TWENTY-FOUR

BERKELEY, George Charles Grantley FitzHardinge (1800-1881). A group of 20 illustrated letters.

[Circa 1833]. 20 handwritten letters, folded for posting.

¶ Among this humorous group of illustrated letters is a pen-and-ink selfportrait of Berkeley seated upon a display case. “Don’t you wish I may get a place for the Case at Mdm . Tussaud’s?!” he asks, and immediately answers his own question: “Oh yes!!!”.

In this and other letters in the collection, we see the lighter side of George Berkeley, a man renowned as an aristocratic snob with an argumentative and violent disposition. Berkeley was tried and found guilty of assaulting a bookseller who would not reveal the name of a reviewer who , in Fraser's Magazine; two days later he duelled with its editor, but after three shots the latter was only slightly injured.

This collection of correspondence, which comprises 20 letters, shows our scribe wielding only a pen, and indulging in flights of fancy, fits of lyricism and bouts of gentle ribbing. , possibly Mary Catherine Berkeley (née 1824) known as Lady Catherine. The few that lack a salutation have a similar tone, so were probably to her. There is a palpable fondness, when for example he “ever depend on my wish to see you perfect in everything”. The tone verges on the paternal at times, telling Catherine to “remember this as one of my , but it can also be characterised by a friendly, playful banter.

Adding to this puckish wit are a number of small motifs embedded in the writing itself, and larger, more detailed illustrations which provide further glimpses of our scribe’s personality and his fondness for gentle teasing. He indulges in little jeux d’esprit such as a cartoon apparently showing Catherine attempting to scale a vertically written word, , with the exclamatory sidenote: “Mr Berkley says there is no such and the caption “Helping a tardy scholar over a (presumably a reference to Catherine’s use of the word in a recent letter).

Other illustrations include a sketch of Catherine, (one assumes) at a writing desk, and a rendering of two ladies being blown off a hilltop in a blustery wind. Berkeley reflects on his impressions of the contrast between city and countryside: he rhapsodises in one letter “the birds on shore, sing as if heralding approaching summer”, then disparages “the smoky city”. An affection for nature is evident in his description of “the fields and on the beautiful Hills and Woods” of Bath which he seems to find restorative, feeling able to “muse and think of how much is left to man”; but he again deploys his acerbic side when describing the “old chaps” of Bath with their “gay wigs and white washed faces”, and he skewers the “old Male Dusts” who “don’t do any harm, but on the contrary often lead to laughter at them an undesirable expense”.

Berkeley’s personality – or at least, the aspects of it that he chose to present to Catherine – come through strongly in these letters and their light-hearted illustrations and offer an unexpected counterpoint to his pugnacious public image.

TWENTY-FIVE

[SANDAU, Barnard von (1759-1848)]. Manuscript entitled ‘Memoirs relative to the Seminary for the Marine at Amsterdam. MDCCXCI. Translated by Barnard van Sandau’.

[Circa 1793 (dated in dedication)]. Quarto (text block: 235 x 182 x 30 mm). Text partly numbered in manuscript: [12, title and prelims], 153, [2], [31 (“Appendix No 1. General Accounts”], 141, [3, blanks]. Margins ruled in red. Written throughout in a clear italic hand.

Modern brown crushed morocco, gilt, title page browned in margins, otherwise clean and crisp. Watermark: Fleurs-de-lis above GR (similar to Haewood 1846, which he dates circa 1777).

¶

Popularising umbrellas is a more memorable action than a lifetime of philanthropy – at least that seems to have been the fate of the merchant and philanthropist, Jonas Hanway (1712-1786). Aside from being the first man in London to carry an umbrella (for which he was widely mocked) and his opposition to tea (for which he was mocked by Samuel Johnson), he plunged himself into numerous benevolent causes, among them smallpox inoculations, the working conditions of young apprentices of chimney sweeps, the fate of infant children in workhouses, and a charity for girls abandoned to prostitution (hence his enthusiastic support for the subsequent Magdalen Hospital for Penitent Prostitutes). Among his most successful works was the Registers Bill (later dubbed ‘Hanway’s Act’), designed to improve the lives of workhouse children, which has been called “the only piece of eighteenth-century legislation dealing with the poor which was an unqualified success”, and the establishment, in 1756, of the Marine Society, the world’s oldest public maritime charity, which still exists today.

