I.
Three forms of the Mémoire Justificatif have
previously been noted. The first edition was published under
governmental supervision sometime between August 10, 1779, when
Gibbon submitted to Lord Weymouth his "first, imperfect Essay, in
this kind of Composition,"[1] and
October 7, when the General Evening Post noticed its
appearance in print.[2] The
title-page of this edition gives no information concerning printer,
publisher, or distributor. A second issue of the first edition was
produced for the bookseller Peter Elmsley by the printers T.
Harrison and S. Brooke. Norton (p. 30) found this issue first
mentioned in the Morning Chronicle of December 24, but
earlier publication seems quite certain. Gibbon wrote on October 27
that Elmsley had already "desired to print a new Edition which he
has swelled by the addition of the French Manifesto."[3] This supplement entitled
Exposé des Motifs de la Conduite du Roi de France,
relativement à l'Angleterre was separately paginated and
bound so as to precede Gibbon's pamphlet. A reputed second edition
incorporating English translations of the documents was printed by
Harrison and Brooke and advertised in 1780 by the houses of Davies,
Longman, and Dodsley (Norton, pp. 30-31).
The true second edition appears, however, to be one which, by
virtue of its extreme rarity, has escaped Gibbon's bibliographers
altogether.[4] This new edition may
be described as follows:
EXPOSÉ | DES | MOTIFS | De la Conduite du Roi de
FRANCE,
rela-|tivement à l'ANGLETERRE. | [short rule] | MEMOIRE |
JUSTIFICATIF | POUR SERVIR DE | RÉPONSE | À
l'EXPOSÉ,
&c. | De la Cour de FRANCE. | [double rule] | LONDRES: | Et a
DUBLIN chez GUILLAUME HALLHEAD, No. 63, | Damestreet. |
[short
rule] | M.DCC.LXXIX.
4°: A-B4
2A-D4.
A1a [p. 1], title; A1b [p. 2], a notice concerning publication;
A2a-B4b, pp. 3-16, text of the Exposé;
2A1a-D4b, pp.
1-32, text of the Mémoire. Size: 11 3/16" x 8 3/4"
(uncut
copy).
HT] MEMOIRE JUSTIFICATIF | pour servir de Résponse
à
l'Exposé, &c. de la | Cour de FRANCE.
That the new edition was printed subsequent to the second issue of
the first edition is patent from half a dozen instances in which
the typographical and textual corrections of the Elmsley issue are
incorporated in the Hallhead pamphlet. Although the pagination is
the same in both cases, the typesetting and spacing differ on four
pages. In the Elmsley
Mémoire the short notice
explaining
publication is headed "Avis du Libraire." The publisher of the new
edition chose to omit that phrase and re-worded the paragraphs
which followed. The elimination of "Avis du Libraire" and the
capitalization of the word "De" in the title strongly suggest that
the new edition was set directly from a copy partially described by
Norton (p. 35) as a variant of the second issue located in the
private collection of Lord Rothschild.
