M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[Joseph Tracy]

A difficult question.  What contrast to the observation of stars and planets. It certainly would serve as powerful point of observation of the relation of the state to its subjects and of the relation of crowds to death as spectacle. It puts him between god as author of a seemingly vast and calmly indifferent cosmos and god as presumed author of ordained earthly kingdoms. If these are both the same order that took his wife that would tend to the melancholic. Perhaps every nature( melancholic or sanguine) gravitates to a confirming picture of things.
On Jan 12, 2015, at 2:39 PM, Monte Davis wrote:

> 15.10: "Mason explains, though without his precise reason for it, that, for the past Year or more, it has been his practice to attend the Friday Hangings at that melancholy place ..." (Tyburn)
> 
> Anybody care to venture a "precise reason"? This first meeting is in 1760 or 1761, so his habit might date to his wife Rebekah's death in 1759 (although later we'll get reasons to think he had tended to the  Melancholick well before that). And yes, the Tyburn hangings were an acknowledged Sight of London.
> 
> Is that enough to explain it? Mason is rather gentle, neither sadistic nor vindictive; I for one don't see an obvious or direct connection between mouning and a desire to watch excutions.   

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