1. See, for example, Bossuet’s references to corruption as a decay or degeneration, and as flattery and gifts that ‘blind the eyes of the wise’ (J.B. Bossuet (1990) [1677–79/1700] Politics Drawn From the Very Words of Holy Scripture, P. Riley (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), Bk I, Art. iv, p. 20; and Bk VIII, Art. v, pp. 281–2). In Robert Gould’s satire (1693), The Corruption of the Times by Mony (London: Printed for M. Wotton), avarice and corruption were linked without any invocation of metaphors of disease or the body politic. Also, Anon. (1660) Speculum Politiae, Or, England’s Mirrour: Being a Looking-Glass for the Body Politick of this Nation (London: Printed for S.B.). The whole idea of organological correspondences informing degenerative corruption was satirised by this Royalist author who likened the world to a ‘large Tennis-Court of Nature…’ (p. 2); he lambasted the Parliamentary ‘state physicians’ who left the ‘body politick labouring under a convulsion of errours’ (pp. 11–12).
2. P. Corrigan and D. Sayer (1985) ‘From Theatre to Machine: Old Corruption’ in P. Corrigan and D. Sayer (eds) The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), p. 89.
3. W.D. Rubinstein (1983) ‘The End of “Old Corruption” in Britain 1780–1860’, Past and Present 101 (1), 65.
4. B. Mandeville (1924) [1724] The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Vol. I, RB. Kaye (commentary) (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 22.
5. Undated memo (1710–15?) Blenheim Papers, Vol. CCLXVIII, British Library Additional MSS 61368. See also J.A.W. Gunn (1983) Beyond Liberty and Property: The Process of Self-Recognition in Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press), pp. 194–5.