III. Francis Kirkman and the Surreptitious Reprint of the
Third
Edition (1661?)
It seems probable that this reprint is the one W. C. Hazlitt first refers
to
in his edition of The Poems, Plays and Other Remains of Sir John
Suckling (1874), I, lxx, as
a reissue, perhaps a surreptitious one, with the same title, imprint and
date [as Fragmenta Aurea, 1658], but with different
typographical
ornaments, and altogether a distinct setting-up. It is accompanied by a
portrait, copied from Marshall's, and without any engraver's name.
And perhaps in his
Collections and Notes 1867-1876
published two
years later (p. 411) he means to refer to the same reprint when he writes
that
The copy here used ends on K, and wants the
Additionals named
on the title-page. It has an anonymous portrait, very like Marshall's with
Stanley's verses beneath it. This appears to be spurious, or at least a
surreptitious impression. The copy in the British Museum wants the
print.
But one cannot be certain, because Hazlitt's comments are ambiguous.
There
is now no known "copy in the British Museum" of this surreptitious reprint,
although there
is a copy of the genuine
Fragmenta
Aurea,
1658 (shelf-mark 643.c.70), and one of the surreptitious reprint of (1672?)
(shelf-mark 1471.aa.22), each of which "wants the print" — and
there is a
detached print of the
copy of Marshall's engraving in the
Department
of
Prints and Drawings. "This" may be the portrait, not the book, and "The
copy" may be a genuine edition, not a surreptitious. Many a book saluted
Hazlitt's hand.
Greg recognized and described his "'1658'" as "a reprint, apparently,
of
the edition of 1658, the only known copy of which wants all before N1,"
and, as he went on to note of this fragment in the Bodleian Library
(shelf-mark M.adds.37.f.12), "there is, indeed, little in the typography to
distinguish it from the genuine edition" (Bibliography, III,
1134). We
have been able to identify as such a complete copy of this reprint in the
Houghton Library (shelf-mark EC.Su185.646fc), and can therefore add
some additional facts and inferences to the ones given by Greg. The
complete copy is easily differeniated from the genuine edition of 1658 by
the
use of different ornaments throughout and, among other details, by
substantive differences on the general title-page and in the catchwords of the
preliminaries. Moseley's genuine edition reads, above the imprint, "Printed
by
his own Copies.", in which phrase the reprint reads "Copy.", and where the
genuine edition has the catchwords
"posthume" and "Stock," on sigg. A2r and
A2v, respectively, the
reprint has "nor" and "go", for example. Given in the form of Greg's
Bibliography, a description of the general title-page and
make-up of
the reprint as it appears in the two known copies should be as follows:
- (1661?) [within double rules] FRAGMENTA
AUREA: ∣
A ∣ COLLECTION ∣ OF ALL ∣ The Incomparable Peices, ∣ WRITTEN
BY ∣
Sir JOHN SUCKLING. ∣ AND ∣ Publiſhed by a FRIEND
to
perpetuate ∣ his Memory ∣ The Third Edition, with fome ∣ New
Additionals. ∣ Printed by his own Copy. ∣
LONDON, ∣
Printed for Humphrey Moseley at the Prince's Arms ∣ in St.
Paul's Churchyard. 1658.
Collation: 80, π1 A-X8 [possibly but not probably
leaving R3 S3 T4
unsigned: both known copies severely cropped], 169 leaves, paged (A5)
9-135 [misprinting 59 as 56 and 133 as 134, and omitting 80-89],
(I3v)
8-64 [misprinting 45 as 54 and 50 as 51], (N1-S8 unpaged), (T1) 145-190
[misprinting 157 as 147].
- Engraved portrait (a copy of Marshall's, omitting "W. Marshall
fecit"), facing title-page. General title [&c. as in 1658].
Besides having C3, D3, H3, R3, and (UV)3 unsigned, the genuine
edition of 1658 contains a great many errors in pagination, especially on
sigg. N1-S8, which are unpaged in the surreptitious reprint perhaps because
of the multiple confusion in the original. On the evidence of ornaments, T.
Johnson, the printer who performed similar unlawful offices for Francis
Kirkman around 1661, would seem to have performed yet one more of such
for the same pirate by surreptitiously printing this spurious edition —
technically the fourth of the editions — of Fragmenta
Aurea, 1658.
The large ornament showing dogs licking a man's face (sig. S6) is found
in
Kirkman's piracies of Beaumont and Fletcher's
The Elder
Brother
dated "1637" (Greg 515c) and Kirkman's
The Wits:
or
Sport
upon Sport printed for Henry Marsh, 1662. The ornamental "B"
(sig.
O5) recurs in the piracies of
The Elder Brother and
A
King and
No King, 1661.
[3] Aside from
its
interest as a hitherto anonymous piracy that may now take a named place
in
the colorful and sometimes darkling history of printing,
Fragmenta
Aurea (1661?) gives further evidence of the strong
seventeenth-century
interest in Suckling's works that was renewed at the Restoration.
