George Wither's Quarrel with the Stationers: An
Anonymous Reply
to The Schollers Purgatory
by
Allan
Pritchard
In his Transcript of the Registers of the Company of
Stationers (IV, 14-20) Arber reprinted substantial extracts from
George Wither's attack on the stationers, The Schollers
Purgatory (ca. 1624), to illustrate conditions of publishing and
bookselling in the earlier seventeenth century, and subsequently other
bibliographers, including A. W. Pollard and W. W. Greg,[1] have made use of the pamphlet,
although
their opinion of its author's reliability has varied. The existence in a
manuscript copy, however, of an anonymous contemporary "Letter" in
reply to The Schollers Purgatory appears to have been
overlooked, and it is here printed for the first time. Its author is evidently
not himself one of the stationers, but he claims close familiarity with them,
and he undertakes to express their viewpoint. Although he nowhere
mentions The Schollers Purgatory by title, his allusion is
clearly
to that work, or, more accurately, to those
limited parts of it which he has seen at the time of writing: "some fewe
imperfect sheetes, vizt A. D. E." (fol. 17r).
The "Letter" must be viewed in the context of the quarrel between
Wither and the Company of Stationers, which had been under way for at
least a year and a half when it was written. The origin of the dispute was
the patent granted the poet, perhaps through the influence of the Earl of
Pembroke, by James I, on February 17, 1623.[2] It not only gave
Wither the copyright for fifty-one years of his newly completed
The
Hymnes and Songs of the Church, but it also required the stationers
to insert the work henceforth in all bound copies of the Psalms in meter.
The Company, which held the profitable monopoly of the Sternhold and
Hopkins psalter, showed immediate concern about the second clause. On
March 10, it appointed five members to meet Wither.
[3] Failing evidently to reach an
agreement
with the poet satisfactory to themselves, the stationers seem thereafter to
have employed every means within their power to oppose the patent.
Sometime before November 3, they petitioned the King,
[4] with a result of which the "Letter"
itself
gives the clearest account: the matter was referred to four clergymen
"eminent, both in authoritie and for Iudgment" (fol. 18
v).
They had not
delivered their verdict at the time the "Letter" was written; nor is there any
record that they
ever pronounced it.
Meanwhile, the stationers turned from King to Parliament,
opportunely raising against Wither's patent the cry "monopoly" in a House
of Commons engaged in legislating against monopolies. According to the
poet, they maintained daily during the session (in 1624): "three or foure of
their Instruments, to clamor against me at the Parliament house dore, in so
rude a fashion as vvas neuer exampled in any Cause," and "compelled a
fevv of the Bookebynders (whose estates much depend on their fauors) to
present the high Court of Parliament with diuers vntrue suggestions in the
name of fourescore; when as all except 4. or 5. of them, did (as I haue
heard) reiect the said information as faulse & rediculous."[5] A copy of this petition which
survives[6] leaves
little doubt that the bookbinders in fact had genuine enough grievances
against the patent, but it also reveals that the booksellers had put some
pressure upon them, and had even adopted the practice of sending books "in
quiers" to the country for binding, in order to evade attempts at
enforcement of the offensive clause. Whether or not as a result of this
petition, on May 15, 1624, the House of Commons ordered Wither's
patent, with others, to be "brought in."
[7] The writer of the "Letter" states
that
Wither hid to escape a personal summons by Parliament, but, on May 22,
the Sergeant's man sent to bring the poet testified to the Commons that
while he had been "withstood, and abused by one, at whose House
Withers lay: That
Withers assisted him, and
kept
him from Wrong."
[8] Parliament does
not appear to have taken any further action, and the patent continued to
stand.
