and reward in the speculative economy. The tune of “The Sailor’s Complaint / The Debtor’s Welcome to Their Brother” also exemplifies the versatility of music within the circulatory network of bubble ballads. Ballad tunes’ adaptability provided fertile ground for creative expressions that linked the volatile nature of financial markets with the English fascination for speculative investments. These bubble ballads, through their symbiotic relationship with market events, not only reflected but also became a tool for interpreting and understanding the fluctuations of market values. In this case, the interchangeability connects the Atlantic trade offshore to the financial market on English shores, while simultaneously obscuring the harsh labor realities of the Middle Passage. This very fungibility of the music becomes an exercise in abstraction, mirroring the financial market’s capacity to distill economic realities into fictitious values. Relying on their interchangeable components and thriving on shifting meanings, these ballads embodied the era’s uncertainties and the constant reevaluation of economic value. Through their genre- specific tactics of parody and allusion, with music acting as the pivotal hinge for meaning- 6 See Chapter 1, also see Carl Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620- 1720 (Harvard University Press, 2011), 161-196. 304 making, they not only reflected but shaped perceptions of the financial market, revealing it as a hermeneutic field open to interpretation and reinterpretation. ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY AS HERMENEUTIC INDETERMINACY Jonathan Swift has often been credited as the one who popularized the usage of “bubble” as an economic metaphor, which he indeed deployed in a poem published in December 1720. A narrative retrospection on the South Sea scheme’s rise and fall, Swift’s Bubble: A Poem culminates as follows: The nation then too late will find, Computing all their cost and trouble, Directors’ promises but wind, South Sea, at best, a mighty bubble.7 While Swift’s jeremiad about the financial delusion may be the best-known literary work to introduce the newfangled market jargon, it was Thomas D’Urfey who gave “bubble” a musical shape through a ballad called “The Hubble Bubbles” (see Figure 5.2a). D’Urfey, like Swift, also employs the imagery of “bubble” to depict the South Sea scheme as a fraudulent enterprise while underscoring the fantastical nature of the inflated paper wealth devoid of material fundamentals. D’Urfey’s titular analogy likens the South Sea Company to a hubble bubble, an enchanted hookah pipe that magically vaporizes tangible properties (“Woods,” “houses,” “lands,” “pastures,” “flocks”) into smoldering nothingness. Furthermore, D’Urfey depicts the financial scheme devised by South Sea financiers as confounding and abstruse, as if shrouding the market in smoke. In its poignant closing verse, D’Urfey powerfully conveys the incendiary effects of the South Sea meltdown: A Bubble is blown up with Air, In which fine Prospects do appear, The Bubble breaks the Prospect’s lost, 7 Jonathan Swift, The Works of Jonathan Swift, vol. 4 (J. Williams, 1774). 305 Yet must some Bubble pay the cost, Hubble bubble, bubble hubble all is smoak, Bubble hubble, hubble bubble all is broke, Farewell your Woods, your Houses, Lands, Your Pastures and your Flocks, For now you have nought but yourselves in the Stocks Figure 5.2 Thomas D’Urfey’s The Hubble Bubbles presented in two different print iterations: a) Engraved song sheet. Source: HBL, Kress Library, 3199; b) Black-letter broadsheet. Source: BL, 74/1876.f.1. 306 Here, D’Urfey deftly contrasts the old economic order of landed wealth with the new financial allure of paper riches. In the climactic verse, as the stock market transforms solid assets into mere vapor, the ballad’s language mirrors this dissolution. The refrain’s rapid plosives, “hubble bubble bubble hubble,” multiply themselves into the contraction “hubbub,” capturing the market frenzy as a clamorous uproar that belies its inherent lack of substance. The stark contrast of phonetic richness and semantic paucity brings about the ballad’s core message: the South Sea stock turned out to be no more than a frothy profusion of bursting bubbles. This imagery was vividly reinforced in a blackletter reprint of the ballad (Figure 5.2b), adorned by an illustration of a well-dressed South Sea director nonchalantly blowing bubbles, even as one foot is shackled in stocks, both a topical pun and a powerful visual metaphor that captures the English public’s indictment of the venture’s speculative recklessness as a form of criminal folly. The imagery also foreshadows what Henry Fielding would later term “the famous art call’d puffing,” which likens the smokescreen of false advertising and financial scheming to a literal haze of smoke, reinforcing the association of smoke with the chicanery of groundless promotion masquerading as news and facts.8 D’Urfey set his “Hubble Bubbles” to the melody of “O’er the Hills and Far Away,” a tune from his earlier work that had already found favor before the market’s upheaval (Example 5.1). This earlier piece, featured in his 1706 collection, tells the story of a young couple ensnared in a tale of unrequited love. Jocky, a piper’s son, is besotted with Jenny, whose beauty captivates him, only to be forsaken by her fickleness. Left in despair, Jocky’s poignant reflections on his lost love serve as the ballad’s refrain, a musical farewell to love, with its initial verse lending the ballad its renowned name.9 The tune’s hypnotic quality and cyclical form match the mantra-like text. The absence of ^7 in the melody gives it a modal feel. Each of its first three phrases begins 8 Henry Fielding and James Ralph. The Champion: Containing A Series of Papers, Humourous, Moral, Political and Critical: To Each of Which Is Added, A Proper Index to the Times (J. Huggonson, 1741), 322. 9 “And it’s over the hills, and far away, / Over the hills, and far away, / Over the hills, and far away, / The wind has blawn my plaid away.” 307 with the same circular melodic motion around the keynote but strives, albeit in vain, to escape to different pitches (^6, ^2, and then ^4), as if depicting the forlorn Jocky’s fruitless search for lost love in wrong places. The final cadence, a downward skip of a third from ^4 to ^2, evades the keynote altogether, providing both a ponderous ending and a segue into the next verse, As a result, the ballad’s endless and nearly deranged musical meandering aptly portrays Jocky’s overwhelming grief and grievance. Perhaps D’Urfey thought this psychological profile of the original song suited the despair of South Sea investors facing financial ruin after their failed attempts at courting fortune’s favor. As D’Urfey exchanged the piper’s lament for the investors’ sorrow, “Hubble Bubble all is lost” supplanted “O’er the Hills and Far Away” as the popular refrain in the wake of the financial crisis. Although the affective affinities might suffice to explain D’Urfey’s choice to adapt the melody for his bubble ballad, the tune’s previous circulation and the layers of meaning it had accrued played a significant role in its resurgence during the financial unrest of 1720. Example 5.1 Thomas D’Urfey, “Jockey’s Lamentation,” from Wit and Mirth: Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 (1706). While commonly credited to D’Urfey, the origins of “O’er the Hills and Far Away” trace 308 back to a Scottish melody that was later adapted and gained popularity in England.10 Its distinct Scottish character, underscored by its pentatonic melody, endowed the tune with a Jacobite undertone, resonating with political significance during a period when plots for the restoration of a Catholic Stuart king posed a pervasive threat to the stability of the nascent but fragile United Kingdom. By the time of the South Sea crisis, “O’er the Hills and Far Away” had already become a versatile musical device embroiled in both Jacobite and anti-Jacobite propaganda. Its political multivalence began with George Farquhar’s 1706 comedy, The Recruiting Officer, where it was transformed from a Scottish folk tune tinged with Jacobite melancholy into an English government recruitment anthem, paradoxically rallying support against the Jacobites and their continental Catholic allies.11 This shift allowed the song to be embraced by opposing 10 Although often attributed to D’Urfey, the origin of the tune “O’er the Hills and Far Away” is likely a Scottish song that was later adapted and popularized in England. ⁠ D’Urfey’s poem also contains linguistic references to Scots such as the description of Jocky as a “bonnie lad.” Musically, D’Urfey’s contemporaries would also have recognized the tune’s ethnic origin. The first phrase of the refrain, a circular melodic motion (^1-^2-^3-^2-^1) around the keynote followed by a cadence on the fifth (^6-^5), has a distinctively pentatonic profile.⁠ The last cadence—the downward skip of a third—was also characteristic of “Scottish melodies.” These typical features of Scottish folk music made it particularly popular among the Jacobites. During the 1745 rebellion, the song’s refrain would be translated into Gaelic and appear as the concluding line of a popular Jacobite lament “Mo ghile mear.” See Jamie Johnson, Scots Musical Museum, vol. 1 (J. Johnson & Co., 1787), 62-63 (original source: Henry Atkinson’s MS tune book, 1694) and John Glen, Early Scottish Melodies, vol. 1 (1900), preface. 11 In George Farquhar’s popular comedy of 1706, The Recruiting Officer, D’Urfey’s music was adopted as the government recruitment song. The original lament’s deranged refrain was transformed into a spirited call-to-arms against not only the Jacobites but also all Catholic enemies throughout Europe: “Over the hills and o’er the main / To Flanders, Portugal and Spain, / Queen Anne commands and we’ll obey, / Over the hills and far away.” Farquhar’s comedy, set during the War of the Spanish Succession, serves as a timely reminder of the real threat posed by the Jacobites. In 1708, the French devised an “enterprise d’écosse,” a plan to land thousands of soldiers in Scotland to restore James Francis Edward Stuart, the “Old Pretender,” to the British throne. Given the political and military context of the play, the tune became a reminder of the Jacobite threat. However, it is unclear whether Farquhar intended to assign a positive or negative political valence to the tune. On one hand, the Scottish-sounding melody, now ironically used as a recruitment song for the Hanoverian regime, could be an example of forceful cultural appropriation, which itself signifies the triumphant patriotism of a Protestant Georgian England. On the other hand, the song’s rustic aesthetic could serve as a sentimental foil to Hanoverian martial propaganda, thematizing a central plot of the play concerning a soldier’s quandary between an idyllic rural life at home and the brutal war abroad. Therefore, the tune could also be heard against its rousing verses that advertise the grand adventures of an army man. All in all, the tune perhaps obfuscates more than it elucidates the song’s political meaning, as it enacts alternate meanings inspired by the music’s past circulation, ranging from musical conquest, through cultural appropriation, to satirical disarmament, which perhaps even harbors the playwright’s hidden sympathy for the Jacobites.⁠ See also Kevin J. Gardner, “George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer: Warfare, Conscription, and the Disarming of Anxiety,” Eighteenth- Century Life 25/3 (Fall 2001): 48-49. 309 political factions, with the anti-Jacobite Whigs and Jacobite-sympathizing Tories each playing off the Jacobite resonance of the tune. The song’s adaptability was evident when Tories celebrated the exiled King James VII’s birthday with it in 1709, and Whigs later used it in 1711 to criticize Queen Anne’s military strategies during the War of the Spanish Succession.12 These competing interpretations of the melody are indicative of the divisions within both the audience and the creators who engaged with it, each side attempting to claim the tune as a symbol for their causes in the polarized media space of propaganda prints. The lasting appeal of “O’er the Hills and Far Away” attests to the tune’s exceptional adaptability, reflecting its capacity to undergo reinterpretation across divergent contexts, sometimes contrasting with its original spirit. This flexibility, a hallmark of early modern ballads, allows for a rich palimpsest of meanings, giving every iteration of the ballad—or a contrafactum—a new layer of ambiguity and fostering an ever-deeper reservoir of interpretive possibilities. Ballad scholar David Atkinson has highlighted this phenomenon, describing it as a “combination of continuity and instability in ballad hermeneutics.”13 And it was precisely this inherent instability of meaning within the ballad that rendered it an ideal medium for the cryptic communications of the Jacobite movement.14 This strategic ambiguity enabled the ballad’s purveyors to shape public opinion without directly implicating themselves in a politically charged atmosphere. As historian Murray Pittock aptly put it, this approach allowed them “to simultaneously confirm and evade political allegiance and commitment,” capitalizing on the ballad’s strategic ambiguity to navigate Britain’s precarious mediascape of partisan politics.15 12 “If rogues his father did betray, / What’s that to him that’s far away? / The wind may change and fairly blaw, / And blaw him back that’s blown awa’.” Jacobite drinking song celebrating James VII’s birthday (1709). “No more from sound of drums retreat, / While Marlborough and Galway beat, / The French and Spaniards every day, / When o’er the hills and far away.” Whig critique of Queen Anne’s and Duke of Marlborough’s military strategies during the War of the Spanish Succession (1711). 13 David Atkinson, The English Traditional Ballad: Theory Method and Practice (Routledge, 2002), 145. 14 See Murray Pittock, Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 1994), esp. 59-73. 15 Pittock, Poetry and Jacobite Politics, 106. 310 As such, Thomas D’Urfey’s decision to repurpose his Jacobite-inflected tune in a bubble ballad was far from coincidental. Throughout the volatile year of 1720, Jacobite activities, both real and rumored, and market fluctuations were tightly linked. Any news related to the Jacobites had the power to shift the market. For instance, in June 1719, a British victory over Jacobite forces at Glen Shiel led to a 14% surge in South Sea share prices.16 Conversely, in January 1720, rumors of a Jacobite uprising in Scotland caused South Sea shares to plummet nearly 10% in a single day.17 The market’s sensitivity to Jacobite threats illustrates the inherent nervousness of the speculative environments surrounding South Sea stock and the extent to which partisan politics influenced financial behavior. During the crisis, perceptions of Jacobitism and market dynamics were intertwined. In the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble’s collapse, Mist’s Weekly, with its Jacobite leanings, drew a vivid comparison between the chaos engulfing society and the legendary siege of Troy, casting the Whig financiers in the role of the Greek besiegers. The publication depicted a scene of utter disarray and despair akin to the Trojan’s horror as they faced the Greek forces: “Such Confusion, Despair, and Amazement, attend the Downfal of South Sea, that they look on one another as the Trojans did, when the Power of Greece firsts at down before their City.”18 Furthermore, it portrayed Tory Britain as a beleaguered realm, suggesting that the financial machinations of the Whigs were as deceitful and destructive as the Trojan horse, insinuating a betrayal from within. Just as such partisan reporting in newspapers could stoke the fires of speculative 16 John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (Stanford University Press, 1960), 90. 17 The Daily Post, Feb 16, 1720. For price data, see YSM SSC Price Database. Despite the undeniable influence of the Jacobite insurgency on the English capital market, the market’s response to the rebels’ military and political actions was largely speculative. This speculation was fueled by the saturated information in the print media, which transformed fragmented pieces of information into seemingly causal narratives. For instance, the February 15 issue of the Daily Courant juxtaposed reports of a Jacobite attempt at a Russian-backed Stuart restoration with closing prices of major joint-stock companies. This deliberate editorial choice to present Jacobite news alongside South Sea stock trends was typical of the time, exemplifying the role of the press in shaping market sentiment and prompting public reaction. See John Wells, “Revolution, Restoration, and Debt Repudiation: The Jacobite Threat to England’s Institutions and Economic Growth,” The Journal of Economic History 60/2 (2000): 418-441. 18 A Collection of Miscellany Letters Selected out of Mist’s Weekly Journal (1722), 11. 311 imagination, D’Urfey’s adaptation of “O’er the Hills and Far Away” had the power to unleash a multitude of compelling but divergent interpretations of British market and society amidst the market rout, transforming the song from a simple mirror of market sentiment into a catalyst for ongoing speculation. Among the ballad’s rich Jacobite allusions woven through both its music and lyrics, three particular instances stand out, each blending British politics with the financial market. D’Urfey’s line, “Ye Scotch men who love Laws so well,” alludes to John Law, the Scottish financier responsible for France’s Mississippi Bubble. Law’s ill-fated introduction of paper credit in France served as the blueprint for Robert Harley’s creation of the South Sea Company. Through this reference, D’Urfey’s ballad insinuates the company’s Tory origins and its potential Jacobite affiliations, casting Law as a cunning architect whose dealings, possibly in collusion with Jacobite exiles in France, had significant repercussions for England’s financial turmoil.19 In D’Urfey’s final stanza, his richly detailed portrayal of the erosion of tangible wealth vaporized by financial machination echoes broader concerns among the landed gentry over the displacement of their property and prosperity. During the Bubble, Archibald Hutcheson, a Tory MP with Jacobite sympathies, emerged as a prominent critic of the South Sea scheme through this lens.20 Through a series of pamphlets, Hutcheson sought not only to analyze the actuarial flaws of the South Sea scheme but also to advocate his own solution to the national debt crisis through taxation rather than speculative credit, thereby launching a defense of traditional, land- based economic order against the speculative ventures.21 Behind D’Urfey’s text, the tune “O’er the Hills and Far Away," thanks to its ongoing associations with Jacobite sentiments, inevitably took on a more ominous resonance in the wake 19 John Shovlin, “Jealousy of Credit,” The Journal of Modern History 88, no. 2 (2016): 275-305. 20 Shovlin, “Jealousy of Credit,” 93; see also Eveline Cruickshanks, “Lord Cowper, Lord Orrery, the Duke of Wharton and Jacobitism,” Albion 26, no. 1 (1994): 27-40. 21 See Helen Paul, “Archibald Hutcheson’s Reputation as an Economic Thinker: His Pamphlets, the National Debt and the South Sea Bubble” The Journal of the Economic & Business Historical Society 30 (2012): 93-104. 