University of Virginia Library

Dr. Donne and the Booksellers
by
R. C. Bald

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.

2. Speed of Publication in the Early Seventeenth Century

Donne had a habit, whenever he published anything, of presenting copies not merely to friends but to patrons and other important people from the King downwards. The presentations copies of Pseudo-Martyr

given to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere and his old friend Rowland Woodward have survived; his correspondence makes it clear that other copies were presented to the King, Prince Henry, and Sir Robert Cotton's "lord"—presumably the Earl of Northampton. Some of this information is contained in a letter from Donne to Cotton, written from Royston on 24 January [1610], informing him that he has an appointment with the King to present his book that evening (after the day's hunting was over, no doubt), so Cotton may now safety present the copy left with him for his lord.[8] Obviously, the copy presented to the King would be the first copy in circulation, so that in effect one can determine precisely the date of publication of Donne's book. It consists of 54 sheets, and was entered in the Stationers' Register on the previous 2 December. Presumably the interim was occupied by the printing of the work, though whether printing was begun before registration is uncertain.

More precise information is afforded by some of Donne's sermons. One knows the date of the delivery of the sermon, the date of the entry in the Stationers' Register, and the date on which a copy was presented. With a letter of 1 December 1622 to Sir Thomas Roe at Constantinople Donne sent copies of two of his sermons, one preached at Paul's Cross on 15 September and the other to the Virginia Company on 13 November. The dates of the presentation of two others (Encaenia and A Sermon preached at Whitehall) are derived from the Bridgewater copies in the Huntington Library. The Earl of Bridgewater has written his name on the title pages, followed by "ex dono authoris" and the date.

Further examples which provide the same sort of information are to be found in two of Laud's sermons and in the speech he delivered in the Star Chamber at the sentencing of Bastwick, Burton, and Prynne. The principal source here is Laud's Diary, as printed in The History of the Troubles and Tryal of William Laud, 1695.[9] The data are best presented in tabular form.

                 

DONNE	Delivered	Entered S. R.	Presented	No. of Sheets
Sermon on Judges, 20.15 at Paul's Cross	15 Sept. 1622	31 October	1 December	9½
Sermon on Acts, 1.8 to the Virginia Company	13 Nov. 1622	28 November	1 December[10]	7
Encaenia	22 May 1623	13 June	20 June	6½
Sermon preached at Whitehall	24 Feb. 1625/26	6 March	12 March	7½
LAUD
Sermon at the opening of Parliament	6 Feb. 1625/26	(no entry)	26 February	7
Sermon at Whitehall	5 July 1626	18 July	16 July	7
Speech delivered in the Star Chamber	14 June 1637	1 July	25 June	11½

There was a certain immediate interest in all these pieces, and one realizes that many of these sermons had the same sort of appeal as a pamphlet on one of the more engrossing issues of the day. Donne's Sermon on Judges, 20.15, preached at Paul's Cross, was a defence of the Directions concerning Preaching which James I had recently issued; Laud's Sermon at the Opening of Parliament was intended (unavailingly) to induce a properly submissive state of mind in the Commons and persuade them that it was their duty to supply the King's financial needs; and his Speech in the Star Chamber was an extreme statement of the royalist point of view. All these pieces were published "by command," usually by royal command; the exceptions were Donne's Sermon to the Virginia Company, and Enaenia, preached at the dedication of the new chapel at Lincoln's Inn. Only in one instance is the date of "command" known; Laud's diary states that it was on 8 July 1626 that the King told him to publish the sermon he had preached three days previously. The letter from Viscount Doncaster conveying the command of James I to Donne to publish his Paul's Cross sermon is extant,[11] but unfortunately it is not dated. James, however, could not be expected to read maunscripts as fast as the official licensers, and Donne's letter to Roe, already cited, mentions that the King still has the sermon (on 1 December) that he had preached on 5 November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. One suspects, therefore, that a large part of the interval between 15 September and the entry of the Paul's Cross sermon on 31 October 1622 was due to the time it took James to read Donne's manuscript. Charles I heard Donne's sermon at Whitehall and Laud's two sermons, so that in these instances the command came without the necessity of reading any manuscript.