If the stationers succeeded neither in persuading the King to revoke
the patent nor in having Parliament condemn it as beyond the just power of
the royal prerogative, their control of the book trade gave them a means of
resistance which Wither, even with the support of the Privy Council, was
unable to fight effectively. In practice, as he complains in The
Schollers Purgatory, the booksellers not only declined to bind his
Hymnes and Songs with the metrical psalter (a charge which
the
bookbinders' petition confirms), but they boycotted the work altogether,
refusing to supply copies even to those who repeatedly requested them, and
they mounted a war of propaganda against it, questioning his qualifications
in divinity, attacking his rendering of the Song of Solomon as obscene, and
declaring his hymns for Anglican saints' days to be popish (pp. 17-32, 39
ff.).[9]
For his part, as a whole series of incidents in his life shows, Wither
was not a man to bear grievances quietly. In addition to counter-attacking
in The Schollers Purgatory, which is addressed to the
Archbishop of Canterbury and Convocation but is clearly intended also for
a larger audience, he exercised the right which his patent gave him to
search out and confiscate bound copies of the metrical psalter offered for
sale contrary to its terms,[10] and on
July 12, 1624, he made complaint to the
Privy Council against the Company of Stationers. The latter was ordered
to conform to the patent, but the fact that the complaint and the order were
repeated on January 21, 1627, indicates that it did not do so effectively,
although on February 21, 1627, it made a motion of obedience, and in
March, 1633, it engaged in some negotiation with Wither.
[11] The poet or his assigns continued
the fight
until 1635,
[12] but thereafter he seems
to have conceded victory to the stationers, whose strength and solidarity are
impressively demonstrated during the whole course of the conflict, despite
the relative failure of some of their tactics. Wither not only lost, as he
complained, large sums of money which he had expended in printing copies
of
Hymnes and Songs on the strength of the patent, but he
was
unable to have any of his works printed in England in a normal fashion for
a decade.
[13]
Belonging to the most heated period of the conflict, The
Schollers Purgatory was in part surreptitiously printed by George
Wood in 1624. As the writer of the "Letter" suggests, Wither's reasons for
employing the "Printer G. W." are easily discovered, for Wood's relations
with the Company of Stationers were as strained as the poet's own.
Apparently admitted to the Company as a freeman in 1613, Wood was not
a master printer, but secretly he persisted in operating presses.[14] Wither had made him one of his
assigns
for the printing of Hymnes and Songs,[15] and he may be that "Printer in
disguise"
whom Ben Jonson describes in his satire upon Wither in Time
Vindicated (1623) as keeping
His presse in a hollow tree, where to conceale him,
He workes by glow-worme light, the Moone's too open.[16]
Although his hidden presses had already been confiscated several times by
officials of the Stationers' Company, Wood was discovered on September
9, 1624, printing
The Schollers Purgatory, which was
unlicensed, at an unauthorized press near Holborn Bridge.
[17] Once more his press was seized;
and
Wither was summoned by the Court of High Commission to answer a series
of charges.
The sworn statement which the poet made to this court sheds some
light upon the printing of his pamphlet.[18] In it he disclaimed all
responsibility for
the operation of the press, but declared that he employed Wood to print
The Schollers Purgatory "at a certayne price by the sheete,"
argued that by the regulating decree "the Printer of a booke is . . . excused
though he begin to imprint the same before it be authorized soe it be
afterwardes allowed . . . before the full imprinteing thereof," and expressed
his belief that Wood could make adequate defence of his own activity,
"considering that irregularity lately Comon amonge Printers and withall
seeing the booke wch should haue been imprinted tended
to the
reformacon of such abuses and disorders." In the final part of his statement
may be found some clues, perhaps, as to the reason why the writer of the
"Letter" had seen only certain sheets of The Schollers
Purgatory:
As for the number of the bookes he [Wither] sayth that he determined
to ymprint 3000 of them but affirmeth that there are none of the sayde
bookes divulged nor as yet perfectly or fully ymprinted, but some fewe
sheetes only parte of wch are at this
prsent in this exāīāts
[i.e. examinant's] power; the residue he sayth were by his
permission taken away and layed he knoweth not where to be
kept by he knowes not whome untill the rest of the booke shalbe finished
wch wilbe he knowes not when, and then this
exāīāt (as he
saith) is verily persuaded they wilbe brought forth to be
added
together.
The sheets signed A, D, and E may have fallen into the hands of the
stationers when they confiscated Wood's press, or they may have been
among those whose whereabouts Wither did not know at the time he
testified to the High Commission.
[19]
When and by whom the printing of
The Schollers Purgatory
was
completed is unknown: the title page of the pamphlet bears the phrase,
"IMPRINTED / For the Honest Stationers," without date or printer's
name.
