“The hinge of the whole Work”

Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Times, Opinions first appeared in the early months of 1711, though Shaftesbury subsequently made numerous revisions which were registered in the posthumous second edition of 1714. These early editions, published by the Whig printer John Darby, were works of high book art. The paper was heavy, the typography was exquisite, the layout was careful and elegant, the ornaments were copious but restrained. These traits are not surprising in light of the labors Shaftesbury expended on the physical production of the book after he had written and revised the pieces comprising it.

Nothing so well illustrates the deliberateness with which Shaftesbury approached his book-making as the graphical representations throughout the volumes. These were all dense and highly self-conscious emblematic messages, presented in immaculate and polished engravings with references to relevant passages in the text. Among the most important of these was the engraving of the Triumph of Liberty, in which Liberty, reclining in a lion-drawn chariot, was represented as having subdued the passions and gained the adoration of the virtues. The Triumph was originally conceived in relation to a passage in “The Moralists” in which the philosophic Theocles painted in words “the Picture” of moral and political liberty. Considering whether to use a small rendition of the pictorial triumph at the front of each of the volumes of the second edition, he wrote to his London agent: You will object that this Devise of the Triumph of Liberty is peculiar only to one Treatise viz The Moralists.