Elias Burling, A Call to
Back-Sliding
Israel, New York, 1694: An Unrecorded Tract
Printed by William Bradford
by
A. N. L. Munby
The purpose of this brief note is to draw attention to a New
York-printed pamphlet, apparently unrecorded hitherto, which has recently
been acquired by Cambridge University Library. It would ill become an
English librarian, who has handled a couple of Bradford imprints in his life,
to make any pronouncement on the pamphlet's place in the Bradford canon:
and it would be still less appropriate for him to attempt to assess its position
in the intricate mosaic of controversial literature occasioned by George
Keith's secession from the orthodox Quakers in late seventeenth-century
New England. These matters will, I hope, receive the attention they deserve
from specialists; and in the meantime I offer a physical description of the
tract and some notes on the provenance of this copy.
Coll. 80 A-C4; $2, A1 and A2
unsigned, A3 wrongly signed
A2. 12 leaves, pp. [1-4] 3-20 [2], 10 misprinted 01, pagination in round
brackets. A1 recto and verso blank. A2 recto title, verso blank. A3 recto
(signed A2) to C1 verso text. C2 recto to C3 verso postscript, signed E.B.
C4 recto and verso blank.
The paper has vertical chain-lines and a cropped watermark at the
head of the last leaf only, a fleur-de-lys in a pointed shield (not in
Heawood). The type size is pica, roman and italic, with
thirty-one lines to a full page, excluding pagination and catchword. Twenty
lines of text measure eighty-two millimetres. The format, watermark,
chain-lines and surviving deckles on $1 and 2 are consistent with octavo
printing by half-sheet imposition.[1]
The pages, trimmed at the upper and lower edges, measure 5¾ x
3½ inches, indicating a sheet measuring at least 11½ x 14 inches.
The pamphlet has been stabbed and sewn, the original light grey wrappers
surviving.
The text, which is addressed 'to the inhabitants of Burlington etc.',
is one of those trenchant and hard-hitting pleas for love and unity with
which students of ecclesiastical controversy will be familiar. The author
cudgels his opponents with a well-knotted olive branch, vigorously
supporting the cause of George Keith and accusing his opponents, "a Scorn
to Fools, and a Reproach justly among the Heathen", of disrupting the unity
of the
Friends. The Postscript adds examples of the "denial of Christ" by the
orthodox Quakers, in particular their opposition to G. Hutcheson's
testimony.
The pamphlet, which bears no note of previous ownership, came to
light in the parish library of Broughton, a little village not far from St. Ives
in the County of Huntingdonshire. This collection, consisting of about eight
hundred bound volumes and a large group of unbound pamphlets, was
almost exclusively composed of divinity books of the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, and contained a sizeable assemblage of Quaker
tracts.
Many of the books bear the inscription "The Rev. Mr. W.
Torkington's gift", others the names of Robert Hodson senior and Robert
Hodson. William Torkington, of St. John's College, Cambridge, was
Rector from 1705 to 1737 of the village of Wistow, Hunts., not far from
Broughton, and his will, which was proved in the Court of the
Archdeaconry of Huntingdon is preserved in the Hunts. County Record
Office. ". . . Also I give and bequeath to the Reverend Mr. Hodson of
Broughton in the County of Huntington all my printed Books of which he
hath none of the kind towards the setting up a publick Library."
Torkington's books therefore reached Broughton at his death in 1737. Three
generations of the Hodson family provided Broughton with Rectors for over
a century, with one short break; Robert senior, a member of Magdalene
College, Cambridge, from 1668 to his death in 1680, Benjamin, also of
Magdalene, from 1680 to 1697 and Robert junior, of Jesus College, from
1713 to 1774. The will of the
last, also in the Hunts. County Record Office, throws more light on the
books at Broughton. It is dated 8 January 1772 and after certain bequests
to "Philippe Holmes Spinster the Niece of my Friend Mr. John Cox
deceased now living with me" it adds:—
And likewise I give to the said Philippe Holmes all my printed Books
(except such of them as shall be in the Possession of my aforesaid Nephew
Robert Hodson at my Death) to be by her plac'd in my Library in the
Chancel of the Parish Church of Broughton aforesaid and I do hereby give
to the said Philippe Holmes Forty Pounds to enable her to place the Books
in proper Cases there and to make such Alterations in the Room of the
Library as I have directed her to make.
A codicil dated 19 November 1773 confirms the placing of the books in the
chancel but revokes the bequest of forty pounds, "I having in my Lifetime
been at the Expence of procuring proper Cases for their Reception."
Time dealt hardly with Mr. Hodson's "publick Library". The
Victorian restorers in their zeal for emptying the churches banished it from
the chancel and in due course it was housed in a room at the top of the
tower, where the books were exposed to damp and, when I first saw them
in 1956, were coated deep with a century's dirt and pigeon droppings. To
the enterprise
of the present Rector, the Rev. Norman Marshall, must go the credit for the
subsequent salvage operations. By a Faculty dated 21 July 1958 the
Chancellor of the Diocese of Ely gave his permission for the collection to
be transferred to Cambridge University Library, where it is now in the
process of being catalogued.
Notes
[1]
Testibus Messrs. J. C. T. Oates
and
D. F. McKenzie to whom I am much indebted for expert advice.