In The Schollers Purgatory Wither stated his
expectation
that upon publication the stationers would employ "some of those hyreling
Authors of theirs" in order to make "some foolish libell against me; or to
publish an impudent reply to my Apology" (p. 115), but one can only
speculate concerning the identity of the writer of the "Letter." The
subscription, "ffrom the Goose Nest in / St Nicholas
Shambles," is no
doubt ironic in intention, and derives from a passage of The
Schollers
Purgatory in which Wither declares of his enemies among the
stationers: "yf any should happen to ouer-heare them at their Goosenest
behind Saint Nicholas Shambles; Or vvhen a knot of them hath gotten a
Cuntrey-Chapman, Citty-Customer, or nevv flovvne Academick, to some
Drincking-schoole, vvithin the compasse of their verge; yt vvould deceaue
a common iudgement to obserue vvhat grauitey, zeale, and learning, some
of them vvill consume in rayling vpon my Hymnes" (p. 75). In a note on
St.
Nicholas Shambles in his Survey of London, Stow informs
us:
"behind the butchers shops be now diuers slaughter houses inward, and
Tippling houses outward. This is called Mountgodard streete of the Tippling
houses there . . . ."[20] Mountgodard
Street seems a likely enough location, if one be sought, for the "Goose
Nest." On the southern edge of the Shambles, it was close to the
booksellers' shops of St. Paul's churchyard, and no doubt some of the
stationers gave its tippling houses their patronage.
The author of the "Letter" replies to the arguments, accusations and
invective of The Schollers Purgatory point by point, following
the order of the A, D, and E sheets almost exactly, but he gives more
attention to those matters which directly affect the stationers than to the
poet's defence of Hymnes and Songs against the charges of
popishness and obscenity. He has no difficulty in bringing forth reasonable
objections to the controversial clause in the patent, although he does not
explain how he arrives at the figure of £300 as the annual profit
expected from it by Wither. But larger issues, not to be dealt with so
easily, are also involved, for in his pamphlet Wither had attacked the whole
current system of publication and charged that many of the stationers
showed no concern for the rights and interests of authors. It is upon this
subject that
The Schollers Purgatory and the "Letter" are
most
interesting.
Although Wither is proud of his claims to the status of gentleman,
and insistent that in his writings he intends good to church and state more
than private profit, he displays in The Schollers Purgatory
much
of the viewpoint of the professional man of letters who attempts to earn his
living by his pen. Thus, he complains that his opponents do not consider
what an author "might haue gained, if he had bestowed the same tyme,
charge, & industry in other professions" as in letters (p. 93). He
protests, indeed, that he sought the copyright of his Hymnes and
Songs as the only means left him by the iniquitous practices of the
stationers to "enioy the benifit of some part of myne owne labours" (while
the other clause of the patent was an unsought for addition of the royal
favor) (p. 5). The writer of the "Letter" had not, of course, seen all of the
charges against the "meere Stationers" (whom the poet makes some attempt
to distinguish from the apparently smaller number
of "honest Stationers"), but even in the A sheets he had seen enough to
make the substance of the attack clear. He had read Wither's general
charge: "by an vniust custome . . . the Stationers haue so vsurped vpon the
labours of all writers, that when they haue consumed their youth and
fortunes in perfiting some laborious worke, those cruell Bee-masters burne
the poore Athenian bees for their hony, or else driue them from the best
part thereof by their long practiced cunninge" (p. 5); and, there can be little
doubt, he had also seen the accusation that the stationers ". . . take vppon
them to publish bookes contriued, altered, and mangled at their owne
pleasurs, without consent of the writers: nay and to change the name
some[t]yms, both of booke and Author (after they haue been ymprinted) and
all for their owne priuate lucre" (pp. 10-11).[21]
Upon the second charge the author of the "Letter" remains silent, but
he replies to the first, in part by questioning the profitableness to the
stationers of the poet's own writings, particularly Wither's
Motto (1621). He is certainly right in stating that this work brought
trouble to stationers as well as to its author. While Wither was imprisoned
by the Privy Council for its satirical matter, John Marriot, John Grismond,
Augustine Mathewes, and Nicholas Okes were fined, on June 4, 1621, by
the Court of the Stationers' Company for printing and dispersing it without
licence or entrance; and Marriot was charged at the same time with
bringing out a second impression of 1,500 copies in defiance of the Court,
which on May 14 had explicitly forbidden publication until further authority
had been obtained.
