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II
"Londoner borne," as he was to specify a number of times in works published from 1582 on, Fleming had gone up to Cambridge in 1570 where his brother Samuel had preceded him, having entered King's (from Eton) five years earlier at the age of seventeen. From the date on his epitaph which Fleming himself composed, he, too, would have been either seventeen or eighteen years old when he became a sizar at Peterhouse.[10] Even though he was not to receive his degree until 1581-82, he had been looking to a career in London publishing even earlier since his first two publications identify him as "student." In the dedication to the first of these, a translation of the Bucolics of Virgil (STC 2 24816, 1575) into "plaine and familiar . . . verse," i.e. riming fourteeners, which was accompanied by alphabetical annotations, he complains that the "printer" was sparing of cost—"coveting to compasse much with little charge"—and in such haste to have the work dispatched that he lightly regarded what he, Fleming, "by tossing, tumbling, and ruffling divers authors to and fro" had collected and assembled (A3). The printer was John Charlewood, the publisher Thomas Woodcocke, later a member of the Holinshed syndicate. Despite such sparing of cost, Fleming puffs the practical value of the publication, specifying as one of its advantages "a mitigation of expence, or (that I may speake more familiarly) a saving of money," this on the grounds of the inclusion of an abridged "dictionary" which by itself would exceed the price of "this libell by pence, groates, and shillings" (A4). Both dedication and address to the reader are signed "Abraham Fleming, Student."
After listing the errors to be corrected, Fleming moderates his tone in requesting the gentle reader to mark and amend those that have escaped the translator's pen, the compositor's hand, the corrector's eye, and the printer's press, a clear indication that the work had been proofed either by the translator himself or someone in the printing house. He ends his text with the statement in Latin that it was a work of fourteen days during left-over and stolen hours, a statement made perhaps in emulation of Thomas Phaer who had been careful to specify the number of days required for each book of his
Curiously, Fleming published another version of the Bucolics at the very end of his secular career, this time "not in foolish rime (the nice observation whereof many times darkeneth, corrupteth, perverteth, and falsifieth both the sense and the signification) but in due proportion and measure" (A4v). And he continues, "As for envie I defie it; and to find faults I wish silence, whose only worke it is to barke at other mens painfull labours . . . ." This appeared in 1589, together with a translation of the Georgics (or Rurals, STC 2 24817), both dedicated to Archbishop Whitgift; the publisher again was Thomas Woodcocke. In the second dedication Fleming roundly asserts that he cares not for the curious and malicious: "both being persons swift to prejudicate, but slow to deliberate; ripe to deface and discountenance, but rawe to correct or imitate the commendable travels of well affected Students" (A2). The conclusion of the text reads FINIS propositi, laus Christo nescia FINIS, which as will appear later served as his personal mode of identification during the last six years of his career in London publishing.
His second publication as a student (1576) was also a translation, a "pamphlet or skantling," i.e. an abridgement of John Caius's treatise on English dogs. Concluding his address to the "well disposed Reader" comes this somewhat churlish statement: "As for such as shall snarr and snatch at the Englishe abridgement, and teare the Translatour, being absent, with the teeth of spightfull envye, I conclude in brevity their eloquence is but currishe[;] if I serve in their meate with wrong sawce, ascribe it not to unskilfulnesse in coquery, but to ignoraunce in their diet. . . . His and his Friendes, Abraham Fleming" (STC 2 4347).
The printer and publisher was Richard Jones, who according to McKerrow's Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers was on the whole an orderly member of the Stationers' Company and had a long career.[11] At this date he seems not to have had a complete Greek fount, for after the alphabetical index, the first of many Fleming was to compile, comes the listing of four errors to be corrected, followed by the explanatory remark, "There bee also certaine Accents wanting in the Greeke words which, because we had them not, are pretermitted: so have wee byn fayne to let the Greeke words run their full length, for lack of Abbreviations" (H3).
