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Notes
Additional information concerning these editions and their publications can be obtained from my dissertation, "A Critical Reader's Edition of Edward Young's Satiric Poetry: Love of Fame and Two Epistles to Mr. Pope" (Diss. Maryland, 1981).
David Foxon records that James Roberts entered in the Stationers' Register to Jacob Tonson Satires I and II on 9 April 1725, III on 7 May, IV on 18 June, and The Last on 21 January 1726 (English Verse 1700-1750: A Catalogue of Separately Printed Poems with Notes on Contemporary Collected Editions [1975], I, 919, Y122-Y132). Foxon also records the location of deposit copies and the editions to which they belong. The role of James Roberts (active 1706-54), printer and publisher, in the sale of the satires is not clear. Young refers to Tonson as his bookseller in Satire The Last: "I hasten to compleat / My own design; for Tonson's at the Gate" (ll. 115-16). Charles E. Frank pointed out that Roberts' advertisements for the period never included mention of The Universal Passion, nor did advertisements for Young's satires mention other works printed for Roberts ("Edward Young's Satires: Materials for an Edition of Love of Fame" [Diss. Princeton, 1939], p. 52). However, Roberts' shop did sell the satires, as is evident in the Monthly Catalogue of April 1725's announcement that Satires II and III were "Sold by J. Roberts in Warwick-Lane" (II, 24, 6) and of February 1727's that Satire V was also sold at Roberts' address (III, 46, 18). The manner in which the satires were advertised suggests that Young took responsibility for the sale and that Roberts' financial returns were limited to the distribution fees of a trade publisher, although Young may also have paid Roberts to print the satires. For information on Roberts' pre-eminence as the owner of "the largest trade publishing shop in London" and on his duties and pecuniary reward as a publisher for copyright holders, see Michael Treadwell's "London Trade Publishers 1675-1750," The Library, 6th Ser., 4 (1982), 110ff.
The earliest known advertisement of Satire I occurred in the Post-Boy of 21-23 January 1725 (#5541), as Frank first noted (p. 155), and of Satire II in the Daily Courant of 2 April 1725, as Foxon has noted (I, 919, Y125).
Foxon, I, 919. I have compared copies of Y122 at the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Houghton Library at Harvard, Library of Congress (AC/901/.M5), Michigan State University, Princeton (2: Ex 3999.7.392q and, fine-paper Y123, Ex 3598.999q v.48), University of Indiana, University of Texas (Wk Y858 -B725u), and Yale (2: Folio Pamphlets 16 and Ik Y85 +725); of Y124 at the William A. Clark Library, Duke University, the Huntington Library, Library of Congress (PR/3782/.U5/1725), and University of Iowa; of Y125 at Cornell, Folger Shakespeare Library, the Houghton Library, Library Company of Philadelphia, Princeton (Ex 3598.999q v.48), Michigan State University, University of Indiana, University of Texas (2: Ak Y858 -725v and Wk Y858 -B726u) and Yale (IK Y85 +725); of Y127 at the William A. Clark, Duke University, Library of Congress (PR/3782/.U5/1725), Princeton (Ex 3999.7.392q), and University of Iowa. Photocopies of forme Bi from copies of Y125 (unbound) and Y127 (bound) at the Bath Reference Library have also been examined.
Foxon lists the fine-paper issue of Satire I as Y123, of which there is a copy at Princeton (Ex 3598.999q v.48), and that of Satire II as Y126, of which there is a copy at the Newberry Library (for the examination of which I am grateful to Librarian Anne Zald).
The Y122 edition of Satire I has the press figure 4 on p. 2, 4 on p. 8, 2 on p. 14; whereas, Y124 has the figure 4 on p. 11. There are two accidental variants between these editions: Y124 incorrectly reads 'Wig' and Y122 reads 'Whig' at line 57 (p. 4, l. 7); and Y124 reads 'shou'd' and Y122 'shoud' at line 103 (p. 6, l. 11). The Y125 edition of Satire II has the press figure 4 on p. 14; whereas, the Y127 has no press figures. The two accidental variants between these editions are: Y125 reads 'shown;' and Y127 reads 'shown?' at line 86 (p. 7, l. 14); and Y125 reads 'look,' and Y127 reads 'look∧' (without a comma) at line 184 (p. 12, l. 6).