[22] As the "Letter"
itself informs us, however, Wither had sold the copy for five pieces
[23] to a stationer (presumably either
Weaver,
who possessed it on May 14, or Marriot and Grismond, who entered a
version "corrected" by the licenser on June 16). It seems doubtful that the
poet can be justly held responsible for the difficulties which befell Marriot
and the others, for, as their own Company maintained, it was for them to
look to the licensing of the work.
Although the author of the "Letter" suggests that Motto
became popular only because it was called in question, it might well be
argued that Marriot must have considered the poem potentially profitable,
since he was willing to take the risk of publishing its satirical passages
without licence. Even more clearly Okes considered it a valuable
commodity: possessing no right to the copy, he took the trouble to
counterfeit one of Marriot's editions.[24] The bookseller John Grismond
stated on
July 10 that Marriot and Okes between them had produced 6,000 copies
since their fining on June 4, and he also gave the rather amusing testimony
that "Londs" (i.e. Matthew Lownes), Warden of the Company, had daily
purchased copies since fining him and Marriot for publishing them.[25] If some stationers did not profit in
this,
the fault would hardly seem to be the poet's. Like his earlier satire,
Abuses Stript and Whipt
(1613), which also caused his imprisonment, and also received the
distinction of piracy,[26]
Motto was evidently a considerable popular success. The
extent
of the vulgar popularity of Wither's writings in 1623 is one of the subjects
of Jonson's satirical comment in Time Vindicated.
Wither's grievances and his concern to defend his patent undoubtedly
make him, as A. W. Pollard held, a "bad witness" on the question of the
Jacobean stationers' attitude towards authors'
rights,
[27] but the fact that he was in
truth the writer of several commercially valuable works gives some weight
to his charges in
The Schollers Purgatory; and a number of
statements and silences in the "Letter" may well be taken to confirm W. W.
Greg's judgment that, even when allowance is made for prejudice and
exaggeration, Wither's "general statement of the case must be
accepted."
[28] Although the anonymous
writer, like the poet himself, declares that the first consideration should be
the public good, and postulates the ideal of a mutually satisfactory
agreement between publisher and author, he clearly believes that the
former's rights, to financial gain, at least, are superior to the latter's. On
the one hand, "The profession of a Stacōner is to buy and sell, and to
gaine by it if hee can"; on the other, "They are too Mercenary that write
bookes for Money" (fol. 18
r).
Occupying eleven pages (fols.
17r-22r), 8 by 12 inches, the
"Letter" is the last of four items[29]
which comprise British Museum MS. Add. 18,648. All are transcribed,
presumably from manuscript sources, in the same clear seventeenth-century
mixed hand. Unfortunately, the paper has entirely disintegrated in an area,
which becomes progressively larger, near the top of every folio of the
"Letter." In the transcript which follows, the resulting gaps in the text have
been indicated by pointed brackets, within which conjectural readings or
reconstructions have been supplied when the context or the relevant passage
of The Schollers Purgatory provides sufficient guidance. A
few
insignificant deletions and interlineations occur in the manuscript: the
former have not been recorded; the latter have been silently incorporated
in the proper places. The spelling and punctuation of the original have been
retained, but certain contractions have been
expanded in italic type, the final "es" sign has been printed as "es", and the
long "s" has been modernized.
[Fol. 17r] A Coppie <o>f a Letter to George
Wither
in answere <t>o a late Pamphlet partly
Imp<rin>ted by George Wood./
Good M
r Wither: I haue seene some fewe imperfect
sheetes, vizt A.
D. E. of a booke that yo
u haue lately caused to bee
printed, dedicated
to the Reverend Bishopps, and the Convocation house; and it seemes vnto
mee to bee an Apologie for the Hymnes, and songs, you haue lately
published: which when I had perused; I thought it the part of a ffreind, out
of the
respect I beare vnto you, to deliuer myselfe freely, what successe I thincke
it is likely to haue./
My intent is spetially to deale in those things, that concerne the
Stacōners, whom spightfully in your whole Booke you vniustly traduce,
and most vncivilly abuse: and I feare it will soe disparage your discretion,
that all your laboures will growe distastfull, and not regarded, because soe
intemperate a Man as you are is theire author; and therfore they which haue
made some stay therof, and supprest the Presse, are more your ffreindes
(though perhapps against theire Wills) then you are aware off; that the
world may not take notice of your spleene and follie.
