Some interesting problems arise for literary critic as well as
bibliographer when an early work appears so applicable to later
times that it is stolen, reprinted, and the real authorship of this
later edition is concealed for three hundred years. That this can
happen in the case of a very rare book is demonstrated by the
discovery that The Melancholy Knight (1615) by Samuel
Rowlands, of which the only known copy is in the Bodleian
Library,[1] was reprinted in 1654
under the title of The Melancholy Cavalier by an author
using the initials "J. C." as one of the attacks on the royalist
party. Only two copies of this 1654 edition, printed for C. R., are
known: the Thomason copy in the British Museum, and the
Christie-Miller copy in the Arents Tobacco Collection of the New
York Public Library.[2] The
appropriation in 1654 of Rowlands' work indicates that poetic
effusions of the
Jacobean period were unfamiliar to the readers of the ephemeral
productions of the Commonwealth versifiers. The appropriation was
pertinent since the subject of the poem was not dated in 1654. A
burlesque survey of a corrupt age was as timely in 1654 as in
1615.
Except for an eight-line introductory poem describing the new
woodcut of the cavalier smoking his pipe on the 1654 title-page, a
dedication to William Middleton, and the statement of authorship as
"by J. C.," the differences between Rowlands' Melancholy
Knight and The Melancholy Cavalier are small. The
most
significant occur in the introductory lines To the Reader
and in The Argument where there have been nine revisions.
A
few of these are trifling literary tinkerings, a few designed to
insert contemporary allusions,[3] and
some to adjust the description to the homely attire of the cavalier
from the foppish dress of Rowlands' knight.[4] The poem proper was made to
order for
the pirate's purpose, and hence it is in the main an exact reprint
of Rowlands' verses, with only a few tidyings to alter knight to
cavalier, as in 1654, "But what an Age is this brave Cavaliers
/ (I mean all you,
that Melancholy fears)" (p. 2), which in 1615 had read, "But what
an age is this my fellow Knights / I meane all you whom
melancholy bites)". In addition there is the addition of a
contemporary touch or two, as changing 1615's battles of Newport
and Ostend to Edgehill and Colchester.
The identity of J. C. who thus stole Rowlands' poem
in
1654 is the fascinating problem in The Melancholy Cavalier.
There is the possibility, of course, that a stray copy of the
Rowlands pamphlet fell into the hands of a publisher, who employed
J. C. to touch up the poem for contemporary consumption. But it may
also seem possible that in the interval between 1615 and 1654 some
sheets of the 1615 edition had been in the hands of a printer,
deriving from John Beale, who had printed the Knight,
[5] and that this individual after
Beale's
death decided to turn a dishonest penny. I am inclined to
conjecture that the unknown J. C. could have been the printer John
Crouch, who wrote and published prolifically, mainly newssheets or
"mercuries," first on the side of the royalists and then for the
Commonwealth party. J. B. Williams refers to him as the author of
a large number of counterfeits.[6]
In 1650 his unlicensed press was finally swept away by the
government and he was imprisoned. The experience must have been
instructive, for after his release early in 1652 he changed sides
and began producing periodicals which attacked the royalist party
and were licensed by the government, chiefly "mercuries" written in
prose with some interspersed verse. Williams (p. 146, n. 1) felt
that "as a ballad writer Crouch possessed great skill and some of
his verse is charming." It was in 1654, according to my conjecture,
that in the midst of his journalistic activity he chose to issue
The Melancholy Cavalier as an additional satire on the
adherents of the royalist cause, printed "for C. R."[7]
No matter who J. C. may have been, his dedication is a
masterpiece of cool impudence since it was written with the
knowledge that he was offering what was in fact the work of
another.
The Epistle Dedicatorie, to all Cordiall Lovers of Art and
Ingenuity, more especially his much Honored Friend, Mr. William
Middleton.[8]
Sir, As there is no greater Ingagement then Gratitude, so there
is nothing more blacke and Monsterous (to a generous Spirit) then
the Contrary; I presumed nothing
could be more proper to me to pay that debt I owe, or more
acceptable to You, then this Piece of Fancy; which for Poetry, Witt
and Invention, and variety of choice, Conceits may as well deserve
Your Patronage, as I modestly presume, that Your candid Ingenuity
will easily prompt you to accept thereof from him that is your
reall Honorer, and Ever humbly Devoted, to your service, J. C.