The Marine Society’s mission was to provide good education and employment to poor boys, which in turn supplied the British Navy with thousands of much-needed, well-trained seafarers (as this manuscript puts it: “the Distressful and general national Utility are so happily blended”). It created a model for other seafaring nations to follow. One such was Holland, which, although it had for centuries been sending highly skilled mariners out into the world, did not have a benevolent organisation to help achieve the combined goals of charitable education, employment, and workforce expansion.

This manuscript gives a remarkably comprehensive account of the early years of the “Seminary for the Marine at Amsterdam”, which was modelled on the Marine Society of London. According to the preface, “The Work here translated was put into my hands by a Member of your Committee [...] William Blizard” (i.e. the surgeon Sir William Blizard FRS FRSE PRCS FSA (17431835), who knew and worked with Hanway in setting up the Marine Society).

The scribe declares himself as “Barnard van Sandau” on the title page and at the end of the preface. Sandau is said to have been “born at Homburg in the dominions of his Prussian Majesty”. In 1797 he leased a shop on the North Side of the Royal Exchange (Threadneedle Street); it appears he also had premises in Winchester Street. 1. At the time that this manuscript was written, he was working at “Basinghall Street”.

In January 1789, Sandau became a member the Worshipful Company of Scriveners. He was granted a notarial faculty which would have allowed him to formally write letters to court and compose legal documents. He is known to have translated from ‘Vulgar Hebrew’ (Yiddish) to English 2, and, as this volume demonstrates, he could handle Dutch as well. This book’s 300-plus pages would nevertheless have made it a significant undertaking. Sandau does not say whether Blizard (or another member of the Marine Society) commissioned this translation, but given that it was such a specialist subject, and that the level of detail would be of great utility in keeping the Society abreast with developments in other seafaring nations (especially those who had copied their ideas), it seems very likely that Sandau was fulfilling a commission.

The work provides an in-depth account of the charity’s aims and accomplishments; it details the kind of education the “scholars” receive to equip them for the rigours of a life at sea. They learn the art and science of navigation, supplementary skills such as “Cannonading”, and the “Knowledge of the sort, the making, and the use of all Instruments required”. The organisation also acknowledges its responsibilities to “the behoof of Seamen wounded in the service of this country”, which includes the “widows of those who had the Misfortune of losing their Lives” and “the Children of Seamen”; and there are detailed accounts of monies paid to them.

The progress of individual students is carefully chronicled. Since “the Number of their Places in the Seminary” is deemed more appropriate than “Names of the Scholars”, the records track students by their assigned number. For example, in the “Second Class”, students “411”, “417”, “418”, and “416” are “learning to denominate the Decimal Fractions”; however, while all four are considered to have a capacity of “3” (the highest in any column is 6), their rate of “Diligence” is “0”. Happily, others are more conscientious: “385” and “408” are each considered to have a “Capacity” of “4”, but with “Diligence” pushed all the way to “6”, they now “Understand the Geometrical Proportion together wit the use of Logarithm, and ought to be promoted to a higher order”.

“232”, meanwhile, scores a 4 on both their abilities and their efforts, and now “Understands Steenstra’s Navigation to find the Longitude by the Tables of Douwes, without taking a meridian Altitude; and to calculate the Longitude at Sea by the distance of the Sun from the Moon, or a Star”. Here, the student is employing the method introduced by Cornelis Douwes (1712-1773) for calculating latitude, which became an international standard until the 19th century. The Pybo Steenstra (d.1788) mentioned here is a noteworthy figure in the history of navigation: he had a great impact on its teaching in Amsterdam and did much to transform the pedagogy from a purely practical instruction to one which combined hands-on learning with rigorous classroom teaching reinforced through textbooks (many of which he himself wrote).

