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II
(a): Editorial changes.
'It is far more dangerous for a corruption to pass unrecognized than for a sound text to be unjustifiably attacked.'[10] Nowhere can this sage pronouncement be more clearly illustrated than in the materials under discussion.
The R version of 'A relation of the Pico Teneriffe' starts the account with the names of persons supplying the information (cf. Birch, I, 393-394). When the style of the passage is tightened for
. . . About a mile up, one of the Company fail'd, and was able to proceed no further; (HRS, 201);
. . . About a mile up, Mr Cowling, one of the Company fail'd; (CP, R);
or
. . . We were almost stifled with the sudden Emanation of Vapours. . . (HRS, 202);
. . . Dr Pugh was almost stifled. . . (R);
and
. . . One of our company . . . made this journey again two years after. . . (HRS, 203);
Mr Jo: Webber, one of the Company, made. . . (CP, R).
Likewise we have: 'A Friend of his' (HRS, 206) for R's 'one Gilbert Lambell a friend of his'. For some reason vivid points of the narrative are sacrificed, as when 'We descended by a Rope. . .' (204) replaces 'They descended, an active Spanyard shewing them the way, by a Rope' of CP and R. Pugh, the original compiler of the notes, speaks (204) of 'a round Pit of water . . . about six fathom deep. We suppose this Water not a Spring, but dissolved Snow blown in. . .', which is condensed from differing originals but omits CP's 'One of Dr Pughs company drank of the water.' R adds: 'One of Dr Pughs company drank of the water as Mr Lambell reports who plumbed it. We suppose this water; for some yeares it lyes so full, one cannot get into the cave.'
Often the truncations do ensure clarity; the statement that
The principles guiding those preparing the version for press will appear clear enough from the foregoing, but a few illustrative examples may be added: 'If I light upon it [sc. Batavian volcanic dust],' writes the Society's correspondent in the East Indies (HRS, 159), '[I] shall send you some', or rather, his editors' words; instead of 'some' he has, and all the manuscripts follow him, 'a muster'. His statement (HRS, 160) that '[boisterous winds do not disturb the] Sea or cause a contrary motion in it, being sheltered by these Mountains' is, in its later portion, altered by the Sloane scribe, perhaps to improve the rhythm of the sentence, perhaps to cover an error in copying and to avoid rewriting, to: '. . . Sea, especially being shelter'd by these mountains, and to cause a contrary motion in it' (Slo. 3959, fol. 16f.) Did not all the manuscripts support the text, with the exception of the word 'here', added by the HRS copywriter (161), one could well suspect the following as corrupt:
Q. 7. Whether those Creatures that are in these parts plump and in season at the full Moon, are lean and out of season at the new, find the contrary at the East-Indies.
A. I find it so here . . .
Another rather puzzling reading but one which, in conjunction with some points above, may support the hypothesis that the copy for HRS was an edited transcript from R, not from CP, is the unnecessary expansion of the clear reading of Slo. and CP: 'It is forbidden strictly under a great penalty to make use of the same' ['suyker-bier'] into: 'It is forbidden strictly under the penalty of a great pain to make use of the same' (HRS, 162). When no answer was returned (there is a deliberate hiatus in CP) to the question as to 'whether in Pegu there is a poison that kills by smell' R waxes literary: 'Nihil respondet', but HRS (165) politely states that 'To this no Answer was return'd', just
We close this section as it was started, with readings from the paper on the Pico Teneriffe. The criticism levelled by Coleridge at Sprat that in his Life of Cowley he suppressed homely detail and would not show his friend in his slippers and dressing-gown could well apply to the editors of his History too. From the end of the following: 'The rest of us pursued our Journey till we came to the Sugar-loaf, where we begin to travel again in a white sand, being fore-shod with shooes whose single soles are made a finger broader than the upper leather, to encounter this difficult and unstable passage' (HRS, 201) they expunged the vivid: '. . . till they are halfe way up; and then being ascended as farre as the Black Rocks, Dr Pugh (as he relates) went crying all the way having the skin burnt off his foot '(CP). Likewise 'Being ascended as far as the Black Rocks, which are all flat, & lie like a pavement, we climbed within a mile of the very top of the Pico, Mr Clappham, who was the foremost, would have persuaded Mr Cove to descend againe, as he was imagining the top all on fire' (ibid.).
(b). Errors: printers' literals, misreading of copy.
Section (a) has been demonstrative, seeking to show how a particular editorial policy was put into effect. The appeal of an editor printing the papers referred to can ultimately be only to CP, though he may record, and discuss possible reasons for, variants in the later texts.
Instances in which the transcribers for press have misunderstood technical terms or foreign words call for some little research in order to amend errors. Sometimes omissions in transcription have to be filled from the manuscripts, as in: '. . . boysterous, called Travant, come suddenly . . .' (HRS, 160; a further corruption in this passage was considered above). Here, however, it is possible to restore this particular corruption before consulting the manuscript, since the paper deals with the East Indies and a knowledge of Dutch simplifies our task: read, with CP and R: '. . . boysterous winds, called Travaat. . .' Again, '. . . A sort of wild Lavender . . . grows there [in Teneriffe] in great
. . . Some [earthware pots] are found in the Caves and old Bavances (HRS, 212; follow CP, 'Barancos,' caves).
