Arbuthnotiana: The Story of the St. Alb-ns Ghost (1712) A Catalogue of Dr. Arbuthnot's Library (1779) Read online

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  THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

  ARBUTHNOTIANA:

  The Story of the St. Alb-ns Ghost

  (1712)

  A Catalogue of Dr. Arbuthnot's Library

  (1779)

  _Introduction by_ PATRICIA KOeSTER

  PUBLICATION NUMBER 154

  WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

  UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

  1972

  GENERAL EDITORS

  William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles

  ADVISORY EDITORS

  Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan James L. Clifford, Columbia University Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago Louis A. Landa, Princeton University Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library James Sutherland, University College, London H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Curt A. Zimansky, State University of Iowa

  CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

  Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

  EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

  Jean T. Shebanek, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

  INTRODUCTION

  The two pieces here reproduced have long been unavailable; theirconnections with Arbuthnot are rather complex. _The Story of the St.Alb-ns Ghost_ has been ambiguously associated with Arbuthnot since theyear of its first publication, but it does not seem to have beenreprinted since the nineteenth century when editors regularly includedit among the minor works of Swift. Whoever wrote it, the _Story_ is alively and effective Tory squib, whose narrative vigor can carry eventhe twentieth-century reader over the occasional topical obscurities. _ACatalogue of the ... Library of ... Dr. Arbuthnot_ has never beenreprinted at all, and appears to be unknown by scholars who have thusfar written about Arbuthnot.

  _The Story of the St. Alb-ns Ghost_, the first piece included, hasalways been of doubtful authorship, and must for the present socontinue. Two days after the _Story_ first appeared, Swift tantalizinglywrote to Stella: "I went to Ld Mashams to night, & Lady Masham made meread to her a pretty 2 penny Pamphlet calld the St Albans Ghost. Ithought I had writt it my self; so did they, but I did not" (22 February1712). Whoever wrote it, the _Story_ succeeded: it was pirated within aweek, and had reached its third regular "edition" within three weeks ofthe first; it appeared in a fifth and apparently final edition on 19July 1712.[1] Now just during these same months Arbuthnot was producinghis first political satires, five pamphlets later gathered under thetitle _History of John Bull_. He published the first of these 4 March1712 and the last 31 July 1712.[2] There are several thematic andmethodological connections between _The Story of The St. Alb-ns Ghost_and the John Bull pamphlets: as Tory propaganda pieces, they attackleading Whigs and make the usual suggestions about irreligion, moralturpitude and misuse of public funds. Furthermore, they do so by meansof vigorous if sometimes difficult reductive allegories which mock thevictims by presenting them as farcical figures from low life. Theconnection as well as the difficulties must have appeared quite early,for some enterprising publisher (presumably Curll)[3] soon brought out_A Complete Key to the Three Parts of Law is a Bottomless-Pit, and theStory of the St. Alban's Ghost_. Although the exact date of this is notknown, it must lie between the _termini_ 17 April and 9 May 1712, thedates of the third and fourth parts respectively of John Bull.Furthermore, a "Second Edition Corrected" of the Key appeared before thepublication of pamphlet four. (The last pages of these two Keys,concerning the _Story of the St. Alb-ns Ghost_, are reproduced in theAppendix.) The Key ran through two further editions as _A Complete Keyto the Four Parts of Law is a Bottomless-Pit, and the Story of the St.Alban's Ghost_, presumably before 31 July 1712, and came to a fifth(seemingly last) edition with a more general title referring to "allParts" of John Bull, and still including the _Story_.

  While the Keys by association suggest Arbuthnot as author, the onlyother contemporary document attributes the _Story_ to a differentphysician and wit: the so-called _Miscellaneous Works of Dr. WilliamWagstaffe_ (London, 1726) reprint the fourth edition of the Story. Nowthe _Miscellaneous Works_ were printed some five months after the deathof Dr. Wagstaffe and more than three months after that of the supposededitor Dr. Levett;[4] it is possible that the contents are in parterroneous. In any case, Arbuthnot, Wagstaffe and Swift remain thepossible authors with whom scholars must deal until some furtherevidence is forthcoming. Roscoe interprets Swift's ambiguous remarks inthe _Journal to Stella_ as an indirect acknowledgement, and Dilke goesone step further in assuming that the so-called _Miscellaneous Works ofDr. Wagstaffe_ are a mystification, a means for Swift to pass off workswhich he did not wish to include in the _Miscellanies_ with Pope. SirWalter Scott thinks that the _Story_ is probably a collaboration betweenArbuthnot and Swift, "judging from the style"; Professor Herbert Davisdissociates Wagstaffe material generally from the writings of Swift, butdoes not specifically mention the _Story_; however, "Mr. Granger thoughtSt. Alban's Ghost, attributed to Dr. Wagstaffe, was [Arbuthnot's]."[5]