312 of the South Sea Bubble’s burst. The market collapse opened a new front in the challenge of Hanoverian rule. Reflecting on the United Kingdom’s precarious gamble with “faithless Sea and Wind,” D’Urfey’s ballad echoed George Berkeley’s bleak forecast of the union’s demise as “venal, corrupt, injurious,” attracting “the hatred of God and man.”22 For the Jacobites, this moment became a window for political upheaval. Daniel Defoe, once an advocate of the South Sea scheme now turned critic, bitterly noted that the financial debacle could lead to “a transfer of King George and his Crown for a half per Cent,” highlighting the interplay between financial instability and the potential for regime change.23 These Jacobite undertones in D’Urfey’s ballad, while not mutually exclusive, would have resonated differently with listeners based on their personal interests, political affiliations, and market awareness. On the one hand, ministerial Whigs, particularly those in Walpole’s circle who once admired John Law’s public credit system in France, would have especially taken note of D’Urfey’s reference to Law, as they became increasingly concerned about the influence of foreign investments through the South Sea scheme. As D’Urfey’s ballad circulated, rumors abounded that Law and other French investors intended to collectively withdraw their South Sea stock, posing a significant threat to the stability of English stocks—a scenario that the Whig Earl of Bath, William Pulteney, warned could be overwhelming for the English markets.24 In Parliament, Bath stressed the national susceptibility to such foreign strategies, advocating for a parliamentary consultation with London’s financial experts to fend off such economic sabotage.25 Through its invocation of a Jacobite anthem, D’Urfey’s ballad underscored the 22 George Berkeley, Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain (1721). 23 Daniel Defoe, The Anatomy of Exchange-Alley (1720). 24 NA SP 78/166, April 11, 1720, cited in John Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy: Britain, France, and the 18th-Century Quest for a Peaceful World Order (Yale University Press, 2021), 131. 25 Ibid. Believing that the French and French-backed Jacobites in exile might “make such a strong and sudden push on our stocks as we may not be able to stand,” Bath, in a Parliamentary speech, urged South Sea directors to consult London’s financiers and traders in order “to prevent ourselves being destroyed by our enemies with our own arms.” Cited also in Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy: Britain, France, and the 18th-Century Quest for a Peaceful World Order (Yale University, 2021), 131. 313 Ministerial Whigs’ fears about the nation’s economic security, manifested in the market’s vulnerability to foreign speculation, drawing a parallel to the threat of a Catholic Jacobite insurrection against Britain. On the other hand, Tory landowners would have particularly identified with Archibald Hutcheson’s critical perspective on the South Sea scheme conjured by the ballad. While Whigs aligned with the Hanoverian regime were motivated to reduce the government’s fiscal load through policies that placed the national debt under public ownership, Jacobite-leaning Tories— many of whom were substantial creditors to the nation—preferred to preserve the status quo, a conservatism aimed at safeguarding their asset liquidity via annuity interests.26 Furthermore, for the Jacobites, settling the national debt quickly would be counterproductive prior to the Stuart restoration they conspired towards, which might, after all, nullify these financial obligations. Therefore, paradoxically, the wistful tone of D’Urfey’s ballad, mourning the loss of a bygone economic era, could have also hinted at the possibility of a reversion to that past under a Jacobite-led political shift. As the South Sea Bubble burst, Jacobites saw an opportunity for rebellion, while Tory officials, now marginalized by the Whig ascendancy under Robert Walpole, saw a chance to regain power. Discussions of a coup d’état in collaboration with the Jacobites began to circulate openly. Robert Harley, a decade removed from his role in establishing the South Sea Company and now overshadowed by Whig financiers, was frail but buoyed by assurances from friends and family that he was destined to rescue the nation. “If it pleases divine providence yet to spare this sinful nation,” his nephew penned, “may you be the chosen instrument under divine guidance.”27 However, it was Francis Atterbury, the Tory Bishop of Rochester, who took a leading role in the impending Jacobite rebellion of 1721, having publicly blamed the Whig 26 See Helen Paul, “Archibald Hutcheson’s Reputation as an Economic Thinker: His Pamphlets, the National Debt and the South Sea Bubble” The Journal of the Economic & Business Historical Society 30 (2012): 93-104. 27 Carswell, The South Sea Bubble, 109. 314 government for the financial crisis and the ensuing collapse of public credit. Against this backdrop, D’Urfey’s ballad, reincarnating the tune’s past life as a Jacobite anthem, inadvertently reclaimed its historical significance as a rallying cry amidst the financial turmoil, reviving its role as a symbol of political and economic dissent.28 Admittedly, the possibilities for interpreting D’Urfey’s integration of a Jacobite tune into his bubble ballad are nearly infinite, as befits the genre’s inherent indeterminacy. By underscoring these three interpretations—and identifying their respective audiences and the increasing concern over economic security—I aim to demonstrate how the ballad can reveal patterns of speculation that unfolded during the South Sea crisis. In the wake of the 1720 market crash, English reflections on the bubble economy teemed with accusations of folly, as satirical works painted speculators as figures of greed and irrationality. For example, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, who penned the famous libertarian tract Cato’s Letters, summarized the financial mania as reflecting “the little power that reason and truth have over the passions of men,” suggesting that the Bubble was not just a financial but also an intellectual debacle, showcasing the triumph of passion over reason—a view that would foreshadow latter-day writers who often cited the crash as a case study in market irrationality.29 Traditional economic dogma teaches us the efficient market hypothesis: or that market prices fully reflect all available information.30 However, history and the present have 28 Harry Dickinson, “The Atterbury Plot” The Scottish Historical Review 85, no. 22 (2006): 358-360. 29 Trenchard and Gordon, Cato’s Letters (1720), 55. Similarly, Dutch printmakers produced popular compilations of ballads, cartoons, and broadsides, collectively known as Het Groote Tafereel Der Dwaasheid, or “the great mirror of folly,” which centered on the allegation that investors had opted for passion over reason. Folly continued to feature prominently in later reckonings on the Bubble, with historians such as George Carswell, John Galbraith and Charles Mackay using the 1720 crisis as the archetype of market irrationality in modern economic history. Additionally, Mark Knights has observed that public discussion of political and social issues following the crash are characterized both by the appeal to reason and judgement and by concerns about the folly, gullibility and madness of the seemingly enlightened public, but the latter emerged as a more enduring narrative. One commentator wrote, “weak and unthinking Part of Mankind are commonly dazzled with Shew, easily impos’d upon by a View of vast Profit.” And another declared: “The poor English Nation runs a madding after new Inventions, Whims, and Projects; so easie and unwary are abundance of People, that they are daily trapp’d.” See Mark Knight, The Devil in Disguise: Deception, Delusion, and Fanaticism in the Early English Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2011). 30 Eugene F. Fama, “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work,” The Journal of 315 propelled us—finance scholars and practitioners—to come to grips with the ever-existing wide gulf between human behavior on one hand and an efficient market on the other. The source of the gulf is how the human processing of such information that results in the presence of rational individuals (their information process and calculus) can lead to the aggregate result of irrational pricing in the market. And this behavioral turn also influenced how we view the 1720 crisis. Recent scholarship has shifted from viewing the 1720 crisis as a mere product of irrationality. Contemporary analysis, influenced by the “behavioral turn” in economics, examines the interplay of social, political, and cultural influences, alongside individual decision-making processes, to offer an understanding of the financial crisis on a more granular level.31 And this behavioral turn has also influenced how we view the 1720 crisis, shifting, in recent scholarship away from the notion that it was a mere product of irrationality. In particular, this includes introducing the concept of “bounded rationality” to capture a more historically accurate depiction of the speculative practices at the time, by accounting for the complex reality investors faced: a fledgling paper economy laden with information asymmetry and new-fangled financial concepts, leading to economic decisions that were, to quote historian Julian Hoppit, “rooted partly in reality and partly in the imagination.”32 Bounded rationality forms the bedrock of behavioral economic heuristics, guiding individuals to Finance 25, no. 2 (1970): 383–417. 31 See Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Riding the South Sea Bubble,” The American Economic Review 94, no. 5 (2004): 1654–68; William Deringer, “For What It’s Worth: Historical Financial Bubbles and the Boundaries of Economic Rationality,” Isis 106, no. 3 (2015): 646–56; Koji Yamamoto, “Beyond Rational vs Irrational Bubbles: James Brydges the First Duke of Chandos During the South Sea Bubble,” in Le Crisi Finanziarie: Gestione, Implicazioni Sociali e Conseguenze Nell’Età Preindustriale, ed. Giampiero Nigro (Firenze University Press, 2016), 327–57. 32 Julian Hoppit, “The Myths of the South Sea Bubble,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002): 141. Despite bounded rationality’s semantic attachment to rational choice theory, it is perhaps more productively understood as a critique of human cognitive capacity in the domain of decision- making. By eschewing the perfect market model, it opens the discourse about economic decision-making to factors previously considered “exogenous,” such as the countervailing impact of various non-economic incentives and inducements (e.g., political advantage, cultural influence, and social advance). It also serves to legitimate descriptive and quantitative analyses in economic scholarship, paving the way for meaningful interdisciplinary dialogues. See Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit, 83-122, 161-234; Deringer, “For What It’s Worth,” 646-56. See also Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (Little, Brown Spark, 2021). 316 employ associative and intuitive reasoning. This approach leverages whatever information is at hand for its anchoring effect, enabling one to negotiate a noisy market, awash with informational excess. Economic historians William Deringer and Koji Yamamoto have recently illuminated the reliance of South Sea investors on both public print media and private letters to gain insights into the crisis—and to update their heuristics for interpreting market trends and devising investment strategies. Deringer and Yamamoto challenge the older view of South Sea investors as irrational actors, instead suggesting their behavior was rational within the constraints of limited information and information processing capabilities. Yamamoto points out that the bounded rationality of South Sea crisis investors was further influenced by biases within their social and professional networks. This led to the formation of subgroups, each with its own shared beliefs and investment strategies, with members perceiving their own actions as rational and those of outsiders as irrational.33 This social landscape of divergent convictions among subgroups helps explain how an aggregate of individually rational actors could collectively produce widespread folly. This is mirrored in Appadurai’s conception of “totemic groups” in financial markets, where investors coalesce around particular assets, sectors, or networks, each group steadfast in its unique beliefs.34 This phenomenon also captures the essence of the individual psyche during financial bubbles, succinctly summarized by Simon Schama as, "I invest, you speculate, they gamble,” illustrating the centrality of self-assured rationality in a marketplace characterized by radical informational asymmetry.35 This phenomenon, already recognized closer to the time of the South Sea Bubble, was also noted by Alexander Pope in his reflection on the 1720 crisis. Pope observed a similar kind of bounded rationality at play in every individual’s pursuit of the market’s true value, where subjective conclusions are often drawn 33 Yamamoto, “Beyond Rational vs Irrational Bubbles,” 337. 34 A term borrowed from Durkheim’s description of groups with different faith systems. See Appadurai, Banking on Words, 60 & 88. 35 Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (Vintage, 1997), 343. 317 based on personal biases. Pope aptly captured this in his observation: “’Tis Heav’n each Passion sends, And diff’rent Men directs to diff’rent Ends.”36 In light of this new historiographic trend, I propose that ballads, much like pamphlets, newspapers, and private correspondence, were equally powerful in influencing individual behaviors within the framework of bounded rationality during the South Sea Bubble. As D’Urfey’s Jacobite-inflected bubble ballad has illustrated, the ballad’s inherent indeterminacy opens a myriad of interpretive avenues, serving both as a catalyst for speculative thought and an anchor for correlating market fluctuations with the shadowy movements of the Jacobites. Its tune, laden with symbolism accrued from its past circulation, whispers of the market’s secrets while eschewing definitive revelation, suggesting that rationality itself takes on a hermeneutic quality, shaped inextricably by the listener’s personal inclinations and prejudices. This interplay between the individual mind and the proverbial “marketplace” the ballad intimates, is less a matter of cold calculation than a dance of associative reasoning and intuitive discernment, choreographed by the individual psyche within the collective financial drama. Thus, the ballad functions as a heuristic guide, shedding light on a market devoid of clear fundamentals. It exemplifies bounded rationality by exposing the market’s inherent uncertainties and aiding individuals in navigating the myriad interpretations that arise. Furthermore, the ballad underscores a broader truth revealed by the South Sea Bubble—namely, the intertwined nature of economy and culture. It demonstrates that economic uncertainty and hermeneutic indeterminacy are deeply interconnected, each amplifying the other in the speculative loop that sustains the market’s ebb and flow. FROM BUBBLE BALLAD TO BUBBLE PLAY The boundless interpretive potential of the tune “O’er the Hills and Far Away,” combined 36 Alexander Pope, Of the Use of Riches: An Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst (J. Wright, 1732). 318 with the bounded rationality of the English investing public at work while navigating the South Sea crisis, turned music into an aesthetic and hermeneutic object of enduring intrigue and lasting relevance throughout the South Sea crisis. Borne from this combination of market uncertainty and hermeneutic possibility, such intrigue and relevance—manifested through the song’s continuous circulation—did not conclude with the crisis itself. Its most notable appearance would be in The Beggar’s Opera, written in 1728 by John Gay with music written and arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. Gay drew inspiration for his play from the infamous legend of Jonathan Wild, a notorious criminal whose recent public execution sparked widespread public interest.37 The ballad opera emerged as a theatrical satire that reimagined Wild’s life through the exploits of its main character Macheath, a charismatic highwayman who maneuvers through treachery, deceit, and corruption in a shadowy world ruled by thieves and thugs. A key storyline in this mock-heroic drama unfolds Macheath’s entangled romantic relationships with Polly Peachum, the daughter of a fence, and Lucy Lockit, the daughter of a jailer. And it is in a love duet between Macheath and Polly that the familiar tune “O’er the Hills and Far Away” was once again heard by London’s audience (Example 5.2): [Macheath] Were I laid on Greenland’s coast, And in my arms embraced my lass, Warm amidst eternal frost, Too soon the half-year’s night would pass. [Polly] Were I sold on Indian soil, Soon as the burning day was closed, I could mock the sultry toil When on my charmer’s breast reposed. [Macheath] And I would love you all the day, [Polly] Every night would kiss and play, [Macheath] If with me you’d fondly stray [Polly] Over the hills, and far away. 37 Public fascination with Jonathan Wild reached a fever pitch on the day of his execution, with crowds eagerly gathering hours in advance. Henry Fielding, who as a young man witnessed Wild’s execution, parodied his life and death in the fictionalized History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (1745). 319 Example 5.2 Air XVI, “Over the Hills and Far Away” from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act I, Scene 1. Published by John Watts, 1728. The transformation of a Jacobite lament into a love duet in The Beggar’s Opera may seem ironic, but it aligns with the ballad opera’s rich layering of satirical reversal. The original song’s earnest emotions are twisted into a farce as Polly quickly discovers Macheath’s deceit following their duet. However, this ironic twist is just the first layer of John Gay’s subversive strategy in repurposing the song. This ironic manipulation of music, combined with other dramatic elements, has led critics to hail The Beggar’s Opera as a pinnacle of Augustan satirical drama.38 By weaving a story around Macheath’s cunning navigation of a life of crime and his evasion of legal consequences, Gay scrutinized Walpole’s administration, particularly its close ties with the emerging financial sector. By drawing parallels between London’s criminal underworld and the principles and practices of the Whig establishment, Gay populated The Beggar’s Opera with characters designed to satirize the vaunted greatness of the Whigs, embodied by Walpole, his ministers, and their financial allies. Characters such as Macheath, with his aristocratic demeanor and charismatic leadership; Peacham, the deceitful merchant; and Lockit, the corrupt official; alongside female figures introduced for dramatic intrigue akin to that in Italian operas, all serve to dismantle the Whig’s veneer of polite grandeur. Gay’s nod to Italian opera is both deliberate and laced with irony, as the rivalry between Polly and Lucy for Macheath’s affections 38 See, for example, Hal Gladfelder, “Preface,” in The Beggar’s Opera and Polly, ed. Hal Gladfelder (Oxford University Press, 2013 [1728]). 