Paul Whitehead (satirist)

Paul Whitehead (1710–1774) was a British satirist and a secretary to the infamous Hellfire Club.

He was born on 6 February 1710 in Castle Yard, Holborn in London where his father was a prosperous tailor. He may attended a school at Hitchin he was apprenticed to a mercer in the city, but, showing little disposition for business, he may have taken chambers in the Temple as a law student. He was, however, obliged, apparently for a series of years, to transfer his residence to the neighbouring Fleet Prison, having backed a bill which the theatrical manager Charles Fleetwood had failed to meet.

From prison Whitehead is said to have put forth his first literary efforts in the shape of political squibs. His first more elaborate production, "State Dunces", a satire in heroic couplets, was published in 1733. It was inscribed to Pope, the first of whose 'Imitations of Horace' dates from the same year, and whose Dunciad had appeared in 1728. Pope's rhythm, together with certain other characteristics of his satirical verse, is perhaps as successfully reproduced by Whitehead as by any contemporary writer; but he is altogether lacking in concentration and in anything like seriousness of purpose. The chief "State Dunce" is Walpole (Appius); others are Francis Hare, bishop of Chichester, and the Whig historian James Ralph The poem, which provoked an answer under the title of A Friendly Epistle, was sold to Dodsley for £10

In 1735 Whitehead married Anna, the only daughter of Sir Swinnerton Dyer, bart., of Spains Hall, Essex. By this time he may be concluded to have been out of the Fleet, unless indeed his marriage provided him with the means of quitting it. In 1739 he published "Manners", the satirical poem so highly thought of by Boswell, but considered by Johnson a "poor performance". The manuscript is preserved in British Museum Additional MS. 25277, ff. 117–20. It cannot be said to exhibit any advance upon its predecessor, nor can its clamorous vituperation:

    Shall Pope alone the plenteous harvest have,
    And I not glean one straggling fool or knave?

be held to be dignified by its pretence of proceeding from a patriot whose hopes are centred in Frederick, Prince of Wales. The personalities in this satire led to the author being summoned, with his publisher, before the bar of the House of Lords; but Whitehead absconded. Whether or not the action of the Lords had been intended as a warning to Pope, whose two "Dialogues", 1738 (Epilogue to the Satires), had done their utmost to make the existing political tension unbearable, it at least sufficed to muzzle Whitehead for the moment. He continued, however, to make himself generally useful to the opposition. Thus in 1741 Horace Walpole mentions him as ordering a supper for eight patriots who had tried in vain to beat up a mob on the occasion of Admiral Vernon's birthday.

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