Haywood and Dryden: The humblest lover, when he lowest lies

In Book 9 of Haywood's Female Spectator appears the following passage:

"Many Women have been deceived by this Shew of Obsequiousness in those who have afterward become their Tyrants, not remembering what the Poets says:

The humblest lover, when he lowest lies,
But kneels to conquer, and but falls to rise."

The "Poet" here is John Dryden, and the couplet is from his Amphitryon (1690), 3.1.609-10, where it reads:

"The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies,
But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise."

As you can see below, one eighteenth-century reader of Haywood's Female Spectator, who was familiar with the lines, corrected the couplet in ink.

* * * * *

Haywood's paraphrase of Dryden was not picked up by Patricia Meyer Spacks in her Selections from the Female Spectator (1999)—where the "quotation [is] unidentified" (95)—but it was picked up by Katheryn R. King and Alexander Pettit in their edition of The Female Spectator in The Selected Works of Eliza Haywood II, vol.2 (2001)—where they note: "Adapted from Dryden, Amphitryon (1690), III. i. 609-10" (457n31).

What is not noted by King and Pettit—and is well beyond the scope of their edition in any event—is [1] that Haywood repeated her 1745 paraphrase / adaptation of Dryden in 1755 and [2] that it, and an earlier paraphrase of the same passage, long interacted and thrived.

Starting with [1]: Haywood returned to this Dryden couplet ten years after using it in The Female Spectator. In The Wife she wrote:

"A woman of this way of thinking, would do well to repeat often within herself that just and pathetic maxim which Mr. Dryden puts into the mouth of Jove:

I gave them pride to make mankind their slave;
But in exchange, to man I flattery gave:
The humblest lover, when he lowest lies,
But kneels to conquer, and but falls to rise."

While still a paraphrase of Dryden, this passage isn't identified as such by Pettit and Margo Collins, in their edition of The Wife in The Selected Works of Eliza Haywood I, vol.3 (2000)—though the citation is otherwise identical: "Dryden, Amphitryon (1690), III. i. 607–10."

(The Wife was reprinted—without attribution—in Boston in 1836, under the wonderful title The Young Bride at Home: Or, A Help to Connubial Happiness, but this does not count as an echo. For those interested, see my post about it here.)

* * * * *

Regarding [2], the Dryden passage had been paraphrased in a different way previous to Haywood, with

"The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies,
But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise."

changed to

"Th' offending Lover, when he lowest lyes,
Submits to conquer, and but kneels to rise."

This is the reading of lines 609–10 that was offered by both Edward Bysshe, The Art of English Poetry, vol. 3 (London: Sam. Buckley, 1705), 430 here; and in Charles Gildon, The Complete Art of Poetry (London: Charles Rivington, 1718), vol2, 457 (here). These readings were certainly influential.

Elizabeth Montagu—seemingly—combined Haywood's line 609 ("humblest") with the Bysshe-Gildon paraphrase of line 610 ("submits") in one of her letter, reprinted in The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, ed. Matthew Montagu, Part 1, vol. 2 (1809), 28. Here we read:

"There are two excellent lines which have made me ever deaf to the voice of the charmer, charmed he ever so sweetly,

The humblest lover, when he lowest lies,
Submits to conquer, and but kneels to rise."

A review of The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu (The British Critic, and Quarterly Theological Review, 34 (October 1809): 566 (here) repeats this Haywood/Bysshe-Gildon reading.

In 1830, "A Lady" combined Haywood's line 609 ("humblest") with Dryden's original line 610 ("stoops") in "A Lecture on Love and Courtship," which appeared in London Court Journal. I have not seen the original, but it was reprinted at least once in England (in The Leicester Chronicle (5 June 1830): 4) and three times in America.

The first US printing of this lecture appears to have been in The New-York Mirror: a repository of polite literature and the arts, no. 18 (6 November 1830): 141a (here). The anonymous author warns of the lover who fall at the feet of a young "Miss, just emerged from the 'Academy' [who] is all for pathos, hearts, darts, and flames". Said lovers will:

"fall at her feet, protest eternal constancy and devotion, and swear he is a willing slave;—but remember, young ladies,

The humblest lover, when he lowest lies,
But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise!"