In some parts of this Island [Palma] there grows a crooked Shrub which they call Legnan. Another Grass growing near the Sea, which is of a broader leaf, so luscious and rank, as it will kill a Horse that eats of it, but no other cattle (HRS, 207, om. 'Another . . . cattle').
The ambiguity of the last sentence cannot escape notice. In CP and R a seeming gloss of Legnan (Spanish, leñan, 'wood') which starts 'vel. . .' is erased, and the latter text omits 'and rank', intelligently substituting a semi-colon for the comma after 'of it'.
Other examples of variants in effective punctuation are few (see also (c) below), but we may note the following: 'This greasie Oyl. . . doth by nature so wonderfully adhere to every part else of the [salt-] Peter (it may be ordained for the nutriment and augmentation of it) that the separation of it is the sole cause of the great charge and labour that is required to the refining of Peter' (HRS, 262), where R, the only extant manuscript, inserts a comma after 'may be'; and 'Maxima, Satellitum in Umbra incidentium, a limbo Disci Jovialis distantia . . . hebdomada contingit' (185-186), where CP and R have no comma after 'incidentium'.
We conclude this section, several of whose items may, in interpretation, overlap with those of the next, with a few miscellaneous variants, such as HRS 'candescentibus' (262) for the true reading 'canescentibus' in a passage of Pliny; 'gravulate' for 'granulate' (272; perhaps a literal); 'The Ascension of the Brimstone' (205), which is contextually possible, as against the more tempting 'Accension' of R; 'It will require your patience to observe a few short remains' (262; R, 'remarks') 'out of the same Pliny,'; 'Each Boat hath a certain quantity of square Stones,
(c): Opportunities for an eclectic text.
Our last category, where some textual errors listed arise probably from copyists' carelessness, gives us the opportunity for some investigation into the source and reliability of the Sloane transcript. As already stated, it seems to have been commissioned for Sloane himself, possibly when the original volume of the Register it duplicates was temporarily misplaced; but the copyist has allowed himself some latitude, for some variants we meet in it appear to be founded on no authority but their own. Often he indulges in tautological paraphrase:
Examples of careless mis-copying are, happily, infrequent: only one need be noticed. HRS, 'observabit' (187) for the doubtlessly correct 'aberrabit' of CP and R in the sentence 'Calculus . . . a vero aberrabit' may be compared with the error of 'observe' for 'above' in 'the more Peter you allow it [gunpowder], it will still be the better, till you come to observe Eight parts' (278) to prove that both papers were the work of the same copyist or compositor. In the latter quotation R is again emended to follow the printed text, here of course wrongly.
Small graphical errors rarely affect the sense materially: '. . . People of the Country do take' ('rake,' R) 'it [saltpetre] off the ground' (262-263); '. . . Great Rains may easily bring it to the Lake in Macedonia. . . ' (263), where the Register's 'that Lake' makes clear the point, destroyed in the History text, that the particular lake was one specifically referred to earlier in the paper, citing Pliny: Natural History, X. 107; 'The Stuffs to be dyed are first boyled in Allum-liquors, and the Allum afterwards (as they say) cleared from the said Stuff again' (CP: 'same Stuff'), 'before any Colour at all to be applyed' (288); and 'Some Colours or Stuffs are best dyed by reiterated Dippings ever' (CP: 'even') 'into the same Liquor at several distances of time' (304). Two similar Latin examples are relegated to a footnote for the reason given previously.[12] All manuscript sources agree in the sentence (164): '[Chewing durian] causes a Dirthea, which easily degenerates to a
Yet such Effects of the Macassars Arts [i.e. sympathetic poisonings] are unknown to us' (165. CP, Slo.: Macassar dartes);
[Cinnamon has] a most Excellent taste; so that by Sunning it looseth rather than acquires any taste or force; the Tree being pill'd is cut down to the root; but the young Sprigs after a year or two give the best and finest Cinnamon' (169. Slo.: evil for 'exct' of CP and adds before 'young Sprigs' the Surac or);
It [saltpetre] is no sooner dilated by Rain-water, or the Moisture of
The use of Allum is to be a Vinculum between the Cloth and the Colour, as clammy-Oyls and Gum-waters are in Painting and Limming' (290. CP: claying-Oyls; R: Clayie Oyls).
Lest the materials presented above be considered ill digested, a word must be said by way of summary. It must be emphasized that they are only samples, intended to show the kind of problem likely to be faced by the editor of a seventeenth century science text: they neither postulate nor prove any thesis. Data are inadequate, for instance, to furnish any clues as to what kind of error, if any, 'T.R.' 's compositors were prone when setting HRS, and the Errata of its first edition are all literals and refer only to Sprat's portion of the book. In what specific tasks, then, may the examples cited be of service? There is much to be done in the publication or republication of seventeenth century science authorities: Boyle, long recognized as an English stylist, needs reprinting; Wren's scientific work has not yet been satisfactorily collected; only recently has the publication of Newton's correspondence been put in hand; and in addition there is the whole corpus of unpublished material by lesser men, British and Continental — it is surprising, moreover, but typical of this state of affairs that although we have a satisfactory biography of Robert Hooke (Margaret 'Espinasse, 1956) we have as yet no collected edition of his works. Rarely, in this discipline, is any one text absolutely authoritative as a source text. One day, nevertheless, we may see the magnum opus of a dictionary, by subjects and by persons, of every major scientific activity in Europe during the century: to such an El Dorado the present paper can only tentatively point the way.
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