Vivat Regina!

In the summer of 1564 Elizabeth I made her one and only visit to Cambridge. In honour of the occasion, despite the fact that it was the summer vacation, all the members of the University were recalled to Cambridge. They lined the streets and cheered “Vivat Regina!” as she and her retinue rode into town.  The Queen stayed at the Provost’s Lodge of King’s College from 5-10 August, but many of her retinue were put up at other colleges. Crawley tells us that the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Clinton were lodged at Trinity Hall and that the Queen was welcomed to College with a speech by John Hammond (fellow 1557-74).

The University and town organised a full programme of events, including orations, debates, services and, best of all, plays which were put on most evenings for her entertainment. On Sunday 6 August, after Evensong, Elizabeth saw Plautus’s “Aulularia” which was performed in Latin on a ‘great stage’ built in King’s ante-chapel. The players were drawn from all the Cambridge colleges, with the exception of King’s. The reason for this was that men from King’s were busy preparing for performances due to take place on the two following evenings. On Monday evening they formed the cast of “Dido” written in Latin by Edward Halliwell and on the subsequent evening, Tuesday 8 August, they performed Mr Udall’s “Ezechias”.

A certain King’s fellow (who subsequently became Master of Trinity Hall) caught the eye of the Sovereign in the play of “Dido”. She was very favourably impressed by Thomas Preston (for that was his name), “putting forth her hand for him to kiss, her Highness … dubbed him ‘her scholar’ … and therewithal she gave him eight angels”. An angel was a gold coin worth 10 shillings and in addition the Queen promised Preston a handsome pension of £20 a year! It was Thomas Preston who made the final oration, again in Latin, on the occasion of the Queen’s departure on 10 August.  All in all the visit has been a resounding success and his meeting with the Queen was an episode that Preston was never to forget. His brass in the ante-chapel of Trinity Hall bears a Latin inscription recalling the day when Elizabeth I called him “her scholar”.

Preston’s brass in the ante-chapel (usually covered by a Persian carpet) – and a view of Preston’s feet!

The meeting was also to have repercussions for College. Twenty one years later, just before the death of Henry Harvey (Master 1559-1585) a royal mandate was sent to Trinity Hall staying the election of a new Master. This was followed by another royal mandate directing the fellows to elect Thomas Preston. Elizabeth I and Burghley had chosen “her scholar” for the job! Preston was Master of Trinity Hall from 1585 until his death in 1598, and he also served as Vice Chancellor of the University from 1589-90. According to Crawley, Preston wrote to Burghley that Trinity Hall was labouring under a “store of abuses” and that its debts were “desperate to be remedied”. Nonetheless, it was during his tenure that College undertook the expense of building a new library, the “Old Library” as we know it today.

The Charter of 1559

It is fitting that the Old Library houses two precious documents from Queen Elizabeth I. The first document is the charter reconfirming the original foundation of Trinity Hall in 1350 which was granted to College in 1559, the first year of Elizabeth’s reign.  It represents the return of academic life to something approaching normality after the upheavals of the Reformation and the reign of Queen Mary, when Colleges had been closed and amalgamated and new Colleges founded. Queen Elizabeth can be seen enthroned in the large capital “E”.

The impressive signature of the most powerful woman in the land!

The second document is a letter to the College, dated 2^nd September 1587, requesting the leasing of two manors to one of Elizabeth’s courtiers, Raffe Bowes. The letter bears the impressive signature of Queen Elizabeth I. On the reverse, it is addressed to the Queen’s “trustie and welbeloved the MS [Master] and fellowes of Trinitie Hall in Cambridge”. Of course, the Master at that time was the Queen’s “scholar” Thomas Preston.

Reverse of letter with the address to the Master (Thomas Preston) and fellows

Thomas Preston was well-known to contemporaries as the author of the play “Cambyses King of Persia”, originally published in 1584, the year before he became Master. Shakespeare poked fun at the play’s bombast through the mouth of Falstaff, who says “Give me a cup of sack to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyse’s vein.” (Henry IV Part I, Act II, Scene 4). Today his name lives on in Trinity Hall’s drama society, the Preston Society, which puts on College musicals, pantos and plays.

But undoubtedly Thomas Preston’s outstanding legacy is that his Mastership presided over the building of the “jewel in the crown” of Trinity Hall – a wonderful Elizabethan library, still virtually unchanged today.

Inscription on Preston’s brass (from Warren’s Book)

References:

Most of the information about Elizabeth I’s visit to Cambridge in 1564 is taken from Marion Colthorpe’s Royal Cambridge: royal visitors to Cambridge, Queen Elizabeth I – Queen Elizabeth II, Cambridge, 1977.

Trinity Hall: the history of a Cambridge college, 1350-1975 / Charles Crawley. Cambridge, 1976.

Warren’s book / edited by A.W.W. Dale. Cambridge, 1911.

Wikipedia: article on Thomas Preston

Shelf Lives: Patience Rewarded

Some thirty nine years after his first candidacy, Sir William Wynne (1729-1815), was finally elected unanimously as Master of Trinity Hall in 1803. At the age of thirty-five Wynne had contested the election of 1764 with Sir James Marriott, also a fellow of the College and civil lawyer. Crawley tells us that the outcome was close and Marriott was elected by a slim margin (5 votes versus 3), with both men voting for themselves!