One week later, the essay was reprinted in The Western Star [Lebanon, OH], no.16 (13 November 1830): 1e (here), where it is credited to the London Court Journal. Also in 1830, at some point, the essay was reprinted in The Lady's Book, vol.1 (Philadelphia: L. A. Godey and Co., 1830), 174a (here).

The spread of the pure Bysshe-Gildon reading ("offending"/"submits") gained further strength in 1852, when Selections from the Poetry of Dryden (here) used the Bysshe-Gildon version of 3.1.610. Possibly as a result, George Saintsbury's edition of The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, vol.8 (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1882) (here) follows the same reading, and probably as a result of Saintsbury, the 1976 University of California Press edition of The Works of John Dryden edited by Earl Miner, George G. Guffey, and Franklin B. Zimmerman, follows suit.

As a result of Saintsbury's edition, although Letter 132 (28 February 1751) of Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, correctly quotes Dryden, no less an editor than George Birkbeck Hill treated Chesterfield's text as if it were mistaken. In his Oxford edition of Lord Chesterfield's Worldly Wisdom (1891), 164n2 (here), Hill notes

"Goldsmith's comedy no doubt took its name from this line. As it was acted the year before Chesterfield's Letters were published, it would seem to show that the version 'stoops to conquer' was the one generally known"

—which suggests that the version "generally known" was incorrect, when it was actually correct.

Likewise, when it comes to discussing the origin of the title to Goldsmith "She Stoops to Conquer" the editor of the 2007 Oxford World's Classic edition, Nigel Wood, quotes Miner, Guffey, and Zimmerman for the (incorrect) "correct" reading of Dryden! (here)

* * * * *

Returning to Haywood: I can find no prior use of Haywood's particular version of the lines (with "humblest" in line 609 / and "kneels" in line 610), so it seems likely that she is solely responsible for it.

While Haywood's version of the couplet differs from both Dryden and Bysshe-Gildon, it is most similar to the latter, with the first line reading "The humblest lover" (like Bysshe-Gildon) rather than "The prostrate lover" (Dryden), and with the second line "kneels to conquer" (Haywood alone) rather than either "stoops to conquer" (Dryden) or "Submits to conquer" (Bysshe-Gildon).

Consequently, it is possible that Haywood is indebted to Bysshe-Gildon—that she either read and misremembered Bysshe-Gildon alone, or attempted this paraphrase of Dryden after (a) encountering the Bysshe-Gildon paraphrase, (b) recognizing it as being a rewriting of the passage, and (c) being inspired to have a go at re-writing Dryden herself—but it seems much more likely that her version was simply the result of an independant misremembering the play. (I.e., the same sort of misremembering that resulted in the Bysshe-Gildon version.) Likewise, although it is possible that Montagu's apparent Haywood/Bysshe-Gildon hybrid and the anonymous 1830 Haywood/Dryden hybrid are both indebted to Haywood, it seems more likely that both of these versions are also the result of a misremembering of Dryden alone.

That such misrememberings should be so common, sometimes agreeing on one line, sometimes on another, and so often agree with each other at other times that they succeed in usurping the original text, is something all editors should be mindful of. It is also a powerful reminder that "print culture" coexisted with "oral culture" throughout the eighteenth century.

The Lender’s Library, 1907

I found "The Lender’s Library" printed in Perth Boy’s School Magazine, Vol. 1, no. 1 (2 May 1913): 5b. Google tells me that over thirty years later the poem was reprinted as “The Lender’s Litany,” in The Educational Magazine, Vol. 4 (1947): 143, but it seems not to have been printed again.

Since the poem nicely enumerates (albeit condemns) many of the evidences of reading that I am presently searching for, and hoping to find, I thought I should do my bit to preserve it. I have since done some research into the author and first publisher, which I will post separately.