This is richly informative text, which abounds with details of the evolution in 18th-century navigational education. It gives detailed insight into the rigorous requirements of a mariner’s education, and shows how the Marine Society were interested in promoting the influence and evolution of the ideas they had themselves set forth into the world.

£2,250 Ref: 8159

1. Edgar Roy Samuel. ‘Anglo-Jewish Notaries and Scriveners’. Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England), Vol. 17 (1951-52), pp. 145-146.

2. Ibid. Schott, Margaret E. Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550-1800.

[CHARLES I] The Acts made in the First [& Second] Parliament of our most high and dread soveraigne Charles, together 2 works in 1 vol.

Edinburgh, by Robert Young; Robert Young and Evan Tyler, 1633-41. Folio. Pagination 66, [10]; 160, [20] p. (Containing 31 and 110 Acts respectively). Both volumes collated and complete, with an additional manuscript table at the end. [Goldsmiths 644 and 718; STC 21902; Wing S1168D].

Profusely annotated and with a 12-page manuscript table bound in at the end in a 17th century hand.

¶ The judicious but anonymous Scottish annotator of this collection of acts has created a perfect example of pen-in-hand reading. We can be reasonably confident that the scribe was Scottish, by their use of such words as ‘anent’ and ‘ane’ (“anent ye Copper coyne”; “15. Anent ye act of oblivion vide s. J. Ma. Parl.9.c.67”; “Ane Table of ye Principall Matters”).

Their notes run the gamut of textual interaction: most refer to parliamentary sessions or other legal texts (“vide i.ses.2c.25. of Parl.3.Ses.1.c.28”; “Vide. K. Jam. 6. Parl. 10.c.13”); some pages have been simply underlined or marked with a cross; others have brief finding “Power of ye Counsell”; “Exc. 1. [2, 3]”; “piuiledges of all Erecters and maintainers of Manufacties”; “power of ye Commission”), or brief commentaries (“rents gifted heerby by ye king To ye maintenanne of ye Ministerie of ye Uties & Colledges”).

Certain acts seem to have particularly caught their attention.

The most heavily annotated section is pp.22-32 (Acts IX-XII), which covers “The Kings Generall Revocation”, “Anent the Annexation of his Maiesties Propertie”, “Of Dissolution”, and “Ratification of the Acts of Interruption”. The copious notes here are densely packed, which combined with some bleed-through make some of the wording difficult to decipher, but it offers an interesting mixture of précis and commentaries on the text. We offer a few small samples here: “And g[ene]rally All Acts & dispositions made in detriment of the King soule & conscience or of the Crowne & church, and contrary to the Lawes of the Kingdome”; “The Superiorities of all Kings lands erected & temporall Lords”; “Acts of Counsell and Session ratifying the Kings will, and declaration, conteined in his letter, anent the Interruption of the Act of prescription, sent to his Majas uocal, & by him presented to them, [...] to saue the force & power of a Loyall [...] aginst all parties hauing Interest, In the particulars following”

This was intended as a working document that would be consulted repeatedly, to judge by the inclusion at the end of the volume of an index entitled: “Ane Table of ye Principall Matters contained in ye 21.22. & 23. Parlts of K. James 6 and all ye Parlts of K. Charles I”, which is arranged in columns detailing the subject, monarch, parliament, session, chapter, and date.

The manuscript notes remain within the scope of the acts covered in the printed section. The latest manuscript date is 1649, which marked the end of the life of the acts’ nominal author – Charles I – and coincided with the prelude to the invasion of Scotland by the army of the New English Commonwealth.

£2,500 Ref: 8154

[CARTWRIGHT, Charles; HILL, George] Manuscript sermons [bound with] The vvhole book of Psalmes: collected into English meeter, by Thomas Sternhold, Iohn Hopkins, and others, conferred with the Hebrew, with apt notes to sing them withall.