Trinity Hall’s “Back Court” showing the Master’s Lodge on the right and the Old Library on the left.

After a patient wait, Sir William Wynne, now aged seventy-three, finally succeeded Marriott in 1803. The Mastership of Trinity Hall was a prize worth waiting for and once he was installed as Master the floodgates of his generosity opened. He spent £1,500 on improvements to the Master’s Lodge and also turned his attention to improving the College Library.

Wynne’s catalogue housed in the Archives

His donations are recorded in the “Catalogue of books presented to the Library by the Right Hon: Sir Wm. Wynne, Master” (THAR/7/1/2/1). The new Master gave us an amazing 252 volumes in the space of just nine years, starting in 1804 (with the gift of 101 volumes) and ending in 1813, just two years before his death. Surprisingly there are very few dusty volumes on the law! Instead Wynne broadened the Library’s scope from that of an academic library specialising in the law to a gentleman’s ‘country house’ library.

Chaucer

There are books on English literature (Chaucer, Dryden and Milton), history, travel (Barrow’s Travels in Africa, Coxe’s Travels in Russia), the classics (Virgil, Thucydides), European literature (Racine in French and Boccaccio in Italian), oriental languages (Carlyle’s Specimens of Arabian poetry and Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon), and above all the sciences: a magnificent 18 volume set of the Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London was donated to the Library over several years.

Boccaccio

So what of the man who gave so generously to the Library? William Wynne came from a well-to-do Welsh family. His father, John Wynne (1677-1743) was a clergyman and Principal of Jesus College Oxford from 1812 until his marriage in 1820. In 1715 he was appointed Bishop of St. Asaph where he spent money freely on repairs to the cathedral and palace. As we have seen above, William was to follow his father’s example in becoming a Head of House (Cambridge instead of Oxford) and in spending on improvements (but this time to his College).

Bishop John Wynne was subsequently translated to Bath and Wells in 1727 and William was born a couple of years later. William did not go into the church, instead he followed his elder brother John (1724-1801) into the law and the Middle Temple. He came up to Trinity Hall in 1746, graduated in law in 1751 (LL.D. 1757) and was a Fellow of the College from 1755 onwards.

Poem in translation from ‘Specimens of Arabian Poetry’ given to the Library by Wynne

He practiced in the field of ecclesiastical law as a pleader in the Court of Arches (1757-1788) dealing chiefly with cases relating to marriage and probate. His career prospered steadily until it took off dramatically in 1788! In that year he was knighted, he became Dean of the Court of Arches (1788-1809) and a judge in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Prerogative Court (1788-1809).  He continued to move upwards becoming a member of the Privy Council in 1789 and one of the Lords of the Treasury in 1790.

Captain Cook’s last voyage: the map of Hawaii from Cook’s posthumous “A voyage to the Pacific Ocean” (London, 1784)

As Dean of the Court of Arches his name turns up constantly in the wills of the time. Perhaps the most interesting is that of a former member of Captain Cook’s crew, Alexander Mouat, which was proved before Sir William Wynne in London in 1794. Mouat was on Cooks’ last voyage, entering the crew of the Discovery as a midshipman at the age of 15. However, his will (in which he left everything to his wife Jane) was not written until 1790, by which time he had reached the rank of Lieutenant. The occasion of his will was probably his imminent departure on HMS Marlborough. Unfortunately, Mouat died just three years later on 11 October 1793.

Trinity Hall (in 1799) as it would have looked in 1803 when Wynne became Master.

Wynne was a gentleman, a wealthy lawyer and a pillar of society. His successful public career indicates a man with excellent social skills who was not afraid of hard work. An interesting glimpse is offered by the silhouette of Wynne in the National Portrait Gallery which depicts a portly gentleman of rather modest and solid demeanour. The inscription below the silhouette reveals: “There is no Portrait taken of him, he always resisting all application to sit to an Artist. Mr. Bockton the Proctor took this resemblance of him as he sat giving Judgement.” This is a man who lacked vanity, preferring instead to devote his precious time to his work!

Snapshot of Trinity Hall in 1812 during Wynne’s time as Master. College was not populous!

Sir William Wynne became Master of Trinity Hall in the autumn of his life. He passed away in 1815 at the age of eighty-six and is buried at Northop (Flints.) where his father, Bishop John, had purchased the Soughton estate (now a luxury hotel!) in 1732. Wynne’s was a life in which his devotion to his College remained constant. As Master, his generosity enriched the holdings of College Library with a lasting legacy of fine publications from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

It could be argued that Wynne had the patience and Trinity Hall reaped the rewards!

References

Trinity Hall : the history of a Cambridge college, 1350-1975 / by Charles Crawley.

Captain Cook Society

National Portrait Gallery

Welsh Biography Online

Shelf lives: Does size matter?

Does a donation have to be large and impressive to be important? The answer is most emphatically “No”! One of our star items is a single sheet of paper measuring no more than 18 x 22.7 cm. It is a modest piece of nineteenth-century writing paper with no “bling” about it – but it still has the wow factor because it is a letter from Charles Dickens!