CARE OF BOOKS

The following lines, written by F. H. Johnstone, Esq., M.A., of Perth, are published this month for the benefit of all readers, but more especially for those boys who are thoughtless and careless in their treatment of books, and who have yet to learn that “books are friends,” and should be cared for as such.

We have to thank Mr.[sic] Zabel, of the Booklovers’ Library, Hay-st., Perth, by whom the copyright is held, for kindly allowing us to use the verses, and trust that they will be carefully studied and practised [sic].

THE LENDER’S LIBRARY

From leaves turned down or folded back,
To mark the careless reader’s track;
From comments in the margin writ—
By pen or pencil void of wit;
From Vandal’s mutilating zeal,
Inflicting wounds that none can heal;
From candle grease or liquid spilt
On covers fair or edges gilt;
From dogs’ ears that too plainly say
“A dirty thumb has passed this way”;
From thoughtless failure to extend
Protection when the rains descend;
From artists of a tender age,
Whose sketch-book is the printed page;
From all such conduct as offends
The reader to whom books are friends—
Good Borrower, deliver me.

(Copyright Book Lovers' Library, Perth, W.A., 1st Sept., 1907[)].

[Updated 2121.01.20]

Eliza Haywood in the Early Novels Database (END)

The Early Novels Database (END) is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Rare Book and Manuscript Library (PU), and under development by staff and students at the library, Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania. The project has a stated aim of restoring metadata lost in digitisation projects. If this were actually the case then the six-year old project would have to be considered a failure, even in its "Under Construction" form. It is clear, however, that the actual aim of END is to involve undergraduate students in the collection of detailed paratextual information, annotation, marginalia etc. from the "extensive collection of fiction in English published between 1660 and 1830" available at PU. (A 2011 overview of the project is here.)

I am not sure how I have managed to not hear about the project, given that I am interested in annotation, marginalia etc., particularly that in works by Haywood. But once I did hear about it I realised that it was very likely that END included information about works by Haywood, since PU has a large number of books by Haywood. (With 45 items, it has the fifth largest Haywood collection in the States: larger than that at Yale, Princeton, the Clark.) Unfortunately, it is presently impossible to search END for works by Haywood. On the splash page, a visitor is given the choice of sorting results by title or year (not author), or to "narrow results" by browsing "Narrative form," "Author claim type," "Author gender claim" (by which they seem to mean "Author sex claim"), "Person" etc. Since there was no way to narrow results by author, I did what I have had to do so many times, I simply searched through every single title to identify those by Haywood. It is a tedious way of searching, and would have been largely unnecessary if the metadata in the PU library catalogue had been carried over, but it is effective. Below is the list of titles, arranged chronologically.

The busy-body (1742) *
Memoirs of an unfortunate young nobleman (1743) *
Secret histories, novels, and poems (1745)
The fortunate foundlings (Dublin, 1745)
The adventures of Natura (1748)
Dalinda: or, the double mariage [sic] (1749) *
The busy body (Dublin 1770)
The distressed orphan (1770) *
The female spectator (1771) *
The invisibe [sic] spy (1773) †
The female spectator (1775)
Epistles for ladies (1776) †
The Sopha (1781) †
The history of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1783)

There appear to be many cases where there are multiple entries for the one work, and there are three records that are empty—links that lead to a blank page (marked † above). Also, only five of the fourteen entries record marginalia or inscriptions (marked * above) of any kind, and most of these provide few useful details. In almost all cases Haywood listed as a “Person” in the primary record, but no linking is provided to her as a Person. The only case where you can navigate from one Haywood work to another is Secret histories, novels, and poems (1745) which links to The female spectator (1771).

Since I examined all of these books late in July 1997, I am not relying on END for my knowledge of the PU colection. But there are a lot of smaller libraries that I did not visit and it would be helpful if projects like this were more common. Involving undergraduates in cataloguing weird and interesting copy-specific information is a great idea. It is a shame that the basic database structure is not better adapted to searching by author since the vast majority of interest in marginalia is focussed on the annotator (as author) or on the annotations (as a response to an author): i.e., it is ultimately a biographical interest.

