University of Virginia Library

1. Stationers and Publishers

From 1624 until his death in 1631 Donne was vicar of St. Dunstan's in the West, and there is a good deal of information about his activities in connection with the parish in the surviving accounts and vestry minutes, which are now preserved in the Guildhall Library in London.[1] To search these records for references to Donne is a rather eerie experience, for by the way the investigator comes upon a number of names familiar in other contexts. At first he is inclined to pay scant attention, for experience has taught him that there were often two, three, or even more individuals of the same name in seventeenth-century London, but at last their cumulative effect forces him to believe that there are limits to coincidence. So he turns aside to do a little checking. Then he soon realizes that there have been no coincidences, and that the John Smethwick and John Jaggard who were elected constables of the parish in 1619 and 1620 were in fact the well-known stationers, and so he goes on to investigate the possibility of a group of other stationers living in the parish.

It is well known that St. Paul's Churchyard was the centre of the London bookselling trade because of the concentration of stationers' shops there. St. Dunstan's might well have been called a little St. Paul's because of the number of stationers' shops either in the churchyard or close by. The reason for this is not difficult to discover. Though the present church is an early nineteenth-century edifice, it stands on the same site as the old one, on the north side of Fleet Street close to Temple Bar, between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane. The Temple itself is on the other side of Fleet Street opposite the church; Clifford's Inn abutted on the north side of the church. Round the corner in Chancery Lane close by were Sergeants' Inn, the Office of the Rolls

and, a little further north, Lincoln's Inn. The church of St. Dunstan was, in fact, in the very heart of the legal district of London; not merely were there the senior members of the profession who probably spent more time with law books than with any other kind of reading, but also even larger numbers of young students whose tastes in reading ranged far beyond the law books to which they were supposed to be giving the major part of their attention.

There were seven shops on the street side of the church within the actual churchyard, as is shown by an entry in the vestry minutes:

Whether all these were stationers' shops it is impossible to say, but there were probably more than seven stationers who had shops in the churchyard or its immediate vicinity. The most important of these were John Smethwick and the two Marriots, John the father and Richard the son. William Jaggard had been in St. Dunstan's churchyard from 1594 to 1608, when he moved to the Barbican, where his son Isaac carried on his printing business after his death. John, his brother (who appears in the records of Donne's time), had his shop at "the Hand and Star in Fleet Street, between the two Temple Gates." As well known as any of these was Matthew Lownes, who carried on his business at "St. Dunstans Churchyard in Fleet Street" from 1591 to 1625. Others, not quite so well known, who also gave St. Dunstan's Churchyard as their address, were Richard Moore, Thomas Dew, Ann Helme, William Washington and George Winder.

With some or all of these men Donne must have been acquainted, especially with those that held parish office. Smethwick and John Jaggard were not only elected constables in 1619 but were chosen again in 1621 and 1622 respectively "for the wardmote inquest." Smethwick became junior churchwarden in 1627 and senior churchwarden in the following year. As churchwarden he was entitled to a seat in one of the new pews recently erected in the chancel of the church, and the accounts show that he paid the vicar 6s 8d rent in return for this privilege.[2] Another who held parish office in Donne's time was Richard Moore, elected to the wardmote inquest in 1627, and chosen sidesman and overseer of the poor in April 1631, a few weeks after Donne's death. In addition, Moore was the publisher in 1626 of the second

edition of Ignatius his Conclave. He was not, however, the only stationer at St. Dunstan's to publish a book by Donne; Thomas Dewe brought out the 1621 and 1625 editions of the Anniversaries. Thus there were two reminders of his unregenerate days to greet the vicar from the booksellers' stalls when he crossed the churchyard on his way to enter the church.

Another name, not that of a stationer but one with literary associations, that occurs frequently in the records of St. Dunstan's at this period is that of Robert Gomersall, who became junior churchwarden in 1626. This is not the author of The Tragedy of Ludovic Sforza, who after leaving the university became a Devonshire parson, but (very probably) his father. The dramatist is known to have been born in London, and the fact that all four of his books were published by John Marriot strongly suggests an association with the parish of St. Dunstan. The elder Gomersall, who became churchwarden and whom Donne must have known, is described as "Citizen and Painter Stainer of London."[3]

Less information is available about Donne and the stationers whose shops crowded the churchyard of St. Paul's cathedral, and who dwelt in property owned by the cathedral. A register containing copies of all leases of cathedral lands is extant for the period during which Donne was dean, but it principally reveals the fact that the stationers did not hold the properties they occupied directly from the cathedral authorities, but as sub-tenants. Matthew Lownes secured two leases on 23 June 1625, but as his shop was at St. Dunstan's, he probably expected to sublet, and secured these leases as an investment. On the same day William Legatt secured the lease of a shop belonging to the Almoner's House; whether he was connected in any way with John Legate, the Cambridge printer, is unknown. Similarly, Ann Hebb secured a lease of a shop in Paul's Alley, but it is uncertain whether she was related to Andrew Hebb, the bookseller who had his shop at the Bell in St. Paul's Churchyard from 1625 to 1648.[4]