This small piece of pale blue Victorian writing paper, covered with Dickens’s distinctive handwriting in dark blue ink, was given to us by the author’s great-great-grandson and Trinity Hall alumnus Christopher Charles Dickens. In it the famous author gives advice to his son, Henry Fielding Dickens, “My Dear Harry”, at the start of his time as an undergraduate at Trinity Hall in October 1868. This parental advice has a timeless quality that still rings true today and the letter always catches the imagination of our visitors!

“Farewell Tour”

The letter is written on Dickens’s headed paper with the address of Gad’s Hill Place embossed at the top. Dickens bought this beloved home in February 1857 and it was the only house that he ever owned (all the others had been rented). But at the time of writing on Thursday 15^th October 1868, Dickens was away from home, staying at the Adelphi Hotel, the best hotel in Liverpool.

Dickens was one of the first “celebrities” in the sense that we use the word today. He was a public figure in much demand – a real “superstar”! In May 1868 Dickens had returned exhausted from his long and demanding tour of America. However, by October 1868 he had started a new tour, a series of performances in London and the provinces, which he called his “Farewell tour”. He stayed at the Adelphi Hotel for a week from 10 October, giving readings at Manchester Free Trade Hall and in Liverpool. Of his reading in Liverpool on 12 October, Dickens writes to Georgina Hogarth “We had a fine house here last night, and a large turnaway. Marigold and Trial went immensely. I doubt if Marigold were ever more enthusiastically received.”

These public readings of dramatised extracts from his novels lasted at least two hours. They placed a heavy strain on Dickens’s voice and were so emotionally draining that he suffered from extreme exhaustion when they were over. But these performances were important to Dickens, not just for pleasing his public but also for the money they brought in. In fact the expense and financial practicalities of Harry’s life as an undergraduate take up a large part of the letter of advice he received from his father.

“Your past expensive education”

So what of Harry himself? Henry Fielding Dickens (1849-1933) was the author’s eighth child and the only one to go to university. The eldest son, Charles, was actually sent to the most expensive school, Eton,  in January 1851, but his school fees were sponsored by Angela Burdett-Coutts, one of the richest women in England at that time and a great friend of the author’s.

Harry as a boy (image from "Katey" by Lucinda Hawksley)

The schooling of the other Dickens boys was by no means cheap! All of the sons were sent to private school, whereas the daughters were educated at home. When Harry was nine years old (in 1858) he was sent to a boarding school for English boys in Boulogne. The intention was that he should learn French, but it was not a happy experience. According to Harry in his “Recollections“, “I was very young then and although two of my brothers were at the school I felt very sad and forlorn.” It must have been a relief when in 1861 he was sent to Wimbledon School, “which was kept by Messrs. Brackenbury and Wynne; a very well known private school then at the height of its reputation.” Harry did well there and was fortunate to have an excellent maths master who prepared him for entrance to Trinity Hall.

It was common in those days for sons to follow their fathers in their choice of college at Cambridge. The entry for Harry in the Trinity Hall register shows that, as the first of the Dickens family to attend the College, he came on the recommendation of J. Brackenbury, Master of Wimbledon School.

From the Trinity Hall Archives

“Handsome for all your wants”

A few weeks previously, aware of his own lack of university experience, Dickens had written to his friend Sir Joseph Chitty asking for advice.  He doubtless turned to Chitty because of the latter’s brilliant career at Balliol College, Oxford.  “My dear Chitty, One of my sons, just 20, is going up to Trinity Hall, next October. He has been highly educated – is possessed of considerable mathematical qualifications – and goes to College to work, and to achieve distinction. He perfectly understands that if he fail to set to in earnest, I shall take him away… Will you tell me what the allowance of such a youth should be, at Cambridge – to be enough, and not by any means too much – and whether there is any express precaution I can take or enjoin upon him?”

Chitty obliged Dickens by sending him a letter of advice which the author enclosed (“I therefore send you Joe Chitty’s letter bodily”) along with his own letter to Harry. Thanks to Chitty, Dickens was able to state confidently “It seems to me that an allowance of £250 a year will be handsome for all your wants, if I send you your wine.” Undergraduates were expected to entertain their contemporaries, providing wine and brandy for drop-in guests and to accompany the occasional dinner party held in their own rooms!

In those days, undergraduates generally came from well-off families who could afford to pay for their son’s living costs and tuition fees. Thus Dickens also encloses a cheque for £5 and ten shillings for tuition fees made out to the Reverend Frank Lawrence Hopkins, who was a Fellow at Trinity Hall and Harry’s Tutor.

“Whatever you do, above all other things keep out of debt”

Charles Dickens in 1868 (engraving based on a photo by Mason & Co.)

Charles Dickens had suffered a childhood of extreme poverty and his own education had been cut short because his father’s indebtedness. This trauma cast a shadow over Dickens’s life and he was constantly preoccupied by money matters. In the letter he emphasises to his son “We must have no shadow of debt” and seeks to guide him as to how to manage his money – especially what not to spend it on, “I strongly recommend you to buy nothing in Cambridge”!