320 was meant to also reflect the real-life opera feud between Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni, the overblown yet facile theatrics of elite entertainment. By also subverting Italian operatic norms—evident in the adaptation of Handel’s march for Macheath’s band of rogues— Gay sharpens his satirical blade against the refined tastes of the town’s polite society and the political aristocracy with which it was entwined.39 It is in such strategic inversion of literary, musical, and dramaturgical norms that Gay brings to light The Beggar’s Opera’s sociopolitical commentary that effectively blurs the distinction between the political elite and the urban underclass.40 Because the rapid rise and subsequent scandal surrounding Walpole’s Whig leadership was particularly due to their handling of the South Sea crisis, The Beggar’s Opera has been dubbed by scholars as a “bubble play” in that the socio-political subtext might be regarded as a broad critique of the political and financial nepotism that Walpole embodied to Gay and his peers.41 However, beyond this general interpretation of the play as a political satire, I propose that The Beggar’s Opera offers a more specific critique of the South Sea crisis through its musical selections—or, more precisely, the deliberate process behind their inclusion. By incorporating melodies from ballads popular during the 1720 crisis, Gay’s play infuses its social commentary with a sharper specificity. These musical references go beyond lampooning political circumstances to critique the emerging English financial system and its profound effects on the collective social psyche. Gay’s use of “O’er the Hills and Far Away” in The Beggar’s Opera leverages the tune’s 39 Act II, Air No. 20, “Let Us Take the Road” set to the tune of “March in Rinaldo.” “Let us take the road, / Hark, I hear the sound of coaches, / The hour of attack approaches, / To your arms, brave boys, and load. / See the ball I hold! / Let chemists toil like asses, / Our fire their fire surpasses, / And turns all our lead to gold.” 40 See Colin Nicholson, Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 41 See Frans de Bruyn, “Satire in Text and Image: Bubble Publications in England and the Netherlands Compared,” in The Great Mirror of Folly: Finance, Culture, and the Crash of 1720, eds. William Goetzmann, Catherine Labio, K. Geert Rouwenhorst, and Timothy Young (Yale University Press, 2013), 159-174. 321 layered meanings accumulated through its extensive circulation, including its more recent incarnation as D’Urfey’s “Hubble Bubbles” during the South Sea crisis. A compilation volume of broadside ballads, notably including “Hubble Bubbles” and several other bubble ballads, is purported to have been “selected and collected by Pepusch, Arne, and Linley.”42 This suggests Pepusch’s awareness of D’Urfey’s earlier use of the Jacobite tune, as well as contemporary musicians’ intimate familiarity with popular street ballads, including those satirizing the South Sea Bubble. The dramatic context of Macheath’s deception subtly evokes the content of “Hubble Bubbles,” resonating with the theme of deceit associated with the song during the speculative mania seven years earlier. While D’Urfey’s lyrics may not have explicitly mentioned deceit, the printed ballad sheets (see Figure 5.2a), annotated by the ballad printer in the margins, listed various speculative projects or shell companies known for defrauding investors. These ventures, given whimsical names by D’Urfey such as “The Fishery Bubble,” “Insurance of Ships,” “Projects for Emptying Houses,” and “Fiddle Faddle Projects,” humorously mimic the real, often absurd, enterprises that emerged during the South Sea boom. For example, “The Fishery Bubble” alludes to schemes that purported to fish in Greenland and the North Atlantic but were primarily focused on raising funds through joint-stock ventures without engaging in actual trade.43 Similarly, the “Fiddle Faddle Projects” cheekily reference the Royal Academy of Music and its Italian opera productions. The reference to “Hubble Bubbles” becomes even more concrete in Gay’s newly introduced verses to “O’er the Hills and Far Away” which explicitly mention several locales within the Atlantic economy targeted by numerous bubble companies formed during the South Sea frenzy. In the voices of the duetting couple, their romantic imagination conjures a steadfast and unbreakable future of love and devotion, an illusion concocted by the charmingly deceitful Macheath and blindly accepted by the infatuated Polly. Their fantasies, undeterred by distance 42 BL G305, f. 308, “Hubble Bubbles.” 43 John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (Stanford University Press, 1960), 166-67. 322 or circumstance, envision a love so enduring that it would remain unshaken even if she were “laid on Greenland coast” or “sold on Indian soil.” As such, within the familiar strains of “O’er the Hills and Far Away,” there lies a palpable satire of the colonial fantasy that buoyed both the South Sea Company and its many subsidiaries. The lovers’ duet, referencing the harsh landscapes of the Atlantic economy, from Greenland’s “eternal frost” to the “burning days” on Indian soil, captures the brutal realities of these ventures and the often elusive wealth they promised. Yet, Polly’s naive love for Macheath, and Macheath’s deceptive portrayal of boundless love, render them oblivious to both the harsh climatic realities and the implied “sultry toil.” The song’s hypnotically serene quality further masks these harsh conditions. As Ralph Locke has noted, the song’s imagery “arrests and troubles as the tunes beguiles.”44 When considered in light of the song’s past incarnation as “Hubble Bubbles,” this contrast positions the tune’s presence in The Beggar’s Opera as a renewed commentary on the South Sea scandal. The South Sea Company and similar ventures romanticized the Atlantic economy’s potential profits while downplaying or concealing the harsh realities of northern Atlantic fishing and the brutal system of chattel slavery—the actual labor underpinning the supposed value of the South Sea stock. Through the exaggerated and ironic love song between Macheath and Polly, the various locales of the Atlantic economy, envisioned as a source of British wealth, are transformed into an idyllic utopia.45 Even the harshest labor—represented by Polly’s voluntary enslavement as a condition for being with Macheath—is romanticized through Macheath’s love. This stark irony critiques not only the fantastical projections of the South Sea scheme but also how domestic speculation sanitized the oppression upon which it was built. In turn, Polly’s infatuation with Macheath serves as a poignant parallel to investors’ seduction by the speculative bubble. Her folly mirrors 44 Ralph P. Locke, Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 272-3. 45 This idealization and romanticization of colonial outposts and lands are more explicitly represented in The Beggar’s Opera’s sequel, Polly. For discussion along these lines, See Noelle Chao, “Music and Indians in John Gay’s Polly,” in Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500-1800, eds. Patricia Fumerton, Anita Guerrini, Kris McAbbe (Ashgate, 2010), 297-316. 323 their pursuit of illusory fortunes, a cruel irony that underscores the allure and danger of speculative frenzies—and the disinformation that masked the darker truth behind the market’s phantom wealth. “O’er the Hills and Far Away” is not the only bubble ballad melody repurposed by Gay and Pepusch in The Beggar’s Opera. The tune from Ward’s South Sea ballad, “London is a fine town,” finds new life in Mrs. Peachum’s song, “Our Polly is a Sad Slut,” sung upon discovering her daughter’s secret engagement to Macheath. In this air, Mrs. Peachum laments Polly’s disobedience and the futility of raising a daughter, highlighting Polly’s efforts to win Macheath’s affection through material means (“Hoods and Gowns,” “Scarfs and Stays,” “Gloves and Lace”). This relentless pursuit of love mirrors the insatiable chase for riches depicted in Ward’s “Prophetick Ballad.” Furthermore, Mrs. Peachum’s reproach of Polly’s behavior echoes a broader commentary on moral decline, similar to the financially induced decadence suggested in Ward’s ballad. While Ward’s ballad predicts the South Sea market’s inevitable downfall, Mrs. Peachum foretells Polly’s impending heartbreak due to Macheath’s infidelity. The most overt reference to the South Sea Bubble in The Beggar’s Opera is an air with a tune explicitly titled “South-Sea Ballad” in the published songbook. This song, sung by Lucy Lockit, appears in the first scene of Act III. (Example 5.3) Upon discovering Macheath’s infidelity during a jail visit, she becomes enraged, but instead of directing her anger at Macheath, she focuses her fury on Polly. Opening with the line “My love is all Madness and Folly,” the renewed bubble ballad cleverly equates the indignation of a betrayed lover with that of a swindled investor: My Love is all Madness and Folly, Alone I lie, Toss, tumble, and cry, What a happy Creature is Polly! Was e’er such a Wretch as I! With rage I redden like Scarlet, That my dear inconstant Varlet, Stark blind to my Charms, 324 Is lost in the Arms Of that Jilt, that inveigling Harlot! Stark blind to my Charms, Is lost in the Arms Of that Jilt, that inveigling Harlot! This, this my Resentment alarms. Example 5.3 Air XLI, “South-Sea Ballad” from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act III, Scene 1. Published by John Watts, 1728. In the fast-paced jig in 6/8 time, Polly’s joyful and spirited dance transforms into a maddening series of swirls and turns in the vocal line. The words “Madness and Folly” aptly describe both Polly’s misplaced love and the ill-placed investments of the South Sea traders. In this context, Polly becomes an “inveigling harlot,” mirroring the South Sea directors who enticed the English public to invest in the stock. Gay intensifies his reference to the South Sea Bubble as both women discover Macheath’s betrayal and redirect their anger towards the true source of their woes: the charismatic highwayman. As their self-proclaimed righteous rage escalates, the word “Bubble” is transformed into a verb. (Example 5.4) Polly’s and Lucy’s duet, “I’m bubbled, I’m troubled,” sung upon their mutual discovery of Macheath’s unfaithfulness, incorporates the term “bubble” as a verb meaning to deceive or trick—a usage that gained popularity in the wake of the South Sea scandal. Accompanied by the melody of “Irish Trot,” their performance of a double rage aria encapsulates the thematic use of “bubble” as a motif for deception: [Polly] I am bubbled. [Lucy] I’m bubbled. 325 [Polly] O how I am troubled! [Lucy] Bambouzled, and bit! [Polly] My Distresses are doubled. [Lucy] When you come to the Tree, should the Hangman refuse, These Fingers, with Pleasure, could fasten the Noose. [Polly] I’m bubbled, &c. Example 5.4 Air XXXV, “Irish Trot” from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act II, Scene 2. Published by John Watts, 1728. Read in conjunction with the earlier “South Sea Ballad” incorporated into Lucy’s song, the subtext of Macheath’s romantic maneuvering and betrayal becomes doubly clear: it is a commentary on the South Sea crisis. Macheath’s infidelity, like the South Sea Company’s loss of credit, ignites a fury akin to the widespread outrage provoked by the plummeting South Sea shares. In this light, Polly and Lucy’s disillusionment mirrors the experience of South Sea investors, whose finances were embezzled away by the company’s fraudulent scheme. The tune “South Sea Ballad” featured in The Beggar’s Opera was not the product of Gay’s imagination, but rather another bubble ballad that emerged in the aftermath of the South Sea crisis. Originally titled “A New South Sea Ballad,” it was incorporated into a 1721 play titled The Magician or Harlequin Director, one of several satirical plays that cast stock market directors as the harlequin character to humorously expose their financial schemes and deceit. One printed version of this song attributes its original performer, or perhaps even creator, to actor Anthony Aston (Figure 5.3). The original lyrics, set to the same lively jig melody, consist of four verses delivered from the perspective of a stockbroker cynically peddling South Sea stock. The opening verse shows how the broker invites potential buyers to subscribe to the South Sea stock, disguised as a “Lottery book.” It touts the venture as “chimerical”—mysteriously effective 326 yet understood by none—and a guaranteed path to wealth, proclaimed as “the fairest play”: Here’s a whim wham new come over, And who will prick at my Lottery-Book, ‘Tis Spic and Span new to Dover, From France, where it lately took: T’will ease you of all your Troubles, ho! By a Chymical new Chimerical Way; But, first of all down with the Bubbles, ho! For this is the fairest Play. In the subsequent verses, the broker intensifies his pitch, showcasing a diverse array of individuals from rural, agrarian origins, all eager to abandon their agricultural work after they are lured by the prospect of being enriched by South Sea shares and attaining the previously unattainable status of gentility: Come Jenny, the Chambermaid, trudge it, Come Tinker, the pawn thy Budget, And Gillian no longer amble on foot. For Lords Shall look like Asses; For see ye how Stock advances up to’t, And Footmen ride in their Places; Then, Chymeney-sweep, sell thy Soot. Jump off thy Board, bungling Botcher, And leave the Plough, trusty Roger, And Teague, with thy Grimacree sneath it away; Trip, Cicely, trudge it with Mary, And gued muckle Sawney Lad donno stay; And Dorothy slight thy Dairy, For we are as blith as May. The following verse portrays this diverse group of novice speculators as they encounter various figures in Exchange Alley. Among these figures, the play’s titular character, the “harlequin,” stands out—a magical, whimsical figure symbolizing the stockjobbers, who effortlessly navigate the Alley with agile and artful steps (“so nimbly, archly tread”). 327 Figure 5.3 “A New South Sea Ballad Made and Sung by Mr. Anthony Aston in the Magician or Harlequin Director.” Source: BL, G316.g, f. 35. 328 Aston’s song, with the characteristic irony of a bubble ballad highlights the stock market’s potential to disrupt social hierarchies through financial redistribution and speculative wealth. It depicts lords being usurped by their footmen, peasants abandoning agriculture for urban riches, and milkmaids forsaking dairy work, society rushes blindly into the market frenzy, unsettling established socio-economic norms. This simultaneously transformative and disruptive power of finance, turning rogues into the wealthy and peasants into lords, foreshadows the final chorus in The Beggar’s Opera. It reveals the market’s ability to reorganize, and for some, topple, existing social hierarchies and order: Think of this maxim, and put off your sorrow: The wretch of today may be happy tomorrow. Example 5.5 Air XVII, “Lumps of Pudding”from Gay and Pepusch, The Beggar’s Opera, Act III, Scene 17. Published by John Watts, 1728. Set to the giddy 6/8 dance tune of “Lumps of Pudding” (Example 5.5), the finale of The Beggar’s Opera revives a striking piece of collective memory from the South Sea crisis through its intertextual homage to the ballad “An End to Our Sorrows.” Originally disseminated by Whig 329 counterpropaganda pamphleteers, this earlier ballad satirized the Tory elites’ triumphant claims about the South Sea Company’s promise of eternal prosperity for Britain. It mocked the company’s concentrated power over the nation’s financial and political future, embodied in its founding director, Robert Knight: “Here’s No Sign of Sorrow, Unless Mr. Knight Should Darken the Day. It will be at Twelve Hundred Tomorrow, and We understand the Lay.”46 These lines, emblematic of the inflated optimism surrounding South Sea stock, became a classic irony during the Bubble’s peak. They were later repurposed in Aston’s “A New South Sea Ballad,” as the market fluctuated wildly.47 Gay’s invocation of this bubble ballad in his play imbues it with a layer of bitter irony. By 1728, fifteen years after the South Sea Bubble’s inception, Gay resurrected the phrase within the imagined underworld of London’s highwaymen and prostitutes, casting them as analogues for the speculative schemers of Exchange Alley and their cronies in Westminster. While “the wretch of today” may become “happy tomorrow,” the reverse is also true: in a fluctuating bubble economy, riches can just as swiftly turn to rags. Gay’s reinterpretation of the phrase emphasizes the volatile reversals of fortune brought about by the South Sea Bubble, laying bare the profound instability injected into English society by speculative finance. The crisis disrupted perceptions of social hierarchy, blurring the distinctions between wealth and poverty, honesty and corruption, and framing life as an unpredictable gamble. The Beggar’s Opera’s final chorus encapsulates this moral ambiguity and pervasive cynicism, reflecting a society grappling with the aftermath of its speculative frenzy. Unlike the ironic refrain of the original bubble ballad, “an end to our sorrow,” it suggests instead an era where sorrow is neither resolved nor diminished but perpetually renewed. The opera’s central “maxim”—the mutability of wealth and social standing—also finds a parallel in its musical structure. Songs, stripped of their original contexts, are subverted and reinterpreted, 46 BL Roxburgh C.20 f.9.646, “An Excellent New Song, call’d, An End to our Sorrows.” 47 “Nor vamp up a queer Revisal, / For Water, Sir, never will turn into Gold, / And a Fool should have no Rival. / Till Cl---y’s great Stock be sold. / Let every Trick be a clean one, / Fat Sorrow is better than a lean one. / Then frisk it about and jerk it away, / For here’s no Sign of Sorrow: / Unless Mr. Knight should darken the Day. / ’Twill be at twelve hundred To-morrow, / And we understand the Lay.” 330 mirroring the destabilization of value that followed the collapse of the South Sea Bubble. In Gay’s hands, music becomes as mutable as the speculative market, its meanings contingent and elusive. Just as the bubble exposed the lack of intrinsic value in stocks, The Beggar’s Opera implies that music, too, holds no fixed meaning. STOCK MARKET AND STOCK CHARACTER While Jonathan Swift may have popularized the use of “bubble” as an economic metaphor, the term’s earliest documented appearance in the context of financial speculation predates the South Sea crash. It surfaces in a December 1719 op-ed in Mist’s Weekly Journal, which criticizes the growing speculative economy in Paris, fueled by John Law’s Mississippi Company scheme. The editorial also warns of this speculative fever spreading to England through the South Sea Company, which was aiming to replicate the Mississippi scheme’s success and preparing for its initial public subscription in 1720. The author, self-styled “Anti-Bubble,” draws a pointed comparison between these stock schemes, with their fantastical promises of riches causing widespread speculation, and fictional dramas staged in theaters. This analogy underscores the inherently theatrical and illusory nature of these bubble economies: And we are told, … the Honour of new and old Bubble is so elated, that another Million Sterling is subscribed upon the same imaginary Project; and, as they tell us, that that new Scheme is kept a little closer, and their Designs reserved in petto, so the People cannot penetrate into them so readily as into the other; and that therefore this has obtained an Addition to its Title, and is to be called Hubble Bubble. Now, good Mr. Journalist, tell us, since Bubbles are so much in Fashion, what Bubble will come upon the Stage next?”48 - Your Humble Servant, Anti-Bubble. 48 Mist’s Weekly Journal, Dec. 12, 1719. See also Ben Zimmer, “Word on the Street: The History of Bubble,” Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324165204579027203030984652.html. Zimmer also cites evidence suggesting that “Anti Bubble,” the author of the op-ed may have been Daniel Defoe. This is plausible given Defoe’s frequent contributions to the journal under various pen names and his satirical take on the speculative frenzy in Exchange Alley, a theme he shared with Swift and other writers. Zimmer notes that Defoe is known to have used the "Anti-Bubble" or "Anti-Bubbler" pseudonym in subsequent newspaper pieces. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324165204579027203030984652.html 331 The metaphor of the market as a theater, initially perhaps seen as a mere literary device by the pamphleteer, gains a more tangible dimension through “The Raree Show Ballad, or the English Mississippi” (see Figure 5.4). This bubble ballad, circulating in 1720, vividly illustrates the interchangeability of the marketplace and theatrical entertainment. Like many bubble ballads, “The Raree Show” emerged by adapting a familiar melody with fresh commentary on the contemporary market frenzy. The song traces its origins back to the 1697 ballet Europe’s Revels for the Peace of Ryswick, featuring lyrics by Peter Motteux and music by John Eccles, which celebrated the treaties concluding the Nine Years’ War.49 Its melody, reminiscent of a lively country dance with its brisk tempo and whirls, echoes the ambiance of street performances common at city fairs. The simple refrain associated with the song—“O rare show, o brave show, o prithee show”—draws inspiration from the calls of peep show promoters at these fairs. With its catchy melody and refrain, Eccles’s music for Motteux’s play secured an enduring presence in London’s streets. Balladeers and hawkers were drawn to its persistent allure and straightforward structure, incorporating new content into its framework. In the tumult of the South Sea Bubble, the refrain, once a lure for peep shows, transformed into a different kind of summons. It now invited the audience to peer into Exchange Alley as if it were a raree show, finding delight and entertainment in the diverse cast of characters who enacted the drama of commerce and speculation within the stock market. The music, with its spinning triple meter, became a fitting metaphor for the era’s most captivating spectacle—the whirlwind ballet of fortune in the South Sea scheme. The new raree show of the “English Mississippi” employs vibrant language to draw parallels between the diverse and spectacle-filled nature of the financial market and the dynamic world of theater. This theme echoes Ned Ward’s “Prophetick Ballad” explored in the preceding chapter, reinforcing the notion of the financial market’s varied and theatrical characteristics. 49 See John Eccles, Europe’s Revels for the Peace of Ryswick, ed. Michael Burden (A-R Editions, 2019). 332 Each stanza of “The English Mississippi” introduces a character, vividly caricatured from the poet’s observations of the new arrivals in Exchange Alley, all eager to gamble their fortunes on the South Sea venture. Among them is a merchant, lamenting his lost fortune and wishing for death (“who shake a hid head; loose all his Money, and vish himself dead”); a shepherd, inexperienced yet ready to negotiate for thousands (“who ave not done Stiver, but yet he will bargain for ten Tousan liver”); a doctor, who swears off preaching against greed after losing fortunes after failing to resist the South Sea’s allure (“who swear by old Ammon, he never vill preach any more against Mammon”); a courtier, spreading false news for financial gain (“who tell you false news all, and give you his Guineas to ave a Refusal,”); a squire, investing his wealth in speculative bubbles to impress his peers (“who have much Rishes, do bargain for Bubbles to please his two Bishes”); and women, who gamble their jewels in order to buy Mississippi stock (“who here buy Mississippi and pawn all their Zewel.”). Additionally, the ballad’s narrative also mentions a Dutchman, a French marquis, a Jew, a young aristocrat, a grazer, who were also gambling their money and livelihood in the stock scheme to various success, but above all, the hidden protagonists of the show are revealed at the end, the “jobbers,” the unseen manipulators driving the stocks’ rise and fall, buying “de devil and all.” This portrayal transforms Exchange Alley into a stage, with the stock scheme as the grand spectacle, orchestrating the diverse cast in a frenzy of speculation. The ballad’s opening line and refrain, “O raree Show, O bravee Show, O pritee Show, Who see my fine Show?” serves as both a critique of the stock market mania and a reflection of the clamor resonating from Exchange Alley, where speculative dealings reached their zenith. This vivid tableau not only critiques the financial speculation of the time but also immerses the listener in the tumultuous atmosphere of the alley, likening the speculative frenzy to a theatrical performance. 333 Figure 5.4 Ballad “The Raree Show Ballad, or the English Mississippi.” Source: BL, G305, p. 212. Unsurprisingly, the inherent theatricality of the financial market, with its dramatic cast of characters and volatile South Sea stock prices, captivated English playwrights and theater professionals. As South Sea stock prices soared in mid-1720, financial topics and figures took center stage in London’s theaters, catering to the public’s growing obsession with speculation. 334 This topical focus resulted in works like the pantomime The South-Sea director and the farce Mississippi, staged at prominent venues such as Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre.50 The collapse of the bubble, far from dampening theatrical enthusiasm, actually fueled a surge in market-themed dramatizations. The theater transformed into a lively arena for satire and polemic, fueled by the political fallout of the South Sea scandal. This ever-present crisis offered fertile ground for artistic exploration and exploitation. The diverse cast of characters involved in the market’s collapse, from the cunning to the gullible, provided ample fodder for creative expression. After the devastating autumn that saw stock values plummet, Southwark Fair concluded one October evening with The Broken Stock-Jobbers: or, Work for the Bailiffs, a farce advertised as having been “lately acted in Exchange Alley.”51 This last-minute addition featured characters with satirical names like “Sir Frippery Upstart,” “Mr. Transfer, the Banker,” and “Dr. Sine-Cure, the Stock-Jobbing Physician.”52 Frans De Bruyn and Inger Leemans have compiled a comprehensive list of English bubble plays, revealing that no fewer than a dozen plays, specifically themed around the South Sea Bubble, graced London’s theaters between 1717 and 1723. Beyond these, the compilation also includes several published yet unperformed plays and additional small- scale epilogues and prologues, making up another eleven works tied to the theme of the bubble.53 This collection underscores the profound impact of the financial crisis on the cultural landscape, transforming it into a subject of theatrical exploration and a mirror of the tumultuous period. 50 John Rich, The South-Sea Director (1720), an unpublished pantomime performed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, identified in John Weaver, The History of Mimes and Pantomimes (London, 1728), cited in Joyce Goggin and Frans de Bruyn, eds., Comedy and Crisis: Pieter Langendijk, the Dutch, and the Speculative Bubbles of 1720 (Oxford University Press, 2020), 258. Anon., Mississippi (May 1720), a farce in three acts, not published, performed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, see also Goggin and de Bruyn, eds., Comedy and Crisis, 258. 51 Anon. The Broken Stock-Jobbers: or, Work for the Bailiffs. A New Farce. As it was lately Acted in Exchange-Alley (T. Jauncy, 1720). 52 Inger Leemans, “‘New Plays resemble Bibles, we must own’: Staging the Stock Market, 1719-20,” in Comedy and Crisis: Pieter Langendijk, the Dutch, and the Speculative Bubbles of 1720, eds. Joyce Goggin and Frans de Bruyn (Oxford University Press, 2020), 185. 53 Goggin and de Bruyn, eds., Comedy and Crisis, 257-261. 335 How did the theatrical world come to reflect the speculative frenzy of the market? At its most basic, this connection was forged through the use of theatrical and literary techniques, such as clever wordplay on “bubble.” Yet, as De Bruyn has observed, a more nuanced and significant method involved the adaptation of theatrical conventions to capture and dramatize the essence of stock-market characters and themes on stage.54 This approach effectively translated the dynamics of Exchange Alley and those caught in the financial upheaval into the stock characters familiar to English theater audiences. A notable example is the 1724 production at Lincoln’s Inn Fields of The Necromancer or Harlequin Dr Faustus, a play by John Rich that ingeniously reinterpreted the harlequin figure from comedic tradition to comment on market realities such as fraud, deception, and moral compromise.55 Figure 5.5 Scene One of “The Necromancer or Harlequin Dr. Faustus”, anonymous drawing, circa 1724. Source: BM, 1972, U.517. 54 Frans De Bruyn, “Satire in Text and Image: Bubble Publications in England and the Netherlands Compared,” in The Great Mirror of Folly: Finance, Culture, and the Crash of 1720, eds., Goetzmann, William N., Catherine Labio, K. Geert Rouwenhorst, and Timothy Young (Yale University Press, 2013), 165. 55 John Rich, The Magician: or, Harlequin, a Director (1721). 336 This work represents an eighteenth-century English rendition of both commedia dell’arte and the Faust legend, amalgamated as a critique of the dangerously cozy relationship between the government and financial markets, as well as the illusory nature of financial speculation. One contemporary illustration of the play (Figure 5.5) shows a scene in which Mephistopheles, the “Infernal Spirit,” played by Richard Leveridge, accepts a contract from Faustus, the “Harlequin,” played by the playwright himself, John Rich. By recasting the South Sea stock exchange into Faustian negotiation, the play was representative in showing how theatrical creative mobilized stock characters and conventional theatrical canons to create new meanings that are topically relevant to the rise of the financial market and its inner-workings. With the stock exchange and speculative trade presenting themselves as thrilling new backdrops for storytelling, the theater’s wealth of stock characters and narrative techniques offered a rich repository of metaphors and allegories. As Deidre Lynch has observed, throughout the eighteenth century, literary characters functioned as interpretive tools within what she terms the “pragmatics of character”—a commercially oriented technique that mobilized fungible character types as proxies for real-world economic relationships in capitalist production. Readers used these characters to navigate newly commercialized social relations, interpreting them through the fictional relationships built on familiar tropes and types.56 During the South Sea Bubble, this repository of tropes and types enabled the dramas of Exchange Alley to transform into enthralling dramatic settings, intricately weaving the established norms, motifs, and themes of theater with the novel, albeit chaotic, dynamics of the nascent stock market—and its motley characters. These bubble plays did not merely offer economic and political insights; they became definitive manifestations where the financial market’s complexities intertwined with the cultural imagination. This interplay draws a formal parallel between the burgeoning world of financial speculation and the thriving universe of theatrical characters: Much like the 56 Deidre Lynch, The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture, and the Business of Inner Meaning (University of Chicago Press, 1998), 9. 337 fungible dividend notes and transferable South Sea bills that, as we observed in the last chapter, fueled the speculative bubble, the theater’s stock characters’ malleability and interchangeability were, in a comparable fashion, ingeniously leveraged by the English playwrights to fuel the proliferation of bubble plays and their new on-stage figures. This clever exploitation highlights a shared theme of adaptability and transformation, as theatrical craft and financial mechanisms became analogous with one another. In other words, through these bubble plays, the fluid exchange between the new paper economy and contemporaneous cultural expression were interlinked not only as content but as form. PASTORAL MOCKED The Beggar’s Opera achieved its satirical impact through a multi-layered subversion of conventions. At the individual song level, Gay harnessed intertextual meanings, re- contextualizing them within contrasting emotional or situational frameworks to elicit new interpretations through juxtaposition. Yet, as a whole, the ballad opera represents a genre- defying subversion. Numerous generic norms are overturned: its use of intentionally misplaced arias and operatic interludes renders it a mock-opera, while its depiction of a highwayman protagonist and his crew of thieves and ruffians engaged in a sort of crusade earns it the designation of mock-heroic.57 However, for Gay and his literary circle, The Beggar’s Opera was foremost a mock-pastoral. Jonathan Swift described it as a “Newgate Pastoral,” a term that aptly captures Gay’s intent to supplant the idyllic nymphs and shepherds of Arcadian lore with the gritty figures from Newgate prison.58 Gay’s choice to frame The Beggar’s Opera as a mock-pastoral to satirize the South Sea 57 John Preston, “The Ironic Mode: A Comparison of Jonathan Wild and The Beggar’s Opera,” Essays in Criticism 16, no. 3 (July 1966): 268–280. 58 In a letter to Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift describes to The Beggar’s Opera: “I believe, that the pastoral ridicule is not exhausted, and that a porter, footman, or chairman’s pastoral might do well. Or, what think you of a Newgate pastoral?” Quoted in Dictionary of National Biography (1908), 966. 338 scandal, a framing readily recognized by his contemporary literary circles, appears to be no coincidence. This sardonic use of pastoral tropes to critique the bubble was a common satirical strategy in the aftermath of the financial disaster. The paradise-lost motif was frequently used in prints of the time to draw an analogy with the South Sea debacle. One ballad depicted an “ill- fortuned shepherd” tragically engulfed by “the Bubbling flood,” symbolizing the downfall of guileless South Sea investors59. A mock-pastoral play, The Unhappy Stock-Jobber: or the South Sea Penitent, features Damon, a shepherd-turned-stockjobber, lamenting his losses in Exchange Alley. He describes his “heedless Steps” as being drawn by “strong Enticements” from the “peaceful Paths” of virtue, his “thoughtless Soul” now burdened with recounting his misfortunes.60 Another example of this satirical strategy is a pamphlet disguised as a collection of songs, titled The Shepherd’s Garland. This collection initially presents a typical Arcadian narrative of gleeful shepherds and gullible nymphs. However, this idyll is disrupted by the insertion of Ward’s A South Sea Ballad between songs called “The Happy Shepherd” and “The Highland Miss’s Lamentation.” Effectively juxtaposing the pastoral idyll with market turmoil, this interpolation casts the financial market as a corrupted utopia (see Figure 5.6). The Shepherd’s Garland concludes with a song entitled “Teagus’s Complaint against the Bubbles,” unmistakably linking Exchange Alley’s actuality with Arcadian imagery. Like The Unhappy Stock-Jobber, it presents the shepherd’s heartbreak and the stockjobber’s financial ruin as analogous experiences, blurring the lines between the distant realms of financial speculation and pastoral fantasy.61 Yet, beyond simply casting Macheath, Polly Peachum, Lucy Lockit, and the rest of London’s underworld as envious nymphs and crafty shepherds—archetypal figures in a in a tarnished Arcadia where eternal bliss gives way to mutual deceit, Gay’s subversive use of the pastoral genre in The Beggar’s Opera had a more specific target. It appears to distinctly echo 59 Henry Carey, The musical century: in one hundred English ballads on various subjects and occasions: adapted to several characters and incidents in human life and calculated for innocent conversation, mirth, and instruction (1737-1740). 60 YBL 2012 556. 61 BL 12330 I.6.8. 339 a particular pastoral play, linking The Beggar’s Opera to the South Sea crisis in a manner that was deeply personal for Gay. Figure 5.6 Title page of The Shepherd’s Garland, Compos’d of Four New Songs (1720). Source: British Library, 12330 I.6.8. The play in question is Acis and Galatea, a masque with music by Handel and a libretto co-authored by members of the Scriblerian Club—a loosely affiliated group of early eighteenth- century satirists and writers including John Arbuthnot, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and John Gay—premiered in 1717 at the lavish estate of the Duke of Chandos, Cannons.62 During this 62 For Handel, the masque Acis and Galatea marked several milestones since his arrival in England: his first large-scale dramatic work in English, his first use of a chorus in a musical drama, and his first attempt at merging English and Italian musical styles. Gay and Pope seem to have contributed the majority of the text for this musical drama, inspired by an Ovidian pastoral. The story centers on the love between the mortal Acis and the sea-nymph Galatea, tragically interrupted by the jealous cyclops Polyphemus. Handel had previously set this tale to music in his Italian cantata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo during his years in Naples. The Cannons production initially featured only the three eponymous characters from the Italian version, but later added the shepherds Damon and Corridon, with only three solo numbers allocated to them. See George Frideric Handel, Acis and Galatea (HWV 49A), ed. Wolfram Windszus (Bärenreiter, 2013). 340 time, this circle of writers and musicians, under the patronage of the Duke of Chandos, also ventured into financial speculation. As previously discussed, the aristocracy and intellectuals within the Chandos circle actively participated in various speculative ventures, ranging from investments in trading companies and London real estate to the establishment of the Royal Academy of Music and numerous other financial schemes. Conversations within this circle were dominated by financial matters, with an air of optimism about wealth permeating the English market, as they readily exchanged market insights, investment leads, and advice on optimal timing for trades. Alexander Pope notably spread the South Sea contagion, offering investment advice to aristocratic acquaintances like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He assured her of “certain gain” from purchasing South Sea stock, which he claimed would “certainly rise in weeks,” citing information obtained from “credible sources and good people.”63 One of Pope’s “credible sources” may have been James Craggs, who became Secretary of State in 1718 and was a founding subscriber of the Royal Academy of Music. Craggs’s father had acquired over £30,000 in South Sea stock from the company’s directors.64 The younger Craggs’s involvement in the Royal Academy of Music was undoubtedly influenced by his connections to the Scriblerians and the Chandos circle. Before the South Sea Company’s initial public subscription, Craggs gifted John Gay some coveted shares of South Sea stock. Gay, having just earned over £1,000 from publishing his poems, was emboldened by Craggs’s generous gift of early-access stock and invested all his earnings in the South Sea Company, convinced he was on the verge of becoming a “master of twenty thousand pounds.”65 Between 1717 and 1719, a palpable exuberance filled the Chandos circle, fueled by insider knowledge of the South Sea’s public subscription scheme and the steady rise in stock prices 63 Alexander Pope, A Supplement to the works of Alexander Pope, Esq. (Dublin, 1757). 64 Carswell, The South Sea Bubble, 115-16. 65 Samuel Johnson, “Life of Gay” in Lives of the English Poets, Vol. 2, ed. George Birkbeck Hill (Octagon Books, 1905), 267-85. 