The only blog entry (on the END blog) concerning marginalia is this one from 2013. In her reflections on Marginalia, Christina Aruffo explains why "marginalia cataloguing can be sporadic"—even in a project such as this—because cataloguing it can be time consuming, cataloguers have their own "accepted and internalized definition of what marginalia actually is"—meaning doodles and library markings ("library marginalia") get less attention than text, as does anything else that cannot be easily related to the text as text.

For student projects based on END data and texts, see here; for papers, see this (including one by Andrew Piper and Ehsan Arabnejad which "draws on a taxonomy of eighteenth-century novels’ footnotes to advance a simple but consequential argument: despite the claims of almost all scholarship on the subject, footnotes in novels were common and referential rather than exceptional and self-referential, meta-fictional, or “postmodern” avant la letter." Nice.)

Marginal Notes: Social Reading and the Literal Margins

The Centre for the Book, Monash University, in collaboration with the Centre for the Book, University of Otago and The State Library of Victoria, are hosting:

Marginal Notes: Social Reading and the Literal Margins. A One-Day Conference and Masterclass.

Conference date: Friday 23 September; from 8.30am to 5.30pm.
Venue: State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Seminar Rooms 1 (enter via La Trobe St.).

Keynote Speakers:

Prof. Pat Buckridge, Griffith University, Queensland, “The Ethics of Annotation: Reading, Studying and Defacing Books in Australia”

Prof. Bill Sherman, Director of Research and Collections, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, “Reading as a Visual and Theatrical Mode”

This conference will investigate marginalia in texts from the early modern period to the present, with a particular focus on the interpretative challenges posed by marginalia in the literal margin—whether encountered directly, via digital surrogate or in mediated form. Speakers include:

• Matthew Symonds, University College London, "Archaeologies of Reading: early modern reading strategies and the digital humanities"
• Steven Olsen-Smith, Boise State University, "'Almost Unknown to the General Reader': Herman Melville’s Recovered Copy of Thomas Warton’s History of English Poetry"
• Dennis C. Marnon, Houghton Library, Harvard University, "'Oh! Oh! This Is Too Much': An Old Tub-Oarsman Heavily Annotates a Copy of Moby-Dick, Ridiculing the Author’s Whalemanship and Sharing His Own Knowledge of the Sea"
• Wei Yinzong, University of British Columbia, "Marginalia as a Communication Node: A Case Study"
• Ruth Knezevich, University of Otago, "Theorizing the Romantic Margin: Byron’s Hyper-Textual Network"
• Diana Barnes, University of Queensland, "Affecting Social Gloss in late sixteenth century English Print Poetry"
• James Gourley, Western Sydney University, "Wallace Reading Kafka: Tornadic Bureaucracy in The Pale King"
• Véronique Duché, University of Melbourne, "Gohory’s Poliphile"
• Julia Kuehns and Meredith McCullough, University of Melbourne Library, "In his own hand: marginalia and annotations in the Nicholas O’Donnell Collection, Newman College"
• Merete Colding Smith, University of Melbourne Library, "C’est Mon Livre ce n’est pas le tien mon ami"
• Brian McMullin, Monash University, "Anonymous vs. Celebrity in Scott’s Antiquary"
• Wallace Kirsop, Monash University, "An Obsessive Annotator: the Case of Michel Adanson
• Jocelyn Hargrave, Monash University, "Authorial metalanguage within the margins of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poems (Ashley MS 408)"

Participants can register for the conference here. Normal registration: A$110.00; student: A$80.00. The conference is fully-catered (morning and afternoon tea, lunch and all day beverages). The conference dinner (A$65.00) will be at The Moat, Basement, 176 Little Lonsdale Street.

Masterclass:

Prof. Pat Buckridge will be conducting a three-hour masterclass on Monday 26 September (10am-1pm) on “Interpreting marginalia and the history of reading”. (Unfortunately, as a result of last-minute changes, Prof. Bill Sherman’s masterclass has had to be cancelled.)

A fee of $20.00 applies to the masterclass; which will be held in the Rare books area of the State Library of Victoria (meet in the Swanson St foyer).