Perhaps it was the fear of falling back into poverty that drove Dickens to work so hard, starting his tour of the provinces before he had fully recovered from the tour of America. He says to Harry “You know how hard I work for what I get, and I think you know that I never had money help from any human creature after I was a child.”

Dickens finishes the letter by reminding Harry about the value of the Christian life and the importance of prayer. “These things have stood by me all through my life, and you remember I tried to render the New Testament intelligible to you and lovable by you when you were a mere baby.” Dickens had written “The life of our Lord” especially for his children in 1846.

UndergraduateYears

While Harry was at Trinity Hall, Dickens continued his performances for another seventeen months. However, his health was so badly affected that he finally followed his doctor’s orders and gave his last performance on 16 March 1870.

At this time Dickens also started writing his last and unfinished novel, The mystery of Edwin Drood. As research for his books, the author often took lengthy walks at night to the seedier parts of London accompanied by a policeman for safety. In his “Recollections” Harry tells us, “I just once missed a great opportunity. It had been arranged that I was to accompany him on one of these excursions, but unfortunately I was detained at Cambridge on the appointed day and I was unable to go. That night he visited the opium den which is described in the first chapter of Edwin Drood.” That would have been an exciting prospect for a young undergraduate and Harry was obviously disappointed to miss it!

"In the court" - illustration of the opium den by Luke Fildes from "The mystery of Edwin Drood"

Dickens lived long enough to complete only six numbers of the novel, passing away in the early hours of 9 June 1870 at the age of fifty-eight. Harry took his father’s advice to heart and studied hard at Trinity Hall. He gained his B.A. in mathematics in 1872, with the respectable distinction of being the 29^th Wrangler. It is sad that his father was not there to celebrate his son’s success.

Subsequent career

Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, K.C.

Harry was called to the Bar in 1873 and subsequently had a distinguished career as a barrister and judge. He became a K.C. in 1892 and was knighted in 1922. Sir Henry Fielding Dickens is described by Venn as “A capable and conscientious advocate, who had a large practice in the Common Law Courts, and proved an admirable Judge. For many years he delighted thousands with readings from his father’s works. During the War he raised large sums by this means for the wounded, and later for the Charles Dickens Home for Blinded Soldiers and Sailors.” Harry was very much his father’s son – both the love of performing and a social conscience were in his genes!

The Dickens connection

Harry was the first of the Dickens family to attend Trinity Hall but he was by no means the last! Crawley tells us that three of Harry’s sons went to Trinity Hall: Henry (1892), Philip (1906) and Cedric (who was killed on the Somme in 1916). Philip’s son, also called Cedric, matriculated at the College in 1935.

The entry for Christopher Charles Dickens (Trinity Hall Archive)

The donor of the letter, Christopher Charles Dickens (1937-1999) was Harry’s great-grandson and the grandson of Henry (1892). Christopher Charles Dickens came up to Trinity Hall in 1957, where he read English for part I and then changed to Archaeology and Anthropology. In 1965 he married the Hungarian countess Jeanne-Marie Wenckheim Teleki who is described on the Charles Dickens Heritage Foundation website as being “a hurricane of a countess. Handsome, forceful and humorous.” They settled at Spofforth in north Yorkshire and raised a family of two daughters. Jeanne-Marie became involved in charitable works, and in 1991 with the help of her husband she set up the Charles Dickens Heritage Foundation in order to help the disadvantaged.

Postscript

The name of Christopher Charles Dickens was posthumously in the news in 2008 on the occasion of the sale of Charles Dickens’s writing desk and chair at Christie’s. The desk and chair had passed down through the family to Christopher Charles Dickens and were donated for sale by his widow Jeanne-Marie in order to raise funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital.  They sold for £433,250!

Christopher Charles Dickens and his family at Dickens's desk and chair

At the time Jeanne-Marie commented, “Charles Dickens was a champion of the poor and needy and an enthusiastic patron of Great Ormond Street Hospital in its early days.  My husband Charles shared his ancestor’s desire to help the disadvantaged and when I became aware of the fundraising needs of Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, I knew that I had to give the desk and chair to them.  I felt that it was Charles’ wish, and it is an honour for me to fulfil this wish, it is fitting that their sale will provide care and support for the patients of Great Ormond Street hospital 150 years after Dickens himself spoke at their first fundraising dinner.”

Trinity Hall links for this story

Ever your affectionate father, Charles Dickens  This page on our website also contains links for the full text of the letter and more on Henry Fielding Dickens.