  Although recent scholars seem to agree in selecting Wagstaffe as authorof the _Story_, the evidence of the 1726 _Works_ is implicitlycontradicted by the Keys. I have made two separate attempts to solve thequestion of authorship, neither of which has been fully satisfactory.The first of these, a computerized test based on the methods ofProfessor Louis T. Milic for distinguishing works by Swift from works byother authors, has given inconclusive results. In this test the _Story_was the chief unknown, and was compared with samples of similar lengthfrom Swift, Arbuthnot, Wagstaffe and, as a control, Mrs. Manley, whowrote politically keyed narratives but has never been associated withthe _Story_. The _Story_ turned out to be fairly similar to all fourauthors in the number of different three-word patterns (D), and unlikeall of them in number of Introductory Connectives (IC), where Wagstaffestood the highest, and the _Story_ by far the lowest. In the proportionof Verbals (VB) the _Story_ and Wagstaffe were fairly close together anddifferent from the other authors tested, who clustered near the Swiftfigures. Thus the test tends to exclude Swift, Arbuthnot and Mrs. Manleyas possible authors, but does not encourage a full confidence inreplacing them with Wagstaffe. (It also tends to show that some of theother pieces included in the so-called _Miscellaneous Works of Dr.Wagstaffe_ differ considerably in the usages tested both from oneanother and from the patterns established by the signed works of Dr.Walstaffe.)[6]

  My second attempt was based on textual changes among editions of the_Story_. In the second edition there are three small changes from thefirst; the third and fourth editions seem to be line-for
-line reprintsof the second. (The "sham, Imperfect Sort" introduces a large number ofvariants, mainly errors.) In the fifth edition, however, somebody hasaltered the typography: many past forms of verbs are altered. Thus atthe bottom of p. 3 _unbody'd_ becomes _unbodyed_, _carry'd_ and_deliver'd_ become _carryed_, _delivered_. The task of editing is notcomplete; particularly near the end of the fifth edition many verbsstill carry the apostrophe of the earlier editions. The date of theattempt suggests that Swift's _Proposal for Correcting, Improving andAscertaining the English Tongue_ (first published 17 May 1712, a weekafter the fourth edition of the _Story_) could have provided themotivation, and also that Swift himself could not have been the personwho made the changes. A study of a few contemporaries shows that Swifthimself tried to eliminate the apostrophes from the _Conduct of theAllies_, first published 27 November 1711, and from other workspublished after that date, but not from works published before thatdate. Oldisworth, apparently under the instructions of Swift, tried todo the same during the first few months of the _Examiner_, vol. 2(beginning 6 December 1711), but by the time he reached volume 3,Oldisworth had apparently given up the struggle against unwillingprinters. Arbuthnot, Roper and Manley are not very interested in thematter, and neither are other pamphleteers published by Morphew duringthe months immediately following Swift's _Proposal_. The items includedin the so-called _Miscellaneous Works of Dr. Wagstaffe_, on the otherhand, fall into three groups chronologically: those which precedeSwift's _Proposal_, and include many apostrophied verb forms; thosewhich immediately follow Swift's _Proposal_, and include abnormally fewapostrophied verb forms; the two "late" pieces (1715, 1719), which areback to the proportion of apostrophied verbs to be found in the earlyitems. If Pseudo-Wagstaffe was indeed a single writer, then he followedthe same pattern as Oldisworth, but began later and continued longer touse verbs with an _-ed_ ending. Since the genuine signed prose works ofDr. Wagstaffe come "late" (1717, 1721) and have a fairly large (i.e.,normal) number of apostrophied verbs, there is no evidence here as towhether or not Pseudo-Wagstaffe is Wagstaffe; at least there is nocontradiction. In the light of these facts, we can see that neitherSwift nor Arbuthnot is a probable author of the _Story_; Swift wouldpresumably have altered verb typography in the first and all editions,and Arbuthnot would not have altered it at all.[7] In these two projectson authorship we find that authors other than Wagstaffe tend to beeliminated, but that Wagstaffe himself is not strongly confirmed. Theauthorship remains as problematic as before, and the _Story_ may as wellfor this century continue with the Arbuthnotiana, as it did during thenineteenth with the Swiftiana.