Before I come to answere for the Stacōners, I haue somewhat to
say with your very preamble, where you begine to bragg of the testimonies
you haue giuen, of your assertion to the peace, and prosperitie of the
Church and comon wealth. Some of the testimonies you haue giuen are
in scribling forth a fewe railing verses, that haue giuen occasion to idle
people, to descant vpon them at theire pleasures, and interpret them to your
discreditt; ffor writing wherof you were deseruedly laied by the heeles, and
howsoeuer you mince the matter, and excuse yourselfe; [Fol.
17v] your
offence was such, as was not to bee indured.
Next you take vpon you, to teach the Convocation
house, what
should become th<em> in Charritie to doe towardes you, soe
impudently and sawcily th<at no>e Man that Reades it will thincke
it any Mans doing that had witt or discretion, but rather of some
Schoole-Boy, that would bee whip't for his vnmanerlines.
Then speaking of your troubles, you bring in two or three threadbare
proverbs as Camomil must bee trodden on Plate hamer'd, grapes crush't,
and I knowe not what, soe sencelesly and impertinently, that you had need
begg for patience, as very well you doe of those that shall read it; to which
Proverbs the Stacōners will add another, Bray a foole in a Morter, and
hee will neuer learne wisdome, and soe you are answered in your owne
kind.
You come then to Iustifie yourselfe in your former writings, and in
trueth therin you accuse the state of some iniustice, in shutting you up soe
closely, where you could not haue the vse of your Pen,
and were
compelled to feed on course bread, and because afterwardes the State (in
respect of your Youth, and that you wrote things at a venture, not
vnderstanding what you did) were content to passe by your follies, you
would make us beleeue you were vtterly blamelesse, and
suffered all
for nothing.
Nowe having made this Preamble, and sharpened the dulnes of your
Oratory, you fall terribly vpon the Stationers; and because they will not bee
your Slaues, that you may liue by the sweate of theire Browes, and haue
300li a yeare for a song, you raile outright and say they
vsurpe on the
labours of writers; and are like Bee-Masters, that burne the Bees for theire
hony. Surely they neuer vsurped vpon you, and they hope
there is noe
good author, that hath cause to complaine: There be some like yourselfe,
that thincke they haue neuer enough [Fol. 18r] when they
deserue
nothing at
all, when their workes are burthensome bo<th to >Studies, and
Shopps; and note this alwaies, that <those who >deserue least,
thincke best of themselues<, for >noe Author (saies one) is soe bad,
but hee thinckes himselfe euery Waie excellent.
The profession of a Stacōner is to buy and sell, and to gaine by
it if hee can, as all other Trades doe; They labour to deale in such
comodities, as are most vendible; that will turne money readily, wherby
they may liue; But theire case is worse then other Trades, for if sometimes
they light vpon a vendible Booke, theire gaine is counted, talk't off, and
envied. But theire Charge, theire huge piles of waist paper, and theire
losses, are neuer once thought vpon or considered; and oftentimes they are
enioyned to printe bookes, that lie on their handes, and are a greate
hinderance vnto them.
If any Author himselfe would for the generall good, or for his owne
proffitt, haue the printing of his owne labours, and procure his ffreindes to
disburse the charge, they were euer ready to further them in it.
And most of the best Authors are not soe penurious that they looke
soe much to theire gaine, as to the good they intend to Religion or State.
They are too Mercenary that write bookes for Money, and theire
couetuousnes makes theire labours fruitles, and disesteemed.
The right course is in theis things, that the generall and publique good
bee first and principally to bee respected, and then both the Author and
Stacōner soe accomodated that each might haue what were fitting,
in regard of theire places, paines, and charge; and thus euery good Author
will deale with the Stacōner, and euery honest Stationer will thus vse his
Author.
And if the Bee (to whom you seeme to compare yourselfe, as
properly you may; for you sting terribly, [Fol. 18v]
though
perhapps you bee a Drone euer after) will not part with some
of the hony hee gathe<rs >what good does hee? it were better hee
were burnt, o<r dri>ven <fr>om his hiue, then hee should
consume it all himselfe.