London: Printed by G. M[iller] for the Companie of Stationers. Cum priuilegio Regis Regali, 1633. [Manuscript Circa 1639-1651].

Octavo. Pagination [10], 91, [3] p. Collated and complete (but corner of A4 torn with loss to 14 lines of text). A fragment of 11 leaves from another contemporary edition of the Psalms is loosely inserted at the end. Approximately 113 manuscript pages (plus some blanks) bound before the printed text comprising four sermons. A few leaves appear to have been excised from the first sermon, thereafter complete.

¶ While violent upheavals and widespread destruction during the 1640s tore apart the social fabric of England, Charles Cartwright was intent on bringing together this volume of print and manuscript material, apparently to aid and record his preaching. Cartwright has taken a printed edition of the Book of Psalms and bound in over 100 pages of his own manuscript sermons, to create a portmanteau that probably accompanied him on his travels.

An in inscription to f.1 reads “soro mono at puisant but I am your Louing brother untill death Charles Cartwright 1649 anno Io. Charles Charles Finis Elizabeth” (presumably the sister referred to in the Latin inscription). Another inscription of similar vintage to the rear endpaper reads simply “George Hill” and has his pen trials, but given that Cartwright has inscribed to the volume to his sister Elizabeth, and he dates it within the period in which the sermons were written, we assume that the scribe was Cartwright. However, despite the fact that we know his name, together with the dates and places of the sermons, Cartwright’s identity has proved elusive. He does not appear in the CCED database, but they have a gap in their records at these dates, so the records may have fallen victim the chaos of the era.

Parts of the manuscript may contribute in a small way to filling in a few gaps in these records: Cartwright’s comments indicate that these sermons were used at several locations and at different times. He notes, for example, that the sermon on “Luke .2.10.11.” was delivered at “Willingham: 1639: Bonby: 46: Old Malton 1651”, and “Esay 25: 6.7” at “Willingham: 1640: Ashby: 1641: Thurston . 1642. Old Malton 1649. Narborough 1646. Bonby 1647”. There’s a notable shift in tone from the early part of Cartwright’s manuscript, which is suggestive of a preacher learning to moderate his public statements in the name of prudence. In the first sermon he shows his Royalist colours with a stout defence of the Divine Right of Kings that uses the Biblical metaphor of a vineyard: “god provides for the preservation of his vineyard as a Nation by building a tower in ye midst […] Such is a King, who […] by his sovereign power is also to quell all forraign enimies & domestick rebellions by his princely clemoncie” and, as the monarch is not accountable to parliament “by his impartiall & uncontrolled justice to regulate & correct offences”, he is within his right to dissolve it, or as Cartwright says “by his kingly proregain” (which we read as prorogation) “to protect countenance & justifie his ministers and ye dressers of the wise execution of his lawes”. Cartwright presses home the argument that “god himselfe is this tower and his vineyard, The king his vice regent his principall husbandman, and as he hath god’s power of his people delivered into him, as his delegate; so is he in gods steed the tower of defence, upon the earth in ye minds of ye nationall vineyard; whosoever therefore resisting this power this tower; resisteth God himself”. Before long,

Cartwright becomes specific: “such a tower was our Charles to us, till sedition, faction superstition, heresie, treason, rebellion, prophaneness irreligion, blasphemie and contempt of all holy things broke downe our headge, dismantled our fortresse, sed prestat motos componene fluctus”.

This Latin phrase, from Virgil’s Aeneid (roughly, “but let me still the raging waves”), and cited by Cicero as a rhetorical device, seems here to signal Cartwright’s ambivalence over being too outspoken about current events; and it foreshadows how, after this outburst, Cartwright effectively unpins his colours from the mast and in the following three sermons, sticks to safer scriptural ground (“I neede not trouble my selfe with unfoulding ye context, doing it is only an historicall relation of ye nativity of our saviour”), perhaps realising the need for greater discretion to avoid controversy during the Civil War years. This rare survivor from a tumultuous decade in English history, quietly reveals its author’s sympathies and hints at some of the tactics they used to survive the violence of the period.