  The device of using a ghost story as vehicle for political satire was by1712 a well-established one. Elias F. Mengel Jr. refers to "the 'ghost'convention, so popular in the Restoration,"[8] and an important poem ofQueen Anne's reign shows some similarities with and perhaps provided amodel for the _Story_. In _Moderation Display'd_ (London, 1705) therecently deceased second Earl of Sunderland rises from Hell to confoundhis guilty Whig companions. Tonson (Bibliopolo) is the most terrified,and as in the _Story_ Wharton (Clodio) is so wicked that he is notfrightened at all. The _Story_, however, is both more subtle and moreflexible than most other satiric "ghost" narratives. It compresses theactual apparition into the last quarter of the narrative, despite theperhaps deliberately misleading title. Nearly half of the _Story_ dealswith previous events; much of the rest is machinery, introduction ofseemingly irrelevant details with a mischievous verisimilitude whichactually advances the main satiric aims. The opening paragraph, forexample, first denounces Roman Catholic superstition, a denunciationwhich almost every Englishman could join, and then turns the fire toward"Our Sectarists." The war on heterodoxy continues in the references toDr. Garth, the Whig poet and physician noted for his scepticism inreligion, to William Whiston who during the winter of 1711-1712 wastranscribing documents and writing elaborate treatises to uphold hisview that Christian churches and theologians had all been essentiallyheretical since the time of Athanasius, and to the Reverend andHonourable Lumley Lloyd, a low-church minister whose sermons attractedat least two Tory satires.[9] None of these men belongs in thenarrative, and only Garth was even remotely connected with theMarlboroughs, but all of them were Whigs, and in various ways serve to"demonstrate" that Whigs must be false brethren to the Church ofEngland.

  This charge, although a cliche of Tory satires, is here made indirectand witty, as are the staple charges against the Duke and Duchess ofMarlborough. Whereas, however, the wickedness of nonconformity had beenattacked for decades, the Duke of Marlborough had been associated withthe Whigs for a relatively short time. As late as 1706 Wagstaffe couldgenerously declare that "_Woodstock's_ too little" a reward (_Ramelies,a Poem_), but since Swift's "Bill of British Ingratitude" in the_Examiner_ (17 November 1710) the Tory press had begun to say that therewards were too many and too great. The _Story_ repeats the charge thatAvaro and Haggite "grew Richer than their Mistress" (p. 11), togetherwith the ridiculous insinuations of cowardice and incompetence foundconstantly reiterated in the second volume of _Examiners_. The Duchessof Marlborough attracted massive satire earlier than her husband, insuch books as _The Secret History of Queen Zarah_ (London, 1705),[10]and her habit of saying "Lawrd" with an affected drawl is mentioned in_The Secret History of Arlus and Odolphus_ (n.p., 1710), pp. 21, 22, 23.

  Although not so frequent as attacks on the Duke and Duchess ofMarlborough, attacks on Mrs. Jennings the mother of the Duchess hadalready been made, and indeed the _Story_ relies for part of its effecton the fact that Mrs. Jennings is already associated with witchcraft. In_Memoirs of Europe_ (London, 1710)[10] for example, she inherits afamiliar spirit from Sir Kenelm Digby, there reported the real father ofthe Duchess (II, 44-46). In _Oliver's Pocket Looking-Glass_ (n.p., 1711)Mrs. Jennings appears as "the famous Mother Shipton, who by the Powerand Influence of her Magick Art, had plac'd a Daughter in the sameStation at Court [i.e., Maid of Honour] with _Meretricia_ [ArabellaChurchill] ..." (p. 21). Because the author of the Story assumes thatprevious Tory allegations are well-known, he is free to perform elegantvariations or to allude indirectly. Assuming the fact of witchcraftallows him to heap up an ambiguous burlesque of popular superstitionwhich is in part entertainment and in part rebuttal of recent Whigsneers at Tory credulity during the Jane Wenham witch trial.[11] Here asthroughout the pamphlet, the author demonstrates the virtuosity whicheven Swift commends. Since Swift praises few pamphlets except thosewritten by himself and Arbuthnot (or occasionally Mrs. Manley), the_Story_ enters a fairly select company. It is the only Pseudo-Wagstaffepiece mentioned by name in the _Journal to Stella_, the only one foundworthy to stand beside the productions of Swift and Arbuthnot.[12]