References

The recollections of Sir Henry Dickens, K.C. (London: Heinemann, 1934)

The letters of Charles Dickens, volune 12: 1868-1870 / edited by Graham Storey ( Oxford: Claredndon Press, 2002)

Alumni Cantabrigienses. Part II, from 1752 to 1900 / compiled by J. A. Venn (Cambridge: University Press, 1944)

Trinity Hall: the history of a Cambridge college, 1350-1992 / by Charles Crawley; 2nd ed. enlarged by Graham Storey (Cambridge: Trinity Hall, 1992)

Katey: the life and loves of Dickens’s artist daughter / by Lucinda Hawksley (London: Doubleday, 2006)

The mystery of Edwin Drood / by Charles Dickens (London: Chapman and Hall, 1870)

The mystery of the late learned judge

I’ve recently been cataloguing a great big pile of law treatises, all published between about the 1730s and 1760s. There’s nothing immediately remarkable about them, except their authorship. They’re all attributed, quite curiously, to a “late learned judge”. When I read this, obviously, I instantly believed that I’d stumbled across a bit of a mystery. The books look innocent enough, I thought, but the concealment of their authorship means that they MUST contain sordid, inflammatory and maybe even conspiratorial eighteenth century legal secrets. Maybe this “late learned judge” was the Belle du Jour of his day. So I decided to do a bit of sleuthing, a la Miss Marple, and–it didn’t take long–the real identity of the “late learned judge” is about as well kept a secret as the identity of the Stig. Some say his name was Sir Jeffrey Gilbert, and that he was a judge, baron, legal writer and international man of mystery. (All right, I’ve made the last bit up).

Artist's impression of Sir Jeffrey Gilbert

Gilbert was born in 1674 in Kent to a reasonably well-connected if not renowned family. The Gilberts weren’t exactly the types to get invited to a barbeque at Nell Gwyn’s house, but the young Jeffrey would’ve hobnobbed with some famous names at the time, big w(h)igs like Matthew Hale and Phillips Gybbon. Gilbert was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1692 and called to the Bar in 1698. From all accounts, he wasn’t much of a mover and shaker in the legal world. But his appointment to puisne judge of the Irish king’s bench in 1715, and shortly after to baron of the Irish exchequer, would change all that. An immediate success and a “darling of the Irish nation” (so says Wikipedia, don’t take it literally), Gilbert’s favour was short-lived. And the simple reason for this was that, in 1716, Gilbert took over a case, Annesley vs Sherlock. (NB: don’t get too excited. It isn’t that Sherlock. More’s the pity).

It had been a simple enough case at first, a dispute over land ownership which began in 1709. The first judgment went the way of Maurice Annersley, but after a successful appeal to the Irish exchequer, Mrs Hester Sherlock emerged triumphant. And then it got really interesting. Annesley, presumably a bit miffed, appealed to the British House of Lords who–keep up, now–overturned the overturning. What had been a simple judicial decision turned into a battle between the British and Irish peers over which of them was the final court of appeal in Ireland, and sitting right at the centre of that decision was our late learned judge. What ensued were tensions, hurt feelings, arguments, attempted arrests, actual arrests and, for Gilbert, presumably, one heck of a migraine, and it all culminated in the 1719 Declaratory Act. Passed by British Lords, it declared, ultimately, that the British Parliament had full legislative power over Ireland, and that the Irish House of Lords had no appellate jurisdiction, weakening Irish courts and securing Ireland’s dependency. Gilbert’s role in all this seems to be a bit accidental, and he was used as a scapegoat, but he ultimately sided with the British, and was swiftly relegated from the nation’s sweetheart to Mr Infamous as fast as you could say “he knows which side his bread is buttered on”. It’s little wonder, then, that he hotfooted it back over to England as fast as he could.

Ireland. Bet he was sorry to leave. Image from Brian o'Callaghan.

You might think that this explains Gilbert’s reticence about publishing his treatises on law–his reputation, and all that accidental controversy presumably followed him around for the rest of his career. But this can’t be the full story. For one thing, his treatises were written and edited from about 1700 and, despite nearing completion, abandoned in 1710, years before he went to Ireland. And for another, they were apparently so good that they might even have improved his reputation.  Had it been completed and published in its original format, Macnair says, it would have rivalled Blackstone‘s Commentaries in “present[ing] English law from a rigorously whig standpoint strongly influenced by John Locke”.  Gilbert “innovat[ed] both in the politics of his account of the common law, and in his use of civil materials” (Macnair, again). Gilbert probably returned to the work, in fits and spurts, to add bits and to change bits, but he never planned for it to be published. In fact, its publication was the last thing he wanted. Literally. In his will, he left all of his unpublished manuscripts and treatises to Charles Clarke, Esq. (no, probably not that one), “under special trust that none should be printed”.

You can't always get what you want (cf. Mick Jagger)

I’m glad to say that Gilbert’s wishes were heartily and conclusively ignored (well done Mr Clarke), and what’s more, quite speedily after Gilbert’s death in 1726. The treatises–on evidence (1756), devises and revocations (1739), executions (1763), rents (1758), uses and trusts (1734) and distresses and replevins (1755)–are fragments of this planned larger work on English law. Our copies have definitely been used, even if we can’t tell by whom. Whoever decided on the moniker “late learned judge” wasn’t being generous.

There’s still a mystery here, even if it isn’t about the identity of this “late learned judge”. It’s about why he didn’t want them ever ever EVER to be published. And there’s a case for Miss Marple if ever I heard of one. Perhaps he was just a bit shy, or a bit modest. But here’s my twopenneth: I think he thought the treatises were just too serious and sensible to fit in with his reputation as a bit of a rogue and a scoundrel. I’m sure eighteenth century judges cared about their street cred too, y’know.