BROWNE, Thomas, Sir (1605-1682) Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. By

Thomas Browne Dr of Physick.

London: printed by A. Miller, for Edw. Dod and Nath. Ekins, at the Gunne in Ivie Lane, 1650. Second edition. Folio. Pagination [16], 329, [11] p. Collated and complete. [Wing, B5160; Keynes, Browne, 74]. Contemporary sheep, rebacked with the original spine laid down, new label, recornered. Scattered spotting to text, but paper quite crisp. Inscription to title page “Sam:[uel] Wight: pr.”

¶ Just as Religio Medici established Thomas Browne’s reputation as a religious thinker, his subsequent and most extensive work, the Pseudodoxia, earned him fame as a scholar, naturalist and – to borrow a modern phrase –debunker of misinformation. Browne applies a Baconian methodology (outlined in Bacon’s Advancement of Learning) to a plethora of misconceptions and false beliefs.

After setting out general observations concerning the manner of mankind’s falling into error and misapprehension (“Of Credulity and Supinity”; “Of obstinate adherence unto Antiquity”; and so on), Browne tackles specific “Tenents”, divided into six sections, including “Minerall, and vegetable bodies”, “Man”, and “Historicall Tenents generally received, and some deduced from the History of holy Scripture”. He brings his signature combination of pious observance and rigorous enquiry to a wide spectrum of received wisdom, giving equally serious consideration to “the food of John the Baptst in the wildernesse”, the contention “That a Diamond is made soft, or broke by the blood of a Goate”, the notions “That the Tower of Babel was erected against a second deluge”, and that “our Saviour never laughed”, and the popular belief “That a Brock or Badger hath the legs on one side shorter then of the other”.

The Pseudodoxia’s eclectic early-modern myth busting, shot through as it is with its own wrongheaded arguments, is nevertheless a crucially important and influential document in the development of the scientific method as conceived by Bacon and his contemporaries.

BROWNE Thomas, Sir (1605-1682) Hydriotaphia, urne-buriall, or, a discourse of the sepulchrall urnes lately found in Norfolk. Together with the garden of Cyrus, or the quincunciall, lozenge, or net-work plantations of the ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered. With sundry observations. By Thomas Browne D. of Physick.

London: printed for Hen. Brome at the signe of the Gun in Ivy-lane, 1658. FIRST EDITION. Octavo. Pagination [16], 102 [i.e. 202], [4], p. errata trimmed and pasted to blank area of final text leaf, lacks vertical half-title.

¶ Sir Thomas Browne’s influence on subsequent generations of writers and thinkers is incalculable, not least among the leading lights of Romanticism such as Coleridge, Lamb and De Quincey and their peers Hazlitt and Carlyle. The diversity of his interests, the embrace of Baconian ‘new learning’ and the wit and imagination of his writings were praised (not without reservations) by Samuel Johnson, and his cultivation of a variety of literary styles resulted in writings that ranged from quick sketches to lengthy, elaborately wrought works.

If Browne’s most popular work was Religio medici – a two-part exploration of his “relationships to his God and fellow creatures” – Hydriotaphia “may be one of the first archaeological monographs in English” (ODNB). It begins with a description of a large number of Anglo-Saxon pots discovered in Norfolk, after which Browne gives an overview of funerary and burial customs, both ancient and contemporary.

Browne's luxuriant style and ... are more widely known and read than perhaps any other of his work.”.

This is a copy of the first edition of a work whose flawed factual accuracy (he mistakenly reckoned the pots, for instance, to be Roman) is more than compensated for by its combination of wit and solemn lyricism: as, for example, in his famous, double edged description of man as “a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature”. Such passages have led to Hydriotaphia’s being praised and quoted in the works of Borges, Poe, Melville, Derek Walcott and WG Sebald, among others.

£1,000 Ref: 8108