University of Virginia Library

Deception in Dublin: Problems in Seventeenth-Century Irish Printing
by
John Alden

When the late E. R. McC. Dix undertook his catalogue of seventeenth-century Dublin books there were for him, apart from the recording of readily recognizable

Dublin imprints, two problems: those of identifying books printed there with false imprints on the one hand, or, on the other, without any place of publication at all. A half century later, we as bibliographers, with a somewhat more sophisticated approach to such a subject, might do well to reconsider the ground[1] so amply surveyed by Dix himself, profiting from perceptions heightened by the work of men like Henry Bradshaw.

I.

In his conviction that numerous books had probably been printed in Dublin which bore false imprints, such as Louvain, Paris, or St. Omer, Dix assumed that the Catholics in Ireland surreptitiously printed books for their own use, as was done elsewhere. Curiously enough, experience has not supported that prediction, at least to the degree Dix envisaged. Yet he was not entirely mistaken, since there are at least three works of the seventeenth century which do bear false imprints.

Of these, two are indeed Catholic works, albeit Catholic works with a difference. Thus Thomas Harold's Narratio facti, jurisque disquisitio, in lite jam vertente inter Rdos Adm P. P. Franciscum Copingerum, et P. Geanor bears for imprint "Parisiis, Permissu et jussu Superioris." A mandate to print on the verso of the title-page, signed by Copinger "in loco nostri Refugy [sic] 18 May [sic] 1670" provides a date not long after which the book was probably printed, while the misreading of what was intended to be "ij" as "y" in "Refugy" and "May" points to an English-speaking type-setter.[2]

Typographically the Narratio may confidently be ascribed to the King's Printing-House in Dublin, in the year 1670 in the hands of Benjamin Tooke. For on leaves [A]2r and A2-2r (i.e., the recto of the second leaf of a gathering the first leaf of which is signed A2) is used a headpiece frequently employed by the shop, as for instance on p. 1 of Dudley Loftus's The Case of Ware and Sherley (1669) and on leaf [A]2r of Benjamin Parry's More than Conqueror (1673). Also used in the Narratio are two decorative initials "I" and "C" of a sort less common, yet found on pp. 58 and 280, respectively, of John Stearne's De electione of 1662, while other letters from the same alphabet are found elsewhere.

A companion piece to this Narratio appears to have completely escaped recognition, although it too is by Harold, and also bears the approbation of Fr. Copinger, dated 1670. As with the Narratio, in this work, the Tractatus de recursu ad protectionem principium in necessitate, contra violentiam clericorum, the imprint is given as "Parisiis, Permissu & Jussu Superioris." In fact, although no positive evidence has been found that the Tractatus was actually published

along with the Narratio, the sheets, apart from the first gathering signed A, are signed K-N, in continuation of the signatures used in the Narratio, while pp. 9-26 of the Tractatus are misnumbered 73-90, again a continuation of the paging of the Narratio. However, the sequence does not provide for the titleleaf nor for dedicatory leaves to Charles II (present in the Bodleian copy but not in the Grenville copy at the British Museum): one may hazard the hypothesis that the Tractatus was planned to be printed along with the Narratio, but that while it was being set up in type, the decision was made to publish it as a separate work.

Typographically the two pieces are obviously from the same shop, with a decorative initial on the dedication leaf in the same series as the "C" and "I" of the Narratio; and that they are closely related is apparent.

The interest of these two items is not confined to theology, for they prove to be of considerable Irish significance, again supporting the probability of Dublin printing. The controversy between the Franciscan Fathers Copinger and Geanor sprang out of the religious and political situation in Ireland following upon the return of Charles II. It will be recalled that while a group of the regular Catholic clergy, largely Franciscan, headed by Fr. Peter Walsh, was prepared to accept the political authority of Charles II, the secular clergy, headed by Bishop O'Reilly, were strongly opposed to the Remonstrance drawn up in 1662 by Walsh, embodying his views. Copinger and Harold, both Franciscans, had signed the Remonstrance. As a consequence, Fr. Copinger was replaced by Fr. Geanor as Provincial Vicar of the Franciscans in Munster, on orders from Rome. It is against Copinger's replacement that Harold is here writing, as a rear guard action in the efforts of the Remonstrants to achieve reconciliation between Catholics in Ireland and the Crown. It was an unsuccessful action, for in the month of May, 1670, Copinger and Harold were silenced by a Chapter General of their order, meeting in Valladolid, and Harold is subsequently found in Brussels under discipline.

While it is somewhat surprising to find that these works written by a Roman Catholic should be printed by the King's Printer in Dublin, it ought to be noted that they were done for a section of the Catholic clergy most favorable to the government. This may well have represented an official governmental policy, to split the Catholics by setting the secular and regular clergy at variance among themselves.

II.

It is possibly to romance rather than religion that we are indebted for another false imprint on a Dublin-printed book, The Vindication of an Injured Lady, Written by the Lady Francesca Maria Lucretia Plunkett, One of the Ladies of the Privy Chamber to the Queen-Mother of England, the imprint of which is given as "London, Printed in the Year, M.DC.LXVII." Copies are to be found at the Bodleian and at Trinity College, Dublin. Ostensibly a defense by Lady Plunkett of her moral character, the work is not quite what it appears to be. According to Walter Harris's account of Dudley Loftus in his edition of Sir James Ware's The Writers of Ireland, the Vindication is from the pen of

Loftus himself, writing on behalf of Lady Plunkett. As Harris remarks: "It was well known that he lived in too great Familiarity with this Lady."

The attribution to Loftus is a plausible one. From what is known of his character it is quite the sort of thing he would do. A scholar with a knowledge of a score of languages, including Armenian and Ethiopic, he was notorious also for his "levity" and "want of good sense." If the Lady Plunkett existed at all—and I have not been able to verify her actual existence—Loftus was quite capable, as he has done here, of transforming her into a lady of Italian birth, sprinkling her speech with Italian phrases, and attaching her to the Queen Mother.

