"liberty tree", 1765, 1766 (antedating 1776)

[Robin Hamilton]

From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>

>>With that in mind, [GB copy of] a volume residing at Oxford:
>>
>>Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded: In a Series of Familiar Letters from a
>>Beautiful Young Damsel to Her Parents: and Afterwards, in Her Exalted
>>Condition, Between Her, and Persons of Figure and Quality, Upon the
>>Most Important and Entertaining Subject In Genteel Life. The Third and
>>Fourth Volumes, by the Editor of the Two Firsts. Printed for Samuel
>>Richardson; 1842, p. 191
>>
>> > A Method I take it, my Dear, /turning to me/, that was of great
>> Service to you, as it initiated you into Writing with the Freedom
>> and Ease, which shine in your sauce Letters and Journals ; and to
>> which my present Fetters are not a little owing : Just as Pedlars
>> catch Monkeys in the Baboon Kingdoms, provoking the attentive
>> Fools, by their own Example, to put on Shoes and Stockens, till the
>> Apes of Imitation, trying to do the like, intangle their Feet, and
>> so cannot escape upon the Boughs of the Tree of Liberty, on which
>> before they were wont to hop arid skip about, and play a thousand
>> puggish Tricks.
>
> I don't see the relevance of an 1842 work to the 1765 tree and phrases.

_Pamela_ was originally published in 1740.

Even if Victor's cite is from one of the additions, as for instance
Fielding -- you know, the elder brother of the blind magistate at Bow
Street -- took it on twice, once with _Shamela_ (which is actually rather
funny) and later with _Joseph (brother of Pamela) Andrews_.

Whatever, we're still well inside the eighteenth century here.

But such is fame -- apparently Richardson's place (along with Defoe,
Fielding, and Sterne) as one of the foremothers of the English novel has
passed it's ten minutes of fame sell-by date.

Robin

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org