For further information, please contact the conference convenors:
Dr. Patrick Spedding (Patrick.Spedding@monash.edu)
Dr. Paul Tankard (paul.tankard@otago.ac.nz)

[UPDATE: 2021.03.20: for details of the book, which Paul Tankard, Mia Godwin and I later prepared based largely on papers delivered at this conference, see my My Publications etc.; UPDATE 2021.05.23: for a post on the published book, see here.]

Marginal Marks in Books

On Monday Jeffrey P. Barton posted a question on the EXLIBRIS-List concerning how to describe various manuscript annotations to books. Jim Kuhn directed Jeffrey to The Shakespeare Quartos Archive (here), to a fabulous list of manuscript annotations in the "Encoding Documentation" section (here), based on the OED and/or Peter Beal’s Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology (2008).

Since I am a little bit obsessed with marginalia at present I thought I’d reproduce the list, make some additions, and—at some point in the future—add images of examples I encounter in works by Haywood.

Manuscript Annotations

arrow: a mark like an arrow, or arrow-head, used as a pointer

asterisk: frequently drawn as a small x-cross with a dot in each angle

asterism: a group of three asterisks placed thus (_*^*_*) to direct attention to a particular passage

brace: a sign ( } or ] or > ), but may take more improvisational shapes) used in writing or printing, chiefly for the purpose of uniting together two or more lines, words, staves of music, etc.

caret: an inverted-v shaped mark placed in writing below the line, to indicate that something (written above or in the margin) has been omitted in that place

cross: two bars or lines (horizontal and vertical) crossing each other, used as a sign, ornament, etc.; mark or sign of small size used to mark a passage in a book, etc.

[dagger: †; see cross]

dash: a horizontal stroke (usually short and straight)

dot: a minute roundish mark

double oblique: two parallel slashes ( || ) or diagonal strokes ( // )

double triangle: two adjoining triangles sharing a horizontal base line

flower: the representation of a flower of more than three or four petals (which would be trefoils and quatrefoils; see below)

gnomic pointing: double inverted commas used in the meadieval and early-modern period to draw attention to proverbs and sententiae

label: a slip of paper, cardboard, metal, etc. attached or intended to be attached

line: a horizontal line, longer than a dash (and generally serving a different purpose)

manicule: hand or fist with pointing finger

marginal commas: single or double commas, sometimes inverted, used to mark a line or lines of text. Alexander Pope used a system of marginal commas and asterisks in his Chaucer and Shakespeare to indicate “some of the most shining passages.”

mathematical formulas: use only for complex numeric equations or arithmetical problems; transcribe simple numeric or mathematical annotations in full

n.b. or N.B.: abbreviation for nota bene, or "note well"

O: the letter considered with regard to its shape

oblique: a slash or diagonal stroke

quatrefoil: compound leaf or flower containing four, usually rounded, leaflets or petals radiating from a common centre

[quotation marks: see gnomic pointing, marginal commas and running quotes]

running quotes: double inverted commas used to indicate a quotation and, therefore (perhaps), something quote-worthy

scribble: a piece of random or casual doodling or drawing of unclear textual purpose, including pen trials made by writers to test a freshly-trimmed pen or a writing style

stroke: a vertical stroke (usually short and straight: | )

trefoil: a leaf, such as a clover, comprising three rounded sections

triangle: a rectilineal figure having three angles and three sides

X: the letter considered with regard to its shape

[UPDATED 19 July 2012]

Haywood Bibliography Note 5

Exactly three years ago today I received my copy of the Poems and Translations of Mrs Edward Caryl Fleetwood. This copy is particularly interesting because it was published in 1879 by the recently-bereaved Edward Caryl Fleetwood as a tribute to his wife.

The book contains two gift inscriptions from Mr Fleetwood and an appendix containing his two-page account of the "Sad Accident … and Sudden Death" of "Bessie" (aka Elizabeth Fleetwood née Heywood aka Eliza Heywood).

Title-page inscription:

Mrs. Dalby, Windsor Cottage
from her cousin
  E. Caryl Fleetwood
    1 Berkeley Place,
     Cheltenham
       31 Dec., 1879.