  The second document reproduced claims to be _A Catalogue of the Capitaland Well-Known Library of Books, of the Late Celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot_.To the extent that the claim is true, the _Catalogue_ will be importantfor studies of the Scriblerian Club generally, since Arbuthnot is themember with the greatest reputation for learning. Although the contentsof a man's library do not correspond exactly with the contents of hismind, scholars can discover a good deal about the intellectual methodsof Dr. Arbuthnot by examining the books which he owned. Until now thishas not been possible; the _Catalogue_ is a recent acquisition of theBritish Museum, not so much as mentioned in books thus far publishedabout Arbuthnot. For several reasons, however, the document must be usedwith caution. First of all, the compilers list a total of 2525 volumes,but they itemize only 1639,[13] and even then often give inadequateinformation. Furthermore, a xerox copy of the Sale Book records of theauction, very kindly sent to me by the present Messrs. Christie, Mansonand Woods, shows that almost a quarter of the lots (items 53-65,243-245, 276-372, 426), or 999 volumes, belonged not to the Arbuthnotestate but to other owners. Finally, Dr. Arbuthnot died in 1735, whereasthe auction was not held until December 1779, about three and a halfmonths after the death of his bachelor son George. Of the booksbelonging to the Arbuthnot estate, almost 20% were printed after 1735,and belonged
not to the father but to the son, or perhaps in some casesto the daughter Anne, who lived with her brother.[14] The legal booksare likely all to have been George Arbuthnot's, and presumably some ofthe other books printed before 1735 also. Despite these obscurities, theCatalogue throws a good deal of new light upon the most learnedScriblerian--and upon his family.

  Dr. Arbuthnot seems to have bought relatively few antiquarian books;about 20% of the itemized volumes belonging to his estate come before1691, the year when he first went to London. In selecting these olderworks Arbuthnot has shown a catholic taste and linguistic ability: hebought grammars and dictionaries, besides works on medicine and science,literature, history and religion, written in English, French, Italian,Latin and Greek, plus a solitary Hebrew Bible (item 234); his copy ofUdall's _Key to the Holy Tongue_ is dated 1693 (item 183). Less than aquarter of these earlier books are in English. The sole "cradle" date ofthe catalogue, 1495 for _Rosa Anglica_ (item 417), may be a misprint:editions of 1492 and 1595, among others, have been previously recorded,but none for 1495.[15]

  When compared with the antiquarian books, the list of titles from theArbuthnot estate either dated or first published after the death of Dr.Arbuthnot reveals a number of differences. English is the predominantlanguage of the late group, with French a poor second. There is anotherHebrew Bible (253), a Spanish Cervantes (25), an Italian Machiavelli(96), but no Greek book at all, and astonishingly only two Latin: adictionary (89) and a Horace (147); Cicero appears in a Frenchtranslation (26). In part, of course, the shift in languages accompaniesthe general decline of humanistic learning in the eighteenth century,but it also strengthens our knowledge of Dr. Arbuthnot's erudition.Although apparently not interested in science, George Arbuthnot readwidely, however, in other areas (see for example 10, 15, 49, 158, 160,168, 170, 254, 271). Similarly, the books from outside the Arbuthnotestate are less learned than those of Arbuthnot. They do include twoGreek testaments (290, 310) and some recent scientific works (e.g. 314,*349), but lack the great Greek writers whom Arbuthnot collected, suchas Plato (125), Aristotle (126), Herodotus (385) or Aristophanes (387).Whereas Arbuthnot read Newton's treatises (81, 85, 197, 217), one of theother owners read Algarotti's simplification (*312).

