The Canvas

Chapter two, “The Canvas”, zeroes in on the fiction of the Athenian Society, establishing how Dunton and his collaborators drew on notions of virtuosity, professionalism, natural philosophy and the idea of the Christian gentleman scholar to lend credibility to their statements. Moreover, it elucidates its allegiance to the Reformation of Manners campaign, which served to furnish the Society with a sense of moral impeccability also often associated with truthfulness. All of this is achieved via an investigation into the Mercury’s equivocal usage of anonymity, not only concealing its readers from each other but also providing the Society with a blank canvas unto which to project an ideal vision of itself.