You proceed and say the Corporācon is inriched by your laboures;
to which I answere that the Corporācon hath not got a groate, but spent
many, in serching for, and suppressing some of your workes, and otherwise
by your occasion. If any particular Man hath gott by you,
they
are the more behoulding to you for it; This I knowe some of your workes
weere sold to any purpose, and for the best, you haue bene gratified in a
sufficient proportion, as the poore Men that dealt with you well knowe; and
the world knowes that you are not soe much aforehand, that you can weare
Clothes soe handsomly, and spend your time for nothing, except you haue
some other vaine, that but fewe Men are acquainted withall.
Concerning your Motto, of my knowledge you had fiue peeces of the
Stacōner before it came forth, wch was more, then
euer would haue
bene gotten, if it had come forth orderly; But it had noe license, and was
afterwardes forbidden, which put some life into it; you were in some
trouble and soe was the Stationer, and lost his Bookes, But you were on the
surer side, for you had your Money before hand.
Well, then you come to say, amongst other idle things (for if I should
stand vpon euery Bravado you make, I should neuer haue done) That his
Matie favours your worthy Worke, and those that are
esteemed amongst
the most devoute, and learned of the Clergie: His Matie
hath referred
the whole Matter to foure of the most eminent, both in authoritie and for
Iudgment, if they shall thincke it fitting that your Booke shall passe, and
bee ioyned with the Psalme Booke, the Stacōners must conforme [Fol.
19r] themselues to th<eire> Censure, and dare not
resist what
they shall order< > Stationers haue laboured to obtaine a hearing,
and< >en< > often to ioyne with them for the
obtaynin<g ther>of, but (brag and prate as much as you will) you
haue euer declined that course, and soe you did the Parliament house, when
you absented and obscured yourselfe, for many daies together, and were
sent for by a Messenger, and yet you vaunted before in diuers places,
that if it were not Parliament proofe, you would cast all the Bookes, and
Patent into the ffire.
It is a poore Waye to leaue the course, that is directed by his
Mates referrence, wherby you might bring this matter to
some head,
and fall to abusing better Men, and honester then yourselfe, and because
you cannot haue your owne desires, thincke to get it by scoulding and
calling them Pedlers, indeed if they had nothing to deale in but such trashe
as yours, you might truly stile them as you doe.
The language you vse would haue shewed best in a Riming Satyr,
wherin you haue a facultie aboue other Men, for your Oratory indeed is
somewhat dull, if you had versed them forth, it would haue made some
sport, though there bee noe reason for it, yet wee should haue some Rhime
for our Money.
The whole Scripture is most sacred euery where, and noe part of it
ought to bee handled but with greate Reuerence, and iudgement; You are
a young fellowe, and some thincke it is greate pittie, that such an one,
should bee suffered to thrust in his sickle, further then for his owne vse,
and direction. But for you to take vpon you to teach, and reprooue others,
whose Bookes you are not worthy to carry after them, is intollerable in a
state, where there are soe many Reuerend and learned Men, that haue
desired to doe the same thing that you doe; but out of respect they had to
authoritie would not proceed, except they had bene imployed by publique
Comaund. But whoe is soe bold as blind blink-eyed Bayard, [Fol.
19v] that dares in foule termes abuse hi<s >betters,
and will
take any thing in hand, that hee < > to doe withall, and when
hee hath done the wh<ole> com<on> wealth, and all
good Men must suffer to stopp his M< >and maintaine his
Vanitiees. Yet you, will you not saie disparage the whole profession, The
Printers, Bookbinders, and Claspe makers are beholding to you; for some
of them (saie you) are honest Men, and they are greived at the oppression
of the rest.
What are they I pray you, that are soe greived? is not your Printer G.
W. one of them? like enough for hee is one of your consort, and birdes of
a
feather will flocke together, a fit Copesmate to deale in a broken buisnes,
whoe for his refractorines wilbe euer branded; hee came in by intrusion noe
man knowes howe; hee hath bene in most Prisons most part of his time,
and is neuer out of one Micheife or other; if there were nothing els to
hinder yo
r buisnes, the very ioyning with him would make
it odious,
and this is one of your honest Men.