Copies of Y124 and Y127 are bound together at the British Library (643.1.25/20), Worcester College, the Brotherton Collection of the University of Leeds, the Bath Reference Library, the William A. Clark Library, the Library of Congress, Duke University, and the University of Iowa. In some cases, these copies have long been bound together, as the presentation copies at Worcester College or those in the Brotherton Library, of which Librarian C. D. W. Sheppard has written to me: "The evidence of corresponding stab marks, of surviving speckled edges to pages and, to some extent, of other marks suggests that all the first five items [satires] were previously bound together, probably in the eighteenth century" (they were rebound in the twentieth century).
Young was trying at this time to become a chaplain to Lord Carteret, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In writing his friend Tickell, then in Ireland, Young wanted to reassure Carteret that he sincerely intended to be ordained at the first future ordination, but he admitted to Tickell, "I had thoughts of defering Orders till the spring, on Account of Affairs I was to make up with D[uke of]. Wharton, & a subscription wh I thought wd run better, before I was entered into another way" (The Correspondence of Edward Young 1683-1765, ed. Henry Pettit [1971], p. 30).
Frank, pp. 32-34; Trevor Mills, "An Unpublished Subscription Edition of Edward Young's Works," Library, 6th Ser., 2 (1980), 460-465. In 1726, at least a year after the appearance of Satire I, William Wilkins printed Young's A Paraphrase on a Part of the Book of Job, with the first leaf, A1, containing the advertisement "A Specimen for Subscribers." The verso proposed that "this Author's WORKS, in PROSE, and VERSE, the greatest Part of which are yet unpublish'd, shall be printed in Three Quarto Volumes." Later, about the time Satire V was published, as Pettit first noted (Correspondence, p. 49), the subscription was advertised on 18, 20, and 21 February 1927 in the Daily Journal, Daily Courant, and Daily Post. Frank did not know of these later advertisements and assumed that The Universal Passion was an "abortive" subscription (p. 33).
In roughly twenty letters, written from 3 August 1724 to 14 April 1728, Young solicited Tickell's help in his efforts to achieve a temporary and not very remunerative chaplaincy from Carteret (see Correspondence, pp. 26-65).
The copyright agreement may have given Young sole rights and profits to the satires until after he deemed the poem complete or until a set time, like March 1728. Such agreements did exist as can be seen from James Thomson's sale to John Millan of the rights to Winter on 18 July 1729. Winter was published earlier on 29 April 1726 and entered by Roberts to Millan at that time. Presumably they had an agreement, and the entry to Millan, besides indicating his future rights, prevented other members of the Stationers' Company from printing the poem. The deed of sale is recorded by Alan D. McKillop in James Thomson (1706-1748): Letters and Documents (1958), pp. 63-64. William Sale, Jr., has also noted that, although John Millan and Andrew Millar owned copyrights to the poems in Thomson's subscription edition of the Seasons (1730), the profits from that edition went to Thomson (Samuel Richardson: Master Printer [1950], p. 210).
Advertisements for the satires never refer to other works or to their sale anywhere but at Roberts' shop; these notices are identified in the description of editions to my "Critical, Reader's Edition," pp. 449ff.
All copies of Satire VI (Foxon's Y135-136) contain handwritten corrections. On p. 28, ll. 1-2 were inked out, and on p. 30, l. 13, the word 'phrase' was crossed out and 'Farce' (sometimes 'farce') was written above it. Curiously, this is the only folio containing errata, on p. 20, which correct four errors lying on or between pp. 4 and 24. Yet Satire III (Foxon's Y128) required such: in most copies, on p. 14, l. 16, in the same ink and by the same hand, the number '2' has been placed above the word 'smile' and '1' above the word 'curse' to indicate that these words should be transposed.
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