  The subjects of the books in the Arbuthnot estate can be variouslydivided. By sheer number of titles, literature is the most importantsubject, closely followed by science (including medicine as the biggestsub-group), and then by history. In number of volumes, however, thehistorical section is considerably larger than the literary, and sciencecomes third. Books on geography and travel, philosophical treatises,grammars and dictionaries, even a work on astrology (109), attest to thebreadth of Arbuthnot's interests. A few works in the fine arts arelisted, somewhat surprisingly only two of them on music (32, 373). Themilitary item (391) may come from the Doctor's brother George, who wasin the army, or it may represent another aspect of the general interestin all human affairs. There is a fairly large number of religious works,including books by Eusebius and Sozomen (127), Spotswood (380), Huet(383), Charles Leslie (251), Leibniz (141), Tillotson (395) and JeremyTaylor (3,394). The elaborately bound Greek Septuagint (272) and GreekNew Testament (273) must be the ones which Arbuthnot specified in hiswill (the only books there mentioned), calling them "the Gift of my lateRoyal Mistress Queen Anne."[16] As the _Catalogue_ does not describeany other fine bindings, the other books seem to have been bought foruse rather than for show.

  A study of the duplications among the books in the Arbuthnot estatereinforces the opinion that the books were bought for use. The onlyitems appearing three times are the works of Pope (76, 180) and Pope's_Iliad_ (11, 77, 242). Since two of the former were published after thedeath of Arbuthnot, and must have belonged to the Arbuthnot children,perhaps the extra _Iliads_ were equally the property of Arbuthnot'sheirs. The duplicates of Moliere (21, 135), Prideaux (50, 379), andVeneroni (90, *229) could also have belonged to the children. However,the bulk of the duplications seem to involve obtaining a later editionor a necessary text, and thus to have a scholarly rationale. Forexample, the two editions of Eustachius are dated 1714, 1728 (115, 259),those of Livy are dated 1578, 1708 (7, 386), while both sets ofSennertus seem to be broken (406, 407).

  Not surprisingly, Arbuthnot owned a number of satirical works. Inaddition to Pope and Moliere, already mentioned, he owned Petronius (9),Juvenal and Persius (230), Terence (231), Plautus (232), Boileau (98),Gay (79) and Swift's _Tale of a Tub_ (178). He presumably bought or wasgiven other works by Swift, but no others are itemized; perhaps somewere in the "Large parcel of pamphlets" (1). George Arbuthnot added acopy of _The Four Last Years of Queen Anne_ (173), not published until1758.

  Although literature bulks large among Arbuthnot's books, English poetryis not very conspicuous. According to some of the dates, Arbuthnot mayhave developed his interest in English poetry rather late in life.Although he owned a 1611 Spenser (423), he did not buy the listedChaucer (110) until 1721. Pope may have inspired the urge to acquireMilton (80, 185), but there seems to be no literary reason for wanting aMilton in French (184). Some other member of the family was, however,sufficiently interested in Milton to buy Newton's edition in 1749 (78).The minor poets listed are also late in date (72, 187). The only Drydenis the translation of Virgil (16), which could represent an interest inclassical just as much as in English poetry. There are, however, twocopies of Prior's _Poems_ in the large paper edition (106, 252). As thecompilers of the _Catalogue_ have left many volumes unspecified, theremust have been other poetic works, but the listed sample is rathersmall.

  Characteristically uninterested in his personal fame, Arbuthnot kept nocopies of his own writings except the reissued _Tables of Ancient Coins_(84, 193), associated with a favorite son. The reader revealed by thislibrary is the same Arbuthnot whom his contemporaries admired: witty,yet thoughtful and religious; deeply learned, yet modest. His children,although less learned than the father, continued to buy books on currenttopics, particularly literature, history and travel. Aged over seventy,George Arbuthnot was still ingesting such materials as Laughton's_History of Ancient Egypt_ (168) and Raynal's comprehensive history ofcolonialism (10). Despite the obscurity of the word "more" under whichthe compilers listed half of the total volumes, even the sample of thelibrary is a welcome addition to our knowledge about Dr. Arbuthnot.

  University of Victoria