341 before their dramatic surge in 1720. When Gay and Pepusch, who had worked together at Cannons where Pepusch served as music director, incorporated “South Sea Ballad” into The Beggar’s Opera a decade later, it is unlikely they were not drawing upon their own experiences from the Cannons period—a time marked by a convergence of financial optimism and artistic collaboration. Given these topical, generic, and personal connections, the inclusion of “South Sea Ballad” in The Beggar’s Opera can be seen not merely as a revival of Aston’s bubble ballad but also as resonating with a specific musical moment in Acis and Galatea—the jig-like duet and finale of Act I. The duet, “Happy, Happy we,” (Example 5.6) with its exuberant dance rhythm and the relentless triplet sequences, captures the romantic culmination between shepherd Acis and nymph Galatea. Their love, marked by playful tussle throughout Act I, climaxes in this euphoric synchronization of footwork during this final scene, rendered audible by the melding of their voices amid the rapid swirls and twirls of a looping jig. As their sensual indulgence in the union blossoms into an unstoppable bubbling of euphoria, this duet becomes a musical symbol of the everlasting joy that the conventions of the pastoral genre guarantee to its protagonists. However, this very same musical topic, marking the celebration of unadulterated love and eternal bliss in the 1717 masque, assumed a starkly contrasting and cruelly ironic tone in the 1728 ballad opera. There, Polly’s doomed liaison with Macheath, depicted through a similarly animated frolic, becomes a sonic spectacle of madness, fueled by conjugal infidelity, misguided trust, and deep embarrassment. As the ecstatic rapture between the nymph and shepherd becomes the regret and rage of a bubbled partner, the citation of the “South Sea Ballad,” with its tantalizing allusion of the jig finale in Acis and Galatea, thus serves as a poignant reflection for Gay and Pepusch. For them, the satirical glee in Polly’s furious jig perhaps represented a form of creative catharsis, channeling the irony of their shared experiences and memories from the tumult of the 1720 crisis. 342 Example 5.6 Duet, “Happy, Happy We,” from Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Act I. Published by John Walsh, c. 1743. In 1717, the South Sea speculative network at Cannons, unaware of the impending financial doom, would have easily found the pastoral frolic and boundless joy depicted in Acis and Galatea, performed on Chandos’s estate, to be deeply resonant, their optimistic mood regarding their South Sea investments amplifying the market’s apparent vitality. Reflecting on the pan-European financial optimism prior to the crash, one Dutch observer captured the atmosphere in a way that perhaps best aligns with the blissful delight Acis and Galatea radiated: 343 What joys can vacuous bubbles bring and all those fickle shares? They yield a profit, so I sing their pleasures uncompared.66 The matching mood between the vibrant music at Cannons and the thriving market that buoyed Chandos’s investment was no mere coincidence. At the Cannons estate, artistic expression and financial ambition were on a symbiotic display. The exquisite production of Acis and Galatea was but one manifestation of this. Lavish upgrades to the estate, including a burgeoning art collection, the acquisition of new musical instruments and scores, an expanded musical ensemble, and the addition of new buildings, served as tangible symbols of the Duke of Chandos’s financial optimism—an optimism that led him to invest nearly £400,000 in South Sea stock.67 His keen interest in the South Sea Company, dating back to the joint-stock’s incorporation in 1711, was informed by his experience serving as Paymaster General of the British Army during the War of Spanish Succession and his close ties to the Duke of Marlborough.68 This connection not only honed Chandos’s financial expertise but also aligned him with the Tory monetary strategies that supported Britain’s mercantile ambitions. Before the domestic speculative frenzy took hold and Whig financiers dominated the South Sea Company, Chandos saw the Company as a Tory triumph, a permanent solution to British debt via military victories against European enemies and trade monopolies in the West Indies.69 From 1715 onwards, Chandos became Handel’s principal patron, enabling the creation of numerous early works by Handel in his first English decade, including twelve anthems tailored for Chandos’s 66 “Wat geeft de Windnegotie vreugd, / En al die Actiekraam? / Zy doet aan onze Nering deugd, / En is my aangenaam.” De bedriegelijke actionist, of: De nagthandelaars (Bosch, 1720). 67 Koji Yamamoto, “Beyond Rational vs Irrational Bubbles,” 338. 68 For a general summary of the Duke of Chandos’s financial dealings around the time of the South Sea Bubble and the relevant archival materials, see P. Dickson and J. Beckett, “The Finances of the Dukes of Chandos: Aristocratic Inheritance, Marriage and Debt in Eighteenth-Century England,” Huntington Library Quarterly 64, nos. 3 and 4 (2001) 309—55. 69 Susan Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron: The Patronage and Collecting of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (Routledge, 2007), 19-20. 344 personal enjoyment at Cannons.70 One anthem, repurposing the finale of the 1713 Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate into the so-called “Chandos Jubilate,” (Example 5.7) evokes the sonic memory of the Treaty of Utrecht celebrations, which had fueled the South Sea Company’s optimistic projections for its equity.71 This musical connection also symbolizes the alignment of Chandos’s political and financial interests with those of Tory England. Considering Chandos’s Tory-leaning financial interests, it is unsurprising that the pastoral backdrop of Acis and Galatea, much like the sublime sonic landscape of Handel’s Jubilate, would carry economic implications. The message lies in how the English, at the time, projected their own economic ambitions onto the connection of Arcadia, transforming it from a mythical place of eternal joy into a tangible symbol of abundance, fueled by the accumulation of wealth and property. For the Tories, achieving this Arcadian ideal was the ultimate goal of their political economy. John Dennis’s extensive musings on this Tory Arcadia provide a revealing look into this cultural trope which portrayed the pastoral as both an idyllic and economically vibrant landscape, highlighting the harmony between bucolic beauty, utopian tranquility, carefree bliss, and the ethos of wealth accumulation: As they were sincere in their Religion, they were sound in their Morals: The Men were at once both just, and generous, sincere, faithful, laborious; the Women modest, obedient, chast, and diligent: Both Men and Women frugal, liberal, temperate, hospitable. Their Conversation and their Diet were like their Manners simple; their Conversation without Fraud, and their Diet without Artifice. Both their Meat and their Drink, for the most part, were of the native Growth of their Country, and the costly Juice of the Grape was us’d oftner for Physick, than it was for Pleasure. … They were the Tutelary Gods of the Poor, who in Sickness had Physick from them, and in Health their Food, and in both their Habitations. Their way of’ Living in the Country, their Diet, their Air, their Oeconomy, and their rural Diversions and Exercises confirm’d their Healths, and improv’d their Estates, and supply’d them both with Strength of Body, and with Vigor of Mind. So that their Minds were 70 Handel’s oeuvre during the Cannons period also encompasses miscellaneous vocal, chamber, and theatrical music, notably the masque Acis and Galatea and the oratorio Esther. 71 See Handel, Jubilate in D Major, HWV246, final movement, “O, be joyful in the Lord.” For discussion of the political economic significance of Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate, see Chapter 1 and see Morton Wan, “Handel’s Financial Sublime,” in Financing Music in Europe from the 18th to the Early 20th Century, ed. Etienne Jardine (Brepols, 2022), 19-50. 345 serene, or their Passions moderate; their Distempers neither frequent nor violent, and their Children healthful, lively, robust, and nervous.72 Example 5.7 Glory be to the Father (Overture) and As it was in the Beginning (Fugue) movements—both duplications of the finales from the Utrecht Jubilate—from Chandos Anthem No. 1 in D Major (also known as Chandos Jubilate), HWV 246. In Dennis’s Tory Arcadia lies the blueprint for an ideal society, distinguished not only by its limitless wealth, derived from both judicious accumulation and spending, but also by its moral integrity, untouched by poverty or deceit. Its citizens thrive, buoyed by a robust economic foundation that guarantees happiness and health. This cultural trope, as Dennis articulated here, served as a masterfully crafted piece of Tory propaganda, outlining a utopian future for Britain in order to elevate its political economic measures, especially the South Sea scheme, as vehicles towards this future. Much like Handel’s Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate, performed at 72 John Dennis, An Essay Upon Public Spirit; Being a Satyr in Prose Upon the Manners and Luxury of the Times (Bernard Lintott, 1711). 346 the moment of British triumph at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, Dennis’s effusive depiction of Tory Arcadia aimed to manifest this imagined bright future in the present. Similarly, the music of Acis and Galatea, with its pastoral setting, can be seen as an attempt to make this idealized economic fecundity palpable in the sensory now. Through Handel’s music, the first act of Acis and Galatea renders fervent love, romantic thrill, and conjugal pleasure in an audible presence of the pastoral ideal of everlasting pleasure. The act unfolds as a straightforward pastoral narrative: shepherd Acis, awakened by passion, woos the nymph Galatea, who yields to his advances in the end, leading to their shared revelry in a committed union. Musically, the two protagonists’ music set up complementary meters using triple and compound times. Both of Galatea’s airs, “Hush, ye pretty warbling choir” and “As when the dove,” are in 3/8, setting up a youthful lover who is charmingly giddy and slightly risqué. In response, Acis affirms his determination in pursuing Galatea through “Where shall I seek the charming fair,” an air in simple 3/4. This is followed by a slow air “Love in her eye sits playing” in 12/8, one that brims with pastoral tenderness. Beyond the triple meters adept at propelling the ornate vocal lines of Acis and Galatea into seemingly perpetual cycles of soaring heights and plunging depths, the periodic returns and repetitions of phrases in these songs convey a sense of timeless stasis amid this ceaseless ebb and flow. Karol Berger has identified this characteristic temporal profile in seventeenth and early eighteenth-century music as a philosophical trope, representing an eternal, divine, and utopian quality.73 This notion aligns perfectly with the pastoral ideal undergirding Acis and Galatea, as the titular characters’ music in Act I instills the masque with a kind of sensuous cyclicality, inviting a timeless state of indulgence. For Chandos and his circle at Cannons, this musical expression vividly embodied the Tory Arcadia, transforming the pastoral fantasy into an immediate sensory experience. Through these evocative triple-meter musical numbers, the boundless bounty promised by the 73 Karol Berger, Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity (University of California Press, 2007), 173-176. 347 South Sea Company for Britain’s future was brought to life, making the anticipated wealth and utopian society tangible in the present moment of sonic indulgence. Amid the array of ebullient music that characterizes the unbridled joy of Act I in Acis and Galatea, a contrasting interlude emerges (Example 5.8). In this mid-act intervention, Damon, a character added by the Scriblerians to their reimagining of the classic tale, advises his fellow shepherd and friend Acis to abandon his passionate pursuit: Shepherd, what art thou pursuing? Heedless running to thy ruin; Share our joy, our pleasure share, Leave the passion till tomorrow, Let the day be free from sorrow, Free from love, and free from care! Musically, Damon’s air, uniquely set in duple meter within the act, contrasts sharply with the impulsive exuberance of Acis’s and Galatea’s love songs, uniformly set to the giddy sways of triple or compound meters. Its measured pace and deliberate steps, punctuated by a steady walking bass, seek to temper the besotted shepherd’s ardor with pragmatic wisdom. Unlike the haphazard infatuation depicted in Acis’s fervent songs, Damon’s musical persuasion embodies a different kind of satisfaction—one rooted in rational calculation and strategic maneuvers. Each musical phrase, marked by a methodical progression towards resolution, showcases disciplined modulation and structured development, reflecting a linear journey. The gradual quickening of harmonic rhythm towards the final cadence in each musical sentence further introduces an asymmetry into the form while imbuing the music with a sense of teleological drive. Hermeneutically, Damon’s measured harmonic pacing provides a moderated counterpoint to the unrestrained energy of the surrounding pieces in the act, creating a thoughtful pause within the pastoral idyll by disrupting the cyclical timelessness pervading the act with a linear notion of musical time. In his analysis of musical temporality, Berger also highlights the emergence of music like Damon’s air in the eighteenth century, whose form follows the linear logic of time, a 348 pivotal shift from a cyclical and timeless notion of time. This shift, according to Berger, reflects a deeper change in the expression of personal emotion and individual experience through music, a hallmark of the move towards European “modernity.” This evolution in musical temporality, as Berger further points out, is closely linked to contemporary shifts in economic thought and practice.74 Example 5.8 Air, “Shepherd, What Art Thou Pursuing?” from Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Act I. Published by John Walsh, c. 1743. Indeed, modern finance, heralding a time value of money, transformed the linear unfolding of time into a crucial mechanism of wealth generation and accumulation. And this calculation of pleasure against time is fully manifested in Damon’s admonition of Acis. “Share our joy, our pleasure share / Leave thy passion till tomorrow,” says Damon, who thus subjects 74 For Berger’s discussion of the musical experience of linear time and its connection to a “modernizing” culture see Berger, Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow, 5, 9-12, for Berger’s formulation of the new musical temporality’s connection to economic modernity, 159-160. 349 worldly pleasure to the abstract calculation of time value, as if attempting to profit from speculative capital according to the compound interest tables popularized by financial pamphlets circulating in Exchange Alley.75 Subsuming pleasure under profitability, Damon’s song echoes what Jean-Christophe Agnew termed the “hedonistic calculus” that operated as the grammar of Britain’s increasingly monetized economy. In this calculus, the arithmetic of the mercurial value of intangible capital became securely enthroned in its market culture.76 This intertwining of musical and economic temporality also supports William Deringer’s insights into how financial calculation, during the British financial revolution, extended its influence beyond the market to shape Britain’s “collective civic epistemology”—encompassing its politics and culture.77 It underscores a utilitarian mindset that applied a quasi-mathematical analysis to parse the complexities of social, economic, and political exchanges, marking a period where the calculative logic of finance permeated broader societal norms and values, shaping perceptions of time and human interactions. Through Damon’s air, it becomes clear that this new financial logic extended even to courtship and pastoral love. The air, with its measured pacing and deliberate phrasing, further renders this new epistemology of time audible. The dual temporality within the music of Acis and Galatea—the eternal, cyclical joy juxtaposed with disciplined, linear reasoning—can be said to mirror the complex temporal consciousness during the South Sea market boom. On one hand, the pastoral frolic representing Tory Arcadia embodies a utopian delight, a vision propagated by the South Sea scheme’s political advocates as the ultimate symbol of the nation’s enduring prosperity and stability, promised by burgeoning trade ventures. This idealized vision, fueled by the perceived infallible profitability of South Sea trade, was brought to the market, igniting the euphoric sentiment that 75 Harvard Kress Collection, “Marketing, Financial Transactions, and 18th-century Print Culture,” https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th- century-print-culture. 76 Jean-Christophe Agnew, Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550-1750 (Cambridge University Press, 1986), 13-14. 77 William Deringer, Calculated Values: Finance, Politics, and the Quantitative Age (Harvard University Press, 2018), 6-12. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th-century-print-culture https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/south-sea-bubble/feature/marketing-financial-transactions-and-18th-century-print-culture 350 spurred the stock boom. Conversely, realizing such profits demanded active market participation and the kind of financial prudence exemplified by Damon’s advice. This approach advocated for a calculated engagement with the market, transforming “the passion of tomorrow” into genuine profit—the process towards realizing the pastoral-financial vision of a perfect and static economy “free from sorrow and care.” Contrary to the common portrayal of the Duke of Chandos as an uninformed gambler swept up in the market frenzy, his financial dealings during the South Sea Bubble reveal a more calculated and strategic approach to investment.78 Indeed, Chandos treated his investments with an eye toward the Tory utopian ideal while embodying the pragmatic diligence of a practiced financier. His South Sea investment netted him a 239% profit margin before the crash, thanks to a deliberate strategy of quickly acquiring new subscriptions and selling them at a “reasonable” profit to mitigate the risks of long-term market instability.79 As if heeding Damon’s canny counsel of “leaving the passion till tomorrow,” Chandos maintained this strategy throughout the market’s heady months to only make incremental gains and benefit from frequent trading, ultimately profiting tremendously through volume in the form of delayed payoffs.80 This cautious, informed strategy was a rational response to the volatile market conditions and the 78 Handel biographers, for example, frequently cast Chandos in this image when glossing over the South Sea events. See, for example, Paul Henry Lang, George Frideric Handel (W. W. Norton & Company, 1966), 125 and Donald Burrows, Handel (Oxford University Press, 2012), 104. Possibly they were drawing on Chandos’s correspondence in the 1720s reporting financial problems. Cited in Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron, 93-95. But those losses mentioned, as Yamamoto and others have shown, were more about the loss of liquidity due to the post-Bubble credit crunch with respect to the debt Chandos had accumulated prior to the South Sea scheme. 