But nowe (if euer) the furie is rais'd, when you
terme them
excrementes, vermine, Wormes, and fleas, and all this proceedes not from
Mallice or Envie, and your conscience doth witnes theis termes to bee
charritable, and necessarie, for soe you say a little before. Does any Body
beleeue you? if this bee conscionable dealing, you haue a very large
conscience, and revengfull, to abuse a profession that neuer did you wrong,
but more Credit then you deserue. But this is like a blind gal'd-bark't Iade,
that laies aboute him at hee knowes not what, when he feeles any smart. I
could speake particularly of the titles you afford them, and
turne
them home vpon you with a vengeance, But all that heare and Read them
say, truly they proceed from some distemper of the braine; and I am too
blame to spend time with a Man, whom the opinion of himselfe hath made
starke Mad; yet you say something when you confesse [Fol.
20r] that
your first P<oem>s discouer your Childishnes, &
indiscretion and wee see th< > discouers your Pride,
insolencie, and madnes, < > forward (with this) that the
Bookseller<s shall c>ontinue, and bee well accompted off,
necessarie<an>d vsefull, when such a fellowe as yourselfe shall die
in an hospitall.
You haue then a fling at the old Psalme booke, to
wch I say noe
more but this: The expressions of the holy Ghost in those Nombers, which
you call Rude and Barbarous, haue bene soe well accepted off, that euen
vse hath made them holy, and doe comfort and encourage Gods people soe,
that your newe affected devises, shall neuer bee able to disparage them,
much lesse to thrust them out of doores, and put in your owne at your
desire.
But still you pretend greate good to the Church, and take vpon you
to instruct and direct, not only the simple & ordinary sort, but divines
and teachers, and the whole Church, howe they will take it at your handes
I knowe not, but if you had the 300li a yeare that you
ayme at,
whatsoeuer the Church should get by your labours, I am sure you should
bee well paied for your paines; and to that end you would haue them pack't
into our Liturgie, that Men might be compelled to buy them with the old
Psalme booke, that soe, whether they proue vsefull or noe, you shall bee
sure to haue them taken of your handes.
Besides your former sufferings in Prison, you talke of sufferings in
this very buisnes.
You haue lost nothing but that you neuer had; you haue bene
something too forward to print soe many, before you knewe howe to vent
them. If this bee your suffering, you may thancke yourselfe or your Printer
G: W.
that being a beggar and a foole, wilbee forward enough to doe any
Mischeife.
Nowe by the waie let mee say one thing vnto you, which Methinckes
is vnanswerable (that is) That if your Booke bee soe excellently well
Composed, as you make accompt it is, [Fol. 20v] howe
can the
Stacōners disparage i<t (>being as you say, but ignorant Men)
for those wh<oe be lear>ned and Iudicious, would by it the rather
be< >Men doe condemne it. Nay farther (to vse your
owne< >) That those yor hymnes being
warrantable in
themselues, Noe mans authority shalbee able to dishonor them. Nay if my
Lord of Canterbury (whose grace you mention not with that respect
becomes you, and accuse you knowe not whom for abusing his name) in
disparagement of your aforesaid Booke, and therin (as in other passages)
you are exceeding sawcy. If his eminency (as you say) cannot excuse them,
if they bee not Iustifiable in theire owne Nature, howe can the Stacōners
make you or them acceptable or odious.
I must say this for the Stacōners; though I bee noe Bookseller, yet
I am very conversant, and often amongst them, and I neuer heard any Man
in all my life, speake any word against your booke or Patent, more then
this, that they hoped and desired, to bee left at libertie to bind them
wth the Psalmes, only for those that would haue them
together, and not
to bee Compelled to put them into all theire Bookes for euery Customer;
and they yeilded theise reasons, that it would bee more importable, and not
bee euery Mans money, for he that hath viijd hath not
xijd, and soe
it would hinder the sale of Bibles, and other Bookes, that the Psalmes are
vsually put vnto.
Therefore it is likely that the exceptions you make against your owne
Booke, which you lay vpon the Stacōners and scould with them for, are
altogether of your owne making, out of a guiltines in yourselfe, or are
taken up in Tipling houses, and brought vnto you by Companions of your
owne, and not from Men of worth or Creditt.