References

Flaherty, M. S. (1987). The Empire strikes back: Annesley v. Sherlock and the triumph of Imperial Parliamentary supremacy. Columbia Law Review, 87.3, pp. 593-622.

Macnair, M. (2004). Gilbert, Sir Jeffrey. ODNB, accessed here.

Wikipedia entry, here.

A very English art, or the Artist’s Progress

Be careful what you promise! Way back in June I signed off my post about Hudibras promising one on the illustrations by Hogarth. Now, after a busy summer and a hectic Michaelmas term, here it finally is. However, I don’t expect you to have been waiting with bated breath (or I certainly hope you haven’t because… well, you wouldn’t be alive to read this now).

So what of William Hogarth, the illustrator of Hudibras? He was a Londoner of humble origins. Born in 1697 in Bartholomew Close, near Smithfield, he had the bustling city of London in his blood. His father made a meagre living by writing (an introduction to Latin and English “Thesaurarium trilingue publicum”, 1689) and taking in pupils. Life was very hard. From birth William was exposed to the harsh realities of a hand-to-mouth existence in the capital and to the multifarious characters who struggled to survive there (and who would later populate his satirical prints) and as a young man he was determined to better himself.

By 1714 he was apprenticed to a silver engraver, engraving shields and ciphers on forks, spoons, goblets and plates. However, he was bored and dreamed of better things. “Engraving on copper” was Hogarth said “at twenty years of age my utmost ambition” – and by 1720 he was on his way! He set up on his own as an engraver and paid the subscription to become a member of the new arts academy in St Martin’s Lane (which he attended in the evenings). There he honed his skills as a draughtsman and made valuable contacts. By 1722 he was employed on the team of book illustrators for La Motraye’s Travels. He also began producing topical prints and then started working on a group of small etchings illustrating Butler’s popular satirical poem Hudibras.

Hudibras was first published in 1663-78 and Hogarth may have known this poem from his childhood, It was still tremendously popular in the 1720s: it was a great favourite with the Tories and was constantly quoted in the Spectator. Seeing a money-making opportunity, in 1725 Hogarth worked on a series of twelve individual prints on Hudibras which were published by Philip Overton in February 1726. These prints were such a success that Hogarth used his earlier small engravings as illustrations for a new edition of the poem in May 1726. Our edition of Hudibras, which also contains Hogarth’s illustrations, was published in 1744 at the height of the artist’s fame when he was working on his series of paintings “Marriage a-la-mode”.

Samuel Butler and William Hogarth were a perfect fit. Hogarth’s illustrations are the visual embodiment of the author’s biting language, which satirised man’s hypocrisy and self-delusion. Hogarth’s scenes for Hudibras are lively, full of detail and merciless in their exposure of people’s failings. As Jenny Uglow points out in her biography, “the most vivid of all are the crowd scenes: the encounter with the bear-baiters, the skimmington…”

The skimmington: rough music that mocked cuckolds, hen-pecked husbands and shrewish wives.

This was an art that showed the ordinary English men and women of the time without idealization or sentimentality. The artist’s democratic eye lampooned the great and the good or the man in the street with equal vigour.  His work is skilful, full of detail and never boring and its popular appeal propelled Hogarth up the social scale to great success.

Hogarth’s work and quirky imagery has echoed down the centuries and in the 1960’s it resurfaced in the work of one of Britain’s foremost contemporary artists, David Hockney. Hogarth was an early inspiration for Hockney who produced a series of contemporary etchings on the theme of the Rake’s progress (1960-61). His commission to do the designs for the Glyndebourne production of the opera of Rake’s Progress in 1974 reinvigorated his art and Hogarth’s direct inspiration can be seen in the painting “Kerby” (1975) now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Kerby (after Hogarth) Useful Knowledge (1975)

Like Hogarth, Hockney rose from relatively humble origins to become a leading figure in the art establishment. His own very English eye has resulted in work which has met with great popularity. Perhaps his most famous work is Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy (1970-71) which is a contemporary take on the work of another great English artist, Thomas Gainsborough. And, like Hogarth, it is Hockney’s skill as a draughtsman that has underpinned his work in the fields of painting, portraiture and printmaking. Hockney has also explored the use of technological innovations such as Polaroid photography, fax machines and the drawing application called Brushes for iPhones and iPads. I wonder if Hogarth would have done the same had he been alive today?

If you would like to see Hockney’s latest work then you may do so at the Royal Academy in the New Year: “David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture” is on from 21 January to 9 April 2012.

References:

William Hogarth article on Wikipedia

Hogarth: a life and world by Jenny Uglow. London: Faber & Faber, 1997

David Hockney article on Wikipedia

David Hockney’s official website

David Hockney by Marco Livingstone. London, Thames & Hudson, 1996

Marcus Manilius: the man who didn’t tell us who he was

The clocks have gone back, the evenings are drawing in, and the days are becoming darker and colder and drearier; but, despite this, the Old Library cataloguing project is coming along nicely, thank you very much. I’m still working on 18^th century monographs, but learning to deal with the dangerous conditions in which rare books cataloguers must work. Yes, it’s not exactly bomb disposal, and no, I’m not exactly traversing the seven seas on a raft, but still, Elizabethan libraries do not lend themselves well to warmth. I’m terribly grateful, therefore, to whoever suggested that I get myself a pair of fingerless gloves, which have allowed me to keep frostbite at bay while looking remarkably stylish. Even if I do say so myself.