Dewe had not been the original publisher of the book by Donne he had acquired, but it is worth attempting a review of Donne's relations with the booksellers who brought out the original editions of his books. His first published work was Pseudo-Martyr, published at the end of 1609 by Walter Burre; why Donne went to him is not known, but he must have thought him a suitable publisher for the kind of book he brought him. Burre published a fairly wide range of literature;

an occasional sermon or work of piety alternated with books of travel, news pamphlets, and even plays. He had been the original publisher of Every Man in his Humour and Cynthia's Revels; it is conceivable that Donne had heard of him through Jonson, but it can be said at once that the typography of most of the books published by Burre is better than average for its period. Stansby, who printed Pseudo-Martyr, often printed for Burre, and the same two names are found together in the imprint of Ralegh's History of the World. Donne also took his second book, the Latin Conclave Ignati, to Burre; though there is no publisher's name in the imprint, it was Burre who entered the book on 24 January 1610/11 in the Stationers' Register. The entry is unusual in that it records the names of two licensers, Dr. Morton and Dr. Mockett, instead of the usual one. As Greg indicates, Thomas Morton's name appears only twice in the Stationers' Register as licenser, once when he authenticated his own refutation of Theophilus Higgons, and once here.[5] Morton, then, was not one of the regular licensers, but Donne evidently took his manuscript to his friend to read before it went to the official licenser, and Morton must have added some note of approval or recommendation, which was thus recorded in the Stationers' Register. The English version of the book, Ignatius his Conclave, had only a single licenser, the same Dr. Mockett who with Morton licensed the Latin version. The publisher was no longer Burre, but Richard Moore of St. Dunstan's, who also brought out the second edition of 1626.

The Anatomy of the World, 1611, and the two Anniversaries, 1612, were not entered on the Stationers' Register, but were both published by Samuel Macham. Sir Geoffrey Keynes is undoubtedly correct in suggesting that the choice of the publisher was due to Joseph Hall, whose writings Macham had been publishing for several years.[6] Hall and Macham both came from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and they had apparently known one another from boyhood. Hall, it will be recalled, wrote introductory verses for Donne's two poems, and seems to have seen them through the press. The Anatomy of the World was actually published before Donne left England for France with the Drurys, for Mr. A. L. Rowse has recently brought to light the fact that Sir Arthur Throckmorton had acquired a copy by 21 November 1611.[7] Donne, however, had expected to leave earlier, and had therefore apparently entrusted his manuscript to Hall. The manuscript of "The

Progress of the Soul" was sent to England from France, and came out in the spring of the following year while Donne was still abroad, for on 14 April Donne, then in Paris, was already replying to criticisms of the book which had reached his ears. The second of the two volumes was certainly seen through the press by Hall, since Donne was not only out of England but, as his letters for the period show, in very uncertain communication with his family and friends.

During the years of Donne's ministry his regular publisher was Thomas Jones, whose shop was "in the Strand at the blacke Raven, neere vnto Saint Clements Church." Jones dealt largely in theological literature and lived in the same parish as Donne had lived in before he moved to the Deanery of St. Paul's. Jones's shop was probably the nearest bookshop to Donne's house in Drury lane, and one imagines he often dealt there. Jones published six separate sermons for Donne between 1622 and 1626, and reissued them in various collections as Three Sermons, Foure Sermons, and Five Sermons. The only sermon Donne published in his lifetime that was not brought out by Jones was the Sermon of Commemoration of the Lady Danvers (1627) but, as this little book also contained a collection of Greek and Latin verses in memory of his mother by George Herbert, it was probably he rather than Donne who made arrangements for its publication. Jones, however, was also the publisher of Donne's Devotions, and brought out all three editions (two in 1624 and one in 1626) that appeared in the author's lifetime.

The interest of the Marriots in Donne's work did not begin until after Donne's death. There is no doubt that Walton was a friend of both father and son, and that he almost certainly had some part in entrusting to John Marriot the publication of the Poems in 1633. The younger Donne, after he secured control of the publication of his father's remains, was satisfied to stay with the Marriots, so that in succession they brought out the 1634 and later editions of Ignatius his Conclave, LXXX Sermons (1640), Fifty Sermons (1649), Essays in Divinity (1651), and Letters to Severall Persons of Honour (1651). This list includes the great bulk of Donne's surviving writings, and practically everything by which he is remembered.