* * * * *

As I explain under Ca.9 of my Bibliography the poetic works of Eliza Heywood of Cheltenham (15 April 1808–18 November 1879; married Edward Caryl Fleetwood 15 April 1852) are regularly, though absurdly, attributed to Eliza Haywood.

Copies of Ca.9.1 Ermangrade on OCLC WorldCat appear under "Eliza Haywood" (though those in the National Union Catalog do not) and the Univerity of Pennsylvaia copy, previously correctly catalogued has been subsequently recatalogued under Haywood.

The University of South Australia copy of Ca.9.2 Poems and Translations is catalogued under Haywood, as is the Newberry Library copy, though both are inscribed by the author.

My Bibliography doesn't include the 1879 edition of the Poems and Translations/Autumn Leaves/Autumnal Leaves (Ca.9.3) and much of the information included in it by Edward Fleetwood was news to me.

Given how uncommon this book is—it seems that only one hundred and fifty copies were printed—I thought it might be worth while transcribing some of the text and publishing some photographs of it. I have also attached a pdf of the revised entry on my Haywood Bibliography, Addenda and Corrigenda page.

Printed gift plate:

[Mrs. Dalby
  Windsor Cottage]
  Accept this unpretending Volume of the last poems and Translations of my dearly beloved and lamented wife "Bessie."
Mention is made at the end of it, of the sad accident which resulted in her death. In offering this small memento, her sorrowing husband hopes, whom they knew so well in life, will in her death continue to live in the recollection of her many Friends,
  [E. Caryl Fleetwood]
    1 Berkeley Place,
      Cheltenham,
      31st Dec., 1879.

"Sad Accident (16th) to, and Sudden Death (18th) of Bessie, November, 1879."

SINGULAR AND SAD ACCIDENT.

  On the afternoon of 22nd November, 1879, at No. 1, Berkeley Place, Cheltenham, an inquest was held before E. W. Coren, Esq., coroner for the district, on the body of Mrs Elizabeth Fleetwood, (Bessie) wife of E. Caryl Fleetwood, Esq., residing at above address.—Mr. Fleetwood said: That on Sunday last, 16th Nov., inst., having just returned home from a visit to a friend Mrs. Willett Adye, saying, "Edward, see if that will do, please." He took the letter and read it, and she then turned round one of the projections which support te arch in the centre of the dining room, to place something on a shelf. She was talking to him at the time, and on her suddenly returning round the the projection towards him she quickly tripped over the parcels which were lying on the floor close to the foot of the projection, and fell violently on her left temple. He was close to her, and her maid was also present having just placed luncheon on the table, and they in a moment raised her up and placed her in a recumbent position on the sofa, deceased saying, "O! I shall never recover." He ran for Dr. Gooding who at once returned with him. The parcels had been sent the previous day from the printers, and contained 150 copies of her recent poems and translations from French, German, and Italian authors, upon which he had devoted with her many months. He and she had intended the following week to arrange for having them bound, and she anticipated much pleasure in the distribution of them among intimate friends. On his returning with the doctor they found her sitting on an easy chair, her two servants being with her. She appeared to be partially unconscious, and was uttering a few incoherent expressions. She was then placed in a recumbent position on the sofa, where she remained for some hours, he and the servants watching and attending her until 9 o'clock, when he with their aid carried her to bed.
  She did not entirely recover consciousness. An experienced nurse was at once called in. Dr. Goodling continued to attend her, and on Monday and Tuesday held consultations with Dr. Hawkins.
  He and the nurse sat up with her and everything was done which could be done for her until her death at 5p.m. on Tuesday, 18th November, 1879/
  The coronor not thinking it necessary to take the evidence of the maid and doctor (who were in attendance) the Jury returned a verdict of "Accidental Death."
Note: Her remains were interred in the Cemetery, Cheltenham, on 22nd November, 1879, the Rev. C. Tidd Pratt, A.M., Vicar of Bracknell, Berks, having kindly performed the Service.