God forbid that any but Atheistes or Drunckardes, should terme the
scriptures in any place obscene; but if you render them not vnto us, in that
grauitie, as they [Fol. 21r] are deliuered in
s<crip>ture, you
may giue occasion of greate offence.
My inten<t is not to medd>le, in a matter of soe high a
Nature. I < on>ly m<e>ddle with soe much of your Booke
as concern<es> the Stacōners; And whether the Apologie you
make <w>ill Redeeme you from blame, or the answeres you make
to your owne obiections, wilbee admitted to further your Designes; I leaue
them to bee censured by such as can Iudge, and haue power to reforme if
they bee amisse.
And soe I passe ouer all your obiections, and meete with you againe,
where you meete with the Stacōners. But say you, Scriueners, and
Costermongers, Porters, and Tripewiues, Chaundlers, and ffidlers; and I
knowe not whoe, haue scoffed at you, in Taphouses and Tavernes: Then
(say I) I could wishe you to come noe more among them, for they will
scoffe at
better Men then you; and hee that toucheth pitch shalbee defiled. But all
this say you must bee long of the Stacōners. If some Idle headed
ffellowe hath blurted out some wordes of your Bookes, is it faire dealing
to cast your aspertions vpon them in generall? you should haue set downe
whoe they are, and then you might haue receiued a reasonable
answere.
To bring your ambitious designes the better forward, you would faine
interest the King himselfe, and the whole Church, and therfore
you
accuse you knowe not whom; but they must needes bee Stacōners for
opposing authoritie, and seeking to ouerthrowe the discipline of the Church;
and when you haue writt it, you thincke you haue done brauely.
But howe doe they oppose authoritie? haue they not peticōned his
Matie in this cause, and hath not his
Matie graceously referred it
to most Reverend Men? and hath not his Matie expressed
himselfe, that
hee intended noe restraint, or burthen on the subiect, nor breach of order
to the preiudice of others? and haue not the Stationers (as I said before)
much desired the matter might bee [Fol. 21v] determined;
and
submitted themsel<ues t>o his Mates order.
But such trickes as theis < >e you good, but Returne
back vpon you to < >
Then to helpe the matter yo<u >t forth; and brag that you
might haue bene hired, and had g<oo>d entertainment to imploy
yourselfe, in se<t>ting forth here<tica>ll fancies, and that
you haue bene woed by Sectaries.
I must needes saie you would haue done them very good seruice, for
by this booke you showe, that you haue an excellent facultie to abuse your
betters, and to forge vntrueths, but when you come to proue any thing, you
would haue left that to themselues.
I passe ouer much good matter, because I begine to bee wearie, But
at the Goose-Nest I will meete you againe, you knowe the place I perceiue
well; and sure you were there sucking a Goose egge, in some Corner of the
house, when the Stacōners mett, or howe could you knowe howe they
vse theire Customers, or what they talke of when they are together; It was
noe good manners to eausdropp your ffreindes. But in good earnest doe you
thincke it possible for any Stacōner to talke soe sencelesly as you would
make them? It will rather bee thought by them that read this straine, that
you being a fine Poet, to make some sport withall, would heere trie howe
you could act the fooles part, in a Play of your owne making, and thats all
breifly I will say of the Goose Nest.
The reasons you alledge for your Hymne of St
George I like
reasonable well; But you might haue added that for the names sake it was
fitting you should doe something, the Inne, or Alehouse where you lye,
being the Signe of St George on horsbacke might moue to
you a
little therto, and if you haue a Lady or Mistris there, or els where, you are
euery way a Compleate Champion; for though you neuer Rescued Lady,
[Fol. 22r] Yet by the he< >aken out of the
Staconers
Goose Nest, < > a
Booke (it may come forth) will make < >osterities.
Thus< > written in the Stacōners behalfe, that you
< >wh<at >it is to abuse a Societie, and if in
<s>ome place I bee ouersharpe, you may thancke yourselfe that
gaue the occasion, by putting your handes into a Waspes Nest, for if you
had taken a quiet course, you should haue bene sure of a ffreindly end.
ffarewell./
ffrom the Goose Nest in
St Nicholas Shambles./
Notes