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Despite the biographical testimony indicating that "Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift" was first printed in January 1739 by C. Bathurst in London, Dr. H. Teerink has offered, in Studies in Bibliography, IV, 183-188, three kinds of evidence to suggest that Swift's poem was previously printed in 1736. He cites a pirated edition of Pope's Essay on Man that includes "Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift," now at the University Library, Cambridge, with the date of 1736 on the following general title page:
The identical curved F was used in "SWIFT" in each title page but
On 5 January 1738/39, William King wrote Swift that "Verses" had gone to press (Correspondence, ed. F. Elrington Ball, VI, 106). On 17 January Bathust announced in the Daily Advertiser, "Tomorrow will be publish'd" the "Verses"; on 19 January his advertisement read, "This Day are publish'd" (repeated on 20, 23, 25, 27 and 31 January). He listed a new advertisement of the "Verses" in the Daily Advertiser of 9 February (repeated 15 February). On 6 March King reported to Mrs. Whiteway that "Two editions have already been sold off . . ." (VI, 114). And on 29 March Bathurst's notice read, "This Day is Publish'd (Price 1s) The Third Edition."
Of both the second and third editions two states exist. I will list the title pages in which all five of the printings appeared, though this is not the arrangement given by Dr. Teerink under item 771 in his Bibliography, and I will refer to them as B (i.e., Bathurst) a, b, c, d, and e.
(a) VERSES / ON THE / DEATH / OF / Doctor SWIFT. / Written by Himself: Nov. 1731. / [ornament: cock in medallion] / LONDON: / Printed for C. Bathurst, at the Middle Temple-Gate / in Fleetstreet. MDCCXXXIX. [Copies examined at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Texas, and Penn.]
(b) VERSES / ON THE / DEATH / OF / Doctor SWIFT. / Written by Himself: Nov. 1731. / The SECOND EDITION. / [ornament: Fame blowing a trumpet] / LONDON: / Printed for C. Bathurst, at the Middle-Temple Gate / in Fleetstreet. MDCCXXXIX. [Copies examined at Harvard, Texas, and Penn.]
(c) VERSES / ON THE / DEATH / OF / Doctor SWIFT. / Written by Himself: Nov. 1731. / The SECOND EDITION. / [ornament: bust on pedestal with flowers] / LONDON: / Printed for C. Bathurst, at the Middle-Temple Gate / in Fleestreet. MDCCXXXIX. [Copies examined at Texas and Penn.]
(d) VERSES / ON THE / DEATH / OF / Doctor SWIFT. / Written by Himself: Nov. 1731. / The THIRD EDITION. / [ornament: urn on base] / LONDON: / Printed for C. Bathurst, at the Middle Temple-Gate / in Fleestreet. MDCCXXXIX. [This entry is not given by Dr. Teerink in his bibliography. I have examined copies at Harvard and Yale.]
(e) VERSES / ON THE / DEATH / OF / Doctor SWIFT. / Written by Himself; November 1731. / [rule] / The THIRD EDITION. / [rule] / [ornament: bust in medallion] / [rule] / LONDON, / Printed for C. Bathurst, at the Middle-Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet. / MDCCXXXIX. [Copies examined at Harvard and Penn.]
Dr. Teerink also lists four other printings of An Essay on Man which include the "Verses" (in the article cited above and again in Studies in Bibliography, VII, 238-239). However, he offers no proof to show that any of them were printed before 1739. One, his IVa, was set from IV; and the others show readings that first appeared in the text of "Verses" as printed in the Miscellanies of 1742. Consequently, the only text that must be dealt with is that with the date 1736 on the general title page.
The collational readings come from the five Bathurst folios and from the printing of "Verses" dated 1736.