79 As Yamamoto reports, Chandos bought South Sea shares nominally worth at least £390,000 at a market price of £559,443 in total over the months leading up to the crash. He was then recorded as selling most of them for a total of £930,000. That difference, £372,091, or a margin of 239%, was undoubtedly an outstanding profit. See Yamamoto, “Beyond Rational vs Irrational Bubbles.” Chandos’s investment strategy, as he described himself in a letter to his associate, was “buying up subscriptions as soon as they come out and selling them at a reasonable profit; one cannot lose much by them.”⁠ Cited in Yamamoto, 375. 80 During the first six months of the year, the total volume of his trading exceeded £1.5 million in nominal value. Dubbed “riding the bubble” by modern-day economists, this strategy was, as Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth have observed, a commonly adopted preference and goal by a wide array of speculators during the South Sea mania.⁠ Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Riding the South Sea Bubble,” The American Economic Review 94, no. 5 (2004): 1654–68. 351 intelligence he gleaned from his trusted network within the financial elite. Echoing Damon’s sentiment of “share our joy,” which illustrates the alignment of self-interested calculations with an investment community, Chandos’s South Sea speculation relied on informational transactions and strategic alliances masked as acts of friendship and civility. Notably, Matthew Decker, Governor of the East India Company, advised Chandos to redirect his investments from the South Sea Company to the East India Company after the Bubble Act’s passage.81 Despite the crash and his losses, Chandos never considered himself or his circle, who strategically “rode the bubble,” as mere gamblers. He squarely blamed the market’s crash on the dishonest practices of stock-jobbing, all the while distancing himself and his peers from such practices and the image of reckless speculators. This stance not only highlights the “bounded rationality”—the interpretive limitations and susceptibility to groupthink within the speculative frenzy—at play during the South Sea speculation; it also underscores the complex interplay of hope, prudence, intelligent financial strategies, and errors in judgment, revealing the blurred lines between the human aspects of speculative investment and cold, abstract calculation.82 81 Chandos’s investment strategy went beyond frequent trading for incremental capital gains; he also made use of option contracts for risk hedging and diversified his holdings across other speculative ventures. His approach reflected a cautious assessment of schemes, favoring investments with demonstrated success over new ones. Relying on a network of trusted acquaintances, Chandos evaluated the reliability of investable companies with promising equity. His profits from the South Sea scheme were not mere happenstance but the result of calculated and coordinated speculation, mirroring the cool calculation and pragmatism found in Damon’s air. Chandos’s investment strategy exemplified a cost- benefit mindset, as evidenced by his dismissal of a proposal to invest in a new company: “unless … there was a probability of its ending more advantageous than a Stock-jobbing Voyage generally proves, I shall not incline to be concerned in it” See Yamamoto, 350. Chandos’s personal investment correspondences, when examined from outside his immediate circle and viewed through a modern economic regulatory lens, could readily be interpreted as a form of “corruption.” In fact, one might be tempted to label Chandos an “insider trader” and an “institutional investor” in this context. For further exploration of the blurred lines between illicit insider trading and the gentlemanly epistolary network during the South Sea Bubble, see Aaron Graham, Corruption, Party, and Government in Britain, 1702-1713 (Oxford University Press, 2015) 101-120. 82 Moreover, these divergent aspects—the stockjobbing mania and the gentlemanly pursuit of wealth accumulation—suggest that the South Sea Bubble’s economic logic can be more accurately described as a hybrid of both landed and moneyed interests. The Chandos circle, representing this new era where landed gentry became involved in stock market speculation, embodied this duality. They retained a distrust of stockjobbing but enjoyed the benefits of wealth and luxury, unwilling to miss out on potential gains. Acis and Galatea musically captured these two distinct economic facets: the grounded stability of landed wealth and the fluid dynamism of moneyed wealth. Their intermingling in the work coincided with the forays of the Tory intelligentsia and landed gentry into the financial markets, reflecting a blending of new 352 If Acis and Galatea can be said to render these aspects audible, particularly in the contrasting affects between Damon’s air and Acis and Galatea’s duet, it owes much to the pastoral drama’s creators, original audience, and their experiences with the South Sea mania. Damon’s air, notably the sole musical contribution of John Arbuthnot, was likely not included by chance. Arbuthnot, unlike his literary peers, was primarily a physician, serving Queen Anne and later managing the Duke of Chandos’s household during the prosperous period at the Cannons. This position granted him deep insights into the Duke’s financial ventures and economic initiatives. Though it is unclear whether Arbuthnot himself suffered losses in the South Sea Bubble, his writings from years later reflect a markedly conservative financial stance, suggesting he harbored doubts about the venture from its inception and the general fraud-filled projecting age, despite having also invested in the South Sea stock.83 This cautious approach distinguished him from his Scriblerian contemporaries, revealing a divergence in their perspectives on the South Sea investment. It is rather fitting, then, that Arbuthnot voiced Damon’s calculated advice to the infatuated shepherd portrayed by the other Scriblerians. In hindsight, Damon’s cautionary air proved prophetic, foreshadowing not only the fatal end of Acis’s romantic entanglement with Galatea but also the financial ruin that awaited the Scriblerians after the market crash of 1720. Shortly after Pope confidently offered financial advice to Lady Montagu, South Sea shares plummeted from £1,050 to a mere £190 in under two and old forms of wealth. Furthermore, this representation of both moneyed and landed interests aligns with the English political landscape since the Glorious Revolution. The ascending Whigs consistently advocated consolidating a rationalized national financial system that would serve both landed and moneyed interests, along with a strengthened fiscal-military system to finance England’s rivalry with other European powers for global dominance. See Hugh Goodacre, The Economic Thought of William Petty: Exploring the Colonialist Roots of Economics. (Routledge. 2018), 2. 83 To examine Arbuthnot’s satirical commentary on the fraudulent “schemes and inventions of the projecting age,” see John Theophilus Desaguliers, The York-Buildings Dragons (J. Roberts, 1726); for Arbuthnot’s critiques of the South Sea Company, see Robert Aitken, The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot (Oxford University Press, 1892). While there is limited information about Arbuthnot’s private activities during the South Sea Bubble, his name appears on a 1714 shareholder list, suggesting he had a significant financial stake in the company and potential for leadership within it. See R. L. Hayley, “The Scriblerians and the South Sea Bubble: A Hit by Cibber,” The Review of English Studies 24, no. 96 (Nov 1973): 454. 353 weeks. While Pope claimed minimal losses, Gay suffered a far more devastating financial fate. Ignoring his friends’ advice, including Pope’s, to sell his shares as prices began to drop, Gay held onto his investments until the crash, losing both his initial investment and the unrealized profits he could have seized—a devastation reported to have nearly killed him84. In retrospect, Damon’s song in Acis and Galatea becomes an uncanny echo of the unheeded warnings Gay received, as the shepherd’s friend reflects on the ephemeral nature of pleasure: Does delaying gratification diminish its ultimate value? With this same prudent wisdom, Elijah Fenton, another of Gay’s friends, advised the playwright not to invest all his funds in the volatile market, emphasizing the importance of securing a modest yet stable living standard with the assurance of “a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day.”85 The South Sea crisis inflicted more than financial ruin on the Scriblerians; it also brought personal humiliation and public shame. As moral outrage over the market scandal surged, the Scriblerians, once vocal supporters of the South Sea scheme, became targets of cutting satire and ridicule. Their literary rival, Colley Cibber, relished lampooning the Scriblerians’ misjudgments, transforming their eager participation in the risky venture into fodder for mockery. In February 1721, Cibber unveiled his bubble play, The Refusal; or The Ladies Philosophy, at Drury Lane Theatre. Capitalizing on the market crisis as an opportunity for moral commentary, Cibber launched a scathing attack on the Scriblerians, recasting their tarnished reputations into satirical characters within his play. Among these characters was Signior Caponi da Capo, ostensibly a caricature of a castrato. Yet, beneath this facade lay a composite of John Gay and Alexander Pope, their South Sea follies skewered by the line, “not ready to send money to Popish countries,” cleverly intertwining the Scriblerian poets with the disparaged Italian opera and South Sea stock.86 From the play’s outset, Cibber, in the prologue, likens the 84 Johnson, “Life of Gay,” in Lives of the English Poets (1905), 267-85. 85 Johnson, “Life of Gay,” 267-85. 86 See Hayley, “The Scriblerians and the South Sea Bubble: A Hit by Cibber,” 454-55. 354 Scriblerians’ burgeoning literary and theatrical output to bubbles themselves, drawing a parallel between the speculative nature of financial markets and their creative endeavors: Gallants! behold before your Eyes the Wight, Whose Actions stand accountable Tonight For all your Dividends of Profit or Delight New Plays resemble Bubbles, we must own, But their intrinsick value soon is known: There’s no imposing Pleasure on a Town And when they fail, count o’er his Pain and Trouble His Doubts, his Fears, the Poet is the Bubble.87 Cibber thus linked the elusive value of the paper economy with the perceived moral and literary shortcomings of the plays proliferating in London’s theaters. He implied that the Scriblerians’ works, which he viewed as trivial entertainment and lacking in substance, were akin to the baseless wealth flaunted by South Sea financiers—devoid of “intrinsick value.” Yet, despite its moralizing veneer, Cibber’s play falls short of offering an unbiased reflection on the Bubble.88 Given Cibber’s own involvement in South Sea speculation, The Refusal can be seen less as a serious examination of the financial crisis and more as an opportunistic exploitation of the prevailing mood of disillusionment and anger that followed the market crash. Cibber used the play to reignite a longstanding feud with the Scriblerians and retaliate against their criticisms.89 Despite its short run, the play highlighted how the financial crisis fragmented society, a division mirrored in the theater world. The crisis became entangled in moralizing narratives that blended professional rivalry with timely satire. 87 Colley Cibber, “Prologue,” in The Refusal; The Provoked Husband; Love in a Riddle; Perolla and Izadora; Rival Queans (J. Rivington and Sons, C. Bathurst, T. Longman, T. Lowndes, T. Caslon, W. Nicoll, and S. Bladon., 1777). 88 Cibber’s satire wove together common criticisms of the South Sea Company, embodying them in characters and plotlines that symbolized the convergence of controversial issues: Italian opera, Tory allegiances, and reckless financial speculation. Ironically, the biting satire of Cibber’s play proved unpopular with audiences, leading to its closure after only six nights. In response, John Rich, manager of the rival Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, revived another English-language adaptation of Molière’s The Female Virtuosos by Thomas Wright. Further complicating matters for Cibber, the play’s opening night was disrupted by political opponents, likely due to his association with the Whig leader Robert Walpole. Had it not been for this political interference, the play would likely have enjoyed a longer run. See Inger Leemans, “‘New Plays resemble Bubbles, we must own’: Staging the Stock Market, 1719-20,’” 186. 89 For Cibber’s ongoing feud with the Scriblerians, see Hayley, “The Scriblerians and the South Sea Bubble: A Hit by Cibber,” 454-55. 355 The Scriblerians, however, were also far from reticent in the face of criticism. Alexander Pope offered reflective examinations of the events through his post-bubble literary works, occasionally defending against the accusations of moral failings leveled at individual investors. For instance, in his satirical moral essay, Of the Use of Riches: An Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst, Pope characterized the South Sea Bubble as a manifestation of collective “madness,” where the “ruling passion” of greed overwhelmed reason. For him, the investment mania represented a societal failure; individual actions, though perhaps rational in pursuit of personal gain, failed to aggregate into a rational societal order.90 The scale of “folly” rendered individual reason futile, highlighting the individual’s vulnerability within the mania. Investors were powerless against the market’s capricious “ebb and flow” and unable to attain investment decisions—whether to “keep or bestow”—wisely.91 This reflection resonates with his observations made just after the crash, showing how the abrupt downturn left investors defenseless: “Most people thought it wou’d come but no man prepar’d for it; no man consider’d it would come like a thief in the night, exactly as it happens in the case of death.”92 Elevating this individual vulnerability further to a theological level, Pope retrospectively suggests the financial market was but the doing of “heaven,” its order and logic remaining impenetrable to the individual rational mind. This rhetoric of anodyne impartiality reflects the political and cultural pessimism prevalent in Pope’s post-Bubble texts, as well as, perhaps, a desire to explain away his own failures—his own financial losses and the accompanying public embarrassment.93 90 Alexander Pope, Of the Use of Riches: An Epistle to the Right Honorable Allen Lord Bathurst (1732). “All this is madness, cries a sober Sage, / But who, my Friend, has Reason in his Rage? / The ruling Passion, be it what it will, / The ruling Passion conquers Reason still. / Less mad the wildest Whimsey we can frame, / Than ev’n that Passion, if it has no Aim; / For tho’ such Motives Folly you may call, / The Folly’s greater to have none at all.” 91 “Extremes in Nature equal Good produce, / Extremes in Man concur to general Use. / Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow? / That Pow’r who bids the Ocean ebb and flow; / Bids Seed-time, Harvest, equal course maintain, / Thro’ reconcil’d Extremes of Drought and Rain; / Builds Life on Death; on Change Duration founds, / And gives th’ eternal Wheels to know their rounds.” 92 Cited in Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (Plume, 1999), 84. 93 Pope’s post-bubble rationalization may also be interpreted as him employing a modern-day economic concept of bounded rationality to explain (away) individual investor failures while simultaneously 356 In stark contrast to Pope’s rhetorical attempts to obscure personal missteps within the investment frenzy, John Gay confronted the market crash with raw, personal intensity. Gay’s reaction stemmed not only from the sting of his financial loss but also from a deep disillusionment with the English social order and the predicament surrounding his literary vocation. Stricken by a severe illness in the Bubble’s wake, an illness that nearly claimed his life, Gay channeled his existential introspection into his 1721 A Panegyrical Epistle to Mr. Thomas Snow: Why did ‘Change-Alley waste thy precious hours, Among the fools who gap’d for golden show’rs? No wonder, if we found some poets there, Who live on fancy, and can feed on air; No wonder, they were caught by South-Sea schemes, Who ne’er enjoy’d a guinea, but in dreams; No wonder, they their third subscriptions sold, For millions of imaginary gold.94 In this deeply personal reckoning with the market crash, Gay contemplates the parallels between the financier’s fantasy of infinite monetary growth and the poet’s yearning for boundless creative imagination. He reflects on how a poet’s inclination towards whim and fancy might have contributed to his financial misjudgment, suggesting that a poetic propensity for suspending disbelief could leave one vulnerable to speculative ventures. As previously noted, Cibber’s comparison of the Scriblerians with the speculative Bubble emphasizes individual errors as moral failings, equating the market’s lack of tangible value with the absence of definitive meanings and clear morals in their work. Gay, seemingly echoing Cibber’s critique, highlights the interconnectedness of the economies of theater and finance not merely as a defending their rationality as actors doing the best they could under the circumstances. In An Epistle to Bathurst, Pope also portrays the financial crisis as devastating floods that darken the land and blot out the sun. This imagery of destruction escalates in The Dunciad, concluding with a prophecy that the goddess Dulness will bring about the end of civilization. For further analysis, see De Bruyn “Satire in Text and Image: Bubble Publications in England and the Netherlands Compared” and G. Douglas Atkins, “‘Who Shall Decide?’: The Economy of Truth in Pope’s ‘Epistle to Bathurst,” The Eighteenth Century 24 no. 1 (1983): 65-78. 94 John Gay, A Panegyrical Epistle to Mr. Thomas Snow (1721). 