In spite of such royal approval the sermons still had to receive the imprimatur of the regular licensers before they could be entered in the Stationers' Register and secure copyright. Whether the licensers conscientiously read through the sermons under such circumstances is another question; nevertheless the securing of their approval must have consumed a certain amount of time, especially when rapid publication was urgent. The one occasion when the regular licenser was dispensed with was in the case of Laud's Speech in the Star Chamber; as Archbishop of Canterbury, and therefore the supreme authority with licensing power, Laud licensed his own manuscript.

The size in sheets of each publication has been given, and it will be noticed that any of the better printers of the period could have produced these pieces, especially if the authorities insisted on their urgency, in the time specified. Laud's Sermon at Whitehall was produced in eight days; it consists of seven sheets, and a sheet a day was within the capacity of two compositors and a single press. Similarly, the Speech in the Star Chamber, consisting of 11½ sheets, was produced in eleven days, perhaps more hastily and with a sense of greater urgency.

One comes to realize, however, that the date of entry in the Stationers' Register is not as reliable an index as it was once thought to be. In the examples considered it is always closer to the date of publication than the date of delivery. It is clear that entry could not be made until the licenser had set his hand to the manuscript, and if he were conscientious the time he took to read it must always be reckoned with. On urgent occasions, one would guess, the printer may have taken a chance and gone ahead, provided more than one manuscript was available. Even so, the time taken by the licenser will not explain all the dates of registration in the examples cited. Donne's Virginia Company sermon was entered only three days before publication, and two of Laud's pieces were actually presented to the king before they were entered. We probably have to reckon also with the simple fact that publishers did not enter works immediately they received the licensed copy or began to print it; they waited until it happened to be convenient to drop in at Stationers' Hall and go through the formalities of registration.

Some further works remain to be considered, most of them longer than the pieces already discussed. Donne's Pseudo-Martyr has already been mentioned; here only the date of entry and the date of presentation are ascertainable. The work consists of 54 sheets, and it might just have been possible to print it between 2 December (the date of entry) and 24 January (the date of presentation) especially if additional compositors and more than one press were made available for the book. Nevertheless, the copy for the King would no doubt have needed a special binding, which would have consumed a few extra days. Still, Pseudo-Martyr was hardly the kind of book to cause the presses to work overtime, so the entry was probably made when the printing was well along. Walton says that Pseudo-Martyr was written in six weeks; this is possible, but only if the author had already assembled the greater part of his materials. That Donne may have done this in advance is suggested by the fact that, as the "Advertisement to the Reader" makes clear, "the Heads and Grounds handled in this Booke" had been in circulation for some time before the book appeared or, apparently, was even written. Donne had first shown the outlines of his intended argument to a few friends, and then they had been passed on to others. A letter to Sir Henry Goodyere contains the request: "I pray send to my lodging my written books; and if you may stay very long, I pray send that letter in which I sent you certain heads which I purposed to enlarge, for I have them not in any other paper,"[12] and this letter to Goodyere seems to have been the kernel from which Pseudo-Martyr grew. Unfortunately, neither the letter asking for the return of the earlier letter nor another written soon afterwards in which Donne reiterated his request is dated. All we have is his statement that "these Heads have beene carried about, many moneths."

There are more details available for a longer work by Laud but, as will be seen, they do not satisfactorily answer all the questions a modern enquirer cannot help asking. The work is A Replie to Iesuit Fishers answere to certaine Questions propounded by his most gratious Maisetie King Iames, by Francis White, Dean of Carlisle, to which was annexed A Conference of the right R: B: of St. Davids with the same Iesuit, 1624. On 24 May 1622 Laud had debated with Fisher in the presence of the Duke of Buckingham and his mother. The event is duly noted in his Diary. Then, on 18 September, he received information that "Mr. Fisher had spread certain Copies of the Conference had between him and me, May 24. into divers Hands." Soon afterwards

he got a copy of Fisher's report, and "made an Answere to it." Then, during the Christmas season following, Laud was at court, and he reported: Then follows a gap of just over a year; the next mention of the work is on 11 Janaury 1624, when Laud notes that he showed the King the prefatory epistle to his book, and that James approved of it. On 4 February he supplies the unusual information that the work was "this day put into the Press: being licensed by the Bishop of London," and on 16 April there is the note that "My Conference with Fisher the Jesuit Printed, came forth."