A cataloguer's godsend*

In the middle of several thousand books on law, classics and theology, most of which have been in Greek (which I can only barely read, thanks to a semester at university eight years ago), I came across a slim volume of Marcus Manilius’ Astronomica, edited by Richard Bentley, former Master of Trinity College, and printed in 1739 by Henry Woodfall. The book caught my eye initially because of a very exciting fold out celestial chart, complete with pictures of centaurs and plenty of other things I thought J.K. Rowling invented. But I also recognised the title, and thought it might be something we also had in the Jerwood. I like it when the rare books we’ve got are still being published or are still in circulation and being borrowed by current Trinity Hall students. So I did a quick search, and it turns out that I was right: we’ve got G.P. Goold’s translation, published in 1977 by Harvard University Press, and one of the Loeb Classical Library Series.

The old version (1739), and the less old one (1977)

Astronomica is a didactic poem in five books about astronomy (did you guess?) but there’s also a few bits and pieces which conform to what we’d consider astrology today. It’s in Latin, and more to the point, it’s in “a difficult, twisted, and occasionally beautiful Latin” (Volk, 2009, p. 1). The poem as a whole is an attempt to discover the system by which heaven and earth are governed.  Manilius does this by covering topics from cosmology to comets (not the electronic goods store, mind), the zodiac, the signs, horoscopes, planetary influences, that sort of thing. He’s like the first century equivalent of Russell Grant mixed with Patrick Moore. In any case, Manilius has cohered to a Stoic philosophy of a rational, orderly system throughout—he writes:

these questions [about the origins of the universe] will always cause dispute among men of genius, and uncertainty is bound to attend that which is hidden from us and is so far above the ken of man and god. But however obscure its origin, all are agreed about the outward appearance of the universe, and the orderly arrangement of its structure is fixed (Book I: 145-8, translation from Goold, p. 15-7).

So it appears that it doesn’t matter much to Manilius where the universe came from, as long as it’s in order. Sounds a bit like my approach to shelving.

There isn’t much information about Marcus Manilius himself—the poor guy isn’t mentioned by a single contemporary or later Roman writer, and despite many pages of cogitating on the potential effect of the birth sign of the emperor Tiberius (Libra, if you’re interested), he didn’t take the trouble to introduce himself once in the poem. We can figure out the date of composition of the Astronomica by some of the historical events Manilius mentions. In Book 1 he talks about the disaster at Saltus Teutoburgiensis in 9 A.D., and Goold suggests that the emperor Augustus dies somewhere between Manilius writing Books 2 and 4 (and Augustus died in 14 A.D.), so it’s relatively safe to assume the early first century for the date of composition. Another point of contention is where Manilius is from—Scaliger thinks he’s a Roman, Bentley has him down as being from Asia. I imagine it wouldn’t matter much to Manilius where he’s from, as long as it’s in order.

Cetus the whale, a constellation

But one of the more interesting things about this book is the people who’ve edited and translated it—it seems to be one of those ‘make-or-break’ texts to tackle. As I said, our copy is Bentley’s version, and it’s highly regarded, but Bentley wasn’t the first editor to get his hands on it. The first person to make real headway was the philologist J.J. Scaliger, whose edition appeared in Paris in 1579. And however well Scaliger did (and word is, he did pretty well), he is thought to have paled in comparison when the mighty Bentley came long. A.E. Housman makes this very clear comparison of the skills of the two editors: “Scaliger at the side of Bentley is no more than a marvellous boy” (1903).

Bentley’s translation first appeared in 1739 suggesting that Trinity Hall holds one of the earlier printings of the book and though Bentley is criticised for using a bit too much artistic license in his translation, his was the standard for a long time.  That is, until A.E. Housman came along, spending no less than three decades dedicated to a translation of the text, and it’s Housman’s version which is heavily used by Goold in his Loeb edition. Whoever takes the spot as top dog, however, it’s clear that both Bentley and Housman are deserving of plenty of credit; as Goold writes, “if we accord Bentley the honour of being England’s greatest Latinist, it will largely be because Housman declined to claim the title for himself” (Poetry Foundation).

A.E. Housman

I’m not sure I’ll ever know what it is about Manilius’ poem that attracted so many contenders for the competition of Britain’s got Latinists, but it seems that whatever it was it didn’t have the same impact among Trinity Hall scholars of old—our copy of the book is pretty unremarkable and in really good condition.  Perhaps they had better things to do.  Or perhaps they were put off after reading the young Goethe’s review of the poem in his Ephemerides (1770):

I began to read Manilius’ Astronomicon and soon had to put it down: no matter how much this philosophical poet festoons his work with lofty thoughts, he cannot redeem the barrenness of his subject…I consider that one has to debit the poet’s account with the ill consequences of a subject.  After all, he is the one who chose it.

References

Housman, A.E. (1903). Introduction [to Book 1]. Retrieved 31 October 2011, from here.