357 satirical trope but as a form of literary self-consciousness. He suggests that their shared reliance on illusion and speculation can blur the lines between creative expression and the pursuit of financial gain. This intertwining of theater and commerce raises questions about the authenticity of both endeavors and the potential for each to exploit the other. Viewed in light of Gay’s literary self-reflection on the intertwining of theater and commerce, it is hardly surprising that the post-Bubble The Beggar’s Opera serves as a biting inversion of the pre-Bubble Acis and Galatea. It subverts the pastoral genre, turning its conventions on their head, to offer a penetrating critique of the transformative financial economy spawned by the South Sea Bubble. Thematically, the disillusionment with the pastoral ideal in The Beggar’s Opera reflects a broader societal disenchantment with the once-promised fertile Arcadia of financial prosperity, a fantasy shattered by the South Sea Bubble’s collapse. This shattered the illusion of the Tory Arcadia and its promise of infinite growth. As Bernard Mandeville, the cynical polemicist, argued, the idyllic Tory Arcadia, emphasizing effortless harmony and virtue, is incompatible with modern progress. He claimed the “cardinal virtues” extolled in such a utopia breed only poverty and ignorance. Instead, Mandeville championed ambition and competition as the drivers of true wealth and societal advancement. While acknowledging their positive effects on “labor and industry, arts and sciences,” Mandeville also recognized the darker side of ambition and competition. They breed “envy and emulation,” fostering “passions over possession” and leading to a social landscape no longer reliant on “honest and sincere” characters and “easy and loving” temperaments. Mandeville’s polemic highlights a realistic understanding of a modernizing society built on financial self-interest: the displacement of Arcadian simplicity by a society driven by self-interest and mercantile activities. While this results in real wealth, it comes at the cost of social fragmentation and moral ambivalence.95 Despite the hyperbolic nature of Mandeville’s critique of the Tory Arcadia’s naive 95 In Fable of the Bees, Mandeville describes an ideal Arcadia with “fertile soil and a happy climate, a mild government, and more Land than People,” where people are “easy, loving, honest and sincere,” but also 358 imagery, The Beggar’s Opera, through its generic reversal of the pastoral, embodies the polemicist’s disillusionment in contrast to Acis and Galatea. It illustrates a stark awakening from fanciful dreams to the harsh realities of economic ambition, societal division, and profound uncertainty. By exploiting musical fungibility to transform the serene dances of nymph and shepherd into the frenzied movements of a betrayed lover, The Beggar’s Opera serves as an antithesis to Acis and Galatea. When viewed through the lens of the 1720 financial crisis, this inversion of affect and meaning underscores the fragility of a bubble economy and reveals the shattering impact of its collapse. The bursting bubble deflates not only market values, but also the very fanciful imagination that fueled it. Gay’s work captures this dual collapse. Juxtaposing pastoral idylls with the grim realities of financial speculation, he exposes the deep ruptures in both economic stability and the creative psyche. It is a powerful commentary on the disillusionment and disorientation that followed the 1720 crisis. PLAY AND PROFIT By subverting pastoral conventions and shattering the Arcadian fantasy of unfettered economic fecundity, The Beggar’s Opera exposes the fungibility and inherent ambiguity of theatrical and musical expression. This is achieved precisely by exploiting the very fungibility and ambiguity of the musical materials curated by Gay and Pepusch. This approach directly connects the ballad opera to the bubble ballads circulating around 1720, drawing on the same “poor, ignorant, and almost wholly destitute of what we call the Comforts of Life,” as “all the Cardinal Virtues together won’t so much as procure a tolerable Coat or a Porridge-Pot among them.” Indentifying self-interest as the engine of modern economy, he queries, “Would you render a Society of Men strong and powerful, you must touch their Passions. Divide the Land, tho’ there be never so much to spare, and their Possessions will make them Covetous: Rouse them, tho’ but in Jest, from their Idleness with Praises, and Pride will set them to work in earnest: Teach them Trades and Handicrafts, and you’ll bring Envy and Emulation among them: To increase their Numbers, set up a Variety of Manufactures, and leave no Ground uncultivated ... would you moreover render them an opulent, knowing and polite Nation, teach ’em Commerce with Foreign Countries, and if possible get into the Sea, which to compass spare no Labour nor Industry .. Then promote Navigation, cherish the Merchant, and encourage Trade . . . This will bring Riches, and where they are, Arts and Sciences will soon follow, and by the Help of what I have named and good Management, it is that Politicians can make a People potent, renowned and flourishing.” 359 combinatorial logic that allowed the ballads, circulating in the creative economy of bubble prints, to capture the thrills and chills of the market. Both the play and the ballads operate on the principle that theatrical and musical devices lack stable meaning; their significance arises from their circulation, creating a self-referential chain of accrued meanings. In the print circulation economy that fueled the endless reiteration of broadside ballads, bubble ballads were more products of a collective process than individual creations. Their meanings were not solely determined by a single balladeer, but rather shaped by the collective experience of all the people and objects involved in the ballads’ past circulations, manifested in their varied musical settings, renewed texts, and ultimately determined by a distributed agency that incorporated the whims of balladeers, printers, musicians, hawkers, peddlers, and performers alike. The author- balladeer was but one node within a vast network of people and objects shaping the meaning of the song sheet. In essence, these bubble ballads were more “produced” than “authored,” inviting a hyper-networked form of meaning-making. The final cultural product emerges from this complex interplay, compelling us to speculatively trace the intricate paths within this network as we seek to understand its significance.96 Similarly, The Beggar’s Opera by Gay and Pepusch is perhaps better described as curated than authored. They assembled a heterogeneous collection of musical and theatrical elements, lacking intrinsic creative relationships, into a new and meaningful whole. It invites the audience to engage in the same speculative activity that shaped the assemblage: drawing connections, making parallels, and using appositional logic to derive their own sense from the work. This speculative engagement mirrors the very purpose of the bubble ballads, which invited audiences to actively participate in interpreting and making sense of both the ballad itself and, by extension, the market it reflected. On a practical level, the indeterminacy of representational meaning in The Beggar’s 96 The concept of contrasting “produced” and “authored” is drawn from Benjamin Schmidt’s analysis of eighteenth-century Dutch printmaking, where Schmidt calls an “entrepreneurial intervention” that produced a new form of printed text. See Benjamin Schmidt, Inventing Exoticism: Geography, Globalism, and Europe’s Early Modern World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 47. 360 Opera was likely a strategy employed by Gay to circumvent censorship. Robert Walpole, a prime target of Gay’s biting satire, initially found the ballad opera amusing. However, upon recognizing its sharp critique of his administration, he banned it from London’s theaters. This perceived threat eventually led Walpole to push for the passage of the Licensing Act of 1737. This act significantly reduced the number of theaters in London and tightened government control over theatrical productions, effectively curbing the potential for such subversive commentary.97 Figure 5.7 Thomas and Carington Bowles, The Beggar’s Opera Playing Card (c. 1730). Sources: CUL, Albert Field Collection of Playing Cards, GB0121 and YWL, The Beggar’s Opera, 55 G25 S770. 97 See Norman S. Poser, “The licensing act,” in The Birth of Modern Theatre (Routledge, 2018). 361 Ironically, this ban only amplified The Beggar’s Opera popularity, driving public demand for keepsakes and mementos related to the ballad opera. Alongside the rapidly published musical score, items such as images of Polly on fans and clothing, playing cards, and broadsides featuring the characters became highly sought after the novel theatrical work was premiered. Thomas Bowles capitalized on the success of The Beggar’s Opera by releasing a set of print memorabilia around 1730, presented as a deck of playing cards (Figure 5.7). The card faces followed the popular French suits, with symbols and numbers in color at the top left corner, indicating they were intended for actual gameplay. Each card corresponded to one of the airs from Gay’s opera, with fifty-two of the sixty-nine airs represented to complete the four suits. The cards included the title of the ballad, the characters who sing it, the tune, the lyrics, and, where space allowed, the notation for an accompanying flute obbligato.98 It is fitting that a popular bubble play like The Beggar’s Opera would be commemorated by another form of bubble print ephemera: playing cards. Playing cards were widely used to satirize the speculative mania following the South Sea Bubble. In the aftermath of the Bubble, the focus shifted from celebrating wealth to mocking unhedged risk and human folly. For example, in The Great Mirror of Folly, one can find a full plate of playing cards titled “April- card, or Card Game of Momus, According to the Newest Fashion.”99 Each card in this set presents a character related to the South Sea scheme, from its infamous directors to mythical figures like Fortuna, chronicling the events of the Bubble through individual caricatures (Figure 5.8a). Capitalizing on this trend, Thomas Bowles designed his own sets of playing cards shortly after the market crash. The three playing cards quoted in the “Bubblers’ Medley” seen in the previous chapter served as advertisements for these more elaborate and expensive collectibles. One deck of cards (Figure 5.8b) printed and sold by Bowles depicted various joint-stock 98 The music appears to have been copied verbatim from Watt’s 1729 publication of The Beggar’s Opera. However, Bowles’s print shop—perhaps lacking expertise in musical engraving—not only reproduced some of the errors present in Watt’s edition but may also have introduced additional inaccuracies. 99 See William Goetzmann, Catherine Labio, K. Geert Rouwenhorst, and Timothy Young, eds., The Great Mirror of Folly: Finance, Culture, and the Crash of 1720 (Yale University Press, 2013). 362 companies, both legitimate and fraudulent, established during the South Sea Bubble to lure investors and their cash.100 Another deck (Figure 5.8c) featured illustrations of domestic scenes chronicling the boom and bust cycle, vividly capturing the emotional rollercoaster of bourgeois speculators: initial optimism, anxious anticipation, the thrill of potential success, and the swift deflation of those hopes. Advertised as “Bubble cards…tricks of Stock Jobbers…Humours of Change Alley,” these cards quickly became popular collector’s items.101 100 CUL Albert Field Collection of Playing Cards GB0122. 101 A full set of “Playing Cards Satirizing the South Sea Bubble,” created by Thomas Carington Bowles in London (1720-21), was sold at Christie’s (Live Auction #17037) on June 12, 2019. The set is believed to be currently owned by a “New England collector.” 363 Figure 5.8 Examples of South Sea Bubble-themed playing cards popular after the 1720 crisis: a) April Cards, anonymous. Source: Christie’s Live Auction 17037 (Closed June 12, 2019); b) Thomas and Carington Bowles, Bubble Cards, Set 1. Source: Christie’s Live Auction 17037 (Closed June 12, 2019); c) Thomas and Carington Bowles, Bubble Cards, Set 2. Source: HBL, 8001624443. 364 These playing cards, as Bubble memorabilia, drew a satirical parallel between investing in the South Sea scheme and gambling. This comparison was meant to illustrate the moral and economic upheaval caused by the financial crash, depicting the collective frenzy for speculative gains as reckless gambling that had upended societal norms.102 These commemorative playing cards, often used in actual gameplay, allowed players to personally experience the risk and reward dynamics that mirrored the volatile speculative environment of the time. As players engaged with these cards, they intertwined their own experiences with the events and figures of the South Sea Bubble, thereby simulating the mindset of speculators caught in the frenzy. The act of playing thus transformed the 1720 crisis into an embodied exploration of the financial market as a game of chance. This interactive simulation made the cards a potent metaphor for the market itself. The era’s financial innovations, from lotteries to stock-jobbing, were perceived to be gambling-like. As Laura Brown has noted, the enduring legacy of this period is “not rationalized system of capitalist exchange, but the flights of fancy and credulity of the free market and stock speculation.” Indeed, the line between gambling and stock trading was often blurred in the eyes of contemporaries. Lady Montagu, for example, enjoyed participating in the South Sea frenzy and shared her experiences with Alexander Pope and others in her social circle. She described her involvement as an “exhilaration of gambling,” highlighting the speculative and risk-taking nature of both activities.103 This gambling-infused financial capitalism expanded private credit networks, crucial to the eighteenth-century economy and beyond. The market’s allure entices participation, creating a collectively determined yet fragile value system driven by the irresistible pull of speculation. In essence, the playing cards not only gamified the bubble but also revealed its inherent game-like nature. The eighteenth century witnessed a captivating interplay between music and gaming, as 102 Jeroen Salman has observed that the overarching message of the Bubble playing cards is a cautionary one: the bubble trade was akin to high-stakes gambling. The cards portray investment during this era as a compulsive, risky game, mirroring the thrill and danger of a casino. See Jerome Salman, “Playing Games with the Financial Crisis,” in The Great Mirror of Folly: Finance, Culture, and the Crash of 1720 (2013). 103 Isobel Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (Oxford University Press, 1999), 205-6. 365 the element of chance in music-making gained prominence in compositions, criticisms, and commodities.104 However, this trend was not universally embraced, with some expressing disdain for the perceived randomness in music creation. Handel, for instance, famously linked the dubious ethics of gambling with degenerate aesthetics in music. He allegedly compared the simplified harmonic progressions favored by his rival Bononcini to a simple card game of trumps, where the random dealing of cards served as a metaphor for the thoughtless oscillations between tonic and dominant that Handel claimed were overly prevalent in Bononcini’s music.105 Using the playing card metaphor, Handel criticized the galant style gaining popularity in theaters, suggesting it provided opportunities for substandard musicians who lacked skill and relied on luck. In making such a remark, Handel might have also been reflecting on the chance- driven fortunes of the speculative ventures he observed first-hand during the South Sea Bubble.106 Conversely, others found value in the aleatoric aspects of music-making, recognizing its potential for both pedagogy and entertainment. Musicological research reveals how eighteenth- century composers cleverly exploited the symmetries inherent in tonal music, enabling the creation of certain polymorphous musical building blocks that could, through iterative card play, facilitate the development of a cohesive song was simulated, effectively mitigating the randomness of the drawn musical fragments. The combinatorial logic of musical composition propelled the commercialization of musical card games, enabling non-musicians to simulate the 104 See Roger Moseley, Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo (University of California Press, 2016), 127-140; Carmel Raz, “Anne Young’s Musical Games (1801): Music Theory, Gender, and Game Design,” SMT-V: Videocast Journal of the Society for Music Theory 4 no. 2 (2018). 105 John Hawkins in his General History recounts the anecdote of Handel disparaging Bonoccini’s musical style, comparing the Italian’s compositional method to playing card games: “We no more hear the solemn and pathetic Adagio, the artful and well-studied Fugue, or the sweet modulation of the keys with the minor third: all is Allegro and Prestissimo, and If not discord, such harmony as the ear sickens at hearing. Such music Mr. Handel was used to listen to and laugh at, and comparing it to a game of cards, would exclaim, ‘Now D is trumps, now A,’ in allusion to those vulgar transitions from the key-note to its fifth, with which such sort of music abounds.” Cited in Paul Corneilson, J. C. Bach (Routledge, 2015), 125. 106 See also, O. Bjerg, Poker: Parody of Capitalism (University of Michigan Press, 2011). 366 improvisatory practices of experienced musicians.107 By using cards that exploited the inherent fungibility of musical building blocks, players could create the illusion of spontaneously composing coherent musical pieces through gameplay. Whether perfunctory or profound, these musical card games relied equally on the principles of tonal grammar as a seemingly self- organizing system and the inherent thrill of gambling. They rewarded players for creating harmonious tonal sequences while simultaneously introducing the risk of failure, which paradoxically enhanced the games’ appeal.108 In essence, these musical card games embodied a playful spectrum of risk and reward. The combinatorial aspect exploited by musical card game designers extended beyond individual musical fragments. In some cases, these games also allowed players to combine complete songs into personalized musical sets. Bowles’s The Beggar’s Opera playing cards exemplify this genre of musical card games. Contemporaneous with The Beggar’s Opera cards, other similar creations can also be found in various archival collections. One deck featured popular ballads (Figure 5.9a), adorned with aphorisms on the king, queen, and knave cards to 107 For example, Mozart’s “minuet machine,” see Neal Zaslaw, “Mozart’s Modular Minuet Machine.” In Essays in Honor of László Somfai on His Seventieth Birthday: Studies in the Sources and the Interpretation of Music (Scarecrow Press, 2005), 219–35. 108 Eighteenth-century music-themed parlor games have drawn scholarly interest for their fusion of gameplay mechanics with the principles of music composition. These games often utilized the combinability of basic musical elements, subject to strict rules, to simulate musical composition within a playful context. They served a didactic purpose, particularly among middle-class amateurs, by offering access to specialized knowledge. The seemingly random processes of game play, juxtaposed with the orderly nature of tonal music, blurred the lines between surface and underlying mechanism. Scholars initially focused on the inner workings of these games, viewing them as windows into compositional practice, either linking them to the concept of ars combinatoria or considering them precursors to algorithmic compositions. The prevailing view was that these games created an illusion of chance, with underlying order revealing principles of eighteenth-century tonal grammar. However, recent scholarship has shifted towards examining the surface of game play, specifically the illusion of chance and the relationship between surface and inner mechanism. Etha Williams, for example, suggests that these games may have relied less on Leibnizian principles (self-organizing principles) and more on the concept of gambling. Citing moments of “failure” that some games seem to encourage, Williams argues that these failures were integral to the games’ playful appeal, articulating a continuum of risk and reward. She further posits a connection between these music games and the economic context of financial speculation, with the games and probability theory arising from the need to understand new financial instruments. See Etha Williams, “Self-Organization, Simulated Improvisation, and Vernacular Mathematics: Toward a Ludomusicology of Eighteenth-Century Dice Games.” paper presented at the American Musicological Society, Online, 2021. 367 inspire players to craft their own dramatic narratives.109 Another deck included cards with wordless dances for obbligato instruments, which could be combined to create suites (Figure 5.9b). 