Since no other publication identifies Fleming as "student," one may conclude that he went to London some time in 1576 or 1577, though he does not identify himself as Londoner so far as I have noted until 1582.[12] It was during these two years that he composed the commendatory poems mentioned above and contributed verses to the account of Frobisher's second voyage published in 1577 (STC 2 22265/6) as he was to do again the following year for the third voyage (STC 2 7607). He also published four translations, some merely pamphlet size, but all no doubt "though breefe and compendious, yet pithie and profitable" as he expressed it in STC 2 18413). For two of these Woodcock was again the publisher, while Ralph Newberrie, later a member of the syndicate, was the publisher of one, and perhaps it was he
In 1579 Fleming began his important connection with Henry Denham, later not only a member of the syndicate but also the printer of the Holinshed. In possession of a large stock of initials, ornaments, and borders, he had acquired around 1574 William Seres' patent for printing the Psalter, Primer for little children, and all books of private prayers in Latin and English; both stock and patent he was later to use in Fleming's behalf. One of two items published in 1579 was a "prettie pamphlet . . . replenished with recreation," a translation of Synesius' mock-encomium of baldness; to this was annexed the "Tale of Hemetes," which had been delivered before the queen at Woodstock (1575), "newly recognized," that is, revised, both in Latin and English. Since the Tale, which had greatly pleased the queen, was formerly assumed to be by George Gascoigne, Sidney Lee in the DNB accused Fleming of having boldly appropriated it for this 1579 publication. Later it was ascertained that the Tale is an anonymous work and that in angling for foreign employment, Gascoigne had translated the manuscript into Latin, French, and Italian in order to demonstrate his linguistic skills, and it was this triple translation that he presented to the queen on New Year's Day, 1576. Though A. W. Pollard observed that Fleming's "recognition" amounted to very little, his investigations at least absolved him from the charge of bold annexation.[13]
The following year Fleming showed his literary ingenuity by writing a biography of William Lamb, a long-lived public benefactor who had been a gentleman of the Chapel Royal to Henry VIII and who among his other public works built a conduit in Holburn (1577) stocked with one hundred and twenty pails to enable women to sell water. Utilizing only Lamb's will, Fleming was able to spin out a Memorial of his accomplishments; among them he refers to a prayerbook called the Conduit of Comfort, published under his, i.e. Lamb's, name, (C3v, together with a marginal reference). According to STC 2 (11037.3), a work of this title, assigned to Fleming, was published by Denham in 1579 (3 leaves extant, BL). It was entered in the Stationers' Register 26 June as "composed by Abraham fflemminge" with a fifth impression appearing in 1624.[14] Fleming comments that the benefit of this prayer-book "being bought for a little monie, [Lamb] was willing should be generall, even as the Conduite which he founded not severall but common." In 1580 Fleming again paid tribute to Lamb, devising an epitaph on his "godlie life and death," a broadside which Denham, as with the earlier Memorial, printed for Thomas Turner (STC 2 11038). He was to insert this material into the Holinshed as drawn from an "unspecified memorial"—his own—still in print, based on Lamb's "last will and testament."[15]
Increasingly during the years 1580 to 1582, Fleming's efforts as translator, editor, or compiler were concentrated on religious works, and most of these
Though as early as 1580 Fleming had augmented John Baret's quadruple dictionary (An Alvearie, STC 2 1410) by means of specialized indices including two hundred proverbs—a number that would have been increased had not "the gatherer bene surcharged with other necessarie and dailie businesse" (4N4)—he was to revise and augment others during the years 1583-85, including John Withal's very popular Short Dictionary (which went through fifteen editions plus several issues up to 1634 under various editors); to the text of 1584, with three more editions to 1599, Fleming added six hundred rhythmical verses and interspersed proverbial statements throughout. For the English translation the next year of the Nomenclator of Hadrian Junius (STC 2 14860) he provided a "dictional Index," consisting of c. 1400 principal words, which, in Fleming's view, was devised according to an "exquisite method." Following the list of errors to be corrected comes the trunculent statement: Cætera ut possis castigato.[17]
Except for this one index, from 1585 up to 1587 Fleming was not named, it seems, in any published work so one may well conceive that during this time he was assiduously at work on the text of the three volumes of the Holinshed. In his capacity as general editor, he made brief insertions, specifying that they were taken from Grafton's Abridgement, Stow's Summary and other such helps as came to hand; these he takes care to acknowledge in the margin, for example, "Abr. Fl. ex I.F. [Martyrologia]". Unlike his rhyming, Fleming's prose is serviceable though it often reflects his strong Protestant and anti-papal sentiments as in this instance newly appended to the reign of Queen Mary: "Thus farre the troublesome reigne of Queene Marie the first of that name (God grant she may be the last of hir religion) eldest daughter to king Henrie the eight." After his editing and indexing duties came the arduous task of proofreading which is discussed below; that he was well occupied during this period is attested by the apology he appended to the index to Foxe's Eicasmi seu meditationes in sacram Apocalypsin, printed also in 1587 by George Bishop, a member of the syndicate (entered 7 March 1586): "O kind reader, I request you, as you are fair minded to correct the more serious errors which you may notice have crept into this index because of the absence of the proof reader from the press, and bear with patience the more trivial errors. Ab. Fl."[18]
By the end of January 1587 the three volumes were ready for submission
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