Ba | Bb | Bc | |
(epigraph) | quelque chose | quelque chose | quelque chose |
line 8 | Ends; | Ends; | Ends; |
16 | shou'd | should | should |
view | view | view | |
21 | heroick | heroick | heroick |
24 | Lawrels | Lawrels | Laurels |
25 | Ned | Ned | Ned |
36 | side | side | Side |
37 | fantastick | fantastick | fantastick |
41 | Power, and Station; | Power, and Station; | Power, and Station; |
47 | He | he | he |
52 | humorous biting way | humorous biting way | humorous biting way |
63 | Heaven | Heav'n | Heav'n |
64 | reason | reason | reason |
72 | dye | die | die |
76 | Which way | Which way | Which way |
88 | 'em fifty times | 'em fifty times | 'em fifty times |
122 | worse!)" | worse!)" | worse!)" |
126 | his Judgment | his Judgment | his Judgment |
147 | Prayer is read: | Prayer is read: | Prayer is read; |
151-162, 169-174, 189-194 (enclosed in quotation marks in Be and Teerink TV only) | |||
191-194 (initial quotation marks in Be and Teerink IV only; terminal quotation marks for line 194 in Be only.) | |||
214 | felt; | felt; | felt; |
220 | approacht | approacht | approacht |
283-286, 290-293 (enclosed in quotation marks in Be and Teerink IV only) | |||
278 | honour | Honour | Honour |
281 | discourse | Discourse | Discourse |
Bd | Be | An Essay on Man and |
"Verses" 1736 (Teerink IV) | ||
quelque choses | quelque choses | quelque choses |
Ends: | Ends: | Ends: |
should | should | should |
view | View | View |
heroick | heroic | heroic |
Laurels | Laurels | Laurel |
Ned | Ned | Ned |
Side | Side | Side |
fantastick | fantastic | fantastic |
Power, and Station; | Power and Station, | Power and Station, |
he | he | he |
humorous biting way | humourous biting Way | humourous, biting Way |
Heav'n | Heav'n | Heav'n |
reason | Reason | Reason |
die | die | die |
Which way | Which Way | Which Way |
'em fifty times | them fifty Times | them fifty Times |
worse!" | worse!" | worse!" |
the Judgment | the Judgment | the Judgment |
Prayer is read; | Pray'r is read; | Pray'r is read; |
felt? | felt? | felt? |
approacht | approach'd | approach'd |
Honour | Honour | Honour |
Discourse | Discourse | Discourse |
Now Dr. Teerink makes the entirely plausible bibliographical point that the profusion of quotation marks and added capitalization in Teerink IV and Be suggests that the latter was printed from the former. Swift used numerous spokesmen in his poem, and it is not always clear whether their statements are to be rendered as direct or as indirect discourse. In Be and Teerink IV, but not in the earlier folios, quotation marks have been inserted for lines 151-162, 169-174, 190-194, 283-286, and 290-293 (except for the omission in Teerink IV of terminal quotation marks at line 194).
In view of the sequence of readings listed above, to support Dr. Teerink's thesis we would have to assume that Teerink IV was printed from one manuscript of Swift's poem (with Be set from Teerink IV) and that Ba was set from a different manuscript.
However, the textual collation renders such hypotheses untenable. From these readings, we can see a text of the poem evolving through five printings. The readings from Bb in lines 16, 63, 72, 278, and 281 above show variants from Ba which were continued in the remaining three folios and in Teerink IV. The readings from Bc in the epigraph, in lines 24 and 36, and the punctuation in lines 8 and 147 show variants from Bb retained in the remaining two folios and in Teerink IV. The readings from Bd in lines 126, 147, and 214 show variants from Bc retained in Be and Teerink IV, especially the reading "the Judgment" of line 126 which Dr. Teerink, in his SB article, uses to demonstrate the priority of Teerink IV. We know from the entries in his Swift bibliography that he had never seen a copy of Bd; consequently, he did not know that this reading of line 126 had already entered the text. (It was not until I found a copy of Bd at Harvard that I felt able to prove a line of textual descent.) Finally, the readings from Be in lines 16, 21, 25, 37, 41, 52, 64, 76, 88, 220, and the above-mentioned insertion of quotation marks, show changes from Bd which were followed by Teerink IV. The conclusion to be drawn from this textual collation is, I think, indisputable. The text which Pope and King sent to Bathurst developed through the five
In fact, there is some very slight evidence that Teerink IV may have been printed from the text of Swift's poem as it appeared in Bathurst's 1742 edition of the Miscellanies. This text was set from Be, and it contains the following variants which also appear in Teerink IV: "Monday," in line 256, and "Craftsman," in line 272, are italicized; "to" in line 234 is followed by a dash; and line 319 reads "'scape" for "scape."
There still remains the fact that Teerink IV carries the date 1736. I have searched for some time to secure bibliographic evidence explaining this misdating. I have not found the printer's ornaments used in it in any other work of the 1730's or 1740's that I have examined. Both Maynard Mack and Irvin Ehrenpreis have kindly examined Teerink IV for me.[1] The former points out that gathering E (in six) which contains Swift's poem could have been added to a reissue. Ehrenpreis comments on the rather odd fact that the general title page is engraved and that it is not conjugate with another leaf. But it does not matter. The textual collation shows that the text of the London edition evolved throughout the five Bathurst folios printed between January and March 1739 and that Teerink IV must have been printed after that time. It and the other four pirated editions listed by Dr. Teerink were very likely printed after the deaths of Pope and Swift.
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