110 For the deck with wordless dances, each card contains a simple binary movement and is arranged by key according to the playing cards’ color scheme: dances in red suits are in G major, dances in black suits in D major, and the queen in each suit is in the respective parallel minor. The pun on “French suit(e)” is not to be missed here, as players assemble their musical suites based on the color- and key-scheme organized around the playing cards’ suit design. 109 YBL Cary ENG122. 110 BM 1896,0501.430. 368 Figure 5.9 Examples of music-themed playing cards from the eighteenth century: a) Deck of playing cards featuring several lines of music, verse, and flute accompaniment. Source: Yale Beinecke Library, Cary ENG122; b) Playing cards with French suits: A complete pack where the suit-marks occupy the upper half of each card, with the lower half filled with music. Source: BM, 1896,0501.430. These cards allowed non-musicians to mimic the improvisational practices of seasoned musicians, utilizing their knowledge of interchangeable musical elements to spontaneously create coherent compositions. In the case of Bowles’s The Beggar’s Opera cards, the cards’ aesthetic and functional values converged, allowing users to collect musical numbers to craft 369 their own narratives and character portrayals. Thus, the playing card version of The Beggar’s Opera reveals an affinity between its creators and audience—both acting as speculative players within the circulation of balladic mementos. This affinity also carries an economic subtext. Both the authors and the audience seek to curate meaning in the narrative economy of the play, much like traders seeking valuable assets in the speculative market the play critiques. This highlights the perceived randomness and speculative nature present in both the play and the financial market. The cultural purveyor navigating a network of interchangeable music and text thus becomes analogous to a financial speculator operating within a market of fungible assets. Both are engaged in the perpetual pursuit of value and meaning, especially as these become increasingly elusive in a rapidly financializing world. Bowles’s cards, therefore, foreground the speculative logic underpinning The Beggar’s Opera’s very form, now transformed into card play. The cards imply that authoring the ballad opera is a form of play, just as viewing and listening to it become an act of playful interpretation and engagement. In John Gay’s Deep Play, Dianne Dugaw employs the anthropological concept of “deep play” to unravel the intricate layers of meaning, social commentary, and cultural critique embedded in The Beggar’s Opera.111 Gay’s playful satire and irony challenge societal norms, inviting engagement on multiple levels. Dugaw links this playfulness to the complex, modernizing English society of the time, where cultural purveyors like Gay acted as instigators of unexpected connections within the layered fabric of modernity.112 If Dugaw’s interpretation of Gay’s playfulness reveals her critical intuition about early eighteenth-century English society, then Bowles’s Beggar’s Opera playing cards can be said to solidify this hermeneutic hypothesis within a tangible historical artifact. Not only do the cards suggest that the ludic experience was 111 Dianne Dugaw, “Deep Play”: John Gay and the Invention of Modernity (University of Delaware Press, 2001), 166-196. 112 Dugaw, “Deep Play,” 21. 370 conceivable for contemporaries, but they also practically realized the idea in a material form by presenting the ballad opera as an actual form of gameplay. By gamifying the music and theatrical content, the cards underscore the stochastically controlled narrative economy of The Beggar’s Opera. Furthermore, they give Gay’s authorial “deep play” a more concrete meaning by drawing a parallel to financial speculation through the bubble cards genre of print ephemera. Experts on eighteenth-century print ephemera often debate whether decks like Bowles’s The Beggar’s Opera cards were intended for actual gameplay or primarily as collectible items for connoisseurs.113 The existence of both cut-up and full-plate versions of the cardssuggests a dual purpose. 114 This distinction in the playing cards’ extant forms also creates two distinct experiences of the ballad opera and, by extension, the 1720 financial mania it satirizes. For collectors, the uncut sheets offer a comprehensive view of The Beggar’s Opera’s narrative economy, showcasing all characters and musical numbers within a self-contained system. This parallels the analytical clarity of viewing a complete set of bubble cards depicting the South Sea crisis’s boom-to-bust trajectory—a vantage point only possible with hindsight. Active users of the cards, in contrast, experience the play’s narrative from within, forging their individuated understanding of the plot as they parse it as fragmented parts. Like spot traders with limited market information, they confront the randomness and risk of the hands they are dealt. Ultimately, the dual nature of the cards—both collectible and playable—reflects the interplay between observation and participation, analysis and experience, order and chaos, present in both the world of the theater and the financial markets. In the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble, Defoe and his contemporaries rationalized the crisis, arguing that financial markets, despite disruptions like the gamble-like South Sea scheme, 113 See William B. Keller, A Catalogue of the Cary Collection of Playing Cards in the Yale University Library (Yale University Library, 1981). 114 For example, while the copies of Bowles’s The Beggar’s Opera playing cards in the Columbia University Library and Yale Walpole Library collections are individual cards cut from a single sheet, another extant copy remains uncut (except for a few cards removed). This uncut copy was auctioned as part of Sotheby’s sale L13408/Lot 236. 371 are inherently self-correcting and will return to their “natural channel” after occasional “rash events.”115 This normalization of speculation and uncertainty paved the way for the concept of market self-organization as a framework for understanding financial events. The central question driving this concept was: how do orderly patterns emerge from seemingly random, stochastic events? Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman’s work on eighteenth-century self- organization highlights the cultural and moral factors contributing to the rise of this concept during that era. They demonstrate how conceptions about the emerging financial market as a self-organizing system, where individual actions interact to produce emergent order, were significantly influenced in part by the world of gambling.116 The eighteenth century witnessed the rise of professional gamblers and the development of probability calculations, leading to a new approach known as “gaming by rule.”117 Financiers like John Law, who hailed from professional gambling, were celebrated for their unique ability to navigate the intricacies of the financial market, supposedly honed through their past experiences as gamblers. As such, the enigmatic nature of chance and randomness was personified in the perception of financiers as possessing extraordinary insight into the market’s hidden mechanisms. As the financial market expanded, the insights and tactics derived from gambling were increasingly applied to it, and a crucial shift in perspective occurred as chance came to be accepted as a potential source of order rather than mere chaos. Gambling thus illuminated the dialectics of risk and reward, chaos and order, influencing the understanding of financial markets as self-organizing systems.118 The concept of the financial market as a self-organizing system is a cornerstone of modern financial orthodoxy, echoing Defoe’s view of the market’s inherent ability to self-correct. These orthodox theories also rely on the assumption of homo economicus, the perfectly rational 115 Daniel Defoe, A Plan of the English Commerce: Being a Compleat Prospect of the Trade of This Nation . . . (1728), 265–66. 116 Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman, Invisible Hands: Self-Organization and the Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2015), 54-76. 117 Sheehan and Wahrman, Invisible Hands, 72. 118 Sheehan and Wahrman, Invisible Hands, 76. 372 agent with complete information who makes calculated decisions to maximize personal gain.119 This underpins models like the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which posits that markets are informationally efficient due to rational actors exploiting and ultimately exhausting arbitrage opportunities.120 Markus Brunnermeier and Martin Oehmke expand on this with the concept of market autopoiesis, derived from game theory’s repeated games.121 They argue how, even with incomplete information and strategic interactions, market behavior can lead to overall efficiency and rationality, because through repeated interactions, irrational elements, or noises, are filtered out, leaving behind an orderly system. Market autopoiesis effectively aligns individual rationality with the rational market, suggesting the market itself acts as a sentient entity. This macro-micro alignment has become entrenched in financial thinking, shaping the perspectives of both institutional and individual investors. It reframes the causal relationship between individuals and the market as a feedback loop of infinitely repeating games, blurring the line between whether a rational market necessitates homo economicus or vice versa. As long as the market persists, the distinction between the risk-averse, fully informed homo economicus and the risk-taking, imperfectly informed gambler, or homo ludens, becomes increasingly irrelevant. To succeed in a game—or to profit from the market—one adapts and evolves, ultimately mirroring the very market they seek to master, becoming indistinguishable from the idealized mechanism they aim to predict and exploit. Bowles’s The Beggar’s Opera playing cards vividly illustrate the feedback loop and autopoiesis increasingly recognized by his contemporaries—and by modern economists—as inherent in financial markets. These cards portray the market as a 119 For orthodox economics’s definition of homo economicus, see, among others, Gregory N. Mankiw, “Ten Principles of Economics,” in Principles of Microeconomics, 7th edition (Engage, 2015). 120 Eugene F. Fama, “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work,” The Journal of Finance 25, no. 2 (1970): 383–417. 121 See Markus Brunnermeier and Martin Oehmke, “The Maturity Rat Race.” The Journal of Finance 68, no. 2 (2013): 483–521. The authors, integrating game theory into the market efficiency orthodoxy, argue that through repeated interactions, investors adapt their strategies based on past successes and failures. This iterative learning process fosters rational behavior, as those who persist in making irrational decisions are eventually edged out of the market. Over time, this dynamic pushes the market toward greater efficiency and rationality. 373 dynamic realm of risk and reward, order and chaos, simultaneously rational and irrational. They reveal the speculator’s dual role as both observer and participant in this self-perpetuating system. In rationalizing their decisions, investors inadvertently perpetuate market dynamics, blurring the lines between their individual preferences and the market’s underlying mechanisms.122 They become both strategists and subjects within the system they navigate. As such, Bowles’s cards reflect how The Beggar’s Opera transcends mere satire of the South Sea Bubble; it becomes a profound meta-commentary on the emerging understanding of financial markets as self-organizing systems. It even challenges us to question the very assumptions upon which this understanding rests. Moreover, Handel’s critique of Bononcini’s compositions as mere gambles, dismissing his rival’s perceived probabilistic approach as lacking genuine artistic labor and value, finds an intriguing parallel in The Beggar’s Opera playing cards. These cards encapsulate a broader shift in the understanding of economic value, where chance and speculation began to eclipse intrinsic worth. In the rise of finance, indeterminacy replaced grounded, respectable labor as the driving force of economic worth. The playing cards’ seeming randomness and combinatorial possibilities mirror the volatility of the market itself—a swirling mass of floating assets where success depends not on production but on the luck of the draw or the speculative assemblages of “portfolios.” This logic prefigures Ivan Ascher’s concept of the “portfolio society,” in which finance “securitizes capitalist relationships,” transforming uncertainty into a productive force.123 The Beggar’s Opera cards thus did not merely parody financial speculation as a probabilistic game—they embodied its inner workings, laying bare a cultural moment when chance and 122 This idea may also be said to illustrate John Maynard Keynes’s analogy of the stock market as a beauty contest, often referred to as the “Keynesian beauty contest.” Keynes proposed that in such a contest, participants win by choosing not the contestant they personally find most attractive, but the one they believe others will find most attractive. Thus, the selection process shifts from choosing based on personal preference to predicting and choosing based on others’ preferences. This analogy reflects the behavior in the stock market, where investors aim to anticipate the choices of others rather than make decisions based solely on their own assessments. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Harcourt Brace and Co., 1936), chapter 12. 123 Ivan Ascher, Portfolio Society: On the Capitalist Mode of Prediction (Zone Books, 2016), 10. 374 volatility eclipsed certainty and labor as the defining currencies of both art and economy.124 While we may revel in the ballad’s indeterminacy as an aesthetic object from the past, reading the indeterminacy as a gateway to the playful dialectics of risk and reward, nonsense and meaning, noise and music, and so on, it is perhaps also important not to overlook the fact that the South Sea Bubble was a crisis, both experienced and remembered as such.125 A crisis, as Jurgen Habermas describes it, is a situation where the normative expectations that guide actions break down, and when social actors can no longer able to rely on established modes of exchange to coordinate activities.126 As a result, crisis confronts one with difficulties in coping and comprehending, and ultimately, it challenges one’s own identity and the surrounding system of meaning. In a way, the concluding line of D’Urfey’s ballad, “Now you have nought but your Selves in ye Stocks” echoes this description of crisis by Habermas. This conclusive yet apprehensive depiction of the imploded paper economy reveals the financial crisis’s 124 Of course, despite the market’s reputation for self-organization and the illusion of complete transparency—symbolized by a full deck of playing cards—the musical foundation of The Beggar’s Opera emerges from the bubble ballads born of the 1720 speculative frenzy. The longitudinal transmission of bubble ballads offers a lens through which to view each individual ballad as a token of market information. These ballads, continually evolving as market soundbites, highlight a critical flaw in the idealized notion of market rationality—a concept that both eighteenth-century theorists and modern financiers have often unrealistically abstracted to elevate human rationality beyond its practical limits. Tracing the evolution of “O’er the Hills and Far Away”—from its origins as a Jacobite lament, through D’Urfey’s “Hubble Bubbles” echoing the chaos of Exchange Alley, to its reimagining as Polly and Macheath’s duet in The Beggar’s Opera—provides a powerful lesson in indeterminacy. On one level, the ballad’s perpetual circulation through a proliferation of contrafacta critiques the financial fantasy of limitless growth through endless exchange. On another, each reworking within this chain of interreferential adaptations reveals the illusory nature of intrinsic value, both in musical interpretation and, by analogy, in financial speculation. During the South Sea mania, bubble ballads functioned economically much like the individual cards in Bowles’s The Beggar’s Opera deck. Each card, like each song, serves as a token of incomplete information: simultaneously constraining and enabling interpretation. As fragments of potentially larger narratives, they invite speculation and project an air of possibility, while also underscoring the limitations of the knowledge available to individual speculators. Both the cards and the songs challenge the capacity for rational action in a world defined by uncertainty, rendering the speculative process an act of navigating gaps in understanding rather than mastering the market’s totality. 125 Such a dialectic framework to modern finance has been mobilized to naturalize its instability. The most apparent example can be found in the George Soros’s “theory of reflexivity” to recognize financial system’s built-in uncertainties while naturalizing them under “timelessly valid laws.” See George Soros, The Crash of 2008: The New Paradigm for Financial Markets (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008), 5 & 79; For a critique of Soros’s theory, see Hirokazu Miyazaki, Arbitraging Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 3-7. 126 See Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Polity, 1973), 2-4, where Habermas derived the definition from his analysis of the political and economic crises of the 1960s and early 1970s in Western societies. 375 psychological and epistemic consequences on an individual level. By turning his gaze from Exchange Alley’s motley crowd to the ballad’s listener, the poet—with a double pair of equivalencies, “now” to “nought,” “Selves” to “Stocks”—transmutes the uncertainty about financial value into one about an individual’s identity as a sense-maker in the new era of finance. It highlights the figure of the South Sea speculator as an archetypal solitary homo economicus under bounded rationality, who derives economic value from neither physical and material factors of production nor established market consensus, but from, instead, subjective assessment and exploitation of systematic ambiguity, as well as opportunistic justification of their own value propositions.⁠127 The South Sea Bubble did as much usher in this archetypal figure as it became a stress test for its reliability.128 With the bursting of the bubble, the fungibility of “Yourself” and “Ye Stock” acquires a new significance. As the market shock unsettles one’s identity and ability as a thinking subject, the figure of paper and the figure of the speculator became analogous to each other: unstable, unreliable, and insecure, all the while being imprisoned within one’s own calculus. D’Urfey’s “Hubble Bubbles”, along with other bubble ballads, simultaneously bore earwitness to and participated in this historically significant change wrought by the inception of a modern financial system—a change that was as much about the creation of value as it was about the making of meaning. In so doing, they may be said to have rendered audible an epistemic reorientation towards indeterminacy as a condition of modern economic life. 127 For the codification of “solitary economic man,” see Max Weber, The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism (Penguin Classics, [1900] 2002), 118. For analysis of the figure as a paradigmatic marginalist, see Peter Ghosh, “‘Robinson Crusoe’, the Isolated Economic Man: Max Weber, Marginal Utility Theory, and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism” Max Weber Studies (2006), 71-99. 128 It could be also thought as speculators, hearing these songs, projected their valuation onto this uncertainty, creating a false sense of certainty. 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