Manilius, M. (1977). Astronomica (G.P. Goold, trans.) Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Poetry Foundation. (n.d.). A.E. Housman. Retrieved 31 October 2011, from here.

Volk, K. (2009). Manilius and his intellectual background. Oxford: OUP.

For extra credit, the Whipple Library, Cambridge, has some information about their folio of Book 1 here.

Photo credits:

Thanks to Katie Birkwood for the photo of the gloves; Postershop for Cetus (it’s by Sir James Thornhill and it’s called “Constellation of Cetus the Whale” from Atlas Coelestis, by Sir John Flamsteed, 1729); and A.E. Housman from The Guardian.

*The Gloves

Aren’t they gorgeous?! They’re called “Classmark Mittens” and they’re Katie’s own design. You can read more about why they came about on her blog, here, and if you fancy making a pair for yourself, you’re in luck–the pattern, including more photographs, is online, here.

Thomas Morgan of Minety

We are VERY grateful to our guest blogger, Dunstan Roberts, who has written this post for the Old Library blog. Dunstan is a graduate student at Trinity Hall. He has recently submitted a doctoral thesis on readers’ annotations in sixteenth-century religious books.

A Detection of the Deuils Sophistrie, a little-known work of sixteenth-century religious controversy, was published in 1546. The colourfully-named polemic was written by the then Master of Trinity Hall and Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner (c.1495-1555), whose scholarly prowess and political nous placed him at the forefront of the conservative faction during much of the English Reformation.

What makes the College’s copy interesting is that one of its early readers has filled its margins with annotations—about three-thousand words of them, to be precise. Early modern readers often annotated books in order to improve comprehension and recollection, sometimes adding concise paraphrases and non-verbal notes.

But the annotations in the college’s copy of A Detection are not like this. They are far more pugnacious: a full-blown assault on Stephen Gardiner’s text, denouncing its theology, challenging its arguments, and refuting its patristic sources with rival interpretations and occasionally with rival sources.

Stephen Gardiner, A Detection of the Deuils Sophistrie (1546). Trinity Hall, TH.G.I.1, sigs E3V-E4R.

In more detail:

Sigs E3V-E4R: “In this prayer ys heresye where he said christe moth[er] brought forth god wiche hath no begy[n]ninge note also his treason for images”.

An analysis of the theological viewpoint of the annotations reveals a reader opposed to Gardiner’s Catholicism, but without any suggestion of religious radicalism: in short, a moderate Protestant.

So who was responsible for these unusual annotations? We are fortunate in this instance that the annotator has made his identity explicit through an ownership inscription at the rear of the book: ‘Tho[mas] morgan[us] Ap[u]d Myntie Diocaes[is]. Sa[rum]’. This gives us both a person and a location. The village of Minety (to give it its modern spelling) lies on the border between Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, about 7 miles north-west of Swindon, and falls within the diocese of Salisbury (known in Latin as Sarum). As for Thomas Morgan, he was vicar of Minety from 1582 to 1627, an impressive innings, especially by early-modern standards. We can find two students of his name at Oxford (none at Cambridge) during the decade prior to his installation at Minety: one at Jesus College and one at New Inn Hall (a medieval institution later subsumed into Balliol College). One of these men is very likely our man.

Sig. T4R (detail): “Tho[mas] morgan[us] Ap[u]d Myntie Diocaes[is] Sa[rum]” (Thomas Morgan of Minety, Salisbury Diocese).

Thomas Morgan received his intellectual training at a time when university-educated clergy were seen as critical to the consolidation of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and were highly sought after. Several colleges in Oxford and Cambridge (including Jesus College, Oxford, Morgan’s possible alma mater) were founded specifically to satisfy this demand. The theological education which the universities provided was conducted along explicitly disputatious lines; prospective clergy were taught how to debate and persuade, which sources to cite and what arguments to employ. Morgan’s patristic sources continued to be taught, even once their purely theological significance to Protestants had started to wane because they were useful for debating with Catholics. The members of this ‘new model clergy’ were not retained within centres of scholarship, but were dispatched into the provinces, where they could have a real impact.

It is within these historical circumstances which we should view this volume and its unusual contents. Whilst it is difficult to fathom the exact purpose of the annotations, there are several likely explanations. Combative annotations like this were sometimes used in the preparation of published rejoinders to controversial texts, although there is no specific evidence to suggest that Morgan was planning anything along these lines. He might, however, have been planning something slightly lower key, such as a sermon in which the former Bishop of Winchester was to be attacked. Or his motives might have been more private, attacking the text as an intellectual exercise, training himself for the larger fight against Catholicism.

There are many questions which remain unanswered and which will merit investigation in the future. We do not know what happened to the book during the centuries before the college acquired it in the latter half of the twentieth century. Nor, significantly, do we know how and why this volume survived when so many other sixteenth-century books perished. These details would be valuable in drawing together the complicated events to which this volume suggestively alludes. But we are, in the meantime, blessed with a remarkably vivid picture of the disputatious religious reading practices which came to the fore during the protracted years of religious turmoil in sixteenth century England.

Images by Dunstan Roberts.