The Anti-Jacobin Reaction against German Drama and Philosophy in Britain, 1798–1804

Abstract

ABSTRACT George Canning and John Hookham Frere’s satire on German plays and their radical English readers, The Rovers; or, The Double Arrangement (1798), marked the beginning of a short period of intense engagement with German drama and philosophy in the conservative periodical press in Britain. The Rovers appeared in the Anti-Jacobin; or, Weekly Examiner, a magazine written largely by Foreign Office politicians. The Anti-Jacobin’s monthly successor, the Anti-Jacobin Review, mounted a more earnest attack on German philosophy, and its contributors introduced some of the ideas of Fichte, Kant, and Herder to a conservative Anglican and Scottish Episcopalian readership. This article shows that some contributions display signs of extreme paranoia and exaggeration inspired by Jacobin-Illuminati conspiracy theories, while others demonstrate a considerable knowledge of the German books and ideas that they are attacking.