18 - A Satirical Battering Ram

Summary

Gilbert Abbott à Beckett was only twenty years old when he founded Figaro in London during December 1831. By then he was already an experienced editor, albeit merely of a string of short-lived publications. Not long after leaving Westminster School at age seventeen, he had joined his two older brothers in founding a biweekly periodical called The Censor, “a youthfully ebullient journal of ephemera, gossip, tales, and theatre notices” that lasted only seven months. Even earlier he had teamed up with schoolmate Henry Mayhew to launch a satirical scandal sheet, The Cerberus; or, The Hell Post, but when his father, a solicitor, happened to see proofs of the first issue and discovered that they contained “about forty-three distinct and separate libels,” he contacted the printer and had the publication squelched. But these setbacks did not deter the youthful editor. In 1831, before bringing out the inaugural issue of Figaro in London, he had tried to establish a weekly Literary Beacon devoted to poetry, fiction, drama, music, “folly as it flies,” and reviews of books and theatrical productions, but after thirteen issues this too had folded.

Figaro in London became à Beckett's first successful venture in publishing. Modeled on the popular Figaro of Paris, this four-page penny weekly aimed to provide the same kind of “sparkling, sharp-flavored and high-relished” satirical commentary. The journal had two mottos printed on its masthead, the first a couplet credited to Lady Montague, “Satire should, like a polish'd razor keen / Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen”; and the other a statement from Crocker's New Whig Guide, “Political Pasquinades and Political Caricatures are parts (though humble ones) of Political history. They supply information as to the personal habits, and often as to the motives and objects of public men, which cannot be found elsewhere.” Light but informative satire was to be the hallmark of this new Figaro.

Coming at a time when political reform was a leading issue of the day, à Beckett's journal was welcomed as a vehicle for free expression of opinions critical of the government, the king, the clergy, the aristocracy, and individual members of Parliament. Some of this criticism, however, was far from good-humored or light-hearted.