The dates here are apparently precise enough, but the complicating factor is due to Laud's work having been printed as an appendix to White's larger one. The two works have separate signatures and are occasionally found separately, but they were entered in the Stationers' Register together and are usually found together, preceded by a general title page which names them both. One would guess that the long delay between Laud's writing of his reply and his prefatory epistle was caused by White rather than by Laud himself. But when Laud says that his book was "put into the Press" on 4 February one cannot even be certain whether this refers to White's book as well as his, or whether White's was finished and only Laud's part now remained. When he says that his work was licensed by the Bishop of London (and there is, of course, no reason to doubt his word) he makes a statement that is not confirmed by the Stationers' Register. The Bishop of London possessed licensing authority second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his imprimatur was made use of from time to time. When Archbishop Abbot refused to license Montague's Appello Caesarem and Sibthorpe's assize sermon at Northampton the authorities made use of the Bishop of London (George Mountaigne) to get both books into print. Nevertheless, the Stationers' Register entry reads:

One would guess that there were two licensers because one approved

White's part of the book and another Laud's. But the Bishop of London did not appear in the matter as far as the Stationers were concerned. Finally, it may be noted that the book was not registered until more than two months after it had gone to press, and only two days before publication.

If some books such as the Conference with Fisher were not entered until publication was imminent or had already occurred, Donne's Sermon of Commemoration of Lady Danvers was entered at the earliest possible moment. Lady Danvers was buried on 8 June 1627, but because of other engagements Donne was not able to preach the commemoration sermon until 1 July. The sermon was entered "vnder the handes of Master Doctor Worall and both the Wardens" a little less than a week later, on 7 July. The little book also contained a collection of verses to the memory of his mother by George Herbert. It has already been suggested that, since the book was not issued by Donne's usual publisher, the arrangements for publication were probably made by Herbert. It can be further inferred, I think, that, first, Herbert's poems were composed during the weeks between his mother's death and the memorial service at which Donne preached, and secondly, that Donne knew from the beginning that the commemorative volume was planned and that, while he normally preached from notes only, this was one of the occasions (though not by any means the only one) when he wrote out his sermon in full, with the result that he was able to hand it over to the printer as soon as it had been preached. How long the book was in the press is uncertain, since the publication date is not known.

The final example, Donne's Devotions, is at once the most spectacular and the most fully documented case. Now that Mr. Shapiro has diagnosed the nature of the illness that gave rise to the Devotions [14] one can speak with a degree of precision not previously possible. Donne's illness, Mr. Shapiro shows, was relapsing fever, a fever that ends by a crisis on the fifth to the seventh day of the fever. Constance Donne was married to Edward Alleyn on 3 December 1623, and we have Alleyn's word for it that the marriage occurred while Donne was ill: "Thus past itt on till the beginning off your sickness and then you desire[d] our maryag showld bee performed with as much sped as might bee."[15] If Donne had not passed, or had only just passed the crisis of his fever by 3 December, he must have fallen ill during the last few days of November. The Devotions were entered in the Stationers' Register on 9 January, presumably after having been scanned

by the licenser and, if Donne's correspondence is to be believed, after having been seen by more than one of his friends. There is an undated letter in which Donne enquired of his friend Sir Robert Ker (who was in the service of Prince Charles) whether the Prince would accept the dedication of the book. The friends who importuned Donne to print the Devotions and had presumably seen part at least of the manuscript were probably Henry King and Dr. Mountfort, both canons of St. Paul's and in daily touch with Donne. When the letter was written printing had already begun ("That being in hand") although a draft of the dedication in manuscript was enclosed with the letter to Ker, since Donne requests him to "cast your eye upon the title and the epistle, and rectify me in them." Yet, in spite of all this activity, Donne opens his letter by declaring, "Though I have left my bed, I have not left my bedside. I sit there still, and as a prisoner discharged sits at the prison door to beg fees, so sit I here to gather crumbs."[16] On 1 February Donne was able to send a presentation copy to the Queen of Bohemia enclosed in a dated letter to one of her ladies, who was to hand it to her.[17] The book turned out to be larger than Donne anticipated, as it consists of 27 sheets, and thus would have taken about a month to pass through the press. If we assume that the book was in the printer's hands for the whole of January, we must then assume that the book was written during December. Yet this forces us to believe that the book was written in only a few weeks by a man who had very nearly died, whose body was weak and exhausted by his illness, and who was in the early stages of a long and slow convalescence.[18] Even when the book was in the press, he was barely able to sit up in a chair in his bedroom, but had been unable as yet to leave it. For the circumstances of its composition Donne's Devotions can have few, if any, parallels in the annals of literature.

Notes