The use of a London imprint carries out this elaborate conceit, but the Vindication was undoubtedly printed in Dublin. This conclusion is supported by the use of a decorative initial "T", embodying a boy astride a swan, used by the King's Printing-House and also found in Titus Oates's A True Narrative of the Horrid Plot printed by Benjamin Tooke and John Crook in 1679, and also used elsewhere.

III.

It is with a companion piece to the Vindication that we may consider another problem in Irish printing: that of works without a place of publication. For, bound with the Trinity, Dublin, copy of the Vindication is a Lettera esortatoria di mettere opera a fare sincera penitenza mandata alla Signora F. M. L. P. [i.e., Lady Plunkett]. It bears for imprint simply "Stampata M. DC. LXVII" and is signed at the end "D. L." Continuing the conceit embodied in the Vindication, the author of the Lettera purports to be Lady Plunkett's confessor, an Italian priest, advising her in the misfortunes which have befallen her due to her misdeeds and excommunication.

One's astonishment at so involved a device is somewhat mitigated by the fact that in 1664 Loftus had seen fit to translate into Italian the Duke of Ormonde's speech of 27 September 1662, which was "Stampata in Dublino per Giov. Crooke, Stampatore Regio, e si vendono appresso Sam. Dancer." What practical purpose such a translation served in Dublin, other than possibly flattering Ormonde or gratifying Loftus's linguistic vanity, one can only wonder. But we are accordingly prepared for this Lettera. That it too was printed in Dublin need not be doubted: employed on p. 3 is an ornamental "M" found in John Stearne's Animi Medula of 1658, and Jeremy Taylor's Sermon . . . January 27, 1660, printed in 1661, both issued from the King's Printing-House.

One is normally confronted, however, with less picturesque examples of books produced without imprints in Ireland in the seventeenth century. The period 1677-1685 saw the appearance of an abnormal number of such pieces, centering on the Popish Plot, and issued as merely "reprinted" in the appropriate year. It is apparent that the fate of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey and the accusations of Titus Oates evoked widespread interest in Ireland. In meeting the demand for reprints of English publications, both the Crook family and Joseph Ray may well have played a part in the whipping up of an "Irish Popish Plot" which led to the sentencing to death of Archbishop Oliver Plunket, whose innocence should have been patent to all.

While a goodly number of such pieces on the Popish Plot bear at least the statement "Dublin printed," a substantial number do not. Their printers had sound reasons for not attaching their names to these reprints. Their republication cannot have failed to give affront to Catholics, and the pieces themselves are no credit to their printers. Broadsides or quarto pamphlets, as a lot they reveal even seventeenth-century printing at its very lowest. Old and battered types and ornaments are used; italic and roman fonts are indiscriminately mingled; while poor paper, ink, and presswork complete the degradation. The very inferiority of the printing, coupled with recognizable ornaments and types, with the imposition of many items as quartos in half-sheets, permit the identification of such works as printed in Dublin.

IV.

If we are to have a comprehensive picture of printing in Ireland in the seventeenth century, it should also take into consideration another element which became even more pronounced in the eighteenth century: the books which were printed in Ireland but published in England. Of these several are well known, among them the two works by Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, reissued in London by Henry Herringman: his Parthenissa, printed in Waterford, and his Poems on Most of the Festivals of the Church, printed in Cork. Both were recognized for what they are by Henry Bradshaw's keen eye. Peter Walsh's History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary, or Irish Remonstrance of 1674 is of interest not only, as Walsh recounts in his introduction, because the sheets for a large part of the book had been printed by 1669 in Dublin (a statement supported by typographic evidence), but also because, with Fr. Harold's writings, it does prove that Walsh and his Catholic friends had access to the King's Printing-House in Dublin.

That by the third quarter of the seventeenth century it was considered practical to ship sheets of Irish-printed books to England for sale there sets the back-ground for less ethical developments in the following century.

V.

To complete the possible complications which should be considered it remains only to encounter false imprints "in reverse,"—that is, works purporting to be printed in Ireland which were not. Of such, an edition of Jacobus Sylvius's Novissima idea de febribus provides an example. Although Dix apparently accepted it as genuine, the imprint "Dublinii, MDC.XCIV. Sumptibus Zachariæ Conzatti" is unquestionably false. This edition, dedicated to "Io: Baptistæ Sylvestrino, Celeberrimo Pharmacopole" by Giovanni Baptista Conzatti, gives every evidence of having been printed in Italy, as one might deduce from such a dedication. Paper and type support this conclusion, while the copy in the Dix Collection at the National Library of Ireland is in a contemporary vellum binding which bears a manuscript inscription in Italian.

Similarly, the edition of A Declaration of the Commons of England . . . expressing their Reasons and Grounds of passing the late Resolutions with its imprint, "London, Printed for Edward Husband Feb. 16, 1647. Reprinted at

Kilkenny in the yeare 1648," offers no typographic evidence of having been printed there: that it is a London reprint of a later date, using the Kilkenny phrase as a screen for piracy, I have little reason to question.

VI.

That the problems of Irish printing of the seventeenth century offer a wide opportunity for investigation will, I trust, be granted: it is not simply a matter of provincial printing with inferior craftsmen. Aside from the intrinsic interest of Irish printing itself, it is evident that if we are to have authoritative knowledge of English printing, we must establish clearly what was printed elsewhere, in Scotland and in Ireland particularly. For this all the resources of bibliographical research will be required: a knowledge of type, of paper, of binding, and of printing practices, as well as of the social background which provided the substance for the publications themselves.

Notes