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Key to Names and Characters in Atalantis Major

In the thinly disguised allegory of Atalantis Major, Atalantis is, of course, Britain. Olreeky, or Old Reeky, or simply Reeky, is still used as an affectionate local term for the city of Edinburgh, prone as it is to be enshrouded in mists and smoke in the early morning. Tartary is France, and the French are referred to as either the Tartarians or the Barbarians. Jacobites are also indicated by the name Tartarians, since the Pretender’s cause was actively supported by Louis XIV. Japan is Spain and China stands for Holland. The characters who appear in Atalantis Major are (in the order that they are mentioned):

The Duke de Sanquarius (p. 14) is James Douglas, second Duke of Queensberry and Duke of Dover (1662-1711);

The Earl of Stairdale (p. 15) is John Dalrymple, second Earl of Stair (1673-1747);

The Earl of Crawlinfordsay (p. 16) is John Lindsay, nineteenth Earl of Crawford (d. 1713);

The Prince of Greeniccio of the ancient Blood of Argyllius (p. 17) is John Campbell, second Duke of Argyll, Baron Chatham and Earl of Greenwich (1678-1742);

The Earl of Marereskine (p. 18) is John Erskine, eleventh Earl of Mar of the Erskine line (1675-1732);

The Prince de Heymuthius (p. 18) is John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough and Baron Churchill of Aymouth (1650-1722);

The Earl of Dolphinus (p. 18) is Sidney Godolphin (1645-1712);

Bellcampo, Lord of the Isles (p. 19) is Archibald Campbell, first and only Earl of Islay (pronounced “Isle-ah”) and brother and heir of the second Duke of Argyll (1682-1761);

One of the Ministers (p. 22) is Thomas Miller of Kirkliston;

John —-, his Majesty’s Hangman (p. 22) is John White;

Bradalbino (p. 24) is John Campbell, first Earl of Breadalbane (1635-1716);

Leslynus (p. 24) is David Leslie, third Earl of Leven (1660-1728);

One of the family of Boiilio (p. 24) is David Boyle, first Earl of Glasgow (1666-1733);

The Prince de Rosymonte (p. 34) is James Graham, fourth Marquis and first Duke of Montrose (d. 1742).

The fact that, in several cases, the names used by Defoe are developed from family names and not the title seems to offer support for the contention that Atalantis Major was intended primarily for a Scottish audience. Further, Defoe’s name for Marlborough–Heymuthius–comes from his one Scottish title, Baron Aymouth (now Eyemouth, a fishing town on the southeast coast of Scotland), and not from his better-known English title, the Duke of Marlborough.

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NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1. George Macaulay Trevelyan, England Under Queen Anne (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1948), III, 68.

2. These are Trevelyan’s figures (op. cit., 73). W. A. Speck (Tory and Whig [London: Macmillan, 1970], p. 123) gives the Tories 332 seats and 181 seats to the Whigs in this election.

3. In point of fact, Harley’s concern for the loyalty of the representative peers is unique in the history of these elections. In subsequent Parliaments, the Scottish peers seldom, if ever, voted against the Government–even at the trial of Lord Lovat in 1745-6. For one thing, almost without exception, the representative peers were dependent on governmental subsidies and this dependence increased during the course of the eighteenth century (see J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England [London: Penguin, 1973], p. 180; and Geoffrey Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne [London: Macmillan, 1967], p. 393). The practice of electing a representative peerage for Scotland was discontinued after 1782 (see Trevelyan, op. cit., 235).

4. Trevelyan, op. cit., 58.

5. James R. Sutherland, Defoe (London: Methuen, 1950), p. 179.

6. The Letters of Daniel Defoe, ed. by George Harris Healey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 296.

7. Ibid., pp. 294-295.

8. Healey reports that “in such issues as I have been able to find of the Scots Postman, or the New Edinburgh Gazette, there is no mention of the Scots Atalantis” (Letters, p. 306, n. 1). The title of this work and of Defoe’s Atalantis Major are derived from Mrs. Manley’s New Atalantis or Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons of Quality of both Sexes from the New Atalantis, an island in the Mediterranean (1709). The OED records that the word atalantis enjoyed a brief currency in the eighteenth century with the meaning, “a secret or scandalous history.”